The Big Picture - ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Is Here!

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

We’re talking about the most anticipated movie of the winter: 'Spider-Man: No Way Home.' Swinging into the conversation with Sean and Amanda is our friendly neighbor Mallory Rubin for a spoiler-free (1:40) and then spoiler-packed breakdown of the movie (33:00). Later in this episode, Sean will have a conversation with Tommy Oliver, the director of 'Juice WRLD: Into the Abyss,' the final film in HBO and The Ringer’s Music Box documentary series (1:15:00). Hosts; Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Mallory Rubin and Tommy Oliver Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ringer Films and HBO's final installment of the Music Box series is Juice WRLD Into the Abyss. This documentary is an intimate and eye-opening exploration of the life and all-too-short career of Wonderkid rapper Juice WRLD. This real-time account of the Chicago native details his struggles to navigate his rise to fame, his drug use, and mental health issues through a wealth of never-before-seen footage, unreleased music, and dozens of industry interviews. Juice WRLD Into the Abyss premieres Thursday, December 16th on HBO or HBO Max. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins.

And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Spider-Men and mult and multiverses today we're talking about the most anticipated movie of this winter that movie is spider-man far from home and swinging into this conversation is our friendly neighborhood mallory rubin hi mal what a delight to be here with you to talk about this movie thank you for having me i'm so excited we'll talk about the movie very shortly later in in this episode, I'll have a conversation with Tommy Oliver. He's the director of Juice WRLD Into the Abyss. It's our final film in HBO and The Ringer's Music Box documentary series. Tommy's movie is an intimate and devastating portrait of a young artist creating and eventually coming apart. I hope you'll watch the film and listen to my chat with Tommy. Now let's talk Spidey. Spider-Man No Way way home here's what we knew about this heading in

a movie that was going to feature figures from previous spider-man films based on the trailers and the most watched trailer in the history of movies so the anticipation for this film was very very very high mallory i'm glad you're here with us i want to start with you what do you think of this film so we're keeping it spoiler free at the start here, right? First half spoiler free. Second half, we're going to spoil. If you want to have a 30-minute unspoiled conversation, we're here. If you want to hear your spoilers and you've seen the film,

you can just wait for another 30 minutes. We're going to get into it. Amanda, you're mad. What's going on? No, no, no. I'm not mad. I'm not mad. I don't want that to be the energy we're starting with.

I just want to add on. We're going to do 30 minutes non-spoiler. But people have different definitions of non-spoiler. That's true. And if you are looking to have a really holy experience at the movies, just don't listen. Because we're going to do our absolute best. But we are going to talk about things that happen in the movie. And I'm not here for your I'm mad receipts after you listen to this.

And are like, wait, you said Spider-Man. So everybody make choices that are right for you. Here's our first spoiler. Spider-Man is in this movie. He appears in this film. In many respects, the movie is about making choices that are right for you and choices that are right for other people. So Amanda has really tapped into something.

I asked about the spoiler thing right up top here before answering the question, Sean, because with great power comes great podcasting uh and i have so many thoughts about the movie but i am afraid of accidentally getting into a spoiler in the non-spoiler section of the pod so i will i will keep this answer to the best of my ability brief and just say that I loved it. I loved it. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It contained multiple, I will definitely remember where I was, who I was with, and how I felt when I saw this specific thing happen in this movie moments, which is actually not a theater experience I've really had in a couple of years. So that was very meaningful and fun. I had been anticipating the film hugely, as I think many Marvel and Spider-Man and movie fans had. I had grown slightly nervous in the last

couple weeks. And I felt a wave of just relief and euphoria after the film because it was a sheer delight. How about you? What did you think? Well, we saw this as a big group. The Ringerverse crew, the big picture crew, we were all there together sitting in one long line at an AMC in Los Angeles. And almost every conversation I had with every person there, Steve, Jomie, Van, Charles, Amanda, you, everybody, even our old friend, Jason Concepcion, who we saw there, everybody was like, I don't know if this is going to be good. I've kind of gone around to the other side. And I think lowering those expectations meant for me that I definitely had one of the best movie-going experiences I've had in the last five years. It's like MJ says in the movie, if you prepare to be disappointed.

Exactly. Now, Amanda, for you, obviously, comic book movie is not necessarily your favorite genre, but you have a soft spot for Spider-man so so what did you make of uh no way home listen so you just said one of the best movie going experiences i've had in the past five years of like parasite and once upon a time in hollywood were released in the last five years well they're above spider-man no way home i didn't say it was better than no i thought this movie was completely delightful i like i really did there we go and I got Dobbins they did they got me and I'm I'm excited to talk about how they got me I think I was apprehensive uh because you know I generally have a bad attitude about these things and also because of the the multiverse aspect which was like heavily teased in the trailers and obviously in all of like the attendant media.

And there was just kind of like a lot of Dr. Strange manipulating CGI universes. And it seems really insidery and like things that I was just not going to understand or frankly care about with respect to two people I love very much who are also on this podcast and care. But yeah, you said I have a soft spot for Spider-Man. Who doesn't? Spider-Man is definitely the most accessible of all of these characters, I think, right? If you don't know anything about any comic books or superheroes or whatever, you know who Superman is because, you know, if you pay attention to pop culture, you know who Superman is. He's like the, you know, good guy and then aliens. And then you know who Batman is. And you like the, you know, good guy and then aliens. And then,

you know who Batman is. And you're like, oh, interesting. Like, you know, rich guy with daddy issues. Hmm. Interesting. Maybe I'm intrigued. And then Spider-Man is like the kid who gets to be a superhero, which like, and it preserves everything that I think is fundamentally appealing about these stories or that I can understand to be appealing about these stories. And I think Tom Holland has been a very charming Spider-Man. I was trying to explain Tom Holland to Juliette Lippman earlier this week. And I was like, he's sort of in his Leo and Titanic face in like the teen bead world.

So that's sort of interesting to me as well, you know? But I, I just, it was, it was winning in the, in the way that i feel all the the good spider-man movies are and i had a delightful time sitting with all of you and not understanding half the references but not caring yeah so that's the thing about this film is that you do have to have

a better a bigger sense of spider-man lore the history of the character and particularly the history of the previous films that have come before it. Again, I don't think it's a spoiler to say that because we saw, say, Jamie Foxx in the most recent trailer for this film. So there is a portals are opening in this movie and characters are appearing that we did not previously think could be appearing in these films. You know, the first couple of films in this newest iteration of Spider-Man, both of which were directed by John Watts. This movie also directed by John Watts. They were a little bit more, I would say, lighthearted, even when they had big time action. They were sort of John Hughes-esque.

They were mostly high school stories. The first film very much set in a high school in Queens. The second story set on kind of a Euro trip outside the confines of the United States. This movie is significantly- Post-flip getaway. Yes, post-flip, that's right. I would say this movie is significantly darker

as far as the kind of storytelling that they're trying to do. It's much more existential. I think that's obviously big words like that seem a little silly in the context of a superhero movie, but this movie is very much about kind of grappling with identity and who you are and making that transition from adolescence into a kind of adulthood or early adulthood. And I thought one of the interesting things about the movie was it's not just the Tom Holland movie. It's very much a movie about Peter Parker and MJ and Ned and their friendship and the three of them together as kind of a unit, and I think that's also, they have done a good job with these films of making the characters relatable in a world that is very unrelatable, and I'm sure you guys had your little crew of friends before you went to college that you were tight with, that

you were feeling some anxiety about potentially leaving or trying to figure out what your relationship would be in the future. I think that was smart to locate something emotional like that at the center of a story that if you're a newbie or somebody who's a little bit on the outside of some of this storytelling will be kind of bewildered by the logic of the movie. And so trying to keep viewers grounded, I thought was a really smart gesture in that direction. What'd you think of that, Mel? So I broadly agree. I think that the only aspect of that I would quibble with is that I think far from home. So Homecoming is the first Tom Holland, Spider-Man MCU standalone film. He had obviously

made his MCU debut in Captain America Civil War and was in the MCU before his first standalone film. Homecoming, I think, fits exactly the description you provided. I think Far From Home was actually quite heavy because that is ultimately the coda film in the Infinity Saga. It follows Endgame, and it deals with not only for Peter and Happy, but the world at large facing the reality of a life without Tony Stark and the Avengers as we had come to know them and what the burden is of inheriting that mantle. This is how Peter comes to make the mistake that he does when he hands off Edith to Mysterio. That is obviously a spoiler for a movie that is now multiple years old, but not a spoiler for this movie. So I think it's fair game. So I think that this is like a very natural tonal progression, particularly because this movie, and again, this is not a spoiler because this was clear from the trailers, picks up the instant

that the last movie concludes. There is no time jump. We reconvene in that exact second. But yes, this is, sprawling, deeply complex universe. He's been to space, right? Bitch, you've been to space. Fury line from far from home. It's like an all-time iconic moment, right? He has gone far beyond the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man sensibility that we would expect from a Spider-Man story. And yet his experience and his relationship and view and perspective on his own life is so grounded in the people in the world around him. And it's a really delicate balancing act that they have actually leaned into fully inside of the story in all three movies. Peter wanting more opportunity and access than he has been given, getting it and then not wanting it, just wanting to be a kid.

And this is, in addition to being a superhero story, a great, great, great coming-of-age trilogy. And so I love the aspects of the story that are really anchored in Peter's sense of family, both literally with May and then, of course, a great fantasy and superhero tradition, found family, right? Which is why the bonds with Ned and MJ, but also more broadly, Tony before and the Avengers are so meaningful and why having to really interrogate how he, I'm trying not to spoil anything, how he thinks about what those relationships

could look like moving forward really, really, really lands because we are so invested in those characters and just their day-to-day lives, not just magic around them the magic unlocks that for us it's not the point it's a portal uh amanda tell me tell me about how you engaged with the magic because uh also viewers of the trailer of this film will know that dr strange is a part of this there are spells cast there in order to create some of these portals that play a big part in the movie, there is a lot of comic book movie mumbo jumbo. And Mal and I love that shit.

And you're a little bit just less interested in it. Did you find it trackable? Did you find it engaging? Were you annoyed by it? Where did you land on how they told this story? I suppose it was trackable because, again, they are uh through the perspective of of three teenagers who want to go to mit i hope that's not a spoiler so you know they're they're science and other world um adjacent or familiar at least they're curious but it is still a bunch of teenagers being like

what's going on and so if you explain something to me and basic like you know here lovely teenagers here's what's happening i'm like oh okay okay cool um but i think that speaks to the genius of these movies and and what mal was getting at which is because it's not just you know the multiverse or save the world stakes because there are also human stakes of this teenager who is just trying to figure out how to ask a girl on a date or how to, you know, balance school responsibilities and, you know, saving the world and what's up, you know, with his family and all right, am I going to get into college and all of these like recognizable things by kind of lessening the stakes or making them more familiar. It to me enlivens the story because at this point,

everything else in the MCU is like, okay, well, the world's going to end. And then what we're going to need to do is save the world. And there's going to be a lot of like new deus ex machina magic that you've never heard of that will do it. And it's easier for me to follow when you put it like in the, in the context of, of kids or teens or really like people.

But I think, and the MCU like has characters and I, you know, I feel for Steve Rogers, you know, and he was just like really scrawny and then he was big and he like slept through some things and he, you know, like I get it. That's a human story too, but it's like a slightly less relatable human story than just like, I'm a teenager. I don't know what's going on. I screwed up my college interview. So I thought this movie had a good balance of the two,

which made it easier for me to be like, okay, I don't really know where that portal goes, but like not, no problem, no problem. They'll explain it. So related to this point, I think that the movie is fairly easy to follow because of the grounded nature of the storytelling but it is far more rewarding if you have a fluency with the previous films i i tried to watch as many of the previous films as i re-watched them before this movie started and i didn't get through

everything but there were a few of those Endgame-esque oh shit moments in this movie that I think are particularly rewarding if you feel close to the previous films. Mal, did you do a rewatch before this? More than one. What? Oh my God.

Oh my God. Okay. Hold on. Can I just say something? If that sort of thing is rewarding to you, it's really rewarding. I just want to speak for the people who didn't do the rewatches.

It's also, you know, it works on a lot of levels. So now, it does. Mallory speaking about her homework. So. You two are my homework queens. This is great.

I know, but I didn't do this over i did uh the full spider-man rewatch actually a few months ago to prepare for the trailer the raimi films or or the raimi films and the web films all of them all of them okay i really just wanted to be ready for spidey season. And then obviously I've been rewatching heading into the actual release of the film. But one of the things that I'm curious, I was curious to ask both of you about was whether it's rewatching or just general awareness, how much of this you think is anchored in the Spider-Man canon across both the MCU and Sony and how much of it extends beyond that maybe to where we are in the MCU at large.

Because I think, again, without getting into too many plot specifics from the movie, like the multiversal aspects in particular, I don't think you have to have seen the Loki finale or what if, for example, to appreciate the movie. Certainly you don't have to have.

Correct. There are definitely elements that directly connect and inform what is happening here. And I was curious to get your takes, not even just about this story and the ramifications here, but more broadly where the MCU is in that respect in terms of how interconnected these aspects are. Because I think this is an interesting thing to talk about and think about in terms of the multiverse, which is, of course, like a great comic book tradition dating back well before the film adaptations, right? These stories are going to be interconnected. You can consume them all or not. You can find an entry point and just start there, and that's okay, right? Whether it's what's

happening with the movies and Disney Plus and how much the television shows and the films are connected, which is also a really interesting thing to talk about, how much you need to have seen from other stories. Seeing Doctor Strange is a helpful thing. Being familiar with Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange and more broadly, the mystic arts in the MCU is a helpful thing heading into this movie. I wish we were filming this. Amanda's faces throughout this conversation are incredible. I'm just like, he's a wizard, you know?

Like, he does some magic. Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards. There are some rules. My possibly all-time favorite Tony Stark line. My favorite scene in the MCU. Do you think that this is at some point going to become a really,

almost like impossible barrier to entry for viewers? Or do you think that that's just going to vary person to person and everybody will have their own relationship to whether they need to understand every single connecting element before they step into a theater? Well, the question you're asking raises a point that I wanted to make in this conversation, which is the more and more stuff like this that we get and the more and more that we have to tangle with and sort of remember and engage with on an ongoing basis. I've had a personal realization about it. I'm obviously on the record as liking the MCU quite a bit. I feel like it is softening right now. And I feel like the quality is dipping a little bit. And I'll say two things about that. One, I don't think the TV shows have been very successful, personally. I think there have been some highlights. Strongly disagree. I know you do. For example, I'm completely disengaged from

Hawkeye right now. I don't get it at all. To me, it's a very mediocre TV show that just happens to have superheroes in it. I know there's some disagreement in the ring reverse on that one. But what this movie made me realize is, especially as I get older and the time gets more compressed in my life, is I'm really into the Super Bowl version of these movies. This movie was the Super Bowl version of this movie, where it is big time, eventized, noisy, but still it gives me all the things I like in these kinds of films. My personal relationship to the characters, a sense of history, a sense of interconnectedness. I'm still into that aspect of it. I don't feel the need, and I know Amanda does not to the characters, a sense of history, a sense of interconnectedness. I'm still into that aspect of it.

I don't feel the need, and I know Amanda does not feel the need, to understand every single box checked. Because Amanda and I did a crazy podcast last year in which I tried to explain what I thought WandaVision was going to be to her. And she was like, you're insane. You're insane for caring about this. And actually, it was a little bit of a realization for me that, for me personally, I don't have to follow it as closely to enjoy myself that being said in this movie in particular there are a few payoffs where if

you've been following along closely for 10 years you're just gonna have more fun so i think why are you trying to take away my fun you're gonna have your version of fun you don't know you i mean you don't know whether i'm having fun well it was one of the more fun early moments of the movie you turned to me, who is that? And that's the thing. And you know what? This is a mark of friendship. You turned to me without me needing to ask and told me who it was.

That's true. Did I just realize it? Did you not even look at me? Yeah, no. You instinctively knew. This is like an episode of season one of The Affair where we get the exact same story told from different perspectives. It was very beautiful.

And I felt loved and understood in that moment because everyone else around me was like really had the exact same story told from different perspectives it was very beautiful and i felt loved and understood in that moment uh because everyone else around me was like really rumbling i mean anyway but i will say it's a different kind of fun and it is a little bit how you want to watch these things and and it's a really fine line and to mallory's point about kind of where the MCU is and can it sustain interest beyond the doing a lot of reading and re-watching ahead of time which is like I don't you guys really enjoy that it means a lot to you so I like genuinely there are a lot of people who like to watch things that way and it can certainly sustain that this is an interesting comparison point with eternals for me which obviously i don't think anyone really thought it worked but

what stood out for me was like the mcu mumbo jumbo and internals i was like oh you guys like i'm not buying in on this and as soon as they go to space and they're explaining all the things and they're doing like weird fake greek, but with like another higher being who looks like a TV robot who I like remote who I've never heard of. I was like, no. Okay. And the end and also went meta of just being like the end. Respect on Arishem's name. I mean, it just looks like a lot of like buttons that you could press.

And apparently he's, you know, Kronos in charge of the universe or whatever. Anyway, I understood that as the MCU asking me to buy in, not just on it's like plot mumbo jumbo, but a whole new world and a whole new group of people and a whole new understanding of a universe from scratch. And I was like, this is too much to ask of me, you know, a civilian wandering around. I just can't buy into this. And this movie asks me to buy into several universes and even some things that I, Amanda Dobbins, had not really heard of or wasn't familiar with or, you know, needed a little memory jog from Sean. but it is still bridging the gap of mainstream references, things I understood, earned knowledge. I did find myself wondering, okay, so where do they go from here? How do you keep doing this? Because it is

such a tricky balance and it is relying on many years of cultural awareness but i i do think this version works and works for both audiences and like this is how you make millions and millions and millions of dollars at the box office like this is what they're really good at yeah i i completely agree with that i think um i think this one is not as confusing as maybe we're trying to make it sound in fact i was impressed by the way that they almost seamlessly told some of the multiversal stuff i think where the movie falters a little bit and we'll get into this when we get into the spoiler part of the conversation is the character decisions and the motivations for a lot of the the choices in the film really don't stand up and it does it does feel about this it does

feel like a movie in which they knew where they wanted to go and really had to work hard to engineer how to get there. And a lot of these films are like that, but this one in particular, because of that massive scope that Amanda is talking about and this desire to open up new worlds, I felt like they had to compromise some of the core states of the characters. You might disagree with me. People might disagree with me. I think it's going to get swept under the rug as a criticism of the film because there's so much like joy making in the moments. But that I would just say like in the parlance of watching TV shows, like I bumped on a couple of the things that they did here to get us to those places. Aside from that, I had a kind of like uncomplicated viewing experience where

the delivery of the big reveals and the way that they resolved those reveals. I thought both of those things, usually the endings of these movies are not necessarily terribly good. There's been this big conversation about like the end of Shang-Chi, for example, which is like a good movie that ends in a kind of noisy and messy CGI way. Eternals, I thought was a mess. I talked about that on the show. Even Black Widow, like I don't totally understand the final 30 minutes of that film. This was the rare MCU movie

where I was like, oh, they really stuck the landing on this too. And so I generally had like a very... The end of this movie is very good. It's very good. And this is going to sound silly, but this movie is very emotional. It is very, very...

I cried multiple times. Yes. Multiple times. It's impressive that they can still get you to feel things about a guy who shoots webs out of his wrists you know like there there's some of some very delicate storytelling choices that are made through the course of the final hour of the movie that really worked and i i don't know if i necessarily expected that going into this movie i think that's part of why we care. You know, young people thinking about slinging white goop out of their bodies and confronting what that means. Jesus Christ, Mallory, this is a family podcast. Don't spoil things. This is why people love Spider-Man. Let's just do it before we get into spoiler town and we'll get there in about

five minutes. One of the other conversations that I had with a few people before sitting down for this movie was just how important this movie is to the landscape of movies right now. Obviously, mid-tier and independent films are really struggling at the box office. We're hurtling towards, I think, a disastrous Oscar season for a variety of reasons that Amanda and I will talk about on the show over the coming weeks. This movie is by far the biggest blockbuster to come around in 2021. We're also seeing the Omicron variant rising. There's been a sense of massive COVID outbreak

in the world at large. I think now covering the world of sports, we see many people are testing positive right now. And so it's arriving at what feels like an important time for the movie industry, but also a very scary time in the world. And I had more than one person say to me, like, this movie is kind of a make or break movie. And if this movie significantly underperforms, especially after watching what happened to say West Side Story recently, that there's a genuine fear that not just the smaller movies are no longer made for the box office, as Ben Affleck said recently in an interview this week. Ben Affleck and I once once again, are on the same page. You guys are truly aligned. But also that event movies could be in trouble here because even the biggest and most successful event movies of this year, Fast 10, Venom, Let There Be Carnage, et cetera, they did well,

but not really that well in the context of where this business was two years ago. So I am personally fascinated. I know the people who watch this movie who are anticipating it are going to love it. There's no question in my mind this is going to have an A Cinema score. People are going to be raving about it all weekend. They're going to be very excited to talk about it. But Amanda, I'm curious what you think. If it doesn't do well, is it a product of this uptick in outbreak or is it significant to the future of the business? just gut check what do you think this means for it i do think we got to separate the the public safety aspects of it

from the massive industry-wide behavioral change that was happening before covid covid exacerbated and that is going to continue and you mentioned mentioned West Side Story, a movie that I absolutely loved that nobody went to see in theaters because I think the target audience for that is probably 30 something and above. It's probably more women than, you know, the traditional theater breakdown this year. And of course they didn't go because people are changing the way that they watch content and we've said it a million times and the entire industry is in this transitional moment um that's going to affect a lot of things and will they figure it out or not i don't know i think spider man was going to be a lot of very young excited people going to the movies and less about like industry-wide behavioral whatever i don't know how the omicron news is really going to affect that and i think it probably if it doesn't do well

there can be a bit of an asterisk on it and there probably should be um and there probably should be an asterisk on you know everybody the whole year yeah the whole year and also like your choices and once again talking about making decisions for you mallory like once again I just I said my like my best and my wishes for health and safety for everybody so I think it happened very quickly Sean and I agree even two weeks ago this was like the future of movies and certainly the future of you know AMC rides on Spider-Man and now i'm like you know up is down who knows what again mal this isn't really your lane necessarily but but like what do you do you think it is hugely important to even the future of the stories that you love to cover on on the show

yeah i mean i think i in part because i have been enjoying the Disney Plus shows so much. And just, you know, not every installment of Phase 4 to date has been as successful as every other, certainly, as you just outlined. But I think I'm more generally in the... Phase 4 is pretty good. And also, I think we tend to collectively forget that there have been a good number of bumps along the road for Marvel and the MCU from a storytelling perspective where we had, oh, is this going to change something about the MCU?

Is the MCU in trouble? And then everything was fine. I don't think, I'm not saying that I think the MCU is just an unconquerable, unstoppable machine that will never have to confront how people are feeling about the latest installments. I don't believe that. But I think there's been a lot of, I raise that to say, because I think there has been a lot of, oh, quite a bit about how phase four is going and where the MCU is right now, post-Endgame, post-Infinity Saga,

like rides on whether this movie really lands and delivers like a strong story and a strong fan experience. Obviously the Sony-Dis Disney joint venture element of this is again, a little bit of an asterisk there because it's not a pure Disney Feige MCU vehicle, but it did feel to me in the last few weeks, especially like there was a lot of like fan chatter about how much was riding on this in terms of where the MCU is. So I think it's like very, it's a resounding success in that respect, like independent of what happens at the box office.

And it seems like the box office is tracking for quite a robust opening weekend, right? At least so far. But just in terms of enjoyment and execution, I think people are going to come out of this saying, this was great. I'm really excited to see where the MCU takes various plot points and characters moving

forward. And also, you know, what this means for the Sony movies moving forward as well, because of the IP, you know, rights share questions hanging over a lot of this. So that's more my lens for thinking about it than the box office specifically, but I think they're connected. Yeah, the Sony versus Marvel Disney aspect of the story is very interesting. They're kind of locked in a bit of a stalemate right now in terms of determining whether or not Tom Holland and this Spider-Man is going to continue to exist in the MCU. And this movie introduces some figures or reintroduces some figures that I think really complicates that question in an interesting way. On the other hand, Venom just being a broadly successful film franchise that Paul Thomas Anderson and myself

both like a lot. I don't know that I saw that coming. And that obviously has got Sony thinking about ways to take Tom Holland and Zendaya and everybody else who make this franchise what it is out and into their world and create their own world and try to marvelify what they have going on there for obvious reasons that benefits them more directly than helping Disney make money, which is really what I think they've been doing for the last couple of years by collaborating on these movies.

That's actually a very big domino in the world of the movie business as well because Sony doesn't have a streamer. Sony doesn't have a Disney Plus. Sony's most valuable property by far are these movies. Some of the star Royco shit right there. It really is. I mean, they're looking for a Gojo right now.

Maybe they're not looking for a Gojo. Maybe they're, and you know, Mal, you and I are talking about this off mic, but like Tom Rothman who runs Sony is trying to keep the theater business alive. And that's kind of, that's one of the reasons why I bring up this question, which is impossible for us to answer

about what impact the success of this movie does or does not have on the future of the industry. But it is a really interesting question with a lot of implications. And I guess Amanda will talk about it probably early next week when we see what the first box office numbers are like. I'm also still just really mad. I once again missed a credit sequence opportunity for solo applause when the Amy Pascal productions or whatever her production company is called showed up. And I said to you, Sean, before we started, I was like, I think I'm going to really dip in and experiment with applauding. And the rest of the audience kind of like carried me along, you know, but now I was like really mad that I didn't applaud for Harry Styles at the end of

Eternals. You know, I thought that would have been a good moment for me to insert myself into the fan culture yeah i assume the entire theater was shrieking though i just no it was dead silent because everyone our screening hated eternal so much that it was just like they also knew harry styles was going to be in it that's the other problem oh whatever guys come on just like read the trades every day you'll be fine it's not a spoiler but i i do feel like I let everybody in the screening down by not applauding them. So Amy Pascal is eating right now. She is out here doing the thing.

She continues to be extraordinarily successful having moved on from running Sony to now producing all of Sony's hits, including Spider-Man movies and Little Women. So shout out to her. Do you want to spoil this movie? Well, sure. I think everything we have to talk about from here requires going all in,

including parsing Amy Pascal's comments about the future of Spider-Man. Yeah. I wonder if Van Lathan would let us borrow his spoiler warning that he uses on every episode of The Midnight Boys because it's utterly necessary. You're listening to a reaction podcast. Great impression. So we're spoiling. If you don't want to hear anything else about the plot machinations, the characters who arrive, etc., etc.,

turn this pod off or fast forward to my interview with Tommy Oliver or go for a walk. I don't care what you do. Just get off this podcast right now. Okay. Three, two, one. We are spoiling. Okay. Where to begin?

I got to say I'm a little bit confused as to where to begin. The character that we were talking about early on, who appears early in the film, is Matt Murdock. And Matt Murdock is Daredevil. Fuck yeah. I love Matt Murdock. I love Daredevil. Are you guys seriously leading with freaking Daredevil?

There are three Spider-Mans! There are three! There's a lot to talk about. We have a lot to talk about. We've been doing this movie have a lot of time one two three the only reason i'm leading with daredevil is to imply that this movie is very big in terms of what like the world that it is opening like that's we we probably knew that toby mcguire and andrew garfield were going to show up in this movie and they did and the way that they did it was wonderful and we'll talk about it but when I saw Daredevil,

I was like, oh, everything's on the table now. Not just Daredevil, though. Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock. Like Daredevil from the Netflix Marvel universe. So this has been a talking point among fans for years.

Like, would the Netflix characters come in to Kevin Feige's MCU proper? And the answer is yes. Like that, this is actually, even though it was just one scene, a huge, huge moment.

I have a question for you. You could just say no, though. Even the question is inherently a spoiler. Is it fair game to talk about Hawkeye for just a second here? Cause I think this is connected. I don't, if listeners haven't talked about both of you,

Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. We should start there. Amanda's definitely right. Are Spider-Man together for at least an hour. We're going to get there. We're going to get there. Guys, you're editors. Jesus Christ.

Talk about burying the lead. Mallory's like, can I spoil? Daredevil was not the first bullet point. Sean went rogue and I'm just swinging with him. This is crazy. You guys do your thing, but you should know better. You are experienced journalists and there are three Spider-Mans. Continue with what happened on Disney Plus at 8 a.m.

This is not inverted pyramid. This is magazine style journalism. We're teasing out where we're going to the heart of the story. We got to get to reveal. Feature well. Thank you. Yeah, but listen, even I would cut out the most recent episode story. We got to get to reveals. Feature well, you know. Thank you. Yeah, but listen, even I would cut out the most recent episode of Hawkeye

from the first section. Mallory, you know better. Frankly, I dare you. It's the most recent episode of Hawkeye. This is on TV like five minutes ago. Have most people had time to watch this? I understand that the culture is different, but I feel like the Peloton thing

and just like that getting spoiled for me 10 minutes. Like, am I supposed to wake up at midnight? I guess I am. We're now getting the podcast I thought we were going to get. So thank you for delivering that, Amanda. Mal, make your point. Because we're talking about Matt Murdock anyway,

I will just say, and hit the fast forward button two to three times if you don't want to hear anything about the most recent Hawkeye. Kingpin confirmed at the end of the episode. We knew it was coming, but there he is standing next to Eleanor. His hulking form in the end credits, Hawkeye, Clint Barton saying aloud, Kingpin. So this comes out the same week as Spider-Man. Inside of the Spider-Man movie, we see Peter swinging over

Rockefeller Center, lit for Christmas. That is from all indications of the trailer, everything that has happened inside of Hawkeye so far going to be a key setting for the finale of Hawkeye next week. And Peter multiple times swings by Rogers, the musical billboards. I raised that all to say, these are set at the same time,

like the same moment. And we're getting Kingpin and Matt Murdock at the same time. That feels significant to me in terms of character introductions and what that might mean for how all of these characters are deployed in the future, whether that's in the films or on Disney+. Now I'm finished. I do like Christmas movies and TV shows. You might like Hawkeye more than me.

Hawkeye's great. Nah, but I liked it when they swung over the tree. I was like, oh, that's good. That's nice. Yeah, the point that I think Mal and I were both trying to make is nah but I liked it when they swung over the tree I was like oh that's good that's nice you know sense of place the point that I think Mal and I were both trying to make is

the convergence is fully happening here like they're pulling every single property that they've worked on over the years and not the convergence that

happens in Thor the dark world not that convergence you know we haven't yet seen Malekith the accursed again though we could we could

Ben Affleck played Daredevil right he did played Daredevil, right? He did play Daredevil. Yeah, that's right. I believe that's where he met Jennifer Garner. So this is germane to your interests, ultimately. You're still talking about things that don't apply to me. One thing I can assure you of is that Ben Affleck's Daredevil film is not good.

Not good. I know. It is deeply not good. I thought the Daredevil TV show was pretty good. And so it was fun to see Charlie Cox here, who is terrific and i think would be great in all these movies anyway a fabulous matt burdock okay moving on the there's two huge parts of this story there is all of the villains who we knew were going to appear in this film and who really pushed the story forward because essentially what happens in the story is uh peter parker at the end of the last film is

revealed to be spider-man by jay jonah jon, who is now this kind of Alex Jones-esque conspiracy monger. And in a live report, he reveals Peter's identity. Peter freaks out, has an existential crisis about becoming incredibly famous overnight.

He feels like he can't do anything. He and his friends all get rejected from MIT, which one quibble with that is three people are not going to MIT from the same high school. Don't forget Flash. Flash got into MIT.

And Flash. I mean, what is the likelihood that Flash is a great student? Anyway. Don't they go to sort of like a, you know, magnet? They're very smart. Do four Stuy Town kids

get into MIT every year? I do. But just because Stuy Town's very large, which is a whole other conversation about college admissions that I look forward to you doing like a 45-point podcast about in like 16 years. I can't wait.

So anyway, they get rejected from MIT and it feels like the implications of this revelation about his identity are, are hurting, impacting their lives in ways that are really negative. Peter feels responsible. So Peter goes to his old friend, Dr.

Steven strange and says, cast a spell, make people forget that I'm Spider-Man in an effort while, while casting that spell, Peter keeps interrupting Doctor Strange, I guess, making him lose his focus

on how to effectively cast the spell. This is my single biggest gripe with the movie. Okay. I don't know anything about spell casting logic, but...

Doctor Strange would not botch that spell. I'm sorry. I know we learned in this movie, I don't mean to interrupt you, I loved the movie. We learned that

Wong is Sorcerer Supreme, not Stephen Strange, which is actually huge. That was interesting. Yeah, that was wild. That was amazing. But Stephen Strange is the protector of the world

and the multiverse and our dimension. He's not fucking up that spell because Peter's talking to him. Carry on. Matt, no, hold on. I know I have a follow-up question. Matt, across, like,

all known wizards in space and time and fiction, is he the number one most powerful wizard? Oh, my God. This is another pot, Amanda. Holy shit. Amanda, this is...

I can't answer. I frankly hope you love and respect me enough to not make me answer that off the dome. I need to think about it for, like, six months and get back to you okay great you you and you and zach could he oh my god that's an incredibly good question i'm gonna think about that okay please please table

it jesus christ we have so much spider-man to talk about man the chaos agent anyway um so strange gets the spell interrupted and by having it interrupted, it goes awry. Chaos magic. That makes Amanda the Scarlet Witch. I do like her. She's pretty good. She liked the robot. That was sad. Amanda recaps MCU stuff.

Holy shit. Good spin off pod. We need this as a standalone episode. Amanda's one sentence summary of every movie show and character. It's pretty sad. Oh pretty sad um when the spell goes awry yep the multiverse opens portals open from other worlds other film franchises and we learn very quickly that dr octopus is in tom holland spider-man's universe um what is there a point

you wanted to make mel well i was just gonna say that one of the questions I had heading in, because the trailers made clear that the spell would be a part of it, the multiverse would be a part of it. The multiverse opens, the multiverse enters the MCU. And again, the spoiler warning here applies for the MCU to date, okay? In the finale of Loki, that's when that happens. And one of the things I was interested in is

how would they account for that adjacency and when and where things are happening? And so what actually happens is that Doctor Strange acknowledges that the multiverse is a thing that we don't understand.

He's not opening the multiverse. They are accessing parts of it and pulling. I was worried, I guess I'll say, that there was going to be an instant incongruity where two characters and stories were in essence responsible for launching the multiverse. And they actually handled that more, I think more deftly than I was anticipating, where it is acknowledged that the timeline has fractured. This is what the world is. There is a multiverse in the MCU now. And how it comes into play, how different characters and worlds enter the fray is what many of these stories will be about and how to contain what spills from one universe into

another. So what's interesting about that specifically is perhaps it's just a convenience of movie making, but the only universes that open are the Sam Raimi Spider-Man universe and the Mark Webb Spider-Man universe, and that's it. There's only two other universes in the multiverse, as far as we know right now. We get the very tantalizing view in the final battle of the cracking open sky that Doctor Strange is trying to stitch back together. That's obviously where Peter's ultimate sacrifice comes into play, right?

We see a ton of characters there. I'll have to see the movie. We've all only seen the movie once. This is like our instant reaction off of one viewing. I'll have to see that numerous times to catch all of the characters in there, but we definitely we see rhino we see craven so the craven thing is interesting because that's not a character who's been in the prior films but obviously is key in the comics and about to have a movie so i'm curious how many other characters we can spot in terms of that every pot i'm on yeah aaron taylor johnson the craven pod okay um can i just say from the from the civilians point of view it wasn't that implausible they're doing a spell so that no one remembers who spider-man is and then things go wrong and so it's believable without too much knowledge that people who do have a relationship

to who spider-man is would be the first through the gates, you know? Because like the spell goes mostly wrong, it goes mostly right, but some things crack. And so here come all the people with a vested interest in getting Spider-Man, you know? It's on topic. No, I think it's actually logically coherent because the spell is essentially like everyone has to forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man,

except for a few people who Tom Holland does not want to forget. to forget right you know mj ned and may a handful of people by asking for those requests mid-spell everyone who you know a small handful of people who know that peter parker is spider-man are then sort of like awakened and brought into this universe and most of those people are super villains that spider-man has vanquished in other films so that's when dr octopus played by alfred molina comes in that's when electro played by jamie foxx comes in that's when sandman played by thomas hayden church comes in that's when green goblin played by willem defoe comes in who am i forgetting there's one lizard lizard of course played by reese ifans comes in and so all of these villains start populating this world and very quickly... One from each of the five prior movies. Exactly.

And Doctor Strange rightfully realizes that these supervillains need to be quarantined, in a manner of speaking, and sent back to their respective worlds. Spider-Man is tasked with finding them, capturing them, sending them back with some sort of weird wrist technology that I've not seen previously. And this is where I bump on the movie and this is where I want to talk to you guys about. So they do actually recapture all of these supervillains. It's very fun when the supervillains come back. Just watching Spider-Man fight these characters that we saw five, 10 years ago in movies. It's just great. It's just like

pleasure making stuff and it's handled well, but it's handled in a pretty compressed period of time. It happens all in the first hour of the movie. And so they capture them all. And rather than send them back where Spider-Man in another universe is meant to kill them, Tom Holland's Peter Parker has a crisis of faith and thinks he can save these supervillains who he's never met before and doesn't have a relationship with. Okay, it's not a crisis of faith. He's, you know, encouraged by Aunt May to do good and not evil and save people. But is sending people back to their world evil? He's really dumb.

He's a teenager. Yeah, okay. That's good. That's true. That's fair. They are very frustrating. I honestly think Amanda is making the key point here. And like, I think, Sean, you're right to raise the question.

This was definitely a topic of conversation in the ringer verse huddle right after the screening we should mention that aunt may dies in the movie which i i don't think we have said yet we have not and i was really there i mean i understand why historically speaking but that sucked justice from rosa tomei it was very sad she is an icon obviously and i think that the question of whether it is logical that peter did this or it is right that peter did this is a valid one to ask but i think it is consistent in two key respects one more broadly the way mcu heroes navigate these kinds of dilemmas right and then just as crucially how they have to navigate these kinds of dilemmas, right? And then, just as crucially, how they have to navigate the consequences of their choices. Like, we need look no further than Infinity War, the most consequential outcome of a we-don't-trade-lives decision,

right, with Cap and Vision. So it holds in that respect. To Amanda's point, I think that is essential. In many aspects of Peter's character. We just know that. And, and yes, this is specifically what may encourages him and how she through her charitable works and her good heart, like wants him to be thinking about what people deserve and what it really

means to try to help somebody. But the way that Peter has always thought about responsibility, I think inside of the MCU and more broadly across the comics and the other movies is fascinating and essential to his character, right? He is in this incarnation. This is part of why I love this incarnation so much. Very well-intentioned, but ultimately kind of a short-sighted teen. Like he gives, he receives Edith from Tony. Edith is like one of the most powerful resources in the universe. And he gives it to Quentin Beck,

who he does not know because he thinks from a couple conversations he can trust this guy and because he wants to go kiss a girl in the Eiffel Tower. Like he's a kid. He makes mistakes. And the fact that those well-intentioned mistakes

have really damaging consequences sometimes is ultimately, I think, why the stories are interesting and compelling. If the heroes always do the logical thing and always make the right choice, that's actually not an interesting story to watch. They have to be flawed. That's why they're human beings.

You're right, and I'm with you for the most part, but the logic of this one was a was just a step too far for me where i was like why does he need to save this lizard like this is a lizard man who's gonna eat him if he doesn't send this guy back to his dimension i i anyhow it's it doesn't matter it's pretty easy to get past that stuff and then what transpires after that is essentially this sequence in which um peter parker tries to put these villains through rehab he attempts to sort of like scientifically resolve their super villainy and he uses a um what is the name of the device that stark creates is it a it's like in a manufacturer it's a what

is the name of that thing that is in fabricator a fabric thank you the fabricator in happy hogan's home um what a happy showing in this movie. Holy shit. A lot of Jon Favreau. Enjoyed his work. A lovely Long Island City condo, I believe. Very much so, yes. Just an amazing time in Happy's bachelor pad.

Poor Happy getting broken up with and then having to mourn May immediately after. Unsurprisingly, Peter's plans to resolve the supervillainy of these people does not go well. And in particular, Green Goblin breaks bad yet again. And Willem Dafoe yet again portrays arguably the most evil character in the history of comic book movies. I mean, he is like the most damaged. Norman Osborn is fucking mean. And Willem Dafoe is so good at playing mean bastards uh he's really really good in this movie it works with doc ock though which was very that was fun it does i mean that's another the thing about this movie i mean i wanted to ask you about this too it's like there's like

10 oscar nominees in this movie and you just got like alfred molina and willem dafoe having scenes together and it's like that is actually something that that i think elevates this one in a big way a lot of the mcu movies have very gifted actors, but they're not always asked to operate at a higher level. I kind of liked the way that they created a sense of character crisis between a guy who has four giant metal arms attached to his body and another guy who dresses up like a goblin. I was like, I kind of buy the conflict here.

There's something deeper going on between these guys. Does that seem ridiculous to you or do you get that? No, it was fun. And it's part of the more for your money proposition that is the real thrill of this movie. Because I would say a lot of Oscar winners now show up as the villains in Marvel movies or really in any movies. And they're just there to have a great time and choose some scenery and be ridiculous. And if you actually give them some sort of emotional or motivational crisis to act, like very briefly, I would say, you know, in total, we got what, like 20 minutes of Oscar

acting in this movie, but that's good. That was good. It's nice to see these guys know what they're doing. So I had a lot of fun with it. And I remember visually like, oh yeah, I've seen that villain before, but I don't know anything about any of them. So it was for me mostly fun to be like, oh, look, Willem Dafoe is like being really wacky. And now like Jamie Foxx also being wacky, but also funny. You can enjoy it on the level of look at these good actors having a good time, which to me is kind of one of the underappreciated appeals of these movies that actors like to dress up in costumes and have fun too i have like 47 follow-up thoughts on that this is a rich text here balance of screen time the sinister six possibility and the self-referential nature of the film those are kind of the three follow-up thoughts i'll see if I can remember all of them and move through them quickly. Balance. This was my single biggest concern heading into the movie. Even without knowing for sure if we were going to get Andrew and Toby, though I think we all

expected that we would, just knowing the number of villains that we were going to get, it seemed like that was the thing that was most likely to go wrong. Just so many moving parts, so many looks back to the past with a need inherently, because it is a major Super Bowl event, as you said, Sean, to look ahead and set the stage for the future. Would it just feel too stuffed and too inelegant? And I think inside of a Spider-Man cinematic experience in particular, you can't lose sight of the fact that what has gone wrong with prior installments, Spider- 3 most famously amazing spider-man 2 too many villains that didn't work together right so that was a real risk here they fucking nailed it like i'm in awe of the way that that there's the balance and the screen time and to me that's like where you feel the feige mcu just control of it all because like one of the things i'm always most

impressed by this is one of the reasons infinity war is honestly just such a titanic achievement. It shouldn't work. The math of it, the character pairings, how much we get to spend, how much time we get to spend with each character and when, how long we're away from each character and when we return to them.

And it just does, it's this like flawless symphony. And to be able to kind of tap into that alchemy here was essential to making it work. And they did it. It, that is even more true with the three Spider-Man than it is with the villains. flawless symphony and to be able to kind of tap into that alchemy here was essential to making it work and they did it that is even more true with the three spider-men than it is with the villains and we'll obviously talk about that i assume next as amanda we will patiently one one quick thing about that is the same way the infinity war was like the culmination of 10 years of storytelling where we were comfortable with spreading out time spent with all these characters

this movie is the same thing we have been living with these various iterations of Spider-Man and the villains since 2003, I think is the first film. And so that accumulated time helps us accept that balance, I would say. Yes. So we can table the Sinister Six thing for a second. We can maybe circle back to that with the future

and what's going to happen next. But to that point, with the self-referential nature i think that also could have gone wrong where so much of this is backward looking and in jokes at the expense of the things that didn't work as well in prior installments and i personally just loved that and thought it was less of a almost like compulsion to acknowledge why everyone was there and how we've spent our time with these movies and these characters before. And what felt like a really earnest and well-executed and joyful celebration and culmination of Spider-Man as a character and the Spider-Man universe as a fictional storytelling setting that means a great deal to many, many

people. Like I just loved, loved, loved. Whether it was dunking on Rhino or something like the absolute emotional gut punch of Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man asking MJ if she was okay after the fall. It all worked. It all worked. I've been talking on this show for three years about what a special man Andrewrew garfield is he is sensational he's unbelievable he was so good so good it feels like he is he one of the things that is really smart about the way that they introduce the garfield spider-man and the mcguire spider-man is they are these kind of self-reflexive commentaries on their celebrity and their role in the in the world beyond and toby is someone we haven't seen in movies for a long time. And there's an aspect of this.

You know, when he's introduced, he's in plain clothes and he looks kind of like a dad. You know, he's like a little bit aged. And there's a lot of talk about that. Or a youth pastor. I made fun of it at one point. Or a youth pastor. That was one of the best jokes in the movie.

And likewise, Garfield, who only got to make two Spider-Man movies despite talking so earnestly about how this is the most important character to him and he loved this since he was a kid and he put his all into it and he kind of got screwed because they just cast the wrong director to make those movies and they just don't work those movies are not very good I actually like the first one the second one is not very good he is a fantastic Peter Parker he's so good and he is this I mean he is a very modern iteration of Spider-Man. He's very emotional. He's very self-aware. He's constantly in a state of like emotional crisis.

And he's such a gifted actor that again, he elevates the movie. McGuire always struck me as kind of an awkward Spider-Man, even though I enjoy the Raimi films because he is an awkward person. And that isn't what Peter Parker is. Peter Parker is a person who is like emotional and wisecracking. Those are his two signal traits. He's a developing person. And so I genuinely don't think they could have done the three Spider-Men thing better than they did. Amanda, what did you think about it? I was elated.

Again, I can't believe it took us this long to get this. There are three Spider-Men. And you're right. We're building to something special special just like the movie did. I'm curious whether you guys were as surprised as I was about how long they're in this movie. I think we all knew that they would show up. And I think we all

thought it would be some version of the pointing at each other meme and a nice joke. And even in the way that it's introduced in the movie, they all show up, I believe, is it at Ned's house? Yes yes it brings them through the portals right they come through the portals he's using a sling ring and as soon as the portal opens the entire theater knows what hat what's happening and like starts applauding

and they come through and you think you're gonna get this like electric moment it was lovely moment in this house and then they're just in the rest of the movie they're in a third to a half of this movie the entire final battle sequence it's three spider-mans fighting each other making jokes doing a lot of the emotional commentary on their own characters kind of playing like older brothers slash like mirror versions to tom holland's p Peter Parker. And so it's a little, it's like they did a smart thing to me, at least with the multiverse where it is the multiverse. And there are other like Spider-Man's fighting,

but it's also like other versions of Tom Holland and other versions of his Peter Parker's future and what he should choose to be, which I thought was really beautiful. And in terms of it as fan service, which Mallory was talking a lot about, I think this is like the broadest and best possible version of fan service. And again, it's just like they nailed the specific chemistry and pieces together. It's a very hard line to walk and they got it. And they really are working with, they're starting from an advantage, right?

Spider-Man is not Iron Man or Thor or any of the characters who they've had to teach us about to varying degrees over the past 15 years it's like you know spider-man you know if you don't know anything about spider-man you know spider-man and you get that he's like your friendly neighborhood you know teenager singing around and so and you know if you follow culture, if you don't remember the Tobey Maguire movies, totally remember Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, you know, Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man. And so it's like, it can include pretty much the whole audience in, oh, these people are back together and this is fun. And if you think about it too hard, then there's like a lot of corporate stuff going on, but it's a celebration as Mallory said

and really charming and very emotional. And I do want to talk more about the Andrew Garfield saving MJ moment, but I don't know whether we want to do it right now. We can do that. I mean, I think that's one of the best moments in the movie. Obviously like the core part of the Garfield films is the death of Gwen Stacy,

which is a historic comic book storyline from, from the early Spider-Man run. And Gwen Stacy was played by Andrew Garfield's real life girlfriend, Emma Stone. Right. Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy is tremendous. And she was awesome. Let me tell you,

I love what Zendaya and Tom Holland are doing or like, they seem very happy, whether it's, you know, a press tour fling or like true love, whatever. I'm thrilled for them. But let me tell you about Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in the early 2010s. That was true love. That was two young people in the mix and sharing too much and having all of the emotions that you see on screen it was really beautiful it it ended emma stone has moved on and andrew garfield has not as you can see on screen uh every single time he's talking about gwen in this movie it's amazing

it feels like they're giving andrew garfield closure on his personal life in a spider-man movie that is pretty crazy it's incredible and he like and he commits to it and he's so good and he's like you know i love that guy um where to go from here mal i mean what other things jumped out to you in terms of the way that they pulled off this story oh boy um i mean i could talk about this with you both for five more hours. Some more essential points, I guess I'll, I'll observe that felt notable to me that the final battle took place on Captain America's fallen shield in terms of MCU symbolism and where we are.

When did the statue of Liberty become Captain America's monument? We're in this, we're in this like honoring steve rogers but also asking about what the what the shield means phase of the mcu across various installments now and this is a big part of falcon winter soldier and hawkeye now you're seeing a lot of that as him as the sort of emblem of this time and the fact that the shield which is supposed to be raised in the as this this monument right falls and then the battle is taking place on it i don't think this is in any way like an anti steve rogers choice of course i mean cap is you know beloved and and

still uh toasted consistently in the mcu but it did feel like another, to me, phase four across all of the installments so far has been, other than maybe Eternals, which is really new. And obviously Shang-Chi is also an origin story. But everything is a bridge story, looking back at the past and then moving us into the future. And the symbolism of that, I thought, was really notable because there are so many new things to establish and questions about how the existing characters will be deployed, but also this reflection on what the infinity saga meant,

both to viewers and, and characters alike in terms of the three Spider-Men. I, the Garfield coming through the portal was just an all timer, like genuinely one of those. That's what I was mentioning earlier when I said, I like remember, you know,

where I was and how it felt to see that in the theater for the first time. And it was incredible. And everyone gasped as soon as they realized it was about to happen. Cause when he turns, you can just, you can tell, like you can tell from the mask and the shape of his body. It's him.

It's not Tom Holland. And that was so respectfully to Tom Holland. Yes, exactly. It was honestly an incredible moment. The initial interaction between Toby and Andrew was tremendous. I love the points that you both made about how they reference the aspects of their characters and their arcs. But I thought we also got like some interesting insights about

the time that has passed since because the villains come from these key moments. Not all of those villains died, right? Like Lizard is imprisoned, for example. But, you know, with Doc Ock, with the Green Goblin, we know Elektra, they came in, right, like before the moment of their death. And thus, that's one of the things Peter's saying, that he would be returning them to the moment of death. Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire have lived the ensuing years since we left them. They have lived the ensuing years since we left them. They have lived their lives.

And I'm getting emotional, but hearing them talk to each other about whether they have somebody and knowing that Andrew Garfield doesn't was devastating. That was tough. It was so sad. And to hear him talk about just the way that he let the rage guide him, I mean, that's a character we really care about. So you want to go back and

spend those ensuing years with him, but you also feel like you know how he spent them, even though we weren't there to watch. And that's a pretty amazing thing to be able to pull off. Similarly, I'm with you on on you know toby obviously those movies are iconic and he is like elemental to the superhero movie experience i for all my personal peter parker power rankings he's number three of the three for me but to know that to hear him talk about like mj still being in his life and the way that they work at it or to hear honestly something like him talk about his back pain yeah in his life and the way that they work at it or to hear honestly something like him talk about his back pain from swinging through the city like I love a lot of

relatable shit going on there that's so cool you were in the Avengers what is that because that was amazing Amanda representation let me just tell you that one I thought was a great line I mentioned this to Sean before we recorded but I love that Amanda both inside of the story, but also that's like a meta Sony Disney thing. Yeah. Because Sony doesn't have the Avengers. Yeah. You know? So that like winked at like the questions

that they know the audience has about what characters are going to be deployed and how. Like much like when, you know, Electro says, I just, I thought Spider-Man would be black. Like we're all going to be thinking about Miles, right? And I was wondering if we would get Miles in one of the stingers.

You know, I thought we might. I guess ultimately in hindsight, the question of when we get Miles in live action is there are so many variables at play there, right? Like, we know we just got an incredible trailer for the next Spider-Verse

movie, and that's part one of part two. We're getting two more Spider-Verse movies with Miles in the animated franchise, and I think we think we all agree that spider verse is just like a absolute great movie just i think i think real and a joy right i think they will wrap up those three films and then introduce miles yeah that would be my gut the last thing i wanted to say about the three spider-men together for now i'll contain myself and share more thoughts on a ensuing ringer verse pod the moment when they coordinate after realizing that they don't know how to work together. And then when they swing in unison and all three of them was good. Like I

felt, I felt like electro. I felt the electricity surging through my body, not only because that is such a purely realized cinematic movie magic moment, but because it, again, like taps into really something fundamental about the character. It's hard for Spider-Man, for Peter Parker to trust and work with other people. And this is what I think is most appealing to me about the multiverse. Not only what it allows in terms of like opening up other worlds and universes and mixing up these character sets, bringing back people we've lost. I like the idea of characters confronting themselves,

other versions of themselves. This was my favorite thing about Loki. Loki really understands himself because he's meeting Sylvie, another version of Loki, right? So this is like a very rich storytelling avenue for these movies moving forward. And I think it could get complex,

but I am personally very excited about it because I think that it's like, I don't want you guys to make fun of me, but I think that it has a chance to be like, if not profound, then at least very intellectually and philosophically stimulating. And I obviously,

part of the reason I love these stories so much is because I do think that they provide those kinds of rewarding moments for introspection and thinking about relationships and development and growth. And an arc successfully executed in one of these stories is not just about the plot mechanics.

It's going to be about how the character learns and grows. I loved it. I think if it's not intellectually deep for you, I think it's hard to argue that it's not fun because it's just a very, very fun movie.

The last two bits are just the stingers. The first is we do see Eddie Brock, aka Venom, sitting at his, I guess that's Mexico where he is,

or maybe Hawaii on some sort of vacation, which is where he ended. Venom let there be carnage, sitting at a bar drinking. We see him vanish out of that bar very quickly, but left behind is a bit of black goo, which made the little alien symbiote that may or may not play a part in telling future Spider-Man stories. That's a big part of the Spider-Man lore, Amanda. So that was an interesting tease. And then the final, final thing was just the trailer

for Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, which I thought was a beautiful button hook because the director of that film, of course, is Sam Raimi, who is now in the MCU. And he's the one who really got Spider-Man right for the first time on screen. I was surprised that we got a full trailer, but I think you're right.

Like in hindsight, it feels like, of course, because of the Raimi of it all, that would be what we got there. Quickly on the Venom front, Jason and I were talking about this after the screening. I don't quite understand why that little piece of Venom didn't go back, given just the magic and the spell working that is happening. I mean, I guess we haven't really talked. There's so much to talk about here. We haven't really talked about that final choice Peter makes and the fact that he trades everybody in his life knowing who he is,

the thing that he was so afraid of happening in the first place so that they can protect the universe. So MJ doesn't know who Peter is. Ned doesn't know who Peter is. Can I just say about that last scene? Because we haven't talked that much about Tom Holland in this movie. I thought he was very affecting in that last scene? Because we haven't talked about that much about Tom Holland in this movie. I thought he was very affecting. The donut shop scene?

In the donut shop. I was fucking sobbing. I mean, it's, and it's really, you know, there is like, like, just like the teenage longing, trying to figure out what the right thing to do element is, along with sort of like the larger cosmic implications. But I thought it was very human. And he was very good having to do like slightly heavier stuff in this. I think that the three of them,

Tom Hollins and Dan and Jacob are just so great as, as those three characters as Peter, MJ and Ned. And that was honestly a devastating moment because the, you know, he, he walks in intending to help her remember, right.

To like reignite that spark. He's got the letter that he's preparing to read. And then he sees that they're happy. And so he doesn't want to risk MIT, their futures, their path. And he knows that his presence in their lives, the thing that they all want ultimately is also the thing that will jeopardize that for them. And that's the choice he has to make. And so he goes to his little uh the little apartment it of course reminds us of toby's apartment after he is no longer living with harry in the original trilogy and he's on his own and he's he's at the sewing machine stitching up a new suit he's no longer making that on fancy stark tech like he has gone back there were a lot of going back to spider-man's

elements in this that i thought were fascinating in terms of like is this a reset for the tom holland character are we moving to from peter to miles something else but like very quickly on the stingers because we should talk about what we think will happen next with the little bit of venom goop being left behind yes i think you're right sean i could just come into play with with spider-Man because of the relationship between those characters. I did wonder if, this might just be too much of a reach. I did wonder if because of the connection from Venom, the symbiotes to Null, the creator of the symbiotes

and that whole aspect of canon and the Necrosword, the All Black, which is going to be a part of the next Thor movie, Love and Thunder, because Gore the God Butcher is the main villain in that film, and Gorr wields the Necrosword. Played by Christian Bale Amanda, the character that... If anyone has not read that comic line, it is definitely worth reading the Jason Aaron Gorr the God Butcher line. It is tremendously good. So I wonder if that will connect

in some way, but I don't know. Maybe that's just too much to do. The Doctor Strange trailer, I thought, was very enticing, obviously. A lot of Wanda in that. We got to see America Chavez. We see Shuma Gorith. My main takeaway from that is that people are going to want to watch episode four of What If,

the Doctor Strange, Strange Supreme episode of What If before seeing that movie. It seems like some aspects of that are going to port directly over. By far the funniest part of my whole viewing experience of Spider-Man No Way Home was Amanda turning to me during the Doctor Strange trailer and saying, oh, Rachel McAdams was in Doctor Strange? That was pretty incredible and plays a significant part in what now is describing.

The other thing I just wanted to say, great house that Wanda's living in. That was my main takeaway from the trailer. i don't know about the magic stuff man i i don't know what to tell you the mystic arts are great i like harry potter knows how to use the sling ring now maybe i think um uh one of the things that steve allman said after is oh are they gonna do like strange academy with Ned? Which, again, all of this stuff connects because there's a way to read the end of this clearly. Whether

you're incorporating Tom Holland's GQ interview or just looking at the movie as this is the conclusion. He's having a hard time. Right. This is the conclusion for these characters. But then there are so many elements not just for Spider-Man but for Ned and MJ and Flash and everyone else where it it's like, how could these characters not be in future MCU movies? But will the deployment be in the MCU? Will it be in Sony? Will we see Peter again? Will it be Miles as the next live-action Spider-Man? Will it be both? I mean, Amy Pascal, the quick summation is that she basically said in that Fandango interview in late November, we're already working on more movies with Marvel.

We're going to keep making Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. And then I believe the most recent comment at the red carpet premiere, which was this Monday, December 13th, did an interview with Variety. And she said, as long as he wants to make Spider-Man movies, we will make Spider-Man movies. So, you know, walking that back, literally said, don't get me in trouble again. If I have my way, we will in terms of making more of these. So they want to keep making more of these. And I think, you know, Sean, it was interesting when you said earlier, like Sony's making Disney money. That's true, but I would argue it's almost more the opposite. The MCU and Disney have helped make Sony's movies relevant and successful again and have allowed them to build more on their own

because of what is happening inside of the MCU. So why would all parties not be invested in keeping this going? It's all about relationships. This has been a real relationship connector here. Someone here is Ned, someone here is connector here someone here is ned someone here is peter someone here is mj on this podcast i have built a lot of star wars lego sets so i'm ned i think i think that's fair to say dobbins that makes you parker that makes me zendaya okay that's great mal you're going to be breaking this movie down in much deeper and emotional terms on the ringer verse next week with joanna I encourage people to check that out. Let's,

let's wrap it up here. This has been a lot of fun. This is a wonderful movie. We all three of us highly recommend it. Yeah. What a delight. Now let's go to my conversation with Tommy Oliver. Delighted to be joined by Tommy Oliver.

Tommy, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. Good to see you. Let's talk about Juice WRLD. Before you started on this project, what did you know about Juice WRLD? I knew a couple songs. I knew that the songs were pretty interesting. There was a good amount of emotion and there was something to them because they were catchy.

And sort of like Ski Mask said at the end of the doc, we're just like, y'all just started hearing about Juice and you don't remember when you did. And so for me, it was kind of that. It was just, I looked up and at one point it was just kind of pervasive. But I didn't know much about him. I just knew his music. So, you know, you'd think with such a short career that there would not necessarily be all this existing material about him. There wouldn't be necessarily a ton to pull from. But I know that that was not really the case. So what happened?

How did you come upon this archive? And then what did you do with that archive? So it was a really interesting, weird, awkward start. So I directed a doc called 40 Years a Prisoner, which was at Toronto. And I don't know who, maybe it was Noah, but somebody from the Ringer saw it and they reached out to my company. They wanted to do a meeting, which I believe was characterized as a general. Bill wasn't listed on the invite. And so we're on this call and it's maybe four folks from my team, four folks from the Ringer squad. And we're talking about 60 seconds and Bill jumps on.

Okay, cool. We're talking for maybe the next five minutes or so, still mostly generally. And then it gets really awkward because again, I'm on this thing with my team and Bill proceeds to pitch me for the next 20 minutes on why I should make this talk. And it was simultaneously flattering and incredibly awkward. And so I was like, well, let me think about it. Let me go off. Let me do some research. Let me really dig in because to your point, I didn't know much about him. I didn't know much about like how this story could be told. And I knew that I didn't want to just do something just to do it. I don't want to do just the typical sort of music thing.

And so I went off and did some research and did some research and did some research because I'm kind of a research junkie. And there were a lot of things that sort of rose to the top at that point that made me realize that there was very likely a story worth telling. I didn't know at that point what it would be, but I knew that there was something really special about him that was worth continuing the conversation for. What did you first discover that kind of got you excited about spending more time in that world? I think the first thing was his vulnerability. In this industry, in the music industry, in rap, you have this whole idea of people being so macho or fake macho and they don't talk about their emotions. They don't talk about what they're actually going through. And he laid it all bare. It was all there for anyone to see with all

concern for how it was going to be received. And that was really incredible and needed. And the part of the reason why he was and continues to be so resonant and so that was a huge part of it for me so what do you do you've done your research you you've agreed to do the film well in between that i had a zoom with his mother which was a very important part of it. And his mom and I, we connected really early on. And I think one of the things that for me mattered, I think it mattered for her as well, was that my mother was addicted to drugs from the time I was four until 10.

And so having gone through this firsthand, there was just an understanding. And it, I don't know, it was just something that mattered for both of us. Was she cautious when you first spoke? I mean, how did she receive you? She was definitely cautious in the beginning. But for me, my whole thing was,

which I told her was that I wanted to tell an honest accurate story about him about what happened about what he went through that was it there was no agenda there was no anything I just wanted to tell an accurate story about him and I wanted to make sure that it was representative of who he was. And that coupled with the fact that I'd gone through something that was related, I think helped out a lot. Did you start connecting with other people in his life at that point? Or did you start looking at the footage that was existing? What was the process like there i got dumped a hard drive with 8 000 clips and i don't know 250 hours of footage which was just insane and we had to figure out a how to create a process to actually

go through all of it because and this was january of this year, January of 2021. And HBO was like, Hey, we'd like this. And we'd like this to air December of this year. And it was like, uh, I said, no, I said, no. They were like, okay, okay, okay. And they came back a couple of weeks later and were like, so look, like if it's possible, like we're not pushing, but it's like, you know, if we could get December, it'll be great. And I was like, let me see what we can do. And, and so we've tried to create a system to be able to understand what was there to categorize stuff, to rate stuff, to figure out how we could start moving. And at the same time, we started to reach out.

And so myself and my head of docs, who's a producer on the film, Keith Giannette, started to really dig into it. And the grade A folks were really integral in the process as well. And so one of the first people we wound up talking to was Bibby. And we talked to, I don't know, probably 30 people over the coming months and just trying to really understand what was happening. And then as things evolved, as we started to go deeper and deeper into the archive, I remember I didn't know if it was possible to tell the story through the archival or how much of it we would use at all. And as we got into it,

I realized that there was a potential to lean very heavily into the archival, which would allow for the story to be told as much as possible through his own voice. So that became the challenge. Was there a clip or a moment that you saw that unlocked the structure of the film? Because it's highly unusual for a documentary, the approach that you've taken. Did you see one thing or was it just an accumulation of moments that you saw that you thought could make it work? It wasn't one thing. It was an accumulation. It was seeing so many different things and not wanting to tell the audience how to feel about that thing. Because Juice, if you look at and listen to the opening freestyle, he tells you

everything you need to know about his life, about the film, about what's going on, about what he's struggling with. It's all there laid bare. And in a way his freestyles and his music wound up serving as his sit down interviews where he told you what was in his head. He told you what was in his head. He told you what was going on. And so once Ianeity that he has, but also turning these things out that seem fully formed. Like, what was it like watching him make his art and then trying to find a way to communicate that in a story about how he makes his art? So, two things. Watching that and going through the footage and listening to what he was saying, it became very emotional. It's sort of like reading somebody's diary who's passed away and you get inside their head, you get to see all these things. And not somebody who was a terrible person, somebody who was a really sweet, genuine, kind person.

And it was hard because you know that you're never going to be able to have a conversation with this person. You're never going to see this person in the flesh. And it was really hard. And then trying to figure out the right way to convey an incredibly complex person with a lot going on was a challenge. And I know it seems like a bit of a non-answer, but for me, it was really just trying to figure out how to get out of the way. Like, how do I structure this so that he is as present as possible so that he is telling you what's going on so that he's telling you what's in his head so that he's expressing all of, all of what's happening. And, and so that you're seeing it. And so like, you talk about the drugs, you talk about these other things. It's not me saying that,

oh, well, the drugs are doing this or the drugs are a part of this or whatever it may be. It's just him. It's just him. And it's for you to make your own determination how that played out in his life or for somebody else instead of me making that decision to sort of

tell you what you should be thinking about it. Really interesting aspect of the film is I think it's understood that some artists, some people just in your life struggle with drugs or have a relationship to drugs on an ongoing basis, but we very rarely see a famous person actually using. And the film is kind of fearless in showing what his relationship was to this stuff. What was it like to make the decision to show that in such a raw way? Did you consider maybe not doing it that way? What kind of pushback did you get?

What was that experience like? I don't think it benefits anybody to sugarcoat stuff I don't think it benefits him, I don't think it benefits people who are struggling with things today or hopefully you know beyond

it but I wanted to show him for who he was and for how he was and for what happened and I think that that's all I know how to do and so was it hard abso-fucking-lutely it really was by the time you get to the plane sequence you love this kid you could have gone into this film having no idea who juice road was but by the time you get to that plane sequence you fucking love this kid and to see somebody do that that you love that you know was such a good person it's hard but it's what he did and what he chose to have recorded why do you think he you see a lot of musicians nowadays being followed around

by cameras all the time but did you was there a reason did you get a sense why he was trying to capture all of these moments why these 250 hours? Was he going to make his version of this film? Was it just something he'd put on a YouTube channel? Like what was the purpose of all that footage? I think it was a couple of things. I think it was, I know sometimes just kind of a fun thing to do. Sometimes it was the idea of a vlog. Sometimes it was maybe we would do a documentary, but I think there was also a sense of documenting for posterity. And Bibby talked about this in his music, how he talked about death a lot. How he talked about he didn't expect to, he like you know what's the 27 club we're not gonna make it past 21 and when you are living your life fast fast fast when you are going through all

these things that there is an importance to it and we would have never known i remember bill asked me how come nobody thinks about him like kirk obame and my answer to him was because they haven't seen the film yet and that's truth and so i think that you can you can like his music, you can like what you've seen, but most people have no idea. I had no idea how unbelievably talented he was and how he operated. And like his vulnerability in his music, he was vulnerable on camera. And so I can only suspect that it's related, just his willingness to be who he is. And if it helps people, great. Even though the film is not dependent on typical talking head interviews,

you do sort of open the film with some voices and then close the film to sort of tie in the story with some voices. Obviously, he's passed. So these are difficult conversations to have. How did you kind of cast which voices you wanted to hear in the story with some voices. Obviously, he's passed, so these are difficult conversations to have. How did you kind of cast which voices you wanted to hear in the film, and how did you find them when you had to ask them difficult questions?

So the whole idea, and this was born out of wanting this to be his film and his voice, was that the only people you see doing sit-down interviews are the people people you see doing sit down interviews are the people that you see in the archival are the people who were in his life during the time that we we see and so that was our pull if we didn't see them in that time we didn't interview them and because of that these were people who knew him who spent a lot of time with him, who were around for the last year and a half.

And the conversations, they ranged quite a bit. Most of them were emotional. And I remember Cole Bennett talking about how he called it therapy. He was like, I hadn't spoken about juice in this way. And I don't know since his passing. And so to be able to just talk about it, like I went in without an agenda. It wasn't, Hey,

I need this soundbite from him. And so you, we've got to talk about only this. It was, talk to me about juice. Talk to me about the, the first time you remember meeting him. Talk to me about the, to me about the The first time you remember Meeting him

Talk to me about the Your journey with him Talk to me about The things that Pop into your head And it was just a conversation And I think because of that They just got to

Reminisce about somebody that They loved Is that an approach you take In other documentaries too Or do you Did you want to do it this way for this specific setting? I don't believe in fitting a process into something. I believe it should be malleable.

It's like whatever makes the most sense. And with this one, it's what felt right. It's what felt the most respectful. It's what felt like it would produce the most interesting content. And it's what felt right. Was there ever anything that you wish you could have shown in the film that was not available to you as you were trying to piece the story together? Did you think, oh, we're missing this chain, this link in the chain somehow?

Yeah. Like what? Absolutely. And so the gift and the curse of telling the story primarily through the archival is that if it's not in the archival, then we can't tell it. And I very much appreciate Chris Long and Steve Cannon for the treasure trove that they gave us, but because they weren't shooting for a doc, there was a lot of stuff that was entirely unusable.

There was stuff that it just was really frustrating because it would be this incredibly interesting nugget, but all of a sudden the camera would pan away or we couldn't hear it because it was garbled or it was out of focus. And so we couldn't use it. What is that like? Do you feel like the storytelling is incomplete or is it just that this is what we have and this is all that we can share with you but then how do you kind of account for that and the telling of their life did anybody from grade a say well what about this or why isn't it going in this direction

no i mean it was it's hard because it's it's not a scripted film where you can include exactly what you want and we have to work with what we're given and so I think that if I thought overall it significantly compromised the film then I would have figured out another way and so is it important yes but there were lots of things that were important like he won best new artist at the the bill. And so we didn't put that in. There were like, there were so many moments because you're looking at somebody's life over 18 months and you can't tell everything. You can't tell every single thing that happens.

And so my job becomes trying to figure out how to make sure that there's enough connective tissue and that you understand the players and the pieces in a way without it becoming point out that from a numbers perspective, he is essentially, if not on par, very close to the Drakes and the Taylor Swift of the world. The listenership of his songs is insane. Look, the Spotify numbers just dropped and he's number three in the U.S. this year behind Drake and Taylor Swift. And that's before his album drops. So since he's passed, obviously, he does, in addition to all of this archival footage that you worked with on the film, he clearly has recorded so much music that is in the archives

and is still being released and that is contributing to that. But still, this is an extraordinary amount of listenership and i'll just say like for people in my life some of the people who are younger than me like juice world but i i'm i'm kind of routinely blown away by the way his legacy has grown and grown and grown and i'm curious like when you tell people you're working on a film about him like what kind of a reaction are you getting did you get a bigger sense of where he sits in the culture as you worked on the project? I did. I think there are people who are, I don't know, maybe mid thirties and up. There's a group of them who have never heard of Juice WRLD. And then you play a song

or so, Oh yeah, I've heard that song, but they, they couldn't tell you, you know you who he was. And then there's this other group who, for them, Juice WRLD is everything. And I don't think I fully understood just how important he was to them and is to them. I remember the day before our premiere at AFI, I was at an event and we're just talking. And I think my wife mentioned that we were having our premiere tomorrow and the person asked for, for what? And I said, juice world. And he just flipped out, flipped out, show me his phone. His screensaver was Juice WRLD. He opened up the phone. His page behind the apps was Juice WRLD. He opened up his Spotify, Juice WRLD, Juice WRLD, Juice WRLD, Juice WRLD, Juice WRLD.

And he told me a story about how Juice WRLD basically saved his life. And it was, it was incredible. It was incredible because it was, the Juice WRLD community is what it is for a reason. To have somebody who was vulnerable, who wasn't afraid to talk about the things that he was going through, to allow them to be seen or heard through him was incredible. And so I really didn't understand just how massive it was and how important he was to them until I got into it. Again, I kind of knew, but I really didn't know.

What do you hope that people like that person that you encountered take away from the film? What do you want their experience with the movie to be? So I invited him to the premiere. Oh. And he was so happy. Like he was so happy that he got to see somebody who meant so much to him and so that he could understand more about this person

and so they could spend more time with this person and and see his process and to see how good of a person he he was and so for me I think it's very much about Juice was, he's one of the greatest artists of all time. He is the GOAT freestyler. And he's also, he was an incredible person who went out of his way to make sure that he told tens of thousands at his performances to follow their dreams, to do what's important to them as a 19-year-old kid or a 20-year-old kid. And so I think seeing how incredibly talented he was and how good of a person he was, those two things are just really atypical. Did you come to any conclusions about how those two things coexisted? That he was someone who was very clearly struggling with some things and finding ways to cope, but also had this unusual kind of motivational speaker quality,

this sort of deeply sincere approach to communicating with his fans and talking about his journey, showing him visiting a school at one point in the film. And in virtually every song, he, you know, he has a sense of humor and he's kind of sly and clever, but also is willing to look right at you and be like, you can do it. You know, it's, it's an unusual cocktail. I feel like for, for a young person, for an artist in this space. Like, how did those things fit together? I wish I had an answer beyond, you know, it was just juice. It was just Jared.

And he, his mom was a huge influence in her being a good person and her making sure that she tried to impart strong values on him, his upbringing, where he listened to all types of music and just, I don't know. He was just a good fucking person. Like he really was like, he was a good person who happened to have unbelievable talent. And so I wish I could say more, but it's just, he was a, a special one. And I love McCone and says it. It was like, there's just something about him and he, he wasn't normal.mmy we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing that they have seen have you seen anything good lately unfortunately i haven't seen a lot but and i know that you liked it but had mixed feelings but

dune i liked it i liked it a Yeah. I thought Dune was a masterpiece. Tell me what you liked about it. It was so wildly ambitious. And I think that ambition can sometimes be, everybody talks about wanting it, but when they see it, they're like, oh, that's not what I've, what I saw before. That's not exactly what I want, or that's not the way everything else is done, and then people are dinged for it. I thought Dune was from the very first frame ambitious and beautiful and insightful and nuanced and just strong, like from just incredible filmmaking and characters that you really care about. And if you think about it, the film ends with, we talked about very briefly earlier, the idea of the MCU.

And one of the big differences, MCU movies often end with giant fights. And, you know, there's this thing that comes up and there's a dragon and there's whatever else there is. The end of Dune was one-on-one. And the idea of this kid who had never taken a life, and this is what we end with, because even when you had, you you know large-scale war beforehand the importance of characters and individuals to be able to craft a movie where you can do that and you really care and it is satisfying even as part one in addition to the fact that you've got very strong female

characters who are not just there for the sake of plot or for the sake of whatever. I just thought it was fucking incredible. It's a great recommendation. Tommy, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. Thank you to Tommy Oliver. Don't forget to check out Juice WRLD Into the Abyss on HBO and HBO Max. Thank you to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. And of course, to Amanda and Mallory Rubin. Next week on The Big Picture, we're circling back to the Oscars, some high-profile releases, among them Aaron Sorkin's Being the Ricardos,

maybe some Nightmare Alley, maybe Red Rocket, maybe a few others. We'll see you then.