The Watch - ‘Superman’ and What We Want Out of Comic Book Adaptations

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Chris and Andy do a full deep dive into the new ‘Superman’ movie. They talk about why, on a basic level, this movie worked where other comic book adaptations failed (7:59); whether this movie puts DC in a position to out-Marvel Marvel (27:19); and what the future of the DC Universe looks like after the success of this film (29:04). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Producer: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, gusalcumab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur.

Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world.

The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. 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 Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's Andy Greenwald! That's good.

Do you didn't do that for like Batman v. Superman? I guess I didn't. I don't know that we really ever covered the Snyderverse on this podcast. No, it's one of our little lacunae. We kind of missed that one. Greenwald, great to see you.

We are here to talk a little bit, probably more like 45 minutes worth of. Superman, which is a movie we both saw over the weekend. It's a movie everybody saw over the weekend. So I think I can safely assume that it interests watch listeners. I also just want to say, it is an honor and a responsibility to be the only ringer podcast covering this movie. I think we're betting ninth today.

Yeah, we are the second baseman in the American League. We're not even. So, but in your version of this, the D.H. There's no D.H in the National League still, as there shouldn't be, in your version of this anecdote. and we are not the pitcher batting ninth, though. We are like those early Tony LaRosa clubs where he's like, I'm going to put a big OBP guy in the nine hole? Yes.

That's us? Yes. A slap hitter who finds his way on base? You look, it's the summer. I love it. You know, the Netflix, Lena Dunham show, too much is out, but we haven't gotten a chance to get ahead on that one to give it the full commentary that people would expect.

And you and Kaya were weirdly resistant to my pitch to just cover the Eternot again? Just be like, you know, I'm still thinking about them bugs. Do you want to keep talking about it? No, I just like it. You can email us at The Watch at Spotify.com. You can follow us on Instagram at the Watchpod underscore. You can watch us on YouTube at Ringer-Thv.

That's the channel. Please watch us on Spotify where you're also listening to us on the watch feed. I'm trying to think of if there was anything else besides Superman I wanted to talk to you about. I watched the director's cut 4K of Kingdom of Heaven this weekend. See, that just... read a lot about the Crusades. Chris, that just seems like light work for you. I feel like most people who are fans of you and people who, you know, habituate the Reddit community devoted to you and your comings and goings and beings. I think that's what they think you do most of the time. So why was this

the Passover question? Why was this weekend different than all of the weekends? Because the Kingdom of Heaven 4K finally, director's cut finally arrived. A little steel book. But you'd seen the director's cut. I had. Yes. In what K did you see it? I'm not sure. It was whatever was available. on streaming or on VOD. So now I own it. I have the director's commentary. Oh. I have all the special features

and I have the glorious tale of a blacksmith who becomes like more or less like the leader of the armies of Jerusalem. Where is he now? I know. Seems like. Orlando Bloom.

Oh, wait, it's Orlando Bloom. It's Orlando Bloom, which was always like the kind of like the critique of that movie. I will just say this movie is one of the best movies of the century. Now, here's a fun thing about me.

First of all, there's so much that's fun about me. But I think the number one fun thing about me is I now have the chance to experience Kingdom of Heaven for the first time as a 4K director's cut. It's a three hour and 20 minute cut.

I love it. Yeah. I love going to the theater for three hour movies. Otherwise, it's hard for me. No, I'll do it. It's slow summertime. What if I watched it?

and I became a... Summer of heaven? Is that what we're going to do? What if I became a kingdom head? Yeah. Do you think that's possible for me? Greenwald, what about you, man? Anything else besides Superman on your mind?

I have a great headline that I like to share with you. We don't even have to talk about it. But I just feel like if there's any sign that these are the dog days of summer in the cultural landscape, this is a real headline from this morning? Is it? Who is Pamela Joe Bondi, the mind bind, withholding the Epstein files? Listen, do you want to talk about that? Want to talk about it?

We need to differentiate this super. Superman pod from all the others. Oh, so it's, it's a bird. It is not a bird. It's a plane. It's Jeff Epstein's plane. Is that your new intro? Would Jeff Epstein have been a better villain?

Was he the villain? One of the, one of the best things about Trump's long friendship in history with Jeffrey Epstein is the quote that's been surfaced a lot and let's surface it more from 2002 where he's like, I've known Jeff a long time. I love. I love that he calls him, Jeff. That's an intimacy.

You can't fake. Yeah. You know? The financier. Don't you think that like, don't you feel like Bill Clinton should take one for the team here? And do what? Be like, okay. I got the manifest.

Like, I was there. Like, you know what I mean? Like, someone. By the A's? What do you want Bill Clinton to do? I feel like someone. Oh, he like he has it? Uh.

I don't know. To the wind horse shit. Who you got an eye on in this? Who do you think's the squeaky wheel? Who's going to bring this whole house of cards down? You don't think Pam's got the juice to just muscle this thing across? I just, I think, I don't really know what I think anymore, you know? That's a good question, though.

If there was something, it would be funny, if Bill was just like, here it is. I think the list. I made some mistakes. I have flown some bad airlines in my time. Everybody, you got to use your points, use your miles. I did. I sure did. Do you think he's platinum medallion on Air Epstein?

Yeah. I bet. Sapphire Club. Okay. That was fun. Does that feel cleansing to get that out? I unrelated. The only headline I like today from Dateline, Hollywood, July 14th, 2025, 10, 27 a.

Smurfs is a Rihanna Passion Project, colon. She was pursuing it. I feel like not. Making a record in a decade is understandable if you are a billionaire off of beauty products and your beauty line. If you are pursuing a beautiful family, which she's doing with ASEP Rocky. Not making music because your real passion is voicing Smurfette in the ninth adaptation of the Smurfs. Is that actually what she's saying is like, oh, this is holding up my music career? A long time.

First of all, how could it not? I mean, when you are devoted to getting the minutia of Smurfette correct, you know, like really digging in the vaults, like trying to understand what the Belgian artist Peo's vision was. Sometimes I say things just so I can see it in your eyes. I feel like now you're going deep on Smurfs because you're trying to remember what you think of Superman. I can't confirm or deny that. You'd fit right in on the way. But it's just a weird comment. An admitted Smurf Superfan.

Oh, you got me. Yeah. Dude, if you pay me enough money, I would be an admitted Smurf superfan. Yeah, that's how I felt when I saw the trailer for the Cat in the Hat cartoon with Bill Hader. I'm like, Bill Hader's paid him enough to be an admitted cat in the hat superfan. Plus, Sue, you know, she has his accolades, you know? Yeah, did you think that the joke in the trailer about, what was it, Toot Farts? Do you think that's, like from the original text of Theodore Geisel?

Was that in the Cat in the Hat? Do you remember that? Not at all. Wipe that one from the memory bank. Kaya, before we move on to Superman, do you have anything you'd like to? to share about Smurfette or the Epstein plane? Think carefully. I'm not saying she was on the plane. Stop vamping, let's go.

Let's call you speak. What's up? How do you feel about the Epstein plane or Smurfs? He keeps switching the order. That's that classic Bondi shit. That's how Bondi gets you. From both sides. Were the Smurfs on the Epstein plane? We don't know. We don't know.

I'd like to see the manifest. Andy Superman was written and directed by James Gunn. stars David Cornswet as Clark Kent slash Superman. Rachel Brosnahan is Lois Lane. Nicholas Holt as Lex Luthor. And then a big ensemble, Scholar Gazondo, as Jimmy Olson, Nathan Philly, as Green Lantern, Eddie Gethagy is Mr. Terrific.

We're going to talk about the movie. Obviously, I think we should just do a spoiler. Yeah. Spoiler safety off conversation. The biggest spoiler for me was that it's Lex Luthor. As opposed to... Luthor. Oh. Did I say that or did that how it's

I don't know. That's how it always read it in my head. Well, that's actually where I want to start. I want to ask, first of all, like, you know, obviously the log line here, I'll just summarize the film itself. Superman gets canceled by Lex Luther. Goes to prison, breaks out with some help from his friends and his dogs. You said he got canceled by Lex Luther? He does. They find some footage. Brad Cooper footage.

Yeah. The missing minute. I got to stop. We got to stop it. It is a missing minute. So you're suggesting that Lex Luthor went to Antarctica with the engineer, broke in to the fortress of solitude, killed 20 plus Superman robots just to get the client list? I'm just saying like he gets the footage that was lost to even Clark.

This is so great. None of the other podcast did it like this. I like to make sure that we provide some sort of listener value. Can I also just say one thing just because of the law of averages? We're going to get a text from Bill about this one. I think Bill listens to two and a half episodes of the watch a year. I heard you guys talking about Epstein. It just feels inevitable.

Guys thinking about which one of these clips to clip? I can't remember where I was in my plot synopsis. I want to start with the broadest of broad, did you like it? And also if you could maybe also in your classic greenwalled way, weave in a little bit of your relationship to this character. Okay, well, I don't have much of one. I was a Marvel fanboy. But I, okay, I liked it.

I want to start here. Sean and Amanda on the Big Picture started their conversation in a way that I thought was really useful and also very interesting, and I think relevant to our conversation too. I think they both took a turn to say, it worked. You listened to that big picture. And someone clipped it for me.

I saw it on Instagram. I turn it off before you start talking. I was like, I'm good. I get enough at the office. They said it worked. That was the response to it. And I think that there were moments in this movie where I was like, I love this. There were moments when I thought, I can't stand this.

My biggest takeaway, though, was this was an enormous, enormous celebration of and validation of James Gunn, the universe builder and the comic book whisperer. At times, I felt his success in that half of his job was a little bit in direct conflict with his abilities as a director and as a filmmaker. Like, one of the, I think maybe the best way to articulate that is to say, I don't think I have any interest in watching this movie again, but I am weirdly fond of the experience of watching it, the world he created, and I'm pretty psyched to go back to that world again. In Superman, too. Or Supergirl, Woman of Tomorrow, or Justice Gang, or whatever the next thousand movies are going to be. So to circle back all the way, it really worked. And there are some key reasons why, and we can get into it.

But I'm curious about your thoughts. Yeah, I liked it as well. I really liked the first half of it and felt somewhat bored by the second half of it. When it just became building punching? Yeah, I'm not a fan of it. Not out of any kind of like, I think I had pretty high expectations for just given gun. even though I'm a little dubious of some of his sensibilities, or maybe I'm a little deaf to some of his sensibilities.

I think that I was really excited to see, for the lack of a better term, like a pretty otore-driven Superman movie or a superhero movie, which I don't feel like we get that much anymore, because the way that these franchises have kind of worked and the way that these cinematic universes have kind of worked is it's become more of almost like a top-down executive

and corporation. We need to move all these pieces around to have a sequel. So I was excited to see this. Like Gunn's talked a lot about the importance of script. He told Rolling Stone, I do believe that the reason why the movie industry is dying is not because of people not wanting to see movies. It's not because of home screens getting so good.

The number one reason is because people are making movies without a finished screenplay. And I was excited to kind of see this in action. And I think you can see what he's talking about. talking about on screen. Can I jump on that point? Just to say, one of the best things about the movie, no caveats, is that this is the movie he wanted to make. This is 100% the creative, aesthetic vision of one guy who has certain feelings about this character, about how he should be portrayed, about how a comic book universe should look and feel and be on the screen. And it's tactile. And

sometimes those decisions, those very personal decisions, can rub you or me or other people in the audience the wrong way, or you sort of bump on them in a way that you are not used to bumping with such streamlined, hyper-expensive IP entertainment. I think that's a good thing. Yes. And the mark of a creator is probably the reason why I netted out so much on the positive side of the ledger. Yeah, I think he basically has, first of all, there's very recognizable recurring themes and images in his movies. There's eyeball slash body horror. There's an obvious. deep affection for animals. There is...

Superman saves squirrels now. And there is this tonal sharp turn that he can make. I don't always enjoy the ride, which is from

real tongue and cheek, everybody's a fucking wise ass to this is the most sincere and emo moment I can possibly manufacture in

an absolutely ridiculous circumstance, be it a raccoon, and another guy talking or Superman and his dog and a black hole kicking himself into a black hole or whatever. Well, he's holding a green baby.

Yes, yes. So, like, there's a lot of sass and there's a lot of sentiment and sometimes it really works for me and sometimes it doesn't. But in this movie, generally speaking, I kind of walked out and I was like, I got, you did what you set out to do. I think you're right. And I think

my, a lot of, like, my, like, kind of trepidation or maybe my 70% 75% enthusiasm for this movie is really just about my relationship to Superman as a character and a conversation I kind of want to have with you a little bit here about what we want these movies to do that adapt comic books.

I think I realize that the thing that I love most about comic books is the depth of mythology and history and the overlapping narratives and character relationships and you know we joke about like asterix refer back to fantastic four two sixty three you're talking about the legendary french comic asteris get at me and the patreon i'll do a whole pot on that but you know i was doing research for this last night and inevitably started reading about all the different um you know crises that affected the dc comic universe and i mean crises of infinite earths exactly i don't mean behind the scenes

i mean literally like comics called planets universes collapsing time portals, all this stuff. And I was like, man, that, we're never going to get that. Like, you're never going to get the amount of movies, the length of movies, whatever you want to say. We're never going to hit that, like,

we're on a trapeze without a net. I have no idea, like, how they're, how, sure, yes, in a perfect world, you could do it. Like, you could do it. But I spent, like, most of the weekend, I was reading a bunch of Jonathan Hickman for some reason. So I was reading most of, mostly I was reading East of West,

which is his apocalyptic western that he did about 10 years ago. And I couldn't even start to explain it. I couldn't even start to explain the mythology and the religious iconography of it. I could, but we would be here all day. And it's so hard to get to a movie. And even a character is straightforward to Superman.

That would be so hard to ever replicate. So I guess you have to take the, basically the peanut butter and jennel. version of it, which is like, this is a guy who stands for hope and justice. I, first of all, I'm just thinking of the spinoff pod, House of CR, which has been right there the whole time, where you just talk about the Jonathan Hickman comics you read on your iPad sometimes on the weekends and a few years away. I think both things can be true, and I think that this movie uniquely delivered on both

poles of the Superman existence, or of the Superman character. poll one, which I think is like immovable and vital, is the true origin of the character, not that he's sent from Krypton for whatever reason and this movie complicates that in a way that was clever, I thought, although I believe that has some precedent and some alternate storytelling in the comics or in the cartoons, that Superman was created in the shadow of World War

by two Jewish-American guys who absolutely were talking about fear of a planet collapsing into fascism, and being an immigrant and being an outsider and being accepted or not accepted and what truth, justice, and an American way might look like. That is what makes the character useful.

It makes the character unique and special, and you can't get away from that. The other half of it is, yeah, there's been 70 years of this character, plus 80 years. So it's, there's bizarro Superman, and there's, you know, multi-universal Superman, and there's so many different versions of him

and iterations of him. The thing about, James Gunn that is increasingly I'm realizing almost one of one is that he is the he gets everything there is to be gotten about comic books and what makes them special and he so far is the best translator app for that to the big screen so when you're talking about hallmarks of his storytelling like he loves splash panels there's no other way to call it because when he does things like he did in the first guardians movie where the guardians are like escaping the prison and then it slows down and they all look so fucking cool it's not a

even possible. That's a comic book splash panel. He does that a bunch in this too, when like the camera slows down and pans across the S on his chest or, you know, there's a certain punch that's delivered in a certain way. He thinks in comic book panel storytelling, which is amazing. But I think he also understands the purity of the character awash in a world that has spiraled up to the modern day of not just the canonical changes and craziness of comic books, but also our collective societal changing a relationship to this character that himself hasn't changed that much. Yes.

So there are these little details that I appreciated not just that, yeah, at a certain point like Superman would be friends with other superheroes or know them, okay. But that when he dislocates his own superarm to allow his mad clone to be sucked into a black hole,

you think, whoa, that was a clever way for Superman to win this fight without violating his moral code. So that clone's going to be back as some kind of villain, take your pick from 80 years of DC continuity. He's doing all of it at the same time. And so there can be a feeling of too muchness. But the other thing that he gets about comics that is crucial

is that part of the joy of becoming a comic book fan at the age that he did or the age that I did, or I think it's happened for you in the last 18 months. But like, you know what I mean? Is that when you're, what you just said about like the larger mythology, no one ever starts a comic book, or certainly like a legacy character,

with issue one. The idea that we need to onboard people is a handholding of modern contrivance. Well, it's the idea if you're going to spend $300 million making a movie, you have to make a billion dollars to make it a relatively profitable exercise. So then what is, like,

because I have a note here, which is basically like, I wonder of seeing this movie without any familiarity with DC would be like watching F1, having never come across in a Formula One car. Well, first of all, I haven't seen it yet, but that would be me. But second, I think that it's built for those people.

I think he thought about that. Like, one of the best things about the movie, to me, is the way it starts. And it starts by saying, 300 years ago this happened, 30 years ago this happened, three years ago this happened, three months, three minutes. Here's Superman. Yep. Okay, great. And they're already dating.

When, him and Lois are dating. Oh, my God, there's so much time saved. And I think there's a quote going around with him saying that we never, need to see Martha Wayne's pearls in the alley when Bruce loses his parents or Spider-Man get bitten by a spider. Like, we collectively get it. It's like if you say Hercules or you say it like the clumps did it, right?

Like a nutty professor. Either way, we know who we're talking about. Right? You don't need to explain that he's like real strong. Great movie. The, it saves so much time. And like for me and I imagine many people listening, like who have a comic book, like, entry

story or introduction. Like I remember in seventh grade when my friend Mazi gave me an issue of X Factor cold. And I was like, wait, that guy shoots lasers out of his eyes. You know, actually he doesn't, but I'll explain that in another upcoming pod. But what was exciting about it was the same excitement I got when like I got a book about Greek myths when I was in elementary school. And you're like, oh shit, these guys know each other? Yeah, you're jumping in in the rapids.

It's like, you're not dipping a toe in like, okay, and now this is how it starts. And this is what fandom used to be too as a music fan or as a fan of literature. You look around and everybody's like, don't you know this already? This person's influenced by this. So that piece was really fun. And I found that the way that he did that to be relatively bold, considering the stakes here, you know, to save an entire, not just like comic book, you know,

cinematic universe, but a studio essentially in Warner Brothers. But I thought it was fun. Yeah, I thought it was cool. It lets every character kind of already be, in the sort of late first part, beginning, second part of their arc. And I wonder for an actor that's very exciting, because it's almost like you can rev the engine up a little bit and be further along.

And who you are? And yeah, like, lowest is lowest. There's no, like, who's this guy with the glasses? You know? The only person I thought that it was challenging for was also my, I don't know if I, I really liked Corns White. But I thought it was challenging for Luther. Let's talk about it because I think that we're talking about things that were just...

Should I say Lex? I don't know what I'm supposed to say. No, they say Luther in the movie, so we have to say it now, too. I think the two things that are unambiguously good about this movie that are the reason why it works. Just hands down it works. If it's a yes or no question are Corenzwood and... Corenzwood? Well, so, okay, sidebar here. I've never actually listened to him say his name.

However, there was a family at my school, which apparently, growing up, apparently this David went to my middle school. Uh-huh. 20 years after me or whoever old he is. But so already, you know, we're supporting this kid. Sure, yeah. But they pronounced their name, Corenzwit. Okay, my bad. Does he say Corenzwit?

I haven't really heard him say his name either. Thank you. Anyway, we can just say Dave. Big Dave. Philly Dave. He's awesome. I loved him in this role. I think it's fantastic.

I think that's, they did it. They got a Superman. And I think Nicholas Holt is just, he's always been one of my favorite freaks. And I think that he is just, he just kills it. He's great. Did you at all trip over? It's just Lex is already like, I'm losing my mind about this guy. Oh, like the sense that there wasn't a long, there wasn't an arc for him to travel.

It was just, I just, I was just wondering whether anyone else tripped over or had like, like, kind of was like, Oh, so he's already just out of his mind about Superman. What's funny is that, like, you're talking about how it's beneficial to actors maybe to start midstream. And I was reading about this, that, like, the great Wendell Pierce, whom we love, of course, don't we folks from The Wire and other things? What is that? Just thinking about the plane still. He was not on it, but he, do you think this is going to be the famous Lost episode of the pod that's just going to get, like, stripped from the internet? he said in an interview that his version of Perry White

and he doesn't have a lot of like there's not a lot of room for him to do much of anything other than to be the archetype of the character which he does well was that he did the part as if Lex had stolen his wife and had like slept with his wife and broken up his marriage so he was

now I feel like that might be a conflict of interest journalistically speaking but like let's be honest like what's that dude the Veritas project who does the undercover planet has some ethically... I think there's some issues. They don't have a standards and practices department there. But so there's some backstory there.

I think that what I... I hear you about the emotional A to B of the part, but what I loved about it was that he already had built a pocket universe to do all of this. The mad genius of it loved it. But also the... It's a five.

fucking comic book, man. He built a pocket universe. That's what I love most. There is just an assumption of a pretty trippy superhero world that actually is one of the more radical things about the movie. There's just a sort of a shrug element to it. The best illustration of that was the scene where Clark and Lois talk lit by the Justice Gang fighting an interdimensional space imp out the window. Yes. You either, these are little, little stress tests in a way that I kind of admire. It's like, are you buying this or are you not? If you're, because if you're not, you're like, why is anyone living in a city that could be ripped apart by a black hole river at any moment?

Right. If you accept the fact that somehow there are no casualties and everyone has a pretty good attitude about it and weird shit happens all the time, you're on board. And I actually kind of like that a little bit more all in than I like the fact that the Marvel University. has been wrestling with the tragedy of Zoccovia for 15 years. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last-minute beach day,

a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for. That's when Prime's same-day delivery as you're back. Getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same-day delivery. It's on Prime. Visit Amazon.

com slash prime to find millions of items delivered fast. Available in select areas, terms apply. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandual Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant,

18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. This episode is brought to you by the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets at the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me. The Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh,

juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, market peach, apricot, rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch. As is their trending mango, Yuzu, chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365, strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. That brings me to my next topic I want to discuss with you. Does this movie position DC to out Marvel Marvel? Because for the longest time, DC, under Snyder and all the stuff that was going on,

you know, from the tens on, I think we're trying to position it visually, tonally, as like an alternative as a different brand. Desaturated, dark, traumatized, you know, superheroes who were breaking each other's necks and throwing each other off the planet and stuff. And it's just very, like, gritty, you know, but also just humorless, joyless,

and kind of obviously lacked a kind of obviously didn't resonate with people as much Snyder fans aside like on a mass level like the way the Marvel stuff was but I got what they were trying to do and so much is like you can't can't do bantery fun

we're standing here on a set in Atlanta just kind of making jokes and then like we'll have a MacGuffin to figure out you can't do that while like Marvel's doing the same thing this felt like he basically was like I am actually to some extent

the later period Marveled Secret Sauce and I am bringing that to this movie it's colorful it's funny the characters all feel like they know each other the actors have great chemistry and yeah it has the same problem that a lot of marvels do

where it's like the last 40 minutes of it or just like fly and seal up the core of the earth punch punch punch the building and then this do you think that this like sets DC up for an exciting future? Well specifically in terms of the aesthetic thing like James Gunn has talked about how influence he was

by the Grant Morrison and Frank Whiteley All-Star Superman comic but particularly the colorist Jamie Grant and the and the sort of bright pastels and the wash of it. That alone changed my mood. Like the colors and the lightness visually. Everything in Marvel is dark purples and greens now, and I think that's because of the CGI budget. I mean, you see these leaked photos from the set of Doomsday, and it's four people

walking around with essentially the contemporary equivalent of ping pong balls, because they draw in everything. I'm not saying that Superman was some like cinema verite experience, but you don't feel the sameness, which I think is the kind of intentional choice that you can make when you are the filmmaker and the Kevin Feigy architect of everything. So that was nice to see. I think what remains to be seen is how much of the next few years of this stuff is individually distinguished articulated visions, the way that he has talked about wanting to make some things. Like, what's the one, the Clayface is the one that's like weirdly being fast-tracked. And I can't imagine that that's going to have a similar color palette.

It's also interesting to consider how lanterns, which is, coming to HBO next year and is filming now, is set in this universe with the same Green Lantern Corps, and I believe Guy Gardner is going to appear even maybe just passingly in it. Nathan Phileon. Nathan Philean's character of Guy Gardner, but it is going to be showing very, you know,

the log line is that it's basically like true detective with space cops. So how that's going to talk to each other, I don't know. I think one of the things about the movie that may repel some people, honestly, and it was probably the thing that I was having the most trouble with

in the beginning was it's just sort of untroubled shrugging acceptance that movies the way, at least on the big screen scale, the way you and I like to think of them, just don't really exist anymore.

Like, the first 30 minutes of this movie was a much better expression of it but was not too dissimilar in its storytelling style from the last Mission Impossible movie, which just felt like... It starts five times.

It starts five times with almost unrelated haikus of scene work, you know, just like laid on top of each other as if they are streaming videos that you're scrolling through. And that all told, like this movie, it's the first thing I said. Like, it created a world and a vibe and a spirit that I really enjoyed. And sidebar on that, like, the movie is about kindness and like, great, please more of that. I think that that is not corny. I think that is fantastic. But it is not a standalone. vision of something. And maybe there's power in that, like admitting that. I think that a lot of

the Marvel movies have kind of fumbled a little bit in the last few years because maybe we have still been viewing them as, this one is good, this one is not good, this one is exceptionally good, this one is, well, they've all settled into kind of a C plus range. Maybe a more successful expression of that would be, look, we're just admitting that these are $300 million TV shows now, and they are all kind of connected. Well, I think that was actually, I would say that the Marvel fatigue really set in when they were doing $300 million versions of agents of Shield, where it was like, we're treading water to get to some next big thing. But we don't know how to tell a story that doesn't have the, at least like the suggestion or the lure that Mephisto is going to show up or Reed Richards is going to show up or something in this thing is going to be huge for the future of Marvel.

And they never really did that. You know, like actually post endgame, they really kind of lost the ability to pay the viewers back for their really like long-term service to the company. But also, when we look back on it, is it old-fashioned to look at it like,

oh, Black Panther and Endgame were, and, you know, the Second Handman or whatever? Those are really good. Yeah. Because I will also say that, like, in my rewatch of some Marvel movies with my kids, like, my memory, I've talked about this in the pub before, but it's relevant here, that, like, in my mind, I was like, Ant Man was really great. It was really fun, you know? Like, it really hit all of the pleasure centers and told a story, but also, and I watch it, and it's pretty rough. It's a good hang. It's a good vibe. It creates a good character, and they're really good scenes. But how much of that movie is Corey Stoll being like, you'll never get the formula? Like, it's weird. Yeah. Kind of rough.

I don't know if they're meant to be rewatched in the way we rewatched Diehard. I think they're meant to be rewatched as a chapter in a long saga. Right. And as part of like

oh, well, if Doomsday's Day is coming, I'm going to do a big MCE rewatch, you know? So what did this movie do differently that I think? Well, I think the end of the movie you're just like, the movie's over. Like, this film is over.

You know, Lex is in prison. They did that on purpose. which I appreciate it. Yeah. And the extra scenes are just nice. They're fun. I think it's an interesting way to respect the viewer in both directions because one of the fun things about the movie is, oh, shit, there's a pocket universe. Oh, damn, it's a prison.

Wait, metamorphose just sad and sitting in a corner here? Okay. Like, how did he get there? What's the story? Maybe we'll never know. But then also respecting audiences at the end, leaving them feeling good, knowing that the nature of the things. The rules of the game is that Lex isn't going to

die because they would just be resurrected. So we put him in prison. Okay, we'll see how long that lasts. Right. Like there's a certain kind of... Like prison where. What's that? Where? No, they said where and it's the prison that the character, what's your name from Suicide Squad runs. Oh, Viola

Davis. Yes. Yeah. So there's a lot of little winkie-winkies like that. Yeah, and peacemakers in it. Yes. Yeah. Peacemakers in it. You want to drill down on that? Um, by the way, like, the other thing about James Gunn that I, I feel like, like, I've, if you, you've never, I've never had any interaction with that guy. I don't know him at all. But the, kind of like what Chris Stor says, actually I have. He's only responding to my tweets. No, I just feel like, on a, on a personal and professional level, I'm never going to get over the fact where you're like, Tracy Letts is my friend. That was so wild. So you could be like, well, Jim and I text, but we only text about golf. I would be, I would believe it. No, I have no interactions. It reminds me a little bit of Chris Storer's vibe on The Bear,

where he just seems to be so beloved by the people that he works with that they'll just show up for him. And I kind of like that feeling. He cultivates the same people. He has a large family of... Has a theater company, yeah. Yeah, and they show up for him, and they seem excited to be a part of the world.

And he pays it forward also by not just recycling the expected people. He also pays it forward by casting his brother constantly. his brother now is like Maxwell Lord in this new universe. I do think though if one of the reasons why, I know I saw a lot of stuff where it's just like, is this movie successful enough? You know, and I bet it's going to be just fine.

And I think part of the reason is that Gunn's really good at, he has talked about this himself, making stars rather than casting stars. Mm-hmm. Obviously, he made one with the casting of Superman, but Brosnahan's great. Eddie Kethaghi is great. My guy from Briarpash.

All these people are kind of like, oh, I've seen this person on TV or I saw David Korn. I now really got my head. I'm in your head. Cydid, what do we decide? Corrin sweat. Cor and sweat. What was your version of it?

Crenzweat? Shout out to Jessica Corenzwit, who I don't know what happened to her, a nice person who I went to school with. I don't mean something bad happened to her. She didn't fly on the plane. She's sitting right next to Banon. She's passing notes.

I'm just saying, that's how she said her name. The note, we don't actually have the list. And then the fucking VEEP music plays. It's great. It's like Roman. Roman Ray. Seeing the fucking satellite explode or whatever was. It is.

Yes, all of that. We're talking about a star making apparatus. I just, I think that he can keep costs down in that department. You don't have like $60 million to get... No, he's clearly also a Barry fan because not only was Anthony Carrigan. Carrigan at Metamorpho, but... Carriginan, yes.

Oh, is this what we're doing now? No, the guy from... The guy was investigating him was also the hype in the government. Which guy? So there's Frank Grillo. Yeah, Frank Grillo. And then next to him is the guy from Barry. Yeah, the FBI agent.

Yeah, he was awesome. Yeah. I, yeah, he's so good at Gunn is so good at putting together a team of, of jokers and losers. That's just his vibe. And it was interesting because his heart is so much in the B stuff, like the Justice Gang stuff, the single perfect joke of Skylar Exondo, who's awesome, but just being an unambiguous ladies man that everyone loves. Yeah. is just, that's just a good bit and that kid is great and that was really sweet and funny, that it was interesting to see Gunn trying to lay the heavier A story on top of it. That said, I think the best, in a way, I think that was the secret sauce of the movie, because in other, in everything other than the original Richard Donner, Christopher Reeve movies,

Superman is a man apart. He is a god among mortals, right? and he's a little bit, he's extremely stoic because of that, which is just not that compelling to watch all the time, or at least in my experience, brief experience with the comics, it's just not that it. What's interesting is about Superman and most of the comics that I have read outside of the Grant Morrison version of it, is that he and Batman have a funny rapport.

Because Batman's just like, it's kind of like us. You know what I mean? Someone floating above everything. Another one just down in the trenches with the people, popping Zins, punching dudes. But with all of the nonsense around it, the Boy Scout who says, Gali, who actually is more powerful than all of them, works.

Yes. And the humanity of him comes across. And I didn't mind things like literally giving the character a mission statement that you feel like James Gunn may have delivered to David Zazlev or whoever was in charge of DC at the time when he was hired. Like upon the pitch. When he's just like, I am more human than you and here is why. Yeah.

More human than human. It worked. That's good. You a Braznihan guy? Where are you at with that, Lois? She was a punk rocker. Thought they had really good chemistry. Don't...

I thought Jimmy really got that scoop. And Lois was like, I'll dictate the story. You know? Some newsroom politics going on there. You think that was Haberman? Haberman vibes. First of all, why didn't we start with this? This movie really, really still believes in the power of journalism.

Not only that. And the press. if the core of the earth is opening up to reveal a black hole and I'm being attacked by multiple supervillains I don't know if my notifications are on for the daily planet nor am I glued to Michael Ian Black's talk show at that exact moment you know and I don't know if that would move my needle

now again it's a suspension of disbelief half of Metropolis has been literally torn asunder, and then 20 minutes pass where there's room for some banter. And then the crack is making its way across the river. And I think Lois says, people live there. Yeah. Oh, do they not live everywhere? Is it like L.A. where everyone's just like, maybe we'll go downtown to a restaurant, but otherwise we pretend it doesn't exist. Yeah. I think people are everywhere. But Superman still saving the squirrels. They seem to be pretty familiar with like evacuations and stuff like that. So maybe we're supposed to do it. So we've talked a lot about what we've liked. We said, I liked, I liked, this movie, like in a kind of normal way in the beginning. Then we've talked for 30 minutes about all the cool things in it.

Okay. So what didn't you like? Well, I did talk about that in the sense that like it felt sort of narratively incoherent at the beginning. I didn't like, okay, I didn't, I was surprised, although when you see how super stuffed the movie is, I guess it kind of makes sense, that there is basically

only one Clark Kent scene. And then really only, relatively little room for Clark Lois. I think it's honestly like not my favorite convention is like nobody. I know the glasses thing, but like, that was cute. Yeah, and it's good for him for explaining it and I know it's in the canon, but it is one of the things where I'm just like, that's Superman. Yeah, so why does he need to have an alter ego?

Like I would let's need to be a journalist. That's a, that's one less job for journalists. That's a really good point. And also he's making up his shit. He's interviewing himself. He's basically like Jason, what was the guy's name? Jason Blair? Stephen Glass.

He's a fabulous. Yeah. I don't care for it. Was the Daily Planet's web publishing system similar to what you used at the ringer or what used to have back in Granlin? It looked like they had a proprietary CMS, like their own thing. I've never seen the two copy, but also to web and publish thing, but I've never worked at a print. It's been a long time since I worked at a print organization. Have you ever hit Publish to web from a spaceship?

No. have I ever published anything off ground from a plane? I don't think so. Yeah. That's not where... Is that where you will choose to release the client list? You're flying over international waters

to avoid prosecution. Okay. I think that what you're setting me up to do is talk about the dog. And I would like to hear your thoughts. Let me ask you this. I didn't like it. Okay. Yeah.

I'm not... I just... That was just way too much screen time for a dog. Now you're not a dog guy I was trying to think of like Would I have a problem with it if it was a cat? Oh And I would

I would That is the kind of accountability I think that it was just like It would have been a I know that I don't even know how to articulate this Without coming off anti-dog Or something like that

I'm gonna sit back This is Kyah zoom in I like dogs I think dogs are cool Yeah sounds like Said exactly the way someone Who doesn't like dogs

I really want to get into it. We can talk a little bit about where we are at as a Los Angeles city. Oh, in terms of our dog owners and maybe how too many people got dogs during COVID and now are just like, the world is my dog's toilet. And I don't really care about sidewalk space. We can get into that. Okay. It doesn't seem like you want to.

Oh, I'm not afraid of a tough conversation. I'm not Cash Patel over here. So when you're walking around L.A., you're just like, this is normal. First of all, walking around L.A. get the fuck out of here. When you're outside your house, you're just like, this is a normal amount of dogs.

Well, it's a question of which part of town I'm walking in. Am I more concerned about the roving packs of dogs or the tent cities? Right. So, like, walking around L.A. is a, it's a kind of a fraught thing. I do,

I think that there is, as a, what's the opposite of child free? as a childful person, I do think that sometimes there's a little over investment in the dogs. Sure. You know, as like children.

But what's, one of my favorite thing about this podcast so far is that we're just like, Bill Clinton was on the Epstein plane. But when it comes time to saying something slightly sideways about the way people are with dogs, we're like, shut it down.

I didn't like it, but I appreciated it. I didn't like crypto, but I appreciated that it was a choice. And then he was like, this thing is actually fucking important to me. And it's going to be in the movie for 20 minutes. And he keeps saving him. Like, that's the thing.

I was surprised how much Super Dog there was. I like it again. I think I overall liked it because I liked the ways that Gunn was just letting everyone know what DC comic book movies are going to be. Like, he's not afraid to go towards the parts of the canon that most. mainstream adaptations have run screaming from ever since the Batman show in the 60s. They're like, this is all part of it, and we just got to roll with it. And I've said it before, I'll say it again. That, I think, is one of the genius things of Grant Morrison in their comics,

which is like, oh, it's all one story. You don't just cherry pick the cool parts. Like, the 60s Batman was a part of Batman lore, and we're going to have to wrestle with it in some fun or surprising way. So I kind of like that. The fact that the dog saved him so many times was kind of surprising. Yeah. The dog's facility with black holes. You don't see that a lot?

You mean like avoiding them? Yeah. That's true. And like, why was everybody so nervous about the proton river? Well, that was the thing.

Like, so Mr. Terrific says, that is a raging river of like negative energy protons. To go approach it would equal death.

And then four to six minutes later, Superman is fucking white water kayaking. Fighting himself while holding a baby. While holding a baby and the dog's just like jumping from thing to thing. Yes. So, you know, forgive me Superman. I wasn't familiar with that part of your game that you can just

actually cannonball into a negative proton black hole river. But that's cool that he can. I mean, he can do anything as long as kryptonites not evolved, right? It seems like. I mean, and then as long as he gets, he, as long as he gets that vitamin C. He guys has to get his, he's got to get vitamin D. Oh, no, I've done it completely wrong. Yeah. Which one comes from oranges? C, but D is the sun. Yeah. Yeah. Great.

What else didn't you like? So, oh, but last thing on the dog. I did like that the dog's not his. Sure. Cool joke. It was a good joke. Or a good twist. And I liked also the way.

I didn't see that coming. Oh, really? You didn't have that in your... I, again, it was like a thoughtful way. When we praise him for not putting you know, scenes from future DC movies in the tags during the credits. The other thing to say is

he artfully wove all that into the main body of the movie itself. So it's not like it's not like half the credits run and then ding-dong at the Fortress of Solitude. Well, I have a cousin? It's like he's had a cousin. Supergirl is here.

It's Millie Alcock from Sirens and House the Dragon. And totally different vibe, totally different character. The dog's hers. So there's a little connective tissue. I thought that was artfully done and amusing. What else didn't you like?

I think this might be a Superman problem and not a James Gunn version of Superman problem, but I don't really get up in the morning and be like, it's cool that that guy can just stop anything from falling on anyone. At the right moment? Yeah. And just like generally the action of Superman, I think the flying is cool. But generally speaking, like, I think the action is way too over the time. top with too many rules. So he, what is he just like throw the engineer in the ground really hard?

What, like what happens to her? Other than setting her up for the authority movie that they're going to make at some point. You don't want to get, you don't want to talk Wild Storm Comics? All right. Fine. What did he do? He flew into space and then crashed into the world. He doesn't kill anyone, is my point. Yes. Although it does sound like the president of Berevio did not live that through that fall? Yes, because Hawk Girl is not

Superman. Yeah. Hawk Girl is an alien? I'm going to have to get back to you on that. Okay. Because my understanding... She's a reincarnated alien. Are you goading me into saying

Thanagar in this podcast? I can't go there. But yes, when I googled it, I was like, why is she in a dorm room? And also, why are they making such a big deal about Superman being the only alien? But I guess she's the reincarnated alien. So it's a little bit of a loophole,

you know, for her refugee status. application? No, I'm just saying like when I read about Hot Girl, it was like she, there was like all this stuff where it's like she's a reincarnated alien. Cool. And that's why she like kind of is on Team Soups. Right. As Guy Gardner is like, ah, fuck this guy. And she's like, I don't know.

But he hangs with aliens. He's in an intergalactic space police force with aliens. And this is just all of them, their workshopping names to get to Justice League. I mean, that's what I would think. Yeah. But wouldn't be, you never know. Okay. You can mix it up. Yeah, that's what he's doing.

I guess. So yeah, the action was colorful and I guess, you know, thrilling. But I thought that the more like kind of down-to-earth moments worked better for me just because I find Superman to be kind of like a one-note kind of action. Well, it's also, it's a, I think an issue that the movie, the original series of movies faced especially, which is like, okay, you're establishing him as the most powerful person alive. What are the stakes here? What is he going up against?

Well, the stakes are basically that he has a Cody He lives by, so like there are certain things that he doesn't really want to do, right? Like he doesn't want to just pull someone's head off their body. Would you like him more if he did? That's the most excited I've seen you this whole pod. I think the other thing. I'm excited to talk about this. Here's the other thing.

Gun is a maximalist. So he wanted to take all the pieces of Superman that he's interested in and put them in the same movie. and I think that he is really, really talented so that he pulled it off. That said, the most, I think, compelling modern idea about super, actually not modern idea because some of the first comics had him stopping wars.

You know, like that's always been baked into these superheroes, especially the ones that came out of that era and the shadow of World War II. But the idea of like, what is his personal moral authority or responsibility to involve himself? Yeah. Is a really rich text and a really compelling one.

And I think that it was tough to integrate into such an already overstuffed movie. So that, like, you have these fictional countries that are either very cleverly hidden, you know, one-to-one comparisons to things in the real world or just really kind of ham-handed. I still haven't decided which is which. And so that's... I think it was a ballsy move, but a bit ham-handed. Yeah. And it's like a little bit of both.

And I don't know the fix. I mean, is this the best version of it? But what was tricky about it is that it also wasn't alone because it was also part of Lex's plan to create his own country or to enrich himself or to whatever. So it is tied into the supervillain plot, but it also has, you know, like refugees waving Superman flags and praying for him.

There's also just, I guess what I'll say is it'll be interesting to see how, that resolves itself in the storytelling because he is making a world planet-sized epic here over the course of the DCU. The movie ends or one of the endings is

Frank Grillo's character being like, I guess they're in charge now, or the other guy saying that to him. What's that going to look like? And is James Gunn, the filmmaker, and is David Zazlov's Warner Brothers, the studio that actually wants to walk down that path and have conversations about other movies? I don't think they actually

do. I think they kind of want to, you know, tease and faint at it. But yeah, I think that this will be, I think that the way that he manages this enterprise going forward is probably of great interest to us on a storytelling and a business side story. You know, like the idea of can you get away with telling really cool, somewhat siloed, unique stories. And he's already doing the thing that I think people are. I think that he did so well with Marvel by resurrecting Guardians from like the back of a drawer

somewhere in the Marvel catalog is doing Clayface and Supergirl right after this. Yeah. Well, in the same way of like doing who else are Superman's friends. Well,

it's not Aquaman, Flash, and Wonder Woman. The people he knows are the Green Lantern, but not the one you're thinking of. Yeah. And not that other one either. The third one. Mr. Terrific character I was not familiar with. And then Hawk Girl,

I think it's smart and I think it's engaging and it allows him to put his own stamp on it and that's ultimately I think the thing for better and a little bit for worse is like what you come away from this movie is that you feel like you got a unique vision of the character and a unique vision of the world

I don't know how many of these he's going to direct or write you know I'm very curious to see what his creative involvement it was funny to go back and read history, the recent history of this character and all the different sort of Henry Cavill pitches that had been made. Oh, you mean within like what the recent history of the film version of the character?

Yes. And in that there is a little bit of Dick Cheney being like, well, Mr. President, I would be happy to serve. You know, it's like he takes over DCU and does a lot of like, I couldn't possibly direct Superman before. It's like, guess what? I'm going to write in direct Superman. I thought it was interesting that he was talking.

about now, I don't think he had talked about this publicly before, but during the time when he was fired from Marvel, I forgot to mention that that is a major plot of this movie. Getting canceled for things that you didn't, or that you don't feel were worthy of? Or not the totality of your character.

That's great. Look at you finding the artist in the art. You're really good at this. He talks about how during that time, you know, then he, He bereft, he wandered, he wandered the town, and D.C. brought him in and, like, do you want to do anything? He wondered the town, stepping over all these dogs.

All these dogs. He was just like, I love you. I will be your champion. He then, Alan Horn, who is then head of Disney films, like, call him back, like, this isn't sitting right with me. Like, let's see what we can do here. And they basically said, you're welcome back in a meeting with Gunn, Alan Horn, and Kevin Feigy. and he was like, this is beautiful.

I've always, you know, I wanted to finish this with you. I love working with you guys, but I'm going to go do another movie first over at Warner Brothers because during this interregnum I've committed to it. And apparently Faggy was like, are you fucking doing Superman? Like, that was always the thing that he was going to do, even though he was playing very coy about it. But it's interesting. I mean, like, I think that in the reading about it, Gunn was like, oh, I finally found like this personal connection with the character through my father and small towns.

etc. And then it's like, yeah, but you also like, you were like riding high, you got brought down a little bit and now you're riding high again. It's like, that's the thing that interests him is the way the public reacts to the bit larger than life figures. We have a Superman who scrolls social media sometimes. Did you believe that? Right across the table from me. Yeah, who definitely, definitely doesn't read the Menchies.

Okay, so we can wrap it up there, I think. I mean, I found it fascinating. Yeah, I think it was a cool movie. Actually, I don't think it was cool, but I thought it was good. Do you think Superman's punk rock? No. I think James Gunn, his vision of this, is like outsiders becoming, you know, the insider. I think it's like, I got what that was about, but I don't think that this is. I think he's really good with music.

I mean, I liked the hard cut to that teddy bear song from 20 years ago. Shout out the Swedish art punk collective teddy bears. featuring the singer from band I used to like called Caesars. Like, good for them. Maybe they get a little something off of that. And I also just like, I do still like the fun that he clearly has that is like very much informed, I think,

by the Roger Corman era of his career when I think the idea of being able to be the guy to make any shit like this would have been impossible to imagine. Just that like, I'm going to go so far as to create a fake pop punk band for young Clark Kent to have liked for Lois to not have liked

to then make a poster of to then, you know, art direct a song that will play in the closing credits of this movie. Yes. That's fun. Yeah.

That's fun shit. It's a depth of feeling for the material. And sometimes I think that that is the thing that we've lost over the last 10 or 15 years with this stuff is just kind of a like, yeah, yeah,

just standing for those tennis balls we're going to draw it in later. Don't worry about it. Like, you actually have to think through like what's in the frame. What are the interpersonal relationship? between these people. I think that the main, the divider here is that this is the guy who loves comic books

and he loves comic book movies full stop. And this is a celebration of them. And it celebrates some things that I think you and I are tired of, just like the giant buildings crashing into each other punching. But at no point does it ever apologize for itself for being a comic book or a comic book movie. There's a fucking flying dog that saves the day. There's no moment in this where you think, you know what there's nothing of here? the director bullshit we still make fun of.

He was not out there being like, actually, this is Butch Cassidy. He just happens to be wearing a cape instead of holding a six-shooter. No, he's like, this is Superman. Yeah. And that's actually kind of... Don't run away from what you're doing.

Yeah. It's actually kind of refreshing. All right. No show Thursday, as it is Wellness Week here at Spotify. We got to recover from our kryptonite poisoning. We will be back. Next week, we'll have a mailbag, and then an Andy hosted episode,

because I'm out of town. Kai, should I just solo it? I don't think we're not going to be together for a couple weeks. I hate that. Yeah. I hate that. I think the quality suffers, honestly.

When you're not here? When... Sorry? Thanks to Kai. Thanks to John. We will be back soon and enjoy your weeks. Hey, Mama. Thanks for making all my favorite recipes.

Hi, Ma. Thanks for your unfiltered advice. Hi, Mom. Thanks for always being by the phone. Hey, Mom. Happy Mother's Day. When you ship UPS Air at the UPS Store, your items arrive on time or your money back. Guaranteed at no extra cost, exclusively at the UPS store UPS store U.S. retail locations.

Visit the UPS Store.com slash air shipping for full details. Terms and conditions apply. Send your Mother's Day gifts at the UPS store and we'll get your gratitude there on time.