Seth Rogen says Marvel films are “geared toward kids”

Seth Rogen says that Marvel films are made predominantly for kids.

The Pineapple Express star has skin in the game when it comes to superhero movies, given that his production company helps make Amazon Prime‘s The Boys. Speaking about the genre from which the show comes, Rogen admitted that Marvel and its ilk are “not for me”.

Speaking to Total Film, Rogen was careful to praise the work done around the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), insisting that The Boys wouldn’t exist without it. However, he also stated that the hit streaming show, which is based upon comic of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, owed a lot to Marvel Studios.

“I think that Kevin Feige is a brilliant guy, and I think a lot of the filmmakers he’s hired to make these movies are great filmmakers,” Rogen said. “But as someone who doesn’t have children… It is [all] kind of geared toward kids, you know?”

He added: “There are times where I will forget. I’ll watch one of these things, as an adult with no kids, and be like, ‘Oh, this is just not for me.’”

Indeed, part of the reason why Rogen wanted his production company to help launch a show like The Boys is because he realised that adults didn’t have any comic book films nor shows with a more mature, adult perspective.

“Truthfully, without Marvel, The Boys wouldn’t exist or be interesting. I’m aware of that,” Rogen said. “I think if it was only Marvel [in the marketplace], it would be bad.

“But I think it isn’t – clearly. An example I’m always quoting is, there’s a point in history where a bunch of filmmakers would have been sitting around, being like, ‘Do you think we’ll ever make a movie that’s not a Western again?’ Everything’s a Western!

“Westerns dominate the fucking movies. If it doesn’t have a hat and a gun and a carriage, people aren’t going to go see it anymore.”

He added: “The situation, sadly, is that we now have two separate fields: there’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there’s cinema.”

Rogen said that while there is some “overlap” from time to time, that’s becoming increasingly rare. The actor and writer went on to say that he fears “financial dominance” is being used to “marginalise and even belittle” the existence of cinema and filmmaking as an art form.