While it sometimes seems that the world is being dominated by big movie franchises such as Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, Star Wars and the DCEU, these movies have been responsible for a large portion of box office takings over the last decade. There is no denying their popularity is the reason for the growing number of big movie franchises. However, along with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Independence Day director Roland Emmerich isn’t a huge fan of the way these movies have taken over cinema and has gone as far as to say he believes that they have “ruined the film industry.”
His take may seem a little dramatic in the grand scheme of things, but the colossal movies that come along with every one of these franchises, such as Spider-Man: No Way Home and the upcoming The Batman, have changed the way disaster movies like ID4 are received by audiences as there is an expectation of everything being bigger than it was before. During an interview with Den of Geek, Emmerich had this to say:
“Naturally Marvel and DC Comics, and Star Wars, have pretty much taken over. It's ruining our industry a little bit, because nobody does anything original anymore."
While this is not the first time Emmerich has taken a swipe at superhero blockbusters, having previously said that he used to watch Marvel films on long-haul flights to fall asleep, and it seems that much of it comes down to, by his admission, being German-born. He revealed in an earlier interview that superheroes were not a thing in Germany until after he was beyond watching that kind of thing, so he never built the affiliation with them that many other people have.
He once said that he couldn’t understand the concept of superheroes, commenting, “When you look at my movies it's always the regular Joe Schmo that's the unlikely hero. A lot of Marvel movies, they show people in funny suits running around. I don't like people in capes. I find it silly when someone dons a superhero suit and flies. I don't understand it."
Roland Emmerich’s Biggest Disaster Movies Require as Much Suspension of Belief as Any Marvel Movie
Having been responsible for movies such as Independence Day, 1998’s version of Godzilla, and The Day After Tomorrow, as well as his new movie, Moonfall, Roland Emmerich’s movies usually require audiences to suspend their belief at the door as regular people jump from buildings and land perfectly on solid ground without a scratch, avoid monsters and aliens with well-timed ease and survive apocalyptic events through some very far-fetched methods.
In many ways, there is not a lot of difference between Emmerich’s best known films and the franchise movies he doesn’t have much time for – except maybe a brightly colored cape or two of course. In the end, the movie industry is not being ruined by Marvel or DC movies, as one look at the last ten years of Oscar nominations clearly shows that there are a lot of other movies out there for people who don’t want to sit through another bout of Earth-saving shenanigans.
Emmerich’s latest movie, Moonfall, sees a mysterious force knocking the moon out of orbit and onto a collision course with Earth, leaving a select group of two astronauts and a conspiracy theorist to try and prevent the end of the world. You can catch that one in cinemas from February 4th.