The Ringer-Verse - Spider-Man 4, 'X-Men', and Did ‘Fantastic Four’ Flop? | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

The Midnight Boys are back with a big ol' pod for you after all the Comic-Con madness. They talk about the latest happenings from the set of 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' and how the excitement is more than palpable for the latest web-slinging adventure. Then, they talk about the box office drop-off from 'Fantastic Four' and whether the casual Marvel viewer is no longer interested. Later, they dive into James Gunn dancing on the grave of Marvel's box office, as well as how Marvel can hope to get the X-Men right. (0:00) Intro (8:54) Nerd News: Spider-Man 4 (33:54) Nerd News: ‘Fantastic Four’ (1:12:17) Nerd News: James Gunn (2:03:33) Outro Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve Ahlman Producers: Aleya Zenieris and Jade Whaley Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Welcome into the Ringiverse. This is, of course, the Ringers' Nexus podcast feed for all things to hand. We are Steve, the architect Almond, the builder and tigger of things. Jomey to explain their dinner on.

You got questions. He's got answers. Old Man Van. He is the receding resurgent, hairline, Coke, baby Chuck, the 24-carric closer. Together, we are known ass. I'm on Midnight Boys. I'm in New York. The Midnight Boys are in Los Angeles.

Steve has glasses on. Yeah, it's my glasses by today. Niggis stealing swag. It's crazy. What made you go for it today, Steve? You know, I didn't really have time to get hit the shower and get like the, you know, the whole makeup situation right. I've got a little grocery bag situation under my eyes.

You know, it didn't really feel right. You know what the thing about Steve is? Steve is one of those white people that as soon as he put sunglasses on, he looks like a vampire. If you go to being regular. That's true. To like now you look slightly evil. Wow.

A vampire. On top of my thin layer of evilness already. We're on YouTube, like, comment, subscribe, share. You can watch every Midnight Boys and House of Our episode on YouTube.com backslash at Ringaverse. They also must follow us on socials, Insta Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok.

Jomi, what's going on on socials? It's going great. You know, a lot of the people are messing with us after St. Eagle Comic-Con. You know, a lot of arguments about Star Trek in the comments. But, you know, what can you be? A lot of arguments? Kind of, yeah.

How could it be a lot. Nobody watches Star Trek anymore. How could be a lot of- A couple of heads do. People are- People watch Star Trek. People are very big fans of Star Trek. I went and I said it was over

and people are like, nah, man, Star Trek's, it's over every 20 years and they're going back and forth about a little bit. It's like, hey, man, y'all really deep in it. I love it. So we're to the point now where you guys will actually say people watch Star Trek.

That's the thing. You guys are sticking by it. I mean, they have a whole Comic Con, this is Craig. They don't do that. People watch Star Trek. They do. Do enough people give a fuck about Star Trek?

Probably not. For the purposes of our show. I like Star Trek. Just to let you know, but I just don't think this is the golden age of Star Trek. Yeah, of course not. Of course not.

By the way, I say something else. I think they thought they had it too. I think they were like, yo, man, we're going to put Picard back on the show and bring a whole band back together. People was like, that shit was all right. Picard was good, though. People liked it.

People liked it. And then they stopped baking it after season three. And then it was like, yeah, we can just like do this other stuff. And people are not really messing with the other stuff, unfortunately. Picard was the end just like that of South Island. Ending after three seasons. Yeah. They thought that people really wanted more.

But it was cool to see it. Mm-hmm. But we didn't need it, man. They needed a season. It would be like that sometimes. This Friday button mash. we'll be talking about the 25 best video games of the century. Wow, that's interesting.

Next week, House of R will be giving you their Alien Earth premiere deep dive. Also, the Midnight Boys will be giving their reactions to Alien Earth as well. Alien seems like it's stretching his legs a little bit. Alien and Predator are poised. Alien and Predator, they're looking at the MCU, right? They're looking at the comic book movies. And you know what they're doing? They're seeing vulnerability.

They're poised. There's a different energy when you're alone in a room. It is. I'm telling you. It's a different energy. Can they deal the deathball? They're poised to strike. Alien and Predator.

They're doing it. All you daywalkers, don't forget, the Midnight Boys are part of American Cinematics. Tick, AmeriCimatic. They're friends of the Fest series. we're presenting Blade. Charles, you know what? Charles Tell them what's happening.

All right, guys, we are presenting 1998's Blade on August 25th at the Los Feliz 3. You could buy your tickets at American Cinematect.com.

Come join the ringer fam. I'm pretty sure a big picture will be presenting Michael Clayton, House of ours presenting Mad Max. Fury Road.

So, yeah, just come out with the boys. It'll be a fun time. What time are we going on? 10. 10. So we go on at 10. All of these things in the same day.

So it's big picture. Big pickies at 7. We're at 10. I don't. I think how's the next day? No, I think they're Sunday. They're on a day before.

You guys, I can't wait. I love Blade. Pretty good. I love Blade. There are two things that I love about the Blade movie specifically. What I wish is that we could have microphones while the movie was playing. Oh, we just MST 3K it.

While the movie was. going on. That's what I wish. The two things that I like about the Blade movie. One, I love Deacon Frost, who by the way is who Steve reminds me of right now. Oh, thank you. Yes. Honestly, that's a great vampire. Reminds me of Deacon Frost. Deacon Frost was so annoyed with the rest of the vampires. Yes, fucking make me sick. Humans are our food. Fuck you guys. I was like, God damn,

this is anxiety as shit. It's a little fucking, like, piss-ad vampire that's trying to become the vampire gulp. Also, I love something about the fight scenes in Blade that I only learned on the third time watching it. They don't rush Blade. No. No, they don't.

Go back and watch it. Three people will be fighting Blade, and Blade will be fighting them one at a time. Two people are watching. And one person will be on the side flipping their weapon around, like doing like this, like twirling their shit, while the other person is attacking Blade, and Blade is fighting them,

one at a time. But the third time I watched that bitch, I was like, why don't these niggas jump on blade? But that's what happens in every action movie is that like there's like 900 dudes, but they always come at one at a time

to give the guys a chance because they all jumped them. It'd be over. Yeah. If I see fucking Wesley Snipes, kill him motherfuckers, I'm waiting my turn. Like, I'm seeing like what he has going on

and then I'll probably book it. It's like a deli. You take a number, you wait in line. Yeah. You guys, of all the stupid fucking takes I've ever heard on this show,

this is by far the dumbest. Okay? So you telling me that you seeing somebody solo all your homies and rather than jump at him while one homie already has his attention, grab them, choke them, whatever. You're going to go, I'm going to wait until you're going to finish with my nigger. Then I'm going to take my shot.

I am waiting to see what Blade does and then I'm leaving. Exactly. You know what I'm saying? If he's piecing up my friends, I'm like, there's nothing I can do about this. That's what like, Iron Man is a silly movie, but the realest thing that happened was when that guy saw Iron Man piece up everybody.

I was like, hey, man, I just need a pay for my, you know, I got to leave. Well, if everybody in the movie was pussy, we would have no movie. That's not the point. Should they be fighting Blade? No, you know who did fight Blade and was the nigger in the next movie?

What was his name? We almost should have done Blade, too. With the blood passed. Wait a minute, man. My question is, I'm pussy because I went to a blood rave And I'm trying to have a good time get twirks on And now I'm supposed to fucking fight Blade These are not the people that are fighting Blade.

The people that I'm talking about are like the vampire tactical team Yeah, yeah, yeah. In Blade, the vampires have a vampire tactical team, right? Blade comes into the vampire fortresses and they got vampire fires. I'm going to call it out when we're watching a movie. but they're fighting in the hallway or whatever and there's three karate vampires that know how to do martial arts as well

and Blade is fighting one and the other one is behind them doing like this I'm like if you don't get your ass he's doing his getting a nose in there he's got to pause the movie whenever we like find a place to break it down I wonder if we could petition American Cinema Tech to just like okay pause wait a minute

wait a minute we'll be there until three get this shit rolling we go be there on today show we have a mega nerd news for y'all. We're discussing the disappointing, should I say, second week, Fantastic Four. The Spidey Four set photos, oh my God, what they're trying to, they're doing some different shit, Spider-Man,

and whether or not James Gunn is being petty. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business and even this podcast. That's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV,

mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support, millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. This episode is brought to you by Nass Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat, and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard-bought place. They're all jammed inside every can of Nass Energy, high-performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage and pedal to the metal human horsepower for the streets. Go ahead. Crack open a can of Nas Energy and get after it. This episode is brought to by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2%

cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. Be a 2%ter. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms of play. Chuck, go for it. All right, first up, Spider-Man 4 set photos on Saturday, Marlowe revealed the first look at Tom Holland's new costume from 2026's Spider-Man brand new day.

Since then, set photos of the suit have leaked online. We also learned last week that Mark Ruffalo is officially joining the cast of the movie. So, Van, my first question for you. thoughts on the new Spidey suit, thoughts on all the set photos, how are we feeling? Because this is a departure from the very Ironman, Iron Spider Tech that we had seen from the first three Holland films. Everything looks great.

The movie is hitting a home run in terms of intrigue. Mark Ruffalo's Hulk, the Punisher, Spider-Man suit, flipping around, set photos. It's hitting a home run as far as intrigue. Think about the question. That's what this part of the movie making has to do. Ask a lot of questions. The questions.

What the fuck is Punisher going to do? That's the number one question. Are they putting him in a war machine suit? Because I'm seeing rumors that motherfuckers are like, hey, yo, he's going to get a power up so he can fight Spider-Man and Hulk, which is making me a little nervous. I'm like, I don't know if I want to see, like, Iron Man Punisher. Well, we'll see.

They've done it before in the comic book. obviously there's some, there's some, you know, comic book canon for it. We'll see. And then Hulk, where's Hulk at right now? Like, what's happening? What's going on with the movie in terms of a spidey and where he's at right now? Now, I'll also say, a lot of people in this movie. Scorpion officially coming back.

Michael Mando coming back from the depths of the end credit scene that they were popped off. Is Matt Gargan going to be, Matt Gargan going to be Venom? in this movie? I hope not. I sure hope not. No. You don't think so? Scorpion Venom? That was in the comics. I know. Like, one at a time. One at a time. But I like it. I like the suit. I like the roster. I think I'm up on the movie right now.

Yeah, I think I'm in there for it. In there. And we talked about this in the group text. The set photos are crazy, man. Like, everybody's out there. Everybody's getting the flig. People are like getting like the one I and hopefully we can show it on screen for people for watching. It's like Spider-Man is like, it kind of feels like it's from like, like, Spider-Man 2 era where he's like kind of like

bending over a little bit and you can see like crowds of people. So, all right. Yeah, it's shot from the back and he's like looking down and it's just aura farming. He's crazy aura. It's crazy aura for us leaked set photo. I can't imagine what it's going to look like

when it's done. The suit and people have pointed this out, it's kind of like a blend of Toby and Andrews and Peters from the first three movies. And I'm like, I'm so locked in. Like whatever guerrilla marketing they're doing right now, it's working. I mean, for the guerrilla marketing, do you guys think this is Marvel's way, the MCU's way of being like, we saw them second week, fantastic four numbers.

Let me drop some set photos. Let me drop some shit. I think it's, people excited. It's definitely a factor. When Marvel knows that they're going to be shooting in a big block of a city that they know that they can't cordon off and there's going to be like a lot of quality control. Like there's going to be photos. People are going to be taking photos in an entire city block. And knowing that there's going to be,

Tom Holland's going to be saying hi to fans, he's going to be doing all of these stunts. There's going to be these crazy explosions and great practical effects that look great. I think this is actually a very good move to start day one of shooting with like the Instagram post from Tom being like, hey, you're ready?

And then you see all of these, amazing things happen. I think this is a great guerrilla marketing campaign. Well, number one, there's no way that it's reactionary because the movie was set to shoot at the time that the movie was set to shoot. Fantastic Four was set to come out at the time the Fantastic Four was set to come out. The guerrilla marketing that they're doing on the movie isn't that much different than films past. It's that much different than recent films, which is interesting. they haven't really I remember

for like Winter Soldier in the movies back then you were seeing so much stuff come out I mean maybe I was seeing more of it because we were covering it on TMZ

but as far as them trying to change the story I don't know how much of that is this because this movie had a time where it was going to set

to shoot they were doing all that stuff I don't know how much of that is this but I do think that it was fortuitous for them

that all of this stuff comes back out or comes out and essentially injects a lot of enthusiasm into an MCU fan base that's probably asking a lot of questions based upon the second week numbers of Fantastic Four, you know? So I think it's a good thing for them. I don't know how much they said, okay, everything's fucked up. Let's go ahead and put this stuff out. I think this probably was already on the track.

But it is certainly nice for them that there's another property that's yet to come out that we can talk about right now. I mean, my other question, before we get to Fantastic Four, I am just a little worried about how many characters are in this. I think they've tried something similar throughout all of these phases in terms of like Captain America had Anthony in it, but it also had Falcon, but it also had, you know, Red Hulk and all, like, just the list goes on and on of, like, heroes.

And this has Spider-Man, Squirpian, Hulk, rumors of Mr. Negative, are we thinking that potentially there might be too many chess pieces on the board for what I'm hoping can be like

a Spider-Man film, especially since the last one was very much divided between Holland, McGuire, and what's McCauley, Garfield. I mean, they put a lot of heroes

in the movies now. I don't know if I'm that concerned. A couple of those people you named are villains. I don't know how my scorpion's going to be. in this movie.

You know, they always do something in these Spider-Man movies where they shut you up with an appetizer villain and get to the main villain later on. They start to do that in more Marvel movies. You start to see, this guy's here at the beginning, then they defeat him and they go on to the big villain, whatever, whatever. I don't know if there'll be... I'm interested to see how everybody fits in the movie.

Like, if they try to do like a Civil War type thing, that would be interesting. But, you know, Civil War had a lot of characters. That worked for you, didn't it? I mean, Civil War, to me, just felt like an Avengers. movie, though, where this seems like it's a Spider-Man movie. Well, I mean, it is a Spider-Man movie, but the thing I'm also

interested in... Did no way home feel like a Spider-Man movie? What did you say? Did No Way Home feel like a Spider-Man movie? I mean, yeah, but that was because it was three Spitees. It wasn't like juggling the Hulk and the Punisher. And I guess the other thing as a comic fan that I'm really interested in

is what storyline is this? Because, obviously, Spider-Man and Hulk have had a lot of run-in. Spider- is versus the Hulk. But Punisher has also been in Spider-Man comics. But I can't recall one comic where it's been all of those characters in it. So I'm kind of interested which storylines are they kind of cherry-picking for this film.

Now, did you want more of your street-level Spider-Man in this? And you're sort of a little bit nonpluss that maybe you're not getting it? Yeah, that's probably the thing that I'm like circling, which is, I would love the Spider-Man daredevil, like New York, just back to basics. And I think Hulk upends that a little bit. A lot of people have been saying that this might be the return of Savage Hulk. People are saying if Mr. Negative is there, it kind of gives them an easy in on how you can go from Smart Hulk to Savage Hulk. And I do think just in terms of action, it would be very, very cool to see how Tom Holland without the Iron Spider suit goes against a Hulk.

but that's just to me like a way bigger film when so much of the rumors around this were basically being like, hey, we're going a little bit away from the multiverse stuff and we're getting back to basics. I mean, it could still be a street story, right? I think the thing that people were talking about

like really heavily online was the fact that like, to your point, Mr. Negative can turn Smart Hulk to Savage Hulk. And he could kind of be like the Kurt Connors where like you have like that dual personality. He teaches him at ESU, whatever. and maybe, like, he does Mark Ruffalo, as Bruce Banner does remember him,

but Hulk might remember Peter Parker because, like, that's just how the Hulk's mind works. And so I answer your question about, like, am I worried about this movie having too many characters? It's not a hot take, but I think all these movies should have more characters, if I'm making really honest. More? I think more? I think, more? That MCU? I think here's, and, again, we, we.

From phase four onward, they were like, hey, man, we got the streets on lock. We're going to give Sean Chi a movie. We're going to give this person this. They're going to give this person a movie. And it's kind of like, cool. But we never see them again, right? They get a little, Sean, and they put them on a back burner for a little bit. From 2011 to 2019, Chris Evans was in a Marvel movie every single year, right?

Even if it's like cameo or showing up to do something, he was in a film for eight years straight. we don't have that anymore. People disappear forever. And then we're left to be like, oh, yeah, remember that person from so-and-so. People should show up in these things. They don't all have to be big Avengers movies.

For example, let's like fingers crossed and make Fantastic 4-2 and it's set in our present timeline with everybody showing up. Peter Parker should be there. Spider-Man should show up and talk to Johnny Storm, whether it's a scene, right?

Whether it's like a brief cameo or an extended thing, whatever. But how are they going to be in New York? with the Vazza for and Spider-Man not even no one. Not even show up. Not even show up. That's nuts. Like, these things they used to feel so connected because people would pop in and out, right?

That doesn't happen anymore. People disappear forever. I'm not saying every movie needs to have like eight, ten characters or whatever, but people should be able to come in and out periodically. So we remember who these people are, what they can do. And so when they all show up together in a Avengers movie, it's not like, oh,

they're like plugging in pieces. Like, oh, this makes sense why all these characters would be here and do this at this particular time. Do you think that that's kind of the key, like, a key ingredient to the recipe that Marvel's been missing for all of these years? Absolutely. What are you all to?

Marvel's had way too many characters in it. Captain America 4 had way too many characters. Well, no, I think it's the detriment of... Made too many new characters. We don't know these people. Yeah. We don't know those people. If it was like, again, if he was like, you got assemble the Avengers and like, all right, we got to go fight Red Cross and he's not playing with

whatever new Falcon. And he's actually getting people like, we know and recognize, it's a little different than like, all right, you got to go, it's the only person in that movie that we know is Sam Wilson. Everybody else is brand new. We kind of like messing with new Legos that we haven't, we haven't messed with. We'll never have anything to do with that, that Zoom call with Shang Chi at the end of show. Who knows with that means?

You talked to the Hulk. What do you do? I think Jomi is right. I think the tension here is with Spider-Man specifically because Spider-Man is one of the people in the comic books that has his own thing. Like, Spider-Man has his own world. The Spider-Man world. Spider-Man is an Avenger.

He shows up for the Avengers. He shows up with the Fantastic Four. That's actually really interesting to see that. I love when they do that in the comics. But Spider-Man is one of the people, a character that's a big enough deal, to have his own corner of Marvel. To where everything revolves around him. All the characters revolve around him.

he has a really flushed out important historic rogues gallery. You don't really need other villains from other storylines. You don't need Magneto as a Spider-Man villain. You don't need fucking Thanos as a Spider-Man villain. He has different villains for every day and a week and they're all good and they're all super fucking a big deal. And so the tension is not with the movie stuff is what, that's kind of the Iron Man thing.

When Iron Man was popping in and out of Spider-Man movies early on and it was so oriented around Iron Man, people were like, Spider-Man doesn't need that. Like, Spider-Man is a character to where his world is coming from his POV. And so we don't need a bunch of other characters from other properties to jump in there to make it meteor because the Spider-Man lore is meaty enough. Ooh, Danny. Now, I will say that I tend to, in terms of these movies, agree with,

with Jomey without a doubt. Like, it's very few of these movies that just put the one person in there and end up being super interesting. Even like Dr. Strange, which is, to me, besides Black Panther, I'm going to be honest with you. Dr. Strange besides Iron Man, to me, is the most competent best solo origin movie that Marvel has. it completely lays out the lower the character,

it gives you the emotional center of the character. Like, you understand Stephen Strange after that movie. And it's the first time you've ever seen him. But the first thing you started to think after he was gone is, okay, when's he going to play with all the rest of the guys? You know, like when, like, when is he coming back? Like, we're going to see him again, not in Dr. Strange, too, but in something else.

I don't know if people know how they want to do Spider-Man. But it's also thorny because of the Sony deal where, like, he can only be showed up in, like, Sony co-productions, which I'm assuming is still the case with this. That's always kind of seemingly been a bit of a thorny thing to put Spider-Man in a thing that isn't his thing. Like, it was monumental when he was in Civil War because that was, A, his debut and B, the first time that Sony kind of let the reins off a little bit. He can't be on TV and then, like, Punisher or not Punisher, sorry, Daredevil. Daredevil can't be in the movies. Yeah, it can't be in the movies. And so it's kind of like, these are like two characters that, like, obviously, you, like, if they said, they told everybody we're getting a Spider-Man Daredevil, a team-up movie against the Punisher, $3 billion.

Yeah. We would be there. We would love it the whole thing, but they can't do that. Against Kingpin, you mean? No, no, no. Like, they can have Matt Murdoch in the movie. I don't think they can have Daredevil in the movie. Like, it's this weird thing.

Because, yeah, he was in No Way Home again. No, no, no. You said Daredevil and the Punish. You said Daredevil and Spider-Man against the Punisher, it sounds like. They would stomp a fucking mud hole in his ass. They would be so far to watch the Punish against Kingpin, sorry. Yeah, and they have like rights against Pink Kingpin. So like it's really like a weird thing.

Like we have to deal with all these, this legal stuff to get to like where we would want to get to as comic book fans, as movie nerd fans. Like that's the meat of it. Well, I want to ask y'all really quick, if Savage Hulk is in this, a lot of fans, are starting to say the MCU is fucking up the Hulk. We have not, like, defeats for the Hulk throughout this shit has not been what they wanted to be. You know what I'm saying? Thano's

fucking murdered that motherfucker. Red Hulk got pieced up by Captain America. Tough. Yeah. If Savage Hulk gets beaten by Tom Holland without the iron suit and Punisher, do we have to have a conversation about

the Hulk? I mean, the Hulk has a Superman problem. Too powerful? You have to depower him to make them interesting? Yeah, they've never gotten a Hulk right in a movie. Really? Ever. I mean,

not Avengers? Not Avengers? No. I mean, he was cool, but he was significantly depowered. He was cool. Don't get me wrong. He's been cool in the MCU. The Hulk has been cool. But they've always had to lullaby this nigga.

Right. They have to do some way to control him and give he's got to go off planet the whole night. Like, it's a difficult character. That's why, you know, World War Hulk, World Breaker Hulk, all of these, these different iterations of the character, they're interesting. But they also put the Hulk in a place where his power can't hurt anyone. Like, the Hulk is destructive. And he's somebody who wants to be a hero, but his nature is to smash.

So it's difficult to put him in a team with people and have him take tactical, you know, it's, it, it, it, it, For the movies, it's hard. So, I mean, he's always going to be a little depowered, a little bit less than what we imagine him to be when he's in the films. Yeah, because you truly can't have a character that can crack a planet in half, like legitimately in movies with secret agents and assassins. I mean, the century up in his motherfucking now. Like, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, but like only, all he did was just like one v5 some people. That was about it. And then, like, erased a city block and then brought it back to life. That's fine. I don't know. I want to see the century. Tree versus the Hulk. I want to, that would be great.

My poor thundas. I felt, I felt so sad for the Thunderballs, man. That was tough. That, that, he was fucking over the Thunderbolts. He was fixing his clothes, bro. Like, he threw Bucky and he's,

like, he was, he, and it took him no time to acclimate to his powers either. He knew exactly what he could do. He's using telekinesis. He's burning people, the whole thing, pyrochinesis. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. Johnny were you going to say?

Like, Spider-Man was given Cap the beats, you know, he gave Dr. Strange the beats in the last one. So look, man, Savage Oak, maybe, you know what I'm saying? Spider-Man is overpower. He's been in the gym, you know what I mean? Like, I could, it's not going to be easy, but I can see it. I can see it. No, it made, Spider-Man, Tom Holland Spider-Man makes no sense in the fucking MCU

because fucking Plummer Vulture was giving him fucking problems. Well, that's true. But he beats him Dr. Strange. But he pieces up Dr. Strange. That was rookie Spider-Man. He ain't got on the weight training program yet. So six months later, he, like, he can take down fucking doctor strange and shit? Listen, listen, man, you know, once you get, it's like, it's like, you know, when you get to the league, you tall, you linky, you got the skills, but we got to get you on an NBA diet.

We got to get you in the gym, you know what I'm saying? We got to get you on a real program. You see him here too. It's a little different, a little bit more small, a little, like still lean, but at the same time you see the muscle growth, you know? Relax on my boy, he'd be putting it into work. And now he's like, how many years into it? I can see the vision. As long as he stopped being a bitch, bro.

I'm cool. Oh, my God. Oh, you are. You still on this. Wait. So just, we're going to say, Who's we? Who's we?

I'm asking you guys. You guys, you're going to tell me right now that the MCU Spider-Man, Tom Holland, is not a bitch. He's not a bitch. No. No. Okay. As it, what do you mean?

No. If we just go by the feats. If we just go by the feats. Civil War, kid, basically no experience going toe to toe with the Avengers takes fucking Bucky and a Falcon out goes to space like doing fucking work

Bucky and Falcon he takes him out You can't believe he was able to fuck over Bucke and Falcon What a fucking tough one Okay fucking multiverse shenanigans in no way home

Like going against the whole Sinister 6 Like, that's not, bitch, me. What are you talking about? Respect him. I do respect him. I respect the character. I've come a long way with him. But I'm going to be honest with you, bro.

He didn't been sat down a lot. They'd be sitting that little nigger down. Sit your dumb ass down. Okay? This motherfucker is 1617. He had two Spider-Man's up. He can't, none of this stuff he's doing on his own, by the way. He's bringing his Spider-Man's multiversally.

He's bringing the Iron Man. Let's calm down. He's like it. He's like it. I'm just being for real. None of this stuff he's doing, he's not doing any of the stuff alone. Look, somebody posted something,

and it was so funny. It was of the Green Goblin throwing a pumpkin bomb, or not the Green Goblin. I guess he was Hobgoblin. No, he was. James Franco. James Franco.

Throwing a pumpkin bomb and fucking Toby McGuire catching that bitch. And then throwing it back at him. And then Tom Holland jumping and trying to hit that motherfucker. as if he doesn't know that he can shoot the web at it. I don't know.

I like his Spider-Man, but he is, he's an emotional Spider-Man. He's 17, 18, bro. Like, what do you want? I mean, I don't, I don't know, bro. Toby McGuire was looking fucking 40 in those movies. You know what I'm saying?

That's kind of the thing, though. He was looking 40, but he was a college student. I guess he's still, I like this Spider-Man. And I think that Spider-Man brand-new day, if I can be serious for a second, is probably going to show us a more confident or more resolute. A Spider-Man that's a little bit more of a loner because he has to be. Right. You know?

But before, it was kind of a, it was a Saturday morning Spider-Man. It was. All right, Spider-Man. Wow. That's a respect. No. No, dog. It wasn't.

This is your plug hate coming through. It's not. It is. It is because he was exactly. What's this guy's problem, Mr. Stark? You hate it. It's cool. It's okay. Own it.

He'll never get over the junkology. You're a wizard. Like, they little brode him. They little brood fucking Spider-Man. They little brood the 15-year-old? They little brood. They little brood. I just wasn't used to seeing Spider-Man being little broke.

Okay? But they did it. He's a teenager. He's a teenager. How it around with 40 and 50-year-olds? What? Like, he is little bro. He's literally little bro.

So, Spider-Man. So you guys are saying that right now, Spider-Man is Little Bro. Well, in the first three movies when he was around the Avengers, yes. A superhero Mount Rushmore. That's fine. It's the beginning of his story, bro.

I mean, he's going to be more stories at this point. So I'll be real with you. I've never seen Batman get a little brod. Never seen Superman get a little bit. Batman's a 30-year-old man, right. He's a billionaire. He's a 30-old man. No, wait, wait, wait, wait,

Patinson's Batman wasn't a 30-year-old man. He was still an adult. Yeah. He wasn't in high school? Was he in high school? All I'm saying is he is in high school, right? He is in high school. Right.

And so you guys are saying that Spider-Man, who, by the way, canonically is a teenager in the comic books. Yes, yes. But still never got a little broke. What? The Avengers, well, in the comics, the rest of the MCU is just like,

who is this annoying little fucker for the majority of his history? Whoa, you what I mean? What are you talking about? It's, it's, it's, it's, if. He didn't get respected until he grew up. In the comics, he did not get respected until he grew up. No.

Spider-Man has, his entire thing revolves around him. When I'm saying, when I'm saying being little bro, there were no other comic book characters that were coming to the Spider-Man shit and pat him on the head and telling, nah, if they thought he was annoying, he's a wisecracker. If they thought he was annoying, then he was annoyed. Okay. How about this? And Garfield's Spider-Man was in high school.

That nigga didn't get a little broke. I mean, at that point, there was no other heroes to be popping in this year. Yeah. I mean, we wouldn't get broke by Jamie Fox, but. Can we move on to Fantastic Four? We can, but just it's time for an adult Spider-Man. We're getting, we're going to get one. This is Van's hatred of you.

We'll see. We'll see. We'll see if Punisher says, hey, hey. I tell you what you need to do. You need to be a killer. Go around that corner and kill. And he goes, I,

Captain, yes, yes, Mr. Frank, sir. I'm going to lose my shit. He's not going to kill nobody, man. I am going to be honest.

Frank Castle got to lose the fucking John Bernthal voice for this movie, bro. I can't have. I regret to inform you, Charles. You will not lose the John Burnton,

John Boythal voice next to the dog. He will be telling you something. He will be telling you something. Let me say something. Hey, hey, Spot a man. Let me tell you some Spartabbit. It's going to be great.

It's going to be great. Fantastic Four. Wait, real quick. All right, Fantastic Four First Steps is faltering at the box office. The movie only made $40 million domestically, which is a 66% drop from its first week. Box Office analysis only expected the movie to drop between 50 to 60% according to variety. Now, I feel like before we act like the fucking sky's falling, let's add some context. Cursey, a Variety, and Hollywood Reporter.

Here are some comps for some other second week drops for recent superhero fare. Superman dropped by 53%. Captain America in its second week, Brave New World dropped by 68. The Marvels was 78. Ant Man and the Wasquantamania was 70%. And Thor Love and Thunder was 67%. So, technically speaking, Fantastic Four has done the best out of the recent MCU movies. But then I'll start with you because you dropped this in the Ring ofverse Chat and declared Fantastic

for a flop. What do you think this number says about Fantastic Four and kind of the state of the MCU? The movie didn't flop. I was antagonizing you guys. The movie didn't flop. It just says a little bit about where we are and about some things that this movie didn't get quite right.

The movie was good. It was better than fine. It was better than okay. It was a good movie. But there were some things about the film that probably didn't quite work for the casual filmgoer, the casual moviegoer, that would entice people to go out to see it, right? Also, we're just not in the same place we were before.

I think we already knew that. We kept waiting for the MCU to come back, and no one talks about the fact that the MCU is here. There's no back. This is it. So many things have changed. I disagree with Sean. I'm a debate, Sean, about whether or not the fall of the MCU is good for movies.

me and Sean are going to do a debate. We've talked about it. So I don't think that that's true. But I do think that there are realities here. And the realities are that, like, the casual fan is just simply less interested in these movies than they were five, six years ago. Yeah. That's fair. It is fair.

I'm curious to think that if there ever is going to be a prevailing attitude that is a reclamation of the casuals at this point. because outside of something like a doomsday or like a Spider-Man that genuinely brings in, can bring in anybody, I don't know what is it going to take for the MCU to really galvanize that. Or do we just rely on just like the one-off weekend that is a hit and then we move on? Is that going to be the MCU model now? It's story momentum. Yeah.

So if we go back and look at a lot of the first appearances, of characters, like the first time we ever saw them, if they did pop up in another movie, a lot of times those movies weren't gangbusters, right? The Captain Marvel was because at the end

of Infinity War, which was a gigantic film in and of itself, it showed that she was coming, and then we wondered, was Captain Marvel going to be the missing piece that was going to give the Avengers

what they needed to come back, literally come back from the day, But other than that, when you look at, you know, the first Thor or the first, when you look at when these characters show up, these films weren't necessarily big, huge, billion-dollar things. Black Panther obviously had some cultural things going forward. And we had spent the whole movie with Black Panther before as well. Sometimes it takes these characters a couple of movies to even find who they are. It took Thor three movies to find a version of the character that was a runaway, both critical and commercial hit, right? So this is not necessarily that new, but there's also no story engine to anything going on in the MCU right now.

Zero zip zilch, nothing, nothing. The Fantastic Forward coming in is not following. Thunderbolts is not following this, is not following that. There's nothing. The fans are not as invested. Forget about the individual movie. They're not as invested into the MCU experiment right now because things are so staccato. there's no engine driving things forward there's no you got to see this people talk about how much homework

that you used to have to do to go to an mccc movie that homework helped it helped for people who had done it to be like hey i was here before i got to be here again i got to check it out that just doesn't exist with fantastic four so the movie would have had to be more of a popcorn movie to get people into the theater and it wasn't do you think this is excuse me do you think this is a result of like all of this stuff happening on Disney Plus, like when they came out in 20, end of 2020 and we're releasing like all these shows, Moon Night, Wanda Vision, Loki, the whole thing. And the people were just like, this is too much. I can't, I'm not going to, I can't watch it all. I'm just going to wait. It's going to wait till us on the, on the home screen and see what's going on.

I think if the oversaturation wouldn't have been as much of a problem if they had a direction. I think they flooded the zone, not having a plan. And that was the real issue. Like, yes, had a plan, like maybe in the earlier stages of a post-end game MCU, but then as things got longer in the tooth, more and more TV shows, more and more movies, we clearly kept getting lost in the sauce and didn't really have a direction until these past few movies. I mean, I think the thing that I've just been noticing is that this is just such a complicated problem because people want to just boil it down to like a few things. And I'm just like, hey, everything would be, like, think about all of the things that

happened in concert. We've talked about this a lot. If Chadwick Bozeman, rest in peace, was in Wakanda forever, I think the MCU would have had an engine where it's like they've been searching for who are going to be those stars. Chadwick, along with Tom Holland and Breeler, like all of these people were supposed to be. And then we had, you know, the pandemic. And then we had the writer's strike.

And then we had the Disney Plus of it all. I also just think, like, culturally, we're going to talk about James Gunn later. I know James Gunn's dancing on the grave. but if I'm James Gunn in D.C., I'm worried. Because I'm like domestically, Superman did really, really well, but, like, globally Fantastic 4th, Superman, were a lot softer than in previous years.

And I think also just, like, culturally, in terms of, like, superheroes are a very American export. And I feel like we are at a time where the world is being like, we don't want this anymore. And to me, I'm like, if I'm either DC or Marvel, I'm thinking like, okay, how do we make these movies at these budgets

when we can't count on a China like we could in the previous years, when we can't maybe count on certain European markets or whatever to be just going to all of this? I don't think it's just like an MCU versus DC thing. I think it's like, what is the next iteration of superhero storytelling that people want?

And the answer might be like, people just don't want it to the extent that they did for the past 15 years. I think that's fair. And I think, again, when we talked about, like, looking back at Spider-Man and, like, what that would, like, what the future of the MCU would look like. I think it's a lot more, I mean, obviously, we're going to get the X-Men.

But, like, heavy hitters, really. Like, X-Men, I think Avengers at this point, Spider-Man, and then for DC, Batman, Justice League, I don't really, like, we can't do, like, they're going to do Supergirl and Clayface in 2026. following up with Superman. I don't know if that's. We're dancing on the MCU's grave. I'm like, if I was a betting man, if you're like, would I rather watch

Spider-Man into Avengers films or Supergirl Clayface and the Batman? I'm picking the MCU. Again, a lot of James guns out there again, we'll talk about him, buddy out there making tweets he out there having a good time. Spider-Man's going to outgross both those movies combined. Sure.

Easily. Right. And it's not going to be dog shit and it's still going to do 8, 9, maybe a billion. And then they got Doomsday coming in December, right? And so it's kind of, you kind of have to rethink how we do these universes, right? It's nice to get a Supergirl. It's nice to get a Clayface.

Ultimately, people aren't going to show up in the numbers that you want them to, right? If Clayface made half a billion dollars, if Supergirl made half a billion dollars, we'd be like, oh, my gosh, what a great year. Wow. Yeah. Fantastic. Back then they both would have made, like, maybe not. Clayface. Supergirl would have made like 600, 700, 50, and would have been like

ah, you know, I'm telling you guys right now, Supergirl's going to come in, fatter than y'all think it will. It's possible. Clayface, I have no idea about Supergirl's going to come in fatter than you guys think than you guys think. If we had to guess, what do you think the number would be? Do you think it's going to make just as much as Superman?

I'm not really good at picking the numbers, but I think two things will happen next year. Number one, next year, a lot of people are going to be in the movies because there are a lot of big, heavy-hitting movies coming out. A lot of things that are happening. So people are going to be going to the movies. Two, I think that the ladies are going to show up for Supergirl.

They are. I think so. There's going to be a lot in the promo run that they have to capture, but I think the ladies are going to show up for Supergirl. I think they are. I think Supergirl is going to be, what happened? No, I was just going to say that's interesting because I feel like DC and the MCU had been doing a terrible job.

of getting women back to the theaters to support these movies. Like we saw what happened with the Marvels. Like, I'm just interested in, like, how DC can kind of... Because DC's dealing now with the MCU problem, where it's like, because, like, women have kind of been, like, thrown up their hands and be like, we're not really that interested in that.

Can DC be like, this is something different? Don't worry about it. You know what I mean? Well, I mean, look, the Marvels is a completely different thing. It's a very troubled production. I think that I would compare Supergirl a little bit more to Captain Marvel than I would to the Marvel's.

Captain Marvel, obviously, it's not going to have the same momentum that Captain Marvel had, so it's not going to make a billion dollars, but Captain Marvel was your first chance with Bree Larson as the character. And everybody gave her a gigantic chance. It was a big deal for young girls. It was a big deal for people, so they went out and saw it.

She hasn't nailed the character. She just hasn't. And so with the Marvels, which was a fine movie, with everything that went on with it, I just don't think that people were that into seeing it. I think that whether or not people see a Supergirl sequel will be a different thing. I think they're going to give that movie a chance, though.

I just have that feeling that they will. Do you think it's a common to like Wonder Woman? What happened? Do you think it's a similar comp to Wonder Woman where obviously Wonder Woman is a bigger hero than Supergirl? But that was a film where we were, the interest was, can they do it? Like, this is one of the biggest women heroes of all time.

We're going to the theater, not just to support it because it's Patty Jenkins and everything. We're trying to see it's like, yo, what does a modern Wonder Woman film feel like? And then it made a lot of money. And then the second one was set to make a lot of money. And it was just terrible. But also, to your point, the pandemic, look, if we wanted to shoot Marvel Bell, there are a million things we could talk about. We could, a million caveats and excuses we could make.

The streaming wars and the way that they affected the quality specifically of a project like Marvel, right? An IP battle and IP war really exposed to Marvel because when you get into a place like that, you have two things happen. You have aging stars that don't want to continue to do these movies forever. Chris Hemsworth said he would play Thor or forever. but then you had Iron Man and Captain America go, we're finished with this, right? So at the one point that the streaming wars were starting to happen, HBO tried to do a Tony Soprano extended universe.

Yeah. Like the mini-says of Newark was going to be the beginning of making Tony Soprano young again and then bringing in everyone else and doing a bunch of those movies about his Carlito's way Tony Soprano's rise to power. They were about to do it. everyone ran to their corners

Paramount had Star Trek Marvel had their stuff Disney had Marvel and Star Wars everyone was throwing their IP against each other and for a place like Marvel that was obviously steeped in IP

they tried to make some stars that really weren't there to be made in order to keep people on Disney Plus then you lose the other people you lose Chadwick Bowman right you lose Chadwick, then you

can't lean on the people that people really want. What if they would have made the Chris Evans Captain America show? Everybody would watch. If Chris Evans was in Captain America 4, we would be having a different conversation.

Like in it, in it. No, no, I'm talking about he is cat. Like, I would also say this. Can you imagine if Marhershala's Blade had already been out where it's like, oh, when you start looking at it's like, all right, well, we had Spider-Man, No Way Home, we had a Blade movie, we had a Chadwick,

Poseeman Black Panther movie. Like you, like, a lot of them. They bench blade because they didn't really think they needed them. They were fucking playing slow and fast. Yeah, they were. Playing with them. No, that's really true. And I think I have more to say when it comes to James Gunn, but I think the caution

that comes from building a extended universe now that you're just on the precipice. Like, I think I agree with you, Van, that Supergirl is going to show up well because that goodwill that Superman makes, like that is a great. start for anything to come next for it. And knowing that you've got to follow up strong with these things, I think there's just like a level of caution that could still come because we're in a bit of a precarious time when it comes to IP. People still want them to see good movies and feel good afterwards.

I think it's tough because I see where Vance coming from in terms of like, and hopefully and like I would love if people came out and like, yeah, hell yeah, supergirl. Like, who wouldn't want that? I think that'd be great for everybody involved. But like a lot of this stuff is made for millennial men, right, at this point. And if I recall correctly, I don't even think women came out for Fantastic Four or Superman, right? And so you would need like a huge push, a huge push. Let me ask you a question.

Did they come out for Barbie? Right. Oh, I think Barbie and Supergirl are two totally different things. That's what I'm, I don't know if it's the same thing. Hold on, hold on. It's, they aren't the same thing. They aren't. They're totally different.

But what I'm telling you that, I mean, Barbie is essentially the biggest female superhero that's ever existed, right? So you can do everything. She'll go to space one day. The next day, she's CEO. The next day, she's a fashion model. Barbie, on her, Barbie's in the CIA. Barbie's a CIA asset.

She got too many different jobs. She got too many different talents. She's, Barbie is a CIA. asset, man. Maybe Mossad. Like, Barley... I'm just... I'm just being for real, bro.

Barbie got too many things. Barbie know too much. Right? Like, Barbie know too much, okay? That's so funny. But what I'm saying is, the audience, you're not going to get Barbie's audience, right? It was a movie that they were waiting for for decades.

Yeah. But the audience does exist for particularly women and young girls to get behind these things. And you've seen it. I would be interested to know how many ladies stepped out for Captain Marvel, but Wonder Woman is a fiercely

female character. That's some time ago, but I do think that a well-executed promo run and movie can still make Supergirl happen, right? Yeah. And you're going to need women to come out in a big way.

I think that movie's going to be a big deal. So I don't think that... I don't know that female characters are... should have been completely abandoned by audience. Let's hope not. Right.

Yeah, you obviously, you hope not. I just, to Jomey's point, I do think the reason why I'm like, you know, I hope it works out, but I'm a little bit like, I think the fandom has gotten more toxic in the intervening years, where it's just like,

they were all, the Snyder bros were already, I haven't shut up about Superman since James gone Superman. Yeah, the super woke shit and all that. You know, like, so it's like there is a, So there's a feeling where it's like that audience and how rancid it has made the entire pool, I think does have an adverse effect on something like Supergirl. Where I think the chances of it being really, really good just qualitatively, I think it's super, super fucking high.

But the chances of just like the fucking bros just making it radioactive. Yeah. And just hearing all that. And hopefully the vast point though, hopefully the women come out and be like, all right, bet. We're going to support this movie. Sure. And we get this thing on. And people like us, men especially, stand up and be like, all right, no, forget all that.

We don't come out and support. I'll just say one more thing about Supergirl before I leave. It's a, before I leave, before we get off this, it's a character that is always been a woman. Right. So the toxicity that would exist around some of this other stuff has to do with female Black Panther, Black woman character, Black Star Wars-led female character. It has to do with positions where women haven't typically been in before, right? I think you might get a little blowback from making her a party girl. You might see some people that if you get some toxicity on the right,

you might see some people that are saying, hey, they're trying to make this role model for our daughters and, you know, whatever into this. You might get some of that. But this is a character that has always been a woman. It's always been a woman. It's a well-known character. there isn't any race swapping.

If they fucking had Laverne Cox as Supergirl, I think you get a lot of shit that was going on. You know what I mean? But I'm just saying, like if... You're assuming, though,

that these people are smart. Yeah. You're never going to make those people happen. No, I'm not assuming. I'm just going by things that have happened before. I'm going by the fact that Wonder Woman worked, that Captain Marvel worked.

I get that the toxicity has gotten worse. But also, I think that in this particular point, there's there's not a lot of reason like Super Girl is a pretty traditional American character that there's not like a lot of reason there's no woke agenda for Supergirl

she came out in the fucking 50s I don't can I ask this if you're DC do you see everything that's going on with Sydney sweetie and you just like you know what let's get some outrage up on this bitch you know what I'm saying let's make Supergirl Super Airy you know what I'm saying Oh my God

What? Supergirl got good jeans. We don't need to talk about that. No, so like the Sydney-Sweeney outrage is ridiculously and stupid. It's like a whole dumb. It's dumb. Really? Yeah.

Yeah, we're kicking ourselves on the balls. It's a stupid thing to be pissed off about. It's a dumb thing to be pissed off about. You don't like the, you don't like the Aryan master race a little bit? That's everybody's going around with that. You don't like it? You're like, why are you going to be a decision? I mean, hey, Bradley Cooper was telling Superman, A.O.

Like, I need you to go spread your seed. No, I mean, the whole thing The whole thing with the Sidney-Sweeney jeans thing is that like, it's, she's, you know, blonde, blue-eyed, the whole thing. And she's like, I got good jeans. People are connecting dots because of, like, just how we're living right now and the tenor in the air. Y'all got it.

I don't give shit. Whoa, I'm just saying. You know, we got real problems. Like, you understand that. And I'm trying to understand where you come from. I get it. It's one of those things that, like, you look at it. She's got good.

She's saying she's got good jeans because she's pretty. She got big to eat. And you got. And you got. like her boobs and y'all Ben told her she was fine. So I don't get mad when she said that she, y'all been told her that she was fine. I was at TMZ one time and we're all talking and I was like, you know, Leslie Jones made the joke on Saturday Night Live that LeBron James and Serena Williams to get together and everybody got pissed off about it. And I was like, I see why people are talking about, you know, eugenics in terms of like black people and all that.

And I was like, so, but it would be dope if that happened. All right. And then I was like, we'll be dope if that happened. And Harvey looked at me and Harvey going, are you saying that part of athleticism? Are you saying that it's part of its genetics? And I'm like, yeah. I don't know if you guys, yeah, part of its genetics,

the motherfucking nigger is six foot nine and he can jump and touch the stars. Part of that has to do with his genetic makeup. It's the thing. And part of the code for you to have big titties is in your jeans. You got the big titty gene? Big titty gene. She got the big titty gene.

And if she had come out and been like, white this is better and blah blah blah, blah. But she's like, yeah, I'm in my jeans and my jeans of blonde hair, blue, all of that. It didn't bother me. I will just say it's so funny. People are like, if she's a Republican, I'm like, all right, motherfuckers. I'm like, 90% of Hollywood's the Republicans. Surprising nobody. Oh my god.

90% of the kitchen, my fault. It's... We keep the Republicans out the town. Fuck them. All right. If there's Republicans in the town, they're not talking about it. I mean, they're not talking about it. 90% of them in the people in the, in these sea suites and all that, they might be.

But the other people, you'd be on set and pull that maga shit and see what happens. And that's why they're quiet about it. To Charles's point, though. If Sidney Swweeney was Supergirl, it would make a billion dollars. People are horny. So, like, it would be crazy. Yeah, we got... Obviously, James God will make a power girl at this point.

Like, people would watch it 300 times. It'd be nuts. I guess my overall thing is I'm... I don't think that we're to a point to where the wokeness... The wokeness... Jesus Christ. I don't think that we're to a point where the toxicity has gotten so bad that female-led projects can't work.

That they're not, that they're not... No. Oh, no, no, I'm specifically just talking about superhero shit. Like, I'm literally just talking about... So you think they can make Wonder Woman and people wouldn't go see it? I think if they made Wonder Woman today, like in the DCU, I don't know how well it would do. And that has no...

I know... I think Wonder Woman is an exception. She's one of the most popular superhero characters of all time. I think in today's climate, she could still do Superman numbers in these days. I'll tell you something. I'll just be honest with you guys. I know that it was a mantle, but female-led Black Panther worked.

Yes. They did. It did. But I'll ask you this. What are the chances that we see Tachala in that next motherfucker? Well, that's guarantee. Now, we've got to bring them back. That's what I'm saying.

That's only because we'll get into this in mantle wars, but that's only because we got to keep it real about these characters. And the reality is that Black Panther, is Tchala. Saji Saji. It's Tony Stark. Captain America is Steve Rogers.

There are, these things are mantles. The only time they've been able to slide one and let this nigga get his shit off is really Miles Morales. And the Flash. And Greenland. Right. Nah, man. I'd still say that Greenland is Hal Jordan, baby.

I'd still say, like, It's true. Really? It's closer. It's closer. closer. It's definitely it's closer. I don't know, man. They still put Hal Jordan. Like,

John Stewart might be our green lantern in the Lantern series. They still put Hal Jordan in that, motherfucker. Like, come. Come on. So it's closer. This is why we're going to do Mantle Wars. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There are less transferable mantles than we think that they are. So, all right, before we

get to James Gunn, my question, though, because Baghe has said that the recasting is Steve Rogers, is Captain America in film or is Chris Evans? Because I would be interested when they reboot this universe, if they try to put another blonde

blonde dude as Captain America, is everybody excited or like, he's not Chris Evans. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to see if Chris Evans has one more bombed rom-com on Apple TV Plus, then I think he might be Captain America forever now. The thing is, he's 44 years old.

He could play Captain America for a while. He could. He could. He specifically, though, does not like getting in shape for it. I understand. He doesn't like having to be that big. Yeah. He could play Captain America for a long time if he wanted to.

He could. But would we take anybody else in that role? Sure. I feel like people were actually unfair when they were just like, yeah, Anthony Mackey, Black-Hared Mary or whatever. And I'm just like, I'm not so sure if they had recasted and they're just like, hey, it's not Chris Evans, but it's a new white boy. We would have been that jazz. We would be like, who the fuck is this? Yeah.

Like, I mean, maybe. as Steve Rogers. As Steve Rogers. But again, we were in love with the passing of the mantle to Falcon at the end of end game. And we would have liked to see what that happened. Obviously, that took a very long time and it didn't work out. But we were on board with that for a while before we got to see it. I mean, I want to say it didn't work out.

So I don't know that it didn't work out. By the way, I still think that Anthony Mackey, if you judged Captain American how well the character worked after the first Captain America, the first Avenger, you wouldn't have been as sold as what you were after Winter Soldier. Right.

No. After Avengers. You wouldn't have been as sold, right? Now, I think that the First Avenger is overhated and is better than people remember. It's way better. I think it did a good job of establishing the character, right?

But, so if I'm comparing the First Avenger to Captain America for, the First Avenger is better, but them finding the character I kind of put them in similar world so I'm not writing Anthony Mackey off

as Captain America. I'm saying that when people think about Captain America, they think about Steve Rogers. Right. And if Sam Wilson's Captain America can, if he can play the role for five, six, seven, ten more years maybe he buffers it

till they split the worlds up and then a new Steve Rogers comes into play. And they get these characters back to baseline, but that's what people think of. Like people, people think of the, and that's, and that's tough because it, when you are not,

when you are switching generations with this, when it's like, okay, Superman is, comes out in 1978 and then he doesn't come back in another movie until like 2000, fucking six. People have gotten the chance to get the old Superman out of their system.

They didn't have to watch, rest and peace to Christopher Reeve, they'd have to watch Christopher. if get old, older and still try to play the character and all of that stuff. They don't have to do all of that and go, okay, who's going to be

the next Superman? Batman different. Batman is, it's always Bruce Wayne and it's fine and you don't have to deal with it. But now, Captain America is still young enough to where if they bring another actor

on the playoff, you're going to be like, why don't they just get Chris Evans to do it? Right? It's still young enough to where you're not quite over Chris Evans as Captain America. He just played them in 2019, six years.

So, I don't know. Like, it's a little bit more of a tricky job than people think that it is. That's why it's hard for Anthony Mack. It's hard for some of these other people to step into these characters. It's hard for even Rie Rilliams to kind of be Iron Man. It's like, it's real difficult. I don't know if people are quite ready yet. I don't think people are ready for it.

Last thing I'll say before we move on. Yeah. part of Fantastic Four coming in soft is because Pedro did not nail Reject this is no I'm gonna let you get the agenda off

get your shit off I'm surprised you're waiting until this week you could have said it on the main podcast you could have locked in and be like hey I wouldn't really

you know what I'm saying you got the drop off confirmation though now but you know if we go on Pedro summer though if we go by Pedro summer Eddington ain't do what it was supposed to do

Fantastic for it didn't do it. I mean, Eddington is an art. Materialist. It was not a capital H hit, but it wasn't enough of a hit. I don't agree with Van, but Van, are you ready to say that Pedro, not a movie star? Nope. That's not what I'm ready to say.

I'm not ready to say Pedro's not a movie star at all. Then what you're saying? Pedro Pascal is one of the most successful, beloved, charismatic actors we have right now going. Right? We've seen them a bunch of things. we've loved them a bunch of things. He did not quite nail Reed Richards. And that's okay.

That's okay. We just talked about it before. Like he, I don't know that the guys that nailed their characters first time out, Chadwick Bowesman, Black Panther, Had him. Iron Man, Had him. Iron Man, Had him. Deadpool. Dr. Strange.

Well, actually, Deadpool doesn't count. Deadpool doesn't really count because Ryan just orient the character completely around him. It was more Deadpool playing Ryan Reynolds than it was Ryan Reynolds. Oh, no, I'm more so mean we had the first appearance of Deadpool was whack, but that wasn't really Ryan's in origins, yeah, in origins, yeah.

In origins. Right. Sometimes it takes people a little bit. We just talked about it to like work themselves into it. And that happened here. The only difference is

is that we expected so much more from this movie than what it's ended up going to give us. But if you compare it more to the first time characters have shown up on screen. If you compare to Thor, I know that the MCU is in a different place, if you compare it to all of these,

if you compare it to Dr. Strange, it's not really out of the realm of reality that the movie is going to end up a little soft, even though it's the Fantastic Four. But I will say his portrayal of Reed needs to

grow. Sure. It needs to be stickier. It needs to be meatier. It, like, it needs to grow. Well, I think part of that is like, I mean, I guess you said it, is like they need to give him more to do, actually, right? Because in this movie, we talked about it on the Fantastic Four Pod, it's a lot of Sue, right?

She's the engine that makes this go. She's the emotional engine that runs through the movie. Reed, I don't want to say he's just kind of there because that's not fair, but he's, like, bouncing off her. Like, he's taking it from her. and like he needs to like he doesn't have as much as a say as you would want Reed Richards to have like in the comics

when he's like the guy making up all the plans and doing all this. I think going forward and this is something that like it's tough to reckon with because remember when Matt Shackman came out and said that he'd be leading Avengers everybody went crazy and they're like just kidding he's not doing that and then later it came out that like

he might not play like a big role in the movie. People were like upset about all that. I think they need to dial in what they want from like read specifically. Because I think Pedro himself can do it. If we want the read that we've read in the comics from the Hickman run and all this stuff, where he is the guy who is stressed out and taxed with having to deal with everything, having to fight doom, having to be a family man, the whole thing.

I think Pedro can do that. They just have to give it to him. So, all right, my question, before we get to James Gunn for all of us, Avengers Doom's Day. with all of the characters on board, who do you think should be the heart of this movie, the lead of this movie? If we could only pick one hero, if you could pick Sam Wilson,

Mr. Fantastic, Chris Hemsworth, like, who are you just like, is the, like, we're looking at it. Like, same way in Infinity War, it's like, there's a lot of characters. Iron Man's the guy. Well, I would argue that Infinity War, Thanos is the guy. Well, Thanos is a guy,

but I'm talking about heroes. Like, heroes? Ooh, because my answer would have been, Dr. Doom, my answer, Robert Downey Jr. Right? Well, I mean, that's the guy. He's got to be centered movies.

I don't think any of the heroes can do it. He's, like, it's his movie. It's like, it's his movie. Like, what, well, the heroes might be able to do it,

but like, this is, I mean, we got the fucking Fox X-Men in this bitch. So, yeah, it's gonna be a lot. You know,

they put him back on, they sneaker for the first time in a fucking lot. All right? So, so, you know, uh, Nightcrawler fucking 61.

So they putting on their sneakers, the Doom's got to be sitting in a movie. Yeah. Last thing I'll say, a Galaxy Brain take on Rie Richards before we leave. In the right end of the character. Do you know who has a cameo? I know you guys know this.

What big tech person has a cameo in Iron Man too? Elon Musk. Do you know why he had that cameo? Because they built the character partially around him. Because that was cool then. Yeah. Yeah. So at that point, it was cool to be an all-knowing tech guy that was in control of stuff, that was doing stuff that was, it was cool to be an Imagineer.

It was cool to be a futurist. It was still cool. It was still like the archetype of Tony Stark was still cool. That's not cool no more. It's not. The social network came out, and I think that came out before Iron Man, too. but the social network came out was like, yo, is fucking Mark Zuckerberg a fucking asshole?

Is Facebook that your mama be on read by somebody that couldn't get into all of the club, so he's really a dick? Elon Musk became legitimately Lex Luthor if Jeff Bezos didn't become it. All of these guys got super fucking rich during the pandemic. All of these tech guys paleteer,

all of this stuff. we're wondering if these guys are not the people that are going to lead us to a new society. We're wondering whether or not these are the people who are going to rip society apart and reform it. Sam Altman, all of these dudes, right? It is more difficult to make an altruistic genius now. It's just, it's harder to do. And Reed's character is very complicated even in the comic books. Right.

So if people see Reed like inventing shit and taking shit and taking it. taking steps and taking away freedoms from people and automating things, it might turn them off a little bit. So the reason why maybe you got a little bit less re-richers is because that's a little bit more difficult than it would have been to do in a long, 15, 20 years ago. It's just not the same. Right. So to me, like, he designed their entire utopia that they were living up in Earth A28. And they kind of underplayed that. Yes.

They underplayed it because if you go too deep and too, like, direct at that, people are going to be like, I don't want. Like, Reed Richards is going to seem inherently evil because we did make a police state. When they're like, when he's going to the balcony, it's like, I got the guy in the bar where he got that guy over there. And it's just cop cars flying around everywhere. Yeah, and people are having conversation. People are kind of like, hmm, he kind of just. As a present for his pregnant wife.

Yeah. But I also think what people wanted, and I'm just like they were never going to get this, is people wanted New Avengers, Reed, the Illamonauty, making decisions with Black Panther, Neymour, Professor X, Iron Man. And I'm just like, we was never going to get that in the first Fantastic Formula. We just like, we just. We were going to get the counselor reads. We're going to get the counselor, Miles Teller. I tell you something. This is going to, last thing I say, this is super toxic.

Reed Richards becomes the old. ultimate alpha male. Like he becomes, and I hate that term, because it's not even real, but he becomes like a comic book kind of, hey man, we've made the decision to send you off the planet because we figured it out and you're fucking, you know, fuck shit up, bye. Like, we've made the decision, he's a unilateralist. He's a, I have to figure it out and you guys will be better off because I'm the smartest Man in the Universe. There's no way to play that character

softly with a delicate touch. There's no way to do it. For what he grows into, absolutely. So you're throwing Rebell. You're throwing Pedro some bail. Yeah. My man. Obviously, I've seen Pedro Pascal be

a motherfucker in some of these movies, right? Yeah. I've seen him be an assassin, a killer, a double dealer. All of it, he could do it. It's just, for whatever reason, be it script or circumstance, this read is still growing into the character, it didn't quite work.

I know people listened to the big pick and they were kind of, they were more Pedro focused with it. I think he can work as Reeve Richards. I just don't think that it really all the way worked in the fantastic. The development of that character is kind of in its infancy and we would like to see something bigger. I can agree with that. That's fair.

All right. Last but not least, let's talk about James Gunn. Superman is made over $553 million at the global box office, 317, of which is domestic. It's only the fourth movie of 2025 to make over 300 million in the U.S. The other being a Minecraft movie, Lilo and Stitch and Jurassic World rebirth. And as we were talking about in the group chat, you know, James Gunn was just like, hey, sorry about that Fantastic Four, but Superman's still doing good at the box office. So, I want to ask you then, does James Gunn have too much dip on the chip? Is he being petty?

Are we, are we, is he flying very close to the sun? no pun intended yeah man I didn't know he was like this man it went down at the marble firing it clearly had to it was messy I don't even think that's what it is bro

I just think this is probably and the thing that's gonna that's gonna like piss me off the most is somebody's gonna ask James again about this hey James that too was kind of crazy he can be like nah man was this literally like this like

he's just like nah man I just like nah man I just said that tweet y'all reading too much into it man yeah i'm doing too much y'all reaching brother friday came out and everybody was like fantastic floor all that's over the second weekend bombed oh no do you come in on sunday real night's like great weekend for superman that's fantastic come on man can i be real i i hope i'm not wishing nothing on anybody all i'm going to say is i feel like we've seen this in Hollywood so many times where I'm just like, hey, yo, the thing I kind of respect about Fagie, especially in the beginning is like, he was like, he would come, he would present the

movies, he would do the whole thing, but he's not on Twitter. He's not on threads, arguing motherfuckers. He's not doing the rapper squad being like, hey, yo. I'm like, all right, man. It's cool with you up, but you got to keep the same energy. Like, all that shit don't start working out. It's getting to start to feel like some genuine hubris, only to know that when, again, I know that we say that Supergirls are going to be great, but I'm like, the things you got coming out. You're like, you don't have the hitters coming out for a minute. I saw how he was acting at that peacemaker panel. And I was like, that was feeling himself. No, yeah.

Listen. Hey, Kevin. I think on that nigga like, I'm the man. Kevin. I'm serious. That's great. Listen. But think about this, though, he was the focal point of the promo, the promo behind the movie.

He was. He was. He was third build for the. promo of that movie for sure. Yeah, he was the, to me, I don't know, Jumby, what you was going to say? Kevin got to stand up. This is nasty.

This is foul. Actually, no, don't. No, no, no. But Kevin Feigey has positioned himself over the last, maybe not earlier on, but over the last decade,

he's positioned himself as a singular star and figure in the MCU. He is the center. I mean, they put him in the movie. They put him in Super Hulk, in She-Hoke. They put him in the thing. Like, they, like, he is the Steve Jobs of it.

He is the, hey, guys, apples going to change the way you wash your balls. The eyeball washer? Eyeball. Lower case. You know, everybody in a turtlenex. Kevin Feige did that. Right. He's, yeah, he just, Steve Jobs.

He jobsified that entire thing. So it's not something that Gunn is doing that is necessarily new. But what I never really saw Kevin Fikey do, maybe I'm wrong, is kind of be a little bit of a scamp. Dance on a grave a little bit. His gun is mischievous. He's like, he'd be trying to get his shit off. And that is new.

And I don't need Kevin to like, I'll go on Twitter and do something. I'm like, that's what I'm saying. But, like, I don't know if you guys remember this in the 2016 finals. When the Warriors were up 3-1, Clay was talking about how LeBron was complaining. He was like, must have hurt his feelings or something, right? And LeBron, they told LeBron this. LeBron was in the press conference. He said, what did Clay say?

They repeated it to him. And LeBron just laughed. Brown was like, all right, obviously we know how that went. I don't need Kevin to make a statement or something. But, like, with Spider-Man coming out, got to be the hotness. You got some, about 24 hours to respond, Kevin Feige. I can see, I can see the vision of success for Kevin. You just me, never hear her apply for it.

I can't believe, you know, you know my feelings historically on the MCU. This is all I'll say. Hey, yo, Kevin Feigey, that nigga got championships. James going to run around like he popped. Shit, that shit not even going to make a bill. If I'm Kevin Faggy, I'm like, hey, yo, hey, yo, hey, yo, you was my employee. Relax. Relax.

It's like, it's like, I made you, don't. You're talking to. You're talking a, man makes a couple of dunks, but he's still talking to to LeBron. I'm like, and I know me, James Gunn, but like, come on, bro. Like, you got one. You got one on the board. Like, bro, like, let's not do this.

Not even a chip for you. You got a series with. Hey, we gave you that. You won a series. Congratulations. You got to the Western Conference finals, my nigga. Don't like, come on, bro. Is James Gunn the 2023 Memphis Grizzlies?

You get one, you know what I'm saying? Now you talk and you yapping? I see it. I see it. I agree with what you guys are saying. I disagree with the appeal to authority that all three of you guys are making. Well, you also hate authority, fan. Hate it.

So who's appealing to authority? So you guys are saying that, like, James Gunn should exist as the little nigger to Never said that. Because he used to work for Kevin Feigy. No, no, no, no. I didn't say that. I didn't say that.

What I said is he celebrated like he made a Billy and you didn't. Like, so like, relax, bro. Like, you won, you won the battle. But like, come on, bro. It's a long fucking war. Like, stop. If I was James, if I was James Gunn,

there's a lie of shit I can say. All right. All right. All right. You're James Gunn. If I was James Gunn, I'll be like, yeah, we didn't make a Billy.

You know, it's different times. I could say that we didn't make a Billy, really because Figey took all the air out the ball and now I got to pump that motherfucker back up. But let me tell you something else

about the difference. When you talk about the difference between me and a Figey, a Figey like Rachel does. This is my favorite thing that Rachel does. When Rachel was about to give somebody to business, Rachel doesn't say,

let me tell you the difference between me and Kevin Feigy. Rachel goes, let me tell you the difference between me and a Kevin Feige. Oh, Kevin Feigy. So, this is why I was, if I was James Gunn, the difference between me and a Kevin Feige is that I put pen to paper. God. I never seen Kevin Feige

write those scripts. So the difference in the studio, Kevin Feige is I put pen to paper, so it comes from here, goes to there, and then goes into your motherfucking home, right? Infinity these stones, I wrote that shit. They came to me.

That's all. So now I wrote that shit. Now you wrote that shit. I wrote that shit. They came to me. You know, they got on my Twitter, found some shit, kick me off. Cool, whatever. I'll go do my thing over here.

Guess what happened? They had to bring me back to save it once again. The dopest movie in his whole little face is some shit that I wrote. So it only, it makes sense that when I take my shit over here, that I bring the dope shit here. I would say, yo. Yo, Figgs, straight up, love you, baby. Love all the opportunity that you gave me, you know, straight up all of that shit.

But, you know, I want to see you in the director's chair. I want to see you, you know, I want to see you put together and box it out like, like, big gun does. Boom, boom, big guns. Two of them. You know what I'm saying? Guns fire. And when you, and if you can't do that, I understand it because not everybody can. Look at somebody's super dick, bitch.

You know what I'm saying? And you know what I was saying if I'm foggy? What? All right, little niggie. You wasn't talking about this about creature commandos. Nobody came out to Suicide Squad. M motherfucker's talking real tough. You was talking about Flash is one of the greatest superhero movies of all time.

Like being Mr. Ozazlov, da-da-da-da-da-da. Like, come on, you got one movie on the board. Barely. Relax. So this will be my comeback. I would say, well, Creature Commandos, that don't even make any sense. I know you don't want to talk about TV. So.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Come to vision? I got one. Let me talk. Don't do that. Don't do that. See? You acting like one of Nanyahu's cabinet members.

You're not letting me talk. You ever seen them when they be on Pierce Morgan? All they do, you don't let me talk. You're not letting me talk. He's like, like, I'm just, it's rich that you would bring up TV, man. Because how many shows you're going to bear it anyway? So you bring up TV, Creature Commandos This is a good show

It is what it is You know, I have It was, A1 no X-MENT 97 though I have, I have done PISD Wow Whoa

I have done It's tough It's tough We go into the I have You know I've Dipped my toe in a TV

You know, I have TV Bonafires It's going way back In a day We could talk about Some of the things I've done on TV If you want to know

How to make good TV If you might want to come to me And maybe I can help you Make some good TV Because I've done that in the past. It doesn't seem like you know how to do that. But even beyond that past that, I'm really not trying to beef. I'm just saying, right now, I was able to take my vision and make it applicable over here.

And I took the fucking capes and the tights and we flew to the motherfucking moon. We got some energy from the sun. We came back and we pissed it all over these theaters. Just do your thing. Don't worry about what we got going over here. I'm telling you right now that my vision, page, cast, screen is the new way. Maybe the old way could still work. I heard that y'all's shooting y'all movie right now and y'all just got a script.

Whoa. Whoa, Daddy. I heard y'all been doing it for two months and y'all just got a script. Oh, my God. That don't seem like it's going to work out. I heard you putting Punisher in the war machine suit. Wow. I hope they like it.

I can tell you one thing, we flew over the sky. We grabbed the dog and we took him home. He took us home. And now we're going to take all your bitches home. And you know what? At least over here, Spotty 4 in production, because you know what? I'm the big boss. Even when I don't own the characters, I get him in line.

Matt Reeves don't even respect you. Y'all people don't even respect you. Matt Reeves don't respect me? He don't. He don't. Matt Reeves. He took him nine years to get that. You know the thing.

Everybody over here, they know, I'm the man. I'm the man. I'll take your movie away from you. Yeah. Yeah. So Matt Reeves don't respect me. I'll tell you something. The Matt Reeves shit, that was before me.

You know what I'm saying? I'm, I honestly. Sounds like a lot of excuses. Bosses don't make excuses over here. Bosses don't make excuses over here. You're not even, here's the thing, you're not even a boss. You got to, you got to go to Saffrin. You got a coach chair.

It's only me over here. So it's only you. So you run Disney. So then why? So if that's the case, if you run Disney, I don't got a boss. Hold on, hold on, wait. You're doing this.

I don't got a boss. If, if the thing is, you do have a boss. is Bob Iger and he came over and he told you y'all making these shows and these shows fucking suck. So that's what? You're going to make less of them. He told you that. He told you that you was going to make echo and then you wasn't putting that shit out.

He told you you was going to make Iron Heart and then you was running. He told you. He told you, hey, man, we go move on ice of Maconda by a month. We're not going to tell nobody yet. By the way, I would say to you, you don't have a boss, nigger. you got the boss. I hope Kevin's fine you don't call James got a dick that'd be crazy.

That would win the argument too. It's like you don't have A boss, you got D boss. You don't have the boss of Disney. You got the boss of the town. And he told you that what you tried to do, you can't do no more. So you know what you had to do? You have to do two things.

One, you have to bring me back in so I can get gardens of the Galaxy 3 done for you, right? So I can bring a little bit of that juice back to you. And then I'll even, I do my own thing. I work with people. Batman, we don't know what's going on with it. We don't, we don't.

But I let my filmmakers work. That's why we get the shit that we get over here at Gunland. That's why we get the shit. That's why we're off to a great start. That's why we're busting the fantastic four ass right now. Let's talk about the noun. Let's talk about what just happened.

You got Pedro Pascal, Evan Mark Bacharach. Vanessa Kirby, you went and you tried to put together, has a Fantastic Four. I beat these niggas with some no-name niggas. David Corden.

All right. Come back to me. All right. Make the Philly. Come back to me next year. You talk a while. You talk a while. You talk a while.

Ain't even made a billy. When you make a billy at the, at the fucking box office, you come back to me. Meanwhile, James is just sitting in his throne. And look, and look, James Cameron is somewhere going. Like, this is what James Cameron.

James Cameron's somewhere going, I can't wait to bust these things. Like, I'll worry. I'll wait. James Cameron is somewhere going, man, these boot, I got,

you don't even know what I got, man. I got the blue people behind me. I got blue people in this bitch, I got the slurringers in this bitch. Like, every single fucking time they think they're not coming out

to see these movies and these blue people suck. Oh, they're coming to see it. Avatar 3, bro. Fire that. Y'all going to see it. Not only that,

honestly, not to undermine my own point, but, yo, that Dune 3 is going to be a problem. Dooms Day not dropping the same day. I can't. It can.

There's no way. It's insane. Doom 3 going, that shit going to clean up at the Oscars, bro. I could just tell. Yeah, Marwell can't embarrass themselves. And you're saying, like, I'm cool with Doomsday going back to May or wherever. That's, like, fine. We take throws because what's not going to happen is Dune and Dune's day come out on the same day.

Which IMAX screen, you don't watch that. Come on, they're not sure in that IMAX space. That can't work. They just, like, fundamentally can't work. So, now, that was a little fun back and forth. I will say this, Fantastic Four, it's fine. Yeah. It's fine.

It's fine. What we have all liked for Fantastic 4 to be a little more robust with its second week box office? Yes. Is this a troubling sign? Yes. Are we out of the golden age of the superhero movie? Guys, I'm sorry. Yes.

We're out of the golden age of the superhero movie. And Star Wars movies are actually in the dirt. So it's not where we were in 19. We have Andor It's not I said movies I said movies Movies

Okay movies I said movies Andor like Endor is great And by the way I think the next Star Wars Movies are going to be Fantastic

Oh the Starfighter joint With Matt Smith I think that's going to be great And I also think The new Star Wars movies That are being written right now I think they're going to be Phenomenal

Yeah I have all the faith in the world That there will be Some of the greatest Star Wars stuff That has ever come out You're talking about I think it'll be great

I think we're going to get, I think the new Star Wars movies that are coming out, there's a new trilogy that's dropping. I think we're going to get three Empire Strikesbacks. Okay. Do you know who's petting those scripts? Yeah, who's petting those scripts, man? A genius. So I think that these, I think that it's, I think we got to hold on. But to the point, it was a little troubling with Fantastic Four.

And also with James Gunn, the DC, I'll be serious. the DC Marvel rivalry It's not supposed to be a direct rivalry No, of sure It's supposed to be for the fans All right So if James Gunn is finding himself Being petty

In all seriousness If he's finding himself being petty I like the pettiness But it will turn off some fans It will turn off some people Like I I do think it's interesting. And it does tell, to your point, Charles,

it does tell me that despite the fact that he came back on to do gardens of the Galaxy 3, there were probably some leftover bad feelings about the way that he was forced out of Marvel, really from some wild-ass tweets. I was expecting you to bring them up because that would have been the first thing I brought up. Just don't even say that.

They just put the push the paper over. Also, and to shoot James Gunn some bail, lastly, I do think that, like, he is not wrong. I do think as a director, he probably felt how hard the Marvel system is to really flex your wings in terms of just, like, what characters? Like, he didn't want to put Thor and his Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

There was probably a lot of moments where he's just like, yo, can you let me be a director? And I think it is good that James Gunn is like, all right, I'm trying to build a studio where we let people cook and it's not about doing X, Y, and Z. So I get it. I'm like, hey, yo, but this is some first

film shit. If James Gunn is doing this on his next film, I'm gonna be like, all right, we gotta move on. Like, stop talking about the X. Like, we just gotta move. I know that it's more of like, it's like we're arguing about like Sony versus Xbox or whatever. Like, like, ultimately there's people that are just trying to sell us stuff

and that we enjoy. But it's the idea that when you can be proud of the, accomplishes that you made James Gunn, obviously. But when it comes from clearly a personal place like this, it starts to feel like you're just doing it for you. And the great idea that you have behind this is that you're taking your time. You actually want to be very deliberate in these decisions.

That isn't the MCU ethos, at least at this point. I mean, I think really like, and we're joking around a fun time, whatever, but ultimately I think the DC versus Marvel conversation is kind of silly. Yeah. Because at least for us, people, like, we love this stuff, fans. We just want good movies. Regardless of where they come from, D.C., Marvel, whatever. And so if we're doing this thing where, like, oh, we're beefing.

It's Marvel or D.C.'s up right now. Again, we talked about this earlier. Next year, Spider-Man Doomsday coming out with versus Supergirl Clayface. It's going to switch immediately on a dime. Like, there's no real time to us would be, like, doing agenda type stuff. It's really just can these studios produce good movies and let's enjoy them when they do? Like, it's really don't have to be that deep. And also, you know, can they be nimble?

We're talking about a changing in the landscape of superhero movies. Do supermural hero movies, I don't know what's wrong. I can't talk today. Do superhero movies have to change or do they have to die? Right? Everything has changed. The Bond movie has changed. Anything that has existed instead of it for a long time,

I'll give you guys a quick example of something. When I was growing up in the 80s, the action stars were gigantic, huge, big, bruising guys. It was Stallone. It was Schwarzenegger. It was John Claude. I'm like Schwarzenegger, some of the stuff that Schwarzenegger did in Commando was crazy. He jumped out of a moving plane into the swamp. He did, like, he was picking people up, breaking them apart.

he was they were superheroes right those were the superhero movies then the action star changed those guys got a little long in the tooth and it's not that the action movie died it changed the action star became with diehard

which came out a little bit later then with the Keanu and the Matrix John Wick the Matrix all of this stuff the action star changed Matt Damon inborn identity

Ethan Hunt Mission Impossible. It changed. The movies didn't go away. They adapted. They were nimble and they were different. And can superhero movies be different? I mean, we've seen kind of that they can be, right?

No one would compare this Superman movie to the Dark Night or to Batman Begins. So can they change again? Can they get a little bit more edgy with the X-Men? It seems like they're about to do some young adult YAA bullshit with the X-Men, I'll see how it works. Maybe it works. All right. I am. I'll just say that I am worried about that. And if I'm going off just Fantastic Four,

my biggest wish for Marvel is I'm like, X-Men really is the thing that you need to get right and the thing that I think can like catapult you into a new era. But to Vance point, if we're doing some Y-A high school nonsense. None of that young-ass stranger at all. shit. Hold on. We don't know DeCaprio at

Cyclops. Hold on. Like, like none of that, I know he's too old. But none of that dumb ass, old dumb,

fucking Y, they're gonna fuck they're gonna, hold on, hold on. X me in a mutant high. It's two things. One,

you can't go over the second apron, right? You start paying all these people, you know, maybe obviously not a Caprio, but you start getting all these high level actors.

Ah, the budget keeps going up. Up, up, up, right. Which is that. Marble,

always does that, yeah. Right. But like for X-Men, especially in this new era of superhero movies, it can't spend $300 million on an X-Men movie. I only make back $4.8. Whoa, you can spend $300 million on it. Yeah. They shouldn't, though.

You shouldn't. They shouldn't. They're not in the position to do that. Should they spend $250? Yes. If we were in a post-end game MCU, yes. This is the X-Men, y'all. I don't know, man.

And two, and more importantly, and I think this is the same thing they did with Spider-Man, where you take it all the way back, right? because he was in high school in, like, in the first movie for, like, in, uh, for Andrew Garfield, he was in high school in the first movie. Like, you take it. We haven't seen these guys beat children. Well, there's a difference. You could do Dawson's Creek and you could do stranger things.

All I'm just saying, bro. I'm just saying. They don't need to be that young, bro. Maybe not. Maybe. I think, but it's a combination of two things. Combination of cost, combination of these people have, we have not seen on, on the big movie screen.

these guys actually be like teenagers. If we get the fucking X-Men, I'm gonna be so pissed. They tried it. They tried it. And people weren't fucking with that. They tried it. They did.

Bro, that doesn't count, man. No, I'm not talking about... No, they did. It was the one dad Jubilee up in that shit? The Apocalypse one? Oh, yeah. I'm talking about they tried it in terms of these are your new young X-Men.

I'm not against these characters being a little bit younger and being at the beginning of their story. What I'm saying is that it's a very serious world, man. Like, it's a serious world with mind-bending reality, altering powers, and people dealing with... I get it. I don't know. I'm just...

When I hear shit like that, it makes me fucking afraid. Keep it open mind. Maybe there's... Maybe there's... I mean, I... Frost. Just get the regular people. You don't... And Wolverine...

Because I'm very afraid Wolverine is not going to be in this movie, and I'm like, do not get cute. He won't be in the first one. Like, Wolverine, put Wolverine in this bitch. Like, come on. Okay, but then you'd have to cast somebody who's not you, Jackman, and that's going to be. And that's going to be very hard.

That's going to be in the first one. But I don't think he'll be in the first one. Brother, brother. I don't think he'll be in the first one. As soon as those things are going to see some guy come out of the snow or whatever and his arm. No, you'll got it. And they're snick.

And we're going to go crazy. We feel to be in theater. Oh. I don't think he'll be in the first one. I'm telling you. But that did bother me when I saw that. So then who, so then maybe we're, maybe we're just like really going for it.

But like if you had to pick five to start with, your first five X-Men. My first five X-Men. And I would have to cast these people? You don't have to cast them. Just like who's got to be there. Because what you don't, you don't want like a, you know,

Oh, Scott Gene. Yeah. Scott Gene Storm. Storm has to be in a movie. Yeah. Yeah. Are we going first class like, Angel Iceman?

I like Iceman so much. Yeah, he's great. I think he's a really underutilized character. Not really. I mean, but he's so powerful, so awesome. But I would say if it was going to be me, and I was going to do the first, I would do Storm, Gene, Cyclops. The movie has to have Gene and Cyclops.

Right. Has to. They have to be in it. Charles, who would be the other two for you if you were going to do five? If I was going to do five, I would just go for the all new different X-Men lineup, which was Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and then you could pick any three in terms of just like Thunderbird, Banshee, Sunspot. But I do think that, like, the Cyclops.

Sunspot would be cool as fun. Sunspot would be great. I think your locks are Gene Gray Cyclops. No, Gene Gray. You got to have Gene Gray. I think the other movies, I think you bring in Gene later. Right. I think for the first movie, you got to get away from the Gene.

Rogan Gambit, too ambitious for this? The Gambit would be fantastic. No, keep Gambit out until the second movie. I think you got to go to heavy, heavy hitters. No, we need Wolverine, but no. Rogan Gambit are heavy hitters. No, no, Gene can come later, but like no. Can I tell you something?

Gene Gray is the single most important character in the history of that. Sure. This is. What? Yeah, she is. All right. She's not the most popular. Wolverine is the most popular X-Man ever. But Gene Gray is the single most important character

in the history of the X-Men. Gene Gray's journey and her character, more than anything, encapsulates the mutant problem. I would say I get where you're coming from. The movies have done Gene Gray to such an extent. I think it is... Gene Gray, to me, is at the level of watching Batman's parents die

or Superman's planet blow up, where it's like, we get it, there's a love triangle. I'm like, you cannot do it in the first movie. It's just like too fucking much. We can't do it. Maybe you don't do the love triangle, but the question is, do you do Gene and doing the X-Men

without Gene to me is kind of like doing Gotham without Batman. Yeah, that's pretty. I actually like to see. Gene is crazy. The entire time I was growing up, it was Emma. Gene was nowhere to be found,

and those comics were good. You put M in there? I'm not putting M in there. I'm saying, I'm like, honestly, if I'm being real, storm to me is more important than Gene. Like getting Storm right is actually, I think, way more important in this reboot than Gene. Storm is better than Gene.

More important. I think he's more important to getting this iteration. This iteration. I think to the history, Gene Gray is more important. This iteration, I would rather you focus on. But the back and forth between Gene and Storm actually is amazing. And I would hate to not have that. You got to have it.

There's no X-Men without Gene Gray. That is not true at all. Yeah. She was not in the comics for years. And that was all. They were so popular. But that's like, that's like you're kind of mixing up what I'm saying. Like, we're talking about formative fundamental shit, right?

Like, we're starting from scratch. The beginning. Right. So we're talking about formative fundamental stuff. You can get the X-Men to the point where Gene Gray doesn't have to be in every book, for sure. But to me, Gene is like a lot of people listen to this and they're going, well, obviously, there's one person more important than Gene and it's Xavier. Right?

So you would never do the X-Men without Xavier. You have to have Xavier, right? To me, she is as important to be in the fucking thing as Xavier is. Xavier's whole deal, Xavier's whole deal is dealing with this person who is coming into her own, who is super fucking powerful. He is dampening her. He's icky, secretly love with her, which is weird. Yeah, hopefully he'll be like the whole deal.

I think just my opinion if it was one person I man to me it could be Gene fucking forge alright I'm sorry Cyclops to me Side class to me is more important to get right

than Gene and I'll also say this I'm right What More important to get right Yes Nerdys but to be in the movie is But here's the thing We have if we're talking about the audience

if I'm the audience, I'm like, all right, so not only did I see Gene in the whack last stand movie, but she was whack when they recasted her, homie from Game of Thrones. Right. It's just like, we get it. I'm not saying, Gene needs to be in the MCU. I agree. I just think in terms of just like... You have no choice for two agree.

Hold on. This is not a thing that you could agree with or not agree with. It's the first movie, though? Yes. Yes. Like, there's no agree or disagree. It is Gene Greene. Gray, it is, it's Gene Gray.

It's fundamental. I think, like, obviously, we've done it so many times. But we don't have to do it. We don't have to be like, she's the Phoenix. We don't have to do that off the rip. No. She could just be Gene. Well, we didn't have to see Uncle Ben die when they brought Spider-Man over to the

MCU because we got it. But that, yeah, but you can do so many things with Gene is what I'm saying. Are you comparing Uncle Ben to the Phoenix? Greg in the Spider-Man world? In this world, no, no, no, no. What I'm saying is. Gene Gray is. Spider-Man.

What I'm saying is Gene Greene when she is in these movies, what tends to happen is because the Dark Phoenix saga looms so large over the X-Men, the minute you put her in that first movie, it's like the pull of the Phoenix is like a gravitational pull. And I'm just telling y'all, the audience has told y'all twice we don't want this shit. But you don't have to do the Phoenix saga with Gene. If Gene Graham up in that shit, you know she'll be Phoenix at some point. Okay, so

This is interesting. This is interesting. So this is my, because I take that point. They do always get seduced by the Phoenix. Yeah, no. Gene Gray doesn't get seduced by the Phoenix. The fucking film makers gets seduced by the Phoenix.

Okay. The Phoenix is so hard to explain to people. Shout to Rob from over at Comics explained. There was really this fun thing that happened on Twitter where he was trying to convince people that the Phoenix 4th. was stronger than Franklin Richards, right? Oh, wow. Okay.

Cooked them. Well, wait a second, though. At first, when you say that, I was like, well, Franklin Richards is essentially a god. But so is Phoenix Forest a bit. Then he starts getting into it. And when he starts talking about, these are all, this is all stuff that I've read, not all about I've read.

He's read so many more comics than me. But when he starts getting into it, you start going, well, he's probably right. in terms of what Franklin has done and can do and what the Phoenix actually is. That is the problem with the Phoenix Force. The problem with the Phoenix Force is it's very difficult to articulate

what the Phoenix Force is, how it affects Gene. You need a lot of books, a lot of time, and a lot of pages. So I would agree with you that for the first 10 years don't do that.

They should not do it. Or the five years or whatever it is, they should not do it. However, you got to have Gene Gray. I'm just saying, and bring her in second movie, third movie, you could say she was on vacation.

Yeah, but you're saying that as if, like, we need to do the Phoenix the second Gene Gray gets on the screen. What I'm saying is when Gene is in it, it's just like writers and directors can't help themselves. The Phoenix is something where they're just like, but I can do it right this time. And I'm like, first class is a great movie. First class is a great movie.

It did not have Gene Gray. Right. Correct. But it didn't have really any fundamental X-Men. Well, I mean. Magneto. Professor X. Professor X.

Steve. It had them, but I'm talking about of the kids. Nah. No, yeah. Like, like the new class or whatever.

Of the kids. It didn't really, and that was the point of the movie. Right. I'm saying if we going, and the movie was actually, it was after the X-Men structure had been set up.

I'm saying that if we are going to do the X-Men, like right now, then we have to have, we have to have, like Gene. I just think Gene is the X-Men. I think you do.

Eugene, Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Colossus. You call it a day. That's pretty good. We know these people. We're comfortable. We can make it. Let's get it. Charles, who would you just start in 5B?

I told you, I'd do the Kerkowa. When Claremont first started over, when the original five were off the border, the original four, you go Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler. And honestly, throw Banshee, Thunderbird. and Sunspot in it. I think that's a very good team. You could be like, oh, the original four are on Krakawa. You need to save them.

And then you're like, oh, Gene is in this world. But when they get reunited, you're like, oh, you're going to see a little bit of Gene in the second movie. And then I'm like, okay, we don't have to start with the original five. We can start with the heavy hitters that everyone loves. And we could do a prequel. We can fill in the shit. But like, don't start at the beginning.

The X-Men should be popping. Like, just don't get cute. If you start with the original five, I think they are going to have the same problem that they have with Fantastic Four where motherfuckers is like, to Jomey's point, motherfuckers want to see Spider-Man paling around with Human Torch, you know? Well, I think that's a very interesting idea, and I think that it is daring and probably would be really good.

I do think that, to put this a bow on it for at least me, that this X-Men movie does have, what we're talking about right now is that this X-Men movie does have an interesting role to play or an interesting needle to thread, which is that are you establishing the X-Men here? Or are you assuming that film audiences know the X-Men as well as they know Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman, which they don't.

They haven't seen... They've seen Batman's parents die a bunch of times. They've seen Spider-Man's parents die, Uncle Ben die, a couple of different times. they've seen Krypton blow up. They know this other stuff. The X-Men are a... They are a huge, huge, huge, huge deal.

A gigantic deal. But Marvel is looking at the X-Men, in my opinion, as Clay. As, like, they're going to form them. This is going to be the definitive portrayal of the X-Men to them. And so they're going to want the ground. parts of the Lord to be there. They're like, they're, they, they don't, I don't think that the X-Men are in terms of,

and maybe I'm wrong about this. This is actually an interesting conversation for us to have. I wish we could do an interview on this. I don't know if the X-Men are on the same level of comic understanding as some of the other characters that we just talked about. Can I ask you this, though, because this is what we were talking about with Fantastic Four. I think we're so smart as an audience now. The reason why people are like, Pedro didn't work as Mr. Fantastic,

is because we have runs that were done by people like Mark Millar or Hickman where we're just like, oh, this is a very like interesting, almost evil megalomaniac if he goes too far. And I think with the X-Men, we really never got an X-Men movie that showed Cyclops, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler being a team. They were on the screen together, but they never really felt like a team. And after Fantastic Four, I'm like, I don't know if the audience has the patience to sit through a,

you are getting some of the more classic, but I would say sometimes boring. Like, do they want to see Hank out of his beast form? Do they want to see Angel when he's not Archangel? Do they want to see these high school kids, the first five? I would have said to you a couple years ago, yeah, you can do it slow roll that.

After the performance of the Fantastic Four, I'm like, I don't know if the audience is patient enough to wait. I think they want Wolverine and Cyclops and all these motherfuckers together together immediately. They might want Wolverine. I don't,

they might want Wolverine. I don't think they give a fuck about Cyclops. Like, I think... They should. I feel like after X-Men 97, like... I think people want...

I think they want Cyclops. Because I was, I mean, I come... I didn't read the comics as a kid. I was not locked in on X-Mad comics. So my only, my only exposure to Cyclops

was through the movies. I was like, this guy sucks. This guy's a loser. He's a square, whatever. I'm watching X-Men 97. I'm like, hold on. He the man.

He's awesome. He the man. I don't know that they care about Gene. Not really. But I think that from a storytelling perspective and from a lore perspective, you kind of got to have her when you're doing the X-Men. I mean, can I ask you this?

I think you could, instead of Gene for that first movie, To me, you could throw Kitty Pride in there. You could put Rogue in there. Okay. If you're going to put Kitty Pride in there, does she say the N-word? Ooh. Yeah, Kitty was saying an N-word. Yeah, let it rip.

Let a rip. Yeah. Why not you? Wow. A lot of these characters are cool. And a lot of these characters are like, are fan favorites. But I take Rogue over Gene. I know.

But what I'm just saying is... You take everybody over Gene at this point. So I'll give an example. I'll give an example. If you do SpyE. you might not be able to have Uncle Ben, but you're going to have Amay. Yeah. She got to be in the movie.

She got to be in the movie. Not the next one. Not the next one. Not the next one. Not the, because we already seen her get blipped out of existence on some little spite he couldn't handle. He couldn't save the day. Like, little spider he got fucked over. All right.

The Sony villains came to that bitch and put some on that ass. I'm just going to say, When Sony villains came into that bitch And he couldn't fucking deal with it That's what happened He got he got He got fucking called up to the majors All right

His girl go to my school That bro The villain of the first movie Was somebody He was somebody That was somebody that went to his school He was like He was

He had bitched He had bitched For like under a year bro He was 15 years old I know Great scene It's the father

somebody that went to a school. You know what? I guess Green Goblin is the father. Walked you later to that one. Hayton. I'm something of a father that went to your school myself. Steve, you got to answer.

I guess Green Goblin is the father. This school is full of miscreants. I guess it's father somebody that went to school. Steve, what's your father? Iceman, Cyclops. Storm. And I guess

Gene, yeah. Gene. Boren ass to you. So, okay, so who you take it over, would you take Dazzler over Gene? Dazzler? Yeah. Fuck, Dazzler.

Right. Dazer's one of the worst X-Men. You take a Sialok over Gene? Dazler is fun. You don't love the X-Men, nigga? You take it? When I take Scylok over Gene? We're just talking about first movie.

Everybody clear, we're talking about the first movie. First movie, yeah. Get Sial-Lock out of here. There's no way to explain Scylock. There's no way to, like, get through the whole, like, weird Asian-face shit. Yeah. Like, there's just no way. Unless you make her British like she originally was.

You're taking Magic over, Gene? Magic is tough. Magic is tough. Interesting character. I'm just saying, like, there are, if you guys want to tell me right now, if you guys want to say that here the, if we want to do this really. Wait a really, really quick.

Let's rank the female X-Men characters. Whoa. Just in terms of, like, which ones are the coolest? I think Storm and Rogue are way, fundamentally cooler than Gene. I put mystique above Gene. Cooler or more important? Because you're trying to do cool.

More important at this point, Gene Gray has ruined more more X-Men comic books, and this is not the character, this is the writers, than she's actually helped. I disagree. It's so odd.

I think that, particularly when Claremont kind of takes over, I think that he gives Gene Gray dimensions and just weight in the world that grounds the entire X-Men. But here's the thing. We're talking about Claremont. My problem is, after that, every single story,

like, damn near every three to five years in X-Men comic lore, we get someone trying to recreate the feeling of the Dark Phoenix saga, and every single time they fail. Even Claremont has been, like, one of the worst decisions that was ever made in Marvel history was reviving Gene Gray. Because, like, I agree with you. Dark Phoenix saga is so great because it is like, when you read it, you're like, I cannot believe they killed this foundational character.

It is like when Stacey. And every single time you try to redo it, you just chip away at the core of that character, in my opinion. Could be, but I mean. Can you name me a good Gene Gray story after Dark Phoenix saga? I mean, so. So I enjoy, as a character, I enjoy most times that Gene is in the middle of the action. Because I think that she brings a couple of things.

One, I think she is one of the characters in the X-Mansion that everybody cares so much about. And the X-Men as an experiment or as a comic book is about interpersonal relationships, even more than it is about fighting evil. It's kind of about why they're fighting. because they could have made the decision. It's about differing philosophies and them running up against each other, but these people are in love

and they grew up together and they went to school together and they know each other's vulnerabilities. They know the pain and the trauma that each other have been through and their pain and their trauma makes them stronger. She is one of the strongest

and also one of the most vulnerable characters as in the house. She is the, to me, quintessential X-Men. somebody that is trying to fight something inside of her that's like constantly pulling at her and taking her over, someone that is trying to love, someone that is trying to protect herself,

someone that's out of time and like always in trouble, but also super duper powerful, which is what mutant kind really is. So to me, every story that she has been in, she has been, when she is, when they're, when the X-Men have split up and Magneto is taking over their brains and they're going, and it's Scott versus Gene, and she's trying not to fuck him up,

and she's like, I can predict where he's going to blast right before he blasts there. She's thinking about the fact that it's Cyclops and how much she cares about him and all of that stuff. She's landing the plane. Like, she's a fundamental part of the team. There's so many moments that I remember, and she's beautiful. Everybody wants her. She, and so because of that, everyone's a little off-kilter around her.

But I think she's legitimately the most important X-Men. So you're not going to... But are their character cooler? Nigger, I think Richter is cooler. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I think... I could go through all... I could go through all of X-Men.

You know who my favorite ex-man of all-time is? My favorite character? Long shot. Really? All right. I thought me like... Long-shy-old. Fun!

I thought she was about to say, maggot. And I'm like, turn off the mic. Turn off the mic. No. No, no. No, no. I don't want the audience to think I hate Gene Gray. I don't.

I just think that, like, Chris Claremont knew out of writer. And I just think that, like, she never gets to grow up. She's like the Gwen Stacey of comic books where I'm like, she should have stayed dead because it's just like she's now, she's a symbol now. Where it's like, Kitty Pride, there is tension with that character. She was the little kid X-Men who got to grow up. Storm gets to be the goddess. She gets to be the leader.

Rogue has the untouchable shit. Gene, it's like they don't know whether they want Gene to be Marble. girl, whether they want her to be Dark Phoenix, whether they wanted to be... Like, she's just a symbol for a bunch of shit instead of like an interesting character. Outside of the dark future. But you just describe why she's so interesting.

They can never pick who they want her to be. The schizophrenic nature of her history is a part of the journey of the X-Men. The X-Men don't really know who they want to be. Are the X-Men... Are they protectors of mutants? Are they protectors of humans? Are they protectors of the Human Mutant Alliance?

Are they self, are they Are they interested in self-preservation? Are they interested in taking down mutant terrorists? Like, the X-Men to me are the most ambiguous group of heroes ever, which is why the comic is consistently interesting. So if Gene Gray is this exciting, why hasn't she worked? I did not say she was this exciting. Well, if she's that interesting, why has she worked in any of these movies?

She has worked. Fomka Jazz's Gene Gray worked. Last Stand? Last Stand is not a good movie. Nobody worked in Last Stand. Dark Phoenix? Like, it's, it's like, it's like, Fonka Janssen's Gene Gray

definitely worked in the movies. If you don't think, y'all are always talking about how good the first X-Men movie. She wasn't bad in those at all, but I wouldn't say she's like, it's not even in the top 50. Like, it's just like, she's there.

She's doing an okay job. I wouldn't say it's like, it's okay. I think, I mean, she does work. Part of the movie. I mean, we've talked about this. Part of the thing is they, she, give Charles, some credit, they see Gene Gray on there and they're like, boom, Phoenix

saga, we're doing that, we're doing that. You need some time. Like, that's not going, three movies not going to cut it. A couple movies not going to cut it. And so you should not do the Dark Phoenix saga. That's all I'm saying. That's all. I'm saying. That's all. Nobody's saying that they should. But Gene Gray should still be there. Yeah. We don't have to do the Dark Phoenix saga. That's all I'm saying. In the second movie, they're going to do it. They're going to do it. They just have to give enough runway. And if you're going to do it, commit to

it. And what I say by I commit to it is, the Dark Phoenix saga should be just that, a saga. Five movies. They're going to go to the Shiar Empire? Five movies? It should be, when I say a saga, I mean, the coming of the Dark Phoenix,

the coming of the Dark Phoenix should happen after they've built up four or five different movies where the Dark Phoenix is either in the background or or whatever. It shouldn't be just, oh, Gene's starting to feel a little weird. I will consume universe.

No, you can't do it like that. But it's a really classic and important run of comic. They did it twice already, like, wrap it up. Third times a charm, baby. Yep, that's always the best one. Yeah, that's what they said about Fantastic Four. We know what happened with that second week number. It's like, come on.

Well, look, but that's even different. Fantastic Four gave the fans something that they had always wanted, which was Galactic. stopping around. So you just don't never, you never know. All I'm saying is, look, there are certain books and certain people and certain things that they're important.

Alfred is important to Batman. Got to be there. Like Alfred, like Alfred is important to Batman. Like Alfred, it's a part of the thing. It's a part of the thing. Well, can I... The last thing I'll say is, can I pitch you on this? Dark Knight is a good example. The Lord is a line. It's a part of the thing. Dark night is a good... This is all I'm saying, though.

is I think the brilliance of the Dark Knight is that Nolan wasn't like, you know what, Batman begins, we bring it in Joker. Joker's looming. So when the second movie hits, I think Gene Gray could be like a Joker figure

in the X-Men where you're like, oh shit. I think it's different. I think it's different. No, no, I think it's different. Again,

you need, like, again, it's Alfred and Batman. Like, you don't do that without the other. Joker's different. You can have Razal Ghoo. You can have Scarecrow,

right? your comp is more like Magneto. You don't need Magneto in the movie. Man. You could do a movie without Magneto. I know, like, who would you put that if you can't put Magneto? Because they're going to put Sinister. They're doing Sinister.

I can guarantee you. They're doing the first original. Sinister will be great. Sinister. I mean, they can make that happen. John Hamm? If these... John Hamm is sinister?

I don't know. That's the judge. That's what we would be saying. Wait, actually, you know who would be a really good sinister? Jeremy Schum. It's not bad. He got to He'd have to get big, though.

The X-Man Roads Gallery, really, if you didn't want to do Magneto, if you wanted to start the first movie with Magneto locked up or some shit like that, if you didn't want to do Magneto, it's a bunch of the X-Men villains you could do. Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, there's a bunch. But in terms of rebooting, I agree with y'all.

If I'm being super serious, don't do Magneto in the first movie, Mr. Sinister, I think he's tough. That's a confusing character. I agree. I mean, it's a multi- It's a multi-facizantia. So who would it be if it wasn't back in? Okay, so this is, this is, I'm looking at the list.

It's not like Superman or shout out to the homie. He came at us again about it. Yeah. Yeah. It's not that level, but like apocalypse you can't do the first. Yeah. It's either like they're too big or they might be too small. Yeah.

Yeah. Like the middle of, like size of. Emma Frost, that's crazy. The sent of most, you know what the crazy thing about that, Steve is? Most people are the middle size. Right. It's like too big, painful, too small, you don't feel it. That's what's the majority of people.

Right, right, right, right. Most people, that's the majority of people, and most people are just fine with that, by the way. So you're saying Nimrod is average side. Yeah, Nimrod, you're not going to put, but you know what? You're not going to put Nimrod in the movie. You're not going to put Nimrod in the movie, but if all of these villains could be made to work,

especially people that are not as important. John me, run the villains down now. I'm sorry. Oh, no, that's cool. I mean, Apoculus, Mr. Sinister, Juggerna, Magneto, Mystique, Omega Red, Blob, Bastion, Bastion, Sabretooth, Emma Frost, Nimrod, Piro, Oncelot, Mojo, Sentil, Sydenal, Sydenal, Synton, Sam. Some of these niggas, Shadow King, Shadow King, Shadow King. Shadow King, Shadow King.

Shadow King. Let me tell you something right now. Get Toddling. All right. You don't need to do Sincer. Yeah, you got to do Simps. Yeah. The Shadow King would be great. Who?

The Shadow King would be great. From Legion? The Shadow King? Oh, man, bro. Y'all. Venn is thinking. The Shadow King would be fucking great. I take Nimrod over.

Shadow King. Y'all don't want to see Celine? Fuck, Steve. Hold on. The Shadow King is such an interesting. Think of, like, X-Men first class,

the villain was, I'm not hating on him because I like this guy. It was Sebastian. It was like, like, a good villain. Like, the Shadow King would be fucking terrifying for,

for an X-Men movie. It would be really cool. They're not going to do this, but it would be, If it's going to be the original five, it'd be so dope if they had to go against weapon X Wolverine. Can you imagine Wolverine being the villain? Wolverine being the villain? Yeah, like with his weapon X like, like fucking visor shit and all that.

Like they like, who is this monster, bro? Make Stryker like the actual villain to make him like the secondary villain. I see it. Wolverine would be fucking that motherfuckers. Oh, yeah. That would be great. Yeah. Wolfie.

All right, we got to go. But look, I can't believe that this Gene Gray slander happened on Trump. Charles is part. They gonna kill me. They're gonna be like, Gene Grace, awesome, Charles. I think a lot of people

gonna agree because a lot of people Kalika don't like her. Kalika don't like Jean Grey? Nah. What did she say when she saw X-Men 97th? She was like,

she liked that as me now and said. She's like, she's always in the middle of some shit. Yeah. Like when she's just going to chill? She opinion, being honest. What?

Okay, all right. We don't. Brother. What? What? I mean, because, I mean,

I mean, here's the cyclone. He's a ho. We're gonna, like, we gonna talk about... Wait, Cyclop? Bro, come on, man.

Emma Frost. See, Charles is... Charles... Charles... Charles and Cyclops is a different cyclops. Yes. Charles and Cyclops is

Kukoa, mean, fucking dome head. I'm no. I'm talking, I'm talking, Bendiz revolutionary. Yeah.

Talking about Captain America. Who the fuck you're talking to? He's talking about Malcolm Cyclops. Yeah. That's the thing. That's the same. Wait, you imagine if they if honestly if y'all do the original five but cyclops is like the white boy

who like militant like super militant he like fuck these humans like yeah i'd buy with that i would argue that for a lot of people now because that run and that iteration of the character yeah was such um it was so such a shakeup yeah a lot of people that probably is their cyclops is not mine. Mine is still, he's the Leonardo and X-Men. Like, he's like, white bread. I know, let's not do that to Leonardo. Let's not do that to Leonardo. He's my favorite. He's my favorite.

Leonardo's his favorite turtle? Yes. I mean, they, you know, boring. Y'all, you ain't really been in the trenches with Leonardo. Leonardo, like, Robuffet, Ron, man. Once again, but once again, no, the last Who's your favorite? Rapio.

Like, it is. Right. See, that's such a basic choice. That's easy. That's easy. That's easy. It's easy. Whatever. It's Leonardo. You got Donnie. Donny's not my favorite.

Rap, Michelangelo. It's Mike. Fucking Jomey is Mike. I love Michaelangelo. But Leonardo, but the Las Ronan stuff of Leonardo, that's akin to the- Well, I thought it was Mikey and Las Renan. Mikey wasn't Las Renan, but his arc in Last Rona and I really like. Leo's Ark in Last Rondon.

Oh, wait. Las Ronen, who is the Last Rone? I remember Michelangelo being the only Turtles. who survived. Yeah, I know. Mike is the only turtle that survived, yes. Oh, interesting.

I thought that was Leonardo for some reason. But I did. I don't know why I thought that the whole time I was listening to it on comics explained, but I thought it was Leonardo for some reason.

But wasn't Leonardo a more aggressive version of himself in the last running? Wasn't he a more, was he different? No, but in the TV show that I grew up on, Leonardo was a more aggressive,

like, you're talking about, oh, three, or the one before that? Yeah, I didn't write any of my turtle shit. I'm not up on my turtle shit. But they give me this. They've reimagined Leonardo

and it's in much of the same way they reimagined Cyclops, right? Yeah, and that's actually the difference between our age groups. You grew up with the Cyclops and Leonardo that were just kind of like the sticks in the mud and I grew up with the like, hey, no, I'm actually the hardest motherfucker on this team.

You know, that's why he's in charge. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Good conversation, y'all. My good, great conversation. My point was that both of those, that makes a lot of sense. So, you know, if they put your Cyclops in the movie, that would be fun.

That'd be something, man. Come on. You beat the one. Like, Magneto's not doing enough. Could you imagine, like, he had to marches, man, with the black people? You know what I'm saying? No, but imagine, like, imagine, like, imagine. You see Gene Gray and Stormy, like, yo, Gene, what's your friend be on?

Like, she listened to Erica Badu? Like, what's the, what's the move? Tell me about this, to Charlotte. Coofy Cyclops. Coofy Cyclops. Coofee Ciclops. Go into a Megan the Stagli concert. Hell yeah.

He showed up. He got the Cofiote. Can you a man? Yo, he sees Storm walk through. He's like, mm. My new being queen. What's the, what you are? Honestly, if it was my X-Memm movie, it'd be the original five.

That first 30 minutes, they'd be popping down in Africa. We got to go. What a podcast. Oh, my God. That's a wrap. This week on the Ring of Verse Feed, this Friday, button match will be talking about the 25 best video games in the century. Steve, give us yours.

Mine? Well, I'm on this pod. There's a metal gear in there somewhere. Super Mario 3, maybe. And then I'm probably putting in Shadow the Colossus. Somewhere. Oh, Seattle. Yeah.

Spider-Ban on there somewhere? Which one? Spider-Man 2. I put Spider-Man 2 on there. Spider-Man 2 on there. The one? The movie-Barr movie? You talking about the old one?

Yeah, we're talking about the new one. Not the one. I'm talking about the new one. The old one was crazy, too, though. The old one who introduces the swinging that we know today. Yeah. Yeah, I'd never play it. I just swung around the city.

Yeah, it was beautiful. It was perfect. Yeah. Next week, the House of All right, we'll be giving you their Alien Earth premiere Deep Dive. Aliens coming for the whole IP wars, alien truck. Also next week, Charles will talk about his favorite Jean-Grain moments. One, the Phoenix saga, two.

Two, the Phoenix saga. Went two when she died. Three, when she died in. When she stayed in. Also, the Midnight Boys, that's us. We'll be giving our reactions to alien Earth as well. with a special focus on the men boys. Okay.

Let me tell you why. Oh. This alien shit is meant shit. Okay? This is the type of shit that y'all be into. That sounds derogatory. Me and Chuck, you know, we don't really get into this alien shit like y'all do. Whoa, talk for yourself. Hey.

I'm here. I watched the first episode. I'm down. You were there, brother. Come on, man. I love it. I love it. I'm saying. I love the movies, but y'all have really been,

y'all was telling me all kinds of alien shit that I wasn't aware of. Oh, was that predator shit? That's predator. That's predator. It's predator. I'm not in the predator. Like, I saw prey. I saw the first predator, but I'm not really too deep into the predator. Killer or killers is fire. I'm a watch killers. Yeah. Let me ask you a question real quick. You watch Prometheus, right? Yes, I did. Did you like Prometheus? Yep. You're going to love this. Brother, you're going to have a great time. We're probably not going to have time next week. You know what's funny? It was so funny.

I didn't like Prometheus. I loved it. I went to a man with one of my friends over Damon and Lendaloff right there walking out of the arc light. Come on.

I like, I didn't like Permethius. I loved it. I thought Prometheus, you know we should do this as a pot. Movies that you just don't get why people be fucking over them. I don't understand

while people fuck over Prometheus. Prometheus is like really awesome to me. I can't watch Prometheus. I saw the trailer and I'm like, this is too scary for me. Nah. This is too a cowardic.

Covenant, you know. But I will say, we're not going to have time next week. But at some point, we need to do an alien, an alien draft. Because if we think about the, like, does Cal Lelgo number one? You know what I'm saying? Oh, aliens aliens. Aliens aliens. You know what I'm saying?

Is Ben 10 available? Ben 10. No, Ben 10 is not an alien. But Ben 10's aliens. Well, he uses aliens, but he's not an alien. Right. But I can pick Diamondhead. I can pick he bladels.

Ben 10 can't K9 cop? No. Of Renton. What is Ben 10 do? So Ben 10 has a watch. Wait, wait, you don't know who Ben 10 is? No, he doesn't. I know who he is.

I've seen him, but I don't, I'm never watched you before. I'm with you, man. This is just a four of my time. So Ben 10 has a watch called the Omni Tricks. And it has, it contains all the DNA of all the aliens in all the galaxies of everything. And he can become an alien for, at least in the original for 10 minutes, just using the watch. He can click the dial, boop, boop, boop. Select an alien, smash it, and become like, whatever.

alien he needs to be in the moment, right? But it's technology? It's technology. He's not alien. He's a human that's using technology to be coming in it. But I'm saying, can we pick the aliens off the Omni Tricks is what I'm saying. Okay. For sure.

For sure. Zenomorph, probably not going top five. I would have to. Shut. Absolutely. Hitting me. Over E.T. Yes.

Yeah. Oh, the xenomorph. I shut the fuck up. The xenomorph not going over E.T. What type of dumbass? Like, whoa, you bring the Zanomor. You're picking the xenomorph over. He can't even get his own phone.

E.T. I can make an argument right now. I mean, y'all want to choose Superman, that's fine. E.T. number one alien. You have to take E.T. number one. You have to take Yoda over his phone. Hey, can't say something now? Yeah.

Technically, Luke Skywalker is an alien. Okay. All right, all right. All right. All right. Okay, so now we got our human talking about. Human presenting. Oh, human presenting.

Yeah. Maybe that could be. Because Superman, like, technically. Wait, then, what would the categories be? So it would be human presenting? Yeah. We have human presenting. So human presenting.

Like gross. Okay, this is what we do. This is what we do. Deadliest? This is a category. Deadliest. This is a category. Human present.

These are categories. Human presenting. Nice aliens. Nice alien. Nice aliens. Aliens who are cool. Killer aliens. Then you have mean aliens.

Mean aliens. Alien. like those guys like that and then Alien Walkart. All right, we're doing this next week. Let's do it. Yeah, we got to do the alien draft. Wait, wait, can Goku?

Because Goku would be it. Human presenting alien. Human presenting, saying, yeah. Human presenting. Then Piccolo. Ooh. Tough.

All right, we got to do the alien draft. Alien draft. Then the mean, mean aliens, there's a lot of mean ones. There's a lot of mean. The niggas from Independence Day. Oh, fucking terrifying.

Them niggies? Man, wow. I'm thinking, I mean, the nice aliens. You can take the ones from a rival. The one doing the language. They were nice. Abbot and Costello. Yeah, they were nice.

What about? Starman was nice? The Navi. Oh, my, well, yeah, bro, lock it in, bro. The Navi. But are they nice or they mean? Because they be on switching. Hey, hey, hey, I got to, I fucked you up with something.

Mean aliens, the humans from Avatar. Who just fucked you. Oh. Who just fucked you up. Who just fucked you up. Who just fucked you up. Open your third eye. Open your third eye.

Come on. I say, we're doing it. We're doing it. Stay woke. Who just fucked you up? Mean aliens. Christopher Columbus. Colombians.

Who just fucked you up? Great X-Men villain. I don't know why I could talk. Rosario Dawson from a men and black too. We were aliens. Oh, man. And Sam Worthington sold us out and became one of them. The Uncle Tom of Humanity.

The Sambo. Excuse me. The Sambo. Uncle Tom was the hero. Did we get wrong? My coofy niggas is going to get mad if I said, Uncle Tom was the hero of the book. The San Luis.

He's a Sambo. Walking it back. Walking it back. Our producers are Leah Sneris. Jay Whaley, Jomey at dinner on socials. Hashtag Jomey the Navi warlord. I thought I was Joe me the Alien, which is crazy because I was not born in this country.

you would have put a target on my back. I appreciate you not doing Joe Me the Alien. That means a lot. Yeah, no. It would do that. Well, I mean, it could still happen. All right. Let's not.

Hey, baby, that's in the world, man. Listen, I got my passport. You know what I'm saying? They want to come at me. They can come at me. But you would be in fear of deporting somebody who does belong here. So it would be kind of crazy. It could happen.

We don't, we don't fucking ask them. They come to get you. We fucked them up. We don't ask them for fucking, oh, don't come get done. Fuck with Joe. I wish a nigga would. How's that sound? Actually, please leave my friend alone.

I'm not fucking with y'all. Y'all niggas is petty. And I'm saying, it's crazy. Y'all diggers is petty. Nah, we, we, you know, we'll actually exchange, like, five people from Joe. No, I'm just saying. It's a joke. It's a joke.

It's a joke. It's a joke. It's a joke. What's happening is so fucking bad that we have to find levity in humor. It's disgusting and terrible. And we have to find levity in it. In humor. It's a joke.

It's a joke. Additional production from Arjuna Romka Papp. Chuck, take us out. James Gunn talking his shit. Kevin Fagy needs a little luck. And I'm standing on business. Because Dream Gray, fuck you sucks. Feels like every product claims real protein these days.

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