Taika Waititi Checks Martin Scorsese, Says Marvel’s Work Is ‘All Based on Story and Affecting People Emotionally’

The 'Thor: Ragnarok' director pushes back against assessments of Marvel films as being the opposite of art.

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With The Irishman now out on Netflix, it's hard as all fuck to imagine giving too much brain space to Marvel matters at the moment. At any rate, Taika Waititi—he of Marvel I entries Thor: Ragnarok and, soon, Thor: Love and Thunder—has now shared a lengthier contribution to the Scorsese-initiated comic book movie debate after previously delivering his "Of course it's cinema!" take back in October.

Tucked into a Hollywood Reporterfeature published Tuesday with Waititi and Lorene Scafaria, among others, is a question directly addressing the debate.

"Having worked for Marvel, I know how much work goes into breaking stories for those films, the shooting and the postproduction," Waititi, whose Nazi satire Jojo Rabbit arrived last month, said. "It's all based on story and affecting people emotionally. Maybe it's too colorful for him."

Elaborating further, Waititi pushed back against any assessment of comics-based movies as being inherently not art.

"Comics and graphic novels, people have always laughed at them as not being real art or real stories," he said. "It's simply not true. Superheroes are our new mythology. At the end of the day, stories are either teaching us lessons or helping us experience the human condition in different ways."

Waititi's next contribution to the Marvel universe will be the aforementioned 2021 release Thor: Love and Thunder, for which he will both write and direct. Jojo Rabbit, meanwhile, can still be seen at select theaters nationwide.

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