Stephen Dorff is no stranger to railing against Marvel. The actor went viral in 2021 after telling The Independent that “Black Widow” looks “like garbage” and that he was “embarrassed” for its leading star, Scarlett Johansson. Now Dorff is back with a fresh Marvel tirade courtesy of The Daily Beast. The actor, who flexed his comic book movie chops opposite Wesley Snipes in 1998’s “Blade,” said he’d only want to star in contemporary comic book films if they “were more like when I started when we made ‘Blade,’ or the few that have been decent over the years, like when Nolan did ‘The Dark Knight’ and reinvented Batman from Tim Burton.”
“All this other garbage is just embarrassing, you know what I mean?” Dorff continued. “I mean, God bless them, they’re making a bunch of money, but their movies suck [laughs]. And nobody’s going to remember them. Nobody’s remembering ‘Black Adam’ at the end of the day. I didn’t even see that movie, it looked so bad.”
According to Dorff, the future of cinema rests in upcoming new talents like director Eddie Alcazar (who helmed the Sundance entry “Divinity,” which stars Dorff) and not in “making ‘Black Adam’ and worthless garbage over and over again.”
Marvel is currently developing a new take on Blade for its Marvel Cinematic Universe, but not all has gone according to plan. Mahershala Ali is attached to the role, but original director Bassam Tariq exited the film two months before the intended production start date. Yann Demange is currently set to direct the MCU’s “Blade” movie. Dorff said there’s no chance the MCU bests the 1999 original, which was directed by Steve Norrington.
“Marvel is used to me trashing them anyway,” Dorff said. “How’s that PG ‘Blade’ movie going for you, that can’t get a director? [laughs] Because anybody who goes there is going to be laughed at by everyone, because we already did it and made it the best. There’s no Steve Norrington out there.”
Earlier in the interview, Dorff said he’d “do mainstream movies all the time if they were good.” The actor added, “If the one or two a year that happen don’t, for whatever reason, cast me in a role, I’m not going to lose sleep over it because I wasn’t one of 50 people in ‘Oppenheimer.’ I mean, it looks cool, but to me, unless you’re playing Oppenheimer, I don’t want to be in that movie [laughs]. Unless it’s my friend’s movie, and then I’ll do a scene or pop up.”
Head over to The Daily Beast’s website to read Dorff’s interview in its entirety.