Let it be known that the Russo brothers will not let anyone, including acclaimed directors, besmirch the good Marvel name as long as they walk the earth. Their ardent admiration for MCU flicks was in full display when they clapped back at award-winning director and Hollywood legend Martin Scorsese, who criticized the Marvel films, likening them to park rides rather than quality cinema.
Directors Joe and Anthony Russo, ubiquitously known as The Russo Brothers, have spent years cashing in on Marvel films that have turned into box office gold. The MCU franchise is not only responsible for a huge stake of their massive $50M net worth but also allowed them to reign as indisputable box office kings after directing 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, the second highest-grossing movie in Hollywood history.
So when Martin Scorsese told Esquire magazine that MCU films aren’t quality cinema and then doubled down in a lengthy op-ed in the New York Times in 2019, saying the films lack “revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger,” the Russo brothers clapped back at the director, saying, “Nobody owns cinema.”
Russo Brothers rejected Scorsese’s pontification that Marvel films cannot be considered real cinema as they lack emotional depth. “When we look at the box office [of] Avengers: Endgame, we don’t see that as a signifier of financial success; we see it as a signifier of emotional success,” Joe Russo said.
He continued, “It’s a movie that had an unprecedented impact on audiences around the world in the way that they shared that narrative and the way that they experienced it. And the emotions they felt watching it.”
Russo then took a direct hit at Scorsese, saying, “But, at the end of the day, what do we know? We’re just two guys from Cleveland, Ohio, and ‘cinema’ is a New York word. In Cleveland, we call them movies.”
The dig was in reference to Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film New York, New York.
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