The Big Picture - ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ and Five Ways to Fix the Marvel Crisis

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

There’s some angst among fans of the biggest franchise story of the 21st century. So Sean is joined by Charles Holmes and Rob Mahoney to discuss 'Thor: Love and Thunder', and the MCU'S recent struggles. They then pitch the Marvel stories they want to see on the big screen. Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Charles Holmes and Rob Mahoney Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Are you tuning in to the Challenge USA on CBS? Well, tune in to me, Tyson Apostle, as I break down each and every episode with my co-host, Amelia Wedemeyer. I'm also a contestant on the show, which gives you all the insider scoop. Amelia, how stoked are you to do this? Tyson, I'm freaking excited. I cannot wait to sit my butt down every single week to watch the show, then come here and recap it with you on the Ringer Reality TV podcast. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about modulating Marvel. There's been some angst amongst fans

of the biggest franchise of the 21st century, Thor Love and Thunder, the 29th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the 6th in its so-called Phase 4 was a success this weekend, but it's battling middling reviews and a lingering sense of overextension and maybe exhaustion.

So today on the show, we're going to talk about the film a little bit more and we're going to talk about the challenges of IP management at the movies and maybe share some ideas to supercharge Marvel before this lightning bolt flickers any further. Joining me to do so, Charles Holmes and Rob Mahoney, two former guests of the show who've never been blended together quite this way. This is a team up of sorts. Charles, how are you?

Oh, I'm doing amazing. Thank you for inviting me on, Rob. So glad to join this brotherhood with you for the first time. You know, the people have been talking about it. They've been asking for this specific union and we're just happy to deliver it to them. You guys are sort of the Valkyrie and the Korg to my mighty Thor today. So, Charles, you

are a hater par excellence. You are really one of the most dunkingest, meanest people in the world of podcasting and journalism. And yet, we heard through the grape in the world of podcasting and journalism. And yet, we heard through the grapevine that you liked Thor Love and Thunder. Is that a fact? I mean, yes.

Did I like the movie? Yes. Do I think it's a good movie? That is another conversation. Interesting. And Rob, what about for you? Thor Love and Thunder, what did you make of it? I think it was fine.

I think, you know, I went to the movies. I think, honestly, I think there are some of the best individual things in a Marvel movie in a long time in here. And it's just muddled by everything else going on around it. So it's hard to pull out. Like, do I, if it has big laughs, if it has these really memorable visuals, is that enough for you? I did not find it enough for me personally.

I mean, it kind of came out in the wash. Can I ask you both a really quick question though to maybe describe to you why maybe I enjoyed the movie a little bit more than you both did. Are y'all still tapped into the MCU Disney Plus shows? Like, probably not.

I have completed every single one of them. Now, I will say and this is something that we should discuss at length in this conversation, but I will say that they are a true second screen experience for me.

I am looking probably at my phone more than I am the television screen. And I despise when people do that. But for the MCU shows, I find them to be so inert that it's hard for me to pay attention.

But I was always a dutiful reader of comic books and the lines that I was interested in. And I'm kind of treating these shows the same way. I don't know, Rob, are you keeping up with all these shows? I started out keeping up with all of them, and I have tapered off over time to the point that now I'm feeling no guilt about ejecting from Moon Knight halfway. I'm feeling like I'm totally at peace with where I am in this Marvel experience. I'm just hoping they can pull at peace with where I am in this Marvel experience. I'm just hoping they can pull something together that brings me back into that space because I really like Loki. I liked elements of WandaVision a lot. How do we get back there?

That's what I'm kind of wondering now. So the reason I asked you both is like the reason why I say I had a fun time at Thor is because as someone who asked you, have sentient, like conscious thoughts about these, I have to pay attention to the screen every single week for marvel tv shows that i think we can all agree are just not it having an experience that was 90 minutes at the movie theater where i was just like i laughed expensive things happened it looked halfway decent which is like an achievement in itself i'm just like cool like they. Like my brain has been poisoned. I've been kidnapped by Marvel. This is just kind of where we're at

in the whole experience. I feel like Charles is about to hold up the newspaper with today's date to prove that he's okay from inside the Marvel compound. That's the thing is that this is kind of a hostage video of a podcast already. You know, I thought a movie was fine. It's really not where

you want to be when you're making Marvel movies. And I think that although this movie made $143 million at the box office, which is quite good, it's the biggest Thor movie ever thus far, but it is a little bit lagging behind the most recent Doctor Strange film. And normally, I think a movie like this would be in for a pretty steep drop because the word of mouth is not very strong on it thus far. We're in this odd time where there are so few major releases at the movies that Thor Love and Thunder is going to get a chance to cook for a little while. And it's going to get a chance to linger and kind of hold the belt for a few weeks here at the movies. That being said, B plus cinema score score, which sounds nice, right? If this was your algebra homework, you'd feel great about that. But this is actually the second lowest score in the history of an MCU movie,

the most consistently crowd-pleasing of all of the franchises. And that means that three of the four lowest-rated MCU movies have arrived in the last seven months, including, along with it, Multiverse of Madness and Eternals. So we're in kind of an odd period with Marvel. You know, Joanna and I, when we spoke about the film last week, we were talking a little bit off mic about whether or not 68% on Rotten Tomatoes

or 57% on Metacritic is too harsh because maybe there's a little bit of a comedown in the aftermath of Thor Ragnarok. On the other hand, I think this does seem to indicate a little bit of exasperation with this storytelling in general. Rob, are you exhausted by Marvel storytelling at the moment? It's a great question.

I think, and I was hoping that this movie would be exempt from this conversation in the way that Ragnarok was, right? A great standalone adventure that would distract me from what has or hasn't been happening in the way that Ragnarok was, right? Like a great standalone adventure that would distract me from what has or hasn't been happening in the greater mythology. I think the other movies have been wanting in a way and exasperating in a way that makes you look to the edges of the screen hoping that is there some supervillain here I'm missing in the background here? Is there some gem of something that is alluding to where we're going here? Because as standalone movies, this isn't really a satisfying experience. I think what was so unfortunate about this one is where, and the Ragnarok comparisons are unavoidable, I'm sorry, but that movie felt really light on its feet, really inventive, really interesting in a way I did not appreciate. And it was just kind of a grading. I see what you're trying to do. I get that you're trying to pepper us with these

jokes to distract from the fact that nothing is really happening here. Other than so, I think some fine stuff on the Jane Foster side dramatically, but I don't know. I think exasperating is the right word. I think it's probably like we can have a whole separate podcast on why Rotten Tomatoes is not a fair metric for literally anything on the planet. But on an individual level, I wouldn't fault anyone for feeling exasperated at this point. Charles, like you said, you have to cover every ounce of Marvel content on The Midnight Boys. And so you're very locked in in and you damned this movie with faint praise by saying that it was pretty good relative to all of the other dreck that you've been covering for the last six months but broadly speaking when you look at the totality of the

storytelling and and and tell me if you think this is because we don't actually know where we're going or if it's just because on an individual basis, the films haven't been as strong. Are you running out of any patience with where these things are headed? My patience was gone after Shang-Chi, if we're going to be honest. Wow. I'll put it to you this way. I realized at one point that being an MCU fan at this point

is like being a crypto bro, where you're literally constantly being like, hold the line, hold the line. And everybody and everybody's like it's gonna get good and i'm like guys we are six movies in i've seen so many tv shows i can't hold the line i just want to sell and i'm at this point where i think you can make the case that there is irrevocable damage happening to the Marvel brand. Because I think there was a utility of back when there was only two to three Marvel movies a year, you could take the family to a Marvel movie, even if it's something like Ant-Man,

even if it's not the best movie you've seen. It's like, I don't feel like I wasted my money. I had some laughs. The action was pretty good. Everything on screen looked like it should be there. And even when you knew that you were moving to something, you could still enjoy that. Kevin Feige could come out tomorrow and tell us where this is all going.

And if the quality of these movies doesn't get any better, I think a lot of people won't care because it's almost like watching... We were watching Kevin Feige do a trick that had never been accomplished. It was like watching Tony Hawk trying to do theige do a trick that had never been accomplished it was like watching tony hawk trying to do the 900 you're like even if he fails he's doing something we've never seen before and my question to you sean is even if he points and he's like it's all leading to secret wars is there going to be a level of the populace who's like but we've already seen that trick you need like we've already waited a decade plus to see you do Infinity War and Endgame.

Is that even enough anymore? Will people wait another five, six years through these movies to be like, all right, yeah, but it was all worth it because Secret Wars. It's a really, really good question. It's probably the critical question as a Marvel fan is does it matter if they try to extend the brand by telling

another decade-long phase six phase story Secret Wars is particularly rich potentially because of the number of characters that they'll be able to kind of integrate and smash together and we're obviously in this period where we're about to have the Fox characters, the characters previously managed by Fox get integrated with the MCU. On the one hand, I'm always 11 years old. And so I just want to see secret wars. Like I will be 78 years old sitting in a rocking chair, awaiting the next big Marvel story.

However, it's going to be delivered. On the other hand, I share your concern about the quality of the movies because a movie like Thor Love and Thunder, I don't think it's among the 10 worst Marvel movies ever made. And I do think that it has a kind of side story quality that I have actually asked for in the past. It has a frivolity that I think sometimes can be beneficial in telling these big stories, but it is a movie that feels

a bit pointless. I've been trained as a viewer of all of these shows and films to care about the point. I think that the design has been pretty graceful since the third or fourth Marvel movie to see that we

are all kind of rowing in one direction and that is kind of whether it has indoctrinated us or it has just gotten us excited about the future of the films it's been very effective and it has given me a reason to care and giving people a reason to care i think is unfortunately really essential to movie going right now so i'm a million percent interested in a secret wars adaptation. I, what I really would love to see is the blending of the two secret war stories is the 80 story, the shooter story and the Hickman story and finding a way to put those two

things together, given the different characters that are involved. But that interest is pretty geeky. And pretty small. And if I was Joe Popcorn or Jane Popcorn, I would probably be coming out of this sixth phase four movie wondering what the hell they're doing and why. And I think that the science that is involved in the Secret Wars story is really confusing and probably a little bit more difficult to understand

than Thanos bad and Thanos want gems. And so that is part of, I guess, my concern. I don't know, Rob, what about for you? I don't know if you're deep in the mythology as a kid with the comic books, but do you care about the big story that this is leading towards? I do care, but I do worry at this point

about how cumbersome that big story is. And I think, Sean, you and Joanna nailed it on the last episode about Thor talking about all of the recaps in this movie. And this is a standalone movie. There should be minimal recapping involved to get everyone caught up. What are we going to have to do once Once we get into the quote unquote main plot. Of what these things are supposed to be. To tie them all together.

That's where I get concerned. And so I was kind of hoping. The point of Endgame. Was we're clearing the decks. We're streamlining. We're going to lay a very clear foundation. Of where this is going to go next. Based on some fundamental characters.

Right now I can't tell you. Who the fundamental characters of the MCU are. And maybe it's whoever draws the biggest box office. Maybe it's Doctor Strange and Spider-Man by default right now. I don't know.

But that leaves me a little concerned. But I'm still hopeful that we get those big payoffs because there really isn't anything like it anywhere else in movie going. You don't get an Endgame

or an Infinity War anywhere else. So, obviously, the first three phases of marvel were built on the backs of robert downey jr and chris hemsworth and chris evans and scarlett johansson and later chadwick boseman and a handful of other people um all those people i named with the exception of chris hemsworth are no longer appearing in marvel movies and rob you make an interesting point which is sort of like,

who's in charge? Who is the draw that isn't Tom Holland at the moment? Is there anybody that people are really, really excited about for the future of these stories? Charles, I wonder for you, is there anyone that you're excited about? I mean, no.

Just like they're probably also like my lizard brain watching Thor was like Chris Hemsworth movie star. Even if it's like with a lowercase M, there was that feeling of, oh, he knows how to do this, where I've watched so many of the Disney Plus shows and so many of the kind of new heroes they're trying to introduce. And I'm like, oh, they don't know how to do it yet. They don't have that magnetism. And to be fair, it took Chris Hemsworth a boatload of movies to get to Ragnarok. It really, he was probably the last of the party.

But I do think that there's two levels to this. I don't know who the real movie stars are anymore in these movies anymore. And I also don't know what heroes I'm supposed to care about. Because even if we try to make an Avengers team right now, Anthony Mackie has Hollywood Reporter coming at his neck. Like, it's bad out here. Is that who we're supposed to be following? Like, our next Iron Man is going to be in a Disney Plus show. I don't know how that's going to be.

Like, I don't know who to back. I don't know what horse to back. I'll tell you what horse to back. I'll tell you what made me start thinking about this same point that Rob is making. The best part of Thor Love and Thunder is Christian Bale, which is not that surprising when you heard that Christian Bale was cast in a movie,

because Christian Bale is frequently the best thing in the movies that he's in. He really commits himself to Gorr the God Butcher, which I think is legitimately one of the best, if not the best villains that they've put together. Sadly, this villain is probably not coming back, and that might be why Christian Bale opted to participate. But he is doing something that many of the people that are currently key to the MCU aren't able to do, really,

which is that he is like this funnel of charisma, and the whole story kind of runs through him the whole movie works because he is kind of a spine for it the gags are great i love tessa thompson chris hemsworth is is has certified what the thor role is but that movie would seem like a series of super bowl commercials if not for christian bale and i feel like they're missing something. And I wonder if because the tone of so many of these movies has gotten so winky, and the one time when they tried to not make a winky movie, which was Eternals,

went so poorly that there's a little bit of a tone confusion, which is disallowing them from kind of discovering someone who's like, I'm fully committed to this character. Like I am Chris Evans, not doing any jokes. I am the earnest version of Steve Rogers. It was conceived in the 1930s and you are getting someone who is not unafraid to be the kind of charisma driven movie star that you need to drive a lot of these stories.

I may be overthinking it. I'm often overthinking these things, but it's kind of alarming how we're like five years into this post phase and they haven't really tapped. They haven't really tapped into anyone who'd be like that person should lead the movie.

Obviously, Chadwick Boseman's passing is is incredibly sad and he is irreplaceable and that's a factor here. But aside from him, I really can't think of a new face out of phase one phase two that has grabbed me in that in that way and every time i hold out hope that like a moon night is going to be one of those people i see moon night and i'm like well this is not this is not it can

i ask you this do you even think of like we forget for the first iron man they just let down and cook in a way where a lot of those jokes would not fly right now a lot of that energy what makes him iron man and to be fair after i those iron man movies everybody just starts talking like iron man all of the jokes are just iron man you get that because there's nothing before where it's like even to your point with moon knight i'm like oscar isaac is trying to cook but they're making him cook on a disney plus tv show what is happening so part of me is wondering like even if you were a movie star who could do it within this framework where your movie is going to be edited down to fit globally it's going to be rewritten six seven eight nine ten times do they even know a movie star when they see it or a movie star portrayal that they're not

going to basically sand down the edges of well i think hemsworth is proof that they didn't right at least the first time around have you guys re-watched the first thor anytime recently i haven't i'm not I'm not doing that. I mean, the bleached eyebrows in that movie are insane. But it's also just an extremely tough... Honestly, the action in that movie looks a lot like the Disney Plus level action. It's very strangely shot. Everything about the characterization is odd.

And I think we take for granted sometimes that although the Marvel machine has evolved, they've taken time with almost all of these characters to figure them out um you know I don't even think the first Captain America movie is all that successful to be honest with you and then they hit Winter Soldier and they find something and so it's like I'm almost more disappointed by the Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madnesses and the Thor Love and Thunders than I am like the Shang-Chi's. Maybe they'll find something with some of these newer characters over time, but they have to cultivate that movie

stardom. They have to allow it to breathe and to find some of the charisma in these actors, because there's good performers in these movies. I don't know why it's not singing in the way it could. There is a potential solution coming in the form form of ryan reynolds who plays deadpool who's going to be um integrated into this world uh i have gone on a roller coaster ride with brian reynolds over the last 10 years i'm now firmly out on him after uh finding excuses for him um in the previous decade wait what movie was it where that finally broke the camel's um? Oh, I think it's got to be Free Guy, right? Well, Free Guy was the hard turn. Like, I will never look back upon The. But I'm a genuine fan of the Deadpool movies

and think that they're doing something that no other movies like them have ever done before. I think Deadpool 3 inside of the MCU kind of gives me a headache, but I am curious to see what they do with it. He is one of the few people, though. I mean, he is authentically, genuinely star, star, star famous

in a way that, like, you know, no disrespect to Simu Liu or, you know, Gemma Chan or even Jon Snow. You know, like, these people are not as famous as Ryan Reynolds. They are not defined as movie stars in the same way. And, I mean, he's significantly more famous to me than like Brie Larson.

But he can even open a movie. Can you, can you name me a lead, a lead in a Marvel movie recently who can open a movie that's not a Marvel movie? I don't, I don't think one exists.

I mean, Benedict Cumberbatch is not that person. Tom Holland did open Uncharted. That is true. And Uncharted was not good. So that's an accomplishment of some kind.

But it just feels like this feels like a very extended phase that is headed nowhere. And that's kind of what I'm drawing towards. We're probably not going to see Deadpool or Mahershala Ali

as Blade or whoever the uncast X-Men and Fantastic Four are. There's still a lot to come in the form of some of those Fox characters that I'm talking about. Still holding out hope for Namor. You know, where's Namor?

When's he getting cast? So exciting. But I don't know. Love and Thunder, for the first time, authentically, I was like, I know that they know what they're doing,

but I don't know if what they're doing is going to work, which is not the worst thing in the world. These things come and go. I've been saying forever that this is not going to be the most dominant film franchise for the next hundred years, but it does feel like so much of the business has turned itself over to these stories. If they are weaker, if their grip has been loosened somehow on the culture, is that a bad thing? Is it a good thing? Is it a good thing for you, Charles, if Marvel is not as dominant as it once was?

It's an amazing thing. The funny thing that I've been experiencing lately is that what it feels like when the MCU is not the center of the culture, where they're still going to make the most money. But when we talk about what's the best multiversal movie, it's not going to be Doctor Strange. It's going to be everything everywhere. When I talk about the best action of the year, it's going to be something like RRR. It's not going to be in a Thor movie. And while those movies didn't make as much money, this feels like the first time where I'm like, oh no, Top Gun Maverick is the thing that people want to talk about, not necessarily whatever Doctor Strange is doing. And if you told me that was going to be

like this when we started this phase, I would be actually more worried than I am because I'm like, wait, Tom Cruise? And I like Top Gun, but he's beaten Marvel movies now? I did not have that on my 2022 bingo card at all well and to go from macro to micro i'm just part of the free charles movement i want to get you up out of there let's let's get you plant on the prestige tv pod for a while let's get you talking about some non-marvel stuff keep it going well i mean even um in terms of programming the ringer verse it's relevant because obviously the purpose of that show it's not just to cover marvel and star wars it's just it started that way because those were the most dominant stories in the space but now you guys are covering the boys you know you're

covering a lot of dc stories theoretically there's a lot of fantasy stuff coming later this year there's a lot more on the board game of thrones is coming back Lord of the Rings, etc., etc. My point being that it'll be interesting to see if this kind of new surge in IP content, especially on TV, has a damaging effect the same way that I think the Marvel shows have had this pretty predictable dilution of the power

of Marvel. I'll say, like, genuinely, in the 2013-2014 range, I authentically was pumped about a new Marvel movie because it was coming every five or six months. You know, the stories were obviously building towards something, but there was an air of mystery

towards what they were building around. If you were a fan of the comics, you could speculate where things were going and maybe you had a pretty good sense, but there was no way to really know. And now we just, we have like a little bit too much information and so it doesn't feel as special

that's inevitable it's not that big of a deal ultimately but it's interesting how it's infecting everything else i thought one interesting aspect of the post love and thunder conversation was what feels like a full-blown taika waititi backlash um who i think was really one of the darling filmmakers of the last five years and people have sort of they've started to either point out that it feels like maybe he's a little bit diluted himself because he's doing so many things at the same time or that maybe his shtick is a little too cute for its own good you know i remain a fan of taika but it's been interesting watching him go through the the hype cycle here and come out the other side like maybe not smelling as sweet what do

you make of that, Rob? Well, there are some filmmakers who come along and it's like, I could absolutely see how they would get tabbed for the next giant IP project. Like their skillset fits exactly what these big franchises need. I would never have picked Taika for that in the first place. I think he's always been kind of miscast in this.

And that's what made Ragnarok such like a weird aberration in this franchise is he's kind of the ultimate your mileage may vary filmmaker. I would not recommend what we do in the shadows to everyone in my life. There's like a very specific group of people who are going to lock into that. And somehow Thor tapped a broader audience. And even in this movie, like a lot of the humor in this movie is still really effective. I think there's some jokes and some bits that just completely whiff, but there's some really funny stuff in here. Am I going to hang Marvel and Star Wars and Jurassic Park 15

or whatever is the next Taika project all on that kind of sense of humor? I don't know that that's what I would be doing, but clearly he's a very charming guy. I'm sure he's great at making these pitches i'm sure it'd make like it feels good to be in the taiko atiti business but i was kind of confounded by this from the start to be honest with you it's such a funny way of putting it because um taika if you've ever had a chance to speak to him or even just see him be interviewed he is a performer and very charming and charismatic and smart and so so the in-the-room aspect, the ability to sell the idea,

that can sometimes outpace the ability to execute on a big scale. This sort of feels like he got to do his vision, but because it's so many different kinds of movies all smashed together, it's a little bit hard to know what was compromised and what was not. Charles, where are you at on Taika right now? Oh, I knew this was happening. I knew the internet was about to pack him up because I personally had this experience of like,

I have nothing against Taika, but watching Free Guy be like, oh, Taika's in this. And then the Suicide Squad would be like, wait, what? Taika is in this? And then watching Lightyear and hearing his voice. And I'm like, Taika's in this?

And it wasn't so much like I have anything against him where I was just like oh this is overexposure in a way where like the internet is not doing this with ryan coogler they're just not because like ryan coogler's not out there like that and here's the thing get your money taika fuck the internet fuck twitter i get it but this is just what Twitter does. If you are going, like, this weekend when I saw a screen, there's a video of him breaking down the VFX in one of the shots. And Tessa's kind of like,

they're friends. She's kind of like, this doesn't look real. And he's kind of playing into it. And now you have all of these Marvel VFX people being like, oh no, it's over. We hate this. We've been hating Marvel. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh, this is just, you're the person in the middle of the storm that has been brewing

where it's like, I'm not going to lie. Shawnee may disagree. I think Black Widow came out. We were all like, it's the pandemic. We've been waiting a while for the MCU. Cool. We'll give it a pass. Shang-Chi, me speaking as a person of color, I'm like, I'm not going against the culture. This is an important movie. Do I like this movie? Probably not.

But, this is like important. I'm going to represent Spider-Man No Way Home. Never been done before. Watch the trick. Never been done before.

And then with Doctor Strange, that was when I was like, oh no, we are in uncharted territories if this is just not good so i actually think this is just an accumulation of angst and taika was the person at the end of it where we all got to point and be like you're now going to be a symbol for everything i've been feeling for the past year i i i think that's very well put charles and i think for the most part

you're right i will say Korg's usage rate in Love and Thunder is a little high a little bit like a little I'm in love with cutting back to my joke and not to keeping the story moving forward and that's a little bit of a red flag for a performer slash

filmmaker it's funny though that as you go through those films and I'm going to force you guys to rank the six films that we've gotten in phase four but as you go through those films, and I'm going to force you guys to rank the six films that we've gotten in phase four, but as you go through all of them, with the exception of No Way Home, which I pretty full-throatedly loved, even though I don't really have any desire to watch it a second time, the first time I watched it, I think the magic trick metaphor is right on, Charles. I was pretty impressed. That's not easy to do. I think it's easy to be cynical about something like that

where you're just kind of blending, you're like smashing your nostalgia with your present day storytelling and just, you know, rubbing that sensor on your brain that says like, you will like this because you know what this is.

But in that particular case, I thought it was sincere. I thought it was pretty well executed and I really liked that movie. The other five movies are all kind of the same to me, which is to say that they all have stuff that I do like.

They do have performances that I like. They have a couple of set pieces that I like. There are some interesting choices that are made and they also have a lot of things that I really don't like. And I don't remember coming out of very many Marvel movies through, especially up in that like phase two

kind of Winter Soldier era where I felt like there were a lot of things in the movies that I was like, this is bad. where I felt like there were a lot of things in the movies that I was like, this is bad. And I don't know if that's quality control. I don't know if that's taking risks with new or younger filmmakers. You know, there are all kinds of complications, I think, to kind of managing intellectual property at this point. Like Marvel has made a sincere effort to significantly diversify not just the characters, but the people who work on these movies over the years. But one of the tricky parts about diversifying

is you really have to support those people when you bring them on for their projects. And these movies feel more diluted, I think, because there's just more going on. There's more management time is being sucked up by also things like Loki and also things like What If and also things that feel like kind of insignificant. The movies are still kind of the big story to me.

So it's a really tricky moment that they're in. Rob, when you look at Phase 4, does anything stand out to you as like truly above average or special relative to where we were before? I think it's only Spider-Man and I think you hit on it. And some of it too is not just a general sameness in the end results of these movies and some of the shows too. But honestly, Marvel keeps going back to the same plot wells over and over and over too in a way that is really tiring.

Okay, so Doctor Strange, Shang-Chi, WandaVision, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Love and Thunder. Those are all stories about parents trying to get their kids back, kids trying to get their parents back, parents trying to get back to their kids. Can we get something that is... I know you want the personal stakes in these stories and you want to make it feel human and real, but is there literally any other kind of story we can tell? I mean, honestly, if we want to be real too, because you're a comic book nerd like me, Sean, I've been speaking like this for a while where I'm like,

also Marvel's getting to a point where the characters that they're using actually don't have any classic stories. Where it's like, Shang-Chi is a very racist character in comic books. And it's only been very recently in Marvel's publishing history where they've been reckoning with that and being like, we should get creators from this world to rehabilitate this character black widow is in good comics i could not point to a black widow run be like in the same way with captain america or even iron man where i'm like this is classic eternals there's really never been a great eternals. So they're also pulling on source material that's like weaker than the

previous phases and that just happens. A lot of this stuff feels like it is a circumstance of not being sure if the Fox deal was ever going to happen. No, it's sort of like, okay, we're going to we need to have another phase after the Thanos story. We know we're effectively retiring Iron Man and Captain America.

Let's make sure we have some new characters for people to get excited about just in case we don't have Wolverine and Mr. Fantastic and so that's why I think you're getting Eternals I think that's why you're getting you know I like the Ant-Man films but a third Ant-Man film that's a lot of Ant-Man movies

relative to the kinds of characters that Marvel has in its bag a third Guardians of the Galaxy movie is is if you had told me the the day that the first Guardians film came out that there would definitely be three

and probably a fourth Guardians movie I would be shocked now part of that is the circumstances of James Gunn sort of being ejected from the MCU and then welcomed back and obviously Chris

Pratt becoming such a significant movie star and their essential nature to the story as other more famous movie stars move out. And I guess we didn't mention Chris Pratt. I'm still a little bit unsure if Chris Pratt is a movie star or if he is just a vessel for intellectual property, but that's maybe another episode.

I mean, that Amazon show, shout out to The Watch. They said it's doing good. I'm like, what Amazon show? God bless Chris Ryan. I'm not sure if he can be totally trusted on like spy shit.

You know, anything that involves like the government hiring a shadowy agency is kind of catnip for Chris. So The Terminalist, I'll check it out, but I'm not so sure.

Their appearance in this movie did not whet the appetite for Guardians of the Galaxy 3. No, it's the, it was the the that was the first in a series of just in case you forgot. Yeah.

Last time we saw Thor, he was on a spaceship with these guys. So let's give you six minutes of these guys before sending them back off into space for reasons that are not

necessarily totally legible to us. But. I think now that all of these new characters are coming and you can make the case that this whole episode is just a waste of hot air.

You know, that it's going to be like, yo fucking blade Wolverine, the thing it's all, it's all going to be fine. Don't, don't worry about it. But on the other hand,

there is a little bit of, um, there's a huge challenge. I think in navigating all of those characters, secret wars, part of what, like I said, what is fun about it is there's so many damn characters involved,

but part of what's challenging about it is how do you tell coherent stories about 70 characters and how do you do it without doing what you were saying earlier rob which is constantly having to remind people oh this is this guy and this is that woman and and this is that person and that alien and they did this because of that and you know exposition dumps are already a challenge of movies like this and it feels like we may be headed towards the kind of you know the mother load of exposition in the in the in the coming films um i i don't know i'm i'm a little bit betwixt in between on this whole franchise as you guys can tell right now oh i mean but let's be honest there's a button that feige is going to push at one point and i don't know when and that's going to be where I'm like, this is dope, but I'm out. If in Secret Wars, he brings

back the original Avengers, if Robert Downey Jr. comes on the screen, I will be like, this is amazing, but also there's no going back. You're just hitting the nostalgia button. And that's what I think Secret Wars is leading us to, which also scares me where I'm just like, okay, so you made me kind of love, but not really all these new characters. And at the end of it, they're like,

remember Chris Evans? Remember Downey Jr.? They're here again. So before we start pitching some ideas of our own, probably foolhardy, but we're going to pitch some ideas of our own.

You know, like I said, this is the sixth film in the phase. The sixth film in phase one was The Avengers. Sixth film in phase two was Ant-Man, and that led directly into Winter Soldier. Sixth film in phase three was Black Panther. So these are usually pretty critical movies, and I didn't

come out of Thor Love and Thunder feeling anything critical. In fact, Joanna and I talked last week about some of the stingers and the way that this film ends, and just sort of feeling like, will they ever fulfill the promise of Brett Goldstein as Hercules? Well, like, is that going to happen? Like, will Thor actually return in a standalone movie starring Chris Hemsworth?

Chris Hemsworth in interviews didn't even seem to know. So I feel like there it's, we're in a floating period. Um, Charles one through six. What are, what are your, what are your rankings for these six movies you've gotten so

far? Spider-Man No Way Home, number one, easily. Number two, Thor Love and Thunder. Number three, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. Number four, probably Shang-Chi. Number five, Eternals. Number six, Black Widow. But I'm going to be honest, those last three could go in any given order. They're all the same quality, in my opinion. Rob, would you agree with that? Yeah, there's definitely a tier system here, I think. I think it's Spider-Man up top. I would go Thor second,

which I think speaks to the weakness of this batch of movies overall. Not what you want. I also like Doctor Strange fine, so I think those are kind of a nice pair together. I would go Shang-Chi next. Shout out Tony Leung. Another great Marvel villain in a kind of uneven movie.

Then Black Widow for me. Then 50 to 100 feet of dirt. And then Eternals, which is a movie I just felt like open contempt for as I was watching it. Yeah, Rob and I, we have the same list. I think the challenge there is that Eternals is the only real risk

taken and it is such a colossal failure. Obviously, it made a lot of money because it's a Marvel movie and they all do, but it got such negative reviews. The audience did not respond to it it is ostensibly setting up what could be some of the most critical storytelling it is like about the the origins of all power in the universe and yet it felt as if nothing happened when the movie

was over I felt nothing that I wonder if that will make Kevin Feige and co pause next time they want to take a take a risk or a series of risks in telling a story like this in empowering a filmmaker like Chloe Zhao and sort of plucking someone out of you know the true art house independent film world and into this space I'm not so sure I think that even Spider-Man No Way Home sitting atop, is it the seventh or eighth best Marvel movie? Ninth best? Tenth best? Spider-Man doesn't hang. As a movie, as an experience,

I will always treasure seeing it in the theater. As a narrative, cohesive movie, it does not hang together. If we're going to keep it real. But that experience is big. That is a huge part of this conversation. I will always remember the grown man next to me openly shrieking when Daredevil shows up in that movie,

when Matt Murdock shows up. So look, they're pressing some button there. Okay. Let me just ask you one quick question before we pitch some ideas because it's sort of related to this idea of pitching that we're going to do. How would you feel about a full reset?

If in 2024, they just said, we're scrapping everything we've done thus far and we're starting over new actors, new filmmakers, new mythologies, maybe some of maybe some of the same characters in full. But we're just telling them in different ways, because this is obviously something as a comic book reader, you experience all the time. The reset is kind of constantly happening or new independent lines are coming through or stories jump quickly into the future. Charles, what would you think if they just pressed

the reset button? I mean, the irony of this is that the ultimate spine, which was honestly the blueprint for the MCU, is something that they could do again where maybe I don't want this

in 2024, maybe in 15 years, or like, hey guys, we're resetting it all, and like Iron Man is just our James Bond now. There is going to be a new Iron Man, always. Would be dope. Like, I think that that is actually where you need to go, where to your point about kind of like

being a comic book reader is like, there gets to a point where the stories get too complicated there's too much continuity there's too many things going on at some point we are no longer going to be able to follow the stories in the mcu and we're getting very close to that so i think it's actually just going to be a necessity but i would like a very very very very long time before they recast these roles because I need an MCU break. Well, I think there's a way to kind of soft reboot it too,

which is you just quietly don't ever make another Captain Marvel movie. You know, you just don't make any more Doctor Strange content. Like, I think you pick the biggest stars at the centers of the franchises that work and you push them forward and then you're bringing in

all this Fox-related IP. Like, that makes sense to me in a way that could restructure the franchise and reset expectations beyond just like oh we're going to recast all these characters that we already knew because i will have to say as far as recasting goes especially for this exercise that we're doing of like trying to create dream marvel movies i don't know if y'all had this problem but everyone has already been in a marvel movie yes uh so like i was trying to cast characters and it's like oh this was a minor villain 12 movies ago therefore they're off the table i mean the well is only so deep yeah it's a huge challenge they're not gonna they're i don't

think they're gonna reset ever personally i think that it's more likely the approach that rob is suggesting is what we're likely to see, which is that at a certain point, Benedict Cumberbatch just kind of, you know, options out of the franchise and does not appear as Dr. Strange or somebody else becomes Sorcerer Supreme. I don't think they're necessarily going to give Benedict Wong the keys to the Dr. Strange film, but, um, you know, it'll be interesting to see even what happens with Captain Marvel because Captain Marvel is another film that while it did good business and was considered quite significant because it was the first female superhero to lead a film in the franchise, that movie is not good.

And there's another Captain Marvel movie coming very soon. And that movie has been pushed back a couple of times. And there's some grumbling about what level of quality it's going to be. We'll see. I have no idea. But I think we basically are going to have to make do as much as we can with what we have and also add on top of that.

So I basically asked you guys to give me two strains of thought. One is we should talk about what is something that Marvel can do to kind of sharpen its sword in general, which is what's a strategy they can deploy? What's a way to kind of like revive the feeling of excitement that we want?

But secondarily, and more importantly, I think, what's a good movie slash storyline to start unlocking? And I asked you for the filmmaker, I asked you for the stars, and of course the characters, the heroes and the villains. Rob, I want to start with you. My big pitch is I am building toward the feet on the ground core of what Marvel should be,

the X-Men-Spider-Man crossover event. That's all I'm concerned with. Everything else is going out the window, is going on the back burner. Again, I hear your concern, Sean, about why we have all these placeholder heroes during this phase of the MCU. But the rights issues have been cleared.

They're logistically more challenging to make these movies, especially Spider-Man, as we've talked about. But I think Marvel's fundamental problem is they have a bit of a B-team complex in that they took Iron Man and Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy and they made people care about them and they heat checked with Ant-Man and Shang-Chi

and all of these heroes we're falling into now. What are we doing? Like, you are the Yankees. Behave like the Yankees. Spider-Man and, like, I'm rigging the deck to put Spider-Man and Wolverine on the screen together. And so I'm starting with, obviously, you got to launch a standalone X-Men movie

to get into this world. My director of choice, often linked to the MCU, often rebuffed as saying he's not interested in directing an MCU movie. But I'm dropping the bag at Brad Bird's feet and saying, look, I want the Incredibles energy. I want the Ghost Protocol action sensibility. I want the pop sensibility and the heart that you bring to your movies. And I want that getting the team together kind of vibe. That's what I'm looking to cultivate. And look, if Brad says he's too good for that, and this was honestly a problem I ran into

with this exercise, it's like, do I want to saddle my favorite filmmakers with directing in the MCU? It can be tough, but I think Brad can do it. And if he says no, I'm backing up to like maybe a Rinaldo Marcus Green, who I think is a really interesting filmmaker who's had some action chops, who's shown he can do

the ensemble thing. That's kind of where I'm starting from. I feel bad for all the filmmakers we're going to pitch here because they all deserve better. They don't deserve to have their vision muddied

by mediocre VFX in a Marvel movie. But the Brad Bird idea is really inspired. I like that. Renaldo Marcus Green would be great too. I feel like what I want from him is a little bit more of a grounded story. But who are your ex-humans?

So I'm looking for kind of a pared down cast. We got to start relatively small. For my Professor X, I want Gravitas. I want Ralph Fiennes in that role personally. I think that's a good spot. He's one of those guys, X, who you hear a lot of fan casting, and it's just like whichever actor has happened to be bald relatively recently, people are pining for that role.

But you need a seriousness, and you almost need to be unable to read his true motives, I think is an important part of that role. And I like Ralph Fiennes for that. Opposite him is Magneto. I'm looking for Jeremy Irons. I'm bringing him in from the DC Extended Universe, Zaddy Alfred. I'm making him my Magneto. I think they could be a nice pair bouncing off one another.

And as the young kids, I'm just casting Ben Platt as all of the X-Men. We're going to de-age him. We're going to bring him down. No, no. I think... So, Austin Butler has been talked about on this podcast a lot lately. I think he could be

a great Cyclops. I like that. No. No? Austin Butler? Why not? This is nothing against his acting, but no.

Wow. Okay. Cyclops is my favorite X-Men. We're not doing Austin. But what are we looking for? Cyclops is your favorite X-Men? Why? Cyclops is my favorite X-Men. We're not doing Austin. But what are we looking for? Cyclops is your favorite X-Men? Why? Cyclops is my favorite X-Men.

What kind of a take is that? I thought, I thought, I thought Austin Butler was actually an inspired pick, Rob, because he brings a kind of vivacity that I think is often missing

from Cyclops. Yes. Who is too frequently robotic and this sort of like pillar of morality that is kind of dull. No? Charles, you love him? I love Cyclops in the comic books. I think the perfect Cyclops

character is like, Cyclops is like the captain of the football team chiseled, but like just a creepy sex gremlin on the inside. That's why he's always dating like the telepaths who are just like, I can read your mind. I know what you're what you're thinking he's like whoa this is too much for me so i have

my own pick i just think austin butler is just too like oh i could push him over i feel like the wind could push him over i need somebody who's a little bit more has some stock to him i don't know but leadership but inside a creepy sex criminal is kind of the austin butler energy like there's there's a fundamental weirdness there that I want in my Cyclops. And honestly, I think whatever the X-Men movie is, they need to do a much better job of establishing Cyclops as a character because Hugh

Jackman just walked all over James Marsden in a way that it kind of tipped those movies over. So I'm hoping to establish my Austin Butler Cyclops. I'm looking for Rachel Ziegler as the Jean Grey in these movies. I want a vulnerability. I want a Jean who's kind of coming into her own

and a little bit scared of what she can do. I really liked Rachel Ziegler in West Side Story. I think they could kind of bounce off one another. What do you think about them as a pairing? I like that they're both young. I think one thing that's missing from this entire kind of world is that most of the heroes are like in their 30s and 40s. And one thing that's exciting about X-Men is, you know, it's a story about young people. It's a story about kids like learning how to cope with their own struggles and how they fit into the world.

And so the idea of like aging down, Austin Butler is also very young. So I like the fact that they're very young. The Rachel Zegler thing, the fact that they're very young. The Rachel Zegler thing, the challenge is she's really short and Jean Grey is a bit more historically statuesque.

So just the idea of Cyclops looming over Jean seems weird to me. But maybe we can get some lift technology or some CGI to kind of raise

her height six inches. What do you think? I think it's doable, right? Sure. Put her on some Natalie Portman style platforms. It's no problem. Okay. Who else you got in the mix? So then we're rounding out the cast. I'm looking at Sophie Thatcher of Yellow Jackets fame and more unfortunately of Book of Boba Fett fame as Rogue. Love it. This is a great call. And then as Storm, I really enjoyed Aaliyah Chanel Scott from Sex Lives of College Girls.

I think she could be a really interesting young storm. My wild card though, Wolverine is notoriously difficult to cast. Obviously the shadow looms large there. I kind of want to see Dan Stevens try it as a weirdo, primal, visceral Wolverine. Again, a character who's obviously older than the rest of the cast.

So I think you have a little bit more room to play with there. But I want to see Dan Stevens go wild with that thing. Charles, what do you think of that? I'm fucking with it. I see it. I see the vision. Rob, you sold me on this. Here's the one challenge. Dan Stevens is Legion.

Yeah. Is that ever going to be back in the mix? Never. But also maybe the best Marvel season of television season one of Legion oh went so sideways though yeah oh season two and three are it really lost the plot yeah but there is something there's something interesting about Dan Stevens untapped I feel like still absolutely. Much as I love Matthew from Downton Abbey. Well, I think what kind of sold me on him unlocking Wolverine was the guest. If you guys have seen The Guest, where there's always kind of like a menace behind his eyes in a way that you always think Wolverine is about to pop.

And I think that's a really hard thing to capture in that role that obviously Hugh did so well. But Hugh Jackman's almost too warm for Wolverine sometimes. I want someone who's a little bit more dangerous. that obviously Hugh did so well. But Hugh Jackman's almost too warm for Wolverine sometimes. I want someone who's a little bit more dangerous. And to me, Dan Stevens is kind of a different kind of dangerous that could pivot a very well-established character into a different space. You know who I need in this, Rob? What you got?

Classically, in the Ultimate Universe, one of Peter Parker's boos was Kitty Pryde. I need a Kitty Pryde that can go like against uh mj in this someone who could maybe get get uh peter's heart a flutter absolutely and we need we need that kind of connective tissue like how are we gonna get if we're building toward the spider-man event how is he gonna get looped into this world is it some kind of like larger superpower type storyline like we had with the Civil War in terms of things being legislated?

I don't love that. So I would love something more, again, personal in terms of connecting those characters. So yeah, any potential Peter Parker love interest who can get him into this mix, I'm into.

Because here's the thing also, Wolverine is very protective of Kitty Pryde. So already he's going to be like, fuck Tom Holland. Let me make a suggestion. Just a little swap here with your casting list, okay? Yes. We're going to

move Rachel Zegler to Kitty Pride. I think she has more Kitty Pride energy. Younger, shorter, smaller, a little bit more playful. We're going to put Anya Taylor Joy in the Jean Grey role. I almost wondered if she's been like too fan cast. Like, was it too basic of me to put Anya Taylor-Joy in the Jean Grey role. I almost wondered if she's been like too fan cast.

Like, was it too basic of me to put Anya Taylor-Joy in there? But here's the thing. You're casting an X-Men versus Spider-Man movie. Like, this is... If you grew up in the 90s,

this was the alpha and the omega of superhero storytelling. So much so that DC had to fucking kill Superman just to get our attention on DC again because X-Men and Spider-Man so deeply ran the game.

This is like the most, it's so obvious, I can't believe it doesn't exist kind of story that I think we should just go for the most obvious potential actors. Like put the most famous under 25 people in these movies as much as you can, especially because these movies are never going to happen.

So what do we have to lose? Absolutely nothing. You're right. I got to take my own A-team advice. I can't be putting B-team actors on the A-team movie. That was my bad. In 100 meters, turn right. Actually, no.

Turn left. There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's. Really? Yeah. There's the sausage, bacon, and egg, a crispy seasoned chicken one. Mmm. A spicy end egg. Worth the detour. They sound amazing. Bet they taste amazing too. Wish I had a mouth. Take your morning into a delicious new direction with McDonald's new breakfast wraps. Add a small premium roast coffee for a dollar plus tax at participating McDonald's

restaurants. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. Okay, Charles, your pitch. What are we doing? All right. So my pitch, the solo movie is dead and it's been dead for a while. Every single MCU film, if we're going to be honest at this point, isn't even a solo movie anymore. It's like Ant-Man and the Wasp or it's Hulk is in Thor and Ragnarok. Every single one to get sold has to be some type of like, we need to see the other heroes. So at this point, just stop being cute. Just make a bunch of these teen movies, especially with the X-Men. I don't know about you, Sean. The greatest thing about the X-Men that was never realized when they were at Fox is that you buy X-Men because you want to read uncanny X-Men. Then you want to read

X-Force. Then you want to read New Mutants or New X-Men. So my whole thing is Avengers should be the same. There should be New Avengers, Dark Avengers, Young Avengers. So many team movies that by the time you get to the film I'm pitching, Avengers versus X-Men, you're like, oh no, there's thousands of these people. This is truly what we should have gotten in Civil War. This is the Young Avengers are going against the New Mutants. We have potentially the Dark Avengers slash Thunderbolts going against maybe the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. I want to see that level of event.

And for a story, there was a very not great event comic called Avengers vs. X-Men. But I want to bring in Jonathan Hickman's new recent House of X, Powers of X, where essentially the mutants finally become what humans thought that they would be, which is the dominant people on the face of the planet. They have an island where they're basically in a little mini sex cult. They figured out death. They're selling humans through their mutant powers, cures for like cancer and AIDS and diabetes and all these things. To me, that is Avengers for sex men

because the Avengers are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You have an entire new country of super powered people here who are not a part of the United States? Yo, Sam, Bucky, go get them And I would love to see that But I think my strategy is I want you to build up the teams

Maybe there's a West Coast Avengers team Like Fantastic Four, where do they fall on this? I want everything funneled Before we get to Secret Wars I want you to break the MCU Up So heroes for this, the X-Men, villains, the Avengers, director, I'm going smaller. I think I want Aoife McArdle, who directed half of Severance,

because I want what Severance does with creating a world that's similar to our own, but is a little weirder. It has different rules. Visually, it looks striking and that's what I think you need for like an island full of X-Men being like, this is kind of like our world but different. They have different laws,

different rules. Throughout this movie, you're learning them. And I only picked two stars. The rest of them are negotiable. But White Boy of the Summer as Wolverine, Jeremy Allen White,

a lot of fans want it now just little short demon like little short demon who is like sexy enough to give you the energy of like oh no he has a shot with gene like he has a shot with gene i think jeremy allen white has that sense of like a napoleon complex where there's always something in him just ready to explode so am i am i wrong with that i i like this a lot um i as i was watching the bear which of course jeremy allen white is the star of great great recap of that series with you and joanne on the prestige tv podcast if anybody hasn't heard it um when jeremy allen white's hair gets long gets long in the same way that my hair gets long which is the same way that wolverine's hair gets long which is long in the same way that my hair gets long, which is the same way that Wolverine's hair gets long,

which is to say that it grows out. It does not grow down. It grows to the sides and up. Did you just like casually compare yourself to Wolverine? Is that what happened here? In only one way. And that way is that I am indestructible. No, I noticed as I was watching the bear,

I'm like, oh wow, Jeremy Allen White's hair has the same physical properties of mine, which is why my hair is never longer than it is right now because it looks preposterous. But in the case of Wolvie, this is what you need. Yeah.

You need that, what is that, like that anvil head to be perfectly clothed and shaped. That Feige famously was just like, no, it needs to be higher. Like, you don't have to do that with Alan White.

You know what I mean? It comes naturally. I know. It's a great call. I love it. What do you think, Rob? And for my Cyclops... Oh, wait, Rob, tell me...

Because, wait, Rob, before you go, let me pitch you on my Cyclops, okay? Please. I want to hear about the interplay between these two because that's got to be the core of the movie, right? I need somebody

who has the sex appeal with someone who's like a dick and you like you realize why people follow him but everybody behind his back is like dog i hate this guy and i was like who could it be who could it be i also need someone who's like sexually could do sexually repressed really really well you're so into cyclops's sex life yeah all right let's be clear. Chris Claremont was into Cyclops' sex life. So like, come on. I'm not the first one. I'm going Jacob Elordi from Euphoria.

He plays Nate, who is just so hateable. And Cyclops is just, he has the hateable face. You're just like, why is Gene with him? I just think him and Alan White could get into some nice scraps. I just like how the Rosetta Stone is. I need a Cyclops who can do weird sex stuff. Let's look at the Euphoria cast and reverse engineer this thing. Well, so much of that cast has already been cast in Marvel and superhero properties. We've already got Zendaya. We've got Sidney Sweeney's going gonna be in one of the Spider-Man spinoff movies soon so

Elordi is sitting there I will say one of the low points of my cultural year thus far has been having Jacob Elordi teased to me on the Academy Awards as coming up three or four times during the telecast that was really rough that was when I was like we fucked movies

like how we're really using Jacob Elordi to compel teenagers to tune into the oscars come on everybody we can do better and yet here we are making an hour and a half long podcast about marvel movies so i take some blame as well um i like this movie i i would watch this movie as well i like that basically like what we all really want is x-men versus you know we want to just see those characters are so special. And unlike the current MCU figures, we're now 20 years on since that initial Fox run of X-Men movies. And so we're ready for a fresh start.

We're ready for new faces in those iconic characters. I also, I love your, the solo movie is dead concept, Charles. That's really smart. I think that's part of what Rob was kind of scratching at earlier when he was describing some of the issues with some of these most recent films too, which is just, we're just kind of restarting the same kind of origin story over and over again. And everyone's kind of trauma conflict is all the same. And that goes all the way back to Stanley and Jack Kirby.

You know, most of the characters that are created all have these kind of simple and primal origin stories. But when you're putting them in succession or four out of the last five movies all look like this, they tend to get so repetitive. And yet here I am ready to tell you guys about an origin story because that's one of my pitches. Let's go.

Let's go. You know, I feel like Rob's pitch was from a boyhood fantasy and Charles's pitch is a, is a real is for the heads. This is based on previous runs and figures that you really want to see together. Mine is completely original but inspired from something else.

We've never seen the Silver Surfer in the MCU. We've seen him poorly portrayed in, I believe, one Fantastic Four movie. We don't talk about Fantastic Four movies on this podcast, so we're not going to talk about that anymore. The Silver Surfer is the most interesting character in MCU, in my opinion.

He is not a human. He is a quasi-godlike seer figure who is granted powers by a planet-devouring demigod. Now, that sounds really weird and sci-fi-y and corny. But what I would say to you is that the Silver Surfer is the only character in the

entire MCU universe that has the ability to let them make a different kind of movie. Every story that we have has to be a little bit jokey. And the Silver Surfer story is not jokey. It is very, very serious.

And it is philosophical. And it is a left turn. And it is not a left turn that is ill-conceived like Eternals. It's a left turn that is essential to exploring and explaining the intergalactic nature of Marvel. And that's obviously where things are going. We've been in the galaxy with Guardians of the Galaxy, and we've had the Chitauri invading. So we've had some space stuff, but a true cosmic, emotional, intellectual story is what's been missing, in my opinion. And so I think there's a way to use the Silver Surfer and Galactus, which is this gigantic,

massive planet devouring figure that the Silver Surfer essentially works for into this storyline and make it feel like it's bigger than anything that's come before. Because that's one of the challenges of Secret Wars. It's going to be very confusing and it's going to be about multiverses and different versions of the same character potentially. Whereas the simple nature of Thanos, I think, is what drove us to such a great conclusion in the first three phases of the story. So this is Silver Surfer's Big Wave. That's a title TK. You probably need a better title than that,

but I'm still brainstorming on it. It's going to be loosely, loosely, loosely based on Stanley and Jack Kirby's 1966 Galactus trilogy. So which is the idea of this sort of demigod set free in the aftermath, I think immediately following Love and Thunder because it so concerns gods and the way that gods wield power and the way that power corrupts those gods that there's a way to kind of introduce Galactus in the aftermath of this, which allows us to introduce Silver Surfer, who is this alien figure who saves his planet from being devoured by Galactus. But in doing so, Galactus essentially adopts him

and transforms him into a guy who scouts for him full time. And he is sort of the Adam Sandler character in Hustle. Out surfing through the galaxy, seeking devourable planets, but has a crisis of faith and realizes that what he's doing is potentially problematic when all these planets keep getting eaten up and finds himself after defying Galactus banished to Earth

and when he gets to Earth he can explain to the Avengers the X-Men every team that Charles wants to incorporate every hero in this known universe why we need to fight Galactus why we need to battle him and he is the ultimate big bad in the storytelling every team that Charles wants to incorporate, every hero in this known universe, why we need to fight Galactus,

why we need to battle him. And he is the ultimate big bad in the storytelling in Marvel. Denis Villeneuve is directing my movie. I think he is ready. He's going to shoot Dune 2 next summer. He's not wasted on the MCU? Oh, he's absolutely wasted on the MCU. I need a different energy,

a different tone. I need a grandness. I need a sincerity. I need an earnestness. And that's really what he does. He takes silly-seeming stories. I don't know if y'all have read the synopsis for Dune,

but it's fucking corny and weird and very silly. And yet, he made it feel magical and important. And I think this story is very similar. My Silver Surfer is Keanu Reeves. Now, Keanu Reeves has been fan cast as the Silver Surfer for literally 35 years.

And one of the great things about the Silver Surfer is he's silver. So it doesn't matter that right now, Keanu Reeves looks like John Wick because through the powers of technology, we can make him look like 28-year-old Keanu Reeves. Galactus is Michael Shannon. Now, Michael Shannon has been Zod. I would argue that Zod is the very best thing that came out of all of the Zack Snyder DC films because of the commitment in a very similar Christian Bale way that Shannon bestows upon it.

Now, Charles, you can disagree with that. Oh, no. I was actually just trying to be like, do I have a hot take? And then I was just like, I have no takes on this Spider-Verse. Like, sure. Wait, can I also just say, Keanu Reeves is inspired for Silver Surfer because he's the one comic book character where it's like, at Marvel especially,

if you're a writer, you're going to do a good Silver Surfer run. Like, there's people who are like, I'm going to do a good silver surfer run. Like there's like people who was like, I'm going to do four issues of silver surfer. It's going to be the headiest shit. It's going to be philosophical. It's going to be all the shit that like Keanu loves about the matrix films. Like you can make a Marvel movie about existence and what it means to be

alive. This is probably the only character you could do it with. And Keanu is the only one where I'm just like, damn, he has that. How much of this is just like residual point break energy though? Like, is this just point break Keanu in space, spray painted silver? I mean,

is that a bad thing? No, I wouldn't watch the hell out of that. And I will say, to the point about Denis too, like, my first thought when you mentioned the Silver Surfer was he is unadaptable on a big screen. Like I don't know how he would play in a movie. I think it's a matter of time before they get to him in one capacity or another. And so if you're going to do an unadaptable character,

do the director who just did the unadaptable book. That was part of my thinking, Rob, which is that the Silver Surfer is inherently silly and yet put him in the hands of someone who knows how to make the silly viable and you could have something special now the other significant team for the galactus story is of course fantastic for fantastic for and silver surfer sort of bound together here's my fantastic for i'm i don't know how i feel about this but i'm just gonna shoot my shot adam driver is reed richards i'm going kind of the i'm going kind of the other way here now obviously we're in the post krasinski and luminati presentation um obviously reed richards

is the smartest man in the world and so you need somebody who confers a kind of intelligence and so that leads to i think a lot of like brainiac style casting but one thing that is underrated about reed richards is is that he is really fucking powerful and his arms stretch all around the world. He is, has the weirdest powers of anybody in MCU and you need somebody who has a powerful torso. And as we know from the star Wars films,

no one has a more powerful torso than Adam driver. So, uh, I just love Adam driver. I would like to see him. He would never do this. He will never do a Marvel movie. And God bless him for that.

He's a better man than I am for sure. But I still would like to see this. He has been cast as Reed Richards. It was called A Marriage Story. I was like, I don't want him to see Adam Driver just yelling at Sue Storm for an entire Marvel movie. That's just going to be rough. How did we not pitch Noam Baumbach's Fantastic Four? How was that not one of these?

It's a great idea. It's a great idea. Well, apparently Netflix gave him like $200 million to adapt a Dondalillo novel. So anything's possible. The rest of my Fantastic Four. I'm stuck on Elle Fanning as Sue Storm.

I think Sue Storm is one of the more underdeveloped characters in the broader Marvel Comics run. And I want someone who is a surprising performer. And The Great is like probably my favorite show on TV over the last couple of years. And she has proven to be such a malleable performer who can convey power and intelligence,

but also very funny, very wily, and also very empathetic. I really like Elle Fanning. She might be a little young for this part. Maybe Elle Fanning in five years is a better fit, but I like her a lot. Ben Grimm, aka the thing I'm going Jesse Plemons. It's sitting there right there for me. Hell yeah. Just the best actors possible. Who's better than Plemons right now? Imagine him bringing his game night energy to his role as Ben Grimm. That would just be magnificent.

And then finally, I want Dev Patel as Johnny Storm. Because Johnny Storm is also, I think, a bit underrated as a character and was kind of ruined by Chris Evans in a way because Chris Evans just took his performance from Not Another Teen Movie

and then put it in a Fantastic Four movie. And I think that while Johnny Storm is a lot about bravado and braggadocio, in fact, there has to be a vulnerability to him too. And as we just saw in The Green Knight, that's something that Dev Patel excels at. So that's my Fantastic Four. What do you guys think?

I want to see Dev Patel and Tom Holland on screen. I just want to see it. I had the same exercise of how do we get Dev Patel into one of these movies? I love this casting for him. I love something that lets him play with some bravado a little bit. I think that could be really

fun. But I have kind of a bigger picture question for y'all, which is do the non-hardcore comics fans give a shit about the Fantastic Four? No. They do not. I don't know. So maybe it's an exercise in building it out. But that's where I would worry is between an

intergalactic story and the Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfers, the core of that, are we foot on the ground enough to give the red meat to the base? Here's the thing, too. You're asking that, and we're just coming off of Doctor Strange. At a certain

point, at least there's classic Fantastic Four runs that they have just either botched or have never done well, which I'm like, Kevin Feige, say what you will about Phase Four. At least he knows how to be like, I will give you a story that is watchable because those Fantastic Four movies were not not so i'm not worried that your average audience is like yeah

fuck the fantastic i think dr doom is also very very very very important to marvel and that you can use dr doom i think as a way to set up that story to make people care about those characters more i do wonder just as a sidebar, like the multiverse of madness, John Krasinski thing. Did you guys think that that like whetted the appetite of fans for this character? Did it actually maybe potentially do the opposite where it made it seem

like such a joke that it's not as exciting to see who they will ultimately cast in that part? Ooh, I'm going to be honest. I think that I get why Feige did it. I don't know what there is to look forward to anymore because best case scenario, they cast Krasinski and a bunch of fans performance is, where I don't know why they would shoot themselves in the foot like that, or at least have Krasinski be able to cook in that movie in a way where it was like he shows up

and then he's a bunch of string cheese by the end of it. And I'm like, this doesn't leave me excited for Fantastic Four. In fact, it makes me think that Mr. Fantastic is a chump. Yeah, I think you need to let the Krasinski heads be the lunatic fringe of the online MCU fans, and you don't give them any concession that would allow them to cling on to something.

So, I get why they did it. Honestly, I love a little alternate universe in which all your heroes get destroyed kind of storyline in general. I'm very amenable to that. And that, and the execution I thought was actually pretty good, but you, you just can't,

you can't enable extremist online communities like the Krasinski heads. You can't do it. Um, yeah, that's, that's an unfortunate part of the world that the, the collision of those two concepts, the bullying,

the studio executives into casting the famous person into the role only to then kill them and taunt the audience is a very odd turn of events. Really, really quickly though. I have to ask you, have you ever tried to rock a beard like Krasinski? Me? Yeah.

I feel like you could rock a beard. Are you asking me that because I resemble Krasinski? A little bit. Um, I have, I have rocked a beard. Here's the problem with my beard. It's very gray.

In fact, it's a bit... I'm getting into a real Reed Richards phase here, where it's like the graying temples are really coming in. By the way, I am comparing myself to Reed Richards now after comparing myself to Wolverine earlier. I don't think I look very good in a beard.

I'm strongly considering a mustache. Well, but if you were to grow one, could you complete the look by next time we do a pod look like left and slightly off center and not make eye contact with anyone else who's in the scene with you just to get the full Dr. Strange experience? I promise you that next time we do a pod, I will have you guys record together for two hours and then I will listen to that pod and then I will record in little bits and I'll dot myself in

in post. One other thing, just I, no more TV shows. Like, I realize that Disney Plus is really important. I know that they need

to grow their market share and the streaming wars. I know that the stock price has been up and down this year. I know that Bob Chapek is just scraping and clawing to secure that new contract for himself, and that Disney Plus is a key part of it. But the Marvel shows are not good. And they're really frustrating me because

the premises on paper are pretty cool. And even the ones that are most successful, like Loki and WandaVision, like you said earlier, Robert, probably the two shows that spoke to me the most in terms of their creativity, they still were just okay. And, you know, Charles, I know you have to recap like 100 more of these shows in the next six months,

and there's a lot on the line here, but like, they're kind of just fucking up the whole universe, and I just think that they should just cancel them. She-Hulk looks like a disaster to me. Got Jameela Jamil out here accepting the criticism of her character's design

on Twitter in an embarrassing fashion. We're just in a really weird place with this stuff. They're stepping on the product. They're stepping on the product. I'll ask you this, Sean. I'm going to put Marvel

and Star Wars in the same boat. Are we going to look back in a couple years where we're just like, wait, did we just devalue so many years of brand loyalty by just rushing out things in this streaming war

that people are figuring out pretty quickly is kind of leading us to nowhere in terms of everything that's going on with Netflix? Where I'm like, imagine if you just did Loki or Ms. Marvel or Falcon and the Winter Soldier as movies. I guarantee you, we would all be like, cool. Sitting through them, this is going to sound wild to you guys. I was reminiscing about the time when

The Last Jedi was a conversation that didn't happen every week. Because that's a conversation we have every single week after every single Marvel show, Obi-Wan, Boba Fett, She-Hulk eventually missed Marvel where I'm like, we're arguing about this shit to oblivion because it's not great.

And I want to go back to the times where it was just two or three times a year. So the last 18 months, six movies, seven series for Marvel, chill.

Like, please chill out. It's way too much and none of them are any good. Like, I don't know what to tell you at that point. The consolidation of any of these efforts into three or four movies would result in so much of a better product. And I can't imagine, like, are you really selling a lot of, like,

Doctor Strange action figures as a result of churning that movie out? Like, is that the result of this? And that's not even getting into the TV side, which, you know, I don't think there's like Wanda in suburban mom attire figures flying off the shelves. Like, I don't think that's a commercial product for you.

Subscriber number is the key metric there. And I, you know, the subscriber numbers are good. I do think that there is a potential for long-term attrition and devaluation to the point that Charles is making because people like me who waited their whole lives for these stories to be told are now checking in on some of these stories and just like wow this is actually actively not good and all of that goodwill that you spent 10 years building up with these very meticulously executed stories doesn't feel like it isn't as safe a pair of hands as it once was,

maybe this is just a throat-clearing period. It's very possible that the big announcements at D23 and Comic-Con are right around the corner, and we're going to be getting all excited,

and we're going to start to see casting announcements for characters that we've been fan-casting here on this podcast, and maybe we're going to say, oh, actually, they're using this Hickman run as inspiration for blah that we've been, you know, fan casting here on this podcast. And maybe we're going to say, Oh, actually they're using this Hickman run as inspiration for blah, blah,

blah. And then that'll give the midnight boys six more weeks of content. You know, it's very possible that this is the calm before the storm, but I don't think so. And, uh, yeah,

I think we're in a perilous place. Uh, but I'll, I'll be happy to eat my words if I get a Silver Surfer movie in the next three years. Just putting that out there. Any closing thoughts on Marvel

and where we're at? They wasted Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke. That's where we're at. That was a sin. That was a sin. That's where we're at. In terms of like, I tend to agree with you, Sean,

and I do this every week. I love the Midnight Boys. Pew, pew. It is my favorite time of the week. But I am getting to a point where i'm like am i kind of watching like the fall of a civilization like is are we kind of at the point where we're going to look back and like oh no that was when it started happening comic book movies aren't going anywhere superhero movies like we're they're here to stay i'm not saying they're leaving but are we at the point where we look back like oh no that was the last time

it was good and that makes me very scared for the rest of my life covering this stuff I wasn't prepared for moon night as our January 6th parallel but we got there you know we got there in the end

well this has been an insurrection certainly on all Marvel Rob thank you so much Rob you're in vegas right now covering summer league anything you want to plug while you're here oh no i'm like i am christian bale vegas is my necro sword i'm just slowly corrupting to the will of this city so there will eventually be some nba content on the ringer nba show on the ringer.com but but it could be a minute. I got to recuperate. Ask Chet how he feels about Thor Love and Thunder for me. I'd love to know. I'm scared.

I'm scared of asking anyone under a certain age what they think of this movie. I feel like they're going to cling to it in a way that's really going to disappoint me. Chet is more of a Minions guy, I'd have to imagine, given his age. I do think he'd be into the Screaming Goats. I feel like that aesthetic would appeal to him. Charles, you're on the Midnight Boys

obviously. You're also hosting the Ringer Music Show. You got another announcement coming, but we're not going to spoil it here. Another exciting new project. Let's spoil it. Can we spoil it? Is it ready to be spoiled? Oh, we got a trailer coming out tomorrow. Yo, everybody tap into the dissect feed. We're launching a new show called Last Long

Standing. If you'd like to hear me argue about things like Marvel movies, well, we're arguing about the thing that people can't shut up this summer. Kendrick Lamar.

We are crowning the greatest Kendrick Lamar song of all time. Okay? It is with Cole Kushner from Dissect. And if you've ever wanted to see the Hobbs,

the Shaw of The Ringer, go at it. Well, let me pick a better movie see the Hobbes, the Shaw of the ringer, go at it. Well, let me pick a better movie. Is there a better one? The Shaw? No, the Wolverine and the cycle.

Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes. I'm Cyclops. He's Wolverine. Yes. Oh my gosh. If you guys want to hear a sexy,

horny, low gremlin by Kendrick, are you about Kendrick? That's me. Cole is the Wolverine. He's the face of the operation. He's beloved. He keeps everything running. Last song standing coming out this week. First

episode, Good Kid, Mad City. Tap in. This is the only stinger this summer that's going to pay off. This is the only one we're ever going to see. Well, Rob, Charles, thank you so much, especially for those promos at the end there. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on today's episode.

Grateful to have him back in the United States of America. Later this week, Big Picture Movie Auction is back. It was contentious and weird, and there's not as many good movies coming out this year as I had hoped. We'll see you then. Thank you.