Movie Mike dives into the list that Forbes just released The Highest Paid Actors for 2023. .” Mike shares who he thinks is overpaid, underpaid and who will be on the list in the future. He also shares how actors make money on a streaming only movie versus a movie that gets released in theaters. In the Movie Review, Mike gives his thoughts on Spaceman starring Adam Sandler. He plays an astronaut who is half a year into his solo mission on the edge of the solar system, who starts to become concerned with the state of his life back on Earth. He is helped by an ancient creature he discovers in the bowels of his ship. Mike talks about how Sandler performed in this serious sci-fi role, the problems he had with it and is he worth the amount of money Netflix is paying him to do movies like this . In the Trailer Park, Mike talks about the upcoming adaptation of "Borderlands" and discusses what to expect from this highly anticipated video game adaptation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. If you're listening early on
release day, the oscars happened last night. I'm gonna talk
about them. I will be putting up a bonus episode
in the feed as soon as I get a chance
to record that, but it's Monday. I value that you
are subscribed to this podcast. You go there expecting a
brand new episode every single week, so I'm gonna do
(00:21):
my normal episode here as well. Forbes put out a
list last week of the highest paid actors for twenty
twenty three. I'm gonna tell you who I think is
making too much money, who I think should be making
more money, and who I think shouldn't be on this
list at all. Then in the movie review, we'll talk
about Adam Sandler's latest Netflix movie called Spaceman. It combines
(00:42):
itself with our topic because I'm gonna let you know
whether or not he is worth the millions and millions
of dollars that Netflix is paying to him. And in
the trailer park, we'll be talking about a movie based
on a video game called Borderlands. Was an insanely popular
video game that I have the cover just memorized in
my head even though I never really played it. But
I'll give you my thoughts on it from a non
(01:03):
fan of the franchise. So thank you for being here.
Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew, and now
let's talk movies.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast,
one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like
never before in a movie podcast. A man with so
much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTV with glasses.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
From the Nashville Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Network, this is Movie Mike's Movie podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Orbes put out their list of the ten highest paid
actors in twenty twenty three, and of these ten actors,
they have made four hundred and forty nine million dollars
combined almost half a billion dollars, which to me proves
the theory that I have had. I still think the
real bankability and true test of an actor is can
you sell tickets? Therefore, are you able to demand more
(01:58):
money from the studio and then get more money on
the back end. So I still think that movies rank
supreme in generating revenue in the entertainment business. Just the
fact that all ten actors on this list are primarily
movie stars. Really says all you need to know about
the landscape of Hollywood right now. So in order to
(02:19):
make this list, Forbes conducted a lot of interviews with agents, lawyers,
managers and executives and industry experts. They also use sources
like IMDb, pro and Pollstar. And these numbers represent pre
tax earnings, so before all the money gets taken out
of their paychecks. That is the numbers we are looking
at here. They also subtracted fees for representation, which is
(02:40):
ten percent to the agents, ten percent to the managers,
five percent to the lawyers, which is all industry standard,
although some actors do not have all three of those.
And on this list, actors were credited for money they
made on projects that were released all in twenty twenty three,
despite the fact that sometimes the upfront fees are paid
when a movie is filmed, so that could be a
(03:01):
couple of years before it actually comes out, and it
could also be years in the future because sometimes the
actors who have more of a pull on their name,
they are able to get money on the back end.
So say Margot Robbie, who is probably going to get
Barbie checks for the rest of her life. Not only
did she make a lot this year, she's also going
(03:23):
to continue to make money off that movie on the
back end. And additionally, this ranking only includes earnings related
to entertainment, so acting, producing, directing, or other forms of performance.
So if they have a side hustle, a liquor business
that is not related to entertainment, it is not included
on this list. So no endorsement's, beauty products, nothing like
(03:45):
that is accounted for on this list strictly acting and performing.
So before I get into this list, let's just talk
a little bit about the differences between a movie that
comes out in theaters and a movie that comes out
on Netflix in terms of the way an actor is paid.
In simple terms, an actor who is going to be
in a Netflix movie gets all the money on the
(04:08):
front end. They are paid one big lump sum because
there is nothing to be made on that movie once
it is released on Netflix. So oftentimes this amount is
much larger because that is the only sum of money
that they are going to see. So this is where
you'll see deals like Ryan Reynolds making thirty million dollars
for one Netflix film because they're gonna pay him that
(04:29):
they're gonna hope that his name draws people to getting
Netflix subscriptions or just keeping the subscribers happy. But he
gets those thirty million dollars and then that goes away.
The movie remains on Netflix, or later they could decide
to take a tax right off to erase it from
the Netflix service, but that is it. In other cases,
say we're still talking about Ryan Reynolds here, and he
(04:50):
puts out a movie that comes out in theaters. Say
if coming out later this year with someone like Ryan Reynolds,
who has a very very big name in hollyw would
he can start to negotiate how much money he is
going to get on the back end. So maybe it's
a little less than that thirty million dollars he got
for that Netflix movie. Maybe for a theater release he's
(05:11):
getting more in the range of fifteen to twenty million dollars.
But then he can also negotiate that he gets some
of the box office earning, some of the video on
demand earnings. He could also have some money tied to
the movie's first streaming window. So all of this refers
to what they call points on the back end, which
is where a lot of actors have made a lot
(05:31):
of money. One famous example that I use is Tom
Hanks took a considerably less amount for his salary in
Forrest Gump in order to get a percentage of the
movie's earnings and to continue to make money off that
movie in order to get Forest Gump made back in
ninety four when it came out, so they were able
to make it because they didn't have to pay him
a ton of money. But the movie was massive, so
(05:54):
it was almost like betting on yourself and banking on
your projected earnings that you will get. Another famous case
that I love Jason Weaver, who was a kid actor
and he was the voice of Young Simba and the
singing voice in the nineteen ninety four Lion King animated version,
and Disney initially offered him two million dollars just to
check up front to be compensated for that role of
(06:16):
Young Simba and doing the singing parts. And his mom
knew that movie was going to be huge and instead
took one hundred thousand dollars check in order to get
a lifetime of royalties from that movie. A great business
decision there, which is hard to do. Could you imagine
being a young actor thinking two million dollars. I don't
(06:36):
even know what that is that could honestly change my life.
But knowing that, oh, this is going to be huge,
I shouldn't take this as winning the lottery right now.
I should set myself up for the rest of my life.
I think that is one of the best decisions in
movie history. All Right, So I think we covered it
there how theatrical and screaming releases differ. Now let's get
(06:56):
into it. At number ten with a gross income of
twenty eight eight million dollars taking home at the end
of the day twenty four million dollars, it is Denzel Washington.
Last year he put out the third installment of The Equalizer.
Just been a pretty average film series. Overall, each one
of those movies has crossed one hundred and ninety million
(07:17):
dollar mark at the box office. And the real reason
it has done that because of Denzel Washington. Without his
name attached to that movie, nobody would really care about it.
And in addition to that movie last year, why he
continues to remain in the top ten is because of
his catalog, all the royalties he is getting from all
(07:37):
of his back years of work. That is really so
important to an actor is that library of movies that
you build. Really in anything, I will even say that
in podcasting, it comes down to the amount of work
you can do and just have like this fast portfolio
of all these episodes, all these movies. That is really
(07:57):
where you start to see money grow in entertainment. So
it is really precious. That is also why you see
a lot of fights over rights to things and rights
to episodes, is because that is where the money will
be there for you always. That is also why you
see musicians selling their catalogs in order to have guaranteed
(08:19):
money every year, because they can sell their catalog and
know they're going to have that said amount of money
for the rest of their life. And Denzel Washington has
been doing it for over forty years now, he's sixty
nine years old. He can really do any movie that
he wants and it's probably gonna make a pretty good
amount of money at the box office. I kind of
wish he would go in a bit of a different
direction and get back to those really big dramatic roles
(08:42):
that he would do all the time, and the ones
that he is known for. I think the last movie
I really love from him was from twenty sixteen call Fences,
which was an adaptation of a play, and I thought
that really showed the true power of Denzel Washington, the
reason everybody fell in love with him and the reason
he is a movie star. She would go back to
doing movies like that. But at number ten is Denzel Washington.
(09:04):
At number nine with a gross income of forty five
million dollars, and on the list listed at thirty eight
million dollars is Ben Affleck. Again, this is only including
his money that he has made with acting. Out of
everybody on this list, this is the most surprising to me.
I do not think he is worth thirty eight million
dollars a year, especially when you look at the movies
(09:24):
he did last year. The fifty one year old starred
and directed Air, which is a great movie. I love
this movie, but financially it didn't really cross a big
threshold of making money at the box office. I know,
it wasn't even supposed to come out in theaters, but
Amazon decided to move forward and give it a theatrical
release and it ended up making ninety million dollars at
(09:46):
the box office before just straight going over to Amazon
Prime Video. But the other movie you put out Hypnotic
was so bad and such a bomb, one of the
worst bombs in the last decade. That movie costs sixty
f five million dollars to make and only made sixteen
point three at the box office, but I guess he
still got paid. He am making no money on the
(10:08):
back end of that movie, but he has been around
for a long time enough to be in Duncan commercials
and probably made a lot of money off of that,
even though that amount is not included on this list.
At number nine, as Ben Affleck so there is a
tie at number eight, two people come in with forty
one million dollars. The first one is Jason Statham, who
(10:28):
had a gross of forty eight million dollars before taking
home forty one million dollars. Statham is just a quietly
dominant actor. In the last year, he has been in
Fast x Meg two, The Trench, and The Expendables four,
and as of the recording of this podcast, he is
the star of the highest grossing movie so far in
twenty twenty four, The Beekeeper, so he will probably be
(10:51):
back on this list next year. He is the quintessential
action star right now. I think he is to the
point that if you are a die hard fan of action,
you will probably go watch every single movie that Jason
Statham is in. And he's fifty six years old and
has been doing this so well now for the last
twenty years. It is honestly surprising to me how successful
(11:13):
he has been, kind of being typecast in the same
role over and over again, the guy who gets angry,
he's very cold, and then gets into a fight, then
drives a car really fast. As far as the dynamics
of an actor and his range, they are so limited,
extremely limited when you really look at them. I've never
seen any movie with Jason Stathum and thought, oh man,
(11:36):
he really took it there on another emotional level. No,
he hasn't done that, But by the looks of this list,
it doesn't really need to do that, because just crashing
through windows and going on epic chase scenes is essentially
enough to make you forty one million dollars and put
you at number well tied at seven on this list.
So as much as I don't want to give him
(11:56):
the credit for being a great actor, he can crush
me with his wallet. And Jason Statum comes in at
number seven, tied with Leonardo DiCaprio, who also had a
gross of forty eight million dollars and took home forty
one million dollars to put him tied at seven eight.
I don't know why they put two sevens on this list.
The crazy thing here is Leonardo DiCaprio made a majority
(12:18):
of this money on one movie. He was only in
Killers of the Flower Moon last year, which he earned
a reported forty million dollars just for that one movie.
So it kind of shows you how much money people
can make, at least him in particular on the back
end from his library of work, which I wonder about that.
I feel like he should make more because he's been
(12:39):
in Titanic alone, which I feel like he will continue
to get checks for the rest of his life. If
he ever has kids, they will be getting checks probably
for the rest of their life. But at forty eight
million dollars gross and a forty one take home, that
is inredible for one movie, and Leonardo DiCaprio is one
of the panful of actors that could do something thing
(13:00):
like that, even though he was snubbed an Oscar nomination
for that movie. I don't really think he's hurting because
he can be so selective, just doing one movie a
year if that, and do movies that he really cares about,
work with directors that he really has a great relationship with,
and obviously him doing a Scorsese movie is probably a
(13:21):
no brainer. So I think at this point, even though
he made forty million dollars of one movie, I almost
think he is at a point where the money doesn't
really matter anymore. And I also heard Bradley Cooper talking
about this recently when he was talking about he maybe
only has three or four movies left in him, because
to be an actor at that level, it takes so
(13:41):
much time to focus on one project. It is four
to five years of your life from the moment you
start developing a movie, get attached to it, and it
finally comes out that he thinks that he maybe has
four or five left, maybe three or four, that he
thinks he only has a handful of movies left in him.
I think that is the same case with Leonardo DiCaprio,
who is later in his acting career but by no
(14:05):
means is anywhere done. He could continue acting into his
seventies and eighties. Just look at Robert de Niro, but
I think he has to be more selective on how
he uses his time. He is obviously going to do
movies now that are either gonna make a lot of
money at the box office, therefore earning him more money,
or really I think he is just interested in doing
(14:25):
movies that are going to warrant an Oscar nomination. So
tied at number seven Leonardo DiCaprio and Jason Statham with
forty one million dollars at number six with a gross
income of fifty six million dollars taking home forty two
million dollars. To put her at number six is Jennifer Aniston.
She is one actor on this list who probably doesn't
(14:47):
earn the majority of her money just for movies. But
on the film side, she starred in Adam Sandler's Murder
Mystery two on Netflix, which was a little bit worse
than the first one, and Murder Mystery is a movie
you go into just wanting to see something really ridiculous,
and mainly just the fact that it's Adam Sandler and
Jennifer Aniston together who have really good chemistry. Even though
(15:09):
the wacky nature of those movies it is almost like
an off brand knives out for the masses, which is
really what Adam Sandler does over there on Netflix. And
Jennifer Aniston is one of the most beloved actresses in
the United States and has been for so long that
them together just somehow makes sense. But aside from that movie,
she makes a lot of money from TV. Everybody knows
(15:32):
she was in Friends, and that's probably what she still
makes the most amount of money on. But she also
makes two million dollars an episode for acting and executive
producing each episode of The Morning Show on Apple TV Plus,
which this last season was all right, I think I'm
a little bit over that show because it was so
groundbreaking in season one. Season two took a little bit
(15:55):
of a dip. Season three started out strong, but I
felt really fizzled out there towards the end. So I'm
not sure how many more seasons I'm gonna invest in
The Morning Show. But man, making two million dollars an
episode that is crazy. So at number six is Jennifer
Aniston with forty two million, getting into the top five.
Now which there is a tie here with a gross
(16:16):
income of fifty million dollars taking home forty three million dollars.
First up is Matt Damon, who his first project of
last year was Air, which was directed by Ben Affleck,
who has already made this list, so that's where a
majority of his money came from last year. It probably
got some money on the front end of that after
they sold it to Amazon for one hundred and thirty
(16:36):
million dollars, which was a pretty high price stag for
a project like that. But again, when you have names
like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon attached to something, you
can ask for a lot of money. Matt Damon is
fifty three years old, so he has obviously been in
the game for a long time. So he is also
an actor making a lot off of his catalog, and
he also was an Oppenheimer last year, which he got
(16:58):
four million dollars for his role in that, which was
one of the bigger supporting actor roles in Oppenheimer. And
when you start to look at how many just giant
actors were in that movie with really small cameos, I
wonder if their salaries are comparable to that four million.
I would imagine they would have to be significantly less
(17:19):
to get that many actors of that caliber in one movie.
Matt Damon obviously one of the bigger names out of
all of the supporting cast, so maybe other people depending
on who it is, Like a Romi Mallick probably got
maybe three two million dollars, but I have to imagine
somebody like a Josh Peck who is just happy to
be there, would probably be in the thousands in but
(17:41):
I would assume a majority of that money went debaying
all those people. I don't hate. Matt Damon in the
top five is not the sexiest of actors to be
the highest grossing for me, and I mean that saying
that I usually have to be convinced to watch a
Matt Damon movie. As big of a movie starts or
as he is. He's not somebody that I see as like,
(18:02):
oh he's in a movie, I have to go see it.
He has to convince me through a really great story
or a really great supporting cast for me to want
to be excited to see a Matt Damon movie. In
the case of Air, I was more attracted to the
story of the creation of the air Jordan, and I'm
honestly more interested in Ben Affleck as a director than
(18:23):
I was to see Matt Damon's performance. He could win
me back, eventually, but he has always just felt kind
of like a generic vanilla actor to me. So I
don't mean he's not sexy in the sense that he's
not good looking. He just doesn't have those qualities of
a go to actor for me. On the other end,
the person who is tied with him on the list
in this same slot, with that gross of fifty million
(18:44):
dollars taking him forty three million dollars, they have him
at four on this list is Ryan Gosling. Now, he
is somebody that no matter what he is in, I'm
going to watch that movie, whether it's an action movie
like The fall Guy coming out later this year, or
whether it's Barbie he made a majority of his money
for last year. No matter what he does, I'm just
(19:05):
drawn to it because I think he is an actor
who has also been very selective of the projects that
he takes on that I can't think of one time
I have gone to see a Ryan Gosling movie in
thought this was just a paycheck for him. The only
time I had that feeling was going into Barbie or
I didn't really know what to expect, and this was
(19:26):
in the early stages before a lot was known about
the plot. I just thought, oh, man, Ryan Gossling is
just doing movies for money. Now, this could be the
decline to me liking him and then going to see
that movie and completely having those thoughts blown out of
the water and realizing that I was right all along
that he wouldn't take a movie on unless there was
some more depth to it, unless it was attached to
(19:48):
a great director like Greta Gerwig, and unless he was
going to get an Oscar nomination and have one of
the biggest payouts of his career in Hollywood now that
he is forty three years old. And not only that,
as an added ball, he also made some money off
of I'm Just Ken, which has been streamed over one
hundred million times on streaming services, so that song actually
adds to his total. It's considered a performance. Ryan Gosling
(20:11):
tied with Matt Damon forty three million dollars at number three,
with a gross of fifty three million dollars, taking home
forty five million dollars. It is the sixty one action
star Tom Cruise. I have often said that Tom Cruise
is an actor that I just don't like. That It
took a lot of me realizing how much he values filmmaking,
(20:34):
and that's not even the amount of danger he puts
himself in to do this crazy, outrageous stunt work, but
he has also changed the landscape of how actors get paid.
He is one of the last, if not the very last,
movie star who can still command what is called a
first dollar gross deal, meaning that he can get that
percentage of the box office and other revenues on the
(20:57):
day a movie is released. So well, that is also
why he pushes so much for movies to come out
in theaters. He was so big on that push post
COVID of these movies deserve to be seen on the
big screen the way they were meant for you to enjoy.
And sometimes I take that with a grain of salt, because,
(21:17):
as somebody who does a movie podcast and I love
that experience of seeing something in a big screen with
full sound, I don't have those same exact qualities that
I can replicate at home. I obviously think that is
how a movie should be seen, but I also know
that it's coming from somebody like Tom Cruise who has
money literally in the game of you going to see
(21:38):
it in theaters. That is how he grows his empire.
The more a movie makes at the box office, the
more he ends up taking home. I also think for
him it's an ego thing. He wants to have the
number one country, not just in the United States, but
in the world. He does movies to have number one movies,
to have the most amount of people see him. That
is why these people are movie stars. They like to
have eyeballs on them. They liked the attention. That is
(22:01):
why they are so charismatic. Is because they want the
most people to see their work and therefore make the
most amount of money off of it. And that is
how we ended up on this list. He took home
a really substantial upfront salary for Dead Reckoning Part one,
the Mission Impossible movie that came out last year, and
then he also continued to receive streaming and on demand
(22:21):
profits from twenty twenty two's Top Gun Maverick, which saw
a lot of that increase in twenty twenty three once
it finally hit streaming. And he will continue to make
more money because he just signed a big deal with
Warner Brothers to develop all these new movies. So the
Tom Cruise empire is only going to grow. And even
though I don't love all of his movies, I do
(22:43):
love that he had a big part to play in
saving Hollywood post COVID with the amount of money that
top gun Maverick earned, but also just eased audiences back
into the theaters when it really really was needed. I
have to give him credit for Thatnumber three, with forty
five million dollars is Tom Cruise at number two, with
(23:03):
a gross income last year of seventy eight million dollars,
taking home fifty nine million dollars. Is the one the
only Margo Robbie, who is the youngest person to be
on this list by a decade at thirty three years old,
which is weird for me because she's only one year
older than me, and to think that she's making that
(23:24):
insane amount of money. I know I shouldn't compare ages
and status, but man, just to think somebody else around
the same age as me is not only worldwide famous
but also made fifty nine million dollars last year. I'm
going to stop thinking about it because I just start
thinking about what I could do with all of that money.
But I love the representation here of a female not
only being in the top ten, but being in the
(23:46):
top five, so close to number one, which I honestly
think she could be Number one. If not for the
fact that actor number one has been around for so
long and has a really big deal in place, she
is number one in my heart. And when I think
this list needs more is female actors. What I also
think this list needs more of is Black, Mexican and
(24:07):
Asian actors, who are fairly absent from this list. I
think that shows us that Hollywood is still a primarily
white male dominated industry, because on this list, if you're
not a white male, you either have to be Margot Robbie,
Jennifer Aniston, or Denzel Washington to be considered. So again,
shout out here to Margot Robbie, who is really cashed
(24:27):
in on Barbie, which made one point four or five
billion dollars at the box office. There's also tons of
money attached to licensing and partnerships, and she is also
a producer on the movie, so she is cashed in
roughly twelve point five percent of all the back end profits,
which Forbes in this article has estimated is worth more
than sixty million dollars. She also has a really successful
(24:52):
production company called Lucky Chap that put out Saltburn last year,
so she's also raking in money producing movies and in
February she just signed a new exclusive first look deal
with Warner Brothers, the studio behind Barbie, So she's going
to keep getting those checks. She's going to start producing
more and more movies and making more money off of that.
And I think that Margot Robbie is really just getting started,
(25:14):
despite the fact that she has already been around for
over a decade, just grinding and putting out consistently good
movies time and time again. At number two fifty nine
million dollars is Margot Robbie. At number one, with a
gross income of ninety seven million dollars, taking home seventy
three million dollars is the Sandman. Adam Sandler signed a
(25:36):
two hundred and fifty million dollar four movie deal with
Netflix back in twenty fourteen. He's fifty seven years old
now and has started in eight movies for Netflix and
produced more through his company Happy Madison, which has made
a lot of great movies and also a lot of stinkers.
But the majority of his backlog, which are primarily all comedies,
are all now licensed through Netflix, so they have become
(26:00):
the home of Adam Sandler, which last year on Netflix
he put out Murder Mystery two You're so not invited
to my bar Mitzvah, and the animated movie Leo, which
has been a really big hit with kids and families.
But the other thing they accounted for inside of this
seventy three million dollars is the money he made off
of touring, which he did forty four stand up comedy
(26:21):
shows in twenty twenty three. Me and Kelsey saw him.
It was a great show, But I kind of don't
think that should be included here. Even though it is performing.
It is entertainment, but I don't really think that is
the same as starring in a movie or starring in
the TV show. I imagine that he made a lot of
money millions off that tour. They don't have the exact
(26:42):
numbers here, but in my heart, Margot Robbie is at
number one. Because Sandler has had this deal in place
for so long now that it's gonna be hard for
anybody to beat him, because nobody is getting that deal.
The Netflix CEO said whenever they re upped Adam Sandler's
deal back in twenty two, there is no such thing
as too much Adam Sandler, So that shows you they're
(27:04):
going to continue to pay him boatloads and boatloads of money,
and the great thing about it is it gives him
a lot of creative control. Just look at the movies
he did last year. You have an animated movie, you
have a movie that's a little bit more of a
snapshot of his life. You have one that's just fun,
over the top action with Jennifer Aniston. And now what
(27:26):
he's doing with the sci fi movie Spaceman, which we'll
get into later in the review. He can really do
whatever he wants, which puts him in a great place.
Because I feel like which as an actor puts him
in a great place. He can do movies where he
takes all his friends on vacation and gets paid for
it and gets a movie out of it. I feel
like it can be hit or miss with us, though,
because to see a bad Adam Sandler movie isn't really
(27:49):
out of the realm of possibilities on any given occasion.
But you can't deny his bank ability. At number one,
seventy three million dollars is Adam Sandler, who am I
surprised wasn't on the list? I would have to say
Ryan Reynolds. But when you look at the movies he
put out last year he was pretty non existent in
the box office game kind of took the year off,
(28:10):
But this year he's coming back strong with Deadpool and Wolverine,
and if so, he will probably enter the top ten
next year. Also surprised The Rock isn't on here. He
has taken a little bit of a step back from acting,
focusing more on his tequila company on the XFL. Maybe
it's because Black Adam did not go as well as
(28:31):
he thought, and maybe he was planning for being in
more DC projects. Doesn't look like that's gonna be the case.
So he is going to be in a new A
twenty four film that I hope we get a little
bit more of a serious side from Dwayne the Rock Johnson.
And again, this list wasn't accounting for all of the
endorsements that he gets, probably amount of money that he
makes off on Instagram, because honestly, that alone would probably
(28:53):
put him in the top ten. Also surprised that Mark
Wahlberg was not on the list. He put out some
movies last year that I guess to do so well,
and I thought maybe the Apple TV Plus movie he
did alone would warn him a really big payday. I
don't think he deserves to be on the top ten list,
but just surprise, his name wasn't there. And who do
I think will be there soon? Look no further than
(29:15):
the cast of Dunes, Zendeia, Austin Butler, Anya Taylor Joy,
and Timothy Shalomey. I think are right there on the
cusp of being the new A list actors in Hollywood.
The bankable names, the one everybody recognizes. But they're all
still fairly young right now and not in a point
in their career where they can negotiate like some of
(29:35):
these heavy hitters. They can't really get money on the
back end the way that a Sandler or a Tom
Cruise does. But I think they will be there eventually,
and I am all here for it because we need
fresh blood and we have it. We have some really
great talent with just the Doune cast alone. So that
is the list. We'll come back and talk about Spaceman
on Netflix with the number one highest paid actor of
(29:57):
twenty twenty three, Adam Sandler. Listen, what's the movie. Let's
get into it now. A spoiler free review of Spaceman
on Netflix, starring the seventy three million dollar making Adam Sandler.
Is he worth the vast amount of money that Netflix
has invested in him in over the years, and I
(30:19):
am a huge Adam Sandler fan, so much so that
in the early stages of this podcast I had to
enlist the rule that I would have to stop talking
about Adam Sandler so much, because I mentioned him in
literally every single episode, and a very nice member of
the movie crew was like, dude, you gotta stop mentioning
Adam Sandler. And in regard to Spaceman, I was very
(30:39):
interested and intrigued by this movie. When the trailer first dropped,
I included it here on the Trailer Park because that
is the type of movie I love to see Adam
Sandler in, the more dramatic side of him, which I
think he does really well. I listened to him recently
on Conan O'Brien's podcast talking about how we decided to
make that switch knowing that he wanted to have a
(30:59):
longstanding career in movies, and credits a lot of that
to Paul Thomas Anderson, who was able to put him
in Punch Drunk Glove, which everybody saw and thought, oh,
the Sandman can do different things, but he really hasn't
done a sci fi movie like this, and you pair
him up with an amazing cast with Carrie Mulligan and
Paul Dano, who if you just look at that lineup,
(31:20):
that is like my dream lineup. I have loved Carry
Mulligan ever since Drive, and Paul Dano has also become
one of my favorite actors with The Riddler, The Fableman's
Dumb Money. He is another actor who can do it all,
from drama to comedy and comic book movies. So all
this cast together and then in one of my favorite genres.
I love movies about space and isolation. But what we
(31:44):
learned in this movie and what you've learned from past
sci fi movies, those are really hard movies to do
because space and isolation can quickly turn boring because really
the trouble that space movies have is that they are
so isolated and have such a limited case that it
creates this level of boredom that you're trying to represent,
because in space it is boring. I've never been to space,
(32:06):
I've never talked to an astronaut, but the way it
is depicted it is very isolating, It is very lonely.
It is very hard on the body to be that
far away from humanity is a whole nother level of isolation.
And when you start to showcase that, it's going to
be really hard to create a captivating movie. So you
have to have a really really strong story and a
(32:27):
really strong lead to make it work. Did it work
in this case? Sad to say it did not, But
I'll tell you more about why it did it. When
it comes to Spaceman, the movie costs forty million dollars
to make. Not that bad really when you look at it. Primarily,
what a space movie spends a lot of the budget
(32:49):
on is just the dynamics of creating a space ship
and also creating the weightlessness of somebody in space. Just
having that effect them tethered throughout the entire movie is
extremely expensive. I've come to learn by researching these movies.
And this movie did a very average job on creating
something that looked like we hadn't seen it before in
(33:11):
a space movie. I almost wish it had a little
bit more of a dynamic presence. He is half a
year into this space mission. He is the furthest away
from any human in history to go way out into Jupiter.
He is investigating this really mysterious cloud that has formed.
It is like this purple cosmic presence and the sky
that they can see from the earth. The movie takes
place in a retro futuristic version of the nineties, and
(33:35):
it really deals with isolation in Adam Sandler's character being
described as the loneliest person in the world because he
is so far away from the love of his life
and they're not only separated in distance, but also separated emotionally. Essentially,
what this movie is about isolation and the crumbling of
a relationship. And I don't think Adam Sandler was strong
(33:59):
enough to really pull it off. And I've loved him
in the dramatic roles I've been mentioning, but I think
this one required another level of acting that I realized
he just didn't really have it in him. And that
hurts me to say, because he did an amazing job
in movies like Uncut Gems, where I thought he deserved
an Oscar. That one had a lot more action. I
felt like he really owned that character. But in this case,
(34:22):
seeing him as a spaceman was a little bit unbelievable
for me from the very beginning, just him floating around
on the spaceship, but even just seeing a photo of
him in the astronaut uniform. I just couldn't buy into
the fact that Adam Sandler, this really wacky guy, was
a spaceman. And in other times I've been able to
look past that, but it was really hard in this
(34:43):
situation just hearing him deliver some of this dialogue. Found
it really unbelievable in probably an unfair way, just because
of the association I have with him. I do like
some of the avenues that the movie tried to explore
with commentary on the human condition, but also on corporate sponsorship,
because in the movie, they prioritize his cameras working more
(35:04):
than they prioritize his toilet working. Because they are live
streaming this entire thing. They have these weird sponsorship things
that he has to read and do commercials while he's
in space, so they never really got back to a
whole lot of that. I thought that would have been
a cooler angle to approach the live stream aspect, kind
of more like a Truman Show vibe of people that
(35:26):
were also invested in his relationship. The appeal of watching
him in space and people being able to control things,
I think really would have been a cool way to
make this movie more interesting. I know it's based on
a novel, so they were probably following the source material more,
but that light was going off in my head of
they had a great opportunity here to make this movie
a little bit more interesting, because, quite honestly, it felt
(35:48):
like his character and funny people who was kind of
a version of Adam Sandler, and in that movie they
make fun of the movie roles he takes on because
they're so over the top and wacky. This almost felt
like one of those movies that it would cut to
him like I just did this sci fi movie and
it's him looking at a place in a spacesuit, and overall,
(36:10):
when making a movie that deals with isolation, I felt
isolated and bored while watching it. This movie should have
been retitled The Sandman Talks to a Spider because that
is what Paul Dano voices in this movie. It's this
weird alien, futuristic spider looking thing that comes onto a
ship and they formed this really weird relationship and it
(36:31):
tries so hard to reach this emotional level that doesn't
really quite get there. And I love Paul Dano. I
think he did the best job that he could with
this role, but I found the character so annoying and
so uninteresting just a look and design of it. It
felt like a first draft to me, and maybe it's
because I wanted it to look more like an alien.
(36:53):
I just thought the idea of a spider crawling around
didn't really match with all the other aspects of the movie,
and the dialogue was so repetitive. I hated the way
he kept calling Adam Sandler's character skinny human, kept saying
it over and over again. I was about to shut
off my TV and stop watching it because I was
so annoyed by that line and quite frankly bored with
(37:15):
the entire story, which leads me to my next point.
Is the only reason I continue to watch this movie
to the very end is because of the cast. So
when you start to think about is Adam Sandler worth
the money that Netflix pays him with the over five
hundred hours that Netflix viewers spend with his movies for
this reason alone, he is worth it because what they
value so much is completion rate. Somebody to start and
(37:39):
finish a movie on Netflix, that is the goal, and
that is the only reason I finished this movie because
I wanted to see how Adam Sandler was going to
get out of this what the conclusion was going to be,
and that was very underwhelming to me too. But I
think that is the reason you pay him a lot
of money, because people are going to Netflix to watch
an Adam Sandler movie. It's still number one on their
(38:00):
streaming service after over a week of being out again.
I don't really know how they determined that they could
easily boost it, like, oh, look, it's number one, the
most people are watching it. They could lie about it
just because they want to promote that movie the most.
So I don't fully believe in that top ten ragging
on Netflix, but it's the metrics we have to go
on because they really don't share how many people watch
(38:21):
their movies. You really only get stats like the amount
of hours that Netflix users have been watching Adam Sandler movies.
He ranks up there in the top. So overall, I
just don't think this role was in the range of
the Sandman. You have to be an actor on the
level of like Sandra Bullock and Gravity, Brad Pitt and
ad Astra to really be able to show something so isolating.
(38:44):
Outer space movies are a really, really tough category, and
I just felt like he didn't have all the tools
in his acting abilities to pull this movie off, and
the overall story really wasn't helping him carry. Mulligan was
still fantastic in it. She can really do no wrong
in my eyes, It's just I wasn't really buying into
their love story. It was also cool to see Conalney
r aka Rod from the Big Bank Theory. It took
(39:07):
me a second to realize it was him, so I
think that is another sign that, hey, he can do
roles outside of the Big Bank Theory and not seem
so distracting. He was the guy communicating with Adam Sandler's
character throughout, so not the most outstanding of supporting roles,
but it was just nice to see somebody familiar in
a much different space. I was going into this movie
expecting to love it ended up having a pretty mediocre time.
(39:29):
For space Man, I give it two out of five
Space Suits. It's time to head down to movie.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Mike Trey lar.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Par I think video game adaptations are the hottest they've
ever been right now. They are a cash cow in
the movie industry because you already have a built in audience,
and usually a built in audience of nerds, which I
love some video game adaptation myself, so I am one
(40:01):
of those nerds. When it comes to Borderlands, I am
familiar with the game, but I never played it myself.
I would see a lot of people who would rave
on and on about this game. I really don't know
much about it, aside from it always having a really
cool cover with a very unique character. But Borderlands is
a video game set and an abandoned fictional planet of Pandora,
(40:24):
where people search for a mysterious relic. This movie has
been in development since way back in twenty fifteen and
is now set to come out on August ninth by Lionsgate.
It is directed by Eli Roth, who is known for
really bloody horror movies like Hostile one Hostile two. He
also recently did Thanksgiving, which is available now on Netflix.
(40:46):
He was also the Bear Jew in Inglorious Bastards. When
I go watch an Eli roths movie, I know it's
gonna be a little bit left of center, especially when
it comes to the gore. So I am surprised by
the PG thirteen rating on this movie given the violent
nature of the video game, and just given what I
expect from him as a director. But I know the
reason they do that is to cast a wider net
(41:08):
and not close anybody off. Who is probably gonna be
the key demographic in a movie like this, the younger
audience who played the video game. But that gives me
one strike against this movie, because I think a film
like this would really benefit from being able to show
more of the violence, more of the blood, and I
already know it's going to be scaled back a little bit,
so we're not going to see that in this movie.
(41:28):
So it's going to have to really ramp up the
action given the fact that they will only be able
to get one effort out of this movie. The movie
cost an estimated one hundred to one hundred and ten
million dollars. Looks like a lot of cgi work we
have going on in this one. So before I get
into more of my thoughts on Borderlands, here is just
a little bit of the trailer. God, I hate this planet.
(41:49):
What does that smell? Pusquash color the window? I don't
want him roll the window. It's peak, it's peap like,
it's call pis wash. I'm gonna get today. This movie,
to me looks like suicide Squad meets Guardians of the
(42:09):
Galaxy doing a mad Max impression, and that's a pretty
impressive cast list with Kate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, who you
heard here in that clip. Kevin Hart being in this
movie is probably my biggest concern because anytime Kevin Hart
is in a movie, he plays the exact same character.
And there is not one Kevin Hart movie that I
(42:31):
can honestly say that I am a big fan of.
I would probably have to go all the way back
to his cameo in The Forty Year Old Virgin, but
that was way early on in his career, and unless
he's working with the Rock like in Central Intelligence or Jumanji,
I'm just not the biggest fan of his comedic work.
I honestly don't even find him that funny as a comedian.
(42:52):
I think he did one special early on that I
found funny, but ever since then, I am kind of
surprised of how big of a household name he's become
doing arenas, doing stadiums at the level he is doing.
Props to him for being able to cash in on that,
but that is exactly what I feel when he takes
on a movie role, is he does it more for
(43:14):
a status symbol and more for money than he does
for the love of making movies. As you've probably learned
by listening to this podcast, I enjoy actors who take
a little bit more of appreciation for the craft of acting,
or fake it really well and are really just doing
it for the money and the attention. Visually, the movie
does appeal to me. It has this cosmic color palette.
(43:34):
It looks like it's gonna have very big action that
demands the big screen, which I'm always a big fan of.
It doesn't really look that funny to me. I took
that one clip from the trailer to show probably the
funniest moment they are trying to showcase. I just feel
like that scene has been written before. Those interactions, that punchline,
I have seen that in a comedy like this before,
(43:57):
so it doesn't really show me the unique perspective, the
unique take that this is going to have on a
video game adaptation. Just from that line, it really looks
like comedy by the numbers. It's really given me street
fighter vibes from back in the day, and video game
adaptations recently have been pretty hit or miss. I think
it also has to do with how much you played
(44:19):
the video game and are a fan of the franchise.
That greatly leads to the enjoyment of the movie. Because
when I came on and did my review of Five
Nights at Freddy's, much like Borderlands, I wasn't familiar with
that game aside from seeing people talk about it on
Reddit and see clips on YouTube. I did not enjoy
that movie, and I got so much hate from the
fan base that made that movie a success because I
(44:42):
just didn't get that. But you also have TV adaptations
like Halo and Twisted Metal The Last of Us that
are crushing it and also doing very poorly. But that
demand of having video game adaptations is huge right now,
and we've also seen some really big success with at
the Super Mario Brothers movie. Last year, Grand Tarismo did
(45:03):
pretty well. I still think King Dingling when it comes
to fun video game adaptations is Sonic the Hedgehog, which
we're getting the third part this year. I think that
really blends making a movie that's fun for kids and
families and also pays tribute to all the fans of
the video game who played it back in the nineties
and two thousands. But either way, when you do a
video game adaptation, you already have that built in audience.
(45:27):
Also in this cast you have Jamie Lee, Curtis, Bobby Lee.
But the person I think who is going to crush
it the most is Jack Black, who isn't a live
action character. In the movie. He does the voice for
a character named Claptrap. Jack Black is a great voice actor.
I just went to go see Kung Fu Panda four
and it was also great in the Super Mario Brothers movie.
(45:49):
And I think it's because to be a great voice actor,
you have to lend more than just your name to
a movie. And I feel that some actors just go
in a booth and read some lines and they think
it's an easy paycheck. But for somebody like Jack Black,
he takes a lot of pride in doing great work
and voice acting of making his voice sound a little
(46:11):
bit different, which he did with Bowser. They also did
some effects on his voice there, but there's a lot
of different emotion in his voice and doing a more
zany character like he's doing here in Borderlands. He also
gets physical in the booth and makes the movements he
was talking about. In Kung Fu Panda four, he would
actually do some kung Fu movements to put some more
emotion into it. He takes it seriously and quite honestly,
(46:33):
he is probably going to perform better than any actor
on the actual screen. It seems to me that they
are giving his character the Rocket Raccoon treatment that they
did Bradley Cooper and Guardians at the Galaxy. This movie
really mirrors a lot of aspects of that movie. They
have their Rocket Raccoon type character, they have their group
(46:54):
type character, they have their drags. They also have their
Peter Quill. So to me, this this movie doesn't really
have its own unique identity yet. It seems to be
borrowing a lot of inspiration from other superhero movies and
video game movies. I feel like overall this will be
a fun, average movie unless you're a huge fan of
(47:16):
the video game. I hope they proved me wrong in that,
But again, it is coming out later this year on
August ninth.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
At that point was this week's edition of Movie Line
tramor Bar and.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
That is gonna do it for another episode here of
the podcast. But again, don't forget to look out for
the special bonus Oscar coverage that I will be posting
here later in the week to recap everything that happened
at the Oscars and see if I was right or
not all my predictions. Before I go, I got to
give my listeners shout out of the week. This week,
I am going over to my YouTube channel, which is
(47:49):
YouTube dot com slash Mike dstro. If you ever forget
that or forget any of my social links, it is
always in the episode notes of every single podcast. But
this week's listener shout out goes to Sash, who commented
on my interview with the director of Wonka and said, Wow,
interviewing directors of big movies is such an achievement. Here's
(48:09):
two more great things to come from you and your channel.
Thank you, Sash. Which the weird thing about YouTube is
I find that people just go and watch my reviews
on YouTube and maybe don't even listen to the full
episodes of this podcast. So it's cool to have a
new audience over there just discovering it from the individual
movie reviews. So if you ever miss one of those,
(48:30):
you can always go watch them on YouTube. Be sure
to subscribe to that channel as well, because it really
helps me out in the long run and lead some
comments rate the videos. That also helps more people discover
my channel. There therefore bringing people back to the podcast
and become a part of the movie crew. So I'd
really appreciate that if there's a specific review you enjoyed,
host it on Instagram story, share that link, help spread
(48:53):
the love because that goes a long way. Thank you
for listening, thank you for being subscribed, and until next time,
go out and watch good movies and I will talk
to you later.
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. If you're listening early on
release day, the oscars happened last night. I'm gonna talk
about them. I will be putting up a bonus episode
in the feed as soon as I get a chance
to record that, but it's Monday. I value that you
are subscribed to this podcast. You go there expecting a
brand new episode every single week, so I'm gonna do
(00:21):
my normal episode here as well. Forbes put out a
list last week of the highest paid actors for twenty
twenty three. I'm gonna tell you who I think is
making too much money, who I think should be making
more money, and who I think shouldn't be on this
list at all. Then in the movie review, we'll talk
about Adam Sandler's latest Netflix movie called Spaceman. It combines
(00:42):
itself with our topic because I'm gonna let you know
whether or not he is worth the millions and millions
of dollars that Netflix is paying to him. And in
the trailer park, we'll be talking about a movie based
on a video game called Borderlands. Was an insanely popular
video game that I have the cover just memorized in
my head even though I never really played it. But
I'll give you my thoughts on it from a non
(01:03):
fan of the franchise. So thank you for being here.
Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew, and now
let's talk movies.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast,
one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like
never before in a movie podcast. A man with so
much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTV with glasses.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
From the Nashville Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Network, this is Movie Mike's Movie podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Orbes put out their list of the ten highest paid
actors in twenty twenty three, and of these ten actors,
they have made four hundred and forty nine million dollars
combined almost half a billion dollars, which to me proves
the theory that I have had. I still think the
real bankability and true test of an actor is can
you sell tickets? Therefore, are you able to demand more
(01:58):
money from the studio and then get more money on
the back end. So I still think that movies rank
supreme in generating revenue in the entertainment business. Just the
fact that all ten actors on this list are primarily
movie stars. Really says all you need to know about
the landscape of Hollywood right now. So in order to
(02:19):
make this list, Forbes conducted a lot of interviews with agents, lawyers,
managers and executives and industry experts. They also use sources
like IMDb, pro and Pollstar. And these numbers represent pre
tax earnings, so before all the money gets taken out
of their paychecks. That is the numbers we are looking
at here. They also subtracted fees for representation, which is
(02:40):
ten percent to the agents, ten percent to the managers,
five percent to the lawyers, which is all industry standard,
although some actors do not have all three of those.
And on this list, actors were credited for money they
made on projects that were released all in twenty twenty three,
despite the fact that sometimes the upfront fees are paid
when a movie is filmed, so that could be a
(03:01):
couple of years before it actually comes out, and it
could also be years in the future because sometimes the
actors who have more of a pull on their name,
they are able to get money on the back end.
So say Margot Robbie, who is probably going to get
Barbie checks for the rest of her life. Not only
did she make a lot this year, she's also going
(03:23):
to continue to make money off that movie on the
back end. And additionally, this ranking only includes earnings related
to entertainment, so acting, producing, directing, or other forms of performance.
So if they have a side hustle, a liquor business
that is not related to entertainment, it is not included
on this list. So no endorsement's, beauty products, nothing like
(03:45):
that is accounted for on this list strictly acting and performing.
So before I get into this list, let's just talk
a little bit about the differences between a movie that
comes out in theaters and a movie that comes out
on Netflix in terms of the way an actor is paid.
In simple terms, an actor who is going to be
in a Netflix movie gets all the money on the
(04:08):
front end. They are paid one big lump sum because
there is nothing to be made on that movie once
it is released on Netflix. So oftentimes this amount is
much larger because that is the only sum of money
that they are going to see. So this is where
you'll see deals like Ryan Reynolds making thirty million dollars
for one Netflix film because they're gonna pay him that
(04:29):
they're gonna hope that his name draws people to getting
Netflix subscriptions or just keeping the subscribers happy. But he
gets those thirty million dollars and then that goes away.
The movie remains on Netflix, or later they could decide
to take a tax right off to erase it from
the Netflix service, but that is it. In other cases,
say we're still talking about Ryan Reynolds here, and he
(04:50):
puts out a movie that comes out in theaters. Say
if coming out later this year with someone like Ryan Reynolds,
who has a very very big name in hollyw would
he can start to negotiate how much money he is
going to get on the back end. So maybe it's
a little less than that thirty million dollars he got
for that Netflix movie. Maybe for a theater release he's
(05:11):
getting more in the range of fifteen to twenty million dollars.
But then he can also negotiate that he gets some
of the box office earning, some of the video on
demand earnings. He could also have some money tied to
the movie's first streaming window. So all of this refers
to what they call points on the back end, which
is where a lot of actors have made a lot
(05:31):
of money. One famous example that I use is Tom
Hanks took a considerably less amount for his salary in
Forrest Gump in order to get a percentage of the
movie's earnings and to continue to make money off that
movie in order to get Forest Gump made back in
ninety four when it came out, so they were able
to make it because they didn't have to pay him
a ton of money. But the movie was massive, so
(05:54):
it was almost like betting on yourself and banking on
your projected earnings that you will get. Another famous case
that I love Jason Weaver, who was a kid actor
and he was the voice of Young Simba and the
singing voice in the nineteen ninety four Lion King animated version,
and Disney initially offered him two million dollars just to
check up front to be compensated for that role of
(06:16):
Young Simba and doing the singing parts. And his mom
knew that movie was going to be huge and instead
took one hundred thousand dollars check in order to get
a lifetime of royalties from that movie. A great business
decision there, which is hard to do. Could you imagine
being a young actor thinking two million dollars. I don't
(06:36):
even know what that is that could honestly change my life.
But knowing that, oh, this is going to be huge,
I shouldn't take this as winning the lottery right now.
I should set myself up for the rest of my life.
I think that is one of the best decisions in
movie history. All Right, So I think we covered it
there how theatrical and screaming releases differ. Now let's get
(06:56):
into it. At number ten with a gross income of
twenty eight eight million dollars taking home at the end
of the day twenty four million dollars, it is Denzel Washington.
Last year he put out the third installment of The Equalizer.
Just been a pretty average film series. Overall, each one
of those movies has crossed one hundred and ninety million
(07:17):
dollar mark at the box office. And the real reason
it has done that because of Denzel Washington. Without his
name attached to that movie, nobody would really care about it.
And in addition to that movie last year, why he
continues to remain in the top ten is because of
his catalog, all the royalties he is getting from all
(07:37):
of his back years of work. That is really so
important to an actor is that library of movies that
you build. Really in anything, I will even say that
in podcasting, it comes down to the amount of work
you can do and just have like this fast portfolio
of all these episodes, all these movies. That is really
(07:57):
where you start to see money grow in entertainment. So
it is really precious. That is also why you see
a lot of fights over rights to things and rights
to episodes, is because that is where the money will
be there for you always. That is also why you
see musicians selling their catalogs in order to have guaranteed
(08:19):
money every year, because they can sell their catalog and
know they're going to have that said amount of money
for the rest of their life. And Denzel Washington has
been doing it for over forty years now, he's sixty
nine years old. He can really do any movie that
he wants and it's probably gonna make a pretty good
amount of money at the box office. I kind of
wish he would go in a bit of a different
direction and get back to those really big dramatic roles
(08:42):
that he would do all the time, and the ones
that he is known for. I think the last movie
I really love from him was from twenty sixteen call Fences,
which was an adaptation of a play, and I thought
that really showed the true power of Denzel Washington, the
reason everybody fell in love with him and the reason
he is a movie star. She would go back to
doing movies like that. But at number ten is Denzel Washington.
(09:04):
At number nine with a gross income of forty five
million dollars, and on the list listed at thirty eight
million dollars is Ben Affleck. Again, this is only including
his money that he has made with acting. Out of
everybody on this list, this is the most surprising to me.
I do not think he is worth thirty eight million
dollars a year, especially when you look at the movies
(09:24):
he did last year. The fifty one year old starred
and directed Air, which is a great movie. I love
this movie, but financially it didn't really cross a big
threshold of making money at the box office. I know,
it wasn't even supposed to come out in theaters, but
Amazon decided to move forward and give it a theatrical
release and it ended up making ninety million dollars at
(09:46):
the box office before just straight going over to Amazon
Prime Video. But the other movie you put out Hypnotic
was so bad and such a bomb, one of the
worst bombs in the last decade. That movie costs sixty
f five million dollars to make and only made sixteen
point three at the box office, but I guess he
still got paid. He am making no money on the
(10:08):
back end of that movie, but he has been around
for a long time enough to be in Duncan commercials
and probably made a lot of money off of that,
even though that amount is not included on this list.
At number nine, as Ben Affleck so there is a
tie at number eight, two people come in with forty
one million dollars. The first one is Jason Statham, who
(10:28):
had a gross of forty eight million dollars before taking
home forty one million dollars. Statham is just a quietly
dominant actor. In the last year, he has been in
Fast x Meg two, The Trench, and The Expendables four,
and as of the recording of this podcast, he is
the star of the highest grossing movie so far in
twenty twenty four, The Beekeeper, so he will probably be
(10:51):
back on this list next year. He is the quintessential
action star right now. I think he is to the
point that if you are a die hard fan of action,
you will probably go watch every single movie that Jason
Statham is in. And he's fifty six years old and
has been doing this so well now for the last
twenty years. It is honestly surprising to me how successful
(11:13):
he has been, kind of being typecast in the same
role over and over again, the guy who gets angry,
he's very cold, and then gets into a fight, then
drives a car really fast. As far as the dynamics
of an actor and his range, they are so limited,
extremely limited when you really look at them. I've never
seen any movie with Jason Stathum and thought, oh man,
(11:36):
he really took it there on another emotional level. No,
he hasn't done that, But by the looks of this list,
it doesn't really need to do that, because just crashing
through windows and going on epic chase scenes is essentially
enough to make you forty one million dollars and put
you at number well tied at seven on this list.
So as much as I don't want to give him
(11:56):
the credit for being a great actor, he can crush
me with his wallet. And Jason Statum comes in at
number seven, tied with Leonardo DiCaprio, who also had a
gross of forty eight million dollars and took home forty
one million dollars to put him tied at seven eight.
I don't know why they put two sevens on this list.
The crazy thing here is Leonardo DiCaprio made a majority
(12:18):
of this money on one movie. He was only in
Killers of the Flower Moon last year, which he earned
a reported forty million dollars just for that one movie.
So it kind of shows you how much money people
can make, at least him in particular on the back
end from his library of work, which I wonder about that.
I feel like he should make more because he's been
(12:39):
in Titanic alone, which I feel like he will continue
to get checks for the rest of his life. If
he ever has kids, they will be getting checks probably
for the rest of their life. But at forty eight
million dollars gross and a forty one take home, that
is inredible for one movie, and Leonardo DiCaprio is one
of the panful of actors that could do something thing
(13:00):
like that, even though he was snubbed an Oscar nomination
for that movie. I don't really think he's hurting because
he can be so selective, just doing one movie a
year if that, and do movies that he really cares about,
work with directors that he really has a great relationship with,
and obviously him doing a Scorsese movie is probably a
(13:21):
no brainer. So I think at this point, even though
he made forty million dollars of one movie, I almost
think he is at a point where the money doesn't
really matter anymore. And I also heard Bradley Cooper talking
about this recently when he was talking about he maybe
only has three or four movies left in him, because
to be an actor at that level, it takes so
(13:41):
much time to focus on one project. It is four
to five years of your life from the moment you
start developing a movie, get attached to it, and it
finally comes out that he thinks that he maybe has
four or five left, maybe three or four, that he
thinks he only has a handful of movies left in him.
I think that is the same case with Leonardo DiCaprio,
who is later in his acting career but by no
(14:05):
means is anywhere done. He could continue acting into his
seventies and eighties. Just look at Robert de Niro, but
I think he has to be more selective on how
he uses his time. He is obviously going to do
movies now that are either gonna make a lot of
money at the box office, therefore earning him more money,
or really I think he is just interested in doing
(14:25):
movies that are going to warrant an Oscar nomination. So
tied at number seven Leonardo DiCaprio and Jason Statham with
forty one million dollars at number six with a gross
income of fifty six million dollars taking home forty two
million dollars. To put her at number six is Jennifer Aniston.
She is one actor on this list who probably doesn't
(14:47):
earn the majority of her money just for movies. But
on the film side, she starred in Adam Sandler's Murder
Mystery two on Netflix, which was a little bit worse
than the first one, and Murder Mystery is a movie
you go into just wanting to see something really ridiculous,
and mainly just the fact that it's Adam Sandler and
Jennifer Aniston together who have really good chemistry. Even though
(15:09):
the wacky nature of those movies it is almost like
an off brand knives out for the masses, which is
really what Adam Sandler does over there on Netflix. And
Jennifer Aniston is one of the most beloved actresses in
the United States and has been for so long that
them together just somehow makes sense. But aside from that movie,
she makes a lot of money from TV. Everybody knows
(15:32):
she was in Friends, and that's probably what she still
makes the most amount of money on. But she also
makes two million dollars an episode for acting and executive
producing each episode of The Morning Show on Apple TV Plus,
which this last season was all right, I think I'm
a little bit over that show because it was so
groundbreaking in season one. Season two took a little bit
(15:55):
of a dip. Season three started out strong, but I
felt really fizzled out there towards the end. So I'm
not sure how many more seasons I'm gonna invest in
The Morning Show. But man, making two million dollars an
episode that is crazy. So at number six is Jennifer
Aniston with forty two million, getting into the top five.
Now which there is a tie here with a gross
(16:16):
income of fifty million dollars taking home forty three million dollars.
First up is Matt Damon, who his first project of
last year was Air, which was directed by Ben Affleck,
who has already made this list, so that's where a
majority of his money came from last year. It probably
got some money on the front end of that after
they sold it to Amazon for one hundred and thirty
(16:36):
million dollars, which was a pretty high price stag for
a project like that. But again, when you have names
like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon attached to something, you
can ask for a lot of money. Matt Damon is
fifty three years old, so he has obviously been in
the game for a long time. So he is also
an actor making a lot off of his catalog, and
he also was an Oppenheimer last year, which he got
(16:58):
four million dollars for his role in that, which was
one of the bigger supporting actor roles in Oppenheimer. And
when you start to look at how many just giant
actors were in that movie with really small cameos, I
wonder if their salaries are comparable to that four million.
I would imagine they would have to be significantly less
(17:19):
to get that many actors of that caliber in one movie.
Matt Damon obviously one of the bigger names out of
all of the supporting cast, so maybe other people depending
on who it is, Like a Romi Mallick probably got
maybe three two million dollars, but I have to imagine
somebody like a Josh Peck who is just happy to
be there, would probably be in the thousands in but
(17:41):
I would assume a majority of that money went debaying
all those people. I don't hate. Matt Damon in the
top five is not the sexiest of actors to be
the highest grossing for me, and I mean that saying
that I usually have to be convinced to watch a
Matt Damon movie. As big of a movie starts or
as he is. He's not somebody that I see as like,
(18:02):
oh he's in a movie, I have to go see it.
He has to convince me through a really great story
or a really great supporting cast for me to want
to be excited to see a Matt Damon movie. In
the case of Air, I was more attracted to the
story of the creation of the air Jordan, and I'm
honestly more interested in Ben Affleck as a director than
(18:23):
I was to see Matt Damon's performance. He could win
me back, eventually, but he has always just felt kind
of like a generic vanilla actor to me. So I
don't mean he's not sexy in the sense that he's
not good looking. He just doesn't have those qualities of
a go to actor for me. On the other end,
the person who is tied with him on the list
in this same slot, with that gross of fifty million
(18:44):
dollars taking him forty three million dollars, they have him
at four on this list is Ryan Gosling. Now, he
is somebody that no matter what he is in, I'm
going to watch that movie, whether it's an action movie
like The fall Guy coming out later this year, or
whether it's Barbie he made a majority of his money
for last year. No matter what he does, I'm just
(19:05):
drawn to it because I think he is an actor
who has also been very selective of the projects that
he takes on that I can't think of one time
I have gone to see a Ryan Gosling movie in
thought this was just a paycheck for him. The only
time I had that feeling was going into Barbie or
I didn't really know what to expect, and this was
(19:26):
in the early stages before a lot was known about
the plot. I just thought, oh, man, Ryan Gossling is
just doing movies for money. Now, this could be the
decline to me liking him and then going to see
that movie and completely having those thoughts blown out of
the water and realizing that I was right all along
that he wouldn't take a movie on unless there was
some more depth to it, unless it was attached to
(19:48):
a great director like Greta Gerwig, and unless he was
going to get an Oscar nomination and have one of
the biggest payouts of his career in Hollywood now that
he is forty three years old. And not only that,
as an added ball, he also made some money off
of I'm Just Ken, which has been streamed over one
hundred million times on streaming services, so that song actually
adds to his total. It's considered a performance. Ryan Gosling
(20:11):
tied with Matt Damon forty three million dollars at number three,
with a gross of fifty three million dollars, taking home
forty five million dollars. It is the sixty one action
star Tom Cruise. I have often said that Tom Cruise
is an actor that I just don't like. That It
took a lot of me realizing how much he values filmmaking,
(20:34):
and that's not even the amount of danger he puts
himself in to do this crazy, outrageous stunt work, but
he has also changed the landscape of how actors get paid.
He is one of the last, if not the very last,
movie star who can still command what is called a
first dollar gross deal, meaning that he can get that
percentage of the box office and other revenues on the
(20:57):
day a movie is released. So well, that is also
why he pushes so much for movies to come out
in theaters. He was so big on that push post
COVID of these movies deserve to be seen on the
big screen the way they were meant for you to enjoy.
And sometimes I take that with a grain of salt, because,
(21:17):
as somebody who does a movie podcast and I love
that experience of seeing something in a big screen with
full sound, I don't have those same exact qualities that
I can replicate at home. I obviously think that is
how a movie should be seen, but I also know
that it's coming from somebody like Tom Cruise who has
money literally in the game of you going to see
(21:38):
it in theaters. That is how he grows his empire.
The more a movie makes at the box office, the
more he ends up taking home. I also think for
him it's an ego thing. He wants to have the
number one country, not just in the United States, but
in the world. He does movies to have number one movies,
to have the most amount of people see him. That
is why these people are movie stars. They like to
have eyeballs on them. They liked the attention. That is
(22:01):
why they are so charismatic. Is because they want the
most people to see their work and therefore make the
most amount of money off of it. And that is
how we ended up on this list. He took home
a really substantial upfront salary for Dead Reckoning Part one,
the Mission Impossible movie that came out last year, and
then he also continued to receive streaming and on demand
(22:21):
profits from twenty twenty two's Top Gun Maverick, which saw
a lot of that increase in twenty twenty three once
it finally hit streaming. And he will continue to make
more money because he just signed a big deal with
Warner Brothers to develop all these new movies. So the
Tom Cruise empire is only going to grow. And even
though I don't love all of his movies, I do
(22:43):
love that he had a big part to play in
saving Hollywood post COVID with the amount of money that
top gun Maverick earned, but also just eased audiences back
into the theaters when it really really was needed. I
have to give him credit for Thatnumber three, with forty
five million dollars is Tom Cruise at number two, with
(23:03):
a gross income last year of seventy eight million dollars,
taking home fifty nine million dollars. Is the one the
only Margo Robbie, who is the youngest person to be
on this list by a decade at thirty three years old,
which is weird for me because she's only one year
older than me, and to think that she's making that
(23:24):
insane amount of money. I know I shouldn't compare ages
and status, but man, just to think somebody else around
the same age as me is not only worldwide famous
but also made fifty nine million dollars last year. I'm
going to stop thinking about it because I just start
thinking about what I could do with all of that money.
But I love the representation here of a female not
only being in the top ten, but being in the
(23:46):
top five, so close to number one, which I honestly
think she could be Number one. If not for the
fact that actor number one has been around for so
long and has a really big deal in place, she
is number one in my heart. And when I think
this list needs more is female actors. What I also
think this list needs more of is Black, Mexican and
(24:07):
Asian actors, who are fairly absent from this list. I
think that shows us that Hollywood is still a primarily
white male dominated industry, because on this list, if you're
not a white male, you either have to be Margot Robbie,
Jennifer Aniston, or Denzel Washington to be considered. So again,
shout out here to Margot Robbie, who is really cashed
(24:27):
in on Barbie, which made one point four or five
billion dollars at the box office. There's also tons of
money attached to licensing and partnerships, and she is also
a producer on the movie, so she is cashed in
roughly twelve point five percent of all the back end profits,
which Forbes in this article has estimated is worth more
than sixty million dollars. She also has a really successful
(24:52):
production company called Lucky Chap that put out Saltburn last year,
so she's also raking in money producing movies and in
February she just signed a new exclusive first look deal
with Warner Brothers, the studio behind Barbie, So she's going
to keep getting those checks. She's going to start producing
more and more movies and making more money off of that.
And I think that Margot Robbie is really just getting started,
(25:14):
despite the fact that she has already been around for
over a decade, just grinding and putting out consistently good
movies time and time again. At number two fifty nine
million dollars is Margot Robbie. At number one, with a
gross income of ninety seven million dollars, taking home seventy
three million dollars is the Sandman. Adam Sandler signed a
(25:36):
two hundred and fifty million dollar four movie deal with
Netflix back in twenty fourteen. He's fifty seven years old
now and has started in eight movies for Netflix and
produced more through his company Happy Madison, which has made
a lot of great movies and also a lot of stinkers.
But the majority of his backlog, which are primarily all comedies,
are all now licensed through Netflix, so they have become
(26:00):
the home of Adam Sandler, which last year on Netflix
he put out Murder Mystery two You're so not invited
to my bar Mitzvah, and the animated movie Leo, which
has been a really big hit with kids and families.
But the other thing they accounted for inside of this
seventy three million dollars is the money he made off
of touring, which he did forty four stand up comedy
(26:21):
shows in twenty twenty three. Me and Kelsey saw him.
It was a great show, But I kind of don't
think that should be included here. Even though it is performing.
It is entertainment, but I don't really think that is
the same as starring in a movie or starring in
the TV show. I imagine that he made a lot of
money millions off that tour. They don't have the exact
(26:42):
numbers here, but in my heart, Margot Robbie is at
number one. Because Sandler has had this deal in place
for so long now that it's gonna be hard for
anybody to beat him, because nobody is getting that deal.
The Netflix CEO said whenever they re upped Adam Sandler's
deal back in twenty two, there is no such thing
as too much Adam Sandler, So that shows you they're
(27:04):
going to continue to pay him boatloads and boatloads of money,
and the great thing about it is it gives him
a lot of creative control. Just look at the movies
he did last year. You have an animated movie, you
have a movie that's a little bit more of a
snapshot of his life. You have one that's just fun,
over the top action with Jennifer Aniston. And now what
(27:26):
he's doing with the sci fi movie Spaceman, which we'll
get into later in the review. He can really do
whatever he wants, which puts him in a great place.
Because I feel like which as an actor puts him
in a great place. He can do movies where he
takes all his friends on vacation and gets paid for
it and gets a movie out of it. I feel
like it can be hit or miss with us, though,
because to see a bad Adam Sandler movie isn't really
(27:49):
out of the realm of possibilities on any given occasion.
But you can't deny his bank ability. At number one,
seventy three million dollars is Adam Sandler, who am I
surprised wasn't on the list? I would have to say
Ryan Reynolds. But when you look at the movies he
put out last year he was pretty non existent in
the box office game kind of took the year off,
(28:10):
But this year he's coming back strong with Deadpool and Wolverine,
and if so, he will probably enter the top ten
next year. Also surprised The Rock isn't on here. He
has taken a little bit of a step back from acting,
focusing more on his tequila company on the XFL. Maybe
it's because Black Adam did not go as well as
(28:31):
he thought, and maybe he was planning for being in
more DC projects. Doesn't look like that's gonna be the case.
So he is going to be in a new A
twenty four film that I hope we get a little
bit more of a serious side from Dwayne the Rock Johnson.
And again, this list wasn't accounting for all of the
endorsements that he gets, probably amount of money that he
makes off on Instagram, because honestly, that alone would probably
(28:53):
put him in the top ten. Also surprised that Mark
Wahlberg was not on the list. He put out some
movies last year that I guess to do so well,
and I thought maybe the Apple TV Plus movie he
did alone would warn him a really big payday. I
don't think he deserves to be on the top ten list,
but just surprise, his name wasn't there. And who do
I think will be there soon? Look no further than
(29:15):
the cast of Dunes, Zendeia, Austin Butler, Anya Taylor Joy,
and Timothy Shalomey. I think are right there on the
cusp of being the new A list actors in Hollywood.
The bankable names, the one everybody recognizes. But they're all
still fairly young right now and not in a point
in their career where they can negotiate like some of
(29:35):
these heavy hitters. They can't really get money on the
back end the way that a Sandler or a Tom
Cruise does. But I think they will be there eventually,
and I am all here for it because we need
fresh blood and we have it. We have some really
great talent with just the Doune cast alone. So that
is the list. We'll come back and talk about Spaceman
on Netflix with the number one highest paid actor of
(29:57):
twenty twenty three, Adam Sandler. Listen, what's the movie. Let's
get into it now. A spoiler free review of Spaceman
on Netflix, starring the seventy three million dollar making Adam Sandler.
Is he worth the vast amount of money that Netflix
has invested in him in over the years, and I
(30:19):
am a huge Adam Sandler fan, so much so that
in the early stages of this podcast I had to
enlist the rule that I would have to stop talking
about Adam Sandler so much, because I mentioned him in
literally every single episode, and a very nice member of
the movie crew was like, dude, you gotta stop mentioning
Adam Sandler. And in regard to Spaceman, I was very
(30:39):
interested and intrigued by this movie. When the trailer first dropped,
I included it here on the Trailer Park because that
is the type of movie I love to see Adam
Sandler in, the more dramatic side of him, which I
think he does really well. I listened to him recently
on Conan O'Brien's podcast talking about how we decided to
make that switch knowing that he wanted to have a
(30:59):
longstanding career in movies, and credits a lot of that
to Paul Thomas Anderson, who was able to put him
in Punch Drunk Glove, which everybody saw and thought, oh,
the Sandman can do different things, but he really hasn't
done a sci fi movie like this, and you pair
him up with an amazing cast with Carrie Mulligan and
Paul Dano, who if you just look at that lineup,
(31:20):
that is like my dream lineup. I have loved Carry
Mulligan ever since Drive, and Paul Dano has also become
one of my favorite actors with The Riddler, The Fableman's
Dumb Money. He is another actor who can do it all,
from drama to comedy and comic book movies. So all
this cast together and then in one of my favorite genres.
I love movies about space and isolation. But what we
(31:44):
learned in this movie and what you've learned from past
sci fi movies, those are really hard movies to do
because space and isolation can quickly turn boring because really
the trouble that space movies have is that they are
so isolated and have such a limited case that it
creates this level of boredom that you're trying to represent,
because in space it is boring. I've never been to space,
(32:06):
I've never talked to an astronaut, but the way it
is depicted it is very isolating, It is very lonely.
It is very hard on the body to be that
far away from humanity is a whole nother level of isolation.
And when you start to showcase that, it's going to
be really hard to create a captivating movie. So you
have to have a really really strong story and a
(32:27):
really strong lead to make it work. Did it work
in this case? Sad to say it did not, But
I'll tell you more about why it did it. When
it comes to Spaceman, the movie costs forty million dollars
to make. Not that bad really when you look at it. Primarily,
what a space movie spends a lot of the budget
(32:49):
on is just the dynamics of creating a space ship
and also creating the weightlessness of somebody in space. Just
having that effect them tethered throughout the entire movie is
extremely expensive. I've come to learn by researching these movies.
And this movie did a very average job on creating
something that looked like we hadn't seen it before in
(33:11):
a space movie. I almost wish it had a little
bit more of a dynamic presence. He is half a
year into this space mission. He is the furthest away
from any human in history to go way out into Jupiter.
He is investigating this really mysterious cloud that has formed.
It is like this purple cosmic presence and the sky
that they can see from the earth. The movie takes
place in a retro futuristic version of the nineties, and
(33:35):
it really deals with isolation in Adam Sandler's character being
described as the loneliest person in the world because he
is so far away from the love of his life
and they're not only separated in distance, but also separated emotionally. Essentially,
what this movie is about isolation and the crumbling of
a relationship. And I don't think Adam Sandler was strong
(33:59):
enough to really pull it off. And I've loved him
in the dramatic roles I've been mentioning, but I think
this one required another level of acting that I realized
he just didn't really have it in him. And that
hurts me to say, because he did an amazing job
in movies like Uncut Gems, where I thought he deserved
an Oscar. That one had a lot more action. I
felt like he really owned that character. But in this case,
(34:22):
seeing him as a spaceman was a little bit unbelievable
for me from the very beginning, just him floating around
on the spaceship, but even just seeing a photo of
him in the astronaut uniform. I just couldn't buy into
the fact that Adam Sandler, this really wacky guy, was
a spaceman. And in other times I've been able to
look past that, but it was really hard in this
(34:43):
situation just hearing him deliver some of this dialogue. Found
it really unbelievable in probably an unfair way, just because
of the association I have with him. I do like
some of the avenues that the movie tried to explore
with commentary on the human condition, but also on corporate sponsorship,
because in the movie, they prioritize his cameras working more
(35:04):
than they prioritize his toilet working. Because they are live
streaming this entire thing. They have these weird sponsorship things
that he has to read and do commercials while he's
in space, so they never really got back to a
whole lot of that. I thought that would have been
a cooler angle to approach the live stream aspect, kind
of more like a Truman Show vibe of people that
(35:26):
were also invested in his relationship. The appeal of watching
him in space and people being able to control things,
I think really would have been a cool way to
make this movie more interesting. I know it's based on
a novel, so they were probably following the source material more,
but that light was going off in my head of
they had a great opportunity here to make this movie
a little bit more interesting, because, quite honestly, it felt
(35:48):
like his character and funny people who was kind of
a version of Adam Sandler, and in that movie they
make fun of the movie roles he takes on because
they're so over the top and wacky. This almost felt
like one of those movies that it would cut to
him like I just did this sci fi movie and
it's him looking at a place in a spacesuit, and overall,
(36:10):
when making a movie that deals with isolation, I felt
isolated and bored while watching it. This movie should have
been retitled The Sandman Talks to a Spider because that
is what Paul Dano voices in this movie. It's this
weird alien, futuristic spider looking thing that comes onto a
ship and they formed this really weird relationship and it
(36:31):
tries so hard to reach this emotional level that doesn't
really quite get there. And I love Paul Dano. I
think he did the best job that he could with
this role, but I found the character so annoying and
so uninteresting just a look and design of it. It
felt like a first draft to me, and maybe it's
because I wanted it to look more like an alien.
(36:53):
I just thought the idea of a spider crawling around
didn't really match with all the other aspects of the movie,
and the dialogue was so repetitive. I hated the way
he kept calling Adam Sandler's character skinny human, kept saying
it over and over again. I was about to shut
off my TV and stop watching it because I was
so annoyed by that line and quite frankly bored with
(37:15):
the entire story, which leads me to my next point.
Is the only reason I continue to watch this movie
to the very end is because of the cast. So
when you start to think about is Adam Sandler worth
the money that Netflix pays him with the over five
hundred hours that Netflix viewers spend with his movies for
this reason alone, he is worth it because what they
value so much is completion rate. Somebody to start and
(37:39):
finish a movie on Netflix, that is the goal, and
that is the only reason I finished this movie because
I wanted to see how Adam Sandler was going to
get out of this what the conclusion was going to be,
and that was very underwhelming to me too. But I
think that is the reason you pay him a lot
of money, because people are going to Netflix to watch
an Adam Sandler movie. It's still number one on their
(38:00):
streaming service after over a week of being out again.
I don't really know how they determined that they could
easily boost it, like, oh, look, it's number one, the
most people are watching it. They could lie about it
just because they want to promote that movie the most.
So I don't fully believe in that top ten ragging
on Netflix, but it's the metrics we have to go
on because they really don't share how many people watch
(38:21):
their movies. You really only get stats like the amount
of hours that Netflix users have been watching Adam Sandler movies.
He ranks up there in the top. So overall, I
just don't think this role was in the range of
the Sandman. You have to be an actor on the
level of like Sandra Bullock and Gravity, Brad Pitt and
ad Astra to really be able to show something so isolating.
(38:44):
Outer space movies are a really, really tough category, and
I just felt like he didn't have all the tools
in his acting abilities to pull this movie off, and
the overall story really wasn't helping him carry. Mulligan was
still fantastic in it. She can really do no wrong
in my eyes, It's just I wasn't really buying into
their love story. It was also cool to see Conalney
r aka Rod from the Big Bank Theory. It took
(39:07):
me a second to realize it was him, so I
think that is another sign that, hey, he can do
roles outside of the Big Bank Theory and not seem
so distracting. He was the guy communicating with Adam Sandler's
character throughout, so not the most outstanding of supporting roles,
but it was just nice to see somebody familiar in
a much different space. I was going into this movie
expecting to love it ended up having a pretty mediocre time.
(39:29):
For space Man, I give it two out of five
Space Suits. It's time to head down to movie.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Mike Trey lar.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Par I think video game adaptations are the hottest they've
ever been right now. They are a cash cow in
the movie industry because you already have a built in audience,
and usually a built in audience of nerds, which I
love some video game adaptation myself, so I am one
(40:01):
of those nerds. When it comes to Borderlands, I am
familiar with the game, but I never played it myself.
I would see a lot of people who would rave
on and on about this game. I really don't know
much about it, aside from it always having a really
cool cover with a very unique character. But Borderlands is
a video game set and an abandoned fictional planet of Pandora,
(40:24):
where people search for a mysterious relic. This movie has
been in development since way back in twenty fifteen and
is now set to come out on August ninth by Lionsgate.
It is directed by Eli Roth, who is known for
really bloody horror movies like Hostile one Hostile two. He
also recently did Thanksgiving, which is available now on Netflix.
(40:46):
He was also the Bear Jew in Inglorious Bastards. When
I go watch an Eli roths movie, I know it's
gonna be a little bit left of center, especially when
it comes to the gore. So I am surprised by
the PG thirteen rating on this movie given the violent
nature of the video game, and just given what I
expect from him as a director. But I know the
reason they do that is to cast a wider net
(41:08):
and not close anybody off. Who is probably gonna be
the key demographic in a movie like this, the younger
audience who played the video game. But that gives me
one strike against this movie, because I think a film
like this would really benefit from being able to show
more of the violence, more of the blood, and I
already know it's going to be scaled back a little bit,
so we're not going to see that in this movie.
(41:28):
So it's going to have to really ramp up the
action given the fact that they will only be able
to get one effort out of this movie. The movie
cost an estimated one hundred to one hundred and ten
million dollars. Looks like a lot of cgi work we
have going on in this one. So before I get
into more of my thoughts on Borderlands, here is just
a little bit of the trailer. God, I hate this planet.
(41:49):
What does that smell? Pusquash color the window? I don't
want him roll the window. It's peak, it's peap like,
it's call pis wash. I'm gonna get today. This movie,
to me looks like suicide Squad meets Guardians of the
(42:09):
Galaxy doing a mad Max impression, and that's a pretty
impressive cast list with Kate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, who you
heard here in that clip. Kevin Hart being in this
movie is probably my biggest concern because anytime Kevin Hart
is in a movie, he plays the exact same character.
And there is not one Kevin Hart movie that I
(42:31):
can honestly say that I am a big fan of.
I would probably have to go all the way back
to his cameo in The Forty Year Old Virgin, but
that was way early on in his career, and unless
he's working with the Rock like in Central Intelligence or Jumanji,
I'm just not the biggest fan of his comedic work.
I honestly don't even find him that funny as a comedian.
(42:52):
I think he did one special early on that I
found funny, but ever since then, I am kind of
surprised of how big of a household name he's become
doing arenas, doing stadiums at the level he is doing.
Props to him for being able to cash in on that,
but that is exactly what I feel when he takes
on a movie role, is he does it more for
(43:14):
a status symbol and more for money than he does
for the love of making movies. As you've probably learned
by listening to this podcast, I enjoy actors who take
a little bit more of appreciation for the craft of acting,
or fake it really well and are really just doing
it for the money and the attention. Visually, the movie
does appeal to me. It has this cosmic color palette.
(43:34):
It looks like it's gonna have very big action that
demands the big screen, which I'm always a big fan of.
It doesn't really look that funny to me. I took
that one clip from the trailer to show probably the
funniest moment they are trying to showcase. I just feel
like that scene has been written before. Those interactions, that punchline,
I have seen that in a comedy like this before,
(43:57):
so it doesn't really show me the unique perspective, the
unique take that this is going to have on a
video game adaptation. Just from that line, it really looks
like comedy by the numbers. It's really given me street
fighter vibes from back in the day, and video game
adaptations recently have been pretty hit or miss. I think
it also has to do with how much you played
(44:19):
the video game and are a fan of the franchise.
That greatly leads to the enjoyment of the movie. Because
when I came on and did my review of Five
Nights at Freddy's, much like Borderlands, I wasn't familiar with
that game aside from seeing people talk about it on
Reddit and see clips on YouTube. I did not enjoy
that movie, and I got so much hate from the
fan base that made that movie a success because I
(44:42):
just didn't get that. But you also have TV adaptations
like Halo and Twisted Metal The Last of Us that
are crushing it and also doing very poorly. But that
demand of having video game adaptations is huge right now,
and we've also seen some really big success with at
the Super Mario Brothers movie. Last year, Grand Tarismo did
(45:03):
pretty well. I still think King Dingling when it comes
to fun video game adaptations is Sonic the Hedgehog, which
we're getting the third part this year. I think that
really blends making a movie that's fun for kids and
families and also pays tribute to all the fans of
the video game who played it back in the nineties
and two thousands. But either way, when you do a
video game adaptation, you already have that built in audience.
(45:27):
Also in this cast you have Jamie Lee, Curtis, Bobby Lee.
But the person I think who is going to crush
it the most is Jack Black, who isn't a live
action character. In the movie. He does the voice for
a character named Claptrap. Jack Black is a great voice actor.
I just went to go see Kung Fu Panda four
and it was also great in the Super Mario Brothers movie.
(45:49):
And I think it's because to be a great voice actor,
you have to lend more than just your name to
a movie. And I feel that some actors just go
in a booth and read some lines and they think
it's an easy paycheck. But for somebody like Jack Black,
he takes a lot of pride in doing great work
and voice acting of making his voice sound a little
(46:11):
bit different, which he did with Bowser. They also did
some effects on his voice there, but there's a lot
of different emotion in his voice and doing a more
zany character like he's doing here in Borderlands. He also
gets physical in the booth and makes the movements he
was talking about. In Kung Fu Panda four, he would
actually do some kung Fu movements to put some more
emotion into it. He takes it seriously and quite honestly,
(46:33):
he is probably going to perform better than any actor
on the actual screen. It seems to me that they
are giving his character the Rocket Raccoon treatment that they
did Bradley Cooper and Guardians at the Galaxy. This movie
really mirrors a lot of aspects of that movie. They
have their Rocket Raccoon type character, they have their group
(46:54):
type character, they have their drags. They also have their
Peter Quill. So to me, this this movie doesn't really
have its own unique identity yet. It seems to be
borrowing a lot of inspiration from other superhero movies and
video game movies. I feel like overall this will be
a fun, average movie unless you're a huge fan of
(47:16):
the video game. I hope they proved me wrong in that,
But again, it is coming out later this year on
August ninth.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
At that point was this week's edition of Movie Line
tramor Bar and.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
That is gonna do it for another episode here of
the podcast. But again, don't forget to look out for
the special bonus Oscar coverage that I will be posting
here later in the week to recap everything that happened
at the Oscars and see if I was right or
not all my predictions. Before I go, I got to
give my listeners shout out of the week. This week,
I am going over to my YouTube channel, which is
(47:49):
YouTube dot com slash Mike dstro. If you ever forget
that or forget any of my social links, it is
always in the episode notes of every single podcast. But
this week's listener shout out goes to Sash, who commented
on my interview with the director of Wonka and said, Wow,
interviewing directors of big movies is such an achievement. Here's
(48:09):
two more great things to come from you and your channel.
Thank you, Sash. Which the weird thing about YouTube is
I find that people just go and watch my reviews
on YouTube and maybe don't even listen to the full
episodes of this podcast. So it's cool to have a
new audience over there just discovering it from the individual
movie reviews. So if you ever miss one of those,
(48:30):
you can always go watch them on YouTube. Be sure
to subscribe to that channel as well, because it really
helps me out in the long run and lead some
comments rate the videos. That also helps more people discover
my channel. There therefore bringing people back to the podcast
and become a part of the movie crew. So I'd
really appreciate that if there's a specific review you enjoyed,
host it on Instagram story, share that link, help spread
(48:53):
the love because that goes a long way. Thank you
for listening, thank you for being subscribed, and until next time,
go out and watch good movies and I will talk
to you later.
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