Martin Scorsese revealed in Star Wars trailer despite distaste for Disney

A new Mandalorian and Grogu trailer teases the director's latest cameo

Martin Scorsese, haunted for nearly seven years by comments likening Marvel movies to “theme parks,” has found common ground with Guys Who Take Their Popcorn Movies Extremely Seriously by securing a role in the Star Wars universe. As revealed in the new trailer for May’s The Mandalorian and Grogu Go to White Castle, the legendary 83-year-old director pops up briefly as the voice of an Ardennian shopkeep with info on the Hutts. Disney and Lucasfilm confirmed Scorsese’s participation in the film with Polygon, not that I needed it based on how many times I’ve seen Shark Tale.

Scorsese following in the footsteps of New German Cinema stalwart Werner Herzog by cameoing in Star Wars isn’t that notable in and of itself; a great website once rightfully proclaimed that the director was an “underrated actor” thanks to his self-cast roles in Taxi Driver and Killers of the Flower Moon. But Scorsese signing up for a massive Disney production comes with a lot of baggage — maybe, perhaps, we can all move on from his “notorious” comments about superhero movies?

Scorsese ignited debate during his 2019 press tour for The Irishman when he said Marvel movies were “not cinema.” Nuance be damned, the isolated proclamation stuck, and the director of classics like Goodfellas, After Hours, The Last Temptation of Christ, Raging Bull, The Departed, and The Wolf of Wall Street found himself the punching bag of the internet, which regarded him as a snob.

Scorsese has repeatedly clarified that he does not deny the talent involved in blockbuster filmmaking. The directors, actors, designers, and VFX artists working on superhero films are, in his view, skilled professionals doing what they do exceptionally well. The distinction he draws is about intention and risk. Franchise films, he argues, are engineered to satisfy a preexisting audience expectation — to deliver spectacle, continuity, and emotional beats that fit within an established system. That system leaves little room for the uncertainty, vulnerability, and creative danger he associates with art. And just so you know: HE WAS RIGHT TO SAY IT.

In his widely discussed New York Times op-ed that he had to write because people would not shut up, Scorsese sharpened the contrast of his original statement. “Another way of putting it would be that they are everything that the films of Paul Thomas Anderson or Claire Denis or Spike Lee or Ari Aster or Kathryn Bigelow or Wes Anderson are not. When I watch a movie by any of those filmmakers, I know I’m going to see something absolutely new.”

Based on their many conversations over the years, and a friendship that led to a role in The Wolf of Wall Street, I would imagine The Mandalorian and Grogu director Jon Favreau agrees with everything Scorsese has said on the topic of studio franchise-making over the years. Back when Favreau hosted Dinner for Five on IFC, he dedicated an entire 30 minutes just to picking the master’s brain because he regards him as highly as anyone.

For all the anger harbored and cocaine snorted (and the easily recommendable Apple documentary Mr. Scorsese gets into the warts and all of that career), Scorsese doesn’t seem to hold grudges. George Lucas’ 1977 film Star Wars was a damaging inflection point for the movie business that Scorsese wishes we could return to, where art and summer tentpoles could coexist in the same release slate, but in 1990, Lucas would go help Akira Kurosawa get his pricey experimental anthology film Dreams made at Warner Bros, and together they’d cast Scorsese as Vincent Van Gogh. Lucas later donated a heap of cash to fuel Scorsese's NYU film programs and production facilities. None of that happens without the Star Wars machine.

Scorsese has never been as much of a “one for me, one for them” guy like Steven Spielberg, Steven Soderbergh, or other famous Hollywood Stevens, but he understands how you play the game. You direct Dolce & Gabbana ads. You act in Star Wars movies and Super Bowl commercials. You produce docuseries for Fox Nation. Then, with money in your pockets, you go make art with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. There’s no shame if you have morals, ethics, and an artistic code. Everything Scorsese has said about Marvel movies can hold true and he can play a six-limbed space alien who has dirt on Rotta the Hutt.

Buckle up: Scorsese/Star Wars discourse kicks off when The Mandalorian and Grogu opens on May 22.