The Failure of Franchise Building

Jack with gribing and David. B Jack with gribling and Dobin D't know what to say or two exs. All you need to now is that the show is bad When I saw you I believed it was a sign. that something new can come into this podcast That was my bad defafoe, Tarz Tarkis Hmm. That was the big line they used in the trailer to sort of hint at the mystery of the film. Now I was saying before, I think this movie famously didn't have a tagline and we'll spend roughly half an hour on this movie's disastrous marketing campaign, Kind of as big a legacy as the film itself But it did in fact have a tagline and it's quite poor I would say What is the tag line? Let me guess from Mars. No I don't Lost in our world, found in another. And then of course the title is John Carter, so Mars is nowhere on the poster. Oh, you have to watch the movie to find out what world he was found in. And the poster is just bright red That was their big move This wasn't the one that had the JCM. That was the teaser poster. Okay. I wan to say that was even maybe before the. title had been changed, but that was B JCM, black and white John Carter arrived. That was the tagline. Th telling you. John Carter's coming P No the classic poster classic of course, the al re Right was this very red, very re. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of a cool image, I guess. Sad. you know It's every Mars movie did this. Yeah. And this movie is post the Mars Craze. I like to think about the Mars Craze. Sure because I recently watched Species two. And I forgot that Species two is the first Mars movie of this wave Well because it was right after they'd found the meteor on Mars with or the se on Mars well, what? What do he I was going say I think some credits's a total recall, which was a secret Mars movie. I was talking about Mars. No. no, that doesn't count. That dis ask to Mars. It doesnn't count. There are pre Mars craz Mars movies. Yeah. There's a few. There's the one bought the DVD four and keeping you to watch where Seaan Conry's like a cop on Mars called I think Oland. just Oland. Outland. Okay. There's totally. But there's it's like species two mission to Mars, Red Planet. Y, There's a fourth one. Like there's a bunch of them all together for like two years. Mission to Mars and Red Planet were a true deep impact on Darrmagen a deep impact. Y. Right. And then they ended up moving a little furtherpart and dates because they were they were competition eventually a Europe But they were made simultaneously. It was like which of the Mars movies is going to work through a total recall just because I think people kept pointing to that as Look, there was a successful Mars movie. because they kept bombing and they kept doing it. No,'s the different. It's about humans going to Mars. Tott recall we live on Mars So We got his ask to Mars? We've colonized. Yeah. like yes. Oh, ghosts of Mars. Oh of course. Th those are the four. No And it's all just like, how do we crack Mars? And there are zero of them crack Mars. Mission of Mars ghosts this time. Mission of Mars I defend and has very cool stuff. Shoot other three they'll all do badly,ight. And the other three. Species two is basically like they go to Mars What happens to the guys who went to Mars. they get species. seexy horny alien stuff like is inside them now. U o. Yes, you know. And all of us, ultimately. It is probably only all of us. But even species two, species one poster is green. spepecies two, how do we change it? Red red. It is There a subtitle for for spe you no, right? There was no subtitle, but of course could tell you the tagline Please mating season begins really good bad. Really really I think the Johnardagline by a wide margin. Now, if that had been the Ch John Gart attagackline that might not have worked I'm going to make my third attempt at this joke It's funny to consider that in the year two thousand, Disney Waltisney Pictures Walty probably looked at the box office receipts for Mission of Mars and went, Well, look, this the good news is This is the least successful Mars movie Disney will ever release We will never lose more money on a Mars movie than this. it's all upwards U That film was seen as a disaster Absolutely, it was seen as a disaster. And then Mars Nes mom was like hold God my beer. I didn't even remember Mars I this movie. And then Sehn Carter was like, donon't worry buddy, I got you. Now in Mars Ne Moms, which I have not seen. Mars Ns M Mars needs've never seen it. Isn't that largely set in like an attic or whatever? It's like, they've come to Earth in search of our moms. Yeah. R Is there a lot of Mars action in it, I wonder. I have not seen it either Thead in my memory The was not red. Right. They're aliens. There's bl. Yes. It was very Anly. It was blue, although. the title is red. Okay. The words are red to if your movie has the word Mars in the title, the title has to be read. That is a rule. Right. That was a big a law of Hollywood. Fuck up on their part. But then the final John Carter poster after everyone complained about the marketing was this. goes along blue blue and yellow violated the rule that alien him riding on creature vots He's on a that. Fark's on thats. flanking John Carter. This movie is You like silly words, man. I know. it's in that kind of you know lady in the water territory like every five minutes throw a new made up word at these guys. I feel like this is a thing that unites the three of us is that's always kind of catnip for us. Even when the movie doesn't work It is very endearing when a movie throws a bunch of silly words at you. Yeah. R I often do respond to movies that are like since time immemorial, like Glg has fought the Kingdom of in And I'm just like, yes, of course they have. Yes, those two mightighty kingdoms like you moved Blark. That was one of their mistakes on this one. They cut him out of the movie. I know they were saving him for the sequel that never happened. I know it's all from books and I know we'll talk about that. and I know these books have a cultural legacy and all that, but it is funny like how many times someone's like Bar soon Like assuming the audience could be Yes Bar She had it. It's wild.'' all fake words, but then they'll once in a while they'll be like a normal word, like helium. Right. It's like we have two cities, Zodanga. and he helium. They really should have changed helium because it's so confusing when they keep. You have to save helium. The gas call that. It's But we are running out of helelium. We are. Okay, well, let's go get some. moovie was ahead of its time when you think about it. David is absolutely right. Let's go get some.ere Let's go get some Where's it hiding? I got bad news fromam. It's on Barum. All right. Well then let's get a medallion. thing. What are the dragonfly shhips called know what anything is called. This is the two prong problem. The movie is too confident that the audience is excited to finally see and hear all this stuff on screen. that it thinks the built in audience is a lot larger than it is. I do think it thinks that. Secondly, this is like One of the first major sci fi adventure novels, space, you know opera kind of things in American fiction. All of these names, the bar was really low Right backack then, just calling somebody Baru would' be like, well, I've never seen a word like this before how origin? That word's crazy. And then there's like a century of people being like, what if we made things sound cool? Yeah Baru. It Bums okay. Itums okay. Some of the other ones I don't love. like Zid danga. that's a little, you know, it's got dang in it. It's That's true. I think Turus Tarkus is a great name. Taars Tarkus is a good name. I agree. That's the best name Yeah What's that Tark is Willem Defe. That's Will Defoe Okay, Tars Tarkas. As you were saying, like movie that just starts with a bunch of stuff, right? I couldn't figure out a good place to put podcast in on this, but the opening voiceover of this movie being loveo it. Mars. So you name it and think that you know it The red planet, no air, no life, but you do not know Mars for its true name is soon.ike That is the kind of thing that does. you're right. Like could on you're rubbing your hands together. Andore. It is not airless, nor is it dead. but it is dying Intriguing. Okay. There is But the life's at risk. I like that. Then he says Zodanga twice in one sentence. He does and And then you're going, wait a minute, what city of Zodanga saw to that Now to kick your episode off. Let's cheers. Of course, a bit that's been really consistent since I established at the beginning of this year The Great Coffee questest of twenty twenty six. Jus where I bought different movie themed coffes the out to see if there's one that's worthy of being served to our guests And usually we try to test these on ourselves before we bring them to guess. But today's guess, we promised him. Yes. When I was in a separate group text, planning this coffee quest. I said I'm only coming If I can get a big a big hunkking cup of what is it? Spidey' weblinger Fpider Man's Web sllinger is the name of the coffee, I believe It's not just named. It has a special flavor though. It does Okay, Sh we all take a sip Yes. Yeah. Cheers. I don't like it. You don't like it. I don't hate it. It didn't It' like as strong as it smells. It does. Yeah the smell, the aroma aroma' big. The aroma iss pretty. So what the no What's the note here? What am I missing? Marshmallows Marshmallow treat. Marshmallow treat. Like becausecause it's guessing something sweet, like chocolate or whatever, but I got it right. Yes. It is from Bones Coffee Company Web sllinger crrispy marshmallow treat flavored coffee. It's a great looking bag. It's a great bag Excellent bag, good packaging. I'd say Spider Man's a good guy One of onene of my favorite guys. He's one ofast. Yes. onene of your good friends. Yes. As far as the flavor profile. How is this representative of spider Mitts? It' great Marshmallow and marshmallow treats look like webs. Sticky marshmallow Webs. I guess you're right. There's a walk. Stick or sticky is what we're going with. It's sticky It's a short swing to sticky. Yes. Okay. It's not the worst coffee I've ever had. It's not isn't as bad as I feared when we smelled it. Will we serve it to anyone else?? No no, I'm sure you won't No. I would not serve this. Beuse I'm gonna drink all of it.. Yeah. Exactly. You're taking it home. You're just gonna eat the ground. Yeah. You're not even gonna pour water over. This is, of course because our guests today returned to the show, wrote the book on Spidererm Man Pper title? A book on Spiderman. Marvels Spideran, Colon from ammazing to Sctacular Extra Colon, the defefinitive Cic art collollection. Hell yes A book on Sis andever opposable thumbs That's right? Colin How Sisk and Niber changed movies forever. Gott to have colonss in your books. And of course, the way they changed movies forever is that they influenceced Ben Hosley to recommend that we call this podcast Gryiffil and Simsburg. Yes, right I knew that story. Long ago. And the upcoming book Yes copy on thek Yes. have. Uncorrected proof correct. It's an uncorrected proof. I've already corrected things that are in this version Funny business. That's right. The subtitle is The old school wedding crashers and knocked up virgins who change comedy forever. and the book of coursese is about failed sci fi franchise of the twenty. That's right. That's right I don't know if we want to get into this now, but while we're talking about this book canan I I'm gonna to hand it to you? Yes. The greatreat Matt singer. Hi Matt singer, welcome. Thank you. Now if you look in the back of the book there is a bookmark There's a there's a posted. I want you to look what's right above the posted in the foot notes Wow Footnote number fifty eight, quote in any minute, Griffin Newman and David Sims hosts Blank cheheck with Griffin and David Podcast. Big Lebowski with Seth Rogan. a quoted source because wre my book was dropping bom. He was. And it has a typed out U if people want to go fact check it themselves, they can go listen. It was an excellent. I was I just happened to be working on that part of the book and I was listening to him and he's king about working on the forty year old Virgin, which I was working on that part of the book. Perfect quotes Oh, you can have you can have that. this is a you can call shared by the Yeah We got toaive a couple of copies. So guys can enjoy that. It is a thing I always will take any opportunity to bring up on the show that I often complain about the death of the theatrical studio comedy. But I think in people trying to do the post mortems, there is not enough study of what happened in comedy from like two thousand to twenty fifteen This is the book exxactly for you I've been waiting for this book, but, but it really did build up in a way that was kind of MCU S. Yeah There was a sort of like franchise machinery to the way the personas got built and the cross pollination and the rise of the sort of star producer and all that kind of stuff Um It happened kind of you mentioned the MCU and it kind of happened around the tail end of this wave. coincides with it and I think very much of that and the cinematic universification of Hollywood. I think had a big effect on why these movies started to go also think quietly those movies and the modern franchises pulled from what was working there. I have always said that there was something that I think whether consciously or unconsciously that was wisely poed from how ' how seeded performers in supporting roles to prep you for them in leading roles. R. And then he'd I feel like while he's doing that, they're like on set being like an interesting story in my life and he's like, I love that. Wor on that. Like wrrite me a script. like you could turn that into a movie. But that also once his thing worked, there was a house style, there was a sensibility for sure There was a low concept. this is about interpersonal relationships, findind a very specific dynamic And then what started to piss people off is these movies were all the same. It's improv runs. It's an awkward romantic comedy about a dude who's the one who has to learn Silly boy. Right Srewish l Which I argue is kind of what's happening with Marvel now where it's like, we know the format But ten years ago at this point, but yes Yeah, I mean, it's just Maybe Marvel You know, it's impossible, though, justust thinking about Mar It's like, yeah, like If Marvel was like, we did something totally different. peopleeople just be like, like no right L it's hard. It's hard a movie does not fully work. you and I both quietly partially defend it, but that's what Eternals trying to I agree with that. Eternals was, I think, Fiy wisely saying, we need to fucking mix it up because people are going to start getting tired of this quick. and then they did not find the right way to mix it up the rejection of that really hard and we're like back to the old shit.ight Yes, it was a retreat. It was a swift retreat. I just this is on my mind because I just filed a review of overver your deead body. Hara Taconi movie that is like that didn't totally work for me. I don't know if eith of you have seen it. I have not seen it yet.. But like, you know, I thought was okay and like had some stuff. and of course stars Jason S Yes. And I was like Siegel is like the last of those guys, right who is still making like Movie star comedies into the mid twenty ten s After sex tape He's released zero movies wide in theaters. R Zero. Yes. Like he's made a couple indies that got a theatic end of the Tour E of the Tourie McDowell movie. End of the tour and I have it here. and our friend Yeah are the only ones that were even like indie releases. Everything else was Netflix, which is Discovery Yeah, H Sunday. Sky is everywhere where he had a supporting role, which is on Apple windfall Yeah. Like so three of those were like Charlie McDowell movies and like and like and now, you know, this overad body is getting a tiny release as well. I know Siegel also kind of was like, I'm burned out. I don't like making these You know, sex tape, bad teacher get sober has a sort of kind of like I need to pull away and work on my shit. But like post, you know, forgetting Sarah Marshall, he did for years. like he did the kind of like, ye, I'll do a high concept sort of R rated comedy for you every so often. And he was all and they would like do all right. He was often writing them or co writing he was inv. Like he is a writer on sex tape. like sex wasn't just a sort of like, fuck, I'll take the paycheck. No I you're enag you're crazy like Muppets he co writes. Yeah. and and, you know, u yeah, he has like five or six you know, of those. But even like bad teacher and and I love you man. and like he was getting man. Yes. That's a one. And then sex tape is just like, you know I remember when it came out of almost like Is this a movie? like is this's a big conccept like Everyone's a little No one was like, this sucks. No. But everyone was a little like,. It was one of those movies where it's like this thing is ending. And problem is that if you like your posters system them going like, h it's like the laziest phot they're like looking at an iPad. It also felt like we had come all the way around to like the Apatau wave is a correction for how high concept star comedies had become. They' gotten really big budget. It was twenty million dollar stars who felt like they were kind of lazily picking up a paycheck for like a one sentence movie pitch where the title is the premise And there's usually magic or something like that, or insane mistaken identity. And then it was like, let's bring this down to like human level. And sex tape felt like the first comedy that was an output an extended reach of the Appatau family tendrils. Yeah, where the concept was like, what?? Does this make sense?? They uploaded the sex tape to their personal cloud gave everyone in their life an iPad for Christmas. Yes. and those iPads are on their cloud. so their mailman has their sex tape. We've all been there. Right. You're like, it's getting too sweaty here. Vreatable. But that movie also made fifty million domestic. Yeah, I think it did all right. I can look up final number a disaster and you're like, it ended up bit of a number pretty similar. one twenty six worldwide And which means it made yeah, made forty domestic and in ninety world ninety international. Yeah. The international market. they love St little questiones It's a fascinating thing to talk about. Y. todayoday we're talking about Sen Carter because this is a part part of the most famous R rated sex comedies of the two thousands. Well I think this is an opportunity to really just discuss what was happening in the movies in the early twenty ten s. and Apatoe stuff is part and parcel with it, right Bridesmaids is twenty eleven. That is arguably the apex of the whole thing. Yes. That is the highest grossing Appatau movie. the highest grossing and it is like It's somehow even though the formula had been set already When that was released people, there was still the narrative like, is this too risky? like Girls are rated, likeike is anyone going to go for this? successful Eternals Yes, ye. R Wh they would love that upair Yeah. Yeah. Yes. whichich of course then leads to Ghostbusters, the unsuccessful Eternal. Yes of this experiment. Right. And That's an interesting comparison. Yes, a beginning of the end movie, right? Oh Yes. Well, I think it had already they were already on the downward slope, but that was a real Yes. Yes. This movie comes out in March, released by, as I said before The Walt Disney. No what are they? arere they like a new indie shingle or something time? Yeah, they're like a utopia And it's being released right any the other containment. It's being released by Marvel basically as they are like The ink is beginning to dry on their Marvel acquisition, right? Like when is that? When do they buy Marvel twenty twelve? Oh no, this is the timeline I was going to say R. So this film is released march twenty twelve.. May is a transgers Which did that movie It did, in fact, Well, right I believe almost as good as John Carter. Alost So two thousand eight is Ironman and the Incredible Horse twenty ten is Ironman two And I believe after the release of Iron Man two, Disney buys Marvel Now the original Paramount deal, that was similar to the original Pixar Disney deal. This is a five film slate distribution you own underlying rights. Right,, right. was supposed to be Ironman inccredible hole I think Ant Man was supposed to be part of that original five. Iron Man two takes that slot And then of course incredible Hulk ended up being universal because of them having the original rights Th Captain America Avengers.g. Griffin, it's universal because Hulk is green and universal is our planet, which is also very green. Well, that's why. Unless we don't take care of it, like in Wally. Good presresident H soolute They buy it in twenty ten. twenty eleven paramount releases Captain America and Thor, but Disney now owns Marvel and is starting to mess number characters as These are ours, but you still are distributing them Both of those movies do well Not like absurdly well, but well. And then Disney spends an extraordinary amount of money. In my memory, it was five hundred million dollars. Buy paramount out of Avengers and Iron Man Th. That was and that was a good deal by. We can't wait, we just need it now An Avengers comes out three months after this, two months after this and just blows the doors off everything. And now it's just like, this this is what the future is over. I think it's that's important context because you know, we've already alluded to the marketing of John Carter. Yeah. that perhaps offers a potential explanation in that there they were already looking at Ag There are a lot distract. There are a lot of explanations for what went wrong in the marketing of this movie, but it was well sort of disgsed the time this movie was coming out, Disney didn't need this to be a franchise anymore. because what's the other thing that happened In fall of twenty eleven, Disney completes purchase of Lucas Film. that is true. So really Pay really They made a couple of good b. twenty eleven, Disney buys Marvel and Lucas Film and this movie is just kind of a dead man walking. I't I'm not saying they like set it up to fail because there was so much money at stake Everyone would have been happier if this had been successful.. But already they were sort of like We have the two surest bets in Hollywood Right This is not necessary. And this is coming at the end of a journey that brings you The fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie We can't let that franchise rest. We need another action franchise. Jack is back, right Pr of Persia, rightight? Well, thaton like about The funniest thing Disney pllus did to me when I finished John Carter was shrink the credits and be like, and arere you ready for Prince of Persia? I was like, buddy. comeome on. But they really and Long Ranger. Long Ranger the L Ranger comes after this. They're really looking for that audience And they' they've already, as you're saying, they have already acquired the two locks on that audience couldn't have any bigger lock on that audience. And so yes, poor John Carter is going What about me? They kept trying to launch or relaunch something either their own IP that they had or pulled IP from somewhere else. they thought had some history and some built in audience And then they just bought the two things where they were like, you did the work for us You primed the pump, the audience is there. you made those movies. This is Blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin I'm David It's a podcast about filmography, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want, and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby rarely has that intro applied more thoroughly to this The filmmaker we're discussing and the film we're talking about today is a movie that feels like it has been faded to be discussed on this podcast from the moment We decided this is what the podcast was. This movie bounce similar to how John Carter can jump. Correct. G a greatase. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And it is a movie that has become like a historic signpost historic signpost in terms of like where franchises went and where blockbusters went or This is what I think is interesting to discuss This movie's release was greeted with a sort of like Well, never again, lessons learned. And I would argue Hollywood continued to basically take the wrong lessons from this movie and also repeat its mistakes in a lot of ways I think watching this movie now, a film I kind of defend and enjoy watching, while not wholly successful does feel like The world is a little kinder to this film today in contrast O movies have gotten so much sloppier. I think that is do this thing. Yeah. I think it is a largely good looking movie given this what it's trying to accomplish the scale of what it's working with I do think it's an unsuccessful film I think it is a on paper just like we stacked up all the little numbers here and it is not successful. Here's my one counterpoint, goo ahead. I don't think this movie really like functions in the way it wants to. evenven though it has moments, it has spurts, the engine will start up and then it will like sputter again Do find this movie more cohesive in feeling kind of like There is a vision that is executed here versus what I'd say a lot of these similar franchise movies that we get today where the story is, they reshot all of this three times What are you feel What do are you thinking think like be holding it against here Basically every M Noes movie. N movies, name movies. rise a skywalk No but Okaykay, no, but that that's different. sequels to me, that's a different kind of mess. Ween rise to Skywalker Can someone please write the tell all? Can we just get or can everyone just sit down and be like adm it Yeah. It was a completely different movie that was also bad. Yes. And then we panicked and turned it into that movie. I know none of it makes sense. I'm fully aware. you know what? Let's sit down and watch it and I'll pause and I'll tell you like, yeah, this was Jot Yeah onene year after this and I know that doesn you know, like that's completely. I'm trying to think of like the franchise starter The movie I compared this to the entire time I was watching this time is Avatar. Because it was basically just like Avatar makes none of the mistakes and this movie makes most of them. And it is crazy that this film bombed this hard coming out three years after Avatar and is kind of reallyally two years because it's like Yeah, when you like December, March. Yeah it's really just a couple of years. It's really still like in the wake of Avatar. It starts production before Avatar is released It can't watch what they're doing. notot that copying James Cameron is easy or whateveractly anytime in history a movie is like an out of the box out of the blue hit that big. and the studios rush to find the copycats, it doesn't work. You look at the wave of post Lord of the Rings. Yeah. what else can we adapt? The shit doesn't work the fact that it was inevitable everyone's going to a little parallel thinking and they had a movie that could have been sold as like Here's the thing that inspired Avatar. It's kind of like Avatar. A human guy goes to Earth and romances an alien. You can't find an interview with Andre Stanton about this movie where either he doesn't mention Avatar or someone asks him about Avat. It's just in the wayavoidable It iss unavoidable grossing film of all time. when this movie' com a fucking guy going to a new planet where he doesn't know the rules. R he fall work And it's an epic romance and there's a war civilizations and aliens that are another color But what he lo animal like space animals. And what he'll always say is that Avatar was inspired by this. No shs That true. This is so much their their marketing and what he his sales pitch to people was Yeah everything you love is com inspired by what I made. There's a great quote where and we'll get into all the previous versions of this movie that almost happened and didn't going all the way back to the nineteen forties Robert Z aeckas they tried to sell him on doing it for Disney I in the ninet.ight. And he hadn't read the books. and I believe either Katzenberg or Eiser gives him the book to read it over. And he gets back to them and he goes, I can't make this. Lucas already plundered everything good for. It totally makes total sense, of course. L the inspirations It's kind of like Dune was as well where like, yeah, it's hard to crack it when it's already been like little bits have been taken out of it for all the movies we like. There is their main argument for why that make this movie like an And Stanton and it is a flawed argument because Yes, it's already been Yeah strip mind for everything that's good. And just because something is the first does not necessarily make it the best, especially when it's made as early as this is in the history of this kind of iteration that is helpful any of us, I know Ben's read all of the Barc series.. you ever read the I've read the first book. which is an icincess. Sci fi work Sure. L, but in that way of like You read it and you're like, it's so interesting how ideas were generated here that get built on by other works and all that stuff. But it's also pretty rough. It's a little rough and a little weird There's not a lot of a story. Right, right. Wh this movie struggles with that by grafting on this, you know, certain elements which I would assume having not read the later books are in the later books. I don't know that they are. They might be a little bit inventre pretty inventive.. I mean, the Thns, another silly word that we're going to have to say a lot. Yeah. I'm gonna say Ths are in laters They are not in the original The ninth Ray, which is a not silly word, but sounds silly when they say it a lot. The ninth Ray that in the book is not a now in this movie, it is like a all. It's like an all consuming death ray can do anything. And in the book, again, maybe in later books, it becomes that. In the first book, it is kind of a macGuffin of There's artificial atmosphere on Mars and the ninth ray is what creates air inside and insisphere factory. These are all things that they took out of. of the movie. Yeah, but that is not this like laser that you can zap at people R And a magical like like glow. The powers are too powerful. I was really strbelievably This is another thing do anything with this thing. That's a huge problem with this movie. Yeah is that they they made it's a story about shapeshifting weirdos Yeah you have an all powerful ray which can kill anyone instantly And the alternate force has a guy who can jump really high. It And people are so excited to get John Carter on their side. L literally there's a scene where like where Tars Tarkus is accusing Djer Thos.'s like, you want this weapon for yourself, but he fights for the Fs and you're going He's literally a guy who can jump. He can jump away from battle. He can jump high. He can jump And I guess he can kill like one thousand people remembers his dead wife. Yes, right. If he remembers burying family. Another opposite of a mother gaining strength when her child is in danger. That's right. He can He can get stronger if he remembers There's another thing that's not in the books. That family tootally invented for the movie is to give him a tragic Hollywood backstory of My wife and child were killed. and so and and I no longer want to fight right And have a car In the books, he doesn't right in the movie. Yeah in the books He not only doesn't have a tragic backstore, he's like And this is another thing that's in the book that is not in the movie. is like he's almost like a highighlander. He's like immortal. He talks about how like I don't remember my childhood. I've always been thirty years old. I am as old as, you know, like I can't age I why know that gets addressed later. But it's also look, it's like the Superman thing, right? When the character is created, the pitch of What if a guy was so fucking awesome was all you needed to get people to lean in? And then Superman over decades is iterated to become more relatable.otal Let's give him a childhood. Let's give him a family. Let's make this make sense. And John Carter is still kind of stuck in his original state, which is just what if a guy' fucking rule He doesn't need anything going on inside of him. And again, in the buroughs book, he's he's a warrior. He can jump. He is strong because of the density of his bones on the Martian whatever But he's fighting other people with swords. It's like a you know, it's like, what if we drop this super cool warrior into the middle of a giant battle? Okay? But in the movie, they're like, what if that was happening? but also there was death rae. It's like, again, it's just Yeah. It's not it's not even a knife to a gunfight. It's a guy with good legs at a death bllazer fight. There's stuff where I'm like he was making the right choices and he didn't get all the way there in terms of like, okay, so how do you give this like an emotional spine John Carter fights for the South and he's a good soldier. And he's like, well, I can't build a fucking two hundred fifty million dollars Disney movie around a like loyal Confederate. rightight? Y. So let me make it that he fought for the South, but it was against his will and he like defected and was fighting against them. So then it kind of neutralizes him. Well, why is that the case because He lost his family in the war, so he's become so disillusioned. Oh, that means he doesn't want to fight. So once he gets to Barsoon, he's reluctant and you're like, we're getting there Yeah couldould work. Yeah. It's not a terrible idea. I just Yeah. I'm sorry, I'm browsing the enncyclopedia Barsumia right now. is of course, the name of the John Carter Wiki. Yes. But yes,. didid you have to drink magic liquid I do to understand it we all did. Yeah, that's that's what was when there're speaking barsumia. The therns, I don't I think are very different in the book. They are they're not in the first place They're not in at all now. They're introduced later, but they are more just kind of like old you know, kind of like ancient Greek style, I think, like the the original civilization of Mars. There's also black Martians. There's other to them races of Martians. Here I feel like we have like green and red Right That's basically I And they mention Yeah and they mentioned the white apes whichich I guess are the thing he fights in the o. know those are the big guys. Right monsters. But they're not that important to the story. The idea that they're like interstellar caretakers, that's not in the books. It's at least not in the first. acccording to the Encyclopedia, B assume, it's Disney film invention. Okay. So are the books still relevant. What does mean relevant? I mean They're relevant to my life. I try to live my life They're relevant. They were relevant historically. This is a lot of what this movie came up against is like Andrew Stanton was pushing really hard be like this is the definitive text. All modern sci fi adventure storytelling comes from this, which is true. the notion' not wrong. The notion of making this, it's not even like Dune where it's like they've never gotten it right. It was no one has ever succeeded getting to the starting line of making a movie about this. So it's going to be greeted with such excitement of they're finally fucking doing it.. And what he overstated was Exactly Well that's the problem. So that was the problem they ran into Yeah. But yeah, I just like Is this like a thing that sci fi bans are This starts out as a story serialized in Pulp magazines in nineteen twelve. So the movie is coming out One hundred years after it is published It's dusty. It's do is My but is dy It's very dusty. I think their notion was everyone's waiting for this. And in reality, what it had become was This is the thing that all of the people who made the sci fi you actually like grew up reading. And to general audiences, this only is really of interest to like H big nerds or old people, I guess. Yeah. But I'd say like in modern audiences it was like if you are a voracious reader and you're really interested in the history of science fiction and being able to like retrace the threads back to the begin. It's sort of like, it's like Sing to someone, this is the video game that inspired it all and then making someone play Pong in twenty twenty six. It's like okay well it' historically important, but I hated Pong with some backstory, you knowight. Or would I rather play that or would I rather play my playlaysttation? I think I have clear ch I knew the ball in Pong had a family that died making going. It's like making the Pong movie based off the logic of did you see how much money Super Mario Galaxy just made? Right. That wasn't even the first video game. Yeah We're gonna make Pong. I love the work of Bruce Covill. I bring it brung up on this podcast a lot. young adult author who wasnt like, aliens at'e my homework, my teacher Fk the planet and all that shit. And he references John Carter of Mars in those books and it clearly was an inspiration for him. Yeah. And I would as a kid read that and And he'd be like, yeah, and like, you know, my character, the character would be like, I love John Carter books. like the guy who wrote Tarzimare, and he'll be like, that's interesting never won to f. You know never like I knew they existed, but I was never like those off the show. I absolutely plucked it off the show. You plucked it and was like, this is dense. I can't get into thisight? becauseuse it's like it's like it's nineteen hundred Sial novel. I mean, like I haven't read the fucking Tarzan books either. No. But tarzan as a cultural idea persists in way that John Carter does And you'll be in her heart Absolutely That's the thing. Like how many people are reading Tarzan books today? I don't know, but everyone knows what Tarzan is And John Carter only exists as like The thing that he influenced in the public cont. I feel like we must open the dossier just because there is reams of context to dig. On this one, I suppose it's going be a short dosier. There's not much. JJ wants to shout out at the top of the dossier because he used so much stuff is there's a Drew Taylor piece in march twenty twenty two the ten year anniversary that went through everything in the anniversary. There's also a Tad friend Profile of Stanton. Second act twist in october twenty eleven that's like leading up to the release cannot strongly enough, and this is the only time I feel like I'm actually issuing homeor to our listeners. read the tatt. It is It very interesting. bothoth of these things in full. We will pull out strands of them, but the one piece is as the movie' about to come out and it's sort of talking about Stanton's history, his success up until this point The trepidation from Disney, you know, it's right at the crossroads right before the thing finally lies implodes. And then the ten years later piece has people speaking very openly in retrospect about everything that happened. We'll have links to both articles in the episode really well written thorough pieces. Edgar Rice Buroughs the author who goes best with, you know sure be a steak if youone stak and rice you know. I was gonna to say call them Ned F call him Ned. I thought you were talking about the character in this motion picture. Oh what a great character played by the greatl Sabara. Can I reveal my kid?, please. didid you audition for this? I did. We gotta put it in the can and this is this is a movie covered on the show that I audition Sabara beatating you out for multiple roles, I feel like that's come up before. Boy, that's a good question. Let me look it up while you continue through the dosier. This is the only one I remember Oh no he got part in fucking it's complicated. thinking about them was cut out the one auditioned for like four times That part was nemesis. It was that wasated It was very complicated. There was a whole extended scene at the beginning of it's complicated that was Meryl Streep hits it off with a guy in a dating app and then she goes and it's a high school., whichich is a good, good gag Yeah. And Darrel Serara was the ultimate. Filming of the movie was pushed back twice because Nancy couldn't find the right casting for that role and the entire thing was removed. But yes, I adj just him for that role multiple times In nineteen twelve, he releases their stories called Under the Moons of Mars in the magazine All Star Story, Th collected as the novel, The Princess of Mars in nineteen seventeen, published after Tarzan, the success of Tarzan id he write his b. Well the story the story I think is before. The story is before the The novel is after And then it starts serializing. He writes like the first ten more novels in the Barumom series after I was just going to say I think this is the first thing he ever wrote. He was like he had other odd jobs. right And then a princess of Mars in the serialized form was his first he wrote. I mean, he wrote so many other fantasy series that I don't know much about. L there's the Hllucidar, where which is like in a hollow Eth kind of series There's this thing called the Venus series, which is kind of like, you know You hit it with Mars Next stop Venus, right? Like you, I haven't read those So nineteen thirty one, Loononey Tunes animator Bob Clampet. Legend. A true legend. So much that even I've heard of him. Yes Uh, is like, what if we turned these into a cartoon? The Barsoon books? like they're so popular And they create test footage a year before the release of Snow White. Yes. The t freaks people out and like doesn't get turned into a feuture. It's really realistic. The footage is amazing. becauseause it is it like Rotoscope they were like drawing off live action. You know, Snow White uses a lot of rotoscoping Like the early Disney prrincess movies until they start getting more stylized with like Sleeping Beauty and such, most of the human characters would be rotoscoped and then you know, the animals and the dwarves and everything were more styling. It looks unbelievable. Yeah. It was kind of so technically ahead of what anyone was doing at the time. and it's one of those things since it was before Snow White where you're like, if that's completed, does it kind of change the trajectory of animation to some degree? Because you have two thousands late nineties, early two thousands run that also I feel like is relevant to this movie of like Atlantis Treasure planet. Yeah, Tn series they were like And we use animation to make cool shit for boys? Yeah, with like a sort of a steam punk. How do we break out of it just being prrincess musicals And it is like two D animation because of Snow White and the impact becomes prrincess musicals and talking animals primarily is what is thought of. But yes, the clampet tests are unbelievable. Uh They're very cool. You can check out u YouTube, there's little bits and pieces. Yeah veryery cool. Bob Klampb I just want to shout out Creative Beani and Cecil which is was one of my favorite cartoon shows as a kid, an old dusty cartoon show that was based on what used to be a local TV puppet show he did when he was young And the Clampet family like puts out being in Cecil DVD compilations because I think they own the rights. And that's how I first found out that he tried to do John Carter Because the DVD just had like thirty minutes of John Carter shit in the special features including those tests. Ray Harry Hausen in the fifties supposedly expressed some interest in like a stop motion barsoon thingakes sense. Does make sense. Seems like his kind of thing. Yeah Also never really gained much momentum. My guess is that every time like the enormous amount of money would would be required even for something animated h of stop Pe would just kind of be like, I think this is too weird. This is what ses it until Stanton does it. But you look at like animation is the only way you could do this. You couldn't do it in live action, right They missed the window for animation. Now the idea of doing a serious, realistic action movie in animation is unfathomable in the thirties, forties, fifties, right? Harry Hausen creates, you, his style of stop motion, special effects and how to blend it with live action. Okay, this makes sense. This is a way you could possibly adapt these He can't crack it. and now it's like on the table again until effects evolve in the eighties. in the eighties, right Mario Casarn on Andrew Vanya, the Coco guys bring it to Disney. Yeah. Katzenberg is young at Disney. Yeah. He wants to do it. The flies Charles Pogue And Tales from the Cripts Terry Black. These are screenwriters Take a shot Katzenberg basically is like we want this to be our Star Wars. And this is Katzenberg and Eisner coming in after Disney has had the failed run of Black Hole Etron, et cetera. says you know, they wanted the story to be dramatic. The book has this very leisurely pace And you know, we just clashed a lot over like how much of the book do you throw out? Ted Elliot and Terry Roscio who are like Kings of Disney in the nineties. they took a crack at it John McTiernan and Tom Cruz starts circling in nineteen ninety, brings in Bob Gale Scale' then replaced by Sam Resnick, who had written a TV Robinhood that McTernan had produced. Okay Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts were supposedly courted to star. I don't know how intensely involved they were But in nineteen ninety The pitch of Zemcis Gail Roberts Cruz makes perfect sense. You can like imagine the alternate reality Yeah where that movie exists. Definitely But McTeran wisely and quickly is like This is just too expensive. We can't pull this off yet. and then very wisely is like, I'll make last action hero Yes. That'll go. That'll go great for me. That will be easy. Carlco goes bankrupt. then Jim Jacks James Jackaxs, Kevin Smith's buddy. Yeahun revoked on this podcast. Sure. And Harry Knowles who I guess is a huge fan of this. Yes. And in his biography kept talking about an influence it was like beats the drum for it. And this is when Harry Kowles is still seen as He's got the nerd. has thech. He has the magic. He can see what they want. Beyond the idea that he's a kingmaker, there was this thing of if Harry Knows is saying it, does it mean that there are millions of silent nerds we don't realize are dying for this For the internet. This starts to create the false sense Ben to your earlier question of are people waiting for this wants this? No, but like do we not realize it that everyone wants this? Yes. So yes, Jim Jacks Jim Jackax brings in Mark Protovich, I think that's his name. the guy who wrote the Cell. He was kind of like a hot guy back then Robert Rodrigz is going to direct it Robert Eigas has resigned from the DJA because of Sin City. and let's call out, here's the other technological breakthrough. They're like he wants to do his Sin City thingre screen screen. Is this a way to make this fucking work now? Can you do Green screens, stylize, build an extensive world without having to build crazy sets and photore realalistic aliens or whatever Paramant doesn't want to work with him for this reason. He's not in a DGA. So they fire him and who makes sense is the obvious next choice? We'll get to him, but I do want to note the thing that Matt said already. if they do throw it, Jax does throw it to Zimachus and Zimachus does say the thing of like George plundered these. like there's nothing left. So then yes Carrie Conran. Carrie Conran, Ben, of course, you know. Ben loves Care Conran, know you What's your favorite Care Conran friend Lookurry Con Ran Look of feear is a man who has directed one and only one film and is a movie called Sky Captain in the worldld of Tomorrow. Have you heard of it Gay. I'm shocked. It was a green screen all green screen movie, Ben. It was like the future. People were like, we don't need sets anymore. Right Yeah. couple movie stars, a bunch of crazy visual effects. He got like Jude Log, Gyneth Paltrro and Angel J For a week, he shot it in like a warehouse in Texas And it's like a steamampunk art deco like thirties sort of This the host of Lawrence Olivier who also shows It's a movie that have tremendous fondness for. It is unbelievably boring. It weirdly compelling. I find it so boring. It's so boring. It is so boring. I've been using it recently. I said this to you in a text. I've been using it to help help myself fall asleep. And it's really effective on that front. No's used by hospitals around the world for that. But it like looks gorgeous of Sky Captain. that. It's basically like what if you made a nineteen forties movie with CGI? It's trying to be sort of like melodramatic and it's like an old school version of the future. But it is deathly boring.. But when it was it was independently produced short film, one producer's like, fuck, this is the future. He bankrolls, I think it was John Avnet Bank rolls it. They then sell it to Paramount later off of like test footage, but he'd already gotten the actors because part of the pitch was like, I only need a couple million dollars up frront the actors for a week to do the green screen stage. We'll do some of the animation. We'll show it to people. They'll give us the money to finish it Paramount is like this is the future of movies You can just do it in an afternoon Digital backline. R And it you just have to sit in this chair with like an old timey hat on your head. Yeah, That's your whole part. Your performance definitely won't seem disengage. Yes But it is a movie that bombs really hard And this guy before its's releasase is announced as he's going direct John Carter, which makes perfect sense. They're like, here's another kind of like retro futuristic thing And he figured out this way to make it cheaper And a lot of it is like him and his buddies and his brother who know how to do the effects themselves. And he's on the movie for a while and then when he falls off with this film, he's like never discussed again. No, that's the end of him. I mean, he's still around, I assume. Yeah what happened to him Goes to John Fvereaux after that brings in Mark Fergus who wrote children of Men Favreau changes the whole. F makes a ton of sense for it. Favreau is similar to Rodriguez like, I'm ready to make my big tent poll epic. I want to make my my serious kind of blockbuster adventure film. And he supposedly loves it like Stanton. He likes book He's obsessed with the books. I wanted to do it forever. And he's starting to swing back to like guys, we're not doing fucking virtual backlot shit. We're building sets He want use practical makeup. He wants Yeah, like director. piration to eventually do the e Right? That's not thing. Yeah Th then you want to make your cubana. No, but all these guys are like, I want to make my Star Wars. The way I felt seeing Star Wars as a child and my world exploded. Can I make my version of that for the next generation? Can I complete the circle and it makes a lot of sense that for many of these guys they're like do that also with the book that made me feel that way when I read it. But this has also got the sword and sandal thing It does noted oldld school. It does. does His script combines the first three books The Pincess of Mars, the gods of Mars, the warlords of Which those were going to be Stanton's three movies in his trilogy. sounds greatool. Which he was definitely going to make too. He talks a lot about that. Development slows John Fererou decides to make Iron Man. Okay, good luck with that. A man made of iron He's just like can jump that Yeah right. How doeside does even jump But truly like Paramount is just like dragging their feet on'm giving him a green light. and he's like, I want to make something. And like the Ironman like sort of beacon lights up the sky And he goes off and does that. and it's the most successful version of what he wanted to do, right? now And he levels up big time. Andrew Stanton, as we've mentioned on this podcast, a very serious father who' like basically a rocket scientist defense department, like radar guy. He was into like old hard sci fi stuff and gave his son John Carter novels, among other things. Stanton grew up loving these books You know, in high school, he said his friends would call them his romance novels. likeike he was always reading his John Carter books. Yeah. He was supposedly a fan of the Marvel comics That was first discovered at the seventies John Carter Warlord of Mars comic from Marvel that came out for a couple of years. and is like all set in the space of the first book. It's sort of like the continuing adventures of John Carter. Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane mean It's a good looking book.ack line. I read a little I had never read it myself. It's kind of before my time and hasn't been reprinted really, but I tracked down some and read a little bit before we did this and it's, you know, it's fun. I can see the u appeal But then and then he kind of, yeah, then he discovered the books and became he was into. know he was into the books. And then and I guess it this is nineteen seventy seven and it's right around when Star Wars comees up. That's true. So he's discovering probably saw that before thought it was good. He Yes. It probably yes. he probably li I like this. He thinks watching Star Wars at the age of twelve But just when you're talking about filmmakers seeing this and going, I want to make my Star Wars Yeah and it's going to be this For him, they're like inextricably linked to his mind. He has both awakenensings maybe within the same Within the sames yes, it's literally a stretch of like six months or something.. It's like the way your fetishes develop You know, it's like these things just imprinted on him simultaneously. Alienware's back to school event is the perfect time to score top gaming gear with incredible features and Intel core processors to go beyond performance. Lord knows, I'm stressed about returning to school. You can save big on gaming desktops, laptops, and more. Start your Alienware journey with the Alienware fifteen gaming laptop featuring Intel core processors Smoothly game, live stream and multitask for hours on end. 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Like he's like, he's got the kind of this swager of like, I think also like it's about to fall into the public domain at this point. maybe like we we're getting to, you know, it's it's it's close. It's like if you don't start making one now, then anyone could make one. But it also means like this is the last moment where you have to pay a bunch of money to make one before it doesn't cost anything. I think his His point is sort of like, if this goes into the public domain, asylum is going to make a two million dollars version of this tomorrow They will flood the zone. right do that. But he's making this pitch to Disney where he goes to like the higher ups of Disney and basically says, there's a jump ball here take the final crack at doing the definitive origin of American sci fi correctly. Yeah, he's saying to them like the sci serious. Yeah, you know, He says you should get it and I would I'm so serious I would even do it. Right. And he's know he's already kind of I guess he hasn't like Wally hasn't come out at this, but finding Nem finding Nemo is huge the highest grossing film Disney had ever R. So that's an appeal holds a lot of weight. and, you know, even if you don't know that Wally is going to work, Wally is good Ieed they are interested. They want him happy, as he says. One might even say he has a bit of blank track. I was say That was my mind Um Zemkas, of course, as we said had said like, I think George Lucas kind of picked this clean Things like Conan the Barbarian are cited as, you know being influenced by it this film mentioned it already Avatar. Um, Stanton does not agree. He says no one's copied it. It's just inspired things. Like it's, you know, there's plenty of meat on the bone He's a little right in that the exact mix of the elements has not been brought to screen. Like you bringing upis swords and sandals thing. Yeah. That's the trickiest part of the equation, but if you can pull off that juxtaposition, rather than pick the elements clean and like separate them And you haven't seen a lot of guys jumping like this. You Yeah, but you know what I really kept thinking about Attack of the Cones Yeah, whichich has, obviously the Jed do be jumping like fleas. like s very. this stuff, the sort of like the fighting pits, the weird creature creature. You know, like it does kind of feel like we've seen this before. Now that doesn't mean this movie can't be a hit But Atack of the Clones is fully ten years before. mean this is this is why I fucking stick up Atack of the Clones. is Atack of the so strange as like His swords and sandals epic, also his noir homage. Like he just takes three different genres he likes and is like, what if I can fuckking like backstop them into Star Wars in a middle chapter? They don't hang together That's otherwise. No, they don't h like John Carter. It's like a closet where you open someone's closet up and you're like, what is your? in shirts and tuxedos? R That's weird Tack of the Clones, obviously just has like the most hard boiled incredible narrative and like the kind of characters like Dexter Jet. I have aget Who bought these clones have a laundry ticket We are already recently I do just love to litigate it all the time of like if I just showed up to a planet in a brown robe, they would be like, the clones are ready for you. No further question. Yes We' been waing You don't need to prove who you are. You do not need to even seem to know what we're talking about. They're not gonna to fit on your ship. It's like, huh? Yeah And they're like, Yes, the clones, remember. Anyway, you're gonna need a bigger ship to take them out of here. You are gonna need right some large ships. And attack the clones even ten years old by the time this movie comes out So Stanton writes the script with Mark Andrews who has worked on other Pixar stuff. incredible right. He ends up directing Brave after Brenda Chapman is fired. Brave comes out this twenty twelve. Same year. Yeah Yeah ye Then Michael Shaban, who has the other credit on this comes in and I feel like Shaban had ' done a lot of work on Spider Man two, of course. And he's another guy who's a greatosively Yes and lo another like huge John Carter fans supposedly. Most of his Spider Man two work was thrown out By all accounts, they made a big slashy announcement because Cavlyian Clay was so so happ was likeics rel. Yeah. Like Hollywood loves when they're like, oh my God, there's a genius who likes quote unquote low art and appreciates Yeah. What low art do we have? Right can give to him Hire a high class man to make our big blockbuster So they make this big announcement that he's doing Spiderman too throughout almost all of his work and then bring in Alvin Star Sargeant to basically do what the movie Ptty much right his version was about like Tw hucking Spiderm Man. So Tockk was like young and sexy and I'm interested. I mean, Shaban is especially because he then went to Star Trek and people hate when he did Star Trek too much. Yes, I do think he often is like, I have a really different big brained idea. And it will bump against people being like, we were kind of looking for like, you know, the USS Enterprise to go to a planet and maybe have an advantage.. She's like, you're not interested in all this stuff. I'm thinking about. But Spidererman is too two is huge. Arguably the greatest comic book movie of all time And his name is there in a big credit. So he had also written a spec screenplay called The Martian Agent that was essentially a hodgepodge of John Carter stories. which He loved as we say. I know, like so like he also was working on his show with Darren Aronovski called Hob Goblin that was a World War twow show about magic. That sounds kind of cool. For HBO. Yeah. does sound kind of cool. Hey, Ben Would do you mind slinging me another web Wow We got all this talk about Spider Man too made you got a little parched. Thinking about Daka cucking Spidey. Makes me want tona have another cup So like Stanton, Andrews, Saban all love John Carter. Yeah. You know what I mean? They're all working together with love for the book. And they're all it sort of feels like three little boys in a clubhouse being like, can we relocate what we loved about this? W that be infectious? Who did have benefited maybe from someone coming in who's like, I love sci fi addventure movies. I don't love John Carter or know about it. so maybe I can help you putut it on no polite decline. We're good on the coffee. I have non Spider Man coffee today I two thousand nine Star Trek. that was kind of the whole strategy. Arams. He delivered a movie for you that basically will make Star Trek fans happy, although not all of them. They' ever happy, but that like kind of swerved away from the knowion Perkman Orsy and Abrams, you have three different levels of Star Trek. nerd, casual nerd. I don't know what Star Trek is. Y. Can the bonifes and also make it feel approachable Abrams isays like, you had me at star, lost me at trek. Yeah, let's just go back to star. For now take Trek until something better comes alongolder. The front rununner for the role of John Carter was an actor named Taylor Kitch. Wh gets the role And we have fought on this a little bit. Let's fight I feel like you bring up Taylor Kitch as the ultimate gabbo where the industry was like, this guy, we're telling you it's this guy and you are to me, this movie has two gabbos. Kitch is obviously a huge one. Yeah Wh who's gabbo? Well, Gabo is from the Simpsons remember? Pident cance. But you know, just kind of that that like Taylor Kch, the big star. you know, they do this all the time Hollywood, you know, right? theyills that you the word Gabo Inistent. He is the man industry plant ind of they've they' I mean, Colin Ferrell suffered from this like it's more like the a guy has a little juice and they're like the industry is so preoccupied on convincing you that they're already a thing Why are you so when they were think I feel like you have argued he is the ultimate. There was nothing there and they sort of just like picked him and pushed him around. No. I have definitely not argue that because I love Friday night Light. Right. So there's no way I've ar That's the thing. because I feel like the twenty ten s have a lot of gabbos.. The one who I truly think of as the ultimate is Travis Fimmel Yes, yes. This is I feel like the argument we've had in the past. When he shows up in Warcraft, I'm like I keep reading that fucking all these people can't justify a hundred million dollars budget And this guy's the lead. He's on the A and E Viking S You just got a guy who also has worn armor. It was on the history chain. I'm sorry. takeake it But Taylor Kitch has the sort of like buzzy supporting swoony James Dean esque bad boy role. He was good. My brother and my mother are obsessed with that show. T just one of those guys who like You're telling me he wasn't on S'ident like' like no i You like, come on, he's got a big old beard and he's cur b. I thought the whole pitch on Travis Femel was he feels like a biker, but we can put him in Like armor like the Does it help bring the biker to the viking? Tim Reiggins, Tayor Kitcher, Tim Reiggin. So the Fralightes runs zero six to eleven and obviously it was never a hit show. It was always struggling for life. It was always critically acclaimed. Yeah. He was always the sexiest of the boys on it.. N'ot the part that feels like the best show real to be a Hollywood reing man. Ortred daddy issue. Remember my brother Dylan from nine hundred two zo.y all needed this. My brother my mom watching the show every week would just be like, God, this guy is such a movie star. Like when is someone gonna wr you know, crack it. And I I feel like I first saw him in I mean in a movie in Xan Origins Wolverine. Like I I know he's in like the covenant and what's it called the snakes snakes on a plane. No, But that was the real But like those are moments before Hollywood was like, we've taken notice. He's going to have a small part in this, but like but it's a coveted role. a coveted role that could prom' like the Aatao thing you were talking about. We're going to give him a little part here a hot minute And you're gonna fall in love with him and then we're going give him his own thing. I mean that movie' good in en Argent arein. a terrible movie open. Okay He's al. He's maybe one of the acceptable parts of an ungodly bad movie. R maybe the least offensive parts of that movie. I mean, the movie does the same thing with him and Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds and opposite parts of the film. Right Deadpool leads it off. He's in the ble whereere it's like we've picked a star that we think is about to pop We're calling dibbs on a character, We're placing the intent on the b character. And we're testing out how much you like this. And the projection of both is so huge that it like sets back Deadpool and Ryan Reynolds has to spend the next five years of his life pushing it back up someomeone leaked that footage. I wonder who it was A mystery that shall never be solved. U I remember like the comicon footage of him is gambit where he's got the staff and he goes like, you know, he like jumps and and po We've done you saw the movie and they were like, oh, by the way, that's the only thing know does in the movie. sorry's pokike he throw some cards. ninety percent of his screen time is seated behind a poker table and then he gets up at the end, twirls the staff once, throws some cards, goodbye game.. Yeah. That's all I remember Aerey Leabau, But but you were like, okay. It was a screen not bad didn he gave good gambit. He gave good gam. The movie sucks, but obviously not him' it against him. And Hollywood goes like that's all we need to see off to the races and he books three giant movies basically back to back to back All of which come out in twenty twelve Wh which was maybe if I'm his agent, I'm sweating a little bit. In the span of the four months in chronological order, John Carter. In March Battleship in May, whichich of course, we've covered on our Patreon. And then Oliver Story Memorable Savages in July Uh was that July? let's see So when he's doing press for John Carter, they're like, you're the guy He's the lead of all three movies. He's the guy in all three movies and all the press is like, Well, you're here promoting John Carter, but really this is about the year of kitch. By the end of this year, everyone will agree getting Kitch you're the biggest movie star alive. They're getting kitchy. made Five films Totaltal since then R right. And he's like, obviously he's done TV and's done some other stuff, you know, but like he has been in five movies since right. American assassin That's one a movie you've watched many times been want. Okaykay And I just was struck by how he's the sort of secondary Asash actually it was Yeah it' Ks the only I haven'ten Keat' the mentor, Dyan O'Brien's the hero, Katches the former assassin who went bad. Is that right? I think so. Okay haven't seen Butait, I'm struggling to even I want to get a tour. There's one you won't know, that four of them are real movies. Four them are real movies, but he's not the lead in any Porting nots and all I feel like there was one thing I remember seeing him in where I was like, oh, he's pretty good. There's a movie a Canadian movie calledon by Don McKeller called The Grand Seduction with him and Brendon Gleese. Have not seen them. Never heard of it. Okay. I don't know anything about it. There's a big warar movie that he's like the secondary lead in that was a huge hit. Oh, Lan survive. Right. Which that movie feels like it was Peterberg doing a like Can I save Emil Hurst? Can I save Taylor Kitch? like brring these guys back. There's an extremely good movie that he's quite good and although he's not a lead, he's part of the ensemble. There was a giant bomb. From a great director that was a disaster movie, a real true story movie Oh, only the brave Right Yeah whereere he's again, like Lone survivor, one of the guys Yeah. But he's good in it. Yeah, but it was a giant pump. It was a giant pump. And then there is a somewhat forgotten cop drama. Pretty good. it's not the Chick Boseman? sureure is. sixteen bridges. Steep going. Yeah. You need more bridges twenty down twenty one. where I think I have seen I think you might be the villain. I can't remember. But like, you know, he's just like, hey, I'm officer, good guy. Its I'm following up on the case. I few questions I'll see you later. like watchever that guy Allergic to the idea of being the center again, understandably. He doesn't want that weight on him.. I mean all of them are variations on the former Golden Boyys. his defense. obviously, he did do true detective season two, which I know was like a what you know, another kind of weird blank check bounce but like you know, he wasn't He was the Unibomber show. He was David Cash in the Wakeo show. Right Right. That's what it was. Yeah He's been in a bunch of other stuff. He's in that Chris Pratt show the terminal list that everyone's Yeah always talking about. But you get the sense understandably that the experience of twenty twelve kind of shook him to his court. Wow. I just tinitiveeps now totally I just found out that he is the lead character in a terminal list spinoff. Oh yeah, total w Darl Wolf. Darkark Wolf. Terminal list is really doing so well that we need a spinoff Like are we sure want to see the Dark Wolf U how do you think he is in this movie? I mean to be clear, again, like Stanton loved him in Friday night like Y thoughtought he kind of because he has the hair in Friday night Lights. Yeah. thought he kind of matched The sort of classic kind of paintings of John Carter and old paperbacks and stuff Yeah and just was kind of like This is my guy, even though I think there was some discussion of like, you sure we don't want to like call Tom Cruise? There's all this weird reporting of Tom Cruise being interested in the film. It is confirmed that Stanton met with Tom Cruise a few times. but the rapp ar line Cruise campaigned for the job. Right. And Stanton says he met with him. feels impossible to me in terms of like, If Cruz had gone to, you know, Disney and said like I would like to play John Carter I imagine Disney would have said yes. But maybe not. It's kind of a weird period. It was a weird period for Cws. Yeah W's like Yes, it would help to have a name above your title, but also he costs so much. He's expensive. He's already overs a big portion of like confence. This is pre Ghost protocol which kind of like reset the creuise narrative like So it's the kind of the weird version of Pixar director goes to an to live action That is true, which comes out the year before this. Like it's also weird that you're like the things that you feel would have encouraged Disney to green like this hadn't actually happened yet. Avator hasn't come out protocol hasn't come out.. You're like the math retroactively you're like, it must have been. they looked at those two things and said, sure. I think the other thing is Stanton's like we wanted a young actor the ideaas is we're making a series. Yeah. right? Like only We need somebody who can make three of these over the next ten years. I also feel like The implication has always been that Cruz kind of came to him late that eitherbe. Kitch had already been cast or he had his eye on Kitch. He hadd certainly done all the screen testing 'cause there was like Josh Demel and Chain Tatum, all the people you'd assume the guy in that pot. And then Cruz kind of like swept in and was like, what about me And because he was so focused on the trilogy thing, he's like Am I going have to make like a third movie with a sixty year old Cruise. Certainly a sixty year old cruiseurely not going to be making action movies at that thir of theose. Yeah. Lynn Collins also says like everyone I tested against was like a kitch aged actor, right Like if Cruise was involved, it was not. Yeah, I read something where Stanton was talking about like att first I was like, he's too young, but then I looked back at You know, the ages of Harrison Ford when he made Star Wars and people like that. and they were always younger than he than you think they were. And so he felt like he could carry it off. He had the gravitas or whatever. But okay, having having said that C we talk about the performance for a little bit. I know we got more context to get into but last I think it's a good question. like Yes, is Taylor Kitch good as Joh Carter in the film Jon Carter, which was a Disney release in twentyelve director by I think it like pererformance half works. I think it works in spurts like the movie itself, right And I think it's a weird case where you're like historically at this time a man of his age would have experienced a lot of life. be kind of hardened and broken down by said experiences But to see him in a twenty twelve movie, you're like, this guy's too young. Yeah. I don't buy this guy having the kind of like war room doesn vibe with his backstory. you're right. Yeah. I think he's kind of good at the charming swashbuckling thing. I think he has moments where he does the Indiana Jones thing well. I think anytime the movie wants him to sell the haunted and the sort of weary. he can't quite sell it. And I dot think he's fundamentally too moderate. I think he I mean, I was another person love Friday Night Lights. Lo that show. My wife and I watched every episode. And he was good on that show. And And but I think what he was doing on that show was like almost And I don't mean this like insultingly. it was almost nothing. It was a lot of just like presence. He didn't have to show He was just standing there looking incredible. and I agree. handsome. And he had emotional moments, but like the emotions of that show are carried more by like obviously Zach Gilford, you know, like by other actors. Yeah. And I just think he was good in stillness, let's say. and in this movie, I don't know, he's it just feels like he's trying so hard feel him trying. Whereas like like friaking so lonic. Yeah. Yeah. And and this character and I don't know about anybody else, but in this room, but every time he speaks there's something very affected about his voice And the voice that he's using, you know, it's almost like he's like trying to do John Wayne or something It's got a bit of tug spepeedman where it feels like the way you parody an action star rather than an act effortless action star. You know, like there's that one of the scenes that like half works very well in this movie is his first encounter with Tars Tarkis. You have Willem Dafoe who's very good and very funny locked in. He is locked in. I mean, like he's done it many times. He can just he's just good at this. the alien voice and Tars Tars know. Aquaman, he's good at this role, right? Like how many times has he done this? For for your knowledge, Ben This is Dafoe on set like on stilt with a mooca break over his And like Dafoe who loves challenges and technical exercises and whatever is like walking in stills in the desert. He's not just walking in some scenes, he's like running and they have guys you can I found like behind the scenes of him. He has a guy literally dressed from head to toe covered completely in green Yeah. whose job it is is to just make sure he doesn't topple over as he's running to as extras Yeah brandishing his sword. But in this scene, he's doing the, you know, like Tar Starkist And he's tght and and he's great. And Vginia. Yes Vginia. Yes. you Virginia. Hilarious. And then they cut to the other side and it's Taylor Kitch going You know, like, c's going on man. Captain John Carter, Virginia He doesn't quite bump on me as hard as he seems to be larching on you I no. I don't love I am doar jack. You saying the bress The presence in the stillness thing. What's tricky about these types of movies and why it's always really tough to be like, well, we need a young lead because we want to build a franchise, but that also means we're placing someone into this type of film who has limited experience. Yes. Even if you've worked a lot, it's like How often have you been the lead? How big has the project you're in the lead been? And now you're on like a shoot where you might for two or three consecutive weeks, have one line of dialogue. Something like shooting the white ape sequence is like so many tiny little pieces where I do think you kind of want to cast for Ideally you want Harrison Ford. You want someone who's equally good at selling the dialogue scenes and the character and the comedy, but also if you're getting into the technical action pieces, every one of those is going to have an energy and a presence and not just be a guy hitting choreography. But there is an additional problem here with him, which actually is not his fault. It is the conception of the character which is that they cast this incredibly handsome striking man to play a shockingly frequent like focus of ridicule, especially in the beginning of this movie. They, you know, the Tug Speedman thing is kind of funny because they almost do cast him as like this bumbling comic on This so much especially at the beginning of the movie is making fun of him. They literally They like put him they treat him like a baby. like they discover the martreat him like baby. He is baby. They put him in they put him in a diaper. They do. They put him in a diaper baby powder him. they stick him in a bat of alien C I don't know what it is. It might be. I feel like you were burn just be S to say something, Simps. Oh I'm not sure, Sam Worthington, right? Again, I can't help it, but I do think it it's vital when we're talking about Taylor Kitch because Sam Worthington's the same play. Yes. evenven a less known guy. Yeah. you kind of just need to be hold the center. a little regular, hold the center be relatable. Yeah, have a little personality You will be blue often like unli Tayoritch. Well the Tayloritch brif is blue in the when it comes out of the Wh. Right. Yeah. And I do think Sam Worthington is better Why is that? I don't think like Sam Worthington is incredible in Avatar or anything, but like is it just that he has like a little bit more good humor and like I don't kind of vbe They don't make him dress and act like a baby? I sure. I mean he does wear a You know, just there's so much it's it's just, you've cast this guy who's so cool and of as a comedic actor and then like as soon as he's on Mars, it's all shick actually before Mars. his introduction with with Cranston W Cranston is like him jumping out of windows Peing on the ground, it's all stick. See, this is your mileage may vary think, but I helpel this time and re watchatching it was pleasantly surprised. I think he sells the comedy better than I would imagine. I wouldn't say he's funny in this. Yeah. but I also think if we're looking at right Worthington, Hunam, Heland R. R right The guys in this right Hunam is, I mean, like Pacific RM, I guess orver I'm trying toing Arthur later. Right He is legacy which I like that performance in that movie, but a lot of people didn't really is a similar kind of swaggery like is there a little bit of Marlin Brando wild one? Is there a little bit of cheeky humor in this? That's what they're trying to get. a modern. They don't want a guy playing Stoic sci fi hero works for Worthington is that Cameron kind of set him up to succeed in the inverse of how Stanton a little bit set catch up to fail. In Avatar, he's like Kind of the point is that you're the boring guy. Kind of the point is that you're just like personality list marine and then we'll build the humanity in later. There's a talk about this in at Dead Poet Society, but then I saw someone on the Reddit call it out that Hawk did this interview where he said, Weere was really smart about casting for the final color And what he meant by that was a yes, yes. we can't believe we didn't bring that. I know. But that like in D dead pooet Society, you're like, weird. You're having Hawk play like the timid guy, not Robert Sean Leonard's part where he's like the artsy ambitious, you know, passionate guy And he said, you want to cast for the final color. Robert Sean Leonard will ultimately get you to the suicide scene where you need to. That's his wheelhouse. R. And it will feel explosive when that part of him comes out. Likewise, when Hawk gets on the desk and finally is passionate overly earnest Ethan Hawk that will be exive. right? And I think there was a little bit of Cameron casting for the final color, which is just like have Jake Sully be a little bit of a blank And then what Worthington is good at is kind of the earthy earnest, I care romance thing, which is like' asing him off a fucking somersault right. But you're also really not asking him to be funny. You're making him the joke, but in a kind of lower level way. and you're letting all the other characters pop around The secret to that movie is it's Niri is really driving and we're And they cast that We'll talk about the restci of the ensemble in a second and all that. That does matter. I think what Stan really wants is the Indiana Jones thing. and you saying that the movie is constantly embarrassing him. it's the thing that in time, I think Hollywood Filmmakers are pointing at a lot. We're getting a lot of blank generic kind of stoic heroes And what people are forgetting is that Han Solo and Idiana Jones fucked up a lot. They were funny. They weren't just cool all the time. Sure. And a lot of it was watching them finess a situation and feeling the struggle of, are they going to be able to pull this off? Yeah, well, Ford's really good at the I'm one plan ahead at best kind of like on the fly kind of you watch him trip but then you watch him recover. Right. And this is a movie that builds in those moments of mid battle, John Carter being like the moment that I felt like was really big in the trailer of the white a the second and third white apes coming out and cutting into him sighing of like, oh, this is a guy who has vulnerability. He's stressed out that he's in this movie. I don't butt up against that as much ask. As much as just how goofy some of the things they. I mean, he's literally like I think you're also You're describing a problem that the movie has in general of it can't quite reconcile the goofiness and the epicness that well. and I tragic wait Kitch also doesn't work at the end of the movie when he's like, my master plan is being revealed and I am still just like, you just kind of feel twenty nine years old to I do love the ending and the ending I don't m the concept of the ending. Yeah. I just don't think he I think he kind of sells it. I'm a little hotter in this performance than you even though it doesn't totally work Yeah. again, I it's to me, it's like it's an interesting way to conceive the character because it's not it's not from the books, you know, as much as Stanton loves the books. The books are not about this guy having these wacky adventures. This is a grand epic romant very serious and the books are very serious. Yes and, you know, like grand. And here we have all this stick and it almost feels like And I don't know this, but it's just like, well we're making a movie based on this thing from the nineteen teens. Maybe we want to give it a little like silent comedy flavor. You know, there's almost kind of like a ye when he when he's bumbling around in the desert, you're There's a little Buster Keaton. There's a Buster Keaton kind of thing for sure in he's in the desert bumbling around trying to stand. Let's also acknowledge He's running straight from this into Wally, right? Like he gets Disney to buy the right of this while he's finishing Wally is what I was going He's going into production on this a year and a half after Wally is released. like these things are like overlapping and Wally as we covered last week. He's just mainlining Lloyd Chaplin ight Like they said at Pixar every week they would screen those movies. They'd rewatch them. They were obsessively studying the type of hero. And as he said, what he learned with Wally is The emotional arc isn't the guy, it's the way he changes the world around him I think you can feel that in this movie. I had a lot of success. People loved Wally, they loved that the way that I v that character with that silent comedian energy. Yeah. and It seems to be here as well. and I just don't think it fits this movie the way it fit that movie Especially with Taylor Kitch as your guy. Yeahy like guy that I was excited to see in this movie. He says He regrets that he didn't do enough personally, He didn't give everything he had. He kind of sounds like an athlete talking after a loss. kind of like it's on me. It's not anyone else. like the team is great, The coach is great. But he says he talks to Lyn Collins every day. theseese relationships were born. He says he had a huge respect for Andrew. I never had a fight with him. even day at eighty in the miserable fucking desert because I respect him so much. This isn't a production where People are like, what a nightmare.ike everyone had a good That is true. has was into it. Has continued to defend it. R. Like you read interviews with Samantha Morton with Re with everybody to this day and they're like, I had a great time doing that. and it felt like the movie got thrown under the bus. Dominiic West continues to defend it. Dominic West who looks really good at this movie. Yes it does hot. L you know, 'cause now Dominic West has settled into his like, I play British buffoons I'm a little older. know Iget like DominicQuest was fking. I mean, obviously we love McNutty, but like that's a little different. It is funny when you watch a movie and you can tell what the director was watching at at the time. And you're like has Joy I know, yeah, exactly. When James Purefoy showed up, I was like, we don't need to be bringing it. I don't mind him as an actor. Yeah He cannot come in this late. I'm sorry. You already had DominicQuest. You can't be two British guy, like a TV actor It's so much kind of rise of prerestigee TV in late two thousand on your first tens where you I meang reun Ly Colls was on. You got a w person, you got a true blood person, you got the breaking bad guy. you got a Friday lightights guy For sure. Yeah. It's that a Tars. Tars Tarkas had that sitcom, the guy, Tars. It's called Tars. So Willam Defoe Obviously had worked on finding Nemo He liked Pixar. he liked their approach. And as he puts it that guy asked me to play a twelve foot tall Jedk of the Green race of Tharks. What you're going to say no to that? I don't think so That's the Wilm tofox attitude. because I feel like some resters would be like Uh no. I do think no. Stilton desesert? No. Willamfoees like let me add it. When you say likes Pixar likes the approach It's the other thing around this movie, which is Man, Pixar have best track record hist of anyone in Hollywood history. And of course feels like they just work and work and work until they crack the story. and it always just fits together perfectly. And there's a growing feeling of Why are these kids movies better than all the quote unquote, serious adult blockbusters that Hollywood's making? shouldh they be making those? How do we like infect the Pixar process into the other areas of studio filmmaking? And by the time this comes out, the protocol has come out Yeah and that has only increased that that sentiment because it's like, wow, they he Bt really crack me let these guys do everything. Yes. I mean, I'm saying a lot of negative things about John Carter, but what I do want to say here, I was excited about this movie came like I was so excited I remember the trailer really getting pushed down our throats and all that and like starting to get a little tired of Yeah you know, inevitable blockbustery sort of thing where they're just like you're all excited. and I'm like T's your trailer you Yeah a little bit more five months in the desert on stilts. That's that's quite an achievement according to tof Mostly the cororners. Dominic West thought it was a brilliant film. thinkinks Andrew Stanton is a fucking genius. Ws you think again on finding Dory. Right. He thinks Hollywood pololitics put it in the bin. likeike he's just right Some of these actors are just like, I don't know, I love that. Like no further questions. There is Don Cranston also basically was like, it was great. Yeah, fuck box office, fuck Hollywood tracking, like these jerks. I don't think this film ever was going to be a mega hit, but there is no denying that by the time it came out, it was doomed There was three months of the most overwhelming press. Yeah, the kind of trade thing where they smell a bomb and they start to exultt and like, did you know how much this costs? And it's called John Carter. What are they thinking? you know Yeah whichich like then they tried to do with sinners. Y. And then when it blew up in their faces, they were like Okay, but it didn't do that good for like a week and people screamed at them so much that they were like they were like You know, maybe forget it. L I guess it's okay. But there's also Dick Cook who had had this incredibly triumphant run at Disney had stepped down. Rich Ross takes over. Rich Ross had been running the Disney Channel, I believe. Right. And I mean, Rick Ross was doing great at that. Yeah, right, you know. Teflon Dwn. But then he has a really shaky run. L he inherits several films that end up being really successful. the first Alice in Wonderland and things like that. But the things that he green lights basically all start to crash and burn, and he's out pretty shortly after this. They hire a woman named MT Carney who ran a boutique marketing agency put in charge of all marketing for Disney films. And it was a sort of shockwave announcement of like, Is Disney trying to like do something different This is someone who does not have the experience and has not ever worked at this scale. She's never worked in movie marketing, period. And this ended up being the main film she worked on. And then I believe she got fired either a month before or a month after it came out. Like this movie is overseen by a bunch of transitional people in the Disney regime I just remember a lot of talk about the title Yeah And John Carter of Mars or just John Carter. And who is John Carter? And there was all these articles about that and there's all this second guessing. There's all this revolving door shit. Disney at this point in time is in a struggle, which is part of why they fucking just buy Marvel and Lucas film and go like that's our live action thing sol But this movie becomes the center to focus on of what the fuck is going on at Disney and how much money man have they spent on this thing that we've never heard of. Ben just to clearly state this The book is called A Princess of Mars that title immediately evokes something. Disney releases the film The Princess and the Frog covered on this show It does well, but not hugely well And their takeaway is no boy will see a movie with Princess in the title They immediately pivot to the in development in production, Rapunzel movie being retitled Tangled and the Snow Queen movie being retitled Frozen They're like, we need these kind of actiony titles And they say to Stanton, cannot be called Princess of Mars. Got it. We'll call it John Carter of Mars. That helps us come up with our franchise heading, John Carter's the guy what happens then Disney releases a movie called Mars Needs Moms, aforementioned. The final film in their deal withZachus produces it, but does not direct. It is his final like moocap movie. And it is a gigantic disaster. And the takeaway from that is fuck, Mars is a problem. And they zoom out. That's Mars And they look at the data that David mentioned before. They're like, fuck. there werears sersvies in the last ten years. And also like it sounds like a boy thing, right? Like it's like, it's funny that they're like Princess is too girly and then they're like Mars is too boy. admit this. Yeah. They' like Girls won' go to Mar movie. Yes. B both things. So you end up with John Carter that means nothing because there's noied of scaring off both sides of the audience that they end up on a thing on ER. Right. Like don't you want to Yeah, he, of course, doctor John Carter, empty. But like, yeah, don't you wantan to go see John Carter? Well, what's that about I call John Carter. What does he rel and stuff. Like it's just like, how are you It impossible, but it's like the perfect fucking like Hollywood outthinks themselves into a hole. I was watching the end of this movie on the train here and a woman sat down next to me and tapped on my shoulder and was like, what are you watching And I'm like John Carter, she's like, what They' probably tapping you on the shoulder and expecting you to say Dune. and she'll go, Ohh, that's what Dune is. I hear everyone talking about Dune.. The idea that she's seeing this like expensive sci fi movie on your phone and the title is something she hasn't heard of David? Yes. you got any big summer plans. If you're traveling, you got late nights, packed weekends, zero structure, any of those Keeping AG one in your routine helps you stay Consistent. That's a loaded word right there. consistent.. 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That's drink AG one dot com slash When I wear that hat, it's gonna be so ironic. I don't like the mornings.. But I love AG one. Yes This episode is brought to you by Starbucks. That is fire. Whoa, that's good. This might be the drink of the summer. Okay, I like this much too. I'm not worth it, okay? Try it for yourself. Starbucks refreshers concentrates are coming home. Find them in the coffee aisle and make it yours. H is another interesting thing to place out here. We're watching this that it's so similar to Dune in so many ways And it feels like after this run of not just the failed Disney Boys Adventure movies, but like Valerian You know, Patrick Williems our buddy did a great video on what he called the Gonzo blockbuster These movies that were sort of like very silly and operatic, Jupiter ascending. spepeed racer certainly falls into that And his argument is that like Fury Road is the only one of those movies that worked at the time There was a sort of like ten year run of can we let guys just fucking do anything And Fury Road's the only one that's a hit and is well liked upon release. And most of them kind of miss And it feels like Dune is the final correction for that, which is you need to just ground the shit out of this. If you're going to make these kinds of movies, you have to really just like place it in you know, intimate human emotions and hard details And versa militude versus just like, I don't know, there's like a ship that flies. I mean, I guess I have to give this movie some amount of credit that they didn't water it down. I love I that most about it. I mean, it's got these crazy green four armed aliens Not just that that they kept the name and the st Just the kind of like that it's about a bunch of inter Martian politics. Yeah. that they, in my opinion, could have maybe done a better job explaining C have simple, But they are definitely trying to get all across. And as much as they make him a comedic figure, this movie is mercifully devoid of you're called the what There's no John Carter is. it's more them making fun of John Carter than John Carter being like, Barsoom. Okaykay now Now I've heard that is That is true. But on the flip side, I will say. John Carter takes a long time to figure out that he is on Mars. O an hour. fifty one minutes. fifty one already met Wh do he keep saying Purue? He's already met green. Wh are you green? He's met four armed green skin ten foot tall aliens. He has seen alien creatures burst out of eggs And he's like, Wh where am I? Montana?ly He's seen flying ships And he's like, what is yeah, he's like, Which state am I? And here we are on eararth. And she's like, No, Jank Kata, you are on Basoom. His wildest thing literally says Os, his wildest thinking is this must be that Canada I've heard so much about. I was like They're like us, but a little different. Again different Again, they're just treating him as such a dunderhead. like I want I want to just kind of shake him a little bit and be like Get with the program. Get the program. We're not yeah, we're not in Canada. We're not in Montana. Clearly this is we got to be able to keep up with this, buddy. The film is made initially made at Long Craw Studios, which is in London, which I don't know if you guys been to London. Do does not resemble Mars? No at all. Interesting. Dan Mandel who shot this movie. who's like a big, I would say, like does a lot of these big kind of productions. Basically the film he makes in between. Star Trek and Star Wars The Force Awakens Yeah, he also shot Star Trek into Darkness. Yes. He shot Amazing Spiderm Man too. He also shot a little film starring the hottest movie star in the world, Taylor Kitch, Savages May he This guy got to lend Taylor Kitch so much. U He's currently making my most anticipated film of all time, Godzilla X Kong suupernova.ice. He's basically like the studio is fucking being cheap. We should have shot the entire thing in the four corners like you know Desertty America. Yeah We eventually did end up there, but it was way too late. So much of it was done on stages. It doesn't feel textured enough. likeike he he's very anti like that they did England stuff. It is maybe the best thing this movie has going for, especially now fourteen years on is anyt timee they are in a fucking like John Ford Vista It's remarkable. You're like, we don't get this anymore. You don't get and CGI creatures in a beautiful organic landscape that isn't the volume. Yes. And it is cool that it starts in Monument Valley and then you' in this alien landscape. Whver they shot it, it just it feels it has a realistic texture to it. Going for the Mars version of Monument Valley, I think is a smart strategy. And anytime the movie is deploying that and making it a parallel to the actual like West we see at the beginning, is aect But they shot this on film Yes. There was already the three D push that they fought up against. Of course there was one of those last minutute post No concessions or adjustments for three D. but they shot them thirtycent we're like, it's going to be too hard to figure out how to do this. We don't want to do it incorrectly. I mean, the look of this I don't I don't think the look of this movie is a problem. Even if everybody's saying about the stages, I mean there are sort of like green screeny bitch that you're like, okay those. I don't think it looks bad. I think it looks, I mean, there's a lot of really cool props the green screeny bit design and costume. I think all the production design in this movie is good. Ions are cool. All design is good cool. The way that they move how you know, like Tars Tarkus gestures with his arms and uses his hands to like some of his hands are are gesture hands and some of them are like he'll he'll use all of them in different ways One thought I had watching this again this week was like I know it's John Carter of Mars, but what if it was about Tars? He's kind of of my man. Tars of Mars is a winner. Yeah. You got Will Willem Dfoe is maybe just just because I just think he's so locked in and need to give such a great performance. I want more Tars. I also think it's the single biggest story mistake this movie makes maybe is like having him vanish. I think this Samantha Morton character does not work And I think I parsed what they were trying to do, but you're watching it and just going like, this whole thing should be buddy movie with Jh have Dfo playb that role. that is one of the things that is pretty faithful to the book is that that character, the sola character has act even more screen timee in the book Yes and has a backstory. They make much more of the backstory of her with Tars and hatchling. She has a whole chapter that explains her backsory where she tells John Carter her backstory. It's not like him like, I guess in the movie John Carter just kind of intuitits what's going on with like she's your dog. A scene I don't does not work and he's like, she's your daughter, right? And he's like, how do you know that? R? And he's like intuition. And I'm like int what the fuck are? These creatures are born out of eggs. Yeah you literally just went through their hatch like. How the fuck would you know that? Yeah, they all also, not to be racist kind of look the same. Yeah. and Lillan Deepfos like, you have successfully guessed that The one in a million like she was kind of raised as my daughter thing is true of her. Yes. anyway. In the book, that's all literally explained to John Carter by solo. Ly Collins talks about this a lot in that ten years later piece, but that the character was originally a lot flintier and spikier. her character or the or the solo character Yes. And that would make sense. have her Ni. Yes And that there were like, you know the three rounds of reshoots on this movie basically. And I think when you're calling out the couple little pieces that feel more apparently green screeny, those are like the brief moments that feel like these were the last reshoots. becausecause part of what made this cost go up so high is every time they did reshoots versus how they usually do them today where they stick out like sore thumbs They would just fucking go back and reconstruct the sets or go back to the four corners. like they were doing like full production cost. We're just redoing Indeed, of course Stanton says when we're at Pixar, we basically make a movie four to seven times. I've never been part of a movie where you don't do that because obviously he never made a live action movie before. The way the storyies get'ly prepared for knew that. And a thing they said at Pixar all the time that I think Steve Jobs sort of passed on to them was the goal is to be wrong as quickly as possible It's not to try to get it right immediately. It's to try to identify the wrong moves fast so that you can correct them. Right. You make your animatics, you put your own voice on it, see what works, you see what it does. If if you can identify what the problem is, then you can actually solve it. It's not about being a genius who has the whole thing figured out from the beginning. We talked about in the Wally episode It's it's one of the biggest kind of like and certainly the most successful Pixar I got it wrong, We have to reanimate mostly finished footage where like less than a year before it comes out, he's like I fucked this up I had Eve getting damaged and Wally needing to save her for the last act And they have to scrap and redo almost everything. That's not like a small change that affects everything in the plot and then he sort of was like Oh and it needed to be this all along and the ripple effect, it's part of why Wally was so expensive. It was the most expensive I made it at the time the episode He's able to point to that and go, guys, I know that was an expensive choice and people would have said, good enough, but didn't the results bear out the decision. Right He's running off of that kind of confidence of againgain, this is a real blank check movie. Yeah. But here's and Wally was a blank check was clear and clear with flying colors. So then he's in kind of like a nolan post inception state of I did my risky expensive thing that you were letting me do just to stay in business with me and that exceeded expectations. I will say one of the ways in which I do think this movie is interesting is as the kind of larger meta allegory of John Carter, the guy from Earth who goes to Mars Andrew Stanton, the animator making his first Very tentative, very bobbly steps into live action. There is something that's interesting in that I think it's in the New York piece, but he said when they finally green lit It' a movie He was like, I'm gonna lose twenty pounds Yes I'm going to run like a mile or two every day And when I'm on set, I'm never sitting down.. I'm never going to my trailer I so badly want to fight the notion that I'm like An animation guide I it early into the desk. Yeah, right, right right And look, again, everyone speaks highly of him Jon setet and all that. Now It is maybe a mistake by him to do an incredibly frank profile in the New Yorker before the movie comes out. in which he talks about the fact that he showed a two hour fifty minute cut of the film. to Disney in December of twenty eleven Okay, so four months before it comes out. pixar guys who watch it this meeting immediately are like Um we could plus this, we could plus it, you know, like start doing all of that And like but we're confused by the beginning and the lecture about Barsoon It doesn't feel really personal. pickix our process, obviously would be like, yeah, yeah, that was our first go. And we'll now let's get to work on fixing. Thank God we showed it to you in the story reels stage rather than finish production.. And then obviously at this point, there's only so much that can be done. They do do many reshoots. Lynn Collins felt like as you said, like in the original script, she slaps John Cargter a few times. That was a of M. She's a warrior. Yeah. and Disney basically was like this character comes off too hard, too bitchy, like they soften her At a certain point, she says during the reshoot, she's just like to Andrew, like just tell me where to stand and what to do. I've lost the character. like whatever it is you need for me, I'll do it. There's like twenty minutes of deleted scenes on the Blue Ray and it's frustrating because you're like, I know there's an hour and twenty minutes. There's a John Carter the missing pieces. And I want to see all of it. And I'm sure a lot of the deleted footage is like alternate versions in like a Chooser and adventure book way of what could have been in the movie But there's an alternate opening that starts with her that Lynn Collins is doing the opening narration.ginning are difficult Yes. And then it cuts to her sort of like meeting with all the leaders trying to sort of you know piece. And then there were several deleted scenes that sort of were more focused on her and the Samantha Morton character But beyond it just being, well, that's from the books, it felt like they were trying to make a sort of parallel story of the two of them You know, not trying to be defined by their fathers and trying to be leaders. And when you nerf her character down, the Samantha Morton character just feels like she is there. And the whole time you're to invoke another Simpsons thing, asking, where is Doris Tarkcus? Where iss Tis Tarkis, but also I think Lyn Yeah,'s what's the character Cin Lyn Coins, but what's the character st of course, she also is mostly just there and's kind of just a problem of like we need to get to helium. And then it's like, I'm getting married and I don't I don't want to want stop that please. Right Yeah. Some Andrew Stanton quotes that again, perhaps I might not say to a reporter before my movie comes out. The demon I'm chasing is can I figure out what my story is before I run out of time Feders March see my March. you know, he admits like the second act of the movie, I never cracked it. It sags and I would agree like the second act of this movie is pretty boring. Yeah. Yes. firstirst and third acts W' happening from actions a little better, you know, like right, you know, he and the Pixar brain trust liked the reinvention of Carter, the family backstory tortured Confederate soldier kind of thing. I don't really think that works, but I get that it's something is what's also fascinating is the single most fascinating thing about this movie to me. So when the marketing is in freefall and the buzz is negative there all these stories about did Disney fuck it up or did Stan fuck it up with the marketing Was he too confident weighing in too much of, you know, I want the trailer to be soundtracked to the Super Bowl ad was set to cashmere The original teaser trailer was Gallagh doing a cover of arcade fires, My body is a cage It was like all these things in the marketing that were his personal taste and they were like, does this make sense to audiences? But then when Disney threw something out, that didn't work either So one of the hail Mary pass things they do for the marketing is they're like, how do we get people to like understand Andrew Stanton's track record and invest in the idea of him as a filmmaker He does a TED talk where he I was the story of the findinding Memo thing. we of course discussed in that episode where he had Marlin's wife's death and the death of all the other babies scattered as flashbacks across the movie, and the audience didn't like him and that when he stopped being clever structurally and put it at the beginning, they understood his tragedy and then they were with him the rest of the way. And he while promoting this movie points out, I learned a very important lesson about storytelling that day and then this movie does the opposite thing. This movie does the why is John Carter so angry? Why does he have so much contempt for the military? Why doesn't he want to fight any Why does he want to run away? and we're just going to keep giving you little flashes and focusing on the ring and something bad happened. You know it. It's not a surprise when it comes But it's what he talks about learning with findinding Nemo of If you let the audience experience it with the character, they feel it It's not like it's a satisfying twist ending to be, o oh shit, something bad happened to him If you can dramatically pull that scene off correctly, then the audience is endeared to that character. and this movie has the moment where it's finally all like is shown to you is an abstracted flashback in the middle of what is his biggest action sequel. B action where he's switch lailing wildly Like an interesting conceit of filmmaking It's a very much right where you're like, wow, that's a big idea. It's an idea h. It's a big idea. But it'sating emotionally. I think it is and I really it's like The fact that it's his wife and child is burn where they kill we don't really don't even fully explain it, but they show their they show the are' just like watching it. I'm like, ye, I'm just kind of bummed out right now. L I'm feeling very triumphant. But this is the finding emo thing of if you start with that and then you get it out of the way and then the movie' fun you can ride with it. Yes. If you drop it in the middle, it bums us out and this scene that should be exciting then becomes really heavy. I watched that Ted talk and there is a and there's a lot of stuff around around the build upp to this movie, Oh storytelling, the importance of stories and being a good storyteller. and here is the secret. I have we at Pixar have pracked the secret of good storytelling, which at the time, as Pixar fans, we were all like, yeah, you have. You abolutely did. But then you watch this movie and there are all these strange story choices that work that aren't in conversation with each other, which is the thing about Pix golden Run is that these things feel so holistic and so tight and they don't feel algorithmic And you' saying David, like, why would he admit all this shit in a fucking New Yorker? R? He has always been a very frank interview subject. R, Which is great. goodood for him. And I think he likes the idea of being a bit of an open source filmmaker like the guys he grew up with, where he's explaining the process. and Pixar is so at the tip of DVD special features. We're showing you our mistakes And it's like, this is part of creativity is you get things wrong and then you learn. And I think he's doing that because he's also assuming it's going to turn out the way the last two did R. It always works out before. A lot of things didn't work and then we figured out the last moment because the end of the article is like it tested pretty well. We just held our first test screening got a seventy five. Disney rounded that up to an eighty because it was unfinished. And like there's the hubris of like, you're hearing that and you're That doesn't sound That sounds okay one hundred. Right. nine should at least be involved. R iterative process, which when he gets tagged a little with is this guy coming in way too cocky. Yeah. And again, it is this guy He had this incredible success that not just as a director. I mean, you look at all the movies he helped write at Pixar. He kind of was like this guy who had the magic touch who was B all over making a serious effort to reestablish this in every episode on this series. It is really important to understand that he was the story guy at Pixar that he is credited with being he was the best in house screenwriter. He's the one who always was cracking stuff Taking the lead on the script you know, launching the original idea. right. But ironically this movie it has some good things in it. There are aspects I like. It's not a good story. No and and no not really. We have barely talked I mean like we barely talked about the Thns, which are a huge part of this movie that makes absolutely the biggest problem. It's the reshoot opening and what feels like such a clear reshoot of We start with a big action sequence after a Willem Defoe voiceover of like two warring parties that look silly And they look so much alike. We don't know f and why talalking grimly and you don't know what's going on. And then it cuts to actual superstructure of the movie.es, which is the Edgar Rice Burroughs thing that this is a dramatization of the author of the book who is now changed into the nephew of the character who is being told of his uncle's death. and is locating his diaries and reading the story. Yes But and then once not have done that. And then the story starts with John Carter on Earth. So it's like a Rushing Nessing doll thing where some of the structure in terms of burroughs and and like finding his manuscript, that is from the books. Like that is that is something that he took from the books. But again, this notion of the thees like What are they doing? Why are they doing it? Why do we care? What do they want? You know, they eventually there is that scene where Mark Strong does get to kind of explain what he is doing and why, but his explanation is wholly like unsatisfying and you it doesn't clarify anything and you're like You know, he every there's all these scenes because again, John Carter is a guy who jumps a lot. It's like, why don't they just kill this guy? Yeah And every time Dominic West is about to zap him. he's like, no Let him live. We must further study him. And you're sitting there going They even have Dominic West being like, what's the point of all this if I can't use this thing and you're like, he's right. Why can't he just kill this guy? What is the explanation 's it's just the kind of June ese like our plans are measured in centuries, but like The Ths don't make sense because they like a parasitic r They like they say they like manage the destruction of the planets Galactic. They like to manipulate They're just for like they're in it for the shits and get they're to the washer, but they get their hands dirt. What's soon the Bene Beneger is that kind of the thing? I mean, I guess so, that's that's what he sort of explains when he's in explain Mark Strong's character But of course in that character Matai Shang. Yes. Well no in his they have a goal that they actually explain And here's just We're going to Yeah, these people are going to roll because we say so. It's a little league of shhadowsy from Batman of kind of like we're always behind the scenes. Yes We rightight. We're like we're in charge of the ends of civilization. And they're also in the movie. They actually are watching and doing things on Earth And they're immortal and they and they live forever. they're all they only have one weakness being shot one time being which is Tw different times in the movie where these unkillable immortal beings are like sneak up behind John Carter. and he shoots them once and they fall deadedily ten gun.es. let's also consider. he's like, I don't want to do the thing where the movie has to start with an endless like spiel of at the beginning, there was yada, yadda, yada. Right? And he's like the Edgar Eesboroughs thing is a way to ease us into it to create a sense of mystery What was happening here? It's giving us a slightly more relatable character, a more modern sort of normal dude. And then we sort of like slowly ease into all of this And then they do the screening and Pixar is like, this would just like too much fucking happening because in that version, he shoots the guy in the cave and then Mark Strong doesn't appear until like an hour and a half into the movie and start explaining stuff And they're like, this is too much to drop. It too late. So then they come up with the new opening where you cold open with him and the idea that something's going on here. And as admitted in the New Yorker piece, that realization that that needed to be an opening necessitated eighteen new scenes.. They were like the ripple effect of this is if this is happening here, then this is this and this is this. And Disney's like, okay, we'll write you a check for more reshoots. Right because Disney is essentially like You were on budget and on time. The first time. Yeah. like the shoot was not a problem at right And and you made successful films. Yeah. And now you're saying you need reshoots and that's kind of how you do it at Pixar you're in the Right. Yes, the answer is yes. He's even saying I'm here to sort of try to show Hollywood why our movies work. R Wh our process makes sense. And that more movies should be like this. Let's iterate, let's just like write you need to Yeah, it's about seeing the whole thing and then going back and circling back. What's fascinating to me is that everyone goes like, hey, dude, you fucked up doesn't work in live action, go back to your animation corner. and then immediately it feels like the studios start making movies this way all the time. But cheaper. Like where the resoots are not quite as They're lazyved, right? Yeah. And they're just sort of like the first s going to be almost a drive. That's That's your first dra. Right. And' sure. you're right. We'll make that a lot simpler and a lot shorter. And if we don't have a finished script, then let's just get what we need to get. Speaking to those kinds of movies that are coming You do watch this and you're like, I guess I realize why. every Marvel movie ended with them needing to close a portal and kill a bunch of guys because it's just kind of like The audience can grapple with these clear video gamy goals very easily. Whereas I'm watching John Carter and Before we get to the epilogue, which is the end of the movie, right think which is not one minute. It's six or seven And I'm just like, what does he need to do? And what will that accomplish? Right. Like I get that Mark Ststrong is bad. Yes Although I'm not totally sure how you kill him Be you I'm aware I'm aware that you could shoot Solarlex But then I'm like Is DominicQuest good or bad ad I guess like he he's yeah Pragmatic. He's pragmatic. I guess. He sometimes he spends a lot of the movie being like, I love you, Deja Thoris. I you can kill me if you want. takes my blade. And then ye at the end of the movie, John Carter shows up and he's like, Dastan He's not a He' Daston, but you're also like clearly the movie doesn't want he's me. want them to get married. Right. And like This wedding, youre you know, Mark Strong is like, of course after they've exchanged their vows, we'll kill her And that'll be the final step in us taking control of our city. And I'm like, why He's like they fall out of that And I'm like Why would that be good for you? Like you killed the princess or whate he doesn't explain it except for the sort of like, I'm the puppet master and everything I do works out. you know. To yourour question, Ben, this is a perfect example to me of a movie that does the exact wrong amount of explaining. You either need to explain way more or way less. O just like, don't worry about it.ither You need to have a real specific answer that you can eventually sell us on Or you just need to be like for century these two species have been waging war and just go like, they've just been fighting. They're different and they don't like each other. Instead, they keep getting into it and you're like, I still don't think I have my arms around it. I know you're telling me stuff. And I never quite engage with like, do the Red Martians and Green Martians hate each other or just not viibbe. Right, because they're not actually at war with each other, but they don't like each other Yeah Yes. But the Red Martians are at war with the Therns. But it also are Martians. The Therns are just kind of manipulating everyone from what end. even we all make fun of fucking untanium, right? To your point of like we make fun of the portal in the sky. We need the thing that's there. Yes. It's the reason these movies do this is they're just like there is just one thing we're fighting over And this you're like, what is the technology? There are so what going around? What do they want to do? The thing is sort of the ninth r, but again, they don't make it clear what exactly do it and right how it works where you get it. Dia Thoris has discovered it also in the beginning of the movie and she's giving a like a PowerPoint presentation treating her like someone who's like I found something called un You know, where they're like you're making this up or this is friend There's science. There's a Thrn in disguise, which is another aspect of the Thrns that we may not have even mentioned, which is they can look like anyone and be anywhere Y And then he like zaps her ninth r with his ninth r. Yes and and destroys it. And then somehow, you know, like everyone, again, no one believes her. and then she's going to have to marry Dominic West And yeah, it's just Let's also acknowledge she she's an inventor. And we need to shout that out. She makes a she's a woman inead. woman in stad. Yeah. And she's a woman instead. We haven't discussed Lynn Collins. I saw on Letterbox that you praised her performance in this film in a prior letter when it first came. You've revisited this movie a couple times though. We noted that you've given it a cou a couple at bats on Letterbox I keep trying. I keep trying. Yeah Because I because again, I like Andrew Stanton. Yeah. and this just feels like the kind of movie I should like. And there is stuff in it that works and there is stuff in it that works like Tars Tarkis and and the design of it. I do kind of like going to Mars. Yeah. It's kind of like Mars dog works. Well we haven' mentioned Woola who actually is a very good boy and is very likeable. I agree that he's a good boy He is kind of in and out of the movie. I remember the marketing being like ready to meet Woolow. That was also last guas marketing b kind of despicable it to like, wait. don't know just were Right. What are the things that are testing well and he was probably of the few funny the nice little. Fny that he's like an alien dog with a lot of legs and he's really fast. It does also mean that sometimes the movie is just like zip and he's gone and then he's just back That is that is shockingly pretty faithful to the book. surely. He kind of like will tell him to stay somewhere and he'll just wait there sadly with the puppy dog face. And then a few scenes later, John Carter will be in trouble and who will save him? Wa will come to the rescue. So that, I mean, that is kind of Again, it speaks to like the episodic nature of the book. The book was written as episodic. It was written as justial magazine magazine. Yes. So it didn't have like a super structure of it's the story of John Carter doing this. It was right. It was the continuing adventures of John Carter ndering this strange H's some new coolraph I It was an ethnographic report on this strange lost civilization on this other planet. It's also why movies are not adapted this way You know, no one goes like, I'm going try to adapt The first thirty issues of Spiderm Man, literally. because It was not written in a form that that helps you in adapting to a close loop narrative. You know? You more like extract the feeling But Lynn Collins, Ly who I know from three things, I think I think when I'm looking I mean, obious's got other credits but it's She's on S episodes of the firstene of season of Troop like. Yes. Like she is out of that season. for the season Rras. But it was a buzzy show. It was a the very buzzy show and she was like the bombshell and she was the big hottie Although the first season of True Blood, like all subsequent seasons of Tue Blood is insane and people die all the time kind of randomly and like and as as which is what happens to her And then like she's an X Men Origins Wolverine next year. She's also she's another She's another X Men Origins Wolverine. And it was sort of like, who is this? How is this But it had a little bit of this sort of like the studio being like, we found our next fucking Huge act. And I must acknowledge Hila silver Fox. I must acknowledge she gets to give him the name The Wolverine, Is that what you're gonna to say? No, no, no to your great Consternation and frustration. I must acknowledge, she was a graduate of Juilliard. She was from. So when she is discovered it is also like this is a serious actor. Yeah She chops. You know, she's in the Michael Radford Merchant of Venice movie with Al Pacino as Portche, which is an incredibly important role In two thousand four, when she's barely been in anything. Yeah, I have not seen that movie either way Like There I'm not sure Pacino gives a subtle sensitive performance as Shylock, the moneylender That was one where I I saw the post and I was like, this feels like an attack on my people I study Birchard Vedis in school.. I know the play very well. I've never seen the movie. I should watch it. just look at it. I know. Yeah. It was one of those movies that was DOA, obviously. But like that she had that role unless she stinks in it which is posossible. I should watch it That's definitely that's a sign of some chops. It' It feels like, you know, a couple years later.ino disers. Well, she's very good in both. Yeah, I haven't seen that mov in a long time, but I don't remember her being dad. But she's in number twenty three, although not in a big role, I don't think. She plays number two. Um What do you remember That It's not that I remember, but just a couple years after Merchant of Venice, Picino discovers Jessica Chastain similarly who is a Juilliard person, he does the wild salamay salameay thing with her And then it takes her a couple years for the industry to sort of like accept her. But it felt like both of them were a similar like Paccino has found a young female Juilliard bombshell who he is working into the classics and presenting as I approve of this person. I think they have the goods. Wh By all means out. L, that's fine. I don't like X Men mrigins Wolverry. It's a dog shit movie. I remember her role being incredibly thankless in it. totally. I do not remember her being good all in it. Like I like she's a she's a blank in that movie. She' a hat She's forced to explain a dream that involves a wolverine That's how he gets the name the Wolverine. She is like one of those lame powers where it's just she's a human you're like, oh, this is his human love interest, his tragic love interest before he became Wolverine. And then the reveal at the end is that she's a mutant whose powers that she can emotionally manipulate people., whichich feels like misyist she touches you. It's a woman who can make you just like It's Will I am who has the hat. I'm sorry. Will Aam has the hat.ill Will I A's character was I got a cad and he's in the movie. He's in the movie playing a role. His character's name is Blink and he can teleport. like night crawler? Yeah No, he's not. No he'n't John Wraith He's right. Yeahah, he's up much. The whole thing with Xmen Argin' Wolverine was you could tell that Marvel was like they were like, canan we have Blink and they were like We don't even want to give you blink. You can have like just dug in the bucket. And also Swn HBO's lanterns where they're like no one will wear a costume. Everyone is wearing a leather jacket totally. Dominic Moyniahan plays a guy who can turn light bulbs on. Which character is he? So he is weird Bradley. He's yes Chris Bradley who was sort of known as Maverick. Maverick is how I would know him. He had been initially announced to be playing Beak, who is a Grant Morrison character who's like a living bird. Yes. And then I bet you someone was like we'd have to like put a bird face on him. Can he just be someone who turns off light bulbs or whatever? And then and then there's Agent Zero who is in it, Ben, who of course is a mutant whose mutant power is, he's good at shooting guns. Guns. Yeah. This movie sucks. like Agent Zero's power is guns. Deadpool's power is sword. L you know, like look, actuallyM can teleport Wolverine It is neither Lynn Collins nor Taylor Kitch's fault. But for the infinite trust I had in Andrew Stanton, the first warning sign was, I've announced my two leads, I've discovered the stars of tomorrow. Both of them are in the cast of X Men Origins f.' like I feel like we should treat that movie as like a three mile island stay awayay at all costs, especially since it ends on three miles Yes. It sure does. It's also in a thrilling and coherent Sabooth just not in it. No, he's in it. But on Saberttooth is like he has sideburns and a jacket. He's played by Lev Schreber. some little fingernails. You should Google Lev Schriibert like running Saberttooth. And I're gonna watch your face as you watch this man being likeike a dog He's kind like a kind of like right like a dog galluop. I think of Shreber is the one good performance in that movie. He's got to take not's got He's got to take, but it's also funny that already less than ten years in the X Men franchise was like we're just reckonning everything. Now here's Sabert Tooth who is nothing like the previous Saber Tooth and is also his brother. Yes. This is true Do we think Lynn Collins is good in Jan Card. I don't think she's bat. I think character does not work at right No. It's kind of the same thing with with Taylor Kitch where it's like, I don't necessarily dislike her Yeah, the problems are sort of putting her into this role which has all these these issues The structure of it is way off. I find like I don't really get the accent she decided on. this kind of like vaguely English regally kind of accent. I mean, she hits it harder than I remembered. I'll give you that. She's also kind of similar to Natalie Portman and attack of the Clones, as we talked about. Yes. She's like brown Like or Wt brronze. She's red because she's a red Mart's a red Mart. My wife kept being like, what's shes supposed to be? And I was like Red Martian. And my wife was like And that is and I was like, what do you want from me? I don't know. I mean, like desertty, I guess. just the idea. Everyone is like bright red, which makes them look like aliens, even though they are otherwise humanoid. It is visually distinctive. I feel like Stan communicates that it thought it would feel a little silly and they wanted to make it a little more grounded. They end up at heavily tanant. They end up in this R kind of makeu Tly tattoo. No, I also feel like just feels college student who went to Morocco and still thinks they can like b man. Yeah. It was unspoken, but I have to imagine part of their concern was like If they are bright red and too caked and tribal stuff, do we get into touchy Native American territories? I suspect that that was a consideration. Where they end up in trying to avoid that almost feels more uncomfortable? And I think you're right. it's very Padme where it's like, what is your weird like Mid Atlantic accent?. What is this skin tone? What are we culturally pulling from? None of this is her fault. He kind of makes the Star Wars decision of All of the aliens and the villains are British, right? Like the humanoid, the sort of they're coded kind of the Roman Empire to the pointing people from the Rome TV show on HBO to the point where right. I do think like Mark Strong Kiiran Hins, DominicQuest James Purefoy, like Can we at least remove one of these guys? Like you've got maybe too many kind of UK I of pig based meat on one slice of pizza. Yeah, ye David Swimmer is in this? I think just like a cameo of the Tharks ' he's another random personan loves John Carter. And thatbro also did a little cameo. All, I watched this. What do you think? What do you think? Good stuff You see you see his fucking nails grow his nails grow and he This is a movie that is so obsessed with not doing any goofy comic book stuff that they're like, well, you can't just have Saber Tooth be a big WWE wrestler with like a mane of yellow hair and like got and roaring. And you're like, why? everyveryone liked that? And they're like, no, he's a guy who like talks quietly and his nails grow a little nails grow and he wears a black But then anytime it does something like him running on all fours, you're like, well, now that's twice as silly because you haven't built a movie that can support Cic bookie shit.. It's so bad. It's so weird. Have you you haven't seen this movie I truly was thinking when you were talking about it I mean, love Wolverine. He's my guy.verine I've donon't remember this at' another franchise death thing. He's got to Google another thing that have to Google battle Yeah, Final battle, deadpool. And you gott to see what they make Dadpool. So Ryan Reynolds really wanted to play Deadpool. like early on, he called Dibbs on that. Yeah. And I want to make my own movie as Deadpool Then they go, we've written Deadpool into X Men Origins, Wolverine. This is a good launching pad, but it's going to be early Deadpool before he really becomes Deadpool. So he's just Wade Wilson a murk with him. He looks like He's mering. He's Ryan Reynolds with a reed tank top who's got double swords. And then they decide fuck, he popped in the first act. ight He's the only thing people like in this And we dispense of him. So they do extensive reshoots to make Deadpool the villain at the end of the movie kidnapped D deadpool and tortured him and made him into like a mega mutant where now he has like seven different powers. He has a sse' optic glass know teleport to tight arms. He can teleport like Joh Wraith Everyone's favorite telep exactly favorite. And Ryan Reynolds is like I were such to do that teleporter. So Scott Adkins, legendary great Scott Adkins, martial artist hero King of the DTV action movie is in Ryan Reynolds makeup as mouthless deeadpour, which is a joke to spite the fans of pool is famously the merk with a mouth Danny Houston the second of four actors to play William Striker. There's been a lot. He's beenair. Why won't you shut up Wade? And so when they do all these weird operations on him, the first thing they do is sew his mouth shut. Right. You know, that thing that everyone hates when Deadpool can make jokes during actions T to be fair, I did grow to hate it. We do hate it, but it has made Bill confidently that John Wraith AKA Maverick is I know those are two different people. John Wraith AK. what What's his name? I don't know. I R might just be I think his name is Rraith. Maverick is Maverick was was. Yeah, exactly. Dude, I can't watch this anywmore. This was dog shit. Yeah But they know he is called Maverick You guys are thinking you guys already forgot what the other guys. Why is this this is no goodness. They had made the third Xen and they were like, that is the proper end to the. Bradley was also known as Maverick. There we go. Wow. They did it for both.l.edia says John Wraith's other name Hestl They were like, X Men was a trilogy, We are done And the ongoing future of the X Men franchise is doing spinoff origin movies. We're gonna do everyone's backstory Magneto this bomb so hard. they take the script for X Men Origins Colon Magneto and retrofit that into first class. The sort of Nazi hunting sc was supposed to be like to pull it off. Yeah, kind of pull it off. That movie kind of. I think Raith is o so the most famous X manen who teleports Night Number two is Blink. Blink was a very popular character for a while there. Yeah. Number three with a bullet, I'm going for magic. I was gonna to say magic because dimentionally traveling. and she has a cool sory. Number four, let's talk about him Night Crawler's weird brother, Azazle Is that how you say it? I don't know I never how I say it Or iszil as Azil. Yeah He can do kind of like teleport. C I sayzle. call his dad, which lies him like he's a Netor teleport. But it'sd, becauseuse he re, instead ofdredibly Purpleue ye blue. Yeah. And Mystique is his mom. Yeah that's true Number five I think it's gott to be Pixie. Pixie Pixieroort she was hot in the twenty ten s or whatever. Yes. like M fraction era maybe. Correct. Yeah. I think I'm comfortable ting John Rith at six. Good. rightight? anyone that would go above him at. Everyone else listed with teleporting powers are people like Hope Summers who just copy other powers or people like Apocalypse who just kind of have like all the It's a bon anwer,? Yeah That's his like twentieth power. It's also funny, and then we're gonna to close the loop on X Men Origins, Wolverine. Maybe we just counting X men right X Men universe Because like Lckockdaws obviously It's a better marvel And you know what? there was that gateway character who Gateway. So maybe he's maybe Raith's down to eight. Raith's got to be get America shot above. She makes Starport Star portals. That's true. but she's not really X Men, right? No. I'm saying we're opening it up to Marble They're like so afraid of letting any of these characters be comic booky, but they also include Blob who had been cut out of all three mainline X Men movies up until that point. They do, but I feel like their take on Blob is like he's large H suit on like has like a makeup suit on aesthetic suit. But like he's not actually blobby. He's kind of tough. He don't hunch. Yir take is Rather than Blob's power being like this endless kind of growth of mass that it like has so much power behind it, they're like, he was a guy whose power was bulletproof skin and then he let himself let himself go. rather that he let it take I forgot be like an extension of a mutant evolution They're just like, this guy just eats too much trunk food now. Yes. Rolverine served with him in the war and he's really cut and then he goes to a boxing gym, and he's just a fat ass He cheat us. And they make fl jokes for five minutes.. And he has a voice. They give him a voice. It'svinein Kevin Durand, who I always enjoy. A lovely actor Mike That experentargin's Wolverine problem of where they're like, meet all these new characters. Oh, okay. no, no, no. meet them later when they suck. We'll meet them before they're for two minutes to the start and then later he'll rebuild a team that you don't know anything of. You only see them before they figure their thing out and after they're wal suck And then we kill themar. then they all die immediately anyway, so who cares, right Okay, S't believe that movie didn't work. Yeah John Carter John Carter Yeah, so obv of origins, Wolverine. Here's another story issue this movie has in my life.ot Thomas Hayden Church is the bad Yeah Fark. He's doing a boys. It doesn't even sound like him really He's going to gover Yeah yeah basically give John Carter the Dorothy Wizard of Oz thing of all I want to do is get home. I don't want to be here Right before I got teleported, I discovered a cave full of gold. Yes. I was running away from the calry They were going kill me, but now I'm about to be so rich. Save my city, become our warrior. He's like, where is the exit? Get like back the cave. It's not just I miss home, but he keeps Crston's getting all the gold. He' like I was a minute away from being the millionaire and owning, you know, the railroads and whichever, which you already know he's ceed in doing because when Ned Burrroughs is called to his dead uncle's estate, you see that he is now a very wealthy man. Yes. Oh, and we know for sure he is definitely debt Right? Yeah, when they'ore So weird. his tomb can only be open from the inside. It's almost like it's a weird puzle thing. Anyway, here is the books. Here's a picture of Vim and Vigor. Yeah. not five minutes before he passed. It is funny how Taylor Kitch again, twenty nine when he makes this movie. he's like The performance of him being like, call for my doctor. might as well get the attorney to while you're out of the de. That was like very well sir. I do love any movie where they create the device of this thing will make you look dead for fifteen minutes. little fuck. A little thing. Puffer fish. Puffer fish. It's a venom of a puffer fish. Is that I don't even know. Is that a thing? Can we I think in the days before EKGs, heart rate monitors, possibly you could stulate coma. There were more I don't know. There were primitive versions of Niquill and people would just accept. You guys guys fucking dead. I've never seen someone sleep that hard. You gotta think if they were real the Jackass guys would have used it in one of their movies at this point. It would be an incredible actual prank to be like. Okay. The final prank of Knoxville died. D you think the Jackass five Jackass bestest and last whichich is coming out shortly after this episode's released. Yeah, it's coming up pretty soon. The trailer dropped today. drop this. Do we think they try to do a flatliners? That does feel like the final frontier. Kill me and then bring me back. C we do it? It would be it would be appropriate given the theme of this is the last one. Best and last. Yeah, I do feel like I worry about them like the sort of narrative they're putting forward with it of like we we know that as the last one, this has to be like the biggest one ever. Yeah I'm just like, I really just enjoy same Y'all being together and having fun. Like I don't need you actually to try and top yourselves. You're older. Yeah. Like I think your physical peaks have passed. don't we don't actually want them to die. We enjoy their time. Not only not die just ike just have fun guys. My read on that situation is that that was very much their intent for four Right COVID fucks with four. Exactly. And so I think Knoxville and crerew got a little itchy and we were like we didn't really get to do everything we wanted to do on Full for 's really good got a lot of suddenly now everyone critically every every Jackass movie has gotten better reviews than the one before. is the funniest thing this phenomenon and Jackass is the best example of it where the fourth movie comes out is a New York Times critics pick and also is said obviously not as good as the earlier entries. Right. And you're like, all of these work crashed at the time. they were seen as a sign of a declining culture by older gics the best of us. Right, right. So anyway, puffer fish venom we're going gonna taste it. Yeah, right it's in you put it in the Spider Man coffee. You just didn't mention it. Yes. We're all about to attain a certain Komato state dly and then hopefully our nephews will send us to Baron. Okay, but the idea is that a copy of him has been made this is a thing the movie also makes bit of an Avatar. Weirdly, it's a bit of a like your body's actually on Earth Well, they say they sent a copy just like a telegraph, which is not how telegraph works, which is very a very funny explanation where it's like it's like telegph. That's a copy and you're like, that's not out. That's nineteen shit. This is stupid to even ask, but we see that when he comes back to his body Colonel is like bones now Yeah and he's been there for really long time. Does he shit his pants G question B we have b breaches Is John Carter's brereeches just full. I mean I think've been eating. Yeah, but I'm saying he's just been laying there. But he's not in a regular What are the rules? Well, we don't know. but he's not in a regular coma. He's in like a your spirit and body have been transported to Mars right. So maybe he is truly like just frozen in time and not. It's fascinating ' if you're a regular comp, you do poop. Yeah. It's all happening. But it feels like a prestige where, oh, at this moment, a new version of you is being made That is birthed at this other spot. Godot. Yes. right? Yes. Yes. that her It's like we've built a thing, we've placed it there, and now we're gonna transfer your consciousness. And there's one consciousness going in between the two In this, it is at this moment, you are copied, that copy is sent there and your consciousness is being transferred. But I think Copy is misleading because his Eth body is just lying in the cay. Right.. it's not Copy sort of suggests like there are two John Carters walking around on two planets You know what I mean? They're two junk C cararters, but only one of them can walk at a time. There's just one then, really? The other one bodies though. It needs the body needs to exist. Carter' one one cararter two cups. And which one's pooping? I'm just Give me a big old Rumel stillillskin beard. Yeah. I did That would same thought with why isn't Yeah, shouldn't he have a big old bushy beard when he wakes up And also maybe have like bird that built a nest on his head. And can he wake up in the eighties? Can he like wake up with the beard and be like, where am I? And then hears like Wandi on the like someone's like carr cruis Yeah. And he pees his head out and he's in the back of a Sam goodies All good ideas. ideam rightight now I sweating. Im like Yeah. maybe, maybe, maybe I do that. Mbe yeah. I do like when he wakes up back on Earth and there's like crackling noises. Yeah. He's all dusty. I mean, that is kind of fun. And yeah, he looks over and Brian Cransston iss a skeleton man. That' kind of fun. I like the Cransston sequence. I like the him constantly trying to escape and getting put in more and more restraint. The Cranson sequence is fine. think movie It's interesting because like the Mars adventure ends with him falling in love with Dejia Thoris. Get married, which I would say marrying her and becoming the prrince of helelium. A little unearned that they get They are that is fucking completely they only get married, I feel like because they're like, I mean, all the wedding shits already right here So I guess we'll do that.er very space b. They've kissed one time implied because he forgot he wasn't talking to his dead wife and then he immediately walks away and apologizes. And then like it feels like six hours later they're married. Their chemistry is very. Itms like they got they get married in the movie because they get married in the books and they probably get married in the books because it's like, wow dirty single woman, I'm doing you a favor It's nineteen twelve. Yes. in the books, they get married and then even though they don't describe it, this is like literally one paragraph. They say like ten years passed. He basically there there he lives there for ten years. They have a egg, not even a full born like they don't she doesn't give birth to a child, like a baby She somehow, they don't get into the details, produces an egg and the egg is about to be born when he is pulled back to Eth in the book and there's this whole thing that is, again, not in the movie at all involving the atmosphere factory that creates the air of Mars where it stops working. They've established earlier in the book this atmosphere factory and if it ever goes down, there's going to be a big problem end of the book. it goes down. He heroically goes to save it or like repair it. He's the only one who can do it. He knows the secret password that can open the unopenable door because he's awesome. The secret password of Ned Yes. he opens Thank you. He opens the door and is like myst. He doesn't even understand why he's like sucked back to earth and then has to figure out how to get back to his wife and his unborn child and that's the end of the book. It ends on like a huge cliffhanger, which this one really doesn't. The other thing about the marriage, which we haven't mentioned one time, I feel like we should at least mention He's in the book. He and everyone is naked on Mars. Oh sure. He shows up totally naked. Oh o They describe how all the Tharks are naked. Yeah and Dejia Thoris is naked. like most sort of like the book is everyone's just running around with You know, their' hogs hanging out and whatnot. Most of the visual sort of history cultural memory of John Carter is from when Frank Fzetta does a bunch of addeditions. of Frank Roseta is like sort of the main Can artist, you know, that sort of classical kind of oil painting barbarian look. And u They were very scantily clad Like it was sort of like Deesjia Thoris is wearing like, a ri bikini Yes, very n. And John Carter's wearing like the skimpiest loincloth And so that was another thing where Santan was like, that would look silly. It can't be that cheesecakey Furth this, this movie could successfully go and sell me is that by the end of the movie, he's identified that he's fallen for her they have a connection and then he gets zappped back and that's why he wants to go back. You can't tell me by the end of it, they've settled. We're obviously madly in love with each other. I'm ready to be here forever. Right. I mean, because that is the movie is like, right, the triumph is he's decided to be John Carter of Mars. R. He's gonna throw away the med.r the medallion. He's going like this is it. his new life is here in the kingdom where he now lives ion that he sometimes is like he literally leaves behind in places And at other times is like desperately like scrambling to grab such a focused shot when he's jumping away the first time of the medallion behind. And I go, Ohh right. So the movie's going to be he doesn't realize this is valuable and the rest of the film is he has to get the medallion back. No, which feels like a cleaner thing to track In terms of us saying like what is the movie like what are the stakes? What is he gunning for? If it's oh, he left the fucking ruby slippers behind. Yeah. Just give it to Dominic West. Have him have it the whole In order to get back to the gold cave, he's got to get the medallion and that's what's driving him the whole movie. That's what keeps him in the battle. Stan like a year or two after this movie came out was like, well It seemems like they're never going to be sequels. I'll tell you some of the stuff I was thinking. posted like the logos for the sequels and his opening for the second film, which was It was going to open with the story of John Carter being told and then the reveal that it was Dejia Thoris telling it to their son And that's like opening title. Then it cuts to John Carter like in the coffin, Ned activating him him going back up. he gets there. many years have past Asia and the suun have gone missing And the movie is him trying to find them and then discovering the atmosphere machine. Okay So it feels like it rushes to the wedding because he's already like lning out. I want to start with the kid.ook This is fucking trilogy brained bullshit little fucked up the two thousands. Whas. O more time Avatar. The end of Avatar They shoot the villain that you hate full of arrows until he dies. Yes. Witch rocks and I clap and cheer Humans leave Home tree is saved Aa has heard us. Yeah. great And it's like, what will the sequels be? And it's like, we'll figure it out later. I don't care. I need an ending and a sense of triumph. And here the triumph is like, well, we definitely took Mark Strong off the board and I'm like, okay,. And I get to be the prince and you're like rince ofelium, What does that mean? I don't know. Look I've decided to live on Mars. That's what's important. T ten to fifteen years of this as a fucking cancer in the industry and I blame Lord of the Race for all of it. And it's so annoying that they never stepped back and went Oh right, but Lord of the Rings was a trilogy of books that worked on paper.. We were adapting a thing that was rock solid.. versus anytime there was a new attempt at a franchise, whether it was adapted from something or original, it was littered with all of these threads that were, and that's going to be really important in the second movie Third movie is gonna to pay that off. And there was a lot of, I think, backlash against this movie that was anger from audiences having seen this fifteen times already. don't want to watch the movie that's telling me how good the next movie's gonna be. Make the fucking movie right right now. This problem moved to TV obviously, which you know own similar issues. It's the thing that Marvel cracked that helped for a while, which is, o Thor O doesn't need to be setting up Thor two. No one needs to set two existor. R, R. And then what it's setting up is your continued investment in the Marvel Universeties of Captain America. Right. And the sequels to each sub frranchise are kind of standalone.es. feeding off of the things set up here or there or whatever. It was there just the larger buy in. You feel like you're kind of getting a complete meal and then they're teasing you with what the next meal is. A lot of the ones that don't work are the ones that avoided that and instead tried to make it too heavy on lore. Dctor Strange, like, oh, the whole first movie Baron Mordo is his friend. and at the end, he's like, I might think about being evil. He's still thinking about it. He's still thinking about it. like ten years later, he's like, maybe.ureer tells agent calls once a week, once a month, once a year I heard you guys doing an Avengers movie H He'll be in that one, right And you still own his ass? Like you still have him under contract Is's he going to be a baron Okay, my JetX. JetX, JetX. JedX Anything else we want to talk about As far as John Carter, anything from the movie, you haven'toued John Carter of Mars. There's nothing else I want to talk about. I haven't seen this movie three times, I think. Same. I have always thought that it's an impressive swing that doesn't work. The first forty five minutes to an hour every time I watch it, I'm like Does this work? There's nothing about it that I out and out hate. Shame. There's very little of it that I love. Like there's nothing that I'm like, I'm unambiguously into it. And like there's a good amount of stuff I like. I would agree with you. but there's nothing I love. Like Jupiter Ascending, which also has like flying bug ships is much more my vibe. S because like that one As much as it's silly and insane, does a little bit of a better idea giving you like the power struggles? I agree. because it simplifies them. It performance is big. I was gonna to say it's also bigger. It's like more bombast. It's messier, but it doesn't And it has that Wichowski I don't give a fuck thing that this one's like you're saying's trying like we could be the next Star Wars representing's like we're not the next anything. This is just crazy, okay? It's also this weird balance of This movie doesn't feel that studio managed outside of maybe the kind of nerfing of Lynn Collins character down to like the most one dimensional dancesel and distract. It definitely does. It feels pretty pure, but it does feel like they Um notot self censoring They're so in their heads about how do we make this cool versus how do we make like it's the Disney problem, right? Like they're always a little too worried about being uncool because they know they're not that tr. H Legacy has that whole thing where you're like, everyone loves this first movie, but also it was too nerdy at the time. Right. Can we make this a little more badass I just think The iterative, we're gonna to reshoot it three times. We start filming with an unfinished script kind of thing We'll fix it in post. We'll find the story beats later. We'll fill in the gaps comes how basically almost every Marvel DC and Star Wars movie is made. It's more the exceptions to the rule, the ones like the Last Jedi where you're like, that seemingly was what they planned. They shot it the way they wanted to. Every other Disney Star Wars movie was by all accounts made like this. And you say Sims, I wish they would write the fucking book on Rise of Skywalk. Certainly. Notably, there used to always be these very transparent making of books. and Lucas would allow the making of docs. There was one that was announced for Force Awakens and then was pulled and canceled. somethingomet You know nothing about Mat Singer when you write an entire book. Oh they don't let you publish. Oh yeah. no, that's never happened to me that I can speak about on the record. But the answer was They changed a lot of shit substantially I think learning a little from the lesson of John Carter, they're like, we don't want people to know that we didn't have it all figured out from the get go. Yeah. We don't want to communicate to people that we figured it out on the go, but then you get disasters like Justice League being shot two complete times, solo being shot two complete times with different directors that are this again And like Disney is the one who is more often than not green lighting movies and allowing them to happen this way. And it was a too big to fail thing where the Star Wars movies and the Marvel movies in particular kept on just making enough money wasn't stupid to spend three hundred million dollars to shoot a film three times. Yeah. I just ye again, It's just fast to me. it's like, I agree with what you said, David. I would also just say it's like you noticed on my letterbox. I keep watching it. It's like a new It's a movie that I'm sort of inexplicably drawn to, even though I don't particularly like it. It's like a classic five out of ten. It's like I wouldn't say I like this movie, but I guess maybe it's just because I do like and respect Andrew Stanton as a filmmaker that I'm just always trying to figure out where did it go wrong? I think there's something kind of pure about it, right? It's very pure in its intentions and it doesn't feel that meddled. And so even if the movie feels a little self conscious and a little bit wary of like letting its freak flag fly Other movies we're talking about are you get to something like doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness, which was by all accounts shot twenty seven times. And talking about that E just scene to scene flows with no issues. Every time I Elizabeth Olson does an interview, she's like at a certain point, I I don't fucking know. Yeah. She's in the Lyn Collins thing of like, just tell me where to. Tell me what to do. Two versions ago I was the hero villain is this before WandaavVision or after WandaVision And that's a very managed movie that doesn't feel cohesive but has like explosive aatic sequences that fucking Yeah. It has flashes of rainy shit. But you're also like, this is a weird exquisite corpse of a movie. And in an odd way, John Carter feels more coherent to me, even if it can't figure out what it's saying It is like a straight line. Sure. I mean, it's clear that is no I'm agreeing. I'm saying is you feel that the passion of Andrew Ststand for the material. Itly. you know, And look, a lot of times that is where the best stuff comes from is that love of the material and wanting to try to transmit what you loved about it into the film version S somethingomet didn't get translated. He didn't get the Martian juice that magically translates. I don't know, but something got lost in the translation. He's also just such a supreme visual storyteller, in my opinion, that you have sequences that feel really thoughtfully designed. It's not just that there's a cool creature. There's like really deliberate shot sequencing and rhythms Even if none the sequences like fully levitate They are well made versus the types of movies we're talking about like Justice League, where you're watching an action sequence and you can tell Parts of this were shot three years apart Hutting in with random jokes and aside or this character got redesigned and posted or any of that sort of stuff is just a little bit of like There's there's a clarity to this movie in its messiness that feels Um that I'm almost a little nostalgic for Sure, that's a nice way to put it. and There's a reason this era, you know Right. and The Marvel era happened. The superhero franchise era happened And the superhero franchise era. Got out of hand too But it have its ties? It is fascinating to be talking about this movie in the year when Star Wars is about to return. Right. And our is the big swing of can we save Marvel and both of these franchises are like on their heels being like, can you give me one shot to win you back? With Star Wars, I will basically I'm always like You know, like I'm like, Star Wars can continue to flop And we'll always be there for someone to kind of grab the ball years like if they want. right? Like I could buy pretty much three flops in a row, but like who cares? like maybe ten years. Marvel the Doomsday thing, it's a little bit more like If that doesn't work a harder reset may be required. Yeah, like a very hard reset. I'm also I'm watching this asking myself What are the chances I prefer the Mandalorian and Grogu to this And I would love to be pleasantly surprised, but everything I see from the marketing of the movie makes me feel like it is going to be basasically John Carter vibes. Interesting in that Favro Yeah wanted to make it John Carter I don't know, Manaloon Koru looked to me looks so good. I just know what it's about and It looks good Like that's the thing, you know, people on Twitter have been like Rise of Skywalker looks good. It does. It has sets. it's got lighting choices, right He's very good DP. Fop movie. We can all agree, But it's crazy that now not even this new Star Wars movie does looks like a Verizon commercial Like what the fuck is going on? Tal about where I'm just like they let Stanton shoot it his way. They went to places. They built giant sets, you know? They put people in a ton of costumes.. I'm looking up Okay, I was right. So we're talking about Favra wanted to make John Carter U which has the Tharks a lot of arms. I'm looking right now, Martin Scorsese's character in Mandalms. He's got a lot of arms.. He's not tall. he's not big L like a little Fark. Martin Scorsesee is playing a species that is the same thing that John is so solo And they are I saw some tweets saying they were related Yeah. and someone being like, I can't believe like Scorsese is playing a Glp shido, which is of course that Sort of the internet cllaimer L shhadow's uncle, exactly Like that they're like we finally got Scorsesee to be in Star Wars. How fun He's whoo is he? Well you remember the guy in solo? No Oh, I was hoping you did 'cause he's his uncle. It's very funny I mean everyone I know under the age of ten seems a little excited by Mandalorian and Grogu just because it is the first Star Wars movie being released in theaters in their conscious lifetime. It's just, oh, right, Star Wars hasn't been movies. Myid My kids are psyed. And I like Grou, right? Every adult I know has no excitement for it, save for our friend, Alison Wilmore. love Grogu. is not like overall excited for the movie. and I feel like this has not manifested that many times on Mike when we've been recording Critical Darlings. But before after almost every record she brings up, How into Jaba son she is. The Jeremy Allen White six pack Rad of the hut Hot Jaba's son is at leastoice play. Exactly. like Loston and Fresh and I are shitting on Mandalore and Inrogu. she's like I really find to buy in the stuff Well, I'm told he's a large part of the film, I believe, rightight? He's like the third leader something poster. I believe the billing is boy U Pedro Pascal Jeremy Allen White and Sorney Weaver. They're only as real credited actors on the poster Who's the villain Great question. me. greatreat question. truly. I'm like The movie has done Nothing. to tell me on what the story of this film is. It's an issue that I do not know what the story is except like Grogu will be asked to do a task and get distracted by some cheese nips or whatever. Galorian is hired to do a thing and maybe the person who hired him isn't trustworthy. Right. Double crosses him you're doing a movie that's the payoff of three seasons of television Even if those seasons of television are popular and beloved I think your marketing immediately wants to communicate, this is why this had to be a movie Here's a clean hooked story we came up with that couldn't have just been an episode. He baby Yoda. He baby Yoda. He'd be a small babyoda Let's play the box office game for I don't know if you noticice been when you were watching it on the train with the woman looking over your shoulder, but at the end credits when John Carter gets To Mars Mh. The It says John Carter and then of Mars fades in And that was Stanton being like, I my real title. Right. And it goes J C like they have a logo, But I like fought to get it at the end and I'm hoping that retroactively people just call it John Carter of Mars and maybe it's sort of that he doesn't really become John Carter of Mars until the end. so the title changes But of course, this movie is dead on arrival in the sequel. Yeah, J just a couple more things from the dossier should mention, of course, there was a lot of fighting over the marketing, which we sort of talked about, but It was Stanton who insisted on cashmere. Yeah being used the Leed Zeppelin song. Yeah, in a trailer even though that was a Superowl teaser R had You were seeing clips from the movie and as the camera pulled back, you realized the clips were inside the letters, John Card As cashmere plays. Some of the Disney executives were like, isn't that L an old song that people won't care about. he went for that. But this is where it's a perfect storm because then Disney goes like, you gott to let us take control of the marketing. And then they make even worse decisions. When Deadline was doing its sort of post mortem on the box office failure, they had a bunch of marketing people from rival stududios speaking anonymously and one of them just said like This is the most disastrous marketing campaign in the history of Hollywood. It is like going to be studied for decades. They fucked every They made every mistake or whatever. By the premiere, the vibes are horrendous. You know, it's like The premiere was not celebratory at all. Lyn Collins tells a story of watching Taylor Kitch walking down the red carpet, Rich Ross, the boss of Disney film.oss Disney who is about himself to be fired aboutout to be fired. Kind of not over this, just over general sort of mismanagement with Disney, I feel. ers something into Taylor Kitches a year and she's like, I watch him like react as if he's been struck by lightning and I follow him and go, what did he say? And he said The head of Disney just leaned in and whispered, it's a disasterct. Oh wow. And then they were the premiere. And then they went down the press line Coolin says she thinks she like born the brunt of it. And like she at one point she says like You know, Taylor went on to continue to work. He did battleship and other things. And I think she's just kind of forgotten that like Battleship was the same year. Yeah. he'd already I mean, obvious working on. He did not like, he did make more movies, but like he no longer was allowed to be had different problems. R. I feel like everyone learned Taylor Kitch's name and he became the shorthand for guy being shoved down our throats in movies we don't want to see versus she kind of just retreated back into anonymity. But she talked about that her reps like the week before it came out, said like you're going to just need to hide out Like you need to disappear for a year or two. that everyone around her was kind of telling her You're radioactive And then she Yeah, like fing a whole sheet she no longer I mean, it's not like she's never worked again. She did some TV. She was on Walking Dead for a year. But she obviously never made a movie like this again. Yeah. And Tarars Tark is, he had, I mean, he had a lot of trouble getting work again But he also you're forgetting the sex game. I was about to say he had some off camera stuff Some weird tweets. Weird tweets Yeah. Should have left those eggs alone. I'm saying The film opens on march ninth, twenty twelve at number one of the box office surely. Surely, it's number one. Romley's birthday, I will say. It also was the meme with Anakin and Pab was like number one of the box office, right? Number one, right? It was the rare case of usually movies that feel this ominous with the cloud over it. they keep pushing it off as far as they can. They pulled this one up. They were so They were like, let's rip the band aid off. one right summer. and they were like maybe in March it will overperform if there just aren't other blockbusters. I believe it comes out the week before the Hunger Games The first hunger games,'s other thing is they were like March. no one releases a blockbuster in March We'll have the month to ourselves. It's two weeks before the hunger games, but the a week before twenty one Jump Street, which also a h w overperformed. Right. So it but it's opening to thirty million dollars, which is bad because they want it because it costs a lot of money. If it had opened to fifty, they would have been worried If it opened a fifty it would have been a regular bx. The biry makes it a kind of like bomb that gets written about in like the New York Times. The is like six hundred or seven hundred. Many people think this might have been the biggest write down on a movie ever. but also after this, studios stopp being as open about how much movies cost. Yes. It really did kind of change things where they were like 'll cost some money what What you want from me? How much should Aveners' end game cost? I don't know were here somewhere. We never added the Papers so many papers the blueays and the right. That's another thing about this movie is for how much money Disney invested in it. There was no merchandise. There were no tie ins. L Al no merchandise spotlight. You did eat one pancake with No Carter juice on it. I was looking this up. I mean, It was very intelling also bizarre red pankings and red pans. That stuff has to be like figured out years in advance And that is Often a way they help buffer the cost I guess's where it's like There are vinyl Mations. Do you have the vinyl Mations? I've been looking for the cheapest one I can find on eBay. Vinyl Mation was a series of like kind of little laboooo esque blind bag figures that all looked like Mickey Mouse. So they had his for factor in the ears, but then they'd paint them to look like other characters. And they made four vinyl mations. They made John Carter, Da Thoris, Tars Tarkus and the White ape. thoseose are our favorite characters pieces of John Carter merch that exist. but the fact that you know Getting fucking Dennies to do a meal or whatever helps get them free marketing. merchandising, these companies pay for the licensing. These things help cover the cost. And this was a movie that cost two hundred sixty million dollars that was all just Disney putting their neck out. How they didn't make, you know, like John Carter milk like the white gpe that they stuck him in? I'll ever know No other ancillary sort of revenue streams on this It's opening ty million dollars It iss going to grow seventy three domestic to hundred eighty two worldwide, which is bad, but like It is amazing how like even a bomb like this made almost three million dollars So but it's number two. It's number two. what's number one? It's just hilarious to lose to this. It's the second weekend of an animated film hold overver in twenty twelve. It's not Ro, is it No, perfectly good guess. Is it a dreamwors M I think yes, right. I can's it's an illumination, I think No, so it's universal Yeah, I can never remember who had what when. Oh is it the Lorax? Doctor Seus is D Loreax Oform Weekend two. This Lorax opening weekend was seventy? It was something crazy. And that was moing was sev. I hop tie in where they had Yeah pancakes stash on it. Yeah. pancakes with a lollipop in the top of it, I believe. That was a seventy opening, right? Yeah seventy crazy. So the second weekend is forty something. thirty eight thirty eight So it's dropping with droping the h bar in animator. But that's what I thing. we're like You know, the guys at Disney are like, I mean We'll be weekend two with the Loreax, right? Like Loreax just like like kicks you in the behind. It is crazy that in four consecutive weeks, John Carter is the only movie that doesn't hit whereere you're like Loreax works. Hollywood generally Hollw. Yeah twenty one Jp Street, right Yeah. Hunger Games Mega. So number two is John Carter. Number three is a comedy film that opened the week before h with kind of like a of it Format twist to it U've never seen it at an R rated teen comedy film. Oh, it's Project X. That's right N never seen this one, which is they found footage a High school party movie Be like It is not sinister, right? Like it literally is just about like what about the wildest party ever happened and you're watching it like there's like supernatural right It's Yeah, it's nerds throw a party to be cool and one kid is filming it. A weird get wildly out of hand perhaps. Oh, it goes crazy. Wha. One weird thing about that movie is Miles Teller is in it. It's part of the early wave of Hollywood trying to make Mars Teller a star place himself versus the Taylor Kitch thing, what felt like a very slow evolution. But yes, he plays himself. His character is named Miles Teller, and he's the coolest guy in school It's like, what if the guy from Rabbit hole is a minor celebrity at your school. prodroduced by Todd Phillips. Yeah and Joel Silf. That movie was reallyly in your funny business of course. But I feel like Project X was really pushed is like Genius Phillips has found another great angle and like it kind of it was also. It was called Project X because it was this top secret project. It was like Todd Phillips has come up with a radical pitch on how to reinvent the highigh schoolool movie and they're keeping it under wraps. I auditioned for that one like six times for every fucking character But it was Project X was the code name and then they just decided it sounded cool. They didn't did you audition to play Miles Teller? No. But Id probably audition to play every other version in that movie. Um Uh this it made fifty four domestic, I'm sure. was happy.ery cheap. I was gonna to say couldnt it must have cost ten millionll. Right. So now we're getting into weird All right, number four is one of those early twenty ten's action movies, war movies blank Wore Is it active valor? Active valor. Oh wow Because that's such a weird where where you're like, who does it star? And they're like real soldiersers. Yeah. It was trying to do the fifteen seventeen to Paris. It was directed by two like action sort of stunt guys. Is it myian wall? I remember the poster would just like shadowy figures of like soldiers in the distance. that didn't, you know, you couldnt see anybody. They't do an act of valor. Yeah pretty and was also shaped. It made eighteen eighty one million dollars worldwide on a twelve million dollars budget. likeike, you know I don't think it's a masterpiece, but it did exist and it made a little bit of money Number five at the box office is horrorilm M that had debuted at Sundance the year before. so january twenty eleven. Oh, that has a very high concept sort of thing going on. It's the Elizabeth Allsome one. That's correct. It's a real time Silent house I was gonna say safe house. Yeah Safe house out the Denzele Ryan Reynolds. I've never seen it. It's one take real time. she's being haunted But it was all about the cont. It was yes. It was got a lot of buzz for being yes, like a sing She was and she was hot. Dad and Martha were at the same Sund. So there's this explosion of holy shit. She's in two movies as the lead and certainly Silent House is a skill piece because it's one take. How'd she do that? How'd she do it? then they She waited a year to release it assuming that her star was going explode. And by the time it came out, everyone was like, peopleeople liked this at Sundance. It'sings. Yeah, it sucks. No, it was opening number five. It only made twelve domestic. Number six, opening at number six, which is bad news for this movie is the Eddie Murphy movie a thousand words. Oh, that was a true Nadeir forase. It was It was a delayed several years That's when Eddie Mury goes into the wilderness and doesn't make a movie for like five or six years. Yeah. becausecause like that is basically the kind of thing where it's like Your name above the title seems to do nothing anymore Yeah. It's like we're not even going to just clear thirty million dollars on the fact that you're in a kind of family friendly comm. He had a couple family flops in a row, including meet Dave and imagine that. And then he signed on to do Tower Heist and the promise of Tower Heist was it's going to be old Eddie.. He's going to be the wild card. He's going to curse. And so they pushed thousand words to come out after Tower Heist and also after he was going to host the Oscars. Yeah. So they were like Eddie Murphy iss about to have a comeback. And he did a great job He's He's going to do a Runchi movie Brett Ratner, and then he's going to host the Oscars, directed by Brett Ratner and everyone's going to love Eddie again and we' be in the Halo effect and Twower Heist Bombs. And he quits the Oscars because Brett Ratner is fired for using slurs. Having used slurs in his life, yes. No. No he used them right. He said like How' talking about I forgot about. The Oscars he's gonna do Bret Radner had just never put a foot wrong until then. It's crazy. It's insane. Yeah. Yes. and then Brett was supposed to, my buddy Brett was supposed to direct Beverly Hills Cup for right after that. He was like, I'm the guy who's going to bring Eddie back. I'm getting him to host the Oscars. He's going to do stand upp again And Eddie retreats for years. Number seven is, wow Safe house B bothoth in the top ten. So so that's Denzell and Ran Reynolds. Yes. X Man Origins Wolverine's own Ryan Reynolds. Never seen Daniel Espinoza. Eremely forgettable action No one seen. I have seen how It is Benson joke. What if it was a safe house? Yes. But it is a real pandemic, right? moovies like that used to just come out, make one hundred million dollars disappear. Right whereere you're like, what's the premise? It's like, haveave you not seen the post where they both have guns. There were two stars Right. There's two guys. they shouldn't each other. Are they friends of the enemies in? don' But watch the movie. It gets figured out probably probably You know, the apex of it being two guns. Yeah Like where they like, it's Denceell and Wlberg, What are they do? They're shooting money that's in the air, I think. I don't know L maybe they'll have to shoot all of the money. who Safe House was like the only hit Ryan Reynolds had in that run Yes. You mean post proposal of like him doing like lans Yeah and whatever. and Everyone just gave Denzel all the creditly because what the fuck who even knows what that movie is? Yes. And then Brian Reynolds goes into his forgotten indie phase where he's like, I'll be in the woman I. Yes, I'll do mity grind. He tried some stuff. And then he stopped trying stuff. Yes And started making, I guess, in his defense, ooodles and ooodles of money and running a cell phone company very well, I assume. I've checked in with him lately You've also got money that we used to have to add re that N love Mint mobile. Well, I would use it if I didn't. have other cell serices. Matt, that's a great question. because the ad The whole value of Mint mobile is that he does the ads. Why were they spending money to have David and I in like twenty nineteen be like, I love dialing numbers ving a phone call go through. Number eight at the box office is the Channing Tatum Rachel McAdams film The vow. A big hit. This is the year we're Channing Tatum talk about all manifests what Hollywood wants all these other guys we're talking say to be. I'm going Channing Tatum John Carter. twenty one jump street. The vow Magic Micer all in the same year. would You more center. And he could be funny He could be dunked in the goo. The vows one of those movies where you're like, is this based on Nicholas Barks? And they're like, No, but Well that's what we're going. Not literally metaphorically. Yes. We based on nothing. No based on nothing. justust original screenplay about vibe of There must have been a bestseller. It's serious fifty first dates. N gets ammnesia and they're married and he has to make her fall in love with him again.. Love it. Number nine at the box office. I assume it's great is another Mega flop, much hyped mega flop of this Q one Mm whichich is this means war The McG Yes. Is that taled about in your book at all? No, no. didn. That was like a nineties high concept spectum. that went through every permutation of if they're never going to make a bad booy sequel, is this the way to re teeam Will Smith, Martin Lawrence? And then there was a version that was supposed to be Seth Rogan and another kind ofack guy He was going to be Martin Lawrence was like often attached and like Bradley Cooper, Seth Rogan everybody Sam Worthington att one point, they're like, should it be Martin and Chris Rock likeike kind of try to do a new bad boys with Martin and another like major black superstar And u like byy the time they're like, we got Rese Witherspoon. That's fun. Yeah. So now it'll be Sy versus spy versus the Gay spy, the girl one You know, because it was the old one was kind of more of a spyvers. It was always them fighting over a woman. R. But I think the woman was less of a character. Right. And they were like, we've hired a megast star to play the woman. got to the gu. Th thenen they get Bradley Koofper off of the hangover and then he's like, I want to do other things And they they're like, it's okay. it's okay. Chris Pine and Tom Hardy and everyone's like I guess, like they're brand new. Like they're both like such recent stars. They picked the right guys, but sure I watching that movie recently and they are just floundering. Its's a bad It's a disaster. It's one of those movies where it bombs, everyone says it's terrible. and you go well, how bad could it be? Right? And then you watch it and you're like, oh, it was bad. It was bad It was bad. Num ten of the box office is Journey to the mysterious island. A big it W we hit three hours again, Ben. That's a problem. This is a problem too Cck needs to finessing. We gott to do it. Don't worry, our Martin Scorsese series I'm sure will' be Lots of shorties. Deinitely. I don't want look, I don't want to call a shot. I do think the next two Stantons will be shorter Uh, yeah Although, our guest for Dory be some tangents. And he's coming in with a full throated defense of its star A full thoted D you say? full thoted? full thoted thot who no That's what you said. U It's a fascinating movie and it is like It feels like such a flashpoint of everything that was going on at that exact moment, of what had happened before, of what's to come Uh and and like San unsurprisingly, takes it very hard. He does a piece, I think with the LA Times like six months after it comes out. Rrely does a filmmaker own a flop back hot quickly that way And was like, I decided going take a year I'm gonna go to New York where my daughter's in school. I'm going read books. I'm going to wride the go to Baru to ride this up. I need to like pull back and reset my batteries. What had also happened in the background is that of course Disney had bought Pixar.. They start immediately saying, can we start up the sequel machine? They're begging for a finding Eemo sequel. They always sort of have the respect of we won't do it unless the original filmmaker approves He oversees the three D rerelease of Nemo that I think is in twenty eleven, the year before thisure And he said that when he was overseeing it and he got to the scene where Dory says, whereere is my family went There is are they possibly a sequel there. So he goes to Pixar and he says I would let this happen. They hire a writer and he was not intending to direct it was I'm clearly in the John Carter bight.'ll I'll be on Mars. Right. Yeah. I bring this up only because Obvious perception would be John Carter flops, he runs panic back to Pixar and says, canan you let me do finding do? Right Kind of similar to Bird eventually doing Incredibles two after a flop or two years. The reality is was it was in the works and then he said, actually maybe I want to do it myself. Right. B raly I mean rarely do you see a director you know make theses crazy big swings, and then immediately. I see what you're saying. It wasn't created with that in mind, but he does then go make a sequel. But there's really like then how many careers are like this of It's an interesting Animation to live action, back to animation. then TV and then back to live action and animation. Thiss interesting and we'll talk about it in the next two I really forward to hearing this in the blink of an eye. I'd like to hear you guys talk for three hours about in the blink. We're gonna keep that one B's giving me a dirty look, the dirtiest look. But he is like he is lucky and it's from his own doing. that he has in his possession a get out of jail free card from the moment this movie flops. He is lucky. He's also lucky that he's already made U Whining N on Wally. Right, that's cool. But Ick, but saying What if I want a direct finding Dory? No one's going to question him on that A abbsolutely. They're not going to be hovering over his should. They're like, we trust that. you're good. You don't have to spend any time in movie jail if that's what you're doing next Yeah Um I think a better m I mean, he'll be back, but you know, I think we gotught rest Maybe in three more years or whatever it's been. Has it been three years? No.. When the book when the last book came out I was here. I think you're forgetting something There was something around onform Let's see if you've made like a five time Planet of the Apes. I defin first spid your fourth. Yes. Wow, it has been three years ince alien three, we suck. We do suck, What a disaster. that was three years ago. And that's actually more the sticking point here. At a certain point I was like, if I ever want to do another I better write another book. I better write another book. Appataow was in March Madness and it didn't feel like I was I was feeling like, oh man, if he gets in, I'll be perfect. I'm in. I'm gonna golden. No We were overdue to get you on either way. Oh, great news. JJ has texted us Sony Taps Brian Hedgeland to script or I think it's held in. Zoro versus Django, which is another movie that has been in the works for so long. It was part of the Sony hack. I mean, because Tarantino wrote it they make aic. I was gonna to say did' they make a comic book out of that already? sorry at one point Rud Kerermmichael was supposed to write it Yeah. And that's so it's Jjango teams up with Zoro, the hero, the fulk hero. Yes Will Jamimie Fox be back But But people don't realize all these things came from Zoro.. This is the original y Fox almo sixty, I guess these things don't matter anymore. doesn't R. Nothing matters. Um Anyway It's been a while, but I'm glad to be back. it's coming out in October comomes out october sixth.. You can preorder it right now anywhere you preorder before Please do it. Please do. Yes. It's very helpful. And hopefully I can write another book and come back in three years and review I'll be back Super bad or something I do. No, but that's not Apito. I know, but I'm just saying Yeah, we I would to do Appetal too. I don't think we' people come out. Appatal would be a great blank check subject. he would for. Yeah. It feels like the last couple years we've been pushing and people are like, why? And this year in March Madness, people got it for the first time. He did win a match upp. He did.. So I was watching. I was voting. ye. And it felt like we have enough distance from it It's worth studying in the way that you did in your book. Well, I certainly think so and if people agree they can ch phenomen theook. business. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate review and subscribe. Tune in next week four finding Dory with Cherry. That's right, whoo is not actually Deing own deg genererous. That's been a running bit for a year.as it? I feel like there's been a year of texting with Zach. He's like, get ready for the Ellen defense. Yes. I don't really remember that, but that's I but As I said to you when you floated that idea long ago, I was like, act Cerry find anry episode S sounds good to me.s funy. Sounds fun. We look at the spreadsheet we chuckle Sounds pretty good. sounds pretty good. Pretty good movie too. It's a movie I've seen many, many times because my daughter and I I enjoy it. Yes. I don't like love it. No it's like I enjoy it There's fish, There's fish story There ar This is Centapus, this is school sorry Tune in next week for that And as always P Sound to that poor Dad if it was like pop, pop, pop pop, pop It was thick clunk, clunk This is like a Ben and Jerry's coffee, David. It's got a lot of objects in it. Mix it, mix it, mix'. Chunky. Oh, there was a tagline.. Okay. do the tagline. I think I think in fact That's probably your best bet Thank you It's an aroma. It's a p mixed That is a potent mix BlankCck with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin, Newman and David Sims Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Bardy Salinas, and our associate producer is AJ McKon This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American novel. withith additional music by Alex Mitchell artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds Our production assistant is Minic Special thanks to David Chow, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help Head over to blankcheckpod. com for links to all of the real nerdy shit Join our Patreon, Blank Check spepecial features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes Follow us on social at bllank Cck pod subscribe to our weekly newsletter, checkbook on Substack podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions