Over the course of the last few years, Martin Scorsese has been in the news in these parts, not for winning big awards, but for his comments suggesting that superhero movies aren’t legitimate cinema. As of 2019, virtually everyone involved in superhero cinema has responded to the director’s comments. According to Eternals star Kumail Nanjiani, no other filmmaker in Hollywood has earned the right to criticize Marvel films more than Scorsese.

“Obviously I like the movies that Tarantino or Scorsese makes,” Nanjiani recently said in a Esquire magazine interview. “And I may not agree with Scorsese’s views on superhero movies, but I mean, who else deserved the right to have an opinion?”

He added, “If Scorsese hasn’t earned the right to have an opinion about movies, then none of us should have an opinion about movies. It’s so strange that people get mad about it.”

What did Martin Scorsese say about Marvel movies?

Around time The Irishman Upon seeing the release, Scorsese said he doesn’t watch superhero blockbusters because they are more like theme park rides than theatrical movies.

“I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema,” the author said Empire on time. “Honestly, amusement parks are the closest thing to amusement parks, well-made as they are, with actors doing their best under the circumstances. It’s not the movie theater of people trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to a other human.”

Soon after, fellow Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola echoed the sentiment.

“Personally, I don’t like the idea of ​​franchises, the idea that you can keep repeating what is essentially the same movie for financial gain — in other words, which is a formulaic approach,” Coppola said later in October. “I feel like there’s an approach being taken to reduce the economic risk of movies and I think the ‘risk factor’ is an element that makes movies great at times. Also, the formulaic movie is drawing most of the resources available, leaving little left for more daring productions, reducing diversity.”

“In some ways I think cinema is like food; you can certainly add things to make it enticing, delicious and enjoyable, but it also has to be nutritious to qualify as real food,” he added.

Eternals now streaming on Disney+.