During the Oscars on Sunday night, actor and singer Jack Black made some disparaging remarks against comic book movies singing, “opening with lots of zeroes, all we get are superheroes: Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, Jedi Man, Sequel Man, Prequel Man, formulaic scripts!” The night previous, Nightcrawler writer and director Dan Gilroy also spoke out against a “tsunami of comic book movies” that he claims independent movie directors have to survive against.
Jumping to their defence was Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, who has previously spoken out against the Awards season for not giving blockbuster directors like himself, Anthony and Joe Russo, Joss Whedon and Matthew Vaughn the credit they deserve.
“I didn’t really find the Jack Black superhero jokes offensive, did you guys? It was, like, a joke. I’m not sure if you guys noticed, but the writing on the Oscars didn’t seem to be all that well thought out,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “As far as Dan Gilroy saying that attendees of the Independent Spirit Awards have survived against a “tsunami of superhero films” – well it seems a bit weird coming from a guy whose wife has acted in two Thor films – really, that seems like you’ve drowned horribly in that tsunami. But I know I just kind of make up stuff as I go along on these awards shows, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“I’ve made B-movies, independent films, children’s movies, horror films, and gigantic spectacles,” he continues. “I find there are plenty of people everywhere making movies for a buck or to feed their own vanity. And then there are people who do what they do because they love story-telling, they love cinema, and they want to add back to the world some of the same magic they’ve taken from the works of others. In all honesty, I do not find a strikingly different percentage of those with integrity and those without working within any of these fields of film.”
“If you think people who make superhero movies are dumb, come out and say we’re dumb. But if you, as an independent filmmaker or a “serious” filmmaker, think you put more love into your characters than the Russo Brothers do Captain America, or Joss Whedon does the Hulk, or I do a talking raccoon, you are simply mistaken.”
Originally published February 24, 2015. Updated November 13, 2019.
