Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Kemp Powers: Storytelling and ‘Across the Spider-Verse’

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay are joined by writer and codirector of ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ Kemp Powers to discuss the massive success of the film (1:22), being the first Black codirector of a Disney feature with ‘Soul’ (8:48), and scripting the stage play and film versions of ‘One Night in Miami’ (18:00). Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Kemp Powers Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, there's one movie right now that is dominating. It's not just dominating in ticket sales. It's made over $300 million worldwide already. I think it's in its second week of release. It's insane. But it's also stolen the hearts of everybody who has seen that the movie is called Spider-Man Cross the Spider-Verse. Okay.

Miles Morales, Warralis, Win Stacy, Spider-Man, 299, Peter B. Parker. Spider-punk, everybody is in this film, making memories for people that, really across age ranges, people who love in the movie. We're lucky enough to have one of the creators of this film with us today, the co-director of Spider-Man across the Spider-verse. Kemp Powers is joining us a day on Highland. How are you doing, my brother? I'm doing well, man. And I'm still kind of in this surreal space where you can't believe how much people are loving the film. Like I was saying, you know, we work on it for years and kind of wonder and we're like, man, we hope someone else likes this movie other than us.

Yeah. So it's been a real nice surprise to see how much people have gotten into it. So you say years. How many years did you guys work with it? I think it was about four years total. I got to, it's everyone knows on this podcast and who listens that I don't normally watch. like these type of movies. I loved it.

Back and watched the first one, I was all in and I felt like I was an expert talking about it, but Van touched on something, which I think just adds to the greatness. There's so many great things about it, but the movie is so much heart, and you do fall just like in love with Miles and his mother and that relationship,

and I'm just wondering, you know, how much you wanted the heart to be a part of the action and going into this film and putting that all together. I mean, that was our North Star. I mean, without the heart, there is no film. Then it's just product. You know what I mean? Like, I've always been one of those people who's like,

I don't care how big this business gets. I don't refer to what I do as product ever, because as corny as it sounds like, we're artists. And we always said, we love Miles Morales. We love him and his family. It's one of the things that makes him different than all the Peter Parker's you've ever seen before all the other characters.

And as long as we don't lose sight of that and build around that strength of their family, we felt like we couldn't really go too far, of course. So, I mean, one of the things that excited me the most about being on this film was expanding the role of Rio and Jeff, his mom and dad, who were great characters in the first film. But like, we really wanted to kind of build them out in that relationship. We always said that this film was meant to be a coming of age story, both for Miles and for his parents. parents for parents who go from having an adolescent to a young adult. It did not hurt that at the time that I started on this film, my own son, who was in college now, was like the same age as Miles Morales. So I was kind of living through all of those changes that kid who it's like, everything, my best friend. What happened? Like, what's going on with you? You know what I mean? Like no kind of like going

off becoming an adult doing their own thing. They stopped sharing with you. And you used to being so close. and it throws you off a little bit. And I think this film, I'm hoping kids dig it and kids can relate to it, but I'm also hoping their parents will sit there and relate to it just as much. Did your son comment on that? Did he notice the similarities at all?

I don't know if he noticed it. He's, he's, yeah, I don't, I hope he did. I hope he did. I mean, I'll ask him when I get home. He came home for the summer. So I'll walk through the door and be like, did you notice the similarities? So I don't know.

So I remember when, Miles first made his debut. It's created by Brian Michael Bendis and Sarah Pichelli, and it wasn't something that was without controversy. Because there was a point, and if people don't know, in the history of comic books, but particularly in Marvel,

where there was a push to have more diversity in the comic book characters, but people didn't want new characters that were diverse. they wanted diverse takes on classic characters, and it wasn't always well received. When Miles first came around, people were like, we don't need a black Spider-Man. Right.

And very quickly, he became his own character. Right. His own Spider-Man, his own universe, his own world, his own powers, his own pitfalls and triumphs. When you guys are doing the movie, do you guys think in your mind this is a black Spider-Man story.

This is a story about a Spider-Man who doesn't have some of the same experiences that a Peter Parker would have. Is that something that you guys think about? Or has Miles become something bigger than that? I mean, the answer, I mean, both, I've got to answer both in the affirmative. He has become something bigger than that. But no matter how big he gets, we can't lose sight of who he is, where he's from, his ethnicity, his neighborhood, his family, his makeup. He's half black and half Puerto Rican. And, you know, I'm actually from New York.

So the environment that he represents is the same environment that I'm from. And you always want to strive for as much authenticity and the character in their world as humanly possible. Because, look, you could be from, you know, Norman Alaska watching the film and just enjoy it. But it's really important to me if it's someone else who's from Brooklyn and from that community that they don't get pulled out of it because they're like, man, this is fake. You know, there's this whack. It's like, where are you from? Like, New Orleans? I'm from Baton Rouge.

So, like, you know, someone does something in Louisiana. There's these very specific Louisiana things, I think. Yeah. And if a character supposedly from Louisiana, you don't want them to just be going like, Gumbo, Gumbo, Gumbo. Yeah. Like there's more. Hey, want to get a jump in a liar.

Hey, I want to know. You know what you mean? There's fine points, right? Yeah, fine points of your culture, of where you're from. And when you see it, someone who's from there, you know what I mean? Like, just kind of leans in a little bit more. So it's about kind of encompassing. both. But I think that you can be, and I've said this a long time, but I think you can get

hyper-specific and still tell the most universal story, because even if it's something that's specific and unfamiliar to you, when that character then goes through things that you go through, it helps you understand that like everyone in the world, no matter where they're from, no matter what their ethnicity, they're all dealing with the same thing. Parents want their kids to be all right. Kids want to break away from their parents. You know what I mean? Like it's just, that's universal. It doesn't matter where you're from. So, so yeah, not to be wishy-washy, but I've got to answer like in the affirmative for both of those. I, what I found interesting, too, is there's a lot going on, but you can still understand that even if you're new to the world like me.

How many spider people are in this movie and how many, how many, do you all, do you know the answer to that? And then how many multiverses do we see as well? Because we see a lot of living around. Well, there's hundreds, but understand a lot of them are background spider people like of our own creation. of like our team created some. And I'd say there's probably somewhere between 80 and 95 like specific spider people that we pulled

from various Spider-Man comics. But our film really kind of focuses on a pretty core group. You know, like Miles, Gwen Stacey, Peter B. Parker, Miguel O'Hara, Spider-Punk, who's voiced by Daniel Kaluya, Spider-Man India, you know, Pav. Yeah, I think it's like a core group of like, like seven or eight that are kind of our primary speaking roles.

And we go to, I think, at least six worlds, maybe even more in terms of brief snippets. And that was one of the most challenging aspects of the whole film technically, because from a production design standpoint, it's not like you go to this world and because you're only there for 15 minutes. It's that percentage. It's like, no, it's like making a whole movie because you've got to design the entire world out as of the whole movie is going to be set there. And we did that again and again and again.

and you want to make sure the styles don't clash with one another. The characters from a different world can exist in that world that's not theirs and not jump out or if they do jump out, it's because we want them to, like when the vulture is in Gwen Stacy's world. So you have this watercolor gouache painting kind of environment, but then you have this character inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's, you know, drawings of the Renaissance that kind of clashes when he exists in that world. Yeah.

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Sign up and get a $25 bonus. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus. Bonus is non-withdrawable and expires seven days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at Fandual.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. You directed soul, co-directed soul.

Yeah, you made some history there. Yeah, I guess. I didn't know until someone told me, though. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wait, they don't tell you that? No, I mean, it's not like they would bring you in and I'm like, congratulations, you're the first black guy to ever be.

I'll be real with you. I would expect somebody to mention that. No. So I would expect somebody to be like, you know, just as you guys are doing the thing, it kept just to let you know. I don't know if you know this, but this is kind of historic in the first black could. But that'd be weird. It would have been weird.

That would have been like, if somebody at Disney would have been like, Kemp, we want to let you know, you're the first black co-director we've ever had. Like, you get that email. That would have made me kind of almost not want to do the job. It's like, why am I here? You know what I mean? It's like, what you felt the pressure? I think it's more just like, is that the only reason I'm here? Yeah.

You know what I mean? Because I'm just, I'm like a writer and a director. I'm an artist who's just like doing his thing. And that would have kind of made me self-conscious, I guess. It's like, wait, is that the only reason? but instead, yeah, someone, it was after the movie was coming out that someone told me. And I was like, oh, I had no idea. And I was like, really in a hundred years?

Like, no one. And it's, I guess that speaks to, you know, greater issues in animation. Because coming from the world, like comic books, there's been tons of trailblazing, you know, black artists. I mean, we were talking about when we were a bit younger. I mean, I remember when Larry Stroman did his run on X-Force. Remember that? That was such a big deal. Yeah.

Are you not in the comics? Are you? Okay, I can see she's smiling in that way. It's kind of like, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I'm sorry. Sorry for person. Oh, no, yeah, okay. We heard.

You got it. Because she was looking like, mm-hmm. Larry Sproman, X-Force. I was trying to keep a poker face. It's funny. You know what the thing is? Like, I could say anything to her. And he has.

I has. I had before I could say anything. You know, we could be talking about all kinds of different things. It's so unfair. We could say that Larry Jenkins made Ham Hock comics in 1993 for specifically black characters. And the first book, Slave Man, number one. And Rachel would be like, oh, my God, really? They did that.

And I'd be like, it was very controversial. And you can just say anything to her. You can. And I am gullible in that sense. But doesn't that speak to that I am not? I don't read comics. I'm not into the world. But even I could enjoy the art and the story in this movie.

I mean, that's great because ultimately we're filmmakers and this is film. So if you enjoy film, we want you to be able to enjoy this. Of course, you can enjoy it. a deeper level if you're a fan of comic books, if you're a fan of Spider-Man. But ultimately, if you like film, if you like movies, if you like live-action movies, we want you to be able to enjoy this on a story level, on an emotional level, on an action level. I mean, Jo Santos, one of the co-directors, is just one of the best action directors in animation. And one of the, I just, I was so blown away by his boards that turned into some of our big action set pieces in this film.

It's the kind of stuff where you're just like, can you even pull this off in live action? So every element of the film, man, we were fans ourselves and just getting excited more and more excited as we saw this stuff starting to come to life. I want to mention a name here because it's a name that's a story I'm very interested in telling maybe with six feet over productions. A name of somebody who never directed anything but was a pioneering animator at Disney, Floyd Norman. I just want to throw his name out there. So people go and do your research about guys still with us right now, about all the work that he did on some of the Disney films that you love. So there were people around there just,

they didn't get to the point that you got to, which you was running the show. I mean, I think that's what it is. Yeah. That, you know, animators and storyboard artists, but it's, it is kind of shocking that no one was ever in a position to be a director of one of these films. Because there's plenty of people who are capable of doing it.

But animation is a little bit different also than a lot of other mediums and that when they're developing an animated film, at least in my experience, it kind of starts, it's developed through the director. So it's kind of like starting off with a story that you've got to get a lot of buy-in from. And right now, these movies have gotten really expensive.

Absolutely. You know, like animated films, people get it twisted because cartoon and think that's cheaper. But animated film, well, it might be cheaper now just because live action's gotten so, crazy expensive. Yeah. But now we have like $300 million movies, which is kind of nuts. Yeah, but they are. For Fast X, bro. Was it 300 million? It's 334. Really?

For Fast X. Because of the salaries of the castor. It's 334. I haven't seen it. So it must have some crazy sons. A kid jump out of a car, moving car, going at 100 miles an hour into another car for Vendiz for to catch him in his arms. God bless everyone involved. $330 million. for Fast X. Okay, whatever.

But you went from Pixar and Sony. Pixar is, I don't know, man. That's like the Motown. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? But what Sony animation is doing is so cutting edge,

almost bleeding edge with the way that they're animating. I mean... That's what excited me about going to Sony because when I wrapped up at Pixar, I was commuting back and forth for a few years. on Seoul when I was finally coming home to LA.

You know, I was talking to my people like, well, if you're dressed any more animation, I was like, honestly, I'd love to meet the people at Sony because it seems like the Wild West over there. Oh, wow. So you, you've sought them out. Yes. Oh, okay. Coming off of Soul, I wasn't even done with Soul yet.

And it's like, I want to meet the folks at Sony because they are like, wild and out. Like, all of their animated films are so different. And I'm just curious what they're up to. And so that turned into a meeting with Lord Miller. And I didn't even know they were doing a. Spider-verse sequel. So we just like hit it off in this meeting. And they're like, you know, we're doing another Spider-Verse. They pitched me the story of where it was going to go. And then asked me to come on board as a director. And I met the other two guys, Joaquin Dos Santos,

who's been around since before the first one was done. And Justin K. Thompson, who was the production designer on the first film and got made director on this one. Three of us hit it off. And it was like, bet. Let's do it. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Cream. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies. Sweet Green's new wraps have got you. Real ingredients? Zero shortcuts. Everything you love in one hand. Think green goddess chicken. Garlic aoli. Crumbled bacon. Corn salsa. 40 grams of protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweet green wraps hit different. Order now at order.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter

is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Question. Yeah. I've been on many sets. I don't know how. how you direct an animated movie. Yeah.

What's the process of getting an animated movie rendered and all of that? And then as a director, what do you guys do when it's animated? Well, you're directing people. But just take the sets away and put the sets inside of a computer. Okay? We're building sets only instead of going on location, the location is inside of our computer, the three-dimensional sets. It's a part of the process called layout.

It starts with storyboards. You work with a story team. Those are the people who draw the 2D storyboards. And early on in the process, it's iterative. That means we make the movie again and again and again and again and keep on making changes. In the early stages, we're the ones doing the voices. It's called Scratch. We hire a couple of actors, but the directors and the staff, I mean, it could be a security guard.

Like, I was voicing Jefferson for a while. You know, Joaquin was voiced in 2099. Justin was voicing like three of the villains. And we're doing the voices. We're kind of throwing it up again, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't. Then you cast it. You get to the point where it's in layout. It's when the story is largely coming together so you know your locations and you start building scenes digitally in the computer.

And you're building it layout in the computer. That's when you start setting the camera. And that's, you know, that's direct. Yeah. It's conventioning to now. You're directing. Then you start bringing in the cast. And they're in the sound booth.

And you've got to get their performance. So those sessions usually do it in four hour blocks and you know we got a big cast so you do session after session because we keep on rewriting it Right so then you start dropping that into then it's after layout you start animating it So the animators get the voices of the actors and then they animate the performance so when you're seeing an animated performance It's really two sides. There's the vocal and the physical the vocal is the actor the physical is the animator the animator's doing all the performance and they even do their own video reference and they even do their own video reference for themselves. It's a super exciting process. Like I think people, if they look behind the scenes, it would kind of blow their mind. Yeah. Oh, you know, like there's a, yeah. Then after, after that, you know, we put in the lighting, um, the BFX. Then the whole thing gets rendered.

Rendering is, is quite literally just like the processing of the computer time. That's why it takes so goddamn long. Right. And, and then you've got yourself an animated movie. But the, the main difference, the other main difference is that you feel the early stages is very much like ideas. You're looking at art, you're coming up with ideas. You have artists who are doing paintings. You're trying to visualize the world, visualize the characters. But once you start getting into production, it's a couple of years of just pretty damn intense long days for everybody involved. You have such a diverse portfolio. I mean, you scripted one night in Miami, which is just, we talked about that. What we had, um, all this on the account.

the podcast before. Like, I mean, just amazing. But I love that the concept of taking a real event and then having this fictionalized, you know, the movie, screenplay, whatever it may be about it. And you have the 19th that came out in. It came out just a few months ago. Yeah, yeah. It ran in San Diego.

What was the inspiration behind that? The photo, the photo of Tommy Smith and John Carl was throwing up their fists. and that was, look, I read both men's bios. It was one of those things where I knew the photo, but I didn't know the story. And it was really three men, those two and Peter Norman, who's the third guy. He's not raising the fist, but he's wearing a button and he got ostracized. And it cost him dearly. Deerly.

Yeah, exactly. So I was like, oh, man, these three guys, no one really knows anything about any of them. And I was just fascinated by it and wanted to once again dramatize that story. So I wrote that play. Geez, I wrote the play back in like 2018, but then COVID hit and theater just shut down. So it's one of those things that like went into the drawer. And a producer, you know, came up about a year ago.

And it was like, I'd love to share that play you wrote. And a bunch of theaters were interested. San Diego was close enough that I could, first it's a great theater. The Old Globe's amazing. And it was close enough that on the weekends I could go down from my Spider-Verse production and sit in on a couple of rehearsals. That's amazing.

And we got that up. So I'm always going to write plays because so much of who I am, it's so Hollywood is funny. It's like you do something that gets people's attention. And then they want you to do something that's like nothing like the thing that got your attention. So theater is one of those things that allows me every now and again to remind people what's unique about my voice. And I think that's how I've been able to kind of like within film to continue to do interesting original stories because I'm always reminding people through my plays. the types of stories I'm capable of telling that might not seem like they make sense

but like I'm always saying like trust me have faith it's gonna connect to an audience so to have an audience in San Diego which is look it's a pretty conservative city watch a play with two brothers throwing a fist up and like jump up cheering trust me like it's not

give us a chance to tell this story and I think people I can make people connect to it can ask a follow up you'll think this is interesting to I read that what also inspired you was looking at Colin Kaepernick and what happened there and the aftermath of it all. Would you ever be interested in doing something like this regarding Colin Kaepernick? Honestly, I kind of like the zig and zag. You know what I'm saying?

Like I do a certain thing and then it's like people want me to do a lot more of that and that's when I move and do something else. You know what I mean? Like I think after Spider-verse, I'm probably going to like dip far, far away from both animation and superhero stuff. Yeah. Because the business is always trying to put us in the boxes.

And the only way, and some of my heroes, my creative heroes, the things I love about them, they do whatever the hell they want. It's whatever story is interesting in them. And I'm interested in a lot of stuff. And history,

I mean, I've already written another history film. And I kind of feel like, okay, I'm trying black folks to like get our his stories out there, store. You know what I mean? But it's like, okay, there you go. Like now I want to do like a spy movie. Yeah.

You know what? I'm straight up. Like, I'm straight up like, all right, I think I want to do a spy movie now. Right. Because I want to because I like spy movies. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, Reliable Internet means everything for your business.

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from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject tremphia, proper training is required. Tremfaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections, or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection,

flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfair Radio.com. I got two more questions. I got one question. I got one pitch.

So there's a doctor. discourse surrounding Spiderverse. Okay. Across Spider-Verse. It's a friendly, playful discourse. It's something that we notice, and I want to ask you since I got you here. Okay. All right, I want to spoil the movie for a lot of people. I have to. Okay, you have to see the movie. It's a spoiler.

Spoiler. Should you? Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert for Spiderverse right now. Spoiler alert. You haven't seen it? Spoiler alert. They go to a specific universe at the end of the movie. Yeah. 42. Yeah. Okay. When they get there, things are different. Miles,

we don't know for sure, but it seems like he's a little angry or maybe evil Miles. He's definitely the prowler in this universe. We don't know anything yet because we got a cliffhanger. Thank you for that, by the way.

Everybody was like, what? Yeah. I got so many family members that call cursing me out. And I'm like, I was like, huh? Yeah. Okay.

When evil miles, maybe, When we see him, he's got braids. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And when I left the theater, I looked at Gleek and I go, so was that a commentary on the wearing of braids? Is he, is evil miles, does he have braids because he's a tug?

Or people, and people, we're making fun of it, but like, whose decision was it to give the hardcore miles, the proud of miles, two braids, because people were wondering, are they trying to tell us something about the braids? First, I wouldn't call him evil miles. Okay. Straight up. I would not call that dude evil miles.

It's miles raised without a father in a criminal society, Miles. That's not evil Miles. Okay. And people, I think, kind of make that. Miles G. Morales, Miles G. That's just a leap they make because he's rougher around the edges.

But think of it as like Miles who grew up during the crack era in poverty, Right. You know, he's, Miles G is just as smart as our Miles. Trust me. Right. The kid, as you learn, there's a lot more to that kid. Right. And we wanted him to have, I mean, we worked on so many different designs for him. And we wanted him to be just physically distinct. And we wanted it to also be a cool hairstyle. We thought Miles's hair was cool. We kind of grew it out. We gave him a fade in this one. And it was like, well, shit, we should give him some braids. You know what I mean? So it wasn't meant to be a commentary on him being a,

thugs. It was just, we wanted to have more. Look, man, I mean, one of the, one of the issues in Seoul was I was so excited in Seoul about showing different black hairstyles. Right. You know, one of my favorite parts in this film, it's a very small thing. There's a character Spider-Bite where we come in and meet her and she's going through hairstyles and her hair is changing. You know what I mean? And it was like, she's going, no, no, oh, that's kind of cute. Like, it was specific. Make sure she says that's kind of cute on the Bantu knots. You know what I mean? Like thought is going into this about showing all these different styles. And we didn't want Miles G to look

literally the thing come off. He's got the same exact hairstyle. So no, it's not a commentary on him being a thug. And it's funny because you're not the first person. I'm friends with Rick Fama Yu, the director of dope. And Rick brought that shit up. He was like, so you're trying to say that? I was like, no, man.

I'm not trying to see it. Rick also doing great work over there at Disney with Star Wars. Yeah, Rick is the man. Like, yeah, Rick is the man. So Rick was one of the first people who kind of brought that up. I'm like, no, man, it's just like we're trying to make him, you know, like swaggy. You know what I mean? Just give them a little bit more swag. That's all than our Miles, who's a bit more of a bookish character and this,

and Miles G is kind of not. So, all right. So look, we have luminaries from the film world, and I always do a pitch. This is my pitch. All right. Okay. Something monumental happens next year. It's 2024. Okay. Mickey Miles comes back into the public domain. Does he really? Yeah. You're sure Disney's going to allow that? Steamboat Willie. Okay. The Steamboat

Willie version of Mickey Mouse comes back into the public domain in 2024. Okay. The Steamboat. So I have an idea. Mickey Mouse

Rat King. This is the movie. We start off, come on, Ken. I'm listening. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. We start off.

Mickey Mouse, basically, because he's not with Disney anymore, it's kicked out of Disney. He's no longer in Disney. So he has to leave Los Angeles. He relocates to the Bronx, all right?

And people will look at him like, damn, Stingbo, Willey used to be the man, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's down on his luck. He's got a drinking problem. You know what I mean? We see him frequenting different establishments later at night, you know? Is this rated R? Oh, it's rated R. Okay.

So this is like a Ray Basque, Baxie kind of. Yeah. Okay, okay, this is a hard R, hard R. All right. So Mickey is like, you know, he's down, he's drinking. he's doing the whole thing the whole thing. It's like, oh, you used to be somebody, Mickey, whatever, whatever. He's walking down the street one day.

And he sees these kids, right? And they're torturing a rat. And he stops them. He's not a rat, but he's close enough to where he steps in for the rats. Mickey Mouse ends up becoming the rat king of New York. He controls all of the rats

and he becomes a vigilante. kind of like rat catcher too, but different because he's now got something new to fight for. He goes from burrow to burrow targeting people who are environmentally bad, causing trash overflow, every single rat adjacent issue. The Rat King is taking the city back. It's Mickey Mouse.

You can give him some braids. Give him a couple of braids. Rat King. Kemp Powers, Van Lathen, Mickey Mouse, Rat King. They'll never let you in the door at Disney again. I was going to say, this should start as a comic book. You've got to prove this concept in print, my friend. Not only prove it in print, but like, let's see how badly you get sued first from Disney.

So I would do it in a safe environment of a comic book first. Go comic book first. Go comic book first. Comic book first. The concept and prove the legality of it and before you go to the next. None of his friends will talk to him because they're still with Disney. Many and Donald and none of them will talk to him. He's on his own.

Yeah. Like getting the roads of New York together to take back the city. Think about it. And when he gets to the Bronx, he connects one of the descendants of the Fleischer brothers. I don't forget the Fleischer used to be competitors to Disney. Yeah. When they did Popeye and Superman, and when they went out of business, one of the most demoralizing elements of it is that they had to take a job at Disney working for their competitor,

his animators. So, you know, one of the descendants of the Fleischer brothers would have a chip on your shoulder. Because Disney messed over their family? Yes. Part of that, see. It's about yes. Well, no, it's yes and. You know what I'm saying?

Like, we got to build on this. Me and Kim going back to the Academy Awards. We're going back to the Oscars. Kemp Powers, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having you. Thanks a damn higher learning, brother. Thank you both. I really appreciate it.

Much, much, much love and success to the movie. I think that you guys are going to have a big fall. Thanks all over the same. Appreciate that. I remember. Peace, man. All right, keep out.