Eighteen months ago, actor Stephen Dorff took a swing at the Marvel Studios film “Black Widow”. Talking with British paper The Independent, the actor made it clear he has no love for the superhero blockbusters of today.
Dorff certainly knows Marvel material. The actor starred as the villain of 1998’s “Blade” – the film often cited as the very first of the wave of superhero films that have taken over multiplexes in recent years.
In that interview, the actor said of “Black Widow: “It looks like garbage to me. It looks like a bad video game. I’m embarrassed for those people. I’m embarrassed for Scarlett.”
Now he’s offering a new take on superhero films via a new chat with The Daily Beast. The actor says he would only want to star in contemporary comic book films if they:
“Were more like when I started when we made ‘Blade,’ or the few that have been decent over the years, like when Nolan did ‘The Dark Knight’ and reinvented Batman from Tim Burton.
All this other garbage is just embarrassing, you know what I mean? I mean, God bless them, they’re making a bunch of money, but their movies suck [laughs]. And nobody’s going to remember them. Nobody’s remembering ‘Black Adam’ at the end of the day. I didn’t even see that movie, it looked so bad.”
Marvel is currently having issues developing its new take on “Blade” starring Dorff’s former “True Detective” co-star Mahershala Ali. The film’s original director Bassam Tariq exited two months before the intended production start date with Yann Demange currently set to take the helm. Dorff says there’s no chance the MCU tops the Steve Norrington-directed 1999 original:
“Marvel is used to me trashing them anyway. How’s that PG ‘Blade’ movie going for you, that can’t get a director? [laughs] Because anybody who goes there is going to be laughed at by everyone, because we already did it and made it the best. There’s no Steve Norrington out there.”
Dorff’s comments come as he was at Sundance promoting the sci-fi/horror feature “Divinity”. He plays a mad scientist intent on completing his father’s (Scott Bakula) groundbreaking quest to achieve eternal life. Eddie Alcazar writes and directs while Steven Soderbergh executive produces.
