The Big Picture - ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Has Overwhelmed Hollywood. Is That OK? | The Big Picture

Episode Date: April 30, 2019

We discuss the high-wire act that ‘Avengers: Endgame’ was trying to pull off—stitching together over a decade of films into one neat, fan-serviceable, creative ending—and if it ultimately worked (1:00). Then, we take a step back and look at some of the numbers ‘Endgame’ put up at the box office, and whether it spells total domination for the mid-budget movie (23:40). Finally, we look ahead to a summer full of non-Marvel movies and share which ones we’re most excited for (40:30). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chris Ryan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Avengers Endgame premiered and up on the site under the Avengers tab, you can find everything from the Ringer staff's exit survey full of reactions and takeaways, an emergency big picture podcast with Sean Fennessey and Mallory Rubin, as well as lots of other coverage on the Marvel Universe as a whole. Also up on the site, Robert Mays and Kevin Clark are breaking down the NFL draft, and Haley O'Shaughnessy, Jonathan Charks, and Dan Devine are keeping you up to date with the NBA playoffs.

You can check all of these things out on TheRinger.com. I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the end of moviegoing culture as we know it just kidding avengers endgame ruled and is better than game of thrones i'm here with chris ryan and amanda dobbins hello guys that's what happens when you don't read the outline i'm getting frisky uh we're gonna talk a little bit about avengers and not game of thrones if you want to listen to stuff about game of thrones i encourage you to listen to chris on the watch

maybe you can catch up on talk the thrones which aired last night. Maybe you can check out Binge Mode later this week. You can hear all about the Battle of Winterfell and whether it worked or did not work. There was some dissension in the ranks here at The Ringer. Today, we're talking MCU, not just the movie itself, but also the box office implications and what the aftermath of that means for summer movies. We're doing a little summer movie preview. Amanda and I will be chatting about it. But first, I thought that you guys are the perfect pair to chat with after doing a deep dive with Mallory Rubin, because Amanda, you're on the record as not being the biggest superhero movie fan in the world, but also someone who sees these films out of obligation and has developed a lot of

feelings about them. And Chris, I tend to think you're the most, you're the person who I'm most eager to hear what he thought about these movies every time you see them. I'm right here. Well, it's not that I don't respect your opinion, Amanda. I think it's very valuable, but you're operating from a base level of, I'm not so sure about this. Chris, I think he, he can really go positive or negative. Sure. So I'm wondering what you guys thought. I'm a newborn baby every time I enter a movie theater. Yes. But sort of like a Benjamin Button baby. Who brought this baby to Endgame? Did you cry, Chris, speaking of babies at Endgame? I did not cry.

Okay, Amanda, did you cry? No, I didn't. It's astonishing, so I cried because I have feelings. All right, and so... Chris, what did you think? I had like a feelings wave when Peter Parker and Tony Stark were reunited. At the end of the movie, I just felt like entirely at peace, which I think is ultimately what they wanted you to feel, which is that I was entirely at peace with the endeavor.

I felt fine and okay about the amount of time I've spent thinking about these movies and seeing these movies over the years. I think it was really telling to listen to you and Mallory talk about it because being a little bit older, I think that I don't quite have a deep, passionate connection to it. Mallory talk about it because being a little bit older, I think that I don't quite have like

deep passionate connection to it. It's not like a real make or break franchise for me in the way some others are. But at the end of the day, I was like, you guys pulled it off. You made it emotionally satisfying finale to what was a pretty unprecedented endeavor in movie making history. And they made it work. Amanda? Yeah, I thought it was a fitting conclusion to this experiment, for better and for worse, in some ways. It certainly, there was a little bit of everything for everyone, including me. I mean, the last shot, I was delighted. I wouldn't say I was, like, crying or, like,

deeply moved, but I was very excited to see Hayley Atwell back and to see Cap. I frankly, old Cap be very happy. And also I thought pretty handsome for like a really old guy. Incredible head of hair. And then, yeah, that's true. They didn't age the hair. And I thought that nice. I thought the last shot was very sweet

and was kind of going back to many of the themes that we talked about in our podcast about Captain America, the first Avenger and some of the things that I felt the MCU had abandoned. And so I felt seen in that moment, which is not something that I often feel in these movies. It took three hours and a lot of garbage CGI to get there. So, you know, but I think other people were delighted by that. And so again, there is something for almost everyone in these movies. And that's kind of what the experiment was about, right?

Yeah, definitely. And, you know, in the Marvel Month series that we did on the show, you know, you and I talked about Captain America, the first Avenger, Chris, you and I talked about the Avengers, both of the things, the key talking points that we talked about in those podcasts really rose to the surface on this one. You know, in your case, it was how Haley Atwell is the most important person in the. You know, in your case, it was how Haley Atwell is the most important person in the MCU. And Chris, for you, it was quite literally that Tony Stark is the most important person in the MCU. This was a genuine send-off. I don't think we'll be seeing Tony again. And it was interesting the way that they built him into not just the

centerpiece of the story, not just the emotional center of the story, but like the engine of the story. And I think when we talked a few weeks ago, you were saying that you're not so sure that they're going to be able to do this as effectively without him. I think they're staring into an abyss and I think they might dive in and the abyss is called Disney Plus.

You know, I think that the way that we're going to be talking about these movies in 10 years, you and I were texting over the weekend and I was like, oh, should I read this comic line to kind of see where it's going or should I read the storyline and you basically were like here's

what's going to happen uh in in 10 years we'll be talking about this it's so cool to be friends with Sean no but I think he sent the text and there are sometimes these are anti-spoilers over here also no but he's like he sends texts sometimes and I'm just like okay Sean but this one this one was like wow that, that sounds incredibly plausible. And it would take about 10 years to get there. You know what I mean? But for me, you lose Stark, you probably are going to lose Evans unless they graduate Evans to kindly uncle who shows up somehow

in some of the other movies. And I think they're going to take the characters that were remaining with the exception of Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and the Guardians. A lot of them are going to move to streaming. A lot like Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, they're going to streaming. Loki's streaming. Wanda and Vision, explicably, are going to streaming. So like a lot of these characters are now going to be on these little five episode little mini runs. And I think that they have a charm problem now. I think that there is going to be a little bit of a like, we need to work to like build up some of these people again.

And that will probably come with the characters that you were talking about, but it's going to take them a few years to develop those projects. Yeah, there's two ways to do that. I think it's evident to me, and I guess we'll see when Spider-Man Far From Home comes out, but they do have a centerpiece in Tom Holland. That was the loudest cheer I heard both times I saw the movie. That was the person that people were most emotionally connected to. And that is the legacy of Downey. You know, Downey made that character very meaningful to a lot of people. You know, they created that father-son dynamic. So I could see that effectively being the new Iron Man of the series. The other stuff is a little bit up in the air. You know, it's like,

I feel like the one thing we can kind of all agree on is that they really just handled Chris Hemsworth beautifully over the last five years. Like they've just figured out how to make him a true blue movie star. Amanda will talk a little bit about her enthusiasm for Men in Black International, maybe later on this podcast. But to pair him up with Guardians of the Galaxy, which kind of seems like where they're going, is good on the one hand, because that sounds like it'll be a fun movie. Mal and I were very excited about it.

It's a Golden State Warriors problem. That's exactly what I was going to say. To put Chris Pratt and Chris Hemsworth in the movie together along with, you know, Dave Bautista and Bradley Cooper

and Vin Diesel, like, these are pretty powerful figures to just be putting and sidelining into one movie. So, it'll be interesting to see the way they position it.

Amanda, I know you don't give a damn about what I think about how they're going to reposition like Secret Wars and the Fantastic Four and X-Men all into all of this universe. Yeah, what are the Eternals? Don't tell me. I don't want to know. One of them is going to be played by Angelina Jolie.

And that movie is going to be directed by Chloe Zhao. So that's interesting. It's going to be probably a long-term space opera would be my guess. That's less exciting. But I will say one thing that struck me while watching this very long CGI-filled three-hour movie was, especially in the first hour of the moments where they really did kind of let the movie star shine through, Chris Hemsworth is an obvious example of that. I'm going to try to remain professional while talking about Chris Evans in this movie, but that is a certain quality that we don't see on screen as

much anymore. And I thought he was great and I wish him well in all his endeavors. But these movies can do that, right? They can take big, extremely attractive movie stars and put them in the right setting. And Angelina Jolie is another example of that. So I agree that you lose something when you lose RDJ. and I thought it was interesting how the movie is essentially just a meta commentary on the entire the first three phases is that correct Marvel and it was that like mourning the machine that they built as much as they were mourning the character of Tony Stark arguably the most ingenious thing that they pulled off over the course of those three phases was convincing Downey with a ton of money after Iron Man 3 to just kind of come in as like a bullpen guy and just like and liven up Civil War

and Spider-Man and show up and just kind of do 25 minutes in these movies to the extent Spider-Man where it's like it literally looks like he was there for three days, but he just smokes that entire movie that he's in., well, this guy who is a super soldier and this guy who has a metal suit. They did forge something between those two actors that is sort of undeniable. Like you could find a way to get invested in the two close friends who have completely different philosophies on the world. And they work together, say, perhaps Chris and I. And I'm just kidding. I'm Iron Man. And I'm dead now.

And they have to find a new partner. I want you, you have to keep going with this bit. Like, keep going. And I have no heart. It's okay. You're Theon. It's not true, Chris.

They have to find a new partnership. They have to find two new people that they're like, this is the central conflict and also the central driving force of the story. I think they also I Tom Holland got the same Chris and I saw together and Tom Holland got the same reaction and in our theater and my reaction when I saw him was like oh he's adorable and part of the thing I Tom Holland I think Sean speaks to your younger sister who is like the star of this podcast and they have the teen market down but

they kind of need a grown-up star that That was like the main thing that you lose, for me, with Tony Stark and to a lesser extent with Cap, is like someone for anyone over the age of 25 to relate to. And these movies have had that four-quadrant appeal. There is always someone corresponding that someone of any age can relate to, if you try. And that seems kind of missing. So they need to kind of develop a grownup

for lack of a better word. So obviously this was an incredible inflection point for pop culture this year because we had so many different things happening. But one of the things I was thinking about when I was watching Avengers was Taylor Swift. And the idea that with this new single, Taylor Swift seems to just be like,

I'm going to just keep anointing future generations of 13-year-olds. Like, I'm focused on always having my core audience be like immediately teen girls, you know, and that's who I'm, my base, right? Marvel did the nice thing where

they were able to keep this going for so long that they were literally able to raise a generation almost of people and then be like, you guys are ready for him to die. Like you guys are ready for these things to happen in this movie. Parker though is,

we can run it back. We can start all over again and have Biff Bang Pow effervescence and teenage love stories and we can bring along another young group of people into this world and by the time

we get 10 years into these movies and we're on Guardians 5 or Thor and the Asgardians or whatever you want to say, all of those people will have pretty much forgotten that Robert Downey Jr.

was in these movies. That's probably the best possible result of all of this. I think that's completely true. And Amanda, to your question, I do think that

T'Challa, Black Panther, is kind of the adult figure that, you know, not everybody's going to relate to as strongly maybe as the white guy. But that is like a, that is the closest they have yet come to sort of replacing the Cap

and Iron Man thing. And that's what they're going to lean into that. Whether they'll be able to be as successful with like Doctor Strange, I'm not so sure. Right. Or Captain Marvel. So that was where I was going with this, which I just just don't it's hard to talk about this and not seem

like the guy was like the female superhero didn't work it's a no it's a no I can say this it was we had this feeling after Captain Marvel the movie itself where it's just kind of like these things aren't really clicking into place and there's like a power issue which even I a person who doesn't buy into these mythologies it was kind kind of like, there are some story issues here. And she just didn't work in this movie at all. And they didn't really even think about her very much. She's in the very beginning and she's like, I have to go fight other places in space. See you guys later.

And so you're just kind of waiting for the deus ex machina. And then she pops up and they kind of try to fit her into the dumb female superhero moment, which I thought was I hated that. I don't know. I don't know a woman who enjoyed it, who felt like, oh, yeah, now now I feel represented on screen. Like, please. But she as a character doesn't really fit in with the rest of the Avengers, which that's not really her fault because they only made the movie like three months ago and they had like over a decade of developing these characters and this chemistry and all of this stuff. So, you know, that does take time, but it's a very good

point. It's not working right now. Yeah. I saw someone suggest this online over the weekend, which is that I think that that storyline and that character would have been better served to not have her own movie before the Avengers and to make her the deus ex machina of this movie and essentially introduce her in full. It's got to be end of this movie to get you excited about learning. It would have had to have been a totally different movie because she can't show up and fly through seven spaceships and just like win the fight for them. If you're like,

who is this? Right? Yeah. But I mean, she doesn't win the fight. Like if they had made her the winner of... It's Tony who ends everything. It's Tony's choice.

It's his decision. It's the thing that he does. The movie always had to hinge on either him and Cap ending it. And you think it's going to be Cap when you get there in that battle, you know, near to the end of the movie before everybody comes back. And then they let it be Tony. She comes in and she obviously is meaningful to the battle scene, but she ultimately gets her

ass kicked too. And so it kind of like wasted that and confused the power question too. There's a million, this is for a different wonkier, like nerd core podcast to like break down why the power stuff doesn't make as much sense. But I do think I would read Zach Cram's piece on the bringer from last week because it really elegantly identifies some of the storytelling issues. And like when you get this invested in stuff, you inevitably start to dissect some of the things that don't make as much sense um i guess i'm curious about you you guys your perception of fan service like whether that's actually a good thing because we've been talking about it a lot in relation to game of thrones too right and a movie that makes you walk out and say what you

said chris which is like like i feel good about the way that they close that. Yeah. So are you, you're asking me whether or not I felt like the movie was, had too much fan service? Just like, is fan service is the ultimate goal, the right thing to do? I thought they were actually pretty, you know, I'm fascinated by this kind of stuff. The Captain Marvel issue is pretty interesting because she shot Endgame, I think, before. She shot her Endgame stuff before. The Captain Marvel issue was pretty interesting because she shot Endgame, I think, before. She shot her Endgame stuff

before she shot Captain Marvel, which is technically not how you'd really want to do that. Although, I guess, since Captain Marvel is a movie set in the 90s, it doesn't really matter. But I actually thought

that a lot of time was spent in Endgame with characters that weren't particularly fan-service-y. Like, we got a fair amount of Don Cheadle. You know, and I don't think a lot of people were like,

man, I really need the Rhodes story tied up as a fan. I thought that there were plenty of characters who showed up only for the final splash page battle scene. The Guardians were not really in this movie. There was not a lot of that kind of stuff. So I thought that ultimately the fan service really was all tied up in Tony Stark. This was kind of like the Iron Man 4 in a lot of stuff. So I thought that ultimately the fan service really was all tied up in Tony Stark.

This was like kind of like the Iron Man 4 in a lot of ways. Amanda, as not a hardcore fan, did you sense that the movie was kind of

operating in that way? Yeah, of course. Because I'm not a fan in the traditional sense, but there are things that I like about these movies just like anyone else. And it's...

I was watching for the moments where Cap is fighting himself because two Captain Americas is always better than one in my opinion especially when they're talking about his uh behind and I'm just saying I didn't write it and I you know the moments when Hayley Atwell comes up when Gwyneth Paltrow gets to bring the franchise home the emotional weight hanging on my girl Gwyneth that's great so we've been trained to watch these movies this way and and I watch them this way even though I'm not like I think literally when the portals opened up I don't know if you heard this because I was sitting right next to Chris and when everyone showed up on the belt I just literally out loud goes but where do they

come from so like I have no idea what's going on half the time, but I still am watching for the things that I hold on to in these franchises because that is how these movies are made. So, like, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, I mean, we can talk about it for larger movie making, but in terms of these movies, I think it's immaterial. It's just kind of the definition of the thing. And people seem to like it. I enjoyed parts of it, so i don't really hold it against anyone else yeah i mean a lot of culture is designed this way so i'm very self-conscious about this but as a pure expression of my 12 year old enthusiasm for this stuff the cap catches thor's hammer thing was just like oh my god i've been waiting my whole life for a movie moment like

this which sounds ridiculous but like there definitely were 500 people in the theater who felt the exact same way. Like that stuff paid off. Now I realize I'm a 36 year old man and perhaps that's, there's some rest of development going on, but it was genuinely exciting. And then when you get that final splash page one, which I wrote about is like, this is the sort of big top high level entertainment vision of something that I think a lot of kids consume alone. When you're a kid and you read comic books, you're doing that by yourself and you're consuming and understanding all of this stuff in your own little world. And maybe that ultimately becomes a reflection on how you live your life. And it's why we have angry people on Twitter. But it also is a celebration in a movie theater where people are like, holy

shit, I've been waiting my whole life to see a movie like this. So I think you're right that they're very cleverly grabbing an entire generation of 11-year-olds right now on screen. But there's also this huge payoff. And the reason that the movie is as big as it is, and we'll talk about that in the next segment, Amanda, is because there's just like everybody who's basically under 40 years old. It's like, I'm like, I'm in, I'm in on this. Chris, do you think that this, you'll sort of effectively remove yourself from Marvel movies going forward? Absolutely not. In fact, I think maybe the best,

biggest testament to the quality of this film is that I went home and watched Infinity War on Saturday. Some plans fell through and I was just like hanging out. And I realized that like, weirdly, the thing that's always bothered me about Marvel movies, and I really don't want to get into a battle mechanics conversation right now, but has actually been the set pieces. Like I don't find the action sequences to be particularly compelling.

I find that they got absurdly good actors to be in these movies. And I actually just like watched Infinity War on Netflix by skipping through the action scenes. And it was delightful. I was like, this is, this is really, really fun. And I think that that is actually probably how I will rewatch any of these movies going forward. And I'm happy to go check out the future of them. If anything, I think it becomes an unprecedented storytelling experiment now because they are at the absolute pinnacle. They are at the top of Apex Mountain right now. So what do you do with that? And can you mint 10 new stars? And what do you do when people are like, I think that there actually is a craving for another Avengers right now. Like, I think that there is a craving for them to reassemble a massive team. Like, if we know anything about audiences, they're like, I enjoyed that feeling. Give it to me again. That's very true. So the

idea that this is like, now we're done. Now we're going to go to streaming. Now this is, you know, now we're going to take some time to recalibrate what we're doing here. I think that there's going to be an incredible demand for these, for these kinds of movies going forward. And I'm super interested in them. We've gotten to this point where late summer, mid-fall was a time when Marvel movies would come out. You know, that's when a Guardians movie came out. That's when Doctor Strange came out. This fall, there wasn't a movie scheduled, and I thought that was weird. And it's because Disney Plus is coming. That is why they did that. That's why in November, they're just going to put four new Marvel series on. I do think it's going to change the dynamic of how we consume, though, to your point, Chris, because watching one episode of WandaVision and being like, this isn't for me, which is how I

experienced so many streaming TV shows at this point is so much different than the eventized nature of this movie, which anybody like, forget about us. And we cover this stuff for a living, forget about the hardcore fans. Like there was just a lot of casual viewership of Endgame this weekend. And it's just going to, it's just going And it's just going to reset the math equation for what it means to sort of be a completist in this stuff. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I mean, it's inescapable right now. And I'm here on this podcast as a testament to the fact

that it is inescapable. And even if you aren't professionally obligated to go see these movies, you know, there's a Thanos joke that's on your timeline or you're just kind of picking up the pieces of it. It has become our lingua franca. And I think that that will change just because of the streaming services. And you mentioned like the actual logistics of how these things are put out into the world. You will have to seek them out a little bit more and you'll have to kind of put together your own syllabus of what you're seeing and what you know about and care

about, which is very cool. If you're seeing and what you know about and care about, which is very cool. If you're really interested in these things, I think it's like a really exciting time. And I think also if you're not particularly interested in all aspects of it, it's also exciting because like maybe I'll just watch the Angelina Jolie movie or maybe, you know, I do like Tom Holland. I really enjoyed Black Panther. I will never see another Guardians movie, though, I guess if Chris Hemsworth is in it, maybe I will, you know. So you can pick and choose and put things together, which is really, really interesting, but I don't think we'll have, it'll take a long time for them to build to the level of event that they have had a minor league baseball kind of quality to them. I mean, for all the nice parts about the first season of Jessica Jones, where you kind of knew all along that this is where this was going

to some sort of massive showdown. And they very much broadcasted, this is going to be a two-movie event that's going to take over 24 months of your life. And in some ways, they completely engineered it to get the kind of results that they got this weekend. So it was just like, you have to go see this movie basically on Thursday if you don't want it ruined for you. And that's amazing. That's an amazing trick to pull on a culture that we're so distracted. There's so much stuff going on. There's NBA playoffs and

Game of Thrones and Taylor Swift songs and the internet and everything else. And you're like, I got to stop everything I'm doing and see this in the first 48 hours that this entire thing is for nothing. That's nuts. We got got. It's completely nuts. And in the next segment, we're going to talk about what exactly they did and how they accomplished it. Chris, thanks for coming on. Back here with Amanda Dobbins.

Amanda, we're still talking about Avengers Endgame. In fact, the most incredible opening weekend in movie history, $1.2 billion worldwide, $350 million in the United States. I would say if they hadn't completely changed the way that they show movies in America, this movie would not have been able to get to these numbers. But because they basically kept movie theaters open for 24 hours over the span of 72 to 96 hours, It's just made an enormous amount of money. Just generally, what was your reaction to seeing the number there?

I wasn't surprised because at this point, this is what they're made for. Like anything less than a total box office domination and breaking records would have been a failure, which is an interesting spot to be in for Disney and Marvel. In some ways, that's a lot of money. Good for them. They figured out how to get people to go to the movies, which is an increasingly difficult thing to do. That raises the sort of the key anxiety, though, of this movie's success, which is that what has been lost because of the scope and size of this movie?

At our local, the Arclight Hollywood, there are 14 screens and there are almost never fewer than 10 movies showing at any time. Arclight Hollywood, one of the best theaters in the country. They show a really fine combination, I think, of blockbusters, high tension stuff,

and also your smaller indies, you know, your smaller distributors putting films in theaters on opening weekend. It's often the theater you go to when there's like a movie opening in three screens across the country. There were only five movies playing there this weekend. And I would say two of the five were only having one or two showings. And there were 30, 40, 50 plus showings of Avengers Endgame, which is a three-hour movie. So your choices were very limited.

And while I love Avengers Endgame and have been proselytizing about it for now, what feels now like a week, something is inevitably lost, which is just that you just can't see other movies. Is this inherently a bad thing that there is a movie that is this dominant and resetting the conversation about what success is in movies? I suppose so, but I just can't really. Marvel and superhero movies are definitely part of the phenomenon here, but I just can't see them as the thing to blame. I think it's a result of a larger technological change. It's just like streaming services and on-demand and televisions exist. They do. They're here and we can talk about, you know, technology and capitalism and all of the things that, all the consequences there,

but it's just we consume movies and we consume culture in different ways. And people just do not go to the theaters as much because they have so many options at home. Like, as you said, there were five movies at the Arclight this weekend, so you didn't have much choice. But, Lord, you had every movie in the world available at home if you have just one or two streaming options. So, you know, it's really complicated,

and I don't think it's all necessarily for the better. I love going to the movies, and I do think that the amount of choice that we have at movie theaters is going to continue to decrease until there's just a fundamental rearrangement of the movie theater system, which is something that we should talk about. But is it Endgame's fault or did they just figure out how to game the system?

Yeah, I think it is certainly more the latter. And I'm happy to hear you say that. I thought you really clarified the feeling because there was a lot of conflation this weekend among people who were sort of interested in box office performance and also the future of cinema, for lack of a better word, that we've lost this entire class of mid-budget movie because these

event movies have taken over. I would argue that that's not entirely true. I think if you look at the films that are rolled out across the year, there are certainly fewer mid-budget movies and there are more blockbusters. And more blockbusters are successful, but I don't think that's the studio's fault per se or the corporations that even own the studios per se. I would say that in some ways, studios have figured out how to make big movies better and wider and appeal to more people. And they shouldn't necessarily be penalized for that, but this is sort of a 50 to 60 year spanning story. It's about Gulf and Western buying Paramount. It's about massive corporations and how they have to feed their shareholders that, you know, didn't start with Marvel. You know, it

didn't start with the Fast and the Furious. It didn't start with even, even with a company like Disney. It started a long time ago when making money to make movies was important and movies are made to make money, unfortunately, for the most part. And so this is an inevitable downside to that. I guess, do you see a world where this moment is undone somehow? Because I've been hearing a lot of people say this, and it's very wise. Movie genre dominance is very cyclical. In the 50s and 60s, it was Westerns and it was musicals. And that just seemed like the future of movies forevermore. And then the 70s come along and then all of a sudden

movies like Easy Rider and The Godfather are at the vanguard not just of critical acclaim but financial profit. And then Jaws and Star Wars and then Die Hard and The Terminator.

And you know like the kind of movie that is successful that is the most dominant changes over time. And Titanic is only 22 years ago. It's not that long ago. Right.

Will there be a time where we circle back here? Or is theatrical moviegoing irrevocably changed? I think we're talking about two things. Because I think there is a genre cycle. And I was thinking a lot about how this is a teenage generation's Titanic, for lack of a better word. There are a lot of teenagers who will go see this three and four and five times and it's three hours long and there's a really hot guy.

My sister and I, who I've talked about here on the show before, basically did a 45-minute solo podcast over the weekend where we just- Released the tapes. Just talked- Released the tapes. About everything that happened. She and I agreed on literally every storytelling choice it was amazing right we are truly blood relatives and uh you're right it is it is titanic for her yeah she has the same she had the same emotional reaction she had the same eagerness to see it again right away she's invested herself in the in the cultural life of all these characters which is right you know that's always

going to happen right right and so some of that is just kind of a timing and a once-in-a-generation thing. I think to your point of there are genre cycles, all of that comes and goes. I think that's separate from moviegoing as an event because, and again, just to go back to this idea of the role that going to the movies plays in our, like in culture right now, has really changed because of the other options that you have. And I was thinking a lot about, you know, because this movie is released by Disney and there are so many other Disney movies

coming out this year that are going to be the big ticket box offices. You've got Lion King, you've got Aladdin, you've got Star Wars. Disney also runs amusement parks. And I was just thinking a lot about how they've turned movie theaters into an extension of their amusement parks.

And you go and you spend a lot of money and it's an event for your family and you don't do it all the time. So I don't know how you undo that because you really train people to think of it that way. And it's exciting. And that has its role as well. I don't know what that means for people who would like to go see like High Life on a Tuesday afternoon, you know? It means you have fewer screens to see it on more than likely. Right. But flip side, did you ever have that many screens to go see High Life on a Tuesday afternoon? The indie box office has always been a highly specialized and like subsidized.

It's never been a moneymaker. It's always been people who like care about cinema and are trying to create a space for people who also like care about capital C cinema to see it. And that's great and really has value. And I hope that exists. But they just seem so unrelated at this point. And the only way that they're related right now is because of the business of movie theaters, which, you know what? That's going to have to change. Like the movie theater business is going to have to change in some way. And it's wild that they've managed to survive for this long,

given all of the threats and Netflix and just the way people consume movies. So it'll change, but I don't know. I don't think that Endgame killed the indie movie. I don't think so either. Let's riff on that idea about sort of how that business has to change a little bit. Because last year, the box office had a surprising and a massive bump up over the previous year in terms of performance. A lot of that, I think, was attributed to Black Panther and Infinity War having unbelievable, unprecedented success early in the year. And so inevitably what happened towards the end of the year, movies like Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star is Born, these movies that like, they felt like icing on the cake in some ways. This year, it's been down. I think it was down 17% heading into this weekend. It's now down 14% after Avengers Endgame's performance. The fact that it only changed 3%

in the aftermath of the biggest opening weekend in movie history tells you a lot about how down it actually is. Now, part of that is because Captain Marvel is not Black Panther and those movies have just not had the same success. Movies like Us have happened, but they haven't necessarily been as big as, I don't know, Get Out, for example. So it finds itself in a tricky spot because I do think the story at the end of the year is going to be that box office is down despite the fact that this was the year that had Endgame and The Rise of Skywalker. And that's the conclusion at the end of the year is going to be that box office is down despite the fact that this was the year that had end game and the rise of skywalker and that's the conclusion of the two biggest cultural properties in american culture in the last 20 years so two of the three what's the third down abbey game of thrones which offered its own end game in your home on the same weekend

and i like just, logistically speaking, that's how it's going to go from now on. I know. We could go off on a tangent here, but I wonder if there's going to be a difficulty in launching a next version of these things going forward. I don't know really what the next candidate is to become the dominant thing, or if it's just a continuation of the things that we already have because Game of Thrones did debut in a different time as someone recently posted the letter that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss shared with critics before the premiere of Game of Thrones and talked clearly in their own voice about their desire to like not spoil anything and you know that the swing that they were taking with this show and it was all sort of earnest and sweet and it wasn't

from this place of cultural dominance that I think we presume that the showrunners and the creators of Marvel movies have now there was something like scrappy about it and I think it would be hard to start from a scrappy place and get to a Game of Thrones or an endgame level at this stage so it's I almost think that the box office has a lot to look forward to because I don't know that there will be another Star Wars that's going to come along maybe I I don't know that there will be another Star Wars that's going to come along. Maybe I'm being naive about that. Well, isn't there The Mandalorian on Disney Plus? That's a TV show. Sure, but people will just spend their time there. I think you're right. Alyssa Barris-Nack wrote a great piece for us before Game of Thrones started and it was

called How Game of Thrones Became the Last Piece of the Monoculture. And it's talking, it illustrates pretty well a lot of the things you're talking about. It's just a confluence of cultural and technological events that just, they captured the attention for the last time. And it's going to be really hard to get that many people in one place at one time to launch something new. So I think to an extent, you will just be iterating on previous things that already have a built-in fan base. And that's why Disney has such a leg up on everyone else because it's literally Disney and people respond to that word and they don't respond

to Paramount and they don't respond to whatever new thing that you create in the same way. One of the data points that was shared over the weekend, too, I think by Brooks Barnes and the New York Times, was that Sony, Paramount and Lionsgate, three of the now five big studios, represent fewer than 20 percent of the total box office take so far this year, which is, I think, I think a record low. And to your point about Disney, they're edging into a level of dominance that makes them a singular provider. And it's hard to know whether that's a bad thing. We don't yet know yet. Obviously, they're laying people off as they absorb Fox

and they're reconstituting their business and they have all of these properties now. And with it comes this dicey business conversation, which started a couple of weeks ago when Abigail Disney, who I believe is the daughter of Roy Disney, who is the nephew of Walt Disney, the founder of Disney, started a tweet thread about Bob Iger's compensation. Bob Iger, I think, made $65 million last year. He is, of course, the CEO and the chairman of Disney. And he's the person

considered most responsible for the acquisition of Marvel and Lucasfilm and Fox. He's the person who pushed for that. Marvel, of course, was acquired for $4 billion and it looks like Endgame's going to make close to $4 billion. So that was a very savvy investment on his part. In some ways, he should be rewarded. Abigail Disney's point was that the wages company-wide should be raised. People should be earning more money inside the company because of this extraordinary success. And then so what you have is this anxiety outside of Hollywood where you have the people, you have the Sonys and the Lions Gates of the world saying like, we can't get a piece of this pie anymore because Disney keeps eating everything. Then you've got this concern from the board and from relatives of Disney saying like, well, the way

that we're dispersing some of these profits is complicated and maybe not fair. And so it's this incredibly convulsive moment for a company that is having success the likes of which I don't think any entertainment company has ever seen. Do you think that there's anything to the idea that a company like Disney is pursuing a genuine monopoly and should be broken up in any way? Probably in the sense that I believe in breaking up all monopolies? I mean, like, you know, I don't know how much of a capitalist thing you want to get into here. But yes, I think that Disney probably has its own issues. And I kind of side with Abigail Disney on this. And it's definitely squeezing out all over the movie competition. We haven't talked about Netflix yet.

And it's just, you know, this is in some ways a culling and a rearranging of Hollywood powers because of the way that business and technology has changed. So, you know, Paramount and Sony, tough break. But like that is sometimes how capitalism works, often for the worse. I think that in five years we will be talking about Disney, Netflix, maybe Apple, though that'll be interesting. Who else am I forgetting? One of the cell phone companies. You know, it's like everything is being rearranged. Yeah.

I mean, Warner Media and whatever they end up doing, plus whatever NBC Universal ends up doing, you know, those companies all have plans for streaming services of their own in an effort to combat Netflix and Amazon and Apple. And you're right. That's a perfect segue because Disney has been fighting basically a 10 front war for the last 20 years because of their theme park business

that you talked about, because of their merchandising business, because of their long running television business. They have networks that they own. They own ESPN, they own the Disney channel, they own ABC. They have been fully diversified in the way that an entertainment company can be for

a long time. So they know how to fight this fight. That's why people are like, when Disney Plus came out and said, when they made the announcement about Disney Plus and it was announced that it would be $6.99, people were like, wow, this is like a real chess move to make the number this low and to give people this much content right in the aftermath of Apple's kind of withholding and sort of awkward presentation of content. And Chris and Andy talked about this a lot on The Watch.

I would encourage you to check out those episodes. Disney is just much more sophisticated at this stuff. They've got more experience battling competitors. And so inevitably, and I feel this way about Endgame to some extent too. Kevin Feige is an extension of Bob Iger and Kathleen Kennedy is an extension of Bob Iger. And they have time and time again,

put the right people in place to give people things that they want and make them excited. Now that seems like kind of frivolous inside Hollywood baseball, like executive fluffing, but it's true. I mean, Endgame did what they did because they knew how to tell this story in the way that got people fired up. So in some ways, I think Disney probably has way too big a piece of the pie. In other ways, the things that they're giving people, people really love. So it is genuinely a question of capitalist anxiety. It's sort of like, if you're the best at it, do you deserve to have all of the money? Because that's what they're pursuing. And I think Netflix is probably the most serious competitor. And the reasons they've made the choices they've made is because Netflix has

made incredible inroads into the minds of consumers around the world for the last five or 10 years. Right. Yes. And I just I kind of think when you talk about it in Disney versus Paramount versus Sony versus all the smaller studios, it is like David and Goliath. And yeah, but it's that's not who Disney is competing against. And we are in some ways witnessing kind of the diminishment of the industry as we know it. And that's sad. Does that mean that it's like, is Disney the reason that they don't make romantic comedies anymore?

Like, no, I don't actually think so. I think that's a kind of a totally different ballgame. But they're almost too big to fail, I guess. It certainly feels that way. And I agree. I think that also there are a handful of romantic comedies, maybe we'll talk about them right now with this summer movie preview that are coming out, but it's like, these movies still exist. You want to support indie movies, you want to support an A24 movie, go. I'm having people on this show

purposefully from, you know, Annapurna Films, A24 Films, Neon Films, Sony Pictures Classics, that's a big corporation, but they make very small films. Small companies like that that are putting out great work still exist, and you can still support them if you have some Disney anxiety of your own. It's just not going to change the fact that Disney is going to do what it wants to do. It is an immovable object. Was it ever going to, though? No, I don't think so. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's just always, those have always been movies that needed attention and support and enthusiasm from people, just like't think so. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's just always, those have always been movies that needed attention and support and enthusiasm from people.

Just like every other movie. That's also what in-game needs. It just has a lot more of it. So, you know. You know what? In some ways, in some ways it feels terrifying. feels like Disney and Netflix are taking over the world and we'll never get to go see whatever mid-budget adult comedy on a Friday night ever again. But yes, we're old and our youth is gone. How dare you? In some ways, it's totally gone. And in some ways, it's the same as

it ever was. I agree. And here's how we know. Let's look at the movies that are coming out this summer. I would say not the most exciting slate of films. And I think the reason to talk about this now is because Endgame was the anticipation event for a lot of moviegoers. And the same with the Battle of Winterfell was the anticipation event for TV. And, you know, we're going to get Stranger Things on TV, which a lot of people are fired up about. And we're going to get The Lion King, which a lot of people are fired up about. And we're going to get The Lion King, which a lot of people are fired up about. But there's not a lot of Lion Kings this year. You know, Bobby has left a note for us that just says, it's striking how inessential a lot of these feel.

Toy Story 4, Pokemon colon Detective Pikachu, an Aladdin remake doesn't look very good. I have personal favorites that I'm looking forward to, and I've arranged these per our conversation into a kind of big top, big tent, big studio movie release schedule and also a kind of indies and smaller genre release schedule. Pick out one from the big top stuff that you're actually genuinely looking forward to. Just one? We'll throw some back and forth at each other. Okay. Wow. I'm excited for several of these.

Bobby thinks they're an essential. I just can't wait to find out about the plot holes in Yesterday and or how Yesterday adds it all. Does everyone know what Yesterday is? It is a movie that imagines a world where the Beatles didn't exist, but one singer-songwriter in the tradition of Ed Sheeran knows all their songs. That's correct. And he is just going out in the world teaching people about the music of The Beatles. It's written by Richard Curtis. It's directed by Danny Boyle.

I love The Beatles and I love Richard Curtis. So this movie looks silly, but exciting. This is a rare case where the movie world, rather than you having to come to it and to me, I am coming to you and to the Amanda experience. This movie is written from your mind. Well, yes, in many ways. I mean, you are a hardcore allegiant of the Beatles and the Beatles channel on Sirius XM. I've heard you talk about this many times. That's true. It's a great channel. I would love to do my own Beatles Fab Four if anyone is listening. I mean, you love British culture and the films of Richard Curtis.

Yes, I do. That movie has a great trailer. I think we're anticipating it. I wouldn't say it's sort of a blockbuster on the level of, say, Godzilla King of the Monsters. No. But there does seem to be a genuine enthusiasm for it. Well, it's a great premise. It's one of those things where the movie itself could be good.

It could make no sense. It probably won't be like citizen kane but it's one of those things where the premise is it's kind of like sliding doors i think it will lend itself to cultural conversation for you know what if no one knew about this thing yes um which is which is fun and it and it lends itself to that kind of pre-investment and that really fuels movies at this point like there's a lot of chatter on the internet about it and on the ringer because we were just like, lol, does this mean, you know, that the Manson murders never happened or whatever?

So it's perfect for us. And it's also perfect for this conversation that we're having because it's a mid budget movie. It's a high concept mid budget movie. And unfortunately, I think to make a mid budget movie an event, you might have to get the Beatles involved, which is kind of a testament to some of the frustrations that we're talking about. Nevertheless, great idea. Danny Boyle, who I think doesn't make bad movies.

I think you can say that some of his movies are more successful than others. But I think every movie he's ever made is trying to do something unique, which I really appreciate. He is a genuine auteur working inside of a studio movie. So I really look forward to this. I know you're really looking forward to Rocketman 2. Yes! I would say that I'm not. Why not? What do you have against Elton John?

You and I have a differing philosophy on how best to execute a movie like this. I don't think letting the actors sing is necessarily the answer. Okay. And I have some doubts about Taron Egerton singing Elton John. Can we just say, because that is famously based on my opposition to Rami Malek

winning Best Actor at the Oscars last year. Quite famously. Yeah, within this universe it is. How are you feeling about Rami Malek winning Best Actor for Money, Me, and Rhapsody?

It's just not aging well. No, it's not. And it's literally, it's April. We're only like three months out. Rami Malek is really talented and I look forward to seeing what he does in the Bond movie, but it's April. We're only like three months out. Rami Malek is really talented and I look forward to seeing what he does in the Bond movie,

but it's just not aging well. Yeah. So why not try the other side? Let him sing. Yeah, I guess. I guess. You're also more of an Elton John head than I am, I think. I love Elton John.

I saw his farewell tour. It was fantastic. You want to bet he'll be back? I bet you he'll be back on stage. I'm sure that he will. It just was like three hours of, yeah, it was, he's like the farewell tour is still going on for another year,

I think. I'm going to give you one that I don't think you're going to be as excited about. Okay. John Wick 3. I'm excited for everyone who's excited about it.

I kind of understand these intellectually and I think that that's where I'll leave it. In the same way that Yesterday feels very designed for the ringer, John Wick 3 feels very designed for The Ringer, John McThree is very designed for The Ringer.

I think that one of the things that has happened to some of these movies is that the people who make them get smarter as they go along. You know, we saw this with The Fast and the Furious. In some ways, we saw this with the MCU. I haven't seen John McThree yet. A few people I know have, including our pal Shea Serrano. He was a huge fan. Yes.

And there's just something in the construction and the casting of these movies that gets you excited about every episodic moment. And if you go in knowing that this won't be the conclusion of the John Wick story, that you're there to have fun and that you're there for the set pieces and that you're there for the weird mythology that they've built around this hotel, it's probably just going to be incredibly satisfying. And it's a much lower stakes kind of franchise experience. Yeah.

But these movies are often like beautifully made. Well, that's as I understand it, which is that the John Wick series isolates something that, you know, like ridiculous action and a part of movies that many people feel really passionately about and just applies like a lot of art and humor and enthusiasm to them and is the best possible version of and commentary on them at the same time yes and that's great that's like that's in my wheelhouse except that i go to the bathroom during action sequences

because it's just not how my brain is wired right but i think it's extremely cool that that exists for the people who care about it and also it is one of those things where it does lend itself to the internet and investing in it ahead of time and the discussion of it, which is part of what fuels a successful movie at this point of people being able to, of it living past like the two hours you spend in the theater.

So that's a good segue to a feeling that I had that just an enormous amount of empathy I had for you when I went to go see the movie. Right down the day and time that you heard Sean say that. I saw Detective Pikachu recently and I didn't think it was bad. I thought it was very, it was well made and entertaining in its way. But I felt like a person who had wandered into a Star Wars movie not having ever heard of Star Wars.

And I saw the movie with a lot of Pokemon enthusiasts, I suppose. And so there were, similar to Endgame, there were moments where people were roaring with laughter or screaming characters' names or just the sight of a Pokemon character got them excited. And I don't know anything about that world at all. I don't know. I couldn't name a single Pokemon character. Right. So I felt as if I had been dropped into a different timeline. Right. So can I just say I accept and appreciate your empathy, but I think Star Wars is not the example there. The MCU is the example because what Star Wars does

and what makes it as amazing is that you can be dropped in and you have no idea, you know, who the little weird alien creature is, but you understand. I mean, it's the hero's journey, right? It has like really basic foundational myths and pacing that it's using. And it is also, they're just really beautifully made. So you don't actually need the external references to understand it, which is why I'm always really moved by Star Wars. MCU, you do got to, you have to bring the knowledge.

You have to bring, you have to know what's happening and you have to have seen the other movies. It's serialized. That's the right, you're right. It is much more MCU. And part of the payoff of the Endgame splash page moment was feeling like I know every single character in the frame. And they're all together and how rewarding. And you don't have to have that. I know.

And meanwhile, I was like, where did they all come from? Who's that guy? And why does it look like a troll vomited? You know, and it just and that's because it is evoking the comic book palette. And and that's great. And it meant a lot to you and it meant a lot to your sister. And I was like, cool. When are we going to get back to Captain America in his like dad fit? Detective Pikachu is operating at a different scale.

It's as much smaller movie. It's basically like a Humphrey Bogart movie with Pokemon. Well, I mean, I'm kind of like, oh, I'm curious. Well, I wouldn't say it's as effective as a Humphrey Bogart movie, but it's trying to do that inside of a world that needs a lot of explanation. Maybe we'll talk more about it later in the future. Maybe not. We're definitely going to talk more about Longshot.

I don't want to spoil too much of that. That's coming very soon. That is this Friday. Later this week, we're going to have an episode, a career arc episode about our beloved Charlize Theron.eron. And I also had a conversation with Jonathan Levine, who directed Longshot, who in our conversation talked a lot about the anxiety of releasing a movie into a world where Endgame exists. And that is part of it. The rest of the movies here on this list, for the most part, are, you know, Godzilla, King of the Monsters and Aladdin and Toy Story 4,

which even though that's sort of a sweet and small story is a big ass Pixar movie. Spider-Man Far From Home, The Lion King. We're going to talk a lot about The Lion King, I would guess, this summer. I have some conflicted feelings about just generally speaking, the Disney live action remakes. I noticed that you skipped over Men in Black International. So you're the only person I've ever met who's excited about this movie. I saw Men in Black International, the trailer for it

played before Endgame and I saw it with Chris Ryan and my husband and our friend Jeff and I think basically the entire theater was silent through the trailer and it's just me cracking up.

I was like, I just, I guess Men in Black, the original Men in Black hit when I was the right age. Is Men in Black your MCU? I mean, no, but I do have memories of seeing them and it's a reference point. This is a great cell phone.

Well, I don't know. It's not my MCU because I don't know the names of any of the people. How Men in Black taught me to be weird by Amanda Dobbins. It's also just Chris Hemsworth. Extremely charming. I will watch him be funny in any situation. I love him and Tessa Thompson. I think they're great.

Emma Thompson is also in it. Please respect Emma Thompson. She's good. Maybe you... I mean, it's not going to be good and no one's going to see it, but I laughed at the trailer. And what's funny is that I really laughed at the trailer and like, will I see this movie? If they invite me to a screening, sure. But otherwise, will I be able to drag anyone

that I love to go see it with me on a Saturday afternoon? No. The last two movies on this list, I think, are the two I'm most looking forward to. And they're two different versions of the conversation that we're having. One of them is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which is Tarantino's movie. We've mentioned it a few times on this show. It doesn't need a lot of explication, but it is the thing we're talking about. It's a mid-budget drama with movie stars from a celebrated filmmaker releasing right into the middle of the summer. This can still happen.

You might have to be Quentin Tarantino to make it happen, but it can still happen. Right. I watched the trailer again last night. I was like, I'm in. I can't wait. Take me, teleport me to this movie immediately.

I have expressed my reservations about the particular topic that they have chosen. It's an interesting moment for Quentin Tarantino specifically to be making a film about Sharon Tate. But, you know, put that aside, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Tarantino, who I like against, you know, every instinct in my body. He's an extraordinary filmmaker. So I'm excited. It will be fraud. Every Tarantino project is fraud. There will be controversy. It will be fraud. Every Tarantino project is fraud.

There will be controversy. There will be emotional complication. There will be literal, maybe even legal complication. You never know. Yeah. But if it's not entertaining, I'll be stunned.

And then the second one's Hobbs and Shaw, which shouldn't be good and looks amazing. If you haven't watched the trailer recap that Shay and Jason Concepcion and Chris Ryan and Bill Simmons did I would encourage you to do that

it's just a great trailer Let's do it The Rock and Jason Statham it's going to be ridiculous similar movie where I think if you wanted to walk out during the action sequences

you could but the banter is going to be great I will say I was about to say Jason Statham doing an action sequence with a baby strapped

to his chest and I was delighted by that that was great and there are the rare action sequences that are engaging enough that even I'm like, oh, this is very fun. I have found them to most often

be in the Fast and Furious series. Yes. So I'm excited for this as well. I'll see it. Same thing. That's a series that gets smarter as it goes along. Mission Impossible gets smarter

as it goes along. Some of these movies can evolve and get better and better. Indies and genre stuff, it's interesting. I've seen a bunch of these actually on my list. Wow, what a flex. Many of which are very good. And I'll be curious to see

if these movies suffer in the way that we think they could. You know, last year we had Hereditary. Hereditary was a terrifying, pretty upsetting horror movie from A24 and Ari Aster. And it made about $45 million.

It was pretty successful for a movie of that size and scope. And we haven't yet had a kind of small-scale breakout like that this year. And I'm wondering if we're going to have one. Now, Ari Aster, fittingly, has another movie coming in July called Midsommar. It's like the Pinterest version of Hereditary, right? Yes. It's very bright and beautiful and Scandinavian and also looks like very evil and dark and fucked up. I'm highly anticipating that. I have not seen that movie yet.

I have seen a couple. I saw The Souvenir. Which you loved. Which I loved, which I think is Dobbin's core. Yeah. Maybe we'll revisit some conversation about The Souvenir. I'm looking forward to it. That also is an A24 movie.

Wild Rose stars my new favorite actress. Her name is Jessie Buckley. You'll also be able to see her in Chernobyl. She may be taking Jessica Chastain's spot as my A number one. She was in a movie last year, a little scene British film called Beast. She's very, very talented. In this movie, she plays, she's an Irish actress who plays a Scottish woman who has had some troubles with the law, has two children, and her great aspiration is to be a Nashville country singer. And she sings all the songs in the soundtrack. Now, this is my version of Rocketman. Okay. Now, is this the best movie I've ever seen? No. Does it have flaws? Yes.

Is Jesse Buckley a very important person? Yes. Do you have a type? Yes. I do have a type. Is that okay? Yes. It's important to be consistent. I like uniforms and types and the MCU. What about you? What are some other some smaller things you're interested in this summer? Late Night. As mentioned, Emma Thompson, my queen. This movie is written by Mindy Kaling and it's about Emma Thompson plays a late night host, a female late night host. So this is a fictional movie and it looks funny and charming. And I just think Emma Thompson should shine. You know, it also just seems kind of like that small, but quirk, you know, fun, you want to spend time in the world type of movie. And I really like

those. I need more things where I just kind of want to spend time with these people. Yeah, this movie debuted at Sundance to rave reviews. It got bought by Amazon for a hefty sum. It'll be interesting because this movie brings with it some of that anxiety about the purchase price at Sundance. Yes.

I think it was $13 million. And the last time Amazon had a splashy buy like this, they got the big sick. And they're definitely trying to make this the big sick of 2019. If it can be or can't be,

we'll see. This is a big step for Mindy Kaling as a feature film writer and filmmaker. Curious to see that movie. I want to throw one more at you that I'm more just curious about. Where'd You Go Bernadette?

Which is an adaptation of a novel by Maria Semple. And I loved this book. And it's directed by Richard Linklater. And it stars Cate Blanchett. And I am not sure that that is the team that I imagined adapting this book when I was reading it, which is not always a bad thing. I haven't seen it. It was supposed to be released in March and it was pushed. That's obviously always a tricky sign. It's going to be released in August. Also a tricky sign. I don't know. I

mean, I would watch Richard Linklater direct a Little League baseball game. I think he's been on this show before. He's probably one of my five or six favorite living filmmakers. I'm excited to see the movie. Cate Blanchett is a master of the form. I've heard from every person I know who's read it that the book is incredible. It's delightful. I really recommend it. And again, I think adaptations often fail by being too close to the source material and people are just kind of reading from a page and trying to be too faithful.

You need your own sense of invention. So I'm not opposed. It's just I was not thinking Link later and Blanchett when reading this. It's really a very different perspective. So we'll see. We're going to have to wait and find out. I'm very, very, very much looking forward to the dead don't die relative to the conversation about zombies last night on Game of Thrones. Jim Jarmusch's look at zombies will probably be considerably different. It looks

like a real kind of deadpan, broken flowers-esque execution from Jarmusch. And maybe we'll have him on this show, God willing. Also, Adam um also adam driver it is as usual a year for adam driver come to come to dominate us in so many ways yes uh in the least sexual manner possible debatable okay uh anything else on this list there's a couple of genre movies like bright burn is a james gunn produced kind of reinvention of the superhero movie where it's sort of like rosemary's baby but superheroes where it's like an evil kid is born okay okay you can't with that i no i just i think if you like it that's great and i kind of stopped listening um you have to be here with me doing this right no i know i'm sorry but i'm just trying to be honest i feel like i locked in for three hours this weekend um you can stop paying

attention while i no i think you would be interested and always be my maybe yeah um netflix rom-com starring ali w Wong and Randall Park. This is one of those things where, like, they make movies that just based on Twitter threads now. And that's kind of interesting. And that sometimes works better than others. But I like both of these people. And I like romantic comedies. And again, to this idea of I just want to have a nice time in a world with some people.

This has potential. We'll see. We should talk more about the Netflix genre of romantic comedy or romantic comedy adjacent. We need to redefine the genre. But anyway, I'm curious. We're going to do a romantic comedy episode later this summer. Okay. Maybe just maybe top fives. Okay.

Me and you, who would be your ideal third guest? Well, we got to have Juliet. Juliet. Okay. We'll book it. There's a couple more. The Farewell is a movie that also debuted to raves at Sundance, is also acquired by A24. Lulu Long's, I think it's her first feature-length film.

Looking forward to it. You know, it stars Awkwafina. Don't really know that much more about it. That's kind of in the phase that we're in right now. Anything else you want to spotlight? I think we kind of covered it all. Is this going to be a good summer? I have my doubts. Well, how do you find good? Are you going to have a nice time at the movies? Well, I always have a nice time at the movies. That's why I'm doing this podcast. Sure. But will it be a historically remembered summer or did we just have the moment this weekend?

Was this, this weekend, it may not be for you personally, but was this the, you know, the end game? Well, isn't, I mean,

isn't that the whole conflict that we were just talking about throughout this podcast? See what I did there? I do. Great stuff. Amanda, thanks for doing this today.

See you later this week. Bye. Thank you. you