Dune director Denis Villenueve opened a can of online worms recently when he blasted the Marvel Cinematic Universe and superhero cinema in general, describing them as “a cut and paste of others” in reference to the in-house style that has admittedly given many of the franchise’s comic book blockbusters an air of visual, narrative and stylistic familiarity.
As you’d imagine, fans were quick to defend Kevin Feige’s blockbuster series at all costs, with Villenueve swiftly added to the list of undesirables among MCU supporters that also includes Hollywood legends Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.
However, during a recent interview with the Happy Sad Confused Podcast‘s Josh Horowitz, the Academy Award nominee admitted that he could relate to Batman on a personal level, so it isn’t as though he turns his nose up at every single aspect of the genre.
“Batman would be probably the only character that I could relate to. From what I read, like Arkham Asylum, a book like that, I got in contact with when I was an adult. It’s for me, the character that I could connect to.”
Having already blasted the MCU for turning viewers into “zombies”, it would be safe to assume that we might never see the acclaimed Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival filmmaker fielding an offer from Marvel Studios. Villenueve has been rumored for the DCEU in the past, though, but he won’t be getting his hands on Batman for a long while yet with Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson’s tenure kicking off next March.