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<\/p>\nFrank Grillo played Crossbones, one of the more memorable Marvel movie antagonists who vexed Captain America before being unceremoniously killed off in Captain America: Civil War. These days, he has a beefier role as Rick Flagg, Sr. in the DCU. The character has appeared in Superman, Peacemaker, and even Creature Commandos.<\/p>\n
Recently, Grillo offered surprising insight into why Marvel is failing: major MCU directors the Russo Brothers tended to start shooting movies when the script was incomplete, something that DCU guru James Gunn never does.<\/p>\n
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In an interview with The Morning After Pod, Frank Grillo said that \u201cthe Russo Brothers are, in my eyes, more comfortable directing on scripts that are not totally complete.\u201d He contrasted this directly with James Gunn, who makes sure \u201call the scripts are done in advance.\u201d The result of this is that \u201cyou don\u2019t really need to fudge with it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the interview, Grillo made it clear that he wasn\u2019t slamming the Russos. In fact, he went out of his way to point out that their method of shooting movies from incomplete scripts was \u201cnot uncommon\u201d in Hollywood. However, given that the MCU<\/a> has been declining and that other Marvel directors take their creative cues from the Russos, it\u2019s hard not to imagine a causal connection between Marvel shooting movies whose scripts aren\u2019t finished and those movies subsequently becoming critical and\/or commercial failures.<\/p>\n The Difference Between Improvisation And Movie By Committee<\/strong><\/p>\n At this point, some old-school Marvel<\/a> fans probably want to remind me that the first Iron Man had many great lines improvised by Robert Downey Jr., including the famous final line, \u201cI am Iron Man.\u201d If it\u2019s possible to create a nearly perfect Marvel movie with the star going off-script whenever he comes up with a great line, then what\u2019s so wrong with the Russos or any other MCU directors shooting a movie with an unfinished script? But that leads to one of Grillo\u2019s other main points: that modern Marvel movies are largely made by committee.<\/p>\n When comparing the Russos to James Gunn<\/a>, Grillo said, \u201cIt\u2019s not like James has a committee that he needs to answer to. It\u2019s him and Peter Safran, whereas the Russo brothers have a whole bunch of people.\u201d<\/p>\n In my opinion, that\u2019s why Iron Man was so successful: back before Disney acquired Marvel, it was easy enough for Jon Favreau<\/a> and Robert Downey Jr. to hammer out a great movie (improvised lines and all). They didn\u2019t have to answer to the kinds of out-of-touch committees that now must greenlight everything about the MCU.<\/p>\n Tony Stark: \u201cI am Iron Man.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has too many cooks in the kitchen, and it\u2019s impossible for any singular vision (assuming someone even has a great vision in the first place) to prevail over all the competing voices. The DCU, as Grillo noted, just has James Gunn and Peter Safran working collaboratively to create something special. That doesn\u2019t mean that everything they create will be perfect, of course, but it will have a more cohesive vision than anything coming out of Marvel, which hasn\u2019t had any directors with a singular vision until (ironically enough) James Gunn left.<\/p>\n![\"Tony](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/b0a44bdd3af1e56b25ec6b108987aae9.jpeg\"\/)
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