In discussions about the work of Christopher Nolan, you will often find a lot of people rushing to praise The Prestige as one of the director's finest achievements. The elaborate tale of warring magicians might not have been as financially successful as some of Nolan's other films, but its reputation has only increased over the years since release.

Christopher Priest is the author of the novel Nolan based his film on. In an interview with Skript posted on YouTube, the writer says he took a risk on Nolan to direct the film over some more established directors (he names Sam Mendes specifically). And he was very happy with the results, also praising Nolan's Memento.

However, Mr Priest is not so positive about the more recent developments in Nolan's career - particularly his Dark Knight films.

In the interview, he explains, "I don't like his other work. I think it's shallow and badly written. I mean, I've got kids who like superheroes, and they think the Batman films are boring and pretentious. They like things like The Avengers and Iron Man because they're fun.

"It's a wrong move to take a superhero and give it psychological realism... he's a bodybuilder who jumps off buildings. I'm sorry I feel really strongly about this," he adds.

Priest says he believes Nolan is trying to be a 'modern Kubrick', but should aim to be a modern Alfred Hitchcock instead. "These blockbusters are just embarrassing, I think," he adds.

He does point out that he has not seen Interstellar yet - although the many comparisons that have been made between that and Kubrick's 2001 suggest it may not be the film to win over Priest.

You can watch the interview below, in which he has plenty of kind words about Nolan's earlier work alongside his criticisms of the more recent efforts: