Ethan Hawke insists the Marvel Cinematic Universe is "actor-friendly" rather than appealing to directors.
Ethan Hawke has defended Marvel critics
The 51-year-old actor - who played cult leader Arthur Harrow in the MCU's Disney+ series 'Moon Knight' earlier this year - has defended high profile critics like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, but suggested Marvel boss Kevin Feige "understood the althorithm" to make successful blockbusters.
He told IndieWire: "That group of people [at Marvel] is extremely actor-friendly. They might not be director-friendly, and that could be what Scorsese and Coppola are talking about.
"But they love actors. I think Kevin Feige had a great thing happen with Robert Downey Jr. and he understood that Downey’s passion was a large part of the success.
"When actors are excited by a part, audiences get excited about watching them. Feige understood the algorithm there, so they’re extremely respectful toward the process."
Ethan noted that both he and co-star Oscar Isaac were given plenty of freedom on 'Moon Knight'.
However, he also dismissed the idea of comic book movies as art films, and admitted he "appreciates" the likes of Coppola and Scorsese for pointing out the differences between different kinds of projects.
He explained: "It needs to be somebody in the community saying, ‘Hey, everybody, this is not ‘Fanny and Alexander'.
“If you keep reviewing these movies that are basically made for 14-year-olds like they’re ‘Fanny and Alexander’ or ‘Winter Light,’ then who the hell’s going to get to make ‘Winter Light’?
"I appreciate the elder statesmen of the community reminding people not to set the bar too low. I know it makes some people think they’re stuck up, but they’re not stuck up.”
Scorsese - who has directed the likes of 'Taxi Driver', 'Goodfellas' and 'The Irishman' - previously described Marvel movies as "amusement parks".
He said: "The value of a film that's like a theme park film, for example, the Marvel type pictures where the theaters become amusement parks, that's a different experience.
"As I was saying earlier, it's not cinema, it's something else. Whether you go for that or not, it is something else and we shouldn't be invaded by it.
"And so that's a big issue, and we need the theater owners to step up for that to allow theaters to show films that are narrative films."
Tagged in Martin Scorsese Ethan Hawke Kevin Feige