Despite the fact that John Woo does kind of side with Martin Scorsese, in a way, about the onslaught of comic book movies, the real reason why he would never direct one is at least honest and pretty forthcoming, he doesn’t think he’d be able to make it into something people would watch. According to Mike Sprague of MovieWeb Woo really doesn’t think he’s that great at science fiction and the like, and to be fair it’s easy to think that if a director isn’t feeling it then there’s a good bet that they should stay away from it. In Woo’s case it’s hard to think that he couldn’t tell a convincing story that would focus on something that might flow around the superhero aspect, after all he’s done plenty of movies that have insane amounts of action and even far-out premises that people have had to watch a couple of times to believe. But given that he’s more the type to focus on the depth of the story than just the action now and again it is easy to see how he might want to stay away from the more action-driven movies, which the superhero movies usually are.
It is very easy to see that superhero movies have been on the rise for the last decade and that they’ve effectively taken over at the box office, but there are several reasons for this. One is that people don’t have to be so invested in the story that they feel the need for the director to go deep into the darkest recesses of every character’s back story and dig up the kind of dirt that a lot of people might not know. Superhero movies are based mostly on the action, the here and now, and only explore tragic back stories when they happen to add to the action and the overall motivation behind the characters and what they’re doing. Mark Bowden of The New York Times has more to say on the matter. This is likely why we haven’t seen an origin movie for a lot of characters that seem interesting enough to warrant a back story but haven’t been given one simply because the fans aren’t that interested. Heroes like Captain America, Wolverine, Iron Man, and several others are interesting to see as origin stories since they need to be built from the ground up and nearly everything that goes into them has something to do with their overall story. There are a lot of characters like this of course, but Marvel has to gauge just which ones are the most popular so that they can pick and choose without overwhelming the fans. You might think that there would be at least one story that Woo would be interested in, but it sounds as though Stan Lee actually approached him in the past and Woo turned him down.
Perhaps one of the biggest gripes in the business at this time is the idea that the superhero genre is in fact taking over. It’s true that between the MCU and DCEU that things have been getting pretty out of control as of late on TV and on the big screen. But the whole idea of people from any generation not knowing anything about ‘real cinema’ is kind of ridiculous since it’s a bit silly to think that ‘real cinema’ is going to go away anytime soon. It’s where we can reach it easily and where we can view it without all that much trouble. In fact ‘real cinema’ is still every bit as exciting and as popular as it’s been for a while, but it’s not given in bursts of action like superhero movies are, and given the average attention span of audiences these days it might be best if ‘real cinema’ just tried to hold on or went to another platform where people are going to be able to access it in droves rather than waiting for it to come out and be buried by big blockbuster movies. One has to think of whether or not Scorsese and several others were looked upon with scorn in their day for the types of movies they were making and whether or not they had to deal with similar criticisms of their work. At this moment superhero movies are an easy target since they’re out in front, completely visible, and can take the brunt of pretty much anything that’s being thrown at them while still being adored and continually built up but those that keep watching them. The fault at this point doesn’t rest with superhero movies, but with those that are crying that it’s not fair that ‘real cinema’ is dwindling as the more popular movies are having their day. Eric Khon of IndieWire has a little more to say on this subject.
John Woo is a great director and someone that at least gives an honest word about why he doesn’t want to make a certain type of movie, which is nice to hear.
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