The Watch - ‘Dune’ Was a Box Office Hit, so Why Doesn’t ‘Dune: Prophecy’ Work? Plus, ‘Say Nothing’ With Sean Fennessey.

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Andy is joined by Sean Fennessey to talk about the first few episodes of ‘Say Nothing’ and how the show works because it lives in a moral gray area (1:00). Then they briefly discuss the finale of ‘Disclaimer’ and why the series might have worked better as a film (31:56) before talking about the first episode of ‘Dune: Prophecy’ and why this prequel series is not working so far (42:43). Host: Andy Greenwald Guest: Sean Fennessey Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Andy Greenwald. I have no official title of the ringer, but I'm joined today by someone who definitely does. He's the head of content. He's the host of the Big Picture podcast.

He's an avid Reddter, particularly on the Wizarding World boards. Sean Fennacy. Welcome back. Are you on Reddit? No. No? No. I'm on record as I like to go to the CR heads website.

I mean, website. Website, yeah. URL. Because I'm also a CR head as are you. Of course. Long time. And it's fun to see. see our friend

lionized, lioness, celebrated. And honestly, it's also fun to see which of us gets shit on more in how we don't match up to him. Oh, yeah. Well, I signed up for that. I feel comfortable with that. I know. And I'm in the chair today, literally, not living up

to Chris's greatness, which I'm very comfortable with, honestly. But I don't look at that site. Those people historically are not fans of mine. Really? I think, because I think I've put myself in these competitive circumstances with Chris over the years where we were drafting against each other. Oh.

You know, so there's like... But you were kind of like the Washington generals in those drafts, right? Like you were set up in a certain way. Absolutely not. Oh, no. And how dare you? No, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

But I appreciate you not knowing. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here with you. It's great to have you. World traveler, Andy Greenwald. I'm happy to sit with you in Los Angeles, our city. I'm not sure where my brain pan is currently, but I am physically back in Los Angeles.

I wish I could say the same for Chris that he decided to do. to linger a few more days. He told me he's not coming back. He said because of the election results in England, he's staying. That's right. Because he's pro the results in England? Exactly.

Yes, that's what he told me. He's just a labor man thrown through. Exactly. He's very pleased. They're not very pleased over there. I have to say, that is one thing I noticed. Yeah, it was fun. It's another great fortnight over there, but it was nice to have Chris there.

You know, we recorded in Spotify UK last week. How'd that go for you? You've been to it. Well, first of all, it was Wednesday, early on Wednesday, November 6. So vibes were awesome To listen to that episode You guys sounded fucking weird Yeah

You sounded like someone had just shot your dog Like moments before recording began Your dog had been assassinated What was amazing was I had also Just found out I had a dog You know what I mean? That was the weird kind of emotional Quite a head trip

Yeah Well I'm glad you guys had some time together over there That's great We built and I did wonder If he lingered Intentionally to avoid talking about Dune prophecy But luckily you've picked up Slack. Happy to fill in, as always. So we're going to talk about a bunch stuff, as always,

when we sit here. We're going to talk about TV and movies and maybe the way they overlap. We're going to hit Dune Prophecy, which premiered last night on the Mac streaming service and Homebox Office, I believe. Yes. We are going to, I'm going to address disclaimer a little bit. I know you haven't watched, and it will not be spoilery, but I do think there's a way to bring it into our conversation that will be relevant. So if people, I'm sure there's like eight deadenders who are like, Greenwald said he was going to talk about the disclaimer finale. I feel like you hear the receipts.

I feel like you hear the footsteps out there, you know? How can I encourage you to not hear the disclaimer? The internet footsteps, you know? Oh, no. Well, first of all, this is a great time to say I am almost two weeks clean of the internet. No blue sky for you? Oh, hell no. You won't do that.

Fuck no. It seems, it's been friendly thus far. I made a shift. I don't need to do this anymore, I think. I am now two weeks without anything. Because you're too rich? Like, why? Yeah.

Also, I'm going to get a big tax cut. So what do I need to hear what the plebs have to say? That's great. No, I just feel like it's time to unplug social media other than I am still on Instagram because I mostly follow ramen shops in Tokyo. Understandable. I'm like, oh, there's scallops in that? Yeah, that's cool.

That's me, but for Aaron Rogers' dissent. into hell during this NFL season. I did say to Chris, when he asked what you and I were going to talk about, I said, Justin Herbert being clutch now. Well, someone had to be in the showdown between the Bengals and the Chargers, which is also a game that took place in hell. A very fun game in hell.

It was a good game. Yeah, you declared, you saw exactly how this jet season was going to go. This is a disaster. It was so obvious to anybody who was paying attention. Yeah. And there's so many people on pods before the season started, they were like, this looks like an 11-win team. Isn't it? We're going to get into our conversation.

I promise. But I do find that as someone who fanatically and dangerously pays attention only to my football team, and then once a week, I listen to Bill and Sal, and I'm like, is there a bigger disconnect in experience in the 21st century than between the experience of a fan of a team and people who are generalists who just have like the forebox on and they're like, oh, the Eagles seem pretty good. I'm like, you don't know what good is, even though they are good. You mean if you're like from New Mexico and you root for the NFL in general? Oh, like remember like our buddy Chuck Klosterman, just like sports. He's literally Rob Loe wearing the hat that says NFL. Well, he's from a Dakota. And so he doesn't have an NFL franchise to root for. It's just that like if you live and die and I just mostly die with every potential mistake,

I never feel good, really, even though my team is 8 and 2. And I know I have nothing to complain about. Yeah, I mean, since we're doing the Bill and Sal review conversation, I've obviously been listening to that show for, I think it's coming up on decades, not just decade. And I remember as a kid, as a kid, I remember in my 20s listening to Bill and hoping he would spend more than three minutes on the Jets on an episode.

I was just thinking this on the way in. Yeah, and now I have him the opposite. I'm like, please do not speak about this franchise. Don't even text me about it anymore. I know. It's terrible. I'm aware. This is how cooked I am.

I missed a bunch of pods last week. You know, just focused on the work. Sure. mate and that's how I talk now. And I was going to fire up Bill and Sal, but then I saw that on Thursday, Bill and House talked about the Eagles' commanders game. So I was excited about that.

And then I forgot that it was Bill and House. So they just talked about the commanders for 17 minutes. Then Bill said, yeah, I don't think the Eagles are good. And that's the first time he said the word Eagles this year? Well, yeah, it's an unsatisfying experience. I am both a generalist and a fan of my team. It's easier to be a generalist. when by week nine of every season, your season no longer matters.

And we are now in the 14th season in which the Jets will not make the playoffs and their ninth consecutive losing NFL season. So feel my pain. But look what you've done with your life now with that, you know, on the back burner. Yeah, I get to be here with you. Speaking about the troubles. Talking about how you've accepted your unpopularity on Reddit. Okay, so we are going to get into some movie stuff at the end. We're going to talk about Doom Prophecy, a little bit about disclaimer.

But I thought we should start, even though Chris ended Thursday's pod talking about this, with something that TV does really, really well. And that is exemplified by Say Nothing, which is all episodes, kind of annoyingly, actually, all episodes dropped on FX, Hulu, Disney Star, if you're in the UK. Just thought I'd, you know, I'm... Interesting. Is that where you fired it up? Yeah, I downloaded it on my Disney Plus, and it said, Star Original.

And I felt so glamorous. It's like I was eating a packet of crisps. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's a... reference to potato chips in London. Cigarettes. I got this off Kazah. I downloaded it.

I pirated it. Good for you. So all episodes were up. This is, again, if you listened to Thursday, you heard Chris's interview with Patrick Radden Keefe, the New Yorker writer who wrote the book, say nothing upon which this is based. He's an executive producer. So Chris was Radin Keefe pilled. He was ready for this. He's read the book.

I have not. I was blown away by how good the show is. And not in a, I am ready to invest thought and podcast capital in adult project, like in something that is thoughtful and cerebral and historical and rich. I just thought this fucking rips. Like it is so, so entertaining. And I feel like you and I had the same experience, where we were both hoping to check out a little bit of it in advance of talking today.

And I think we both binged through over half. Yeah, this has been the least amount of television I think I've watched in my adult life this year. Yes. Recently, I mean, busyness aside, there just hasn't been that thing. Yeah, there's been, obviously, we had a great season of industry, which you guys covered. We had Shogun, which was great. There were a handful of comedies this year that I've enjoyed. But I have been fully movie-pilled this year in a big way.

Plus, as you know, raising a toddler, like, it just like slices right into the time that you spend watching TV shows. So I, that being said, I audio booked this book. Did you? My dad is now Patrick Raddenkeith Pilled and he sent me the Snakehead for my birthday, which was his first book, which I've been reading, which is really, really good. About crime in Chinatown, I believe. Correct. About an epic crime lordess, like an older woman who runs a crime ring. And so I'm a huge fan of his work as well. I've been reading him in the New York for many years. And of course, this story is familiar to me, familiar to my family. I would not consider myself an expert on this period at all,

but I've seen movies about it in the past. Steve McQueen has a movie this fall, and he famously made hunger, which is about ancillary some of the figures here. So I was very interested, but I agree completely with what you just said, which is that in addition to this being, certainly a very important historical story,

like it's an actually sort of fun show, even though it's quite grim and quite intense in terms of what it's portraying, very propulsive. entertaining. Yeah, and I think the balancing act of doing that is particularly noteworthy because, at least so far, and I think you and I both are almost five episodes deep in this out of nine, this show does not seem to be fearful of existing in a moral gray area. Now, all caveats here are necessary that, like, to be an American 50 years on is very, very different than even being

a English person or an Irish person, Northern Irish person, whatever you might say. today. You know, like I was reading reviews of the show in the UK, and they come at it from a different place, as well they should. So I don't mean to be glib when we talk about it, although I might end up being slightly. Just to say that purely as a work of art, I'm really, really, really inspired by the fact that it is deeply alive and fun at times does not take itself too seriously when appropriate, and then is capable of hitting the kind of moral ambiguity and deep, deep emotional anguish necessary. What are the UK reviews like?

Oh, well, it's just like, so there was a review in The Guardian. I don't want to get it wrong. I'm just saying this off the top of my head, but it was basically like, this is extremely well made, and it goes down the list and the actors and the adaptation and even, I think, giving a shout out to the book, but basically saying that it's a tough one. Because it's like wildly sympathetic to terrorists? Well, it basically, yes. It basically is humanizing people, and particularly,

in Dolores Price, who's the main character, played just absolutely brilliantly by Lola Petticoot, and Maxine Peake, who plays the older version of the character. But I believe the writer and the Guardian was like, I grew up in Manchester, and there was a bombing that killed people. And so I was on the, you know, I existed. My experience of this is on the other end of it. In no ways a reviewer saying,

I deny the humanity of the people on the other side of it, but that this is still a very raw thing. And it was interesting. She was basically like, I'm giving this three stars, even though it might be better than that in some ways, like aesthetically, but morally or historically. historically, I struggle with it. That's really a useful way of thinking about art, about complicated subjects, though.

And in its way thoughtful. You know, I think that I would much rather people be candid about that sort of thing, rather than restrain themselves in print, but then, like, grind an axe in a review. And I feel that way about artists, too, because, like, you can't, the sense I get, and maybe this is because of the supreme artistry of those involved, like Josh the Tumor, who adapted it, or Michael Lennox who directed a bunch of it. Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson from Color Forcer executive producers, and they've done great work before steering complicated historical ships. But they didn't come – clearly they didn't come into this with a moral mandate.

They did not come into this saying, we are going to show you people who think they are good, but they are bad. Or people who are bad, but maybe secretly – it's just not that binary. So it allows for the story to be the story. We can see why Dolores make certain choices. we can see her parents behave in certain ways. And most importantly, I think it puts you in the shoes of people who are suffering and then are given opportunities to, at least in their mind, to address that suffering. It's also clear from the beginning and by the really brilliant,

I'm usually not a fan of stories being told in two timelines. I was going to say two time zones, but this is a podcast currently being done in two time zones. You only feel like you're in two time zones right now. But because, you know, because A, it's often a awkward jumble of like which story are you telling or are you kind of spoiling the story that you hope to express by showing us how it ends ahead of time. But what it's doing here, it's so artfully done and interwoven that you just get this sense of creeping doubts, you know, and creeping doubts are really all many of us have in this world these days. Certainly you heard that in my voice and with Chris last week at Spotify. So Spotify UK. But yeah, I intentionally want to go back to saying that the show really.

because it almost shouldn't. There's so many obstacles for it feeling light on its feet, and it seems to just be dancing through those obstacles. Well, I think you can be honest about some of the ways in which a critic for the Guardian

might bump on it, because I'm not sure of glamorize is the right word. But there are choices that are made. Think about the way that the lead actors look. Yeah. They're beautiful.

Dollars in real life, dollars price was quite attractive and striking, had this red hair. But, you know, Lola Petigrew is incredibly striking. and Anthony Boyle as Brendan Hughes is incredibly striking. These are good-looking actors set to really cool Brit rock of the late 60s and early 70s throughout. There are these gracefully and exciting violent set pieces in many of these movies because of the bombings and the shootings that we're going on during this period.

And you've got this kind of classical war between the system and the rebels. You know, it's Star Wars. Like that's really what this is. That's what they're showing us is this kind of. kind of conflict, this kind of like low intensity, uneven conflict between David and Goliath. And so that's like naturally inherently exciting. Are these acts of terrorism or they acts of freedom-bound rebellion? Like, you know, it's been debated forever and will always be debated. I'm an Irishman. I have a complicated relationship with the UK personally. I've talked about it

on podcast before. I'm, you know, I'm second generation, a lot of members of my family have a really nasty relationship with the UK. I'm not Northern Irish. They haven't even more complicated relationship. So, you know, I try to approach this not from the same emotional perspective. I tend to love storytelling like this. Like crime stories set in history is my bag. So I'm very comfortable, you know, being excited by a show like this. But I think it's reasonable for anybody to feel a little bit of emotional discomfort by what you're getting excited by. Anthony Boyle, we got to shout out again. He's the real deal. Like he is incredible in this series. He is so, so good in the series.

And I love the way the show steers into. And he's playing a character known as dark. And then perhaps ironically or not is sort of revealed to be almost not dark enough to see where this is going. Yeah. There's an incredible scene midway through. I won't necessarily spoil the specifics of it. But when he has a collision basically with Jerry Adams and it's a conversation over an argument over the cause or the people. and Anthony Boyle's character says

the cause is the people. And it's just an incredibly stark illustration of something that is still very relevant today, which is just why do we fight the fights that we fight? What motivates us to do it? It's a useful time to be asking that question. It really, really is. And I'm just blown away by the performance.

I did want to ask you, since you mentioned the Steve McQueen film, and also I think that my own experience extremely limited and not in any way culturally suffused with the troubles, but comes from a couple movies over a 30-year period that I've seen. So in many ways, a lot of the show is an education for me, which I appreciate, and I hope it's a fairly accurate one. But I feel like we're about to have a deeper conversation about the ways TV continually makes mistakes that seem, in telling stories that could be movies, or maybe it would be better served by being movies.

Why do you think, at least through halfway, why is, say, nothing succeeding in the sense that the goals of a hunger or a crying game or what's the other one that I'm thinking of with the Liam Neeson movie? No, that's a different era. That's different, yeah. That's Michael Collins. 71 is an example of this. That's the one.

The one is the one that's the one of the Jack O'Connell movie. I mean, Belfast recently is an example of this, you know, Kenneth Brana. And I think actually when you look at like the production design of Belfast, which is in black and white, but it looks very similar. to the way the Belfast is portrayed in this TV series. It's very, very close to those sort of like connected brick tenement apartments. So why do you think the movies that we just listed, the ones that you feel are successful? Like what, how do they accomplish their goals versus what Say Nothing is doing?

Because Say Nothing is, you know, it's longer, obviously. It is more in-depth. It's telling a story over time in two timelines. And I think that it seems to understand the need to build, like just the way all TV, good TV does. It's telling a propulsive story. There's a lot of plot. There's a lot of characters that are given room to develop emotionally over time. The effect is not the effect of a successful film,

which is often to leave you with a strong haymaker punch of a specific emotion. Well, I think most of the best films, I mean, there's lots of other films. There's Bloody Sunday. There's in the name of the father. Jim Sheridan has made movies about this. That's the one I was thinking of. There's so many good movies. The outsider is a famous one.

Most of those films are about one or two characters. and they're about one or two events. And they take place... They extrapolate from those events. Yes. And maybe they take place over the course of 20 or 30 years, but they're mostly focusing tightly on Bobby Sands as one figure where you want to spend all your energy.

You could have spent more time, I think, on The Hunger Strike, you know, this portrayed in McQueen's film. This show has more leads, you know? Yeah. You could make the case there are five leads in this show. In addition to that, it's trying to traverse 30 years and a number of a sequence of events. We haven't even seen the back half of the show,

but I mean, there's a lot of history that transpires between wherever we're like at 72 right now in the fifth episode. You know, the Good Friday Agreement's not until 1998. You know, like, there's a long way to go here in terms of this conflict. It's not as heated as it is in the 70s there. But I'm not quite sure how they're going to close the loop and how much of, you know, Radin-Keefe's story they want to tell. This doesn't feel like, oh, this should have been a movie to me,

but maybe if it was only dollars this story, story, it could have been. Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right. If you want to make a story about one woman, she is an incredible protagonist with a lot of rich inner and outer life to explore, but you would need a very specific point of view, aesthetically, but also a reason to tell that story and, you know, a clear sense of what you wanted to communicate. This is telling us a history, and it is sprawling. But I'm really struck by just these very simple choices that were made, but they appear simple.

I actually think they're not simple because we see them get screwed up again and again and again. And I feel like, again, I don't think this is a spoiler. If you're about to check the show out, you will see this happen. But I was struck by the first episode, which sort of introduces us to Dollars and her sister, Marion, and they're quite young. And they're quite not naive, but they are a lot more innocent in their view of the world and how they see it. And Dollars is planning to go to art school and they're going to be into nonviolent protest. and their parents who have been members of the IRA for quite some time are a little skeptical, let's say, of their naivete.

What struck me about that first episode is I was in on that show. I was in on that version of the show right away. If this was a kitchen sink urban drama about a period about parents and kids who don't understand each other in an era of tumultuous change, which I think Belfast was some of that. Sort of that. It's through the eyes of a very... young boy. But yeah, Saturday night and Sunday morning, but for the troubles. Exactly. And if

it was that, I was like, they're doing this really well. And I already feel a place, a sensibility, an aesthetic, a point of view, and I'm centered in dollars and where she is. I feel like a lot of historical shows begin at the end and work backwards in the sense of like, where are we, where are we, what's the thing we're excited about showing? And it might be a bombing in this case, or it might be a kidnapping. This show seemed equally interesting. in the early stuff, as it is, I presume, in the later stuff. And that's TV logic. That's not history logic.

That's not magazine profile logic necessarily. That's TV logic. And it was exciting to see that on display. The one thing that happens, though, before we see that, is we do get this sudden and almost like disambiguated, a little moment where we see a kidnapping transpire. We see a family living in an apartment complex. And the mother is a mother of 10 children. She sends off her 16-year-old daughter out to go get some groceries and come back.

The chippy. That's right. The chippy. You know all the lingo now. So that's a shop that sells fish and chips. And by chips, to be clear, I mean like French fries. What? Yeah, yeah. They're really good. Is that what they call it? It's bizarre. They are crazy. They are crazy. The kidnapping is incredibly scary and violent. And we come to learn that these incredibly violent and scary kidnappers are the heroes of our show. Yes. And that is what's kind of meant to like, upset us. Flummox our expectations of what it is that we're watching. And it's a really good choice. I usually hate when new TV shows are like, I'm going to show you a little five-minute snatch of

something that happens in history, but it's not actually our main story, but we'll come back to it. That's such a tired thing. It's so cliched and it's done to death. And, but it's not just that it's done to death. It's rarely done with the specific purpose that this one is done, which isn't to say it's just like, well, we want to communicate in the first five minutes that this is going to be a propulsive, exciting, even violent story, and that's hard to do when we're at the dinner table with the two 16-year-old sisters, or 16 and 17, whatever the case may be. It's what you just mentioned. We're introduced to one of the story's most propulsive inflection points, but it is just suffused in not just ambiguity. It's deeply disturbing. It's upsetting. It's scary. This is not

anyone's finest moment. And as the story unfolds, it is, you know, I think it's parceled out really well in terms of when we catch up to it and then how we move forward from it. But it's telling you something else. And I think that that is,

it's rarely, you rarely see the double act. Often the, like, here's the exciting thing, six years earlier. Right. Because you're afraid of how boring your story might be or you're afraid of your audience having to have their hands held. It's not that.

This is purpose of intent. Well, you know, sorry, statement of intent that like, this is not going to be clear cut. This is not going to be easy. Maybe you can underline this for me, but the way that I always read this choice, and this happens on network shows, on streamers, on any kind of TV show. This is such a common strategy for miniseries, for ongoing shows. It obviously sets up what you're describing.

Two, it sets up this idea of sort of like a mystery that needs to be solved. When will we go back to that moment that we saw so that it keeps you on the line? But three, and I think this is more critical, is there's so much fear about people turning shows off in the first five minutes. Oh my God. So much fear. And it's the same. We have it with podcasts here at Spotify. We have it with all culture consumption, this like, how do I hold your attention?

How can I hold you for more than 30 seconds? The way to do it is to make something in a drama series like this about history said in the 1970s in a country you've probably never been to. Make it intense and scary. Yep. Get people excited. And usually it sucks. Yep. And for whatever reason in this case, it does not.

Yeah. I mean, I think it does come down to that. I mean, the, as you know this as well as I do, the dominant emotion inside the executive rooms and development offices in this town is fear. And a lot of the fear comes from how do we even begin to have an audience? Everything is just slipping through everyone's fingers. There's too much of it. Nothing is sticky. Nothing breaks through.

And, you know, to FX's credit, like, they really, really are just in the pocket. being like, we're just going to make good stuff, and it's going to, it's going to get figured out. And yes, are they partly able to do that due to the largesse of the Walt Disney Company at this point? Probably. But this is an extreme example of it. There is no one famous in the show to Americanize unless you're just like a dedicated Rory Keneerhead. Which I am. Which we both are.

The single person who is a fan of the film, Men, written and directed by Alex Garland, yes. I'm the lone man who is a fan of men. It's ironic, really, considering the title. I'm a fan of his sweater game in the show. Incredible. I described him, I was trying to remember his name while I was watching the show with my wife,

and I was like, he played the prime minister in the first episode of Black Mirror. Yeah, the pig fucking episode. Yeah. That was the best way I knew how to describe him to my wife. I think to his, I guess,

a good natured spirit, like that will be his obituary. You know? He's a healthy man. He's going to do great work. I mean, in England, he's famous. And he's Tanner in all the Daniel Craig Bond films.

Like, he's, well-known character actor. Yes, but it, you know, it's the Ned Beatty effect. Yes. You know, in the sense that like, you know, you have a, you have a surprising sexual encounter where the word pig is mentioned. See, for me as a Chayefsky loyalist, they'll always be networks, Ned Beatty, not deliverance as

Ned Beatty. Who are you talking to? Me too. I'm just speaking for the common man now. I'm reading the cultural winds here, Sean. Right. That's just the pig fucking is everywhere. We're in a deliverance era, not a network era.

God damn. Are we? Are we sure? Well, let's keep an eye on that. Last thing, will you tell me, was this just the being on an 11-and-a-half-hour flight when I was watching this show, or did you have this experience too, where I actually had to check if the characters were being played by older actors or not, because I thought that the performances and the look were uncanny, that I thought it was possible. I think they were well-cast.

I think particularly Tom Vaughn Lawler and Anthony Boyle, who both played, Brendan Hughes are very close. That looks like Brendan Hughes 20 years later. It's right. It's not just that it looks like Brendan Hughes. It looks like the emotional successor of the character we're seeing. Because he does not have the sparkle anymore. He looks beaten down. He looks softer. He looks like he's he looks like he's changed his mind in a profound way. I don't mean that politically because I don't even fully know what's going on with him. But that... Von Lawler is also giving a great performance just essentially into camera while he's being interviewed. about his time in the IRA.

Do you think, does this mean that now in your personal rolodex, Tom von Lawler will be remembered for this and not for his role as Ebony Maugh in Avengers Infinity War and Avengers Endgame? This is not a joke at all. I am a huge fan of his performance as Ebony Ma. I shouted it out many times in 20. I swear to God, you can ask Bobby Wagner, my producer.

I would constantly reference how amusing I found Ebony Maugh in the Infinity War Endgame. Do you think he overshadowed Carrie Coon as Proxima Midnight? I mean, no one could, but he had more to do. He's got this great opening sequence in Endgame, opposite Ironman and Dr. Strange, yeah. That's Ebony Ma. Yeah, Ebony Ma.

He's like the sort of the wizard, the first in command amongst Thanos's children. Yeah. Doesn't work out great for him. No, he takes a few Ls. He actually takes multiple Ls over time, one with Spider-Man on the ship, and then the reanimated new version of him in Endgame.

Remember when the Marvel movies were kind of interesting? Yeah, and I'm actually having to relive some of them because my kids are now really into the Tom Holland Spider-Man. And I was like, wait, wait. This is so, you'll love this. I was like, okay, but wait for me to watch the third one. Because if you haven't watched the Toby McWire and Andrew Garfield movies, you might be a little bit lost. And also Dr. Strange, and they were like, okay, Dad.

And then it's not just that they watched it while I was away in London this last time. They watched it the night I left when I was on the plane. My own tells you a lot, doesn't it? Yeah. So they didn't, but they didn't watch any of that other stuff? No. No, they were like, it's sad. It was like, it's really sad.

But then my older daughter was like, it's really sad. But the fourth one's coming out, June 25th, 2026. And I was like, so the release dates are for you, not just for shareholders? Or for discussion on this podcast. I thank God. Wait until she finds out I have a podcast. She will not care. My take on those three Spider-Man movies is they're not good, but I like them.

Well, this was a painful realization for me. Maybe you heard me say this, that like, I thought they were good. and I think maybe I was wrong. They look really bad at home. They look bad at home, but also I had completely forgotten how afraid of its own tale homecoming was, that it was just like, let's front load this as an Avengers movie as much as possible until we even get to the movie

that presumably they wanted to make or that they had marketed internally as like Ferris Bueller's Day Off. There is so much time, including the introduction of Tyne Daily as the director of damage control. I forgot about that. It's tough. They do have Marissa Tomei. Yeah, which, and she's the real...

I actually think this is a kind of classy thing. My daughter's tuned in for Zendaya, but came out being like, we love Aunt May. Oh, wow. Yeah. Interesting. Got to show him my cousin Vinnie. I think they could handle that.

Okay, yeah, sure. Yeah. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, and misses. predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner.

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Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. So anyway, boy, that was a great, that was a great pivot. I mean, Ebony Ma brings us together. Ebony Ma, and he tried to bring the stones together. I mean, in some ways he did. He won in the first film. He did, and then... Yeah, he got snapped.

Yeah, it's tough. Sometimes I wish I could get snapped. Do you know? I do sometimes. Was one of those times November 5th? You're like, let's give me five years? No. Give me five years in the dust realm?

It's always when I'm in the midst of an 18-minute screaming session. from my toddler, or she's just like, I will not stop. And I'm like, if I could just snap the next 18 minutes, I would do it. I would do it. I will, and I'm sorry to do this, but I will say, like, as a vision of your future, as the Tom Vaughn Lawler to your Brent Anthony Boyle, I will say that the, I refuse to do at screaming sessions are actually quaint and much missed compared to, don't say this, compared to, yesterday, wait, yesterday, I, yesterday, I, I,

was with my daughters and I just got back on late, late, late Saturday. And I was like, let's cross the street. And they were like, let's go to the traffic light. They're not New Yorkers anymore. And I was like, let's just cross here. It's fine. And so I started to like edge out into the street.

And they were really mad at me about doing that. Okay. And my older daughter said, don't, dad, don't do that. And I was like, come on. It's open. And she said, don't do that. And I said, come on. And she said, don't do that, dad.

Go back to London. No one missed you. Oh, yeah, I know I've got a lot of that coming my way. That was worse. That's bad. Guess what I did? Put my ass back on the sidewalk. I was like, thank you for teaching me proper street crossing etiquette.

As someone who has been ticketed for jaywalking in Burbank. You have. I understand where she's coming from. Well, you're a scofflaw. I think we all know that. This was your own lowercase T troubles. R-C-R-heads. You and Burbank.

All right. So anyway, we love say nothing. I'm sure Chris. cover it more. I think it's a guarantee going to be on my top 10 at this point. I'm really, I repeat myself. I'm so thrilled about how well made it is, but I'm also so thrilled about how entertaining it is. Agreed. Okay, so pivot point here. I wanted to talk about a bunch of other things, but particularly, I do think it's relevant to that question I was asking you about what to say nothing do versus what movies about the troubles do. I wanted to briefly talk about disclaimer,

which is an insane thing. Like, its existence is totally crazy. Alfonso Quaron, a great filmmaker, a much, much lionized and celebrated filmmaker, has not made a film since Roma. Is that correct? I believe so, yes. And that was 2018? 2018. Instead, he made his seven-episode version of Big Little Lies. And he made it with Chivo Lubeski. It looks beautiful. And Bruno Del Benel.

Yes. Oh, he has two of the best cinematographers working. some of the best actors alive, especially Cape Blanchett. And it's really awful, like in some pretty surprising ways. It looks beautiful. There's no questioning. I'm not coming in here being like, guess what? I'm just going to pull Kate Blanchett's card. Everybody's really great. But it is a testament to, like, actors can elevate,

and then actors can also just truly, truly believe in something that might not be worth their time. I've now seen the whole series. I won't spoil it. I will say that after watching the finessexie, I now understand why Kate Blanchett did the project. She delivers a monologue in this that I'm like, oh, yeah, she is, she's the goat. But without spoiling it, I think anybody who's engaged with the show understands that there was some sort of twist coming, there was some sort of unreliable business. And that is absolutely the case in the seventh episode.

I don't mind you spoiling it. I don't know if you're concerned to spoil it for the audience. I don't want to spoil it for the audience, because I don't know if they care. And maybe Chris and I will spoil it, spoil the shit out of it on Thursday. Just to say that for me, this twist was not. worth it and was a little bit, well, I won't get too far into it. I'll just say that having watched it all and then read some interviews and Quarone is like, the twist is why I made this. It was all in the service of what happens in Seven because he doesn't use these words. I'm paraphrasing, but

basically he's just like, what was important was that you were tricked because you believed something for a long time and then it was proved not to be true. And so it forces you to question your own assumptions. And what this reminded me of, because okay, sure, what I wanted to say to you is that doesn't work on television. I don't think you can build a seven-hour story on the revelation of a trick or of a surprise. You can't Kaiser Soze on TV. Even if you do it in a limited series, I think you need to make seven hours of caring about verbal kin. And movies, and I do not mean this to diminish the great art of cinema, of which I'm increasingly a bigger, bigger believer after all this TV I've been watching this year.

Movies, I think, because they are so focused, can do that in a way. You can make a two-hour experience that is about pulling something out of you like a jengatile and feeling that feeling of collapse as you walk out. Yeah, it's novel versus short story. It is novel. Oh, Henry, you feel satisfied at the end of 28 pages. But yes, but even more, I'm trying to, I wish. I wish I had come prepared with more examples of movies that have tumbled me.

I got you. I got you. And I feel like you've got this. I got you. This is so clear to me in this exact moment because I've been thinking about four films that are in the culture right now. Four films. Four theatrically released movies. My God, all I needed was one.

All four films have something that could be called a kind of revelation in the third act. Okay. I'm not sure if the twist is quote unquote as big as in disclaimer because I have not seen disclaimer. The fact that I can't, like I could not get through the second episode. I was so stunned by how bad I thought it was. You started. I tried it. I couldn't get into it. And I love Quaron. I'm a huge fan of Quorum.

And, but these four films that I would describe as what most prestige television is or is trying to be are high middle brow. Okay. There are mainstream entertainments that aspire to some bigger ideas. The four movies are Concliffe. Right. Can't wait to see it. Juror number two. Clint Eastwood's new film.

We Live in Time. Are you familiar with this movie? This is the Andrew Garfield movie. Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh. And the horse. And the golden horse. Yes, the golden horse. The horse does not figure into the twist in any way, I promise.

And Heretic, the new Hugh Grant horror thriller. All of these are playing now, right? Is the Andrew Garfield movie out? They're all open now. They're all doing surprisingly okay business, moderate to good business for mainstream movies with, like, stars, but not mega stars. You know, like where he finds everybody loves where he finds, but nobody's rushing out to the theater just for him. Likewise for Nicholas Holt, likewise for Andrew Garfield,

likewise for Hugh Grant. All this, you know, with all those people have in common. Britishmen? They also spend a lot of time in London. They do. Like me.

Yeah. Although these are all American productions as far as I know. Well, so am I. As far as I know. That's a good point. All four of these movies have this thing that you're describing.

All four of them are, to my mind, deeply entertaining. None of them are the best movie of the year. In fact, None of them I would even describe as great or excellent. But they're good. They're all good.

And that's not nothing. It's not nothing. And for what I do, Mana from Heaven. That's incredible to get movies like this. Like I haven't had time to talk about we live in time because Amanda's been on leave and I really want to talk to her about that movie. You know, she knows that I have an Andrew Garfield fetish and a Florence Pew fetish. And, you know, I'm a bit of a sap when it comes to stories like this.

So like I really want to talk to her about that movie. But I'm going to wait until she comes back. Nevertheless, this is perfect for. for the movie container, the one hour and 49 minute container. And you can feel satisfied and not duped. Like Heretic, for example, is a movie I really liked, which is about religion and about what is and isn't the same amongst religions around the world and how we confront some of those ideas.

I thought the third act kind of stumbled a bit. It didn't really have that ending, that conclusion that I was excited about. But I didn't feel bad about having spent two hours at an AMC watching the movie. It's worth a shot. It was worth it. If I had invested nine hours in the her. or a tick TV show, I would have been pissed. So I think that's what you're getting at is like,

you and Chris have all this tonnage to work through, and it's so often unsatisfying. Well, I think there's two points there. One is that is 1,000% the case. It is an investment versus return on investment conversation. And especially now that we live in a world where there's just fewer and fewer, and the industry claims it's going to reverse this. We have some examples of it, but fewer and fewer ongoing shows,

where just the labor is spread out over time, amortized, if you will, and then also the stories are built a certain way to deliver whatever their delivery systems for in consistent amounts at consistent times. That is one thing. I think the deeper question on this point that I think might not be relevant because we're going to move on from disclaimer as a society, but also, but Apple doesn't care. It's just like, they just wrote them a check and they made the show and it exists.

He insists that needed to be a television show. And I strongly disagree with that. But specifically, the fact that he was still using the movie logic, which is to say where this is going is worth whatever it takes to get there because of what I want to leave you with. Very, very few TV shows and certainly very few successful ones begin with a sense of what they want to leave the audience with because the goal, that might be years away.

And in the case of the very best shows, they might not have introduced the key character or the key romance yet. It might be years away from even hiring that person or having that idea or writing that scene you didn't expect. This is why I respond to the troubles, by the way, because I know it's going to end. That's really true in 1998. Well, maybe. Thanks for the spoiler.

Not necessarily. It's just that disclaimer was not only not interested in doing any of the work of giving us a reason to care about these miserable people, these humorless, humorless fucking people for six of the seven hours. It's like he didn't even understand the question. Do you know what I mean? And there's a reason why the next movie he makes will likely not be seven hours. I hope not. I mean, I mean, it's like it doesn't merit that. You need to invest in the storytelling mechanism of the box that you're putting your work into. All of this is to say, people seem more and more confused about what this box, what these two boxes are. I would,

want to make a joke about the pain box, since we're about to talk about the Dune. This seems inextricable from the Dune Prophecy conversation. That's basically where we're headed here. Look at you. You've really wended quite a beautiful road for us. I'm exhausted, honestly. But, yeah, this is an example of, once again, I think Hollywood or the executive class or the whoever, just kind of misunderstanding what it is they have and what to do with it.

Do you want to start from that, like, broad? place, or should we get into the specifics of the show first and build up from there? Disclaimer is very similar to me to a movie that I'm talking about on the big picture this week, which is Red One. That might sound crazy that I would think that they're similar, but they are similar, which is that they are big swings from a lot of high-powered people from major streaming service slash tech companies that are original. Yes, they're original. And Disclaimer was a novel, but it's an original TV and film property.

It's not based on anything beyond the book that they're adapting. Red One is certainly based on the mythology of Santa Claus, but it's an original story. And it's something that I call for all the time on the show that I'm basically a brat about. And then stuff comes along. And I'm like, this stinks. I would much rather watch the new Marvel movie than Red One. I honestly would. And just like I probably would enjoy whatever is happening on the Walking Dead Spinoff right now than I would, disclaimer.

Don't drag Kai into this conversation. I'm very excited for her and her journey through that world. So the truth is, is like there's no. one size fits all. And Dune Prophecy maybe is an example of that. That's an example of a brand extension from pre-existing property that could be good, could not be good.

It's a little hard to tell. We just saw the premiere last night. I didn't love it. I really wish I liked it a lot more because I love the Dune films. Well, let's say one thing at the top. I'm in a very fair-minded, good-faith way, I think it's very, very possible for all

of us to have things where we like both the wheat and the chaff. The milk and the cream. Like, for a long time until relatively recently, I was like, I actually like getting in the weeds with this Marvel stuff because I love Marvel Comics when I was a kid. So I am the target audience for their expansion into TV or more obscure characters because I love that shit. And I love sitting here being like, actually, Chris, Mephisto is the embodiment of a devil,

not the canonical Judeo-Christian devil or whatever. the last three years has kind of tested that, and now I think I'm kind of less interested. Now, with something like the DC universe or especially Dune, it's been totally fine for me because let's just talk about Dune. I have not read the book,

although I think I probably should at some point. I think it's kind of interesting. I didn't mean to be dismissive. I am kind of interested in the thought of reading the book. I wonder if your kids are going to get into it too. That has been discussed because it also Zendaya is in the movies. And that does seem to be the secret sauce for interest. I have not told them about euphoria

or the weird movie with John David Washington. Malcolm and Marie, another movie of which I am the lone fan. Are you really? I am, yeah, I'm a defender, yeah. God, what a... I love the island you've carved out of the ocean for yourself. I'm looking to the bright side of cinema. That's beautiful.

Dune is... I love those movies, too. And I love them because they are a very, very over-the-top celebration of pulse-pounding, eardrum-knocking, grandiose insanity. The one movies are made for. Yes. And the thing about Villeneuve that is pretty impressive,

especially for this era, is he does seem to be able to, despite being a dyed-in-the-wool mega-geek about this stuff, he seems to understand the wheat chaff divide and be like, I'm just going to call the very, very, very best and noisious bits of this and deliver it to you in the most over-the-top way possible, and I defy you to deny it, especially if you were in a nice theater and it's just being shouted at you.

No, it's Cecil B. DeMille. It's Steven Spielberg. These are the templates. It is pure spectacle and awe and the highest level craft. And there is no point in my experience of these two recent Dune movies where I was like,

what was happening 10,000 years before this? Like, that's cool. They genetically engineered a Messiah, but who thought of that? You know what I mean? Like, there was no moment where I had the slightest drip of curiosity about what happened to the thinking machines. Turns out it was Emily Watson. It was a no is Jessica Barden.

It was Jessica Barden. That's true. I will always have a spot for. I love her too. It's end of the fucking world. She's great. She's always incredibly entertaining. But even watching that show, I was like, why is there not more Jessica Barden in this show?

Yes. Why am I in this other future? It's the same thing as Say Nothing, where I'm like, so we're going. I'm like, so we're going to the past to go to the future, but that we're still in the past? But also the... Yeah, we're still so far away from when the story got interesting. We're even to the point, like, the show is hamstrung before it begins, because all the characters are like, this plan is going to be sick in 10 millennia.

Well, the other thing, too, is just that we know. Yeah. Like, we just saw it. Guess what? They did it. We did it. Like, it works out. Well, does it? TBD.

But part three is coming soon. I mean, look, this is obviously something that Game of Thrones. is dealing with now as well. All these franchises are dealing. They're all sort of like we have to go back as opposed to forward. And Star Wars seems a bit trapped by what era of story it should be telling. I don't have the answers. This is literally not my line of work.

I'm just a person who watches them and thinks about them. But I don't really care for 10,000 years in the past. That's not something I'm ever going to get invested in. I don't care about the origins of the Jedi, for example. I just don't care. No, and what's interesting about this is I've been, you know, if one puts one screenwriter hat on, and in any good writing room experience

or working with development executives or working with showrunners, the best advice you always get is write the scene that's the most important scene. If you've written three scenes that get you to the good scene, cut those scenes. Those were practice. You don't need to see the player, you know,

getting his ankle, taped and walking down the tunnel, show the highlights of the game. For any number of reasons. Yes. The rules of storytelling or audience engagement or grabbing people early. In which ways did Aaron Rogers fail to move the ball down field? Show us those ways he failed. Well, that would be a seven-hour Apple TV series.

That's not a film. It actually is coming to Netflix. There is an Aaron Rogers documentary series coming to Netflix in December. I am not. They did not ask me to participate. Could you, are you going to do a, are you going to moamy it? Are there going to be a lot of like Netflix mommies for you in that? Yeah. They're all going to be like my face when I'm the worst person in the world and just images from that show.

I can't wait. But this is the advice that all good screenwriters learn from peers, mentors, whatever, and it's just great practice. And it's, you know, probably for writing anything. And yet, all of these same high-level screenwriters are now being employed in an industry where the market trends are encouraging them to do very much the opposite. Slow down. Tell us how they got to the interest. place. Try to find something interesting along the way. Even though if it had been really interesting, Frank fucking Herbert probably would have written about it. Like, he started it in a certain place too, probably for a reason. I mean, that's the other thing too, is that this is based on novels that were written by his son after Frank Herbert passed away. So this is a real mega brand extension. This isn't, you know, Dune Prophecy, which I believe was written by Frank Herbert, is thought, not

Dune Prophecy's used to me, Dune Messiah. Yes, that was a Frank Herbert. That's a Frank Herbert book. meant to be the next Villeneuve adaptation. So he's getting the prime rib, you know? Yeah, these are the off cuts. This is the skirt steak, you know? Like, it's cool. It's pretty cool. There's the production design for a TV show is mind-blowing on this. Except, Sean, it's not the skirt steak, because what's great about skirt steak is when you have, like, a humble bistro chef who's like, I can make this unloved cut delicious by having fun with it and having some humility.

You got to dress it, all kinds of new spices. You do not prepare it. Well, hey. You do not prepare it the same way. you would prime rib or fillet or whatever and then try to serve it to me in the same restaurant and charge me the same amount and tell me it's true so it's a tough one i brought up this wheat chaff thing basically to be as generous as i could and to say that there are clearly spice heads out there who are like give me all of the dune content i have long wondered about the

foundation of the benedgeserate sisterhood and their millennia long quest to influence the royal line. Well, there was a, when I first started reading about this, and this show has had kind of a tortured production history, which I do want to talk about. Multiple show runners over time, and they've had to change people out. But there was, when I first heard about it, I was like, oh, they're going to like yossify the Benajezer. Like, this is going to be the girl power Dune show. Yes. And it is, but it's still incredibly stayed. And there's a religiosity that is being captured here that is like, kind of boring. It is unfunny. It is unfunny. It is unsexy. And Dune, by the way, at least the way we've seen in the movies, is not particularly any of those things.

But it is ripe fodder for people who are kind of nuts. Like, both David Lynch and Denevo and have gone full tilt on this property. Well, there's one other thing that is worth mentioning to, which is, you know, De Nivellinov kicked up a little bit of a storm earlier this year when he was like, I don't care about dialogue. A-Storm? A-O. When he's like, I'm not interested in dialogue. You get to make a spice joke?

Okay. No, yours was good. Yeah, that's all right. the thing is is that dialogue's important on TV it's way more important on TV than is in movies thank you for making this point yeah he I mean to listen to him talk

I think it was on fresh air where he was just like talking about the worm unit and like sending it which no no AO for that but it's all a worm unit isn't it but then it was just like also that you know in order to film all the desert dialogue scenes in natural light they just kept to having to reset up

so that the sun was like, that's fucking crazy. That's crazy. That is, there's a religiosity to that. But it is spectacle. And that is what movies, I'm not going to say should be, but they can be. Well, it's meant to be seen in IMAX, too, as opposed to at home. And, and, yes, and TV is the opposite of that. And, you know, the gentless version of this is to say is they're trying to pass off the skirt steak as the prime rib.

It's also hard to engage with this, you know, as you said, it's a very, very, it's not just that it's a tortured backstory because show me any project in television these days that isn't slightly tortured. But the mandate to create this show, to have a companion show to take advantage of the procurement of the Dune IP stretches back over eight years, I believe. The idea of this being a show that was going to air that. then on the Max network and then now on HBO, was announced in 2019. It was going to be called Dune the Sisterhood. It was announced that it would be about the Benny Jesuit, and it would be based on this book.

Originally, Villeneuve was going to direct the show, and John Spates was going to write it, and it was going to be much more closely entwined with their work on the movies. That's how these things always start. But then, you know what they got busy doing? Making the movies. So then it just started to get a little,

bit, the slow drip drip of dilution. Diane Ademuja, who's a very talented writer and producer, was brought on and she's a big Dune, true believer. Her version of the show was going to be made with Johan Rank, who made Chernobyl. And she was removed from the project. He fell off of the project. It was delayed by the strike. They were chasing tax breaks around the world, filming in different places.

Cast changed, story changed, and we end up with this show. that is six episodes. I mean, let's just talk about that, like the state of contemporary high-budget TV, which is eight years of development for a six episode first season that probably cost quite a bit. And the best, I think you could say about it

is that it's fine. It's fine. Yeah, I've seen one episode. So I will withhold like my... I'm not... I hate this. I'm not watching it. I didn't feel that way. I just think it felt familiar but lesser. And that's not really not where you want to be

coming on the heel. of one of the great box office successes of the year. Essentially, you're trying to capitalize on this new franchise and whether it's the characters that they've chosen or the strands of storytelling that they're looking for. Like, there is a character in this series, the sort of the Iraqis, the man who returns from Iraqis. Desmond Hart, played by Travis Fimel,

who is on the Raised by Wolves, and he's on Vikings, I think. Yes. And he has a very terrifying demonic energy that is well deployed in this movie or in the show. Yeah. And he has a moment near the end of the series where I guess we've been waiting the whole episode for this to happen

to see that this is what this show can be. Yes. Which I get, and that's something that happens in a lot of modern television, which is sort of like, that's the Taylor Sheridan brand. It's sort of like 39 minutes of nothing and then five minutes of, whoa,

this is crazy, tune in next week. So they got me in that respect. I'm curious where it's going, but I was hoping for something a little tighter because I think those two films that Villeneuve made are really, really, really good. Yeah, and propulsive. And they draw you in regardless of what you know or what you care about.

This is the opposite. This is, if half of modern television begins with a crazy scene and then three months earlier, five months, five years earlier, this is the other thing that TV does now, which begins with a 10 to 12 minute expositional monologue about the foundations of the universe and all of the interesting things that have already have. and how what you're about to see relates to interesting things that might happen in the future. But don't worry, we're just going to park here for a while. That was a lot of VO to open the show. It was so much VO.

And especially after a disclaimer, I'm a little Vioed out. Do you think Travis Fimel as Desmond Hart, who has returned from Iraqis, do you think they showed him Cosmo Jarvis and Shogun, or they kept that performance away from him? He's not quite as chaotic as Cosmo Jarvis. I need more of that chaos. I think the other thing that's challenging to me, and maybe this is just me, And is that, so you're saying that this is 10,000 years before the events of Dune. Not like House of Dragon is 100 some years, 170 years, I guess, before Game of Thrones.

Even with that, I think I've said on this podcast, I'm like, so you're telling me in 170 years, nothing happened technologically or culturally to differentiate these eras. It was just still these same miserable people in rooms being like, we got to get the throne. But now you're asking me to believe that for 10,000. years dancing across the galaxy, everybody just waited. All the technology is the same. All the family names are the same.

It's a contradiction for them, though, because if they change the look and feel of the world too much, then it's no longer doomed. Right. So you're trapped by these things. You're just trapped by the mandate, you know? And so, oh, that character's last name is Atreides. That's cool.

Yeah. I mean, you've got to just take into consideration, too. Do you think, would you be interested in talking to a version of me from 10,000 years ago who's like last name is Grunval? and just sitting on a mountain in Slovakia. Is that where your people are from? Some of them. Interesting.

I don't like to give too much away about myself in this focus. Actually, my great-grandfather grew up in Manchester. I thought you were going to say he went to England once. He went to England once. No, grew up in Manchester. In Las Slovakia? Not on a donkey? Just unrelated.

You know, three generations back is too many to apply for dual citizenship. Just something that you might Google when you're struggling with jet lag. You know what the pain of my life is? is that my grandfather is born in Switzerland. And so a peaceful man. A Swiss passport is incredibly powerful, and it extends one generation. And my mother never applied.

And now I'm no longer able to acquire a Swiss passport. Why did she never? I honestly don't know. I have no idea. But that would have been a very nice piece of hardware to have at this particular time in history. Yeah, but you would have applied for it and they would be like, ah, but VC here,

you were arrested for jaywalking? That does not fly in Geneva, buddy. Are they German in Switzerland? Part of Switzerland, they're German. I guess so. Part of it they're French. Part of it. They're Italian.

They're everything. They certainly are everything. The best of all three worlds. The thing about this show versus the movie that is important to remember is that the movies feature Timothy Shalameh and Zendaya. Keep going. Rebecca Ferguson and Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa and on and on. It is the stariest.

Javier Bardem. It is the best collection of exciting actors in a big IP franchise. What's his name? Arguably ever. The bike ride. Austin Butler, Estelle in Scarsgard, Dave Batista. Florence Pew,

who a moment ago you said you were obsessed with. Yes, now look. Leia Seidu, like, all the way to Charlotte Rampling. Like, it is a ludicrous collection of both highly gifted Academy Award-winning actors and also the hottest stars in Hollywood. I'm not sure if it's ever been done before. And so here's what we're going to do with this TV show.

None of those people are here. And in fact, none of them are even close to being as good as the actors from the films. It's tough. You're behind the eight ball. It's a very challenging thing. No disrespect to Emily Watson, who I've always liked. It's tough to talk about because a lot of people work really hard on this.

I mean, that's true of all TV shows, but everyone is trying to do the best version of something. But this is an incredibly, incredibly narrow, very small needle two thread to get this right. I wonder if there's also just, and I don't, I didn't need to put you on the spot that you don't need to have an opinion about this. but like, I guess it's generally considered now that the penguin, which just ended and gave this slot to Dune Prophecy, is the best case scenario for cinematic brand extension. I'm working my way through that show almost because I feel like I have been bullied by people who quite like it and are like, you should do it, you should watch it.

I'm not one of those people. Okay. I've not bullied. I know you guys checked out. I think I checked out for the same reason that I just ultimately can't check into this. Because I guess I'm just trying to be fair. minded and say that, the ceiling is low for me on some of the like the sideways brand extensions. Like this is happening at the same time as the more interesting movie or we're going to flesh out

something. We're going to pick up this scrap that was left on the table or we're going to fill in a 10,000 year gap or whatever the case may be. The ceiling of those just feel so low from the start that it's tough to circle back to your other point about an investment. That's a tough investment of time for me. These episodes are long. There are a lot of characters. it is not fleet of foot. And then it also does things that, like, I just can't believe we're still doing in sci-fi in 2024, which is a disco nightclub scene

where people drink mysterious concoctions and do space drugs. Like, we're still doing this, 25 years after Matrix revolutions or whatever the fuck it was. I mean, 50 years after the canteena. Yes. Yeah, but the canteen had fun Muppets. Sure. Yeah.

That's different. But it's just that it's iterative. Well, yeah, but also, like, stop wearing tunics and going to raves. Like, it always looks dumb. Did you see the Matrix Resurrections, the fourth film in the series? I think if you were to log into Max, it would say, continue watching, question mark. I think I made it halfway through it. I like it.

What do you like about it? Well, it was a little self-knowing, I thought that I appreciated. It absolutely is. I like that. It is perhaps too self-aware, but it is also, like, a pure manifestation of Lana Wachowski's id from all the time that had passed from the third film to the fourth film. Like everything in that movie with Neo as the stand-in is sort of like, here's what identity really is in this world.

Oh, yeah. Which I really liked. I thought that was kind of insightful. And you don't usually see that level of thinking in IP adaptation 20 years later. Also, because you often don't let the creators keep going and say like, this was meaningful to me then. I am only one person and I am continued to have thoughts and process them,

as opposed to most IP storytelling, in which the baton has been picked up by fanboys, who were like, let me chase a feeling I had when I was eight. Yeah, this isn't quite that, but Gladiator 2 comes out on Friday. Oh, yeah. And it is not written by the people who wrote the first film. Nor is it written by Nick Cave, who wrote the original sequel draft. It is certainly not.

That would have been an incredibly audacious adaptation. I've never expected something like that to come out of Gladiator 2, but Gladiator 2 feels like chasing a feeling, as opposed to creating something new or part of some sort of lineage of one creator's point of view. But so, not to split too many hairs here, but like, I do think that Top Gun Maverick

raised chasing a feeling to something close to art. Like, how do you differentiate that? Like, is it just that it's incredibly hard to do? Or did Top Gun Maverick have a specific special sauce or balancing act between reverence and recreation? Yeah, that's a good question. I'm glad you're bringing it up

because we're going to talk about legacy sequels on the big picture later this week about Gladier's 2, so I can kind of prime my mind for that. And I don't know how much it is related to TV or not, but Top Gun 2 has two things. One, it is obviously leveraging our enormous emotional connection to Tom Cruise.

Even if you hate him, you probably have some history with him, but most people don't hate him. Most people love his movies. And so it's plying that very effectively. The way that Maverick is portrayed in that movie really gets you on board right away. Secondarily, the craft and engineering of that story is amazing.

It is a Swiss watch to go back to Switzerland. It really is. Considering how many people worked on it, that's incredible. And I think it's because you have kind of Macquarie overseeing a lot of the execution and he has figured out how to move Tom Cruise inside of those big machines. He sure has. So it's just the highest level version of something that usually sucks. And it just happens to be extraordinary. It's interesting.

I think you're absolutely right. I also wonder if maybe it's the wrong framing, because instead of thinking of it as like recreating the feeling, I think it's interesting that you brought up, you started with Tom Cruise, as every Tom Cruise project does. But in the sense that it's less about being a note-perfect legacy sequel to Top Gunn

and more about being the contemporary version of what we used to call like the winking swan song, like Paul Newman and Nobody's Fool, where it's just like, hey, everybody loves this guy playing a certain kind of part. Let's give him a chance to do it again. Do you know what I mean? I do, but a better version of that example is a different Paul Newman film, which is the Color of Money, which is the same thing. Like, it is leveraging the familiar fast Eddie Felsen thing, but also here's Tom Cruise. And he gets to be, you know, shepherded into the mix. The same

way that that film's trying to bring us Miles Teller, but actually brought us Glenn Powell. You know, like it is now Glenn Powell who got to surf the wave, Color of Money style, into mega fame. It's so funny. That's also what, which one was it? Ghost Protocol was supposed to do to Jeremy Renner, but Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise doesn't fast Eddie anybody. No, he snatched that one right back. Wasn't the story, I don't want to go too far off here, but like, with Maverick,

wasn't Glenn Powell in contention for the Miles Teller role? And then they created another part for him? They significantly expanded Hangman, as I understand it. And they took that screen time from Mani Jacinto. Is that how it worked? Probably, and Jay Ellis and a number of other characters. Yeah, like another incredibly handsome young actors. Like, this guy's the future, actually, just kidding.

He's in one scene. Yeah, pivot. That's interesting. Okay, so, are you going to watch more Dune Prophecy? I think I'll stick with it because I have to keep... The same reason that I probably will watch The Penguin is is that I'm committed to the Matt Reeves Batman Project. I know you guys are not.

Interesting. But I'm in part because they're movies. They're tent pole movies. And tent pool movies is something that I cover. And so I'm engaged. Although they're tent pole movies propping up a tent that's been moved off the midway, right? because they're no longer like DC canon. It's true, but there is this clear detente between Reeves and James Gunn.

Yeah, they're allowing each other to. We'll let you guys keep going forward simultaneously, comfortably. It's interesting. I know nothing of the internal politics, but I feel like the success, and again, success is an interesting metric with streaming, but I think it's, there's no question that the penguin is considered a success. It worked, yeah. I feel like that was incredibly significant for that detente because the big Jim Gunn industry, is extremely involved in the DC stuff across all platforms. And the success of Penguin,

I'm not saying he was itching to get in there, but I think it definitely bought the Matt Reeves verse a little more time. Well, one thing that I'm sure this has been pointed out by people who've been covering this over time, but Matt Reeves is really good at TV. He's made a lot of TV over the years. And so even though he's not the showrunner of the Penguin, he understands television storytelling,

whereas somebody like Kevin Feigy got kind of like, you know, helicopter down. And it was like, now make nine TV shows, buddy. Yeah, and Lauren LeFranc, who did The Penguin, is really talented and clearly was left. No, I don't want to say left a lot. Like, it's really hard to do any of this shit. And the fact that that show worked, even though it wasn't for me, should be celebrated because there's something about the Dune Prophecy thing that feels, and I mean, no disrespect

to the people who finished the journey with it. But it's very, I think it's significant when you, like, look at the Wikipedia and you're like, this was a show that was going to be directed by, Doni Villeneuve, and then by Johann Rank, who's maybe, you know, who's high-level TV director. The score wasn't going to be done by, what's his name, who did the movies, who did the... Han Zimmer. Yeah, Han Zimmer. But, she Jonesy from Sigur Rose was originally going to write the score for this.

Oh, interesting. He didn't at the end. Ultimately, the show... Is it Jonesy or Yonzi? Well, I don't speak Icelandic. As we discussed, I'm from Manchester, mate. I was like, is that... Jonesy.

Isn't Jonesy and Police Academy? Joneses and Police Academy. I was thinking about starting to adapt of all the things I've learned in England, is there just absolute just disdain for French pronunciations of words? Like the fact that we're in America, we're 6,000 miles away being like,

I'll have the fillet, please. And they're like, fillet steak. Because they're just basically like, fuck you. We've lived next to you ponses for forever. But anyway, but the Dune Prophecy show was directed by Anna Forster who did a fine job,

and I don't mean any disrespect, but you Google her and you're like, ah, she's an accolite of Roland Emmerich, which I don't mean to diminish people by their associations. Any people work for Roger Corman, but it is an aesthetically different choice. And did she make the trains run on time? Seems like she did.

And that is no small thing. But the ambition with which these things were announced and then how they end up once they go through the sausage factory of TV is noteworthy. Okay, last thing, before I get out of here, we've been going for a while. You probably have three other podcasts to you today. Just one.

But I have to check in with you. Because Chris, there's no way this is going to come up again once Chris is back. But there's the number one topic in my household, which is, have you seen Wicked yet? I have seen Wicked. Is there an embargo? Are you allowed to tell me anything? I don't think reviews have come out, but I think you can social media blast your feelings, which is not something I do anymore. I'm off, Sosh.

I don't know if I bragged about that recently. You did. You mentioned it. I am the new I don't actually own a TV. I mean, okay, I've said this on other shows. I had never seen the stage music. musical. I'd never read the novel. The Wizard of Oz is one of the signature films of my life. I'm giving it to my child right now and my family is having an amazing experience with it.

We just saw it at the Academy Museum last weekend. We went to the color exhibit at the Academy Museum, which is incredible and they're featuring the Ruby Slippers. To watch my daughter receive this story and this movie experience is very, very, very special to me. So I have heard define gravity. I'm familiar, I guess, with parts of it, but it's not something that makes any sense to me. So I went to go see the movie. I think it's like fine. I think it's like an okay kind of crappy

CGI, yeah, yeah, yeah. Over-extended. You know, part one is two hours and 40 minutes. Is it really? Yeah, it's very long. I think the second film will be just as long, which comes out next Thanksgiving. And they've definitely it felt like maybe this marketing reasons. They're not being coy about that it's part one, right? They're just not calling it part one? I think anybody who has any

interest, it knows it's part one. Do you think the sequel will just be called Wicked with two eyes, so it looks like two? That would be a good idea. That one's free, guys. I think that I'll be very curious to know if your kids like it. The screening that I went to, which was like a mix of industry and press,

but a very friendly one, basically gave it a standing ovation at the end. There's a lot of passion amongst the super fans. Oh, yeah. I thought Ariana Grande was very funny. Good. I don't have like a time. a nice things to say about it. But I do feel like weirdly

all of a sudden is competing for Best Picture. Yeah. So I got to just spend another four months with this movie. I mean, it is this. Maybe we'll talk again, especially once I've seen a movie that's going to be in contention. But I was struck yesterday

right before I tried to illegally cross the street, which I'll never do again. But I did walk by a movie theater and I was looking at all the like now playing posters and it was literally the lineup that you talked about plus the piano lesson. Conclave. It was Heretic.

And it was a Nora, which I cannot wait to see. Phenomenal movie. And then, you know, the brutalist is coming. But it's just like, it does feel oddly small stakes. And I don't mean to disparage those movies, but I do feel like in past years and you tell me if I'm wrong. At this point, I'm like, well, here are the three big swings, you know, that we're gunning for it and have the marketing budgets or the star budgets to go along with it. And it just feels like this season has been very small, small potatoes. And small can be good.

Yeah, I think September, October, November has been an interesting experience for me, in part because I went on leave. And so, like, trying to figure out, like, what are people seeing at the movies right now? Who am I talking to about these things because of that smallness that you're talking about? I mean, in truth, Wicked and Gladiator 2 and Moana 2 is really as stacked a Thanksgiving weekend as you could ever get for movie going in terms of awareness of the IP and anticipation and the kind of like cross-pollination of audiences and what they like. like, so it's not that those movies aren't big. They're all going to be very big. It's that they don't seem as important. That's what I mean.

Like, they're not Oscar-y, which is- They could be and they may be, but, and we shouldn't be confused. Like, they're not like it was in 2019. Or in 2019, it felt like from July when once upon a time in Hollywood came out, through August when Parasite came along, all through the fall when we had this cavalcade of marriage story and Ford versus Ferrari and, you know, the uncut gems, like this kind of like river floor. of great stuff

since the pandemic hit. There really hasn't been a November, like October, November, December that's been loaded with truly great films. Like,

it feels like there was when we were kids. But I think it's ultimately just that I didn't love these movies as much as I wanted to. I would have loved to have loved Wicked.

I would have loved Gladiator too. And I don't. And I think people are kind of picking up on that maybe that like, they're good. They're not great. And so there's some

disappointment there. But I don't know. It's a, post-strike year. Have you seen Moana too? I have not. I have a ticket for next Monday. Next Monday? Yeah. If you need someone to talk to about that, I have a lot of thoughts coming in. I mean, I will be talking about it. I will need people to talk to about it. I mean, I don't know if it's going to be good. I don't know if it's going to be good. It is going to, it was, speaking of TV. It was supposed to be a TV series. It was. And that's a tough retrofit, retcon.

The only other time I can think it almost happened and worked is a little movie called Mulholland Drive. I was about to mention it. Maybe the only time. So maybe it's as good as Mulholland Drive. Do you think it has similar vibes? For my daughter's sake, I hope not. Or? It's a little early.

Or? Okay, yeah, fair. All right. Well, I can't wait for Moana Drive, too. Sean, thank you for filling in so ably today. It's always fun to talk to you on this podcast. You guys should listen to Sean on the Big Picture podcast. What else should they do for you, Sean?

Follow me on blue sky. Look at you. I'm on social media. I don't care. Well, you're younger than me. Maybe there's still a few more, there's still a few more, like, branches to hit on the way down as you're falling.

That's how it feels at the end of every episode of this show. It's falling down the tree. Thank you for producing us, Kaya McMullen. Chris will be flying back to America. He's so psyched about it. Let me just tell you. And he and I will be back on Thursday, and we'll talk about a bunch of stuff.

Maybe Landman, I believe it's pronounced. Like Grantland. Like Grantland. Probably may they both have similarly long runs. Talk to you Thursday, Brances.