The Weekly Planet - 445 The Never Ending DC Disaster

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

During our August break DC decided to upend their entire business model is favor of...cost cutting and tax breaks? With Batgirl thrown on the bin, Fandome cancelled, HBO Max stripped of content and the seemingly never ending search for their own Kevin Feige. We break all that down plus D23 Fantastic Four casting, the return of Lord Of The Rings and Game Of Thrones plus She-Hulk did a twerk. Thanks for listening and appreciate you all coming back!Visit bigsandwich.co for a bonus weekly show, exclusive movie commentaries, early stuff and ad-free podcast feeds for $9 per month.00:00 The Start03:54 Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman's Butler09:35 Fantastic Four Casting & Director14:08 She-Hulk Did a Twerk20:10 The Rings of Power Review Bombed21:59 GoT House of the Dragon Success24:22 New Lord of the Rings Games & Movies26:24 Hot Quick News feat. Marvel, The Boys, Bioshock, The Last of Us & Umbrella Academy31:42 DC News Bonanza32:09 DC Fandome Cancelled33:43 Batgirl Movie Scrapped39:59 DC's Kevin Feige44:14 How To Fix the DC Universe01:07:36 What We Reading, What We Gonna Read01:18:22 Letters, It's Time For LettersJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownMaso's Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/nickmaseauThe Weekly Planet Twitter ► https://twitter.com/theweeklyplanetPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesTWP iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767TWP Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetTWP YouTube Channel ► https://goo.gl/1ZQFGHAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2QbmwGjT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-movies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care.

From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of The Weekly Planet, where we talk movies and comics and TV shows.

My name is James, also known as Mr. Sunday. With me as always is my very rested co-host, Nick Mason. Look how much energy I've got, Mason, for my big rest. All right, settle down, mate. It also could be all the caffeine. Go on, dial it back, mate. Bloody hell. No, I don't want people to be like they've lost their edge. They took a month off and they came back and they're just not the same.

But do you think you want to create a pretense we've gained an edge? That's right. No, we want to be back like we were before, edgeless. Threading that needle of being too hyperactive or too tired right in the middle there. Yeah, but it's really late and whatever, whatever. Yeah, yeah, we're recording this in the daytime though. What do you think about that?

That's going to be one of the big changes we're making to the show, isn't it? We're going to not record it at 1am. Correct, yes. We're going to try. We're absolutely going to try. Welcome back all the listeners. Yeah, thanks so much. And new listeners.

Yes. And to, of course, everybody, the whole team behind this, Colin, who edits this, everybody in the Facebook admins, all the editors, the dogs. The dogs, yeah. My lovely wife, Claire. That's right. All of these things, you know.

Your dog did a funny thing earlier. One of the dogs. One of the dogs. Which he mugged my daughter twice. Yeah. Pretty funny. Yeah, pretty good stuff. Yeah.

Stole a biscuit. Stole a biscuit, yeah. Not actually mugged. No, not actually mugged. But, James, are you feeling good? Are you feeling well-rested? Feeling pretty good, yeah. Like I probably could have just kept going,

but it was nice to like reset, take a month, prep some videos of stuff that, you know, we want to do and whatever things coming up. So don't expect anything fantastical. Expect the same. I said, maybe a bit more of this though. Oh, my goodness. Are we not doing this though?

No, we can do it. Okay, great. See, now I regret not matching your energy at the start there as part of the pretense. People are going to say that you've lost it. Oh no. And I've gained an edge, yeah. Should I just be really hyper for the rest of the episode?

I think so, yeah. I don't want to though. Anyway, good to be back. A shame nothing happened while we were away. Mason, you say that. Mason, you say that. Oh, you're joking. I was doing a little joke.

That's one of your famous jokes that you do. One of my famous jokes that I do. Mason, you say that. Mason, you say that. Oh, you're joking. I was doing a little joke. That's one of your famous jokes that you do. One of my famous jokes that I do. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, as I think perhaps we mentioned before we went on break, traditionally in the Hollywood entertainment sphere, not a lot happens during August, which is the reason we took. Not a lot of movies come out or whatever. Yes, that's the reason we took August off, but then it turned out.

Hollywood was like, let's melt down for a solid month. Not a single day will pass where something weird and upsetting will not happen in Hollywood. Mostly Warner Brothers related. So I think that's probably going to be the key component from the show, just breaking down all of that. And we will get to it. But, of course, we've got a little bit of news up top

related to a few things uh some some marvel news uh we want to talk a bit about she-hulk because there's been a little bit of controversy mason i don't know if you've looked at any youtube thumbnails lately but people are very upset you know what i never even get those thumbnails no i don't i you might you're not in that algorithm i think i'm in a very like limited algorithm okay because off like i get i even get a panel that's just like watch it again. You know all those videos you've watched previously? Are you subscribed to

anything? Yeah, I'm subscribed to things. Not a lot of things, like 15 channels or something. Oh wow, okay. Maybe that's the reason, I don't know. But it's just like you watched this video two years ago, you want to watch it again? I'm like, maybe a new thing. I don't know. Maybe. We're also going to talk about

the Rings of Power. That's coming in fresh and hot. And then we've got some more J.R.R. Tolkien news. He's dead, but just in terms of the estate and what's going on there. And then we've got some hot, quick news before we go and get into everything

Warner Brothers. Now, does our discussion of the Rings of Power require that I have watched any episodes of the Rings of Power? No, no, no. Okay, good, because I haven't done that. If I could kick it off with what I think is the most important thing that happened while we were away. He's back with his one bit of news. This is my one bit of news.

I was hoping you'd forget. Well, I didn't. This one is, I think, most important and most relevant. This happened just after we went on break, and I honestly thought for a moment that it would be the wackiest thing that would happen. Okay. Uh,

but I, I think it's worth noting. I think it's important for us and our audience, uh, the TV series Pennyworth, which of course is the story of the origin of Batman's butler. It was renewed for a fourth season and it was also renamed Pennyworth colon, the origin of Batman's butler.

I thought it was a joke. And here's Butler. I thought it was a joke. And here's the thing. It's a joke title. James, we like to have fun on this podcast. Yeah. And a significant portion of that fun is imagining a person whose job it is to name like large entertainment IPs but for some reason is so literal minded that they can only name them after literally what they're seeing

in front of them. Or what they vaguely remember. Yeah, oh, Keanu Reeves, he's in a computer, he does a big kick, whatever. And what I think has happened, James, what I'm worried has happened is that we've been doing that for so long and, may I say, so powerfully, that this person has become real.

And they've gotten a job at Warner Brothers and they're just like, oh, the origin of Batman's a butler. I think we got into LG Rhythm, who runs Warner Brothers. Yeah, maybe. The villain from Space Jam. Sure, sure, sure. And he's absorbed a lot of our content. All content, obviously, but somehow this has filtered through.

He's one of those AI art generators that don't actually generate any art. They just steal bits from actual artists. Okay, right, and you just put a prompt in. Us, actual artists. Isn't that wild, though? Yes. Like, I understand that it's a Batman Okay, right. And you just put a prompt in. Us, actual artists. Isn't that wild though? Yes. Like I understand that it's a Batman property obviously. Yeah.

So maybe you've got to put – you can't call it like Gotham Knights Pennyworth because that's not. Yeah, okay. And I think the problem which they are probably having is that not enough Batman fans are watching it and too many fans of like Downton Abbey are watching. Right. They're tuning in because they see like, oh, it's a sad – there's a sad,

pale British man and he's off to the wars but actually he wants to be sitting in the or what. Right. They're tuning in because they see like, oh, it's a sad, there's a sad pale British man and he's off to the wars, but actually he wants to be sitting in the moors. Yeah, sure. And sitting by a pond and being windswept and sad or whatever. And they're like, oh, I'll watch this. And then weird stuff happens. Yeah, like you'll meet, I don't know. What's he meeting?

No, I'll tell you who he is meeting because I saw. Ra's al Ghul? No, because the one thing that, look. Port of Owls? No, because the one thing that – look. Port of Outs? No, maybe. I don't know. But the one thing that I did see based around this piece of news is there was one promo photo and I think it's four men

and they're in the British Army. They're all wearing that traditional kind of, you know, that brown sort of high-button jacket and the hat and the – I love that for them. Right? And they're all normal except for one guy on the end. In addition to his army uniform, he's wearing like bits of tank armour and he's blue.

What? And he's got like just Google Pennyworth blue guy. You won't be the first to do it and neither was I. And he's got like all these cables and tubes coming off him. Oh, what is this? Well, here's the thing. So I looked him up. I Googled Pennyworth blue guy and I got to the Pennyworth wiki,

which I think should be called WikiWorth or Pennywiki. But anyway, he's got like three seasons worth of backstory to this guy. It just keeps going. He's like a rival to Alfred. He's not even that blue. He's just a weird, but he's very British, isn't he? He's got that, like, toothbrush mustache. It is James Pufoy, isn't it?

It is James Pufoy, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but here's the thing. So it's got so much... This character's got so much backstory, and I'm like, when are they going to explain this? When are they going to explain this? He's in the SAS.

He's a rival to Alfred. They become enemies, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I get, like, 20 paragraphs in, and it's like, there's blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I get like 20 paragraphs in and it's like there's a poison called Stormcloud and he eats the poison and he doesn't die, he turns blue. That's it. That's it.

Yeah. It's not Bane related. I thought it would be Mr Freeze related but it's not. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway. Well, this is their Fish Mooney, isn't it? This is an original villain. It's their OC, yeah.

Anyways, by all accounts, the show is fine. Yeah, I've heard it's fine. People are like, this is all right, actually. Did you know it was three seasons? It's the third season, apparently. Well, the fourth is coming up, yeah. What? Yeah, this is the fourth one that's coming up.

Yeah, just pretty good. Why is this still going, though? I don't know. We'll talk about all the stuff that's been cancelled. Is it cheap? Why couldn't you? What I'm really getting at, I think, is that the title is bewildering.

Like, you couldn't think of it, like, Pennyworth from the Secret Files of the Batman or something. That would work. Or, like, Pennyworth. Origins. Put in a Wayne, something, Pennyworth Wayne Estate or something. Yeah, sure. I don't know, Mason.

Yeah. But the fact that they were like, oh, the origin of Batman's butler. Anyways, if the Weekly Planet posters, the wonderful Twitter and Instagram account, could just put up a Pennyworth poster, as is the origins of Batman's butler, and just see if people notice. Sure.

Or think, do they know it's real? Thank you, Chris. You don't have to do that also. It's your account. You can do whatever you want. Wow. amazing stuff happening on Warner Brothers and I hope to circle back

in this episode we will that's right and that's been one bit of news is this is this happening all the time now

maybe if people respond well to it if people tweet at you with videos of themselves going one bit of news I don't want that maybe they're dressed as a Dracula they're dressed as a Dracula.

They're dressed as a Dracula, like, newsboy. They're Dracula, but they've got, like, a newsboy hat on and a mailbag. Okay. When are they delivering papers, though? Nighttime. Okay. You got me. The night news.

I just thought it would be in the morning and I'd get you. No. Okay. Maybe some of them will risk it if it's an overcast morning and they've forgotten to do it. They'll bring an umbrella or whatever. Bring an umbrella, yeah. Great.

Mason, here's some news via Marvel and THR. Apparently Matt Shackman has left Star Trek 4 for Fantastic Four, the movie. Well, Star Trek 4, you know, that wrapped filming decades ago. Yeah, I know, but he just doesn't want to do it. Sure. I think. Stop making me sit around in this studio.

You finished making this movie years ago. Yeah, exactly. It was set in the 80s because it was filmed in the 80s. Now he's worked on a bunch of things including House MD, It's Always Sunny, The Boys, WandaVision, Game of Thrones, Revenge, Mason Madman. So a bunch of like premium television. He's done one film in 2014 called Cut Bank, which I have not seen. My goodness. Revenge, Mason Madman. So a bunch of like premium television. He's done one film in 2014 called Cut Bank, which I have not seen.

Cut Bank. Cut Bank. What could that be about? It's about, here we go, also known as Helltown. Oh. So this was a movie named with a random word generator. Oh, it's got Liam Hemsworth. It's a Liam Hemsworth film.

Oh, my goodness. Which, you know what that means. What's that? Just not very good. Okay, great. Sorry, Liam Hemsworth. But I just, I've never seen something. We're going to start the new season of this podcast by making enemies.

Name your famous and favorite Liam Hemsworth movie. The one with the dressmaker. Is it the dressmaker? I haven't seen that one. He dies in a grain elevator. That's right. He jumps into a grain elevator or whatever. He's like.

So that's your favorite one where he dies in a great elevator. Yeah. Okay. I don't know. I feel like he's been looking for a franchise, you know, and he hasn't quite. Sure. Those OPSM ads.

Is he doing that? Yeah. Oh, that's wonderful. Look that up. Look that up on the YouTube. You look it up. I've already done it. I love them.

Yeah. Anyway. I tell a wonderful narrative. Anyways. What are we talking about? Oh, yeah. Cut bank. Cut bank.

So anyway, so Matt Shackman, he's apparently signed on for Fantastic Four and you can expect I think, and I heard this a while back, I don't know if I mentioned on the show that they're probably going to announce the cast for Fantastic Four next week. Yeah. Penn Badgley has been named. Are they going to circle back to a John

Krasinski? I believe friend of the show Nando V Movies put up a tweet today. Apparently there was some leaked potential. Oh yeah. Let's see it. Okay, let's find it right now. Okay, some potential cast. This is maybe the potential cast. John Boyega. Oh no.

D23 casting leaks. John Boyega, Henry Cavill, Jodie Comer, Daisy Edgar Jones, John Krasinski, Giancarlo Esposito, Denzel Washington. I love all of that. Yeah, right? I saw Denzel Washington for like Magneto or Professor X.

Yeah, maybe. I quite like that. And Giancarlo Esposito also. Yeah, as Magneto or Professor X. Henry Cavill, sort of the rumours have been swirling the last couple of weeks that he might be jumping ship for Marvel to do a Superman-esque character, so Hyperion or Wonder Man or, you know, any of those.

DC, you've got to – what are you doing? What are you doing, DC? What are you bloody doing, mate? But he's been waiting around. So, I mean, if they're not going to put him in it – He's been barely able to scrape in a couple of Sherlock Holmes movies. I know. It's between seasons of The Witcher and whatever.

Yeah. I still think he'll come back as Superman if they could, like, I don't know. It's all upside down. We'll talk about it. Now, speaking of Mad Men, which you mentioned briefly, and I just jumped on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you see the trailer for Confess Fletch?

I did with, what's his name? Jon Hamm. Trailer's ahoy, by the way. Hong. Hong. Yeah. John Hamm is in it. And also John Slattery, who is his mate in Mad Men. Yeah.

That's fun. I barely remember Fletch. Well, maybe isn't that the- Is that right? What he's doing? Yeah, it seems kind of fun and quippy. It's Greg Mottola directing it who did Superbad and Adventureland. Oh, that's great.

And then some movies later that nobody watched. Well, are they good though, the ones he did not? Don't know. The usual Liam Hemsworth movie? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. It looks fun.

I don't think anybody's going to see it. No. Because Fletch is a million years old. But it's coming out on digital and I will buy it on digital to support it because it looks fun. Yeah, cool. And I like Jon Hamm. I like what he's about.

Any predictions though for, I like Jodie Comer as anything. But if she was like a Sue Storm, I like that casting a lot. Yeah, anybody else? I couldn't think of a... Actually, John Boyega would be a pretty good Ben Grimm. And he could also not be there that much. Could be Human Torch as well. Yeah, that's true.

They could be going the sort of the Michael B. Jordan route. Yeah, no, fair enough. We'll see next week, but they're going to announce all manner of things. The things. Yes, potentially, including I think there was that poster and there's like a Mondo poster and it's got like Indiana Jones and other bits and pieces in it which they're going to show. Oh, sure.

Yeah, yeah, I did see that. Yeah, also all manner of symbols. So many things. Anyways, look, that's all well and good, but She-Hulk did a twerk and everybody's... She has spent the last... We are three episodes in to this series and she has done any number of things to upset any number of people. It's true, Madison.

And it seems deliberate and I'm here for it. I think it is so funny. Look, I like it. The show is pretty funny. I like it, yeah. I mean, it's a nice nod to me. I would have to comment on it every week just to get that. We've already got comments from people that are like,

if you like this, you should kill yourself and you've lost your minds. I like it. I think it's pretty good and pretty funny. Yes, a lot of the CGI is very ropey. We've talked about before the reasonings behind that and how they're all crunched. And I think as we speculated in previous weeks, the stuff that has already been made, like the Hulk character model

and the Abomination body model. Except for the face, very strange. They seem quite good. In fact, I think the Hulk model looks even better. They seem to have had time to, like, work on his stubble. I think it's the stubble. And his, like, his glasses wiggle when his face moves and that sort of stuff.

Like, that's interesting. But the new stuff, the She-Hulk specifically, that character model, not great, but it depends on the scene. But sometimes it is. There's a scene in the most recent episode where she is being interviewed for a TV station and it's directly to camera. The twerking comes later. Yeah.

And that looks pretty good. But there are moments where she's just walking through the office and the clothing drapes weirdly and the character moves weirdly. Pop to good. Yeah. But there are moments where she's just walking through the office and the clothing drapes weirdly and the character moves weirdly. Yeah. But I guess the Hulk kind of moves weirdly. Yeah. If you just have him walking through a scene, that does look odd.

Yeah. But yeah, I think, again, it depends. It depends really scene to scene. But I will say this. Yes. Like, I have been enjoying it. But as soon as I saw that twerking scene, I'm like, we're never going to fucking hear the end of this. Like, this is going to be.

Unless changed. Here's the thing, though, because there are moments in the first episode where I'm like, we're never going to hear the end of this, and then the second episode. Oh, you think like a bigger thing. I think a bigger thing will happen every episode. I think they will do something deliberately to top this. I think she might even be like,

I reckon there might even be a moment where she's like, you don't mind when Deadpool speaks to the camera, but I'm doing it and you're all mad about it or whatever. Like I think they might be ahead of the curve in terms of that. Like there were some moments in the first episode where the people were mad about, they're like, because in the comic books, actually Bruce Banner saves Jennifer Walters,

but he can't save Jennifer Walters in this one because he can't be a hero anymore because we want whatever, you know that thing? Yeah. Because in the comic books, I think she's shot by the mafia or something and Bruce Banner needs to give her a blood transfusion. But if I may, James, if I might head this one off, I don't think that origin works in the present day because the version from the 80s, that Bruce Banner has like no friends or allies and he's on the run

and it's the 80s and his version of the Hulk is just like an unstoppable rage monster that just smashes things or whatever. But the modern-day version of the Hulk is none of those things. Like if anything, the problem with the Avengers in the movies is they're like over-resourced. So like if she had been shot, he could just be like, call up Wong or Doctor Strange and be like, can you whip up a portal?

That's a good point. Can I call in a god or a super scientist or a guy who can make flying ants really big and pick her up or whatever? He does help her. Like he stops her from beating up those guys and teaches her to be a Hulk. But like worst case scenario, he takes that inhibitor device off his arm and he turns into Smart Hulk who's him but can just leap her to safety

or grab an ambulance or something. Grab an ambulance. Grab an ambulance from the hospital and bring it over or whatever. Grab one out of the air. Or go on social media and be like, can anybody help us? Somebody help do this. Yeah, right? The only way her origin works now is if it happens instantaneously

and neither of them can stop it. Because otherwise, why would he give her a blood transfusion? Yeah, that's a good point. Anyway, that's all I'm saying. The other thing that I will say about the first episode is people are like, why doesn't he just kill her? Remember they were in a fight? Why doesn't he just smash the truck up?

He could just kill her. One second. I mean, maybe, but like- Have you ever been in a fight with anybody in your family? Why don't you just kill them? Why don't you just use all your strength and kill them? Why don't you punch their head off? Maybe because there'd be ramifications, you know?

I don't know. Maybe you don't want to kill somebody. Maybe you don't want to kill someone you grew up with and you like them. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe think like a human being or something. I don't know.

Also, the Hulk's strength fluctuates wildly all the time. He's not even the strongest version. Anyway, if we were to- Anyway, she's so much better than him and I'm mad, Mason. You're right, exactly. This isn't the Hulk that I- Grew up with? Yeah.

Yeah. Specifically, the Eric Banner Hulk. It's exhausting, honestly. It's really the point where I don't even want to fucking talk about this because I just don't want these insane incels. And people hear that and they're like, it's getting, it's like, it's really the point where, like, I don't even want to fucking talk about this because I just don't want these insane incels. And, like, people hear that and they're like, well, just because I don't like it doesn't mean I'm an incel. If I say that and you go, you're talking about me, that's something that you need to deal with. Right. I just, I don't want to, I don't want to enter in any dialogue about any of this shit.

It's fucking exhausting, honestly. Yeah. It's just a 22-minute sitcom. And comics, like, if you've ever read, like, if you've read comics at any point in time, they just wildly fluctuate in terms of quality and also in terms of things. And logic. Yeah, and what I like or don't like compared to another person.

This is just comics, but we have to hear about it every week. God. Let's go back to the world of comics where you went to a comic book. MCU TV series should be like comic book stores. You go and you silently buy your comics and you leave and you don't talk to anybody about it. Anyway, what happened in two and three? The twerking and something in the second episode.

Yeah. I think it's fun. I also think it's fun. Yeah. And, you know, there's little things like there's a Wolverine mention, like God's Claws. They mention a guy sticking out of the earth. Finally a reference to the Eternals.

Those are things that are just like you can very quickly do that in post because it's just like a newspaper. They're just two small newspaper articles. But I think the big thing also from the first episode was Captain America had sex at one point or whatever. So, you know, people were excited or angry about that or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's fun.

That's really fun. Speaking of just horrible fan bases, here's one that's researching, Mason. On IMDB, I don't know if you've noticed this, but Lord of the Rings, the Rings of Power is being review bombed to heck, Mason. Oh, my goodness. If you look at it, there's like thousands of reviews for both ten stars and one stars. The other thing apparently –

What about in the middle stars? Yeah, there's a few of those. I think that's probably like if you look at anywhere between nine and two, that's probably where that would give you a better indication of what people like. And also apparently, and I looked a bit into this, a bunch of the reviews, the more negative reviews, and some are just like people mad about because there's blackouts or whatever. Oh, okay, right. And there's also that.

But IMDB are apparently deleting a bunch of these because Amazon owns IMDB. And I'm not surprised that that would be happening. It's Amazon. Of course they would be doing that. Count yourself lucky you're not deleting Amazon customers who do not like. Yeah, or turning you into glue or whatever.

You specifically, Mason, I'm talking about. Oh, no, I don't want to be glue. Yeah, so I'm not obviously. My enthusiasm's back, James, about not being turned into glue. You found it. Yeah, yeah. But I've only watched the first episode and I honestly really enjoyed it. And it's also off the back of we've been watching the Hobbit trilogy

for Caravan of Garbage. Exhausting. Just horrible, long, drawn out. And every now and then you hit a good thing, you're like, wow. But I really quite liked it. And, look, I'm not really – I don't know a lot about, like, the first or second age of Tolkien or whatever, and I don't want to know.

So don't email me, Mason, with your thoughts and theories. Okay, I was going to. Yeah, if I ask anybody, it's my brother, the one you don't like. Terrific. And he'll tell me all about it. But I enjoyed it. And apparently a lot of people are saying the second episode is better. Oh, my goodness.

But also a lot of people hate it because Gladriel's got a sword and whatever. I don't, again. Hey, speaking of episodes, it's a good segue, but also medieval, fake medieval stuff. Okay. We've got some egg on our face because we were like, nobody's going to care about this Game of Thrones prequel. Did we say that?

Yeah, I'm sure we did. I did. I certainly did. I'm like, you know, people. I was like, oh, the well's been poisoned for this property. But it turns out the first episode came out and 10 million people watched it, which is a good number. I got this right here, Mason.

So, yeah, it's HBO Max's biggest debut ever. Season 2 has already been confirmed. So the second episode also did better than the first, which is also really unusual. Normally you'd see it at least a bit of a deal. So it's people skipping the first episode and then...

I don't know what's going on there. I watched it and I think maybe I'm just exhausted by Game of Thrones. There's a lot of news this week where you're exhausted. Yeah, I don't know. I'm having a good time also. We just hit three things in a row that I'm just exhausted by but that I also enjoyed.

Great. But also in watching those episodes, I just feel like they haven't given me anything that I haven't seen. Okay. But it's just characters that I don't know. And they're like, this guy's betrayed this guy. But James, in a way, when Game of Thrones came out, you didn't know any of those characters either.

But I feel like I just, maybe it was because it was new. So maybe you learned to love this band of awful, awful people. Yeah, because it's like this inbred person hates this inbred person. I'm like, oh, do they? That's crazy. But I guess the lesson here for me at least is. You never know what's on the pulse, Mason. Well, you don't.

You know, the issue, if you don't you know the issue if you if you're terminally online which we are it's often difficult to just determine what you're totally well your regular joe lunch pale is going to watch and the people that we interact with who like listen to the show or whatever i don't interact with anyone okay no you said your best friends with everybody this is the issue apart from them yeah yeah we are definitely in like a different kind of bubble than a regular person um but all my friends in my uh terrible group chat they all watched it so and they're they're the litmus test for what does a normal awful person like

anyways you're something they think you're a great bloke there's normal awful people like you and they don't know that you make fun of them. The best thing about this show is that nobody listens to it, and I could just say anything about them. That's very true. Yeah, they also call me Mr. Sunday Night Movies because they don't know the name of this. Terrific.

Yeah. Anyways, do you know Embracer Group, Mason? Mason? Mason? Do you know them? No. They're not your best friends? No.

That's okay. That's good. So they're just like a big conglomerate okay you know a thing embrace a group yeah you know i think buys another thing sure yeah yeah yeah so they have purchased the rights are the motion picture rights to lord of the rings and that sorry not just motion picture that includes video games board games merchandising theme parks stage productions uh sorry for not only lord of the Rings, the trilogy, but also The Hobbit. They've bought this?

Yes. But surely Amazon Ditcom has it already? That's a separate deal, I think, apparently. Or it's linked. Anyways, but the reason I say this is because other opportunities include exploring additional movies based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Gladriel, Eowyn, and other characters from the literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien. So you said movies as well, did you say? Yes, this is going to be our future.

So Embracer Group used to be Nordic Games, and they own like Gearbox, they own THQ Nordic, they own Eidos, Crystal Dynamics. Oh, yeah. So they're pretty big. They're a big company. I mean, they bought Lord of the Rings. They did buy Lord of the Rings.

Well, look, I just want to establish their bona fides. They're not just like, it's just the guy in a shack, you know, who has a really good social media profile. He's like, I'll pay you. I'll pay you in a couple of weeks. You know, I've got 30 days, right? I've got 30 days to pay for this, right? Absolutely.

So there you go. So I would love to see some more Lord of the Rings video games as well. I played the first Shadow of War or Mordor, one of them. But does this mean then that Amazon's production of this and – They have the rights to I think everything except – I think they've got the rights to like The Hobbit also and Lord of the Rings, but they don't have any of the Simmerillion or any of the other stuff. So that's why they've picked this particular age

because there's not a lot of Tolkien stuff in there, and that's why they can play a bit fast and loose with some of the stuff, which is either good or bad depending on what you think about all of that. So there you go, Mason. Should we do some hot quick news? Hot quick news. Ben Kingsley will join Wonder Man. There he is. Who's Wonder Man now?

It was Nathan Fillion in the movie. We don't know yet. Could be Henry Cavill. Could be a different guy. Could be. Could be that Penn Badgley character. What's he up to? Yeah. He's always murdering someone in that show, You, isn't he? He's always looking through a keyhole or something. I saw a tweet many years ago that was like Penn Badgley is a fake name

you would give to a cop. You just look you just look into this like your shirt and you're like oh Penn Badgley That's very good Mason Yeah but he could be ending it. Yeah So Ben Kingsley Sir Ben Kingsley. So he's going to be Trevor Slattery. Yeah right. That would tie

into the origin of Wonder Man that he's. He's an actor Thespian. Oh is it? That's true. Yeah you're right. And also he Wonder Man that he's. He's an actor, a thespian. Oh, is it? That's true. Yeah, you're right. And also he's got it in for Tony Stark sometimes. Oh, no.

So it ties it all together. But I think the acting thing is probably more likely. I think. Is it Tretton the boards? I think Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed Shang-Chi, is also working on that show. Cool. I believe.

I like it. Jeffrey Dean Morgan will join the boys season four. Another Eric Kripke alumni. Cool. I believe. I like it. Jeffrey Dean Morgan will join the boys season four. Another Eric Kripke alumni. Yes. Because Jensen Ackles of course came over from, also from Supernatural. That's right. And you think hot quick Mason? Oh sorry. Ow. Jeffrey. Settled down mate.

Francis Lawrence. Don't know who that is. He directed the Hunger Games movies. Is he related to Jennifer Lawrence who was in the Hunger Games movies? Yes, they are both related to each other. Huh. No. Maybe.

No, but no. He is going to direct the Bioshock movie apparently. Ooh. Is it though? Yeah. Because it's been a long time. Could be fun. Yeah.

Yeah. Gore Verbinski was going to do it one time. It's not costing me any money, is it? I don't know, Mason. It will. If they bring it out, you'll have to go see it, won't you? That's true. You could always sneak in, though.

So I want you to think about that. You could plan something out between now and 20 years' time when this movie comes out. That's right. No, it seems to be maybe movie ahead at this point. Who knows? Wow. Yeah.

And the last bit of news is that we got some first footage from The Last of Us. Oh, right. Yeah, we did. The TV series. And it looks great. Yeah, I think I only saw some stills, but it looks nice. No, we saw some snippets actually too, Mason.

There was a HBO Max kind of trailer. Oh. And a big chunk of it was dedicated to The Last of Us. Pedro Pascal. Yes. He's like, I'm sick of being The Last of Us. Or you're The Last of Us. Now you'll be The Last of Us.

He says, pointing to the villain of the piece. Or the giraffe. us now you'll be the last of us he says pointing to the villain of the piece or the giraffe that's right there's a giraffe bit uh have you played that game yes because they just remade it like not like remastered they entirely remade it yeah released it yeah it's on that treadmill of games that are going to be remade forever how do you get on that i don't know yeah we should skyrim like it, oh, that's not a, that's more just like they're putting it on every platform. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or Doom, which is they put it on literally every electronic device that

is possible to put it on. Which Doom? New Doom? Old Doom? Old Doom. Original Doom, they put on, they'll put it on a, they'll put it on a heart monitor or whatever. I went down like a bit of a iPod. Yeah. I went down a rabbit hole in the holidays of just like looking into like the history of Doom and all the guys behind id software and how they all hate each other and whatever. And then one of them made Daikatana and the other one.

John Romero made Daikatana. Yeah. That's where I'm up to. I'm like, I want to know more about this game I've never played. Did you ever play Daikatana? I don't think I did. I might have played like a demo disc because that was the era for that. It certainly was.

But if I remember correctly, it was meant to be, you know, light years ahead of Doom, but it was just you had like AI companions that would just stand in corners and stuff, you know. So like today. Yeah. Yeah. We've come a long way, haven't we? Yeah.

Yeah, busy in the corner making generative art or whatever. And a Wii. Yes. I forgot actually there's one more bit of news before we talk DC. Wow. Umbrella Academy is getting a of news before we talk DC. Wow. Umbrella Academy is getting a final season. That's great. Amazing.

I'm shocked. Astounding, isn't it? Because, again, like this week, you know, the last month we saw the release of The Sandman. Yeah. Which we'll probably talk about later. Yeah. I loved it.

Yeah, it's good, right? I thought it was great. And then they had a bonus episode. Yeah, right? I loved it! Yeah, it's good, right? I thought it was great! And then they had a bonus episode! Yeah, right? I loved it, Mason! But, you know, there was Neil Gaiman and all the stars of the show and the producers and everybody was just on Twitter being like, OK, it's been watched 11 million billion times.

It's the biggest show of all time. But if you could please finish it. If you watched a couple of episodes, could you please finish it? Because otherwise they'll be like, this show has no value and we will not get renewed. But he somehow made it so that he could take that somewhere else. Oh, Neil Gammon did. Okay, great.

So that's great. It's cool. Yeah, it's just like beautifully made and well cast. Some real streaming musical chairs feels like it's on the verge of happening. I think a lot of people are going to be jumping ship from various streamers to other streamers. I think we're going to get to a point where somebody's going to have like some streaming service.

It's probably going to be Amazon. It's just going to be like we'll take all of this. Give me it. Please. Give me it. Give me it. So there you go. Anyways, Umbrella Academy, I'm glad they get a chance to wrap that up.

It's exciting. Good stuff. That news was so hot. It was too hot. Are you okay? My fingies. Maybe you could put them in a bucket of iced water. Okay, I'll do that.

Finally, used for this bucket of iced water I bring here every episode. Okay. To kick off this DC bonanza, and it is a bonanza, Mason. Sure. That's one word you could use. Maybe they could put that in their PR. This is is a Bonanza, Mason. Sure. That's one word you could use. Maybe they could put that in their PR. This is actually a Bonanza what we're doing. And they're sending out emails to everybody they've fired being like,

hey, if you could in your exit email, in your public statement, could you refer to what's happened to you as a Bonanza? A big Bonanza. People will think about the TV series Bonanza. That's right. And people will think about the TV series Bonanza. That's right. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London.

One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness

and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. So this is First Bits of Eye, comicbookmovie.com, and we thought this was coming because we hadn't heard anything, but they said, with the return of in-person events, Warner Brothers Discovery is excited to be able to engage with fans live at numerous comic cons around the world and will not be scheduling DC Fandome for 2022. What a twist at the end there.

Why do you think? They're not bringing any of their properties that they've either cancelled or in the middle of making or maybe there's somebody problematic in them or you know i don't know what do you think they're probably probably every reason you've mentioned there and probably more that have yet to come to light but the fact that they're just you know there are probably people out there who are like they've made their costume for fandom they're like i'm gonna come as my favorite animated character fandom is, it is online.

I keep forgetting. Well, they're going to do it for the, you know. They asked us to make a costume for Fandom last year. Yeah, that's right. We talked about it. All these people have turned their car into the Batmobile so they can do some sort of video, free video promotion for Fandom. If people are interested, they can go back to an episode from last year.

I can't remember which one it is, but I got an insane email that was like, you can stream Fandom. Was it for money? I don't think it was for money, but yeah. I can't remember which one it is, but I got an insane email that was like, you can stream Fandom. Was it for money? I think it was for money, but yeah. I don't remember. Was it? How much was it? We didn't see any of it, so.

No, but it was like an insane amount of things to do and prepare and like be enthusiastic about things. And it was when I went for like 12 hours. Yeah, yeah. But I am, they're not doing this because every day leading up to Fandom will be another thing where they're like, yeah, we cancelled another thing you like. Yeah.

Because they don't have anybody running the show for now. We'll get to it. I think we should start things off and this happened about two days after we went on break. Yeah. But Batgirl the movie and this is like, this is. Oh, I'd even forgotten. I hadn't really.

I hadn't forgotten because it's still it was a month ago yeah but it's unprecedented that they they've this nearly finished movie which had a 75 million dollar budget which then grew to a 90 million dollar budget has been it's all been filmed and it's completely scrapped yeah now the creators behind this were completely blindsided and were apparently not informed and found out when when we all found out on the weekly planet podcast right now and apparently also from the from the like people who have seen it like studio insiders or fan screenings and it's it's not good apparently i haven't seen seen it. Yeah, look, I've heard. I don't know.

I mean, well, that's the thing. I've heard mixed things. I mean, what I think has been. I've heard it likened to a CW pilot. Yeah, but what I think, one of the reasons that I sort of appreciate we took a month off is every part of this has had time to evolve. Yeah. We've seen different, you know, this whole situation,

the merger and all this sort of stuff. We've seen a bunch of different've seen different, you know, this whole situation, the merger and all this sort of stuff. We've seen a bunch of different situations here, like, you know, slowly transform over a period of days and things like that. But I've seen any number of responses to this. The one you said, like, it's a CW show. I saw one that said it has roughly the same, like, audience response score as Black Adam. That's the other thing. But they're going ahead with Black Adam, but they're not going ahead with this.

So for people who don't know, Warner Brothers was acquired by Discovery. Yep. Yum, yum, yum. This is our famous segment, one big company buys another big company. Yum, yum, yum. And the head of Warner Brothers Discovery, Zaslav, I think we're mispronouncing that, but that's what we're going with. His job is apparently to- Like Victor Zaslav. I think we're mispronouncing that, but that's what we're going with. His job is apparently to –

Like Victor Zaslav. Oh, very good. Like the murdering man. His job was apparently – Yes. His job apparently was to reduce costs within this merger by $3 billion. And the plan thus far has been cancel everything and turn things into tax write-offs,

which is apparently what they're doing with Bad Girl. If you, essentially if you say it's an unsalvageable, unreleasable disaster, you can write it off as a loss and then you get a rebate. You get a multi-million dollar tax credit, I guess. You're exactly right. Because that's the thing. Warner Brothers have released terrible things.

All studios do it all the time. We all saw Morbius, every one of us. That's right. And then we saw it again when they re-released it. So the idea is that they will get a $20 million tax write-off from this because they thought at the end of the day we can make more money by losing $70 million than marketing this and trying to gain everything back. So it's a gamble essentially.

Yeah. But here's the thing though. If they do this, if they take this $20 million, they cannot ever monetize it or release it in any form ever. It is lost media. Yes. In a way that I thought we were past the era of kind of lost media. I think it will resurface eventually. In the past we've talked about

the 1990s Fantastic Four movie which was made solely to retain a copy. But that was never to be released. No, that's true. But I thought people aren't going to do that now, are they? But this is interesting that it's such a high profile thing. They also scrapped Scoob.

Yeah, sorry. Like they took apparently Scoob 2, but that's maybe returning. Scoob Control. Scoob Control. That Batman animated series, the new one from the original creators. Well, if we can hold on to that, I was just going to say that, you know, people said of this Batgirl thing, there was initially some fears that it had been entirely deleted,

like all the footage had been erased. But apparently that isn't true because they were doing, like, funeral screenings at Warner Brothers. You know, the cast and crew got to watch what had been done. Yeah, interesting, right? Yeah. So basically, like I mentioned, there's only a few things that are moving forward.

One of them is the stuff that is finished, obviously. Joker 2 has been greenlit. Just recently, Brendan Gleeson was also cast. That's right. The Batman 2 is probably happening, but everything else that hasn't already been made or is not currently happening, for example, like Harley Quinn got renewed for season four.

We don't really know. They even took a bunch of the Sesame Street episodes off HBO Max. Yeah, wow. It's weird that they're gutting that app for some reason. Apparently some of it is due to residuals and things like that. If you erase a series, you don't have to pay the creators anymore. We've talked about this before, how they'll reboot stuff on Netflix. did we talk about this here maybe how they reboot stuff on netflix so then oh we certainly talked about it off air but yeah yeah so if it's like you know if it's if it's

uh oh what what what example did we use it was some it was some like uh detective show it was like you know it was like bosh or something yeah it was bosh bosh got re got re renamed bosh origins he's a he's a cop on the origins of borscht's butler that's right because apparently when you do that and then they got them then it was the the same exactly the same cast and essentially the same thing except you they don't have to pay like full residuals and benefits and yeah and full probably health insurance yeah right exactly i'm just thinking about the paperwork and that sounds like a nightmare to have to pay like full residuals and benefits and full probably health insurance. Yeah, right? Exactly. I'm just thinking about the paperwork,

and that sounds like a nightmare to have to pay people for their work. I had a thought about the paperwork, not that paperwork, but different paperwork, but I was just going to say, what's interesting about erasing Batgirl is that, I've got a tweet here from someone after the quiver about DC. I screenshot it at the time because I thought this was interesting. A quiver like Green Arrow? Yes.

Flash was originally releasing before Aquaman 2, so they added a Michael Keaton cameo in Aquaman 2. Then Aquaman 2 was releasing first in the cameo-confused test audiences, so they changed it for Ben Affleck. Now Aquaman 2 releases after Flash again and none of it makes any sense. And, of course, the Keaton cameo in Batgirl is now gone as well. I mean, yeah, if the movie's gone then yes. The movie's definitely gone, yeah.

You're absolutely right, yeah. We'll get into all of that because what varieties say that they're looking for apparently to steer this ship, to right this wrong that they're doing and have been doing for a decade. And will continue to do. Even though they say they're going to fix it, they're just going to continue to do it. Yeah, they're looking for Kevin Feige.

And they found one in a man, his name is? Dan Lin. Dan Lin, there we go. Not confirmed, but he's apparently a front runner. He's a producer. He worked on Lego Batman, Sherlock, the Godzilla Kong movies, the It movies. He's got a really solid body of work.

Yeah. And there's obviously like all producers, there's some stuff in here where you're like, yeah, that's not great, but whatever. But like those properties alone, if not like very successful, like critically, at least commercially. But do they want someone to steer the ship or do they want someone to stand there and grin

and say all the right things to the fans while they continue to sink the ship? Potentially. But the other thing about this guy is he's like, if you're looking for Kevin Feige, he's a unicorn. You can find him. He's got the hat on. Yeah, he's got the hat on. But he's like if you're looking for kevin feige he's a unicorn he's got the hat on yeah he's got the hat on but he's a unicorn like he doesn't he's he's not only like a very competent

producer but he has a passion for the specific stuff and he knows the law inside out so he knows kind of what fans will respond to and i know people we've talked about this and like i don't like the way this phase is going on whoever whatever i but it's still doing well yeah whether or not that you you know whether you agree with any of that or not. It's still doing well, whether or not that you agree with any of that or not. Again, it's the terminally online people ask versus people who just go, yeah, this looks like fun. I think I'll watch this.

All right. Yeah. And also I think there was some chatter, especially early on with the cancellation of Batgirl, that was like people going, well, actually what they're doing here is they're going to – this is a way to realign all the various DC universe and all this sort of stuff and build a you know a continuous uh narrative and streamline everything and all that sort of stuff and i'm like no it's not what it is is day one this david zazlav guy

he's just handed a big folder yeah and it's got like one page summaries of all the stuff that other executives have predicted will not make that money and he's just checking them off and cancelling them. Yeah. That's literally what – he's not like, well, I see in this version that we've got a Michael Keaton cameo from the 1989 Batman movie and that's not going to jibe with the Ben Affleck on the Snyderverse because we have Batfleck there obviously. So what we're going to do is we're going to streamline that and we're going to hashtag restore the Snyderverse.

He's not doing anything. He doesn't care. No, of course not. And have you ever had a new boss? They come in and they just gut restore the Snyderverse. He's not doing anything. He doesn't care. No, of course not. And have you ever had a new boss? They come in and they just gut whatever the previous person does. Exactly, yeah, because if they release Batgirl, they will be blamed if it doesn't do well. But if they cancel it, it doesn't matter.

Here's the thing, though. I was going to save this to the end, but I guess I'll talk about it now. You mentioned that he wanted to save $3 billion. But in doing all this and all the cuts, the market cap, which is essentially like the value of this Warner Brothers and Discovery, has gone down $20 billion. Uh-oh. But that's ethereal up in the air.

It doesn't mean anything really unless you've sold the company at this exact point in time. really unless you've sold the company at this exact point in time. You know, it's like – but it's showing that this is – it basically means that all this is in flux and nobody knows what's going to happen. Yeah, but I think the larger issue, and maybe you've got it written down, is that this is going to shake creative confidence and the creative people's willingness.

Mason, I don't have this written down. Oh. This is an original thought from you. Oh, I knew it would happen one day. All it took was a month off. Time to recharge the batteries, you know. I managed to get eight hours sleep over that month. But it's going to shake creators' confidence and being like,

well, anyone with any power is going to go, well, I could make it with Warner Brothers, but there's a chance that they will just can it before, you know, a week before it's due to come out or whatever and we'll never see it again. So I'm not going to work with, I'll go to Sony or I'll go to whoever. I think legendary pictures have cut ties with. Well, Christopher Nolan jumped ship and legendary who do.

He didn't know this was coming. He was just mad at them. No, no. Yeah, but this is all related. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, because they're basically trying to right the wrongs of the previous administration by doing a whole lot of other things, which are also seemingly terrible ideas.

But, yeah, legendary pictures of the Godzilla Kong and Pacific Rim, and they've got a bunch of other stuff that has actually been carrying a lot of the Warner Brothers, like, IP. Yeah, right. Because a lot of their stuff they're making internally, including the superhero stuff, is not hitting. Yeah, right. Because a lot of their stuff they're making internally, including the superhero stuff, is not hitting. Yeah, right. You know?

And speaking of Mason, this is via Variety. It was an article that they wrote that was called From Batgirl Fallout to Rebooting Superman, All the Landmines Facing the Next DC Chief. Yeah. And here's one of the opening quotes. When they say landmines, I mean, he's not going to get any landmines. His interns are going to cop all the landmines.

The guy who's the new Kevin Feige guy. Well, both Zaslav and the new guy. No, this is the new guy. Yeah, right. Zaslav is just going to cop a huge bonus and then he's going to leave. Yeah. Because he doesn't care about any of this. Yeah, go to General Electric or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So whoever takes the equivalent of the Feige job at DC will, by contrast, inherit a Justice League, very good, sized series of preconditions, entrenched systems and PR migraines on top of the stupendous task of building a slate of film and TV titles that could equal the MCU. Here are a few of the challenges ahead. Uh-oh. Okay, are you ready for some of this?

Yes. Now we can spend 40 minutes on each of these or I can just go. Let's see if any strike our fancy here. okay, you're ready for some of this. Yes. Now we can spend 40 minutes on each of these or I can just go. Let's see if any strike our fancy here. Let's see if we've got 40 minutes in us for any of those. Okay, great. So obviously dealing with the Batgirl fallout. And we've talked about that already.

Have we talked about the apps? They're getting rid of HBO Max. Yeah. They're integrating it in Discovery+. They did that weird, I don't know if you saw it, the weird PowerPoint presentation where they're like, HBO Max scripted action for boys. You know that one? It's Discovery, I'm scripted.

Girl, whatever. But it was like, are you kidding me? It's 2022. Are you like, well, there's a girl's channel and a boy's channel. That doesn't feel like it's based on any research or anything. That feels like it's based on just what one guy reckons and as i was mentioning before like a lot of this stuff they're like you know the the predictions of whether something is going to be popular or not or make money or not that's that fluctuates wildly a lot of instances like maybe something will tank

and maybe it will do well but a lot of the I imagine a lot of the stuff that has been recommended gets cancelled. That recommendation is based on the biases of the people making that recommendation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like when, who was it, the guy at Marvel who sucked? Which one? The guy who thought Black Panther wouldn't sell. Oh, Ike Perlmutter?

Ike Perlmutter. He was like, well, this isn't going to do it well. And then they turfed him and it made a billion dollars. Like I'm not saying that Batgirl will work the same way. We don't know if it's any good or not. But just the idea of like, well, we shouldn't take a chance on this because of my personal reasons why I don't like this character, not saying what it is.

But it's also the tax thing. Also the tax thing, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but no, you're right about that because also apparently they- But this just won't sell. You don't know. Yeah, well, that's the thing. The demographics they want to shift towards are more like- and this is more in the interpretation than something they've directly said,

that they're looking for like less diverse kind of properties. Yeah. And that's what- speaking to what you were talking about, those two kind of core groups that they think they're targeting or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the Zaslav, he was like, I'm actually going to hire based on talent and not on diversity. Yeah, good stuff.

It's just a coincidence that all the executives I've hired are white. And that's the thing. I want to see your standard stuff, your Batmans, your Supermans, your Wonder Womans. I want to see all that, but I also want to see different stuff. Sure, yeah. Like I'm a straight white guy. I'm proud of it, Mason.

I don't care what you say. But who doesn't want to – I mean I know a lot of people don't, but I want to see different things from different creators, from different backgrounds who have different experiences. Whenever I see anybody who's – I don't want to see Batman 400 times. Right? My thought is always, aren't you bored by this?

Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I'm mad about it, I guess, aren't you bored by this? Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I'm mad about it, I guess. Yeah, we're all mad. Anyway, the other thing is they have to manage ongoing, this is the one person, Nick, this Kevin Feige, ongoing and unconnected film and TV projects.

This includes Joker 2, Batman 2, The Penguin spin-off, The Arkham Asylum spin-off, which is cancelled potentially maybe. Oh, maybe. Peacemaker, Harley Quinn, Doom Patrol, J.J. Abrams is apparently developing Constantine and Madame Xanadu. Pennyworth. Pennyworth, the origin of Blue Beetle. Yeah, Blue Guy in Pennyworth.

Yeah, I think the CW is maybe finishing soon. I don't know. Seems like it's wrapping up. Yeah. Superman and Lois. Yeah, Superman and Lois. So all of these different things. And the other thing is like all of these different people,

all of these different projects are run by different people in different departments. And so there's no, you can't manage that as a single person. No, I could do it. Okay, you're probably right. I could do it. If they were like, can you manage this? You'll get $50 million.

Yeah, I could definitely do it. People who can't manage it are people who've gotten used to the idea they're getting $50 million and they're like, oh, I can't, I can't handle all this. I reckon I could, I could definitely do it. People who can't manage it are people who've gotten used to the idea they're getting $50 million and they're like, oh, I can't handle all this. I reckon I could. I reckon. I reckon you've made too much money and your brain doesn't work anymore and you think that's hard, but it's not if you get $50 million.

Yeah, you could just half-ass it even. Yeah. I mean, they're half-assing it already. They quarter-ass it. But just keep doing it. So were you going to mention the Caped Crusader? Oh, yeah, it was. Yeah, the J.J. Abrams.

J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves. Matt Reeves and Bruce Timm. Bruce Timm, yeah. What a slam dunk that they're cancelling for no reason. Well, they're not cancelling it. Apparently they're shipping it around to other networks. So Netflix are interested, Apple are interested. This is a cost-cutting thing.

So they can sell it to somebody else and be like, we made this much money presumably by licensing this property out to them. Because Apple would pay for this. They don't care. They've got infinite money. All these companies have infinite money. It doesn't matter to them. It could go to Disney+.

It could. I mean, probably not, but it could. I think maybe we talked about this off-air but not on-air. Apparently the TV rights to Batman have always been – they've been shrouded in mystery because they technically were owned by Fox in the 60s because Fox produced the Batman and Robin, the Adam West, Burt Ward TV series. And now Marvel and Disney own Fox.

So they might have the rights. I didn have the the right that's why you never see i only learned this recently the question has always been why isn't there just a batman tv series people would love to see you call it batman you could call it batman batman's here everybody but apparently and it's it's apparently shrouded in mystery nobody talks about it and all the people that did it originally are dead and all that sort of stuff. And nobody might really know who. No, nobody might. Because you'd have to.

There'd be a huge legal challenge. Yeah, you'd have to kind of get into it and pick it apart. It's like unscrambling egg. The reason people, maybe the reason that there isn't a Batman TV series on the regular because people would watch that and it's just spin-offs and side characters and whatever is because Fox own it and DC. DC can't move without their approval and Fox can't move without DC's approval.

So that's why- What happens if an impenetrable object meets in another object that's impenetrable, Mason? Splat is the answer. They're two big splats. We get killed in the middle. We get killed in the middle. But that, I guess, you haven't seen Titans,

but there's a couple of Robins in that and they also cast Batman and you're like, why isn't there just's a couple of Robins in that and they also cast Batman. And you're like, why isn't there just a Batman and Robin team up in that? It might be against the law. Yeah. Like it might be the letter. They go to jail.

The letter of the contract might be like, you can't have Batman and Robin fight crime on TV in a live action situation, which is why they're always separate in the show. That's interesting. Right? Yeah, because I for the longest time thought it was because they were preserving that IP for like premium theatre experiences. Yeah, yeah.

But, yeah, it's legal stuff. Yeah, I mean if they can do Superman. Yeah, that's true. I think it is legal stuff. Maybe there's somebody out there or maybe there's a YouTube – if somebody has a YouTube video or a podcast, an in-depth thing that really gets into that, let us know. Send Mason a TikTok.

Send me a TikTok about it. Yeah. And a dance. You have to do a little dance, obviously. We haven't even talked about this, but The Flash. So while we're away, Ezra Miller went on a real tear. Yeah. A bonanza, James, please.

A bonanza. Thank you. I think that was the official word from the studio. We're calling it a bonanza, folks. Yeah, obviously having some kind of mental break, numerous allegations of, like, assaults and grooming. Old-timey guns. Old-timey guns, fleeing the law.

Yeah, starting a cult. Starting a cult, all of these things. A weird non-apology at the end there. Yeah, there was a weird non-apology where Ezra came out and said, look, I'm a different person now or whatever. No, it wasn't that specific. It was like, I'm moving forward from these things in my past. And it's like this just happened.

This was yesterday. This isn't even the only like non-apology tour. Oh, yeah, Shia LaBeouf's in the middle of one. Yeah. A rare return of Shia LaBeouf news. That's right. And the idea behind The Flash was, and you talked about this, is it's supposed to reset the universe all the way back to 2013's Man of Steel.

So they're basically doing what they did in Flashpoint. All the phones are going to be old. That's right. The Flashpoint movie. Oh, God, imagine. Oh, God. All the phones are going to be operating on Flash. Wow, that's good, Mason.

All the phones will be old, like that movie Samaritan, which we watched yesterday together. It's true. We did a rare watcher thing just for us. Yeah. But I guess we're going to talk about it. I'm turning into Conner though, yeah. So, yeah, the idea was to reset the DC universe

and maybe bring in a new Superman and now Keaton is Batman and Affleck is out. But as you mentioned, Aquaman 2 was supposed to come out before that or after, I can't remember. But whatever it is, they've changed it so Ben Affleck has been seen, it was spotted on set, leaked apparently. I don't believe that. I don't believe that that was a legitimate leak.

You don't think Jason Momoa just did it because he's very enthusiastic? Well, because apparently some fans went past and they saw Ben Affleck probably smoking out the front of his trailer or whatever. But I think if you're hiding that stuff, they know how to hide stuff. I don't think it's an accident. Warner Brothers, we know how to hide stuff. We've hid a bunch of stuff. Yeah, yeah.

It's a bonanza of hiding stuff. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, I think also the flashes cost too much money and it's too much of a linchpin of maybe changing everything and they think they can make money off it, so they're not going to throw that out. And now that Ezra Miller is on their apology tour,

they're ramping up to, like they won't, I'd imagine, appear in any of the press or maybe very limited, and then Keaton will do the rounds and the movie will come out and then they'll dump Ezra Miller like a hot bag of flaming poop, Mason, at the doorstep of Disney. No. Kevin Feige's coming out there. He's got his cup of coffee.

He's like, boy, time to enjoy my day. I'm going to stamp this out. That's ongoing. We'll be circling back to that, no doubt, between this and that movie coming out at the end of next year or mid-next year. Maybe, I don't know. Some optimal. I reckon there might be a sudden date change if they realise there is

an optimal date to drop it and avoid controversy. Like maybe something scandalous happens in the world of Marvel. Yeah. They're like, oh, let's knock this out real quick. And they can also call it Batman Flashpoint. Oh, they sure can, yeah, yeah. That's what I would do. Yeah. They're like, well, let's knock this out real quick. And they can also call it Batman Flashpoint. Oh, they sure can. Yeah, yeah. That's what I would do.

Yeah. And the other thing is. Batman Shpoint. Yeah. Don't. Shut up. Shut up about it. Superman.

Like, what are they doing? What are they doing? We don't know. Apparently, they want to bring back Cavill. We talked about this. Yeah. Remember we talked about in our last episode, we got an email that was like, Cavill's got COVID. Oh, yeah.

And he was supposed to come to Comic-Con and then he didn't. Didn't that turn out to be true? And it turned out that he did have COVID. Correct. And we got yelled at, Mason, on a bunch of Reddit threads. By what? By people saying we were wrong? No, this was before it came out that he had COVID.

And then it came out he had COVID and then people were like, oh, maybe this is true. But we don't know whether he's in it. I think he's in it. It doesn't mean that he's going to be Superman in the future necessarily. Sure. But I think The Rock is like, I'm the linchpin of this universe now, bitch. And don't pin all this on The Rock either, please.

I don't want a Rock-centric DC universe. So bad. That's what it is now. I mean, there's other properties is what I'm saying. But anyway, so do you bring Cavill back? And then there's also J.J. Abrams is doing, with Ta-Nehisi Coates, is doing a version of Superman also, which might be Valzod or- Or cancelled.

Or cancelled. Might be cancelled. Or cancelled. Because apparently Warner Brothers have also been really upset with J.J. Abrams' output when Bad robot came on board to develop properties because they haven't developed anything yet. We talked about this. That wasn't in the article, but that's just something that did happen. The other thing is, what are they going to do with Wonder Woman 3 and Green Lantern? That show might be cancelled,

the HBO Max one. Yeah. Maybe. I mean, if they're cancelling HBO Max. And there's other characters apparently they wanted to work into live action movies including Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter and apparently a panoply of other Justice League characters. Do you like how I said that, Mason? Yeah, I did. I enjoyed it very much. First time saying it?

Yeah. What did you think? I liked it. It was a good first answer, I think. Have they considered replacing all those characters with black adam black adam and black adam from different universes or brothers or same guy yeah same guy he's just a different day he gets the machine from um the jackman had in yeah sure multiplicity done he gets from michael keaton he gets from michael keaton no i think it's just different days. Or the same day, he's just like,

I've got to do some Green Lantern stuff now. Wow, terrific stuff. I pack more into my morning than most people do all day. I'm The Rock. I'm just calling myself The Rock now. My character's called The Rock. It's not Black Adam anymore. I can do what I want.

I'm the linchpin of this universe. It's true. The other thing is this new DC chief apparently won't have the same kind of broad authority that Feige enjoys. It said that person will have to be adept at navigating the egos and ambitions of other executives whose interests might not always align. That could require a near superhuman ability. Here's my prediction.

This isn't going to work. I think we've talked about this before. They want a Kevin Feige who has incredible creative output but also they can push around and doesn't have any actual say and they're just going to ignore because it's a cost-cutting exercise. The smart move here would be to pare it right back and just go, you are Kevin Feige of movies.

Everything else is its own thing. Yeah, right. And let that fall apart or succeed however it may. Here we've made you a little plaque for your desk. It says you are Kevin Feige of movies. Can I put my own name on there? No. Never.

No, no, no. And the other thing about Kevin Feige is that we've replaced the photo of your family with a picture of Kevin Feige. The other thing is. Just a series of little Kevin Feige's with different hats on. The other thing is Kevin Feige built out the MCU slowly. Yes. Like he worked on, maybe people don't know this,

but he was producer on a bunch of the X-Men movies and Spider-Man, like a minor player. Yeah, yeah. And then he had a- Backstabbed his way to the top. That's right. Apparently very nice and did very well. And then I think it was with Avi Arad he did the early MCU movies.

Yeah, right. So like Iron Man and then he was pushed aside. And then it became like. With some knives in his back. Yes. No, he did the right thing. And then slowly the MCU was like a movie a year, two movies a year. There's no movies this year.

Avengers, slowly then. Throw Black Widow in where we can. And then they do like there was ABC and Netflix stuff, but he didn't really do anything with that. He just focused on the movies and then it slowly built out into the Disney Plus era and whatever. So it didn't have, he didn't inherit all of this all at once. That's true.

He helped build it out. Whereas this is like, he's a million broken things. What can you do with this? Can you fix this in a week? Because we're cutting them if you can't. We're cutting them and firing you. Yeah. And the other thing, this is the one at the end,

it said winning over fans. Apparently privately, studio insiders have lamented that Zack Snyder's Justice League never should have happened. Rather than quite the unceasing online campaigning of release of Snyder Cut, the four-hour HBO Max feature only further entrenched the vocal and extremely online Snyderverse fan base in opposition to the leadership of the studio in general and at DC in particular.

So basically they wish they didn't do that. And look. And if you wish upon a star, maybe it happens sometimes. I'm glad we saw it. Me too. But I completely understand. Like the fact that did they think they were going to release that and then that would stop?

They couldn't have. Well, I think. It ends on a cliffhanger. But also I think that any of the people in the upper echelon of people making decisions would have thought that it would end. But I think people, again, us grubs on the internet would know. Like anybody below that level would go, of course it's not going to stop. You've caved and they'll just keep going,

but you don't know anything about the internet. And also the other thing is. You don't know how the internet's going to react to things, which is why you did all this cancelling and cost cutting. And at this point as well, Snyder, he's gone. He's doing Netflix Star Wars and whatever else. Maybe Army of the Wars and whatever else. Oh, yeah, Rebel Moon. Maybe Army of the Dead and whatever.

And the other thing is a lot of people don't like his Universal movies. So even if they got him back, you're still going to upset everybody anyway. So they're really, they're fucked either way, aren't they? That's true. But I don't think they want to work with him. Anyways, due to all of this and the budget cuts and yada, yada, yada, and tax dodges and people being fired and whatever, Warner Brothers can only afford to release two movies this year now.

One of them is Don't Worry Darling, which is currently having its own situation. Oh, my goodness. It sure is because there's Shia LaBeouf news. Yeah. And there is Harry Styles accents. Oh, yeah. There's that one scene which may sink this movie all by itself, which is fascinating.

And the director, Olivia Wilde, is on the outs with Florence Pugh. Oh, yeah, there's that one scene which may sink this movie all by itself, which is fascinating. And the director, Olivia Wilde, is on the outs with Florence Pugh. Yeah, apparently. This feels like we're tumbling into like grubby little gossip here, but it's interesting. And Shia LaBeouf went on. He's on John Berenthal. He went on John Berenthal's podcast.

Side note, I didn't know he had one. I'm glad. Look, he's gone. John Bernthal's gone the absolute bare minimum because his podcast. I like him. Yeah, but his podcast, it's called Real Ones with John Bernthal. I'm just glad he didn't just call it the John Bernthal podcast. I think that if you're a celebrity and you're thinking about getting on our turf and doing a podcast, you should have to go to a place and register it. And they say, what's it going to be called?

And if you say it's going to be called My Name Podcast, you get on the blacklist and you can't do one anymore. They hit you in the head with a pool cue. But also I think his podcast should have been called Let's Get Personal with John Bernthal. But it's not. That's a free idea if you want to change it. I do want to change it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that for me? Yeah, if you want to change it. I do want to change it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that for me? Yeah, if you want to change this podcast name. But, yeah, he went on, among other things, he said, remember he released a movie called Honey Boy, which is about his childhood as a child star and supporting his family. He plays his own father and his father is quite abusive in the movie. Apparently he made it all up.

Or maybe. Or maybe. Or maybe his dad was like, oh, that was, why did you say that? Yeah. So he's like, I don't know, maybe it's not true or whatever. Yeah. Did you know that John Bernthal is the lead in, there's a new American Gigolo series. Yes.

And he's the titular Gigolo, jiggling around, which is what I assume Gigolos do. Incredible stuff, Mason. And the other movie is Black Adam. Oh, yeah, great. Which is by all accounts as good as Batgirl. Yeah, and it's going to change the something power something DC universe. They released that Doctor Fate poster.

They did. And it looks good. His helmet looks nice. I agree. A little interesting new take. It's kind of asymmetrical. I liked it. I don't know how you could fix all of this because in me putting together these notes.

I could fix it for $50 million. Yes, I know you could. But in me putting together these notes i could fix it for 50 million dollars yes i know you could but in me putting together these notes us by the way yeah that's after tax whatever it costs figure it out what the amount to give me so that one that you take the tax it would be around probably 73 million yeah yeah all right i don't want to do it either yeah you pay the tax man to do it and i'll take the you're being yeah they yeah they pay the tax man directly and then you get the tax-free lump of the sum of money. Yeah, yeah, in gold. No, no, no, no. No, no, you want Bitcoin.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you? No. Okay. But no, in putting this together, like in being like, what do I put in? What's true?

Yeah. Nightmare. I bet. And it took me like a few days to kind of like go through everything just to get to this because i can't even imagine actually physically dealing with this as per usual as soon as any of this stuff happens we we do encounter like a lot of instant experts on on you know social media and stuff and it's often difficult to want like whenever somebody goes like oh well actually they've lost a billion trillion dollars in this because, you know,

they made it up to it. It's like what's your source on that? You know what I mean? It's like it would be nice to think that in doing this they sank themselves, but probably not. Probably not, Mason. Anyways, we also had a couple other topics that people wanted us to talk about because we put it on Planet Broadcasting Great Mates group.

One of the topics that did very well was – Oh, we're it on Planet Broadcasting, Great Mates group. One of the topics that I did very well was. Oh, we're done with Warner Brothers? I think that's it, mate. Okay. My God. As long as Pennyworth is safe is all I'm saying. I know, right? And the Blue Man.

Yeah. I just want some. We need a new. We've got to end this war. We need a group, a Blue Man group. Okay, look at the positives. Yes. We're getting group. A Blue Man group. Okay, look at the positives. We're getting the Batman 2 probably. Yep. Superman

something. Superman something. That's good. That is good. Peacemaker's still going. Yeah, great. Harley Quinn will be season 4. Batman animated something. Yeah. So those things are good. That's enough stuff probably. Yeah. And Black Adam obviously. And they'll probably cancel Blue Beetle because all we've seen is that one set.

Like if you said Blue Beetle's not real, I think a lot of people would be like, yeah, we saw one photo. It could have been like at a Comic-Con of a guy in a suit. It's pretty good. No, no, apparently very much moving forward. Okay, great. That's good. But anyway, in the polls, because we were like, what do you put in the polls?

One of the higher things were what adventures Mesa had on break. Just went to work. Yep. Also, we ran into Will Anderson in the city. How's he going? He's good. He was filming a special. Nice.

At Haymer Hall or something. I don't know. Very good. Having a nice time. That's a big venue. How did he film that? He was walking down the street and he had a mask on. Yeah.

And he's quite tall and lanky, as you know. And I'm just like, is that Will Anderson? And I stared at him so long and then the man started to approach me and I'm like, I've stared at this man long enough that if he isn't Will Anderson, he's going to beat me up. But it was Will Anderson. And he did beat you up. He beat me up.

He beat me up. That's a big venue. Yeah. How does he fill the venue? Because he's famous and successful. One of the best comedians in Australia. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that'll do it, I guess.

That'll do it, I guess. And very nice yeah. Yeah, that'll do it, I guess. That'll do it, I guess. And very nice also. Yeah. Yeah. And we also reset our sleep schedules for now. That's true. Oh, I also ran into a bunch of listeners just out in the world. Did I run into anybody?

I don't know. I lay low. Yeah, that's true. And I was in Fiji for a bit. And also why you thought it was okay to abandon your cult for a month. I don't know. People can handle themselves, I reckon. Go out and create a new cult, you know?

Exactly. Make your own cult. Jesus. All right, Mason. Yes. Do you know what it's time for? Is it time for what we're reading? Yep.

What we're going to read. It absolutely is time for that. All right. No new segments except for the ones that I made up earlier that I've already forgotten. One bit of news where I sung it. Oh, yeah. And the thing where I went yum-yum. Yeah forgotten. One bit of news where I sung it and the other thing. Oh, yeah. And the thing where I went yum-yum. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. I'm doing a thing. What are we reading today? Mason, this is the second of the show where we talk about things that we've been reading, watching or listening. Now, I've done a bunch of stuff over the holidays that I've looked into. Suggestible is back. Sitting on the beach. Very true. Suggestible is back. Sitting on the beach.

Very true. Suggestible is back, the podcast I did with my wife, my less successful podcast where we talk about recommendations. That came back on Thursday and I talk about a few things there. Whoa. Give me an example of one thing. A poem or something? Mickey 7, Mason. It's Mickey 7. It's a book

and it's... Is it the sequel to Lucky Number Slevin? Yes, it is. Wow. That was actually called The Wrong Man in Australia, Mason. That Mickey 7. It's a book and it's. Is it the sequel to Lucky Number Slevin? Yes, it is. Wow. That was actually called The Wrong Man in Australia, Mason. That's right. That's a little known fact that I know you already know. I knew it. It's true, I knew it.

So people wanted to talk about Prey, Sandman I'd love to talk about. I'd like to talk about more of Lord of the Rings and a bunch of other things that I watched. But. Something that jumped out. Yeah. That we didn't mention. There's a new George Miller movie out.

We mentioned 3,000 Leagues of Longing. Johnny. 3,000 Years of Johnny. Yeah. The sequel to 3,000 Miles to Graceland. Idris Elba is in it and Tilda Swin apparently didn't. It's done very poorly. It's made like 20 bucks.

But good maybe? I hear it's very good. We should maybe check it out and see if it's worth an episode. Anyway, so what we thought we'd do instead of being like doing, you know, 30 seconds on Prey, which I really enjoyed, is maybe we'd come back to a bunch of these things. We'll do it like later in the year and be like, is five to ten minutes on something that we watched

that we haven't talked about extensively? Because what we want to talk about right now is the movie Samaritan. Oh, yeah. Actually, before we do that, before I forget, did we both watch the TV series The Bear? I'm five into The Bear. I'm also about five into The Bear. Love The Bear.

That's exciting, yeah. So that's recently come to Australia. That feels like a suggestible show to talk about. That's why I'm saying maybe we'll mention it here. But, yeah, it's too late. It's locked in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really good, right?

Yeah, it's incredible. It's just I was describing. How's he going to get that bear out of the kitchen? I don't know. We shouldn't have let it out on that bridge uh for people who don't know it's a it's a a live action drama series what i had a friend of mine described it as uncut gems but in the sandwich industry and there's a bear in the kitchen there is a bear in the kitchen also uh but it's it's just really good it's uh just uh just uh it's about a man who returns to chicago to run the sandwich

shop that his brother owned, but his brother died, so he has to come in and take it over. He's left him in a lot of debt, and there's people after him, but there's also people after him in the sandwich shop. Like that bear. Like the bear, obviously, but also the people that are...

He's new employees that don't respect him. That bear keeps knocking things over. That bear keeps knocking things over, Also the people that are, you know, he's new employees that don't respect him and it's just good. That bear keeps knocking things over. That bear keeps knocking things over and, you know, there's a moment I related to in there where he's got no money, he's got to sell like his precious collectible denim. Oh, yeah, yeah. But the bear's torn it up with its sharp claws. You wouldn't get as much of that.

You wouldn't get as much. Because of the bear. Unless you had like a TikTok of the bear destroying your jeans, you'd probably get more for it. What if he could sell the bear? Maybe, but he doesn't want to. That's, you know. What do you call the show then?

That's true. A man selling a bear. Or a man who sold a bear already. The man who sold the bear that was in his kitchen. Yeah. It's just good to watch a drama that doesn't have lasers. I mean, it's got a bear. Yeah.

That's pretty mundane for the shows that we watch. Yeah, that's right. The main guy used to be in Shameless. Yeah, I didn't know that. I didn't watch that either. Yeah. Good show. I agree.

Anyway, we watched Samaritan yesterday. Oh, yeah, which is the Amazon Prime premiering Sylvester Stallone movie. Spoilers. Spoilers, mate. Okay, it's a superhero movie sort of in the loosest possible sense. The bear is more of a superhero show because it's got a bear in it. Yes. Okay, so what do you think the story was?

Okay, so in the movie Samaritan, years ago there were two superheroes who looked largely identical, masked superheroes. Because they're twins. They're twin brothers. And their suits are twins. Their suits are twins. Sort of. And one of them is a real paragon of virtue.

He's Samaritan and one's a superhero but he's mean and he's nemesis. And he wants to build a hammer. He wants to build a hammer. And then they both die in a fire. Yep. But then this little kid, he lives in the city of Granite City. Yep, real place. Lives in Granite City and he sees Sylvester Stallone

and he thinks maybe that guy's Samaritan. Is that Sylvester Stallone he says? Yeah. But it's not. It's a guy. He's just a guy. He's like, I'm a garbage. I'm a regular man.

And I just like collecting stuff out of garbage. That's me. I'm guilty. I collect stuff out of garbage. That's me. I'm guilty. I collect stuff out of the garbage guilty. If that's a crime, I'm guilty. I think it might be. I think it sometimes is a crime, yeah, which isn't very cool, is it? Get out of here.

Get out of here, kid. He's strong though, isn't he? He's a strong man. It appears as if he has some superpowers. Superpowers. And it's because he's Samaritan. I mean, why would you stick around? Because everybody's like, where's Samaritan?

This kid's always like, I think that guy's Samaritan. Yeah. But you'd just leave the city. Yeah, you would. Why would you leave the city? And also. He's like, I don't want to help nobody no more. Well, leave the city then.

This is a non-superpowered universe except for that guy. Yes. And it's not really explained why. Except for maybe the bad guy who maybe gets powers somehow. Because he gets the hammer. Right. Because Samaritan, no, the bad Samaritan, bad Mariton, builds a hateful hammer so he can bash his brother's head in with it.

Nemesis and his hateful hammer, yes. And they both die apparently, but guess what? It's Samaritan's lives. But guess what again? Spoilers. It's not Samaritan. It's the evil one lives. But it turns out the evil one is. It's not Samaritan. It's the evil one lives. But it turns out the evil one is not that evil.

He likes regular people. The thing about this. And hates his brother. Because we don't see enough of them when they were superheroes. And, again, it's not like one was a hero and one was the ultimate supervillain. It's just they're both men who beat up other men. It's just one of them is a little bit more harsh apparently. And then the reveal at the end is like i'm i'm not samaritan you thought i was samaritan but i'm the back to the bad guy yeah okay and there's some incredible de-aging there

is looks like it was done on an app like on set yeah yeah that's true um anyway it's just it's not very good is it it's all right it's i mean no it's not it's just not very good, is it? It's all right. I mean, no, it's not. It's set in a weird anachronistic world where people have flip phones and old cars. I think you mean car park. Yeah, it's set in a car park. It's true, it is. Some of the shots are nice.

I could see why it nearly went to cinemas and then they went, no, and then went to streaming, went to Amazon. It's weird because it's one of those things where, like, it's a new superhero property, but it absolutely does nothing new. Well, that's true. Apparently it's one of those. Except he eats ice cream and his heart could explode. Yeah, that's true.

Or something. I don't know. Like, whenever there's a new superhero property in this vein, I always think, like, is it somebody who really loves superheroes and and they've gotten their chance to do this because superheroes are hot right now or is it just some people going well superheroes are hot right now so let's jump on it with the most generic thing possible it kind of feels like that second one and i apologize if you're out there and you created this and it's because you love superheroes so much i would say get some bigger

ideas oh that well i would say uh i think say I think there's some fun to be had here if you go in expecting absolutely nothing because we watched half of the worst movie of all time afterwards. That's true, we did. Which was much, much worse. The director of this also directed... Ads? No.

Ads for shoes? The Nazi zombie movie. Overlord. Overlord, which is amazing, which has the same villain and this is the villain in that. And this is also one of those ones I think the concept got turned into a graphic novel before the release of the movie because it's like

we want to... I didn't read it. No, I didn't read it also. Yeah. I didn't read it. I didn't read the scripts. I didn't find it in the garbage so I didn't read it. I only read what I find in the garbage. Anyway, it's just not. What was the movie we watched after, the Scott Eastwood?

It was a movie called Dangerous. Yep. And it was just on a streaming service. It was like, you want to watch this? And we're like. No, you said you want to watch this. Okay, I did say, because it had Mel Gibson in the thumbnail. Yeah. Looking all perturbed and out of sorts.

And I'm like, I wonder what kind of garbage this is. It's got Mel Gibson, Tyrese Gibson, and Scott Eastwood in wonder what kind of garbage this is it's got mel gibson tyrese gibson and scott eastwood in it and it's like it's got the gibson boys it's got the couple of gibbos the golden gibbos as we call them and uh it's it's like a it's sort of like diehard in a seaside house but it's not but also maybe the purge sort of a little bit maybe the purge and scott eastwood plays a sociopath who's on medication. Boy, it's dull. And it's one of those – it is precisely one of those movies

that Liam Neeson is famous for. No, no, no, actually not Liam because Liam Neeson at least will take a starring role. And he'll also be in most of the movie where Mel Gibson is on the phone the entire time. Yeah, this is what we would call – In the same clothes. This is what we would call a geezer pleaser or the geezer teaser

or whatever it is where you put a formerly big-name star in the credits and on the poster and people watch it and he's in ten minutes of scenes maybe. Yeah. Anyway, it sucked. It was really bad. We didn't finish it. Atrocious. But maybe one day we will finish it.

Maybe. Yeah. Maybe we'll do a commentary for it. No, we wouldn't do it because it wouldn't make any sense to do that. No, because there was a lot of us sitting in silence being like, why are they doing this and why are we watching this? Right, exactly, yeah. Yeah.

Anyways, Mason, do you have time for a letters theme? I do have time, but I was going to say, anything else you've been watching? Yeah, I mean, I watch a bunch of stuff, but I think I'll save it for that big episode. Oh, we should do that. Just one more small thing. I've been walking back and forth from work the last month

and I need a podcast to keep me entertained. So I listen to a podcast called Lawmen, L-O-R-E-M-E-N. Oh, Lawmen. Which is a British podcast. Just kidding. It's about like local legends and supernatural things. Oh, okay. That sounds like a Matt Stewart kind of thing that he would enjoy.

So there's two hosts, James Shakeshaft, who's a stand-up comedian, and Alistair Beckett King, which is a name you might recognise. He's like a pale ginger man with a big ginger beard and long ginger hair and he does a lot of videos on YouTube. He's like, this is a sci-fi episode. He's great. He's really good. He'll just be like, I'm just doing 80s animation now.

He's just done – they're both very talented and funny, but they also do this podcast about local legends. If you want to learn about a mysterious woman that appears in a lake and it's all obviously made up, you know, that sort of stuff. Yes, I do want to find out about those things, Mason. That's a fun podcast. I'd forgotten that I have to find the lettuce theme. I hope it still exists.

You absolutely have to find it. I hope it hasn't been deleted from the internet. Wouldn't that be great if that person who runs that YouTube channel just deleted it? That would be incredible. Baller move. I agree. Like the rock. Here it is. His letters. The classic one was, Letters, oh letters

we love you, some letters they're only a day away. I know they're here right now. We're going to do letters. Wow, it's letters time. This is the segment of the show where we go, wow, it's letters time. Always in unison every week.

That's right. From now until the end of time. And if you've got a letter to send to the show, you can hashtag. Shut up. No, wait. We're sick of them. No, shut up. Think about it.

Be like, is this worth sending? And then it's fine. You can send anything. That's true. No quality control required. Think about it. Be like, is this worth sending? And then it's fine. You can send anything. That's true. No quality control required. Hashtag WeeklyPlanetPod on Twitter. That's firing up again. And WeeklyPlanetPod at gmail.com.

Speaking of no quality control, here's an email from, no, just kidding. Got him. This is from Steven. Hello from Canada, he says. PH or V? V. I should have gotten you to guess. Just to pad this episode out a little bit more.

All right, let's do it. Hey, James and Mason, long-time listener, first-time writer. Hope you're enjoying your break or have enjoyed your break. Definitely well-deserved. Thank you. We did and have and are. And do. I'm a head brewer in Ontario, Canada,

and I like listening to the pod on a regular packaging day, Monday. My staff doesn't have a choice in the matter and get their red-hot comic book and TV news shot right up their butthole like everyone else and how God intended. That's being the boss. This isn't tricking them, but I hope that some enjoyed enough to listen on their own. Can I be the official brewer named Stephen from Ontario for the pod?

I have a good mate who also brews professionally in the area, is a fan of the pod, and he's also named Stephen. Two brewers? I want to officially be the first unless he's beat me to it. Is that PH? Do I have to guess? Also with a V. Oh, I could have guessed.

I know, I know, but I was on a roll. Okay. Which is fine because he's a good guy and a good brewer. Long shot, but if you're ever in Ontario, please drop us a line and collectively we will fill you full of beer. Sick. That's from Stephen. Thank you, Stephen.

Do you mean like torture or just like- Yeah, like waterboarding but with beer. All right. Yeah, beerboarding. It's the new beer bong, James. Beerboarding, yeah. Wow. Yeah. This is fascinating and fantastic, Mason.

Thank you, Stephen, with a PH. This is from Quinton Mason. The disrespect. The sheer disrespect. Well, I want his crew that he works with to turn against him. Oh, yeah, great. Yeah, for sure. A mutiny.

A beer-based mutiny. They're going to beer board him. Hey, James and Mason, what was your favorite piece of news that you got to skip during the holiday? I think all the Ezra Miller stuff was nice to know. That was nice to see, yeah. Because it was constantly ongoing and awful and I just – and that stuff when there's a person like –

it's the same with the Shia LaBeouf thing, like constantly in crisis and like clearly having some kind of mental break. Like I don't want to every week be like, look what they've done this time. A few celebrity deaths that I was happy we didn't have to dwell on. Paul Sorvino passed away, which is Mira Sorvino's dad, like another maid guy, like another kind of gangster guy. But yeah.

Dead people you don't have to acknowledge. That's true. Yes, exactly right. I don't want to think about it because it makes me think of my own mortality. Also, it was nice to just watch some stuff and go, boy, I hope I don't have to watch six episodes of this in an hour because I have to leave and do the podcast and talk about it. Sometimes we're in a little bit of a rush.

And that's also good not doing the weekly recaps from the Marvel stuff or whatever. That's true. Which we'll do like a She-Hulk wrap up at the end. We'll probably do a video on that and whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice not to go week to week and also be yelled at on YouTube.

I mean, we still will. And that's great. Yeah. Some Simon Morgan who says, sure. Fire omen. I don't know if you saw this Mason signifying the return of the weekly

planet, light the beacons and release the fiberglass Stallone. So one of the, that was in reference to, and they've tweeted, sub-tweet or whatever it's called, there was a Demolition Man Stallone body cast. Nude. Nude.

Fully nude. That turned up in South Australia or something. Yeah, it was like six grand. Yeah. And money well spent, I say. I agree. Here's the new co-host, Nude Sylvester Stallone, Fiberglass Man. For a second I was like, should I try and get this?

Right, yeah. But why? And also, I didn't realize this. They were in every Planet Hollywood. Oh, there was multiple nude ones. Like the one, but it was the thing they put in the roof of all of them. Well, in that case, $6,000 is way too high. I agree.

Right? So Han Solo's Blaster, one of his original ones from A New new hope went for like a million dollars just recently as well my goodness so uh yeah that was that was really exciting to see and also apparently the people who had it didn't know what it was which i guess you wouldn't if you had to say demolition man you would be very confused as to why you had that it was it seemed to be pretty like stallone accurate yeah sure i mean also he was behind like Ice and Glass or whatever. Oh, for sure. You wouldn't even see it up close.

But I meant the like the because the one was for sale was just like a loose Stallone. Yes. So you could like the face was quite like if you've got a close look up at it, you'd be like, oh, yeah, that does. That did look quite like Stallone. It wasn't like you'd look at it and go, who's that guy? If you had any like a vague recollection of pop culture, you'd be like, that's a nude Stallone. It wasn't like you'd look at it and go, who's that guy? If you had any vague recollection of pop culture,

you'd be like, that's a nude Stallone, but why? Yeah. I like a loose Stallone. I like that. Like a bear. Like a Stallone got into your neighborhood and going through the rubbish. Oh, man, he's gone through the bins. That's what he would do now.

That's what he would do, Mason. How can I keep this? I guess. I guess, yeah. Sure. Take it easy, man. This is from tim hello tim trivia quiz what hey mates i put up a 50 question multiple choice quiz about the weekly planet on sparkle what it has been posted to the great mates facebook group some of the mates are suggesting james and maso

take the quiz and do a segment on or a youtube about it or something while it seems they would have an advantage since they said and did all the things in the quiz, it's also well known that they forget everything they have ever said. Yeah, I don't reckon I'd do very well on that. Content, I guess. I'll do it. Anyway, I know not all pod listeners are in the Facebook group, so if you want to mention it for those who might want to give it a go,

that would be great. How about? Here's the link, HTTPS colon slash slash W. I'm not going to read the whole thing. Sporkle. Sporkle. You type in Sporkle, the Weekly Planet quiz. It'll probably come up, yeah. It'll probably come up. Or just search Sporkle fororkle. Sporkle. If you type in Sporkle, the Weekly Planet quiz.

It'll probably come up, yeah. It'll probably come up. Or just search Sporkle for Weekly Planet. Thanks, Tim. Thank you, Tim. Thank you, Tim. Let's go to the first question. See if we know the first question at least.

While you're bringing that up, I'll quickly bring up this from Lee Fenner, who says, hashtag Weekly Planet pod, as my southern hemisphere mates, is the ending of Neighbours a big deal down under? No. I mean, it's an Australian institution. It's been going for 400 years. Yes. Apparently a bunch of the cast came back for the finale.

Margot Robbie was there. Yeah, I had a friend. Kylie Minogue. Yeah. Apparently a friend of mine watched it and used to watch it as a kid and she was like, she watched the finale and she was just like incomprehensible. Yeah, sure. She didn't know what was happening. I think they should have just gone nuts and just was like, she watched the finale and she was just like incomprehensible. Yeah, sure.

She didn't know what was happening. I think they should have just gone nuts and just been like supernatural stuff, serial killers. Time travel. Yes, exactly. Harold's dead wife, Maud, is back. Yes. Yeah. Charlie Clawson didn't get a gig though.

Whoa. Even though he was a cop or something? No, he was a troubled youth or something. Was he? Okay, great. He had a big role in Home and Away, but he was a troubled youth. Oh, that's great. Neighbours, yeah.

If you're an Australian actor, you've been a troubled youth. Life imitates, art imitates life. I agree. And vice versa. If you're an Australian actor, though, you've been on one of those two shows. That's very true, yeah. Usually, yeah. Okay, let's have a look at this quiz.

Question one. What affectionate sobricade does James use for his wife? Greg. That is true. Sobricade? James use for his wife? Greg. That is true. Sobricade? Yeah. Hate that. Wow.

It's a new word and I hate it. Yeah, but you were good with the other word before you weren't. It was bad. You said it bad. What was it? Polygamy? I can't remember. Yeah, it was polygamy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me the second question. Okay, Greg. Which of these was not considered as an alternate title for the podcast the weekly bugle fortress of lolitude infinity jauntlets or podcast full of kryptonite i know which two it isn't i don't think it's fortress of lolitude we nearly did and it's not infinity jauntlet it was nearly speeding bullshit that was like the first one yeah would it be i think it might be if any jauntlet was a joke yeah but they're all jokes.

No, no, I mean, but like none of those are, are any of them real, like real things that we considered? I can't remember. Yeah, Fortress of Lowitude and no, oh, no, not really. Yeah, okay. So I don't know. I reckon it might be the Weekly Bugle, but that doesn't, like. Yeah, I don't remember that.

I got a little green thing, but I don't know if that's correct. That's a. We don't know until the end, James. Oh. Okay, let's do this later. How many are. We don't know until the end, James. Oh. Okay, let's do this later. How many are there? 50. No.

There's no time for this. No, Mason. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We'll do it later, but I hope. Let us know. Just tweet at us with the number you got right. Mason, I want you to let me know if you still remember how to wrap up the show. I do.

I say, folks, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We definitely appreciate it. Yes. Let's see. Thanks for sticking around. Thanks for sticking around. Thanks for coming back, if indeed you did. Cheers for you and cheers if you didn't.

I hope you enjoyed the bonus free content that we put out week to week. Oh, yeah, that's right. Let us know what you thought of the bonus stuff we put out from the Big Sam Archive. We put it out on the free feed. Yeah. Hope that tidied you over. Folks, if you want to get into contact with us, wait, is that what I do? Is that the order I do it in, Jack?

Could be. Could be. Hang on. Let me think. Oh, you know what? Folks, thank you for liking the show. Thank you for sharing with your friends. Thank you for subscribing to the podcast.

Thank you for leaving a five-star review. James, you got any reviews there? Yeah, I actually have two right here in my son. I'm going to show you, and they're both Snake Eyes related. This one is from Caleb the Dreamer, who says, five stars. You can just do this in-app as well. That's incredible. It helps the show immensely. I cannot wait and they're both Snake Eyes related. This one is from Caleb the Dreamer who says, five stars, you can just do this in app as well. It helps the show immensely. I cannot wait for the review of Snake Eyes.

It is definitely coming soon. And this one's from Ames210 who says, best podcast about the Snake Eyes movie. These two funny boys have promised me a comprehensive review of my favourite film of all time, 2021, Snake Eyes, every week for what feels like the past two years. Well, it couldn't be if it's a 2021 movie. Yeah.

I thought it was this year. I don't know. Sure. While they still have yet to do the review, they never disappoint with their amazing content. I have watched Snake Eyes every week in the hopes that they will cover it. And now every time I blink, I see Henry Golding's chiseled face. 10 out of 10, five stars from Alex.

I did consider when we went on break, would it be funny if we came back and the first thing we talked about was the Snake Eyes review instead of all the Warner Brothers stuff. I think that might have been funny. But I think people would have not liked that. They would have not liked that. They would have not liked that. Folks, if there's anything you do not like, let us know by finding us

at Weekly Planet Pod at Gmail, at Facebook, at Twitter, at Bandcamp. You can go to the Planet Broadcasting Great Mates Facebook group. You can go to the Weekly Planet Pod cast. Yes. Subreddit and Discord. You could also not do those things. It's up to you. It's entirely up to you.

But just pop in there if you want to have some fun chats about podcasting and pop culture and all those kind of things. If you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com slash MrSundayMovies. You can chuck in a buck there. Or if you're a real Richie Rich, that's a pop culture reference. Wow. That's very relevant.

That's good. That's good. You can go to bigsandwich.co. You can sign up for $9 per month. You can get all sorts of bonus podcasts and movie commentaries and early videos. Our contact details, you can contact me at WikipediaBrown on Twitter. I can also read out your phone number if you want.

Yeah, no, don't do that. Because I have it. Don't do that at all. 1-800-BONUS. Yeah. I told you that in confidence, James. You can follow James at MrSundayMovies everywhere. You can also follow our pal Rob Collings.

He's at RawCollings on Twitter. He's at The Weekly Planet. He handles all that sort of stuff, all kinds of socials. He knows what's up. Absolutely, he does. Thank you to The Brute and The Basilisk and Arachem for all our musical themes. If you want to buy some merch, get it all at bloodytpublic.com.

Just search for The Weekly Planet. Find a weird one, get it, put it on you. Find a bloody weird one. Take a photo, bloody tweet it at us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what's up. Next week, all sorts of stuff. Disney something or whatever. That's the big thing that's happening. Oh, is it D23 Next week, all sorts of stuff. Disney something or whatever.

That's the big thing that's happening. Oh, is it D23 next week? Yeah. Exciting. I believe so. Let me just double check that date. Movie-wise, what do you want to talk about? Next week?

Yeah. D23. Okay, fine. Mason. All right. Okay. But in upcoming weeks, we will talk about Prey. We'll talk about The Sandman.

Yep. I reckon we'll talk about Nope. Oh, I do want to talk about Nope. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Oh, man, I forgot to talk about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wrote talk about The Sandman. Yep. I reckon we'll talk about Nope. Oh, I do want to talk about Nope. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Oh, man, I forgot to talk about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wrote it down. Good stuff.

A new era of professionalism, James. I wrote down the word Nope. And you remembered, though. Yeah, that's true. And you remembered. Yeah. September 9th through 11th, which is, of course, next week. So, yeah, that's perfect.

That's perfect timing, Mason. Perfect. All right. Thank you again, everybody, and we'll see you next week. As I say every week, except for the last four weeks when I didn't grab that jam, you guys. We'll see you next week. See you next week. Next week. Goodbye. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy, which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught

relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+.