Brian Cox is no stranger to opening his mouth and speaking. Nor is he a stranger to speaking without considering the many headlines he will generate with his opinion. This is a guy who called The Bible “one of the worst books ever” that only “stupid” people buy, told Pierce Morgan, “woke culture is truly awful,” and said Quentin Tarantino’s work is “style where the should be substance” but “if the phone rang, I’d do it.” Moving his critical eye from the religious awe of Baby Jesus to the maximum effort of Marvel Jesus, Brian Cox also had some thoughts about the state of movies and “the very bad way” film art is in. Cox, who played General Stryker in X2: X-Men United and was likely hurt by Ryan Reynolds not inviting him to Shawn Levy’s gut-reno of Fox’s X-Men universe, believes the superhero world is “beginning to implode.”
Speaking at the Edinburgh International Film Festival yesterday, per The Hollywood Reporter, Cox finally gave his thoughts on superhero movies we’ve longed for him to express. “What’s happened is that television is doing what cinema used to do,” Cox said. He’s right, too. There were too many superhero movies in theaters at one point, and now there are too many on Disney+. However, we think he means that in a 2011 way when shows like Mad Men got people saying, “By George, these shows are better than movies.” Though we presume Mr. Cox feels that way about Falcon And Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, and Secret Invasion, he says, “Cinema is in a very bad place.” Cox blames this on “the grandiose element between Marvel, DC, and all of that,” which, luckily, he continues, is “beginning to implode, actually.”
We know. Deadpool & Wolverine has made more than a billion dollars in three weeks, proving that superhero movies are still popular. But though these movies make “a lot of money,” they are becoming “diluted,” and he thinks it’s low-key making a mockery of the actors in the films. “When you know that Hugh Jackman can do a bit more, Ryan Reynolds… they go down that road and it’s box office. They make a lot of money. You can’t knock it.”
Where’s this all coming from? Why has Brian Cox forsaken his Stryker stans? It’s probably because he doesn’t see enough money from X2. Cox says he “often” forgets that his character created Wolverine, yet the residuals for making the world’s most popular bub-based superhero have dried up. “When those films are on, there’s always a bit of me, and they never pay me any money.” At least this is a step up from his comments about superhero movies last year when he said Bryan Singer was “an extraordinary director—really, really gifted.” If Brian Cox has something to say, he’s going to say it, and we’re all going to listen and let the poison drip through.