So … I’m going to say if you were hoping that Martin Scorsese was going to direct a Foolkiller film, or the Russo brothers were going to remake Taxi Driver, you should probably give up that dream right here and now.
That’s because the ongoing jabs between Scorsese and Marvel somehow continue to linger and fester. Scorsese has made no secret of his disinterest in Marvel movies in general — and, beyond that, has publicly (and recently!) stated that movie lovers need to “save cinema” from epic mega-franchise filmmaking. The Russos, of course, spent years at the forefront of one of those mega-franchises, having directed two Captain America movies and two Avengers movies, including Avengers: Endgame, which went on to become one of the highest-grossing films in the history of motion pictures.
And that is the none-too-subtle subject of Joe Russo’s response to Scorsese’s occasional dissing of Marvel in the press. Russo made a video that piggybacks off of one of Scorsese’s own viral clips, made to help promote his latest film, Killers of the Flower Moon, in which Scorsese “directs” a dog named Oscar. (Get it? Oscar?) In Russo’s version, after Scorsese and Oscar appear, the Endgame co-director says “I love schnauzers, they’re really cute. And his name is Oscar, that’s really cute.”
Then the camera zooms out to reveal Russo holding his own schnauzer, which is (at least for the purposes of this video) named “Box Office.”
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The only way to read the video is as a jab at Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon’s box office grosses, which are solid ($84 million worldwide and counting), but not in anywhere near the same league as Avengers: Endgame (which earned $2.79 billion in theaters in 2019). In fact, Scorsese has never produced a hit anywhere near that level; his highest grossing film ever was The Wolf of Wall Street, which earned $389 million worldwide.
Something tells me, though, that Scorsese is not too devastated by that fact. (It may be worth noting too that nothing the Russos have directed outside of Marvel has ever grossed anything near Scorsese’s biggest hits; their biggest non-Marvel hit was You, Me and Dupree, which earned $130 million worldwide.) But Russo is obviously proud of his accomplishments with Marvel, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. I don’t know that I personally would have made this video. (In fact, I know I would not have!) I don’t know what exactly the endgame is here. (Sorry.) But to each his own.
Killers of the Flower Moon is now playing in theaters everywhere. Avengers: Endgame is currently streaming on Disney+.
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