In case you missed, Marvel has been getting something of a battering from the world's top directors of late.
While Martin Scorsese has denounced Marvel movies as "not cinema", comparing them to "theme parks", Francis Ford Coppola went a step further. He deemed them "despicable."
The likes of Ken Loach and Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles ('City of God') have joined the anti-superhero movies rally. According to Loach, "They’re made as commodities…like hamburgers... a market exercise [that] has nothing to do with the art of cinema."
Others like Samuel L. Jackson, who says "films are films" and not everyone likes "[Scorsese’s] stuff either", and James Gunn have rushed to the studio's defense.
Disney CEO Bob Iger has also weighed in and his take really says it all.
Speaking on Tuesday at WSJ Tech Live in Laguna Beach, California, Iger said: "Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese are two people I hold in the highest regard. But when Francis uses the words, 'those films are despicable'. I reserve the word 'despicable' to someone who committed mass murder. These are movies."
He added: "It seems so disrespectful to all the people that work on those films… are you telling me Ryan Coogler, making 'Black Panther' is doing something that is somehow or another 'less than' what Marty Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola have ever done on any one of their movies? Like, come on. There. I said it."
Iger also pointed out that people are watching Marvel's films "by the millions," and that if Scorsese and Coppola "want to bitch about movies, that's certainly their right."
