The Smark Avengers - Vol 3, Ep 29: The Smark Avengers Talk About Good and Bad Casting in Comic Films

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

After over 40 years of movies based on comic books there have been great castings and... not so... great castings. Listen, they can't all be Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine for nearly a quarter of a century! Listen to Corey, Dylan, and Jon talk about their favorite and least favorite bits of comic book character casting!

I haven't seen my rotor yet, so I don't know what other days I can do. I could probably do Thursday, but I can't see Friday. I'm probably not Saturday either. Just to let you know. Are you so complicated? I don't know. When did you get a life suddenly? Oh, eesh.

Hush. It's very unexpected. I didn't expect that Corey Hill turn right at the beginning of this. Yeah, we'll do the AEW thing where we're going to, like, are you my friend? I think you're my friend. I hope you're my friend. Oh, you're not my friend anymore. We should be friends again.

I don't think I want to be friends, you know. You say that now, but then, you know, when you're getting beat down by John and Brady and whoever else that the audience doesn't know about, I'll be running down the ramp and it looks like I'm going to hit you with a steel chair, but then I'll turn around and hit John. I need your help. And then we'll hug. It will hug. and then a bunch of fat middle-aged men and black t-shirts will cry. But then I'll turn on you

and then it's a difference word. Yeah, and then we'll start the storyline again. It'll never fucking end. And then it turns that I was the devil. Yeah, exactly. And then you'll start your stable that will immediately fall apart because you broke your ankle

jumping off the stage because you were streaming online too often and your bones turned into brittle pieces of like dried wood. I don't know if that's why. why it happened. I mean, are you a doctor? Can you say that for sure?

All right. You turn on me too. Hale turn. Wait, so who's the heal here? Me or you or Corey or who? I think all three are. Well, I mean, if we're doing the EW thing, nobody's a heel. Nobody's a face either. We're everything and nothing at the same time.

Oh, well. Will any of that stay in the opening? Who knows? Did you want us to do a different opening? No, I'm pretty cool with something stupid. I like our opening where we talked about turning on you. Okay. Why?

I don't know. Who would ever turn on me, this most sweet member of the podcast? You are very, I mean, you are adorable, according to the thumbnails, because you're so little. Because I'm only seven apples high. Hi, hi. from the Smirk of Injuries. My name is Corey. I'm here with John and Dylan as normal.

Right, no one's going to say anything. What's up? Hi. Hello. Hello, everybody. How are you? Sorry, feeling a little bit annoyed because everybody's turning on me recently. So, you know, hard for me to get invested in today's show

whenever I've just been hit over the head with a steel chair by two of my best friends. Everyone betrayed me. I fed up with this world. It's fine, though, because the chair you have me. with with sand it down. That's the shows that you like me. Yeah. So today on the show, you know, we are going to kind of do one of our kind of a list thing again.

It's been a while since we've done one. And with this success of Wolverine and Deadpool and all of the various callbacks to previous actors who filled in superhero roles. We thought it'd be fun if we did some discussion on superhero castings that we liked and superhero castings that we didn't really like. So each of us have three of each, I imagine, and some alternates in case people get talked about. That's the same assumption. Yeah, I have a list of like obvious choices. So if anybody picks any of the obvious choices, I'm going to sign my obvious choice alarm. Okay.

So if anybody says any of the ones that I think are an obvious choice, the alarm's going to go off. Okay. Look like for that. Jesus. No, there's pressure. Yeah. So how do you guys want to handle this? Do you want to do like, we'll play like compliment sandwich where we start with a bad one and then we do a good one and we do that through the rotation until we're all done?

Whatever works? Yep. All right, cool. So let's start. start with around the table. What is a bad superhero casting that has always bugged you? Dylan, John, do either of you want to go first? You go for it, Dylan.

Oh, that's so sweet. Are you trying to be your face again after you crush my face in with a chair? Yeah, I'm just letting you stand in the spotlight so I can get a better shot at your back. I was going to say, yeah, you're going to give me this false sense of security, and then just when I trust you, bam! break into my house and threaten my four-year-old child or whatever. Is it a baby or a child? I don't know. I don't remember. Is it a baby? I think it was a baby.

All right. Well, don't threaten either my baby or my four-year-old child. Or any of my other children. Do them alone. Okay. I have a couple. I find the bad ones to be easier to write than the good ones. Because like I said, I felt like there was a lot of obvious good ones. and I didn't want to pick them, so I tried to pick some other good ones. And the bad ones, I had a bunch of them.

So I, um, you know, I'm going to go ahead and say, I don't know if it's controversial or not, but the first one I wrote down was George Cludey as Batman. Because, you know, some people could say,

oh, it wasn't George Cludy's fault, it was more of the writing. It was more of the circumstances of the film, the way it was put together. you know, he probably would have been a good Batman. Maybe he could have been a good Batman. But, like, that was the worst Batman film.

And he was the worst Batman. I was very tempted to put Ben Affleck as Batman in there instead. But people seem to really like Ben Affleck as Batman, which I don't get. But I could see him playing a good Bruce Wyatt, you know. Whereas I just didn't buy anything about George Cleaning in the whole film. And again, part of that's the way the film was put together. But, like, is it? This is weird.

Weird casting. You know, I wasn't a fun. I mean, I kind of like Ben Affleck as Batman. It was one of the one good things about the Snyder movies, really. Plus, I don't want to kick Ben Affleck when he's down, because we're recording this in the week. He's just got divorced. Yeah.

Maybe this is a good divorce for him. Yeah, maybe. Who was he married to a good divorce? Jennifer Lopez. Oh, weren't they already married? Well, yeah, that's how divorce works. They got married. No, I mean, like, weren't they already married?

They were together like 20 years ago and then split up and then got back together a couple of years ago. Oh, whatever. They weren't married the first time? No, no, no. Oh, okay. Well, so you're saying Jennifer Lopez is back in the market. Yeah. Interesting.

Get in there. I'll do my best. I'll send her a funny email. There you go. Yeah, she loved that. He doesn't love a funny email. He doesn't love a funny email. He doesn't love a funny email.

Of a little gift with a cat, like eating a pancake. See? John's happened. He hasn't even seen the gift. I don't know how many cats eat pancakes. Right, that's the gift. You gotta see it. Did the cat look like he was enjoying the pancake?

You guys aren't taking my George Clooney as Batman thing seriously. I thought we were talking about Ben Affleck as Batman. Now I'm confused. Well, I originally picked George Clooney as Batman. Batman. With the consensus that I wasn't a big fan of Ben Affle like his Batman, but other people seem to dig it. And I'm like, well, fair enough. Whereas George Clooney is

Batman, I don't really think had a whole lot of accolades from anybody. No, no, no. No. I mean, we talked about it in the episode from Volume 2 and then also the 90s Batman things about it just seemed like George Clooney got the part because at that point he was sort of the rising star

of Hollywood. It just seemed like, oh, this is easy casting. It'll put some butts and seats because Joel Schumacher was definitely much more commercial in trying to make these Batman movies. It was about getting the most eyes possible, selling the most products and tie-ins possible because of Tim Burton and Batman Returns souring the McDonald's relationship. Well, fuck McDonald's. And again, I don't want to sound controversial. But fuck, like, the biggest multi-billion company of all time, right? Well, who cares if they couldn't leach some more money off kids from a Batman film?

You know what you mean? Is that controversial to say? No. Well, you know, like a weird connection to that is that Michael Keaton was in a movie about playing the struggling salesman guy who basically sold the world on McDonald's. was that film good uh it's all right yeah it has an 81 on rotten tomatoes

john what did you give it on ladderbox oh god i'll have to look this up you gave it yeah what did you do the founder let's have a look and see look at this cast though nick offerman linda cardinelli patrick wilson bj novac

laura durn yeah i gave it four out of five stars i mean casting alone gets you up to three mm-hmm can't go wrong with that Yeah, but it's a film, though. It's not actually about McDonald's. No, I mean, it's just, but Michael Keaton's great in it. I just thought it was funny that this is sort of like a weird return, considering how Batman Returns soured McDonald's on that particular product I in.

Yeah, well, of course. It goes on to be the founder of McDonald's. Leave it to Michael Keaton to see of everything, right? Right. Did you see his interview talking about the Backgirl movie? Somebody asked him, like, oh, is it a shame that the Backgirl? movie didn't get put out and he was like I didn't really care I got paid pretty good what a worker love that man Kevin Nash bullshit right there yeah he knows what's up

Jackson cashed exactly that's that was a quote Michael Michael Kean had whenever there somebody asked him about Jaws 4 oh yeah like they're like they're like they were like they're like have you seen Jaws 4 and he's like well I saw the house that it bought me so you're like, well, Ferred off. He played the great character, Hogi. I just hearing that voice and seeing that man,

and you go, that character's name is Hogi. Have you seen Jaws? You already tell us you've seen Jaws 4? Yeah, of course. John, what did you give Jaws for? I watched a lot of other movies over the years. I gave it one star. Oh, come on, no.

Really? Yeah. I mean. I have two. out of five so I mean it's not great but 20% it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen just the worst Jaws movie I've ever seen wait till I make my Jaws film

this is where John comes in to say that he his choice for worst casting was Michael Keaton as Alfred as Alfred I know I'm joking What Oh Mr Wayne Oh, boy. So you guys agree with the George Clooney thing, right?

Yeah, I didn't care for George Clooney as Batman at all. It was far too cutesy. I mean, Schumacher was definitely from that 1960s kitchy Batman thing from the show. So it makes sense that George Clooney would be much more like the Adam West Batman than anybody else. But it was still, that was not my vibe. It's tough to watch, man. All right, John. What do you got?

So what, do you want a worst one? Yeah. Cool. Worst of George Clooney. I will go for Julian McMahon, who played Doctor Doom in not one, but two movies, and sucked in both of them. He was sort of famous for being like a TV actor at that point. He was in Nip Tuck. I was able to see.

We see Nip Tuck. Yeah. Isn't a really bad shark movie as well. Probably. No, no, no. It's about a tsunami floods this part and there's sharks inside a grocery store and people are trapped inside the grocery store. That sounds pretty good. Five stars.

There you go. That's our next watchalong. It doesn't matter who's at five stars. What's it called? I can't remember. I think it's a shark supermarket? I think it's called B. Let me see if I can look it out.

Keep talking. That was in the most recent Fantastic Four film. No, no. These were the two from the sort of mid-2000s. Not the one from the like 2017 or something.

Although that Dr. Doom, shit, I should have picked him as well because that was awful too. I don't remember. remember, I've seen the first one. I haven't seen the second one because I heard that Galactus was a Clyde, and then I haven't seen the

reboot one either, so I don't know a whole lot about these fantastic poor films. Spoiler a lot. Galactus being a CGI cloud was also going to be one of my casting choices. So he really was a Clyde. Yes. It was like a big cosmic dust cloud

thing. People said this to me, and I'm like, why would they make Galactus a Clyde? The whole point of Galactus is that he's a giant person. That's the whole draw of Galactus. Well, because he was based off Ultimate Galactus, which was a cloud, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, it was like basically a swarm or something, I think. But, yeah, I guess they felt like it would have been too goofy to have, like, just a giant guy in purple pajamas with like a weird helmet. Which, okay, I can sort of understand where they're coming from.

You think it would be more intimidating to just have a Clyde? Space Clyde. I think the thing is, like, it can make it work with the, you know, giant guy. But I'm sure we'll see how it's done when, you know, Marvel release their fantastic four movie. But, yeah, I think they just chickened out and we're like, oh, let's do a cloud instead. You know, Doug Jones, the Silver Surfer, was pretty good, though. Yeah, well, and the voice. was done by

the voice wasn't Doug Jones there no I'm just saying I just like Doug Jones work who was the voice Lawrence Fishbourne I believe oh okay

fair enough yeah I haven't seen those films so I saw the like I said I said the first one but like it's so long ago I don't remember anathan about it but all you need to know is Dr. Doom is a character

full of pomp and Gravitus and Julian McMahon brought none of that to the role whatsoever. Aw. Yeah, that's the problem. Like, Dr. Dimmel was always this wonderful

megalomaniac kind of character. Like, he was so, like, full of himself in almost a charming way. You know what I mean? People love Dr. Dund because he's so confident in himself, which is such a wonderful treat

to have, you know, he's just like, I'm Dr. Doom and everybody else is a fucking idiot. Which, you know, a lot of the time he's not totally wrong. I admire that kind of treat in somebody and you need a good actor to be able to pull that off. You know, and I don't know on about this guy, but I guess

he wasn't the right actor. But then who would be, who would be the good Doctor Doom? Well, they did a lot of, I mean, they did a lot of stuff with that character in that um Jesus what did they do um so doom was like part of the crew that flew

to uh that flew up into space and like he got his powers that way as well his powers of wearing a suit no he had like metal skin and electric stuff metal skin and electric stuff it was a weird take on Dr. Doom like Corey said they basically tied his powers into the

Fantastic Falls origins and then, yeah, they just, they basically had it. So his skin was starting to peel throughout the movie after he got back to Earth. And then he could shoot electricity and all this kind of thing. It's just like, what this isn't Doctor Doom? Like, what are you doing? Did they give him metallic skin or did they give him a seat of armor? they sort of started giving him metallic skin and then he uh i think he started wearing a suit of armor or at least like well no because like the he yeah there was the metallic skin and he had like electric

powers yeah because yeah the gimmick of him like but first of all the gimmick of him like being in the space mission and then coming down and then the fantastic four doing really well with their powers and then him having a bad time with the powers on paper sounds like a good angle and then the idea of him, like his skin peeling off. So like if he had to wear the suit of armor to hide that from people, that's a good angle. It doesn't sound like that's exactly what they did in the film.

But like, again, on paper, that could be a good angle, you know. I don't totally hate that. But it's all about the execution, I believe. Exactly. I don't know why they have such a big problem with the idea of making Dr. Doom like a ruler of a country.

A dictator? Yeah. Yeah. Little too close to home. By the way, the movie is Bate 3D. That is the shark inside a grocery store. Shark supermarket, I think, is a much better name. It's a little more directed to the point.

Yeah, be it 3D, that's stupid. Guys, come to odds. I was $20 million. Made 32.5, though. Okay. Made back its budget. Yeah, what was it good? I guess you could call it the success.

I don't think so. Anyway, Dr. Doob. Yeah, Dr. Doob. Is there any other comments you want to make about Dr. Doom? No. Okay. Dylan, do you have anything else to add about Dr. Doom? I don't think so. I don't even, I don't remember who this guy is, so that's probably a bad sign. Yeah, yeah. Like I said, I referred to him as nip-tuck for a reason, because I couldn't remember his name to save my life. So for mine, I kind of was like trying to figure out like what was the best way to determine the worst.

Because sometimes like the most of the ones I was thinking like it had more to do with like the source material. I mean not the source material. So it's like, oh, the character as it was written in the movie, this makes sense for what they did. I just didn't like the way the character was written for the movie. Right. So I opted for. I don't want to say this is a little bit of a cop-out has more to do with the voice rather than the body.

It's a Doug Jones situation, but it's not Doug Jones. From Hellboy to the Golden Army, Johann Krauss voiced by Seth MacFarlane. Okay. Interesting. For the record, I kind of was on your wavelength. I was like, sometimes I was thinking of something that I didn't like, but I'm like, do I not like the actor playing this

or do I not like the writing involved with that? That's different. Yeah, I struggled with that. Yeah, I was trying to go for more of like, this is just not a good choice of casting, I think, as opposed to just somebody who is a good actor who didn't do a good job in that film purely because the writing was bad.

Yes. But the directing was bad, you know. Hellboy, too, I don't think I've seen. So the character of Johann Krauss, the Hellboy movies are kind of notorious for not being completely truthful to the source material. Like the depiction of like Apes Sapiens character or the fact that they put Liz and Hellboy in a relationship. Those are not things that happen in the comic. But Johann Kraus is a German medium who while he was astro projecting a, a, A paranormal weapon went off and destroyed his body.

So he is just a spirit without a body. And the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, the BPRD, constructed a special containment suit for him. So he is a ghost inside of a suit, essentially. And he is German, because he's originally from Stuttgart. And they cast Seth MacFarlane to do his voice. So it's just Seth MacFarlane doing his really over-the-top German accent. that kind of made the character feel like a joke, which again,

he wasn't really supposed to be a joke. Like, in the movie, he was depicted as the kind of field agent that the person, the director liked. He was dedicated to the work. He was serious. He followed the rules and regulations, whereas Hellboy was a bit of a wild card.

So that to me was, again, that fit perfectly. The character was written fine. I just really hate Seth. McFarland's over the top German accent. Like if you wanted to do a German accent, maybe get a German, like, actor to do it. It didn't have to be, like, super over the top. It sounded like a family guy episode.

Especially don't get, like, super over-exaggerated comic voice actor, Seth McFarland, who just comically overacts in everything he does anyway to do the voice of a serious guy, you know? Yeah, yeah. Like I said, the character wasn't written to be. funny. I like the idea of Seth MacFarland voicing this guy. Just his own doing that voice made him sound accidentally racist. You know what you mean?

Like it's such an over-the-top German voice that you're like this German man sounds like he's being racist to himself. Yeah, yeah. Like I said, you've not even seen it, but like you're familiar enough with Seth McFarland that you're like, yep, it's over the top. Doesn't need to be. I already know exactly what voice. I'm confident I know what voice that is.

Because I've heard him do a German voice. It's family guy. They do Hitler jokes all the time. I know exactly what that voice is. Yeah. It's not far off. That's for sure. It's Seth McFarland.

You know what you're getting. Yeah. The only scene that's kind of funny is he and Hellboy are at their lockers. And Hellboy's been like increasingly getting more and more annoyed with Johann and he picks a fight with him and punches his containment suit and cracks the glass and

his spirit like leaks out of the suit and Hellboy's like oh fuck I'm in trouble now like I broke him and but he just possesses the lockers and just beats the shit out of Hellboy with the locker doors and like that's kind of funny but that's like really the only comedic thing thing he does

Well the Germans are historically known for their sense of humor Yes John, you were just there. I mean... You busted it got the entire time? Was that guy there? Not really from anything that the Germans were saying or doing, but...

That's a shame. You didn't go to German comedy club? No. Maybe I missed out. It was all in German, so... Yeah, that's true, yeah. You had no idea what was going. Everybody else is laughing.

You're like, uh-huh. yeah yeah i don't think i've missed out to be fair i don't know what's you yeah john have you seen this film oh of course i have no it's it what do you think about the voice so yeah basically exactly what you said it's saph macfarlane doing a funny voice that's okay that's his light yeah uh like i you know i've no sort of uh past connection with the character so i i i don't know I don't have Corey's extensive knowledge of what the characters like in the comics or anything, but just going by what was on the screen. Yeah, it was a bit over the top.

And I don't know. Yeah, I'm like borderline racist. But there it is. Yeah, we set up. Somebody has to say it. So our next round is going to be people that we like. So Dylan, would you start us off? Yeah, this one's not going to take too long

because we already talked about this guy in a previous episode, much like the George Clooney, Bob Man, we talked about a different episode. I'm going to pick, Donny DeVito as a penguin. I know that you had said this wasn't like a comic accurate penguin

and that penguins now are down to the video accurate as opposed to comic accurate. But I also don't care. I feel like that's just perfect acid. Dono de Vito as a penguin is just well 100% that's what I think the penguin is I don't care if it's not what it used to be in the 50s whatever

I don't care I love Danny DeVito as a penguin that's the penguin you know so going back to like talking about characters like being bad I mean that that works for the same thing in the opposite like as the character was written Danny DeVito was perfect for it regardless of whether it was accurate to the comics or not yes the way it was in that film that's just he played it so well

there was nobody else you could imagine could play that character like that at that time or even I you know I it's one of my there's a reason that's one of my favorite Batman films maybe one of my favorite films I love that film so much and even though it's a bit silly and goofy at times

like the good stuff is so good because all of the actors involved are the right actors you know, I've gushed about how much I love Michael Keaton's Batman, but like all of them Michelle Pfeiffer and everybody else in the film is like played perfectly by the right people

but the penguin to me is just like icing on the cake. He's just perfect you know and because we've talked about this already I feel like you guys are going to be like yeah, fair enough. Pretty much. Yeah, fair enough.

Yep, there you go. Nice and easy. On to the next one. Well, in that case, I will go for J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. Oh, that is a good call.

Perfect. I mean, do I even need to say anything? Like, the look in that original Spider-Man trilogy was absolutely spot on. The humor

of the character and like how up his own ass he is and how that kind of gets used for comic effect as well beautifully done and just like the voice and the the anger that he brings to the role as well

is just pitch perfect that's what I was going to say the way the way he talks is so that like that's what I imagine Jordan Jamesson's signing like you know 100% yeah that was part, like, he, he, he just encapsulated that character perfectly.

Yeah. That's, that's a, that's a, that's a really good one. Yeah. That's, um, that, that, that, that one's hard, that's a good call. That's, that's, that's hard to be. Yeah. It's true. All right. So, I'm going to stay in the world of Hellboy for my best. And I feel like there, honestly, there are a few that are really good to pick. Um, I mean, Ron Perlman as Howboy is really, really good. Uh, again, as written, not necessarily source material. Same thing. Although he chose to be uncredited for it,

David Hyde Pierce voiced Ape Sapien in the first movie. When they did Hellboy 2, it was Doug Jones doing the voice and the bodywork. But David Hyde Pierce loved Doug Jones' body acting so well, he refused to be credited for his voice part. However, I'm going to choose Carol Rodin as Gregori Rasputon, who was the main villain of Hellboy. Rastputin, of course, is the very famous monk, who may or may not have been responsible for the fall of the Russian Tsardom.

In the world of Hellboy, Rasputin is an ever-present figure even after death. And he's menacing. He's mystical. He's dark. And Carol, he just encapsulates that for me perfectly. Like there is a threatening sense to him just by standing there. And he's not the most physically intimidating looking person in the world. He just has a darkness to him that I feel like was captured very, very well.

Yeah, I can agree with that. And like, obviously he's a bit of a Nazi as well, which always makes for a good villain character. But not an over-the-top Nazi. No. No, no, he's, I mean, an occultist. He's a regular Nazi. sort of regular so he's uh he's he's brought in by the SS to assist them in this ritual

yeah but yeah like you say the the castin was pretty good i thought and he made for like a sort of memorable villain as well like again i don't know rassputin from the hellboy comics but i know enough about rassputin from real life to kind of you know have some background knowledge of him

but yeah I liked it okay Dylan any thoughts on Rasputin or did you have you seen Hellboy I have seen Hellboy but it's been a long time it's funny that I remember David Ed Pierce did a voice because he's got a very distinct voice

yes and I feel like I do remember the villain but it's been a while since I've seen Hellboy that's fair you know and I feel like I only saw once. It happens in the second one, but I've seen the first one.

But I would like to, we should go see it again. Let's all do watch along for Hellboy. I wouldn't mind that. Yeah. You're really long, though. So, we're back to Bad. Dylan, who do you got? I have Stephen Merchant as Caliban.

I don't even remember that. Okay, this was in Logan. Okay, that would be why. Have you not seen Logan? I have not seen Logan. Okay, it is a really good film. But, and again, maybe this is kind of like, I think this is miscasting, right?

Because I like Stephen Merchant. He's a funny guy. I don't think in any universe ever, you would go, I think he should be one of the X-Men. And I don't think in any of those aforementioned universes, you would go, I think he should be Caliban, the big, hulking, albino, brute of a man. who can track other mutants.

That doesn't work. So obviously they had to do a lot to change that character from what he is in the comics to what he is in the film. But even then, you're like, that's such a weird choice. That's such a weird choice to go with Stephen Merchant as Caliban. It's so strange, especially because they already had a Caliban in the Apocalypse film, which came out before. that. So they were like, all right, we're going to ignore that guy and go Stephen

Merchant, he's like 6-2 and then also like really thin and skinny. Stephen Merchant 6-2, I thought he was way taller than that. I have no idea what's, what I was. A lot of his comedy is about how fucking tall he is. Yeah, he's a tall man. He's a giant. But like, who's taller? Stephen Merchant or Kevin Nash? I don't know. Let's find out. That's fine. It's six, seven. So technically, Kevin Nash has got about three or four inches on him. Okay, fair enough.

But, like, even Kevin Ash wouldn't be a good caliban. That wouldn't work. Stephen Marchant. It just doesn't work for that character. I just think that's such a weird casting. It's so strange. And, like, here's the thing. I barely remember him in that film.

Corey hasn't seen the film. Can't even comment on it. John, do you remember him? Do you remember him being a good actor or do you remember going, that's weird? I enjoyed him in the movie. But he's not Caliban. Yeah, but I mean, a lot of the characters. Like Donald Pierce is in that movie, but he's not Donald Pierce from the Hellfire Club.

So, you know, it is what it is. Is he going to be the next one on your list? Because that is a correct way to put it. you know like but but i i'm okay for me i think that caliban in the comics even if you're going on like oh we'll do a different spin on this they already showed caliban in this in in in the x-man universe and then they have a different caliban caliban's not that good of a character to bring it back twice as two different people that look completely different you know what did you think of the caliban in

apocalypse then i thought he was because he didn't have big of a role. He was just more of what you would expect Caliban to be. He basically was the same though, wasn't he? I don't think so. I'm used to Caliban being like Apocalypse's TOTE in X Factor though. Because he wasn't a massive

hulking guy in X Factor. He was like really small. He became a big guy after Apocalypse got to him. And then he's been a big guy for a long time. Yeah. I don't see him. I don't see.

I didn't like it. Fair enough. Again, I don't care if it's controversial. This shows all about talking points. Getting people talking. I don't think it's controversial. I didn't even know this happened. You didn't see the film.

You're like, I don't even know. I don't know Wolverine was in a film. Wolverine. Who's that? People like that guy. Who plays them? Who's Wolverine? Who's this asshole?

I'm not to do the comics podcast, and you've no idea who's. I stopped reading comics in the mid-1970s. Who's this Wolverine fellow, you mentioned? I started and stopped reading comics after Superman issue two. I know about Superman, and I know about the tenant guys who overcharged their people rent. That's all I know in Superman. I know about the Flash Force, and that's it. All right, John, what do you got?

God, choices, choices. I will go for Jared Lito as the Joker. Oh, agreed. Because fucking hell, that was awful. I agree. I mean, I have such a weird feeling about Jared Lotto as a Joker, because I hate Jared Leto, to be frank. He is that one guy that's on site for me.

I fucking hated him since Fight Club. Yeah, I don't like him. No, I don't think anyone does yet he's still famous and like in movies and he's got a band and stuff. It's like, what? No one learns his own cult. He's got a cult, yeah? Yeah, it doesn't surprise. Because they were out in the desert when the COVID pandemic started.

What the worst place he could possibly be is stranded in the fucking desert with Jerry Lito? come back and you find out the world shut down because of a worldwide virus. And you're like, maybe he was right. Holy shit. What I really liked about this, you said Jared Lido, I'm like, he's going to say Morbius. And then you said the Joker.

I'm like, oh yeah, he did that shitty job too. I am so weirdly, I appreciated that they were focusing on like Joker the crime boss a little bit more instead of like, I'm an agent of chaos. But like, I didn't care for the look. at all and again I can't stand fucking Jared Leto.

Right, the idea of that Joker was fine but the casting was bad. The costume was just, that's the wrong guy. Well, yeah, the casting this guy in the Justice League. Yeah, everything about it was bad though, like... Yes, I hated the look. It,

uh, man, the try hard tattoos, the, like, weird grill that he was wearing. It's like, oh, man. It's gross. So there's a heel referee in Mexico works for AAA named Iio de El Tarantes. So I think son of the tyrant. And it's always been a heel referee gimmick in AAA.

And he's obsessed with the Joker and he has that hand tattoo of like the smile on the back of the hand. So he holds it up to his face. It's yeah, it looks just as bad real life. does in the movie. I think it's a bit goofy. A bit goofy. Bit. Tiny bit. But that's the

Joker's saying though. He's like, I'm just a bit goofy as I kill people. He's a bit of a goofy. I'm just a bit of a goofy. He's a fish that smiles. Isn't that fun? Just goofing her right. Isn't that funny? Murder to seven people. I agree. Like, this is, you know, I'm on board.

You might not have been on board with Calabon. I am on board with Jarlio as a terrible joker. I mean, you could just put Jared Lowe with anything. Yeah, just Jared Lito in a film. Jared Lido, like, I liked Fight Club when you got the shit kicked out of him. I liked American Psycho where he got hit in the face with an axe. I mean, those are my favorite third letter world right there.

Could we just write a film or like Jarito gets hit with stuff and then just make it like two hours off? And we just keep hitting him with stuff. And you're like, well, this is the best Jarlito's ever been because it's just him gets hit with shit. He'd be method acting too, so we would actually have just killed him. Well, you know, we could get away with it because we're like, oh, we did it for the art, you know. because it's what he would have wanted. Alec Baldwin got away with killing somebody

so we can do it. Certainly did. Oh yeah, somebody put something in the wrong folder. I guess you're free to go. What? Oh, wow. What?

You mean hitting the guy with the brick in the head and killed people? Nobody told me. Oh, boy. All right, mine, I will probably say in the controversial thing, but I've never been really impressed with her. I will say,

Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique. And I feel like in first class, I was okay with it, but then the movies that came after it, and they kept giving Mystique a bigger and bigger part because they were taking advantage of that Hunger Games bump. I, yeah, to be honest with you, and you could really tell, she was just going through the motions in those later movies.

Oh, 100%. Yeah, yeah. She could not fucking care. Because, I mean, at that point, she was also in like, what, Silver Linings Playbook and, like, like, more critically acclaimed roles. So it was just, like, didn't care.

They made a bigger part for her because of her rising stardom. And I'm not faulting her necessarily so much for it. Just, like, she clearly signed a contract. I'm going to be in this many movies. And Fox was like, yes, you are. Oh, 100%. like that fourth one well what was it the uh dark phoenix yeah like she couldn't get killed off quickly enough in that movie she's right she would agree yeah but it seems like the criticism here

is the leader films which we can all agree not great efforts for a lot of of people but like early on she was a very good mistake well so is that is that bad casting i mean it's a It's a bad use of that continued character. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a bad use. I mean, it's a bad use of that actress. Because we were talking about, like, as written, and I think the problem is as written,

they were making her a bigger and bigger part, but she didn't want to be part of it anymore. So her effort was getting less and less. But at the beginning, at the start of it, she was a good mystique. Yeah. Well, I think that's the difference. So the casting of it, originally the casting of it was good.

almost every other one that we've talked about though have been one movie this is like the one of the first because aside from a nip tuck as dr doom can't even remember his name talked about it less than 10 minutes ago but he's stuck in both those films that's what i'm saying though but like this is the first time that we have a somebody who has been in four fucking movies playing this character and it's just a decline right and i get that but i mean like if we're going by the definition of bad casting she's already been cast by the time she already put on some good films by the time she got that she put in one she was okay in the first two films she was in I thought she was better in the second one than she was in the first one I didn't say that yeah I well I see I said one I didn't say which one oh you Days of Future Past as much as a it's a more traditionally mystique role

than the other ones were I was never crazy about the idea that Xavier knew her his entire life Hey mom, dad, this weird blue girl just showed up in our kitchen. We're going to be best friends forever. But again, that's the writing, not her. That's the writing. Not holding it against her, especially because she didn't play the kid version unless there's like, what is that movie that Ethan Hawke was in that was shot in real time? Boy or whatever.

Boyhood, I think. Boyhood. Yeah. Well, yeah, what if she did play? 20 years ago? What if, like, whatever she was a kid, some weird guy with a camera was like, just get naked and just put this blue paint on you. I'm going to film you. And it'll all make sense in 20 years.

And she was like, okay. And then he went to jail. And then when he got out, he made the best X-Man. After serving a sentence. Yeah, no, like I said, like I said, maybe controversial. But like I said, I just, I view the whole thing as the decline. I mean, as written, they were giving her bigger and bigger role. And she wasn't into it anymore at the end.

Okay. I mean, what do you think, Joe? I mean, I mean, my case. Corey's been his case. What do you think? Yeah, I'm sort of in your camp as well. Like, I think she was all right in the first one, but I'm not a huge fan of the way the character was written.

Second movie, I thought she was really good. But then I can agree with Corey and say, like, yeah, the decline after that was pretty obvious. she she really wanted out by the time that fourth movie came around but that's because you know it takes you three hours to put the blue shit on yeah but they even have asked the makeup though in the the fourth one like they just couldn't be bothered she was still probably like i can't be i guess can't be arst yeah yeah it's tough can i just not be in blue face paint can i just be you know because

there was a lot of she was kind of getting that equivalent of how uh robert diney junior can't keep the fucking Ironman helmet on in the sense that there are a lot of scenes of mystique where she's just Jennifer Lawrence. Yes. And understandable. The difference is Robert Donner Jr. got paid dickloads

of money. The least he could do is put a fucking helmet on. He's about to get paid a dick with a money to put a helmet on. Right? Yeah. Yeah. If he's walking around with his fucking face out, put the helmet on. I mean, we don't know. We haven't seen it, but

we'll see so all right so we're gonna go back around we're going with more positive ones

Dylan you're up I'm gonna throw a real curveball and you guys see what you think with this I'm gonna go with beast nice

I'm gonna go with Kelsey Grammer is a beast hell yeah okay because that the mannerisms the way he talks the way he can kind of like

not the the animalistic side of the beast but like the fun intelligent good-hearted man beast character

perfectly played by Kelsey Grammar I think that's absolutely great casting right there right I agree I think just it's it's I don't want to say it's perfect but you're like if you're picking the beast you're like that's hard to beat

it's a reason why when the beast showed up at the end of the marvels it was still Kelsey Grammer in the role because he was basically born to play The Beast. I remember reading fan castings in Wizard magazine back in the 90s and even

then it was Kelsey Gramer as Beast. That's a really good shot though. It really is. You know, physically he's not the Beast, but like character-wise he is. You could totally buy it. Everything. You could totally buy it.

You know? And that's the mark of a good casting thing. Like when you see a guy like that, like, I couldn't imagine anybody else paying that guy. Mm-hmm. You know? And I think, I think Kelsey Grammer

is a beast. Not to say Nicholsold as Young Beast wasn't good. He was very good. But I thought, as like modern-day beast, Kelsey Grammer, hard to beat. Yes.

There you go. Short and sweet again. There you go. It's the positive ones. We have nothing to say for the most part. The positive ones are like, correct. You know? Yes.

John, your turn. So I'm going to go for Willem Defoe, the Green Goblin. Again, excellent choice. William Defoe is an amazing actor in his own right, but like as the Green Goblin and as, you know, like, Norman's descent into madness and, like, that switch he does. does as well between like the goblin and norman holy shit it's so good like the scene where he's like speaking to himself in the mirror and like you get the like flashes of the two sides of his personality it's yeah it works so well and then when he does lean into the goblin side and he's just

cackling and throw him one-liners and being as evil as possible like holy shit this guy is a menace Yeah. What was it? The Spider-Bet? Was it No Way Home? Yeah, he was in No Way Home, yeah. Whenever you watch that film, you're like, because a lot of the time he didn't wear the mask, right?

Mm-hmm. So if you watch him, like, play both sides, like B, Norman Osborne and The Green Goblin, it's masterful. It really is. Honestly, if it was any other actor, you would not buy it, I think, but like just the way he does, you believe it,

you're like, wow, fuck, he has the personalities and one of them's a fucking killer, like you believe it. And it's just a testament to how good he is as an actor, you know? Well, you know, he's a bit of a scientist himself. Yeah, uh-huh.

Yeah, no, I really like Willem Defoe as the Goblin. It was one of those things, like I understand why they wanted to do a helmet or a mask, but he really didn't need one. The control he has over his face is phenomenal. Yeah. So is my turn? Yeah, go for it.

All right, I'm keeping him paired up. I'm going to go with, again, from the X-Men world, I'm going to go with Michael Fosbender as Magneto. Okay. I think he captured the calmness of Magneto, as well as the viciousness. I think one of the greatest scenes in a comic book movie of all time is Magneto and Argentina with the Nazis

and how he plays with them before he kills them. Fucking amazing. But yes, I would think that Fosbender is Magneto is amazing casting. If you're going to do a younger Magneto, I think you could definitely do worse. Plus, I just like Fosbender in general.

He's like my favorite character in any of the alien movies. I fucking love Frank. That's one of my favorite movies of all time. So, yeah, there's a bias for me there on that one I think. Do you prefer him to Ian McAllen? Because I mean, Ian McKellen, like, he brings a certain...

Yeah. It's weird, though, because, like, I associate Ian McKellon so much with Gandalf instead. Yeah. I have a hard time remembering it's the same guy. But, no, I think he's fine. I definitely think he's fine as Magneto. It is that weird thing of, like, having a character like Magneto in a movie so far removed from World War II, where it's like, oh, this is a modern-day X-Men movie.

He would be ancient, and that's fine. But, like, I'm not going to hold his age against him in X-Men 1. I just, I think that, I didn't think he had the same kind of quiet rage to him that Fossmender had. I think it works. Is that to me? Yeah. Because the timeline That movie came out in what

Like 90, 2000? Like I said, I'm not holding the age against him on that. Obviously he didn't look like a one-to-one Like, you know, but close enough for you like I'll believe it. Yeah. No, no, again, I'm saying it's more about like I said, I think Foszmender had the temperament of Magneto better. I think you're right in that

But I will also say that like McAllen had the the maniacal kind of megalomaniac part down very well like if you're looking at young Magneto and old Magneto

McEllan had that real like I'm clearly jaded and I'm fucking pissed off yeah well and that's again Mcneed was one of those characters but I'm a little annoyed that now they've made him

a feast again when he I think he's better as a heel because like heel Magneto it's like CM Punk boy he'll Magnetna was fucking wonderful to watch. Just whenever he's just pissed off. He's like, all right, I'm fed off now.

You know what you mean? Yeah. Well, it's kind of how I feel about Juggernaut, honestly. Like, I hate seeing Juggernaut as a member of the X-Men. It's like, no, he's much more enjoyable as a villain. Agreed. I don't understand why they made him into, like, a good guy or a baby. It doesn't make any sense why they did that.

Baby Juggernaut. Baby Juggernaut. You're always going to make Juggernaut a, an adult. be a bad guy you know what you mean yeah i think the juggernaut character doesn't work as a good guy it's such a weird angle and i don't that's this is a whole podcast for another day but i don't really like the rehabilitation of a lot of villains yes it's them good because you're like part of the part of the draw of them as villains is they're really good villains yes they don't have to have a redemption art you know now john like i do not know this for a fact but

based off of this conversation and based off of how the auction went, I would say Magneto's probably in your top five characters of all time. Is that correct? I'd say he's very high up there, yeah? Okay. So just not even counting E. McKellen, what are your opinions of Fosbender as a young Magneto? Like you say, that scene with the Nazis in South America in the first one was

pretty damn good just like take that out of a superhero movie put that in any movie that's like that's going to be top notch stuff but I think I don't know like part of not my issue with him

but like I think he could have done better in that first movie certainly was like his accent was just all over the place and it really bugs me like every time I watch it Yes. It sounds like sometimes he sounds Irish, which I think is like his natural accent.

Yeah. But then sometimes it's sort of sounds like he's trying to put on an Ian McCallan style voice. And sometimes it feels like he's trying to add in like a sort of Eastern European twinge as well. But like it just, it's all over the place. And it kind of, yeah, takes me out of it a little bit. This is true because I remember watching this. in the cinema with my friend. We watch first class in cinema.

And there is a part in first class where Fastbender signs Irish. And all of us were like, oh my God. Because we know what that sounds like, right? No, yeah, if anyone would know. We were like, holy shit, that's like, I know what that sounds like. Like, what the, where did that come from? There's just like specifically one moment. I think he's like, he's on the beach.

And like he does something where he says something like and it sounds so Irish. And like, where did that come from? so I like I know exactly I get that yeah I think he improved the accent loads in days of future past and it it sounded more like consistent with Ian McEllen's voice as well you could sort of see the connective tissue between like the two but yeah it's just that first movie especially where it's just wow what is going on here well that's good acting too

the way that he would try to like make that connection with like the future version of Magneto like that's smart yeah yeah and that's just like a very small like sort of criticism of him as Magneto as well like for the most part I thought like he was really good in the role as well

yes I agree I thought he was very good yeah all right we got our last round of bad unless there's another point you want to make though Dylan before we do well I mean the trick is because you have like the old and new Magneto like it's actually hard to pick which one is better

better casting because I thought that like if you look at old a new Magneto and Xavier both the old version and the new version are pretty fucking good casting honestly they're both very well

and the genius part of it is the two actors that play each set of Xavier and Magneto work wonderfully together have such good chemistry that it's like it's hard to say one's better than the other, you know?

That's all I wanted to say. That's fair. Well, you're up on your last round of castings that did not work for you. All right. Get ready for this one, guys. Tofer Grace as Venom. Slash Eddie Brock. I, like,

I'm just astounded that they did that. And it's nice that they took a chance and rolled the dice. And I like Tooper Grace. No, it's not an issue there. but what's the first thing you think of when you think of Venom? He's a big musly guy. He's a big motherfucker, right? Yeah, even Eddie Brock was that big before the symbiate costume.

That's why Vanham is big. It's because Eddie Brock was a big guy. Spider-Man whenever he had the suit was Spider-Man because he was Peter Parker. Eddie Brock was much bigger. So when the symbi took him over as Venom, he became much, much bigger than posing. that's part of it.

And Tover Gris, God bless him, when he tried, he went to the gym, he put as much muscle as he could. Not the right guy. Not the right guy to be Eddie Brock, like this tough guy who, you know, loses his job and is downtrodden and doesn't know what to do

and gets the symbiote and becomes this fucking unbelievable killing machine like Venom. That none of that work. worked. And I feel like, and what's really funny is, if we do like honorable mentions for later on, I thought the guy who played the Sandman in that film was always like, yes, he was incredible. Yeah, yeah. That guy saved that film.

Well, he didn't save it, but he definitely. Dude, he watched, if you watch that film, every scene he's in is perfect. He's so good at it. Whereas Torbogrius, as Venom is just. the opposite, he's just not the right guy for that. He just doesn't have the... He's just not the right guy. You know?

I think we can all kind of agree on that. The weird thing is he's like basically written as like sort of you know, like wise ass brat version of Peter Parker. Yeah. But then we kind of get that anyway in the movie when Peter Parker turns here.

Right. They already did that with Peter Parker. Yeah. That's true. But that's why Eddie Brock, the character, works so well, is that he's not Peter Parker. He's a completely different character. Exactly. And that's why Venom is so vicious and horrible and a different counterpart to Spider-Man,

who is a very good, hearted person. All of that works based on that. And none of that came out in that film. And I just feel like Tobragress was just not a good venom. And he tried God bless him, but he's just not. You know? No.

I think maybe he suffered a little bit as well from the fact that, you know, Venom was absolutely shoehorned in by the studio against Sam Ramey's wishes. So I don't think it was a character that Sam Ramey was particularly enthused to write or include in the movie.

which is probably why Venom himself kind of got the short end of the stick in terms of like story and how rushed it all was. Right. Right, I agree with that. But like, just if you ignore all of that and just go, we're making a film,

we want somebody to play Venom, who are you going to cast is Venom? And then you say, Tofer Grace, I'm going to fire you. I know that we covered a lot of this are our Sony Spider-Man movies as well. So I'm not trying to cut you off or anything, but it is really funny how, like,

I can tell how much this bothered you. I mean, I'm not even, like, a huge fan of Venom, but, like, anybody that follows Spider-Man is probably like, that's not right. John, I think it's just your last bad casting. Are you going to pick, are you going to pick Tover Grace's Venom as well? Well, I've got so many different choices I could make now.

I have to... See at the end. I have a couple of extra worst ones so can we do a couple of like on-rule mansions. Oh yeah, yeah. I actually have a lot of like best ones that I'm not going to be able to get to unless we do that. Okay, yeah, let's do that.

Okay, so which one should I go for? I'm going to go for January Jones, is Emma Frost, since we've been doing a bit of an X-Men theme. Yeah, because this is what we do in the show is talking about. Not an X-Men podcast. No.

I promise. I talked about Adam. He talked about Dr. Doom. We're not in that X-Men podcast. She was in first class, and basically she or she brought to the table was like dressing like a fembot from Austin Powers. Acting like a femaer from Austin Powers? Yeah. Exactly, yeah.

She looked so bored throughout and brought no charisma whatsoever to the wrong. and shockingly she wasn't brought back for any of the sequels. Who'd have thought? Yeah. It's perfect for Betty Draper. Not so much for Emma Frost. Exactly. Right.

That's a shame because I like Emma Frost a lot. But like her like being like a cold kind of person doesn't equate to just being bored as an actress. Like that that's not the look you want to go for. No, definitely not. She didn't get the real Amherst experience over film-wise, you know. Yeah. I mean, fair enough, I'm a board. I would agree.

Yeah, all right. Corey? So, this will, I found this is to be kind of controversial, but I don't understand why. I cannot, for the life of me, stand Kevin Costner as John. Jonathan Kent from Man of Steel. I keep seeing people talk about like, oh, you know, like he, it feels like very like traditional American family. It's like in that he was kind of cold and kind of emotionless as a father, I guess in my case. So that might be pretty close, but good Lord.

But yeah, no, I, this was another one of those things of like trying to separate the writing from the character and I probably failed on this one. Because I mean, I'm not going to talk about like, you know, willingly let himself get sucked up into a tornado. Like that, yeah, that still bothered me. He said sucked up by a tornado, not anything else. Okay. Yeah, sucked off by a tornado.

He got sucked off by a tornado. And maybe it's because I just don't care for Kevin Costner in general. I find him to be very conservative in that Hollywood conservative bullshit as well. But no, I just, I felt like he didn't have any

warmth to him. Because I mean, his death was supposed to be this big impactful moment in Clark's life. And I just didn't feel that. I mean, if anything, like, I understand it was like, the character's like, oh, this is going to come from a good place of, like,

we can't let anyone find out, you know, that you're different or whatever. but like it almost like chastising Clark for saving people like you saved a school full of like a school bus full of your fellow like children and classmates like don't do that we do it let up die yeah it was just it it did not it felt very counterintuitive to the goal of making us like feel Clark's loss because of anything it's just like we want Superman to rescue people and save people but his dad's like no don't do that but also like in the comics surety the whole point of like Clark Kent's father was that he is quite a nice warm like farm like that's because that's where

he learns a lot of his his good traits from yes it's from his adopted parents so like surely you want to make those two people as sweet as possible yeah you know to show the the innocence and good nature of

Clark Kent aka Superman like surely that's part of it right Well, and again, it's like we're trying to separate the intention from the source material. Like, the writing in the movie is Jack Snyder, and he has historically shown he does not care about the continuity or the source material. But also, if you're trying to put that across, I don't think I would have picked Kevin Costner for that. Now, if you're going, so I agree with that on that part. And then I also agree with the other part that we're like, well, we're talking about Zach Snyder here who couldn't give a fuck about anything. So you're like, okay, well then do.

be looking at it through a different lens because if you look at it by just pretty the way Zach Schneider wrote the film is it a good casting even that I'm like I don't know you know. questionable I don't know man

but it's hard to tell with Zach Snyder because he's like whatever this is it. Yeah, live with it like I don't want to. All right. Last round of people that we were really like did you save your best for last one? No. But I'm going to say

I appreciate your honesty because I think the one I'm going to do in the bonus run isn't well thought out so I'm going to go with this guy instead. Vincent Di Offrio as the kingpin Oh nice You know this guy? Good choice, yes

So first of all this guy's an incredible actor So if you've seen him in anything He fucking rules because he's so different Every single thing you see him in is different And it's unique and You look at and go that's the right guy for that casting every time

but him as kingpin you're like dude I fucking buy that you look at him as a kingpin you go that's the fucking kingpin right

hell yeah exactly like he's just like that's what I think the kingpin is and like the guy you remember the Daredevil film

with the aforementioned Ben Affleck yeah are you talking about Michael Clark Duncan yeah right I really like that actor but when I saw him

as kingpin I'm like, I don't buy you as the kingpin. You know what I mean? And he's good. And he's good in the film, but you're like, that's just not what I think the kingpin is. But I thought this guy. And I'm like, that's what the kingpin is. Kingpin needs to be fat.

He needs to be big, fucking bald, white, angry-looking dude. And he fits a bill. So that's, I thought that was great casting. But not only was a great casting, but he, like, what he was given, he, he, he, he, fulfilled the brief, you know what you mean? Yeah, yeah. He did a really good job of that.

So that's my last good pick. John, what do you got? Okay. Jared Lido, as Corbius. So I've sort of had a Spider-Man theme going on. So I guess I'll go for

Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus. That's great. And you don't want, that's not one of the obvious ones they picked, so you're lucky. Have we not triggered the obvious alarm? We haven't. One of the obvious ones they picked. I'll tell you the obvious ones at the end, but yes, I agree 100% with John's pick right here. Because, I mean, it's, like, the way it's written, for one thing is, like, such a, you know, tragedy in, like, him sort of having.

these like grand goals for the good of man and then it basically costing him the love of his life and then you know turning him insane basically and then having that sort of personal connection with peter as well that they can play off and all of that and yeah i think alfred melina was just the perfect guy to kind of bring that all to life um and especially the way he sort of interacted with, yeah, you know, like the tentacles as well. Like, that was so well done where he basically almost like had the voices in his head kind of thing. Well, I remember there were like scenes where during like the fight sequences, you could see where like he would get knocked out for a moment, but the tentacles were still fighting. Like you just go limp and then the tentacles would fight and then he'd be back up.

Absolutely. And yeah, and it led to one of the best scenes in a superhero movie as well when the, the doctors are trying to remove the tentacle limbs from his back and then they just, you know, again, have a life of their own and start taking care of business and classic Sam Ramey horror style, which doesn't really have that much to do with Alfred Melina, but that whole scene is just incredible. Fair enough. We'll allow it. Okay. But you're right. Like, he's such a good, like, such a good Dr. Octavis.

Mm. You totally buy it. Like, he is a major, major reason why Spider-Man too is such a good film. Hell yeah. Yeah, 100%. Uh, no, Alfred Molina was fantastic. there's a gentleness to him that comes out whenever he's not like in Dr. Octopus mode that I always found enjoyable. Like he felt like they did a really great job with having him sort of be a surrogate father figure for Peter for a little bit.

Yep. So that you do feel that loss a little bit more than, you know, any other character up to that point. The clips that I've seen when what Homecoming or whichever MCU Spider-Man movie it is that they're all in, his reaction to seeing Tofer Grace, not Tover Grace, Toby the Bwire, and saying like, oh, Peter, you've grown up. It's just like it was, it was very sweet. Yes. And like that's a lot of diversity in his performance. He was also very good in that film.

Yes, absolutely. Very, very good. Because there is a bit where he's fighting Tom Holland and he goes, you're not Spider-Man. Who the fuck are you? He's like, what's your Peter Park? Are we doing? So my last one will be, I think,

kind of one of the OGs, and that is Christopher Reeves' Superman. Right. For the simple reason that there have been a lot of actors who've played Superman over the years, Brandon Routh and Henry Cavill. But Christopher Reeves to me nailed the difficult part,

which is playing Clark Kent, like the gosh golly aspects of Clark Kent. And there's one scene in particular from the first Superman where he's as Clark about to go out on a date with Lois. And he's been like kind of struggling with whether or not to tell Lois he's actually Superman. And so he's in full Clark Kent mode. And he makes up his mind he's going to tell her. And he takes his glasses off and straightens his posture. and he basically feels like he just transforms an entirely different character just by body language.

I just think he was amazing at it. And there's a reason I think that in every interview with a different actor who's played Superman over the years, it's unanimous that they all say Christopher Reeves is the best. Yep. I agree with that. I agree with you. I thought his,

it's been like a joke where like, oh the only difference between Superman as Clark Kent is that he takes his glasses off but like when you watch Christopher Reeve be both of those characters like you can tell it kind of like we were talking about the Green Gobblen earlier

it's the same deal where he can do both of those characters just by acting which is what you're supposed to do as an actor but he does them both like so well we're like fuck I can see why nobody could tell the difference yeah yeah yeah 100% so that's a good call all right do we have some time for honorable mentions

or Dylan do you want to do your obvious list because that was such a big thing at the beginning of this okay so I had a couple on my obvious list one because the first two are because we were talking about it recently ryan Reynolds and hugh jackman as deadpool and wolverine respectively because if you think about like perfect casting rand rounds is that pool and hugh jackman as wolvering are like when you see them now you're like Nobody else can be those characters, right? I would agree.

Incredible. I would say after that, a lot of the jokers, except for the Heath Ledger one. So it's, you know, Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger. A lot of people would have said

those are the perfect Joker. Fair enough. He was on the list. And then Robert Downey Jr. As Iron Man, again, when you think of perfect casting, Robert Downey Jr.

as Iron Man is the perfect casting. It is. That's just the best you could do. And they did it. So I have put him. down on the obvious list. And because we're so fucking good at this, none of us picked any

of the obvious answers. I mean, I probably would have seen. Are there any other ones you think are super obvious that like we should have been on that list? Patrick Stewart is Professor X. Right. Yeah.

That was another one I was tempted to pick, but I was like that is really obvious. Too obvious. He's going to be on a list. Samuel L. Jackson is Nick Fury. Yes. Yeah. I worked really hard not to pick MCU characters. Like that was a big thing I had going into this. Because I feel like there have been so many other superhero movies

that were not tied into Marvel in that sense. But yeah, no, I think Chris Evans is Captain America. A lot of people have a hard time now separating that character from it. And I think that that's going to be the big challenge that Anthony Mackie has in this new Captain America movie is going to be. that comparison. Yeah. They're taking a big swing on that one.

Yeah. So any honorable mentions for worst casting? Well, I have two for worst and one for best. Okay. We mean in the all?

Yeah, go for it. We'll just do all the only mentions and we'll go. So for best honorable mention, mine was Martin Brando was Superman's dad. Oh, GRL. But only because I fucking love Martin Brando

Right Honestly, I don't know If he was fucking good at that or not He was in there for like 20 minutes, not even But I love Marlon Brando So he's obviously the best That's why I went with the kingpin over his What I wrote down is Superman's dad

So I've always I will tell you that I will tell you that the comparison Was Kurt Russell as Jorrell And Matt of Steel And Kurt Russell's Jorrell was man of action Jorrell and not like... I think it was, wasn't it

Russell Crow, not Kurt Russell? Oh, it was Russell, man, I wish it was Kirk Russell. Yeah. I fucking wish it was Kurt Russell. That was just wish for thinking on my part. But no, Russell Crow because he was like, there was that, like, it started with an action sequence of him, like, rushing through

the collapse of Krypton to like an outrunning General Zod's men to get to his wife and launch Clark up in the rocket, you know, it just felt weird and wrong. It didn't feel like the scientist and Marlon Brando felt more like the scientist. Because he's a great actor.

Yeah. And also they only had him for a week so like, well, better make the best of it. If I know Martin Brando at all, they only had it for a week. They had him for a day. What are you talking about? Yeah. Story checks out. There we go. And he probably got paid $2 million for him. Yeah.

So on the worst list, I had, now this one has an asterisk beside it because I haven't seen this film. But I wrote Bridget Nielsen as read Sonia because I haven't seen that film, but I have seen Bridget Nielsen act so I can pretty

much, I'm pretty much guarantee it's not going to be good. Am I correct? I have seen that movie. You've not seen, oh boy, do you? No, I have. I have. Okay. You're a favor. Forget it. I gave it one and a half stars out of five.

Okay. I feel like I'm pretty close. on the money with that one. Yeah, she was awful in it. Correct. She's awful. She seems lovely, but also not a great actress. And then the other one I had was, and this is a personal thing, this is why I wasn't one of the main guys.

Woody Harrelson is carnage because, dude, he's like, it's just not carnage, right? God bless him. Again, I love Woody Harrelson. Great actor. Not the right casting for that. Right? I think we can agree. just not the right casting.

So that's my list. Done. John, you have any of your own arm? mentions. Yeah, I've got a few left over. I mean, we sort of talked about Ian McKellen as Magneto. Tom Hiddleston is Loki.

I think he very much made that his own. And no one will ever play that character again, which is funny considering in his TV show, multiple people played Loki. Yeah. And like my other best one was Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman. Yes. Excellent.

Absolutely brilliant. On the worst side, I've got a fair few. I've got Jared Lito's Mobius. Things about this podcast. We love the X-Men. We hate Jared Leto. Fucking hate Jarlito. Yeah.

Fuck that guy. Taylor Kitch has Gambit in Wolverine Origins. Yep, fair enough. Finn Jones is Iron Fist. I haven't seen it. Yeah, it's... Well, don't worry, you're not alone. That was like the worst of the Netflix series, we understand.

Then from Blade Trinity, Dominic Purcell as Dracula. Oh, you're not Triple H? No, Triple H was at least entertaining. That's true. That's true. Got those cyber fangs. Yeah. He had a dog.

Exactly. He had a little dog. He suplexed someone. Do you think the dog is because of the pedigree? Oh, I didn't make that connection. Now, there we go. In the podcast. Last one, Vinnie Jones is the juggernaut.

He's the juggernaut, bitch. Yeah. I wish the helmet was better. It looks like a weird styrofoam hat. The whole costume looks awful. I agree, but also I feel like Benny Jones, like, as casting the juggernaut, not crazy. He's a big guy.

Not the worst thing you could do. Not the worst thing you could do. I mean, a lot of the other ones I totally agree with you on. Vinny Jones, I'm like, I mean, as a big bruiser, that's what he does. That's his gimmick. Fair enough, right? What if it was a baby, Vinny Jones? Exactly.

Just a small-town head wedding, people. which have you ever held a toddler that will happen you will get headbed by a child well that's happened me before 100% um my honorable mention my I don't I didn't have a ton of worse because I guess once I put in that rule of like I can't do it based off of that it was different from the source material um because if I did include that I would have absolutely I didn't care for Alan Cummings night crawler but that absolutely had nothing to do with his performance it was just at the writing. I don't care for tortured Catholic nightcrawler.

I think that's the most boring depiction you can do. Yeah. That was really the only really... I didn't care for Will Smith as Deadshot. Okay. But again, I can't really tell you why. I think it's just because it's like Will Smith. You just see Will Smith and you see Will Smith.

It's like... It's like the... Yeah, it's like you see the rock. It doesn't matter what part. party he's playing he's playing the rock so when will smith is in something he's just playing will smith for best i had a lot of weird oddball ones like i almost went with i loved richard e grant as the alternate loki because i feel like there was like an old school like 1960s marvel energy to that depiction of loki um i like uh josh brolin his cable i think we talked about that previously

yep good call i also really liked michael shannon as zod I just wish it was a better movie But I just like Michael Shannon is another one of those I probably just liked it because I like Michael Shannon But yeah no I feel like we avoided the obvious ones No one said Jeep Swenson as Bain

That was another one of those like That's not Bain But it also wasn't written to be Bain It was just like muscle bound goon And it was the 90s when Bain was prominent I was thinking about that too But then I'm like the problem of that is that guy just played Bain as a big muscle guy,

which is kind of what Bain is. So, like, that's not... That's why I didn't include him. I was like, I can't fault. I can't fault Jeep Swinson for that one. It wasn't his fault. Wasn't his fault. Writing.

Yeah. He did what he was supposed to do pretty well. Yeah. And, like, Schwarzenegger as, as Mr. Freeze, kind of the same deal. Right. I didn't like the writing, but he did it really well. Yeah.

He was committed to it. Not committed enough to Sheave his head, though. I remember reading that, that he was very adamant about not shaving his head. Well, you know, kind of everything, but he still went for it. Yeah. No, there was a lot of enthusiasm in that portrayal. You can see it. Yes.

Yes, he loved it. All right, folks. Well, that was our best and worst castings for superhero movies. A bit of a longer one. The list ones always go long a little bit, but that's not a huge problem. I think we had some fun conversations in it. If you agree or disagree or you feel, like we missed something obvious.

By all means, leave the comment. John, before we plug the letterbox, where you're sitting at right now? 495. 495. Yep. So you'll break 500, probably by the next time we record. Almost certainly, yes.

There you go. John, if you want to see John's letterbox reviews, if you want to see what he thinks of some of these actors' portrayals, John, where can they find you? They can find me at Big John Bowsky, all one word. Where? Oh, on that box. There we go.

Wherever you want. Yeah, just plug it in, pick a rant, put it in Grubhub, see where it turns out. You'll find that there's a restaurant in your neighborhood called Big John Bowsky. And it's delicious. Maybe they have a good cassidia. Dylan, what's going on in the world of Exploity Place? I play more Pickman. and true to form

it was a fucking train wreck so I'm slowly gathering up a big collection of terrible Pikmin episodes that I want to release to people

all on one go so like I said my goal is to release them in September so if you're listening to this in September which I think you might be check Exploddy Plays on YouTube you'll be able to see

all sorts of fun playthroughs of where I am just the absolutely worst It literally couldn't have gone any worse. And I think that's a fun thing to watch. It's no fun if somebody's good at the game. But if somebody's dog shit, that's fun to watch.

And if that's the parameters you're after, you're going to like my Pickman play through. Let me tell you. So there you go. Exploity plays on YouTube. Follow that. There you go. And of course, you can find my other podcast,

which is a stream of consciousness show. called Large Old Cup, also on Spotify, which, hey, if you're listening to this on Spotify, check us out on YouTube. And if you're watching this on YouTube, we have Spotify. So check that out, too. Aside from that, I think we're ready to say goodbye. That's it. This is a good one. Thank you for listening. We appreciate it. Goodbye. I was waiting for John. Okay, that's it. All right, bye. I was waiting for John's little goodbye. There it is.