The Watch - Who Will Be the Next Batman? Plus, the Movie ‘Dune’ | The Watch (Ep. 325)

Episode Date: February 1, 2019

The newest ‘Batman’ movie will come out in 2021 (2:40). Ben Affleck is reportedly not involved in the project, so who will take his place? (7:47). Plus, a midseason review of ‘True Detective’ (22:46) and excitement over the movie ‘Dune’ (32:38). Host: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Jason Concepcion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelly. We just launched a brand new golf podcast called Fairway Rowland, where Joe House is joined by a rotating cast of Ringer and golf world personalities every week. They'll break down the latest in golf headlines and news from social media, keep up with everything Tiger Woods, and delve into the world of golf gambling. The first episode was just released earlier this week with new episodes being published every Monday going forward. You can download and subscribe to Fairway Rowland on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. I need sports 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 on the other line. He might be available for Batman, but you have to talk to his team. It's Andy Greenwald.

Have they been floating my name? They're looking for someone in their 20s or 30s. Go on. who can embody the detective spirit of Batman. We're going to talk about that today. Matt Reeves' Batman is looking for a Batman because Ben Affleck out. I can't wait to talk about that, Chris. I also, although what you just said was interesting

because one of the things that I've learned in my new capacity here is, you know, I had to have like, you know, compliance training, like harassment training, office stuff where we work for a company here over at the show. Sure. And I didn't know that in the state of California, agist complaints are viable once someone becomes 40. years old. So I have actively thought about this because like they I get people take shots at me here because you and I and you know like there's a there's a few of us who are gen Xers. Senior staff

gray beard. Yeah. We're not gen Xers. Well, technically aren't we? No, we are we don't even have one. Gen X stops people born in like 75 and then whatever millennial starts later. We don't even have a generation man. So it's like Gen Y? Is it Generation Y? No, that was later. Like, that starts in 80. We're literally... No wonder I felt so unmoored. We are generational Roe-Nee, like samurai without masters. Kai, you're a millennial, right?

I'm, like, just barely a millennial. I'm, like, just on the cusp between millennial and Gen Z. Oh. Wait, wait, so you're too young to be a millennial? I'm like, I'm on the very last year that still counts as a millennial. That's me. We're still doing that? Oh, God.

Greenwald, but you were saying. All I was saying, Chris, is I have an ages complaint for not being considered for Batman. I think I bring a lot to the table. I know. You should bring a class action suit for all us 40-year-old guys who think that were Batman. Before we get into that, anything you wanted to go over? Well, just two quick things, two quick things from Room Life. I'm talking to you from my office here.

Not far from you. We're in the room. Everything's going great. There was this crazy Nix trade earlier moments ago today. No shit. And I know you've been working it, but I just thought you should know that our writer's assistant here in the room, a great guy named Jay Franklin who worked with Bill on his show,

and used to work on the Daily Show. We're so lucky to have him. He's great at his job. But he's also a serious Knicks fan. And he just came into my office, Ashen, and said he needed to go for a walk. And is that okay? Like, this is messing with people's lives.

Yeah. I feel, because the mismanagement of the Nix when you live in New York and you're not a Nix fan is kind of a funny thing, but now I'm worried about people. Like, this is messing with our productivity. The thing is is that the NICS just, it's just such a deep state where they just have, every Nix fan is somehow a member of the media

and has a platform for which to like broadcast their grief. So it's amplified by that. There's not enough Pelicans fans to get upset about Anthony Davis wanting to leave. I can't believe I'm talking about this again. I just feel like I've been talking about NBA trades for, Sorry. Nine hours. No, I just, you're the last person on Earth who I thought would have an anecdote.

Well, and the other thing, I just wanted to let people know that for whatever expectations you have about the TV business or writers, what it's really like, I just want to confirm some stereotypes are true because I was here the other day and one of our wonderful writers worked on the show, You're the Worst, which is a show that I love very much. And another writer from You're the Worst is here working on a different show that's in this facility. I never met him before. It came in.

We had a very nice talk. and we're right next to each other. So I was like, you know, as a joke, I was like, if you ever need anything, you know, like a La Croy, just come by our office. And we had the whole conversation. We've been talking for 10 minutes. He was just wearing a light jacket,

and he reached into his light jacket and pulled out a can of La Croy. Like, he didn't even come to talk to me without a can of Hollywood's favorite Beauvoir. And we're not even sponsored by them. No, we're not. But that's really the work. But we're always open to work with brands

to push their message across on our podcast. Andy, so we missed each other on Monday. We're starting to get some interesting TCA news. I think I might save a bunch of those headlines for our Monday podcast next week. The bigger story that I wanted to talk to you about while we still have you. Is it true detective season three episode four? No, I was actually going to talk to you about Batman. I was going to talk to you about this Matt Reeves stuff because pretty much over the last two days.

So first Matt Reeves' Batman got its release date, which is 2021, when we were all serving under Emperor Ben Carson in the Republic of Domino's Pizza or whatever the hell is going to be happening in America in 2021. No, Matt Reeves' Batman has been slated to come out in 2021 and then today it was announced that Ben Affleck

had sort of officially left the project. Do you want to talk about what this movie's called? It's called the Batman. The Batman. Because when superheroes want to be classier, they become a the, like the Wolverine. Yes, exactly. Exactly. It sounds like Matt Reeves' script. It's steeped in Batman's detective noir roots rather than the idea of him as like a kung fu master vigilante. It's more of a like a private eye kind of thing. We'll see what that happens in that.

There are also apparently is some debate over at Warner Brothers as to whether or not they get a young Batman or they get a 30-year-old Batman. I personally... Chris, why don't you get you a Batman that can do both? Which would be what? I don't know. Well, you actually had a thought. Well, I was just going to say, I don't care. This guy, this kid can be, he can be 18, he can be 42, just don't do the origin story. Yeah, I mean, that's the number one takeaway, because it is not an interesting take.

Although, again, if you criticize this take, I will say you're being agist and I will have a legal claim against you in California. I don't know we need more Batman. It's not, I'm not going to do the complete contrarian, like, nobody wants this. Because people like Batman. People still love reading Batman comics. Tom King did a great run on the character. there's still more gas in that tank, right?

And that's not even including, like, the various IP demands that they're placed on Warner Brothers to keep this train running. But to your point, that's the part of the character that would be interesting to me. And if they really are giving him the freedom to say, here's a version of the character, which is based in the canon, certain writer's interpretation of the character,

and you have the freedom, Matt Reeves, to give us that version since we've never really seen him on screen, that's cool. But the one thing that we never want to see again is Thomas and Martha Wayne getting gunned down in an alley. Right.

Or this kid getting swarmed by bats in a cave. Let's just have a detective who likes to wear masks. That's cool. Yeah. Let's go with that. So set the terms of debate here. So do you have people you want?

Are we talking about who likely will get it? Well, are there already... Mori... The television critic Mo Ryan just tossed out Michael B. Jordan. I think that you could make the... argument that, gosh, I mean, there's any number of people that might be compelling.

One of the problems is that so many people are currently tied up in one way or another or are recovering from their involvement with the Marvel Cinematic Universe that it takes up like 24% of Hollywood's bankable actors. So you can't you a Hemsworth, you can't do an Evans, you can't do, Pine is already in Wonder Woman. It's sort of fascinating. So it kind of presents an opportunity to basically graduate someone. into this role. You know what I mean? Like, you basically are moving somebody up, but even as you look around, there's so many franchises going on right now. Not that I would say, like, Timothy Shalamee should

be Batman, but that dude's going to be making Dune for a while. Like, I don't really know where they're going to find somebody who doesn't already have something. Also, to your point, that idea of like, let's just big league someone didn't work for solo. You know, it didn't. It didn't. Although, I don't, in retrospect, I'm not sure if that was his fault. Alden Aaron Wrights. I completely agree, but I think that's going to be the takeaway. The Michael B. Jordan idea is pretty awesome, and I would only say, do that, but only if you cast Lakeith Stanfield as the Joker, because I would be super into that.

But I also think that speaks to a deeper question, which is what we want out of these characters. And I definitely, and I guess if Mo Ryan said it, and others on Twitter are saying it, I'm probably not alone in saying, I'd like to see someone different, given the chance to do it. I'd like to see a different version of it. And the one thing that I think is in our favor in terms of like provable evidence at the box office that people might be interested in a different take on characters or different casting possibilities is the Spider-Verse movie, which I still really want to see. I haven't, but I do know the Miles Morales character that is prominent in the movie. And I was just talking to someone about it here. And her point was as not a big comic book fan, just, you know, but someone who watches the movies.

I liked it because I understood that Miles Morales had a reason to be Spider-Man other than he was a nerd in getting picked on. Similarly, the least interesting thing about Bruce Wayne at this point in our culture is he's sat and screwed up because his parents got shot. Like, there has to be another way to consider the vigilante career of a billionaire. You know, it's really funny. It's been, whether it's a testament to like the state of the world or a testament to the pervasive kind of, the, the,

the sheer amount of comic book pop culture that were presented with, I can't remember the last time I actually considered whether or not a superhero went along with the Times. Right. You just saying that right there, I was like, oh yeah, we used to sort of wonder about whether or not the X-Men were representative of like a feeling in the world. Yes.

Yes, and instead they are now representative of Fox's tenuous hold on Marvel IP. Well, that's a perfect segue to the thing that I wanted to bring up. I was reading this really compelling. Obviously, every time he does. an interview, Steven Soderberg's really interesting. He went on Bill's podcast. He was excellent there. He had an interview on deadline today with Mike Fleming from Sundance,

where he's promoting High Flying Bird, which is coming out next week on Netflix, and we'll probably be talking about that as a bunch of bringer podcasts will be, and we'll have a lot of stuff about that. But he was talking a little bit about basically the new realities that are sort of starting to merge with these studios. He's talked about working with Netflix.

He talked about running his own distribution company, fingerprint films. He's done a lot of different. kinds of stuff and he's continuing to do a lot of different kinds of stuff. But there was something in his interview with Deadline where he sort of alluded to how these studios that make movies are going to have to start operating a little bit more like some of these television companies. Often they're housed under the same sort of shingle. But that there's just going to need to be more because they need to start filling up libraries if they're going to offer subscription services to their libraries. They need to populate that to make someone.

one say, all right, I'll pay $9.99 for this again. Now I have like 15 subscriptions. Now, the reason why I bring that up was you said, why do we need another Batman or I don't know if we need Batman? And there was also news this week that Universal is like the dark universe is not dead yet. Like if something comes up and we're really interested in working with a particular filmmaker and they have a take on Bride of Frankenstein or what have you. Like we're open to it. Nothing is truly dead anymore. Like I think that the idea that these franchises, will cycle up and cycle down that we'll ever have a time when

people aren't actively pursuing five different Battlestar Galactica adaptations? I just think that this is the new reality and it's just becoming more and more apparent. It is and I think it's a great point to make. It's not, people for a while thought everything, they saw what Marvel

did and they were so impressed by it that they thought it was repeatable and that was locking into a multi-billion dollar multi-production tentacle multi-tentacled cannon right, that all these were the official versions of the characters and they were all going to work together in the same movies building up to these shared universes. And other people tried it, D.C. tried it and it didn't work. What did work on the margins was what Fox did, which was a much more scatter shot.

We're going to make a grown-up Wolverine movie. We're going to make Deadpool and make fun of the other movies that we've made. And we're going to keep making X-Men movies. And that was a lesson that maybe people aren't as precious about these characters as they thought they were. Yeah. And now Sony did it too, out of desperation. initially the Spider-Man, and now they have ongoing successful franchises with Tom Holland with Marvel, the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies.

They have Venom, which is a ridiculous idea. But it made a billion dollars. And then they have Spider-Verse, which flouts that idea of canon. Obviously, it's animated. But this seems to be the way forward. In D.C., again, because of the necessities of content building and franchise management, but also just with a big shrug emoji, right? Absolutely.

You can have Gotham on TV. You can have a one. Order Brothers streaming service, which is imminent, and we'll probably have DC content. You could have a joke. Well, there's the DC streaming service already. Right, right, right. Right. But, like, and you could have the Joaquin Phoenix Joker movie coming out, but also have Jared

Leto's Joker in other movies. And, yeah, they're just saying, hey, screw it. If we own it, we're going to make a lot of it. So quickly, though, I did turn to the room to help me do research for this podcast. Oh, great. And just want to give you some of the names and see what you thought. Yeah. Oh, this is fantastic.

because I feel like I'm coming up a little bit dry. Because we don't really care, I think. Maybe it's these not quite millennials like Kaya that are super into their Batman content. Michael B. Jordan came up again. Timothy Salome came up, but the decision was that he would make an implausible Batman but a very interesting Bruce Wayne.

Okay. Henry Golding from Crazy Rich Asians, who, you know, the first two words in that movie's title refer to Bruce Wayne. Why not the third? One I really liked was Robert Pattinson. just because he's turned into a pretty interesting actor. Although I don't know, are we going to outsource Batman to the Brits?

Christian Bale kind of did it. If you want to go Bail Pattinson, I have a suggestion for that. It's James Badgedale. And if you're talking about graduating someone, if you're talking about putting something, what? No, I feel like this guy, speaking of Deep State, people have been pushing James Badgedale on us for years. James Badgedale is in the best movie of 2019 so far. What's that? the standoff at Sparrow Creek.

Starring Breyer Patch co-star Brian Garrity and Breyer Patch co-star Chris Malky, I'm aware. It's just, it's the best movie I've seen so far this year. It's fucking amazing. It's an incredible movie. If people have a chance to check that eye, it's on iTunes, it is awesome. Wow.

And Bagdale is really, really, really good in it. I got two more for you quickly. Okay. Someone, because I guess this actually circles back to your point about who's next and who's still available for a franchise. Someone suggested Lucas Hedges. Ben is Batman. Right?

Yeah, okay. And then the one I like most is, let's really, I think it's time to give the brass ring to Swol Dano. I think no actor has had a bigger 180 swing in the public consciousness in the last year than Paul Dano, who was just, everyone thought he was just that guy from those run of movies

where he was that guy from Little Miss Sunshine. and there will be blood. And then all of a sudden, he's just, just diesel and escape at Denimore and really good. He directs, what's it called, wildfire? Wildlife. Wildlife, yeah. Wildlife, the Richard Ford adaptation of Carrie Mulligan.

He got a lot of plotts for that. And now he's on Broadway and True West, and I know someone here in the room who went into it to see Ethan Hawk and was like, I don't know about Dano and left being like Dano is my favorite actor. Wow, really? Right?

This is great stuff. We should just, does your room want to host the watch? Um, yes. And I think that honestly would be better for everyone. But I am the oldest person in the room, so I legally cannot be replaced. I don't want to give for too, too long. Did you want to drop any true detective thoughts before I get going? Yes. I have, I was thinking a lot about my response to this 76 minute episode of television. And I was thinking that in my new, correct? Episode four. And in my new capacity as a showrunner, I think that I need to be more circumspective. my thoughts. Oh. So, what I will say is, here's my question. Well, I'm not going to say things, but my silence speaks volumes. And my main question is this. In 1980, Arkansas, when a man and a woman went on a date to a restaurant, and the man is a man, and he's a pittsalado man, so he's going to order a steak and a potato. Yeah. I get it. Are we sure the woman would just get an entree salad? That's a great question.

I don't think entree salads were things in 1980. If you ate in a restaurant in 1980 and you want to hit us up at the watch pod, can you let us know if people ate salads back then? Also, especially... No, no. Chris, not just salads. You could get a salad. Yeah, you'd have a side salad. She just got a pile of lettuce as her meal and acted like she was psyched about it.

Yeah. She would have gotten a hamburger patty and a cup of cottage cheese if she was out of that. It was 1980. And I just feel like, you know what Bill used to have, Bill Simmons, our esteemed boss, would have like, what was it? It was the common sense czar. Yeah, Tsar of Common Sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Zarr of Common Sense. So what I'm saying is, and I mean this with, Vice President of Common Sense, I think it was called it. And what I'm saying is, for good or for ill, if you were on the ride of True Detective Season 3, you know what motivates the show. and you know what motivates its creator and what he's interested in.

And it's mostly landmines. But I think that you need someone on set just to be like, she might not just get a salad because he's not focused on that. It's a very complicated job and he directed the episode. Do you understand what I'm saying? Sure. Like I'm just saying like I wish, and I do mean this genuinely, and it comes from a place of both I'm making a joke and I'm being a little critical,

but I also now worry about this stuff just in terms of keeping track of everything. It's a great question. I feel like he did enough. He did enough research that it wouldn't have been left to chance. You know what I mean? He wouldn't have been like, God damn it, we don't have any food here to put in far front of Amelia.

Just grab a bunch of romaine and radishes and let's get going. But it's not just. Because that whole scene is like, it's like, he's like, I'm a beer man tonight. And she's like, they have like, there's something about it where it's like they considered what they were going to be eating. Yeah, I don't mean to say, and I don't mean to put it all on the accuracy of the food. I just mean that,

charitably, I don't think Nick Cicelado's interested in his female characters unless they have souls of horse. Okay. Maybe Gumber does. Yes. So I just mean, if his eye is not on that particular ball,

I wish there was another voice in the room. And again, I'm only going to, I'm going to try to use eye statements as I learned in my freshman dorm, and it's something that I'm trying to be aware of too. like if I'm really excited about some conversation or action set piece, I can't overlook the other part of it because

so I just think it speaks not to the inattention of detail because there's a lot of detail on the show. It's just the particular inattention to a particular character. I feel like I should call my mom and find out. Did you take down an entree salad in 1980? Maybe I'll do that. Yeah, let's do that.

But also in Arkansas, that's the other part. Is that the extent of your observations about episode four? That's the extent I'm comfortable now sharing on this podcast. Duly noted. Okay. Greenwald will be here on Monday. I think we will try to talk about Russian doll,

which is a new series coming out on Netflix, directed by Leslie Headland and produced by Leslie Headland, and Natasha Leone, who stars in it, and Amy Puller produced it, and it's fantastic. It is a really, really entertaining, very, very bingable show, so we'll probably talk about that. Maybe we'll talk a little bit about Velvet Buzzsaw,

the Netflix movie that's coming out tonight. There's also going to be, a lot of commercials for movies and trailers and stuff. We love breaking down the semiotics of advertising. Unless it's LaCroix water. So I'll see you bright and early on Monday morning. I know Kaya can't wait. That commute.

She's loving it. We'll talk to you on Monday. But she's so much younger than I even realized. I know. All right, man. Great job, Gridsky's. Bye. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by ADT.

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ADT, real protection. Visit ADT.com slash podcast to learn more about how ADT can design and install a secure smart home just for you. Now I'm joined by my flat circle True Detective After Show, co-host Jason Concepcion, who's had a very long day. It's been a really rough two and a half hours. Soul has been excavated by this Christop's Porzingus trade. My soul has been traded for Capsing. I wanted Jason to come on. We're going to talk a little bit about Dune, which continues to keep casting folks.

Spice Must Flow. And Denny Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel. But I also just wanted to have a little bit more of a casual conversation about True Detective. Yeah, man. Greenwald just came up. and his main point was that in episode four, he doesn't find it particularly believable that Amelia would be eating an entree salad

in Arkansas in 1980. And I told him I was going to call my mom to find out if she ever had entree salads in 1980. But he shook me a little bit with that. That sounds like a great point. Yeah. Then again, she's spent a lot of time in California. Maybe she, you know, like...

But like in 80, are we even in the place? where you can get an entree salad. No, definitely not. Like, the salad there is going to be some very wilted lettuce and, like, canned fruit. Like, maybe they do a cob. Maybe a cobb. It's a great point. It shook me up.

But this is why Andy Greenwald is doing big things right now in the television space, because he notices stuff like this. I just can't wait to watch Breyer Patch and be like, I can't believe she's eating a yogurt. Nobody would do that. Not in the back of a lift. Um, Jason, one of the things that happens when we do after shows is that you get so deep, especially with like Thrones and with True Detective when you're trying to like kind of figure a lot of stuff out,

is that you get so deep, it's hard to like step back and see it as like a show. Yeah. Have you been like, I wouldn't say like have you been enjoying True Detective this season? But like when we're watching it, it doesn't feel slow. No, no, no. Because I think we're looking at every part of the frame. Yeah. But like that's been the main critique of it this season.

Is that it's slow? Yeah, it's dragging a little bit. I think that this season has been exceptionally self-aware about what the brand of True Detective is as established by season one. There's a lot of visual clues, context clues, clues in the way they shoot things that are there seemingly and are there in order to gin up excitement and theorizing. And I really like that. I guess, you know, I could see from the outside looking in that, okay, not a lot happens. We still have zero idea who the suspect who killed Will and potentially kidnapped Julie could be. There are a lot of holes in what we're seeing.

We haven't, Hoyt has not come back from so far yet. But I think overall, you know, True Detective, at least for me, especially in season one, was like less about, less about the procedural and more about the vibe. more about like scratching these surfaces of American life and just finding darkness everywhere. Yeah. And I think that's something that they've really conveyed with this season. And I know that some people have said like with the three timelines that it's like unnecessarily complicated and flashy,

but I think it's supposed to be kind of drawing these parallels between the Mahershala Ali character, Wayne's degrading mental faculties and the kind of degradation of like with that area of America from 1980 to 2015 and kind of like what happened to the country over the course of that time period. So that to me has been kind of fascinating even if it's not always explicit in the show. And the other thing

is that I think that if you're wiping True Detective Season 2 off the map and you're just comparing it to one, in one by this point, I think we had had the Stash House heist and the Reggie Ladoo confrontation, both of which were

extremely fucking lit. And you had Fukenaga kind of operating at the top of his powers. And we had not really seen this Pizzolado language kind of being played out like this. So I can see why maybe people are like there's not enough like action in it. But I don't know. It's a different kind of show now. Yeah, I think that, you know, I think there are a lot of spaces where this is, this season is as interesting and maybe even more interesting than season one. I think the way that this show approaches race and the way Wayne feels.

in the context of this small town, the way Wayne and Amelia respond to each other in the context of this small town. I think it's really interesting. The way that, as you said, the degradation of Wayne's mind paralleling the kind of degradation of the town, I think that there's a lot of these little loops

within this season that I think are really, some of them are subtle, some of them not so much, but I think they're really interesting in a lot of ways, like Wayne falling for a true crime writer and then we believe his son also falling for a true crime reporter. Like all these little loops are quite interesting. And another thing that really hooked me about season one, and I think you probably agree,

is this kind of philosophical exploration about what it means to exist on Earth. You know, do the structures we create to bring justice and enforce laws, are they as pure as we think, Or do you have to be corrupt in order to bring justice? Yes. And I think, you know, Wayne has clearly, Wayne and Roland have both clearly gone over the line multiple times. We saw them beat a suspect, who it turns out had nothing to do with the crimes.

We suspect that they're going to murder at least one other witness in the course of trying to investigate this wide-ranging conspiracy. And yet we totally ally with them in that mission. Yeah. Because that's what it takes to bring the bad people to justice. Right. It's the idea is like there are no, do you think you're a good man? And he's like, the world needs bad men.

They keep other bad men from the door. You know, like, yeah. And that's much. That's the line from True Detective Season 1. And that's much more interesting than, you know, than the kind of season two thing, which is like these just these purely damaged people doing damage people things. Whereas season three, at least for me, really asks you to think about, you know, what does it mean to be

what does it mean to be the true detective? What does it mean to really try to bring justice into the world within structures that were created unjustly? And that's... I love thinking about that. You mentioned the structures. I mean, for me, season one, you know,

there's, when you go back and rewatch it, you watch the Shea Wigam preacher character and the Billy Lee Tuttle evangelist character and you see basically the cynicism and nihilism that the Matthew McCorm Connohey character approaches all of the religious sort of infrastructure around that area with who's just kind of like, this is all bullshit, these belief systems are all bullshit.

And it's basically like you see in the same way, like, it basically asks you to believe if there's such an elaborate system of religious belief, like, and nominally for the forces of good, by proxy there needs to be the same one for the forces of you. Right. and that these two systems intersect in this place in Louisiana, and that the only person who can actually see it is this guy, Russ, and he's going to help his friend Marty see it as well. This season is almost more, it's telling that it's like looking back at 2015 or 2014

when the first season aired, because it almost feels like a narrator or an author trying to piece together a mystery story out of an unreliable mind. Yeah. And it's like, what really is a mystery story? What really is a detective story? When it's a detective who's not sure whether or not he's in any one given timeline, whether he can reliably depend on his memories of his wife, of his children, of the case,

of his partner, of what he's done as we're going to keep seeing as we go through this of the season. So sometimes it's slow. Sometimes I wish Carrie Fugano is directing, but I'm always thinking about this shit, which I'm not with other TV shows. Yeah, I mean, it's a great point because, like, in a kind of grand sense, the big, the central mystery of this season is purely centered on Wayne and his memories.

And who is he? And what did he do? It's less about the case. I mean, one of the theories that I really like that's out there on Reddit is that Wayne solved the case. He solved it in 90 and wasn't able to prosecute it or bring it to justice. And now has forgotten that he did it.

Yeah. Which would be a really fascinating. turn. Yeah. I mean, we've already seen this guy show up in places and not know how he got there. So it'll be fascinating to see how it plays out in the second half of the season. The Flat Circle is actually going up on Friday because HBO is putting out the episode of True Detective on Friday on go and on now and on demand because Super Bowl is on Sunday.

So you'll be able to watch us whenever you get the True Detective. It's kind of fascinating that they're doing that because I wonder whether or not that's going to happen more and more in a post-thrones world. Yeah. as they kind of maybe ramp up production to keep up with some of these other streaming platforms. Like if, I don't know, True Dissective Season 4 just goes up as eight episodes all at once. Or like, I don't know if they'd ever do that, but it's pretty fascinating to watch them kind of change their way they do things. Yeah, I wonder who the first one, you know, whether it's Netflix that decides that it's finally landed the Game of Thrones killer and is like, okay, watch this.

We're going to do it once a week or once a month or whatever it is. or whether it's going to be HBO that with a smaller property is like, what if we gave these all to you? What if we put crashing up all at once or something like that? Okay. Before we go, Andy and I talked a little bit about the Batman earlier, about Matt Reeves and Affleck leaving the project and who may or may not be the Batman.

But the other big sort of franchise possibility that's been talked about a lot this week is that continue to cast Dune. The spice must flow! So they have Chalameh. They've got Zendaya. Young and Trades. They cast somebody else? Well, Oscar Isaac is rumored.

Oh, and Oscar Isaac would play Paul's uncle? No, no. Duke Leo Atrades, who's Paul's father. Okay. They've hired Charlotte Rampling, Dave Bautista, Stellan Scars Guard, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, and of course, Shalame.

I'm not sure if they're shooting this back-to-back, like they're doing two. That was a rumor for a while. Dune has, like, crushed some filmmakers in the past that they're trying to make in their attempts to make this. Yoderowski famously tried to do it. Lynch took years for him to kind of get his stuff back together.

I mean, I will stand for the Lynch Dune because it is so freaking weird, but it is also just an absolute mess. But it's so strange. It's so bizarre. That's the one staying in common. The Los Angeles and everybody. You do a lot of like, you guys

just finished binge boat Harry Potter. Congratulations on that. Maybe want to check that out in New York Times. They have great interview with Jason and Mallory about that. Great picture of us looking absolutely insane. Does Dune have this kind of like huge adaptation potential to you in 2019? Oh yeah. I think so. I think so. I would love to see it as a TV show.

I've said if I tried it, you know, but I think the issue with it, especially in a movie kind of format, is just it's incredibly dense. You know, it's Game of Thrones kind of dense with you're talking about these cultures based on multiple planets and the way these cultures evolved together. you're talking about a far-flung future where basically human beings

are trained to be thinking computers. There's just a lot of lore to download. And in the space of a movie, it feels like a lot to do. And then especially when you start moving into the second and third books that are less popular. Less popular.

I mean, the second book is interesting. They're all good, but the second book really subverts what you expect of polytry. Trades coming off of Dune. It makes him essentially like into a madman, you know, whereas like at the end of one, you're like, oh my God, this is great. Like he just conquered the empire.

Right. His character kind of changes. And then like how many generations of like characters? It goes out like clones upon clones upon clones. Really? Yes. Because that's one of the things that's interesting about Potter and Thrones is, you know, each sequel would pick up more and more fans.

And then there are other franchises that have a little bit of like their sort of currency market starts to go down a little bit in terms of fan. It's just my mom read all of these. I remember them just like these beaten up paperbacks always sitting around and it was like whatever like Son of Doom or whatever the sequels were called. Villeneuve is literally the perfect person to make this movie.

I agree. The first book especially is an achievement. It's just so lived in and so detailed in a way that it's really remarkable. I will say that one in one respect I think this is the perfect time and for

this IP to hit is that it really had a very strong ecological message. Yeah. You know, because like, Iraqis was this desert planet that these Fedellin were very slowly trying to make a green planet. And that threatened the supply of spice into the empire, which spice was, like, very important for traveling across galaxies. So. And psychic capabilities and stuff like that.

So I think that kind of stuff is quite germane right now, you know, these kind of ecological themes. Okay. I'm going to let you go back to your grieving. process. It's very tough right now. Thank you so much for joining me. Again, Flat Circle, Friday night, after True Detective goes up on HBO Go, demand, and now. And then you can also watch us Sunday after it's terrestrial airing. Thanks for joining me, man. Thanks for listening. We'll be back on Monday. Today's episode of The Watch was brought to you by ADT, Real Protection. When it comes to

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