Martin Scorsese and Bob Iger to meet, be insufferable about Marvel movies in person
Suggesting that multi-millionaires really are just like the rest of us—in so far as their inability to let go of petty bullshit that they perceive as “disrespecting” them goes, at least—Disney CEO Bob Iger is apparently still feeling a little sore about this whole Martin Scorsese Marvel movie thing. You’d think that Iger would have better things to think about—his potentially legacy-securing launch of Disney+, his recent honor as Time’s Businessperson Of The Year, all his dollars—than what a single director thinks about his gobsmackingly successful comic book movies, but hey, here we are. In his profile for the Time award, Iger made it clear that his presumably exquisitely tailored craw is still sticking on Scorsese’s words, dubbing them “nasty” and “not fair to the people who are making the movies,” even though he’s also totally not bothered by them, really, but also, could he and Marty maybe chat?
Iger and Scorsese’s people are apparently attempting to arrange a sit-down between the two industry figures, in which they will, we assume, hash out once and for all the delicate, centuries-long interplay between commerce and art, and also, one hopes, chow down on a nice lettuce wrap or chicken parm in the process. Scorsese laid out his position pretty cleanly in a New York Times op-ed last month, putting forward his view that Marvel films lacked “revelation, mystery, or genuine emotional danger” and that the company’s franchise-heavy approach to filmmaking churn “was brutal and inhospitable to art.”
Iger’s stance has essentially been a more nuanced take on “Nuh-uh!”, along with some righteous indignation on behalf of the filmmakers working under the Marvel banner; he pointed specifically to Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther as a movie where the studio took major risks in service of a story. None of which—still! After months of this!—addresses why Iger cares what the fuck Martin Scorsese thinks, or why he feels like Marvel’s films need complete artistic acknowledgement in addition to their unprecendent box office success and their complete domination of the cultural consciousness. But hey, maybe that’s why he’s the CEO of the world’s biggest entertainment factory, and we’re not.
Meanwhile, we’d like to reach out to whichever assistants end up outside the doors of this little Scorsese-Iger sitdown. Hey, folks: Do those doors lock? Because we could really use a break from this shit. Send ‘em an extra tray of chick parm, prop a chair up against the door handles, and let the rest of us get some rest.