Steven Soderbergh Has No Interest In Directing A Superhero Movie Without Sex Scenes
Another high-profile Academy Award-winning director has decided to give their thoughts on superhero movies, aka the genre that has recently been dominating Hollywood harder than John Candy’s agent in the 80s. But unlike the current reigning champion of superhero hate Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh isn’t here to be a total killjoy in regards to Marvel and DC’s catalog of films. Steven says he’ll likely never direct a superhero, simply because they’re not realistic. He’s got an issue with the flying and the spandex and the lasers shooting out of people’s hands, but specifically – he’s not into it because nobody is fucking.
When I think of most superhero movies, I think of something that people from like, 8 years old, all the way up to 89 years old can enjoy. And when you have an audience that broad, you have to make sure that the material in the movie is acceptable for all. Violence is a-ok, just so long as it’s not too gratuitous, like seeing Captain America’s head get wiped clean off his shoulders. But generally, sex is a no-go. That’s reason number one why Steven Soderberg probably won’t be signing any contracts to direct the next box office billions-maker. Steven says he’s never really approached to direct any superhero movies, and it’s not because he’s a snob about them. He just truly doesn’t understand the world they inhabit. You know, because no one is throwing down in the bedroom. via The Daily Beast:
“It really becomes about what universe you occupy as a storyteller. I’m just too earthbound to really release myself to a universe in which Newtonian physics don’t exist [laughs]. I just have a lack of imagination in that regard, which is why the one foray I had into pure science-fiction [2002’s Solaris] was essentially a character drama that happened to be set on a spaceship. Also, for a lot of these, for me to understand the world and how to write or supervise the writing of the story and the characters – apart from the fact that I can bend time and defy gravity and shoot beams out of my fingers – there’s no fucking. Nobody’s fucking! Like, I don’t know how to tell people how to behave in a world in which that is not a thing.”
Aside from the stark lack of fucking, Steven adds that on a more simple level, he just can’t fathom directing a movie in which he can’t even explain how the characters make money or cash a check.
“The fantasy-spectacle universe, as far as I can tell, typically doesn’t involve a lot of fucking, and also things like – who’s paying these people? Who do they work for? How does this job come to be? If people want to go experience that universe, that’s fine. As a filmmaker, I just don’t know where to start.”
I don’t know many people that would want to get into superhero films for the banal realism. But maybe this is a void Steven Soderberg can fill. We can watch a gritty scene featuring Batman struggling to get an erection with Catwoman, and desperately summoning Alfred to bring him some Cialis. Or bear witness to a down-on-his-luck Superman sitting at a kitchen table under a depressing fluorescent light, realizing that he’s going to have to sell a kidney to pay off his mounting credit card debt from buying so many custom S capes online.
Pic: INSTAR