Oliver Stone slams 'John Wick' franchise, compares it to 'video game': 'Disgusting beyond belief'
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Veteran filmmaker Oliver Stone has criticized movie franchises such as 'Marvel', 'John Wick', and 'Fast & Furious' as he talked about the current state of cinema. While talking about 'John Wick 4' as an example, the ‘Natural Born Killers’ director in his latest interview said, “Talk about volume. I think the film is disgusting beyond belief. Disgusting."
The 76-year-old director further stated, “I don’t know what people are thinking,” pointing toward Hollywood producers and filmmakers. “Maybe I was watching 'G.I. Joe' when I was a kid. But [Reeves] kills, what, three, four hundred people in the f*****g movie. And as a combat veteran, I gotta tell you, not one of them is believable. I realize it’s a movie, but it’s become a video game more than a movie," said Stone.
'It’s not believable'
Stone also gave the example of the ‘Fast & Furious’ series and said, “[The movies have] lost touch with reality. The audience perhaps likes the video game. But I get bored with it. How many cars can crash? How many stunts can you do? What’s the difference between Fast and Furious and some other films?". "It’s just one thing after another. Whether it’s a super-human Marvel character or just a human being like John Wick, it doesn’t make any difference. It’s not believable," said Stone, as reported by Variety.
Stone was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Transilvania Film Festival in Romania a few weeks back, “People in showbiz are idiots. They just go with the trend, they just go with the fashion — it’s a fashion business," said Stone while talking about the Tinseltown.
In 2020, the Oscar-winner said during his appearance at SiriusXM’s 'Jim Norton & Sam Roberts', “If I made any of my films [today], I don’t think I’d last. I’d be vilified. I’d be attacked. Shamed. I would have had to step on so many sensitivities. You have to have some freedom to make a movie, unfortunately,"
'That’s not cinema'
Stone further added , "You have to be rude. You can be bad. And you’re going to have to do these things like step on toes. Holy cow. Do you think I could have made any one of those films?”
Another veteran filmmaker Martin Scorsese also slammed Marvel movies, "That’s not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well-made as they are with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”