The Big Picture - ‘Aquaman’: The Weird, Sort of Good (?) Future of Comic Book Movies | Exit Survey (Ep. 111)

Episode Date: December 21, 2018

Sean Fennessey and David Shoemaker take a trip into the cinematically gorgeous — but ultimately average — world of the latest DC Universe release, 'Aquaman.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelley. We wanted to remind you to check out the Ringer's YouTube page. We're publishing new original videos all the time, including a new This Is Us parody called This Is Bus, featuring some of your favorite Ringer employees like Bill Simmons, Jason Concepcion, and Chris Ryan. And on Friday, we published a video breaking down the staff's favorite moments of 2018 in sports and pop culture, ranging from A Star Is Born to the Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty. These videos and more can be found at youtube.com slash The Ringer. My mother was a queen, but life is a way of bringing people together. You could unite our worlds one day.

Check it out. Arthur is talking to the fish. I'm Sean Fennessy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about aquatic superheroes. I'm joined by David Shoemaker, a man of many hats, a masked man of many hats here at The Ringer. You may know him from The Press Box, The Masked Man Show. He's our art director. He's a writer and an editor.

Shoemaker, what's up? Nothing, man. Just excited to talk about Aquaman. We are here to talk about Aquaman, which is, of course, the latest DC extended universe, expanded universe film. And David, it's a bit of a three-eyed fish. So I'm looking forward to breaking down what happened with this movie. But I think we should start very much at the top because since I've been telling people that I saw it, the first question they've asked, and perhaps understandably, is, is this any good?

And I don't know that we've necessarily answered that. Did you think that this was a good movie? I thought, yeah, I think it was good. I think it was good. I think that it's not a great film. Definitely not. But the more that I lived with it over the past couple of days, the more I found myself just like not extolling its virtues,

but like I could make a list of things that i really liked about the movie and so like i'm inclined to say yeah it was it was it was good it was good yeah and there's definitely some things that i loved i mean i loved loved about the movie so yeah it was a good movie okay let's let's we should probably start with the things that we loved um it's a very complicated movie to me because it is one trying to shed some of the negative perspective that the world has had on the DC movies, which have been, you know, moderately successful, though not clearly not as successful as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And it is both connected to this expanded universe, but also

really trying hard to be separate. I thought it was notable how not connected to Justice League it was. And it's really, it is trying to be five movies at once. Here's a list of the movies that I listed it's trying to be. Ready? So it's trying to be a comic book mythology machine. It's trying to be an Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie. It's trying to be a science fiction opera. It's trying to be 20,000 League style under the sea adventure.

It's trying to be romancing the stone. And it's trying to be ordinary people that's a lot that's a quite a stew well i'm glad you got into specific movies i thought i thought that's where you were going but my list is raiders of the lost ark jurassic park romancing the stone the born identity born ultimatum i think is the right cue for that uh avatar for sure yes yes there was definitely some game of thrones and not not just because Khal Drogo's in it. I couldn't place it was under the Tuscan sun or what like Italian rom-com it was supposed to be. And then, of course, The Little Mermaid was just like a hugely, I mean, and I'd say unironically, it was like a hugely influential movie on it. So there was a lot of like very specific like visual and narrative references in the movie that were not a thing

that I normally would like, you know, turn my nose up at. There was some interesting choices made for sure. Yeah, it makes it fun to talk about. I'm not sure that they necessarily nailed the homage in certain cases. Reminding you of Romancing the Stone is a good thing, I think, but I don't think it's a very good Romancing the Stone imitation. So, you know, it's an interesting movie to break down. You know, this is directed by James Wan, who of course, you know, is best known for making some horror films in the earlier part of this century. And then of course, he most recently made a Fast and the Furious movie. I saw him recently described as somebody with bad taste, but high ambition. And I kind of liked that. I think you can make a movie that has bad taste and still have to be

really entertaining. One might argue that the Fast and the Furious franchise is kind of defined by that. So this is kind of an interesting approach to a comic book movie, which I don't think we've ever necessarily seen before. It's kind of like purposeful schlock. And what that results in is lots and lots of bad dialogue. But also a couple of set pieces that are kind of like psychedelic and fascinating. What do you think? Well, answer me this. Were you an Aquaman person before this movie?

No. I mean, I'm not. I'm a big comic book guy, but I've always been more of a Marvel guy than a DC guy. And certainly in the movie realm, I mean, I was, despite the like very significant role that Batman films, I mean, the Nolan one, but the first Nolan film, or the second Nolan film, I guess, but more so, but the transitional power of the Nolan films and also the Tim Burton movies, I mean, those are so important for the way that we watch superheroes on the big screen. So I give them all due credit, but I've always loved just the sort of ethos of the Marvel universe more than DC so far. Yeah, I feel like this movie is competing in some ways with two different things.

And it's funny that you mentioned Avatar because one, I think it's probably kind of the Vinnie Chase entourage joke of what an Aquaman movie is. And of course, James Cameron directed that movie inside the entourage universe. And then the other one is kind of the classical Aquaman vision. I'm not a DC person either, but I think the version of him that we know, the Arthur that we know is blonde and chiseled. And he looks a lot more like Patrick Wilson's character in this movie than he does like Jason Momoa. Casting someone like Jason Momoa, I think was interesting. You know, they really turned a character that had a kind of like regal haughtiness into a into the rock basically right i mean yeah that's more or less the role that he's playing here yeah i mean i think the biggest problem with the dc movies is with the exception i mean setting aside just the the trudging darkness uh of most of the films is they've actually been too

hidebound to to continuity to legacy, to everything else. And I think throwing in, kind of casting Jason Momoa in a, I don't know if he was just like, you know, best player available or how the decision was made, but having an unlikely Aquaman in the lead role really, I think, is what set this movie

on a path to being way better than it could have been. Yeah, I agree. Just having to work with a little bit of, having to explore sort of new territory. I'm a little loathe to try to describe the plot of this movie. Yeah. I don't know how much of that we really need to do. Assuming if you're listening to this, you've already seen the film, so you understand some of it.

I don't think you necessarily come to a movie like this for the plot, though it is really colliding, like I said, kind of mythology, the story of Atlantis where, you know, Arthur is sort of the half-breed son heir to the throne of Atlantis with this story of a kid who basically grew up on his own figuring out how to use his superpowers and control the ocean. There's an enormous amount of very famous people in here kind of doing weird shit notably Nicole Kidman I'm I'm a staggered by the stuff that they got Nicole Kidman to say in this movie yeah uh kind of right from the jump what did you think about Kidman she was Nicole Kidman you know I mean it's it felt like she was I won't I don't think she was

distracting although I would have been I think distracted about her by how little she was, I don't think she was distracting. Although I would have been, I think, distracted about her by how little she was used in the movie. I mean, she wasn't insignificant in any way. But you get Nicole Kidman, you'd think you'd get a little bit more out of her. But at the same time, I think when you're discussing plot more broadly, my biggest problem with the movie was that there was a lot of stuff going on. A lot of really interesting pieces of the story but the the narrative structure was just so straightforward that and it was a long movie you knew exactly what was going to happen and you kind of knew every beat that was going to be hit from about 30 the 30 minute mark and so it felt even longer because

you knew everywhere you were going to have to go yeah i agree with you i think that's something that actually set like separates dc from marvel at this point which is that marvel is trying to figure out new ways to bust up the origin story as they tell their stories and they're getting better at it we'll see what they do with captain marvel you know micah peters and i talked about spider-man into the spider-verse recently and uh you know that movie is literally busting up the idea of the origin story. And this is a really, really straightforward version of that, right? I'm not the only person to ever make this argument,

but I've made it before. You have to, when you're doing a superhero movie, if you're going to tell the origin story, like the villain has to be part of the origin story. Because otherwise you get one of these bloated Batman movies with like 18 villains. And it just, you don't understand what's happening and none of it really feels like it matters.

And they did that in this one. And I mean, they did tie the, or I mean the, the, the very lengthy origin plot of the movie was tied into the main action. There was a little, you know,

there was another villain that didn't, that wasn't, you know, so intrinsically tied up in it, but, but they, it was still very, it was a lot,

it was a lot of backstory it's it's sort of pat these days they'd be like this would have been better as a tv show but uh but i would have certainly rather i mean all of the different movie narrative movie parallels that i mentioned i would have rather almost seen as a standalone 30 minute segment that i could have just relished in uh as opposed to just sort of like this litany of cut scenes while I was like counting down minutes, you know? Yeah. You know, we just saw all of these Marvel Netflix shows essentially get canceled. And I think one of the reasons that those shows were sometimes effective, but mostly not effective was because they were too long. So Jessica Jones, I thought was a really smart and inventive

approach to telling a superhero story. But every season being eight or 10 episodes, I just felt like it was way too much and it was a four-episode show. Similarly, I feel like we haven't really cracked the code on the superhero miniseries. And stories like this are much more like miniseries than they are like TV shows to me.

Yeah. And it's notable that you pointed out Game of Thrones. I think this does, especially with the kind of idea of like succession and power and the quest for those things and those kind of haughty ideas. Those are probably the haughtiest ideas

that this movie has. And those things could be done more effectively the way the Thrones does, which is kind of in micro. You know, and with the, I mean, the one thing that Game of Thrones really has is the question looming over everything, right?

I mean, it's the whether or not the story is going to end happily. And that was never in question in Aquaman. Yeah, the minute Amber Heard shows up too, you're like, well, they're going to end up together. You know, there's really no mystery to any of the setup that they're making. Do you think that given some of the anxiety around the DC stuff in the last few years, that this movie is going to be helpful or hurtful to the narrative that they're building? I think helpful. I think that the burden that it carries

as part of the DC universe affects the way that we watch it. But I think in a lot of ways, this was maybe not as interesting as Wonder Woman was on its face, but it had a lot more interesting pieces to it. I mean, for everything we've said so far, it has to be said, this is the most beautiful DC Comics movie

and maybe the most beautiful superhero movie that's ever been made. I mean, just the amount of CGI that was just seamless. I mean, I think seamless is the only word for it. And the amount of just kind of CGI concepts that came and went and without it being ever without it feeling like you were you know it there weren't a lot of those avatar moments where it felt like it was insisting upon itself sort of but it was all so beautiful um there was a lot of really transformative stuff in here and listen and and it was brightly lit which was a big uh for the most part uh and especially for an undersea movie which was a big, uh, for the most part, uh, and especially for an undersea movie,

which was a departure for DC. Although there were many times where I was just like, this would be better. I mean, this is James Wan. This would be better off as a horror movie, you know, but visually, um, I think it was a huge step in the right direction for DC and, and, uh, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to undersell that. I agree with you. The, what it reminded me of the kind of big set pieces, which I think are the best parts, and I think that it actually has a good battle at the end that kind of lives up to its billing,

was Lord of the Rings, which was, I thought, a very effective fusion of tons of digital and CGI stuff that you can tell is CGI but doesn't bother you because it's sort of breathtaking at times. There are a couple of shots, especially the shot when they go into, what is that called?

The trench, you know, when they're sort of on a quest to go find the Trident. When they're being chased by this series of monsters and he's holding this flare and racing through the ocean, holding a flare and being chased by hundreds of thousands of monsters. It's like, it is probably the most beautiful single shot I've seen in a comic book movie. And the movie really has that going for it. On the other hand, though, there's so many scenes where two people are just talking to each other. And I'm like, wow, this was, this was written by a 14 year old, you know, like it's really just not even, it doesn't even have the zing of a mediocre comic book. And that held it back for me a little bit,

you know what I mean? Despite the, the sort of visual ambition. Well, you mentioned the rock earlier, Jason Momoa, they left a lot of, they left a lot of the heavy lifting up to Jason Momoa to get, to like smirk his way through these scenes. Definitely. And he succeeded, I think to a surprising degree. Um, but it was too big of a lift for the rock or anyone else. You know what I mean, it was, it was, there was not a lot, there was not a lot to work with. I mean, and you mentioned Amber Heard. I, halfway through the movie convinced myself

that she was going to be a double agent or she was going to do something because it was so straightforward, you know, because it was so elementary. And that obviously didn't turn out to be true. But I think that's I think that goes to show exactly what you're saying. There was

a simplicity that was a little bit grating at times. Yeah, when the movie first started, I thought that we were going to get the thing that Marvel has done recently, which is they try to Trojan horse an old-style version of a movie where they say, oh, Winter Soldier is like three days of the Condor and like a 70s paranoia thriller. I thought it was going to be basically just a really good Steven Seagal movie.

It kind of starts like Under Siege. And, you know, when you have that scene where we are introduced to Black Manta and the, you know, who's this pirate who's trying to take over submarines, I guess. But, and what you have is Momoa dropping one-liners, punching people really hard, being the toughest guy in the room. And it was like Schwarzenegger meets Bruce Willis. That was what I thought he was going for and kind of nailing, even though I think movies like that are kind of passe at this point. But I would have enjoyed, weirdly, like a Steven Seagal DC movie. And then it very quickly morphs again and morphs again and morphs again. Do you think people are going to be open-minded about the fact that it's trying to be all of these

movies at once? I don't know that it's pure negative. You know, our boss, Bill Simmons, always talks about judging movies based on whether or not you like stop flipping the channels when they pop up on your TV screen. I don't know if anybody under the age of 30 flips through channels and stops on movies anymore, but this felt like a really good movie. I don't know if anybody under the age of 30 flips through channels and stops on movies anymore, but this felt like a really good movie. I mean, a movie that I would definitely stop on

over and over again because there are so many moments that are watching and visually, as cool as it was on the screen, I bet it's going to look just ridiculously good on everybody's big,

like, 4K home TV. And it had a little bit of, I mean, for me, that's how, that's my favorite part of Avatar is seeing it in chunks at home more so than I loved it in the theater again despite it being this you know IMAX spectacular production

and a little bit of this is a really weird comparison but I have that same thing with Gangs of New York where it's like it was a letdown in the theater because it just kind of felt like a lot like a bloated sort of meandering thing compared to the rest of Scorsese's oeuvre but whenever I

see that on TV I stop it's like it's a perfect TV movie and I and I and I hope that Aquaman will sort of fall fit into that same category it felt like that a little bit to me that's interesting I I still think I'll probably get hung up on some of the dialogue scenes in particular. And I'd like to spend some time talking about Patrick Wilson. But there's a moment when Patrick Wilson's plan starts to come together when he enlists Dolph Lundgren and the, I guess, army that he of one of the many kingdoms under the sea that he runs and owns. And he makes this very bold proclamation about becoming the ocean master, which apparently is a title. Once he is named ocean master,

it'll be too late. The power at his disposal will be unlike anything you have ever seen. I'm from the surface. No one's going to take me seriously. Okay. I don't even know where to begin by winning the hearts and minds of the people by proving to them that you're worthy and retrieving this. Yeah. That's when they could have reworked reworked from the comic books, I think.

It is very like stentorian, like, and then I shall be the ocean master. Well, to have Dolph Lundgren sitting right there, which by the way, what do you think Dolph Lundgren, what do you think the nicest thing he's bought himself in the past year is? Because he went from nothing to a whole lot again. All of a sudden, do you think he's like got a fleet of cars that he can't afford now? I'm super happy for him. Probably a boat just in keeping with the Aquaman thing.

Exactly. But to have him standing right there, Dolph Lundgren, who played He-Man famously or infamously on screen, and all the Ocean Master dialogue just made it feel really, you know, cartoons of my childhood-ish. Yeah. I mean, it didn't do any favors to have him there. No, I mean, I think that that's kind of

what I was talking about with the schlocky thing. You know, Masters of the Universe is like a very schlocky movie. And Dolph, who even though he is, you know, for people who don't know, kind of a brilliant person who is basically a mensa level actor who studied i think um nuclear physics and then yeah i think that's right and then became like a swedish

model and actor because he was dating grace jones you know he's obviously this icon of a certain kind of movie and so it's funny to see him in creed 2 and now this and you know he's like he's good he's dolph lundgren he's kind of doing Dolph Lundgren things, looking very lantern-jawed. Patrick Wilson, to me, though, is an interesting choice. He is a part of the James Wan repertory company. They're obviously collaborators, and they worked on the Insidious movies. And he plays Orm, who is Arthur, a.k.a. Aquaman's half-brother, and the man who is trying to claim the throne of Atlantis.

And Orm is, I feel like, a villain we've seen before. You know, like a petulant, younger brat. He's kind of like Richard from the Robin Hood movies, you know? Like, he doesn't really deserve the throne, has designs on power, you know, has a bad plan that the Robin Hood will eventually unearth. Patrick Wilson is so beautiful and so sincere in a way that I felt like he was a little out of place here.

How did you feel about his performance? This is the, I feel like, didn't Bill get no conversation about Patrick Wilson's beauty on a recent podcast? He did with Jason Reitman, yeah. I'm weirdly, like, I love him. I'm not in on Patrick Wilson being, didn't bill get no conversation about patrick wilson's beauty on a recent podcast yeah i'm i'm weirdly like i love him i'm not in on patrick wilson being he's never struck me as like my platonic ideal of what a man a leading man should look like so i you know i loved it i thought he

was uh you know i thought he was great in fargo and a million other things but uh but no i thought i thought he was really good i thought that that role had the potential to be the worst part of the movie. Yes, that's true. That's true. I mean, he could have just vamped and it would have been, I mean, it also could have been great in a different way if he just really vamped it up and made it just kind of hilarious. But I thought it was good.

I mean, again, he didn't have a lot to work with but you know it wasn't i mean you know any putting patrick wilson and willem da foe in the same room talking to each other i mean i'm i'm good with that no matter what they're doing you know and duff lundgren too is it was a nice little like you know counterweight although he was he again was always always seemed to be there to sort of underscore the kind of lame mythology. You mentioned Under the Tuscan Sun, which is fucking hilarious. There is a moment in this movie when Amber Heard's character, Mara, and Arthur go on a kind of excursion on a quest to find clues to find this mysterious trident, which will then allow Aquaman to battle his brother, Orm. Yeah. Which sounds ridiculous to say out loud loud but here we are saying it uh the movie is just it's a full-blown detour

into the sahara and then ultimately sicily um yeah that was the one part and you mentioned this when we were discussing it before we started recording when you went to the bathroom and that is also exactly when i went to the bathroom and i was i was thinking about this and wondering if at this point filmmakers who make these kind of big top tentpole entertainments are actually making a bathroom scene for you like do you uh do you think that was by design for wrestling in the pro wrestling world that's called the popcorn match right about two-thirds the way through the show they put on you they put on a match that you know doesn't matter so you can go get your popcorn and go to the bathroom right right right I mean

that feels like because these movies are all two and a half hours now and yeah i mean it's it's i i think it i think it must be because it always it hits at exactly the same point and where you've just kind of been sitting there for like five minutes thinking like am i gonna make it through should i just go to the bathroom just so i can enjoy this and make sure i'm there for the post-credit scene um And then, yeah, and then, like, they land in Italy or whatever, and you're just like, oh, yeah, this is the moment. This is exactly when I walk. That whole thing was very bizarre.

And Amber Heard, taking Amber Heard, you know, I mean, she was out of the water for a good portion of the film, but it didn't do that character any favors. This is a bit, I know, but, like, it's amazing to me how great the CGI was in this movie how they like literally made it felt more like i was underwater than you know an imax documentary that really takes you underwater it was so well done and yet they can't make amber heard's hair a color that that looks even remote like you can see the hair dye on her forehead. I mean, it was kind of,

and maybe it was just to reference The Little Mermaid. Again, I mean, it felt like a real choice, but putting her out in the sunlight just made her look less like a sea creature and more like an angsty teen or something. I think you're right. I think when you were describing this movie

as very brightly lit, that's a good thing when they're underwater and it's a bad thing when they're on their surface. When they're on the surface, it actually looks more fake. You know, I found that all of the scenes that take place at Arthur's kind of father's home and dock felt like a set.

They felt like, or that dock just seemed like a CGI ocean as opposed to going underwater and there is this extraordinary battle sequence which we'll talk about that features like thousands of creatures. And I was like, yeah, I bet this is happening. It's just such a strange contrast

in the style of the filmmaking. Yeah, I totally agree. It's hard to get past the feeling that there were just a lot of very different pieces of this movie that were cut together too quickly. I mean, if this movie had just been, if you had somehow gotten past the first 45 minutes, if it had just been, you know,

Raiders of the Lost Ark in search of this trident for the purpose of reclaiming his throne, it could have been a really tight movie with most of the good stuff still in there. I mean, but when they went on the search that we're talking about, it was almost, people people were kind of chuckling like it was just such a shift and such a inexplicable change in the in the movie that it just felt like it it was like a gag without without a punchline yeah yeah it's like i said it's a three-eyed fish it's a very complicated

movie let's talk a little bit about that battle more um obviously things come to a head arthur returns to atlantis to have a showdown with orm the way that he does so is by controlling a giant creature that he has essentially lifted out of the trench by power by his aquatic powers yeah do you know who voiced this creature oh no i have no idea you're gonna this is gonna blow your mind you ready yeah julie andrews that's a true story julie andrews why why i have no idea did she i don't even remember the beast speaking but i guess i like whatever the carathon whatever it's called i just assumed it was a kraken but yeah that makes sense um yeah julie andrews in the month of mary poppins returns is where we have julie andrews back julie andrews

julie andrews is she she's at julie andrews and dolph lundgren are out there on that yacht together spending their new cash um oh wow they're back um yeah but uh no that that creature was great i that was actually i thought and i thought this in the moment, a triumph of a good kind of superhero movie making. And that we didn't have to have a scene where Aquaman was like thinking to himself underwater or having a shouty conversation with Amber Heard about like, oh, maybe there's a monster. You know I can control all the sea creatures. Maybe there's one deeper down that can really turn the tide of this battle. No, it just happened. And we all understood what was going on.

And perhaps I don't give them enough credit or I give them too much credit to think that that, that they, you know, that they had to make that, that was a choice that they made, but I thought it was well done. There may be a scene where he's explaining out loud what the plan is.

You know, a lot of these movies have that extraordinary exposition. It's hard to know. It's hard to know what the first cut of this movie is. I'm sure there's like a four and a half hour version. Oh, yeah. But yeah, I did think that they kind of effectively put the capstone on it with that battle. Did you have any awareness of kind of the deeper mythology of the Atlantis and the Aquaman comics?

And also, does it correspond at all with the broader Atlantis mythology? I do not know i uh i opened up atlantis's wikipedia page on my phone on the way out of the theater and then promptly forgot to read it up to read up on it um but the the atlantis mythology that as as constructed in the film was again just a throwaway like flashback but was what was that was one of the most interesting parts of the movie i mean that was a thing that iaway like flashback but was what was that was one of the most interesting parts of the movie i mean that was a thing that i would like to see more of but even that was like you know it was like half really smart and half like hand wavy you know i mean they got it was like the super advanced it was like ancient rome with like robotech and then somehow they got swept

underwater which all all of this is i'm actually fine with and then they were just like and because of our technology we evolved you know and then it was like wait you grew because you have robots you have you got gills like i don't understand um but anyway it was it was very i mean that's the sort of ridiculousness that i'm fine with in these movies you know there's going to be going to be as long as you don't spend time on the dumb stuff, then it's fine to be dumb. Yeah. In the year of Black Panther, I actually weirdly saw a lot in common with Black Panther in this movie. I think that's exactly right.

I think it was Black Panther and there was, you know, some elements of Guardians 2 just in terms of like really huge world building. But yeah, there was a lot of black panther yeah the whole idea of like this technology solved our society and also made us isolationist is kind of an interesting idea i don't think that aquaman necessarily aspires to the same levels of kind of intellectual depth that black panther is shooting for but it's almost like the same story in reverse it's like if orm were chadwick boseman's character and he was the villain in some ways and and aquaman is is killmonger and he's coming in to kind of claim the throne like there is something i'm there's a weird a weird mirror image between

these two movies even though i don't think that they're going to be received in quite the same way would you agree with that yeah yeah i think that's fair i mean it's it's hard i mentioned the you know burton batman and and the nolan batman earlier it's what like one of the thought games i like to play with all of these is just like how they would have been received if they had come out how this movie would have been received if it come out when when iron man one did you know and none of this modern superhero movement had happened yet i I think that despite being, you know, too long and,

and to, you know, bloated in various ways, the Aquaman would have been an absolute revelation if it had come out then. And not just because the CGI would have been like, you know, earth shattering, but just because it does have a take it,

you know, it absorbs too many movies into itself, but it, but just the sort of like irreverence and ambition, I think would have been, you know, really impressive at that point. In July of 2009, Leonardo DiCaprio began developing Aquaman for his production company. And I'm trying to imagine a world in which Leo takes up the mantle of Aquaman. Is that... He was going to play the part? If he was developing it, it's impossible to know if he would have considered the part. I think young Leo looks a lot like what Arthur looked like in the comic books,

in the kind of Justice League of the 90s and the 80s. Is there any part of you that wishes it was a sort of a more polished version of that character? No, I mean, I don't think... I think it's really hard to do... It's really hard to do Aquaman straight. wishes it was a sort of a more polished version of that character no i mean i don't think i don't i think it's really hard to do it's really hard to do aquaman straight uh and so they you know they they they made a choice here and they they found a way to make it more palatable you know i mean if i when i when when you say leonardo dicaprio is aquaman i mean yeah i know you're thinking like the the blue-eyed blonde-haired like you, you know, green and yellow outfit, you know, superhero.

My mind immediately goes to The Revenant because I think that there's like a really interesting Leo role as like, you know, with just built into the mythology and just, you know, the broken down life of like an aquatic nomad. But yeah, I mean, it could have been, yeah, it could have been a lot different. The weird thing would just be that he was one of the most famous actors in the world is like the fifth most important DC member of the Justice League. I mean, that would have been hard to balance. Yeah. That is a good segue to something

I kind of wanted to talk to you about, which is what DC movies are in the future now uh as i mentioned this movie just was not really connected to any dc movies am i am i overstating that like there's no mention of all of all of the silly dialogue in it the most like maybe the most awkward line uh in the whole movie was when amber heard was just like but you helped batman and superman that time to sit to save the world that's right it was just like and he was like nah that was just a one-off you know whatever like he wasn't that it would have been so much better if they just pretended justice league had never existed or if they had placed this in the past or something like that but um but yeah that it was aside from

that there was basically no reference to anything outside you're right i had forgotten about that line which is the terrible line of dialogue uh okay so here here's what's coming from dc and i think what's notable about aquaman is as you said he's the fifth most important maybe at best member of the justice league and the movies that are coming that are literally on the schedule for warner brothers one of the biggest studios in the world. In April, we're getting Shazam, which is kind of a fun character, though I'm not sure necessarily worthy of a movie before, say, like The Flash gets a movie. And that movie, the tone of that movie, I think actually is going to be even more jokey and even more teen and even more, it almost feels like a Netflix movie. I don't know if you've seen the trailer for that yet. have it looks really good i mean really interesting i i think that the um i mean

the other thing is that it takes you away from the justice league verse yes you know i mean it's it's it is a dc movie and certainly if it's successful they'll all tie in together but shazam you know captain marvel whatever you want to call him has this incredible tension with superman as they're sort of like you know they're the same character from different companies that were absorbed together and had to stake out their own territory. I'm interested in that movie for sure. I am too.

It's going to be made by David Sandberg who made Annabelle Creation and Lights Out. He's a horror movie guy, just like James Wan. This is kind of a fascinating choice to bring, to have Warner Brothers take their cadre of horror directors and make them superhero movie directors. That might work. We'll see.

It's not really something Marvel has tried before. The movie after that is fascinating to me. It's called Birds of Prey. And it stars and is being developed by Margot Robbie. And it's being directed by Cathy Yan, who has never made a full-length feature, I don't think. She's a Chinese-American director who I think has only made a short.

Am I right about that? I guess she has a film coming called Dead Pigs, but this feels like a pretty big risk. Can you explain what Birds of Prey is? Oh, not well, no. But I think you can put that in the same bucket as Suicide Squad. Can you explain what Birds of Prey is? Oh, not well, no. But it's, I mean, I think you can put that in the same bucket as Suicide Squad, as like it's an opportunity

to lure in the highest profile stars with the lowest IP risk, I think. You know, this isn't, if Margot Robbie makes this movie and then is just like, I'm retiring to a castle or I'm going to go do a Netflix show or something, then like they don't need to make more

Birds of Prey. It's not like they need to lock her in the tin picture deal, but it has the potential like Will Smith and Suicide Squad or whatever to really be more transformative for the overall franchise for the overall

expanded universe if it works really well and if everybody has fun doing it. You know, it's interesting to see someone like Margot Robbie like actively seeking out a superhero role. But, you know, DC has the, DC, you know, we've talked about this before. Marvel got lucky that they didn't have the rights to any of their big characters

when they started making these movies. And DC is kind of doing this weird balancing act of being kind of honor bound to execute Superman Batman Wonder Woman you know maybe Flash and Aquaman too although who knows if Aquaman would have even ever been made if it hadn't been for Jason Momoa you know and and finding that you know finding the right the right actor yeah I think that's a a good way of framing this one too because i think margot robbie was the best part of suicide squad harley quinn was that character worked in that movie and it's smart to kind of extend this out oh i'm just going to read the full title of the birds of prey

movie do you know that this has a a parenthetical inside the title go ahead okay it's birds of prey parentheses and the fantabulous emanmancipation of One Harley Quinn. Wow. Close parentheses. That makes me want to see it more, frankly. Me too. That actually has a pretty cool cast. The movie has Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Journey Smollett Bell, Rosie Perez.

That should be an interesting thing, and I like how you described that as kind of a low-risk, high-tension possibility for IP. The one after that makes no sense. And I don't know if this movie is in production or what, but it's Cyborg, who is played by a not famous person and is a not famous character. And the idea of Cyborg coming before the Wonder Woman sequel, before a Green Lantern movie, before The Flash, before Matt Reeves' Batman, which are all the other movies that are kind of on the slate right now,

I'm confounded by. Like, the is the audience for Cyborg are they gonna try to make it like Robocop or something yeah I mean yes I guess I mean it's it's I mean that has to be a yeah they got it has to be movie first right because it's not the comic character and like you said it's not the actor so it's got to be it's got to be a really, right? Because it's not the comic book character. And like you said, it's not the actor. So it's got to be a really, you know, either a, I mean, I don't know if people even still go to the movies. Is anyone going to go to see Aquaman because I told them that it's the most visually amazing thing I've ever seen? Like, I don't know.

It's not, we're past Avatar, right? We're past Terminator 2. I don't know if people go for that reason because you have the expectation of quality for all these movies, at least visual quality. Right. But yeah,'s that's an interesting one i know they've moved these around some i don't know if i don't i don't know if the but the release dates for all of the justice league movies are have been kind of confusing to me but um you know who knows uh there's i know there's a lot of people out there who are a lot of the diehard fanboys um actually not diehard fanboys

but the fans of the Teen Titans cartoon show are mad that Cyborg has been ripped away and the upcoming Netflix show does not include him. Oh, interesting. So even though they sort of exist in different universes, Cyborg is fully Justice League when played by an actual human being and not part of Teen Titans.

You know, I want some justice for Martian Manhunter. I feel like he's really been pushed to the side here in the Justice League universe. He was always a personal favorite. He's such a weird character. Let's talk a little bit about the end credit sequence because usually those sequences are used to push the story forward. You know, at the end of the last, I believe it's the last Superman versus Batman movie. We get introduced to Deathstroke, and then that kind of pushes the story forward, even though who the hell knows if that'll ever be resolved in any meaningful way. The end of this movie, the post-credit sequence, it basically just shows us Black Manta again, and a scientist character played by Randall Park, who is apparently canon

in the Aquaman story. And that just seemed like a setup for Aquaman 2. And I found that to be fascinating because if they really need us to get excited about Cyborg or Green Lantern Corps or Birds of Prey, you might have dropped a little Easter egg into that moment. And they just didn't do that. Did that strike you as odd? It struck me as really odd. To be teasing a movie that is certainly not even in production that's not really the purpose of those right i mean it was

almost like it was almost like when like back to the future one ended with to be continued and then we waited 15 years or whatever for the sequel to come out yeah um like that's not a real that that was like a gag that wasn't a that wasn't a real tease it's weird it's it's surprising that like you said they didn't have Cyborg or Flash or Wonder Woman or someone just pop up to do a thing. And also, if you're going to do a post-credit scene that doesn't really matter, I think you should just go,

you should just mess with people. How great would it be if it was like, if the post-credit scene was like, DiCaprio was Batman, you know? And it was just like, we're just going to give him $500,000 to film for like 15 seconds just to get people talking. that would have been a lot better

david how do we how do we go forward here ultimately you felt like this was a good movie yeah yeah yeah i thought it was good i mean it was um was it good enough to make you care about the future of aquaman yeah i think that it was i don't know if it was good enough but it was enough you know it was it was definitely it had the the, I liked Momoa's performance. I liked this sort of iteration of the character. The hopeful view is that now that we've gotten all this backstory out of the way, you could actually just have a fun adventure movie for the next one. Yeah, I guess the question is, is like, can Aquaman be a Thor or a Captain America where you're like, actually, I'm really interested in that movie? Yeah, I think he absolutely can.

I mean, it's a Thor and Captain America. I wouldn't have thought they could be Thor. I mean, I didn't think Thor could be Thor like two movies into the two, you know, after two Thor solo movies. I totally agree. And this is I think Aquaman is definitely better than the first Thor movie. Oh, for sure. For whatever, you know, for I'm sure a lot of reasons made the decision to get through a whole lot of material in this movie. And maybe, maybe that'll open it up for, you know, for more in the future. I, you know, it's,

it's, um, like I said before, I think that my biggest, I mean, my biggest hangup with the movie is that there was so much material and the storytelling was kind of so straightforward that you, it dragged, you know, like you knew exactly where everything was going to go um yeah i mean it was like if you get you have all of these amazing pieces but it's but the story's being told in just two i don't know if it's for the kids audience or what but but they it was it was a very simplistic you know means of telling the story but there was a lot of good stuff in there i agree there's been a lot of good stuff in here, David. Thank you for chatting about Aquaman and the extended DC universe. We'll see you on the ringer.com. Thanks, man. This has been a blast. Thanks again to David Shoemaker. And thank you for listening to this week's episode

of the big picture, though. It is the holidays, we shall return next week on Thursday with a special Oscar show with Amanda Dobbins. We'll be talking about Vice among other things, so please tune in then and happy holidays.