You know things have reached boiling point when the star of The Green Hornet – one of the most forgettable comic book adaptations of all-time – steps in to defend the Marvel Cinematic Universe from the scorn of Hollywood’s biggest directors.
And yet, that’s exactly what’s happened after Seth Rogen weighed in to offer his thoughts on the never-ending debate that’s seen such illustrious heavy hitters as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, Ridley Scott, and Quentin Tarantino trash the most successful film and television franchise in history.
Speaking to Total Film, Rogen took a much more measured approach, and examined the MCU’s impact on not just his own creative output, but the industry at large.
“I think that Kevin Feige is a brilliant guy, and I think a lot of the filmmakers he’s hired to make these movies are great filmmakers. But as someone who doesn’t have children… It is [all] kind of geared towards kids, you know? There are times where I will forget. I’ll watch one of these things, as an adult with no kids, and be like, ‘Oh, this is just not for me.’
But truthfully, without Marvel, The Boys wouldn’t exist or be interesting. I’m aware of that. I think if it was only Marvel, it would be bad. But I think it isn’t – clearly. An example I’m always quoting is, there’s a point in history where a bunch of filmmakers would have been sitting around, being like, ‘Do you think we’ll ever make a movie that’s not a western again? Everything’s a western! Westerns dominate the fucking movies. If it doesn’t have a hat and a gun and a carriage, people aren’t going to go see it any more.’
The situation, sadly, is that we now have two separate fields: There’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there’s cinema. They still overlap from time to time, but that’s becoming increasingly rare. And I fear that the financial dominance of one is being used to marginalize and even belittle the existence of the other.”
We didn’t have Seth Rogen stepping in to try and clear the air on our 2023 bingo card, but the actor and filmmaker’s response is as thoughtful as it is elegant. He’s probably made one of the strongest cases yet, even though it might rule him out of following in buddy Jonah Hill’s footsteps by teaming up with Scorsese and Tarantino.