Chadwick Boseman has suggested that Martin Scorsese ”didn’t get” Black Panther because he didn’t feel the mystery that black people felt when watching it for the first time.
Scorsese recently revealed he had “tried” to watch movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but struggled because he feels they are “not cinema” and are lacking in mystery.
“The mystery that Scorsese is talking about is in Black Panther,” he told BBC 5 Live. ”If he saw it, he didn’t get that there was this feeling of not knowing what was going to happen that black people felt. We thought, you know, ‘White people will kill us off, so it’s a possibility that we could be gone.’
Boseman – who also said he has to “respect his opinion” on Marvel films because “he’s a genius at what he does” – continued: “We felt that angst. We felt that thing you would feel from cinema when we watched it. That’s cultural. Maybe it’s generational.”
The actor also said Scorsese might have come forward with his views “to get eyes” on his new film The Irishman.
“You’ve got to think about when he’s saying it,” Boseman, who is promoting 21 Bridges, added. “He’s saying it when he’s possibly campaigning for an award. He’s saying it at a time when he’s making a Netflix movie, so that’s how eyes get on his film, and it’s not going to be in the cinemas – it’s not going to be seen the best way.”
Last week, Scorsese was praised for for writing an opinion piece for the New York Times elaborating on why he compared Marvel films to theme park rides during an interview with Empire magazine.
21 Bridges is out in UK cinemas on 22 November. The Irishman is out now in select cinemas before its Netflix release on 27 November.
