John Carter with Matt Singer

That was my bad to foe, Tars Tarkis. That was the big line they used in the trailer. It's sort of hint at the mystery of the film. Now I was saying before, I think this movie famously didn't have a tagline, and we'll spend roughly half an hour on this movie's disastrous marketing campaign kind of as big a legacy

as the film itself. But it did in fact have a tagline, and it's quite poor, I would say. What is the tagline? Let me guess. These are Mars.

No, I don't know. Next in our world, found in another, and then of course the title is John Carter. So Mars is nowhere on the poster.

“Well, you have to watch the movie to find out what world he was found in.”

And the poster is just bright red. That was their big move. This wasn't the one that had the J.C.M. That was the teaser poster. Okay.

I want to say that was even maybe before the title had been changed. But that was big J.C.M. Black and White. John Carter arrived. That was the tagline.

Three telling you, John Carter is coming. The classic poster, classic of course. The all red. Right. It was this.

Very red. Very red. It's kind of a cool image, I guess. It's every Mars movie did this and this movie is post the Mars craze. I like to think about the Mars craze.

Sure.

Because I recently watched Species 2 and I forgot that Species 2 is the first Mars

movie of this wave because it was right after they'd found the media or on Mars with or the thing on Mars. Well, what? What? I was going to say, I think some credits total recall, which was a secret Mars movie.

I was talking about Mars. No. That doesn't count. That doesn't count. There are pre Mars craze Mars movies.

Yeah. There's a few. There's the one that I bought the DVD for and keep me in watch where Sean Connery's like a cop on Mars called Outland. Outland.

Outland. Outland. Outland. But there's it's like Species 2 mission tomorrow's red planet. Yes.

There's a fourth one. There's a bunch of them all together. For like two years. Yeah. Mission Mars and Red Planet were a true deep impact on the carbon.

Yeah. Yeah. And then they ended up moving a little further part in dates.

“I think they were a competition eventually a year apart.”

But they were made simultaneously. It was like, which of the Mars movies is going to work? I throw out total recall just because I think people kept pointing to that as, look, there was a successful Mars movie, but they kept bombing and they kept doing. No.

It's the different. It's about humans going too Mars. To recall we live on Mars. To recall is that. He got his ass tomorrow.

He couldn't. They we've colonized. Yeah. Like, yes. Oh, go some Mars.

Oh, of course. No, those are the four. And it's just like how do we crack Mars and that they're zero. They're crack Mars. Mission Mars.

Mission Mars. I defend and has very cool stuff. There are the three. They're all do bad way. Right.

And the other three.

And she's two is basically like they go to Mars and what happens to the guys who went

to Mars. They get species. Sexy, horny, alien stuff, like his inside them now. Oh, yes. You know, and all of us, ultimately.

It is probably all of us, but even she's two species one, poster is green. Species two. How do we change it? Red. Red.

Red. Red. There was no subtitle, but I course could tell you the tagline. Please. Mating season begins.

Really good. I think that's really hard. I think that's really hard. I'm going to make my third attempt at this joke. It's funny to consider that in the year 2000 Disney Walt Disney Pictures, probably looked

at the box office receipts for mission of Mars. I'm going to look. The good news is this is the least successful Mars movie Disney will ever release.

We will never lose more money on a Mars movie than this.

It's all upwards, because that film was seen as a disaster. Absolutely. It was seen as a disaster. And then Mars needs mom was like a whole guy. Oh, my dear.

I don't even remember Mars because the story of this movie. And then John Carter was like, don't worry, buddy. I got you. Now, in Mars need mom, so try not to see. Mars needs mom.

Mars needs mom. I've never seen it.

“Isn't that largely set in like an attic or whatever?”

It's like they've come to Earth in search of our moms. Yeah. Right. Like I don't. Is there a lot of Mars action in it, I won't.

I have not seen it either. It was Mars Red in my memory. There was not Red. Right. There aliens.

Yes. It was very alien. It was blue, although the title is Red. Okay. The words are Red.

That you have to. If your movie has the word Mars in the title, the title has to be Red.

Right. That was a big. It was a law of Hollywood. Fuck up on their part.

“But then the final John Carter poster after everyone complained about the marketing”

was this. Where it goes a lot. Yeah. And it was. And it was.

Yeah. That was a lot of things on creature. Thoughts. Thoughts. He's on a thought.

Tharks on thoughts. Flanking John Carter. This movie is. It's like silly words, man. I know.

It's in that kind of, you know, lady in the water territory. Yeah. Like every five minutes, throwing new made up word at these guys. But I feel like this is a thing that unites the three of us.

That's always kind of catnip for us.

Even when the movie doesn't work, it is very endearing when a movie throws a bunch of silly words at you. Yeah, right. I often do respond to movies that are like, since time immemorial, like, "Blarg has fought." The kingdom of gin and I'm just like, yes, of course they have, yes, those two mighty

kingdom. Like we moved. We moved. That was one of their mistakes on this one. They cut him out of the movie.

They're saving him for the sequel that never happened. I know it's all from books and I know we'll talk about that and I know these books have a cultural legacy and all that. But it is funny like how many times someone's like, "Bars soon." Like as soon as we be on, it's gonna be, yes, "Bars soon."

It's wild. It's wild. It's wild. It's all fake words, but then they'll once in a while they'll be like a normal word, like helium.

Right. It's like, we have two cities, Zodanga and helium. They really should have changed helium, because it's so confusing when they keep them. You have to save helium.

The gas? No, our town's called that. It is. But we are running out of helium. We are.

Let's go get some of you. It was ahead of its time when you think about it. David is absolutely right. Let's go get some. Let's go get some.

Where's it hiding? I got bad news from. It's on Barsum. All right. Well, then let's get a medallion at the end of thing.

What are the dragonfly ships called? I don't fucking know what anything is called. This is the two-prung problem. The movie is too confident that the audience is excited to finally see and hear all this stuff on screen.

That it thinks the built-in audience is a lot larger than it is. I do think it thinks that. Secondly, this is like one of the first major sci-fi adventure novels space, you know, opera kind of things in American fiction. All of these names, the bar was really low.

Right back then, just calling something Barsum would be like, well, I've never seen

a word like this before. How original. That word's crazy. And then there's like a century of people being like, what if we made things sound cool?

Barsum. Barsum is okay. I don't know how many other ones I don't love. Like Zedang, that's a little, you know. It's got dang in it.

It does. That's true. I think Turs Tarkis is a great name. Turs Tarkis is a good name. I agree.

That's the best name. Yeah. What's that? Turs Tarkis is William Defoe. That's will Defoe.

Yeah. Turs Tarkis.

“As you were saying like movie that just starts with a bunch of stuff, right?”

I couldn't figure out a good place to put podcasts in on this, but the opening voice over of this movie. I love it. Bars, so you name it and think that you know it.

The red planet, no air, no life, but you do not know Bars for its true name is Barsum.

That is the kind of thing that does your right, like in my hood, like what's up here. You're running my Rubin' or he has together and he's more, it is not airless. Nor is it dead, but it is dying. Intrigue. Okay.

There is like, but the life set risk. I like that. Then he says Zodanga twice in one sentence. He does. And wait a minute.

What's happening? I'm so dangerous. Saw to that. Now, it's a kicker episode all. It's cheers.

Of course, a bit that's been really consistent since I established it at the beginning of this year. The great coffee quest of 2026. She's this. Where I bought different movie themed copies, the moment I out to see if there's one that's

worthy of being served to our guests. And usually we try to test these on ourselves before we bring them to guests. But today's guest, we promised him. Yes. When I was in a separate group text, planning this coffee class.

I said, I'm only coming. If I can get a big, a big hunk and cup of, what is it? Spidey's web slinger.

“Spiderman's web slinger is the name of the coffee, I believe.”

It's not just named. It has a special flavor, though. It does. Okay. Shall we all take a sip?

Yes. Cheers. I don't like it. You don't like it. I don't hate it.

It didn't. It's just as strong as it smells. No. The smell. The aroma.

The aroma is pretty. So what's the note here? What am I missing? Marshmallows. Marshmallow treat.

Marshmallow treat. I was guessing something sweet, like chocolate or whatever, but that's right. Yes. It is from Bones Coffee Company, web slinger, crispy marshmallow treat flavored coffee. It's a great looking bag.

It's a great bag. Excellent bag. Good package. And I'd say Spiderman's a good guy. One of my favorite guys.

He's one of my favorites. Yes. One of your good friends. As far as the flavor profile, how is this representative of Spiderman?

Sticky marshmallow webs. I guess you're right. There's a ball. Sticky.

Or Dickie is what we're going away.

It's sticky. It's a little swing to sticky. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

It's not the worst coffee I've ever had. It's not. It isn't as bad as I feared when we smelled it. Will we serve it to anyone else? No.

I'm sure you won't. I'm not serve this to someone. I'm going to drink all of it. Yeah. Exactly.

You're taking it home. You're just going to eat the ground. Yeah. You're not even going to pour a water over. This is of course because our guests today returned to the show.

Wrote the book on Spiderman. Paper title. A book on Spiderman.

Marvel's Spider-Man colon from amazing to spectacular extra colon, the definitive comic

art collection. Hell, yes. Wrote a book on Cisco and ebertoposable thumbs. That's right. Then how Cisco and ebert change movies forever.

Got to have colon's in your books. And of course the way they change movies forever is that they influence Ben Hossley to recommend that we call this podcast "Grifle and Simsburg." Yes. Right.

This time I knew that story. Long ago. And the upcoming book. Yes. Here it is.

Copy on to us. Yes. I have a hand. It's an uncorrected proof. I've already corrected things that are in this version.

Funny business. That's right. Because the old school wedding crashes and knocked up virgins who changed comedy forever. And the book of course is about failed sci-fi franchise of the 20 times. That's right.

That's right. I don't know if we want to get into this now.

“But while we're talking about this book, can I hand it to you?”

Yes. The great Matt Singer. Hi, Matt Singer. Welcome. Thank you.

Now, if you look in the back of the book, there is a bookmarked part. There's a, uh, there's a post it. I want you to look what's right above the post it in the foot notes. Wow, footnote number 58 quote in any minute. Griffin Newman and David Sims hosts blank check with Griffin and David podcast.

The Big Lebowski with Seth Rogan. You're a quoted source. Because my book was dropping bomb. He was. And it has a typed out link.

A URL. If people want to go fact check it themselves, I can go listen. It was an excellent. I was, I just happened to be working on that part of the book. And I was listening to him.

And he's talking about working on the 40 year old version. Which I was working on that part of the book. Perfect quotes. Oh, you can have that. You can have that.

This is a, you can share it by the, yeah, we got to kind of cover a couple of copies. I mean, I just can enjoy that.

Uh, it is the thing I always will take any opportunity to bring up on the show.

“That I often complain about the death of the theatrical studio comedy but I think in”

people trying to do the post mortems, there is not enough study of what happened in comedy from like, 2,000 to 2015. There. Well, this is the book. Exactly.

I've been waiting for this book. But yes. But it really did build up in a way that was kind of MCU S. Yeah, there was a sort of like franchise machinery to the way the personas got built and the cross pollination and the rise of the sort of star producer and all that kind of stuff.

It happened kind of, you mentioned the MCU and it kind of happened around the, the tail end of this wave coincides with it. And I think very much of that and the cinematic universeification of Hollywood. I think so big effect on why these movies started to go away. But I also think quietly those movies and the modern franchises pulled from what was

working there. I've always said that there was something that I think whether consciously or unconsciously that was wisely pulled from how apathauseded performers in supporting roles to prep you for them and leading roles. And then he'd, right, I feel like while he's doing that, they're like on-set being like

an interesting story in my life. And he's like, I love that. Yes. Work on that, like write me a script, like you could turn that into a movie. But that also once his thing worked, there was a house style, there was a sensibility

for sure. There was a low concept. This is about interpersonal relationships, find a very specific dynamic. And then what started to piss people off is these movies are all the same. It's improv runs.

It's an awkward romantic comedy about a dude who's the one who has to learn. Silly, boy. Right. Trueishly. Which I love.

Or if you was kind of what's happening with Marvel now, where it's like we know the format. But 10 years ago, this point, but yes, I mean, it's just maybe Marvel. It's impossible though. Just think you're about Marvel. Yeah, like, if Marvel was like, we did something totally different, people would just be like,

right? Like, it's hard. Look, the movie does not fully work. You and I both quietly partially defend it. But that's what tools are trying to do.

I agree with that.

“A turn-less was, I think, Feige, wisely saying, we need to fucking mix it up because people”

are going to start getting tired of this quick. And then they did not find the right way to mix it up.

Right. Yes. There's a swift retreat.

I just, I, this is on my mind because I just filed a review of over your dead body.

You know, I'm a Tacone movie that is like, I didn't totally work for me. I don't know if either of you have seen it. I haven't seen it yet. But like, you know, I thought was okay and like had some stuff in, of course, starts Jason Seagull.

Yes.

“And I was like, Seagull is like the last of those guys, right?”

Who is still making like, like, movie star comedies into the mid 2010s. Your sex tape, he's released zero movies, why didn't theaters? Right. Zero. Yes.

Like he's made a couple Indies that got, if you had to go into the tour, into the tour, McDowell movie, and of the tour, and I have a here, and our friend, yeah, are the only ones that were even like Indie releases, everything else was Netflix, which is discovery, yeah, humsunday, sky is everywhere where he had this 40 World Witches on Apple, uh, windfall, like so three of those were like Charlie McDowell movies and like, yeah.

And like, and now, you know, this everyday body is getting a tiny release as well. I know Seagull also kind of was like, I'm burned out, I don't like making these, like, you know, sex tape bad teacher. It gets sober. It has a sort of kind of like, I need to pull away and work on my shit.

But like post, you know, uh, forgetting to say, Marshall, he did for years, like he did the kind of like, yeah, I'll do a high concept sort of, are ready to comedy for you every so often. And he was, and they would like do all right, he was often writing them or co-writing. He was fall, like he is a writer on sex tape, like sex.

He sure wasn't just a sort of like, fuck it, I'll take the paycheck. No. And if you're engaged, like, mop it, he co-rides, yeah. And, and, um, you know, uh, yeah, he has like five or six, you know, of those. But even like, bad teacher and, and I love you, man.

And like he was Kevin Cuman, yes, that's a good one. And then sex tape is just like, you know, I remember when it came out of almost like, you know, is this movie, like, is this a big concept? Like, everyone's a little like, no one was like this sucks. No.

But everyone was like, yeah. It was one of those movies where it's like, this thing is ending.

“And the problem is that if you look at postures, the same going, like, huh?”

Like, it's like, the easiest, they're like, looking at an iPad. It also felt like we had come all the way around to like, the appatau wave is a correction for how high concept star comedies had become. They got in really big budget.

It was $20 million stars who felt like they were kind of lazily picking up a paycheck for,

like, a one sentence movie pitch where the title is the premise. And there's usually magic or something like that, or insane mistake and identity. And then it was like, let's bring this down to like human level. And sex tape felt like the first comedy that was an output, an extended reach of the appatau family tendrils where the concept was like, what does this make sense?

They uploaded the sex tape to their personal cloud, but they gave everyone in their life an iPad for Christmas and those iPads are on their cloud. So their mailman has their sex tape. We've all been there. Right.

You're like, it's getting too sweaty here, relatable. But that movie also made like $50 million domestic? Yeah. I think it did all right. I can look up there.

You think it has disaster and you're like, it ain't for a bit of a number pretty similar. Yeah. One 26 worldwide. I mean, which means it made, yeah, made 40 domestic in 90 world 90s with a near national. Yeah.

National market. They love sex tapes. They love sex tapes. It's a fascinating thing to talk about. Yes.

Today we're talking about John Carter because this is a part of the most famous R rated sex comedies of the 2000s.

“Well, I think this is an opportunity to really just discuss what was happening in the movies”

in the early 2010s. And the appatau stuff is part and parcel with it, right? Bridesmaid's is 2011, that is arguably the apex of the whole thing. Yes. That is the highest grossing appatau movie.

Yes. Reducing and it is like, it's somehow even though the formula had been set already. When that was released people, there was still the narrative of like, is this too risky? Like, all girls are rated like, is anyone going to go for this? It was a successful eternal.

Yes. Yeah. Right. I'm sure they would love that compared to it. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Which of course then leads to Ghostbusters, the unsuccessful eternal. Yes. Experiment, right?

That's an interesting comparison. Yes. A beginning of the end movie. Right. Yes.

Well, I think in it already, they were already on the downward slope, but that was a real. Yes. Yes. This movie comes out in March, released by, as I said before, the Walt Disney. No.

Company. What are they? Are they like a new indie shingle or something? Yeah. Yeah.

They're like a utopia. And it's being released right there. The entertainment.

It's being released by Marvel, basically as they are, like, the ink is beginning

to dry on their Marvel acquisition, right?

When do they buy Marvel 2012? Oh, no. No. This is the timeline I was going to say. Okay.

So this film is released March 2012. Right. May is Avengers. Yeah. Which was it that movie do it?

It did, in fact, quite well. Right. I believe it is John Carter. Yes.

So 2008 is Iron Man and the Incredible Horse.

2010 is Iron Man II.

“And I believe after the release of Iron Man II, Disney buys Marvel.”

Now the original Paramount deal that was similar to the original Pixar Disney deal. This is a five film slate distribution, you own underlying rights. Right. Right. Was supposed to be Iron Man, Incredible Hulk.

I think. And it was supposed to be part of that original five Iron Man II takes that slot. And then. Oh, of course. Incredible Hulk ended up being Universal because of them having the original rights.

Thor Captain America Avengers Avengers. Griffin. It's universal because Hulk is green and universal is our planet, which is also very great. Well, that's why. Unless we don't take care of it.

Like in Wally. President Hulk. There he is. He's a little bit. They buy it in 2010.

Twenty eleven hair amount releases Captain America and Thor. But Disney now knows owns Marvel and starting to message their numbers. But these are hours, but you still are distributing them. Both of those movies do well. Not like absurdly well, but well.

“And then Disney spends an extraordinary amount of money in my memory.”

It was $500 million to buy Paramount out of Avengers and Iron Man III.

That was a good deal. But we can't wait. We just need it now. And Avengers comes out three months after this two months after this and just blows the doors off everything. And now it's just like this is what the future is.

It's over. I think it's important context because. You know, we've already alluded to the marketing of John Carter. Yeah. That perhaps offers a potential explanation in that there.

They were already looking at the Avengers. There are a lot of explanations. For a while, I'm wrong in the marketing of this movie. But it was well sort of discussed. By the time this movie was coming out, Disney didn't need this to be a franchise anymore.

Because what's the other thing that happened in fall of 2011. Walt Disney completes its purchase of Lucasfilm. That's true. So you really, they really made a couple. One of the 11 Disney buys Marvel and Lucasfilm and this movie is just kind of a dead man walking.

I don't. I'm not saying they like set it up too fail because there were so much money at stake that that everyone would have been happier if this had been successful. Right. But already they were sort of like, we have the two shurist bets in Hollywood.

Right. This is not necessary. And this is coming at the end of a journey that brings you the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. We can't let that franchise rest. We need another action franchise.

Jack is back. Right. Prince of Persia. Right. Well, that's wrong.

Like, the funniest thing you posted to me when I finished John Carter was shrink the credits. It'd be like, are you ready for Prince of Persia? I was like, buddy, come on. But they really. And one Ranger, one Ranger is the other one Ranger is after this.

They're really looking for that audience. And they've, they've already, as you're saying, they've already acquired the two locks on that audience. They couldn't have any bigger lock on that audience. And so yes, poor John Carter is going,

"What about me?" They kept trying to launch or relaunch something. Either their own IP that they had or pulled IP from somewhere else, that they thought had some history and some built-in audience. And then they just bought the two things where they were like,

"You did the work for us. You primed the pump. The audience is there. You made those movies." This is blank check with Griffin and David.

I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmography. It's directors who have massive success early on in their careers, and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy

passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. Rarely has that intro applied more thoroughly to this. The filmmaker we're discussing and the film we're talking about today is a movie that feels like it has been faded to be discussed on this podcast

from the moment we decided. This is what the podcast was. This movie bounced similar to how John Carter can jump. Correct. Great.

It got like a great release. Yes. Yes. And it is a movie that has become like a historic signpost. A historic signpost in terms of like where franchise is went

“and where block posters went or this is what I think is interesting to discuss.”

This movie's release was greeted with a sort of like,

"Well, never again, lessons learned.

And I would argue Hollywood continued to basically take the wrong lessons

I think watching this movie now a film I kind of defend and enjoy watching will not wholly successful. It does feel like the world is a little kinder to this film today in contrast because other movies have gotten so much sloppier. I think that is the thing.

“I think it is a largely good-looking movie given this,”

what it's trying to come up with, the scale of what it's working with. I do think it's an unsuccessful film. I think it is a on paper just like we stacked up all the little numbers here and it is not successful. Here is my one counterpoint.

Go ahead. I don't think this movie really like functions in the way it wants to. Even though it has moments it has spurts, the engine will start up and then it will like sputter again. I do find this movie more cohesive in feeling kind of like,

there is a vision that is executed here, versus what I'd say a lot of the similar franchise movies that we get today where the story is, they reshot all of this three times. What do you feel it? What do you think you know?

I think like you're holding it against here.

Like basically every moment of the movie.

I mean, I rise the skywalker. No, but okay, no, but that's different. That sequels to me, that's a different kind of mess. We rise the skywalker. I can someone please write the tell-all.

Can we just get, or can anyone just sit down and be like, "I'll admit it." Yeah. It was a completely different movie that was also bad. Yes.

“Then we panicked and turned it into that movie.”

I know not of it makes sense. I'm fully aware. Like, you know what, let's sit down and watch it and I'll pause and I'll tell you, yeah, this was John. Yeah.

One year after this, and I know that's completely, I'm trying to think of like the franchise start. All right. The movie I compared this to, the entire time I was watching, is Avatar.

Yeah.

Because I was basically just like,

Avatar makes none of the mistakes and this movie makes most of them. And it is crazy that this film bombed this hard, coming out three years after Avatar and is kind of really two years. Because it's like, yeah, when you're about to December Mars. Yeah.

So it's really just a couple of years. It's really still like in the wake of Avatar. It starts production before Avatar is released. Right. It can't watch what they're doing.

Not, not that copying James Cameron. No. This is easier right now. It's basically any time in history a movie is like an out of the box, out of the blue hit that big.

“And the studio's rushed to find the copycats.”

It doesn't work. You look at the wave of post-lord of the rings. Yeah. What else can we adapt? The shit doesn't work.

But the fact that it was inevitable everyone's going to try. A little parallel thinking and they had a movie that could have been sold as like,

Here's the thing that inspired Avatar.

It's kind of like Avatar. A human guy goes to Earth and romances and alien. You can't find an interview with Andrew Stan about this movie where either he doesn't mention Avatar or someone asks him about it. Of course.

It's just in the wind. Yeah. It's on a grossing film of all time. And then this movie's coming out. Fucking guy going to a new planet where he doesn't know the rule.

And he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie. And then he's going to find a movie.

And then he's going to find a movie. And to general audiences. This only is really of interest to like hard big nerds or old people, I guess. Yeah, but I'd say like in modern audiences, it was like if you are a voracious reader.

And you're really interested in the history of science fiction and being able to like retrace the threads back to the beginning. It's sort of like it's like saying to someone, this is the video game that inspired it all. And then making someone play pong in 2026.

It's like, okay, well, it's historically important. But what did he did pong with like some backstory? You know, right, or what I rather play that or what I rather play my playstation.

“I think I have to have what is all your choice.”

He knew the ball and pong had a family that died. He was like making keep going. It's like making the pong movie based off the logic of, did you see how much money Super Mario Galaxy just made? Right.

That wasn't even the first video game. Yeah, we're going to make pong. I love the work of Bruce Coveville. I bring it up on this podcast a lot. The young adult author isn't like aliens at my homework.

Yeah. It's my teacher funk the planet and all that shit. And he references John Carter of Mars in those books. And it's clearly was an inspiration for him. Yeah.

And I would as a kid read that and he'd be like, yeah, and like, you know, my character, character would be like, I love John Carter books. Like the guy who wrote Tarzan where they don't be like, that's interesting.

Never wanted to read something.

You know, I never liked it. I knew they existed but I was never like, I should pluck those off the show. I absolutely plucked it off the show. He plucked it and was like, this is dense.

I can't get into this. Right. Because it's like, it's like, it's like, it's only 19 hundreds. You know, I mean, like, I haven't read the fucking Tarzan books either.

No.

“But that's what I was saying as a cultural ideas per se in a way”

that John Carter does. And you'll be in our heart. Absolutely. That's the thing. Like how many people are reading a Tarzan books today?

I don't know. But everyone knows what Tarzan is. And John Carter only exists as like, the thing that he influenced in the public college. I feel like we must open the dossier just because there is

reams of context to dig on this one. I suppose it'll be short to us here. There's not much JJ wants to shout out at the top of the dossier because he used so much stuff. There's a drootailer piece in March 2022.

The 10 year anniversary. That went through everything in the anniversary. There's also a tad friend profile of Stanton.

Second act twist in October 2011.

That's like leading up to the release of John Carter. John Carter cannot strongly enough. And this is the only time I feel like I'm actually issuing homework to our listeners. It is worth it.

It's very interesting. Both of these things in full. We will pull out strands of them.

“But the one piece is as the movies about to come out.”

And it's sort of talking about Stanton's history. His success up until this point. The trepidation from Disney. You know, it's right at the crossroads right before the thing only like implodes. And then the 10 years later piece has people speaking very openly

in retrospect about everything that happened. We'll have links to both articles in the episode. But folks really well written through a piece. Edgar Rice Burrows.

check in. Sure.

“This may be a stake if you want to stick in rice.”

I was going to say call them Ned.

Call them Ned. I thought you were talking about the character in this motion picture. Great character played by the great Darryl Sabara. Can I reveal a spy kid? Did you audition for it?

I did. We got to put it in the cannon. This is a movie covered on the show that I auditioned. Has Sabara beaten you out for multiple roles. I feel like that's come up before.

Boy, that's a good question. Let me look it up while you continue through the dossier. This is the only one I remember. Oh, no. He got the part in fucking.

It's complicated. But then was cut out. Right. But the one I auditioned for like four times a day. That part where you're nervous.

It was. That was very complicated. It was very complicated. There was a whole extended scene at the beginning of its complicated. That was.

Marryl Streep hits it off of the guy in a dating app. And then she goes and it's a high. Oh, yeah. Which is a good. Good.

Yeah. And it's Darryl Sabara with the ultimate filming of the movie was pushed back twice because Nancy couldn't find the right casting for that role. And the entire thing was removed. But yes, I auditioned for that role multiple times.

1912 he releases their stories called Under the Moons of Mars. And the magazine all star story then collected is the novel. The Princess of Mars in 1917. Published after Tarzan. Yes, of Tarzan.

He's the story. Well, the story.

“I think is before the stories before the novel.”

The story is after. And then it starts serialized. He's like the 10 more novels in bar sum series after that. Yes. I was just going to say he.

I think this is the first thing he ever wrote.

He was like he had other odd jobs. Right. And then a princess of Mars in the serialized form was. His first thing he wrote. I mean, he wrote so many other fantasy series that I don't know much about.

Like there's the palucidar, which is like in a hollow earth kind of a series. There's this thing called the Venus series. Which is kind of like, you know, hit it with Mars. Next up Venus, right? Like I haven't read those.

So, 1931. Looney tunes animator Bob Clampitz. Legend. A true legend. So much that even I've heard of him. Yes.

Uh, is like, what if we turn these into a cartoon? The bar sum books, like, they're so popular. And they create test footage a year before the release of Snow White. Yes, the bit freaks people out and like that doesn't get turned into a feature. It's really realistic.

The footage is amazing. Because it is like rotoscopes. Yes. They were like drawing off of live action. You know, Snow White uses a lot of rotoscoping.

Like the early Disney Princess movies until they start getting more stylized with like a sleeping beauty and such. Most of the human characters would be rotoscoped. Uh, and then, you know, the animals and the dwarves and everything were more stylized. It looks unbelievable. Yeah.

It was kind of so technically ahead of what anyone was doing at the time. And it's one of those things since it was before Snow White where like, if that's completed, does it kind of change the trajectory of animation to some degree? Because you have the 2000s, late 90s, early 2000s run, that also I feel like is relevant to this movie of like Atlantis.

Treasure planet. Yeah, right. It called the series where they were like. We use animation to make cool shit for boys. Yeah.

With like a sort of a steam pun. How do we break out of it just being Princess musicals? And it is like 2D animation because of Snow White and the impact becomes Princess musicals and talking animals primarily is what is thought of. But yes, the the clamped tests are unbelievable.

Uh, they're very cool. You can check out, uh, the YouTube. There's little bits and pieces. Yeah. Very cool.

Bob, clamped just want to shout out, create a beanie and Cecil. Which is one of my favorite cartoon shows as a kid and old dusty cartoon show. That was based on what used to be a local TV puppet show he did when he was young. And the clamped family like puts out beanie and Cecil DVD

“compilations because I think they on the rights and that's how I first found out that he tried to do”

John Carter because the DVD just had like 30 minutes of John Carter shit in the special features. Uh, including those tests. Harry Harrison in the 50s supposedly expressed some interest in like a stop motion bar. Same thing. Does he make sense?

Seems like his kind of thing. Yeah.

Also never really gained much momentum.

My guess is that every time like the enormous amount of money would be required even for something animated or stop people would just kind of be like, I think this is too weird. This is what tells it until stand and does it. But you look at like animations the only way you could do this. You couldn't do it in live action, right?

They missed the window for animation. Now the idea of doing a serious realistic action movie and animation is unfathomable in the 30s 40s 50s. Right. Harry housing creates, you know, his style of stop motion, special effects and how to blend it with live action. Okay.

This makes sense. This is the way you could possibly adapt these. He can't crack it and now it's like on the table again until effects. Avalve in the 80s. In the 80s, right.

Mario Cassar and Andrew Vanya, the curl coke guys. Bring it to Disney. Yeah.

Yeah. He wants to do it. The fly's Charles Pogue. And it tells from the crypts Terry Black. These are screenwriters.

Take a shot.

The cats in Berg basically is like we want this to be our star words.

Yeah. And this is cats in Berg and Eisner coming in after Disney has had the failed run. Oh, black hole, a tron, etc. Black says, you know, they wanted the story to be dramatic. The book has this very leisurely pace.

“And, you know, we just clash a lot over like how much of the book do you throw out?”

Ted Elliott and Terry Rosio, who are like kings of Disney in the 90s. Yeah. They took a crack at a John McTernan and Tom Cruise. Starts circling in 1990. Brings in Bob Gale Gales then replaced by Sam Resnick, who had written a TV Robinhood

that McTernan had produced. Okay. Tom Cruise and Julie Roberts were supposedly corded to start. I don't know how intensely involved they were. But in 1990, the pitch of Zemeckis Gale Roberts Cruise makes perfect sense.

You can like imagine the alternate reality. Yeah. Where that movie exists. Definitely. Turn in wisely and quickly is like, this is just too expensive.

We can't pull this off yet. And then very wisely is like, "I'll make last action here." Yes. That'll go. That'll go great for me.

That'll be easy. Croco goes bankrupt. Then Jim Jax, James Jax, Kevin Smith's buddy. Yep. Bring a revoked on this podcast.

Sure. And Harry Knowles, who I guess is a huge fan of this. Yes. And his biography kept talking about the influence of us. We like beat the drum for it.

And this is when Harry Knowles is still seen as he's got the news to watch. He has the magic. He can see what they want. He's the only idea that he's a kingmaker. There was this thing of if Harry Knowles is saying it.

Does it mean that there are millions of silent nerds. We don't realize our diabetes for this movie. He speaks for the internet. This starts to create the false sense, Ben, to your earlier question of our people waiting for this.

“No, but like, do we not realize that everyone wants this?”

Yes. So yes, Jim Jax. Jim Jax brings in Mark Protosovich. I think this is the name of the guy wrote the cell. It was kind of like a hot guy back then.

Yeah. Robert Rodriguez is going to direct it. Robert Rodriguez has resigned from the DJ because of Sin City. And let's call out.

Here's the other technological breakthrough.

They're like he wants to do his Sin City thing. Green screen screen. See, is this a way to make this fucking work now? Can you do green screens, stylized, build an extensive world without having to build crazy sets and photorealistic aliens or whatever?

Paramount doesn't want to work with him for this reason. He's done a DJA. So they fire him and who makes sense is the obvious next choice. We'll get to him, but I do want to note the thing that Matt said already. If they do throw it, Jax does throw it to Samakis.

And Samakis does say the thing of like George Plundered piece. Like there's nothing left. So then yes. Carry Conoron, carry Conoron, then of course you know. Then loves carry Conoron.

What's your favorite carry Conoron thing? What's up? Carry Conoron look a fair. Is a man who has directed one and only one film.

“And is a movie called Sky Captain in the world of tomorrow?”

Have you heard of it? No. I'm shocked. It was a green screen, all green screen movie been. It was like the future.

People were like, "You don't need sets anymore." Yeah. A couple movie stars, a bunch of crazy visual effects. - He's got like Jude Log, oneeth powtrow, and to literally, for a week, he shot it in like a warehouse and taxes. - Right. - And it's like a steam punk art deco, like 30s sort of...

- Is it supposed to Lawrence, Olivia, who else is supposed to? - It's a movie that I tremendous fondness for. It is unbelievably boring, but we're really compelling. - I can't find it so boring. - It's so boring. I've been using it recently. I said this to you in a text. - I've been using it to help myself fall asleep, and it's really effective on that front. - Yeah, no, I mean, it's used by hospitals around the world for that. - But it looks gorgeous. - It's like, it's basically like, what if you made a 1940s movie with CGI?

It's trying to be sort of like melodramatic, and it's like an old school version of the future, but it is deathly boring. - And when it was independently produced short film, one producer's like, fuck, this is the future. He bankrolls, I think it was John Avenett, bankrolls it. - Sure. - They then sell it to Paramount later off of like test footage, but he had already gotten the actors, because part of the pitch was like,

I only need a couple million dollars upfront to get the actors for a week to do the green screen stage.

We'll do some of the animation, we'll show it to people, don't give us the money to finish it. The Paramount is like, this is the future of movies, you can just do it in an after-indigital backlog. - Right. - And you just have to sit in this chair with like an old time he had on your head. - Yeah, that's your whole part. - Your performance definitely won't seem disengaged. - Yes. - But it is a movie that bombs really hard.

They're like, here's another kind of like retro futuristic thing, and he figured out this way to make it cheaper. And a lot of it is like him and his buddies and his brother who know how to do the effects themselves.

And he's on the movie for a while, and then when he falls off of this film, he's like never discussed again.

“- No, that's the end of the game. I mean, he's still around, I assume. - Yeah, what happened to him?”

- It goes to John Favro after that, who brings in Mark Ferguson wrote Children of Men. - Favro changes the whole thing. - Favro makes a ton of sense for it. - Favro is similar to Rodriguez, like, I'm ready to make my big tent pole epic. I want to make my serious kind of blockbuster adventure film. - And he supposedly loves it like Stanton. He likes the book. - He's obsessed with the books.

- I wanted to do it forever, and he's starting to swing back to like guys. We're not doing fucking virtual back-lotship. We're building sets. - He wants to do some practical make-up, he wants to. - He's a director, aspiration to eventually do the epic, right? - That's the thing. - Yeah. - And then you want to make your cubana. - No, but all these guys are like, I want to make my Star Wars.

The way I felt seeing Star Wars as a child and my world exploded, I can I make my version of that for the next generation, can I complete the circle, and it makes a lot of sense that for many of these guys that are like,

“can I do that also with the book that made me feel that way when I read it?”

- Right, but this also got the sort of sandal thing. - It does look like that. - It does look like that. - It does look like that. - It does look like that. - His script combines the first three books, Princess of Mars, the Gods of Mars, the Warlords of Mars. - Which those were going to be Stanton's three movies and his trilogy. - Sounds great. - Which he was definitely going to make, too. He talks a lot about that. - Development slows, John Fevro decides to make Iron Man. Okay, good luck with that.

- I mean, I made a vine here. - He's just like, can you jump for that? - Yeah, right. - How does he jump? - How does he jump? - But truly, like, Paramount is just like dragging their feet on giving him a green light. And he's like, I want to make something, and like, the Iron Man, like, sort of beacon lights up the sky. And he goes off and does that. And it's the most successful version of what he wanted to do.

- Right, now. - And he levels up big time. - Andrew Stanton, as we've mentioned on this podcast, a very serious father, who was like basically a rocket scientist, defense department, like radar guy. He was into like old hard sci-fi stuff.

“And gave his son John Carter novels among other things.”

Stanton grew up loving these books. You know, in high school, he said his friends would call them his romance novels.

Like he was always reading his John Carter books. - Yeah. He was supposedly a fan of the Marvel comic.

That was when you first discovered it. The 70s John Carter warlord of Mars comic from Marvel that came out for a couple of years. And is like all set in the in the space of the first book. It's sort of like the continuing adventures of John Carter. - Marvel, both men and Gill can. - Mm-hmm. - It's a good-looking book. I had never read it myself. It's kind of before my time and hasn't been reprinted, really.

But I tracked down some and read a little bit before we did this. And it's, you know, it's fun. I could see the appeal. But then he kind of, yeah, then he discovered the books and became. I know he was into the books and then, and I guess this is 1977. And it's right around when Star Wars comes down. - That's true.

So he's discovering the probably saw that before he had thought it was good. He's probably, he's probably liked it. I like this. He thinks, watching Star Wars at the age of 12. But just when you're talking about filmmakers seeing this and going, "I want to make my Star Wars, and it's going to be this."

For him, they're like inextricably once right there. From the beginning in his mind. He has both awakenings, maybe, within this game. Within the same, it's, yes, it's literally a stretch of like six months or something. Yeah. It's like the way your fetish is developed.

You know, it's like these things just imprinted on him simultaneously. It's like... Alienware's back-to-school event is the perfect time to score.

Top gaming gear with incredible features and intel core processors

to go beyond performance. Lord knows, I'm stressed about returning to school. You can save big on gaming desktops, laptops, and more. Start your Alienware journey with the Alienware 15 gaming laptop featuring intel core processors.

Smoothly game, live stream, and multitask for hours on end. Plus, play through every game exactly how you want with customizable Alien FX lighting across your Alienware ecosystem creating your very own gaming profile and more. We're talking full disclosure.

Finally, pair your incredibly smooth gaming experience with immersive visuals and sound by saving on sleek Alienware monitors, headsets, and more. The world deserves to know.

That's Alienware.com/deals.

Well, he's making Wally. He's like, "You spend five fucking years making an animated movie or whatever." He's like, "I don't have an idea for another animated movie. I feel a little stuck."

But he does kind of know that Jon Carter is floating around there. Hair mounts basically about to let the rights lapse. Yes. Favreode departs. Yeah.

And stands in sort of swoops in and pitches them like, "Look, I got nothing to lose here. I don't need another paycheck right now." He's got the kind of the swagger of like, I think it's about to fall into the public domain at this point.

Maybe we're getting to, you know. It's close. It's like, if you don't start making one now, then anyone could make one.

“But it also means like, this is the last moment where you have to pay”

a bunch of money to make one before it doesn't cost anything. I think his point is sort of like, if this goes into the public domain,

asylum is going to make a $2 million version of this video.

They will flood the zone. Right? But he's making this pitch to Disney, where he goes to like the higher-ups of Disney, and basically says, "There's a jump ball here

to take the final crack at doing the definitive origin of American sci-fi correctly." Yeah. He's saying to them like this is like my series. Yeah.

What says you should get it? I'm so serious. I would even do it. Right. And he's already kind of,

I guess he hasn't fitting like Wally hasn't come out at this point. But finding Nemo is like huge. The highest grossing film Disney hit her for real. Right. So that's an appealing.

Holds a lot of weight. You know, they don't know that Wally is going to work. Wally is good. Indeed, they are interested. They want him happy as he says.

When might even say he hasn't went to Wally track, I was sent. I was sent. I was sent. I was sent. So Mac is, of course, as we said, had said,

“like, I think George Lucas kind of picked this clean.”

Things like Conan the Barbarian are cited as, you know, that being influenced by this film. I mentioned an already avatar. Stanton does not agree. He says, "No one's copied it.

It's just inspired things." Like it's, you know, there's plenty of meat on the bone. He's a little right in that exact mix of elements. Has not been brought to screen. Like you bring it to the source and sandals thing.

Yeah. That's the trickiest part of the equation. But if you can pull off that juxtaposition, rather than pick the elements clean and like separate them. And you haven't seen a lot of guys jump in like this.

You're not. Yeah, but you know what though. I really kept thinking about attack of the clones. Which has obviously the Jedi's. But he's jumping like flees.

He knows the stuff, the sort of like the fighting pets, the weird creature, the creature. You know, like it does kind of feel like we've seen this before. Now that doesn't mean this movie can't be a hit. But attack of the clones is fully 10 years before.

“I mean this is, this is why I fucking stick up for attack of the clones.”

Is it too hard? So strange as like his swords and sandals epic also his noir homage. Like he just takes three different genres he likes and is like, what if I can fucking like backstop them into storm wars and a middle chapter. They don't hang together.

That's otherwise. They don't need to like John Carter. It's it's like a closet where you open some closet and you're like, what is your sense of why insurance and tuxi does. Right.

But I mean, look,

attack of the clones obviously just has like the most hard boiled incredible narrative and like the kind of

characters like Dexter Jets. I have all forgets. Who bought these clones? I have a laundry ticket. We are already recently.

I do just love to litigate it all the time of like, if I just showed up to a planet in a brown robe. They would be like, the clones are ready for you. No further questions.

Yes. You don't need to prove who you are. You do not need to even seem to know what we're talking about. They're not going to fit on your ship. Oh, yeah.

They're like, yes, the clones remember. Yeah. Anyway, you're going to need a bigger ship to take them out of here. You are going to need right some large ships. And attack the clones even ten years old by the time this movie comes out.

Right. So, Stanton writes the script with Mark Andrews who has worked on other Pixar stuff in Credwells right at two weeks. He ends up directing brave after Brenda Chapman is fired. Brave comes out this one each.

Same year. Yeah. Yeah. Then Michael Shabon who has the other credit on this comes in. And I feel like Shabon had done a lot of work on Spider-Man 2 of course.

And he's another guy who was a great host. Yes, and love. Now they're like huge John Carter fans both of us. Most of his Spider-Man 2 work was thrown out by all accounts. They made a big strategy announcement because Cavalian Clay was so big.

Yeah.

“Like Hollywood loves when they're like, oh, my God.”

There's a genius who likes quote unquote low art. Yes. And appreciate what low art do we have. Right. We can give to him higher a high class man to make our big blockbuster.

So they make this big announcement that he's doing Spider-Man 2 throughout. Almost all of his work.

And then bring an album started in Sargent to basically do with the movie.

Pretty much right it. His version was about like talking Spider-Man. So talk was like young and sexy and keep talking. I'm interested. I mean, Shabon is especially because he then went to Star Trek and people hate what he did.

It's Star Trek too much. Yes. I do think he often is like, I have a really different big brain idea. And it will bump against people being like, we were kind of looking for like, you know, the USS Enterprise that go to a planet,

maybe half an advent. He's like, you're not interested at all this stuff. I'm thinking about it. But Spider-Man is two. It's two is huge.

Arguably the greatest comic book movie of all time. And his name is there in a big credit. So he had also written a spec screenplay called the Martian agent that was essentially a Hodgepodge of John Carter stories, which he loved. As we say, you know, like so like he also was working on a show with Darren

Aaronowski called Hobgoblin that was a World War Two show about magic. That sounds kind of cool. For HBO, this is so kind of cool.

“Hey, Ben, what do you mind slaying me another way?”

Wow. Sure. Wow. You're going to talk about Spider-Man too, Major. Yeah.

You got a little parched. Thinking about DACA, cooking, spiding. Next we want to have another cup. So like Stanton Andrews, Shabin, all love John Carter. Yeah.

You know what I mean? They're all working together with love for the book. And they're all, it sort of feels like three little boys in a clubhouse being like, can we relocate what we loved about this? Yeah.

That'd be infectious. Who did have benefited maybe from someone coming in who's like, I love. This is a sci-fi adventure movies. I don't love John Carter or know about it.

Some maybe I can help you put it on. Yeah. No. That's a client. We're good.

I have non spider-man coffee. 2009 Star Trek. That was kind of the whole strategy. Abrams. You delivered a movie for you.

That basically will make Star Trek fans happy.

Oh, they're not all of them. But that, like, kind of, sort of, way from the, you know, Persimmon or sea and Abrams. You have three different levels of Star Trek. Surrender.

Casual nerd. I don't know what Star Trek is. Yeah. Can we have the bona fides and also make it feel approachable. Abrams is like, you had me at Star.

Lost me at Trek. Yeah. Let's just go back to Star Trek. For now. Well, take Trek until something better comes along.

Yeah. The front runner for the role of John Carter was an actor named Taylor Kitch. Mm-hmm. Who gets the role? And we have fought on this a little bit.

Let's find it. Where I feel like you bring up Taylor Kitch as the ultimate Gabba, where the industry was like, this guy, we're telling you what's this guy, and you are to me. This movie has two Gabbo's.

And then you get a Kitch is obviously a huge one. Yes. Who's Gabba? Well, Gabba is from the Simpsons member. Oh, yeah.

But, you know, just kind of that, that, like, Taylor Kitch, the big star. You know, they do this all the time. How are you, you know, right? That they could have ignored that.

They're like, the word that they're like. Catch the assistant. He is the man. We love him. Industry plant.

Kind of. Or they've gave me Colin Farrell suffered from this. Yeah. It's more like the guy has a little juice. And they're like the industry is so preoccupied on convincing you that they're already a thing.

Why are you so what they're thinking? Well, I, I feel like you have argued he is the ultimate. There was nothing there and they sort of just like picked him and pushed him right. No, I have definitely not argued that because I love Friday night. Right.

No way. That's the thing. Like, because I feel like the 2010s have a lot of gabbos. Right.

“The one who I truly think of as the ultimate is, um, Travis Fimo.”

Yes. Yes. This is, I feel like they're going to be having the past. When he shows up in Warcraft, I'm like, I keep reading that fucking all these people can't justify a hundred million dollar budget.

And this guy's the lead. He's on the A&E Viking show. You just got a guy who also is more an armor. It was on the history. I'm sorry.

Back. But Taylor Kitch has the sort of like buzzy supporting Swooney James Dean Ask Bad Boy Roll. He was good. I don't know. My brother and my mother obsessed with that show.

I was just one of those guys really like, you're telling me he wasn't on someone's an A&E Viking. He's like, no, Vikings. He's like, come on. He's got a big old beard.

And he's curled. I thought the whole pitch on Travis Fimo was. He feels like a biker but we can put him in like armor. He's got, yeah. He'll bring the biker to the Viking.

Tim Regan, Taylor Kitch is Tim Regan. So the trial that it's runs 06 to 11.

And obviously it was never a hit show.

It was always struggling for life. It was always critically acclaimed. Yeah. He was always the sexiest of the boys on A&E. He's got the part that feels like the best show real to be a Hollywood

leading torture. That he issued. He's my brother. He's still in from 902. He's like, the hotly all needed this.

God, this guy's such a movie star. Like when is someone going to crack it?

And I feel like I first saw him in X.

“I mean, in a movie in X been origins Wolverine.”

Like I know he's like the covenant and what's it called, the snakes, snakes on a plane. But that was the real, but like, those are moments. We're Hollywood was like, we've taken notice. He's going to have a small part in this.

But it's a coveted role. A coveted role that could come here. It's like the appetite thing you were talking about. We're going to give him a little part here in a minute. And you're going to fall in love with him.

And then we're going to give him his own thing. I mean, that movie is good in X been origins Wolverine. I'm a terrible movie. Being okay. He's all.

He's maybe one of the acceptable parts of an ungodly bad movie. Right. Maybe the least offensive parts of that movie. I mean, the movie does the same thing with him and Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds and opposite parts of the film.

Right. Deadpool leads it off. He is in the middle. Where it's like we've picked a star that we think is about to pop. Right.

We're calling dibs on a character. We're placing the intent on the board character. And we're testing out how much you like this. And the rejection of both is so huge that it like sets back Deadpool. And Ryan Reynolds has just been in X five years of his life,

pushing it back up there. Someone leaked that footage. We're going to be alive.

But a mystery that shall never be solved.

I remember like the comic-con footage of him as Gambit, where he's got the staff. And he was like, you know, he like jumps. And like, we've done it. You saw the movie.

“And they were like, oh, by the way, that's the only thing he does in the movie.”

Sorry. He throws some cards. 90% of his screen time is seated behind a poker table. And then he gets up at the end. It's the staff.

One throws some cards. Goodbye, game. That's all I remember. Right. I remember me, Lebo, but he, he were like, okay.

He was a screen. It's not bad. He didn't. He gave good gambit. He gave right.

The movie sucks. But obviously not his body against him. And Hollywood goes like, that's all we need to see. Off to the races. And he books three giant movies basically back to back to back.

All of which come out in 2012. Which was maybe if I'm his agent. I'm sweating a little bit. In the span of the lower months in chronological order, John Carter in March.

Battleship in May. Which, of course, we've covered on our Patreon. And then Oliver Stein. There's a member of savages in July. Uh, was that July?

Let's see. Yep. So when he's doing press for John Carter, they're like, you're the guy. He's the lead of all three movies.

He's the guy and all three movies. And all the presses like, well, you're here promoting John Carter. But really, this is about the year of Kitch. By the end of this year, everyone will agree.

You're the biggest movies star a lot. They're getting Kitchy. He has made five films total since then. Right. And he's done TV and he's done some other stuff.

You know, but like, he has been in five movies since then. American assassin. That's one. A movie you've watched many times, man. Once.

Okay.

And I just was struck by how he's the sort of second there.

Actually it was. Yeah. It's kills the. The only one I haven't seen. I went to her, Dylan O'Brien's the hero.

Kitch is the former assassin who went bad. Is that right? I think so. Okay. I haven't seen it.

But wait, I'm struggling even if you don't get a tour. There's one you won't know. The four of them are real movies. Four of them are real movies. But he's not the lead in any of that.

He's supporting us in all. Yes.

“I feel like there was one thing I remember seeing him.”

And where I was like, oh, he's pretty good. There's a movie. A Canadian movie called Don Mc. By Tom McKell are called the grand seduction with him. Oh, yeah.

Brendan Glee. I've not seen. Never heard of it. Yeah. There's a big war movie that he's like the secondary lead.

And there was a huge hit. Oh, Loan survived. Right. Which that movie feels like it was Peter Burke doing a like. I save a meal.

I saved Taylor Kitch. Like bring these guys back. There's an extremely good movie that he's quite good in. Although he's not a lead. He's partying ensemble.

There was a giant bomb. From a great director that was a disaster movie. Real true story movie. Oh, only the brave. Right.

Where he's again, like Loan survivor. One of the guys. Yeah. But he's good in it. Yeah.

But it was a giant bomb. It was a giant bomb. And then there is somewhat forgotten cop drama. It was pretty good. It's not the Chadwick Boseman.

Sure is. 16 bridges. You need more bridges. Up. 24.

Down. 21. Yeah. Where I think I have seen. I think he might be the villain.

Okay. But like, you know, he's just like, hey, I'm officer. Good guy. I'm following up on the case. A few questions.

See you later. Thank you. Watch out. He is allergic to the idea being the center again. Understandably.

He doesn't want that weight on him. Right. I mean, all of them are variations on the former golden boy. It was defensive. Obviously.

He did do true detectives season two. Which I mean, no, it was like, what, you know, another kind of weird blank check bounce. But like, you know, he wasn't in there.

He was David Kerashin, the wakeo show. Right. Right. Yeah. And he's been in a bunch of others.

So he's in that Chris Pratt show, the terminal list that everyone's always talking about.

But you get the sense, understandably, that the experience of 2012 kind of shook him to his court. Wow. I just have a ton of steps now. Totally. I just found out that he is the lead character in a terminal list spin off.

Oh, yeah. The dark wall. Dark wall. The terminal list is really doing so well that we need a spin off. Like, are we sure want to see the dark wall?

Um, how do you think he is in this movie? I mean, I mean, to be clear again, like, Stanton loved him in front of nightlight. Yes. Thought he kind of, because he has the hair in front of nightlight.

Yeah. Yeah. Thought he kind of matched this sort of classic kind of paintings of John Carter and the old paperbacks and stuff. Yeah.

And just was kind of like, this is my guy.

“Even though, I think there wasn't discussion of like,”

you sure we don't want to like call Tom Cruise. There's all this weird reporting of Tom Cruise being interested in the film. It is confirmed that Stanton met with Tom Cruise a few times. But the wrapped arm line of it is career campaigned for the job. Right.

And sentences he met with him. I have that feels impossible to me in terms of like, if cruise had gone to, you know, Disney and said, like, I would like to play John Carter. I imagine Disney would have said, yes.

But maybe not. It's kind of a weird period. It was a weird period for cruise. Yeah. Where it's like, yes, it would help to have a name above your title.

But also he costs so much. He's expensive. He's all right. It's like a big portion of like, this is pre-ghost protocol, which kind of like reset the cruise narrative. Like, so it's the kind of weird cruise version of Pixar director goes to,

and it's a live action. That is true. Which comes out the year before this. It's also weird that you're like, the things that you feel would have encouraged Disney to green like this.

Hadn't actually happened yet. Um, Avatar hasn't come out. Ghost protocol hasn't come out. Right.

The stuff retroactively you're like, it must have been. They looked at those two things and said, sure.

“I think the other thing is Stanton's like,”

we wanted a young actor because the idea is we're making a series. Yes. Right. Like, we need somebody who can make three of these over the next 10 years.

I also feel like the implication has always been that cruise kind of came to

him late that either. Kitch had already been cast or he had his eye on Kitch. He had certainly done all the screen testing. Because there was like Josh Damell and Chantetam. All the people you just assumed.

Right. The guy in that pot and then cruise kind of like swept in and was like, what about me? And because he was so focused on the trilogy thing, he's like, I'm going to have to make like a third movie with a six year old cruise.

Mm. Certainly a six year old crew. Surely not going to be making act right movies at that point. The body of the police. Lynn Collins also says, like,

everyone I tested against was like a Kitch age actor. Right. Like if cruise was involved, it was not. Yeah.

I read something where Stanton was talking about like, I first I was like he's too young, but then I looked back at, you know, the ages of Harrison Ford when he made Star Wars. Yeah.

And people like that.

And they were always younger than he then you think they were.

Right. And so he felt like he could carry it off. He had the gravitas or whatever, but. Okay. Can we have having said that?

Can we talk about the performance for a little bit? I know we got more context to get into it. Let's talk about the last one. I think it's a good question. Yes.

Is Taylor Kitch good as John Carter in the film John Carter, which was a Disney release in 2012 director by Andrew Stanton? I think it like, is this performance half works?

“I think it works in spurts like the movie itself, right?”

And I think it's a weird case where you're like, historically at this time, a man of his age would have experienced a lot of life and could be kind of hardened and broken down by set experiences. But to see him in a 2012 movie,

you're like, this guy's too young. Yeah. I don't buy this guy having the kind of like, or when he does a job with his backstory. You're right.

Yeah. I think he's kind of good at the charming swashbuckling thing. I think he has moments where he does the Indian a Jones thing well. I think anytime the movie wants him to sell the haunted and the sort of weary, he can't quite sell it.

And I do think he's fundamentally too modern. I think he, I mean, I was another person. Love Friday nightlights. Love that show. My wife and I watched every episode.

And he was good on that show. And but I think what he was doing on that show was like almost, and I don't mean this like insultingly. It was almost nothing. It was a lot of just like presence.

He didn't have to show. He was just standing there looking incredible. And I agree with him. He had emotional moments. But like the emotions of that show are carried more by,

like obviously as that go for it. You know, like by other actors. Yeah. And I just think he, he was good in stillness, let's say. And in this movie,

I don't know, he's, it just feels like he's trying so hard. I feel him trying. We're as like, sure. We're getting so iconic.

Yeah.

“And in this character, and I don't know about anybody else,”

but in this room. But every time he speaks, there's something very affected about his voice. And the voice that he's using, you know, it's almost like he's like trying to do John Wayne or something.

It's got a bit of tug speed, man. Where it feels like the way you parody an action star rather than an action star. And this is effortless action star. You know, like the, there's, that, one of the scenes that,

like half works very well in this movie is his first encounter with

Tars, Tarkis. Yeah. You have Willem Dafoe, who's very good and very funny locked in. He is locked in. I mean, like, he's done it many times.

He can just, he's just good if he is. He's just good if he is. And he's doing the alien voice and Tars. Tars. Yeah.

And he's done Aquaman. He's good at this role, right? Like how many times he done this? For your knowledge, Ben, this is Defoe on set. Like on the dead.

On the dead. On the dead. Oh, my God. With a mocap rate of rest. And like Defoe who loves challenges and technical exercises and whatever is like walking

and stills in the desert. He's not just walking in some scenes. He's like running and they have guys. You can find found like footage behind the scenes of him. He has a guy literally dressed from head to toe covered completely in green.

Yeah. Who's job it is is to just make sure he doesn't topple over as he's running to be his father as extras. Yeah. Brandishing a sword. But in this scene, he's doing the, you know, like, Tars, Tars.

Yes. Suck. And he's tall and he's great. And he's. Vodeginja.

Vodeginja. Yes. Vodeginja. hilarious. And then they cut to the other side.

And it's Taylor Kitch going, you know, like, Kats going on. Captain John Carter. Virginia. Yeah.

He doesn't quite bump on me as hard as he seems to be bugging on you. I don't know. I don't love him. I am Dotaar. So Jack.

You're saying the bad impression. The presence and the stillness thing. What's tricky about these types of movies.

And why it's always really tough to be like, well, we need a young lead because we want to build a franchise.

But that also means we're placing someone into this type of film who has limited experience. Yes.

“Even if you've worked a lot, it's like, how often have you been the lead?”

The big has the project you're in the lead bin. And now you're on like a shoot where you might for two or three consecutive weeks have one line of dialogue. Something like shooting the white ape sequence is like so many tiny little pieces where I do think you kind of want to cast for presence. Ideally you want Harrison Ford. You want someone who's equally good at selling the dialogue scenes and the character and the comedy.

But also if you're getting in the technical action pieces, every one of those is going to have an energy and a presence and not just be a guy hitting choreographer. But there is an additional problem here with him, which actually is not his fault. It is the conception of the character, which is that they cast this incredibly handsome striking man to play a shockingly frequent like focus of ridicule, especially in the beginning of this movie. You know, the tug speedment thing is kind of funny because they almost do cast him as like this bumbling comic like moon.

So much especially the beginning of the movie is making fun of him. They literally put him they treat him like a baby like they discover the margin of the baby. He is baby. They put him in a diaper. They put him in a diaper.

They put him in a diaper. - Maybe powder him, they spent an event of alien, is it common? I don't know what it is, I feel like you were burned. - I just be sued to say something, sounds like. - Oh, I'm not sure, oh, say I'm more than to.

Again, I can't help it, but I do think it's vital when we're talking about Taylor Kitch, 'cause Sam we're the same play, even a less known guy. - Yeah, you kind of just need to be hold the center. - A little regular, hold the center, be relatable,

have a little personality, you will be blue, often, like on like Taylor Kitch. - So I'm a Taylor Kitch, briefly is blue, and this is blue. - Yes, blue. - When he comes out of the--

- Why eight, right? - Yeah. - And I do think Sam we're thinking to his better. Why is that?

- I don't think Sam we're thinking to be as incredible

in our guitar or anything, but like, is it just that he has like a little bit more good humor and like, I don't kind of vibe-- - They don't make him dress and act like a baby. - I don't, I don't, I mean, he does wear a,

you know, there's so much, it's just, you've cast this guy who's so cool. And I don't think of as a comedic actor, and then like as soon as he's on Mars, it's all stick, actually, before Mars,

his introduction with, with, with Kranston. - When Kranston is like him jumping out of windows, peeing on the ground, it's all stick. - See, this is a, your mileage may vary, think. But I, you felt this at the time,

and rewatching it was pleasantly surprised.

“I think he sells the comedy better than I would imagine.”

- I wouldn't say he's funny in this, but I also think if we're looking at, Worthington, Hanam, Hadland, right?

- The guy's in this.

- So, Hanam is, I mean, like Pacific Rim,

I guess, right, I'm trying to-- - Anything Arthur later. - Right, Hadland is, you know, to try and like, I just, which I like that performance in that movie, but a lot of people didn't really end.

- And is it similar, kind of, swaggery, like, is there a little bit of Marlon Brando wild one? Is there a little bit of cheeky humor in this?

“That's what they're trying to get, a modern,”

they don't want a guy playing stoic sci-fi hero. I think what works for Worthington is that Cameron kind of set him up to succeed in the inverse of how Stanton, a little bit set, catch up to fail.

And Avatar, he's like, kind of the point is that you're the boring guy. Kind of the point is that you're just, like, a personalityless marine. And then we'll build the humanity in later.

There's a, we didn't talk about this and it did pull it society, and then I saw someone on the reddit call it out. That Hock did this interview where he said, we're was really smart about casting for the final color.

And what he meant by that one is, yes, yes. If we can't believe it, we didn't bring this. - I know. - But that, like, in dead poets' side, you're, like, weird. You're having Hock play, like, the timid guy,

not Robert Sean Leonard's part where he's, like, the artsy ambitious, you know, passionate guy. And he said, you want to cast for the final color.

Robert Sean Leonard will ultimately get you

to the suicides scene where you need to. That's his wheelhouse. And it will feel explosive when that part of him comes out. Likewise, when Hock gets on the desk, and finally is passionate, overly earnest, Ethan Hock,

that will be exclusive, right?

“And I think there was a little bit of Cameron casting”

for the final color, which is just, like, have Jake Sully be a little bit of a blank. And then what we're thinking to know is good at is kind of the earthy earnest, I care romance thing, which is, like, he asked him off of fucking summer salt.

- Yeah. - And he used to be that. But you're also really not asking to be funny. You're making him the joke, but in a kind of lower level way, and you're letting all the other characters pop around.

- Yes. - The secret that movie is, it's, materialy is really dry. - Well, everything. - And everything. - And we're good. - And they cast that. - And we'll talk about the rest of the ensemble

in a second and all that, that does matter a lot. - I think what Stan really wants is the Indiana Jones thing. And you saying that the movie is constantly embarrassing him. It's the thing that, at this point in time, I think Hollywood filmmakers are pointing at a lot.

We're getting a lot of blank generic kind of stoic heroes. And what people are forgetting is that Han Solo and Indiana Jones fucked up a lot. They were funny. They weren't just cool all the time.

- Sure. - And a lot of it was watching them finesse situation and feeling the struggle of, are they gonna be able to pull this off? - Yeah, well, Ford's really good at the, I'm one plan ahead at best,

kind of, like, on the fly.

- You've always had a great idea.

- And then you watch him trip and you watch him recover. - And this is a movie that builds in those moments of mid-battle John Carter being like, you know, at the moment that I felt like it was really big in the trailer of the white ape,

the second and third white apes coming out and a cutting to him sying of like, oh, this is a guy who has vulnerability. He stressed out that he's in this movie. - And it's, I don't spot up against that as much as he has.

- It's much as just how goofy some of the things they, I mean, he's literally like, I think you're all so, a diaper. - You're describing a problem that the movie has in general of,

it can't quite reconcile the goofiness and the emptiness, that well and tragic weight. - Kids also doesn't work at the end of the movie when he's like, my master plan is being revealed and I am still just like,

you just kind of feel 29 years old to me. - I do love the ending and I don't mind the concept of the end. - I just don't think he is very well. - I think you kind of tells it. - I'm a little hotter in this performance

than you, even though it doesn't totally work. - Yeah. - To me it's like it's an interesting way to conceive the character 'cause it's not, it's not from the books. It's not just standing above the books.

The books are not about this guy having these wacky events. - This is a grand epic romance. - No, it's very serious. - And the books are very serious. - Yes.

- And you know, like grand. And here we have all this stick and it almost feels like, and I don't know this, but it's just like, well, we're making a movie based on this thing from the 19 teens.

- Maybe we want to give it a little like silent comedy flavor. You know, there's almost kind of like a, - Yeah. - When he's bumbling around in the desert.

“- Right, there's a little luster key in there.”

- There's a buster key in kind of the thing, for sure. And he's in the desert bumbling around trying to stand. - That's also acknowledge. He's running straight from this into Wally, right? Like he gets Disney to buy the rents of this wall.

He's finishing Wally is what I was going to say. - And he's going into production on this, a year and a half after Wally is released. Like these things are like overlapping. And Wally as we covered last week,

he's just mainlining Lloyd Chaplin key. Like they said at Pixar every week, they would screen those movies. They'd rewatch them. They were obsessively studying the type of hero.

And as he said, what he learned with Wally is, the emotional arc isn't the guy.

- I think you can feel that in this movie. I had a lot of success. People loved Wally, they loved that.

“The way that I kind of imbued that character”

with that silent comedian energy. - Yeah. - And it seems to be here as well. And I just don't think it fits this movie, the way it fit that movie.

Especially with Taylor Kitch as your guy. - Yeah. - And I like a guy that I was excited to see in this movie. - He says, he regretfully didn't do enough personally didn't give everything he had.

He kind of sounds like an athlete talking after a loss. A kind of like, it's on me. It's not only when else, like the team is great, the coach is great, but he says he talks to Lynn Collins every day, these relationships were born.

He says he had a huge respect for Andrew.

I never had a fight with him.

Even day at 80 in the miserable fucking desert 'cause I respect him so much. This isn't a production where people are like, what a nightmare. Like everyone had a good start.

- That's true. - Or at least he was into it. - Has continued to defend it. Like you read interviews with Samantha Morton with the fellow, everybody to this day

and they're like, I had a great time doing that and it felt like the movie got thrown on to the bus. Dominic West continues to defend it. - I'm like West who looks really good in this movie. - Yes, it does.

- It does. - 'Cause now Dominic West is settled into his eye-play British buffoons. I'm a little older. You know, like, for Cal, like, Dominic West was fucking hot.

I mean, obviously we love McNoney, but like, that's a little different. - It is funny when you watch a movie and you can tell what the director was watching at the time. - And you're like, it's the same with team work.

- The team work. - I know, yeah, exactly. When James Pureford showed up, I was like, we don't need to be bringing it. I don't mind him as an actor.

- Yeah, he cannot come in this late. I'm sorry. You already had Dominic West. You can't be too British guy, like, at TV actors. - But it's so much kind of rise of prestige, TV,

like, 2001 and it pretends where you are. - I might have fun. - We've got three run lead calls. - You got a wire person, you got a true blood person. You got the breaking bad guy.

You got a Friday night lights guy. - It for sure. - Yeah. - It's the, that air all stars. - Tars, Tarkas had that sitcom.

- That's the guy. - The Tars. - Yeah. - It's called Tars. - So, Willem Dafoe, yeah.

- Obviously, he had worked on Fannie Nemo. He liked Pixar, he liked their approach. And as he puts it, that guy asked me to play a 12 foot tall, Jettac, of the Green Race of Tharks. What you're gonna say, note of that?

I don't think so. That's the Willem Dafoe attitude. - 'Cause I feel like some of that's your story. - That's the story. - No.

I do think no. Still think desert? No. Willem Dafoe's like, let me add it. - When you say likes Pixar likes the approach,

it's the other thing around this movie, which is, man, Pixar have had the best track record. - This is true. - Is this true? - Of anyone in Hollywood history.

And of course, he feels like they just work and work until they crack the story.

And it always just fits together perfectly.

And there's a growing feeling of, why are these kids' movies better than all? The quote unquote, "serious adult blockbusters" that Hollywood's making, should they be making those?

How do we like infect the Pixar process into the other areas of studio filmmaking? - And by the time this comes out, the ghost protocol has come out. And that is only increased that sentiment,

'cause it was like, wow, they were huge. - Bradford, really crack that. - Maybe let these guys do everything. - Yes. I'm saying a lot of negative things about John Carter,

but what I do want to say here, I was excited about this movie, right? - I was so excited.

“I remember the trailer really getting pushed”

down Earthroats and all that. And like, starting to get a little tired of, yeah, that, you know, inevitable blockbuster, sort of thing where they're just like, you're all excited, and I'm like,

- He's a trailer of you and anything. - Right. - And a little bit more, five months in the desert on stealth sets, that's quite an achievement, according to the phone.

- Most of the horror corners. - Dominic West thought it was a brilliant film. Things Andrew Stanton is a fucking genius. - Works for things again on finding Dorie. - Right, he thinks Hollywood politics put it in the bin,

like he's just, right. Some of these actors, you're just like, I don't know, I loved that. - Like, no further question. - There is, yeah.

- I don't crants and also basically was like,

it was great. - Yeah. - Fuck box office. Fuck Hollywood tracking like these jerks. - I don't think this film ever was going to be a mega hit,

but there is no denying that by the time it came out, it was doomed. - There was three months of the most overwhelming press. - Yeah, the kind of trades thing where they smell a bomb and they start to exult in like,

"Did you know how much this costs?"

“And it's called John Carter, what are they thinking, you know?”

Which, like, then they tried to do with sinners and then when it blew up in their faces, they were like, "Okay, but it did do that good for like a week." And people screamed at them so much that they were like, "It's been like, oh, all right, you know, maybe forget it."

Like, I guess it's okay. - But there's also a dick cook who had had this incredibly triumphant run at Disney. He had stepped down. Rich Ross takes over.

Rich Ross had been running the Disney channel, I believe. - Right, and I mean, Rick Ross was doing great at that. - Yeah, right, you know. - Teflon Don over there. - But then he has a really shaky run.

really successful, like, the first Alice in Wonderland and things like that. But the things that he green lights basically all start to crash and burn and he's out pretty shortly after this. They hire a woman named MT Korni,

who ran a boutique marketing agency to be put in charge of all marketing for Disney films. And it was a sort of shockwave announcement of, like, "Is Disney trying to, like, do something different?" This is someone who does not have the experience

and has not ever worked at this scale.

She's never worked in movie marketing period.

And this ended up being the main film she worked on.

“And then I believe she got fired either a month before”

a month after it came out. Like, this movie has overseen by a bunch of transitional people in the Disney regime. I just remember a lot of talk about the title. And John Carter of Mars or just John Carter

and who is John Carter and there was all these articles about that. And there's all the second guessing. There's all this revolving door shit. Disney at this point in time is in a struggle,

which is part of why they fucking just buy Marvel and Lucasfilm and go, like, that's our live action thing solved. But this movie becomes the center to focus on of what the fuck is going on at Disney and how much money they spend on this thing

that we've never heard of. Ben just a clearly state this. The book is called a Princess of Mars.

That title immediately evokes something.

But Disney releases the film, the Princess and the Frog covered on the show. And it does well, but not hugely well. And their takeaway is, no boy will see a movie with Princess in the title.

“They immediately pivot to the in development”

in production, Rapunzel movie being retitled tangled. And the snow queen movie being retitled frozen, they're like, we need these kind of actiony titles. And they say to stand cannot be called Princess of Mars. Got it.

We'll call it John Carter of Mars. That helps us come up with our franchise heading. John Carter's the guy. What happens then? Disney releases a movie called Mars needs mom's aforementioned.

The final film in their deal with Zemecus. He produces it, but does not direct. It is his final, like, mocap movie. And it is a gigantic disaster. And the takeaway from that is, fuck, Mars is a problem.

And they zoom out and they look at the data that David mentioned before. They're like, fuck, there are Mars's Marvel movies. In the last 10 years. And also, like, it sounds like a boy thing, right?

It's like, it's funny that they're like, Princess is too girly and they're like, Mars is too boy. They admit this. They're like, girls won't go to Mars.

Yes, they're both things. So you end up with John Carter that means nothing, 'cause there's no other side of scaring off both sides of the audience that they end up on a thing that's the guy on ER.

Right. Don't you want to, yeah, of course, Dr. John Carter, empty.

“But like, yeah, don't you want to go see a John Carter?”

Well, what's that about? Guy called John Carter. What does he do? He's on Mars. They feel like he's on Mars.

Like, it's just like, how long have you been in Mars? But it's like the perfect fucking Hollywood out thinks themselves into the whole. I was watching the end of this movie on the train here. And a woman sat down next to me

and tapped on my shoulder and was like, what are you watching? And I'm like, John Carter, she's like, what? She's probably tapping you on the shoulder and expecting you to say, doon.

And she'll go, oh, that's what doon is. I hear everyone talking about doon. The idea that she's seeing this like, expensive sci-fi movie on your phone and the title is something she hasn't heard of.

(upbeat music) David? Yeah, she's got any big summer plans. If you're traveling, you got late night's pack weekends, your road structure, any of those.

Keeping A.G.1 in your routine helps you stay consistent. That's a loaded word right there. Can's assistant. When everything else gets and here's another loaded word, unpredictable.

Oh, I don't want that and I know you don't need there. Look, it's a daily health drink. With a multi-bidermat. Yep, pre-end pro-biotic. Yep, superfoods and antioxidants.

It's an all-star lineup. One scoop, eight ounces of water. You just shake it or you go. That's it, you drink it. It takes 30 seconds.

I know you drink it every single day. What's your favorite flavor right now? Right now, I'm actually really big into Barry. I've been cycling through them and I've been really been enjoying this Barry phase.

I will say this as well, David. You said it wherever you are. I'm about to go away for six weeks and you better believe I just ordered a whole box of travel packs so that I don't have to travel unarmed.

I had no doubt. So visit drinkag1.com/check to get your free morning person hat and free AG1 flavor sampler for that hat.

In your welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription,

Drink that drinkag1.com/check.

“When I wear that hat, it's going to be so ironic.”

Yes, I don't like the mornings. But I love AG1. Yes. (upbeat music) Doon is another interesting thing to place out here.

We're watching this, it's so similar to Doon in so many ways. And it feels like after this run of, not just the failed Disney Boys Adventure movies, but like Valerian, Patrick Williams or buddy

did a great video on what he called the Ganzo Blockbuster. These movies that were sort of like very silly and operatic, Jupiter sending speed race or certainly falls into that. And his argument is that like Fury Road

is the only one of those movies that worked at the time.

There was a sort of like 10 year run of,

can we let guys just fucking do anything? And Fury Road's the only one that's a hit and as well like upon release and most of them kind of miss. And it feels like Doon is the final correction for that,

“which is you need to just ground the shit out of this.”

If you're gonna make these kinds of movies, you have to really just like place it in intimate human emotions and hard details and versatility. Versus just like, I don't know, there's like a ship that flies.

I mean, I guess I have to give this movie some amount of credit that they didn't water it down. I mean, it is all that most about it. I mean, it's got these crazy green for armed aliens. Not just that they kept the names in the screen.

Just the kind of like that it's about a bunch of inter-marsion politics. Yeah. In my opinion, could it maybe done a better job explaining?

Could it be simple? They're definitely trying to do it all across. And as much as they make him a comedic figure, this movie is mercifully devoid of, you're called the what?

There's no John Carter is, it's more than making fun of John Carter than John Carter being like bar sum. Okay, now I've heard it. That is true.

That is true, but on the flip side, I will say, John Carter takes a long time to figure out that he is on Mars. Okay. So a 51 minutes, 51 already men.

What are you saying, Pursu? He's already met. Where are you, Green? He's met four armed green, skin, 10 foot tall aliens.

He has seen alien creatures burst out of eggs. And he's like, where am I? He's 10 lying. He's seen flying ships. And he's like, what is, yeah?

He's like, which state are we? And here we are on earth. And she's like, no, John Carter, you are on bassoon. His wildest thing. He literally says, I'm on Mars.

His wildest thing is, this must be that Canada. I've heard so much about. Oh, I was like, they're like us, but a little different. Again, they're just treating him as such a dunderhead. Like, I want, I want to just kind of shake him a little bit

and be like, get with the program. Get with the program. We're not, yeah, we're not in Canada. We're not in Montana. Clearly, this is, we got to be able to keep up with this, buddy.

Now, the film is made initially made at Long Cross Studios, which is in London, which, I don't know if you guys have been in London, does not resemble Mars. No, at all. Interesting. Damn, in Dell, who shot this movie?

He's like a big guy would say, like, does a lot of these big kind of production. Basically, the film he makes in between Star Trek and Star Wars The Force Awakens. Yeah, he also shot Star Trek in the darkness. Yes.

He shot amazing Spider-Man 2.

He also shot a little film starring the hottest movie star in the world, Taylor Kitch, savages. Oh, he, this guy got to lens Taylor Kitch so much. He's currently making my most anticipated film of all time, Godzilla X-Cong Supernova. Nice.

He's basically like, the studio was fucking being cheap. We should have shot the entire thing in the four corners, like, you know, Deserti America. Yeah. We eventually did end up there, but it was way too late. So much of it was done on stages.

It doesn't feel textured enough, like he's very anti, like, that they did England stuff.

“It is maybe the best thing this movie has going for it, especially now 14 years on is”

anytime they are in a fucking, like, John Ford, Vista. It's remarkable. You're like, "We don't get this anymore. You don't get people and CGI creatures in a beautiful, organic landscape that isn't the volume."

Yes. So that it starts in Monument Valley and then you're in this alien landscape and wherever they shot it, it just, it feels, it has a realistic texture to it. Going for the Mars version of Monument Valley, I think, is a smart strategy.

we see at the beginning is effective.

But they shot this on film? Yes. There was already the 3D push that they fought up against. Of course, there was one of those last minutes. Six months.

No concessions or adjustments for 3D. But we shot them. Yeah. It's going to be too hard to figure out how to do this. We don't want to do it incorrectly.

Right. I mean, the look of this, I don't think the look of this movie is a problem. Even if what he's saying about the stages, I mean, there are, sort of, like, green screeny bits that you're like, "Okay, that was all to me. I don't think it looks bad."

“I think it looks, I mean, there's a lot of really cool props to go into the screeny bits”

that design. I think all the production design in this movie is good. The way that they move, how, you know, like, Tars, Tarkas gestures with his arms and uses his hands to, like, some of his hands are just her hands and some of them are, like, he'll use all of them in different ways.

One thought I had watching this again this week was like, I know it's John Carter of Mars. But what if it was about Tars? He's kind of my man. Tars of Mars is a winner.

Yeah. You got Willem to, Willem to foe is maybe just, just because I just think he's so locked in and then he gives such a great performance. I want more Tars. I also think it's the single biggest story mistake this movie makes, maybe, is like

having him vanish. I think this Samantha Morton character does not work at all. And I think I passed what they were trying to do, but you're watching it and just going, like, this whole thing should be buddy movie with John Carter. Right.

So that is one of the things that is pretty faithful to the book is that that character, the solo character, has even more screen time in the book. Yes. And has a backstory. They make much more of the backstory of her with Tars and actually, she has a whole

chapter that explains her backs where she tells John Carter her backstory. It's not like him, like I guess in the movie, John Carter just kind of into it's what's going on with like, she's your dog. I see. And I don't, right.

That does not work. And he's like, she's your dog, right? And he's like, how do you know that? Right.

“And I'm like, into it, what the fuck are you doing?”

These creatures are born out of eggs. You literally just went through their hatch, like, how the fuck would you know that? Yeah, they all also not to be racist. Kind of look the same. Yeah.

And then on to post, like, you have successfully guessed that the one in a million,

like, she was kind of raised as my daughter, right. Right. It's true of her. Yes. Anyway.

In the book, that's all literally explained to John Carter by solo. In Colin's talks about this a lot in that 10 years later piece, but that the character was originally a lot flintier and spikeier. Her character or the solo character. Yes.

And that would make sense. There have her be fucking nateri. Yes. And that there were like, you know, the three rounds of reshoots on this movie, basically. And I think when you're calling out the couple little pieces that feel more apparently green

screening, those are like the brief moments that feel like these were the last reshoots. Yeah. What made this cost go up so high is every time they did reshoots versus how they usually do them today where they stick out like sore thumbs. They would just fucking go back and reconstruct the sets or go back to the four corners.

Like they were doing like full production cost, we're just redoing it. Indeed. Of course. Stanton says, when we're a Pixar, we basically make a movie four to seven times.

And I've never been part of a movie where you don't do that because obviously he never made

a live action movie before. Well, the way the stories get this really prepared for you, it would do that.

“And a thing they said at Pixar all the time that I think Steve Jobs sort of passed on”

to them was the goal is to be wrong as quickly as possible. It's not to try to get it right immediately. It's just try to identify the wrong moves fast so that you can correct them. Right. Like you make your animatic, you put your own voice on it, see what works to see what

does. But if you can identify what the problem is, then you can actually solve it. It's not about being a genius who has the whole thing figured out from the beginning. We talked about in the Wally episode that it's one of the biggest kind of like, and certainly the most successful Pixar fuck, I got it wrong.

We have to reanimate mostly finished footage where like less than a year before it comes out, he's like, I fucked this up. I had Eve getting damaged and Wally needing to save her for the last act. And they have to scrap and redo almost everything. That's not like a small change, that affects everything in the plot and then he sort

of was like, oh, and it needed to be this all along and the ripple effect. It's part of Wally was so expensive. It was the most expensive and it made it so much the time. But he's able to point to that and go, guys, I know that was an expensive choice and people would have said good enough, but didn't the results bear out the decision.

Yeah, he's running off of that kind of confidence of, again, this is a real blank check movie. But here's, and Wally was a blank check which was clear and clear with flying colors.

of thing, that you were letting me do just to stay in business with me and that exceeded expectations. I will say one of the ways in which I do think this movie is interesting is as the kind of larger meta allegory of John Carter, the guy from Earth who goes to Mars, Andrew Stanton, the animator, making his first very tentative, very bubbly steps into live action.

There is something that's interesting in that.

“I think it's in the New Yorker piece, but he said when they finally greenlit the movie,”

he was like, I'm going to lose 20 pounds. Yes.

I'm going to run like a mile or two every day and when I'm on set, I'm never sitting

down. I'm never going to my trailer. I so badly want to fight the notion that I'm like an animation guy. Right. He did his face.

Yeah. Right. Right. And look, again, everyone speaks highly of him on set and all that. Now, it is maybe a mistake by him to do an incredibly frank profile in the New

Yorker before the movie comes out in which he talks about the fact that he showed a 250 minute cut of the film to Disney in December of 2011. Okay, so four months before it comes out, the Pixar guys who watch it this meeting immediately are like, we've plus this, we could plus it, you know, like start doing all of that. And like what we're confused by the beginning and the lecture about our Zoom doesn't feel

really personal and the Pixar process obviously would be like, yeah, that was our first

go. Right. And we'll now let's get to work on fixing it. We showed it to you in the story reels stage rather than finish production. Right.

“Honestly, at this point, there's only so much that can be done.”

They do do many re-shoots, Lynn Collins felt like, yeah, as you said, like in the original script, she slaps John Carter a few times. That was a pretty sense of... That was a pretty sense of... She's a warrior.

Yeah. And Disney basically was like, this character comes off too hard, too bitchy, like they soften her at a certain point. She says during the re-shoots, she's just like to Andrew, like, just tell me where to stand and what to do.

I've lost the character, like whatever it is you need for me, I'll do it. There's like 20 minutes of deleted scenes on the blue, right? And it's frustrating because you're like, I know there's an hour and 20 minutes. There's a John Carter, the missing pieces, and I want to see all of it, and I'm sure a lot of the deleted footage is like alternate versions in like a choose your own adventure, book

way of what could have been in the movie. But there's an alternate opening that starts with her, that Lynn Collins is doing the opening narration. The beginnings are difficult times, I don't know. Yes, and then it cuts to her, sort of like meeting with all the leaders trying to sort

of, you know, earn her peace. And then there were several deleted scenes that sort of were more focused on her and this man, the Morton character, where beyond it just being, well, that's from the books. It felt like they were trying to make a sort of parallel story of the two of them, you know, not trying to be defined by their fathers and trying to be leaders.

And when you nerf her character down, the Samantha Morton character just feels like she is there, and the whole time you're to invoke another Simpsons thing, asking where is Tarsarch is? Where is Tarsarch is?

“But also I think when, yeah, with what's her, what's her, what's her, Lynn Collins, but”

what's her character. Stage of course. Stage of course. She also is mostly just there, and it's kind of just a problem of like, we need to get to helium, and then it's like, I'm getting married, and I don't want to get everyone

to stop that. Please. Right. Some interesting quotes that, again, perhaps I might not say to a reporter before my movie comes out.

Demon I'm chasing is, can I figure out what my story is before I run out of time? Feetor's March, you can see my March, you know, he admits like the second act of the movie

I never cracked it, it's sagged, and I would agree, like the second act of this movie is

pretty boring. Yes. First of third acts, more is happening. Like for action's a little better, you know, like right, you know, he end the Pixar brain trust like the reinvention of Carter, the family back story, tortured, Confederate

soldier kind of thing, I don't really think that works, but I get that it's something. This is what's also fascinating is the single most fascinating thing about this movie to me. So when the marketing is in free fall, and the buzz is negative, there are all these stories about to Disney fuck it up or did Stan fuck it up with the marketing.

Was he too confident weighing in too much of, you know, I want the trailer to be soundtrack to the Super Bowl ad was set to cashmere, but the original teaser trailer was Peter Gallagher doing a cover of arcade fires, my body is a cage. It was like all these things in the marketing that were his personal taste, and they were like does this make sense to audiences, but then when Disney threw something out, that

didn't work either. So one of the hell Mary past things they do for the marketing is they're like, how do we get people to like understand Andrew Stan's track record and invest in the idea of him as a filmmaker? He does a TED talk where he is, the story of the finding emo thing.

of all the other babies scattered as flashbacks across the movie, and the audience didn't like him. And that when he stopped being clever structurally and put it at the beginning, they understood his tragedy and then they were with him the rest of the way. And he while promoting this movie points out, I learned a very important lesson about story

telling that day, and then this movie does the opposite thing. This movie does the why is John Carter so angry, why does he have so much contempt for the military? Why does he want to fight any more? Why does he want to run away and we're just going to keep giving you little flashes

“and focusing on the ring and something bad happened?”

You know it. It's not a surprise when it comes, but it's what he talks about learning with finding an emo of if you let the audience experience it with the character, they feel it. It's not like it's a satisfying twist ending to be all oh shit, something bad happened to him.

It's if you can dramatically pull that scene off correctly, then the audience is endeared to that character.

And this movie has the moment where it finally all is shown to you, is an abstracted flashback

in the middle of what is his biggest action scene. Big action. Where he's. Which. Layling wildly.

It's like an interesting concede. It's a very much right. Wow, that's a big idea. It's a big idea. But it's like defeating emotionally.

I think it is and I really, it's like the fact that it's his wife and child. Yeah. Do they burn up where they kill? We don't really know. You don't even fully explain it, but they show their show.

No, it's just like watching and I'm like, yeah, I'm just kind of bummed out right now. I'm feeling very triumphant. But this is the finding. Emothing up. If you start with that and then you get it out of the way and then the movie's fun.

Sure. We can ride with it. Drop it in the middle. It bumps us out. And the scene that should be exciting then becomes really heavy.

I watched that TED talk and there is a lot of stuff around the build up to this movie of storytelling. The importance of stories and being a good storyteller and here is the secret. We at Pixar have cracked the secret of good storytelling which at the time as Pixar fans we were all like, yeah, you have.

You did. But then you watch this movie and there are all these strange story choices that don't work that aren't in conversation with each other, which is the thing about the Pixar Golden Run is that these things feel so holistic and so tight and they don't feel algorithmic and you saying David, like, why would he admit all this shit in a fucking

New Yorker? Right.

He has always been a very frank interview subject.

Which is great.

“And I think he likes the idea of being a bit of an open source filmmaker like the guys”

grew up with where he's explained the process and Pixar is so at the tip of DVD special features. We're showing you our mistakes and it's like this is part of creativity as you get things wrong and then you learn. And I think he's doing that because he's also assuming it's going to turn out the way

the last two did. Right. It always works out before. I know that things didn't work and then we figured out the last moment because the end of the article is like, it tested pretty well.

We just held our first test screening, we got a 75 Disney rounded that up to an 80 because it was unfinished and like there's the hubris of like you're hearing that and you're like, well, that doesn't sound that good. That sounds okay. 100.

Right. Nine should at least be involved. Right. The iterative process, which when he gets tagged a little with is this guy coming in way to cocky.

Yeah. And again, it is this guy and he had this incredible success. Yeah. Not just as a direct. I mean, you look at all the movies he helped write.

This is Pixar. He kind of was like this guy who had the magic touch who was probably been all over. He made a serious effort to re-establish this in every episode on this series.

“It is really important to understand that he was the story guy at Pixar, that he is credited”

with being, he was the best in-house screenwriter, he's the one who always was cracking

this stuff, taking the lead on the script, launching the original idea. Right. But ironically, this movie, it has some good things in it. There are aspects. I like, it's not a good story.

No. Not really. We have been really talked about, I mean, like, we barely talked about the thirons, which are a huge part of this movie that makes absolutely no sense. It's the reshoot opening and what feels like such a clear reshoot of we start with a big

action sequence after a Willem Dafoe voiceover of like two warring parties that look silly. And they look so much alike. We don't know why. We don't know why. Talking grimly, and you don't know what's going on, and then it cuts to the actual

superstructure of the movie, which is the Edgar Rice Burrows thing, that this is a dramatization of the author of the book, who is now changed into the nephew of the character, who

Yes.

But then once you've done that, and then the story starts with John Carter on Earth.

So it's like a rushing nesting doll thing. Yes. Some of the structure in terms of Burrows and finding his manuscript. That is from the books. Like that is something that he took from the books.

But again, this notion of the the thirons, and like, what are they doing? Why are they doing it? Why do we care? What do they want? You know, eventually there is that scene where Mark Strong does get to kind of explain what

he is doing and why, but his explanation is wholly unsatisfying, and it doesn't clarify anything. And you're like, you know, every, there's all these scenes because again, John Carter is a guy who jumps a lot. It's like, why don't they just kill this guy?

And every time Dominic West is about to zap him, he's like, no, let him live.

“You must further study him, and you're sitting there going, they even have Dominic West”

being like, what's the point of all this if I can't use this thing and you're like, he's right. Why can't he just kill this guy? What is the explanation? There it is.

It's just kind of tuned as like our plans are measured in centuries. But like the thirons don't make sense because they like a parasitic, they say they like manage the destruction of planets, they like to manipulate, they're just for like, they're in it for the shit's and they're in it for the wall, but they get their hands dirty. What's this?

Soon, the Benedict, that's because that's kind of the thing. I mean, I guess so, that's, that's what he sort of explains when he's in exploit Mark Strong's character, of course. In doing this character is what? Tysheng.

Yes. To do this, they have a goal that they actually explain. And here it's just, we're going to, yeah, these people are going to rule because we say so.

It's a little league of shadowsy from Batman of kind of like, we're always behind

the sea. Yes. We write, we're like, we're in charge of the ends of civilization and they're also in the movie. They actually are watching and doing things on earth and they're immortal and they live

forever. They're, they only have one weakness being shot one right, which happens to different times in the movie, where these unkillable immortal beings are like, they sneak up behind John Carter and he shoots them once and they fall dead, they meet him 10 gone. Let's also consider, he's like, I don't want to do the thing where the movie has to

“start with an endless like, speel of at the beginning, there was Yada Yada Yada, right?”

And he's like, the Edgarized Burrows thing is a way to ease us into it to create a sense of mystery. What was happening here? It's giving us a slightly more relatable character, a more modern, sort of normal, dude.

And then we sort of like slowly ease into all of this. And then they do the screening and Pixar is like this, we just like too much fucking happening because in that version, he shoots the guy in the cave and then Mark's strong doesn't appear until like an hour and a half into the movie and start explaining stuff. And they're like, this is too much to drop to late, so then they come up with the new opening

where you hold open with him and the idea that something's going on here. And as admitted in the New Yorker piece, that realization that that needed to be an opening, necessitated 18 new scenes, they were like the ripple effect of this is, if this is happening here, then this is this and this is this and Disney's like, okay, well, right, you would check for more re-shoots, right, because Disney is essentially like, you were on budget

and on time, you know, the first time, yeah, like, the shoot was not a prop at all, right? And, and you made successful films, and now you're saying you need re-shoots and that's kind of how you do it at Pixar right in the air, right?

So I guess the answer is yes. And please, even saying, I'm here to sort of try to show

Hollywood why our movies work, right? Why our process makes sense and that more movie should

“be like this. Let's iterate. Let's just like, right, you need to, yeah, it's about seeing”

the whole thing and then going back and circling back. And what's fascinating to me is that everyone goes like, hey, dude, you fucked up, this doesn't work in live action, go back to your animation corner. And then immediately it feels like the studio start making movies this way all the time, like, but cheaper, like, where the re-shoots are not quite as, they're lazy off to right. And they're just sort of like the first shoot is going to be almost a drive.

That's your, that's your first drive. And we're right. We'll make that a lot simpler and a lot shorter. And if we don't have a finished script, then let's just go what we need to get speaking to those kinds of movies that are coming. You do watch this and you're like, I guess I realize why every Marvel movie ended with them needing to close a portal and get a bunch of guys because it's just kind of like the audience can grapple with these clear video gamey goals

very easily. Whereas I'm watching John Carter and that's before we get to the epilogue,

what does he need to do and what will that accomplish? Right. Like I get to Mark Strong is bad.

“Yes. Although I'm not totally sure how you co-hemmed because you didn't want to watch it on the”

way or the gun. I'm aware that you could shoot full of clicks. Yeah. But then I'm like, is Dominic West good or bad? I'm bad, I guess. He's pragmatic. He's pragmatic. He's sometimes he spends a lot of the movie being like, I love you, Deja Thoris. I might, you can kill me. If you want, it takes my blade. And then at the end of the movie, John Carter shows up and he's like, don't do it. Yeah. Like, he's not a, he's not a bad guy. But you're also like,

clearly the movie doesn't want. He's me. Right. I'm never married. Right. And like this wedding,

your, you know, Mark Strong is like, of course, after they've exchanged their vows, we'll kill her. And that'll be the final step in us taking control of her city. And I'm like, why? Right. He's like, they fall out of that. And I'm like, why would that be good for you? Like, that you killed the princess or what? He doesn't really explain it except for the sort of like, I'm the puppet master and everything I do works out, you know. Your question then,

this is a perfect example to me of a movie that does the exact wrong amount of explaining. You either need to explain way more or way more. Or just like, don't worry about it. Either you need to have a real specific answer that you can eventually sell us on. Or you just need to be like, for century these two species have been waging work. And just go like, they've just been fighting different. And they don't like each other. Right. And instead they keep getting into it. And you're like,

I still don't think I have my arms around it. I know you're telling me stuff. And I never quite

engage with like, do the red Martians and green Martians hate each other or just not vibe. Right. Because they're not actually a war with each other, but they don't like each other. Yes. But the red Martians are are at war with the the ferns. But it also is a Martian. The serns are just kind of manipulating everyone to what end. Even we all make fun of fucking unobtenium. Right. To your point of like, we make fun of the portal in the sky. We need the thing that's there. Yes. It's the reason these

movies do this. Is they're just like, there is just one thing we're fighting over. Right. And

“this, you're like, what is the technology? There are so many stuff going around. What do they want to do?”

The thing is sort of the ninth ray, but yeah, don't again. They don't make it clear what exactly is doing it and how it works. Where you get it. Stages just Thoris has discovered it also in the beginning of the movie. And she's giving a like a PowerPoint presentation. And they're treating her like someone who's like, I found something called an, you know, they're making this up or it's just for their science. There's a thern in disguise, which is another aspect of the therns that we

may not have even mentioned, which is they can look like anyone and be anywhere. Yes. And then he like zaps her ninth ray with his ninth ray. Yes. And destroys it. And then somehow, you know, like everyone, again, no one believes her. And then she's going to have to marry Dominic West. And yeah, it's just that, that's also acknowledge. She's an inventor. And we need to shut that out. She makes a book of, she's a woman instead. And she's a woman instead. We haven't discussed

Lynn Collins. I saw on letterbox that you praised her performance in this film in a prior,

let me read. When I first came, you, you've revisited this movie a couple times though. We noted

that you given it a couple, a couple at bats on letterbox. I keep trying. I keep trying. Yeah. Because I, because again, I like Andrew Stanton. Yeah. And I, this just feels like the kind of movie I should like. And there's stuff in it that works. And there is stuff in it that works like Tars, Tarkis, and the design of it. I do kind of like going to Mars. Yes. It's a Mars dog works. Yeah. Well, we haven't mentioned Woola who actually is a very good boy and is very like a boy.

“I agree that he's a good boy. Yeah. He is kind of in and out of the movie. Yes. I remember the”

marketing being like, get ready to meet. Well, that was also last gas marketing. We're going to dismiss a little moment to like wait. Should we go to the work? It's just work. Right. What are the things that are testing well? And he was probably one of the few. It's funny that he's like an alien dog with a lot of legs and he's really fast. It does also mean that sometimes the movie is just like zip and he's gone and then he's just back. That is, that is shockingly pretty faithful to

the book. Sure. He kind of like will tell him to stay somewhere and he'll just wait there sadly with the puppy dog phase. And then a few scenes later, John Carter will be in trouble and who will save him. Woola will come to the rescue. So that, I mean, that is kind of, again, it speaks to like the episodic nature of the book. The book was written as episodic. It was written as just to rely on the whole magazine. Yes. So it didn't have like a superstructure of it's the story of John Carter

doing this. It was, it was the continuing adventures of John Carter wandering the string. You're some new cool. It was an ethnographic report on the strange lost civilization on this other planet.

to try to adapt the first 30 issues of Spider-Man literally. Right. Because it was not written in a

form that that helps you in adapting to a closed loop narrative. You know, you more like extract

“the feeling. But Lynn Collins. Lynn, who I know from three things. I think when I'm looking,”

I mean, obviously, she's got other credits. But it's like, she's on six episodes of the first scene. She's in a troupe. Yes. Like, she is out of that season before the season wraps. But it was a buzzy show. It was the very buzzy show. And she was like the bombshell. And she was the big hottie, although the first season of troupe, like all subsequent seasons of troupe is insane. And people die all the time kind of randomly. Like, and as, which is what happens to her. And then

like, she's an X-Men origins Wolverine next year. She's the also she's another. She's another X-Men

origins Wolverine. And it was sort of like, who is this? How did this? It had a little bit of this sort of like, the studio being like, we found our next fucking Hugh Jack, right? And I must I must acknowledge the heelest of our fox. I must acknowledge. She gets to give him the name the Wolverine. Is that what you're going to say? No, no, no, no, to your great consternation and frustration. I must acknowledge she was a graduate of jewelry art. She was from

the way. So when she is discovered, it is also like, this is a serious actor. Yeah, she has shops. You know, she's in the Michael Radford Merchant of Venice movie without Pacino as Portia,

“which is an incredibly important role in 2004 when she's barely been in anything. Yeah, I have”

not seen that movie. Either way. Like, there's no, Pacino gives a subtle sense of performance as Shilop, the money lender. That was one where I, I look, I saw the post I saw his like this feels like an attack on my people. I study Merchant of Venice in school. I know the play very

well, I've never seen the movie. I should watch it. I just look at it. I know. Yeah, it was one of

those movies that was DO. Yeah, obviously. Yeah. But like, that she had that role, unless she stinks in it, which is possible. I should watch it. Like, that's definitely that's a sign of some chops. It feels like, you know, a couple years later than she know, discovers. Well, she's very good in book. Yeah, I haven't seen them in a long time. I remember her being to add. But she's in a number 23, although not in a big role. I don't think she plays number two.

What do you remember? That, it's not that I remember, but just a couple years after Merchant of Venice, Pacino discovers Jessica Chastine, similarly, who is a jewelry art person, he does the wild, salamay, salamay thing with her. And then it takes her a couple of years for the industry to sort of like accept her. But it felt like both of them were a similar, like, Pacino has found a young female jewelry art bombshell, who he is working into the classics

and presenting as I approve of this person. I think they have the goods, which like, by all means out, like, that's fine. I don't like Xmanargin's Wolverine. It's a dog ship movie. I remember her role being incredibly faintless in it. It's totally soft. I do not remember her being good at all in it. Like, she's like, she's a, she's a blank in that movie. She's a hat. She's forced to explain a dream

“that involves a Wolverine. Cool. That, that's how he gets the name, the Wolverine. She's like,”

one of those lame powers, she's, she's a human, you're like, oh, this is his human love interest. His tragic love interest before he became Wolverine. And then the reveal at the end is that she's a mutant who's powers that she can emotionally manipulate people, which feels like, if she's a, she touches you. It's a woman who can make you just like, no, it's, it's will I am who has the hat. I'm sorry. Will I am has that? Will I am character was, I, I got cut by

him and he, and he's in the movie. She's in the movie playing a role. His character's name is Blink, and he can teleport. Like my crawler? Yeah, he's not saying. No, he's not saying. No, he's not saying. John Rath. He's right. Yeah, he's not. The whole thing with Xmanargin's Wolverine was you could tell that Marvel was like, they were like, can we have Blink and they were like, we don't even want to give you Blink. You can have, uh, and like, just dug in the bucket.

It's also John Rath. It feels lanterns where they're like, no one will wear a costume. Everyone is wearing a leather jacket. Totally. Dominic Moynihan plays a guy who can turn light bulbs on, which character is he. So he is really Bradley. He's, yes, he's Chris Bradley who was sort of known as Maverick is how I would know. He had been initially announced to be playing Bik who is a great Morris and characters who's like a living bird. Yes. And then I bet you someone was like,

we'd have to like put a bird face on him. Can you just be someone who turns off light bulbs?

whose mutant power is he's good at shooting guns. Yeah. Yeah. This movie sucks. Like, Agent Zero's power is guns. Deadpool's power is sort. Like, you know, like, look, X-Men can teleport Wolverine. It is, it is neither Lynn Collins nor Taylor Kitches fault,

but for the infinite trust I had in Andrew Stanton, the first warning sign was,

I've announced my two leads. I've discovered the stars of tomorrow. Both of them are in the cast of X-Men origins for free. I was like, I feel like we should treat that movie as like a three-mile island state where it all costs, especially since it ends on three mile island. Yes. It sure does. It's also feeling thrilling and coherent. That movie is not in it. No, he's in it, but like, on Saber Tooth is like he has sideburns in a jacket. He's played by Leipzig.

“And some small fingernails. You should Google Leipzig, like, running with Leipzig tooth,”

and I'm going to watch your face as you watch this man jumping like a dog. He's like, I kind of like, like, like, like a dog gallop face. He's got a take, but it's also funny that

already less than 10 years in the X-Men franchise was like, we're just reckoning everything.

Now, here's Saber Tooth who is nothing like the previous Saber Tooth and is also his brother. Yes. This is true. Do we think Lynn Collins is good in John Carter? I don't think she's bad. I think the care I do does not work at right now. It's kind of the same thing with Taylor Kitch, where it's like, I don't necessarily dislike her. The problems are sort of putting her into this role, which has all these these issues. The structure of it is way off.

I find like, I don't really get the accent she decided on. This kind of like vaguely English regally kind of accent. I mean, she hits it harder than I remembered. I'll give you that. She's also kind of similar to Natalie Permanent and tack of the clones as we talked about. Yes. She's like brown.

Like, or well, hey, bronze. She's red because she's a red. She's a red wife kept being like,

what's she supposed to be? And I was like, red Martian and my wife was like, and that is, and I was like, what do you want for me? I don't know. I mean, like, desert tea, I guess. It's the idea if everyone is like bright red, which makes them look like aliens, even though they are otherwise humanoid. It is visually distinctive. I feel like stand communicates that it, they thought it would feel a little silly and they wanted to make it a little more grounded.

They end up at heavily tanned. They end up in this kind of way. It's like, make a trolley tattoo. No, I also feel like. It's just the only college student who went to Morocco and still thinks they can do like that. Yeah. It's unspoken, but I have to imagine part of their concern was like, if they are bright red and two-caked and tribal stuff, do we get into touching Native American territory? I suspect that that was a consideration.

“Where they end up in trying to avoid that almost feels more uncomfortable?”

I would agree. And I think, you're right, it's very pat my words, like, what is your weird, like, mid-Atlantic accents? What is this skin tone? What are we culturally pulling from? None of this is her fault. He kind of makes the stalwarts decision of like all of the aliens and the villains are British, right? Like the humanoid, the sort of, they're coded to kind of the Roman Empire to the point people from the wrong TV show on HBO. To the point where, right,

I do think like Mark Strongkir and Hind's dominant quest, James Pierfoy, like, can we at least remove one of these guys? Like, you've got maybe too many kind of UK iraith-- You're the type of pig-based meat on one slice of pizza. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, David Schwimmer's in this. I think just like a cameo in the dark, because he's another random person who loves John Carter, and that bro also got the little cameo. All right, I watched this. What do you think? What do you think?

Good stuff. Stings. You see, you see his fucking meal, he grows, he grows. He, and he, this is a movie that is so obsessed with not doing any goofy comic book stuff that they're like, well, you can't just have Saber Tooth be a big WWE wrestler with like a main of yellow hair and like being so groaring. And you're like, why? Everyone liked that. And they're like, no, he's a guy who like talks quietly in his nails grow. It'll just grow and he wears a black

duster. But then anytime it does something like him running on all fours, you're like, well, now that's twice as silly, because you haven't built a movie that can support comic booky shit.

“Yeah. It's so bad. It's so weird. Have you, you haven't seen this movie?”

I truly was thinking when you're talking about it. I mean, love Wolverine. Yeah. He's my guy. Wolverine. I don't remember this at all. This is another fan of his death thing. He's got a Google and other thing that they have to Google in a battle. Yeah, final battle, Deadpool. And you got to see what they make Deadpool. So Ryan Reynolds really wanted to play Deadpool like early on. He called

into X-Men Origins Wolverine. This is a good launching pad. But it's going to be early Deadpool before he really becomes Deadpool. So he's just Wade Wilson, a work with a man who looks like Ryan Reynolds. He's Ryan Reynolds with a red tank top who's got double swords. Yes. And then

“they decide, fuck, he popped in the first act. Right. He's the only thing people like in this movie.”

And we dispense of him. So they do extensive reshoots to make Deadpool the villain at the end of the movie where they've kidnapped Deadpool and tortured him and made him into like a mega mutant. We're now he has like seven different powers. Yes. Cyclopses, autopsy class. He has teleport to two arms. He can teleport. Just like John Ray, everyone's favorite teleport. Exactly. And Ryan Reynolds is like, I was the top to do this. So Scott Adkins legendary. The great Scott Adkins,

martial artist, King of the DTV action movie is in Ryan Reynolds make up as mouthless Deadpool, which is a joke to spite the fans of, well, Deadpool is famously the Merc with a mouth.

Danny Houston, the second of four actors to play William Strikeers. He's been a lot.

He's been a fair, why won't you shut up, Wade? And so when they do all these weird operations on him, the first thing they do is so his mouth shut. Right. You know, that thing that everyone hates when Deadpool can make jokes or actions. To be fair, I did grow to hate it. We do hate it, but it has made villains. I'm going to say confidently that John Ray, the

“aka Maverick, is, I know, those are two different people. John Ray, fake, aka what? What's his name?”

I don't know. Ray might just be, I think his name is Ray. Maverick is Maverick was exactly. Dude, I can't watch this anywhere. This is dog shit. Yeah, they know. He is called Maverick. You guys are thinking, you guys already forgot what the other guys are. Why is this? This is no goodness.

They had made the third ex-man and they were like, that is the proper end to the tragedy.

He was also known as Maverick. There we go. Wow, they did it for both. That's true. That's true. The Wikipedia says, John Ray's, the name is real history. They were like, X-Men was a trilogy. We are done. And the ongoing future of the X-Men franchise is doing spin-off origin movies. We're going to do everyone's back story. Magnetians, this one bombs so hard. They take the script for X-Men origins, colon magneto, and retrofit that into first class.

Yes. The sort of Nazi hunting scene. I was supposed to be able to pull it off. Yeah. Kind of pull it off.

“That movie, kind of. I think Ray is, okay, so the most famous X-Men new teleports is Knight Crawl. Obviously.”

Number two is Blink. That would be Blink. Blink was a very popular character for a while then. Yeah. Number three, with a bullet, I'm going for magic. I was going to say magic as to be number three. Dimensionally travel. Yes. And she has a cool soul. Number four. Let's talk about him. Night crawlers. We're brother Azazal. Is that you say it? I don't know where anyone else is. Or is Azazal? He can do kind of like Ray's teleport. And I say Azazal. Number five, we could do it. Which is him. Like he's a net

teleport. But it's red because he read instead of red pleas. Red pleas. Yeah. And Mystique is his mom. Yeah. That's true. Number five. I think it's got to be Pixie. Pixie. Pixie. She was hot in the 2010s or whatever. Yes. Like Matt Frachner. I think I'm comfortable putting John Ray fit six. Good. Right. Even though he got anyone that would go above him. Everyone else listed with teleporting powers are people like Hope Summers who just copy

other powers or people like Apocalypse who just kind of have like all that. It's a bonus. Right. Yes. That's like 20th power. It's also funny. And then we're going to close the loop on X-Men origins Wolverine. Maybe we were just counting X-Men. Right. X-Men universe. Right. Because like Lockjaw is obviously. Right. It's a better marvel. And you know what? There was that gateway character who was being made. So maybe he's made Ray's down to A. Ray's got to

be gay Mark the Shavaba. She makes starporting starportals. That's true. But she's not really X-Men. No. I think if we're opening it up tomorrow. Yeah. They're like so afraid of letting any of these characters become a bookie. But they also include blob who had been cut out of all three mainline X-Men movies up until that point. They do. But I feel like their take on blob is like he's large has suit on like has like a makeup suit on. But like he's not actually blobby.

He's kind of tough. You don't want to take is rather than blob's power being like this endless kind of growth of mass that it like has so much power behind it. They're like he was a guy who's power was bulletproof skin and then he let himself go. So rather than let it take, I forgot to be like an extension of a mutant evolution. They're just like this guy just eats too much junk food now. Yes. Wolverine served with him in the war and he was really cut and then he goes to a boxing

gym. He's still fat at even cheetahs. And they're not fat jokes for five minutes. Yes. Many of the

ones they give him a voice. It's kind of happened. Kevin Durand, who I always enjoy. Lovely actor. Like

No, no, no. Meet them later when they suck. We'll meet them before they'll see them for two minutes

“at the start. And then later he'll rebuild a team but you don't know anything of them. You only see”

them before they figure their thing out and after they're washed off. And then we kill them. Oh, they kill them. Yeah. They're all right. So who cares? Right. Oh, so we didn't work. Yeah. Here's another story as she this movie has in my friend Thomas Hedenchurch is the bad uh uh yeah, it's hard. He's doing a voice. It doesn't even sound like him, really. No, does it? He's kind of

powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You basically give John Carter the Dorothy Wizard of Oz thing of all I

want to do is get home. I don't want to be here. Right before I got teleported, I discovered a cave full of gold. Yes. I was running away from the cavalry. They were saying to me, but now I'm about to be so rich save my city become our warrior and he's like, where is the exit? Get like I want the gold cave. It's not just I miss your home, but he keeps getting all the gold. He's like, I was a minute away from being a millionaire and owning, you know, the railroads and whichever,

which you already know he succeeded in doing because when Ned Burroughs is called to his dead

uncle's estate, you see that he is now a very wealthy man. Oh, and we know for sure he is definitely

dead, right? Oh yeah, when he really sells. He's so weird. His tomb can only be opened from the inside. It's almost like it's a weird puzzle thing. Anyway, here are the books. He's the picture of Vimmin Vigger. Yeah. Not five before he passed. He's just funny how Taylor Ketch again, 29 when he makes this movie. He's like the performance of him being like, call for my doctor. He might as well get the attorney to what you're out of the deal and it's like very well. I do love any movie where they create the

device of this thing will make you look dead for 15 minutes. A little thing. Pufferfish.

“Pufferfish. It's a venom of a pufferfish. Is that it? I don't even know. Is that a thing? Can we?”

I would look. I think in the days before EKG's heart rate monitors, possibly you could suggest a coma. Right. There were more. I don't know. There were more primitive versions of Nyquill and people

would just accept it. I've never seen someone sleep that hard. You've got to think if they were

real, the jackass guys would have used it in one of their movies at this point. It would be an incredible actual prank to be like, okay, the final prank of Knoxville died. Do you think the jackass five jackass best in last? Yes, which is coming out shortly after this episode's really. It's coming up pretty soon. The trailer dropped today. It's dropping this. Do we think they try to do a flat liners? That does feel like the final front here. Kill me and then bring me back. Can we do it? It would be,

it would be appropriate given the theme of this is the last one. Best of all. I do feel like I worry about them like the sort of narrative they're putting forward with it of like we know that as the last one this has to be like the biggest one ever. I'm just like, I really just enjoy it. Same. Y'all being together and have fun. Like I don't need you actually to try and top

“yourself your older. Like I think your your physical peaks have passed. We don't actually want them”

to die. We enjoy their kind of not only not die, it's just like whatever. Like just have fun guys. We read on that situation is that that was very much their intent for four. Right. COVID fucks with four. Exactly. And so I think Knoxville and crew got a little itchy and we're like, we didn't really get to do everything we wanted to do one full. And people loved four. Four is really good. They got a lot of suddenly now everyone the critically, every every jackass movie has gotten

better reviews than the one before. It is the funniest thing this phenomenon in jackass is the best example of it where the fourth movie comes out is a New York Times critics pick and also it said obviously not as good as the earlier entries. Right. You're like all of these were trashed at the time. Oh, it was seen as a sign of a declining culture by older. Right. So anyway, puffer fish venom we're going to taste it. Yeah. Right. No, but you put it in the Spider-Man coffee. You just didn't

mention it. Yes. So we're all about to attain a certain. Yeah. Cometo state,

him has been made. This is a thing the movie. It's so big. It has been out of a tar weirdly. It's a bit of a little like your body's actually on earth. Well, they say they sent a copy just like a telegraph, which is not how telegraph works, which is very a very funny explanation where he's like it's like a telegraph. That's a copy and you're like, that's not out there. That's a 1912 shit. This is stupid to even ask. Yeah. But we see that when he comes back to his body that the kernel is like bones.

Yeah. Yeah. And he's been there for really long time to see his pants. Which question does

his heart is it? And the first breaches, his junk heart's breaches just full. I mean, I can't

be eating. Yeah. But I've said he's just been laying there. Yeah. He's not in a regular. What are the rules? Well, we don't know. But we're not in a regular coma. He's in like a, your, your spirit and body have been transported to Mars. So maybe he is truly like just frozen in times. Right. And not it's fascinating because it's a regular coma. You do poo. Yeah. It's all happening. But it feels like a prestige where, oh, at this moment, a new version of you is being made that is

“birthed at this other spot. God. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's what it's like. We built a thing. We've”

placed it there. And now we're going to transfer your consciousness. Yeah. And there's one consciousness going in between the two. But in this it is at this moment, you are copied. That copy is sent

there. Right. And your consciousness is being transferred. But I think copy is misleading because

his earth body is just lying in the cage. Right. So it's not copy sort of suggests like there are two John Carter's walking around on two planets. You know what I mean? They're two John Carter's but only one of them can walk at a time. There's just one then, really. The other one bodies though. It needs the, the body needs to exist. There's one, the one Carter two cups. And which one's pooping? I'm just kidding. Give me a big old rumpel stills compared. Yeah. I did. That would be the same thought

which is why isn't, yeah, shouldn't you have a big old bushy beer anyway. And also maybe have like birds that built a nest on his head. And can he wake up in the 80s? Can he like wake up with the beard and be like, where am I? And then he hears like Bondi on those like someone's like they're a cool guy. And he keeps his head out and he's in the back of a Sam goodies. Oh, good idea. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, no, maybe, maybe I do that.

Maybe, yeah, I do like when he wakes up back on earth and there's like crackling noises. Yeah. He's all dusty. I mean, that is kind of fun. And yeah, he looks over in Bryan Cranston's a skeleton man. That's kind of fun. I like the Cranston sequence. I like the him constantly

“trying to escape and getting put in more and more restraint. The Cranston sequence is fine. I think the”

movie. It's interesting. It's like the Mars adventure ends with him, the falling in love with Deja Thoris. Getting married, which I would say daring her becoming the Prince of Helium, a little honor that they get there that is fucking complete. They only get married. I feel like because they're like, I mean, all the wedding shits all right here. So I guess we'll do that. They're a space ball. They've kissed one time and plied because he forgot he wasn't talking to his dead wife and he immediately

walks away in a politics. And then like it feels like six hours later they're there. Their chemistry is not right. It feels like they got they get married in the movie because they get married in the books and they probably get married in the books because it's like, well, you're a dirty single woman. I'm doing you a favor. It's 1912. Yes, in the books they get married and then even though they

don't describe it. This is like literally one paragraph. They say like 10 years past. He basically

they're there. He lives there for 10 years. They have a egg not even a full bone. Like they don't she doesn't give birth to a child like a baby. She somehow they don't get into the details. Produces an egg and the egg is about to be born when he is pulled back to earth in the book. And there's this whole thing that is again, not in the movie at all involving the atmosphere factory that creates the air of Mars where it stops working. They've established earlier in the

book this atmosphere factory. And if it ever goes down, there's going to be a big problem. At the end of the book, it goes down. He heroically goes to save it or like repair it. He's the

“only one who can do it. He knows the secret password that can open the unopinable door because he's”

awesome. The secret password of Ned. Yes, he opens. Thank you. He opens the door and is like, Misty, he doesn't even understand why he's like sucked back to earth. And then has to figure out how to get back to his wife and his unborn child. And that's the end of the book. It ends on like a huge cliffhanger, which this one really doesn't. The other thing about the marriage, which we haven't mentioned one time, I feel like we should at least mention his in the book. He and everyone

is naked on Mars. Oh, sure. He shows up totally naked. Oh, well, they describe how all the

The book is everyone's just running around with, you know, their hogs hanging out and whatnot.

Most of the visual sort of history, cultural memory of John Carter is from when Frink for Zeta does a bunch of additions of Frink for Zeta's like sort of the main Conan artist, you know, that sort of classical kind of oil painting barbarian look. And they were very scantily clad. Like it was sort of like Deja Thoris is wearing like a ribbon. Keenie. Yes, very strong. John Carter's wearing like the the skimpiest loincloth. And so that was

another thing we're saying was like that would look silly. It can't be that cheesecakey. I think the furthest this movie could successfully go and Selmy is that by the end of the movie, he's identified

“that he's fallen for her that they have a connection and then he gets zap back and that's why”

he wants to go back. Sure. You can't sell me by the end of it. They've settled. We're obviously madly in love with each other. I'm ready to be here forever. Right. I mean, because that is the movie is like right. The triumph is he's decided to be John Carter of Mars. Yes. He's going to throw away the middle. He's going to like he this is it. His new life is here in the kingdom where he now lives right. The medallion that he sometimes is like he literally leaves behind and places like

and in other times is like desperately like scrambling to grab it. There's such a focus shot when he's jumping away the first time at the medallion there. And I go, oh, right. So the movie is going to be he doesn't realize this is valuable and the rest of the film is he has to get the medallion back. No, which feels like a cleaner thing to track in terms of us saying like what is the movie? Like what are the stakes? What is he gunning for? If it's, oh, he left the fucking ruby slipper's behind.

Yeah, just give it to Dominic West have him have it the whole order to get back to the gold cave.

“He's got to get the medallion and that's what's driving him the whole movie. That's what keeps him in”

the battle. Stand like a year or two after this movie came out was like, well, seems like they're

never going to be sequels. I'll tell you some of the stuff I was thinking and posted like the

logos for the sequels and his opening for the second film, which was it was going to open with the story of John Carter being told. And then the reveal that it was Deja Thor's telling it to their son. Okay. And that's like opening title, then it cuts to John Carter like in the coffin, net activating him, him going back up. He gets there many years of past Deja and the son of gone missing. And the movie is him trying to find them and then discovering the atmosphere machine.

Okay. Right. So it feels like it rushes to the wedding because he's already like designing out. I want to start with the kid. Look, this is fucking trilogy-brained bullshit that blocked up the 2000s. But whereas it's bringing up one more time avatar. Yep. The end of avatar, they shoot the villain that you hate full of arrows until he dies. Which rocks? And I clap into here. Yeah. Humans leave. Home tree is saved. They was hurt us. Yeah. Great. And it's like,

well, what will the sequels be? And it's like, we'll figure it out later. I don't care. Right. You need an ending and a sense of triumph. And here the triumph is like, well, we definitely took Mark strong off the board and I'm like, okay. And I get to be the prince. And you're like, a prince of healing. What does that mean? I don't know. Look, I've decided to live on Mars.

“That's what's important. 10 to 15 years of this as a fucking cancer in the industry. And I blame”

Lord of the Race for a whole of it. And it's so annoying that they never stepped back and went,

oh, right. But Lord of the Rings was a trilogy of books that worked on paper. We were adapting a thing that was rock solid versus any time there was a new attempt at a franchise whether it was adapted from something or original. It was littered with all of these threads that were and that's going to be really important in the second movie. Right. The third movie is going to pay that off. Right. And there was a lot of I think backlash against this movie that was the anger from audiences

having seen this 15 times already of I don't want to watch the movie that's telling me how good the next movie is going to be. I make the fucking movie right now. This problem moved to TV obviously, which, you know, it has its own similar issues. It's the thing that Marvel cracked that helped for a while, which is, oh, Thor 1 doesn't need to be setting up Thor 2. No, Thor 1 and he sets up Thor 2 by Exiephore. Right. Right. And then what it's setting up is

your continued investment in the Marvel universe. This tease of Captain America. Right. And the the sequels to each sub franchise are kind of standalone. Yes. They aren't feeding off of the things set up here or there or whatever. It's more just the larger buy-in. You feel like you're kind of getting a complete meal. And then they're teasing you with what the next meal is. A lot of the ones that don't work or the ones that avoided that. And instead, try to make it to heavy on lore.

I don't think about being evil. He's still thinking about it. He's still thinking about it. Like, 10 years later, he's like, maybe. He shows it tells agent calls once a week, once a month,

“once a year. I heard you guys doing an Avengers movie. He'll be in that one, right?”

What about Mordo? And you still own his ass? Like, you still have him under contract. Why don't you go to be a Baron? Okay. My Jettix. Jettix. Jettix. Jettix. Anything else we want to talk about as far as John Carter or anything from movie. John haven't covered with John Carter of Mars. Ah, there's nothing else I want to talk about. I haven't seen this

movie three times, I think. Same. I have always thought that it's an impressive swing that doesn't

work. The 45 minutes to an hour every time I watch it, I'm like, does this work? There's nothing about it that I out and out hate? Shame. There's very little of it that I love them. Like, there's nothing that I'm like, I'm unambiguously into that. And like, there's a good amount of stuff I like. I would agree that there's nothing I love. Like, Jupiter ascending, which also has like flying bug ships, right, is much more my vibe. Same. Because like that one just as much as it's

silly and insane. There's a little bit of a better idea giving you like the power struggles. I agree. And it's simplifies them. Every performance is big. It's also bigger. It's like more obambass. It's messier, but it doesn't. And it has that witchowski. I don't give a fuck thing. That this one's like, you're saying it's trying to like, we can be the next Star Wars. Right. Resettings like, we're not the next anything. This is just crazy. Okay. It's also this weird balance

of this movie doesn't feel that studio managed outside of maybe the kind of nerfing of Lincolons character down to like the most one-dimensional dancing distress. It feels pretty pure, but it does feel like they're not self-sensoring, but they're so in their heads about how do we make this

cool versus how do we make like it's the Disney problem, right? Like, they're always a little too

worried about being uncool because they know they're not that strong. Like I see has that whole thing where you're like, everyone loves this first movie, but also it was too nerdy at the time. Right. Can we make this a little more badass? I just think the iterative we're going to reshoot at three times. We start filming with an unfinished script kind of thing. We'll fix it in post. We'll find the story beats later. We'll fill in the gaps. But comes how basically, almost every

Marvel DC and Star Wars movie is made. It's more the exceptions to the rule, the ones like the last Jedi where you're like, that seemingly was what they planned. They shot it the way they wanted to. Every other Disney Star Wars movie was by all accounts made like this. And you say, since I wish they would write the fucking book on Rise of Skywalker. It's certainly notably,

they're used to always be these very transparent making of books and Lucas would allow the

making of dogs. There was one that was announced for Force Awakens. And then was pulled and canceled. Something you know nothing about Madsinger when you write an entire book. They don't let you publish. Oh, yeah. Now that's never happened to me that I can speak about on the record.

“But the answer was they changed a lot of shit substantially. And I think learning a little from the”

lesson of John Carter, they're like, we don't want people to know that we didn't have it all figured out from the get go. We don't want to communicate to people that we figured it out on the go. But then you get disasters like just as being shot two complete times, solo being shot two complete times with different directors that are this again. And like Disney is the one who is more often than not greenlighting movies and allowing them to happen this way. And it was a too big to fail thing

where the Star Wars movies and the Marvel movies in particular kept on just making enough money that it wasn't stupid to spend $300 million to shoot a film three times. I just, again, it's just, it's just, it fast to me. It's like, I agree with what you said David. I would also just say it's like, you've no notice on my letterbox. I keep watching it. It's like a movie that I'm sort of inexplicably drawn to even though I don't particularly like

it. It's like a classic five out of ten. It's like, I wouldn't say I like this movie, but I guess maybe it's just because I do like and respect Andrew Stanton as a filmmaker that I'm

“just always trying to figure out where did it go wrong? I think there's something kind of”

pure about it, right? It's very pure in its intentions and it doesn't feel that meddled. And so even if the movie feels a little self-conscious and a little bit wary of like letting its freak flag fly, other movies we're talking about are you get to something like Dr. Strange in the multiverse of madness, which was by all account shot 27 times and if every is just seen to scene flows with no issues. Every time I was Beth Olson does an interview,

just tell me where it is. Tell me what to do. Two versions ago, I was the hero.

“Now we're in the villain. Is this a four-wand division or after-wand division? Right.”

And that's a very managed movie that doesn't feel cohesive, but has like, explosive, astatic sequences that fucking rule. Yeah, it has flashes of range. Yes. But you're also like this is a weird exquisite corpse of a movie. And in an odd way, John Carter feels more coherent. To me, even if it can't figure out what it's saying, it is like a straight line. Sure. I mean, it's a straight line. No, I'm agree. I'm saying it is, you feel that the passion of

Andrew Stanton for the material. It's just, you know, and look, a lot of times that is where the best up comes from is that love of the material and wanting to try to transmit what you loved about it into the film version. It just, something, uh, didn't get translated. He didn't get the Martian juice that magically translates. I don't know, but something got lost in the, in the translation. He's also just such a supreme visual storyteller, my opinion, that you have sequences

that feel really thoughtfully designed. It's not just that there's a cool creature. There's like really deliberate shot sequencing and rhythms where even if not the, none of the sequences like fully levitate, they are well made versus the types of movies we're talking about like just a sleigh where you're watching an action sequence and you can tell the parts of this were shot three years apart. You're cutting in with random jokes and a side or this character got redesigned

and post or any of that sort of stuff. There is just a little bit of like, I don't know, there's, there's a, uh, a clarity to this movie in its messiness that feels, um, that I'm almost a little nostalgic for sure. That's a nice way to put it. And I, there's a reason this era, you know, is gone, right? Uh, and that the Marvel era happened, the superhero franchise era happened and the superhero franchise era got out of hand too, but did have its eyes. It is fascinating to be

talking about this movie in the year when Star Wars is about to return. Right. And now in the new era is the big swing of, can we save Marvel and both of these franchises are like on their heels

being like, can you give me one shot to win you back? With Star Wars, I will basically, I'm always like,

you know, like, I'm like, Star Wars can continue to flop and will always be there for someone to kind of grab the ball years later if they want, right? Like, I could buy pretty much three flops in a row, but like, who cares? Like, maybe 10 year Marvel, the doomsday thing, it's a little bit more like, if that doesn't work, a harder reset, maybe you're required. Yeah, like a very hard reset. I'm also, I'm watching this asking myself, what are the chances I prefer the Mandalorian

and grow good to this? And I would love to be pleasantly surprised, but everything I see from the marketing of the movie makes me feel like it is going to be basically John Carter vibes. Interesting in that favor. Yeah. Wanted to make it John Carter. I don't know, Mandalorian, Corrigo, look to me. It looks so good. I just know what it's about and it looks good. Like, that's the thing, you know, people on Twitter have been like, Rise of Skywalker looks good. It does. It has sets. It's got lighting

choices, right? He's very good D.P. Flop movie. Yeah. We can all agree, but it's crazy that now not even

“this new Star Wars movie does looks like a Verizon commercial. Like, what the fuck is going on?”

I'm just like, they let stand and shoot it his way. They went to places. They built giant sets. You know, they put people into the costume. I'm looking up, I'll tell you. Okay, I was right. So we're talking about Favre wanted to make John Carter, which has the tharks, a lot of arms. I'm looking right now. Martin Scorsese is character in Mandalorian arms. He's got a lot of arms. He's not tall. He's not big. A little like a little thark. Martin Scorsese is playing a species that is the same

thing that John Favre is so slow. And they are. I saw some tweets saying they were related. Yeah. And someone being like, I can't believe like Scorsese is playing a glop shit out, which is of course that sort of, you know, I love shit those uncles. Exactly. Like, that they're like, we finally got Scorsese to be in Star Wars. How fun? Who is he? Well, you remember the guy in Solo? No. Oh, it's hoping you did because he's his uncle. Like, it's very funny. I mean, like,

everyone I know under the age of 10 seems a little excited by Mandalorian and grow good just because it is the first Star Wars movie being released in theaters in their conscious lifetime. It's just,

“oh, right. Star Wars hasn't been movies. And sir, my kids are psyched. And I like Grogu. Right?”

Every adult I know has no excitement for it. Save for our friend, Allison Wilmore. Oh, she loves, she loves Grogu. It's not like overall excited for the movie. And I feel like this

is not manifested that many times on Mike when we've been recording critical darlings. But before

six pack wrote it. Look, hot job as son is at least a play. Just like, like,

lost an impression I were shooting on Mandalorian and Grogu. She's like, what a job. I'm told he's

“a large part of the film. My belief, right? He's like the third leader. Something hoaster. I believe”

the billing is. Oh, boy. Pedro Pascal, Jeremy Allen White and Sigourney Weaver. They're only as real credited actors on the poster. Who's the villain? Great question. Me. Great question. Truly. This is, I'm like, the movie has done nothing to sell me on what the story of this film is. An issue that I do not know what the story is except like, Grogu will be asked to do a task and get distracted by some cheese nips or whatever. Mandalorian is hired to do a thing and maybe the

person who hired him isn't trustworthy. Right. Double crosses him. If you're doing a movie,

that's the payoff of three seasons of television. Even if those seasons of television are popular and beloved, I think you're marketing immediately wants to communicate. This is why this had to be a movie. Here's a clean hook story we came up with that couldn't have just been an episode. He

“baby Yoda. He do he do be small baby Yoda. Let's play the box up. It's game for”

John Carter. Yeah. I don't know if you noticed Ben when you were watching it on the train with the woman looking over your shoulder, but at the end credits when John Carter gets zapped back to Mars. It says John Carter in and of Mars fades in and that was Stanton being like I my real title. Right. And it goes J.C. and like they have a logo. But I like thought to get it at the end and I'm hoping that retroactively people just call it John Carter of Mars and maybe it's sort of that he doesn't

really become John Carter of Mars until the end so the title change is but of course this movie is dead on arrival in the sequel. Yeah just a couple more things from the dossier should mention of course. There was a lot of fighting over the marketing which we sort of talked about but it was Stanton who insisted on cashmere being used the Led Zeppelin song in the trailer even though that was the Super Bowl teaser. Right. You were seeing clips from the movie and as the camera pulled back

you realize the clips were inside the letters John Carter. As cashmere plays. Some of the Disney executives were like isn't that like an old song but you people won't care about he went for that. But this is where it's a perfect storm because then Disney goes like you got to let us take control of the marketing and then they make even worse decisions. Yeah. When like deadline was doing it sort of post-mortem on the box office failure they had a bunch of marketing people

from rival studios speaking anonymously and one of them just said like this is the most disastrous marketing campaign in the history of all what it is like going to be studied for decades they fucked and they made every mistake or whatever by the premiere the vibes or horrendous. You know it's like the premiere was not celebratory at all. Lynn Collins tells a story of watching Taylor Kitch walking down the red carpet, retross the boss of Disney film. Lots of Disney who is about himself to be fired.

About to be fired. Kind of not over this just over general sort of mismanagement Disney I feel. He like whispers something into Taylor Kitch is a year and she's like I watch him like react as if he's been struck by lightning and I follow him and go what did he say and he said that head of Disney just leaned in and whispered it's a disaster. Wow. And then the premiere and then they went down the press line. Collins says she thinks she like born the brunt of it and like

she at one point she says like you know Taylor went on to continue to work. He did battleship and other things and I think she's just kind of forgotten that like battleship was the same year. Yeah. Like he'd already. I mean obviously he did not like he did make more movies but like he no longer was allowed to be hit. They had different problems. I feel like everyone learned Taylor Kitch's name and he became the shorthand for guy being shoved down our throats in movies

we don't want to see versus she kind of just like retreated back into anonymity. But she talked about that her reps like the week before it came out said like you're going to just need to hide

“out like you need to disappear for a year or two that everyone around her was kind of telling her”

your radio active and then she yeah like fire the whole sheet and she no longer. I mean she

sounds like she's never worked again. She did some TV. She was on walking dead for a year. But she obviously

never made a movie like this again. No. And Tars Tark is he had I mean he had a lot of trouble getting work out. But he also you're forgetting the sex scandal. I was about to say he had some off camera stuff. Some weird tweets. Weird tweets. Yeah. She had a left those eggs alone. I'm saying

Ron Lee's birthday. I will say it also was like the meme with Anna Kinnon and Padme. He was like number one of the box office, right? Number one, right? It was the rare case of usually movies that feel this ominous with the cloud over it. They keep pushing it off as far as they can. They pulled this one up. They were so weird. They were like let's rip the band data. They made you listen to a few one right in the summer. And they were like maybe in March it will over perform if they're just aren't

“other blockbusters. I believe it comes out the week before the Hunger Games. The first Hunger Games.”

That's the other thing. They were like March. No one releases a blockbuster and March will have the month to ourselves. It's two weeks before the Hunger Games. But the week before 2021 Jump Street, which also is a hit. Wow. There's a performance. Right. So it's opening to $30 million, which is bad because they want it because it costs a lot of money. If it had opened a 50, they would have been worried. If you'd open a 50, it would have been a regular bomb. The 30 minutes is a kind of like bomb

that gets written about in like the New York Times. The break in the work is like 600 or 700. Many people think this might have been the biggest right down on a movie ever. But also after this, studios stop being as open about how much movies cost. Yes. That's true. It really did kind of change things where they were like, I don't cost some money. What do you want for me? How much did Avengers end game cost?

I don't know. The rest of the week, you're somewhere we never added the money.

There's so many papers. There's so many papers. The blue rays. That's another thing about this movie is for how much money Disney invested in it. There was no merchandise. There were no tie-ins.

“Like all of them. No merchandise spotlight. You do not like one pancake movie character. You saw me?”

I was looking this up. I mean, there was nothing very telling. But it's also bizarre. Red pancakes and red pancakes. That stuff has to be like figured out years and advance. Yeah. And that is often a way they help buffer the costs. I guess that's where it's like their vinyl nations. Do you have the vinyl nation? I've been looking for the cheapest one I can find on eBay. Vinyl nation was a series of like kind of little blue blue-boos blind bag figures that

all look like Mickey Mouse. So they had his own faster in the years. But then they'd paint them to look like other characters and they made four vinyl nations. They made John Carter days with Doris, Tarkis and the White Paper. Those are favorite characters. The only pieces of John Carter merch that exist. But the fact that, you know, getting fucking denies to do a Mueller whatever helps get them free marketing. Merchandising these companies pay for the licensing. These things

help cover the costs. And this was a movie that costs $260 million that was all just Disney putting their neck out. How they didn't make you know like John Carter milk like the white grape that they stuck him in. I'll never know. Other incillary sort of revenue streams on this. It's opening 30 million dollars. It's going to gross 73 domestic to 82 worldwide. Which is bad.

But like it is amazing how like even a bomb that must be made almost 3 million dollars.

So, but it's number two. It's number two. What's number one? It's just hilarious to lose to this. It's the second weekend of an animated film. Hold over in 2012. It's not real. Is it? No. Perfectly good guess. Is it a dream works? I think yes. Right. It's in a

“illumination. I think no. So it's universal. Yeah. I can never remember who had what when.”

Oh. Is it the Lorax? Dr. Shusey's the Lorax. Over for four weeks and two. Because Lorax opening weekend was 70. It was something crazy. And that's a movie that has eye hop tie in where they have 10 cakes with cash on it. Yeah. Cancakes with a lollipop in the top of it. I believe. That was a 70 opening. Yes, 70. Crazy. It's the second weekend. Is 40 something? 38. 38. So it's dropping with a jump in hard barn animated.

But that's the thing where like, you know, the guys at Disney are like, I mean, we'll be weekend two with a Lorax, right? Like, and the Lorax just like before it like keeps you in the behind. It is crazy that in four consecutive weeks, John Carter's the only movie that doesn't hit where you're like, Lorax works. John, you were generally falling. Yeah. 21 jump street, right? Right. Yeah. Hunger Games mega hit. So number two is John Carter. Number three is a comedy

film that opened the week before with kind of like a kind of a format twist to it.

Never seen a format. Format twist. An R rated teen comedy film. Oh, it's project acts.

That's right. Never seen this one, which is a found footage of a high school party movie. All right. Because like, it is not sinister, right? Like it literally is just about like, what about the wildest party ever happened? And you're watching it like there's no, like, supernatural. Right. Yes. Yes. Yeah. It's nerds throw a party to be cool.

One weird thing about that movie is Miles Teller is in it. It's part of the early wave of Hollywood trying to make Mars teller or star plays himself versus the Taylor Kitch thing. What felt like a very slow evolution. But yes, he plays himself as characters named Miles Teller and he's the coolest guy in school. Right. It's like, what if the guy from rabbit hole is a minor celebrity at your school? Yeah, he's by Todd Phillips. Yeah. Yeah. That movie was really,

that's possibly in a funny place. But that, I'm feeling project Texas was really pushes like, that genius Phillips has found another great angle on and like, it kind of, it was also

“big. It was called Project X because it was this top secret project. It was like, Todd Phillips”

has come up with a radical pitch on how to reinvent the high school movie and they're keeping it under wraps. I audition for that one like six times for every fucking character. But it was Project X was the club name and then they just decided it sounded cool. Did you audition to play Miles Teller? No. But I probably auditioned to play every other version in that movie. It made 54 domestic. I'm sure it was was happy. Very cheap. I'm going to say it couldn't. It must

cost 10 million. All right. So now we're getting into weird. No. All right. Number four is one of

those early 2010s action movies. War movies. Like war. Is it act of valor? Act of valor. Wow. Because that's such a weird where you're like, who's it starring? They're like real soldiers. Yes. Yeah. It was trying to do the 15 17 to Paris. It was directed by two like actions sort of

“stunt guys. Yeah. Is it the square point? I remember the poster would just like shadowy”

figures of like soldiers in the distance. It didn't, you know, you couldn't see anybody. They didn't do an act of valor. Yes. Well. And was also cheap. It made $81 million worldwide on a 12 million dollar budget. Like, you know, I don't think it's a masterpiece, but it did exist and it made a little bit of money. Yeah. Number five at the box office is a horror film that had debuted at Sundance the year before. So January 2011. Oh, that has a very high concept sort of thing going.

It's the Elizabeth also. It's correct. It's a real time silent house. I was going to say safe house.

Yeah. It's safe house. The Denzel Ryan Randall. I've never seen it. Yeah. It's one take real time.

She's being haunted. Yeah. Yeah. But it was all about the concept. It was, it was got a lot of buzz for being, yes, like a single thing. And she was. And she was hot. That and Martha were at the same Sunday. Yes. So there's this explosion of holy shit. She's in two movies as the lead and certainly

“a silent house is a skill piece because it's want to take. How'd she do that? How'd she do it?”

Yeah. And then they waited a year to release it, assuming that her star was going to explode. And by the time I came out, everyone was like, people liked this at Sundance. It's opening. Yeah. It sucks. No. It was opening number five. It only made 12 domestic. Number six opening at number six, which is bad news for this movie is the Eddie Murphy movie 8,000 to words. Oh, that was a true identifier for it. It was it was a delayed several years. Right. That's when Eddie Murphy

goes into the wilderness and doesn't make a movie for like five or six years. Yeah. Because like that is basically kind of thing where it's like your name above the title seems to do nothing anymore. Yeah. It's like we're not even going to just clear like 30 million dollars on the fact that you're in a kind of family friendly comment. He had a couple of family flops in a row, including meat Dave and imagine that. And then he signed on to do tower heist and the promise of tower

heist was it's going to be old Eddie. Right. He's going to be the wild card. He's going to curse. And so they pushed 1000 words to come out after tower heist and also after he was going to host the Oscars. So they were like Eddie Murphy's about to have a comeback. I need you to great job. He's he's going to do a launching movie with Brett Ratner and then he's going to host the Oscars directed by Brett Ratner and everyone's going to love Eddie again. And we'll be in the

halo effect and tower heist bombs and he quits the Oscars because Brett Ratner is fired for using slurs having use slurs in his life. Yes. I know he used them right. He said like one should be

talking about. That's forgot about the Oscars he's going to do. I mean Brett Ratner had just never

put a foot wrong until then it's crazy. It's insane. Uh yeah. And then and then Brett was supposed to my buddy Brett was supposed to direct Beverly Hills cop four right after that. He was like I'm the guy who's going to bring Eddie back. I'm getting to host the Oscars. He's going to do stand up again and and Eddie retreats for years. Number seven is wow safe house. They're both in the top 10. So that stands out in Ryan Reynolds. Yeah. It's men origins Wolverine's own Ryan Reynolds. Never seen

Daniel Espinoza. Extremely forgettable action. No one is safe house. It is Doug Benson Joe. What if there was a

make $100 million disappear. Right where you're like what's the premise is like have you not seen

the poster they both have gone? There were two stars. Right there's two guys and they shoot them out. Each other are they friends they don't watch the movie. It gets figured out properly. You know the

“apex of it being two guns. Yeah. Like where the like it stands out in Walberg. What do they do?”

They're shooting money. That's in the air. I think. I don't know. Maybe they'll have to shoot all of the money. It's safe house was like the only hit Ryan Reynolds had in that run. Yes. You mean post-proposal of like him doing like Lansing and what ever and but everyone just gave Denzel all the credit on a totally because with the fuck who even knows what that movie is. Yes.

And then Ryan Reynolds goes into his forgotten indie phase where he's like I'll be in the woman.

He tries some stuff out. Yes. I'll give him a very grind. He tried some stuff. And then he stopped trying stuff. Yes. And started making a guess in his defense. Oodles and doodles of money and running a cell phone company very well. I see. What? Yeah. I'm injecting with him lately. You've also funny that we used to have died. I would use it if I didn't have to. I don't know. Matt, that's a great question. It's the whole value of Mint Mobile is that he does the ads. Why were they spending

money to have David and I in like 2019 be like I love dialing numbers and having a phone call goes through number eight of the box office is the Channing Tatum Rachel McAdams film the vow a big hit. This is the year where Channing Tatum talk about a manifest what Hollywood wants all these other guys were talking about to be I'm going Channing Tatum John Carter 21 jump street the vow magic micro all in the same year he would I'm he could be dunked in the goo the vows where the

diabetes where you're like is this based on the clasp barks and they're like no but that's where we're going. Not literally. Yeah. We really based on nothing. No based on nothing just original screenplay about I assume by above. I must have been a best seller. It's serious 51st date number gets him Nija and they're married and he has to make a phone love with him again. Yes. Love it. Number nine of the box office. I see what's great is another mega flop much hype to mega flop of

this Q1 which is this means war. Oh yeah. McG. Yes. Is that talking about your book at all? No. No. That was like a 90s high concept spec by that went through every permutation of if

they're never going to make a bad boy sequels. This is the way to reteen Will Smith Martin Lawrence.

And then there was a version that was supposed to be Seth Rogan and another kind of rat pack guy. It was going to be Martin Lawrence was like often attached and like Bradley Cooper. Seth Rogan. Ever Sam Worthington at one point there like should it be Martin and Chris Rock? Yeah. Like kind of try to do a new bad boys with Martin and another like major box superstar. And like by the time they're like we got Reese with her spoon. That's fun. Yeah. So now it'll

be Spivers to spy versus the gray spy. The girl won. You know because it was the old one was kind

“of more of a spy versus spy. He was always them fighting over a woman. Right. But I think the woman”

was less of a character. Right. And they were like we've hired a mega star to play the woman. We saw that before the guy then they get Bradley Cooper off of the hangover and then he's like I want to do other things and they they're like it's okay. Chris playing in Tom Hardy and everyone's like I guess like they're brand new like they're both like such recent stars. They picked the right guys. But I try launching that movie recently and they are just floundering. It's a

disaster. It's one of those movies where it bombs everyone says it's terrible and you go well how bad could it be? Right. And then you watch it and you're like oh yes it was bad. It was bad. It was bad. It was bad. Number 10 of the box office is journey to the mysterious I went. A big hit. Wow we hit three hours again Ben. It's a problem. This is a problem too. Check needs to connect. We got to do it. Don't worry our Martin Scorsese series. I'm sure we'll be further.

Lots of shorties definitely. I don't want to look. I don't want to call a shot. I do think the next two stands will be shorter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Our guest for Dory. You could be some tangents. And he he's coming in with a full-throated defense of its star. A full-throated? Did you

“say a full-throated? A full-throated? A full-throated? Yeah. That's what you said. It's a fascinating movie and”

it is like it feels like such a flashpoint of everything that was going on at that exact moment of what had happened before of what's to come and and like St. Unsurprisingly takes it very hard.

a filmmaker own a flop. Back hop to it. And was like I decided I'd take a year. I'm going to go to New York where my daughters in school. I'm going to read books. I'm going to write this a little bit of our suit. I'm going to write this up. I need to like pull back and reset my batteries. What had also happened in the background is that of course Disney had bought Pixar. Yeah. They start immediately

saying can we start up the sequel machine. They're begging for a finding Nemo sequel. They always

sort of have the respect of we won't do it unless the original filmmaker approves. He oversees the

“3D rerelease of Nemo that I think is in 2011. The year before this. Sure. And he said that when”

he was overseeing it and he got to the scene where Doris says I where is my family. He went there is possibly a sequel there. So he goes to Pixar and he says I would let this happen. They hire a writer and he was not intending to direct it. It was I'm clearly in the John Carter right. I'll be on Mars. Right. Yeah. I bring this up only because the obvious perception would be John Carter flops. He runs panic back to Pixar and says can you let me do finding the right

kind of similar to bird eventually doing multiples two after a flop or two. Yeah. The reality is it was it was in the works and then he said actually maybe I want to do it myself. Right. But I'm still rarely I mean rarely do you see a director you know make these crazy big swings and then immediately I see what you're saying it wasn't created with that in mind but he does then go make a sequel. But there's really like then how many careers are like this of it's an

interesting animation to live action back to animation then TV and then back to live action and animation. It's interesting and we'll talk about it in the next two. I really have to hearing this in the blink of an eye. I'd like to hear you guys talk for three hours about in the blink of an eye. We're gonna keep that one. No. That's given me a dirty look. The dirtiest look. But he is like he is lucky and it's from his own doing that he has in his possession

a get out of jail free card from the moment this movie flops. He is lucky. He's also lucky that he's already made a winding me more away. Right. That's cool. But perox. But saying what if I want a direct finding story? No one's going to question him on that. Absolutely. They're not going to be hovering over his hands. Oh yeah. They're like we trust that. You're good. You don't have

“to spend any time in movie jail if that's what you're doing next. Yeah. Yeah, I say goodbye to Matt.”

I mean he'll be back. But you know, I think we got to wrap this up. Maybe in three or four years or whatever. It's been three years. It was when the book when the last book came out. It was I was here. I think you're forgetting something. There were some of these were some or any. Let's see. In fact, let's see if you've made like a five to three. Planet of the ape. I definitely have five to four. Yes. Wow. It has been three years.

What's it like? A million, three. We suck. We do suck. What is this? That was three years ago.

Yes, that's actually made more of the sticking point. At a certain point, I was like if I ever want to do another blank check. I better write another book. I better write another book. Apatau was in March madness and it didn't feel like I was. I was feeling like oh, man, if he gets in I'd be perfect. I'm I'm I'm I'm going to be a golden. No, we we were overdue to get you on either way. Oh, great news. JJ has texted us Sony taps Brian

“Hejlin to script. Hello, I think it's held in Zoro versus Django, which is another movie”

that has been in the works for so long. It was part of the Sony hack. I mean, because I didn't know what it was. I was going to say didn't make a comic book out of that. I'm sorry. I have one point to rock. Her Michael was supposed to write it. Mm. Cool. Well, and that's it's so it's Django teams up with Zoro, the hero, the full hero. Yes, and will Jamie Foxby back? Presumably. But, but people don't realize all these things came from Zoro.

This is the original. So Jamie Foxby was 60. I guess these things don't matter anymore. Yes. Nothing matters. Um, interesting. Anyway, it's been a while, but I'm glad to be back. Book is coming out in October. Comes out October six. Yes. Can pre-order it right now? Anywhere you pre-order book. Please do. Please do. Yes. It's very helpful. And hopefully I can write another book and come back in three years and review. We all be back well. Super bad or something. Yeah,

fucker. I don't want to do it. No, but that's not apatel. I know, but I'm just saying. Yeah, I don't want to do apatel too. I don't want to do apatel. I don't want to do apatel. Apatel would be a great blank check subject. Yeah. It feels like the last couple of years

we've been pushing and people are like, why? And this year in March madness, people got it for the first time.

He did win a matchup. He did. So I was watching. I was voting. And it felt like we have enough distance from it that it's worth studying in the way that you did in your book.

Business. Thank you. All for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.

Toon in next week for finding Dory with Zach Cherry. That's right. Who is not actually defending owned the generously. But that's been a running bit for a year. How's it? I feel like there's been a year of texting with Zach. He's like, get ready for the Ellen defense.

“Yes. I don't really remember that, but that's I. But as I said to you when you float about”

ideal long ago, I was like, Zach Cherry finding Nory episode sounds good to me. It sounds funny.

Sounds fun. We look at the spreadsheet and the chuckle sounds pretty good. It sounds pretty good. Pretty good movie too. It's a movie I've seen many, many times because my daughter and I enjoy it. Yes. I don't like love it. No, like I enjoy it. Yeah. There's fish. There's fish.

“Dory. Anthony. There's an octopus. There's octopus. He's the center pose. He's the”

cool source. There's a tune in next week for that. Yeah. And as always,

bar soon. I love this sound of that poor. It would be bad if it was like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. If it was thick, clunk, clunk. This is like a Ben and Jerry's coffee David. It's got a lot of objects in it. Mix it, mix it,

“mix it, mix it, mix it. Shunky. Oh, there was a tagline. Wow. Okay. Okay. Do the tagline. I think I think”

in fact, that's probably a best bet. We'll get to a couple of things. Thank you. It's a potent aroma. A potent mix. That is a potent mix. Like check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin, Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas and our associate producer is AJ McKeean. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeean and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the

great American novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Our work by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, blankcheck special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social @blankcheckpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter,

checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by blankcheck productions.