The Watch - The Evolution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe With Joanna Robinson

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

Chris and Andy talk about some news from the week, including the confirmation of a forthcoming ‘Heat 2’ and the trailer for the Nathan Fielder and Safdie Brothers show: ‘The Curse’ (1:00). Then they are joined by Joanna Robinson to talk about her new book ‘MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios’ (19:13) and how the MCU has evolved as a studio over the past 15 years (58:10). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Joanna Robinson Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if you got scammed? Would you suffer in silence, or would you do something about it? Well, I got scammed once, and this is the story of what I did. I'm Justin Sales, the host of the Wedding Scammer, a true crime podcast from The Ringer. And for seven episodes, we're hunting a comment. A guy with a lot of aliases, a guy who's ruined a lot of weddings. And with the help of some friends, I just might be able to catch him. Listen to the Wedding Scammer starting October 17th.

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. Trimfaya, 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 a 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, rounding second and staring daggers at Orlando Arcea. It's Andy Greenwald. Chris has got great energy today. While the Phillies are back. This is really going to be a surprise for people who think they're dialing up a podcast about the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Which they are. Because Joanna Robinson is joining us today to talk about her book about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But until Joanna joins us, are we just going to talk about the fightens? No, we should talk about the curse, the new show from Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdi. We should talk about perhaps the announcement that a sequel to Heat is in the works, which many people have asked me to comment on, and I've prepared a statement. Okay, great. Okay, so can we do a Phillies podcast sometime?

Yeah. How do you feel about the two guys who are standing on the roof of the Citizens Bank Stadium as Bryce Harper's first home run careened towards outer space? First of all, I just want to note for the listeners at home when Chris said the words Bryce Harper's first home run, a tremble ran through my body. I feel alive. Second, it tracks to me. You know, I think that with good reason, the concept of Florida man has gotten a lot of traction in the last few years. But there's a Philly guy thing, too.

And I think that just two random Jumokes standing on the unsecured roof of a stadium during the third inning of a playoff game, That makes sense to me. I noted with interest yesterday to you that many people in the stands at the bank, and we're talking about the National League playoffs right now in case anybody's like, but briefly, briefly. They seem to be mirroring the behavior that they're seeing on the field in terms of their hair. Like I am noticing more and more men with Brandon Marsh-esque straggles of hair coming out of their hats and bushy facial. Constantly pouring bottles of Poland Springs or Kirkland brand water on their.

Or butt-heavy. Yeah. I can't do that, you know, physically. I'm sorry, yeah. And I was like, oh, maybe I'll just let my facial hair go. And then I thought about how many times I've walked into this studio, hoping that you would be like, the mustache is looking great. First of all, the other thing that happened this morning is you walked in and you were like,

I cannot stand bright light. You were like, this, I need this, I need vibes only in the studio. So you're hurting your own cause there, you know, in terms of me noticed. Overhead light. Right. But bright overhead light would really bring out my mustache. Yes. So what I maybe should do is see if we can, we can scrape together the budget to have kind of like a key light always following me.

Yes. Yeah. I would be into that. Okay. So I'm sorry that you feel that you cannot participate. Maybe that's why you're clad head to toe and eagles green today because you're just pivoting to a sport that welcomes you. Yeah. You have kind of the Lane Johnson going on.

Sure. Yeah. Right. My ankles collapsed once or twice. It's fine. You're doing this entire podcast with an abdomen tear. Can I ask you, we are, as Chris said, we have a lot of news. Hit fast forward if you need to.

But I did have a question for you. I think one thing people appreciate about this podcast is that they get two different perspectives of men who are in their 40s from Philadelphia. Who've done each other. 25 years. Yeah, seven years. But one, the key difference is Daddington, non-Daddington. Yeah, sure. And so I wondered what you, do you feel like it is representative of a coursinging of our society?

that every time the Phillies do anything, they just unquestionably do a gesture that can only be described as juggling big balls to each other. I thought you were going to refer to Bryce Harper doing the throat slash, but yeah. Oh, no, everybody knows the most, you know, the most efficient and sometimes humane way to kill an animal is like that. I just mean, do you feel like, is that a bad sign for America that that's what they're doing on the screen?

The Sam Cassell, the onions dance? Yes. I mean, it's not the class. thing I've ever seen in my life. But like, who am I to tell, you know, Trey Turner how he should... I'm going to create a straw kid argument here, which is to say... Oh, you don't like it. Basically, my children do not want to watch sports with me ever. Yeah. Um, despite my best efforts and like, no, Daddy's not going to scream this time. He promises. Um, I think I can convince my younger child that they're just festive and they're juggling like the way a clown would juggle. Uh-huh. Right?

Yeah. I think that ship has sailed for my older daughter. What do you see? say when they're like, Daddy, why did that man make a slashing gesture across his neck? They say, let us know when the ads are on and we'll raise our eyeline again to the screen. They, the contempt with which they hold my interests keeps me alive. Andy, where do you want to start? So we have a couple of things. Let's do our news and then we'll transition into Marvel stuff. The majority of this episode today will be dedicated to Marvel. We're going to talk about the Hollywood Reporter article that came out this week about the, gosh, I guess the, the, the, the coming.

Creative reboot that's hit the Daredevil series. That was 18 episode show first series season. That was going to be airing, I presume, sometime next year, that they have decided to basically, I'm not going to go as far as they're scrap, but it's like they've gotten

new writers. They've let the directors go. They are basically going to start from scratch and rebuild this show. And we'll get into the details of Boris Kitt's holiday reporter article, probably with Joanna, because a lot of the things that you see come to life in this article, which is largely about Daredevil, but is also about

Marvel's approach to making television and how that's about to change. Those things are seeded in Joe's book, which is essentially a history of Marvel's content machine, like screen content machine. And I'm really excited to talk about this book. Chris and I were lucky enough to get... The book is out now. But we got galleys a few days ago before it went up, and it's really fired up our competitive instincts in terms of who can read more of the book faster. It's not firing up my competitive instincts. I was just saying that I noted with interest that you were always letting me know you were ahead of me in the book. It felt really good. Well, I think it was based on two things.

One, I'm an exceptionally fast reader. I'm not. And I think that's one of my selling points. Two, there's a counter-narrative out there. Well, it's a narrative, let's say. I'm going to provide the counter-narrative that maybe I'm not in the cage getting reps. You know, maybe I'm not doing the work between the games. Oh, okay.

And I wanted people to know that when I have a great, great piece of homework like Joe's book, I'm... No problem. No problem for me. Yeah. You know, I'm the hardest working man in showbiz. I'm having... For the last 48 hours, I've been having a great time with this book. It's really exciting.

Honestly, like, you know, it's friggin' page turner. And it is a lot of stuff people may, people who are casual fans of Marvel will find so much new information. People who think they are diehard fans of Marvel will find. find new information and also see this information put together in such a way that they really learn a lot about like modern Hollywood, I think. That's the thing that I cannot stress enough in what makes this book so exceptional is there are things in it, a number of things that are known that I think even casual fans are aware of in terms of casting or recasting or decision makings, the life and death of various projects. To see them all laid out with this level

of detail and focus and perspective really made me understand the project in a different way. Because you can't hold all of the different ideas at one time. This has been over 15 years of stuff. And to see the through line and to see how, basically how they have actually done this, what's defined of the success, and some of those same things have defined the more recent failures. It's really interesting.

We'll get into it. But first, we've got to hit some news. Okay. So let me just say this. A lot of people have asked me about this this week. So Michael Mann has been on the promotional trail for Ferrari, his new film coming. I can't wait to see it.

and he is basically I want to say succumbed to but like this has clearly been the plan all along when they did the Heat 2 book with him and Meg Gardner and book is awesome. I really recommend people check it out and I recommend people check it out because I don't really know how they're going to do Heat 2 as a movie

as it currently stands. So one of the reasons why I've always kind of expressed, not trepidation, but just kind of like, I just don't know what they're going to do here is because Heat 2 essentially exists in the moments after the heat movie ends. It follows the story of Chris Schiaherelis after the heat movie ends. And that's Val Kilmer.

Yeah. And then it is also a prequel set in Chicago and also the U.S.-Mexico border and all over with Vincent Hanna and Neil McCauley, the two main characters played by De Niro and Pacino in the movie. So you've got this kind of time difference. You've also got the fact that Val Kilmer will not be playing Christiane Harrelis, even though it will be right after the movie goes. There's like, there are ways to get around it,

and there are probably ways in which you can just be, like, suspend your disbelief. Austin Butler's going to be Christian Harrow, let's get over it. And I'm actually pretty fine with that. I'm really excited for it. I don't know if you've ever had this with something that you loved so much, you kind of don't want to fuck it up. I feel that with most things in my life.

Yeah. So it's just, heats to me, like one of the most perfect pieces of pop culture in my life. And heat to being good or bad or uneven. I mean, it's a Michael Mann project, so it's going to have stuff in it that I think isn't amazing. I just don't know, you know, like, I don't know if I want anything to cloud,

like, my relationship with heat, even more heat. Do you think the move ought to be? And I know you don't presume to tell Michael Mann what to do with his time. He's going to do what he wants. But the prequel in which obviously there's no question that, I mean, you would recast. Yeah, you would probably do. the much rumored Adam Driver thing. So wouldn't that be, again, I haven't read the book,

so you can tell me, but it sounds like maybe there's an avenue there to make a different movie, like essentially a different storyline, different vibe, maybe even a different type of story, that type of film with different actors, a taut thing that can exist in the larger heat universe. Sure, it's just with the same characters. It's same characters, but again, I don't know. Are they, is the prequel aspect of the book also, it's not one last job, but is it one big height? I mean, it's these guys on, it's essentially like Neil and Vincent are on parallel tracks and they don't cross.

Brought together by their equal handed, like they're both equally pursuing this other criminal in some ways. What if the version of Heat 2 that Michael Man wants to make is just young Wingrow? Like that, it's just nothing that was in the book. It's just that's his version of it. would be pretty funny. It's just, that's the thing. That's the itch. He's never scratched.

Right? What's his trauma? But also, don't you feel like there's a, Michael Mann is in his 80s? So what, I mean, he's either going to do this or be the next president of the United States. That's really the only having used for a man of his. It's going to run against Steve Garvey.

But I think, I think, it's not going to, it doesn't matter. It's not going to affect the legacy of them. Do you feel that one? I just mean, like, you know, I, you know what it is is that I watch all these cycles happen with fan service and basically the collective power of the internet fan communities wishing something

into existence. And that's actually something really interesting that happens reading Joe's book is you watch the course of casting in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it starts out and it's basically these people taking like these really big swings and wild chances. And then over the course of time starting to be told

who they're supposed to cast as Reed Richards, you know? Oh, by the fans. Yeah, exactly. Like as like the fans get more and more equity, which, you know, they should. It's their money. They're going to be going to these things. But I think almost like thinking about like how these roles have already been cast in some ways

by like the internet is sort of funny. And the desire for this project is fueled largely, I think, by the fandom around heat. I don't know that Michael Mann was like, there's really a lot more of the heat story that I need to tell. Well, I think that... At the expense of adapting the Mark Bowden Vietnam book or something like that. I think the thing that's

interesting is when you're when you are michaelman when you're an artist of that level and certainly of that honestly of that age like what interests you about it i'm i am interested in what he's interested in and even if that doesn't align with what i want and this is obviously a safe callback for me and in many ways not at all comparable because it's it's a much less linear thing but like when twin peaks the return happened um yeah i i found myself i've spent i spent much of my life dreaming about having more of my favorite thing. And even though I had made peace with the fact that it was a cliffhanger forever and we were never promised anything else, my brain did go to a place of, well, finally find out what happened to Cooper in the Black Lodge. Now, I think what made that

a masterpiece was that what David Lynch was interested in wasn't necessarily what I was interested in. And the entire piece, in addition to being trippy and profound and bizarre and fucking crazy, was that it was kind of elegiac and about the end of things and sadness and old age and so many people who were in it were members of David Lynch's creative family and they didn't and many of them began to pass away almost immediately after filming it. There was no correlation but like it was quite moving.

So again, it's not the similar thing but the idea of a filmmaker returning to something and pulling at the thread that remains from a perspective of older age or maybe I get one more bite at this is interesting. The last thing I'll say is that I, as I've done many Michael Man movies on rewatchables, almost all of them, except for public enemies and Keep and I think maybe one or two others. It's obviously like he returns to the same themes over and over again. So it's not so much me being like, it's not an aversion to Michael Man going overground.

He's maybe tread before because he does that quite a bit. He's a filmmaker who has certain ideas about the world and he puts those ideas into different stories. Before we get to Joanna, I just wanted to ask you, you know, it's been a running bit. Actually, not a bit. It's legit. It's my life. Have an aversion to Nathan Fielder's creative work because you get mistaken for him.

Well, there's two things. I had an initial aversion to his work because I am made very uncomfortable by his particular brand of comedy, which I got nothing for you. That's just the way it works. I'm sorry. That does not any meant as any objective criticism of it. I think most smart people that I like and respect think he's a genius, and they might be right. It definitely was... It's been a challenge in Los Angeles.

If you thought he was the funniest person in the world... Yeah. And you got mistaken for him. Would you be like, that's pretty cool? I still feel like there's some... I think the other thing about it is that there is some ego involved because... You're like, I'm Andy Greenwald. No.

I mean, technically, yes. No, but I've told the story on the podcast before that, like, there are times we are not. You and I are not celebrities, but there's... There are certain areas of America. East Los Angeles, yeah. Specifically, Sunset Junction and maybe like a couple blocks of Park Slope where we have been known to be stopped.

And people will say something to us. And often it's very nice. We appreciate it. The issue is a number of times people coming up being like, man, I'm a big fan. It's great. I can't believe if I'm seeing you here. Can I get a picture?

Is the rehearsal coming back? Right. It's the buildup. It's like you think you're like trying to show off your kids or you're just like. The one in front of my kid was the tough one. Yeah. one of the greatest moments of her life. And I

continues to be a tough one for me because of that. Anyway, yes. What you're asking is, are you gauging my interest level? I get a lot of comparisons to people who I would rather not be compared to Jets owner Woody Johnson. That's a recent one.

Yeah, that's one that people have a lot of fun with. It would be cool if people were like, damn, dog, you look like Tom Hardy and Fury Road or something. Tom Hardy is the blood bag Yeah, but, you know, in any case, the curse looks incredible, I think. You know, I think it just looks like it just seems like it's going to be a really big thing.

Yeah, I've got two comments. One is, for whatever trepidation I have, that words in my head now, thanks to you, about engaging with a Nathan Fielder project, the reverse energy is provided by my interest in any Emma Stone project because I love her. I think she's a genius. So I'm interested. And then this trailer, like, I'm not that petty. This looks really, really interesting. It looks very unique, and I'm pretty excited about it.

And I feel like, I don't think I made this up, although I did do a Alta Vista search and came up blank, that this was initially pitched as a half hour. And then in editing, they discovered it was better as an hour. And I'm really curious about that. It's almost like when people saw Nathan Fielder involved, they were like, it's a comedy. So it was like, this is a satire for like home improvement shows. You watch this trailer, it is a lot more than that. It is more in keeping with the spirit of what he likes to do and what his collaborators on this, the Safdi's like to do in terms of making you feel real weird in the core of your being.

I'm just always curious in the change of delivery system. That really doesn't matter that much until we see the product. But it's curious. Oh, last thing. It also feels like a missive from another universe because this was an original that was bought on the market by showtime. time, which essentially doesn't... It's like a tab on Paramount Plus now. And this will fuel

a lot of our conversation over the next few weeks and months probably, but I would love people to check out the head of Paramount, Nicole Clemens' comments that she made this week, where she was like, what we're looking for at the Paramount Plus Corporation is what I... This is a quote, like what I would... Her saying, which she would term populist entertainment. And she was like,

we're really looking for shows that run for multiple seasons and appeal to people. not on the coast. And I'm like, I think Nicole Clemens just invented television. This is going to be a recurring theme

in our conversation with Joanna Robinson. She's asking for TV. Why don't we get to it? 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 Fandul Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, 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 two-percenter. 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, cheese. 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 sales signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. Andy, we are now joined. I think it's the first time that the three of us are together. And I know that's the case because you just met Joanna. We are now joined. Overdue.

I'm thrilled. By Joanna Robinson, who is one of the. the authors of MCU, the reign of Marvel Studios, which is out now at your favorite bookseller. I won't tip the scales in any direction. It's at your least favorite bookseller as well. Possibly, yeah. It's a real thing. I didn't know you're coming for Walden books like that.

But Joanna, thank you so much for coming on the Watch podcast to talk about Marvel. Oh my God. Thanks for having me. Actually, fun fact, we are oddly backed order on Canadian Amazon. So if you are Jeff Bezos devotee in Canada, you might want to try your local bookstore. Well, the watch is big in Canada. Are we? I don't know.

I think largely... It feels right. It feels like you are. It's a populist podcast for really the middle of America. I think that's where we really appeal. Just like Paramount Plus. Joanna, I wanted to ask you, you know, really broadly to start with... Why did you want to write this book?

Yeah, so it was 2019, actually. Remember that? Nope. Norton came to us to say, hey, there's this little, like, independent film called Endgame in theaters, if you heard of it. And this big show called Game of Thrones is wrapping up. Do you want to write about a book about Game of Thrones? And I said, no, too soon. No, thank you. And they're like, well, okay, what about Marvel? And their idea, what they wanted was an oral history of Marvel. And I said, listen, I don't know if you ever met Disney, but they're not going to

want to have us tell their story that way. And as it turned out, Disney didn't want us to tell their story in any way at the end of the day. But we wound up talking to over 100 people anyway, including Kevin Feigey, all the stars that you want to hear from, et cetera. But we had to get a little creative journalistically about halfway through the project in order to get to some people. But I don't know. This Marvel story is so interesting to me, not just because, you know, You know my podcast on the Ringarverse. You know that I like the Marvel stuff in general. But I can, I also dislike some of the Marvel stuff.

And I feel like it doesn't really matter how you feel about Marvel. It happened. Like this happened for over a decade in Hollywood. This is a Hollywood story. It's a chapter in the history of cinema. It's a chapter in the history of television. And it's something that I didn't feel had been fully captured soup to nuts from like the business angle, the fandom angle.

storytelling angle, all of that. And so we just got into it and kept talking to people. The pandemic lockdown was, you know, both disruptive and helpful because people were just stuck in their house. So we talked to a lot of people who were just home and bored. And I feel like we got it. I feel like we did it. I never thought we would. So here we are. Can you talk a little bit more about the challenges that you face? Because as you said, some people talked, some people didn't. And then something happened midway through where maybe people were encouraged not to talk. So what was your process like? And who were you most surprised to get access to? And maybe the reverse of that, too. Who were you most disappointed that you never got to? Yeah. Thankfully, because I wrote the

cover story for Vanity Fair on 10 years of Marvel, I'd already spent a couple hours with Kevin Feigy in his office. I had already talked to all the main Avengers for a long time. Much of that, most of that didn't make it into the magazine articles. Magazine articles, you get like two quotes or whatever. It gets into the magazine article. So I had a lot of material to work with from that. And that was really helpful because Feige was very informative about his process. And if I hadn't had that, I don't think we would have the story. Disney initially said they would not obstruct us. Like I checked with them over and over again. And they said, yeah, no, it's fine. And then they decided to, they were in the process of putting out their own book, which they did a couple years

ago, this big coffee table book that they put out. Marvel. Why it's the best. Yeah, which has a version of the story. For us, by us, right? And, you know, it's got a lot of pretty photos and it's got some of the story. But when we picked it up and started reading it, we're like, we've already heard so many stories that aren't in this book.

And when they decide to put out their own book, that's when they really sort of closed the door. and when you reach out to people's reps and you hear from a publicist, oh, well, we heard from Disney that they would rather we not talk to you. Or we heard from people who already confirmed that they would talk to us. They came back and said, oh, no, I'm sorry, we can't. I'm dying to talk to you, but I can't because Disney won't let me, et cetera. And then what's really funny is that at the very end of the process, I would say at the top of this year,

I talked to Disney and they're like, actually, we don't really. see a problem with it and we're not really interested to blocking it anymore. I was like, too late Disney. Where were you many years ago? So who talked to us? I will say the person he was most I think most informative and I'm most surprised talked to us

was Craig Kyle who's a name your listeners might not know but he was a long-time producer at Marvel and a really close friend of Kevin Feige and was really informative about the process and he talked to us in a very forthright way for a very long time after Disney said people should not be talking to you. And so that was like very, very helpful

to us. Who did we not get that I really wish we had gotten? Jeremy Lacham, who was one of Fige's assistant and then one of the early producers, just I really, I tried a bunch of times with him. I've talked to him before. He's a great guy. I tried a bunch of times because I really thought it would be helpful to get those early, early days stories from him. But we got them, we wound of getting them from other people. But that was one that I was, I was chasing for a while, for sure. Do you think the writing of the book changed your relationship to how you feel about the Marvel movies and shows as a critic and a fan? Like, did you get tired of them? Or did you, did knowing all of the things that go into making them, like, change how you felt about them as end products?

Well, you've both read the Hulk chapter. And the Hulk chapter is one that I think is really interesting in terms of that's a movie that I've already always kind of just tossed to the side as, you know, Marvel seemed to kind of wish you had forgotten about it mostly, except we'll bring back William Hurd and we'll bring back a couple other, you know, Tim Roth is back, live Tyler's coming back. But Ever Norten is Forever Persona Nongrata at Marvel. He's like the only bridge they've ever burnt, honestly. And I think he wrote the bridge himself. Yeah, he did. He did. Someone else built it, but he wrote it. I think that's still in WGA arbitration. It's been arbitrated, but it's pretty clear who's bridge it was. A lot of arbitration a lot of WGA arbitration in this book. But he, everything that happened in that film, all the problems that went on behind the scenes,

I'm almost impressed that a movie as good as the Hulk came out of the behind the seas mess. I'm glad you brought up the Hulk thing because one of the most striking things about the book. And we're going to keep saying it. This book is so well done and it's so well-paced and it's really informative, particularly about areas that I think we were saying before you joined us. like I feel like we knew some stories or we knew vibes or we kind of knew that we had a sense of it. But to see it all laid out is so instructive about the larger project. And specifically, when we're sitting here week after week being like, how could they be making, how could secret invasion be like this? How could something be so chaotic and so seemingly stitched together,

thrown together, so cavalier with such gigantic properties and so much money being spent? The thing about your book that I was struck by is that all of the successes and all of the seem to come from those first two movies. Like the thing that we praise Marvel for is also what we're now dinging Marvel for. And all this comes down to, they got away with one on Iron Man. They hired correctly. And as your book illustrates so dramatically, they were, Jeff Bridges was sitting there furious because Downey and Fabro were locked in a room writing a script.

He was playing dice games with the crew while those guys are in a room for five hours, making up Iron Man. And somehow they came up with a multi-hundred billion dollar franchise from that. And then they tried to do it again with the Hulk. And it didn't really work. But they got away with it. And they've been kind of getting away with it to varying degrees ever since. Well, I think yes and no.

I completely agree that the sort of fly-by-night, we got away with it with Iron Man, was a shock to them all, honestly. And a shock when you hear all those stories about just how sort of chaotic. My favorite is when Favro tries to scrap the whole cave. sequence in Iron Man. And Michael Reva, the production designers, like, we built the cave, so we're doing the cave, all right? But Joanna, then

later, Jos Weeden doesn't want a cave in the Avengers. And I'm like, guys, just leave the cave as a standing set. Use it or don't use it. That's why I think they never should have torn down deadwood. You know, they're just like, leave it up, just in case. Yes. Sorry, I cut you off. No, no, no. No, that's perfect.

But, like, I think that what happens, well, becomes more difficult later is because Ironman and Hulk, even though they have those post-credit sequences, were really made as their own movies. And this is the problem behind the whole Edgar Wright saga is like at the beginning of the MCU, they were just making individual superhero movies. And that's when Edgar Wright was supposed to make his Ant Man. He was supposed to be one of the first three.

It was supposed to be Iron Man, Hulk, and Ant Man. And then for various reasons, which are outlined in the book, it got delayed, delayed, and by the time Edgar Wright and Ant Man tried to join the MCU, we're no longer making individual movies where you can sort of be chaotic and just make up the script in the trailer if you want to. Now we're just a thread and a larger tapestry. And Edgar writes like, I'm not a thread. I'm a filmmaker. I don't want to play. I don't want to weave this into this larger story you're telling. And when part of what makes the MCU so special in the beginning, so unprecedented, is that how interlocked this franchise is, how every piece.

sort of retroactively by I don't even know how they pulled it off making Thanos look intentional the whole time when he wasn't. But it feels like... That's one of the nuggets in the book is that Jos Whedon, right, just was like this would be cool.

And that like Marvel was too tired to fight about it or something? Yeah. And it's just sort of like, okay, Thanos is here. And then they're like, oh, how about Thanos? And then all of a sudden like, oh, how about we have all these Infinity Stones?

And then the Infinity Saga sort of takes shape afterwards. But people think that Thanos was the plan from the start. It wasn't. And so I think that that interlocking franchise, which is their strength for so long, then starts to become their major weakness because especially in the streaming wars, as the content demand from first Iger and then Chepec at Disney ramps up and they're falling behind on the productions, they have to shift schedules around. They're trying to coordinate with Sony. Sony releases a Spider-Man before their Dr. Strange movie. And so now they have to rewrite their Dr. Strange movie on the fly because now it comes

after Spider-Man. And all of these problems, these scramblings, these not knowing how to finish their TV shows, there's a whole chapter about Marvel television in the Disney Plus era that's so interesting because you hear from like Jack Schaefer on Wanda Vision that she's like, you know, we forever had just like a question mark at the end of Wanda Vision because we didn't know how they wanted to end it because they didn't know how they wanted it to feed into the next thing. And that's a little bit okay with movies to a certain degree. It's not a, it doesn't work in television.

Like that model doesn't translate over to television. We'll talk about that a little bit more. But I think that that interconnected franchise has now become, which was their innovation, their disruption of Hollywood, now has become one of their biggest liabilities in what they're trying to make. So as someone who's interviewed the man and then covered the entire breadth of what he's done at Marvel, I'm curious what you think Kevin, what makes Kevin Feige special in this? Like, why was he able to pull this off to the degree that he has pulled it off? Because I think this is something we've been discussing over, you know, a long period of time.

I think that the public perception of him is often wrong. When you talk to filmmakers, even at this late stage of the MCU, they don't describe him as a meddler or a megalomaniac. They're like, he's great. He's such a nice, creative guy. Yeah. They all like him, even as they increasingly don't want to work in this. overly complicated meddling universe.

Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, I think number one, the number one quality, because, you know, interviewing a lot of people, I would ask them, what would you, how would you describe him, Faggy, what makes him so special? That is, like, a key question to answer in the book. And number one, quality that people point out in Faggy is how nice, how affable, how kind, how he remembers everyone, how diplomat. And he's so diplomatic.

Like, will never, has never. Except for Evernorton tossed someone under the bus publicly. Ever Norton press release is one of my favorite little nuggets in the book. It's just iconic, honestly. And so, but you don't get as far as he got just by being a nice guy, right? And so he's also, he's a political animal. He's got a mind for that. I think the, you know, burn no bridges is part of the larger political operation.

I don't think it's cynical, but I think it's part of it. And I think also the thing that people get wrong about Kevin Feigieg all the time is they think he must have grown up a comic book nerd. And that is absolutely not the case. He grew up a blockbuster nerd. Right. There's like one of my favorite stories in here is possibly apocryphal story about how he skipped his prom to go watch like back to the future. We couldn't get the dates to line up. The New Jersey prom and like back to the future. We couldn't make it work to confirm. Yeah. But like I like the idea that Kevin Feiggy skipped his. prom to go line up her back in the future. That also sounds a little bit like one of those, like you can't fire me, I quit. Like speaking about getting the dates lined up, but maybe just the prom wasn't looking like a good thing for him that night. No dates at all lined up. No. But, you know, so he's a blockbuster guy. He studied, you know, loved Richard Donner Superman, but mostly loved Star Wars and Indiana Jones and Back to the Future and those blockbusters. So he brings that sensibility. He,

by dint of getting an internship with Richard Donner and Lauren Schuller-Doner and then eventually working on the X-Men properties, he says, oh, this is interesting. I'm now going to make myself an expert in comic books so that I can be fluent and helpful in this world. And then he studies my favorite story from Craig Kyle as a Palm Springs vacation where Kevin Feiggy just like sits in the shade with a stack of comic books because, I mean, he's a ginger and doesn't want to be frolicating in the sun, right?

And so he studies the comic books. He comes an expert in the comics. And I think that sensibility of the outsider looking into the world is so key to Marvel's early success of like there's respect for the comics. You know, like Brian Singer on the set of X-Men didn't want the actors reading the comics and Faii would just sort of like slip them issues and be like, hey, Hugh Jackman, maybe you should read a Wolverine comic. So respect for the source material, but not so entrenched in the world that he doesn't understand what an outsider would need a newcomer would need to understand. And so I think he brings that, you know, that 80s blockbuster Amblin sensibility to these comic book stories. And then the other factor behind all of that is he's not a medler. But the idea of the Marvel process being go shoot your movie.

Bring me back the pieces. And I'll... I will look at them and tell you what you're missing. You're missing this relationship. You're missing this action beat. And then we've built into the whole schedule. reshoot window. It's not, you know, if you hear a Marvel reshoots, it's not because there's a problem. That's just their process. It's really just more additional shoots. Yeah. Yeah, really. And then

they complete the movie. And so Fige, because he always wanted to be a director, I think is a sort of producer director hybrid in a way. And, but is so affable and is so respectful while doing it, that it doesn't feel like meddling. It just feels like this is the Marvel method and this is what everything goes through. I think there might be a few exceptions to that rule. Like, I don't think he did that with Cougler. You know what I mean? Like, I think there are a few directors that he didn't quite do that with. But for the most part, for the like more pay-to-play directors, like the Rousseau brothers, etc. Like, I think that was that was more of the process. I was going to bring up the Russo Brothers because I think one of the things that I found fascinating

about reading the book was Fige's repeated interest in emerging filmmakers and going after people who had made, you know, one independent film or one small studio film and then saying, why don't you come play in this much bigger sandbox? And I think that I had always kind of looked at this as, well, if you would just let Chloe Zhao make her version of the Eternals or if you would just let, you know, whoever make their version of this, Shane Black, make an unencumbered version of Iron Man 3 or whatever, then it just would have been better. And I think that there's some truth to it, but I was really thinking a lot about what the Rousseau's

have done since they've left Marvel. And I'm not really a big fan of it, you know, honestly. And I think that in some ways... Not a gray man. Not a big... I mean, I was fascinated by it, but I want to see the extended universe. I want to see the more... Yeah, and I are waiting on Citadel Season 2. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we'll weigh in. But...

Those were guys who were like, you know, we made two small films and a bunch of television, and then we got involved with Marvel, and we got, they admittedly got some of the best stories you could get. The Winter Soldier story is awesome. And then they kind of like imagine it as this 70s conspiracy thriller. And there's this part in your book, I don't want to give away too much of my favorite stuff because I want people to read it.

But you guys are talking about how a 70s conspiracy thriller would end with the protagonist being like, nothing I did mattered and the world is shit basically. And Captain America can't end that way. and the Rousseau's are the perfect guys to be like, it's okay, we can just use all the tonal stuff from 70s conspiracy thrillers, but still have it be a Captain America movie. It seems like they were almost Faggy's perfect partners. Faggy provided them like story and character

and beats that they needed to follow. But vice versa, because they were as much managers and of the content as they were filmmakers, right? I think the perfect Marvel cocktail is Marcus and McPhiley, who are the screenwriters on all the rules, Russo Brothers films, the Russo Brothers, plus the Feigei Triumvirate, which is Feigei, Louis De Spazito, and Victoria Alonzo. Like that, you know, Victoria no longer works at Marvel, but that was like the top three at the head there.

And I think that was, you know, we don't like to call films content. Fagie even has a quote about that in the book. Like, I hate the word content, right? Yeah. We don't like to call it that. We don't like to call it a machine. We like to think about art. We like to think about cinema.

Like we love those things, right? I don't think about it. We like to watch them too. I think about it when I walk by an abandoned art house movie theater that I personally destroyed. But when you're talking about the platonic ideal of the, of, you know, the Infinity Saga, Avengers movies, MCU, it was that team. And there's some great stuff from, I talked to Dan Harmon a lot about this because, you know, the Russo Brothers worked on community. before they went to Marvel. Michael Waldron, who was the headwriter on Loki,

and then worked on Dr. Strange, was a Dan Harmon guy. Jeff Loveness, who worked on Quantum Media, was a Dan Hart. They were poaching a lot of Harmon talent because Feigey is a comedy guy and likes Dan Harmon. He likes Rick and Morty. He likes community. And so I talked to Herman about that. And he was like, he was talking about how when you go to Marvel,

you have to go there as a team player. And he's like, that's why the Russo brothers are the perfect people to go there. He was like, you can't be Orson Wells and go to Marvel. But if you are willing to be part of a team, you can thrive at Marvel. Yeah. And so I do think the Russo Brothers were perfect. And, you know, the Russo of the Brothers make Endgame the biggest movie in the world until James Cameron is like, but remember Avatar. Yeah, right.

Bringing it back. And then they come off of that on this high. And I remember them holding court at San Diego Comic-Con and saying, these are. all the things we're going to do now that we are two of the most important filmmakers in the world. But that's the thing about Marvel is like, Marvel's not really in the business of, you know, creating stars as I was

talking to Bill about a little earlier on his show or creating, you know, star filmmakers. It's about creating the brand Marvel, the superheroes. And so the Russo Brothers outside of that larger machine don't sing the same way.

Absolutely. And watching them on set, you know, I got to be on set up for Endgame. And watching them on set and watching them, I was so interesting, like, how do you co-direct? I mean, especially how do you co-direct with your brother? I would never be able. Not me. Couldn't be me. But, you know, they were just sort of like, one of them would just sort of like wander off.

And while one of them was talking to me, one of them just like wander off and talk to the Avengers and then like wander back. And, you know, it was just sort of like, they didn't have a, I was like, are you specialized? Does one of you good at this and one of you good at this? And they're sort of like, no, we're just sort of talk to the actors, make sure the cameras. You know, I don't mean to mean them. They're like, they're brilliant guys who know a lot. about film, but I do think they work better in that larger machine.

They were doing a lot of vibe shifting there. It's like a lot of stuff it seems like they're keeping the energy at the right place, making sure people are doing their best work, and then making choices about the work people have done. I actually had a different question, but you're mentioning being on set, I just feel like the surreality of that probably can't be overstated

that some of the biggest movie stars in the world and Academy Award winners or nominees are all wearing purple heads on stilts. in a random airplane hanger in Atlanta. And he's like, and now this is a moon with no oceans on it. Go. And like, it becomes the biggest movie in history.

I mean, what is the vibe? The vibe is interesting. It's, this isn't in the book, so this is exclusive to the watch. It's ice cold in the studio because that's how Robert Donnie Jr. likes it. So everyone else has to layer up because Robert Donnie Jr. likes things at a certain degree. He comes off as very much. modest in the book, by the way. Very chill. Demir.

Yeah. But you knew that. There's the little like ocean of trailers outside of the studio, but then Downey has his own trailer inside the studio. And so between takes, everyone hangs out in one spot. So you can just see like Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Renner are all sort of like sitting around playing games and just sort of talking each other. slightly off were Sean Gunn and Karen Gillen because they weren't like OG

event they were like in their own little duo but they you know but they're in that movie and then Downey is often his own like world and that's sort of like the between take vibe but it's just like it very much looked to me like these were the senior the graduating seniors was like Scarjo and Chris Evans and Hemsworth they've just like been through for a while they've known each other forever and they're sort of like Mark Ruhl is just sitting around as motion capture dots. You know, Hemsworth had the big, like, Thor beard on, and they're just, you know, just chilling and hanging out.

I swear they were playing an old school Game Boy. If I were a better journalist, I would have written down exactly which Game Boy game they were playing. I think one thing that readers will have a lot of fun with in the book is, and again, some of this had been reported, some of this had been rumored, but for every project, there is like a laundry list of could have beens, of almost was, of like the... Yeah, a little sliding doors moments. And sliding doors moments exactly of like who was almost cast. When you're talking about casting Thor, there's the nugget that Liam Hemsworth was further along in the process than Chris Hemsworth was until it was Drew Goddard sort of went to bat for him.

From Cabin in the Woods. Yeah. And saying why isn't he more involved in this? There is a moment where Mark Ruffalo has to wake up at 5 a.m. to see if there's a limo waiting for him to take him to Comic-Con to find out whether the deal got done in time. Unquestionably, one of the incredible things about the MCU, especially in its foundation, was just hit after hit of casting. even with the unexpected ones like Chris Pratt, do you personally, this is not even necessarily reporting, although if there was reporting to this, I'd be curious,

have a favorite sliding door of someone that would have been interesting to you or even, if you don't mind being slightly critical, if people later in the MCU that you think maybe should have gotten it. I'll speak for, I mean, personally, I still feel like Emily Blunt would have been an amazing Black Widow. I mean, the blunt, what could have been with, like, Krasinski as Captain America, and Blunt as Black Widow, you know, like the power couple. of the MCU would have been a very interesting sliding doors moment. The toughest one for me in that is,

you mentioned Deadwood earlier, I'm just like one of the world's biggest Timothy Oliphon fans. The fact that Oliphant was like so far in the Iron Man process, but it had to be downy. Like if it's not downy, I don't think we're even here at all. So as much as I love Tim, like a lot of these people I hear like Daniel Craig for Thor

or whatever the case may be, you know, I just, I'm like, I think at the end of the day they made the right choice. Like Sebastian Stan auditioning for Steve Rogers and they're like, not that, but Bucky Barnes? Tom Hiddleston for Thor also came in for that, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, you can, there's video of him in a way it gets amazing.

But I think that Sarah Finn, who's casting director for all of the Marvel projects, who we talk to for the book, my favorite thing about her is that she never forgets someone she's audition and she'll tuck them away for later. So someone like Wyatt Russell who auditioned early on in the process, but then she's like, you know what, we're doing this John Walker, who's this bizarro, Steve Rogers, bizarreo Captain America. And I auditioned that guy who was not quite right, but maybe he's right for this. And whatever I have to say about, you know, Falcon of the Winter Soldier and I have plenty

to say about that, I do think Wyatt Russell was great casting for John Walker in that, in that, like, you know, I love Wyatt Russell, big Lodge 49 fan, but like the punchability of his face in that was just an incredible move, I think. So you mentioned Falcon and the Winter Soldier, so maybe that's a good place for us to sort of pivot towards Disney Plus a little bit. Before you do, can I have one more thing? Sure. Just about the subject to supervillains.

I just feel like people, even casual fans may be aware of the role that Ike Pearl Mutter played in the Marvel story, both sort of. snatching the company when it was a comic book company to steer towards toys and then making this huge fortune off of it, that the role that he played and that Marvel New York and the creative committee that he created that has people who I consider to be very, you know, like Joe Casada and Brian Michael Bendis are great comic book creators and artists that divide. Like again, people kind of knew this and there were the separate projects and Jeff Loeb's Marvel TV that made Cloak and Dagger and Runaways and the Netflix shows. The animosity that existed between these two

polls of the company. The degree to which, even while Marvel was becoming the single greatest success story in Hollywood history, the degree to which it was being undercut constantly by itself is fascinating to read. And I really appreciated the way you just were able to throw light on that. And it's almost amazing that they got away with some of the things they got away with, considering what they were up against internally. And Kevin Feigy was smiling the whole time, publicly. That's, and even I would say, I mean, we did interview people who said, you know, Marvel East Coast, creative committee.

And to your point, someone we interview said Brian Michael Bendis, Joe Kasada, Innocent, that it's Alan Fine, who is another member of the creative committee who sort of got the finger pointed out as the mouthpiece for Ike Promener. Yeah, right. And we should say, Brian Michael Bendis or people who don't know, like invented Miles Morales with the artist Sarah Pichelli. Like he's a great creator. He's not a villain.

Joe Cossada, great guy. Like, honestly, like these, yeah, like, we talk about the creative committee as a whole. But when we talked about it as a whole, oftentimes people are like, it really wasn't the whole committee. Right. But we did hear from people that there would be shouting matches between Marvel East Coast and Marvel West Coast. But I think mostly what it was was Marvel West Coast muting the speakerphone in the conference room and rolling their eyes at the notes that they were getting from Marvel East Coast. So Kevin Vigy is smiling publicly, but also I think smiling mostly privately because that's just how he does business, you know, and he'll just sort of like affably talk you towards what he wants to have happen or he won't get what he wants. And then it comes to a head with my favorite, one of my favorites is maybe I should take a lesson from Chris Ryan and not keep telling you my favorite parts of the book.

So you have to read it for yourself. I think when you're selling books give people to give people. Hey, my book's good. No, Captain America Civil War. One of my favorite Creative Committee notes was, who wants to see a bunch of heroes fight each other? Right. Everyone, as it turns out, wants to see that.

But that was like, you know, the Civil War breakdown, the Black Panther breakdown, where the Creative Committee, or I'll just say Marvel East Coast, does not think we should do a Black Panther movie. Kevin Feud was trying to get a Black Panther movie made from the very beginning of the MCU. And like I know you guys were in the trenches, the cultural trenches that you remember every week. It was like, why are all our heroes, white guys named Chris is?

Where's the black widow movie? Chris Laren's like, it's my time to shine. Where's the Black Widow movie? Why are all your, you know, where is the Black Panther movie? And the holdup, it turns out, was Marvel East Coast feeling like women and not. on white leads will not sell toys or the way someone very evocatively put it in the book, push plastic. They need these characters to push plastic.

Because Ike comes from the toy world. So he has this toyetic mindset. Toyetic. That's a great word in your book. I mean, there's nothing charming or quaint about Ike Perelmutter as far as I can gather. But the fact that even after Marvel movies are grossing a billion dollars and he is just absolutely fixated on toy sales, like as the driver of what he believes the company to be,

It was really fascinating. My favorite is the purple pen story where... He's very cheap. Jody Hildebrand, a great, wonderful Marvel producer who talked to us, said she went to the office and everyone was wearing purple... We're using purple pens. And she was like, why? I don't understand. And it turns out they had used all the black and the blue pens and the multi-pack.

And they had to work through all the purple pens or else they weren't like to buy new pens. Yeah, yeah. You know, you were talking about the creative committee. One thing that pops up in the Boris Kit Hollywood Reporter, article about Daredevil is the arrival on the set of the secret invasion production of representatives of parliament. And I don't mean the UK government. I mean Marvel Parliament.

Marvel seems to have a predilection for starting creative groups, note-giving groups, giving them cool code names, the committee, the parliament, the Palm Springs crew. there's this there is this kind of tension between I think Kevin seems to throughout your book welcome this idea of

let's get the smartest people together let's have an open exchange of ideas in a professional manner and the best idea wins and we're going to kind of shape this thing out of this more collective debate style of creativity rather than

there's a writer and there's a director or there's a showrunner and there's a story that they already know they're going to shoot when they get to the set and they can give actors the emotional arcs that they're going to follow and all this stuff. Do you think that the expansion of these stories from being two-hour features to four, five, six, eight-hour serialized television shows

has broken this model a little bit? Yeah, I think it's a scalability issue. The Marvel Parliament was not created until the Disney Plus era. That's when the Marvel Parliament was created. And it's longtime Marvel producers, great people like Nate Moore, Trin Trin, Brad Winterbaum, Stephen Broussard. People have been there for a really long time who have worked on incredible films that we love. And the problem is they're meant to, as Bob Iger on his way out of Disney says, hey, we're going to launch Disney Plus. Let's turn all the content taps.

And Marvel, you're going to go for making two to three movies a year. to making two to three moves a year, maybe four movies a year, plus all these TV shows. And if the old Marvel method was go make your movie, bring the pieces back to Kevin, and then we'll do additional photography in a window after that, there's only one Kevin Feigy. You can't scale that up to, you know, allow for all of the decisions that need to be made on all of these shows at any given time. Andy, I know you know what it's like. as a showrunner, you're like constantly, I've heard you talk about, constantly trying to make all these decisions. And so instead they like place these layers between Kevin and the rest of, you know, and your headwriters and your directors on these shows and the Marvel Parliament.

And what's true, brilliant as they may be, they're not Kevin and they don't have like, they don't have the full vision, I think, of the entire thing. And you just can't spread one man across all of these projects and you can't have. have this team replace him in the Marvel method. I don't think he's replaceable in that way. And so I think it's less a best idea wins. It's more of the problem is you're asking people to create, be a thread in a larger tapestry while also keeping them in the dark. Something I don't think the THR article outlines as well or didn't spend as much time on is this idea that these headwriters, don't call them showrunners, these headwriters, are not given the full story of what's going on in Marvel. They're siloed off, right? And so they'll talk about, one of them talked to me about,

they're like, it's like you're a car and a larger train and you're allowed to decorate your own car, but you have no idea what's going on in the other cars on the train. And someone's coming in to tell you why you can't do, you can't do this and you can't do that, but we won't tell you why. Or they present these headwriters with, here's a bucket of Marvel characters that you can draw from. The best example is like on Wanda Vision, we need a sciencey character. Oh, we'll pluck Darcy out of the MCU and she'll come in and be on Wanda Vision. Well, they'll be given a whole bucket of characters to use. And then all of a sudden, like, some of those characters will go away.

And they don't know why because they're being pulled into another project. But they won't tell the head writer why. And so I just don't, it's like impossible to ask creatives, a writer and a director, to craft a story that makes entire sense without knowing where your character is going to go next or where they're coming from. So when you end Wanda Vision the way you do, and then Wanda Maximoff goes into Dr. Strange, the multiverse of madness, one thing is true is that they hadn't figured out what they were doing with that movie. But if they had, they weren't going to tell Jack Schaefer, who, you know, Matt Shackman, who made Wanda Vision. And so then they don't even tell Elizabeth Olson really what she should be pitching towards.

Yeah. And so the arc of that character makes no sense between those two projects because you're not, you're keeping so many people in the dark and siloed off. And it just doesn't in my, as someone who like enjoys the idea of Marvel as a disruptor and an innovator to a certain degree, but it doesn't really enjoy hearing from them at the start of the Disney Plus launch that they're going to just throw out the old models of television and try to make television the way that they make movies because I am slightly stodgy in my idea that TV making is different from filmmaking and like the show Bibles and the piloting

process and showrunners exist for a reason. And then I think with love and respect to those people who are very brilliant, it was, I think, arrogant of them to think that they didn't need to follow an established way of making an art form that has thrived for so long. They're film guys, you know. There's just such a major change in what happens with the way that they're making television over the years from the Jeff Loeb days to the Disney Plus days where they actually do want these Disney Plus shows to be connective tissue between the movies and in some cases be even more important than the movies. I have a lot of interest and almost affection for some of the old studio system ideas that they put into place about like, you know, we can have like a kind of like a school for writers and we can be like having writers who are. are basically punching up different shows or punching up different characters or responsible for all this stuff.

I have like a lot of like interest in the old Hollywood studio system and the Mank and the Hail Caesar era of like people just sitting around and spitballing and directors working on a wrestling movie one week and a Western next week. But the kind of difference was is that like wagon train and gun smoke were not trying to tell one unified story. The project of the American West. That's what Taylor Sheridan. But he actually hasn't done that.

You know what I mean? Like, he may eventually, but like one of the reasons why those shows actually do work is because Lioness and Yellowstone are not happening in the same world, you know? But I appreciate, Chris, you're mentioning this is what I wanted to bring up to. And the book really reminded me that the Netflix shows were pretty good. Like, I almost feel like we've forgotten that. Like, they didn't end great. But the first two seasons of Daredevil, Jessica Jones and the beginning of Luke Cage,

like those were pretty good shows and they were pretty good shows because their goal that the creators and showwriters had was to make pretty good TV shows. The goal wasn't to make cogs of the Marvel project, right? Like they just had different broader corporate goals. Not to say the creators of the Marvel shows don't want to also make good things, but as you point out, they're hamstrung. The question I have coming out of this article, which was, you know, a kind of a rare sign of public admission of defeat almost, that they need to rethink things. The amount of money that has already been sunk into this Daredevil Born Again reboot is astronomical.

Reportedly $150 million. They will play it down, but they filmed eight to ten hours of television, and they're throwing it in the garbage, and they're starting again. Do you sense, Joanna, like, even without naming names, background conversations, is there a sense of humility?

Is there a sense of we did certain things wrong and we need to try something different? Are they aware of what's going to be? going on with their brand? Well, I think there's, I mean, I think there's frustration to a certain degree. I mean, yes, they are aware of what's going on with their brand. My understanding, having talked to some people, my understanding is that quantum mania really shook them, and I'm sure Secret Invasion shook them further. But quantum media really shook them because they felt like they had something good. Like, they all internally thought everyone's going to love this. Right. And then they put it out and

people didn't. And then they were like, oh, no, our internal barometer is not attuned to what, what people want anymore. You know, because like I'm sure they put out, I know that they knew that Falcon and the Winter Soldier wasn't as good as it should have been because that project was also massively overhauled and recobbled together. So they knew that that was, you know, something like that was like a little shaky. So people were like, this is, this feels a little shaky. They're like, yeah, we know.

But quantumania, they're like, we've, we've put out a banger. And then that's not how anyone else or that's not how a lot of people felt. I think that this idea of, I just want to say back in the Jeff Loeb, and do you think Jeff Loeb had a really good day yesterday? I think you probably did. But like, back in the Jeff Loeb era. Do you think Stephen Denight was doing like an end zone dance? Donuts in the parking lot.

But like I think that not to pander to the jury, but I think something like what you lose when you try to make everything fit and what you try to make everything this feel like a character can hop from one project to another is you miss something like Legion, again, not to pander, but like, you know, Legion is like a show that existed on FX that was an X-Men property that does not have to hook up with anything else that the X-Men are doing elsewhere. And when you lose that, you lose that wild experimental, you know, tone that you can take at these projects we love. And so, you know, Loki, I think, is as close as they get to that sense of freedom and that

sense of fun because I know it's largely, it's less and less feeling the case because of Kang's larger involvement in everything. But Loki season one, you know, barring the multiversal situation that happens at the end of that show, which then seemed to happen again in multiverse of madness and, you know, maybe also a no way home question mark, you know, felt like its own special thing. And that's why a Loki season one was so good. Wanda Vision similarly. Like, they just felt like their own thing. And Wanda Vision, Wanda vision is my personal favorite because it did, up until I think the final episode, which ends in CGI Punch Fest, which is not that interesting to me, like it felt like such a fun,

experimental, let's like a tour through TV and TV history kind of project. I loved that they did. Yeah, there's, there are creative impulses in almost all of these series that I think are really cool. Like I, there's still a world in which a New York City buddy cop movie with Hawkeye and Kate that feels like a 90s action Shane Black thing is like pretty awesome, but then you also have to set up Echo and then you're also seating Kingpin and you're also doing like all this work just to get to the end of a six episode series where, you know, that was just like that probably would have been like

an really entertaining two-hour movie. You know, if it was like the holidays in New York City with Hawkeye and his sidekick as they try to solve a crime. You know, like... What's funny is that was supposed to be a movie and then they moved it over to television.

And I think Miss Marvel, I thought Miss Marvel started really strong. Like I really like the first two episodes of Miss Marvel. And then it just, you know, it got really rickety as it went on. And again, I just feel like yeah, that could have been a really strong, adorable film.

And it did, you know, they could not stretch that story over, it always seems like they either have too much story or not enough story for the number of episodes they have. So I kind of, I'm really curious about your perspective on this, both as a fan, but more specifically in this case, as someone who has relationships with these people, who, as you said, like these are smart, creative people. This is true with almost every company.

I mean, no one's trying to make bad art. And as you said, they are largely, self-aware about how things are received and what things might need to be addressed. They've been successful before. But let me paint you the pessimistic picture right now. Sure. If you look at their next few years as they've laid them out and who's actually going to be in these movies, it looks really dark.

You know, and I, I, they're like these Avengers movies that are also, you know, separate apart from the fact that they are entirely built around Jonathan Majors. And what that means for them is, we'll leave that aside for the moment. we're looking at an Avengers team that's Brey Larson and Don Cheadle and Anthony Mackey and maybe they can get Paul Rudd to suit up again at age 56

I'm not really sure who's going to be in these movies and what is the compelling story that they're going to tell is there panic or is there confidence that you haven't seen our best yet people are going to love Shuri as Black Panther and you're going to totally believe that there are three Captain Marvels

and whatever the case may be. Well, I think that's part of the tragedy that we cover in the back third or back quarter of the book is, yeah, we, I feel like they had a plan. We know we're losing our varsity players. We know they're leaving. So they're seating in Paul Rudd.

They're seating in Benedict Cover Badge. They put Childwick Bowman in a really prominent, important place. They put Brie Larson in. I don't know if Brie Larson was the wrong person for the role necessarily, but the toxic... I can say that. But the toxic backlash means that Brie Larson doesn't want to play Carol Damers anymore. That's sort of what she said.

She was like, she was interviewed at D23, and they're like, so, you know, we're going to see a bunch more from Carol Danvers? She's like, I don't know. Does anyone want to see me play Carol Danvers? It doesn't seem like it. And something that I did get a chance to speak to Chadwick. Bozeman for the book. And he told me the story about how on the set of Endgame, he and Brie Larson and Tom Holland sat around and talked about how they were the future of Marvel and how exciting

that was for them. And when you look at the breakdown between the Sony Marvel deal over Spider-Man, when you look at Chad Bousman passing away and you look at Brie Larson either not being a great fit or just, you know, being damaged by toxic fandom, then that plan that they put into play, you know, they felt like they were creating another 18th. It's like the Golden State Warriors, Chris. Sorry, I know you already run Bill's show, but yeah,

you can't do the rebuild while you're on top, go on. Yeah, well, I mean, and so it just, there's so many factors that came into play that sort of knocked their plan out under them. And I think that I agree with you. Like, no, Wakanda Forever did not do a convincing job of introducing Shuri as the next Black Panther, partially to Chris's point, because they're also trying to launch Ironheart and a different, you know,

Adora Mala's show at the same time, all of which Ryan Cougler's were, you know, this is the Ryan Cooglerverse inside of the MCU. And so it's trying to do too many things. And so we don't get the shirt. I mean, I don't know even if even under the best circumstance, Lettisha Wright at Shuri would have gone, but it wasn't the best circumstance. to launch that because they're trying to do so many things. So I think that I've heard even so after we heard about Daredevil, I've also heard again the watch scoop, but also don't sort me like dubious sources necessarily

that they're trashing the Wonder Man project. Like that there's a lot of stuff that it's going to go in the can. And that's kind of hand in hand also with like the posture of Hollywood post-strike, I think, right? Like that there's like a little bit of like not cost cutting, but like a lot of slashing going on. Yeah, but it's also, as we were saying last week, like there's a response to what, you know, I could, I would say is arrogance or at least over assumption about what the marketplace wants, you know, and this idea that Oscar Knight, Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawk, they're going to be Moon Night and it's going to be its own thing. And we have these great actors. Yeah, people are like, what? Huh?

It's just this flood of things that don't connect. There's something that's been really nagging at me because I actually. actually, like, I really enjoyed the first episode of Loki. I, the second season of Loki. I didn't understand it. Like, in terms of, like, I'm probably, like, starting to lose my grip on the multiverse and the time travel stuff and the pruning. And I'm like, I don't really totally understand what's going on here.

But I love the vibe. I love the set design. I love the performances, all that stuff. And maybe that is the point. And they'll eventually kind of, like, show you that. But they have been dwelling. Marvel has been dwelling. on this multiverse stuff for such a long time

that I wonder whether that is also a secret turnoff for people about whether or not nobody can tell what matters and whether or not this is just going to get reversed or this was actually happening in a different reality or whether or not. Honestly, it is pretty convoluted. It's hard to understand some of this stuff.

And I also have a secret theory that one of the reasons why they're kind of dwelling on all this stuff is that at any given point they could actually do like a hard reboot and they could say this is now a different sort of road that we're taking. And it's like we can bring Iron Man back if we want to. Well, that's what Secret Wars probably is. Yeah, right.

I think that's exactly what Secret Wars is. And we have a quote from Kevin Feigy sort of implying as much that like Secret Wars will serve as a soft reboot in which they can prune everything that's not to use a Lokiism, prune everything that's not working and just keep what is or break. back people you thought were gone forever if Chris Evans is like, you know what? My post-cap America career is not going the way that I want it to. I want to come back and pick up the shield. Or Downey's like, you know, what is too much money? I'm going to win an Oscar this year. Like, sure.

But that's the thing. One of the more interesting elements of your book, which is, again, I think people who live and work in Hollywood probably knew this in their bones, but you sort of lose track of it when you're just reading the headlines or seeing the movies. Just the role of money here. You know, they're making billions and billions of dollars. But the reason there was never an Iron Man 4 is because Downey was banking $50 to $70 million with profit participation. So there's not going to be another Iron Man movie.

Once these guys graduated from their rookie contracts, essentially, they're replaced. Is there a moment? Is there a glass box in Fige's office that says break in case of absolute emergency? Yeah, it's the X-Bet. No, that's my second question. The first question is, we're going to have to spend $800 million to make the Avengers assemble again because it's the only thing that people actually want to see despite our best efforts.

Yeah. I mean, I would be so surprised if we didn't get at least one major avenger back in Secret Wars. I'd be, my job would be on the floor. And the thing about Iger, I mean, who knows how long Iger is going to stay now that he's back, and I know that he has made himself the villain of, you know, the various strikes.

And I, you know, I boo this man. But at the same time, something that Iger was really good at that Chepec was not was relationships, right? Like the whole Scarlett Johansson situation that happened would not have happened under the Iger tenure at Disney. It would not have risen to the degree that it is when, and by that I mean, Scarlett Johansson, like, threatening to sue over the release of Black Widow and stuff like that. That doesn't, that kind of talent mishandling doesn't happen. And then they wrote that email being like, you know, during this time of viral unrest, how dare the. Celebrity. Exactly.

Selfishness in the face of a world. Exactly. That kind of pettiness is just not, was not the Iger way. And so Iger as a relationship guy, I think he could potentially get Downey and Evans or whoever back. And Ike Pommutter being like permanently excised from the org chart means the budgetary conversations are different than they were. before. So, yeah. What's your temperature read on Fantastic Four and X-Men? Fantastic Four has been announced with Matt Shackman directing it.

Casting rumors exist, but no casting. Adam Driver continuing to push that script back across the TV. I'd be like, no. Still no. The Mark Ruffalo limo is idling outside of his house. The X-Men, you know, is a great what-if. People don't know when and how that's going to get folded in. What is your current read on both of the things?

those properties, both in terms of the specifics of them, but also in terms of how the company sees them. And would you like to hear Andy's dream casting in total? We can do that off mic, but yes, I have some thoughts. Oh, okay, great. Actually, I was on, I was one of my interviews, I did someone ask me to cast Ringer podcasters as the X-Men. I'll tell you off mic what I did for that. But I, I, um, I am the juggernaut over here. Yeah. I'm Gambit. You're right. Just, Oh, Gamma's my favorite, Chris. That's not bad.

Lady, but I think that they do see that as a huge opportunity for them. And I think something that you can really respect in Faggy is the fact that he did not rush to do X-Men or Fantastic Four. That, you know, every year at Comic-Con since the Fox merger, people have been saying, where's our X-Men news, where's our Fantastic Four news? And he's like, I have no, I have no mutant news for you. Yeah. Deadpool's coming. Okay, we got Hugh Jackman, but no other mutant news for you, really. And before the Disney Plus era, that was always true of Marvel, is that they didn't do things until they were ready.

Do you remember that combate, that, like, bizarre combo Investor Day slash fandom stream that they did sometime during COVID, where Chapic came out. And then Kathy Kennedy came out and Kevin Fayee came out. And they were all standing awkwardly in front of like green screens. Yeah, and it was like 46 panels. that said untitled movie 16 in 2027. But they also had to announce they had to announce a bunch of stuff. Yeah.

And for the first time, and that Lucasfilm has since scrapped most of the things that they announced. And Marvel has scrapped like a few. But we were told that they were required to announce things that they weren't ready to announce. And they have been required to push things into production that they weren't ready to push into production.

I feel like I'm not quite answering your question. My sense of the X-Men is that they know how much they have to nail this, that there is no question that this has to be done and done perfectly or else they're really in trouble, right? Because this is the thing that people have been drooling for and waiting for. And my worry is that they don't have a firm grasp necessarily. I don't think Patrick Stewart in the yellow chair to the da-da-da-da-da-na-na is like exactly telling me what I want to hear about what they're going to do. Well, it's really fascinating because it's like,

do they need to introduce the concept of being a mutant and introduce the Charles Xavier School for Gifted Children or whatever? Or can they start this more immediate array where they like have, it's like, the X-Men are here and they've already been doing this. and now it's like age of apocalypse happens. I think that's the question. I think the other thing,

and Joanne, I feel like, I'm very curious your opinion about this. I think that one of the greatest gifts that Marvel ever had was that it didn't have all of its rights so that they could focus, A, on just a core team, but B, they could define a team and define Marvel. The most off-putting thing about comic book fandom

to the novice is how much of it there is and how overlapping it is. I think it's kind of a misread of the marketplace that everyone's like, no, wouldn't it be cool if Silo hung out with Black Widow? Like, I think that just doesn't make much sense. And I also think that- I thought that was one of my better Reddit posts, but I appreciate the subliminal at me. But I also think that X-Men has an outsized importance for anyone who felt like a troubled and gifted mutant in junior high.

And it's deeply emo and deeply meaningful in like a this was my favorite record kind of way. But it is not necessarily, we're going to partner with China and open wide around the world. I just, I don't think it's, I don't think it's a magic bullet, I guess is what I'm saying here. No, I don't think, I don't think it is. And that's why they're taking their time with it. Because I think if they thought, oh, we just slap X-Men on it and people will buy in, we already would have the X-Men. And I think they know that they, I really do respect Kevin Feigey's emphasis on character over, you know, spectacle. I think when he's allowed to take his time with something, when the whole machine is allowed to take his time.

with something, that emphasis on character really does come through. And so I think, and I think he knows that we cannot simply do another young class reboot. You know, it's too close to what we just got. So they're going to have to approach it from a, I have heard some rumors of like a different angled approach into the X-Men world. But I agree with you. And to Chris's earlier point about Loki season two episode one, an episode I really enjoyed not because of the timey, Miami techno babble, but because of the relationship between Owen Wilson and Tom Hiddleston's character, I felt like it was very clearly like two close friends trying to reconnect onto the same timeline in order for this guy, Loki, to find this girl, Sylvie, who happens to also

be him, but like, you know, so he can find his girl. Like that, the emotional beats are there. Yeah. And that's all that really matters. But the multiversal stuff, something of both Fygie and Iger said. when interviewed, was this idea that when you start with Iron Man, which is the most earthbound, despite the fact that he's rockets in his shoes, the most earthbound character. Plautability on a whiteboard. Yeah.

And that Tony Stark is just a guy. Like, he's just a guy with a lot of money, but he's just a guy, right? And that you have to sort of like that all of us watching are sort of little frogs in the pot of water and they had to slowly turn up the heat on the pot of water until it's boiling. and we can tolerate weirder and weirder comic book storylines. And then they were like, everyone's now ready for the multiverse. And I'm like, I think we were on a simmer

when they thought we were on a boil. And I don't know that everyone was ready for the multiverse. But they were convinced that they had done enough training of their audience via, okay, here's Dr. Strange. Okay, you guys were down with a talking raccoon. They're going to go back in time and like see Tony's dad and stuff like that. Yeah.

It's such a good point because, and Richard Donner hangs heavily over this book because of his, you know, his relationship with Feige and his wife's relationship with Feigey. The tagline of Superman is, you will believe a man can fly. It is much further distance to go from you will believe a man can fly to you will believe a tree can have feelings and shoot laser guns in space. That's not the same thing. I think, I mean, Joanne, I think we would talk to you about this forever. This is so great.

Thank you for this time. Thank you. I guess I just want to put you, I do want to put you on the record for this because you're plugged in. can you give us one upcoming Marvel thing that you are unapologetically truly excited slash optimistic for and one thing that I'm not going to say you're negative on but that you have skeptical emoji face about it could be like an announced movie we've seen a trailer for it could be the idea of fantastic four just one good one bad as we head into this next phase of MCU well let's stay in the I will stay in the world of television because this is the watch And I will say, and I don't need to be diplomatic about it. I think Echo has to be terrible. Otherwise, they would not have tried to binge drop it over Thanksgiving.

And now they push it off into the following year. And now we know it was supposed to connect to Daredevil and Daredevil's canned. So, like, what is this Echo show? They don't know what to do. You know, they have no idea. A binge drop over Thanksgiving? Yeah. Like, you know, I've never seen a move that is more.

Like, the Crown can do that when it's like, it's the, Brown. Yeah. Yeah. And then unapologetically enthusiastic for, and I might eat my words later, is the Agatha, whatever the subtitle is these days, Dark Old Diaries, House of Harkness. It's had like five different subtitles. But Catherine Hahn is so delicious and everything she does that I am, you know, possibly foolishly optimistic for that. So, yeah. I love optimism. That's my brand. That's you really is your brand. That's me. Candy, that's a brand. I just, you know, here's the thing. I just want more dark hold. You know what I mean? Like, seeing what happens when you... You say that all the time.

When you let a lady read a book. Dog week out for time. I just feel like we've all should have learned our lesson, but no. Joanna, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having you. The Rain of Marvel Studios is available everywhere but Canada, Amazon. So, hopefully by the time you hear this, that's been rectified. But everybody who is interested in what we talk about on the lot,

should check this book out. it is a delightful page turner. That I've read more pages of than Chris. And that Andy is farther ahead of me by, I don't know, who can say? Dozens of pages? I don't know. In this multiverse, it's a lot. Joe, thanks so much for coming on.

Thanks.