July 13, 2026 • 39 mins
Christopher Nolan is at it again. We discuss the new PR mess behind his new film The Odyssey. We also interview Chris Fenton, producer of the new comedy film Bad Counselors, hitting theaters July 22nd.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is Red Pilled America. You're listening to Red Pilled
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America dot com and click join in the top of
the menu. We need you, guys, support, support storytelling that
aligns with your worldview. So I think for a while
(00:24):
we were kind of getting excited that Hollywood was looking
like it wasn't going to or it's going to be
turning a corner.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Maybe.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I think when Project Hail Mary came out, I was thinking, Man,
Hollywood's getting this right now. There's no wokeness or very
little wokeness in the movie, and maybe they're, you know,
turning a corner. And then came The Odyssey, also known
as Woke Trojan Horse. And we've talked about this in
(00:50):
the past about how Christopher Nolan, who is in my
top two or three directors at least living but potentially
of all time guys, made some of the movies that
I've really really enjoyed. I enjoyed the Batman series, I
enjoyed Interstellar is one of my favorite sci fi movies
(01:12):
of all time, Inception and what have you. But this
Odyssey thing, it's just every time he speaks. It's getting
worse and worse, and it really is a case study
in how woke Hollywood truly is. It permeates everything. There
(01:33):
is nobody in the room telling Christopher Nolan, you are
going to turn off fifty percent of the United States
if you do this, if you cast trans gender, if
you race swap, if you know, bastardize this seminal piece
of Western culture literature.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I think people do realize how woke Hollywood is, but
I don't know that they think so much about how
much it does permeate and affect everything else.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, because I think the thing that yes, you see
from an outside perspective, wow, these guys are really woke.
But to understand how that it gets woven into their products.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Me it seeps into everything.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Because if you look at from the very ground, ground level,
if you look at film schools, and you look at
the department heads of some of these film schools, and
you see that literally every single one of them is woke.
Literally every single one of them is some facet of
that woke ideology. It's a gatekeeper there that does not
let certain people that think a certain way or differently
(02:41):
than they do past them. So you start there. Then
you go into the writing rooms, or you go into
these corporate rooms where they're discussing green lighting this film.
There's nobody in the room that's going to tell them, oh, Okay,
you shouldn't do that because it's going to piss off
the conservatives or it's going to, you know, inflame half
of the United States, because they all think that way.
(03:03):
And even if there is somebody in the room that
realizes it's going to piss off fifty percent of the
United States, they won't speak up because it's a company
town that is going to that. They feel it is
going to impact their career if they speak up. So
that's what we've been seeing with this the odyssey. Through
the promotion, it's been a hot mess. It's been a
woke nightmare. You see the race swaps, you see the
(03:26):
transgenderism seeping in. You see that, you know, none of
the main characters are Greek. They have a modern rapper
in it. The first voice that you're going to hear
in the movie is going to be Travis Scott, kind
of a little bit far away from a Greek, just
a tiny bit. It's the whole thing is based on
this woke feminist interpretation of the Odyssey by Emily Wilson.
(03:48):
They are, of course out there doing promotional tour for
the Odyssey and trying to get people excited about it,
and every time they speak it is a slap in
the face of half of America. Here Isopher Nolan talking
about casting Page Elliott Page, Ellen Page, however you want
(04:09):
to call her casting Elliott Page in the Odyssey.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
And I loved seeing Elliott Page from the first places
you see.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
What was it like reuniting with him years after doing
Inception together?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
It was really fun. I mean ally, it's just terrific.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
And I just thought this was such a such a
great paul for him.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
And I mean, we had such a great time years
ago on Inception.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
It's nice to.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
Renn with people way back when when he was still
a chick.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Exactly, we had a great time. It feels to me
like bizarro world. This guy was working with Ellen Page
when she was a woman. I saw this interview that
Ellen Page did, and I've seen it before, but it
was an interview that she did with what's his name.
The guy got booted Stephen Colbert late night, and it
(04:58):
was the information or the news just broke about the
guy that faked the attack in Chicago, Juicy Smooley, Jesse Smolette.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
However you want to pronounce his name.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Anyways, Jesse Smoley came up and saying that he was
attacked by some racists and they said mega country and
throw a news around him. That news just came out,
and Ellen Page is on with Stephen Colbert when she
was still Ellen Page talking about the Jesse Smolette attack,
(05:31):
and she seems so troubled, she seems like she's on
the brink of just emotional collapse. And here's just a
small portion of that.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Oh please, I want to hear this.
Speaker 6 (05:43):
We have a media that's saying it's a debate whether
or not what just happened to Jesse Smollett is a
hate crime. It's absurd. Isn't a debate?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I agree? I agree in.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
Terms of connecting the dots, in terms of what happened
the other day to Jesse. I don't know him personally.
I saw I sent all of my love connect the dots.
This is what happens if you are in a position
of power and you hate people and you want to
cause suffering to them. You go through the trouble, You
spend your career trying to cause suffering. What do you
(06:20):
think is going to happen? Kids are going to be
abused and they're going to kill themselves, and people are
going to be beaten on the street. I have traveled
the world and I have met the most marginalized people
you could be. I am lucky to have this time
and the privilege to say this, this needs to stop.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Well, that took a turn quickly.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
That was a late night It's a comedy comedy show.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It's a comedy show.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
And she has like this mental kind of breakdown and
goes to seriousness. And by the way, this is she is.
That is twenty nineteen. Okay, this is like early twenty nineteen.
It wasn't that long ago. And now you have Christopher Nolan,
Nolan calling her him. I mean, this was just a
blink of an eye away. He goes in interviews and
(07:10):
is using he him.
Speaker 6 (07:12):
He's great, Yes, he's great.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Who are he is such a fake and a phony nobody.
Maybe Tucker Carlson has fallen out of my favor faster
than Christopher Nolan, But with the promotion for this odyssey,
it's been shocking. If he's putting in all of these
woke people that do not care about Western civilization. Here
is the Peta Neogo talking about how she would lecture Homer,
(07:40):
history's first like celebrated epic writer, and she's going to
lecture him on his portrayal of women.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
I'll be like, so, Homer, how do you feel about
the screen time given to these women considering how little
you spent with them?
Speaker 6 (07:58):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And then do you lean forward to look at him
like that? It's all right.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So there's a both a sub Saharan African and an
Indian in this interview lecturing Homer and how he should
be basically chastised for not including women enough. By the way,
there are women throughout the odyssey. It's countless. It's it's
ridiculous to even have that point of view, But that's
(08:27):
the point of view that she has and the message
that she's getting out there. You have Christopher Nolan basically
saying the reason why he included Travis Scott isn't a
rapper in the in the show or in the movie,
was because he wanted to give a nod to rap because,
like Homer, that was basically an artist that passed down
(08:49):
culture from generation to generation through the spoken word. That's
what rappers do.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, you know what, he's totally full of. He just
came up with that on the flight. He was like,
h let me say.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
This totally sounds good. But here's the thing. If you
really kind of barrel down on that and you do
a little bit of a test on that, Let's take,
for example, why not cast Eminem as the Bard? Okay,
it probably would have been more era specific accurate to
have a white person playing a Greek as opposed to
(09:22):
a black person playing a Greek. Why not have Eminem
be the Bard to give a nod to rap and
it's passing down of culture from generation to generation. Well,
because you know why, you could never have a white
person play a rapper in Christopher Nolans The Odyssey. He
would not allow that because that would be cultural appropriation.
(09:45):
But he's cultural appropriating the whole entire Greek mythology. So
it fails that test. It fails these simple tests that
he does not. There's no consistency in his approach to this,
And it's just this woke trojan horror that he's throwing
out there that is infuriating to me to kind of
(10:07):
see this happen. I've seen so many people say, Okay, well,
you know, it's no big deal that Lupita Niango is
being cast as Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman
of the world that you know, basically sent a thousand
ships into war, And the fact that Homer called her
white armed doesn't matter because an intricate part of her
(10:28):
role was not being white.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And the reason why you can't do that to, for example,
Black Panther and race swap is because their race was
an intricate part of their actual character.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
First of all, the characters are Greek. It's a Greek myth.
Of course it matters. It is something that is part,
deeply part and rooted in their culture.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But to take that example and go to let's say
Star Wars and say Lando Calrissian, do you think if
they race swapped Lando cal Rissian, who his race had
absolutely nothing to do with his character, do you think
that people would be freaking out? And there would be
they will be all up in arms if they race
swapped Lando cal Rissian. Of course they would. And by
(11:15):
the way, I would be bothered by that as well too.
I would be taken out of it because there is
this character he was historically portrayed a certain way. Now
you're pulling me out of the movie. Now you're pulling
me out of this story. The whole kind of deal
that an audience has with a filmmaker or with a
storyteller is that you do not break the immersion. You
(11:36):
do not pull that person out. They are giving you
their time and their money to see something, and so
you don't pull them out of the immersion. They are
entering into this world that you are creating, and they
are paying to do that. You do not take them
out of that world and out of that immersion. This
isn't a Hamilton production. We aren't thinking going into this knowing, okay,
(11:57):
this is Hamilton. This is going to be a complete
race swap. There's portions where he's like okay with staying
close to the kind of source material or staying close
to the era, and there's other times where he just
completely wipes it away. Ultimately, he is just changing things
on a whim, and he's making an argument for whatever
(12:18):
he needs to make at that moment to make his
woke decision.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
You know, they're always misleading the audience they're always weaving
in their narratives and the things that they want to
tell you, and that's what you know, we have to
be careful about. We can't watch these films and believe
that they're true. And with the Odyssey, they've just completely
gone the other way and now everybody sees it.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Well.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Recently, kind of to highlight that, recently, we watched Pretty Woman.
I haven't seen it in years and years and years,
and we watched it with our daughter and I remember saying, oh, poet,
have you ever seen Pretty Woman? And not thinking I
don't think that there was any like, you know, crazy
sex scenes. She's old on them, she's like nineteen now.
She could watch a you know, a show with us. Anyway,
(13:00):
So we're thinking, okay, let's watch this. It popped up
on the screen and let's watch this. And I remember
you saying, oh, this is gonna be such a treat.
This is gonna be such a treat, because Pretty Woman
is a iconic movie. So we start watching it and
I would say, maybe it's been twenty years since I've
seen it, maybe plus maybe more than.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
That, it's been a very very long time.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
And so our daughter's watching this and she's like, wait
a minute, is she a prostitute? And we're like, yeah, yeah.
It's like is he letting a prostitute into his hotel room?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
And we're watching this thing and I'm like, the message
of this is horrendous. It sucks, and it was I mean,
this is early nineties. I want to say it's like
nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety one, so.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
I think it was maybe ninety maybe.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Either l eighties, early nineties, And this is this kind
of introduction. It's basically only fans argument of like, Okay,
there's sex workers out there, and there's good sex workers
and they're doing it purely because they need to be
sex workers, and don't judge them, and that message it
permeates that entire movie. And this was Hollywood's early introduction
(14:13):
of only OnlyFans to the American public and.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Listen, it's okay to be a prostitute as long as
you don't kiss on the mouth exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
That's the message exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
So there's those kinds of things, But I do think,
you know, there is the public is reacting to the Odyssey.
There's like seven hundred and fifty thousand dislikes on the trailer,
as opposed to eighty thousand likes on their most recent trailer,
which is kind of a big swing. I think early
on it had it was completely the reverse of that.
So there is been being a reaction whether this is
going to affect the box office. I think Hollywood is
(14:45):
going to try to claim that this is a success
no matter what. If it hits say five hundred million,
seven hundred fifty million, they will claim it to be
a success. It's reportedly budget The budget is reportedly two
hundred and fifty million. I think it's more than that.
Watching everything that I've been watching on this, it seems
like it's potentially north of two hundred and fifty million.
(15:06):
But that's what they're claiming it is, which means that
they probably have to make I'm seeing some estimates at
a billion dollars to break even or become successful. He
is completely turning off, so a huge portion of the audience.
He's not even going to Greece. They're doing these premiere
events throughout the world. They stop in London, they stop
(15:28):
in New York, They're stopping in Paris, They're stopping in Mumbai,
They're stopping in Beijing, they're stopping in Soul. They aren't
stopping in Greece. Okay, why is that? Obviously they don't
want to feed into the backlash because the Greek people
are angry about the portrayal, the angry in the fact
that there is not a main character that's Greek, what
(15:49):
have you. So, I think there's going to be a
response to this. It's not going to make as much
money as he hoped because there's going to be an
enormous amount of people that just will not go, that
would have gone if he didn't decide to go this direction.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Are you going to go and spend my hard earned
money that you made for me?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I'm going to go and see it because we're content creators.
We have to go and kind of see these kinds
of things.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
I think it's probably going to do pretty good.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
I also saw you know, Superwoman and I Are Supergirl
whatever that was.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
It to crap. It was terrible, horrible, horrible.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
It was went on seeing it and haven't seen it.
Don't waste your time.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
It was such a waste of time. It was an
hour and forty minute movie and I'd say forty five
minutes in and I thought it was too long. Okay,
so that's how bad it was. You never see these
superhero movies less than two hours, and this was at
the film part was an hour and forty minutes. So
you know, I do think there is going to be
a response to this. We'll see how it turns out.
(16:46):
I think if it's less than a billion dollars, then
it is that it had not reached its potential and
we'll see where that goes. But I do think that
it is important to support people out there that are
making films that are positive about the American way of
life that hires Americans. One thing that I was really
(17:06):
blown away about and I want to play after the break.
I want to play our interview with Chris Fenton, who
is making a movie that's coming out on July twenty
second called Bad Counselors. I want you guys to go
check this out because one Chris Fenton is a friend
of the show. We've known Chris for many, many years,
and he's putting his money where his mouth is. It
(17:28):
was an all American cast and it was a made
in American film. And when he first told me that,
I didn't quite understand exactly what he was talking about
until you really start doing some research on this topic.
You see so many portrayal. So many characters that play
Americans in these films are either Australian or they are British,
(17:50):
or you'll see people that play African Americans, like, for example,
Lapita Nuango who played in Twelve Years a Slave. She
plays a slave in that movie. She is not even an American.
Well she might be, she might have gotten her citizenship now,
but she was not born an American. She was actually
(18:10):
born in Mexico. Her family is from Africa. And so
you see that time and time again of these kind
of foreign people coming into the American film industry getting
hired to play American characters. Well, you have Chris Fenton
that created bad counselors, that produced bad counselors, and they
(18:34):
went with an all American cast and with an all
American team, And that says something. The guy's putting his
money where his mouth is. I want to play that
in interview for you guys right after the break. So everyone,
we're here with Chris Venton, a filmmaker. We go back
many many years. Our kids ended up going to preschool together.
If you can believe that, Chris, I want to hear
(18:56):
about the film that you're working on right now.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Tell us about that.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
Yeah, well, first of all, thanks for having me and
my wife says hello to your wife. Just talking a
little bit about how much time has passed and boys
have passed fast, and the world has changed quite a
bit too, including what I've been doing. I was heavily
involved in the US China exchange between Hollywood and that
other superpower, trying to open up that country to as
(19:21):
much of our product and service out of Hollywood as possible,
and we were pretty relentless and reckless, i would say,
in terms of the stuff we were doing. Over time,
particularly in twenty nineteen, I realized that that was not
in the best health of the long term, you know,
foundation of what we are as a country here in
(19:43):
the United States. The aspirational quality of democracy that we
were supposed to be spreading in that market was not
really occurring. The GDP growth and the jobs that we
were promised by getting products and services in that country
wasn't really happening. And on top of it, there was
a lot of other inferious activity that Beijing was involved
with that was not good for national security reasons here
(20:05):
in China. So I wrote a book about it, which
behind me There Feeding the Dragon. We talked about that before,
and that was really about how that exchange occurred over
time and just sort of how we were all blinded
or shrouded through the fog of that war in terms
of what we were doing to open that market. Cut
(20:25):
to today, obviously, I realized that that was a problem
and it's caused a lot of headaches and issues here
in the US. So one of the things that I
did first was I called out the issues in twenty twenty,
which was a bit of a political firestorm because, as
we've talked about before, Patrick, it was rather polarizing to
(20:48):
talk constructively about issues we had with China and how
we might rectify. But I called him out. Probably lost
half of my friends through that process, and over time
we started to realize, yeah, maybe Chris and a lot
of other people talking about these issues were correct and accurate,
and maybe we do need to do something about it. Well,
(21:09):
cut to today, there's not a lot of people creating
templates for how we rectify the situation. But one of
the things that I wanted to do was create this
movie with a fantastic village, A big team of twelve
hundred people called Bad Counselors, which is simply a PG
thirteen family comedy that comes out July twenty two through Fathom, Cinemak,
(21:32):
Regal and AMC and it's a you know, it's a throwback.
It's a nostalgia summer camp movie. I think parents will
love it and kids will enjoy it because they're living
in that experience now. It's got no political identity to it.
It's good for every state in the country, and it's
something that parents can feel safe taking their kids too.
(21:52):
But the important part of that is that we really
wanted to showcase this ability to make a movie like
they used to be, which is done by an all
America and crew, an all American collective of creatives on
the filmmaking side, and done here in the United States
of America. We shot out in North Carolina, some in Texas,
(22:14):
some in Tennessee, and a little bit in La twelve
hundred people, fully American and a bit of an American
type of relevant story, you know, summer camp. I mean
a lot of Western countries have that same type of
experience too, but this is something that's truly Americana, and
we're really excited about it because we feel like like
(22:36):
people wanting to go out and buy Harley Davidson, or
people wanting to go out and buy Para Levi's or whatever,
that sort of Americana type of brand is knowing that
it's truly made by the best in the world craftsman.
That's what we did here with this movie, and we think,
not only do we showcase a really good quality film
because we do have best in class facilities and crew
(22:59):
and creatives here, but on top of it, we feel
like people are going to be proud to go see
this movie because it is for American So we're hoping
that this creates a template for the future and more
independent studios like ourselves, Low and Entertainment and studios major
studios start to do this.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
In my opinion, I always feel like there needs to
be a new ecosystem that is being built to create
the kinds of films that you want to see on
the big screen or on the little screen. And you
are one of those people that are doing that. And
that's why I love talking to you, is because you're
not like just you know, talking to talk. You're walking
(23:40):
the walk and you're putting things out there. How do
you respond to because you talk about this being an
all American film, what would be your response to people
that have this kind of you know, forget Hollywood. They don't,
they don't. They don't really speak to my values. They're
all a bunch of you know whatever, but they don't
(24:03):
speak to my values. What would be your response to that.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
Well, we're trying to push an American film production incentive
through so that we can bring back television and film
production here. One of the biggest problems with that is
that most people across the country aren't really supportive of
it because they think it's just helping Hollywood, it's just
helping California, and those are toxic terms. Those are things
that most people don't really care about. So why should
(24:29):
they push such an initiative. Well, i'll tell you why.
When we're healthy, two point seven million Americans go to
work in the film and television industry. When we're healthy.
Out of that two point seven million, it's about a
quarter of a trillion in wages. A majority of those
jobs are outside of California and Los Angeles. Perfect example,
(24:52):
Trillith Studios, a studio complex owned by Dan Cathy, the
chairman of Chick fil A, which is just outside of Atlanta.
That facility has thirty one sound stages on one thousand acres,
state of the art, incredible, and like them in most
areas down in Georgia that were made for film and
(25:13):
television production, they're running about seventy five percent occupancy or
underutilized right now, that's how bad it is. And you
cut to La We just had one of the most
iconic soundstage studio backlots go bankrupt the other day, CBS Radford,
which is out in Studio City and has been home
(25:34):
to everything from Seinfeld to to Survivors, the Survivor Finales.
So we have a real issue here that affects a
lot of Americans and a lot of wages. On top
of it, it affects our cultural identity as the leading
nation in the world when it comes to democratic values.
And if we're always shooting off store, we're using foreigners
(25:57):
in all of our parts of the production process, we
lose that ability to trumpet who we are as a country.
But then on top of it, we lose the ability
to put what is the best in the world working
class in this industry to work.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
It seems to me like through.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
You know what you're saying there is one it's a
huge job driver, and two it's a one of the
most influential cultural exports that the United States has and
you know it's it's how we've been able to export,
(26:38):
you know, our way of thinking to the world for
what one hundred years plus?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Now, am I? Am I right?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Kind of extracting those two kinds of reasons as to
why conservatives should care about Hollywood and success.
Speaker 5 (26:53):
Yeah, I mean jobs in GDP that resonates with everyone.
And then when you think about the states that are
really benefiting the most from things that are done outside
of California in LA but still here in the US,
which is the majority of television and film, You're looking
at red states, whether it's Louisiana, it's Georgia, at South Carolina,
North Carolina. You know, you have a lot of those
(27:15):
type of states that are benefiting, which is great. You know,
it's an all American issue and an all American benefit
when it works. The soft power initiative is massive. I mean,
we've seen how Beijing has been had been using Hollywood
to project the narrative and messaging they want it out there.
(27:35):
By US changing a lot of the plots and a
lot of the characters and a lot of the backdrops
that were in major Hollywood tempole movies. And we can
get into some of those examples if you want. But
we do know we know how to utilize soft power,
at least in terms of storytelling, better than anybody in
the world. China is very good at it on a
(27:56):
quantitative basis, on a manipulation basis through direct propaganda, but
we're the best at that sort of soft power, subtle,
you know, narrative messaging, winning the hearts and minds, the
emotional impact of the way we tell stories.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Where it starts to get me frustrated is that our people,
let's say, you know, I, you know out this right
of center you know artist or this right of center
community is not making content that you know, we want
to see. And obviously, like I think your film is
(28:34):
right in that vein, I think that you know, people
loved Project Hail Mary.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
I thought Hail Mary was exactly the target that our
industry needs to be focused because what was amazing about
it And by the way, bad counselors we the It's
a fish out of Water comedy where two fraternity brothers
get in trouble. They have to do community service, and
they find out the only way they can get all
their hours in is to work at the summer camp.
(29:01):
It turns out to be a Christian or camp, and
they faked their way in as Christians. So we made
a movie where we were trying to hit the subtleties
that Christians people of faith will think is funny, but
is not poking fun at them, while also making a
comedy that non believers and non Christians will enjoy seeing
(29:22):
because it's a fish out of water comedy. And somehow
we got it. We did it right, and we're very
excited about it. But I thought Project Hail Mary did
the same thing right. There was a couple moments in
that script where they talked about something a higher being,
and they didn't jump, they didn't dive into it in
(29:44):
a way where secular people would be sort of thrown
out of being excited about the film, and they didn't
ignore it in a way that Christians want to see it.
I thought that was brilliant. I thought the pro America
feeling of that movie I loved. I particularly loved.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I thought Project Hail Mary was I loved that movie.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
And how about the inspiration behind it. For you bring
a kid and they're inspired to be scientists. They're inspired
to to attack impossible challenges and know that everything's gonna
get thrown against you. You're gonna hit that low point
at the second, you know, at the end of the
second act, and you think it's all over, but you
just keep persevering and you get there. And then the
(30:31):
relationship between the alien and him it was so good.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
But to get back to the point, I thought it
was a perfectly executed film to where it had a
little bit for everybody. It kind of, you know, kind
of like a completely different kind of a film, but
similar in Daddy's Home with with Will Ferrell and and
what's his name, the Marky mark guy Wahlbert.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
It has a little bit for everybody it had.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
It pokes fun at liberals, it pokes fun at conservatives.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
There's there's a charm in that.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I don't think that that the Project Hail Mary necessarily
pokes fun at anybody, but it gives a little nod
to everybody in it.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Did.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
I thought the way the original Marvel movies, the original
ones that Kevin Figi was doing, poked fun at everybody too,
like they he was onto a secret sauce that was working.
The major studios are if you compare it to food,
they're like, they're the Olive Garden, right. Their goal is
to make Italian food that's approachable for everyone, like and
(31:37):
palatable enough for like, I mean, I love Italian food,
but if I had to go, like, I could probably
find something on the menu that I'd be okay with.
They can't. I bet you the c suite at Olive Garden.
When they eat Italian food, they probably go to Mario
Batali's restaurants or REO's or something. They probably don't go
(31:57):
to Olive Garden. But they're smart enough to know that
what they like at REOs is not going to work
for the machine that they've built, which is the Olive
Gron or the machine that they built which is Warner
Brothers or whatever. So they you have to think, not
like what you want, but what that audience that your
(32:17):
machine is built to find is craving.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
It seems like the nature of the company town. It
seems like it scares so many people to to go
down that route that it's that might kind of like
lean a little bit in one direct, you know, opposite,
let's say the direction and the political affiliations of the city,
and people are making decisions, and they.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
People, I just want to keep their jobs.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
If I've noticed anything about people in Hollywood that are
working within the machine, they just want to keep their jobs,
it seems like.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
And they obviously on.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
The case now because there's just nowhere, there's no.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Alternative exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
So so there's that that kind of comes into play,
and I think people get safe in that regard.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
And safe in your regard is if you're a Republican
in a town that's ninety five percent Democrat, you never
tell anybody you're Republican. You never tell anybody you voted
for Trump.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
You know.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
Like the beauty for me is that when I was
out promoting my book, I was asked to go to
Tucker Carlson a bunch of times. So I did, and
I was doing it because Simon and Schuster was asking
me to do it to sell books. And I was like, yeah,
I mean I should. I want to talk to auto audiences,
you know, get me on CNN and MSNBC, but get
(33:40):
me on Tucker. Well, the second I did one Tucker,
I literally lost half of my friends in Hollywood, literally
just because I did a Tucker Carlson. So I did
it again and again because I figured I wasn't going
to lose anybody else. I'd lost them all in the
first dust. So now because I've lost all those people,
I've bounced back and I've found a niche in the
(34:02):
business and have actually thrived to somebody that can speak
to both sides and respects both sides, and like doesn't
care about political ideology. I just care about constructiveness, so
that I can talk freely about the fact that I
voted for Donald Trump in the last selection, like I'll
call balls and strikes with him too, Like I don't
(34:22):
like a lot of the stuff he's doing in fact,
and I don't like a lot of the stuff that
Bill Clinton did back in the day, but I voted
for him. I vote for what I thought is best,
and I'm out there talking about it because I literally
have nothing to lose because I lost it on twenty twenty.
But the majority of people have never taken that plunge,
and they don't want to because it's really scary. But
(34:45):
the fact is, if everybody was open about that and
was able to have civil discourse discussions in staff meetings
and talk about things that like, Hey, I know I'm
the only Republican in the room here, but I will
tell you that this part in the screw at what
this guy's saying in this dialogue, what this plot point is,
(35:08):
is really offensive. I think to friends of mine that
are also Republican, particularly the ones that aren't even in California,
and I think we should rethink what we're doing here.
And that's the problem is that voice in those rooms
simply it exists, but it's silenced. Then I put it
(35:29):
into real world, a real world situation like shooting bad counselors, right,
or shooting even the movie chap Equittic, which we did
in Boston, but that was, you know, that was a
half right, half left crew telling a story about a
(35:49):
piece of American history, about a family that I idolized
growing up. And the fog of war that occurred around
the chap Equittic incident ted Kennedy as he was starting
to rise to run for president. You know, the crews,
you're in the trenches. It's almost like a military at war,
Like you're in the trenches. You're trying to make your
(36:12):
days in production, there's a lot of challenges going on
about getting the film you know, perfected, with all kinds
of obstacles, jumping in the way, rainstorms when you don't
want them, and you're shooting outside, to like air conditioning
not working in the sound stage, to whatever it is. Right,
there's no issue with Democrats and Republicans working together on
(36:35):
a common goal. It just gets done because they're in
the trenches. They're like doing human things together that attach
them on an emotional, cultural level, a purpose level, and
that bonds them to the point where they don't have
to feel like they have to shield themselves about this
(36:56):
like ideology that's been told to them that you know,
it's us against them, and and you know, the more
you get into it, the more you realize that it
is a great opportunity for you know, I would say
nefarious leadership to just use us, you know, as a
distractive force to keep things from actually operating in a
(37:20):
constructive and an efficient manner. In this country. There's nothing
worse than people just shouting into the wind, complaining about
stuff and not doing anything. That's sort of what we
wanted to do with bad counselors, is like, hey, sixty
percent of our production in movies and television, the thing
that we do best in the world bar none as
United States workers, as creatives, like, there's nobody that can
(37:43):
compete with us. Yeah, we just offshort because it's just
a little cheaper somewhere else to do it. You know,
that's a problem. And I could scream at the top
of my lungs. But unless I I can try to
find a way to fix it myself, you can't. It's
too big a problem. But if you can actually go
and fix it on a step by step basis and
(38:05):
show others, bigger players that it can be done, and
then actually show it can be monetized, right, because this
is not charity. We're not in a charity business. We're
in a commercial enterprise of making art, which really is
about making commercial product in the form of art. We
got to monetize it. So here's me. I'm not going
(38:26):
to shout at the wind anymore. I'm going to try
to fix it. I found the financing to do it.
I found a group of people that want to do
it with me. Twelve hundred of us as a village
did it together. It's not just me, it's a whole group,
and we believe this is a template for the bigger movies,
like a Marvel movie that hires seven thousand, eight thousand.
People can do it too, right, Let's go for it,
(38:50):
Let's make it happen. But of course I need people
to go see this movie too, to show that an
all American made movie can work. We got to make
this known that you can do this.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
That's it for this edition of Pilled America's Famboogie. Be
sure to check out Bad Counselors coming out July twenty second.
That's Chris Fenton's film, Support the Guy. The Guy's putting
his money where his mouth is. Also be ready for
Has Communism Ever Worked? Our next Red Pilled America audio
documentary coming out within the next week. Pay attention for that.
You check get our emails, sign up for our email list.
(39:24):
Go to Red Pilled America dot com and sign up
for our email list to get a notification for when
that's coming out. And join the fambam. Go to Redpilled
America dot com and click join in the top of
the menu. Thanks everybody for your support. You keep the
lights on until next time.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
By everyone,
This is Red Pilled America. You're listening to Red Pilled
America's fam boogie Join the Fanbam. Go to red Pilled
America dot com and click join in the top of
the menu. We need you, guys, support, support storytelling that
aligns with your worldview. So I think for a while
(00:24):
we were kind of getting excited that Hollywood was looking
like it wasn't going to or it's going to be
turning a corner.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Maybe.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I think when Project Hail Mary came out, I was thinking, Man,
Hollywood's getting this right now. There's no wokeness or very
little wokeness in the movie, and maybe they're, you know,
turning a corner. And then came The Odyssey, also known
as Woke Trojan Horse. And we've talked about this in
(00:50):
the past about how Christopher Nolan, who is in my
top two or three directors at least living but potentially
of all time guys, made some of the movies that
I've really really enjoyed. I enjoyed the Batman series, I
enjoyed Interstellar is one of my favorite sci fi movies
(01:12):
of all time, Inception and what have you. But this
Odyssey thing, it's just every time he speaks. It's getting
worse and worse, and it really is a case study
in how woke Hollywood truly is. It permeates everything. There
(01:33):
is nobody in the room telling Christopher Nolan, you are
going to turn off fifty percent of the United States
if you do this, if you cast trans gender, if
you race swap, if you know, bastardize this seminal piece
of Western culture literature.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I think people do realize how woke Hollywood is, but
I don't know that they think so much about how
much it does permeate and affect everything else.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, because I think the thing that yes, you see
from an outside perspective, wow, these guys are really woke.
But to understand how that it gets woven into their products.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Me it seeps into everything.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Because if you look at from the very ground, ground level,
if you look at film schools, and you look at
the department heads of some of these film schools, and
you see that literally every single one of them is woke.
Literally every single one of them is some facet of
that woke ideology. It's a gatekeeper there that does not
let certain people that think a certain way or differently
(02:41):
than they do past them. So you start there. Then
you go into the writing rooms, or you go into
these corporate rooms where they're discussing green lighting this film.
There's nobody in the room that's going to tell them, oh, Okay,
you shouldn't do that because it's going to piss off
the conservatives or it's going to, you know, inflame half
of the United States, because they all think that way.
(03:03):
And even if there is somebody in the room that
realizes it's going to piss off fifty percent of the
United States, they won't speak up because it's a company
town that is going to that. They feel it is
going to impact their career if they speak up. So
that's what we've been seeing with this the odyssey. Through
the promotion, it's been a hot mess. It's been a
woke nightmare. You see the race swaps, you see the
(03:26):
transgenderism seeping in. You see that, you know, none of
the main characters are Greek. They have a modern rapper
in it. The first voice that you're going to hear
in the movie is going to be Travis Scott, kind
of a little bit far away from a Greek, just
a tiny bit. It's the whole thing is based on
this woke feminist interpretation of the Odyssey by Emily Wilson.
(03:48):
They are, of course out there doing promotional tour for
the Odyssey and trying to get people excited about it,
and every time they speak it is a slap in
the face of half of America. Here Isopher Nolan talking
about casting Page Elliott Page, Ellen Page, however you want
(04:09):
to call her casting Elliott Page in the Odyssey.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
And I loved seeing Elliott Page from the first places
you see.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
What was it like reuniting with him years after doing
Inception together?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
It was really fun. I mean ally, it's just terrific.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
And I just thought this was such a such a
great paul for him.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
And I mean, we had such a great time years
ago on Inception.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
It's nice to.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
Renn with people way back when when he was still
a chick.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Exactly, we had a great time. It feels to me
like bizarro world. This guy was working with Ellen Page
when she was a woman. I saw this interview that
Ellen Page did, and I've seen it before, but it
was an interview that she did with what's his name.
The guy got booted Stephen Colbert late night, and it
(04:58):
was the information or the news just broke about the
guy that faked the attack in Chicago, Juicy Smooley, Jesse Smolette.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
However you want to pronounce his name.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Anyways, Jesse Smoley came up and saying that he was
attacked by some racists and they said mega country and
throw a news around him. That news just came out,
and Ellen Page is on with Stephen Colbert when she
was still Ellen Page talking about the Jesse Smolette attack,
(05:31):
and she seems so troubled, she seems like she's on
the brink of just emotional collapse. And here's just a
small portion of that.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Oh please, I want to hear this.
Speaker 6 (05:43):
We have a media that's saying it's a debate whether
or not what just happened to Jesse Smollett is a
hate crime. It's absurd. Isn't a debate?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I agree? I agree in.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
Terms of connecting the dots, in terms of what happened
the other day to Jesse. I don't know him personally.
I saw I sent all of my love connect the dots.
This is what happens if you are in a position
of power and you hate people and you want to
cause suffering to them. You go through the trouble, You
spend your career trying to cause suffering. What do you
(06:20):
think is going to happen? Kids are going to be
abused and they're going to kill themselves, and people are
going to be beaten on the street. I have traveled
the world and I have met the most marginalized people
you could be. I am lucky to have this time
and the privilege to say this, this needs to stop.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Well, that took a turn quickly.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
That was a late night It's a comedy comedy show.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It's a comedy show.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
And she has like this mental kind of breakdown and
goes to seriousness. And by the way, this is she is.
That is twenty nineteen. Okay, this is like early twenty nineteen.
It wasn't that long ago. And now you have Christopher Nolan,
Nolan calling her him. I mean, this was just a
blink of an eye away. He goes in interviews and
(07:10):
is using he him.
Speaker 6 (07:12):
He's great, Yes, he's great.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Who are he is such a fake and a phony nobody.
Maybe Tucker Carlson has fallen out of my favor faster
than Christopher Nolan, But with the promotion for this odyssey,
it's been shocking. If he's putting in all of these
woke people that do not care about Western civilization. Here
is the Peta Neogo talking about how she would lecture Homer,
(07:40):
history's first like celebrated epic writer, and she's going to
lecture him on his portrayal of women.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
I'll be like, so, Homer, how do you feel about
the screen time given to these women considering how little
you spent with them?
Speaker 6 (07:58):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And then do you lean forward to look at him
like that? It's all right.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So there's a both a sub Saharan African and an
Indian in this interview lecturing Homer and how he should
be basically chastised for not including women enough. By the way,
there are women throughout the odyssey. It's countless. It's it's
ridiculous to even have that point of view, But that's
(08:27):
the point of view that she has and the message
that she's getting out there. You have Christopher Nolan basically
saying the reason why he included Travis Scott isn't a
rapper in the in the show or in the movie,
was because he wanted to give a nod to rap because,
like Homer, that was basically an artist that passed down
(08:49):
culture from generation to generation through the spoken word. That's
what rappers do.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, you know what, he's totally full of. He just
came up with that on the flight. He was like,
h let me say.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
This totally sounds good. But here's the thing. If you
really kind of barrel down on that and you do
a little bit of a test on that, Let's take,
for example, why not cast Eminem as the Bard? Okay,
it probably would have been more era specific accurate to
have a white person playing a Greek as opposed to
(09:22):
a black person playing a Greek. Why not have Eminem
be the Bard to give a nod to rap and
it's passing down of culture from generation to generation. Well,
because you know why, you could never have a white
person play a rapper in Christopher Nolans The Odyssey. He
would not allow that because that would be cultural appropriation.
(09:45):
But he's cultural appropriating the whole entire Greek mythology. So
it fails that test. It fails these simple tests that
he does not. There's no consistency in his approach to this,
And it's just this woke trojan horror that he's throwing
out there that is infuriating to me to kind of
(10:07):
see this happen. I've seen so many people say, Okay, well,
you know, it's no big deal that Lupita Niango is
being cast as Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman
of the world that you know, basically sent a thousand
ships into war, And the fact that Homer called her
white armed doesn't matter because an intricate part of her
(10:28):
role was not being white.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And the reason why you can't do that to, for example,
Black Panther and race swap is because their race was
an intricate part of their actual character.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
First of all, the characters are Greek. It's a Greek myth.
Of course it matters. It is something that is part,
deeply part and rooted in their culture.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But to take that example and go to let's say
Star Wars and say Lando Calrissian, do you think if
they race swapped Lando cal Rissian, who his race had
absolutely nothing to do with his character, do you think
that people would be freaking out? And there would be
they will be all up in arms if they race
swapped Lando cal Rissian. Of course they would. And by
(11:15):
the way, I would be bothered by that as well too.
I would be taken out of it because there is
this character he was historically portrayed a certain way. Now
you're pulling me out of the movie. Now you're pulling
me out of this story. The whole kind of deal
that an audience has with a filmmaker or with a
storyteller is that you do not break the immersion. You
(11:36):
do not pull that person out. They are giving you
their time and their money to see something, and so
you don't pull them out of the immersion. They are
entering into this world that you are creating, and they
are paying to do that. You do not take them
out of that world and out of that immersion. This
isn't a Hamilton production. We aren't thinking going into this knowing, okay,
(11:57):
this is Hamilton. This is going to be a complete
race swap. There's portions where he's like okay with staying
close to the kind of source material or staying close
to the era, and there's other times where he just
completely wipes it away. Ultimately, he is just changing things
on a whim, and he's making an argument for whatever
(12:18):
he needs to make at that moment to make his
woke decision.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
You know, they're always misleading the audience they're always weaving
in their narratives and the things that they want to
tell you, and that's what you know, we have to
be careful about. We can't watch these films and believe
that they're true. And with the Odyssey, they've just completely
gone the other way and now everybody sees it.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Well.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Recently, kind of to highlight that, recently, we watched Pretty Woman.
I haven't seen it in years and years and years,
and we watched it with our daughter and I remember saying, oh, poet,
have you ever seen Pretty Woman? And not thinking I
don't think that there was any like, you know, crazy
sex scenes. She's old on them, she's like nineteen now.
She could watch a you know, a show with us. Anyway,
(13:00):
So we're thinking, okay, let's watch this. It popped up
on the screen and let's watch this. And I remember
you saying, oh, this is gonna be such a treat.
This is gonna be such a treat, because Pretty Woman
is a iconic movie. So we start watching it and
I would say, maybe it's been twenty years since I've
seen it, maybe plus maybe more than.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
That, it's been a very very long time.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
And so our daughter's watching this and she's like, wait
a minute, is she a prostitute? And we're like, yeah, yeah.
It's like is he letting a prostitute into his hotel room?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
And we're watching this thing and I'm like, the message
of this is horrendous. It sucks, and it was I mean,
this is early nineties. I want to say it's like
nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety one, so.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
I think it was maybe ninety maybe.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Either l eighties, early nineties, And this is this kind
of introduction. It's basically only fans argument of like, Okay,
there's sex workers out there, and there's good sex workers
and they're doing it purely because they need to be
sex workers, and don't judge them, and that message it
permeates that entire movie. And this was Hollywood's early introduction
(14:13):
of only OnlyFans to the American public and.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Listen, it's okay to be a prostitute as long as
you don't kiss on the mouth exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
That's the message exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
So there's those kinds of things, But I do think,
you know, there is the public is reacting to the Odyssey.
There's like seven hundred and fifty thousand dislikes on the trailer,
as opposed to eighty thousand likes on their most recent trailer,
which is kind of a big swing. I think early
on it had it was completely the reverse of that.
So there is been being a reaction whether this is
going to affect the box office. I think Hollywood is
(14:45):
going to try to claim that this is a success
no matter what. If it hits say five hundred million,
seven hundred fifty million, they will claim it to be
a success. It's reportedly budget The budget is reportedly two
hundred and fifty million. I think it's more than that.
Watching everything that I've been watching on this, it seems
like it's potentially north of two hundred and fifty million.
(15:06):
But that's what they're claiming it is, which means that
they probably have to make I'm seeing some estimates at
a billion dollars to break even or become successful. He
is completely turning off, so a huge portion of the audience.
He's not even going to Greece. They're doing these premiere
events throughout the world. They stop in London, they stop
(15:28):
in New York, They're stopping in Paris, They're stopping in Mumbai,
They're stopping in Beijing, they're stopping in Soul. They aren't
stopping in Greece. Okay, why is that? Obviously they don't
want to feed into the backlash because the Greek people
are angry about the portrayal, the angry in the fact
that there is not a main character that's Greek, what
(15:49):
have you. So, I think there's going to be a
response to this. It's not going to make as much
money as he hoped because there's going to be an
enormous amount of people that just will not go, that
would have gone if he didn't decide to go this direction.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Are you going to go and spend my hard earned
money that you made for me?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I'm going to go and see it because we're content creators.
We have to go and kind of see these kinds
of things.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
I think it's probably going to do pretty good.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
I also saw you know, Superwoman and I Are Supergirl
whatever that was.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
It to crap. It was terrible, horrible, horrible.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
It was went on seeing it and haven't seen it.
Don't waste your time.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
It was such a waste of time. It was an
hour and forty minute movie and I'd say forty five
minutes in and I thought it was too long. Okay,
so that's how bad it was. You never see these
superhero movies less than two hours, and this was at
the film part was an hour and forty minutes. So
you know, I do think there is going to be
a response to this. We'll see how it turns out.
(16:46):
I think if it's less than a billion dollars, then
it is that it had not reached its potential and
we'll see where that goes. But I do think that
it is important to support people out there that are
making films that are positive about the American way of
life that hires Americans. One thing that I was really
(17:06):
blown away about and I want to play after the break.
I want to play our interview with Chris Fenton, who
is making a movie that's coming out on July twenty
second called Bad Counselors. I want you guys to go
check this out because one Chris Fenton is a friend
of the show. We've known Chris for many, many years,
and he's putting his money where his mouth is. It
(17:28):
was an all American cast and it was a made
in American film. And when he first told me that,
I didn't quite understand exactly what he was talking about
until you really start doing some research on this topic.
You see so many portrayal. So many characters that play
Americans in these films are either Australian or they are British,
(17:50):
or you'll see people that play African Americans, like, for example,
Lapita Nuango who played in Twelve Years a Slave. She
plays a slave in that movie. She is not even an American.
Well she might be, she might have gotten her citizenship now,
but she was not born an American. She was actually
(18:10):
born in Mexico. Her family is from Africa. And so
you see that time and time again of these kind
of foreign people coming into the American film industry getting
hired to play American characters. Well, you have Chris Fenton
that created bad counselors, that produced bad counselors, and they
(18:34):
went with an all American cast and with an all
American team, And that says something. The guy's putting his
money where his mouth is. I want to play that
in interview for you guys right after the break. So everyone,
we're here with Chris Venton, a filmmaker. We go back
many many years. Our kids ended up going to preschool together.
If you can believe that, Chris, I want to hear
(18:56):
about the film that you're working on right now.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Tell us about that.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
Yeah, well, first of all, thanks for having me and
my wife says hello to your wife. Just talking a
little bit about how much time has passed and boys
have passed fast, and the world has changed quite a
bit too, including what I've been doing. I was heavily
involved in the US China exchange between Hollywood and that
other superpower, trying to open up that country to as
(19:21):
much of our product and service out of Hollywood as possible,
and we were pretty relentless and reckless, i would say,
in terms of the stuff we were doing. Over time,
particularly in twenty nineteen, I realized that that was not
in the best health of the long term, you know,
foundation of what we are as a country here in
(19:43):
the United States. The aspirational quality of democracy that we
were supposed to be spreading in that market was not
really occurring. The GDP growth and the jobs that we
were promised by getting products and services in that country
wasn't really happening. And on top of it, there was
a lot of other inferious activity that Beijing was involved
with that was not good for national security reasons here
(20:05):
in China. So I wrote a book about it, which
behind me There Feeding the Dragon. We talked about that before,
and that was really about how that exchange occurred over
time and just sort of how we were all blinded
or shrouded through the fog of that war in terms
of what we were doing to open that market. Cut
(20:25):
to today, obviously, I realized that that was a problem
and it's caused a lot of headaches and issues here
in the US. So one of the things that I
did first was I called out the issues in twenty twenty,
which was a bit of a political firestorm because, as
we've talked about before, Patrick, it was rather polarizing to
(20:48):
talk constructively about issues we had with China and how
we might rectify. But I called him out. Probably lost
half of my friends through that process, and over time
we started to realize, yeah, maybe Chris and a lot
of other people talking about these issues were correct and accurate,
and maybe we do need to do something about it. Well,
(21:09):
cut to today, there's not a lot of people creating
templates for how we rectify the situation. But one of
the things that I wanted to do was create this
movie with a fantastic village, A big team of twelve
hundred people called Bad Counselors, which is simply a PG
thirteen family comedy that comes out July twenty two through Fathom, Cinemak,
(21:32):
Regal and AMC and it's a you know, it's a throwback.
It's a nostalgia summer camp movie. I think parents will
love it and kids will enjoy it because they're living
in that experience now. It's got no political identity to it.
It's good for every state in the country, and it's
something that parents can feel safe taking their kids too.
(21:52):
But the important part of that is that we really
wanted to showcase this ability to make a movie like
they used to be, which is done by an all
America and crew, an all American collective of creatives on
the filmmaking side, and done here in the United States
of America. We shot out in North Carolina, some in Texas,
(22:14):
some in Tennessee, and a little bit in La twelve
hundred people, fully American and a bit of an American
type of relevant story, you know, summer camp. I mean
a lot of Western countries have that same type of
experience too, but this is something that's truly Americana, and
we're really excited about it because we feel like like
(22:36):
people wanting to go out and buy Harley Davidson, or
people wanting to go out and buy Para Levi's or whatever,
that sort of Americana type of brand is knowing that
it's truly made by the best in the world craftsman.
That's what we did here with this movie, and we think,
not only do we showcase a really good quality film
because we do have best in class facilities and crew
(22:59):
and creatives here, but on top of it, we feel
like people are going to be proud to go see
this movie because it is for American So we're hoping
that this creates a template for the future and more
independent studios like ourselves, Low and Entertainment and studios major
studios start to do this.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
In my opinion, I always feel like there needs to
be a new ecosystem that is being built to create
the kinds of films that you want to see on
the big screen or on the little screen. And you
are one of those people that are doing that. And
that's why I love talking to you, is because you're
not like just you know, talking to talk. You're walking
(23:40):
the walk and you're putting things out there. How do
you respond to because you talk about this being an
all American film, what would be your response to people
that have this kind of you know, forget Hollywood. They don't,
they don't. They don't really speak to my values. They're
all a bunch of you know whatever, but they don't
(24:03):
speak to my values. What would be your response to that.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
Well, we're trying to push an American film production incentive
through so that we can bring back television and film
production here. One of the biggest problems with that is
that most people across the country aren't really supportive of
it because they think it's just helping Hollywood, it's just
helping California, and those are toxic terms. Those are things
that most people don't really care about. So why should
(24:29):
they push such an initiative. Well, i'll tell you why.
When we're healthy, two point seven million Americans go to
work in the film and television industry. When we're healthy.
Out of that two point seven million, it's about a
quarter of a trillion in wages. A majority of those
jobs are outside of California and Los Angeles. Perfect example,
(24:52):
Trillith Studios, a studio complex owned by Dan Cathy, the
chairman of Chick fil A, which is just outside of Atlanta.
That facility has thirty one sound stages on one thousand acres,
state of the art, incredible, and like them in most
areas down in Georgia that were made for film and
(25:13):
television production, they're running about seventy five percent occupancy or
underutilized right now, that's how bad it is. And you
cut to La We just had one of the most
iconic soundstage studio backlots go bankrupt the other day, CBS Radford,
which is out in Studio City and has been home
(25:34):
to everything from Seinfeld to to Survivors, the Survivor Finales.
So we have a real issue here that affects a
lot of Americans and a lot of wages. On top
of it, it affects our cultural identity as the leading
nation in the world when it comes to democratic values.
And if we're always shooting off store, we're using foreigners
(25:57):
in all of our parts of the production process, we
lose that ability to trumpet who we are as a country.
But then on top of it, we lose the ability
to put what is the best in the world working
class in this industry to work.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
It seems to me like through.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
You know what you're saying there is one it's a
huge job driver, and two it's a one of the
most influential cultural exports that the United States has and
you know it's it's how we've been able to export,
(26:38):
you know, our way of thinking to the world for
what one hundred years plus?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Now, am I? Am I right?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Kind of extracting those two kinds of reasons as to
why conservatives should care about Hollywood and success.
Speaker 5 (26:53):
Yeah, I mean jobs in GDP that resonates with everyone.
And then when you think about the states that are
really benefiting the most from things that are done outside
of California in LA but still here in the US,
which is the majority of television and film, You're looking
at red states, whether it's Louisiana, it's Georgia, at South Carolina,
North Carolina. You know, you have a lot of those
(27:15):
type of states that are benefiting, which is great. You know,
it's an all American issue and an all American benefit
when it works. The soft power initiative is massive. I mean,
we've seen how Beijing has been had been using Hollywood
to project the narrative and messaging they want it out there.
(27:35):
By US changing a lot of the plots and a
lot of the characters and a lot of the backdrops
that were in major Hollywood tempole movies. And we can
get into some of those examples if you want. But
we do know we know how to utilize soft power,
at least in terms of storytelling, better than anybody in
the world. China is very good at it on a
(27:56):
quantitative basis, on a manipulation basis through direct propaganda, but
we're the best at that sort of soft power, subtle,
you know, narrative messaging, winning the hearts and minds, the
emotional impact of the way we tell stories.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Where it starts to get me frustrated is that our people,
let's say, you know, I, you know out this right
of center you know artist or this right of center
community is not making content that you know, we want
to see. And obviously, like I think your film is
(28:34):
right in that vein, I think that you know, people
loved Project Hail Mary.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
I thought Hail Mary was exactly the target that our
industry needs to be focused because what was amazing about
it And by the way, bad counselors we the It's
a fish out of Water comedy where two fraternity brothers
get in trouble. They have to do community service, and
they find out the only way they can get all
their hours in is to work at the summer camp.
(29:01):
It turns out to be a Christian or camp, and
they faked their way in as Christians. So we made
a movie where we were trying to hit the subtleties
that Christians people of faith will think is funny, but
is not poking fun at them, while also making a
comedy that non believers and non Christians will enjoy seeing
(29:22):
because it's a fish out of water comedy. And somehow
we got it. We did it right, and we're very
excited about it. But I thought Project Hail Mary did
the same thing right. There was a couple moments in
that script where they talked about something a higher being,
and they didn't jump, they didn't dive into it in
(29:44):
a way where secular people would be sort of thrown
out of being excited about the film, and they didn't
ignore it in a way that Christians want to see it.
I thought that was brilliant. I thought the pro America
feeling of that movie I loved. I particularly loved.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I thought Project Hail Mary was I loved that movie.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
And how about the inspiration behind it. For you bring
a kid and they're inspired to be scientists. They're inspired
to to attack impossible challenges and know that everything's gonna
get thrown against you. You're gonna hit that low point
at the second, you know, at the end of the
second act, and you think it's all over, but you
just keep persevering and you get there. And then the
(30:31):
relationship between the alien and him it was so good.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
But to get back to the point, I thought it
was a perfectly executed film to where it had a
little bit for everybody. It kind of, you know, kind
of like a completely different kind of a film, but
similar in Daddy's Home with with Will Ferrell and and
what's his name, the Marky mark guy Wahlbert.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
It has a little bit for everybody it had.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
It pokes fun at liberals, it pokes fun at conservatives.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
There's there's a charm in that.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I don't think that that the Project Hail Mary necessarily
pokes fun at anybody, but it gives a little nod
to everybody in it.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Did.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
I thought the way the original Marvel movies, the original
ones that Kevin Figi was doing, poked fun at everybody too,
like they he was onto a secret sauce that was working.
The major studios are if you compare it to food,
they're like, they're the Olive Garden, right. Their goal is
to make Italian food that's approachable for everyone, like and
(31:37):
palatable enough for like, I mean, I love Italian food,
but if I had to go, like, I could probably
find something on the menu that I'd be okay with.
They can't. I bet you the c suite at Olive Garden.
When they eat Italian food, they probably go to Mario
Batali's restaurants or REO's or something. They probably don't go
(31:57):
to Olive Garden. But they're smart enough to know that
what they like at REOs is not going to work
for the machine that they've built, which is the Olive
Gron or the machine that they built which is Warner
Brothers or whatever. So they you have to think, not
like what you want, but what that audience that your
(32:17):
machine is built to find is craving.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
It seems like the nature of the company town. It
seems like it scares so many people to to go
down that route that it's that might kind of like
lean a little bit in one direct, you know, opposite,
let's say the direction and the political affiliations of the city,
and people are making decisions, and they.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
People, I just want to keep their jobs.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
If I've noticed anything about people in Hollywood that are
working within the machine, they just want to keep their jobs,
it seems like.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
And they obviously on.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
The case now because there's just nowhere, there's no.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Alternative exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
So so there's that that kind of comes into play,
and I think people get safe in that regard.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
And safe in your regard is if you're a Republican
in a town that's ninety five percent Democrat, you never
tell anybody you're Republican. You never tell anybody you voted
for Trump.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
You know.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
Like the beauty for me is that when I was
out promoting my book, I was asked to go to
Tucker Carlson a bunch of times. So I did, and
I was doing it because Simon and Schuster was asking
me to do it to sell books. And I was like, yeah,
I mean I should. I want to talk to auto audiences,
you know, get me on CNN and MSNBC, but get
(33:40):
me on Tucker. Well, the second I did one Tucker,
I literally lost half of my friends in Hollywood, literally
just because I did a Tucker Carlson. So I did
it again and again because I figured I wasn't going
to lose anybody else. I'd lost them all in the
first dust. So now because I've lost all those people,
I've bounced back and I've found a niche in the
(34:02):
business and have actually thrived to somebody that can speak
to both sides and respects both sides, and like doesn't
care about political ideology. I just care about constructiveness, so
that I can talk freely about the fact that I
voted for Donald Trump in the last selection, like I'll
call balls and strikes with him too, Like I don't
(34:22):
like a lot of the stuff he's doing in fact,
and I don't like a lot of the stuff that
Bill Clinton did back in the day, but I voted
for him. I vote for what I thought is best,
and I'm out there talking about it because I literally
have nothing to lose because I lost it on twenty twenty.
But the majority of people have never taken that plunge,
and they don't want to because it's really scary. But
(34:45):
the fact is, if everybody was open about that and
was able to have civil discourse discussions in staff meetings
and talk about things that like, Hey, I know I'm
the only Republican in the room here, but I will
tell you that this part in the screw at what
this guy's saying in this dialogue, what this plot point is,
(35:08):
is really offensive. I think to friends of mine that
are also Republican, particularly the ones that aren't even in California,
and I think we should rethink what we're doing here.
And that's the problem is that voice in those rooms
simply it exists, but it's silenced. Then I put it
(35:29):
into real world, a real world situation like shooting bad counselors, right,
or shooting even the movie chap Equittic, which we did
in Boston, but that was, you know, that was a
half right, half left crew telling a story about a
(35:49):
piece of American history, about a family that I idolized
growing up. And the fog of war that occurred around
the chap Equittic incident ted Kennedy as he was starting
to rise to run for president. You know, the crews,
you're in the trenches. It's almost like a military at war,
Like you're in the trenches. You're trying to make your
(36:12):
days in production, there's a lot of challenges going on
about getting the film you know, perfected, with all kinds
of obstacles, jumping in the way, rainstorms when you don't
want them, and you're shooting outside, to like air conditioning
not working in the sound stage, to whatever it is. Right,
there's no issue with Democrats and Republicans working together on
(36:35):
a common goal. It just gets done because they're in
the trenches. They're like doing human things together that attach
them on an emotional, cultural level, a purpose level, and
that bonds them to the point where they don't have
to feel like they have to shield themselves about this
(36:56):
like ideology that's been told to them that you know,
it's us against them, and and you know, the more
you get into it, the more you realize that it
is a great opportunity for you know, I would say
nefarious leadership to just use us, you know, as a
distractive force to keep things from actually operating in a
(37:20):
constructive and an efficient manner. In this country. There's nothing
worse than people just shouting into the wind, complaining about
stuff and not doing anything. That's sort of what we
wanted to do with bad counselors, is like, hey, sixty
percent of our production in movies and television, the thing
that we do best in the world bar none as
United States workers, as creatives, like, there's nobody that can
(37:43):
compete with us. Yeah, we just offshort because it's just
a little cheaper somewhere else to do it. You know,
that's a problem. And I could scream at the top
of my lungs. But unless I I can try to
find a way to fix it myself, you can't. It's
too big a problem. But if you can actually go
and fix it on a step by step basis and
(38:05):
show others, bigger players that it can be done, and
then actually show it can be monetized, right, because this
is not charity. We're not in a charity business. We're
in a commercial enterprise of making art, which really is
about making commercial product in the form of art. We
got to monetize it. So here's me. I'm not going
(38:26):
to shout at the wind anymore. I'm going to try
to fix it. I found the financing to do it.
I found a group of people that want to do
it with me. Twelve hundred of us as a village
did it together. It's not just me, it's a whole group,
and we believe this is a template for the bigger movies,
like a Marvel movie that hires seven thousand, eight thousand.
People can do it too, right, Let's go for it,
(38:50):
Let's make it happen. But of course I need people
to go see this movie too, to show that an
all American made movie can work. We got to make
this known that you can do this.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
That's it for this edition of Pilled America's Famboogie. Be
sure to check out Bad Counselors coming out July twenty second.
That's Chris Fenton's film, Support the Guy. The Guy's putting
his money where his mouth is. Also be ready for
Has Communism Ever Worked? Our next Red Pilled America audio
documentary coming out within the next week. Pay attention for that.
You check get our emails, sign up for our email list.
(39:24):
Go to Red Pilled America dot com and sign up
for our email list to get a notification for when
that's coming out. And join the fambam. Go to Redpilled
America dot com and click join in the top of
the menu. Thanks everybody for your support. You keep the
lights on until next time.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
By everyone,
Hosts And Creators
Adryana Cortez
Patrick Courrielche
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