The Big Picture - The Fate of ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ and Top-Five Gambling Movies

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

The last big-ticket theatrical release, 'Wonder Woman 1984,' is still on the calendar. Will it go to HBO Max? PVOD? When will we see it? Amanda and Sean break down the possibilities (0:54). Then, they are joined by David Hill, the host of the new podcast series 'Gamblers,' to pick their top five gambling movies (17:44). Finally, Sean interviews director Christopher Landon, a Blumhouse staple who brought us the 'Happy Death Day' series, to talk about his clever new body-swap horror-comedy 'Freaky' (1:16:30). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: David Hill and Christopher Landon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about rolling the dice. Later in the show, we're welcoming David Hill, the host of the newest Ringer Podcast Network series, Gamblers, to talk about our top five favorite gambling movies, a personal favorite subgenre of mine. Then-director Christopher Landon, a Blumhouse staple who brought us the Happy Death Day series, joins me to talk about his clever new body swap horror comedy, Freaky. But first, Amanda and I will discuss the fate of what may or may not be the year's last big theatrical release, Wonder Woman 1984. It's all coming up on The Big Picture. okay amanda we spent six months talking about whether or not tenant was going to come out we

have a new tenant on our hands that movie is wonder woman 1984 as we are recording this there may be decisions being made about what is going to happen to Wonder Woman 1984. There's a few things to unpack around the fate, really, of this movie. So just before we provide any context, I want to ask you directly, do you think Wonder Woman 1984 will be released in movie theaters on Christmas Day 2020? No, I don't. Okay. So I ask that question very directly because there is this ongoing debate in the, in the movie industry and the entertainment industry writ large about what to do with a big tentpole movie as COVID-19 continues to be a crushing epidemic pandemic that is, that is

challenging, you know, all walks of life. And obviously of course, movie theaters and the movie industry as well. Now, Wonder Woman 1984 is theoretically a $1 billion feature film, and there is some options for Warner Brothers. They can either release this movie in theaters and get lower receipts than normal. Tenet in particular has made fewer than $60 million in the United States. Or they can shuttle this to PVOD or to HBO Max. What do you think the outcome is ultimately going to be there? I would have to guess they do some combination of PVOD and then early to HBO Max. Because as you mentioned, there's potentially a billion dollars on the line.

And Warner Brothers is owned by AT&T, which is a major conglomerate that doesn't like losing a billion dollars or really losing any money at all. And so they're going to, I assume, want to do some of their PVOD to make some of that money back. Though even there, that's accounting. That's pushing numbers around and trying to placate shareholders. But I think ultimately they have a streaming service that they're trying to build and they are owned by a cell phone and Internet company. And the future of that company and of HBO Max is streaming. It's not theaters. Yeah. And to that point, this multinational corporation that owns Warner Media laid off north of 1,000 people last week. And this is a company that only employs 25,000 people. So that's a significant chunk of their employee base, including some serious heavy

hitters in their executive department. We saw over the summer that a handful of decision makers at HBO Max were let go. People like Blair Rich, the marketing chief at Warner Brothers, was let go last week. And that's a pretty cataclysmic blow, I think, to the theatrical side of releasing on the Warner Brothers side. Now, there's obviously this huge push. New CEO Kevin Killar comes into HBO Max and to Warner Media to essentially do what you're suggesting, which is like focus their efforts long term on HBO Max, on getting people to use the streaming service. HBO Max is in this really odd position. When it launched, I was extremely excited about it personally, because it did something that Netflix had essentially punted on, which is that it became a repository for a lot of

old library title movies. And I, of course, love that stuff. And I love to go back and watch old movies. And the utility of streaming services makes that very easy to engage with. They've also got this, you know, I would say largely ignored collection of original content that they've had a hard time drawing attention to. Now, this is very different from the HBO original content, which people still care about and still feels like a premium. So what do you do? How do you get people to pay attention to the things that you're doing on this nascent streaming service that has, you know, only picked up, I don't know, about 8.6 million subscribers, it says, in the first three to four to five months of release. Do you think that you need a Wonder Woman 1984 to get people to care about this experience? I don't think... Well, maybe it can hurt, but yes, probably. I think

you brought up a lot of interesting points and there are a couple different things going on there. First, you know, my sweet DVD friend, the library of HBO Max is, is fantastic. HBO Max is one of my favorite streaming services as well, which is like definitely the dorkiest sentence that I've said in 2020. And there's a lot of competition. I know. Um, but it, it, it has that great old movie library. It's it is for you and for me as people who grew up on watching HBO Prestige TV and like old's been a lot made of the success of Disney+, and how it bet on its library, and that worked out. Disney+, and Disney is very unique in that sense, because they have Disney movies for children, and children watch movies over and over again. The library is doing a different function. So there's what's actually on the service of HBO Max. And then I do think in terms of how to get people on HBO Max, we got to talk about the

launch. I have to say one of the worst launches that I've ever seen. I give them an F. I'm sorry. I really like your service. And I don't say that lightly because a lot of people are losing their jobs right now. And that's not a joke. My thoughts are with those people.

But in terms of the marketing and the branding and presenting what HBO Max is, and it's like, there was also HBO Go. There's still HBO. It wasn't clear how you could get it. You couldn't get it on a lot of services. I think as, I don't know whether you've already said this, but it will now, as of this week,

HBO Max will be available on Amazon devices. It's still not available on Roku, but you have to figure at some point they'll get that sorted out, especially if they want to put Wonder Woman on Roku. Like one has to happen before the other and that might be an indicator. But both technologically and in terms of brand awareness, just a total mess. And

it's hard. And the tech stuff is extremely hard. I actually think the service works pretty well. And once they can make it more available over time, people may learn how to use it. And I think as cord cutting continues and maybe over time, people will just kind of accept HBO as, as HBO, wherever it is. Like, I still don't know what I have. I, a person who I'm employed and who spends a lot of money on this stuff. Like I, I have, I still pay for cable because I'm an old person. So I have HBO, but I also have HBO Go, but no, HBO Max, sorry. But do I have it because I am an AT&T internet subscriber or do I have it because I'm like, I literally don't know. I don't know.

And I know that it's going to change in a year. And I think that that is a nightmare in terms of just people want ease of use. People are grandfathered in Netflix. You know what it is. You know how to use it. I think Disney people know what that is and they figured out how to use it pretty quickly because they had tech worked out and the, I think HBO max and Warner have like kind of marketing and like brand challenges on every different front from trying to figure out how to market movies and theater to how to get

people to use their eight different streaming services. And I'm like, I'm doing hand gestures right now, like the Doctor Strange meme, you know? But that's what it is, because I don't know what's going on. There are just so many things. And ultimately, that's to their detriment. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot to unpack in what you just said, which is, you know, HBO writ large has 38 million subscribers. And to the point about what you have as a cable subscriber who has an HBO Max extension, you are automatically an HBO Max subscriber.

But that was not effectively communicated to the public when HBO Max launched. In fact, it sounded like a new service and it does have new service elements. I mentioned some of that original content you can only find on that service. So it's extremely, it's been confusing to people who are not us and even to us at times who are not intensely focused on what these streaming services are. So essentially, because they have moved a lot of the executives out of the decision-making class and brought in new people into the company, they have to do some sort of rebrand relaunch. They have to do some sort of rebrand relaunch. They have to do some sort of marketing campaign

that says, here's what we are. It would be a lot easier for them if they had Game of Thrones season seven to do that with, to say, if you want to watch Game of Thrones season seven, the best way to do it is on HBO Max. And here's why. They don't have Game of Thrones right now.

They have many good series. I've enjoyed a lot of the shows that HBO has produced this year. I've even enjoyed a couple of the shows that HBO Max has produced. But the closest thing that they have to Game of Thrones is Wonder Woman 1984. This is their opportunity, I think, to say you can only watch this thing here. Sign up. You're saying no. The closest thing they have to Game of Thrones is the Snyder Cut, unfortunately. Well, I mean, we're never going to find out. We'll never know the true answer to that question because HBO Max is not going to share with us the streaming numbers on 1984 versus the Snyder Cut. But you're right that there is a bigger movement, seemingly. There's a larger conversation around the Snyder Cut.

Wonder Woman 1984 is this very curious cultural object, right? It's three and a half years since the original Wonder Woman movie came out. And that movie did very well. It made well over $800 million worldwide. It was one of your favorite movies of the year. Yes, it was, Bill Simmons. I love you. So, you know, there is theoretically a lot of anticipation.

I'm not sure if there's, I don't know. I'm not sure how to gauge it. I think it would be easy to do one of those relaunches around a movie like this, though. Or maybe you pair it with something like the Snyder Cut, although it sounds like Zack Snyder is spending a lot of money on that and the release of that may be delayed. I mean, I can't believe that I brought up Zack Snyder is spending a lot of money on that and the release of that

may be delayed. I mean, I can't believe that I brought up the Snyder cut, but I did. Can I, can I throw a one slight wrench in this that I don't actually think is a wrench, but it's something I've been thinking about being myself, Amanda Nabbins. I'm obviously still thinking about no time to Die. And the question about Wonder Woman 1984 is, would it be released around Christmas and then be available right after Christmas? And I think they're hoping on the marketing one, two of like, oh, it's a theater sized movie that you want to see. Kind of maybe the marketing push that didn't quite happen for Tenet and also for just that Christmas date being wide open.

But you can only have the Christmas date be wide open if like only one movie can have the Christmas date before you're fighting for the market share of that. Like, hey, you can see a theater quality movie. And also, frankly, like the number of viewers and the number of people who are willing to pay 30 or 40 or 50 dollars at home for a movie. Now it doesn't sound like no time today is actually going to happen on streaming though. Once again, like it doesn't sound like MGM has any money at all. So I, I'm just like a little bit of curious, curious of what's going on because I really think only one of them can do it. And it's a little bit who goes first or who chickens out.

I'm not really sure, but I have been wondering a little bit whether there are nerves about is someone else going to come and try to steal our Christmas thunder? It's a good question. I would slightly quibble with the idea that there isn't room for two of these. I think that there is in theory, like Bird Box got like a hundred million viewers, which is not a good movie because people are so desperate to just watch something over the holidays because they're just sitting around with their families. And this year, probably more so than any other year, given the pandemic. So there's additional viewing time would be my guess.

That being said, Bird Box is free and Bird Box is on Netflix. Netflix has 10 years of learned behavior and quote, it's not free. You pay a certain amount each month, but people are used to paying that. They don't think about that. They do think about paying 30 or 40 or $50. It's not eventized in the same way that both of these movies would have to be and that a lot of the success of these movies would depend upon. Yeah. I don't know enough about Apple Plus, for example. I think Apple TV Plus, how many subscribers do they have? How many people are tuning into those movies? Because that's the most likely home for No Time to Die. And Wonder Woman 1984 is either PVOD, HBO Max, or theaters. That's the optionality that they have there.

And we know that they have 40 million people. So that's not nothing. There is a significant number of people who could tune into that movie right away. I don't know, but I mean, we just don't know. We're in foreign territory. We're basically in this purgatorical period where lots of people still have cable,

lots of people still want to go to the movie theater, but every media conglomerate knows long-term that they have thrown their chips in with streaming, right? So there has to be some decision, there has to be some risk taken on the short-term to get a long-term success. The short-term billion dollars, Warner Brothers would probably like to have that.

But there's also no way to guarantee that they're going to be able to get it in movie theaters in the next 12 months, because as good as the vaccine news has been over the last week, there's no sense of timing there. We just don't know. So if you say, well, we're moving Wonder Woman to June 2021, is that going to be an $800 million movie by June 2021? I just don't know. I don't think anyone really knows. So they're going to have to take a gamble. I will say that Disney Plus doesn't just have that library that you talked about. They have only released a very small, a smattering of original content.

But the handful of things that they have released, specifically The Mandalorian, Hamilton, and Mulan, were extremely anticipated and have huge audiences. Now, forget about the quality of those things. People care. Also, adults care about those things, which is something that they're able to drag. The kids are using the service on an ongoing basis, and then they drag overgrown kids like me to the service when they release these new shows. And then in January, they're going to release a Marvel TV show. So HBO Max needs that stuff. They need stuff like that. You look really defensive. And I was just going to ask whether you want to talk about how great The Mandalorian is. It's so good. It's so good. Well, I'm just I'm

really I'm I'm I'm proud of all the people that worked on it. I'm proud. I'm I'm I'm routinely impressed by Jon Favreau's clear sense of what Star Wars is and his ability to tell those stories, because I don't think anybody has done it since George Lucas did it in the 70s fully. And he has a major grasp of what Lucas's original inspirations are. I love that show. And it is that show is what, quote unquote, content is going to have to be in some respects. Recognizable stories that people feel that they have to engage in when they are released.

That is, it is like on-demand content to a T. Wonder Woman 1984 is potentially a version of that. Now that might mean five years from now, HBO Max is making a Wonder Woman TV series, which is a whole other can of worms. I mean, the episodic nature of it is, like that's the other thing that Game of Thrones has and why I was like, no, it's the Snyder Cut

and not Wonder Woman because it keeps coming back. And the more is more element to it, which is what we have come to understand is a part of a streaming service thanks to Netflix. Can I ask you one more question? Of course. Do you think Wonder Woman will be released in theaters on Christmas Day?

My gut tells me it's going to HBO Max. I don't know what day it will come to HBO Max, but I feel like there is, there has been so much rumbling in the reporting, but no one going on the record

about this that indicates that there's a lot of test ballooning going on between executives and journalists that indicates to me that it is going to go to HBO Max. And because they see that there's like a golden opportunity here, that they can get eyeballs, that they can get attention. And as you said before, if they make a deal with Roku, I would count on it. I would really count on it because there's no reason to make this aggressive push before the holidays, unless there's a reason to try to reach

as many people as possible. We'll see. I would like to see it. I look forward to the film. Same. I am looking forward to it. I enjoyed the first one. Show me new big budget movies, please and thank you. Let's take a quick break and then we'll have Dave Hill come on in. You know, honored to be joined by my pal and the new host of the new Ringer Network podcast series, Gamblers, David Hill. Dave, what's up? Hey, Sean. Hey, Amanda. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for being here. Can you tell the listeners what Gamblers is going to be before we talk about gambling?

Because I think of you as one of the foremost experts in my life, maybe the foremost expert on gambling. So what show did you make? Why should people on this show care about it? Well, people who listen to this show might care about it because we kind of hope that each episode is like its own little movie. I mean, it's narrative storytelling, so we try to tell these stories in as, is a cinematic of way as possible. Um, but it's, it's a show about gamblers. I mean, it's one of the most aptly titled shows

on the ringer podcast network. Um, each, uh, each episode is about a different, um, professional gambler and their life and, uh, their craft. And, you know know the idea is just to sort of tell um these stories and to show this this culture um as many-sided and diverse as it is um to folks who maybe don't know very much about it or maybe people who do know a lot about it and are just just can't get enough of it so it's it's arriving wednesday november 18th am i getting that right? Yep. And subscribe. Subscribe. Check it out on Spotify. Anything else you want to say about the show before we start? I start asking you questions about what makes a great

gambling story. Just that, you know, I really hope people subscribe so we get a chance to do it again because COVID really screwed up the production of this. We started working on this last year and then it got postponed and we had a lot of ideas that are still out there that we would hope to do in a post-COVID world. So this is a show that I think

is ripe for a world where people can travel and be in the same room with each other. Yeah, we got to get you to Macau at some point in 2021. So the only way to do that is if you listen to Gambler Season 1. Okay. So let's talk about gambling stories and gambling movies in particular. You know, Amanda, I'm glad you're here because you know that I'm obviously extremely interested in this sub genre and that gambling is very important to me personally. From your perspective, what do you think makes for a good gambling movie? So we should clarify that my perspective is as the non-gambler, I am once again, the dilettante in the room, but that's okay because I have number one, heard Sean tell a million boring stories about gambling and have

on occasion even had to like play in non-competitive card games with him. That's not true. Do you remember when we were, uh, what were we playing hearts or euchre? I can't remember. Probably hearts. I don't play Euchre. Okay. Well, it was Hearts. And that was one of the most horrifying experiences of my life, being your Hearts partner. Though I do think we won.

But I am a person who does like movies. So that's good. And I think for me, what makes a good movie or a type of gambling movie that I enjoy is very much part of what Dave was saying, which is that gamblers or gambling is like a character trait as much as it is like a hobby. And the movies that make a narrative and use these games or sports in order to further a separate plot line, or at least like tell you something about the person

are what speak to me as opposed to the more documentary style, wow, that was a really great hand of poker. I am not really here for the stats Moneyball version of gambling, though that is about the strategy and not Moneyball the movie, which maybe I should have put on my list. Moneyball, in a way, is sort of a gambling. It's not pure gambling, but it's like gambling on a strategy. It's kind of the elimination of gambling, if we're being honest, in terms of sports scouting. You know, it is kind of, and that's something that, I mean, Dave, you know a lot about in terms of what's happened in the world of poker over the last 25 years. But these games have changed a lot in the way that they're evaluated. But Dave, what about you? What makes a great

gambling movie? I think what makes a great gambling movie? I think what makes a great gambling movie is one that focuses on character and language. No, as a writer, one of the things that makes that really attracts me to this world. And I think has attracted a lot of writers to this world over time is, is, uh,

that it has such a unique and unique language, all of its own. And, um, the best gambling movies, I think really, um, are, are the ones that, um, that, that of its own. And, um, the best gambling movies, I think really, um, are, are the ones that, um, that, that lean into that and embrace the sort of the strange and sometimes

kind of like obtuse or archaic language of, um, this subculture. So yeah, definitely focusing on character and, um, and, and, and the sort of sing songy weird language of, um, of the sort of sing-songy, weird language of the world of gamblers. Yeah, I think it's definitely movies that got me interested in the world of gambling and not the other way around. I think seeing people using that lingo, that phraseology in these movies, it's like finding a whole other world, finding a whole other, not just a language, but like a cultural exchange that feels mysterious and exciting to me. Like I'm not personally not interested in gambling because I want to make

money. I don't, I wouldn't know how to make money as a gambler. Honestly, I like to play games, but it's much more about the, the like experiential entering of, you know,

maybe somewhat illicit space you know somewhere where like you kind of sort of shouldn't be doing this thing but everyone is doing it together and we're in a we have a kind of a code amongst us that that it's okay that we have given ourselves permission to somewhat not totally but somewhat agree to break the rules together and i feel like all the movies almost all the movies that we have listed here kind of have that energy of like, there's a kind of a fraternity or a sorority or some sort of, you know, um, I don't know, masonry going on here where, um, everyone is, is, is on the same page in, in, in doing, in doing wrong while doing right. So let's, let's,

let's do our lists. Dave, why don't you start us off? What's your number five? Well, my number five is a bit of a wild card. I put white men can't jump. Now this boy got a lot of goods. Billy Holt. It's good to see you, Billy.

You look swell. Yep, that's right. You fucked me. Get the hell out from in front of the TV, man. You put a half in your ass. You fucked me. We. Yo, man, get the fuck out from in front of the TV, man. Get the fuck out from the TV and a half in your ass. You fucked me. We had a partnership. No, we were never partners. Look, man, it goes like this.

You either smoke or you get smoked. And you got smoked. Clean as my gun. Yes, it was. You know, my reason for putting that on my list isn't because I think it's such a great movie, but really just to sort of get everybody to kind of expand the way that they think about gambling and the gambling film, right? Because there are, you know, to me, gambling is, I think we too often just sort of associate gambling with casino gambling or card games. But, you know, what gamblers are doing is they are playing something, you know, with their own money at stake, right? So the difference between like a professional basketball player, you know,

and like the guys in White Men Can't Jump is that when they lose, they're losing their money, right? So they're really putting their money where their mouth is. And I think that's a trope or, you know, a trait of the gambler that you see in a movie like White Men Can't Jump or a movie like Fast and the Furious, you know, that you may not think of these as gambling movies, but they definitely are. They are movies about people who are gambling for a living, get, you know,

their life is about, you know, um, taking that risk in order to make a living. I think it's a great call. This is a sure sign that Dave is a good list maker, you know, that he knows Amanda,

like a number five, you got to put one that makes you go like, Hmm, interesting. I didn't really know you could do that. Um, you, you kind of did the same thing. What's your number five? I did. And makes you go like, hmm, interesting. I didn't really know you could do that. You kind of did the same thing.

What's your number five? I did. And what a great segue, Dave, in terms of movies that are non-traditional gambler movies and also movies starring Woody Harrelson. I'm going with Indecent Proposal. Now just throw a seven.

You want to throw an 11? That's all right too. Which is a little bit, it is a technical gambling movie in that it does, part of it is set in Las Vegas. And there is like a pretty devastating, Woody Harrelson loses a tremendous amount of money. There is also the famous scene of Demi Moore just riding around on a bed in money, which I think is kind of like when I saw this at the age of 12 or something is what I understood gambling in Las Vegas to be about. Maybe I'm not wrong. But, you know, they're also gambling on love, guys.

And I. Like right out of the marketing. You took the tagline and you put it on a podcast. Well, I was I was trying to find a movie. There's a whole gambling on love subgenre, right? And that's like, you know, the bet as the start of a rom-com is a, you know, a time honored tradition from like, I guess, My Fair Lady to 10 Things, not 10 Things I Hate About You, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

Though 10 Things I Hate About You, they're also, it's love for payment. It's pretty close um but i think that this movie illustrates the same things that dave was saying of you can you can actually like you know play cards and that there is the actual like trying gambling and win but win, but that often there is a risk or trying to, to gamble on a matters of the heart. And sometimes it works out and whether you think it works out or not in a decent proposal depends on, um, you know, whether you would like to spend the rest of your life with Robert Redford or Woody Harrelson. And I'm just going to leave that there. But it, I don't know, by the way, I found that I was reading old reviews of this movie and there's a, like a Janet Maslin review

from the nineties. And the headline is just like, who would need a billion, a million dollars to spend the night with Robert Redford. And that's the headline in the New York times archive, which is like very true. But you know, love stories require a risk too. And that's the headline in the New York Times archive, which is very true. But love stories require a risk too. And that's a little bit of the character development that we were talking about. And also, this movie is ridiculous. So I recommend it. Great picks.

You guys went with two curveballs, which I respect. For my number five, I went with something a little bit more down the middle. I got a hunch, fat man. I got a hunch it's me from here a hunch. It's me from here. It's also Amanda's number four. So good chance to talk about it. And I'm curious to ask Dave about it too. I'm choosing the hustler. Did that ever happen to you? All of a sudden you feel like you can't miss. Robert Rawson's 1961 portrayal of fast Eddie Filson, the pool shark who goes toe-to-toe with minnesota fats

it's probably the most iconic gambling movie of all time is that fair to say absolutely yeah i mean it's probably one of the best i would have put it on my list if you guys hadn't had it on your list already so i thought we might need to talk about some other movies but no i hustlers i appreciate that generosity i mean i think the reason that I put it on the list I think is because it does a couple of things obviously it's just a great story has star making performance from from Newman an incredible supporting performance from Jackie Gleason the stylization of the movie is really really powerful the way that it's shot the way that the pool looks in the movie the way that it's intercut the way that the characters we

understand the characters through games is is fascinating. But the other reason that I want to choose it is I find that gambling movies are these great Trojan horses for big ideas. And Robert Rawson, complicated figure in Hollywood history, famously in front of the House on American Activities Committee, testified, originally declined to give names and then ultimately did give names in his second testimony and and you know outed more than 50 people as members of the communist party and in doing so attempted to essentially save his career by getting off the blacklist but also threatened his own personal integrity and you can see ross and putting you know in this adaptation of this walter tevis novel his life, his story into Fast Eddie and the like, basically like what money does to people, what power does to people, what opportunity does to people and how it can be a wrenching opportunity.

And like, that seems very high minded and you can enjoy the movie just as a cool pool movie. You know, it's just, it can be just a cool gambling movie, but it is this great, I don't know, it raises the tent poles around so many ways of thinking about our experience as humans that, even just rewatching it last night, I was like, this is actually even deeper than I had thought when I first saw it. And I think it's probably the first gambling movie that I've ever seen too. Amanda, why did you make it your number four? Yeah, it is the archetypal gambling movie for me. And I was really thinking about how like Paul Newman is basically the patron saint of movie gamblers. Sean, I think we got a mailbag question like a couple of mailbags ago about like, you know,

whose movie career would you like to have? And you said Paul Newman. And it only clicked together for me when preparing for this podcast that it's because Paul Newman is just, I mean, he's a lot of great things, including extremely handsome in The Hustler, which is another reason that I definitely picked this one instead of, say, other Paul Newman is just, I mean, he's a lot of great things, including extremely handsome in The Hustler, which is another reason that I definitely picked this one instead of, say, other Paul Newman gambling movies. But he is cool and calm and always making the odds work in his favor in various situations. So I needed to pick a Paul Newman movie, and this seemed like the one. Maybe we should just jump ahead to Dave's number two to kind of button this conversation.

Dave, what did you pick as your number two? Maybe I'm hustling you. Maybe I'm not. You don't know. But you should know. So if you know that, you know when to say yes. You know when to say no. Everybody goes home in a limousine.

So what should he say? Yes or no? You should say no. You know why? Because it's too much money, and I'm an unknown. Well, I picked The Color of Money, and The Color of Money is the sequel to The Hustler, and it has a weird story behind it.

I just wrote about Walter Tevis for The Ringer, and the book The Color of Money has nothing to do with this movie, right? And the story is that Paul Newman, I guess, he did not win the Oscar for The Hustler and I guess thought he should. And so later in life, he actually asked Tevis to write this book so that they could make this film

so he could get another crack at this character that I guess was a very important character to Paul Newman that he had played. So the book is actually not that good. Of all the Tevis books I wrote to write that piece, I did not like the book The Color of Money and I And I loved the book, The Hustler. I thought it was so fantastic, but the book just did not have any of the, any of the sort of verisimilitude. It didn't have any of the like soul that The Hustler had. It felt more like,

you know, Tevis as sort of an older, you know, writer experiencing this new phase in his career was, and he, he so so wrote autobiographically into his fiction that it was just not really there. But the screenplay that they ended up writing for The Color of Money, I thought was great. And it's Scorsese. Some people think it's lesser Scorsese. I think it's one of his best.

I think it's definitely the best soundtrack of any Scorsese film by far. Big Werewolves of London best. I think it's definitely the best soundtrack of any Scorsese film by far. Big werewolves of London guy. There's a whole scene of Tom Cruise dancing around a pool table to werewolves of London in a black pool room with a t-shirt on it says, Vince, it's great. The music is all very Bob Seger, 1980s, lots of saxophones. so it's very dated movie but but I love it and I think that like the story in the color of money where you know where the where the where Fast Eddie is trying to come back right and and his this sort of

student teaches the teacher kind of thing you know this there's a lot of like storytelling tropes this movie what I really love the most about the color money is how he doesn't win. He loses. And at the end of the movie, even though he him in one of the Gardena card rooms in California playing for $5, $5 anti-poker. And they were like, you won $500 million gambling. What are you doing playing here? How could you go from those high stakes to here? And he said, it's action, ain't it? I mean, he was broke and busted, but he was still playing. And I think that's the moral of

the color of money is that it's not about the money he was making. It's not about being rich or being the best, which is one of the things Tom Cruise's character says in the movie is it's about being the best. It's about being in action and playing this game. And that's all that mattered above all else. And so for that reason alone, I think the color of money deserves a high spot on the list. Great pick.ave dave we should go back to you your number four pick is definitely the most surprising one on all of these lists i think uh and amanda was absolutely elated to see it on yours so what's your number four one of these days in your travels a guy is going to show you a brand new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken

then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. Well, my number four is Guys and Dolls, but I'm surprised that you're surprised. I mean, Guys and Dolls is truly like an American cultural, like, you know, touchstone. I mean, this was like, this was the last of the great, uh, musical comedies. And, um, you know, I don't know, it might've been the last of the, you know, sort of, um, uh, it might've been the last of the big screen Broadway musicals to really, you know, be celebrated in, um, Hollywood for a long time. And, but that I could be wrong about that, but it's, it was, um, it's a,

it's a musical that's about gambling, you know, and about the sort of Damon Runyon world of midtown Manhattan during the Depression. And it became this humongous hit in the 1950s. And I think it's important because it's this like really strange intersection, right, of the 1950s. A time that was really a high point, like a peak for gambling in America, but was also a real high point for sort of that kind of middle-class morality, you know, moralizing. So that the movie, Guys and Dolls, tries to take Damon Runyon's stories

and then, you know, kind of weave them into this weird 1950s-like, you know, moral, you know, play about, you know, the gamblers finding religion at the end of the movie. But listen, I mean, the gamblers finding, finding religion at the end of the, uh, the movie. But listen, I mean, if for no other reason, like this, this movie is important because like I said before, the language, like Damon Runyon-esque language of like the way that the gamblers were, were, would talk, uh, in the depression, that kind of stylized dialogue,

that is so important to this sort of world. I was talking about this earlier, right? About the language of gamblers. And this is what Damon Runyon did, right? He chronicled this world where people were Jewish immigrants who hung out around this world in midtown Manhattan had this very strange kind of pattern of speech and manner of speaking. And, and he turned that all into this, you know, he created this world by writing about Mindy's and writing about Times Square. And I think it really captivated the imagination of

people all over America to see this kind of slice of New York City life. And David Mamet and other people have really kind of followed in that kind of way of writing dialogue that Dave and Runyon really was the first to do. And we can talk about that more later. But yeah, I think Guys and Dolls, you cannot talk about gambling movies or gambling in popular culture in America without talking about Guys and Dolls. I mean, high school kids all over America perform this play, which is nothing more than a celebration of gambling, right? And it's a major part of American popular culture. Amanda, did you perform Guys and Dolls when you were growing up?

No, but we did it in my high school when I was there. I had to be on the cross-country team, so I couldn't be a part of it. This is the first musical I ever saw. When my parents took me to New York, I was 10 years old and we went to see Guys and Dolls. And then I became obsessed with the film because, you know, I could relive it. And, you know, everything Dave said is very smart and exactly right. I would just add that, like, this is the movie probably that taught me everything I know about how to behave in a casino and or to be a lady, frankly. So it's a great- Wow, that is chilling.

Just a great instructional song on top of everything else. I'm very grateful. Dave, you mentioned Madden. There's no casinos. There's no casinos in Guys and Dolls. All of the gambling takes place in back rooms. Oh, that's right. Alleyways, barbershops.

I guess if I ever find myself in a craps game, I know what to do. Don't leave my escort. It isn't fair. It isn't nice. Dave, you mentioned David Mamet. And that is a nice segue to my number four, which is a movie called House of Games, which I think amongst,

I don't know about gambling aficionados, but those interested in gambling is a fairly sacred text. It's Mamet's directorial debut after many years of writing for the stage and it's a fascinating movie i i put it on my list not just because it is a movie that my father showed me at a fairly young age my father a very skeptical man uh who i think loved to show me things that made you think not everything is as it seems and house of games is one part gambling

movie and one part kind of, I don't know, what would you call it? Sort of like a prank heist movie, you know? A con man movie? Right, it's a con man movie. It's a confidence artist movie for sure. Yeah, and so I think that it features, I think, one of the more tension-filled poker sequences

I've ever seen in a movie, that early sequence featuring Ricky Jay. I'll call the bed. I'll back it up. With what? I said I'll back it up. If he loses, I'll write you a check. Who is this broad? She's a friend of Mike's. She's all right.

Your bed is called. Lindsey Krauss, who is the star of the movie, is introduced to this man, this gambler, this, I don't know, illicit figure played by Joe Mantegna. And he's participating in a card game. Lindsey Krauss plays a psychiatrist. And she is brought in essentially to analyze the actions, the emotions, the feelings of the players in the room. And she gets kind of ensorcelled in this very strange underworld of gambling and con men. But the reason to watch it, aside from the cons,

which are very fun and the kind of characters, is the Mametian dialogue is really like how Mamet would listen to people in Chicago or in New York and kind of pick up on their cadences and would talk to people like Montaigne who grew up around people who were in these worlds and would communicate what I certainly thought when i was 9 10 11 years old what this world actually was you know you come to find out that this is not these movies are not journalism you know they are they're highly elevated and stylized and mammoth has a certainly a very

complicated view of the world and of human beings but it's an immensely fun movie to watch if you've never seen it before it's a it's a really it's a real um it's a corker i would say uh dave what do you what do you think of house of games i love house of games and i definitely i love ricky jay um you know he's an american treasure and uh and so it's it's it's fun to watch him in that scene and in that movie and in all of Mamet's movies. I'm so glad that he gave Ricky Jay parts in his films. You know, there is very little gambling that happens in that movie. I think that I probably would,

as much as it's a great movie, I'm not sure that, like, I mean, there's that poker scene and there's some other scenes that sort of deal tangentially with gambling, but, like, you know, it is true that, like, the con artists, a lot of the con games

that kind of existed uh i mean the the the hooked all of them is that you try to find folks who are larcenous in their heart right who are looking to try to uh get over on someone else and then so that when you take them they can't you know they they they feel some some bit of guilt or uh you know won't run to the cops or whatever. That's how con games have always been and continue to be evidently all the way into the 1980s. And so that's what the characters in The Grifters or in House of Games and these other kind of like con artist movies are doing. And that is a form of gambling. I guess you have to bring people into the situation where they bring in their money thinking they're going to make a lot more, you know, where they're going to without any risk, and then they lose their money because it turns out there was some risk. And that's, you know,

that's how the carnivorous makes their money. So I guess there's a form of like, you know, there's a definitely a form of gambling for sure. Yeah, I mean, honestly, the feeling that those characters are after is the same one that I feel when I get annihilated at the poker table. A significantly better player than me works me over and draws me in and finds a way to compel me to put more money in the center of the table. It's kind of the same. I mean, being conned at the table, being conned while gambling against others is a part of the experience, at least for me, a not very talented gambler. And Mamet definitely liked to write about these characters, these con artists, because I think for the same reason that we were talking about with, you know, that people like gambling movies

and to write about gamblers, because they also have a language all to their own, right? And they have a, there's that sort of subculture has such a strange and unusual way of talking and way of talking about things. And I think that helps him as someone who wants to write stylized dialogue where he can write and talk about these things that seem nonsensical because he's writing about the subculture that's so impenetrable that very few people know anything about. Amanda, why don't we go to your number three since we're pinging around here on the numbers? Okay. Before I do my number three, I'm going to say to both of you, don't start with me, okay? I see you in your Zoom boxes and I don't want to be lectured. I have my pen now pointing you about the level of the gamesmanship or

whatever in this excellent film, which is Casino Royale. I'm the money. Every penny of it. The treasury has agreed to stake you in the game. And everyone knew I was going to pick this. And I've heard that the poker is maybe a little bit more obvious than some of my degenerate friends would like to see on the big screen. But I don't care because you know what? It's a movie.

And I know when someone wins and I know when someone loses. And also the poker games itself, though they take a tremendous amount of the time in the movie. I was rewatching this and my husband wanted to go to bed and I was like, why don't you just watch the poker with me and then you can go to bed. And he was like, that's an hour from now. I'm not going to do that. So there is a lot of poker. I understand it's not world-class poker, but this movie does a lot of what you were both talking about in terms of like developing a world. And in this particular case, kind of the European casino, which is a different milieu than a lot of the films on our list, but is definitely interesting to me. Definitely something I will never be a

part of in any capacity, both because I'm not good at gambling and also like me being in a casino in Montenegro just seems like the farthest thing from reality right now. But it's immersive in that sense. And I think it also, it does a nice job, like an obvious but still good job

of developing the Bond character a bit and developing kind of some of the moral ambiguity of, of that job that starts in Casino Royale and filters through the Daniel Craig films specifically Skyfall, my beloved Skyfall. It's also just, it is, it's not high stakes in the, perhaps, but in the sense of communicating the high stakes nature of the situation. These poker games are interrupted by a gunfight and also James Bond getting poisoned and having to resuscitate himself with his own personal kit from his car. It's insane. And it definitely holds your attention. So I love Casino Royale.

There are a lot of people who think that we do not put enough respect on Casino Royale when talking about Skyfall. So here is your time. Let Casino Royale shine. And Sean and Dave, don't say anything about the poker. Thank you. Refresh my memory.

What is it? It's like a cooler where like uh it's quads against a um straight flush or something yes a royal flush is that how it goes yes so i mean the the issue that i have with it i'm not gonna blaspheme it no no it's more of a general note i'm gonna i'm gonna provide about my list i did not include movies like the Cincinnati Kid, Maverick, Casino Royale on my list because I'm not interested in quads versus a straight

flush. I've never seen quads versus a straight flush at a poker table and I never will. Because of that, I'm less interested. I really like Casino Royale. I loved Maverick as a kid. I thought it was an incredibly fun movie and a super smart adaptation of

a TV show, but it's not gambling to me. I understand. It's not real life. It's a James Bond movie, okay? Fair enough. To its credit, though, they were borrowing the exact same hand from the Cincinnati Kid, right? Exactly. Which is also quads against the straight house.

It was against the straight flush, which is, I guess I would, as far as it's statistically far more, less likely to happen in five card stud than in a, whatever that, where they playing hold them in a casino. Yeah.

I think they're playing hold them. Yeah. You're right. I mean, the Cincinnati kid is, has a lot of style and incredible Stephen Queen performance. I think it's like kind of a bad gambling movie personally um okay so i guess we should do my number three next actually dave we'll do your number three now what do you you know i mentioned a con man movie you might have

a con man movie of your own the sting was that my number three yeah sting must have left my wallet in my room don't hand me into that crap when you come to a game like this, you bring your money. How do I know you won't take a powder? No, no, no, no, no. All right, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send a boy around to your room in five minutes. You better have the money or it's going to be all around Chicago

that you're welched. You won't be able to get a game of jacks. Probably one of my favorite movies. Maybe should be number one. The Sting is, you know, it's a classic, right? It was Best Picture, what was it, 1978 or something like that? It was the Best Picture. 73, I think, yeah.

73, yeah. You know, The Sting was based on this book by this guy David Maurer who was a linguist. And so you can kind of see the kind of pattern here with how I'm talking about these movies. But like, the big con was this book that this linguist. And so you can kind of see the kind of pattern here with how I'm talking about these movies. But like the big con was this book that this linguist had written where he spent all this time in the 1920s

with con artists. And he was trying to study the way that they talk and the way that they speak and their language and their vocabulary and their whole like their syntax and the syncopation of the way they speak. So he was interested in that. But what he ended up writing was this kind of ethnography about this whole culture, this this world that people in America knew nothing about that was really wild.

And and so fast forward, you know, 50 years later and they write a movie, you know, they write this screenplay about these characters, these real-life people from this book that he wrote, and they made The Sting. The Sting is an interesting movie. It's a period piece that comes out in the 70s that's set in the 1930s, so a little bit later than when the actual book was written. It has all this weird ragtime music in it,

which I love and I think really makes the movie beautiful, but it's not appropriate to the time period at all. Marvin Hamlisch, not one for accuracy. And so the movie is all about these con artists, but it really takes place around the world of gambling because this scam that they're running, the big store or whatever it has, they set up a's they set up a fake um uh race book where people come and make uh illegal bets on horse races in chicago they set this fake store up filled with con artists to scam this gangster out of his money over the you know by stringing him along what they call the big con the long con you know over the course of weeks and weeks and um it's all it all starts with a with a card game on a train train where they cheat him. And it's a great performance by Paul Newman. And one of the things I love about The Sting is that the hands that you

see in the movie, they're supposed to be Paul Newman's hands, like shuffling and dealing the cards with the hands of the magician Di Vernon, who himself was a magician who studied card cheats around the country. He would go to prisons around the country. He would hang out with cheaters so that he could learn their tricks so that he could use them for magic. And I always thought he was such a fascinating figure and they use him in The Sting. But The Sting is a great movie. And The Sting is, The Sting is, it definitely breaks one of my rules about gambling movies, which is that I don't like gambling movies that where the only way to be good at gambling is to cheat, right?

Where you either have to be like some sort of like savant, like in that movie 21, like some sort of brilliant genius, or you have to be a straight up cheater to be good at it. But in this particular movie, I'll give them a pass because they're just con artists, right? And so the gambling is kind of like, it's all just a part of this longer con that they're doing but it's a wonderful movie George Roy Hill you know he was he he um he was the director I think he might have won best director for this movie and um yeah I love it it should have been my number one probably if you haven't seen it you should see it agree that was exactly what I was

gonna say if anyone has not seen this thinging, watch it. It is kind of a makeup across the board for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid not being acknowledged as best picture, George Roy Hill not winning, reuniting those two great actors, but it's just a phenomenally entertaining movie that holds up almost 50 years later.

I guess we'll go to my number three now, which is a movie called Heartache. Coming in there, baby. Shaka-laka-doo, baby. I'm almost lighting it, baby. I'm not allowed to cigarette, old timer. What are you going to do? $2,000 heartache.

$2,000 heartache's a bet. This is Paul Thomas Anderson's first film. This is a really interesting movie, certainly an imperfect movie as Paul Thomas Anderson movies go, and in some ways a little bit cliche riddled, but I think it's a fascinating experiment. The reason that I think it's a great gambling movie is it's one of the few movies that looks at the, you know, the kind of slummier side,

the downside of life as a lifelong gambler, as a lifer, as a person who lives in a place like Reno, who lives in a motel or in a hotel, a person who essentially like makes their living or at least makes their, the sort of the, I don't know, the final third of their life living, the sustenance in casinos. And it features a character named Sidney. The original

title of this movie was meant to be Sidney, played by Philip Aker Hall, who encounters a young man played by John C. Reilly, who's down on his luck in Nevada and kind of takes him under his wing. And in doing so, shows him the ways of casino life, for lack of a better phrase, and how one can get a night comped in a casino at a hotel, how one can get free tickets to a show, how one can kind of scratch out a living working the angles inside the games rooms. And it's a very modest movie, but it's got enormous style. And it has just four truly iconic actors in these very small very specific really interesting parts john c reilly philip baker hall gwyneth paltrow as a cocktail waitress

at one of the casinos and samuel jackson as a untrustworthy friend and you know in many ways it's like a play um it's with the exception of some of the roving you know camera movements that pta is kind of experimenting with as he moves the camera around the casino but to me ultimately the movie just boils down to the portrayal of philip baker hall's character and this like someone you just don't see on screen that often you do see that the types from the sting you know the people who the winners you know the people who have the big idea and can pull off the big idea, the James Bonds. You don't you don't see the Sidneys too often. So I want to give some love to heartache. OK, let's go to Amanda's number two. Yes, it's a little film called Uncut Gems. Come on, KG. This is no different than that. This is me.

All right. I'm not a fucking athlete. This is my fucking way. This is no different than that. This is me. All right? I'm not a fucking athlete. This is my fucking way. This is how I win. Perhaps you've heard of it. I was surprised that this wasn't on either of your lists, though I guess that we're doing a, you know, just trying to represent all the different types of gambling movies, which is very great and responsible of us as list makers and podcast hosts.

This is obviously just an instantly iconic movie about gambling and the mechanics of gambling, though I am told that maybe there are some quibbles about certain mechanics. And once again, I don't really care because I don't know how it works. This is also a movie about anxiety and the risk and the self-belief or delusion and the intensity of gambling. And I can't be a gambler for many reasons, but primarily because I can't handle the feeling that Uncut Gems creates for more than two hours. And two hours was really excruciating and exhilarating but i think that this movie creates like that experience um in a way that i like really admire and also

never want to live in ever again uh because it i'm nervous right now talking about it but but this is what i imagine being a gambler and having confidence in yourself and also having it go wrong would be like. Perhaps that's wrong, but it's definitely seared in my brain. Dave, did you relate to Uncut Gems at all? Well, look, I'm somebody who has a lot of anxiety. I'm definitely an anxious person, so I related to it in that sense. But gambling is something that I find fun, and it's a distraction. It's something that I do to not calm my anxiety and to unwind. If I found gambling to be... If I gambled the way that Adam Sandler does in Uncut

Gems, I wouldn't do it because it would just be adding more stress to my already stressful life. So I feel like the movie, it's a fantastic movie. It's a great movie. I just think that like that, that it's definitely a movie that wasn't made by gamblers because I feel like the way that they portray the gambling in the movie is sort of, um, not just the mechanics of it, but just this idea that like, you know, that he's just constantly like, you know, um, pissed off and like making these bets out of anger to prove something. But I'll give it this. In some ways, I think the film is about the interconnectedness of the universe and karma

and the way that every action that we have has some repercussions. In that sense, it is kind of, in a weird way, a gambling movie because as a superstitious gambler, I definitely believe that, right. I definitely believe that if I lose a bet, it's probably because of something bad I did at some point, like that I'm being punished for. And so I, you know, I'll give it that. And, uh, and, and I, and, and casting, you know, Mike Francesca as the bookie was definitely, uh, you know, I appreciate, I appreciated that. I liked all the bookies in

that movie. I thought that all the, the various characters, the different bookies that show up and like, and hassle him throughout the film or, um, were pretty well cast. And I thought a good representation of the cross section that you might encounter in New York city. If you, if you make bets with independent bookmakers. Yeah. The Safdies have an incredible eye for regular looking people, you know, normal humans, not movie stars. I love Uncut Gems. My love for Uncut Gems is well understood. I think I was thinking, I think if you had not put it on your list, I probably would have prefaced our conversation by saying the most recent entrant in the gambling movie hall of fame is Uncut Gems, but we are still kind of processing what it means to the canon. Because I think it does effectively capture the exhilaration at the end of the movie when you

pull off something unbelievable, unlikely. Fantasy sports is not the same as gambling, but I am in a fantasy football league in which the buy-in is very expensive. And I have Kyler Murray on my team. And yesterday when Kyler Murray completed his Hail Mary, I almost started crying. I was on a treadmill and I was watching the game on an iPad and I screamed at the top of my lungs. I was so excited because the points that that represented meant more than just a win for the Cardinals. It meant a win for me. And it vaulted me into second place in my league which is very important this is all very boring however that same feeling that Sandler has immediately before the end of the film that that pure joy that he feels is is very recognizable to me um

Dave doesn't feel like his joy it feels like his joy at the end though is more relief that he's not gonna die and not just like happy that he called it. Right. Isn't that the thing, though? Isn't that not like surviving? Isn't that a part of gambling? I don't know. I see it.

I just I feel so bad for him. I feel so bad for him throughout the film because he's just created such a mess for himself and that anything he does that's like good. It's just like, oh, good. I'm I'm I'm like one more step out of this hole that I'm in, which, you know, watching it, he's never going to get out of versus, you know, when you won your fantasy, but you actually do get to take a victory lap for that.

You know, this guy never got to take it. I literally did on a treadmill. I took a victory lap. I mean, I do think that that's an interesting kind of philosophical distinction between, and to some extent it is because they've like, you are a gambler and also like, thus know more about it and can be methodical and kind of can understand how to control some of the outcomes. Whereas

someone who's not participating only understands it as like some great existential existential risk, uh, which is kind of how I view all of those things and, and kind of the framework that I, um, gravitate towards also in in part because I can't imagine feeling anything other than the way that Adam Sandler feels when he's like, I have to win this or I'm going to die. Like, I just think no matter

how much you taught me about poker and mathematics, I would just be like, I have to win this or I'm going to die. So I appreciate that that neurosis was put on the screen. Okay. Speaking of people who just can't quit it,

my number two is a movie called California Split. You're low. That's what I'm down. Right. Start with the ball guy. Absolutely right. Percentage player doesn't take many chances, right? No flair.

The guy I say is part of a two or three man combination. No sweat, but you find him after the fourth card. You're not in the hand unless you got the nuts. I got the nuts. Cowboy, I don't know. Lyndon Johnson definitely is here. I figure he owns a piece of the town. Haberdasher.

He sells cowboy hats. That's him. He's got the rhythm of the game. It's his rhythm. Absolutely right. I think that this is one of the, maybe the most entertaining gambling movie that I've ever seen. It's a Robert Altman film from the 1970s.

It is certainly kind of a nice partner movie with The Sting. It stars George Segal and Elliot Gould as two guys who become fast pals at a poker table. I believe it takes place in California. Yes. And they essentially go on a journey of joy, unraveling, and ultimately joy again, potentially. It's a very interesting look at the side doors of the poker world at that time. And it's a somewhat farce, somewhat comedy, somewhat bleak drama. As almost all Altman movies are, it is a mishmash of a lot of different genres, but certainly features one of the all-time great Elliot Gould performances.

Very, very, very, very funny about essentially who these people are that can't quit games. I love people who can't quit games. I'm kind of fascinated by them. And Altman kind of played a game as his entire career. I mean, he was a gambler as filmmakers go, and he seems to be real simpatico with the two men at the center of this movie. And they have lives. George Segal's character, I think, is a magazine editor. And it seems like he has an important job and a lucrative job and a stable life. But once the games and once Elliot Gould's relationship kind of gets in his system, he just can't get it out. And he needs to exercise it at all costs. So just one of my favorite movies. He mentions in the film that he's separated from his wife when he's talking

to the one woman. So I kind of got the feeling that Siegel's character was, you know, the gambling was a bit of like he had found his way to the card rooms in Southern California because he might've been in a bad spot. And he was surprised that he meets Elliot Gould, who is this, who's having, who's just sort of his high on life and absolutely is having the greatest time while Siegel doesn't seem to be having fun gambling. And he, he wants some of that, right? He's like, how are you having fun? I want to have fun doing this too. And they go on this journey together. I, I think that's a fantastic movie. And in some ways it is a bit of the yin and the yang of the gamblers, right? That there's like, there's people who are, you know, who can't control themselves and are addicted or, you know, gamble in a kind of a pathological way. Um, that's not fun at all.

And then there's people like Elliot Gould's character who, you know, just find immense joy and pleasure in it, whether they're winning or losing. And that it's just, you know, it's just a way to like, it's sort of an anarchistic, chaotic life that he's living in that film. And you can't help but just smile. And as you watch him, you know, watch him throughout the movie and you could tell that George Segal wants some of that shine and can't really get it. And at the end, you know, where he's like, you've got to get away from me. You're jinxing me. You know, I can't win unless you're way. And there's something there.

Altman's definitely trying to say something there. It's very, you know, poetic. A cameo by the great Amarillo Slim. That's right. At the poker scene at the end. Yeah, it's truly a great movie. Have you seen this, Amanda? Yes, but many years ago.

And I knew that you would pick it, so I didn't rewatch it. Yeah, it's one of my favorites. I have a poster of this movie in my office. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. I'm very curious about the movie Mississippi Grind and how much the filmmakers were trying to remake it because I watched Mississippi Grind recently and was blown away at how similar it was, how much it had really borrowed from

California Split. Although I don't remember when the movie came out, anybody saying it was like a remake of California Split. But I mean, it's uncanny how much Mississippi Grind really takes from the beats of the story. And let's see if I can pull up the piece I wrote about Mississippi Grind on Grantland in 2015 and see if I wrote California Split. Oh, certainly I did. I'm sure you did.

Yeah. California Split is mentioned many times. The symmetry is remarkable between these two movies. There you go. Yeah, Mississippi Grind, if people haven't seen it, it's really fun, but it is a little bit jarring if you're a fan of California Split. Yeah, but do you know,

did the filmmakers do that intentionally or were they trying to like, okay. Yeah, it sounds like basically California Split and James Toback's The Gambler were the two kind of primary influences on this movie and they were looking to kind of update them to some respect. It's kind of like when an American filmmaker

remakes a French film and like changes a couple of things, but it's mostly the same movie and it's like, why did you remake this we already have this movie but yeah it's that movie is a good platform for what I think Ryan Reynolds is good at and

so it's a fun watch if you want to double feature okay let's go to number ones Dave I love your number one pick I'm so glad you picked it so it's just I want to hear you talk about it what's your number one let it ride is my number one pick. I'm so glad you picked it. So just, I want to hear you talk about it. What's your number one? Let it ride is my number one. I know this for a living.

I've been doing it for 15 years. Play the circuit. One track closes, another one opens. Some big places, some dumps. And I met all kinds of characters. But believe me, pal, you are the champ.

I really hope you win. You're the greatest I've ever seen. I'll tell my grandchildren about you. Thanks. Look, Let It Ride is not a serious movie. It's a comedy. And it's a 1980s comedy. So it's a bit of a screwball comedy.

But in some ways, to me, it's the perfect gambling movie, right? Because it's a celebration of gambling, right? There's no gambling addicts. Nobody gets their kneecaps broken. There's no sinister forces lurking around the corner or any kind of violence or nothing like this. It's absolutely a love letter to the regular denizens of a California racetrack. And even if you think about horse racing, every movie that's ever been made about horse racing has always been about horse racing, right? It's been about horses and jockeys and the sport. And here's one that's actually about horse players and like the rail birds that

hang around the track you know I think that like Jay Cronley the guy that wrote the book that this movie was based on he's a great writer he also wrote the book that the movie funny farm another George we hope that that movie was based on a book by him by Jay Cronley. He, uh, he, uh, was really good at character, right. And the characters that he creates in this, in this story that became let it ride feel very realistic. They feel, you know, and they feel fun. They feel full of life. They, it feels like a slice of life that people may be, you know, aren't that don't know a whole lot about um but look i think that like let it ride to me more than anything it's like it's inspirational as a gambler because the story

of let it ride is very simple it's a guy who is walking around lucky right he cannot lose and when he discovers this when it becomes clear to him during the day that he's gonna win uh he just keeps betting and keeps betting and keeps betting. And there's this incredible scene in that film where he makes a gigantic bet, like a $5,000 win bet. And he and the ticket taker kind of share a cigarette and take this moment where they talk about what just happened and everything gets kind of quiet. To me, it's just like the perfect scene because, again, this film sort of unapologetically celebrates the fact that this man is going to keep letting it ride and he's going to keep winning. And you never doubt it for a second. You know that he's going to keep winning money, even though, you know, his wife and other people around him are begging him to stop. He just keeps going. And in the end, he does. He wins. He doesn't win like an ungodly amount of money. You know, it's not like a story where like a guy gets super rich or whatever. It's just a simple tale about a guy that, you know, when a low five figures one day at the racetrack,

just making, just like continuing to like, let it ride on every race. And it's fun. It's, I guess my main reason for making it number one is that it's a super fun movie. And I think the best gambling movies are the ones that make gambling look like they like gambling is,

is fun. It's something that people can do, uh, you know, as a diversion and as something that can can do, you know, as a diversion and as something that can be a nice time and doesn't have to be something that's always, you know,

pathological or criminal or violent. Speaking of fun, Amanda, what is your number one? Yeah, fun, but, you know, criminal. So in like in some ways, it's right in line with Dave's pick. And in some ways it breaks many of his rules. And I'm sorry, Dave.

Mine is Ocean's Eleven, the remake, in case anyone was wondering. I know you weren't. Why do this? Why not do it? Because yesterday I walked out of the joint after losing four years of my life. And you're cold decking teen beat cover boys. Because the house always wins. Play long enough, you never change the stakes.

The house takes you. Unless when that perfect hand comes along, you bet big and then you take the house. Been practicing this speech. A little bit. Did I rush you? It felt like I rushed you. No, it was good. I liked it.

Team beat things rush. been practicing this speech a little bit did i rush it felt like i was good i liked it team b thinks much uh i understand that gambling here is more in some ways the literal gambling is window dressing right it's set in las vegas they're in a casino you know there's like brad pitt is teaching celebrities how to play poker it's they they are all people who who do gamble but the main event uh is a heist. And I know, Dave, that it breaks the rule of like the only way to win is by cheating. In fact, in this case, it's by robbing. But it is fun. And to that sense that you guys have been talking about, about gambling as something

methodical and a task and people just sitting down and kind of figuring out the angles. Uh, these guys all get together with respect for each other and they figure out the angles and they pull off something that is completely ridiculous and you have to get everything just so. And, um, you know, and they, they beat the house, which is very exciting. And it also does have a little twist of gambling on love and happily Danny ocean wins that as well. I just also think it's such a fun world to, to be in and does such a nice job of bringing out like maybe a little, this seediness,

but also the glamor and kind of the, the allure of, of Las Vegas and, and that world. And I've seen it a thousand times, so clearly it's a world I like to be a part of. We love the Ocean's Eleven movies. Yeah. It works because it's a casino because we all hate the casino. It's a universal thing. We all hate the casino. So no one cares. It's a victimless crime if you steal money from the Bellagio. That's a great point.

My number one will probably come as no surprise to Amanda. Certainly one of my favorite movies ever made. One of the ringer Hall of Fame movies, I would say. It's Rounders. You're right that ace didn't help me I flopped the nut straight the Matt Damon vehicle that I think contributed

to the poker boom certainly and certainly contributed to me becoming obsessed with the game and probably played a part in me even caring about the quality of David Hill's work and then us working together

on stories over the years and doing this podcast Gamblers. If anybody is not familiar with Rounders, where have you been sleeping? I would recommend you check it out. I think it's a really interesting document to look at now in the afterglow of everything that has happened to poker in the mainstream in the afterglow of everything that has happened

to poker in the mainstream in the last 15 or 25 years um certainly the the linguistic choices that dave was talking about throughout these movies this is kind of that's a hallmark of this movie and brian koppelman and david levine's script um works very hard i think to help kind of create an overworld and an underworld of gambling and in Matt Damon's character, they they created basically like the perfect movie character that well, trying to unlock what is motivating this person and whether greatness can overcome human frailty and whether just being good at something makes you enough to be a good person, which I think is just an interesting theme for all movies. So, Rounders, it's perfect. Dave, where's your head on Rounders these days? I love Rounders. It's great. I would have put it on my list too. I mean, Rounders is a movie I've watched a million times. And the thing about Rounders that because they, um, you know, they got, um, incredible, like, like fantastically unlucky or fantastically lucky. I love how,

you know, um, how Brian wrote this character to, uh, be undone by his own pride. I think that's such a great trait in a, in a hero in a gambling movie. And also, I love how at the end, what does he win? 20 grand, right? Our hero at the end of the movie wins $30,000. And I just think as a lesson for anybody out there who wants to write a gambling movie, you do not have to make the character win millions and millions of dollars betting on all kinds of wild stuff and having all these magical things happen. You can have a character win, you know, $20,000, $30,000, and we will still be completely invested in that. And I love that about rounders. I also came up, you know, when I first moved to New York playing in all those card rooms and he totally nailed it, man.

I mean, you know, the diamond club, the Mayfair, I mean, it definitely felt very, very real. Some of those characters, you know, Joey Knish was based on this guy, Joe Bagels. Aside from some of the more kind of wild stuff that happens in the movie, it's a pretty accurate look at the 1990s early aughts underground poker scene in New York. One of the greatest of all time. Dave, quickly, so Gamblers, November 18th. Also, just plug your book, man. People should buy your book. Yeah, I wrote a book called The Vapors. And it's a book about Hot Springs, Arkansas, in the middle of the last century, which was once upon a time Las Vegas. Before there was a Las

Vegas, there was Hot Springs, Arkansas. It's the town that I'm from, and it's about some of my family and some wild stories about some gamblers down in the Bible Belt. So yeah, it's called The Vapors, and it's available at your local independent bookstore. Awesome. David Hill, thank you, man. That does it for Amanda and I. Before we get to my conversation with Christopher Landon, let's hear a word from our sponsor. Happy to be joined by Christopher Landon. Chris, how are you? I'm good. I'm good. Thank you. Congratulations. Been wanting to talk to you for a while. I'm a fan of your films, but you've carved out this interesting place in horror comedy, so to speak.

And I was curious what the first horror movie you ever saw was, or can at least remember seeing. The first horror movie that I remember seeing, which is certainly not a comedy, was Psycho. Oh, wow. How old were you? I think I was about four i know what kind of an impression did that leave not a good age uh it scared the fuck out of me oh um yeah this is a safe space for cursing okay good good um i yeah i might my my parents were watching it um in their bedroom and i snuck into their room um and i hid behind a chair and watched the whole movie um and i was i just had these these memories of just being so

captivated um but then and by the way i even made it through the shower scene without freaking out. But when Norman Bates comes down the stairs dressed as his mother at the very end of the film with the knife, that's when I just started shrieking. And my parents realized I had been watching the movie the whole time. Did you get hooked on the genre? Did you have a, build a big relationship with it as a kid? I, I did, I did very much so in my, and, and a couple of years later, um, yeah, I think when I was about six years old, my parents separated and eventually divorced and my dad would take my sister and I to the video store. And of course, you know, like we were, you know, this is back in the days of Luchess. Um, and you know, of course, like normal kids, we were renting Benji and shit like that. But the horror section of the video store, which was always tucked in the back,

there was always this sort of calling. And so I would find myself meandering over there and looking at the backs of these video covers. And then like my dad just started to let us rent them. And again, probably wasn't great parenting, but at the same time, like he kind of, he monitored it to a certain degree, but I think he just understood that like, we had a very strong fascination with this stuff. And so I started watching horror films every weekend with my dad and my sister and it became our thing. And so we would watch three, four, five movies a weekend.

And so I had a very, very steady diet of horror at a very early age. Did you know early on that this was something that you wanted to do? Obviously you come from a show business family, or did you know you wanted to make movies at a young age? I didn't know that I wanted to make them at a very young age. I definitely got there by high school. Um, that was my plan. Like it was just sort of like a set path. Um, and I think part of what helped growing up in the show business family was that I knew it was possible. I knew that if I worked hard and I fought for it and I was passionate about it, that I really started to kind of write stuff and make short films with my friends. And, you know, that was sort of where the real path, I think, began. Tell me a little bit about your writing, because one of the things I like about your movies is they feel very much indebted to movie history,

but they're also kind of constantly dissembling movie history and then putting it back together again in your own mind was that an approach that you had been taking from a young age um i mean i think it was i think it was second nature and i think it still is um i think i've been so deeply deeply influenced by other films and other filmmakers um that so often i think that i'm sometimes trying to sort of recreate the highs of my of my youth my childhood you know and watching these films and um and so so much of what i do um is is homage and like a lot of the stuff they're like love letters to to the to the to my favorite filmmakers um but also because i think that there are it's really fun to take known tropes and concepts and ideas that have existed before and then and then turning them sort of inside out or finding ways to sort of merge them with other things that aren't necessarily familiar to people. So that's one of the things that I really enjoy doing with both Happy Death Day and Freaky.

It's this ability to take the known and make it unknown again. And that's part of the fun. Are you making the movies right now that you hoped you would be when you were in high school and started thinking about this you know i don't i don't know i don't it's funny like when i was in high school i was just making all kinds of bullshit um with my friends and i can't say that i was completely sober when i did it um so there was i don't think there was much intent there. And then by the time I got to, into college, um, you know, I was like, I had a definite dark side. Um, and so there wasn't any sort of real lightness and anything that I was interested in. Um, and even the first film that I wrote that actually was made, um, which ended up, it

was a drama, uh, it was a film called another day in paradise. Um, that was a film that I wrote for Larry Clark. Um, and his work is famously dark. Um, and, and so that was really the path that I kind of saw myself on was that I was going to be this like edgy, you know, it's that like my, I was like that typical emo high school guy, you know, I dyed my hair black and it was long and I was pissed. And, um, and then, and then I think, I think the biggest shift for me, I mean, I started to kind of, I was while, and while I was watching horror films with my dad, I was also watching like Monty Python. And so there was always this sort of humorous element that I was also drawn to. And then I also started to discover along

the way when I was writing that like humor was a wonderful weapon to disarm people with. And so I found myself really trying to bring as much humor into everything that I did. And that even goes into the more serious stuff, um, or the more traditionally scary, uh, things that I was doing, like the paranormal activity movies. Um, like I always fought really hard to infuse as much humor as I could into those films because I thought it would help the audience bond with the characters. Um, and so that's kind of what stuck. And the horror comedy thing is just something that I have kind of just continued to awkwardly stumble back into again and again. I always think I'm going to go off and do something really important and

serious. And then, you know, I end up, you know i end up you know doing that yeah gesturing at your scouts guide to the apocalypse poster behind you um can you tell me just a little bit about how you became a part of the blumhouse family because you you have to be one of the longest tenured filmmakers who stayed inside definite seniority over there for sure i don't think there's anyone else that's been around longer than i have um it's funny i met jason so long ago before i even got involved in the paranormal franchise um i think it was like a just general meeting that i that i had with him that my agents had set up. And I immediately clicked with him and I loved his energy and his enthusiasm for filmmaking and the business as a whole. And I ended up developing a movie with Jason for Paramount that was basically the horror sort sort of it was like lord of the flies set at a prep school um and so i was

kind of like on on his radar and and then i fell quite accidentally into the paranormal franchise um when when they were making paranormal 2 um and that's how i really ended up working with Jason so much just because that franchise became almost like a TV series in a way, because we were making one every year. Um, and so we spent a lot of time together. Um, and then I think after a few movies, I think Jason really understood my taste and what I was after. And I connected so strongly with Blumhouse as a company because of the flexibility and the freedom that that's afforded to the creators. And I think any writer or writer director, I think will tell you that when you're out in the

studio world, in the studio system um it's complicated it's really complicated there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen and you find yourself battling with a lot of opinions um and i'm not like an anti-collaboration person i'm quite the opposite um but i just grew very tired of watching good ideas turn bad because everybody wanted to see their version of the movie. So that's where I think the real connection, the bond was formed, is just a bond of trust. You had directed an independent feature when you were writing the paranormal movies, but did you feel like you were auditioning to direct a film for them? What is that experience like when you're in that phase? I mean, are you asking about the indie that I did or are you talking about just while I was making Paranormal?

When you were making the Paranormal movies, was there like an expectation that at some point you would get a chance to shoot one of them? I certainly made it clear that I wanted to. And I was kind of signaling that when we were making two. And actually at one point during the filming of two, there was an emergency on set and I ended up having to direct a day. Um, and, and that was the first time that I felt like some of the powers that be sort of took notice, but then still kind of felt like I wasn't ready or, um, they didn't want me to direct yet. And I think it was, it was too full because the writing of those movies was so, um, it was very involved. It was full on, like, you know, a lot of people look at these found footage movies and they think, oh, you know, they're barely even scripted, but it was quite the opposite. And often we were almost workshopping the movies because

the productions were so small and we could be so nimble. Um, and so I would write like, I think on paranormal, it was three or four i ended up writing like 1300 pages like it was ridiculous and so i think there was a fear that if i was directing then who would be writing and so they kind of kept me in that box for as long as they could until i think they felt like i wasn't going to come back unless they gave me one um and that's when i directed the spinoff um the marked ones. But I was, and that was part of the process on those movies. It was so collaborative. Like I was like a, pun intended, a ghost director. Like I always was right there with the directors and working through shots and

figuring things out. I mean, to the point where sometimes I would go and video board sequences ahead of the directors and then bring it to them so that they knew exactly where the camera should be for some of the sequences. Just because I was the writer, I knew where things belonged. So there was kind of a natural connection there. So eventually they let me direct one. It does seem like the Happy Death Day movies signaled a a leap for you i think probably both creatively and and successfully like just in terms of building out that movie that i guess ultimately became a franchise did did you pitch that straight up and

and and they accepted that that concept no it was it's funny that was a crazy one because i had i was originally i was hired to rewrite happy death day um which at the time was called um half to death or again i had different titles and it was um and there was another director attached they were in in early pre-production to make it well i was brought on to to rewrite the script um and and then it didn't happen like the the company that was making the movie kind of closed and and it sat on the shelf forever and then i had lunch with the producer 10 years later almost um and angela angela mancuso who's our producer she said oh what a bummer we never got to make that movie. And then this light bulb turned on and I just emailed it.

It was like a Friday. I emailed it on a Friday to Jason. And then he shared it with the company that Friday. And then on Monday morning, he called me and he said, the movie's greenlit. And it was the weirdest thing in the world because this thing sat dormant for 10 years, almost eight years. And then over the course of one weekend, I was in pre-production. And it felt like kismet, you know, it felt like something that was meant to be. And every step of the way that movie felt like it was unfolding the way it was supposed to. And so that was really cool. Tell me where Freaky came from. So my writing partner, Michael Kennedy, um, who I met, um, about a year prior, um, I did a podcast with him. He, he was one of the hosts of a, of a podcast called attack of the queer wolf. Um, and it was a gay centric horror podcast. Um, and we had such a good time and we became

fast friends. Um, and then he called me out of the blue one day and said, Hey, I have to go out and pitch this movie. And I'm a little bit nervous. Can I rehearse it with you? Um, so I said, sure. So I went to his office, um, and he said, okay, so it's called killer body. Um, and he said, okay, so it's called killer body. Um, and he said, and basically it's freaky Friday, the 13th. And as soon as he said that, I was like, oh fuck like that. And it was one of those weird things too, where I was like, that's such a good idea. Why didn't I think of it? Um, and he was really funny. I actually thought of it because I was trying to figure out like, how could I do my own happy death day? Um, and so he realized that was a

mashup that he hadn't seen before. And so I kind of stopped him right away. And I was like, listen, killer body's not your title. It should be freaky Friday the 13th. Like that's your title. Like you want it to say everything right away. And then I just started pitching ideas to him. And within the space of like 20 minutes, we agreed to write it together. Um, and then we wrote it. We just wrote the script. We sat down and banged it out over the course of two to three weeks. And then, and then I sent it again to Jason first, because I have a relationship with him. Um, cause we were going to try and like go out to a bunch of places. And, but I sent it to Jason first and he pulled the same shit only faster.

I think I sent it on a Thursday night and then Friday morning he had called and said, it's greenlit. It does. It is a, it's a perfect Blumhouse movie though. I can't, I kind of can't imagine it anywhere else.

It makes total sense, especially with the work that you've done. I think while we were writing it, even though Michael and I... It's funny. I wanted to send the script out wide to a bunch of companies and studios because partly I wanted Michael to have the opportunity to have that exposure. Because there is something that exposure, you know, because there is something that happens when you send a script out, um,

as a spec. Um, but you know, Jason and Jason wants what he wants. And we always kind of knew it was going to end up there, but like, he was very bullish about it. So like he actually stopped that from even happening.

Um, so, you know, while Michael didn't get, you know, town to read his script, he got his movie made really fast. So this, this movie would have happened even if Vince Vaughn was not attached. It would have.

Oh, for sure. I think it definitely would have happened. It was just Vince, because it was, it was such a short list when you think about what the roles plural required, um, you know, like he had to be physically intimidating, um, had to be convincingly menacing. Um, he had to be a teenage girl and not just like a bad, you know, impersonation of a teenage girl. Like I wanted someone who would really go for it and embody it. And I knew that, and I've always respected Vince as an actor. I think that a lot of people sort of laud him for his comedy. But I actually really have appreciated the more dramatic stuff and the darker stuff that he's done in the last few years.

And so I kind of felt like he was the only guy that would ever be able to pull off both roles. Um, and so I just crossed my fingers when we sent the script to him, I actually thought he was going to pass. Um, I was shocked when he said yes. What was that first conversation like? Cause it does seem like you fused swingers, wedding crashers, Vince with clay pigeons,

psycho Vince, you know, I, it's like when we met for the first time, I think when you don't talk as much about the movie as you would expect, I think you're sort of feeling each other out. Like, is this a person I can spend several months with and not murder?

Um, and I think Vince wanted to kind of get a vibe on me and, and vice versa. And, um, and it's interesting too. And, and I mean, Vince may hear this or may not hear this and kill me for saying it, but like, you know, Vince also had to some degree, like a bit of a reputation. Um, and so I would hear from people like, oh, he's really difficult or, and they were wrong. It's not that he's difficult. It's that he is a perfectionist. Like he wants the best for the movie. And so he'll push where he feels he needs to push to get there. Um, and I happen to love that. Um, and so he and I clicked right away.

Um, and, and we did, we talked about the movie and we talked about, you know, he loved that it was funny, but he was really drawn to the more sort of emotional aspects of the movie and to the challenge. Like he was, he told me straight up, he's like, I'm deathly afraid of playing this part because it's challenging, but that's also what excites me about it. And I think he's at a place in his career where he can kind of do whatever the fuck he wants. And so I think that's why he said yes, because he's like, when else am I going to play, you know, a 17 year old girl and a murderer at

the same time? So it was, it was, like I said, it was a dream come true in terms of casting for me because I've always admired the guy and it was kind of a pinch me moment on our first day on set where I was like holy shit like I'm making a movie with Vince Vaughn so how do you direct a performance like this you know huge star very you know with a very clear kind of iconography or but also he he's being asked to do something that he's never really done before. That is kind of challenging. And if you misplay it,

like it kind of fucks the movie. So like, are you showing him constantly like looking at what he's doing and like tweaking little choices, especially when he's the girl. I think what, what I wanted to do, and it's what I typically do on any film.

I put a lot of energy into rehearsing. And there are different schools. You know, some people hate rehearsals that they think that it siphons all the spontaneity out of it. But I still believe that spontaneity is something that still happens on the fly when you're shooting stuff. But I like to know where I want to give everybody a map. And so I started off by creating video diaries. So I followed Catherine around with the camera and had her sort of stay in character as Millie so that Vince could study that in his spare time. So he started to learn her mannerisms and the physicalities of the role. But also, like, because we did diaries, it was really a lot of Catherine talking in Millie's voice about her life experience and what she's been through in the past.

And so it was really a way to give him the sort of verbal visual history of this character. And then when we got together, we worked very closely and just rehearsed a lot of different scenes from the movie, but also just talked a lot. And I think they both stepped into the roles with a lot of confidence and understanding. But then also what I, I was very,

I'm always really clear and direct about what I want. And I think there's a home court advantage to being the writer when you're directing something, because you just know the movie so well. But then I also knew when to step back and let Vince be Vince. And so there is some improvisation in spots in the movie. And it's like, that's shit that I could never come up with. I could never write that stuff. It's just him. And he's one of the quickest, sharpest people I've ever met. And it was fun to watch him throw that at actors and see how they would have to sort of catch it.

You know, like he's playing tennis with them and you've got to keep up. You've got to be good. And so it was a lot of fun. You're dangerously close to having like a full-blown brand at this point. I don't know if that's exciting or do you feel trapped by that at any point?

I don't feel trapped at it. You know, I've made enough mistakes in my career and I was lucky that I made them very early on, um, to know that like, I, I will not make a movie that I don't love, that I don't feel really passionate and emotionally connected to. And so that's really the only guiding principle that I follow now. Um, and you know, the next movie that I'm trying to make is different from these movies, but there's still a connection. Um, and so I guess there is a certain kind of brand or, or something that I'm drawn to. Um, but I'm not worried about being pigeonholed or, you know, labeled in any particular way,

because if, if I'm, if these are the only kinds of movies that I end up making, I'm not, I'm not mad at that. Um, cause I really enjoy it. And I like that. I don't, that I'm not like, I'm not the filmmaker. I'm not the guy that's like pursuing a Marvel movie. Not that Marvel's knocking on my door anyway. I just mean that like, I don't need a tentpole movie and I don't need that pressure. I really enjoy making movies at this level and at the scale because they're so personal and, and they're mine. Like it's not,

they're not made by committee. So it's fun. I had a lot of fun watching this movie with my wife on a quiet night during this extremely bizarre period in history i mean how do you feel about putting a movie out into this period in history i mean it's bittersweet i think i have such mixed emotions about it because on one hand i'm so grateful that I got the movie in the can right before this whole thing began and I'm proud of the people that I work with and especially my post-production team for finishing a movie in a pandemic like that was no no easy task and and I'm grateful that like, we have this very entertaining movie.

I think that we can share with people when I think people need it most. I think people could use a laugh and watch something completely ridiculous and escape from the shit for a minute. Um, but it's also really hard because, you know, I wanted, I, it's funny. I, so, you know, we do do i had to quality check the movie um you know so i go to a theater and i watch it and i realized when i was sitting there i was like this is probably the one and only time i'm ever going to see this movie in the movie theater unbelievable broke my heart um because i live for that like i live for friday night opening weekend sneaking

into a theater and watching my movies with an audience. And that's why I make this stuff. And so I feel like I've gotten robbed. And I was a little bit pissed for a minute when I, when the studio didn't hold the movie, if I'm being honest, but then I realized that, like I said, people need it. They need something. Um, and so I hope that this, you know, brings people some, some happiness and some fun.

We'll see. Chris, we ended our episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen. What have you been watching? Oh, this is so embarrassing. You're going to die. So my, I spent a long time trying to convince my husband to watch game of thrones. Okay. He would never watch it. He's like, it's Lord of the rings. I don't like that shit. And I'm like, I promise you it's not. Cause I had watched the first season right when we met.

And then as soon as we started hanging out, he was like, I'm not watching that shit. So it took a pandemic to convince him to watch this show. So we're finally, we are almost done with season five. And so I literally, that's what I've been watching. I've been watching Game of Thrones and we're on the fucking trend caboose. But it's also, it's amazing because there's been enough time where I don't remember things that people talked about outside of the Red Wedding. And so everything has been like a holy shit moment for us.

And by the way, we know who everybody is because we didn't have to wait years between seasons. So we're actually experiencing the show in a way that I don't think anybody else got to. And, and I fully expect that when we get to the final season, we probably won't hate it as much as everybody else did because, you know, our expectations are lower and we're also not waiting for it.

So, yeah, that's honestly what I've been watching. So he's, he's liking it. He loves it. He's obsessed with it now. Like it's like, we both are like, this is one of the best shows ever made. And the hype was real. But it's just really funny. Like when we tell people that we're watching Game of Thrones, they look at us like we're from Mars. They're like, what's wrong with you? But, you know, like I said, it took a terrible thing for us to be able to watch the show.

I highly doubt you'll turn any of the listeners of the show on to Game of Thrones. I'm pretty sure they're aware of it already. Thank you. And Chris, congrats on Freaky. It's really, really fun. I got nothing culturally to offer you guys.

We're, you know, living in the past. Well, thank you so much, man. Really appreciate talking to you you guys we're you know living in the past well thank you so much man really appreciate talking to you likewise thank you thanks to christopher landon david hill amanda bobby wagner and steve allman tune in later this week to the big picture when we turn our attention to tv yep we're diving into the queen's Gambit and the best TV miniseries of the year, because that format is slowly replacing movies. We'll see you then.