Jamie Lee Curtis is a cinematic icon and we will treat her as such. Over the years, she has given us everything from Halloween and Perfect to Freaky Friday, as well as that stint as Jess’s hippie mom in New Girl. Sure, she might have earned an Academy Award for Everything Everywhere All At Once that should’ve gone to Stephanie Hsu instead, but she made amends for that by crashing a car into a living room in the second season of The Bear. So if she says that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is bad, well then she’s fucking right and doesn’t have to apologize for that.
Such was the case at San Diego Comic-Con where Curtis, who was there promoting the upcoming Borderlands movie, was asked what phase the MCU was in in a set of rapid-fire questions. Without skipping a beat, and likely due to the fact that she was literally representing a property that deals in mean jokes, Curtis simply responded, “Bad.”
It was a funny bit, getting a laugh out of the rest of the folks on the segment as well as the interviewer, Josh Horowitz, who’s plenty friendly with MCU actors. Unfortunately, it seems like the fans of MCU, who have ironically also been the franchise’s biggest haters for the last few phases, kicked up a storm about Curtis’ comment, prompting her to take it back. Taking to her own X (formerly Twitter) account, she issued the following statement earlier today:
“My comments about Marvel were stupid and I will do better. I’ve reached out to Kevin Feige and will no longer play in that mud slinging sandbox of competition we call the internet nor will I engage in the toilet paper promotion or game play that is designed for clicks not content or conversation.”
Jamie, my scream queen, I personally think you could’ve done more mudslinging. You aren’t wrong! By most metrics, including box office numbers, critical ratings, and fan perception, the MCU’s time in the Multiverse Saga has been a certified stinker! It’s actually been so demonstrably bad that Marvel is now shelling out hundreds of millions to bring back two directors and a single beloved actor after two phases full of clunkers, box-office bombs, and abusive lead actors.
Once upon a time, these films did have some promise. At the very least, these blockbusters were self-assured and bonafide hits that delivered big action and enough laughs to merit repeated viewings. Over the years though, they’ve been reduced to empty calorie experiences and homework that suggests you can only appreciate one movie by watching and studying the two tie-in shows that premiered a year prior. Siddhant Adlakha, one of my favorite movie critics in the biz right now, called Marvel’s latest film, the self-referential satire Deadpool & Wolverine “filmmaking by inference,” and that’s felt like the MCU’s default mode for a long time now.
At the end of the day, all Curtis said is exactly the same shit people have been saying in conversations I’ve had about the MCU for years now. The tendency to obsess over the MCU, glorify it, and try to shield it from any criticism or detracting thought about it is weird. Stop being so goddamn weird about movies with people doing stunts in tights, I beg of you.