Steve McQueen says he isn't interested in making Disney movies

• Steve McQueen gave a talk to a packed auditorium at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
• McQueen said his movies always involve serious themes because he doesn't "make Disney."
• The director joked that all of the Avengers would die in his version of the superhero movie.

Steve McQueen gave a talk Cannes Film Festival where the Oscar-winning director said he would never make a Disney movie.

McQueen, who won the Golden Camera for "Hunger" at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, was asked about the serious topics he explores in his movies by the Cannes interviewer, all of which involve struggle in some form or another.

The director explained that his movies revolve around the theme of struggle because it's "a search for liberty" and a search for understanding of the world. But clarified that to do this you have to look at the difficulties in life and "not be blinkered."

"Open your eyes and look at it. Sometimes it's ugly. It ain't particularly pleasant, but we have to look at it in order for us to understand it and go forward. That's how it is," McQueen said.

McQueen's movies have all followed a struggle of some kind, whether it is a prison hunger strike in 2008's "Hunger," a sex addiction in 2011's "Shame," a Black man being abducted and sold into slavery in 2013's best picture winning "12 Years a Slave," or a crew of women taking matters into their own hands to solve the debts their criminal husbands left them in 2018's "Widows."

"I don't make Disney," McQueen said. "That's it. I'm not interested. Because it's one of those things where it's how the world is rather than how people want the world to be."

McQueen, whose movie "Lovers Rock" screened on the Cannes beachfront on Thursday night, continued: "That's the difference beween filmmakers and movie makers. Or content and art. You decide."

This one was of the many times the audience erupted into whoops, cheers, and applause. The interviewer joked that he'd love to see what McQueen's version of "The Avengers" looked like, to which McQueen quipped: "They'd all die."

Naturally, more cheers followed.