“Oh yes,” Emmerich told Den of Geek when asked if the disaster genre has changed in recent years. “Because naturally, Marvel and DC Comics and Star Wars have pretty much taken over. It’s ruining our industry a little bit, because nobody does anything original anymore.”

Emmerich later added, “You should make bold new movies, you know? And I think, actually, Christopher Nolan is the master of that. He is someone who can make movies about whatever he wants. I have it a little bit harder, but I still have a big enough name — especially when it’s a disaster [movie] or has some sort of disaster theme.”

While Emmerich dabbled in franchises with his 2016 sequel “Independence Day: Resurgence,” he later went on record saying he regretted making the critical and commercial flop. The director noted that losing original “Independence Day” star Will Smith to “Suicide Squad” made “Resurgence” just another run-of-the-mill, unoriginal Hollywood sequel.

“I should have stopped making the movie because we had a much better script, then I had to, really fast, cobble another script together,” Emmerich told Yahoo. “I should have just said no because all of a sudden I was making something I criticized myself: a sequel.”

I admire the self awareness.

Also, I know we hear this from a lot of directors, but I think it is true to an extent. Just… Differently.

Marvel films aren’t ruining the film industry because they’re “rollar coasters,” they’re ruining it because they’re maximizing their profit and thus changing the expectations for a successful film. Nowadays, everything’s a flop if it doesn’t make X amount of money at the box office.

Of course, there are exceptions to this, but anything coming out of a big studio is now expected to make far more than it would have otherwise.