Although actor Ben Mendelsohn's (ROBIN HOOD) career stretches as far back as 1990's QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER, the Australian didn't really come to prominence until 2010's fantastic ANIMAL KINGDOM. Since then he's made quite the name for himself as a villain with roles like John Daggett (THE DARK KNIGHT RISES), Orson Krennic (ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY), and Nolan Sorrento (READY PLAYER ONE). He's also an avid gamer and comicbook fan. As such Mendelsohn was obviously thrilled to become part of the MCU earlier this year when he starred alongside Brie Larson as Talos, in CAPTAIN MARVEL.
Now whether or not Talos ever shares screentime with the eponymous web-slinger SpIder-Man remains to be seen, however Mendelsohn was thankful the pride of Queens didn't depart the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In fact Mendelsohn never really believed ole Spidey was going to leave the MCU. In a recent interview with the U.K.'s Metro, Mendelsohn had some, shall we say, "choice" words to offer on the topic:
"S*** man. You can’t lose Spider-Man from the Marvel universe. He’s one of their absolute motherf***ing pornstars. Boy, I could name 30 that you could quite comfortably lose before you start thinking about losing Spider-Man. In fact, I cannot think of a single character who’s more important to Marvel than Spider-Man. You’ve got Hulk, you’ve got Thor…none of them are as important as Spider-Man. None of them."
DAMN. So Spider-Man is the Ron Jeremy of the MCU? Alright.
While I've heard people refer to Spider-Man as the rockstar of Marvel, Mendelsohn clearly had a different "star" term in mind. Now that Iron Man and Captain America have both exited the picture in the MCU (at least for now), I tend to agree with Mendelsohn's sentiments. Disney's Marvel Studios is entering Phase IV and while THE ETERNALS and SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS are certainly interesting properties, they're also untested. Who knows if audiences are going to respond? It's important to have an anchor point like Spider-Man.
I have to say I love the fact that Ben Mendelsohn referred to Spider-Man as a "motherf*cking pornstar." If Spider-Man ever decides to start handing out business cards I'd go full Mark Zuckerberg and feature that epithet prominently.
Ben Mendelsohn can currently be seen as King Henry IV in Netflix's THE KING and you can check out Chris Bumbray's review right here. Next up for Mendelsohn will be the animated feature SPIES IN DISGUISE where he – you guessed it – will play the film's technological terrorist villain Tristan McFord. The film releases Christmas Day.