The Marvel franchise has been criticized by several film directors including The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola. Recently, Quentin Tarantino who has made hit films like Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained, and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, also made a bold statement, he stated that Marvel stars are not movie stars.
He said, “Part of the Marvelization of Hollywood is you have all these actors who have become famous playing these characters. But they’re not movie stars. Captain America is the star. Thor is the star. It’s these franchise characters that become a star.”
After that, several Marvel stars responded to Tarantino’s bold comment including Anthony Mackie and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Simu Liu. Furthermore, now, Samuel L. Jackson, who portrayed Nick Fury’s character, has also clapped back at Tarantino’s comment.
Samuel L. Jackson slams Tarantino’s comment
Jackson who has also worked in a few of Tarantino’s movies recently appeared on The View where he talked about Tarantino’s comment on Marvel actors. And this is what Jackson had to say, “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?”
However, he did not stop there, he further explained, “That’s not a big controversy for me to know that apparently, these actors are movie stars. Chadwick Boseman is Black Panther. You can’t refute that, and he’s a movie star.”
Jackson has been portraying Marvel’s Nick Fury for over a decade now and Fury was the one who originally assembled the Avengers. Jackson himself is one of the greatest actors and he has worked with many other brilliant actors in Marvel including Robert Downey Jr. Chris Hemsworth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Holland, and definitely, they are known not only for their roles in MCU.
Samuel L. Jackson is currently shooting for Marvel Studios’ new series Secret Invasion where he will be accompanied by other actors including Emilia Clarke.
Furthermore, as mentioned above, Jackson has worked with Tarintino on several of his movies so, this was something sensational for him to hit back at Tarintino’s comment. Well, maybe that is because Jackson is not Nick Fury but because Fury is literally Jackson’s personality and he does not care about anybody, he is the GOAT.
This is also the reason 2002 Marvel Comics designed the character of Fury based on Samuel L. Jackson.
Is Quentin Tarantino’s MCU Comments legit?
Certainly, there is some truth in his comment and Marvel’s new Captain America, Anthony Mackie also agreed with Tarantino’s comment and said, “There are no movie stars anymore…Like, Anthony Mackie isn’t a movie star. The Falcon is a movie star. And that’s what’s weird.”
He continued, “It used to be with Tom Cruise and Will Smith and Stallone and Schwarzenegger, when you went to the movies, you went to see the Stallone movie. You went to see the Schwarzenegger movie. Now you go see: X-Men. So the evolution of the super hero has meant the death of the movie star.”
However, Tarantino’s argument completely crumbles because just like Samuel L. Jackson told, Chadwick Boseman is Black Panther. Moreover, RDJ brought Tony Stark’s character to life. Ironman was a popular character so even if we keep that aside, Guardians of the Galaxy was not really popular before versatile movie stars like Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, and Zoe Saldaña ressurected their characters and made this superhero team popular among fans.
