Sony Pictures and Marvel’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has now surpassed the $1 billion mark globally as of today to become both 2021’s biggest hit, and the first film to reach the billion-dollar club since the pandemic began.
Reviews for the film have also been pretty great too both from critics and audiences. More importantly, it’s putting money back into movie theaters that have been desperate for such a large-scale hit.
Sony Pictures are believed to be talking about a potential awards campaign for the film according to THR where the outlet included an interesting quote from actor Tom Holland.
In 2019, filmmaker Martin Scorsese infamously called Marvel movies “not cinema” and compared those films to theme park rides. That comment resulted in all sorts of discourse that continues to this day.
Holland reportedly brought up Scorsese’s past superhero criticisms, unprompted, and has since drawn some of the discourse towards himself:
“You can ask [Martin] Scorsese, ‘Would you want to make a Marvel movie?’ But he doesn’t know what it’s like because he’s never made one. I’ve made Marvel movies and I’ve also made movies that have been in the conversation in the world of the Oscars, and the only difference, really, is one is much more expensive than the other.
But the way I break down the character, the way the director etches out the arc of the story and characters – it’s all the same, just done on a different scale. So I do think they’re real art.
When you’re making these films, you know that good or bad, millions of people will see them, whereas when you’re making a small indie film, if it’s not very good, no one will watch it, so it comes with different levels of pressure.
I mean, you can also ask Benedict Cumberbatch or Robert Downey Jr. or Scarlett Johansson – people who have made the kinds of movies that are ‘Oscar-worthy’ and also made superhero movies – and they will tell you that they’re the same, just on a different scale. And there’s less spandex in ‘Oscar movies.'”
The Oscars in particular have been notable for sneering at the superhero genre, even as the snub of Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” was thought to have been a major instigator for the increase in the number of potential nominees for Best Film.
It wasn’t until “Black Panther” in 2018 that Marvel scored its first, and to date only, nomination for Best Picture. With both awards telecasts and cinemas themselves struggling to survive due to low viewership/attendance numbers, could it be time for the Academy to overcome its seemingly increasing prejudice against major mainstream commercial hits?
