August 28, 2025 • 39 mins
We dive into the cinematic magic (and madness) of one actor pulling double duty as their own sibling.
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SHOW NOTES
Get visuals, links and show notes from this episode at speakinghuman.com or at MOMApodcast.com.
#Movies #Marketing #Podcast #2025 #SpeakingHuman #Opinions #Reviews #BestOfList #ActionMovies
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/moma-movies-marketing--3296937/support.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
In a world where movies rely on marketing more than
ever to connect with audiences, one podcast aims to make sense.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Of it all.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is movies and marketing. Next Saturday Night, where's sending
you back.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
To the future?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Go ahead, make my day, Corbut no.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You're crazy Dutch past.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
What we've got here is failure mill Gate.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Take them at where a cross all of pow for
we might as well good time. I am an f
B I agent.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Movies and marketing. Man, it feels like it's been one
hundred years since we've done an episode. I know it
hasn't been that long, but it feels that way.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Ah yeah, a million even I don't know just it
was one day, was the summer movie draft, then it's
action one liners, and then you know here we are
a double vision. It's almost the end of the summer.
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, we have eighty other podcasts that we do, so
it's not fair to say that we haven't been podcasting,
but it definitely feels like movies and marketing. You know,
got the shaft in a way.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, you know, we've had some vacation time. You spent
most of July weeping in a corner about your draft decisions.
You know, some of the summer movies you picked maybe
didn't pan out like you'd hoped.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, listen, no one understands.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We've all been there, but you're out of it now,
and we've got a doozy of a show.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
It is a bit of a doozy.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
We're going to get into actors playing dual roles as
their own brother or sister in movies. Sibling if you will.
But you know, Patrick, actors playing multiple parts in films
has a long and storied history. Thought i'd ask you
a few trivia questions, you know, related to the topic,
(02:04):
just to start things off, to break the ice a
little bit, get everybody warmed up.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I like it. Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Let's start here with a little multiple choice question, maybe
a bit challenging. We'll say, can you tell me how
many different roles does actor Johnson George hold the Guinness
World Record for playing in a single movie, that movie
being the twenty eighteen Indian film I'm Gonna Butcher this raw, Najohn.
(02:38):
Here are your choices, which you probably don't even need
because you already know the answer. So Guinness Book of
Role Records Johnson George for playing how many roles in
a single movie? Is it A twenty two, B forty five,
C sixty three or D eighty nine?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
How many roles this one guy played?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yes, remember he's in the Guinness Book of World Records
for this playing most parts in a single movie.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I really honestly don't have any idea because if it's
a Guinness book, I want to say it's probably pretty
high because of the Guinness C or D whatever those
numbers were.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
C was sixty three and D was eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
I don't know. I feel like the twenty one, the
twenty something, twenty two, Yeah, I feel like that's pretty high,
but I feel like they would go over the top
of the Guinness. So let's just say sixty three.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Sixty three is a lot. Yeah, that is not the
correct answer.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Though, Yeah, was it a no twenty two?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
You're not going Guinness for twenty two. Anybody could do
twenty two parts. So it's the forty five. It is
B forty five, Okay, that is a lot. That is
a lot of parts in one movie. I don't know.
Never seen this movie. I don't know if anybody else
has a part in the movie, or if it's just him.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
It's just him and he's playing everyone. Yeah, that'd be fantastic.
I would have to watch that movie.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
But it's possible with forty five roles. Well, let me
ask you another one here. Let me take you, you know,
maybe into American film. Maybe you're more familiar with that.
Maybe as you know, you know a lot of these
when people are playing different roles. It's a lot of
makeup visual trickery being used to show kind of multiples
(04:32):
on screen. But sometimes, Patrick, sometimes it's the real deal too.
Do you know what nineteen seventy seven movie features real
life hockey playing brothers as the characters. They actually inspired
(04:52):
hockey playing. Yes, nineteen seventy seven movie.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I really don't know. It's a hockey movie.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
It's a hockey movie.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
The Mighty Ducks. I know that's not from seventy seven,
but just not. It's the only movie that I could
think of.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I mean, you guessed a hockey movie, so you get
half a point.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Okay, thanks for that.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
The movie is slap Shot.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Oh okay, I do remember the name of that, Paul Newman.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
So in that movie, Steve and Jeff Carlson play Steve
and Jeff Hanson. Two thirds of the insanely violent Hanson
brothers in the movie. Now, their older brother, Jack Carlson,
was supposed to play the third Hanson brother in the movie,
but all of them were hockey players and he was
called up by the Jets, the Johnson Jets parent team
(05:45):
at the time, so he was replaced by another member
of the hockey team, the actual hockey team, Dave Hanson.
So two out of the three that were playing brothers
in the movies were actual brothers.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
That's crazy. Do they all look alike?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
They do?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I mean in the movie they look you know, they
all wear kind of glasses, they all have kind of
long hair, they all like to beat the crap out
of people, So they seem very similar. And I think
even in real life, these guys would end up in
like the nineties maybe beyond, would go to hockey games
and kind of appear they became like these cultural celebrity figures.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Do you remember this movie.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, I'm a big, big fan of this movie. Recommend.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
All Right, so I'm not doing great.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Well, you didn't do great. That's all I got for you.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Oh, okay, that's it. So I'm basically zero for two.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
You're zero for two. But you know, the point wasn't
really to get them right. It was more just you know,
educational for all of us.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, so a little background to people playing multiple roles.
The idea of one actor playing multiple characters or two
characters usually wins or siblings. So this is interesting. I
didn't realize this, but this goes back really to the
early days of film. In the very beginning, filmmakers used
(07:11):
a split screen effect. This is what I think is cool,
like because I've always loved camera trickery. Yeah, you know,
this idea of like making something seem like a magic
trick essentially, and the twin feature like of having an
actor play themselves is really that's the epitome of that,
like being able to make one character into two. So
(07:33):
they literally locked the camera in place in the early days,
film one half of the frame with the actor on
one side, and then rewind the film and shoot the
other side. And then because there was no you know,
fancy CGI, they basically just had careful planning that allowed
(07:53):
for this trickery to happen, and hoping the whole time
that the actor didn't accidentally like lean over, you know,
over the line and ruin the shot because then they'd
have to do it all over again. But then like
in the eighties and nineties, then we had things like
motion control cameras, you know, the rigs that they put
together that could repeat the exact same movement, the camera
(08:16):
movement twice, and so you could have more dynamic shots
the same actor playing the multiple roles in the same frame.
And then today, you know, clearly we've got the whole
full on digital with compositing and you know, face replacement
and even deep fake effects where you can have the
actor play themselves doing almost anything now, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, but they've gotten really good. But it is crazy
going back some of the ways they pulled it off,
and people were probably like, you know, you can going
back to like the thirties or something like that, people
are probably blown away by some of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, even today, like if you think about it, listeners
out there, I'm sure you've probably experienced this. There's some
of these viral sensations in social media where some people
are using the old style of camera trickery to create
these really kind of magic trick esque social reels and
stuff like that, and so it lives on.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, you can call it a gimmick you can call
it a novelty, whatever you want. It doesn't take much, honestly,
even you know, just the simple editing trick of cutting
back and forth between one person having a conversation with themselves,
or you know, where you would show the actor standing
there and then you see somebody wearing a wig so
(09:35):
it looks like the back of their head, you know,
in front of them. Little tricks like that, It works.
You know, it creates the feeling to you that you're
watching that person having a conversation with themselves or interacting
with you know, themselves, or these are two different people.
It doesn't necessarily take a whole lot to pull this off. Granted,
we've got to the point where people always want to
(09:56):
stretch farther and like, let's you know, let's really have
them do more. Or let's have them like put their
arms around each other, let's have the punch each other.
Let's have them do all this stuff and make it
look real. You know, let's let them see their faces
and uh, it's gotten pretty good. But even these like
little things like just the just the cross cutting back
and forth. You know, if the actor's pulling it off,
(10:17):
you kind of buy into it.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, you know, if you have a really neat story
or a way you're approaching it, it can be something
that's very unique and fun, you know what I mean
for anybody even today. Here's an interesting little tibit. You
gave me a trivia but let me let me ask
you this. Do you know the first known twin trick
in film? Do you know when that was?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I'm gonna guess it's, you know, going back to early film.
I'm gonna say it's like nineteen thirty one or you know,
something like that.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
It's pretty good. I mean it goes back further eighteen
ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Oh wow, Okay, yeah, yeah, that's airly.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So one of the earliest same actor to rule films
was The Corsican Brothers eighteen ninety eight. That was filmed
so really far back. That's what amazes me is like
they thought of that back then, Like I bet I
could do this, you know. The concept is pretty neat, which.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Kind of leads us into how we came up with
this episode. How we got to this idea. We both
recently watched the movie Sinners, which I think we both liked.
Both thought that was a pretty good movie. But when
we were talking about it. You know, I noted it
does something that almost always works for me in movies,
which is this novelty, this gimmick one actor playing twins
(11:37):
or siblings. Almost impossible for that not to be entertaining.
So the seed came from Sinners, which I think pulls
this trick off really well.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
It does. It does. It's become so seamless you could
swear that there's two people there that they could be
twin brothers or whatever, especially in that movie. You know,
once upon a time you could always kind of see
a little bit of like they can't cross paths or
they can't you know whatever. But now it's like, I
don't know, did they duplicate him? Did they clone him?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
For that? The way they interact in that movie. The
technology is really good. But you know, the whole kind
of twin idea is an interesting thing one because of
the technical piece of it, you know, how they put
it together, but also kind of the acting piece of it.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
You know, it's a challenging thing because the actor basically
has to give two entirely different performances within one movie,
and then the movie has to pull it off around
them to make you believe it at some point, you know,
you're like, ah, this is this is creative and fun,
and at some point your brain has to let that
idea kind of bubble away and just be like, Okay,
(12:49):
these are two characters. Now I'm thinking about for the
ones that do it well?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Right, Yeah, because in the end, you know that's going
to be incredibly difficult. Even if in reality they're giving
those on two separate days, you know, they're not really
probably doing it. I don't know. I guess it depends
on the film and the production, but seems like it
would be difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, that's a good actually a good question. I wonder
how they do approach this on most films. Is it
like film this whole part first, and then do this
whole part.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Hmmm.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I wonder what the best way to do that is anyway,
Sinners kind of where this started with, you know, Michael B.
Jordan doing the two roles, But that got us thinking
about other movies that have done the twin things and
done it well. So we decided to pull out some
of our favorite we'll call them twin movies. They could
(13:42):
be siblings. They don't have to be twins. They can
be they can look different.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Like Arnold and Danny DeVito that different?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
No, I mean they could be. If Arnold was playing
Danny DeVito.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
That would be great, or if Danny Davito was playing Arnold.
Let's be fair about it.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, either way or vice versa, but it has to be,
you know, the same actor playing the twins, siblings, relatives,
whatever you want to call. So we each kind of
picked two movies, talk a little bit about what's you know, interesting, notable,
what made this movie pop to us? And also touch
(14:21):
on the marketing a little bit. How does the marketing
use the twin angle? Is this a selling point? Is
this something that gets people to the theater? You know,
we'll talk about that a little bit as we go
through these movies. So let's dive in to the cinematic magic. Patrick,
what's your first twin movie?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
I couldn't do this episode without Van dam Yes, I
was worried to do this because A I thought maybe
you would choose a Van Damn twin movie, and B
if you did, which one did you pick? Because there's
so many to pick?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
How many are there?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I think there's at least three. Okay, there's at least
three movies where he plays his identical twin.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I thought there were only two. I didn't know there
were three.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah, Double Impacts the one I chose. It's from ninety one.
It was shot in the late eighties. I didn't know
if you knew that. The summary of this is pretty great.
You know, he plays twin brothers separated at birth who
reunite to avenge their parents' death and reclaim their legacy.
That's fantastic. But the box office on this I thought
(15:29):
was pretty good. This was made on a fifteen to
sixteen million dollar budget and it earned thirty million domestically
in about eighty worldwide, So it did really well at
the box office at the time.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, and it's a banger too. It's a top three
fandamn movie for me.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Probably the thing about it is it was a very
hard sell on the twins. This is what I liked
the marketing aspect. So the tagline for the movie was
double Van Dams, double the Van Damage, which is ah,
so good, I mean so good. It's probably one of
my all time favorite taglines. I think in marketing it's
(16:10):
got to be up there. I mean, I just love
saying it. I could say it all day. And so
Van Dam in this movie played the twins Chad Wagner
and Alex Wagner, which is also kind of funny because
he is French for you know, the muscles from Brussels,
as they say, but he has like a French accent.
(16:32):
And the fact that he played a Chad and an Alex,
I think, are you know, a little sort of comical
in that way. But good flick. If you want to
watch some splits martial arts.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
This is a great pick to kick us off. This
is one of those twin movies too, where they're like
complete opposites mm hm. You know, so they're like total contrasts,
and so one's wearing a leather jacket, one's wearing like
a pink polo.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah. Well yeah, he's got like greased back hair, the
leather jacket version. He's the bad villainous kind and the
other guy's kind of a goody two shoes m m
yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
So you get to see them kind of play off him,
playoff himself, you know, in that way. Also, you know
you mentioned with the technology, this is one of the
ones where he can see the seams in some parts.
You know, you definitely can, and that almost makes it
more enjoyable. In some ways. Now, you know, it's got
that kind of vintage aspect to it. It's also probably
(17:33):
very close to peak Van Damn. It was when he
was like really working his way up the ladder. And
I don't know if like Universal Soldiers the top or
where the top of the ladder is, but it was
probably shortly after this.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
That's sort of the reason why the tagline works because
at that time it was all about him. Everybody wanted
double Van dam and they definitely wanted double the Van Damage.
Can I say, can I say the tagline when we're
time in this episode? I feel like I could be
that guy double the Vendem, double the Van Damage.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
I mean, it just rolls right off the tongue.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
So was that on your list?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
That was not one of the ones I was going
to talk about. I thought you, I suspected you mind,
but okay, you know, I just feel like I've been
It almost seemed too obvious for me to take it,
especially since you know, we just did the action movie
one liners, and I feel like I had so many
like right there, picks off the tree, the low hanging fruit.
(18:39):
I have a slightly long list of honorable mentions. And
that was like right at the top of that one,
because I think it is probably when I think of
twin movies, probably the one I think of first. You
think it holds up if you watch it today. Have
you tried it's been a little bit. I think I
would still enjoy it. I don't know if you got
like a twenty year old off the street and showed
(18:59):
it to him, if they would be like, this is great.
The way they film action has changed a lot since
that time. You know, it's all like these one take
It looks like it's all happening at once now, whereas
a lot of it back then was like editing tricks
and stuff like kind of like the MTV style a
little bit. Yeah, So I don't know. I don't know
how that would go down with today's audiences. So let
(19:22):
me take us in a completely different direction, but yet
a similar time period. Would you say that was eighty
eight or.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Eighty nine, Well, the movie's ninety one.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Ninety one. Okay, Well I'm gonna take us to nineteen
eighty eight and something a little more feminine, which the
movie is big business. This movie largely forgotten to time,
but available to stream on Disney Plus Now and a
moderate hit in its moment. It was the twenty third
(19:56):
highest grossing movie of nineteen eighty eight million dollars at
the domestic box office. For comparison, the number one movie
was Who Framed Roger Rabbit? That made one hundred and
fifty six million. But this was a comedy starring Bette
Middler and Lily Tomlin Patrick. Do you remember this movie
at all?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I can't recall it. I I'm sure I saw it,
especially because it was right around that time.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
M hm.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
You know, it's one of those things you see it
and you go, oh, yeah, okay. That's kind of how
I feel that it would be about that movie.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
I haven't seen this since I was a kid, and
I suspect it's not very good. But it immediately popped
into my mind when we were thinking of twin movies
because it uses the actor twin concept not just once,
but twice in the same movie. So we've got both
(20:51):
Bette Midler and Lily Thompson playing sets of twins in
this movie. So there may not be another movie that
is more twin forward than this movie. It's really like
pushing that novelty on the audience. It's the whole reason
basically this movie exists. So the plot of this movie
is this, two women give birth to sets of twins
(21:16):
in a small town hospital on the same day in
the nineteen forties. One's kind of a country resident and
another is a city commuter who's just passing through. Amidst
the chaos. The twins get switched at birth by a
you know, flustered nurse, so one twin from each family
ends up getting paired together. So, you know, one set
(21:39):
of twins is raised in the country, one set of
twins is raised in the city. They don't find out
about each other until forty years later in Hi, Jenson sue, Yeah,
So that's the basic plot in the idea, the entire movie,
and the marketing. It's based on the contrast between the
(21:59):
two twins, you know, played by two actors again playing
two opposite characters, one city, one country. I don't know
if you got it, but they're different because ones from
the city they're all business and ones from the country
they're nice and friendly, you know, and there's a lot
of mistaken identities and things like that. So the poster
(22:20):
of the movie shows the two twins on opposite sides
of a fancy new York City building, revolving door and
different outfits. So you got the Lily Tomlin Bent Miller,
you know, dress nice. They're like business women on this side,
and you've got the country version. You know, they're in
their country dresses looking real friendly on the other side.
(22:43):
Clothes are used prominently in the movie to signal the
difference between you know, which twin is which, which is
often the case in some of these movies, and you
can tell them when they like switch clothes or something
or wear the same thing. That's when you get like, oh,
I thought you were that twin something like that.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yeah, which you have to do.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
You you know, you got I thought you were this person.
Why are you acting like this? So the poster has
two taglines mixed up at birth two sets of twins
finally meet their match. It's no van damage and then
the other ones. This is more of the actual tagline.
Two's company. Four's a riot a riot, so that is
(23:31):
big business. The other thing, you know, they're again really
like going hard on the twin aspect. If you watch
the trailer, the voiceover guy even says, you know, he's
like Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler and
Lily Tomlin.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Of course, yeah, yeah, and it's eighty eight, so the
movie guy was pretty prominent in that.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I'm sure, yeah, yeah, the voiceover guy is in there.
But you know it's like, hey, two actors playing different characters,
they're opposites. This is going hard. It's going hard on
your very I would call it stereotypical movie twins.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I like going back to those movies. So you said
that's on streaming.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It is. It's actually I'm surprised to find it streaming
on Disney Plus, okay, because I like going back to
those for the simple fact of seeing the comedy of
that time period because it's changed a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
But also the things that we take for granted that
have changed over the last forty years, the fact that
we didn't have phones, you know, they had to like
go to a payphone to call somebody. The really old
person thing inside of me who finds that stuff, I
guess nostalgic. It's not like I'm romanticizing and I'm just like,
(24:48):
oh that happened, Yeah, I forgot about that. Oh people
smoking in the restaurants everywhere you go, you know, that
kind of thing. So I'm sure it's a lot of
that happened in that movie. I'd like to see that again.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, also probably even the general premise in many ways,
you know, like something can happen like another town away
and you don't know about it, you know what I mean.
They're like completely isolated from this. So you have these
another twin and you have just no idea. Yeah, that
could happen back then.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah. Could you imagine somebody like posts something on Facebook,
you know, their kids like, isn't that so and so skid? No,
this is so and so from down the street. You're like, no,
it's not that's so and So's kid. I know them.
You know, it would just be really hard I feel, like,
to not know that person existed a town away. Yeah, yeah,
it's a good pick. Was not on my radar, but
(25:37):
now it is so Like all the listeners out there,
who are man, We've been dying for an episode of
movies and marketing and this is what you're giving us,
big business and double impact? Are you guys? Do you
guys do anything unique and different and fun and exciting
for your listeners, not for you? Well, every had a
(25:57):
really hard time with the second one. I really wanted
to pick which I know it's not a fair pick,
so I'm not, but I'm gonna mention it. I really
wanted to pick multiplicity.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
I would have probably allowed it. This was an honorable
mention for me. It was it's toe and the line
it is clones, but you know, you could call them siblings.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Because we could have a whole episode on clone movies too.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
We could.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
There's a lot of those, a lot. As a matter
of fact, I'm pitching it right now, we should do
a clone movie episode. So I ended up going with
something that I don't even really remember if I've seen,
but it's one of the most underrated movie marketing of
siblings that I've seen in recent memory, and that is
(26:44):
Jack and Jill with Adam Sandler.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
And the reason why I say that is because, you know,
he plays himself and his sister, his twin sister, and
they don't look very dissimilar. But it's kind of funny
his interpretations of what a brother and a sister like
a sister, of the reactions that she has and stuff
like that. On the poster and on the cover, you know,
she's got like a hair band and a dress or
(27:09):
whatever she's wearing, and she's like really excited facially and
he looks irritated. You know, it's the it's the classic
brothers sister the tagline his sister is coming for a
visit dot dot dot and it ain't pretty, right, So
they're kind of making a play on the fact that
he is his own sister and he's not pretty. So
(27:30):
the summary of this is, you know, it's a twin comedy.
He's portraying both siblings, but it's marketed aggressively as he's
playing the dual roles. I mean it's on the cover,
it's on everything, right, like it's you know, it's him
playing both roles. Here's what I'll say the movie, whether
(27:51):
or not I've seen it, it doesn't seem like it
did great, But it didn't do bad. So it was
budgeted about a seventy nine million dollar movie made seventy
four domestic, seventy five almost one hundred and fifty worldwide,
So I mean it made money. I guess technically.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Probably like a break even, maybe a little more.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, yeah, with the marketing budget and stuff like that. Yeah,
but you know, it didn't do terrible. Like I don't
I really don't see this movie doing one hundred and
fifty million dollars personally, because it's just it seemed like
it was a real dud. And I like Adam Sandler
generally me too. Most of his movies are kind of fun.
I just don't remember this movie. I don't even remember
(28:31):
wanting to see this movie. And I guess I was
over the whole like actors doing the same roles or
playing multiple roles within the same movie. I think I
was just kind of burned out at that point.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Interesting thing like, I feel like I don't even remember
this movie coming out, Like I have no memory of
it like being released. I never saw it. You know,
it looks like funny enough. Interesting note al Pacino's in this.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Movie, Yeah, yeah, isn't that so funny? And I think
he if I and see this is why I think
I've seen parts of this movie because I think he
kind of comes on to the sister. Yeah, so he's
like trying to get it on with Adam Sandler as
the sister, which is what I guess is supposed to
be comical about that, But it's like weird. It's it's
(29:17):
kind of weird when you think about it, you know,
and weirdly, what is that fourteen years ago. Yeah, al
Pacino looks like a young dude comparatively to what he
looks like right now. Yeah, in fourteen years he aged
a lot. I guess Sandler has too. I guess maybe
this is where we're getting in our lives. But Katie
Holmes is also in that movie.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, an interesting cast all around. That's why I feel
like it's weird that I just feel like it was
not on my radar at all, or maybe I just
blocked it out. But Sandler playing not just twins but
brother and sister. I mean, this is like an extra challenge.
We don't have a lot of these.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
For sure, and we're just coming off the heels of
Happy Gilmore too, So you know, I just felt obligated to.
If I'm going to choose a brother, sister or a sibling,
why not give it to Sandler. You know, something that
was kind of underrated or maybe overrated, depending on who
you are and what you like to watch. So maybe
(30:15):
check that out. Maybe The Jack and Jill will be
your next play on streaming.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I mean, people love the Sandman and he's a good actor.
He's proven time and time again he's a good actor. Obviously,
he could pull off a twin roll my second pick.
Also a good actor, giving one of his greatest performances,
maybe his greatest performance, one of my favorite performances ever
(30:42):
from an actor in a movie ever.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Okay, time, now I'm intrigued. I don't I don't know
what you could possibly be talking about right now.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
It's the two thousand and three movie adaptation and the
actor is Nicholas Cage. Like you choosing a movie from
this century? This is a you know, indie movie, was
kind of like an Oscar type release. Made a decent
twenty two million, Pretty good for a small oddball movie,
you know, from the writer of being John Malkovich. An
(31:13):
eternal sunshine of this spotless mind. This is one of
my top five movies of all time. Top five, Yeah,
top five all time. Never miss an opportunity to talk
about it, and you know, the twin aspect of it
is particularly good in this one. This movie has a
pretty wild premise. So here's what happens in it. Where
(31:34):
do I start with this one?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Okay, no spoilers though, because I don't know if I've
ever seen this movie.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Okay, so let me give you the I'll give you
the background. So the origin of the movie, which kind
of lights my head on fire every time I talk about.
It's an adaptation of the book The Orchid Thief, which
was a nineteen ninety eight nonfiction book by an American
journalist named Susan Orling, based on her investigation of the
(32:03):
nineteen ninety four arrest of horticulturist John L. Roach and
a group of seminoles in South Florida for poaching rare orchids.
A screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman was hired to write the
screenplay for The Orchid Thief. Charlie Kaufman, as I mentioned,
you know, wrote Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine in The
(32:24):
Spotless Mind, some surreal kind of mind bending movies. Instead
of making a straightforward adaptation of The Orchid Thief, he
wrote adaptation, which is a movie about his struggle to
adapt The Orchid Thief into a movie. So he writes
himself as a character, Susan Orlean, who wrote the original book,
(32:46):
as a character, and John L. Roach, who she wrote
the book about, is also a character in the movie.
He also writes a part for his twin brother, Donald Kaufman,
who is not a real person.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
So the plot Thickens.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, So Nicholas Cage plays these two screenwriting brothers. One
of them's kind of anxious and uncertain and ones sort
of irrationally overconfident. Even though they're both overweight with one
of the worst hairstyles in film history. Cage makes these
(33:24):
characters unique and distinct. You can tell them apart from
their expressions, you know, how they carry themselves, their posture,
everything about them, even though they pretty much look exactly same.
They don't even like super dressed different. You know. It's
kind of like Michael B. Jordan and Centers, except they're
(33:44):
not wearing the you know, different colored hats to tell
them apart. But you can just tell them apart by
who they are. So it's a very much a meta movie.
It just goes down some wild roads and this whole
time you got kind of Cage in this twin performance,
anchoring the whole thing. So the twin aspect is unique
in the marketing here where it wasn't really front and center,
(34:07):
kind of similar to Sinners, you know, it was like
a little piece of the movie, but it wasn't like
the main thing the movie was sold on. This wasn't
big business where they're like look at these twins getting
into antics. It was more just like another quirk of
the movie, so we don't really get it on the poster.
We get mentioned of the twins in the trailer. You
kind of see them, you know, they kind of like
(34:29):
show them, give you a sense that they're two brothers
in it. But it's not sold as like he's playing
two parts. Look at him, he's doing this thing. So
it's really just a small piece. They more sold the
movie on like the people who are making it, you know,
the people who are in it. It's kind of like,
come see this interesting, unique movie. Nick Cage got only
(34:50):
his second ever Oscar nomination for this movie. First one
was Leaving Las Vegas, which he won. He didn't win.
This one. He should have won, but he was robbed
by Adrian Brody for The Pianist. Oh yeah, but yeah,
only the second. I thought Cage would add more Oscar nominations,
but just two with.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
The seven, six hundred and fifty three movies that he's
done in the last three months.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, with the volume, you know, he should have got
should have got some more.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, that's a good one and one that is actually
on my streaming list. I've never seen this movie. You
talk so highly of it.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
I love it. I don't know that everybody will love it,
but it's so just strange and unique, and you know,
if you like movies, it's pretty interesting and just goes
down some weird but makes sense for what's happening roads
and the way they kind of use the twins in it,
I think is pretty good. And Cage, it's just an
all out Cage all timer.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
If there's anybody that should act in one movie and
play multiple versions of himself, it should be Nicholas Cage.
If anybody can pull it off, it's him, because he's
just crazy, you know in that way. Yeah, I think
your pick is more in line with like a more
(36:12):
sophisticated cinema goer where his mind was like the lower echelon,
like kinda just comedy, dumbing it down maybe a little.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Well. I think we got a good mix here.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah. Yeah, So, no matter what you're looking for, if
you're trying to find a movie to watch and think, oh,
I need something that's light and airy and dumb, it's
got some dumb comedy in it. Maybe al Pacino making
out with Adam Sandler as a girl. That could work.
You know or hey, you know, I need a little heavier.
I need this down the rabbit hole Alice in Wonderland adaptation,
(36:48):
You got that, You got silly eighties Bette Midler and
Lily Tomlin. Lily Tomlin which most people don't even know.
You might know listeners because you know we're you're probably
our age. Maybe not.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
You're way younger than us.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I would think, I would think nobody's as old as us.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Well, let me throw out some more.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
OK.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
I don't know if you have any honoraballs, but here
are just some that I thought about when we were
putting this together. So you already mentioned Double Impact top
of my list, you know, also the social network.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Oh yeah, Armie Hammer.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Armie Hammer as the Winklevoss Twins nineteen eighties. Here as
I'm taking it back for the young people used cars.
Kurt Russell's in this movie. He's not the Twins, though.
Jack Warden plays these two brothers who own rival car dealerships.
This is a pretty good comedy from the early eighties.
We've got Dead Ringers from nineteen eighty eight, where Jeremy
(37:50):
Irons plays identical twin guynecologists who were up to no good.
You talked about multiplicity. Another one that's kind of a
cheek because they're not really twins or brothers. The movie
Dave with Kevin Klein, where he's the guy who replaces
the president. Mmm, he's a look alike.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
I liked that movie. I remember liking that movie.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, I liked it a lot when it came out.
I haven't seen it since.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Yeah, that's a really good honorable list. I don't think
there's anything really to add to that unless you wanted
to add, you know, maybe the One or Twin Dragons.
Those are both martial arts movies, one with Jackie chan
Will with Jet Lee both doing what Van Dam did?
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Where those after so they copy double impact? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Yeah, Twin Dragons was ninety two and the One was
two thousand and one.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, those are good ones. You can't go wrong with
some martial arts and Twins mm hmm. And Twins. Do
you remember that used to be like a Budweiser commercial
or something.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Oh, yeah, I do remember that. And Twins.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
We should do another episode to clone follow up about
actors who should be in twin movies? Not a clone
fall up, a twin follow up.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Oh yeah, maybe we should come with who should play
a twin and then give a summary for a plot.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Oh yeah, that's pretty that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
I like that idea. All right. Well, we hope you
got a lot out of this one and maybe some
exciting options for when you're watching movies this weekend or
next weekend or whenever. Twin marathon, twin marathon. All right,
that's it for this episode of the Movies and Marketing Podcast.
Until next time, let's fade to black. I'll be back.
(39:43):
He's not coming back.
In a world where movies rely on marketing more than
ever to connect with audiences, one podcast aims to make sense.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Of it all.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is movies and marketing. Next Saturday Night, where's sending
you back.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
To the future?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Go ahead, make my day, Corbut no.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You're crazy Dutch past.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
What we've got here is failure mill Gate.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Take them at where a cross all of pow for
we might as well good time. I am an f
B I agent.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Movies and marketing. Man, it feels like it's been one
hundred years since we've done an episode. I know it
hasn't been that long, but it feels that way.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Ah yeah, a million even I don't know just it
was one day, was the summer movie draft, then it's
action one liners, and then you know here we are
a double vision. It's almost the end of the summer.
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, we have eighty other podcasts that we do, so
it's not fair to say that we haven't been podcasting,
but it definitely feels like movies and marketing. You know,
got the shaft in a way.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, you know, we've had some vacation time. You spent
most of July weeping in a corner about your draft decisions.
You know, some of the summer movies you picked maybe
didn't pan out like you'd hoped.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, listen, no one understands.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We've all been there, but you're out of it now,
and we've got a doozy of a show.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
It is a bit of a doozy.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
We're going to get into actors playing dual roles as
their own brother or sister in movies. Sibling if you will.
But you know, Patrick, actors playing multiple parts in films
has a long and storied history. Thought i'd ask you
a few trivia questions, you know, related to the topic,
(02:04):
just to start things off, to break the ice a
little bit, get everybody warmed up.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I like it. Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Let's start here with a little multiple choice question, maybe
a bit challenging. We'll say, can you tell me how
many different roles does actor Johnson George hold the Guinness
World Record for playing in a single movie, that movie
being the twenty eighteen Indian film I'm Gonna Butcher this raw, Najohn.
(02:38):
Here are your choices, which you probably don't even need
because you already know the answer. So Guinness Book of
Role Records Johnson George for playing how many roles in
a single movie? Is it A twenty two, B forty five,
C sixty three or D eighty nine?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
How many roles this one guy played?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yes, remember he's in the Guinness Book of World Records
for this playing most parts in a single movie.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I really honestly don't have any idea because if it's
a Guinness book, I want to say it's probably pretty
high because of the Guinness C or D whatever those
numbers were.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
C was sixty three and D was eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
I don't know. I feel like the twenty one, the
twenty something, twenty two, Yeah, I feel like that's pretty high,
but I feel like they would go over the top
of the Guinness. So let's just say sixty three.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Sixty three is a lot. Yeah, that is not the
correct answer.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Though, Yeah, was it a no twenty two?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
You're not going Guinness for twenty two. Anybody could do
twenty two parts. So it's the forty five. It is
B forty five, Okay, that is a lot. That is
a lot of parts in one movie. I don't know.
Never seen this movie. I don't know if anybody else
has a part in the movie, or if it's just him.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
It's just him and he's playing everyone. Yeah, that'd be fantastic.
I would have to watch that movie.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
But it's possible with forty five roles. Well, let me
ask you another one here. Let me take you, you know,
maybe into American film. Maybe you're more familiar with that.
Maybe as you know, you know a lot of these
when people are playing different roles. It's a lot of
makeup visual trickery being used to show kind of multiples
(04:32):
on screen. But sometimes, Patrick, sometimes it's the real deal too.
Do you know what nineteen seventy seven movie features real
life hockey playing brothers as the characters. They actually inspired
(04:52):
hockey playing. Yes, nineteen seventy seven movie.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I really don't know. It's a hockey movie.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
It's a hockey movie.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
The Mighty Ducks. I know that's not from seventy seven,
but just not. It's the only movie that I could
think of.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I mean, you guessed a hockey movie, so you get
half a point.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Okay, thanks for that.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
The movie is slap Shot.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Oh okay, I do remember the name of that, Paul Newman.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
So in that movie, Steve and Jeff Carlson play Steve
and Jeff Hanson. Two thirds of the insanely violent Hanson
brothers in the movie. Now, their older brother, Jack Carlson,
was supposed to play the third Hanson brother in the movie,
but all of them were hockey players and he was
called up by the Jets, the Johnson Jets parent team
(05:45):
at the time, so he was replaced by another member
of the hockey team, the actual hockey team, Dave Hanson.
So two out of the three that were playing brothers
in the movies were actual brothers.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
That's crazy. Do they all look alike?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
They do?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I mean in the movie they look you know, they
all wear kind of glasses, they all have kind of
long hair, they all like to beat the crap out
of people, So they seem very similar. And I think
even in real life, these guys would end up in
like the nineties maybe beyond, would go to hockey games
and kind of appear they became like these cultural celebrity figures.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Do you remember this movie.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, I'm a big, big fan of this movie. Recommend.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
All Right, so I'm not doing great.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Well, you didn't do great. That's all I got for you.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Oh, okay, that's it. So I'm basically zero for two.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
You're zero for two. But you know, the point wasn't
really to get them right. It was more just you know,
educational for all of us.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, so a little background to people playing multiple roles.
The idea of one actor playing multiple characters or two
characters usually wins or siblings. So this is interesting. I
didn't realize this, but this goes back really to the
early days of film. In the very beginning, filmmakers used
(07:11):
a split screen effect. This is what I think is cool,
like because I've always loved camera trickery. Yeah, you know,
this idea of like making something seem like a magic
trick essentially, and the twin feature like of having an
actor play themselves is really that's the epitome of that,
like being able to make one character into two. So
(07:33):
they literally locked the camera in place in the early days,
film one half of the frame with the actor on
one side, and then rewind the film and shoot the
other side. And then because there was no you know,
fancy CGI, they basically just had careful planning that allowed
(07:53):
for this trickery to happen, and hoping the whole time
that the actor didn't accidentally like lean over, you know,
over the line and ruin the shot because then they'd
have to do it all over again. But then like
in the eighties and nineties, then we had things like
motion control cameras, you know, the rigs that they put
together that could repeat the exact same movement, the camera
(08:16):
movement twice, and so you could have more dynamic shots
the same actor playing the multiple roles in the same frame.
And then today, you know, clearly we've got the whole
full on digital with compositing and you know, face replacement
and even deep fake effects where you can have the
actor play themselves doing almost anything now, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, but they've gotten really good. But it is crazy
going back some of the ways they pulled it off,
and people were probably like, you know, you can going
back to like the thirties or something like that, people
are probably blown away by some of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, even today, like if you think about it, listeners
out there, I'm sure you've probably experienced this. There's some
of these viral sensations in social media where some people
are using the old style of camera trickery to create
these really kind of magic trick esque social reels and
stuff like that, and so it lives on.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, you can call it a gimmick you can call
it a novelty, whatever you want. It doesn't take much, honestly,
even you know, just the simple editing trick of cutting
back and forth between one person having a conversation with themselves,
or you know, where you would show the actor standing
there and then you see somebody wearing a wig so
(09:35):
it looks like the back of their head, you know,
in front of them. Little tricks like that, It works.
You know, it creates the feeling to you that you're
watching that person having a conversation with themselves or interacting
with you know, themselves, or these are two different people.
It doesn't necessarily take a whole lot to pull this off. Granted,
we've got to the point where people always want to
(09:56):
stretch farther and like, let's you know, let's really have
them do more. Or let's have them like put their
arms around each other, let's have the punch each other.
Let's have them do all this stuff and make it
look real. You know, let's let them see their faces
and uh, it's gotten pretty good. But even these like
little things like just the just the cross cutting back
and forth. You know, if the actor's pulling it off,
(10:17):
you kind of buy into it.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, you know, if you have a really neat story
or a way you're approaching it, it can be something
that's very unique and fun, you know what I mean
for anybody even today. Here's an interesting little tibit. You
gave me a trivia but let me let me ask
you this. Do you know the first known twin trick
in film? Do you know when that was?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I'm gonna guess it's, you know, going back to early film.
I'm gonna say it's like nineteen thirty one or you know,
something like that.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
It's pretty good. I mean it goes back further eighteen
ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Oh wow, Okay, yeah, yeah, that's airly.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So one of the earliest same actor to rule films
was The Corsican Brothers eighteen ninety eight. That was filmed
so really far back. That's what amazes me is like
they thought of that back then, Like I bet I
could do this, you know. The concept is pretty neat, which.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Kind of leads us into how we came up with
this episode. How we got to this idea. We both
recently watched the movie Sinners, which I think we both liked.
Both thought that was a pretty good movie. But when
we were talking about it. You know, I noted it
does something that almost always works for me in movies,
which is this novelty, this gimmick one actor playing twins
(11:37):
or siblings. Almost impossible for that not to be entertaining.
So the seed came from Sinners, which I think pulls
this trick off really well.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
It does. It does. It's become so seamless you could
swear that there's two people there that they could be
twin brothers or whatever, especially in that movie. You know,
once upon a time you could always kind of see
a little bit of like they can't cross paths or
they can't you know whatever. But now it's like, I
don't know, did they duplicate him? Did they clone him?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
For that? The way they interact in that movie. The
technology is really good. But you know, the whole kind
of twin idea is an interesting thing one because of
the technical piece of it, you know, how they put
it together, but also kind of the acting piece of it.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
You know, it's a challenging thing because the actor basically
has to give two entirely different performances within one movie,
and then the movie has to pull it off around
them to make you believe it at some point, you know,
you're like, ah, this is this is creative and fun,
and at some point your brain has to let that
idea kind of bubble away and just be like, Okay,
(12:49):
these are two characters. Now I'm thinking about for the
ones that do it well?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Right, Yeah, because in the end, you know that's going
to be incredibly difficult. Even if in reality they're giving
those on two separate days, you know, they're not really
probably doing it. I don't know. I guess it depends
on the film and the production, but seems like it
would be difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, that's a good actually a good question. I wonder
how they do approach this on most films. Is it
like film this whole part first, and then do this
whole part.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Hmmm.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I wonder what the best way to do that is anyway,
Sinners kind of where this started with, you know, Michael B.
Jordan doing the two roles, But that got us thinking
about other movies that have done the twin things and
done it well. So we decided to pull out some
of our favorite we'll call them twin movies. They could
(13:42):
be siblings. They don't have to be twins. They can
be they can look different.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Like Arnold and Danny DeVito that different?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
No, I mean they could be. If Arnold was playing
Danny DeVito.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
That would be great, or if Danny Davito was playing Arnold.
Let's be fair about it.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, either way or vice versa, but it has to be,
you know, the same actor playing the twins, siblings, relatives,
whatever you want to call. So we each kind of
picked two movies, talk a little bit about what's you know, interesting, notable,
what made this movie pop to us? And also touch
(14:21):
on the marketing a little bit. How does the marketing
use the twin angle? Is this a selling point? Is
this something that gets people to the theater? You know,
we'll talk about that a little bit as we go
through these movies. So let's dive in to the cinematic magic. Patrick,
what's your first twin movie?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
I couldn't do this episode without Van dam Yes, I
was worried to do this because A I thought maybe
you would choose a Van Damn twin movie, and B
if you did, which one did you pick? Because there's
so many to pick?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
How many are there?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I think there's at least three. Okay, there's at least
three movies where he plays his identical twin.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I thought there were only two. I didn't know there
were three.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah, Double Impacts the one I chose. It's from ninety one.
It was shot in the late eighties. I didn't know
if you knew that. The summary of this is pretty great.
You know, he plays twin brothers separated at birth who
reunite to avenge their parents' death and reclaim their legacy.
That's fantastic. But the box office on this I thought
(15:29):
was pretty good. This was made on a fifteen to
sixteen million dollar budget and it earned thirty million domestically
in about eighty worldwide, So it did really well at
the box office at the time.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, and it's a banger too. It's a top three
fandamn movie for me.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Probably the thing about it is it was a very
hard sell on the twins. This is what I liked
the marketing aspect. So the tagline for the movie was
double Van Dams, double the Van Damage, which is ah,
so good, I mean so good. It's probably one of
my all time favorite taglines. I think in marketing it's
(16:10):
got to be up there. I mean, I just love
saying it. I could say it all day. And so
Van Dam in this movie played the twins Chad Wagner
and Alex Wagner, which is also kind of funny because
he is French for you know, the muscles from Brussels,
as they say, but he has like a French accent.
(16:32):
And the fact that he played a Chad and an Alex,
I think, are you know, a little sort of comical
in that way. But good flick. If you want to
watch some splits martial arts.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
This is a great pick to kick us off. This
is one of those twin movies too, where they're like
complete opposites mm hm. You know, so they're like total contrasts,
and so one's wearing a leather jacket, one's wearing like
a pink polo.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah. Well yeah, he's got like greased back hair, the
leather jacket version. He's the bad villainous kind and the
other guy's kind of a goody two shoes m m
yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
So you get to see them kind of play off him,
playoff himself, you know, in that way. Also, you know
you mentioned with the technology, this is one of the
ones where he can see the seams in some parts.
You know, you definitely can, and that almost makes it
more enjoyable. In some ways. Now, you know, it's got
that kind of vintage aspect to it. It's also probably
(17:33):
very close to peak Van Damn. It was when he
was like really working his way up the ladder. And
I don't know if like Universal Soldiers the top or
where the top of the ladder is, but it was
probably shortly after this.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
That's sort of the reason why the tagline works because
at that time it was all about him. Everybody wanted
double Van dam and they definitely wanted double the Van Damage.
Can I say, can I say the tagline when we're
time in this episode? I feel like I could be
that guy double the Vendem, double the Van Damage.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
I mean, it just rolls right off the tongue.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
So was that on your list?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
That was not one of the ones I was going
to talk about. I thought you, I suspected you mind,
but okay, you know, I just feel like I've been
It almost seemed too obvious for me to take it,
especially since you know, we just did the action movie
one liners, and I feel like I had so many
like right there, picks off the tree, the low hanging fruit.
(18:39):
I have a slightly long list of honorable mentions. And
that was like right at the top of that one,
because I think it is probably when I think of
twin movies, probably the one I think of first. You
think it holds up if you watch it today. Have
you tried it's been a little bit. I think I
would still enjoy it. I don't know if you got
like a twenty year old off the street and showed
(18:59):
it to him, if they would be like, this is great.
The way they film action has changed a lot since
that time. You know, it's all like these one take
It looks like it's all happening at once now, whereas
a lot of it back then was like editing tricks
and stuff like kind of like the MTV style a
little bit. Yeah, So I don't know. I don't know
how that would go down with today's audiences. So let
(19:22):
me take us in a completely different direction, but yet
a similar time period. Would you say that was eighty
eight or.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Eighty nine, Well, the movie's ninety one.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Ninety one. Okay, Well I'm gonna take us to nineteen
eighty eight and something a little more feminine, which the
movie is big business. This movie largely forgotten to time,
but available to stream on Disney Plus Now and a
moderate hit in its moment. It was the twenty third
(19:56):
highest grossing movie of nineteen eighty eight million dollars at
the domestic box office. For comparison, the number one movie
was Who Framed Roger Rabbit? That made one hundred and
fifty six million. But this was a comedy starring Bette
Middler and Lily Tomlin Patrick. Do you remember this movie
at all?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I can't recall it. I I'm sure I saw it,
especially because it was right around that time.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
M hm.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
You know, it's one of those things you see it
and you go, oh, yeah, okay. That's kind of how
I feel that it would be about that movie.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
I haven't seen this since I was a kid, and
I suspect it's not very good. But it immediately popped
into my mind when we were thinking of twin movies
because it uses the actor twin concept not just once,
but twice in the same movie. So we've got both
(20:51):
Bette Midler and Lily Thompson playing sets of twins in
this movie. So there may not be another movie that
is more twin forward than this movie. It's really like
pushing that novelty on the audience. It's the whole reason
basically this movie exists. So the plot of this movie
is this, two women give birth to sets of twins
(21:16):
in a small town hospital on the same day in
the nineteen forties. One's kind of a country resident and
another is a city commuter who's just passing through. Amidst
the chaos. The twins get switched at birth by a
you know, flustered nurse, so one twin from each family
ends up getting paired together. So, you know, one set
(21:39):
of twins is raised in the country, one set of
twins is raised in the city. They don't find out
about each other until forty years later in Hi, Jenson sue, Yeah,
So that's the basic plot in the idea, the entire movie,
and the marketing. It's based on the contrast between the
(21:59):
two twins, you know, played by two actors again playing
two opposite characters, one city, one country. I don't know
if you got it, but they're different because ones from
the city they're all business and ones from the country
they're nice and friendly, you know, and there's a lot
of mistaken identities and things like that. So the poster
(22:20):
of the movie shows the two twins on opposite sides
of a fancy new York City building, revolving door and
different outfits. So you got the Lily Tomlin Bent Miller,
you know, dress nice. They're like business women on this side,
and you've got the country version. You know, they're in
their country dresses looking real friendly on the other side.
(22:43):
Clothes are used prominently in the movie to signal the
difference between you know, which twin is which, which is
often the case in some of these movies, and you
can tell them when they like switch clothes or something
or wear the same thing. That's when you get like, oh,
I thought you were that twin something like that.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yeah, which you have to do.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
You you know, you got I thought you were this person.
Why are you acting like this? So the poster has
two taglines mixed up at birth two sets of twins
finally meet their match. It's no van damage and then
the other ones. This is more of the actual tagline.
Two's company. Four's a riot a riot, so that is
(23:31):
big business. The other thing, you know, they're again really
like going hard on the twin aspect. If you watch
the trailer, the voiceover guy even says, you know, he's
like Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler and
Lily Tomlin.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Of course, yeah, yeah, and it's eighty eight, so the
movie guy was pretty prominent in that.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I'm sure, yeah, yeah, the voiceover guy is in there.
But you know it's like, hey, two actors playing different characters,
they're opposites. This is going hard. It's going hard on
your very I would call it stereotypical movie twins.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I like going back to those movies. So you said
that's on streaming.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It is. It's actually I'm surprised to find it streaming
on Disney Plus, okay, because I like going back to
those for the simple fact of seeing the comedy of
that time period because it's changed a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
But also the things that we take for granted that
have changed over the last forty years, the fact that
we didn't have phones, you know, they had to like
go to a payphone to call somebody. The really old
person thing inside of me who finds that stuff, I
guess nostalgic. It's not like I'm romanticizing and I'm just like,
(24:48):
oh that happened, Yeah, I forgot about that. Oh people
smoking in the restaurants everywhere you go, you know, that
kind of thing. So I'm sure it's a lot of
that happened in that movie. I'd like to see that again.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, also probably even the general premise in many ways,
you know, like something can happen like another town away
and you don't know about it, you know what I mean.
They're like completely isolated from this. So you have these
another twin and you have just no idea. Yeah, that
could happen back then.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah. Could you imagine somebody like posts something on Facebook,
you know, their kids like, isn't that so and so skid? No,
this is so and so from down the street. You're like, no,
it's not that's so and So's kid. I know them.
You know, it would just be really hard I feel, like,
to not know that person existed a town away. Yeah, yeah,
it's a good pick. Was not on my radar, but
(25:37):
now it is so Like all the listeners out there,
who are man, We've been dying for an episode of
movies and marketing and this is what you're giving us,
big business and double impact? Are you guys? Do you
guys do anything unique and different and fun and exciting
for your listeners, not for you? Well, every had a
(25:57):
really hard time with the second one. I really wanted
to pick which I know it's not a fair pick,
so I'm not, but I'm gonna mention it. I really
wanted to pick multiplicity.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
I would have probably allowed it. This was an honorable
mention for me. It was it's toe and the line
it is clones, but you know, you could call them siblings.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Because we could have a whole episode on clone movies too.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
We could.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
There's a lot of those, a lot. As a matter
of fact, I'm pitching it right now, we should do
a clone movie episode. So I ended up going with
something that I don't even really remember if I've seen,
but it's one of the most underrated movie marketing of
siblings that I've seen in recent memory, and that is
(26:44):
Jack and Jill with Adam Sandler.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
And the reason why I say that is because, you know,
he plays himself and his sister, his twin sister, and
they don't look very dissimilar. But it's kind of funny
his interpretations of what a brother and a sister like
a sister, of the reactions that she has and stuff
like that. On the poster and on the cover, you know,
she's got like a hair band and a dress or
(27:09):
whatever she's wearing, and she's like really excited facially and
he looks irritated. You know, it's the it's the classic
brothers sister the tagline his sister is coming for a
visit dot dot dot and it ain't pretty, right, So
they're kind of making a play on the fact that
he is his own sister and he's not pretty. So
(27:30):
the summary of this is, you know, it's a twin comedy.
He's portraying both siblings, but it's marketed aggressively as he's
playing the dual roles. I mean it's on the cover,
it's on everything, right, like it's you know, it's him
playing both roles. Here's what I'll say the movie, whether
(27:51):
or not I've seen it, it doesn't seem like it
did great, But it didn't do bad. So it was
budgeted about a seventy nine million dollar movie made seventy
four domestic, seventy five almost one hundred and fifty worldwide,
So I mean it made money. I guess technically.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Probably like a break even, maybe a little more.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, yeah, with the marketing budget and stuff like that. Yeah,
but you know, it didn't do terrible. Like I don't
I really don't see this movie doing one hundred and
fifty million dollars personally, because it's just it seemed like
it was a real dud. And I like Adam Sandler
generally me too. Most of his movies are kind of fun.
I just don't remember this movie. I don't even remember
(28:31):
wanting to see this movie. And I guess I was
over the whole like actors doing the same roles or
playing multiple roles within the same movie. I think I
was just kind of burned out at that point.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Interesting thing like, I feel like I don't even remember
this movie coming out, Like I have no memory of
it like being released. I never saw it. You know,
it looks like funny enough. Interesting note al Pacino's in this.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Movie, Yeah, yeah, isn't that so funny? And I think
he if I and see this is why I think
I've seen parts of this movie because I think he
kind of comes on to the sister. Yeah, so he's
like trying to get it on with Adam Sandler as
the sister, which is what I guess is supposed to
be comical about that, But it's like weird. It's it's
(29:17):
kind of weird when you think about it, you know,
and weirdly, what is that fourteen years ago. Yeah, al
Pacino looks like a young dude comparatively to what he
looks like right now. Yeah, in fourteen years he aged
a lot. I guess Sandler has too. I guess maybe
this is where we're getting in our lives. But Katie
Holmes is also in that movie.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, an interesting cast all around. That's why I feel
like it's weird that I just feel like it was
not on my radar at all, or maybe I just
blocked it out. But Sandler playing not just twins but
brother and sister. I mean, this is like an extra challenge.
We don't have a lot of these.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
For sure, and we're just coming off the heels of
Happy Gilmore too, So you know, I just felt obligated to.
If I'm going to choose a brother, sister or a sibling,
why not give it to Sandler. You know, something that
was kind of underrated or maybe overrated, depending on who
you are and what you like to watch. So maybe
(30:15):
check that out. Maybe The Jack and Jill will be
your next play on streaming.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I mean, people love the Sandman and he's a good actor.
He's proven time and time again he's a good actor. Obviously,
he could pull off a twin roll my second pick.
Also a good actor, giving one of his greatest performances,
maybe his greatest performance, one of my favorite performances ever
(30:42):
from an actor in a movie ever.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Okay, time, now I'm intrigued. I don't I don't know
what you could possibly be talking about right now.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
It's the two thousand and three movie adaptation and the
actor is Nicholas Cage. Like you choosing a movie from
this century? This is a you know, indie movie, was
kind of like an Oscar type release. Made a decent
twenty two million, Pretty good for a small oddball movie,
you know, from the writer of being John Malkovich. An
(31:13):
eternal sunshine of this spotless mind. This is one of
my top five movies of all time. Top five, Yeah,
top five all time. Never miss an opportunity to talk
about it, and you know, the twin aspect of it
is particularly good in this one. This movie has a
pretty wild premise. So here's what happens in it. Where
(31:34):
do I start with this one?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Okay, no spoilers though, because I don't know if I've
ever seen this movie.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Okay, so let me give you the I'll give you
the background. So the origin of the movie, which kind
of lights my head on fire every time I talk about.
It's an adaptation of the book The Orchid Thief, which
was a nineteen ninety eight nonfiction book by an American
journalist named Susan Orling, based on her investigation of the
(32:03):
nineteen ninety four arrest of horticulturist John L. Roach and
a group of seminoles in South Florida for poaching rare orchids.
A screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman was hired to write the
screenplay for The Orchid Thief. Charlie Kaufman, as I mentioned,
you know, wrote Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine in The
(32:24):
Spotless Mind, some surreal kind of mind bending movies. Instead
of making a straightforward adaptation of The Orchid Thief, he
wrote adaptation, which is a movie about his struggle to
adapt The Orchid Thief into a movie. So he writes
himself as a character, Susan Orlean, who wrote the original book,
(32:46):
as a character, and John L. Roach, who she wrote
the book about, is also a character in the movie.
He also writes a part for his twin brother, Donald Kaufman,
who is not a real person.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
So the plot Thickens.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, So Nicholas Cage plays these two screenwriting brothers. One
of them's kind of anxious and uncertain and ones sort
of irrationally overconfident. Even though they're both overweight with one
of the worst hairstyles in film history. Cage makes these
(33:24):
characters unique and distinct. You can tell them apart from
their expressions, you know, how they carry themselves, their posture,
everything about them, even though they pretty much look exactly same.
They don't even like super dressed different. You know. It's
kind of like Michael B. Jordan and Centers, except they're
(33:44):
not wearing the you know, different colored hats to tell
them apart. But you can just tell them apart by
who they are. So it's a very much a meta movie.
It just goes down some wild roads and this whole
time you got kind of Cage in this twin performance,
anchoring the whole thing. So the twin aspect is unique
in the marketing here where it wasn't really front and center,
(34:07):
kind of similar to Sinners, you know, it was like
a little piece of the movie, but it wasn't like
the main thing the movie was sold on. This wasn't
big business where they're like look at these twins getting
into antics. It was more just like another quirk of
the movie, so we don't really get it on the poster.
We get mentioned of the twins in the trailer. You
kind of see them, you know, they kind of like
(34:29):
show them, give you a sense that they're two brothers
in it. But it's not sold as like he's playing
two parts. Look at him, he's doing this thing. So
it's really just a small piece. They more sold the
movie on like the people who are making it, you know,
the people who are in it. It's kind of like,
come see this interesting, unique movie. Nick Cage got only
(34:50):
his second ever Oscar nomination for this movie. First one
was Leaving Las Vegas, which he won. He didn't win.
This one. He should have won, but he was robbed
by Adrian Brody for The Pianist. Oh yeah, but yeah,
only the second. I thought Cage would add more Oscar nominations,
but just two with.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
The seven, six hundred and fifty three movies that he's
done in the last three months.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, with the volume, you know, he should have got
should have got some more.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, that's a good one and one that is actually
on my streaming list. I've never seen this movie. You
talk so highly of it.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
I love it. I don't know that everybody will love it,
but it's so just strange and unique, and you know,
if you like movies, it's pretty interesting and just goes
down some weird but makes sense for what's happening roads
and the way they kind of use the twins in it,
I think is pretty good. And Cage, it's just an
all out Cage all timer.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
If there's anybody that should act in one movie and
play multiple versions of himself, it should be Nicholas Cage.
If anybody can pull it off, it's him, because he's
just crazy, you know in that way. Yeah, I think
your pick is more in line with like a more
(36:12):
sophisticated cinema goer where his mind was like the lower echelon,
like kinda just comedy, dumbing it down maybe a little.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Well. I think we got a good mix here.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah. Yeah, So, no matter what you're looking for, if
you're trying to find a movie to watch and think, oh,
I need something that's light and airy and dumb, it's
got some dumb comedy in it. Maybe al Pacino making
out with Adam Sandler as a girl. That could work.
You know or hey, you know, I need a little heavier.
I need this down the rabbit hole Alice in Wonderland adaptation,
(36:48):
You got that, You got silly eighties Bette Midler and
Lily Tomlin. Lily Tomlin which most people don't even know.
You might know listeners because you know we're you're probably
our age. Maybe not.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
You're way younger than us.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I would think, I would think nobody's as old as us.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Well, let me throw out some more.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
OK.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
I don't know if you have any honoraballs, but here
are just some that I thought about when we were
putting this together. So you already mentioned Double Impact top
of my list, you know, also the social network.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Oh yeah, Armie Hammer.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Armie Hammer as the Winklevoss Twins nineteen eighties. Here as
I'm taking it back for the young people used cars.
Kurt Russell's in this movie. He's not the Twins, though.
Jack Warden plays these two brothers who own rival car dealerships.
This is a pretty good comedy from the early eighties.
We've got Dead Ringers from nineteen eighty eight, where Jeremy
(37:50):
Irons plays identical twin guynecologists who were up to no good.
You talked about multiplicity. Another one that's kind of a
cheek because they're not really twins or brothers. The movie
Dave with Kevin Klein, where he's the guy who replaces
the president. Mmm, he's a look alike.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
I liked that movie. I remember liking that movie.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, I liked it a lot when it came out.
I haven't seen it since.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Yeah, that's a really good honorable list. I don't think
there's anything really to add to that unless you wanted
to add, you know, maybe the One or Twin Dragons.
Those are both martial arts movies, one with Jackie chan
Will with Jet Lee both doing what Van Dam did?
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Where those after so they copy double impact? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Yeah, Twin Dragons was ninety two and the One was
two thousand and one.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, those are good ones. You can't go wrong with
some martial arts and Twins mm hmm. And Twins. Do
you remember that used to be like a Budweiser commercial
or something.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Oh, yeah, I do remember that. And Twins.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
We should do another episode to clone follow up about
actors who should be in twin movies? Not a clone
fall up, a twin follow up.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Oh yeah, maybe we should come with who should play
a twin and then give a summary for a plot.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Oh yeah, that's pretty that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
I like that idea. All right. Well, we hope you
got a lot out of this one and maybe some
exciting options for when you're watching movies this weekend or
next weekend or whenever. Twin marathon, twin marathon. All right,
that's it for this episode of the Movies and Marketing Podcast.
Until next time, let's fade to black. I'll be back.
(39:43):
He's not coming back.
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