Captain America: Brave New World Star Praises the MCU for ‘Keeping Cinema Alive’ – IGN

Tim Blake Nelson has made it clear he doesn’t agree with those who “attack” the Marvel Cinematic Universe because, in his opinion, Marvel is “keeping cinema alive.”

Nelson, who is reprising his Incredible Hulk role as Samuel Sterns, AKA The Leader, in Captain America: Brave New World, touched on Marvel’s importance to the industry while speaking to TheWrap at San Diego Comic-Con 2024. He also shared his stance on the long-standing debate over the cinematic value of superhero movies.

“Marvel has become this phenomenon that’s unprecedented in the history of cinema,” Nelson explained. “These scores of movies with characters moving in and out of one another’s storylines, coming together, going back apart, fighting against one another in a single universe: it’s never happened before in movies. When people attack these movies as, ‘Well, it’s not real cinema’ or, ‘It’s the death of cinema,’ I actually think it’s keeping cinema alive, and I really mean that.”

The debate surrounding the MCU ignited in 2019 when director Martin Scorcese shared his opinion that Marvel movies are “not cinema,” prompting several Hollywood icons to jump to the franchise’s defence, including James Gunn, Samuel L. Jackson, Natalie Portman, Taika Waititi, Kevin Feige, Bob Iger, and many more.

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