It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppola have been in the headlines of late because of their opinions that the Marvel Cinematic Universe films are theme parks and despicable, respectively. Now Roland Emmerich, visionary behind disaster movies such as 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow, has jumped on the critical bandwagon, but he is taking a different tack. His commentary is concerned with the “biggest crisis in history,” not the tired old “film is art; movies are trash” debate.
In an interview with Variety, Emmerich detailed how his movies represent “warning shots” with regard to climate change, noting that many in Hollywood are unwilling to risk alienating their audiences with downbeat endings and harsh realities.
It’s a little bit of what I hate about Hollywood so much right now,” he says. “They could very easily, in one of the Marvel movies, create a situation which (sic) is clearly a climate crisis. But they don’t.
The interview was part of a special issue of the magazine examining how show business is dealing with the ecological issues facing mankind. With regard to the MCU specifially, Emmerich had this to say:
They could very easily, in one of the Marvel movies, create a situation which is clearly a climate crisis. But they don’t.”
Emmerich’s next disaster project (if you don’t count his WWI epic, Midway) will involve a different, hopefully less likely type of climate disaster. In Moonfall, the moon is struck by an asteroid and is sent on a collision course with Earth. Talk about a carbon footprint.
Related Content