Brian Cox thinks cinema is “in a very bad way,” with the Marvel and DC Universes partly to blame.
The legendary actor of stage and screen – who most recently garnered critical acclaim for his award-winning role in HBO’s Succession – spoke at an Edinburgh International Film Festival panel on Saturday. When asked about the recent successes of globally popular TV shows, Cox cited the latest MCU installment Deadpool & Wolverine as a great example of cinematic “party time”.
“What’s happened is that television is doing what cinema used to do,” Cox told the audience of television’s originality. “I think cinema is in a very bad way. I think it’s lost its place because of, partly, the grandiose element between Marvel, DC and all of that. And I think it’s beginning to implode, actually. You’re kind of losing the plot.”
He discussed Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman of Deadpool & Wolverine while referencing how films are “making a lot of money that’ll make everybody happy, but in terms of the work, it becomes diluted afterwards. You’re getting the same old… I mean, I’ve done those kind of [projects].”
Cox starred as William Stryker Jr. in X2: X-Men United (a military scientist who persuades Logan to become Wolverine), and admittedly said he “forgets” about the fact he “created” Wolverine. “Deadpool meets the guy… Wolverine, who I created, but I’ve forgotten. Actually,” he jokes, “When those films are on, there’s always a bit of me [as Stryker] and they never pay me any money.”
“So it’s just become a party time for certain actors to do this stuff,” Cox added. “When you know that Hugh Jackman can do a bit more, Ryan Reynolds… but it’s because they go down that road and it’s box office. They make a lot of money. You can’t knock it.”
Television is pulling ahead, he continued, with incredible shows like Jesse Armstrong’s Succession and Netflix’s Ripley, starring Andrew Scott. “There’s so many [shows] and you’ve got the honor of telling the story over a period of time.” The actor said movies of his childhood such as On the Waterfront are what made him want to “be the actor I’ve become,” but it’s partially eradicated.
I dunno, man. I don't think you can say "cinema was better in the fifites when there weren't all these cheap action movies and creature features and cash-grab sequels" as though On the Waterfront didn't come out within three weeks of a movie about giant radioactive ants and the fifth remake of Robinson Crusoe. And yeah, sure, last year people were double-fisting a sprawling biopic about the man that flung the world irreversibly into the atomic age and a movie about singing plastic dolls, and finishing it off with a talking alien truck fighting a robot monkey... just like how eighty years ago Casablanca came out the same year as The Invisible Man's Revenge and House of Frankenstein, sixty years ago people were just coming out of 2001: A Space Odyssey and turning right back around to go watch Charlton Heston punch a guy in a gorilla suit, forty years ago we got Amadeus hot on the heels of Police Academy and The Search for Spock, and nine years ago Spotlight and The Revenant were running trailers at the same time as Minions and Adam Sandler's Pixels. This is not a new phenomenon, the past only looks better because nobody talks about the mediocre movies from that era anymore. And I'm not even gonna touch the implication that mass-appeal entertainment is somehow devoid of merit with a twenty-foot pole, that's a whole other can of worms.
And even barring that, I really don't think you get to say "TV is doing cinema better than cinema these days" as though for every Chernobyl or Succession there aren't eight NCIS spinoffs, three Big Bang Theory prequels, a Celebrity Golden Bachelor, Keeping Up with the Alien Ghosts of Skinwalker Ranch, and - guess what, bucko - a show with a bunch of superheroes running around punching each other in the dicks, or whatever. The ratio of "high art" to "party time" is damn near identical, the movies just have a bigger ad budget.
So in the end, it seems all you've got left here is a guy starting a conversation about a new, topical thing and using that to segue into talking about a thing he made last year and how it's so much better than new popular thing, and you should watch that instead. Thanks, Brian, super glad we had this talk.
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I guess I'm gonna feel real silly if I ever get around to watching Deadpool & Wolverine and end up agreeing with this guy.
Don't worry, Deadpool & Wolverine is the best superhero movie for comic fans since Logan
Speaking of Amadeus, Mozart wrote a song called Lick my Ass that was covered by Jack White and ICP. we’ve always loved trash.
I love Brian Cox but this is giving old man is mad at change. The masses want to be entertained. While art house films are loved by critics and film lovers, it doesn’t draw the billions of dollars type crowds.
I can’t say I totally blame him. I’m only 31, and I’m already feeling a little irked about some of the ways this world has changed. And ya, I’m pretty tired of super hero movies anymore. However, I’m really looking forward to watching Deadpool and Wolverine on the big screen together. Just gotta find a babysitter first. 😂
I get what he's saying. Quality of TV shows and televisions themselves have been going up, whereas theaters are not filling the seats like they used to. People are only going to see the blockbusters and leaving the thoughtfully paces stuff for home viewing. And obviously, studios are gonna play to the fan service
Old man yells at cloud.
I agree that there is a lot of slop out there, but there always has been. There are still plenty of classics being produced.
A lot of this seems to be incoherent grumbling.
Which classics were produced recently, especially blockbuster ones?
Genuinely curious. I think he's right and I hate the cape movie culture in terms of consumers, but I stay away from theaters and watch older movies so I kinda don't really care much.
I really enjoyed Monkey Man, Late Night With The Devil, The Blackening, Poor Things and the Whale. That's just off the top of my head.
I know they aren't really blockbusters by any stretch, but it's rare to get a blockbuster that is also a non slop movie. These are all films that showed on my local cinema though, and they were all great. I hate cape shit and avoid most slop, except the odd guilty pleasure. To be honest I thought the Dune adaptation was really good and that was rather popular. So add that to my slop wall.
I have my girlfriend to thank for dragging me out to see these films and it has made me realise that I was being rather snobbish in the past. There's a lot of good stuff out there if you just go out and watch it. You won't always be amazed but you'll be surprised what you do end up liking.
Ah nothing like effete dilettante artists telling us bumpkins that what we like to watch isn't really art and we should go lock ourselves in a dark room to watch a black and white film that's mostly exposition about morality given over long zooms on broken furniture or swooning women or an old man smoking a pipe.
Sorry dude but the high tech equipment we have in theaters should mostly be used to blast our eyeballs and ears into oblivion. I'll watch deep, moving art pieces on my home television.
I saw that spooky witch horseshit you did, Brian Cox. Absolutely fucking trash but I guess you needed the paycheck.
