Samuel L. Jackson hits back at Quentin Tarantino’s Marvel criticism 

Lucy-Jo Finnighan
tarantino nick fury samuel l jackson marvel

Quentin Tarantino and his recent comments on the MCU have stirred up some pushback, which now involves Marvel star Samuel L. Jackson.

Cinema has been somewhat at war with itself recently, and a lot of it has to do with Marvel. While the MCU franchise has no doubt been incredibly successful, it also seems like it’s constantly on the defensive.

Recently, director Quentin Tarantino called out the Marvel company, explaining its negative impact on cinema. This obviously sparked some controversy, with MCU fans jumping to defend the franchise on social media.

But this defence also included a star of the franchise, the one and only Nick Fury, aka Samuel L. Jackson, who addressed Tarantino’s criticism of Marvel.

Tarantino calls out Marvel for lacking “movie stars” and Jackson fires back

Recently, acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino – who has already stated that he will never direct a superhero movie – went on the 2 Bears, 1 Cave podcast, calling out “Marvel-ization of Hollywood,” which he claims has ruined recent cinema, though he did state: “My only axe to grind against them is they’re the only things that seem to be made.”

He continued: “You have all these actors who have become famous playing these characters, but they’re not movie stars. Right? Captain America is the star. Or Thor is the star. I mean, I’m not the first person to say that. I think that’s been said a zillion times… but it’s like, you know, it’s these franchise characters that become a star.”

Samuel L. Jackson, who plays the iconic Nick Fury in the MCU, then addressed Tarantino’s comments on yesterday’s episode of The View.

Despite Tarantino and Jackson being frequent collaborators, the latter didn’t agree with the former’s opinion on Marvel movie stars.

Jackson stated: “It takes an actor to be those particular characters, and the sign of movie stardom has always been, what, asses in seats? What are we talking about?

“That’s not a big controversy for me to know that apparently these actors are movie stars. Chadwick Boseman is Black Panther. You can’t refute that, and he’s a movie star.”

And besides that, for Jackson, prestige or stardom has never been an indicator of the roles he chooses. He recently explained to the LA Times: “My yardstick of success is my happiness: Am I satisfied with what I’m doing? I’m not doing statue-chasing movies. You know, ‘if you do this movie, you’ll win an Oscar.’ No thanks. I’d rather be Nick Fury.”