Ken Loach joins criticism of Marvel films, brands them ‘boring’ and ‘cynical’

The staunchly socialist director Ken Loach has complained about superhero films - AP
The staunchly socialist director Ken Loach has complained about superhero films - AP

British director Ken Loach has become the latest senior figure in the film industry to speak out against Marvel films.

In an interview with Sky News to promote his new film, Sorry We Missed You, the director called them “boring” and “cynical”.

“They’re made as commodities like hamburgers,” Loach said. “It’s not about communicating and it’s not about sharing our imagination.

“It’s about making a commodity which will make a profit for a big corporation… They’re a market exercise and it has nothing to do with the art of cinema.”

Loach joins a number of experienced directors who have recently decried the box-office dominance of multi-part superhero stories.

Martin Scorsese branded them “theme parks” and “not cinema”, while Francis Ford Coppola this week went further, calling them “despicable”.

Sorry We Missed You is about working-class life on zero-hours contracts. It marks the director’s first film since 2016’s I, Daniel Blake, which won plaudits for its depiction of life in Britain under the government’s austerity policies.

Loach went on to brand modern Britain a system of “absolute exploitation”, adding “the government supports it, keeps it in place, keeps the taxes on big business low [and] people in poverty wages.”

Sorry We Missed You will be released on November 1.