To the surprise of no one, eternal curmudgeon Ridley Scott doesn’t buy into the superhero movie hype. In a new interview with Deadline, the director said he isn’t “a superhero fan” and has “been offered” to make several but always turns them down. Ridley’s reason for doing so? “The f*cking stories are better” in his movies.
While talking about his upcoming film “Napoleon,” Scott spoke about his distaste for superhero films. “I’m not a superhero fan, even though I used to love the comic strips,” said the director. “I think there’s a couple of pretty good Batmans, and that Superman movie by [Richard] Donner captured the tradition of the comic strip.” But as for the popularity of the genre, Scott thinks it’s a bad side-effect of special effects. “As we’ve enlarged upon our capabilities visually, I think funnily enough, everything gets less real and less real,” he explained. “And now it seemed to become an excuse for actors to make a lot of money on the side playing superheroes.”
But has Scott ever been offered to make a film for Marvel Studios or the DCU? “Yeah, been offered, but just said, no, thank you. Not for me,” responded Scott. And the director doesn’t want to do a superhero movie because he thinks he already has. “I’ve done two or three superhero films. I think Sigourney Weaver’s a superhero in “Aliens.” I think Russell Crowe‘s a superhero in “Gladiator.” And Harrison Ford is the super anti-hero in “Blade Runner.” The difference is, the f*cking stories are better.”
It’s hard to argue with that logic. And Scott has compared some of his previous films to superhero movies to Deadline before, in a 2021 interview in the lead-up to “House Of Gucci.” “Almost always, the best films are driven by the characters, and we’ll come to superheroes after this if you want, because I’ll crush it. I’ll f*cking crush it. They’re f*cking boring as shit.” But why so boring? “Their scripts are not any f*cking good. I think I’ve done three great scripted superhero movies. One would be “Alien” with Sigourney Weaver. One would be fucking “Gladiator,” and one would be Harrison Ford…they’re superhero movies.”
And Scott wasn’t finished crushing the genre. “So, why don’t the superhero movies have better stories? Sorry. I got off the rail, but I mean, c’mon. They’re mostly saved by special effects, and that’s becoming boring for everyone who works with special effects, if you’ve got the money.” All of Scott’s criticisms are valid, especially for those suffering from superhero movie fatigue. But it’s also humorous that a director with a filmography as uneven as Scott’s has such vitriol for these wildly popular movies. Is “House Of Gucci” and Jared Leto‘s ludicrous performance in it a better cinematic experience than the most recent MCU movie?
But based on advance reviews, “Napoleon” could be more successful than certain Marvel releases at the box office this year. Scott’s latest hits theaters everywhere on November 22, then he gets back to work on “Gladiator 2.”