The Ringer-Verse - ‘Werewolf By Night’ Instant Reactions

Episode Date: October 8, 2022

Joanna and Van are here to dive into Marvel’s special presentation, ‘Werewolf By Night.’ The pair discusses the classic horror influence on the project, before switching gears to talk about future films like ‘Blade,’ as well as a potential 'Midnight Suns' project, and much more. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Van Lathan Associate Producer: Jonathan Kermah Additional Productional Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Yossi Salick, and I'm the host of Bansplain, a show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists by going deep into their histories and discographies. We're back with a brand new season at our brand new home, the Ringer podcast network, tackling a whole new batch of artists, from grunge gods to power pop pioneers to new metal legends and many, many more. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, only on Spotify. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Trimphia, proper training is required.

Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com.

This episode is brought to you by Sweetgreen. for permission, lunch window, gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies. Sweet Green's new wraps have got you. Real ingredients? Zero shortcuts. Everything you love in one hand. Think green goddess chicken. Garlic aoli. Crumbled bacon. Corn salsa. 40 grams of protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweetgreen wraps hit different. Order now at order.com. Hello and welcome back into the ringerverse, your nexus podcast feed for all things, fandom, and welcome to a very special presentation. It's me, Joanna Robinson.

And also it's you, Van Lathan. Hi, Van. Yeah, hi. Hi, I think it's time for us to start our own brand and our own pact. Oh, what should be called? The Jovanna Experience. Oh, the Javanna Experience. That sounds like an influencer brand.

I love that for us. We could do like one-offs, Buffy-related content, all of that stuff. All I want to do is talk to you about Buffy Vampire Slay. We're not here to talk about vampires. We're here to talk about werewolves. We're here to talk about Werewolf by Knight, which is the Marvel Studios special presentation,

one-off Halloween special, holiday special that they've done from Michael G. Kino, who's usually a composer, but making sort of his longer-form directorial debut here. We just were really excited about this and wanted to talk about it. And the Ringer and all of its generosity, we're like, sure, take a Saturday. Talk about it. No problem, Joanna, man. Van, do you remember what our first thing we ever did together was, which was a year ago?

First thing we ever did together was. No, I don't. I don't. It's been so much content. What was it? It was a year ago. So I just celebrated my one year ringerversary yesterday. And the first thing that you and I ever recorded was a segment on horror films.

And that's when you told me about growing up Louisiana and like, you know, the religious environment and all that sort of stuff and whether or not you watch horror. So I just love that we're back together again a year later. Talk again about horror. Horror stuff. Marvel horror, which I was so, I was so curious about. Because we got a little taste of Marvel Horror with Multiverse of Madness, but it was reigned in Marvel Horror. So I felt like because of the spooky season that is upon us, because that this was a one-off, that they might go a little bit further here.

And I think that they did, actually. They did. All right. Before we get into talking about this special presentation, I don't even know what to call it a movie, a special, special. Special, holiday special? Sure. Let's just do the classic programming reminders, right? Tomorrow Sunday, Chris Ryan,

Valerie Rubin, yours truly. We'll be back to talk about House of the Dragon. Tuesday, Mallory and I will be doing the deep dive on House of the Dragon. You'll have to tap my phone to hear the conversations that Van and I have about House of the Dragon, but they're great. That's so good. Van is all in. Van is all in.

But Wednesday, the Midnight Voice, Poo! Poo! We'll be back to talk about and or and whatever else pleases them. Thursday, Ben will be talking about where she hulk. And then it's Friday rings the power. So that's every day of the week, except for Monday. On Monday we rest. Like the salons were closed on, on Monday. That's what's going on in the ring of verse.

It's a lot. So you're going to want to subscribe, follow us on the socials, do all that good shit. You know what you're going to want to do? Appreciate it. Because we're working our ass is awful. We are. But this is a joy. Like this is just when Van and I went to D-23, we saw this trailer.

We were so excited for We're We're Wealth by night. I was really curious to see what Michael Giacchino did as a director in addition to his composing work. And I'm a huge Gail Garcia-Bernal fan, so I was excited to see Gail at the center of something. So let's just start with like, man, overall impression. It was fantastic. Yeah. I really liked it. I think it got off to an immediately intriguing start.

Setting up the lore here, these are characters that I would be lying to you. If I said that my comic book knowledge extends to an understanding of these characters, I think of all of them. Obviously, Man Thing is one that you have to know because of the backstory of that particular character. It's so funny. and, you know, just dipping into a different part of the MCU. It actually starts with the Avengers here on top.

Hey, these are the guys that do all the front-facing stuff. Right. But I got to let you guys know that there's another part of what we do where the monsters are. I was in from the beginning. From that point, I thought that was great storytelling. What about you, Joe? Yeah, I absolutely loved it.

It gave you that. I'm just going to rattle off a but just in case folks, like, haven't experienced classic horror. It's a possibility if you're listening to this. And then I'm going to circle back to Manthank. But, like, this is giving, this is serving classic horror. So, like, Bella Lagosie is Dracula, 1931. That's a must see. Boris Karloff is Frankenstein, 1931, must see.

Claude Raines is the invisible man, 1933. Three, must-see. Boris Karloff back again is Frankenstein with the bride of Frankenstein with Elsa Lancaster, 1935. Those are a bunch of James Whale joints. Launcini Jr. is the Wolfman, huge influence. Laun Cheney. Yeah.

Elsie, Jay. My God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And then the hammer horror, like, where basically in the 1950s you have all these guys who will be future Star Wars villains like Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee are doing curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, the mummy, Vincent Price doing House of Wax or the Fly or House on Haunted Hill. Like the narrator, the beginning of this is giving such strong Vincent Price narration vibes as he's talking to you about the monsters and the other corners of the universe. So, yeah.

Have I told you my Vincent Price story? No. Tell me your Vincent Price story. So I was so scared of Vincent Price as a kid and it wasn't because of thriller. What was it from? So there was a commercial, and I want you guys to find a commercial where I feel like it was like in a psychopedia commercial, some kind of commercial for some book or something. It was a commercial. And they had Vincent Price in the commercial.

And he said something in the commercial, then his eyes lit up and they were glowing. He was being scary Vincent Price. And I remember at my aunt Cassandra's house, I was on my Uncle Col. waterbed. And, because I don't know you guys don't remember the waterbed area. I was just getting in the waterbed. Oh, my parents 100% had a waterbedded. Oh, yeah, and just weighed around.

And I'm looking at it. And I turn over and I look and he says, ha, ha, ha. And I'm like, oh, shit. And I got up and I ran into the thing. And I was like, Mama, I'm Vincent Price in the room. Vincent Price. And my mama was like, Vincent Price. What do you know about Vincent Price?

But it said his name on the commercial. So, and then Thriller comes out. And for a long time, I was just super scared of Vincent Price. price. This is scary. We were so scared of him. And we didn't even live through his heyday in the 50s, but the way that they used him in the 80s and 90s, absolutely terrifying.

But like there's a, so like the main hallmarks, I think of those early horror, like the fact that most of this is shot in black and white. It's a big clue. They did a lot of like fun degradation of the film stock, you know, so you get like weird cigarette burns. Yeah, exactly. That high contrast. black and white.

I think you see it best in that hallway fight towards the end where the light's coming from the back of the hallway and he's just sort of like messing people up and the blood spatters on the camera and it's all of that. And then the practical makeup effect. They use the lawn chaney wolfman makeup on it. They didn't CGI. And they put fur on Gael. How did you, do that look good to you?

What did you think? I love it. So I'm watching this with Kalika and I go, this was a person. perfect choice. This special really didn't miss, I'll be honest. Yeah. This is a perfect choice. It's a perfect choice to have him look Wolf Wolf, Wolfenstein, Monster Squar, Wolfman.

You know, to have him look like that. Yeah. It fit perfectly. If they had gone CGI, Moon Night Wolfman, it would have looked crazy. Man thing looked great. Yeah. Obviously, that's a CGI character. Yeah.

But no Marvel CGI complaints here. Maybe the black and white gives you a little bit more grace in that. Yeah, yeah. The colors aren't quite as vibrant. No complaints here. But I thought it was perfect. And it was a scary, agile half-man, half-wolf beast that was doing this thing. Yeah, the stunts, like a lot of wirework.

Yeah. And just like great stunts. I think I haven't looked. I'm sure that Heidi Moneymaker is one of the main Marvel stunt. coordinators. I'm confident that she worked on this because at one point, Elsa Bloodstone, who's like the co-lead of this, does the Black Widow throw? Like she uses her legs to throw a guy. That's an iconic Heidi Moneymaker original. So I'm pretty sure that Heidi was involved with this. But I thought the stunts are great. It was like brisk and fast and spooky and fun.

I think the black and white, as you say, covers the like gives them some grace in CGI, but also lets them do so much. much more blood than we usually get in a Marvel property. A lot of blood. Like that was something that jumped out. It was blood, but it's not as vibrant. So yeah, you're right. Yeah. So what's interesting about these special presentations, this is the first.

This is something they're going to be doing going forward, is that it reminds us of, like, the Marvel one shots that they used to do, where they did one with, like, Peggy Carter. They did one with Ben Kingsley. You know, this is a very, like, comic booky thing to do. But this is different from those because those were like continuations of established side characters for movies. This is like a soft launch

of a character. And if you listen to interviews with Michael G. Kina, who directed or the various producers who worked on it and people ask them, okay, are we going to see more where we'll find night, more Jack Russell, more Elsa, Bloodstone, etc. They're like, I don't know.

Are we? And so I think it's basically like market testing a character or a vibe. How does that work for you as a strategy for Marvel going forward? Let me tell you why it works so good. People wonder why there's so many Avengers.

How many Avengers are there? A thousand? Do you know why? Because people would be, characters will be introduced in the Avengers book only to see if you liked them. Then they might get a one shot.

Then you move on. So all these different people are Avengers because the book was actually like a little nesting ground to see if you guys would take to a character. I think that is a very safe and a very prudent way to do this. Because let's be honest, we don't know if we want some of these characters.

I'll just be honest with you, Joe. Some of these people, we get excited for it and then second, third episode in, I'm like, you know, man, do I care about this? I'm not going to name any names, but I think that, I think proof of concept here, I desperately want more Werewolf by night. They showed me that they could do it.

I was going to talk about that exactly, because what you're saying is, like, the TV shows are also a possible, like, a way to soft-launch a character to not give them their own movie, but to soft-launch them in a show. And then do you like Kate Bishop? Do you want more Kate Bishop?

Like, what's going on? This is just a much more economic. economical, like much shorter investment in terms of launching a character. So we're not, like, hanging out with them for like, you know. And for someone like Moon Knight, like possibly, like, because I really liked the introduction of Moon Night and then Moon, I'll name names. Moon Night like Peters out and really disappointed me, right? At the end.

She said it. I didn't. But she's goddamn right. But what if they had launched Moon Night with a, like, a special presentation like this and put all the best stuff into it. There you go. They would, I'm sorry, Joe.

I didn't mean to. No, go for it. But what I'm saying is like that's, they would have, they would have had to be, they wouldn't have been spoon feeding this like like a little bit. They wouldn't have been like giving us a little taste test. They would have to give us some stuff that would be compelling enough for us to come back, which is what they did here. There's not a down second in this entire thing.

It's the exposition is perfect. the characterization is perfect by the end, I actually care about characters that I didn't really follow in the comics that I only really had an hour with. But I think sometimes counting on people to be there for six hours with characters that they don't really have a connection to,

you can get yourself in a little narrative problem. Because we're like, all right, you know. And Moon Knight is a character that I know, but I'm like, you know. Yeah, exactly. So I think this is actually a better way. I completely agree. And I think that

And then if it's not working Then they've just done an hour And it's like, okay, whatever And we don't feel like we've wasted six hours And they don't feel like they've wasted all their time The thing that you and I and Charles and other people keep saying Is like sometimes less is more Marvel And like we love you and we love what you do when you do it well

But like if you if they had tried to do a whole Werewolf by Night TV series It would have you know It would have diluted it. was like such a potent little shot to the arm. Gael was fantastic. Laura Donnelly, who plays Elsa Bloodstone, I thought she was fantastic,

and I would love to see more of them. Do you want to, for folks who are listening who don't know, the man thing backstory, do you want to tell them? Joe, Joe, check your text. Just real quick. Just check your text while we're on the podcast.

Tell me that's not scary. Of course, it's time life. Of course, it's time. Oh, my God. I just sent Joe to Vincent Price commercial. That's like that's the commercial. Watch it later. I found it.

Tell me that's not scary. Time life. Enchanted World Books. Time life is like some kind of time life enchanted world books. He sits down and he reads the books. I'm like, oh shit, he's reading books. And at the end, his eyes go, I fucking freak me out. Look, that's 85.

I'm five years old. All right. Anyway, you guys. On the waterbed. Yeah, on the water bed. You guys think I'll be making shit up. No, it's just I'm scarred and it never leaves. Okay.

Your question was, oh, so Man Thing is essentially is Marvel Swamp Thing. Right. Now, technically Swamp Thing is a rip-off of Man Thing, but then at the same time, not because some of the creators cross over. Complicated, messy. Some of the creators cross over, like there could have been stories that were meant for Man Thing or meant for Swampi. Swamp Thing that ended up being the in the inception of the Man Thing, but technically the

Man Thing comes before Swamp Thing. They both debut, I think in 1971, and Swamp Thing is probably much more of a... Some thing's way more famous. Way more famous than Man Thing is. But Man Thing could be having his day right now.

Both very, very powerful characters with only mildly different things that they do in terms of their, in terms of their skill sets. But swamp beings, connected to nature, connected to any type of different plant, can go anywhere a plant goes,

can do all kinds of stuff, and obviously can burn your body off of your skull, off of your shit. I mean, were you really using it? Apparently, Chiquino has said that using Man Thing was Feige's idea. And I love, like, that's, those are the stories you love to hear about Kevin Feiggy,

because, like, Faggy will just, this is why he is such a genius producer, is he'll just toss out great ideas. He'll just be like, hey, you know, the story, the way they tell it is that Giacino, Faggy's like, hey, Mike, if you were to direct something for us, what would you want to do? And Chikino's like, I want to do Werewolf by Night. He's like, okay, if you do Werewolf by Night, like, oh, maybe fun to use Man Thing and something like that. Like, that's just, that's how these things come together.

And that's a classic Fyggy approach, which is, wouldn't it be cool? If, that's the idea. Wouldn't it be cool if? Won't the fans love if we did this? And I, you know, just works really well. Extremely powerful. People don't understand how fucking powerful Swamp Thing is. One time Constantine was smoking tobacco.

And because he had the tobacco that he got out of his little thing when he goes to pull his pouch out of tobacco, fucking Swamp Thing pops up out of the, goddamn tobacco that he had swamp things connected to all the plants of the world, sentient bond with them. Yeah. And so is the man thing. He's a very incredibly, extremely powerful character that exists back in the swamps of Louisiana, where I'm from. What did you think of them calling him Ted the whole time? That's his name.

Yeah. Dr. I said that he lives, he actually lives in the Florida Everglades. I thought it was cool. I thought not referring to him as Man Thing and introducing him as Ted was a way to make him a little bit more cuddly because you are introducing monsters

and we have to watch this guy like brutally dissolved people. Right. So calling him Ted is a way to humanize him a little bit. Like when we first meet him, he seems like he's going through something. He's having a rough day. So when he does his Man Thing thing, it doesn't seem as crazy. So I like Man Thing.

I love the way they use them in this entire deal. Remind me how far into Buffy you are. Did you guys finish watching Buffy you and Kaleak? Last season. Okay. Do you remember in season three of Buffy? It's prom, I think, or homecoming. It's homecoming, I think.

And they have something called Slayer Fest 98, which is where all the Slayer, you know, all the people. want to kill the Slayer come together. This was such a Slayer Fest 98 premise for me, where they pull all the monster hunters in together and they all have their own like schick, whether it's like a, you know, a steak thing on the arm, or they all just like, they're all have their own little modus operandi. They're all, you know, completely reduced to goo by both Warwick Fight Night and Elsa,

when she's, like, fighting them and stuff like that. But I just, I was like, I feel like my suspicion is Heather Quinn, who wrote this is a Buffy fan and this is a Slayer Fest 98, like complete story. I loved it. I loved the fact that it was all these monster hunters come together. I just didn't know why they were being so cordial to one another in the beginning when it was their job to kill each other. Maybe they didn't know. But I like that. All the monster hunters come together because what we really find out is that it's actually the monster hunters who are the monsters.

Yeah. They're the bloodthirsty. kill crazy beasts in this entire story. The monsters here are the most human. And I always love a story like that, man. Yeah, yeah. I always love that. And Elsa learns that a little bit.

But I assume that it's something that she always kind of knew, which might have been the reason why she spent so much time away from her family, you know? Right. The fact that she rejected them because she's like, this is a lot of bullshit. But I do want that stone. I do want it. I love that the, it's a story that takes place out of time. Like, you don't know when this is taking place because we don't get cell phones.

They do talk about going for sushi, but we don't get cell phones. And there was a part of me, have you heard the rumor about, I don't know, no spoilers, I don't know this for a fact, but have you heard the rumor about what they're going to do with Blade? No, I haven't. I would love to hear that rumor. that they might make blade a period piece because they can. And then it might be like a 1920s, 1930s blade with Marrishala. How about this?

Fucking terrible idea. Tell me why. What you mean? Why? It's like that is. Why? It might work. What if it's cool as hell?

What if it's so cool? Okay. I mean, I guess. Jazz era of Blade, like as the origin story. Like, like First, you know,

First Avenger, Captain America, First Avenger. Can I just be honest with you, though? Here's the thing, man. Okay.

Blade is black. And we got a, we got a, we got a, see what Kerms just said. Kerm said, so he's dealing with segregation too. Blade is black

and it's just not going, you know, when Wesley came out with Blade, it was the hip, pop house music era. It was one of those weird times in society where we had kind of forgot racism

existed that everybody Donon, don't know, Don't Don't Don't Don't Blade. You know what I mean? And we go back to 1920s, man. We got to deal with so much shit. Blade got so many more problems than killing vampires in 1925.

I don't know. I'm sure they can make it work. So in the comics, Blade is born in London in 1920s. That's cool. Does it make a difference if it doesn't take place in America in that time period? I'm not sure how London was for us in 1920s. I can't imagine it was that great.

Yeah. I don't know where in 1920 it was super dope, but maybe. I just, I don't know, man. Maybe they have to. Maybe narratively there has to be some reason why Blade hasn't been, like, hanging around for all this time. But I just shit like that. Captain America made sense. because, you know, that's

But that's not what we know Blade from. Come on, man. I guess do it. I don't know. No, fuck that. No. Don't do it. I don't want no goddamn 1920s blade.

Okay. No, I don't want none of that. Okay. I want, give me regular blade that I'm used to. I guess. I guess I'm wrong. No, I don't know that you're wrong. I think you, Kerm, both bring up obviously a really good point.

I think this idea of having an immortal character give you the options to try to try to do what Marvel likes to do, which is, like, make a genre film. What were if it were a period piece in the 90s? Like, if it came out, if it were set when the first Blade was set. I mean, I'm confident that he'll be both. I'm confident that Blayette, that Marhershala is going to be all over the place, you know, because you don't hire Mahershala and not, like, use him a lot, right? So I'm confident that he's going to be all over the place.

We already heard him at the end of Eternal. I just wonder if they're going to launch him. Or maybe it'll be like, again, I don't know. So this is just me completely wondering. But like, if he's born in the 20s thereabouts, maybe it'll be something, a story set in two different time periods, right? Where we'll get like some of it is in the past. We'll get flashbacks. And then some of it is in the present.

Because I don't know. There's something like with Highlander, you know what I mean? There's something about like having an immortal character. and wanting to be able to explore other decades with our character. Here we are. Born to the king. We're the princes of the universe. Come to be a world.

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If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderate, to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more, or visit trimfire radio.com.

Anyway, Highlander, what a great. But, like, that's the opportunity you have with an immortal character, right, is to explore time. I would love to hear from the beakers of Blade that they were inspired by Highlander when they made that film. That would be fucking great.

But my question was, to bring it back to Whirlf by night. My question was, do we think they set this slightly out of time, slightly, to allow the opportunity that it could take place concurrently with, I mean, this doesn't look like it's set in the 30s. Her boots look a little bit more modern than that. But she does dress like the modern 30s heroin lady with the jacket and their belt and the boots and the whole thing. Are they...

So if... I guess the question is, if... we like Werewolf by Night, is it a possibility that they're trying to make sure that they have options to keep it in the... Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. That they could set that whenever they want to, if they want to make the Midnight... So, like, the Midnight Suns, which is this Marvel Horror Supergroup, which would involve possibly Werewolf by Night and Blade. Do they want to make all of that period?

or do they want to make it modern? We don't know the answer. But it does feel like they hedged their bets in this where they were like, I mean, they wanted to make it feel out of time because they wanted to do an homage to those classic horror films, but also to give them the opportunity

to slot it in wherever they wanted to slot it in. Do you have any thoughts or feelings about Midnight Suns as like the potential future of Marvel, a corner Marvel? So I think Marvel is going to need substitute players. I mean, they're going to need people to come in and give the Avengers a breather. And they're going to need to expand their world past Avengers and Avengers focused centered to characters. I think the Midnight Suns give them the opportunity to do that. I think the X-Men do too.

But see, those pockets of Marvel always were different universes within Marvel almost. We have said this before on Pods. The X-Men had basically had their own. universe. The Avengers had their own universe. Then there was, Spider-Man had his own universe. And then there was the spooky, scary stuff that had its kind of own thing, you know, you know what I mean? And so I think bringing in the Midnight Suns gives them an opportunity to sort of kind of recreate that in the movies and maybe break off a little bit so more people are doing less work. And and Fige's not stressed so thin. And everybody's not.

else isn't stressed so thin. Maybe you come in and that's a way to kind of... Right, you have your like Marvel Horror Division run by someone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. If you...

So like some of the more well-known members of the Midnight Suns, Blade, Johnny Blaze, the hood, which we know we're getting introduced to. And Rory Williams. Uh-huh. And Ironheart. Um, Werewolf by Night. Do you have a Wong is a... is a member of the Midnight Suns.

Do you have, like, a dream lineup? Like, would you put, like, existing characters? Who would you put on a Midnight Suns? And would it be Iron Fist? No, Iron Fist is not going anywhere. It's going to be Blade. Danny Rand. No one invited you.

Okay, go ahead. It's going to be Blade. Yeah. Which blade? Mm-hmm. Excuse me which Blade. It's going to be which Ghost Rider name. It's going to be Blade, Ghost Rider.

I'm going to have Warwolf by Night in there Okay Werewolf by Night Man Thing I guess you could have the hood in there I don't know like how I'm not as up on that character

and I don't know how they're going to use them in the joint but like if you have those four characters you have somebody really powerful Maybe you have Black Knight in there Maybe he becomes a member of the Midnight Suns Right right Yeah that's a question Yeah yeah yeah

So like this is Marvel Horror Division that they're building this Midnight Sun's thing that they're building towards. Like, would you want it to be something that is R-rated? Like, do you think that they should go do an R-rated corner of the MCU? Or do you think they don't need that? See, the R-rating, I don't think they need it. Because this wouldn't be TVMA, would it? I wonder if because the blood just looks like black goop instead of actual red spatter blood.

if the rating is the less. I don't think you necessarily need a Midnight Sun's movie to be rated R. I think you need a Deadpool movie to be rated R because the violence is actually a character in the story. It's super violent and you're ripping people apart and all that stuff. But I don't think you need a Midnight's Sons movie to be rated R. It could be. But if it's going to be rated R, then it really has to be scary. And I think to make a good superhero team up movie, there's only some.

so scary it can be because your hero's got to win. And in a good horror movie, it's scary because you don't know who's going to win. Oftentimes, it's just a series of losses watching people get fucked over. But in a superhero movie, your hero's got to win, so it can't be that scary. And if it's not going to be that scary, what's the point of making it ready to R? Right. Just make it fun and spooky or chill. Like, didn't you say like weird D23 where you like, it gives you the chills, right?

Yeah, just the chills. Just the chills. Just the chills. It doesn't horrify you. It just gives you chills. Yeah. Like this Vincent Price commercial. That I said you.

But I think, I think they're in a good spot to do some stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, there were moments in multiverse of madness that were really scary to me. And that was some of the, like, the, like, the. most fun the movie was having when you have like when the corpse resurrected corpse of Stephen Strange is like flying with all this with that skeletical cape like stuff like that is fun yeah I think that's why some people again I don't know anything this is not a spoiler I don't know but like some people are wondering if like the end of Dr. Strange where Charlize

their own shows up, Clea shows up, and is like, hey, there's something going on over here, come help. Like, is that launching us into this Midnight Suns territory? And then we get Dane from the end of Eternals, as you mentioned, with his weird ancestral blade, like, are all those things, then we're going to get the Blade movie. We've got this World by Night launch. We could bring in Moon Night, even though he's not historically on this team, but it feels like it could fit vibe-wise.

He did make his debut in a Werewolf by Night comic. Right, exactly. He's associated. So where are you wanting a ghostwriter movie? Do you want a new ghostwriter movie or would you just like want one of these, a special presentation? I could deal with a special presentation, but I like the Nicholas Cage ghost writer movie. Can I say? West Bentley is Blackheart.

I don't care what you guys say. That shit was rad to me. Can I float some actors who are being like tossed around as a potential ghost writer? Okay. Kianu. That works. Yeah. And that would bring a lot of like, we talk a lot about star power in the MCU post like Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans.

Like, imagine they bring Kianu in. And so suddenly you have like a Midnight Suns thing with like Kianu and Aherchelah, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. Yeah, that works. I don't know if you can comment on this one. Las Alonzo Really? Yeah

Oh, he needs it Favoriteism is my favorite name Shout out to my brother Las, my whole boy Las who people know from the boys But Van knows from his text messages So Lazalanzo Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Wow That's interesting They're going a little older, huh? These are just names that are being thrown around Okay, that's interesting I love Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Love him. Norman Reidis.

Daryl from Walking Dead. Yeah? He's got the whole motorbike aesthetic already. It's like his claim to fame. He could go tortured really well. He's very relatable. That's a really good one. All right.

One last one. One last one. On Josh Harway's Happy Sad Confused podcast. Oscar nominated actor Ryan Gosling said Ghost Rider is the one superhero he wants to play. Oh, it doesn't matter. He's got it. And then Kevin Feiggy says, hey man, if Ryan wants to be Ghost Rider, dot, dot, dot. It doesn't matter.

If he decides he wants the role, he's got the role. Gossling? Yeah. He's my favorite actor. Ryan Gosling's your favorite actor? Yeah. Okay. What if he, what if Keanu comes out and also wants the role?

It's going to Ryan Gosling. Who is? Okay. So like, fuck your actual friend, Lauselonzo. It's going to your favorite actor, Ryan Garland. No, no, no, hold on, hold on. If I had to make my decision, I would give last of the role. Yeah.

I'll give last all the roles. I would have last play Blade and Ghost Rider. He'd play them both, right? But if Ryan Gosling wants the role, he's going to get it. Okay. Follow up question. Proposition. Here's my pitch to Marvel.

Okay. Why don't you give us? a fight between Canadian icons, Ryan Gossley and Keanu Reeves. Like a, like a, and the winner takes it all. Winner gets to be ghostwriter. This is some kind of weird house of our, corny fantasy that you guys have. No, no, no, no, no. I just like that they're both Canadians and they're both like in, in a sense,

I just like the idea of Canadian spending. Who are the Canadian stars in the MCU right now? Are there any? Ryan Reynolds. Yeah Who else Who are the Canadians I can't think of anything

Because usually they like to go for like Brits and Aussies And stuff like that Yeah who are the Canadians See they need more Canadians So they're gonna get they're gonna need They're gonna get a Canadian here With Gosling or Keanu Reeves Okay

So imagine now Midnight Suns has Mahershal Ali Ryan Gosling Gail Garcia Bernal Lauren Donnell Laura Donnelli You met Elsa Bloodstone Wong.

I mean, I'm excited for this possibility. That's fucking nuts. Yeah. That's crazy. And maybe Kid Harrington? Maybe Kit Harrington. Another member, canonically, of Midnight Sons that I hope to God we don't ever get because of legal reasons is Morbius. Oh, my God.

It's more than time. It's more than time. Bring them out. Or tell Jared let him to stay. home. Y'all hate Morgie's. Yeah. Y'all hate them.

I don't, it's Mormon time. Look, get Morbid's. I know people don't, they don't love Jared. Let somebody else have a shot at Morb-Bram-M-M-Morbi. If you were going to recast Morby, who would you recast them? Well, let's just, let's just create peace in Canada and say Kianu can be Morbis. Oh, that's, that's dope. Keanu as Morbius is the man.

That is Moorby. Yeah. That is Morbi as hell. It's morbidious. That's more malicious right there. Keanu has Morby? Yeah. Yeah.

That's Morby, man. Yeah. And then, you know, it's funny actually bringing that Matt Smith was on Josh Horowitz's podcast. And Josh told him that Keanu Reeves loved Morbius. And Matt Smith lost Matt Smith also in Morbius, of course, the actual good part of Morbius. And Matt Smith lost his mind because he loves. Keanu Reeves, don't we all? So, you know. All right. So I think we've solved any problems that the Marvel has ever had. I think we've created the perfect lineup for Midnight Sons.

I would like a few more women on there. Let's think about that. But like other than that, we're doing pretty well. If you make Blade a period piece, Van's going to get mad at you. But when it comes to these special presentations, I think we both agree that this is like the perfect, like the platonic ideal of something like this. Just a fun 50-something minutes with the character, market testing them. How do we feel about them? Big fan. Give me more guy on.

The ending scene here where they're sitting together and they're going to go get sushi, I'm thinking wherever these two guys go, I want to go with them. And I want also to go along with them. And I want else. Hold on. I don't want to go. I don't want Elsa to stay because that scene where everything turns to color. Yeah. Brilliant and very purposeful. I want to know what happens next for her.

What does she do now that she's in control of her family birthright? What kind of monster hunter is she? Does she become like her dad? Does she get corrupted? Does she continue to be who she is, which is sort of a nice killer? Yeah. So like there were questions that were left, but they all, were intriguing ones, which is all you can ask for from stuff.

And from stuff. And I think, like, you know, not to get to House of Our Horny on you, but like there's definitely like strong vibes between Elsa and Jack. Or I should do. Yeah. Right. So, but like any sort of proper Buffy-era love relationship, you've got a monster and a monster hunter. How's that, how's that going to go? I would like to see it. I want to see it. Yeah. Monster versus Monster Hunter.

Does this one have some kind of deal where you can't harm somebody or he doesn't have a soul, whatever, whatever? Like, I love that stuff. I love, I don't want to say his name, but he wrote a lot of good stuff that connects monsters and humans. He did. Like to each other. It's a lot of good stuff. All right. Let's talk about one last thing or two last things I want to say before we go.

You're a filmmaker. So I want to talk to you about the production design on this because I thought this looked like fucking gangbusters. I like got so when they first set them out in the sort of, I don't even know what to call it, the maze, the garden, the whatever, I gasped. I was like, where did they shoot this and how? I'm sure there's a lot of CG involved, but also just like as a practical, spooky. simple set, the Crips and all the stuff that they like are working their way through. I just thought it looked so incredible. Tell me as a filmmaker how you felt about it.

What a shot, right? Such use of scale right there. Yeah. To come back and see what we were in, it gave your world shape. And when they cut back, it's a very intimate scene where he's walking through that. And it gives you a sense of just how easy. it could be to run into some danger on the other side of it. I think the entire aesthetic here was brilliantly done.

Interesting looking characters, spooky looking characters, a spooky camera, great sound design, you know, a great diversity of characters. And the entire look was spot on. And you say this is this guy's first joint having directed something, huh? He's in like a couple short, like actual shorts, like shorter than that. this. But like, yeah, this is the longest thing that he's directed. Maya Shimaguchi is the art director for this. And, you know, she's been working for a long time. She worked on Watchmen and more of the Plaint of the Apes and all this sort of stuff. So, like, incredible stuff from her. I want to shout out Harriet Sandsom Harris, who plays,

you know, the woman in charge of everything here, Ursula Bloodstone. And I, um, I know her best from Frazier, but this woman just, like, this is a woman who understood the assignment, just matched the over-the-top campiness element that you needed to make this feel like a 1930s chiller, you know what I mean? And then, yeah, the last thing I want to say is that Giacchino is usually a composer, is one of the most well-known, like, film and television composers. He worked on Lost. He worked on a, you know, he worked on Spider-Man, and worked on a ton of things. the use of music in this because he did all the music in addition to directing. And so like the score and then like the spooky phonograph and like all this

sort of stuff. Like this is someone who like the visuals were top notch. But like he didn't slack on his day job, which was the music as well. And it all just like came together to create something that does feel like a one shot comic to me. Like this feels like a comic someone would hand me and be like, oh, you've never read The Werewolf by Night. like monster hunt,

uh, comic, you gotta read it. It's like a one shot. You'll, you'll enjoy it. It'll be stylish as hell. Uh,

like a real strong genre vibe. And that's, and, and you, okay, let's go back to D23. When I told you and Charles that a reason that I was excited about this is I thought it could

be like completely isolated from the rest of the MCU. And you both laughed at me and said, no fucking way are they doing that. But what did they do? They did it. They did it. you know what joe oh sometimes you're told you so i told you so joe that's your new nickname um as if you've ever skipped an opportunity to roll out and i told you so on me it's one of my favorite things to do

but no you're absolutely right and i think that's i think that's once again the reason why it's so like we're talking about andor and and or works because andor is not trying to recreate the magic of with you are nine years old. Right. They don't give a fuck about that. They just said it because I don't give a fuck. Yeah. About what you went through in your nine.

This is my story in this galaxy boom. This story right here, there's a brief mention of other Marvel heroes at the beginning. Other than this, it has its own entire DNA, has its own look, its own rhythm, its own style, its own rules. An amazing, charismatic, vulnerable lead. In order to play Wolfman,

you got to be vulnerable. Wolfman, man got to be vulnerable, wolf got to be terrifying. Did Dems be the rules? You know what I mean? You know, you see the wolf man, it's like he turns into the, back to the man and he goes,

uh, take me out. It's a curse. Now, he wasn't quite like that, but he was like, yeah, I don't,

I've managed to figure how to do this out because we got five days. It's cool. I want to point out one scene. Yeah. The scene of his turn. We only get,

where we'll buy night one time in this, right? Yeah. One sequence. He turns back. The scene of the turn was masterfully done. You get her cowering. She doesn't know what she's into.

She's literally trying to hide behind the bars, which are behind her. She's melding into it. Fantastic shot. And then the turn and the shadow, God damn it, they were cooking, Joe. They were cooking it with Grace. And he was like, don't break eye contact with me.

I need to remember who you are. And she's like, this has ever worked? He's like, once. Once. And so she has to keep looking at him as he transforms and we're with her and her horror. And for like, again, I would trade that for any special effect, right? Yeah. To just see the shadow of him grow and her horror so much more effective than like, you know, drop in millions on a digital effect or something like that.

So, yeah, masterful. As you say, the whole thing feels just completely controlled and masterful. And fucking fun. Fun. Just like they're having fun. Literally when it was over, I was like, God damn, is that it? Right. Yeah.

Like, I mean, not that it wasn't sufficient enough, but I was like, fuck, they did a great job. I wanted more, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I love the little, like, the subtle, like, makeup marks on him, just like a cool character design on him and his human form and all that sort of stuff. So anyway, knocked out of the park. We would like to see more of this from Marvel in general, right? Like, don't be afraid to get.

weird and get, you know, they always like to pride themselves on their genre stuff. And sometimes it's true. And sometimes I'm like, ah, did you, did you really do a genre there? Or did you do like a light sprinkling? And we're saying, like, lean all the way in and do shit like this. It's really fun and really cool. So that's it. If you were to recommend people listening to do like one classic horror, like say they got a taste of this, they'd never watched a classic old school horror movie, what would you recommend for them? I got to go with one, man. I got to go

with Black Lagoon. Black Lagoon. Creature from the Black Lagoon. Creature from a Black Lagoon. So I watched Creature for the Black Lagoon because of the Monster Squad. I can almost tell you guys to go watch the Monster Squad. With the Monster Squad took like the 80s, though.

The 80s, though, I know. The Monster Squad took all of these classic horror films. I took these horror characters and put them in a town when these white kids have to fight against them is one of the best movies

of my youth and because of that I went back and watched all the movies my mom was like a fan are you going to be a director or something

I'm like yeah maybe let's go to Blockbuster yeah I don't have time for questions I got to watch the creature for the Black Lagoon and of all of them

the Creature for the Black Lagoon because it was like a weird looking creature creature it was the one that I most gotten to that became the one that I really liked the most out of all of those. It was like really, really dope. No, they're all good.

The mummy's good. Brider Frankenstein is good. Like, all of those are good. They're all, all of those things are good in there. So you got fucking Don Amici in Frankenstein. It's alive. You know what I mean? You got, so it's all good.

But I really love the creature for the Black Lagoon. What about you? I think bride of frankincide is my favorite out of all of those that we mentioned like the James Whale and the Hammer Horror or stuff like that but I have a fondness for House of Wax which is one of the surprises

Oh yeah, House of Wax crazy Because I saw that You remember okay so like just before our most recent like 3D revival which was like in the you know early odds or whatever I was at So there was like a time period right before that

where like 3D was like felt super antiquated. If you went to the movie theater and put on 3D glasses, that was like old school thing to do. Like that, that's like back to the future in 1950s is what like 3D felt like in the early odds late 90s. I went to go see a screening of House of Wax at the Castor Theater in San Francisco 3D. And so we're all in the audience. And there's a pointed house of wax where a guy has like, you know those like paddles with a rubber ball and a string attached to them. Do you know what I'm talking about? He's got one of those and he's just like playing with it and the ball is like going 3D out into the audience and it's just like so hokey and fun and like really cheesy and cool.

So yeah, house of wax. All right. Did we do it? I think we did it. We just wanted to like talk about this weird fun thing that Marvel decided to do. And Charles was like, no thank you. Charles is allowed. So it became the Giovanni experience.

Next up. Buffy. You know what? How about we should do on the Ringerverse? Jovanna's House of Horror. Okay. Okay. And it's just Buffy and old horror movies?

Boom. Buffy, old horror movies. Scream, Blacula, scream, Blackula. Like all of this stuff, we just Jovanna's House of Horror. Now here's the thing, Joe. Yeah. I'm not watching. Like Elvira?

Yeah. We're going full Elvira. But I'm not watching anything. I'm not watching none of this none of this nudge shit that they got out now. None of this insidious stuff. No torture porn. See that shit that y'all watch? No.

Y'all crazy. Y'all know who I'm talking to. That shit is too scary. Yeah. Some of that shit, I mean, I came into, I was in a hotel room one time. Walk into this, this dark. It's like weird, religious horror. I'm like, yo, man, what the fuck is this on the TV?

And it was this movie called The Nun. That shit was so fucking scary That shit is too scary, man That shit is so... What about like the Omen? See, that's scary But I could beat him Rosemary's baby

Could you beat the baby? Once again, those are scary But You got They evil and you got the Bible, right? So if you want to use the Bible against him Like you could use it Okay, so the accent

No, that's too much. Okay. So, I mean, I never want. You could beat a baby. You can beat the Antichrist. I could beat the Antichrist. But a teenage girl with pea soup all over her, forget it. That's the actual devil, though.

So, and I'll tell you something else. You ever see the Exorcist 3? No. My nigger. Like, that, don't get uncomfortable because the end word came out, job. That just means me being real. I'm just joking. Like that is a terrible movie, but it is ridiculously scary to me.

It's terrible, as is the Exorcist's too, but it's like super duper scary. All of these movies, it gets too, these older movies are scary, but fun scary. House of Wax, though, that's kind of scary. I was working in a movie theater when The Exorcist had like a re-release. And, you know, we've all had jobs that tested us. And I will say, working in a movie theater when the Exodus was re-released and people were literally, like, vomiting in the theater, that tested me. That tested me. That and the butter machine at the movie theater, both tested me.

Real, real unfortunate work. All right. Well, we did it. I'll be back tomorrow. Talk the Thrones. Do you want to give, like, do you want to give the folks, like, two minutes of Van talking about House of the Dragon? Yep. So I will.

Joe. Are you not here? This is just chaos. This is just me doing whatever we want. Yeah. So here's the deal. I said I didn't want to watch House of the Dragon. Boy, was I wrong?

Let me tell you something. I said this on the Midnight Boys and I stick to it. I think through seven episodes, House of the Dragon is more entertaining than the original Game of Thrones. It's not saying it's going to be better. I'll be honest with you. is a spicy take for you, man. I think through seven

episodes, House of the Dragon, and Charles, of course, went nuts and he brought up all these amazing points as to why that's true. He's not wrong. I'm not comparing one show to a full 18s of another show. All I'm saying is that

through seven episodes, House of the Dragon got me going, what? Every single episode. So much is going on. Dragon theft. House of the Dragon made me go read book. I haven't read a non-fiction book since 2010. Facts.

And what did you say you're going to read next now that you finish fire book? The entire song of Ice and Fire. I got to know more. It's going to read all the George R. Martin books now. That's how deep end he is. I got to know more. There's more because even like little, I catch a little Southern.

subtle things, Kalika hates it. So we're watching the scene where the kids are fighting. And I go, in the book, the girls weren't there. Yeah, it's true. And she goes, welcome to House of Ar. Welcome to House of Arr. She goes, I'll go in the book, the girls weren't there.

But the other kids are babies, so they got to leave it. And she's like, who cares? Doesn't it make more sense that they're there? And then me and her have a 30-minute argument about whether or not it makes sense that the girls would be there. You know what I mean? I will almost say one thing about how. House of the Dragon. Yeah.

Black people catch a lot of L's in House of the Dragon, man. Kern, where are you at? Black people catching some Lels. That being said. Lainor dies in the books and did not die this weekend. Didn't die in this.

See, they kill them in the books. Yeah. He did die in this one. So that's a, but I mean, and to be honest with you, does that mean, well, no, I don't want to spoil anything. Because that makes me wonder

about certain creatures. In the future. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Certain creatures. I love talking to man about House the Dragon. And horror.

Thanks as always to Arjuna and Kapal for, you know, basically just letting us do this. And to Jonathan Kerma for editing. Yeah. What is, frankly, a slight shit show. But we had fun. We had fun. Yeah. Yeah.

World War II and Nighters. And Blade. And House of the Dragon. And what else? Me and My. friend Joe want to talk about. Highlander, Vincent Price commercials, whatever

it is, we're here for it. So we'll be back soon, separately, and together. And thanks for listening. Enjoy spooky season. Bye. Bye. Bye. Here we are.

Yeah. Born to the king. We're the princes of the universe. Come to be the rules of you are. Don't get me started on Highlander. So when are we doing our Highlander podcast? Hey, don't get me fucking started. That shit was syndicated.

It came on all different types of weird-ass times. I loved Highlander the TV show. I watched it all the time. What was his homie that we, that we, this is a sidebars. You guys got to deal with him. Joe? What was his homie? I can't remember his name.

Was it Robbie? Who was his homie? The curly-haired guy? That we found out later was a Highlander? I know Robbie sounds right to me Robbie or something He was like his Robin essentially He was his Robin

And the whole time we thought he was regular And then they killed And we found out he was a highlander the whole time And Duncan Was just keeping him close You know what I mean? Wait, have I told you? Wait, I actually, this is not a joke

I have it right here Is this a good podcast? I don't know. Do you know the only Do you know the only like piece of celebrity paraphernalia I have someone gave to me is two autographed photos of Adrian Paul.

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