The Big Picture - The 15 Most Anticipated Movies Out of CinemaCon and Our Trip to the Sphere!

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

Sean and Amanda are joined by Puck’s Matt Belloni to recap their trip to the annual Hollywood Studio and theatrical exhibitor trade show CinemaCon! First, they break down their trip to Las Vegas and review their experience seeing ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at the Sphere (1:12). Then, they discuss the general state of movies in 2026 and share all of their main takeaways from CinemaCon (18:14). To close out the show, they each share their five most anticipated movies coming out of the event (54:21). Have a question for our 900th episode mailbag? Email us at [e-mail] or call us at 323-488-3241 and leave a message! Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Matt Belloni Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about Cinemacon. Today on the show, we are discussing our visit to Las Vegas this week at the annual Hollywood studio and theatrical exhibit or trade show, CinemaCon. They showed us their big movies coming later this year and beyond. And we are breaking them all down today with the one and only Matt Bellany from the town podcast. Programming reminder, next week we will have our 900th episode of the Big Picture and we are doing a mega mailbag. So send your questions in now.

Big Pick Mailbag at gmail.com. What is that, Amanda? Big Pickmailbag at gmail.com. Or call us at 323-488-3-241. That's right. We're taking your voicemails to play on this episode. 3-2-3-488-3-241. Send us questions about movies, this show, Amanda's hair.

Anything is on the table. We'll get into CinemaCon right after this. This episode is brought to by Tell Us, online security. Hear me out. Tax season is now hack season. With most people filling taxes online these days, tax forms are now a one-stop shop

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Loops get closed. With ServiceNow, you can do the parts of your job you're best at and delegate the rest. To put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. Okay, Matt, welcome back. Thank you. I'm honored to be invited back. We were just in Vegas together for 72 hours. We not only survived, but I feel like we thrived this year.

We had a lovely trip. We forgot to take a photograph. So this is our official. And maybe Craig Horlebeck, producer Craig can come in later. And, you know, but here it is on Netflix. Yeah, hello, Vegas. Is this your Netflix debut? No, I've been in several little, not little, but I've been in documentaries before.

I'm in the Murdoch one that's on right now. Yeah, sure. So I pop up every now and that. But this is certainly the longest I've ever been on a Netflix show. Okay. So we'll see if they de-platform it or the algorithm will not be kind to this episode. Let's just say that. So you conquered Apple TV in 2025, Netflix in 26.

Hulu next year, maybe? Maybe. I've been on Hulu too. Okay. Wow. Yeah. A couple documentaries. But this is not, like, they're not ordering the shows for me.

I happen to be in the documentary that then gets bought by Hulu. Okay. So Vegas, you know, we did the usual. We stayed at Caesar's Palace, where a Sin Maconness typically held. Last year, we all... Fun fact, I did not stay at Cedars. Oh, wow. Also, also flexing on us. Seasers Palace is fine. I love it. I actually, for what it is, it's great. I'm fine with the $8 waters. I'm fine with the $20 cocktails, 25 at some point. But it's good because you know exactly where everything is. The parties are the same places. The Coliseum's a nice venue. So it's good. It's all very conquerable. You probably, you understand the mapping of the space now, right?

I do. It was nice to feel like an expert to know where to go. And also, as you learned, I have a great sense of direction. Yes, you do. It all spread out before me. I also got a great room. So shout out to Caesar's Palace. I was on the 45th floor.

I had a view of the Bellagio and the fountains, and I just did Oceans 11 every night before I went to bed. And you probably learned from your first year that the celebrity food hall is not where the celebrities go. No, it's not. Yeah. No, that's indicating whose names are on top of the restaurants. They're selling food. Yes, the celebrities in question are Bobby Flay, Daniel Ballou, those are celebrities.

So last year, the three of us and Craig went to go see David Copperfield. And that was entertaining. Things have changed for David Copperfield in the world at large. I would like to discuss that. We are not here to discuss that. I would like to point out that I did do some cursory research before we went last year. And I determined that he had not really been canceled. and there were some questions about his behavior.

Since then... He has been canceled. Yes. Though the ads for his show have not been removed from the Burbank Airport. So I would let the good people at Burbank know that they might want to bring those down. Okay. Well, Sphere is going strong right now. Not cancelations going there at all.

And, you know, Amanda and I have been talking for a long time, basically since it opened about our desire to go check it out and see it and understand it. I know you've talked about it before on the show. You were kind enough to help. us get in to go see the Wizard of Oz. Now, you'd already seen it. I had. We had not seen it before. So you went, you gambled.

I did, and I won. Yeah, congratulations. And I watched a little of the Dodger game, which was delightful. Please, not here. I'm not for you. I'm not for you. But I am very curious what you guys thought of this fear, because my opinion doesn't matter.

I'm not a professional podcaster when it comes to this kind of stuff. I want to know what you guys like. Well, real mixed back. mixed back. Real, mixed back for me. I had a feeling. Matt, I don't know if you know this,

but, you know, the Wizard of Oz, I often say is sort of like the critical movie experience in my young life. It's one of the very first movies that my mom showed me. And I probably watched it

100 times between the ages of three and 13. I think you're not alone. And that nostalgia has been effectively mined and exploited on a gigantic screen. Yes.

And, you know, we've seen it obviously in our world with Wicked and Wicked Part 2. Yeah. And so it's a very sacred text to me and we know that there's something unsacred about what's been done, its fear. What did you think?

Well, I would say that it was not just the desecration of our beloved childhood totem and also a cinema classic that I expected. But it was in many ways sort of a half-hearted desecration at best. It was both way too much and absolutely not enough. There is the practical experience of it. is that it's a combination of 40x and screen X. And a larger screen X experience than most theaters can... Yes, you're surrounded by screen.

Yes. Though, I will say, not as much screen as I expected. Craig and I noted as we were walking in, I thought the sphere was like a 180 experience. I did. Yes. Well, how did you... Well, I didn't think through it, Matt.

You know, I saw the photographs of the sphere from the outside. I saw Timothy Shalamee sitting on top of it. I thought, okay, so when I get inside, it will be what is on the outside, but on the inside. But they have to put the audience somewhere. Well, yes. I thought perhaps it was like a theater in the round experience. Sure. Like the old, I don't know if you went to Disneyland back in the day where they had like 360

thing. Yes. It'd come in front of you and then behind you. That's not this. This is roughly 240 degrees, 66%. Something like that. It is immersive. It's very immersive.

It is immersive. But so. It's an, before we even talk about the screen, like the space itself is beautiful. It's really organized. It was very easy to navigate. It's obviously a new space that they poured a ton of resources into it. And the screen itself is very impressive. But I also similarly thought we were going to be fully surrounded.

Yes. So you sit down and there's that moment when it lights up. And I think we all gasped. We were like, ooh, because it's exciting. And it's unlike something you've seen, even though it does have the architecture of the screen X, wide experience. and the 40X effects and movement.

And to be clear, you had had a Wizard of Oz themed margarita. Yes. Well, you can take them in. So I was halfway through the margarita at that point. I had a cone a big wave. But also on a pretty empty stomach just because of how the day worked out. So I was feeling good. I was happy to be there.

So to go back to the 40X, there are effects. but really just the tornado. They go big on the tornado, which is in the first 10 minutes in this edited version. Yeah, the early black and white segment of the film is very trunkey. You can see there are a lot of hard cuts.

Some of the awkwardness of the experience is just knowing explicitly where the cuts are and there being some, I don't know, discomfort with the way that they're cutting the movie, but they kind of dispense with a lot of the setup of the film and it gets very quickly to the tornado.

Now, I thought the tornado, sequence was fucking incredible. It is worth the price of admission. It's very cool. It's a very original conception. It is 40x, but it's not that your chair is shaking around and moving. It's that wind is blowing at you. It's that they have cut up leaves and they are shooting them into the sky.

And that immersive screen, it really overwhelms you. I mean, it's a very... And the haptics match. Like, it's all done really well. It's great. I felt like I was in a Beyonce video for a little bit. You have my hair blowing back. It was great.

Yeah. So that part of it is very, very. very fun. Unfortunately, it does come just a little bit too early in the experience because the rest of the film unfolds and there's a lot that is awkward and a little ugly about it at times. And then there are some other things that are compelling and a unique use of the space, but... But not really. That is the one big set piece. And so then the rest of it, which is, you know, about another hour is still awkwardly edited, you know, sped up and deeply disorienting and off-putting visual experience because...

You think so, really? Yes. I got a lot of the stuff in Oz and the musical sequences and when, you know, the munchkins show up. I thought that was pretty fun. The disconnect between the old footage, the actual Wizard of Oz footage and Judy Garland and the scarecrow and the Tinman and they're using, they're using. And whatever, quote unquote, restoration, upgrade enhancement, like AI,

CGI SLOP, you know, I can't tell you the 45 things that they did. But, like, I could tell you what was from the original movie. And I could tell you what were, like, the weird poppies that they drew on. I agree. The naked I can pretty much identify what's been changed. And I found myself looking around at different things to try to evaluate. And if you look closely, you can see faces that aren't there. You can see a lot of things.

Yeah. And you can even see, you know, they did something to the yellow brick road to try to make it, you know, yellower, I guess, and it's more exciting. And but then so like Dorothy's feet don't actually touch the yellow brick road when she is, she's dancing. And this is at such a scale that I, I didn't have to squint, you know? It was right there and I was like, those feet are floating on the yellow brick road. Like, for me, I first saw a film on TV, probably on a 24 inch screen on VHS.

So imperfections in the production of the original movie, you never would be able to pick up on that stuff. in an attempt to kind of upscale this image and to have a movie projected at that size is really challenging, even if it's a clean print and it looks great and the original film is perfect. So I think it's just maybe we're moving in some sort of evolution of how these things

are going to be changed over time, but the movie is, you know, 85 years old. And so there are already a lot of imperfections and that became part of its charm over time. In an effort to kind of fix some of those things, I think they did a little bit of a messy job. And then there's like something, else about the like matte paintings in the Wizard of Oz is like great craftsmanship in old

school studio Hollywood and something like this attempts to just kind of erase that stuff you know it's kind of painting over it with this new technology that being said like I and I knew I wasn't really going to click with it because I'm very dubious of changing something like this I figure yeah I do think that the venue itself and the experience makes a lot of sense and I wish we'd seen a concert there. I think a concert there would be so fun. They're great. I saw you too. Great. Yeah. And I would have none of these these like preconceptions about what I'm supposed to be looking at and how I'm supposed to understand it. And honestly, I said to you, if you, I asked you if you'd seen the Aronovsky film that he made for the format because I would like to see something made exclusively for that room. Instead of something that they're trying to convert and in doing so, I think chopping it down to your point made it feel, it actually made it feel too long. Like, you know, because of the way that the seats are oriented, because of the way that you're absorbing the movie, because the lights are up for most of the film, which is very strange.

But for roughly 70% of the movie, the lights are on. Right. And you can see the screen clearly. It doesn't affect that ability, but it doesn't feel like you're sitting in a movie theater. Yeah. It feels like you're sitting in someone's a tourist attraction. And for me, it works on that level. Yes.

Like, you took home an apple. There are apples that fall out of the sky at some point. Yeah. Which is, I thought that was fun. It was cool. The monkeys, not as much. They don't have that locked down. It actually felt like 80s Disneyland.

Yes, exactly. But as a stunt, like I always look at this stuff from a business perspective. The numbers on it are very good. Yeah. It was about a third full. I would say it was maybe half full. Yeah, when we saw it. You think less than half?

I think it was less than half. But they're making money. And my question to you guys is, does this make you want to see another beloved movie in this format? Well, it was interesting. We went with your colleague with Craig, producer Craig and your colleague, Alex Biggler and the minute it went up, the movie started, Alex said, I'm just thinking of other movies that I would want to see in this format. Titanic, but just the sinking.

Yeah. No, that would be great. Or, I mean, not the big gym would ever allow that. Yeah. But if he did, I would be in. Yeah. I think that I am with Sean that I would rather see, like, movies made for that format. Because in addition to the ugliness of trying to make this old movie and its imperfections fit on a large screen, there was a very funny disconnect on the margins where they clearly had to like expand the frame.

And so then it was someone's like interpretation of a mid-century modern light fixture, but like through the prism of Oz over here on the side because you just you need extra stuff for that screen. So, but then you think about like Star Wars, you know, and you're just imagining the ship going over it and you're like, yeah, that seems. They want Star Wars. They want E.T. They want Jurassic Park. Like, you can, you know what they want. Oh, my God, the dinosaurs. I would be excited. To me, it's just about what are you doing to the original film, you know?

Like, you just named three of the most iconic movies of the 20th century and three movies that changed movies. Yeah. And three movies that people have as deep a relationship to as they do the Wizard of Oz. So I think you use the phrase. tourist attraction that obviously is what it is. You know, you tickets are expensive. You wait online to get in. You're seated as though you're going to a concert, not as though you're going to a movie.

And you have to go in knowing that. If you're going as like a sinniest, it's more of a negotiation with yourself, I think. We were not behaving as good filmgoers throughout the experience. And I think some of that is because I had had half of a wicked margarita on an empty stomach, excuse me, Wiser Vaz Margarita

on an empty stomach, but also because the lights are up and because it is, such a different setting than a movie theater setting. Well, I know, but, you know, but there is a little bit of tension with us. Like, I would never be taking reaction shots of Sean watching any other movie during a movie, even though it was content gold. So. But it was as though we were seeing Fish and Fish was playing two nights later.

So, you know, so that is interesting when you think about, like, other, if you're bringing classic movies, we're not really treating them as a movie experience, even as an audience. in that setting. You just interviewed Spielberg. Do you think he'd be down for this? I don't know. I mean, he obviously has a big relationship with the Universal Parks.

There was an E.T. ride for many years. He's done stuff with them on that front. I mean, I can't speak for him. He's obviously done a lot of things that have evolved the experience of movie culture. But they don't touch the movie themselves. That's what I was going to say. I find it hard to believe

that any living artists would be on board with this unless they engineered it themselves and were actively interested. Like obviously George Lucas changed Star Wars movies, yes. Spielberg has done that before and has said he's regretted it when he's done it before.

For example, the guns in E.T. That's something he's talked about in the past. The idea of cutting ET down by 45 minutes just seems anathema to what that film's supposed to be. So I just, I find that hard to believe. But, you know, look, we're about to talk about the state of movies and movie theaters and things are

going to have to keep changing for the business to stay afloat. This is like a pathway. I mean, does this go into box office receipts on the year? These tickets sales? No, no, no. It doesn't. Shouldn't it?

Maybe. I mean, this is theatrical exhibition. I know. It is. At a premium rate. Yeah. But we did not behave as, and we did not experience it. That's not in a contract of going to see movie theaters.

I think they should go the other way. I think that if you're going to do Star Wars or Jurassic Park, get a live orchestra in there playing the music as loud as you possibly can really turn it into an eventized experience. Well, COVID-Bowl does that. Yeah, exactly. I know. Very popular and 15,000 people show up with their lightsaber. I need them to start it before 8 o'clock so I can take my son. But anyway, but I think that the blueprint of the sphere is to be more event and touristy and less.

Yeah, but they do need content to fill this place. Right. Which is, but that's also, as we learned, the blueprint for every single theater. Yeah. Certainly is how eventy and stunty can you be. Yeah, that's true. unlike sitting in a dark room and not talking. Over the next 20 years, I think there will be like a kind of slow convergence or evolution

where they're both kind of moving in each other's direction. Because you can see, we heard a lot about PLFs and the formats of the movie theaters are pushing towards. This is in the same conversation. And someone's going to make a 90-minute narrative feature film for this format. Right. Well, and the plan is to have spheres all over the world where just like Beyonce could play spheres and have her visual show played all of them. they could have this or whatever movie if Spielberg says yes, play for a month at each of them

or play at the same time at each of them. Yeah. And, you know, the next one is going to be outside of D.C. and others around the world. So maybe it'll happen. Okay. Well, thank you for helping us get in there. Yeah.

It was an interesting experience. I have a spear guy. You have a spear guy. Yeah. Thank you to the sphere guy. Thanks for coming to dinner afterwards. It was fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about cinema con and the state of movies in general. Attendance and ticket sales and box office receipts are all up this year. They are about 20%. And before this past weekend, which had a bad comp with Minecraft last year, it was up like 23, 24%. Right.

So we thought maybe people would be coming in in a positive mood. Did you, was that, what did you sense? How was everybody feeling in the world of Hollywood exhibition? To me, I sensed dissociation. I was, it was kind of a let's just focus on. what we're doing here right now because this year so far is strong. And I think what we saw broadly across the studio slates is like more sure bets than last year. And so for right now, for the immediate future, everyone is feeling good. And if you think more than six months ahead of

time, then things get really, really dicey, really, really fast. So it seemed like on both sides, both the studios and the exhibitors, at least what was being presented, right? At least what was, you know, for show was just a very short-term thinking. How about that? Yeah, well, I talked to a lot of the exhibitors and a lot of the executives. They are optimistic. This was definitely the best mood I have seen at Cinemicon since I started going, and that was a long time ago. Certainly pre-COVID.

Like, since COVID, it has been like the, you know, beaten up stepchild. These executives, they just don't know what's going to hit them next. And it was not just COVID. It was the studios pivoting to streaming. And it was all the different changes to the model and the windows and all that stuff that we talk about on the town. And I think that there was cautious optimism this year. And these theaters, they don't have the luxury of thinking five years down the road.

They are trying to not go bankrupt this year. And many of them believe they, will survive this year now. Yeah, it's interesting. So the group of people that are there, this is increasingly, I would say, a press-friendly event, and it's meant to generate a lot of hype coming out of it. It used to not be. I know.

It used to be very press, unfriendly. Since I've been going, it has gotten dramatically more friendly to the press. But, you know, it really is meant to be there for, and, you know, not just AMC and Regal on the chains that you know about, but a lot of independent theater owners, a lot of small consortiums of theater groups. A lot of, you know, a legendary Canadian exhibitor was honored when we were there. That's the thing is there's a lot of time spent talking about the people who run the theaters. And they have a propaganda video that goes along with it.

Yeah. Yes. Some of it is charming. Some of it's very boring. But it's like we are attending the most high touch star-laden Plumbers convention in the world. I mean, that's really what it is. And it's a very nice event. It's very well run.

But it's like going to a trade show. And then all of a sudden the rock comes out. Yes, exactly. Or Tom Cruise. Or Tom Cruise. You know, the most famous people in the world attending this trade show. Oh, holy shit, that's Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, like standing next to each other. Here's Tom Hanks, standing next to Tim Allen.

Over and over again, this year, the Star Power was high. Oh, yeah. But there is also, there is a lot of actual trade show stuff and panels and things happening. You hosted two. There are a lot of things about, you know, popcorn machines and movie theater carpeting. No, I haven't. You guys need to walk the trade show. Oh, I've walked the trade show before.

The flavors of nachos that are available, unbelievable. You needed that before your margarita. Well, I know. I needed the Cheetos popcorn that I've seen at the theaters but still have not tried. Yeah, like the taste test coming soon. Varying shades of carpets. Yes. And things like that.

But so all of that is happening in, you know, individual ballrooms and beyond the main stage presentations that we're seeing. And then obviously also there are lots of meetings and people talking. And Matt has a lot of reporting on the, the machinations behind. the scenes, which feels like where a lot of the real conversations and a lot of the power is concentrated. And then, you know, we get Investor Day presentations. And they have that feeling of what is being shown to the world and also what is being studiously avoided at all times. But to Sean's point, the press is a big component of that now. Yes. Pre-social media, pre-video

streaming, all of it. it really was for the theater owners. And they would feel free to show them stuff that they weren't going to debut in months. Now, you have to be so careful with what you show and who you showcase because you know that this is the first time that the narrative is being created around it. Like, there is now a narrative around the Tom Cruise movie

because we have seen what, even though they released nothing, public has not seen Tom Cruise. Only we have seen it. Only we have seen it. But that was never a factor. And the amount of press, and now, like, there's rumors that the studios are flying in influencers to be there. Like, we heard some people. You could tell based on where we were sitting.

There were people that were going absolutely nuts for an evil dead reference and, like, things that you're like, what? Yep. And that was never the case before. Yes. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, per se. In fact, it probably behooves them to keep exposing more and more people to some of this stuff to keep building word of mouth. The thing is, there's a real distortion effect because when you invite people whose job it is

to cover only Marvel, when you launch a trailer inside of a room for people who only care about Marvel, you're obviously going to get overstated enthusiasm for certain things. It's a good strategy, but it's just not an honest representation of how the public at large will understand it.

And what I used to like about CinemaCon is that it was a tough room. Like, these were not people that stood up and applauded for every trailer. They were like, okay, is this going to be commercial? Is this going to film my theater? And it's sort of like, it's merging with Comic-Con a little bit

in that these fans are there at with the express purpose of promoting the content. And it's taking away a little bit of the objectivity and the stuff that I like, which was really the ability to evaluate. Right. Hopefully we'll be able to do some of that here. We're also going to do an episode of The Town together. And when we do that, we will go through each studio presentation, bit, you know, section by section and talk about what we thought worked well. But for this conversation, I at least wanted to know who you guys feel like is best positioned right now and maybe who's in a bit of a tough spot out of the six majors who presented.

Right. Who would you rather be? If you were the head of one of the studios this year, who would you want? With the understanding that we're on the brink of consolidation between Warner Brothers and Paramount, of course. Sure. Yeah. Well, I mean, that I don't want to be either of those people. And I think that even though, you know, Pam Abdi and Mike DeLuca came out and did a victory tour. And that was a major part of their presentation.

You rarely see the mention of Oscars. They went on and on about all their Oscar nominations. Many times. Do not give a shit about Oscar nominations. If you are not filling their theaters, like they hated Enora. Yeah. They thought Inorra was garbage because it didn't do any business. Yeah.

That's a good point. Right. So, you know, they won Oscars and Congress. congratulations to Mike and Pam. They're very good at their jobs. But I think that for many reasons, I would prefer to be Donna Langley right now, which I think what's interesting is that we would have said that before we even saw the presentations, right? Some of it is just what is on the schedule and how guaranteed. And they have a Stevens Bilberg movie and a Christopher Nolan movie coming out this summer, plus the Minions movie, plus, you know, plenty of other, plus Super Mario.

which so they're doing fine. Donna Langley also came out to God Save the Queen. She did. She is a dame. I know that she is damed Donna Langley. So, you know, that seems fun. Just if we're choosing to be people. But, you know, Universal has its own strategy, is not in the merger game, has figured out

the balance between franchises and big name directors. And not just Oteurs, but Oter's who put butts in seats. Yeah. So, and it is their year. Last year's Universal Slate, they had the second Wicked sequel, but much of it was just like wait till 2027. They were vamping a little. They brought their full orchestra to the stage. You know, and I enjoyed that from a showmanship perspective, but this is the year where they're just like, here are our goods.

Like, we've got it. Yeah. I think they're in generally a good spot because it's just a very smartly, creatively led company. Yeah. But they're also in a tricky spot. They're not as big as Disney, and they're about to be a lot smaller than Warner Paramount, and they can't compete with specifically what Netflix does. So it's unusual.

Like, they're going to have to jump from LilyPad to LilyPad if they're going to keep playing the director-led Christopher Nolan game. There's only one Christopher Nolan. Right. Maybe DeNiville Neville is coming up behind him as another brand name who's under 70 years old that can do that. But it's few and far between. You've got to be really, really savvy.

They have Jordan Peel. They have Jordan Peel. And now they're trying to do with the Daniels. Yeah. And nobody believes in that idea more than I do. That's my favorite thing. So I'm pumped that they're doing that. But it's going to be hard to consistently nail it.

I just think for our show, Universal is that makes a lot of sense. I get it. You asked who I want to be. And also that's part of the thing where it's, you're saying that the theater owners are only thinking short term. There was a, so for this year on that stage,

that seemed like the strongest position. But to your point, you know, what we know about 2027 and 2020, will be an interesting discussion. Well, Universal has Shrek 5 in 27. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to pre-draft or my next-term draft, but like that is a consensus number one.

Are you personally a Shrek person? No. I don't know what that means. Well, let's start with this. Have you seen the films Shrek, Shrek 2? You've seen them all, even Shrek 4? I believe so. Wow.

Okay. I like them. In fact, I distinctly remember seeing Shrek 2 in the theater and loving it. So I would like to let you know you are officially a Shrek person. Can we have, like, Matt Bellany, Shrek person here on the Chiron? But isn't there, like, a weird, like, fetish community around Shrek? He's become this, like, icon. Well, I...

Let's be careful with fetish. Yeah, I think that it's to a younger generation. He's a millennial icon. I think he's more cussed millennial Gen Z. I think young millennial. I think young millennial. Okay, so we're... And we're counting...

So when Bobby Wagner, his parting gift to us was making us watch Shrek 2, I believe. Which is hilarious. It was, yeah, it's funny. Some of the references are dated now, because it's very much of the moment. Listen, I saw Shrek in theaters. I remember, you know, the donkey. It's good stuff.

I don't think I've seen all four. Also, I love the industry narrative behind Shrek is still amazing. The fact that Jeffrey Katzenberg gets fired by Disney, has to sue them for money. And what does he do? He goes and creates an animation company. And not their first, but one of their first movies was a movie where the King is a tiny guy just like Michael Eisner, and he is power mad, and he uses all the fairy tale characters that Disney has dined out on for decades, and he kind of perverts them.

And then he goes and makes one of the biggest franchises of all time. Okay. You want to be universal. Who do you want to be? Disney. Yeah. I mean, as much as I would love you, for the purposes of this show, I get universal, but some of it's about lifestyle choices, you know?

It is. where I would rather be dealing with the minions. Yeah. And I want the Spielberg movie to work. Yeah. It is still a big risk. Even though we loved, we talked about, we love the new trailer and it's much better. It's still a risk.

Disney has come the closest to de-risking the movie business. Not certainly hasn't solved it and questions about some of their titles. But if you look at what they're doing, Toy Story 5 cannot miss. That is going to be gigantic. And I'm not just saying that because I have it number one in our draft. Okay, that was your first pick. It was my first pick for a reason because it is, if Zootopia 2 can do $1.9 billion, what can Toy Story 5 do? Yeah, and nothing that they showed us indicates that it's anything less than just a Toy Story movie.

And all the Toyser movies are good. They nail those movies. This one is a great idea. I cannot believe they have not had an iPad in these movies before. And it's going to be gigantic. think Moana looks like it's going to work. Not for me, but sure. No, but people see these movies.

But no one cares what we think. Exactly. That's fine. And Avengers. Hopefully just when it comes to Moana live action. I came, I was getting my daughter ready for school this morning. And I was like, okay, here's what I did this week. I watched clips from Toy Story 5, the Mandalorian and Grogo and Moana.

And her response was, can I go next time? So, you know. I know. I tried to explain CinemaCon to my 10-year-old. Very difficult. Yeah, it's weird. So you saw all... No, I didn't really see the movies.

I saw like 17 minutes of the Mandalorian movie. Yes. Oh, is it good? Yeah. It was good. Well, that's the thing about being Disney is... You know, I think their slate this year seems strong but very uninspiring creatively. Right.

And... I'm not judging the creativity. I'm judging the performance. Likely performance. And to your point about the derisking, it's just... It's been a trend over the last 15 years that they're engineering purposefully, a kind of loss of originality. It's really... like hopeful to me that hoppers worked.

Imagineering. Yeah. Imagining. Yes. Hoppers worked, but hoppers grows $350 million. That for Disney that's not enough. It's modest, yeah. I agree. Did you see Hoppers? I did and I liked it a lot. And people liked it who saw it. So like, I'm not

Hoppers is a success for them. It's going to do well and it's going to do well on Disney Plus and it will do great on Disney Plus and they may in five years be able to do another one which is the judge, you know. Just like we'll get in Conto too at some point but we didn't know We thought that was not a success in first. Yeah. Coco, too, is coming. There's still doing that stuff. So that's, I just feel like Disney is still the machine.

It's diminished. They don't have three Marvel movies this year. They have one. But it's going to be huge. I actually had to leave. I couldn't see the Avengers stuff. So maybe you're willingness to be Disney is that you didn't have to deal with all of the people cheering. And I didn't have to see the Avengers trailer twice.

Let's just talk about that right now. Because I think that's one of the most anticipated things coming out of this. Educate me. Amanda and I did see it. Twice. So during the Disney, the closing moments of the Disney presentation were Kevin Feigy was introduced. He came and spoke about this upcoming film. He introduced Joe and Anthony Rousseau, the filmmakers who made two Captain America movies and the last two Avengers films.

They're making the Stoomsday movie. The erasure of the electric state will not be tolerated on the show. And Cherry and a number of other films. The Grey Man. The Grey Man, yes. And didn't they do that TV show that? was the international spy TV show. Yeah, that no one watched.

It was called. Citadel or something? Citadel, okay, I was close. They've had a complicated previous eight years since the success of their last film. It was not the most enthusiastic response from the theater owners when they walked out.

Yeah, because they've been doing. Few directors have made more money for them in the last 10 years than those two guys. But, I mean, we know who's running the show. Of course. They introduced Robert Downey Jr., who was playing Victor Von Doom, Dr. Doom, in this new film, a character whose name has, I don't think, ever been uttered

in any Marvel movie in this iteration. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, it indicates, I think, a little bit of the challenge of what we saw, which is we saw, after Downey came out, he introduced Chris Evans, and we watched the full trailer. And the trailer, I think did what it needed to do,

but what it did we've already seen before, which is to say it's a movie about a group of disparate heroes coming together to fight a big villain. But the Thanos thing in the Infinity saga, they took 10 plus years, 14 years and years, to build that story out over time and build anticipation. In this trailer, where you see the Fantastic Four, the Fox X-Men characters,

the Avengers from the previous films, the characters from Black Panther, you know, Shang Chi, Gambit introduced in the Deadpool and Wolverine movie, all these characters. They all need to come together and fight Dr. Doom. And that's cool.

Like, I read comic books as a kid. I'm a huge comic book movie fan in general. I've been way down on what they've been doing the last five years, but we don't, like, what is the conflict? Why are these people coming together? What? And more importantly, why do we care?

Why do we care? Because the good. Because the goodwill that led to Infinity War and Endgame was the momentum of all those movies we cared about. And also the buildup of those characters. Can I say that it did feel like the B-team of people? Because it is Thor narrating. But you're seeing as Shuri as Black Panther. You're seeing Florence Pugh, who I like a lot, but has really, she had Black Widow, which was a COVID thing.

And she was not Black Widow. She stole the movie from Scarlet Johansson. but that's fine. And then Thunderbolts. All of the other, the characters seem like they are newer. We've spent less time with them in this franchise. They've had less time to develop them. And they do feel like the replacements.

In many cases, they are the replacements, whether that's because of like story or life reasons. And so it felt like reheating a little. Yeah, I mean, the two major, major characters that are back are Thor and Captain America. How do they deal with the Iron Man paradox? He's just not there. He's just not there. He died at the end.

end of the game show. But so did Chris Evans. True. And in fact, one thing that they did show, which drew a huge pop from the crowd, but which I found to be incredibly cynical and lame, was there's a moment where Thor

sees Steve Rogers, and he's blown away and he says how. You know, how can this be? Because he's gone. It's, it's Palpatine returns. It is very Palpatine returns. Somehow he returns. And as they're approaching each other,

he reaches the hammer out and Captain America catches the hammer. Yeah. Which is, of course, something that was like that was a high point moment in end game. Yeah. But that's fan service. But that's all that is. And it worked in the room.

It played to the maniacs that we were sitting with. They loved it. I think there was a group of maybe like a 40 primarily young men who were there just to start yelling. And like, yeah, they did. Well, I don't know. We cannot say. I didn't interact with them. I'm just saying it costs a lot of money to go to cinema con if you are not pressed.

It's true. So, yeah. Anyhow, I thought what we saw probably did what it needed to do just to kind of feed those who are already locked in. I'm very curious to see if it will convert the skeptical and there have become more skeptical over the last five years. Or just the casuals who are out. Yes. Like, who haven't followed the new movies and they're like, what? I don't even know the Fantastic Four.

Those people, though, were still like, oh, Captain America, I like him and I'll go see that. And I think in that way, like it was effective enough. But creatively, I was like, man, this feels so bad. And then even they brought, so Downey's back playing a new character. They bring Chris Evans out, who is dressed just like Sean. It was really kind of alarming. And then they tried to do their, like some banter, you know, to bring back some Avengers. And much like at the Oscars, it just felt like totally flat.

They don't have any of the chemistry. So even there where you're trying to recreate the, you know, the buddy, the buddy, like we're all in a team together. and it's like, oh, you guys, you don't have that for this movie. Yeah. I think the press they got out of it was very effective, but I think it just need to see more. We're going to watch it. We're going to talk about it on the show, of course. It's going to be one of the biggest movies of the year.

Obviously, just from like an effects, it looked incredibly ugly. Yeah, I just thought it just looked bad. But they all. They all do, but I don't even know what we saw. I thought it looked ugly. Yeah. The big industry narrative is the Doomsday versus Doom 3. So can we talk about that for a second?

because, you know, obviously Avengers is going to be way bigger. The last one grossed almost $3 billion. So even if this one grosses half of the previous Avengers, it's still a massive film. It's still a massive film. It's still going to probably be the number one or two, probably number two movies there. But I think that the Dune 3 footage was so good that they showed and the goodwill and relevance of that franchise where it doesn't feel thirsty. It doesn't feel like these guys are grasping at straws. This movie has Zendaya, Timothy Shalame, Robert Pattinson, Jason Mamoa. Who am I forgetting?

Florence Pugh. Robert Patton? Yeah. More relevant stars. Josh Boland, yeah. More relevant stars for right now. And that footage they showed kicked ass. It was amazing.

Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to spoil my number one most anticipated movie out of CinemaCon because of what we saw. They showed us the first seven minutes of the film. They also put the biggest stars on stage. Zendaya and Timothy Shepard. They were there with Denny Villeneuve talking about the movie, along with Jason Mamoa. And the first seven minutes are... It was saving private, Ryan, in space with spaceships. Yes.

And so lasers. It was a real, like, we got the goods. This movie's not coming out for eight months, and we don't care. We'll show you exactly what we have because we know that it plays. Now, those movies are darker. They're more violent. They're not pop. There are.

They've never grossed a billion dollars, either of those movies. But we've been making this comparison about, like, that series is Oscar chances around the Lord of the Rings, but it actually felt more like the Lord of the Rings to me watching this sequence because I was like, this movie should exist. Like there's more story to tell. Like they have to finish this, which was the one hurdle that I thought the movie might have had.

Right. Where it was like, are we going to need to feel like we need to see how this concludes? And they sold that really well with what they had. So I thought it was really special. I don't know if a movie that dark can be that big. But the thing that Disney did was they introduced something. thing called Infinity Vision. Oh, man.

Are we going to talk about this? To combat. Infinity Vision. So just for prelude here, one of the reasons why I'm so bullish on Dune 3 is that it has the IMAX screens globally for three weeks. Pre-negotiated, IMAX loves Deney. He shoots in IMAX. So over that holiday week, we should say they're both coming out December 18th.

As of today. As of today, yes. And Disney, instead of moving Avengers, which many people think they should have moved. it a week in advance, they would have a week all to themselves. There's nothing on that date, on December 11th. I thought they would. I thought for sure as soon as Jumanji. Yes, when Jumanji moved, I was like, okay, well, this makes sense.

Because now Jumanji is in that Christmas corridor. They have not done that yet. Instead, they introduce Infinity Vision. Which is a new, quote, certification that Disney has acquired for their films. I love it. When they are displayed in non-I-Mex

and presumably Dolby movie theaters where they're improving the sound and the picture, for I guess laser projection in other movie theaters. Now, of course, there are more non-IMAX screens than there are IMAX screens, but they don't charge the same amount typically, and they're not the preferred ability to see a movie. And IMAX, for better or worse, has become the brand. When you look at billboards, sometimes IMAX is larger than the actual title of the movie now.

I'll forget the amateur. Yes, they have the branding. Exactly, including on many Disney billboards. Let's just be clear about that. But they know they're not getting those screens. they want Avengers fans to feel like they are going to see the movie on the biggest possible format, hence Infinity Vision. You excited? Yeah, I'm reading from my notes taken at the time, Infinity Vision, in quotes, is this because they can't get IMAX question mark?

It was so obvious and desperate and instant. And, you know, cynically clever because they are in front of theater owners. And so it is acknowledging in a way this idea that premium screens do matter. and that they understand that and are playing into that branding as well. It's also picking up on something that is a narrative within the theatrical industry,

which is they believe that there should be a competing brand to IMAX. The others, whether it's, you know, X-Finity or not X-Finity, whatever the Regal brand is, or I don't even know, or there's many different brands

of large format screens, and it's confusing to the consumers. It is. And they've recognized this. So they have talked about coming up with a name for non-I-M-X PLFs. Should it be in Vanity Vision? No. Did all, I mean, we bumped into another executive in line leaving the Caesar's Palace who was laughing at it.

Like, they were all laughing at it. I think it's one of those things that feels cynical and cheap to hard-bitten people like us, but they could work over time. Disney is pretty smart about this stuff. It 100% could work in this kind. I'm not going to bet against it. In the room, we were just like, come on, dude. Like, really? Anyhow, a couple quick things before we get into our list that I wanted to hit on.

To me, the video game era is here based on the presentations. Almost every single studio had major video game titles to either celebrate that premiered or coming soon or in development. A lot in development. Just that Sony, there was talk about the completion of The Legend of Zelda production. Big applause for that. Big applause. They also announced Bloodbourne and Hell Divers at a bit. I thought those were Coachella bands.

These are not games I've played, but they got big pops also from the same cohort who popped over Marvel. Warner Brothers has got Mortal Kombat 2 coming soon, Universal celebrating the Super Mario Galaxy movie where there's going to be more of those. Paramount has Sonic 4 Street Fighter, which had a huge presentation, Call of Duty directed by Peter Burke, written by Taylor Sheridan. We can talk about what that means when we talk about Paramount and Angry Birds 3. You didn't even put on there, Minecraft 2. And Minecraft 2 coming from Warner Bros. too. Yeah. This is, if there is a little loss of interest in superheroes, a lot of it is going in this direction.

And it feels like people are on board with it. They're following the money. Yeah. I mean, look at the big hits. We just came off Mario. Minecraft huge last year. Yeah. Makes sense.

The other thing is Windows, which you've talked about quite a bit. In fact, the first time you ever came on this show several years ago when we talked about War Machine on Netflix, we talked about Windows. Oh, yeah. When does War Machine? How many theaters will play on, if any? You know, what does Windows mean? And now we're kind of like slowly creeping back to where things were. And I think everybody is finally off of the streaming methadone.

Well, they've either leaned in or they've gotten out. Like Apple is basically out of theatrical until they tell us differently. Netflix's clearly out now that they're not buying Warner Brothers. The other remaining theatrical studios are all pretty much falling in line. with this 45 days to PVod or, you know, premium video on demand where you pay money to rent the movie or buy it. And then 90 or more to subscription streaming. Streaming service.

And we saw David Ellison commit to that on stage. He actually said starting today, which was a big deal to some theater owners because he'd talked a lot about it, but he hasn't actually done it until now. If they succeed in buying Warner Brothers, presumably the policy would be the same. There, Sony, in their recent deal with Netflix for the output on pay one,

they have committed to 120 days to Netflix, which is four months, which pretty significant. It's not quite how it was in the 90s, but it's closer than it has been the last five years. I actually personally believe 120 is the, should be the benchmark. I agree. I think three months is too soon. Yep. I'm with you. People will wait.

It's like they have to break the habit that they create. And that's clearly what they're trying to do. But I also think that the premium video on demand window is less important. 45 days to me is fine for that because it is an affirmative choice you have to make to buy or rent the movie. When things go to Netflix or Disney Plus, people consider that free. It's all you can eat. They see it on their TV. That, to me, reduces the value of movies and theaters.

And Universal recently changed their windows where they were the most aggressive and they kind of kicked this all off during COVID, and they are now going to give all their movies, starting in a little bit, five weekends to Peabod, which is about 45 days. So that's a big change. It is a big change. Any thoughts on that? Because basically every studio chief addressed this issue when they spoke this week. Yeah.

Except Amazon. And Amazon, they say they're doing windows. Actually, what they said about Project Hail Mary is that they're lengthening the window. Yes. But obviously they are. I'll give them a little slack because it's a new administration. Totally. They seem to be making a sincere effort to make a theatrical push.

But if they start to struggle, they might pull back and make a change. And they pissed off the theaters with Red One, the rock movie, because they put that in theaters for Thanksgiving. And then all of a sudden it was on the service for Christmas, which not a very big window. I mean, Amazon is an interesting one because there are a couple movies that we are anticipating, Sean and I, at least, that I would put under the rubric of made by directors featuring, like, real directors, featuring actors, like people talking ideas, and they were not mentioned. And that's, you know, maybe that's because they are, well, certainly artificial by Luca Guadinoino,

which is absolutely silent. After last year, Luca Guadino's after The Hunt was presented big time, like, was Julia Roberts was, she wasn't there. She wasn't there. She lost a lot of money on that movie. Exactly. They lost a lot of money on that movie. But that's also, that is not a big, like, event 40x, theater, spectacle, movies. So I think you guys are, like, obviously right. And in terms of the industry and getting people into movie theaters, the windowing. It's a Sam Altman movie. Well, sure.

Yeah. So any, if they were, if they would have shown footage of whoever is playing Sam Altman, who is it? Andrew Garfield. Andrew Garfield. That would have become a thing. Yes. And they should, but more to the point, like that seems like a movie that is, you want to

to see everything in a theaters, but it's not as reliant as a big spectacle. movie is in theaters. And I still worry about the health of those movies long terms. And those are movies that probably people, I don't think that they'll go to the theater just because they have to wait four months instead of three months for it. I think the middle continues to fall out. And so I agree with you guys. But it's just, it just underlines that the strategy is giant spectacle or nothing. There was one notable thing that I'm sure we'll talk about on the town as well, which is that Warner Brothers announced the name of the smaller

internal shingle that they're launching Clockwork, which has got the same. Is that a reference to something? I haven't asked them. A Clockwork orange, yeah. Is that what it is? Orange, yes. Oh. The logo is in the same font. I didn't realize that was a Warner's movie. It is. All the Kubrick move, those Cooper Covemys are all Warner's film. So he's

a Warner's filmmaker. And I guess maybe that gives you a little bit of an indication of the style and tone of the films that you can expect from that shingle. They wish. Hopefully. So they announced that they're making the Sean Baker movie, right, T. Elmo. And I think to the point that you're making about artificial and movies like artificial, I think we've been kind of excited about what A24 and Neon have been able to do. And A24, especially in the last 24 months, has put out three or four movies. They've grossed $100 million that, like, they feel like adult plays. They're connecting

with the audience that you're describing. This is Warner's doing that. And now it feels like we're back in 2003 with Paramount Vantage and, you know, Sony Pictures classics and Warner Independent and all of those shingles at the studio. built up to have this kind of secondary business. Like, focus obviously still exists. Searchlights still exist. So that was notable. It's on a smaller scale, but they did take some time out to at least talk about these things. Oh, yeah.

At the presentation and Neon got its own time to present films at this convention, A24 still doesn't do it. I feel like they should at this point, honestly. They've done stuff at CinemaCon, and I would like to see them do a full-on presentation. They should. Yeah. They probably think they're too cool for that. Possibly. You know what? Good for them. Yeah. I think when you're putting Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in your movie and putting it on 3,000 screens,

Like, we should work with them, you know. You're Jimmy Shalamee movies grossing $200 million. Like you got the rock and movie, multiple movies. Yeah. Right, though that didn't help them make any money. That's very true. But just a note on that. I think Warner is, A, they want to make more movies.

And when you have multiple labels like this, it gives you the freedom to do movies at different sizes. It also gives them the freedom to push back maybe a little more on star salaries and the cost of some of these movies. Yes. This is for this label, this brand. Yeah. We only do it at this size. This is what Focus does. We're like, oh, at Universal, we love your script, but we see this as a focus movie.

Right. So ratchet back those expectations, and let's bring this budget down by half. And Warner, I mean, they famously spent a lot on these attour movies, and they get a lot of attention in the media and the business press when they do that. So maybe this is an opportunity for them to make those movies, but at a lower cost. Yes. Okay. And also bring someone like Sean Baker into the studio system,

somebody who's been a little bit, you know, I would say suspicious of how that system works. And then you get to know him and all of a sudden he's directing Minecraft 3. Well, we'll see about that. I would like to see a Sean Baker version of Minecraft. I think it would have a lot of sex in it. I think the audience of Minecraft would also like to see a Sean Biker. As they get older, yes. Any other thoughts?

Chicken, what's the chicken jockey? The chicken jockey would have a whole new meaning. So Pam Abdi did apologize to the theater owners. or the chicken jockey popcorn phenomenon. Any other presentation thoughts before we get into our most anticipated? I mean, Tom Rothman at Sony told the theater owners to get off the ad crack. Yes. Which I thought was a nice line.

He was very forceful in encouraging them to improve their business. Yeah. I mean, the whole dynamic between studios and theaters is so effed up. I mean, it's very, very codependent and unhealthy. Unhealthy. A lot of bad boyfriend energy. Imagine if you were the CEO of a theater company and your entire business is dependent on something you do not control. The amount of movies and the quality of those movies and the marketing.

It's a terrible. It's really tough. And the marketing of those movies. And then on the other side. Yeah, but when it hits, it hits so hard. And it's easy money. When it hits, it's easy money. And you can charge $10 for popcorn and it costs you 20 cents.

It's part of why it's just fun to talk about this business is because it's so unpredictable. And so that no one really feels like they know what they're doing at any given time. That's part of why this event is fun just to hear people talk about like, well, we're betting on this. Really? You're betting on that? But then if you're Tom Rothman and you're going to spend $250, $300 million on a Spider-Man movie and put that kind of effort into making it something that people are going to love. And then they show up to the theater and they've got 30 minutes of ads and the floor is sticky and the seat is broken. and it's not a good experience.

He doesn't control that. He has no ability to control the actual environment in which his movies are consumed. It's got to be so frustrating. Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids,

and I want to give back to the community. Then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IDPrivatewealth.com. Okay. Let's talk about actual movies down.

Yes. We each chose five. We all get off the ad crap. We sort of cheated. Well, unfortunately, we're on podcasts, so we're not off the ad crap either. Amanda, would you like to start? Absolutely. You want to go from five to one?

Yeah, I do. That's how we do things on this. My number five, even though I did not get my hoped for photo app with a minion is minions versus monsters, which we were treated to not one,

but two clips of, and possibly like a full recap, it was really sort of Spielberg interviewing Paul Thomas Anderson after one battle after another, and here's another thing that happens. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm going to bring my four-year-old.

You don't have to tell me anymore. This was Chris Maldonjri from Illumination, talking about his film very excited. But Craig and I both thought that these two clips were electric. And this is a movie about minions, but also about the birth of cinema. It is in many ways minions singing in the rain. It's the love letter to cinema.

It's the Babylon of animated movies. And it sure is even to like the recreation of the scene that Spike Jones is directing in Babylon. They're doing that with minions. So I'm on board. I'm really, I am delighted. They make me laugh. They just, they really make me laugh.

You were surprised to learn that I'm a minions fan. A little bit. Yeah, but they're funny. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the minions as well. Yeah. But I kind of enjoy them for what they are. They're Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, of course. But so I'm, of all of the offerings for families and children that were presented, I'm clearly team minions versus monsters. The illumination movies in general, and I think minions are the most pure distillation, they are engineered for constant stimulation. Even the camera angles and something's going on and they're coming at you or they're coming from the right or left. And I know that people in the animation community look down on that a little bit.

They say it's cheap. Not cheap, like inexpensive, just kind of cheap enjoyment and rowway. They don't last. I don't care. It works. They worked. And they do last. Kids watch them over and over again on the services.

They work. They really, those movies do matter to young people in a way that very few do. Not going to be as enthusiastic as you, but, you know, I'm glad that you have something that you love. Do you think that we can, like, get the kids together to go see this movie?

Yeah, I think so. You know, all at once, a big trip. Alice will be thrilled to watch it. I don't know. Is your 10-year-old still locked in on minions? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, he's in.

But, um... Where is he on Babylon? Not seen yet. Have you seen Babylon? Oh, I'm. I'm registered in the hive. Oh, I'm a fan. Great.

We've talked about this on the town. I do you? Craig and I were both in. Pretty regular listener and I don't know. Well, every time on the town you talk about it, you're like, I'm not a critic. You're not going to go too far into the opinions. But so I'm now I'm pushing you here in Big Picture Land. So Babylon Hive.

I am. I thought it was great. And of course, and I partly love it because the ending is so crazy and bad and weird and like should not have happened. and what is Avatar doing in this movie? But I can explain it all to you, but I'm sure. I'm sure you have five theories on it, all of what you've been discussed. I just enjoyed it for how crazy it was. Totally.

And I'm like, I can't believe this movie happened. I think the middle two hours are a masterpiece. Yeah. Okay, number five, Matt, what do you got? Can I throw a wrench into this? Yes. Yeah. All five of my picks are Jeremy Strong.

Yeah. Okay, so speaking of this happened. All five of my picks. This happened during the Sony presentation, and I got there too late to attend the Sony presentation. You missed me embarrassing myself. I just said, holy shit, I started laughing out loud at how great it was. This is Jeremy Strong playing Mark Zuckerberg in the Social Reckoning, the follow-up to the social network, which is written by Aaron Sorkin, and now directed by Aaron Sorkin. Questions about that element of it.

They showed extended footage, which is it the true? It was the trailer. It is. It is. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. There were some elements of the, that felt choppy.

Especially the scene they showed where Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison are having their first kind of discussion. She's a reporter. No, she's a source. He's a reporter. Weird cuts on it. Did not sort of disjointed. But then they get to Jeremy Strong. This is either going to win him the Oscar he deserves or he will be the record holder for

Razies. They will create a new category of Razzie if this movie does not go well. I am hopeful and I dare say confident that he will nail this and that the movie will be good enough to get him the Oscar. It is amazing how much he's like Zuckerberg. I feel sick to my stomach right now, but not like out of, not because that sounds bad. I just, I have so much invested in this and I'm also so stressed out and unsure about the quality of it. And I wasn't even there. It is so self-serious. He is. I know. 1,000% locked in on this role. He has the voice mannerisms. He looks like a robot.

He has the haircut. He walks the same way that Zuckerberg walks. It's not like Jesse Eisenberg where that was sort of a... It was an interpretation. It wasn't a mimicry. Right. Exactly. And he had that kind of scowl that I don't think Zuckerberg has.

This is like on another level. That's the thing is that the social network is an adaptation of a book. that is then reimagined by a filmmaker. And so it's not, it doesn't feel like docketrama. It feels like a character study. This looks like a dokey drama. It does. This looks like a recreation of events.

And Aaron Sorkin, a less skilled director, obviously, than David Fincher. It's also a movie that's clearly going to be happening on two tracks. One is Francis Howgan and the Wall Street Journal reporter, to whom she blew the whistle. And Zuckerberg and his, the world that he has built and him trying to prevent it from coming apart because of this whistleblower. And there's a legal proceeding at the center of it again, which is the core structure. I think isn't the testimony in front of Congress?

Is that what it is? And he's being prepped for it. And there's a funny line where he calls himself a professional defendant. And this is where Sorkin cannot be matched. Well, that's the thing is that you know that stuff is going to work. And that's the stuff in the trailer that really pops. I think the Jeremy Strong thing is going to work. He's got the posture down.

He's got the tone of voice down. He's got the weird blondeish hair color. You know, he's got that kind of like pasty skin. Like, all about him working. It's a thousand memes, like waiting to happen. Yeah. And, you know, look, as a succession devotee, like, I love Jeremy Strong. His self-seraciness, I find fascinating and funny and I enjoy it.

I can only imagine him on set. The other stuff just felt a little anonymous to me. And there's nothing anonymous about the social network, you know? Like, that's a very specific and defined tone and execution of a story. So maybe anonymous is best case for Sorkin directing? Yeah, I mean, look, Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison are both good actors. And it doesn't feel like they're like misstepping in their performances or anything like that. It just looks a little bit standard.

It looked honestly a little bit like TV miniseries to me, to be honest. Whereas the other stuff felt it was like Bill Burr and Jeremy Strong going at each other and it had real vitality to it. Yeah. The risk is that it feels like a polemic, like Sorkin lecturing us about the dangers of the internet, which the social network had some of that in it. But it was done in a way, and Fincher had a detachment from that sort of preachiness, that it worked. And I don't know if he's going to be able to nail that. Even when we were looking up the music, the music is not Resner. No.

Even though they use the dun-dun. They use that. Yeah, which is. The Resner and Ross tone is hit on the title card, but it's Alexander just plot this year doing the score. Which is a huge difference. It is. That is a major difference. Yeah.

So I've been skeptical. I stay skeptical. I'm fascinated. It's at least two full episodes of this podcast. So, yeah, so I am copping out by picking Jeremy Strong as my... That's a great one-fif. Okay, great. But I do have other movies that I like.

So you go next. My number five, I'm not sure if it's specifically the movie that I am most anticipating, but it is representative of an idea. And it was a very good presentation, which is Space Ball's The New One, which is the Spaceball sequel, which you didn't even know what's happening, right, when we were sitting there? No, I think that was someone behind us who was like, they're doing. doing a new one? I knew that there was a space ball.

It's funny. Who didn't know who did not? Who did we with it? Didn't know where there was? I don't know some things. Okay. But it's always funny to me when family members of mine, like, where news from my world gets to them. And I got to text to my sister last night. They're doing another space balls. The biggest, I guess, news item out of this is that Rick Moranus is coming back for this film, has not acted in a film in over 30 years. He was there. They had a great bit during the presentation about not allowing him to speak. It was very effective. films directed by Josh Greenbaum. It's written by Josh Gadd. I guess in concert with Mel Brooks, it's like Josh Gads' dream to do this.

Bill Pullman is back. Daphneus Neegas back. Bill Pullman's son. Lewis Pullman is in the cast. I thought all of the effectively promo material that they made for this presentation. Kiki Pomer. She wasn't there, but she's in the film as well.

Was all really funny. It was pretty much in the spirit of the original, which for people person like me is a sacred totem of my childhood. And that's saying something at CinemaCon. You mentioned it before, but most of the banter is inane and unfunny. Yes, poorly written, poorly executed. They did a really nice job with that. They included Mel Brooks in it.

He recorded a video for it. So bad that when De Niro presented for Fokker in law, he literally said, I did not write this. Yes. Although I found that entertaining, what they did, nevertheless. I think that was after he had to say, I prefer the minions, which was scripted. And then aggregated as if Robert De Niro came out, like, as a pro-minions over Madagascar. I was like, guys, that was bad writing. Anyhow, Spaceball is the new one, which looks fun, and who knows if it'll actually end up working.

I think is also an indicator of where a lot of this stuff is, which is like Masters of the Universe from Amazon, Doomsday and Mandalorian and Grogu from Disney. A lot of the, like, recycled, you were six years old in 1988, and here's what you probably like now at 45 years old, and we're going to force you to watch it. some of these works, some of them don't, Master of the He-Men was very important to me as a young child. I'm not totally sold on that movie based on what they showed us. The less said the better. Yeah. But it is a whole space for your youth kind of thing. I'm surprised that you put it on your most anticipated because to me that struck me as a very fun and effective presentation of a movie that looks like a sad retread.

We'll see. I don't, I think it's more of an opportunity to talk. talk about a lot of other movies here at number five. But, like, I'm more excited about Rob Eggers' as Werewolf personally than I am the new Spaceball's movie. But they showed us a trailer from Werewolf, and it's like, it's a really gnarly Werewolf movie from Rob Beggers. Like, you know what it is.

It's probably going to work really well. We saw the Nospharazzi trailer a couple of years ago at Sinma Khan and it tore the house down, and then that movie went on to be a big hit. So, okay. Number four, Amanda, what do you got? Yes, I have collected three films together. One Night Only, Very, Very Good. and other mommy.

Other mommy. Which I'll call gals having fun. And one night only also includes Callum Turner. So that is the new romantic comedy, sex comedy from Will Glock who did anyone but you and was introduced with like an Oscars-esque montage about love at the movies. And we have to save romantic comedies. And apparently we're saving them with One Night Only, which I'm very excited. about it stars Monica Barbaro and

Calam Turner who I'm on record as supporting both of them honestly and the premise is that two people meet on the one night a year where it's legal to have pre-marital sex yeah I did not get that from the footage you explain that to me after that it's basically the purge for rom-com

yes and so they don't totally communicate that in the trailer that's right and it is pretty high concept and I think the effectiveness of the movie will as much about, like, do they communicate and, like, tease out the premise and the ideas as much as the performances? Those are two attractive people that I like. They seem to have decent chemistry. Yeah, that seems fine. That premise seems asinine to me. Oh, I think it's, I think it's funny. It's interesting that they're trying to make it work in a non-dispopian setting. It basically

looks like any other rom-com with that idea attached to it. But that premise is basically like the Handmaid's Tale. Yes. Yes. I know. But then don't you kind of want to know more? I do. Oh, okay. Well, that's fine. I just want to see them meet you and have fun and like complications and then they get together. There are complications. They only have so much time to have sex before it's not legal or whatever. Yeah, well, I'd like to see how they pull it off. Do you think that the film ends with a mass slaughter? I really don't know, but I'm curious. So we'll see how that goes. There are some jokes about his ears also. Yeah, but the ears work for him. And her nose size. I thought I enjoyed that. Yeah, and Josh O'Connor's ears. Listen, it's fine. It's okay.

Great time to have big ears. Yeah. It's wonderful to be Irish. Okay, the next Verity is the latest Colleen Hoover adaptation. This is directed by Michael Showalter, stars Anne Hathway, Josh Hartnett, Dakota Johnson. This is like the high touch Colleen Hoover trash, you know? And if it works, I'm excited. I'm not opposed. And had real kind of M. Knight Shyamalan what lies beneath vibes. Right.

You know, like kind of a spooky thriller as opposed to some woman hit a guy with their car kind of energy, you know, or like all the other Colleen Hoover movies are just. Like, why did you fall down the staircase energy? Like, maybe a little bit more. All the Colleen Hoover stories are always just like, ah, man, you tripped over some chicken wire. Yeah. Why did that happen?

I thought abusive. And then people were abusive to each other. Yeah, this has a little bit more of the housemate. We had a lot of, we had an ongoing discussion this week about what our actual opinions of the housemaid was. And I'd just like to stay on the record, as I did originally. I had a good time. So I'm pro housemaid.

I'd like to have a good time at Verity, and it seems like that's possible. Other mommy is a Jessica Chastain horror movie. Oh, Blumhouse, straight up. Yeah, Blumhouse about a woman whose home is seemingly invaded by a clone of her but evil. So it's like single white female but supernatural mommy. Well, I think that's exactly right. And Jessica Chastain is playing both. And it was one of those watching the trailers where, like, the concept and the performance

of the other mommy just, like, really spoke to me. And I was like, well, this is a big picture bit already. Just the silent smile. Yeah. You know. Hang in their other mommy. Hang out in another mommy. Or, you know, you can identify the other mommies all around you as you are going

about your own mommy life. So. I will never not chuckle when I hear that title. It's really, really good. It's exciting. I'm excited for other people to at least to be more aware of other mommy so that it can become like a cultural touch point, which is kind of all those movies need at this point, that it just has like a little bit of like pop culture stickiness. I agree.

It comes also from Rob Savage who made host the Zoom horror movie during COVID, which was very effective. It's a super talented dude. So it should be fun. Also, Chessing's got a lot of history. You know, she made mama some years ago with a horror movie. Anytime you get an Oscar winner into a horror movie, it's a super movie. It's usually... A good thing, yeah.

Okay, I like that one. Matt, do you actually want to give us four more? I'm just going to give you something that I liked and that I'm optimistic about. And I'm going to put Digger on that. It's on my list, too. The Tom Cruise movie. Let's talk about it. Lots of discussion about this.

Alejandro and Ian Rito, coming off of Bardo, maybe not his best movie. This is him, you know, getting back into the big star game, big studio movie with Warner Brothers. I thought the footage was good. I thought Cruz as this, like, cantankerous oilman type, southern accent, profane, looks nothing like Cruz, old, fat, bald. Yep. And then he, it's essentially, it seems like a movie where he's trying to cover up the fact that his company blew up an iceberg in the Arctic that is going to destroy the world. Yes.

I think you nailed the premise. A man and I are quite dubious of Inoritu on the show, not the hugeest fans of his. Oh, wow. Why not? tend to think he takes himself too seriously. I think his filmmaking style is ostentatious, but a little empty. Anyhow. Even man fighting a bear in the Revenant? You're not in for that?

Never been a fan. I didn't care about that. He's just a little bit of a blank spot for us in general. Bardo is objectively bad. Quite bad. I haven't hated all of his. I like Amorai Sparos. We heard Tom Cruise on stage say that he loved Amorri's Paros,

and that's one of the reasons why he wanted to do that. This is the film that Tom and the presentation. that Tom Cruise showed up for us this year. And I enjoyed Birdman a lot too. I have a little more time for Birdman, but it doesn't hold up in my mind. This film feels very, it feels like Birdman at scale. That it's like about the male ego at large. I'm a little skeptical of how the movie will turn out, but I'm very excited to see Cruz.

And I thought what Cruz was doing was like great change of pace. Like really good idea to just get out of your persona, do something super big. 1,000%. And it was funny. Like it worked. He was funny. He was funny. He was doing, you know, McConaughey times a thousand but in a fat suit and I was like very

amused by it. And even he landed the jokes. The rest of the jokes were kind of hit and miss, even though it's a great cast. It feels over the top a little. John Goodman certainly doing a bit. Yeah. I have been wary since they debuted the poster that has a comedy of catastrophic proportions on the poster.

Anytime you have to announce yourself. as a comedy or anytime you have to explain what you're doing before you do it, which is kind of the Inorritu bit. He's just like, hey, look at me. Like, I'm, you know, look at my tracking shot. Look at this fancy. This is about like what the camera can do and the making of art or this is about a primal, you know, male urge in the, in the wilderness. It's, it's, it's, he doesn't always bear it out. So I'm, I'm nervous about that part of it. Also looked quite washed out. You know, I just, I made a joke. I made a joke. on X that it looked like a Roy Anderson movie

who's, you know, this Scandinavian filmmaker who tends to make movies or everybody in those worlds look like white and gray. Yes. And everybody in this movie, mostly because it was old men who were making decisions and the movie looked like they were in a Roy Anderson movie. Yeah, certainly like the boardroom scenes. Yeah, the pallets match it as well.

Yeah. We'll see. I mean, for Cruz alone, it's like, it's a must-see movie. It's going to be one of the most discussed movies of the year. I need them to bring it to Venice. Don't be cowards, Warner Brothers. I know that they won't. I know. I know. They got burned on Joker, too. But that's what, but like, but Cruz, give him the Venice moment.

What else are you going to do to sell that movie? You know how many film festivals, one battle after another went to? Zero. I do remember that. I know. I just, I don't think. I know. That's the thing is, and this movie could go in any direction. Could be a huge Oscar movie and a bomb at the box office. Could be a hit at the box office and an Oscar movie. Could be a hit at the box office and not an Oscar movie. Like, it could be any number of permutations, which is really interesting. My fear with it is the same fear as social reckoning in that it'll be a polemic in that the allegory Obviously is you know the environmental catastrophe Contastrian movie this movie reminded me of don't look up Yep the Adam McKay movie which also did not have much nuance To it no but but tons of people watched it because it had a big star and had two big stars

Three if include shallomers yeah sure and and and but it was on Netflix yeah So I don't know if this is a it was 2021 yeah it was it was And this movie, look, it's got stealth bomber footage. And it's got, you know, it does have scale. It feels bigger. So I'm fascinated by it. I put it at number two on my list just out of a perverse curiosity. I'm like, I just need to see this.

I'm really interested in it. Okay. My number four is a movie called Hope, which I don't even, I don't know. Did you see that footage? No. No, because it was neon. It was the end of neon. Yeah, I did not.

So, you know, neon is in this interesting position where they're the kings and queens of can. They've got six films going to Cannes this year. Not a good week for them, though. So the day of their presentation, Warner Brothers announces that Sean Baker is doing his follow-up, not for Neon, but for clockwork, Warner's label. Same day, the Long Legs sequel was announced at Paramount. That's Neon's most successful movie. And they didn't get the sequel.

Yes, and they've also put out the two following Oz Perkins films, and they're not getting that Oz Perkins movie. Nevertheless, I thought their presentation was solid, especially because they're a much smaller company. They really touted their success over the last few years. They were another studio who talked about Academy Awards. They said they are the most awarded independent studio of the decade. Oh, take that 824. With 57 nominations. Yeah, they're sizzle real.

That is a... Post, poke, poke, poke, poke. The movie that they showed that I was most excited about, and I know that you don't want to talk about one of their movies, too, but it's called Hope, which is by a South Korean director named Nahang Jin, and you might hear that and think, oh, an artsy can movie. This movie is going to Cannes, but it is a post-apocalyptic act. action movie starring several Korean performers and also Michael Fastbender and Alicia Vakander,

and the footage that they showed was just fucking sick. Like, it was just great action movie footage. I was so excited. I was like, I can't wait to see that. I can. I wished I had not seen the monster at the end just because, you know, I want to be excited, but I totally agree. Are they still married?

Oh, yeah. Oh, Elisa Vickander. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good for them. I think they live in Portugal a lot of the time. Oh, wow. Sounds like a great life. That's last I heard.

They're barely seen in that trailer. Which is kind of fascinating. It's mostly, you know, I think the film is said it in Korea, and it is mostly about what is happening in this post-apocalyptic world. But it was just really, really good stuff from a filmmaker who hasn't made a movie in 10 years. And his last movie, The Whaling, is one of the more acclaimed Asian horror thrillers of the century. So I'm very excited about that movie. Yeah. Okay.

My number three. Number three. Okay. So my number three is the Thomas Crown Affair, directed by Michael B. Jordan, who, who was there Academy Award winner, Michael B. Jordan. And that was very exciting. Yes. Which is great.

First thing you'll see for the rest of his career. Yes. Which is still wonderful. And he can't even acknowledge that on stage. He was like, that's still crazy. But so this, this was kind of Amazon's centerpiece. And they are releasing it in March 2027, which is, you know, one year after Project Hill Mary.

So it's the same same cinema con to release strategy playbook as Project Hill Mary. This is also. one of my sacred texts, right? And so this next... Really? So, well, but here's the... Literally means nothing to me. Here's the real heresy. Thomas Cronafer in 1999.

Not the Steve McQueen. I get it. I, for whatever reason, have seen... Well, I mean, I know the reasons. Pierce Brosnan, love? Pierce, Prasden, and Renee Russo. And seeing, you know, a beautiful woman in a chunky turtleneck not taking any shit at a young age was important to me.

And also then she, you know, went to chip. Priyne's and went to Martinique and so and and understands art you know like a lot of important touch points so I've seen that movie a million times that's one of my most important texts we have two more movies coming out this year that are either that are new installments or new adaptations or new versions of my most beloved holy films which are obviously devil war's part of two which comes out in a few weeks. And my emotions go up and down. And, you know, do I feel happy that it's finally getting its place in the sun?

Or is it going to be ruined? I don't totally know how I feel. But Devil Wars Protitude was the opener of the Disney presentation and is getting a huge push. I thought what we said was fine. Like I said, I'm not trying to hurt you, but I really was like, okay, this is what you got? What were you expecting? I don't know. I don't know. You just want to see Merrill Street being mean to people, right? Yeah. I guess so. And she was being mean to people. Yeah.

Just felt a little low energy. Well, that's the, the Miranda performance is not gigantic. In context, it works. Have you rewatched the original yet? Okay. Have you rewatched the original? Not in some time, but I will before. I just remember Emily Blunt was great in it. Yeah, she's wonderful. She gets the best line in this one, too, actually. Have you not heard of Christmas? Well, that's true of all of them, except for when Miranda is doing all of her one-liners.

Did she die or something? And then the other is the new sense and sensibility coming from focus. And, you know, we have a copy of Emma Thompson's screenplay and diaries from Sensonsensibility behind me. That because I read it every year, that movie came out in 1995. So it was the right age. and it was that movie and Clueless all in one year and I was just like, wow, look at the possibilities of cinema. Could not be more different movies.

I know. I have seen this, but they're both awesome adaptations. Sure, but. I've seen Sense and Sensibility like at least 50 times for what it's just become a comfort rewatch. So it's a very specific to me issue of being like, okay, you're redoing these things that I know so intimately and I have such a personal relationship with.

And that's not normally the case with Hollywood. They normally just make comic book movies. So Thomas Ground Affair is the one that I'm feeling the surest about. I thought it looked very fun. It's the action of it is updated and kind of expanded and it seems a lot more like high octane. But that is cool and great. So a lot of people comparing it to Tenet and some of the action style of Tenet, which is cool. Which I think is interesting.

that he stars opposite Adria Arjuna who I am a huge fan of Replaced Replaced She replaced Taylor Russell Yes

Like pretty far in his shooting Not that far But like enough where they saw what they hadn't replaced her I like her work And and she was there as well

So I'm I'm looking forward to it I think And it just It feels like It's since 1999 was also a remake It's not as

It's not as high stakes. They can just have fun with that. I have with that movie. I like the footage also. And MBJ looks great in it. It's like definite movie star performance. Good fit for him as a material. Definitely.

And Amazon lucked out that he just won an Oscar, like elevates that movie a lot. Like that IP though, does that, is that meaningful IP to the general public? I don't know. Was it in 1999? I think you just got to make a cool movie and hope people care. So this movie was called Art Heist. Like, well, you would care about that too. Well, sure.

You care about the Michael B. Jordan stars and Art Heist. Yeah. Art Heist is kind of one of, that's one of Amanda's things. That is. And there are many versions of them. Other art heist. I do feel like the McQueen and then the Pierce Brosnan of it all. Thomas Crown Affair is sort of a reference point at this point.

I guess that's maybe I'm like downplaying it. And it's more meaningful than that. I just know how desperate Amazon has been to mine the MGM library. And like so much that's, stuff is encumbered or that's been remade in the 2010s, this is what they got. And they just went all in on it.

And I just don't know if they, I think they think it's more important than the audience does. We're going to find out. Yeah. We're going to find out. Footage was good. That was encouraging. If it's a good movie, it doesn't matter. Okay, Matt, you want to shout something else out?

Yes. I mean, should we talk about disclosure day? Let's talk about it. I'd love to. I didn't put it on my list, but I was hoping that you would put it on yours. And full disclosure, I have it in my box office draft, so I am personally invested in it doing well. But I think that people of our age and our sensibility, we want this movie to be good and we wanted the first trailer to be impressive and it wasn't. And this has made me calmer.

Yeah. They are trying to be very careful about what they show us. And in fact, Steven Spielberg, who was interviewed on stage and received a prestigious award from CinemaCom. prestigious. prestigious award. No, not from CinemaGon. From the chairman of the motion picture. That's right.

The MBA chief got up there. The America 250 award. Yes. Which is a real thing. It's just a real thing. A one-time award, they were clear to tell us. Well, maybe in 250 years, there'll be another one. Maybe.

This is not some bullshit Cinemicon award that everybody gets. The Rock has gotten it 10 times. This is a unique award. Right. So he was given this award, and then he was interviewed by Coleman Domingo, And during his conversation with Coleman Domingo, he said that there's nothing from the third act of the movie in the trailer. But there is more in this new trailer that we saw. I don't know.

It feels weird to be like, should we spoil this or not? Let's not. Okay. Because there is a reveal at the end. There's a very cool shot, which I'm shocked is not in the third act. Yes. Which I think is actually encouraging that we have like gotten up to this point. I know.

I know. But I think what it does is actually, and we talked about this, it alleviates, I think, some of the anxiety from the first trailer that it. explains maybe something you didn't totally click with. I'm right there with you. I hope this movie's great and I hope it's successful and we'll see when it comes out. Can I make a controversial statement? I wish there was a bigger star in this movie. Right.

Like, I don't know what, I mean, no disrespect to Josh O'Connor. Like, good actor, loved him on the crown, not a movie star. And if this movie had a Michael B. Jordan or Ryan Gosling, or a Leo or someone. I mean, I know there's issues with the age range that they were kids. Seems like they were looking for a 35-year-old.

I know. So who's a 35-year-old movie star that can carry this? Because you have this generation. Well, they just all graduated. Who is our oldest 34-year-old movie star? I mean, Timothy Shalemi is the only... Yeah, he's 30.

He plays a little younger. And I think he's supposed to be the same age around Emily Blent. I know she's a little older. Yeah. I just, I need... I want this movie to feel bigger. I want it to feel like

the Spielberg movies of the 80s and 90s. You gotta remember that like this is the person who used Richard Dreyfus as his avatar. Like he likes a slightly like pointy headed, you know, anxiety riddled kind of smart

motor-mouthy person in a lot of his movies. But he's made movies with Hanks. Leo. Yeah. True. Cruz. Like totally. Also recognize the value of a big movie star and if I know nervous, like everyone around this movie feels a little nervous. Like we put this movie in the summer.

Does Steven Spielberg still matter in a way that we'll put butts and seats on that scale. And they have made the bet that Spielberg plus aliens is that summer movie. I think it should have been Spielberg plus aliens plus A-List movie star. Would have ensured a higher likelihood of success? And no disrespect to Emily Blunt either. She is up there and female leads. But I don't think she is on that A level.

She is not Zendaya. She is not even like, you know, that generation above. her where those stars were more meaningful. She is, you know. It's really only Robert Pattinson, though, who is a, like, mid to late 30s star who fits in this spot. He would have been great. You could see him in that spot.

And he was booked. He was booked and booked. He was booked and busy. He was. His schedules can be reworked. He had to go see Iraqis, you know. I'm excited. I mean, I hope that it works.

I don't know from a box office. Don't get me wrong. I'm excited. I know that I'm going to go and be like, wow, movies. I want to be there and I want to see this movie today. Yeah. I just, I hope they do a great enough job to make this a mainstream movie. Yeah.

Mainstream hit. Okay. Number three for me is, I'm just, I'm going to borrow your, your trio idea here. Yeah. But I'll primarily say Resident Evil, which was the trailer for the film was presented. Zach Krieger's new sort of adaptation of the video game. This is his follow up to weapons. and it has been described as a Mad Max Fury Road journey through a zombie apocalypse starring

Austin Abrams. I thought the footage was sick. It seems like it's going to be a really, really gross, violent, scary, fast-moving monster movie. And I'm in. It's a big-ish bet for Sony. The movie did not feel that big. Oh, they needed to be a hit.

But they want it to be really big. I mean, they're looking at the weapons numbers. and they're like, okay, that, but we have a franchise. Like, this should do double. Yeah, Craigor introduced the movie and he did not, he said that he had played it for hours and hours and hours and hours over the years and has been addicted to it. But my understanding is that it's not like a proper adaptation

with characters you know and love and moments that you'll recall. I'm sure there will be plenty of stuff for the fans. But I agree. That was sort of my takeaway was the idea of just like using this as a launch point instead of trying to be too faithful to it, makes me more excited for the movie. Similarly, we saw some absolutely brutal, violent, disgusting footage from Evil Dead Burn, which is, as we like to say on the show, my birthday movie comes out July 24th, my birthday weekend.

I will be there like a sicko. It was gross enough that I like checked out because I couldn't watch what was going on. I started playing words with friends. I had to ask you which one was that again? Because I had to remove myself from the experience. Yes. Good job, them. For those of us who really care about Evil Dead, it was very good.

It's funny for someone like me who does not engage with horror movies at all, this is the only time of the year when I actually see horror trailers or to the extent I'm actually looking at them. I'm often looking down or my phone. They're really gross now. They're really gross. Well, this is coming on the heels of the big success of Final Destination Bloodlines, which we saw a bit of last year. And I looked away. And I said on the show, I was like, this is going to be a fucking thing. Like, they clearly unlocked something with this. The last Evil Dead movie did really good business.

Evil Dead Rise. You know, Sam Ramey, who made the original films, is producing these movies, and he's just, he just had a hit with Send Help. He knows what these people want. He knows what I want. So that one's going to work. And then the third one I want us to talk about that is kind of in this, like, expanded genre freak out zone is Whalefall.

That's right. Did you leave before Whalefall? I did not see Whalefall. Is that the Ridley Scott movie? No, that's the dog stars. Starring Jacob Allorty, who looks quite tall. Two months later is Whale Fall, which is, Adapted from a novel.

We've not read it. We made a bit of a joke about this movie when we did our box office or summer preview. It's got to be a novel because no one titles their book. Whaleful. But what they showed us, speaking of Austin Abrams, is a scuba diver doing battle trying to survive against a squid and a whale. Yes. And this ain't no bomb back. It was awesome.

The footage was sick. And everyone was so stressed out. Killer whale? Like is it supernatural? No. No. So it's like, it's like a nature thriller. Yeah.

It's an under thriller. Oh, I like that. And the footage was real good. And honestly, Disney was getting a little sleepy in there during the presentation at that point. Yeah. And then everybody was. Is that a 20th title?

It's a 20th title. Okay. Yes. Yeah, that makes sense. Yes. And, you know, we were. Is it a joking? But it's got to be.

It's pretty nerly. The premise of the movie is that the guy gets caught inside the whale. Whoa. And he's got to get out. Yeah. And then that raised for me a lot of questions about what happens inside the whale. Right. And they showed us some of what happens.

Is that scientifically accurate? I don't know. So I don't know. I did get some more whale facts after this. We're going to get some emails. And apparently. From the whaling community? Yeah.

A whale's throat is only the size of a grapefruit, which I did think of while watching this film. It's, you know, maybe it's a muscle that expands. Sure. Pinocchio has got to be based on something. I agree. Yes. He goes inside of moth. And then there's also something about various stomach compartments and how we digest, how whales digest things.

I don't know how that's going to be portrayed. And you see all that in the movie? Not quite. At least what we saw. Brian DeField, the director, did weigh in on Instagram to let me know that there is gravity inside the whale. Huge. Or that there is some. So he just wrote, there is gravity.

I didn't actually follow up to, like, interrogate how the gravity acts. presumably the movie will explain that. Yes. And I'm told that the book, the novel on which is based, also does explain it. I'm not going to read the novel. I'm not either. I'm excited about the movie. I don't need the Andy Weir 30-page discussion of how it works.

I just agreed. I just need to see it. I thought this looked awesome. And I was glad that whale fall is already like a pet project of the big picture because the footage backed it up. You're going to see a double feature whale fall and other mommy. Yeah. Have a great time. Okay.

So, your number two is my number one and we've already talked about it a little bit here and I assume that Dune Part 3 is also on your list for the most anticipated. Unreal. You know, like it does seem like they got it, right? They know what they're doing. They know what they're doing. This guy knows how to make this feel big

and important and cool looking with still a focus on the actors. You get a sense of the place of this whole planet. Javier Bardem is leading the army that we see in this footage. Right. And there are particular soldiers that we follow, some live, some die. There's a gun that appears that is like no other gun I've ever seen.

And then it's attached to something that may or may not be alive, but looks like a spaceship. Yes. Yeah. Do we get the sense that that's a creature or a spaceship? I don't know. We don't know. I interpreted it more as creature, but I could be wrong. Oh, I interpreted it as spaceship.

Sure. Or base. This is why it's so excited. Like military base that is buried in the ground. So they shoot the gun up first to kind of clear the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they rise up and then all the people get out, maybe. It's just one of those things where I could feel myself going like this, cleaning.

Right. Further and further as they were showing the footage. And I didn't have that much. You know, we sat through a lot of presentations. We were in those seats up in the rafters in the Dolby Coliseum for hours over the last three days. And, you know, sure, we're burnt out cynics or whatever. but when something is, you know when something is hitting and this was just hitting. Everyone was mesmerized.

They know. It was like waters through the kitchen sink at this presentation and finished with this. They did. They did. Okay. Do you have one more you want to throw out there before we get into the final? I do. I just want to say something brief about Spider-Man Brand New Day. Yes, please. Which I actually liked and appreciated that

at these things, we typically see the spectacle and the most impressive sequence like Dune 3. they instead, for this one, went with a college party scene. And I thought that was actually cool and made me way more interested in this version, you know, this continuation of Spider-Man. Because it's what we liked about the first of this Tom Holland Spider-Man. He feels like a real guy. Yep.

And he feels like these are real, like, whereas it was high school before, now it's college. And they don't remember him. So he's sort of starting over. and he sees that, like, MJ has moved on. And it just, there's an authenticity to Spider-Man that you don't often see in the superhero movies. And certainly it sounds like you didn't see in the Avengers footage that made me much more interested in this.

Yeah, I wasn't wowed by what they showed us, but I hear what you're saying. And it's directed by Dustin Daniel Cretton, who this is his first time working on the Spider-Man movies John Watts has moved on. And, you know, he made short-term 12, right? Like, he came up as an indie character drama person. And so that part of the movie, I think, is going to be good.

Tom Rothman went out of his way to be like, there's never been a Spider-Man movie like this, and we've done things you'll never see before. And then they just showed us some character-stuff footage. But I like that. I guess I do, too, but I have some... It's given me Spider-Man 3 vibes of the Ramey thing, where there's, like, five villains,

and we don't really know what the story is, and it's going to get a little... I'm just a little bit concerned about that, but that's as a fan. I mean, I love the Holland Spider-Man movies. I think he's nailed it as the character. We were huge fans of No Way Home. I'm generally on board with the project.

I think I was like maybe sell me harder on the spectacle in that room. I agree with you, but I think some of that is why I think Spider-Man is the best of the film superheroes. And it's really just the best character. It's a teenager. It's so relatable. Who hasn't been in a college party where the girl is unattainable and your friends try to urge you, you know? There's always something grounded, whereas like with Captain America, I don't know what's relatable about him coming back to life as a super soldier and grabbing a hammer.

It's, you know, like, same, I guess, but not at all. So, yeah. I just feel like I know they're going to nail the spectacle. And I didn't know that they were going to actually take some time to make me care about it. Yeah. I think it's a good pick. And I'm glad that we're talking about it because it's obviously going to be one of the biggest movies of the year. Let's talk about your number one.

What's up to my Nolan Bros? Yeah. I am back in the club. Yeah. The Odyssey. You were out? Well, you know, I think the first two hours of Oppenheimer are excellent. And then I have some notes about the, I have some notes about what Robert Downey Jr. is doing in the last decade of his life. And they continue. Not the final decade of his life. No, the most recent decade of his life. Yes. Well. No, I. And and and as the, you know, the Nolan fanboyness has grown, I, I, I'm allergic to that.

to that type of fandom generally. But they showed the Trojan horse sequence from The Odyssey, and I was just like, yes! I think it looks awesome. And, I mean, Dune does as well. It's kind of splitting hairs what's first and second for me, but I think that I had forgotten how much exciting material to work there is, to work within the Odyssey.

You know, I remember it as like a doorstop textbook that I had to read several times throughout my education. And it is, it was thrilling. And there is still that, you know, that excitement of seeing something that you've only read about in like boring verse being portrayed so excellent, you know, spectacularly on the screen. Amazing cast. You know, I'm excited that like every movie star in the world is going to be in one movie. That's Amanda Cork. He did.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's great. And he didn't feel they need to bring any of them to cinema content. Totally. It was just him. What a flex. It was a flex. But I thought everything looked great.

It's Matt Damon in a Christopher Nolan movie. And his archery skills seemed decent. Like, credit was all very credible. Yeah. I mean, so apparently I hadn't seen what we saw in theaters, but other people have seen it. Well, this was longer. This was more than what they showed in the 70 millimeter. So in the 70 millimeter screens, they showed this six-minute sequence of the Trojan horse moment,

which of course is not in the Odyssey and is more. It's reference. Yeah, it's reference. But it's, I mean, it's crucial to concluding what happens in the Iliad, which sets up. And so it's told as a kind of a memory from Bernthal's character to Tom Holland's character. And it's just high-level swords and sandals siege warfare. I mean, it really is like... It looks real.

It looks real. And I talked to Nolan a little at the Universal Party afterward, and he's like, that said, that's the appeal. Like, everybody's read the story. Yeah. But, like, how did they pull that... horse from the ocean and get it into the bounds of the fortress. And you see hundreds of men pulling this horse. It's super cool.

Yeah. And you know, I had never really thought about like the Dunkirk-esque quality of all the guys in the horse as it's like sailing on the ocean, you know. But it's and there are echoes of his other work in it. It was very excited. It was. It was. It was. It was.

You know, most anticipated movie the year, I think. Safe to say. Certainly for us. I mean, I don't know about the general public. They're probably more... I wonder. Spider-Man. It's got to be Spider-Man.

Or Dooms Day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm fascinated to see how well a movie like this can do. Because the truth is, is when you go back through Hollywood history, there are a lot of swords and sandals movies, but not a lot of big ones. And not a lot of ones that have stood the test of time.

And, you know, Troy is probably the most recent example of one that is, like, really huge. I guess you can make the case for 300 as well. How dare you insult the Ben-Hur remake? Right, exactly, exactly my point. So this will be an interesting test of that. Was Jerry Butler in that one? I believe he was. And the Ben Hur remake?

Yeah, that was an infamous bomb that MGM made. I believe it was around. Tony Kebbell, wasn't he the Ben Her character? Let's see. Jack Houston, Toby Kebill. Yeah, I don't think it's... But I will say that I thought the man on the poster was Jerry Butler. So maybe I'm mixing up

Yeah I think that you took Their intention I didn't see Jerry 300 actually That's a big one Yeah yeah It kicked off the Zach Snyder thing for sure Some honorable mentions

Intriged But holding my judgment on J.J. Abrams The Great Beyond See I was totally not interested in that I felt like they were really trying to not show us anything But then why show anything at all Well because they have a big November movie that they got to get people interested in.

See, that's the... I don't know. Was it you that... Someone told me that they felt like JJ is sliding into Shamalan territory. Where it's like... That's not me, but that's a... It's like, okay, maybe.

It felt very twilight zony, and I'll say, like, it also felt kind of... Because that's Shamaelan. Yeah, but it felt in the spirit of alias and lost, which is really... Most of J.J.'s best stuff is in television, and it's in television that's clearly inspired by Rod Sterling. And he's very good at that kind of...

kind of character-based genre. So, like, I want it to be good. Like, I like the Star Trek movie. But it's made stuff that feels big. And this does not feel big. It's a bunch of people hugging each other. I know, but I also got the feeling that, I mean, maybe you're right. Either there's nothing there or we saw just absolutely nothing.

Most of what we saw was, like, a computer quoting H.G. Wells. We were just looking at a screen. It was very clearly, like, teaser trailer, kind of like Easter-Eggie, not give stuff way, which I found like slightly irritating because I, you know, I don't, I don't know whether I want another puzzle box, whatever, but it, I also didn't get the sense that we were shown everything. So we'll see. A couple of other honorable mentions.

You know, I don't mind saying it. This is the only Paramount movie I think that's come up so far. I got a little misty-eyed watching Mr. Irrelevant, the John Tuggle story, which is a football drama. I am abstaining because I actually walked out for this portion. because I did not see this. Okay. David Cornswet plays its true story about the last man taken in the NFL draft, John Tuggle.

It was a New York giant, but David Cordswet, an Eagles fan, a Philly boy, came on and did an intro with a lot of dedicated Philly explanation as to why he was ultimately willing to play a New York giant. I thought he did a great job. It was real just like classic Americana Disney live action circa 1997. sports movie. And then it's coming out on Christmas Day. I will watch that with my family.

With Michael Shannon as Bill Parcells. And it is paramount. So they're going to plug the shit out of it during football. Yeah.

And it's like real middle of the country. Like it's just going to you know, it's going to be hokey and it's going to be manipulative. And it honestly look good.

If you like a movie like that, it's going to work. I liked it. I didn't know anything about this movie. So it was one of the few real surprises that

that I saw this. What did you think of the I play Rocky trailer, This is the... Not enough Tracy Letts. Yeah, our buddy Tracy Letts is in the film and he seemed to be very funny. I thought the guy that they found to play Slye was really good.

This is the movie directed by Peter Farrelly about the origin story of the movie that became the franchise that Amazon bought in its MGM deal. Yes. And they have so exploited Rocky with the Creed movies. Someone in a room said, what else can we do? and then now we have the origin story movie. Yeah. I mean, is it a movie I think needs to exist? Not exactly.

And also, what are the stakes? Yeah, we know that Rocky went on to work. I think it basically just rests on that guy's shoulders. If you like watching that guy a sly and you have warm feelings towards 1975, Sylvester Stallone. And his meeting with the studio maybe went bad. Yes. That's the stakes.

And they want to recast him. Yeah. But there's no, like, Rocky works because there's a boxing. match at the end. Is there a boxing match at the end? We know that the movie has one. We'll see. You'll have to tune in for I play Rocky too.

Yeah, maybe he's not going to like be up to snuff in the boxing scene and then he has to like really fight. I just, I don't know what the stakes are in this movie. I don't either, but you know, we will see, I guess. Other honorable mentions. I'm just for Chris Ryan's sake, I'm just going to give some love to a cult as my passport, which is the new Gareth Evan. shoot-em-up movie, which looks like a John Wu movie set in 1970s, Detroit, which seemed

pretty appealing. I mentioned Werewolf. You know, I think we'll maybe spend some time on Supergirl on the town, but, um, right. Clayface is a really interesting thing to me. I just want to talk about it for one second. It's the other DC movie that's coming out this year, and it's way smaller, and it's directed by James Watkins, who's a horror film director, and it's being pitched as a pure horror play.

R-rated horror movie about an actor who experiences a very traumatic accident and then develops this new power. And that's an interesting choice. And I'm so interested to see if it works because it can change the dynamic of what superhero movies have to be if it works. Well, Joker grossed a billion dollars. So they're giving it that release slot. It's definitely not going to gross a billion dollars. No, of course not. And I don't think it's going to win an Oscar.

Yeah. But they see Elaine here. where the DC audience, they can do this in a way that Marvel can't. Yeah. So why not? It looked good. I mean, I don't know if it's going to make $200 million, but it look cool. And that's kind of really all it needs to do for that because Supergirl has some concerns.

Yeah. I mean, this is just the thing about the new era of superhero movies, but I guess all movies, which is like, is it allowed to just be really good and enjoyable to the audience that cares about it and not the broader world. world. When you're working at a sub $100 million budget, and I don't know what that movie costs, but I'm presuming it costs less than $100 million. I think you can. Then it looks great because you were like, you turned to me before you said, I'm very excited. I watched it.

And I was just like, I'm happy for you or sorry that that happened, you know? And that's, and you will decide whether it works or doesn't. And if the horror movie crowd shows up, it could overperform. If you get that, you get the DC in-cell crowd and then you get a little bit of the general audience. You know what the other thing is? Clayface is a very famous Batman villain and the trailer was not like

and Bruce Wayne is around the corner like there was none of that fan servicey bullshit it was like we're actually just giving you a genre movie which I just thought I don't know if it's brave is the right word but I was like this is smart this is interesting this is a little different than what other studios would do with this kind of material so I want to give it a shout

last one I want to shout out is Godzilla minus 1 which is the new movie from Takashi Yamakazi the Japanese filmmaker who won an Oscar for Visual effects two years ago for the previous Godzilla movie. They showed us some footage from the new film, which looks fucking amazing.

It's part of the GKids presentation. They also announced that I think for Sony, is it Sony? He's doing Grand Gear, which is a new, like, Kaiju versus Robots, mega movie produced by JJ Abrams. That's coming in 2028.

Also a Coachella band. Yes, exactly. Grand Gear. But all that stuff looked cool to me. So I'll give it a shout. Any other honorable mentions you want to hit? Yeah, a place in hell. which is the new Chloe DeMont, who did Fairplay, film from Neon, starring Michelle Williams,

Daisy Edgar Jones, Andrew Scott, which kind of looks like legal meet, like me to lawyer, sing-wife female. Yeah, it's like fatal attraction meets disclosure. And I thought it looked really good. I'm really excited about it. They also, they did a little intro reel ahead of time that was a bit and it actually worked, which is a good sign, you know. And then, we haven't said beekeeper, too.

Probably the most fun trailer every week for me. Yeah, really good. Yeah, a little over the top on the violence. But you know what? It's very violent. It is what it is. Yes. Yeah.

They're giving you what we're asking. Yeah. What was, was that the one with the mallet through the face? No, that was a flame thrower in the mouth. Yes. A flame thrower in the mouth, which I've not seen before in a film. I have not seen that. Enjoyed that. And I did laugh.

Also, like a glass canister full of weaponized bees. Bees. Sure. smashing it on the ground to attack. people, just good shit. Yeah. I did not see the original. I was kind of confused by whether he's an actual beekeeper.

No, you need to see the original. Don't listen to say nothing else. Okay. Go in cold, but you really have to see the original beekeeper and then we'll discuss. Yeah. I got to say, I'm kind of Statham curious. Like, I am not a Jason Statham. One out of every four is really good.

Okay. And then the other three are like, this was a huge waste of time. But if you get into the one that is good, you'll just have a grand old time. Okay. And Beekeeper is good. I think so. Yeah, a lot of ideas. A lot of ideas.

I don't know whether Beekeeper to the trailer communicated as many ideas. I agree with you. But I didn't know what we were getting when we saw the Beekeeper. It's true. And that's why I don't want to say any more to Matt. There are geopolitical implications. Oh, wow. So it's a, it's a polemic movie.

And personal implications. Yes. Listen, there's a cold open. It has a lot to say about the world. You can't be looking at your phone. You've got to watch Bekeeper. It's, you know, it might be evil, but we really enjoyed it. Just two things that were not there.

James Bond? Of course not. No announcement. Yeah. They have, everything you run on the Internet is bullshit. Yeah. They have not cast James Bond. They have not even seen the script yet from Stephen Knight.

They, that might be happening now. Spring, summer, they're going to get into it. Okay. And we'll see news there. But they can't, they're not going to be able to debut Bond at some event like this. I was thinking the same thing. It's going to leak. The second it happens, they're going to be able.

They will put it. I'll report. Somebody else will report it. And it will blow up. It's the biggest casting thing around. People in the real world care about it. The British press is like hounding them every single day. So not a surprise. And then no Batman part two. That was a bit of a surprise. Yeah. What's? Well, you just handed in the script, you know. Matt Reeves. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting to not even tout it. You know. It's kind of an important one. Big franchise. And they, unless there's something going on where the, the, the 27, release date is going to be no more. Shifting. Yeah. Was it on the list of like the infographic that Warner Brothers put on the end? At the end at Warner, well, they had so many titles. They had a Game of Thrones movie.

They had a Bazlerman movie. They had the Ocean sequel. You know, it wasn't like they were waiting for a title or for any sort of. They just put whatever on that infographic. Yeah. The Hunt for Gallum, Man of Tomorrow. They have a ton of big movies coming out over the next two years. And practical magic, too.

How can we forget? Sure. They were adorable. They were great. I loved it. Sandy, I was feeling it. It's just, and they had Nicole do, we come to this place for magic, but like Sandy did it in a cute way. It was fun.

It was, they talked for a very long time. They sure did. Probably longer than they needed to. But that's every presentation. And I don't personally have a lot of attachment to the original practical magic, but. Never seen it. I don't think I have either. Yeah.

But a lot of people have. I get it mixed up. up with hocus pocus. Shes. Yeah. That witch core. But the fact that hocus pocus two was like the number one movie on Disney Plus for a long time. That's why this movie happened. Yeah. It's in that youth mining territory. And if it's halfway decent, it will play each holiday season. I'm rooting for those crazy gals. I think you're right. Anything else do you want to hit before we wrap this up and we can hop

over to the town? We have not discussed Mandalorian and we saw 17 minutes of it. Oh my, we saw so much of it. I thought it looked totally uninspired. Totally uninspired. I am like baffled as to why this is a movie, honestly. I was more impressed than I have been from the trailers. I thought the opening sequence was pretty cool from a Star Wars fan perspective. Do you watch the Mandalorian TV show? I mean, it just looked like an episode of the show.

Like it was a little larger in scale because there were AT-A-T's in it. But then you were mad about that. You were like, why are they on a mountain? Well, it was just like it had no real Star Wars logic. It was like, well, why would they be sending these like droids up the side of a mountain that they could get pushed off of. Like, it's just one of those things where it was like,

it didn't feel coherent in the world of Star Wars. It was just like, we need spectacle. It just felt like kind of anxious. Well, what I didn't like, and I don't want to judge the whole movie based on 17 minutes,

but it feels like the opening sequence does not continue into the movie. It feels like a standalone. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. It was like they shot the movie and then like, shit, we need a sentence.

Yeah, they had a bad guy who looked like the most interesting man in the world. Like, that guy died in the opening sequence. Yes. So, like, what is that for? And then the movie could have started

with Sigourney Weaver giving them their mission. I totally agree with you and I... Yeah, though that would not be that exciting. No, but as I'm saying, they probably looked at that and they were like, we've got to do something here.

We got to get something going. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe they didn't, but it just... And maybe it will, I don't know. Maybe there's something in there that will translate. Also, when you have a...

When you have Grogu, that's the premise of this. the relationship between the two of them. I felt like that Grogu was sort of just along for the ride. Well, he was the comic relief instead of the centerpiece. Like, in that series, he's like the emotional core of the show. So because the Mandalorian doesn't have a face, so he can't express emotions. But every moment that Grogu got in the 17 minutes that we saw was a joke, basically, right?

Well, he has a moment where he kind of battles a droid a little bit. Yeah. Sure. I just thought it looked cool. It looked big. And I was worried from the trailer that it was going to feel like an episode. This felt there was some directorial touches, that sequence where he kills all the bad guys. Yeah, that was extremely cool.

So I'm cautiously optimistic. And I'm just worried it's too violent now for my kid, which is sort of the flip side of the, they're trying to make it not like a TV show and add again. And I agree that, you know, I don't care about the TV show. I will never watch it. And it doesn't matter to, so the distinction doesn't matter to me as much. But I was like, oh, no, I can't bring my four-year-old. It's very John Wick, you know. It's like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

But it's Star Wars violence. It's blast. It's blast. No, I know. And it's lasers and yada, yada. I thought the Luda Gorensen score was great. No, I understand that. But again, I'm never going to watch the show.

I don't acknowledge it here. When the show came out, we were like, holy shit. Yeah. But it feels like a Western. And he's like, but also, you know, with enough homage to like John Williams in that universe, good job. Yeah. Yeah.

I think in that. we'll see. I don't want to judge it too harshly. I needed it to be a little something more to get excited, and I'm not really excited. I think that's it. You want to jump over to the town? Yeah. Let's do it. Okay. Thank you to Matt. Thank you to Jack Sanders. Thanks to Craig Holbeck, our traveling companion. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for his production support.

Next week, as I said, is our 900th episode. You can email us or you can call us, and we will definitely respond to what you say, and we will not delete anything that you do or send it to the FBI, I promise. please be gentle in some of that correspondence. And we'll see you next on the town and then on the big picture next week.