The Big Picture - 'Wonder Woman 1984' Is Here, on HBO Max. Plus: Paul Greengrass!

Episode Date: December 25, 2020

'Wonder Woman 1984,' the latest installment in the DCEU, has arrived on HBO Max after a controversial decision by Warner Media. Sean and Amanda break it all down, from the '80s time jump to the additions of Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal to the HBO Max launch (1:00). Then, Sean is joined by filmmaker Paul Greengrass for a conversation about his new Western, 'News of the World' (60:30). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Paul Greengrass 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 Wonder Woman 1984 at home. The latest installment in the DCEU has arrived on HBO Max after a controversial decision earlier this year by WarnerMedia. So that means me and Amanda and all of you at home are watching this movie on Christmas Day. Later in the show, I'll be joined by a truly great filmmaker, Paul Greengrass, the man behind Sunday Bloody Sunday, two Bourne films, Captain Phillips, and many others.

We're talking about his reunion with Tom Hanks, News of the World. It's all coming up on The Big Picture. Amanda, Merry Christmas. How are you doing? Merry Christmas. It is Christmas when people are listening to this, the actual Christmas day. And that's a beautiful thing. And we are celebrating by giving each other the gift of takes about Wonder Woman 1984. And I'm feeling so generous. Are you feeling generous about this? Yes, I am. I don't really feel like takes are the most generous gift that we could give this year. You know, I think people have had enough. I know I have, but here we are. If I had more to give, which is to say I had anything worth as much as my takes,

I would give it. But this is really all I got. This is my skill. This is my blessing. You know, we're like three wise men. You know, this is the myrrh. And what are the other two things that the wise men brought? Frankincense.

I think it's gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Oh, sure. So you have gold, like Wonder Woman. I have myrrh. And that means Bobby has frankincense i think it's gold frankincense and myrrh oh sure so you have gold like like wonder woman i have myrrh and that means bobby has frankincense so happy holidays everybody listening let's let's dig into wonder woman 1984 because this movie has been a political football it has been a pinata it has been a much anticipated piece of popular culture for many people, including yourself, because you are a huge fan of the original Wonder Woman film that Patty Jenkins directed and that Gal Gadot stars in, which came out, I believe, in, was it 2018, 2017?

End of 2017? Can't even remember. I think it was 2017, but I could be wrong. We are just all aging. It is extraordinary. Nevertheless, I liked the movie. I had some issues with it. And I think this is an interesting follow-up to the movie because it is in some ways very similar

and in other ways, completely radically different. So generally speaking, what'd you make of Wonder Woman 1984? Had a delightful time in the first hour. Would have been very happy if it ended at two hours. We got to talk about the last 30 minutes of this movie of all wonder woman movies and as you noted in the outline of all superhero movies but you know it's like i don't care because that is true of every single movie so in terms of what it achieves outside of the kind of bonkers DC universe superhero nonsense. I had a lovely time. Yeah, I think the first film obviously

was incredibly important because it put a female superhero at the center of the frame and was hugely successful. And that was a major

part of talking about what why the movie was meaningful. And there was a lot to recommend about that first movie. There was this incredible chemistry between Gal Gadot and Chris Pine.

Gal Gadot, I think, emerged as kind of a fascinating action star in the likes of which we have not seen in a long time. I have been thinking about her in relationship to Arnold Schwarzenegger quite a bit lately and the way that they have

a very similar kind of on-screen presence where it's like it doesn't even really matter if they're a good actor. They're just great at being in a movie and i feel that's also true in this new film she's she's kind of i i think you could make the case that she's perhaps not in enough of this movie despite it being named wonder woman 1984 but the conversation is naturally going to shift away from the radical change of putting a woman in the center of a movie like this to, okay, is this movie good? And I think the critical consensus has been somewhat divided, but I think I feel the same way that you do, which is that there's a lot that works in the movie,

most of which happens in the first half of it. And a lot of it is driven by this decision that they've made to frame the movie in 1984, which as you noted right before we started is the year of your birth. So it's a very special year on this show and is also, well, perhaps not. It's also for me personally, not a very good year in America. I don't necessarily mean politically or socially, but just even sort of where the culture was in the 80s is not a time that I have a huge relationship to. So what'd you make of the 80s ness of this movie? It's interesting that you bring this up. Yes, I was born in 1984 and I feel the same way that you do about the 80s. And I guess because we were literally born in the 80s, couldn't really participate in it. Like again, at three, I was not making a lot of decisions

about scrunchies or, you know, parachute pants or whatever was like happening. I didn't know who Gordon Gekko was like I wasn't you know, I didn't know who Ronald Reagan was. So there is this 80s nostalgia that I think other generations feel, possibly people who lived through it or people who, you know, like the kind of the excess of it, the, the tackiness of it. I have never felt connected to it either. And I wonder it's because just because of our age and we're like children of the eighties. So we latched onto the nineties as like the cool thing. And, you know, like we're in a reaction to whatever.

I thought this was like perfectly fine for the for the setting of the film. And I think it is like, you know, very 80s. There are the costumes. There are some of the music choices. There is a set piece at a mall to open it, which we can talk more about, you know, the food court and everything without being too like, oh my God, it's the 80s. You know, it's not like one of the VH1, like remember the 80s shows, thankfully. And I think that there is, the lightness and the silliness of the 80s fits really well with the kind of Wonder Woman world that Patty Jenkins creates.

And that's a great match. When it tries to get into the geopolitical aspects of the 80s, slightly interesting. We can talk more about that. Yeah, so let's just talk about the framing device for the movie. It's not just that Diana has lived for what seems like 60 plus years in the interim as a superhero slash archaeologist, but also that she has been unlucky in love and she lost her partner, Chris Pine, in a terrible airplane explosion shortly before she did battle with Ares, the god of war, at the end of the Wonder Woman movie. Remember that? Remember the end of Wonder

Woman? That wasn't great. I don't. I literally, I like actually don't. I think my affection for this movie is predicated on the fact that I just literally don't remember what happened in the last 30 minutes, but continue. Well, nevertheless, Chris Pine's character died. And so it just seems like Wonder Woman has been working hard to save lives, but has also been emotionally bereft in that time. And we come to 1984 and we're introduced to a couple of characters very quickly. The first of which is Pedro Pascal's Max Lord, who is a some seems

like a combination of like a TV evangelist slash oil tycoon slash self-made entrepreneur type, who has a series of television commercials. And he's got this big swoop of blonde hair, and he's wearing these gaudy pinstripe suits. And there is a very obvious allusion to the hucksterism of Donald Trump circa the art of the deal 1980s. And then the second character we're introduced to is Kristen Wiig's character, who is also a scientist and soon to be a friend of Diana's. And these two people are also bound to become the villains of the movie. And they are the people through which we see the new problems, the new challenges, the narrative crux of Diana's issues. And it's complicated because I love Kristen Wiig and I love Pedro Pascal. And I think when they get to be doing Pedro Pascal and Kristen Wiig things, which is basically that first hour of the movie, the movie is really singing.

Kristen Wiig is doing this weird harebrained screwball comedy kind of thing where she's like a shrinking violet and she's trying to access her confidence. And she's constantly in comparison to Diana, but also they form a bond. Max Lord seems like a thriving businessman, but it is very quickly revealed that he is a phony and that he is desperately trying to put together success. And he has a lot of self-doubt. And the movie is empathetic towards these people. And it seems interested in their plight and also interested in how bad people become bad people. But then things do spiral out of control. What'd you think just of the, the,

the introduction of these figures? I enjoy them. I think it put Kristen Wieg in a position to the succeed, at least for the first hour. And we should say right now we're spoiling this movie. This is like full spoilers. If you haven't seen it, it's available on HBO max,

which is now available on Roku. And in addition to everything else, so you are able to watch it if you haven't seen it, it's available on HBO Max, which is now available on Roku, in addition to everything else. So you are able to watch it if you would like to. And spoilers. So the first hour when she just gets to be Barbara, and even the transformation and kind of the longing to be the Gal Gadot character, to be Diana, I think fits her skill set. It's relatable. Who would not want to be Diana. I just, I remained like completely ensorcelled by Gal Gadot as, as Wonder Woman slash Diana.

It's just, I wouldn't say that I was thinking of Arnold Schwarzenegger when I was watching her. That was not my particular response to it, but, uh, I do understand, you know, getting one wish and being like, I'd like to be like that lady. And, and then, you know, she has poor Kristen Wiig has to take on like the narrative responsibility of continuity in the, what I, you know, I don't care. I like, I just, I don't care. What is cheetah? I still don't know. Watched the whole movie. Have no idea about motivations. Have no idea about it. Just like, who cares?

Not me. And go ahead. You were going to say something. No, I was just going to say, I mean, I think the theme of the movie is probably a way to understand, or one of the themes of the movie is a way to understand where some of these characters go. You know, where the Barbara Minerva, the Kristen Wiig character goes in the movie, which I think kind of devolves into a typical superhero fight sequence movie. But, you know, she is a character who is longing for something that she can't attain,

which is a kind of like confidence, stature, beauty, attractiveness, you know, and Pedro Pascal's character as well, Max Lord, is seeking genuine success and a similar kind of confidence and the approval of his son and a number of other things. He wants to be loved and admired. And the way that the movie attacks this is by introducing a MacGuffin, which is what most of these movies do. And in this case, the MacGuffin is the dream stone. And it's introduced because Barbara Minerva is an archaeologist. And so she has come into the possession of this dream stone, which whenever you are holding it, if you make a wish, your wish is granted. I think the Smithsonian has come into the possession of the dream stone

and she is a gemologist who's new on the job who has to, you know, I liked that it was set at the Smithsonian. I thought that was cute. I would say it was underutilized. In fact, most of the sequences are taking place behind the scenes at the Smithsonian. I would love to have had the movie shot in the Smithsonian. Nevertheless, later, of course, Max Lord comes into contact with the Dreamstone and then ultimately in a very confusing bit of narrative trickery becomes the Dreamstone, which I found

to be a very stupid, illogical choice in the movie but nevertheless he becomes this this vector for granting other people's wishes but only after barbara has has made her wish which is to become diana and it's kind of at that point where the movie i think veers off into something that is a little bit more incoherent and superhero-y but all the way up into that point where we're introduced we're meeting all these characters and then we find Chris Pine come back into the movie through a narrative leap

that is a bit confusing. Oh, it made sense. Did it? Okay, well, why don't you explain how exactly Chris Pine, who died in 1919, comes back into this movie? I mean, as far as these things go in terms of, you know,

narrative continuity, it works out. It's that Diana, without even knowing what this dream stone is kind of touches it. And, and we are given the clues via like some apartment set dressing and it's like various pictures of her, like the Trevor ranch and his watch and stuff that she's still pining for

Steve, which is great. I would do. And so she kind of unknowingly is holding the stone while wishing for Steve. And then Steve takes over the body of a dude, just like a random dude who is, I believe credited as handsome man, like in the credits. I think that's his name. Maybe it's handsome guy. The actor's name is Christopher Palaha. And he does the best with what he can imagine being like, yes, I'm the love interest in wonder woman 1984.

And then like, nope, you're not. But so there is one scene. Well, there are a couple of scenes actually where Diana is interacting with Steve in this other body. And it's the, it's Christopher Pal this other body and it's the it's

Christopher Palaha's body and person but for the most part it's just you're watching Diana and Steve as Chris Pine and it's because the wish has been granted and now she gets to spend some time with Steve I mean it's better than like you know on digging up a grave and like putting some sort of serum into it. Nonsense. Zombie Steve Trevor would have been sick. That would have been great. It's not what I want. This is what I prefer, which is just like a slightly fantastical manifestation of wishes and desires, which is the whole essence of the dream stone. And I just want to say up into the point

where it becomes like the entire fate of the world is living inside Pedro Pascal's body or whatever. I kind of like the dream stone as a MacGuffin. I would have been fine with it contained within the movie itself. I mean, it's a little silly. It's a little old fashioned. I would say that about 20 minutes. Well, no, that's not true because it takes an hour for the MacGuffin to show up. But 15 minutes after the MacGuffin shows up, my husband's like, oh, so she's going to have to give Steve back in order to save the world. You know, like, you know where it's going, but I don't mind knowing where it's going. I don't mind like a slightly silly, but narratively interesting

or thematically interesting MacGuffin that stays contained in the movie. And for me, the problem was when it suddenly we had to bring in like set up villains for four DC movies down the line and also make it, you know, the entire fate of the world once again rests on this,

this one scene and all the really dumb superhero stakes. Yeah, I think it's an appropriate MacGuffin for the story because that theme that I'm talking about is basically material desire. You know, the 1980s are defined by that Gordon Gekko type figure that you're talking about, which is more is more is more greed is good. And why do we want the things that we want and what will we do to get them? And what are we willing to sacrifice to get them? That that is the big core thematic aspect of the movie. And I think the Dreamstone feels a little bit old fashioned because it is old fashioned. It's a it's it's DC canon. It was created in 1963. It is also known as the material optic Opticon. And it does have called it the Dreamstone and

not the Dreamstone is a better name. Absolutely. But it does feel like the creation of a slightly more innocent and old fashioned time in comic book writing. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think that speaks to the energy that the Wonder Woman movies have that I think also the Aquaman movie had, but that no other DC movies have that is slightly lighter on its feet. That is slightly more whimsical. That is a little bit weird and kind of okay with that. You know, it's not worried about every story being about the death of one's mother or one's father or you know the destruction of a city and you know the dc films are so weighted down by their heavy themes and this movie is it's pretty fun and even if it's imperfect and it is imperfect it's it's a fun hang in addition to being um you know this really

important movie in 2020 it's not cool And it's not trying to be cool. And it's not weighed down with the anxiety of being like, no, but comic books are cool. And it's really important. And if we like tie all of this together and it goes back to the other thing, and also it's like about my dad, like I promise it's really cool,

which that is like what all of the other DC movies are to me. And it's just kind of like- Whose voice is that? Is that my voice? Is that Dr. DC's voice?. And it's just kind of like- Whose voice is that? Is that my voice? Is that Dr. DC's voice? Yeah, it's just like the internet. It's just like all of you being like, give me the Snyder Cut.

That's what you sound like all of the time. But there is just a confidence, but just also a comfort and we're going to try this other thing and we're not too worried about it. That is absolutely what I respond to in these movies. I find the contrast is like manifested very clearly in the wonder woman theme that does show up a couple times in this movie,

but it's like the weird corny, like me, me, me, me, me, me, me,

you know, which like comes from, was it Batman versus Superman or whatever? Yes. And just like completely sticks out like tonally as a sore thumb. And they obviously have to put it in because it's a part of this whole, you know, corporate franchise or whatever. But it just does not fit with what's going on in these movies.

And it's trying way too hard. Yeah, I think you may have heard New Order's Blue Monday at the top of this podcast. That's the kind of song you want to hear. You want to hear In Excess. You want to hear Prince. You want to hear Cyndi Lauper. You want to hear Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson. These are the sounds of 1984. These are the songs that you want to hear. So whenever you're reminded that you're in this big, noisy comic book movie with all of these thematic elements that tie together, it's a little bit disorienting. On the other hand, I do think that one of the things that works really well about the movie is the first Wonder Woman movie is an origin story.

And so there is a lot of throat clearing about how we got here and all that. There was that weird, you know, mural painting that explained the origin of the gods and Themyscira and all that stuff that broke down the movie at the top this movie is like it's Wonder Woman man she's got a lasso and she's gonna lasso people with it and they are gonna tell the truth and the lasso is all over the movie also Wonder Woman has an invisible jet and you know what they're gonna do they're gonna take a flight on that invisible jet and it's gonna be wondrous and beautiful and fireworks are gonna go off like this is a Wonder Woman movie They're doing all the Wonder Woman things

that you may have seen in the seventies TV show, or if you read the comic books or watched any of the animated stuff, this is who Wonder Woman is. And so I kind of liked that. I kind of liked that it was also unafraid to be it's comic book self and not the version of comic book self that we think of where we're like, oh man, we have to think about these interconnected universes and how does all this stuff fit together? And oh, the box office and how is this going to do? What does this mean for movies? It's more just like if you can focus the actual character and what people like about the character,

it's trying to do that. And I appreciate that about it too. It also brings some emotion to it. All of the flying stuff that you mentioned is brought in because Steve in World War I was a pilot. That's how he dies. And then he shows up in the 80s and flying technology is much better than it was in World War I. And his sense of wonder. And there's that scene when they're together, like flying through the 4th of July fireworks. And that's really lovely. And then like bittersweet spoiler alert. But when Steve, when she gives Steve up again and then she learns how to fly and she's

learned from him. And that's like, it's man's, that is corny, but like in a very nice way. And it's nice because there's like a payoff from things that they introduced in the beginning of the movie. And it's also nice because you're like,

yeah, wonder woman can fly. Like, I think we yelled that in my house when we watched it. I actually don't know enough about wonder woman to know if she actually can fly is that is that also canon please please don't tell me if it is or if it isn't I watched it on my screen I just like I don't care she had a nice time with Steve and then it's wind and it's air and she can fly. Many critics have also noted that this movie seems heavily indebted to Richard Donner's Superman

in terms of the tonality and the way that it looks at this. And like, what would happen if someone like Wonder Woman actually showed up in our world? And it's interesting that flight sequence really immediately brought to mind Superman and Lois Lane

going up in the air with Superman for the first time in that Richard Donner movie which is a just a beautiful movie memory for me personally but um it's also a little bit confusing because i wanted to unpack like what diana slash wonder woman's role is in the world here because she's obviously been around for like 65 years and she the movie opens with as you mentioned this great mall sequence where she's obviously been around for like 65 years and she the movie opens with as you mentioned this great mall sequence where she's wrangling bad guys and lassoing them and it you know it looks a lot like um speaking of schwarzenegger commando or uh jackie chan's police story where you're like all of the crime is happening inside of a mall and that is a commentary

on the excess of of our times but. But does everybody know Wonder Woman exists? Are people taking photos of her? Is she famous? She looks just like Diana. I'm really glad that you brought this up because during the mall sequence, my first thought was like, I need Wonder Woman to be doing more.

This is beneath her. I'm glad that she's busting this up and you know you can tell within five seconds of the like there's a store behind the jewelry store and that's what we're looking for and I'm like oh they're looking for like a significant object that's going to be the MacGuffin but Diana doesn't seem in on that it seems like she was just like at the food court getting an orange Julius and then it like, now I need to bust this up. And she, the one thing I did notice is that her lasso knocks out all of the security cameras, which I just love it because, you know,

against, I too am against a surveillance state, but it seems clear that as a result, people don't know who she is. And the, you know, she does that cute, like winking thing to the little kid. And it's like, this is between us or something something and then the news reports are just like anonymous like powerful woman saves the mall which there's an implication in the first film that uh diana's race across the dead zone in no man's land during world war one like turned the tide in that war so you'd think

that there would be some level of and that was 65 years ago so you'd think that there would be some level of awareness as to who this this mythical human being slash god is um it does not seem to be the case this is one of those like suspend disbelief things which i understand it's it's an issue when there's like a masked avenger that you need to protect their identity. But like Wonder Woman in particular, she just puts on like a gold crown piece. Like she is Diana. Right. No, I know.

And it doesn't even seem like that people know that Wonder Woman exists and dependent of Diana, right? It just, it seems like no one knows that Wonder Woman is among us which I want to say love Diana love Wonder Woman I really love Chris Pine as Steve and I'm happy they got their time together but I don't think just hiding for 60 years and not dating is like a healthy way to to grieve or to honor your powers and the you know the way you're trying

what you can do to save the world feel like she was like hiding a little bit i'm glad she's out of her shell now do you think you don't think she had any jump offs in that time there was no like she said she didn't do you believe her she does seem pretty conservative you know i like interesting and i mean she's really she's old-timey also you know i guess i don't totally believe her but there does seem to be a fixation that i i want more for diana between 1920 and 1984 is she living in a small apartment? Is that her apartment? Do we see where she lives in this movie? Yeah, because that's where all the photos and like the,

of, of Steve are. And then she has, you know, that great scene when they go into like her high tech room, which is a bunch of old, like tiny TVs. And she turns them all on and Steve's like,

yo, this is amazing. If you were Wonder Woman, would you live in a tiny apartment in Washington, D.C.? What's going on with that? I mean, I don't know. And she works at the Smithsonian, I guess, like full time and is just like kind of a local crime fighter. But yet no one in D.C. is paying attention to it.

I agree. There are some holes here. I just also would really love to see Diana in the late 60s. You know? Can we do that movie? Let's talk about, because the thing that doesn't make sense about that to me is that, you know, Diana was raised in the Themyscira,

which is this, you know, almost Roman-esque, Greek, Forum-esque space where women dominate and are trained to be warriors. And, you know, that was one of the most effective parts of the first movie, was getting that introduction in that space and seeing how Diana came to be Wonder Woman

and left Themyscira. And we have this opening sequence in the movie where we return there and we see how she becomes a competitive person and learns about the idea of fairness and what it takes to win. But a person who was raised in Themyscira would not want to live in a one bedroom apartment. I'm just putting that out there.

Like she also wouldn't want to live in an urban center like Washington, D.C. Why we can't just go back to Themyscira and have like eight movies about Themyscira is like completely beyond me. That's all I'm interested in. Just make a million movies there. I would live there too it seems awesome it is kind of my ideal topography and you know it they do cool things and they believe in fairness so I'm open to it but I do want to say speaking of that scene when

they're in like her little control room which is pretty funny this this movie is like this movie's funny it has a good sense of humor but so the point of going in the control room is that she also has that special armor hidden you remember that that was in the corner and it's like from the last amazon or something but and then they do a flashback to the someone wearing the it's her mother i believe it's her mother who wore it who sacrificed herself essentially and took on you know the took on warriors in a final battle and protected herself with this golden armor so is themyscira gone that's like that's what i'm wondering i don't know that's a really good question i don't i, I mean, she left. But yeah, the people fighting her definitely look like they're wearing armor

from like pre-1918. So, but then Themyscira still existed for World War I, though I guess I'm not really sure about kind of like how time works in Themyscira. I think it's kind of a Wakanda situation where it is, because it is protected

from the rest of society and is sort of blocked out. You recall that Steve arrives because he travels through this invisible wall. And so I don't think that it is necessarily abiding by the way that the rest of society progresses or regresses or what have you.

Is she allowed to go back? Because that was sort of a thing also that was like a big deal of her choosing to go out in the world once she learns who she is and she has to like save the world. But there's like a definite goodbye, like she can't come back. So maybe that's why she's not in Themyscira. As I recall, and I was not a huge Wonder Woman comic book reader, but as I recall, there were issues where she would be in Themyscira and sort of storylines that would take place there. And then there would be others that would take place in New York or Gotham or wherever.

And to kind of go back and forth. Not just DC, no, no. I don't even know how we landed on Washington DC. I mean, I guess because of her work as a, as an, is she an archeologist? Is she, what kind of a scientist is she? I thought that she was an archaeologist yeah i did the other nice thing about the smithsonian was when that steve gets to go to the the airplane museum like the air and space museum which again space camp

amanda was very excited but so steve this movie has so much for you. It's also interesting that it arrives on Christmas. You pointed out that it was supposed to come out in June 2020. And I think some of the Trump-laden aspects of this movie probably would have made a lot more sense before he was defeated in the presidential election. Obviously, there's still resonance and it still makes sense what the filmmakers are trying to do here. The Christmas aspect of it is funny to me because it is literally a gift of the Magi movie. It is literally about when you receive something, what you lose in the process. And so it does work in December and it is going to work, I think, for people at home at this time of year. On the other hand, I think Pedro Pascal for me personally is the best part of the movie but i think he is also weirdly the impact of his character is somewhat diminished by the time in which we are receiving it what do you think about that personally i had a better time watching it in december than i would have in June. I like it for me, the little bit of distance and the bit of like boundaries around it, not to say that we are free from the consequences of the last four years. We

are absolutely not, but just, I found myself in 2020, like, especially when electron coverage was swirling as much as it is, as it was was and we were just like living in that nightmare all of the time and again we are to some extent but pop culturally as well as you know politically and situationally I just kind of didn't want it in my movies I would have been like oh okay you did this thing nice for me it would have felt like just kind of like overkill and it's there if you want it now watching it. And it's even there if you don't want it. It's like quite obvious. We mentioned the wig.

He's just like a sham TV businessman. So it's pretty obvious. And I think even the lessons that the movie wants to teach, you can draw a pretty straight line. But I found it a bit easier to disengage from the world watching it in December. And I am looking for that when I'm watching a Wonder Woman movie. Yeah, I think that makes sense. It's not a one-to-one Trump comparison or Gordon Gekko comparison. I mean, the Pedro Pascal character is an immigrant and is a person who is utterly lacking in confidence and is a single parent and is a number of things that these people are not. But the illusions are obvious.

And Pascal is super interesting to me. We've talked about Gal Gadot. She's wonderful. Talked about Chris Pine. Just a huge fan. Yeah, she's great. She's perfectly cast and probably is the number one reason why these movies work. Pine was a perfect counterpart

for her in the first film. It's nice to have him back in the second film. If they bring him back in the third film, then we know that there's some sort of contractual issue because it'll be completely illogical.

Kristen Wiig, I thought, was very effective, especially in the first half of the movie. I have a huge crush on Kristen Wiig. I always have. When she becomes Cheetah, which we'll discuss shortly, I would say the movie doesn't work as well pascal um you may have heard about this he's the mandalorian yeah i've heard about that yeah and he took his mask off right

he took his mask off a couple times this season i saw that gif very he loves baby yoda who has a name now it's grogu that's correct. And they love each other and that's very moving. Among other things on the series, you nailed it. The Mandalorian's fantastic. Obviously, Pedro Pascal, an alumni of

Triple Frontier, and also the Red Viper, one of my favorite characters in Game of Thrones history, and frankly, one of the best movie star, one of my favorite characters in Game of Thrones history. And frankly, one of the best movie star, TV stars we've gotten in the last five years. So I'm just happy to have the guy. It's really cool that he got to be in the center of this story. And again, it's interesting because the movie spends a lot of time with his character.

And it spends a lot of time with Kristen Wiig's character. Did you think it was too much time with the evolving villains of the story? I didn't mind it for the first hour. I thought it was too much time only in that they got saddled with a lot of like the narrative nonsense at the very end. And I thought that was unfair to their performances and the movie. As you noted, Pedro Pascal in particular seems to be having a fantastic time. He's going for it. Nothing I like more than when a great actor just gets the really hammy villain part in a movie and is just like, let me have some fun.

And that he definitely is, and I was having fun too. I agree. I really enjoyed it, especially relative to what David Thewlis and Danny Houston were doing in the first movie, which those are two great actors who are trying to do some version of hamming it up, but their characters weren't interesting. And the battles that they ended up having in the movie were so illogical. This was a much better execution, I thought. And then I think the fifth star of this movie is really Patty Jenkins, who is the director of Monster and North Country and a handful of serious dramas

before she became the steward of Wonder Woman and is soon to be the steward of Star Wars. you know, is the director of Monster and North Country and a handful of serious dramas before she became the steward of Wonder Woman and is soon to be the steward of a Star Wars movie called Rogue Squadron. But it's like, it's a famous director now, you know, is a person whose name you find in the headline of a story and has become even more famous because this movie is going to HBO Max. She said something interesting in one of the interviews she gave this week that I wanted to share with you because I don't know that this would have dawned on me if I hadn't heard her say it. She said, I did a couple of things in this movie that everybody said we couldn't do. Nobody dies and she wins in the end with a conversation. To me, this was a Trojan

horse. I wanted to tick off every box of what you're looking for in a superhero movie, but actually what I'm hopefully pulling off is a subversion where instead you're saying to this younger generation that sees these movies, you have to find the hero within. The hero within part, I think, is a little bit head in the clouds. But the first half of what she's saying, I found to be really interesting. And the idea of making that a goal of the movie,

that you don't have to put a bomb inside of a villain's brain and explode it all over a city to end your movie is pretty cool. And I hope that that signals the way forward for these kinds of movies. Unfortunately, I didn't necessarily feel like that when I was watching the movie. Yeah, I think it's a very cool idea. And again, I just, I think Patty Jenkins has just created like a world and a tone of these movies that is so separate from everything else in the DC franchise and from a lot of superhero movies. And that I just find so appealing and it's a complete credit to her.

I think the goal of a conversation and no one dying is like very cool. Unfortunately, the conversation is still about like stopping the world from being exploded by nuclear devices. So, and I don't hold that against her because I think she's stuck between trying to achieve her goals as a director and achieving the goals of a mega franchise. And it gets saddled with the same superhero or just kind of franchise nonsense that that most big budget movies do at this point so that was part of the reason I didn't feel it as much and

then the other thing it is interesting to choose like a conversation and a really interior resolution for someone as like a physical, a performer as Gal Gadot and Wonder Woman. And I like exploring the motivations of the character. I don't think it's a coincidence that the female superhero is like way more fleshed out and you understand her and her emotions and her struggle to have it all. And, you know, like I do actually like that. But you do also want to see her just like in movement in these films. That is some of the power of it. That's also some of the power of like of films. So I don't know. You do get to see her in action other places.

I might have liked a bit more, as you said. She's maybe not in it enough for someone who is playing the title character. But I think that it's cool. She tried the no one dies thing sets up our next segment. Pretty well. So let's talk about the action as a way into this next conversation, because there's a lot of action in the Themyscira opening sequence. There is a lot of action in the mall sequence.

And then there's a lot of action in this chase sequence that takes place in the Middle East. I can't recall if they even named the country that they're visiting. I think they're in Cairo because they're the pyramids. That's right. So they go to Egypt and as Max Lord is attempting to acquire more power by granting more wishes, they find themselves in egypt and she they're she and steve are essentially in this truck race to to stop max lord and there's a really cool action sequence in which it becomes clear that wonder woman is losing her power and she's injured by a bullet and we see a lot of lasso work and it has this kind of balletic quality and there's a lot of cgi but it's not bad it looks pretty good and And in that sequence, I was like, oh, this would be a cool Wonder Woman action movie. I wish there was a little bit more of this kind of a sequence. that Barbara Minerva becomes when she is granted a second wish by Max Lord where she asks to become

an apex predator the kind of creature that could defeat Wonder Woman and be unstoppable and so naturally there has to be a cheetah showdown with Wonder Woman and it takes place in the dark and it's visually incoherent. And it's the same superhero movie bullshit that we get in all of these movies. And for a movie that seems to be so conscious

of not doing this, it did it again. And I can't figure out why. I hated it. I mean, it is the superhero bullshit. She didn't need to turn into Cheetah. And she obviously turned into Cheetah

and then doesn't die, as Patty Jenkins said, so she can come back and bum us out again in wonder woman 3 you know 1997 or whatever that would be good and i just it it just feels like everything that these movies managed to avoid and to you know create something apart from like being superimposed on it. And like the last 30 minutes. And it also just time-wise,

it happens after the movie should be over. And it's like, no, no, now we have to go to some weird cave and hear that nae, nae, nae, nae, nae, nae, nae. And like Kristen Wiig doesn't die so that she can come back. Like what? No, thank you.

Yeah, this movie is 155 minutes long and that's just too long. It's just for a movie that is trying to be light on its feet and whimsical and have a sense of humor, which it is for the most part. It really does drag at times and it especially drags the final act

and even into the final act with Max Lord, where, as you said, Diana essentially has to convince him to renounce his wish and to give up his powers so that the world can go back to normal. It's it's it's tricky. I think it's really hard to end movies like this and you can't end them on a low note.

And I think DC has been in this ongoing game of catch up with Marvel for a while. And a lot of Marvel's endings, I think, are a little bit noisy and bad. But the last couple of endings that they've done have been really good. And, you know, the last two Avengers movies, which are the most successful movies basically ever, I think have great endings. And I think the last couple of Spider-Man movies have great endings. And you can feel that that factory is working at a slightly more clear and unified pace than DC, which seems to be moving increasingly in directions that are away from each other. They're empowering people to make the movies that they want to make to some extent, but it still feels like they're forced to have these

dumb showdowns at the end. And I don't know what the resolution is because it's comic books. This is what it is. You got to battle the bad guy and win. That's what a comic book, really a story like that ultimately does. So they're in a little bit of a rock and a hard place here. Yeah. I just don't understand why it couldn't have just been like a Bond villain. And then she defeats the Bond villain and it's like a pretty discreet episode in Diana's life. And then she can go meet up with Batman and Superman whenever they got to do one of those. And then she can time travel to another year and you know be a architect or something and like it is possible they just feel like they're absolutely forcing this kind of narrative continuity and not even like there would be narrative continuity in that but just kind of like you must remember that this is a DC universe movie and that they're going

to be for others and obviously that's work for marvel and i understand why they want to do it from a business perspective but like we don't need it let it be something different that's a business strategy too i think um well i have a couple of like long-term questions for you it's unclear if there's going to be a wonder woman year blank because we don't patty jenkins has been a bit elusive about whether she's going to do it again obviously the HBO Max decision has sent ripples through the the Warner Brothers slate in the future Gal Gadot I presume is is contracted to do another one but who knows what that looks like if they could do it in another year what year would you want to see I would

really like to see the 60s I do think that the old-fashioned nature of this character and like the the way they're telling these stories like making them period pieces makes a lot of sense when she's in the in like the quote present day number one it has to align more with like the Zack Snyder aesthetic which once again no thank, thank you. But I think also if you just, if you want that kind of lightness and, and the kind of old old timiness of it, put it in the past. So 60s would be fun just because that's funny. A lot to work with and her trying to, you know,

figure out bell bottoms or whatever and rock and roll. That would be delightful to me. What would you pick? Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, I think a lot of these movies and stories have done this in the past, like X-Men, Days of Future Past, I believe, looked at the Nixon era in the US. I think in WandaVision, we're about to see a vision like 1950s sitcoms and then 1970s what's happening style uh you know tv dramas and like the constant playing with the decades and what the decades represent is a cool concept for these movies it makes it easier to not have to be constantly racing to the future of the storytelling like it lets them just expand the 90s i think would be fun i think

it'd be a way to kind of keep the story going forward um i also just like the 90s a lot more than the 80s personally and the cultural drops and the the visual cues would be more amusing to me we're children of the 90s born in the 80s but you know became sentient in the 90s this is the ninth dc movie uh since the dceu kind of came together. It is among the best, but that isn't necessarily saying very much because I'm not a huge fan of a lot of them. Coming up in the future, the next one

is James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, which will also apparently be playing at home on HBO Max. And then following that in 2022, we have The Batman for Matt Reeves, The Flash with Ezra Miller, Aquaman 2, and Shazam 2. That doesn't sound great. The Batman, I'm obviously very excited about.

I really like Matt Reeves. We both love Robert Pattinson. That was a great trailer. I hope it's good. I have no idea. I've seen 15 Batman movies. It's going to be what it's going to be but i have an anticipation towards it everything else i i don't know like i get as geeked out about this stuff as

most people but i'm not that fired up about these can i ask a question that i meant to google and i've like meant to google for like five years now so they already made a suicide squad right like three years ago yes okay and so they're doing And so they're doing it again? They are doing it again. Some characters are back. Some characters have been replaced. Some actors are no longer present. Some are. I believe Viola Davis will also be appearing in this movie. Just to give you some insight, the great Viola Davis, one of our best living actors, is now going to appear in two Suicide Squad movies in five years because this is how Hollywood works. These people need to make money. Right.

And they're also doing a different Joker than the Joaquin Phoenix Joker. Oh, yeah. Well, Jared Leto was the Joker in the David Ayer film. I don't know if Joker is in this new Suicide Squad movie. But it's James Gunn who, of course, made the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and is beloved by comic book movie fans. And so there's a feeling like he will get closer to the spirit of this story than David Ayer and or Warner Brothers, which seem to have chopped up David Ayer's vision of the first movie did. I don't know. Who knows? I'll watch it. Sure. Yeah. Whatever. I'm just trying to say

like that's confusing. That's just like not that's bad organizing. Someone needs you to make them a spreadsheet and then stick to it. But like, you know, I think that does have an effect when suddenly the same people who can't decide like what suicide squad should look like or how many jokers that they should have. And which is fundamentally like a storytelling decision is like, Hey, but also you need to have Cheetah in here fighting for 20 minutes and it can't die. I mean, that's like, it's not done well. Some of it is actually like the execution is poor in addition to me not caring about it. Yeah, this has been a constant issue with DC stuff over the years. We just talked about Batman and Robin when we were talking about George Clooney earlier this week. And he, of course, was the third Batman in like an eight year period, in part because they couldn't get people to continue to play Batman.

And in part because they changed directors and changed visions. And continuity is a tricky thing. I mean, that is really it's silly to praise Marvel for this at this point. But I mean, they pulled off something pretty wild by holding all these people together for as long as they did, by making those movies as coherent as they are, by creating the level of fandom and attention to the way that they told that story. It's a corporate behemoth and they had all the advantages in the world, but they stuck to the plan. They let one guy, Kevin Feige, basically say, here's how we're going to do this and follow my lead. DC didn't do that. And so in 2017, you get a movie called Suicide Squad. And

in 2021, you get a movie called The Suicide Squad. You're right. That's just confusing. Oh, God. It's the that makes it art. That's beautiful. It's crazy. So we're talking a lot about corporate management and construction. And I think you and I like Wonder Woman 1984. It's a fun movie. I think a lot of people are going to have a lot of fun getting a chance to see this movie with their families on Christmas or over the holidays. Like we said, they're watching it on HBO Max. This is a huge decision.

This is, I would say, probably barring the Trolls World Tour decision that we talked about a lot in the spring, this is the single biggest decision around putting a movie on a streaming service that we have seen yet. And I want to unpack it with you a little on a streaming service that we've seen yet. And I want to unpack it with you a little bit, given how much we've talked about it over the course of the last 12 months. We both watched the movie at home, like most people.

We watched it on a screener. Watching a movie on a screener, especially a movie as vibrant, colorful, funny, action-driven as this, is never going to be as good as in a movie theater. We know that did the movie work for you as an at-home experience? Yes. Like a hundred percent. I, you know, I, I would like to talk about crowds, crowd CGI at some point, just in me having to get used to that in my life going forward. And, or can someone send me the TV settings that I need to put on my TV? Cause I've been at war with it for like three weeks now got a new one have just been like clicking all the different things and the contrast and it's a disaster but that aside yes I had a delightful time in this movie worked for me at

home we got a screener on a Friday so it was Friday night six o'clock made myself a Negroni sat down and was just like whoo And I was able to channel some of that. This is an event. This is like a treat and a escapist thing that I'm going to do. And it's not like the other things I've been watching. And it's not like how I spend all the other time that I spend in my home in 2020. I do think that that is specific to this being like the first blockbuster that I've seen in some time since Tenet and it, you know, it being a treat in 2020, which has been a very difficult year. So I think this really worked for Wonder Woman 1984. Will it work for the 12th movie that they put on HBO Max in September of 2021? Will it have the same sense of specialness?

I'm not sure. I agree with everything you just said. We heard the news this week that Roku will now be making HBO Max available. That probably means that millions more people will see this movie. I was surprised to learn reading about this just how powerful and widely seen Roku or widely used Roku is. I guess this is the number one kind of, I don't know, what would you call it?

Middleman sort of between viewers and content distribution creators. You know, we all have these systems now. I've been an Apple TV person pretty much since these things came into play. So i haven't really examined whether it's better to have an amazon fire stick or roku or what have you but roku is very popular i have had a roku for as long as like eight nine years now and i only switched to apple tv because the screen screener apps and um development that is available for us to do our jobs seems to be on Apple TV,

which is a whole other sociological study that we could do. But anyway, and I'd like it as well, but it's really available and also I think comes programmed into a lot of televisions. Yes. The thing is, I'm not totally sure if enough people are going to come to the table for this. So I'll just give you an example from my life. I was on a Zoom call with my dad and my 17-year-old sister. And we were talking about what's coming out, what are we watching? My dad surprisingly revealed he is catching up on His Dark Materials, which I guess his wife asked him to watch and then she abandoned it after one episode. Now he's like, now I'm stuck watching it.

If you know anything about my dad, you know, I would not guess he'd be watching his dark materials. Has he read the books? No, I'm passionate. No, I can't imagine your dad reading the Philip Pullman books. They're great books.

Wow, okay. It was stunning to me. I've never seen his dark materials. Anyhow, we're having this conversation and I was like, guys, Wonder Woman is coming to your homes. You're an HBO subscriber, right? You guys have HBO Max. And my sister who's 17 and is a massive cultural

consumer she's been on this show you know you know Grace like yeah she loves this shit she didn't really know what to like what HBO Max was or what to do and neither did my dad who's you know in his 60s so I walked them through on a Zoom call how to install HBO Max. I'm like, well, you're a subscriber. Look at your cable provider. Take that login information. You'll have to use that to funnel it through your television.

You have a smart TV. Download the app. You can use HBO Max and then you can watch Wonder Woman when it comes up. So that's not a good sign that those two generations don't know what the hell is going on.

Yeah, I think with your dad and with an older generation, there are just going to be a lot of people doing this. I literally on a FaceTime last week, walked my mother on how to set up FaceTime up on her iPad, which was like involved her just like turning the phone screen, but me only being able to see one corner of the iPad. I mean, it was a disaster. But like here we are in 2020 and like people are going to have to do this.

Grace not knowing about HBO Max. Well, I mean, that's an interesting one, right? I mean, HBO Max, a service that you and I both really like, had a pretty disastrous launch, I would say, between availability and branding. And I honestly still don't know how I pay for HBO Max. I know that I do, but I don't know whether it's tied to my cell phone or tied to my cable bill, or I didn't know what my login was. My husband and I

had to do this last week, I think, because I can't remember what he wanted to watch. Is the John Wilson show on HBO Max? It is. Yeah, I think he wanted to investigate that, but we had to get it on the Roku instead of the Apple TV. I mean, listen, this is insane. I sound like an insane person. And that's all because it's not clear. It's not clear. And I think that that is an absolute challenge for them and continues to be a challenge for them. On the flip side, what does anyone else really have to do? It's a good point. I think many people will probably be investigating this once they've opened their presents or, you know, obviously people who don't celebrate Christmas famously always go to the movies on Christmas Day. You know, all of my Jewish friends, that's a tradition. You order Chinese food and you go to see a couple of movies with your family.

And so obviously this movie and probably Soul, which is going to appear on Disney Plus on Christmas Day as well, will take the place of that experience, assuming you can't go to a movie theater. And probably one thing we should cite, Wonder Woman 1984 is going to movie theaters. It's going to be in some movie theaters, not the state of california but in some states around the country people will check it out i wanted to ask you do you think over or under 10 million dollars in the movie theater for this movie i really have no idea i i mean i'll say over just because i i don't know it is really hard to sign up for hbo max and there are a lot of people i

guess who want to get out of their homes. On the flip side, even pandemic aside, which again, please be safe, everybody. Please follow local recommendations. Please wear your mask. Aside from that, like people are pretty lazy and don't really want to leave their home at Christmas. And if they can get the blockbuster at home for much cheaper, by the way, than it would be in the theater. That's the other thing. Like, how much is a month of HBO Max right now? I believe it's $15. Right, which is less than a ticket in the city of Los Angeles, at least to the Arclight. But your entire family can watch it for $15 versus however much you would spend at the

theater. So I would watch it at home. Why wouldn't you? let me just see so tenant made 20 million dollars on the weekend of september 6th in the united states and since then a film has not made more than 9.7 million. The Croods and New Age on its opening weekend made $9.7 million, I believe, over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Okay. Respectfully, Wonder Woman 1984 has slightly bigger brand awareness than The Croods. I'll tell you what, though. I don't know if you saw this little tidbit.

Are you going to talk to me about The Croods now? No, no, no, no, no. I mean, I saw it. It was fine. It's Christmas, Sean. It was fine. It was the number one movie in PVOD this

weekend over Tenet did you see that is that because of children I mean presumably or or Roger Deakins Allegiance like myself I mean okay I also

love Roger Deakins and I just I mean I should do the Rango voice here but I can't does Rango have a voice he does can't. Does Rango have a voice? He does. Merry Christmas, Chris Ryan. We all have a voice.

I mean, that's the real thing. The theater is not the question. It's whether the family, whether like the kids can dominate the streaming service and they demand soul instead of Wonder Woman 1984. But that's an interesting one. I think we're going to talk more about Soul in the coming weeks. I would like everyone to know that I saw Soul and I definitely cried. So I too have a heart.

Wow. Merry Christmas, listeners. It's like a Christmas carol. Amanda watched an animated movie. Let's go. And had an emotional response. But it's been really interesting. The reviews so far are just like, kids will hate this.

Which I think a just annoying criticism uh but maybe it's true i don't know you're right we will talk about soul when we come back in the new year uh that's a wonderful movie that was on my top five movies of the year and but it is complex in a way that um not even wonder woman 1984 is complex it is it is truly an existentialist journey through one's soul. And that's a lot to ask of a kid on Christmas Day, given what Christmas represents otherwise, which is frequently pure joy. So it'll be interesting.

I don't know. I'm sure we'll get some sort of report within the next six or seven weeks about how successful this experiment was, putting it on HBO Max and how many new subscribers they convert. The conversion is complicated because there are some people who are already HBO subscribers and they can just convert without having to pay a dollar more. And then there are other people that they want to get new people to come and join the HBO Max experience. And they're not previously subscribers.

Disney is flying. Disney is racing towards 100 million subscribers. Netflix is racing towards like 500 million subscribers worldwide. You know, this is a, the heat is on and this is the biggest move they could have made and they made it.

And so Wonder Woman 1984 is in your home. Any final thoughts about this furious moment in content history? Let's try to take the anger out of it. It's Christmas. I mean, it's kind of what the movie does.

The movie is fun. Just gather some family members and watch it. Don't overthink it. I mean, that's the same thing. Don't overthink this. Just like don't overthink Tenet. If you are looking for a blockbuster and just want to have some fun, I think you'll be really happy. And you'll be really happy with the film. And you'll be really happy with the film and you'll be really happy with the streaming experience if you want to make it all existential then i'm sure that you can do that on your own time but that's not how i'll be spending my holiday speaking of movie theaters there is one other movie or i guess two other movies that are opening on christmas day promising young woman which you may have heard carrie mulligan and emerald finnell talk about on this

show earlier this week very shortly we'll go to my chat with Paul Greengrass, who directed News of the World, which is also opening. So there are two Universal movies opening in theaters, in addition to Wonder Woman 1984 from Warner Brothers. What do you think of News of the World? Also just like an old-fashioned, nice Tom Hanks movie. As I said, I hadn't watched the screen or the trailer, and the first 10 minutes are just old timey Tom Hanks, like traveling around, reading the news.

And I was like, oh, my God, he did it again. Tom, I'm sorry. I said Tom Cruise and not Tom Hanks. But Tom Hanks is back. And, you know, then it becomes more of a Western. But I as I said, I really like the Helena Zengel, who is the kid performance. And she and Tom Hanks have a nice chemistry. And it just felt like I was watching a movie again.

Yes, it is very old fashioned in a good way. And an unusual movie for Paul Greengrass, who's best known for this kind of like jittery, docu-realistic style of filmmaking. And this is much more in the tradition of John Ford or Bud Butiker, you know, all the great Western filmmakers. It's a really good movie. So let's go now to my conversation with Paul Greengrass. Amanda, thank you. Say hello to Tim Selects, Tim's everyday value menu. Enjoy the new spinach and feta savory egg pastry or our roasted red pepper and Swiss pinwheel starting at only $2.99 plus tax. Try one or try our full Tim Selects lineup. Terms apply. Prices may vary at participating restaurants in Canada.

It's time for Tim's. Honored to be joined by Paul Greengrass on the show. Paul, thank you for doing this. Oh, no problem. How are you? Are you well? Yeah, I'm doing okay. no problem. How are you? Are you well? Yeah, I'm doing okay. Thank you. How are you? That's good. It's a winter's end of the afternoon here in the UK.

It is a bright and cold morning here in Los Angeles. So we are on other sides of the world, and that's probably appropriate for this conversation. We're on the same technology, yeah. That's right. So tell me what drew you to Paulette Giles's book and this story because it's not the sort of thing i think of when i think of your work no uh well i think that's right i was looking to do something different um i was looking the last film i did 22 july was you know, about the rising dangers in our world today, violent right-wing extremism,

and that's a real problem here in Europe, and I think to a certain extent over in your country too. And, yeah, having looked at the darkest challenges, I wanted to find a film to make that would somehow look at how we move to a better place, if I can put it that way. I didn't know what that was going to be. I also had a general sense that I wanted to do a different sort of film and challenge myself a bit and do things in a different way. And then I read the novel and I thought, well, this is it because this journey taken by the newsreader who

wanders from town to town with his satchel of newspapers you know and then he goes on this odyssey with this young girl to try and take her home or to what he thinks of as a surviving family felt to me exactly that it was a journey towards healing and although it was set in the shadow of the civil war at a time when america was obviously bitterly divided and looking for asking fundamental questions about you know who are we and where do we want to get to? It felt to me very, very contemporary, oddly. And so it was also an opportunity to make a Western, which, you know, I never thought I'd have the chance to do. So all in all, it just felt like a perfect opportunity. And then of course, it was working with Tom, which I hadn't done since Captain Phillips. So that was, you know, made it, you know, a dream experience. I have a few Western questions for you.

But when you say you wanted to make a change of some kind, did you also mean kind of stylistically, aesthetically, the way that you make up your... Always, really. I mean, you know, look, you want to make changes, but you want to stay true to yourself. That's the hard thing. It's easy just to do, you know, do something out of left field.

You know, the joy of the filmmaking life is that you're having a long extended conversation with yourself, really, about what you're interested in and what's important to you, what you think about things, how the way you think about things changes over time. One film begets another and begets another. So you've got to find stories to tell that are true to the things that you're interested in, true to the questions that you've asked before. But then you also have to test yourself and move to do new things.

And that keeps you young and fresh. And, you know, I wanted to do a slower film. As soon as I read this, I thought, well, that's an opportunity to make a more classical kind of movie, if you can put it that way. You know, slow the tempo down. You know, life in 1870 didn't have cars, didn't have car chases. You know, you were wandering around.

Life was slower. There was no television, no radio, no social media, you know. But something about this newsreader character felt incredibly contemporary. And the journey that he takes is, of course, a dangerous one. And he has to learn about the news. He learns about the fact that the news is under attack. Truth is under attack because when he reads the federal news, his audience don't like it. And when he turns up at the Buffalo town,

the local publisher doesn't want him to read the news. He wants him to read his news. And so you're into this world that is contemporary where truth is lies and lies is truth. And where do you stand on that if you're a newsreader well he makes his stand there and he finds out that storytelling has consequences in the real world you know so all that felt really really contemporary and then this beautiful unfolding relationship of of the newsreader with this young girl and the way that they're both in different ways lost, both of them searching to belong somewhere. And I found the whole experience of making the film absolutely joyous, to be honest. So a slower Western about a man who travels from town to town reading aloud seems somewhat antithetical

to where movies are right now and what kind of movies get made was there were there any challenges in even getting this off the ground actually not it all happened in a rather blessed way i mean we had a hiccup in that it started at fox 2000 and then when Disney bought Fox, they closed Fox 2000 down. But Elizabeth Gable, who ran Fox 2000 at that point, was incredibly good at letting it go and making sure we could take it to Universal who wanted to make it. And we were making it within a couple of weeks.

I mean, it all came together very smoothly. So I can't say that those were the difficulties. You know, the difficulties came in the finishing of the film, obviously, because the COVID pandemic made, I mean, we finished shooting this time last year, but the whole post-production process was, well, I say difficult. It was, in a way, it was fascinating to see how technology has advanced to enable you to finish a movie in several continents quite easily. So in that sense, it wasn't difficult.

It was actually, given the problems, quite smooth. You know, there was a sense as i made it as you know it became a collective adventure you know the whole making of it because you're you know you're out in the desert and you know some of those locations were challenging to say the least i mean the the shootout up that mountain we had to we had to climb up for two hours on ropes to get to those locations you know and then when you got there you had a nice family of rattlesnakes for company and And we had to climb up for two hours on ropes to get to those locations. And then when you got there, you had a nice family of rattlesnakes for company, genuinely. But it bred a tremendous collective adventurous spirit.

People come together and, you know, it's the healing power of stories. That's what it is, you know it's the healing power of stories that's what it is you know and uh and uh i think for for everybody on the film it became a you know joyful experience that shootout sequence is extraordinary really just like a breathtaking bit of filmmaking and it got me thinking about other westerns and i was curious what preparation for you on a Western is and how it might be different from some of the other films that you do. What are you looking at? How are you putting together what it should look like? I grew up with Westerns when I was a boy and I loved them.

I never thought I would get to make one. I really never thought that was going to happen. I actually didn't watch any. The only one I watched at the start was Searchers, which I knew very well. When I look back, I got involved in a Project 5 came back, a Netflix thing about three years ago I think it was which was about the five directors

who went to World War II and were changed and they got a director to talk about I think Spielberg did one Coppola and del Toro and I did John Ford so I had spent a lot of time about three years ago re-watching

all those wonderful films and thinking about him and talking about him in that program. Do you think that activated your imagination for a Western? I think I probably did, but I wasn't aware of it at the time. I certainly wasn't looking to make a Western. But when they sent me the novel and I read it, I thought, well, this is interesting. I mean, first of all, it spoke to me as a beautiful story

and I loved the landscape and I loved that it felt, I felt that I could make it in a way that made it feel contemporary, you know, and that it be about the healing power of stories and the road out of division. You know, these individual journeys, these two characters, their journey speaks to us in that way. It did strike me at the time that it was the searchers, I mean, the stories from the West as aers, you know, I mean, the stories from the West are, as a genre, you know,

you feel the echoes of the great myths of the West in it. And the, what was interesting about the novel, I thought was that it was the searchers in reverse. In other words, it's not the man going out to find the girl. It's the man finding the girl and taking her home, which is the reverse journey. And that was interesting, I thought, because it's the same landscape, but it's what is he going to find? What does home look like?

What does belonging look like? And that felt really, really contemporary to me and really was informed the film. So it was a chance to put my tiny little feet in the giant footsteps of John Ford. You could feel his ghost out there when you were shooting, you know. And, you know, that was a privilege because he's, in my view, one of the great, great masters of cinema. And that film, I think, is, you know, in its moral complexity

and in its dramatisation of the American identity, I think it's a truly profound and great work of art. So it was a privilege to get to make a film in that arena, you know. And, you know, forgetting for a moment the Western as a genre, what the Western gives you in terms of the cinematic experience is a very intimate intense personal drama in this case between you know the news

reader and the young girl as they face their enemies along this odyssey played out in this vast inhospitable in the great grandeur of the American West. And that rub between those two elements, the one incredibly intimate and the other huge and grand,

gives a story of particular quality, I think, and a film of particular quality. You're so well known for the documentary influence and the kind of cinematic realism and the style of movies that you make and the way that they look and the way that they feel. Did you feel yourself having to restrain yourself or do things any differently to make something that is much more stately and has this great tradition? I mean, I did it consciously. So to that extent, yes, it was what I wanted to do.

I wanted to explore a more classical kind of film, a more, I wanted a slower tempo, you know. And I definitely wanted not to do the same thing. You know, you've got to do different things and that's the joy of the filmmaking life you know so and I had those instincts before News of the World came along you know and I wanted to do a film that was about the road to healing the road beyond division I didn't know what that film would be, but that was a desire in my mind, you know,

one of the things that I felt consciously. So I didn't chafe at doing what I did because it was what I wanted to do. And, you know, style should always emerge out of your story and out of your theme rather than be imposed on it. And ultimately, although I knew I was wanting to change the tempo and broaden out, if I can put it that way, it still feels to me like one of my films. It still feels real to me. It feels like I believe I'm in that world with those characters, that that's what it would have felt like and looked like. So, you know, it's interesting.

I mean, it was interesting working with Darius Wolski, the cinematographer, you know. I wanted to ask about that. We had never worked before together. And I asked Darius to make the movie with me because I wanted to challenge myself and have a cinematographer who'd come from a different place, you know.

He tends to make a lot of his movies on those, you know, in that sort of classical, if I can put it that way, you know, a big movie style, you know. Whereas mine's a more urgent kind of,, you know, a big movie style, you know. And whereas mine's a more urgent kind, as you say, more hyper real perhaps, I don't know what you'd call it, more attack perhaps. And I said, you know, listen, we're going to come up with problems from different places. That's what's going to be interesting.

I mean, first of all, we got on like a household phone and had an absolute ball making the movie but on the creative level it was really interesting because we pushed and pulled each other in an interesting way and it made it a really exciting creative collaboration that i think as i say got got got us to the place that I wanted to get to, which is I want this film to look different, but I want it to feel authentic to me. And that's what it feels like. I want to ask you just about the state

of doing the work as a director. Your last film was for Netflix. This film is for Universal. This would have been an extraordinary movie to see in movie theaters. I'm kind of heartbroken personally that I didn't get a chance to see it. I'm sure you are feeling the same way. Where do you see this going as a filmmaker in terms of how people are seeing movies?

I'm optimistic, truly. I think there are two profound challenges facing the movie business that are one inside the other. The first and obvious challenge is COVID, you know, which has decimated theatrical movie going all over the world, you know, and movie production too. And that's an existential crisis the like of which we've never known but there's also another

crisis inside that which is the crisis of change and technology driven by technology and driven by consumer demand and that is for movies at the click of a button streaming whatever you um video on demand whatever you want to call it uh and i don't i mean look it doesn't matter in a sense what i want as a filmmaker because what i want as a filmmaker isn't relevant because the change is coming anyway. But as it happens, I'm comfortable with it and good with it. You know, we are, all of the studios and all of the streamers are essentially going to converge in a similar place, but with different emphases of the same things. In other words, movies are going to be delivered in the future,

theatrically, virtually simultaneously with some version of streaming or on demand. And the various studios and streamers are going to do that job, you know, with different emphases, but essentially doing the same thing. And, you know, if you look at the streamers, if you look at Netflix, they're trying to grow a theatrical business onto their streaming business. If you look at the studios, they're trying to grow a streaming business on the back of their theatrical business. They're all going to converge. What will that mean? It will change the movie experience, but it already has changed. I mean, when I was a boy, you watched a movie once in the theatre, in a cinema, and then you probably wouldn't see it

for many, many, many years. I mean, I'm talking about when I was a kid, you know, it didn't pop up on a DVD four months later. It didn't pop up on, you know, your TV six months later. It would be years before you'd see it. And it lived in your memory as a once and for all experience. Now, that made it incredibly intense. Maybe you went to see it twice in the week that it was on, you know. But that's all on, you know, but, but that's all gone. You know, young people today will look, if they find a film,

they'll watch it 20 times, 50 times. I like that part about it. All various ways. They'll watch it maybe theatrically, then they'll watch it on TV. Then they'll watch it on their phones. That's just the way it's going to be and that's what technology enables us to do and that's what consumers particularly you know young consumers want and i don't think it's going to be a you know a sort of negative thing i think more films are going to be made than could be

made before uh i think you know inevitably it's change involves change you can't have change without change it's an obvious tautology but you have to embrace it as a filmmaker and go, okay, I mean, if you take 22 July, which was a film I passionately wanted to make about, you know, the rise of violent right-wing extremism, I wanted that film to be seen by young people. I didn't want to make it in an arthouse cinema that nobody would go and see. I mean, I don't know what exactly it is, but it's like 30 plus million people have seen that movie on Netflix.

Well, you know, they did 200, 300 screens or whatever it was as well. You know, it did what I wanted. You want your films to be seen, you know. Now, this is a little different, Use the World. I, of course, fervently wish, hope, dream that people will experience this film on the big screen because it was made for the big screen. And I think it becomes an all-embracing, enveloping human drama when you see it on the big screen. But people are going to love it, you know, at home as well.

Because in the end, what I'm proud about this film is that Universal are releasing it theatrically and they're giving that because it's a statement of intent, if nothing else. Movies are going to come back and what better way to signal the turn towards them coming back than releasing this movie

which is about the healing power of stories and allowing people to enjoy it whatever way they want to. Paul, I'm a great admirer of your work. Thank you for doing the show. No worries, thanks. Bye. Thank you to Paul Greengrass.

Thank you to Amanda Dobbins. Thank you to Bobby Wagner. Thank you to everyone for listening to this show, especially if you're listening on Christmas day, what kind of a relationship do you have with us? Wow. We'll see you next week when we will be returning to the movie draft, except this time,

Amanda, myself and Chris Ryan will be drafting from the year 1995. We'll see you then.