Like a bald, gruff, British-accented bird, Jason Statham was recently sucked into the massive whirring jet engine of Marvel casting rumors. Now the former male model and bootleg perfume salesman is fighting back, because that’s what Jason Statham does. But since even Jason Statham can’t get away with storming into Marvel’s offices and pounding Kevin Feige’s face into jelly, he’s taking the passive-aggressive route—specifically, the classic actorly technique of talking shit about Marvel to a foreign film magazine.
Statham, his co-star Melissa McCarthy, and director Paul Feig were interviewed by the Italian movie website I 400 Calci on the press junket for their new movie Spy; aside from the normal “Yes, it was super fun, everything was great” sort of responses, Statham took the opportunity to critique “modern action movies,” specifically how—and we’re paraphrasing here—actors in Marvel movies are a bunch of wankers.
“I could take my grandma and put her in a cape, and they’ll put her on a green screen and they’ll have stunt doubles come in and do all the action. Anybody can do it,” he said. “They’re relying on stunt doubles, and green screen, and $200 million budgets, it’s all CGI created. To me, it’s not authentic.”
Not that he’s against $200 million budgets or anything. It’s more the cape he presumably takes issue with.