Quentin Tarantino Says Marvel Actors Aren’t Stars

Sooooo … don’t expect Quentin Tarantino to direct a Marvel movie anytime soon.

Not that you would have. Tarantino has, with very few exceptions, only ever made original movies. (Jackie Brown was based on an Elmore Leonard novel; that is his only adaptation to date.) But if you’re curious about Tarantino’s feelings about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you can find them on the new episode of the 2 Bears, 1 Cave podcast with Tom Segura.

Tarantino openly admitted that he collected comics as a kid and that he doesn’t “hate” Marvel’s movies. (via Mediate) But he also said that he finds it frustrating that “they’re the only things that seem to be made. And they’re the only things that seem to generate any kind of excitement amongst a fan base or even like for the studio making them. That’s what they’re excited about.”

He also gave a fairly harsh assessment of Marvel’s stars, claiming they’re not movie stars at all. As he put it…

Part of the Marvel-ization of Hollywood is… you have all these actors who have become famous playing these characters. But they’re not movie stars. Right? Captain America is the star. Or Thor is the star. I mean, I’m not the first person to say that. I think that’s been said a zillion times, you know, but, you know, but it’s like, you know, it’s these franchise characters that become a star.

Whether Marvel stars are true stars is a subjective matter, and certainly some of those actors are more famous than others. (I doubt Tarantino would argue Robert Downey Jr. is not a movie star, for example.)

At least one Marvel hero has already weighed in on Tarantino’s comments; Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Simu Liu posted on Twitter that “if the only gatekeepers to movie stardom came from Tarantino and Scorsese, I would never have had the opportunity to lead a $400 million plus movie.”

Tarantino’s new book, Cinema Speculation, is on sale now. You can watch Tarantinp’s appearance on 2 Bears, 1 Cave below.