How Did This Get Made? - Last Looks: John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars w/ Ed Brubaker

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Legendary graphic novel writer and TV showrunner Ed Brubaker joins Paul & Jason to continue breaking down Ghosts of Mars, share his experience adapting Criminal into a new Amazon TV series, discuss writing his own Parker story along with giving thoughts on Shane Black's Parker adaptation, Play Dirty, and so much more. But first, Paul answers all your Corrections & Omissions on our Ghosts of Mars episode. And as always, we announce next week's movie! Ed's new Criminal book THE KNIVES is in stores now, THE FRIDAY DELUXE EDITION HARDBACK comes out November 12th, and the new GIANT SIZED CRIMINAL #1 comes out December 3rd. • We're coming to Philadelphia on 11/8! Go to hdtgm.com for tix, merch, and more• Have a Last Looks correction or omission? Call 619-PAULASK to leave us a voicemail!• Submit your Last Looks theme song to us here• Join the HDTGM conversation on Discord: discord.gg/hdtgm• Buy merch at howdidthisgetmade.dashery.com/• Order Paul’s book about his childhood: Joyful Recollections of Trauma• Shop our new hat collection at podswag.com• Paul’s Discord: discord.gg/paulscheer• Paul’s YouTube page: youtube.com/paulscheer• Follow Paul on Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/paulscheer• Subscribe to Enter The Dark Web w/ Paul & Rob Huebel: youtube.com/@enterthedarkweb• Listen to Unspooled with Paul & Amy Nicholson: unspooledpodcast.com• Listen to The Deep Dive with June & Jessica St. Clair: thedeepdiveacademy.com/podcast• Instagram: @hdtgm, @paulscheer, & @junediane• Twitter: @hdtgm, @paulscheer, & msjunediane  • Jason is not on social media• Episode transcripts available at how-did-this-get-made.simplecast.com/episodesGet access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using the link: siriusxm.com/hdtgm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What's a breather? Is Ed Brubaker's new book based on his own experience writing a TV show from Amazon? And are The Ghost of Mars against rock and roll? All this and more on a brand new. How did this get made? Last Looks? Hit the theme. I was giving you the look.

This is your large love. You better make it good. Hello, all you orca whale aliens, I am your ghost host with the most big daddy Paul. And welcome to how did this get made last looks, where you, the listener, get to voice your issues on John Carpenter's Ghost of Mars, a movie that Discord user Quantum Volt thinks should have had the tagline, Ghost of Mars. Sometimes the cure for possession is drugs. Thank you, Quantum Volt for that alt movie title and a big shout-out to Quinn for that spooky John Carpenter-inspired opening theme song. I'll let you know that our John Carpenter of Mars shirt, which is a Big Daddy Paul, is available in the How Did This Get Made Store? You can go to hd-tgm.com and pick it up as a coffee mug, a stick, or whatever you'd like.

It's actually a pretty great design. Something you could wear out and could maybe fool people that this is a, little-known John Carpenter film. Remember, if you have an alt-movie tagline or a title submitted to us on the Discord at Discord.g.g. slash HDTGM. And if you have a last look's theme song, go ahead and tell us to play it by uploading it on hd-tgm.com.

That's all you have to do. Just click on the submit a song button on our homepage. Remember, keep them short. 15 to 20 seconds is best. All right, coming up on today's episode, we'll be hearing all of your corrections and omissions on John Carpenter's Ghost of Mars. Plus, Jason and I will chat with legendary comic book writer Ed Brubaker, who you might remember from our Daredevil episode. We get Ed's thoughts on Ghost of Mars.

He is a huge fan. And we will also discuss how Ed approached adapting his book Criminal into a brand new show for Amazon, plus a whole lot more. And don't worry, as always, the end of the show will reveal next week's film. All right, everybody, if you're hearing this on Friday, how did this get made, is going to be in Philly tomorrow, November 8th. You can buy tickets at HDTGM. You know, and if you missed it earlier in the week, this is a awkward transition to get into, but I do think it's worthy to take a moment.

This week we lost our producer, Aval Halley. And I was able to record something a little less jarring than just kind of talking about her in the last looks episode on our matinee episode that aired on Tuesday. So as we all are still just absolutely gutted from the loss of Averill, I feel like that's a better place for you to hear how we all are feeling and what we all are going through. So I appreciate everyone who has written their wonderful and beautiful condolences on the How Did This Get Made page? And again, we just send so much love to Averill's family and friends.

Um, and if you want to just support Averill, check out her page, uh, on Instagram, movie bitches and of course her YouTube channel, uh, where you can see some of her amazing work. If you like Rupal's Drag Race, uh, I mean, Averill was and Andrew were doing some great, great, hilarious stuff. Um, so yeah, we miss her very, very much. And, uh, like I said, listen to our matinee Tuesday episode to, uh, here a fuller episode, uh, devoted to her. Okay, let it out. And now we'll go back into show mode and say last week we talked at length about Ghosts of Mars. We had questions and we might have even missed a few things. Here's your chance to set us straight. Fact-check us, if you will. It is now time for corrections and omissions. Corrections and omissions.

You are wrong. Thank you, Mad Licks for that theme song. Love that name, by the way. Let's go to the Discord. Sean McBee writes, I spent the beginning of the movie thinking that everyone was somehow breathing through their goggles. But it's actually these little silver things on their collars, as evidenced by the one shot where Natasha Hendritch can be seen breathing directly from it with accompanying air sounds. Now, there's a picture that Sean put up, and he's not lying. Maybe it seems like it's outputting enough oxygen in the general direction of their faces to supplement the 80% atmospheric conversion to Earth levels.

So you just think that they have, like, a fan blowing on them the entire time. I thought it was through their goggles, too, like through their eyes. We need to get answers, Sean, and honestly, this idea that they have just a little vent blowing in their face has put more questions in front of this. People come to the rescue. We may need to ask Ed Brubaker about this. Unfortunately, we recorded our chat with him a while ago, so I will not be able to ask him. But good thing, there is somebody in the Discord who can answer this, and that is Flat underscore Baby.

Flat underscore Baby ads, I just watched it. And yes, the glasses are unrelated to the breathers. It's an editing oversight that they just happen to be putting on the glasses and talking about over the face mask while also talking about breathers. Later on, Mel sucks air from a chest-mounted nozzle like a camelback tube. And the guy who cuts off his thumb is using a black market breather called a laffer, which looks more like. like an asthma inhaler. Whoa. Okay. So I thought he was like vaping or doing drugs too. So I guess it's like an asthma inhaler that lasts for a very long time. I guess. Again, Flatbaby, you've clarified some things and I appreciate that. And what a, what a jump. Why not just say we pressurized

Mars? Why not? At that point, right? Fun fact, 47 writes, why is it in both the movie and the Doom movie, which also takes place in the future on Mars? There's futuristic technology, yet the characters have to hold a flashlight in one hand and their gun in the other. You'd think they have figured out the built-in night vision. You know what? You're right. And I also believe, Fun Facts 47, that there are guns with flashlights on top of them. I feel like I've seen enough movies where people are, like it's a mounted thing,

like a scope, but it's a flashlight. Am I right? Am I wrong? Gun owners, let me know. Gratuitous silence rights, it sounded like the group thought the disease minors were ghosts, but I understood more to be like an infection, i.e. the last of us. The ghosts were old organisms or spores, not actual spirits, that used to be on the surface. And when they were isolated in quarantine, maybe an infected species got locked away in that tomb,

which then makes more sense that they only travel via wind. People respond like crazed zombies when infected and that the drugs counter the effects. But does that make the other things harder, like sentience and seemingly choosing to leave Melanie's body when she takes the drugs? Well, gratuitous silence. We are on the same page. I mean, I think the ghosts are the infection. There's a spore that is dormant that then flies into people's bodies, right? So I guess a ghost used liberally that the ghost, the spore is living.

I mean, or so what you're saying is there's no such a thing as ghosts because the ghosts also have a lot of wherewithal, right? Oh, boy. But it's not like zombieism because they are sentient. So they are looking for a host. You know what? I think the fact that we have spent more time than clearly John Carpenter might have spent on this means that it is time for a reboot. Gratuitous silence, please get that going. All right, let's go to the phones. Mindy, you're up.

Hey, Paul. My brother and I went to Ghost of Mars and my boyfriend's back this week. Amazing shows. I think I can explain Ghost of Mars. It's a satanic panic movie. And the moral is that if your kids listen to heavy metal, they will pierce their fingers, file their teeth, cannibals. That's why every time we see the zombie Martian ghosts acting up, it turns into a bizarre 80s music video. The only part I can't explain is why drugs saved the day. But still, the movie has satanic panic written all over it. Thanks for a great show. Mindy, I love this take. I mean, yes, the drugs, we can't really, I guess drugs is cool, but rock and roll isn't. I don't know, but I love that idea that this is about rock music. I mean, the music in the movie is also

like kind of rocking too so is it like a meta satanic panic movie like rock and roll comes to mars and then it controls all of us and we don't want to work for the man anymore rock and roll sets us free and they try to put the rock and roll in the cave but you can't keep rock and roll down no you can't and uh you know what rock and roll lives as long as you don't do drugs because the best rock and rollers have been killed by drugs right is that maybe where we're at mindy you're a genius i love it Next up, Fuzzy from Connecticut. Hey, Paul, I'm watching Ghost for Mars. Neither June nor Jason comment on the fact that Pam Greer was wearing leather gauchos.

I was shocked and disappointed. Anyway, I thought it was a trench coat, definitely long leather gauchos. Love the show. Thanks. First of all, thank you, Fuzzy, for not expecting me to comment on those leather gaucho pants. I like that you're just like, no, I'm not even going to say I'm disappointed. you know I wouldn't go there. But yeah, I agree. I'm all so disappointed in them. But you know what? Here's a thing. There's so much other stuff not making sense in this, that the gaucho pants might be the only thing that does.

Let's go back to the Discord, Frosted Nebula, aka, that's Jafar. We love Jafar. Jafar. Jafar was a presence in our last L.A. shows and many of the shows in the last year. Jafar, Jafar, what do you got? Towards the end of the DVD commentary with John Carpenter and Natasha Hendridge, Carpenter is talking about Natasha downplaying her acting, and she says, well, John, every day, when you got to set, you would say loudly, this is the biggest piece of shit I've ever made. And it didn't inspire much confidence in the rest of the team. Whoa. I thought that they were in a separate places when they said these things about the movie. But no, Frosted Nebula, aka Jafar, says it is one of the most awkward commentary tracks I have ever heard. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Well, you know what? You get paid to do commentary tracks. So I guess they wanted some of that money. but I am now definitely going to go hunt down this DVD and listen to that. That sounds ideal. All right, CNU 2007 writes, as it turns out, Big Daddy Mars is from the underworld and just wants to destroy Mars. This is Canon as seen on my official Big Daddy Mars trading card. Wait, what?

There were trading cards for Ghost of Mars? Well, yes, there is. Our producer Scott has an image here. This is a mint card I'm looking at. And I'll tell you some of the things that were on the back. Hobbies for this is Big Daddy Mars. Head hunting and body piercing. I love that he has hobbies.

Facts you didn't know. Big Daddy Mars has over 200 body piercings. Okay, so the hobbies and the facts he didn't know kind of go together. I like that he has body piercings. Again, is this a minor that had body piercings? Because I would imagine that, well, I guess maybe he got to work. I mean, he must be sore. If that ghost came out, found a mine.

and then just started piercing the hell out of himself. Description, The Beast of the Night is a true wanderer, a roamer, who brings devastation and pain to all the encounters, a product of the underworld, his desire to reap disaster upon Mars is malicious and destructive. Watchout, for he can steal one's soul and damn it for eternity with his presence alone. Tranquility is impossible on Mars. Wow. When a trading card fills in that much backstory, you know you got some problems. W. Rosencrantz writes, this might be controversial, but they should remit make Ghost of Mars. The basic ideas could be turned

into something fun. It was big enough that they could benefit from advertising a name people already know, and the original wasn't sacred to anybody, so the remake won't automatically be worse. Well, you know what? I love this idea. As a matter of fact, I already brought it up that we should have done it, you know, that may be gratuitous

silence should have done it, but maybe now the question is, who from the Geek Squad should be in this? Because I feel like this is a good Geek Squad movie. Maybe it's maybe Jets and I could be in it with June. We're with the Geek Squad. maybe we get killed early. I don't know. I think there's a lot of options here. So let us know who you would cast in the Ghost of Mars remake. And the best person who writes up a little description with a cast, we will read it here on the next last looks. Wow. Wow. Wow. I'm blown away. So many great corrections and omissions this week, but there can only be one winner. And look, the goucho pants. Yes, no one mentioned it. That was a very shocking omission. I will say that knowing the breathers are not actually goggles, Sean McBee, that's pretty, great. Now, I would also say that CNU 2007 might win, but I don't know. I mean, the fact that

CNU has a trading card is pretty impressive. You know what? That's what I'm going to pick. If you have trading cards for Ghost of Mards, you should win something. All right, CNW 2007, you are the winner, and you get this amazing song from Garrett Parker. Hit it. People of Earth. You win nothing. Okay, if you want to chime in with your own thoughts, about the latest episode, please hit up our Discord or leave us a message by calling 619, Paul Ask. Coming up after the break, Jason and I will sit down for a chat with Ed Brewbaker, so stick around.

Welcome back. Now, every Tuesday, we re-release a classic How Did This Get Made episode back onto our feed. This week, like I mentioned, we did something a little bit different to celebrate our producer, April Halle, celebrate her life, and we wanted to make something that she might enjoy. So last week's matinee covered the 2020 Chloe Grace Maritz film where Grimlins get loose on a plane, right? It's one of our least selling shirts

where a Grimlin is on the wing, but it's called Shadow in the Cloud. And you'll understand why we pick that one if you take a listen. And by the way, if you're not watching Dark Web with Rob Hewbel and I, some crazy stuff has been going on. Check out Dark Web.

web, our studio burnt down. Rob and I now are in the woods, fending for ourselves, high on mustard. But enough about that, it is now time to talk to a true legend. That's right. Jason and I get to join our pal Ed Brubaker. Now, Ed Brubaker is an Eisner award-winning artist, a brilliant graphic novelist, a television writer. He is just an all-about gem, who also has a bad movie club. his new book in the criminal series is called The Knives. It's available right now. We're going to talk about that in a bit. The hardback version of his Friday series comes out next week on November 12th. And this TV show, based on his criminal series, which I saw the first two episodes of, and I loved.

It does not have a release date yet. We're going to talk about it a little bit. And his experience adapting it, which I think you can also get a little taste of if you read knives. You are in store for a very fun conversation because not only we're going to talk about all that, But Ed was so mad that he was not the guest for Ghost of Mars. All right, so without any further ado, please, John Estonish, hit the theme song. Jason and Paul, just chat, June and Paul, just chat, tall, John Shear, just chat, how did this get made, last looks, just chat. Welcome back to the show, Ed, and first question, you are a Ghost of Mars aficionado, an expert?

How? I, okay, look, remember DVDs? Yes. Remember, of course. Remember the aughts? Remember Obama? Those healthy on days. My favorite Mark Marengest.

Yeah, I am a John Carpenter fan who is married to someone who is an even bigger John Carpenter fan. Got it. Nice. And Ghosts of Mars came out at this era where we had built, like, we used to live in Seattle and we had built like a little theater room in our base. that could fit about seven people comfortably. And so I would just have these evenings where I would just, like, I'm going to watch like three sci-fi movies tonight.

And Ghosts of Mars, I believe, is one of the most fun, rewatchable John Carpenter movies from that movie. Like, I would rank it 10 times better than his fucking vampires movie. Well, but therein lies my question for you, Ed. Why rewatch the movies from the bad era? Right.

Like, what's the benefit of, that it's what you just said it's one of the best movies from that bad era i mean i don't know that i would qualify ghost of mars as bad it's not prime no carpenter but like i mean memoirs of an invisible man are you going to watch that ever again no like no i mean there's no amount of money but ghost of mars like it's so fucking weird it's almost like the ultimate john carpenter movie because it has that weird thing where he's always like kind of about violence and the fall of society, but also about matriarchies and how and like powerful women. And so I kind of loved that. I also loved the fact that Courtney Love like walked off after three days. I want to know that's

I love that. I love that component of it. And I love the John Carpenter. These are my themes. These are the things I'm interested in. It just did not come together satisfyingly in a way, even for us. What a blast. You know, no, it didn't land right for me. I think it's his, era where he got not interested in action scenes. So like both vampires and that one, the action scenes often go to like a montage showing you what happened in moments. Yes. Or happen off screen. Or like Pam Greer is killed off screen. Yeah, go ahead. The fact that like he, you know, does a transition cut or like a cut when they're walking down the hallway, a lot of weird editing choices. And I think from reading my interviews with him about this movie, where I feel like

failed was he was trying to make a dumb B movie but it was too smart to be as dumb like the ending scene the chrome guns yeah and like I'm like that's the movie yeah but like I think he has a hard time walking that line or or I don't know it's like it it presents more serious than I think he intends and that's where I feel like he needs that help in my mind no I agree I think there must have been some push from the studio on some of this stuff because, yeah, it's just, it felt like he, to try to address studio notes, tried to do some interesting things in the edit. So it's like, you don't see if she dies or not.

And like structurally, it's so weird. But I found it fascinating. And I also loved, like, the dumb performances. And what a weird phase to have Jason Statham, you know, where Jason Statham can't decide if he's bald or has hair. We talked about this. This is an important moment. for us. Yeah. Yeah. No, as a baldest, I, you know, I, because Jason Statham is one of the only bald

sex symbols that we get. Like, even in pornography, we don't have bald sex symbols that often. No, you need, you need this. Even in pornography. And I'm saying, thank you, Ed. Thank you, Ed. Let's be clear. Even in pornography. We don't have it. It's rare. I mean, look, Mr. Hare. You're nothing but hair. Paul and I can talk about. I'm sorry. We're in the Larry David Club. Yes, this is important for us.

We look at these bald men. Jason just turned his screen off. I will say that there are some things that I really love about it. I think, and I know this is now probably just a rumor, and it's not true, that this was supposed to be like the third escape from movie, like, escape from Mars. Because, like, Desolation Williams looks and dresses like Snake Pilskin, or Puskin. Sorry. And, you know, but I would have loved Kurt Russell. Like, that would have, I think they just wanted, you wanted some more dumb stuff.

It just didn't have a dumb stuff. What the movie lacked that so many other John Carpenter movies have is everybody is dower and down. Yes. Nobody has that light touch. Nobody can, nobody has that kind of, that, that swagger, that wink that, you know, everybody is like gritty and realistic or trying to be in a way that is like, oh, I need somebody who has a little bit of a light touch, a little bit can let they steam out of this, you know? I mean, I think that Ice Cube was intended to be that.

And for me, it works because I'm a huge Cube fan. I love Cube. And honestly, that's when I, those are my favorite parts of the movie. Like, literally, I cannot ever go to that taco shop on sunset that's like right near Descanso without just hearing in my head, drop the gun, Descanso. and, like, just the weird names of characters. I love the dumb shit that Carpenter puts in his stuff that's just so idiosyncratic and him.

Like, Desolation Williams. What a fucking name. Great names. When I did Sleeper, there's a character named Genocide Jones, and that is a tribute to John Carpenter, the way he names characters. What is it, Napoleon Williams in Assault on Precinct 13? It's like Napoleon somebody.

It's always like a really, flamboyant first name and a very generic you know like like slaughterhouse bill i mean it's very uh thomas pinchin right with like one battle after another like all the names mean something but here's a thing i like ice cube and i think though he falls into that category of not knowing how to walk that line between dumb tough guy like that's what like kurt russell has in space You believe that it could maybe win in a fight or that he's got a bravado and ego. And I feel like with Cube, it's like, no, this guy's just cool. No, no, he's the same guy from Friday, basically.

Right, yeah, exactly. Yeah, he's great, but he lacks that. What's wonderful about Kurt Russell, especially in these movies, let's say big trouble, is that character loses fights. That character isn't willing to be embarrassed, you know, willing to be. And that we don't have in this. Everybody's at maximum heroism. I agree. Like, you want just somebody that just feels like they're, right, or you just have Natasha

Hendritch not be, like, you need somebody to have, like, everyone was too cool and too tough. And if that's the version of the movie and you're making a B movie, then you need to make them dumber, but also cool and tough. But I feel like they were just cool and tough, but maybe that's directing. I don't know. everyone seems so pissed off every interview that I read they're like he fucked us oh yeah even Ice Cube is like I'm a big John Carpenter fan but don't watch that movie and I'm

man I feel bad because it's like it's literally the it's it's the last thing Carpenter made that I think is interesting at all yeah I don't know if he's made anything since he made one movie after that I think in 2010 Amber Heard movie or whatever that I never watched I mean she's like in an insane asylum I don't know did John Carpenter ever talk about working with Chevy Chase because that is really interesting to me. Yeah, I'd love to know. Oh, that to me

is like that, because that's a guy kind of peak Chevy Chase like right where he's like, not peak, but like, oh, it's not going to go great. Right? But like you could tell he could be like an asshole. Oh, I bet you there's some good stories there. Also because

John Carpenter is so no bullshit. He's like he says what's on his mind. I love that's true. Apparently, according to the blank check, Beverly DeAngelo is the only person who has never said a bad thing about Chevy Chase. There's always, always one defender, only, always one. I will point out Beverly DeAngelo was married to, like, Al Pacino forever.

So, like, Chevy Chase is probably not a big deal with. So much more easier to handle. I did a short film with Beverly DeAngel who was absolutely lovely, very sweet. kind. But the funniest detail I remember is that we were going to set. We're at this restaurant. And she pulled up to set and gets out of the car and she's like, Al's in there. Like, Al just sat in the car the entire day because they were going to go to a concert that night. So he was just out in the car. The car didn't turn around. The car didn't. Like, he just sat in a parked car for maybe eight, 10 hours. And I love, like, I just loved that he was there. Didn't come in. didn't roll the window down just sat in a parked car and you check all the time

I wonder what the concert was it was like for their kid I feel like it was like it was a band that both of them would not be going to normally like it would be the equivalent of them We're going to see Vampire Weekend Exactly

It felt like something very odd like that Just to give you a A little sneak in Because I had to Google this as we were talking John Carpenter claimed that Chevy Chase and Daryl Hannah were the stuff of nightmares and impossible to direct.

In particular, Chase would often refuse to wear his special effects makeup and would remove it prematurely, ruining a day's worth of filming. Oh, my God. Wow. Not surprised. I need to dig into this movie a little bit more. But you're getting Chevy on your show, right? Oh, yeah. Chevy will be on the show. He's great at improv. Oh, he's so comfortable on stage.

Ed, you've been out in L.A. a lot, and that is because, well, I mean, you've lived in this world. Your stuff has been optioned. You are a legend in the business, but you got to be the showrunner of one of your projects for Amazon, right? Yeah. Yeah, criminal. I, God, it's been like three years, it feels like, since it started. But, yeah, no, I had developed it at legendary before the pandemic. and then a couple of the people from Legendary ended up being execs at Amazon and so they revived it over there. Now, I will say that I got to see two episodes of the show,

early cuts of the show, and it was fantastic. You gave me a lifelong dream come true, which was you screened it for me, and can I mention the other person? Yeah, please. Shane Black. It was amazing. It was amazing because I also,

You guys have the same note, too, which was really annoying. The best thing about Shane Black, I will say, as a lifelong fan of him, was he gave notes the way, like, Columbo would leave an investigation, like, bag in hand, like, I'm just about out the door, turn around, like, well, and then half an hour, he was almost out the door, like, well, one more thing, and then had these thoughts, but it was so funny because he had the body language of someone that was leaving, but. the deep, smart notes of someone who was like, well, yeah, I'm cracking into this. It was, I loved watching it. I hung on every word. And I think at the beginning, he might have thought that I was like an Amazon executive. So I think he was careful to understand who I was before he gave any feedback.

I told him who you were. All right, good. Well, I am a fan. It was one of the coolest things. That was really crazy because he was mixing the Parker movie at the same time. So he was on the lot for a couple weeks at the same time as us. And Shane, you know, I met through Brian Yutovic and Drew Pierce a long time ago. And he's a big fan of criminal and a big fan of my graphic novels and stuff.

So we have gotten together a few times. And, you know, he gives me advice about, like, writing stuff. And, you know, I consider him sort of like one of my mentors in this field to some degree. And it's great because. So much so, Ed, that on the cover of your new criminal book, The Knives, you got a shame black quote right on the front. Brubaker and Phillips, don't hit a wrong note. Yeah, I was very thrilled about that. There's nobody better.

I didn't want to ask him for a while because I was like, I got to get to know him better before I hit him. I don't want to just have him think. Like, I really like the guy. Like, he invited us to a party in his house a little while ago. Oh, wow. That was crazy because it was like a really big. like Hollywood party, like, that's in a Shane Black movie. I was just like, oh, wow, okay.

You got to say yes to the Shane Black invite. I mean, that's the... I'm probably more comfortable talking about what happening criminal than I am about that party. You should be. I just didn't say I got invited. No, you could say you got invited. But I will say the new book, the new criminal book Knives is about this cartoonist who's

going to Hollywood in the era of peak TV to work on an adaptation of his comic strip. And I'm just wondering how much of this is based on what you just told us coming to Hollywood to make criminal. I have to say, it was, I loved this. I mean, like, just to set it out, I think these books, the criminal books are some of the great modern books. And love them. The Knives catches us up with some of the characters that we've been following in a bunch of other criminal stories. And so it was both great to spend time with characters that I love. and that I've been spending time with for years.

But then exactly to Paul's point, the Hollywood stuff was making me laugh so hard. When he gets to go to town and gets to be part of the room and starts to, like, dress and talk differently and become a douche and then immediately gets kicked out, I was like, this is incredible. It's, I realized after I started it,

it needed to be like a Kafka-S story about a guy, not becoming a cockroach, but becoming a TV writer. Yeah. Because it is like a metamorphical decision that you can make at some point. And someone asked me how much of it was true. And I was like, oh, God, Jacob is always a worst-case scenario character for me. Like, his childhood reflects a lot of pieces of my childhood, like, growing up as a nerd who's, like, too much of an introvert, but who always wanted to be different.

But, like, the emotional parts of his journey of, like, coming to Hollywood and, you know, and like going from wanting to be like an individual artist to wanting to just be like a cog in the machine and how every now and then you wake up and you're like, what the fuck am I doing? And like that part of it was very real. And one of the things that I didn't realize being the showrunner, like, I guess I realize because I've been in enough television now

to know how much rewriting happens after the scripts are already in production. Yeah, you've worked on some very very, interesting shows that, without naming names, that have had a lot of restructuring after, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, when we were watching episode one of Westworld, we had like a viewing party at my house of all the season one writers. Our co-EP on that first season, literally, I had to stop her from, like, punching the screen, because she's like, what is this? Because it was completely different than what we had done. She's like, the first 15 minutes are a completely different show. Westworld, a show that is famously went smoothly.

Yeah, it was, I mean, I was on season one when it was, I think everyone still think season one is the best season of that show. And I learned a lot on that show. But, you know, like all of those scripts, we would write drafts and then the showrunners would rewrite them. But I didn't realize how much on shows where the showrunner isn't adding their name to things that they've literally rewritten, sometimes almost every. I mean, there are some episodes.

of criminal that I rewrote every single word on. And there are some where I only rewrote like 80%. And there's like a couple where I didn't do almost anything. You know, so it was like, oh, this is just weird. But then in post, you end up doing so much changing and writing and rewriting and ADR. But that's the job, right? Like, I mean, when you're the showrunner, you're going to do so much, you know, work.

And your name will always be associated with it. Like, no one who will ever say, oh, You know, like, will reference anybody else but Vince Gilligan when you talk about Breaking Bad as far as like the, I mean, yes. And there were brilliant writers on there who are, you know. All great. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like, that was a murderer's row of great writers.

And the same thing for Lost. It's like that's, you'll always get that heat. But it's funny when people who are in that position opt to put their name on everything as if they will be forgotten or it's like, yeah, it's a weird, it's a weird choice. It's, I got to say, like, I've talked to a lot of showrunners about it. Coming from comics, it's very weird to me not to have my name on anything I write. I have like a sort of an authorship kind of go about it. So it's just, it's a weird thing in the industry. And I can kind of see it both ways where it's like, I think the problem is that the critical community that talks about television is unaware of it.

Or even if they're unaware of it, or if they're aware of it, they still feel because so and so, is listed as the writer. They want to give that person credit because they don't want to and I agree. Like I, you know, so it's just a, it's a weird gray area, but like the show runner is really the voice of the show. Like criminal in the end of the day, I have credit on one episode, but that show feels more like me and my work than anything else that's ever existed, you know. Well, it's interesting because it's like, I think that there's a, this weird misconception like what you're saying. Like, when you go for the Emmys, a show, show is, again, episode is nominated, which I think is such a flawed concept. It should be,

nominate the show, right? Now, I'm like, who cares about the specific episode? It's, this is the writer's room. This is the thing. And, you know, and like you said, it should be, everyone should take part in that. But, like, because a lot of the times what happens is, and I think this is the thing that was written about in Difficult Men, like, you know, there was a Sopranos episode that was written by a junior writer. And, and, and David, was it David Chase. Yeah, was like, upset about it because it was like, oh, this person's out in front of this Sopranos episode, even though it's, you get gone, it goes through a process. It's not like, you know, it's not singular. I mean, famously, Matt Winer said if you got, if you got 20% of your dialogue through

a David Chase rewrite, you considered that a victory. Like, if you had any dialogue in an episode of the Sopranos with your name on it that wasn't rewritten by Chase, I mean, by the way, David Chase can rewrite anything I ever write and not put his name on it. I'd be very happy. He is my fucking hero. I can't wait for his M.K. Ultra show. No, I literally have two different showrunner friends who have watched, like, people on their staff win Emmys that, like, they rewrote that episode, page one and was like, and the person didn't even thank them. And so it's like, it's a weird. So, like, but how often does that happen to you, like, once in your life, maybe?

So, yeah, it's just a weird industry. and it is very collaborative. So, but because of that, I think going into it, I didn't, I honestly didn't understand how much work I would do in post. Right. Like, by the time I was in post, it was just me.

Yeah, it was just me. I remember when I went out to lunch with Shane, like the next day after that screening, I was saying that to him. And he said, look, writing the script and making it, like the script and the production, that's the ingredients. like post is when you cook it and it's like are you a great chef do you have great chefs working for you

you know like well but this is like the thing i always like that i found because there's somebody who's written comics or just a very small handful of them it was backwards right because like when you get to work in tv you you conceive the idea then you know you cast people and it kind of changes and you're shooting it and it kind of changes again based on location and actors and things that happen in the moment and then you're editing it and it happens you know it's like you're you're kind of developing all the way from inception to completion and comics uh or you know or anything like a graphic novel is locked like you you give i mean yes you have your idea but it's got to go all the way through the process so i imagine yeah and it's got a deadline usually too yeah i imagine that that might

have been fun though to have more time to ruminate within a specific episode or go back like to do reshoots like you said yeah you know and go oh i could tweak that and i didn't really that that was something that could actually connect here it's that's yeah fun part of it i think yeah no i yeah no i really i loved post honestly like it was it was it was long at times but like my like learning to work with my editors and and also seeing like where like oh this this episode isn't working how can we fix it and like restructuring like it had never occurred to me because ref and i would look at the cuts and stuff and he didn't really want to hear what i had to say about what he was doing.

I would love a podcast that would never get published that is just you talking about working with Nick Wedding. Oh, I'm pretty sure he'd be fine with it. I told him that I had based a bad guy in one of my books on him, and he's like, oh, you should do a memoir about our time working together. I could help you with it. And I'm like, yeah, Nick, you don't get to write my memoir about our crazy relationship for three years. memoir worthy. I mean, dude, yeah, there's so many stories from that show. And they keep coming out

every now and then, and it's just like, oh, wow. Yeah, that was a crazy three years of my life, too. It's just, yeah, but a totally different experience than, you know, doing your own show. But what a sense of authorship you have over a criminal now in a way that do you feel like it is as close to the, the kind of work that you and Sean get to do in the, in the, in the books, basically, you know? I mean, I think it's as close to feeling like my books as anything. Like, I've had several things, like, where people have tried to adapt my stuff that haven't gotten made or I haven't been involved at all. And one of the things that's that I think I've realized more as I work in Hollywood about what makes my stuff my stuff, like, I'm not saying my stuff is the greatest stuff. Like, yeah, you guys obviously think my stuff is the greatest stuff, but it's the greatest.

Listen, and I have no problem putting that out into the world. But seriously, like, I think I realized in the last, like, a couple of years because when other people adapt my stuff, they kind of, sometimes they miss the part that makes it me. And, like, what I do generally is I use genre tropes or genres to write really character-driven, grounded stories where the people within these tropes are acting like real people like you or me or people you know. So you can identify with these people, but they're in this big genre story. And I also do things to subvert your expectations based on what you think would

happen because of the genre. So often when people are adapting my work or have tried in the past to adapt my work into movies and stuff, like incognito, like great writer. worked on Incognito, but the studios that were trying to turn that into movies didn't understand how you could do a black comedy about a supervillain and witness protection, so they would constantly force them

to turn it into a superhero origin story. Yeah, right. And then it's like, well, that's, like, no, you're not going to make a superhero origin story about somebody no one's ever heard of. And they wanted to be, they would rather it be the, it's literally what happens to Jacob

in the knives. Yeah. They want it to be generic. They take the kind of Kafka-esque character that he's created in the comics of this detective who finds himself in these absurd worlds or these absurd cases. And all they want to make out of it is just a straight PI show without any of the trappings of Kafka. And then Jacob, that's the crucible that Jacob goes through in his Hollywood chapter in the knives. And then we find him later, and he's back at home, back writing, back in the basement, back drawing and writing comics. It appears to be doing like, what's the new character, Ed?

It's a, is it a beaver? Basil Beaver. Basil Beaver. Private eye. Who is, who looks like, it's like a black sad character, I feel like. Right. Yeah, it's kind of that. I don't know.

That part of it really came out of nowhere. I was like, I like the idea of him sketching and making fun of the producer of the show. and uh you know and i just had this idea that he draws him as like some kind of a beaver or an animal or a weasel or something and he's masturbating as he's like saying something and then i and then i was just like i what if when he goes home he just keeps drawing more funny animal things and then it becomes like that's his next thing because he's not going to do frank kofka anymore because they ruined it's so funny i love there's so many of your books that take place inside of hollywood whether it's old Hollywood I'm thinking of fatal or yeah yeah or fade the fade out

is another one like and they really are like like I love how much you're interested in excavating the true evil of this town I mean look when I get to like a Taylor Sheridan level of success I'll have other things to write about are you going to also follow him to Universal I mean, he doesn't get there for three years. Maybe I'll get there first. Oh, wow. I would love it. That's the best. I love throwing down the gauntlet like that. Yeah. Fuck, yeah. I would love it if by the time Taylor Sheridan gets to Universal, you've already got Kill or Be Killed and Velvet on. It's funny. I'm like, wait, are we dissing him?

No, no, not at all. I'm like, I love him. He is a guy. Please. All I want is to be on Landman. He would be so amazing as a cartel guy on Landman. You're the cartel lawyer. I just started watching it. It's awesome. Let me text him. I like lioness.

I like all these shows. They're like, but like it's amazing to me. Someone told me a story about him, about Tulsa King, which I loved, which was he talked to Stallone on the phone. And it's like, well, what do you want to do? And Stallone, like, you know, told him, I was like this, like this. And he's like, okay, got it. And then within four hours delivered a an hour-long show. show to Stallone. He's like, all right, I'll do this.

Well, it was a rewrite of another pilot, though. Okay, got it. Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right, that makes more sense. I just heard Terry Winter is coming back on that show. Yeah. Yeah. I think in the new season, Stallone was basically the showrunner. Yeah. I had auditioned for something on there. I was very excited about it. And the word I had gotten back was, we're not really a room or a showrunner. So it's going to, you know, I was like, oh, okay.

Wow. It is a, I mean, a lot of my crew came from Bass Reeves, actually. Oh, wow. Like, my line producer had done Bass Reeves. And so, yeah, I had a lot. That was actually the only way we were able to get Garrett for Teague Lawless, because he's on Tulsa King. We had good relationships with 101 studios. We were able to, like, get them to move him around a little bit.

That's why that reshoot was so crazy that Jason was part of. Yes, Jason, we can reveal that you are a part. of the televised criminal universe now. Oh, yeah. Don't get it twisted, everybody. I am the star of Amazon's criminal. It is a pivotal role. Yeah, Jason, Jason was part of those receipts.

But yeah, we did, because of actor schedules now sometimes, it's so crazy trying to get, like, I think my friend had a show, and because of an actor's schedule, they had to run, for like a week, they had to run four sets to be able to. able to shoot this actor out for the whole show in one week so it was like oh shit like so yeah when you got like so it was like our reshoot schedule was literally just built around being able to oh we only have garret for these two days and so we shot two we shot in three days we shot seven days worth of majority wow and a second unit i will i will never forget uh when uh when june's dad passed away

I was in Chicago and there was, you know, I couldn't get to, like it was a timing thing, right? My flight was going to leave at 11 o'clock at night to get to New York. And I was on this independent movie and they knew that if they lost me for like these four days, it would kind of screw up things. The way that they maneuvered that one day, to shoot five days of work into this one long day, and I made my flight, it was something I will never. forget. I was like, holy shit. Like when Pete, like, we, I mean, because it, like, it was a big deal.

You know, amazing. It was truly, uh, an epic feat where like things are changing. Set dressing is going. I'm getting like appliances put on me. It was, it was really impressive. And, you know, it's not ideal, obviously, but it's amazing when, when you can make those choices. I think in a weird way, too, you become looser. You can't hold on to anything. You're like, right, we're just going. We're going to get this thing. And maybe you find something cool in that moment, too. Yeah, no, I love that. I loved the production and, yeah, I mean, being a showrunner is a really, really fucking hard job with a lot of, the parts that I didn't like about the job were just the frustrating parts of the waiting or the having to deal with too many people's opinions about a thing. But like the working with the actors and the crew and the directors and like I, you know, I directed like the second unit for our reshoots because like I had given up the.

idea that I wanted to direct. I originally came to Hollywood because I wanted to write and direct. And, um, you know, I got to sit next to D. Reese on an Apple box for three months. And it was like the best film school ever. And like my camera operator, Matt Moriarty is like one of the best steady cam operators in the world. And, you know, I just worked with these like world class like actors and crew. Well, that's the thing. The show looks amazing. And it's big. It's a big fucking show. And I feel like that's the thing that I was really not shocked at, but like,

you know, I think sometimes when you know it's a streaming show, you see where the seams are, like, or the cuts, like, you know, we're talking about John Carpenter, not wanting to shoot action, and you see, like, sometimes shows will move away from that every now and then they'll really lean in, but this is a show that feels like a movie. It feels like it has all

those things that we know from big budget, you know, it just has a pace and a tone and energy, it's great. I think what's also great about criminal, specifically, is both in book form and now in your adaptation. These are, the scale and scope of these stories is massive. The books take place over the last 50 years. Yes, 70 now.

Yeah. So like the, oh yeah, because now we've caught up to modern. Yeah, because dead and the dying starts in like 1952 or something. Yeah. Okay. So what's crazy is you are constantly pushing us through time, not only with these characters who we visit at different times in their lives, but we're also following these characters' families.

We're following fathers. I mean, so much of it is fathers and sons, both on the criminal side, mothers and daughters. By the way, can I give you my best note? I was pitching a show, a movie actually, to, again, giant person. And it was a comedy and it was about a father and son. And the person stopped me in the middle of the pitch and said, I got to stop you. There's never been anything funny about a father and son relationship. And I was like, oh, thank you. I get, oh, sure. It was the craziest note I've ever gotten and easily disputable. But it was like, I'm just going to go to a show I hate.

That's funny. Wait, how do you hate Wait a minute. Wait, how are you hating Frazier, Ed? What are you talking about? I'm just mad at him because I was in love with Lilith. Oh, of course. For you to come that way to it?

Oh, my Lord. I love it. Well, guys, I'm so sorry. I have to run to go work on that movie about the father and son, which is now a very serious drama. All right, I'll let you guys take it away. Okay, we've lost Paul, which is great, because now Ed and I, we can just talk about comics. Because, Ed, I feel like there's been a long time, correct me if I'm wrong, where a bunch of these books have been out of print or difficult to find.

And now they are back or they are coming back. I think it's just been, yeah, I think it's just been that they've been, I haven't been out of print, but I've been having to reprint them a lot. But, yeah, no, I reprinted all the criminal books. Sean did these new designs and new covers, so they're all. branded, and I forced him to redesign the whole thing so that we would have these brand spanking new editions ready for when the show debuts. And that's been fun to deal with. And these are books that if you have not yet gotten, I cannot recommend them enough. These are stories that are so fantastic and have been unfolding now for decades. 20 years, yeah. 20 years, right?

Yeah. But not only, I know we're talking a lot about criminal, I feel like you've got a new volume of the Friday books collected. Yeah, yeah, we've got the Big Friday Deluxe Hardback coming out. Which, this was one of my favorite things that you did in recent years that I feel like I was caught by surprise when you started doing it because it was one of the books that was launched as an online only book that has now migrated to physical copies. Yeah, it's you and, is it Marcos Martin? Yeah, it's Marcos Martin. The absolute genius, Marcos Martin. Yeah.

um this book is incredible and is this as close to an all ages book as you get i think so i mean there's fucking and swearing but i guess so yeah but it's i mean i would give it to a 14 teenager 14 right i i stupidly thought my friend my friend tom who is a it's a writer-director i was working with on a movie a couple years ago had uh i want to say an eight and a 10 year old and i thought they're really interested in comics and I said look look through this and blank out all the swearing and stuff and I forgot about the monsters and one of them brought one of them to school and got sent home yeah they got sent home from school they were having like a little bit of a panic attack so eight might be too young I got my nieces I got all my nieces t-shirts I had them custom made t-shirts that just said poop on them and and I was like I was very clear just to save their parents the headaches I was like these are only for at home only these are at home shirts okay everybody was excited but one of like a 10 year old snuck it into school and changed at school and then got in trouble and so everybody got in trouble and it was really juicy i loved it yeah that's the kind of uncle i like to be

too classic uncle yeah yeah i didn't i'm not a dad so i'm the i'm the uncle who's like why is uncle had outside smoking pot it's like because he doesn't have kids The best. I also want to shout out one of my favorite series that you've been doing in recent years are the reckless books. Oh, yeah. Which are a series of like P.I. I mean, if I was talking about it as a TV show,

I would say case of the week. These are these are pulpy, you know, pulpy, quick read books that are just a single case. They're not as sprawling as the criminal stories are or some of the ones that have these long tail effects into other books. The reckless

books, though they have, they relate to each other, they are very, they are very concise in a lot of ways. Yeah. And they're great. Yeah, the first five of them cover the 80s, basically. Yeah. They go from like 1981 to like 1989 or something. And for guys our age, for middle aged guys, it is the sweet spot of PI stories in that it is a Vietnam vet who is down on his luck, who now owns a movie theater in downtown L.A. and just show it's like all I want is to live inside of these stories yeah it's very much my i made a list of like the things because if you have a recurring detective character you have to give them like these eccentric things that like so i was like what would i want if i i had been

holding on to that idea for like 20 years of like a main character who lived in a movie theater great and just but didn't let people in yeah like it's just my movie theater he's like sitting in there with just him and his assistant watching movies and it's like you know those places this is my holy spot like no and yeah I'm my friend Duffy and I who was on Barry and is like the number two on the lowdown where we're currently adapting that as a movie for Amazon that Sebastian Stan is attached to star incredible thank God because that's something that I've asked you multiple times yeah to let me adapt and you have said no I'm doing it yeah And it is one of my all-time favorite books, one of my favorite all-time, ongoing series, rather. And I cannot wait to see it adapted. I think it's an incredible series. I want to ask you about, I've asked you this before,

but I'm going to ask you again. Because when you publish books in single issues, you always put in back matter. You always put in, at the end of every issue, will be an essay about a film, It usually films a series of essays across the run of a book that are speaking, that you have a friend or a film critic that are, yes, that are related to the book that you're reading, the movies that relate to the, or sometimes you'll publish the music that you've been listening to or whatever. But especially to me, I've found so many great movie recommendations on those nights where I'm like, what do I want to watch? I have a list in my phone that are like the movie recommendations from the from the back of Ed Brubaker.

And that's like real stuff. So like where does that live anywhere? Because you you fastidiously will not put it anywhere but those books to incentivize people to buy single issues, I think, in a great way. I mean, it was partly to incentivize people, but partly to just make the single issues something special. but the thing is like a lot of those I mean I wrote a lot of them at first and then I started having friends write them like my friend

Jess Nevins wrote a lot of the ones that are about Pulp History and then Devin Farachi wrote a bunch of them and you know and then he got canceled and and then Kim Morgan took over for a long time

for years writing them and like I just paid everybody like a flat fee to for like one-time printing rights. So the only thing we own officially is the art that Sean did for the essays. So to be able to do like a printed collection of all of them, I would need to go back. It's like I've got to get Patton and some people are dead now who wrote some of them and it's like I can't get a waiver signed by them. Like I've thought maybe put up all of them on like a website because then it's like no one's making money off of it and maybe that's maybe that's a way around it.

I think everyone would be happy if I printed a book with them. I think the people who wrote them would probably be happy. The reason I didn't do them in the books originally was because I didn't want to detract from the books. Yeah. And I want to get people to just because you don't get to the end of a crime novel and have like an essay about, you know, Night of the Hunter by your, by the author's friend. But, boy, does it also give us incredible Sean Phillips, like Robert Mitchum, Lee Marvin? Well, Sean started doing those and then got hired by Criterion almost immediately. He did, like, Sweet Smell of Success, Blast of Silence, because he did that illustration for Blast of Silence in the back of our comic when Patton wrote about it.

And then Criterians, like one of our readers is like the art director of Criterion. And so Criterion optioned that movie and hired Sean to do like a whole comic book adapting the opening sequence and do the, and do a new painted cover. And it's like, so I was like, wow, an article in the back of Criminal by Patton Oswald got Criterion to release a movie that was. Isn't that it? That was the most influential movie on Martin Scorsese that no one had ever heard of, you know? Incredible. Incredible. And I only know about that movie because Patton told me about it.

Like, I, that's the thing I miss about the, the single issues, is that part of it, like, the building of the community. Yes. And I do kind of miss that from only doing graphic novels. Yeah, we have a, next month, we have a, it's called Giant Size Criminal Number One, and it's just like a big 48-page criminal one shot. I think it comes out, like, the first week of December in comic stores, and it's print only, comic stores only, and I wanted to really reward the, stores and like sort of incentivize them to know nobody can get this anywhere but at you so buy a lot of them please yeah and this is like really find your local store go buy it this is not like and you've done this before you know did you i think you did this with maybe cruel summer yeah or yeah i well when i put out hardbacks i don't do digital versions until the paperback so because it's like you can't get a hardback book on your kindle you know it's like i noticed like dan and Chris Ware books are not available at all digitally. And I'm like, yeah, because that's a, part of the experience is holding it in your hand and reading.

Yes. But, like, in that single issue, I got Kieran Gillen, my friend Kieran is like a big comic book writer and game guy, and I got him to write a criminal RPG module, so that Sean illustrated. So there's like a criminal game that you and your friends can play with a deck of cards and a table. You can imagine you're sitting in the undertoe post-heist trying to. trying to fucking backstab each other and dealing with a game master. Oh, that's cool as hell. So, Kieran wrote that whole thing for me and Sean illustrated.

So that's, like, one of our extras in this big 48-page thing. And then I wrote, like, a sort of intro to who all, who the world and characters of criminal. And, you know, so it was, like, fun to do that. So I think we may, you know, try and do that stuff once in a while just, because I just like, you know, being able to create, like, fun art objects that really create a community, you know. And I think you. are, you also are constantly working with a list of collaborators who I think really reward that, you know, like even what you did with, um, are they called the martini additions? The Darwin Cook.

These are the adaptations of the Parker books that Darwin Cook did that they then published in large format that you, I feel like, were very involved in shepherding into existence. Am I misrepresenting that? I mean, I was, I was part of their PR campaign a little bit. I think because I wanted to sort of champion that because Darwin had always really wanted to do those. And so when they put out the first one, we did like a big roundtable interview, me, him, and the editor, Scott Dunbier and Tom Spurgeon, who died a few years back, sadly, one of my best friends. And then in the second martini edition, Darwin had passed away, like, really tragically. And suddenly I found out he was sick the day, like, before he died.

Oh, wow. So, yeah, it was, uh, well, I didn't know it was so sudden. It, it wasn't as, it was, it was a, it was a few months, I think of, you know, but it was, it was a thing where everybody thought he was getting better and then he suddenly took a turn, it sounds like, but, um, but so for that book, like, Sean and I oversaw that book, like, edited and design, Sean designed it. And then we did a new original story for the end of it, like, and I felt too weird writing a Parker story. So I wrote a Grofeld story about Parker and about missing Parker as I a tribute to Westlake and to Darwin. But I, because of that, I had to, I have the unique distinction of being the one of the only people ever to get permission to write an original Parker story by Donald Westlake's widow. And I had to write the story first and submit it. Oh, interesting.

That makes sense. And we've come full circle. Shane Black's new movie Play Dirty is an adaptation of one of the Parker books. So we did it. I think it takes two or three pieces from different ones. To me, that movie, I really liked that movie. I thought it was a lot of fun, but I felt like it felt like a weird mishmash between a Richard Stark Parker, but also a little bit like one of the Grofeld books, but also about 50% like a Shane Black movie.

Yes, and that's very clearly what I feel like it is. When it wasn't Parker, it felt Shane Black. Yeah, and it was like, and I think that that was like one of those ones where, like, the parts that I like the most about it, I think are the things that the critics maybe didn't like. Like, people don't understand Parker as a character. Not at all. Yeah, they do not. They want him to be likable. Yeah, they want him to talk about his feelings and have.

Not at all. He is never going to do that. Yeah, I told Shane, I was like, this is one of the best portrayals of. Parker since Lee Marvin, honestly, because this stoic asshole. Yeah, but that's what people don't get. They're like, oh, they want, and it's like maybe Walberg, who's usually such a charismatic guy, usually very funny in things. Like, I always think of him in the other guys and, you know, and, uh, and the daddy movies. Yeah, yeah, like all his stuff with Will Ferrell is what I think of. And I, you know, I love those. And so seeing him as Parker,

I was like, honestly, I was relieved that it wasn't Downey because I couldn't imagine a version of Downey as Parker because he would talk so much. He wants to be liked so much. Yeah. You know, and that's not Parker. No, I mean, Downey's one of the best actors in the world. I mean, Kiske's Bang Bang is still, you know, I still love that movie. Because he's perfect for Shane. Yeah, he's perfect for Shane. Yeah, he's perfect for Shane. But I remember when he was listed, I was like, oh, no, that's, he should be Grofeld. The guy who talks too much and is an actor. And it's like, Flamble. And it's like, flamble. and stuff, like, but Shane was like, no, he wants to do like a Lee Marvin. And I was like, oh, cool, well, let's see it. And then, of course, you know, he didn't do it. And they got Wahlberg instead. And Walberg really does sort of, he's closer.

He's very, like, tight-lipped and tough. And, you know, so I felt like it was a really good Parker. But then when I was looking at some of the reviews, the first day, I'm like, oh, I'm going to stop reading these because. Yeah, I didn't read. It's like the same thing when, like, the guy who's the, like, main critic for the times doesn't understand what a showrunner does. You know, you're just kind of like, okay, so you don't know anything about Parker, but you're going to review this movie. So, okay.

But that's, that's it. That's where we are. That's where we are. But I just, um, am hoping that we get like another nice guys movie or something. Because I just feel like the nice guys is a movie that gets better every time I watch it. Give me more. Give me more of that. Absolutely. Well, I'm being told we got a wrap up. And I could literally talk about this for the next two hours. Um, you're one of the great. Thanks for making the time. Thank you. And I cannot thank you enough. for having me on a criminal. It was ab the thrill of a lifetime to spend two hours in makeup having bruises and cuts applied to my body looking like someone had beaten the shit out of me.

It is a pivotal role. Thank you again, Ed, for joining us. Now it is the moment you've all been waiting for. It is time to announce our next movie. Next week, we'll be going from a slow-moving train to a zombie craving brains. Ooh, I love that. That's right. We'll be watching the 1993 Teen-Hour

horror rom-com. My boyfriend's back. The movie stars Andrew Lowry and Tracy Lind with an A-plus supporting performance by Edward Herman, Mary Beth Hurt, Matthew Fox, and an unhinged Philip Seymour Hoffman. Yes, you don't want to miss this one. The IMDB breakdown of the plot says a teenage boy comes back from the dead because he's determined to win the most beautiful girl in school. Here's a thing. He's not her boyfriend. And Jason and June love this movie. So, are they right? Are they wrong? Well, Rotten Tomatoes gave this movie a 13% and Ty Burr from Entertainment Weekly says, My Boyfriend's Back is obviously aiming

for the subversive high school yucks of 1989 heathers, but the storyline never bothers to make sense. Which, honestly, I agree with. Listen to the trailer. They say you only get one chance at life, but for childhood sweethearts, Missy and Johnny, true

love will never die. He came back from the dead for me. He's a stinking zombie, you idiot. He made a be dead. But his heart still beats for the girl that he loves. I would love to go to the prom with you. Go for it, Jetty!

Pretty damn that dear for a dead guy. My boyfriend's back, rated PG-13. You can rent my boyfriends back on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, and Fandango at home. Separately, I encourage you to check out Hoopla, Canopy, and Libby, which are digital media services offered by your local library that allow you to consume TV, movies, music, audio books, and ebooks and comics for free. All right, that's it for last looks. If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please rate and review us. Please make sure that you are following us and have automatic downloads turned on.

It helps the show and we appreciate it. Visit us on social media at HDTGM. And a big thank you to our producer, Scott Sani and Molly Reynolds, our engineer, Casey Holford, and our social media manager, Zoe Applebaum, as well as our intern, Quinn Jennings. We'll see you next week for My Boyfriends Back.