Steven Soderbergh on the MCU

Film  Steven Soderbergh sidesteps a landmine with all the grace you'd expect from him at Variety.  My guess is if MARVEL offered him something, the Richard Lester fan in him would probably take a second look:

There’s an interesting article in the New Yorker that argues that the Marvel Cinematic Universe ate the movie business. Do you agree?

If that’s true, it’s not really relevant to me. The bottom line is people go see what they want to go to see. I’ve got to figure out how to integrate that reality into how I work. I have two choices. I either find something that I love and that has enough in it to potentially attract an audience at a scale that would make the prospect worthwhile to a studio, or I stick to a medium in which those concerns aren’t primary like television or streaming. I’ve got two movie projects that I’m preparing that I’m very excited about that have enough in them to justify coming out theatrically in a normal wide release and not as an arthouse film.

Whenever this question comes up, rather than asking if the MCU has been the death of cinema, the more interesting question would be if the director/actor/whoever would consider making a film if the right project came along. 

Dear god, I'm glad Soderbergh's retirement didn't stick.  He continues to be one of those directors who can make films which say important things and are also great genre pieces.  Hopefully he'll take a crack at the western soon.  

Incidentally The New Yorker piece is more even handed than the title or the interviewer above suggests: its an in-depth history of the studio with plenty nuggets about the Sony deal.  I had no idea that the third Garfield film was going to be a desperate time travel adventure featuring dinosaurs.

Also, there's no point blaming a studio which turns out two-four films a year for "ruining cinema" as though the audience is a sheep like mass.  Hollywood has had its own hand in this by producing so many average films which strain for mass appeal to the extent they don't appeal to anyone.

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