Russell Crowe on Actors Complaining About Starring in Superhero Films: You’re ‘Here for the Wrong Reasons’ If You Expect It to Be ‘Life-Changing’
Russell Crowe on Actors Complaining About Starring in Superhero Films: You’re ‘Here for the Wrong Reasons’ If You Expect It to Be ‘Life-Changing’
Russell Crowe called out actors who complain about superhero films.
"You’re telling me you signed up for a Marvel movie, and some fucking universe for cartoon characters, and you didn’t get enough pathos?"
Thank you. You're not there because you're winning an Oscar, you're there to make a quick buck and have a bit of fun while you do it. Cate Blanchett I guarantee didn't go into Thor because she thought it was going to be some revolutionary experience.
81Yeah, IIRC Christian Bale only took the role because his kid was begging him to be in a Marvel movie.
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On the one hand, yes, these movies are products being churned out for profit by a corporate machine that cares more about marketability than creativity or quality. Anyone signing up for a big studio blockbuster production (superhero movie or not) should know exactly what they are getting into.
On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with actors in flopped movies pointing out that they flopped in no small part because they are the product of a system that seems focused on everything but the quality of movie being made.
And it absolutely can be life changing when it works. Just look at the early MCU movies and tell me that they didn't have a huge impact on careers. Of course younger actors who take these roles are hoping they will be life-changing. You don't become a superstar by doing nothing but small independent arthouse films that kill at festivals and award shows and are never seen by the general public.
And finally, I gotta call bullshit on the assumption that you can't have artistry or depth in movies based on "some fucking universe for cartoon characters." There's no reason why a superhero movie (or any other genre film) can't be more than just a two hour trailer for itself, or a soulless vehicle for merchandise. It's not the medium that the IP came from that determines the artistic value of the movie adaptation, it's the people making the movie (and the suits controlling them) that determine whether it will be a cinematic masterpiece or further proof that AI generated movies are inevitable.
46On your last paragraph I would even go as far as saying that an actor who can make a relateable character that people empathise with which happens to be some kind of badass super-hero or super-villan, has trully proven his or her acting chops.
A good example would be "Joaquin Phoenix's" performance in Joker (not saying the movie was good or bad, just that the performance was good, though personally I liked the movie).
A lot, maybe most, of the super-heros and villains as portrayed in movies are charicatural, paper-thin, stereotypical "goodies" or "badies", not actually full-depth personas. Mind you, this is a thing in Action movies in general, though IMHO super-hero movies seem to go for sterotypical main characters more often than Action movies in general.
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I just want those films to be good! Not an overpriced, low stakes, mediocre film created by souless executives to have mass appeal. Superhero movies can be great, but they don't have to be bombastic life-changing experiences.
23My man is stuffed into that cuirass.
15Still fine as hell though tbh
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Russell Crowe's career is really something interesting to follow lately
10Are you not entertained?
23Hasn't it always been?
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Not everything needs to be The English Patient.
6Nor Fight Club
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The new trend as of late was most recently exemplified by Dakota Johnson’s comments on “Madame Web” after the Sony-produced film flopped at the box office. Johnson told Bustle that she understood why the film was “ripped to shreds” by critics, citing that “art does not do well when it’s made by committee.”
...
“You’re telling me you signed up for a Marvel movie,
In all fairness to Dakota Johnson, she didn't sign up to a Marvel movie, it was a Sony Spider-Man Universe (SSU) film and that is a very different beast. She also didn't sign up to the movie that was eventually made, as there were a lot of changes made to the script after she inked her deal and, while the quote they gave is a little... pretentious and open to ridicule, she has gone into more detail about what went wrong.
However, she must have been aware of the reception to Morbius and her agent should have given her an overview of the SSU bizarrely trying to milk to Spidey IP without Spider-Man which is doomed to failure as Venom is the only character who can carry their own story and still the lack of the old web-slinger harms those films too. Unless someone comes up with a great idea for a story, they need to stop trying to build a franchise without it's lynchpin. Some of those characters only work as antagonists and some have developed their own independent stories but only as part of the larger Marvel IP (as Morbius has). So she should have known better going into this or seriously lowered her expectations and treated it as just a payday.
5Captain America: The Winter Soldier was life-changing.
4Personally, I think it was Civil War that really pushed the superhero genre. It was no longer a bunch of good guys fighting evil.
It was good guys can't agree on what good means and will fight each other to prove themselves right.
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That's Russell Crow? Did he eat his legacy?
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