The Smark Avengers - Vol 3, Ep 2: The Smark Avengers Talk About Spider-Man Spinoffs

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

Robert Frost once wrote, "Nothing gold can stay." Before there was the MCU, the DCU, and every CU aside from the Intense Care Unit, a little company called Sony hired Sam Raimi to make a movie about everyone's favorite wallcrawler and things were good! Then, suddenly, things weren't so good... and then the Mouse got involved and cut a deal too good to be true and suddenly things looked even worse. Join Corey, Dylan, and Jon as they discuss the rise and fall of Sony's Spider-Man universe!

Just like you being recorded. I like how they call us a meeting. By attending this meeting, you are consented to being recording. There's not any meeting I've ever been to, you know. Gentlemen, you may be wondering why I gathered you all here today. You're fired. I've been in some of those meetings before. I was not one of the fired parties, but I was there for it.

Holy shit. Yeah, we're going to be outsourcing the entire pension department. You ever see that thing? I don't know if it was on Twitter or Tumblr, but it was a thing where like some guy posted that he was like, I made a big mistake in work and now they've called me into a meeting. Yes. You know those one?

Yeah, the clown. Yeah. They're like, they're going to call me into this meeting and I know that I'm going to get fired, but they said I can bring somebody in us to support. The support. Could I hire a client to be my support man? And then the next is like a fucking article written about the guy.

Like, man brings support. clon in when he gets fired. Made blue animals for the people. Yeah. Good stuff. Well, if we have a support clown here, we will, we might need one because we're going to be discussing. Hi, I'm Corey and this is John and Dylan and collectively we're known as the Smart

Avengers. And we might need. Yeah, we'll keep it. The last volume are all of our starts involved us coming with fake podcast names. And this one, we're just going to be jumping into some random topic. Oh, yeah, we did do that. Anyway, tell us some facts about Spider-Man films, Corey. Spider-Man films.

So, yes, we're going to talk about the Sony Spider-Man movies. We're going to start all the way with Toby McGuire, and we are going to wrap up talking about the future of the Sony Spider-M Spider-Men. movies. Well, the Spider-Man but not Spider-Man movies. Correct. So it's going to be kind of the same format we did last time. We're going to look at box office.

We're going to look at percentages. We're going to talk about our own experiences watching them. So we'll just go ahead and get underway. Spider-Man was something that there was always talks of making a Spider-Man movie. I remember in the 90s, like reading about it in magazines and stuff, like rumors of a Spider-Man movie. And like, They're going to do it in the rights.

Jason Patrick is Spider-Man and stuff like that. Yeah, exactly. So there was all these ideas that were floating around there, but it finally came about being through the director of Evil Dead and Evil Dead to an Army of Darkness, you know, what he's most famous for, in my opinion. Sam Ramey, and we had our first live-action American Spider-Man, because we have the live action Japan Spider-Man,

which I don't think we know that episode didn't come out. We might have to read it up. We didn't put it up. Oh man, we have to put that up. We will, I think we'll have to re-record it, but yeah.

No, what's wrong with it? It's on my old computer that's dead. We had to do it twice. We can't do it. Yeah. Well, and the audio kept getting fucked up

because like it was on my old computer and running Skype and YouTube at the same time was just a bad idea. So we're going to have to pretend we're seeing Spider-Man for the first time a third time. Yeah, I'm not going to cut this out of this episode either, so people will listen to this. I have such a bad memory that like, if he watched it again, no, I'd be like, well, I don't remember any of this. So anyway, we had our first live-action Spider-Man with Toby Maguire.

And we also, by proxy of that, we got our first live-action Mary Jane Watson and our first villain, the Green Goblin, played by the wonderful Willem-Defo. So this was the year 2002. I was a sophomore in high school in 2002, maybe even a freshman technically. So I was in that demographic. I believe I saw that in the theater. But it's been a bit. And yeah,

I was not, I will tell you that when it comes to Spider-Man, and this is going to come across in this recording, I was only really interested in Spider-Man in the 90s when Todd McFarlane was doing the art. Okay. Spider-Man, for the most part, has been a miss for me a lot of the time. And when it has hit, it's always been weird characters. Like, I really liked Ben Riley.

Oh, okay. You didn't like Ben Riley or you liked it? Oh, do you talk about Ben Riley? We've talked about this before because I love the clone saga. Yeah. Well, that's right. You did love the clone saga. So, yeah, that's my experience of Spider-Man.

And so when it came to watching this, it was like, my background is the, uh, the 90s Spider-Man with Tom McFarland doing art and also the animated series that was, uh, on Fox, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. Yeah. What are your thoughts on the first incarnation of Spider-Man on the big screen? I liked it. Because I mean, we're all pretty much the same age, I think. So, or round it to see me it. So I was, you know, in 2002, I was a big Spider-Mouth fan, you know, from the, we'd started reading the comics by then.

And, you know, I also was a big fan. I think we're all a big fan of the cartoon show in the 90s. So I was psyched to see it. And, you know, when you're a kid and you watch something like that, you're like, wow, it's great. It's not perfect. We can all agree on that. But it's fun enough. It's not obviously shit.

Yeah. Do you mean? Well, I think a lot of the fun stuff about it were, and we'll end up talking about this character. I'll save it from when we're talking about that character. But, you know, you weren't allowed to have like bullets and stuff in the, uh... In the cartoon show. Like the Spider-Man, like animated show. They had to make some changes.

That's right. So, like, they got around a lot of, like, handcuffs that they were put on them. Like, fucking Batman animated series had bullets and there are tons of fists getting. in throne. I don't know what it was about Spider-Man. Batman was always really cool and gritty, and Spider-Man was a little bit more light-hearted for kids. Yeah.

So that's the demographic. You know what you mean? Yeah. But I thought the film was fun enough, you know? I guess we'll talk about all three of the films, right? Yeah, we're going to go through them. Okay. John, also, I think it's fair if we talked about the Spider-Man.

Giams. Oh, I never really played too many of the games. Ah, okay. Because whenever I got my GameCube in 2, it came out and bundled. I didn't want this game. I wanted Super Smash Bros. Which I bought along with the GameCube. But it came bundled with Spider-Man, the movie, The Game, which, okay, in terms of the video game and in terms of the film,

I think we can both agree not as good as the second one. Let's put it down way. Okay. Well, I stand alone in this, I think, because I love the first movie more than I do

the second movie. And the second movie is great. But like, the first movie, I think, is just a perfect slice of comic book movie, you know, fun.

Like you got the origins story you've got like the little jockey moments you got willem defoe just absolutely healing it up and having a blast as green goblin uh and then i like the little nods to the comics as well like him threatening mary jane like holding her over the edge of the uh the bridge and stuff like you know like she's gwen stacey or something and yeah like all that kind of stuff really worked for me so you know I love that first movie and okay I was so glad to see William Defoe get to be green goblin again not to get ahead of us I was here yeah we'll get there we will not get there because that was an MCU movie oh well then

yeah um I I did like the first Spider-Man film by I enjoyed the second one more I did like William Defoe was a great, like that's great cast. I think that's been kind of overshadowed by stuff. Like people don't realize how good. Like a lot of those Spider-Man villains were perfectly cast. We'll get to the second one. But William Defoe is Green Galdon. Like that's really good casting.

It's perfect. It worked so well. He was so creepy. Did you guys ever see that apparently in the first, film, the Green Goblins mask, the face doesn't move. It's a static mask. But apparently they had designed a mask

that would move, like the mouth would move when he talked. And they got rid of it for some reason. It looked like skin, right? It was way creepier. I'm like, that would be fucking cool, dude. You know, I think maybe they, like, again, because Spider-Man's a little bit more

family-friendly, maybe they didn't want to go too deep into it being too creepy. I think as well. Like it would have been weird like him being a weapons manufacturer, just suddenly showing up with like a latex goblin mask, which probably moved when he spoke and stuff. That's true.

That's true. But again, like you said, it's comics, right? It all has a sense of fun about it. You don't have to think about it too much. You know? But yeah, I did. I did like the first one. Corey, what did you think of it?

Uh, well, the first one I, here we go again. Uh, first one was the only one I watched. So, yeah, only one I watched. Um, yeah, no, I, I told you it wasn't a big Spider-Man person. So I saw the first one. I thoroughly enjoyed Willem to Foe. I like him and damn near everything I've ever seen him in. Uh, but yeah, no, Toby was fine.

A lot of people like to make fun of Toby McGuire Spider-Man movies now I've noticed, mainly because like the facial expressions he was making and like, there's like a lot of weird memes and TikTok videos of like you know pizza time but that's I think that might be in the second or third movie that that happened then. Pizza time I think it's a second one. Yeah I think so.

Oh fuck yeah we do need to talk about one of those rare occasions where our fucking joke name comes into play with macho man Randy Savage in the first movie. Oh yeah. Bone saws ready

with a very like of its time gay joke that Spider-Man threw at him oh geez boy some things just don't age 2002 is it's a reminder that was a little bit ago

probably couldn't get away with that one different time different time so yeah no it was it was fine I remember the soundtrack for it weirdly enough because it featured such timely artists as

dashboard confessional and some of 41 wasn't saliva in that one I bet it wouldn't be surprised wouldn't they when weren't they was that the one where saliva

and Chad Krober got together to make that song wasn't that the first one oh yeah it wasn't Nickelback it yeah was it Hero the song

yeah yeah there you go that's another song it's memed a lot oh boy they don't make them like that anymore no they do not that was the first

wasn't it I'm pretty sure it was I'm not going to fucking fact check this we're talking about all of them Chad Kroger we're going to talk about all of them it's going to fit in there somewhere

well at least we mentioned at least we brought it up yeah we brought it up so we're going to move away from that one we're going to Dylan you already kind of touched on a little bit we got Spider-Man 2 the family's back together I know that Peter Parker

is still kind of getting adjusted to life as Spider-Man Harry Osborne is showing a darker side after the apparent death and murder of his father and we got Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus

I did not see this movie but go for it guys I fucking love this film like Dr. Octopus is one of my favorite Spider-Man villains anyway so I was really psyched to see that and of course when this film came out

like I was still a kid kind of so like I didn't see a whole lot of Alfred Millena films prior to this but I saw this like this guy can fucking go this ruled it was I that's my favorite of the films

it's been a while as I've seen it but I fucking love that film and as a sidebar Spider-Man 2 the video game way better than the first one so much better it's like really really good go out of your way to check it out if you have it's like a big open world you get to explore the whole city it's an open world kind of thing and sometimes you deliver pizza sometimes you fight the rhino who's voiced by john demaggio you know

there's loads of like it's it's really fun you know um yeah i really like the second one a lot yeah yeah same i mean uh features probably one of the best scenes in any Spider-Man movie where Dr. Octopus is on like the operating table just after they've kind of pulled him from the wreckage of the failed experiment and then his like you know, uh, tentacles sort of come to life and start murdering people in the most Sam Ramey way possible. It's amazing.

It's really good, man. I mean, Corey, if you're going to watch this Spider-Man film, you should watch the second one. We should watch the second one. Okay. We should all watch the second one. Yeah, man. All right now. Maybe not right not.

So, um, so this movie was out in 2004. And I don't know. Actually, you know, in retrospect, do you guys want to talk about like box office, rotten tomato percentages, whether you agree or disagree or do you want to say that towards like the end when we do kind of a summary? I think, yeah, we should kind of, when you're summoned up, that's a good way to kind of put a eye there, you know. Okay.

Cool. So we, we wrap up with Spider-Man 2 and we hit the final movie. of the Sam Ramey Toby McGuire trilogy Spider-Man 3 in 2007 this movie featured two technically three villains we had James Franco

ascending to the new Green Goblin role in which he was on a snowboard with a paintball mask we have Thomas Hayden Church as the Sandman who kind of was the main villain and then we have a secondary, maybe

tertiary villain of the Eddie Brock Venom character being played by that 70 shows Tofer Grace with a bleach blonde look very of its time. And he kind of comes in towards the ending

of that movie. So this was considered like bad. To the point that it ended Sam Ramey's Spider-Man run because I think there was a fourth movie that there was always rumors of that was never going to get made.

That was always the rumor was that Bruce Campbell who had small cameos in each one was going to be Mysterio. Yeah, and I think John Malkovich was supposed to be the vulture as well in a potential fourth movie. That would have been great. Can you imagine John Malkovich

in a fucking superhero movie? I just can't see it. That would have been fucking awesome. Wouldn't it? Yeah, man. We missed out. And it's all Tofa Grace's fault. That's exactly what I was about to say. The problem with that is it's not.

Is it Tofer Grace's fault? Yes. Yeah. He was terrible. Who would ever, ever cast Tofer Grace as Bannam? Can I tell you, can I tell you, without seeing this movie? Can I tell you why I think they did that? Because they were drunk?

Because I think they wanted to do a contrast because a lot of people thought that he and Toby McGuire were super similar. And some people, because. of his sort of comedic chops on that 70s show thought he could have been Spider-Man. So you have like Venom, who is kind of the dark flip side of the coin in this movie about the black symbiates suit

as an evil Spider-Man. Right. But it's not seeing the movie, just seeing it. I mean, I understand that. I think that Tober Gras probably could have been already good Spider-Man, but like that's exactly the point of Peter Parker on Adi Brock

is that they aren't carniports at all. They're totally different people. That's why that works. That's why that whole arc works, because they're totally different people. So to have a guy like Tover Gris who could conceivably be a Spider-Man in another universe,

B-Vatom just does not work. Visually, like, conceptually it doesn't work. Let me tell you this about Spider-Man 3. I thought a lot of it was crap, but Comusating Church as a Sandman are like far and away

the best parts that film every single time every single time he's on screen they play it perfectly I don't know how because the rest

but sucks how did they get that bit right consistently and then the rest of the film just all the way through sucks right well it's just too

busier movie as well they're trying to do too much I think if they I hate like Hollywood's tendency to do this nowadays. If they had split it into two movies, given like different aspects,

you know, more time to breathe. Like you could have ended the first part with, uh, Eddie Brock like in the church with the symbiate dripping down on him. And then he turns into venom. And then that sets up, you know,

the next part where he, he can actually have a bigger role and maybe, come across more menacing. But instead, it's also squashed together and rushed and rushed and, and nothing gets a chance to breathe because they have to explain how, oh, the Saman played a role

in Uncle Ben's murder and stuff like that. It's like, oh, who cares? Right. We're getting off the beaten track here. Well, John, do you think that, like, part of the problem with that film was that, conceptually, they had too many heavy hitters as villains.

Like, for example, because Spider-Man 3, the whole point of it was that they had to play the Sandman as like not really a villain so therefore you needed the villain to contrast that but what did it work better if the villain they were contrasting wasn't a big

name like Venom? What would have been better if it was somebody a little bit lower down the totem pole? Scorpion. Scorpion or Electro or something like that that you could play the Simon against who's still like a threat but not like a major threat like a Vandum or something like that right?

Yeah, yeah. I think the problem famously is that Sam Ramey sort of had venom forced on him. The studio was like we want venom in this next movie and Sam Ramey was like yeah I don't really think he fits in here but obviously the studio

won out and he kind of had to try and squeeze him in there and it clearly didn't work. And to their credit if you think about the first, like you know, if you think about big Spider-Man villains the top three are probably going to be you know the Green Gulles

then, Dr. Octopus, and then Vannum. So, like, you can kind of see, you know, if you go like,

and this is no offense to the Sandman, but if you go, Green Gobel and Dr. Octopus, the Sandman, people are like, who? Like,

it doesn't, you know, his name as a Spider-Man villain doesn't have the same kind of weird to it. So I get that point of it. But like, like we said,

you either make a film devoted to Venom or you do the Sandman thing with somebody else, right? Yeah, 100%. So this,

this movie featured like the Sandman is kind of like a kind of morally gray character in a sense like he was a guy just trying to make good essentially Yeah I think he was doing stuff for his door or something. It's for my kid

They were like trying to combine two other villains that could have been stand alone arcs because again that being like the Todd McFarlane era Spider-Man fan in the 90s, Harry Osborne becoming the Green Goblin was like a big deal that I

remember from the books. Especially because like he had his kid and a little normie and like those panels that McFarland did were so fucking cool and like he was like a Philip Glass song. And like the idea that they just kind of condensed that and put it as like a not even like a proper villain

because like Spider-Man whooped the shit out of him. I'm not mistaken, right? Right. It's like an afterthought. Yeah, exactly. Like that's that should be more of a prominent movie. Which I think we'll touch on again. Actually, when I think about it. And then you had the venom stuff that also kind of got squished in there, too. Right.

I think that's part of it. Like, they're trying to put in too many storylines that, and realistically, you could make a film out of themselves. So you know how time is a flat circle? Batman and Robin? You had your kind of morally ambiguous character who was doing bad things for the right reasons in Mr. Freeze. and you had your character that was just kind of out and out evil in Poison Ivy. And then you had a third villain that was just there as an afterthought, which was Bain,

who should be a much bigger deal. Right. Same kind of thing there. If you guys are cool with it, we can move on past Sam Ramey's Toby McGuire movies, and we can move on to the next run of Spider-Man movies that took place 10 years after the first Sam Ramey, Toby McGuire movie came out. So this is the Mark, Webb, Andrew Garfield,

the amazing Spider-Man movies. I actually saw the first one of this. And so we have Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker Spider-Man taking place in high school. And we also had Emma Stone

playing Gwen Stacy, a departure from the Mary Jane character that was used in the other movies. And we also had, I'm going to absolutely butcher his name, is it Reese Eiffons? That would do. as Dr. Kurt Conner slash the lizard as our main villain.

So yeah, I liked Andrew Garfield. We moved away from the organic web that Toby Wire had to actually having the web shooters made by Peter Parker. Which I like that. I didn't like the organic. Because they tried to put that into the comics after that. Like, this is not good. No. Just weird.

It was weird. really bad. Kurt Conner's Blizzard, I think if you're going to do like a first movie, the villain doesn't need to be something big that's going to take a lot of attention because you're trying to establish

this new normal. We also had Sally Field as Aunt May, if I'm not mistaken, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, she's pretty good. Martin Sheen has been as Uncle Ben. That's also good. Any thoughts on the Amazing Spider-Man?

Because it doesn't sound like there's that many. I mean, kind of. The way I think of it for those two sets of Spider-Man films is that I like the films of Toby McGuire better but I like Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man better. I would agree with that.

If you had Andrew Garfield in the Toby McGuire films, I think that that would be pretty perfect. Not to take anything away from Toby McGuire, but I feel like Andrew Garfield, like, fit that role really well. Yeah, I think he's a better Spider-Man and Toby McGuire's a better Peter Parker in a way. Yeah, I think that's fair. I would agree.

That's actually a pretty good way to put it. I mean, I like this film, and I don't want to jump ahead too much, but I like this film better than its sequel because of a number of factors, really, but I thought, you know, as a Spider-Man fan, I thought it was cool to see somebody like the lizard turn up, because like you said,

you wouldn't normally think of the lizard as being, like one of the big, big guns, but if you're just developing a new series, you can kind of get away with whatever, because the focus is on Spider-Man. It's not really on the villain. So you can kind of play around with it

and try to introduce a villain they haven't already seen on screen before, which I think was a good idea. So I liked him as the lizard, but, yeah, I thought it was okay. Like film-wise,

I thought it was okay, you know? I can't say I was a big fan to be honest I think because I loved at least the first two Sam Ramey movies like so much this one always had a tough hell to climb and I do appreciate the fact that they tried to make it as different as possible

from the Sam Ramey movies by introducing you know Richard and Mary Parker like his parents, like, are a big factor in the story, then going the different route with the lizard as the villain and having Gwen Stacy is the love interest instead of Mary Jane. Like, they went out of their way to do something different, but, you know, different doesn't always equals better.

And in that regard, I thought, like, yeah, this is nowhere near the level that, you know, Sam Ramey sort of, piqued that. Yeah, I agree with that. I feel like they were just better films. Mm-hmm. The summer romey ones were just better put together. I'm not terribly familiar with Mark Webb as a director.

But, I mean, he did, I think his other big credit aside from this that I could see is 500 days of summer, which is like a romantic comedy. And, like, I don't, I don't know if that warrants a project like Spider-Man. I think he just got the gig because it was Niam, right? Yeah, yeah, because I mean, that 500 days of summer was a big deal. And Mark Webb. I meant his actual Neo. I know, I got it. I just, I didn't want to give you, I didn't want to acknowledge it.

I didn't want to acknowledge it. I didn't want to acknowledge it, but I got it. It was that bad, was it? Was it that bad? So we'll transition two years later after the Amazing Spider-Man. We get the Amazing Spider-Man to Andrew Garfield's back as Peter Parker, Emma Stone's back as Gwen Stacy. and we get two villains, one very apparent in the advertising, the other, they kind of sneak in there. We have Jamie Fox as Electro, the amazing Jamie Fox.

And we also have Dane D. Hahn or D. Hain as Harry Osborne. As Harry Osborne slash the Green Goblin, which we get our, is this our first repeat villain? Oh, well, and I guess, you know, I can't, I can't not acknowledge Paul Giamar. as the rhino at the end i can't acknowledge that i've seen that clip that was the best part and that says a lot of it that film if that was the best part uh no jamy fox is is amazing and everything i didn't see him i didn't see this movie but the i remember the character design being interesting corey yeah i don't i don't want to totally disprove your last sentence but i don't think jimmy fox is amazing in everything what do you oh just in this movie didn't like him

He sucked. Oh, really? That's disappointing. It just was not good. I knew what's funny is, right? Because we've already said we're not really going to talk about the other Spider-Man film because it's not part of the Fox series. But whenever they brought him back, he was way better.

The look was better for sure from what I've seen. That was like the big thing that movie saw that I took away from seeing bits of that movie was like, okay, they fixed a lot of those villain designs. Yeah, but like the whole, like even just the way he was acting it, was just way better. But in this, in this film, it's just all of it was bad.

And part of it was, he just didn't have a great script to go with it. Yeah. Part of it was just, he just was the wrong person for that character. A lot of this film,

fuck it. Was this the one, John, maybe you can remember it because I've seen it once. I'm not, boy, never to see it again,

right? But there's one of the Andrew Garfield, Spider-Man films, and I have a feeling that's this one, where something happens and then Spider-Man

kind of jumps under, like a flagpole and then behind him there's like a big they superimpose the American flag do you remember this is this the first one and the second one I feel like it's the second one I thought that was from the Sam Ramey movies but was it I thought that was Andrew Garfield I think it was the same I mean we're I mean the Sam Ramey movies are very close to September 11th passing so I could absolutely see them thrown in a big American flag for fun

right but that's why that makes sense but that's why I'm like if it happened 15 years later like it's not as poignant, you know, I'm sure, but also I'm not going to go back and watch him. So, so I do remember the green goblin in this looking terrible. Yep. Because they decided again, we're not going to give him a mask. We're just going to make them look kind of fucked up. But even then they didn't go the full hog with it.

They just sort of colored him slightly green and like gave him fangs or something. It's like, okay. They spiked his hair up a little bit. He looked kind of like. From what I've seen, he looked kind of like Ray Park. Was it Ray Park's Toad from the X-Men movie? Yeah. Yeah, that's totally it.

There you go. That's what you want to be compared to. It's fucking Toad. Hey, man. Whatever happened to Toad. It was good. An old episode. Could be, um,

are we doing an episode about Toad? We can do an episode about Toad. We'll do a deep dive on Toad. Yeah. That's what the people want. That's what they want. Got to give the people what they want. So I feel like we have, we've said everything that we need to say,

about the Amazing Spider-Man, too. So this movie killed that franchise. There was no Amazing Spider-Man 3. I feel like Andrew Garfield walked away with this with a black guy, and I think he carried that with him for a little bit of time.

So we're going to head into 2018, which gave us two movies to talk about. Let's talk about the one that's considered critically acclaimed. Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse. Animated, I guess, thing, because it's computer, but starring, you know, we have Miles Morales.

as our main character and a bunch of other Spider-Men thrown in there for fun. And I saw about 30 minutes of this movie on an airplane from, I think, New York to Boston. And that's my experience with Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse. Why are you missing out, man? Yeah. But you're not tempted to go back? On the plane? Yeah.

I got home someone. No, I just, you know, I'm not a big Spider-Man person, so they didn't really, didn't really do anything for me. Did you not think that the animation in that film kicked us? Oh, it looked great. I mean, I'm not going to deny it. So, yeah. Revolutionized animation, basically.

Like, pretty much most animated movies that come out now are trying to replicate what they did with this movie. And it makes it. No, I mean, it's a tough act to follow, but it's so dynamic looking and so interesting. Yes. It's interesting. It's beautiful to watch.

It's like I find myself captivated by just watching the film. But parts I'm like, I've actually forgotten what's going on, but I'm just in love with the visuals of it. You know? Beautiful film, man. And actually it is, it is really good.

Like, as a film, it is really good. But it's also like really beautiful man yeah i got i got nothing against it just again spider man is not my is not my my my thing you watch the animated tv show and you won't watch this animated film

yeah there's a big leap in the animation like you said I saw about 30 minutes of it in an airplane and 30 minutes didn't captivate you well here's the thing

I wasn't even the one watching it it was the people in front of me And beside them was somebody watching The Notebook, and I will not lie and say that I didn't divide my attention between the two. All right, so we're going to hop over into the other movie that came out in 2018, very different in tone and manner and everything else. We're talking Tom Hardy in Venom. Dylan starts giggling. I saw this film in cinemas. I assume John saw this film as well.

Oh, yes. I assume Corey did not see this film. No, I love Tom Hardy, but I did not see this. I mean, that is my opinion after having seen the film. I love Tom Hardy. I wish I hadn't seen this. No, to be fair, to Venom, I didn't hate it. No.

I didn't totally hate it. But, like, there was a lot of stuff where I'm like, I don't really dig this. You know, we've talked about the films doing a very good job of, like, differentiating themselves from the comics, but to me, you can't really tell a proper venom story without Peter Parker. That's the point of the show. So let's let's let's dive into there for just a moment. We did not have Spider-Man in this because at this point in 2018, Sony had already cut the deal with Disney and Marvel that they would let Disney and Marvel take Spider-Man from them. And in exchange for that, they could continue making,

movies with Spider-Man-esque characters. So I'm guessing that's adjacent. So they could still do Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse because technically the main character is Miles Morales, even though there's some other Peter Parker's in it. Because, I mean, really the main characters in those movies are Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy. Like those are the two that seem to have the most focused on them. So this is the first of the Spider-Man movies without Spider-Man. And that's where we're going to start getting off the

beaten path in a real fun way. Yes. So as somebody who did watch these movies, how do you do venom without Spider-Man to introduce the symbiate suit? Because in the comics, Spider-Man got the symbiate suit from Secret Wars, right?

Yes. So after Secret War, he came back to the 6-16, you know, Earth with the black suit. And in the movie and in the animated series, he got the symbiate from space via saving an astronaut, right? Yes. So how did the symbiate get introduced in this movie without Spider-Man at all being there?

Well, I think, oh yeah, Zhang could probably explain about an icon. Yeah, it basically follows a similar sort of plot line where it came from space, but rather than like, you know, just randomly crashing onto Earth or whatever, it's part of like some sort of experiment that they were doing. They were like heading off to try and look for, you know, worlds that mankind could potentially, you know, spread out to. And then it comes back with these symbiotic, you know, goo things, which they wanted to exploit somehow and they were experimenting on them.

And then one escapes and basically finds Eddie Brock for some reason. And then that's it. That's basically how he becomes venom. Yeah. Okay. Fair. So I have seen clips of this. And the symbiate does have a character because there are scenes of Tom Hardy talking to the symbiate.

Yeah. That's that's fine. I'm cool with that. Okay. Like I said, I like Tom Hardy, so that's fine also. Now, our villain is played by Rees Ahmed, who I am familiar with, I can't remember the name of it. There's a movie where he plays a drummer who's losing his hearing. And then, of course, Rogue One, which everybody is forgettable in Rogue One.

So he is doing the kind of early MCU villain of, just an evil version of the main character. Because like in the early MCU movies, you had like Hulk and Abomination and you had Thor and Loki to a degree. And you had Captain America and a super soldier empowered red skull and Iron Man and then the various Iron Man adjacent

guys in other armor kind of deal. So I did see that he has a symbiate named Riot there are a lot of fucking symbiates in the Marvel is riot actually one of them yes okay so they did pick a real one okay kind of I mean as I recall I think it was in the early 90s whenever venom was already taken off

and was like a standalone you know he could be in his own comic the Venom lethal protector was it lethal protector was it a lethal protector or was it separation and anxiety there was something where like Vannam was on the loose and then the government made like three, no, five different like Vanim. Yeah, because I remember there was like Toxin.

I remember Toxin. Toxin was way after that. Toxom was way after that. Toxom was after that. Yeah. Like Shriek and stuff like that. Yes. This is like, I thought Shriek was one of the maximum carnage characters that like were allied with carnage.

Shreak was, I think Shriek was allied with carnage. But this had like, that was. I fucking love the 90s. I know. It's, it's, it was a good time. This,

whatever the run this was, the government had like five different vanem symbiates or badam, not venom simbets, just symbiates. That, um, riot was one of them and like, they had a bunch of,

like, you could probably like 90s figure out, you know, Lashor and Gimley and whatever. You know, you could, you could probably, you could probably figure out the names pretty quickly,

right? Sure. Mr. Bad. know, stuff like this. Blood, blood, blood, blood, yeah.

So I think riot was one of them, and then they did bring all five of them back at some point, only I think Carnage ate them. I think I would, John, is that correct? I feel like Carnage consumed them somehow. I can't remember, but that maybe as part of like the, what was the big carnage event from a couple years back?

Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Absolute carnage. whatever it was. Was it absolutely Carnage? I feel like there was

one where like the gov like were, um, what was the one? Sorry, we're going off

another tangent. What was the one where whatever carnage came back to Earth as Cletis Cassidy, he lost his legs because this, uh,

sentry ripped and a half. Yeah. So they gave him like, um, robotic legs from, um, a company. And then that company was trying to put parts of the

carnage symbiate into the other prosthetics that they did. And I feel like because of that, the government stepped in with the other five symbiates and then Carnage ate them, I think. Yeah, that sounds familiar. Yeah. So that was a good way to introduce

these characters and then kill them off immediately. And that probably would have been before Vatham, the film, or around the scene? Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. Way before? Yeah, I'm pretty sure this was like 30, 2010s maybe if not that checks out because Carnage

has been around for a while and this movie is in 2018. So like Brian Michael Bendis killed off, killed off, quote unquote, carnage in what 2008? I would have said, I would have said 7 if I was gas in. Yeah, yeah. God, we're fucking nerds. I love it.

That's the point of the show. Yeah, we were talking about the fucking century who I don't even think is being used right now. No, they fucking give up in the century. they? I think they're supposed to be in the new Thunderbolts movie. Yeah. Well, they have to recast him because he was going to be what, Stephen Yoon? Yeah, yeah. And they are going to recast now. But, but yeah, so, fuck. So anyway, Venom didn't wow people. But it did warn enough to be a sequel, which we got in

28 or 2021. Venom let there be carnage, which gave us, he had a cameo towards the end of the from understand Woody Harrelson as Cletus Cassidy slash carnage. And we also had what Naomi Harris as Shriek who that's, did we say Shriek earlier? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So yeah, we have Shriek there who, again, was allied with Carnage and the Maximum Carnage thing.

That was a big deal. I remember there was a video game for Maximum Carnage. I love Maximum Carnage. It's a good story. Yeah. But that's because I love. Like Deer Nevel, Dagger, Spider-Man. I am, you know, I'm a huge carnage fan.

And so, well, I saw the trailer for this film. And I was like, I'm out. There's not a fucking chance I'm watching that film because I will just get really angry. I just, I couldn't, I couldn't watch that film. Because I thought the first Venet film was okay. Tom Hardy was really good, but the film itself was a bit meh. And I felt that if I wasn't, watch this film, whatever they're going to do to

carnage is just not what's in my head and I'm not going to have a good time. And I'm not paying seven pounds for that shit. Seven pounds for a cinema trip. That's dirt cheap. Where are you going to watch movies? No, I'm not. You should come over here.

It doesn't have a whole lot going for it, but apparently the cinemas are very cheap. Anyway, the point is, economic report. The point is, I didn't, it's weird. in Ireland and England, not that far away, but yeah, totally different. But, no, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't even attempt to watch this film.

And I want to hear what, what, I assume John would see this film? Yeah, I mean. I love to hear the reluctance in John's voice. Yeah. So I was correct not spending seven points in this film. I mean, it wasn't bad. I will say that much for it. It was like the first one, not good, but not bad.

And there's like sort of a weird energy to the movies where it kind of helps them, you know, like be watchable. But there's there's not a lot to write home about. Like the weirdly this was really short, it felt like as well, like only about 90 minutes long. And they don't really do a whole lot to set up carnage as, you know, like a proper villain as well. like he's just all of a sudden he gets the symbiate and then they have to big get the symbiate because i know that venom like through like asexual reproduction created carnage so is that how that worked then uh no yeah basically um it comes from because like eddie brocks a journalist in this like he is in the comics uh he has to go and visit cleatis

Cassidy in prison because for whatever reason, Cleetus Cassidy has decided that Eddie Brock is the only person he's going to tell where he's buried all his victims. But it seems like, I don't know if he knows that Eddie's

got the symbiate or he just decides to randomly bite him on his own accord, but when he bites him through the bars of the cell like he bites his hand, like he gets it, he like ingest a piece of the symbiate and And then what?

Yeah. And then that's how he becomes Carnage. Yeah. Oh no. Oh, no. All right. Do you guys want to know how he

how it goes for carnage in the end as well? Like, are you ever going to watch this or should I avoid giving you spoilers? I'm never going to watch this. Does he get ripped in half by the century? No. Unfortunately not.

He really fucking funny if he did. Can we, can we guess? Okay. Benham drowns him. Carnage gets hit by a car. I think he might do at some point. But no. Basically, he gets eaten by venom.

Oh, he gets consumed. He gets bored. Oh. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I don't like that. There's a corner of the internet that loved that. Does he eat the same?

imbiate or does he eat Cassidy as well Woody Harrelson? He eats all of it. Oh boy. Oh boy. A whole shebang. That's like a weird. See, this is what I mean, man. Because I love Carnage so much, I knew that if I watched this film, it's not going to do justice to the man I love.

And from what you've told me so far, like no real buildup, no real justification for Carnage, no real anything. And then he gets eaten by venom in an hour and a half. Like, what the fuck? All right. So here's the thing.

I was on board with Woody Harrelson being cast because I think like natural born killers like Woody Harrelson seems like he's perfect for it. Do you know another reason why Woody Harrelson's perfect for this? Why? His father, Charles Void Harrelson. Killed seven people.

Yes. He was a contract killer. Yes. He worked for the mob. He worked for the mob and was sentenced to life in prison. He killed people. Alan Harry Berg, Sand Delgia, and Judge John H. Wood Jr.,

all murders confirmed by Charles Harrelson. Wow. Yes, Woody Harrelson's father was a contract killer. Well, I didn't expect that. Nope. Did not see that one coming. There was rumors that he was involved in the JFK assassination at one point, too. Somebody had to do it.

He tried to escape from prison in 19. At that point, he was like in his 50s. Did he try to escape whenever his salmate left behind like some weird goo that attached to him? A young Tom Hardy was there and he got bitten. Turns out it wasn't venom. It was just hepatitis. Yeah. Left him with something.

Okay. All right. Well, so we're going to, we're going to, I would tell you that we're going to aim for like greener pastures. We're going to head right into 2022, which gave us Morbius, the Living Vampire, starring Academy Award winner, Jared Leto. This is a big question for the podcast. Before we started today's show, John asked us both, both me and Corey, to watch Morbius in preparation for the show. So now we're going to find out, John, you've seen Morbius.

Morbius. Yeah, I actually watched it today just to refresh my memory. Good stuff. So you've seen it twice? I've seen it twice. Two times too many. Corey. Corey, did you watch Morvious in preparation for today's podcast?

I haven't seen the good movies when you think I watched this before. You don't know if this is none of the game. good ones. John's on nice. Here's the thing. I have an irrational hatred of Jared Leto. He's one of two people who I just have irrational hatreds for. It's him and fucking Lenny Kravitz.

I can't explain why, but I love Fight Club just for seeing him get the shit kicked out of him. I love American Psycho because he takes an axe to the face. I mean, God damn. I am not a Jared Lotto fan. I'm going to say Lenny Kravitz is definitely an irrational hatred. I don't think healing Jared Lido is irrational. No.

He, may or may not be leading a cult he is like we I think I think we confirmed that didn't we like we've confirmed it like yeah that's it's getting real weird it's like didn't didn't the COVID pandemic happen while he was like in a desert retreat with these fucking psychos yeah yeah yeah yeah so we have Jared Letto's um morbius uh which also features um a lot of people's favorite iteration of Doctor Who

Matt Smith as another vampire guy. Yes. Well, you didn't ask me if I watched Morbius. Dylan, did you watch Morbius? I did. There you go. Can you believe this? I don't watch films that often,

but I thought, fuck it, I'm going to watch Morbius today. And let me tell you, I have a few things to say about it. All right. So this is what I know about Morbius. In the Spider-Man animated show, one of those weird handcuffs is,

They did not want Morbius biting people. So he had little suction cup things in his hand. And he wasn't allowed to say that he drank blood. He absorbed plasma. I remember that being a thing. I know the character's kind of morally gray in the comics sometimes. Yes. And that's about all I know about Morbius, the living vampire.

All of that would have been, way better than the film. Joan, what did you think of the film? I haven't seen it twice. Oh, God. It's just so badly put together. You can tell it's a movie made by committee where a lot of people have obviously had lots of different ideas

and they've not really meshed together very well. And it's just resulted in something that's kind of like half-formed and ugly to look at and doesn't make much sense. I mean, as like a movie that's basically supposed to be starting, well, maybe not starting, but like expanding on, you know, what Venom's doing and like creating this whole new bigger universe of Spider-Man adjacent characters, it does nothing whatsoever to make you want to see more. So, yeah, I mean, it's just a failure on pretty much every single level. I will say this about that film

When I started watching it I think like maybe the first half of it I'm like it's not bad Right Like it's not I mean it's not a good film But it's also like This isn't like as shit as people said it was

It absolutely fell off in the last half Yeah Like just none of it made any sense I was like what the what the fuck Is going on Like there's so many bits you could have done That would have been done that anybody could have done way better.

You know, for example, Matt Smith, right? There's a bit, the whole point of it is Michael Morbius has some kind of mysterious disease that whoever Matt Smith's character is Milo or whatever, but it's not really his name. Yeah, yeah, that's confusing as well. Yeah, so they're both sick with something that makes him limp. And Morbius injects himself with a vampire DNA. and then... How did he get vampire DNA?

Vampire bats. Yeah. Okay. You said vampire DNA and I'm like, wait, wait, wait. Are they established as already being a thing? So, Matt Smith is bankrolling Morbius through this whole thing. Even though he was like an orphan child with... Yes.

Michael Morbius at the very beginning. Yes. How did he get the money? No explanation. Don't worry about it. They never explained it. But he's banked... He's bankrolling Morbius this whole way through.

So at some point he goes to visit Morbius. He sees him as a vampire and he says, hey, you're cured. You're walking around, even though you're a bit of a vampire. But you're walking around. Give me the cure. And Morbiah says, I can't because you don't know what it does to you. It doesn't really cure you.

It makes you into this monster, right? And I'm like, right? That's a really good dynamic right there. Because this guy has bankrolled Michael Morbius his entire life. He's done everything for him to find a cure. and now that Morbius has found the cure, he's going to get really... He's not sharing it.

Yes, he's going to become the obvious heel in this and be like, how dare you? I don't have anything for you and you can't give me the thing, right? I'm like, that's what they're going to do. But they didn't really do that. Matt Smith's character just kind of walks away and then becomes a vampire anyway

off screen. Yeah, yeah. And then it's just like a really British gentleman for most of the film. And you're like, what? like why isn't he but like why isn't he

hated into that like why isn't he like becoming a real like vindicated you know bitter like this should have been me I should have been this

you know like that's the angle right yeah yeah yeah none of that they just brush past it yeah yep so then that's after that you're like okay

the rest this film doesn't make any sense it all falls apart like super quick there's a part where Morbius is having coffee with one of his old assistants.

And then he also has magic selective hearing where he can hear other people talking, but only specific people talking. And this happens all the way through the that's a part of the end of it, whereas he can hear the woman talking

to Matt Smith. How can you specifically hear those two people talking miles away and not all of the other people in the city, right? Forget that bit for them for right now. he's in the cafe. He hears these two people talking about how they've counterfeited some money. So they're like, oh, we're going to go back to our place and kind of bit some more money.

Morbius follows them. Why does he, wait, wait, wait, wait. Why does he care if they're counterfeiting money? Because he wants to steal their laboratory. Okay. Right? Don't, I guess. So he just follows these two fucking people. assuming that not only do they have a drug laboratory,

but their drug laboratory is suitable enough for him to do his own fucking experiments in. And then lo and behold, that's exactly what happened. So he just takes over the drug laboratory himself. And finds a cure. Yes. Without the vampire bats or any of his research or anything, he just rustles up a cure.

Do you know how they explain that? Is because in the cafe when he's talking to the woman, he says, I need you to go and grab me some things. things out of our old lab. Oh, God. And that's it. So the dialogue, can I also, by the way,

say two things about the dialogue. There were two quotes. There were three quotes I wrote down that really fucking made me cringe. One of them is whenever he's in the laboratory talking to the dogs. And one of them goes,

oh man, who are you? Like that. Do you know what he says? What does he call him? John, do you remember what he says? I can't remember. He says, I am Venom. Oh, my God.

Is Venom like a known thing? I don't know. I know. It's not made clear at all. Here's two other quotes I wrote down, right? I think these are really important. One of these quotes was, when he's in the police station, they arrested him, and he's talking to the cops, and he starts getting, he needs the blood in him to stop being a vampire.

So he says to the cops, I'm starting to get hungry, and you wouldn't want to see me when I'm hungry. So this is what we're dealing with. And at some point later on, he says, I don't remember if he says this to the woman or not, but he says, I quote, I guess we're both a little crazy. And I'm like, this is, this is bad. This is real bad. That's some dialogue there. This is, this is. So that's, after having seen Morbius, like, it's absolutely gets worse.

at the last half. None of it makes any sense. They fight at the end, which is shit. Like, the fight scene at the end sucks, right? It's just not interesting. And then, you know, because all Marvel films have a post-credit scene, right? Yes.

Who's in the post-credit scene? Michael Keaton. Michael Keaton's been tied to too many bad things lately, I've noticed. Like, he had the Flash movie and this. Yes. He needs to start being more selective again. This was a she. to see Michael Keaton in this.

So this movie became like really made fun of online. I remember it's morbid time being the thing. And so Sony very famously Sony saw all of the jokes and the buzz and whatnot and they thought

we'll re-release it and people will absolutely go see it now and they didn't which is amazing to me. That they put the same movie out twice and it flopped twice. It's, it's not like unbelievable that it would flop twice. It's just that they thought it would do great because shit posting.

So, you know, will Morbius be back? Oh, absolutely. You reckon? No. Absolutely not. I think Jared Leto's like, I guarantee you this thing was absolutely a passion project for Jared Leto because he got to be a fucking weirdo on film and he loves being a weirdo on film. He absolutely was a fucking weirdo. I understand that he didn't do as much method acting as he normally does, but I did hear that he, um, he refused to walk around.

Like he, when he was playing the, oh, my blood disease is so bad that he would like move in character, like off, off camera like that. When you say he didn't do as much method acted in this one, do you mean he didn't become a literal vampire? Yeah. Well, I mean, this is the guy that was sent to dead animals to the cast of suicide squad. you know, like, he's kind of a notorious dickhead for shit like that. Yes. As we've established, he's a fucking idiot, right? Yeah.

Like, I don't like, I didn't like Charlie know before this. I'm like, to be fair, as Warbius, I thought he was okay. Like, again, the first half of the film, more so than the last half, he was fine. He was okay. I saw, I saw, I mean, the, the Wikipedia page that there was a comment of like, this movie didn't, it wasn't as character driven as he's used to and he struggled with that. What was he expecting?

It's a movie about a D-list a D-list character from Marvel. Like Morbius, the last time Morbius got this much attention, it was the 90s. Yes, it would have been. Because 90s Marvel

had a beautiful little corner of like Ghost Rider, the Punisher, Venom and like Morbius living vampire to a lesser extent. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, they love that stuff. They did, but this is also like, it's not 1995, unfortunately, you know? Yeah. That stuff doesn't work as well. No. So we're going to go from Famine to Feast as we talk about the last movie. This one just came out in 2023, Spider-Man

across the Spider-Verse, which is a sequel to Into the Spider-Verse. This one, we have our same cast in crew of characters, except now we get the great Oscar Isaac as Miguel O'Hara, aka Spider-Man 2009. Another great product of the 90s. So, again, didn't see this one. Guys, how was it? It's really good. Yeah.

It's even more beautiful than the first film. So it's a palate cleanser. Holy shit, dude. Dude, if you like animation at all, like watch that fucking film. My goodness. Blew me away. Yeah, man.

And I'd say the only, like, not bad point of it. it, but like, the thing that slightly brings it down for me from the first movie is it's so clearly setting up for like the second part that it kind of ends and not in a satisfying way. Yes, agree. It does kind of end. That's just, you know, the way filmmaking goes now. It's all about the sequels and setting up further stories down the line and whatnot.

But also, Corey, hopefully this will entice you to watch that film. it makes the spot into a really viable character. Yeah, yeah. Is he a big character in this? Yeah, ish. He's basically, he's an important character. Jason Schwartzman. He's an important character.

Like, he's funny at first, and then it gets more serious. It's good stuff. I would watch that film if I were here. Don't watch Morbius. So is there anything else you want to say about across the Spider-Riverse? Because if not, we can talk about the near future. of the Sony Spider movies. All I want to say is, Corey, you have to watch

at least one of the Spider-verse films. I don't got to do shit. Hey, no. No need for that kind of antagonistic language. Okay, well, so if we hop over into 2024, as of right now, I'm sure these are going to get pushed and delayed or whatever, because this would be insane if they put all three of these out in the same year. up first

Madam Webb which is coming out next week as we are recording on February the 9th I will not lie to you my only knowledge of Madam Webb is again from the animated series and she's a blind old woman but in this movie she's played by a young Dakota Fanning

Johnson Johnson Dakota I fucking wish it was Dakota Fanning Dakota Johnson and this movie features a bunch of side female characters that have or at some point gone by Spider Woman or Spider Woman adjacent. And there's a villain

who I've never heard of. You've never heard of Ezekiel? That was a big storyline. When was that like 2000? Early 2000s. Yeah. Again, Todd McFarland. That's all I got.

This was a very interesting storyline when it happened. Now, is this a storyline? Like, is this a... The Ezekiel thing was, but... Okay. The Ezekiel thing was, but again, Again, it's a storyline that, like, if you do it without Spider-Man, doesn't, without having seen the film, probably won't make any sense.

This, so Madam Webb is a clairvoyant, but she's also blind and paralyzed. I assume that's not going to be the case here. Doesn't look like it. No. Well, I think this is weird, because it's, I think Dakota Johnson is technically playing, like, the original version of Madam Webb. but in the comics she did get killed at one point I think by Craven

or like one of his family members or something but just as she was dying she passed on her powers to Julia Carpenter and then yeah and that sort of made Julia Carpenter blind but clever went as well and able to run in the future

yeah so I guess it's her character is just a mix of the two, but with the original Madam Webb's name, but... Well, and the Julia Carpenter character is one of the spider women. Yes. Do you have anything else to say about Madam Webb?

I saw they are projected to make $625 million in its first week of opening, which is next week. Because it opens on Valentine's Day. What a romantic date. Yeah, it's one of those movies where there's a review embargo until right before the movie opens, and that is never a good sign. No, it is not. It is never good.

I guess we can move on from that. Yeah, we're going to go from not good to not good, because I saw the trailer for this, and boy, oh, boy, Craven the Hunter. I don't think I saw the trailer for that. You should check that out. So Craven the Hunter, another Spider-Man villain. This is being played by Aaron Taylor Johnson, who was Quicksilver in the MCU

and he was also kickass he seems like he should be a bigger deal than he is because I've enjoyed everything I've seen him in except for I have a feeling I'm not going to enjoy this but this movie also stars Russell Crow who is everybody's favorite Jabber there's a version of the rhino in this

by the looks of it and there is a version of the chameleon in this and there's a voodoo priestess that's in love with him apparently. I'm just looking at the IMDB page. Craven the hunter was just a big game hunter. That's what I remember from like the comics

and the cartoon. He had a really big storyline. Craven's last hunt. That's like probably what he's best known for. But this looks like he has like animal man's powers from DC. Like he takes on

animalistic qualities. in people by the looks of it. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's hard to get a good sort of feel for what they're going for from. It's a trailer, yeah. But that looks like what they're aiming at. Like, not really traditionally Craven's powers. Well, he doesn't really have powers, does he?

No, he's just a dude. He's very strong and he's a gun. Yeah, I think he has, like, a bit of super strength. maybe he's like inhaled some voodoo dust oh boy we thought to say

be careful what you say it's just voodoo dust all right we've all had some the thing is a while ago in the comics

they did a bit were Craven I don't think I can remember if it was original Craven or if it was

his family but they did a bit where Craven kidnapped a bunch of animal themed

super villains and put him in a zoo or his own private zoo and then you know Spider-Man comes along and stops him so I haven't seen the trailer but I'm like is that something like

like that would make sense by the rhino and the chameleon would be there the chameleon is actually his like adopted brother or something yeah it's a strange half brother master of this guys right which which like

you could that's a story you could tell if they were if you've already introduced these characters that would be a great story to have a spin-off film, but I'm looking at the Wikipedia pageant. It says the rhino is a Russian mercenary who can turn into a human rhino hybrid. Oh, no.

Is this going to be like Seamus and that teenage mutant interturals? That was awesome. Don't go slag in that, man. I'm not going to slag it. I'm just saying, like, rhino again was just a dude in a suit. Like, that's a lot of Marvel. Like, a lot of Spider-Man's villains are just dudes and suits. Scorpion, dude in a suit.

Vulture, dude in a suit. I don't know why. Right. All animal themed, but not craving the hunter. Wasn't a dude in the suit. He was just a dude. Didn't even need a suit. Didn't need it.

Just a dude in a dude. Hydro man, just a dude in a water suit. Listen, Hydromand, the best out of all of them. Oh, boy. Where's Hyderman's film? They're making all this other fucking garbage-ass films. They made three better films. You can't give me one Hydromat film.

It would fucking kick up. It's coming. Don't worry. Yeah. Is it? Well, speaking of things that are coming up next, also scheduled for release in 2024. Venom 3. Right. I know nothing about this. I don't even know if there's a Wikipedia. Yeah, I don't even think there's a Wikipedia article.

I just saw it on the list of releases. If the villain is Hydramon, I might watch it. It just says, okay. Upcoming American superhero film featuring Venom. cast Venom Just lists Venom Additionally

Juno Temple has been cast an undisclosed role and Juno Temple is described as a lead character that's

that's all we got it for the most part they began principal photography and then it got delayed because of the sag after strike

John it's filming is also going to be expected to take place in London if you want to take a trip and explore and report back to us what you find out.

The film's got to be over by now, right? If it's scheduled, currently scheduled, it was previously expected on October 24 and scheduled on July 12th of 2024. So a couple of months from this. Actually, no, it's scheduled to be released on November 8th of 2024.

So the film is done. Maybe. It's got to be finished, Beno. Sure. All the post-production stuff they need to do. Think of all, yeah, all the CG effects have to do for Venom and Hydraman

Yep It's a lot of water Yeah Yeah well water Venom's weakness water Um So that's the docket

There's a rumor There's like another Spiderverse movie But I didn't really see anything Too concrete talking about it Well they're really doing another There was like a Spider-Man movie With Bad Bunny in wasn't there

that got cancelled i think i think he was playing a character that was only in one or two issues so that's yeah yeah yeah that's the level of thought we're getting we're putting into this but also like you know back in the day let's be honest wasn't a whole lot of representation for some people so whenever they were like let's go find some kind of like latin american spider man character they were like oh fuck we don't got any what the fuck i mean like they Because it's the film that usually could have just made somebody from Latin America and just gone with it, you know? Well, and it's like it's weird because aside from villains, they're not a lot of Spider-Man characters that you can do something with.

It's not like Spider-Man's the Batman family where there's like a dozen sidekicks or like side characters. Like let's say that if this was the DC world and they were like, you can make stuff. And they actually did this. this was like a thing that happened and it's why Titans was a show. You can make Batman related movies, but you can't use Batman. You have like just even if you don't want to do the sidekicks, you have characters like Asriel. You have characters like Batwoman, which they did do a fucking show of.

But like Spider-Man doesn't have that. He just doesn't. He's a solo character. So it just seems so weird. They cut this deal. and it's like, man, I hope the money, I hope Disney gave you a good bit of money because this doesn't seem like it's worth your while.

It seems like the fucking, it's like the best tradeoff for one side of the triad, right? Whatever they made this deal, like we get Spider-Man, but you can have all the Spider-Man-adjacent characters. The problem with that is, as I think we've kind of laid out by now, so a lot of those characters don't work without Spider-Man.

Like, Venom doesn't work. Like, nothing about Venom works without Spider-Man in some capacity. And it's the same with Ezekiel. Like, that character doesn't exist without Spider-Man. You know, you can try to, like, create universes where this stuff happens. But, like, those two characters specifically, they need Spider-Man there to just have that origin story, to have the motivation, to have the entire purpose of their existence. it doesn't make any sense. So, like, you can't really spin it off that well.

I mean, so you can see the very clear cutoff after the... We'll get into numbers here at a second. But real quick, we'll make a fun little game of it. John, if you had to make a standalone Spider-Man movie that did not feature Spider-Man, what character are you focusing on? I don't know. I'd say maybe the Kingpin? But can they use Kingpin?

Because he's getting used by Marvel. Well, yeah, this is a good point. Because I think they're more leaning into fact, like, well, he's a daredevil character. But Kingpin was in Spiderverse. That's true. Yeah. He was voiced by the great Leaves Schreiber. He's really good.

I enjoy some Leaveshriver. So, yeah, if you go with Kingpin, Dylan, who do you got? The Big Wheel. Fucking, I was going to say Big Wheel. Because it's universal. Everybody gets it. It's just a guy in a big wheel. everybody can understand that character you know um yeah i guess i will do uh what was the name

there was it was it nick spencer had a short run like the sinister foes of spider man or whatever but it was like a joke book that that went up for a while didn't that it went up for a bit yeah yeah i mean it was so essentially for those who weren't aware of that it was just a it was kind of like a suicide squad esk book and that it was a team book of like villains but like they were all kind of like pathetic villains. Oh yeah it was a really funny series.

It was funny. Yeah you had like Shocker, the beetle speed demon. Who else was in that? Overdrive? Boomerang. Yeah. Yeah.

Not to be confused with the superior captain boomerang, just boomerang. Yeah. Just ragged. boomerang. There's regular boomerang. Not promoted boomerang. Yep.

Private boomerang. Yeah. So, I mean, they could have fun with something like that. I mean, you could like hint at spiring because that was another thing they did was I saw like just kind of reading through Wikipedia articles. Like they got J.K. Simmons. They filmed a bunch of shit for him and Morbius that they didn't use. Really? Yeah.

Apparently he filmed some scenes. they cut from the movie. That would have made a big difference. Because I guarantee you Disney saw that and they said, get our shit out of there. I heard like Tom Holland had like they just used footage from like the Spider-Man movies that Holland was in. Like he didn't film anything for it.

Yeah, yeah. We also should we should point out though that in the last Spider-Man movie, the MCU did where it was like all the villains from the Sonyverse and stuff. There was a Tom Hardy like in. credit scene. Yes, it was. Where he left a little drop of venom behind. Yeah.

So Tom Holland didn't even have to bite him to get it. Exactly. Exactly. There you go. No biting necessary. No biting necessary. So those are the movies that were part of the Sonyverse so far. It's still ongoing.

And we'll, how much money can you lose? We will find out. So I did the same thing that we did last time. I took the, I got the box office. results. I got the Rotten Tomato scores. And we're going to do some we'll we'll do the average. So the direct comparison is obviously going to be the MCU, which before in game was $961 million.

And post in game was 693. So the post in game featured the last Spider-Man movie, which did the heavy fucking lifting for them on that average. So the Sony spider movies. everything from Toby McGuire on $658 million. So a little less than both of those

MCU numbers, but they got dragged down a bit. Yes. So the biggest earning Spider-Man movie, what do you guys think it was? Because I think you'll be surprised. Well, it should be

Spider-Mod, too, with Dr. Octopus. But because we'll be surprised, it means it's probably going to be Spider-Mont 3. Yeah, that would be my guess as well It was Spider-Man 3, $895 million. Now, do you think it was one of those things where people were like, you have to see how shit this film is?

I think a lot of people were excited to see Venom. Yeah. And then Disappointing. A really popular character were not that far removed from the 90s. I think people were excited to see Venom. And you've got to think as well, like the first two movies did so well that that helped build anticipation for the third one as well. So, yeah.

I imagine like they did a lot of the heavy lifting and building, you know, getting people excited for it. Surely that's kind of what we were talking about though. Like if you know Venom, you know that like if you're going to do that, you either make Venom the whole film or you don't make him the side guy to the Sandman, right? Like you must know that a film with Venom and Sandman and the Green Goblin in it is. going to be a tough sell to make venom good. Because they don't have time for the whole the whole spiel, you know?

That's the vibe I got before I went in there. And then it turned out that was true. So, I will tell you the Sam Ramey Spider-Man movies were some of the movies that drew the most money.

What do you think the second highest drawing movie was? Because again, you're gonna be surprised. Wait. So are we saying that the third Spider-Montan Sam Remy film was the highest? Yes.

What came after? What was the second highest? The first one. I'm gonna say Venom. John's right. Venom, 856 million. Oh. People really like Venom.

So people were disappointed by a venom twice? Yes. They did not learn their lesson. Oh. I will tell you that the first Sam Ramies Spider-Man movie was third at 825. Okay. Do you want to know where, how much money Spider-Man 2 did?

Yes. 789. Is that fourth? That is, yes, it looks like it's fourth. So the Sam, Ramies Spider-Man movies did a lot. But again, there was not a lot of superhero movies coming out between 2002 and 2007. Right.

I think part of it was that it was kind of a new genre. And I think part of it was that they were Spider-Man films. Right? Like, by that point, we've already seen Batman films a lot. And we'd seen, have we seen one Incredible Hulk at some point by then? Yeah, the Angley Incredible Hulk. Yeah. Which was, that was, whoo, that was fun.

Maybe we'll watch that one next. But by that point, people like, like, like, yes. There was the X-Men. So, like, so, again, yes, we have X-Men and Stapn to give you an episode. But if you think about the 90s, people were excited about the Spider-Man cartoon

and the X-Men cartoon. So I think when those films came out, despite the varying quality of those films, and because there wasn't a whole lot of other superhero films out of that time, both of those films got a big, like, kind of like an artificial boost to them. Mm-hmm.

You know, like it's just a natural interest in them. Mm-hmm. So after Spider-Man 2, we have earning $758 million, the Amazing Spider-Man. After that, earning $709 million, we have the Amazing Spider-Man 2. Okay. After that, earning $690 million, we have Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse. Right. after that at

59 million we have Venom let there be carnage This is a travesty After that we at 384 million We have Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse 380 384

So like They did better on DVD and streaming I'm guessing They're still like 20 away from fucking carnage Yep And then last place pulling up the

rear to the surprise of no one, Morbius 7, $167 million. Didn't break $200 million. Oof. Can we, can we real quick find out? Didn't you say what Venom had like 30% reading? Yeah, so here's the Rotten Tomatoes score.

If we take the average of all of these, we have 66% in total. If we're going to go, do you want to do highest to lowest again? Oh, I can't wait to hear what the low. So, okay, so the top rated one at 97% Spider-Man

Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse. Okay, yeah, that's actually... Next to last in earnings, highest in ratings. That makes sense. That's fair. It is really good. After that, at 95%

Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse. That's also fair. Yeah. After that, at 93% Spider-Man 2. Yes. So this is the top 3, Dylan. I mean, I,

I agree. agree with this so far. And it's not often I agree with the people, but I'm on board so far. Okay. John might think that Spider-Man 1 is a little low on this list, but... Well, yeah, what's going on? Well, we don't know what number four is.

It could be top five. Number four, at 90% is Sam Ramey Spider-Man. So there it is. It's only three percent behind Spider-Man, too. It's not bad. So at this point, we're taking it. It

It dips. Yeah, do you want to just end the list here? So if you watch all four of those films, you won't be disappointed. If you watch all the Spider-Man films, you will be disappointed. Yes. So at 71% we have the amazing Spider-Man. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So can we just like, big data point?

We went from 90% to 71%. What's like, what, a 19% decrease? That's a big dip. It's a dip. Yeah. The next is also a dip at 63% we have Spider-Man 3. We got one more dip at 57% Venom let there be carnage. 57?

57%. Really? Not as big a dip at 51% the Amazing Spider-Man 2. Well, I haven't seen Carnage, but I would have guessed it was worse. Wow, Timmy Fox was just not that good, then was he. So remember when the number two movie, like, earning wise, was Venom? Yeah. Well, it's second to last.

At 30%. At 30%. At 30%. Big drop again. Venom. By the way, right? Just real quick. the top of your head. Could you, could either of you, John, you're a big film guy, can either

of you think of right now a film that you think is so bad that you would only give it 30%. Oh, don't worry. We got one more to go. And we all know what it is. Now, this film, I would probably give 30% to, right? So, so far, this is, this is accumulated. All of the, we talked about 24 or 23 pre, pre, in-game movies, 10 post-in-game movies, 15 DC movies, or 16 DC movies, and Hellboy. And Hellboy had the lowest rating at 17%. It only made $55 million.

$17. At 17%. So what we can say about Morbius is they at least made more money because Morbius only got 15%. Whoa. They got worse than Hellboy. Oh, my God. 15%. And like honestly, after I've been seeing it, I don't even know if I give it 15%.

Do you mean? Like I said, the first half was okay. The second half was really bad. But the first half was okay. I don't know if I would give it 15%. I think you're too kind, Dylan. I think I am. That's what people say about me. I'm just too kind. I can say that. That Dylan, what a gent. Oh, what a little bit of generous man. It's so handsome. They all say that. Um, that's unrelated, but they say it.

So, but like, John, you're a big film guy. So, like, you're probably, you,

you, you've seen, like, way more trash films than I have probably, right? Yeah. Oh, 100%.

But, like, I've never been one to buy into Rotten Tomato scores or anything like that. I've never judged a movie based on what rotten tomatoes say. So, right. Well,

that's the thing. We should go by our own, we should do our own viewer. Like, you have your scale that, because you've seen so many films. You have your own scale. And then I have my more like casual scale.

Like we should like, this could be a much more accurate scale than rotten tomatoes. See what you mean? Hmm. I mean, that was, those are the numbers as of right now. We don't know how Madam Webb's going to turn out.

We don't know how Craven the Hunter or Venom 3 or whatever else movies. There's, uh, I saw one thing discussing that they're going to potentially try to do a live action Miles Morales movie. So that was the, uh, the Sony Spider universe.

Like you said, We don't really know what the future holds. Could be good. Could be bad. That trajectory, though, isn't great. I mean, if it's not for the Spider-verse movies, since they separated 30%, 57%, 15%, that's not healthy-looking. And monetary-wise, it's just like people gave Venom a shot, and then afterwards they just didn't care. I mean, even then the Spider-Verse movies aren't getting as much money as the other movies are.

but you know there's a lot of things you get credit to that stream the rise of popularity of streaming especially if it's an animated feature that are going to be more geared to kids you know that always plays a role into it too yeah i mean if there's any closing remarks that you guys want to make regarding the sony spider-man movies just that they should give the rights back to marvel and disney because i think they could do a better job of it than than sony have been doing over the last 10 years or so do you think disney would do a better creative in the hunter film I think Disney would know that no one wants to watch a Craven the Hunter movie. I think that's really the takeaway.

It's just like, for some reason, they really thought having these ancillary characters drive these films was going to be a great idea. And that is just, it's, the numbers are not there. Right. Like what people forget, or what the bigwigs that Sony forgot was that the reason these characters worked so well, it is because they had the perfect foil to go against, which was Spider-Man. Like if you take away that me and Lynchpin of it, none of this shit makes any sense.

What's the point of a Craven the Hunter film with no Spider-Man? What's the point of a venom film with no Spider-Man? That's the most ass-backwards thing you could think of. It's not going to work. That's going to do it for us today. I thought this was a fun follow-up on kind of the MCU stuff and kind of looking at another production company's attempts to cash in on that Marvel IP. I think at some point we will do the Fox X-Men world, even though now it looks like the X-Men are going to start populating up into the MCU.

We'll take a look at the last ones. I mean, there's quite a lot to cover there. These movie ones tend to go on a little bit longer than what we're used to. But we'll be back with a brand new topic. Might be more movie stuff. We might jump into a character, photo. We might jump into a storyline focus. Regardless, we will see you next time.

Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye. Bye.