Marvel star Mark Ruffalo hopes The Irishman filmmaker Martin Scorsese one day sees Avengers: Endgame, which Ruffalo says is a homage “to the cinema that he’s created in the past.” In widely publicized comments, Scorsese offered a criticism of Marvel superhero movies, telling Empire Magazine, “I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”
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“I think that, listen, there’s a great amount of respect that we have for him as a filmmaker. We work really hard to make movies for everyone, and we will work even harder,” Victoria Alonso, Executive Vice President of Production at Marvel Studios, told Entertainment Tonight at the Hollywood Film Awards, where Endgame was honored with the best blockbuster award. “Maybe someday he’ll like what we do.”
When Marvel Studios president and Marvel chief creative officer Kevin Feige was asked to address Scorsese’s comments, he pointed to Alonso’s response, saying with a smile, “Well said.”
“Well said. I worked with Marty, I love Marty, I hope he gets to see the film one day, because so many of us as filmmakers have actually stolen from him and learned so much from him,” added Ruffalo, who starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Scorsese’s Shutter Island. “I think if he sees it, he’ll see kind of what a homage it is to the cinema that he’s created in the past.”
Hollywood Film Awards host Rob Riggle poked fun at the situation when introducing Feige, Alonso, and Ruffalo during the awards ceremony by quipping, “And here to present the award is Martin Scorsese,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
When accepting the award for Endgame, the Hulk star said the Marvel Studios team “did something that brought the whole world together.”
“It’s not something you can do with just spectacle alone, by the way, but there’s plenty of that,” Ruffalo said. “What really speaks to people about these movies, I think, is the heart and humanity of characters, that’s what makes Avengers: Endgame so powerful to witness — these characters that care about and reckon with the world around them … to watch them struggle and survive and sometimes even say goodbye. That’s what makes it cinema.”
