Hook with Lin-Manuel Miranda

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David: Episode Summary – "Hook with Lin-Manuel Miranda"

Release Date: April 6, 2025

In this engaging episode of Blank Check with Griffin & David, hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims are joined by the illustrious Lin-Manuel Miranda to delve deep into Steven Spielberg's 1991 film, "Hook." This episode offers a comprehensive analysis of the movie, exploring its themes, production nuances, and its place within Spielberg's expansive filmography.

---

Introduction and Initial Banter (00:01 - 04:24)

The episode opens with the hosts engaging in light-hearted banter, showcasing their chemistry and setting a relaxed tone. Early moments involve playful discussions about impressions and favorite characters, hinting at the show's characteristic humor.

Griffin Newman: "Your best. I said your best. Maggie." [00:23]

Lin-Manuel Miranda: "I'll say this. I think I can do an adequate terrible impression of Robin Williams doing comedy runs." [00:59]

This segment establishes the rapport between the hosts and the guest, preparing listeners for a detailed conversation ahead.

---

Introducing "Hook" and Its Significance (05:11 - 07:30)

The conversation shifts focus to "Hook," with Miranda explaining the podcast's objective of reviewing directors' filmographies through Spielberg's works.

Lin-Manuel Miranda: "It's a podcast about filmographies and detritus in our heads. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want." [04:24]

Miranda emphasizes the importance of "Hook" in Spielberg's career, marking it as a pivotal point where Spielberg ventured into more personal and experimental filmmaking.

---

Personal Reflections on "Hook" (07:31 - 16:15)

Lin-Manuel Miranda shares his nuanced relationship with "Hook," revealing that he never fully watched the movie during his childhood due to parental biases against it. This personal anecdote sets the stage for a deeper exploration of the film's themes and impact.

Lin-Manuel Miranda: "I do think Hook's way to hey, your dad could not come. Like, um, you guys are trying to learn how crap I am. But I." [06:12]

Miranda recounts attending a recent screening of "Hook" and his critical reception of the film, rating it poorly after a negative viewing experience influenced by recent dental surgery.

Lin-Manuel Miranda: "I was fuming, fuming. I log it as half of the star." [21:11]

---

Analyzing Spielberg's Career and "Hook's" Place Within It (16:16 - 30:12)

The discussion broadens to examine Spielberg's career trajectory, highlighting "Hook" as a film born from a period of introspection and transition for the director. Miranda and the hosts analyze how "Hook" reflects Spielberg's struggles with success and his attempts to produce passion projects under the 'blank check' Hollywood system.

Griffin Newman: "Do you ever think about how Robin Williams, Peter Banning in Hook says that to live would be the great adventure." [04:38]

The conversation touches upon Spielberg's shift from blockbuster hits to more personal narratives, and how "Hook" represents this crossroads.

---

Performance Highlights: Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams (30:13 - 58:24)

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to evaluating the performances of Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook and Robin Williams as Peter Banning/Peter Pan. Miranda praises Hoffman's portrayal, noting the depth and complexity he brings to the character.

Lin-Manuel Miranda: "Rufio is 50% of this movie having any stickiness in any legacy." [48:24]

The hosts discuss the emotional weight of Rufio's character and his relationship with Peter Pan, exploring themes of mentorship, loss, and personal growth. They also critique the film's handling of emotional and narrative arcs, suggesting that certain plot points feel disjointed or underdeveloped.

David Sims: "The final battle between the Lost Boys and the pirates is also what doesn't work about this movie to me." [49:43]

---

Themes and Symbolism in "Hook" (58:25 - 85:04)

Miranda and the hosts delve into the underlying themes of "Hook," such as parenthood, the fear of growing up, and the reconciliation of one's past. They interpret the film as a metaphor for Spielberg's own experiences with his parents and his journey toward maturity.

Lin-Manuel Miranda: "What is the first sprint of a person's next experience? You are trying to be." [79:28]

They discuss how Peter Banning's transformation back into Peter Pan serves as a vehicle for exploring personal responsibility and the balance between childhood wonder and adult obligations.

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Legacy and Impact of "Hook" (85:05 - 115:35)

The hosts reflect on the enduring legacy of "Hook," acknowledging its mixed reception upon release but recognizing its cult status among certain audiences. They debate the film's place in Spielberg's oeuvre, considering whether it achieved its intended emotional and narrative goals.

Griffin Newman: "Hook is like, you are afraid of dying. And Peter Pan's like, no, I'm actually afraid of living." [99:45]

The conversation also touches upon the film's technical aspects, such as set design and special effects, and how they contribute to the movie's fantastical atmosphere.

---

Conclusion and Final Thoughts (115:36 - End)

As the episode wraps up, Miranda shares a personal connection to "Hook" through his early experiences acting in a school play, adding another layer to his analysis of the film. The hosts express their appreciation for the candid and in-depth discussion, highlighting the episode's blend of personal anecdotes and critical analysis.

Lin-Manuel Miranda: "I just think the most effective version of this movie is you're watching the first 30 minutes and you're like, oh, my God, where is Robin Williams gone?" [76:05]

They encourage listeners to reflect on their own interpretations of "Hook" and Spielberg's work, inviting them to engage with the film from both nostalgic and critical perspectives.

---

Notable Quotes

• Griffin Newman: "Your best. I said your best. Maggie." [00:23]
• Lin-Manuel Miranda: "I think I can do an adequate terrible impression of Robin Williams doing comedy runs." [00:59]
• David Sims: "The final battle between the Lost Boys and the pirates is also what doesn't work about this movie to me." [49:43]
• Griffin Newman: "Hook is like, you are afraid of dying. And Peter Pan's like, no, I'm actually afraid of living." [99:45]

---

Final Remarks

This episode of Blank Check with Griffin & David offers a rich and multifaceted exploration of Steven Spielberg's "Hook," through the insightful lens of Lin-Manuel Miranda. By blending personal narratives with critical film analysis, the hosts provide listeners with a deeper understanding of the film's complexities and its place in cinematic history.

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Note: Advertisements for Nutrafol and Hellofresh were present in the transcript but have been excluded from this summary to maintain focus on the episode's core content.

Transcript

[Griffin Newman]

Blank check with Griffin and David. Blank check with Griffin and David.

[David Sims]

Don't know what to say or to expect.

[Griffin Newman]

All you need to know is that the name of the shadow is Black Jack. So you're.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

What the hell?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Your best. I said your best. Maggie.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't have a good one. So your adventures are over.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Oh, no, the podcast. The podcast would be an awfully big adventure.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, sure. Why are you Scottish?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm not about to say that I did a good Maggie Smith.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No, I did a terrible Robin Williams. Oh.

[Griffin Newman]

To podcast.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Oh, I went. I went too. Gravely too. I went a little.

[Griffin Newman]

But you sound like Scottish.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You are like podcast.

[Griffin Newman]

You sound like from.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You're from the mountains trying to find the.

[David Sims]

Oh.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Oh.

[Griffin Newman]

To podcast now. He's tough to do. He's tough to do in that he's a nim. Like, you know, he has a specific thing.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I'll say this. I think I can do an adequate terrible impression of Robin Williams doing comedy runs, which is kind of what everyone can do. Drama. Robin is a little harder to do.

[Griffin Newman]

Say it's not your fault.

[Ben Hosley]

I don't know, David.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Let's do Bravo. Yeah, See, I'm going.

[Griffin Newman]

Do the monkey with me.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It neesons on you.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Every time it neesons, someone has called out that. I basically only have three impressions.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

So one of the third of them get drawn towards Neeson. Joseph Gordon Levitt Neeson.

[Griffin Newman]

Huh.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And I'm trying to remember who the third one is.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

They're like, they're only three that he can actually do kind of well. And everyone else, he's trying to draw them closer to one of those three pillars.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, Verhoven.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

My impression. I think we both do. Which means we both do. Gold members.

[Griffin Newman]

It's just Gold Member. Excuse me, please.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You know, we somehow didn't talk about the entire Oscar season.

[Griffin Newman]

The invisible man would attack people. What's that?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The Oscar nominated director of the substance. Her last name is the way that Gold Member says Father Coralie.

[Griffin Newman]

Farja.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Farja.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I didn't. I, I. Yeah, I didn't know that.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Isn't it weird that we spent the whole Oscar season not talking about Gold Member?

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think it's that weird that that came up.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I think it's weird. Okay, no, but Robin, Robin. See, I'm getting too. I don't know what's happening here.

[Griffin Newman]

You sound like, like a troll guarding, like a gem in a mountain.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Well, don't tell Jimmy Fallon. He's Gonna put that in his sn.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't. I don't get the reference.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's a very specific reference. Jimmy Fallon's SNL audition was him doing lots of impressions. Troll the Troll Company, auditioning new celebrity mascots, spokespeople.

[Griffin Newman]

So that was his way to do a lot of impressions.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes. And then I went to see, when I was, I guess, 12 or 13, the strokes play at the Roseland Ballroom. And the opening act, an incredible concert to see at such a young age.

[Griffin Newman]

Although I saw the Strokes around that same time, and they were truly, like. They came out for 35 minutes, and then they were like, we don't do fucking encores, and just left. But carry on.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

This was the. This was the Is this It Tour. They did a proper set.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And I believe it was the Strokes, the Moni Suzuki, and the opening opening act was Jimmy Fallon.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I think this was before maybe Bathroom Wall had even come out.

[Griffin Newman]

But. But. But he's famous.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Oh, he's very famous. But he hadn't done the album, so I want to say he didn't even do Idiot Boyfriend and he did the Trolls routine. And I was like, where did this come from?

[Griffin Newman]

Did people like it?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, was that crowd into it? I'm just saying, comedy in front of a rock show can be humongous.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But then years later, I saw it, like, in one of those snl, like, hey, I bet you wonder what their auditions were like. And I was like, that was his audition piece, and he's now going and doing it at rock concerts. A thing that lives very large in my mind that for most people means nothing.

[David Sims]

That could be the name of this podcast that.

[Griffin Newman]

Read us for filth.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That could be the name of this podcast.

[David Sims]

That's why I like it so much. Well, we have a lot of similar detritus.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Detritus in the Head is another name for this podcast.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. Just floating bits of garbage.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Mental spring cleaning.

[Griffin Newman]

You know what I mean?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

What is the actual name of this podcast? It's by. It's Blank Check with Griffin and David. Yeah, I kind of put some respect on the articles.

[Griffin Newman]

All right, you're right. Yeah, right. You're right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I'm Chris.

[Griffin Newman]

I shouldn't rush it. I'm David.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's a podcast about filmographies and detritus in our heads. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear. And sometimes they bounce, baby.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Do you ever think about how Robin Williams, Peter Banning. Peter Pan in Hook says that to live would be the great adventure. Right. And Hook says to Smee, like, death is the only adventure he has left. Just interesting. Peter Pan is such an interesting text.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I'll get into it like the.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. The big old ball of yarn that is Peter Pan.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's a miniseries on the films, the early films of Steven Spielberg, the first half of his career. It's called Podrasic cast.

[Griffin Newman]

That's right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

What's wrong with that? Nothing.

[David Sims]

Nothing.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Nothing at all. Nothing wrong.

[Griffin Newman]

Not a thing.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And today we're talking about Hook and our guest today returning to the show. Long overdue. Long in the. Long in negotiations.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Is that fair to say?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It just took a while to get here.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

There were a couple. There were a couple things floating around. I think this was the right place for things to land. You know him best as the man who asked us all as a people to consider the coconut. Something we somehow did not discuss. Well, the last time you were on the show, something that looms so large in. David, wait a second.

[Griffin Newman]

When was the last time? It was quite a while ago. Right.

[David Sims]

All that jazz.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I remember that.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I want to say it was 22.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, that's. I'm trying to remember that because, like, did I have a kid?

[David Sims]

Yes, you had a kid.

[Griffin Newman]

But was my kid, maybe. So now I have seen. I mean, obviously, I'm a big fan of a lot of your.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Lin Manuel Moran. Let's say. Let's say our guest today here is Lin Manuel Moran.

[David Sims]

Hello.

[Griffin Newman]

I love. I love much of your work, but now I have seen Encanto and Moana four billion times because I have a young daughter and I am now just so deep in the work there. Like, I just think about it all the. And very, very sense of.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You guys don't understand how well this is structured.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And we'll be like, yeah, no, we know. And he's like, no, you don't understand. I've watched this 6 million times.

[Griffin Newman]

If you watch, you don't talk about Bruno. Right. Like that many times. You do. We. We don't talk about Bruno. You know, you have to start just, like, thinking about every single moment of it. Sorry, Lynn. I know this is boring, but. Yes. Anyway, I guess that didn't come up.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Last time when we did Musker and clemence in 2020.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Which I feel like was when maybe you started messaging with us that you'd been listening to the show. I feel like.

[David Sims]

Yes, that's probably.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It was in response to a lot of those episodes, but when we had recorded them on, so we did not. We were in no way aware you were listening to the show.

[David Sims]

Yes, I'm aware that you were not.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Aware, but we're both so locked into. Consider the coconut as a line.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a great line.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

We have a lot to talk about.

[David Sims]

My little David Foster Wallace nod.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

This is my question. Where did that come from?

[Griffin Newman]

Was that. Were you thinking about considering the lobster?

[David Sims]

Well, I mean, listen, you get a lot of materials when you're learning about the world and the culture that you're writing about. And one was this document that was all of the different uses of the coconut. And. And so, yeah, I think I pulled. I mean, I'm a big fan of the David Foster Wallace essays, so I thought that would be a good opening line to. To, you know, introduce the verse where we're going to use. We're going to tell you all of the uses of the coconut in song.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

There's also, like, profundity to the. To the simplicity and the directness of it. To just be like, I'm going to tell you the uses of the coconut. And the way I'm going to open this door is just consider the coconut.

[David Sims]

Consider the coconut. And I mean, it's. It's fun because it's one. Just really interesting how many uses one can get out of coconut, which is also like, man, is she going to be staring at the water and, like, getting out of there? Because it's like, it's coconut for dinner.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

We're litigating. Yeah. She's a really good kid.

[Griffin Newman]

She's a good kid, but. Right. It's. You know, the coconut is very, very crucial to the first act of Moana. Their coconuts aren't working right. Like, they're getting the bad coconut.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

This is true. And then you got your whole little bad guy gang. Who. Who?

[David Sims]

The kakamora.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Where the coconut armor, which was giving.

[Ben Hosley]

Lost Boys energy, kind of.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true. That's true.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I. I mean, I think it's as Fury Road inspired as it seems like it is.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. It's very Mad Max, but I think.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It'S like half Fury Road, half Hook. Specifically, something about the build of their ship looks like the Hook. Lost Boys.

[David Sims]

That's a nice segue.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right?

[David Sims]

I'll take it. Yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The hideout.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Well, I mean, the thing about that hideout is. And I mean, we may go in order, we may not, but, like, it looks so fun and Never Never Land. It kind of. It's. It's the thing that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie did by accident.

[Griffin Newman]

There you go.

[David Sims]

When you get to the Foot Clan hideout and you're like, this looks dope.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a connection.

[David Sims]

Video games.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Half pipe.

[David Sims]

There's a half pipe.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. They have. Well, they have track. Right.

[David Sims]

If I were a wayward kid, I would end up here.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Our. Our friend JD Amato, who, you know, directed the My Brother, My Brother Me TV show. We. There are a couple other times in the last couple of years we've reached out to you and you've gone, maybe I do this, but I don't know this.

[David Sims]

And you know what it is. I. I felt so over prepared for all that jazz because I'd been working on Fosse Verdant and you came in with a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

Came in with the script.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I had like stuff and.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, John Pander.

[David Sims]

That's right. And so for the, you know, I just wanted to be prepped.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I will, I will say this. This is an issue we are starting to put up against, I'd say, specifically with filmmakers where we will reach out to people and they'll be like, I only want to come on if it's a movie. I feel like I can talk about backwards and forwards. Like I need to be this prepared. And we're like, what have we done wrong in our framing of this show to make people think they need to be prepared?

[David Sims]

Yeah, I talk. All I have is vibes. And I rewatched the movie recently. This time I did not come with source text. I just like every kid who was 11 in 1991, this movie. So that's my shit.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, we're like, Spielberg was really big.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Is. Is really big for you. It's humongous, is totemic. Reached out. I think gave you like first crack of just like, what's. We settled on doing this anyone? And you write back Hook. Right? It was just. No question. It was hook. Finger pointed there. JD had thrown out that he wanted to do Hook.

[Griffin Newman]

It wasn't just he. He said Close Encounters or Hooks. To be clear, he did not. He did not.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Correct.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And we said, well, you know, and.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

We were like, we're going to put you on Close Encounters. Lynn wants Hook. And he was like, I can't believe I'm being bumped for Lynn. But the thing he immediately put his chip down on was I insist that you guys talk about. And it's what I would have come prepared. Loaded for Bear to talk about is the 90s movie micro trend of the hideout. That is a skate park.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah, right.

[Griffin Newman]

It's those. It's turtles.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He was linking those two immediately.

[Griffin Newman]

Sort of three ninjas. Kind of has that vibe. Right. Like that early 90s, like, it would be fun to be a kid and a ninja, like, at the same time.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And it's not quite the same thing, but I think Blank Check and Richie Rich both have this element of, like, what if, like, a perfect, perfect kids play space that felt a little dangerous and humongous. Absolutely all encompassing.

[David Sims]

It's levels.

[Griffin Newman]

Levels, yeah. Right.

[David Sims]

Which I think required skateboarding experts.

[Griffin Newman]

I think of Kramer in Seinfeld when he starts adding levels to his apartment. It's a good. You know, levels is good. That's ambitious.

[Ben Hosley]

I would say, though, that what these spaces all have in common is no parents allowed.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No parents allowed.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

All right. So your relationship to Hook. Well, maybe your relationship to Spielberg first, though. I don't know. Like. Sure.

[David Sims]

I. I mean, I think I. I think you're probably with me here that, like, for me, if you wanted to make movies as a little kid, they'd say, oh, you want to be the next Steven Spielberg? It was literally shorthand for director.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And for, like, wunderkind. Right. Like this sort of, like. Yeah, he started young, like, he was a movie nerd, and he got to. You know.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But also, I think, especially in the 90s, if there is, like, a representation of a director in any other form of media.

[David Sims]

Yeah. He was also playing himself as a lot of stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, I think he was a personality.

[David Sims]

Yeah, he was in the Goonies Are Good Enough video where Cyndi Lapa goes, Mr. Spielberg, help us out. And he goes, I don't know what to do. And you're like, first of all, the fact that that video had both Nikolai Volkov, Andre the Giant, and Steven Spielberg and the entire cast of the Goonies, and it was like, they didn't quite know how videos worked yet. So they just do two videos that encapsulate the plot of the Goonies and play the song twice.

[Griffin Newman]

I believe Rowdy Roddy Piper and Captain Luo. Like, a lot of wrestlers are in there, right? Yeah, I have seen it. The Goonies before my time, so I've always struggled, like, Hook a little bit more my time. Sure. The Goonies down here.

[David Sims]

It's your time.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Okay. So. Yes. All right. So Spielberg on. Right. The first director any kid learns about in our generation, essentially.

[David Sims]

Spielberg. Oh, you want to be Steven Spielberg?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Do you remember the first one you see, like, are you hearing the name repeated before you're understanding who he is or were you already developing a relationship.

[David Sims]

In the same way that you'd hear west side Story is synonymous with musicals? Yeah, Spielberg was synonymous with the movies. I think for me the probably the first one I saw was E.T.

[Griffin Newman]

Which probably not in theaters.

[David Sims]

No, definitely on VHS. And my grandfather owned a video store. So I remember.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think I knew that. Yeah, this is like up from Manhattan.

[David Sims]

No, in Puerto Rico. So when I go for the summers, I'd go hang out at Miranda Video and I would like see the different Jaws covers. Like there was Jaws and then there were like the subsequent ones he didn't make. And then for some reason I associate. The big thing you also need to know is my grandfather owned a video store. So I was just unsupervised, watching movies all the time. And also my grandparents had cable and my parents didn't and so what was playing?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Summer thing.

[David Sims]

It was a summer thing. So like what was playing constantly on HBO that those summers when I was a kid was Jaws 4 was like Michael Caine and the shark following him to the thing. And also Richard Jenna's standup routine about how dumb Jaws 4 is and how the shark follows this one family. So. So yeah, so I remember I have.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

To ask quickly were the VHS is dubbed subtitled or neither?

[David Sims]

A little bit of everything interesting and. And usually they were just in English with Spanish subtitles. Yeah. And then my grandparents, I sure this wasn't legal, but they were always making copies like with two VHS on the movies in the back. And that's where I saw the really inappropriate stuff because there was a porn section of the video store, like an 80s video store red. And you would just hear, you would just hear those movies being dubbed in the back of the. Oh, my parents are going to be really upset when they listen to this.

[Griffin Newman]

You should, I think you should open a video store now. You should revive Miranda Miranda video. I mean it's kind of physical media, you know, it's getting hot again. It's sort of this cult thing.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I think you should bring back the porn section. I think I get a lot of curtained off press.

[David Sims]

Listen, I never went like it was back in the day. It was curtained off. Yeah, I. There was a double Dragon 2 console in the video store. So I played a lot of Double Dragon 2. I watched that poor 4 bit girlfriend get punched so many. That's how the game starts. Punch the girlfriend, throw over the shoulder, then you got to go. So we have really ventured from my spirit.

[Griffin Newman]

But so hook 1991, you're you said you're 11.

[David Sims]

I was 11.

[Griffin Newman]

So you saw this in the theater?

[David Sims]

I definitely saw this in theater.

[Griffin Newman]

I also did. I was but five, but I still, I think was still whatever, like, locked in. Enough with, you know, whatever it was. I was going to go see Hook, the Peter Pan movie. Right? You clearly. You wouldn't have. You would have been very smart.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No, I'm like, I'm going to get this out of the way.

[Griffin Newman]

He know, likey Hook.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I don't like Hook.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, Griffin.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I struggle. There's a strongly with Hook.

[Griffin Newman]

It's polarizing film.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No, tough movie.

[David Sims]

It's because, yes, the parts that are good are so good and it takes us a while to get there.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

So I didn't see it.

[David Sims]

And you share that opinion with Spielberg, by the way.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I do. Which has always been my defense. And I will say, in the history of doing this show.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

We covered the second half of Spielberg's career eight years ago. We're finally getting to this now. I've sort of like, just taken strays at Hook over the years and been like. And obviously we all know Hook sucks. And every time I would do that, our listeners would get really angry and being like, what are you talking about? And what is this assumption? This is not the, like, norm opinion, which I feel like I grew up with. My parents went to see hook. I was 2, 3 when this came out.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, he would have been like 2 years old.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

My parents definitely went on a date night to see it. When I am the one child before my brother is born. And I just remember growing up in a household where Hook was used as shorthand for, like, folly. And a thing I've sort of had to like, work through in doing this series is realizing that I grew up in a weirdly anti Spielberg household.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Not just Hook. They were generally a little skeptical.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Hook is the turning point. It is like my parents just still. And even recently, like, we had a family dinner and I brought up, like, Lynn's coming on to do Hook. And they were like, God, that movie sucks. And it's like this. It's this very, like, raw thing for my parents. They still are, man. We got a babysitter. We went to see that in a Hook. And they've just like, anytime they have liked a Spielberg movie since Hook, they say it almost begrudgingly.

[David Sims]

Wow.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

They're just like, it's weird how good Bridge of Spies is. And I'm like, it's not weird.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But so I grew up in this house where Hook is just this like clout. I weirdly felt like I had hooked toys growing up and they'd just be like, oh, that movie sucks. Like they'd just walk by me. So it was like not something that was like presented to me. I'd see it at friends houses. Everyone else loved Hook. Other friends would have the VHS movies.

[Griffin Newman]

For our generation's youth. Right. Certainly the film was. Got mixed reviews when it came out. It was seen as a bit of a disappointment by, yes, grown up critics, but not us.

[David Sims]

What was the movie he made just prior to this?

[Griffin Newman]

So it's a weird point in his career because it's. It's the movie he makes prior to this is always probably his most forgotten film. Have you even seen all I have not seen Always. Richard Dreyfus, Holly Hunter, Ghost remake of.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Golden Hollywood rom com, Ghost Fire Pilot.

[David Sims]

I have this awareness of being aware that Hook was over budget even when I was 11.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. It became another thing. Right.

[David Sims]

It became a thing of like they're having trouble making Hook. And I remember being a kid anticipated moving like sequel to Peter Pan. Like, let's go.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Look, I'm not reading Premiere and Movie Line magazine when I'm two, but by the time I'm six, seven and I'm reading it, they're still using Hook as shorthand.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I'm definitely reading Entertainment Weekly by this point and aware that like they brought in that they're like having trouble.

[Griffin Newman]

Carrie Fisher's doing rewrites.

[David Sims]

I don't know if I was aware, but I was, I was aware that it was over budget and that people were worried about it.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Like by many accounts, this movie, the ultimate budget was close to $80 million in very high 91.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And that's $80 million with a huge asterisk which is Spielberg, the Borg. Spielberg, Spielberg, Hoffman, Hoffman and Williams, all four win salaries.

[David Sims]

And Roberts.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No, but those three, no salaries.

[David Sims]

Oh really?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right. The deal was they get zero upfront money and they get was it 40% of first dollar earnings.

[Griffin Newman]

A lot of the money the gross.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

JJ has it in the doss. Break it down. It was an insane structure. So it's $80 million without paying the three biggest people. I think Roberts was paid a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

Because she was newly hot stuff right at the time.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

So I wanting to be this kind of like savvy wise movie kid was just like, yeah, we all know Hook sucks. My parents taught me that. Hook sucks. You use Hook as shorthand for like failed 90s blockbuster.

[David Sims]

I'm actually flinching every time you say it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, just, just you know, take it easy on our guests. Come on.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Had seen it piecemeal over the years, many, many times, but had, like, never really sat down and watched whole thing. Then I feel like, oh, you never.

[Griffin Newman]

Saw it as a kid?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, wow.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Then I feel wisdom.

[Griffin Newman]

That is weird.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yep. When I'm in my early 20s, my friend Jake makes some reference to Hook. And I'm just like, hook. And he's like, you didn't grow up with Hook. And I'm like, I actually don't think I've ever seen the whole thing all the way through. And he's like, we're watching Hook tonight. We watch Hook.

[David Sims]

I'm just like, God, remember having time in your 20s.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely.

[David Sims]

When, like, you would be like, you haven't seen this. Clear the next three hours. We're doing this now.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It was also the era where Netflix was the only streaming service and it had every movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You just knew you could immediately go like this and pull Hookup. Watched it that night, was just like, this is completely missing me.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I just don't get this.

[Griffin Newman]

You don't have the kid grounding at all?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Nope. And I. I had.

[David Sims]

I don't have the thud butt. At a formative time in your life.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The world's biggest pin in thud butt.

[Griffin Newman]

We'll talk Thud butt. He's coming.

[David Sims]

We better talk.

[Griffin Newman]

He's always coming.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And was just like, I struggle with this thing. And then just went on making Stray.

[Griffin Newman]

You've never like Hook. It's never stuck.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Three months ago, right? Four months ago, it was playing at the Nighthawk Theater in Prospect Park.

[Griffin Newman]

Lovely place.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And I was like, we got this series coming to do an episode. Yeah. I. I deserve, I. It deserves a proper reconsideration on a big screen. It was advertised as a 35 print. It ended up being a DCP. I went to a weekend matinee of Hook. I walk out fuming, fuming. I go on letterbox. I log it as half of the.

[David Sims]

Things you say children will listen.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I log as half a star. And immediately the whole blank check text thread is like, griffin, what are you doing? What point are you trying to make here? And I'm like walking down the street like haram for, yeah, you're human. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Now, admittedly, I had had dental surgery like 10 days earlier that had gone poorly and the recovery was bad.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I saw some other movies in that period that I liked. But I do think in a certain way where if you have a headache and then someone starts making a high pitched noise, it's Gonna hurt twice as hard. I was like, this movie has never worked for me, but when I'm in mouth pain, when my whole skull hurts, I was like, please make it stop.

[David Sims]

Cannon fire and dental work don't mix. Great.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The whole thing was just really rubbing against me. So then I gave it another re. Watch.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. To prepare for, like, correct. Yeah, yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And I'm. I'm now just back to just like. Yeah. I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, let's close the book.

[David Sims]

Establish.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. All right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But that's my history.

[Griffin Newman]

I am like, no childhood people my age. I'm a little younger than Lynn, but like I said, I saw Hook as a kid and I was like, this movie rocks. It's got sword fighting and it's got Rufio in it. Like, this is great.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It is the only movie with Rufio in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Unfortunately. Hoffman, like, made me laugh. Smee made me laugh. Right. You know what I mean? I remember as I grew up learning that Julia Roberts's performance in this was considered bad and me being like, I don't get that at all. The best acting I've ever seen. Like, yeah. And then, yeah, I grew up and Hook's nostalgia has curdled for me slightly. There's things in it I don't like at all. I do think it's way too slow at the beginning. I think it is a fascinating.

[David Sims]

I agree. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it is a fascinating, like Spielberg text. Like, it is a fascinating, like moment in his life. He. I. And look, you actually know Steven Spielberg. I'm a little bit.

[David Sims]

A little bit.

[Griffin Newman]

A little bit. You. You've chatted with Steve. You did a screening with him.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, we did a Raiders the Palace.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know if you've ever talked Hook with Steve, but I feel like he's usually fairly dismissive of it. He's kind of like, ah, that didn't work. Right. Like, have you.

[David Sims]

I mean, pretty much, yeah. I mean, I'm just going by his own doc. Like, he's just.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, but have you ever brought up to him, Are you like, would it break. It would break my heart to tell him I like, look and have him make a face.

[David Sims]

No, no, no. I. It's not my. Also, it's like, I mean, if I have to list Spielberg favorites, it's not even that high up there.

[Griffin Newman]

But of course not.

[David Sims]

The. In the early Spielberg and where it landed on my life again. And it's interesting to watch this as an 11 year old in the theater and interesting to watch it as a 45 year old father of two. But the. The other micro trend that this falls into besides skate parks as clubhouses is dads who just don't have time for their gosh darn kids.

[Griffin Newman]

Cell phone.

[David Sims]

That cell phone tool.

[Griffin Newman]

Is this the first cell phone movie too? You know, because like that might be such shorthand for like, oh, he's a workaholic. But it's like this is 91. Not a lot of people have cell phones.

[David Sims]

Not a lot of people have cell phones.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It is an error that I actually think will be hard to explain and contextualize to younger generations.

[David Sims]

Like I couldn't even explain to my watched it with them that like, oh, their computer's not even in there.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. It used to be crazy that you had a cell phone.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Like that was rare period in family film where if a character takes out a cell phone, the movie is basically saying he deserves to be shot in the street. This mother doesn't look at his kids a tough.

[David Sims]

He doesn't know his kids middle names.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Physically holding a cell phone. It's the same as it's that liar lie. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Is a perfect example. One of my favorite movies One Fine Day, which the entire plot is the two workaholics switch cell phones.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Bas Disney live action Tim Allen canon which was big for me is all predicated on this guy spends too much time on his cell phone and then he wears suspenders.

[Griffin Newman]

He goes to an office. He has cell phones.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Huge part of it.

[Griffin Newman]

There's a baseball game and or dance recital that he is late to.

[David Sims]

Even had to struggle to justify the baseball game here. It's a Christmas series baseball game.

[Griffin Newman]

It is one of the immediate things in Hook where I'm like, why the are they playing baseball in December?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Catcher is wearing a Santa Claus beard.

[David Sims]

It's a Christmas season because like very important to Charlie Korsma.

[Griffin Newman]

Are they in New York?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

This movie's doing so much.

[Griffin Newman]

We don't really know where they are in America before they go to London. But like if they're in the Northeast, they should not be playing baseball in December. It's very cold.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's cold. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Anyway, I was never really a runner. The way I see running is a gift.

[Griffin Newman]

Especially when you have stage four cancer.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I'm Ann. I'm running the Boston Marathon presented by bank of America.

[Griffin Newman]

I run for Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

To give people like me a chance.

[Griffin Newman]

To thrive in life even with cancer. Join bank of America in helping Anne's cause. Give if you can@b of a.com supportann what would you like the power to do references to charitable organizations is not an endorsement by bank of America Corporation.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Copyright 2025.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. I watch it now, and I'm like, it's kind of a movie that's similar to me. There's other kids movies like this where I'm like, kids do like this movie, as we. We have discussed.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Did you watch it with your daughter?

[Griffin Newman]

No, no. I have. She would be baffled by this new. She's a little too young for this.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Did you watch it with your children?

[David Sims]

I watched it with my kids and.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

They basically seen it before. The first time.

[David Sims]

No, they never. They've seen it once. Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Okay.

[David Sims]

And. And actually, I. I saw it way back when we decided we were doing this. I was like, I'm so. This was like, last summer, last fall.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Scheduled very far.

[David Sims]

It's taking us a long time to get here. Yes. But, yeah, I watched it with them, and they were so into Neverland. It takes a long time to get to Neverland.

[Griffin Newman]

It takes a full 35, 40 minutes.

[David Sims]

It's half hour to Neverland, and they're still in pirate land for the first 20 minutes. And it's 52 minutes till they meet.

[Griffin Newman]

The Lost Boys, which is, you know, and beyond that, which, you know, the first half hour of this movie where it's just Spielberg being like, I'm such a workaholic. And I'm like, you're making a movie about Peter Pan for children, my friend. This movie is rated pg. Like, children are coming to see it. They don't care about your cell phone. Like, is my take now, again, kids like this movie, but then just like, these sort of, like, the softness and the kind of, like, emotional. Like, it feels too dad to me in a way. Sometimes I'm like, we need more fun. We need more, like, kid energy in this and less, like, sad dad energy in it. But it did also kind of work on me as a bit of a. Is a bit of a sad dad. You know what I mean? Like, I'm watching it now, and I'm like, he's talking about his happy place for all that. I'm like, this isn't going to not get me, you know? Come on.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, See, it's. It's so. Doesn't get me. But I also will say that, like, watching it again this morning with my mouth in good condition, a balanced set of teeth. I was digging into more the weird, like, messiness of how much this movie is him at odds and sort of like a crossroads point in his career. I think the movie I Don't want to say the movie suffers because of that. I think the movie is basically a monument to him being in this. Like, I don't know. And there's a quote that JJ pulled up in the dossier that I'm like, that's the whole movie for me now. And upon reading that, I'm a little more engaged with watching the film. But your question of where he's coming from. Right. Just to like, snapshot it. He has this insane dominant run of blockbusters. Then he has this 80s period. That's very much him trying to like, grow up and make serious movies. Wants to win an awesome way, clearly.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And people are just like, get over it. Right. There's this like weird wave of people being like, spielberg's a little boy who makes theme park rides. And he's like, great, I'll make serious movies. And they're like, go back to making your theme park rides. Who are you kidding? And the one part of it that's weird for me, the existence of Hook, is that like, Hook kind of makes sense to me as him being like, fine, I'll go back to doing what you guys want out of me. Had he not just made Last Crusade, like, that's the other part of the puzzle, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is the movie before Always.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right. Is that like in between Temple of Doom and Last Crusade, he does Color Purple, he does Empire of the Sun. He goes through the whole Twilight Zone calamity. He has his first child. He makes Always, which is like not a serious movie, but it is ostensibly trying to be a movie for grownups. Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Like a soft, grown up movie, you know, like drama.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But he like comes back and does another Indiana Jones that is a big hit and that people like and is kind of doing like the Spielberg roller coaster again. So it always feels weird to me.

[David Sims]

Man, Last Crusade is such a good ride.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I love.

[David Sims]

It's my kids favorite, Indiana Jones.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's him being like, I'm still good at this, by the way. And everyone's like, yes, you are.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Like, you know, I think.

[David Sims]

And I think that's why I was so excited to just going back in time. That's why I was so excited to see Hook in the theater. Because I had seen Last Crusade on a thousand Sleepovers.

[Griffin Newman]

The guy does action. Yes. Yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But this was probably your first theatrical. Yeah, probably. Yeah. So that's huge. Yeah. But like, right after this, which has its whole, like, the press is having a field day over this movie. The expectations for it were basically either this is the biggest movie of all time. Or it's a disappointment. And you read, like, the immediate press, and they're all sort of like, well, it's a hit, but it's not a mega hit. And he's at this sort of odd, like, junction point, and then two years later, he does Jurassic park and Schindler's List in the same year.

[David Sims]

Right, right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Just the most dominant shit. Take that all time.

[Griffin Newman]

Where I'm like, it is a. It's a real. You know, sort of like, it's over. He has nothing left to prove after that. But Hook, he still has stuff to prove, right? And he's not quite.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

If it went straight from Hook to Schindler, I'd be like, okay. So he's like, you know what? That's passed. I'm not doing that kind of thing anymore. I've grown up. Here's my kind of movie. But the fact that he does Jurassic in the same year, and he's like, I can still knock this out of the fucking park if I want to. You want me to build a roller coaster? I'll build a roller coaster.

[David Sims]

I mean, it's hard to. It's hard for kids to understand now. But, like, at that time, when you found out Spielberg was directing Jurassic Park, Jurassic park was such a hit book. Like, sixth graders were carrying around Jurassic park when I was in sixth grade, and everyone was like, how are they going to do the dinosaur?

[Griffin Newman]

How?

[David Sims]

Like, literally, like, this is not possible because they'll never make them look real. And so it was like, he delivered on that in the most incredible way possible. And then the movie still just fucking rips. Like, he actually did the. Like, it was like. It's hard to overstate how much Jurassic park felt like you were watching the impossible happen in 1992. Is that right?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But he has talked about the fact that Jurassic was kind of an impersonal movie for him, and it's the reason he did Lost World, where he's otherwise been protective about not trying to do sequels. He had the agreement with George where he had to do the Indiana Jones sequels, but otherwise, he's always kind of backed off. And he was just like, look, Jurassic park was me. Just, like, having fun.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Just a good time.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Hook and Last Crusade are both very personal and are getting through the doubt.

[Griffin Newman]

A child who became a man, you know, going to war with a man who is a child, who is basically like, come be a child. I only want to. You know, I want us to be children again and fight and play and Peter Pan, you know, like, it Is it is his ID and ego like doing battle on screen? Like it is the most psychologically rich and yet Spielberg is kind of like, ugh, the sets were too big and I should have made it a musical. And like, you know, Julia Roberts was getting on my nerves. You know what I mean? He won't acknowledge this.

[David Sims]

I, I read about that this was almost a musical, that there were these John Williams Brickus tunes that got cut. Is. I mean, is this like I'll do anything level? This was a musical got cut.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't. Well, no, because I'll do anything. They filmed the musical, the sequences, right?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The musical cut. Of all the.

[David Sims]

No.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Hey Lynn, you might get an interesting email at the end of this record.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, it's quite interesting. Yeah.

[David Sims]

They were non musical version of that.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Movie, but they were fully recorded, mixed, rehearsed and then cut. They were never filmed.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

They did recently a limited CD reissue where the third disc was the tracks. But like as JJ dug up, one of the songs was supposed to be older Wendy and they had gotten Julie Andrews to record it and Maggie was going to lip sync.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Julie Andrews singing John Williams musical numbers.

[David Sims]

Oh my God, we could have had it all.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It got that far along.

[Griffin Newman]

Fascinating to consider.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And he basically welched like I think a month before film.

[David Sims]

So that's too bad.

[Griffin Newman]

Steven Spielberg has always loved Peter Pan. There is the sequence in ET Right, where Peter Pan's being read to the children, right? Peter Pan, yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But he's also just like the idea of Peter Pan on screen being the depiction of flight. Is this sort of like leveling up in the imagination. Anytime anyone flies in a movie, it's riffing on Peter Pan. ET Flying on the bike is riffing on Peter Pan.

[Griffin Newman]

He has always said his mother is Peter Pan to him. And obviously if you've seen the Fablemans, like that makes sense. This sort of like she seems to have the energy of this kind of like fairy woman. Right. This kind of delightful, full musical person who would read him Peter Pan.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And then of course, as Spielberg becomes a famous filmmaker, everyone's like, this is Peter Pan. This is the boy who won't grow up. Right. It's the easiest thing to tag him with. So in 1984 news breaks, Steven Spielberg will be making a live adaptation of Peter Pan in London. No one has ever done a Peter Pan movie at this point since like the silent era. Like obviously there's the Disney film, but no, it's in a live action. Peter Pan.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes. His, his quote was there has never Been a live action picture except in 1924 silent version. This is the first real motion picture version of Peter Pan and I'm really excited about it.

[David Sims]

You will believe a boy can fly, right?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's basically his pitch is like the Disney one is the definitive one. If I can pull this off in live action and pull off the impossible, I make the definitive version of this story, which is insane to consider now. Where there's a new Peter pan movie every 24 months, like post Hook, it has not stopped.

[Griffin Newman]

Hoffman is attached as Captain Hook pretty much from the beginning. Michael Jackson is heavily interested in playing Peter Pan.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He really wants to do it.

[Griffin Newman]

Michael Jackson, as people know, may have had a bit of a thing about Peter Pan. You might guys, you know, you know, they had the Neverland Ranch and so on and so forth. Spielberg waves him off. Supposedly Michael Jackson hired a witch doctor to cast a curse on him. That is like one of the many Michael Jackson stories that's out there that may or may not be true. Who knows?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Spielberg's response in interview was what else is new?

[Griffin Newman]

But it's a really good line in 1985.

[David Sims]

Say that to everything.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I'm sorry, it was. This is bizarre. But what else is, wow.

[Griffin Newman]

Spielberg has a son in 1985. And Spielberg says his appetite for Peter Pan goes away once this happens. I think partly because making it was going to be this giant London production, like, you know, whatever, like with sets and shit, where he's like, I don't have time.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I don't want to be away from it.

[Griffin Newman]

I want to. Right? I want to be with my kid Max, his first kid.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

With Amy Irving.

[Griffin Newman]

With Amy Irving, a friend of the show and past and future guests. We'll get her back, right?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

We'll get her back.

[Griffin Newman]

And so Peter Pan goes away, but.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

There'S the other part of it, back.

[Griffin Newman]

Burnered all the way to the back.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He's like, this has ended my permanent adolescence. A child is born. I look at it, suddenly I have responsibility in the world. And he sort of talked about.

[David Sims]

It's Peter Banning's happy thought, basically.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes, yes, yes. Where he's just like, immediately I found myself becoming my parents in the way I told myself I would never be. The transformation happened. I couldn't stop it. I no longer connected to Peter Pan as a character.

[Griffin Newman]

So James, Jim V. Hart, who is one of the credit screenwriters on this movie, an interesting guy in and of like his career is interesting. He picks up the project as, you know, writing it and shifts it to what Hook is, which is Sort of a sequel to Peter Pan, right? Like, what if Peter Pan grew up? What if Captain Hook wasn't dead? Like, what if Captain Hook, you know, was merely lurking in the crocodile and then escaped? I don't know. They don't really get into it, do they?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It was. Look, it's. It's a good kid logic pitch where his little son draws a picture, Captain Hook and the crocodile. And he's like, what's that? And as the son's describing it, he's like, it's Captain Hook and the crocodile. But the crocodile didn't actually eat Captain Hook. Captain Hook got away. And he goes like, ping. What if Captain Hook's still alive somehow Captain Hook has returned.

[Griffin Newman]

Nick Castle famously plays Michael Myers in Halloween, but is also like a. How would you describe him, Griff? Like a sort of low to mid budget genre filmmaker.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

At this point, I just want to call out.

[Griffin Newman]

Makes the last Starfighter. Makes tap.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes. I just want to call out heart. It's a two prong thing. There's the what if Hook survived?

[Griffin Newman]

Yay.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And then he's like a year or two later, his son goes, daddy, what happens to Peter Pan when he grows up? And he's like, he doesn't. And he's like, well, what if he did? And he's like, are you a. I'm buying the room. Yes, truly.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Then immediately, 500 grand.

[David Sims]

And I locked up the rights.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's a good hook. You're asking big questions. Yes. Castle is. Is.

[Griffin Newman]

He comes aboard.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Interesting genre figure who obviously has the roots in the Carpenter stuff, but then does last Starfighter film. I adore, but kind of was one of these guys who was always like making movies that felt like they should have been huge hits, but always stayed a little cult. Were never making, they were never bombs, but he was never totally crossing over.

[Griffin Newman]

Picture is at this point ended up at Sony Tristar. And Mike Medavoy, who is Spielberg's first agent, comes on as a producer. And Spielberg is basically brought in to displace Castle. Castle's bought out, given 500 grand to leave the project because Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman want Steven Spielberg. Like, they know he had sniffed this project before. They obviously want Steven Spielberg.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's kind of the beginning of the mega packaging where they were just like, what if we put all our biggest clients on this? They go to Spielberg, he's like, I would never want to be responsible for another director getting kicked off a project.

[Griffin Newman]

He's like, too late.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Well, great news. I fired him a week ago. It's yours. They basically set it up so that they were just like, the toes have already been stepped on, my man. You can't stop this.

[Griffin Newman]

And so Spielberg's coming aboard a project that isn't his project exactly. He wanted to make Peter Pan. At this point, it's now evolved into the Peter Pan sequel concept. Right. And he's like, that's a good idea for a movie. I'm not sure it's my idea for a movie, but okay. And he brings in Malia Scotch Marmo, the other screenplay writer here, who reshapes the character of Hook, I guess Carrie Fisher famously did a lot of rewriting. I think a lot of other people did, too. Hoffman had basically always been aboard. Spielberg had almost made Rain man with him a while ago. So I guess they had sort of been circling each other.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He was so close to doing Rain man, but was contractually obligated to do Indy 3. And unsurprisingly, Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise had a lot of script notes, and the development of that movie took a long time. So it was all three of them together working on it. And Spielberg had his, like, moment where it's like, if I haven't started filming Rain man by this date, I will not be able to then finish in time to go do indie. And he left Rain man and then watches someone else win Best Picture and Best Director.

[Griffin Newman]

True.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Which probably has to get to him a little bit.

[Griffin Newman]

Philberg Hoffman and Williams all decline salaries, as you say. Instead, they're going to split 40% of the gross from the movie, which is a lot of money.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But they get. There's a weird structure where it's like they get 40% of the first 200 million, and then it goes back to Sony, and then they get everything after that.

[Griffin Newman]

Who cares? Julia Roberts, who's 24 years old. Stevens work. Robert Williams, Deadline.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, Deadline.

[Griffin Newman]

Julia Roberts is only 24 years old. Pretty Woman obviously came out a year before.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

A thing that is insane to consider.

[Griffin Newman]

She had just gone through a very scandalous tabloid breakup with Kiefer Sutherland, where she supposedly left him at the altar. I think in actuality, she called off the wedding a few days ago.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

JJ has four pages of notes devoted to the fact that she actually broke off the marriage three days before the wedding. Not at the. Out.

[Griffin Newman]

Fair enough.

[David Sims]

Vindication.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But, like, the most JJ has ever.

[Griffin Newman]

Dug in, I think, because Julia Roberts has become this very sort of gentle celebrity. Like, people are just like, yeah, Julia Roberts is chill. She's like, been married for a zillion years. She kind of lives in San Francisco. Dude. It is hard for younger people to remember to know how much insane scrutiny she was under in the early 90s. Like the most insane press around her at all Times.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

She is 24. She's already been nominated for two Academy Awards. She's the biggest female star in Hollywood. She's already had like, relationship drama that's burning up the tabloids. Yeah, she was in a real life Spielberg movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Certainly. I think they. They had. They did not enjoy working together. I think now they are like, we were both just not. We. It's too bad, you know, it's not like they still hate each other. Like, they talk about it like this sort of like, hey, man, we were both in bad places and it just wasn't working. And of course, almost all of her footage is just on a blue screen with nobody around her, which must have been a huge bummer. Like, once in a while I think Robin Williams would come do lines with her. But that's about it.

[David Sims]

I think the biggest nod to that era that you see in the movie is there's just these random cutaways of her just grinning that beautiful pretty woman smile. And it's like you almost can hear the exec be like, where's the smile?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Do the move.

[David Sims]

Do the move. Because, you know, obviously she sold a lot of tickets on that dazzling. And her incredible performance in Pretty Woman.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But she said basically.

[David Sims]

But it feels cut in. Like they'll be like the Lost boys will be playing and then they'll just cut to Julia.

[Griffin Newman]

Roger, like, well, doesn't have a. Yes. A sort of right role in this film in a weird sort of a way.

[David Sims]

You know, like, it's a weird eponini. Like, she does. She does have. She's playing this weird unrequited love. It's. She's speaking the unspoken subtext of Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, which is that Tinkerbell is jealous of Wendy. But like, it's now these monologues.

[Griffin Newman]

It's now these monologues and her gratitude fully sized and putting on essentially a wedding dress to talk to Peter Pan, where you're sort of like, we already knew this. We didn't quite need it to be.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Well, it also, it needs to be that overstated because you've hired Julia Roberts to do it. Like, now you need to justify why she's the third name above the title.

[David Sims]

It's the equivalent of like, well, if she's singing in it, she's got to have a second act solo. That that scene is her second act. Solo that they wrote because Julie Roberts.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The scene of her getting big for four minutes feels like her being like, can I have one scene where I stand on a set with a person in front of a person and make eye contact?

[David Sims]

Just a girl in front of a boy.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right. She basically was like. Hoffman did off camera for me one time, Robin did it a couple times. I was mostly in a harness surrounded by crew guys in front of a blue screen.

[Griffin Newman]

As Spielberg put it at the time, this is 1991. Her personal life fell apart and she reported to work on the same weekend. It was a bad time for her, and under those highly charged emotional conditions, she was a pro. But in 99, Roberts did complain about Spielberg calling him a turncoat. Said that he basically didn't like, defend her in the press enough. I think, like, I think she was getting so much shit, she. And she wanted a little bit more backup from him.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

She didn't like what you actually said. She didn't like that. His line, Bec. Like, it was a bad time for us to work together.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, she was going through a lot of. So under those circumstances, she did fine. It's true. It's not. It's a bit backhanded. I don't know, man. They figured it out. Everyone's doing fine. They're all rich, they're all successful, they all have awesome.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Everyone's okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Cuz even 1999 Julia Roberts is different from like 2009, you know? Like, she still hasn't won her Oscar yet. She's still like, just sort of putting this turnaround, you know?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Anyway, can I call out my favorite quote that JJ found here? New York Times interview. When the movie's about to come out, Spielberg says, I guess I had to get a little older to see that. I wasn't done regressing. I've given up trying to be Martin Scorsese, Kurosawa or David Lean. Maybe this film is about my finally growing up. I guess I've given up avoiding me. Everything I find textually interesting about this movie is this feeling of him being like, I guess you've got me figured out, right? Like, him sort of being backed in a corner and it's like, I guess you're everything I say I am.

[David Sims]

But you know what's fun? I mean, when I think about the parts I love in this movie, it's none of that. And again, like, sometimes you have to wait a bit to get to these good parts. But, like, man, the wonder he finds in Never Neverland. When we finally get to the Lost Boys, and the other thing I just want to call out is the fact that, like, it's pretty much all white people until Never Neverland.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

True.

[Griffin Newman]

And that's very pointed, I would say.

[David Sims]

The other thing that I think is so incredible about this movie is that, like, when he creates joy and, like, fun personified, suddenly the rest of the world is allowed to be in the movie. And there's Hispanic kids and black kids and Asian kids, and we have a. We have an Asian leader of the Lost Boys in Dante Bosco as Rufio. And. And it explodes in color in. In every single sense. And that is. I mean, again, like, it is hard to overstate how much Rufio meant two kids.

[Griffin Newman]

This. I wonder how much he knew. Like, I spilled. Like, do you. Because it does feel conscious in the movie that, like, a lot of Lost.

[David Sims]

Especially when you consider when in the scene in the. At the fundraiser when they're honoring Wendy, all these old white men stand up, right? And are like, wendy, you raised me, Wendy. And we go to the real Never Neverland, and they're, you know, the United Colors of Benetton. And you're like, well, when did. When did Neverland start letting us in? So I kind of felt.

[Griffin Newman]

I'll read his quote. So he was from, you know, he was from basically, like, Compton. He was from California.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Well, he was like, I'm a. I was adjacent to Compton.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. Okay, fine. I think I. You know, I'm not. But, like, he. He says that, like, he grew up around, like, gangs and friends, you know, friends and gangs. Like, that. There were things about the Lost Boys that resonated for him as a young. I mean, how old is he in this film? Like, 14, something like that. He only auditioned one time, and then he read on tape, and then he meets with Spielberg. And apparently Spielberg said, out of all the kids he saw, Don Bosco is the only kid who scared him. Which is a great. He does have, like. I mean, it's the. I think it's an incredible performance, and I think that he's incredible. Rufio became something of a sort of, like, you're saying, like, you know, folk hero to kids are age.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Rufio is 50% of this movie having any stickiness in any legacy.

[Griffin Newman]

You watch it as an adult because as a kid, I was like, oh, Rufio's tough and scary and interesting and, like, you know, then at the end he dies and you're like, yo, this is moving. As an adult. You watch and you're like, this poor kid. It's such an emotion. We'll get into it. But just like all the emotions of, like, the dad left and is back. Like, the way he loves Peter and resents him.

[David Sims]

Absolutely.

[Griffin Newman]

He plays it so well. He's a great. I mean, I love.

[David Sims]

I mean, to me, that's one of the great moments in the films when he draws that line, it's me or the pan. And then, you know, I mean, and they. When I think back on this movie, if you were to. If you were to sum this movie up in one sentence, it would be, there you are, Peter. Like, that's the moment. And then John Williams comes in with that music and they all cross the line. I mean, like, I'm like, crying.

[Griffin Newman]

The fact that he later got to be Zuko and have this other sort of like, lovely second act to his career is so great. I mean, I love Avatar, the Last Airbender and all that, but. But he's. He's just amazing in this.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The reason I call out the Compton adjacent thing is because he made this point of being like, I wasn't in gangs, but I grew up next to kids who were in gangs. Like, he had this right balance of just sort of like, I'm not a tough kid, but I understand what tough kids are, which maybe makes me the right amount of scary for a Spielberg Peter Pan movie.

[David Sims]

And. And also has that vulnerability. I mean.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Exactly.

[David Sims]

And also, I think, again, like, the. That final battle between the Lost Boys and the pirates is also what doesn't work about this movie to me is that, like, you never quite understand the rules of death and consequences in Neverland. It's like what the Lost Boys are doing Home Alone.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And they're doing the Barbie beach fight.

[Griffin Newman]

They have a chicken and the pirates.

[David Sims]

Have guns and knives and, like, by the way, like, painted ladies. For the record, like, I. I did not catch me being like, a friend to all the painted ladies in town.

[Griffin Newman]

The first time I watched me horny.

[David Sims]

Like, they're adults and they're killing and everyone else is like, the Lost Boys are throwing eggs. And so when Rufio dies, you're like, wait, that can happen.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? Right. The Lost Boys can die. Is this not just like an eternal play? Right?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Like, look, I. I'm. I don't want to be, like, nitpicky, but this is like a core thing I do.

[Griffin Newman]

Peter Pan has this weakness to it as well, like the core text that is Peter Pan.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But I'm pulling it this only because you presented it. It is a core, core issue I have with this movie, which Is like, I do not understand the way that Neverland operates.

[David Sims]

Agree.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No, you're saying of like, he has two giant sets. Right. There's like the pirate ship in the docks.

[Griffin Newman]

And then.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And you're like, this is pirate land and this is the Lost Boys hideout.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And I'm like, what's happening in between them? And what is their relationship to each other? Just. I don't need, like, hard brass. Ben's coming.

[Ben Hosley]

But you're thinking it like an adult.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a kid.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Very careful, happy thought.

[David Sims]

And fly with us.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, but I mean, like, also Peter. Yeah. Peter Pan is very strictly a fairy story of like. Yeah. There's the pirates. There's Tiger Lily, which this movie, cleverly, is just like, we're going to brush by that.

[David Sims]

Yeah. They reference it, but they don't go there.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. There's the Lost Boys. Like, how do you get there second? You know, start on the right, fly on. Right. It's all just like kid logic.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The whole thing of Neverland is kid lights. But.

[David Sims]

But. But you're right. One of the things that makes the film squishy and not quite certainly work for you is that, like, adult logic comes into it.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

And have grown people from our world.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And tourism of adults.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's what they have to let it go.

[David Sims]

It's a half hour of setup from grown upland.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes. I'm also not asking for, like, an explanation of the municipality of, like, never.

[Griffin Newman]

That's why Hook is a good character, because he is a kid's impression of a grown up. He's not a real grown up. He's a cartoon character.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And like, like, it's. It's like one of those Star Trek episodes on the holodeck where, like, the holodeck comes to life where they're like, what is my. I'm Moriarty. What's my purpose? I just exist in opposition to someone. Like, that's not a real person. Right. Like, Captain Hook is just. And the whole thing with Peter Pan is, as Lin knows, and I'm sure you guys know, classically, the same actor plays Wendy's father and Hook, and it's this insane Freudian shit, like, baked into Peter Pan. The only movie that ever did it was the. The. The PJ Hogan movie. Had Jason Isaacs do it, which I always loved.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, they. They actually obeyed that rule. And I know. I assume it's partly just theatrical convention of like, well, we've got. We need this actor to do more than one thing. Like. Right. Like, you know, yeah, we don't want to cast two people. But that Hook is this kind of dark side, right? Of. Of grown up ness like that she goes to this, you know, place where her dad is suddenly the mean villain who wants to, I guess, stop everyone and having fun. Right? Exactly. But that like the concept of Hook is so clever of like, Peter Pan's gone and Captain Hook's like, what do I do? I'm stuck here. Like just being Captain Hook against nobody.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, this blows.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, where's Peter Pan? Like, I exist only to fight Peter Pan and like, he just needs to like finish this hero's journey or villain's journey or whatever.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But I don't.

[David Sims]

I think the, the other squishy thing for me in this movie and it really stuck. It was weird to me when I first saw it and it's even weirder now. And I. I did a little reading on this and I understand why they did it, but apparently JM Barry wrote in a later story that Peter Pan ran away from home as an infant. Which, which makes.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is in this movie, you see like the carriage running away. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Oh, man. But the things we could have had if they hadn't done that. Because it's the part that strains the most credulous. Like every parent goes and gets the stroller back and you get your. Like no child has ever run away from home, from being a baby, helpless in a carriage that rolls away like that just. It doesn't, it doesn't make sense in, in a literal or metaphorical sense, a static sense. If Peter Pan had actually been a 10 year old kid who ran away from home to become Peter Pan.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, to avoid puberty. So, like, he knows what to grow up.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It needs to be a choice. That's the problem.

[David Sims]

And like be a choice. And a baby cannot push his own carriage away.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, he sure does it in this movie.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I get to that whole extended sequence, right. That basically starts with that through to like him seeing Gwyneth Paltrow for the.

[David Sims]

First time as we all do at some point in our lives, right? We all, we decide to grow up.

[Griffin Newman]

We will all be tempted by. By Gwyneth.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

She imprints upon her like a twilight. He's just like, I'm calling dibs on that baby.

[David Sims]

I'm really gonna kiss her. Move over, grandma.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, yeah. But like that through to what you said is like the thesis of the movie of having the moment where he sees his son and he's like, this is why I wanted to grow up. Right? I'm like, this should Be the core of the movie. And in a certain way, I think this sequence has the most power. And yet I think it's basically botching every part of what it's trying to say. And it starts with what you said where it's just like two adults being like. And then he's gonna go to business school and this and that. And I'm like, your baby rolled away. This is the thing. I am so locked into that idea. Like, that is something.

[Griffin Newman]

It should just be a kid, you're saying, you know, it's a little bit. It's a baby.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Be surprised to hear that. That is a thing I relate to very strongly being a child and hearing adults be like, and when you're a grown up, you'll do this and me being like you, right? I'm out. But the second, it's like I'm a baby. And I remember hearing them say that. So I magically willed my stroller away until Tinkerbell came and flew me.

[David Sims]

And again, I think it comes out of a F to a J.M. barry text. But that's the other. That's the other thing that like gnaws at you while you're watching it. You're like, your grandmother's name was Wendy Darling. And you've never questioned like. And you. The movie starts with him watching his daughter playing Wendy Darling in a play. Like, there's no examination of the like. So where. How are we Did J and bury our neighbor.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right. Here's another thing I find super fucking smushy. So he's doing that, right? Tinkerbell flies him over. He meets Wendy. He goes back and visits her. She becomes an old lady. He falls in love with Gwyneth Paltrow. He's like, I gotta stay here. Then it basically hard cuts to. He's Robin Williams with the suspenders in the delivery room looking at the baby and going, here we go. This is why I want to be a grown up. What happens in between those two points? When does he stop remembering that he's Peter Pan?

[Griffin Newman]

He says, like, he doesn't remember anything before he's 12 years old.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But you're telling me that he jumps through the window when he's 12, sees this 12 year old is like, yes, please erase my memory.

[Griffin Newman]

Kind of.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You adopt me, raise me next to your granddaughter. By the way, I just want to restate dibs. No one else can date her. They date all the way through having their first child. And then he's like, there we go. This is why I'm here.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I. I also, I mean, I rub up against logic of like, if they took him away when he was a baby, how'd he grow up in Never Neverland?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's right.

[David Sims]

Why couldn't he have just gone away at the age when he'd be Peter Pan?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's always been the Peter Pan logic, which, as you said, like, maybe the Jam Barry thing starts with him being a baby. That's a good, like, note that other people came up with when they readapted it to be like, oh, it's actually better if he stays the age he ran away at. That's the whole point. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, Steven Spielberg, just to. Just to finish out the sort of context here. This film was supposed to take 76 days to shoot. It took 116. So way, way, way over. Over production.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Supposed to be like 40 and then it was ended up somewhere between 60 and 80.

[Griffin Newman]

It's this era for Spielberg, I think, where he's too famous. People come visit at the set. Obviously. There's all like the celebrity cameos and it kind of. And he builds these crazy.

[David Sims]

Although Glenn Close is legit great as that one pirate she acts.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, like, she's doing that. But like, I think people, she's really funny. People swinging by, come see this fucking crazy set.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Lost Boys lair. And you're like, I want to hang out there. This movie looks like the best, like, theme park walk through attraction of all time. And it does feel like he just basically half of every day was a party where he would give people tours and be like, don't you want to go down the slide?

[Griffin Newman]

The boat, it's the Jolly Roger. Cost a million and a half dollars, is the most expensive, like, thing ever built in a Steven Spielberg movie. Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Michelle Pfeiffer, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Mel Gibson, Prince and the Queen of Jordan among the people who visited this. I'm just like, no wonder he's getting distracted. No wonder things are taking too long. Like, he's too kind of, you know, wrapped up in this madness. And to touch on the musical thing, as we said, there is five to eight songs that Williams writes with Leslie Brickhus.

[David Sims]

Is that Leslie Bricus? Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Who is that?

[David Sims]

I don't really know Leslie Bricusse.

[Griffin Newman]

Who's the lyricist, obviously.

[David Sims]

Yes, the lyricist, man, I'm gonna forget. But Leslie Brickus wrote a lot for the theater.

[Griffin Newman]

He did. I'm seeing here Dr. Dolittle, like, talk to the animals, stuff like that. Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The pure imagination and the candyman from. So a lot of like movie, musical stuff.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Oh, was like partners with Anthony. Anthony Newly.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. So, you know, Spielberg basically chickens out. He says, like, I, you know, obviously he's always wanted to make a musical. He finally does it fucking 30 years later with west side Story. But my guess is he's kind of like, if I'm going to make a musical, I really, really want it to be something where I'm fully invested. And maybe these songs feel more of an add on. And he's just like, I can't deal with it.

[David Sims]

I mean, it's already a lot of movie without it being a music.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's already two hours and 20 minutes long, which is insane. But when you watch the theatrical cut of I'll Do Anything, you have the thoughts, how could songs possibly fit into this? Right. And when you watch the cut that you may or may not receive a Google Drive link to after this episode, you're like, oh, they fit in. Oddly. This doesn't like solve the movie. This is very weird and uncanny to watch. Right. Hook does feel to me like a musical that the songs were cut out of. Like, I'm like everything in its tone and its stylization and its level of performance and even just sort of like it feels weirdly stage bound. Even though it has these ginormous sets.

[Griffin Newman]

They are sets, right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And it's sort of like two big locations that you're ping ponging back and forth through where you're watching people jump around these like jungle gyms.

[Griffin Newman]

One of my favorite scenes in the movie in terms of just like Spielberg operating on master level of visual storytelling is when hook is being introduced. Where the hook is on the pillow moving through the set and all the pirates are going like, hook, Hook. You know, and like, you know, the music starts to go crazy and then like we go and he comes out, you know, it's. You're just like, right, really good at this.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I like that sequence. I like the production of the children.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Obviously my favorite image in the whole movie is just the hook on the window.

[Griffin Newman]

Those could feel like musical sequences without a song being right. Right.

[David Sims]

By the way, like barriers to entry for younger kids watching this. That looks like poltergeist when those blankets come off.

[Griffin Newman]

Those kids that did that, that, that whole part is. I think I loved it. The thing that freaked me out as a kid, I remember is the nanny screaming. The children, the children. Like when they get home.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a little like unnerving.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

David.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

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[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

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[Griffin Newman]

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[Griffin Newman]

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[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

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[Griffin Newman]

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[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

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[Griffin Newman]

Sure. You got some thinning or shedding issues. Yeah, yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Look, nothing severe, nothing dramatic. I don't want to overstate this. You know, David, thinning hair is different for men and women. And one size fits all approach to hair growth doesn't cut it. Neutropol has multiple formulas for. For men and women that are tailored to different life stages, such as postpartum or menopause and lifestyle factors, such as a plant based lifestyle. So you can just get what you need specifically.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, hello.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Oh, maybe this is someone who has a more extreme example.

[Griffin Newman]

Sorry, who are you?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The Blumhouse Wolf Man.

[Griffin Newman]

Sorry, what?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Blumhouse, Wolfman.

[Griffin Newman]

Your wolf man from like, the. The Blumhouse revival, wide released film. It came out two months ago.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No one even remembers.

[Griffin Newman]

Derek, Sean France. No, no, it wasn't him. It was just Lee Whannell.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right? Who you like and you don't even remember that. The movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I didn't get to see it.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

This is the point.

[Griffin Newman]

Who played you?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Christopher Abbott. A good actor.

[Griffin Newman]

I like him. This is.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No one. See, no one even recognizes me. You know what the problem is?

[Griffin Newman]

What's that?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That I wasn't really furry enough.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

People had a lot of. A lot of notes on our wolfman mythology, right? Yeah, that the movie kind of ends before he hits full wolfman transformation. So he's just kind of a fleshy guy with some dog features.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that a. Is that really what goes on in that?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I swear to God, everything I'm saying to you right now is real.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, well, so it sounds like you sort of have hair thinning issues. Your own of your own.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I could use some hair. Hair growth. I could use something to really kick it into next gear. I can't even finish the house.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, well, Griff, how does neutrophil work? Can you tell me? Like, you know, it's the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand. It's trusted by over one and a half million people. You're going to see thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding in three to six months with neutral targets, root causes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It has a proactive approach. You can see improved hair, hair growth, decreased shedding, visible thickness while taking neutrophil I worked on a human. I assume it would work on a wolf man as well. Just, it's just simple. I just take, I take four pills a day every morning with some water.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I didn't really know. Yeah. Okay, well. Wolfman.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Hello.

[Griffin Newman]

Sorry.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I'm trying. I'm really just trying to make this work.

[Griffin Newman]

I just need you to know that, you know this is physician formulated. It's got 100% drug free ingredients, supports healthy hair growth from within by targeting key root causes of thinning like stress hormones, aging, nutrition, lifestyle metabolism through whole body health. You purchase it online, there's no prescription needed, got automated deliveries, free shipping keeps you on track. And with a subscription you're going to save up to 20%. And at headspace Meditation membership is included.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

They save money, you save time with your transformation. That would definitely help me. Cuz I think a big part of it is psychological. Definitely. That's what my doctor has been saying recently.

[Griffin Newman]

Sounds like an interesting modern take on the character.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Now I heard that in a clinical study, 72% of men saw more scalp coverage after taking Neutropol men hair growth supplement for six months. And 86% of women saw improved hair growth after taking Neutropol women hair growth supplement for six months. There does doesn't seem to be any data on what six months of use will do to your chances of getting a theatrical sequel. That seems to be the one thing they didn't test.

[Griffin Newman]

Well. All I can tell you is that you should start your hair growth journey with Nutrafol. For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping. When you go to Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code. Blankcheck. It's one word. Find out why over 4,500 healthcare professionals and stylists recommend Nutrafol for healthier hair. Nutrafol.com that's spelled N U T R A F O L.com, promo code blank check. That's neutrophil.com promo code blank check.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Thank you so much. And I'm just going to recommend that you, David, Ben and all of your listeners Google what I look like in the movie. So maybe retroactively this is funnier. I sort of assume there was a base baseline kind of cultural awareness of what I was talking about. Sure. So maybe just Google me and you'll kind of get it more.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Okay. Goodbye.

[Griffin Newman]

Goodbye. So the first half hour of this movie, if we're getting into Hook, Peter Banning. He's a workaholic lawyer.

[David Sims]

Cell phone.

[Griffin Newman]

He's got his cell phone. He. Right. He can draw better than anybody.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right. These are the real pirates.

[Griffin Newman]

Gorgeous and charming. Carolyn Griddle, who's really good in this movie. Like, she doesn't have much to do, but when she's crying at the end, she's so involved.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I agree. Like later reused in Schindler's List.

[Griffin Newman]

Amazing.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Chandler.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Is his wife. They have two kids. Charlie Corsmo, obviously, is adorable.

[David Sims]

Another key of this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I, however, love little Amber Scott. I don't really know if she ever did anything else, but she's so cute. Maggie, the little kid. Yeah. When she sings the song. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Which is also the same melody as A penny for your thoughts from Waiting for Guffman. A penny for your thoughts.

[Griffin Newman]

That's why we have Mr. Marina.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It also look. It feels like kissing cousins with somewhere out there as well. Coming out of the Spielberg system. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Maggie has the incredible insult. You need a mother very, very badly. She really. She really puts the mustard on that line. I think I. I just have a kid with her energy. Maybe that's why I'm. But he's. He's a workaholic.

[David Sims]

Then I also want to speak up for Charlie Corsaba who, by the way, like, left the business. He's a lawyer now.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And he is so good in this. And he was also in Dick Tracy.

[Griffin Newman]

He's the kid.

[David Sims]

He's the kid.

[Griffin Newman]

He's great in Dick Tracy.

[David Sims]

Great.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He's also really good in Can't Hardly Wait.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, he is.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

His last role, he had, like an incredible run.

[Griffin Newman]

He's just got a great face. He's just got a great kid. 90s kid. He's what a 90s kid looks like.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The ultimate 90s.

[Griffin Newman]

But this was.

[David Sims]

This movie was physical tuned with our favorite child actors. I want to point out Jason Fitcher Fisher, who is like just one of the lost boys. But he was also the kid in the Witches.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, right.

[David Sims]

Son in Parenthood, which is what I remember when he lost his retainer and like, flipped out.

[Griffin Newman]

Those are his three roles. That guy was three and out. Those are his three roles.

[David Sims]

He was great in all of those.

[Griffin Newman]

He's great. Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Charlie Corsmo had what about Bob as well. Oh, he was just on a heater.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, I. The Rockets did Little League baseball. Are you. Did you do Little League baseball?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I was forced basically at hook point.

[Griffin Newman]

I just like. So like, I think Charlie, like little baseball obsession.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's what it felt like.

[Griffin Newman]

Really. I Was just like, yeah, this is me. You know, like I am. Right. I don't know. I identified very strongly with little Jack Banning as a kid. But Jack Banning loves his dad, Loves baseball, but his dad no attend baseball game in Christmas time.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But yes, he sent a cinematographer to catch all the action.

[David Sims]

Yeah. A video that feels personal. Send someone to film it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, that's. That'll really resonate with that kid. Typical dad scanning the bleachers, looking for daddy. Very quickly after this, though, they get on a plane to go to London, where Peter was raised as an orphan by Wendy from Peter Pan, who's now Maggie Smith in old age makeup. It's one of those funny things where you're like, this is actually Maggie Smith younger. You know what I mean? Like, they're aging.

[David Sims]

Aging. And.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. We know what she's gonna look like. And they kind of nail it.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Glitches watching it now because you're like, how the did she live another 40 years? And the answer is she's like, 57 in this. But they just absolutely correctly predicted the exact way she would age.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, they nailed it. And she's. She's really good. And obviously, I'm sure she was just cast because she has instant mega presence.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Maggie Smith. Yeah. The greatest.

[David Sims]

Was she a dame yet? She probably wasn't even a dame yet.

[Griffin Newman]

That's a great. When did she get the key? The DVD speak a little bit to.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The hubris of this movie, though, where it's just like, he's Steven Spielberg. For every single role, you're gonna get the single greatest person you could possibly find for that moment. You know, I think Bob Hoskins as me is maybe the best performance in this.

[Griffin Newman]

She had just gotten her gamehood in 1990.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

She's freshly named, but in a way that she has two Oscars already unbalances the film a little bit.

[David Sims]

I miss Jean Brody, one of my mom's favorite movies.

[Griffin Newman]

An incredible movie. And then the. Okay, California Suite, her Oscar win.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But like, when you have Bob Hoskins as Smee just throwing fastballs.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

See, my parents forced me to play baseball. I understand what a fastball is. I explained this to Ben for some unclear reason.

[David Sims]

Yeah, Ben.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right. I'm just like, fastball is a ball.

[David Sims]

That goes very fast, sometimes as fast as others.

[Ben Hosley]

And a curveball, I'm gonna guess.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I'll tell you, the Jack Banning can't hit a curveball for.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

He cannot.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Robin's like, no, not the curve.

[Griffin Newman]

The scouting report on this guy is easy. Like, Breaking balls.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I felt it. And that I sucked at baseball.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, you did?

[Ben Hosley]

I especially was bad at batting.

[Griffin Newman]

Huh.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I've talked about this before, but I was left handed and like two foot negative sex. And what my little league teams would do was they would put me up to bat when bases were loaded because they'd call me the walk on kid. And children could not pitch to me.

[Griffin Newman]

Because there's no strike zone and you were a lefty.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

So they would throw the ball and it would hit me and it would hurt. And then everyone would cheer and give me a thumbs up and go, Griffin, good job. And I would limp with tears over to first base and get them Barry Bonds over here. But it's great torture. Relationship to sports is just like, if you're willing to undergo physical pain, then maybe your dad will be proud for 30 seconds. So what I was gonna say is that Bob Hoskins is so good throwing fastballs as me that when he's on screen I'm like, oh, right. So this whole movie's about Smee, right? And it's like, no, he's me. He's like one of the parts of this movie thing.

[David Sims]

He's number two to Mr. Hook.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right. But he's giving you so much that you're like, well, this film should be called Smee. Peter Pan retold from Smee's.

[David Sims]

Smee and Rufio would be a very successful spin off of.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, Hoskins is right at the peak of like, somehow this guy has become a Hollywood movie star. Like, you know, where it's like Mermaids is the year before, Roger Rabbit a couple years before. Then Mario Brothers is coming up where it's kind of like, yeah, I guess this like 5, 6 cockney guy needs to be the lead of movies.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's what's crazy though. It's not just that he had become a major movie star, but it was like, kids love Bob Hoskins. Which is so funny to consider.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, I would see that guy and I would be like, there's my friend Bob Hoskins. Yes. And, and like, then only later do I realize, like, that was like a serious actor. That's like an Oscar nominated serious thespian. I mean, that's, that's the, the Hoskins clip that I watch all the time of when he gets the Mario role. And his kids are like, mario, we played Mario. And he's like, what? And they're, they like, they load it from this and he's like. And I watched this little boop, boop, and he's like, I used to play King Lear.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But he signed on not knowing it was a game. He's like, what a wild idea for a picture.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I think he signed on plumbers, like, you know, like, whatever the, you know, zeros on the chat in.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

A sandwich between million dollar bills.

[Griffin Newman]

So, all right, but so Peter Bannon, okay, so he goes to England. It's this snowy, sort of fakey England. Like this, like, total fantasy of England. Like, does not snow like that in England ever. And like, it just feels like they, like, go to a Christmas card, Right? You know, like they go to this lovely big home, this big kind of atticy room. Right. Like, it's like they're going into Peter Pan world sort of already.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

To throw out a thing that already drives me crazy. Crazy about the movie at this point.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it? I do really like the plane scene where Jack's giving his dad not surprise you like that. And. And draws the picture of his dad dying without a parachute. Yep, it's pretty funny.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Which is a nice nod to this movie's pitch coming out of a children's drawing. No, it did. Dustin Hoffman is the voice of the pilot, uh, giving the warning, uh, turbulence. Which is their subtle nod to the idea of double casting hook in some way.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Hoskins is a street sweeper very late in the movie as well.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. What do you not like?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I think I. I'm saying nothing controversial here. Robin Williams at his best, properly applied, one of the most effective actors in movie history. Right. But they're the. The legacy of Robin Williams across many decades is sometimes going like, robin, you shouldn't do that. Come on, man. Right? That's not the right thing for you to do. Like, wrong instinct. Robin Williams on paper, playing Peter Pan in a Steven Spielberg movie. You're like, well, that makes the most sense of anything.

[David Sims]

Get Mork in there in the world. Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But it's also part of the inherent tension of what I struggle with in this movie is that it's like, so what? What is the idea? It's like Peter Pan grew up and has to remember to reconnect with this child made by two people who kind of never grew up.

[David Sims]

Up.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And this opening section, I feel like they do not totally know how to depict his boring, normal life, where I'm like, I think Robin Williams has too much comedy energy in this section of the movie. And then I think in the midsection where he's in Neverland and is like, oh, I don't know. I Got a little.

[Griffin Newman]

That was better. Yeah, that was better.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I feel like in the midsection, his energy just goes down to zero when he's lost. And that's what I kind of want him to be at the beginning where I'm like. Like, he's having too much fun being a shitty businessman. The quick draw and the bits. And when he does, like, the fundraiser dinner and he's like, oh, I'm nervous. I'm not much of a public speaker.

[David Sims]

Whoa.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I'm getting. I'm getting closer.

[David Sims]

You're. You're warming up.

[Griffin Newman]

Good morning, orphans.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

They fucking do the bit. Smee does. Like, good morning. Never.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Immediately I'm like, this is the wrong story choice. When it cuts to him at the banquet, it. And he's delivering. Killing his shitty jokes, but he's killing.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a bit of a Robin Williams problem. Like, it's very tough for that guy to not be on. Like, he's.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But in the middle section, I think he turns it off.

[David Sims]

But even in Robin Williams Hits, there's just, like, the sections where they let him go full Robin. And I feel like that was like, the one. They put him in front of an audience that. I think that just happened.

[Griffin Newman]

Similar to a Jim Carrey where, like, Peter Weir later said, like, you had to make him. You have to wear him take over and over. So he would just stop. Stop being Jim Carrey.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

You would get it out of his system.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I just think the most effective version of this movie is you're watching the first 30 minutes and you're like, oh, my God, where is Robin Williams gone? There's none of that spark. Well, I would also say come back. Feels like such an exciting, cathartic thing.

[Griffin Newman]

But it should also be 10 minutes. It's way too. Just too long. It's just crazy how long it is. And it would make more sense if they were really, like, firmly setting up the lore instead, as you guys are pointing out, the lore is pretty vague. It's a little hard to parse what exactly happened here.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Finding Nemo problem. Like, this movie should open with Maggie Smith narrating the explanation of how he ended up staying here and growing old. And then it cuts to 10 minutes of him being a shitty dad, because when it's 30 minutes, he needs to have jokes in there because otherwise the audience is going to be bored to tears. I want 10 minutes of him just being like, oh, like, kind of trudging through life. Because you also need to be like. Like, he's not even really enjoying this. He's on autopilot. And then when he gets to Neverland, he's sort of trying to find himself. And then the last act is like, we got full Robin. He's swashbuckling and doing impressions of William F. Buckley or whatever. He's doing his genie base.

[David Sims]

Wait a minute. Jimmy Swagger in Neverland. Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I just always feel like his performance is miscalibrated in the arc.

[Griffin Newman]

I understand.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

His children are kidnapped by Captain James Hook, who leaves a note saying, essentially, like, I can't. I tell children, come get me. And then Tinkerbell arrives to sort of bully Peter into getting to Neverland with her. Right. We have the note. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

What a way to leave a note.

[Griffin Newman]

Hook on the. Hook on the door. Like a knife. Knife on the door. Sorry. Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I've never done that before, but.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, you haven't? That hasn't come up.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You know what?

[Griffin Newman]

You haven't been like, you know when to get milk.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, yeah, Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Back in 20.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Boom. Isn't that how you propose marriage to your fiance?

[David Sims]

No.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Will you marry me, Dagger?

[Ben Hosley]

No. I use the ninja star.

[Griffin Newman]

And we exit snowy London and enter Neverland, which is kind of tropical. Like, beyond the fact that it's like an island with water and shit. Like, it has this sort of, like, tropical energy to it. Would you agree? Very, very colorful, obviously.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I'll tell you what it feels like to me.

[Griffin Newman]

What?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It feels like the, like, water park adjacent to a major theme park.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, it does. It feels like a theme park.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right? Yes. But all the, like, universal have their sort of, like, here's our fourth gate. It's called, like, Water island, but it's, it's like, weirdly, like, volcano themed and kind of half thought out. And it's just got a bunch of, like, things that spin, but it's also.

[Griffin Newman]

This, like, fake reality that doesn't know what to do with itself. Right. The pirates are there. They be pirates, but they have nothing to, you know, go and pirate.

[David Sims]

Right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

They're not setting sail and doing pirate stuff. They're just kind of stuck.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. I don't want hard shoe leather on this, but I do want the movie to give me a little more of, like, what the have they been doing for 20 years.

[Griffin Newman]

They, I, I, I think you're overthinking this.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm gonna finally call it out. You're overthinking this. They don't, time doesn't move for them like that. They don't exactly exist in time. They don't age.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But I think the fun Thing is the idea that it's. It's like if Hook doesn't.

[David Sims]

Or that there's a feedback loop of fun that's happening. Boys. The boys hang out with the Tiger Lily. Tiger Lily fights helps them. Like, it's this feedback loop of endless adventure.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But the great unresolved thing in Hook is that he never got to defeat Pan. Right. That. That's been driving him crazy in this, like, interim period, which then also deflates for me a little bit when he's just like, you're not Peter Pan. Anyway, I'm going to go back to fighting the kids.

[Griffin Newman]

All of this, to me, is quite fun. I enjoy just like the pirates being pirates and Hook being Hook.

[David Sims]

Yo ho ho.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Like, I. I want a bottle of. Bottle of fun.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you very much.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You're welcome.

[Griffin Newman]

The Glenn Close. Right. You know, like that whole sequence of, like, someone amongst us is not who he said, you know? Right. Like. And it's Robin assumes.

[David Sims]

It's so fun.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I gotta call out my favorite kid cameo in the movie the Boo Box.

[Griffin Newman]

Who?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Well, you have Phil Collins as the detective.

[Griffin Newman]

Seems like part took your kids. It's a bit weird, given that you're a Peter Pan or whatever. I'll see you later.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. Something hooky in the air tonight.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

There's something.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

When Tinkerbell drags Peter through the sky and there's, like, errant pixie dust falling down and you have, like, the very kind of matte painting bridge in front of Big Ben that the couple's kissing and they elevate into the sky. They start flying as they're kissing. Do you know who that is?

[David Sims]

George Lucas and Carrie Fisher.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, isn't that weird?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

George. Love it. I love Moochinlea.

[David Sims]

But do you think that was just because they were on set that day? Could that have been David Crosby and the Queen of Jordan?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. If they had visited that day.

[Griffin Newman]

Slap a wig on the Queen of Jordan. She's a. It's a pirate. For her.

[David Sims]

You're kissing David Crosby, who is already dressed as a pirate.

[Griffin Newman]

David Crosby, obviously. That was.

[David Sims]

That's David Crosby.

[Griffin Newman]

He looks so much. David Crosby is 90% of the way to being a pirate in his daily life. God bless him.

[Ben Hosley]

He swashes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Is it actually insane that this is the only time David Crosby has played a literal pirate?

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, do you know that it is.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I'm.

[David Sims]

I'm sure he's got other uncredited pirate.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Rules that we just speak.

[David Sims]

He hasn't told us because otherwise.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

What A waste.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And he gets kicked in the nuts. He gets full on nutshell.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Kick in the nuts. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

So, yeah, what is there to say about. I mean, like, so Peter is, you know, this is the dismal failure of Peter.

[David Sims]

They put a ticking clock on it. Give me three days to get him into shape.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's a tough scene, by the way.

[David Sims]

Also another cameo. Apollo Creed's manager is one of the pirate. He's the only black pirate that I clocked.

[Griffin Newman]

Duke.

[David Sims]

Yeah, Duke. That's Apollo Creed's manager in the Rocky movies. He's in all six of the Rocket.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Tony Burton is the actor's name.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I did not like Tony Burton. Hook. Let's see. Dang. So everyone just kind of wanted to go.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Everyone.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. I mean, the Pirates are great. The costuming is great. Like, you know, like everyone's having fun.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Oh, Jimmy Buffett is also one of the pirates. Yes. Course, his best friends. Was best friends with Frank Marshall.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah. Those are the homies.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Those are the homies.

[David Sims]

I. I know this in my professional life.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Frank Marshall. Frank Marshall produced to you.

[David Sims]

No, no, he produced the Jimmy Buffett musical Margarita.

[Griffin Newman]

And now Frank Marshall, who obviously had a long career as a producer and also made, you know, Congo and arachnophobia and all right. Like, he made movies now just churns out music documentaries. Like that Bee Gees one was so good. He's since done Carole King, James Taylor.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Did the Beach Boys and the Beach.

[Griffin Newman]

Boys and something about like New Orleans Jazz Fest. He's just like, bang, bang, bang, bang.

[David Sims]

Bang, doing what he wants to do. Now.

[Griffin Newman]

That must be what it is, right?

[David Sims]

That's a blank check.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, where he's just like, can I just interview people, like, and have fun. Right, Yeah, I like. Yeah, exactly. But no, the. The shaming of Peter again, like to get, you know, like, where it's like, save your children. Go fly for them. And that he's humiliated in front of them. It's. I think as a kid, this is like quite transgressive to watch. To watch a dad, like, get humiliated.

[David Sims]

Like, yeah, you can't save your kids.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. It's really kind of unsettling. I. I think you're bumping on this again as having not seen this as a kid.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No, no, no.

[David Sims]

Here's what I'm in a world of mom and dad, save the world type of movies. It's to see an emasculated parent basically be like, your dad can't do Captain.

[Griffin Newman]

Like Bowser doesn't try to to be Princess Peach's dad. Like, it's weird that in Hook, Captain Hook, with the help of Smee, quickly alights on like, I'll be their father. Like it. The dynamics of it are so strange. It's speaking to the original, like, Peter Pan mythos.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I do think that's the most interesting idea in the movie that SME is like, you actually want to, like, hurt this guy, it's not going to be through a sword fight. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

If you're fighting a kid, you fight with your swords. But like, now, right. The way to get at him is.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

To like, he grew up and he has a mother now. So either you going to, like, outbid him right. On the, like, merger they want to.

[David Sims]

Do me brought parental dynamics to a knife fight. Right?

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I'm saying.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

He's. And the Hook's like, oh, good, good, good. Like, let's just, you know, get them.

[David Sims]

Toys and Stockholm syndrome his child.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And have them do good baseball.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

This is what I'm trying to process.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

In a childhood where my parents were saying, like, and most of all, remember, hook sucks every morning.

[David Sims]

Remember, let our legacy be right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

My dad was stay in school, putting.

[Griffin Newman]

Your backpack on, never get a tattoo.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Hook socks. Right. Those were like his three things. I do remember as a child being like, that is a potent idea for a movie. And I probably worded it the exact way I stroked my chin and I went, there's a potent idea for a movie. No, but like, as a child, you're like, what if Captain Hook never got over Peter Pan and Peter Pan grew up and he forgot that he was Peter Pan. And when I would catch bits of it on TV at friends houses or whatever, this was the section I do remember sticking with me of being like, like, this movie's bad. That feels kind of interesting to have Hook be like, what if I raise them better than you do?

[David Sims]

And listen, I mean, two things. One, like, as a 11 year old whose dad did work too much and did have a early cell phone, like, that notion of I could get revenge.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

On my dad, my dad was.

[David Sims]

And find a different found dad. And that's very potent and powerful.

[Griffin Newman]

Did you dad have a cell phone?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Oh, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I see. I.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The big brick.

[David Sims]

I remember my dad had a big car phone.

[Griffin Newman]

Of course. Of those car phones. Because when. When should you really be talking on the phone?

[David Sims]

Crazy.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No, but I. I do think that's the. The power at the center of the premise. Right. More than anything is what if Captain Hook realizes the Best way to get back at Peter Pan is being a good dad. Not just trying to go after the kids, but like, the scene I remember as a child catching glimpses, feeling like it had a little juice, was the baseball game and him watching Hook provide the actual attention and support that he wasn't giving. Right. That it's not just that. He's like, I'm giving you rubies.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He's saying, like, I love you, boy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And you're gonna succeed and you're gonna be right. Like, paid attention to. I like that. You know, it's really all centered on Jack, though. Maggie, they're just kind of like, yeah, we'll figure her out.

[David Sims]

Maggie doesn't like me. We'll lock her in a closet.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

If they had to cut her song, she would disappear from.

[Griffin Newman]

She's the cutie pie, though. She's cute. So Peter is given three days to become Peter Pan. He goes off to the Lost Boys with the help of Tinkerbell, and he joins the Lost Boys.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He should have taken Duke with him because that guy's good at training people.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

He does get four mermaids.

[Griffin Newman]

A very strange moment in the movie. He gets dunked into the water and a bunch of adult mermaids make out with him.

[David Sims]

And then he goes. They're breathing into him.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true. That's a good point.

[David Sims]

You added the tongue resuscitation.

[Ben Hosley]

I didn't say anything about tongue.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

What do you kiss. What do you call an open mouth kiss with no tongue but a lot of breathing where you're just kind of going like. Like, oxygen delivered?

[David Sims]

It is a really interesting. It sort of feels like the nod to the rest of Never Neverland in this weirdly grown up. That's.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's what I think I'm more getting at. Not that I'm like, how does this city run? But that I feel like in all.

[Griffin Newman]

Other depictions, the economy here, what kind of money are these people making?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I don't care about any of that. It's a magical land. I want to be a magical land. I feel like every other depiction of Peter Pan has a little more of this. And it's maybe part of what you lose by, like, removing Tiger Lily, which is the right decision. But the sense that, like, there's a bunch of other going on here too.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I've always liked, liked in depictions of Pam, where you're like, what goes on in that forest? Here's this tribe, here's this click, here's this species, whatever it is. You sort of just have the 30 seconds of let me admit it's a pretty hot kissing hello Fresh. You get it like hello Nurse from the Animaniacs.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's sort of the riff I was doing there. Anyway, this episode sponsored by our friends at HelloFresh. With HelloFresh, you get farm fresh, pre portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. You skip trips to the grocery store and count on Hellofresh to make home cooking easy, fun and affordable. That's why it's America's number one meal kit. You know how easy it is. I can do it.

[Ben Hosley]

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[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

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[Ben Hosley]

Love that.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And hey, if you want a little more work than that. Hellofresh's prep and bake meals come together with minimal mess and only five minutes of prep. So your oven does most of the work, not you. That sounds like an ideal arrangement.

[Ben Hosley]

You know, you left out one other quotable.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

What's that?

[Griffin Newman]

Hello fresh.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's Mrs. Doubtfire. Hey. And Green Chef is now owned by HelloFresh. So with a wider array of meal plans to choose from, there's something for everyone. I personally love switching between the brands because I'm verse and now my listeners can enjoy both brands at a discount. With us you can get up to.

[Griffin Newman]

10 free meals and a a free high protein item for [e-mail] Check10FM. That's Check10FM. One item per box with active subscription free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. That's up to 10 free HelloFresh meals. Just go to HelloFresh.com. check 10 FM. It's HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. It's about an hour into the movie or a little before Lyn when he's finally.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's been two minutes. When he finally gets to Bangarang.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. So the Lost Boys. Similar to Hook. It's like Hook has been stuck in like I'm a villain with no enemy. Really. And the Lost Boys are like, we are having fun but with no, like whatever, like organizing purpose, I guess. So what do we think of the Lost Boys? How. What, what can we say? What more can we say about the Lost Boys? We've already talked about how Fun. The set is how the cool the, you know, tracks are.

[David Sims]

It's this insanely diverse crew. They're all right. They are child star all stars that we've seen in other movies. I mean, and that there you are, Peter scene is the scene. Like, that's, that's the moment where Spielberg, like, pulls, like, just magic out of a hat and like that music swells and, and you feel stuff. Like that's if there's a metaphor for what Spielberg makes you feel when you're watching, like, his best movies, it's that he pulls your face back. He goes, there you are. There's your inner child. And everyone goes, holy. It can feel like this.

[Griffin Newman]

Isaiah Robinson plays Pockets.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I I, he's maybe my favorite of the kids, but I don't know how much of it is that moment. I will say I am pretty allergic to thud butt.

[David Sims]

Oh, man, I could not disagree with you.

[Griffin Newman]

Very 90s.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He's the most 90s.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, he feels like he should be on the Mighty Ducks later, right? Like, or whatever. Like, he's just kind of like a 90s kid. Rashawn Hammond, maybe.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's what I like the most about the Mighty Ducks is that thud butt isn't on the team.

[Griffin Newman]

What do you think of thud?

[David Sims]

But I love thud butt. I thought butt is a plus all around for me. He's very funny. How about when he, like, sits on the bench, it moves the gravity of the bench over and he goes, don't crowd me. I mean, he's getting effortless laughs. Good luck.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

David just solemnly nodded. That's a good one.

[Griffin Newman]

I, I like thud butts. Beret plus tie combo. Like, I like that they have this kind of mix of, like, greaser energy, but, like, Dickensian child wardrobe. Like, is sort of a funny way to present them. Kind of punk.

[David Sims]

It also, it gives you the sense that different kids have wound up here.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

They have different, different eras, different cultures.

[David Sims]

Ghosts can be any century, right?

[Griffin Newman]

He's got the triple mohawk thing. He's got like the shark teeth or whatever, like, whatever is dangling on his jacket.

[Ben Hosley]

He's got, like, ripped up pants.

[Griffin Newman]

Got the vest and the ripped up pants. He's a little older. He's like the oldest, right? He presents as the oldest is why he's the leader. He's got the coolest name in the world, Rufio. I don't know where they came. This is an entirely original character, right? There's no, there's no naming of the Lost Boys, apart from the ones we know like, and love, which is Funny, right? I'm just. Yeah, yeah. In the, in the original thing, it's like Tootles Nibs. Slightly.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Slightly. Yeah, that's the one I always remember.

[Griffin Newman]

Curly and the twin are the original Lost Boys. And you know, the Disney cartoon basically hinges with that. Right? Yeah, they're all. They're all made up.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I mean, Thud Butt, when he turns himself into a perfect sphere, he does do that.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Can we talk about this for a second?

[David Sims]

Can we talk about this for an hour?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

We were texting with JD this morning and JD brought to our attention that in 2018.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no, I. I found it.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Oh, you found it. I'm sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

So here's the prop.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It was auctioned off in 2018.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a little ghastly.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

This is Thud Butt in ball form.

[Griffin Newman]

So obvious on our social has a special move. All these considered, like Pokemon, like they all have like a power.

[David Sims]

Yeah. They evolve.

[Griffin Newman]

And thudsbutt's special move is where he sort of folds his legs up to his shoulders and turns into a ball and rolls and it's a pretty obvious shift from actor to prop.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

In the movie when it happens.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Spielberg is still a filmmaker.

[David Sims]

Please post that.

[Griffin Newman]

This prop which was auctioned off in 2018. Price undisclosed. You know, age has not been kind.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I was going to say it probably.

[Griffin Newman]

Looked better in 91.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Spielberg's a good filmmaker, so he knows what angles, how to lens, how long to let the shot last versus a head on bright direct light. Photo of a 25 year aged prop has not been kind to.

[David Sims]

He fully sonics. He.

[Griffin Newman]

He does fully sonic.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I responded with the Mattel Thud Butt action figure.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Which on the back has the illustration of the instructions of how to get his play feature activated, which is you can turn them into thud ball mode.

[Griffin Newman]

Thud butt is certainly. He's the biggest ask of all these kids. The rest of the kids most acute.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

So much.

[Griffin Newman]

You hate him so much.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

No, I just said he is a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

He's a lot.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I just basically bump on everything he's doing.

[David Sims]

But his scene with Robin got me too. When he's like, mine's my mother. Do you have a happy thought? Mine's my mother. Oh, Thud Butt making.

[Griffin Newman]

He's got chubby cheeks. I mean this is very much. It's sort of like the Ewoks in Jedi where I. Right. Like there's.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

If you were a kid, you liked it. If you weren't, you didn't.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I love the Ewoks.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, the Ewoks are. You know, the resistance would have failed without the Ewoks. Yeah, they.

[David Sims]

They took out the power.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You know.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, the logs smashing.

[David Sims]

That also when Thud Butt realizes he can step on planks and hit people in the nuts. That's how we get David Crosby getting hit in the nuts.

[Griffin Newman]

That is true. Now, I mean, like, sure, I.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

To thank him for that. I do.

[Griffin Newman]

As Lyn was saying, the logic of they stab and shoot, but the Lost Boys are a little more like, we knock you over like bowling pins. Right. Like, that's more what they're aiming to do. But death is present, but only so present. It's never explained or it's never delved into. Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's also interesting how much peril Rufio dies because Obviously, it takes 50 minutes to get to the Lost Boys. Right. But you could see the more obvious structure being Rufio dies at, like, the end of Act 2. And that's what motivates Peter, needing to, like, come into his own and really start to, like, lead the guys versus, like, Rufio being a sacrifice once Peter has all.

[David Sims]

Rufio died for our sins. Exactly.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

When he does die for our sins.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, he does. And so Rufia. Right. Is. As I already sort of said, he's kind of the juice of the movie. Movie. Because he's not just a problem. Like, he could just be a script problem for Peter. He's returned to the Lost Boys. And Lost Boys are like, hey, man, you left. Like, the leadership has changed. Rufio's in charge now. You have to beat Rufio. Yeah, but Rufio loves Peter Pan and misses Peter Pan just as much as more than anyone. And he is Spielberg, like, you know, missing his dad. And this movie is made when Spielberg is reconciling with his father, as we talked about on our Empire of the sun episode. Like, right. When Spielberg is finally realizing that his dad didn't abandon the family exactly, but sort of stepped aside from the family because the mom wanted to be with Seth Rogen.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Whether or not that was the right decision, he's trying to.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. You know, trying to protect his mom a little bit. Right. And it's like this whole movie is about, like, the father returning, you know, and, like, stepping into the childish role, but also into the, like, it's.

[David Sims]

And that is where, like, the juices in the movie.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's such a rich soup.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Our friend Bill Gabiri.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

On our Empire. The Empire, the sun. That was saying that his big theory is that there is this, like, bifurcation.

[Griffin Newman]

Dividing line in Spielberg's career that the.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

First half of his career, he's making movies from the perspective of a son, the second half in the perspective of a father. And it's basically just like, clean, Like a line is crossed and at one point past the other, right? I, I, I always feel like Last Crusade is that pivot point movie because it's basically this guy being like, my dad hates me and I hate him. Forced to go on adventure with him and being like, fuck, we are kind of the same person, aren't we? Like, I hate that I now kind of get him, right? And he has to begrudgingly be like, I understand the value in what you do. Your silly Indiana Jones stuff has some power, right? So then to me, I'm like, there is like a clear takeaway in that movie of Spielberg, like, processing some stuff stuff and like, finding some middle ground with his father. And then this movie, I find it, I find the, the Reckoning interesting. I find the fighting with itself interesting. I just, like, do not know what the end conclusion is here. And I'm not asking for, like, an answer narratively. Yeah, I would like, does Spielberg Is anything settled in him by making this film? Which is not what I ask for from a film, but I also think, think a lot of the most interesting movies ever made are someone kind of needing to get something off their chest and realizing in that sort of James Lipton way of like, oh, I didn't realize Close Encounters was about me trying to talk to my mom and my dad, right? And this, I'm just like, if this is a therapy session, does the therapist go? Like, I have no idea what to make of this. You've thrown a lot at me, but I, I actually can't tie any of this together. Certainly all of it's being, like, fucked.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, the simplest answer is, or whatever. Like, the most pat answer is. It's like Hook is like, you are afraid of dying. And Peter Pan's like, no, I'm actually afraid of living. But in confronting you, I have realized it will be great to live as a grownup. Like, to be a grownup. Like, it will be fine. Because, yes, Peter Pan had already become a grownup, but he's bad at it. But now he's like, no, no, no. I understand that living and raising my children and, you know, growing old is going to be fine. And so I no longer return, like, you know, long to return to Neverland and be an eternal child. So that's, you know, what Spielberg, I guess, is realizing. But I think if you take this as the Kind of dividing line of like. Right. Jurassic park and Schindler's List, those are movies made by a dad. You know what I mean? Like, not movies of childlike wonder, but those movies of, you know. Right. Like, that's, that's.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I just think now, if I say.

[Griffin Newman]

This to Spielberg, he'd be like, I don't know, man, that movie was annoying. The sets were too big. It was a headache. Queen of Jordan was on my ass. Like, I mean, maybe that's what he would say. I don't know if I would need.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Him to be able to explain it. Like, a lot of times you make a movie because it's something you couldn't say in words. Right. You were expressing something greater within you. I think the. The best artists who are in touch with something, like. But I feel like. And it's part of the weirdness of the, like, Robin Williams, Steven Spielberg, Captain Hook, Peter Pan movie that sounds perfect is like. But these are two guys who kind of like, defied the odds and had it both ways for most of their career. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, these are two guys got to be a kid forever in a sort of a way. He always had the impish thing.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And same with Spielberg, where it's like, you both got to be kids forever and grow up. Right. They both, like, became parents.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Like, what?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Raised families.

[Griffin Newman]

Does Spielberg have kid energy now? Like, what's he like?

[David Sims]

Yeah, I. I can tell you, the one time I ever was on a set he was on. He was filming west side Story in Washington Heights.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Of course, the same year, it was one of my all time top favorite days. We filmed the finale of in the Heights on 175th Street. And I walked two blocks to 177th street where he was filming Maria, which is. And then I walked home.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I mean, because it was all in my neighborhood.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's the best part of this.

[David Sims]

I mean, it was truly a top five day for me. But I remember he was like, a little. And he was filming like the. The balcony scene. But he was showing me, like, in the 10 minutes I got with him on set, where he was like, waiting for something to be set up. He was like, look at this. I did these tests with my camera and he's showing me, like, him trying to figure out how to film Krupp.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And he's like, I did this test with my phone and it was like a kid making his first musical.

[Griffin Newman]

And.

[David Sims]

And by the way, that, to me answers the question of why Hook wasn't a musical. Was like, I wanted to do it right. I wanted to do my favorite one, and I waited till that was possible.

[Griffin Newman]

I think that's.

[David Sims]

And I wanted to come at it like a student. Student.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you like west side Story?

[David Sims]

I. It's tough for me, but, well, yes. Loaded questions. I love the original. I think that is an incredibly made movie. And I think it's even more incredible because Jerome Robbins got fired midway through, Robert Wise took over, and it still works. Like, there's still incredible filmmaking in that movie. And what I enjoy the most about Spielberg's west side Story is I can tell the sequences that made him want to. To do it. Like, when you watch Cool, you're like, got it. This is why he wanted to make this movie, so he could stage Cool. Yeah, that sequence is crazy.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And.

[David Sims]

And. And then there are the ones that are just like, I think the first movie was more successful in doing it.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And, like, exactly where.

[David Sims]

I also associate it with a certain high I got for seeing a musical for the first. Like, seeing the American number for the first time. Like, I'm sorry, even Spielberg can't meet my sugar rush or whatever that rush was in seeing, like, are you kidding me? Like, this is what the best musical is about. It's about, like, Puerto Ricans trying to figure out whether they should, like, re. What. So, like, nothing's ever gonna match that sequence.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I think a lot about.

[David Sims]

And Rita Moreno on a rooftop.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, like, even Spielberg may agree with.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I think a lot about what you said the last time you were on the show, where you were like, my goal as a filmmaker is to, like, only make movies of musicals that are not, like, canonically already sort of, like, elevated. That you want to be able to, like, adapt the things that, in a way, you're sort of introducing to people and. And west side Story, for me, I'm like, that's like an 8 out of 10 movie to me, which I think our listeners often think I'm really great performances.

[David Sims]

Like. Like, there's not a bat. Like, everyone's wonderful in it, but it's, like, funny. It's in the shadow of another.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's my thing. I'm like, a. My bar for Spielberg is so high.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Where if a movie's not a 10 out of 10 masterpiece, I'm like, oh, it's a little disappointing, which I don't really feel that way with almost anyone else. And then secondly, it's like him riffing on a movie that already has this, like, insane power to it. So it, like, has to fight this thing that, like, you're not fighting with tick, tick, boom. Which is sort of like, there's a lot of room to interpret here.

[David Sims]

Absolutely.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

What was I going to say before?

[Griffin Newman]

You're talking about, like, Stephen and Robin is eternal children, I think.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes. I think they're both these interesting guys who had this balance of, like, never losing the childlike glee and being able to connect to that and being able to communicate that while also maturing, you know, becoming responsible parents, becoming, like, moguls within their industry and people who, like, move like the tenor of the entire, like, pop culture landscape with them and could, like, stretch into different types of work and do it in a way that didn't feel like a kid playing a grown up in a school play. And so I think a lot of the Captain Hook, Peter Pan dynamic is based on an ideological binary that these guys, in a weird way, kind of can't relate to because they've been able to marry the two. It's connected. And I feel like that's the conclusion that this movie needs to get to, that they maybe couldn't quite figure out how to verbalize, which is like, what is the version of being a balanced person? Having your cake and eating it too? And this movie basically goes like. He reactivates being Peter Pan long enough to defeat Hook, and then he goes back to being a better dad that.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, no, Peter Pan can be within him now without it being a problem. He's merged, you know, like the. The. He's. He's one person now.

[David Sims]

It's so. I mean, it's again, because, like, I'm thinking back to, like, when Spielberg was just shorthand for. You want to be an artist.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

And that's how it was presented to me as a kid. And that's how I processed it because I. I also, as an adult, I think so much about what I hold true to being an artist is keeping the channel to your younger selves open. Like, that's what the best acting is, what the best writing is. It's like being connected to all the versions so that when I have to write from the perspective of a 12 year old who have to write Moana trying to get off land, I have to be able to connect to who is Moana? What is she doing there? What does she want to do? If I have to consider the coconut.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I have to consider the coconut.

[David Sims]

The key to being an artist is what Peter Banning does at the end of this movie is like staying connected to your younger self and like, being able to, like, access that channel whenever you need to, because you. I Think a lot. I think a lot of the decisions we make as an adult are just like promises we're keeping to a younger version of ourselves.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And that's a big statement. Yeah, I'm just thinking on that. Yep.

[David Sims]

And. And your job as an artist is to be able to access that and be like, all right, well, if I were 16, what would blow my. Like, what do I want to make? What do I want to see? Like, that's a lot of. I think how you form your artistic impulses is like, yeah, what did you like as a kid? What did you not like? And then, like, that's how your tastes form. Like, if our parents told me I hated hook, I'd be like you sitting in the corner nitpicking the economy of the greater.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You're on my cell phone trying to acquire companies.

[Griffin Newman]

Does Bruno have a little hook Peter Pan to him? He's an eternal child in a way. Bruno in the walls. I'm just thinking, right, Yeah, I guess so. But he's funny. Bruno's funny.

[David Sims]

When you got John leg.

[Griffin Newman]

I know, but when he does, like, when he puts the helmet on his head. What's up?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

We talk about Bruno on this podcast. We don't talk about him that much.

[Griffin Newman]

We don't do that.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

We don't. We don't talk about. I'm not saying we can't. I'm just saying we don't do it very often.

[David Sims]

Just a Bruno aside, since you took.

[Griffin Newman]

Us there, please, please tell me something about Bruno.

[David Sims]

I love to think that was probably the not easiest song to write, but.

[Griffin Newman]

It was crazy because it's quite a complex song.

[David Sims]

It's a very complex song. And I was. I knew it was come. Like, I. I remember actually we were in lockdown at the time, so I was living with my in laws and my brother in law.

[Griffin Newman]

That's fun.

[David Sims]

That's a lot of this.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait, is encanto, like, a lot of.

[David Sims]

The secret sauce of what's in there. The juice in there is like, stuck in a house. What are we allowed to talk about from your mother.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

This is making a lot of sense, no?

[Griffin Newman]

And as someone who lives with his in laws.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Really resonates.

[David Sims]

But I do remember, like, actually stealing away and going to another place to write Bruno and being like, let me go write this somewhere else. Because it's a lot to work out. But the idea for it of, like, it's going to be a spooky Montuno. And every story they tell about Bruno is actually easily explained away because we're going to have to see it from another angle.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, when Dolores says that she can hear him, she can hear him.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Well, she has very big ears, but.

[Griffin Newman]

She doesn't know that. It's like she thinks she can just, like. Right. Like, Dolores doesn't actually know he's in the walls. Right. She's got the little aside where she's saying she can hear him. But I think she's more thinking of it metaphorically.

[David Sims]

I like to think of it that Dolores is known. She's known the whole time, but she also has learned, like, when we don't talk about Bruno. So it's just Dolores, my favorite character.

[Griffin Newman]

The power I would want.

[David Sims]

Cursed with knowledge that everyone, you know, that's, you know, Dolores, the ultimate gossip.

[Griffin Newman]

Because she can hear everything.

[David Sims]

But. But that's the thing. She could be the ultimate gossip, but she keeps all these secrets because she hears everything in the town.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Now, see, I have neither seen this movie 6 million times nor written all the songs for it. But my interpretation. Maybe this holds less water.

[Griffin Newman]

I will also say I think Camilo's powers are crazy. The fact that he can shape shift, he mostly uses it to, like, hold other people's babies. There's a lot to explore with Community.

[David Sims]

Oh, he was much more nefarious because.

[Griffin Newman]

He'S, like, a little.

[David Sims]

And then they were like, we like this kid. So then. Yeah. Well, it became like we are in survival of the town.

[Griffin Newman]

Of course. Right. Right there. It's like a heroic duty, kind of.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Yeah. He used to just. He was just doing it to. With her a lot in the early drafts.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I was gonna ask, because her ears are so big, is there an interpretation that she can hear Bruno, but she doesn't think he's that close? Like, she's like, well, of course I can hear him, but he might be, like, 40 towns away.

[David Sims]

I can hear everybody. I think she echolocates him pretty easily.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

So she.

[David Sims]

Weird magical rules in that house.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Like, the fact they're magical rules.

[David Sims]

I just mean where in space he might be. Actually might be tougher.

[Griffin Newman]

Rooms are bigger on the inside.

[David Sims]

Rooms are bigger.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Now. And is it true that when Stephanie had to do the family magical live, you were like, I don't know how you do this live, by the way. Right. This song was not written well. So.

[David Sims]

Yeah. So I love that song. I showed up to that. You're talking about the Hollywood bowl, right? Performance.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey, we'll do the songs live. Have fun.

[David Sims]

I got there, like, as they were in mid rehearsal. And I think Jamal Sims, who choreographed the Sequences for the animated movie staged that. And I think he staged it unbelievably. The one thing I would have said was, like, let the other people sing the chorus so that Stephanie can breathe. Like, I think.

[Griffin Newman]

Overwhelming.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I just. I. That's the one thing where I was like, we could have given her a break here and no one would have minded. Like, the company could have swept in, be like, welcome to the fuck. Yeah. And she could have breathed so that she could get ready for the next.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You also could make a bit out of her breathing sequence. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And like the run at the end where my sister. You know, I don't know how you do that. Anyway, it's really hard.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I was. I hope.

[David Sims]

I hope we get like a. Like, I get a crack at, like, figuring out what the theatrical version I love would be.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Love. Love to see there's more that are more.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Because it's proper, somewhat suited to a location. Yeah. It's still, you know, I. Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It feels like a very obvious conversion now.

[Griffin Newman]

Will my daughter ever realize that Maribel's name is Maribel? She just calls her Encanto. Everyone else's name. She knows.

[David Sims]

They were like. There was like, an interview. Like, they got audio footage of Trump at the Kennedy center, and he was like. And then Betty Buckley gets up and sings Cats. I was like, she doesn't sing Cats. She sings Memory.

[Griffin Newman]

He's so crazy. Anyway, Broadway depth of knowledge. So, like, it's both insanely off. And you're kind of like, what?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's like three years. It's like people who, like, hyper fixate on the SNL cast when you were like, Phantom.

[David Sims]

And those are the ones.

[Griffin Newman]

Those are his baby. Les Mis.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, boy.

[David Sims]

Well, we all agree on Les Mis.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes. Good show. Yeah, it's great. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

So we haven't discussed Hoffman.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, I think we should discuss Hoffman.

[Griffin Newman]

It's. It's not like he's not a comic performer. He has given other comic performances that are very funny.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He's almost underrated as a comic book.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. Like Wag the Dog or.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

His reputation for being so intense was overwhelming that even when he made giant hit comedies, they were like, yeah, but Dustin Hoffman's the most serious man alive.

[Griffin Newman]

Tootsie, obviously, is this, like, big hit comedy and he is funny in it, but it's some. Somewhat of a dramatic performance that he's.

[David Sims]

Playing a method actor.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Stumbles.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But he's both comedic situation in the self parody and also, then, like Dorothy Michaels is a very funny performance which he plays with death. Depth and integrity.

[Griffin Newman]

But when you think about Hoffman at this point, it's like he wins the Oscar for Rayman in 88. That's his second Oscar. Obviously. That's this like insanely big methody performance, right? He follows it with Family Business, which is basically forgotten. The Connery, Broderick, Hoffman, a movie.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I'm obsessed with the notion of a Sidney Lumet film in which the poster is. Of course, these three people are related. Connery, Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman father, Matthew Broderick. They all have the exact same voice.

[Griffin Newman]

Then Dick Tracy, in which he is mumbles.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right? And I think that was shot the day after he won the Oscar. And he had like 103 degree temperature.

[Griffin Newman]

That's insane.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

There's some story about that.

[Griffin Newman]

Billy Bathgate, a sort of notorious flop of 1991. And then hook is the. So like, it's just like it feels like he is going for something completely different post Raymond. Right. You know, he's like, I want to.

[David Sims]

Do having a blast.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

To have fun. And.

[David Sims]

And by the way, like, his sword fights with Robin Williams, it's like legit good.

[Griffin Newman]

It's one reason I like the movie. Like, you know, or I forgive the movie sometimes it has fencing in it. Any movie with fencing in it. I'm serious. It's how I feel about the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I'm like, if you're gonna give me fencing sequences, we don't get those in movies ever.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I just don't really care about fencing thing.

[Griffin Newman]

You don't like sword football? You like Star Wars?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I love Star. I love.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you like lightsaber fighting? Which is just, of course, sci fi fantasy.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I just need the swords to glow.

[Griffin Newman]

So you don't like, like your classic Errol Flynny stuff, like you never got into your.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Robin Hood. But I. But I've always been cooler on the pirates movies than you.

[Griffin Newman]

I do. I do love. I like sword fighting. Yeah. Really? It's because it's like, damn.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I don't think I dislike sword fighting, but I'm just realizing I. It doesn't. Doesn't activate me in the same way.

[David Sims]

I like two blades coming out of at the same time.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Like, I mean, that sounds Duel of the Fates, right?

[Griffin Newman]

I. I think Hoffman's sword fighting and this is also impressive because he's wearing that coat and stuff like, like in the stockings and the wig and everything. He's got so much presence in this movie. It is a wildly committed performance. Like there.

[David Sims]

How about the lip twitch shot where you just see the mustache? Like, I Mean, there's great. He's just. He's acting awful.

[Griffin Newman]

He's really going for living cartoon kind of similarly to mumbles. Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You know, zoom out in this Hoffman context for a second because there's some things here. Lynn is leaning back to zoom out. Yeah, yeah, zoom all the way out. His 60s and 70s are obviously huge.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He pops at the end of the 60s back to this thing of, like, him not being thought of as a comedy performer. Kramer, he breaks through in the Graduates.

[David Sims]

He's so funny.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Tootsie's like, his highest grossing films ever are Tootsie and Meet the Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And Kramer versus Kramer was like a gigantic hit.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes, you're right.

[Griffin Newman]

You're right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But I'm like, Rain man is a comedy.

[Griffin Newman]

It is.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That is like.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a dramedy. It's a dramedy, but a lot of it is funny. And he farts and so on and so forth.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right. Like, one of his two Oscars is for a comedy. You know, like, a lot of biggest films are comedies.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, calling Rain Man a comedy is interesting because I'm sure I'm gonna triple check, but I'm sure it won the Golden Globe for, like, drama or whatever. Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Like, it's very similar to Terms of Endearment in that sort of, like, it is a very funny movie that then gets to some very heavy places.

[Griffin Newman]

Right, right. Do you like Rain Man? Rain Man's kind of an under discussed movie too, for our generation.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I, I.

[Griffin Newman]

Uncomfortable.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I mean, I mean, we know so much more about that than we did then. And it's treated as this weird, curious quirk. But. But yeah, I remember, like, weird. I actually weirdly remember the Oscar montage where they showed Hoffman's, like, clip of him being scared of burning the baby. Like, I remember that clip and then cutting back to Hoffman being like, oh, yeah, I killed it.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

There was a clip I'm obsessed with, and I sent the group chat and I'll have Marie reposted on social media, but it was 98 or 99, I want to say Golden Globes. They gave Dustin Hoffman the Cecil B. DeMille Award. And he's sitting there with his wife and they play a clip from why am I forgetting the name Little Big Man. And he leans over to his wife and clearly mouths good makeup. Right. He's just kind of like sitting there and they're playing clips and he's just kind of like making little commentary on it. And then they play a clip from Hook and he looks frozen. In his chair, and he's, like, grimacing, and he's like. And I think it does sort of speak to. In that moment.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you think he doesn't like that? It's just that movie wasn't enough of a hit. Or do you think he's like, oh, I'm going too hard?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But it was. I had a very strong memory of it in my childhood, especially growing up in a household.

[Griffin Newman]

I think he's cooking in Hook. Yeah, he's cooking.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I think he is doing a very committed work in Hook. I. I think there was no reason for him to be embarrassed by anything he didn't hook. And I was sort of like, do I have a false inflated memory of this? Because I remember him having a really bad reaction. And I rewatched it, and it was. Was bigger than I remembered it from childhood. But he has this weird 80s. After winning his first Oscar for Kramer vs Kramer. He does start to get in this period of like, is Dustin Hoffman too difficult? You know, this, like, sentiment that people would repeat of, like, life's too short to work with Dustin Hoffman for everything he gives as an actor.

[Griffin Newman]

Famously ornery guy.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You're gonna get stuck in, like, four years of notes, and he's gonna battle you on every single thing. And he doesn't make many movies in the 80s.

[Griffin Newman]

He made four movies total in the 80s, right? Yes, it's. It's. I can find it, but it's Ishtar, Tutor, Tootsie, Family Business, and Rain Man. Yeah, that's it.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right. And so, like, 90s.

[Griffin Newman]

He also did his Death of a Salesman, which was then broadcast on tv, which is this, like, insanely polarizing performance. Some people are like, one of the best Willie Lomans ever. Others are like, he doesn't understand that role at all. Like, it's. I always being debated that. That performance.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, but, like, Tootsie was kind of like a comeback movie after he had only recently won the Oscar. And then he disappears for a bunch of years, comes back with the movie. That shorthand for flop. Even though we love Ishtar, or I love Ishtar and he's really funny, and then he gets a second Oscar, and it's like, he's coming into the 90s. Like, I'm here to stay. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

He made a lot of movies in the 90s. Dick Tracy, Billy, Bic, Hook, Hero, Outbreak, Sleepers, Mad City.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Feels like such a big swing for him to be like, can I do a full movie where I'm the title character? You're sort of framing the movie Around. Wait until Hook gets here. Right. Like, that is the cell of the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He's first build and Dustin Hoffman's gonna go hard as Hook. He looks incredible.

[David Sims]

I. I think. I mean, saying all that, I think the fact that he looks like he's having so much fun is even more impressive. Like, he got the veneers in. He's got all the stuff on doing.

[Griffin Newman]

This accent, and he still looks like.

[David Sims]

He'S having a blast.

[Griffin Newman]

I think he looks like he's having a great time. Yeah. Ben, do you like cooking?

[Ben Hosley]

He looks awesome. His costume is incredible.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, good. Good form. Good for. I think he really nails also the. When Peter, like, humiliates him back near the end and robs him of his wig and suddenly he's like, you know, on the floor and he looks like an old man Peter. Right? And he's like, oh, I am.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Please, Peter.

[Griffin Newman]

My dignity. Like, he's, you know, you. You feel for him or whatever. You know, like, he is this odd, tragic, like, shadow to Peter. Like, he only exists in opposition to Peter. You're sort of rooting for him to get to play. You want him to have fun.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

There's the bit. I'm biased, but our friend David Lowry's Peter Panawendi, which I like a good deal, has the bit that I love, which is spoiler for a movie that went on Disney plus four years ago. There is a midsection where Captain Hook believes he has successfully killed Peter Pan and Jim Gaffigan is Smee. And Hook's kind of like, so what do I do now? And he's like, let's check the to do list. And the to do list has one thing on it, which is just kill Peter Pan. And I just. While watching this movie, I think, same gag exactly. Over and over again. It just makes it, like, textual in this, but it's just like the guy's got nothing else going on other than his hatred for this kid.

[Griffin Newman]

Other things I need to say. The food sequence. Yeah, the. You know, you have to access your inner child to see the pretend food that we eat sequence. What's up with the day Glo pastries.

[David Sims]

It's that. That feels very Nickelodeon coated. It's just like green pink, but it's.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Also just like bowls of frosting.

[Griffin Newman]

I guess that's sort of the idea. Kids like to eat turkey legs and then a big old bowl of frosting.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Like your thug butts. Like, clearly preparing a sandwich. He's doing his object work. He's laying it in, and then all anyone has is Just globs of thug.

[Griffin Newman]

But does his object work when he turns into an object, knock people over?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

His ultimate object work? Yeah. You think he did that in his mad TV audition? Here's my impression of a ball.

[Griffin Newman]

Peter's insults to ruio kind of largely don't hit, except for nearsighted gynecologist, which is one of the craziest things ever said in a movie that is rated you in the uk.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It kind of. I'm also just like, what is the insult there? I don't call him a perv.

[Griffin Newman]

It is funny. Yeah. I guess it's sort of like someone who's sort of like, well, wait a second, you know, to get closer. I don't know. Yeah, I think Robin Williams came up with that himself.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes. It is an example for me, though, of a scene, the movie where I'm like, he's maybe going full Robin too early.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, that is supposed to be when it's starting to bleed over.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Starting.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah. Is there other. You know, I'm just trying to make, you know, is there other things, Lynn, in your notes, Are there any things we need to think about leading him to Wendy's house? Yeah, yeah. And all this sort of flashbacky stuff. That's when he really Peter Pan.

[Ben Hosley]

That's when he remembers.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

That's such an important moment.

[Griffin Newman]

I know the emotion of you are my happy thing. You know what I mean? Like, it's one of those things where I'm like, I find it treacly. As a kid, I think I was sort of like, can we get back to the lost Boys, please? Now, like I said, you know, I can't help it resonate with me a little bit.

[David Sims]

We're dads now.

[Griffin Newman]

It's different.

[David Sims]

It's different.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but. But it is part of my problem with Hook where I'm like, who is this for? Right. You know, like, I'm not sure. Right. But with the caveat that, yes, I enjoyed it as a child, you know, so, like, I sort of defy my own logic there. But as an adult, I'm like, this isn't for kids enough. Like, it needs to be for kids more, maybe, but I don't know. And maybe I'm just, you know, being a bit of a mud, you know.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But can I call out a thing I do like in this movie, please? I like Hook's closet or. Or I guess secondary ship full of clocks.

[Griffin Newman]

His room of clocks. Right. His house of clocks.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That his way to blow off steam is to just beat the out of clocks.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. He Hates clocks as the original Captain Hook, of course, because the crocodile has a clock in him. Yeah, that's fun. The clock smashing sequence is very fun. The baseball sequence is great. The final sequence is interesting because it's goofy at times and it's like an episode of Nickelodeon's Guts at times. And they have a chicken laying eggs into an egg shooter.

[Ben Hosley]

The chicken is the clip and the gun.

[Griffin Newman]

Chicken is the clip. Fucking rules, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah, it does rule.

[Griffin Newman]

And yet at the same time you're like, rufio died.

[David Sims]

Rufio will never draw casualties.

[Griffin Newman]

And I, I. Doesn't really make any sense. You just kind of have to like, wash your hands.

[David Sims]

They brought him into a gunfight.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, forget it, Jake. It's Never Never Land. Like, I don't really know what you're supposed to say like, to all of this, except that it's like this is actually just a psychodrama that Peter is resolving within himself. Right. You know what I mean? Like, this is all fake. Peter just needed to learn to fucking be a kid and a grown up at the same time. Like, he had to liberate his kid self and like, return to Never. Neverland. A whole return to England. England land. A whole person with his children and Right.

[David Sims]

England. England.

[Griffin Newman]

You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, don't think about never in the land too hard as like a real place that children are stuck in. Right. Because then you will go insane.

[David Sims]

That's correct.

[Griffin Newman]

But then again, you do have Tootles in like the real world being like, yeah, I used to live there. Thank you for giving me my normal.

[David Sims]

I left them there. There.

[Griffin Newman]

Who is. Who plays Tootles? Arthur Malay. He's in Mary Poppins.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Oh, he's the. He's the right hand man to the. The next door neighbors.

[Griffin Newman]

Who. Mr. Dodge Junior. Yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

My favorite bit.

[Griffin Newman]

It is crazy that in Mary Poppins they put up with a guy shooting a cannon every hour. Or is this at sunset? Is it just once a day that he shoots the cannon? You know, where they all have to be. Like, he's about to shoot the cannon. Hold all the paintings.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I'm trying to remember.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I think it's once.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe it's just.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I think it's at noon.

[Griffin Newman]

Nonetheless.

[David Sims]

Noon and midnight. Just midnight?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes. You know what else is crazy? That movie introduces them before it introduces the darlings.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Because that's a slow entry. Right. Like, let's learn about the road they live on.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

First it was a thing that like, really stuck with me as a child. Like, that's A movie that is, like, so deeply imprinted in me. And went to see it recently. Screen.

[Griffin Newman]

I've watched it a lot with my.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And I was just like, every single part of this is, like, tattooed on my brain. And I've spent so much time, like, trying to unpack.

[Griffin Newman]

I love Mr. Bank so much. He's such a funny.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

One of the greatest performances.

[Griffin Newman]

So funny.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes. But, like, just that little detail of just like. And just before we even get to our main characters, we want to get.

[David Sims]

To a canon guy, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. It's like.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And this is never gonna, like, pay off in a bigger way, but it's gonna continue to be here.

[David Sims]

Just texture.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, Just texture.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Just. Anything else we need to say about Hook? I'm just asking again. I'm just. I'm just.

[David Sims]

I'm just sort of no ruo Ruio. Important to the point where I'm on a rap song about Rufio with Dante Baskin.

[Griffin Newman]

Now, we said. We said we would talk about this, you and I. So you tell me more about this. What is the song?

[David Sims]

So my friend I'm friends with. He's on this. He's most probably most well known for.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The series Ghosts, what was part of a freestyle.

[David Sims]

Yeah, But I've known him since freestyle. Perfect.

[Griffin Newman]

He's.

[David Sims]

We've done a million things together, and he's. And he's one of my best friends. And he kind of just like, does singles every once in a while. And he was like, I'm doing a song. He was like, do you want to be on any rap song I write? And I go, I don't really do that. I'm not like a rap. Like, I write hip hop music, but not really for myself. And he goes, but it's Rufio with. And Dante Basco is going to be on it. I was like, okay, I'll do it.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like, it was pretty much. It was pretty much the way you guys pitched me Hook. I was like, okay, I'm gonna do that.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. When we lied to you. Said that Dante Basco was gonna.

[David Sims]

Dante's on it. Okay, I'm in. I'm in. And so we just wrote this song about how much Rufio rules and not going up and. And. And Dante has this kind of spoken word section at the end about what Rufio meant to kids of just like, you know, he was like, what we had when it comes to representation. Just like this absolute badass.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's so crucial who dies.

[David Sims]

Young and for our sins and. But rules.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He just rules JD and texting with us.

[Griffin Newman]

Do we like the cockadoodle? Do I really like that moment?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Sure. Okay, look, this movie's not my cup of tea, but jd. JD was making the case in text this morning that, like, part of the interesting tragedy of Rufio is the idea that he has had to be the one to maintain this in Peter.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Absence.

[Griffin Newman]

He said to be a quasi grown up himself. Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That there was a sense of resentment.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

In the fact that he was left to manage this. And then everyone's just the whole time waiting for, like, and when is Peter gonna come on?

[David Sims]

He's like the kid who's been told he has to be the man of the house who gets to be the only grown up in fucking Never Neverland.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Yes. And that is why when Peter returns, he's like, I don't believe it. You're not Peter. Because he left, like, and it would just be easy. Whatever. A lesser actor would do a worse job with it. And Rufio, you just really feel like this is an abandoned kid who really has a chip on his shoulder about it. It plays the emotion beautifully. It's a wonderful performance. My hat is off to the great Dante Basco.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

We did our very long episode on E.T.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure, shut up about E.T.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And my favorite Steven Spielberg movie. But I think part of the power of that ending for me is the idea that it's like you are seeing on Henry Thomas's face the notion, the feeling that everything he has just experienced has created a point of no return for him. He has been forced to mature in a way that he probably can't even put into words or process. But the intensity of the varied emotions and stakes he has felt over the last week or two that you have witnessed have, like, pushed him over a line in a way that I think is Spielberg expressing this feeling he felt of his parents divorcing, disillusioned, that relationship, him starting to become more of a parent figure to his younger siblings. All these things. As much as Spielberg got stuck in this permanent adolescence, he also was someone who was pushed into a kind of maturity. Started his career very young, was like a young whippersnapper trying to convince old fuddy duddies that they should trust him with money. That this interesting, like, one foot in both worlds thing, right, is like the core of Spielberg. And I think there is a. There is a feeling of insincerity in this movie that ties back to that JJ quote that I think is probably what he bumps against in re watching it. It in that it felt Like, I guess this is everyone telling me this is what I should be doing right now. And versus Jurassic park also being a theme park roller coaster movie where he's like, I just want to make something that's fun, that knocks audiences on their ass. I don't need to get serious and nuanced.

[David Sims]

And the difference between those two movies is structure. Like, yeah, Jurassic park has an incredible structure.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

So clean.

[David Sims]

And this has like a mushy. How did we get here? Don't think about it too much.

[Griffin Newman]

This movie has so much. Explain. Jurassic park is like, you've been invited to look at Jurassic Park.

[David Sims]

The juice in the stuff Spielberg cares about is all still there. He just does the structure doesn't support it.

[Griffin Newman]

Because Jurassic park is obviously about like a guy who has to learn to be a parent.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

This is what I'm building up.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. He's got to be with these kids.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

So I think Alan Grant is so unlike Spielberg as a character, and yet he is finding a way to express something more clearly through Alan Grant, which is like, hey, look, I'm just serious about my career. I just want to do my work. I don't have time for children. Right. And with Alan Grant, you could argue this is partially subtext. But Spielberg talking when he was younger about like, look, my parents did a number on me. My childhood was weird and sad. I don't want to start that cycle again somewhere else. Right?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But the self seriousness of Sam Neill playing Alan Grant with full intensity, doing a real little boy's dream thing of I dig up dinosaur skulls all day.

[David Sims]

It's true.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And being like, please let me do my serious grown up business. I have no time for children. And needing to just.

[David Sims]

And the shots in that of like them seeing the dinosaurs, that's like the childlike wonder. Like, and it's us too Holy. They did it. They made dinosaurs real. I'm looking at dinosaurs.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right? And he needs to understand how to like relate to children as people. Which is the thing that Spielberg talk about about through like making ET and working with child actors. Starting to be like, oh, maybe I could be a parent. I'm like understanding it now. Not thinking of them as like an alien species.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Versus like Peter Pan on its face and Peter Banning even more so. Feels like more of a 1 to 1 to Spielberg. And he was talking about this era. He had made Amblin. He had become a mogul. He had 80 plates spinning at all times. Anytime he makes a movie, it's a big production. He's doing the math on how long Am I going to be away from my kids? Kids? Do I feel guilty for owning a cell phone? A great crime. Drag me to the Hague. Right. But I just think and. And maybe is what makes this film interesting. But as someone with zero, like, childhood connection, nostalgia to it, in fact, was predisposed to dislike it. I. I'm just like, I don't know where he's landing here. And I don't want resolution or, like a cleanness, but it just feels, like, confused to me.

[Griffin Newman]

Hook, Ben, anything you want to say? Obviously, the Lost Boys are very Ben coated in general. We touched on most of that.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, we've touched on.

[Griffin Newman]

They have skeleton armor that hangs from spider webs.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, that's what I wanted to say. When they get battle ready.

[David Sims]

That's pretty.

[Ben Hosley]

They put on their stick armor that is hung by spider web and they just go into it.

[David Sims]

Yeah. They were waiting for this day.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's how you get dressed every morning. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Spider web hangings.

[Ben Hosley]

That image has really stuck with me, that visual. Another element that really stuck out to me was giant slingshot.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fun.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I love that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, they have fun. A lot of practical stuff.

[David Sims]

We're in a double dare era when this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

That's exactly it.

[David Sims]

Cool stuff like this is existing.

[Griffin Newman]

It was the whole thing that I all love, which I watched, of course, with the Aggro Crag, you know, where it was like. Like, kids don't know how to use bungee cords. And they're like, well, they're going to use bungee cords on guts and some of them are going to be good at it and others are going to spin in the air completely lost.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Well, my level of frustration.

[David Sims]

There's a cast member in Hamilton, Gregory Haney. He was also in a show I wrote called Bring it on the Musical. He won Global Guts as a kid. He's got the Agro Crag statue. Got a piece of that radical rock.

[Griffin Newman]

As a kid, I would have been like, the Agra Crag to me was like the fucking Great Pyramid of Giza or whatever. I'm like, that is one of the most important, like, places on Earth.

[David Sims]

It is. It is indeed. And it is the most impressive thing anyone has ever told me about themselves. Full stop.

[Griffin Newman]

That the Agra Crag and the Travelator from Gladiators. I was just like, these are like, right. These have existed since time immemorial.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I assume our friends at Podcast the Ride had MO from Global Guts on their show. Show.

[David Sims]

Whoa.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And I reacted when I saw that episode title Drop the way you do, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Let's go to Mo's leaderboard.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And she was talking. They filmed that show at Universal Orlando. And during the day, the rest of the week, she just did various jobs around the Universal Orlando theme park. And they were like, what do you mean? She was like, yeah, that show paid nothing. And we would do like it was.

[Griffin Newman]

15 episodes every year. Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And I'm just like. As a child, I was like, well, that's the most important person on the planet.

[Griffin Newman]

One of the top five.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

She's like the head of the U.N. what do they pay her? $5 million a segment.

[David Sims]

Oh my God.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

She had to pick up work on the side. Well, I was going to say watching.

[David Sims]

Those shows as a child shattered my reality.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I know when you, when you would watch like Legends of the Hidden Temple or you'd be like, these kids are driving me crazy. If I could get in there right now, I could do that so well. And then you get older and you're just like, wait. They were like on camera in a set that doesn't make sense. Sense backwards looking at the wrong side of the thing. Nick Arcade. They can't see the behind them. They're like punching a blue screen.

[David Sims]

Between that and like being able to correctly place every country in Africa in 60 seconds on Carmen San Diego. These are impossible. Childhood that we watched many times.

[Griffin Newman]

I was so locked into anything with maps.

[David Sims]

I never saw anyone beat Last thing of Carmen today.

[Griffin Newman]

It was kind of like how the Ultra Zord never actually appeared. It was like one time the Ultra Zord appeared and like There was no YouTube back then. Then it was just the playground. It was like, did you watch Power Rangers? They actually did the Ultra Zord. Remember they had to like call in a third zord from a volcano to do the Ultra Zord. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I'm, I'm just, I'm responding because I never did see the Ultra.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Just.

[Griffin Newman]

It was just fun. I never saw it either. I was so mad about it. Now I watch it on YouTube. Does that make me happy? No. This film came out December 13, 1991. Unsurprisingly, it was a big Christmas release. Yeah, they're big family movie. And it opened to $17 million and made 120 domestic and 300 worldwide, which was plenty of money. The film was profitable. Unsurprisingly. Also a massive VHS hit. It just wasn't the phenomenon I'm sure Sony hoped for.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You read the press excerpts from the time and they Were doing the kind of hand wringing that we're used to today, but I think was a little more unusual at the time of being like our back of napkin math says that the film won't reach break even until it hits $500 million.

[Griffin Newman]

Which was not true.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

True, no. But there was the opening weekend. Okay, so it's a hit, but is it a big enough hit? This is another interesting thing just to quickly mention is like this film is getting off the ground. Bless you. Very shortly after Sony buys Columbia Tristar.

[Griffin Newman]

Like Sony has just entered the movie.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Flag in the ground. That was part of the big maneuvering of like we're getting Hoffman and Spielberg and Williams to do this movie together. Is like we need a giant movie. And you look at the 80s and the 90s and it's just all the studios fighting over trying to get one Spielberg movie. Like he didn't have exclusive deals anywhere. And they were just like, if we could just get one Spielberg hit, we'd be so good.

[Griffin Newman]

It was the fourth biggest hit of 91. Like you know, it was a big hit.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

So the top film in 91 is Home Alone, Terminator 2. Home Alone comes out 90 homelands.

[Griffin Newman]

90.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

So is. And then Home Alone 2 is 92.

[Griffin Newman]

Don't ask me what Home Alone 2 is. Yes, it is.

[David Sims]

I think Terminator 2 is my oldest son's first R movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Hell yeah. It's a good first.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It does a perfect.

[David Sims]

I was like, let's, let's do this right. You're gonna see one. Let's make it. Let's start with a really good one.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Let's around is number two, Beauty and the Beast.

[Griffin Newman]

Number three is Beauty and the Beast. Number two, you won't get it is Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Oh.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is one of those things where you're like, we forget how much of a phenomenal was not like we've forgotten it.

[David Sims]

The song all summer.

[Griffin Newman]

Everything he does, he does it for you.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Where's Silence the Lambs?

[Griffin Newman]

Silence of the Lambs is number five.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right below Hook. Yep. Wow.

[Griffin Newman]

And right above jfk. And then you got Naked Gun, two and a half, Adams family, Cape Fear and Hot Shots.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

What a ten.

[Griffin Newman]

What an era. Number one of the box office is Hook. Number two. The box office new this week is the opposite of Hook. Talk about an R rated movie. An action comedy filled with swearing and guns and boobs. Only some boobs. It's just like It's a lurid ass 90s action movie.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Is it like a Shane Black?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, you got, you got that Right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Is it a last boy Scout?

[Griffin Newman]

That's right.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Okay, There we go.

[Griffin Newman]

Tony Scott's the last boy Scout.

[David Sims]

Bullet through the football.

[Griffin Newman]

Bruce Willis, Damon Wayans. Fun. A really peppy movie. Feels like that movie really, like, had some, you know, went to the bathroom and came out feeling really energized. You know what I mean?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That movie took a very effective nap during its lunch break.

[Griffin Newman]

Last Boy Scott is also new this week. Interesting counter programming to hook. Right. It's like, you know, we number three at the box office. It's a sci fi sequel.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's Sci fi sequel. Solid hit in December 19th.

[Griffin Newman]

We've covered it on this podcast.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

We've covered it on this podcast. It's not a Trek.

[Griffin Newman]

It is a Trek.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It is a Trek. Is it the final frontier?

[Griffin Newman]

Nope.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's the undiscovered country.

[Griffin Newman]

Star Trek 6. The Undiscovered Country. Do you care care about Star Trek when?

[David Sims]

No, not.

[Griffin Newman]

You've got a lot of interests. I feel like Star Trek would be.

[David Sims]

Like for you to take on. That's my one big pop culture blind spot. Doctor who and Star Trek. I just, I missed the boat too much to catch up on.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I've been trying to corrected slowly over the last couple years. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Number four, the box office. It's a big family comedy. Big smash hit. The sequel's way better.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The sequel is way. Oh, it's the Adams Family. The Adams family, which is one of the best movies ever made. But of course, Adams family values is the single best film ever made.

[Griffin Newman]

I like the Adams Family. It's just, I do feel like Adams family values just sort of has everything down.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But I, I, I think sometimes you undersell the first one a little it.

[Griffin Newman]

And you know what? I haven't seen it in a long time.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's really good.

[Griffin Newman]

It's got great stuff.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. Value is the great Roswell.

[David Sims]

Julia.

[Griffin Newman]

The greatest of all time. I mean, do you agree? I mean, like, I really feel like he is one of those guys where it's like, if I had a time machine. I would like to go see every, like, Broadway role.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Absolutely.

[David Sims]

I would want to go see him and Meryl Streep at the Delacorte or whatever.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It is the shame with him that you're like, there is a handful of fantastic film performances, but if you dig in, people are like, yeah, but like 90% of his important work happened on the stage. And he was like, and you'll never be able to see.

[Griffin Newman]

He's one of the most important, like, Puerto Rican actors to ever live right. Like One of the earliest, like, Puerto Rican, like, success stories in America. Like on a whatever. On that scale, on the sort of a list.

[David Sims]

Going to listen to him just singing some crazy charming shit is Two Gentlemen of Verona.

[Griffin Newman]

Have never listened.

[David Sims]

It's the same composers as Hair, the musical.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like a rock.

[David Sims]

It's like a rock version of Two Gentlemen of Verona. And it's just. Just Raul Julia being charming as hell. Over, like, banging beats that up.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

One from the heart that is bottled liquid charm.

[Griffin Newman]

He's very, very charming.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He is.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's great. And he's in that movie, which is out and is making a lot of money. Number five at the box office. It's an animated film.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Is it Beauty and the Beast?

[Griffin Newman]

Beauty and the Beast.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Beauty and the Beast. Hills is also good.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you like Beauty and the Beast?

[David Sims]

I eat six eggs.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You must like Beauty.

[David Sims]

I love Beauty and the Beast.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Is so good.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's. No, it's an absolute stone cold classic.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I mean, look, we, we. We talked about it on this show, but it's just like when you actually zoom into. It's a recurring theme in your work and the, the figures that you're obsessed with. But the level of work that ash been put out in such a short period of time is crazy. And the impact and the lasting, like, echoes of it, just insane.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the one where he comes in late, right. Where he's busy with Aladdin and they're like, can you come fucking take a look at this? Beauty and the Beast. That's not working. Like, right. Like, he, like, did that for him.

[David Sims]

Yeah. They brought Aspen and Menkennel, I believe, onto that already in progress. And then they wrote this crazy opening number where by the end of it, you understand everyone and everything in the town.

[Griffin Newman]

She fucking. It's just ridiculous. She goes in there and is like. Let me tell you about Jack and the Beanstalk. The guy owns the library and she's trying to tell him about Jack and the Bean. He knows about it.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's an uneducated town. He's just in it for the money, for that sweet, sweet library money. No, but he writes like those three movies in like 18 months, basically, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And basically simultaneously, I recently watched Oliver.

[Griffin Newman]

And Company for the first time with my daughter.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I like this one quite a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

It's fun.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's fun.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And he's got the.

[David Sims]

That was the only Hispanic representation in the Disney canon for many years.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow.

[David Sims]

I've seen that movie. That one I saw in the theaters for sure.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

And of course, it's very different now. Have Cheech Marin as Ramone in the Cars universe.

[David Sims]

It's true. It's true. They brought him back. I'm very happy to hear that.

[Griffin Newman]

Also in the top 10, you've got my Girl.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Oh, sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Another family classic of our youth. You've got Kate Fear not. A family classic. Well, it is.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It is about a movie.

[Griffin Newman]

It's about a family.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's a family film.

[Griffin Newman]

You've got for the boys, the Bet Midler James Con musical dramedy, Saluting. Absolutely. You have a little movie about a little guy called. Called Fievel. Going west.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

He's going west, yeah. That was one of the earliest films I saw in theater that I definitely saw in theaters. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And you have the adorable John Hughes comedy Curly sue with Jim Belushi, which I don't think I've ever seen.

[David Sims]

And Sis Eisenberg, that's Jesse Eisenberg's sister, is Curly Sue.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that right?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Really?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I thought it was. I thought Curly sue was someone else. Sis Eisenberg, Pepsi girl, and the girl from Paulie, which I swear not.

[David Sims]

Also Curly suit.

[Griffin Newman]

She's not curly. Oh, my God.

[David Sims]

I've conflated them all into one.

[Griffin Newman]

Is the girl delightful curly haired girl? Because I was sort of like this.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

She is.

[Griffin Newman]

She's too young. Right.

[David Sims]

Sister?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Is Curly suit. I've never seen Curly Sue. What do you think?

[David Sims]

I have either. I'm doing this in my mind purely for She's a con artist poster.

[Griffin Newman]

She's like a. She's like a cutesy orphan.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah. Alison Porter, original cast member of the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line.

[Griffin Newman]

Of the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line. Okay, Well, I don't know. For the Broadway revival.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Okay, Well, I don't have to tell.

[Griffin Newman]

You though, that's what's top 10 at the box office.

[David Sims]

I like snobbery. We've seen on display here. We have the Anti Hook household and the like a revival.

[Griffin Newman]

The original cast pulled it off. Okay.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Kelly, Bishop, Lindis. What keeps the show fresh after 10.

[David Sims]

Years makes me so happy.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The dynamics are constantly switching around.

[David Sims]

It's what keeps me listening.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, it's very nice of you to say. And it's been very nice of you to join us to discuss Hook.

[David Sims]

Thank you. I'm sorry I couldn't bring more primary sources this time. I just really brought my own feelings.

[Griffin Newman]

Bring your own feelings.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You brought your truth. You brought your truth and that's all we asked for on the show.

[David Sims]

Thank you.

[Ben Hosley]

I was talked out of bringing a hook to the recording, which I'm kind of bummed about. I think we could have spent a little time just discussing hooks in general.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Ben, I don't want to embarrass you, but I just clocked something. Did you hide the chains because Lynn was coming?

[Ben Hosley]

No, they're. They're at the gallery.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

What chains?

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I then usually has a display of chains. Okay.

[Ben Hosley]

My friend created an. A sculpture for the office, which is. It's a chain display. It's various different sizes of chains from some pipes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Ben loves chains and pipes.

[Ben Hosley]

It's just an aesthetic that I've always really appreciated in cinema.

[David Sims]

And stones may break your bones, but whips and chains excite you.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes, precisely.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Wow.

[David Sims]

Well, that's amazing.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

What a wordsmith.

[David Sims]

Oh, I wish I could take the credit. That's pink.

[Ben Hosley]

But, no, I would have had a. I would have had a spotlight on it if I.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I just want to make sure. I just want to make sure. You'd be hiding your truth.

[David Sims]

No, no, not at all. I'm. I'm also. As we're saying goodbye, so I will keep it very short, remembering my other connection to Hook, as he mentioned whether we should have brought hooks to this recording. I played Captain Hook in the sixth grade play.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Whoa.

[David Sims]

I was Captain Hook. And it was like, it's the old timey Broadway version, which has a weird hodgepodge of, like, Rod kind of contributed some material, but then they brought in ringers to write other songs. Like, it's, like, actually a weirdly collaborative score, and that was a big deal. Like, I got to wear a wig, and I got. I had a fake hook that I then had as a prop for many years in my house.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Did you paint on a goatee and go, wait a second. This looks good?

[David Sims]

Yeah. I painted on a goatee and said, I think this is gonna be my look going forward. I'll wait till this grows in.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I'm almost surprised you didn't play Pan.

[David Sims]

Yeah, well, Evan Newman was just a much better singer than me.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Well, I mean, you're not gonna be.

[David Sims]

I'm not gonna beat Evan.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It was a lot easier to get financing with him as pants. True.

[David Sims]

He was a great Peter Pan. He's a wonderful actor.

[Griffin Newman]

I feel like classically Peter Pan played by an adult woman. Right. Like, that's.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's true.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Allison Williams approach in Peter Pan live.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Sort of notorious moment in pop culture.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I feel.

[David Sims]

Peter Pan history.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Lynn, I feel ridiculous asking this, but anything you want to plug is There anything relative to when this is coming out that feels the only crossover.

[David Sims]

I have nothing to plug. I'm here because I adore you guys.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

You're too kind.

[David Sims]

But. But I. I did have a chance to talk with Frank Marshall because I did write a musical adaptation of a movie early in his filmography, the Warriors.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely, yes, yes.

[David Sims]

So I wrote, I will say the Warriors.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The vibe of the warriors does feel like a. A. You are maturing up from Rufio and the Lost Boys to the Warriors. I want to make it clear the warriors exist before.

[David Sims]

Warriors are also very stylized gangs.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But I imagine you watch this first and then discover the words. Or were they about to.

[David Sims]

I wish. Again, I will refer you to my unsupervised childhood. I saw warriors when I was 4 years old.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Wild.

[David Sims]

Like older brothers VHS, like friends older Brothers VHS cassette. And like that. I imprinted on that as like, oh, that's what makes where I live is like at night. And like, needed to write a whole musical with my friend Issa Davis to like, work it out.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I saw cinematic the Wiz again recently, which is one of my absolute favorite movies and one of the movies I've watched the most in my life.

[David Sims]

I was an add a pearl backup in the Wiz in 6th grade too.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That's wild. But I had a. I had a similar thing where for the first time, I think I unlocked why I'm so hyper fixated on that movie. And it was. I think this movie spoke to the way I felt as a child living in a city I love that feels inherently hostile.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, the Whiz. Sooner I'd have been printed on that. But I saw the warriors first. And so. So, yeah. So anyway, anyway, that's an album. You can get it now. A lot of amazing people are on it. Yes. Ms. Lauryn Hill, Ghostface, Nas. It's just crazy. We got a crazy. Because it's an album and not a thing people have to do eight times a week. We just got the all star cast of our dreams to play different parts on it.

[Griffin Newman]

That. I mean, it's awesome. I've listened to it many times.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Hopefully if it goes to Broadway, you can book Eric Newman.

[David Sims]

Evan. Evan would be great. Evan would go on to. I directed west side Story my senior year in high school and he was my riff.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Hey, yeah.

[David Sims]

No, no, Evan's the real deal. He's great.

[Griffin Newman]

Excited for everything coming up, whatever it is. Be it that and other things. Excited for our next episode, Griffin, which is Jurassic Park. What's that about dinosaurs with the great Sean Fantasy.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

The great Sean fantasy is enjoy. Quite good, that episode.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's quite good.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

That was recorded 18 years.

[Griffin Newman]

It was recorded a long ass.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Weirdly, that episode is when we first met. We meet on Mike in that episode. We're like, should we do a podcast?

[Griffin Newman]

I am actually excited to listen to it because I have no memory of that conversation.

[David Sims]

I'm glad you frozen Amber. And you will.

[Griffin Newman]

That's right. Exactly. That episode will be brought out. Really frozen by Mr. DNA or whatever his name is.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you for joining us again.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Thank you so much for being here.

[Griffin Newman]

That's it, Hook. Come on, take us out.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Bang.

[David Sims]

Rang.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate and review. Tune in next week for Jurassic Park. And as always, Lyn, I'm sorry to do this, but one final piece of housekeeping I must ask. This. This is. This is not. I just need this. Purely a question. This isn't a request, it's a question. I need to close a loop that started on another podcast, the Great Doughboys podcast. I don't know if you're familiar, our favorite podcast. They review chain restaurants. Nick Weger and Mike Mitchell.

[Griffin Newman]

Very funny show.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I recently, when I was in Los Angeles, went and did an episode on Chuck E. Cheese with them. Okay, there is a song that plays in the rotation at Chuck E. Cheese. Now that is 100% Chuck E. Cheese doing Lin Manuel Miranda.

[David Sims]

No, I haven't been to a Chucky Cheese.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

It's called the Perfect Day. And the Doughboys associate producer, Amelia Marino said, I think they got the real Lynn for this. It sounds so much like him.

[David Sims]

I am so sorry to burst this ball.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

I promised I would get names.

[David Sims]

I have never heard of this song in my life.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

So I just to conclusively try to.

[David Sims]

Avoid taking my children to Chuck E. Cheese. Whenever possible. I keep them in the pits.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

But I. We just need to settle this issue. You have never written an original song for the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant?

[David Sims]

I have never had the pleasure of working with Charles Entertainment Cheese yet.

[Lynn Manuel Miranda]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Never say never.

[Ben Hosley]

Blank check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our Associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithee. Research by JJ Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell, artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on Social blankcheckpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.