The Kristian Harloff Show - Matrix Resurrections: Will It Meet Expectations? | The Big Thing

Episode Date: October 6, 2021

The Matrix has a lot of hype surrounding it. And well deserved. When the movie came out in 1999, it sent records, and blew people away. Will the new movie be able to turn the franchise around from the disappointing sequels? Kristian Harloff and producer Navid McIhilargey discuss this and other topics such as streaming and who the new human might be. Follow on Twitter Kristian Harloff https://bit.ly/31PePMD Mark Ellis https://bit.ly/2U1wKPa Brett Sheridan https://bit.ly/2HBltii Steph Sabraw https://bit.ly/3m0ud0z Kate Mulligan https://bit.ly/3owBneT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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To learn more, go to sleepnumber.com. Wednesday, everybody. Thanks for joining us back on the big thing. This is going to be a fun episode for me and for you because I have my buddy, Naveed Macalargy, producer, met him at Silver Pictures years ago. And we're going to talk about a lot of different things. I have questions about streaming and how that's changed the business. Will Matrix for work? We both worked at Silver Pictures. We were both there after the Matrix came out. But the question is, will it work? Do people want another Matrix? And I want to really get to Navid's expertise. He knows a lot about the business. We've also, together, I've seen it change dramatically from the time we worked

together in 2005 until what it is today. And I'd love to get his thoughts on. And he's working with a lot of people that I'm friendly with. He's working with people that we've worked with in the past and other things. I don't know what the hell he can talk about. I don't know what he can't talk about. But we're going to talk to him today. It's going to be a blast. I'm excited about it. You guys should be excited about it too. A lot of you might know Naveed from the early Schmodown days and stuff that we did there. But if you don't know a lot about him, you will on this episode because he knows a lot of shit. And he's a funny dude. I'm excited to talk to him. He's my pal. And he will be your pal by the end of this one. I promise you, you're going to like Navid. It is the big thing.

And we'll see you in just a moment. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, it's Wednesday. And at this point, we already did New York. No, no, that's not true. What fuck am I talking about? It's Friday's New York. Time's all fucked up. So it happens when you pre-tape. It's a pre-tape, but it's a good tape. And this week, by the way, if you didn't know, get on over to this show. I'm just going to... There it is.

Me and Mark, October 8th, the New York Comedy Club. That's, well, shit, Mark's going to even be there tomorrow. So the 7th and the 8th, we will be there. And you should... Well, if you can get to New York, you should be there. And then on Saturday night, the new month. the new movie trivia is shmodown champion of the world marisol mckee defends her title against chance ellison and griffin newman versus josh harowitz in the undercard check that shit out but that's not

what we're here today we're here today because i got my pal that's up to be hey how you doing brother good bro how are you it's funny how this even came about because we're like just you and i texting and saying like uh hey by the way you want to do the show yeah and my favorite comment that you made, which is not untrue. You're like, you should have me on your show. I tell good stories. It's true. Some of them I can say.

Some of them you can say. There's some that you would, not today you'd be able to talk about. No way. But there's so much to talk to you about because, and even when you came in, you're like, what are we talking about? I was like, well, I want to talk about the Matrix. I don't, I wouldn't work there when we did the Matrix. It's not what I wanted to talk to you about, though.

The thing is that, first of all, before we can get into that, how do you feel about the HBO Mac strategy of the, As a producer, I'm so, I love it, by the way. I love the idea of releasing it the same day and in the theater. And I know that I'm in the minority. But I love it because I'm family. I don't go to the theater much anymore. I go there and if my wife and I want to watch something, we fucking plop down, great.

I don't feel like I'm out of the loop. I have to wait fucking two months to watch it. I can watch it right then and there. That's what I'm excited about with many scenes in Newark, which at this time I guess I've already watched. Dune and then The Matrix. So as a producer, do you like it or do you dislike this particular? strategy of HBO Max. So that's a really good question.

I'm kind of caught in the middle because as a family guy like you, I just, I never have time to go to the movies anymore. The kids, honestly, I've been saying this for years. My kids don't even care. They're just as happy to sit at home and watch something on a phone or an iPad, much less on a big screen. The whole idea of going to the theater and seeing some big spectacle, I feel like even as a family guy who's, you know, pinching pennies or whatever, I still feel like

I wish that was as, like, like, like. like it used to be years ago. Right. But it's going away. And as a producer, it kind of sucks. Yeah. Because, I mean, financially, economically, people make money when something does really well theatrically.

Right. We don't make a lot of money if it does well on Netflix. I mean, unless you make a sequel. But isn't that going to change, though? Do you think the deals will change? I mean, if the deals change, it's probably just going to get worse. You think so? Well, because right now, I don't know if you or your viewers know this, but they, they,

buyout back end profit participation. That's what happened with Scarlett-Johansson, right? With all this stuff that was going on? Yeah, yeah, effectively. They go to you and go, okay, look, this movie, you in my movie might have made, you know, $100 million in the theaters, but you're not going to get any of the gross

or the net definitions, the profits from that. So we'll just give you X amount up front. It's kind of like a bonus, right? Disney's already crunching those. They're already squeezing those extra bonus. and stuff. But it goes, going back to your question about theatrical, I mean, financially it sucks. Yeah.

But people weren't really going to the movies anyways. And then the pandemic hits and then literally nobody was going to movies. Right. So in some respects, I love the idea. I do think collapsing windows is probably a good idea. Like 30, 45 days. Yeah. That's what it's going to be.

I think that's what it's going to be. And that's all about marketing dollars that they spend. You don't want to spend $100 million theatrically and then another 50 million marketing at three months later. I think, you know, if you want to go see it in the theater early, you see it in theater early. If you don't, you see it at home 30 days later. Yeah, the way that I looked at it when they announced all this stuff

was that people were like, oh, HPL Max, they ruin and everything. It's like, no, what they did was, and other people don't understand this, is that when all these movies, Dune, Matrix, when they were all greenlit, they were greenlit with the idea that they're all coming out in the theaters. Yeah. But when the pandemic hit, and everything happened, they said, well, okay, look, we have this new subscription thing. We got to sell it.

We got to get people to subscribe and get the word out there. So let's go balls to the wall. We're going to lose money. We know that. But what kind of subscriber base can we get? What's the word out? Let's do something just crazy and release it the same day in theaters. Because if people aren't going to the theaters, they go watch at the house.

The buzz is there and let's do it. And people lost their minds that are doing this, not understanding, like, well, but all these movies are losing money. They knew that. There was no chance that a movie that cost $200 million is going to make that back up. but it's can you make it back up eventually with all the subscribers that you keep? I think, look, the timing for them in one respect was good that they were launching it and they had all these great movies that they couldn't put out in theaters. They were either going to have to hold them for a year or do it, right?

In that respect, it was great. And I think their subscriptions went up because of it. But they paid for it. I don't know if everybody knows this, but they went back and had to renegotiate all these deals. Right. And I've heard numbers that seem bananas. What have you heard? I mean, I heard one person say they spent as much money as they did in production giving bonuses.

I don't think that's necessarily true. But I guarantee it's a size of 20. But don't you think that the idea there for them to say, look, maybe it's worth it because it's like you're getting these people to subscribe and it's every month. So if you're pleasing people, they're just going to stick around and more shit you make. It's like you're eventually, whether it take five, ten, you're going to get that money back because the more people that keep coming in. And I did this poll for the audience when we were talking about streaming last time

of what your favorite subscription services was, right? Five years ago it was Netflix. I saw a lot of number ones as HBO Max. Yeah, yeah. I saw a lot. Yeah, yeah. And it's really user-friendly. Super user-friendly.

I love it. I mean, after you use HBO Max and you go back to places like Netflix, you're like, wait, this sucks. HBO Max and Disney Plus are my favorite. HBO Max because it's got everything that I like. And all I was doing was watching Sopranos for the last three months, right? but I had, but there's always movies that I can find that I like. It's not like, I feel like a lot of different places you keep scrolling through shit, and you never find anything.

There's always something on HBO Max that you can find. So I love it there. They're a good. Great library. And their original stuff is really good. The scenes from a marriage I've been watching recently, Mayor. No, I have to. It's brutal.

Mayor of East Town was awesome. So they've got, they're doing it right. And HBO always did it right as far as series went, but now this allows them to get back into that game. Netflix to me, it was funny because I said I was going to cancel Netflix. And then someone said, what about Cobra Guy? I'm like, oh, I can't cancel it. And they're like, what about strangers things?

I'm like, oh, I can't cancel it. There's a lot of shit on Netflix. I do like. I just feel like they have so much shit. Yeah. And then Disney Plus, not only because of the Star Wars stuff and the Marvel shit, but my daughters, oh, they love it. It's perfect. I know, especially that young.

Yeah. I think, well, two things. One, I think what probably will happen is there's either going to be a window for certain kind of movies or it'll be more of what Disney's doing, which is you charge a premium. There's no way HBO is going to just keep putting them free on both at the same time. What I don't like about that Disney thing, though, see, I don't like that because, I mean, if anything, I would, I would prefer HBO Max upping their subscription a little bit and saying, you know, because right now it's like, what, $7.99 or some shit, whatever it is.

If HBO Max was like, okay, look, we're going to still do the thing or maybe the same release schedule that we're going to do, or it's a month later, but it's going to cost you 10 or 11 bucks now. I'd be like, okay, I don't like this thing that Disney does where it's like $30 on, because I'm already a subscriber. So it's like Black Widow comes out. I'm already subscriber. Now they want to charge me another 30.

I get it if you're putting it on Amazon. If it's on Amazon and it's like, okay, well, you're not going to be able to get it here, but you can get it on Amazon for like 20, 30 bucks. Okay. You put it on Disney Plus. I subscribe already. Give it to me. That's one. It should be a perk. Yeah, I hear you.

I just don't know if that's the way it's going to come. Probably not. Probably not. Especially for the big ones. Yeah, if anything, but I think that it's going to change once, like you said, and because of the way it's, things are shot now and the way that, and budgets are going to be different now. Because budgets, like I said, were used to be for theatrical release. And now budgets are going to be, well, let's aim for streaming. This is what's going be streaming. Costs are going to come down for certain things. I actually think it's going to benefit films. And I'm curious if you feel the same way here because, like, my favorite

Terminator movie is the first one. Yeah. And I think that it's because of the practical effects. It's the, it's, they focus more on like the horror story, the element. I love the second one.

But I think that we've gotten away from that pure kind of filmmaking that maybe they'll be forced to do it more so. Like, did you watch any Mandalorian? Yeah, of course. Robert Rodriguez episode was fantastic. And it was,

and the stuff that they're doing with the, what's called the void, I don't know, the void or whatever the fuck that thing is because Katie was talking about. But the technology is great. But the fact that he shot on locations and shooting. The volume. Thank you.

And. shooting that kind of stuff. Do you think that this, because of the streaming and the budgets, will get away from these $200 million movies? I mean, I know we'll have some still with Marvel and everything running around, but and force you to do that kind of old school shit. Well, this was part two of what I was going to talk to about. So I teach at USC.

Yeah. And this new semester, this is all we've been talking about for the last two weeks. I teach a business class and I teach a producing class. Yeah, it used to be 10, 12 years ago, and I have a funny Netflix story. I don't forget to tell you. 10, 12 years ago, there was two kinds of movies being made. The $100 plus million dollars ones that were all, by that point, it was like it has to be IP-based.

It has to, like IP-IP. Or the rover. Yeah. Which is great movie, but it's like $4 on a Snickers for. Or the things that you made independently. Right. Now there's three. There's the big spectacle, IP, spend a lot of money marketing them.

They're streaming movies. Yeah. And there's independently financed films, which have shrunk and gotten crunched. the streaming ones, like this red, whatever it is with The Rock, you know? Oh, yeah. That's cool, but I don't think, I don't know, but I don't think streamers are going to keep doing those because, I mean, why go spend $250 million?

It's not like you're getting more and more subscribers just to go watch them. You know what I mean? Like at some point it's going to be like, all right, people are going to stay around for the kinds of movies you were just talking about. Yeah. And I think Apple's doing it. Apple's like doing really high-end director-driven. Even that sci-fi show that they just did recently, too.

Yeah, yeah, Foundation. One of my favorite book series is okay. Have you watched the series yet? No, I was dying to. My fiance has no interest. Isn't that a fucking bitch? That's the same shit that I go through with dude. It's like you only get a certain amount of time with them.

And it's like a negotiation to figure out what the fuck you're going to watch. It's true. Anyway, but you were saying. So I do think that like the way these streamers are going to survive, because you said it, you were going to shut off Netflix. And Netflix's quality, I don't want to say it's gone. down but it's like there's a lot of stuff and it's hard to find the very hard to find stuff and i and it's funny because apple look apple started like a year ago yeah right and and they started acquiring content

and it was like at first i look and i'm like eh and then you realize the type of content it is and it's what you're talking about it's really like high end director driven a lot of movie stars but really good quality and it's the kind of shit that like oh you know like ted lasso like it's the kind of thing that you're like, I will watch that over and over and over again, and I will subscribe to Apple forever. Right. And don't you get it anyway if you have an Apple account? Isn't that how it works?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you buy a phone, I got a free whatever. Right, right. So, I mean, that's that, that's the deal. I, I, my wife watches the morning show. I haven't got, I haven't, I missed the first season and she's already in season two. So I just, Ted Lassow, she couldn't get on board with me.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I know. It's the best show on TV. Listen, I watched, I watched, like, the first four episodes of, and liked it a lot. I'm going to probably have to just do it myself and watch it. Make her watch it. She won't do it. Season one is really good.

Season two is incredible. She won't do it. She's like, she's like, I don't get the hype. I don't get it. So if you see her on the way out, you can talk to her about it, but it ain't going to work.

I'm going to yell at her. You should. But he started fucking, what are you want to kill that so, motherfucker? She's got the dog in her hand. She's got the dog in her hands. But Netflix, tell me the Netflix story.

Oh, so this is how fast this all changed. Yeah. So, You and I work together at Silver. Yeah, we're going to tell that He-Man story in a second, too. Yeah, I just talked about that story just week in class. Okay. That's when, like, IP was like, oh, shit, everything had to be about IP.

Yep. And then, and then, so the middle-range movies kind of just started going away. Yeah. By the time, I, then after Silver, I went to New Regency, and after New Regency, I was tired of the studio system. Right. I'm going to go make independent movies because I felt like at least there, if I got a good script and I put it together, I could, not realizing that those budgets were getting harder and harder, right?

I was running this independent company, and upstairs was this new company called Netflix. And by the way, this was exactly, no, almost 10 years ago. Yeah, it was 2000. It was right when you left, it was after you left silver, right? No, no, no, after Regency. So it was not even 10 years ago because it was March. So this March will have been 10 years. So it was nine and a half years ago.

Okay. I'm running this company and I go upstairs to meet with Cindy Holland, the head of Netflix. And literally there was like five people in this office, right? and she and I had my head of features with me and head of TV with me and she goes bring us TV shows and I remember leaving going looking at the TV guy going why the fuck would we give her TV shows they mail out people DVDs right right and this this was nine and a half years ago and it was like a year maybe year and a half two years later when House of Cards came out in this I mean this by that point streaming

it started but nobody knew it was yeah it's Netflix was five people well maybe a little more than that in an office upstairs less than 10 years ago it shows your battle plan man It's all about battle plan. And money. Battle, well, yeah, sure. I mean, they were,

and they were able to, they talk a house of cards, or Game of Thrones, they fucking took out Blockbuster. Yeah. Well, do you, by the way,

that's another one. Do you know that Blockbuster had an opportunity to buy Netflix? Yeah. For 50 million bucks and passed. Yeah. They talk about bad battle plan. Yeah.

Bad game plan. And then the same stuff, they're mailing out the DVDs. They didn't want to do it. They thought, because that's what happens with people. They get, they get comfortable in their ways,

and they don't realize when the shit, shift is coming, right? And Netflix was the shift. And Netflix looked at the shift. Give me TV shows through this because they wouldn't have survived on just the physical media because look at that and look at the way that they did it. And now everybody took a took a foot, followed the footsteps of Netflix because that's what always happens, right? They're like, well, that, look at, look at TiVo. Yeah. Like TiVo, no one talks about TiVo. TiVo was the first motherfucker that was, you're pausing and stuff, pausing TV. No one talks about TiVo. It's always, because that's just what you can do now. You can do it on any, it's just part of the technology.

And that's what Netflix was able to do. But now I remember talking about this on Collider, where we were saying the streaming wars. I was like, nah, it's going to take a while for people to catch up to Netflix. No, it isn't. Yeah. Because people just, because, as you said, with money and with stars and with names, like, look at Disney.

Like, Disney came right out the gate and because of all the big IPs that they have with Netflix. Yeah. I'm just surprised how long Disney took to get there and HBO. To get there or to get, do you mean to launch? To launch, yeah. I mean, you'd think that you see a Netflix taken off eight years ago and you almost immediately turn around and have your own. Because I think it's that old school mentality of movies.

Studios operate. Movies are the key. Like, remember when we were doing like the simple thing of Schmose and how people are like, you're doing movie reviews on YouTube? Like, what do you mean? People write reviews. No one's going to watch you talk about movies. And now people watch people react to trailers and it gets millions of views.

Right. So the medium has just changed completely, and it always is, and it's the people who are jumping on it. But going back to the Disney thing is that you look at like Obi-Wan Canobi, right? I remember for sure 100%. There was a script on director of Billy Elliott was doing it. It was, they were going to announce it, here it comes. And then it just kind of goes away.

At some point, they had that meeting of maybe we turned this into a series. And that's the smartest thing they were day because Amanda, I would, you know how much of a Star Wars guy I am. If I never saw Star Wars movie in the theater ever again, I'd be okay with it. As long as you give me series. I'm getting like two or three movies, a series a year. Sign me up. So that, it's funny.

That's another thing I've been talking about a lot lately is I'm going to step back real quick. I got to tell you. So about 20, 25 years ago, Paramount used to make those thrillers with like Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman. Remember like a long kiss the girl, the spiders, whatever? Double Jeopardy, whatever. Yeah. And then TV started doing it, right?

Like cable companies started creating great cop shows. Right. And like all these series started that were doing what Paramount did. And Paramount stopped making those movies, right? Yeah. Because what you found out was like I could take a two-hour movie and expand it and spend more time. Like think a true detective. Yeah.

I spend more time. True detective was like one of those old movies, just eight hours, six hours of great character study. Right. So it's way more compelling and interesting. I said back then, I was like, holy shit, if TV ever figures out how to do sci-fi and fantasy cheap, it was it. It's over. It's over.

And that's exactly what happened, dude. And I'm telling you, like, and I've been talking so much over the last couple of months about the Sopranos is that Sopranos, they showed everybody you can make movies on television. Yeah. And when that happened, because network is a joke when they try to do it now. Like some shows figure it out, but it's like a miracle now, suppose to what it was. Because your eyes don't believe it anymore. And it's like, it just doesn't, and then you get a commercial. It's terrible.

Like Hulu and Netflix and with everything out there, I mean, shit, even Battlestar, Galactica on sci-fi was able to figure that out. Right. But nobody, that was the strange thing to me was that they, and it was done fairly cheap for what it was. And it looked great. Yeah. And nobody really capitalized on it. They were going to, Ronald Moore was going to do the Star Wars show with Lucas,

and then he sold and it didn't happen. But, but yeah, you're right, man. Like that now that they're able to do all this, all the fantasy and to have the characters develop, that's what I love. I mean, I mean, that's, that's the, other hit, going back to movies and theatrical. That's the other hit. I mean, there's still a lot of fun to be had in two hours watching something beginning,

middle, and end. But if I can sit at home and watch eight hours of something with the same characters, but way more compelling and more interesting. Well, I mean, so there's the bigger side of it, of a smaller, like, if you're going to compare, let's say Mandalorian, right, where you're learning, you're going on this adventure with this guy for two seasons and sci-file and learning about it. And you get that kind of old school original trilogy feel. that's that side of it.

Then there's that independent feel, even though I don't know how much it costs to me, but it still feels that way as Mayor of Easttown, right? So same thing. You're invested in this thing for a mini-series with a great actress, and it's a lead-up. And everybody always talks about how back in the day,

TV actors were kind of looked down on by the film actors. Now, I mean, Julie Roberts is doing TV now. Everybody does TV now, and it's so... I'm having the hardest. I'm casting seven movies right now. I can't get anybody. to be in them because they're all doing series. They're doing series.

They're doing series or they're getting overpaid to do some big theatrical thing or some IP driven thing. Well, do you think about every day? So what are you at the moment? You're just, you're doing movies. Are you, do you think about doing that switch to TV? Oh, I mean, I'd be an idiot if I didn't. Right.

I don't want, I don't want to be the guy that's chasing the trend after the trend's already happening because you're too late. Like I kind of did that. Yeah. Right? Like that was like, oh shit, I should be at a place that has a bunch of IP. And, you know, then I went to New Registing. We didn't have any IP. I had to try to find it and build it. Right.

And then I went into the indie world and the indie world was getting crunched harder and harder. I at that time wanted to go into TV. And that was, again, like 10 years ago. Yeah. And tried. But if you're not a creator or a piece of talent or if you don't own now, TV is getting to be all about IP again. Yeah. For me, I want to go into TV, but for me to do it, I'm going to have to find the he man of,

of, or whatever the hell it is, to find a piece of IP, get a big showrunner involved. Nobody gives a shit about me and TV. It's about the name and the IP, right? And isn't it crazy? And we always talk about it on this show how back in the day,

it was always movie star-driven, and now it's IP and director-driven. It's like what movies were 10, 15 years ago. Yeah, and it's director-driven too. Like, you know, like directors of the stars, is what I would say. Like, when Nolan makes a movie, you don't give a shit what it is,

it's a Nolan movie. Tarantino, you know, there's a lot of directors that are, a few of them that are doing that. that you will go out and Kathleen Bigelow is one is one so you know when you look at all and ends you watch a lot of these

you look at someone like Ryan Johnson which I know so a lot of in the geek world a lot of controversy around Ryan Johnson because of the last Jedi but he's a fucking great TV director the stuff he did in Breaking Bad to see him do more stuff and he's doing it to fly he did but he also did Osmandias or whatever that

which is one of the greatest episodes in television ever nobody talks about that did his talk about like well Luke shouldn't have thrown a lightsaber which I agree with but it's all I talk about. But the thing is with him, with him directing and him doing this, and he's doing the Netflix movie with the Knives Out. He made the shift to put them on Netflix, you know? Yeah, I don't, I don't, I'm fascinated by a lot of these

because it's happening more and more where branded movies because it happened with The Exorcist as well. Like these movies that are IP, big pieces of IP, they don't give a shit anymore. Who makes them? They just, because they sold, I mean, I think Universal is doing Nut, or Exorcist now, I think, for $400 and something million for three of them. Ooh, yeah.

And like, if you get that conjuring audience, huh? Yeah, but it's, well, it's IP again. If you have the IP and you can repurpose it in some way. But if the first one sucks. I'm doing it right now, something I can't talk about. Okay, but I'm doing it with a title. You got a title that you're able to do it. That's awesome.

Well, um, it's a lot, let's go back to the streaming stuff because with the big IP. And speaking of IP, the matrix, right? So, silver pictures really not, I mean, because they had died. hard obviously they had predator that all that stuff in the 80s that that built up Joel's name and all this I mean shit even weird science and all this stuff but it was the matrix that gave him like

his own Star Wars right you got when did you join you you joined the silver pictures in 2004 yes you remember I don't I don't think you we've talked about this but I don't think you remember like so when I started working there I started working for David Gambino and Eric Olson but about a year before you

were or six months before you were looking for an assistant and you found Jesse but before that. So I actually interviewed with you. Did you know that? Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah, so I interviewed with you. Did you? Yeah, yeah. And you gave me some bullshit, excuse, which is now knowing you, was definitely bullshit, but you're like, you're like, yeah, you know, I just, when you called me, I remember exactly where I was in my old apartment. And you're like, yeah, you know, I just feel like we'd hang out too much. Oh, that was true. Yeah. Well, and that's, and which is ultimately what we went up to. Jesse, I wouldn't have hung out. Which is actually true. But, and we wind up

I'm just joking. How many times did we wind up going to Vegas together and hanging out all the damn time? So it was like it was a lot of fun. There's some stories we can't repeat. No, not at that time. But, but, and there's, I do want to tell, I've always told, I've told the story about the He-Man stuff that I'm going to tell today because you were there. You were there during all of it.

So if, if I usually tell the story the true way, but if there's any things that you have to say, oh, but then this happened and this happened, we'll get into that. But Matrix. So you get there. 2004 Matrix is coming off of the third movie. And in 2000, well, shit, they released two of them. That was something nobody did. They released two in summer and then the other one in November.

And everybody's excited about it. They don't do well critically. Right. And then, you know, it's just, but still, but Joel built his name. People didn't realize that the shit, when we worked there, man, they were, like, you can, you can test this. They usually make a movie, a production company will make a movie, what? like once a year, once every two years. They were making three movies a year.

Yeah, at least. At least. And it was, that shit done happening. It was crazy. And then, you know, I was working for two motherfuckers getting paid like $500 a week. It was a joke. But either way, the Matrix comes out. So when you never think they were going to see another movie because of the way that it ends.

And they announce to which house is going to do it. When you hear it, do you say, that makes sense for a time? today or why? I say that makes sense for today. And it's just Lana that's doing this one, right? It's not both? I don't know. I think you're right.

You might be right. But I, and they were developing, I know there was a point where they were developing a couple different versions of how they were going to do it. I think it makes sense for today. I don't know that I wouldn't have, I mean,

I'm sure they have plans to do this, but I would do like thinking about what they do with Star Wars. What is the TV series spin off? Yeah. So they're doing it in June. Yeah, and like, why not, right? And so if it's why not to a TV series and why not to a movie, I mean, I just hope where they're going to shoot themselves in the foot is if they don't go back to what the first one was.

And I think the trailer. The trailer looks like. Trailer looks at they're going right back to it. And I think that they're going back to the basics because if, and I feel, you tell me if you think I'm right or wrong, but I feel that if they stick the landing with this one, that's exactly what you're talking about. They'll be able to do a billion of them. You can do a billion of them. But if it sucks, it's over.

Or you're going to run into the Terminator diehard thing where he goes, well, this one's going to be good and that sucks. And then it's like, well, now, because if you can, we'll be forgiving for it. For two and three, some people love two and three. I think they're all right. But like, if this one's awesome, it's like, get me back into the Matrix. Well, not to digress, but I think, too, the problem with two and three, like number one was like, oh, my God, what if we do live in the Matrix? Like, it was a relatable idea and it had really cool action that you've never. seen that before. I remember in two and three, there was shots of, with Keanu like spinning on a

stick and him like running around. And it looked like someone etched it with a crann. And it, and then the people in the white suits and the, like, it just was like so outside of the realm of anybody giving a shit anymore. Yeah, they went too far. It's, it's almost like what, like they care too much about, let's be more, let's be more cool, more out of the box. And instead of focusing on the simple, it is. And when you go to the first one, even though some people think that the first one is so complex, it really isn't when you, it's just like, when you look at what it is and you pay attention to it, it's pretty simple. Here's this, you know, but it's with all the philosophies and it is, it is very similar to what Star Wars did.

It's all these different philosophies, pulling from different movies. So if they go back to that, and I didn't, you know, the TV series is going to, is an interesting thing because the question is, do they spin off, do they put Keanu in it? you know, you don't necessarily need to. I don't know how they, how they're going to play this or what Neo is, what he's done. But I'm curious about it, man. It looks fantastic, and it's not,

and what's refreshing about it is that it's a big IP, it's a big sci-fi movie that's not Star Wars, that's not Marvel, that's not D.C. And that people are excited about. Yeah. And not only is there at the excitement level, some for nude viewers, some like us who are like in, I mean, The Matrix is one of my kids' favorite movies. they're like that generation.

All of them are just or just kidding. Yeah, no, I think all of them, Scarlett, too. Like, they love, when they saw it the first time, they're like, whoa, right? It's crazy. And that's like a generation. And then there's like a new generation of kids that are going to want to go see it. And it's like, like, Star, like you said, Star Wars. It's like this.

And if you do it right, it'll be. And I think, I think they'll do it right. It's going to be massive. And it's going to, I think it's going to be the biggest movie for HBO Max. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, I was going to say with Dune's coming out too, but Dune, Dune, I think is a very, I think it's niche. Well, Dune has the same problem. Blade Runner does. Yeah. Which was, it was, there's a big audience for it, but it's just that audience.

That's right. But I'm excited for Dune though. June, did you read the novel when I was a kid? You did. No, okay. So Dune, because I never, the only thing I knew Dune was from the Lynch version. And yeah, no, I know. Wasn't really good. But this looks awesome. It does look really good. I'm excited for that one. I'll probably just, like, I'm just going to watch it on that television. That's how I watched the Suicide Squad. Oh, really? Did you love the Suicide Squad? I feel like that's right up your alley. Uh, the first one? No, the new one.

I watched half of the new one. I haven't finished it. Oh, you didn't fucking, I thought, no, I didn't like it? You know, it's funny. A lot of people said that I would. It's not that I didn't like it. I just got, I think one night I started watching it and I was like, oh, and it was cool and funny.

I fell asleep and then I just haven't gone back to it. I see the part when they went and when they go to the village? No. Oh my God. Wait, no. I don't remember. So can I spoil it for you? I was drunk.

Oh, you got to, dude, you have to watch it. I don't want a spoiler for you. No, spoil it. It's okay. All right. This is, so if you haven't seen the Suicide Squad, this is a spoiler. So I gave you the warning. I have time codes in there, too.

So I'll talk about suicide squad. So it's, it's fucking great. Like, I sat over there, and I have never laughed out loud just by myself like this, watching this movie, watching a movie.

So fucking, they go in, they go to, have to rescue Joel Kinneman. So they're like, okay, well, Kinnam got taken by these,

by these rebels, we got to go get, we got to get them, we got, so they go in there. And so Idriselba, and John, Sina are these ruthless fucking killers and they go and they just they're just fucking killing everybody

But they're they're starting to have a contest with each other and like there's a guy in the Bat Tub and they want to electrocute him and they kill everybody Like it's brutal like all right these guys remind me like predator So they walk in they find Rick Flagg and he's like we guys do it He's like we're here to rescue he's like these are the people that rescued me He's like They fucking killed everybody and he's like oops It was brilliant. It was so fucking funny.

James Gunn. And it was not like, see, I didn't like Guardians 2. Yeah. I didn't like, I think Guardian 2 was not good. He did a great job on 1. Two was okay. Yeah, I thought to me two was like, two to me, didn't have three yet.

There's no Guardians 3. No, what, oh. Which one I think? Oh, no, no, I'm thinking of Thor? Thor. You didn't like Thor? No, I love Thor 3. But Guardians 2, to me, it was, there's funny.

jokes in it, but it was more like, you get a joke, you get a joke, you get a joke, everybody gets a joke and it's like, yeah, it's like, come on, and this, it, the suicide squad, when somebody says shit, go back and watch it, dude, it is right up your alley. You will love it. It's really, it's like old school action. I think that, you're probably exhausted with superhero movies, right? Yeah, not as much as some people, but, yeah, I'm not. Yeah, the genre for me works, right? But I, I can see a lot of purist and a lot of like people inside of the business feel like it was, I don't think it was the downfall. I think it actually

is one of the main reasons keeping blockbusters alive. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, but so anyway, with the Matrix, I think that I'll be looking for that one. I'm definitely, I mean, I haven't gone to the movie theater in like two years. Yeah. I had an opportunity

to see many scenes in Newark in the theater. Didn't do it. Venom didn't do it. There's a lot of ones I passed up. It's going to be hard for me to pass up the Matrix in the theater. Yeah, I agree with that. But wait, why wouldn't you go COVID? Yeah, I'm just not ready to go on the movie theater yet. Oh, because I went to one in the middle of all of it. I went, because I couldn't wait to see Nolan's movie. A lot of people are, but I think it's because of my kids. You know, I got a four-year-old.

You know, so it's like, you know, if I had just like a 12-year-old or I probably probably would go. A lot of people feel, feel differently, and that's fine, but I just, not ready for it yet. Although it's, you know, but I have been, I did stand up, but I did stand up and then went back outside right afterwards. You know, but either way, I will, I do, I'm going to get into it with Naveed about, I'm going to tell you guys, no, I'm going to tell you guys about the story at He-Man, but before we do it, I also, I got to tell you, I am so excited.

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you'll say, holy shit. When you open it, I got, I got bread a box. And so he opens it. I, I was like, there's a lot, dude. It's like, they send me like the beef and the pork. And he's like, oh, okay. And he's like, you weren't kidding. It's like Christmas. Like I have meat falling out of my freezer right now. And we use it.

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It's fine. But use that code. Use the code. Maybe let's get into this Heemian story. Yeah. because so this is the way I tell it. Yeah. And you tell me if you, if you remember it differently or same page.

So in turnaround for people that don't know what turnaround means, it basically when a studio has the property and now it's available for other people to pick up, they send the script around. They go, John Wu was doing, was it doing it at Fox? Right. And so we had this thing called Weekend Read where we'd get a whole bunch of scripts. We'd read it during the weekend. And then if there was anything that we liked, we would talk about it and see if

we'd pick it up. So He-Man comes in, and I was a massive fan of it, and I'm reading the script. I'm like, this is terrible. And I said, I remember? Who wrote it, you remember? I want to tell you, John Wu wrote it. Oh, wow. I don't know if that's true, but I know it was definitely, he was bad.

And it was like, it was like Tila and He-Man getting cheeseburgers and shit. It was bad. And I said, I remember going to you. Not from Butcher-Bucks. Not from Butcher-Box. I remember going to you. I remember going to Susan and Susan Downey and David, Gambino and Eric Olson and saying, look, this property is good, this script is not.

Right. And they're, yeah, and they're like, everyone's, well, can we read the script? I'm like, you're not going to want it if you read the script. Right. And like, we can't do this. And you said, no one cares about a purple tiger in this time. And I said, I was like, dude, I was like, I'm telling you, this is science meets magic.

it's Star Wars meets Lord of the Range. That was the thing that got me. Not at that point. At that time, you came around, but I do, I do remember thinking, oh, nobody's done science. Yeah. At that time, you said, I don't see it right now. And I was like, okay. So basically, then what I did is I went to,

you were the only one at that company that I thought I had a shot with because you were the big blockbuster science fiction guy and where Gambino, Olson was more in the horror thing. Gambino was more of the crime. And Susan, you never knew. So then I went to Village Road Show. My buddy Fred Klein was over there,

and I said, if I could get a fine, financer involved. If the financing team was like, okay, we see this, then maybe that's what I could do. So I went with Adam Winkleman at the time, and we have to tell that Tom Hardy Winkleman's story later. Oh, my God. We have to, but we'll tell it later. So then I go, all right, I went to Village Road, so Dana Goldberg was running the company at the time. So my buddy Fred is like, I see it, but I don't think Dana will.

You should probably go somewhere else. All right. So then I was like, well, legendary is right down the road. Right. Not down the road. It was like five buildings away. You can tell the Neil part of this story? So this guy's name, we're going to call him Neil Fuckface.

So Neil Fuckface was a guy that I knew him at parties. And so we sat down, me, him, and Mark Riley, who was writing this thing with me. Right? It was Riley, and I think maybe Adam was there for a few of it. But we sat there. It may have been Adam. I don't remember. Either way, we sat there with him going over.

And he was like, this is great. We can get this going. So we were meeting him for weeks. weeks. Yeah. One day out of the blue, he goes, oh, we can't do this because of Conan the Barbarian. I'm like, you didn't just pick up Conan the Barbarian, but okay. All right.

So then you call me in your office and you're like, I think I get he man. I think I get it. And then we talked about science and magic. And we talked about it. I get it. And Janison and Strickland had just gotten blown up because of the, because of the Wonder Woman script. Right.

So we went to them and started talking and started developing that script with them and I'll never forget this. We're sitting in your office and you get a fucking phone call. And it was Justin Marks's agent. Right. And he's like, are you guys working on that Masters of Universe thing? Because him and Neil Fuckface have a thing they've been working on together for a little while. And I always say, Justin Mark's completely innocent in all of this.

No, yeah, totally. He's just a guy writing who got brought in it. I love Justin Marks. I think he's a great dude. It gets brought this thing by a dude and he's a great idea. Justin's a great fucking writer does what he has to do. But basically they say, we want to develop this with you. And you remember what happened right there?

Didn't you throw something? I didn't. I said, I got up and I started going, you stood in front of the door. You said, where are you going? I said, I'm going to legendary. He's like, you can't do that. And I was like, I'm going to legendary right now. And I do not care if I lose my job.

And you're like, dude, sit down. We'll figure it out. And then Adam had to come in and like this whole thing. And then you made, but you made him come in. Once the deal was made with Mattel, you made him come in and apologize to me. Yeah.

And he, and like he was like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And I was like, do you remember I took myself all of the project? Before that? Well,

right around that time because Susan was going to give me CE on it. And I took myself off of it. I said, I don't want to be involved in this. Not if he's involved in it. And it fell apart anyway. But yeah. Yeah.

By the way, that's a great fucking story. Tell me that because I don't really know that part of it. So I left the project. You guys are going to love this. This is what I want here. So Masters of the Universe. So that's the story I've always told you guys, right?

So that's all I know because I left it. I didn't want to have anything to do with it afterwards because I felt it was tainted that Neil Fuckface was still a part of it. I love that I stood in front of the door. So tell me, tell me what happened afterwards. So Justin actually wrote a really good script. He did. And I remember we went to Matt Ryle a lot and was working with them.

And then Matt Riley was our executive at Warner Brothers. And there's a couple things. One, back to the IP conversation, I remember him going, what else do they have? What else do they have? And I was like, oh, they have Hot Wheels and Barbie. He's like, we should get Hot Wheels. And this is when we were making Speed Racer.

And I was like, Riley, why do you want another car movie? We're making Speed Racer. And he's like, no, no, we got to get it. So we ended up getting Hot Wheels too, which, I don't know. That's a different fun story. But we're developing He-Man, write a great script. We gave it to Robinoff who, like, just didn't read it. It was like sitting in his pile.

Like, didn't... Masters or Hot Wheels? Yeah, Masters, sorry, yeah. And so what I did was we had been developing all this art with Mattel. Yes, I remember. Had this art. And it was a room... It was a room bigger than this, right?

Two of these. And they shipped over the panels. It was so much stuff that it cost, like, thousands of dollars just to have it brought over. That's how much stuff there was. And they were all on these panels. And we lined them up in our conference room over at Silver all the way around. And it was like weapons, characters, the world, magic, you know, all over around. And it was...

Tons of stuff. Yeah. The day Jeff Robinoff was supposed to come over to look at the art to get a sense of like, oh, science and magic like I did, right? That day, Nikki Fink busted him because in some meeting, he said he didn't want to do female-driven action movies. Okay. Right? And so it was like this.

Oh, he's a sexist and blah, blah, blah, blah. So he comes in, he opens a door. He just literally stands in the door. He goes like this. He just looks and he goes, can we call it She-Man and turn around and walked away? And Joel looks at me and goes, oh, that project's dead. Wow. That was it.

That was it. That was it. Just because he was pissed off and in a mood one day about whatever the hell. And he wanted nothing to do with it. And it was. And it was also looked. And the also problem was that Joel didn't know what the fuck it was either. Yeah, but I look, I hear you.

And I think Joel always says he believed in the Matrix, believed in the Matrix. I don't know that he knew what that was back then either. No. And he also, and honestly, I think he also blew the Wonder Woman thing too because Wonder Woman, what he- Genesis Strickland did a World War II version. A hundred percent. And do you remember what Joel said?

It won't work in World War II. Genesis and Strickland's script was fantastic. It was great. I think it's better than the one that came out at the script. Now, I think Pat Jenkins did an amazing job, and I just, the ending to me, okay, but the movie I really liked a lot. But their script was something special.

But Joel murdered it because he wanted it to be modern day. And then Captain America did it first once it came out. But there was a lot of stuff that he didn't get. And I don't think anybody really understood Masters of the Universe. and still don't. That's why the live action hasn't worked. Did you watch any of Kevin Smith? Kevin Smith, Netflix?

Netflix? No. So you see a lot of, it got a lot of controversy. I don't know if you saw it. He has tons of controversy because, and I taught Griffin Newman, who plays orco, was in here a couple weeks ago, and we talked about it. And I stand by what I said with it

is that I think people were going nuts because a lot of people felt that it was too woke and that Tila is the one who, like they wind up, again, spoilers for people who haven't seen Masters of the universe. Hey Man dies Orko dies But they're coming back

It's like you're not going to kill Heeman But the problem is Netflix did something stupid They They released the first six episodes With no announcement of when the next six

Were coming out Well you know they're making the movie They talked about making the movie I heard who they cast last week Can you say? I mean I don't know why I can't say You have nothing to do with it I know who

I mean I hope it's okay that I said, I heard. You heard? I heard. There's a new kid who's in West Side Story and something else, some good looking guy. That's a, I didn't even know. There's tons of fucking people in West Side Story. Hold on.

Not Ansela. Not, no, no, no, no. Some guy I've never heard of. Okay. Brand new. I'll tell you in one second. Hold on. Give me a sec.

Give me a sec. Talk about something else while I look at this. Yeah. So I'm curious because they were, they were talking about, I mean, because the movie itself was, was pushed back from that. know a kid that they were going to put in. I never thought he was cast very well. But let's see.

Let me show me, show me this kid. Tell me what the kid's name is. I'm trying to find, because I remember looking. Did you look at West Side Story, IMDB? Yeah, look. No, pull, you want me to do it? Yeah, I can do it. West Side Story.

That's great. West Side Story. If I see the, uh, 2021 cast here, here we go. Yeah. Let's see, and I'll tell you right now. It's not Ansel El Gore. No, I'll tell you right now. So here's, Kyle Allen.

Kyle Allen is a kid's name? Yeah. Kyle Allen. All right. That's who I heard. I heard that from, I can't say. Is it the quarterback? No, no, no, no.

Look up. Kyle Allen, West Side Story. Yeah. I had to look, I had to look this kid up. I had no idea who he was. Who is this kid? I don't know. So let's say, there he is.

Kyle Allen. I mean, I don't know. I'd never seen a Mac, so I can't really say whether he's any good or not. I'm going to get killed for saying this. Well, how do you know? How do people know? You know what I mean?

Kyle Allen as a... That's what I heard. Maybe I should release this episode tomorrow. Before they announced Kyle Allen as he had, I could have broke it. Well, we'll see. We'll see if Kyle Allen, whether or not we figured out or not. But either way, going back to the Masters of the Universe for Revelations, you know Tiffany Smith is a voice in it, too.

Oh, really? Yeah. So, but they were... Oh, right. I know I did see it. So there was a lot of... There's a lot of controversy that, because Teal is essentially the lead of this series, right?

I have no problem with that. My problem with it was, I don't think it should have been the first episode. I think it should, I think if you're going to reintroduce Masters of the Universe, like if we were sitting around at Silver and we're like, okay, well, here's our story, here's our arc. I would have said, and I said the same thing.

I think that's a fun arc. I don't think you'll open a series with it. Because you're waiting for, because here's all these people that are expecting this big kind of return for a He-Man, and you're going to just kind of throw them to the side. in the beginning, you're going to piss off a lot of people. I said, I love the angle. I think the angle works.

I think that I think the people who are just bitching and complaining about it, you know, in general, they're just bitching and complaining about it. But I do understand the bitching and complaining about if you think that that's the whole series and that's how you start with it. I think that that could have been, if they would have done like 18 episodes, that could have been the middle. And then you start with, here's the reintroduction to attorney. Because I think it relies, you're relying too much on people.

knowing everything that happened in the 80s because it's a sequel to the 80s, but it's shot. Remember my favorite one was the 2002 one. That's the one I always talked to you about. It's shot like that. It feels like that. It's got that. It takes itself seriously, right?

And there's some fucking cool moments in it. The music's great. Beer McCreary from Battlestar. And I thought, I think directing, I think Kevin did a great job. I think people are giving them a hard time on it. But I think overall,

and now what's going to happen, though, is now that after, because they're going to have this back six that comes out. I think it's either end of this year or the beginning. And it's going to, your he man's going to come back and all this shit's going to happen. And then everyone's going to go, oh,

they listen to everybody and too late now, Kevin Smith. That's exactly what's going to happen. But the point that I, out of all of this, though, to me, what I realize is that this shit works.

Same thing I said to you. Masters of the Universe works as an IP. Yeah. And if it does, if this fucking kid can pull it off, if he even winds up, if he even wants up getting it. You know,

this has been like, you know what they have trying to do the crow. Yeah. It's like the crow. You need the right person to figure it out. And I just don't know if everyone's ending going to figure it out. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad we're talking about he man, but I'm of the mindset that, I mean,

do you remember we used to joke that they're going to make Stairmaster the movie? Like at some point, any good IP with a good story behind it. Dude, they made angry birds for God's sakes. I know. Make everything. But, all right. So I mentioned earlier Adam Winkleman, who was my roommate for a long time, best man of my wedding and one of my really good friends.

He's the one I told you guys about when, the wear a jacket story a couple weeks back you've heard that story yeah it's my favorite one of my favorite stories of all time um so you were on a it's one of the reasons that I

you and I started talking about you coming on this show is I saw you on your buddy's podcast and I was like oh Neveen's got to come in and tell some stories but you worked so you worked with Idriselbo like because we had we silver had put him on the reaping yeah which if you look today there's no fucking chance he's in that role he's in david Morris Morris's role so uh no of course of course but and you know people should have seen that at that point.

But I just thought about something. Do you remember this was before modern family that Sophia Vergara came into. And saying me happy birthday? She's saying me happy birthday. And then we went into, because we went in, because that was your birthday, we were in the conference room? Yeah. And then Joel walked in and went, is that Navid's wife?

Right, right. And he had no idea of Sophia Vergara was before she blew up. And we had, she was a sweetheart. Yeah, she was really nice. But anyway, I just remember that story. But so Iders Alba was working on the reaping. and then because of that had a connection then with silver.

And is that how he got cast in rock and roll? It might have all. I think Guy wanted him. I think Guy knew him and I mean, Guy cast that whole movie. Okay. That, I mean, real quick, that script came to me. Rock and roll came to me because Guy and I were developing the dirty.

For people who didn't know, Navid produced rock and roll. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But we were developing the Dirty Dousen, a remake of the Dirty Dozen of the Dirty Dozen was Guy. Right. I remember that, right.

And that's actually. very funny story too. You got to come back. Oh, that's a really funny story. It has to do with Robert Downey and Guy and all this. I might have to have you close with that one today. Okay, I'll remind me later. So, but then we're, so a guy comes to me and he goes,

so I have the script. I really want to go do it while we're waiting for this rewrite that Zach Penn was doing on dirty dozen. And he goes, Jason Statham's attached. Do you think you guys would make it? Because we had the fun, the Dark Castle fund. Yeah. Yeah.

You go, do you think you guys would make it? And I'll never, this was so, this is like one movie making is fun. I get the script, we read it that night. Literally the next day we go in and we tell Joel, we're like, this is what it is. It would be an Amazon movie today. Yeah, and yeah, it would. And Joel goes, great, go make it. Like literally green lit it, didn't even read it, green lit it based off of us telling him what it was about

and Guy Ritchie directing it. And he was like, cool, he's back to his old route. Right. So then we start casting. We cast, Statham couldn't do it timing-wise. So we got Jerry who had just done 300 And then Jerry's great And then we cast around him

And I mean guy This is how good he is at finding talent He put Tom Hardy in it He found Toby Kebbell Yeah I mean put Idris in when Idris was You know he put him in one of the leads Yeah

You know like that if you look at that cast It's a great cast and you know it's a great soundtrack I still listen to the soundtrack I produced a soundtrack did you really It's a great soundtrack dude you know You know who I What's your name Wanda Wanda?

Help me Wanda Wanda Oh shit one of the songs, oh man, I listen to her all the time. Oh, in rock and roll. Yeah. I don't remember. I can't remember, but I just got such a great voice.

But the soundtrack is amazing. And so then we're on set. Great cast, yeah. So tell me, so this is, so Tom Hardy is, is unknown. Completely unknown. Completely unknown. He didn't really, I remember when I reviewed in, I mean, I'm a big Tom Hardy fan, right? So when I, Inception's on my favorite movies, all time.

So I saw it in the theater and I, in the review, if you go back to watch a review and Shemose, I call him the English guy. Right. Whatever he was. Like, I didn't even know his name. And this was before that. By the way, you want to hear something funny? A couple years later, I'm,

because I worked on Black Hawk Down. Yes. And I looked up. Did you really, were you producing on that? No, I was a studio exec. A young studio exec. Did you know Ian, uh, Ian Virgo? I don't remember.

Oh, okay. So, so then, um, I look and Tom was in it. Like I got him a start gift. Yeah, he was in it. I bought start gifts. And I remember, and I had, dog tags for him. Yeah, yeah, he was wonderful. Sorry. So you're, anyway, so Tom Hardy's on it. You're on set. So tell me a story. We're on set. This is my favorite

story. And, uh, and we, so, uh, I wanted to like have a dinner party or something with get the cast, whoever wanted to come to come. So I called Winkleman and I said, Adam, can you call a couple places around London and make reservations so that, you know, we can get a bunch of people who want to go. So he called, I was a gotcha club. It was one of those private clubs. This was before Soho House was here and all that, right? So he called. So he calls one of these private clubs and he goes, we're producing rock and rolla and can we reserve a room or something? And they're like, yeah, actually Tom Hardy's, a member here, we'll just put it under his name. I didn't even know that part. Right, right. So they made reservations. And at about, I guess,

at some point around midnight in London time or whatever, somebody calls Tom Hardy, because we didn't go to that one place, right? Somebody calls Tom Hardy and they're like, are you going to come to your reservation? He's like, what are you talking about? And they're like some guy named Adam called and made a reservation. So the next day, I'm standing with Joel and Aaron, who is Joel's assistant. And Aaron standing there in Joel and me. And Tom Hardy comes storming across the field. And he walks up and goes, who the fuck is Adam? And you call, didn't you call Winkleman at like 3 in the morning or something?

I know what was going on? Yeah, I think that might have been. But it was funny because Aaron was standing there like. Aaron, who was Joel's? he's like well I'm Aaron we didn't know what the hell he was talking about and he turns to me and he's like who I made a fucking reservation

and by this point I think I started to put two and two together and I was like oh oh wait and I think like I stopped and was like dude I made a resume I think I don't remember exactly but I think like I finally got him to calm down a little and we actually for a while we're friends after that but his face who the fuck

is Adam I can say it it's oh it's so good it's so good Joel to this day, every time I see Joel, he goes, he was going to kill you. He was going to kill you. So what's Joel doing now? He's still producing.

He's just sold something to Sony that a friend of mine is producing. But he doesn't have his company anymore, right? No, no, he's getting divorced. Is he okay? Because Ethan runs his company now, which is great. Well, yeah, Silver is now nothing to do with Joel. It's a company with all the old movies. Yeah.

Yeah. And it has all the old movies, and they're taking, you know, some of the movies that they made in finance. And there's one that they're doing as a TV show. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that. but unknown. Yeah. They're doing it. Oh, you know, I think, I think, I think Ethan talked about that.

I feel like he did. Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, Ethan's killing it, I think. Yeah. Well, Ethan's great. So people, obviously, if you follow the Schmodowne, you know, Ethan, two-time movie trivia Shmodown champion is a, is, runs Silver Pictures. Yeah.

And he was our CE when we were there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he was there for a very long time. And he just, you know, he waited. Remember, a lot of people said like, shit, man, get the fuck out of there. And he waited. and look at them now.

He runs the fucking company. So, all right, before we get it, tell me this story you were going to say with Downey. Oh, so, so,

so, Guy was developing remake a dirty dozen, and he had this cast list in mind of who would play what guys. And, and Joel had this bug up his ass

that Sean Penn should be one of the guys, right? And he kept saying, like, Sean Pan, it would be great as this guy, Sean Pan, Sean Pan, Sean Penn.

And so, guy, And Downey and Susan were at some party. And Robert went up to him. And, oh, you know, because Robert is obviously on the list of guys. Right. Talk to him about. And it was before Iron Man.

It was before Iron Man. But he was on this list. And they were talking to a guy and guys like, yeah, it's just kind of uncomfortable, though. Because every time we talk about the dirty dozen, Joel keeps saying he wants to put my, he wants to put my wife's ex-husband in it. Nobody remembered that Sean Penn used to be married to Madonna. And at the time, guy was married to her. Which is right. And so.

so nobody remember and downy was like oh shit and everybody had to go back to joel and be like stop talking my that's that's really fucking funny my favorite story though ever was and i don't know i i won't say i don't know if he's ever told it on the air so that i i had heard like the you know the um the danny elphman bird story you've heard this story right you know it was that joel was um joel wanted to he had danny elphman in the in his in his office and he was talking to him about that i think it was There's a score for the invasion. Okay. And he's telling him, he's like, you know, I want it to be like, uh, you know, like a, like a, like a, like a Hitchcock movie.

I want it to be, just like the birds. And Elfman's like, um, that's, it's no soundtrack in that movie. No, yeah, there is. You're, you're nuts. Aaron, look it up. Look it up. There's, it's got to be right. There's, there's a soundtrack.

And, uh, joy, look, top, there's no soundtrack. Well, you know what I mean. I think Elfman quit. the next day. But either way. So there's a lot of, look, we only scratch the surface, man. Oh, I have so many. I know.

So you got to come back. All right. You got to come back for sure. So what are you working on right now? Is anything, can we talk about? Funny enough. Yeah. Speaking of Silver,

Eric Olson and I, right before COVID. Eric, for those people. So Eric Olson was my old boss who wanted to become a good buddy of ours and a producer on a lot of movies. House of Wax. It was an orphan. A lot of movies that he did the Molly Crew movie. He did the Motley Crew the Dirt.

Yeah, so he's doing a lot. Look at Eli. Yes, yes. So Olson calls me up right before COVID. This was like January of last year. And he goes, hey, let's go do this thing with our friend at Universal, right, one of their titles. So we were like, all right, and we set that up and started developing that. And then COVID happens.

And during that time, we've sold 10 things. So that, no, more, maybe more now. But that one thing started just going, hey, how about let's do this one. Let's do this one. And now we're casting between us. We're casting seven movies. We've sold 10 or 11 of them, including that big title that I can't talk about.

And then, yeah, I mean, hopefully next year we'll be making at least two or three of them. Can you talk about the one, I don't know if it's the person that we worked with together that was in trying to, if you're not talking about it. It's a person who might direct, not sure if she's going to direct. or not?

Wait, which one? I don't want to give it away because if you're not allowed to talk about it. Wait, which one? My friend, a friend of mine that you met through me.

My direct. Yeah. Aren't you working with anybody that I know? Can you just say? I don't, if, I guess if I don't want to get you in trouble, I'll say it.

Go ahead. Eliza. Oh, yes. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yes, I forgot it. Yes, I knew I met Eliza, yes. I think I,

and talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, Eliza Slesinger, there's a comedy that I developed with Amet Zappa

and a couple great writers and it's based on a loosely based on a true story about those nuns that stole money from the church and went to Vegas. Okay. And she'd be one of the nuns?

She wants to direct it. Okay. And right now she's directing, starring, but so here's the thing. I happen to be with my buddy runs Kevin Hart's company one night at dinner.

And I was like, should read the script. He read it. They loved it and they go, can we send it to Netflix and produce it with you? So Netflix wants to do it. I don't know if Netflix is going to let her direct and star. She's probably going to have to pick. What do you think she'll choose? I don't know. She's going to go pitch her take as soon as the deals haven't even started. I probably shouldn't talk about it because the deals haven't even started yet. But she will go pitch her directorial take to them. That's awesome. And then Katie, I talked to Katie Sackoff last week. She said you ran into you recently.

Too long ago, I guess. It was a couple years ago. Oh, it was a couple years ago? She made this movie a recent. I don't know. I mean, look, two years would buy like this. Well, COVID doesn't count. It was great to see you, dude.

We got to do it again. It took you, what, 20 minutes to get over here, half an hour? Half an hour. That's not that bad. Dude, I love doing this. I come talk about it. Let's do it. This would be fun to do it.

And as we, a lot more stories and then, you know, it's not like you're working somewhere that someone's going to get, you can't get fired for telling me who he man is. No, I might, Netflix might call me up and want to cut my head off. Well, they're doing the movie? Is it Netflix doing the movie? I don't know. Netflix is doing a movie now, too?

So I don't think of any of that I was interested. Oh, boy. Well, we'll see. Sometimes people don't even pick it up. So whether or not, it might not even get picked up. And I won't lead that. And I heard it so like third hand. Through the grapevine.

Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. I just looked it up because that guy was like, who the fuck is this guy? Who is that guy? No one knows he is. All right. listen, guys, so make sure you check out.

Are you, there's any way they can, is you promoting anything as far as right now where they should go to check things out or right now just check out, wait for your movies. It's going on. Wait for my movies. All right. Well, thank you guys so much. Once again, a reminder that tomorrow, Mark Ellis,

I'll be probably popping into the New York Comedy Club in Manhattan. So make sure you check that out. Go over there. But I'm definitely going to be there on October 8th. And then October 9th we're doing the Shmoan. It is our last New York event that we're going to be doing for Shmodown in quite a while. There's going to be no New York shows in 2022.

So get your tickets if you're going to be around. You've ever thought about coming to a Shmodown. You should do it now. But again, thank you to Naveed MacLarge. Thank you to you guys. Make sure you subscribe Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere that podcasts are found. And don't you forget about that butcher box. The links in the description.

You're going to love it, get it, and thank me afterwards. All right, guys. Friday, by the way, is the Spider-Man 2 rewatch with myself, Koi, and Winston. Check that shit out. All right, peace.