Samuel L. Jackson responds to Quentin Tarantino’s idea that the MCU has no “movie stars”
One movie star who loves being in Marvel movies disagrees that there are no movie stars in Marvel movies
Aux News Quentin Tarantino
About a week ago, Quentin Tarantino suggested that the “Marvel-ization of Hollywood” has created a generation of actors who are exclusively famous for playing their superhero character, which means they’re “not movie stars.” The way he sees it, “Captain America is the star. Or Thor is the star,” rather than Chris Evans or Chris Hemsworth being the “star” of the movie—and while his argument isn’t completely absurd, it would hold a little more water if he hadn’t chosen the two MCU actors who have enjoyed the greatest career boost since joining the Avengers. How much money did Netflix spend on The Grey Man just so they could say they have a Chris Evans movie?
Anyway, it turns out that some movie stars don’t really appreciate the idea that they don’t mean as much as the logo on their supersuit, with longtime Tarantino collaborator Samuel L. Jackson now coming to the defense of the MCU. Appearing on The View (via Entertainment Weekly), Jackson noted that “it takes an actor to be those particular characters, and the sign of movie stardom has always been, what, asses in seats? What are we talking about?” In his mind, superhero actors are absolutely movie stars, adding, “Chadwick Boseman is Black Panther. You can’t refute that, and he’s a movie star.”
That being said, Samuel L. Jackson is about as much of an MCU homer as you’re going to find outside of Kevin Feige’s office, with him saying earlier this year that he’d rather be playing Nick Fury than “doing statue-chasing movies” and his own solo series coming to Disney+ next year, so he’s not exactly unbiased on this subject. But neither is Tarantino! And neither is anyone else, because we’re talking about everyone’s subjective opinion of superhero movies! So maybe we should all just like what we like and let everyone else like what they like! It’s all okay!
127 Comments
Ultimately, it feels like even Tarantino should be celebrating the death of movie stardom, not lamenting it. He still casts bonafide movie stars of yesteryear in his movies, but nobody went to see Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood because Brad Pitt was in it. They saw it because Tarantino directed it, and they like his directing style. Even filthy casuals expect much more out of the story and other movie elements than whoever is starring these days. If the days are gone when people would go out and see a film just because Clark Gable is in it, then good riddance.
Which might very well be while he is retiring while still relatively young: the idea of him making his art with current stars just feels really wrong. Zac Ephron IS a drug dealing ex con who…..
Tarantino is in his sixties. Many people do (or wish they could) retire at his age.
Personally, I think people drawn to the theater purely off a movie’s cast is a plus for the theatrical release model, which is floundering right now. We may be in the internet age where people are a lot more aware of who’s behind the camera, but once you get offline you’ll find a lot of people could give a dang. And I imagine the guy who cast John Travolta, Robert Forster and woulda cast Burt Reynolds, all because his own personal sense of name recognition…I imagine he’s gonna miss that era of stardom (an era which I’d say has been declining since the 90s/00s with streaming and the predominance of blockbusters being the final nails).Regardless, I don’t think he’s even lamenting anything so much as pointing out Marvel’s intended strategy: you go see the movie because you’ll get to see Thor and Star Lord trade barbs, not because you get to see the best and worst Chrises. It’s possible to say things are different now without meaning they’re bad.
Well, I don’t necessarily think he thinks its bad even if he’s lamenting it. Tarantino has one of the more even keeled takes on this perpetual outrage machine, and I’m not the type to begrudge anyone their opinion on this stuff anyway. But it does seem like he recognizes movies by the shape they had when he was younger, and like all of us misses the feeling he used to get watching the things he grew up with. A primary facet of Hollywood used to be its stars, and now they matter a lot less. But while he might wax nostalgic, I don’t think anyone would object to the idea that the balance of star power has shifted from actors to directors and other creatives. This has uniquely benefited him as someone who still makes movies that way, while he receives the bulk of the credit for the final product. As for whether or not theaters benefit from movie stars, I just don’t see it. The way some people describe it, you could imagine Disney shifted the whole market themselves instead of just following the already changing market with great timing and luck. If you look at something like Ticket to Paradise, a moderately successful movie with two bonafide movie stars, you might convince yourself that theaters can survive with a few more of those types of movies, but I genuinely don’t think there would be an appetite for 10 more romcoms if we eliminated one Spider-Man movie a year.
“I just don’t see it” is a great distillation of online armchair studio heads. Often in these discussions I’m struck by how much opinions boil down to recency bias and a conflation of market forces with populist opinion.
I don’t know, I felt like Pitt in a Tarantino film was a mutually beneficial setup. Tarantino usually does really interesting things with his movie stars and Pitt was no exception, plus it was the first time they’d worked together so people wanted to see what he’d do. I definitely get where Tarantino is coming from, but I don’t think it’s an indictment of Marvel movies. I think he’s a guy who LOVES old Hollywood, and a time when the movie star’s name on the marquee drew crowds. Marvel at this point is such a monolith of story and character that even the icons like Iron Man and Captain America have been absorbed.
Hollywood wasn’t Brad Pitt’s first time working with Tarantino. He had already done Inglorious Basterds. Hell, True Romance counts to me too, although I don’t actually know if QT was ever on-set for that at all..
Inglourious Basterds
Sorry, are you saying Once Upon a Time is the first time Pitt and Tarantino worked together?
Jesus fuck, how did I forget about IB??
Eh, it happens.
He worked with Pitt in Inglorious Basterds.
*Inglorious Bastards
*Basterds. Tarantino spelled it that way.
Not a fan of Tarantino at all (LSS, i think he has only made 3 decent movies) Yes the only reason i watched it was A) Brad Pitt, and B) Leo
I was just thinking this when I was reading that Kevin Spacey was getting work because despite all his crimes he was a celebrated actor.
I actually thought the same thing when he said this – he’s the primary draw for his movies so is this way of backhandedly saying that he’s the true movie star of his movies?
dang, that’s a good take…
I have to disagree with you. Leo and Brad were both major draws for the general public. Cinephiles went for Tarantino.
What’s funny about this comment (not that it’s wrong) is that I kind of wanted to see Once Upon a Time because Leo was in it. But I don’t know that that’s because Leo’s a “movie star” so much as it’s because I’ve loved him since I was a teenager (yes, I know he’s problematic). But then I didn’t see it because I hate Tarantino. So the opposite happened with me, but of course I am just one folk. Your larger point is probably true for the vast majority of people who saw that movie.And also agree that I still don’t understand what value he ascribes to the idea of “movie stardom” and why he thinks sticking someone into a film just because they’re a big name makes for better films.
Personally, I went to see Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood despite Leo being in it.
“it feels like even Tarantino should be celebrating the death of movie stardom, not lamenting it” – this statement shows that you don’t understand what drives QT; while,“nobody went to see Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood because Brad Pitt was in it” – this statement shows that you don’t understand what drives audiences.
Overall the comment boils down to “I don’t care about this so I don’t see why anyone else would.”
While I would see a movie just because Tarantino directed it, I will also see a movie just because Pitt is in it. I am not particularly impressed by his acting ability but he seems to have the ability to chose to act in movies that I like.
If I’m thinking about the actor instead of the character, then that’s not a very good actor.
This is why Karl Urban is one of my favourite actors. I have never once recognised him, even when I know he’s in the film.
Yes, every time I see him, I’m stuck trying to figure out what I know him from.
Watch out! Karl Urban is right behind you!
No that’s Shia Labeouf.
There is a 63% chance that every random stranger you meet is in fact Karl Urban.
He you go, you can continue to not recognise him:Look, normally I’d dump on a celeb doing a cheesy ad – but Whittaker’s is absolutely legit.
That’s so strange to me. I respect Karl Urban’s work quite a bit. He always gives 100%. That being said, I think Dredd was the only film where I had trouble recognizing him – for the obvious reason – and I’m never completely lost in his characters. His face is distinctive to me.His McCoy… eh. He tried. He really did.
Eh, fair.Personally, he always seems to disappear into the role for me. I’ll get to the credits and be like “hold up, Karl Urban was in this?”I’m terrible with faces though, so maybe that’s why 😛
100%. It’s amazing. This is the second article AV Club has written about QT’s dumb take here, but on the other one, nearly everyone is totally on QT’s side about how absolutely fucking terrible it is to make films without casting a “movie star.” It’s the most bizarre thing: like two dozen odd fellows wrote hundreds and hundreds of words attacking me for saying that Tarantino’s take was dumb.Then on this article, most people seem to agree.
For the record I said then that his take was dumb.But also for the record, I can always be counted on to be like fuck Tarantino.
Yeah, there were a few of us with that take on that piece. Did you also get dozens of dudes tying themselves in knots to figure out how Tarantino really meant something else that maybe wasn’t this fucking stupid and not just this stupid thing and how you must just be a slavish Marvel fanboy for not agreeing with Tarantino’s nonsensical, Tiger Beat take?
Yes, Tarantino bros are exhausting. The Marvel slave accusation was the funniest to me because I’ve seen like 4 of the dozens of Marvel offerings.
I kind of perceived it more as people so eager to attack Marvel that they were willing to go all in no matter how nonsensical the specific attack was rather than diehard Tarantino bros, but I guess there was probably plenty of that as well. That’s probably made more clear by the fact that there’s far less of that here, given that Tarantino bros probably hold Sam Jackson’s takes in high esteem too, given how significant he’s been in most of Tarantino’s output.
Probably true, and they can’t just call Sam Jackson categorically stupid because he has agreed with some other Tarantino opinions in the past.
Tarantino is speaking as a filmmaker. It’s not that he needs it anymore but a lot of times having a movie star is the deciding factor of getting an original film financed.
“As a filmmaker,” why the hell does he think it’s fucked up that other studios are able to finance films without movie stars, exactly?You really don’t have to rationalize every dumb thing someone says.
How do you think any mid – large budget film not based on existing ip gets financed? With some form audience loyal star power.
There’s lots of things that make a script worth financing, from the uniqueness or familiarity of the concept, the pedigree of the director, producer, etc., the popularity of the source material, and yes, the star power. Some films are sold on all of these factors, some on a subset, others just where one is particularly strong.In many cases (like the MCU), some of those factors are strong enough that others don’t need to be prioritized. Why is that such a terrible fucking thing? If a movie can be easily made without needing to cast one of those 10 or so seat-filling faces, who is losing? Why is this even a conversation that needs to be had?
I’m pretty sure I know what Chris Evans or Chris Hemsworth would say if you asked them if they’d rather be known as huge movie stars, or as characters who everyone loves and will continue to love forever.
characters who everyone loves and will continue to love forever.I can all but guarantee you that present-day Marvel movies, let alone Evans and Hemsworth themselves, will not be part of the cultural conversation in 50 years, let alone forever. What movies from 1970-1975 can you name without looking?
I mean, the Bond movies were to the 60s and 70s what Marvel movies are to the 2000s and 2010s. Huge cultural touchstones that were popular but not considered “high art.” People still talk about them, and they’ve left a lasting legacy on pop culture. People still talk about their favorite Bonds, much in the same way people may talk about their favorite Avenger or phase of the Avengers movies in 50 years.
Oh God, I sure hope not.
Oh God, I sure hope so.
The big difference is, can you imagine starting from scratch with the Marvel universe 20 years from now? It’s nigh impenetrable already unless you’ve been keeping up for the last 10 years. Bond films are one-offs, and the draw is usually Bond himself. You can’t independently watch many of the Marvel films without missing a lot.
You have a point there. I think eventually there may be a consensus on core Marvel movies or those that stand alone better than others, but it would be a daunting task to start from the beginning and work your way through.
With the way our culture has almost completely transformed into a snake eating its own tail, do you really think there won’t be throngs of people actively selling the “watch the whole MCU up to Endgame” experience once every pi years on the logarithmic anniversary of whatever-the-fuck?I’m half expecting human civilization as we know it to end with a remake of a film being released before the original, both of which were preceded by an article commemorating the seventh anniversary of the first time the teaser trailer’s release date was announced.
I’m pretty steeped in Marvel lore so I might not be the best judge, but I don’t think this is generally true. The Bond movies often had a lot of lore that carried over from movie to movie (Moneypenny, Q, what 007 means), but you could pick up most of it from context or general cultural knowledge even if you haven’t seen the movies. For the Marvel movies, I’d say that each sequel builds off its predecessors (the third Captain America movie more or less requires you to have seen the first two, but that’s often the case for sequels) and maybe the Avengers movies. But if you haven’t seen, say, Age of Ultron or WandaVision, you can still watch Dr. Strange 2 and get the gist of her character (magical ally who’s turned evil). I wouldn’t recommend Infinity War as anyone’s first MCU movie, but I don’t think all of them are that continuity-heavy.
It’d probably be about equivalent to going through all of Star Trek or Stargate. It’d be an undertaking, but at least a few people would do it for sure.
I recently did and it’s not as bad as you’d think. Prior to this summer, I’d watched Black Panther and Captain America. I’ve been watching the movies more or less at random since June. I don’t really feel lost and there isn’t a lot of complexity to them to sort through. I’m sure I’m missing stuff but it’s not something I notice. I think it’s similar to Bond in the sense that there’s more detail if you’re familiar with the character, but it doesn’t break the movie. That’s my experience anyway. I think Tarantino is wrong about them killing the movie star. I’d blame that on social media giving us an intimate look into their lives. Movie stars had an aura of mystery that made them seem aspirational. I’m convinced that Beyonce is so famous because she never shares details about her life. She’s never explained her husband and sister fighting in an elevator.
For a wider scope, I’d consider superhero movies now to be kind of like westerns from the 50’s and 60’s. A bit of a build off of previous style trends that ended up in a long term glut, which the public apparently had a huge appetite for. It produced some absolute classics as it went through its own internal evolution, and then eventually audience demand waned and moved elsewhere. But people still talk about The Searchers and the Man with No Name and numerous other examples that stood the test of time.That’s probably how superhero movies are going to be in 20 years or so. And we’ve probably still got another decade to add to the canon of enduring classics.
I’m a big fan of the MCU but I disagree that any of the MCU films are classics. Even the best of them. I’m also a big fan of comic books but I wouldn’t put any superhero comics in the classic “graphic novel” category except maybe the ones that deconstruct the genre like Watchmen. The worlds the MCU operates in is just too thin, illogical, absurd, filled-with-contradictions, etc. to withstand any scrutiny. Same with superhero comics. These aren’t meant to be deep but to be thrilling, disposable soap operas, the key word being disposable which is, of course, the exact opposite of classic. I don’t mean this as a negative critique. I still think they’re great and I think Tarantino and Scorsese are ultimately missing the point. But there’s no way you can equate Avengers: Endgame with The Searchers. And why would anyone–including Fiege–want to? That’s not what they’re trying to do just as Stan Lee wasn’t trying to create “The Great American Novel.”
1975 – RollerballJames Caan is Jonathan E!
1975 – RollerballJames Caan is Johnathan E!
Only one matters for this conversation (though it’s admittedly a couple of years younger than your criteria): Christopher Reeve as Superman.
I mean, they did say “characters”, and Iron Man and Captain America are already characters from over fifty years ago that are still loved by people around the world.
Captain America had to be renamed The First Avenger in several countries because neither the character or the country were loved by people around the world.
Is this a serious question? Godfathers Part I and II. The Conversation. Serpico. Dog Day Afternoon. Jaws. Chinatown. Blazing Saddles. Young Frankenstein. The Exorcist. Texas Chainsaw Massacre. True Grit’s in there I think along with a bunch of other westerns I’m not thinking of, several Bond movies, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man With the Golden Gun. Three Days of the Condor. American Graffiti. Early Woody Allens, Bananas and Sleeper I think. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. MASH. Nashville. This is all literally off the top of my head without looking that happen to be the first half of the 70s, I imagine there are tons more. I consider myself a casual cinephile at best.
The Godfather Movies, I believe the first two Dirty Harry movies, A couple of Bond movies, The Aristocats, Jaws, The Shootist, I could go on….
What movies from 1970-1975 can you name without looking?Nashville, Jaws, both Godfathers, Dog Day, Cuckoo’s Nest, Chinatown (there’s gonna be lots of Pacino and Nicholson in this era), Barry Lyndon… The Exorcist, I think? I’m sure I’m leaving plenty out. I mean, you picked sort of the peak of so-called “New Hollywood” as your metric here… there’s plenty to choose from. (Or maybe it’s a generational thing? I’m 38, so while I was very much not alive when those films released, I can see how if you’re younger maybe it seems like the Long Long Ago)
I’d imagine that’s exactly what adults were saying about these new Fantastic Four, X-Men and Avengers funnybook characters back in the ‘60s.
You sort of just made the point though: nobody loves them for their Captain America or Star Lord. They like them because they are who they are.
Kinda feels like everyone’s looking for the most outrageous interpretation of what (to me) boils down to “you go to see The Avengers because you wanna see Hulk and Thor fight, not because you want to see Ruffalo and Hemsworth.”…he wrote, from the bowels of the self-perpetuating outrage machine.
My first reaction was “old man yells at clouds,” but he’s not wrong unless you choose to interpret it that way. But I’d say the two guys he picked are the possible exceptions. They’re both perfect casting for their characters and their own real-life personas fit the roles.
They’re both great as those characters, but neither seems to have been able to drive big movies outside of the MCU. I think that’s what would make someone a star. And how I read Tarantino’s remarks.
The fact that Captain America cast Chris Evans was a big motivating factor in wanting to watch that movie for me.
But he still hasn’t gone on to make a string of successful “Chris Evans movies” outside of the MCU. None of them have. There’s no string of “Chris Hemsworth movies” or “Benedict Cumberbatch movies” resulting from them starring in the MCU.
IMO that is true to a degree. You don’t go see 20+ movies of a franchise unless the biggest actors are doing a good job with the role and consistently brought back. I don’t think IW or EG works that well if they recast Iron Man, Cap, and Thor. And there are characters that are not as well known, like Ant-Man, where casting the right lead is definitely important.
Cast Tarantino as Stilt-Man in the new Daredevil series, and I’m sure all is forgiven.
Didn’t Leonardo Dicaprio just coach Timothy Chalamet on this very thing? Don’t make superhero movies because it will become your identity? And of all people, Samuel Jackson is hardly the one to make this comment given his comic book character is literally based off his real life likeness not the other way around?And if Chadwick Boseman IS Black Panther, why is that antivaxx chick wearing his costume now?
“Chadwick Boseman is Black Panther. You can’t refute that, and he’s a movie star.”
One absolutely can. He is dead. There is a new Black Panther (guess he did not see the movie) and no Chadwick was never a movie star. He was an actor it was the character that was the star. Chadwick’s carrer was not sufficient enough nor long enough to make him a star. No one was going out to see a Chadwick movie.
So James Dean wasn’t a star cause he was only in three movies?
I would say the caliber of movie, combined with the build up around him as an actor makes him a movie star. Chadwick never had the presence, never had the acting chops, never had the buzz around him even 1/20th of what James had.
Stupid fucking take, son.
It is a great take. The stupid take is Sam Jackson’s
Not sure if this is contrarianism or just old fashioned internet racism.Can you enlighten us as to your own metrics? How many movies must a non-white actor headline before someone like yourself considers him/her a movie star?
Chadwick was a HUGE movie star from “42″ on out. Absolutely iconic. That’s why his death hid so very, very hard (god, what a gut punch that news was), and one of the reasons re-casting was not an option.
“Chadwick was a huge movie star [in 2018]” is objectively false nonsense.
“a HUGE movie star from ‘42′ on out” and “absolutely iconic” are just wild exaggerations.
“42″ a movie no one saw or remembers, a movie only even a select group of movie nerds even know about, let alone saw. He was not a huge movie star, no one was ever going out to see a Chadwick movie. The biggest thing he ever did outside of Marvel was easily Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which also happened to be his best work, which was a low bar.
A profitable movie with a hugely positive critical response that established Boseman a a major star, especially for iconic roles like Robinson, Marshall, and T’Challa. Boseman was inarguably a towering iconic figure, and a true superstar. His death was a staggering loss that’s still felt today.
Chadwick was a rising star, with a specific niche for playing iconic Black figures, both fictional (T’Challa) and real (Jackie Robinson, James Brown, Thurgood Marshall). And I watched at least two movies – 21 Bridges and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom – specifically because he was starring in them.
And John Cazale was only in 5 movies, which is even less than Chadwick.His movies all just happened to be classics, tho.
Cazale was amazing in that run, but I think most people would describe his as an ‘actor’ before they’d describe him as a ‘movie star.’
His wasn’t the marquee name and his reputation was burnished by stage performances as much as movies.Boseman is a bit in between. He’s got biopics that tend toward ‘movie star’ territory and things like 21 Bridges that are definitely there. Ma Rainey is an ‘actorly’ role. I’d tentatively agree that MCU is a slightly different category. Black Panther is a franchise role but definitely closer to ‘movie star’ than anything else.
This seems like a really mean-spirited take on someone who died so young, just as he was reaching a new level of fame and success.
Mean spirited in what way? It is a statement of fact not a statement on the individual in response to what Sam Jackson said. Was his star rising, perhaps, he was still a little known actor. Other that Black Panther and Ma Rainey, his movies were lost in the wind, little to no buzz or press.
He was definitely a star before playing Black Panther. ‘42′, ‘Get on Up’, and even ‘Gods of Egypt’ showed that. Granted, Gods of Egypt was an awful film. Then he did Marshall after Civil War,
But I know for a fact that he was the only reason people went to see 21 Bridges and the primary reason to see Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
That means he’s a good actor not a movie star. A movie star is a brand that brings an audience irregardless of what the film is.
Appearing in movies does not make you a star. He was an actor is all. Small roles in bit movies. He is no where close to the main draw for Ma Rainey’s, second at best. No one was ever talking about “oh there is a new Chadwick movie coming out” “what movie is he going to do next”
“So maybe we should all just like what we like and let everyone else like what they like! It’s all okay!”None of these conversations are about liking or not liking the movies. If you’re gonna stir shit at least know what people are arguing about.
I’d be curious to see what Tarantino even considers a “movie star.” Really, the age of the movie star that he seems to eluding to, a star who would sell tickets simply by being in a movie, died out at the end of the studio age when studios basically owned stars and could only be in that studio’s films. What movie stars is he even comparing the current crop of movie stars to? I also find it a weird take from him because the slow move from studios only greenlighting a picture if it had one of the small pool of “movie stars” in the lead broadened the opportunities for unknown actors and directors to become “stars.”It seems more like a deflection to arrive at his same gripe about less people going to theaters to see anything but big event films. Which is true, but that horse left the barn a long time ago at this point. Streaming changed the landscape a while back and that’s the landscape going forward.
Then you should actually watch the interview because he tells us an example. After Speed Sandra Bullock made a 2 decade string of “Sandra Bullock movies”. That was their billing. They weren’t hacker movies, or FBI movies, they were Sandra Bullock movies. People don’t go see “Chris Hemsworth movies” in the same way as that.
I watched the interview and I think that example is silly. There was no two decade string of “Sandra Bullock movies” where people were going to see movies simply because Bullock was in them. Shit, Speed 2, three years after Speed made her a star, is one of the biggest box office bombs ever. She has a string of bombs in those supposed two decades where people were going to see her movies just because she was in them. I don’t point that out as a slight to Bullock, by the way, who I think is a very good actor. I point that out to show Tarantino is simply wrong and his definition of a “movie star” is so nebulous that it has little meaning.
Yeah, the term fundamentally means something different to different people, and it certainly means something different in each era of Hollywood. Tom Holland is no Brad Pitt, but Uncharted made considerably more than Bullet Train did. Will Smith is unquestionably a huge movie star even now, but Gemini Man made less than $200 million before the pandemic. I think it’s fairly telling that more and more movies these days are looking like Oceans 11, with big ensemble casts plastered all over a kinetic trailer. There aren’t fewer movie stars these days, there are actually way more of them. And as a result, hardly any of them can carry a movie all by themselves anymore. Better to pitch a group of stars with a recognizable director and some sort of IP.
The funny thing about this is that Tarantino is one of those director’s who’s name outshines the majority of his cast unless they’re someone standout who already had a major career like DiCaprio or Samuel L Jackson. Most people won’t even recognize Zoe Bell or know her name despite being a character in several of his movies.
The guy wants to talk about Comic Characters being the real stars when playing those characters has been getting many of these actors more roles than they would’ve beforehand. The biggest problem is that the comic characters might become what the actor is most known for because Hollywood has gotten pretty stale. Tom Holland will most likely always be recognized as Spider-Man first because he has yet to do a solid, unique, career defining performance in another major movie. He’s definitely tried but Uncharted was probably the biggest of his attempts and that was a messy film where his costars were honestly more interesting than his Drake.
Uncharted was also part of a major/beloved video game franchise and at
its worst, was still better than the last Indiana Jones film. Gemini Man looked like it’d be nearly as bad as After Earth and with Ang Lee directing, the premise vs what would likely be delivered, seemed substandard.
Bullet Train had absolutely horrible marketing and relied entirely on “look at these people in this film”. I enjoyed it but then Smokin’ Aces came on a movie channel right after and it wasn’t hard to determine which was the better film in almost every category (Bullet Train had some nice color aesthetics).
Ouch, and there you’ve set the bar at Smokin’ Aces, which itself is a half-assed rip-off of Snatch that’s trying to coast 0n a blizzard of “hey, I know that actor” cameos. And Bullet Train fell short of that?
I liked Bullet Train more than Smoking Aces because Bullet Train had a more interesting form of fighting than Smoking Aces.
Which is a shame because Bullet Train was my favourite film of the year. It was fun and cool and stuff. I watched it multiple times in the cinema.
Tarantino also has some weirdly rose colored glasses in the interview. He brings up Sandra Bullock as an example of a movie star that people went to go see movies simply because she was in them for almost 20 years. That is objectively wrong. Even during the height of her fame in the 90s she had mostly underperforming films or outright bombs. She also had some very good films that people came out to see… because they were good films, not solely because she was in them.That’s why question what Tarantino’s quantification of a “movie star” even is. It’s inherently nebulous to begin with, as you note, but Tarantino’s framing of it is particularly nebulous.
On the other hand, the MCU is the closest we’ve gotten to reviving the studio age, with actors signed to 7-picture contracts, with mandatory promotion cycles, and a PR department invested in maintaining the actors’ public reputations as Marvel characters even in the downtime between releases.But then, they’re not slotting into new roles, but the same one each time, like the Columbia or Republic serials. In truth they’re somewhere between. The audience isn’t tuning in for either a Cary Grant pic or a Flash Gordon, but both a ChrisEvans/CaptainAmerica.
Another signifcant difference between the Marvel Studios model and the studio age model is that the Marvel actors are free to do any work they want in between Marvel projects. They aren’t tied to one studio. There is some similarity though, true. These days it’s generally directors that still will somewhat adhere to the old studio age model, as some of the bigger directors will still sign multi movie contracts with a studio. Though the directors that agree to this generally have the freedom to choose whatever their next movie is going to be. In the studio age a director under contract was often forced to direct whatever script the studio chose.
Tarantino said Chris Pine is the closest thing to a modern movie star.
I’m much happier with a broad field of super talented actors making their mark on film and television vs the same handful of “stars” getting all the public attention. We have “influencers” taking up the latter space and now actors are able to focus on their work vs their love lives for once. Also, I think sometimes people forget what a big role prestige TV played in how we perceive actors. It used to be that there were A tier film actors and B tier TV actors, but that distinction has been wonderfully muddled for years.
That’s a good point about the rise of prestige TV series. That changed the landscape quite a bit too.
Not what he said in the slightest. QT said that trends in Hollywood have changed to the brand being the draw rather than movie stars.In 1995 people went to see “Bruce Willis movies” or in 2002 they went to see “Sandra Bullock movies”. Now they go see Captain America movies or Thor movies. None of the MCU players have a single non-MCU blockbuster they drew by name recognition alone.
To back up Sam Jackson with the obvious example…Marvel did not offer RDJ a dump truck of money because they could just switch out anyone for Iron Man. Scarjo, even though Disney tried to claw it back, would not be offered a dump truck of money if they could switch out anyone for Black Widow. Now future iterations of the character can be different, but to say they are not stars is just silly.
I appreciate Jackson’s take on this because he is someone I consider both a “movie star” and a good actor, which honestly are not always the same thing. Like, there’s definitely the image of Samuel L. Jackson, and that’s a thing that can sell tickets, but the dude also has genuine talent, even if he has become more and more typecast these days.
As someone who was already a movie star before the MCU and whose appearances in them are primarily of the famous-actor cameo sort, his status isn’t really changed by the Marvel franchise.
Oh, god, yes, please, more of this. I won’t be satisfied until every actor who has ever been in a Marvel movie responds to Quentin Tarantino. What does Guy Pearce think about this? Has Chris O’Dowd chimed in? How about James Gunn’s brother? Has anyone tracked down the “baba yaga” guy from Ant-Man? Please. I must know. It is so very important that we keep this, the most important of all discourses going. Then we simply must ask Martin Scorsese to respond to the guy who played Kraglin’s response to Quentin Tarantino’s opinion on movie stars and the lack thereof. More, more, please, more. Mmm. Num num num. Keep it coming.
idk if you’re aware but Samuel L Jackson is one of Tarantino’s go-to actors. This one’s actually pretty relevant.
This is so incredibly stupid. Tarantino gets high from being off-putting. He’s got some Trump in him.
How does one define a movie star and who gets to be one? Aside from their ability to perform in front of a camera, they’re just people with a rather unusual job. The worship is actually scary.
Tarantino says what his definition is. Basically when the general public thinks of your movies first and foremost by your actual name.Like, “I’m going to see the Tom Cruise movie”. “I’m going to see the Sandra Bullock movie”. The actor is billed above the subject of the film. No one thinks of Love & Thunder as that “Chris Hemsworth movie”. It’s a Thor movie or MCU movie first and foremost.
I wonder if Anya Taylor Joy will be the exception to the rule of no young movie stars. Even then I’d prefer it if there’s more character actors around then just like Pauly Shore or whoever Quentin wants.
Timothée Chalamet is doing fine. Tom Holland and Zendaya will transcend Spider-Man pretty easily I think (she already had before). Florence Pugh already has an Oscar nom.
Follow-up question, could my boy Glen Powell also count as a Quentin Tarantino film star?
As with most bad Marvel takes, Tarantino almost makes sense but still misses the point. Then makes an untrue generalization and ends up insulting a bunch of talented people.There has been a shift in superhero movies. You used to cast A-list celebrities for comicbook adaptations because it was a different market. Earlier Marvel films got us actors like Wesley Snipes and Nicholas Cage, then those movies were then advertised as Snipes or Cage movies. Same with Will Smith in MiB, people did not know what the comic was but they did know Will Smith. But even pre-MCU that wasn’t true all the time. Jim Carrey had one hit before he was cast in the Mask. Tobey Maguire was a good actor but he wasn’t an action star or well known. The MCU started with the traditional model using Ed Norton as the Hulk and then after considering famous names like Tom Cruise for Iron Man. Eventually they went with RDJ who was recently out of prison but still a well known actor with plenty of name recognition.Meanwhile all action franchises including Marvel were starting to move away from that model. Fast and the Furious, Transformers aren’t traditional actor star led movies. That’s seems to be the point he seems to be trying to make in an inartful manner. People go to see a Transformer movie because it’s a Transformer movie, people went to see Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible.Which is why his conclusion doesn’t hold up. The MCU has amazing casting, they keep getting fantastic established actors to fill in their movies and finding new actors to turn into celebrities. They’re also not the only or the first to look for perfect actors for existing IP or advertise a franchise over its actors. Chris Evans was in Fox’s Fantastic Four and the adaptation of the Vertigo title The Losers (which was WB I think?). Hugh Jackman got his breakout role in X-Men and Fox turned an Aussie theatre actor into a superstar. There are so many movies and studios who should get credit but it’s easy to treat the MCU as a monolith that has ruined movies. But hot takes that make good clickbait headlines are much sexier than complex analysis of actual trends in movies.
So he’s mad he didn’t get Luke Cage.Gotcha.
For me, the definition of a movie star is when your average person on the street says, “Let’s go see that (actor’s name) movie!”….like “Let’s go see that Tom Cruise movie!”…I love his work, and he’s certainly a recognized personality, but I doubt anyone says “Let’s go see that Samuel L. Jackson movie!”
Just a few Marvel actors who I don’t see as in any way saddled by their Marvel character:
Chris Pratt
Dave Bautista
Zoe Saldana
Vin Diesel
Bradley Cooper
Karen Gillan
Paul Rudd
Scarlett Johansson
Josh Brolin
Idris Elba
Benedict Cumberbatch
Ryan Reynolds
Gwyneth Paltrow
Don Cheadle
SLJ
Evans and Hemsworth, maybe. Ruffalo, eh. Those are about the only ones I could possibly agree with QT on.
Knives Out put Evans on your list for me. Even Ruffalo is someone I think of as more of an indie drama type rather than being stuck in his Marvel role. So maybe Hemsworth? I think he could easily break out of that, though.
Elsewhere I cited Knives Out and Glass Onion as proof that stars can still be the main draw.