transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:16] I'm Sean Fennessey, and I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about CinemaCon. Today on the show, we are discussing our visit to Las Vegas this week at the annual Hollywood Studio and Theatrical Exhibitor Trade Show, CinemaCon. They showed us their big movies coming later this year and beyond, and we are breaking them all down today with the one and only Matt Belloni from the Town Podcast. Programming reminder, next week, we will have our 900th episode of The Big Picture, and we are doing a mega mailbag. So send your questions in now. Big Pick Mailbag at gmail.com. What is that, Amanda?

Speaker 2:
[00:46] Big Pick Mailbag at gmail.com.

Speaker 1:
[00:50] Or call us at 323-488-3241. That's right. We're taking your voicemails to play on this episode, 323-488-3241. Send us questions about movies, this show, Amanda's hair, anything is on the table. We'll get into CinemaCon right after this.

Speaker 3:
[01:11] For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramfia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramfia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramfia, proper training is required. Tramfia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramfia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit tramfiaradio.com.

Speaker 1:
[02:12] This episode is brought to you by the Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo. The Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo is built for travel. You can earn rewards wherever you book, your favorite hotel site, your go-to airline, and more. You get five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants and other travel, and one point on other purchases. Whether it's a big vacation or a quick getaway, from booking your stay to that first meal when you arrive, you're turning your trips into rewards with the Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo. Learn more at wellsfargo.com/autographjourney. Terms apply. Okay, Matt, welcome back.

Speaker 4:
[02:46] Thank you. I'm honored to be invited back.

Speaker 1:
[02:48] We were just in Vegas together for 72 hours. We not only survived, but I feel like we thrived this year.

Speaker 2:
[02:54] We had a lovely trip. We forgot to take a photograph. So this is our official, and maybe Craig Horlbeck, producer Craig, can come in later. And, you know, but here it is on Netflix. Yeah, hello, Vegas.

Speaker 1:
[03:05] Is this your Netflix debut?

Speaker 4:
[03:07] No, I've been in several little, not little, but I've been in documentaries before. I'm in the Murdoch one that's on right now. So I pop up every now and then, but this is certainly the longest I've ever been on a Netflix show. So we'll see if they de-platform it or the algorithm will not be kind to this episode. Let's just say that.

Speaker 1:
[03:26] So you conquered Apple TV in 2025, Netflix in 2026. Hulu next year, maybe?

Speaker 4:
[03:31] Disney Plus? I've been on Hulu too. I was like, yeah, I've been on a couple documentaries. But this is not like, they're not ordering the shows for me. I happen to be in the documentary that then gets bought by Hulu.

Speaker 1:
[03:43] Okay, so Vegas, you know, we did the usual. We stayed at Caesar's Palace, where Cinemacon is typically held. Last year, we all...

Speaker 4:
[03:50] Fun fact, I did not stay at Caesar's Palace. Oh, wow.

Speaker 1:
[03:52] Also, also flexing in Vegas. Caesar's Palace is fine.

Speaker 4:
[03:57] I love it. I actually, for what it is, it's great. I'm fine with the $8 waters. I'm fine with the $20 cocktails, $25 at some point. But it's good because you know exactly where everything is. The parties are the same places. The Coliseum's a nice venue, so it's good.

Speaker 1:
[04:12] It's all very conquerable. You probably, you understand the mapping of the space now, right?

Speaker 2:
[04:17] I do. It was nice to feel like an expert, to know where to go. And also, as you learned, I have a great sense of direction. So, you know, it just, it all spread out before me. I also got a great room. So shout out to Caesar's Palace. I was on the 45th floor. I had a view of the Bellagio and the fountains, and I just did Ocean's Eleven every night before I went to bed.

Speaker 4:
[04:34] And you probably learned from your first year that the Celebrity Food Hall is not where the celebrities go.

Speaker 2:
[04:39] No, it's not, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[04:41] No, that's indicating whose names are on top of the restaurants that are selling food.

Speaker 4:
[04:45] Yes, the celebrities in question are Bobby Flay, Daniel Ballou, those are celebrities.

Speaker 1:
[04:50] So last year, the three of us and Craig went to go see David Copperfield. And that was entertaining. Things have changed for David Copperfield in the world at large.

Speaker 4:
[04:59] We're not here to discuss that. We are not here to discuss that. I would like to point out that I did do some cursory research before we went last year. And I determined that he had not really been canceled. And there were some questions about his behavior. Since then...

Speaker 2:
[05:14] He has been canceled.

Speaker 1:
[05:16] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[05:16] Though the ads for his show have not been removed from the Burbank airport. So I would let the good people at Burbank know that they might want to bring those down.

Speaker 1:
[05:25] Okay, well Sphere! is going strong right now. No cancellations going there at all. And you know, Amanda and I have been talking for a long time, basically since it opened about our desire to go check it out and see it and understand it. I know you've talked about it before on the show. You were kind enough to help us get in to go see The Wizard of Oz. Now you'd already seen it.

Speaker 4:
[05:45] I had.

Speaker 1:
[05:46] We had not seen it before.

Speaker 2:
[05:47] So you went and you gambled.

Speaker 4:
[05:49] I did and I won.

Speaker 2:
[05:50] Yeah, congratulations.

Speaker 4:
[05:51] And I watched a little of The Dodger Game, which was delightful.

Speaker 1:
[05:54] Please, not here. I'm not on this show.

Speaker 4:
[05:57] But I am very curious what you guys thought of the Sphere! Because my opinion doesn't matter. I'm not a professional podcaster when it comes to this kind of stuff. I want to know what you guys liked.

Speaker 1:
[06:07] Well, real, real mixed back. Real, real mixed back for me.

Speaker 4:
[06:11] I had a feeling.

Speaker 1:
[06:13] Matt, I don't know if you know this, but The Wizard of Oz, I often say, is sort of like the critical movie experience in my young life. It's one of the very first movies that my mom showed me. And I probably watched it a hundred times between the ages of three and 13.

Speaker 4:
[06:26] I think you're not alone. And that nostalgia has been effectively mined and exploited on a gigantic screen.

Speaker 1:
[06:32] Yes. And we've seen it, obviously, in our world with Wicked, but I was gonna say, not for the first time. Yeah. And so it's a very sacred text to me. And we know that there's something unsacred about what's been done. It's fear. What did you think?

Speaker 2:
[06:45] Well, I would say that it was not just the desecration of our beloved childhood totem and also a cinema classic that I expected, but it was in many ways sort of a half-hearted desecration at best. It was both way too much and absolutely not enough. The practical experience of it is that it's a combination of 40X and ScreenX and a larger ScreenX experience than most theaters can.

Speaker 1:
[07:16] Yes, you're surrounded by screen.

Speaker 2:
[07:18] Yes. Though, I will say, not as much screen as I expected. Craig and I noted as we were walking in, I thought The Sphere was like a 180 experience.

Speaker 4:
[07:29] You thought it went all the way around?

Speaker 2:
[07:30] I did.

Speaker 4:
[07:30] Yes. Well, how did you?

Speaker 2:
[07:33] Well, I didn't think through it, Matt. I saw the photographs of The Sphere from the outside. I saw Timothée Chalamet sitting on top of it. And I thought, okay, so when I get inside, it will be what is on the outside, but on the inside.

Speaker 4:
[07:45] But they have to put the audience somewhere.

Speaker 2:
[07:46] Well, yes. I thought perhaps it was like a theater in the round.

Speaker 4:
[07:49] Sure, like the old, I don't know if you went to Disneyland back in the day where they had like 360 thing. They'd come in front of you and then behind you. That's not this.

Speaker 1:
[07:57] This is roughly 240 degrees, 66%. Something like that.

Speaker 4:
[08:01] It is immersive.

Speaker 2:
[08:03] It is immersive.

Speaker 1:
[08:06] Before we even look, talk about the screen, the space itself is beautiful. It's really organized. It was very easy to navigate. It's obviously a new space that they've poured a ton of resources into it. And the screen itself is very impressive. But I also similarly thought we were going to be fully surrounded.

Speaker 2:
[08:22] Yes. So you sit down and there's that moment when it lights up. And I think we all gasped. We were like, ooh, because it's exciting. And it's unlike something you've seen, even though it does have the architecture of the screen X, wide experience and the 4DX effects and movement.

Speaker 4:
[08:43] And to be clear, you had had a Wizard of Oz-themed margarita?

Speaker 2:
[08:48] Yes. Well, you can take them in. So I was halfway through the margarita at that point.

Speaker 1:
[08:54] I had a Conna big wave.

Speaker 2:
[08:56] But also on a pretty empty stomach, just because of how the day worked out. So I was feeling good. I was happy to be there. So to go back to the 4DX, there are effects, but really just the tornado, they go big on the tornado, which is in the first 10 minutes in this edited version.

Speaker 1:
[09:17] Yeah, the early black and white segment of the film is very truncated. You can see there are a lot of hard cuts. Some of the awkwardness of the experience is just knowing explicitly where the cuts are and there being some, I don't know, discomfort with the way that they're cutting the movie, but they kind of dispense with a lot of the setup of the film and it gets very quickly to the tornado. Now, I thought the tornado sequence was fucking incredible.

Speaker 4:
[09:40] It is worth the price of admission.

Speaker 1:
[09:43] It's very cool. It's a very original conception. It is 4DX, but it's not that your chair is shaking around and moving. It's that wind is blowing at you. It's that they have cut up leaves and they are shooting them into the sky. And that immersive screen, it really overwhelms you. I mean, it's a very...

Speaker 4:
[09:58] And the haptics match. Like, it's all done really well.

Speaker 2:
[10:01] Yeah, it's great. I felt like I was in a Beyoncé video for a little bit. You have my hair blowing back. It was great.

Speaker 1:
[10:06] Yeah, so that part of it is very, very fun. Unfortunately, it does come just a little bit too early in the experience because the rest of the film unfolds and there is a lot that is awkward and a little ugly about it at times. There are some other things that are compelling in a unique use of the space, but.

Speaker 2:
[10:21] But not really. That is the one big set piece. And so then the rest of it, which is about another hour, is still awkwardly edited, sped up and deeply disorienting and off-putting visual experience because.

Speaker 4:
[10:38] You think so? Really? I got a lot of the stuff in Oz and the musical sequences and when the munchkins show up, I thought that was pretty fun.

Speaker 2:
[10:47] The disconnect between the old footage, the actual Wizard of Oz footage and Judy Garland and the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, and they're using, they're using, and whatever, quote unquote, restoration, upgrade, enhancement, like AI, CGI, slop, I can't tell you the 45 things that they did, but I could tell you what was from the original movie and I could tell you what were the weird poppies that they drew on.

Speaker 1:
[11:16] I agree, the naked eye can pretty much identify what's been changed.

Speaker 4:
[11:19] I found myself looking around at different things to try to evaluate, and if you look closely, you can see faces that aren't there, you can see a lot of things.

Speaker 2:
[11:29] Yeah, and you can even see, they did something to the yellow brick road to try to make it yellower, I guess, and it's more exciting. But then, so Dorothy's feet don't actually touch the yellow brick road when she's dancing, and this is at such a scale that I didn't have to squint, you know? It was right there, and I was like, those feet are floating on the yellow brick road.

Speaker 1:
[11:53] Like, for me, I first saw the film on TV, probably on a 24-inch screen on VHS, so imperfections in the production of the original movie, you never would be able to pick up on that stuff. In an attempt to kind of upscale this image and to have a movie projected at that size is really challenging, even if it's a clean print and it looks great and the original film is perfect. So I think it's just maybe we're moving in some sort of evolution of how these things are going to be changed over time, but the movie is 85 years old. And so there are already a lot of imperfections and that became part of its charm over time. In an effort to kind of fix some of those things, I think they did a little bit of a messy job. And then there's like something else about the matte paintings in The Wizard of Oz, is like great craftsmanship in old school studio Hollywood. And something like this attempts to just kind of erase that stuff. It's kind of painting over it with this new technology. That being said, and I knew I wasn't really going to click with it because I'm very dubious of changing something like this. I do think that the venue itself and the experience makes a lot of sense. And I wish we'd seen a concert there. I think a concert there would be so fun.

Speaker 4:
[13:05] I saw you too. Great.

Speaker 1:
[13:06] And I would have none of these preconceptions about what I'm supposed to be looking at and how I'm supposed to understand it. And honestly, I asked you if you had seen the Aronofsky film that he made for the format, because I would like to see something made exclusively for that room instead of something that they're trying to convert. And in doing so, I think chopping it down, to your point, made it feel... It actually made it feel too long. Because of the way the seats are oriented, because of the way you're absorbing the movie, because the lights are up for most of the film, which is very strange, but for roughly 70% of the movie, the lights are on. And you can see the screen clearly, it doesn't affect that ability, but it doesn't feel like you're sitting in a movie theater. It feels like you're sitting in someone's auditorium.

Speaker 4:
[13:49] It's a tourist attraction, and for me, it works on that level. Like, you took home an apple. There are apples that fall out of the sky at some point. I thought that was fun.

Speaker 1:
[13:58] It was cool, it was fun.

Speaker 4:
[13:58] The monkeys, not as much.

Speaker 2:
[14:00] They don't have that lockdown.

Speaker 1:
[14:01] It actually felt like 80s Disneyland.

Speaker 4:
[14:03] Yes, exactly. But as a stunt, like I always look at this stuff from a business perspective, the numbers on it are very good. It was about a third full.

Speaker 1:
[14:12] I would say it was maybe half full when we saw it. You think less than half?

Speaker 2:
[14:16] I think it was less than half.

Speaker 4:
[14:17] But they're making money. And my question to you guys is, does this make you want to see another beloved movie in this format?

Speaker 2:
[14:25] Well, it was interesting. We went with Craig, producer Craig and your colleague Alex Bigler. And the minute it went up, the movie started, Alex said, I'm just thinking of other movies that I would want to see in this format.

Speaker 4:
[14:39] Titanic, but just The Sinking. Yeah. No, that would be great. Not The Big Jim would ever allow that. But if he did, I would be in.

Speaker 2:
[14:49] I think that I am with Sean that I would rather see movies made for that format. Because in addition to the ugliness of trying to make this old movie and its imperfections fit on a large screen, there was a very funny disconnect on the margins where they clearly had to expand the frame. And so then it was someone's interpretation of a mid-century modern light fixture, but through the prism of Oz over here on the side, because you need extra stuff for that screen. But then you think about Star Wars, and you're just imagining the ship going over it, and you're like, yeah, that seems...

Speaker 4:
[15:34] They want Star Wars, they want ET., they want Jurassic Park. You know what they want.

Speaker 2:
[15:39] Oh my god, the dinosaurs. I would be excited.

Speaker 1:
[15:42] To me, it's just about what are you doing to the original film? You just named three of the most iconic movies of the 20th century, and three movies that changed movies, and three movies that people have as deep a relationship to as they do The Wizard of Oz. So I think you use the phrase tourist attraction that obviously is what it is. Tickets are expensive, you wait on line to get in, you're seated as though you're going to a concert, not as though you're going to a movie, and you have to go in knowing that. So you're going as like a siniest? Well, it's more of a negotiation with yourself, I think.

Speaker 2:
[16:12] We were not behaving as good filmgoers throughout the experience. And I think some of that is because I had had half of a wicked margarita on an empty stomach, excuse me, Wizard of Oz margarita on an empty stomach, but also because the lights are up, and because it is such a different setting than a movie theater setting. Well, I know, but there is a little bit of tension with us. Like, I would never be taking reaction shots of Sean watching any other movie during a movie, even though it was content gold.

Speaker 1:
[16:42] But it was as though we were seeing Fish, and Fish was playing two nights later.

Speaker 2:
[16:46] So that is interesting when you think about other, if you're bringing classic movies, we're not really treating them as a movie experience, even as an audience in that setting.

Speaker 4:
[16:58] You just interviewed Spielberg. Do you think he'd be down for this? I don't know. I mean, he obviously has a big relationship with the Universal Parks. There was an ET ride for many years. He's done stuff with them on that front.

Speaker 1:
[17:09] I mean, I can't speak for him. He's obviously done a lot of things that have evolved the experience of movie culture.

Speaker 4:
[17:15] But they don't touch the movie themselves.

Speaker 1:
[17:17] That's what I was gonna say. I find it hard to believe that any living artists would be on board with this, unless they engineered it themselves and were actively interested. Obviously, George Lucas changed the movie. Spielberg has done that before and has said he's regretted it when he's done it before. For example, the guns in ET, that's something he's talked about in the past. The idea of cutting ET down by 45 minutes just seems anathema to what that film is supposed to be. So I find that hard to believe. But look, we're about to talk about the state of movies and movie theaters, and things are gonna have to keep changing for the business to stay afloat. This is like a pathway. I mean, does this go into box office receipts on the year?

Speaker 5:
[17:58] These ticket sales?

Speaker 4:
[17:59] No, no, no. It doesn't.

Speaker 5:
[18:00] Shouldn't it?

Speaker 4:
[18:01] Maybe, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[18:01] I mean, this is theatrical exhibition.

Speaker 4:
[18:03] I know, it is. Of a sort.

Speaker 1:
[18:05] At a premium rate.

Speaker 4:
[18:06] It is.

Speaker 2:
[18:07] Yeah, but we did not behave as, and we did not experience it as if we were going to the theaters.

Speaker 1:
[18:11] That's not in the contract of going to see movie theaters.

Speaker 2:
[18:13] I think they should go the other way. I think that if you're gonna do Star Wars or Jurassic Park, get a live orchestra in there playing the music as loud as you possibly can.

Speaker 1:
[18:21] That would be fun.

Speaker 2:
[18:22] Really turn it into an eventized experience.

Speaker 4:
[18:24] Well, not very cost effective.

Speaker 2:
[18:25] Yeah, exactly, I know.

Speaker 4:
[18:26] And they're very popular and 15,000 people show up with their lifesavers.

Speaker 2:
[18:29] I know, I need them to start it before eight o'clock so I can take my son. But anyway, but I think that the blueprint of The Sphere! is to be more event and touristy and less...

Speaker 4:
[18:41] But they do need content to fill this place.

Speaker 2:
[18:44] Right, which is, but that's also, as we learned, the blueprint for every single theater, certainly, is how eventy and stunty can you be and how unlike sitting in a dark room and not talking.

Speaker 1:
[18:55] Over the next 20 years, I think there will be a kind of slow convergence or evolution where they're both kind of moving in each other's direction. Because you can see, we heard a lot about PLFs and the formats of the movie theaters are pushing towards. This is in the same conversation. And someone's gonna make a 90-minute narrative feature film for this format.

Speaker 4:
[19:14] Right, well, and the plan is to have spheres all over the world where, just like Beyonce could play spheres and have her visual show play all of them, they could have this or whatever movie, if Spielberg says yes, play for a month at each of them or play at the same time at each of them. And the next one is gonna be outside of DC and others around the world, so maybe it'll happen.

Speaker 1:
[19:38] Okay, well, thank you for helping us get in there. It was an interesting experience.

Speaker 4:
[19:41] I have a Sphere guy.

Speaker 1:
[19:42] You have a Sphere guy.

Speaker 2:
[19:43] Thank you to the Sphere guy. Thanks for coming to dinner afterwards.

Speaker 4:
[19:45] It was fun, we had a good time.

Speaker 1:
[19:46] Okay, let's talk about CinemaCon and the state of movies in general. Attendance and ticket sales and box office receipts are all up this year.

Speaker 4:
[19:57] They are, about 20%. And before this past weekend, which had a bad comp with Minecraft last year, it was up like 23, 24%.

Speaker 1:
[20:04] Right, so we thought maybe people would be coming in in a positive mood. Did you, was that, what did you sense? How was everybody feeling in the world of Hollywood exhibition?

Speaker 2:
[20:13] To me, I sensed dissociation. I was, it was kind of a let's, let's just focus on what we're doing here right now because this year so far is strong. And I think what we saw broadly across the studio slates is like more sure bets than last year. And so for right now, for the immediate future, everyone is feeling good. And if you think more than six months ahead of time, then things get really, really dicey, really, really fast. So it seemed like on both sides, both the studios and the exhibitors, at least what was being presented, right? At least what was, you know, for show was just, it was a very short-term thinking. How about that?

Speaker 4:
[21:02] Yeah, well, I talked to a lot of the exhibitors and a lot of the executives. They are optimistic. This was definitely the best mood I have seen at CinemaCon since I started going, and that was a long time ago. Certainly, pre-COVID, like since COVID, it has been like the, you know, beaten up stepchild. These executives, they just don't know what's going to hit them next. And it was not just COVID, it was the studios pivoting to streaming, and it was all the different changes to the model and the windows and all that stuff that we talked about in the town. And I think that there was cautious optimism this year, and these leaders, they don't have the luxury of thinking five years down the road. They are trying to not go bankrupt this year. And many of them believe they will survive this year now.

Speaker 1:
[21:50] Yeah, it's interesting. So the group of people that are there, this is increasingly, I would say, a press-friendly event. And it's meant to generate a lot of hype coming out of it.

Speaker 4:
[21:58] Used to not be. Used to be very press-unfriendly.

Speaker 1:
[22:02] Since I've been going, it has gotten dramatically more friendly to the press. But it really is meant to be there for, and not just AMC and Regal and the chains that you know about, but a lot of independent theater owners, a lot of small consortiums of a lot of, you know, a legendary Canadian exhibitor was honored when we were there. That's the thing is, there's a lot of time spent talking about the people who run the theaters and who are presenting.

Speaker 4:
[22:24] They have a propaganda video that goes along with it.

Speaker 1:
[22:27] Yes, some of it is charming, some of it is very boring. But it's like we are attending the most high-touch, star-laden plumbers convention in the world. I mean, that's really what it is. And it's a very nice event and it's very well-run, but it's like going to a trade show.

Speaker 4:
[22:44] And then all of a sudden the rock comes out.

Speaker 1:
[22:45] Yes, exactly. Or Tom Cruise.

Speaker 4:
[22:47] Or Tom Cruise.

Speaker 1:
[22:48] You know, it's the most famous people in the world attending this trade show.

Speaker 4:
[22:50] And it's like, oh, holy shit, that's Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, like, standing next to each other.

Speaker 1:
[22:55] Yes, here's Tom Hanks standing next to Tim Allen. Like, over and over again this year, the star power was high.

Speaker 4:
[23:00] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[23:01] But there is also, there is a lot of actual trade show stuff and panels and things happening. You hosted two. There are a lot of things about, you know, popcorn machines and movie theater carpeting. No, I haven't.

Speaker 4:
[23:14] You guys need to walk the trade show.

Speaker 1:
[23:16] I've walked the trade show before.

Speaker 4:
[23:17] I mean, the flavors of nachos that are available, unbelievable.

Speaker 1:
[23:22] You needed that before your margarita.

Speaker 2:
[23:24] Well, I know, I needed the Cheetos popcorn that I've seen at the theaters, but still have not tried.

Speaker 4:
[23:29] Like the varying shades of carpets and things like that.

Speaker 2:
[23:33] But so all of that is happening in individual ballrooms and beyond the main stage presentations that we're seeing. And then obviously also there are lots of meetings and people talking. And Matt has a lot of reporting on the machinations behind the scenes, which feels like where a lot of the real conversations and a lot of the power is concentrated. And then, you know, we get investor day presentations. And they have that feeling of what is being shown to the world and also what is being studiously avoided at all times.

Speaker 4:
[24:08] But to Sean's point, the press is a big component of that now. Pre-social media, pre-video streaming, all of it. It really was for the theater owners. And they would feel free to show them stuff that they weren't going to debut in months. Now, you have to be so careful with what you show and who you showcase because you know that this is the first time that the narrative is being created around it. Like, there is now a narrative around the Tom Cruise movie because we have seen what, even though they released nothing, public has not seen Tom Cruise. Only we have seen it. But that was never a factor. And the amount of press, and now there's rumors that the studios are flying in influencers to be there. We heard some people.

Speaker 1:
[24:54] You could tell based on where we were sitting.

Speaker 4:
[24:56] There were people that were going absolutely nuts for an Evil Dead reference, and like things that you're like, what?

Speaker 1:
[25:02] Yep.

Speaker 4:
[25:02] And that was never the case before.

Speaker 1:
[25:05] Yes. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that per se. In fact, it probably behooves them to keep exposing more and more people to some of this stuff to keep building word of mouth. The thing is, is there's a real distortion effect because when you invite people whose job it is to cover only Marvel, when you launch a trailer inside of a room for people who only care about Marvel, you're obviously going to get overstated enthusiasm for certain things. It's a good strategy, but it's just not an honest representation of how the public at large will understand it.

Speaker 4:
[25:37] And what I used to like about CinemaCon is that it was a tough room. Like these were not people that stood up and applauded for every trailer. They were like, okay, is this going to be commercial? Is this going to fill my theater? And it's sort of like, it's merging with Comic Con a little bit. A thousand percent. These fans are there with the express purpose of promoting the content. And it's taking away a little bit of the objectivity and the stuff that I like, which was really the ability to evaluate.

Speaker 1:
[26:08] Right. Hopefully, we'll be able to do some of that here. We're also going to do an episode of The Town together. And when we do that, we will go through each studio presentation, a bit section by section and talk about what we thought worked well. But for this conversation, I at least wanted to know who you guys feel like is best positioned right now and maybe who's in a bit of a tough spot out of the six majors who presented.

Speaker 2:
[26:29] Right.

Speaker 4:
[26:30] Who would you rather be? If you were the head of one of the studios this year, who would you want?

Speaker 1:
[26:36] With the understanding that we're on the brink of consolidation between Warner Brothers and Paramount, of course.

Speaker 2:
[26:41] Well, I mean, that... I don't want to be either of those people. And I think that even though, you know, Pam Abdee and Mike DeLuca came out and did a victory tour, and that was a major part of their presentation.

Speaker 4:
[26:54] You rarely see the mention of Oscars. They went on and on about all their Oscar nominations. Many times. These theater owners do not give a shit about Oscar nominations. If you are not filling their theaters, like, they hated Enora. Yeah. Enora was garbage because it didn't do any business. Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 2:
[27:10] Right. So, you know, they won Oscars, and congratulations to Mike and Pam. They're very good at their jobs. But I think that for many reasons, I would prefer to be Donna Langley right now, which I think what's interesting is that we would have said that before we even saw the presentations, right? Some of it is just what is on the schedule and how guaranteed, and they have a Steven Spielberg movie and a Christopher Nolan movie coming out this summer, plus the Minions movie, plus, you know, plenty of other, plus Super Mario, which, so they're doing fine. Donna Langley also came out to God Save the Queen.

Speaker 4:
[27:49] She did. You know, she is a dame.

Speaker 2:
[27:51] I know that she is dame Donna Langley, so, you know, that seems fun, just if we're choosing to be people. But, you know, Universal has its own strategy, is not in the merger game, has figured out the balance between franchises and big name directors, and not just auteurs, but auteurs who put butts in seats. So, and it is their year. Last year's Universal Slate, they had the second Wicked sequel, but much of it was just like, wait till 2027.

Speaker 4:
[28:22] They were vamping a little. They brought their full orchestra to the stage.

Speaker 2:
[28:25] Exactly, you know, and I enjoyed that from a showmanship perspective, but this is the year where they're just like, here are our goods, like, we've got it.

Speaker 1:
[28:33] Yeah, I think they're in generally a good spot because it's just a very smartly, creatively led company. But they're also in a tricky spot because they're not as big as Disney and they're about to be a lot smaller than Warner Paramount and they can't compete with specifically what Netflix does. So it's unusual, like, they're going to have to jump from Lily Pad to Lily Pad if they're going to keep playing the director led Christopher Nolan game. There's only one Christopher Nolan. Maybe Denis Villeneuve is coming up behind him as another brand name who's under 70 years old that can do that, but it's few and far between. You got to be really, really savvy.

Speaker 4:
[29:04] They have Jordan Peele.

Speaker 1:
[29:05] They have Jordan Peele.

Speaker 4:
[29:05] And now they're trying to do it with the Daniels.

Speaker 1:
[29:07] Yeah, and nobody believes in that idea more than I do. That's my favorite thing. I'm pumped that they're doing that, but it's gonna be hard to consistently nail it. I just think for our show, Universal is... That makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 4:
[29:19] I get it. I get you saying that.

Speaker 2:
[29:21] You asked who I wanna be, and also that's part of the thing where you're saying that the theater owners are only thinking short term. So for this year on that stage, that seemed like the strongest position. But to your point, what we know about 2027 and 2028 will be an interesting discussion.

Speaker 4:
[29:42] Well, Universal has Shrek 5 in 2027. Which, I don't wanna pre-draft or my next year draft, but that is a consensus number one.

Speaker 2:
[29:51] Are you personally a Shrek person?

Speaker 4:
[29:54] No, I don't know what that means.

Speaker 2:
[29:55] Okay, well, let's start with this. Have you seen the films Shrek, Shrek 2?

Speaker 4:
[30:00] I have seen them all, and I enjoy it.

Speaker 2:
[30:01] You've seen them all, even Shrek 4?

Speaker 4:
[30:03] I believe so.

Speaker 2:
[30:04] Wow, okay.

Speaker 4:
[30:05] I like them. In fact, I distinctly remember seeing Shrek 2 in the theater and loving it.

Speaker 2:
[30:09] So I would like to let you know you are officially a Shrek person. Can we have Matt Belloni's Shrek person here in the Chiron?

Speaker 4:
[30:16] But isn't there like a weird fetish community around Shrek? He's become this icon?

Speaker 2:
[30:21] Well, I-

Speaker 1:
[30:22] Just be careful with fetish.

Speaker 2:
[30:23] Yeah, I think that to a younger generation-

Speaker 4:
[30:27] He's a millennial icon.

Speaker 2:
[30:28] I think he's more cus-millennial Gen Z.

Speaker 1:
[30:32] I think young millennial. I think young millennial.

Speaker 2:
[30:34] Okay, so when Bobby Wagner, his parting gift to us making us watch Shrek 2, I believe.

Speaker 4:
[30:40] Which is hilarious.

Speaker 2:
[30:42] It was, yeah, it's funny.

Speaker 4:
[30:43] Some of the references are dated now because it's very much of the moment.

Speaker 2:
[30:46] Listen, I saw Shrek in theaters. I remember, you know, The Donkey. It's good stuff. I don't think I've seen all four of them.

Speaker 4:
[30:53] Also, I love the industry narrative behind Shrek is still amazing. The fact that Jeffrey Katzenberg gets fired by Disney, has to sue them for money. And what does he do? He goes and creates an animation company and not their first, but one of their first movies was a movie where the king is a tiny guy, just like Michael Eisner, and he is power mad, and he uses all the fairy tale characters that Disney has dined out on for decades, and he kind of perverts them. And then he goes and makes one of the biggest franchises of all time.

Speaker 1:
[31:24] Okay, you want to be universal. Who do you want to be?

Speaker 4:
[31:28] Disney. I mean, as much as I would like, for the purposes of this show, I get universal, but-

Speaker 2:
[31:35] Some of it's about lifestyle choices, you know? And that's where I would rather be dealing with the minions.

Speaker 4:
[31:40] Yeah, and I want the Spielberg movie to work.

Speaker 2:
[31:43] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[31:44] It is still a big risk. Even though we loved, we talked about, we loved the new trailer and it's much better, it's still a risk. Disney has come the closest to de-risking the movie business, not certainly hasn't solved it, and questions about some of their titles. But if you look at what they're doing, Toy Story 5 cannot miss. That is going to be gigantic. And I'm not just saying that because I have it number one in our draft.

Speaker 2:
[32:12] Okay, that was your first pick.

Speaker 4:
[32:13] It was my first pick for a reason because it is, if Zootopia 2 can do 1.9 billion, what can Toy Story 5 do?

Speaker 1:
[32:21] Yeah, and nothing that they showed us indicates that it's anything less than just a Toy Story movie.

Speaker 4:
[32:27] They nailed those movies. This one is a great idea. I cannot believe they have not had an iPad in these movies before. And it's going to be gigantic. Moana looks like it's going to work.

Speaker 1:
[32:39] Not for me, but sure.

Speaker 4:
[32:40] No, but people see these movies.

Speaker 2:
[32:42] But no one cares what we think, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[32:44] Exactly. And Avengers.

Speaker 1:
[32:46] Hopefully, just when it comes to Moana live action. I was getting my daughter ready for school this morning. And I was like, okay, Alice, here's what I did this week. I watched clips from Toy Story 5, The Mandalorian and Grogu and Moana. And her response was, can I go next time?

Speaker 2:
[32:59] That's very cute.

Speaker 4:
[33:01] I know, I tried to explain CinemaCon to my 10 year old. Very difficult.

Speaker 1:
[33:05] Yeah, it's weird.

Speaker 4:
[33:05] He's like, so you saw all, no, I didn't really see the movies. I saw like 17 minutes of The Mandalorian movie. Oh, is it good? Yeah, it was good.

Speaker 1:
[33:14] Well, that's the thing about being Disney is, I think their slate this year seems strong but very uninspiring creatively. Right.

Speaker 4:
[33:22] I'm not judging the creativity, I'm judging the performance, the likely performance.

Speaker 1:
[33:25] And to your point about the de-risking, it's been a trend over the last 15 years that they're engineering purposefully a kind of loss of originality. It's really like hopeful to me that Hoppers worked.

Speaker 2:
[33:37] You mean, imagineering?

Speaker 1:
[33:37] Yeah. Imagineering, yes.

Speaker 4:
[33:39] Hoppers worked, but Hoppers grossed $350 million. That, for Disney, that's not enough.

Speaker 1:
[33:44] That's modest, yeah. I agree.

Speaker 4:
[33:47] Did you see Hoppers? I did, and I liked it a lot. Yeah. And people liked it who saw it. So, Hoppers is a success for them.

Speaker 1:
[33:54] It's gonna do well, and it's gonna do well on Disney+.

Speaker 4:
[33:55] And it will do great on Disney+, and they may, in five years, be able to do another one, which is The Judge, you know.

Speaker 1:
[34:02] Just like we'll get in Kanto 2 at some point, but we didn't know, we thought that was not a success at first.

Speaker 4:
[34:05] Yeah, Coco 2 is coming.

Speaker 1:
[34:06] They're still doing that stuff, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[34:08] So, I just feel like Disney is still the machine. It's diminished. They don't have three Marvel movies this year. They have one, but it's gonna be huge. I actually had to leave. I couldn't see the Avengers stuff.

Speaker 2:
[34:20] So, maybe your willingness to be Disney is that you didn't have to deal with all of the people cheering.

Speaker 4:
[34:26] And I didn't have to see the Avengers trailer twice.

Speaker 1:
[34:29] Let's just talk about that right now, because I think that's one of the most anticipated things coming out of this.

Speaker 4:
[34:33] Educate me.

Speaker 1:
[34:35] Amanda and I did see it.

Speaker 2:
[34:36] Twice.

Speaker 1:
[34:37] So, during the closing moments of the Disney presentation where Kevin Feige was introduced, he came and spoke about this upcoming film. He introduced Joe and Anthony Russo, the filmmakers who made two Captain America movies and the last two Avengers films.

Speaker 4:
[34:51] Don't forget, the erasure of the electric state will not be tolerated on this show.

Speaker 1:
[34:56] And Cherry and a number of other films.

Speaker 4:
[35:00] The Grey Man.

Speaker 1:
[35:00] The Grey Man, yes.

Speaker 2:
[35:01] And didn't they do that TV show that was the International Spy TV show?

Speaker 4:
[35:08] What was that called?

Speaker 1:
[35:09] It was called...

Speaker 6:
[35:09] Citizen or something?

Speaker 4:
[35:11] Citadel.

Speaker 2:
[35:12] Citadel, okay, I was close.

Speaker 1:
[35:14] They've had a complicated previous eight years since the success of their last film.

Speaker 2:
[35:18] It was not the most enthusiastic response from the theater owners when they walked out. Yeah, because they've been doing...

Speaker 1:
[35:27] Few directors have made more money for them in the last 10 years than those two guys.

Speaker 4:
[35:30] But, I mean, we know who's running the show of Marvel.

Speaker 1:
[35:33] They introduced Robert Downey Jr. Who is playing Victor Von Doom, Dr. Doom, in this new film, a character whose name has, I don't think, ever been uttered in any Marvel movie in this iteration.

Speaker 4:
[35:46] Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Speaker 1:
[35:48] Well, it indicates, I think, a little bit of the challenge of what we saw. Which is we saw, after Downey came out, he introduced Chris Evans and we watched the full trailer. And the trailer, I think, did what it needed to do, but what it did, we've already seen before. Which is to say, it's a movie about a group of disparate heroes coming together to fight a big villain. But the Thanos thing in the Infinity Saga, they took 10 plus years, 14 years and years to build that story out over time and build anticipation. In this trailer, where you see the Fantastic Four, the Fox X-Men characters, the Avengers from the previous films, the characters from Black Panther, Shang-Chi, Gambit introduced in the Deadpool and Wolverine movie, all these characters, they all need to come together and fight Dr. Doom. And that's cool. I read comic books as a kid. I'm a huge comic book movie fan in general. I've been way down on what they've been doing the last five years. But what is the conflict? Why are these people coming together?

Speaker 4:
[36:58] And more importantly, why do we care? Because the goodwill that led to Infinity War and Endgame was the momentum of all those movies we cared about.

Speaker 2:
[37:08] And also the buildup of those characters. Can I say that it did feel like the B-team of people because it is Thor narrating, but you're seeing Asheria's Black Panther, you're seeing Florence Pugh, who I like a lot, but has really, she had Black Widow, which was a COVID thing, and she was not Black Widow. She was the second, she stole the movie from Scarlett Johansson, but that's fine. And then Thunderbolts. All of the other, the characters seem like they are newer. We've spent less time with them in this franchise. They've had less time to develop them and they do feel like the replacements. In many cases, they are the replacements, whether that's because of like story or life reasons. And so, it felt like reheating a little.

Speaker 1:
[37:51] Yeah, I mean, the two major, major characters that are back are Thor and Captain America.

Speaker 4:
[37:55] How do they deal with the Iron Man paradox?

Speaker 2:
[37:57] He's just not there.

Speaker 1:
[37:58] He's just not there. I mean, he died at the end of the game.

Speaker 4:
[38:01] But so did Chris Evans.

Speaker 2:
[38:02] And they buried him.

Speaker 1:
[38:03] And in fact, one thing that they did show, which drew a huge pop from the crowd, but which I found to be incredibly cynical and lame, was there's a moment where Thor sees Steve Rogers and he's blown away and he says, how? How can this be? Because he's gone.

Speaker 4:
[38:18] It's Palpatine Returns.

Speaker 1:
[38:19] It is very Palpatine Returns.

Speaker 4:
[38:20] Somehow he returns.

Speaker 1:
[38:22] And as they're approaching each other, he reaches the hammer out and Captain America catches the hammer, which is of course something that was like, that was a high point moment in Endgame. But like, that's fan service. And that's all that is. And it worked in the room. It played to the maniacs that we were sitting with. They loved it.

Speaker 2:
[38:41] I think there is a group of maybe like 40, primarily young men, who were there just to start yelling. And like, yell what they did.

Speaker 4:
[38:51] Well, I don't know. We cannot say.

Speaker 2:
[38:52] I didn't interact with them, except just to be like, please.

Speaker 4:
[38:54] I'm just saying it costs a lot of money to go to CinemaCon if you are not press.

Speaker 2:
[38:58] It's true.

Speaker 4:
[38:59] So, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[38:59] Anyhow, I thought what we saw probably did what it needed to do just to kind of feed those who were already locked in. I'm very curious to see if it will convert the sceptical and there have become more sceptical over the last five years.

Speaker 4:
[39:15] Or just the casuals who are out.

Speaker 1:
[39:16] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[39:17] Like who haven't followed the new movies. And they're like, what? I don't even know the Fantastic Four.

Speaker 1:
[39:21] Those people though were still like, oh, Captain America, I like him and I'll go see that. And I think in that way, like it was effective enough. But creatively, I was like, man, this feels so bad.

Speaker 2:
[39:30] And then even they brought, so Downey's back playing a new character. They bring Chris Evans out who is dressed just like Sean. It was really kind of alarming. And then they tried to do some banter, to bring back some Avengers. And much like at the Oscars, it just felt totally flat. They don't have any of the chemistry. So even there where you're trying to recreate the buddy, the buddy, we're all in a team together. And it's like, oh, you guys, you don't have that for this movie.

Speaker 1:
[40:00] Yeah, I think the press they got out of it was very effective, but I think it just needs to see more. We're gonna watch it, we're gonna talk about it on the show, of course. It's gonna be one of the biggest movies of the year.

Speaker 2:
[40:11] Obviously, just from like an effects, it looked incredibly ugly. Yeah, I thought it just looked bad.

Speaker 4:
[40:16] But they all.

Speaker 2:
[40:17] They all do, but I thought that it looked.

Speaker 1:
[40:18] I don't even know what we saw.

Speaker 2:
[40:19] I thought it looked ugly.

Speaker 4:
[40:21] The big industry narrative is the Doomsday versus Doom 3. So can we talk about that for a second? Because obviously Avengers is going to be way bigger. The last one grossed almost $3 billion. So even if this one grosses half of the previous Avengers, it's still a massive film. It's still going to probably be the number one or two, probably the number two movie of the year. But I think that the Doom 3 footage was so good that they showed and the goodwill and relevance of that franchise where it doesn't feel thirsty, it doesn't feel like these guys are grasping at straws. This movie has Zendaya, Timothy Chalamet, Robert Pattinson, Jason Momoa, who am I forgetting? Florence Pugh, Robert Pattinson, Josh Brolin, more relevant stars for right now. And that footage they showed kicked ass.

Speaker 2:
[41:15] It was amazing.

Speaker 1:
[41:16] Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to spoil my number one most anticipated movie out of Cinemacon because of what we saw. They showed us the first seven minutes of the film. They also put the biggest stars on stage, Zendaya and Timothy Chalamet were there with Indy Villeneuve talking about the movie along with Jason Momoa. And the first seven minutes are...

Speaker 4:
[41:33] It was David Private Ryan in space with spaceships and some lasers.

Speaker 1:
[41:38] It was a real like, we got the goods. This movie is not coming out first eight months and we don't care. We'll show you exactly what we have because we know that it plays. Now, those movies are darker. They're more violent.

Speaker 4:
[41:47] They're not pop.

Speaker 1:
[41:50] They've never grossed a billion dollars in either of those movies. But we've been making this comparison about that series' Oscar chances around The Lord of the Rings, but it actually felt more like The Lord of the Rings to be watching this sequence because I was like, this movie should exist. There's more story to tell. They have to finish this, which was the one hurdle that I thought the movie might have had, where it was like, are we going to need to feel like we need to see how this concludes? They sold that really well with what they had. I thought it was really special. I don't know if a movie that dark can be that big, but the thing that Disney did was they introduced something called Infinity Vision to combat.

Speaker 4:
[42:29] Infinity Vision. Just for prelude here, one of the reasons why I'm so bullish on Dune 3 is that it has the IMAX screens globally for three weeks. Pre-negotiated, IMAX loves Denis, he shoots in IMAX. Over that holiday week, we should say, they're both coming out December 18th.

Speaker 2:
[42:49] As of today.

Speaker 4:
[42:50] As of today, yes. And Disney, instead of moving Avengers, which many people think they should have moved in a week in advance, they would have a week all to themselves. There's nothing on that date, and on December 11th.

Speaker 1:
[43:02] I thought for sure, as soon as Jumanji, yes, when Jumanji moved, I was like, okay, well, this makes sense.

Speaker 4:
[43:06] Yeah, because now Jumanji is in that Christmas corridor. They have not done that yet. Instead, they introduce Infinity Vision.

Speaker 1:
[43:14] Which is a new, quote, certification that Disney has acquired for their films when they are displayed in non-IMAX and presumably Dolby movie theaters where they're improving the sound in the picture for, I guess, laser projection in other movie theaters. Now, of course, there are more non-IMAX screens than there are IMX screens, but they don't charge the same amount typically and they're not the preferred ability to see a movie.

Speaker 4:
[43:38] And IMX, for better or worse, has become the brand. When you look at billboards, sometimes IMX is larger than the actual title of the movie now.

Speaker 1:
[43:46] Don't forget the amateur.

Speaker 2:
[43:47] Yes, they have the branding.

Speaker 4:
[43:48] Exactly, including on many Disney billboards. Let's just be clear about that. But they know they're not getting those screens. They want Avengers fans to feel like they are going to see the movie on the biggest possible format, hence Infinity Vision.

Speaker 2:
[44:02] You excited? Yeah, I'm reading from my notes taken at the time. Infinity Vision, in quotes, is this because they can't get IMX? It was so obvious and desperate and instant. And, you know, cynically clever because they are in front of theater owners. And so it is acknowledging in a way this idea that premium screens do matter and that they understand that and are going to are playing into that branding as well.

Speaker 4:
[44:29] It's also picking up on something that is a narrative within the theatrical industry, which is they believe that there should be a competing brand to IMX. The other is whether it's Xfinity or not Xfinity, X whatever the Regal brand is, or I don't even know, or there's many different brands of large format screens and it's confusing to the consumers. And they recognize this. So they have talked about coming up with a name for non-IMX PLFs. Should it be in Vanity Vision? No. I mean, we bumped into another executive in line leaving the Caesar's Palace who was laughing at it. They were all laughing at it.

Speaker 1:
[45:12] I think it's one of those things that feels cynical and cheap to hard-bitten people like us, but they could work over time because Disney is pretty smart about this stuff.

Speaker 4:
[45:21] It 100% could work in this context.

Speaker 1:
[45:23] I'm not going to bet against it. In the room, we were just like, come on, dude. Like really? Anyhow, a couple quick things before we get into our list that I wanted to hit on. To me, the video game era is here based on the presentations. Almost every single studio had major video game titles to either celebrate that premiered or are coming soon or in development. A lot in development. Just at Sony, there was talk about the completion of The Legend of Zelda production.

Speaker 4:
[45:49] Big applause for that.

Speaker 1:
[45:50] Big applause. They also announced Bloodborne and Helldivers adaptations.

Speaker 4:
[45:54] I thought those were Coachella bands.

Speaker 1:
[45:56] These are not games I've played, but they got big pops also from the same cohort who popped over Marvel. Warner Brothers has got Mortal Kombat 2 coming soon, Universal is celebrating the Super Mario Galaxy movie, where there's going to be more of those. Paramount has Sonic 4, Street Fighter, which had a huge presentation, Call of Duty, directed by Peter Burke, written by Taylor Sheridan. We can talk about what that means when we talk about Paramount, and Angry Birds 3.

Speaker 4:
[46:18] You didn't even put on there Minecraft 2.

Speaker 1:
[46:21] And Minecraft 2 coming from Warner Brothers 2. This is, if there is a little loss of interest in superheroes, a lot of it is going in this direction. And it feels like people are on board with it.

Speaker 4:
[46:32] They're following the money. I mean, look at the big hits. We just came off Mario, Minecraft huge last year. Makes sense.

Speaker 1:
[46:39] The other thing is Windows, which you've talked about quite a bit. In fact, the first time you ever came on this show several years ago, when we talked about War Machine on Netflix, we talked about Windows. When does War Machine, how many theaters will it play on, if any? What does Windows mean? And now, we're kind of slowly creeping back to where things were. And I think everybody is finally off of the streaming methadone.

Speaker 4:
[47:04] Well, they've either leaned in or they've gotten out.

Speaker 1:
[47:08] There's a delineation.

Speaker 4:
[47:09] Apple is basically out of theatrical until they tell us differently. Netflix clearly out now that they're not buying Warner Brothers. The other remaining theatrical studios are all pretty much falling in line with this 45 days to PVOD or premium video on demand, where you pay money to rent the movie or buy it. And then 90 or more to subscription streaming.

Speaker 1:
[47:36] Streaming service.

Speaker 4:
[47:37] And we saw David Ellison commit to that on stage. He actually said starting today, which was a big deal to some theater owners because he'd talked a lot about it, but he hasn't actually done it until now. If they succeed in buying Warner Brothers, presumably the policy would be the same there. Sony, in their recent deal with Netflix for the output on Payone, they have committed to 120 days to Netflix, which is four months, which is pretty significant.

Speaker 1:
[48:05] It's not quite how it was in the 90s, but it's closer than it has been in the last five years.

Speaker 4:
[48:08] I actually personally believe 120 should be the benchmark. I agree. I think three months is too soon.

Speaker 1:
[48:14] Yep. I'm with you. People will wait. It's like they have to break the habit that they create, and that's clearly what they're trying to do.

Speaker 4:
[48:20] But I also think that the premium video on demand window is less important. 45 days to me is fine for that, because it is an affirmative choice you have to make to buy or rent the movie. When things go to Netflix or Disney+, people consider that free.

Speaker 1:
[48:36] Yep.

Speaker 4:
[48:36] It's all you can eat. They see it on their TV. That, to me, reduces the value of movies and theaters. Universal recently changed their windows, where they were the most aggressive, and they kicked this all off during COVID. They are now going to give all their movies, starting in a little bit, five weekends to Peavod, which is about 45 days, so that's a big change.

Speaker 1:
[49:00] It is a big change. Any thoughts on that? Because basically every studio chief addressed this issue when they spoke this week.

Speaker 4:
[49:06] Except Amazon. On Amazon, they say they're doing windows. Actually, what they said about Project Hail Mary is that they're lengthening the window, but obviously they are.

Speaker 1:
[49:16] I'll give them a little slack, because this is a new administration. They seem to be making a sincere effort to make a theatrical push, but if they start to struggle, they might pull back and make a change.

Speaker 4:
[49:27] And they pissed off the theaters with Red One, the rock movie, because they put that in theaters for Thanksgiving, and then all of a sudden it was on the service for Christmas, which is not a very big window.

Speaker 2:
[49:37] I mean, Amazon is an interesting one, because there are a couple movies that we are anticipating, Sean and I at least, that I would put under the rubric of made by directors featuring, like real directors featuring actors, like people talking, ideas, and they were not mentioned. And that's, you know, maybe that's because they are, well, certainly Artificial by Luca Guadagnino, which is absolutely silent. After last year, Luca Guadagnino's After the Hunt was presented big time, like was Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts was-

Speaker 1:
[50:09] I don't think she was in the building.

Speaker 2:
[50:09] She wasn't there.

Speaker 1:
[50:10] I think she was on screen.

Speaker 4:
[50:10] They lost a lot of money on that movie.

Speaker 2:
[50:12] Exactly, they lost a lot of money on that movie. But that's also, that is not a big like event, 40X theater, spectacle movie. So I think you guys are like obviously right. And in terms of the industry and getting people into movie theaters.

Speaker 4:
[50:26] It's also a Sam, it's a Sam Altman movie.

Speaker 2:
[50:29] Well, sure.

Speaker 4:
[50:29] So if they were, if they would have shown footage of whoever is playing Sam Altman, who is it? Andrew Garfield. That would have become a thing.

Speaker 2:
[50:38] Yes. But more to the point, that seems like a movie that is, you want to see everything in the theaters, but it's not as reliant as a big spectacle movie is in theaters. And I still worry about the health of those movies long terms. And those are movies that probably people, I don't think that they'll go to the theater just because they have to wait four months instead of three months for it. And I think the middle continues to fall out. And so I agree with you guys, but it just underlines that the strategy is giant spectacle or nothing.

Speaker 1:
[51:14] There was one notable thing that I'm sure we'll talk about on the town as well, which is that Warner Bros. announced the name of the smaller internal shingle that they're launching, Clockwork, which has got the same...

Speaker 4:
[51:24] Is that a reference to something? I haven't asked them.

Speaker 2:
[51:26] Clockwork Orange. Oh, is that what it is? It's orange, yes.

Speaker 4:
[51:30] The logo is in the same font. I didn't realize that was a Warner's movie.

Speaker 1:
[51:34] All those Kubrick movies are all Warner's films. So he's a Warner's filmmaker. And I guess maybe that gives you a little bit of an indication of the style and tone of the films that you can expect from that shingle.

Speaker 4:
[51:43] They wish. Hopefully.

Speaker 1:
[51:45] So they announced that they're making the Sean Baker movie, right? And I think to the point that you're making about artificial and movies like artificial, I think we've been kind of excited about what A24 and Neon have been able to do, A24 especially in the last 24 months has put out three or four movies that grossed $100 million. They feel like adult plays, they're connecting with the audience that you're describing. This is Warner's doing that and now it feels like we're back in 2003 with Paramount Vantage and Sony Pictures Classics and Warner Independent and all of those shingles that the studio has built up to have this kind of secondary business. Like Focus obviously still exists, Searchlight still exists. So that was notable, it's on a smaller scale, but they did take some time out to at least walk about these things at the presentation and Neon got its own time to present films at this convention. A24 still doesn't do it. I feel like they should at this point honestly.

Speaker 4:
[52:34] They've done stuff at Cinemacon and I would like to see them do a full on presentation. They probably think they're too cool for that.

Speaker 1:
[52:40] Possibly.

Speaker 4:
[52:41] But you know what, good for them.

Speaker 1:
[52:42] I think when you're putting Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in your movie and putting it on 3000 screens, like we should work with them.

Speaker 4:
[52:49] Timmy Chalamet movies grossing $200 million, like you got The Rock in movies, multiple movies.

Speaker 2:
[52:54] Yeah, right. Though that didn't help them make any money. That's very true.

Speaker 4:
[52:58] But just a note on that, I think Warner's, they want to make more movies. And when you have multiple labels like this, it gives you the freedom to do movies at different sizes. It also gives them the freedom to push back maybe a little more on star salaries and the cost of some of these movies.

Speaker 1:
[53:15] This is for this label, this brand. We only do it at this size.

Speaker 4:
[53:18] This is what Focus does. We're like, at Universal, we love your script, but we see this as a Focus movie. So ratchet back those expectations, and let's bring this budget down by half. And Warner's, they famously spent a lot on these auteur movies, and they get a lot of attention in the media and the business press when they do that. So maybe this is an opportunity for them to make those movies, but at a lower cost.

Speaker 1:
[53:41] Yes. And also bring someone like Sean Baker into the studio system, somebody who's been a little bit, you know, I would say suspicious of how that system works.

Speaker 4:
[53:50] And then you get to know him, and all of a sudden he's directing Minecraft 3.

Speaker 1:
[53:53] Well, we'll see about that.

Speaker 4:
[53:56] I would like to see a Sean Baker version of Minecraft.

Speaker 1:
[53:58] I think it would have a lot of sex in it.

Speaker 2:
[54:02] I think the audience of Minecraft would also like to see a Sean Baker Minecraft, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[54:07] Any other thoughts?

Speaker 4:
[54:09] Chicken, what's the?

Speaker 2:
[54:10] Chicken Jockey.

Speaker 4:
[54:11] The Chicken Jockey would have a whole new meaning.

Speaker 1:
[54:13] Pam Abdee did apologize to the theater owners for the Chicken Jockey popcorn phenomenon. Any other presentation thoughts before we get into our most anticipated?

Speaker 4:
[54:23] I mean, Tom Rothman at Sony told the theater owners to get off the ad crack, which I thought was a nice line.

Speaker 1:
[54:30] He was very forceful and encouraging them to improve their business.

Speaker 4:
[54:37] I mean, the whole dynamic between studios and theaters is so effed up.

Speaker 2:
[54:42] I mean, it's very, very codependent and unhealthy.

Speaker 4:
[54:46] Unhealthy. Imagine if you were the CEO of a theater company and your entire business is dependent on something you do not control. The amount of movies and the quality of those movies. It's a terrible business.

Speaker 2:
[54:59] It's really tough.

Speaker 4:
[55:01] And the marketing of those movies. And then on the other side.

Speaker 1:
[55:03] Yeah, but when it hits, it hits so hard.

Speaker 4:
[55:06] And it's easy money. When it hits, it's easy money. And you can charge $10 for popcorn that costs you 20 cents.

Speaker 1:
[55:10] It's part of why it's just fun to talk about this business is because it's so unpredictable. And so that no one really feels like they know what they're doing at any given time. That's part of why this event is fun. Just to hear people talk about like, well, we're betting on this. You're betting on that?

Speaker 4:
[55:23] But then if you're Tom Rothman and you're going to spend $250, $300 million on a Spider-Man movie and put that kind of effort into making it something that people are going to love. And then they show up to the theater and they've got 30 minutes of ads. And the floor is sticky and the seat is broken. And it's not a good experience. He doesn't control that. He has no ability to control the actual environment in which his movies are consumed. It's got to be so frustrating.

Speaker 6:
[55:52] This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit spectrum.com/business to learn more. Restrictions apply, services not available in all areas.

Speaker 7:
[56:21] If you thought HBO's Euphoria was intense in high school, saddle up. Season three of Euphoria picks up five years later and life looks very different.

Speaker 6:
[56:29] Hello, Rue.

Speaker 3:
[56:30] You owe me money.

Speaker 7:
[56:32] No matter what they're chasing, money, love or redemption, no one can escape their fate. The problem is if you make a deal with the devil, there's no turning back. Don't miss the third season of Euphoria, starring two time Emmy winners in data. Now streaming on HBO and HBO Max with new episodes every Sunday.

Speaker 6:
[56:51] This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here so celebrate it with fresh, juicy seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods Market Peach Apricot Rose Italian Soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending Mango Yuzu Chantilly Cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 Strawberry Pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sales signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market.

Speaker 1:
[57:31] Okay, let's talk about actual movies now. We each chose five.

Speaker 4:
[57:35] We all get off the ad crap.

Speaker 1:
[57:37] We sort of cheated. Well, unfortunately, we're on podcasts, so we're not off the ad crap either. Amanda, would you like to start?

Speaker 2:
[57:44] Absolutely. Number five.

Speaker 1:
[57:45] You want to go from five to one?

Speaker 2:
[57:46] Yeah, I do. That's how we do things on this. My number five, even though I did not get my hoped for photo app off with a minion, is Minions vs. Monsters, which we were treated to not one, but two clips of and possibly like a full recap. It was really sort of Spielberg interviewing Paul Thomas Anderson after one battle after another. And here's another thing that happens. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm going to bring my four-year-old. You don't have to tell me anymore.

Speaker 1:
[58:17] This was Chris Meladonjari from Illumination talking about his film very excitedly.

Speaker 2:
[58:20] But Craig and I both thought that these two clips were electric. And we, this is a movie about Minions, but also about the birth of cinema. It is in many ways Minions singing in the rain.

Speaker 4:
[58:32] No, it's a love letter to cinema.

Speaker 1:
[58:33] It's the Babylon of animated movies.

Speaker 2:
[58:35] Sure, even to the recreation of the scene that Spike Jones is directing in Babylon, they're doing that with Minions. So I'm on board. I'm really, I am delighted. They make me laugh. They just, they really make me laugh. You were surprised to learn that I'm a Minions fan.

Speaker 4:
[58:54] A little bit. Yeah, but they're funny. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the Minions as well. But I kind of enjoy them for what they are. Their Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Speaker 2:
[59:02] Yeah, it's silent comedy, yeah, of course. But so I'm, of all of the offerings for families and children that were presented, I'm clearly Team Minions vs. Monsters.

Speaker 4:
[59:14] The illumination movies in general, and I think Minions are the most pure distillation, they are engineered for constant stimulation. Even the camera angles and something's going on and they're coming at you or they're coming from the right or left. And I know that people in the animation community look down on that a little bit, they say it's cheap, not cheap, like inexpensive, just kind of cheap enjoyment and throw away, they don't last. I don't care.

Speaker 1:
[59:42] They work.

Speaker 4:
[59:44] And they do last, kids watch them over and over again on the services.

Speaker 1:
[59:46] They work, they really, those movies do matter to young people in a way that very few do. Not gonna be as enthusiastic as you, but I'm glad that you have something that you love.

Speaker 2:
[59:55] Do you think that we can get the kids together to go see this movie?

Speaker 1:
[59:59] Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2:
[60:00] You know, all at once, a big trip.

Speaker 1:
[60:02] I'll also be thrilled to watch it. Is your 10-year-old still locked in on Minions?

Speaker 4:
[60:05] Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, he's in, but...

Speaker 2:
[60:08] Where is he on Babylon?

Speaker 4:
[60:10] Not soon yet.

Speaker 2:
[60:11] Have you seen Babylon?

Speaker 4:
[60:12] I'm registered in the Hive. Oh! I'm a fan. Great! We've talked about this on the town.

Speaker 2:
[60:19] Do you? Because I'm a pretty regular listener and I don't know... Well, every time on the town you talk about it, you're like, I'm not a critic, you're not gonna go too far into the opinions, so now I'm pushing you here in Big Picture Land, so Babylon Hive.

Speaker 4:
[60:33] I am. I thought it was great. And of course, and I partly love it because the ending is so crazy and bad and weird and like, it should not have happened, and what is Avatar doing in this movie? But up until then... I can explain it all to you, but I'm sure you have five theories on it, all of which have been discussed. I just enjoyed it for how crazy it was.

Speaker 2:
[60:52] Totally.

Speaker 4:
[60:53] And I'm like, I can't believe this movie happened.

Speaker 2:
[60:55] I think the middle two hours are a masterpiece.

Speaker 1:
[60:58] Okay, number five, Matt, what do you got?

Speaker 4:
[61:00] Can I throw a wrench into this?

Speaker 2:
[61:03] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[61:05] All five of my picks are Jeremy Strong.

Speaker 2:
[61:08] Okay, so speak on it.

Speaker 4:
[61:09] All five of my picks.

Speaker 2:
[61:11] This happened during the Sony presentation, and I got there too late to attend the Sony presentation.

Speaker 4:
[61:16] You missed me embarrassing myself. I just said, holy shit, I started laughing out loud at how great it was. This is Jeremy Strong playing Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning, the follow-up to The Social Network, which is written by Aaron Sorkin and now directed by Aaron Sorkin. Questions about that element of it. They showed extended footage. Is it the trailer?

Speaker 1:
[61:41] I think it was the trailer. I think it was the proper trailer, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[61:42] Okay, yeah. Interesting, there were some elements that felt choppy, especially the scene they showed where Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison are having their first kind of discussion. She's a reporter, no, she's a source, she's a reporter, weird cuts on it, did not sort of disjointed, but then they get to Jeremy Strong. This is either going to win him the Oscar he deserves or he will be the record holder for Razzie's. They will create a new category of Razzie if this movie does not go well. I am hopeful and I dare say confident that he will nail this and that the movie will be good enough to get him the Oscar. It is amazing how much he's like Zuckerberg.

Speaker 2:
[62:26] I feel sick to my stomach right now. But not like out of, not because that sounds bad. I just, I have so much invested in this and I'm also so stressed out and unsure about the quality of it. And I wasn't even there.

Speaker 4:
[62:38] He is so self-serious. He is 1000% locked in on this role. He has the voice mannerisms. He looks like a robot. He has the haircut. He walks the same way that Zuckerberg walks. It's not like Jesse Eisenberg where that was sort of a...

Speaker 1:
[62:55] It was an interpretation. It wasn't a mimicry.

Speaker 4:
[62:58] Right. Exactly. And he had that kind of scowl that I don't think Zuckerberg has. This is on another level.

Speaker 1:
[63:06] That's the thing is that the social network is an adaptation of a book that is then reimagined by a filmmaker. And so it doesn't feel like docudrama. It feels like a character study. This looks like a docudrama. This looks like a recreation of events. And Aaron Sorkin, a less skilled director obviously than David Fincher, it's also a movie that's clearly going to be happening on two tracks. One is Francis Haugen and the Wall Street Journal Reporter, to whom she blew the whistle. And Zuckerberg and his, the world that he has built and him trying to prevent it from coming apart because of this whistleblower.

Speaker 4:
[63:43] And there's a legal proceeding at the center of it again, which is the core structure.

Speaker 1:
[63:48] Isn't it the testimony in front of Congress? I believe it is.

Speaker 4:
[63:50] And he's being prepped for it. And there's a funny line where he calls himself a professional defendant. And this is where Sorkin cannot be matched.

Speaker 1:
[63:58] Well, that's the thing. You know that stuff is going to work. And that's the stuff in the trailer that really pops. I think the Jeremy Strong thing is going to work. He's got the posture down. He's got the tone of voice down. He's got the weird blondish hair color. You know, he's got that kind of like pasty skin.

Speaker 4:
[64:12] It's a meme. It's a thousand memes, like, waiting to happen.

Speaker 1:
[64:16] And I, you know, look, as a succession devotee, like, I love Jeremy Strong. His self-seriousness I find fascinating and funny, and I enjoy it.

Speaker 4:
[64:25] I can only imagine him on set.

Speaker 1:
[64:27] The other stuff just felt a little anonymous to me. And there's nothing anonymous about the social network. You know, like, that is a... That's a very specific and defined tone and execution of a story.

Speaker 2:
[64:36] Maybe anonymous is best case for Sorkin directing?

Speaker 1:
[64:40] Yeah, I mean, look, Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison are both good actors, and it doesn't feel like they're, like, misstepping in their performances or anything like that. It just looks a little bit standard. It looked, honestly, a little bit like TV miniseries to me, to be honest, whereas the other stuff felt... It was like Bill Burr and Jeremy Strong going at each other, and it had real vitality to it.

Speaker 4:
[64:59] Yeah. The risk is that it feels like a polemic, like Sorkin lecturing us about the dangers of the Internet, which the social network had some of that in it, but it was done in a way and Fincher had a detachment from that sort of preachiness that it worked. I don't know if he's going to be able to nail that. Even when we were looking up the music, the music is not Reznor.

Speaker 1:
[65:23] No.

Speaker 2:
[65:23] Even though they use the dun-dun-dun.

Speaker 4:
[65:25] They use that.

Speaker 2:
[65:26] Yeah, which is true.

Speaker 1:
[65:26] Reznor and Ross' tone is hit on the title card, but it's Alexander Desplat, this year doing the score. Which is a huge difference. It is.

Speaker 4:
[65:33] That is a major difference.

Speaker 1:
[65:35] Yeah. I've been skeptical, I stay skeptical. I'm fascinated. It's at least two full episodes of this podcast.

Speaker 4:
[65:43] So, yeah, I am copping out by picking Jeremy Strong as my one for five.

Speaker 1:
[65:47] That's a great one.

Speaker 2:
[65:48] One for five. Okay.

Speaker 4:
[65:49] But I do have other movies that I like, so you go next.

Speaker 1:
[65:52] My number five, I'm not sure if it's specifically the movie that I am most anticipating, but it is representative of an idea, and it was a very good presentation, which is Spaceballs the New One, which is the Spaceball sequel, which you didn't even know was happening, right, when we were sitting there?

Speaker 2:
[66:06] No, I think that was someone behind us who was like, they're doing a new one? I knew that there was a new Spaceballs.

Speaker 1:
[66:12] Who didn't know?

Speaker 2:
[66:12] Who with it? I know some things.

Speaker 4:
[66:14] But it's always funny to me when family members of mine, like where news from my world gets to them, and I got a text from my sister last night, they're doing another Spaceballs?

Speaker 1:
[66:24] The biggest, I guess, news item out of this is that Rick Moranis is coming back for this film, has not acted in a film in over 30 years. He was there. They had a great bit during the presentation about not allowing him to speak. That was very effective. Films directed by Josh Greenbaum, it's written by Josh Gad, I guess, in concert with Mel Brooks. It's like Josh Gad's dream to do this. Bill Pullman is back, Daphne Zuniga is back.

Speaker 4:
[66:46] Bill Pullman's son, Lewis Pullman is in the cast.

Speaker 1:
[66:51] I thought all of the effectively promo material that they made for this presentation.

Speaker 4:
[66:55] Kiki Palmer, don't forget Kiki Palmer.

Speaker 1:
[66:56] Kiki Palmer, she wasn't there, but she's in the film as well, was all really funny, was pretty much in the spirit of the original, which for a person like me is a sacred totem of my childhood.

Speaker 4:
[67:04] That's saying something at CinemaCon. You mentioned it before, but most of the banter is inane and unfunny.

Speaker 1:
[67:11] Yes, poorly written, poorly executed. They did a really nice job with that. They included Mel Brooks in it. He recorded a video for it.

Speaker 4:
[67:17] So bad that when De Niro presented for Little Fokker or for Fokker in Law, he literally said, I did not write this.

Speaker 1:
[67:22] Yes, although I found that entertaining what they did nevertheless.

Speaker 2:
[67:25] I think that was after he had to say, I prefer the Minions, which was scripted, and then aggregated as if Robert De Niro came out like as a pro Minions over Madagascar. I was like, guys, that was bad writing.

Speaker 1:
[67:38] Anyhow, Spaceball is the new one, which looks fun, and who knows if it'll actually end up working. I think it's also an indicator of where a lot of this stuff is, which is Masters of the Universe from Amazon, Doomsday and Mandalorian and Grogu from Disney. A lot of the recycled, you were six years old in 1988, and here's what you probably like now at 45 years old, and we're going to force you to watch it. Some of these works, some of them don't, Masters of the He-Man was very important to me as a young child. I'm not totally sold on that movie based on what they showed us.

Speaker 4:
[68:08] The less said, the better.

Speaker 1:
[68:09] Yeah, but it is a whole space for your youth kind of thing.

Speaker 4:
[68:14] I'm surprised that you put it on your most anticipated because to me, that struck me as a very fun and effective presentation of a movie that looks like a sad retread.

Speaker 1:
[68:27] We'll see. I think it's more of an opportunity to talk about a lot of other movies here at number five. But I'm more excited about Rob Eggers' Werewolf personally than I am the new Spaceballs movie. But they showed us a trailer from Werewolf and it's a really gnarly Werewolf movie from Rob Eggers. You know what it is. It's probably going to work really well. We saw the Nosferatu trailer a couple of years ago at Cinemacon and it tore the house down. And then that movie went on to be a big hit. So okay, number four, Amanda, what do you got?

Speaker 2:
[68:56] Yes, I've collected three films together. One Night Only, Verity and Other Mommy.

Speaker 4:
[69:03] Other Mommy, I'm still laughing.

Speaker 2:
[69:04] Which I'll call Gals Having Fun. And One Night Only also includes Callum Turner. So that is the new romantic comedy, sex comedy from Will Glock, who did Anyone But Ewan, was introduced with like an Oscars-esque montage about love at the movies. And we have to save romantic comedies. And apparently we're saving them with One Night Only, which I'm very excited about. It stars Monica Bobarro and Callum Turner, who I'm on record as supporting, both of them, honestly. And the premise is that two people meet on the one night a year where it's legal to have premarital sex.

Speaker 4:
[69:46] Yeah, I did not get that from the footage. You explain that to me after, that it's basically the purge for rom-coms.

Speaker 2:
[69:52] Yes. And so they don't totally communicate that in the trailer, that's right. And it is pretty high concept. And I think the effectiveness of the movie will be as much about, like, do they communicate and like tease out the premise and the ideas as much as the performances. Those are two attractive people that I like. They seem to have decent chemistry.

Speaker 4:
[70:13] That premise seems asinine to me.

Speaker 2:
[70:15] Oh, I think it would be funny.

Speaker 1:
[70:16] It's interesting that they're trying to make it work in a non-dystopian setting. It basically looks like any other rom-com with that idea attached to it.

Speaker 4:
[70:24] But that premise is basically like the Handmaid's Tale.

Speaker 2:
[70:26] Yes, I know. But then, don't you kind of want to know more?

Speaker 4:
[70:29] I do.

Speaker 1:
[70:30] No.

Speaker 2:
[70:30] Oh, okay, well, that's fine.

Speaker 4:
[70:31] I just want to see them meet you and have fun and like complications and then they get together.

Speaker 2:
[70:36] There are complications. They only have so much time to have sex or they get murdered or whatever. Yeah, well, I'd like to see how they pull it off.

Speaker 1:
[70:42] Do you think that the film ends with a mass slaughter?

Speaker 2:
[70:44] I really don't know, but I'm curious. So we'll see how that goes.

Speaker 4:
[70:48] There are some jokes about his ears also.

Speaker 2:
[70:50] Yeah, but the ears work for him. And her nose size.

Speaker 1:
[70:53] I thought I enjoyed that.

Speaker 2:
[70:54] Yeah, and Josh O'Connor's ears. Listen, it's fine. It's okay.

Speaker 1:
[70:56] Great time to have big ears. Yeah, it's wonderful to be Irish.

Speaker 2:
[70:59] Okay, the next Verity is the latest Colin Hoover adaptation. This is directed by Michael Showalter, stars Anne Hathaway, Josh Hurtnett, Dakota Johnson. This is like the high touch Colin Hoover trash, you know? And if it works, I'm excited. I'm not opposed.

Speaker 1:
[71:16] It had real kind of M. Night Shyamalan, What Lies Beneath vibes, you know? Like kind of a spooky thriller, as opposed to some woman hit a guy with her car kind of energy, you know? Or like all the other Colin Hoover movies are just like, why did you fall down the staircase energy?

Speaker 2:
[71:32] They may be a little bit more.

Speaker 1:
[71:34] All the Colin Hoover stories are always just like, man, you tripped over some chicken wire. Well, why did that happen?

Speaker 4:
[71:40] I thought abusive husbands were a thing.

Speaker 2:
[71:42] And then people were abusive to each other. Yeah, this has a little bit more of The Housemaid. We had an ongoing discussion this week about what our actual opinions of The Housemaid was. And I'd just like to stay on the record, as I did originally, I had a good time.

Speaker 4:
[71:57] I'm a pro housemaid, I liked it.

Speaker 2:
[71:59] I'd like to have a good time at Verity, and it seems like that's possible. Other Mommy is a Jessica Chastain horror movie. Horror movie.

Speaker 4:
[72:07] Blumhouse, straight up.

Speaker 2:
[72:08] Yeah, Blumhouse, about a woman whose home is seemingly invaded by a clone of her but evil. So it's like single white female but supernatural mommy.

Speaker 1:
[72:25] Well, I think that's exactly right.

Speaker 2:
[72:27] And Jessica Chastain is playing both. And it was one of those watching the trailers where the concept and the performance of the other mommy just really spoke to me. And I was like, well, this is a big picture bit already. Just the silent smile.

Speaker 1:
[72:41] Yeah, hang in there, other mommy.

Speaker 2:
[72:44] Hang on, in another mommy. Or you can identify the other mommies all around you as you are going about your own mommy life.

Speaker 4:
[72:51] I will never not chuckle when I hear that title.

Speaker 2:
[72:53] It's really, really good. I'm excited for other people to at least, to be more aware of other mommies so that it can become like a cultural touch point, which is kind of all those movies need at this point, that it just has like a little bit of like pop culture stickiness.

Speaker 1:
[73:10] I agree. It comes also from Rob Savage, who made Host the Zoom horror movie during COVID, which was very effective. He's a super talented dude. So should be fun. Also, Chastain's got a lot of history. You know, she made Mama some years ago with a horror movie.

Speaker 4:
[73:23] Anytime you get an Oscar winner into a horror movie, it's usually a good thing.

Speaker 1:
[73:27] Yeah. Okay. I like that one. Matt, do you actually want to give us four more?

Speaker 4:
[73:31] I'm just going to give you something that I liked and that I'm optimistic about. And I'm going to put Digger on my list too. The Tom Cruise movie. Let's talk about it. Lots of discussion about this. Alejandro Arrino Rito coming off of Bardo, maybe not his best movie. This is him getting back into The Big Star Game, big studio movie with Warner Brothers. I thought the footage was good. I thought Cruise as this like, cantankerous oil man type, southern accent, profane, looks nothing like Cruise, old fat bald. And then he, it's essentially, it seems like a movie where he's trying to cover up the fact that his company blew up an iceberg in the Arctic that is gonna destroy the world.

Speaker 1:
[74:14] Yes. I think you nailed the premise. A man and I are quite dubious of Ina Ritu on the show. Not the hugest fans of his. Oh really? Yeah. Oh wow.

Speaker 4:
[74:23] Why not?

Speaker 1:
[74:24] Tend to think he takes himself too seriously. I think his filmmaking style is ostentatious, but a little empty. Anyhow.

Speaker 4:
[74:33] Even man fighting a bear in The Revenant? You're not into that?

Speaker 1:
[74:35] Never been a fan.

Speaker 2:
[74:36] I didn't care about that.

Speaker 1:
[74:37] Never been a fan. He's just a little bit of a blank spot for us in general.

Speaker 4:
[74:42] Bardo was objectively bad.

Speaker 1:
[74:44] Quite bad. I haven't hated all of his, I like DeMorris Perros. We heard Tom Cruise on stage say that he loved DeMorris Perros and that's one of the reasons why he wanted to do that.

Speaker 2:
[74:51] This is the film and the presentation that Tom Cruise showed up for us this year.

Speaker 4:
[74:56] And I enjoyed Birdman a lot too.

Speaker 1:
[74:58] I have a little more time for Birdman, but it doesn't hold up in my mind. This film feels very, it feels like Birdman at scale. That it's about the male ego at large. I'm a little skeptical of how the movie will turn out, but I'm very excited to see Cruise. And I thought what Cruise was doing was like, great change of pace, like really good idea to just get out of your persona, do something super big.

Speaker 2:
[75:21] 1000%. And it was funny, like it hurt. It was funny, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[75:25] He was funny.

Speaker 2:
[75:26] He was funny, he was doing McConaughey times a thousand, but in a fat suit. And I was like very amused by it. And even he landed the jokes. The rest of the jokes were kind of hit and miss, even though it's a great cast.

Speaker 4:
[75:38] It feels over the top a little. John Goodman, certainly doing a bit.

Speaker 1:
[75:41] And playing the President of the United States, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[75:43] I have been wary since they debuted the poster that has a comedy of catastrophic proportions on the poster. Anytime you have to announce yourself as a comedy, or anytime you have to explain what you're doing before you do it, which is kind of the inner Ritu bit. He's just like, hey, look at me. Like I'm, you know, look at my tracking shot. Look at this fancy, this is about like what the camera can do and the making of art, or this is about a primal, you know, male urge in the in the wilderness. It's, he doesn't always bear it out. So I'm nervous about that part of it. Also looked quite washed out. You know, I just, I know.

Speaker 1:
[76:21] I made a joke on X that it looked like a Roy Anderson movie, who's, you know, this Scandinavian filmmaker who tends to make movies where everybody in those worlds look like white and gray.

Speaker 2:
[76:30] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[76:31] And everybody in this movie, mostly because it was old men who are making decisions and the movie looked like they were in a Roy Anderson movie.

Speaker 4:
[76:36] Yeah, certainly like the boardroom scenes.

Speaker 2:
[76:38] Yeah, the palettes match it as well.

Speaker 1:
[76:40] Yeah, we'll see. For Cruise alone, it's like, it's a must see movie. It's going to be one of the most discussed movies of the year.

Speaker 2:
[76:47] I need them to bring it to Venice. Don't be cowards, Warner Brothers. I know that they won't. I know, I know.

Speaker 4:
[76:52] I think they learned their lesson.

Speaker 2:
[76:52] They got burned on Joker too, but that's what, but Cruise, give him the Venice moment. What else are you going to do to sell that movie?

Speaker 4:
[77:00] You know how many film festivals one battle after another went to?

Speaker 2:
[77:03] Zero. I do remember that. I know.

Speaker 4:
[77:05] I just, I don't think.

Speaker 2:
[77:06] I know.

Speaker 1:
[77:07] That's the thing is in this movie could go in any direction. Could be a huge Oscar movie and a bomb at the box office, could be a hit at the box office at an Oscar movie, could be a hit at the box office and not an Oscar movie. Like it could be any number of permutations, which is really interesting.

Speaker 4:
[77:19] My fear with it is the same fear as social reckoning in that it'll be a polemic, in that the allegory obviously is, you know, the environmental catastrophe movie. This movie reminded me of Don't Look Up, the Adam McKay movie, which also did not have much nuance to it.

Speaker 1:
[77:34] No, but tons of people watched it. It had a big star.

Speaker 4:
[77:37] And it had two big stars.

Speaker 1:
[77:39] Three, if you include Chalamet, or Meryl Streep.

Speaker 4:
[77:42] But it was on Netflix. So I don't know if this is entirely...

Speaker 2:
[77:47] That was 2021. It was still different.

Speaker 1:
[77:49] And this movie, look, it's got stealth bomber footage, and it's got, you know, it does have scale.

Speaker 4:
[77:54] It feels bigger.

Speaker 1:
[77:55] So I'm fascinated by it. I put it at number two on my list just out of a perverse curiosity. I'm like, I just need to see this. I'm really interested in it. Okay, my number four is a movie called Hope, which I don't even, I don't know, did you see that footage?

Speaker 2:
[78:08] No, because it was Neon.

Speaker 1:
[78:09] It was at the end of Neon.

Speaker 4:
[78:10] Yeah, I did not.

Speaker 1:
[78:12] So, you know, Neon is in this interesting position where they're the kings and queens of Cannes. They've got six films going to Cannes this year.

Speaker 4:
[78:18] Not a good week for them, though. So the day of their presentation, Warner Brothers announces that Sean Baker is doing his follow up, not for Neon, but for Clockwork, Warner's label. Same day, the Long Legs sequel was announced at Paramount. That's Neon's most successful movie. And they didn't get the sequel.

Speaker 1:
[78:39] Yes, and they've also put out the two following Oz Perkins films, and they're not getting that Oz Perkins movie. Nevertheless, I thought their presentation was solid, especially because they're a much smaller company. They really touted their success over the last few years. They were another studio who talked about Academy Awards. They said they are the most awarded independent studio of the decade.

Speaker 4:
[78:57] Oh, take that, A24.

Speaker 1:
[78:59] With 57 nominations.

Speaker 2:
[79:00] Yeah, their sizzle reel. It was just Oscars, Oscars, Oscars. Poke, poke, poke, poke. It was. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[79:04] The movie that they showed that I was most excited about, and I know that you don't want to talk about one of their movies, too, but is called Hope, which is by a South Korean director named Na Hong Jin. And you might hear that and think, oh, an artsy Cannes movie. This movie is going to Cannes, but it is a post-apocalyptic action movie starring several Korean performers and also Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. And the footage that they showed was just fucking sick. Like it was just great action movie footage.

Speaker 2:
[79:27] I was so excited. I was like, I can't wait to see that at Cannes. I wished I had not seen The Monster at the End just because I want to be excited. But I totally agree.

Speaker 4:
[79:35] Are they still married?

Speaker 1:
[79:37] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[79:38] Oh, Alicia Vikander. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[79:40] Good for them.

Speaker 2:
[79:40] I think they live in Portugal a lot of the time.

Speaker 1:
[79:42] Oh, wow. Sounds like a great life.

Speaker 2:
[79:44] That's the last I heard.

Speaker 1:
[79:46] They're barely seen in that trailer, though, which is kind of fascinating. It's mostly, I think the film is set in Korea and it is mostly about what is happening in this post-apocalyptic world. But it was just really, really good stuff from a filmmaker who hasn't made a movie in 10 years. His last movie, The Wailing, is one of the more acclaimed Asian horror thrillers of the century. So I'm very excited about that movie.

Speaker 2:
[80:09] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[80:09] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[80:10] My number three.

Speaker 1:
[80:11] Number three.

Speaker 2:
[80:12] Okay. So my number three is The Thomas Crown Affair, directed by Michael B. Jordan, who was there, Academy Award winner, Michael B. Jordan, and that was very exciting.

Speaker 4:
[80:21] First thing you see during their promo.

Speaker 2:
[80:23] Which is great.

Speaker 1:
[80:24] First thing you'll see for the rest of his career.

Speaker 4:
[80:25] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[80:26] Which is still wonderful. And he had even acknowledged that on stage. He was like, that's still crazy. But so this was kind of Amazon's centerpiece and they are releasing it in March, 2027, which is one year after Project Hail Mary. So it's the same CinemaCon to release Strategy Playbook as Project Hail Mary. This is also one of my sacred texts, right? And so this next...

Speaker 4:
[80:51] Really?

Speaker 2:
[80:51] So well, but here's the...

Speaker 4:
[80:53] Literally means nothing to me.

Speaker 2:
[80:54] Here's the real heresy. Thomas Crown Affair in 1999, not the Steve McQueen.

Speaker 4:
[80:58] I get it.

Speaker 2:
[80:59] I, for whatever reason, have seen... Well, I mean, I know the reasons.

Speaker 4:
[81:04] Pierce Brosnan, love?

Speaker 2:
[81:05] Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. And seeing, you know, a beautiful woman in a chunky turtleneck, not taking any shit at a young age was important to me. Also, then she, you know, went to Chipriani's and went to Martinique and Sue and understands art, you know, like a lot of important touch points. So I've seen that movie a million times. That's one of my most important texts. We have two more movies coming out this year that are either, that are new installments or new adaptations or new versions of my most beloved holy films, which are obviously Devil Wears Prada 2, which comes out in a few weeks. And my emotions go up and down and, you know, do I feel happy that it's finally getting its place in the sun or is it gonna be ruined? I don't totally know how I feel, but Devil Wears Prada 2 was the opener of the Disney presentation and is getting a huge push.

Speaker 1:
[82:08] I thought what we saw was fine. Like I said, I'm not trying to hurt you, but I really was like, okay, this is what you got? What were you expecting? I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 4:
[82:18] You just want to see Meryl Streep being mean to people, right?

Speaker 1:
[82:20] I guess so.

Speaker 2:
[82:20] And she was being mean to people.

Speaker 1:
[82:22] Yeah. Just felt a little low energy.

Speaker 2:
[82:25] Well, that's the Miranda performance is not gigantic. In context, it works. Have you rewatched the original yet?

Speaker 1:
[82:32] If she were dressed as Dr. Doom, that might have been effective.

Speaker 2:
[82:34] Have you rewatched the original?

Speaker 1:
[82:36] Not in some time, but I will before I...

Speaker 4:
[82:38] I just remember Emily Blunt was great in it.

Speaker 2:
[82:40] Yeah, she's wonderful.

Speaker 1:
[82:40] She gets the best line in this one too, actually. Have you not heard of Christmas?

Speaker 2:
[82:44] Well, that's true of all of them, except for when Miranda is doing all of her one liners, did she die or something? And then the other is the new Sense and Sensibility coming from Focus. And we have a copy of Emma Thompson's screenplay and diaries from Sense and Sensibility behind me, that because I read it every year, that movie came out in 1995. So it was the right age. And it was that movie and Clueless all in one year. And I was just like, wow, look at the possibilities of cinema.

Speaker 4:
[83:17] Could not be more different movies.

Speaker 2:
[83:19] I know. I have seen, but they're both Austin adaptations. And I've seen Sense and Sensibility like at least 50 times for what it's just become a comfort rewatch. So it's a very specific to me issue of being like, okay, you're redoing these things that I know so intimately and I have such a personal relationship with. And that's not normally the case with Hollywood. They normally just make comic book movies. So Thomas Crown Affair is the one that I'm feeling the surest about. I thought it looked very fun. It's the action of it is updated and kind of expanded and it seems a lot more like high octane. But that is cool and great.

Speaker 1:
[84:03] I saw a lot of people comparing it to Tenet and some of the action style of Tenet, which was cool.

Speaker 2:
[84:07] Which I think is interesting. He stars opposite Adria Arjona, who I am a huge fan of.

Speaker 4:
[84:15] Replaced.

Speaker 2:
[84:15] Replaced, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[84:16] She replaced Taylor Russell.

Speaker 1:
[84:18] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[84:20] Like pretty far in the shooting, not that far, but enough where they saw what they had and replaced her.

Speaker 2:
[84:25] I like her work and she was there as well. So I'm looking forward to it, I think. And it feels like since 1999 was also a remake, it's not as high stakes. They can just have fun with that.

Speaker 4:
[84:40] But that's the problem I have with that movie. I like the footage also. And I thought MBJ looks great in it. It was like definite movie star performance.

Speaker 1:
[84:46] Good fit for him as a material.

Speaker 4:
[84:48] Definitely, and Amazon lucked out that he just won an Oscar, like elevates that movie a lot. Like that IP though, is that meaningful IP to the general public?

Speaker 1:
[84:59] I don't know, was it in 1999? I think you just gotta make a cool movie and hope people care.

Speaker 4:
[85:03] So this movie was called Art Heist.

Speaker 1:
[85:06] Well, you would care about that too.

Speaker 2:
[85:07] Well, sure, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[85:08] Would you care about that? Michael B. Jordan stars in Art Heist.

Speaker 1:
[85:11] Art Heist is kind of one of, that's one of Amanda's things.

Speaker 2:
[85:13] That is, and there are many versions of them.

Speaker 4:
[85:15] Other Art Heists.

Speaker 2:
[85:16] I do feel like the McQueen and then the Pierce Brosnan of it all. Thomas Crown Affair is sort of a reference point at this point.

Speaker 4:
[85:26] I guess, maybe I'm downplaying it and it's more meaningful than that. I just know how desperate Amazon has been to mine the MGM library. And so much of that stuff is encumbered or that's been remade in the 2010s. This is what they got. And they just went all in on it. And I just don't know if they, I think they think it's more important than the audience does.

Speaker 1:
[85:49] We're gonna find out. Yeah. We're gonna find out. Footage was good.

Speaker 4:
[85:53] If it's a good movie, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1:
[85:55] Okay, Matt, you want to shout something else out?

Speaker 4:
[85:58] Yes. I mean, should we talk about Disclosure Day?

Speaker 1:
[86:02] Let's talk about it.

Speaker 2:
[86:03] I'd love to.

Speaker 1:
[86:04] I didn't put it on my list, but I was hoping that you would put it on yours.

Speaker 4:
[86:08] Full disclosure, I have it in my box office draft, so I am personally invested in it, doing well. But I think that people of our age and our sensibility, we want this movie to be good, and we wanted the first trailer to be impressive, and it wasn't. And this has made me calmer.

Speaker 1:
[86:26] Yeah. They are trying to be very careful about what they show us. And in fact, Steven Spielberg, who was interviewed on stage and received a prestigious award from CinemaCon.

Speaker 4:
[86:37] Prestigious.

Speaker 1:
[86:38] Prestigious award.

Speaker 4:
[86:40] No, not from CinemaCon, from the chairman of the Motion Picture. That's right. So the MPA chief got up there, we were Googling.

Speaker 1:
[86:47] The America 250 Award.

Speaker 4:
[86:49] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[86:50] Which is a real thing.

Speaker 4:
[86:51] Which is a real thing. A one-time award, they were clear to tell us.

Speaker 1:
[86:54] Well, maybe in 250 years, there will be another one.

Speaker 4:
[86:56] This is not some bullshit CinemaCon award that everybody gets. The Rock has gotten it 10 times. This is a unique award.

Speaker 1:
[87:03] Right. So he was given this award, and then he was interviewed by Coleman Domingo. And during his conversation with Coleman Domingo, he said that there's nothing from the third act of the movie in the trailer, but there is more in this new trailer that we saw. It feels weird to be like, should we spoil this or not?

Speaker 4:
[87:17] Let's not, because there is a reveal at the end. There's a very cool shot, which I'm shocked is not in the third act.

Speaker 1:
[87:23] Yes. Which I think is actually encouraging that we have gotten up to this point.

Speaker 2:
[87:28] Though I still wish I hadn't seen it, but that's fine.

Speaker 4:
[87:30] I know.

Speaker 1:
[87:30] But I think what it does is actually, and we talked about this, it alleviates, I think, some of the anxiety from the first trailer. That it explains maybe something you didn't totally click with. I'm right there with you. I hope this movie is great and I hope it's successful, and we'll see when it comes out.

Speaker 4:
[87:47] Can I make a controversial statement? I wish there was a bigger star in this movie.

Speaker 1:
[87:53] Right.

Speaker 4:
[87:53] Like, I don't know what, I mean, no disrespect to Josh O'Connor. Like, good actor, loved him on The Crown, not a movie star. And if this movie had a Michael B. Jordan or Ryan Gosling or a Leo or someone, I mean, I know there's issues with the age range.

Speaker 1:
[88:11] It seems like they were looking for a 35-year-old. So who's a 35-year-old movie star that can carry this?

Speaker 2:
[88:17] Because you have this generation. Who is our oldest 34-year-old movie star? I mean, Timothee Chalamet is the only.

Speaker 1:
[88:23] Yeah, he's 30.

Speaker 4:
[88:23] But he plays a little younger. And I think he's supposed to be the same age around Emily Blunt. I know she's a little older. I just, I want this movie to feel bigger. I want it to feel like the Spielberg movies of the 80s and 90s.

Speaker 1:
[88:37] You got to remember that this is the person who used Richard Dreyfuss as his avatar. He likes a slightly pointy-headed, anxiety-riddled, kind of smart, motormouthy person in a lot of his movies.

Speaker 4:
[88:50] But he's made movies with Hanks, Leo, Cruise.

Speaker 1:
[88:54] Like, totally.

Speaker 4:
[88:54] Also recognized the value of a big movie star. And if... I know nervous... Like, everyone around this movie feels a little nervous. Like, we put this movie in the summer. Does Steven Spielberg still matter in a way that will put Butts and Seats on that scale? And they have made the bet that Spielberg plus Aliens is that summer movie. I think it should have been Spielberg plus Aliens plus A-list movie star.

Speaker 1:
[89:20] Would have ensured a higher likelihood of success.

Speaker 4:
[89:23] And no disrespect to Emily Blunt either. She is up there in female leads. But I don't think she is on that A-level. She is not Zendaya. She is not even like that generation above her, where those stars were more meaningful.

Speaker 1:
[89:39] It's really only Robert Pattinson, though, who is a mid to late 30s star who fits in this spot.

Speaker 4:
[89:46] He would have been great.

Speaker 1:
[89:46] You could see him in that spot.

Speaker 2:
[89:47] And he was booked.

Speaker 1:
[89:48] And he was booked.

Speaker 2:
[89:49] He was booked and busy.

Speaker 4:
[89:50] The visuals can be reworked.

Speaker 1:
[89:52] He had to go see Arrakis, you know?

Speaker 2:
[89:55] I'm excited. I mean, I hope that it works. I don't know from a box office.

Speaker 4:
[89:58] Don't get me wrong. I am excited.

Speaker 2:
[90:00] I know that I'm gonna go and be like, wow, movies.

Speaker 4:
[90:03] I wanna be there and I wanna see this movie today. I just, I hope they do a great enough job to make this a mainstream movie, mainstream hit.

Speaker 1:
[90:12] Okay, number three for me is, I'm gonna borrow your trio idea here. But I'll primarily say Resident Evil, which was, the trailer for the film was presented, Zach Craigers' new sort of adaptation of the video game. This is his follow up to Weapons. And it has been described as a Mad Max Fury Road journey through a zombie apocalypse, starring Austin Abrams. I thought the footage was sick. It seems like it's going to be a really, really gross, violent, scary, fast moving monster movie. And I'm in, it's a biggish bet for Sony. The movie did not feel that big.

Speaker 4:
[90:58] Oh, they needed to be a hit.

Speaker 1:
[90:59] But they want it to be really big.

Speaker 4:
[91:00] I mean, they're looking at the weapons numbers and they're like, okay, that, but we have a franchise. Like how, like this should do double.

Speaker 1:
[91:07] Yeah, Craig introduced the movie and he did not, he said that he had played it for hours and hours and hours and hours over the years and has been addicted to it. But my understanding is, is that it's not like a proper adaptation with characters you know and love and moments that you'll recall. I'm sure there will be plenty of stuff for the fans. But I agree, that was sort of my takeaway was the idea of just like using this as a launch point instead of trying to be too faithful to it makes me more excited for the movie. Similarly, we saw some absolutely brutal, violent, disgusting footage from Evil Dead Burn, which is, as we like to say on the show, my birthday movie comes out July 24th, my birthday weekend. I will be there like a sicko.

Speaker 2:
[91:45] It was gross enough that I like checked out because I couldn't watch what was going on.

Speaker 4:
[91:49] I started playing words with friends.

Speaker 2:
[91:50] I had to ask you which one was that again? Because I had to remove myself from the experience.

Speaker 1:
[91:56] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[91:57] Good job, them.

Speaker 1:
[91:57] For those of us who really care about Evil Dead, it was very good.

Speaker 4:
[92:00] It's funny for someone like me who is, does not engage with horror movies at all, this is the only time of the year when I actually see horror trailers or to the extent I'm actually looking at them, I'm often looking down at my phone. They're really gross now.

Speaker 1:
[92:16] They're really gross. Well, this is coming on the heels of the big success of Final Destination Bloodlines, which we saw a bit of last year.

Speaker 4:
[92:23] And I looked away.

Speaker 1:
[92:24] And I said on the show, I was like, this is going to be a fucking thing. They clearly unlocked something with this. The last Evil Dead movie did really good business, Evil Dead Rise. Sam Raimi, who made the original films, is producing these movies. And he just had a hit with Send Help. He knows what these people want. He knows what I want. So that one's going to work. And then the third one I want us to talk about that is kind of in this expanded genre freakout zone is Whale Fall.

Speaker 2:
[92:48] That's right. Did you leave before Whale Fall?

Speaker 4:
[92:50] I did not see Whale Fall. Is that the Ridley Scott movie?

Speaker 1:
[92:52] No, that's The Dog Stars.

Speaker 2:
[92:55] Starring Jacob Elordi, who looks quite tall.

Speaker 1:
[92:57] Two months later is Whale Fall, which is adapted from a novel. We've not read it. We made a bit of a joke about this movie when we did our box office summer preview. We did get some answers.

Speaker 4:
[93:06] It's gotta be a novel, because no one titles their book, their movie Whale Fall.

Speaker 1:
[93:10] But what they showed us, speaking of Austin Abrams, is a scuba diver doing battle, trying to survive against a squid and a whale.

Speaker 2:
[93:21] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[93:21] And this ain't no bomb back. And...

Speaker 2:
[93:24] It was awesome.

Speaker 1:
[93:26] The footage was sick.

Speaker 2:
[93:27] And everyone was so stressed out. But are they like killer whale?

Speaker 4:
[93:30] Like, is it supernatural?

Speaker 2:
[93:32] No.

Speaker 4:
[93:32] No.

Speaker 1:
[93:33] It's like a nature thriller. Yeah, it's a nature thriller.

Speaker 4:
[93:36] Oh, I like that.

Speaker 1:
[93:37] And the footage was real good. And honestly, Disney was getting a little sleepy in there during the presentation at that point.

Speaker 2:
[93:43] Yeah. And then everybody was...

Speaker 4:
[93:45] Is that a 20th title?

Speaker 1:
[93:46] It's a 20th title.

Speaker 4:
[93:47] Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1:
[93:48] Yes. And, you know, we were joking, but it's gotta be. The premise of the movie is that the guy gets caught inside the whale. Whoa. And he's gotta get out.

Speaker 2:
[93:59] And then that raised for me a lot of questions about what happens inside the whale. Right.

Speaker 1:
[94:03] And they showed us some of what happens.

Speaker 4:
[94:04] Is that scientifically accurate?

Speaker 2:
[94:06] Well.

Speaker 1:
[94:06] I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[94:07] So I don't know. I did get some more whale facts after this.

Speaker 4:
[94:10] We're gonna get some emails.

Speaker 2:
[94:12] And apparently.

Speaker 1:
[94:13] From the whaling community?

Speaker 2:
[94:14] Yeah. A whale's throat is only the size of a grapefruit, which I did think of while watching this film. It's, you know, maybe it's a muscle that expands. Sure.

Speaker 4:
[94:25] Pinocchio's gotta be based on something.

Speaker 1:
[94:27] I agree. Yes. He goes inside of Monstro.

Speaker 2:
[94:29] And then there's also something about various stomach compartments and how we digest, how whales digest things. I don't know how that's gonna be portrayed.

Speaker 4:
[94:37] And you see all that in the movie?

Speaker 1:
[94:38] Not quite.

Speaker 2:
[94:39] Brian.

Speaker 1:
[94:40] At least what we saw.

Speaker 2:
[94:41] Brian Duffield, the director, did weigh in on Instagram to let me know that there is gravity inside the whale.

Speaker 4:
[94:48] Huge.

Speaker 2:
[94:49] Or that there is some, so he just wrote, there is gravity. I didn't actually follow up to like interrogate how the gravity acts.

Speaker 4:
[94:58] Presumably, the movie will explain that.

Speaker 2:
[95:00] Yes. And I'm told that the book, the novel on which it's based, also does explain it. I'm not going to read the novel.

Speaker 1:
[95:05] I'm not either.

Speaker 2:
[95:06] I'm excited about the movie.

Speaker 4:
[95:07] I don't need the Andy Weir 30 page discussion of how it works.

Speaker 1:
[95:10] I agreed.

Speaker 4:
[95:11] I just need to see it.

Speaker 2:
[95:12] I thought this looked awesome. And I was glad that Whale Fall is already like a pet project of The Big Picture because the footage backed it up.

Speaker 4:
[95:19] You're going to see a double feature, Whale Fall and other mommy.

Speaker 2:
[95:22] Yeah. Have a great time.

Speaker 1:
[95:24] Okay. So your number two is my number one. And we've already talked about it a little bit here. And I assume that Dune Part 3 is also on your list for the most anticipated.

Speaker 2:
[95:35] Unreal.

Speaker 1:
[95:36] You know, like it does seem like they got it, right? They know what they're doing.

Speaker 4:
[95:41] This guy knows how to make this feel big and important and cool looking with still a focus on the actors. You get a sense of the place of this whole planet.

Speaker 1:
[95:54] Javier Bardem is leading the army that we see in this footage.

Speaker 4:
[95:57] Right. And there are particular soldiers that we follow. Some live, some die. There's a gun that appears that is like no other gun I've ever seen. And then it's attached to something that may or may not be alive, but looks like a spaceship.

Speaker 2:
[96:14] Yes, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[96:16] Do we get the sense that that's a creature or a spaceship? I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[96:18] We don't know. I and how you interpret, I interpreted it more as creature, but I could be wrong.

Speaker 4:
[96:23] Oh, I interpreted it as spaceship or base.

Speaker 1:
[96:26] This is why I'm so excited.

Speaker 4:
[96:27] Like military base that is buried in the ground, so they shoot the gun up first to kind of clear the way, and then they rise up, and then all the people get out, maybe.

Speaker 1:
[96:36] It's just one of those things where I could feel myself going like this, leaning in further and further as they were showing the footage. And I didn't have that much. We sat through a lot of presentations. We were in those seats up in the rafters in the Dolby Coliseum for hours over the last three days. And sure, we're burnt out cynics or whatever, but you know when something is hitting, and this was just hitting. Everyone was mesmerized.

Speaker 4:
[96:59] We're through the kitchen sink at this presentation and finished with this.

Speaker 1:
[97:04] They did. They did. Okay, do you have one more you want to throw out there before we get into the final?

Speaker 4:
[97:09] I just want to say something brief about Spider-Man, Brand New Day.

Speaker 1:
[97:12] Yes, please.

Speaker 4:
[97:13] Which I actually liked and appreciated that at these things, we typically see the spectacle and the most impressive sequence like Dune III. They instead, for this one, went with a college party scene. And I thought that was actually cool and made me way more interested in this version, you know, this continuation of Spider-Man, because it's what we liked about the first of this Tom Holland Spider-Man. He feels like a real guy.

Speaker 1:
[97:42] Yep.

Speaker 4:
[97:43] And he feels like these are real, like whereas it was high school before, now it's college. And they don't remember him, so he's sort of starting over. And he sees that like MJ has moved on. And it just, there's an authenticity to Spider-Man that you don't often see in the superhero movies. And certainly it sounds like you didn't see in the Avengers footage. That made me much more interested in this.

Speaker 1:
[98:07] Yeah, I wasn't wowed by what they showed us, but I hear what you're saying. And it's directed by Dustin Daniel Cretton, who this is his first time working on the Spider-Man movies. John Watts has moved on. And you know, he made Short Term 12, right? Like he came up as an indie character drama person. And so that part of the movie, I think, is going to be good. Tom Rothman went out of his way to be like, there's never been a Spider-Man movie like this, and we've done things you'll never see before. And then they just showed us some character stuff footage.

Speaker 4:
[98:31] But I like that.

Speaker 1:
[98:33] I guess I do too, but I have some... It's given me Spider-Man 3 vibes of the Raimi thing, where there's like five villains, and we don't really know what the story is, and it's going to get a little... I'm just a little bit concerned about that, but that's as a fan. I mean, I love the Holland Spider-Man movies. I think he's nailed it as the character. We were huge fans of No Way Home. I'm generally on board with the project. I think I was like, maybe sell me harder on the spectacle in that room.

Speaker 2:
[98:59] I agree with you, but I think some of that is why I think Spider-Man is the best of the film superheroes. And it's really just the best character. It's a teenager.

Speaker 4:
[99:09] It's so relatable. Who hasn't been in a college party where the girl is unattainable and your friend's trying to urge you?

Speaker 2:
[99:15] There's always something grounded. Whereas with Captain America, I don't know what's relatable about him coming back to life as a super soldier and grabbing a hammer. You know, like same, I guess, but not at all. So, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[99:30] I just feel like I know they're gonna nail the spectacle and I didn't know that they were gonna actually take some time to make me care about it.

Speaker 1:
[99:37] Yeah, I think it's a good pick. And I'm glad that we're talking about it because it's obviously gonna be one of the biggest movies of the year. Let's talk about your number one.

Speaker 2:
[99:43] What's up to my Nolan bros?

Speaker 1:
[99:45] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[99:45] I am back in the club. Yeah. The Odyssey.

Speaker 4:
[99:48] You were out?

Speaker 2:
[99:49] Well, I think the first two hours of Oppenheimer are excellent. And then I have some notes about what Robert Downey Jr. is doing in the last decade of his life. And they continue.

Speaker 1:
[100:03] Not the final decade of his life.

Speaker 2:
[100:04] No. The most recent decade of his life. Unless you know something we don't. Well, no, and as the Nolan fanboy-ness has grown, I am allergic to that type of fandom generally. But they showed the Trojan Horse sequence from The Odyssey. And I was just like, yes, I think it looks awesome. And I mean, Dune does as well. It's kind of splitting hairs, what's first and second for me. But I think that I had forgotten how much exciting material to work, there is work within The Odyssey. I remember it as like a doorstop textbook that I had to read several times throughout my education. And it was thrilling. And there is still that excitement of seeing something that you've only read about in like boring verse, being portrayed so excellently, spectacularly on the screen, amazing cast. I'm excited that like every movie star in the world is going to be in one movie. That's Amanda Kork. Nolan joked about that. Yeah, I mean, it's great. It is great marketing.

Speaker 1:
[101:15] And he didn't feel like he had to bring any of them to CinemaCon.

Speaker 2:
[101:18] Totally.

Speaker 1:
[101:18] It was just him.

Speaker 4:
[101:19] What a flex.

Speaker 1:
[101:20] It was a flex.

Speaker 2:
[101:21] But I thought everything looked great. It's Matt Damon in a Christopher Nolan movie. And his archery skills seem decent.

Speaker 1:
[101:31] Oh, I thought it was all very credible. So apparently, I hadn't seen what we saw in theaters, but other people have seen it.

Speaker 4:
[101:38] Well, this was longer. This was more than what they showed in the 70mm.

Speaker 1:
[101:42] So in the 70mm screenings, they showed the six-minute sequence of the Trojan Horse moment, which of course is not in the Odyssey.

Speaker 4:
[101:48] It's referenced.

Speaker 2:
[101:49] Yeah, it's referenced, but it's crucial to concluding what happens in the Iliad, which sets up the Odyssey.

Speaker 1:
[101:54] So it's told as a kind of a memory from Bernthal's character to Tom Holland's character, and it's just high-level swords and sandals, siege warfare. I mean, it really is like...

Speaker 4:
[102:05] It looks real.

Speaker 1:
[102:06] It looks real.

Speaker 4:
[102:07] And I talked to Nolan a little at the Universal Party afterward, and he said, that's the appeal. Like, everybody's read the story, but how did they pull that horse from the ocean and get it into the bounds of the fortress? And you see hundreds of men pulling this horse. It's super cool.

Speaker 1:
[102:29] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[102:30] You know, I had never really thought about the Dunkirk-esque quality of all the guys in the horse as it's sailing on the ocean, you know? And there are echoes of his other work, and it was very exciting. I'm ready. It was.

Speaker 4:
[102:42] Music was great, too.

Speaker 1:
[102:44] It was. You know, most anticipated movie of the year, I think. Safe to say.

Speaker 4:
[102:49] Certainly for us. I mean, I don't know about the general public. They're probably more...

Speaker 1:
[102:53] I wonder.

Speaker 4:
[102:54] Spider-Man. It's got to be Spider-Man.

Speaker 1:
[102:56] Or Doomsday.

Speaker 2:
[102:58] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[102:58] Yeah. I'm fascinated to see how well a movie like this can do, because the truth is, is when you go back through Hollywood history, there are a lot of Swords and Sandals movies, but not a lot of big ones, and not a lot of ones that have stood the test of time. And, you know, Troy is probably the most recent example of one that is like really huge. I guess he could make the case for 300 as well.

Speaker 4:
[103:15] How dare you insult the Ben-Hur remake.

Speaker 1:
[103:18] Right, exactly, exactly my point. So this will be an interesting test of that.

Speaker 4:
[103:24] Was Jerry Butler in that one? I believe he was.

Speaker 1:
[103:27] In the Ben-Hur remake?

Speaker 4:
[103:28] Yeah, that was an infamous bomb that MGM made. I believe it was around.

Speaker 1:
[103:33] Wasn't it Tony Kebbell? Wasn't he the Ben-Hur character?

Speaker 2:
[103:35] Let's see, a whole, it's Jack Houston, Toby Kebbell. Yeah, I don't think it's, but I will say that I thought the man on the poster was Jerry Butler, so.

Speaker 4:
[103:48] Maybe I'm mixing up.

Speaker 2:
[103:48] Yeah, I think that you took their intention.

Speaker 1:
[103:52] You didn't see Jerry.

Speaker 4:
[103:52] 300 actually.

Speaker 1:
[103:54] That's a big one. Yeah, it kicked off the Zack Snyder thing for sure. Some honorable mentions. Intrigued, but holding my judgment on JJ. Abrams, The Great Beyond.

Speaker 4:
[104:07] See, I was totally not interested in that.

Speaker 1:
[104:09] I felt like they were really trying to not show us anything.

Speaker 4:
[104:12] But then why show anything at all?

Speaker 1:
[104:14] Well, because they have a big November movie that they got to get people interested in.

Speaker 4:
[104:18] Was it you that... Someone told me that they felt like JJ is sliding into Shyamalan territory.

Speaker 2:
[104:25] That's not me, but that's...

Speaker 4:
[104:27] It's like, okay, maybe.

Speaker 1:
[104:30] It felt very Twilight Zone-y. It also felt kind of... Yeah, but it felt in the spirit of Alias and Lost, which is really... Most of J.J.'s best stuff is in television. And it's in television that's clearly inspired by Rod Serling. And he's very good at that kind of character-based genre. So, like, I want it to be good. Like, I like the Star Trek movie.

Speaker 4:
[104:51] But he's made stuff that feels big. And this does not feel big. It's a bunch of people hugging each other.

Speaker 2:
[104:57] I know, but I also got the feeling that... I mean, maybe you're right. Either there's nothing there or we saw just absolutely nothing. Most of what we saw was, like, a computer quoting HG. Wells. We were just looking at a screen. It was very clearly, like, teaser trailer. Kind of, like, Easter egg-y, not give stuff away, which I found, like, slightly irritating because, you know, I don't... I don't know whether I want another puzzle box, whatever, but I also didn't get the sense that we were shown everything. So we'll see.

Speaker 1:
[105:28] Couple of other honorable mentions. You know, I don't mind saying it. This is the only Paramount movie, I think, that's come up so far. I got a little misty-eyed watching Mr. Irrelevant, The John Tuggle Story, which is a football drama. I did too!

Speaker 4:
[105:42] I am abstaining because I actually walked out for this portion, so I did not see this.

Speaker 1:
[105:46] David Cornsweat plays its true story about the last man taken in the NFL draft, John Tuggle.

Speaker 2:
[105:53] Who was a New York giant, but David Cornsweat, an Eagles fan, a Philly boy, came on and did an intro with a lot of dedicated Philly explanation as to why he was ultimately willing to play a New York giant. I thought he did a great job.

Speaker 1:
[106:10] It was real, just like classic Americana Disney live action, circa 1997 sports movie.

Speaker 2:
[106:16] And then it's coming out on Christmas Day. I will watch that with my family.

Speaker 1:
[106:19] With Michael Shannon as Bill Parcells.

Speaker 4:
[106:22] And it is Paramount, so they're going to plug the shit out of it during football.

Speaker 1:
[106:25] And it's like real, like middle of the country. Like it's just going to, you know, it's going to be hokey and it's going to be manipulative. And it honestly looked good. If you like a movie like that, I liked it. I didn't know anything about this movie, but it was one of the few real surprises that I saw this.

Speaker 4:
[106:41] What did you think of the I Play Rocky trailer? This is the-

Speaker 2:
[106:45] Not enough Tracy Letts.

Speaker 1:
[106:47] Yeah, our buddy Tracy Letts is in the film and he seemed to be very funny. I thought the guy that they found to play Sly was really good.

Speaker 4:
[106:53] This is the movie directed by Peter Farrelly about the origin story of the movie that became the franchise that Amazon bought in its MGM deal. Yes. And they have so exploited Rocky with the Creed movies, someone in a room said, what else can we do? And then now we have the origin story movie. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[107:18] I mean, is it a movie I think needs to exist? Not exactly.

Speaker 4:
[107:23] And also what are the stakes?

Speaker 1:
[107:24] Yeah, we know that Rocky went on to work. I think it basically just rests on that guy's shoulders. If you like watching that guy as Sly and you have warm feelings towards 1975, Sylvester Stallone.

Speaker 4:
[107:34] And his meeting with the studio maybe went bad. That's the stakes. And they want to recast him. But Rocky works because there's a boxing match at the end. Is there a boxing match at the end? We know that the movie has one.

Speaker 1:
[107:49] We'll see. You'll have to tune in for I Play Rocky 2.

Speaker 4:
[107:52] Maybe he's not going to be up to snuff in the boxing scene, and then he has to really fight. I don't know what the stakes are in this movie.

Speaker 1:
[108:01] I don't either, but we'll see, I guess. Other honorable mentions, for Chris Ryan's sake, I'm just going to give some love to Occult as My Passport, which is the new Gareth Evans shoot-em-up movie, which looks like a John Woo movie set in 1970s Detroit, which seemed pretty appealing. I mentioned Werewolf. I think we'll maybe spend some time on Supergirl in the town. But Clayface is a really interesting thing to me. I just want to talk about it for one second. It's the other DC movie that's coming out this year, and it's way smaller. And it's directed by James Watkins, who's a horror film director, and it's being pitched as a pure horror play.

Speaker 4:
[108:44] R-rated.

Speaker 1:
[108:44] R-rated horror movie about an actor who experiences a very traumatic accident and then develops this new power. And that's an interesting choice, and I'm so interested to see if it works, because it can change the dynamic of what superhero movies have to be if it works.

Speaker 4:
[109:02] Well, Joker grows to a billion dollars. So, they're giving it that release slot.

Speaker 1:
[109:06] It's definitely not going to grow to a billion dollars.

Speaker 4:
[109:07] No, of course not. And I don't think it's going to win an Oscar. But they see a lane here where the DC audience, they can do this in a way that Marvel can't. So, why not?

Speaker 1:
[109:19] It looked good. I mean, I don't know if it's going to make $200 million, but it looked cool. And that's kind of really all it needs to do for that, because Supergirl has some concerns.

Speaker 2:
[109:29] I mean, this is just the thing about the new era of superhero movies, but I guess all movies, which is like, is it allowed to just be really good and enjoyable to the audience that cares about it and not the broader world?

Speaker 4:
[109:44] When you're working at a sub $100 million budget, and I don't know what that movie costs, but I'm presuming it costs less than $100 million, I think you can.

Speaker 2:
[109:53] Then it looks great, because you were like, you turned to me before, you said, I'm very excited, I watched it. I was just like, I'm happy for you, or sorry that that happened. You will decide whether it works or doesn't.

Speaker 4:
[110:04] If the horror movie crowd shows up, it could overperform. If you get that, you get the DC incel crowd, and then you get a little bit of the general audience.

Speaker 1:
[110:12] You know what the other thing is? Clayface is a very famous Batman villain, and the trailer was not like, and Bruce Wayne is around the corner. There was none of that fan servicey bullshit. It was like, we're actually just giving you a genre movie, which I just thought, I don't know if it's brave is the right word, but I was like, this is smart. This is interesting. This is a little different than what other studios would do with this kind of material. So I want to give it a shout. Last one I want to shout out is Godzilla Minus One, which is the new movie from Takashi Yamakaze, the Japanese filmmaker who won an Oscar for visual effects two years ago for the previous Godzilla movie. They showed us some footage from the new film, which looks fucking amazing. It's part of the G-Kids presentation. They also announced that I think for Sony, is it Sony? He's doing Grand Gear, which is a new like Kaiju versus Robots mega movie produced by JJ Abrams that's coming in 2028.

Speaker 4:
[111:02] Also a Coachella band.

Speaker 1:
[111:03] Yes, exactly. Grand Gear. But all that stuff looked cool to me. So I'll give it a shout. Any other honorable mentions you want to hit?

Speaker 2:
[111:12] Yeah, A Place in Hell, which is the new Chloe DeMont, who did Fair Play, film from Neon, starring Michelle Williams, Daisy Edgar Jones, Andrew Scott, which kind of looks like legal, like me too lawyer, sing white female.

Speaker 1:
[111:30] Yeah, it was like fatal attraction meets disclosure.

Speaker 2:
[111:32] And I thought it looked really good. I'm really excited about it. They also, they did a little intro reel ahead of time that was a bit, and it actually worked, which is a good sign. And then on, we haven't said Beekeeper 2.

Speaker 1:
[111:47] Probably the most fun trailer of the week for me. It was good, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[111:49] Yeah, a little over the top on the violence, but you know what?

Speaker 2:
[111:51] It's very violent.

Speaker 4:
[111:52] That is what it is. It is what it is.

Speaker 1:
[111:55] They're giving you what we're asking for.

Speaker 4:
[111:57] Yeah, was that the one with the mallet through the face? No, that was the flamethrower in the mouth.

Speaker 1:
[112:02] Yes, the flamethrower in the mouth, which I've not seen before in a film.

Speaker 4:
[112:04] I have not seen that.

Speaker 1:
[112:05] Enjoy that.

Speaker 4:
[112:06] And I did laugh when I saw that.

Speaker 1:
[112:07] Also like a glass canister full of weaponized bees. And then smashing it on the ground to attack people. Just good shit.

Speaker 4:
[112:13] I did not see the original. I was kind of confused by whether he's an actual beekeeper.

Speaker 2:
[112:17] No, you need to see the original. Don't listen to say nothing else. Go in cold. But you really have to see the original beekeeper. And then we'll discuss.

Speaker 4:
[112:25] It looks fun. I am interested. I gotta say, I'm kind of Statham curious. Like I am not a Jason Statham.

Speaker 1:
[112:33] One out of every four is really good. And then the other three are like, this was a huge waste of time. If you get into the one that is good, you'll just have a grand old time.

Speaker 4:
[112:42] And beekeeper is good.

Speaker 2:
[112:43] I think so. Yeah. A lot of ideas. I don't know whether beekeeper to the trailer communicated as many ideas. I agree with you.

Speaker 1:
[112:51] But I didn't know what we were getting when we saw the beekeeper.

Speaker 2:
[112:53] It's true. And that's why I don't want to say any more to Matt.

Speaker 1:
[112:55] There are geopolitical implications. Oh wow.

Speaker 4:
[112:57] So it's a polemic movie.

Speaker 2:
[112:59] And personal implications. Listen, there's a cold open.

Speaker 4:
[113:03] It has a lot to say about the world.

Speaker 2:
[113:04] You can't be looking at your phone. You gotta watch beekeeper. It might be evil, but we really enjoyed it.

Speaker 1:
[113:11] Just two things that were not there. James Bond?

Speaker 4:
[113:15] Of course not.

Speaker 1:
[113:16] No announcement, no news.

Speaker 4:
[113:18] Everything you read on the internet is bullshit. They have not cast James Bond. They have not even seen the script yet from Steven Knight. That might be happening now. Spring, summer, they're gonna get into it. And we'll see news there. They're not gonna be able to debut Bond at some event like this.

Speaker 1:
[113:38] I was thinking the same thing.

Speaker 4:
[113:39] It's gonna leak. The second it happens, they will put it all report. Somebody else will report it and it will blow up. It's the biggest casting thing around. People in the real world care about it. The British press is like hounding them every single day. So not a surprise.

Speaker 1:
[113:53] And then No Batman Part II.

Speaker 4:
[113:55] That was a bit of a surprise.

Speaker 2:
[113:57] Yeah. Well, he just handed in the script, you know?

Speaker 1:
[114:00] Matt Reeves, yeah. Interesting to not even tout it.

Speaker 4:
[114:04] I know.

Speaker 1:
[114:04] It's kind of an important one.

Speaker 4:
[114:06] Big franchise. Unless there's something going on where the 2027 release date is gonna be no more.

Speaker 2:
[114:14] Was it on the list of the infographic that Warner Brothers put at the end?

Speaker 1:
[114:20] At the end, Warner? Well, they had so many titles.

Speaker 4:
[114:23] They had a Game of Thrones movie, they had a Baz Luhrmann movie.

Speaker 2:
[114:27] They had the Ocean sequel. It wasn't like they were waiting for a title or for any sort of, they just put whatever on that infographic.

Speaker 1:
[114:35] Yeah. The Hunt for Gollum, Man of Tomorrow. They have a ton of big movies coming out over the next two years. And Practical Magic too, how can we forget?

Speaker 2:
[114:44] Sure.

Speaker 4:
[114:45] They were adorable.

Speaker 1:
[114:46] They were great.

Speaker 2:
[114:47] I loved it.

Speaker 1:
[114:48] Sandy, I was feeling it.

Speaker 2:
[114:49] I was loving it. And they had Nicole do, We Come to This Place for Magic, but Sandy did it in a cute way.

Speaker 1:
[114:56] It was fun.

Speaker 2:
[114:57] They talked for a very long time, probably longer than they needed to. But that's every presentation. I don't personally have a lot of attachment to the original Practical Magic, but it's...

Speaker 4:
[115:06] Never seen it.

Speaker 1:
[115:07] I don't think I have either, yeah. But a lot of people have.

Speaker 4:
[115:10] I get it mixed up with Hocus Pocus a lot.

Speaker 1:
[115:13] Yeah, that witch core.

Speaker 4:
[115:14] But the fact that Hocus Pocus 2 was like the number one movie on Disney Plus for a long time, that's why this movie happened.

Speaker 1:
[115:20] Yeah, it's in that youth mining territory.

Speaker 4:
[115:23] And if it's halfway decent, it will play each holiday season.

Speaker 2:
[115:27] I'm rooting for those crazy gals.

Speaker 1:
[115:29] I think you're right. Anything else you want to hit before we wrap this up and go hop over to the town?

Speaker 4:
[115:32] We have not discussed Mandalorian and we saw 17 minutes of it.

Speaker 2:
[115:36] Oh my, we saw so much of it.

Speaker 1:
[115:39] I thought it looked totally uninspired. Totally uninspired. I am baffled as to why this is a movie, honestly.

Speaker 4:
[115:45] I was more impressed than I have been from the trailers. I thought the opening sequence was pretty cool from a Star Wars fan perspective.

Speaker 1:
[115:52] Do you watch the Mandalorian TV show? I mean, it just looked like an episode of the show. Like it was a little larger in scale because there were AT-ATs in it.

Speaker 2:
[116:00] But then you were mad about that. You were like, why are they on a mountain?

Speaker 1:
[116:03] Well, it was just like it just had no real Star Wars logic. It was like, well, why would they be sending these droids up the side of a mountain that they could get pushed off of? Like it's just one of those things where it's like, it didn't feel coherent in the world of Star Wars. It was just like, we need spectacle. It just felt like kind of anxious.

Speaker 4:
[116:18] Well, what I didn't like, and I don't want to judge the whole movie based on 17 minutes, but it feels like the opening sequence does not continue into the movie. It feels like a stand alone.

Speaker 1:
[116:30] That's what I'm saying. It was like they shot the movie and they're like, shit, we need a second.

Speaker 4:
[116:32] Yeah, they had a bad guy who looked like the most interesting man in the world. Like that guy died in the opening sequence. So like, what is that for? And then like the movie could have started with Sigourney Weaver giving them their mission.

Speaker 1:
[116:47] I totally agree with you. And I...

Speaker 2:
[116:49] Yeah, though that would not be that exciting.

Speaker 1:
[116:53] They probably looked at that and they were like, we gotta do something here. We gotta get something going.

Speaker 4:
[116:57] Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[116:58] Maybe they didn't, but it just...

Speaker 4:
[116:59] And maybe it will. I don't know. Maybe there's something in there that will translate. Also, when you have Grogu, that's the premise of this, the relationship between the two of them. I felt like that Grogu was sort of just along for the ride.

Speaker 1:
[117:16] Well, he was the comic relief instead of the centerpiece. Like in that series, he's like the emotional core of the show. So because the Mandalorian doesn't have a face, he can't express emotions. But every moment that Grogu got in the 17 minutes that we saw was a joke, basically, right?

Speaker 4:
[117:32] Well, he has a moment where he kind of battles a droid a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[117:35] Yeah, sure.

Speaker 4:
[117:37] I just thought it looked cool. It looked big. And I was worried from the trailer that it was going to feel like an episode. There was some directorial touches, that sequence where he kills all the bad guys.

Speaker 1:
[117:48] Yeah, that was cool.

Speaker 4:
[117:49] That was extremely cool. So I'm cautiously optimistic.

Speaker 2:
[117:53] And I'm just worried it's too violent now for my kid, which is sort of the flip side of the, they're trying to make it not like a TV show and add again. And I agree that, you know, I don't care about the TV show. I will never watch it. And it doesn't matter to, so the distinction doesn't matter to me as much. But I was like, oh no, I can't bring my four year old.

Speaker 1:
[118:12] It's very John Wick, you know, it's like bang, bang, bang, bang.

Speaker 4:
[118:14] But it's Star Wars violence.

Speaker 1:
[118:16] It's, it's, pew, pew, pew.

Speaker 2:
[118:17] No, I know. And it's lasers and yada, yada. I thought the Ludwig Göransson score was, Yes, that's from the show. I know. I understand that. But again, I'm never going to watch the show. I don't acknowledge it here.

Speaker 1:
[118:27] When the show came out, we were like, holy shit.

Speaker 2:
[118:29] Yeah. It feels like a Western. And he's like, but also, you know, with enough homage to like John Williams and that universe, I, good job.

Speaker 1:
[118:37] So I think in that, we'll see. I'm not, I don't want to judge it too harshly. I just, I needed it to be a little something more to get excited. And I'm not really excited. Um, I think that's it. You want to jump over to the town? Yeah, let's do it. Thank you to, thank you to Matt. Thank you to Jack Sanders. Thanks to Craig Holbeck, our traveling companion. Thanks to Lucas Cavanagh for his production support. Next week, as I said, is our 900th episode. You can email us or you can call us. And we will definitely respond to what you say. And we will not delete anything that you do or send it to the FBI. I promise. Just please be gentle in some of that correspondence. And we'll see you next on The Town and then on The Big Picture next week.

Speaker 5:
[119:32] You can't reason with the sun. Trust us, we've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's OmniShade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your summer at columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome. Columbia, engineered for whatever.