Joe Russo Says Harvey Weinstein’s Campaign Playbook “Vilified Mainstream Movies To Champion The Art Films” He Pushed For Academy Recognition

deadline.com:

Joe Russo, one-half of the sibling powerhouse producing/directing team known as the Russo Brothers, posited that today’s blockbuster versus indie discourse is in large part to Harvey Weinstein‘s Oscars campaign playbook.

In a new interview with the U.K.’s The Sunday Times, Russo lamented that popular films’ success at the box office and disproportional losses at the Academy Awards is due to a trend started by the disgraced mogul. “This trend was started by Harvey Weinstein,” he said. “He vilified mainstream movies to champion the art films he pushed for Oscar campaigns.

Popular films were winning Oscars before the mid-Nineties, then Weinstein started mudslinging campaigns … It affected how audiences view the Oscars, because they’ve not seen most of the movies.

We’re in a complicated place. Things we should all enjoying collectively we instead punch each other in the face over.” The Avengers: Endgame co-director added, “Like this argument that Marvel movies were killing cinema.