ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - How DEADPOOL & Wolverine Will Save The Marvel Cinematic Universe! - X-Men in MCU EXPLAINED

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

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Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. You don't just stand there, you ape. Give me a hand up. Deadpool is the hero that the MCU needs right now. Welcome back Screencrush. I'm Ryan Erie, and I am so excited about Deadpool and Wolverine.

Not only is this the only MCU movie we're going to get this year, but it's also the movie that Marvel really needs right now. So I'm going to tell you why this is the single most important MCU movie since Iron Man. Now, a little later, I'm going to be joined by Tommy Beck Told and Colton Ogburn. to ask them why they think this movie is going to be the one to save the MCU. Ray, why is the MCU needs saved? Is it that pesky mallocut again? Well, Tug, right now, Marvel is facing an even worse threat than the Dark Elves. They're up against fan apathy.

But you raise a good point. I should explain why this movie is so important for Marvel. And as a reminder, right now in our merch store, you can get this. Can you tell me how to get to the MCU shirt and the MCU Save Your shirt? If you like them, please support our channel by clicking the link below and buying a couple for yourself. Now, look, we here at the store have been pretty critical of the MCU over the past few months. But it's not because we like complaining about the MCU. I'm actually tired of complaining about the MCU,

and it's not because I hate the MCU. We complain about it because we love the MCU and we want to hold it to a higher standard. We love these characters from the comics, so we have to acknowledge what we think the studio is making a mistake when they adapt them. Now, I should flag here that there are a lot of people in Hollywood who actually do hate the MCU.

Producers and studios are tired of them getting all the attention at the box office. A lot of actors are tired in front of roles where they stand in front of green screens, and critics are tired of the Marvel formula. And now, I actually think fans are falling out of touch with the MCU as well. Why do you say that? Well, look, Disney doesn't release its viewership numbers for Disney Plus shows,

but we can always measure fan enthusiasm by our YouTube views. If you watch something right away and you're excited about it, you typically will watch us or that f-face-heavy spoilers. So, most recently, our what-if videos, they didn't do great, and neither did our Echo videos. But look, I don't blame people for not watching those breakdowns. I mean, Marvel cut Echo to ribbons and dumped it out in a single day. I mean, look, I do think that they wrote and shot a good show with Echo, but instead we got something mid.

Again, even Loki View started off really slow until word of mouth and fan enthusiasm slowly built up. And the Marvels, well, by MCU standards, was a bomb. Yeah, but you know, the actor strike kept the stars from promoting the movie. Sure, but I don't think an actor strike would have prevented most fans from seeing like Captain America the Winter Soldier, another follow-up movie sequel about an obscure Marvel character that nobody cared about before their first movie was released. Person, I am hungry. Alright, what do you want for lunch? Er, ooh, maybe some chicken wings

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No, look, I'm not just complaining about the MCU and I'm not trying to beat a dead horse. And I know a lot of you guys are tired of hearing me grouse about Cape Flicks. But I think it's important to look back at why Marvel lost its shine. So then, me Colton and Tommy can talk about how Deadpool is going to bring them back. And look, I do think Marvel's best days are ahead of them. Secret Wars is going to have moments that overshadowed the endgame portal scene. Fantastic 4, X-Men, Ghostwriter, there are so many great comic book characters who haven't really been properly adapted to the screen yet.

So now, though, just to explain how we got here, let's look backwards. So, in 2021, all the Disney Plus shows felt like a blessing. Like, guys, we had no new Marvel stories for over a year, and most of those 2021 shows were direct follow-ups to Avengers Endgame, you know, shows about people that we cared about. And, you know, what if was a great show, too. It looked amazing, and it teased the kind of crossovers we would see in the Multiverse saga. Also, in 2021, Black Widow was overdue. Shang Chi was a lot of fun, but the Eternals, for a lot of people, was a swing and a miss. I really liked Eternals, and it still lives rent-free in my head. I think about that movie all the time, but a lot of you guys didn't like it. Like just recently, I even read reports that Marvel thought they had an Oscar nominee on their hands, and instead it got a Rotten Tomato score, and it set up a sequel that nobody but me wants.

Then, in 2022, I started to notice the shows were dragging a bit. Like, Moon Knight felt like a good movie that was a little long, and then they just cut it up into a TV show. Still good there. Oh, yeah, underrated for sure. Oscar Isaac, top notch. Can't wait to see that character again. And then Shehawk, with unfinished visual effects, literally broke the timeline. Like, look, you can break the fourth wall.

Deadpool does it all the time. But at least in Deadpool 2, when Deadpool broke the fourth wall and then affected the plot of the movie, it like made sense within the plot of the movie. He had a time travel device, whereas Jen was able to reship reality because of a glitch. That error on our platform has been fixed. Sorry, I'm nitpicking again. What else? Multiverse of Madness, right? Had too many fan expectations that were too high.

Thor 11 Thunder squandered a lot of goodwill, along with two great Thor comic stories. Wakanda Forever was great, but a bit of a downer. They're the best movie of Phase 4, though. Oh yeah, totally by far. But you see what I mean. The cracks were starting to show. and Ant Man of the Wasp, Quantum Mania busted it wide open. The movie had a huge drop-off in its second weekend.

Again, I liked the movie. I even made a hate-of-a-great video about how much I liked it, but a lot of fans didn't. A lot of fans were super hyped about Kang, and then the guy got beat by Ant-Man. Well, hold on, the gardens of Galaxy 3 was amazing. Oh, that movie was perfect, but it was bittersweet because it was made by James Gunn, who has left Marvel for DC. And Spider-Verse is probably the best superhero movie last year, but it was also made by another studio.

But I really think the wheels fell off in Secret Invasion. Oh, here we go again. know, and look, I'm not going to beat up on Secret Invasion anymore than I already have on this channel, because frankly, it's starting to get old. But it's probably the first thing I've ever seen Marvel make since Thor the Dark World, where everybody just agreed it was bad. And then the Marvels had their travels. The movie was fun, but also cut to death, and fans, worst of all, just didn't seem to care about it. Like, I think the moral of the story here is that fans got so much of the MCU that it stopped being entertainment and it became content. Instead of feeling

like we get to watch the MCU, it felt like we have to watch the MCU. It felt like we have to watch the MCU. Like the shows in the movies were suddenly homework, and there were no Avengers movies to make that homework pay off. But now, Deadpool is going to bring it back. And I'm going to tell you my thoughts a little bit later. But first, the legendary Tommy Beck told, gosh, I'm glad to see you. Why is it you think Deadpool is about to save the MCU? Because he is the only one who can. Deadpool is Marvel's. Cart Blanche, what we would call the Bauer, for those of us that grew up on the East Coast playing Uker. Nothing can beat, I believe, the left.

Bauer. Deadpool is the left Bower. Right Bauer. Right Bauer. Left Bauer's also good. I'm from Ohio. I know these things. Here are, here's the Mount Rushmore Bowers. Jack Bauer, Chris Bauer, the actor from every HBO show. Left Bauer, right Bauer. Okay, right Bauer, Deadpool. He, comic books. Deadpool kills the Marvel, the Marvel universe. Deadpool can get away with in a way that no other hero can because he breaks the fourth wall, fixing and tinkering and tweaking mistakes. So, you can take this in the fantastical and the storytelling and the fictional part of the MCU and you can take this in the real life tragic part of the MCU with all sorts of you know the characters aging out you have Thunderbolt Ross William Hurt passes away and

and you know other characters obviously famously have passed away in the MCU in real life Deadpool can go in and kind of massage new new plot points new story arcs and new characters in a way that maybe would feel more ham-fisted ironically than if it were written in it as a multiversal incursion or someone from another dimension. Deadpool plucking them out of their universe and putting them into the MCU main central 616 or whatever the long number, Kevin Feigy and Imman Volani say it is.

I feel like that he has so much more leeway. And I think he also is just this, like, I mean, face it, when it comes down to it, borderline demi-godlike character. So it's like you kind of, you introduce this like omega-level mutant or whatever, however you want to say. And he's clearly from the trailer, he's going to ingest the MCU. And he also has the knowledge of the Fox Cinematic Universe. And it's going to kind of, I think, be, I think it's going to be more of a patchwork than it is

going to be a clear, clean slate, Fox, delete the Fox Universe and perfect the MCU. I think it's going to be more of like when they put a pig valve in a human's heart to make him live. I think we're going to get some fox pig valves, is what I'm saying.

All right, all right. Okay, I'm down for all that. I'm down for all that. So it's a lot to backtrack and ask you questions about for clarification. So when you talk about him being able to like acknowledge some of the things that have happened in the MCU, you specifically mentions actors, actors who have passed away, which is very sad.

But there's also some other missteps along the way. Do you think that really Deadpool acknowledging in the movie that, boy, there was confusing ending of Sheehawk or more episodes of a Disney Plus show or this feels like Hallmark, do you think that's going to be enough to bring fans back in? Earlier I talked about why fans feel disassociated. Do you think that's going to be enough to bring fans back in? Well, I think it's going to be a two-part equation. I do think Deadpool has the goodwill from the fans because both Deadpool will.

movies were really good, right? And in Deadpool 2, he does refer to Josh Prolin as Thanos at one point, which is like, you know, and I know that's more of a joke than it is as a, as a, like, you know, anything that would be a concrete pop point. The other part of the equation to me is the thing that is Marvel's double-edged sword is the casting. These characters are not plug-in-play. They cast actors that become iconic for these roles. Chris Hemsworth is Thor, right? Like, I can't, I can think about it, but I probably couldn't give you three other Chris Hemsworth roles where I'm like, I know that name,

I know his character name, I know what he was all about. You know, I know there's just like Netflix action movies. Robert Downey Jr., a little bit different, you know, because he's had such a long career, but he is Iron Man, right? So the thing that it's going to require to get everybody on board is more pitch-perfect, iconic casting in whoever is going to take on these new mantles

and whoever's going to be either introduced or reintroduced. Now, in terms of, you know, some of the Fox characters, I think you're already there. Like, I don't think you need to recast Magneto or Charles & Xavier if either of those actors are willing. I don't think so. Oh, okay, okay. I don't think so. Not in my opinion. I think both of those characters handled those, I mean, both those actors, McAvoy and Fastbender, I think they could translate over and be, if they wanted to.

If they wanted to. You have to. I think right now, under, I think there's a contract thing where they have to be offered the chance first. before they're allowed to recast. Like, I wouldn't be shocked if, you know, if Kelsey Grammer is maybe a little more of a one-off or, like, you know, maybe sparingly as Beast. I don't know. I would be shocked.

I don't know. He got his start on those X-Men movies like I was talking about earlier. I think he wants to really make him big, you know, like to bring him back and give them a good goodbye. And I could, well, that, I think that would be, I would love seeing that. I did love, I thought the way that they just side tangent as I unfortunately am prone to do,

The way that that Beast looked at the end of the marvels was, I just loved it. I was like, wow, he looks fantastic. This is really great. Yeah, and Colton, by the way, you can find Tommy on the Guardians of the Palaxi podcast and also an upcoming charity auction in Rochester, New York, which is for cancer research. So I can find that, all information on his socials below. Colton, you're one of the biggest X-Men fans that I know, especially the X-Men animated series. You did a whole video that Kevin Smith talked about on his podcast about how the Fox X-Men,

the cartoon universe could be the other that we're going to see in the subcont, like, Avengers versus X-Men, that the Kelsey Gramer's Beast is the same character. Colton, do you think this is the right way to bring the X-Men into the MCU and the way they're doing it with like the pig valve, as Tommy so eloquently put it? Well, I think Tommy has a good point that it is a double-edged sword. The character of Deadpool, you know, forget the success of the franchise, forget Ryan Reynolds, so we'll get to that. Just that character is the perfect character to fix the multiverse in a sense. And, you know, if certain things don't make sense, you know, Deadpool can just say,

shh, you know, somebody like asks about it and we just forget that it's a problem. And then the other side of it is Ryan Reynolds, he's brilliant. And, you know, Star Power, that's something that used to mean a lot, like in Hollywood. You know, it was a major factor in like whether or not a blockbuster would be a blockbuster. but things have changed I would say in like what the last five to ten years or so and the era of like the movie star is kind of over

you know like one of the few remaining movie stars that can bring out a crowd simply because they're in that movie I would say is Ryan Reynolds he's beloved especially as Deadpool everybody loves Deadpool even the people with you know a stick up there you know what they can't help but you know like

love the charm and the humor of Deadpool He's funny. He's a beloved character who had, like Tommy said, two phenomenal movies. And yeah, I just think this character is exactly what the MCU needs right now. He's got the humor of Thor and Tony Stark. He's got the heart of Steve Rogers. And I think he can carry this franchise. And Disney and Marvel, I think they're really lucky to have him back in the fold. And I'm just really excited to see him be in the MCU, be in the X-Men movies, be in the Avengers movies. I think that, you know, he can, bring in like Tommy was saying the X-Men from the Fox universe, whereas before that might not have worked. But if Deadpool's there to kind of hold our hand and just kind of make it work, I would love to see McAvoy back. I would love to see Fassbinder back. I think it can work. And yeah, I think the way they're bringing in the X-Men, I think it's a good idea. If you're going to bring in Deadpool, I don't see a reason to reboot completely. Just kind of do a patchwork. And if something doesn't make sense. Like I said, Deadpool can just be like, shut up. We're doing this.

And it works. We put out a video a couple days ago where we kind of explained, you know, for people who may not know, why is the TVA in this and why are they, you know, is this a reboot, whatever. So we did a video kind of explaining that where I talked about how Kevin Feigy, in my opinion, wanted to give the X-Men the send-off they deserved. I mean, I would say that Patrick Stewart and Ian McAllen and everybody got a good send-off with days of the future past, but that this new group never did. And maybe that's what you. they're building up toward. I kind of still stick with the opinion that even though it's great to see some characters, like Tommy, you said earlier, Chris Hemsworth, the store, no one else

is going to be playing Deadpool. So let's give Deadpool as many opportunities to shine as possible. So I understand bringing him over, but I was kind of like, oh, I sort of would like to have seen a new origin for some of these characters. But instead Marvel in the Multiverse saga seems to want to do like legacy, bring in legacy actors. Like instead of showing us Otto Octavius and the MCU, they bring him in from another universe. And that's a shame, because I was always like, what would the MCU do with this concept, you know?

And it's a, it's a slippery slope because you see kind of, unfortunately, what happened in the later trilogy for the Star Wars movies, not to cross things, but when you lean so heavily on nostalgia from, you know, 20, 30 years ago or even 40 in the case of Star Wars, oftentimes the result is

the telling the new stories becomes infinitely more difficult and getting the new characters Finn and Poe specifically their moments becomes harder and harder to do because you're owing the audience these moments with these characters

that they love and have fond memories from previous things so not to not to poke a hole in my previous wonderful point that I made but I do see the danger and like you know and look who else is back

and behind this curtain is another character. But it seems like that's what the multiverse saga is built for. I mean, when people talked about multiverse of madness and the lead up to it, nobody was saying, gosh, I, well, people were saying, but it wasn't the big thing that was on the internet. People weren't like, I can't wait for another Sam Ramey movie.

Like, Sam Ramey is a master of horror. I can't wait to see what his filming did is and what he was drag me to hell. Yeah. Right. You know, nobody was really saying that. They were saying, oh, is Tom Cruise going to show up his iron. Right. You're right. You know, who's going to be Reed Richards and the Illuminati.

And I get that, but like you said, nostalgia, to quote one of my favorite episodes of Mad Men, nostalgia is delicate but potent, right? You overuse it and you just sap all the creativity out of a project, which is, I don't know. I'm so pumped about Ryan Reynolds and Deadpool, and I do think that having him acknowledge the mistakes of the MCU are going to make us laugh when we haven't really been, had a chance to laugh at their mistakes in a while. Let me throw something out you guys. One thing that the MCU is always done, right, ever since Iron Man, is whenever something was too comic booky or too silly, they would have a character comment on it, right? Robert Downey Jr. did this all the time. He called aliens, when they look like Squidward, he would point it out.

This made him, and this made those characters, you know, relate to the audience, because we were looking at Thanos, the layman's going, oh, it looks like Grimmis. I'm looking at him going, he looks like a deviant, but everybody else is thinking he looks like Grimmis. How is Ryan Reynolds going to bridge that gap for us, you know, like as Deadpool? Do you think that's going to endear us to him even more? I think it's an opportunity to make Deadpool more layered, too. If we find something that he is even faux sanctimonious about, like if he, like, if he tells the audience, don't you dare laugh at this, you know, in that kind of Ryan Reynolds way that he can, I think he could kind of almost do it as like an inverse. I do think it is going, you know, and I think other, you know, it was a controversial interview, and they definitely took the thing, but when T.J. Miller was talking about how hard it is to be funny in Deadpool when Deadpool is the funny one,

and they cast comedians, it's like, I do think some of the more secondary characters in any Deadpool project are going to have to become more literally in the world and less commenty about, like, oh, that's, you know, Like you say, the voice of the audience or the connection to the audience. Yeah, and I do think that the undermining of the stakes gets in my nerves sometimes. Like, in Dr. Strange, there's a moment when he flips up the collar and the collar goes like this. And he says, stop. I hate that. Yeah. I like that kind of thing. Oh, come on.

Compared to spy. I saw a video essay once that pointed that out and then pointed it out in Spider-Man 2 when Doc Doc takes Mary Jane. And Peter's all business and there's no, you know, this is it. And he gets, he has his powers back. So there is that. I don't want to see that undermined. but also like shehawk I think tried it right shehawk for a variety of reasons depending on your opinion failed or succeeded at it but her talking to kevin at the end uh for me it took me out of the world a little bit too much that she was able to change events but how do you think colton that

shehawk might have failed at that where ryan reynolds and deadpool can succeed well and i talked about this a little bit in a script i'm working on but I think the first few episodes of Sheehulk, they handled fourth wall breaking and commentary on what's going on. I think they handled it really well. It was subtle in the sense that the fourth wall breaking was not the plot. It was a feature, but it wasn't the subject matter. It didn't affect the actual story until the finale when it became the plot line of the finale. And I think that's when they take it, you know, they busts, through that fourth wall way too hard and just walked right through it. I think that what Deadpool has

been able to do is it's a feature. He references us. It's very Ferris Bueller. You know, he looks at us. He winks at us. He makes little comments. But it's never, never has his fourth wall breaking actually affected the story. Like when Vanessa died in Deadpool 2, it wasn't like, you know, he didn't make a joke about, uh, let me just, you know, go recaster or something like. like that. Basically, what I hope that they don't do with Deadpool 3, and I'm very excited for Deadpool and Wolverine, I think it's really funny hearing him say, I'm Marvel Jesus. That's really cool. Just like our Marvel Savior t-shirt that we have available at our merch store, screencrushmerch.com, get yours below. Yeah. I may have to pick that up. Yeah. But I just hope they don't go too far.

I don't want the fourth wall breaking to necessarily become the plot. I think that that can really derail not only that movie or that show itself, but we have to remember this is part of a greater cinematic universe, so they need to handle it with care. I think that... Oh, sorry. Oh, no, Tommy. I think we might be about to say the same thing. And to that point, Tommy, do you think they're going to get literal with the fourth wall breaks

and explain Kevin and Shehawk and how he breaks the fourth wall? Do you think the TVA is going to be like, you have special powers and to break the fourth wall? What do you think? I really kind of hope not. Uh, I gotta be honest, I'm, I think, I hope I'm not, uh, misinterpreting what you said. I think I agree with you. One of my, my things, my Isha's Bishihulk was the finale, to me, almost stunted her ability to move on in the MCU. Like, I thought the first few episodes really established that character.

And then it kind of made the whole thing a big joke. Like it was like, and I know, like, it's comic books and, you know, in Cape movies and whatever. And it's like, you don't have, like, we shouldn't be taking. could get too seriously, but it was like, wait, so like the whole thing is just one big Kevin Feigy is like a like, uh, ruthless creative overlord joke. Like, and then like, look, I'm saying like, like I'm from, uh, Simi Valley, California, but I apologize. Uh, you can tell you're somebody who used to live in California because you're at Simi Valley, California. Exactly. Yeah. I'm, uh, I'm still getting used, I'm still getting used to be a New Yorker. Yeah. What a deal? Del Taco. Uh, so, okay, so my,

My point being the finale of that show, I mean, like, literally they didn't even, they just cut to a different ending. Like, she's like, I'm going to end it this way, then. It just felt like a cop out to me. I liked a lot of that show. I was definitely on the more positive side. I tend to be more positive anyway because I grew up near the Canadian border, and it's rude to be negative, an entire nation of positive people.

For the most part, some hockey players, not so much. Anyway, I just, I really don't want them. to lean into the acknowledgement of Marvel Studios being an entity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. To me, it's like the winks, like I used to like in the comic books when occasionally they draw the illustrator's hand in doing it, and they'd make a reference to the fact that it was a comic book, very sparingly, almost like sesame oil. Sesame oil tastes delicious. Too much sesame oil, you never want to have sesame oil again. So I really hope that they kind of learned from what I thought was more of a whimper than going out with a bang and Sheehawk,

and it's not some sort of omniscient power that he has to, like, reach out and speak to things. I think it should just be that he's, like, crazy. Like, all of the trauma and violence in Wade's life have made him insane, and that has forged this connection with the audience and the ability to, like, you know, comment and be engaged in real time, which is like, you know, people that can sing with two different voices at the same time. Wade can interact with someone right in front of him and then he can comment on what's happening to both of them at the same time. So that's what I'm, that's my hope.

And hopefully they don't drop all the character stakes that he's developed over Deadpool 1 and 2 as well. So like we said earlier, what the MCU really needed in this saga is a main character. In phases 1 through 3, we had Tony Stark. He was our gateway into this universe and he had a very common relatable arc. He wanted to be a better man. And he got his sequel right. away in just two years. But now, who's the main character? Is it Shang Chi? I really like Shang Chi. I was in Phase 4, but there's no sequel in sight, and Iron Man got his sequel after

just two years. I mean, I think they were going to have to Cholabee the main guy before the tragic passing of Chadwick Bozeman. And their main hero can't be Peter Parker. Hell, his rights are owned by another studio. I do think that this main character could have been Carol Danvers, except in my opinion, her first movie really fumbled her introduction and didn't explain much of who she is or what she wants. I mean, hell, they turned her sequel into a team-up movie. Oh yeah, she got cavilled. She got cavilled real bad, which is a shame because I like Brie Larson and I love the character Carol Danvers from the comics. But now, I think that finally the MCU has their main character with Deadpool. See, Deadpool is

like Tony Stark. He's the guy with a very clear arc that we can all relate to. I mean, think about it. Deadpool has always kind of been a fan of superhero movies. He makes jokes and comments that fans could have pulled right from a Reddit page. I got two charges. One to get me here. One to get me home. Well, that's just lazy writing. I mean, he jokes about what we joke about. He cares what we can. care about. And this is perfect for where the MCU is right now. Like I was watching Madam Webb. Don't bother by the way, unless you're in an altered state. And in Madam Webb, people are genuinely surprised and amazed to see somebody walking on walls. And we haven't had that in the

MCU for a really long time. Regular people in the MCU are no longer amazed by the extraordinary. They expect it, just like we do. Hey, hey, buddy, is this your bike? Not changed. I mean, superheroes are so common in the MCU and in the movies and TV shows that they don't feel as special. Like in various MCU stories like, Iron Man 3 and Miss Marvel, we even see how superhero fandom within the MCU kind of mirrors our own fandom in the real world. So without even realizing it, the MCU has become self-referential. So it makes sense that we would have a self-referential hero. We need someone who can be our voice, who can make jokes about how complicated the MCU is, or how the movies feel like homework.

And Deadpool is also a reluctant immortal. He's tried to kill himself several times in the comics, and in Deadpool, too. And in a way, the MCU is like another reluctant immortal. Like Wade Wilson, the MCU will never die. Every ending in this saga ends up just setting up a new beginning. Closing time. Good one. So we need somebody like Wade Wilson around to make sure that we don't try to take the saga too seriously.

Now look, Wade has had a very tragic life and his movies are very sentimental and heartfelt. He's a guy we root for because nothing can ever go right for him. But in spite of that, he still has a good attitude and he still wants to have a good time. Like Deadpool is here to remind us that these are just stories and we're all just here to have fun. You're about to be killed by ISF Bodie!

And that is what the MCU needs right now. But let me know your thoughts. Do you think the MCU needs a protagonist? Do you think there's something wrong with the MCD? Do you think I'm talking about how there's something wrong about the MCU too much? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below or at me on Twitter. And if it's your first time here, welcome to channel. Please subscribe.

Smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie. Thank you.