The Watch - The State of Netflix. Plus, 'Lord of the Rings' and the Future of Franchise Pop Culture.

Episode Date: January 21, 2022

Chris and Andy talk about the imminent return of ‘Ozark’ and the news that Netflix’s subscriber growth is slowing (1:00). Then they get into some franchise talk, hitting ‘The Matrix Resurrections’ (16:45), the forthcoming ‘Lord of the Rings’ TV show (32:30), and ‘Moon Knight’ (49:29). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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 on the other line, he's already mastered three of Moonnights voices. It's Andy Grievald. I just feel good. I'm in my safe space with my pal, you know.

Um, studying the phases of the moon, Egyptian mythology, uh, accent work. Yeah. Right? All of my faves. This is why I wanted you. Well, first of all, hello to our listeners. And welcome to the watch podcast. Today we're going to be talking about a little bit of Netflix stuff in the beginning with

Ozark coming back, uh, late tonight or early tomorrow. It's on Friday as it's release. Uh, and then we're going to get into some chat about some of, uh, the franchises out there because it's been a predictably, I mean, any week is franchise week when you think about it in Hollywood, but we wanted to talk about some of the some of the announcement, some of the coming attractions that we've got with franchises and Andy Watch the Matrix. So we were going to chat a little

bit about the Matrix resurrections. But Greenwald, this is why I wanted to watch you to watch Vigil on Peacac is because the Scottish accent that Rose Leslie is pitching is like an old school Houston Astros Mike Scott knuckle ball

with split-finger fastball. There's just going a from the batter. It's like, you might think you can do a Scottish accent and then you see Rose Leslie and like, I'm detective superintendent, Kristen Longacher. Excuse me.

Kristen, Kirsten Longacre is the name of her character. You think you can do a Scottish accent? Is that what that was? I don't even know what that was. That was incredible. I quite like to, actually. Could you do it again, please? I don't think Rose Leslie is Scottish, is she?

No, she is absolutely. Of course. I thought she was from like Newcastle. Did you listen to Chris, this is everyone's favorite part of the podcast. I know, so don't inundate us with emails again. But Andy mentions other podcasts he actually does listen to. But Brian Cox on Fresh Air, great interview, first of all.

Terry loves the show, big fan. Brian Cox, midway through, is talking about his mother speaking to his then-wife in a moment of tragedy. So I won't make light of the moment. But he's like, Terry, this needs to be said in a Scottish accent. And then what he does is he reaches, you're talking about pitching analogies. Okay, remember when Randy Johnson killed the bird? Yeah.

Randy Johnson, these six foot nine freakish left-hander, right? And he like, would, his arm would go so far back behind his body and you would throw it like 100 miles an hour. Brian Cox does this on the radio. It unleashes something that is just like, it doesn't just detonate in Brogue. It makes everyone around, like in a 200-yard radius, suddenly they're wearing tartan colors.

Suddenly they become shortbread. It's so Scottish. He just goes into immediately. He says like, bairns. What was Terry's reaction? What was Terry's reaction? Stunned silence and I think respect. Respect.

You play Logan Roy on Succession. No, but you know when she's really hype and she's like, and thank you so much. I love the show. I love the show. She's so excited about the show. She loves it. Anyway, sorry.

Okay. Rose Leslie, vigil, Scottish. Look, I got to watch it, but Chris, our listeners should know. I didn't because one man's front door is another woman's brick wall. You're going to say that your wife did not like this show or the premise of this show. She didn't, all I had to do was say the word. First I said, Chris is really excited about it, which, I mean, everyone loves that. Everyone, high approval rating, you know, my house, as in most houses.

is in America. If Chris likes it, it's got to be worth at least considering. Your daughters are like, Chris loves scream. Well, yeah, you're a little suss to them because of that. The next words out of my mouth were set on a nuclear submarine. That's it. That's it. So do you think she would have gone for it if it was a non-nuclear submarine? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, no, no, that's right. The environmental stakes are just too high. So you're still, are you finished the series? I mean, are you going to wait for me? I have two more. I have two more. Okay. Yeah, I'm waiting for. I mean, I always wait for you. It's so true.

This is a show on Peacock, though. This is just to let the people know. It's a show on Peacock that we chatted about a little bit last year when it was sort of bubbling up in England. And now it's on Peacock. It came out in the end of the year. It's six episodes. It's a really good thriller. Bubbling up, not something you want a nuclear submarine to do.

But they're capable of doing it. Getting up to Periscope Death, just taking a little look around. And then plunging back down again, right? Why don't we go up to Periscope Death and look around Hollywood? I'm going to let you do that. That was really good. I'm going to let you have that. one of my favorite shows is coming back this week, it's Ozark on Netflix. And, you know,

I just want to mention that Joanna and Van did a great pot on prestige pot of a sort of like where we stand with Ozark, which I recommend people check out. We'll be chatting about it, I'm sure, in the coming week weeks. But I just wanted to ask you a little bit about the sort of state of Netflix right now. Now, as we're going on, like I noticed that Lucas Shaw from over Bloomberg was just tweeting that Netflix is expecting only to add two and a half a million subs this quarter and that the stock wasn't doing well. So it was sort of like a quote unquote down day for Netflix. But I'm kind of obviously asking you less about business and more about the aesthetic choices that the streamer is making. I think it's sort of a fool's errand to

make any wild predictions or grand statements about something so big and diverse as Netflix. I wanted to come in and say, is Ozark the last of its kind for this for this company? Like is this flashy water cooler star-led drama, serialized drama, is this going to be it? This is this like the end of the phase one or whatever you want to call it of Netflix launching with House of Cards and having shows like Ozark as sort of like at their tent poles. And Stranger Things is due back this year as well. And I think maybe has like one more season after that, but I don't know if that's been officially like that's like been decided or not. But, you know, I'm kind of curious whether or not you think that this is something that Netflix needs or that we just need from Netflix as two people who like these kinds of shows. I think it's more the latter.

I think that this era of Netflix is over dot, dot, dot, until it isn't, because things change all the time. But I do think that we now have a couple years of evidence of what the Bella Bajaria regime has meant to the company. And Bella Bajaria took over the top programming job. She used to be the head of Universal TV studio. Then she went to Netflix and led the unscripted division, which was a huge success. It continues to kind of drive the company domestically and then took over the programming job from Cindy Holland. And what people in the town kind of thought was a surprise shakeup. And one of the main takeaways from that from her regime has really been one that has really prioritized return on investment,

which makes a lot of sense for a publicly traded tech company. And I think people overlook the fact that unscripted on a streamer was an unknown quantity just a couple of years ago. And this didn't, this just, someone just pointed this out to me, and it's right there. I can't take credit for having realized it. But one of the main questions was, if you dump an entire season of a competition show, do you rip out, do you rip its legs out from under it, basically? Right. Like, would audiences immediately skip to the last episode to find out who won? The answer is, no, they will just watch all 12 episodes in a 48-hour span to get there. Yes. Right. And fundamentally, like, it's not even, this is the kind of industry talk that anybody can understand and appreciate. A prestige television drama scripted in this day and age can cost up to like two, two and a half million dollars an episode, maybe more if it's, you know, in the super genre space that we're going to be talking.

talking about later in the podcast. Unscripted, a third of that, with considerably less overhead and insurance and all these other things that factor into a scripted show. The unscripted division is just killing it, including up into today they're announcing they're bringing back Iron Chef, which means I will be watching more Netflix in 2022 or 2023. I think that's awesome. There's still a couple, and then the other piece of it is the international strategy. They are an international company.

And one thing the pandemic content boom has proven is that if you finish watching Ozark and Netflix says, you might like money heist or Squid Game, a lot of people are like, yes, I do. Thank you for this suggestion. I will just watch that now. And so every show that is greenlit domestically has to have a reason to exist internationally as well. And that might be a tougher sell for a kind of prestige thing. Look, and it also just comes down to this. Like, does Netflix want to be competing with HBO? You think they are, or they want to in terms of Emmys.

Like, they were very pleased when the crown got a lot of nominations. But it's actually, it's not like apples and oranges. It's like Goliath stepping on an apple. I mean, the percentage of, like the amount of people globally who have watched an episode of Flores Lava versus the people who watch an episode of I May Destroy You or Mayor of Easttown, we're not even arguing quality. We're just arguing completely different metrics, right? So it doesn't make sense for them to compete.

I think the one area, I think the two potential ways that Netflix, gets back into that Ozark business. It's not like they don't like the show. It is a hit show for them. It's also not like they don't do stuff like that. I mean, they obviously made made last year. You know, like they have the Shonda Rhimes Anna Delvey show coming, inventing Anna soon, which I think could be kind of trashy fun or it could be like amazing.

I haven't watched it yet. So it's just like I think that there's still stuff there that they do. But they're definitely not in the morning show business. And they're not in the mayor of Easttown business. I would actually push back. They are not in the mayor of Easttown business. They are out of the prestige business. They are an international broadcast channel basically at this point, and it's been great for them.

I would say the two hypotheticals where we see a rise in Ozark-like content, one is less likely and one I think is likely. The less likely one is their algorithm, which really does determine the shows they pick up. It's less about like, do we know if this will pop in X, Y, or Z quadrant? It's honestly more like, we know what our subscribers watch and are we not servicing them. and we stop servicing them. And so if there is some cross tab, it's like the subscriber who signed up to binge watch Breaking Bad and then we service them Ozark,

and then what? They didn't start watching Money Heist and then what? Maybe then they get into business with a similar show that might meet that fan's interest. But the real truth is, because of the width and breadth of Netflix's programming strategy, it probably doesn't matter if that Breaking Bad Ozark fan isn't being serviced because that breaking about Ozark fan might have a kid who fucking love Sophia

the first reruns or another kid who's old enough to be watching the British baking show. And like that household isn't canceling. The morning show analogy I want to jump on was just to say, Netflix is still in Hollywood, meaning like Ted Serendos is still here. They like to throw a party. Also, just look at the movies they have coming out in 2022. I mean, between they're funding Noah Bomback adapting a white noise, you know? Exactly. If someone pitched a morning show, there's a version of, you know, there's a world where they're like, we want to have Jennifer Anderson on our service. We want her at our parties. We want her to be like, have her Emmy, whatever, with us. So I think they are still, would be in the mix for the celeb driven stuff, the star driven stuff, because I think that it's still an ego business and why not. But I think they're being cautious about it. And they also, you know, we're being kind of,

outspent by Apple on that stuff over the last few years. Yeah, and then the flip side of that stuff is that when you hit on a Squid Game, like, you know, it's not pure profit in the way that a movie that, an inexpensive horror movie that goes through the box office and breaks it in is profitable. But something like Squid Game, which is probably the TV phenomenon of last year,

winds up. Yeah. That's just, that's all black for you if you're looking at their ledger. Yeah. And as, it's just, it's really hard to stress like how,

When we talk about Netflix, we're really only talking about at this point a small sliver of their business. We're talking about America. The conversation to be had about this maybe with someone like Lucas or just as we continue to talk, our streaming wars talk over the next year or two, is there is a finite number of global subscribers for these services. And you kind of feel like maybe we're going to start bumping up against that. And then does that mean they start belt tightening? Do they start refocusing? What does that mean when the repeal? gracious growth of the last few years runs out, especially because the last remaining potential

subscriber might choose to subscribe to Amazon and whatever. I mean, Apple, right? They're all competing. I think that when I, you know, one of the things that made me want to ask you about this is because Ozarks obviously going into its fourth season. And I was thinking about once we get to the end of this year, when I would imagine they will probably try to get you. Yellow Jacket Season 2 up by, you know? I was thinking about, like, I bet a lot of people pick up Showtime for Yellow Jackets. You know, however they've watched it in the first place, I could see that becoming a, people who didn't already have Showtime are now subscribing to Showtime for this.

And Netflix doesn't have a lot of returning shows. Stranger Things, obviously. I mean, I'm not, I'm just saying that, like, I don't see a lot of season two or three of this hot button show, the exception of maybe Bridgeton. maybe a couple of others where people are like... Bridgeton's pretty big. Bridgeton, the Crown. It's huge. But the Crown is kind of coming to an end. And I don't think that the Crown...

Maybe the Diana stuff will change this, but I don't know necessarily that the Crown is bringing in new viewers. Like, that's people who've been watching the Crown. I think that the people who are like going to Showtime now for Yellow Jackets were not Ray Donovan fans. Yeah, I got to say, I mean, I have... I self-exiled from the Yellow Jackets Convo because I didn't finish the show,

which is on me. But I did want to jump in just to make the point that you just made, which is that it just feels like an incredible slam dunk for Showtime and kind of a paradigm shift.

They have generally not trafficked in the buzzy, no pun intended waters, right? They have been steady. They've been almost like their corporate parent CBS. They've been dirty CBS, basically. CBS is cursing in blood, yeah.

And they've made many good shows and worthwhile shows. It is not a pejorative statement but that they deliver a dependable product in that if they make something that people like, they continue to deliver it and to service it. And then every so often they do weird stuff. You know, they did Twin Peaks to the return. They did the good Lord Bird, which wasn't weird, but was exceptional and, you know, really worthwhile.

But Yellow Jackets is buzzy. Yellow Jackets is the type of show that gets you signing up for stuff that gets you talking. Netflix would love Yellow Jackets, honestly, because it has that kind of stickiness, which is what people are looking for. And I think it was a bigger risk for Showtime to do that probably internally than people realize, even though now it seems like a great. Then you get into if Yellow Jackets is a Netflix show, what happens when you can watch the 10th episode first? You know, like what happens when you don't have a two and a half month buildup that Yellow Jackets did where it kind of went past Succession and Station 11 and all these shows that were kind of on and then had like the floor was Yellow Jackets by the time. But Squid Game.

I mean, you know, Squid Game worked. People, when you get hooked, people don't want to skip. They don't want to lose the experience. So it's interesting. But a lot of the shows that we talk about in this conversation as like, oh, that's the one that a lot of people are chasing and a lot of people want. Those are almost uniformly not shows that other people wanted when they had the chance. Sure. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime.

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Book your spring break now. So we have like a bunch of these kind of newspegs and developments going on, whether it's stuff in Marvel. stuff on Amazon stuff in the bookstores. Where do you want to start? Do you want to start with Matrix Resurrections? Do you want to talk about some of the stuff that got announced this week? I want to clear a little space for you to talk about this Heat book because I think Matrix is a way

into the state of the franchises talk that we want to do. So I just want to mention that Heat 2, a novelization of that was both a prequel and a sequel to Heat, which is my favorite movie, is. coming out soon. It's written by Michael Mann and the mystery novelist Meg Gardner. And I'll just read you what the log line is.

The novel Heat 2 starts one day after the events of the film with a wounded Chris Scheheralis, who was played by Val Kilmer, desperate to escape LA. This is from the Deadlight article about it. The story moves to both six years preceding the heist

and the years immediately following it, featuring new characters and new worlds of high-end professional crime with highly cinematic action sequences. The venues range from deep breath, the streets of LA to the inner sanctums of rival Taiwanese crime syndicates in a South American free trade zone to a massive drug cartel money laundering operation over the border in Mexico and eventually to Southeast Asia, baby. He too explores the dangerous

workings of international criminal organizations with full-blooded portraits of its male and female inhabitants. Chris, are you okay? Like, the only thing missing from that is nuclear submarines. When we did, when we did rewatchables three with Michael Mann, he for quite a long time was just like, you know, when he was talking about different characters in the movie, he would just be like, here's everything that happened to Vincent Hannity. He's the guy from Chicago and he went to Vietnam and he blah, blah, blah. And me and Bill were just both kind of like, well, this is pretty mind-blowing.

You have like detailed biographies of every single character down to the getaway driver who replaces Danny Trejo. And he was like, yeah, because not only did I have them for the movie and give to the actors so that they could build up like a biography of work to perform out. But I'm working on a novel that is both the years before and the years after heat. So I knew this was coming. And this, this had been mentioned and, and kicked around a little bit. But I had no idea it was like this close. And I had no idea that McGartner was working on it. Are you considering the rereadables? I mean, I would definitely like to make this like the double down book club, even if it's just me

doing a reading of it. I would be happy to read this book and talk to you about it on the podcast, but I would also subscribe to your Patreon just to hear you read it. When Michael was speaking, he basically was speaking in these like two, three paragraph first. And I was like, this sounds like it's pretty close. You know what I mean? Like he had these ideas about who these people were and what happened to them before and after the movie. I was like, this is incredibly well thought out. So I'm not surprised that this. is coming so soon. Is there a line to be drawn? I mean, clearly this, he's had these ideas. This was there for the doing any time in the last 20 years. And I'm sure this took more than a couple months to

actually produce. But is there a line to be drawn between this project and the success of the once upon a time in Hollywood book? Like, as everything becomes an expanded universe, like, I'm not that mad at the idea of filmmakers or filmmakers and talented novelists just playing in the shallows of the world of great movies. I mean, first of all, the, it's a different metric. Like, to be a successful book, you do not, you're not playing in the same rodeo. Sure. Play in rodeos? That's how you get hurt probably. As a movie, right? Like, it's a much safer space to experiment and have fun and service the diehard fans. So I feel like, I'm kind of into this idea.

Yeah. And it's also, I think that when you're doing something like, say, when you make Prometheus, which is really Scott's return to the alien franchise. There is an expectation that not only will this be somehow on the level of alien, which is one of the greatest movies

ever made, but also push this story forward, develop the world, like do this thing that kind of moves the football a little bit, which I think is actually going to be something

that we talk about with a lot of the franchise stuff that we're discussing here is this sort of like, what are we actually going back to these stories for? Is it because we felt like there was a lot more

stuff to tell about the original thing or do we want some sort of forward progress of the stories that we love already? And with heat, it just feels like this is more of a, it's deep rather than forward. It's going to give you, like, if you wanted to know more about what Vincent and Neil and Chris did before heat, like, this will not be something where it's like, I don't think it's going to be cheap. I think it's going to be like, here's this data dump of information about this. And that's what the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood book was, too, which I enjoyed because of it.

He was just still having fun and there was more stuff to do and talk about it. And I think that there was stuff in there. He's just like, you know, I can't get this into a movie. You know what I mean? Like, I can't get...

Like the endless dog fighting? No, but or this much biographical information about, about Rick and all the movies he made. Here's a list of every movie Brad Pitt's character saw between 1950 and 1966. But that's my favorite part of that book

is when he becomes a European film connoisseur. It's pretty amazing. You know, other example of this that is particular particular to our interests is Irvine Welsh wrote a Begby book, basically a sequel to train spotting. Well, he also was Skag Boys, which is the prequel, which is them in high school. Yeah. And he did write a sequel called Pornow that they kind of lightly touched.

I don't even know how much of that got used in the film sequel. But anyway, a bit did, yeah. Robert Carlyle is going to play Begby again in a TV adaptation of the Blade artist. So the world continues, but, you know, a little bit sideways or a little bit deeper, not just necessarily. Okay, but I actually think that's a great segue into the larger conversation, because as you said at the top, and I don't think we're going to spoil this, so don't worry,

it's kind of just an entry point. It is, I did watch Matrix Resurrection last night. So I got to ask, what prompted this? Was it just because you thought maybe we would chat about franchises, or did you actually? That did occur to me, because I like to at least, you know, at least perform the outline of work for you.

But secretly spend three nights watching, Jim Jarmish movies? I get, look, you guys were really surprised. Yes, do I have an afternoon coffee between 4 and 5 p.m.? I do. Do I still fall asleep on the couch at 9.30 p.m. so that it takes three days to watch a minor Jim Jarmish movie? Yeah, man, I'm not proud.

It's not a cool scene. But, by the way, it's night on earth the Jim Jarmish movie, which is fine. But I do think that if you have like 15 minutes and you have Criterion Channel and you don't want to watch the whole movie, you should watch the New York vignette, which is Armand Mueller Stahl driving a cab with Giancarlo Esposito and Rosie Perez, both in their absolute youthful primes screaming at each other. Really, really great piece of cinema. Anyway, so yeah, so it was partly because I knew we were going to do a franchise talk that I watched The Matrix. The other thing was part of me was just a little bit incredulous that there is a new Matrix movie. movie and it was available to me since Christmas and I didn't engage with it. And then the last thing was HBO Max pointed out to me that it will be leaving HBO Max tomorrow. That's the rub with HBO Max.

Which is kind of, you know, once again, finger on the pulse green world over here talking about a movie that people will lose the ability to see within hours of this podcast dropping. I feel like a healthy chunk of our listeners have checked out Matrix Reserictions. So my thing about this is what a fucking weird movie. movie. And I kind of love how weird it was. I am not here to say that this was good. I think it is pretty indefensible on a lot of levels, whether it is good or not. But what I did get from it was major, major, major Star Wars prequels vibes in that. And the follow-up feeling was, and it'll never happen again, which is to say a major corporation let the creator have one last crack before

they took over and farmed the shit out of it. Right. And what was so remarkable about this Matrix movie, and I don't think this is a spoiler. I think it's probably okay to say this. If it's not, hit skip a couple seconds. But I just wanted, like the structure of the movie pays attention to that. And it is essentially about that. And I'm not saying this was a reason to make the movie, but it does seem like it was

Lana Wikowski's way in, which is that she was like my experience in being told that I either make this or someone else is going to make this, informed this. Warner Brothers is mentioned in the movie as basically demanding a sequel to something that was finished. And they also deeply referenced the

various interpretations of the original Matrix trilogy and specifically the original film and how those have kind of spun out of control over the last 20 years as Lana has not made of something since whatever revolutions or reloaded or whatever it was. And it's, well,

not another Matrix movie because she and her sister made Sense Aid and they've been busy. But to have the weirdly intimate and sometimes clumsy feeling of personality in something that was grist for the major franchise IP content mill felt really jarring. And I kind of wanted to hold on to that feeling. Right. This movie is messy. but in ways that are really odd, like its plot and construction, kind of charming in its, first of all,

just Keanu and Carrie Ann Moss, like being like, we believe in Lana and we believe in each other and we're here to say something that's interesting to us, which comes through. It feels almost handmade for that reason. And also charming in that like only Lana O'Awikowski is like Jonathan Groff and Neil Patrick Harris

are my big bads. Right. You know, and... Well, David Fincher thought the same about two of those guys, too. No, no, not that they're not useful. I mean, I'm not saying... No, I know, but in some ways, yeah. That's a great point, actually.

Or that we're going to reboot Morpheus, but put him in just like Johnny Depp's wardrobe. Like, it's kind of fun. The problems of it, of course, are that the things that made the Matrix worthwhile, which is, to me, the entirety of the first film and the experience of being shocked

and surprised and all the interpretations that came from it. Those things are what they are. What you're left with when you're trying to like harvest IP content, the robot war stuff, did anybody ever care about that? Like that's just not that interesting. So it's such an unlikely

it's such an unlikely soldier in the franchise fight to me. Yeah. I thought it was an accordion movie in the sense that they tried to squeeze all of a trilogy into one movie. That there was obviously... Which is good because they're not getting another one. Notebook pages of what could have been Matrix 6, you know, that the entire...

I mean, we're still talking about spoilers, but there's an entire plot with Priyanka Chopra, which I still don't understand and thought was quite bad, but is clearly like something that might have been the entire plot of the third movie if they had done a trilogy. I thought that the moments in Matrix Reserrections that were... moving were quite touching. Like, we're quite beautiful and quite moving. I thought Groff was a lot of fun. Yes.

But I know this is sort of like weird, but I just didn't like the way it looked. Like, I just really thought it kind of looked flat. And for a movie, the first one, especially, that looked unlike anything else, really, you know? I mean, maybe this is what these, all these things that we're going to be talking about, this is the baggage that they carry into

the third, fourth, fifth reboot iteration of what they're doing is it's not even like I need to be shocked the way I was in 1999 when I saw the Matrix. It's almost just like I have gotten used to leather coats and industrial music and Chicago at night and bullet time and all the things that make something so fresh and new are eventually that that's the stuff that becomes peanut butter and jelly and white bread. Chicago at night, the last song on Spoon's Seminole album, Jules Can Tell? is that you're overly familiar with that song because I can still let that rock. I agree.

And I think what it comes down to it. You know, that's why you're the best. You're the best. I just skitch on your coattails. There's a difference. And this is what we're, now we can pivot into talking about the state of some of these things, I think, with this, with this observation to fuel it. There's a difference between the just undeniable. spark that can happen when creative people are engaged with something that is exciting and feels

fresh to them. And then there is, is there any more meat on that bone? Now, Chris, you know me. I love to make soups and stocks. I'm all about maximizing the meat on every piece of bone. Yeah. When I go to McCalls in Los Felis and I'm like, can you cut up this chicken for the barbecue grill? I'm like, you give me the spine. Give me the backbone in a separate bag. And I'll put that on my freezer. What will I use it for? I'm not going to talk about it on a podcast, but yes, it stuck. But those are very, very different creative endeavors, right? And I think that it's important to look at, like, when we're going to talk about the next iteration of Marvel stuff, I think that when we're going to sort of like, because I think you and I had the idea of looking

at these franchises and basically just, you know, back of the scorecard, like, is this really in good shape or is it just is it just I think it was somewhat inspired by the title announcement teaser that came out this week for Lord of the Rings and so we are generally we are observers of all of it we love to podcast about all this stuff

it's interesting but feeling like something actually has that creative spark or reason to exist that's a fleeting that's a fleeting sensation and you know maybe this is a call back to our Netflix conversation it's really not an important

part of the decision-making process for a lot of shareholder value-driven tech and streaming companies. It just isn't. And it's actually kind of refreshing because I think that a huge part of this business is still the way it's been for the last 40 years, which is shareholder-driven, but populated by people in the creative jobs being like, yeah, they may say that upstairs, but right here, man, we're just about making the best version of this that it can be. You walk into the actual decision-making rooms at these other companies. I'm not discrediting the creative executives who are doing their best at all of them. They are doing their best.

They probably like really good things. But Netflix doesn't really care if the show is great. They don't. That's not what their value is. It would be nice. Sure. They have a lot of space in their buildings for Emmys, but that's not what they're looking for. Okay.

So what I wanted to do was, and I don't even think we came up with any kind of ranking, but like I kind of just wanted to go through some of the major franchises. It's gut check. It's just gut check time. Okay. So we can just talk about like where we're at with this and where it's going and what the newest thing is. Let's start with the Lord of the Rings announcement. Okay.

So everybody listening to this podcast already knows this. But Jeff Bezos spent, what, quarter of a billy to secure this particular elvish bag with the point of developing the plan to develop stuff. Who knows what it was going to be? And it is now been announced that it. is a series, at least this first volley. And can you, can you say the name of the show in full? It's Lord of the Rings, colon the Rings of Power. Yeah.

Because there was one ring to rule them all in the movies, you know, and that that was a big deal. But there were other rings. I don't know if you knew that. Yeah. So my thing is, guys, that's too many rings. You're asking for trouble. You're asking for trouble when you make.

And by the way, in the trailer, they're reading some Tolkien, and it's just like, 20 fucking rings? Like, not even Shang Chi had that many rings. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's just too many rings. It's not a safe world. I think what it's going to do is obviously, like, they've discussed this. This has been broken down in a lot of different places, but that there seems to be,

this will tell the story of the rings up into the point of the battle for Middle Earth where it's like the elves and the men versus Soron and his forces. and they cut the ring off of Soron, and they're like, it's all good now. This is really good for me, because I think that there are probably people who are like, I can't wait to go back to the Lord of the Rings world

because I love elves, and I know they live a long time, so maybe I'll get to see like young Cape Blanchet's character or whatever, or they love hobbits. But the thing about me that I don't know if people realize is I am basically Adam Sandler and Uncut Gems.

I love jewelry. I fucking love accessorizing. It's what fuels my passion. This is how you win. If you can make hundreds of millions of dollars funneled into it, multi-year program. Do you think the rings of power is going to be about a jeweler? I would hope so.

And he's super mad at Soron or the elves for flooding the market with all these priceless rings. In my pitch for this show, which I should now confess was not accepted, Soren played the Kevin Garnett role, you know, where they were trying to show him like the fanciest rings they had and Kevin Garnett was like, I can get rings anywhere. Like, why would I buy them from you?

I got my own forge. They didn't love the idea. So we joke. But it's weird to talk about these things because, well, here's my two takes. You already heard my main take, which is, I don't care about rings. But my next two takes, as a podcast,

who is going to have to watch the first, at least first few episodes of this show, seems like they drop their fence posts in the right place. There is a lot of runway to get to the other story. And just in terms of dramatic stakes, if, you know, yeah, if one ring produced three movies, 20 rings could produce a lot of seasons of TV. So, okay, I get that. That seems smart and thoughtful and resourceful and all that. The other thing, and this is kind of my big question, because go.

Going into this, I was going to point out a franchise that I think is sneakily, I don't want to say the best, but it might be the best managed at the moment. And in terms of best understanding of what it, the company seems to understand what it is and how to deploy its resources. And that is what Paramount is doing with Star Trek. Now, you and I don't watch Star Trek shows unless, because you watch a lot of secret stuff. I don't. I don't have a Star Trek. Secret Life, no. Going down, and this also helps with our newsiness, Paramount Plus announced basically that their entire

fleet of Star Trek shows are being renewed. So Star Trek Discovery is being renewed for a fifth season. Fourth season is resuming on February 10th. They have a cartoon show called Star Trek Lower Decks. That's been renewed for a fourth season of 10th of 10 episodes and the third season hasn't even premiered yet. Star Trek Strange New Worlds, which is a prequel show. about the Enterprise before Kirk with Anson Mount.

That is, they dated that that had been previously announced. I think in May 5th, it's coming out. And then the second season of Star Trek Picard, which was the only one of these shows that I kind of messed with a little bit. How was that? Second season is premiering on March 3rd, and it's already been renewed for a fourth season, which is currently in production.

Fine. I love Patrick Stewart, love to have a lot of love for that character. It was fine in that Patrick Stewart was playing that character. It didn't hold my interest, because it did feel like it was doing the thing that I'm about to praise this entire universe for doing, which was what it was doing was managing the property.

Star Trek was always a weird fit for this era because it was never really a blockbuster film series, even though it made some blockbuster films, right? Well, it was always... It was more about the marathon than the sprint. Like, there's not very many data points along the course of Star Trek, but I know that I'm sure people are like,

the Borg, dude, But it's more about the experience of watching 200 episodes of Star Trek than it is about any one given one. It's about adventure. There isn't one big question to answer. And it's always been an ensemble and it's always been about many worlds, not just one. And I have a lot of time for a lot of the movies, honestly, up to and including the first JJ Abrams one. But this feels modest and it feels right to have it back on TV and be making a bunch of them. But beyond that, I just feel like what they are doing as a streamer,

service is servicing diehard fans of this property. Maybe some new ones are coming in through like the irreverent tone of lower decks or whatever. But really, they're like, these are people who will pay for a subscription service because they love this stuff and they will watch it and they are servicing them. And this is my question about Lord of the Rings. Is it going to be like Wheel of Time, their other big fantasy show, which I think probably is a success, even though you and I are, we got to admit it.

We're not going to watch it because it is servicing the Robert Jordan fans. of whom, you know, there are many. Is Lord of the Rings just going to service Tolkien fans of whom there are many? Or is it going to try to be like, yes, but what the Rings are really about is... I do think so. I do think also there's a little bit of rogue oneness to this Lord of the Rings show where there is like this, this is when it ends. So it ends, it's the second age, which is the era before the Peter Jackson movies.

Right. So I kind of feel like they're almost building... The Peter Jackson movies go from the third age, like the 17th age. are long fucking movies. That's definitely how much I aged while those movies were on, but I know, I love those Peter Jackson movies actually. Like, the first three especially, not the Hobbit ones as much. But I

guess I was just pointing out that like, there is, whether or not this is 10 seasons from now or three seasons from now, they do have that looming like connectivity to the Peter Jackson thing. One of the things that's kind of shattered my Star Trek you know, a processor

is just whether or not, I mean, the movie's really got into like all these multiversal like versions of characters. And I think that there had been talk about how the last movie was supposed to be like Kirk with Kirk's dad, you know, like that they were supposed to be able to like have a catch what? No, but go back and like, you know, fix that trauma of his death or whatever. Um, because that's what Star Trek was always about. Well, that's what everything's about now though. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I think that it's interesting that the Lord of the Rings thing, we haven't seen a single shot or, or image from this. So it's hard

to say anything about it. But I like what you're saying about the Star Trek thing. It's like this idea that essentially you can either do something that's, and I kind of, that you're basically like you're managing the property. And I do wonder to some extent whether that is where Marvel is going, at least on Disney Plus. Yes. So we should get to that. But before we do, I just want a quick sidebar about the relevance here of the Game of Thrones franchise,

which, you know, it's actually come up just random. This isn't just something that we keep harping on in the podcast. It's come up independently twice in my life over the last few weeks. where people are like, why isn't there a game of throne show on? Like, I really feel like that needs to be, you know, when, hopefully when Casey Blois makes his triumphant first appearance on the watch, like, we could really talk about that. Like, that seems like, that was not the plan. Do you think he would just really let his hair down and just be like, guys, here's everything

I can tell you about Game of Thrones and why there hasn't been. I think there would just be silence and a long whistle and he'd be like, I whiffed, I whiffed it, man. Like, what else can I say? No. So it's, so I was reading up, so House of the Dragon does not have a release date, but all signs point to 2022 that the show will premiere on HBO at some point this year. We got a trailer and everything, yeah. Hopefully it will write, it will kind of, not just, it's not about writing the ship, but it will plant a flag being like, okay, Game of Thrones exists on TV again.

And here's reminding people of what people liked about it, and then they can start playing in the future. Now, there's been tons of speculation and reports on other spinoffs, none of which I think is all that credible. other than the correct reflection of the fact that like any smart media company, they are trying stuff. They're throwing noodles at the wall and seeing what sticks. And we won't know until after House the Dragon, which ones are likely. But I was reading about one that I guess the hardcore fans are excited about called 10,000 ships, which is about the Nymeria, a warrior queen or princess who, you know, Arria named her dog after.

Mallory hates it when I say that. I'm sorry. I can't. I can't. Sorry, dire wolf. My punishment, by the way, is that just so you know, Chris, like I spent 20 minutes because you were early for preschool just with my four-year-old with her saying, now show me a picture of husky puppies.

Okay, now Pomeranian puppies. Is there a dog in your future? I think there's a dire wolf in my future, honestly. So, right, so the show about Nymeria, blah, blah, blah. But the description of it sounds pretty good. cool. Because I guess in the George R. Martin backstory, she led refugees and populated Dorn, my favorite place, and basically burned the ships, you know, and then like led 10,000 refugees out. And I know nothing about the development of the show. I know nothing about the likelihood of the

show. But what excited me about it was that just sounds like a cool-ass event for a mini-series. It does not necessarily sound like the beginning of a nine-season run where people are going to, like, get obsessed and fall off and get mad about. And I wonder if the future for something like Game of Thrones, if it's possible, would be to be nimble. Because you do have all of this stray history, a lot of which just seems like tossed off good ideas and drama. Could you create a sustained television-connected IP franchise universe

that just was like, okay, next year we've got this 10-episode war movie, basically, And then we've got this heist show set six decades after that. And then five centuries before, well, you all remember what happened to dragons. And that's going to be the story of one prince becoming a king. And, you know, basically not just consider it all Lego building blocks, but each block is its own worthwhile thing. So is that sustainable? Is that possible? Because that's interesting to me because then each project could have a reason to exist other

than the continued existence of the brand on our screens. We had this conversation like eight years ago. And it was about Star Wars. It was about like, could you have like a cool show at a bar on Tatouine? And like we got what we wanted. And now part of that is the issue is that we are inundated with that stuff now. So we probably feel a little bit overwhelmed slash dulled by the amount of franchise IP stuff that we're getting.

but I almost wonder whether or not, if you asked HBO, hey, you can have one more show that's almost as big as Game of Thrones that lasts for like three to five years, let's say. Or you can have eight more shows that are like doubles. Yes, right.

Which one would you take? The doubles are the one more like mega hit. Ten years ago, you take the mega hit today. You take the doubles. It is a, what is it, what are the true outcomes of baseball? I don't, I, I wish. There's three true outcomes. We need Ben Lindbergh to comment on this.

But that's, it's a different, it's a different business, you know, that is what sustains it because you can, you can string them together. And that is what Marvel is doing. And I do think that the smartest thing about, we say this every time we talk about it, but the smartest thing that Kevin Feige has done is bake in the idea of optionality, where any character could get their own show, any show could get a second season, anyone could be in a movie or a TV series at any time. The door is always open to spin-offs. Those doors can close before we even find out they were opened, right?

Like that does seem to be the way to manage it. I think that the Matrix lesson, I mean, that's just Warner Brothers being like we were, I'm glad they made that movie. That movie is super weird. And I want to champion weird personal statements like the one Lana Wukowski got to make for $200 million of someone else's money. but Warner Brothers got caught with their pants down because it's just like what is the upside for one movie? Well, they're just doing home run swings. Right.

And when you miss, you get nothing. Not only do you get nothing in terms of your return on the investment in that particular movie, you don't get Matrix 5 and 6. You don't get the TV series. The bugs show. Yeah. People are just like they just kind of back away a little bit embarrassed, even though they shouldn't be, but I think financially that's where they're at.

We don't get the show about Agent Smith's trauma. God. But you have to have a flag planted to do more. And Game of Thrones, kind of like Star Wars in the movie universe, they're like, well, we don't even know what we're building around yet. And I think that that's what House of Dragon is meant to be. The Marvel thing, before we run out of time, when I say run out of time, technically we can go on forever, but we respect Kyya way too much. Moon Night. Yeah.

You started the show talking about this. Here's my 2022 pivot, Chris. I'm all in on Moody Night. They dropped a preview of Moonnight during a Monday Night a Monday Night football game, which was a pretty bad Monday Day football game, but you're in on this.

I mean, were we ever out? Like, were we ever going to be out on an Oscar Isaac Ethan Hawke show? No, and it's kind of remarkable how even just in a few quick cuts of a trailer, the presence of two of our favorite actors makes me feel like, this is maybe more interesting than I expected,

just because they are more interesting than I expected. Everyone's mildly. may vary, for me, the weakest parts of the trailer are the cutaway shots to Moon Night. Like, everything else seems super interesting to me other than the superhero punching people, right? Like, I am intrigued, and I know we're going to keep moving the ball here. I feel like we should have learned this lesson by now. But I hold out hope that maybe this will be a show that's interesting in and of itself. with good performers, point of view, good style,

and not about setting up backdoor spin-offs or future Avengers. Is this the first show that they're doing that has nothing to do with the Avengers? Well, the scary thing is it probably does. We just don't know it yet. But not in the direct way that Wanda, Loki, Captain America. Yes, this is, yeah. This feels like, I'm just running through my head

to see if I believe so. And I, this is also, I think, the first one where they are like, this just character just doesn't really work. I mean, as a movie or as part of the larger thing. This needs to be in this format, partly because it's complicated, partly because it's weird, and partly because it's actually just Marvel was trying to make a Batman. Yeah. So you kind of can't, kind of can't mix and match on the big screen with that. But, look, F the haters.

I'm here for Oscar Isaac's English accent. I'm here for him being totally confused as to who he is in his life and Ethan Hawk telling him just embrace his inner Kwan. I think that's the role we all want Ethan Hawk to play. I think he played that role for us

in our podcast last year. You know, last year, it's been, so we obviously had like a full year of all these shows. And I think some of our frustration that was tied, especially up with Wanda,

was this sort of like, are we going forward? Is this going to introduce the big bad of the next phase of the movie? or is like, is there going to be some sort of game-changing piece of information that's given to us? And obviously, there's been a ton of discourse about like whether or not that's the right way or the wrong way to watch a show or a story. And for me, Moon Night represents that we can get out from under, like, do you remember what happened in New York?

Do you remember what happens? You know, like all the sort of past appendages of the Avengers movies or the earlier MTV movies. And then I think this Dr. Strange movie is the like, okay, finally, we can. can get the ball rolling towards wherever it's going? I think so. I was looking at a variety, I'm sure other websites you too, but variety has a pretty good, like, in chronological order, all the projects. The one that stands out to me is Secret Invasion, which is undated, but has been in production

for a while. And Secret Invasion is an upcoming Disney Plus Marvel show. And it takes its name, and I imagine its plot from a pretty major crossover in the comics in which it was revealed that the scrolls, the shape-shifting alien race that was introduced to the MCU in the Captain Marvel movie, had people planted on Earth and on the Avengers and on superhero teams for decades

and that there actually was an infiltration that no one noticed. The fact that this is, and I wasn't the only one who years ago was like, well, this could potentially be the next phase. This is the big story for the movies to do, maybe not equal to Thanos, but on that, scale. It's interesting that they gave it to TV. It's interesting that they're not talking that

much about it and that it's not dated. Is this actually the next giant crossover and is it hiding in plain sight and is it going to involve the TV shows because this is where the future of that company storytelling energy is going? It's Ben Mendelssohn whom we love. It's Sam Jackson, who I would say it's odd him being in a TV show, but he's also in Capital One commercial. Sure. Yeah. He's a he's tech avail. Um, but, Like, is Oscar Isaac going to be in it? Do you know what I mean? Like, is this the thing that we're not looking at?

Because I still don't think, even though Jonathan Majors introduced in Loki as the next big bad for the whole MCU, he's not slated to be in anything until Ant Man in 2023. So he only think he'll be in Thor or anything like that? That's Christian Bale's in Thor, yeah. Christian Bale is the god killer in Thor. So we're going to that movie. But yeah, it's this weird, this is the part. to the podcast where we go back to these talking points that maybe people are sick of hearing,

but like, are we old-fashioned because we keep trying to orient ourselves by some kind of North Star with all these franchises, as if there needs to be one, what you were saying before, one home run hitting flagship thing that says the thing, you know, like you could only watch the Avengers movies and you would get the story. And then if you were a semi-fan, you could also dig into the Ant-Man movies and then maybe watch a TV show. Or is it just, we are all hooked up to the feeding tube and the content is coming down it. So make room in your gullet.

Yeah, but if you don't have something that feels bigger than life, like Black Panther or like Endgame or like, you know, I don't know. No way home. Like No Way Home. Do you start to shed Normies? Do you start to shed people who are like, yeah, you know, like I just thought that something really big was going to happen. It's actually just like a bunch of stuff I don't understand about the multiverse.

Do you end up with Star Trek Brave New World? That's exactly what I'm saying. It's like, do you wind up being like Star Trek with a lot of stars and you didn't even anticipate that? And I think that maybe the last point to make with the other major franchise we didn't touch on is be careful what you wish for because I think the success of the Mandalorian in the Star Wars world was so calming to everyone, us included. Right. Oh, okay. someone over there still gets what makes this appealing. And with Baby Yoda, they were like, there's something to care about for everyone to care about.

It broke new ground, even though it was just making a beloved character a baby, essentially. But hey, it worked. But be careful what you wish for in that. In Favreau and then Dave Faloni, Star Wars seemed to write its ship by finding a steady-handed captain. Yeah. Which is, I think, is what, like, why did the DCU not really work in the same way as the MCU? Well, it didn't have a Kevin Feigy. Like, it didn't have someone who was like, I am, I'm the decider here.

I'm beyond her, basically. They couldn't ever settle on their Robert Dyni Jr. either. That's also part of it. And so I think then that, but now we're starting to see the slight downside where having new Star Wars shows, always a good thing for the casual fan, for the company, whatever. But the reaction to Boba Fett, which I think has been accurate so far, because it's fine, it's super weird and it's really a show a show being made by two guys in their late 50s

you know what I mean? Starring a guy who's 60 which I respect the hell out of but I don't I feel like some degree Lucasfilm is just like wait I'm sorry we're Matlock now like this is what we do we're just kind of kind of old fashioned and creaky and in all senses and then sometimes we have like you know

Power Puff Girl punk rock biker gang it's weird right like it's fine but it's not, I don't think it's what anyone is, it's not setting any world on fire, and it's pushing it into that Star Trek zone. And I think this is an interesting place almost to leave off the conversation, because I think that Star Trek is a success for Paramount Plus. But I think that for Disney...

You're pushing all your chips in on Star Trek is just an amazing 2020 mood. But I just mean that like for Disney, with all its money invested, and it's all of its shareholder goals, you know, especially with cruise ships and theme parks still affected by COVID, like, They don't want Star Trek, man. They don't want to be the thing that's fine or being managed. They don't want to be the thing that suddenly feels a million years old like the Matrix kind of did, right? They need these things to be fresh, even though Star Wars is as old as we are.

And the MCU is coming up on its, well, it's 2007, 2008 was Iron Man. Yeah. It's, last thing, Chris. Just last thing. In the franchise wars, there's still one player. who hasn't appeared yet, who is just like Omar in the wire, just whistling Farmer in the Dell,

just you hear the shotgun and scrape, just wandering the streets of Baltimore, but faceless, ready to make an appearance. And it's maybe the most powerful one of all, and that is, where's Potter at? I'm not saying we're going to have to cover this. I'm just saying that when Warner is like, okay, yeah, we're making Harry Potter show, yeah.

Yeah. That is going to be, seismic. And I guess I respect the fact that they're being so careful because if they screw that up, I mean, they're sitting on a gold mine at a certain point, someone's going to be like, I feel like they need to let the temperature come down a little bit on the whole, the whole Harry Potter deal. You think it's going to come down? I don't know. I mean, like, I don't know if it ever will, but like it would be weird if they were just like, we're quadrupling down on Harry Potter right now. It would be incredible. By the way, this reunion special, which has really fueled my contributions to

this podcast for now three straight weeks. is amazing because it's just like all these people gathered in beautiful sumptuous recreated sets being like it's incredible

that Harry Potter was just a boy wizard created by no one what a gift that we all share that we all created collectively with our power

of our own imaginations and no one ever wrote a book or tweeted anything ever it's lovely I think it's that was a trial balloon they were like

can we do this and the resounding answer was yes so they're just going to invent more of the story they invented. That's the takeaway. Greenwald bets on Potter 2022.

Dude, people fucking love it, not just in my household. It's huge. It's bigger than this other stuff if they do it right. We thank Kaya McMullen for producing us, as always. We'll be back on Monday. There will be Ozark. There will be lots of stuff to discuss, so we'll talk to you then.

It's more than produce us. It's indulge us. It's really just create a culture where we're allowed to do this for an hour. Thank you. Thank you, Kaya. for your culture of permissiveness. Let me tell you the secret of how to look like you know what you're doing. Use mushrooms, toss them on eggs, noodles, boom, it's delicious. It's not magic.

It's mushrooms. Hit up mushroomcounsel.com and get cooking.