Stephen Dorff attends the premiere of his movie “Divinity” on Jan. 21 at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. (Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
Stephen Dorff is not a fan of most movies these days, and he has a particular beef with a certain type: those built around superheroes.
“If comic-book movies were more like when I started when we made Blade, or the few that have been decent over the years, like when [director Christopher] Nolan did The Dark Knight and reinvented Batman from Tim Burton, who’s obviously a genius … when they were interesting, like when [director Stephen] Norrington did Blade, and [director[ Guillermo [del Toro] was f***ing around in it. But all this other garbage is just embarrassing, you know what I mean?” Dorff told the Daily Beast in a story published Wednesday. “I mean, God bless them, they’re making a bunch of money, but their movies suck. 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.”
Black Adam, based on a DC Comics character and starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, underperformed at the box office when it was released in October. Critics derided it, too, and it has a 39% rotten score, based on almost 300 reviews, on Rotten Tomatoes.
Dorff also criticized Marvel’s remake of Blade, starring Oscar winner Mahershala Ali and slated for a September 2024 release. Dorff said it won’t be better than the 1998 version in which he faced off against Wesley Snipes. That movie was directed by Stephen Norrington, who last helmed another tale adapted from comics, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
“Marvel is used to me trashing them anyway. How’s that PG Blade movie going for you, that can’t get a director?” he said before laughing. “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.”
Wesley Snipes and Stephen Dorff star in “Blade” in 1998. (Photo: Everett Collection)
Entertainment Weekly reported in November that Yann Demange (Lovecraft Country) would direct Ali in the new Blade.
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Dorff was at Sundance to promote his latest project, Divinity, a thriller co-starring Bella Thorne and Scott Bakula, that’s directed by Eddie Alcazar. Dorff plays a character that he described as “an Elon Musk with Asperger’s.”
“I think Divinity should be bought by the majors, and if the majors were smart — if DC or any of these companies were doing cool things — they would look for the next Eddie Alcazar, because that’s the future,” he said. “Not making Black Adam and worthless garbage over and over again.”
In July 2021, the actor memorably said that he was “embarrassed” for Scarlett Johansson ahead of the release of her big-budget solo Marvel movie, Black Widow, in 2021.
Dorff’s acting credits date back to the ’80s, on TV shows such as The New Leave It to Beaver, Diff’rent Strokes and Family Ties, and include movies like Cecil B. Demented, Public Enemies and Somewhere. He said he would do mainstream movies all the time if they were any good.
“I mean, mainstream movies — the few movies that are coming out in theaters that are doing well, like [sequels to] Avatar and Top Gun — I don’t even know what it all is. It’s all stupid to me,” he said. “I think film festivals are, in a way, kind of silly, with the exception of, it brings filmmakers and people together and gets an audience to see your movie and you can launch it and sell it there. But in general, most of the movies are selling to streamers anyway, so it’s not really about cinema.”
He described the films of 2022 as “horrific,” and that being an actor is tougher today because the filmmakers are less interesting.
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