John Carter with Matt Singer

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David

Episode: John Carter with Matt Singer

July 5, 2026

Guest: Matt Singer

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Episode Overview

This episode of Blank Check sees hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims joined by film critic and author Matt Singer to dive deep into John Carter (2012), Andrew Stanton's famously disastrous attempt at launching a Disney sci-fi franchise. The conversation traverses the troubled production, historical context, marketing debacle, casting choices, adaptation struggles, and the legacy of both film and source material, all peppered with Blank Check’s trademark humor and film-nerd rapport.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Marketing Fiasco & Hollywood's Mars Problem

[00:01 – 07:10]

• The episode opens with the hosts riffing on the film's lackluster tagline (“Lost in our world, found in another”) and its ultimately meaningless marketing approach—no “Mars” on the poster despite the story’s centrality to the red planet.
• David highlights how every “Mars movie” (e.g., Mission to Mars, Red Planet, Ghosts of Mars) bombed, with studios learning nothing from repeated failures.
• Memorable Quote [03:55, Griffin]:

  "Mars Needs Moms was like, hold my beer... And then John Carter was like, don’t worry, buddy, I got you."

• Matt notes the obligatory use of red in Mars movie marketing, which John Carter later defies out of confusion, switching to blue and yellow posters.

2. Silly Sci-Fi Words and Source Material Quirks

[07:18 – 14:00]

• The trio nerd out over the film’s abundance of made-up terms (“Thoats”, “Tharks”, “Barsoom”, “Helium”, “Zodanga”) and how their joy in such artifice might not translate to general audiences.
• David [05:59]:

  "That's always kind of catnip for us, even when the movie doesn't work. It is very, indeed, when a movie throws a bunch of silly words at you."

• They discuss the confusion of a city named “Helium” and the book’s century-old, primitive sci-fi nomenclature—what once seemed fresh now sounds hokey.

3. Apatow, Comedy, and Rise of the Franchise Machine

[12:37 – 19:23]

• As a tangent tied to Matt Singer’s upcoming book, the chat veers into the evolution and decline of R-rated Hollywood comedies, comparing the MCU’s franchise-building to the Judd Apatow repertory approach.
• Griffin:

  “That’s kind of what’s happening with Marvel now, where it's like, we know the format...”

4. The Disney Machine, Market Calculations, and John Carter’s Fate

[19:42 – 24:14]

• The Disney acquisition of Marvel and Lucasfilm is cited as shifting priorities: John Carter lost the corporate “must-succeed” mantle to sure bets like Star Wars and the MCU.
• Griffin [22:57]:

  “This movie is just kind of a dead man walking... But already they were sort of like, we have the two surest bets in Hollywood.”

5. Production History: Decades of Development Hell

[41:12 – 52:30]

• Extensive rundown of failed adaptation attempts from Bob Clampett’s 1930s animation test through the '80s/’90s (McTiernan, Zemeckis, Rodriguez, Favreau) and technological obstacles.
• Green-screen fever, virtual backlots, and a cycle of "this is our Star Wars" pitches—each time foiled by cost, technology, or lack of a needed hook.
• Favorite moment [48:55, Griffin]:

  “Sky Captain... It is unbelievably boring, but weirdly compelling.”

6. Andrew Stanton and the Pixar System Collide with Reality

[52:54 – 113:07]

• Stanton's passion for the John Carter novels, his “blank check” clout following Finding Nemo and WALL-E, and how he aimed to bring Pixar’s iterative process to live action.
• The writers’ room was “three little boys in a clubhouse being like, can we relocate what we loved about this?”
• David [61:52]:

  “Could it have benefited maybe from someone coming in who's like, I love sci fi adventure movies. I don’t love John Carter...”

7. Taylor Kitsch: The Industry’s “Gabo” and Casting Woes

[62:55 – 70:41]

• The concept of a “gabo”—an actor Hollywood tries to manufacture into a star.
• Taylor Kitsch’s attempt at leading man status via John Carter, Battleship, and Savages (all 2012)—all flops, after which he faded into supporting roles and TV.
• Matt [63:24]:

  “He is the man we love. Industry plant. Kind of.”

• Discussion of how Kitsch fit into this “wrong person for the right archetype” phenomenon.

8. Does John Carter Actually Work?

[73:34 – 112:38]

• Debate over whether Kitsch and Lynn Collins (Dejah Thoris) “work” in the film; issues are more with conception of the characters than outright bad acting.
• Stanton’s admiration for Buster Keaton/Chaplin comes through; John Carter is played as a bumbling fish-out-of-water, to mixed effect.
• Matt [84:37]:

  “There's a Buster Keaton kind of a thing, for sure… I just don't think it fits this movie the way it fit [WALL-E].”

• The script's structural flaws: the Therns’ villainy, confusing stakes, and a lack of a clear, emotionally resonant drive.
• Matt [106:13]:

  “There is something interesting in that... Andrew Stanton, the animator making his first very tentative, very bobbly steps into live action.”

• Pixar’s iterative storytelling process led to too many reshoots and wasted money, and didn’t suit live-action’s schedule and budget.

9. What Hollywood Learned (or Didn’t)

[113:07 – 120:25]

• Post-mortem: John Carter’s “let's fix it in post” approach became industry standard with Disney’s franchises—despite being blamed for this film’s failure.
• Pervasive problem identified: movies explaining too much and too little, muddying rather than clarifying.

10. Doomed Franchise Building and Blockbuster Homogenization

[120:25 – 161:12]

• The hosts compare John Carter with Avatar—the latter’s simplicity and clarity triumph where John Carter gets bogged down in mythology and ambiguity.
• John Carter tries to tee up a trilogy, Lord of the Rings-style, instead of making a satisfying stand-alone.
• Marvel’s approach of discrete, satisfying entries is praised; John Carter is cast as a last gasp of pre-franchise, pre-algorithmic blockbusters.
• David [154:50]:

  “That was the anger from audiences having seen this 15 times already of, I don't want to watch the movie that's telling me how good the next movie's going to be. Make the fucking movie right now.”

11. Legacy, Nostalgia, and Where it All Went

[160:10 – 163:01]

• The movie’s fate as the “purist” last stand of auteur-driven, visually coherent (if not always narratively satisfying) tentpoles is seen with some nostalgia.
• The hosts brace for a new era—Star Wars and Marvel both wobbling, as John Carter-style swings seem unrepeatable in franchise-heavy Hollywood.
• Griffin [162:28]:

  “There is just a little bit of, like, I don't know, there's a clarity to this movie in its messiness that feels that I'm almost a little nostalgic for.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Disney's acquisition spree:

  “They made a couple good buys.” – David [22:44]

• On the marketing fumble:

  “It is like going to be studied for decades.” – Griffin [168:26]

• Taylor Kitsch’s career post-2012:

  “He is allergic to the idea of being the center again. Understandably, he doesn't want that weight on him.” – Griffin [69:59]

• On all the “made up” terminology:

  “Is this like a thing that sci fi fans are—this is dusty.” – David [36:50]

• On the myth that “Princess” or “Mars” scare audiences:

  “No boy will see a movie with Princess in the title. They immediately pivoted to... Tangled... Frozen...” – Griffin [91:26]

• On the iterative ‘Pixar process’:

  “The goal is to be wrong as quickly as possible.” – Griffin [104:13]

• David’s Sum-Up:

  “There's very little of it that I love, though. Like, there's nothing that I'm like, I'm unambiguously into that.” [156:42]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:01–07:10: Opening riff on marketing, Mars movie failures
• 19:42–24:14: Disney’s shift to Marvel & Lucasfilm, John Carter's corporate fate
• 41:12–52:30: Production hell: Failed adaptations through the decades
• 61:52–70:41: Taylor Kitsch and the “Gabo” phenomenon
• 73:34–112:38: Examination of casting, character conception, and film's narrative incoherence
• 113:07–120:25: What Hollywood “learned” from the failure
• 154:50: Debating trilogy-building versus making one satisfying film
• 160:10–163:01: Reflection on blockbuster culture, Marvel, Star Wars’ new era

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Episode Flow & Tone

The conversation oscillates between deep-dive analysis and rapid-fire comedy, with self-deprecating asides (about audition failures, coffee taste-tests, and the hosts’ own nerdy predilections). The guest, Matt Singer, brings critical rigor but is comfortable joking along the wilder tangents (notably about X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Hollywood’s cyclical gaffes). The tone is analytical but playful, blending reverence for ambitious cinema with sarcasm for Hollywood's foibles.

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For Newcomers & Those Short on Time

• John Carter’s box office disaster was not just about creative failures—Disney’s shifting priorities and a uniquely incoherent marketing campaign condemned it from the start.
• The adaptation had been development hell for almost a century, finally greenlit only as a last-ditch attempt before Disney hit the big-money Marvel/Lucasfilm jackpot.
• The movie encapsulates a transition moment for blockbusters—caught between auteur passion, technological ambition, confused marketing, and a looming industrial shift toward Marvel-style serialization.
• Despite efforts, John Carter is ultimately more interesting as a case study (and punchline) than as a movie—its modest visual pleasures unable to overcome a muddled story and weak character work.

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Closing Thoughts

The hosts and guest agree: John Carter is a fascinating failure—the sort to provoke (loving) scrutiny, not scorn. The episode exemplifies Blank Check’s mix of comedy, criticism, and context, using the tale of one director’s “blank check” to illuminate an era when Hollywood was still willing to let visionaries try (and fail) spectacularly.

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Next week:
Finding Dory with Zach Cherry

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“And as always... Barsoom.”

Transcript

[Griffin Newman]

Blank Check with Griffin and David. Blankjack with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the shadow is blank. Jack, When I saw you, I believed it was a sign that something new can come into this podcast. That was my bad. Defoe Tars Tarkus. That was the big line they used in the trailer to sort of hint at the mystery of the film. Now, I was saying before, I think this movie famously didn't have a tagline. And we'll spend roughly half an hour on this movie's disastrous marketing campaign. Kind of as big a legacy as the film itself. But it did in fact have a tagline. And it's quite poor, I would say.

[David Sims]

What is the tagline? Let me guess. He's from Mars. No. I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

Lost in our world, found in another. And then of course, the title is John Carter. So Mars is nowhere on the poster. Oh.

[David Sims]

You have to watch the movie to find out what world he was found in.

[Griffin Newman]

And the poster is just bright red. That was their big move.

[Matt Singer]

This wasn't the one that had the jcm.

[Griffin Newman]

That was the teaser poster.

[Matt Singer]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

I want to say that was even maybe before the title had been changed. But that was big jcm, black and white.

[David Sims]

John Carter arrived.

[Griffin Newman]

That was the tagline telling you John

[David Sims]

Carter's coming people were the classic poster. Classic. Of course, the all red, right, Was this. Very red. Very red.

[Matt Singer]

I mean, it's kind of a cool image, I guess. Bad.

[David Sims]

You know, it's. Every Mars movie did this.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And this movie is post the Mars craze. I like to think about the Mars craze.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

Because I recently watched species 2 and I forgot that species 2 is the first Mars movie of this wave.

[Matt Singer]

Well.

[David Sims]

Because it was right after they'd found the. The meteor on Mars with. Or the thing on Mars. Well, what. What do you.

[Griffin Newman]

I was gonna say, I think some credits. Total Recall, which was a secret Mars movie.

[David Sims]

No, no, that doesn't count.

[Griffin Newman]

That gets his ass tomorrow.

[David Sims]

It doesn't count. There are pre Mars crazed Mars movies. Yeah, there's a few. There's the one that I bought the DVD for and keep me to watch where Sean Connery is like a cop on Mars called I think Outland. Yeah, just outland.

[Griffin Newman]

Outland. Okay.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's Total Recall. But there's. It's like Species two, Mission to Mars, Red Planet. There's a fourth one. Like there's a bunch of them all together for like two years.

[Griffin Newman]

Mission to Mars. And Red Planet were a true Deep Impact. Armageddon.

[Matt Singer]

Armageddon. Deep Impact. Yes. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And then they ended up moving a little further apart in dates because they were the competition. Eventually a year apart, but they were made simultaneously. It was like, which of the Mars movies is going to work? I throw out Total Recall just because I think people kept pointing to that as, look, there was a successful Mars movie because they kept bombing and they kept doing it.

[David Sims]

No, it's the different. It's about humans going to Mars. Total Recall. We live on Mars. Total Recall.

[Griffin Newman]

He got his ass to Mars. Well, he did get.

[Matt Singer]

We've colonized.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, yes.

[David Sims]

Oh, Ghosts of Mars.

[Matt Singer]

Oh, of course.

[David Sims]

Those are the four. And it's all just like, how do we crack Mars? And that zero of them crack ghosts this time. Mission to Mars. I defend and has very cool stuff. The other three, they all do badly.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

And the other three, Species two is basically like they go to Mars and what happens to the guys who went to Mars?

[Matt Singer]

They.

[Griffin Newman]

They get species.

[David Sims]

Sexy, horny alien stuff like is inside them now.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, yes.

[Matt Singer]

You know, and all of us.

[Griffin Newman]

Ultimately it is only all of us,

[David Sims]

but even Species two. Species one poster is green. Species two, how do we change it?

[Griffin Newman]

Red.

[Matt Singer]

Red.

[Griffin Newman]

It is funny. Is there a subtitle for Species two? No. Right.

[David Sims]

Uh, there was no subtitle, but I of course could tell you the tagline.

[Matt Singer]

Please.

[David Sims]

Mating season begins.

[Griffin Newman]

Really good. Really? Really better than the John Carter tagline

[Matt Singer]

by a wide margin.

[David Sims]

Now, if that had been the John Carter tagline, that might not have worked.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm going to make my third attempt at this joke. Uh, it's funny to consider that in the year 2000, Disney. Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney probably looked at the box office receipts for Mission to Mars and went, well, look this. The good news is this is the least successful Mars movie Disney will ever release. We will never lose more money on a Mars movie than this. It's all upwards. That film was seen as a disaster.

[David Sims]

Absolutely. It was seen as a disaster.

[Griffin Newman]

And then Mars Needs mom was like, hold my beer.

[Matt Singer]

I didn't even remember Mars, the story of this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

And then John Carter was like, don't worry, buddy, I got you.

[David Sims]

Now in Mars Need Moms, which I have not seen.

[Griffin Newman]

Mars Needs Moms.

[Matt Singer]

Needs Moms. I've never seen it.

[David Sims]

Isn't that largely set in like an attic or whatever? It's like they've come to Earth in search of our moms.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[David Sims]

Like, I don't. Is there a lot of Mars action in it?

[Griffin Newman]

I wonder I have not seen it either.

[Matt Singer]

The poster was red in my memory. Poster was not red.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. There are aliens or species. Yes, it was very amblin.

[David Sims]

It was blue. Although the title is red. The words are red.

[Matt Singer]

You have to. If your movie has the word Mars in the title, the title has to be red.

[Griffin Newman]

It is a rule.

[Matt Singer]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

That was a big. It's a law of Hollywood up on their part. But then the final John Carter poster, after everyone complained about the marketing was this where it goes a lot more blue. Blue and yellow. It violated the rule that I sentence him riding on creatures.

[Matt Singer]

Thoats.

[Griffin Newman]

Thoats.

[Matt Singer]

He's on a Thoat.

[Griffin Newman]

Tharks on Thoats flanking John Carter.

[David Sims]

This movie is.

[Matt Singer]

You like silly words, man.

[David Sims]

I know it's in that kind of, you know, lady in the water territory. Like every five minutes, throw a new made up word at these guys.

[Griffin Newman]

But I feel like this is a thing that unites the three of us. Is. That's always kind of catnip for us, even when the movie doesn't work. It is very indeed when a movie throws a bunch of silly words at you.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah, right.

[David Sims]

I often do respond to movies that are like, since time immemorial, like, Blarg has fought with the Kingdom of Djinn. And I'm just like, yes, of course they have. Yes. Those two mighty kingdoms, like, you know, removed Blarg.

[Matt Singer]

That was one of their mistakes on this one. They cut him out of the movie. I know they were saving him for the sequel. That never happened.

[David Sims]

I know it's all from books and I know we'll talk about that. And I know these books have a cultural legacy and all that, but it is funny. Like, how many times someone's like, Barsoom, like, assuming the audience.

[Matt Singer]

Yes, Barsoom.

[David Sims]

They said it.

[Griffin Newman]

It's wild.

[Matt Singer]

It's all fake words. But then they'll once in a while they'll be like a normal word, like Helium. Right. It's like we have two cities, Zodanga and Helium.

[David Sims]

They really should have changed Helium because it's so confusing when they keep. You have to save Helium. The gas. No, our town's called that. But we are running out of Helium.

[Griffin Newman]

We are.

[David Sims]

Okay, well, let's go get something.

[Matt Singer]

Was ahead of its time. When you think about it, David is absolutely right.

[David Sims]

Let's go get some.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's go get some.

[David Sims]

Where's it hiding?

[Griffin Newman]

I got bad news for you. It's on Barsoom.

[David Sims]

All right, well, then let's get a medallion, something.

[Griffin Newman]

What are the Dragonfly ships called?

[David Sims]

I don't Know what anything is called?

[Griffin Newman]

This is the two prong problem. The movie is too confident that the audience is excited to finally see and hear all this stuff on screen. That it thinks the built in audience is a lot larger than it is.

[David Sims]

I do think it thinks that.

[Griffin Newman]

Secondly, this is like one of the first major sci fi adventure novels, space, you know, opera kind of things in American fiction. All of these names. The bar was really low right back then.

[David Sims]

Just calling something Baruma would be like, well, I've never seen a word like this before. How original.

[Griffin Newman]

That word's crazy. And then there's like a century of people being like, what if we made things sound cool?

[David Sims]

Yeah, Barsoom. And Barsoom's okay.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't.

[David Sims]

Some of the other ones I don't love. Like Zedanga. That's a little, you know, it's got dang in it.

[Matt Singer]

It does.

[David Sims]

That's true.

[Griffin Newman]

I think Taurus Tarkus is a great name.

[Matt Singer]

Tars Tarkas is a good name. I agree. That's the best name.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

What's that?

[Griffin Newman]

Taurus Tarkus says Willem Dafoe.

[David Sims]

That's Willem Dafoe.

[Matt Singer]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Right. Tars Tarkas.

[Griffin Newman]

As you were saying, like movie. That just starts with a bunch of stuff. Right. I couldn't figure out a good place to put podcasts in on this, but the opening voiceover of this movie. Love it. Mars. So you name it and think that you know it. The red planet. No air, no life. But you do not know Mars, for its true name is Barsoom.

[David Sims]

Like, that is the kind of thing that does.

[Matt Singer]

You're right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like my hood gets on my.

[Matt Singer]

You're rubbing your hands together and it

[Griffin Newman]

is not airless, nor is it dead, but it is dying. Intriguing. Okay, there is life, but the life's at risk. I like that.

[Matt Singer]

Then he says Zodanga twice in one sentence.

[Griffin Newman]

He does.

[Matt Singer]

And then you're going, wait a minute.

[Griffin Newman]

What city of Zodanga saw to that?

[David Sims]

Now to kick our episode off, let's cheers.

[Griffin Newman]

Of course, a bit that's been really consistent since I established at the beginning of this year, the great coffee quest of 2026.

[David Sims]

Jesus.

[Griffin Newman]

Where I bought different movie themed coffees to see if there's one that's worthy of being served to our guests. And usually we try to test these on ourselves before we bring them to guests. But today's guest, we promised him.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

When I was in a separate group text planning this coffee quest, I said, I'm only coming if I can get a big. A big honking cup of what is It. Spidey's Web Slinger. Spider Man's Web Slinger is the name of the coffee, I believe.

[Matt Singer]

It's not just named. It has a special flavor, though.

[Griffin Newman]

It does. Okay. Should we all take a sip?

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

Cheers.

[David Sims]

I don't like it.

[Griffin Newman]

You don't like it?

[David Sims]

I don't hate it.

[Griffin Newman]

It didn't. It felt like, strong as it smells.

[Matt Singer]

The aroma is quite big.

[David Sims]

The aroma is pretty. What's the note here? What am I missing?

[Griffin Newman]

Marshmallows.

[Matt Singer]

Marshmallow treat.

[Griffin Newman]

Marshmallow treat. Like, because it's.

[David Sims]

I was guessing something sweet like chocolate

[Griffin Newman]

or whatever, but yes, it is from Bones Coffee Company.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Webslinger Crispy Marshmallow Treat flavored coffee.

[Matt Singer]

It's a great looking bag.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a great bag.

[Matt Singer]

Excellent bag. Good packaging.

[Griffin Newman]

And I'd say Spider Man's a good guy.

[Matt Singer]

One of my. One of my favorite guys.

[Griffin Newman]

He's one of our best.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

One of your good friends. Yes.

[David Sims]

As far as the flavor profile, how is this representative of Spider Man?

[Matt Singer]

It's a great question.

[Griffin Newman]

Marshmallow and. And marshmallow treats look like webs. Sticky. Marshmallow webs.

[David Sims]

I guess you're right.

[Griffin Newman]

There's a walk.

[Matt Singer]

Sticky. Sticky is what we're going with.

[David Sims]

It's sticky.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a short swing to sticky.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah. It's not the worst coffee I've ever had.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not.

[Matt Singer]

It isn't as bad as I feared when we smelled it.

[Griffin Newman]

Will we serve it to anyone else?

[Matt Singer]

Oh, I'm sure you won't.

[David Sims]

I would not serve this because I'm

[Matt Singer]

going to drink all of it.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

You're taking it home.

[David Sims]

You're just going to eat the ground.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

You're not even going to just pour water over it.

[Griffin Newman]

This is, of course, because our guest today returning to the show, wrote the book on Spider Man.

[Matt Singer]

Proper title, A book on Spider Man. Marvel's Spider Man.

[Griffin Newman]

Colon.

[Matt Singer]

From Amazing to Spectacular. Extra colon. The definitive comic art collection.

[Griffin Newman]

Hell yes. Wrote a book on Siskel and Ebert. Opposable thumbs.

[Matt Singer]

That's right. Colon. How Siskel and Ebert Changed Movies Forever. Got to have colons in your books.

[Griffin Newman]

And of course, the way they changed movies forever is that they influenced Ben Hosley to recommend that we call this podcast. Griffin. Yes.

[David Sims]

Right. I probably knew that story long ago.

[Griffin Newman]

And the upcoming book.

[Matt Singer]

Yes, here it is.

[Griffin Newman]

Copy on test. Yes. I have uncorrected proof or correct.

[Matt Singer]

It's an uncorrected proof. I've already corrected things that are in this version.

[Griffin Newman]

Funny business.

[Matt Singer]

That's right.

[Griffin Newman]

The subtitle is the Old School Wedding Crashers and Knocked Up Virgins who Changed Comedy Forever. And the book, of course, is about failed sci fi franchises of the2010.

[Matt Singer]

That's right.

[Griffin Newman]

That's right.

[Matt Singer]

I don't know if we want to get into this now, but while we're talking about this book, please, can I. I'm going to hand it to you.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. The great Matt Singer.

[David Sims]

Hi, Matt Singer. Welcome.

[Matt Singer]

Thank you. Now, if you look in the back of the book, there is a bookmarked.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Matt Singer]

There's a. There's a post it. I want you to look what's right above the post it in the footnotes.

[Griffin Newman]

Wow. Footnote number 58. Quote, in any minute, Griffin Newman and David Sims hosts Blank Check with Griffin and David podcast. The Big Lebowski was Seth Rogen.

[Matt Singer]

You're a quoted source.

[David Sims]

Was dropping bombs.

[Matt Singer]

He was.

[Griffin Newman]

And it has a typed out link, a URL.

[Matt Singer]

If people want to go fact check it themselves, they can go. Listen. It was an excellent. I was. I just happened to be working on that part of the book and I was listening to him and he's talking about working on the 40 year old virgin, which I was working on that part of the book.

[Griffin Newman]

Perfect quotes.

[Matt Singer]

Oh, you can have. You can have that. This is a. You can be shared by the. Yeah, we gotta kaive a couple of copies so you guys can enjoy that.

[Griffin Newman]

It is the thing I always will take any opportunity to bring up on the show that I often complain about the death of the theatrical studio comedy. But I think in people trying to do the postmortems, there is not enough study of what happened in comedy from like 2000 to 2015.

[Matt Singer]

Well, this is the book for you.

[Griffin Newman]

I've been waiting for this book, but it really did build up in a way that was kind of MCU esque. Yeah, there. There was a sort of like franchise machinery to the way the Personas got built and the cross pollination and the rise of the sort of star producer and all that kind of stuff that happened kind of.

[Matt Singer]

You mentioned the mcu and it kind of happened around the. The. The tail end of this wave coincides with it. And I think very much of that and the cinematic universification of Hollywood, I think had a big effect on why these movies started to go away.

[Griffin Newman]

But think quietly. Those movies and the modern franchises pulled from what was working there. I have always said that there was something that I think, whether consciously or unconsciously, that was wisely pulled from how Apatow Seeded performers in supporting roles to prep you for them in leading roles.

[David Sims]

Right. And then he. Right. I feel like while he's doing that, they're like, on set being like, an interesting story in my life. And he's like, I love that. Yes, work on that. Like, write me a script. Like, you could turn that into a movie.

[Griffin Newman]

But that also, once this thing worked, there a house style, there was a sensibility, there was a low concept. This is about interpersonal relationships. Find a very specific dynamic. And then what started to piss people off is these movies are all the same. Yeah. It's improv runs. It's an awkward romantic comedy about a dude who's the one who has to learn.

[David Sims]

Silly boy, Shrewish lady.

[Griffin Newman]

Which I argue is kind of what's happening with Marvel now, where it's like, we know the format, but like, 10

[David Sims]

years ago at this point. But yes, yes. I mean, it's just maybe Marvel. You know, it's impossible, though, just thinking about Marvel. He's like, yeah, like, if Marvel was like, we did something totally different, people would just be like, like, no. Right. Like, isn't it. It's hard.

[Matt Singer]

It's hard.

[Griffin Newman]

The movie does not fully work. You and I both quietly, partially defend it. But that's what Eternals was trying to do.

[David Sims]

I agree with that.

[Griffin Newman]

Eternals was, I think, Feige wisely saying we need to fucking mix it up because people are going to start getting tired of this quick. And then they did not find the right way to mix it up.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And they took the rejection of that really hard and were like, back to the old shit.

[Matt Singer]

Right?

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Matt Singer]

It was a retreat. It was a swift retreat.

[David Sims]

I just. I. This is on my mind because I just filed a review of over your dead Body, the Armor Taccone movie that is like. That didn't totally work for me. I don't know if either of you have seen it.

[Griffin Newman]

I have not seen it yet.

[David Sims]

But, like, you know, I thought was okay and, like, had some stuff. And of course, stars Jason Siegel.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And I was like, Siegel is like the last of those guys, right. Who is still making like, like, movie star comedies into the mid-2010s after sex tape. He's released zero movies wide in theaters, right? Zero.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Like, he's made a couple indies that got a theatrical release.

[Griffin Newman]

End of the tour.

[David Sims]

End of the tour.

[Griffin Newman]

Charlie McDowell movie, end of the tour.

[David Sims]

And I have it here. And our friend are the only ones that were even like, indie releases. Everything else was Netflix, which is Discovery come Sunday. Sky is everywhere where he Had a supporting role, which is on Apple windfall. Like, so three of those are like Charlie McDowell movies. And like.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And like. And now you know this over your dead body's getting a tiny release as well. I know. Siegel also kind of was like, I'm burned out. I don't like making these, like, you know, sex tape. Bad teacher, Sober.

[Griffin Newman]

Has a sort of kind of like, I need to pull away and work on my.

[David Sims]

But like, post, you know, forgetting Sarah Marshall. He did for years. Like, he did the kind of like, yeah, I'll do a high concept sort of R rated comedy for you every so often.

[Griffin Newman]

And he was also.

[David Sims]

And they would like, do. All right.

[Griffin Newman]

He was off in writing them or co writing them.

[David Sims]

He was involved.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, he is a writer on sex tape. Like, sex. He wasn't just a sort of like, it. I'll take the paycheck. No five year engagement. Muppets. He co writes. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And. And you know. Yeah, he has like five or six, you know, of those.

[Griffin Newman]

But even like, bad teacher and. And I love you, man. And like, he was getting close. That's a good one.

[David Sims]

And then sex tape is just like, you know, I remember when it came out, everyone was like, you know, is this a movie? Like, is this a big concept? Like, everyone's a little. No one was like, this sucks.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

But everyone was a little, like, it

[Griffin Newman]

was one of those movies where it's like, this thing is ending. And the problem is that if you look.

[David Sims]

And the posters just them going like, huh. It's like the laziest photo. They're like looking at an iPad.

[Griffin Newman]

It also felt like we had come all the way around to like, the Apatow Wave is a correction for how high concept star comedies had become. They'd gotten really big budget. It was $20 million stars who felt like they were kind of lazily picking up paycheck for like a one sentence movie pitch where the title is the premise and there's usually magic or something like that, or insane mistaken identity. And then it was like, let's bring this down to like, human level. And Sex Tape felt like the first comedy that was an output, an extended reach of the Apatow family tendrils.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Where the concept was like, what does this make sense? They uploaded the sex tape to their personal cloud, but they gave everyone in their life an iPad for Christmas.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And those iPads are on their cloud. So their mailman has their sex tape.

[Matt Singer]

We've all been there, right?

[Griffin Newman]

You're like, it's getting too sweaty here. Relatable but that movie also made like 50 million domestic.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I think it did.

[Matt Singer]

All right.

[David Sims]

I can look up.

[Griffin Newman]

You, like, think it's a disaster and you're like, it ended up at a

[David Sims]

number pretty similar to 126 worldwide, which means it made. Yeah, made 40 domestic and 90 world 90s international.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah, the international market. They love sex tapes.

[Griffin Newman]

They love sex tapes. It's a fascinating thing to talk about today. We're talking about John Carter because this is a podcast, one of the most

[Matt Singer]

famous R rated sex comedies of the 2000s.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I think this is an opportunity to really just discuss what was happening in the movies in the early 2010s. And the Apatow stuff is part and parcel with it. Right.

[Matt Singer]

True.

[Griffin Newman]

Bridesmaids is 2011. That is arguably the apex of the whole thing.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

That is the highest grossing Apatow movie.

[David Sims]

It's the highest grossing. And it is like. Like it's somehow. Even though the formula had been set already when that was released, people there was still the narrative, like, is this too risky? Like, all girls R rated. Like, is anyone gonna go for this?

[Griffin Newman]

It was like successful Eternals.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Matt Singer]

Where they would love that comparison.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Which of course then leads to Ghostbusters, the unsuccessful Eternals. Yes. Of this experiment. Right.

[Matt Singer]

That's an interesting comparison.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, yes. A beginning of the end movie, right?

[Matt Singer]

Oh, yes. Well, I think it had already. They were already on the downward slope, but that was a real.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, yes. This movie comes out in March, released by, as I said before, the Walt Disney Company.

[David Sims]

What are they? Are they like a new indie shingle or something at that time?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, they're like a utopia.

[David Sims]

And it's being released, right?

[Matt Singer]

Yeah, they're a part of entertainment.

[David Sims]

It's being released by Marvel, basically, as they are. Like the ink is beginning to dry on their Marvel acquisition. Right. Like, when is that? When do they buy Marvel 2012?

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, no, this is the timeline. I was gonna say.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

So this film is released March 2012.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

May is Avengers.

[Matt Singer]

Avengers.

[David Sims]

Which way did that movie do?

[Griffin Newman]

It did, in fact, quite well.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Matt Singer]

I believe almost as good as Jean Carter.

[Griffin Newman]

Almost. Okay, so 2008 is Iron man and the Incredible Hulk 2010 is Iron Man 2. And I believe after the release of Iron Man 2, Disney buys Marvel. Now, the original Paramount deal, that was similar to the original Pixar Disney deal. This is a five film slate distribution. You own underlying rights.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Was supposed to be Iron Man, Incredible Hulk. I think Ant man was supposed to be part of that original five Iron Man 2 takes that slot. And then, of course, Incredible Hulk ended up being Universal because of them having the original rights. Thor, Captain America, Avengers, Griffin.

[David Sims]

It's Universal because Hulk is green. And Universal is our planet, which is also very green. Well, that's why.

[Griffin Newman]

Unless we don't take care of it like in Wall. Eric, President Hulk.

[David Sims]

There he is.

[Griffin Newman]

Please salute. They buy it in 2010, 2011, Paramount releases Captain America and Thor. But Disney now owns Marvel and is starting to message characters as, these are ours. But you still are distributing them. Both of those movies do well. Not like absurdly well, but well. And then Disney spends an extraordinary amount of money. In my memory, it was $500 million to buy Paramount out of Avengers and Iron Man 3.

[David Sims]

That was it. And that was a good deal, by the way.

[Griffin Newman]

We can't wait. We just need it now. And Avengers comes out three months after this, two months after this, and just blows the doors off everything. And now it's just like, this is. This is what the future is. It's over.

[Matt Singer]

I think it's. That's important context because, you know, we've already alluded to the marketing of John Carter.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

That perhaps offers a potential explanation in that they were already looking at the Avengers.

[Griffin Newman]

There are a lot distracted. There are a lot of explanations for what went wrong in the marketing of this movie. But it was, well, sort of discussed by the time this movie was coming out. Disney didn't need this to be a franchise anymore because what's the other thing that happened in fall of 2011, Walt Disney completes its purchase of Lucasfilm.

[David Sims]

That's. That is true. They really. They really. They made a Couple Good buys.

[Griffin Newman]

2011, Disney buys Marvel and Lucasfilm, and this movie is just kind of a dead man walking. I don't. I'm not saying they, like, set it up to fail because there was so much money at stake that everyone would have been happier if this had been successful.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But already they were sort of like, we have the two surest bets in Hollywood.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

This is not necessary. And this is coming at the end of a journey that brings you the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. We can't let that franchise rest. We need another action franchise. Jack is back. Right. Prince of Persia.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, that's legacy.

[David Sims]

The funniest thing Disney did to me when I finished John Carter was shrink the credits and be like, and are you ready for Prince of Persian? I was like, buddy, come on.

[Griffin Newman]

But they really. And Long Ranger. Long Ranger is the other one comes after this.

[Matt Singer]

They're really looking for that audience. And they, they've already, as you're saying, they have already acquired the two locks on that audience. They couldn't have any bigger lock on that audience. And so yes, poor John Carter is

[David Sims]

going, what about me?

[Griffin Newman]

They kept trying to launch or relaunch something, either their own IP that they had or pull IP from somewhere else that they thought had some history and some built in audience. And then they just bought the two things where they were like, you did the work for us. You primed the pump. The audience is there. You made those movies. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[David Sims]

I'm David.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a podcast about filmographies. 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. Rarely has that intro applied more thoroughly to this. The filmmaker we're discussing and the film we're talking about today is a movie that feels like it has been fated to be discussed on this podcast. From the moment we decided this is what the podcast was, this movie bounced

[David Sims]

similar to how John Carter can jump.

[Matt Singer]

Correct. Great point.

[David Sims]

Like a great fleece.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And it is a movie that has become like a historic signpost.

[David Sims]

Historic signpost in terms of like where franchises went and where blockbusters went, or.

[Griffin Newman]

This is what I think is interesting to discuss. This movie's release was greeted with a sort of like, well, never again. Lessons learned. And I would argue Hollywood continued to basically take the wrong lessons from this movie and also repeat its mistakes. In a lot of ways, I think watching this movie now, a film I kind of defend and enjoy watching, while not wholly successful, it does feel like the world is a little kinder to this film today. In contrast, because other movies have gotten so much sloppier, I think that is to do the same thing.

[David Sims]

I think it is a largely good looking movie given what it's trying to accomplish, the scale of what it's working with. I do think it's an unsuccessful film. I think it is a. On paper, just like we stacked up all the little numbers here and it is not successful.

[Griffin Newman]

Here is my, my, my one counterpoint.

[David Sims]

Go ahead.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think this movie really like functions in the way it wants to. Even though it has moments, it has spurts, the. The engine will start up and then it will like sputter again. I do find this movie more cohesive in feeling kind of like there is a vision that is executed here versus what I'd say a lot of these similar franchise movies that we get today, where the story is, they reshot all of this three times and you feel it.

[David Sims]

What are you thinking of?

[Griffin Newman]

I think.

[David Sims]

What are you holding it against here?

[Griffin Newman]

Like, basically every Marvel.

[David Sims]

Name movie. Name movies. Name movies.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, Rise of Skywalker.

[David Sims]

No, but. Okay, no, but that's different. Sequels. To me, that's a different kind of mess. I mean, Rise of Skywalker. Can someone please write the tell all. Can we just get. Or can everyone just sit down and be like. Like, I'll admit it. Yeah, it was a completely different movie that was also bad.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And then we. We panicked and turned it into that movie. I know. None of it makes sense. I'm fully aware. Like, you know what? Let's sit down and watch it. And I'll pause and I'll tell you, like, yep, this was shot one year after this. And I know that, you know, like, that's completely. I'm trying to think of, like, the franchise start.

[Griffin Newman]

All right.

[David Sims]

The movie I compared this to the entire time I was watching this time is Avatar.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Because I was basically just like. Like, Avatar makes none of the mistakes, and this movie makes most of them.

[Griffin Newman]

And it is crazy that this film bombed this hard coming out three years after Avatar and is kind of really

[David Sims]

two years because it's like.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

When you think about December, March. So it's really just a couple years. It's really still, like, in the wake

[Griffin Newman]

of Avatar, it starts production before Avatar is released.

[David Sims]

Right. It can't watch what they're doing. Not. Not that copying James Cameron is easy or whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

Basically, anytime in history, a movie is like an out of the box, out of the blue hit that big, and the studios rush to find the copycats. It doesn't work. You look at the wave of post Lord of the Rings. What else can we adapt? This shit doesn't work. But the fact that it was inevitable. Everyone's gonna try a little parallel thinking. And they had a movie that could have been sold as, like, here's the thing that inspired Avatar. It's kind of like Avatar, a human guy goes to Earth and romances an alien.

[Matt Singer]

You can't find an interview with Andrew Stanton about this movie where either he doesn't mention Avatar or someone asks him about Avatar. It's just in the way it is unavoid.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting film of all time.

[David Sims]

When this movie's coming out, a guy going to a new planet where he doesn't know the rules and he falls,

[Matt Singer]

and it's an epic romance. And there's a war of civilizations and aliens that are another color.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

Oh, but.

[David Sims]

But what he was animal. Like space animals.

[Matt Singer]

And what he'll always say is that this avatar was inspired by this.

[David Sims]

No, true.

[Matt Singer]

This is so much their. Their marketing and what he. His sales pitch to people was, everything you love is inspired by what I made.

[Griffin Newman]

There's a great quote where. And we'll get into all the previous versions of this movie that almost happened and didn't. Going all the way back to the 1940s. Robert Zemeckis, they tried to sell him on doing it for Disney I think in the 90s. And he hadn't read the books. And I believe either Katzenberg or Eisner gives him the book to read it over. And he gets back to them and he goes, I can't make this. Lucas already plundered everything good from it.

[David Sims]

It's totally makes total sense. Of course, like the inspirations. It's kind of like Dune was as well where like. Yeah, it's hard to crack it when it's already been like little bits have been taken out of it. For all the movies we like, it's

[Matt Singer]

their main argument for why make this movie like an Andrew Stanton. And it is a flawed argument because, yes, it's already been. Yes. Strip mined for everything that's good. And just because something is the first does not necessarily make it the best. Especially when it's made as early as this is. In the history of this kind, there's

[Griffin Newman]

a story iteration that is helpful.

[David Sims]

Have any of us. I know Ben's read all of the Barstow series. Yeah, yeah. Have you ever read the.

[Matt Singer]

I've read the first book.

[David Sims]

Right. Which is an iconic sci fi work. Sure. Like, but in that way of like you read it and you're like, it's so interesting how ideas were generated here that get built on by other works and all that stuff.

[Matt Singer]

But it's also pretty rough. It's a little rough and a little weird. There's not a lot of a story which this movie struggles with that by grafting on this. Certain elements which I would assume having not read the later books are in the later books.

[David Sims]

Don't know that they are. They might be a little bit inventive.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's pretty inventive.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, the Therns.

[Matt Singer]

Another silly word that we're gonna have to say a lot. Yeah, I'm gonna say a Therns are in later books. They are not in the original book, the Ninth Ray, which is a not silly word. But it sounds silly when they say it a lot.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Matt Singer]

The ninth ray.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

That in the book is not a. Now in this movie it is like a. It's like an all consuming death ray.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Matt Singer]

Can do anything. And in the book, again, maybe in later books, it becomes that in the first book it is kind of a MacGuffin of there's artificial atmosphere on Mars and the Ninth Ray is what creates air inside an atmosphere factory. These are all things that they took out of. Of the movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

But that is not this like laser that you can zap at people.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Matt Singer]

And a magical like, like glow.

[David Sims]

The powers are too powerful. I was really struggling.

[Matt Singer]

This is another.

[David Sims]

Anything with this thing.

[Matt Singer]

Huge problem with this movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

That they, they made it a story about shape shifting weirdos who have an all powerful ray which can kill anyone instantly. And the alternate force has a guy who can jump really high. And people are so excited to get John Carter on their side, like literally. There's a scene where, like where Tars Tarkas is accusing Dejah Thor. She's like, you want this weapon for yourself. But he fights for the Tharks and you're going to.

[Griffin Newman]

He's.

[Matt Singer]

It's like he's literally a guy who can jump.

[Griffin Newman]

He can jump away from battle.

[David Sims]

He can jump high.

[Griffin Newman]

He can jump and I guess he

[David Sims]

can kill like 1000 people try to hurt him.

[Griffin Newman]

If he remembers his dead wife.

[David Sims]

Yes. Right. If he remembers burying family.

[Griffin Newman]

And now the opposite of a mother gaining strength when her child is in danger.

[Matt Singer]

That's right.

[Griffin Newman]

He can, he can get stronger if he remembers.

[Matt Singer]

Another thing that's not in the books, the family he didn't totally invented for the movie is to give him a tragic Hollywood backstory of my wife and child were killed and so. And I'm. And I no longer want to fight.

[David Sims]

Right. He doesn't have a cause in the books.

[Matt Singer]

He has. Right in the movie. Yeah. In the book he not only doesn't have a tragic backstory, he's like. And this is another thing that's in the book that is not in the movie is like, he's almost like a highlander. He's like immortal. He talks about how, like I don't remember my childhood. I've always been 30 years old. I am as old as, you know, like, I can't age.

[David Sims]

I've watched that gets addressed later.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's also, look, it's like the Superman thing, right? Where when the character is created, the pitch of what if a guy was so awesome was all you needed to get People to lean in. And then Superman, over decades, is iterated to become more relatable.

[Matt Singer]

Totally.

[David Sims]

Let's give him a childhood. Let's give him family. Let's make this make sense.

[Griffin Newman]

And John Carter is still kind of stuck in his original state, which is just. Just what if a guy ruled?

[Matt Singer]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

He doesn't need anything going on inside of him.

[Matt Singer]

And again, in the Burroughs book, he's. He is a warrior. He can jump. He is strong because of the density of his bones and the Martian whatever, but he's fighting other people with swords. It's like, you know, it's like, what if we drop this super cool warrior into the middle of a giant battle? Okay. But in the movie, they're like, what if that was happening? But also there was death rays. It's like, again, it's. It's just. Yeah, it's not an. It's not even a knife to a gunfight. It's a guy with good legs at a death laser fight.

[Griffin Newman]

So there's stuff where I'm like, he was making the right choices and he didn't get all the way there in terms of, like, okay, so how do you give this, like, an emotional spine? In the books, John Carter fights for the south, and he's a good soldier. And he's like, well, I can't build a fucking $250 million Disney movie around a, like, loyal confederate. Right? So let me make it that he fought for the south, but it was against his will and he, like, defected and was fighting against them. So then it kind of neutralizes him. Well, why is that the case? Because he lost his family in the war, so he's become so disillusioned. Oh, that means he doesn't want to fight. So once he gets to Barsoom, he's reluctant. You're like, we're getting there.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah, it could work. Yeah, it's not a terrible idea. I just.

[David Sims]

I'm sorry, I'm browsing the Encyclopedia Barsumia right now, which is, of course, the name of the John Carter wiki. Yes, but. Yes.

[Matt Singer]

Did you have to drink Magic liquid?

[David Sims]

I do.

[Matt Singer]

To understand it, to comprehend. We all did. Yeah, that's. Oh, that's what was there. Now we're speaking Barsoomian.

[David Sims]

The Therns, I don't. I think, are very different in the books.

[Matt Singer]

Okay.

[David Sims]

They are. Oh, they're not in the first.

[Matt Singer]

They're not in it at all.

[David Sims]

No, they're introduced later, but they are more just kind of like an old, you know, kind of like ancient Greek style. I Think like the. The original civilization of Mars. There's also black Martians.

[Matt Singer]

There's other races of Martians here.

[David Sims]

I feel like we have like, green and red.

[Matt Singer]

Right. That's basically it. And they mentioned. Yeah, and they mentioned the white apes, which I guess are the thing he fights in the arena.

[David Sims]

Those are the big guy, big monsters.

[Matt Singer]

But they're not that important to the. To the story.

[David Sims]

But the idea that they're like interstellar caretakers, that's not in the books.

[Matt Singer]

It's at least not in the first book.

[David Sims]

According to the Encyclopedia Barsoomi, it's a Disney film invention. Okay, so are the books still relevant? What do you mean by relevant? They're relevant to my life. I try to live my life by their relevant teachings.

[Griffin Newman]

They're relevant historically. This is a lot of what this movie came up against is like, Andrew Stanton was pushing really hard to be like, this is the definitive text. Like, all modern sci fi adventure storytelling comes from this.

[David Sims]

Which is true.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is notion.

[Matt Singer]

It's not wrong.

[Griffin Newman]

The notion of making this. It's not even like Dune where it's like they've never gotten it right. It was. No one has ever succeeded in getting to the starting line of making a movie about this. So it's going to be greeted with such excitement of they're finally fucking doing it. And what he overstated was who. Exactly.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

The problem. So.

[David Sims]

But that was the problem they ran into.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But yeah, I'm just like, is this like a. A thing that sci fi bands are.

[Griffin Newman]

This starts out as a story serialized in pulp magazines in 1912. So the movie is coming out 100 years after it is published.

[David Sims]

This is dusty.

[Griffin Newman]

I think their notion was, everyone's waiting for this. And in reality, what it had become was, this is the thing that all of the people who made the sci fi. You actually, like, grew up reading.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And to general audiences, this only is really of interest to, like, hard, big nerds.

[David Sims]

Old people, I guess.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. But I'd say, like, in modern audiences, it was like, if you are a voracious reader and you're really interested in the history of science fiction and being able to, like, retrace the threads back

[Matt Singer]

to the beginning, it's sort of like. It's like saying to someone, this is the video game that inspired it all. And then making someone play Pong in 2026, it's like, okay, well, it's historically

[David Sims]

important, but dated Pong with, like, some backstory, you know?

[Matt Singer]

Right. Or would I rather play that? Or would I rather play my PlayStation. I think I have.

[David Sims]

But what is clear choice. The ball in Pong had a family that died.

[Matt Singer]

Keep going.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like making the Pong movie based off the logic of did you see how much Super Mario Galaxy just made?

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

That wasn't even the first video game.

[Matt Singer]

Well, we're gonna make Pong.

[David Sims]

I love the work of Bruce Coville. I bring it up on this podcast a lot. The. The young adult author, like Aliens ate my homework. Totally. My teacher funk the planet and all that shit. And he references John Carter of Mars in those books and clearly was an inspiration for him.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And I would as a kid read that and he'd be like, yeah. And like, you know my character, the character be like, I love John Carter books. Like the guy who wrote Tarzan. Then I'll be like, that's interesting. Never wanted to read. You know what I mean? Never like did. I knew they existed, but I was never like I should pluck those off the shelves.

[Griffin Newman]

I absolutely plucked it off the shelf. You plucked it and was like, this is dense. I can't get into this.

[David Sims]

Right. Because it's like a. It's like it's a 1900s serial novel. I mean like I haven't read the Tarzan books either.

[Griffin Newman]

No, but. But Tarzan as a cultural idea persists in a way that John Carter does.

[David Sims]

And you'll be in our heart.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely. That's the thing. Like how many people are reading Tarzan books today? I don't know. But everyone knows what Tarzan is is. And John Carter only exists as like the thing that he influenced in the public.

[David Sims]

I feel like we must open the dossier just because there is reams of context today on this one.

[Griffin Newman]

I assume it's gonna short dossier.

[David Sims]

There's not much JJ wants to shout out at the top of the dossier because he used so much stuff. Is there's a Drew Taylor piece in

[Griffin Newman]

March 2022, the 10 year anniversary that

[David Sims]

went through everything in the anniversary. There's also a tad friend profile of Stanton second act twist in October 2011. That's like leading up to the release of John Carter.

[Griffin Newman]

I cannot strongly enough. And this is the only time I feel like I'm actually issuing homework to our listeners.

[David Sims]

Read the tabs.

[Griffin Newman]

It is worth reading. It's very interesting. Both of these things in full. We will pull out strands of them. But the one piece is as the movie's about to come out and it's sort of talking about Stanton's history, his success up until this point. The trepidation from Disney. You know, it's right at the crossroads, right before the thing finally, like, implodes. And then the 10 years later piece has people speaking very openly in retrospect about everything that happened.

[David Sims]

We'll have links to both articles in

[Griffin Newman]

the episode, but both really well written, thorough pieces.

[David Sims]

Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author who goes best with, you know, chicken.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

Maybe a steak if you want. Steak and rice.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, I was going to say call him Ned.

[David Sims]

Ned, right. Call him Ned.

[Matt Singer]

I thought you were talking about the character in this motion picture.

[David Sims]

Oh, what a great character played by the great Daryl Sabara.

[Griffin Newman]

Can I reveal Spy Kid, please?

[David Sims]

Did you audition for this?

[Griffin Newman]

I did. We got to put it in the can. And this is. This is a movie covered on the show that I auditioned.

[David Sims]

Has Sabara beaten you out for multiple roles? I feel like that's come up before.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, boy. That's a good question. Let me look it up while you continue through the dossier. This is the only one I remember. Oh, no. He got the part in It's Complicated that then was cut out.

[David Sims]

Right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

But the one I auditioned for, like, four times, that part was Nemesis. Complicated. It was very complicated. There was a whole extended scene at the beginning of It's Complicated. That was Meryl Streep hits it off with a guy in a dating app, and then she goes and it's a

[David Sims]

high school student, which is a good, good gag. Yeah. Anyways, Daryl Sbarro was the ultimate.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. Filming of the movie was pushed back twice because Nancy couldn't find the right casting for that role, and the entire thing was removed. But, yes, I auditioned for that role multiple times.

[David Sims]

1912, he releases their stories called under the Moons of Mars in the magazine All Star Story. Then collected is the novel the Princess of Mars in 1917, published after Tarzan, the success of Tarzan, he writes, well,

[Matt Singer]

the story, I think, is before the story's before. The novel is. The novel is after.

[Griffin Newman]

And then starts serializing.

[David Sims]

It's like the first 10 more novels in the Barsoom series after that. Yes.

[Matt Singer]

I was just gonna say, I think this is the first thing he ever wrote. He was like. He had other odd jobs.

[David Sims]

Right, right, right.

[Matt Singer]

And then a Princess of Mars in the serialized form was his first thing he wrote.

[David Sims]

I mean, he wrote so many other fantasy series that I don't know much about. Like, there's the Pellucidar, which is like in a Hollow Earth kind of series. There's this thing called the Venus series, which is kind of like, you know, you hit it with Mars. Next stop, Venus. Right. Like I haven't read those. So 1931 Looney Tunes animator Bob Clampett, legend, a true legend. So much that even I've heard of him.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Is like, what if we turn these into a cartoon? The Barsoom Books, like, they're so popular and they create test footage a year before the release of Snow White.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

That freaks people out and, like, doesn't get turned into a feature.

[Griffin Newman]

It's really realistic. The footage is amazing because.

[David Sims]

Is it like rotoscoped or something? Like they were drawing off of live action scenes.

[Griffin Newman]

Snow White uses a lot of rotoscoping. The early Disney princess movies until they start getting more stylized. With Sleeping Beauty and such, most of the human characters would be rotoscoped. And then the animals and the dwarves and everything were more stylized. It looks unbelievable. It was kind of so technically ahead of what anyone was doing at the time. And it's one of those things, since it was before Snow White, where you're like, like, if that's completed, does it kind of change the trajectory of animation to some degree? Because you have the 2000s, late 90s, early 2000s run that also I feel like is relevant to this movie of like Atlantis, treasure planets, pulpy cereal, where they were like, can we use animation to make cool shit for boys?

[David Sims]

Yeah, with like a sort of a steampunk.

[Griffin Newman]

How do we break out of it just being princess musicals. And it is like 2D animation because of Snow White. And the impact becomes princess musicals. And talking animals primarily is what is thought of. But yes, the Clampet tests are unbelievable.

[David Sims]

They're very cool. You can check out YouTube. There's little bits and pieces. Very cool.

[Griffin Newman]

Bob Clampett just want to shout out created Beanie and Cecil, which was one of my favorite cartoon shows as a kid. An old dusty cartoon show that was based on what used to be a local TV puppet show he did when he was young. And the Clampett family, like puts out Beanie and Cecil DVD compilations because I think they own the rights. And that's how I first found out that he tried to do John Carter, because the DVD just had like 30 minutes of John Carter shit in the special features, including those tests.

[David Sims]

Ray Harryhausen in the 50s supposedly expressed some interest in like a stop motion Barsoom thing. Does make sense.

[Matt Singer]

Seems like his kind of thing also

[David Sims]

never really gained much momentum. My guess is that every time, like the enormous amount of money would be required even for something animated or stopped moving, people would just kind of be like, I think this is too weird.

[Griffin Newman]

This is what Sells it until Stanton does it. But you look at, like, animation's the only way you could do this. You couldn't do it in live action. Right. They missed the window for animation. Now, the idea of doing a serious realistic action movie in animation is unfathomable. In the 30s, 40s, 50s, right. Harryhausen creates, you know, his style of stop motion special effects and how to blend it with live action. Okay, this makes sense. This is a way you could possibly adapt these. He can't crack it. And now it's, like, on the table again. Until effects evolve. In the 80s.

[David Sims]

In the 80s, right. Mario cast Iron and Drew Vanya, the Koroko guys, bring it to Disney. Katzenberg is young at Disney. He wants to do it. The Flies, Charles Pogue and Tales from the Crypts. Terry Black. These are screenwriters. Take a shot. Katzenberg basically is like, we want this to be our Star Wars.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah. And this is Katzenberg and Eisner coming in after Disney has had the failed run of Black Hole, Tron, et cetera.

[David Sims]

Black says, you know, they wanted the story to be dramatic. The book has this very leisurely pace. And, you know, we just clashed a lot over, like, how much of the book do you throw out. Ted Elliot and Terry Rocio, who are, like, kings of Disney in the 90s, they took a crack at it. John McTiernan and Tom Cruise starts circling in 1990, brings in Bob Gale. Gale's then replaced by Sam Resnick, who had written a TV Robin Hood that McTernan had produced. Okay. Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts were supposedly courted to star. I don't know how intensely involved they were.

[Griffin Newman]

But in 1990, the pitch of Zemeckis, Gale Roberts, Cruise makes perfect sense. You can, like, imagine the alternate reality where that movie exists.

[Matt Singer]

Definitely.

[David Sims]

But McTiernan wisely and quickly is like, this is just too expensive. We can't pull this off yet. And then very wisely is like, I'll make Last Action Hero. Yes, that'll go. That'll go great for me.

[Griffin Newman]

That one will be easy.

[David Sims]

Korolko goes bankrupt. Then Jim Jacks, James Jacks, Kevin Smith's buddy Bruno, revoked on this podcast. And Harry Knowles, who I guess is a huge fan of this.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And in his biography, kept talking about an influence.

[Matt Singer]

It was.

[David Sims]

He, like, beats the drum for it.

[Griffin Newman]

And this is when Harry Knowles is still seen as.

[David Sims]

He's got the nerves, touch.

[Matt Singer]

He has the magic.

[David Sims]

He can see what they want.

[Griffin Newman]

Beyond the idea that he's a kingmaker, there was this thing of if Harry Knowles is Saying it, does it mean that there are millions of silent nerds we don't realize are dying for this?

[Matt Singer]

He speaks for the Internet.

[Griffin Newman]

This starts to create the false sense. Ben, to your earlier question of are people waiting for this? No. But, like, do we not realize it that everyone wants this?

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

So, yes, Jim Jacks.

[David Sims]

Jim Jacks brings in Mark Protosovich, I think is his name. The guy wrote the cell who's kind of like a hot guy back then. Robert Rodriguez is going to direct it. Robert Rodriguez has resigned from the DGA because of Sin City.

[Matt Singer]

And.

[Griffin Newman]

And let's call out. Here's the other technological breakthrough.

[David Sims]

They're like, he wants to do his Sin City thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Screen this a way to make this work. Now, can you do green screen, stylized, build an extensive world without having to build crazy sets and photorealistic aliens or whatever?

[David Sims]

Paramount doesn't want to work with him for this reason. He's not in the dga, so they fire him.

[Griffin Newman]

And who makes sense as the obvious next choice?

[David Sims]

We'll get to him. But I do want to note the thing that Matt said already. If they do throw it, Jax does throw it to Zus and Zus does say the thing of, like, George plundered these. Like, there's nothing left. So then, yes, Carrie Conron.

[Griffin Newman]

Carrie Conron.

[David Sims]

Ben, of course, you know Ben loves Kerry Conron.

[Matt Singer]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

What's your favorite Carrie Conron film?

[David Sims]

What's up, Curry?

[Griffin Newman]

Conrad look of Fear is a man who has directed one and only one film and is a movie called Sky Captain in the world of tomorrow.

[David Sims]

Have you heard of it? No.

[Griffin Newman]

Great.

[David Sims]

I'm shocked. It was a green screen, all green screen movie, Ben. It was like the future. People were like, we don't need sets anymore, right?

[Matt Singer]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

A couple movie stars, a bunch of crazy visual effects.

[Griffin Newman]

He got like Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie for a week. He shot it in like a warehouse in Texas.

[David Sims]

And it's like a steampunk art deco, like, 30s sort of.

[Matt Singer]

Is it the ghost of Lawrence Olivier who also shows up?

[Griffin Newman]

It's a movie I have a tremendous fondness for. It is unbelievably boring, but weirdly compelling.

[David Sims]

I find it so boring.

[Griffin Newman]

It's so boring. It is so boring. I've been using it recently. I said this to you in a text. I've been using it to help my. Help myself fall asleep. And it's really effective on that front.

[David Sims]

Yeah, no, I mean, it's used by hospitals around the world for that, but

[Griffin Newman]

it, like, looks gorgeous.

[Matt Singer]

Sky Captain stat.

[Griffin Newman]

It's basically like, what if you made a 1940s movie with CGI? It's trying to be sort of like melodramatic. And it's like an old school version of the future, but it is deathly boring. But when it was, it was independently produced short film. One producer's like, fuck, this is the future he bankrolls. I think it was John Avnet bankrolls it.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

They then sell it to Paramount later off of, like, test footage. But he'd already gotten the actors because part of the pitch was like, like, I only need a couple million dollars up front to get the actors for a week to do the green screen stage. We'll do some of the animation, we'll show it to people, they'll give us the money to finish it. Paramount is like, this is the future of movies. You can just do it in an afternoon digital backlot and it bombs.

[Matt Singer]

You just have to sit in this chair with, like an old timey hat on your head.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

That's your whole part.

[David Sims]

Your performance definitely won't seem disengaged.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. But it is a movie that bombs really hard. And this guy, before its release is announced as he's going to direct John Carter, which makes perfect sense. They're like, here's another kind of like, retro futuristic thing. And he figured out this way to make it cheaper. And a lot of it is like, him and his buddies and his brother who know how to do the effects themselves. And he's on the movie for a while, and then when he falls off at this film, he's like, never discussed again.

[David Sims]

No. That's the end of him. I mean, he's still around, I assume.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

What happened to him?

[David Sims]

It goes to Jon Favreau after that, who brings in Mark Fergus, who wrote Children of Men.

[Griffin Newman]

Favreau changes the whole thing.

[David Sims]

Favreau makes a ton of sense for it.

[Griffin Newman]

Favreau is similar to Rodriguez. Like, I'm ready to make my big tent pole epic. I want to make my. My serious kind of blockbuster adventure film.

[Matt Singer]

And he supposedly loves it. Like Stanton, he likes the books. He's obsessed with the books.

[Griffin Newman]

I wanted to do it forever. And he's starting to swing back to, like, guys, guys. We're not doing virtual backlot. We're building sets.

[David Sims]

He wants makeup. He wants. Yeah, like director aspiration to eventually do the epic.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

That's the thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then you want to make your Cubano.

[Griffin Newman]

No, but all these guys are like, I want to make my Star wars the way I Felt seeing Star wars as a child and my world exploded. Can I make my version of that for the next generation? Can I complete the circle? And it makes a lot of sense that for many of these guys, they're like, can I do that? Also with the book, that made me feel that way when I read it.

[David Sims]

But this has also got the sword and sandal thing. It does have a. It's old school.

[Griffin Newman]

It does indeed.

[David Sims]

His script combines the first three books, Princess of Mars, the Gods of Mars,

[Griffin Newman]

the Warlords of Mars, which those were gonna be. Stanton's three movies in his trilogy.

[David Sims]

Sounds great.

[Matt Singer]

Which he was definitely going to make too. He talks a lot about that.

[David Sims]

Development slows. Jon Favreau decides to make Iron Man. Okay, good luck with that. A man made of iron.

[Griffin Newman]

He's just like, can he jump?

[David Sims]

Yeah, right? How high does he even jump?

[Matt Singer]

How does he jump?

[Griffin Newman]

But truly, like Paramount is just like dragging their feet on giving him a green light and he's like, I want to make something. And like the Iron man, like sort of beacon lights up the sky and he goes off and does that. And it's the most successful version of what he wanted to do right now.

[Matt Singer]

And he levels up big time.

[David Sims]

Andrew Stanton, as we've mentioned on this podcast, a very serious father who's like, basically a rocket scientist, defense department, like radar guy. He was into like old hard sci fi stuff and gave his son John Carter novels, among other things. Stanton grew up loving these books. You know, in high school he said his friends would call them his romance novels. Like he was always reading his John Carter books.

[Matt Singer]

He was supposedly a fan of the Marvel comics. That was how he first discovered it. The seventies John Carter Warlord of Mars comic from Marvel that came out for a couple of years and is like all set in the space of the first book. It's sort of like the continuing adventures

[Griffin Newman]

of John Carter, Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane.

[Matt Singer]

It's a good looking book. Good track writer. I read a little. I had never read it myself. It's kind of before my time and hasn't been reprinted really. But I tracked down some and read a little bit it before we did this and it's, you know, it's fun. I could see the, the appeal. But then, and then he kind of. Yeah, then he discovered the books and became.

[David Sims]

He was.

[Matt Singer]

I know he was into the books and then. And, and I guess this is 1977 and it's right around when Star wars comes out.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true. So he's discovering.

[David Sims]

He probably saw that thought it was good.

[Matt Singer]

He's.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, it probably.

[David Sims]

He probably like, I like this. He thinks watching Star wars at the age of 12, but just when you're

[Matt Singer]

talking about, about filmmakers seeing this and going, I want to make my Star wars and it's going to be this for him. They're like inextricably linked from the beginning.

[Griffin Newman]

He has both awakenings, maybe within this.

[Matt Singer]

Within the same. It's a. Yes. It's literally a stretch of like six months or something.

[Griffin Newman]

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[David Sims]

While he's making Wally. He's like, which you spend five fucking years making an animated movie or whatever. He's like, I don't have an idea for another animated movie. I feel a little stuck. But he does kind of know that John Carter is floating around there.

[Griffin Newman]

Paramount's basically, yeah. About to let the rights lapse.

[David Sims]

Yes. Favreau departs and Stanton sort of swoops in and pitches them like, look, I got nothing to lose here. I don't need another paycheck right now. You know what I mean? Like, he's like, he's got the kind of. The swagger of like, I think also, like, it's about to fall into the public domain at this point. Maybe, like, we're getting to, you know,

[Griffin Newman]

it's, it's, it's close. It's like if you don't start making one now, then anyone could make one. But it also means, like, this is the last moment where you have to pay a bunch of money to make one before it doesn't cost anything. I think his, his point is sort of like, if this goes into the public Domain Asylum is going to make a $2 million version of this. Tom Flood the zone.

[David Sims]

Right, do that.

[Griffin Newman]

But he's making this pitch to Disney where he goes to, like, the higher ups of Disney and basically says there's a jump ball here to take the final crack at doing the definitive origin of American sci fi correctly.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He's saying to them, like, this might be serious.

[David Sims]

Yeah. You know, he says, you should get it.

[Matt Singer]

And I. I would. I'm so serious. I would even do it.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Matt Singer]

And he's, you know, he's already kind of. I guess he hasn't like, Wally hasn't come out at this point. But Finding Nemo is a huge.

[Griffin Newman]

The highest grossing film Disney had ever released.

[Matt Singer]

Right. So that's an appealing.

[Griffin Newman]

Holds a lot of weight. And, you know, even if they don't know that Wall E is going to work, Wally is good.

[David Sims]

Indeed. They are interested. They want him happy, as he says. One might even say he has a bit of a blank check.

[Matt Singer]

I was.

[David Sims]

I would say so.

[Griffin Newman]

I would say so.

[David Sims]

Zemeckis, of course, as we said, had said, like, like, I think George Lucas kind of picked this clean. Things like Conan the Barbarian are cited as, you know, being influenced by it. This film mentioned it already. Avatar Stanton does not agree. He says no one's copied it. It's just inspired things like it's, you know, there's plenty of meat on the bone.

[Griffin Newman]

He's a little right in that the exact mix of the elements has not been brought to screen. Like you bringing up the swords and sandals thing. Yeah, that's the trickiest part of the equation. But if you can pull off that ju. Deposition rather than pick the elements clean and like, separate them and you haven't

[Matt Singer]

seen a lot of guys jumping like this.

[Griffin Newman]

Be honest.

[David Sims]

Yeah. But you know what, though? I really kept thinking about Attack of the Clones, which has. Obviously the Jedi do be jumping like fleas. Like feels very stuff. The sort of like the fighting pits, the weird creatures, you know, like, it does kind of feel like we've seen this before. Now, that doesn't mean this movie can't

[Griffin Newman]

be a hit, but Attack of the clones is fully 10 years before this is. This is why I stick up for Attack of the Clones. So strange as like his swords and sandals. Epic. Also his noir homage. Like, he just takes three different genres he likes and is like, what if I can like, backstop them into Star wars in a middle chapter?

[David Sims]

They don't hang together.

[Griffin Newman]

That's otherwise shooting. No, they don't.

[Matt Singer]

Unlike John Carter. Harder.

[Griffin Newman]

It's it's like a closet where you open someone's closet up and you're like, what is your sex?

[David Sims]

Why do you have Hawaiian shirts and tuxedos? This is weird. But I mean, look, Attack of the Clones obviously just has like the most hard boiled, incredible narrative and like the kind of characters like Dexter Jets.

[Griffin Newman]

I have a seat. Who bought these clones? I have a laundry ticket.

[David Sims]

We already recently. I do just love to litigate it all the time of like, if I just showed up to a planet in a brown robe, they would be like, like, the clones are ready for you. No further questions.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, we've been waiting.

[David Sims]

You don't need to prove who you are. You do not need to even seem to know what we're talking about.

[Matt Singer]

They're not going to fit on your ship.

[David Sims]

Like, huh? And they're like, yes, the clones, remember? Anyway, you're going to need a bigger

[Matt Singer]

ship to take him out of here, though.

[David Sims]

You are going to need, right. Some large ships.

[Griffin Newman]

But Attack of the clones even 10 years old by the time this movie comes out.

[David Sims]

So Stanton writes the script with Mark Andrews, who has worked on other Pixar stuff, Incredibles, Ratatouille.

[Griffin Newman]

He ends up directing Brave after Brenda Chapman is fired. Brave comes out this same year.

[David Sims]

Then Michael Shaban, who has the other credit on this, comes in. And I feel like Shaban had done a lot of work on Spider Man 2, of course.

[Matt Singer]

And he's another guy who supposedly. Yes. And love. Another, like, huge John Carter fan.

[David Sims]

Supposedly.

[Griffin Newman]

Most of his Spider Man 2 work was thrown out by all accounts. They made a big, splashy announcement because Cavalier and Clay was so hot.

[David Sims]

It was comics related. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, Hollywood loves when they're like, oh, my God, there's a genius who likes, quote unquote, low art.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And appreciates it.

[Matt Singer]

What low art do we have right. We can give to him.

[Griffin Newman]

Hire a high man to make our big blockbuster. So they make this big announcement that he's doing Spider Man 2 throughout almost all of his work and then bring in Alvin Sergeant to basically do what

[Matt Singer]

the movie pretty much write it.

[Griffin Newman]

His version was about like, Doc Ock hucking Spider Man. Doc Ock was like, young and sexy

[Matt Singer]

and keep, keep talking. I'm interested.

[David Sims]

I mean, Shaven is. Especially because he then went to Star Trek and people hate when he did Star Trek too much. Yes. I do think he often is like, I have a really different brained idea and it will bump against people being like, we were kind of looking for like, you know, the USS Enterprise to like go To a planet, maybe have an adventure. He's like, you're not interested in all this stuff I'm thinking about.

[Griffin Newman]

But Spider man is two. Two is huge. Arguably the greatest comic book movie of all time. And his name is there in a big credit.

[David Sims]

So he had also written a spec screenplay called the Martian Agent that was essentially a hodgepodge of John Carter stories, which he loved, as we say, you know, like. So, like, he also is working on a show with Darren Aronofsky called Hobgoblin. That was a World War II show about magic. That sounds kind of cool for HBO. Yeah, does sound kind of cool.

[Griffin Newman]

Hey, Ben, would you mind slinging me another web?

[Matt Singer]

Wow.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[Matt Singer]

Wow. All this talk about Spider Man 2 made you.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

You got a little parched thinking about

[Griffin Newman]

Daka Spidey makes me want to have another cuff.

[David Sims]

So, like Stanton Andrews, Shaban, all love John Carter. You know what I mean? They're all working together with love for the. The books.

[Griffin Newman]

And they're all. It sort of feels like three little boys in a clubhouse being like, can we relocate what we loved about this? Will that be infectious?

[David Sims]

Could it have benefited maybe from someone coming in who's like, I love sci fi adventure movies. I don't love John Carter. Know about it. So maybe I can help you put it on. No polite decline.

[Matt Singer]

We're good on the coffee. I have. I have non Spider man coffee that I.

[Griffin Newman]

2009. Star Trek. That was kind of the whole strategy, right?

[David Sims]

Abrams delivered a movie for you that basically will make Star Trek fans happy, although not all of them. They're never happy. But that kind of swerved away from the notions of Star Trek.

[Griffin Newman]

Kurtzman, Orsi, and Abrams. You have three different levels of Star Trek.

[David Sims]

Super nerd, casual nerd. I don't know what Star Trek is.

[Griffin Newman]

Can we have the bona fides and also make it feel approachable?

[David Sims]

Abrams is like, you had me at Star, lost me at Trek. Yeah. Let's just go back to Star Trek for now.

[Griffin Newman]

I'll take Shrek until something better comes along.

[Matt Singer]

Long placeholder.

[David Sims]

The front runner for the role of John Carter was an actor named Taylor Kitsch. Who gets the role now?

[Griffin Newman]

We have fought on this a little bit.

[David Sims]

Let's fight.

[Griffin Newman]

Where I feel like you bring up Taylor Kitsch as the ultimate gabo, where the industry was like, this guy. We're telling you it's this guy. And you are.

[David Sims]

To me, this movie has two gabos. But although Kitsch is obviously a huge one.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Who's Gabo? Well, Gabo is from the Simpsons, remember? But you know, just kind of that, that like Taylor Kitsch, the big star, you know, they do this all the time. Hollywood, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. That they. Billboards that just say the word Gabo.

[David Sims]

Catch.

[Matt Singer]

He is the man we love.

[David Sims]

Industry plant. Kind of. They've, they've. I mean Colin Farrell suffered from this.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, it's more like the guy has

[David Sims]

a little juice and they're like the

[Griffin Newman]

industry is so preoccupied on convincing you that they're already a thing.

[David Sims]

Why are you so what do you think?

[Griffin Newman]

Well, I, I feel like you have argued. He is the ultimate. There was nothing there and they sort of just like picked him and pushed him.

[David Sims]

No, I have definitely not argued that because I love Friday Night Live.

[Matt Singer]

Right?

[David Sims]

So there's no way I've argued.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the thing. Like, because I feel like the 2010s have a lot of Gabos. Right?

[David Sims]

The one who I truly think of as the ultimate is Travis Fimmel.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

This is. I feel like the argument we've had in the past when he shows up in Warcraft. I'm like, I keep reading that fucking all these people can't justify $100 million budget. And this guy's the lead. He's on the A and E Viking show. You just got a guy who also has worn armor.

[David Sims]

It was on the History Channel.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm sorry, take it back. But Taylor Kitsch has the sort of like buzzy, supporting, swoony, James Dean esque bad boy role. He was good Friday night shouts. My brother and my mother are obsessed with that show.

[David Sims]

Travis Femmel. Just one of those guys where you're like, you're telling me he wasn't on Sons of Anarchy? Like, they're like, no Vikings. You're like, but come on. He's got a big old beard. He's got a bald head.

[Griffin Newman]

I think the whole pitch on Travis Fimmel was he. He feels like a biker, but we can put him in like armor with a sword. Does it have.

[Matt Singer]

He'll bring the. The biker to the Viking.

[David Sims]

Tim Riggins. Taylor Kitsch is Tim Riggins. So the Fridays runs 06 to 11. And obviously it was never a hit show. It was always struggling for life. It was always critically acclaimed. Yeah, he was always the sexiest of the boys on it.

[Griffin Newman]

He's got the part that feels like the best show reel to be a Hollywood leading man.

[David Sims]

Torture. Daddy issues.

[Matt Singer]

Remember my brother Dylan from 90210? He's.

[David Sims]

We all needed this.

[Griffin Newman]

My brother, my mom watching this show every week would just Be like, God, this guy is such a movie star. Like, when is someone gonna, you know, crack it?

[David Sims]

And I, I feel like I first saw him in X. I mean, in a movie. In X Men Origins. Wolverine. Like, I, I. And I know he's in, like, the Covenant and what's it called? The Snakes. Snakes on a plane.

[Griffin Newman]

No, but that was the real.

[David Sims]

But like, those are little.

[Griffin Newman]

Where Hollywood was. Like, we've taken notice. He's gonna have a small part in this. But like, but it's a coveted role.

[David Sims]

A coveted role that comes could.

[Matt Singer]

It's like the Apatow thing you were talking about. We're gonna give him a little part here, 10 hot minutes, and you're gonna fall in love with him, and then we're gonna give him his own thing, do that movie.

[David Sims]

Do you think he's good in X Men, a terrible movie, being okay? He's all right.

[Matt Singer]

He's maybe one of the acceptable parts of an ungodly bad movie, right?

[David Sims]

Maybe the least offensive parts of that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, the movie does the same thing with him and Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds at opposite parts of the film, right?

[David Sims]

Deadpool leads it off. He's in the middle where it'.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, we've picked a star that we think is about to pop, right? We're calling dibs on a character. We're placing the intent on the born character, and we're testing out how much you like this. And the rejection of both is so huge that it, like, sets back Deadpool. And Ryan Reynolds has to spend the next five years of his life pushing it back uphill.

[David Sims]

Someone leaked that footage. I wonder who. It was

[Matt Singer]

a mystery that shall never be solved.

[David Sims]

I remember, like, the Comic Con footage of him as Gambit bit where he's got the staff and he goes like, you know, he, like, jumps and like.

[Griffin Newman]

And people like, we've done.

[David Sims]

You saw the movie. And they were like, oh, by the way, that's the only thing he does in the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Crazy poker.

[David Sims]

Like, he throws some cards.

[Griffin Newman]

90% of his screen time is seated behind a poker table. And then he gets up at the end, twirls the staff once, throws some cards, Goodbye, game back.

[David Sims]

That's all I remember, right? Remy Leau.

[Matt Singer]

But. But he.

[Griffin Newman]

You were like, okay, he holds the screen. He's not bad. He didn't.

[Matt Singer]

He gave good gambit.

[David Sims]

He gave good gambit. The movie sucks. But obviously not his fault. Not his fault against him.

[Griffin Newman]

And Hollywood goes like, that's all we need to see. Off to the races. And he books three giant Movies, basically, back to back to back, all of which come out in 2012, which was

[David Sims]

maybe if I'm his agent, I'm sweating a little bit.

[Griffin Newman]

In the span of four months, in chronological order, John Carter in March, Battleship

[David Sims]

in May, which, of course, we've covered on our Patreon.

[Griffin Newman]

And then Oliver mem. Savages in July.

[David Sims]

Was that July? Let's see. Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

So when he's doing press for John Carter, they're like, you're the guy.

[David Sims]

He's the lead of all three movies.

[Griffin Newman]

He's the guy in all three movies. And all the press is like, well, you're here promoting John Carter, but really, this is about the year of kitsch. By the end of this year, everyone will agree you're the biggest movie star alive.

[Matt Singer]

They're getting kitschy.

[David Sims]

He has made five films total since then.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[David Sims]

And he's like, obviously he's done TV and he's done some other stuff, you know, but, like, he has been in five movies since American Assassin. That's one.

[Griffin Newman]

A movie you've watched many times.

[David Sims]

Ben once.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

And I just was struck by how he's the sort of secondary. It was.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I haven't seen Keaton's the mentor. Dylan o' Brien's the hero. Kitch is the former assassin who went bad. Is that right?

[David Sims]

I think so.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Matt Singer]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

I haven't seen it. But wait, I'm struggling to even name.

[David Sims]

There's one you won't know. The four of them are real movies.

[Griffin Newman]

Four of them are real movies, but he's not the lead in any of them. He's supporting CS and all.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I feel like there was one thing I remember seeing him in where I was like, oh, he's pretty good.

[David Sims]

There's a movie, a Canadian movie called Don Mc by Don McKellar called the Grand Seduction with him and Brendan Gle.

[Griffin Newman]

Have not seen, though.

[David Sims]

Never heard of it. Don't know anything about it. There's a big war movie that he's like, the second secondary lead in that was a huge hit.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, Lone Survive.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Which. That movie feels like it was Peter Berg doing a. Like, can I save Emile Hirsch? Can I save Taylor Kitsch? Like, bring these guys back.

[David Sims]

There's an extremely good movie that he's quite good in. Although he's not a lead, he's part of the ensemble. That was a giant bomb from a great director. That was a disaster movie. Real true story movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, only the Brave.

[David Sims]

Right. Where he's again, like, Lone Survivor. One of the guys.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But he's Good in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. But it was a giant bomb.

[David Sims]

It was a giant bomb. And then there is a somewhat forgotten cop drama that was pretty good.

[Griffin Newman]

Is. It's not the Chadwick Boseman one.

[David Sims]

It sure is.

[Griffin Newman]

16 bridges.

[David Sims]

Keep going.

[Matt Singer]

You need more bridges.

[Griffin Newman]

Up 24, down 21.

[David Sims]

Where I think I have seen. I think he might be the villain. I can't remember. But, like, you know, he's just like, hey, I'm Officer Good Guy Guy. It feels. I'm. I'm following up on the case. I have a few questions. I'll see you later. Watch out for that guy.

[Griffin Newman]

He is allergic to the idea of being the center again. Understandably, he doesn't want that weight on him. I mean, all of them are variations on the former golden boy.

[David Sims]

In his defense, obviously, he did do True Detective season two, which I know was like a what, you know, another kind of weird blank check bounce. But, like, you know, he wasn't.

[Griffin Newman]

He was in the Unabomber show.

[David Sims]

He was David Koresh in the Waco show. Right, right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what it was. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And he's been in a bunch of other stuff. He's in that Chris Pratt showed the Terminal list that everyone's.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Always talking about.

[Griffin Newman]

But you get the sense, understandably, that the experience of 2012 kind of shook him to his core. Wow.

[David Sims]

And he found out.

[Griffin Newman]

Tentative steps now.

[David Sims]

Totally. I just found out that he is the lead character in a Terminal List spin off.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, yeah.

[David Sims]

Called the Dark Wolf.

[Griffin Newman]

Dark Wolf.

[David Sims]

Terminal List is really doing so well that we need a spin off.

[Matt Singer]

Like, are we sure we want to see the Dark Wolf?

[David Sims]

How do you think he is in this movie? To be clear, again, Stanton loved him in Friday Night Lights. Thought he kind of. Because he has the hair in Friday Night Lights. Thought he kind of matched the sort of classic kind of paintings of John Carter into old paperbacks and stuff and just was kind of like, this is my guy. Even though I think there was some discussion of, like, you sure we don't want to, like, call Tom Cruise?

[Griffin Newman]

There's all this weird reporting of Tom Cruise being interested in the film. It is confirmed that Stanton met with Tom Cruise a few times, but the

[David Sims]

wraparound line of it is Cruise campaigned for the job and Stanton says he met with him. I have. That feels impossible to me in terms of, like, if Cruise had gone to, you know, Disney and said, like, I would like to play John Carter, I imagine Disney would have said yes.

[Griffin Newman]

But it maybe not.

[David Sims]

It's kind of a weird period.

[Griffin Newman]

It was a weird period. For Cruise, Yeah. Where it's like, yes, it would help to have a name above your title. But also he costs so much, he's expensive and he's super, like a big portion of profit.

[David Sims]

This is pre Ghost Protocol, which kind of like reset the Cruise narrative. Like, so it's kind of the weird

[Griffin Newman]

successful version of Pixar. Director goes to an to live action.

[David Sims]

That is true.

[Griffin Newman]

Which comes out the year before this. Like, it's also weird that you're like the things that you feel would have encouraged Disney to greenlight the. This hadn't actually happened yet. Avatar hasn't come out. Ghost Protocol hasn't come out. You're like, the math retroactively. You're like, it must have been. They looked at those two things and said, sure.

[David Sims]

I think the other thing is Stanton's like, we wanted a young actor because the idea is we're making a series.

[Matt Singer]

We need somebody who can make three of these over the next 10 years.

[Griffin Newman]

I also feel like the implication has always been that Cruise kind of came to him late, that either Kitsch had already been cast or he had his eye on Kitsch. He had certainly done all the screen testing. There was like Josh D and Chantatum, all the people you'd assume, right. The guys were in that pot. And then Cruz kind of like swept in and was like, what about me? And because he was so focused on the trilogy thing, he's like, am I going to have to make like a third movie with a 60 year old Cruz? Certainly a 60 year old Cruz.

[Matt Singer]

Surely not going to be making action

[David Sims]

movies at that point. Lynn Collins also says, like, everyone I tested against was like a kitsch age actor. Like, if Cruz was involved, it was not.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah. I read something where Stanton was talking about, like, I. At first I was like, he's too young. But then I looked back at, you know, the ages of Harrison Ford when he made Star wars and people like that. And they were always younger than he. Than you think they were. Right. And so he felt like he could carry it off. He had the gravitas or whatever. But.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, can we.

[Matt Singer]

Having.

[Griffin Newman]

Having said that, can we talk about the performance for a little bit? I know we got more context to get into, but you asked.

[David Sims]

I think it's a good question. Like, yes. Is Taylor Kitsch good as John Carter in the film John Carter, which was a Disney release in 2012, directed by Andrew Stanton?

[Griffin Newman]

I think it, like his performance half works. I think it works in spurts, like the movie itself. Right. And I think it's a Weird case where you're like, historically, at this time, a man of his age would have experienced a lot of life and could be kind of hardened and broken down by said experiences. But to see him in a 2012 movie, you're like, this guy's too young.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't buy this guy having the kind of, like, war wound.

[David Sims]

He doesn't jive with his backstory. You're right. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I think he's kind of good at the charming, swashbuckling thing. I think he has moments where he does the Indiana Jones thing well. I think anytime the movie wants him to sell the Haunted and the sort of Weary, he can't quite sell it. And I do think he's fundamentally too modern.

[Matt Singer]

I think he. I mean, I was another person. Love Friday Night Lights. Love that show. My wife and I watched every episode, and I. He was good on that show. And. But I think what he was doing on that show was, like, almost. And I don't mean this, like, insultingly, like, it was almost nothing. It was a lot of just, like, presence. He didn't have to.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[Matt Singer]

He was just standing there looking incredible. And I agree, handsome.

[David Sims]

And he had emotional moments, but, like, the emotions of that show are carried more by, like, obviously, Zach Guilford, you know, like, by other actors.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah. And I just think he was good in Stillness, let's say. And in this movie. I don't know, it just feels like he's trying so hard. I feel him trying. Whereas, like, Riggins is so laconic.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

And this character. And I don't know about anybody else, but in this room. But every time he speaks, there's something very affected about his voice and the voice that he's using. You know, it's almost like he's, like, trying to do John Wayne or something.

[Griffin Newman]

It's. It's got a bit of Tug Speedman where it feels like the way you parody an action star rather than an actual effortless action star.

[Matt Singer]

You know, like, there's that. One of the scenes that, like, half works very well in this movie is his first encounter with Tars Tarkas. You have Willem Dafoe, who's very good and very funny.

[Griffin Newman]

Locked in.

[Matt Singer]

He is locked in.

[David Sims]

I mean, like, he's done it many times. He can just. He's just good at this.

[Matt Singer]

Doing the alien voice. And Tars Tar.

[David Sims]

Aquaman. He's good at this role. Right. Like, how many times has he done this? For.

[Griffin Newman]

For your knowledge, Ben, this is Defoe on set, like, in the.

[Matt Singer]

Oh, my God.

[Griffin Newman]

On stilts with A mocap rig over his head. And sometimes Defoe, who loves challenges and technical exercises and whatever is like walking in stilts in the desert.

[Matt Singer]

He's not just walking in some scenes. He's, like, running. And they have guys you can. I found, like, footage behind the scenes of him. He has a guy literally dressed from head to toe, covered completely in green.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

Whose job it is. Is to just make sure he doesn't topple over as he's running to his spotter as extras.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

Brandishing a sword. But in this scene, he's doing the, you know, like, TARS Darkest suck.

[David Sims]

Do this.

[Matt Singer]

And he's. And he. And he's great. And Virginia. Yes, Virginia. Yes, you're Virginia. Hilarious. And then they cut to the other side and it's Taylor Kitsch going, you know, like, what's going on, man? Captain John Carter, Virginia.

[David Sims]

I. He doesn't quite bump on me as hard as he seems to be buckling on you.

[Matt Singer]

I don't know.

[David Sims]

I don't love.

[Matt Singer]

I am Dotar Soldier.

[Griffin Newman]

You saying the bad impression, the presence and the stillness thing. What's tricky about these types of movies and why it's always really tough to be like, well, we need a young lead because we want to build a franchise. But that also means we're placing someone into this type of film who has limited experience.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Even if you've worked a lot, it's like, how often have you been the lead? How big has the project, you're in the lead been? And now you're on, like, a shoot where you might for two or three consecutive weeks have one line of dialogue. Something like shooting the white ape sequence is like, so many tiny little pieces where I do think you kind of want to cast for presence. Ideally, you want Harrison Ford. You want someone who's equally good at selling the dialogue scenes and the character and the comedy. But also, if you're getting into technical action pieces, every one of those is going to have an energy and a presence and not just be a guy hitting choreography.

[Matt Singer]

But there is an additional problem here with him, which actually is not his fault. It is the conception of the character, which is that they cast this incredibly handsome, striking man to play a shockingly frequent, like, focus of ridicule. Especially in the beginning of this movie, they. You know, the Tug Speedman thing is kind of funny because they almost do cast him as, like, this bumbling comic, like, loon. This boon so much, especially the beginning of the movie is making fun of him. They literally. They, like, put him. They treat him like a Baby. Like, they discover the Martian.

[David Sims]

He's treating him like baby.

[Matt Singer]

He is baby.

[Griffin Newman]

They put him in a diaper.

[David Sims]

They do.

[Matt Singer]

They put him in a diaper.

[David Sims]

Goo on him or something.

[Matt Singer]

Powder him. They stick him in a vat of Alien. Is it cum? I don't know what it is.

[Griffin Newman]

I feel like you were burning to say something, Sims.

[David Sims]

Oh, I'm not sure. Oh, well.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, well.

[David Sims]

Sam Worthington. Right. Again. I can't help it, but I do think it's. It's vital when we're talking about Taylor Kitsch. Because Sam Worthington's the same play.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Even a less known guy. Yeah. You kind of just need to be.

[Griffin Newman]

Hold the center a little regular.

[David Sims]

Hold the center. Be relatable. Yeah. Have a little personality. You will be blue often. Like, unlike Taylor Kitsch. Although Taylor Kitsch briefly is blue in this movie when he comes out of the white eight. Right.

[Matt Singer]

Yep.

[David Sims]

And I do think Sam Worthington is better. Why is that? I don't think, like, Sam Worthington is incredible in Avatar or anything, but, like, is it just that he has, like, a little bit more good humor and, like, that kind of vibes?

[Matt Singer]

They don't make him dress and act like a baby.

[David Sims]

Sure. I mean, he does wear. You know, it's just.

[Matt Singer]

There's so much. It's just you've cast this guy who's so cool and I don't think of as a comedic actor. And then, like, as soon as he's on Mars, it's all shtick. Actually, before Mars, his introduction with the. With.

[Griffin Newman]

With Cranston.

[Matt Singer]

With Cranston is like him jumping out of windows, peeing on the ground. It's all schtick.

[Griffin Newman]

See, this is a. Your mileage may vary thing, but I felt this at the time and rewatching it was pleasantly surprised. I think he sells the comedy better than I would imagine. I wouldn't say he's funny in this.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But I also think if we're looking at Worthington, Hunnam, Headland.

[David Sims]

Right, right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

The guys in this.

[David Sims]

So. Right. Hunnam is, I mean, like Pacific Rim, I guess.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm trying to King Arthur later.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[David Sims]

Headland is, you know, Tron likes Legacy, which I like that performance in that movie. But a lot of people didn't really.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's a similar kind of swaggery. Like, is there a little bit of Marlon Brando Wild One? Is there a little bit of cheeky humor in this? That's what they're trying to get, a modern. They don't want a guy playing stoic sci fi hero. I think what works for Worthington is that Cameron kind of set him up to succeed in the inverse of how Stanton a little bit set kitsch up to fail in Avatar. He's like, kind of the point is that you're the boring guy kind of the point is that you're just like a personality list marine and then we'll build the humanity in later. There's a. We didn't talk about this in Dead Poet Society, but then I saw someone on the Reddit call it out that Hawk did this interview where he said Weir was really smart about casting for the final color. And what he meant by that was

[David Sims]

yes, yes, we can't believe we didn't bring this.

[Griffin Newman]

I know, but that like in Dead Poet Society you're like weird. You're having Hawk play like the timid guy. Not Robert Shawn Leonard's part where he's like the artsy, ambitious, you know, passionate guy. And he said, you want to cast for the final color. Robert Sean Leonard will ultimately get you to the suicide scene where you need to. That's his wheelhouse. And it will feel explosive when that part of him comes out. Likewise, when Hawke gets on the desk and finally is passionate, overly earnest Ethan Hawke, that will be explosive. Right. And I think there was a little bit of Cameron casting for the final color, which is just like have Jake Sully be a little bit of a blank. And then what Worthington is good at is kind of the earthy, earnest, eye care romance thing, which I is like acting him off of Somersault and. But you're also really not asking him to be funny. You're making him the joke, but in a kind of lower level way. And you're letting all the other characters pop around him. Yes. The secret to that movie is it's natiri is really driving everything.

[David Sims]

And we're.

[Griffin Newman]

And they cast and we'll talk about

[David Sims]

the rest of the ensemble in a second and all that. That does matter.

[Griffin Newman]

I think what Stanton really wants is the Indiana Jones thing and you saying that the movie is constantly embarrassing him. It's the thing that at this point in time, I think Hollywood filmmakers are pointing at a lot. We're getting a lot of blank, generic, kind of stoic heroes. And what people are forgetting is that Han Solo and Indiana Jones fucked up a lot. They were funny. They weren't just cool all the time. And a lot of it was watching them finesse a situation and feeling the struggle of Are they going to be able to pull this off?

[David Sims]

Yeah, well, Ford's really good at the. I'm one plan ahead at best, kind of like on the fly, kind of scrambling.

[Griffin Newman]

And then you watch him trip, but then you watch him recover.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And this is a movie that builds in those moments of mid battle. John Carter being like, you know, the moment that I felt like was really big in the trailer of the white ape, the second and third white apes coming out and cutting to him. Sighing.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Of like, oh, this is a guy who has vulnerability. He's stressed out that he's in this movie.

[Matt Singer]

I don't butt up against that as much as ask as much as just how goofy some of the things they. I mean, he's literally like, I think

[David Sims]

you're also a diaper. You're describing a problem that the movie has in general of it can't quite reconcile the goofiness and the epicness. That. Well. And tragic weight and kitsch also doesn't work at the end of the movie when he's like, my master plan is being revealed. And I am still just like. You just kind of feel 29 years old to me.

[Griffin Newman]

I do love the ending. And the ending is.

[David Sims]

I don't mind the concept of the ending. I just don't think he is.

[Griffin Newman]

I think he kind of sells it. I'm a little hotter in this performance than you. Even though it doesn't totally work.

[Matt Singer]

Again, I, I, it's, to me, it's like, it's an interesting way to conceive the character because it's not. It's not from the books. You know, as much as Stanton loves the books, the books are not about this guy having these wacky adventures. This is grand epic romance. Very ser. And, But. And the books are very serious.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Matt Singer]

And, you know, like, grand. And here we have all this shtick, and it almost feels like. And I don't know this, but it's just like, like, well, we're making a movie based on this thing from the 19 teens. Maybe we want to give it a little, like, silent comedy flavor. You know, there's almost kind of like a. Yeah. When he, when he's bumbling around in the desert.

[Griffin Newman]

You're right. There's a little Buster Keaton.

[Matt Singer]

There's a Buster Keaton kind of a thing, for sure. In. He's in the desert, bumbling around, trying to stand.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's also acknowledge he's running straight from this into Wally. Right. Like, he gets Disney to buy the rights to this while he's finishing Wally. This is what I was gonna say. And he's going into production on this a year and a half after Wally is released. Like, these things are, like, overlapping. And Wally, as we covered last week, he's just mainlining Lloyd, Chaplin, Keaton. Like they said at Pixar, every week they would screen those movies, they'd rewatch them. They were obsessively studying the type of hero. And as he said, what he learned with Wally is the emotional arc isn't the guy. It's the way he changes the world around him.

[Matt Singer]

I think you can feel that in this movie. I had a lot of success. People loved Wally. They loved that. The way that I kind of imbued that character with that silent comedian energy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

And it. It seems to be here as well. And I just don't think it fits this movie the way it fit that movie. Especially with Taylor Kitsch as your guy. A guy that I like, a guy that I was excited to see in this movie.

[David Sims]

He says he regrets that he didn't do enough personally. He didn't give everything he had. He kind of sounds like an athlete talking after a loss. Boss. Kind of like, it's on me. It's not anyone else. Like, the team is great, the coach is great, but he says he talks to Lynn Collins every day. These relationships were born. He says he had a huge respect for Andrew. I never had a fight with him, even day 80 in the miserable desert, because I respect him so much. This isn't a production where people are like, what a nightmare. Like, everyone had a good cast of this or at least was into it.

[Griffin Newman]

Has continued to defend it.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like you read interviews with Samantha Morton, with Defoe, with everybody to this day, and they're like, I had a great time doing that. And it felt. Felt like the movie got thrown under the bus. Dominic west continues to defend it.

[David Sims]

Dominic west, who looks really good in this movie.

[Matt Singer]

Yes, he does.

[David Sims]

Hot. Like, you know, like. Because now Dominic west is settled into his. Like, I play British buffoons. I'm a little older, you know, like, forget like Dominic west was. I mean, Obviously we love McNutty, but, like, that's a little different.

[Griffin Newman]

It is funny when you watch a movie and you can tell what the director was watching at the time and you're like, same with Jamie.

[David Sims]

I know. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. When James Purefoy showed up, I was like, we don't need to be bringing. I don't mind him as an actor. He cannot come in this late. I'm sorry. You already had Dominic west. You can't be two British guy, like a TV actor.

[Griffin Newman]

It's so much kind of rise of prestige TV in late 2010s where you're three wrong. You got a wire person, you got a true blood person, you got the Breaking Bad guy, you got a Friday Night Lights guy for sure.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah, it's the that era.

[David Sims]

All stars, Tars Tarkas had that sitcom, the, the guy, the Tars. So Willem Dafoe obviously had worked on Finding Nemo. He liked Pixar, he liked their approach. And as he puts it, that guy asked me to play a 12 foot tall jedek of the Green Race of Tharks. What you're going to say no to that? I don't think so. That's the Willem Dafoe attitude. Because I feel like some other would be like, no, I do think no Stilton Desert, no Willem Dafoe's like, let me add it.

[Griffin Newman]

When you say likes Pixar, likes the approach. It's the other thing around this movie which is, man, Pixar has had the best track record of anyone in Hollywood history and of course feels like they just work and work and work until they crack the story. And it always just fits together perfectly. And there's a growing feeling of why are these kids movies better than all the quote unquote serious adult blockbusters that Hollywood's making? Should they be making those? How do we like infect the Pixar process into the other areas of studio

[Matt Singer]

filmmaking and by the time this comes out, the ghost protocol has come out.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

And that has only increased that, that sentiment because it's like, wow, they, he Bradford really cracked me down.

[Griffin Newman]

He let these guys do everything.

[Matt Singer]

Yes. I mean I, I'm saying a lot of negative things about John Carter. But what I do want to say here, I was excited about this movie, right.

[David Sims]

Like, I was so excited. I, I remember the trailer really getting pushed down our throats and all that and like starting to get a little tired of. Yeah, that, you know, inevitable blockbustery sort of thing where they're just like, you're all excited and I'm like, teaser trailer a year in advance, a little bit more. Five months in the desert on stilts. That's, that's quite an achievement according to Willem Dafoe.

[Griffin Newman]

Mostly the Four Corners.

[David Sims]

Dominic west thought it was a brilliant film, thinks Andrew Stanton is a fucking genius.

[Griffin Newman]

Works with him again on Finding Dory.

[David Sims]

Right. He thinks Hollywood politics, politics put it in the bin. Like he, he's just right. Some of these actors are just like, I don't know, I loved that. Like, no further questions. There is, I don't Cranston also basically was like. It was great.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Box office, Hollywood tracking, like, these jerks.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think this film ever was going to be a mega hit. But there is no denying that by the time it came out, it was doomed. There was three months of the most overwhelming press.

[David Sims]

Yeah. The kind of trades thing where they smell a bomb and they start to exalt in, like, did you know how much this costs? And it's called John Carter. What are they thinking? You know, which, like, then they tried to do with sinners.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And then when it blew up in their faces, they were like, okay. But it did do that good for like a week. And people screamed at them so much

[Griffin Newman]

that they were like.

[David Sims]

They were like, all right, you know, maybe forget it. Like, I guess it's okay.

[Griffin Newman]

But there's also Dick Cook, who had had this incredibly triumphant run at Disney, had stepped down. Rich Ross takes over. Rich Ross had been running the Disney channel, I believe.

[David Sims]

Right. And I mean, Rick Ross was doing great at that time. Yeah, Right. You know, Teflon dawn over there.

[Griffin Newman]

But then he has a really shaky run. Like he inherits several films that end up being really successful, like the first, Alice in Wonderland and things like that. But the things that he greenlights basically all start to crash and burn. And he's out. Pretty shortly after this, they hire a woman named mt Carney, who ran a boutique marketing agency to be put in charge of all marketing for Disney films. And it was a sort of shockwave announcement of like, is Disney trying to, like, do something different? This is someone who does not have the experience and has not ever worked at this scale. She's never worked in movie marketing, period. And this ended up being the main film she worked on. And then I believe she got fired either a month before, a month after it came out. Like, this movie is overseen by a bunch of transitional people, people in the Disney regime.

[Matt Singer]

I just remember a lot of talk about the title.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

And John Carter of Mars, or just John Carter and who is John Carter? And there was all these articles about that.

[Griffin Newman]

And there's all this second guessing. There's all this revolving door shit. Disney at this point in time is in a struggle, which is part of why they fucking just buy Marvel and Lucasfilm and go like, that's our live action thing solved.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But this movie becomes the center to focus on of what the fuck is going on at Disney and how much money have they spent on this thing that we've never heard of? Ben, just to clearly state this, the book is called A Princess of Mars. That title immediately evokes something. But Disney releases the film the Princess and the Frog covered on this show, and it does well, but not hugely well. And their takeaway is no boy will see a movie with Princess in the title. They immediately pivot to the in development, in production, Rapunzel movie being retitled Tangled and the Snow Queen movie being retitled Frozen. They're like, we need these kind of actiony titles. And they say to Stanton, cannot be called Princess of Mars. Got it. We'll call it John Carter of Mars. That helps us come up with our franchise heading. John Carter's the guy. What happens then? Disney releases a movie called Mars Needs Moms, aforementioned, the final film in their deal with Zemeckis. He produces it but does not direct it is his final, like, mo cap movie and it is a gigantic disaster. And the takeaway from that is, fuck, Mars is a problem. And they zoom out and they look at the data that David mentioned before. They're like, fuck, there were Mars never works in the last 10 years.

[David Sims]

And also, like, it sounds like a boy thing, right? Like, it's like. It's funny that they're like, Princess is too girly. Then like, Mars is too boring.

[Griffin Newman]

They admit this.

[David Sims]

They're like, girls won't go to a Mars movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, both things. So you end up with John Carter. That means nothing because they're so terrified of scaring off both sides of the audience that they end up on a

[Matt Singer]

thing on er, Right.

[David Sims]

Like, don't you want to. Yeah, he, of course, Dr. John Carter. Empty. But like, yeah, don't you want to go see a John Carter? Well, what's that about? Guy called John Carter. What does he do? He's on Mars.

[Matt Singer]

Aliens and stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, it's just like, how are you impossible? But it's like the perfect fucking. Like Hollywood out thinks themself into a hole.

[David Sims]

I was watching the end of this movie on the train here and a woman sat down next to me and tapped on my shoulder and was like, what are you watching? And I'm like, john Carter. She's like, what?

[Griffin Newman]

She's probably tapping you on the shoulder and expecting you to say Dune and she'll go, oh, that's what Dune is. I hear everyone talking about Dune. The idea that, that she's seeing this, like, expensive sci fi movie on your phone and the title is something she hasn't heard of. David.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

You got any big summer plans if you're traveling? You got late nights, packed weekend, zero structure. Any of those Keeping aggressive one in your routine helps you stay consistent. That's a loaded word right there. Consistent.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

When everything else gets. And here's another loaded word. Unpredictable.

[David Sims]

Oh, I don't want that. And I know you don't either. Look, it's a daily health drink with a multivitamin.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[David Sims]

Pre and probiotics.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep. Superfoods and antioxidants and all star lineup.

[David Sims]

One scoop, eight ounces of water.

[Griffin Newman]

You just shake it off.

[David Sims]

There you go.

[Matt Singer]

That's it.

[Griffin Newman]

You drink it. It takes 30 seconds.

[David Sims]

I know. You drink it every single day. What's your favorite flavor right now?

[Griffin Newman]

Right now, I'm actually really big into berry. I've been cycling through them, and I've really been enjoying this berry phase. I will say this as well, David. You said, wherever you are, I'm about to go away for six weeks and you better believe I just ordered a whole box of travel packs so that I don't have to travel unarmed.

[David Sims]

I had no doubt. So visit drinkag1.com check to get your free morning person hat and free AG1 flavor sampler. Excited for that hat in your welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription. That's an $82 value drink. That's drinkag1.com check.

[Griffin Newman]

When I wear that hat, it's gonna be so ironic. Yes. I don't like the mornings.

[Matt Singer]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

But I love AG1.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Matt Singer]

This episode is brought to you by Starbucks.

[Griffin Newman]

That is fire.

[David Sims]

Whoa. That's good. This might be the drink of the summer.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. I like this one too.

[David Sims]

I'm rocking with it. Okay, try it for yourself.

[Matt Singer]

Starbucks refreshers concentrates are coming home. Find them in the coffee aisle and make it yours.

[Griffin Newman]

Dune is another interesting thing to place out here. We're watching this. It's so similar to Dune in so many ways. And it feels like after this run of not just the failed Disney boys adventure movies, but like, Valerian. You know, Patrick Willems, our buddy, did a great video on what he called the gonzo blockbuster. These movies that were sort of like very silly and operatic. Jupiter Ascending, Speed Racer certainly falls into that. And his argument is that, like, Fury Road is the only one of those movies that worked at the time. There was a sort of like 10 year run of can we let guys just fucking do anything? And Fury Road's the only one that's a hit and is well liked upon release. And most of them kind of miss. And it feels like Dune is the final correction for that, which is is you need to just ground the shit out of this. If you're going to make these kinds of movies, you have to really just like place it in, you know, intimate human emotions and hard details and versa militude versus just like. I don't know, there's like a ship that flies.

[Matt Singer]

I mean I. I guess I have to give this movie some amount of credit that they didn't water it down.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean I love that most about it.

[Matt Singer]

I mean it. It's got these crazy green four armed aliens. Not just that they kept the. And the.

[David Sims]

Just the kind of like that. It's about a bunch of intermartion politics that they in my opinion could have maybe done a better job explaining, could have simplified. But they are definitely trying to get it all across.

[Griffin Newman]

And as much as they make him a comedic figure, this movie is mercifully devoid of. You're called the what? There's no John Carter is. It's more them making fun of John Carter than John Carter being like Barsoom. Okay, now I've heard everything that is true.

[Matt Singer]

But on the flip side I will say, say John Carter takes a long time to figure out that he is on Mars.

[Griffin Newman]

Over an hour.

[Matt Singer]

51 minutes. 51. He's already met.

[David Sims]

Why do you keep saying Barsu?

[Matt Singer]

He. He's already met green.

[David Sims]

Why are you green?

[Matt Singer]

He's met four armed green skinned, ten foot tall aliens. He has seen alien creatures burst out of eggs.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's like where am I? Montana.

[Matt Singer]

Flying. He's seen flying ship.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

And he's like what is. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He's like which state am I?

[Matt Singer]

And here we are on Earth. And she's like no, John Kata, you are on bassoon.

[Griffin Newman]

His wildest thing.

[Matt Singer]

And he literally says I'm on Mars.

[Griffin Newman]

His wildest thinking is this must be that Canada I've heard so much about. Well like they're like us, but a little different.

[Matt Singer]

Again, again they're just treating him as such a dunderhead. Like I want, I want to just kind of shake him a little bit and put be like I get with the program. Get with the program. We're not. Yeah, we're not in Canada. We're not in Montana. Clearly this is. We gotta be able to keep up with this, buddy.

[David Sims]

Now the film was made in mo. It initially made at Longcross Studios, which is in London, which I don't know if you guys have been to London. Does not resemble Mars.

[Griffin Newman]

No at all.

[Matt Singer]

Interesting.

[David Sims]

Dan Mindel who shot this movie who's like a big, I would say like does a lot of these big kind of productions.

[Griffin Newman]

Basically the film he makes in Between Star Trek and Star Wars. The Force Awakens.

[David Sims]

Yeah. He also shot Star Trek Into Darkness.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

He shot amazing Spider Man 2. He also shot a little film starring the hottest movie star in the world, Taylor Kitsch, Savages.

[Matt Singer]

Oh, man.

[Griffin Newman]

He. This guy got to lend Taylor Kitsch so much.

[David Sims]

He's currently making my most anticipated film of all time. Godzilla X Kong Supernova.

[Matt Singer]

Nice.

[David Sims]

He's basically like, the studio was being cheap. We should have shot the entire thing in the four corners. Like, you know, deserty America.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

We eventually did end up there, but it was way too late. So much of it was done on stages. It doesn't feel textured enough. Like he. He's very anti. Like that they did England stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

It is maybe the best thing this movie has going for it, especially now, 14 years on is any time they are in a fucking like. Like John Ford Vista. It's remarkable. You're like, we don't get this anymore. You don't get people and CGI creatures in a beautiful organic landscape that isn't the volume.

[Matt Singer]

Yes. And it is cool that it starts in Monument Valley and then you're in this alien landscape. And wherever they shot it, it just. It feels. It has a. A realistic texture to it.

[Griffin Newman]

Going for the Mars version of Monument Valley, I think in is a smart strategy. And anytime the movie is deploying that.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And making it a parallel to the actual like west we see at the beginning is effective. But they shot this on film.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

There was already the 3D push that they fought up against. Of course, there was one of those last minutes post cover.

[David Sims]

No concessions or adjustments for 3D.

[Matt Singer]

They shot him.

[Griffin Newman]

35 were like, it's going to be too hard to figure out how to do this. We don't want to do it incorrectly.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Matt Singer]

I mean, the look of this. I don't. I don't think the look of this movie is a problem. Even if there's what he's saying about the stages.

[David Sims]

I mean, there are sort of like green screening bits that you're like, okay, those ultimate. I don't think it looks bad.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it looks.

[Matt Singer]

I mean there's a lot of really cool props. The green screening set design and costumes.

[Griffin Newman]

I think all the production design in this movie is good.

[Matt Singer]

Aliens are cool.

[Griffin Newman]

The design is really cool.

[Matt Singer]

The. The way that they move.

[Griffin Newman]

How.

[Matt Singer]

You know, like tars. Tar. Parkus gestures with his arms and uses his hands to. Like, some of his hands are. Are gesture hands and some of them are like, he'll. He'll use all of them in different ways. 1 thought I had watching this again this week was like, I know it's John Carter of Mars, but what if it was about Tars? He's kind of my man. Tars of Mars is a winner.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

You got Willem Duo. I mean, Willem Dafoe is maybe just. Just. Because I just think he's so locked in and he gives such a great performance. I want more tars.

[Griffin Newman]

I also think it's the single biggest story mistake this movie makes. Maybe is.

[David Sims]

Is like having him vanish.

[Griffin Newman]

Samantha Morton character does not work at all. And I. I think I parsed what they were trying to do. But you're watching it and just going like, this whole thing should be buddy movie with John.

[David Sims]

Have Defoe play that role.

[Matt Singer]

That is one of the things that is pretty faithful to the book is that that character, the Sola character has act even more screen time in the book.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Matt Singer]

And has a backstory. They make much more of the backstory of her with TARS and Hatchling. She has a whole chapter that explains her backs where she tells John her backstory. It's not like him like, I guess in the movie, John Carter just kind of intuits what's going on with like, she's your daughter.

[David Sims]

A scene I don't. Right. That does not work. He's like, she's your daughter.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[David Sims]

And he's like, how do you know that? And he's like, intuition. And I'm like, intuit?

[Griffin Newman]

What the fuck are you talking.

[David Sims]

These creatures are born out of eggs. Like, you literally just went through their hatch. Like, how the fuck would you know that? Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

They all also, not to be racist, kind of look the same.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

And then.

[David Sims]

And Willem Dafoe's like, you have successfully guessed that the one in a million, like, she was kind of raised as my daughter. Thing is true of her.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Matt Singer]

Anyway, in the book that's all literally explained to John Carter by solo.

[Griffin Newman]

Lyn Collins talks about this a lot in that 10 years later piece. But that the character was originally a lot flintier and spikier.

[David Sims]

Her character or the Solo character?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And that would make sense. Have her be fucking Neytiri.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And that there were like, you know, the three rounds of reshoots on this movie, basically. And I think when you're calling out the couple little pieces that feel more apparently green screening, those are like the brief moments that feel like these were the last reshoots.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Because part of what made this cost go up so high is every time they did reshoots versus how they usually do them today where they stick out like sore thumbs. They would just fudgeing. Go back and reconstruct the sets or go back to the four corners like they were doing like full production cost. We're just redoing.

[David Sims]

Indeed. Of course, Stanton said, when we're at Pixar, we basically make a movie four to seven times. And I've never been part of a movie where you don't do that because obviously he never made a live action movie before. The way the stories get really prepared

[Griffin Newman]

for is you iterate. And a thing they said at Pixar all the time that I think Steve Jobs sort of passed on to them was the goal is to be wrong as quickly as possible. It's not to try to get it right immediately. It's to try to identify the wrong move moves fast so that you can correct them.

[David Sims]

Right. Like you make your animatics. You put your own voice on it. You see what works, you see what does.

[Griffin Newman]

But if you can identify what the problem is, then you can actually solve it. It's not about being a genius who has the whole thing figured out from the beginning. We talked about in the Wall E episode that it's one of the biggest, kind of like and certainly the most successful Pixar. Fuck, I got it wrong. We have to reanimate mostly finished footage where like less than a year before it comes out. And he's like, I fucked this up. I had Eve getting damaged and Wally needing to save her for the last act and they have to scrap and redo almost everything. That's not like a small change that affects everything in the plot. And then he sort of was like, oh, and it needed to be this all along. And the ripple effect, it's part of why Wally was so expensive. It was the most expensive animated film at the time. But he's able to point to that and go, guys, I know that was an expensive choice. And people would have said, good enough, enough. But didn't the results bear out the decision? He's. He's running off of that kind of

[Matt Singer]

confidence of again, this is a real blank check movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

But here's.

[Griffin Newman]

And Wally was a blank check, which was clear and clear with flying colors. So then he's in kind of like a Nolan post Inception state of I did my risky, expensive thing that you were letting me do just to stay in business with me. And that exceeded expectations.

[Matt Singer]

I will say one of the ways in which I do think this movie is interesting is as the kind of larger meta allegory of John Carter. The guy from Earth who goes to Mars. Andrew Stanton, the animator making his first very tentative, very bobbly steps into live action. There is something that's interesting in that.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's in the New Yorker piece. But he said when they finally greenlit the movie, he was like, I'm gonna lose £20.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm gonna run like a mile or two every day. And when I'm on set, I'm never sitting down, I'm never going to my trailer. I so badly want to fight the notion that I'm like an animation guy.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right, right, right. And look, again, everyone speaks highly of him on set and all that. Now it is maybe a mistake by him to do an incredibly frank profile in the New Yorker before the movie comes out.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

In which he talks about the fact that he showed a 2 hour, 50 minute cut of the film film to Disney in December of 2011. Okay. So four months before it comes out. The Pixar guys who watch it at this meeting immediately are like, week plus this week plus this, you know, like start doing all of that. And like. But we're confused by the beginning. And the lecture about Barsoom doesn't feel really personal. And the Pixar process obviously would be like, yeah, yeah, that was our first go. And well, now let's get to work on fixing it.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank God we showed it to you in the story reels stage rather than fix it. Finished production.

[David Sims]

And then obviously at this point, there's only so much that can be done. They do do many reshoots. Lyn Collins felt like, you know, as. As you said, like in the original script, she slaps John Carter a few times. That was a princess of Mars. She's a warrior. And Disney basically was like, this character comes off too hard, too bitchy, like, may soften her at a certain point. She says during the reshoot, she was just like to Andrew, like, just tell me where to stand and what to do. I've lost the character. Like, whatever it is you need from me, I'll do it.

[Griffin Newman]

There's minutes of deleted scenes on the Blu ray and it's frustrating because you're like, I know there's an hour and 20 minutes. There's a John Carter, the missing pieces and I want to see all of it. And I'm sure a lot of the deleted footage is like alternate versions in like a choose your own adventure book way of what could have been in the movie. But there's an alternate opening that starts with her that Lynn Collins is doing the opening narration. Sure.

[David Sims]

Beginnings are difficult times or whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And then it cuts to her sort of like meeting with all the leaders, trying to. To sort of, you know, break her peace. And then there were several deleted scenes that sort of were more focused on her. And the Samantha Morton character where beyond it just being. Well, that's from the books. It felt like they were trying to make a sort of parallel story of the two of them, you know, not trying to be defined by their fathers and trying to be leaders. And when you nerf her character down, the Samantha Morton character just feels like she is there. And the whole time, you're to invoke another Simpsons thing after asking, where is Tars Tarkas?

[David Sims]

Where is Tarz Tarkus? But also, I think Lynn. Yeah, what's her. What's the character?

[Matt Singer]

Collins.

[David Sims]

Lynn Collins. But what's the character?

[Griffin Newman]

Deja. Forest.

[David Sims]

Deja. Of course, she also is mostly just there. And it's kind of just a problem of like, we need to get to helium. And then it's like, I'm getting married and I don't.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't want to get married.

[David Sims]

Stop that, please.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Some Andrew Stanton quotes that again, perhaps I might not say to a reporter before my movie comes out, the demon I'm chasing is, can I figure out what my story is before I run out of time? Time. Theaters March. You know, he admits, like, the second act of the movie, I never cracked it. It sags. And I would agree, like, the second act of this movie is pretty boring.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[David Sims]

First and third acts, more's happening. Action's a little better, you know, like. Right. You know, he and the Pixar brain trust liked the reinvention of Carter, the family backstory, tortured Confederate soldier kind of thing. I don't really think that works, but I get that it's something.

[Matt Singer]

Something.

[Griffin Newman]

This is what's also fascinating, is the single most fascinating thing about this movie to me. So when the marketing is in free fall and the buzz is negative, there are all these stories about, did Disney fuck it up or did Stanton fuck it up with the marketing? Was he too confident? Weighing in too much of, you know, I want the trailer to be soundtrack to the Super Bowl. Ad was set to Cashmere, but the original teaser trailer was Peter Gallagher doing a cover of Arcade Fires, My Body is a Kid Cage. It was like, all these things in the marketing that were his personal taste, and they were like, does this make sense to audiences? But then when Disney threw something out, that didn't work either. So one of the Hail Mary pass things they do for the marketing is, they're like, how do we get people to like, understand Andrew Stanton's track record and invest in the idea of him as a. A filmmaker? He does a TED Talk where he explains this.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

The story of the Finding Nemo thing we of course discuss in that episode where he has had Marlin's wife's death and the death of all the other babies scattered as flashbacks across the movie. And the audience didn't like him. And that when he stopped being clever structurally and put it at the beginning, they understood his tragedy and then they were with him the rest of the way. And he, while promoting this movie, points at. I learned a very important lesson about storytelling that day. And then this movie does the opposite thing. This movie does the, the. Why is John Carter so angry? Why does he have so much contempt for the military?

[Matt Singer]

Why doesn't he want to fight anymore?

[Griffin Newman]

Why does he want to run away? And we're just going to keep giving you little flashes and focusing on the ring and something bad happened, you know, it. It's not a surprise when it comes. But it's what he talks about learning with Finding Nemo of if you let the audience experience it with the character, they feel it. It's not like it's a satisfying twist ending to be, oh, oh shit, something bad happened to. To him. It's. If you can dramatically pull that scene off correctly, then the audience is endeared to that character. And this movie has the moment where it finally all like is shown to you is an abstracted flashback in the middle of what is his biggest action sequence.

[Matt Singer]

Big action where he's flailing wildly.

[Griffin Newman]

Like an interesting conceit of filmmaker.

[David Sims]

It's a very much right where you're like, wow, that's a big idea shoot.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a big idea, but it's self defeating emotionally.

[David Sims]

I think it is. And I really. It's like the fact that it's his wife and child. Yeah. Did they burn up where they kill?

[Matt Singer]

We don't really fully explain it, but they show their. They show the aftermath.

[David Sims]

Watching it, I'm like, yeah, I'm just kind of bummed out right now. Like, I'm not feeling very triumphant.

[Griffin Newman]

But this is the Finding Nemo thing of if you start with that and then you get it out of the way and then the movie's fun. Sure, we can ride with it.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

If you drop it in the middle, it bums us out. And this scene that should be exciting then becomes really heavy.

[Matt Singer]

I watched that TED Talk and there is. And there's a lot of stuff around. Around the build up to this movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

Of storytelling, the importance of stories and being a good storyteller. And here is the secret I have, we, we at Pixar have cracked the secret of good storytelling. Which at the time, as Pixar fans we were all like, yeah, you have, you absolutely did. But then you watch this movie and there are all these strangers change story choices that, that don't work, that aren't

[Griffin Newman]

in conversation with each other. Which is the thing about the Pixar golden run is that these things feel so holistic and so tight and they don't feel algorithmic. And you saying David, like why would he admit all this in a New Yorker? Right. He's always been a very frank interview subject.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[David Sims]

Which is great. Good for him.

[Griffin Newman]

And I think he likes the idea of being a bit of an open source filmmaker. Like the guys grew up with where he's explaining the process. And Pixar is so the tip of DVD special features. We're showing you our mistakes and it's like this is part of creativity is you get things wrong and then you learn. And I think he's doing that because he's also assuming it's going to turn out the way the last two did.

[Matt Singer]

Right. It always worked out before a lot

[Griffin Newman]

of things didn't work. And then we figured it out at the last moment.

[David Sims]

Cuz the end of the article is like it tested pretty well. We just held our first test screening. It got a 75. Disney rounded that up to an 80 because it was unfinished, finished. And like there's the hubris of like you're hearing that and you're like, well that doesn't sound that good.

[Griffin Newman]

Should be a hundred, right.

[David Sims]

Nine should at least be involved. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

The iterative process which when he gets tagged a little with is this guy coming in way too cocky.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah. And again it is this guy. And he had this incredible success at not just as a director. I mean you look at all the movies he helped write at Pixar. He kind of was like this guy who had the magic touch, who was

[Griffin Newman]

all over making a serious effort to reestablish this in every episode on this series. It is really important to understand that he was the story guy at Pixar that he is credited with being. He was the best in house screenwriter. He's the one who always was cracking stuff, taking the lead on the script, you know, launching the original idea.

[Matt Singer]

Right. But ironically, this movie, it has some good things in it. There are aspects I like. Like it's not a good story.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[Matt Singer]

And. And no.

[David Sims]

Really.

[Matt Singer]

We have barely talked. I mean like the. We barely talked about the Therns, which are a huge part of this movie. That makes absolutely no biggest problem.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the reshoot opening and what feels like such a clear reshoot of. We start with a big action sequence after a Willem Dafoe voiceover of like two warring parties that look silly and

[Matt Singer]

they look so much alike. We don't know who's fighting and why.

[Griffin Newman]

Talking grimly. And you don't know what's going on. And then it cuts to. To the actual superstructure of the movie.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is the Edgar Rice Burroughs thing. That this is a dramatization of the author of the book who is now changed into the nephew of the character who is being told of his uncle's death and is locating his diaries and reading the story.

[Matt Singer]

Yes. But then.

[David Sims]

And then once you've done that.

[Griffin Newman]

And then the story starts with John Carter on Earth. So it's like a rushing messing doll thing. Yes.

[Matt Singer]

Where some of the struct terms of Burrows and the. And like finding his manuscript. That is from the books. Like that is a. That is something that he took from the books. But again the. This notion of the. Of the ths and like what are they doing? Why are they doing it? Why do we care? What do they want? You know, they. Eventually there is that scene where Mark Strong does get to kind of explain what he is doing and why but his explanation is wholly like unsatisfying. And you. It doesn't clarify anything. And you're like, you know, he. Every. There's all these scenes because again, John Carter is a guy who jumps a lot. It's like, why don't they just kill this guy? And every time Dominic west is about to zap him, he's like, no, let him live.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Matt Singer]

We must further study him. And you're sitting there going, they even have Dominic west being like, what's the point of all this if I can't use this thing? And you're like, he's right. Why can't he just kill this guy?

[David Sims]

What is the explanation? There is. It's. It's just the kind of dude esque. Like our plans are measured in central. But like the Therns don't make sense because are they like a parasitic race?

[Matt Singer]

They say they like manage the destruction of planets galactic. They like to manipulate. They're just for like they're in it for the shits and giggles.

[Griffin Newman]

They're in the meditation but they get their hands dirty.

[Matt Singer]

What's this Dune?

[David Sims]

The Bene Gesserit. That's what I'm saying. Is that kind of the thing? I mean, I guess so. That's. That's what he sort of explains when he's in. Explain Mark Strong's character. But at least in Dune, Shang.

[Matt Singer]

Yes. Well, no, in Dun, they have a goal that they actually explain. And here it's just. We're going to. Yeah. These people are going to rule because we say so.

[David Sims]

It's a little league of shadows from Batman of kind of like, we're always behind the scenes.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[David Sims]

We. Right. We're like. We're in charge of the ends of civilizations.

[Matt Singer]

And they're also in. In. In the movie, they actually are watching and doing things on Earth. And they're immortal and they. And they live forever. And they're all. They only have one week weakness. Being shot one time, which happened two different times in the movie, where these unkillable, immortal beings are like. They sneak up behind John Carter and he shoots them once and they fall dead immediately.

[David Sims]

10 gun. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's also consider. He's like, I don't want to do the thing where the movie has to start with an endless, like, spiel of. At the beginning there was yada, yada, yada. Right. And he's like, the. The Edgar is Burrows thing is a way to ease us into it, to create a sense of mystery. What was happening here. It's giving us a slightly more relatable character, a more modern sort of normal dude. And then we sort of like, slowly ease into all of this. And then they do the screening and Pixar is like this. I would just like too much happening. Because in that version, he shoots the guy in the cave. And then Mark Strong doesn't appear until like an hour and a half into the movie and start explaining. Explaining stuff. And they're like, this is too much to drop too late. So then they come up with the new opening where you cold open with him and the idea that something's going on here. And as admitted in the New Yorker piece, that realization that that needed to be an opening necessitated 18 new scenes. They were like, the ripple effect of this is, if this is happening here, then this is this and this is this. And Disney's like, okay, we'll write you a check for more reshoots.

[David Sims]

Right. Because Disney is essentially like, you were on budget and on time the first time. Yeah. Like, the shoot was not a problem at all. Right. And. And you made successful films.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And now you're saying you need Reshoots. And that's kind of how you do it at Pixar. And you're in the right. So I guess the answer is yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, he's even saying, I'm here to sort of try to show Hollywood why our movies work.

[David Sims]

Right. Why our process makes sense and that

[Griffin Newman]

more movies should be like this.

[David Sims]

Let's iterate, Ray. Let's just like. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

You need to.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's about seeing the whole thing and then going back and circling back. And what's fascinating to me is that everyone goes like, hey, dude, you up? This doesn't work in live action. Go back to your animation corner. And then immediately it feels like the studios start making movies this way all the time.

[David Sims]

But like. But cheaper. Like, where the reshoots are not quite as.

[Griffin Newman]

They're lazy.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And they're just. So the first shoot is going to be almost a drywall.

[David Sims]

That's your first draft.

[Griffin Newman]

We'll make that a lot simpler and a lot shorter. And if we don't have a finished script, then let's just get what we need to get.

[David Sims]

Speaking to those kinds of movies that are coming, you do watch this and you're like, I guess I realize why every Marvel movie ended with them needing to close a portal and kill a bunch of guys, because it's just kind of like the audience can grab grapple with these clear video gamey goals very easily. Whereas I'm watching John Carter, and that's before we get to the epilogue, which is the end of the movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

Like, which is not one minute, it's six or seven. And I'm just like, what does he need to do and what will that accomplish?

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[David Sims]

Like, I get that Mark Strong is bad.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Although I'm not totally sure how you kill him

[Matt Singer]

with a gun.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm aware that you could shoot Solar Plex.

[David Sims]

Yeah. But then I'm like, is Dominic west good or bad?

[Griffin Newman]

Unclear.

[David Sims]

Bad, I guess. But, like, he's.

[Matt Singer]

He's. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Pragmatic.

[Matt Singer]

He's pragmatic.

[David Sims]

I guess he's.

[Matt Singer]

Sometimes he. He spends a lot of the movie being like, I love you, Deja Thoris. I. I might. You can kill me if you want.

[David Sims]

Take my blade.

[Matt Singer]

And then at the end of the movie, John Carter shows up and he's

[David Sims]

like, death to you.

[Griffin Newman]

He's not a. He's not a Gaston. But you're also like, clearly the movie doesn't want to want me to want them to get married.

[David Sims]

Right. And like, this wedding, you're, you know, Mark Strong is like, of course after they've exchanged their vows, we'll kill her, and that'll be the final step in us taking control of her city. And I'm like, why?

[Matt Singer]

Right?

[David Sims]

He's like, the. The fallout of that. And I'm like, why would that be good for you? Like, that you killed the princess or what? And he doesn't really explain it in turn, except for the sort of like, I'm the puppet master and everything I do works out, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

To your question, Ben, this is a perfect example to me, me, of a movie that does the exact wrong amount of explaining. You either need to explain way more

[David Sims]

or way less or just like, don't worry about it.

[Griffin Newman]

Either you need to have a real specific answer that you can eventually sell us on, or you just need to be like, for century, these two species have been waging war and just go like, they've just been fighting.

[David Sims]

They're different and they don't like each other. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Instead, they keep getting into it. And you're like, I still don't think I have my arms around it. I know you're telling me stuff, and

[David Sims]

I. I never quite engaged with, like, do the Red Martians and Green Martians hate each other or just not Vibe.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[David Sims]

Because they're not actually at war with each other, but they don't like each other.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yes, but the Red Martians are. Are at war with the Therns, but it also. Martians.

[Griffin Newman]

The Cerns are just kind of manipulating everyone. To what end? Even we all make fun of fucking Unobtainium, right? To your point of like, we make fun of the portal in the sky.

[David Sims]

We need the thing that's there.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the reason these movies do this, is they're just like, there is just one thing we're fighting. Fighting over.

[Matt Singer]

Right? And this.

[Griffin Newman]

You're like, what is the technology? There are several around.

[David Sims]

What do they want to do?

[Matt Singer]

The thing is sort of the Ninth Ray, but they don't. Again, they don't make it clear what

[David Sims]

exactly can do and Right. How it works, where you get it. She.

[Matt Singer]

Deja Thoris has discovered it also in the beginning of the movie. And she's giving a like a PowerPoint

[David Sims]

presentation about it, treating her like someone who's like, I found something called Unobtain. You know, where they're like, you're making this up. Or, this is fringe science.

[Matt Singer]

There's a Thern in disguise, which is another aspect of the Therns that we may not have even mentioned, which is they can look like anyone and be Anywhere. And then he, like, zaps her ninth ray with his ninth ray.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Matt Singer]

And. And destroys it. And then somehow, you know, like, everyone, again, no one believes her. And then she's gonna have to marry Dominic west. And.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

It's just baffling.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's also acknowledge she's an eventer.

[David Sims]

And we need to shout that out. She makes a.

[Matt Singer]

Like a.

[David Sims]

She's a woman in step. Yes. And she's a woman in step. We haven't discussed. Lynn Collins. I saw on letterboxd that you praised her performance in this film in a prior.

[Matt Singer]

Like, when it first came out.

[Griffin Newman]

You've revisited this movie a couple times, though we noted that you've given it a couple. A couple at bats on letterbox.

[Matt Singer]

I keep trying.

[Griffin Newman]

I keep trying.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

Because I. Because, again, I like Andrew Stanton. Yeah. And. And I. This just feels like the kind of movie I should like.

[Griffin Newman]

And there's stuff in it that works.

[Matt Singer]

And there is stuff in it that works, like Tars Tarkus and. And the design of it. I do kind of like going to Mars.

[David Sims]

I. I kind of like Mars Dog works.

[Matt Singer]

We haven't mentioned Woola, who actually is a very good boy and is very likable.

[David Sims]

I agree that he's a good boy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

He is kind of in and out of the movie. I remember the marketing being like, get ready to meet Willow.

[Griffin Newman]

That was also last rest Gas marketing.

[David Sims]

That kind of despicable pivot to, like, wait, should we go to the little.

[Griffin Newman]

It's just W. Right.

[Matt Singer]

What are the things that are testing well. And he was probably one of the

[David Sims]

few funny that he's like an alien

[Griffin Newman]

dog with a lot of legs and he's really fast. It does also mean that sometimes the movie is just like, zip, and he's gone and then he's just back.

[Matt Singer]

That is. That is shockingly pretty faithful to the book, actually. He kind of like, will tell him to stay somewhere and he'll just wait there, sadly, with the puppy dog phase. And then a few scenes later, John Carter will be in trouble. And who will save him? Willow will come to the rescue. So that. I mean, that is kind of. Again, it speaks to, like, the episodic nature of the book. The book was written as episodic. It was written as chapter magazines.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Matt Singer]

So it didn't have, like, a super structure of. It's the story of John Carter doing this. It was. Right. It was the continuing adventures of John Carter wandering this strange.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's some new cool.

[Matt Singer]

It was an ethnographic report on this strange lost civilization. This Other planet.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also why comic book movies are not adapted this way. You know, no one goes like, I'm gonna try to Adapt the first 30 issues of Spider man literally.

[Matt Singer]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Because it was not written in a form that. That helps you in adapting to a closed loop narrative. You know, you more like, extract the feel.

[David Sims]

But Lyn Collins, who I know from three things I think. I think. I think when I'm looking at. I mean, obviously she's got other credits, but it's like she's on six episodes of the first season of True Blood.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Like, she is out of that season before the season wraps.

[Griffin Newman]

But it was a buzzy show.

[David Sims]

It was a very buzzy show. And she was like the bombshell in it. She was the big hottie. Although the first season of True Blood, like all subsequent seasons of True Blood, is insane. And people die all the time kind of randomly and like. And as. As. Which is what happens to her. And then, like, she's an X Men Origins Wolverine. The next year, she's also.

[Matt Singer]

She's another. She's another X Men Origins Wolverine.

[Griffin Newman]

And it was sort of like, who is this? How did she get this?

[David Sims]

But it had a little bit of this sort of like the studio being like, we found our next fucking Hugh, Jack.

[Griffin Newman]

And I must acknowledge.

[David Sims]

Kayla Silver Fox.

[Griffin Newman]

I must acknowledge she gets to give

[Matt Singer]

him the name the Wolverine. Is that what you're gonna say?

[Griffin Newman]

No. No. To. To your great consternation and frustration. I must acknowledge she was a graduate of Juilliard.

[David Sims]

She was from Juilliard.

[Griffin Newman]

So when she is discovered, it is also like, this is a serious actor. Yeah. I mean, chops.

[David Sims]

You know, she's in the Michael Radford Merchant of Venice movie with Al Pacino as Portia, which is an incredibly important role in 2004 when she's barely been in anything. I have not seen that movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Neither have I.

[David Sims]

Like, there's no.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. Pacino gives a subtle, sensitive performance as Shylock, the money lender. That was one where I. I look, I saw the poster and I was like, this feels like an attack on my people.

[David Sims]

I studied Merchant Venice in school. Yeah, I know the play very well. I've never seen the movie. I should watch it. I'm just looking at. I know.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

It was one of those movies that was doa, Obviously, like. But like, that she had that role.

[Griffin Newman]

Role.

[David Sims]

Unless she stinks in it, which is possible. I should watch it. Like, that's definitely. That's a sign of some chops.

[Griffin Newman]

It also feels like, you know, a couple years later discovers. Well, she's very good in Bug.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I haven't seen that movie in a long time, but I don't remember her being bad. But she's in number 23, although not in a big role.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think she plays number two.

[David Sims]

What do you remember that.

[Griffin Newman]

That. It's not that I remember, but just a couple years after Merchant of Venice, Pacino discovers Jessica Chastain, similarly, who is a Juilliard person. He does the. The wild Salome Salame thing with her. And then it takes her a couple years for the industry to sort of, like, accept her. But it felt like both of them were a similar. Like, Pacino has found a young female Juilliard bombshell who he is working into the class classics and presenting as. I approve of this person. I think they have the goods, which,

[David Sims]

like, by all means, Al. Like, that's fine. I don't like X Men Origins, Wolverine.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a dogshit movie.

[David Sims]

I remember her role being incredibly thankless in it.

[Griffin Newman]

Totally.

[David Sims]

I do not remember her being good at all in it. Like, she's a. She's a blank in that movie. She has a hat.

[Matt Singer]

She's forced to explain a dream that involves a woman. Wolverine.

[Griffin Newman]

Cool.

[Matt Singer]

That. That's how he gets the name the Wolverine.

[David Sims]

She has, like, one of those lame powers.

[Griffin Newman]

She's. She's a human. You're like, oh, this is his human love interest, his tragic love interest before he became Wolverine. And then the reveal at the end is that she's a mutant whose powers that she can emotionally manipulate people.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Which feels like she touches you. It's a woman who can make you just like.

[David Sims]

No, it's. It's Will, I am. Who has the hat. I'm sorry?

[Griffin Newman]

William has the hat.

[David Sims]

William. Will, I am's character was. I. I got cowboy hat on my head. And he's in the movie. He's in the movie playing a role.

[Griffin Newman]

His character's name is Blink, and he can teleport. Like Nightcrawler. Yeah.

[David Sims]

No, he's not Blank. No, he's not.

[Griffin Newman]

Isn't he Wraith?

[David Sims]

He's right. Yeah. He's at my. The whole thing with X Men Origins, Wolverine was you could tell that Marvel was like, they were like, can we have Blink? And they were like, we don't even want to give you Blink. You can have, like, just Doug in

[Griffin Newman]

the bucket, HBO's lanterns, where they're like, no one will wear a costume. Everyone is wearing a leather jacket.

[David Sims]

Totally.

[Griffin Newman]

Dominic Moynihan plays a guy who can Turn light bulbs on. Which character is he?

[David Sims]

So he is, weirdly, Chris Bradley.

[Griffin Newman]

He's.

[David Sims]

Yes, he's Chris Bradley, who was sort of known as Maverick.

[Matt Singer]

Maverick is how I would know him.

[David Sims]

He had been initially announced to be playing Beak, who is a Grant Morrison character. Who's like a living bird.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And then I bet you someone was like, we'd have to, like, put a bird face on him. Can he just be someone who turns off light bulbs or whatever?

[Griffin Newman]

And then. And then there's. Agent Zero is in it. Ben, who. Course, as a mutant whose mutant power is. He's good at shooting guns.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

This movie sucks.

[David Sims]

Like, Agent Zero's power is guns. Deadpool's power is sword. Like, you know, like, look, X Men can teleport.

[Griffin Newman]

Wolverine. It is. It is neither Lynn Collins nor Taylor Kitsch's fault. But for the infinite trust I had in Andrew Stanton, the first warning sign was I've announced my two leads. I've discovered the stars of the Tomorrow. Both of them are in the cast of X Men Origins for free. Like, I feel like we should treat that movie as like a Three Mile island stay away at all costs.

[Matt Singer]

Especially since it ends on Three Mile Island.

[David Sims]

Yes, it sure does. It's also funny, thrilling and coherent. That movie put Sabertooth just not in it. No, he's in it on. Sabertooth is like. He has sideburns and a jacket. He's played by Le F. Some little fingernails.

[Matt Singer]

You should Google Lev Schreib. Like, running as Sabertooth. And we're going to watch your face as you watch this man jumping like a dog.

[David Sims]

He's got like a kind of like. Right. Like a dog gallop.

[Griffin Newman]

I think of Schreiber is the one good performance in that movie.

[David Sims]

He's got a chase. He's got.

[Griffin Newman]

He's got to take. But it's also funny that already less than 10 years in the X Men franchise was like, we're just reckoning everything. Now here's Sabretooth, who is nothing like the previous Sabertooth and is also his brother.

[David Sims]

Yes, this is true. Do we think Lyn Collins is good in John Carter?

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think she's bad. I think this character does not work at.

[Matt Singer]

No, it's kind of the same thing with. With Taylo Kitsch, where it's like, I don't necessarily dislike her.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

The problems are sort of putting her into this role which has all these. These issues. The. The. The structure of it is.

[Griffin Newman]

Is way off.

[David Sims]

I. I find, like, I don't really get the accent. She decided on this kind of like vaguely English regally kind of accent.

[Matt Singer]

I mean she hits it harder than I remembered, I'll give you that.

[David Sims]

She's also kind of similar to Natalie Portman Attack of the Clones as we talked about throughout. She's like brown like or tan bronze. She's red cuz she's a red marsh. My wife kept being like what's she supposed to be? And I was like Red Martian.

[Griffin Newman]

And.

[David Sims]

And my wife was like and that is. And I was like what do you want from me? I don't know. I mean like deserty I guess everyone

[Griffin Newman]

is like bright red which makes them look like aliens. Even though they are otherwise humanoid. It is visually distinct, distinctive. I feel like Stan communicates that it. They thought it would feel a little silly and they wanted to make it a little more grounded. They end up at heavily tanned.

[David Sims]

They end up with a red kind of.

[Griffin Newman]

With some makeup, tribally tattoos. I also feel like the unlike college

[David Sims]

student who went to Morocco and still thinks they can be like.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it was unspoken but I have to imagine part of their concern was like. Like if. If they are bright red and. And too caked in tribal stuff do we get into touchy Native American territory?

[Matt Singer]

I suspect that that was a consideration

[Griffin Newman]

where they end up in trying to avoid that almost feels more uncomfortable. I would agree and I, I think you're right.

[Matt Singer]

It's.

[Griffin Newman]

It's very Padme where it's like what is your weird like mid Atlantic accent? What is this skin tone? What are we culturally pulling from? None of this is her fault. He kind of makes the Star wars decision of like all of the aliens and the villains are British. Right. Like the humanoid. The sort of. They're. They're coded as kind of the Roman Empire to the pointing people from the Rome TV show on hbo.

[David Sims]

To the point where.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[David Sims]

I do think like Mark Strong, Kieran Hins, Dominic West, James. Pure Foy. Like can we at least remove one of these guys? Like you've got maybe too many kind of UK Ireland types of pig based

[Griffin Newman]

meat on one slice of pig pizza.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. David Schwimmer is in this.

[Matt Singer]

I think just like a cameo is one of the. Because he's another random person in the book. Loves John Carter and Favro also did a little cameo.

[David Sims]

All right, I watched it.

[Matt Singer]

What do you think? What do you think? Good stuff stinks.

[David Sims]

You see, you see his nails grow?

[Matt Singer]

His nails grow. He and he.

[Griffin Newman]

This is a movie that is so obsessed with not doing any goofy comic book stuff that they're like, well, you can't just have Sabertooth be a big WWE wrestler with, like, a mane of yellow hair and, like, claws and roaring. And you're like, why? Everyone liked that. And they're like, no, he's a guy who, like, talks quietly and his nails grow a little.

[Matt Singer]

Nails grow. And he wears a black duster.

[Griffin Newman]

But then anytime it does something like him running on all fours, you're like, well, now that's twice as silly. Because you haven't built a movie that can support comic book shit. It's so bad.

[David Sims]

It's so weird.

[Matt Singer]

Have you. You haven't seen this movie?

[David Sims]

I truly was thinking when you were talking about it, I. I mean, love Wolverine.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[David Sims]

He's my guy.

[Matt Singer]

Love Wolverine.

[David Sims]

I've don't remember this at all.

[Griffin Newman]

This is another franchise death thing.

[Matt Singer]

He's got to Google another thing, then Google Final Battle. Yeah, Final Battle. Deadpool. And you got to see what they make Deadpool look.

[Griffin Newman]

So Ryan Reynolds really wanted to play Deadpool, like, early on. He called dibs on that. Yeah. And I want to make my own movie as Deadpool. Then they go, we've written Deadpool into X Men Origins. Wolverine. This is a good launch. Launching pad. But it's going to be early Deadpool before he really becomes Deadpool. So he's just Wade Wilson, a merc with a mouth. He's Ryan Reynolds with a red tank top, who's got double swords.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And then they decide, fuck, he popped in the first act.

[Matt Singer]

Right? He's the only thing people like in this.

[Griffin Newman]

And we dispense of him. So they do extensive reshoots to make Deadpool the villain at the end of the movie, where they've kidnapped Deadpool and tortured him and made him into, like, a mega, mega mutant, where now he has, like, seven different powers. He has Cyclops's optic blasts.

[Matt Singer]

Teleport.

[Griffin Newman]

He can teleport.

[Matt Singer]

Just like John Wraith, everyone's favorite teleporter.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly.

[David Sims]

Favorite.

[Griffin Newman]

And Ryan Reynolds is like, I refuse to do this teleporter. So Scott Atkins, legendary.

[Matt Singer]

The great Scott Atkins, martial artist, hero,

[Griffin Newman]

king of the DTV action movie, is in Ryan Reynolds makeup as mouthless Deadpool, which is a joke to spite the fans of. Well, Deadpool is famously the merc with a mouth. Danny Houston, the second of four actors to play William Stryker.

[David Sims]

There's been a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

Why won't you shut up, Wade? And so when they do all these weird operations on him, the first thing they do is sew his mouth shut.

[Matt Singer]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

You know that thing that everyone Hates when Deadpool can make jokes during action.

[David Sims]

To be fair, I, I, I did grow to hate it.

[Griffin Newman]

We do hate it. But it has made billions.

[David Sims]

I'm going to say confidently me that John Wraith, AKA Maverick is.

[Matt Singer]

No, those are two different people.

[David Sims]

John Wraith, AKA what? What's his name?

[Matt Singer]

I don't know. I think it might just be.

[Griffin Newman]

I think his name is Wraith. Maverick is Maverick.

[Matt Singer]

Was. Yeah, exactly.

[David Sims]

Dude, I can't watch this anymore. This is dog. Yeah, but this was. They know he is called Maverick. You guys are thinking. You guys already forgot what the other guys by Isis. This is no goodness.

[Griffin Newman]

They had made the third X Men and they were like, that is the proper end to the.

[David Sims]

Bradley was also known as Maverick.

[Matt Singer]

There we go. Wow.

[David Sims]

They did it for Kestrel.

[Matt Singer]

The Wikipedia says John Wraith's other name is Kestrel.

[Griffin Newman]

They were like X Men was a trilogy. We are done. And the ongoing future of the X Men franchise is doing spin off origin movies. We're going to do everyone's backstory.

[Matt Singer]

Magneto.

[Griffin Newman]

And this one bombs so hard they take the script for X Men origins colon Magneto and retrofit that into first class.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

The sort of Nazi hunting stuff was

[Matt Singer]

supposed to be the whole pull it off.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Kind of pull it off.

[Griffin Newman]

That movie kind of works.

[David Sims]

I think Wraith is. Okay. So the most famous X Men who teleports is Nightcrawler, obviously. Number two is Blink. Blink was a very popular character for a while there. Number three with a bullet. I'm going for magic.

[Matt Singer]

I was going to say magic has to be number three.

[David Sims]

Dimensionally traveling.

[Matt Singer]

Yes. And she has a cool sword.

[David Sims]

Number four, let's talk about him. Nightcrawler's weird brother. Azazel.

[Matt Singer]

Is that how you say it? I don't. I never even know how to say it. Or AEL Azel.

[David Sims]

He can do kind of like red telephone.

[Griffin Newman]

And I say Azazel, dad. Which gives him like he's a Neptune,

[David Sims]

but it's red because he. Red instead of red. Cloud instead of blue. Purple or blue.

[Matt Singer]

And Mystique is his mom.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that's true. Number five. I think it's got to be Pixie. Pixie.

[Matt Singer]

Pixie.

[David Sims]

She was hot in the 2010s or whatever.

[Matt Singer]

Yes, Like Matt Fraction era, maybe.

[David Sims]

Correct. I think I'm comfortable putting John Wraith at six.

[Griffin Newman]

Six, Good.

[Matt Singer]

Right? Given that he was anyone that would go above him.

[David Sims]

Everyone else listed with teleporting powers are people like Hope Summers who just copy other powers. Or people like Apocalypse who just Kind of have like, all the.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a bonus, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah. That's his, like, 20th power.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also funny. And then we're gonna close the loop on X Men Origins, Wolverine.

[David Sims]

Maybe we reopen.

[Matt Singer]

We're just counting X Men, right? Yeah.

[David Sims]

X Men universe.

[Matt Singer]

Because, like, Lockjaw is obviously right.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a better Marvel.

[Matt Singer]

And you know what?

[David Sims]

There was that Gateway character who.

[Matt Singer]

Okay, Gateway.

[David Sims]

So maybe he's maybe. Rates down to eight.

[Matt Singer]

Got to be America above.

[Griffin Newman]

She makes star.

[David Sims]

She makes star portals. That's true. But she's not really X Men, right?

[Griffin Newman]

No, I'm saying if we're opening it up to Marvel.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

They're, like, so afraid of letting any of these characters be comic booky. But they also include Blob, who had been cut out of all three mainline X Men movies up until that point.

[David Sims]

They do, but I feel like their take on Blob is like, he's large. Large. Has suit on. Like, has, like, a makeup suit on, prosthetic suit. But, like, he's not actually blobby. He's kind of tough. He punch.

[Griffin Newman]

Their take is rather than Blob's power being like, this endless kind of growth of mass that it, like, has so much power behind it. They're like, he was a guy whose power was bulletproof skin, and then he let himself.

[Matt Singer]

He let himself go. So rather than let it take.

[Griffin Newman]

I forgot. Be like, an extension of a mutant evolution there. Just like, this guy just eats too much junk food now. Yes. Wolverine served with him in the war, and he was really cut. And then he goes to a boxing gym. He's just a fat ass eating Cheetos, and they make fat jokes for five minutes.

[Matt Singer]

And he has a voice. They gave him a voice.

[David Sims]

Kevin Durand, who I. Who I always enjoy a lovely actor like that. X Men Origins, Wolverine. Problem of where they're like, meet all these new characters.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, okay.

[David Sims]

No, no, no. Meet them later when they suck.

[Griffin Newman]

We'll meet them before they're cool for

[David Sims]

two minutes at the start. And then later, he'll rebu a team that you don't know anything about.

[Griffin Newman]

You only see them before they figure their thing out. And after they're washed up, they suck.

[Matt Singer]

And then we kill them, and then

[David Sims]

they all die immediately anyway, so who cares, right?

[Matt Singer]

Can't believe that movie didn't work.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

John Carter.

[Matt Singer]

John Carter.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

So obviously, Origins, Wolverine.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's another story issue this movie has, in my opinion. I forgot.

[David Sims]

Thomas Hayden Church is the bad Thark.

[Griffin Newman]

He's doing a voice. It doesn't even sound like him. Really.

[David Sims]

No, doesn't. He's kind of going.

[Griffin Newman]

You basically give John Carter the Dorothy wizard of Oz thing of. All I want to do is get home. I don't want to be here. Right before I got telling teleported, I discovered a cave full of gold.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

I was running away from the cavalry. They were gonna kill me. But now I'm about to be so rich.

[David Sims]

Save my city. Become our warrior. And he's like, where is the exit? Get like gold caves.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not just I miss home, but

[David Sims]

it keeps Cranston's getting all the gold.

[Griffin Newman]

He's like, I was a minute away from being a millionaire and owning, you know, the railroads and whichever. Which you already know he succeeded in doing. Because when Ned Bur Burrows is called to his dead uncle's estate, you see that he is now a very wealthy man. Yes.

[David Sims]

Oh, and we know for sure he is definitely debt, right?

[Matt Singer]

Oh, yeah.

[David Sims]

So weird. His tomb can only be open from the inside. It's almost like it's a weird puzzle thing. Yeah. Anyway, here are his books.

[Matt Singer]

Here's the picture of vim and vigor.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Matt Singer]

Not five minutes before he passed.

[David Sims]

It is funny how Taylor Kitsch again, 29, when he makes this movie, he's like the performance of him being like, call for my doctor. Might as well get the attorney too while you're out of the deal. And it's like, very well, sir.

[Matt Singer]

I do love any movie where they create the device of this thing will make you look dead for 15 minutes.

[Griffin Newman]

A little thing.

[Matt Singer]

Puffer fish.

[Griffin Newman]

Puffer fish.

[Matt Singer]

It's a venom of a puffer fish.

[David Sims]

Is that.

[Matt Singer]

I don't even know. Is that a thing? Can we. I would.

[David Sims]

I think in the days before ekg, these heart rate monitors, possibly you could simulate coma.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. There were more. I don't know, there were more primitive versions of NyQuil and people would just accept. I've never seen someone sleep that hard.

[Matt Singer]

You gotta think if they were real, the Jackass guys would have used it in one of their movies at this point. It would be an incredible actual prank

[David Sims]

to be like, okay, the final prank of Knoxville died.

[Griffin Newman]

Do we think the Jackass five Jackass best and last.

[Matt Singer]

Yes. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is coming out shortly after this episode's release.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's coming up pretty soon.

[Matt Singer]

The trailer dropped today. Drop today.

[Griffin Newman]

Do we think they try to do a flatliners? That does feel like the final frontier.

[David Sims]

Kill me and then bring me back.

[Griffin Newman]

Can we do it?

[Matt Singer]

It would be. It would be appropriate given the Theme of this is the last one.

[Griffin Newman]

Best and last.

[David Sims]

I. Yeah, I do feel like I worry about them, like, the. The sort of narrative they're putting forward with it of, like, we. We know that as the last one. This has to be like the biggest one ever.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I'm just like, I really just enjoy same y' all being together and having fun. Like, I don't need you actually to try and top yourselves.

[Griffin Newman]

You're older. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like, I think your. Your physical peaks have passed.

[Matt Singer]

We don't actually want them to die. We enjoy them.

[David Sims]

Not only not die, just like, whatever, like, just have fun, guys.

[Griffin Newman]

My read on that situation is that that was very much their intent for four.

[David Sims]

Right. Covid with four.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly. Right. And so I think Knoxville and crew got a little itchy and we're like, we didn't really get to do everything we wanted to do on four. And people.

[Matt Singer]

People loved four.

[Griffin Newman]

Four's really good.

[Matt Singer]

They got a lot of suddenly now everyone. Critically, every. Every Jackass movie has gotten better reviews than the one before.

[Griffin Newman]

It is the funniest thing this phenomenon. And Jackass is the best example of it. Where the fourth movie comes out is a New York Times critics pick. And also it said obviously not as good as the earlier entries.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And you're like, all of these were trashed at the time.

[David Sims]

They were seen as a sign of a declining culture by older critics.

[Griffin Newman]

The best of us. Right.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Matt Singer]

So anyway, pufferfish venom. We're gonna taste it.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Matt Singer]

You put it in the Spider man coffee. You just didn't mention it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Matt Singer]

We're all about to attain a certain

[Griffin Newman]

comatose state briefly, and then hopefully our nephews will send us to bar.

[David Sims]

Okay. But the idea is that a copy of him has been made. This is a thing.

[Griffin Newman]

The movie also, it's a bit of an avatar, weirdly. It's a bit of a. Like, your body's actually on Earth.

[Matt Singer]

Well, they say they sent a copy just like a telegraph. Which is not how telegraph works. No. Which is a very funny explanation where he's like, it's like a telegraph, a copy. And you're like, that's not out.

[Griffin Newman]

That's some 1912.

[David Sims]

This is stupid to even ask, but we see that when he comes back to his body that the Colonel is like bones now.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And he's been there for a really long time. Does he. His pants. Great question. Breaches. Is John Carter's breaches just full?

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, look, I haven't been eating.

[David Sims]

Yeah, but I'm saying he's just been laying There. But he's not in a regular. What are the rules? Well, we don't know, but he's not in a regular coma. He's in like a.

[Griffin Newman]

Your.

[David Sims]

Your spirit and body have been transported to Mars coma.

[Griffin Newman]

A third coma.

[David Sims]

So maybe he is truly like just frozen in time. Right. And not. It's fascinating because if you're in a regular coma, you do poop.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's all happening, but it feels like a prestige. Where, oh, at this moment a new version of you is being made that is birthed at this other. Other spot.

[Matt Singer]

God, yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Matt Singer]

Yes. That is avatar.

[Griffin Newman]

It's like we've built a thing, we've placed it there and now we're going to transfer your consciousness and there's one consciousness going in between the two. But in this, it is at this moment you are copied. That copy is sent there.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And your consciousness is being transferred.

[David Sims]

But I, I think copy is misleading because his Earth body is just lying in the cave.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

So it's not. Copy sort of suggests like there are two John Carter's walking around on two planes. Planets. You know what I mean?

[Griffin Newman]

They're two John Carters, but only one of them can walk at a time.

[David Sims]

There's just one then really the other one bodies though, it needs the, the body needs to exist.

[Griffin Newman]

One Carter, two cups and which one's pooping?

[David Sims]

I'm just saying. Give me a big old Rumpelstiltskin beard.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah, I did.

[David Sims]

That would be fun.

[Matt Singer]

Same thought. Which is why isn't. Yeah. Shouldn't he have a big old bushy

[David Sims]

beard when he wakes up and also maybe have. Have like birds that built a nest on his head?

[Griffin Newman]

And can he wake up in the 80s? Can he like wake up with the beard and be like, where am I? And then he hears like blondie on the.

[David Sims]

Like someone's like cruising by and he

[Griffin Newman]

peeks his head out and he's in the back of a Sam. Goodies.

[David Sims]

All, all good ideas. All good right now I'm interested. Sweating. I'm like, huh, huh? Yeah. No, maybe, maybe, maybe I do that. Maybe I do.

[Matt Singer]

Like when he wakes up back on Earth and there's like crackling noises. Yeah, he's all dusty. I mean that is kind of fun. And yeah, he looks over and Bryan Cranston's a skeleton man. That's kind of fun.

[Griffin Newman]

I like the Cranston sequence. I like the him constantly trying to escape and getting put in more and more restraints.

[David Sims]

The Cranston sequence is fine. I think the movie, it's interesting because like the Mars adventure ends with him falling in love with Dejah Thoris.

[Griffin Newman]

Getting married, which I would say is

[David Sims]

marrying her and becoming the Prince of Helium.

[Griffin Newman]

A little unearned that. That they get there.

[David Sims]

That is completely. They only get married, I feel like. Cuz they're like. I mean all the wedding shit's already here. So I guess we'll do that.

[Matt Singer]

Very space ball.

[Griffin Newman]

They've kissed one time implied because he forgot he wasn't talking to his dead wife. And then he immediately walks away and apologizes. And then like it feels like six hours later they're married.

[David Sims]

Their chemistry is not like very.

[Griffin Newman]

It feels like they got. They get married in the movie because they get married in the books. And they probably get married in the books because it's. That's like, well, you're a dirty single woman. I'm doing you a favor. It's 1912.

[Matt Singer]

Yes. In the books they get married and then even though they don't describe it, this is like literally one paragraph. They say like 10 years passed. He basically they're. They're. He lives there for 10 years. They have a egg. Not even a full born. Like they don't. She doesn't give birth to a child like a baby. She somehow. They don't get into the details. Produces an egg and the egg is about to be born when he is pulled back to Earth in the book. And there's this whole thing that is again not in the movie at all, involving the atmosphere factory that creates the air of Mars where it stops working. They've established earlier in the book this atmosphere factory. And if it ever goes down, there's going to be a big problem at the end of the book. It goes down. He heroically goes to save it or like repair it. He's the only one who can do it. He knows the secret password that can open the unopenable door because he's awesome.

[David Sims]

The secret password of Ned.

[Matt Singer]

Yes. He opens. Thank you. He opens the door and is like m. He doesn't even understand why he's like sucked back to Earth and then has to figure out how to get back to his wife and his unborn child. And that's the end of the book. It ends on like a huge cliffhanger, which this one really doesn't. The other thing about the marriage, which we haven't mentioned one time I feel like we should at least mention is in the book he and everyone is naked on Mars.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh sure.

[Matt Singer]

He shows up totally naked.

[David Sims]

Well, well, well.

[Matt Singer]

They describe how all the Tharks are naked yeah. And Dejah Thoris is naked, like.

[Griffin Newman]

And most of the sort of.

[Matt Singer]

So like the whole book is everyone's just running around with, you know, their hogs hanging out and whatnot.

[Griffin Newman]

Most of the visual, sort of history, cultural memory of John Carter is from when Frank Frazetta does a bunch of additions of. Frank Frazetta is like sort of the main Conan artist. You know, that sort of classical oil painting, barbarian look. And they were very scantily clad. Like, it was sort of like, Deja Thoris is wearing like a ribbon bikini, right?

[Matt Singer]

Yes, very.

[Griffin Newman]

And John Carter's wearing like the. The skimpiest loincloth. And so that was another thing where Satan was like, that would look silly. It can't be that cheesecakey. I think the furthest this movie could successfully go and sell me is that by the end of the movie, he's identified that he's fallen for her, that they have a connection. And then he gets zapped back. And that's why he wants to go back. You can't sell me. By the end of it, they've settled. We're obviously madly in love with each other. I'm ready to be here forever.

[David Sims]

Right. I mean, because that is. The movie is like, Right. The triumph is he's decided to be John Carter of Mars.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[David Sims]

He's gonna throw away the medallion.

[Matt Singer]

Throws away the medallion.

[David Sims]

He's gonna like, he. This is it. His new life is here in the

[Griffin Newman]

kingdom where he now lives.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Matt Singer]

The medallion that he sometimes is like, he literally leaves behind in places and in other times is like desperately, like, scrambling to grab it.

[Griffin Newman]

It's such a focused shot when he's jumping away the first time with the medallion back. And I go, oh, right. So the movie's gonna be. He doesn't realize this is valuable. And the rest of the film is he has to get the medallion back. Which feels like a cleaner thing to track in in terms of us saying, like, what is the movie? Like, what are the stakes? What is he gunning for? If it's, oh, he left the ruby slippers behind.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah, just give it to Dominic west. Have him have it the whole time.

[Griffin Newman]

In order to get back to the gold cave, he's got to get the medallion. And that's what's driving him the whole movie. That's what keeps him in the battle. Stan, like a year or two after this movie came out was like, well, seems like they're never going to be sequels. I'll tell you some of the stuff I was thinking and posted, like the logos for the sequels. And his opening for the second film, which, which was. It was going to open with the story of John Carter being told and then the reveal that it was Dejah Thoris telling it to their son.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

And then it's like, opening title. Then it cuts to John Carter, like in the coffin. Ned activating him. Him going back up. He gets there. Many years have passed. Dejah and the son have gone missing. And the movie is him trying to find them and then discovering the atmosphere machine.

[David Sims]

Okay, Right.

[Griffin Newman]

So it feels like it rushes to the wedding because he's already already, like planning out. I want to start with the kid. This is fucking trilogy brained bullshit. That up the 2000s.

[David Sims]

But whereas to bring it up one more time, Avatar.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[David Sims]

The end of Avatar. They shoot the villain that you hate full of arrows until he dies. Yes. Which rocks. And I clap and cheer.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Humans leave. Hometree is saved. Eywa has hurt us. Yeah, great. And it's like, oh, what will the sequels be? And it's like, we'll figure it out out later. I don't care. You need an ending and a sense of triumph. And here the triumph is like, well, we definitely took Mark Strong off the board. And I'm like, okay, and I get to be the prince. And you're like, prince of Helium. What does that mean? I don't know. Look, I've decided to live on Mars and that's what's important.

[Griffin Newman]

10 to 15 years of this as a fucking cancer in the industry. And I blame Lord of the Rings for all of it. And it's so annoying that they never stepped back back and went, oh, right. But Lord of the Rings was a trilogy of books that worked on paper. We were adapting a thing that was rock solid.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Versus anytime there was a new attempt at a franchise, whether it was adapted from something or original, it was littered with all of these threads that were. And that's going to be really important in the second movie.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

The third movie is going to pay that off.

[Matt Singer]

Off.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And there was a lot of, I think, backlash against this movie. That was the anger from audiences having seen this 15 times already of, I don't want to watch the movie. That's telling me how good the next movie's gonna be. Make the fucking movie right now.

[David Sims]

This problem moved to tv, obviously, which, you know, has its own similar issues. Issues.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the thing that Marvel cracked that helped for a while, which is, oh, Thor 1 doesn't need to be setting up Thor 2. No, Thor 1 needs to sell you up by existing 4. And then what it's setting up is your continued investment in the Marvel universe of Captain America. Right. And the sequels to each sub franchise are kind of standalone.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

They aren't feeding off of the things set up here or there or whatever.

[David Sims]

They were smart there.

[Griffin Newman]

The larger buy in, you feel like you're kind of getting a complete meal and then they're teasing you with what the next meal.

[Matt Singer]

A lot of the ones that don't work were the ones that avoided that and instead tried to make it too heavy on lore.

[Griffin Newman]

Doctor Strange. Like, oh, the whole first movie, Baron Mordo is his friend. And at the end he's like, I might think about being evil.

[David Sims]

He's still thinking about it. He's still thinking, like 10 years later. He's like, maybe.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you think Chel's agent calls once a week, once a month, once a year here?

[David Sims]

I heard you guys doing an Avengers movie.

[Matt Singer]

He.

[David Sims]

He'll be in that one, right?

[Matt Singer]

What about Mordo?

[Griffin Newman]

And you still own his ass. Like, you still have him under contract.

[Matt Singer]

When's he going to be a Baron?

[David Sims]

Okay, my Jetx. Jetx, Jetex, Jet X. Anything else we want to talk about as far as John Carter? Anything from the movie you have in

[Griffin Newman]

John Carter of Mars?

[David Sims]

Ah, there's nothing else I want to talk about. I have seen this movie three times. Times, I think.

[Griffin Newman]

Same.

[David Sims]

I have always thought that it's an impressive swing that doesn't work the first

[Griffin Newman]

45 minutes to an hour. Every time I watch it, I'm like, does this work?

[David Sims]

There's nothing about it that I out and out hate.

[Griffin Newman]

Shame.

[David Sims]

There's very little of it that I love, though. Like, there's nothing that I'm like, I'm unambiguously into that.

[Griffin Newman]

And like, there's a good amount of stuff I like. I would agree with you that there's

[David Sims]

nothing I love like Jupiter Ascending, which also has, like, flying bugs, ships. Right. Is much more my vibe.

[Griffin Newman]

Same.

[David Sims]

Because like, that one, just as much as it's silly and insane, does a little bit of a better idea. Giving you, like, the power struggles.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree. Because it simplifies them.

[David Sims]

Every performance is big.

[Matt Singer]

I was gonna say it's also bigger. It's like more bombastic.

[Griffin Newman]

It's messier, but it doesn't feel.

[David Sims]

And it has that Wachowski, I don't give a fuck thing that this one's like. You're saying it's like, we could be the next Star Wars. Jupiter's ending's like, we're not the next anything. This is just crazy. Okay.

[Matt Singer]

It's also this weird.

[Griffin Newman]

This weird balance of this movie doesn't feel that studio managed outside of maybe the kind of nerfing of Lyn Collins character down to like the most one dimensional damsel in distress.

[David Sims]

Definitely does.

[Griffin Newman]

It feels pretty pure. But it does feel like they're not self censoring. But they're so in their heads about how do we make this cool versus how do we make like it's the Disney problem.

[David Sims]

Right. Like they're always a little too worried about being uncool because they know they're not that cool.

[Griffin Newman]

Tron Legacy has that whole thing thing where you're like everyone loves this first movie but also it was too nerdy at the time. Can we make this a little more badass? I just think the iterative we're going to reshoot it three times. We start filming with an unfinished script kind of thing. We'll fix it in post. We'll find the story beats later. We'll fill in the gaps. Becomes how basically almost every Marvel, DC and Star wars movie is made. It's more the exceptions to the rule. The ones like the Last Jedi where you're like that's the seemingly was what they planned. They shot it the way they wanted to. Every other Disney Star wars movie was by all accounts made like this. And you saying Sims. I wish they would write the book on Rise of Skywalker.

[David Sims]

Certainly.

[Griffin Newman]

Notably there used to always be these very transparent making of books and Lucas would allow the making of docs. There was one that was announced for Force Awakens and then was pulled and canceled. Something you know nothing about Mad Singer. When you write an entire book they don't let you publish.

[Matt Singer]

Oh yeah, no that's ever happened to me that I can speak about on the record.

[Griffin Newman]

But the answer was they changed a lot of substantially. And I think learning a little from the lesson of John Carter they're like we don't want people to know that we didn't have it all figured out from the get go. We don't want to communicate to people that we figured it out on the go. But then you get disasters like Justice League being shot two complete times, Solo being shot two complete times with different directors that are this again. And like Disney is the one who is more often than not green lighting movies and allowing them to happen this way. And it was a too big to fail thing where the Star wars movies and the Marvel movies in particular kept on just making enough money that it wasn't stupid to spend $300 million to shoot a film three times.

[Matt Singer]

I just again, this. It's just at fast to me, it's like. I agree with what you said, David. I would also just say it's like you noticed on my letterbox. I keep watching it. It's like a movie, right?

[David Sims]

Right.

[Matt Singer]

It's a movie that I'm sort of inexplicably drawn to, even though I don't particularly like it. It's like a classic. 5 out of 10. It's like. I wouldn't say I like this movie, but I guess maybe it's just because I do like and respect Andrew Stanton as a filmmaker that I'm just always trying to figure out where did it go wrong?

[Griffin Newman]

I think there's something kind of pure about it. Right. It's very pure in its intentions and it doesn't feel that meddled. And so even if the movie feels a little self conscious and a little bit wary of like letting its freak flag fly, the other movies we're talking about are you get to something like Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which was by all accounts shot 27 times,

[David Sims]

just scene to scene. Flows with no issues.

[Griffin Newman]

Every time Elizabeth Olsen does an interview, she's like, at a certain point I was, I. I don't, I don't know.

[David Sims]

Yeah, she's in the Lynn Collins thing of like, just tell me where to.

[Matt Singer]

Tell me what to do.

[Griffin Newman]

Two versions ago, I was the hero, now the villain. Is this before W division or after W Division? And that's a very managed movie that doesn't feel cohesive, but has like explosive aesthetic sequences that rule. It has flashes of Raimy shit. But you're also like, this is a weird, exquisite corpse of a movie. And in an odd way, John Carter feels more coherent to me. Even if it can't figure out what it's saying. It is like a straight line.

[Matt Singer]

Sure. I mean, it's clear that it. No, I'm agreeing. I'm saying it is. You feel that the, the, the passion of Andrew Stanton for the material. It's just, you know, and, and look, a lot of times that is where the best stuff comes from is that love of the material and wanting to try to transmit what you loved about it into the film version.

[David Sims]

It just some.

[Matt Singer]

Something didn't get translated. He didn't get the Martian juice that magically translates. I don't know, but something got lost in the, in the translation.

[Griffin Newman]

He is also just such a supreme visual storyteller, in my opinion, that you have sequences that feel really thoughtfully designed it's not just that there's a cool creature. There's like really deliberate shot sequencing and rhythms where even if none of the sequences, like, fully levitate, they are well made. Versus the types of movies we're talking about, like Justice League where you're watching an action sequence and you can tell the parts of this were shot three years apart. You're cutting in with random jokes and asides, or this character got redesigned post or any of that sort of stuff. There is just a little bit of, like, I don't know, there's a clarity to this movie in its messiness that feels that I'm almost a little nostalgic for sure.

[David Sims]

That's a nice way to put it. And there's a reason this era is gone. Right? And that the Marvel era happened. The superhero franchise era era happened. And the superhero franchise era got out of hand too, but did have its highs.

[Griffin Newman]

It is fascinating to be talking about this movie in the year when Star wars is about to return.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And now we're in a new era is the big swing of can we save Marvel? And both of these franchises are like, on their heels being like, can you give me one shot to win you

[David Sims]

back with Star Wars? I will. Basic. I'm always like, you know, like, I'm like, star wars can continue to flop and we'll always be there for someone to kind of grab the ball years later if they want. Right? Like, I. I could buy pretty much three flops in a row, but, like, who cares? Like, maybe 10 years. Marvel, the doomsday thing, it's a little bit more like, if that doesn't work, a harder reset may be required. Yeah, like a very hard reset.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I'm also, I'm watching this asking myself, what are the chances? I prefer the Mandalorian and Grogu to this. And I would love to be pleasantly surprised, but everything I see from the marketing of the movie makes me feel like it is going to be basically John Carter vibes.

[David Sims]

Interesting in that Favreau wanted to make a John Carter. I don't know. Mandalorian Korogu look to me looks so good. I just know what it's about and it looks good. That's the thing. People on Twitter have been like, Rise of Skywalker looks good.

[Griffin Newman]

It does.

[David Sims]

It has sets, it's got lighting choices.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. He's very good.

[David Sims]

DP flop movie, we can all agree. But it's crazy that now not even this new Star wars movie does looks like a Verizon commercial. Like, what the is going on?

[Griffin Newman]

Talk about where. I'm just like, they let Stanton shoot it his way. They went to places, they built giant sets. You know, they put people in a ton of costumes.

[Matt Singer]

I'm looking up. I'll tell. Okay, I was right. So we're talking about Favreau wanted to make John Carpenter, which has the Tharks a lot of arms. I'm looking right now at Martin Scorsese's character in Mandalorian. He's got a lot of arms. He's not tall. He's not big. I believe, like a little fark.

[David Sims]

Martin Scorsese is playing a species that is the same thing that John Solo. I saw some tweet saying they were related.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And someone being like, I can't believe, like, Scorsese is playing a glup Shido, which is, of course, the sort of

[Griffin Newman]

the Internet playing, like, Luff Shido's uncle.

[David Sims]

Exactly like that. They're like, we finally got Scorsese to be in Star Wars. How fun. He's. Who is he? Well, you remember the guy in Solo? No. Oh, I was hoping you did, because he's his uncle.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, you know, it's very funny to me. Like, everyone I know under the age of 10 seems a little excited by Mandalorian and Grogu just because it is the first Star wars movie being released in theaters in their conscious lifetime. It's just, oh, right. Star wars hasn't been movies.

[Matt Singer]

My kids are psyched.

[Griffin Newman]

And I like Grogu. Right. Every adult I know has no excitement for it, save for our friend Allison Wilmore. Oh, she do love.

[David Sims]

She love.

[Griffin Newman]

Grogu is not, like, overall excited for the movie. And I feel like this has not manifested that many times on Mike when we've been recording critical darlings. But before, after almost every record, she brings up how into Hot Jabba son she is. The Jeremy Allen White six pack Rock to the hut.

[David Sims]

Look, Hot Jabba's son is at least a play. Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Every time, like, Lawson and Fresh and I are on Mandalorian and Grogu, she's like, but what about Hot Jabba? I really kind of buy in the stock.

[David Sims]

Well, I'm told he's a large part of the film. I believe.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

He's like the third lead or something on the poster.

[Griffin Newman]

I believe the billing is.

[David Sims]

Oh, boy.

[Griffin Newman]

Pedro Pascal, Jeremy Allen White, and Sigourney Weaver. There are only three credited actors on the poster.

[David Sims]

Who's the villain?

[Matt Singer]

Great question.

[Griffin Newman]

Me.

[Matt Singer]

Great question.

[Griffin Newman]

Truly, this is. I. I'm like, the movie has done nothing to sell me on what the story of this film is.

[David Sims]

It's an issue that I do not know what the story is. Except, like, Grogu will be asked to do a task and get distracted by some Cheese Nips or whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

Mandalorian is hired to do a thing and maybe the person who hired him isn't trustworthy.

[Matt Singer]

Right. Double crosses him, maybe.

[Griffin Newman]

But you're doing a movie that's the payoff of three seasons of television. Even if those seasons of television are popular and beloved. I think your marketing immediately wants to communicate. This is why this had to be a movie. Here's a clean hook story we came up with that couldn't have just been an episode.

[Matt Singer]

He Baby Yoda.

[Griffin Newman]

He Baby Yoda.

[David Sims]

He do be small Baby Yoda. Let's play the box office game for John Carter.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. I don't know if you noticed Ben, when you were watching it on the train with the woman looking over your shoulder, but at the end credits when John Carter gets zapped back to Mars, it says John Carter. And then Of Mars fades in. And that was Stanton being like, I

[David Sims]

I my real title, right? And then it goes jcm, like they have a logo.

[Griffin Newman]

But I, like fought to get it at the end. And I'm hoping that retroactively people just call it John Carter of Mars. And maybe it's sort of that he doesn't really become John Carter of Mars until. So the title changes. But of course, this movie is dead on arrival in the sequel.

[David Sims]

Yeah, just a couple more things from the dossier I should mention. Of course, there was a lot of fighting over the marketing, which we sort of talked about, but it was Stanton who insisted on Kashmir being used the Led Zeppelin song in the trailer, even

[Griffin Newman]

though that was the super bowl teaser that had. You were seeing clips from the movie, and as the camera pulled back, you realized the clips were inside the letters John Carter as Kashmir plays Some of

[David Sims]

the Disney executives were like, isn't that like an old song that young people won't care about? He. He went for that.

[Griffin Newman]

But this is where it's a perfect storm. Because then Disney goes like, you got to let us take control of the marketing. And then they make even worse decisions. When, like Deadline was doing its sort of post mortem on the box office failure, they had a bunch of marketing people from rival studios speaking anonymously. And one of the them just said, like, this is the most disastrous marketing campaign in the history of Hollywood. It is like going to be studied for decades.

[David Sims]

They every, they made every mistake or whatever by the premiere. The vibes are Horrendous. You know, it's like the premiere was not celebratory at all.

[Griffin Newman]

Lyn Collins tells a story of watching Taylor Kitsch walking down the red carpet. Rich Ross, the boss of Disney Films,

[David Sims]

of Disney, who is about himself to be fired kind of not over this, just over, over general sort of mismanagement at Disney.

[Griffin Newman]

I feel he like whispers something into Taylor Kitsch's ear and she's like, I watch him like react as if he's been struck by lightning. And I follow him and go, what did he say? And he said, the head of Disney just leaned in and whispered, it's a disaster.

[David Sims]

Oh, wow.

[Griffin Newman]

Before the premiere.

[David Sims]

And then they went down the press line. Colin says she thinks she like borne the brunt of it. And like she, at one point she, she says, like, you know, Taylor went on to continue to work. He did Battleship and other things. And I think she's just kind of forgotten that like Battleship was the same year.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah, he'd already working on that.

[David Sims]

He did not. Like, he did make more movies, but like he no longer was allowed to be Star Wars.

[Griffin Newman]

Different problems. I feel like everyone learned Taylor Kitsch's name and he became the shorthand for guy being shoved down our throats in movies we don't want to see. Versus she kind of just like retreated back into anonymity. But she talked about that, her reps, like the week before it came out, said like, you're gonna just need to hide out. Like you need to disappear for a year or two. That everyone around her was kind of telling her you're radioactive. And she, yeah, like fired the whole main.

[David Sims]

And she no longer. I mean, it's not like she's never worked again. She did some tv. She was on Walking Dead for a year. But she. He obviously never made a movie like this again.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[Matt Singer]

And Tars Tarkas, he had. I mean, he had a lot of trouble getting work, but he also.

[Griffin Newman]

You're forgetting the sex scan.

[David Sims]

I was about to say he had some off camera stuff, some weird tweets. Weird tweets, yeah.

[Matt Singer]

Should have left those eggs alone is all I'm saying.

[David Sims]

The film opens on March 9, 2012 at number one at the box office. Surely, surely it's number one Bromley's birthday.

[Griffin Newman]

I will say it also was like

[David Sims]

the meme with Anakin and Padme was like number one of the box box office.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[David Sims]

Number one. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It was the rare case of usually movies that feel this ominous with the cloud over it, they keep pushing it off as far as they can they pulled this one up. They were so.

[David Sims]

They were like let's rip the band

[Matt Singer]

aid off

[Griffin Newman]

the summer. And they were like, maybe in March it will over perform if there just aren't other blockbusters. I believe it comes out the week before the Hunger Games.

[David Sims]

That's a good question.

[Griffin Newman]

The first Hunger Games. That's the other thing is they were like March. No one releases a blockbuster in March. We'll have the month to ourselves.

[David Sims]

It's two weeks before the Hunger Games. But the a week before 21 Jump street which also is a hit, wildly over perform. Right. So it. But it's opening to $30 million, which is bad because they want it because it costs a lot of money.

[Griffin Newman]

If it had opened to 50, they would have been worried.

[David Sims]

If it opened at 50, it would have been a regular bomb. 30 makes it a kind of like bomb that gets written about in like the New York Times.

[Griffin Newman]

The break is like 600 or 700. Many people think this might have been the biggest write down on a movie ever. But also after this studios stopped being as open about how much movies cost.

[David Sims]

Yes, that's true.

[Griffin Newman]

It really did kind of change things

[David Sims]

where they were like don't cost some money. What do you want from me?

[Griffin Newman]

How much did Avengers Endgame cost? I don't know. The receipts are here somewhere. We never added them all.

[David Sims]

Papers. So many papers.

[Matt Singer]

And the Blu Rays and the rights. That's.

[Griffin Newman]

That's another thing about this movie is for how much money Disney invested in it. It. There was no merchandising. There were no tie ins.

[Matt Singer]

Like there's no merchandise. Spotlight.

[David Sims]

You didn't eat one pancake. No Carter juice on it.

[Matt Singer]

I was looking this up. I mean there was nothing very telling and it.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's also bizarre.

[David Sims]

Red pancakes and red pancakes.

[Griffin Newman]

That stuff has to be like figured out years in advance. Yeah. And that is often a way they help buffer the cost.

[Matt Singer]

I can't find where it's like there are vinyl mations. Do you have the vinyl mations?

[Griffin Newman]

I've been looking for the trailer. Cheapest one I can find on ebay. Vinylmation was a series of like kind of little Labloo esque blind bag figures that all looked like Mickey Mouse. So they had his form factor in the ears. But then they'd paint them to look like other characters and they made four vinyl mations. They made John Carter, Deja Thoris, Tars Tarkus and the White Ape. Everyone's favorite characters from pieces of John Carter merch that exist. But the, the fact that you know, getting Denny's to do a meal or whatever helps get them free marketing, merchandising. These companies pay for the licensing. These things help cover the cost. And this was a movie that cost $260 million. That was all just Disney putting their neck out.

[Matt Singer]

How they didn't make, you know, like John Carter milk, like the white that they stuck him in, I'll never know.

[Griffin Newman]

No other ancillary sort of revenue streams on this.

[David Sims]

It's opening $30 million. It's going to gross 73 domestic to 82 worldwide, which is bad, but like, it is amazing how even a bomb like this made almost $3 million. So.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's number two.

[David Sims]

It's number two. What's number one? It's just hilarious to lose to this. It's the second weekend of an animated

[Griffin Newman]

film holdover in 2012. It's not real, is it?

[David Sims]

No. Perfectly good guess.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it a dream?

[David Sims]

Works, I think. Yes. Right. I can. It's. It's an illumination, I think.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

So it's universal. Yeah. I. I can never remember who had what when, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, is it the Lorax?

[David Sims]

Dr. Seuss is the Lorax.

[Griffin Newman]

Weekend two, though, cuz Lorax opening weekend was 70. It was something crazy.

[Matt Singer]

And that was movie IHOP tie in where they had pancakes.

[David Sims]

Mustache on it.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah, pancakes with a lollipop in the top of it.

[Griffin Newman]

I believe that was a 70 opening, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah, 70 opening.

[Griffin Newman]

Crazy. So second weekend is 40 something.

[David Sims]

38. 38. So it's dropping for an anime. But that's the thing where like, you know, the guys at Disney are like, I mean, we'll beat weekend two of the Lorax, right? Like we're. And the Lorax just like, like kicks you in the behind.

[Griffin Newman]

It is crazy that in four consecutive weeks, John Carter is the only movie that doesn't hit where you're like, Lorax works. Hollywood generally is like 21 Jump street, right? Yeah. Hunger Games, mega hit.

[David Sims]

So number two is John Carter. Number three is a comedy film that opened the week before with kind of like a kind of a format twist to it. Never seen it.

[Griffin Newman]

Format twist.

[David Sims]

An R rated teen comedy film.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, it's Project X.

[David Sims]

That's right. Never seen this one. Which is a found footage high school.

[Griffin Newman]

High school party movie.

[David Sims]

Because like, it is not sinister.

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[David Sims]

Like it literally is just about like, what about the wildest party ever happened and you're watching it like.

[Griffin Newman]

No, there's no like supernatural twist.

[David Sims]

It's.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it's. Nerds throw a party to be Cool. And one kid is filming it.

[Matt Singer]

A weird get wildly out of hand, perhaps.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, it goes crazy.

[Matt Singer]

Whoa.

[Griffin Newman]

One weird thing about that movie is Miles Teller is in it. It's. It's part of the early wave of Hollywood trying to make. Make Mars Teller a star. He plays himself versus the Taylor kitsch thing. What felt like a very slow evolution. But, yes, he plays himself. His character is named Miles Teller, and he's the coolest guy in school.

[David Sims]

Right. It's like, what if the guy from Rabbit Hole was a minor celebrity at your school?

[Matt Singer]

Yeah. Produced by Todd Phillips.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And Joel Silver.

[Matt Singer]

That movie was really possibly in funny

[David Sims]

business, of course, but like, that. I feel like Project X was really poor. Pushed is like, that genius. Phillips has found another great angle. And, like, it kind of.

[Griffin Newman]

It was called Project X because it was this top secret project. It was like, Todd Phillips has come up with a radical pitch on how to reinvent the high school movie, and they're keeping it under wraps. I auditioned for that one, like, six times for every character, but it was. Project X was the code name. And then they just decided it sounded cool.

[Matt Singer]

They didn't. You. Did you audition to play Miles Teller?

[Griffin Newman]

No, but I probably auditioned to play every other virgin in that movie.

[David Sims]

This. It made 54 domestic. I'm sure everyone was happy.

[Griffin Newman]

Very cheap.

[Matt Singer]

I was gonna say. It could. It must have cost 10 million bucks.

[David Sims]

All right, so now we're getting into weird, though. Okay. Number four is one of those early 2010s action movies. War movies. Like war.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it act of Valor.

[David Sims]

Act of Valor. Oh, wow.

[Griffin Newman]

Because that's such a weird where.

[David Sims]

Where you're like, who does it star? And they're like, no real soldiers. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It was trying to do the 1517 to Paris. It was directed by two, like, action sort of stunt guys.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it?

[Matt Singer]

I remember the poster with just, like, shadowy figures of, like, soldiers in the distance. It didn't, you know, you couldn't see anybody.

[David Sims]

They do an act of Valor.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Pretty well. And was also cheap.

[David Sims]

It made $1881 million worldwide on a $12 million budget. Like, you know, I don't think it's a masterpiece, but it did exist, and it made a little bit of money. Number five at the box office is a horror film that had debuted at Sundance the year before. So January 2011. Oh, that has a very high concept sort of thing going on.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the Elizabeth Olsen one.

[David Sims]

That's correct.

[Matt Singer]

It's a real time Silent House.

[Griffin Newman]

I was gonna say Safe House. Yeah. Safe House is the denzel Ryan Reynolds.

[Matt Singer]

I've never seen it.

[Griffin Newman]

Take.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's one take. Real time. She's being haunted.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not great.

[David Sims]

Yeah, but it was all about the concert.

[Matt Singer]

It was. Yes, it was. Got a lot of buzz for being. Yes. Like a.

[David Sims]

She was.

[Matt Singer]

And she was hot.

[Griffin Newman]

That and Martha were the same Sundance. So there's this explosion of holy shit. She's in two movies as the lead. And certainly Silent House is a skill piece because it's one take.

[David Sims]

How'd she do that?

[Griffin Newman]

How'd she do it? And then they waited a year to release it, assuming that her star was going to explode. And by the time it came out, everyone was like, people liked this at Sundance.

[David Sims]

It's opening sucks. Yeah, it sucks. No, it was opening number five. It only made 12 domestic. Number six. Opening at number six, which is bad news for this movie. Is the Eddie Murphy movie A Thousand Words. Oh, that was a true nadir for him.

[Griffin Newman]

It was. It was a delayed several years. That's when Eddie Murphy goes into the wilderness and doesn't make a movie for like five or six years.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Because like, that is basically the kind of thing where it's like your name above the title seems to do nothing anymore.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Sims]

It's like, we're not even gonna just clear, like $30 million on the fact that you're in a kind of family friendly comedy.

[Griffin Newman]

He had a couple family flops in a row, including Meet Dave and Imagine that. And then he signed on to do Tower Heist. And the promise of Tower Heist was it's gonna be old Eddie. He's gonna be the wild card. He's gonna curse. And so they pushed A Thousand Words to come out after Tower Heist and also after he was going to host the Oscars. So they were like, eddie Murphy's about to have a comeback.

[David Sims]

And he did a great job.

[Griffin Newman]

He's. He's going to do a raunchy movie with Brett Ratner and then he's going to host the Oscars directed by Brett Ratner. And everyone's going to love Eddie again. And we'll be in the halo effect and Tower Heist bombs. And he quits the Oscars because Brett Ratner is fired for using slurs.

[David Sims]

Having used slurs in his life. Yes. No, he used them. Right. He said, like on Howard Stern talking about.

[Griffin Newman]

I forgot about the Oscars he's going to do.

[David Sims]

I mean, Brett Ratner had just never put a foot wrong until then. It's crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

It's insane. Yeah. Yes. And then. And then Brett was supposed to. My buddy Brett was supposed to direct Beverly Hills Cop 4. Right after that, he was like, I'm the guy who's going to bring Eddie back. I'm getting to host the Oscars. He's going to do standup again. And. And Eddie retreats for years.

[David Sims]

Number seven is. Wow. Safe House. They're both. They're both in the top 10. So that's Denzel and Ryan Reynolds.

[Griffin Newman]

X Men Origins. Wolverine's own Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds.

[David Sims]

Never seen. Daniel Espinosa.

[Matt Singer]

Extremely forgettable action.

[David Sims]

No one is safe.

[Matt Singer]

I have seen that.

[David Sims]

It is Doug Benson joke.

[Matt Singer]

What if there was a safe house?

[David Sims]

Yes, it.

[Griffin Newman]

But it is a real pre pandemic. Right. Movies like that used to just come out, make a hundred million dollars disappear.

[David Sims]

Right. Where you're like, what's the premise? It's like, have you not seen the poster? They both have gone.

[Griffin Newman]

There were two stars, right?

[Matt Singer]

There's two.

[David Sims]

Will they shoot them at each other? Are they friends of the enemies?

[Matt Singer]

I don't know.

[David Sims]

Watch the movie about it gets figured out. Probably, you know, the apex of it being two guns. Like, where they're like, it's Denzel and Wahlberg. What do they do? They're shooting money that's in the air, I think. I don't know. Maybe they'll have to shoot all of the money.

[Griffin Newman]

Who could say Safe House was like the only hit Ryan Reynolds had in that run.

[David Sims]

Yes. You mean post proposal of like, him doing, like, and.

[Griffin Newman]

And whatever. And. But everyone just gave D. Denzel all the credit.

[David Sims]

Totally. Because what the. Who even knows what that movie is?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. And then Ryan Reynolds goes into his forgotten indie phase where he's like, I'll be in the Woman. Yes. I'll do Mississippi Grind. He tried some stuff and then he stopped trying stuff. Yes.

[David Sims]

And started making, I guess in his defense, oodles and doodles of money. And running a cell phone company very well, I assume. Yeah, I've checked in with them lately. You've also got funny that we used

[Griffin Newman]

to have to do ad reads for that. I love Mint Mobile.

[David Sims]

I would use it if I didn't have other cell service.

[Griffin Newman]

Matt, that's a great question. The whole value of Mint Mobile is that he does the ads. Why were they spending money to have David and I in like 2019 be like, I love dialing numbers and having a phone call go through number eight

[David Sims]

at the box office. Is the Channing Tatum, Rachel McCaffrey Adams film the Vow a big hit?

[Griffin Newman]

This is the year where Channing Tatum talk about all Manifests what Hollywood wants all these other guys were talking about to be.

[Matt Singer]

I'm going Channing tatum, John Carter.

[Griffin Newman]

21 Jump street makes sense. The Vow, Magic Mike are all in the same years.

[Matt Singer]

He would. I'm.

[David Sims]

He would be a good jumper.

[Matt Singer]

And he could be funny.

[David Sims]

Could be funny.

[Matt Singer]

He could be dunked in the goo.

[David Sims]

The vows movies where you're like, is this based on Nicholas Sparks? And like, no, but that's what we're going.

[Matt Singer]

Not literally, but metaphorically, yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Like weirdly based on nothing.

[David Sims]

Based on nothing. Just original screenplay about the vibe of all.

[Griffin Newman]

Must have been a bestseller. It's serious. 50 first dates, she gets amnesia and they're married and he has to make her fall in love with him again.

[David Sims]

Love it. Number nine at the box office. I assume it's great. Is another mega flop. Much hyped mega flop of this Q1, which is the. This means war. The MCG.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Is that talked about in your book at all?

[David Sims]

No.

[Matt Singer]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, yeah.

[David Sims]

I didn't get to that.

[Griffin Newman]

That was like a 90s high concept spec buy that went through every permutation of if they're never going to make a bad boy sequel. Is this the way to reteam Will Smith? Martin Lawrence. And then there was a version that was supposed to be Seth Rogan and another kind of frat guy.

[David Sims]

It was going to be Martin Lawrence was like often attack match and they like Bradley Cooper, Seth Rogen, Sam Worthington. At one point they're like, should it be Martin and Chris Rock?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like kind of try to do a new Bad boys with Martin and another like major black superstar. And like by the time they're like, we got Reese Witherspoon. That's fun.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So now it'll be Spy versus Spy versus the Gray Spy. The girl one, you know, because it was. The old one was kind of more of a spy versus Spy.

[Griffin Newman]

It was always them fighting over a woman.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But I think the woman was less of a character character.

[Matt Singer]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And they were like, we've hired a megastar to play the woman.

[David Sims]

Then they get Bradley Kufre off of the Hangover and then he's like, I want to do other things. And they. They're like, it's okay, it's okay. Chris Pine and Tom Hardy and everyone's like, I guess like they're brand new. Like, they're both like such recent stars.

[Griffin Newman]

They picked the right guys. But sure, I tried watching that movie recently and they are just floundering. It is a bad movie. It's a disaster.

[Matt Singer]

It's one of those movies where it bombs. Everyone says it's terrible and you go, well, how bad could it be?

[Griffin Newman]

Right?

[Matt Singer]

And then you watch it and you're like, oh, it was bad. It, it was bad.

[David Sims]

It was bad. Number 10 at the box office is Journey to the Mysterious Island a big hit. Wow. We hit three hours again. Ben, it's a problem. This is a problem. Check needs finessing. We got to do it. Don't worry. Our Martin Score series I'm sure will be filled. Lots of shorties definitely.

[Matt Singer]

I don't want.

[Griffin Newman]

Look, I don't want to call a shot. I do think the next two still Stantons will be shorter.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, although our guest for Dory, there

[Griffin Newman]

could be some tangents and he, he's coming in with a full throated defense of its star.

[David Sims]

A full voted.

[Griffin Newman]

Did you say a full throated.

[Matt Singer]

Full foated tho.

[Griffin Newman]

2 full.

[Matt Singer]

That's what you said.

[David Sims]

Boy, oh boy, oh boy.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a fascinating movie and it, it is like, it feels like such a flash, flashpoint of everything that was going on at that exact moment of what had happened before, of what's to come. And, and like Stan unsurprisingly takes it very hard. He does a piece, I think with the LA Times like six months after it comes out. Rarely does a filmmaker own a flop

[David Sims]

that quickly that way.

[Griffin Newman]

And was like, I decided gonna take a year. I'm gonna go to New New York where my daughter's in school. I'm going to read books, I'm going

[Matt Singer]

to write the sun, love to ride the sun.

[Griffin Newman]

I need to like pull back and reset my batteries. What had also happened in the background is that of course Disney had bought Pixar. They start immediately saying, can we start up the sequel machine? They're begging for a Finding Nemo sequel. They always sort of have the respect of we won't do it unless the original filmmaker, Baker approves. He oversees the 3D re release of Nemo that I think is in 2011, the year before this.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

And he said that when he was overseeing it and he got to the scene where Dory says I where is my family? He went, there is possibly a sequel there. So he goes to Pixar and he says, I would let this happen. They hire a writer and he was not intending to direct, was I'm clearly in the John Carter business.

[David Sims]

Right. I'll be, I'll be on Mars. Right? Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I bring this up only because the obvious perception would be John Carter flops. He runs panic Back to Pixar and says, can you let me do Finding Door?

[David Sims]

Right. Kind of similar to bird eventually doing Incredibles 2 after a flop or two.

[Griffin Newman]

The reality is it was. It was in the works. And then he said, actually, maybe I want to do it myself.

[Matt Singer]

Right. But still, rarely, I mean, rarely do you see a director, you know, make these crazy big swings. And then immediately I. I see what you're saying. It wasn't created with that in mind, but he does does then go make a sequel.

[David Sims]

But there's really like, then how many careers are like this? Of. It's an interesting animation to live action back to animation, then tv and then back to live action and animation.

[Griffin Newman]

This is what's interesting. And we'll talk about it in the next two.

[Matt Singer]

I'm looking forward to hearing this in the blink of an eye. I'd like to hear you guys talk for three hours about in the blink.

[David Sims]

We're not gonna keep that one.

[Matt Singer]

But 90 Ben's giving me a dirty look, the dirtiest look.

[Griffin Newman]

But he is, like, he is lucky. And it's from his own doing that he has in his possession a get out of jail free card. From the moment this movie flops, he is lucky.

[David Sims]

He's also lucky that he's already made Whining Nemo and Wally.

[Matt Singer]

Right?

[David Sims]

That's cool. That rocks.

[Griffin Newman]

But saying, what if I want to direct Finding Dory? No one's going to question him on that. Absolutely. They're not going to be hovering over his shoulder. They're like, we trust that you're good. You don't have to spend any time in movie jail if that's what you're doing next.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I say goodbye to Matt. I mean, he'll be back. But, you know, I think we got to wrap this up maybe in three

[Matt Singer]

more years or whatever it's been.

[David Sims]

Has it been three years?

[Matt Singer]

Yes, it was when the book. When the last book came out, I was here.

[David Sims]

I think you're forgetting something.

[Griffin Newman]

There was something.

[David Sims]

In fact, see if you've made like

[Griffin Newman]

a five time Planet of the Apes.

[Matt Singer]

I definitely.

[David Sims]

Fourth.

[Matt Singer]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Wow. It has been three years. What? Really? What? The Alien 3.

[Matt Singer]

We suck.

[David Sims]

We do suck. What a disaster.

[Griffin Newman]

That was three years ago.

[Matt Singer]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

That's actually maybe more the sticking point here.

[Matt Singer]

At a certain point, I was like, if I ever want to do another blank check, I better write another book. I better write another book.

[Griffin Newman]

Apatow was in March Madness and it didn't feel like I was.

[Matt Singer]

I was feeling like, oh, man, if he gets.

[Griffin Newman]

Gets in Be perfect.

[Matt Singer]

I'm. I'm in. I'm. I'm gonna. I'm golden.

[Griffin Newman]

We were overdue to get you on either way. Oh, great news. JJ has texted us. Sony taps Brian Hedgeland to script Heland. I think it's Zorro versus Django, which is another movie that has been in the works for so long. It was part of the Sony hack.

[David Sims]

I mean, cuz Tarantino wrote it.

[Matt Singer]

I was gonna say. Didn't they make a comic book out of that already?

[Griffin Newman]

One point. Gerard Carmichael was supposed to write it. Cool.

[David Sims]

And that's. It's. So it's Jango teams up with Zorro.

[Griffin Newman]

The hero.

[David Sims]

The folk hero.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And will Jamie Foxx be back?

[Griffin Newman]

Presumably.

[Matt Singer]

But what people don't realize is all these things came from Zorro. This is the original.

[David Sims]

Isn't Jamie Fox almost 60? I guess these things don't matter anymore.

[Griffin Newman]

Really.

[David Sims]

Doesn't matter, right?

[Matt Singer]

Nothing matters.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting.

[Matt Singer]

Anyway, it's been a while, but I'm glad to be back.

[Griffin Newman]

Coming out in October.

[Matt Singer]

Comes out October 6th. You can pre order it right now, anywhere you pre order books.

[Griffin Newman]

Please do.

[Matt Singer]

Please do.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Matt Singer]

It's very helpful and hopefully I can write another book and come back in three years and review. I'll be back super bad or something.

[David Sims]

Yeah, motherfucker. I want to do it. No, but that's not Apatow.

[Griffin Newman]

I know, but I'm just saying.

[David Sims]

Yeah, we. I want to do Appetite.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think we're gonna do the

[David Sims]

new movie to come out.

[Matt Singer]

Apatow would be a great blank check subject.

[David Sims]

He would. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It feels like the last couple years we've been pushing and people are like, why? And this year in March Madness, people got it for the first time.

[David Sims]

He did win a matchup.

[Griffin Newman]

He did.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Matt Singer]

I was watching. I was voting.

[Griffin Newman]

And it felt like we have enough distance from it that it's worth studying in the way that you did in your book.

[Matt Singer]

Well, I certainly think so. And if people agree, they can check phenomenon. The book business.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe to tune in next week for Finding Dory with Zack Cherry.

[David Sims]

That's right.

[Griffin Newman]

Who is not actually defending Ellen DeGeneres. But that's been a running bit for a year.

[David Sims]

Has it?

[Griffin Newman]

I feel like there's been a year of texting with Zack.

[David Sims]

He's like, get ready for the Ellen defense.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

I don't really remember that. But that's. I. But as I said to you when you floated that idea long ago, I was like, Zach Cherry, finding Nori episode. Sounds good to me.

[Griffin Newman]

Sounds funny.

[David Sims]

Sounds fun.

[Griffin Newman]

We look at the spreadsheet. Me chuckle.

[David Sims]

Sounds pretty good.

[Griffin Newman]

Sounds pretty good. Pretty good movie, too.

[David Sims]

It's a movie I've seen many, many times because my daughter and I. I enjoy it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

I don't like, love it, but, like, I enjoy it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

There's fish.

[Griffin Newman]

There's fish.

[David Sims]

Dory, there's an octopus. Octopus. He's a septopus. He's a.

[Matt Singer]

Sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

Tune in next week for that.

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Griffin Newman]

And as always, Barsoom. I love the sound of that pour.

[David Sims]

It would be bad if it was like, plop, plop, plop if it was thick.

[Griffin Newman]

Clunk, clunk. This is like a Ben and Jerry's coffee, David. It's got a lot of objects in it.

[Matt Singer]

Mixins.

[David Sims]

Chunky.

[Matt Singer]

Oh.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh. There was a tagline.

[David Sims]

Wow.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Do the tagline. I think. I think, in fact, that's probably your best bet.

[Griffin Newman]

Could do a couple things. Thank you. It's a potent.

[Matt Singer]

A potent aroma.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a potent mix.

[Matt Singer]

That is a potent mix.

[David Sims]

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 Bardia Salinas, and our associate producers, 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 in 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 room.

[Griffin Newman]

Real nerdy.

[David Sims]

Join our Patreon Blank Check special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank checkpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter Checkbook on substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.