Blank Check with Griffin & David - John Carter with Matt Singer

Episode Date: July 5, 2026

We are going to Barsoom with 2012's John Carter - a film that bounced almost as much as the titular hero bounced around on Mars! Matt Singer joins us to talk about this legendary flop - the cursed marketing campaign, the year of Taylor Kitsch, and Disney's acquisition of Marvel and Star Wars, which effectively made John Carter irrelevant almost immediately. Plus, we spend a lot of time talking about X-Men Origins: Wolverine, for some reason. Pre-Order Matt's Book Read Matt's Writing Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When I saw you, I believed it was a sign that something new can come into this podcast. That was my bad defoe, Tars Tarkas. Mm. That was the big line they used in the trailer. It's a sort of hint at the mystery of the film. Now, I was saying before, I think this movie famously didn't have a tagline. And we'll spend roughly half an hour on this movie's disastrous marketing campaign, kind of as big a legacy as the film itself.

But it did, in fact, have a tagline. And it's quite poor, I would say. What is the tagline? Let me guess. He's from Mars. No, I don't know. Lost in our world, found in another. And then, of course, the title is John Carter.

So Mars is nowhere on the poster. Oh, you have to watch the movie to find out what world he was found in. And the poster is just bright red. That was their big move. This wasn't the one that had the JCP. That was the teaser poster. I want to say that was even maybe before the title had been changed. But that was big JCP, black and white.

John Carter arrives. That was the tagline. It's telling you. John Carter's coming. People were excited. The classic poster, classic, of course. The all red. Right, was this.

Very red. Very red. I mean, it's kind of a cool image, I guess. It's not bad. You know, it's every Mars movie did this. Yeah. And this movie is post the Mars craze. I like to think about the Mars craze.

Sure. Because I recently watched Species 2. Uh-huh. And I forgot that species two is the first Mars movie of this wave. Well, because it was right after they'd found the meteor on Mars with or the thing on Mars, well, what? I was going to say, I think some credits total recall, which was a secret Mars movie.

Not talking about it. No, no, that doesn't count. That's not. That doesn't count. There are pre-Mars crazed Mars movies. There's a few. There's the one that I bought the DVD for and Keep Me Need to Watch where Sean Connery is like a cop on Mars called Outland. just outland.

Outland. Okay. Yeah, it's totally recall. But there's, it's like, species two mission to Mars, Red Planet. Yes. There's a fourth one.

Like, there's a bunch of them all together for like two years. Mission of Mars and Red Planet were a true deep impact armaged. It's an Armageddon. Deep impact. Yes. Right. And then they ended up moving a little further part in dates because they were worried at

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

It's the different. It's about humans going to Mars. To recall, we live on Mars. To recall, he got his ass to Mars. Well, he did get a sense. We've colonized. Yeah. Like, oh, oh, ghosts of Mars. Oh, of course. Those are the four. And it's all just like, how do we crack Mars?

And zero of them crack Mars. What if there were ghosts this time? Mission of Mars, I defend and has very cool stuff. The other three, they all do badly. Right. And the other three, Species 2 is basically like they go to Mars and what happens to the guys who went to Mars. They get species. Sexy, horny alien stuff like is inside them now.

Uh-oh. Yes. And all of us, ultimately. It is funny. Probably all of us. But even species 2, species 1, poster is green. Species 2, how do we change it? Red.

It is funny to consider it. For species? No, right? There was no subtitle, but I of course could tell you the tagline. Please. Mating season begins. It's not bad. It's better than the John Carter tagline by a wide margin.

Now, if that had been the John Carter tagline, that might not have worked. I'm going to make my third attempt at this joke. It's funny to consider that in the year 2000, Disney, Walt Disney Pictures, probably looked at the box office receipts for Mission of Mars. Well, look, the good news is this is the least successful Mars movie Disney will ever release. We will never lose more money on a Mars movie than this. It's all upwards. Uh, yes.

That film was seen as a disaster. Absolutely, it was seen as a disaster. And then Mars Needs mom was like, hold my dear. I didn't even remember Mars needs. I do. I do. I do. And then John Carter was like, don't worry, buddy, I got you.

Now, in Mars Need Moms, which I've not seen. Mars needs moms. I've never seen it in. Isn't that largely set in like an attic or whatever? It's like they've come to Earth in search of our moms. Yes. Right. Like, I don't, is there a lot of Mars action in it, I want.

I have not seen it either. The poster wasn't red in my memory. The poster was not red. Right. There are aliens. It was blue. It was blue. Although the title is red.

Okay. The words are red. You have to, if your movie has the word Mars in the title, the title has to be red. It is a rule. Right. That was a big. It's a law of Hollywood. Fuck up on their part.

But then the final John Carter poster, after everyone complained about the marketing was this, where it goes a lot more blue. Blue and yellow. It's just violated the rule that I just invented. The aliens, him riding on creatures. Fotes. Thotes. He's on a thote. Tharks on Thotts.

Flanking John Carter. This movie is in... If you like silly words, man. I know. It's in that kind of, you know, Lady in the Water territory with like every five minutes throw a new, made-up word at these guys.

But I feel like this is a thing that unites the three of us is that's always kind of catnip for us. Even when the movie doesn't work, it can be catnip. It is very endearing when a movie throws a bunch of silly words at you. Yeah.

Right. I often do respond to movies that are like, since time immemorial, like, Blargh has fought with the kingdom of Jin. And I'm just like, yes, of course they have, yes, those two mighty kingdom. They removed Blarge. That was one of their

mistakes on this one. They cut him out of the movie. I know. They were saving him for the sequel that never happened. I know it's all from books and I know we'll talk about that and I know these books have a cultural legacy and all that. But it is funny, like, how many times someone's like Barsoom? Like, assuming the audience is going to be, yes,

Barso! They said it. It's wild. It's all fake words, but then once in a while, they'll be like a normal word, like helium. Right. It's like, we have two cities, Zodanga, and helium. They really should have changed helium because it's so confusing when they keep it.

You have to save helium. The gas? No, our town's called that. Come on. But we are running out of helium. We are. Okay, well, let's go get some. The movie was ahead of its time when you think about it.

David is absolutely right. Let's go get some. Let's go get some. Where is it? I got bad news stream. It's on Barsoom. Oh, fuck. All right.

Well, then let's get a medallion or something. What are the dragonfly ships called? I don't fucking know what anything is called. This is the two-prong problem. The movie is too confident that the audience is excited to finally see and hear all this stuff on screen. It thinks the built-in audience is a lot larger than it is. I do think it thinks that. Secondly, this is like one of the first major sci-fi adventure,

novels, space, you know, opera kind of things in American fiction. All of these names, the bar was really low. Right. Back then, just calling something Barsoom, it would be like, well, I've never seen a word like this before. How original. That word's crazy. And then there's like a century of people being like, what if we made things sound cool? Yeah, Barsoom. And Barsoom's okay. Some of the other ones I don't love. Like Zadanga. That's a little, you know. It's got dangin it. It does. That's true.

I think Tars Tarkas is a great name. Tars Tarkas is a good name. I agree. That's the best name. Yeah. What's that? Tars Tarkas is Willem Duffo. That's Willem Defoe.

Okay. Right. Tars Tarkas. As you were saying, like, movie that just starts with a bunch of stuff, right? I couldn't figure out a good place to put podcast in on this. But the opening voiceover of this movie being... Oh, love it. Mars.

So you name it and think that you know it. The red planet. No air, no life. But you do not know Mars, for its true name is Barsoom. That is the kind of... I think that does. You're right. Like, it could raise the hair here. You're rubbing your hands together.

Tell me more. It is not airless, nor is it dead, but it is dying. Intriguing. Okay. There is life, but the life's at risk. I like that. Then he says Zodanga twice in one sentence. He does.

And then you're going, wait a minute. What's happening? The city of Zodanga saw to that. Now, to kick your episode off. Let's cheers. Of course, a bit that's been really consistent since I established at the beginning of this year. The Great Coffee Quest of 2020. Jesus.

Where I bought different movie-themed coffees that we're going to try out to see if there's one that's worthy of being served to our guests. And usually we try to test these on ourselves before we bring him to guess. But today's guest, we promised him. Yes.

When I was in a separate group text, planning this coffee quest... I said, I'm only coming. If I can get a big hunking cup of, what is it, Spidey's web slinger? Spider-Man's web slinger is the name of the coffee, I believe. It's not just named. special flavor, though.

It does. Okay, so we all take a sip? Yes. Yeah. Cheers. I don't like it. You don't like it. I don't hate it.

It didn't taste as strong as it smelled. Yeah, the smell, the aroma is quite big. The aroma is pretty. It cinges the nostrils. What's the note here? What am I missing? Marshmallows? Marshmallow treat.

Marginlea treat. Like, because it's like, west. I was guessing something sweet, like chocolate or whatever, but that, yeah. Yes. It is from Bones Coffee Company. Yeah. Webb Slinger, crispy marshmallow treat flavored coffee. It's a great looking bag.

It's a great bag. Excellent bag. Good packaging. And I'd say Spider-Man's a good guy. One of my favorite guys. He's one of our best. Yes. One of your good friends.

Yes. As far as the flavor profile, how is this representative of Spider-Man? It's a great question. Because it's marshmallow and marshmallow treats look like webs. Sticky marshmallow webs. I guess you're right. There's a walk. Sticky.

Sticky is what we're going with. It's sticky. It's a short swing to sticky. Yes. Okay. It's not the worst coffee I've ever had. It's not. It isn't as bad as I feared when we smelled it.

Will we serve it to anyone else? Oh, I'm sure you won't. I would not serve this to someone unless they want. Because I'm going to drink all of it. Yeah. Exactly. You're taking it home. You're just going to eat the grounds.

You're not even going to pour a water over. This is, of course, because our guest today, returned to the show, wrote the book on Spider-Man. A book on Spider-Man. Marvel's Spider-Man, quote. from Amazing to Spectacular Extra Colon, the definitive comic art collection. Hell, yes. Wrote a book on Siskel and Iber

to poseable thumbs. That's right. Colon. How Siskel and Iber changed movies forever. Got to have colons in your books. And, of course, the way they changed movies forever is that they influence Ben Hossley to recommend that we call this podcast

Griffle and Simspert. Yes, right. I probably knew that story. Long ago. And the upcoming book. Yes. Here it is. Copy on Desk.

Yes, I have a corrected proof or corrected? It's an uncorrected proof. I've already corrected things that are in this version. Funny business. That's right. The subtitle is The Old School Wedding Crashers and Knocked Up Virgins Who Changed Comedy Forever. And the book, of course, is about failed sci-fi franchises of the 2010.

That's right. That's right. I don't know if we want to get into this now, but while we're talking about this book, please. Can I, I'm going to hand it to you. Yes. The great Matt Singer. Hi, Matt Singer.

Welcome. Thank you. Now, if you look in the back of the book, there is. There's a bookmarked part. There's a post-it. I want you to look what's right above the post-it in the footnotes. Wow. Footnote number 58, quote in any minute.

Griffin Newman and David Sims hosts Blank Check with Griffin and David podcast, The Big Lebowski with Seth Rogan. You're a quoted source in my book. Was dropping bombs. He was. And it has a typed out link, a URL. Yes. If people want to go fact-checked themselves, they can go look.

listen. It was an excellent. I was, I just happened to be working on that part of the book, and I was listening to him, and he's talking about working on the 40-year-old virgin, which I was working on that part of the book. Perfect quotes. Oh, you can have, you can have that. This is a, you can be shared by the, we got a couple of copies. Amazing. Amazing. It is the thing I always will take any opportunity to bring up on the show that I often complain about the death of the theatrical studio comedy. Indeed. But I think in people trying to, to do the post-mortems, there is not enough study of what happened in comedy from like 2000 to 2015.

Well, this is the book for you. I've been waiting for this book, but it really did build up in a way that was kind of MCU-esque. Yeah. There was a sort of like franchise machinery to the way the personas got built and the cross-pollination and the rise of the sort of star producer and all that kind of stuff. That happened kind of you mentioned the MCU and it kind of happened around the the tail end of this wave coincides with it. And I think very much of that and the cinematic universification of Hollywood had a big effect on why these movies started to go away.

But I also think quietly those movies and the modern franchises pulled from what was working there. I have always said that there was something that I think, whether consciously or unconsciously, that was wisely pulled from how Apatow ceded performers in supporting roles to prep you for them in leading roles. Right. And then he, right. I feel like while he's doing that, they're like on set being like an interesting story in my life. And he's like, I love that. Like, work on that. Like, write me a script. Like, you could turn that into a movie. But that also, once his thing worked, there was a house style. There was a sensibility. For sure. There was a low concept. This is about interpersonal relationships. Find a very specific dynamic. and then what started to piss people off

is these movies were all the same. Yeah. It's improv runs. It's an awkward romantic comedy about a dude who's the one who has to learn. Silly boy. Right. Trueish lady.

Which I argue is kind of what's happening with Marvel now where it's like we know the format. But 10 years ago at this point. But yes. I mean, it's just, hmm, maybe Marvel. You know, it's impossible though. Just thinking about Marvel.

He's like, yeah, like, if Marvel was like, we did something totally different. and people just be like, like no, right? Like, isn't it? It's hard. Look, the movie does not fully work. You and I both quietly,

partially defend it, but that's what Eternals were trying to do. I agree with that. Eternals was, I think, Fygi, wisely saying, we need to fucking mix it up because people are going to start getting tired of this quick.

And then they did not find the right way to mix it up. Right. And they took the rejection of that really hard and we're like, back to the old shit. Right. Yes, it was a retreat. It was a swift retreat.

I just, this is on my mind because I just followed her. of over your dead body. Theormit Taconi movie that is like, that didn't totally work for me. I don't know if I have seen it. I have not seen it yet. But like, you know, I thought it was

okay and like had some stuff and of course stars Jason Segal. Yes. And I was like, Siegel is like the last of those guys, right? Who is still making like movie star comedies into the mid-2010s. After sex tape, he's released zero movies wide

in theaters. Right. Zero. Yes. Like he's made a couple indies that got a theatrical release. It's like, end of the tour. There's the Charlie McDowell movie. End of the tour. And I have it here. And our friend are the only ones that were even like indie releases. Everything else was Netflix, which is Discovery. Yeah. Come Sunday. Sky is everywhere where he had a sporting world, which was on Apple. Windfall. Like, so three of those are like Charlie McDonald movies. And like, and like, and now, you know, this, everyday body's getting a tiny

release as well. I know Segal also kind of was like, I'm burned out. I'm, like making these like you know sex tape bad teachery movies get sober has a sort of kind of like I need to pull away and work on my shit but like post you know uh forgetting sir marshal he did for years like he did the kind of like yeah I'll do a high concept sort of R rated comedy for you every so often and they would like do all right he was often writing them or co-writing him was involved like he is a writer on sex tape like sex tape wasn't just uh sort of like fuck it I'll take the paycheck no and five you're And it's just crazy. Muppets he co-writes.

Yeah. And, you know, yeah, he has like five or six, you know, of those. But even, like, bad teacher and, and I love you man. And, like, he was getting cloned. Yes. That's a good one. And then sex tape is just, like, you know, I remember when it came out of him was like, you know, is this a movie?

Like, is this a big concept? Like, everyone's a little, like, no one was like this sucks. No. But everyone was a little like, eh. It was one of those movies where it's like, this thing is ending. And the problem is that if you look at... And like the poster's just them going like, huh? Like, you know, it's like the laziest phone.

They're like looking at an iPad. It also felt like we had come all the way around to like the Apatau wave is a correction for how high concept star comedies had become. They'd gotten really big budget. It was $20 million stars who felt like they were kind of lazily picking up a paycheck for like a one-sentence movie pitch where the title is the premise and there's usually magic or something like that or insane mistaken identity. And then it was like, let's bring this down to like human level.

And sex tape felt like the first comedy that was an output, an extended reach of the Apatau family tendrils. Yeah. Where the concept was like, what? Right. Does this make sense? Yes. They uploaded the sex tape to their personal cloud, but they gave everyone in their life an iPad for Christmas. Yes.

And those iPads are on their cloud. So their mailman has their sex tape. We've all been there. Right. You're like, it's getting too sweaty here. Very relatable. But that movie also made like 50 million domestic? Yeah, I think it did all right.

I can look up the final number. You like think of it as a disaster and you're like, it ended up a number pretty similar to it. It made 126 worldwide, which means it made, yeah, made 40 domestic and 90 world. 90 is international. Yeah. The international market. They love sex tapes. They love sex tapes.

It's a fascinating thing to talk about. Yes. Today we're talking about John Carter because this is a podcast. One of the most famous. R-rated sex comedies of the 2000s. Well, I think this is an opportunity to really just discuss what was happening in the movies in the early 2010s. And the Apetow stuff is part and parcel with it, right?

True. Bridesmaids is 2011. That is arguably the apex of the whole thing. Yes. That is the highest grossing Apatow movie. It's the highest grossing and it is like it's somehow, even though the formula had been set already, when that was released people, there was still the narrative. of like, is this too risky?

Like, all girls are rated. Like, is anyone going to go for this? It was a successful Eternals. Yes. Yeah. Right? I'm sure they would love that comparison. Yeah.

Yes. Which, of course, then leads to Ghostbusters, the unsuccessful eternals of this experiment, right? That's an interesting comparison. Yes. A beginning of the end movie, right? Oh, yes. Well, I think it had already,

they were already on the downward slope, but that was a real, yes. Yes. this movie comes out in March released by, as I said before, the Walt Disney company. What are they? Are they like a new indie shingle or something at that time?

Yeah, they're like a utopia. And it's being released right. Catchup entertainment. It's being released by Marvel basically as they are, like, the ink is beginning to dry on their Marvel acquisition, right? Like, when is that? When do they buy Marvel? 2012?

Oh, no, this is the timeline I was going to say, right? So this film is released March 2012. Right. May is the Avengers. Which was, did that movie do? It did, in fact, quite well. Right. I believe...

Almost as good as John Carter. Almost is good. So 2008 is Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk. 2010 is Iron Man 2. And I believe after the release of Iron Man 2, Disney buys Marvel. Now, the original Paramount deal that was similar to the original Pixar Disney, deal. This is a five film slate distribution. You own underlying

rights. Right. Right. Right. Was supposed to be Iron Man, Incredible Hulk. I think Ant Man was supposed to be part of that original five. Iron Man 2 takes that slot. And then... Of course, Incredible Hulk ended up being universal because of them having the original rights.

Thor, Captain America, Avengers. Griffin, it's universal because Hulk is green and universal is our planet, which is also very green. Well, unless we don't take care of it, Like in Wally, President Hulk. There he is. Please salute.

They buy it in 2010. 2011 Paramount releases Captain America and Thor, but Disney now owns Marvel and is starting to message those characters as these are ours, but you still are distributing them. Both of those movies do well, not like absurdly well, but well. And then Disney spends an extraordinary amount of money. In my memory, it was 500 million. to buy Paramount out of Avengers and Iron Man 3. And that was a good deal by.

We can't wait. We just need it now. And Avengers comes out three months after this, two months after this, and just blows the doors off everything. And now it's just like, this is what the future is. It's over. I think that's important context because, you know, we've already alluded to the marketing of John Carter. Yeah. That perhaps offers a potential explanation in that there,

They were already looking at the Avengers. They're distracted. There are a lot of explanations for what went wrong in the marketing of this movie, but it was well sort of discussed. By the time this movie was coming out, Disney didn't need this to be a franchise anymore. Because what's the other thing that happened? In fall of 2011,

Walt Disney completes its purchase of Lucasfilm. That is true. They really, they really, they made a, couple goodbyes. In 2011, Disney buys Marvel and Lucas film, and this movie is just kind of a dead man walking. I'm not saying they like set it up to fail because there was so much money at stake that everyone would have been happier if this had been successful. But already they were sort of like, we have the two surest bets in Hollywood. Right. This is not necessary. And this is coming at the end of a journey that brings you the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. We can't let that fran. We need another action franchise. Jack is back, right? Prince of Persia. Right.

Well, that one legacy is about. The funniest thing Disney Plus did to me when I finished John Carter was shrink the credits and be like, are you ready for Prince of Persian? I was like, buddy, come on. But they really, and Long Ranger. Long Ranger is the other one, which comes after this. They're really looking for that audience. And they've already, as you're saying, they have already acquired the two. locks on that audience.

They couldn't have any bigger lock on that audience. And so, yes, poor John Carter is going, What about me? They kept trying to launch or relaunch something, either their own IP that they had or pull IP from somewhere else that they thought had some history and some built-in audience.

And then they just bought the two things where they were like, you did the work for us. You primed the pump. The audience is there. You made those movies. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmography,

directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want, and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. Rarely has that intro applied more thoroughly to this,

the filmmaker we're discussing, and the film we're talking about today. Is a movie that feels like it has been faded to be discussed on this podcast from the moment we decided this is what the podcast was? This movie bounced similarly to how John Carter can jump.

Correct. Like a great high. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And it is a movie that has become like a historic signpost. A historic signpost in terms of like where franchises went and where blockbusters went or? This is what I think is interesting to discuss.

This movie's release was greeted with a sort of like, well, never again, lessons learned. And I would argue Hollywood continued to basically take the wrong lessons from this movie. and also repeat its mistakes in a lot of ways. I think watching this movie now, a film I kind of defend and enjoy watching, while not wholly successful, it does feel like the world is a little kinder to this film today in contrast

because other movies have gotten so much sloppier in trying to do the same thing. I think it is a largely good-looking movie given this what it's trying to call. but the scale of what it's working with. I do think it's an unsuccessful film. I think it is a on paper just like we stacked up all the little numbers here and it is not successful.

Here's my one counterpoint. Go ahead. I don't think this movie really like functions in the way it wants to. Even though it has moments, it has spurts, the engine will start up and then it will like sputter again. I do find this movie more cohesive in feeling kind of like. there is a vision that is executed here versus what I'd say

a lot of these similar franchise movies that we get today where the story is they reshot all of this three times and you feel it. What are you thinking of? I think like what are you holding it against here? Like basically every No, no, no, no. Name movies. Name movies.

I mean, Rise of Skywalker. No, but okay, no, but that's different. Sequels to me, that's a different kind of mess. I mean, Rise of Skywalker. Can someone please write the tell-all? Can we just get, or can everyone just sit down and be like, I'll admit it. Yeah. It was a completely different movie that was also bad.

Yes. And then we panicked and turned it into that movie. I know none of it makes sense. I'm fully aware. You know what? Let's sit down and watch it and I'll pause and I'll tell you like, yep, this was shot one year after this. And I know that, you know, like, that's completely, I'm trying to think of like the franchise start. All right.

The movie I compared this to the entire time I was watching this time is Avatar. Yeah, because I was basically just like, Avatar makes none of the mistakes and this movie makes most of them. And it is crazy that this film bombed this hard coming out three years after Avatar and is kind of... Really two years, because it's like, when you think about December, March. So it's really just a couple years. It's really still like in the wake of Avatar. It starts production before Avatar is released. Right. It can't watch what they're doing.

Not that copying James Cameron is easy or whatever. I think basically anytime in history a movie is like an out of the box, out of the blue hit that big and the studios rush to find the copycats, it doesn't work. You look at the wave of post Lord of the Rings. Yeah. What else can we adapt? The shit doesn't work. But the fact that it was inevitable, everyone's going to try. A little parallel thinking and they had a movie that could have been sold as like, here's the thing that inspired Avatar.

It's kind of like Avatar. A human guy goes to Earth and romances an alien. You can't find an interview with Andrew Stanton about this movie where either he doesn't. doesn't mention Avatar or someone asks him about Avatar. It's just in the wind. It's unavoidable. It's an highest grossing film of all time at when this movie's coming out. About a fucking guy going on a new planet where he doesn't know the rules.

And he falls in love and it's an epic romance and there's a war of civilizations. And there's tall aliens that are another color. Yeah. Oh, but what he will. And there's an animal like space animals. And what he'll always say is that this avatar was inspired by this. No shit. Yeah.

True. This is so much their, their market. and what his sales pitch to people was, everything you love is inspired by what I made. There's a great quote where, and we'll get into all the previous versions of this movie that almost happened and didn't go all the way back to the 1940s.

Robert Zemeckis, they tried to sell him on doing it for Disney. I think when Zemeckis bought the rights in the 90s. And he hadn't read the books. And I believe either Katzenberg or Eisner gives him the book to read it over. And he gets back to them and he goes, I can't make this. Lucas already plundered everything good from it.

It's totally makes total sense, of course. Like the inspirations. It's kind of like Dune was as well. We're like, yeah, it's hard to crack it when it's already been, like little bits have been taken out of it for all the movies we like. It's their main argument for why they make this movie like an Andrew Stanton. And it is a flawed argument because, yes, it's already been, yes, stripped mind for everything that's good.

And just because something is the first does not necessarily. make it the best, especially when it's made as early as this is in the history of this kind of story. There's a lot of iteration that is helpful. Have any of us, I know Ben's read all of the Barsam series. Have you ever read the... I've read the first book. Right. Which is an iconic sci-fi work.

Sure. But in that way of like, you read it and you're like, it's so interesting how ideas were generated here that get built on by other works and all that stuff. But it's also pretty rough. It's a little rough. And a little weird. There's not a lot of a story. Right.

Right. Which this movie struggles with that by grafting on this, you know, certain elements, which I would assume, having not read the later books, are in the later books. I don't know that they are. They might be a little bit invented. I think it's pretty invented. Yes. I mean, the thirns, another silly word that we're going to have to say a lot.

Yeah, I'm going to say it every two minutes. The thirons are in later books. They are not in the original book. The ninth ray, which is a not silly word, but it sounds silly when they say it a lot. Yes. The ninth ray that in the book is not a, now in this movie, it is like a all, it's like an all consuming death ray. Right. Can do anything.

And in the book, again, maybe in later books it becomes that. In the first book, it is kind of a mcuffin of there's artificial atmosphere on Mars. and the ninth ray is what creates air. Inside an atmosphere factory. These are all things that they took out of the movie. But that is not this like laser that you can zap at people and a magical like glow. The powers are too powerful. I was really struggling with that thing.

This is another huge. You can't do anything with this thing. This is a huge problem with this movie. Yeah. That's a story about shape shifting weirdos. You have an all-powerful ray, which can kill anyone instantly. And the alternate force has a guy who can jump really high. And people are so excited to get John Carter on their side.

Like, literally, there's a scene where, like, where Tars Tarkas is accusing Dejah Thoris. She's like, you want this weapon for yourself, but he fights for the Fox. And you're going, it's like, he's literally a guy who can jump high. He can jump away from battle. He can jump high. He can jump up. And I guess he can kill like 1,000 people if they try to hurt him. If he remembers his dead wife.

Yes, right. If he remembers burying family. Another thing. The opposite of a mother gaining strength when her child is in danger. That's right. He can get stronger if he remembers. This is another thing that's not in the book. The family he didn't.

Totally invented for the movie is to give him a tragic Hollywood backstory of my wife and child were killed. And so, and I no longer want to fight. Right. He doesn't have a cause. In the books, he doesn't, right, in the movie. Yeah. In the book, he not only doesn't have a tragic backstory, he's like, and this is another thing that's in the book that is not in the movie.

He's like, he's almost like a Highlander. He's like immortal. He talks about how like, I don't remember my childhood. I've always been 30 years old. I am as old as, you know, like, I can't age. I've watched other people. But it's also, look, it's like the Superman thing, right? When the character is created, the pitch of, what if a guy was

so fucking awesome was all you needed to get people to lean in. And then Superman, over decades, is iterated to become more relatable and more complex. Let's give him a childhood. Let's give family. Let's make this make sense. And John Carter is still kind of stuck in his original state, which is just, what if a guy fucking ruled? Right. He doesn't need anything going on inside of him. And again, in the Burroughs book, he's, he's a warrior, he can jump. He is strong because of the density of his bones and the Martian, whatever. But he's fighting other people with swords. It's like, you know, it's like, what if we drop this super cool warrior into the middle

of a giant battle? Okay. But in the movie, they're like, what if that was happening? But also, there was death rays. It's like, again, it's just, it's not, it's not even a knife to a gunfight. It's a guy with good legs at a death laser fight. There's stuff where I'm like, he was making the right choices and he didn't get all the way there in terms of like, okay, so how do you?

give this like an emotional spine. In the books, John Carter fights for the South and he's a good soldier. And he's like, well, I can't build a fucking $250 million Disney movie around a like loyal confederate. Right. So let me make it that he fought for the South, but it was against his will and he like defected and was fighting against them. So then it kind of neutralizes him. Well, why is that the case? Because he lost his family in the war so he's become so disillusioned. oh, that means he doesn't want to fight. So once he gets to Barsoom, he's reluctant. And you're like, we're getting there.

Yeah. It could work. Yeah. It's not a terrible idea. I just, yeah. I'm sorry, I'm browsing the encyclopedia of Barsoomia right now, which is, of course, the name of the John Carter Wiki. Yes. But yes.

Did you have to drink magic liquid to understand it? To comprehend this language. We all did. Yeah, that's what was in there. The web slinger. Now we're speaking Barsoomian. The third. I think are very different in the books.

They are, oh, they're not in the first book. They're not in it at all, no. They're introduced later, but they are more just kind of like an old, you know, kind of like ancient Greek style, I think, like the original civilization of Mars. There's also black Martians. There's other races of Martians. Here I feel like we have like green and red, right? That's basically it. And they mentioned, yeah, and they mention the white apes, which I guess are the thing he

fights in the arena. Yeah, those are the big guy, the big monsters. But they're not that important to the story. But the idea that they're like interstellar caretakers, that's not in the books. It's at least not in the first one at all, according to the encyclopedia of Rasmia, it's a Disney film invention. Okay. So are the books still relevant?

What do you mean by relevant? I mean, they're relevant to my life. I try to live my life by their teachings. They're relevant historically. This is a lot of what this movie came up against is like Andrew Stanton was pushing really hard to be like, this is the definitive text. Like, all modern sci-fi adventure storytelling comes from this. Which is true.

Which is right. It's not wrong. The notion of making this, it's not even like Dune where it's like they've never gotten it right. It was no one has ever succeeded in getting to the starting line of making a movie about this. So it's going to be greeted with such excitement of they're finally fucking doing it. Right.

And what he overstated by who? Exactly. Well, there you go. That was the problem they ran into. But yeah, I just like, is this like a thing that sci-fi bands are... This starts out as a story serialized in Pulp Magazines in 1912. So the movie is coming out 100 years after it is published.

This is dusty. It's a lot... June is dusty, but it's dust. Very dusty. I think their notion was everyone's waiting for this. And in reality, what it had become was this is the thing that all of the people who made the sci-fi you actually like grew up reading. Right.

And to general audiences, this only is really of interest to like hard. Big nerds. Or old people, I guess. Yeah. But I'd say like in modern audiences, it was like if you are a voracious reader and you're really interested in the history of science fiction and being able to like retrace the threads back to the beginning. It's sort of like, it's like saying to someone, this. is the video game that inspired it all and then making someone play Pong

in 2026. It's like, okay, it's historically important. An updated Pong with like some backstory. Right. Or would I rather play that or would I rather play my PlayStation? I think I have a clear choice. You knew the ball and Pong had a family that died.

It's like making the Pong movie based off the logic of did you see how much money Super Mario Galaxy just made? Right. That wasn't even the first video game. We're going to make Pong. I love the work of Bruce Coval. I bring it up on this podcast a lot.

The young adult author who did like, aliens ate my homework. Totally. My teacher, funked the planet and all that shit. And he references John Carter of Mars in those books. And it clearly was an inspiration for him. And I would, as a kid, read that. And he'd be like, yeah, and like, you know, my character,

a character would be like, I love John Carter books. Like, the guy who wrote Tarzanum and then I'd be like, that's interesting. never wanted to read it. I definitely. Never like, I knew they existed, but I was never like, I should pluck those off the shelves. I absolutely plucked it off the shelf.

He plucked it. And was like, this is dense. I can't get into this. Right, because it's like a, it's like an early 1900 serial novel. I mean, like, I haven't read the fucking Tarzan books either. No. But Tarzan as a cultural idea persists in a way that John Carter does it. And you'll be in our heart.

Absolutely. That's the thing. Like how many people are reading Tarzan books today? I don't know. but everyone knows what Tarzan is. And John Carter only exists as like the thing that he influenced in the public conscience. I feel like we must open the dossier just because there is reams of context to dig through. On this one, I said it was going to be a short dossier.

There's not much. JJ wants to shout out at the top of the dossier because he used so much stuff is there's a Drew Taylor piece in March 22. The 10-year anniversary. That went through everything in the anniversary. There's also a tad friend profile of Stanton. Second act twist. In October 2011, that's like leading up to the release of John Carter. I cannot strongly enough, and this is the only time I feel like I'm actually issuing homework to our listeners.

It is worth reading both of these things in full. We will pull out strands of them. But the one piece is as the movie's about to come out, and it's sort of talking about Stanton's history, his success up until this point, the trepidation from Disney. You know, it's right at the crossroads, right before the thing finally, like, implodes. And then the 10 years later piece has people speaking very openly in retrospect about everything that happened. We'll have links to both articles in the episode description. But both really well-written thorough pieces. Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author who goes best with, you know, chicken.

Sure. Maybe a steak. If you want steak and rice, you know. I was going to say, call him Ned. Right. Call him Ned. I thought you were talking about the character in this motion picture. What a great character played by the great Daryl Sabara.

Can I reveal something? The Spy Kid, please. Did you audition for this? I did. We got to put it in the can. And this is a movie covered on the show that I auditioned for. Has Sabara beaten you out for multiple roles? I feel like that's come up before.

Oh, boy, that's a good question. Let me look it up while you continue through the dossier. This is the only one I remember. Oh, no, he got the part in fucking, it's complicated. That's what I was cut out. Right. But the one I auditioned for like four times a day. That part was nemesis.

It was, that was very complicated. There was a whole extended scene. the beginning of it's complicated, that was, Merrill Streep hits it off with a guy in a dating app, and then she goes and it's a high school story. Which is a good, good gag. Right. And it was Darryl Savarro was the ultimate. Filming of the movie was pushed back twice

because Nancy couldn't find the right casting for that role and the entire thing was removed. But yes, I audition for that role multiple times. 1912, he releases their stories called Under the Moons of Mars in the magazine All-Star Story, then collected is the novel The Princess of Monarch. Mars in 1917, published after Tarzan, the success of Tarzan. It's kind of his blank-check project.

The story, I think, is before. The story is before. The novel is after. Right. Because it starts serialized. He writes 10 more novels in the Barsoom series after that. Yes. I was just going to say, I think this is the first thing he ever wrote.

He was like he had other odd jobs. Right, right, right, right. And then a princess of Mars in the serialized form was his first thing he wrote. I mean, he wrote so many other. fantasy series that I don't know much about. Like, there's the Pelucidar, where it's just like in a hollow earth kind of series. There's this thing called the Venus series, which is kind of like, you know, you hit it with Mars next up Venus, right?

Like, I haven't read those. So, 1931, Looney Tunes Animator Bob Clampett. Legend. A true legend, so much that even I've heard of him. Yes. Is like, what if we turn these into a cartoon? The Barsoom books, like, they're so popular. And they create test footage a year before the release of Snow White?

Yes. That freaks people out and, like, doesn't get turned into a feature. It's really realistic. The footage is amazing. Because is it, like, rotoscopes? Yes. They were, like, drawing off of live action stuff. You know, Snow White uses a lot of rotoscoping.

Right. Like, the early Disney Princess movies, until they start getting more stylized with, like, Sleeping Beauty and such. Most of the human characters would be rotoscoped. and then, you know, the animals and the dwarves and everything were more style. It looks unbelievable. Yeah. It was kind of so technically ahead of what anyone was doing at the time.

And it's one of those things since it was before Snow White, where you're like, if that's completed, does it kind of change the trajectory of animation to some degree? Because you have the 2000s, late 90s, early 2000s run that also I feel like is relevant to this movie of like Atlantis, Treasure Planet. Yeah, right. Tidney E. Pulpy, cereal. Where they were like, can we use animation to make cool shit for boys?

Yeah, with like a sort of a steam punky. How do we break out of it just being princess musicals? And it is like 2D animation because of Snow White and the impact becomes princess musicals

and talking animals primarily is what is thought of. But yes, the Clampett tests are unbelievable. They're very cool. You can check out in YouTube there's little bits and pieces.

Yeah, very cool. Bob Clampet just want to shout out created Beanie and Cecil. which was one of my favorite cartoon shows as a kid, an old dusty cartoon show that was based on what used to be a local TV puppet show he did when he was young. Old dinosaur. And the Clampett family, like,

puts out Beanie and Cecil DVD compilations because I think they own the rights. And that's how I first found out that he tried to do John Carter, because the DVD just had, like, 30 minutes of John Carter shit in the special features, including those tests. Ray Harrihausen in the 50s supposedly expressed some interest

in, like, a stop motion bar soon thing. does make sense. Seems like his kind of thing. Also never really gained much momentum. My guess is that every time, like the enormous amount of money would be required even for something animated or stop. People would just kind of be like, I think this is too weird. This is what fells it until Stanton does it. But you look at like, animation is the only way you could do this.

You couldn't do it in live action, right? They missed the window for animation. Now the idea of doing a serious, realistic action movie and animation is unfathomable in the 30s, 40s, 50s, right? Harryhausen creates, you know, his style of. stop motion special effects and how to blend it with live action. Okay, this makes sense. This is a way you could possibly adapt these.

He can't crack it. And now it's like on the table again until effects evolve in the 80s. In the 80s, right, Mario Casar and Andrew Vanya, the Caroleco guys, bring it to Disney. Yeah. Katzenberg is young at Disney. Yeah. He wants to do it. The flies Charles Pogue and Tales from the Crips Terry Black, these are screenwriters.

take a shot. Katzenberg basically is like, we want this to be our Star Wars. Yeah. And this is Katzenberg and Eisner coming in after Disney has had the failed run of Black Holtron, et cetera. Black says, you know,

they wanted the story to be dramatic. The book has this very leisurely pace. And, you know, we just clashed a lot over, like, how much of the book do you throw out? Ted Elliott and Terry Rosio, who are like kings of Disney in the 90s, they took a crack at it.

John McTurnon and Tom Cruise starts circling in 1990, brings in Bob Gale. Gale is then replaced by Sam Resnick, who had written a TV Robin Hood that McTurna had produced. Okay. Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts were supposedly courted to start. I don't know how intensely involved they were. But in 1990, the pitch of Zemeckis Gale-Roberts-Cruz makes perfect sense. You can, like, imagine the alternate reality where that movie exists.

Definitely. But McTiernan wisely and quickly is like, this is just too expensive. We can't pull this off yet. And then very wisely is like, I'll make Last Action Hero. Yes. That'll go.

That'll go great for me. That one will be easy. Carole Co goes bankrupt. Then Jim Jacks, James Jacks, Kevin Smith's buddy. Yep. We've invoked on this podcast. Sure.

And Harry Knowles. I guess is a huge fan of this. Yes. And in his biography, kept talking about what an influence it was for him. He like beats the drum for it. And this is when Harry Knowles is still seen as... He's got the nerve touch. He has the magic touch.

He can see what they want. Beyond the idea that he's a kingmaker, there was this thing of, if Harry Knowles is saying it, does it mean that there are millions of silent nerds we don't realize are dying for this movie? He speaks for the internet. This starts to create the false sense, Ben, to your earlier question of, are people waiting for this. Who wants this?

No, but like, do we not realize it that everyone wants this? Yes. So, yes, Jim Jacks. Jim Jacks brings in

Mark Protosevic, I think he's his name, the guy who wrote the cell. He was kind of like a hot guy back then. Robert Rodriguez is going to direct it. Robert Rodriguez has resigned from the DGA

because of Sin City. And let's call out, here's the other technological breakthrough. They're like, oh. He wants to do his Sin City thing. Green Screen.

Is this a way to make this fucking work now, can you do green screen, stylize, build an extensive world without having to build crazy sets and photorealistic aliens or whatever? Paramount doesn't want to work with him for this reason.

He's not in the DGA. So they fire him, and who makes sense is the obvious next choice? We'll get to him, but I do want to note the thing that Matt said already. If they do throw it, Jacks does throw it to Zemeckis, and Zemecas does say the thing of

like George plundered these. Like there's nothing left. So then, yes, Carrie Conron. Carrie Conron, Ben, of course, you know. Ben loves Carrie Conron. No, he doesn't know. What's your favorite Kerry Conron from? What's up? The look of fear.

Is a man who has directed one and only one film. And it is a movie called Sky Captain in the World of Tomorrow. Have you heard of it? No. Gay! I'm shocked. It was a green screen, all green screen movie, Ben. It was like the future.

People were like, you don't need sets anymore. Right. Couple movie stars, a bunch of crazy visual effects. He got like Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie. For a week, he shot it in like a warehouse in Texas. It's like a steampunk art deco, like 30s sort of... Is it the ghost of Lawrence Olivier who also shows up? It's a movie I have a tremendous fondness for.

It is unbelievably boring but weirdly compelling. I find it so boring. It's so boring. I've been using it recently. I said this to you in a text. I've been using it to help myself all asleep. And it's really effective on that front. It's used by hospitals around the world for that. But it like looks gorgeous.

10 Cs of SkyCaptains. It's that. It's basically like, what if you made a 1940s movie with CGI? It's trying to be sort of like melodramatic and it's like an old school version of the future. But it is deathly boring. But when it was, it was independently produced short film. One producer is like, fuck, this is the future. He bankrolls, I think it was John Avnet, bankrolls it.

Sure. They then sell it to Paramount later off of like test footage. But he'd already gotten the actors because part of the pitch was like, I only need a couple million dollars up front to get the actors for a week to do the green screen stage. We'll do some of the animation. We'll show it to people.

They'll give us the money to finish it. Paramount is like, this is the future of movies. You can just do it in an afternoon. Digital backlog. And it bombs. You just have to sit in this chair with like an old-timey hat on your head. Yeah.

That's your whole part. Your performance definitely won't seem disengaged. Yes. But it is a movie that bombs really hard. And this guy, before its release is announced as he's going to direct John Carter, which makes perfect sense. They're like, here's another kind of retro futuristic thing. And he figured out this way to make it cheaper.

And a lot of it is like him and his buddies and his brother who know how to do the effects themselves. And he's on the movie for a while. And then when he falls off at this film, he's like never discussed again. No, that's the end of him. I mean, he's still around, I assume. Yeah, what happened to him? It goes to John Favreau after that, who brings in Mark Fergus, who wrote Children of M. Favro changes the whole.

Favro makes a ton of sense for it. Favro is similar to Rodriguez, like, I'm ready to make my big tent pole epic. I want to make my serious kind of blockbuster adventure film. And he supposedly loves it like Stanton. He likes the books. He's obsessed with the books. I wanted to do it forever.

And he's starting to swing back to like, guys, we're not doing fucking virtual backlog shit. We're building sets. He wants practical makeup. He wants, yeah. He's a director aspiration to eventually do the epic, right? That's a thing.

Yeah. And then you want to make your Cubano. No, but all these guys are like, I want to make my Star Wars. The way I felt seeing Star Wars as a child and my world exploded, can I make my version of that for the next generation? Can I complete the circle? And it makes a lot of sense that for many of these guys, they're like, can I do that also with the book that made me feel that way when I read it?

But this has also got the sword and sandal thing. It does have all that. Old school. It does. It does indeed. His script combines the first three books, Princess of Mars, the gods of Mars, the warlords of Mars.

Which those were going to be Stanton's three movies in his trilogy. Sounds great. Which he was definitely going to make, too. He talks a lot about that. Development slows. John Fevero decides to make Iron Man. Okay, good luck with that.

A man made of iron? He's just like, Can he jump really high? Yeah, right. How does he even jump? But truly, like, Paramount is just like dragging their feet. on giving him a green light. And he's like, I want to make something. And like the Iron Man like sort of beacon lights up the sky. And he goes off and does that. And it's the most

successful version of what he wanted to do. Right. Now. And he levels up big time. Andrew Stanton, as we've mentioned on this podcast, a very serious father who's like basically a rocket scientist defense department like radar guy. He was into like old hard sci-fi stuff and gave his son John Carter novels, among other things. Stanton grew up loving these books. You know, in high school, he said his friends would call them his romance novels. Like, he was always reading his John Carter books. He was supposedly a fan of the Marvel comic.

That was how he first discovered it. The 70s, John Carter Warlord of Mars comic from Marvel that came out for a couple of years and is like all set in the space of the first book. It's sort of like the continuing adventures of John Carter. Marve Wolfman and Gil Cain. It's a good looking book. I had never read it myself. I had never read it myself. It's kind of before my time and hasn't been reprinted, really.

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

He probably saw that before Star Wars. It was good. Yes. He probably, he probably liked it. I like this, he thinks, watching Star Wars at the age of 12. But just when you're talking about filmmakers seeing this and going, I want to make my Star Wars and it's going to be this. For him, they're like inextricably linked from the beginning in his mind. He has both awakenings maybe within the same year.

Yes, it's literally a stretch of like six months or something. Yeah. It's like the way your fetishes develop. You know, it's like these things just imprinted on him simultaneously. Alienware's back-to-school event is the perfect time to score top gaming gear with incredible features and Intel core processors to go beyond performance. Lord knows I'm stressed about returning to school. You can save big on gaming desktops, laptops, and more. Start your Alienware journey with the Alienware 15 gaming laptop featuring Intel core processors.

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He's like, I don't have an idea for another animated movie. I feel a little stuck. But he does kind of know that John Carter is floating around there. Paramount's basically, yeah, about to let the rights lapse. Yes. Favreux departs. Yeah. And Stanton sort of swoops in and pitches them like, look, I got to.

nothing to lose here. I don't need another paycheck right now. You know what I mean? Like he's got the kind of the swagger of like, I think also like it's about to fall into the public domain at this point maybe like we're getting to you know.

It's close. It's like if you don't start making one now then anyone could make one. But it also means like this is the last moment where you have to pay a bunch of money to make one before it doesn't cost anything. I think his point is sort of like if this goes into the public domain,

Asylum is going to make a $2 million version of this tomorrow. They will flood the zone, right? They did do that. But he's making this pitch to Disney, where he goes to, like, the higher-ups of Disney and basically says, there's a jump ball here to take the final crack at doing the definitive origin of American sci-fi correctly. Yeah, he's saying to them, like, this is to be serious. Yeah. You know. Well, he says you should get it.

And I would, I'm so serious, I would even do it. Right. And he's, you know, he's already kind of, I guess he hasn't fit. like Wally hasn't come out at this point. But finding Nemo... Was the highest grossing film Disney had ever released. Right. So that's an appealing. It holds a lot of weight.

And, you know, even if they don't know that Wally is going to work, Wally is good. Indeed, they are interested. They want him happy, as he says. One might even say he has a bit of blank track. I was... I was in my mind. Zemeckis, of course, as we said, had said, like, I think George Lucas kind of picked this clean. Things like Conan the Biberian are.

cited as, you know, being influenced by it. This film mentioned it already, Avatar. Stanton does not agree. He says, no one's copied it. It's just inspired things. Like, it's, you know, there's plenty of meat on the bone. He's a little right in that the exact mix of the elements has not been brought to screen. Like, you bring up the swords and sandals thing. Yeah.

That's the trickiest part of the equation. But if you can pull off that juxtaposition, rather than pick the elements clean and like separate them. And you haven't seen a lot of guys jumping like this. You have no. Yeah, but you know what though? I really kept thinking about Attack of the Clones. Which has, obviously the Jedi's do-be jumping like fleas.

It feels very bar-sumly. The genosis stuff, the sort of like the fighting pits, the weird creatures. You know, like it does kind of feel like we've seen this before. Now, that doesn't mean this movie can't be a hit. But Attack of the Clones is fully 10 years before. I mean, this is why I. fucking stick up for Attack of the Clones. Is Attack of the Clones is so strange as like his swords and sandals epic, also his noir homage.

Like he just takes three different genres he likes and is like, what if I can fucking like backstop them into Star Wars and a middle chapter? They don't hang together. That's otherwise. No, they don't hang together. Unlike John Carter. It's like a closet where you open someone's closet up and you're like, what is your sense of fashion?

Why do you have Hawaiian shirts and tuxedos? Right. This is weird. But I mean, look, Attack of the Clones obviously just has like the most hard-boiled incredible narrative and like the kind of characters like Dexter Jets I have a receipt Who bought these clones I have a laundry ticket

We already recently I do just love to litigate it all the time of like If I just showed up to a planet in a brown robe They would be like the clones are ready for you No further questions Yeah we've been waiting You don't need to prove who you are you do not need to even seem to know what we're talking about

like, huh? Yeah. And they're like, yes, the clones, remember? Yeah. Anyway. You're going to need a bigger ship to take them out of here. You are going to need, right, some large ships. But attack of the clones, even, 10 years old by the time this movie comes out.

So Stanton writes the script with Mark Andrews, who has worked on other Pixar stuff, Incredibles, Radatooie. He ends up directing Brave after Brenda Chapman is fired. Brave comes out this same year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then Michael Schabon, who has the other credit on this, comes in, and I feel like Schabin had done a lot of work on Spider-Man 2, of course. And he's another guy who supposedly, yes, and loved another, like, huge John Carter fan, supposedly.

Most of his Spider-Man 2 work was thrown out. By all accounts, they made a big, splashy announcement because Cavalier and Clay was so big. He was so hot. And it was comics-related. Like, Hollywood loves when they're like, oh, my God, there's a genius who likes, quote-unquote, low art. Yes. And appreciates it. What low art do we have that we can give to him to hire a high-flute man to

make our big blockbuster. So they make this big announcement that he's doing Spider-Man too throughout almost all of his work and then bring in Alvin Sargent to basically do with the movie. Pretty much right. His version was about like Doc-Ock cucking Spider-Man.

Doc-Ock was like young and sexy. Keep talking. I'm interested. I mean, Shabon is especially because he then went to Star Trek and people hate what he did at Star Trek too much. Yes, I do think he often is like, I have a really different big-brained idea

and it will bump against people being like, we were kind of looking for like, you know, the USS Enterprise to go to a planet, maybe have an adventure. He's like, you're not interested in all this stuff I'm thinking about? But Spider-Man is too. Two is huge. Arguably the greatest comic book movie of all time.

And his name is there in a big credit. He had also written a spec screenplay called The Martian agent that was essentially a hodgepodge of John Carter's stories, which he loved, as we say. You know, like so he also was working on a show with Darren Aronofsky called Hobgoblin that was a World War II show about magic. That sounds kind of cool. For HBO? This sounds kind of cool. Hey, Ben, what do you mind slinging me another web? Gross. Wow.

Wow. All this talk about Spider-Man, too, made you got a little parched, huh? Thinking about Doca cucking Spidey, makes me want to have another cup. So, like, Stanton, Andrews, Shabon all love John Carter. You know what I mean? They're all working together with love

for the books. And they're all, it sort of feels like three little boys in a clubhouse being like, can we relocate what we loved about this. Will that be infectious? Could it have benefited maybe from someone coming in who's like, I love sci-fi adventure movies? I don't love John Carter or know about it. So maybe I can help you put it on.

No, polite decline. We're good. I have non-Spiter Man coffee that I'm actually. 2009 Star Trek, that was kind of the whole strategy. Abrams delivered a movie for you that basically will make Star Trek fans happy, although not all of them. They're never happy. But that like kind of swerved away from the, you know,

But between Kurtzman, Orsi, and Abrams, you have three different levels of Star Trek fandom. Super nerd, casual nerd. I don't know what Star Trek is. Can we have the Bonifides and also make it feel approachable? Abrams is like, you had me at Star, lost me at Trek. Yeah. Let's just go back to Star. For now, I'll take Trek until something better comes along after Star.

The frontrunner for the role of John Carter was an actor named Taylor Kitch. Mm-hmm. Who gets the role. Now, we have fought on this a little bit. Let's fight you. where I feel like you bring up Taylor Kitch as the ultimate Gabbo where the industry was like, this guy, we're telling you it's this guy,

and you are... To me, this movie has two Gabbo's, although Kitch is obviously a huge one. Yes. Who's Gabbo? Well, Gabbo is from the Simpsons, remember... Gabbos. But, you know, just kind of that, like,

Taylor Kitch, the big star. You know, they do this all the time. Hollywood, you know... Right, that they put up billboards that just say the word, Gabbo. They're insistent. He is the man. We love him.

Industry plant, kind of. Whatever. I mean, Colin Farrell suffered from this. Yes. It's more like the... A guy has a little juice and they're like... The industry is so preoccupied on convincing you that they're already a thing. Why are you?

So what's your... And they think... Well, I feel like you have argued he is the ultimate. There was nothing there and they sort of just like picked him and pushed him around. No, I have definitely not argued that because I love Friday Night Live. Right. So there's no way I've argued that. That's the thing. Like, because I feel like the 2010s have a lot of Gabbo's, right?

The one who I truly think of is the ultimate. is Travis Fimmel. Yes. Yes. This is, I feel like the argument we've had in the past. When he shows up in Warcraft, I'm like,

I keep reading that fucking all these people can't justify a hundred million dollar budget. And this guy's the lead? He's on the A&E Viking show. You just got a guy who also has worn armor? It was on the history, Jane.

I'm sorry. Take it back. But Taylor Kitch has the sort of like Buzzy supporting, Swoonie James Dean-esque bad boy role. He was good. Friday night lights. My brother and my mother

are obsessed with that show. Travis is almost just one of those guys where you're like, you're telling me he wasn't on Sonsonanarchy? Like they're like, no, Vikings. You're like, but come on,

he's got a big old beard. He's got a bald head. I think the whole pitch on Travis Femmel was he feels like a biker but we can put him in like armor with a sword. He'll bring the biker to the Viking.

Tim Riggins, Taylor Kitch's, Tim Riggins. So the Friday Out Lights runs 06 to 11. And obviously it was never a hit show. It was always struggling for life. It was always critically acclaimed. Yeah. He was always the sexiest of the boys on it.

And he's got the part that feels like the best show reel to be a Hollywood leading man. Tortured, Daddy issues. Remember my brother? He's Dylan from 902 and O. The Hong we all needed this. My brother and my mom watching the show every week would just be like, God, this guy is such a movie star. Like, when is someone going to, you know, crack it? And I feel like I first saw him in.

I mean, in a movie in X-Men Origins Wolverine. Like, I know he's in like the covenant and, what's it called the snakes on a plane. No, but that was the real, but like, those are little roles. Where Hollywood was like, we've taken notice. He's going to have a small part in this. But like it's a coveted role. A coveted role that could be bigger for him. It's like the Apatow thing you were talking about.

We're going to give him a little part here. 10 hot minutes. Right. And you're going to fall in love with him. And then we're going to give him his own thing. I mean, that movie has. Do we think he's good in X-Men Arginz Wolverine? A terrible movie.

Being okay. He's all right. He's maybe one of the acceptable parts of an ungodly bad movie. Maybe the least offensive parts of that movie. I mean, the movie does the same thing with him and Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds, at opposite parts of the film. Right. Deadpool leads it off. He is in the middle.

Where it's like, we've picked a star that we think is about to pop. Right. We're calling dibs on a character. We're placing the intent on the board. A big known character. And we're testing out how much you like this. And the rejection of both is so huge that it like sets back Deadpool and Ryan Reynolds has to spend the next five years of his life pushing it back up hill. But then someone leaked that footage.

I wonder who could be. A mystery that shall never be solved. I remember like the Comic-Con footage of him is Gambit where he's got the staff and he goes like, you know, he like jumps and like, and people go out like, wow. And then you saw the movie and they were like, oh, by the way, that's the only thing he goes in the movie. Like, sorry. He throws some cards. 90% of his screen time is seated behind a poker table, and then he gets up at the end, twirls the staff once,

throws some cards, goodbye game. That's all I remember. Right. Remy LeBoe. But you were like, okay. He holds the screen. He's not bad. He gave good gambit.

The movie sucks, but obviously no one's not his fault. He's not against him. And Hollywood goes like, that's all we need to see. Off to the races. And he books three giant movies, basically, back to back to back. all of which come out in 2012 then which was maybe if I'm his agent I'm sweating a little bit about that in the span of four months in chronological order John Carter in March battleship in May which of course we've covered on our Patreon and then Oliver Ston's savages in July was that July let's see yeah so when he's doing press for John Carter they're like you're the guy he's the lead of all three movies he's the guy in all three movies and all the presses like Well, you're here promoting John Carter, but really, this is about the year of kitsch. By the end of this year, everyone will agree.

It's getting kitsy. You're the biggest movie star alive. Things are getting kitsy. He has made five films total since then. Right. Like, obviously he's done TV and he's done some other stuff, you know, but like, he has been in five movies since then. American Assassin. That's one?

A movie you've watched many times, Ben? Once. Okay. And I just was struck by how he's the sort of secondary. He's the sort of secondary. rashy it was. Yeah. It's Keaton's the...

No, it's Dylan O'Brien. I haven't seen. Keaton's the mentor. Dylan O'Brien's the hero. Kitch is the former assassin who went bad? Is that right? I think so.

Okay. I haven't seen it. But wait, I'm struggling to even name the other four. There's one you won't know. Four of them are real movies. Four of them are real movies, but he's not the lead in any of them.

He's supporting parts and all. Yes. I feel like there was one thing I remember seeing him in where I was like, oh, he's pretty good. There's a movie, a Canadian movie called Don McKellar called The Grand Sanker.

seduction with him and Brendan Gleason. I've not seen, though. Never heard of it. Okay. Don't know anything about it. There's a big war movie that he's like the secondary lead in that was a huge hit. Oh, Lone Survive. Right.

Which that movie feels like it was Peter Berg doing a like, can I save Emil Hirsch? Can I save Taylor Kitch? Like, bring these guys back. There's an extremely good movie that he's quite good in, although he's not a lead. He's part of the ensemble. There was a giant bomb from a great director that was a disaster movie, real true story movie. Oh, only the brave. Right. Where he's, again, like a lone survivor,

one of the guys. Yeah. But he's good in it. Yeah, but it was a giant bomb. It was a giant bomb. And then there is somewhat forgotten cop drama that was pretty good. It's not the Chadwick Boseman one? It sure is. Sixteen bridges. Keep going. You need more bridges.

24? Down? 21. There he. Where I think, I have seen I think he might be the villain. I can't remember. But like, you know, he's just like, hey, I'm off Mr. Good guy. I'm following up on the case. I have a few questions.

I'll see you later. Watch out of that guy. He is allergic to the idea of being the center again. Understandably. He doesn't want that weight on him. And all of them are variations on the former golden boy. In his defense, obviously, he did do True Detective Season 2, which I mean, it was like, you know, another kind of weird blank check bounce. But, like, you know, he wasn't.

He was in the Unabomber show? He was David Koresh in the Waco show. Right, right. That's what it was. And he's been in a bunch of other stuff. He's in that Chris Pratt showed the terminal list that everyone's always talking about. But you get the sense, understandably, that the experience of 2012 kind of shook him to his core. Wow.

And he takes tentative steps now. Totally. I just found out that he is the lead character in a terminal list spinoff called Dark Wolf. Dark Wolf. Terminalist is really doing so well that we need a spin-off? Like, are we sure? People want to see the Dark Wolf. how do you think he is in this movie?

I mean, to be clear, again, like Stanton loved him in Friday Night Lights, thought he kind of, because he has the hair in Friday Night Lights, thought he kind of matched the sort of classic kind of paintings of John Carter and the old paperbacks and stuff. Yeah.

And just was kind of like, this is my guy, even though I think there was some discussion of like, you sure we don't want to like call Tom Cruise? There's all this weird reporting of Tom Cruise being interested in the film It is confirmed that Stanton met with Tom Cruise a few times. But the time line of it is weird.

Cruz campaigned for the job. Right. And Stanton says he met with him. I have, that feels impossible to me in terms of like, if Cruz had gone to, you know, Disney and said,

like, I would like to play John Carter. I imagine Disney would have said yes. But maybe not. It's kind of a weird period for him. It was a weird period for Cruz. Yeah. Where it's like,

yes, it would help to have a name above your title, but also he costs so much. He's expensive. And it's going to take over. super expensive. Like a big portion of your profits. This is pre-Ghost Protocol,

which kind of reset the cruise narrative. So it's the kind of the weird cruise. The most successful version of Pixar director goes to live action. That is true. Which comes out the year before this. Like, it's also weird that you're like, the things that you feel would have encouraged Disney to Greenlight this hadn't actually happened yet.

Avatar hasn't come out. Ghost Protocol hasn't come out. Right. You're like, the math retroactively, you're like, it must have been. they looked at those two things and said, sure. I think the other thing is Stanton's like, we wanted a young actor because the idea is we're making a series here, right?

We need somebody who can make three of these over the next 10 years. I also feel like the implication has always been that Cruz kind of came to him late, that either Kitch had already been cast or he had his eye on Kitch. He had certainly done all the screen testing because there was like Josh Damell and Chantatim, all the people you'd assume were in that pot. And then Cruz kind of like swept in and was. like, what about me? And because he was so focused on the trilogy thing,

he's like, am I going to have to make, like, a third movie with a 60-year-old cruise? Certainly a 60-year-old cruise. He's surely not going to be making action movies at that point. His body will decompose. Lynn Collins also says, like, everyone I tested against was, like, a kits-aged actor. Right.

Like, if Cruz was involved, it was not what people were. Yeah, I read something where Stanton was talking about, like, at first I was like he's too young, but then I looked back at, you know, the ages of Harrison Ford when he made Star Wars and people, like that. And they were always younger than he than you think they were.

Right. And so he felt like he could carry it off. He had the gravitas or whatever. But Okay. Can we... Having said that... Can we talk about the performance for a little bit? I know we got more context to get into. But you asked the question. I think it's a good question. Like, is Taylor Kitch good as John Carter in the film

John Carter, which was a Disney release in 2012, directed by Andrew Stanton? I think it like... His performance half works. I think it works in spurts, like the movie itself, right? And I think it's a weird case where you're like, historically at this time, a man of his age would have experienced a lot of life and could be kind of hardened and broken down by said experiences. But to see him in a 2012 movie, you're like, this guy's too young. Yeah.

I don't buy this guy having the kind of like war wounds and emotional damage. It doesn't jibe with his backstory. No. You're right. Yeah. I think he's kind of good at the charming swashbuckling thing. I think he has moments where he does the Indiana Jones thing well. I think anytime the movie wants him to sell the haunted and the sort of weary,

he can't quite sell it. And I do think he's fundamentally too modern. I think he, I mean, I was another person. I love Friday Night Lights. Love that show. My wife and I watched every episode. And he was good on that show. He was very good.

But I think what he was doing on that show was like almost, and I don't mean this like insultingly, like it was almost nothing. It was a lot of just, like, presence. He didn't have to, he was just standing there looking incredible and being handsome. He had emotional moments, but, like, the emotions of that show were carried more by, like, obviously, Zach Guilford, you know, like, by other actors. Yeah. And I just think he was good in stillness, let's say.

And in this movie, I don't know, he's, it just feels like he's trying so hard. I feel him trying, whereas, like, Friggins is so like kind. Yeah. Yeah. And this character, and I don't know about anybody else, but in this room, but every time he speaks, there's something very affected about his voice. And the voice that he's using, you know, it's almost like he's like trying to do John Wayne or something. It's got a bit of Tug Speedman where it feels like the way you parody an action star rather than an actual effortless action star. You know, like there's that one of the scenes that like half works very well in this movie is his first.

first encounter with Tars Tarkas. You have Willem Diffo, who's very good and very funny locked in. He is locked in. I mean, like, he's done it many times. He can just, he's just good at this shit. And he's doing the alien voice and Tars, Tarkas. You know, like, Ben, Aquaman, he's good at this role, right? Like, how many times has he done this? For your knowledge, Ben, this is Defoe on set, like, on the stilts with a mochape rake over his head. And like, DeFoe, who loves challenges and technical exercises and whatever is like walking and stilts in the desert. He's not just walking. In some scenes, he's like running and they have guys.

I found like footage behind the scenes of him. He has a guy literally dressed from head to toe covered completely in green. Whose job it is is to just make sure he doesn't topple over as he's running full speed as extras. Yeah. Brandishing his sword. But in this scene, he's doing the, you know, like Tars, Tarkis, suck, do this. And he's tall. And he's great.

Virginia. Yes. You're Virginia. Yes. You're Virginia. Hilarious. And then they cut to the other side and it's Taylor Kitch going, you know, like, what's going on, man?

Captain John Carter, Virginia. He doesn't quite bump on me as hard as he seems to be buckling on you. I don't know. I don't love it. I am dootar, so jack. You're saying the presence and the stillness thing, what's tricky about these types of movies and why it's always really tough to be like, well, we need a young lead because we want to build a franchise, but that also means we're placing someone into this type of film who has limited experience.

Yes. Even if you've worked a lot, it's like, how often have you been the lead? How big has the project you're in the lead been? And now you're on like a shoot where you might for two or three consecutive weeks have one line of dialogue. Something like shooting the white ape sequence is like so many tiny little pieces where I do think you kind of. of want to cast for presence, ideally want Harrison Ford. You want someone who's equally good at selling the dialogue scenes and the character and the comedy, but also if you're getting in the technical action pieces, every one of those is going to have an energy and a presence and not just be a guy hitting choreography.

But there is an additional problem here with him, which actually is not his fault. It is the conception of the character, which is that they cast this incredibly handsome, striking man to play a shockingly frequent like focus of ridicule especially in the beginning of this movie

they you know the tug speedman thing is kind of funny because they almost do cast him as like this bumbling comic like loon

this boom so much especially at the beginning of the movie is making fun of him they literally they like put him they treat him like a baby like they discover

the Martian babies he is baby bouncing baby They put him in a diaper. They put him in a diaper. They put him in a diaper. They put him in a bat of alien. Is it come? I don't know what it is.

Who knows? I feel like you were burning to say something, Sims. Oh, I'm not sure. Oh, well, Sam Worthington, right? Again, I can't help it, but I do think it's vital when we're talking about Taylor Kitch because Sam Worthington's the same play. Yes. Even a less known guy.

Yeah. You kind of just need to be. Hold the center. A little regular. Hold the center. Be relatable. Yeah. Have a little personality.

You will be blue often, like, unlike Taylor Kitch. Although Taylor Kitch briefly is blue in this movie. He is blue. When he comes out of the white ape. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I do think Sam Worthington is better.

Why is that? I don't think like Sam Worthington is incredible in Avatar or anything, but like, is it just that he has like a little bit more good humor and like that kind of vibes? They don't make him dress and act like a baby. No, sure. I mean, he does wear a, you know. There's so much.

It's just, you've just, you've. this guy who's so cool and I don't think of as a comedic actor. And then like as soon as he's on Mars, it's all shtick. Actually, before Mars, his introduction with with, with Cranston. With Cranston is like him jumping out of windows, peeing on the ground. It's all schick. See, this is a, your mileage may vary thing. But I felt this at the time and rewatching it was pleasantly surprised.

I think he sells the comedy better than I would imagine. I wouldn't say he's funny in this. But I also think if we're looking at Worthington, Honum, Headland, right? Right, right. The guys in this area. So, right. Hunnam is, I mean, like Pacific Rim, I guess. Yes.

And King Arthur later. Right. Headland is, you know, Tron Legacy. Which I like that performance in that movie. But a lot of people didn't really. And is a similar kind of swaggery, like, is there a little bit of Marlon Brando wild one? Is there a little bit of cheeky humor in this? That's what they're trying to get.

A modern. They don't want a guy playing stoic sci-fi. hero. I think what works for Worthington is that Cameron kind of set him up to succeed in the inverse of how Stanton a little bit set kitsch up to fail. In Avatar, he's like, kind of the point is that you're the boring guy. Kind of the point is that you're just like a personalityless marine. And then we'll build the humanity in later. There's a, we didn't talk about this in at Dead Poets Society, but then I saw someone on the Reddit call it out that Hawk did this interview where he said, Weir was really smart about casting for the final color.

And what he meant by that was. Yes, yes. We can't believe we didn't bring this up. I know. But that like in Dead Poet Society, you're like weird. You're having Hawk play like the timid guy, not Robert Sean Leonard's part where he's like the artsy, ambitious, you know, passionate guy. And he said, you want to cast for the final color.

Robert Sean Leonard will ultimately get you to the suicide scene where you need. to. That's his wheelhouse. And it will feel explosive when that part of him comes out. Likewise, when Hawk gets on the desk and finally is passionate, overly earnest, Ethan Hawk, that will be explosive. Right? And I think there was a little

bit of Cameron casting for the final color, which is just like, have Jake Sully be a little bit of a blank. And then what Worthington is good at is kind of the earthy, earnest, I care, romance thing, which is like casting him off of fucking Somersault and shit, right? Right? But you're also

really not asking him to be funny. You're making him the joke, but in a kind of lower level way, and you're letting all the other characters pop around him. Yes. The secret to that movie is it's, Natiri is really driving everything. And we're good. And they cast that. We'll talk about the rest of the ensemble in a second and all that. That does matter a lot. I think what Stan really wants is the Indiana Jones thing. Yeah. And you saying that the movie is constantly embarrassing him, it's the thing that at this point in time, I think Hollywood filmmakers are pointing at a lot. We're getting a lot. of blank, generic, kind of stoic heroes. And what people are forgetting is that Han Solo and Indiana Jones fucked up a lot.

They were funny. They weren't just cool all the time. Sure. And a lot of it was watching them finesse a situation and feeling the struggle of, are they going to be able to pull this off? Yeah. Well, Ford's really good at the I'm one plan ahead at best kind of like on the fly. He's always scrambling.

And then you watch him trip, but then you watch him recover. Right. And this is a movie that builds it. in those moments of mid-battle, John Carter being like, you know, the moment that I felt like was really big in the trailer of the white ape, the second and third white apes coming out and cutting to him sighing. Yeah. Of like, oh, this is a guy who has vulnerability.

He's stressed out that he's in this movie. I don't butt up against that as much as, as much as just how goofy some of the things they, I mean, he's literally like, it's wearing a diaper. You're describing a problem that the movie has in general of it can't quite reconcile the goofiness and the epicness that well. And the tragic weight. Kitch also doesn't work at the end of the movie when he's like, my master plan is being revealed and I am still just like, you just kind of feel 29 years old to me.

I do love the ending and the ending. I don't mind the concept of the ending. I just don't think he is. I think he kind of sells it. I'm a little hotter in this performance than you, even though it doesn't totally work. Again, to me, it's like it's an interesting way to conceive the character. Because it's not from the books, you know, as much as Stanton loves the books. The books are not about this guy having these wacky adventures.

This is grand epic romance. No real person. And the books are very serious. Yes. And, you know, like grand. And here we have all this stick. And it almost feels like, and I don't know this, but it's just like, well, we're making a movie based on this thing from the 19 teens. Maybe we want to give it a little like silent comedy flavor.

You know, there's almost kind of like a. Yeah. When he's bumbling around in the desert, you're right, there's a little Buster Keaton. There's a Buster Keaton kind of a thing, for sure. He's in the desert, bumbling around, trying to stand. Let's also acknowledge he's running straight from this into Wally, right?

Like, he gets Disney to buy the rents to this while he's finishing Wally. This is what I was going to say. And he's going into production on this a year and a half after Wally is released. Like, these things are like overlapping. And Wally, as we covered last week, he's just mainlining Lloyd Chaplin. key. Right.

Like, they said at Pixar every week they would screen those movies. They'd rewatch them. They were obsessively studying the type of hero. And as he said, what he learned with Wally is, the emotional arc isn't the guy. It's the way he changes the world around him. I think you can feel that in this movie. I had a lot of success. People loved Wally.

They loved that the way that I kind of imbued that character with that silent comedian energy. Yeah. And it seems to be here as well. And I just don't think it fits this movie The way it fit that movie Especially with Taylor Kitch As your guy. A guy that I like. A guy that I was Excited to see in this movie.

He says He regrets that he didn't do enough personally. He didn't give everything he had. He kind of sounds like an athlete talking after a loss. Kind of like, it's on me. It's not on anyone else. Like the team is great. The coach is great. But he says he talks to Lynn Collins every day. These relationships were born. He says he had a huge respect for Andrew.

I never had a fight with him. even day 80 in the miserable fucking desert because I respect him so much. This isn't a production where people are like, what a nightmare. Like everyone had a good... No, that is true. Or at least was into it.

Has continued to defend it. Like, you read interviews with Samantha Morton, with Defoe, with everybody to this day, and they're like, I had a great time doing that and it felt like the movie got thrown under the bus. Dominic West continues to defend it. Dominic West, who looks really good in this movie. Yes, he does.

It's hot. Like, you know, because now Dominic West is settled into his, like, I play British buffoons. I'm a little older. You know, like, forget, like, Dominic West was fucking hot.

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

I know. Yeah, exactly. When James Pierfoy showed up, I was like, we don't need to be bringing it. I don't mind him as an actor. He cannot come in this late. I'm sorry.

You already had Dominic West. You can't be two British guy, like, at TV actors. But it's so much kind of rise of Presti stage TV in late 2000s. 100% You got three wrong people.

You got a wire person. You got a true blood person. You got the Breaking Bad guy. You got a Friday night lights guy. For sure. Yeah. It's that era all stars. Tarz Tarkas had that sitcom, the guy.

Tars. It's called Tars. So, William Defoe. Obviously had worked on Finding Nemo. He liked Pixar. He liked their approach. And as he puts it, that guy asked me to play a 12 foot tall

Jeddick of the Green Race of Tharks. What? You're going to say, to that? I don't think so. That's the Wilm Defoe attitude. Because I feel like some other actors would be like, uh, no. I do think no. Stilton Desert,

no. Willem Defoe's like, let me add it. When you say, likes Pixar likes the approach, it's the other thing around this movie, which is man, Pixar have had the best track record of anyone in Hollywood history. And it feels like they just

work and work and work until they crack the story. And it always just fits together perfectly and there's a growing feeling of why are these kids movies better than all the quote unquote serious adult blockbusters that Hollywood's making should they be making those how do we like infect the Pixar process into the other areas of studio filmmaking and by the time this comes out the ghost protocol has come out yeah and that is only increased that that sentiment because it's like wow they he Bradberg really cracked that one let these guys do everything yes I mean I'm saying a lot of negative things about John Carter,

but what I do want to say here, I was excited about this movie when it came out. I was so excited. I remember the trailer really getting pushed down our throats and all that and like starting to get a little tired of that, you know, inevitable blockbustery sort of thing where they're just like, you're all excited. And I'm like, teaser trailer a year in advance.

All right. A little bit more five months in the desert on stilts. That's quite an achievement, according to Willem Defoe. Mostly the four corners. Dominic West thought it was a brilliant film. Thinks Andrew Stanton is a fucking genius. Works with him again on Finding Dory. Right.

He thinks Hollywood politics put it in the bin. Like he's just, right. Some of these actors are just like, I don't know. I loved that. Like, no further questions. There is, I don't. Cranston also basically was like, it was great. Yeah.

Fuck box office. Fuck Hollywood tracking. Like these jerks. I don't think this film ever was going to be a mega hit. But there is no denying that by the time, it came out, it was doomed. There was three months of the most overwhelming press. Yeah,

the kind of trades thing where they smell a bomb and they start to exult and like, did you know how much this costs? And it's called John Carter? What are they thinking? Yeah. Which like then they tried to do with sinners. And then when it blew up in their faces, they were like,

okay, but it didn't do that good for like a week. And people screamed at them so much that they were like, all right. You know, maybe forget it. Like, I guess it's okay. But there's also Dick Cook who had had this incredibly triumphant run at Disney had stepped down. Rich Ross takes over. Rich Ross had been running the Disney Channel, I believe. Right.

And I mean, Rick Ross was doing great at that time. The boss. Yeah, right. You know, Teflon Don over there. But then he has a really shaky run. Like, he inherits several films that end up being really successful, like the first Alice in Wonderland and things like that. But the things that he green lights basically all start to crash and burn. And he's out pretty shortly after this.

They hire a woman named M.T. Carney, who ran a boutique marketing agency to be put in charge of all marketing for Disney films. And it was a sort of shockwave announcement of like, is Disney trying to like do something different? This is someone who does not have the experience and has not ever worked at this scale. She's never worked in movie marketing, period. And this ended up being the main film she worked on. and then I believe she got fired either a month before, a month after it came out. Like, this movie is overseen by a bunch of transitional people in the Disney regime. I just remember a lot of talk about the title.

Yeah. And John Carter of Mars or just John Carter and who is John Carter? And there was all these articles about that. And there's all this second guessing. There's all this revolving door shit. Disney at this point in time is in a struggle, which is part of why they fucking just buy Marvel and Lucas film and go like, that's our live action thing. solved. But this movie

becomes the center to focus on of what the fuck is going on at Disney and how much money have they spent on this thing that we've never heard of. Ben, just to clearly state this. The book is called A Princess of Mars. That title immediately evokes something. But Disney

releases the film, The Princess and the Frog, covered on this show, and it does well, but not hugely well. And their takeaway is, no boy will see a movie with Princess in the title. They immediately pivot to the in-development in-production Rapunzel movie being retitled

and the Snow Queen movie being retitled Frozen, they're like, we need these kind of action-y titles. And they say to Stanton cannot be called Princess of Mars. Got it. We'll call it John Carter of Mars. That helps us come up with our franchise

heading, John Carter's the guy. What happens then? Disney releases a movie called Mars Needs Moms, aforementioned. The final film in their deal with Zemeckis, he produces it but does not direct it is his final like mocap movie and it is a gigantic disaster

and the takeaway from that is fuck Mars is a problem and they zoom out and they look at the data that David mentioned before they're like fuck there were all these Mars movies in the last 10 years and also like it sounds like a boy thing right like it's like it's funny that they're like

Princess is too girly and they're like Mars is too boy they admit this they're like girls won't go to a Mars movie yes both things So you end up with John Carter that means nothing Because they're so terrified of scaring off Both sides of the audience that they end up on a thing Isn't that the guy on ER?

Right. Like don't you want to? Yeah, of course Dr. John Carter, MD. But like, yeah, don't you want to go see a John Carter? Well, what's that about? Guy called John Carter. What does he do? He's on Mars.

Like, it's just like, how are you? Impossible. But it's like the perfect fucking like Hollywood out thinks themselves into a hole. I was watching the end of this movie on the train here. And a woman sat down next to me and tapped on my shoulder and was like, what are you watching? And I'm like, John Carter, she's like, what?

She's probably tapping you on the shoulder and expecting you to say Dune. And she'll go, oh, that's what Dune is. I hear everyone talking about Dune. The idea that she's seeing this like expensive sci-fi movie on your phone and the title is something she hasn't heard of. David? Yes. Got any big summer plans? If you're traveling, you got late nights, packed weekend, zero structure, any of those,

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It's so similar to Dune in so many ways. And it feels like after this run of not just the failed Disney boys adventure movies, but like Valerian, you know, Patrick Willems, our buddy, did a great video on what he called the Gonzo Blockbuster, these movies that were sort of like very silly and operatic, Jupiter ascending, Speed Racer certainly falls into that. And his argument is that, like, Fury Road is the only one of those movies that worked at the time. There was a sort of like 10-year run of, can we let guys just fucking. can do anything.

And Fury Road's the only one that's a hit and is well liked upon release and most of them kind of miss and it feels like Dune is the final

correction for that which is you need to just ground the shit out of this. If you're going to make these kinds of movies you have to really just like place it

in, you know, intimate human emotions and hard details and versimilitude versus just like I don't know there's like a ship that flies.

I mean, I guess I have to give this movie some amount of credit that they didn't water it down. I love that most about it. I mean, it's got these crazy green, four armed aliens. Not just that.

They kept the names and the... Just the kind of like that it's about a bunch of intermarsian politics. Yeah. That they, in my opinion, could have maybe done a better job explaining. It could have simple. But they are definitely trying to get it all across.

And as much as they make him a comedic figure, this movie is mercifully devoid of you're called the what? There's no John Carter is, it's more than making fun of John Carter than John Carter being like Barsoom. Okay, now I've heard everything. That is true. That is true.

But on the flip side, I will say John Carter takes a long time to figure out that he is on Mars. Over an hour? 51 minutes. 51, he's already met. Why do you keep saying Barsoom? He's already met green skin.

Why are you green? He's met four-armed green skin, 10-foot-tall aliens. He has seen alien creatures burst out of eggs. And he's like, where am I, Montana? He's seen flying ships. And he's like, what is, yeah, he's like. Which state am I? And here we are on Earth.

And she's like, no, Jankata, you are on Bassoon. His wildest thinking is. And he literally says, I'm on Mars. His wildest thinking is, this must be that Canada I've heard so much about. Well, it's like, they're like us, but a little d'clock. Again, they're just treating him as such a dunderhead. Like, I want to just kind of shake him a little bit and be like, get with the program. Get with the program.

We're not, yeah, we're not in Canada. We're not in Montana. Clearly, this is, we've got to be able to keep up with this, buddy. Now, the film was made it, initially made it Long Cross Studios, which is in London, which, I don't know if you guys have been to London. Does not resemble Mars. No, at all. Interesting. Dan Mendel, who shot this movie.

It's like a big, I would say, like does a lot of these big kind of productions. This is basically the film he makes in between Star Trek and Star Wars, The Force Awakens. Yeah, he also shot Star Trek Into Darkness. Yes. He shot Amazing Spider-Man 2. He also shot a little film starring the hottest movie star in the world, Taylor Kitch, Savage's. Oh, man, he, this guy got to lens Taylor Kitch so much. He's currently making my most anticipated film of all time, Godzilla X-Kong supernova.

Nice. He's basically like the studio was fucking being cheap. We should have shot the entire thing in the four corners, like, you know, deserty America. Yeah. We eventually did end up there, but it was way too late. So much of it was done on stages. It doesn't feel textured enough. Like he's very anti, like that they did England stuff.

It is maybe the best thing this movie has going for it, especially now 14 years on, is any time they are in a fucking like, John. Ford Vista. It's remarkable. You're like, we don't get this anymore. You don't get people and CGI creatures in a beautiful organic landscape that isn't the volume. Yes. And it is cool that it starts in Monument Valley and then you're in this alien landscape. And wherever they shot it, it just, it feels it has a realistic texture to it.

Going for the Mars version of Monument Valley, I think is a smart strategy. And anytime the movie is deploying that And making it a parallel to the actual Like West we see at the beginning It is effective. But they shot this on film. Yes. There was already the 3D push that they fought up against.

Of course there was one of those last minutes Right. Post-coversions. No concessions or adjustments for 3D. They shot them 35. In Dal and Stant, we're like, it's going to be too hard to figure out how to do this. We don't want to do it incorrectly.

Right. I mean, the look of this, I don't think the look of this movie is a problem. Even if what he's saying about the stages, I mean, there are sort of like green screeny bits that you're like, okay, those also, I don't think it looks bad. I think it looks, I mean, there's a lot of really cool props and set design and costumes. I think all the production design in this movie is good. The aliens are cool. All the designs are really cool.

The way that they move how, you know, like Tars, Tarkas gestures with his arms and uses his hands to like, some of his hands are gesture hands and some of them are like, he'll use all of them in different ways. One thought I had watching this again this week was like, I know it's John Carter of Mars, but what if it was about Tars? He's kind of my man. Tars of Mars is a winner. Yeah. You got Willam Dufo is maybe just because I just think he's so locked in and he's got such a great performance.

I want more Tars. I also think it's the single biggest story mistake this movie makes, maybe, is, like having him vanish. I think this Samantha Morton character does not work at all. And I think I parsed what they were trying to do, but you're watching it and just going like this whole thing should be buddy movie with John and Tars. Have Defoe play that role. That is one of the things that is pretty faithful to the book is that that character,

the solo character, has even more screen time in the book. Yes. And has a backstory. They make much more of the backstory of her with Tars. And she has a whole chapter that explains her backs where she tells John Carter her backstory. It's not like him, like I guess in the movie, John Carter, just kind of. intuits what's going on with like, she's your daughter. A scene I don't, right, that does not work.

And he's like, she's your daughter, right? And he's like, how do you know that? Right. And he's like, intuition. And I'm like, intuit. What the fuck are you talking? These creatures are born out of eggs. Like, you literally just went through their hatch.

Like, how the fuck would you know that? Yeah, they all also, not to be racist, kind of look the same. Yeah. And Willem Defoe's like, you have successfully guessed that the one in a million, like she was kind of raised as my daughter. thing is true of her. Yes. Anyway. In the book, that's all literally explained to John Carter by Sola. Lynn Collins talks about

this a lot in that 10 years later piece, but that the character was originally a lot flintier and spikier. Her character or the solo character? Yes. And that would make sense. Have her be fucking Nateri. Yes. And that there were like, you know, the three rounds of reshoots on this

movie, basically. And I think when you're calling out the couple little pieces that feel more apparently green screeny, those are like the brief moments that feel like these were the last reshoots. Because part of what made this cost go up so high is every time they did reshoots versus how they usually do them today where they stick out like sore thumbs, they would just fucking go back and reconstruct the sets or go back to the four corners. Like they were doing like full production cost.

We're just redoing this. Of course. Stanton says when we're at Pixar we basically make a movie four to seven times. And I've never been part of a movie where you don't do that. because obviously he never made a live action movie before. The way the stories get this... He wasn't really prepared for how you do that. And a thing they said at Pixar all the time that I think Steve Jobs sort of passed on to them was the goal is to be wrong as quickly as possible. It's not to try to get it right immediately.

It's just try to identify the wrong moves fast so that you can correct them. Right. Like you make your animatics, you put your own voice on it. You see what works. You see what does it. If you can identify what the problem is, then you can actually sort of. solve it. It's not about being a genius who has the whole thing figured out from the beginning. We talked about in the Wally episode that it's one of the biggest kind of like, and certainly the most

successful Pixar, fuck, I got it wrong. We have to reanimate mostly finished footage where like less than a year before it comes out. He's like, I fucked this up. I had Eve getting damaged and Wally needing to save her for the last act. And they have to scrap and redo almost everything. That's not like a small change that affects everything in the plot and then he sort of was like oh and it needed to be this all along and the ripple effect it's part of why wally was so expensive it was the most expensive animated film at the time but he's able to point to that and go guys i know that was an expensive choice and people would have said good enough but didn't the results bear out the decision he's he's running off of that kind of confidence i mean again this is a real blank check movie

yeah but here's and wally was a blank check which was yes And clear. With flying color. So then he's in kind of like a Nolan post-inception state of, I did my risky, expensive thing that you were letting me do just to stay in business with me. And that exceeded expectations. I will say one of the ways in which I do think this movie is interesting is as the kind of larger meta allegory of John Carter, the guy from Earth who goes to Mars. Andrew Stanton, the animator, making his first very tentative, very.

bobbly steps into live action. There is something that's interesting in that. I think it's in the New Yorker piece, but he said when they finally greenlit the movie, he was like, I'm going to lose 20 pounds. I'm going to run like a mile or two every day. And when I'm on set,

I'm never sitting down. I'm never going to my trailer. I so badly want to fight the notion that I'm like an animation guy who cheated his way into this. Yeah, right, right, right. Right. And look, again, everyone speaks highly of him on set and all that. Now, it is maybe a mistake by him to do an incredibly frank profile in the New Yorker before the movie comes out. Yes.

In which he talks about the fact that he showed a two hour, 50 minute cut of the film to Disney in December of 2011. Okay, so four months before it comes out. The Pixar guys who watch it at this meeting immediately are like, um, week plus this, we could plus this, you know, like start doing all of that. and like, but we're confused by the beginning and the lecture about Barsoom. It doesn't feel really personal. And the Pixar process, obviously, would be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was our first go.

Right. And we'll now let's get to work on fixing it. Thank God we showed it to you in the story reels stage rather than finished production. Right. And then obviously at this point, there's only so much that can be done. They do do many reshoots. Lynn Collins felt like, you know, as you said,

like in the original script, she slaps John Carter a few times. She was a princess of Mars. She's a warrior. Yeah. And Disney basically was like, this character comes off too hard, too bitchy. Like, they soften her. At a certain point, she says during the reshoot, she was just like to Andrew, like, just tell me where to stand and what to do.

I've lost the character. Like, whatever it is you need for me, I'll do it. There's like 20 minutes of deleted scenes on the Blu-ray. And it's frustrating because you're like, I know there's an hour and 20 minutes. There's a John Carter, the missing pieces. Yeah. And I want to see all of it. And I'm sure a lot of the deleted footage is like alternate versions in like a Choose Your Own Adventure book way of what could have been in the movie.

But there's an alternate opening that starts with her that Lynn Collins is doing the opening narration. Beginnings are difficult times or whatever. Yes. And then it cuts to her sort of like meeting with all the leaders trying to sort of, you know. And then there were several deleted scenes that sort of were focused on her and the Samantha Morton character. where beyond it just being, well, that's from the books, it felt like they were trying to make a sort of parallel story of the two of them, you know, not trying to be defined by their fathers

and trying to be leaders. And when you nerf her character down, the Samantha Morton character just feels like she is there. And the whole time you're to invoke another Simpsons thing, asking, where is Tarstarchus? Where is Tars Tarkas? But also, I think, Lynn, yeah, what's the character? Lynn Collins.

But what's the character? Deja, of course. She also is mostly just there. and is kind of just a problem of like, we need to get to helium. And then it's like, I'm getting married and I don't want to. I don't want to get married. Stop that, please.

Right. Some, Andrew Stanton quotes that, again, perhaps I might not say to a reporter before my movie comes out. The demon I'm chasing is, can I figure out what my story is before I run out of time? Featers March. He'll see him in March.

You know, he admits, like, the second act of the movie, I never cracked it. It's sags. And I would agree, like, the second of this movie is pretty boring. Yes. First and third acts. More's happening.

Actions are a little better. You know, like, right, you know, he and the Pixar Brain Trust. Liked the reinvention of Carter, the family backstory, tortured Confederate soldier kind of thing. I don't really think that works, but I get that it's something. This is what's also fascinating is the single most fascinating thing about this movie to me. So when the marketing is in free fall and the buzz is negative, there are all these stories about, did Disney fuck it up or did Stanton fuck it up with the marketing? Was he too confident weighing in too much of? of, you know, I want the trailer to be soundtrack to, uh,

the Super Bowl ad was set to Kashmir, but the original teaser trailer was Peter Gallagher doing a cover of arcade fires, my body is a cage. It was like all these things in the marketing that were his personal taste and they were like, does this make sense to audiences? But then when Disney threw something out, that didn't work either. So one of the Hail Mary Pass things they do for the marketing is they're like, how do we get people to like understand Andrew Stanton's track record?

and invest in the idea of him as a filmmaker. He does a TED talk where he explains the story of the Finding Nemo thing. We, of course, discussed in that episode where he had Marlin's wife's death and the death of all the other babies scattered as flashbacks across the movie and the audience didn't like him. And that when he stopped being clever structurally and put it at the beginning, they understood his tragedy and then they were with him the rest of the way. And he, while promoting this movie points at I learned a very important. lesson about storytelling that day and then this movie does the opposite thing.

This movie does the, why is John Carter so angry? Why does he have so much contempt for the military? Why doesn't he want to fight anymore? Why does he want to run away? And we're just going to keep giving you little flashes and focusing on the ring

and something bad happened. You know it. It's not a surprise when it comes, but it's what he talks about learning with Finding Nemo of. If you let the audience experience it with the character, they feel it.

It's not like it's a satisfying twist ending to be, oh, oh, shit, something bad happened to him. It's if you can dramatically pull that scene off correctly, then the audience is endeared to that character. And this movie has the moment where it finally all, like, is shown to you is an abstracted flashback in the middle of what is his biggest action sequence. Big action where he's flailing wildly. It's like an interesting conceit of filmmaking. You can see, it's a very much right where you're like, wow, that's a big idea. It's a big idea. But it's self-defeating emotionally.

I think it is. And I really, it's like the fact that it's his wife and child. Yeah. Did they burn up where they kill? We don't really even know. They don't even fully explain it, but they show their, they show the aftermath of this. I'm just like watching it. I'm like, I'm just kind of bummed out right now.

Like I'm not feeling very triumphant. But this is the finding emo thing of, if you start with that and then you get it out of the way and then the movie's fun. Right. We can ride with it. If you drop it in the middle, it bums us out. And the scene that should be exciting, then becomes really heavy. I watched that TED Talk. And there's a lot of stuff around the buildup to this movie of storytelling, the importance of stories and being a good storyteller.

And here is the secret. We at Pixar have cracked the secret of good storytelling, which at the time, as Pixar fans, we were all like, yeah, you have. You absolutely did. But then you watch this movie. and there are all these strange story choices that don't work. That aren't in conversation with each other, which is the thing about the Pixar Golden Run is that these things feel so holistic and so tight and they don't feel algorithmic.

And you saying, David, like, why would he admit all this shit in a fucking New Yorker case? Right, right? He's always been a very frank interview subject. Right, which is great. Good for him. And I think he likes the idea of being a bit of an open source filmmaker, like the guys who grew up with, where he's explaining the process

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

Right. It always worked out before. A lot of things didn't work and then we figured out the last moment. Because the end of the article is like, it tested pretty well. We just held our first test screening. It got a 75.

Disney round. did that up to an 80 because it was unfinished and there's the hubris of like you're hearing that and you're like well that doesn't sound that good it should be a hundred right nine should at least be involved right yeah but the iterative process

which when he gets tagged a little with is this guy coming in way too cocky yeah and again it is this guy and he had this incredible success at not just as a director I mean you look at all the movies he helped write at Pixar he kind of

was like this guy who had the magic touch who was sprinkling it all over making a serious effort to reestablish this in every episode on this series. It is really important to understand that he was the story guy at Pixar. That he is credited with being,

he was the best in-house screenwriter. He's the one who always was cracking stuff, taking the lead on the script, you know, launching the original idea. Right. But ironically, this movie, it has some good things in it. There are aspects I like. it's not a good story.

No. And, and... No, not really. We have barely talked about... I mean, like, we barely talked about the Thurns, which are a huge part of this movie

that makes absolutely no sense. Which is all the biggest problem. It's the reshoot opening and what feels like such a clear reshoot of. We start with a big action sequence after a Willem Defoe voiceover of like two warring parties that look silly.

And they look so much alike. We don't know who's fighting and why. Talking grimly and you don't know what's going on. And then it cuts. to the actual superstructure of the movie, which is the Edgar Rice Burroughs thing, that this is a dramatization of the author of the book who is now changed into the nephew of the character

who is being told of his uncle's death and is locating his diaries and reading the story. Yes. And then once you get... I would not have done that. And then the story starts with John Carter on Earth. So it's like a rushing nesting doll thing. to do this. Some of the structure in terms of burrows and like finding his manuscript, that is from the books. Like that is a, that is something that he took from the books. But again, this notion of the of the thirons and like what are they doing? Why are they doing it? Why do we care? What do they want? You know, eventually there is that scene where Mark Strong does get to kind of explain what he is doing and why. But his explanation is wholly like unsatisfying and you, it doesn't clarify anything. And you're like,

Like, you know, every, there's all these scenes because, again, John Carter is a guy who jumps a lot. It's like, why don't they just kill this guy? Yeah. And every time Dominic West is about to zap him, he's like, no, let him live. We must further study him. And you're sitting there going, they even have Dominic West being like, what's the point of all this if I can't use this thing? And you're like, he's right. Why can't he just kill this guy?

What is the explanation? There is. It's just the kind of Dune-esque, like, our plans are measured in centuries. but like the thorns don't make sense because are they like a parasitic race? They like they like manage the destruction of planets galactic they like to manipulate

they're just for like they're in it for the shits and giggles they're in the water but they get their hands dirty with the Dune the Benegisceret is that kind of the thing I mean I guess so that's that's what he sort of explains when he's in explain Mark Strong's character of course the name of that character is Matai Shang

Yes. Well, no, in Dune is... Of course. Of course. And here it's just, we're gonna... Yeah, these people are gonna rule because we say so. It's a little league of shadowsy from Batman of kind of like, we're always behind the scenes. Yes.

We're right. We're like, we're in charge of the ends of civilization. And they're also on earth in the movie. They actually are watching and doing things on earth and they're immortal and they live forever. Right. They only have one weakness being shot one time. Which happens two different times in the movie Where these unkillable immortal beings are like

They sneak up behind John Carter And he shoots them once and they fall dead immediately 10 gun Let's also consider he's like I don't want to do the thing where the movie has to start With an endless like spiel of at the beginning There was yada yada yada right And he's like the Edgar Rice Burroughs thing is a way to ease us into it

To create a sense of mystery What was happening here It's giving us a slightly more relatable character or a more modern sort of normal dude, and then we sort of like slowly ease into all of this. And then they do the screening, and Pixar is like, this, we just like too much fucking happening

because in that version, he shoots the guy in the cave, and then Mark Strong doesn't appear until like an hour and a half into the movie and start explaining stuff. And they're like, this is too much to drop too late. So then they come up with the new opening

where you cold open with him and the idea that something's going on here. And as admitted in the New Yorker piece, that realization that that needed to be an opening necessitated 18 new scenes. They were like, the ripple effect of this is, if this is happening here, then this is this and this is this. And Disney's like, okay, well, write you a check for more reshoots. Right, because Disney is essentially like you were on budget and on time. The first time. Yeah, like the shoot was not a problem.

At all. Right? And you made successful films. Yeah. And now you're saying you need reshoots. And that's kind of how you do it at Pixar. Right. So I guess the answer is yes. And he's even saying, I'm here to sort of try to show Hollywood why our movies work.

Right. Why our process makes sense. And that more movies should be like this. Let's iterate. Let's just like, right. You need to. Yeah. It's about seeing the whole thing and then going back and circling back.

And what's fascinating to me is that everyone goes like, hey, dude, you fucked up. this doesn't work in live action, go back to your animation corner. And then immediately it feels like the studios start making movies this way all the time. But like, cheaper. Like where the reshoots are not quite as involved. Right. And they're just sort of like the first shoot is going to be almost a dry run. That's your, that's your first draft.

Right. And we'll make that a lot simpler and a lot shorter. And if we don't have a finished script, then let's just get what we need to get. Speaking to those kinds of movies that are coming. you do watch this and you're like, I guess I realize why every Marvel movie ended with them needing to close a portal and kill a bunch of guys.

Because it's just kind of like, the audience can grapple with these clear video game-y goals very easily. Whereas I'm watching John Carter, and that's before we get to the epilogue, which is the end of the movie, right? Which is not one minute. It's six or seven.

And I'm just like, what does he need to do? And what will that accomplish? Right. Like, I get that Mark Strong is bad. Yes. Although I'm not totally sure how you kill him. You shoot him one time with a gun. I'm aware that you could shoot him one time.

Solarplex. Yeah. But then I'm like, is Dominic West good or bad? Unclecli. Bad, I guess. He's pretty. He's, he's, yeah. Pragmatic.

He's pragmatic. I guess. He's sometimes, he spends a lot of the movie being like, I love you, Deja Thoris. I'm my, you can kill me if you want. Take my blade. And then, yeah, at the end of the movie, John Carter shows up and he's like, death to you. He's not a

he's not a Gaston but you're also like clearly the movie doesn't want me to want them to get married. Right. And like this wedding

you know Mark Strong is like of course after they've exchanged their vows we'll kill her and that'll be the final step in us taking control of her city and I'm like

why? Right. He's like the fallout of that and I'm like why would that be good for you like that you that you killed the princess or what?

And he doesn't really explain it except for the sort of like, I'm the puppet master and everything I do works out, you know. To your question, Ben, this is a perfect example to me of a movie that does the exact wrong amount of explaining. You either need to explain way more or way less. Or just like, don't worry about it. Either you need to have a real specific answer that you can eventually sell us on or you just need to be like, for century, these two species have been waging war and just go like, they've just been fighting forever. They're different and they don't like each other. And instead they keep getting into it

And you're like, I still don't think I have my arms around it. I know you're telling me stuff. And I never quite engaged with like, do the red Martians and green Martians hate each other or just not vibe? Right. Because they're not actually at war with each other, but they don't like each other. Yeah. Yes. But the red Martians are at war with the Thirns.

But it also feels like the Thorns are just kind of manipulating everyone to what end. Even we all make fun of fucking unobtainium, right? To your point of like we make fun of the portal in the sky. We need the thing that's there. Yes. It's the reason these movies do this is there just like there is just one thing we're fighting over. Right. And this, you're like, what is the technology?

There are several swirling around. What do they want to do? The thing is sort of the ninth ray, but again, they don't make it clear what exactly you can do. Right. How it works. Right. You get it. She, Deja Thoris has discovered it also in the beginning of the movie and she's giving

a like a PowerPoint presentation about it. And they're treating her like someone who's like. like I found something called on a potato, where they're like, you're making this up, or it's just fringe science. There's a thern in disguise, which is another aspect of the thorns that we may not have even mentioned, which is they can look like anyone and be anywhere. Yes. And then he like zaps her ninth ray with his ninth ray.

Yes. And destroys it. And then somehow, you know, like everyone, again, no one believes her. And then she's going to have to marry Dominic West. And yeah, it's just baffling. Let's also acknowledge. She's an inventor. And we need to shout that out.

She makes a, like a... She's a woman in stem. Yes. And she's a woman in stem. We haven't discussed Lynn Collins. I saw on Letterbox that you praised her performance in this film in a prior... Years ago. Like when it first came out.

You've revisited this movie a couple times, though. We noted that you've given it a couple at bats on Letterbox. I keep trying. I keep trying. Yeah. Because, again, I like Andrew Stanton. Yeah. And this just feels like the kind of movie.

I should like. And there's stuff in it that works. And there is stuff in it that works like Tars Tarkas and the design of it. I do kind of like going to Mars. Yes. And Mars dog works. We haven't mentioned Wola, who actually is a very good boy and is very likable. I agree that he's a good boy.

Yeah. He is kind of in and out of the movie. I remember the marketing being like, get ready to meet Wulla. That was also last gas marketing. That kind of despicable me pivot to like, wait, should we go to the little guys? Just wolf. Right. What are the things

that are testing well and he was probably one of the few? It's funny. It's funny that he's like an alien dog with a lot of legs and he's really fast. It does also mean that sometimes the movie is just like zip and he's gone and then he's just back.

That is shockingly pretty faithful to the book. Sure. He kind of like will tell him to stay somewhere and he'll just wait there sadly with the puppy dog phase. And then a few scenes later, John Carter will be in trouble and who will save him? Willa will come to the rescue.

So that, I mean, that is kind of, again, it speaks to like the episodic nature of the book. The book was written as episodic. It was written as chapters. It was serialized in Pulp Magazine. Yes. So it didn't have like a superstructure of it's the story of John Carter doing this. It was the continuing adventures of John Carter wandering this strange. Here's some new cool shit I made up.

It was an ethnographic report on this strange lost civilization on this other planet. It's also why comic book. movies are not adapted this way. You know, no one goes like, I'm going to try to adapt the first 30 issues of Spider-Man literally. Right. Because it was not written in a form that that helps you in adapting to a closed-loop narrative, you know? You more like extract the feeling. But Lynn Collins, who I know from three things, I think. I think when I'm looking, I mean, obviously, she's got out of the credits, but it's like, she's on six episodes of the first season of True Blood.

Yes. Like she is out of that season before the season wraps. But it was a buzzy show. It was the very buzzy show and she was like the bombshell in it. She was the big hottie. Although the first season of True Blood, like all subsequent seasons of True Blood is insane. And people die all the time kind of randomly and like, which is what happens to her. And then like she's in X-Men Origins Wolverine the next year.

She's also, she's another X-Men Origins Wolverine. And it was sort of like, who is this? How did she get this point? But it had a little bit of this sort of like the studio being like, we found our next fucking Hugh Jacket. And I must acknowledge. As Kayla Silver Fox. I must acknowledge. She gets to give him the name the Wolverine.

Is that what you're going to say? No, no, no. To your great consternation and frustration, I must acknowledge she was a graduate of Juilliard. She was from Julia. So when she is discovered, it is also like, this is a. serious actor. She has the chops. You know, she's in the Michael Radford,

Merchant of Venice movie without Pacino as Porsche, which is an incredibly important role in 2004, when she's barely been in anything. Yeah. I have not seen that movie. Neither I. Like, there's no... I'm sure Pacino gives a subtle sensitive performance as Shilok,

the Money Lender. That was one where I... I saw the poster and I was like, this feels like an attack on my people. I studied Merchant Rehn's school I know the play very well I've never seen the movie

I should watch it I'm just looking at I know Yeah It was one of those movies It was D-OA obviously But like that she had that role Unless she stinks in it

Which is possible I should watch it Like that's definitely That's a sign of some chops It also feels like You know A couple years later Pachino discovers

Well she's very good in bug Yeah I haven't seen that movie In a long time But I don't remember her being bad She's in number 23, although not in a big role, I don't think. She plays number two. What do you remember?

That, it's not that I remember, but just a couple of years after Merchant of Venice, Pacino discovers Jessica Chastain similarly, who is a Juilliard person. He does the Wild Salomey-Salome thing with her. And then it takes her a couple years for the industry to sort of, like, accept her. But it felt like both of them were a similar, like, Pacino has found a young female Juilliard bombshell who he is working into the classics and presenting as, I approve of this person. I think they have the goods.

Which, like, by all means, out. Like, that's fine. I don't like X-Men Origins Wolverine. It's a dog shit movie. I remember her role being incredibly thankless in it. It sucks. I do not remember her being good at all in it. Like she's a blank in that movie.

She has a hat. She's forced to explain a dream that involves a Wolverine. Cool. That's how he gets the name the Wolverine. She is like one of those lame powers. Well, it's just like... She's a human... You're like, oh, this is his human love interest,

his tragic love interest before he became Wolverine. And then the reveal at the end is that she's a mutant whose powers that she can emotionally manipulate people. Right. Which feels like, fakingly massacinistic. Yeah, she touches you. It's like, it's a woman who... can make you just like...

No. It's Will I. I.m. who has the hat. I'm sorry. Will I am's character was... I got a cowboy hat on my head. And he's in the movie. He's in the movie playing a role.

His character's name is blink and he can teleport. Like Nightcrawler? Yeah, he's not blank. No, he's not playing. John Wraith. He's... Right. Yeah, he's at...

The whole thing with X-Men Arjans Wolverine was you could tell that Marvel was like... They were like, can we have blink and they were like, we don't even want to give you blink. You can have... And like, just... dug in the bucket. It also feels like HBO's lanterns

where they're like, no one will wear a costume. Everyone is wearing a leather jacket. Totally. Dominic Moynihan plays a guy who can turn light bulbs on. Which character is he? So he is weirdly... Chris Bradley? Yes, he's Chris Bradley who...

Oh, Maverick is how I would know how. He had been initially announced to be playing Beak, who is a Grant Morrison character who's like a living bird. Yes. And then I bet you someone was like, We'd have to like put a bird face on him. Can he just be someone who turns off light bulbs or whatever? And then there's Agent Zero is in it, Ben, who of course is a mutant, whose mutant power is he's good at shooting guns.

Guns. This movie sucks. Like Agent Zero's power is guns. Deadpool's power is sword. Like, you know, like, look, X-Men or J.M can teleport? Wolverine, it is neither Lynn Collins nor Taylor Kitch's fault. but for the infinite trust I had in Andrew Stanton, the first warning sign was,

I've announced my two leads, I've discovered the stars of tomorrow, both of them are in the cast of X-Men Origins for free. And I was like, I feel like we should treat that movie as like a three-mile island stay away at all costs. Especially since it ends on Three Mile Island.

Yes. It sure does. It's also funny. In a thrilling and coherent sequence. That movie puts... Is Sabretooth just not in it? No, he's in it. He's in it.

He's in it. play on Sabretooth is like he has sideburns and a jacket. He's played by Leif Schreiber. And some little fingernails. You should Google Leav Schreiber, like, running as Sabretooth. And we're going to watch your face as you watch this man jumping like a dog. He's got like kind of like, right, like a dog gallop thing. I think Leop Schreiber is the one good performance in that movie.

He's got to take. He's not bad. He's got to take. But it's also funny that already less than 10 years in the X-Men franchise was like, we're just reconning everything. Now, here's Sabretooth, who is nothing like the previous Sabretooth and is also his brother. Yes. This is true. Do we think Lynn Collins is good in John Carter?

I don't think she's bad. I think this character does not work at all. No. It's kind of the same thing with Taylor Kitch where it's like I don't necessarily dislike her. Yeah. The problems are sort of putting her into this role which has all these issues. The structure of it is way off. I find like I don't really get the accent she decided on.

This kind of like vaguely English regally kind of. accent. I mean, she hits it harder than I remembered. I'll give you that. She's also kind of similar to Natalie Portman and Attack of the Clones, as we talked about. Yes. She's like brown. Like, or bronze. She's red. Because she's a red marshan. In the books, but my wife

kept being like, what she's supposed to be? And I was like, red Martian. And my wife was like, and that is? And I was like, what do you want for me? I don't know. I mean, like, deserty, I guess is the idea. In the books, everyone is like bright red, which makes them look like aliens, even though they

otherwise humanoid. It is visually distinctive. I feel like Stan communicates that it, they thought it would feel a little silly and they wanted to make it a little more grounded. They end up at heavily tanned. They end up in this kind of, with red kind of, like, tribally tattoos.

No, I also feel like the unspoken. It just feels like college student who went to Morocco and still thinks they can be like that. It's very boring, man. Yeah. It was unspoken, but I have to imagine part of their concern was like, if they are bright, and too caked and tribal stuff, do we get into touchy Native American territory?

I suspect that that was a consideration. Where they end up in trying to avoid that almost feels more uncomfortable. I would agree. And I think you're right. It's very Padme where it's like, what is your weird, like, mid-Atlantic accent? Yes, right.

What is this skin tone? What are we culturally pulling from? None of this is her fault. He kind of makes the Star Wars decision of, like, all of the aliens and the villains are British. Right? Like the humanoid, the sort of, they're coded as kind of the Roman Empire. I'm casting people from the Rome TV show on HBO.

Right. To the point where, right, I do think like Mark Strong, Kieran Hins, Dominic West, James Purefoy, like, can we at least remove one of these guys? Like you've got maybe too many kind of UK Ireland. It's four types of pig-based meat on one slice of pizza. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, David Schwimmer is in this? I think just like a cameo is one of the tharks because he's another random person who loves John. Carter and Babbro also got...

Fabro did a little cameo. All right, I watched it. What do you think? What do you think? Good stuff. It stinks. You see his fucking nails grow? His nails grow.

He and he... This is a movie that is so obsessed with not doing any goofy comic book stuff that they're like, well, you can't just have Sabretooth be a big W.W.E. wrestler with like a mane of yellow hair and like big closet roaring. And you're like, why? Everyone liked that. And they're like, no, he's a guy who like talks quietly and his nails grow a little. nails grow and he wears a black dust.

But then anytime it does something like him running on all fours, you're like, well, now that's twice as silly because you haven't built a movie that can support comic bookie shit. It's so bad. It's so weird. You haven't seen this movie? I truly was thinking when you're talking about it. I mean, love Wolverine. He's my guy. We love Wolverine.

I don't remember this at all. This is another franchise death thing. He's got to Google another thing then. You have to Google. Final Battle. Yeah, Final Battle, Deadpool. And you got to see what they make Deadpool look like. So Ryan Reynolds really wanted to play Deadpool. Like early on, he called dibs on that.

Yeah. And I want to make my own movie as Deadpool. Then they go, we've written Deadpool into X-Men Origins Wolverine. This is a good launching pad. But it's going to be early Deadpool before he really becomes Deadpool. So he's just Wade Wilson, a Merck with a Muck with a MERS. He looks like Renal. He's mercenary.

He's Ryan Reynolds with a red tank top who's got double swords. Yes. And then they decide, fuck, he popped. in the first act. Right. He's the only thing people like in this movie. And we dispense of him.

So they do extensive reshoots to make Deadpool the villain at the end of the movie where they've kidnapped Deadpool and tortured him and made him into like a mega mutant where now he has like seven different powers. He has cyclops's

optic blast. He has teleport. He can teleport. Just like John Wraith, everyone's favorite teleporting character. And Ryan Reynolds is like, I refuse to do this. So Scott Adkins,

legendary. The great Scott Atkins. Marshall artist. Action hero. King of the DTV action movie is in Ryan Reynolds' makeup as mouthless Deadpool, which is a joke to spite the fans of, well, Deadpool is famously the Merck with a mouth. Danny Houston, the second of four actors to play William Stryker. There's been a lot. Keep saying, why won't you shut up, Wade? And so when they do all these weird operations on him, the first thing they do is sew his mouth shut.

You know, that thing that everyone hates when Deadpool can make jokes during action sequences. To be fair, I did grow to hate it. We do hate it, but it has made billions of us. I'm going to say confidently that John Rath, aka Maverick, is... No, those are two different people. John Rath, aka what? What's his name? I don't know.

Raith. I think his name is Rath. Maverick is Moinesh. Yeah, exactly. Dude, I can't watch this anymore. This is dog shit. Yeah. But this was...

No, he is called Maverick. you guys are thinking you guys already forgot what the other guys by is this this is no goodness they had made the third X-Men and they were like that is the proper end to the trilogy Bradley was also known as Maverick there we go wow they did it for both the Wickeptu says John Rath's

other name is Kestrel they were like X-Men was a trilogy we are done and the ongoing future of the X-Men franchise is doing spin-off origin movies we're going to do everyone's backstory Magneto and this one bombed so hard they take the script for X-Men Origins, colon, Magneto

and retrofit that into first class. The sort of Nazi hunting stuff was supposed to be the whole... Kind of pull it off. Yeah, kind of pull it off. That movie kind of works. I think Raythe is... Okay, so the most famous X-Men who teleports is Nightcrawler. Obviously, yes.

Number two is Blink, I would say. Blink was a very popular character for a while there. Number three, with a bullet, I'm going for magic. I was going to say, magic has to be number three. Because she can dimensionally travel and all that. And she has a cool sword. Number four, let's talk about him. Night crawler's weird.

brother, Azazel. Is that how you say it? I never even know how to say it. Azazel. Or Azazel? He can do kind of like red teleport. And I say Azazil. Number five, he can do, what? He's a Neprolete. But it's red, because he red. Instead of

blue. Red cloud. Instead of blue. And Mystique is his mom. Yeah, that's true. Number five, I think it's got to be Pixie. Pixie. Can teleport and she was hot in the 2010s or whatever. Yes. Yes. Like, Matt Fraction era, maybe?

Correct. I think I'm comfortable putting John Wraith at 6. Good. Right? I can't think of anyone that would go above him at this moment. Everyone else listed with teleporting powers are people like Hope Summers who just copy other powers or people like Apocalypse who just kind of have like all the powers. It's a bonus.

That's his like 20th power. It's also funny. And then we're going to close the loop on X-Men origins Wolverine. Maybe we reopen it again. We're just counting X-Men, right? X-Men universe. Because like Lockjaw is obviously. It's a better Marvel teleport.

You know what? There was that gateway character who had been the big thing. We did forget Gateway. So maybe he's, maybe rates down to eight. Rates got a big. America's definitely above. She makes star portals. She makes star portals. That's true. But she's not really X-Men, right?

No, I'm saying if we're opening it up to Marvel. Yeah. They're like so afraid of letting any of these characters be comic bookie, but they also include Blob who had been cut out of all three mainline X-Men movies up until that point. They do. But I feel like their take on blob is like he's large. has suit on, like has like a makeup suit on.

A prosthetic suit. But like he's not actually blobby. He's kind of tough. He punch. Their take is rather than blob's power being like this endless kind of growth of mass that it like has so much power behind it, they're like he was a guy who's power was bulletproof skin and then he let himself go. He let himself go. So rather than let it take, I forgot that. Be like an extension of a mutant evolution.

They're just like this guy just eats too much junk food now. Wolverine served with him in the war and he was really cut and then he goes to a boxing gym he's just a fat ass eating cheetos and they make fat jokes for five minutes and he has a voice they gave him a voice it's Kevin Durand who I always enjoy A lovely actor

Like that X-Men Arjans Wolverine problem Of where they're like meet all these new characters Oh okay no no no Meet them later when they suck We'll meet them before they're pool We'll see them for two minutes to the start And then later he'll rebuild a team that you don't know anything about.

You only see them before they figure their thing out and after they're washed off. And then we kill them. Most of them get killed. And then they all die immediately anyway. So who cares, right? Okay. Can't believe that movie didn't work. Yeah.

John Carter. John Carter. Yeah. So obviously. John Carter origins Wolverine. Here's another story issue this movie has in my opinion. I forgot Thomas Hayden Church is the bad, uh, yeah, thark. He's doing a voice.

It doesn't even sound like him really. No. He's kind of going on. You basically give John Carter the Dorothy Wizard of Oz thing of all I want to do is get home. I don't want to be here. Right before I got teleported, I discovered a cave full of gold. I was running away from the cavalry. They were going to kill me, but now I'm about to be so rich.

Save my city, become our warrior. And he's like, where is the exit? Get me back to the gold cave. It's not just I miss home, but it keeps in. Cranston's getting all the gold. He's like, I was a minute away from being a millionaire in owning, you know, the railroads and whichever, which you already know he succeeded in doing

because when Ned Burroughs is called to his dead uncle's estate, you see that he is now a very wealthy man. Oh, and we know for sure he is definitely debt, right? Oh, yeah, when they're like, it's so weird, his tomb can only be open from the inside. It's almost like it's a weird puzzle thing. Anyway, here are his books. Here's the picture of Vim and Vigur. Yeah.

Not five minutes before he passed. It is funny how Taylor Kitch, again, 29 when he makes this movie, he's like the performance of him being like, call for my doctor. Might as well get the attorney to you while you're out of the deal. That's like very well, sir. I do love any movie where they create the device of this thing will make you look dead for 15 minutes. A little thing.

Puffer fish. Puffer fish. It's a venom of a puffer fish. I don't even know. Is that a thing? Can we? I would... I think in the days before, EKG's heart rate monitors,

possibly you could simulate coma-like... There were more... I don't know. There were more primitive versions of NyQuil, and people would just accept... You gotta think... If you guys... I've never seen someone sleep that hard.

You gotta think if they were real, the jackass guys would have used it in one of their movies at this point. It would be an incredible actual prank to be like... The final prank of Knoxville died. Do we think the Jackass 5, Jackass Best and Last? Yes.

which is coming out shortly after this episode's release. Yeah, it's coming up pretty soon. The trailer dropped today. It dropped today. Do we think they try to do a flatliners? That does feel like the final frontier. Kill me and then bring me back. Can we do it?

It would be appropriate, given the theme of this is the last one. Best and last. Yeah, I do feel like I worry about them, like, the sort of narrative they're putting forward with it of like, we know that as the last one, this has to be like the biggest one ever. Yeah. I'm just like, I really just, enjoy y'all being together and having fun. Like, I don't need you actually to try and top yourselves. You're older. Like, I think your physical peaks have passed. We don't actually want them to die. We enjoy their company. Not only not die, it just like, whatever. Like, just have fun, guys.

My read on that situation is that that was very much their intent for four. Right. And then COVID fucks with four. Exactly. And so I think Knoxville and crew got a little itchy and we're like, we didn't really get to do everything we wanted to do on four. And people loved four. Four's really really good. And they got a lot of suddenly now everyone, critically, every every Jackass movie has gotten better reviews than the one before it. It is the funniest thing this phenomenon and Jackass is the

best example of it where the fourth movie comes out is a New York Times critics pick and also is said, obviously not as good as the earlier entries. Right. And you're like, all of these were trashed at the time. They were seen as a sign of a declining culture by older critics and all that.

They're actually the best of us. Right, right. So anyway, puff or fish venom, we're going to taste it. Right? It's in, you put it in the Spider-Man coffee. You just didn't mention it.

Yes, I did. So we're all about to attain a certain comatose state briefly. And then hopefully our nephews will send us to bars. Okay,

so the idea is that a copy of him has been made. This is a thing the movie also makes no sense. Weirdly, it's a bit of a like your body's actually on earth. Well, they say they sent a copy

just like a telegraph, which is not how telegraph works, which is a very funny explanation where he's like, it's like a telegraph. They've sent a copy. And you're like, that's not how it's,

That's some 1912 shit. This is stupid to even ask, but we see that when he comes back to his body, that the colonel is like bones now. Yes. And he's been there for really long time. Does he shit his pants? Which question? Which person? Is that breaches?

Is John Carter's breaches just full up? He hasn't been eating. Yeah, but I'm saying he's just been late in there. But he's not an irregular. What are the rules? Well, we don't know. But he's not in a regular coma. He's in like a, your spirit and body have been transported to Mars coma.

A thurn coma. So maybe he is truly like just frozen in time. Suspended. It's fascinating. If you're in a regular coma, you do poop. Yeah. It's all happening. But it feels like a prestige where, oh, at this moment, a new version of you is being made

that is birthed at this other spot. God, yes. Right? Yes. Yes. That is what happens. Because Avatar, it's like we've built a thing, we've placed it there, and now we're going to transfer your consciousness. And there's one consciousness going in between the two.

But in this, it is, at this moment, you are copied. That copy is sent there. Right. And your consciousness is being transferred. But I think copy is misleading because his earth body is just lying in the cage. Right. So it's not, copy sort of suggests like there are two John Carter's walking around on two planets. You know what I mean?

There are two John Carter's, but only. one of them can walk at a time. There's just one then, really. The other ones... The body needs to exist. Two carter's one. One carter, two cups. And which one's pooping?

I'm just saying, give me a big old rumple-stilskinned beard. Yeah, I did... That would be fun. I had the same thought, which is why isn't... Yeah, shouldn't he have a big old bushy beard when he wakes up? And also maybe have like birds that built a nest on his head. And can he wake up in the 80s? Can he like, wake up with the beard and be like, where am I?

And then he hears like... Blondie. on the like someone's like Cruising by and he peeks his head out and he's in the back of a Sam Goody's All good ideas All good ideas

Right now I'm Andrew Stanton sweating I'm like uh huh Uh huh Yeah no maybe maybe maybe I do that Maybe yeah I do like when he wakes up back on earth And there's like crackling noises

Yeah he's all dusty I mean that is kind of fun And yeah he looks over And Brian Cranston's a skeleton man That's kind of fun I like the Cranston sequence I like the him constantly trying to escape and getting put in more and more restraints. The Cranston sequence is fine.

I think the movie, it's interesting because, like, the Mars adventure ends with him falling in love with Deja Thoris. Getting married, which I would say is... Marrying her and becoming the Prince of Helium. A little unearned that they get... They are that fast. It is fucking completely... They only get married, I feel like, because they're like, I mean, all the wedding shit's

already here, so I guess we'll do that. They're very spaceballs. They've kissed one time. implied because he forgot he wasn't talking to his dead wife, and then he immediately walks away and apologizes. And then, like, it feels like six hours later they're married. Their chemistry is not, like, very... It feels like they got...

They get married in the movie because they get married in the books, and they probably get married in the books because it's like, well, you're a dirty single woman. I'm doing you a favor. It's 1912. Yes, in the books, they get married. And then, even though they don't describe it, this is, like, literally one paragraph.

They say, like, 10 years passed. He basically they're... He lives there for 10 years. They have a egg, not even a full bone. Like, she doesn't give birth to a child, like a baby. She somehow, they don't get into the details. Produces an egg. And the egg is about to be born when he is pulled back to Earth in the book.

And there's this whole thing that is, again, not in the movie at all, involving the atmosphere factory that creates the air of Mars where it stops working. They've established earlier in the book this atmosphere factory. And if it ever goes down, there's going to be a big problem. At the end of the book, it goes down. He heroically goes to save it or, like, repair it. He's the only one who can do it. He knows the secret password that can open the unopinable door because he's awesome. The secret password of Ned.

Yes. He opens, thank you. He opens the door and is, like, he doesn't even understand why he's, like, sucked back to Earth and then has to figure out how to get back to his wife and his unborn child. And that's the end of the book. It ends on, like, a huge clip. lifehanger, which this one really doesn't. The other thing about the marriage, which we haven't mentioned one time, I feel like we should at least mention, is in the book.

He and everyone is naked on Mars. Oh, sure. He shows up totally naked. Well, well, well, well. They describe how all the Tharks are naked. Yeah. And Deja Thoris is naked. Like, most of the sort of.

Well, well, well. So, like, the whole book is everyone's just running around with, you know, their hogs hanging out and whatnot. Most of the visual sort of history, cultural memory of John Carter is from when Frank Frisetta does a bunch of additions of. Frank Frisetta is like sort of the main Conan artist, you know, that sort of classical kind of oil painting barbarian look. And they were very scantily clad. Like it was sort of like Deja Thoris is wearing like a ribbon. A bikini. Right.

Yes. Right. And John Carter is wearing like the skimpiest loincloth. And so that was another thing where Stanton was like, that would look silly. It can't be that cheesecakey. I think the furthest this movie could successfully go and sell me is that by the end of the movie, he's identified that he's fallen for her. That they have a connection and then he gets that back and that's why he wants to go back. You can't sell me by the end of it they've settled.

We're obviously madly in love with each other. I'm ready to be here forever. Right. I mean, because that is, the movie is like, right, the triumph is he's decided to be John Carter of Mars. Right. He's going to throw away the medallion. He's going to, like, he, this is it. His new life is here.

In the kingdom where he now lives. Right. The medallion that he sometimes is like, he literally leaves behind in places. And in other times it's like desperately like scrambling to grab it. There's such a focus shot when he's jumping away the first time of the medallion there. And I go, oh, right. So the movie's going to be he doesn't realize this is valuable. And the rest of the film is he has to get the medallion.

medallion back, which feels like a cleaner thing to track in terms of us saying, like, what is the movie, like, what are the stakes? What is he gunning for? If it's, oh, he left the fucking Ruby slippers behind. Yeah, just give it to Dominic West. Have him have it the whole time. In order to get back to the gold cave, he's got to get the medallion. And that's what's driving him the whole movie. That's what keeps him in the battle. Stan, like a year or two after this movie came out was like, well, seems like they're never going to be sequels. I'll tell you some of the stuff I was thinking. And, posted like the logos for the sequels and his opening for the second film, which was it was going to open with the story of John Carter being told. And then the reveal that it was Deja Thoris telling it to their son. Okay. And then it's like opening title. Then it cuts to John Carter like in the coffin, Ned activating him, him going back up. He gets there. Many years have passed, Deja and the son have gone missing.

And the movie is him trying to find them and then discovering the atmosphere machine. Okay. Right. So it feels like it rushes to the wedding because he's already, like, planning out, I want to start with the kid. But look. This is fucking trilogy-brained bullshit that fucked up the 2000s. But whereas, to bring it up one more time, Avatar. Yep.

The end of Avatar, they shoot the villain that you hate full of arrows until he dies. Yes. Which rocks, and I clap and cheer. Yeah. Humans leave. Home Tree is saved. Awah has hurt us. Yeah.

Great. And it's like, oh, what will the sequels be? And it's like, we'll figure it out later. I don't care. You need an ending and a sense of triumph. And here the triumph is like, well, we definitely took Mark Strong off the board. And I'm like, okay. And I get to be the prince and you're like, a prince of helium, what does that mean?

I don't know. Look, I've decided to live on Mars. And that's what's important. There was 10 to 15 years of this as a fucking cancer in the industry. And I blame Lord of the Rings for all of it. And it's so annoying that they never stepped back and went, oh, right. But Lord of the Rings was. a trilogy of books that worked on paper.

We were adapting a thing that was rock solid. Versus any time there was a new attempt at a franchise, whether it was adapted from something or original, it was littered with all of these threads that were, and that's going to be really important in the second movie. Right. The third movie is going to pay that off. Right. And there was a lot of, I think, backlash against this movie that was the anger from

audiences having seen this 15 times already of I don't want to watch the movie that's telling me how good the next movie's going to be. Make the fucking movie right now. This problem moved to TV, obviously, which, you know, has its own similar issues. It's the thing that Marvel cracked that helped for a while, which is, oh, Thor 1 doesn't need to be setting up Thor 2. No, it sets up Thor 2 by existing. Right, right.

And then what it's setting up is your continued investment in the Marvel universe. Little tease of Captain America. Right. And the sequels to each sub-franchise are kind of standalone. Yes. They aren't feeding off of the things set up here or there or whatever. It's more just the larger buy-in. You feel like you're kind of getting a complete meal,

and then they're teasing you with what the next meal's going to be. A lot of the ones that don't work were the ones that avoided that and instead tried to make it too heavy on lore. Dr. Strange, like, oh, the whole first movie, Baron Mordo is his friend. And at the end, he's like, I might think about being evil. He's still thinking about it. He's still thinking about it. Ten years later, he's like, maybe. Do you think Chiaotel's agent calls once a week, once a month, once a year?

I heard you guys doing an Avengers movie. He'll be in that one, right? What about Mordo? And you still own his ass? Like, you still have him under contract? When's he going to be a baron? Okay, my JEDX. JetX?

JetX. JetX. Anything else we want to talk about? As far as John Carter, anything from the movie? Which John Carter? Of Mars. There's nothing else I want to talk about. I have seen this movie three times, I think.

Same. I have always thought that it's an impressive swing that doesn't work. The first 45 minutes to an hour every time I watch it, I'm like, does this work? There's nothing about it that I out and out hate. There's very little of it that I love, though. Like, there's nothing that I'm like, I'm unambiguously into it. And like... There's a good amount of stuff I like.

I would agree with you that there's nothing I love. Like Jupiter ascending, which also has like flying bug ships, right? Is much more my vibe. Same. Because like that one, just as much as it's silly and insane, does a little bit of a better idea giving you like the power struggles. I agree. Because it simplifies them.

Every performance is big. I was going to say it's also bigger. It's like more bombastic. It's messier, but it doesn't feel... And it has that Wachowski, I don't give a fuck thing. That this one's, like you're saying, it's like, we could be the next Star Wars. The movie's like, we're not the next to anything.

This is just crazy, okay? It's also this weird balance of... This movie doesn't feel that studio managed outside of maybe the kind of nerfing of Lynn Collins' character down to, like, the most one-dimensional damsel in distress. That definitely does. It feels pretty pure, but it does feel like they're...

not self-sexamined. censoring, but they're so in their heads about how do we make this cool versus how do we make... It's the Disney problem, right? Like, they're always a little too worried about being uncool because they know they're not that cool. Charin Legacy has that whole thing where you're like, everyone loves this first movie, but also it was too nerdy at the time. Right. Can we make this a little more badass? I just think the iterative we're going to reshoot it three times.

We start filming with an unfinished script kind of thing. we'll fix it in post, we'll find the story beats later, we'll fill in the gaps, becomes how basically almost every Marvel, DC, and Star Wars movie is made. It's more the exceptions to the rule, the ones like The Last Jedi, where you're like, that seemingly was what they planned. They shot it the way they wanted to. Every other Disney Star Wars movie was, by all accounts, made like this. And you saying Sims, I wish they would write the fucking book on Rise of Skywalker.

Yeah, certainly. Notably, there used to always be these very transparent making of books, and Lucas would allow the making up docs. There was one that was announced for Force Awakens and then was pulled and canceled. Something, you know nothing about Matt Singer when you write an entire book and then they don't let you publish it. Oh, yeah. No, that's never happened to me that I can speak about on the record. But the answer was they changed a lot of shit substantially. and I think learning a little from the lesson of John Carter,

they're like, we don't want people to know that we didn't have it all figured out from the get-go. We don't want to communicate to people that we figured it out on the go. But then you get disasters like Justice League being shot two complete times, solo being shot two complete times with different directors that are this again. And like Disney is the one who is more often than not green lighting movies and allowing them to happen. way. And it was a too big to fail thing where the Star Wars movies and the Marvel movies in particular kept on just making enough money that it wasn't stupid to spend $300 million to shoot a film three times. I just, again, it's just at fast, to me, it's like, I agree with what

you said, David. I would also just say it's like you noticed on my letterbox. I keep watching it. It's like a movie. It's a movie that I'm sort of inexplicably drawn to, even though I don't particularly like it. It's like a classic five out of ten. It's like I wouldn't say I like this movie, but I guess maybe it's just because I do like and respect Andrew Stanton as a filmmaker that I'm just always trying to figure out where did it go wrong? I think there's something kind of pure about it, right? It's very pure in its intentions and it doesn't feel that meddled. And so even if the movie feels a little self-conscious and a little bit wary of like letting its freak flag fly, The other movies we're talking about are

You get to something like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Which was by all account shot 27 times And you're talking about that movie Every, just scene to scene flows with no issues Every time Elizabeth Olsen does an interview She's like at a certain point I don't fucking know

Yeah, she's in the Lynn Collins thing of like Just tell me where to tell me what to do Two versions ago I was the hero Now I'm the villain Is this before Wanda Vision or after Wanda Vision And that's a very managed movie that doesn't feel cohesive, but has, like,

explosive, ecstatic sequences that fucking rule. Yeah. It has flashes of ramy shit. But you're also, like, this is a weird,

exquisite corpse of a movie. And in an odd way, John Carter feels more coherent to me, even if it can't figure out what it's saying, it is like a straight line. Sure. I mean,

it's clear that it's... No, I'm agreeing. I'm saying it is, you feel that the passion of Andrew Stanton for the material. It's just, you know,

and look, a lot of times That is where the best stuff comes from, is that love of the material and wanting to try to transmit what you loved about it into the film version. It just something didn't get translated. He didn't get the Martian juice that magically translates. I don't know, but something got lost in the translation. He's also just such a supreme visual storyteller, in my opinion, that you have sequences that feel really thoughtfully designed. It's not just that there's a cool creature.

There's, like, really deliberate shot sequencing and rhythms where, we're even. even if none of the sequences like fully levitate, they are well made versus the types of movies we're talking about, like Justice League, where you're watching an action sequence and you can tell the parts of this were shot three years apart. You're cutting in with random jokes and asides or this character got redesigned in post

or any of that sort of stuff. There is just a little bit of like, I don't know. There's a clarity to this movie in its messiness. that feels that I'm almost a little nostalgic for. Sure, that's a nice way to put it. And there's a reason this era, you know, is gone, right? And that the Marvel era happened, that superhero franchise era happened. And the superhero franchise era got out of hand too, but did have its highs.

It is fascinating to be talking about this movie in the year when Star Wars is about to return. Right. And D-Den-Day is the big swing of, can we save Marvel? And both of these franchises are like on their heels being like, can you give me one shot to win you back? With Star Wars, I will basically, I'm always like, you know, like, I'm like, Star Wars can continue to flop and we'll always be there for someone to kind of grab the ball years later if they want. Right. Like, I could buy pretty much three flops in a row, but like, who cares? Like, maybe 10 years.

Marvel, the doomsday thing, it's a little bit more like, if that doesn't work, a harder reset may be required. Yeah. Like a very hard reset. I'm also, I'm watching this asking myself, what are the chances I prefer the Mandalorian and Grogu to this? And I would love to be pleasantly surprised, but everything I see from the marketing of the movie makes me feel like it is going to be basically John Carter vibes. Interesting in that Favro wanted to make a John Carter. I don't know, Manaloon Corugu, look to me, looks so good, I just know what it's about

and it looks good. Like, that's the thing, you know, people on Twitter have been like, Rise of Skywalker looks good. It does. It has sets. It's got lighting choices. Right? He's very good DP. Flop movie, we can all agree. But it's crazy that now not even

this new Star Wars movie does, looks like a Verizon commercial. Like, what the fuck is going on? I'm just like, they let Stanton shoot it his way. They went to places. They built giant sets, you know? They put people in a ton of costumes. I'm looking up, I'll tell you. Okay, I was right.

So we're talking about Favreau wanted to make John Carter, which has the Tharks, a lot of arms. I'm looking right now, Martin Scorsese's character in Mandelaarine. He's got a lot of arms. He's not tall. He's not big. I believe. Like a little Thark.

Martin Scorsese is playing a species that is the same thing that John Favro is solo. And they are, I saw. I saw some tweet saying they were related. Yeah. And someone being like, I can't believe like Scorsese is playing a glupp, Shito, which is, of course, that sort of the internet term. Gluck Shido's uncle. Exactly.

Like, they're like, we finally got Scorsese to be in Star Wars. How fun. Who is he? Well, you remember the guy in Solo? No. Oh, I was hoping you did because he's his uncle. Like, you know. It's very funny.

I mean, like, everyone I know under the age of 10 seems a little excited by Mandalorian and Grogo just because it is the first Star Wars movie being. released in theaters in their conscious lifetime. It's just, oh, right, Star Wars hasn't been movies. My kids are psyched. And I like Grogu, right? Every adult I know has no excitement for it, save for our friend, Alison Wilmore. She do love excited.

She love Grogu. It's not like overall excited for the movie. And I feel like this has not manifested that many times on Mike when we've been recording Critical Darling's. But before, after almost every record, she brings up how into hot Jabba son she is. The Jeremy Allen White six-pack road of the hut. Look, Hot Jabba's son is at least a play. Just every time, like, Lawson and Fresh and I are shitting on Mandalorian and Grogo,

she's like, but what about Hot Jabba? Hot Jabba's. I really don't buy in the stock. Well, I'm told he's a large part of the film, I believe, right? He's like the third lead or something. On the poster, I believe the billing is. Oh, boy. Pedro Pascal, Jeremy Allen White, and Sigourney Weaver. There are only three credited actors on the poster.

Who's the villain? Great question. Me. Great question. Truly. This is, I'm like, the movie has done nothing to sell me on what the story of this film is. It's an issue that I do not know what the story is except like Grogu will be asked to do a task and get distracted by some cheese nips or whatever. Mandalorian is hired to do a thing.

and maybe the person who hired him isn't trustworthy. Right. Double crosses him maybe. But if you're doing a movie that's the payoff of three seasons of television, even if those seasons of television are popular and beloved, I think your marketing immediately wants to communicate, this is why this had to be a movie. Here's a clean hook story we came up with that couldn't have just been an episode.

He baby Yoda. He do be small baby Yoda. He do be small baby Yoda. Let's play the box office game for John Carter. Yeah. I don't know if you notice, Ben. when you were watching it on the train with the woman looking over your shoulder,

but at the end credits when John Carter gets zapped back to Mars, uh, the, it says John Carter and then of Mars fades in. And that was Stanton being like, I, I, my real title.

Right. And then it goes J.C.M. Like they have a logo. But I like fought to get it at the end. And I'm hoping that retroactively people just call it John Carter of Mars. And maybe it's sort of that he doesn't really become John Carter of Mars until the end. and so the title changes. But, of course, this movie is dead on arrival in the sequel.

Yeah, just a couple more things from the dossier should mention, of course. There was a lot of fighting over the marketing, which we sort of talked about. But it was Stanton who insisted on Kashmir being used, the Led Zeppelin song. Right, right, right, right. In a trailer even though. That was the Super Bowl teaser that had, you were seeing clips from the movie, and as the camera pulled back, you realized the clips were inside the letters, John Carter. as cashmere plays.

Some of the Disney executives were like, isn't that like an old song that young people won't care about? He went for that. But this is where it's a perfect storm because then Disney goes like, you got to let us take control of the marketing. And then they make even worse decisions.

Yes. When, like, Deadline was doing it sort of post-mortem on the box office failure, they had a bunch of marketing people from rival studios speaking anonymously. And one of them just said, like, this is the most disastrous marketing campaign in the history of home.

It is like going to be studied for decades. They fucked everything. They made every mistake or whatever. By the premiere, the vibes are horrendous. You know, it's like the premiere was not celebratory at all. Lynn Collins tells a story of watching Taylor Kitch, walking down the red carpet, Rich Ross, the boss of Disney films. The boss of Disney, who is about himself to be fired.

About to be fired. Kind of not over this, just over general sort of mismanagement of Disney, I feel. He like whispers something into Taylor Kitch. a year and she's like, I watch him, like, react as if he's been struck by lightning and I follow him and go, what did he say? And he said, the head of Disney just leaned in and whispered, it's a disaster. Oh, wow. Before the premiere. And then they went down the press line. Collins says she thinks she, like, born the brunt of it. And, like, at one point, she says, like, you know, Taylor went on to continue to work. He did battleship and other things. And I think she's just kind of forgotten that, like,

Battleship was the same year. Yeah, he'd already working on that. He did not like, he did make more movies, but like he no longer was allowed to be star. They had different problems. Right. Yeah. I feel like everyone learned Taylor Kitch's name and he became the shorthand for guy being shoved down our throats in movies we don't want to see versus she kind of just like retreated back into anonymity. But she talked about that her reps like the week before it came out said like you're going to just need to hide out.

Like you need to disappear for. a year or two, that everyone around her was kind of telling her you're radioactive. And she, yeah, like, fired the whole management team. And she no longer. I mean, it's not like she's never worked again. She did some TV. She was on Walking Dead for a

year. But she obviously never made a movie like this again. No. And Tarz Tarkas, he had, I mean, he had a lot of trouble getting work after this town. You're forgetting the sex game. I was about to see. He had some off camera stuff. Some weird tweets. Weird tweets. Yeah. Should have left those eggs

alone, I'm saying. The film opens on March 9th, 2012, at number one of the box office. Surely, surely it's number one. Romley's birthday, I will say. It also was the meme with Anakin and Padman. He was like, number one of the box office, right? Number one, right? It was the rare case of usually movies that feel this ominous with the cloud over it.

They keep pushing it off as far as they can. They pulled this one up. They were so... They were like, let's rip the Band-Aid off, baby. Let's make this a Q1 right off. And they were like, maybe in March it will overperform if there just aren't other blockbusters. I believe it comes out the week before the Hunger Games. That's a good question, actually.

The first Hunger Games, that's the other thing is they were like, March. No one releases a blockbuster in March will have the month to ourselves. It's two weeks before the Hunger Games, but a week before 21 Jump Street, which also is a hit. Wow. They overperformers. Right. But it's opening to $30 million, which is bad because they want it, because it costs a lot of money. If it had opened to 50, they would have been worried.

If it opened a 50, it would have been a regular bomb. 30 makes it a kind of like bomb that gets written about in like the New York Times. The breaking of the point is like 600 or 700. Many people think this might have been the biggest write down on a movie ever. But also, after this, studios stop being as open about how much movies cost. Yes, that's true. It really did kind of change things where they were like, I don't know, it costs some money. What do you want for me?

How much did Avengers Endgame cost? I don't know. The receipts are here somewhere. We never added them all. Papers, so many papers. After we had in the blue rays and the rights. That's another thing about this movie is for how much money Disney invested in it, there was no merchandising.

There were no tie-ins. I know. There's no merchandise spotlight. You didn't eat one pancake with Carter juice on it? I was looking this up. I mean, it's a very telling. But it's also bizarre. We got green red pancakes and red pancakes.

That stuff has to be like figured out years in advance. Yeah. And that is often a way they help buffer the cost of these things where it's like... There were vinylmations. Do you have the vinylmations? I've been looking for the cheapest one I can find on eBay. Vinylmation was a series of like kind of little LeBoo-Boo-esque blindbag figures that all looked like Mickey Mouse. So they had his form factor in the ears, but then they'd paint them to look like other characters.

And they made four vinylmations. They made John Carter, Dejah Thoris, Taras, Tarkas. And the white ape. Everyone's favorite characters from the motion picture. The only pieces of John Carter merch that exist. But the fact that, you know, getting fucking Denny's to do a meal or whatever

helps get them free marketing. Merchandising these companies pay for the licensing. These things helped cover the cost. And this was a movie that cost $260 million that was all just Disney putting their neck out. How they didn't make, you know, like John Carter Milk, like the white group that they stuck him in. I'll never know. No other ancillary.

sort of revenue streams on this. It's opening $30 million. It's going to gross $73 domestic. $282 worldwide, which is bad, but like, it is amazing how even a bomb like this made almost $300 million. So. But it's number two. It's number two. What's number one?

It's just hilarious to lose to this. It's the second weekend of an animated film. Holdover in 2012. It's not Rio, is it? No. Perfectly good guess. Is it a Dreamworks? I think yes, right?

It's an illumination, I think. No, so it's universal. Yeah, I can never remember who had what, when. Oh, is it the Lorax? Dr. Seuss is the Lorax. Weekend 2, though. Because Lorax opening weekend was 70. It was something crazy.

And that was a movie that had an I-hop tie-in where they had pancakes with a mustache on it. Yeah. Pancakes with a lollipop in the top of it, I believe. That was a 70 opening, right? Yeah, 70-op. Crazy. So the second weekend is 40-something? 38, 38.

So it's dropping hard for an animated way. But that's the thing where, like, you know, the guys at Disney are like, I mean, we'll be weekend two of the Lorax, right? Like, we're going to end. And the Lorax just like, like, kicks you in the behind. It is crazy that in four consecutive weeks, John Carter is the only movie that doesn't hit. Where you're like, Lorax works. John Carter bombs. 21 Jump Street.

Right. Yeah. Hunger Games mega hit. So number two is John Carter. Number three is a comedy. film that opened the week before with kind of like a kind of a format twist to it

never seen it format twist. Format twist? Format twist. Like an R-rated teen comedy film. Oh, it's Project X. That's right. Never seen this one, which is a found footage comedy. High school party movie. Because like it is not sinister, right? Like it literally is just about like what about the wildest party ever

happened and you're watching it like videos? No, there's It's like supernatural twist. Yeah. It's nerds throw a party to be cool. And one kid is filming it. Does it get wildly out of hand, perhaps? Oh, it goes crazy. Whoa.

One weird thing about that movie is Miles Teller is in it. It's part of the early wave of Hollywood trying to make Mars Teller or star. He plays himself. Versus the Taylor Kitch thing, what felt like a very slow evolution. But yes, he plays himself. His character is named Miles Teller, and he's the coolest guy in school. Right. It's like, what if the guy from rabbit hole was a minor celebrity at your school?

Yeah, I don't know. Produced by Todd Phillips. Yeah, and Joel Silver. That movie was really pushed. In your book, of course. But I feel like Project X was really pushed. It's like, that genius Phillips has found another great angle on it. And like, it kind of wasn't a big head.

It was called Project X because it was this top secret project. It was like Todd Phillips has come up with a radical pitch on how to reinvent the high school movie. And they're keeping it under wraps. auditioned for that one like six times for every fucking character. But it was Project X was the code name and then they just decided it sounded cool. Did you audition to play Miles Teller? No. But I probably auditioned to play every other virgin in that movie.

It made 54 domestic. I'm sure everyone was happy with that. I was going to say, it must have cost $10 million. All right. So now we're getting into weird, though. Okay. Number four is one of those early 20, action movies, war movies, like war.

Is it act of valor? Act of Valor. Wow. Because that's such a weird. Where are you like, who does it start? And they're like, real soldiers. Yeah. It was trying to do the 1517 to Paris.

It was directed by two like action sort of stunt guys. Yep. I remember the, I remember the poster with just like shadowy figures of like soldiers in the distance. It didn't, you know, you couldn't see anybody. They're going to do an act of valor. Yes. pretty well and was also cheap.

It made $81 million worldwide on a $12 million budget. Like, you know, I don't think it's a masterpiece, but it did exist and it made a little bit of money. Number five at the box office is a horror film that had debuted at Sundance the year before. So, January 2011, that has a very high concept sort of thing going on. It's the Elizabeth Olson one. That's correct. It's a real time. It's silent house.

I was going to say safe house. Silent house. The safe house is the Denzel, Ryan Reynolds. I've never seen it. It's one take real time. It's not. But it was all about the concept. It was, yes.

It got a lot of buzz for being, yes. Like a single take. And she was hot. That and Martha were the same sunda. So there's this explosion of Holy shit. She's in two movies as the lead. And certainly Silent House is a skill piece because it's one take. How'd she do that?

How'd she do it? And then they waited a year to release it, assuming that her star was going to explode. And by the time it came out, everyone was like, people liked this at Sundance? It sucks. Yeah, it sucks. No, it was opening number five. It only made 12 domestic. Number six, opening at number six, which is bad news for this movie, is the Eddie Murphy movie

8,000 words. Oh. That was a true nadir for him. It was a delayed several years. That's when Eddie Murphy goes into the wilderness and doesn't make a movie for like five or six years. Yeah, because, like, that is basically the kind of thing where, it's like, your name above the title seems to do nothing anymore. Yeah.

It's like, we're not even going to just clear like $30 million on the fact that you're in a kind of family-friendly comedy. He had a couple family flops in a row, including Meet Dave, and imagine that. And then he signed on to do Tower Heist. And the promise of Tower Heist was it's going to be old Eddie. Right. He's going to be the wild card. He's going to curse. And so they pushed a thousand words to come out after Tower Heist.

and also after he was going to host the Oscars. So they were like, Eddie Murphy's about to have a comeback. And he did a great job. He's going to do a raunchy movie with Brett Ratner, and then he's going to host the Oscars directed by Brett Ratner, and everyone's going to love Eddie again and will be in the Halo Effect. And Tower Heist bombs, and he quits the Oscars because Brett Ratner is fired for using slurs. Having used slurs in his life, yes.

No, no, he used them right. He said, like, let's not be a... talking about the Oscars he's going to do. I mean, Brett Ratner had just never put a foot wrong until then. It's crazy. It's insane. Yeah. And then Brett was supposed to, my buddy Brett, was supposed to direct Beverly Hills Cop 4 right after that.

He was like, I'm the guy who's going to bring Eddie back. I'm getting to host the Oscars. He's going to do stand-up again. And Eddie retreats for years. Number seven is, wow, safe house. They're both in the top 10. So that's Denzel and Ryan Renn. Reynolds? X-Men origins Wolverines own Ryan Reynolds.

Never seen. Daniel Espinoza. Extremely forgettable action movie. No one is safe. I have seen that. It is. That was the old Doug Benson joke. What if there was a safe house? Yes. But it is a real pre-pandemic.

Right. Movies like that used to just come out, make $100 million, disappear. Right, where you're like, what's the premise? It's like, have you not seen the poster? They both have gone. There were two stars. Right. These two stars.

Will they shoot them at each other? Are they friends of the enemies? I don't know. Watch the movie. How about both? It gets figured out probably. And, you know, the apex of it being two guns. Yeah. Like, where they're like, it's Denzel and Walberg. What do they do? They're shooting money that's in the air, I think. I don't know. Like, maybe they'll have to shoot all of the money. Who could say?

Safe House was like the only hit Ryan Reynolds had in that run. Yes. Yes. We mean post-proposal of like him doing like actual movies. And, and whatever. And, uh, but everyone just gave Denzel all the credit. totally because what the fuck who even knows what that movie is yes and then Ryan Reynolds goes into his forgotten indie phase where he's like I'll be in the woman he tries some buried yes I'll do mississippi grind he tried some stuff and then he stopped trying stuff yes uh and started making a guess in his defense oodles and doodles of money and running a cell phone company very well I assume what yeah uh I haven't checked in with them lately

uh you've also got funny that we used to have to do ad reads for that uh I love Mint Mobile I would use it if I didn't have other cell service. Matt, that's a great question. If the whole value of Mint Mobile is that he does the ads, why were they spending money to have David and I in

2019 be like, I love dialing numbers and having a phone call go through. Number eight of the box office is the Channing Tatum, Rachel McAdams film, The Vow. A big hit. This is the year where Channing Tatum manifests what Hollywood

would want all these other guys we're talking about to be. I'm going Channing Tatum, John Carter. 21 Jump Street. The vow, Magic Mike are all in the same years. He would be good John Carter. And he could be funny. He could be funny.

He could be dunked in the goo. The vows one of those movies where you're like, is this based on Nicholas Sparks? And they're like, no, but that's what we're going to. Not literally, but metaphorically, yes. Weirdly based on nothing. No, based on nothing. Just original screenplay about, I assume,

vibe of all those other movies. That must have been a bestseller. It's serious 50 first dates. She gets amnesia and they're married and he has to make her fall in love with him again. Love it. Number nine at the box office, I assume it's great. Is another mega flop, much hyped mega flop of this Q1,

which is this means war. The McG. Yes. Is that talked about in your book at all? No. No. Oh, yeah, I didn't get to that. That was like a 90s high concept spec by that went through every. permutation of if they're never

going to make a bad boy sequel is this the way to re-team Will Smith and Martin Lawrence and then there was a version that was supposed to be Seth Rogan and another kind of frat-pack guy it was going to be Martin Lawrence was like often attached and they're like Bradley Cooper Seth Rogan every Sam

Worthington at one point they're like should it be Martin and Chris Rock? Yeah like kind of try to do a new bad boys with Martin and another like major black superstar and like by the time they're like we got Reese Witherspoon. That's fun. Yeah. So now it'll be

Spy versus Spy versus the Grey Spy, the Girl one. You know, because the old one was kind of more of a Spy versus Spy thing. It was always them fighting over a woman. Right. But I think the woman was less of a character. Right. And they were like, we've hired a megastar to play The Woman. We got that part. Then they get Bradley Kouffer off of the hangover. And then he's like, I want to do other things. And they, they're like, it's okay. It's okay. Chris Pine and Tom Hardy. And everyone's like, I guess. Like they're brand new. Like, they're both, like, such recent stars.

They picked the right guys, but I tried watching that movie recently, and they are just floundering. It's a bad movie. It's a disaster. It's one of those movies where it bombs. Everyone says it's terrible. And you go, well, how bad could it be? Right. And then you watch it, and you're like, oh, it was bad.

It was bad. It was bad. Number 10 of the box office is Journey to the Mysterious Island. A big hit. Wow, we hit three hours again, Ben. It's a problem. This is a problem. I try to.

Bank check needs to finessing. We got to do it. Don't worry. Our Martin Scorsese series, I'm sure we'll be filled with lots of shorties. Definitely. I don't want, look, I don't want to call a shot. I do think the next two Stanton's will be shorter. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, our guest for Dory, it could be some tangents. And he, he's coming in with a full-throated defense of its star. A full-thoted? Did you say, full-thoded? Full-thoded? Yeah.

That's what you said. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. It's a fascinating movie. And it is like, it feels like such a flashpoint of everything that was going on at that exact moment, of what had happened before, of what's to come. And like, Sandton, unsurprisingly, takes it very hard. He does a piece, I think, with the LA Times, like six months after it comes out. Rarely does a filmmaker own a flop that quickly.

Right. And was like, I decided, I'm going to take a year. I'm going to go to New York. where my daughter's in school. I'm going to read books. I'm going to write the subway. Love to ride the subway. I need to like pull back and reset my batteries.

What had also happened in the background is that, of course, Disney had bought Pixar. They start immediately saying, can we start up the sequel machine? They're begging for a finding Nemo sequel. They always sort of have the respect of we won't do it unless the original filmmaker approves. He oversees the 3D re-release of Nemo that I think is in 2011. the year before this. Sure. And he said that when he was overseeing it and he got to the scene where Dory says,

where is my family? He went, there is possibly a sequel there. So he goes to Pixar and he says, I would let this happen. They hire a writer and he was not intending to direct it. It was, I'm clearly in the John Carter business. Right, I'll be on Mars. Right. Yeah.

I bring this up only because the obvious perception would be John Carter Flops. He runs panic back to Pixar and says, can you let me do Finding Door? Right. Kind of similar to Bird eventually doing Incredibles 2 after a flop or 2. The reality is it was in the works and then he said, actually, maybe I want to do it myself. Right.

But still, rarely, I mean, rarely do you see a director, you know, make these crazy big swings and then immediately, I see what you're saying. It wasn't created with that in mind. But he does then go make a sequel. But there's really, like, then. How many careers are like this of animation? animation to live action, back to animation, then TV, and then back to live action and animation

the same year. And we'll talk about it in the next two. I'm looking forward to hearing this in the blink of an eye. I'd like to hear you guys talk for three hours about in the blink of an eye. We're going to keep that one. Ben's giving me a dirty look, the dirtiest look. But he is like he is lucky and it's from his own doing that he has in his possession a get out of jail free card from the moment this movie flops. He is lucky.

He's also lucky that he's already made whining the moon wally. Right. That's cool. That rocks. But saying, what if I want to direct finding Dory, no one's going to question him on that.

Absolutely. They're not going to be hovering over his shoulder. They're like, we trust that. You're good. You don't have to spend any time in movie jail if that's what you're doing next. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I say goodbye to Matt. I mean, he'll be back. You know, I think we gotta wrap this up. Maybe in three more years or whatever it's been. Has it been three years? No.

Yes. It was when the book, when the last book came out was I was here. I think you're forgetting something. There was something around more recently. Let's see. In fact, let's see if you've made like a five time. Planet of the Apes. I definitely have not.

This is your fourth. Yes. Wow, it has been three years. Really? What the fuck? What the fuck? We do suck. What a disaster.

That was three years ago. Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's actually maybe more of the sticking point. At a certain point I was like, If I ever want to do another blank check, I better write another book. I better write another book. Apatow was in March Madness and it didn't feel like he.

I was feeling like, oh, man, if he gets in. That would be perfect. I'm in. I'm going to, I'm golden. No, we were overdue to get you on either way. Oh, great news. JJ has texted us. Sony Taps Brian Hedgeline to script.

Helgolin. I think it's Helgolin. Zorro versus Django, which is another movie that has been in the works for so long. It was part of the Sony hack. I mean, because Tarantino wrote it as a comic book. I was going to say, didn't they make a comic book out of that already? I'm sorry. At one point, Gerard Carmichael was supposed to write it.

Cool. And that's, so it's Django teams up with Zorro, the hero, the folk hero? Yes. Will Jamie Fox be back? Presumably. But people don't realize all these things came from Zorro. This is the original. Is it Jamie Fox almost 60?

I guess these things don't matter anymore. I mean, yes. It really doesn't matter. Right. Nothing matters. Um, interesting. Anyway,

um, It's been a while, but I'm glad to be back. The book is coming out in October. Comes out October 6th. Yes. You can pre-order it right now. Anywhere you pre-order books.

And please do. Please do. Yes. It's very helpful. And, hopefully I can write another book and come back in three years and review. Soon we all be back.

Super bad or something. Yeah. Yeah. I do a patow. No, but that's not Apatow. I know, but I'm just saying.

Yeah, I want to do Apatel, too. I don't think we're going to do great movie to come out. Apatatat would be a great blank check subject. Totally. Yeah. It feels like the last couple years we've been pushing and people are like, why. And this year in March Madness, people got it for the first time.

He did win a matchup. He did. I was watching. I was voting. And it felt like we have enough distance from it that it's worth studying in the way that you did in your book. Well, I certainly think so. And if people agree, they can check out the book. Business.

Thank you all for listening. please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for Finding Dory with Zach Cherry. That's right. Who is not actually... Defending Ellen DeGeneres is... But that's been a running bit for a year. Has it?

I feel like there's been a year of texting with Zach. He's like, get ready for the Ellen defense. Yes. I don't really remember that, but that's... But as I said to you when you floated that idea long ago, I was like, Zach Cherry Finding Nory episode? Sounds good to me. It just sounds funny.

Sounds fun. We look at the spreadsheet and we chuckle. Sounds pretty good. It sounds pretty good. Pretty good movie, too. It's a movie I've seen many, many times because of my daughter and I enjoy it. Yes. I don't like love it.

No, same. I enjoy it. Yeah. There's fish. There's fish. Dory. There's an octopus. He's a septipus.

He's a centipus. Sorry. Tune in next week for that. Yep. And as always, Barsoon. I love the sound of that poor. It would be bad if it was like plop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. If it was thick.

Clunk, clunk. This is like a Ben and Jerry's coffee, David. It's got a lot of objects in it. Mixing. Chunky. Oh, there was a tagline. Wow. Okay.

Maybe do the tagline. I think, in fact, that's probably your best bet. Could do a couple things. Thank you. It's a potent. A potent aroma. It's a potent mix. That is.

a potent mix. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas, and our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited

by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their

production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank CheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.