LOGAN Director James Mangold Explains Why He Hates Superhero Films

James Mangold hates typical superhero films. This seems odd considering he directed the highly successful Logan, which you may notice is inherently different from what he thinks your typical superhero film is. Mangold shares his definition of the typical superhero film below: 

“Tentpole movies in general, they are not movies, generally. They are bloated exercises in two-hour trailers for another movie they are going to sell you in two years,”

Wow, it's almost as though he made a sweeping generalization about the way Hollywood works. Not to knock on Mangold too much because he does make a valid point, but it's super easy to bash the projects that came before you when you stepped in to direct a one-off superhero film with a guarantee there would be no sequel. Superhero films want to establish hype to the next adventure because heroes don't stop being heroes after one event...that's not how it works. Mangold continued his statement to Comicbook, which seemed a little more in focused as he continued:

“There are so many characters that each character gets an arch of about six and a half minutes at best, and I'm not exaggerating. You take 120 minutes, you take 45 of it for action, what are you left with, divide it by six characters, you have the character arc of Elmer Fudd in a Warner Brothers cartoon. That formula is empty for me.”

I feel like what Mangold really wants to say is "I don't like Avengers: Age Of Ultron," because that literally sounds like the film he is describing. That film is by far the worst offender where it felt screentime was shoehorned in to give every character relevance as opposed to the first Avengers film that was centered around bringing each character into the fold when it felt right. Ensemble films are definitely more difficult to pull off than single hero features and have a lower success rate...but let's not sit here and pretend The Wolverine (also directed by Mangold) was not meaningless hot garbage simply because it featured one character story. 

Obviously, he's entitled to his opinion, and as someone who frequently shares their opinion, I respect that. I just can't say I agree with his sweeping generalization that all ensemble superhero films suck, do you? 

GeekTyrant Homepage