The Press Box - 'Ant-Man and the Wasp’ Goes Big, With Peyton Reed | The Big Picture (Ep. 491)

Episode Date: July 6, 2018

Ringer editor-in-chief Sean Fennessey speaks with filmmaker Peyton Reed about returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to make an Ant-Man sequel and the challenges of merging his story with the aftermath of 'Avengers: Infinity War.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There's a lot of reinvention that goes on from the page to movies with Marvel stuff, particularly with something like Ant Man. I think there are very few people out there who are like, don't screw with Ant Man, because I got strong feelings about when I was a kid, the idea of having some device where I could get in touch with George Lucas and say, hey, that's awesome, man. But God, I could see the light bulb in the Jawa's eye in that scene, man. And you need to fix that.

I mean, having this sort of give and take, we're just unheard of. I'm Sean Fantasy, editor-in-chief of the ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation. show is some of the most interesting filmmakers in the world. How do you make something small feel big? It's a serious challenge for Peyton Reed, the director of Antman and the new sequel, Ant Man and the Wasp. Reed turned the micro-sized superhero Antman,

a modest character in the Marvel Canon, into a megastar, bringing the box office for the zippy first film to more than $500 million. The new movie finds more space for Evangeline Lily's The Wasp, alongside star Paul Rudd, and the result is a superhero movie that is modestly scaled, but rapid fire. The dialogue, the pacing, the action move quickly.

Reid has been making movies for more than two decades, but Ant Man represented an elevation after his work on well-liked but cultish comedies like Down with Love and Bring It On. I talked with Reid about working in the Marvel Machine, how to make an effective sequel, and the growth of his career. Here's Peyton Reed. Delighted to be joined by Peyton Reed. Peyton, thank you for coming in. Thanks for having me. Peyton, you made a sequel. I did. What was it like making a sequel to a movie, a second part of something you'd previously worked on?

It was cool. I mean, again, I'd never done it before and could only sort of apply my rules as a film goer. I knew the things I like and don't like in sequels. What are they? I like in a sequel when they don't just retread, make a carbon copy in the first movie. I like when the jumping off point of the second movie is not directly after the first movie where there's some time and some water under the bridge and the characters are progressed in a way that the audience has to catch up with them.

I like that a lot. Okay. When it utilizes things that we liked in the first movie but does it. sort of smugly say like, you loved it the first time, here it is again. And I like when it introduces new elements and really sort of expands on it. And hopefully, you know, keeps some of the same tonal things but is not afraid to do something different. So for something like this, which is part of a big massive IP contraption, how do you get to say, these are the rules I hope we can apply to this movie?

How do we make sure that this movie lives by my philosophy of a sequel? Well, first of all, I'm going to trademark massive IP contraption and make a movie. of that. Great. You can have it in tears. To me, it really is just kind of like, tonally, just trying to make it honor what you did in the first movie

and I think surprise the audience. I know specific to this one, it was really because we're the 20th Marvel movie. And there's a big, the only sort of onus on us is to do something different and to not bore the hell out of the audience. Really, it's like just trying to come

in the material from a different way. And it's really challenging because, you know, tonally, we're kind of our own thing. but that's absolutely encouraged, because we're doing something really, really different than, say, Infinity War by design. We have really different storytelling ambitions. And that's really kind of the whole exercise

is to really just stay true to what we are and not try and get caught up in that machinery. We're narratively not tasked with having to tell the story of infinity stones and Thanos and that stuff. So that's liberating. in the conversation, are you able to say, elevator pitch on the first one was a heist movie? What's the elevator pitch on this new one?

Do you have a short and easy way to describe it? Yeah, elevator pitch on this one was really if Elmore Leonard wrote a science fiction novel and they made a Marvel movie out of it. Oh, that's really good. That was the idea of sort of, you know, there are all these challenges of what we wanted to do. We knew it was going to be a search and rescue movie to find Janet.

And we knew it was really this sort of partnership, the story of Scott and Hope and can they work as a partnership. But what we really found cool was we wanted to kind of stay in the crime genre. We didn't want to do a heist thing because we had done that before. But we like the idea of Elmore Linder novels and movies like Midnight Run or After Hours, where there is a very simple goal that the protagonists have. But all these complications that come out of the woodwork, situations, rivals, street level criminals, double crossing, all that kind of stuff. That really felt like, I haven't seen that in a Marvel movie.

And this would seem, in keeping with what we set up in the first movie, and it really lent itself well to what we were doing in terms of the basic idea of rescuing Janet, potentially. Was it easy to make it, Anne Man, and the Wasp, and to make it a duo movie, and to make it a movie that is essentially a leading woman is, this is really the first leading woman story in a Marvel movie. Was that easy? What is the conversation like that gets you to that place to make the movie this way? Well, it was really, it turned out to be pretty organic because of things we'd set up in the first movie,

where clearly Hope Van Dyne in the first movie is the more capable person of taking care of Pym's problem. And she's not allowed to in the first movie. But also because of the comics history that A. Man and Wasp were really, you know, from very early on in the early 60s, a duo. And as a kid, I read those comics and it was the Hank Janet, Ant Man and Wasp. But the idea that, like, this is organic. This should be the story. and also this kind of male-female partnership is another thing that I haven't seen in a Marvel movie. And we can kind of explore everything from sort of this, you know, the jealousy and envy that goes on between them

and also the, you know, gender politics and all that stuff. It just seemed ripe with both dramatic and comedic possibility. Yeah, and it also feels really in keeping with a lot of the movies that you made in the past, too. There's a little bit of a duo quality, a TED-a-tech quality going on in a lot of the dialogue that you've written in the past. right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. To me, I think with the first movie, it felt like my sweet spot because I'd always want to make one of these kinds of movies, but because my background has been largely comedic, this felt right, like to be able to do an action comedy. And this one, I think, expanded on that because we really got to deal with. I mean, I can't tell you how thrilled I am that

you know, Hope finally has a suit and as a wasp, just because it's a fascinating character for me to try and figure out and the dynamic. And also the fact that it's a very important. And also the fact that it's a Evangeline and Paul. Like, I was saying to Paul, like, I can imagine if you had a different actor playing Ant Man, who maybe wasn't as comfortable in his own skin, there could be some bristling at the idea of like, wait a second, I got to share the line. Impinging on his face. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And with Paul, it's like, not only there's none of that, but that's like, that excites him. I mean, that's really, he could immediately see the comedic potential of that and that there's a little hints of romantic comedy in the thing, even though it's not a romantic comedy. so we all got really excited about that possibility. Was there anything that was easier this time around? I assume there was some sort of learning curve on doing the first one. Yeah, for me a pretty massive learning curve. The machinery, like they're big, visually dense, highly technical movies.

And I had done visual effects work before, not to this extent, but also sort of the Marvel pipeline, specific to how Marvel does things. I came into this one with a lot more confidence about that system. And one of the big things for me was knowing that before the first Ant Man, I would have assumed that if you wanted to change something midstream or even late in the game to turn this giant machinery around would be a big deal. But I was really struck with the fluidity with which you could do it at Marvel because they have this whole in-house visual effects thing. And if you want to change course, they can do it. They can everybody can sort of make this massive shift.

And I would not have known that before. So coming into this movie knowing that it was, um, that made it easier in terms of the process. Was there anything that you shifted then when you were in production here that you were like, actually, maybe we should go this way? Well, constantly, and it can kind of come down to, you know, in say a big visual effect sequence, I've spent time storyboarding and working with a previous team where we get it exactly how I want it and we're going to go shoot it.

Sometimes when you get out on location or on a set, you just come up with a better way of doing it. And a guy named Stefan Serretti, he's our visual effects supervisor who's really, really a brilliant guy. So I could say, I know we talked about the camera looking this way and doing this and being on a wide lens, but maybe we look the other direction. We go on a long lens and we do it this way. And he's like, yes, we can handle this, is fine. And that's really great because generally if you're going to change your mind, you're after a better idea or a better way into it. And I think that's something everybody wants.

Do you think you're going to keep making movies at a bigger scale as your career goes on? There is a sort of an escalator quality to each movie that you've made. there's a template there that I think is a bad template that for directors to think that they got to up the game budgetarily. I guess it has kind of organically been my path, but I'm sure there's going to be a point if, you know, who knows if we're going to do another Ant Man, you know, I always think back as a kid loving the Planet of the Apes movies, the original ones. And they made five original Planet of the Apes movies. And the budgets got incrementally smaller and smaller as the movies became less popular. And the last one was like this sort of battle for the Planet of the Apes knock off. thing. And so there is a template for that. I always wonder if the Marvel movies if they're just

going to start going down. Shrinking. Hopefully not. But no, I like to think that, you know, that it's more material driven. Like, if there's something really great, I would love to go out and do a much lower budget movie, particularly one that didn't have all the technical concerns. Right. I'm very interested in the concept of expectations. Ahead of the first Ant Man film, there was a lot of conversation about like, could this be the first bomb? Is this not going to work? Yeah. And then I think it exceeded expectations. Always fun, by the way. Always fun. I'm sure that was frustrating and harrowing.

Do you think about those things? Did it matter to you? Are you a box office watcher? And will it affect how you feel about the experience? Of my own movies, I'm a box office watcher only in that you want your movie to connect with an audience. And you also want to be able to continue to make movies. And it is a very different landscape than it was even when I started making features.

You know, Bring It On was my first. It came out in 2000. And it was a $10 million movie. And we did well, but it could. could have easily gone the other way. You just never know. But like, it's, it does affect your higher ability, I suppose. But I'm not a fanatical box office watcher in terms of, you know, more than the average person is. What about the Marvel canon and the allegiance and intensity of the fandom? How do you interact with that? I feel like I interact with it well. And I do, I do really

get the mindset because I was one of those kids when I was younger. I say kids. They're probably most adults now. But like, you know, I just know when I'm passionate about something as I was about Marvel Comics as a kid or Planet of the Apes or Star Wars or whatever it was, I do understand the mindset of the obsessive, obsessive fan. Having said that, it has gotten to a place that is, you know, there's a small percentage of those fans and it's been fascinating to watch the different incarnations of how fans feel this ownership, but maybe a literal ownership over these things. The unownership to the point where they feel or there's a perception that like

I can affect change in this thing. This is mine, man. And I'm doing it my way. The Last Jedi thing is unbelievable. Yeah, it's fascinating. The filmmaker James Mangold was tweeting about this early this morning. I don't know if you saw that. No, I didn't tell.

But it was, he noted that it feels as if every time you make one of these films you're writing a new chapter in the Bible and the way that people respond to it is with the same level of intensity. And that actually may push serious filmmakers away from these films, even though they've been doing them a lot more in the last five or ten years. because it's probably a difficult thing to tangle with. I'll say a couple of things about that. I think Star Wars is almost unique in that

because it's been around so long. Now, the Marvel Comics have been around so long, but I think there's a huge, there's a lot of reinvention that goes on from the page to movies with Marvel stuff, particularly with something like Ant Man. Like I think there are very few people out there who are like, don't screw with Ant Man,

because I got strong feelings about, you know, I think that there's certain stuff that's really right for reinvention. Star Wars, man, people, because that is a generational thing now. There seem to be a certain percentage of the people who take it very, very, very, very seriously, which is great, but there's this point where,

and it's funny that, I don't know, again, I'll have to read the mangled thing, but the idea that there is this actual back and forth. When I was a kid, the idea of having some device where I could get in touch with George Lucas and say, hey, that's awesome, man, but God, I could see the light bulb in the jaw-was eye in that scene, man,

and you need to fix that. I mean, having this sort of give and take, which is unheard of. It is. So I guess it's, I suppose it's a generational thing, but it's, I do find it absurd. There's something absurdist about it. You are also, though, strangely you mentioned, bring it on, sort of the father of new IP. Like, bring it on, has this expanding life. And, you know, it's been adapted and there have been sequels.

And what's it like to watch that movie grow and change and take on new levels of interest with different generations over time? I think in the case to bring it on, like, I first, it was certainly nothing I ever expected. I mean, I think at the time, I was psyched about making that movie. I like the idea that it told the story of this subculture that I knew nothing about. But then you're coming out with a cheerleader comedy with no idea if anyone's going to show up. And when they did, that was thrilling enough. But the fact that it seems to have struck a chord with people, it's great.

I mean, I love it. I haven't been involved in any of the sequels or the Broadway show. But the fact that it's out there and kind of taps into something, it's that's really gratifying. Yeah, it's really, it has a life of its own. One of the thing that I thought was interesting about Amman and the Wasp, aside from obviously Evangeline's character being front and center is there are a lot of old people in this movie. That's not something that's older people, yeah.

Older people. You know, Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer and Lawrence Fishburn, and that's an uncommon thing, maybe increasingly common in these movies, but what was it like to have one such veteran and well-known and almost iconic performers, also having characters that are a little bit older in your story. Well, I'm really, actually really glad you said that because I think it's one of the things that I like about the Ant Man movies is there is a generational story to be told there. And particularly in the context of the MCU, I mean, we've seen people like Jeff Bridges and Robert Redford come in and usually play the antagonist.

Yes, guys in suits. Yeah. And here I like the idea that we're telling this sort of generational, the original Ant Man and Wasp, and now the new Ant Man in Wasp. And it was one of the things with Michael Douglas when it came time to do Ant Man of the Wasp, you know, I promised him, I was like, yeah, we're going to give you more stuff to do in this thing.

You know, you're going to be a little bit funnier. You're going to use some few jokes, but also, like, you know, give you some action and remind the audience that in your heyday you were this hero. I really like that. I mean, because there is this constant thing of ageism in Hollywood

and can we find good roles and, you know, for older actors. And I like that our movie, again, organically, that's part of the story we're telling. Was it difficult to get Michelle to, agree to do this movie? I feel like there's a thing where Michelle always is in or out or in or out on a lot of films. Well, she's, you know, obviously an incredibly serious actor and takes nothing lightly. And I loved working with her and I was thrilled to get her. She's the only person I ever thought of for that role.

But yeah, it took a certain amount of like her getting her head around who this character is, who our movie's version of this character is, and sort of finding a way into the character and sort of building the character, everything from the, look of Janet to just sort of, is she, does she have a sense of humor, what she likes as a person? And once she did, I think she's fantastic in the movie. You mentioned Midnight Run and After Hours and movies like that. Do you show your actors and the crew movies before you start making something like this and say, this is the tone we want or this is what I'm thinking on this scene? We watched a couple. We watched Midnight Run and we watched What's Up Doc?

And we watched After Hours before. The producers and the writers and I watch that stuff. Rudd has, like me, seen all that stuff before. And so we talk about it a lot. But it was, there are really inspirations more than sort of like cribbing specific stuff. And there are things from each movie that was like, okay, I like the vibe of this insane chase through San Francisco and What's Up Doc. And the great chemistry between those leads. We talk a lot about that stuff.

And particularly when we hit on Midnight Run, I think was probably the biggest in terms of just simple goal, lots of complications. and constant forward momentum. And a very specific amount of time. Ant Man of the Wasp takes place over 36 hours, his last three days on house arrest. So it was really fun to just do that thing where it's, you know, three days left, what could go wrong?

And then suddenly he is kidnapped by hope and taken to see Hank and sucked into this larger thing. So that felt like, again, like, okay, that's something that I haven't seen in a Marvel movie, and it feels absolutely in keeping with the kind of comedic action tone

that we're doing. You have a really deep bench in the movie? Randall Park and Bobby Canna Valley and Judy Greer and people cropping up over and over again who are very familiar to people. Is it easy to get people to say come do 10 days on this movie with me? Yes, tricky. I mean, we have fantastic. I mean, you know, I've known Judy for many, many years. And again, it's a small role for Judy.

And there's always a thing of like, yeah, Judy, she doesn't get to do enough. And they're absolutely right. She doesn't get to do enough. She's always amazing. And Bobby, too, because, you know, Paul and Bobby have been friends for a long time. So it's fun, and particularly on the second movie, to have these people we already have a relationship with and can come in and just, you know,

in their amount of screen time to come in and hopefully just score big time. But yeah, it's... And Randall Park, Randall Park to me was one of the big thrills. I've been a fan of his. I've worked with him briefly on a TV series, but to have him come in and create this character

who is part of the Marvel Comics canon, but to put our own Ant-Man and Was spin on this character and to watch him go toe-to-to-to-to with Paul was that was fun. It was fun to go to work on those days. He's very funny. Yeah. How do you figure out what you're going to do now that you have made these big movies?

You know, will you do a TV series? Is there a different kind of story that you want to tell? I mostly just, you know, I read stuff. I read scripts as much as I can, just kind of looking for something that feels right. And for me, it's usually a gauge of, we know these things take a substantial amount of time, a year, a couple of years, and it really is kind of what it has to me, it has to provide enough of a way in for me that it's something that excites me. Is there?

You kind of keep that level of enthusiasm up for that period of time. Do you have something in your back pocket that you've always wanted to be able to do that you've been waiting for the right time or the right kind of leverage? I do. I have, um, there's a science fiction project that I want to do as a feature that I'm working on developing right now that really, really excites me. And it's something I've wanted to make for some time now and, um, you know, I think is, probably pre-Ampan,

people wouldn't have thought of me in terms of that type of movie, and hopefully now they will. So we'll see what happened. What was it like doing the Quantum Realm, making something brand new that is canon, but also you essentially have to create from Whole Claw?

Yeah, I mean, quantum realm was a daunting task because we wanted it to feel, you know, unique to our movie, but it's also a thing that, you know, it is virtually, you know, limitless. It can be whatever you want it to be. So we had to figure out the story needs of what we needed it to be. But designing the visuals was terrific.

And again, Steph Serretti, our visual effects artist who had worked on the first Guardians of the Galaxy and Dr. Strange, he was obviously integral in terms of designing the thing. And we talked about how we wanted it to look. We also had this other thing with the quantum realm and our story. We're cross-cutting between this, you know, car chase in San Francisco that takes place in broad daylight and then cutting to the quantum realm. So it had to have a certain texture to it that wasn't going to be too jarring as you're cross-cutting these very different environments. And we talked a lot about the look of it

as if we were going to shrink down cameras, quantum cameras, and so that the imagery is the imagery, but you wanted it to maybe be a little grainy and maybe a little jittery and show the limitations of the photography that was part of the philosophy we talked about. But it does feel like we are just kind of starting to dip our toe into the quantum realm in this movie.

In terms of the actual practice, execution on set. Are there miniatures of everything at all times that you're consulting so that you know kind of what the audience will be feeling when they're watching it? Not always. There are times where we'll have these sort of physical proxies, whether it's like a green screen item or a really remedial version of the thing. But most of the time we have just done, we've worked with pre-vis.

So like if we're doing a scene in a space, we'll take the blueprints of a set or of the location, so we'll have a very accurate 3D model. of that. And then we can kind of build them in the computer and get a great sense of sort of, you know, so I can have that on set and show the actors like, okay, here's the thing that's going to be coming at you. It's going to look way better than this thing I'm showing you looks. It is always important because we do so much size changing, particularly in stuff like the school scene where the suit is malfunctioning and he's normal size, then he's two feet tall, then he's like 15 feet tall, then he's three feet tall and it's constantly shifting.

That particular sequence, which doesn't look overly. complicated when you see the final movie, hopefully. That was one of the most mind-numbing three days on the movie. Why? Because there was a lot. We were shooting in a practical school, and he's different sizes, but Evangeline is full-size. The camera's moving through these real spaces, and the sort of the higher mathematics that visual effects had to do, the programming of the camera moves.

Part of my job, a big part of my job, is keeping the actors in the moment and fresh. and when you're waiting around and having to deal with all the technical stuff, it can be very frustrating. And those are the only three days on the movie that I really felt it. How many minutes is that that you're spending three days on, like for the film? Is it three minutes, four minutes? I think in the finished movie it's about three, three and a half minutes. How do you stay patient when you're working on something like that? Well, usually there are a million other ancillary questions that have to be answered.

So you get distracted by that stuff. But really, that's the kind of stuff where like Paul is kind of standing around and his aunt suit in Georgia in the summer. It's really hot and humid and you're like, come on, stay funny, trying to keep everybody in the moment. That's the toughest thing, is really to kind of keep them fresh. I don't want to spoil anything about the movie, but, you know, there was a lot of consequential action in the previous Marvel movies. And a lot of people heading into this movie are like, how does this connect? So do you have a full knowledge of everything that is going to be happening in all the films that are in production, either dirt at the same time or

beforehand. And do you have to be dancing around those things in some way with your production? I suppose I would say that I'm on a need-to-know basis at Marvel, as I think everybody is. But yeah, we obviously always knew we were coming after Infinity War. We always knew how that movie ended. We knew our timeline was going to really be dealing with the events of the first Ant Man and also of Captain America Civil War, particularly with Scott Lang's story. That gave us our really dramatic jumping off point. We also knew at some point we were going to have to acknowledge where we fit in the timeline, or maybe we weren't. It was something we were just sort of wrestling with, because you knew if we introduced anything

specifically about Infinity War too early in our movie, it kind of threatened to hijack our movie. It's such a major dramatic event in that movie. So we knew we wanted to be as standalone as possible. When we landed on the structure that's in the finished movie, it excited us because it really felt right. It felt like, here's our story, and there's a certain amount of resolution that happens and cool title sequence

and now here's this cool tag scene where we're with our heroes and we've progressed the timeline a little bit they're working on this thing and then we deal with the events of Infinity War in our own way. I think it's very deftly handled. It was quite a reaction in the theater

when I was watching it. And that's fun to see too. I mean, you know, as a director, you live for the reactions dramatically or comedically in the theater and when you have a joke or a series of jokes or a sequence where it's rolling,

or building laughter, there's nothing better. And then when you have something where you viscerly feel the impact of a dramatic moment in the audience, it's like it's the best. That's very cool. Do you have any desire to be doing something that is not bound by all of this other storytelling that is out of your control? Is there something more appealing to you about that idea now? I think it's always been appealing. I mean, you just want your movie to stand on its own.

And that was an important thing with this movie. It's got a beginning, middle, and an end. Yes, it's enriched, if you know, the other. other movies. Yes, it's part of that larger tapestry, but I never really felt constrained on this thing. I mean, we really, I think, were encouraged because of where we fall after Infinity War kind of like to be a different thing. I mean, I think that's part of what has been successful about Marvel is, you know, let's mix it up and create these different tones. But there's certainly times in the process where you're thinking, like, we have all this freedom to do. There are certain

things that are set in stone that you don't want to do or that you, you know, someone you might not want to kill or do something like that. But for me, on these movies, it's very rare. I think probably coming into it, I just knew that that was part of the process there. And again, it's, I guess it's the 10-year anniversary of the MCU. And it's not that long ago that sort of this structural concept didn't exist. And it's easy to take for granted, like, how weirdly experimental it was. Yeah, kind of invented something, yeah.

Yeah. So I think as a storyteller, having done a bunch of movies before that, this was cool and different and challenging. If you told me I could only do this for the rest of my career, I'd probably not be as psyched about it. But it's a really whole different kind of storytelling that I'm excited to be a part of. Yeah. And I think looking back, the introduction of you and James Gunn, within a short period of time, kind of created that individual-of-view thing that now feels very common, where, you know, Ryan's film this year and Tyca's film last year. And it's like, these are really from the vision of a distinct filmmaker, even though it's,

operating inside this wider universe. Yeah, I feel like 2014 was the year when they released Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. Same studios, same cinematic universe and two radically different tones that all link together eventually. Ragnarok, Tyca's movie excited me. And not only that, but I was a fan of Tyca's movies, you know, I think Hunt for the Wilder people, boy, like I love those movies. They're so distinct and specific and funny and emotional. and so to bring that guy into the MCU and let him do his thing with Thor,

I mean, that just like pumped fresh blood into the whole thing. Totally, it was very smart. Peyton, we end every episode by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen, so what is the last great thing that you have seen? The last great thing I saw was the face of my child when I woke up this morning. Last great movie I've seen.

Last great, great, great movie that I've seen. Yeah. There Will Be Blood. Is that a decade ago? 11 years ago? Is that 11 years ago now? Yeah. It's the last great, great thing I've seen. Really?

Yeah. So that's my favorite film of all time. And hunt for the Wilder people, I will say. Okay. Those are good. But can you just tell me what you like about There Will Be Blood? You're probably the fourth person to talk about that movie on the show. Is there Will Be Blood?

Yeah, maybe not say it in response to this question, but it comes up frequently. Maybe some people know that I like it a lot, too. But what is it about that movie that you respond to? Well, I'm a big fan of his. I think Paul's movies are fantastic. That movie to me is like the perfect tonal distillation of America. And it presents this character who created this monumental achievement. And there's corruption.

And it really tells the story about American industry and American religion and how they're both powerful forces and how they're both deeply corrupt forces and how they coexist and battle each other. And there's something just so quintessential. American about that movie. I think it's also refreshing that it's just writ on such a gigantic cinematic canvas. It's beautiful to look at and the performances are

bold and it's a period piece that doesn't always feel, it feels very present and unexpected. And I just feel like it is the greatest film of the 21st century so far. I mean, it's like, it's, uh, it really is, if you said like, what's, what's, tell me about this America thing. Here, watch this movie.

I like how seriously you took the word great and I I appreciate it and I appreciate your time, Peyton. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks again for listening to this week's episode of The Big Picture. If you want to know more about Ant Man and the Wasp, may I direct you to Theringer.com, where I wrote about it, where Miles Surrey wrote about it, where on Monday, our staff will have an exit survey about the movie, which is very fun. And if you want more on movies, please go to the ringer.com. You can read Adam Neyman on We Own the Night, one of the best movies made in the last 25 years. It's now streaming. And yeah, for everything else you need movies, check out the ringer.com. Thanks again.