‘F1’ Is a Fast, Fierce Blockbuster Throwback, With Joseph Kosinski! Plus, The Future of James Bond.

Summary

The Big Picture Podcast Summary

Episode: ‘F1’ Is a Fast, Fierce Blockbuster Throwback, With Joseph Kosinski! Plus, The Future of James Bond
Release Date: June 27, 2025
Host/Authors: Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins, with guests including Joseph Kosinski

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1. Introduction to the Episode

The episode kicks off with hosts Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins delving into the latest cinematic ventures, focusing prominently on the new summer blockbuster "F1", directed by Joseph Kosinski. They also touch upon significant updates regarding the James Bond franchise and upcoming projects like "Social Network Part Two."

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2. The Future of James Bond

James Bond's New Direction

Rob Harvilla introduces the breaking news that Denis Villeneuve, acclaimed for films like Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, has been attached to direct the next James Bond installment. This marks a significant shift as Amazon, in collaboration with producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman, takes ownership of the franchise.

Rob Harvilla [02:26]: “Denis Villeneuve is one of our favorite directors. His involvement brings a new layer of depth and sophistication to Bond.”

Host Reactions and Expectations

Amanda expresses cautious optimism, acknowledging Villeneuve's prowess while pondering the possible tonal shifts in the Bond universe.

Amanda Dobbins [03:28]: “Good for Bond and fine with me for Denis... he’s been making original and very exciting films that mean a lot to us.”

Potential Directors and Final Cut Rights

The discussion touches on the absence of Christopher Nolan as a potential director due to his insistence on final cut rights—a non-negotiable stance contrasted with the Bond franchise’s history of producer-driven final edits.

Rob Harvilla [05:42]: “Denis does not have final cut, which is not ideal, but it’s James Bond. It’s not a personal statement; it’s about a guy who drinks martinis and engages in high-stakes espionage.”

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3. Casting the Next James Bond

Betting Odds and Potential Candidates

The hosts explore various actors rumored to be in the running for the next Bond, discussing their suitability and public personas.

Rob Harvilla [09:21]: “At 18 to 1, Josh O'Connor... James Nelson Joyce at 16 to 1... Harris Dickinson at 12 to 1.”

Amanda Dobbins [09:51]: “I had to stop and think—are we talking about the same Josh O'Connor?”

Audience Engagement and Speculation

They engage in light-hearted banter about the likelihood of each candidate, highlighting favorites and dismissing less probable choices.

Amanda Dobbins [10:24]: “And they're traveling. Did you ask them?”
Rob Harvilla [10:32]: “He’s the number one contender at 10 to 1—Aaron Taylor Johnson.”

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4. "Social Network Part Two" Announcement

Aaron Sorkin's Involvement

Rob shares the news that Aaron Sorkin is set to write and direct "Social Network Part Two," focusing on Facebook's impact post-2020.

Rob Harvilla [17:09]: “Aaron Sorkin is coming back to the world of Facebook... he's not just writing but directing this sequel.”

Hosts' Concerns and Criticisms

Amanda expresses reservations about the project's direction, fearing it may lack focus and deviate from the original's sharp character study elements.

Amanda Dobbins [18:27]: “It's deeply unfocused... It’s just about the whole world. No, Aaron, pick a topic. Pick a courtroom.”

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5. In-Depth Review of "F1"

Plot and Themes

The hosts provide an overview of "F1," starring Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes, an aging race car driver summoned for one last mission. Directed by Joseph Kosinski, the film blends high-octane racing sequences with classic Hollywood storytelling tropes reminiscent of Top Gun Maverick.

Rob Harvilla [25:23]: “The film stars Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, and Javier Bardem. Everyone looks fantastic.”

Comparisons to Other Films

Amanda draws parallels between "F1" and iconic films like Top Gun Maverick and Moneyball, highlighting the film's blend of action, character development, and strategic depth.

Amanda Dobbins [33:07]: “This movie is not as good as Top Gun Maverick, but it’s absolutely thrilling and a classic summer movie.”

Technical Excellence and Cinematography

Both hosts commend the movie's impressive race sequences, innovative camera work, and sound design, noting the immersive experience it offers even to those unfamiliar with Formula One.

Rob Harvilla [26:32]: “The racing sequences in this movie are worth the price of admission. They are extraordinary.”

Amanda Dobbins [44:03]: “I loved the opening scene... Brad Pitt knows it’s his moment.”

Character Dynamics and Performances

Discussion revolves around the chemistry between Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, the latter portraying a young, ambitious rookie racer. Javier Bardem and Tobias Menzies add depth to the storyline through their roles in the racing team’s management.

Amanda Dobbins [52:01]: “I understand why they're emotionally going for that... but it feels more forced in general.”

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6. Conversation with Director Joseph Kosinski

Inspiration and Vision

Director Joseph Kosinski shares his fascination with Formula One, sparked by the Netflix documentary series Drive to Survive, and his desire to portray the intricate dynamics of the sport authentically.

Sean Fennessy [Agreeing with Amanda]: “I discovered this sport watching Drive to Survive... it was fascinating.”

Technical Innovations

Kosinski discusses the development of a specialized camera system to capture the high-speed action authentically, ensuring that the audience experiences the thrill of racing without the detachment of traditional filmmaking techniques.

Joseph Kosinski [83:57]: “We had to develop a new camera system... we built 16 camera mounts into these cars.”

Challenges Faced During Production

The director elaborates on the logistical hurdles, including filming during actual Grand Prix events, handling unexpected disruptions like strikes, and balancing authentic race footage with compelling narrative storytelling.

Joseph Kosinski [77:05]: “It's hard to pick one thing. The challenge started from the beginning in that the tools to make this film did not exist.”

Balancing Authenticity with Accessibility

Kosinski emphasizes the importance of making the film accessible to both Formula One enthusiasts and general audiences, ensuring that hand-holding through racing intricacies doesn't alienate newcomers.

Joseph Kosinski [78:52]: “Making a film that Formula One fans can enjoy, but also making a film that people who know nothing about motorsports can..."

Future Projects and Filmmaking Philosophy

He hints at upcoming projects and reflects on his passion for large-scale, technically ambitious films, comparing his work to other industry giants like James Cameron and Peter Jackson.

Joseph Kosinski [84:12]: “I love sequels, but it's important to have some new material coming in every year. That's why I was so pleased to see... movies like Killers of the Flower Moon.”

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7. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The hosts wrap up by reiterating their enthusiasm for "F1" and its potential impact on both the racing world and blockbuster filmmaking. They express optimism about the evolving cinematic landscape, where large-scale original films like "F1" can thrive alongside streaming giants.

Rob Harvilla [66:25]: “If this movie works, that is the new paradigm... films like this can set a new standard for original blockbusters.”

Amanda Dobbins [70:43]: “Definitely the best one. I don’t know if it’s Sinners’ level, but it’s a solid event movie.”

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Notable Quotes

• Rob Harvilla [07:22]: “Denis Villeneuve is, if not the best, one of the very best, Big Ten filmmakers.”
• Amanda Dobbins [07:38]: “I think it's great again for Bond. They need to go somewhere new with it.”
• Rob Harvilla [35:36]: “It's like a man’s behavior is being portrayed through racing sequences... it just locks it in.”
• Amanda Dobbins [43:48]: “So in that moment, I’m like maybe not thinking, how did they do this? But is this really them?”
• Joseph Kosinski [83:57]: “We had to develop a new camera system... we built 16 camera mounts into these cars.”

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Conclusion

This episode of The Big Picture offers an insightful exploration of current and upcoming cinematic projects, with a special emphasis on the ambitious "F1" film. Through engaging discussions and an in-depth conversation with director Joseph Kosinski, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of the film's production, thematic elements, and its place within the broader landscape of blockbuster movies.

Transcript

[Rob Harvilla]

Look, it's not that confusing. I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 songs that explain the 90s. Except we did 120 songs and now we're back with the 2000s. I refuse to say aughts. 2000 to 2009. The strokes, rihanna, jlo, kanye. Sure. And now the show is called 60 songs that explain the nineties. Colon, the 2000s. Wow. That's too long a title for me to say anything else right now, Just trust me. That's 60 songs that explain the 90s. Cole in the 2000s. Preference, preferably on Spotify.

[Sean Fennessy]

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[Rob Harvilla]

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[Rob Harvilla]

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[Sean Fennessy]

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[Rob Harvilla]

I'm Sean Fennessy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm Amanda Dobbins, and this is the.

[Rob Harvilla]

Big Picture Conversation show about.

[Sean Fennessy]

Vroom, vroom.

[Rob Harvilla]

Today on the show, we are in the driver's seat of the new summer blockbuster F1, starring Brad Pitt as an aging race car driver called in for one last job. It is directed by Joseph Kaczynski, he of Top Gun Maverick fame. He's also on this show as a guest. This movie, much like Top Gun Maverick, also produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. It is a big, loud, noisy, fun movie that we'll talk about on this episode. Also, stick around for my conversation with Joe. Very smart guy, a technician and filmmaker of the highest order. We're gonna get into the movie, but there's been an incredible raft of news. Just insane. Big Picture concentrated news the last couple.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Of days targeted right to us.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yes. So I have decided to start with what I think is most relevant and we'll get to what you believe is most relevant. Next.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Maybe it's Big Ten and then Big Emotions.

[Rob Harvilla]

Okay, so big tent is we have a filmmaker attached to the new James Bond film, which is now in the ownership of Amazon, mgm, the Eon Group, the Broccoli Family. They've sold James Bond off. We've been waiting to find out what Amy Pascal and David Heyman, the producers of this new Amazon branded franchise, will do. And they hired Denis Villeneuve, he of Arrival fame. Sicario. Yeah, Lead with Arrival, Dune Films, Blade Runner, 2049.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Arrival is my favorite. I think it's a masterpiece.

[Rob Harvilla]

Enemy, a movie that's important to me. Ensemble Prisoners, which is the one with the spider, That's Enemy. That's a wonderful film about living in Toronto and being divided as a man. Denis, obviously one of our favorite directors. I feel Chris Ryan's spirit in the room with me now. He is perhaps the number one Denis fan. This news is fascinating to me in a variety of ways. I have a million things to say about this.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Go.

[Rob Harvilla]

But I want to know immediately your reaction to that news.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Good for Bond and fine with me for Denis. I know that there are some people who feel that this is another, what, three to four years of Denis Villeneuve tied up in franchise filmmaking. And this is a person who has made original and very exciting films that mean a lot to us. Whether you are a sicario person, an enemy Psycho, or, like, see the truth and know that Arrival is the one.

[Rob Harvilla]

Sure.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But, you know, he's been making Dune for five or six years now. You add on a Bond that is like, 10 years in the prime of his filmmaking life devoted to ip, ip, other people's ideas. I happen to think he's great at other people's ideas. And it's sort of like the old Saw about, like, New York Times columnists where, like, I don't think we should have them at all at this point. But if you do have them, they should just like, they should be on a rotation at some point. You run out of column ideas. Yeah, I don't like. How many Enemies has it got in his bag?

[Rob Harvilla]

This is exactly where I'm going to go. I'm like, we got Enemy and it was great. We got Sicario and it was great. At the beginning of Villeneuve's career, he was the author of a lot of his films. Maelstrom and Anson D and Polytechnique. He wrote these movies. Those are very good movies, but they're very serious dramas for the most part. They're not what he became famous for, which is movies that were ultimately written by other people, like, you know, Taylor Sheridan. Like, you know, Arrival is based on a short story by Ted Chang. Blade Runner, of course, is based on Blade Runner. Dune is based on Frank Herbert's Dune. So he's very comfortable, yeah, working with screenwriters and with adaptable worlds and has.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Been building toward this, like, in his own work for some time and adding, you know, layers of difficulty, adding scale, adding all the things like, let's go for it.

[Rob Harvilla]

He is, if not the best, one of the very best, Big Ten filmmakers. We're going to talk about that with Joe Kaczynski in F1. And there's like a very small short list of people who you'd want to. Who you'd want to be running a $300 million Bond movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. So the, The. The elephant in the room here, or like the Oppenheimer in the room, is of course, Chris Nolan, who was like, sort of in discussions and, you know, is like a British filmmaker and is the signature Big Ten filmmaker of our generation. And I would have liked to see it.

[Rob Harvilla]

I would have, too. But a piece of news came out in Matt Bellany's newsletter last night that I think is relevant to the Nolan conversation. I'm sure they at least approached Nolan. Nolan seems to be in good standing with Universal right now. They're making the Odyssey after the incredible success of Oppenheimer. Probably would have been hard to pull him out of that studio in the first place. But in addition to that, Denis, now it was announced, does not have final cut. Christopher Nolan won't make a movie without final cut. And if that. I'm just speculating, but if they even talk to him at all. Yes, I'm sure he would have said, I'm either getting it or nothing. Right, Denis? Not getting final cut's interesting, but it's not surprising. Bond is really, really important to Amazon and to movies. And no directors ever had final cut in the history of James Bond. Eon always did. So I think that's. It's not ideal. I would always want the artist to be able to make exactly what they want to make.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Rob Harvilla]

But that's not really realistic. It's James Bond. It's not a personal statement about the corrosive nature of the human soul in the 21st century. It's about a guy who drinks martinis and fucks hot women. Like this is. It's James Bo.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Also in Amy Pascal, we Trust.

[Rob Harvilla]

And she is also notably very good at carefully handling IP like Little Women and like Spider Man. She's just really good at that stuff. So I'm very happy for her. The other thing to consider, very simply, is that Denis Villeneuve, automatically, the minute he steps onto the set the first day, is the best director in the history of the Bond franchise. There have been some good directors. There have been some very steady hands over the years. In the 60s and 70s, it was much more sort of like capable figures, but who could be guided by the producers of the films. Sam Mendes, you know, upended this a little bit. Cary Joji Fukunaga. There have been some good filmmakers in the last few years, but Denis is like, in my opinion, absolutely a cut above. Yes. So that in and of itself is pretty exciting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think it's great again for Bond. And I do care about the Bond franchise. And if you give me like a really dark, messed up, nihilist version of Bond with like a hot man in the center, I'm like, I'm. I'm open to that. They need to go somewhere new with it.

[Rob Harvilla]

So one thing about that, I'm very curious what the tone is gonna be. That is some speculation. Cause Denis movies are often stormy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Rob Harvilla]

There are elements of humor in all the movies. I would point specifically to Stilgar in the Dune movies as like a source of comic relief. Even though he's a zealot.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Rob Harvilla]

So I think he can do that sort of thing. You don't want it to be too serious. Too serious can, I think, be a little deadly for this franchise.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I think that's true. It needs to have some self awareness. But in the same way that the. The ingenious thing that the Sam Mendes movies brought to it was like the like Empire in decline or the end of Empire. And there was something just like about Bond getting older and what it means in that moment. And I. So you need some sort of take of like what this very antiquated character is actually like, still doing. And I think just like a guy operating in the shadows doing a really like, illegal that no one wants to talk about. That's very ugly, like Sicario. But Bond, you know, if that's what.

[Rob Harvilla]

It is, that's very exciting. That would be really cool. I don't know how pop that is, but as far as movies, that's. That would be really sick if they went that way. And we'll see if he actually does have a part in. You know, he worked on the story for Dune, the adaptation. But, you know, his screenplay credits. It's been a long time since he actually wrote a movie. Let's quickly do who the next Bond will be.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Rob Harvilla]

Because I think the order of operations in terms of importance for these movies is screenplay, filmmaker, and then actor.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Wait, are you doing like the top.

[Rob Harvilla]

The most important thing is who's Bond?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Rob Harvilla]

Who plays Bond?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I agree.

[Rob Harvilla]

So we have betting odds that are out right now around who is. I'm gonna read them to you in order from lowest to highest.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Rob Harvilla]

At 18 to 1, Josh O' Connor.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That. No, sorry. Like, I had to, like, stop and think for a minute of, like. Are you talking about the same Josh o' Connor who was Prince Charles? And I love him so much. I think he's wonderful. I want, like, a long and storied career for him. I don't think Josh o' Connor in a Denis Villeneuve Bond makes any sense at all.

[Rob Harvilla]

Okay. Have you. Do you know the name James Nelson Joyce? He is at 16 to 1 right now. He's an English actor.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Rob Harvilla]

He is.

[Sean Fennessy]

Don't.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But I'm Googling.

[Rob Harvilla]

You know, he was most recently in A Thousand Blows, which is a Hulu series about. I think it was about bare knuckle boxing, starring Stephen Graham. He's. He usually plays a tough guy. That's kind of his thing. So he's on this list that this is coming from. Bet. 365, by the way, these odds at 14 to 1. Dua Lipa's husband, Callum Turner.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I like it. Fiance. Please respect it. Listen, it's not. The wedding hasn't happened yet.

[Rob Harvilla]

I wish them well. That's great.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And they're traveling.

[Rob Harvilla]

Did you ask them?

[Amanda Dobbins]

They make it very clear all of the time. I think it's great.

[Rob Harvilla]

Okay, once again, should I just start.

[Amanda Dobbins]

100% behind Dua Lipa and all of her pursuits? And also she should have an Oscar.

[Rob Harvilla]

Okay. At 12 to 1 is Harris Dickinson.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't really have words right now.

[Sean Fennessy]

When you say that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's like I feel a little squishy inside.

[Rob Harvilla]

I don't think there's any chance this happens.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He's a Beatle. He's tied up for the next five years. And it also kind of seems like he is a guy that's enough of the machine for him. The Hollywood machine.

[Rob Harvilla]

I agree. That seems like as IP as he'll get. Is he playing John? No.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes, he's John.

[Rob Harvilla]

Is he playing John?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. And Maskil is Paul.

[Rob Harvilla]

He's a little tall for John. Is he not well enough. Not a little tall for you?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, what are you gonna do?

[Rob Harvilla]

You're just quivering right now. Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Did you see that? They're doing. For some reason, they're doing another audiobook of Pride and Prejudice. And he's gonna be Darcy.

[Rob Harvilla]

You make it sound like. I know that. There's a legendary Audiobook about Pride and Prejudice. I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't know that there is like a canonical audiobook.

[Rob Harvilla]

How can I steer you back onto the F1 track of this podcast? Can I get you back?

[Amanda Dobbins]

You started this and then you just heard Harris Dickinson.

[Rob Harvilla]

You heard Harris Dickinson and you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, if anyone is listening, that's. I would respond to.

[Rob Harvilla]

The good news is no one is listening. At 12 to 1. Aaron Pierre, he most recently of Rebel Ridge fame.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He would be really good.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yes, obviously long speculation. Should there be a Bond who is not a white guy. Yeah, I'm a little dubious of that. That would be pretty dramatic that. That Amazon would actually make that choice, but you never know. And Pierre, obviously, really, really talented actor. I think the next thing he's going to be in is Lanterns, which is the Green Lantern TV show from Damon Lindelof, starring him and Kyle Chandler, which I know is really high on Your list for 2026. 10 to 1. Jack Loudoun. Jack Loudoun. Saoirse Ronan's husband.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They're expecting. Congratulations.

[Rob Harvilla]

They're expecting. What a lovely day.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Some Oscars, maybe. Finally.

[Rob Harvilla]

Well, we'll see what happens. If Loudon wins before Saoirse, will that break up the marriage?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I don't think so.

[Rob Harvilla]

This is the kind of searing commentary we do.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think that she has evolved and also she knows it's coming for her.

[Rob Harvilla]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know, she. I don't think she's even. Maybe she's 30, but she's had like five nominations.

[Rob Harvilla]

Can we go from blonde to blonde with Bond? Craig to Louden. Is it Loudon or Loden? It's Loudon.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I have said Loudon, but you know, I'm not an expert on the regional pronunciation.

[Rob Harvilla]

Okay. 10 to 1. James Norton, another square jaw, handsome English actor.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. I think he and Lily Allen were seen canoodling in a respectful way at a music festival. That's not Glastonbury.

[Rob Harvilla]

It's like living with the personification of the sun newspaper. It's amazing, the information that I get from you. 11 to 2.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

Henry Cavill.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't.

[Rob Harvilla]

Superman. I'm the man from UNCLE I'm looking.

[Amanda Dobbins]

For him, but as, like, as a person in life. I know. I. I don't think we.

[Rob Harvilla]

John Lark of Mission Impossible.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I know. And also, what was the Guy Ritchie movie with him and.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah. The man from U.N.C.L.E.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Oh, sorry, you already said that. Who's the other guy? Armie Hammer.

[Rob Harvilla]

Armie Hammer?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Rob Harvilla]

Why is Armie Hammer not on this list?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I. I Don't think. I don't think we can bring another. He's. He's got too many franchises. He's also like, the Witcher or something.

[Rob Harvilla]

He is the Witcher. What's going on? Well done. Yes. You really came in hot today. Good job. Thanks. Five to two, Theo James.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, I like it. I like it.

[Rob Harvilla]

This makes the most sense to me.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, he's. And he's, like, been training in the guy Richie mines for a little while.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah. I. I mean, I think this is what's going to happen.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Pamuk. But he's from Downton Abbey. We knew when.

[Rob Harvilla]

That's right. I forgot he was.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Pamuk blazed on the. Is he dead?

[Rob Harvilla]

He died in, like, the first episode.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's spoiler alert for doubt. Nabbe Season 1. He dies in the second episode in Lady Mary's bed.

[Rob Harvilla]

I remember.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And they got to drag his body all the way back.

[Rob Harvilla]

Who among us would not be slayed by Michelle Dockery? And then he's not the number one contender. The number one contender is Aaron Taylor Johnson at 10 to 11.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

So he is the odds on mega favorite to get this job.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, he's been taking meetings forever, but he was also taking meetings like, before the regime change.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yes. When it was still the broccoli family.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I wonder whether it's. It's a little tired now.

[Rob Harvilla]

Aaron Taylor Johnson's 35, most recently seen in 28 Years Later.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Thought he was quite good, I think.

[Rob Harvilla]

An actor that we like.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Rob Harvilla]

Very funny in Nosferatu.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

Best part of Bullet Train. My favorite part of Anna Karenina.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, that's. I think that's really disrespectful. He was every single person, every other actor, including Keira Knightley.

[Rob Harvilla]

I love Keira Knightley. He was in the film Craven the Hunter.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure, I saw that. He shows up in Tenet.

[Rob Harvilla]

He's great in tennis.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He's really, really good.

[Rob Harvilla]

The Temporal Pincer movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, but this is the thing.

[Rob Harvilla]

Fall Guy. Hilarious.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He's really good. Showing up, you know, for about a third of the movie. And you're like, oh, I'm so glad to see him. Okay, so it's sort of like a proto Ralph Fiennes thing, but can he hold the center of the screen?

[Rob Harvilla]

He did in the Kingsman.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. I mean, I get it.

[Rob Harvilla]

He did in Kick Ass.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, thanks.

[Rob Harvilla]

He did in Godzilla.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, you see where I'm going with this?

[Rob Harvilla]

I like him.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I like him, too.

[Rob Harvilla]

Theo James feels weirdly more likely. Even though the betting markets don't think that way. But this is pretty important. Other names that have been floated around. Some I know, some I don't know. Patrick Gibson. Don't know who that is. Reject. Jean Page.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. No, Sorry.

[Rob Harvilla]

Respectfully, Idris Elba. Getting a little long in the tooth.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

I mean, although Old Bond has been.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Suggesting if you do like old, you know, Jaded Bond, I would love it.

[Rob Harvilla]

Like, the Le Carre Bond would be an interesting choice. Paul Mescal. I don't think that's gonna happen.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No.

[Rob Harvilla]

Jonathan Bailey. Not impossible.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Not impossible. I'm gonna have to think through the flip flops some more, you know, and.

[Rob Harvilla]

Then two very interesting finals.

[Amanda Dobbins]

James Bond wears flip flops.

[Rob Harvilla]

I don't think so either. Tom Holland. No, too short.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Superman. Like, again, I don't think if. Thank you. Sorry.

[Rob Harvilla]

Tom Holland. Superman would be interesting. He's 5 foot 4.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I do think that you should only play one superhero. At this point. We're updating the Leo advice from no superheroes to one superhero.

[Rob Harvilla]

Chris Evans has broken that rule. He is Johnny Storm and you have been rooting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He is Captain America for three years straight.

[Rob Harvilla]

Well, the Chris Evans heads are eating with materialist. Incredible success. The last name I want to mention to you is Daniel Kaluuya.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I love it. One of our greatest actors.

[Rob Harvilla]

He doesn't really work that much.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, if he wants to do this, go with God.

[Rob Harvilla]

Let's pivot to the other meaningful news.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

It was announced this week that there is a film in development being called the Social Network Part two. Now, the Social Network, a very important movie to this podcast, to our friendship. One of the signature movies of the 21st century, and it is written by Aaron Sorkin, adapted from the Ben Mezrich book about the rise of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. Social Network Part two is going to be based on the Wall Street Journal's Facebook files piece from 2021. Now, reportedly, Aaron Sorkin is not just set to write this sequel, but to direct it. There is also no clarity on whether or not Jesse Eisenberg or any of the members of the original cast would return. Just that Aaron Sorkin is coming back to the world of Facebook. In these times of 2025, the name David Fincher was not uttered.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No.

[Rob Harvilla]

So where do you stand on this news?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I am spiraling. I am like, I am. I am. Hillary Clinton tweeted about Barbie. Like, Oscar nominations. Matt, like, put it in the newspaper. This is a terrible idea. And I say this, and I say this. I say this to you as someone who loves Aaron Sorkin. I was Raised on Aaron Sorkin. A Few Good Men, the West Wing, the American President, Sports Night. Like, let's go.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah, I. Malice.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Malice is great.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah. Studio 60 on the Sunset, the newsroom.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Listen, being the Ricardo's, the rewrite of Moneyball. What else did he. What? There are some other movement. Listen.

[Rob Harvilla]

Sure.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And of course the Social Network, which is like our generation's Citizen King, the.

[Rob Harvilla]

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid episode of the Rewatchables.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He's really, really important. I listen and I'm there for him. I'm grateful to him. I like possibly owe a debt to him in terms of. Except I really hope my politics have evolved. But anyway, I love Aaron Sorkin.

[Rob Harvilla]

Did Mitt Romney run on the Democratic ticket? Remind me. That was his idea, right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That was like. He also just got scooped so bad. Right. Like they published that op ed, which again, I just don't think we should have op EDS anymore. And then like four hours later, Bud was like, peace, I'm out.

[Rob Harvilla]

So I guess he did it. That was a Sorkin esque bit of dramatic turn.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It was Clooney and then. But anyway, I love him. And what is best about the Social Network is that you get the peak of Sorkin and you get the peak of Fincher and they complement each other. We've been talking about it a lot recently. Right. Because Boyle and Garland, I guess when we did Angerman, we were talking about like Will Ferrell and Adam McKay that it is to bring back the Beatles, like a Lennon and McCartney thing, where. And you know, Fincher and Aaron Sorkin don't, I think like work together in that way. And I would really actually love to be in meetings between them. I think that that should be filmed.

[Rob Harvilla]

I would not.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But their work and sensibilities bring out and elevate the best in each other.

[Rob Harvilla]

I agree. In that case, I fully agree with you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sorkin without Fincher is at this point in time, you know, I think he's in trouble, a tough spot. And Sorkin directing without anyone to mediate him is not where I want to be in 2025. May I read you one sentence from the Deadline report, please. Sources stress that the new film isn't a January Six movie and will focus on not just on the 2020 election, but also Facebook's effect on teens, preteens, violence and countries outside the U.S. i would like to open a hole right here so I can crawl into it and die. Like, not only do I just, you know, I don't want the MSNBC dad take on this right now. From Aaron Sorkin, with respect, without any sort of editing. But also that is deeply unfocused. It's just about the whole world. No, Aaron, pick a topic. Pick a courtroom. You know, like, boundaries are good.

[Rob Harvilla]

Absolutely. Hold it together. We're going to get through this.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm really upset.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah, we're going to get through this.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I want the people I believe in to hang on to their greatness and to not sully it by just like being bored and writing too much. I mean, I can't say I disagree about January 6th.

[Rob Harvilla]

To me, the biggest issue with this is just that he's chosen to direct the film. These are the three films he's directed. Molly's Game. I like it. It's very flawed. Trial of Chicago 7. Kind of a wet fart. Being the Ricardo's disaster. Despite, you know, like, those are Oscar nominated films and they are regarded.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, no, Being the Recorders wasn't really, because remember, I stay. I. I delayed the birth of my child to make sure that Being the Ricardos didn't get nominated.

[Rob Harvilla]

No, Nicole Kidman was nominated.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, she was. Oh, okay. But it didn't get. It didn't get a Best Picture.

[Rob Harvilla]

It didn't get Best Picture. No. Which is grateful he's not on the prime of his work. And that doesn't mean that he can't come back and make great work. He's obviously a tremendously gifted screenwriter and I don't think I love him as much as you do, but I have a great affection for his best movies and some of his shows. But I couldn't agree more that this is not what I want and to do without Fincher is insane. It's insane.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Do you think Fincher said no?

[Rob Harvilla]

I'm sure. Well, he's so in bed with Netflix that this would not be a Netflix movie. It has to be a Sony movie because the original is at Sony.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But it does sort of seem like Fincher's just like, sure, I'll read your script right now to like basically anyone.

[Rob Harvilla]

Well, that's true. Honestly, I'm getting really excited about the Tarantino movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So am I. I'm like, I'm really, really open to it. Also, if we got this news, but it was Sorkin writing, Fincher directing, I would be doing a little boogie.

[Rob Harvilla]

I would too, but I don't like you read is what worries me. It's too expansive. The Social Network is a character study. That's one of the reasons why it is so exceptional, is that it is tightly focused on this one person who Represents something larger about the world that we live in.

[Sean Fennessy]

Trying.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I just read it, trying to like.

[Rob Harvilla]

What does Pakistan think about the world because of Facebook.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I want to do the logline of season three of the Morning show. Like this is actually what happens on the morning show. Okay, but then you don't. You don't want to talk about morning show. Jeremy Irons season four coming soon. No, we season four because the morning show is still happening somehow from Reese Witherspoon's character is in jail.

[Rob Harvilla]

We have to move on. I can't move on from the flaming car wreck of the social network 2 to the speed machine.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You gotta give me a second. You gotta give me a second to find joy.

[Rob Harvilla]

Let's take a brief second to breathe and then we will talk about F1.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay?

[Rob Harvilla]

F1. This is a big ass movie, man. Yep. It is produced, funded by Apple, the technology corporation that makes my telephone and also your computer and my laptop and my AirPods and a great many items in my home.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Or your TV box.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yes, in my set top box. That's right. I'm an Apple TV user. I'm an Apple TV plus subscriber. No free ads. These are just facts about my life.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Morning show season four coming this fall with Marion Cotillard.

[Rob Harvilla]

Not a consumer of that. We'll talk a little bit about that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I believe Jeremy Irons.

[Rob Harvilla]

Wow.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Really explaining conspiracy theories on a. Yeah, I mean, Chris Ryan and I have some incredible podcasting in our future.

[Rob Harvilla]

Okay, God bless you guys. I've never really seen more than one episode of the morning show and I won't be digging in anytime soon. I was very happy to dig into F1 as I mentioned, Joe Kaczynski who made Top Maverick, he made Oblivion, he made Only the Brave. He's made Tron Legacy, a number of interesting movies over the last 15 years, directed it and it's written by Aaron Krueger, who is probably best known for his Transformers scripts. I interviewed him for Michael Bay Story that I actually mentioned to Kaczynski when we spoke. But there are a number of WGA credits on this movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

A little bit like wearing the concert T shirt to the concert, but okay, that's okay.

[Rob Harvilla]

I mean, I think it was relevant to what I asked.

[Amanda Dobbins]

When you get there, you know, I.

[Rob Harvilla]

Was trying to draw some connections.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I saw him as I leaving as I was walking in and I was too nervous to say hello and I felt really bad.

[Rob Harvilla]

He's a very nice man. Very tall. Joe.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

This movie stars Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon. Tobias Menzies. Our beloved Tobias Menzies.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Looking fantastic.

[Rob Harvilla]

And Javier Bardem.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, also looking fantastic. Let me just say right now, to a person, everyone in this movie looks fantastic.

[Rob Harvilla]

Just a gorgeous object, this film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And they are very aware that part of their job and the movie is aware that part of the job is to make everyone and everything look really, really good. And they all do.

[Rob Harvilla]

It's a movie that very clearly reminds me of my youth. There is something in the structure and in the execution of this movie, which is a sports movie, an old guy coming back movie, an underdog story that is very classical, very classical Hollywood. Joe mentioned this kind of mythos, the kind of mythic storytelling of the hero, Stranger in a Strange Land. You could also say that by using some of those tropes, it's a bit cliche, it is a bit, I don't want to say predictable, but it is a classic structure that you get a lot of what you're expecting to get. That doesn't make it bad. I think that actually works in its favor. The movie, to me, only missteps when it's trying to do something you're not expecting and works really well when it's giving you mostly what you want. What do you think about that?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I agree. I mean, I don't ever think that, pardon the pun, formula is a bad thing in movie making if you do it correctly, because, you know, it is like, what do you do with the structure? And in fact, a recognizable structure can then bring audiences into the movie so that you can go different places and do different things. It's probably important to say right now that you and I don't know anything about F1 and there are like a lot of people howling at home and, you know, find another podcast. But so we were at a bit of a disadvantage watching this movie, which is made like, in concert with F1.

[Rob Harvilla]

The corporation, during the Grand Prix races, they were filming the movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And so there is a lot of knowledge that you either need to have going in or needs to be quickly and effectively communicated to you through the movie. So that's a lot of work that the movie has to do and I think does incredibly well for us. For us. But if the movie is then also saddled with explaining some baroque story structure, it's not going to be able to do everything. So I think the very straightforward and predictable is unfair. I think it's just simple.

[Rob Harvilla]

I would say it's very simple.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. And there's also. I mean, most movies are predictable when you actually think about it. I don't think the mythic structure is a bad comp. Like, at some point, we're telling, like, four stories over and over again. So, yeah, I found that part very reassuring and helpful and a smart choice.

[Rob Harvilla]

I totally agree. I think it's really insightful the way you point, noting that there's so much information that needs to be communicated to the novice viewer of F1. I have seen maybe one or two episodes of Drive to Survive. I've seen an F1 race before in my life, but it is not a sport that I have any investment in whatsoever. And so I actually thought, for the most part, the handholding through the world of F1, which is sometimes told through Ruben Cervantes, the Javier Bardem character, who is a sort of. It's a team owner who's got. He's the 11th team in the world of F1, and he's at the bottom of the heap and he's trying to, you know, get into the top 10 so that he can retain ownership of his club. That's essentially the framework that brings Sonny Hayes, the Brad Pitt character, into the movie. Sonny Hay is, once upon a time an exciting young F1 driver who has a somewhat traumatic experience and then leaves the sport and then goes on to all other kinds of racing. When we meet him in this movie, in a thrilling sequence, he is a NASCAR driver. He's at the Daytona 500, and he's awaking in the middle of the night to get ready for his run through the Daytona. And he's. He's Brad Pitt, but he's old Brad Pitt. You know, he's. I don't. I don't. I'm not quite sure how old Sonny's supposed to be, but, you know, late 50s.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes, he's definitely up there because they are at some point giving historical racing comps. And I think late 50 is always the age range given.

[Rob Harvilla]

Um, and so we see that he's in a place and he needs to go to a new place. Ruben comes and finds him at a laundromat and convinces him to join his failing race team and to join up with an exciting but flawed and impetuous young rookie who's played by Damson Idris. And this was something very interesting about this world that I didn't fully understand, but that Joe communicated very clearly when we were talking and that Mallory Rubin, who is a huge F1 fan, asked me about. When she asked me how the movie was, and I said, the racing sequences in this movie are worth the price of admission. They are extraordinary. We can talk about them a bit in our conversation here. And she said, okay, cool. But does the movie locate that in F1 in some ways your biggest rival is your teammate? And I said, yes. Yeah, that is actually, yes. That is ultimately the crux of this story.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Rob Harvilla]

And Joe said, and he explained it very well, that the reason for that is because even though you're racing against other drivers, the only person who has the exact same setup that you do is your teammate. You're the only one who's in the same car because these cars are individually built. And so if you want to see a true test of how well you're doing, you've got one other guy who's sitting in the same machine that you are. And which one is better? Is it you or is it the other guy? Sonny is a 60 year old man. Damson Idris, mid 20s hotshot. This movie's produced by Lewis Hamilton, the most renowned F1 driver we have right now. And you can see little flecks of a young Lewis Hamilton in J.P. you know, like you can see some of the influence of that figure and his experience in this world. And then you can also just see some of that like classical structure. I haven't really asked you the question, did you like F1?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, this movie for me personally as like maybe the world's second biggest Top Gun Maverick fan or maybe third after my son and Tom Cruise, like maybe in that order.

[Sean Fennessy]

Sure.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I was thinking I'm probably like, I've seen Top Gun Maverick, probably like top 50 people on earth, the number of times I've seen it at the time.

[Rob Harvilla]

Top 50 people on Earth, like probably.

[Amanda Dobbins]

At least the first half.

[Rob Harvilla]

Sure. Should we hold a contest of some kind?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, no, no. But I mean I was just. Maybe it's like top thousand, but like I'm up there. Right?

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah, I believe you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So. And this bears just a remarkable similarity in DNA to Top Gun Maverick, the director, but also it's like a sports movie, but it's also a vehicles go fast movie. A movie star of the 90s who we have a lot of connection with, but who is maybe personally receding from the spotlight or trying to or entering that twilight phase of that netherworld of movie stardom, taking on a role that is maybe echoing where they are in the industry and in life and also does have that the young upstart. And can they still do it? And the beats are there, even the first 10 minutes. It's a great opening scene, but it is a shot for shot Remake of Top Gun Maverick. It's like old hot movie star guy is in a trailer of some sort and you see various mementos that tell you about his life before you see him. The first time you see him, you see his bicep and the back of his head rather than him. And then he emerges into, like a great field of daring in order to do some amazing thing and go for it.

[Rob Harvilla]

There's other things. The other iconographic thing is like grabbing the sunglasses, grabbing the helmet, like the insert shots of all the little knickknacks of his world.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right, Exactly. So this movie is not as good as Top Gun Maverick, but I think I'm the only person in the world being like, can it live up to Top Gun Maverick in this way? And I know that about myself. Otherwise, I think it's absolutely thrilling, exciting, classic summer movie. And as you said, I think the racing scenes are amazing. And I do also think as an explainer or and I choose this word purposefully, Advertisement For F1, it's very effective and it did communicate and help me understand that sport in a different way. So I hope those people are happy because it worked out. But, yes, I liked it very much.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah, I liked it very much too. It is a massive act of corporate synergy. You kind of need to know that. And if you don't know it, you'll learn it very quickly in the film. Not only is it kind of Apple and F1 working in conjunction to spotlight the best things, the most exciting things, the most emotionally stirring things about this sport and about the experience of kind of like high stakes competition, but there is all other forces of corporate influence in the movie. I mean, it is a big tent summer blockbuster. It is not a small look at a man in crisis.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And it is. The other thing it's not is Moneyball. Even though it has real shades of Moneyball and story structure in Brad Pitt at least hoping to get to that level of performance and, you know, man of a certain age in sports trying to deal with, like, being last place and the forces, you know, of the rest of the sport are all against him. And, like, what can he and his, like, small band of, you know, misfits figure out together?

[Rob Harvilla]

I mean, the biggest let go to Moneyball, to me is the fact that Moneyball is a movie about a young hotshot prospect.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Rob Harvilla]

Who never did it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

Which is what Sonny Hayes is as well. Billy Beane was that as a ballplayer and then a guy who has been stuck, unable to win the big one.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Rob Harvilla]

Those Two things. The echoes of Moneyball and the echoes of Top Gun Maverick are purposeful and work like that stuff just works.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Also that they are. This. This movie does explain, like, strategy. It. It helps me understand why F1 is a sport and helped me understand what people are watching when they're just watching. What to me, for so long has looked at, like, people driving around a track without Joseph Kaczynski's cameras, you know, so. Yeah, but the strategy, even of this team uses some, like, unconventional methods, if you will, in order to. They're like, the system is stacked against us. We don't have the car. You know, there's 10 teams, 50ft of crap, and then there's us. So we have to think differently.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yep. It's same thing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's there.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah, it's very much the same structure. And let's talk about Pitt for a second.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, okay.

[Rob Harvilla]

Not my favorite of his performances. If we're gonna conjure Moneyball, I would say, oddly, the biggest demerit of the movie is I think, actually what he brings to the table. And I was watching an interview with him and Will Buxton, the motorsport journalist, who I think was an advisor on this film. And Pitt literally said in that interview, I was more interested in the racing than in the acting scenes at times, the performance scenes. And you can tell, you can tell. I think he is at his best in this movie when he is Steve McQueening, when he is not being forced to read the dialogue that is conveying the emotional, or lack thereof, of this figure of Sonny Hayes, who's a taciturn late 50s athlete. He's not. He's not Billy Beane. He's not a philosopher king of the lower rung of Major League Baseball.

[Amanda Dobbins]

There's a representative scene and shot in the film where without spoiling too many things, he's negotiating relationships and strategies with various people. And he has kind of like an up close in person conversation with this person where they're revealing their motivations and strategies. And then about five minutes later, it's revealed that there might be some different motivations or feelings. But the way it's revealed is in a wide shot from 50ft away of Brad Pitt, like, acting wordlessly towards the other person. And in that moment, he's Brad Pitt. And in that moment, he's nailing it. And it's funny and you get all of it. But I would agree that, you know, when there are words, it's. I was surprised.

[Rob Harvilla]

It's kind of odd.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was like, what's going on? He normally can locate this stuff a little more.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah. It's funny because we both said it to each other as soon as we walked out. And obviously, we really like his movies. It's interesting, too, because I think he is confronted by Javier Bardem, who is kind of like, very comfortable in this role. Very comfortable in this world. He is extremely charming and funny and a bit silly, and he fits right in. You buy him as the sort of the lead of an F1 ownership, an easier job.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Javier Bardem has a record of showing up in blockbusters in the slightly, like, chew the scenery roles and absolutely chewing them and being the best part of every movie. He is in this. He's also quite comfortable in those suits, which are just immaculately tailored.

[Rob Harvilla]

He looks good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. I mean, listen, Pitt looks good. Like the necklaces and the button down. I am also really here for his press tour style. Have you caught any of that?

[Rob Harvilla]

No.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm very excited for our jam session together where, like, it'll be sort of like, I'll do a PowerPoint for you in real time, and then we can discuss.

[Rob Harvilla]

Okay, that sounds great.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He's been getting off some fits, and some people have described them as midlife crisis. I have described them as, I like it. So that's where we are.

[Rob Harvilla]

But.

[Amanda Dobbins]

All right, fair enough. I respond to it.

[Rob Harvilla]

Ultimately, this is not a movie about performance. It's a movie about. Well, it's a movie about cameras in some ways. You know, the racing sequences are the reason to go. There is incredible sound design in this movie. There is great music. It's a kind of a split between, well, some great music. There's a few originals that are not.

[Amanda Dobbins]

My favorites, and they keep getting served to me on Spotify because I'm trying.

[Rob Harvilla]

To use a Doja Cat song.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, no, for me, it's the Tava Grand.

[Rob Harvilla]

I'm Tamara's show.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Just because I'm listening to the Giver by Chapel Road does not mean I want to go here.

[Rob Harvilla]

But there is also, you know, there's Led Zeppelin and Queen.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's sick.

[Rob Harvilla]

There's the dad rock stuff. Is there.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The first 45 minutes, I was like, oh, I understand how this movie cost $300 million. And it's because you guys just. You paid $5 million for every song. It's just loaded.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah. This is taking us slightly off course, but there are a couple of moments that I would describe.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Much like Brad Pitt character in F1.

[Rob Harvilla]

How many of those puns can we stack into this episode? Quite a few. There's a moment in the Daytona race, where Pitt's character is rounding the track triumphantly. And we get a vista shot of fireworks going off as the final moments of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lot of Love are concluding. And I'm like, really good. This is just what it is, man. This is just the magic. This is movies. This is why, if you like blockbuster movies, that's just an awesome fucking blockbuster movie moment. And there's like five or six of them in this movie where you're just like, God, this is like, the hairs on my arms are standing up. It's super exciting. It's fun. But the way that they accomplished it is, like, pretty crazy. How much like Top Gun Maverick, which you don't necessarily feel when you're watching the films, but in this film, they have just built new technology to put you in two perspectives. One, directly in front of the driver's face so you can see how they are reacting. And we should note Damson, Idris and Brad Pitt did actually drive these cars on these tracks during these races. Not actually during the races, but on the days of the races. And two, the cameras that are mounted on the cars rotate so that you can see the track as they are driving.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

And so the races, which are long. I believe there are 12 total races in the film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

This movie is two and a half hours long. And it does seem like they were like. Well, we spent almost three years at various race courses around the world filming, and we're gonna use all of it.

[Rob Harvilla]

I'm glad they did.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Me, too. It is by far the most compelling part of the movie.

[Rob Harvilla]

Do you have any experience with race car movies?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I've seen Days of Thunder.

[Rob Harvilla]

Days of Thunder. Okay. Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I guess I watched. What was the Paul Newman movie?

[Rob Harvilla]

Winning.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Winning. I watched Winning in order to. That's the one with the nice scene at the end between him and Joanne Woodward where it's like, are they gonna figure it out or are they not, or am I confusing them now?

[Rob Harvilla]

I thought they split up on that one and he's, like, left with Joanne Woodward's son.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. But then at the very end, I think they have that, like.

[Rob Harvilla]

Do they have a reunion moment?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, it's like, you hope they're gonna be reunited. It's. They're standing, like, outside the house. He shows back up, even though she.

[Rob Harvilla]

Cheated on him with Robert Wagner.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And he saw it. Yeah, with Daddy Wagner, and he walks in on it.

[Rob Harvilla]

That was really tough.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So, yes, I have seen.

[Rob Harvilla]

You've seen those two.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes, I've seen the film Winning.

[Rob Harvilla]

So that's really two of like 14 total movies that have ever been made about motorsports. There's just not very many movies like this. And this one, I think it's fair to say is head and shoulders above all the others. You know, Days of Thunder is a very cool movie and I do see Kaczynski working in the kind of the tradition of Tony Scott.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. And also with its like ridiculous off track moments, including Nicole Kidman as a 22 year old neurologist, maybe 25.

[Rob Harvilla]

What's not realistic?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Excuse me? I don't mean to.

[Rob Harvilla]

Because she's a woman. Is that what you're saying? That's so sweet.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And also like, she's Australian. I think so. I have some like medical board questions.

[Rob Harvilla]

Maybe she was a, you know, an early bloomer. You know, maybe she was in med school at 15. That's in play. Is that not possible?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Do you think they exported Doogie Howitzer to Australia? You think that's a reference everyone gets down under?

[Rob Harvilla]

No, I mean there's no language barrier when it comes to Doogie. I feel like that plays everywhere. Budapest, you know, Southeast Asia.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Rob Harvilla]

Australia, sure. Everywhere.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think she was a neurologist if she has another specialty. Forgive me.

[Rob Harvilla]

When you're watching a race car sequence, are you thinking at all, how'd they do this? Or are you thinking, I'm inside of the car and I'm having fun?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Definitely the latter. I guess this one maybe by the 8th I'm looking, but mostly I think, how are they doing? This is when they're outside of the car. And I was just always really checking to make sure that it was Brad Pitt or Damson Idris, and it often was. And they're doing some absolutely terrifying stuff. And then they make a point of zooming in and you're like, yep, no facial check, that's Brad.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yep.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So in that moment I'm. I guess I'm like maybe not thinking, how did they do this? But is this, is this really them? And. But no, when they're just driving, it is, you know, lizard brain. Vroom, vroom.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah, I'm kind of both, I think, because we got so much of it and there are moments. There are two significant crash sequences in this movie, both of which are very upsetting. The first is extremely upsetting, awful and very effective. And obviously there were stunt drivers involved in those sequences, but those were the times when I was not thinking at all about the kind of mechanics of the movie. But it's hard to not think about the mechanics of the movie because it's so elaborate and so impressively staged that actually being inside of the race but a little outside of the story, I think is actually a feature, not a bug. I think the sort of wonder of the experience of watching the races is a big part of what is appealing to me about it personally, and especially because we talked about that hand holding. There's two choices that are made. One is that obviously there are a number of characters who are part of the crew who are constantly kind of explaining the circumstances of the team of the car. Kerry Condon is somewhat similar to the Days of Thunder character. She's a former Lockheed Martin.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

She's aeronautics engineer.

[Amanda Dobbins]

She's a woman in stem. Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

Woman in stem, absolutely. She may have also been building machinery, like weapons of some kind. Unclear.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But she gave it up to build cars.

[Rob Harvilla]

She's lured away by Ruben Cervantes, owner of the Apex team, to build cars.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And she is styled as. So to be almost indistinguishable from Jerry Halliwell or later years. Jerry Halliwell of the Spice Girls, who.

[Rob Harvilla]

Is the wife of an F1 driver or was.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think there was a scandal. I don't know. His texts were leaked. He was not behaving the best that he could have.

[Rob Harvilla]

I see. Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

So this is what we come to you for. Jerry Hallowell's broken marriage, you know, Geri Halliwell and Kerry Condon, just two of my gals. So I was very excited to see her in this movie. I really love the decision to not change her accent. Yeah, Thought that was wonderful.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Just let people. It's an international sport, you know, we're collecting, we're bringing everyone together.

[Rob Harvilla]

Fantastic stuff. And she gets to be this kind of load bearing device for a lot of information in the movie because she's building the cars, she is talking through the mechanics of how this world works, literally. And then you've got this struggle that the team has to kind of get out of last place. And the way that the movie shows us how they do that. And this is. This is something that I probably should have at least asked Mallory, like, how accurate is this? How. How plausible is this part? But that Sonny brings some strategic chicanery to bear to make to rise up in the ranks. You know, it's not just about being the best race car driver. That isn't exactly what happens for his character. And I wonder if that is how much of it applies to real life. F1 that you are using as much strategy and guile as you are the sort of like concentration and skill. Around the track. Because those sequences necessitate narration. And we get narration in the form of two broadcasters who talk us through every race. Yes. What did you think about that choice?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, it worked. I understood everything. And it did bring me into the stakes. I was like, I don't know how you guys are. How you're gonna communicate stakes to me that I actually care about. But because there is that strategic element and because they are explaining, oh, he's doing this because of this. I did understand this as a sport with rules and plays, basically, that you call. I found their commentator. All respect to the people of the uk, but how do you stand this on a week to week basis? That was really irritating. And I know that's what they do. And I know. And it has very specific. You had like, you know, British commentator, like TV presenter, as they say, vibe. I texted Juliette Lippman, our colleague and also an F1 fan.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

To be like, are they this irritating all the time? And she didn't respond.

[Rob Harvilla]

Wow. But you got ghosted.

[Amanda Dobbins]

She's busy. Okay. But they.

[Rob Harvilla]

Did something happen?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, I don't know. They were used perfectly. So it worked for me. And I guess it's hand holding. I assumed when watching it that a real F1 race is somewhere between calling the service car three times, which happens. You would get fined for that. I mean, I know nothing, but I was like, this does seem a little egregious. And they even acknowledge that. But with a lot of this strategy and tires, quote unquote, I still don't really understand what the various tires do. But now I do know that we have to think a lot about tires. Are they soft? Are they hard? When are you changing them? Are they fresh? I was racing to work this morning. I have some low tire pressure. I was like, oh, no. Like, my tires are like, I don't have the tires. I don't know if I'm going to get here in time.

[Rob Harvilla]

Do you feel that you have a racer's mentality on the road?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Not like you.

[Rob Harvilla]

Okay. But I would do very well in F1.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think that you would as well. I have been informed that I'm like, sort of like a defensive driver with a lead foot. So I don't know. Maybe I would excel as well.

[Rob Harvilla]

Interesting. A defensive driver with a lead foot. Did someone use that phraseology to you?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Zach? Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

Okay. Your husband. Good. That's exciting. F1 races usually last, like, almost two hours. And so the other thing that this has to do is these sort of narrator broadcasters have to kind of Boil down the essence of a race over time. And so one of the big feats of the movie is just this kind of extraordinary editing approach where it's not just that quick cut. Insert stuff that we see in the first 10 minute montage. It's. Every race needs to basically be six minutes. And you need to know everything that's happened throughout the entirety of the race and what the stakes are as you're getting to the end. That stuff is done very well.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It is.

[Rob Harvilla]

That's hard to communicate.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And it's not just cutting down the announcers, but they're using the reaction shots of everyone in the. Like, on the crew. What are we calling, like, the little. The table where Kerry Condon and friends are like the advisory committee.

[Rob Harvilla]

Sure, sure.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That the executives, where the executive branch.

[Rob Harvilla]

Of each, the leader of the pit crew and the tech advisor are kind of sitting and they're making fun of us.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Is the director of the team.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yes, the director. Yes. She's the tech director, I believe.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes. But so they're cutting to these people who are also. Their reactions are like expository reactions that are pushing things.

[Rob Harvilla]

A lot of eye rolling and bulged eyes and, oh, exhausting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And then there are some, you know, VIP observers, namely Javier Rodem and Tobias Menzies, who also get reaction shots and advance the plot in different ways. But it's a lot of people and reaction and just kind of like plot signaling to do all at once at a very fast speed. Because at all times you're just trying to communicate velocity.

[Rob Harvilla]

What did you think about the rivalry between Sunny and Joshua, the Brad Pitt and Damson Idris characters? Did you buy it?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. I didn't think too much about it, honestly. I think it makes sense that you bring someone else in and the. And that they're competing against each other and is he gonna take my spot? Is he gonna take my chair? That stuff worked more to me than the sort of like, very deep, almost soap opera level. Like, you know, you got me in a crash. No, you got me in a crash. No. You know, like, they're. And I understand why they're emotionally, like, going for that. And there's a speech that the therapist from Ted Lasso who plays Damson Idris mom gives. Sorry, but that's. I'm suddenly like, oh, therapist from Ted Lasso mid movie, where she, I guess, communicates the danger of this and it is very dangerous. And you see, Sarah Niles is the Sarah Niles. Yes, thank you. And she gives a very good speech. And I do understand that These are life and death matters. But I did feel like that was communicated better through the actual set pieces than through the plot development. It just makes more sense to me that they dislike each other. I don't know. Do you disagree?

[Rob Harvilla]

I think it's a necessary component of the story, but I think it's an interesting thing because it works insofar as I, as a viewer, don't have a relationship with Damson. Idris. I don't watch Snowfall. I didn't. I don't really know him. And so I. I sort of believe him in this world as this hotshot performer, but I think not knowing enough about the dynamics of a team. And how much was Sunny being, like, way out of line versus how much was JP just a petulant prick? Like, there's kind of like a. There's an emotional gap in that part of the movie that I don't feel informationally while I'm watching the races. And there's an effort to kind of like, bridge that gap routinely, but it feels way more forced in general.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The emotions are not really at the center of this film, at least in the scenes where two people are in a room. The emotions are out on the course. And when things happen or don't happen.

[Rob Harvilla]

What about between Sunny and Kate, you know, tech director and the race car driver?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. How was their poker? Was that a believable poker sequence?

[Rob Harvilla]

Really? They only showed us one hand.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

So there is a poker sequence in Las Vegas the evening before a race where racers are just drinking alcohol.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I also had this question that just.

[Rob Harvilla]

Seems like, not a good idea.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It does seem like there should be some sort of, like. I mean, I know this is very American, and I know that F1 is a less provincial, more international sport, but they don't have blood tests or something. But at a certain hour before.

[Rob Harvilla]

I don't think alcohol would be a problem with a blood test. Right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, not the night before, but. I don't know, it just.

[Rob Harvilla]

It seems. I think drugs would be an issue, potentially. I just think for concentration. F1 is a sport of concentration. I think having a hangover would be.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I completely agree. And they were also, like, partying all hours of the night like this. I don't understand this in general. I mean, I know that most professional athletes, when they go out or they're like. When they're traveling, they go out the night before. I don't really get it.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I also, like, I have started following DUA LIPA on Instagram. You know, thanks. To have the best summer that I Can.

[Rob Harvilla]

Thanks for sharing that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

She talks. She's on tour and then she's like. Talks about all the things she likes to do when she's on tour. I'm like, but don't you have to prepare for your performance? I don't know. I think I would live a more monastic life if I had to be in this high profile.

[Rob Harvilla]

It's a surprising coming for you because you have to come in and perform every day and you like to have a drink every once in a while. Every once in a while. I mean, every day.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't every day anymore. Though last night I did have a glass of wine during bedtime because we're going through a real not accepting no phase. But yeah, no, for the most part, like, I try not to.

[Rob Harvilla]

Have you considered a poker game with your son? Trying to put him to bed and a vodka tonic like, J.P. enjoyed. Yeah, I think that stuff's okay in the movie. I thought Sonny and Kate was pretty good. I thought it was a little ridiculous that Kerry Condon was a Lockheed Martin aeronautics engineer who got, you know, headhunted by an F1 company. That seemed a little much. But I thought their chemistry was good. I bought them together.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The scene on the balcony, it's sort of the one time. And that's when Pitt is given the, like, I almost had it and I didn't get it speech, you know, and he locks in for that moment and you are like. You're like, oh, yeah. It reminded me. Totally different situations, totally different movies. But like the George Clooney Ticket to Paradise scene where you're like at the bar where it's. You're kind of like everybody.

[Rob Harvilla]

You're focused today.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Like, he knew it was his moment. He found the camera, you know, he like. And he saw God. And that also does set up like, I think an emotional, like, racing moment that really, really works.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So I agree with you. But. But everything else felt a little bit like, hey, when are we. When are we going to.

[Rob Harvilla]

When's the next race? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the racing stuff is so great that it didn't really bother me. I do think that the film is. Isn't a touch long.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I agree with.

[Rob Harvilla]

It has a few different moments that could be perceived as endings that are not ending.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Rob Harvilla]

The false ending is an increasing concern here in the land of movies. We're getting a lot of movies that are like, this is over. Just kidding. We have a few more things we would like to show you about this story. But being inside of every race just rocks. So Much that it's kind of a minor concern now. We saw the movie in imax.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

And both the sound and the picture were incredible. Obviously. We would highly recommend.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Rob Harvilla]

That people do that. I.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We also saw it at an influencer event where people cheered every time an F1 person that I didn't recognize came up on the screen.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yes. Did you enjoy that?

[Amanda Dobbins]

It was fine. I guess. It let me know that there were a lot of F1 people. So if you are into that, perhaps you'll respond to it on the level of seeing. Like, I was gonna try to pull out someone's name, but I can't remember their names.

[Rob Harvilla]

Max Verstappen.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes, I've heard of him.

[Rob Harvilla]

He's a very famous racer. He appears in this film a couple times, actually. That's actually a choice that I really like about this movie, which is that we're in the world. They're shooting at the real races. You feel this. Joe described it as a festival atmosphere and that every race kind of feels like you're at Coachella or something.

[Sean Fennessy]

And.

[Rob Harvilla]

But they didn't try to make Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen like characters.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Rob Harvilla]

They didn't saddle them with the expectation of having to give dial deliver. Dialogue wise, they are opponents in the races, which is cool and I think adds to the verisimilitude. But we don't really spend any time with their teams. You know, we're not like. We're not forced to reckon with that. This movie is very much located inside of the Apex team, which I think is a really, really good choice. But you still get to benefit from you're at a real race.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, that to me was so astonishing because we are now fully in the world of like, you haven't seen a real crowd in a movie in, I don't know, 15, 20 years. And I'm sorry, but the fake crowds, the CGI crowds are visible from, it's bad. It is actually really bad. And so suddenly to be at a place where you can. You feel that like they are there. They just built their own tent next to everyone else's tent. You do feel the energy. It's incredible. It's amazing that they got to do that.

[Rob Harvilla]

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Life is all about choices. For example, what happens when you show up at the movies and you're not totally sure what you want to see? Maybe Final Destination Bloodlines, maybe Lilo and Stitch. You've got to make a choice at State Farm. Their goal is to help you make Decisions that you feel good about. That's why with the State Farm personal price plan, you can choose the right amount of coverage to help create a competitive price. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts, and savings and eligibility vary by state. Let's talk about Tobias Menzies. Very quickly veer into real spoiler territory. We've just been kind of talking about, like the shape and arc of the movie. I wouldn't say we're spoiling the outcome, but to talk about this character would be some spoilers.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

So he's presented early in the movie as a friendly member of the board. And the board is starting to turn against Ruben, who owns the Apex team. And he is there as a kind of conduit. He's a bit amused by the addition of Sonny, who is not the first choice to come in as the veteran hand on the team. But. And when he shows up and he has a moment on the track with Sonny, I turn to you and I was like, tobias Menzies was a good choice and it was a good choice. And in that moment, I don't know that I knew exactly where the movie was going, but I was like, I get it. We will come back to this guy. This guy is going to be a part of this story. There's no reason to put this really good actor into this part just to have him pat Brad Pitt on the back. And he does come back later in the movie when it becomes clear that he is kind of the architect of a lot of the undoing of the Apex team. That from the inside he's trying to seize ownership for himself so that he can create a more successful Apex team and take it away from Ruben. What'd you think about that late breaking arc in the movie and Tobias performance?

[Amanda Dobbins]

It totally worked for me. I think this setup was a deceptively simple setup, which is just the team has to win one race this year or else the board can sell it. So, I mean, they make it very clear what the objective is, where the rest of the movie's gonna go. And there is almost to our earlier conversation, like an over simplicity to the like, okay, well, I guess you're just gonna keep racing and keep climbing up the leaderboard and the last one, you'll finally do it because that is the kind of movie that it is. So his Third act wrinkle was, I thought, funny. And also adds another dimension to that race and even to the reaction scenes and who's rooting for who? And then sets up the nifty thing of, oh, we really are actually a team. We all found each other, so it worked for me. And as you said, he's great. He's so funny in it.

[Rob Harvilla]

He's a very amusing actor. The addition of that, which felt Kaczynski mentioned that there was a late breaking change that they made to the story. I suspect that's what it is.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

And it helps the movie a lot.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I agree.

[Rob Harvilla]

Because I think if we were just relying strictly upon the kind of, you know, unsettled rivalry between Sunny and JP and will they or won't they? With Sunny and Kate, I don't know if it would have been enough. And so, like, adding an extra element of can they pull this off? And there's actually a force working against them that is not Max Verstappen or Mercedes or Ferrari or whomever. Then I think it really improves the movie and lets you walk out with a little bit more triumph when we get to where we go.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. It's a nice. Because then it resets the alliances in a nice way. So you get your beautiful moment between all the people, but then the Brad Pitt character can go off and do his own thing.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah. What do you think of the little coda? The Baja coda?

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's cute. That was great. I mean, it's like him not taking the money at Fenway. So once again, I, too, love Moneyball.

[Rob Harvilla]

Very similar. Interesting. So Kaczynski also said that that was originally the first scene in the movie, the Baja scene.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, interesting.

[Rob Harvilla]

And then Lewis Hamilton gave him a note that he was like, no, you can't open with that. You need to show him in the environment, racing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Good note. Lewis Hamilton, which is great.

[Rob Harvilla]

Cause the beginning of the movie is sick. Pretty cool movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I really liked it. Really, really, really fun.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah. Fun to see in theaters. Kind of just your old school blockbuster throwback kind of the film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I'm hopeful that people do also go see it in theaters. It seems it's the conversations I've been having. Anecdotally, it seems like people know, like, oh, no, no. This is like, this is one of our event ones. We're gonna go. Yeah, we'll buy it.

[Rob Harvilla]

They have marketed the hell out of it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Tom Cruise showed up at the premiere and Litan. Oh, yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

Okay. Well, he's, you know.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Rob Harvilla]

One other thing that Kaczynski mentioned is that, you know, he almost made a version of Ford versus Ferrari with Brad and Tom.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I can't even.

[Rob Harvilla]

Which would have been pretty crazy. Nevertheless, how's it going to do? There's been much reporting about the budget of this movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

Some say 200 million, some say 300 million.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Does it. Did Apple paid for it? Does it matter?

[Rob Harvilla]

Apple paid for it? I don't really think it matters that much. Except.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Do you think Led Zeppelin gives an Apple movie like a cut, or do you think they make them pay more like a discount? A discount rate? Or do they make them pay more?

[Rob Harvilla]

If I were Led Zeppelin, I wouldn't give anyone a discount.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. I think historically they haven't.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah. And you know what? Good. They earned it. I think I don't care so much about the budget, but I do. I am interested in the performance for a couple of reasons. One, obviously, if Apple is making movies and putting them in movie theaters, that just means more movies are getting made and more movies, you know, with these kind of sizable budgets. And honestly, Apple, to their credit, has taken a lot of risks on big movies that would be deemed originals or like adult movies. You know, your Killers of the Flower Moons, your Napoleons. Those kinds of movies getting made is really great. F1 is an original. It's set in a world that is familiar. Yeah, but this is one of the biggest, most expensive original movies ever made, Right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, it's not using movie IP. It is using heavy F1IP.

[Rob Harvilla]

But I think that this. If this movie works, that is the new paradigm, right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Rob Harvilla]

That's the thing that I've been talking about, the Barbie thing, which is like, show me something that I know about, but in a way I've never seen before. That is the whole game with movies now. So a lot of speculation is that this movie will do very well internationally because F1 is an international sport. It's a movie that kind of transcends language in a lot of ways. As we've described here, though, this podcast does not transcend language. We need it here to communicate on a daily basis in America. Do people care? Will they care?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I. I don't know. I mean, there is a huge NASCAR audience that. I don't know whether it's separate from the F1 audience, but you've got your, like, F1 Netflix people. And I do think. I know Drives to Survive was several years ago, but those people are really in. I think that Brad Pitt does have crossover appeal still. So maybe you bring some NASCAR people, maybe you bring some Brad Pitt people, you know, movies are very in right now. People seem to like going to the movies, and this seems like a good excuse to go to the movies. So I think it'll do pretty well. I don't know if it's Sinner's level.

[Rob Harvilla]

It's. This is the first movie since Sinners that I have gotten a wave of. Have you seen this?

[Amanda Dobbins]

What do you think?

[Rob Harvilla]

What do you think? What did you think? So that bodes very well. And I don't think it's a movie that's dependent on reviews. No, I don't think that that's like the core demo, per se. And I think it more or less delivers the goods like it is a movie. I think people will be satisfied walking out of this movie. Yeah, absolutely. So you're gonna get a word of mouth quality that'll go well. I just. I'm. I'm. I'm. It's a. It's a conundrum. It's a little bit of a. I wouldn't know how to predict how well a movie like this is gonna do in the United States.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Academy Awards, technical categories feels like, pretty.

[Rob Harvilla]

Clearly sound for sure. I wonder about things like production design and visual effects, and I don't even know how many visual effects are going into this movie. A lot of it feels really on the ground and real.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, this seems like it would be stunt design like heaven, were that category eligible this time around.

[Rob Harvilla]

The first Crash in the Rain I think is pretty amazing. You know, there's a case for editing too. I feel this movie is very, very well edited, so that, you know, is it gonna be in the kind of like Blade Runner 2049 version? Also, Claudio Miranda, I can't recall if he was nominated for Top Gun Maverick, but he's a cinematogr and he's shot a lot of great movies. He won for Life of PI some years ago, and he's very well respected. So there's definitely a world where Miranda might get a look too. And then this movie goes onto this extremely short list of motorsport race car movies that people think are good. Let's just set aside the Fast and the Furious for a minute. That's street racing. I can't really think of it in the same way. Days of Thunder, Le mans, the Steve McQueen movie from the 70s winning, which you mentioned. The Paul Newman film, which then led to Paul Newman pursuing career as a race car driver in his late 50s.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, 40s, maybe.

[Rob Harvilla]

40S. Okay. I think the first time he raced in competition, he was like, maybe even in his 60s.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Wow.

[Rob Harvilla]

Grand Prix. The James Garner film from the 60s with Toshiro Mifune. Rush.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

Which is a bit underrated.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I have seen Rush also. Yeah. It's not on my. I had forgotten that I saw it.

[Rob Harvilla]

It's a Ron Howard movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Very early. Chris Hemsworth.

[Rob Harvilla]

Chris Hemsworth. His first. One of his first big roles post Thor.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. But to me, at least I. Maybe I had seen Thor, but I remember seeing Russian being like, who's this guy? What's going on here? And the answer was, he's Thor. But, you know, whatever.

[Rob Harvilla]

But that's a film that is based on a true story. And also with Daniel Bruhl as Niki Lauda. The F1 racer. Pretty good movie. I like that movie. And then what am I forgetting? I mean, Speed Racer, I guess that's not really like an F1 or a NASCAR movie. Talladega Knights. How could I forget that?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah. That's a NASCAR movie, but it's a pretty small collection of movies like this. Where does this one stack up? Probably the best one.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Definitely the best one. I. I wonder, and I don't know whether you talked to Kaczynski about this. Like, will this movie change how these actual races are filmed and covered?

[Rob Harvilla]

Oh, I didn't. That's a good question.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, and I would hope you would sell the technology to them for billions and billions of dollars. But I do think that this is just filmed in such a spectacular and, you know, noticeably different ways that it could make a fan of someone who otherwise was just like, I'm just watching them speed around, you know, you don't really get it when you're watching an old broadcaster. I don't. But I think watching this broadcasted, you'd be like, oh, okay.

[Rob Harvilla]

It's a very interesting question. One of the big challenges with the build, the construction of these cars is.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That it's on the car. So they can't go as fast.

[Rob Harvilla]

Exactly. It's the weight. The weight is such a critical issue that the addition of new technologies would. Brad's car in the movie doesn't have to go as fast as Lewis Hamilton's car on the track. And so I don't know if they'd be willing, if they can continue to build lighter and lighter cameras. The way he describes. You should listen to the conversation with him. The way he describes the way that they constructed the cameras and then where they placed them in the cars is quite interesting. And it was inspired in part by the problem solving they needed to do to get the Cameras on the Top Gun, Maverick planes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Rob Harvilla]

You know, very similarly, he.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And weight's a major issue.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yeah, Again, yes. So he's got a lot of experience figuring out this stuff. He's an interesting guy. He's had like a fascinating path to movies. He was an engineer and then an architect and then a commercial filmmaker and then a narrative filmmaker and now makes the biggest movies in the world with the biggest stars in the world. And he is in this rarefied air. It's like James Cameron and Peter Jackson and, you know, Michael Bay, Gore, Verbinski. There's only a handful of guys who are entrusted with like $300 million and huge stars to make big movies.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But so much what he's doing is like engineering totally, you know, so you need, you need that particular skill set to be able to problem solve the way that he is to actually film things.

[Rob Harvilla]

In my, in my notes for my questions with him, I wrote down the phrase mad scientist. And I didn't even say it to him. And he said it to me. He was like, I'm a bit of a mad scientist with these things. So very interesting. I really, I really like his movies and I think his, his lesser known movies are also quite underrated. So I would encourage people to check those out and encourage them to check out my conversation right now.

[Amanda Dobbins]

What a segue.

[Rob Harvilla]

Let's go to my conversation with Joseph Kaczynski. Joseph Kosinski back on the Show, Director of F1. Very excited to have you here.

[Sean Fennessy]

I am happy to be here.

[Rob Harvilla]

So very simple, obvious question. Why did you make this movie?

[Sean Fennessy]

Why? Okay, I think, well, it's a complicated question, but I, like many people, discovered this sport watching this TV documentary show called Drive to Survive on Netflix during the pandemic and the first season of that show. They did not have the participation of the top teams, so they were kind of forced to focus on the last place teams. And to me, that was fascinating. To hear the story of a team that goes out and loses every week. To hear the story of a rookie that no one had ever heard of, that had spent his whole life trying to get to this point, only to find himself in a car that was not as fast as everyone else, so was not going to be able to perform and might lose his seat. And to me, that that was the first thing. And then the sport itself is really interesting because it's constructed in a way where your teammate often becomes your biggest rival. And that is because every team builds its own car in Formula One. They don't buy these things. You literally have to build your own car and race it. So they build two cars for their two drivers. So that means the only person who's driving the exact same machine as you is your teammate. And that therefore you have a very clear way to see who is better. So that sort of conflict is great for drama. And then I sent an email to the only person I knew in Formula one who happened to be the seven time world champion, Sir Lewis Hamilton, who I knew was interested in film. That's a whole nother story. And I said to him, I'm fascinated with this world. I'd love to investigate making a film in this world. Would you help me? Because I want it to be as authentic as possible and you obviously know it better than anyone. And he said yes. So he invited me to the Austin Grand Prix in 2021. I stepped into the Mercedes garage, he gave me full access and I watched his team put a car together from parts and pieces in front of me. They assembled it and then he climbed inside it and went out and, you know, set a lab record or whatever he did that day. And I was like, this is insane. You know, I have never seen anything like this. So I really came to it as an outsider going, wow, this is a fascinating world. You know, this is something that I think would be fun to see on a big screen. And so with Lewis and then I went to Jerry and then Brad Pitt and, you know, knew I would have to assemble a kind of perfect team to pull this off because these, there's a reason racing movies don't get made. They're very expensive, there's no ip, so I was going to have to create a very compelling case to all the studios that this was worth their time and money to make this. And so we went out, we pitched to nine studios and we got nine offers and Apple to me was the most compelling and we joined forces with them and now here we are, almost four years later.

[Rob Harvilla]

Take me back a little bit further. Because obviously the kinds of films that you make are well suited to a motorsport film. I'd read that you had thought about or been close to doing something in the past.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, I was attached to do a movie called Go Like Hell, which eventually became Ford versus Ferrari. And I actually had Brad and Tom at Tom's house reading the script, the three of us together. So that was the closest I had gotten. And I'm glad it didn't work out now looking back, but had you been.

[Rob Harvilla]

Fantasizing about a race car movie though, for years and years?

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, yeah, I I loved, you know, I love Grand Prix, I love Le Mans, I just like cars. You know, I was a mechanical engineer and as that was where I started in undergrad, then aerospace, then product design and architecture. So I've kind of had, I've always had that interest in that sort of thing. And so it was something that, yeah, it was, it was in my, you know, something I would naturally interested to. But it was kind of the. Just the way the sport was organized and the dramatic stakes that I could see, that kind of construction that I thought would make a great film because without a great story, the racing means nothing. It's like, it's the. The racing's interesting for 30 seconds on its own. You know, you need a compelling story, you need great characters, you need something to care about in order to make it through a two hour film. So that was the, that was the main thing. And that's obviously what we spent the most time the most, you know, even on a film this complicated, most. The effort was in the story, as it should be.

[Rob Harvilla]

How do you then try to make a movie like this that balances that drama that you're describing with the story, but that also sticks to, and it's faithful to the kind of authenticity of this world, which seems like a huge emphasis in the film.

[Sean Fennessy]

That was the needle we had to thread we were making. You know, anyone who knows anything about Formula one knows the fans are. I mean, it's just the nature of the sport. The sport is very precise, very exact. You know, we're talking about thousandths of a second. And when you, the deeper you dive into it, the more you realize there's all this strategy going on behind the scenes. It really is like a chess game. And the fans are. There's a lot of history and the fans are very specific about the sport itself. So it kind of draws that personality, I think. And so I knew the fans were going to be looking for that level of detail. That's why I brought Lewis on first. But at the same time, a movie of this scale can't only play to Formula one fans. It needs to work for everybody. And that threading that needle was the biggest challenge of the film. Making a film that Formula one fans can enjoy, but also making a film that people who know nothing about, forget Formula One, who just don't know anything about motorsports or don't even care about cars, can come in and. And learn everything they need to know about Formula One to enjoy this film. But most importantly, just get pulled into this, sucked into this story so that was the biggest challenge. And, you know, we'll see if. If we did it, I guess.

[Rob Harvilla]

How do you make decisions like that then? Because I'm a relative novice when it comes to F1. But I didn't feel lost watching the movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's good.

[Rob Harvilla]

I felt like there's dialogue that kind of explicates strategy or explicates the building of the car. That was logical to me. And then you're also using announcers throughout the broadcast.

[Sean Fennessy]

We actually show the real announcers, right? Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

So. But how do you level set those decisions to say like, this is too much hand holding, this is not enough. Are you relying on people who know the sport well, who don't know the sport well?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's good that I came out as an outsider. I think if I had been a Formula one fan my whole life, I think it would have been harder for me to have any sort of objective point of view on needing to know the basics. So Aaron Kruger wrote the script. He also came as an outsider. So together we were both kind of learning as we were writing this. In addition to Lewis Hamilton, we had other consultants. We had Will Buxton, who's a well known journalist in Formula one. We had Bernie Collins, who was also a journalist. She's on the broadcast, but she was an ex strategist. We had Ruth Buscombe, who was an ex strategist. So we had a lot of people inside that world that were advising us on the reality. And then it is trial and error. You have multiple people reading the script. Eventually we tested this movie with audiences to kind of get a temperature check of where we were. And it's something that we tweaked up to the last day of the final mix.

[Rob Harvilla]

How do you feel about that process? Do you feel comfortable hearing from the audience and saying, I'm gonna make an artistic change based on that feedback that you're getting?

[Sean Fennessy]

I've learned how to listen to the audience. This is my sixth film now and that's. It just takes. You just have to go through that process. Tron Legacy actually we never tested. Which is interesting because of the nature of that and the fact I didn't have an antagonist with a head until the very end of the process. So it would have. It was kind of like impossible to test. Maybe not impossible, but we didn't do it. And so on. Oblivion was the first movie where I went through audience testing and it was good to have Tom Cruise on that. You know, who had been through it many, many times. And you have to have the right kind of point of view. When you're testing a movie, it's not that the audience is telling you what your movie should be. It's you finding out. Is your movie communicating what you are intending it to? Is what you're trying to get across? Are they getting it? And that's what testing is great for, is to make sure that everything you intended is actually being absorbed and they're feeling what you want them to feel. And then you just learn how to. With experience, you learn how to look at those cards or listen to that focus group and make the sorts of changes that make, you know, don't change the film you're trying to make. But sometimes it's very little, tiny adjustments that can make a huge difference. So I've. It's taken me. You know, I've been doing this for 15 years now. It's taken me some time to figure out how that process works. But on this one, it was pretty straightforward as to, you know, what little tweaks we wanted to do.

[Rob Harvilla]

It seems like this would be an incredibly difficult movie to make. Like, what was the single most challenging thing to capture or to realize, to put us in the world?

[Sean Fennessy]

It's hard to pick one thing. I mean, the challenge started from the beginning in that the tools to make this film did not exist. So we had to kind of invent them. And that starts with the camera system, which.

[Rob Harvilla]

This is similar to Maverick, I feel like.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. So the Maverick system would not work on this movie because even those cameras were too big and heavy for these cars. They would. That system would have slowed these cars down too much and been working against the whole point of trying to capture Formula one. So we worked closely with Sony. My cinematographer, Claudio Miranda, and I worked with them for about a year to develop a new camera system, which was. Our code name was Carmen. I don't know if it's actually going to come out or if they'll brand it and sell it, but they built us 25 prototypes of these cameras that are about much, much smaller than the Maverick cameras. Much lighter, but the same concept where you separate the lens and the sensor away from the recorder and the batteries and all others. So you just have a part of the camera up where Brad and Damson are when they're driving the car. And then we had cables built into the chassis of the car down to the. Near the floor under the radiators, where we had all the batteries and receivers and all the other things so we could. We built 16 camera mounts into these cars. 16 different positions where I could put the camera. We would run about four at a time, and then usually about two of those were operable, which was another innovation that we did not have on Maverick. We built motorized panning heads that were controlled wirelessly. So I had, like, a master control center where I had all the image live. And then we had these little panners where we could pan the cameras.

[Rob Harvilla]

There are moments in the movie where we're seeing the track and it's turning, and then we're seeing Brad's face. And I thought to myself, I've not seen that in a movie. Certainly not in Racetrack.

[Sean Fennessy]

That was the point. Yeah. Not only to kind of give us. To allow us to connect the action, but also to really remind you that Brad's not on some big stunt rig or in a blue screen. He's out there driving this thing by himself at 180 miles an hour. And you just can't fake that. And so that was a year of research to get that whole system working. Lots of.

[Rob Harvilla]

Can I ask you about that system specifically? When you're in that. When you're watching that footage being captured, for lack of a better phrase, how do you know you're getting it? How do you know you're getting what you want from a storytelling perspective? Because the race that you're trying to pull together and the dynamics of the story happening at the right time, while also using a new technology that maybe you can't totally rely on or haven't worked with before. Like, can you talk about maybe some of the complications?

[Sean Fennessy]

I have to remember, I had come off Top Gun Maverick, where I wasn't even seeing the footage when it was being filmed. Remember, I had to rehearse all that stuff on the ground and then send up the actors with the switch to turn the cameras on and assume and hope, you know, that it was going to come back and look at it. So in that way, Maverick was a good training ground for me to know that, you know, you have to. Rehearsal preparation. You have to rely on that. But, yeah, this was much more real time, more like a live event, and just kind of watching, you know, eight or 16 different images simultaneously and calling out, you know, pan. You know, pan three. You know, that kind of stuff. It was. It was fun. It was intense, exciting. And, you know, we. We would break down the script, the beats that the actors need to hit, and I would look. You know, my editor, Stephen Marioni, was cutting all the way through shooting, so I would look at assemblies within 24 hours and go back and get what we needed. I mean, it was. It was intense. It was definitely the most intense, complicated, challenging environment I've ever shot a film in. And beyond all this kind of technology, these windows of time we would get to shoot would often be just a. Like, between five and 10 minutes. So, you know, we were shooting during Grand Prix weekend, so between practice and qualifying, we'd have a little window where Brad and Damson would be in the cars warmed up with hot tires, and then they say, go. And they go out. And we'd get our block of time. They'd come in, and then we'd run out and shoot, you know, a scene on the Grid with Javier and Tobias. And, you know, we might. We might get eight minutes to shoot a scene. You know, two or three takes, as opposed to hours or days that you'd usually get on a film. But the chaos of that was something I wanted to embrace. And that's something that I hoped would translate on screen, that this wasn't some sort of staged thing, but more of a captured story. And that's what I felt like would make this film feel different than anything else.

[Rob Harvilla]

Tell me about the crash sequences.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Rob Harvilla]

They're incredibly effective. They reminded me a little bit of the kind of hair standing on end moments in Maverick. But to me, I feel like that comes down to the editing as much as the staging and the stunt work. Can you just talk about maybe designing some of those sequences and how you're executing. And are you executing them at these moments where you're at the Grand Prix? Are they happening differently?

[Sean Fennessy]

Sometimes pieces of it. You have to kind of break it down piece by piece. It doesn't all happen at once. When does this air? Is this before or after the movie?

[Rob Harvilla]

It'll come out the day it comes out.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Rob Harvilla]

You don't have to spoil too much. But we will talk about the film.

[Sean Fennessy]

Both the accidents are. All the accidents in the film are based on real life accidents or combining pieces of different ones. So there's one in the 1990s that's very much based on a real accident and a real person who.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Who.

[Sean Fennessy]

An ex Formula One driver who was a consultant on our film and involved and graciously allowed us to use his life experience and allowed us to modify it to be, you know, part of Sonny's backstory. So that was really kind of a blend of period footage where we digitally altered it and footage that we shot ourselves, kind of blended together along with some new technology. Then there's a crash in Monza which we shot fully, practically, which Was also based on a Formula 3 accident from a few years ago on the same corner, which was intense. And there's a whole making of that on the home video release which people can watch. It'll be interesting. But that one did not go as planned and ended up being kind of better than I could have anticipated for that reason. And that's why I love live action filmmaking and that things don't always go as you would expect. But that one also involves, yeah, fire, which is. Was intense. And also based on a real life Formula one crash from a few years ago, which I think reminds people of how dangerous this sport is, but also how safe it is because the safety measures built into these cars and the suits that they wear are pretty. Have come a long way in the last 20 or 30 years. That, you know, people are surviving and walking away from crashes they wouldn't have before. When you talk about editing, I think on that one that is an example of in a movie where you can go so where the sound mix can be so intense and is on this movie, you know, this is a. This is a big, loud, dynamic film. There is power in pulling back, which we wanted to use and going more subjective in moments like that, which, you know, we. We got a lot of that from Lewis that, you know, in such a loud sport, it is at times very peaceful and quiet. In the middle of it, when you're in these things, there's almost a flow state that you can find inside this that's really that all of these guys are kind of chasing. Maybe we're all chasing and all, you know, the work that we do. So I thought that was fascinating. And then there's a crash, another crash in Vegas that we did have to shoot a lot of that during the real Grand Prix because that's a track that only exists for three nights out of the year. So in some ways the Las Vegas was probably one of the biggest challenges for me because it is such a temporal environment and we did not have any time to practice. And Brad and Danson had to go out and drive that track in the middle of the night in the cold for the first time ever while shooting it. And it's an intense, fast sequence with no margin for error. So we did some stuff in this movie I can't believe they allowed us to do, but here we are, you know, we made it.

[Rob Harvilla]

I mean, it's remarkable. I was thinking a lot. I wrote a story in 2010 about Michael Bay. And for the story I interviewed a handful of filmmakers who were sort of, you Know, he was in a tradition of. I talked to James Cameron, I talked to Steven Spielberg. Cameron used a phrase to me that I thought was really interesting about Bay. He said that Michael is the best at the big train set set up. And when I watch your movies, I feel like you have a real affinity for the big train set, whatever Cameron specifically meant by that. And I was curious, like, why that style of filmmaking, why that scale is so appealing to you.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was, I mean, I've been that way since I was a kid. I've always been very project oriented. I had the big train set literally in my basement. I was, you know, building RC airplanes, model cars, model rockets, modifying them, you know, burned all the hair off my legs with my own homemade fireworks. You know, I was very much kind of a mad scientist, you know, project based kid. And loved, I've always loved having something to work on. So I think on movies like this where you're talking about three or four years to construct something piece by piece, you know, and have the patience to kind of assemble it in a very methodical way. It was, yeah, it was a kind of challenge that I was really drawn to. So, yeah, I don't think every film I make will be like this. I like to mix it up. So we'll probably do something very different next. But yeah, to be able to embed myself in the world of Formula one, to have my own team essentially on the grid. We had our own garage during the Grand Prix between Ferrari, Mercedes, you know, we had our car on the track, we traveled around the world. I got to see all these incredible people things and make this film was. It was a real adventure.

[Rob Harvilla]

The film was interrupted by the strikes which elongated some of the production.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yep.

[Rob Harvilla]

What were the challenges of that and was there any benefit to that?

[Sean Fennessy]

Huge benefit, honestly. Like, I wish I could make every movie that way. Shoot a little bit, take a break, cut it together, think about it, just rewrite, you know, come back. It wasn't quite in the middle, honestly, it was six days into photography, my four SAG actors left. And so I was in England with a full crew and no actors. So I instantly just kind of switched over and became shot. All racing unit became second unit director shot 38 days, continued our journey around the world. So I got to shoot every tire change, every button, every click. You know, you see in this movie I shot myself, which is not always the case on big movies. So for me that was kind of fun. I'm sure the line producer, you know, got some more gray hairs when he saw me Standing around shooting inserts on the steering wheel. But I kind of liked that stuff and felt like, you know, it was keeping everybody working and it was moving the film forward in a time where most a lot of people had to stop. We were able to continue, so that was great. And then when we ran out, when I'd shot every bit of racing I possibly could, we paused. Then the actors came back shortly after that, and we picked up in 2024 at Daytona with the opening sequence and then picked up with the Formula One season with my actors and did the rest. But I was able in that time to do a few things in the script that I think were really, really helpful, including something in the third act that we added, which I'm really. I don't want to say until the movie comes out, but, yeah, it ended up being a really good thing.

[Rob Harvilla]

I love the opening sequence and the idea of almost like, wrong footing the audience into what kind of a movie you're going to be watching. You know, not just the world that it's set in, but even just some of the energy and the way that it's cut and the way that Brad's character is portrayed.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yep.

[Rob Harvilla]

Can you just talk about that decision and why it feels that way versus what F1 feels like?

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, the first 10 minutes, you're really meeting Sonny Hayes. And I wanted to meet him in his world, doing his thing without a bunch of backstory. You know, Brad is kind of allergic to that sort of stuff. And it felt like, you know, you can do things with an icon like him and with Tom that you can't do with other actors, you know. And so meeting him at Daytona in a very kind of wordless sequence, that's a lot more just kind of visual and sonic visual storytelling. You know, understanding who this character is, to me was a really kind of fun way to meet him. But really, more importantly, this is a story about a man who's kind of dropped into a different world that. Where he doesn't belong. You know, if you're kind of thinking along kind of the more mythic lines of types of stories, this is a man who's, you know, stranger in a strange land. And opening up in Daytona, to me felt like a nice contrast to where we put him in shortly thereafter, which is the world of F1. So that was kind of the. And it was not the original opening of the movie. The original opening of the movie was what is now the last scene in the movie. That is where we originally found Sonny Hayes. And that was something that Lewis Hamilton said to me, he's like, you can't meet him again. I don't want to say, but you can't meet him here. That's too far from F1. You need to be somewhere closer. So that's where the endurance racing opening came from.

[Rob Harvilla]

That's interesting. Okay. That puts a new color on the experience of watching the movie that dovetails with the music, where you've got this kind of bifurcated approach to the music, where you've got hardcore classic rock, needle drops, and then Hans kind of, I guess, EDM inspired score.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, for Hans, it's actually a throwback kind of to where he got started. You know, if anyone hasn't seen the Buggles video, you know, if you want to see where Hans started, please pull that up on YouTube right now. So, yeah, he started in electronic music and I think, you know, we liked the idea of this score having a little bit of his. The stuff he started with, but also the classic, you know, big orchestral moments when you need it. But also we had to find a score that could actually punch through the sound of these cars, which is not easy. And what we found was the electronic stuff actually did cut through in a way. It gives it a pulse that, you know, strings would have just kind of been lost in the drone of these engines. So, yeah, I think Hans did incredible job with this. And then, yeah, then we've also got these. We've got the soundtrack, which is. You know, I've never had this many songs in a movie before. It was kind of a new thing. But once you've been on the road and experienced what Formula One and these races feel like, it is almost like a festival atmosphere and it's a very global sport where there is a soundtrack to the cities you go to. And for me, this kind of. This film being a journey around the world, the songs really kind of help tell that story. But, yeah, it was a very interesting balancing act between score and song on this.

[Rob Harvilla]

One thing that struck me is you've made a movie in air at great speed, on ground at great speed. You've done a film about fire. I feel like we need a film at sea from you.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know what? I'm not much of a water guy, really.

[Rob Harvilla]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. The boat thing, you know, sailing ships lost at sea. I. I don't know if that's my. My jam, but. But, yeah, I think I've. I think I've covered, you know, air and. And. And ground now. So, yeah, we'll see what's left to conquer then.

[Rob Harvilla]

For You.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't know. We'll see. You know, it's. We're getting close to the end on this one. Take a chance to recharge the batteries a little bit. I've got three scripts that are in development right now, and all very exciting, very different sorts of things, and we'll see which one kind of comes to fruition first.

[Rob Harvilla]

I'm curious, as a filmmaker who works with big budgets, you know, you talked about the kind of presenting to nine studios getting this film made. You know, you've made now film with Netflix. You've made a film with Apple, Warner Brothers Distributing here in the United States. What do you make of the theatrical moment versus the streaming moment?

[Sean Fennessy]

I think it's really exciting. I think it's exciting to see Apple step up on. There is no discussion about this movie other than it being theatrical. And their commitment to this movie is massive. And it being a purely theatrical experience. And working with them has been really interesting because they've been able to bring some elements to it that no other studio that I've worked with. You know, like this haptic trailer that we made a few weeks. Pretty cool a few weeks ago, which is like, what studio is going to be able to do that? The stuff they're doing in store, the just working with them has been really interesting and very exciting as to, you know, what's possible in this business and different. I think Amazon also, having talked to them recently, is really doubling down on the theatrical experience. So these, you know, tech companies that are coming in are leaning into theaters because I think they realize, and we saw this on Top Gun, if your movie opens in theaters, if this is. If. If people experience these stories on the biggest screen with a crowd of people and a great sound system, if they experience it that way first, it leaves an emotional impact and impression that carries through rentals, downloads, Blu Ray, what. However, whatever it is, it has a much longer lifespan. If you start in the theater, if you skip that, it's just different. And so I think they realize that. And so I'm excited. I feel like, you know, I'm very optimistic. I think this year so far has been really exciting with, you know, the movies that have come out and how they've played. And, you know, I hope we can continue that momentum and have a robust, you know, slate of films, a mix of, you know, sequels and originals and all genres and sizes in between. That's what the movie business needs to be healthy. And I feel like there's a little hangover from COVID but I think this summer's hopefully moving in the right direction, so I'm very optimistic.

[Rob Harvilla]

I wanted to ask you about the originals thing too because obviously Maverick was a legacy sequel based on something that people were very familiar with. This is a very rare, completely original, big budget movie star movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Rob Harvilla]

Which we're told is the hardest thing to mount in all of the business.

[Sean Fennessy]

Right now, which is why has Brad Pitt, you know, at the center of it. And that's, that's it. You know, if you, if you go to a student said, I want to make an original story that's going to be, you know, expensive and not based on ip, the first thing they're going to say is, well, can you get Brad Pitt? And so that's why I went to Brad first.

[Rob Harvilla]

Interesting.

[Sean Fennessy]

And so that's a, that's a big part of it. But yeah, no, we need, we need, you know, movies like this. I mean, I just, I love sequels. Obviously I've worked on a few of them and they're incredible. But it's important to have some new material coming in every year. And that's why I was so pleased to see, you know, how Sinners Landed, you know, R rated original, you know, land so well. So it's like we need to. That studios need a few of these to work every year so that they feel comfortable taking, you know, you've got the ones that are. Not that anything's, you know, for sure in this business at all. But if they can take a couple of bets in the slate every year, that's good for all of us.

[Rob Harvilla]

Joe. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen and even touring the world. Have you seen any good movies? Could be old or new.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Hmm.

[Sean Fennessy]

Last night on the flight back. This is very random. I watched Tootsie.

[Rob Harvilla]

Oh.

[Sean Fennessy]

And what spurred that? You know, I just, I think I wanted something. I just wanted something with, you know, some great performances and just something off center and Dustin Hoffman in that movie, just, just some really funny stuff. Obviously it's being inside the business a little bit. There's certain that, that element of it. But it was a fun, you know, it was a, it's just a great movie and it holds up great recommendation.

[Rob Harvilla]

Thanks for doing the show.

[Sean Fennessy]

Thank you. Good to see you again.

[Rob Harvilla]

You too. Thanks to Joseph Kaczynski. Thanks to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. We'll be back on on Monday where some friends of the POD will give their favorite movies of the year so far. Have you made your pick.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think I did. You didn't. You didn't laugh at my joke at all. You didn't even acknowledge it.

[Rob Harvilla]

I don't even know what your joke was.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I said that I would pick my movie and. Or Alto Knights, and you didn't even, you know, nothing.

[Rob Harvilla]

It's funny because I repeated your joke to Chris Ryan.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, so you were stealing it, so I liked it. Okay.

[Rob Harvilla]

And I acknowledge its greatness.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. My pick is not Altonites.

[Rob Harvilla]

Okay. You're not being silenced.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Rob Harvilla]

You are an equal participant. And a woman in stem in this project. And a woman in stem. Thank you for watching and listening. We'll see you soon.