The Kristian Harloff Show - Will James Gunn's Superman Be the DCU's First Billion-Dollar Hit?!

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Go Check Out Ben's Game The Cast List:  https://www.amazon.com/KESS-Trivia-Co... James Gunn's Superman (2025) trailer is here — and it's sparking major box office predictions! On today's episode of The Kristian Harloff Show, we break down the official trailer for Superman, discuss the bold new direction of the DC Universe, and ask the big question: Can this movie finally push the DCU past the $1 billion mark? David Corenswet suits up as Clark Kent, Rachel Brosnahan steps in as Lois Lane, and Nicholas Hoult brings a chilling Lex Luthor to life. With a stellar supporting cast including Milly Alcock as Supergirl and Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner, this film blends heart, humor, and heroism. But will that be enough to launch a new era of DC success? We also cover: ➡️ Marvel Television's new approach to Disney+ series – fewer shows, tighter budgets, and multi-season potential ➡️ Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning reviews: Is this really the franchise's final send-off? ➡️ New Masters of the Universe set footage reveals a possible Beast Man sighting – full breakdown of the cast and behind-the-scenes updates 🎬 Keywords: superman trailer reaction, superman official trailer, james gunn superman, superman 2025 trailer, superman box office, superman billion dollars, dcu, dc universe, david corenswet, lois lane, nicholas hoult lex luthor, superman full trailer, dc studios, marvel television, daredevil born again, mission impossible final reckoning reviews, masters of the universe beast man, motu movie, rachel brosnahan superman, green lantern guy gardner, ironheart series, disney plus marvel shows 📅 Superman hits U.S. theaters on July 11, 2025 — and we're tracking every update until then. 👇 Let us know in the comments: Will Superman break $1 billion at the box office? Do you think James Gunn's DCU is off to the right start? #Superman2025 #JamesGunn #DCUniverse #KristianHarloff #TrailerReaction #BoxOfficePrediction #DCStudios SPONSORS: RIDGE WALLET: Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code KRISTIAN at https://www.Ridge.com/KRISTIAN #Ridgepod HYDROW: Skip the gym, not the workout—stay on track with Hydrow! For a limited time go to https://www.hydrow.com and use code KRISTIAN to save up to $475 off your Hydrow Pro Rower during Hydrow's Memorial Day Sale!  CASHAPP: Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/76rlxe00 #CashAppPod *Referral Reward Disclaimer: As a Cash App partner, I may earn a commission when you sign up for a Cash App account 

What's going on, everybody? Sorry for the little delay, but we got a lot going on here today, man. We're going to talk about Superman and whether or not that movie can make a billion dollars. The Superman is going to be able to make a billion dollars. We're going to find that out. Marvel's working on some stuff. They're changing up their TV. Box office is crazy. There's a brand new board game out there based on trivia. And there's a legend of the shmowdown is behind it. And it's not me this time. So we're going to be talking about a lot of that stuff in the new studio. today. My guest is Ben Bateman. So let's get into it, everybody. It is the Christian Harlov show here today. You ready? Me too. Welcome back, everybody to the show. I'm excited to have everybody here.

We're live on this Thursday, I believe. Thank God it's Thursday. And this was a crazy day for me. Because today, I mean, we almost had three guests on the show because I just couldn't get the segment done in time. But I did get a chance this morning to see my good friend, Dan Merle, who's in town. And he came in and we had breakfast together. A little later on in the show, Chris Carr did a, did an interview for us with the producers of Arcane for season two. So she did something very generous for their time. And she shot something for us in her show. But my guest today, a legend in the Schmodeown, former movie trivia Shmodown, champion of the world.

He is now the creator of the cast list, new board game that you guys need to get. Ben Bateman's in the house. Look at Ben. What's up everybody? As good looking as always, my friend. How you doing, man? I'm good, man. It's really good to see. Am I looking here at you? Do I have to look at you?

You are looking at you're, well, you can look at me. Yeah, sure. You don't have to go into the camera. That's just, that is your camera. So, and look at that. We also have this. A wide shot. We got a wide shot here.

So everybody's looking at the, it was very excited about the new look of the studio. It looks amazing. It looks good, right? Dude, I had a freaking table. that was this long conference table. It pinned me up against the wall. And I was like this, there were cameras everywhere,

tripods ever. Brett was in here for the last week, just like working like a madman. And he's got it really looking sweet. You're, you've been here for a year? I've been here most of years. Isn't that crazy?

Wow. I know. I remember meeting up with you in L.A. and saying, I'm out of here. And getting a big step and, I have the Schmodown five step and repeat in my garage. You have that plus don't you have the Schmodeons spectacular poster?

I'm not giving you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Where is that? No, I don't have a spectacular poster. I've got the Shirewolves versus. Right, that was a spectacular. Oh, that was a spectacular. It's one of the legendary matches of all time.

Of all time. Yeah, it's funny. You know, the entire Shmodown library is up on the Shepundown channel. I mentioned to you and I mentioned to the audience. I was trying to sell the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sell everything. Get it.

Anybody wants it. Let me know. It comes up sometimes. Well, now that we're going to talk about this, but I referenced it a lot now in the office and I'm talking to people just because I have to explain what this is and why I'm credited as a world championship movie trivia on the back of the box. Yeah. And it's just funny because when we were in it, we were so in it.

We were so used to talking about it in the shorthand way. Now looking back when you try to explain this thing that we used to do to people, they're like, are you making that up? And you need to show footage. You need to show footage. Even when Dan came in here a little while ago on the back of that, well, there's two things. One of the Shmodeon studio thing is still right there. I love that.

On the back is the poster that Brian Ward made, the old school fight. poster of Dan Merle versus Roka, like the legendary first match. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The first match. Yeah, so it was great. So, well, Ben's here. We're going to be talking about this game in just a little bit. I'm excited to talk about it.

And the other thing we're going to discuss today is that Superman trailer came out yesterday. You get a chance to look at the trailer? I did. You did. Before we even get into the fact of whether or not we think it's going to make a billion dollars, what do you think of the trailer? You know, I like it. I think it's funny.

I grew up as a comic book fan. I read a lot of comics when I was a kid. and there was a guy named Jeff Johns who was heavily involved with DC as the years went on. But he started out as a comic book writer, really very popular writer in a very popular to Flash and other things. And there was a period of time in the early 2000s when he got very popular, Flash Green Lantern. And there was this sort of campy but lovable side of D.C.

that got really popular during that time. He went on to be more involved, I think, in production in a less successful way from a storytelling perspective. But that vibe is what this trailer feels like, the early days of Jeff Johns, where like you're sort of like, I know this is a little campy. too in there. This isn't as self-serious. You know,

the Snyderverse stuff or whatever, but like I'm willing to get in. Like, this seems fun. And I think that's what this trailer feels like to me. Yeah. Which is a good thing. Because I think that that period of time with DC,

infinite crisis, that whole run was really fun. Yeah. I mean, look, this is the thing. I like Man of Steel. I talked about this.

I like Man of Steel a lot. And it was a darker movie. Yeah. It needed to be. And I always push back against people who were like, well, Superman's always, it's not,

it's not that comic book Superman. The hope is in, there the thing it's as you got to change things up sometimes yeah and the same goes for this you got to change it we had the dark superman we've had the donner superman this seems like a more comic accurate superman and what they're doing i loved what we got a chance to see inside the trailer we saw emotion we saw uh story beats we saw that clark what what is ultimately happening the fact that lowest knows that it's clark these other different things and it's it's big it's grand and it's setting up the dc u yeah i would agree with you i think i think that after watching that trailer i have

a certain level of confidence yeah i don't know i don't know if it's like and again the man of steel trailers are some of the best trailers ever they're right two and three are like two of my favorite trailers ever made yeah and and i actually also love man of steel to be fair so but it didn't how much money it didn't make a billion dollars didn't uh man of still no but that's the funny thing is that we always talk about this that was during it was like 2012 you'd know better than i do right 13 2013 look at you um i i i trust your judgment uh movie release the only person to go To toe to toe with Scott Mance. I saw him two days ago for the first time.

Did you? Did you? At the Mission Impossible screening. Yeah. Oh, amazing. We should talk about that also. Anyway, so 2013,

and this is a time when Marvel is pumping out, you know, close to a billion-dollar movies all the time and getting real. Year after Avengers. So the pressure is on D.C. to say, okay, you got to hit a billion dollars. And it would be like $800, 700, 800 million dollars, or whatever, even if it was close to $700,

it did very well. Yeah. And people are, oh, it's a failure because they didn't hit a billion dollars. Stupid. But it was a different time back then. But I think this movie, which poses the question is, will this movie make a billion dollars? Let me let's start with that straight, straight yes or no answer. Does this movie make a billion dollars?

No, I don't think it does. Okay. I think that this movie is going to do well. Like, I think that this movie will make $7,800. I could be wrong. I remember I bet you and had a big argument with you about the second avatar a few years back. You were just 100% right. And I was 100% wrong.

Did you say it wasn't going to make it better? I thought it was going to be a big failure. You were convinced. And you were right. And there are things about it. You know, my perception could be my perception. But I think what this movie is lacking a little bit is it doesn't have star power. It doesn't, it has Superman as the star power.

It has Nicholas Holt as the star power. Yeah. But it just doesn't have James Gunn, I guess, would be the other part of the star power. Yeah. But the people, the main people involved are not names that people care about because of what they are. They're going to go see them because they're in this movie. Nicholas Holt is likable. He's a great person in the movie world, but he's not like a box office draw. There's just there's nothing about this movie to me aside from it being Superman and James Gunn being a

pretty popular brand that's going to push this over a billion. And that's why I think it's you're probably seven, eight hundred million on this. So my answer is also no, but I would push against that logic only because I would say Guardians of Galaxy didn't have a lot of um, stories. Didn't make a billion dollars. So that's, but I don't, but but it's success didn't hinge on star power, I think that you look at Superman, and as you said it, you started with it, Superman sells the movie. Yeah. And if the movie is good, if the movie is excellent, it's got a very good shot of making a billion dollars. Yeah, if it's really good. If it's really good. And I have faith. Like James Gunn gives me faith. Right. Right. Like, don't you think

that his, his suicide squad, the second one is one of the most underrated superhero movie, period. Excellent, excellent movie. And no one saw it. No, but it was also pandemic. Yeah. It was like mixed and mixed, you know, theater. But nobody, but nobody saw it in theater that movie's good it's really good yeah really good so i do think it's a shot um and it's just a matter of repeat viewing man it's like if if it does have that vibe and it does set it and it and it's the same thing i just said about man of steel it doesn't have to hit a billion dollars to be successful now people will argue and you're going to see if it doesn't hit a billion dollars people are going to call it a failure which is not accurate yeah the question we also don't

really know there's been rumors about how much this movie really costs someone said 300 someone said 315 and james gun shot back on that and said no that's not how much it costs cost less than that even if it let's let's split the difference say cost 250 million dollars right yeah so essentially it's got to make around 650 or something in order to break even or whatever i think it does that oh it'll make six i think it does that uh enough time has passed so the theatrical release if i recall correctly on justice league is 2017 could be wrong with that but i think it's i think it's right could be uh the Snyder cut, I think is 2021, maybe. I can't quite remember, but it's right in there. And that's the last time we had Superman as a character in a movie in a significant way at all.

Right. So you're going on eight years since the last time Superman was a focal point in a theatrically released big movie. That's enough time. That's enough time for the world to reset their expectation. And by and large, Justice League is a giant steamy, I can swear on this, a pile of shit, right? Everybody kind of knows that. So it's been a decade since we had a hyped movie that people really cared about Superman. And so I think, think that that's enough time, right? Like, I don't think you're going to run into the oversaturation problem that you're running into with some of these things.

I think the world, you know, if this is a good movie, I think you're right. It will make the money. Yeah. It has to be good. Genuinely good. Of course. I mean, because that's the other major concern is if it's not. And if it just, if it breaks even, they can survive.

If it fails, James Gun is toast. Yeah. At DC. The whole, the whole slate will be scrapped. Maybe they put Supergirl out because everybody started shooting it. But if you're Azloff, you go, okay, if they're not going to, to see Superman yeah then they're not going to see your other stuff um no thank you we don't we're clay face see you later all these other movies see you later yeah but they're making it for cheap and if and if

this if this works super super superman works it makes you know fine you do you do it you do a 30 40 million dollar horror type movie in the dc universe sure why not if it doesn't necessarily relate to anything and then you can kind of soft tease the world of batman to where you eventually will get you know your your own cape crusader then then great so this has to hit though and they're waiting the kind and i think that's what the batman too is hindering yeah i think the batman too if if superman i'll tell you one thing if the super if superman makes a billion dollars yeah you will hear very very soon after that the batman two is not happening because they're going to be like dc e u we're doing this dc u this is like where dc u not dc u yeah dc u so it's like now we need our batman

it's enough time has passed it's a lot of delays like lot of things are happening. Now, the flip side of that is if it fails, they're going to be unloading a truck full of money on Matt Reeves' sports. I said, please come back and do this. Let's do this. Now, that is our next Batman movie. The CU did not work. This whole thing of, it really starts with the MCU. That's where the entire conversation about this topic starts, right? Because it's the beginning of that whole thing working. And it's really complicated the way the studios have to look at this IP. It's super, super convoluted now. The idea of having, and we saw it, obviously, we saw it.

saw Joker make a ton of money at the same time that you had movies in different universe, same studio, right? So you know it's possible. But when the people who are getting panicked and who are writing the paychecks and the people are making those decisions and they're like, well, we will or we won't do this thing because this is a better bet, that sucks for the fandom who has gotten totally invested in a second Matt Reeves Batman movie. But also, speaking objectively, as somebody who's a little less connected to the space than I once was, I don't care about Matt Reeves of Batman, too. It's not because I didn't think the first one was good. It was good. It was a fun

movie. I just, I'm not clamoring for a sequel in that world. It wasn't enough. It doesn't feel like it needs one. Like, MCU movies and DCU movies when they're supposed to have the through line, that got me excited for the sequels. The whole MCU premise is the thing that got me excited, even for mediocre sequels. We're living in a world now where

I'm good with that movie being a standalone. That was a good standalone movie. It certainly can be a standalone. I do think that it's set up to be, because it was set up to be a trilogy. Yeah. And I do like the fact that it started in year two and they were going to move on, do some more stuff. I like the fact that they had this, the detective type story. It's the first time you kind of really

saw the detective story inside of the Batman finally get to see and be a detective. So you're fidgetter, huh? Haven't I always been? Yeah. Fucked with stuff on the table. Yeah, you're making, making noise like my, like my kids. I like it. Awesome. You know, I just saw a comment in your chat, just only because I thought it was amazing. Sure. Guy just said, I know Ben from his Magic the Gathering videos.

Cool to see him here. Yeah. That was the old days. It used to be, oh, it was always, if I popped up in magic, I'd be like, oh, I know you from Schmoda out of movies. This is so wild. I didn't know you played magic. Yeah. That's funny to me. Well, it's funny because I think you're, you know, we're going to talk about that too.

You're building up quite a new following through magic and everything. It's amazing. Yeah. So we'll discuss all that more. But I do want to get into the game stuff. I want to get into the magic gathering stuff. I want to talk about all that. But before we even do it, I want to get your opinions, guys, on what you think about

Superman. Is it going to make a billion dollars? You think so? Yes. Do you think so? No. Put your thoughts in there. Let me know. Go to the Clips channel. If you haven't already subscribed to the clips channel. We're approaching 9,000 subscribers on that channel. You can watch the entire show on that channel. So make sure, and you do it in segments. So make sure you do that. All right, before we get to the next topic, before we talk to Ben a little bit more, I'm going to tell you about two of our wonderful sponsors here today. Let's talk about both of them. I told you guys about, about the hydro machine. I've told you you're gonna you're gonna love it. So let me say about both of them right now. Here it is. You know, I was at the airport and TSA agent made fun of my

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because you've been helping out the show tremendously when you do that, both Hydro and Ridge. They're both going to help you out tremendously. I've been going to the gym a lot, and like I said, in the weekends, I got Hydro. It's been super, super helpful. Here at Ben Bateman, Ben, you know, I know you're a very competitive person. I am.

So I know you don't know about the new game that we've been doing on the show. But so you see right now, you see where you have 18, the start on 18 questions right there on the top, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. So we've been doing a thing for the last, it's got to be at least four or five months. So during the week, the co-host, basically, I have different co-hosts on every day. Your guest co-hosts this week, so you got a chance. Right now, Steph Sabraaw is in the lead with 85. You got 85 questions.

85 questions. like stream labs is that the deal not stream labs just just just just just questions i don't do the stream labs anymore just do super jet so it's like so basically they ask a question and by the end of it we'll basically we'll do all the topics and then for the last hour we'll do any questions that they want keep us on for the long as you want but no no guest has come in yet and won so wait sorry no guest has come in yet in one no guest host no like it's usually been the regular host like so like like you know obviously you got uh roka roxy uh steff um then Mike Kalinowski,

Winston and Koi. Okay. So this this week, you're the only guest host on today, and so you got a shot to take out staff at 85. We got to get 86. You need to get 86. Well, not to win because you still have Winston and Koi tomorrow that can take that out. I always say,

and I'll tell you what, if Ben and Ben has no idea who this is. If you get Ben to 100 today, he'll have a full-on conversation with big balls. It's another one of these characters that exists from this show, probably Brett in a wig or something like that. Some sort of sound word drop. Something like that.

Animated something or other. You'll see. Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's talk about this game, dude. So you told me, you call me about it. I guess shit, man.

I must spend about a year ago. Yeah, a little less than probably, yeah. So where did all this thumb from? Show the people. Yeah, yeah. So this game right now, you can go buy at a source called the cast list. I designed this game. It's for the company Kess, which is a games and toy company I've worked with quite a long time now.

We got into the game space a few years ago, and we started having a conversation about making a movie trivia game, puzzle solving trivia, whatever you want to call it, because it's one specific kind of game, right? It's not like just hard trivia. And it's funny because I'm the VP sales of that company. So I don't do game design primarily. But Alex, who owns the company, was like, we should make a movie trivia game. I think he knew he was intercepting me. He was sort of like, if I start this thing, you're just going to take it over because there's no way. And it's exactly what happened.

He was like, I think it would kind of work like this. And I was like, just give me the thing. And I started writing it. It's been really fun. We spent six months testing it and kind of coming up with the format of the game. You can open it up here. Maybe I'll play with you on the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then, you know, we have really, we have strong relationships with Walmart, Target, Barnes & Noble, all these guys. And so Barnes was our launch partner. So it's at Barnes & Paper Source right now, Amazon, a bunch of other places and probably going into some bigger retailers. I won't share, because I think I can't do it on air, but there's a large retailer that we work with, a huge one.

And it turns out that the buyer, the person who would make that decision, was a gigantic modem. You told me that. Yes, it's amazing. Which was pretty wild to find out. And when I met that buyer,

it was really cool that we reminisced. Yes. We were talking about favorite moments and all these things, which was, hey, director, what's up. And we, pay attention,

pay attention. Yeah. And we were having an absolute blast. So it's super, super fun to play. There's actually, you wrote a one of the things in here. There's about, there's about 10 different Schmodan people who kind of wrote some of the premises. But the basic premise of the game, we can rip this thing open. Sure.

Is basically you draw a card and it's got an actor and actress on it. And you need to figure out who the common actor or actresses by name two movies. So the whole sort of premise behind the game is that it's a different game every single time you play it because the people that you're playing with are going to know different things. so like this open here. By the way, there's a note to to the audience. Yes, it's crooked. It's not artistically on purpose.

The studio is? Yeah, the light shot. I did a little. Episode of Sopranos or something. Oh man, I'm trying to open this thing out. Mike Joyce, my harshest critic.

So then I open this one. I'm struggling to open my own. Let's see. Right. Well, try that. Hey, give me,

watch it's a trick. You see this. Watch this city. Use this cable. And now it doesn't work, of course. I'm impressed. Almost here. How about a screw? That's a good one.

That's a good one. That'll work. Destroy the cards. Screw you, cards. You're like, that's screw you. I'm really clever. Fuck this, Ben. Can't get it. Can't get it.

I can't get it. I don't. The game's good. Yeah, should have open this before we started the show. Vamp, Christian. I'd say I have a better idea. I'm a better idea. So I'm going to show Chris Carr's thing in a little bit.

Why don't we open it during that break? Okay. And then we'll come back and play it later. But so, and then the other thing. So I'm going to put a link. we'll have PLD maybe because you coming in here the only time I've seen PLD in eight months

Yeah So PLD is you and Ed Harris If I get Ed Harris and he'll be And I'm sure he would have been here If Andrew Guy was here too Andrew was supposed to be on the show Was he? Yeah I had to it was me

I had to reschedule it for some I can't remember what happened But I had to schedule when he was doing Yeah well because he's on TV He was excellent on the show He was excellent How good was he? He was really really good

I really wish that it was seen in the first episode and he starts that he's just like you're like oh this is this is he was absolutely excellent and i wanted to talk to him but anyway that's the only time i get peeled in here is when you guys are in here otherwise i have to like you know send a telegram or something um or pretend them at harris uh through a voice modulator i got this thing open oh you did all right so here's how the game would work right so if i's playing with you christian i would pull a card and there's five movies listed on this card right and so i have to look at these think and i'm going to name two of these and there's a common actor or actress but what's going to be

most confusing to you i'm trying to stump you that's the idea right so if If I was the name like, you're pretty good at movie trivia, you'll probably know this. What have I said like 16 candles, 1984 and hot tub time machine, 2010? John Cusa. Okay, so you get, so for that one, because you got it on the first guess, you'd get four points. Nice. So then we just won the whole game. You draw cards.

Now you're going to name two, see if you can figure out. You know that I can't see, right? It's a great ad for the game. It's so bad. It's so bad. Oh, so I don't want to read the name up top, obviously. No, no, because you got to pick which two movies. you think it will be most confusing for me.

Oh, got it. Got it. Okay. Failure to launch. Okay. 2006. Yeah. And honeymoon in Vegas, 1992.

I, failure to launch in honeymoon in Vegas? Yeah. Is that, um. Did I just show you the card? No. I mean,

I thought I was going to know it right away. Is that Michael Douglas? Certainly isn't. It was Sarah Jessica Parker. Well, but then he's supposed to name a third movie. Oh, it doesn't matter.

So with that, I won the game. Just like that. That's how easy it is. That's how easy it is. So yeah, you basically go back and forth. You play on teams. The way that it's the most fun is when you play with teams because then you guys are taking turns, like who's figuring out.

That's fun. They're asking. And then at the end of it, once you've won, let's say, you know, you win these cards, John Cusackardus here, Jessica Parker card. There's these fake movie synopsies that are written. They're kind of like Madlips. Christian wrote one. I wrote one.

Andrew wrote one, Dan Merle wrote one Snyder, a bunch of old Schmod on people, Draco. And so you're basically reading your silly movie synopsis with the A. So it's an easy game. It's 20 bucks at retail. I was going to say, where do they get it? Yeah, Barnes & Noble right now, paper source, Amazon. You're going to see it at more places as well as it continues to roll out. Probably, you know, your local game stores have it.

They're buying it. Okay. Well, I was going to ask, I ought to do this. Peelty probably already put it in twice and probably put it on the top of the description. So if you can, PLD, if you haven't already, please throw that in there. If you can. Well, there you go, guys. I mean, that's great news that Ben's doing that.

So please go and check that out and check out the game. Do you want to jump to another story? Yeah, sounds good. All right, let's do it. We got another story that's going on here today. And the Marvel chief of TV is talking about how they're going to approach their new series. I think this is kind of needed. After going all in on streaming during the pandemic, Disney has been pulling back.

Disney has been pulling back since late 2023, especially regarding its Marvel Studios fair. Not only is the studio. the number of Marvel series productions that will air each year down to just one or two live action series. But also the plan is to move back to more TV-like efforts for the small screen. That means less costly ones off event, less costly one-off event series revolving around big screen characters, whether it's Hawkeye, Wanda Vision, Secret Invasion, and tied into movie continuity. Instead, it's more about projects conceived as TV series from the ground up, multi-season shows on tighter budgets and with minimal ties to the big screen MCU,

Both Ironheart and Wonder Man were conceived of, and Ironheart was filmed before the shift that took place in the 2020 strikes. The recent Daredevil Born Again, however, marks the first real example of the new status quo. Appearing at the Disney up front this week, Marvel television boss Brad Winderbaum, spoke with the Hollywood reporter about the new approach and how it will work. Namely, there will still be connections, but there'll be cameos or guest appearances that won't impact the larger MCU storylines. So producing shows with marquee names and made it really challenging to produce second seasons. since the margins on TV are smaller. Looking to the future, does it mean that we won't have big Avengers names?

No, they may not be the titular characters of the show, but they can still make appearances. You should be able to watch these shows on their own without knowing the overall MCU's story. But if it's not connected, it's severing what makes the MCU the MCU. Marvel is also reportedly taking a wait and see approach when it comes to the potential second season for Ironheart and Wonder Man series and if they'll be part of the new paradigm. Okay, so, all right, Ben, you hear all that and you hear that new. approach. Good idea, bad idea. What do you think? Well, so I just actually started now after seeing Thunderbolts as we get ready as we get closer to Doomsday. I decided I was going to go back and do the MCU rewatch, but I was going to try to do it 100% without any TV. I didn't want to watch

a single piece of television because I thought, you know, we all know that's where Marvel went wrong. We all know the Disney Plus thing in 2020 was the most catastrophic course correction that any studios ever had for their IP specifically for the MCU. And so I think that the idea that you're focusing on shows that can be enjoyed without the movies is a good idea. They'll get less traction, definitely. They'll be unsuccessful, I think, overall. They need to make sure the production budgets are lower

like TV used to be. I think when they started to spend $200 million on making Falcon on the Winter Soldier is where they really go wrong because now the show has to have this kind of significance that it's not able to have. So I think that that's probably the right thing. Look, the reality of everything we're talking about

as far as Marvel goes on the MCU hinges entirely on what happens fantastic for the doomsday. Because if it doesn't work, if it fails, I just think whatever audience that is still invested a little bit, which is significantly reduced

from what it used to be, is gone. Like my confidence as a viewer, Thunderbolts was the first really good thing I'd seen in a while, right? You liked that bull Wolverine? I liked it. Right.

But I wouldn't call it really good. I would call it good. It was fun. It was a fun movie. Definitely the best one prior to Thunderbolt. It was more like a comedy that was almost taken. It was like the,

I always, Now I've been comparing it to where Thor, Love and Thunder is a bad Saturday Night Live version of the MCU. Dead Pull Wolverine is the good Saturday Live version of the MCU. It was enjoyable for sure. And I like the cameos. They worked for the story. But I agree with you. Yeah.

It also felt a little bit not really like MCU, like a little cheap because. Which one? Dead Bull Wolverine? Yeah, because it's bringing all the Fox stuff into it. So it doesn't totally feel like it's existing inside the world. And I think that Thunderbolts is the first true MCU movie we've got probably since, well, even Garden of the Galaxy 3, which I loved, was more of a ending to the overall trilogy

than it was a continuation of the MCU. And I like that movie. That was a good movie. So I think that Thunderbolts gave me enough hope and excitement. That's what got me to start doing this rewatch. I was like, oh, this is fun. I enjoyed liking this movie. That I really believe that the next couple years here,

if the movies aren't good, I don't think the TV thing even has legs. I think it's going to, it'll come and go. If the movies are good, I think there's an appetite for television. But remember, prior to the MCU and Disney Plus, this wasn't a paradigm. existed. We're all acting like we've had this forever in movies. Prior to 2008, this was not

something that anyone expected. If you made a spinoff TV show of a popular movie, it almost always failed. Or it was after the movie had been successful, then the show was on TV just to continue the IP on cable. But a lot of times they didn't get the actual star, though. Correct. Yeah. Usually they didn't. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, look, I agree with you. And I think that here's the thing with what they did with the MCU. And, you know, they hit this level of success. Then you had, what's his face? Bob Chepec, no Chepec, who wanted to just push everything out there

and say, TV's movie, TV, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more. And you made it like homework for the audience. Yeah. And then you didn't even pay attention to it and you tried to lie about it. And I've used this example a million times. But I always bring up Dr. Strange part two. Because it might be the worst emceeer you movie. I didn't love the movie either, but more so

because of the interview that Feige gave and they said, do you need to watch Wanda Vision before this? And he's like, no, you don't need to watch. What are you talking about? The whole thing is about her and her kids and why she loses her mind about it because of everything that had happened and the end of Wanda Vision is how she gets told Darkhold.

So I mean, in a sense, you had to watch that show. Yeah. I am actually, I've been doing a rewatch of the MCU over the last like five months with my friend Sam. She had never seen a single movie. No, we just, so we actually put it up on the channel and it's got, it's got, you know, we're right now, we weren't going to do TV, but we are doing TV.

But dude, it's like, it's good. She's enjoying them and it's good to revisit it. But it's taking forever to get through the MCU. Yeah. Because there's just so much. Like today we're recording the last episode of Hawkeye. Oh yeah. And then we're doing the first two episodes of Moonnight.

And then our next shoot day is the next two episodes of Moon and then it's right. That's around the time I stopped. Right. That's around the time I stopped watching. Because you just had too much. And I didn't love them. I, like Wanda Vision, I think is quite good.

I enjoyed Wanda Vision a lot. Falcon of the Winter Sorgia has its moments but I don't think it's great but it has its moments Loki is great the first season of Loki is great Did you see a second see here? I never watched it's really good And then the fourth one which is Hawkeyes the fourth show I think Yeah is fine and it's pretty enjoyable actually think that show's kind of cute And then Moon Night and Miss Marvel's where it starts to

And I actually think it was Marvel's cute I just didn't care enough to keep watching it I'd stop Moon Night after two episodes just didn't care enough Is this too much going on and I think that this strategy of what they're doing here Like if you don't if you decided because here's the difference what you just said there, right? If you bailed, there were times, now if you went and gone to see, you know, the, the marvels, right?

You're going to be lost because you wouldn't know who she was, who Miss Marvel was, right? Or, yeah, right. So you would be, you'd be like, oh, I don't know who that is. I don't know who the parents are. I'm not invested. Same thing with, even with Thunderbolts. There are times a lot of things with Thunderbolts where people,

if you didn't watch those shows, John Walker. You do not have the same connection with John Walker. you don't, I mean, Elena shows up in Hawkeye also, but you got to see the black widow. You have to see the movie, but it's like you have to have the, I mean, Valentina shows up in a couple of the shows too. So by doing what the strategy they're doing now is saying, okay, you want to watch Deer Rebel? Great. We're proud of it. You should watch it. But if you don't, it's not going to make you confused when you see the next movie. The issue with the whole premise was that as soon as you could miss one, you could miss all of them.

That's the whole thing. That's the whole, that's the whole entire issue. with not just the Marvel part of it, but the Disney Plus part of it, right? I used to watch every Pixar movie the same way. The minute there was a Monsters University TV show, the minute that there was straight to streaming Pixar movies that didn't feel like events anymore, I stopped watching and I stopped caring, right?

Which is like weird, but they had gotten me hooked as this Disney guy where I would go to the theater and see everything. Even in the days that I couldn't screen stuff and go for Disney screenings, I would pay and I would go on opening night, right? And I just think that that that paradigm shift that has happened in the post-COVID world for most people is, you know, now you feel comfortable missing stuff. And it's also because you do have an opportunity now to find stuff on streaming that if it's not connected to film and it just shows in general the kind of quality you get on TV now. Oh my gosh.

In general, it's just crazy. It's incredible. So the balance has to be why make me feel like going to the movies is special, but don't make me feel like it's homework. And I think that this strategy is the right strategy. I really do think it is. And I think that what they're, and this is even what I said. I haven't had a chance to see the Ironheart trailer.

I heard it was good. I saw a version of a trailer about three years ago when they were working on this thing. Ryan Cougar came out. But there's make no mistakes about it. They waited to release this trailer until sinners came out. Yeah. And rightfully so. And they go, look, here's what we're going to do.

Let's see. Yeah, from producer Ryan Couglas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see how. heat. Let's see how this movie does sinners. And we think it's going to do really well. And then it crushes. Yeah. And people are going, make that, start promoting it and put his name out first, as they should. A hundred percent. That's good business. I, there's another thing that I just

didn't believe when I saw Black Panther 2. Yeah. And it was like when they put Ree Re in there, you're like, well, this is clearly them just setting up this television show. Yeah. They're throwing this in there. They're kind of like jamming it in there to set it up. And he's No, no, no, there was always the plan. We didn't even think there was going to be a TV show. I don't believe that. Yeah. I think that that was the day when everybody was getting TV shows.

They're like, here's another character who won't have a TV show. Yeah. And then they gave her so much to do. I didn't think it was strong in that movie, but people are saying that the trailer is strong. So maybe that's where that character lives on television. Yeah, I want to make it to say people here saying they still love Pixar. Hey, listen, I love the movies I love. And if a movie is good and I eventually get to it, I'm all about it.

And I certainly don't begrudge anybody for if you want to watch every show or I watch every movie, 100%. enjoy it. Like I used to be more in that world than I am now. And so I would watch everything. Yeah. But I just, I just like being a little less connected to the daily heartbeat of movies has made those like, it's made the secondary stuff. Yeah. It seemed totally irrelevant as an audience member. Sure. I just don't pay attention to that stuff. It has to be bigger for me to want to talk about it. Yeah. And I think that's what ultimately that they're trying to do here. And I think by doing that and saying, all right, Ben, don't worry about it. Don't watch the shows. It's fine. But watch our movie.

because we have Thunderbolts, we have Fantastic Four, we have the next two Avengers movies coming out, and then we're going to go into the X-Men movies. Then you start to get excited. I'm excited about that, yeah, I should just describe that. I mean, that's their plan. That little post-credit scene in Thunderbolts, the little three minutes at the end.

Yeah, it's great. It got me hyped. Yeah. And that's the plan. The plan is, okay, let's focus on the movies again and not worry about all of the stuff together, even though it's fun and you do get, like they said, we're not like pretending that it's not part of it.

Yeah. Even in Daredewell, they reference Spider-Man. You know, I don't think you ever see Spider-Man, but they, but they certainly referenced it. Anyway, what do you guys make of this? You think it's a good move, bad move? What say you? Put your thoughts in there. Let me know.

You know, we mentioned beforehand, we were talking about animation, one of the best series, animated, non-animated, arcane. You watch it yet? I never watched it. I heard it was so good. It's so good. Both seasons are just brilliant. It's just brilliant. It was such a great one of my favorite shows.

You play a lot of legal legends? No, I never played any of it. But I just fell in love with the characters in general with the animation style. Like it was, it's one of the best animated things I've seen in a very, very long time. Yeah. And it's just, it's gorgeous. So our mutual friend, Marshall, who reached out and said, hey, do you want to, you know, I know you're a big Arcane fan. Would you like to talk to some of the team that did Arcane season two?

And I was like, oh my God, I love to. So I had a screening at something else. And I was like, who do I know that is a major Arcane fan? Is it Chris Carr? Chris Carr is a big, huge Arcane fan. I reached out to Chris and I said, hey, I have this opportunity. Would you be interested? And she was.

So Chris Carr had an opportunity to talk to the team over Arcane. So I'm going to play her interview and then we'll be back in just a second. So let's get in. Christian, I am here with some of the amazing folks behind Arcane. Christian Link, Bart Minori, and Amanda Overton. You guys, thank you so much for chatting with me today. How are y'all doing? Very good.

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, season two is so, so great, you guys. It is as brutal as it is gorgeous. We get these epic, beautifully choreographed fights paired with incredibly nuanced character work that really builds off the relationships that you all established in season one. Can you guys walk me through striking that balance of action

and emotion? And is there a particular character journey that you're you're most proud of or that's your favorite. I think the balance, I mean, that's the tricky part, right? Yeah. The balance, I mean, someone at some point said to me that, you know, if, you know, character and plot, like if you only have character, you know, you get bored.

If you only have plot, you don't care, you kind of have to find that, you know, that balance. And so I think that's always been, you know, the challenge, but I think over the years, you know, when you spend 10 years now in total on Arcane, like you kind of find your, your approach, you know, with the team. Favorite character arc?

I don't know. There's so many. There's many. There's many. Well, I'll say, like, when I'm writing an action sequence, I always treat it like a dramatic, any dramatic character sequence I'm working on. I always try and, you try to discover something new. You try to, whatever choices they make in the fight scene,

need to reflect something about their character or tell you something new. And so even in the fight scenes, we're trying to land some, sort of emotional beat that makes you like, you know, lean in the way you would in any dramatic scene. So I think that also probably helps the balance. Yeah, absolutely. That totally makes sense. I'd pick Vi. Since she's one of my favorite character, yeah, I'd pick her for like the, for the character arc where she's coming from, where she's going to, and yeah, that's my personal favorite.

What do you like about it? I know, you know, she's the older sister and the older brother. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I relate somehow. Obviously she's strong. She has a flows, but I feel like she's very human and that's why I like about her. Yeah. I think someone that never gives up even when you probably should is something that everyone wishes

they could be. You know, and then putting jinx in her position in season two, then she got to kind of see what her sister went through and they really got to come to an understanding at the end. I really like the, how those arcs mirrored each other was, I thought, really great. Awesome. Well, and you guys have such great characters to work with from the jump here too. And video games for years have had these incredible characters, but we sort of had this video game curse, if you will, for adapting IP. So really, man, I want to talk to you about this specifically, is when you're in the adaptation process,

how do you decide what you want to keep to kind of honor the original IP and keep pitch perfect? And what do you know to alter? What do you know to play with? I mean, it was a scary one from the beginning to think about how do we adapt this, you know? I think it has to start with being part of the audience, you know, like you have to be kind of selfish and like I want to make this, you know,

we want to make this for ourselves because we are fans of the game, of these characters. And so I think that's, I think what has been really hard for Hollywood, you know, for a long time. That the like the hired gun approach just, doesn't really work when it comes to these things that need to be authentic, right? I mean, our audience can tell if we didn't actually play the game. And so I think that's what it starts with.

It's just this genuine desire that this needs to exist. And I think then really figuring out what are the truths of the characters that cannot change, that must be true, and then kind of thinking about, okay, how do we bring the best version out? I mean, I remember in the beginning, there's a lot of qualities about jinx, for example, that that are pretty set in stone, kind of like how manic she is, chaotic, kind of like this, this weapons tinker. But the second you start asking questions, well, how did she turn out this way? Like what happened between the two sisters?

Like that's really the playground for us to then go, well, there's a story to be told, just because we do actually have that question ourselves. So I think it's just really getting to understand also like how does our audience really see those characters and where do we really have to understand that we cannot break the truths. Yeah, and then having that sort of structure around the character, then everybody on the team, like the artists, the character designers, the writers, we all kind of poured a part of ourselves into that framework. And then, you know, when this whole team found something personal in what they were doing, I think other people saw that personal touch too.

So thank you again to Chris Carr for doing it. That was amazing that you. She did that. I was so excited to hear her talking to them and everything that she did for us. And she's the best. She's going to be on the show more, by the way, too. That's old junkin interviews. I used to do a lot of those. I haven't done them in a while. But when you talk to people about a project you really love it. It's so fun. The hardest part about it, that job is that you get called in to talk about. Right. When you get to do the thing like that, hey, you love Arcane. Go talk to the people. That's the best. That's the best. It's the best. Okay. So before we're going to get to one more story and then we're going to get to your questions and a couple other things. Ben Bateman, again, is here with the cast list. And Ben, we're going to do now that we get the game open, we want to make sure that we can get a full run-down for people

who don't know what's going on with the game itself. Let's play another version. I'm like, I was like, let's, I want to know more. Yeah, fumbled through the pre-year. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the cast list, I mean, as I mentioned a second ago, I worked with this company and I got to design a movie trivia game, basically. And I talk about Schmodown and the classic world competing in the world

championship movie trivia with people. all the time. So it was really just like a love letter to my experience getting to compete in that. The basic premise of the game is that there's two decks of cards and you draw a card basically. There's five movies on every single card, one actor or actress. And the idea is you're supposed to have the other person or team guess who's the common actor or actor. So like if I pulled this card and I'm like Christian, all right, what actor or actress is in Road to Perdition, 2002 and the Hudsucker Proxie in 2002 and the HUDsucker Proxie in 2002 and the HUDsucker Proxie 202 and the HUD, Paul Newman. Correct. My favorite actor of all time. Right. So he would get, he would take out this little point sheet here and Christian would get three points on his point sheet for having done that. There's a timer that comes in it for 30 seconds and there's a couple decks of cards. But the sort of idea is that it's a different game every time you play it. Because the people you're playing with, you're like, oh, you don't know anything about animated. I'm going to pick the animated movie. Right, right, right. Right. The order of the car are totally up to you. There's a lab on every card. And so, you know, you get a timer for 30 seconds. And then at the end of the game, there's a, a movie, basically, basically like a madlib movie premise.

There's like 12 of them, I think. You actually wrote one of these. Yeah. And a lot of these are actually written by movie trivia Shmodan people. So it's one here by Kevin Smets. There's one by Dan Merle. There's one by Andrew Guy, Jason Inman. A lot of great Shemodon players.

And it's sort of, you know, you win three cards, let's say, they're now your actors. So it'd be like, after narrowly escaping the clutches of a fellow mutant monster marriage, the bride, played by Paul Newman, survived, blah, blah, blah, that kind of a thing. And so, yeah, it's currently out there. It's doing really well at retail. So this is on shelf at Barnes & Noble, at paper source.

You can get at your local game stores. It's on Amazon doing well. And you're going to start to see it kind of roll out to more and more major retailers over the next year. But it's $20 at retail. And this was just for me, it was a dream. I'd get to test all of our games. You know, our company has a one piece game in the market, two Sonic games, a mega man game game, a bunch of really fun stuff in the license world. And I test all those games. So I have a lot of ideas about game design. And this is the first time I really designed a game. And I just think I've enjoyed testing it and playing it and we all are very competitive in the office. I love that.

And you guys can get the game. The link is in the description. And I already saw some people in the chat saying that they just did that. So there you go. Make sure you check out castless. Ben Bateman who is responsible for that. Again, former movie trivia Shmodown champion of the world. So thank you for bringing that in here, man.

I'm very excited. So it's on the shelf now. There you go. Well, there you go. All right. Let's go to this. Let's say right now, Ben, you are at 28 questions. Yeah.

28. It's not bad before we get into the issue. We got to get that up, right. That's okay though. So normally, just so you know, once you get to the, it's used about an hour into when we start answering the questions. Yeah. Okay.

And so normally when you got around between 30 or 40 going into it, you're in good shape. Yeah. So you're looking good so far with 28 before we even hit the hour mark. It's not bad. If anybody wants to send me, I'll Venmo you the money back to you just so we can beat the other. I think that's true though. I don't think it'll happen.

I don't think you're going to do that. So let's get into the topic here, which I find very interesting. This is something that came out. I don't know. When did they release? Wait, oh, I have to stop this video. I'm going to stop this. You're like actually, we weren't live during any of that.

I was just kidding. I don't know this. So Brendan Scenor. Oh, yeah. It's like the next big movie stuff. This ends with us, drop. Yeah. Did you see, did you watch?

1923. No. It's fantastic in that. Jacked in this picture. Yeah. So he's, this guy, he's the next, he's like the next guy. Now, the people, whether or not he's going to be, um, Batman or not, we'll see, but is he the frontrunner right now? He's the main, he's a big, a lot of people included myself think that he should be. And he's been asked about it a lot, but, um, we'll see. I don't think Alarichson's the right for Batman. I think he'd be good for other things.

Back in the mid 2010's following his success with paying the scripts for a clean movie Sicario and Hell or Highwater, Taylor Sheridan wrote the script for an action thriller named Fast. The story concerns a former Special Forces Commando down on his luck after he returns home, who is tapped by the DEA to lead a black-op strike against CIA protected drug dealers in this town. Warner's picked it up with Sheridan initially indicating he wanted to direct, and Chris Pratt was circling the star. Gavin O'Connor was linked as director at one point. However, Warner's then-owners-A-T didn't see the upside of a mid-budget film, 60 to 70 as it was too expensive for a streaming launch and had little upside theatrically.

As the pandemic hit, the project was put into turnaround. Years later, and following Sheridan's success with the Yellowstone franchise, Warner Brothers Discovery has reacquired the property in a deal which will see the film not only being made, but also fast-track for an April 23rd, 2027 release. Sheridan has a strict exclusive deal with Paramount, but Warner's chief, David Zazlov, made it a priority to come to an agreement with Paramount, which will allow Sheridan to write and produce. 1923 actor Brendan Scler and director cinematographer Ben Richardson are both attached to produce

Jenny Wood, David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford will also produce through their heyday films and Boss Ranch labels. I think this is a very interesting story, Ben, and I'll tell you why. Yeah. Well, you know, I've been talking about how I think Schenner should be Batman as we just opened that up. Oh, so you do think that. Oh, yeah.

I think he's, I think he's the guy. I think he, 1923, we were watching with my wife and I was like, before, even when the hype wasn't even there. And we were saying, who the hell is this guy? Some people you watch you, that guy just has the thing. Yeah.

He has the thing. So then there's a lot of, been a lot of hype behind it. But obviously makes a lot of sense that Taylor Sheridan, who created 1923, would want to have Brendan Skunar in his movie. The interesting part is that you've got Warner Brothers now taking this and wanting it and fast-tracking it.

with all the hype around him and Warner Brothers Batman. Yeah. I think that this is a very good indication that Brendan Scunar will be, if not Batman, he will be in talks for something in DC also. Sure. But this is one of these first, because he was in that movie drop. Yeah. And he was very good in it, but he wasn't the star.

Yeah, yeah. And he had a lot of screen time, but he wasn't the star. He has not had a chance to star in a movie yet. This is one of those. I don't know if the other movie that he stars in will come out first. He was in the Blake Glyle movie that has a little controversial. But this will be his first starring role. And I think this is kind of based on what 1923 was his personality.

He's got a Sydney-Sweeney movie they have been to impress on too. Oh, that's right. But again, but she's going to be the star of that. Yeah. This is going to be like his lead movie. And this is the way that I think it goes down. Yeah, no, I think it's interesting. Look, I think that Taylor Sheridan, there was a moment in that guy's career.

Yeah, which is funny because the most impressive moment in his career is actually the pre-yellowstone moment. He's now a name in a way that like, I think most of us are sort of like roll our eyes a little bit. Like his name is on something. I'm like, I just,

that just means that's going to be self-serious. That doesn't mean it's going to be good. The beginning of his career though. Really? First three, the first three were great. Hellar high water, Wind River,

which is my favorite movies of all time. And Sicario are all fantastic. I think you got into that next phase, those who wish, those who wish me dead. Oh, right. That was, that was no remorse. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There was like three or four in a row. Okay. Sicario two. They were all like, these are, these are scripts that have his name, but I feel like they got rewritten and they're selling off of his name.

And then he became the Yellowstone guy, which is a whole different thing. Okay. Because like now the world's like Yellowstone, Taylor shared it. I'm looking at the beginning of his career and I'm going, those were amazing scripts. And that's the version of this that I want.

So if we got that version and what you're describing and Gavin directed it, that sounds like he's not going to now. No, it was like Taylor's going to direct it. Yeah. Yeah. And Taylor and Taylor directed, uh,

wind river, which is of those three movies. Right. It's the best one in my opinion. So I think it we are, I think it's going to be good for both of them. Yeah. And it's interesting. And it's just the fact that Warner Brothers went out of their way.

Yeah. To make a deal with paramount. Yeah. To get it done means that A, they want to be in the Taylor Sheridan business. Yep. And B, they want to be in the Brendan Scunar business. Yeah.

Makes a lot of sense. What do you guys think about it? Put your thoughts in there. Let me know. I got to hear. All right. We're going to get into your questions because we have, we have quite a few already. We're going to do that.

We have 32. 32 so far as we lead into it. But before we do, do you use cash app, Ben? Do I use cash app? Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. You got to pay me?

To use cash app? I'll tell you, you can, you should check out cash app and people aren't. It's the only way really to do it. So let me tell you about cash app. You know, a lot of times, especially for my business, I got to find ways to send people Kashish, you got to send them cash. And it's so frustrating some of these programs. whether you get a big fee that they include is like, oh, we're going to take, yeah, we can send it, but we're going to take 80%.

It's like, what? And sometimes you send the money by accident to the wrong person and you're like, oh, no, how do I get that back? And sometimes you just try to get the cash. And then there's like, oh, there's a processing delay. And they don't really tell you why. Well, not anymore. Because cash app, that's the way to go. Why?

Cash app is a safe. It's easy. It's a fast way to send, receive, and transfer money to family and friends. It's so easy to get. started. It's like, you know, I get frustrated with stuff quick. I didn't have to call Brett for this one. I just did it. I just signed up. Money shows up right away. You don't have to wait around for days. It's your money. You don't have to wait for it. And the best part is that they also have your back. It's about sending money. And if you're going to send money and you're going to send it to a

sketchy account or a scam, there's a warning that pops up. You feel more relaxed knowing the cash app has your back? You should because that's how I felt. If you don't have cash app, I'm going to ask you this question. What the hell is wrong with you? Get it. It's so easy. You can just, next time, by the way, when you're at dinner with somebody, like, I'll get you back next time. You go, nope, we can just split it through cash app. I'll let them get away with it. Limited time only. New cash app users can use our exclusive code to earn some additional cash. For real, no catch. You just download cash app and sign up. Use our exclusive referral code, Christian, in your profile. Send $5 to a friend within 14 days, and you're going to

to get $10 dropped right into your account. Terms apply, that's money, that's Cash App. Thank you, Cash App. Appreciate it. Again, links are in the description for all this. If you want to help out the show, continue to help out the show. That's how you do it, man. You help out the show by doing. My perfect day has sand, saltwater, and friends, but my moderate to severe plexeriasis can take me out of the moment. Now I'm all in with clearer skin thanks to Sky Rizzi. Rizzen Kizum at Riza, a prescription only 150, mil, injection for adults who are candidates for systemic or phototherapy. With Skyrizzi, most people saw 90% clearer skin and many were even 100% plaque-free at four

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Ask your doctor about Skyrizzi, the number one dermatologist prescribed biologic in psoriasis. Visit Skyrizzi.com or call 1-866 Skyrizzi to learn more. Okay, so let's do this. You know, what I realized inside the studio, it's different. I probably do a wine shop. You can start with this one. Darien, as a longtime fan of the action guys, I only have one question. Isn't it ironic, Tony?

Isn't it ironic, Tony? He's amazing. I just rewatched it. Tony Stark built us in a cave with Scraps. I mean, I love that movie so much. The rewatch on it was like reminded me how good it is. And it feels good in a whole different way now because you're like all these years that have passed. That's the best superhero origin story.

It's a good one. It's so fun to watch him become Iron Man. It's a really good one. So thank you, Daryan, for that one. Al Rensha, thought on the Nobody 2 trailer. It looks like a lot of fun and you know what you're getting. I love the first nobody and still want him to meet Wick. Can they meet with?

Is it the same, is it the same studio? I'm not sure. That would be great if they could. I did not see the second trailer yet. I've been trying, unless I'm doing like a reaction to them, I'm avoiding trailers now. Yeah, I feel the same way. I don't watch trailers in.

I feel the same way. Because I just feel like I want to get excited organically and then see everything for the first time. Well, you know you just mentioned drop, right? Yeah. I had never seen a trailer for it when I got the screening, walked in knowing nothing about the movie. Yeah.

I love going into movies like that, knowing absolutely nothing about it, sitting down and just experiencing it. like I said, if there's certain trailers that I'm going to be watching, whether it's a Thunderbolts or Superman, whatever it might be, I'll watch the trailers. But movies like Nobody Too, just show me the movie. I don't need to see the trailer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I never saw nobody won, honestly. Oh, you'd love that movie. Yeah, you'd love that movie. Yeah, okay, so next one after that is Jose Diaz. What's up, Jose? What's up, guys? Hey, Christian, would you be up for a Lutthin and Young Clea series?

Their flashbacks for gold. So the answer is no. I wouldn't be up for it. And I'll tell you why, not because I didn't love it. I loved, loved, loved that storyline. I think we got a good backstory with it. I think the more you dive into it and then you start to dilute it with more episodes and more things you don't need. I don't think you need it.

Now, to be fair, I said the same thing about Andor. I said, I don't know if you need a full season on Andor. Boy, was I wrong? Both seasons of Andor easily, the best written thing, best thing Lucas film and Star Wars has done since Empire Strikes back easily. So I say no. No, because I don't think you need it, but, you know, who knows? But I'd probably say no. And then Jose follows it up.

Subway series this week can go Yankees, boo Soto. I'm actually going to the game on set. I'm going to the game on Saturday. That's cool. I'm buddy Fred and I're going. I'm excited. I'm going to go check that out. So if anybody's at the...

Never been to Yankees. So, you know what's funny? I've never went to the brand new one. Okay. I used to go to the old one. My dad all the time, but I hadn't been, when I was in L.A., never had a chance. I never really came back during baseball season. And one time I did one with Dagnyno to a Met game at City Field.

But I haven't been to New Yankee Stadium. So it's my first. I don't think I've ever been. I mean, I'm in New York six, seven times a year. I don't think I've ever been to a New York sporting event. Ever? I go to sporting events a lot when I'm in other cities. That's crazy.

I've seen a lot of NBA games. I just saw. I wish I would have known that because, you know, we can, we can, next time, next time you come in, if you come in, we can go like, I do. And I'm not one of these Yankee fans that won't, like, obviously I'm going to be rooting for the Yankees over the Mets. But, like, I don't root actively against the Mets. because I think it's almost like I look at it. I'm like, hey, the little guy.

Sure, sure, sure. But I still, like, I'll go to Met Games. I, actually, City Field is a great field. Is it? And it's so easy to get to where I am. It's like, hop on the train and get off there. So next time you're in town, we'll go to a Mac game or something. Rock and roll.

Rock and movies with Tyler. Ben. So technically, I've seen it thanks to Harleff Watchlong. If that doesn't count, then other than that, other than that, can't wait for you to drop your new music. Yeah, what's going on with the music? We're going to talk about it. Well, so 2021 and 22 were big music years for me.

Yeah. I just got the song in Clerks and toured and released about five songs and had a great, great time. I mean, that was some of my favorite memories of my whole life. And then 23, I did a bit, slowed down a little bit. In the last year, really, I've been kind of focused on other content. I have a session set up with my producer to go in pretty soon to start recording some covers. So probably, and then I have some stuff that I still want to record.

I'd say I'll probably be releasing some music the second half of this year. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, you only have so much energy and bandwidth. It's preaching to the choir, my friend. Jesus Fernandez, oh my God, Ben Bateman, how I've missed seeing you on my screen. Sorry for tonight. It's such a banger song. Thank you, man.

No, I'd look, it's, I, like I said, a second ago, the music period of my life, that little chapter for a few years there, hands down, some of my favorite members I've ever had. I got to meet a lot of the folks, the Shemotan community going to those shows. Touring around the country. Yeah, I met a lot of people, which was really fun. I had met him at live events, but it was different. getting to hang out in a smaller venue like that and you know play a show and go off for drinks and stuff after

i love that that's i remember you tell me about that when you were doing go pal uh have any of you seen poker face season two i haven't seen poker face season one i never watched it drew is telling me here it's yeah it's good yeah yeah yeah it's good but i haven't seen it go pal he follows it up saying i'm really interested to seeing what they're going to do with tonight's episode after what's happened so far this year which which what was wait poker face bro poker face yeah yeah yeah i watched are you watching the studio i'm like three episodes in i i'm all cut up i watch it's a one show that I can say that I'm actually caught up with. It's fun. I love that.

I'm sure you know this because I think we're both big fans of it. But when I watched the first episode, the Griffin Mill Easter egg. No? No, no. Tell me. Oh, so Cranston, you know, owns the studio, right? Yeah. And his character's name is Griffin Mill. Yeah. Do you know whose character's name that is? That's Tim Robbins from the player.

Oh, really? And I think it's supposed to be the same guy because it would make sense that he, like, gets older and he eventually owns a studio. Maybe not, but they're either just huge fans of the player. Okay. But that's one of my favorite movies. I don't know that movie well enough. Okay, yeah, I thought.

Yeah. But yes, but that's, that's interesting. Yeah, I love, absolutely love the show. Last night's show was, they go to cinema con. Okay. It's bananas. It's really, I don't want to ruin for anybody, but it's amazing career Rogan's in the He's a great producer.

He is, he's a great producer. He's a guy who just, I think that where he came from. Yeah. And then what he's done. And then the tight, he's, he's talented dramatically, comedically, the times I've interviewed him, let's spend time with him. He's so awesome. He's just, he's really, really, uh,

He's patient and he has a sense of humor about himself. I just, I like the guy a lot. Mike's movie reacts. I was right to movie madness. Sorry, Mike. Episode 10 is probably the greatest written episode of Star Wars ever and definitely my favorite episode of the whole series. I'd rank season two arcs from Best Wars four, three, two, and one.

How say you? I would go three, four, two and one personally. It's funny you say that about episode 10. I was talking to Dan about it. We were both talking about and saying episode 10 is not probably just one of the best written episode of Star Wars. It's easily one of the best written episodes of television in the last like five years. Are we talking about Andor?

Andor, end of season two. That you were talking about Star Wars episode 10A franchise installment. No, no, no, no. And I was like, did I miss a? No, no, no, no. So, episode 10 of, of Andor. Of Andor is just next level television. Gotcha.

I'm actually, so I just started season one a little bit. Okay, good. I'm just starting to get it. It's great. I'm a huge Tony Gilroy guy. Okay. Michael Clayton's all my favorite movies. Okay.

So wait. Dude, season one was, season one is great. Yeah. Season two blows it out of the water. Oh, great. Okay. Blows out of water. It's so, so good.

Okay, let's see. Next one. And thank you again for everybody. Ben's currently at 35. He's got about, he needs about 50 to tie stuff. Some more questions. Maybe. PLD projects.

Probably going to wind up sending in another 51 himself. PLD projects, just like the usual, the action army has to beat Roka. What's the number to be Roka? What's the number to be Roka? It doesn't be roca stirring the pot. I don't know what he's talking about. I got a few years. No, Roca didn't,

Roka didn't win this, isn't winning. Alan Smithy, salute by this show. Just this shows PLD hasn't been watching the show the last couple of days. Yeah. Roka was on Tuesday. Yesterday, Steph and I, Steph had 85.

The Star Wars one and the Star Wars guy doesn't watch that one. Thanks, Pellee. We have embarrassed slumping over in his chair. Go, pal. Gilroy was on with Seth Myers. I was really surprised. I guess I've never seen him his interviews because that was not the voice I expected.

Was you have a squeaky voice or something? I think he sounds about... Oh, okay. Yeah, that sounds like it. Oh, it sounds like that. Oh, it gives you more a little more gravelly. I see. PLD, there he is.

Heard Kalanowski wants another match against Bateman. PJ and I can have a match ready in 24 hours. Would you, do you ever, do you ever itch getting back in the ring? No. No, without hesitation. Dan said the same thing. Yeah, well, look, the thing is, I the memories I have of that show and when I tell people about it second to none some of the

greatest memories of my whole life I really like I I loved it so much there's a few things I've ever loved as much I love Shmowdown and that last day getting the final win when I finishing with the most wins all time like it really when I think about how many matches I played or I played almost I think I played over 60 times crazy it's so many matches to prepare for and and and so but I think about like playing now and how hard it was then when I was fully in it because my girlfriend asked me what how much time do you think you would need to compete to like really hold your yeah right and I was like I think I could I could compete has she watched all she watched all the matches no but she's but periodically when we're together

because she were long distance she'll say um like if we have 30 minutes before bed yeah so why don't watch a schmodan match because it's hilarious instead of like a movie and so she's probably seen eight or nine of the best ones okay so she's seen sweet she's seen you win the bell yeah saw that I think she probably saw like one of at least one of the top 10 matches The contentious Roco on the digital one. I think we watched that one. I think we watched Shire Wolves, Mark and I lose. Some of my favorites, we watched just because, like, I think good memories.

And also when you get to tell someone, here's the story behind this. This was going on behind the scenes. That's funny. The final Kalinowski match, which was a digital, it wasn't digital. It was on Titans. We're just yelling at each other basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Swearing.

That whole lead up to that and like the scenes, like it was the best. That's why I showed her, I think. I always get bummed about Titans because I always wish that I would have thought of Titans during the Collider area. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Titans is the best version of the Shmodo, is the best version of the Shmoto. It should have been how I conceived it in the first place. But the problem was that the pandemic had really, like, just gutted it by the time we got to Titans that, you know, it was whatever. But that lead up and that scene when Mike lunges across the table and you're laughing in his face, it's the best.

And he did, he did such a great job. Acting with them was and blocking those scenes and setting everything up was really fun. It was a lot of fun. Okay, go pal. He says, I just saw the trades reporting that Ryan Kerry Anderson from Skeleton Crew was cast in the Buffy reboot with SMG. I'm more excited about the new show now. That's great. I'm happy to hear it.

So when I saw a comment in there, someone saying, why did I hate on Skeleton Grove? That's one of the stupidest comments I've ever seen. I don't hate on it at all. I've just never saw two episodes. We were just talking about this at, Dan and I were talking about it and saying, I just watched the first two, said, not for me. Glad people are enjoying it. Really like Watts, too. I like him a lot.

But not for me. And I'm glad that people are enjoying it. I just didn't want to watch it. Now, hating it means I said that show sucks. I want nothing to do with that show. Every second I saw that show was terrible. I want nothing to do with it. It's terrible.

It's written. That's hating on it. Yeah. What I just said is not hanging on. I just didn't want to watch it. It would be critical. I just did my final fan. Everybody at my Mission Impossible ranking.

And it was like, yeah, you know, I'm going to have my opinions. You know, it's funny because I tried watching, I was going to watch, it's funny, bringing up Skeleton Grove, I was going to try to watch an episode last night. And I said, eh, I gave up on it. I said, I turned it on, I was going to turn on episode three and go, I'm going to watch it. And then I, I think I watched, I think I watched a studio. I think that's what I watched last night instead. But the thing I then I tried to watch last night is I watched the Tales from the Underworld.

It's an animated. did Star Wars thing. Oh, got it. And I watched the first episode, and I was like, let me go into it going, all right, what I'm expecting is another Dave Filoni tapping me, myself on the, on the back. These are my characters that I always play that. I'm going to, yes, I'm going to pay a little homage to the book, but I'm still going to say, those events that happened to the book, I didn't really want it to go down that way.

And I know it was an episode of Clone Wars that could turn into a book. You don't have to tell me that in the comments. But, and then I was like, well, he's going to throw in Cadbane in there. And then he's going to do the same kind of animation. the same thing. In the first episode, I'm like, okay, okay, and then after episode one, I get it, and I just turned it off. Ask you a question. Yeah. Okay, so when Star Wars,

when Force Awakens comes out, it retrains the concept, whatever, a real Star Wars expert is, because it kicks off this whole new era of so much content, right? And my love for Star Wars as a kid and how much I thought I knew, completely trained to me out of even referring to myself as somebody who knew a lot of about stories. You were a guy

leading up to that that was doing a lot of coverage, and you're a huge fan. Do you still consider yourself an expert or do you think you're somewhere in the middle? I never considered myself an expert in the first place. People threw that on me and I never did. So people kept telling me over and over and you should go in the in the Star Wars trivia. I would have gotten murdered. In the same way that I approach the UFO stuff that I do. I approach it in a way of a person who really enjoys watching it. I like watching it. I have my I, there's a lot of things that I really

enjoy about it. Like Alex Damon is a Star Wars actor. Yeah. I am not. But I like the lore. Like there's certain things I really dig about it. I would say that and I think the audience would certainty of this too. I think I'm I'm I don't want to say the people who are you less of a fan now yeah than you were I'm a I'm less of a fan of the people in charge like I think and I always bring you're your sports guy you'll you'll take this you'll understand this I feel it's like okay you have a team that has all the really good players yeah but the management is just using them poorly they're like putting them in the wrong positions they're just they have the championship team that's coming in second the last place yeah and you're like when are they going to get new management because when

they get new management they have an opportunity and then they have one great game and or season two. And you're like, oh, my God, see, if you had that strategy, you can win a championship. And then they go and here comes Asoka season two. And it's probably going to be the same type of dribble that we've gotten in the past. So that's why I'm not less of a fan of the Star Wars content. I'm less of the fan of the people that are running it. Interesting.

Yeah. All right. Next one after this is Nathan Drake. Hey, Ben, good to see you. Huge team action fan. What are your thoughts now looking. back on the Idris Alba ruling. Do you remember this?

This was, was it, was it, were you in that match? Yeah, do you remember who we were playing it? And Draco, I feel. It was a Saturday. It was, I believe it was this final Saturday of filming before the pandemic. So I think it was March 10th or something. Yeah. And it was, it was Snyder and Draco against me and Riley.

Oh, okay. And it was like the first round and Idris Alba. First round? Yeah, it was round one. And it was Idris Alba, he wrote down. And I do remember this. This is right before free for all, wasn't it? And Drake was mad.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And what happened, you know, I've thought about this too because I watch a lot of sports. You watch at the end of a game and you watch like Rudy Gobert back in the Shack and

Fowl and you're like, this is boring. This is awful. Why would I mean you want to do this? That's the way the rules work. Yeah. That's you get to, you get to foul if you want. You get to call a time out and ask for a review. Challenges, things like that and Schmodeown.

It's the same thing. I mean, I didn't think we would ever win the ruling, but maybe he wrote an A, not an Eighty an Eidt. they make actress name is Idriselba, not Itchrazelba. Like we didn't win the ruling in the end. He got the points. That's fine. And it got heated. Everybody was real mad at each other. But that's just what he had to do back then.

You had to try to get your edge anyway you could. It was true. And you played it. Well, and Sam Levine was the king of challenges. And yeah. All right. Mike, movie madness, my absolute favorite bit that you and Schnepp used to, how were the shit rats and how much Ellis and whoever was hosting it hated. King, RIP, the King of the Sweaties. Yeah.

RIP. Well, so Ellis didn't hate it as, much. Ellis played into it. Can't be a hated it. Can't be a hated it. But like, because, and then the best is that when, when Schnapp and I, do you know what the showouts were? So we would essentially be at the table like

this and let's say, let's say that I was over here, you're, I'm here, your Schnapp and then the host is here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We would, if something was going on inside of the, the topic that we're like, who cares or whatever it is, I'd look at Schnapp or he'd look at me and we go. And then the

camera would pan down. Let's say this. So the cameras on you and then the camera pants to me and I'm like and then it goes back to SNP and then we're both just doing it looks like this and Dennis would like go back and forth with us like this people love it we made t-shirts sure I husband was Schnep now is seven years in July he so Schnep passed in 2018 because he passed away it was the there was a worst two and a half months of my life

he passed he passed in July and then my brother passed in August I remember it was like boom boom and it was like it was horrible so yeah But I miss both. Miss both. All right, let's see. So the next one after that, again, pushing at 41 here.

How much time we got to try to beat that we got? So the way it works is that we go all the way through it. Okay. And then they can push and keep us here until, you know, until we hit it. However, if we run at it, you know,

we can also, the show can also be a minute, an hour and 12 minutes, opposed to two hours. Oh. So this is the last section of the show, though. We're just going through questions. This is it.

Just doing questions. That's it. Jeff Davis. Ben, how about a music update? What's new with Guy? I kind of gave the music update a little, but in case you didn't get in or you're just listening. Now, I'm hoping to release some more music this year. I'm kind of getting back in. Actually, so it's kind of a whole, I'm not going to do the long-winded version of this, but I think I am going to get a new guitar here. Oh, in years. No, probably back in L.A. I might work with Gibson on it as I get it. Because when I played in Nashville at the Bloomberg a couple years ago, Gibson had told me that I could probably get an artist price. Okay. But I don't know if that'll happen now. But I want to get an SJ200.

So if you guys have watched like, it's what George Harrison played and Elvis and Tom Petty. It's a real big bodied classic Gibson or a nice guitar. And I've wanted to go in for a while. And I was kind of thinking maybe this year get it as kind of like part of the journey, right? By that sort of see what happens. It inspires me to write some new stuff. So I might be going into record some covers pretty, pretty soon here.

Can't wait to hear it. It's amazing. Hopefully by Journey might be getting there to cover that one. I love that. That's great. my favorites. Alan Smithy, there he is. Hey, Ben, you should ask PLD about my match against Lady Justice and the coyote.

It was a banger and sanctioned by Harlov. It was in your patron, Christian. That's pretty sanctioned. Fair enough. But you're the trivia master. Most wins, right? Yeah. So here's one for you. Just because I mentioned it, but it reminded me of this. Yeah. I haven't seen Bibbs, Bibiani, in a while.

I actually saw him at the Mission Impossible screening, but I didn't get to say hello. And it brought me back to all. of our battles in the old days. Yeah. And we had a lot of good battles. And sometimes we'd go on podcast and talk smack about each other. He had a tendency to say sort of backhanded comments about me because we were competitive.

And we were both petty. And he had a lot of wins. But he was an amazing trivia. He was really good. Amazing trivia. Yeah. And I lost to him, I think as many times or more times in some ways. But that final day where it was the way it was arranged was, if I had won and then he lost,

I was going to end up the most wins ever. And I just was thinking about the way that. Schmodeon sort of worked out sometimes you couldn't have scripted it you couldn't have scripted that that was how it if he won would have been tied yeah if i had lost and he had won i think he would have had the most oh okay because he lost and because i won it jumped you up one yeah so i finished with one more wow that's pretty great because of it and his match happened after mine so i got to sit there in the audience because there's even a clip there's a clip afterwards where he's yeah yeah yeah in the post where he's like and there's a very smug person in this room right now

and he says somebody says something complimentary it's amazing it's such a good good memory. Great. Look at this. PLD back again. PLD projects. Ben is so competitive. I get flashbacks to 3M calls challenging me to movie trivia.

Did you challenge him? Probably. It's been a long time and so time has passed. The pandemic era is where I went full psycho. Okay. With my studying. Oh yeah. I remember.

Kaiser was my manager and Mulligan was for a while. But there was a stretch of time during pandemic where we're all home and none of us are leaving our houses for days at a time. I would fill up a coffee mug of whiskey. And I live in a fairly like, just sort of like a neighborhood in Santa Monica that's like just very, what's the rural? No, rural.

There's like nothing around. It's just like houses and it's very safe. And I would just walk around for two hours on a call with Kaiser just on the streets with a mug full of whiskey, just quizzing trivia for two hours. And I would do this like a lot during 2020. I tell you that's why I think you're kind of full of shit. I think that if let's say that I did sell this thing.

Yeah, yeah. And someone with a good budget bought it and then wanted to start the league up. And it was going on Netflix or something. Yeah. And you made the call. You're going to say no? You know, what I think I would do is I would go back to the way that Drew and I looked at it in 2017. And by the way, somebody asked how he's doing.

He's doing great. Drew's amazing. He's on TV right now. He's crushing. I would go back to the way we looked at in 2017. When we came in, we played the Knight Sisters. And I remember you were like, do you guys want to come on the show? I remember we both said to each other, this is about,

screen time. This is not about winning. We need to be the most entertaining. We need to put on a great show. Doesn't matter how much we know about trivia. And that's what I would look. I would look at it like that now. I would look at going and trying to be a big personality, try to be a star. Don't worry about wins and loss. That's if they ran it like I did, unless they ran it like full trivia, then who knows? But yeah, it's interesting to see. You know what's hilarious to people don't understand. I talk about something. I think you know, because we've had these conversations, but I always have the audience try to guess, like how much they think like, you know, the budget was. for the year and they say how much you think that budget was for the year to run all the salaries

everything yeah yeah yeah no one comes in at the right thing and then plus the fact if they did hit what it was yeah that that was so much less of what you needed to make it in order to really make it yeah like the proposed budgets people would never they never guess it the budgets are so far off it's it's hilarious and then when you would know that the actual number like really if we did show it out today and if we were doing it now right now i would know how to make make that show a big hit. I would know how to do it with marketing because I, because I now, the last year have learned so much about short form marketing. If we had the money to do it, but that's, that was the whole point is that you need the money to market. And that's the other thing

that we didn't have that expense. That was that was not part of the budget. No. And I didn't, I was never got it approved. Um, so anyway, let's go to the next one. And this is, SJC let Roxy host her end up a Lonnie or Siri. I tried. Is that so funny. I don't uh it's from uh from andor but um no she apparently she says up on the last show that i've i literally asked her at one point do you want to host and she's like and i said you'd have to do the streamer she's say well i don't know how to do that stuff as we well i need you to know she knows how you stream you're obviously she said she wrote but with the hosting and be able to do the the things you have to stories and all that and she said she wasn't comfortable doing it so i was like oh okay so i didn't i didn't

ask her to do it so that's what happened there um okay next one call coo leo Curley what movie would you find final destination five first one I think of was 19 and steel magnolias with Sally Fields characters having their premonitions I think I think they mean like what movie would you turn into a final destination movie I'm not sure yeah I assume so I mean I don't know um toy story everyone dies yeah and then they yeah they did what do you what do you save everybody from death and then they start crapping out maybe babe babe sounds good yeah babe babe babe the pig uh think about it, Farmer Hoggett and they just all the animals are dying.

And then he has to save them up with the line up if you're dying anyway. Yeah. Greeny from Oz. Derek Johnson. Hell yeah. Where is Derek? Um, Derek probably push you over. And then bitch boy, Ben is back. Sure am. Right. It's right time in a while. The LD trying to push you over there pitching an impromptu action guys reunion to cover the TC Legends final. Am I? Did you do. So did you give your thoughts on it here or in general? In general. I gave a just in a TikTok earlier today. I gave it a very cursory because I don't want to speak ill of the dead in my opinion.

Yeah. Not actually. I just think it's almost the worst mission of possible movie. Okay. And so I didn't want to expound on it because I have so much respect for the franchise. I love it so much. Yeah, I'm going to give my review of it today. I liked it.

I thought it's a very entertaining movie. However, I would not argue with you on your session. I think it's not as bad as number two. Who's the worst. It's the worst. but it is it's not as clever it's then the other movies it's it's bloated yeah um but there are two scenes in the movie yeah that steal that they did just submarines amazing it's it's enough for you just go to the theater to watch it yeah um but there's a lot of stuff they almost know that they're kind

of taking the piss at one point yeah you know it's like there are some goofy lines in general it's too long um yeah but overall you know i think it's a fun time of the movies yeah i think that that's I think you know there's a lot of there's a lot of hype for that movie which makes it sad for me to felt the way I felt about it my ranking that I that I just did was uh two eight seven I think that red reckoning part one is the second worst um then one I put fifth four I put four three three and then I put rogue nation two and fall out number one I think that's the five and six are the two that's the pinnacle of the franchise to me too like really wear it yeah and they were clever they had more like the more the gadgets and everything else too this just kind of relies

on the stunts. It just, yeah, it just felt, and it felt really self-serious and exhibition heavy. It just thought the whole movie was explaining the stakes and making us all feel the stakes. And it was like tying back to the original franchise. Yeah. It was just too much. Yeah. Mike Deacon, there he goes. God, what have you done? You're a pink pony girl and you dance at the club. Oh, I'm just having fun. Oh, oh, on the stage. I don't know what this is. That's the lyrics to the song Pink Pony Club by Chapel Row. I don't know. I call it Chapel Row. It's a great song. I take your word for it. Love that song.

So you got it. Love Mike Deakin, too. Yeah, Mike's great. Went to Universal Studios at the one time. Did you really? Oh, that's fun. When you were, oh, that's great. We got stuck in the Buzz Lightyear shooting stuff ride.

I don't know how that happened. Stop working. So we were stuck for 10 minutes sitting in a little car just hanging out. So doing trivia probably. Bitch boy for Ben. Thank you, bitch boy. My guy. Thanks.

Following it up. NLSFC 96. Ben just bought the game. And Christian, I really do miss the Shmone. I know we'll never come back, but I miss everything. about it. Don't say never. It just won't come back with me, but it'll, it'll come back. What if Netflix came to you and said, hey, here's the budget, is $10 million a year. Consultant? Nope. And you're the commissioner and you have to run it. We'll give you a salary,

a million dollars cash a year to run this. How long do I have to do it for? Five-year contract. No. You wouldn't take a million bucks a year post-tax and a $10 million dollar budget on Netflix. Well, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe for a million a year, it would be worth the, like, you were just talking about, and not, not singling out like And Draco, there were tons of characters that went off on me for questions and things and it's questioning, oh, you favor, you like that person better than me. I don't, I just, the fans don't like me as much as a character. So you're favoring them, like, they answer the question

right way. And Drew and I screaming at each other in the middle of the freaking, it's, it's the best when you're getting paid a million dollars a year. It's not the best one, you know, it's, yeah, it's not. And it's like people going crazy on Twitter and fucking Reddit threads. I'll tell you something, though. I showed a guy who I just, just working for us now at the company making content. I was telling him about it.

And I was like, let me show you something. And I just pulled up the horseman reveal clip. Yeah, it's the best. And I was like, and I showed him and he was laughing. He was like, what is this? This is, these are real reactions. I was like, yeah, these are real reactions. Yeah.

That's a real actual theater going apesh. For this moment. Because you give characters. There's no difference of setting up characters and you get. getting you invested in who these people are. So then when there's a reveal like that, you're emotionally invested. That's just storytelling.

Yeah, I am. Dan Bleet and I are good buddies. We talk a lot. And so he's the best. He's gonna be here in August. Oh yeah, he's my favorite. And I love to hear about what he's doing with wrestling. But it's, I learned so much about wrestling on my time,

Schmoda, and I didn't ever cared about it prior to that really. But I did like do a lot of research and consume a lot of it. And so I do pay attention to his interviews because now I know some of these guys are. And it's just the same thing. It's, I mean, that's why the premise worked. Yeah. like you when you had to pitch it to people you had to say like it's the characters of wrestling yeah there's nothing to do with actual wrestling right except for me and drew getting hitting each other

which is great there were a couple of the moments i think there was there was a moment i can't remember there was a moment one time of there's a pitch of rachel pushing hitting someone with a chair once but that just never that i think it got i get as far as the pitch unbelievable yeah um Miguel zion hey y'all sorry if i missed it but thoughts on the jake on jake shriar for x-man i would have preferred someone like john wants but i understand why i want sotoberg too but that's very long shot thanks i love the idea of jake shriar for x i love it i think xman needs to be a little darker i think you need to have some serious tones and i think he proved that he could do that in thunderbolts love the choice for xman you i mean yeah i think i think that the greatest strength that thunderbolts had was the

the sort of based in reality trauma exploration stuff and i think that if you do that with yeah and i think it's you continue that same yeah um so this one you've answered already But Joey Pedger's been still working on music. I appreciate it, Joey. Yeah, I mean, you know, the biggest thing that last year I started making a lot of content about Magic the Gathering. That was like really where my energy has gone. And so, uh, but that audience has gotten significant enough. And maybe I'll release some music and that audience will care about it.

We'll see. You'll the projects, Ben, I think still have access to the action industry's channel. It might start super chatting for that. Why don't you just turn that into a different channel? How many subscribers got on that show? 4,000. Drew and I, Drew and I talked about it at one point.

I haven't really thought about it. Like, but I might for movies at some point. turn it into something else. Yeah. Tyler Fifer. Seven Psychopaths doesn't get enough respect. Until you brought it up, I forgot about that movie,

but because you brought it up, I'm going to tell you I agree with you. I loved that movie. I forgot. I haven't thought about it. I haven't thought about it. A Tarantino S. film with a loaded cast,

my favorite McDonald's film. 100%. It's a great movie. I forgot all about it, though. I remember Greg, that's McDonald's movie that he made after in Bruges, but before he makes like three billboards,

right? Okay, I think so. That's a great movie. It's a great movie. Or, okay, Jesus Fernandez. I have to agree with Ben. Sheridan had a generational run when he wrote Sicario, Hell or Highwater, and Wind River back to back.

I hope he makes more. Incredible trilogy. It was. Yeah, I love that. When River's on my, you see that movie? Yes, loved it. I've seen all those movies.

And I loved Sicario. The shootout of Sicario on the border is one of the great action scenes ever. I got to watch that movie again. And the other one is, Hell or Highwater, I sell in the theater twice. Also great. Amazing action. Love it. Love it. Love that film.

Okay. Next one after that, we get Greeny from Oz. I don't really care that James Gunn is Ace in Summermane. I'm not sure what that means. Hmm. I don't really care that James Gunn is. I'm sorry, Greeny. I'm not sure what happened there. Tyler Fifer, Benicio D'Otooro, underrated as well. Can be terrifying in Sicario and a goofball in the Phoenician scene. And fart a lot and you have unusual suspects.

And you know that was real. No, I know. It's the best part. The best part of he really ripped ass and is it's like. Love, Ben, so thank you, Tyler. And then Galaxy Geeks, Hey, Ben,

do you feel that Magic has become more popular than it has been in a long time? Also, enjoy that Chrome box. Magic is currently in a moment where it's having its biggest year ever. Is it? Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, Magic probably has close to 50, 50 million world-led players now. And I can just tell from the growth of my content the last year.

It's kind of on a different, lay a level yeah i mean they have a final fantasy set coming out here in a couple weeks which is a very big deal huge license that you know because they're doing uh collaborations now with ip there's lower the ring set a couple years ago that was huge avatar the last airbender and spider man sets coming out this next year um so it's really yeah it's smart that you found your niche over there with that stuff too as far as like i know you've been a fan forever but i'm just saying as far as making content well we did a podcast Alex and i for a long time together and then i kind of stopped making content for about a year and a half and then last year in june may june i decided to

start posting a TikTok a day, you know, within a few months. I'd grown that to 10,000 followers and started Instagram and YouTube. And now it's just gone so parabolic the last year. I'm about to have 100 million views in the first year. It's great, too. And it's, yeah, I just make, I just make a lot of content. That's awesome. So Armada, new Mark Ruffalo, HBO crime show trailer dropped.

Interesting to see that. Probably watch the show again, not a trailer to me is love Ruffalo. Yeah. Darien, speaking of early Sheridan work, I would recommend his special ops lioness for that flavor. It completely took me by surprise. Lioness is the one people love. I haven't watched it. My old friend Ray is in that show.

I see him post about it sometimes. People love that show. Yeah. People really talk about it. Bitch boy falls up and says, my life's a disaster zone. I spent all my time chasing guys like you around the block. That's my life.

Neil McCulley. Yeah, you got to do it in that. Yeah. A guy told me one time. Neil is De Niro. The first one is. The first one is where Pacino's in the diner. That's right.

My life. My life's a disaster. Astorzone. I spent all my time chasing guys like you around the block. That's my life. Neil McCauley, I told me one time, don't let yourself get attached to anything. You can't see yourself coming from what is around the corner, whatever. I'm excited for heat too. Love that. Love that movie. Juan Martinez. Hey guys. Ben, huge magic gathering.

Are you excited for the final fantasy set coming out in June? Extremely excited. I have the whole set already because I work with Wizards on it. And it's amazing. I've opened a lot of it. The stuff I'm able to post about I have posted about. It's probably, it looks like it has real potential to be the coolest magic set. It's going to be the biggest set they've ever released.

But yeah, I mean, I'm doing a gigantic, well, actually I haven't announced this yet, but I'm doing an event that I haven't announced yet at Magic on Vegas at the end of June. And that's a big Final Fantasy event. But that event will be, you know, 20,000 people. That's amazing.

Well, Kelly just throws in a little bit of support there. Thanks, Kelly. She follows it up. Hi, Ben. You played 58 total match. That's crazy. 58 times. That's a lot.

It's a lot. You remember from preparing for matches, but also in the early days when you prepared, it was different than when I prepared. I would prepare for weeks for a match. I know. And 58 times spending weeks like that. It consumed my brain. Trust me. I remember the phone calls.

Haskell 420. Hey, guys, happy. All is going well with you, Ben. If you're doing covers, I got to say again that I did years ago, you'd crush Sammy Hagar's where Eagles fly. Yeah. I'd do higher. That's one I'd sing. Yeah, that's what you do?

I love Haygar. Yeah. Ed, still is one of the most committed guys. Yeah. And so far, right now,

the way this works is that Ed is, Ed is the last one for now. 43. Yeah, so we got to double our comments. Yeah, so, well,

but Steph has done this before. A couple of different times. Basically what happens is, like, right when I'm about to sign off. Like, Steph was down one time. I think she was down by like 45 or 50.

Yeah. And we're about to sign off. And then somebody threw it in there. and someone who threw another one in there yeah and then she won by like 30 or something it was like something crazy i'm not as charming or good looking at stuff that's probably true i'm not sure if i can write i don't think you probably will um well for now we're going to call on an end but um ben once again tell us where to find the cast list and everything else you got going on yeah yeah i mean cast list is the real you know that's the reason i'm out here this time is just to hang out

with you and talk about it i owe so much to you in the shmodan community for the inspiration to make this game. Such a fun time doing it. And if you guys love to play along with Shmodown, this is exactly the kind of game I think you'd enjoy. You can find it on Amazon, look it up, but yeah, I spent the last year designing it, and I think it's like a little party game. It takes maybe 20

minutes to play with your friends. So check out the cast list. As far as the stuff that I'm doing goes, you know, I post a lot of stuff. If you like magic, great. If you don't, you'll hate watching my stuff because you won't have any idea what I'm talking about. But I do post an awful lot of it. I do comedy sketches

where I play all four characters at the table. Okay. And so there's 10 or 12 of those up. But Ben Bateman, MTG is the name of the account. Okay. Yeah. Look at the screen right there. How's it going, man?

Oh, look at me. Over there. Yeah. Look at that. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. You know what my name is?

Is it Big Balls? Yes, that's right, baby. It is. I heard you played the most motherfucking matches ever in the Smodown. I did. Yeah. It was a good career. Have you played in the Shmowdown?

Oh, I played in the Shmowdown. I told some low-down rhinoceros. I said, hey, it's your schmow over then. I'll get down on your ass. And that's what I did. I told you, in case you didn't know, man, I'm a rude, motherfucker. I go in and I bang a lot of animals. This sounds X-rated, big balls.

Oh, you got no idea. Look at this. Watch this. Hey, look at that. I'm dead. And my balls are standing in your face. They're large. Now I'm cool.

I'm cool. Yeah. Come on, Ben Bateman. You good looking ass. I'll smack you around, too. I don't discriminate. Come on, baby. They look swollen.

Are they painful, big boss? I'm just ready to fire off rockets like space X. Hmm. Interesting. There he goes. He comes and goes. Yeah. He comes and goes.

He's an interesting character to say the least. Oh, we got another one. Bitch boy. Ben is a handsome boy. I appreciate it. It's nice of you to say. Appreciate that bitch boy. Yeah.

It's also my favorite when bitch boy comes in. Because you can say his name. and it sounds like you're calling somebody a name, but you're just seeing his names. Thanks a lot, bitch boy. It's a compliment, bitch boy. Thanks a lot, bitch boy. All right.

Thank you guys, and I appreciate it very much. So thank you to big balls for showing up the last minute. Thank you to all you guys. Thank you to Chris Carr for her amazing interview. Thank you for the peeps over at Netflix for setting that up. And for our sponsors, if you want to help out the show,

that's how you do it. We are on the clips channel all the time. go on over to the Clips channel. Help us out. Joey Pedrus, any place to find video demos of the game, Ben? Oh, of cast list?

Yeah. It's a great question. I don't know if we have a YouTube how to play. We probably should have one, but we're working with some other Schmodeon folks. So you're going to see, working with Dan right now with Dan Merle.

Oh, sweet. I actually had dinner with him when I was in Bentonville, Arkansas a few weeks ago, and we talked about the game. And so, because Dan wrote a card, and it was fun to chat about it. So you'll probably see some,

stuff with him talking about it as well yeah well there you go um thank you everybody once again and get that link in the description all that more apple podcast Spotify anywhere podcast found everybody thank you to our amazing team here and thank you to our wonderful fans i really appreciate it and we'll see you guys we'll be back here tomorrow with the capes and cows crew Winston and coy peace out my refs