Smallville Torch Exclusive #6 - Darren Mooney (Part 1) - Always Hold On To Smallville

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm John Glover. I was Lionel Luther on Smallville and
I will always always hold on to Smallville and I
hope you all do.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Two. Welcome to Always hold on to Smallville. In this podcast,

(00:55):
we've talked about each and every episode of the Young
Superman show that ran from two thousand and one twenty
eleven on the WB and the c W. I'm your host,
sachmar and we're back with a Smallville Torch exclusive number
six with Critic at Large and Mad about Town. My
friend in podcasting, Darren Mooney. What's up, Darren?

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Hi harrd thing Zach, how's it going? Haw's life?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Life is great. You know, we were catching up some
before we hit record here. It has been a while
since we have collaborated. My friend, we used to talk
a lot on the on the x cast are our
mutual friend Tony Black's X Files podcast, and then back
when I had a standard orbit on trek FM, you
were a regular guest going through the original series and whatnot.
Of course we've kept in touch on the internet, but
it's a and I've seen your opinions over the years,

(01:37):
and I've'm a great fan of your work and it's
great to sit behind the microphone again with you.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
I like that you say you've seen my opinions, as
if you can't escape them. They are everywhere. Zac is
just walking down the street and he looks up with
a billboard and it's like, the Suicide Squad is the
best live action superhero movie in the past seven years,
and Zach's like, I didn't need to see that.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Everywhere I go I see his face. But no, thanks
for thanks for coming on the show now. You know,
we'll talk some about obviously there's a lot to talk
about and the superhero landscape as far as movies go
and whatnot. But since this is your first time always
on the Smallville, what is your Superman fan journey if
one exists for you.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
I mean, I feel like I'm kind of somewhat of
a typical Superman fan, which is obviously. I fell in
love with the movie, the nineteen seventy eight movie, which
was when not to date myself, but like when I
was a kid, the superhero movies that existed were largely
Batman sixty six, which I loved and still love, Batman
eighty nine, which I loved and still loved, and Superman

(02:37):
seventy eight. Which I loved and still love so very
much a formative text for me. I will say I
was of an age in the nineties to be aware
of Superman and Lowis or the New or Lowess and Superman,
the New Adventures of Superman and I but I was
more of a like Superman the animated series fan and
would have followed that into Justice Leagueunlimited and stuff like that.
And as I got into comics, I kind of Superman

(02:58):
was a way of doing that as well.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Well.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I mean, obviously the de facto starting superhero techs are
like Watchmen and the Dark Knight returns, but after that
it's it's more as Superman stories. It's for the Man
who is Everything and whatever happened to the Man of
Tomorrow or great Gateways. Grant Morrison's All Star Superman by
virtual of existing outside of continuity is great gateway, and yeah,
just kind of like following along with that. I wouldn't
describe myself as like a huge Superman fan in terms

(03:23):
of like comic book characters. I'd more be I'd be
a basic Batman bitch basically, but I would be like
I would kind of lean more towards Batman and the
X men because I am a nineties kid, and I
put my hands up and acknowledge that. But I have
a great deal of affection for Superman. I've read a
lot of stuff over the years. But yeah, no, I'm
very fond and obviously I'm sure we'll get into it.
But I do think while I may to see the conversation,

(03:47):
I'm sure we're gonna have, well, I may have mixed
feelings about the movie that we will eventually talk about today,
I do actually think like Superman has had a really,
really really good run lately, where like I really loved
my adventures with Superman, and I really loved both Superman
and Lowess, like two weekly television series, one of which
is still running, one of which recently came to a conclusion,
but both of which are very different takes on the

(04:07):
Mount of Steel, And to me, he kind of captured
like a flexibility that I haven't always found in Superman media,
and particularly in the way that sermedia's talked about. So yeah,
I would be very fond of the characters. How I
would describe it.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
No, that's a great point, you know, a flexibility that
I didn't think might have existed really until recent years.
It seems because Batman is a more malable character, right,
I mean it's you get Batman, Sissy six over here,
Batmanian out of here, Chris Nolan. We've had so many
versions of Batman and they're all well received to various
degrees other than you know, I guess George Clooney.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
But that's the one that they chose to hang the
Flash out.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Oh, it's a great note in our film on right, but.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
We can't get Christian Bale is the note at the
end of the film on to be fair.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Look good for him for sticking to his gun. I
mean that would have been Yo. No, keep Christian mill
out of there. I I love that, Like he actually
has principle. Like sorry, that sounds so cynical and so jaded,
and I'm like, yeah, I don't like.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
I don't like. I'm sure Michael Keaton is going to
use the money he got from the Flash to buy
a really nice extension for his house remodels kidchet, Like,
I'm sure he's going to put that money to good use.
And I have no ill will towards him for doing that,
to be clear and simplly like George Clooney, but like
there is something I like about bail being what I
did with Chrisopher Nolan making those three movies was special

(05:26):
to me at least and be honest to me. Darren
Mooney critic, and he's like, if Chris says he's coming back,
I would join him in a heartbeat. But if he isn't,
I have no reason to come back. There is nothing
there for me. I'm like Bruce Wayne at the start
of The Dark Knight Rises. There's nothing out there there.
David Zaslov. Yeah, but like, and that's a that's a

(05:48):
sort of credibility that is rare in Hollywood, particularly in
franchise filmmaking.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Well there's that and Back to the Future. I think
those are the only two instances there, and right Chris
Nolan's Batman.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
If you don't count super Bowl commercials, which is a
very odd exception to have to make, it's like, if
we don't count super Bowl commercials, et is also artistically
consistent and as integrity.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
You know, you mentioned super Bowl commercials in and this
is going to be free flowing conversation with my apologies. Listen. Yeah,
so we're off. You mentioned super Bowl commercials. One of
my favorite comments about when the flash tailer came out
was in this is Michael Keat. He's like, yeah, I'm Batman.
People are like, that's like a Dorido's commercial, like when
you know they bring back old actors and these I'm like,

(06:32):
that is nailed it now the bent.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Where he says you want to get let's get nuts,
and it is one of those things like and again
to be clear, those make fans happy, and I don't
want to denigrate that in any way, just my reaction
to that. And it's very similar to what like No
Way Home does with like Willem Dafoe, when William Dafoe
says something like I'm something of a scientist myself, where

(06:55):
it's like these lines are important to fans, but you
can tell from the way that the actor is delivering
them that the actor has not thought about those words
in that combination for like the past twenty or thirty years,
and they're just like when the director's like, just say
the line, and it's like, why, what's my motivation, It's like,
just say the line. It'll be in the trailer. People
will love it. So you get a lot of yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's a fine line between fans service and good storytelling.
And I feel like No Way Home thread that needle
very well. Like it's an obvious comparison right between what
they were trying to do in the Flash and what
I felt they succeeded at it No Way Home. But
I guess when you kind of put that as like

(07:43):
sprinkles on top of your Sunday and their Sunday is good,
then it's like, Okay, I yeah, I'm bad man. They
know he's badman. They're in the bad day. They know anyway.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Andyva Schetty off screen dangling the check in front of
Michael Keaton.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Oh my gosh, I don't know where are Soman? A
very melieable character, I guess was my point with that rant,
So Robert Pattinson. So here's the thing I people might
say that I am. You know, I'm stuck in the past,
and all I care about is things I grew up
with and nostalgia this or that. I'll tell you this.

(08:18):
My I'm still melliable myself. My opinions can change. I
could be one over The Batman is a movie. I
was like, Okay, I really like Beneflex Batman, and I
was really excited for a solo film for him, and
that film became Robert Pattinson's The Batman, so I was
kind of like against it. Honestly, before he came out,
I was like, oh, but what is it the Twilight guy, Like,

(08:40):
what are we doing?

Speaker 1 (08:41):
It's sitting in the basement listening to Nevada. I love that,
Like they show him wearing the eye mascaura and him
crying because is it? The Batman Returns were like, welcome
to a Batman podcast, always return to Gotham. But like
there's the moment where in Batman Returns, Michael Keaton pulls
off the batmsk and the mascara mysteriously disappears. I love

(09:02):
that they just do Robert Petan into it. Yeah yeah, sorry, no,
I uh.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
They were always ashamed of the bat mascare for so long.
What's funny about that scene of Badman Returns is like
all they had to do was like start the shot
or edit it a little closer to when his arm
is covering his eyes and he rips the mask off,
but they didn't. And it's like this amazing it's continuity.
It's like the stormtrooper hitting his head in Star Wars.
It's this amazing continuity gap. Everybody knows about. But no,

(09:27):
the Batman on a good day, Darren, you can convince
me that's the best Batman movie. I really loved it.
I think it was fantastic. I have never experienced the
character that I know from the comics and the animates
series more in live action that I had in that film,
with that narration, with that book in I'm like, this
is they they unlocked something here that I didn't think
they could. I think Batman has been interpreted so many

(09:48):
ways over the years. I thought we were out of
Batman interpretations, and they unlocked something there and I was
so excited for it, and they won me over. And
I really hope they released the Batman Part two there
because I really love that movie and.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
That eventually I hope it happen, and I hope it have.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
I can be won over by things. It's my point,
and I will.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Make the point that also, like I host a podcast
called The two fifty and my co host Andrew, who
is a Batman eighty nine till Death fan, was like,
I think Pattinson is my favorite Batman, so like, I
think it is. I think it's good to be able
to modernize. It's good.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
But no, I as a fan, I worry about myself.
Sometimes I'm like, am I doing can I like new things? Like,
I'm really worried, But then the Batman comes out, God,
Zolomidas won the Jordan Peele, Twilight Zone, these are franchises.
I have deep affinity for new things.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
About the boy ironically, no, no on ironically all right.
I came out of that and I was like, that
is the best bridge of Jones. But somehow, like twenty
thirty years down the line, they made the best Bridget
Jones movie and they said it straight to streaming in
the States. I was sorry, I know that's not in
the same demographic, but I just I want to share
my recent mind blowing I can like new things, experience.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
All that to say, I mean that kinds split out
of us talking about your Superman fan of But you
have you ever watched Small wildarn.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
I missed Small Village. Okay, I think I was the
wrong I think I was wrong. No, I think I
was just like in the wrong age kind of bracket
for because it was like the two thousands, wasn't it right?
So I would have been at college. That was around
the time I was actually like dropping out of TV.
Because like that was the point where it may shock
your listeners to discover I was kind of a nerd,
so when I went to college, that was like my
social blossoming. So I no longer could do appointment viewing.

(11:22):
So that's the point I stopped watching like Star Trek reguly.
I stopped watching Star Trek Enterprise reguarly around the same
time as well, maybe also because Star Trek Enterprise had
some problems that were, you know, not enticing me to
come back and make it appointment viewing. But like that
was the point where I think I fell out of
like regular TV watching. It was also I think like
in terms of chronology, like before what Americans call TVO,
what we in the UK and Ireland call like the

(11:44):
skybox had arrived in Irish homes. Yeah, and that allowed
us to like schedule and record stuff. So I never
really went back. I also will admit I kind of
missed the Arrow Verse. Mostly. I watched i think the
first half of the first season of Arrow and it
wasn't for me. The first season the Flash thought that
was very good, and I think I gave up with
that six episodes into the second.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yes, yes, the season one in the Flash arguably the
best season of the Arrow Verse, incredible singular work. Had
The Flash been canceled after that, this show was amazing.
I wish they would have made nine seasons. It would
have been the greatest TV show ever made. And then
they did what they did with the rest. Now season two,

(12:24):
I think it's a bad rap, much like Heroes, by
the way, always on the Heroes, season two gets like
pulled down with the rest of the show and like, oh,
season two is it's going people love to say, right
right in retrospect, I'm like, I don't know. That was
like that was a lot closer in quality of the
season than I thought. But no, the Flash season one
and then and then I'm not like I would I

(12:45):
also talk about not embracing new things again, free flowing
conver seat. I was very against Arrow when it came
out because I'm like, what do you mean, It's not
Justin Hartley from Smallville? Who are you? But I watched
it really won me over in that first half of
the first season. As it went on and it's like, oh,
you're doing the Dark Knight trilogy on TV. Yeah, I
love it so And I would say those first two

(13:05):
seasons of Arrow are definitely if you're looking, because I
know you've got all kinds of time on your hands
in there and you don't watch I don't watch any stuff.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
And it's certainly not like peak season for releasing of
movies and heading into peak season for releasing of TV.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Not at all. But if you got time for twenty
two twenty three episodes a couple of seasons, I would
I would highly highly recommend those first couple of seasons
of Varrow as well.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
And yeah, like I mean, I dipped in out of
like here's it tomorrow. I remember liking the handful of
early Supergirl episodes I.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Saw yes of season one on the on CBS is
aired here in the States. I don't know what happened
over there, y'all, but it moved networks for us, went
from CBS to CW and then became.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
You guys have so many networks. We only have like
three or four channels, so like there's no real movement
up or down. It's like you go to you start
a network two, you end up an RT one. You
start up BBC two, you end up on BBC one.
That's about it. That's your mobility, your aspirational quality, but
I will I will say I yes, so I didn't
watch too much of the CW Verse, which is why,

(13:59):
like I was quite so pleasantly surprised by Superman and Lois,
which I believe, and Zach you can correct me if
I'm wrong. The first season of Superman and Lois takes
place in the Arrow Verse because it features John Diggle,
who I believe is that character from Arrow, but the
remaining seasons clearly do not take place in the Arrowverse.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Well, Dren, you know that's okay, that's a whole Yeah.
I mean they had they had plans and they were
gonna use the crisis on adverse to kind of explain things,
but then that those plans didn't materialize. So yes, you
have John Diggle from Arrow showing up in Superman and
Lois season two working for Argus Mitch Oliver Queen. Excuse
me season one? Excuse me, Mitching Oliver Queen.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Like what because like it's at the climax of the
season as well, because it's the point where like you
really want to like button down, you want to like shoulder,
you want to be like I'm in the drama of
Superman and Lois, and then John diggles like, oh, I've
showed up and I've got a bunch of exposition and
lore and here's how connects a bunch of other stuff, like John,
I appreciate it, but now it's not really the time.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
We thought for sure he would show up as like
Green Lantern and help Superman, you know everybody. That didn't happen.
And then by the end of the season two it
Sam Leanne literally looks into the camera he says, we're
not part of the Aeroverse guys. So no, that's that's
an interesting oddity. And it didn't even fit anyway with
with the backstory with with him and Lois and their
their children and and uh and the the appearance a

(15:16):
Supergirl herself not existed in Superman and Lewis, which I
really love the first two parts of the Superman was
in again I can Embrace new things. I was like,
why aren't you Tom Welling. I'm mad I should have
cast red and round. I know he was already in
the Aeroverse, but do it anyway, And they did do
it anyway, But yeah, they did it. They did it.
But when Tyler Hecklan showed up on Supergirl, I was like, Wow, like,

(15:37):
what a what a great two hours of television. This
was It's very charming, and but that's a very different
Superman and Clark getting and we got on Sumane lowis.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
I mean it was terrible, but it was awesome. Turned
to them. You know, you didn't tell me that, you know,
Clark Kent. I'm with her. I have anything in my teeth.
Your cousin seems to read that.

Speaker 4 (16:17):
This is my cousin Superman.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Questions, how do you shave.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
In order to live?

Speaker 4 (16:27):
We must chop daring.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
We're moving back to Gotham.

Speaker 5 (16:34):
It doesn't bother you that.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
I got top credit on this one, does it?

Speaker 4 (16:39):
Not even a little bit so?

Speaker 1 (16:48):
And like I like that you have that flexibility, Like
that is the thing where it feels. And again this
is a free form conversation. We will eventually get to
what I'm sure the listeners are expecting us to eventually
talk about Superman twenty twenty five, but it is I
think I think it is really interesting that like, if
you go like and look at the history of Superman,
it does feel like kind of Superman returns is such
an interesting moment in culture and for Superman as a character,

(17:11):
where like two thousand and five thousand and six. You
have Batman begins and you have like Superman returns, and
they are both Like those are the two iconic characters
in pop culture. And I know some people will argue
Superman is not an iconic character, which is insane to me.
It certainly doesn't appear on lunchboxes. His logo is certainly
not like recognizable and ubiquitous. I know the term superhero

(17:35):
does not technically originate with Superman, but like the two
words were invented incredibly close together and are incredibly synonymous,
to the point where like, yes, if you hear superhero,
you think of Superman. Superman is up there, it's Superman,
it's Batman, and it's spider Man. And then like there
is a free form fourth place on the Mount Rushmore that,
depending on who you ask, could go to like Wolverine

(17:56):
or Wonder Woman or whoever. Right, yeah, maybe Venom if
you ask China, Yes, but like there is oh good lord.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Who was who was going to see these Venom movies
so much? To make nine hundred million dollars? Oh my?

Speaker 5 (18:08):
That?

Speaker 1 (18:09):
But again just international markets, they work very very well there.
But like Superman is an iconic beloved character. Batman is
also a beloved iconic character, and both of them had
kind of arguably rough periods. Like you're you know, I'm
sure your listeners know, even if they're listening, that there's
a giant Superman for the Quest for Pete Standy in
your background. Yes, we don't need to go into the
difficulty Superman had in the nineties with like Superman lives

(18:30):
failing to well live, but also like the state of
the Batman franchise with like you know, Batman forever, but
most obviously Batman and Robin, and you have this idea
of like bringing them back two five and six, So
two years before like the MCU begins, like superhero movies
are gaining momentum, they're gaining traction. You've already had like
Spider Man, which shows that you can do fun, zippy, clever,

(18:52):
really interesting, really well made artistically like challenging movies within
the superhero genre. You have X Men, which shows that
you could do grounded, gritty like stories that are kind
of science fiction within the framework of the superhero genre.
And you have you know, two directors, Brian Singer, who
is a deeply controversial person who we don't need to
go into any real depth on.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
I refer to him as disgraced Hollywood director Brian Singer
to him, yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, so you have disgraced Hollywood director Brian Singer, and
like Christopher Nolan, like one of the few directors today
who is like on you know, first and second name
terms with the audience. But you have them both presenting
two versions of like iconic superheroes, and you have Batman
Begins and Batman Begins is you know people talk about
now how like, oh, Batman's always grim and gritty and

(19:40):
dark and grounded and realistic. And it's like when Batman
Begins came out first of all, ignoring the fact that
it's about like a ninja death cult spraying their fear
talks and all over a major city, and how that's
a very liberal definition of grounded and realistic. Yeah, but
you did not have like it was a take that
was radically different from any previous life action iteration, Like

(20:01):
Tim Burton's Batman is kind of gothic and surreal and weird.
Joel Schumacher's is like neon and camp and like the
nineteen sixty six version is genuinely pop art. I love
it so much, but it is this wonderful kind of
pop art, kind of ironic almost counterculture show that is
like engaged in like ironic criticism but also representation of

(20:22):
the image. It's such a really clever pop art monument.
But like you had never had anything like Batman Begins,
and the take was so radically new and interesting and
different and fresh and exciting. And then you, on the
other hand, you had Superman Returns, which was one of
the first times. And I'm sure it's not the first time,
and I'm sure listeners will object if I say it
is the first time, but it felt like it was

(20:42):
one of the first times that we had what I
kind of call a week well, which is increasingly common today,
which is that movie or sequel that goes, look the franchise,
is it a pretty poor state. We've run it into
the ground. We've created sequel after sequel after sec that
audiences have grown disinterested in. So you know what we

(21:03):
need to do. We need to cut off what we
deem to be the disease like branches of the tree
to get back to basics. So let's just do a
sequel that pretends that none of the other sequels or
depending on how popular film. It's maybe one or two
of the good sequels actually happened. Halloween is a good example.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Halloween. Halloween is the award winner of that.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, they've done it like several times.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
They did it with Halloween four.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah, yeah, Halloween four went back to Halloween two, they
went to was it Halloween h two? O went back
to Halloween two. Zombie started over. Then Halloween twenty eighteen
was just like, let's just go back to just a Halloween. Yeah,
which is just incredible. But yes, like Superman returns, did
that were chopped off the limbs of Superman three Superman four?

(21:47):
And there is some debate about whether or not it
like is in contrbuty with quote the Donner version of
Superman two or that the of donmentitau.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Closer examination, it doesn't fit with any of the sequels,
But it is a.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
Movie that is very earnestly trying to get back to that,
like the field, the texture that sets, the setting. It
is all this kind of very nostalgic invocation of like
Superman nineteen seventy eight, which is so surreal to me
because like I know, Superman nineteen seventy eight doesn't look
quote unquote realistic to modern eye, but like the big
Richard Donner like word that he had when pitching it

(22:22):
was very similitude, which is the idea of like he
wanted a Superman that the tagline for that movie is
you will believe a Man can fly. He wanted a
Superman that existed in a world that was recognizable to
a contemporary audience. And I think it's really interesting that
like Superman Returns is like, we want a Superman that
is recognizable to an audience that wants Superman nineteen seventy eight.
That's the Superman and we want. And it does feel

(22:43):
like while that movie you know, didn't spawn a franchise
as intended, you know, it was financially successful, but it
was also usually costly because it folded in the cost
of the previous versions. There's also a sense that the
reviews weren't strong enough for Warners to want to continue
with it, and there is also whisper it very quietly,
an indication based on the idea of people who've worked
with Disgrace Hollywood director Brian Singer that he was not

(23:03):
the easiest person to work with and would not be
somebody who you'd want to continue a long term franchise
with if you didn't have to do that. But there
is kind of this weird sense that that movie crystallizes
the idea Superman has to be this way. It's not
just that it's an offshoot the Crystal Reeve thing, it's
that it like actively erases a decade of what is
genuinely ambitious like Superman storytelling in the comic books obviously,

(23:27):
where you have like the Death and Resurrection, you have
the black suit, you have the long hair, you've got
Superman Red, Superman Blue, You've got Lex Luthor President, You've
got all this stuff happening. But even in terms of
like major media representation, you know, Lois and Clark, The
New Adventures of Superman has Superman and Lois get married, Yeah,
actively get married on a TV show, and the comics
end up having to tie into that. The Superman the

(23:48):
animated series like does eventually evolve into having a distinct
take on the Man of Steel and his character that
is very different from the version presented in the Reeve movies.
So like I kind of almost see like Superman ret
it's not just as a crystallizing of those ten years
of Christopher ree but also like a resetting and kind
of almost erasure of anything that happened in between.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
That's fascinating interesting. Yeah, no, you're right, because of me,
it does take you back to the pre crisis world,
if you will. Like even yeah, uh you know, here's
here's a thought experiment for you, Derek. So, if super
Member Returns came out, I don't know, a few years later,
I feel like it would have truly been Superman three.
They would have said it in the eighties, they would
have leaned into it a little further. I feel like

(24:31):
maybe the greatest uh problem that the movie. I have
a very long, complicated feelings about that movie.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
By twenty page Quentin Tarantina review upcoming.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah yeah, I had like a realisous experience sitting in
a theater watching the John Williams music music, hearing the score,
watching the opening credit. It's like, oh, yes, but it
doesn't like pick a lane, you know. It tries to
like coast off the the refilms, specifically the Daughner films,
and then also tries to do something new and like, no,
you should have either done like radically new or actually

(25:01):
like truly be Superman three, like legitimly like said it
in the eight because it looks nothing like Superman one
or two, Right, I mean I love the art shot.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
On digital, like, but it's shot on digital. The texture
of it is like radically different. And I'm not complaining,
I love digital, but it's like shot on digital in
two thousand and six, which means we're not at the
stage where digital is perfectly emulating film, because that's the
thing that digital like evolved into where it was like
digital it's this whole new art form that opens up
whole new possibilities, and Michael bat is doing all sorts
of crazy things and it really does feel like eventually

(25:29):
we wanted to get to. Yeah, but it looks just
like just like cheaper, but it's cheaper to shoot on
outside of like obviously Danny Boyle, but it is like Superman.
I like, super Returns comes out the same year as
Miami Vice. Right, just give a sense of where where
digital video was. Yeah, you're right, it doesn't actually look
like it in like in a tactile, tangible way. If
you watch them back to back, they're very different films

(25:51):
and they're storytelling even though they look there's an uncanny valley.
I think you're right, there's an uncanny valley property to it.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah, because you squint, I'm like, he's doing a good
Chris Reeve kind of impression when he's Clark and that
sort of thing. But then you look at Kate Bowserhu,
I'm like, you're in no way, Margo Kidder. You're supposed
to be a older You're supposed to be older, You're
supposed to have a six year old kid, Like, what
are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (26:09):
And yeah, what age were you? And I have some
questions about your Superman's relationship, So.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
I mean that's yeah, that's that's I've never thought of
it that way though, like a resetting kind of erasing
all this progress the character had made. That's a very
fascinating point.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Can I can I throw it even like darker? Like truth?
Paul idea like thought experiment to you? Sure if it
had come out ten years later, maybe even not even ten,
maybe eight years later, do you think it would have
been more warmly and lovingly received and possibly have spolen
to like a franchise? Like do you think the timing
was just wrong on that? Where like that arrived at

(26:44):
a time when superhero movies were still kind of adventurous
and trying new things and willing to deviate from the
template where Brian Singer's X Men were wearing black leather,
and obviously that gets retrofitted into the comics with like
New x Men by Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly, but
like you did have like this trying new things approach,
and it does feel like would Superman Returns play better

(27:04):
in a post the Flash, post Deadpool and Wolverine, post
spider Man no Way Home World or in a world
that was getting ready to do.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
That as is? Maybe I think I've been over time.
I think of enough time it passed, they would have
made the appropriate tweaks where it would have been improved.
Uh so, yeah, No, I I think so. I think
it would have been better received and it would have
been immediately compared to me because the one another unanticipated
problem with if you want to call that Sumer Returns podcast,
Everybody returns.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
We're getting closer. We're like, we're getting one degree closer.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Batman Begins is the is the you know, a b comparison,
even though Batman Begins made less it was more a
promising jumping off point.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
And Nolan is much easier to work with as well
as the vibe.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, and it's a it's a better film. I mean,
there's no argument there. Batman mcgins, what a what a
ridiculous title for a prequel. I'm sorry for a reboot.
It sounds like it's a prequel. You p like Batman,
Batman Returns, Batman Forever. Oh, and the prequel Batman I
can't like.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
But like that is the thing if you read press
from the time, like David Goyer has to explain what
it is. I think he puts the word reboot in
like quotations when he's describing it, because he's describing it
in computer terms. It's like we've turned off the Batman
franchise and are turning it back on and starting from scratch.
Like it is like so interesting that it's like and again,
this is removing one step back, one step further away,

(28:29):
but like how much the industry changes and how quickly
these things become adopted, you know. Obviously, Indiana Jones and
the Temple of Doom is a prequel. It's set before
the events of Raising Law Stark. It is so interesting
to go back and read reviews from like nineteen eighty
four when it comes out, because the word prequel is
not part of like the popular vernacular. Obviously it exists
at the time, there's etymology for it. It can be

(28:50):
traced back, I believe, in the nineteen fifties, but it's
not part of like the vernacular for like New York
Times film critics. So I believe, like as a Vincent
Canby calls it a pre sequel to raid her presequel,
a presequel, which is just the one you're so close fits,
You're so close. But yeah, like they have to explain
what a reboot was when they were doing Batman Begins, well.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
I mean for the returns. Brian Singer I think coined
the term vague sequel, right, which is which is we're
getting equal kind of where we are now. People legitimately
thought like, oh, the Joker card at the end, that
makes sense because Jack Nicholson sent the next like no, no,
that's not it. But then the Dark Knight comes out
and it's like the biggest event, you know, since Batman

(29:33):
eighty and nine. And then they look over at Superman
in terns are like, why can't she be more like
a little brother, and then they just you know, for
all those reasons you mentioned earlier, as well just kind
of dies on the vine and poor Brandon Ralph. They
could have had they had a great guy to play
Superman for twenty years, and they just kind of wasted him.
I mean, I'm glad he was on Arrow, and I'm
glad he had his redemption as Superman and the Christ
on effer Earth. He was fantastic. I think that's universally

(29:55):
loved by everybody.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
And he seems to be like doing. He seems to
pretty happy with himself, and he seems he pretty happy
doing what he's doing, which is always great. Like I
always feel so bad for the actors who go through
that and are like that was the most emotionally devastating
thing that ever happened. But it really does feel like
right within the past couple of years has had like, yeah,
kind of like not a redemptive arc, but it's been
like an uncomfortable where I am and people actually really
like men.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean they all have to go on.
I'm sure in two thousand and nine he didn't feel
that way, yea, But in twenty nineteen, you know, he
gets to play Superman again. He's embraced by the fans.
He can feel the love like, but just you know,
for a studio that's just scrambled around not knowing what
to do with Superman on the big screen for years,
It's like, you had a guy here who was really
enthusiastic about the character, looks the parts in great shape.

(30:39):
It's been twenty years. He could still be playing Superman, right,
you could be on Superman seven right now or whatever. Right,
but you just didn't do it. And you're the most
reaction union.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
The King, the King of Wings or like the Philip
Kennedy Johnson wah.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, anyway, just just they they're just the most reactionary
studio in the history of Hollywood. And here we are
for super Men later after after all this. But yeah,
I mean, I don't. I mean, we're we're again. We're
just talking all around here, but eventually we'd the Snyder
verse happens. You know, where where are you on the
Snyder Verse?

Speaker 1 (31:10):
I think, and this is a good preparations, like put
a pin in this for when we get to talk
about super Man twenty five. I think like Man of
Steel is Zack Snyder's worst film, which is probably a
hot take.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
It's a hot take, okay, go on, and the reason
why I think. Don't worry, Zach. I have a justification
for Darren. I was told you were a Snyder bro
on whin follow this.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
I'm also a gun gooner, I believe as well. The
wonderful thing about being a film critic is that you
are what you're like. You're like Batman at the end
of the dark night. You can be what it needs
you to be because I can take it. I could
be the outcast, Zach. I could be the hero. Not
that's not the Twitter deserves, but the hero of the
Twitter needs right now. But no, obviously, yes, when you're

(31:51):
on Twitter, you are whatever the person talking to you
or at you needs you to be, depending on the mood.
I am like, I'm a Snyder's fan, Snyder bro, I'm
a gun gooner, which is like that feels like they
landed on like a I feel sorry for gun fans
that they.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
Landed a lot.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
I'm an MCU fan, I'm a snob, I'm an elitist,
I'm all these sorts of things. But like I am,
broadly speaking, have a great deal of sympathy for Snyder
as a filmmaker. I don't know that I like all
of his films to be entirely honest, he wouldn't be
like one of my guys in the Mark Maren sense.
But I like that Snyder, broadly speaking, is an artist

(32:27):
who has a distinct aesthetic that he remains true to
across his filmography. That like, he is a filmmaker that
you can look to and recognize and see that the
work is his own, and that he makes movies that
clearly interest him and he clearly excites a passion from
him and he simply cares about I don't think Snyder
has ever phoned in a movie. I don't think Snyder
has ever done like a movie where it's just like
a paycheck movie to him. And I kind of honestly,

(32:49):
earnestly respect that. In a system that is designed at
the moment to strip out so much of an artist's identity,
I think like his movies can be hit and miss
if we're being entirely honest. Here the ones I like,
I like, And my issue with Man of Steel is
that like it is the least Snyder Snyder movie, it
is the influence of Nolan because obviously he's a producer

(33:10):
on it, and he's a story credit no and as
written by David Skoyer and stuff like that. It is
a movie that is very consciously designed to be a
Nolan movie, which is really interesting to watch, where it
has the non linear structure that you associate with Nolan movies,
but it also has like you can spot, like key components,
like Nolan is a filmmaker who's very interested in like
large ensembles, and one of like the quiet like master

(33:32):
strokes of his Batman trilogy is that he makes Gotham
seem like a real place, not in terms of architecture
and design, because you're never gonna compare to Anton first Gotham,
but in terms of like a stratosphere like he creates
like you care about the cops, you care about the
DA's office. You know about like the corrupt city officials,
you know about the billionaire, like the industrialists who are plotting,

(33:53):
you know, like Bruce Wayne has like a family or
an ensemble around him, and Nolan's really interested in that.
And throughout Nolan's films, like Alfred's relationship to Bruce is
different from Gordon's relationship to Batman, and there's a complexity
there and attention there that's really interesting, and you can
see in Man of Steel. The movie is kind of
trying to do that. It's trying to create a version
of Metropolis that is populated by characters. You have like

(34:15):
the soldiers or the military officers obviously like Christopher Maloney
for example, and Richard Schiff. You have like the Daily
Planet staff, like you have like Michael Kelly is there.
You also obviously you have like Lois and you have
Perry and all this sort of stuff. And the movie
does keep cutting to them, and it gives them stuff
to do at the climax of the movie. And that
is stuff where like if that was a Nolan movie

(34:36):
that is designed in a way that Nolan would keep
cross cutting between them to build tension. Think of the
way that Nolan shoots climaxes. So for example, in Oppenheimer,
where like one of my favorite things at Oppenheimer is that,
like the most tense sequence in Oppenheimer is a meeting
about five other meetings. It's when they're like grilling him
about the security clearance and it's like, oh, yeah, but no,
I came back the other day. But when you testified

(34:57):
about it last time, and it's like, oh yeah, but
I discussed it at a lunch a little while ago,
and it's like cutting between the five different versions of
a meeting and like, oh my god, this is incredible cinema.
But even say Interstellar is a great example of this,
where you're cross cutting between say, Jessica Chestain and tofer Grace,
Everyone's favorite action he wrote to for Grace trying to
save Casey Affleck's kids, and you're cutting that against like

(35:20):
Matt Damon and sorry, what's his face? Cooper on the
planet like you do McConaughey, like, and you have this
like really interesting juxtaposition of action that is happening at
like a small familial scale and at a galactic scale,
and you're constantly jumping between the two and everything is
escalating and the rhythm is perfect, and you can tell

(35:41):
that like on the page. Man of Steel is written
to do that where you have like the demolition of
like the two world engines that are simultaneously on two
sides of the planet and Superman can only do one
of them. So you have to be like, you have
to have human beings in Metropolis and you have to
be cutting to them doing stuff. But Snyder is not
a filmmaker who is interested in doing that. Snyder does

(36:01):
not communicate his ideas visually through cutting. Snyder communicates his
ideas visually through scale and spectacle and power and like,
so the images of like Superman being pressed into the
earth by the World Engine are riveting, but then every
like two or three or four seconds, you have to
cut back to like Perry White trying to lever up

(36:22):
a piece of concrete, and it's like you can tell that,
like Snyder's heart just isn't in that scene. Is that,
like this is not something he can do, Like he
can't tell Laurence Fishburn to rip off his shirt and
oil himself up and just make himself look like an
epitome of masculinity as he shoots it in slow motion. So,
like there is in Man of Steel, this real tension
between a movie that was written for one director, filmed

(36:44):
by another, and whose styles don't really mix. And I
know people like to say that the big problem with
Snyder's movies is that like they're dark and gritty like
the Dark Night Trilogy, they are very different movies than
the Dark Night Trilogy, where like I think, for all
its flaws, Batman Versus Superman is like a much more
Snyder movie. It is like much more aggressively Snyder. It's

(37:06):
much more interested in mythology and archetypes and images and
like big striking visuals than Man of Steel was. Man
of Steel is trying to do something that Snyder is
not interested in doing. I don't want to say he's
incapable of doing, but it's just not where his skill
set or his interests lie as a filmmaker. And so
that's my issue at Man of Steel as a Snyder movie.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
That's interesting. I have zeroed in on that same idea
before of you articulated very well as you do. But
Man of Steel being like somebody watch Batman mcginns and
was like, all right, I guess we should do that
for Superman. And that's Man of Steel because I enjoy
it quite a bit. I mean, just the visual energy
of it, the sci fi storytelling of it, Like there's

(37:48):
a lot of reason I like it. But and I
have gone back and forth on that too. I going
back and forth with all these Superman movies. People all right,
I'm way too close to the material. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
There are parts with that I like, like, I love
that it is. It is like so interesting. It's a
counterpoint to Superman. Returns, where Sa Returns is in conversation
with the Donner movies, but like Man of Steel is
actually in conversation with the Donner movies, where like it
is a really angry, bitter remake like for the War
on Terror of Superman two, where like Superman two has

(38:16):
many of the same beats, like right down to like
the trucker, the rest stop, truck stop bully, right, that's
a take that's lifted directly from Superman two. But Zod
obviously comes from Superman two, and the big showdown in
Metropolis comes from Superman two, and in Superman two in
nineteen eighty that level of urban devastation in a like
Blockbuster film looks like Airports seventy seven. It looks like

(38:39):
something from a kind of a kooky cartoonish fantasy. But
it is like the Richard Lester version where they do
like singing in the rain at one point, but like,
it is cartoonish and it's large, and it's goofy, and
it's playful and it's silly and it's fun, and there
is something I find really interesting a Man of Steel
doing that after nine to eleven and being like, no, actually,
this is horrifying it is on set like it's visceral.
It's uncomfortable. It's like really really really troubling.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
And it should be right like it should now. I uh,
I guess a half step back, I guess one of
the things I think they could have done better was
was the uh parsing out in order of the flashbacks.
I feel like they just put him in there because like, oh,
bam mcginns has these, right, yeah, we have these. I'm
like okay, Like like there's a scene where you know,
Jonathan dies in the tornado, which I'm actually fine with.
Hot take everybody calm down because he walks the walk

(39:23):
that he talks, right, He's.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Like, yeah, he's true to his beliefs.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah, exactly. So that's that's this guy. I watched Smallville
ten years daring. I'll tell you that that Jonathan Hint
is the one I watched on Smallville. But then you know,
we see him die in a flashback like oh wow, okay,
and then you feel that he's gone right, and then
like fifteen minutes later like oh look it's a flashback
to earlier in his youth, and he's I'm like no, no, no, no,
that should have been earlier. Like you did anyway.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yeah, you can't give me. You can't give me Kevin
Costa after you've taken Kevin cost away from me. I
mean it, But that is that is again, that is
the Nolan thing, where like if no one were doing it,
the structure on the flashbacks would be much Nolan is
very good at structuring that stuff. Nolan constructs his movies
like he obviously he writes them to the edit, but
they are like they're very rational, ary Jigsaw puzzles. Everything

(40:05):
goes in its proper place. The famous thing about Nolan
is that his movies don't really have deleted scenes because
he writes them as they're meant to be shot, Whereas
like Snyder, I don't feel that level of precision in
terms of like editing as construction. I feel it in
terms of image, Like it's the image is what's important
in a Snyder movie, less than the edit or the rhythm.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yeah, so I totally agree. It's like it's almost like
people you want to say, well, Chris Nolan ends Zack
Snyder is the ultimate combination. That's why Man of Steel.
But I'm like, actually, no, like the Chris nolanisms hold
back the snyderisms, and that's why Mana of Steel fells
a little commence, but I guarantee at the same time,
they were like, all right, we gotta make this where like,
if we can convince Chris and well Chris and Christian

(40:45):
to come back, we can merge these two worlds together,
because Man of Steel looks like it could fit with those.
And then once we get past that, nothing else than
an ECU does. So Mana still going stands alone.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
Absolutely the thing. Like again, it feels very much like
the way that studios used to work, which was the
one for you, one for me thing, where like, for
all the issues with the DCU and for all that
you're right to zero in on as like Warner Brothers
desperately chasing what Disney had started doing like five or
six years before them, and therefore had like a clearer
runway and a much more like smoothly operating machine. Warners,

(41:16):
to their credit, did at least like try to design
the DCU to operate in the way that they used
to make movies, which is a hiring directors with very
strong esthetic styles like Warner Brothers were known in the
industry for being the home of like we already mentioned Nolan,
but like Goubrick Eastwood for example, as well like Hitchcock
for a little while disgraced Hollywood filmmaker Woody Allen for example,

(41:40):
but like Warner Brothers used to be the place that
would be home to creatives and like it would build up.
I think one of the quotes I think is an
Alan Horne used to say, we're the box set studio
we dream in, like we dream of like the DVD
box set, where we know we can put out one
hundred DVD Clint Eastwood box set every every Christmas, sell
it for like fifty dollars, and we will make like
two hundred three hundred million dollars off everybody's granddad every Christmas.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
Like clockwork, Tim Burton WV.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
That's actually that's a really great call exactly, and like
right back to them as well to do Beetle Juice
Beetle Juice. But like it is very interesting that they
try to build the DCU on that model, where like
it's very clear that getting Ben Affleck to be Batman
is contingent on their continued support of like his artsier
movies like The Town, like Argo for example, like is
it Lived by Night as well as another one of

(42:27):
those yes, we're like yes, getting Nolan to sign on
seems like contingent on, Like okay, we will also bankroll
like Inception, for example, we will buy the international rights
to Interstellar because we believe we will trade. We will
trade South Park back to Paramount for the international rights
to Interstellar because we believe in you so much, and
also because you're doing this the solid let us put

(42:49):
your name in the trailer. But even things like obviously
the David Ayr suicide Squad is like a cluster, a
cluster mess, cluster mess in all sorts of ways. Yes,
but but like, it's so interesting that that movie is
very clearly coming off the back of somebody seeing I
can't even remember the name of it, but it's the

(43:09):
like it's the it's the like con movie starring Margot
Robbie and Will Smith.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Oh focus focus focus at the theater because I'm like, well,
it's like a precol To suicide squad.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
But that is that's clearly exactly what it is. Somebody
at Warner Brothers was like, you know what, these two
guys are popping off each other. Let's put them in
a superhero movie and see what happens where like even
things like obviously like Margot Robbie's continued involvement in the DCU,
obviously with like Harley Quinn, or like Birds of Prey
and the fantabulous emancipation of one Harley and Quinzell, or

(43:46):
like obviously the Suicide Squad, that's leverage for her to
get to produce her Barbie movie there, Like there is
like this trading of horses that exists at Warner Brothers,
which doesn't really exist that much of their studios. Like
it's not like Vin Diesel gets to make his passion
project with Universal in return for turning in a script
for Fast X about eleven.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Those are his passion projects that I mean, maybe Riddick,
I don't know, but that's all he else he's got.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
Riddic's probably close action.

Speaker 4 (44:37):
That's what you get when you hire a con man.
I can convince anyone of anything, as soon as a
science to getting people to trust you with your current
skill set, you don't Maybe he could teach me in
your room. That is so bad?

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Does it feel sexy on your face?

Speaker 3 (44:59):
It does?

Speaker 4 (45:00):
Okay, let's go.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
We're about thirty strong.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
Everybody gets a percentage.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
They get quick and get out. If there's a girl,
she's our intern. You're hitting.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
I'm right here, No.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Fard, I'm not hitting. That should hit when rhythm start.

Speaker 4 (45:18):
You never drop the contents with me, never break make
me sweet?

Speaker 3 (45:22):
Where are the black people?

Speaker 5 (45:25):
Like?

Speaker 1 (45:25):
Lazy? Big most congratulations? You're a criminal.

Speaker 4 (45:33):
You might be one of the best I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
So what about the big con that you're all big
time tax? Would you have them?

Speaker 4 (45:41):
You mean the one where we make so much money
we all retire.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Swear I've got three lives balanced on my head like stick,
not the speeds to be discreet. Hold, I can't tell
you the truth about my disguise.

Speaker 4 (45:53):
You seem trustworthy.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
You don't know me.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
It brings me too.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
Monnyes Mark, that's fantastic.

Speaker 5 (46:01):
Bad religious.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
There's not a guy you want to cross a million?

Speaker 4 (46:10):
No, you make things interesting. There's no room for heart
in this game. Get you killed?

Speaker 1 (46:17):
How's I can never.

Speaker 4 (46:24):
There's two kinds of people in this world. There's hammers
and nails, and you decide which one you want to be.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
It's a it's a bad religion. So we're gonna go
through all these movies or anything like that. We're gonna
get to.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
The eventually current.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
The current as this, but let's explore this briefly because
I've be talking about this with the You know, there's
a lot of a lot of box office talk these days, Dared. Obviously,
box office means something. It's a it's a move, it's
Joe business. It's funny because like box office is not
a quick quality. We all know this, we all know this.
This is fine.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
Obviously, Lelo and Stitch the live action remake is the
best American movie of the year. Question, I don't I
don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Yeah, well, like you mentioned, you mentioned Suicide Squad, one
of the worst not only one of the worst comic films,
one of the worst films I have ever seen.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
I do love by the way. That's that's a very
clear like fool us Ones thing where it's you mentioned
Tim Burton. It's very similar to is it like Plan
of the Apes? Where it's like a movie that everybody,
including the studio releasing it knows is terrible, but like
somehow makes a boatload of money and the studio is like,
do we do we make a sequel? Like can we

(47:42):
legally get away with making a sequel to that, and
obviously we have principles in this.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Nineteen ninety eight Godzola made a lot of money. Yeah, yeah,
no sequel, Like, we'll just eat the cost you guys.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Sounds like we can. We can. We can distribute those
Japanese movies instead.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
Right, yeah, that's just good, right yeah, But but this
is this here, this what we're about to talk we're
talking about now is has led us to where we
are today, right man Man of Steel comes out six
hundred and sixty seven million dollars. I know all these
numbers because I see him ey day online. People would
just burn them into my brain all day. So that
was a relative disappointment at the time, it was a success,

(48:17):
but this is not success.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Yeah. Within within like eight weeks, they denounced that, like
you're getting a sequel with Batman, like right, So we
called the Ben aff like we called in all of
its favors. We said, like, we will make whatever whatever
you want, like Ben.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
I know they push the Batman button, right, and they
do Batman vs. Superman Donna Justice is the most common number.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
You remember the twenty thirteen comic con where.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
It Hary Lennox read the line from the Dark Knight
returns and then they show the logo like, oh my god,
we're gonna do it now. I mean to have the
whole thing revolve around Batman versus Superman. I don't know
all that to say, right, they make they make this movie,
they make BVS and they cut out like three five
minutes of it, and they make a lot of plot holes,
and I don't I saw the theatrical cut twice at

(49:04):
the theater. I'll never watch it again. I think it's
a completely like we talk about director's cuts and how,
oh well, this is the more definitive version. No no, no, no, no.
BBS is probably like the poster child for throw away
your disc for the theatrical version. Right, Okay, the ultimation
comes out. It's not a different movie, but it's much
better and more cohesive and actually makes sense narratively. And
I again I go all around how I feel about
these movies. I like them quite a bit now. But

(49:26):
all that to say, it made like I don't know,
eight hundred and eighty million dollars rolled out or something.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
And not making it get the billion didn't bill like a.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
Billion, so they didn't make a billion. So that's in
the back of their minds. Suicide Swat comes out one
of the worst films of all time. It makes what
like seven hundred something million, eight hundred million, And I'm what,
I don't understand, Like, I don't understand how that makes
that much money. I was talking about this. I think
I know why. I think it's a combination of Batman, Joker,
Harley Quinn, Margot Robbie, Harley Quinn and Will Smith. Those

(49:54):
factors are why you make eight hundred plus million dollars
right for a terrible movie?

Speaker 1 (49:59):
And the at that like not to reopen the debate
of what happened to Suicide Squad, but and the trailer
was pretty good, like not to not to be the
Warner Bros. Executive who watches the trailer and goes, I
just had the most brilliant idea. But yeah, the trailer
is pretty well put together.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Could we like make the movie like that? I mean,
I guess, are you sure?

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Throw in another one hundred million dollars for music rights,
and we're all, oh my god, I never has a
movie I'm miming like I'm miming smoking.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
As never has a movie started so many times? All right,
and reintroduced characters anyway a complete mess, but it makes
a whole lot of money. And then yeah, BBS didn't
make a billion, but it did pretty well. Although I
myself was a remixed on and when it came out,
as many people still are to this day, whatsack.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Though, I mean people are perfectly levelheaded and co reads
about when you discussed that movie.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
But then Wonder Woman comes out and everybody loves it.
Everybody loves it. It's a it's a commercial and critical success.
DC's like, well, thank god we have we're there. But look,
but but we're four for four on like financial you know,
basic success, like and they're not blowing the ceiling off. Yeah,
but then all the Justice League stuff happens behind the scenes,
and somebody like like the existence of the MCU is

(51:15):
the worst thing to ever happened to the DCU, because
they look over there and like, can we can we
hire the guy from Adventures and just kind of redo
Justice League and posts and they're like are you sure?

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Like yeah, it's like you you do know that he
almost got fired from like Ultra and and like did
a whole interview about how terrible the production of the
second Avengerance movie was, like that's fine.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
Disgrace how the director Dross Sweden, by the way, but
the discourse was what it was. And then you know,
people forget wonder Woman in Justice League came out of
the same year, folks, that was like six months. Yes, yes,
and so like you see a Wonder Woman, You're like,
we're back, We're back. I can't we are so back there.
And I guess what I'm trying to get at with

(51:55):
this is like it's in its very compromised form. Justice
League makes like six hundred and sixty million dollars. Again,
why do I know these numbers? Because I see them
every day online. I can't escape them. All you want
to talk about? Is this all you want to talk about?

Speaker 1 (52:08):
But it's because it spares you having to actually engage
with the work of the dext and the body. If
you just point to a number, whether that number is
like an aggregate of like rotten Tomatos approved critics or
a box office tally or whatever, as long as you
have a number, you can say one number is bigger
than the other number. Therefore one number is superior to
the other number. Therefore the thing to which that number
is attached must be superior to the thing that the

(52:29):
other numbers attached to. I have a whiteboard behind me.
I'm like Oppenheimer. It's paradoxical, but it works. But it's
also true. I guess what I'm getting at is those
box office talk. I was shocked because I look this up.
That Justice League makes six hundred and sixty million dollars worldwide,
which today is better than everything.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
It's better. The reason why that failed is because they
spent another one hundred million dollars remaining.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
When you make the movie twice, you call that the
Citadel problem, Zach. It's like, yeah, the thing would have
been successfully if you had just made it the first time.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
So I mean, and yes, the fans were divided, but
I don't I don't know, Like I don't studios just
need to turn off the Wi Fi router and not
read what's going on the internet for all, for all
sides of it, really, because I truly think they stayed
the course of what they were doing, and they released
a edited down version of Zack Snunder just as like

(53:22):
a three hourish version in twenty seventeen, they would have
made more money than they made spent less money, And
then where will we be? I don't know, but that's
where we are.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
Where we are down here, like this is the thing, right,
It's like those movies like Man of Steel was profitable,
Batman Versus Superman was just about profitable in theaters, massively
profitable on home media. Like that's the Alan is it?
Alan Horn?

Speaker 2 (53:42):
A Horn?

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Yea Alan Horn who made the point that like everyone's like,
why do Water Brothers keep hiring Zack Snyder to make movies?
Like Alan Horn on Twitter? It was like the reason
that we did it was because all of his movies,
with the exception of Sucker Punch, made us.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
A lot of nine hundred Watchmen.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
Yeah, forget obviously a masterpiece that everybody loves. I mean,
I have my favorite Guardian I know in my heart.
But like those and those Zack Snyder movies. You're right,
you mentioned ancilliary media and media, but like they have
director's cuts, they have like beautiful hol media editions, and
you're right, I don't know if Snyder works as well
in the modern age. I don't know if Snyder works

(54:19):
without the safety net of like a home media system
where you can sell discs and ultimate editions and directors
cuts and collectors cuts or whatever. But like he was
a director who in that ecosphere made a lot of
money for the studio.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
I may, I may or may not own three versions
of Watchmen.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
I I absolutely I will say I waited for the
I was smart enough to wait for the ultimate could
have watch Meant to Be Fair, which is a fold
out which contains like nine discs and three different versions
of the movie beautiful. It's no, it's absolutely. I love
it so much, Like and I don't love Watchmen, but
I love that that edition of Watchmen so much, and
like that sort of stuff is stuff that I love.

(54:54):
I love that kind of like physical media. Like again
that that idea we talked about, like if Snyder makes
his movie and the movie that he cares about in
the movie that matters to him, where it's like you
can watch this, like even if that doesn't work for me,
it's clear that like somebody has poured over that in
a way that shows a lot of love and appreciation
for the product that I have been given. Whereas you
look at something like Justice League, and why are you

(55:16):
trying so hard to impress me and humiliating yourself so
desperately to earn approval that you know I'm not going
to give you like it is. It is such a strange,
panicked thing.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
When you first saw Justice League, did you like it? No, Okay,
I did. I was like, oh okay. I was like, okay, okay, Well,
Superman's back. I kind of like these new characters. Everybody's back,
will like I think I was convinced myself that okay,
now we can keep moving and whatever. But like at
the time, like I'll go back, I haven't gone back
and listened to what I said at the time that

(55:49):
I know it was. I was quite positive about it
overall in the direction we were going in at that point.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
I put that immediately on a list with was a
Ternator Genesis as like, oh, movies movies that fears are Harben.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
The only reason why Terminator Dark Fate is not the
worst Terminator movie is because Terminator Genesis exists.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Ouch. Yeah, I don't really like Dark Fate either, but
also ouch, that's really mean. But I like, I remember.
The thing I remember about Justice League is coming out
of the screening of that, I didn't I didn't. I
want to swear I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything.
I came out of the screening and however, it was
that I was carrying myself the wonderful like Warner Brothers

(56:31):
like representative there at the screening, Jill Temple, wonderful woman.
Just want to shout her out like she's p or
there for years like incredible woman, very like really wonderful
to work with and had no difficulty with whatsoever, never
any like wonderful, wonderful, poor person. She she looks at me.
I don't say anything because you don't normally say anything
to pure people when you come out, because you want

(56:52):
to think about it and want to ruminate what you're saying. Yeah,
but whatever it is that I'm projecting out into the world,
she instinctively takes it upon herself to say, I didn't
make that movie. That that is what that that is
the vibe that I was setting, and like I was
with some people and the vibe was that's maybe it's
not as bad as we think it is. And I

(57:12):
was I was quiet because I don't like to be
the guy Zach. I don't like to be the person
he's like, I don't want to be the comic book
guy who's like that was worst movie ever. But I'm
just silently quietly keeping my own cancel during the conversation,
and there is like a vibe at one point as
we're going down the escalator of the person turned me going,
oh you you really you really hated that.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Well that comes out and then and then a year
later Aquaman comes out. It makes a billion dollars. I
don't understand it. I don't do you understand it. Explain
to me why that made a bit. I like Acleman
quite a bit actually, Like it's a fun global trotting
movie with a lot of movie star power. I mean
Momoa in that particular role in his strengths. I love

(57:57):
Patrick Wilson anyway.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
Yeah, no, I mean I will say as somebody he
worked in radio for like eight years. I was doing
like weekly radio reviews in Ireland at the time. Shout
out to the production team at like Q one O
two Venisia Quick, my wonderful producer. But like you know,
there there was there was a there was a thirst
in the air for Momoa as Aquaman, like there was
Like I do think that it's impossible overstate the extent

(58:20):
to which like that was the perfect role for Momoa
at that moment in time, and how he spoke to
an audience that without getting into like without generalizing, Zach
is not the typical like twenty four to thirty five
year old male audience for comic book movie. We're like, no,
there really was, Like there was a while when like,
and this is how you know what comic book movie
is broken out is when middle aged women are talking

(58:40):
to you about how much they love it, and have
you heard anything more about that Aquaman? Are they making another.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
Aquat five years from now?

Speaker 1 (58:47):
They will, Yeah, and it'll be a masterpiece and it'll
end like iron Man and then like the finally, after
like ten years of this experiment, they will finally reach
the end of Iron Man in their arc. But I
will to say obviously international markets as well. It performs
very well overseas, and I think like part of the
appeal of Aquaman is maybe that it doesn't feel that
much like a traditional superhero movie. Yeah, like it does

(59:10):
for you know, I don't want to get into superhero fatigue.
I'm sure eventually in this arc that we're crafting of
the genre. But like in twenty eighteen, even then, Aquaman
doesn't look like it doesn't even look like Thor Ragnarok
and the Guardians movies are probably the closest thing you
have visually on the marble side, and they don't really
look anything like Aquaman. It's got this kind of fluorescent palette,

(59:32):
it's got this kind of neon. It looks almost like Tron. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Yeah, Like that's a great call. It's something that you
haven't seen because we'll talk about fatigue, right, But it's like,
I think we're seeing so many of the things we've
seen so many times the same ways, and you know
it doesn't excite you anymore. Akaman shows you stuff and like, man,
I haven't seen that before. That's impressed. Like I saw
a guy on a seahorse riding across the ocean fighting
crab monsters. I'm like, what is this great? This is

(59:56):
Lord of the Rings underwater, you know.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
The crab monsters Scottish accents, like voiced by is a Jonathan.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Reese stage yes give himself? Yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
Like but also like there's and again I don't want
to like denigrate any of my fellow critics, but like
the critics who were maybe in twenty eighteen already a
little jaded by the superhero phenomena, like coming out of
that and going Willem Dafoe was really given it sucks.
Was that Julie Andrews as a giant like Cracken esque
monster and I'm like, oh, the one that plays the drums,

(01:00:26):
and They're like, no, no, no, the other giant crackage
shape monster. Like there is like something in that movie
that is very different. I'm not as fun to put
my hands up. I'm not as fond as Aquaman as
you are, but I think there is something very different
about that movie that feels very first exciting. I do
want to shout out. The thing I love is that
that comes out the same Christmas as Mary Poppins Returns
and Julie Andrews turns down a cameo and like a

(01:00:49):
nostalgia baiting cameo in Mary Poppins Returns, I suspect the
Angela Lansbury cameo if you've seen the film, and instead
takes the role in Aquamat.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Take that Disney w won Disney zero.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
I think it's more WB one like Disney thirty billion.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
No, of course, and I think that'll lean nicely into
the next thing to talk about or look at us
being podcasters here, so like so at this point, right
at this point, the DCEU has some you know, critical
some critical backlash from some circles didn't make as much
as maybe they would have hoped. They're looking, but the
problem is looking across town. Yeah, look at what Marvel's doing.

(01:01:28):
They're like, why they cranking out? And hey, Marvel, no
one has, no one will ever do it better than them,
this machine they've created, and like they're cranking out success
after success, like.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
This is the year of like Black Panther, and obviously
this is the year of Infinity Wars yeh eighteen, Like yeah,
this is the culmination and the peak and the pinnacle.
We don't realize it yet, but when we hit twenty nineteen,
that is like by July, Disney had made more money
in twenty nineteen than any studio had made in any
year previous, and they still had like a Star Wars

(01:01:58):
movie to go on their Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
But but that's the thing, Like I know, it's so
it's it's intuitive to be like an instinctive I should
say it to be like, oh, we're we got DC.
We should be comparing ourselves to Marvel over there. It's
really not a fair comparison at all. I mean, had
history gone differently and they kept making Batman movies from
two thousand and five onward, and they folded in Vandon
Rouse's Superman to those, and like they built off of that,

(01:02:22):
and green Lander from two thousand and eleven was actually good
and people like that. Then they could have built the
momentum that Marvel was doing. Marvel, you look, it's so crazy,
because this is why history is fascinating to study of
the in the two thousand and eight, the year of
the Dark Knight. Take that Marvel DC is back, right,
and then look now that's the year of Iron Man
and twenty years on here we are right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Well that that is the thing to do. The like
retroactive assessment is that, like the joke is that when
obviously like Iron nine comes out, it does something like
five hundred million dollars, like the Dark Knight does a
billion dollars, and you have the joke of like is
it Robert Downey Junior being like, yeah, Iron Man releases
in May, it should keep people happy for about eight
weeks before the Dark Knight releases. Like there was this

(01:03:03):
sense like at the time and like for a couple
of years in hindsight of being like, yeah, well okay,
you know, DC are clearly in the lead. This is
clearly where the branch of the superhero genre is going,
and it's like this MCU experiment will be interesting, I guess.
But then you get to I think it's around about
twenty twelve is when it really shifts. When you have
the Dark Knight Rises and you have Avengers, and like
Dark Knight Rises is well received, like critically and commercially

(01:03:26):
and all that sort of stuff does generally a little
bit of fan pushback. This around the time that you
start seeing people sending death threats over reviews. Little thing
to note in terms of like charting the history of this,
but it is the point where like The Avengers explodes
and The Avengers becomes a billion dollar movie, and The
Avengers just like it becomes a billion dollar movie that
crucially to your point, is going to continue the Dark
Knight Rises. It's very clear Nolan's like I'm done, I'm out,

(01:03:49):
and most of the people who work with Nolan are
like principal people where it's like I do wonder if
they even called up Joseph Gordon Levin and were like,
would you come back for Justice Lee, Like if after
Christian Bale turned them down, do you think they rang
LEVI because there were rumors, I know, there was a
rumored gossip maybe the Dark Knight trilogy ends, and it's
a clear ending, and it's a definitive ending. But by

(01:04:10):
that point it's become clear. The future is the model
that Marvel are showing. And by that stage, Marvel have
already completed phase one, Darren says in business parlance. But
they've they've already like demonstrated the model, They've already like
honed it down. At this stage, they've been bought by Disney.
I believe it's iron Man three is the first. It's
iron Man three the first Marvel movie distributed by Disney.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
Yeah, because it was like Paramount was the co production, yeah,
for the first two iron Man so yeah, I think
it was.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
And for Thor and for Captain America, I know, correctly. Yeah,
And there was some overlap with Avengers. I think like
Disney handled the Avengers distribution over here. But maybe iron
Man three was the first one that was fully produced
in house by Disney or whatever. But like by the
time you hit like twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, that machine
is oiled, hitting the ground running, and it is the
future and like warners are struggling to get their pants on. Yeah,

(01:04:59):
it's and you're stuck playing catch up.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Yeah and you and yeah. And that's the thing, right
because up until you know, up until The Blade, X Men,
Spider Man, like the Three Headed Dragon that that put
superhero movies back on the map, after Batman and Robin
destroyed destroyed it in the mainstream. Up until then, it
was all DC all the time. Right. We grew up
with I grew up with Batman movie every a couple
of years, right, Superman on TV. Yeah, So like DC

(01:05:25):
reigned supreme. But then you know, you had X Men,
you had Spider Man, and then those those franchises kind
of they they filled that a little bit. But this
is what I mean, all credit to Fox and the
X Men franchise. They and that's what I'm saying. They
stayed I've said this for years, by the way, so
this is not some retroactive thing. I'm saying. They stayed
the course. They had some of the worst films you've
ever seen, like X Mell, Origins, Wolverine, But then you
stay the course and you get days of Future Past

(01:05:46):
and you need logan like because they stayed the course.
If they rebooted every five years. Like DC, you never
get those those things.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
I mean I would. I would also make the case that,
like I think there is an argument for and this
is the pure comic book Nord and me, for having
companies that have discrete identities, like where like Warner Brothers
could not make end Game, Fox could not make end Game, right,
Disney can make Endgame. That is what Disney can do.
That is what Disney is exceedingly good at, to quote

(01:06:12):
the Matrix Revolutions. But like we assure you we have
made the six Avengers movies in the past five years.
We are exceedingly good at it. But you do have
like that's what they're good at, whereas like Warner Brothers
they make the Dark Night trilogy. That's what they should
be like doing. They should be hiring people with distinct
artistic identities to make movies that are unique and distinct.

(01:06:33):
I think that's why Aquaman popped. I think that's why
Joker pop. To jump ahead to like twenty nineteen, oh yeah,
yeah yeah, And like Fox are like halfway between the
two where they're like, we will kind of try these things,
but like, well, we'll do franchises and spin offs, and
we'll try crossovers, but we'll also like hire directors who
have distinct like styles and aesthetics. Also hire a hop Yeah,

(01:06:54):
Matthew Vaughan, the only non disgrace director of the mainline
X Men franchise with exceptives in Ginberg. Sorry apologies, have
a Ginberg. Yeah, but like we will hire like James
Mangle to do Logan and will let him do what
he wants to do, or like boldly, we will hire
like Ryan Reynolds after he blackmails us into essentially doing it,
but we will let let Ryan Reynolds have his own
superhero franchise. Like That's the thing that is so interesting,

(01:07:19):
Darren says on one hand, but slightly frustrating on the
other about like the success of, like the one point
three or one point six billion dollar success of like
Deadpool and Wolverine, is that, like those movies would never
have existed at Disney. Disney would never have made Logan,
and Disney would never have made the first two Deadpool movies.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
And reach the crossover.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
Yeah, that's it, Like it is so insane to me that,
like the movie is based on the love of these
movies that they never would have made in the first place,
and like not to get into like discussing fandom and
discussions about discussions of things, but like for years, I'm
sure you experience it yourself. It was like, oh, man,
Fox really ruined the X Men. Fox didn't get the
X Men ride. Fox are the worst studio and they
to the world. Fox are disgraced. Fox don't know what

(01:08:02):
they're doing. And it's like immediately it's like, so can
I buy like twenty tickets to go see the nostalgic
celebration of Fox's X Men franchise. Yeah, it is such
an interesting dynamic and like the same thing happens with Sony.
We're like, look, ye, I will accept as penance as
price as cost. I will accept one More Bias or

(01:08:24):
one Madam Web, or one Venom one or Venom three.
I like Venom two. Venom two is inexplicably a good movie.
I will accept one of those movies every year, hell,
every six months, if it gets me a Spider Verse movie. Yes,
on a semi regular basis, because again, a Spider Verse
movie is a movie to get to that point that
we're making. Disney can make Endgame, Disney can make in

(01:08:46):
Findy war Warner Brothers can make the Dark Knight, Warner
Brothers can make Joker, but neither of them could make
into the Spider Verse or across the Spider Verse. I
think like that is something that I like about, like
having a diverse landscape. Darren says. He talks about one
studio that doesn't exist anymore and another studio that's preparing
to be bought and sold.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
Yeah, well, I mean what so what is what? Where
where are we with superhero fatigue? Because I mean there's
the one hand, well, you know, the Westerns had its day,
and now the superhero movies have had their day. And
the other hand, it's like we've had mafia and cop
and medical movies and TV shows for decades. We've never
sold down. So where are we on that? On that spectrum?

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
I mean, I would argue that like the same thing's
true Westerns. We still have Westerns. We have Westerns on
the regular basis, like you like I believe that like
two Westerns won the Best Picture Oscar back to back
in the nineteen nineties. Like for example, the genre Yeah,
because it was on Forgiving. That's wolves. That's the wolves.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
Like I guess dance some of the Wolves is the West.
I didn't really think of it as a Western, but
you're absolutely right, totally that that's the controversial take I
have this week. FO everybody, check out this guy. He
thinks like Dancing with Wolves is the Western hot tap.

Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
That would be great if that was the one thing
that your listeners were just tweeting at me, going, that's
the Wolves is out of Western. It's a it's a
historical epic.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
It's some period piece.

Speaker 5 (01:10:04):
Yeah, just here that you've been decorated and they sent

(01:10:26):
you here.

Speaker 3 (01:10:26):
To be posted.

Speaker 5 (01:10:27):
Actually, sir, I'm here at my own request.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
Why I've always wanted to see the frontier?

Speaker 5 (01:10:33):
Do you want to see the frontier?

Speaker 3 (01:10:35):
Yes, sir, before it's gone. There ain't nothing here, lieutenant.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Everybody's run off or god kill? What about in end.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
Street? They're gonna hang.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
If you look back over the history of the Oscars,
that's the most like I believe that is the most
Westerns to win, like the best picture Oscar in a
singular decade. The idea of fatigue being the movies will
just go away completely is an exaggeration and misrepresentation. What
it is is the sense that for decades upon decades

(01:13:03):
you had a situation where you could just make these
movies and they would print money regardless, Like audiences would
just go and see anything that had like a cent
of the genre upon it. And like you mentioned westerns,
westerns are a great example, musicals are also a great example.
And it would be a case of like those would
just be factory line assembly products. And it's very telling
that all the production deficlais we talked about with Justice League,

(01:13:24):
which is like we hired a director, director made some choices,
didn't like the choices he made, We brought in another director.
He did as he was told, We released the movie.
It somehow made six hundred million dollars. Anyway, that is
like how musicals used to get made. That is how
like The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind
used to get made. It is like how that studio
system used to function. And what happens is it isn't

(01:13:46):
that those movies go away, because like musicals still exist,
like you still have movies like La La Land, Bohemian Rhapsody,
the Amy Wineous Picture. For example, Michael Is coming out
next year is gonna make a shed load of money.
I mean, Rhapsody made nearly a billion dollars, like you
are going to have these genres continue to exist, and
there will always be superhero movies in the same way

(01:14:08):
as you said there will always be gangster movies, but
the gangster movie ebbs and flows. The gangster movie, you know,
was usually popular in the early nineties following the success
of Goodfellas, but it's.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
A bit less popular now, you know it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
Every once in a while you'll get one and it'll
be interesting, but it's it's not quite as ubiquitous as
it once was. And I feel like the superhero genre
is kind of in the same place where it's like
I feel like if we are charting the arc of
like Hollywood history as it is unfolding now, I think
we are kind of approaching like the mid sixties era
for the musical, where like these movies are still capable

(01:14:43):
of making great deals of money, like you mentioned like
Deadpool and Wolverine, Like the highest grossing, the second highest grossing,
third highest grossing movie, second or third is behind bind
Inside Out too anyway, Yes, so, like it is one
of the highest grossing movies of last year. It made
over a billion dollars, massive co marcial success. Like next year,
You've got a spider Man movie coming out. You know,

(01:15:04):
I wouldn't bet against the Avengers movie doing very very
well off the back of it. That sort of stuff
you're gonna have, like these movies that will succeed. But
it reminds me a lot of like where the musical
was in the nineteen sixties, where like twentieth Century Fox,
we're like, we're just gonna continue making musicals. That's that's
where the money is, that's where the game is. And
you know, they make these big period epics a cost

(01:15:25):
huge amount of money. The famous story is like in
like nineteen sixty three, they make Leopatra, which is the
highest grossing movie of the year, but somehow almost destroys
the studio.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
Was it like imagine howll o Dolly? Was that a
terrible failure? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
And I was about, yeah, let's say so this is
like this is exactly the thing here is that the
way that they recover from almost like bankrupting the studio
by making the most successful movie of nineteen sixty three,
which is just a great thing to say, is they
make the Sound of Music, which is an old fashioned musical,
and that becomes briefly the highest grossing movie of all
time and in that arc we had the It's So

(01:15:57):
over and we're now at the It's So back and
instead of taking the money from the table that they're
at and going, well, we won, we should diversify your
interest and start making these new movies. And it looks
like Warner Brothers or Roller Brothers are like starting to
make new kinds of gangster movies. Maybe we should get
in on that paramounter making new kinds of gangster movies.
Maybe we should try doing that. They're like no, no, no,

(01:16:18):
double down on musicals, Dolittle, Doctor which is a huge bomb,
and all of these movies almost destroyed the studio almost
back to back. So it's like it is you mentioned
like My Fair Lady. There's also like Doolittle. There's also
a funny face the Barbara Streisend one like from nineteen
sixty nine, where it is just like it's one after

(01:16:40):
the other. And whenever you go when you talk to
fans of these movies, they all have to say, look,
this movie in particular was not the movie that destroyed Fox.
We know that you've all heard that Doctor Doolittle was
the movie that almost Bankruptbox. What it really was was
it was one of three consecutive movies that almost bankrupt Fox, because,

(01:17:01):
as you said, they were just kind of putting the
chips back on the table and going, well, look, the
musical is still paying out for us. Because we got
lucky and because the sound of music made as much
as it did. We have to assume there's still juice
left in this. And I do kind of wonder like
that is my bold prediction for like the next five years,
is that there will be some equivalent to that. I've

(01:17:23):
got no idea what it's gonna be.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
You've mentioned Joker a couple of times. I thought it
was fantastic. I really enjoyed it, and I was like,
you know what, let's just leave that alone as a
singular piece.

Speaker 1 (01:17:34):
Another movie that broke out middle aged women like I
knew that movie was making a billion dollars when I
was in a pub in Dublin and I listened to
two fifty year old women behind me and said, have
you seen this movie Joker? It's not like the other
comic book movies, And it was like that. I was like,
that was the moment where it's like, if you can
get like irish, Anti's interested in seeing your like gritty
Martin Scorsese caused a Joker movie and I like it too.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
To be clear, doesn't make it everybody, it is what
it is, right, well, I think I also think it's
a fun thing to do with, Like the comic book
thing is to like comic.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
Books are pastiche comic books are like taking influences from
various places and throwing them into a blender. I think
taking influence from Swarsese and throwing it into the letter
is a legitimate thing to do.

Speaker 2 (01:18:15):
Extremely successful, fifty million dollars, sixty million dollar budget, yeah,
a billion dollars worldwide. So they look at it like, oh,
we gotta we gotta make another one of ease and
Joker Do is one of the worst films I've ever seen.
It was so disappointing, and and especially because it just
kind of like under it literally undoes everything in the
first movie did. Because they like, for my interpretations, like, oh,

(01:18:35):
we feel like some people got the wrong message from
the first one, so let's make this and tell them
what they should have thought of it. Or I'm like,
what are we doing here? Like I don't know, I.

Speaker 1 (01:18:43):
Kind of like I will I don't like FOLLYO do,
but like this thing I don't like it. I don't
agree with it, but I respect it there I kind
of I kind of have like a weird soft spot
for follyo doue okay and that like that, yeah, there
we go forget about like what's it like, that's what
Wolves is a Western? Yeah, but like the thing about
like Folly you Do, which is not a great movie

(01:19:04):
and I would not recommend that anybody watched. It is
a deeply uncomfortable and unpleasant movie that hates itself. It's
all it's very existence and is that like there is
a level of like naked contempt in that movie for everything,
and like in particular, like a naked contempt for the
idea of doing a sequel to Joker, where it really
does feel like Phillips and Phoenix were like there more

(01:19:28):
is like you know, well it take to do a
sequel and they're like two hundred and fifty million dollars
in final cut because no studio in their right mind
would say yes to that, and Moura said, there you go,
and like Phoenix and Phillips are like well now, but
like there there is like such a contempt in that
movie for the idea of there being a follow up
to Joker, and for the idea of like Joker requiring

(01:19:49):
more to be said of it and like and like
obviously they're they're like at one point, the character Arthur
Fleck turns to the camera and says, there never was
a Joker.

Speaker 3 (01:20:00):
It is.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
It's an out of key musical. It is so unpleasant
and so uncomfortable, and it's like it has such contempt
and I admire the purity of that contempt where it
does it does feel like a movie that was made
out of obligation and like with a gun or a
two hundred and fifty million dollar check to the head

(01:20:22):
of everybody involved. And I kind of have almost a
soft spot for the movie being like that, where it's
like we could just have done the playing the hits
version of this, but instead we opted to do the
version of this that is weirdly angry at everybody, including ourselves.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):
Yeah, I love how you like. It hates itself, it
hates its audience, hates scared. It's so true. I just I,
as somebody who really liked the first one, I'm just
sad that like it's whatever like legacy it has is
gonna be tarnished by this because like it could have
existed as this singular one off thing.

Speaker 1 (01:20:53):
Are you ever going to watch joker Fulia do Zach? Like,
are you ever gonna rewatch too? You might rewatch one,
but are you ever gonna rewatch two?

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):
No, So it'll fade. It'll just fade from my memory.
I'll remind my own history. I reject the reality and.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
I substitute my own. Yeah, but like that that is
the thing that that is. But that's how sequels used
to operate, was the sense of like if there was
a bad one, you just forgot about it, Like where
it's like the existence of like Halloween four or Halloween
five or the Curse of Michael Myers does not engage
like how great Halloween was?

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
You know that's true. I mean that's that's the that's
the thing we we kind of exist in in fandom,
Like you know, it's like we love these things. I mean,
let's let's Superman fool. We're Superman four against a fake
into my office. Like I have a love hate relationship
with it because like because I love the first one
so much, I have an infinity for this the third
and fourth ones, and I will watch those movies for

(01:21:46):
the rest of my life, right and really, yeah, but
I also because I know how good it could be.
I watched these, I'm like, oh, man, like I don't
where we could, where we came from to where we are.
That's the the paradox of the sequel and the diminishing
we're terns of the sequels like to.

Speaker 1 (01:22:01):
Prepare for like Superman twenty twenty five. I did do
my Superman rewatch, but I will admit that I was
like I watched Superman one, I watched Superman two, I
watched like Superman Returns and Men of Steel. It's like
I'm done, Like I don't need to revisit Superman three
and four. My hot take is that I think Superman
four is better than Superman three. Okay, that is that
is my piping hot take.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
I know a lot of fans who would agree with you,
because it's like a good story poorly executed versus no
story executed better fun. Yeah, I can't even say good,
but well, I mean I will keep coming back to
these because of Christopher Reeve. Yeah, because he's a plus
and all of them right and no, he's phenomenal. Yeah,

(01:22:41):
So I mean that's that's where I am with those.
I yeah, so I yeah, yeah, I can talk about
all the time and about it, so I guess ultimately
here we are, right, DC Studios is here. It's a
response to everything that's come before it as is all
multimedia really, so I really can't blame it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:59):
Right again, this is the thing where it's like, this
is the worst time to be doing this, where it's like,
I want to be clear, I want to put this
down before we talk about the movie and before we
go about DC Studios. I love James Gunn. I think
James Gunn is a great director. I think Gunn is
like the best director working consistently in comic book movies

(01:23:19):
at the moment. I think the only person really camparrel
to him is Ryan Coogler, and Couchler is kind of
stepping out to do Siners and stuff like that. Like,
if you're looking at modern comic book movies, there is
no director for me equivalent to Gunn who in terms
of like loving the form, in terms of executing the form.
I think the Guardians movies are three of the best
five movies in the MCU. I think that, like The

(01:23:40):
Suicide Squad, I joked earlier, but I was entirely Sincere
is the best live action superhero movie since Logan. In
my mind, he's a guy who loves this stuff and
who breathes this stuff, and like when he was announced
to studiohead, I was like, this is incredible, this is
great news. This is somebody who cares about this stuff,
who knows how to do this stuff, and who is
like interested and engaging the stuff and could do really
fresh and interesting things, because like that was the thing

(01:24:00):
a Guardians. When Guardians came out in twenty fourteen, it
felt fresh and exciting and new and interesting. But at
the same time, part of me is also like, this
is maybe the worst possible time to try and launch
a shared universe where it's like you mentioned that so
much of like what's happening with the DCU, like from
twenty thirteen to twenty twenty one or whenever we want

(01:24:22):
to draw the line on that is the point where
like they're looking across the street at the success that
Marvel is having and going why can't we have that?
But now the DCU is looking across the street at
Marvel and as a series of clowns trying to put
out like fires before they spread too rapidly and it's.

Speaker 2 (01:24:40):
Like, what do you want?

Speaker 4 (01:24:42):
That?

Speaker 3 (01:24:42):
Like, is you?

Speaker 1 (01:24:43):
Is that what you want right now? In this the
Year of Our Lord twenty twenty five, I'm like, this
feels incredibly risky. And I will say again before we
talk about the movie and before I offer pins the movie,
I actually really like a lot of the choices that
Gun has made in terms of slate. I think that,
like a low budget face movie is the smartest choice
you could make going into twenty twenty six. I'm honestly

(01:25:05):
really excited for that. He's announced projects like the James
Mangold Swamp thing that feels like it should be fun
and exciting and interesting, and animated Robin's movie that sounds
like it could be fun and interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:25:15):
Wow, I forgot about that one, Darren. I totally forgot
about that one. There is also a sense of like,
how many of these are actually gonna happen? That's the
other that's the other side of is this the perfect
time for this? Because also.

Speaker 1 (01:25:27):
I don't know if people know this, but Warner Brothers
is not in the sturdiest financial shape and has recently
been divesting itself of assets and preparing itself for another
possible merger and acquisition with a larger corporate entity, and
like what always happens when that happens is that there
is a clearing up house of top executive talent. And
part of me is like you talk about like box

(01:25:47):
office and like how much of the box office and
the analysis of box Office and a lot of stuff
is like how successful is Superman? And is Superman successful
enough for Gun to be able to build a like
shared universe upon And part of me is like, that's
that's not the kind here. The calculation here is if
Zaslav like sells the company or merges the company with
a larger CORPORATEDENTITI that decides to clear house and pursue
a new creative direction because they don't want the freedom

(01:26:10):
that they gave to Gun. Like a lot of stuff
that happened with Snyder in like the twenty tens, you know,
was in some ways driven by the box office returns
to the Silks or justified using the box office returns
that silms, but was driven by a larger culture shift,
driven by changes in ownership and management of the company. Yeah,
where I think like Gun's biggest threat is the fact
that like I don't know, the studio is stable enough

(01:26:34):
to be able to sustain a long term plan in
the way that like Disney obviously is Marvel obviously is.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
That's that's the side of this I don't see people
talking about I find this stuff fascinating, right, It's fascinating,
like the box office, the studio stuff. It's sometimes exhausting
because sometimes you just want to go watch a movie
and have a good time. But this is the life
We've chosen her to sit behind a microphone time.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
I mean, I mean, like I will like this is
the thing. I will say it is possible to still
feel that, and like that's the thing. That's the thing
that I felt with Logan, the thing I felt with
the suicide squad where the suit And every time I
say the suicide squad, I'm worried people aren't hearing the
the like he really loves David Ayr suit. He's really
going to bat for David Airs suicide squad. But like
gun suicide squad, which arrives in like the Twilight of

(01:27:19):
the DCU, like it arives when when that thing is
basically dead.

Speaker 2 (01:27:22):
Well, let's let's let let's touch on let's touch on
this because that's this transitionary point James Gunn almost disgraced
Hollywood director. James gun gets fired from Marvel, but then
DC picks him up and I was back to Marvel.
That's his own saga, go look it up, right. He
comes in and does the Suicide Squad, which is like
a perfect movie for him and his disabilities to do
for the DCEU.

Speaker 1 (01:27:40):
And it's largely unconnected to anything. You can watch that
movie and.

Speaker 2 (01:27:43):
Just enjoy it. It's kind of a it's a vague
sequel to the Suicide Squad or whatever you want to
call it that, right, but that's that's where we.

Speaker 1 (01:27:50):
Are, right without getting into spores, it kills most of
the cas Suicide Squad.

Speaker 2 (01:27:57):
Villa Davis all. So I guess to me, like if
that that's where it gets a little messy, because it's
like James Gunn comes in here, he does the Suicide
Squad is Peacemaker and then and I enjoyed Peacemaker by
the way I watched me Apaker. I enjoyed it quite
a bit. Not like, uh, would I sacrifice my entire
cinematic universe to keep it?

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
I mean, if only the second season of Peacemaker were
literally about that question, Zach, I will say, I like, again,
I want to be careful when I talk, like I
worry that like people are gonna think I'm gonna take
a hatchet to Superman twenty or eighty five. But when
I have seen, as we're recording this, the first the
first episode is not yet released, I've seen the first
five episodes of the sex season Peacemaker. I love it
so much. I think, like I love the first season,

(01:28:36):
love the second season. So when I have criticism of
the movie coming up, they're not like I think James
Gunn is a terrible person who makes horrible movies or
anything like that. I think Gun's a fantastic director. I'm
still hugely fond of him.

Speaker 2 (01:28:46):
Yeah, that's that's It's like in this day and age,
though that's not good enough for people. You gotta you
gotta pick a side, right, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:28:53):
So.

Speaker 2 (01:28:56):
Had had the DC you just just died, or they
had put a period on it, or they wrapped it
up in some satisfying way unlike what they did, and
they just had a clean break and moved on. Then
I think I think a lot of this drama might
have been might have been less. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:29:09):
I don't know, though, Like right, would would there ever
have been a point where anybody would have been satisfied
with that? Well, that's the thing. It's like, I'm gonna
put my hands up and say, I am very fond
of Zack Snyder's Justice League just as like something that
to me feels like the writing of like a cinematic wrong,
which is I think the way that he was treated
during the production of that movie and the way in which,
like his family trauma was basically exploited to provide cover

(01:29:30):
for the most cynical corporate machinations imaginable is incredibly cold
and cynical and horrible and like everything that is wrong
with capitalism as like an industry. So like I'm like, yeah,
that this is writing of a historical wrong. Obviously there
is a larger context of that, and there's a fandom,
and there's all that sort of online stuff which is
terrible and horrible and we don't necessarily need to get into.

(01:29:52):
But like, Zack Snyder's Justice League is a really fascinating
object that I am very fond of. But I think, I, yeah,
I don't need a second one. And that's such a
funny thing to say, given how much of that movie
is like that movie is like maybe twenty percent cliffhanger.
But I don't need a follow up. I'm quite happy
to leave Jesse Eisenberg sitting on the yacht with his

(01:30:12):
bald head. Like, give Zack Snyder a series of prestige
of graphic novels like illustrated by Jim Lee in like
the next five to ten years to wrap up the
sag if he wants. But I do not need to
see that story continue. I'm like, that's a perfect book end.
He got to deliver the end of his contract. He
completed his Superman trilogy. We can move on. I don't
know that there was ever going to be an end
point where anybody would be like because Zach like not

(01:30:35):
to not to circle back into the depressing pop culture
like Malu that we're talking about. Nothing ever dies anymore ever,
nothing is ever hit, nothing is ever over. Like that's
the thing. To get back to the Watchman reference. Yeah,
like it is like we bring back Ghostbusters. They're making
like a Goonies sequel. There's a Freakier Friday like film

(01:30:56):
that is releasing in theaters as we're talking here, Like
nothing is ever truly dead, nothing is allowed to rest.

Speaker 2 (01:31:02):
This side note, I actually I am kind of excited
about Tron areas. I didn't think I was going to,
but the trailer is pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:31:07):
I like, again, I will put my hands up and say, like,
as a franchise that has never worked, I'm like, I
am all in on Tron. I don't know why they're
making this, but I'm gonna go see it. Like it's
financially unjustifiable. It starts disgraced actor charity right now. But
but like the premise of it, which is like this
time they're in the real world, I'm like, damn it,
you got me.

Speaker 3 (01:31:27):
I am.

Speaker 1 (01:31:28):
I am so baby, Like I am such a simple
there's like a reptile part of my brain that's like
Tron looks cool, and this time they're in the real world.
That's just enough novelty for me to be like, Okay,
I'm on board. But like even like you know, Disney
are now producing Alien Earth for example, Like there is
this like huge industry of like nothing ever going away.
I'm pretty like with advances in CGI and AI and

(01:31:52):
actors never have to age anymore, actors never have to die.
But like there is something in pop culture where there
used to be a time where we say goodbye he
has something like Christian Bale in Batman and never see
him play Batman again. Now I'm like, is there like
a fifteen to twenty percent chance that in the next
thirty years himself and Nolan routineed to do like a

(01:32:13):
Dark Knight returns when Nolan's career is on the way
and and he needs to like, you know, a guaranteur
to get back into like Warner Brothers.

Speaker 2 (01:32:20):
I had, you know what, Darren. Sometimes I wish Titanic
would have flopped because of the movie James Cameron's Treman
Year three, But uh well, I don't think Nolan will
ever get to that point. But I understand totally, which
I think. I think when I get Batman Beyond with
Ben Affleck, one day used to be it used to
be one day we'll get if we're lucky enough, they'll
bring back Michael Keaton and he'll be a old man
and we'll get Batman Beyond. And I was like, well,

(01:32:41):
maybe like twenty years will get Ben Affleck's Badman Beyond.
Like that's that's again, but that's the wheel turning.

Speaker 1 (01:32:45):
I obviously I saw the Flash at a critics screening
before it released and was very, very very disappointed. Zach,
I like to think I have a good poker face.
I have a friend of mine who is a huge
fan of Michael Keaton, and he's like, when it comes out,
we have to go see it together. And I'm like, yeah,
cause it's no but it's like, because it's good, we'll
hang out, We'll have like a meal beforehand, we'll catch up.
It'll be you know, he's down in the country. I

(01:33:06):
don't get see him as much because he's like we're
both older and he is a family and stuff. It's
like a greats used to hang out. And like, I
think I have a good poker face where I don't
talk about the movie. I don't like tell him it's good,
but I also like, don't let him know that I
think it's horrible, because I'm like, I want him to
enjoy this. I want him to have if if he's
gonna have a good experience of this, I want him
to have as good an experience as possible to have.

(01:33:26):
And I do remember the experience of like when the
lights came back up in the cinema, he turns to me,
he goes, you know, I'm glad you didn't tell me
how bad that was, because I don't think I would
have believed you.

Speaker 2 (01:33:37):
That's true. I do want to say this, though, I'll
come and makes a billion dollars. They make Shazam, which
I actually like Jauzam quite a bit, the first Sazam.

Speaker 1 (01:33:44):
A lot of people like you.

Speaker 2 (01:33:45):
I will say.

Speaker 1 (01:33:47):
The thing about Shazam is that is the moment that
like super or fatigue hit for me. I can remember
being in the cinema.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
Ad.

Speaker 1 (01:33:53):
I know, like it just everything just dovetails into because
I remember it being like seeing the movie. Go and
see the movie and like the movie's really charming, Like
the cast is broldy.

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
It's like Amblin made a superhero movie in nineteen eighty seven.

Speaker 1 (01:34:04):
That's it. It's like big as a superhero movie. And
I'm like, I'm all in on that. I'm like, I
like Mark Strong and a big fan of Mark Strong,
and like it's just the point and it's the exact point.
It's when they get to the Christmas market and all
of the kids get superpowers so it can have like
a really big special effects finale. And I'm like that's

(01:34:25):
the point where I'm sitting in the seat and going, oh,
I don't know that this is tickling the same parts
of my brain that it used to. Like if this
had been two or three years ago, I probably would
have loved this. But I'm like, I feel like I
would have been happier if the ending to this were
just like Chizam or non copyright Captain Marvel being able

(01:34:45):
to like confronting like Savannah and like having it out
with him, or even having a moment of conversation with him,
or having like a moment of awareness like just even
or even just a one on one fight. But the
point where like it's like, no, we have seven superheroes
against seven CGI monsters. I'm like, I don't know that
you needed this.

Speaker 5 (01:35:03):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:35:04):
I thought that was like new because it's something we
had never seen, you know, to the a command point
we were making earlier. It's like I haven't seen seven
kids have superpowers before.

Speaker 1 (01:35:13):
But I'm also I'm also like, maybe at that point
bracing myself for like I've seen Infinity Warren embracing myself
for Endgame. Now, now we're not allowed to have a
superhero movie that only has one superhero in it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:23):
On Juzam, I thought this the face of Superman was
pretty clever for that movie. That was that was fun,
like for that particular gag. Now they kept doing it
for too long and then it became they couldn't don't
do that anymore. But that one instance I thought really
worked in the scheme of that film.

Speaker 1 (01:35:39):
I think the problem with that is, like the stuff
with Cavil reaches the point where it feels almost unpleasant,
like it feels like you're watching a negotiation happen in
real time, Like it's it's like that. And I will
say Fury of the Fury of the Gods, which is
a worse movie. To be clear, I'm not gonna I'm
not no Fury of the Gods rehabilitation. But I love

(01:36:01):
that they set up the Wonder Woman joke of doing
the same thing, which I thought was very funny, very
but then we do actually see Wonder Woman. I thought
that was a lovely joke. But the Cavill like, that's
the thing with the Black Adam stuff is that, like
I at certain point it feels like Charlie Brown in
the Football with Henry Cavill and the role of Superman,
and I'm like, as you say, he's your six favorite

(01:36:24):
Superman he's he's probably not that much higher for me either,
but there's a part of me that's like, it's just
mean at this point to keep dangling that role.

Speaker 2 (01:36:32):
I felt bad for it. I feel bad. I think
Brandon Routh at least it was open and clothed. Cavill
was like, huh, Charlie Brown. The football is a great analogy.

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
And also like the thing with like afflic is that
like afflet gets to direct his own movies and Affletic
gets to like wear the like costume to his kid's
birthday party, and you know, like and he does seem
to like actually have a little lark of like redeeming
himself with Daredevil or whatever. You know, yeah, Like, but
Cavill is just like all in on this and like
Gaddo gotta gets to be like it makes her a star,

(01:37:02):
like whatever about.

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
I mean, as much as good Will have the first film, yes,
it was immediately undone as soon as the second one
came out, which which is one of the most bizarre
blind signings of a sequel I've ever seen in my life.
Wonder Woman nineteen eighty four.

Speaker 1 (01:37:17):
Hot take, that is as close as you were ever
gonna get to like a non Richard Donner Chosopher Reaves
movie in the modern world.

Speaker 2 (01:37:24):
You know, people have told me that, people have told
me that Darren and I find that offense.

Speaker 1 (01:37:31):
Because very obviously like Jenkins is a huge fan, she
does the whole alleyway catching.

Speaker 2 (01:37:35):
Yeah, the first one, the First Wonder Woman is absolutely
their successor to the Richard Donner films. Yes, Wonder nineteeny
four is like a spiral successor like Superman three.

Speaker 1 (01:37:45):
Okay, yeah, well that's not saying it's a Richard Lester movie.
Like it's like we followed the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:37:55):
So okay, this is nice to say. So they make
some really bizarre choices with what they do. They're like,
let's make and a lot of people love the Birds
of Prey movie. It's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:38:03):
I'm quite fond of the Birds of Prey movie.

Speaker 2 (01:38:05):
But making a rated R Harley Quinn movie called Birds
of Prey, it was an odd choice to come out
of like Justice League.

Speaker 1 (01:38:11):
Right now, very famously, like you had the cinemas like
rebrand to get as Harley Quinn, to tell people that
Harley Quinn was in. Yeah, just to be clear, and
like I do think like it's worth noting that movie
had its knees taken out of it by like COVID.

Speaker 2 (01:38:23):
It come out a couple of months later. Yeah, after
COVID happened a couple months after came out, Yes, yes,
a month. I'm a month is it came out of February.
COVID happened in March? Fair enough, Okay, so that there
was some there and then and then they make the
Suicide Squad, which.

Speaker 1 (01:38:36):
Is you know you love it and which bombs. I
love it, but it bombs like it just it disappears.

Speaker 2 (01:38:41):
But that was the height of COVID in the day
to date. So let's be fair, be fair to James
Good No.

Speaker 1 (01:38:45):
Absolutely, I like, let's be fair to the movie that
you've described as the best live action superhero movie since Logan.
It's like, Darren, I feel like you're being very mean
to that movie.

Speaker 2 (01:38:55):
But Darren in an odd choice though, when you say
like that, let's make a vague sequel to the worst
film in our.

Speaker 1 (01:39:01):
Absolutely like it is. It's it feels like we've talked
about like how studios approach sequels have changed over the years,
where it used to be like if a movie successful,
we'll cut the budget and hope the audience don't realize
that they've been duped so we can make a bit
of profit on it. Now it's like, well, it made
a bunch of money, and we have to make a sequel.
Like it does feel like Plan of the Apes in
two thousand is like the last time the studio goes

(01:39:22):
we made a movie. It made a shed load of money.
The movie was terrible. We all know it's terrible. We
can just like not make a sequel.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
Call them back to the beginning of our conversation. A
new thing. I love Planet of the Apes's reboove the
trilogy and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Yes,
I was like, I was really nervous about that fourth one.
I was like, oh, they're gonna ruin this trilogy. They
didn't do it. I'm so proud. I'm so happy.

Speaker 1 (01:39:41):
And again they do that by like just taking a
big leap and hiring a new director who has a
new style. Like that is a that is a wes
Ball movie that is very similar to the Maize Runner movies.
And now that's a young adult take on like it
Planned the Apes, which is a really clever way of
doing it. And you're right, like the Reeves movies are
incredible and is it why it did the first time?

Speaker 2 (01:39:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:39:58):
Uh one, Yeah, Like those three movies are incredible. They're
like maybe my favorite franchise of the twenty tens, Darren says,
I believe because I'm gonna count Nolan's Batman as the
two thousands. These kind of a have to involved with
some rules lawyering.

Speaker 2 (01:40:14):
Just to be clear. Of those trilogy, we could talk
forever because you know, this is what we do.

Speaker 1 (01:40:19):
But like, let's rank trilogies.

Speaker 2 (01:40:21):
Of those trilogies Rise, Dark Knight Rises is the War
the plan of the Apes event Lag, I'm like, okay,
your quality. I think you're a little too long, a
little bloated, maybe self important, but you least closed off
the story in a satisfying way. And I might have
maybe done it differently myself.

Speaker 1 (01:40:38):
But and also you're entirely your own thing, like you
were also like entirely an unapologetically your own thing, and
the audience like the thing about like going to you
said Dark Knight Rises and you said war Plant the eighth. Yeah,
I don't think anybody could have predicted the movies going
the way that they did. No, not like like if
you had been like because there's the famous story of
like the champagne party Warner Brothers were having. As the

(01:41:00):
box office returns were rolling in for like The Dark Knight,
We're like, oh, yeah, Dark Knight too, is gonna be
Leo's gonna be playing the Riddler, Like that's that's what
it's gonna be. It's like nobody in two thousand and
eight could have possibly predicted that it was going to be,
you know, Nightfall meets No Man's Land.

Speaker 2 (01:41:17):
I remember when the remember the trailers came out and
people like, oh, this must to be the last shot
of the movie because no One famously he put the
last shot of The Dark Knight in the Dark Knight trailer.
So people are watching the risest trailer trying to find
the last shot. It's that shot of like it's like
sunrise or sunset, there's still some daylight out and Batman's
like on the top of that bridge and his tape
is one, Well, that must be the last shot of
the movie. No, not at all, No, No, that happens.

Speaker 1 (01:41:39):
I think at the end of the first act of
the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
All right, well, we're gonna put a pin in it there.
Hopefully y'all could tell that Darren and I had a
great time talking about the current state of superhero cinema,
the recent history of Superman and DC comics on film,
and everything that led us up to where we are
currently now. Our conversation went on about twice as long
as what you heard here in part one, So we'll

(01:42:03):
be back next time with Smallville Torch Exclusive Number six,
Part two. But until then, I would encourage everyone to
seek out Darren and follow him on social media at
Darren Underscore, Mooney on Twitter and Blue Sky. Also follow
his work at Second Wind, where he is a columnist
and critic. So we'll be back next time talking specifically

(01:42:27):
about James Gunn's Superman. But until next time, Always hold
on to Smallville and all this other stuff. Always hold

(01:43:09):
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always Malville at gmail dot com. Once again, with one S,
thanks for listening. Critic about Town, Derek, Critic about Town.

Speaker 1 (01:45:03):
I loved that it was the Derek that followed it
as well. Critic about Town, mad at Large Derekson.

Speaker 2 (01:45:12):
Let me this will be the post credit. Now, this
is good, Derek. I don't even know.

Speaker 1 (01:45:17):
I'm sorry, Derek, Sonny all right,

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Smallville Torch Exclusive #6 - Darren Mooney (Part 1)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Smallville Torch Exclusive #6 - Darren Mooney (Part 1)