Martin Scorsese Doesn’t Feel Like He Needs to See ‘Joker’: “It’s Fine”

Beloved director and Hollywood powerhouse Martin Scorsese may dislike Marvel, but DC has yet to feel his wrath. After weeks of expounding on his distaste for Marvel movies, Scorsese was asked in an interview with the New York Times if he had seen DC’s Joker. The short answer? He hasn’t and doesn’t feel like he needs to in order to declare the 2019 box office hit “fine.”

“I saw clips of it,” Scorsese said of the movie. “I know it. So it’s like, why do I need to? I get it. It’s fine.”

This ambivalence is one-sided. Todd Phillips’ psychological thriller about one of Batman’s most interesting characters is packed with homages to Scorsese’s work. Not only that but Scorsese himself was asked to be involved in the project as a producer. The director passed on the offer.

But that wasn’t the only interesting tidbit about superhero movies the Times‘ interview included. In October of 2019 Scorsese did an interview with Empire magazine in which he called Marvel movies “not cinema” and “closer to theme parks.” These comments and Scorsese’s later expansion of them for the Times prompted outrage among fans, critics, and Disney itself. Shortly after Scorsese’s comments started getting attention, Walt Disney Company Chief Executive Bob Iger called the comments “not fair to the people who are making the movies” and “nasty.”

Most people following this particular feud know that Iger has been unsuccessfully trying to schedule a meeting with Scorsese. But what’s not as well known is that Scorsese had been trying to meet with Iger well before the Empire interview ever published. According to the Times interview, Scorsese reached out to the House of Mouse on behalf of his organization Film Foundation, a nonprofit dedicating to restoring movies. Specifically Scorsese wanted to discuss preserving the 20th Century Fox films Disney now owns after its acquisition of Fox. Neither meeting has yet to happen.

“Then all this came up,” Scorsese said. “So, we’ll have a lot to talk about.”

The director also expanded on his trepidation with working with a streaming service to create The Irishman. Though Netflix later announced that the mobster masterpiece would premiere in limited theaters, Scorsese was initially worried that it wouldn’t touch the big screen at all. “Even if it’s going to be shown on a street corner, maybe someday it’ll be shown in a theater as part of a retrospective,” Scorsese said. “I really thought that.”

But in between all of this comic book drama and the fate of the movie industry, the most shocking part of the interview didn’t have anything to do modern filmmaking. It had to do with a film released way back in 2004. During the last two weeks of editing The Aviator, the iconic filmmaker almost left Hollywood due to the stress he felt from the studio system. “I said if this is the way you have to make films then I’m not going to do it anymore,” Scorsese said. Thank god he changed his mind.

Where to stream Joker