Marvel’s Joe Russo Seemed To Tease Martin Scorsese Over His Beloved Films’ Relative Lack Of Box Office Power

Martin Scorsese pictures aren’t always money-gobblers. Sometimes they are. The Wolf of Wall Street, to name one, did more than swimmingly. But usually they attract their biggest audiences over the years, after their theatrical runs, because people genuinely adore them and want to watch them ad infinitum. The legendary filmmaker has a new one out and it’s doing pretty well for a 3 ½ hour epic about a grim subject and with no intermission. But he’s still a scourge of some comic book movie die hards, which may be why one Marvel director decided to treat him to some teasing.

Per Variety, Joe Russo — one half of the Russo brothers, who made some of the MCU’s biggest titles — recently dropped a video on Instagram. It begins with him copying one of Scorsese’s recent popular TikToks, in which he “directs” his pet schnauzer, instructing him to “show me sadness.”

Russo then pops up, holding his own schnauzer. He notes that Scorsese’s is named, appropriately enough, Oscar. (Though he’s somehow only won one, for directing The Departed.) He then jokes that his dog is named “Box Office.”

It seems like Russo’s just joshing. He even tagged Scorsese, which presumably he have done had he really wanted to rub it in his face that his movies have never made Avengers: Endgame money.

Still, Russo’s video did not sit well with some of Scorsese’s fanbase.

— cinesthetic. (@TheCinesthetic) October 29, 2023

Joe Russo holding a wine glass wrong pic.twitter.com/En1cb2fHvS

— Michael Mann Facts (@MannFacts) October 30, 2023

Scorsese used his clout to cash his biggest check and make a jeremiad work on America’s founding sin and the bottomless pit of human sin.

Joe Russo used his success to frame a shot from inside Tom Holland’s anus pic.twitter.com/HPv9RbgI0W

— Adam Piron (@adam_piron) October 29, 2023

Most people don't know who Joe Russo is even now… https://t.co/q4exNEYYMy

— DepressedBergman (@DannyDrinksWine) October 30, 2023

Let's be honest. Joe Russo is the only director on the top-ten highest-grossing film list who most folks have to Google to figure out who the fuck he is. pic.twitter.com/AB6JaxwmeB

— H. Perry Horton (@hperryhorton) October 29, 2023

Some thoughts on the Joe Russo tiktok: pic.twitter.com/gbROkDH8Vl

— Adrian Manuel (@yoayyydrian) October 29, 2023

Scorsese may be the director of some of the most enduring motion pictures of the last six decades, but to some he’s the guy who called comic book movies “not cinema.” After that enraged that fanbase, he doubled down, arguing, in part, that they’ve caused what was once a diverse medium to become narrow in focus — in short, making it harder for people, like him, who don’t make comic book movies to make movies.

The Russos are among the many comic book movie directors who seemed hurt that one of the greats wasn’t happy about the kinds of films they make.

“But, at the end of the day, what do we know” Joe joked in 2019. “We’re just two guys from Cleveland, Ohio, and ‘cinema’ is a New York word. In Cleveland, we call them movies.”

Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is now in theaters.