There is no opting out of Martin Scorsese vs. The Marvel Cinematic Universe: every time the conversation seems to have subsided, the debate flares up again with some new provocation. That’s partially because interviewers can’t stop asking the director to reiterate his opinions on the subject, and partially because those involved with the MCU can’t stop responding defensively to those opinions. The latter is also largely prompted by interview questions, but every once in a while a Marvel guy will blurt out some Scorsese nonsense unprompted, and the result is… whatever Joe Russo has going on in this video.
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Here’s the story: Scorsese and his daughter have been posting some adorable TikToks during the press run for Killers Of The Flower Moon, including one where he comically tries to direct his dog, Oscar. Avengers: Endgame co-director Joe Russo “stitched” the video from his production company AGBO’s account, joking, “Aw look, he’s got a schnauzer! I love schnauzers. And his name is Oscar. That’s really cute.” The camera then zooms out to Joe holding his own dog, to whom he says, “Okay, come on, Box Office.” (“It appears we share the same muse,” they captioned the post on Instagram.)
Joe surely didn’t mean to antagonize Scorsese with his comments… right? It’s hard to say what’s a tongue-in-cheek chuckle and what’s genuine resentment over this ongoing feud. Responding to Scorsese’s criticisms back in 2019, Joe told The Hollywood Reporter that they saw the Endgame box office “as a signifier of emotional success,” while his brother Anthony pointed out that “nobody owns cinema. We don’t own cinema. You don’t own cinema. Scorsese doesn’t own cinema.”
“But, at the end of the day, what do we know?” Joe “jokingly” added. “We’re just two guys from Cleveland, Ohio, and ‘cinema’ is a New York word. In Cleveland, we call them movies.”
Positioning Scorsese and his ilk as niche and pretentious is a common tactic of the Marvel vs. Cinema debate. Superhero movies are for everyday people, and Scorsese’s “cinema” is for snobs. But “cinema,” as Scorsese himself has warned, has a shrinking audience. The franchise machines behind the Russos have all but stamped out smaller filmmaking, and with some notable exceptions, those films don’t succeed at the box office—as Joe pointed out. Killers Of The Flower Moon has only made $84 million worldwide on a $200 million budget, for instance.
So Joe Russo’s little box office jab, even if meant as a friendly jest, comes across as sore winner behavior. Whether you agree or disagree with Scorsese’s criticism of Marvel, it’s undeniable that big blockbuster filmmaking has suppressed smaller, independent movies, and it’s factual that Scorsese has made serious efforts to preserve film history. From the Russos’ perspective, it may feel like they’re the underdogs being picked on by cinema’s elder statesman. But Marvel is obviously the Goliath in this situation, and Scorsese is David doing his best to push back on what he accurately perceives as an existential threat to the art form.
No wonder Joe’s presumably playful little joke didn’t land well with the film community. “Let’s just be honest, Joe Russo is a rich asshole hack who won the lottery when Feige plucked him from obscurity and let him tagalong,” the official account for L.A.’s genre film festival BeyondFest posted on Twitter/X. Now that jest feels a whole lot less playful.