During the year 2022, the cinema-going audience first realized that the superhero movie genre might be hitting a stall in success and individual non-superhero films were taking the lead at the box office. Among these films, there was the visual spectacle of James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, which has surpassed every major superhero film in the year 2022, even after releasing towards the end of the year, now sitting with a whopping $2 Billion box office collection!
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And the credit for this success goes to its creator James Cameron, who brought out all the resources at his disposal, bringing cinema technologies that were never used in a major film before. But all these praises might just be a bane in disguise for Martin Scorsese, who has repeatedly shown his disapproval of the MCU’s way of cinema creations. But what he may not realize is that the newly-formed Avatar Franchise might be a bigger threat to his vision.
Martin Scorsese Should Be More Concerned About The Avatar Franchise!
After the creation of the MCU, the start of the cinematic universe with 2008’s Iron Man was the beginning of the construction of something that would become larger than life itself. And after a decade and a half, the MCU became the dominant force of cinema that we know today. But along with its admirers, some were also concerned with the changes in the definition of cinema that the juggernaut would influence with its large box office collections and visual spectacles, most notable of them all, was legendary director Martin Scorsese.
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In the past as well as the present, the Wolf of Wall Street director has pointed out several times that the way the MCU has been changing the landscape of cinemas is destroying the integrity of what filmmaking actually stood for, which was focused on deep physiological and emotional collection of stories that would resonate with the audience on the deepest of levels. But after the MCU’s influence, studios are now focusing more on high-budget visual spectacles rather than bringing that connection to life.
But what Scorsese might not have realized is that in this regard, James Cameron’s Avatar Franchise might be more harmful to his idea of cinema. The Avatar Franchise has all the gripes from the MCU that Scorsese has pointed out that makes these movies a ‘Theme Park Ride.” Adding to the excessive use of CGI and world design is even more apparent in these films, where Cameron himself has admitted that he keeps his character designs simplistically to let the audience enjoy the visual spectacle of the world that he has created rather than the character development with the audience.
Also, Scorsese pointed out that high-budget films of the MCU also tarnish the reputations of creators who get the leftover budgets from the studios’ expensive spectacle films to make the most of the resources with physiological and emotional connections. But even Cameron’s masterpiece cost more than some of the superhero movies put out by Marvel Studios, which makes them a threat to Scorsese’s cinema even more.
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Why The MCU Is Much Less Harmful Than The Avatar Franchise?
Although both these franchises have similarities, there is one key difference between the two, which relates to the emotional connection of the audience to the characters. The MCU has been constantly building from the ground up, slowly exploring individual characters of the MCU with solo films, which helped fans create an emotional bond with these characters. But Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water has been about everyone as a whole without that individual nuance that the MCU has perfected.
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Also coming back to Cameron’s admission of making the movie a visual spectacle on purpose also partly applies to the MCU, where the narration of the character is prioritized before the epic conclusion that is the visual spectacle.
Thus, we think that The Irishman director also needs to give attention to the Avatar Franchise from now on.
Avatar: The Way of Water, now in cinemas
Source: MovieWeb
