‘Superman’ and What We Want Out of Comic Book Adaptations

Chris and Andy do a full deep dive into the new ‘Superman’ movie. They talk about why, on a basic level, this movie worked where other comic book adaptations failed (7:59); whether this movie puts DC in a position to out-Marvel Marvel (27:19); and what the future of the DC Universe looks like after the success of this film (29:04). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Producer: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:53Speaker 00

  I need supports to have to clear the room.

• 0:56Andy Greenwald?

  Stand up and walk now.

• 0:58Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com and joining me in the studio, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:12Andy Greenwald?

  That's good. Do you even do that for like Batman V Superman?

• 1:16Chris Ryan?

  I guess I didn't. I don't know that we really ever covered the Snyder verse on this podcast.

• 1:21Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's one of our little lacunae. We kind of missed that one.

• 1:24Chris Ryan?

  Greenwald, great to see you. We are here to talk a little bit, probably more like 45 minutes worth of Superman, which is a movie we both saw over the weekend. It's a movie everybody saw over the weekend, so I think I can safely assume that it interests watch listeners.

• 1:38Andy Greenwald?

  I also just want to say, it is an honor and a responsibility to be the only Ringer podcast covering this movie.

• 1:43Chris Ryan?

  I think we're batting ninth today. Yeah, we are the second baseman in the American League.

• 1:51Andy Greenwald?

  We're not even, so but in your version of this, the DH-

• 1:54Chris Ryan?

  We're a slugger.

• 1:55Andy Greenwald?

  There's no DH in the National League still, as there shouldn't be, in your version of this anecdote. And we are not the pitcher batting ninth, though. We are like those early Tony La Russa clubs where he's like, I'm gonna put a big OBP guy in the nine hole.

• 2:07Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 2:07Andy Greenwald?

  That's us?

• 2:08Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 2:08Andy Greenwald?

  A slap hitter who finds his way on base?

• 2:10Chris Ryan?

  You look, it's, it's the summer.

• 2:12Andy Greenwald?

  I love it.

• 2:12Chris Ryan?

  Um, we, you know, the, the Netflix Lena Dunham Show Too Much is out, but we haven't gotten a chance to get ahead on that one, to give it, give it the full, the full commentary that people would expect.

• 2:23Andy Greenwald?

  And you and Kaya were weirdly resistant to my pitch to just cover the Eternot again? Just be like, you know, I'm still thinking about them bugs.

• 2:31Chris Ryan?

  Do you want to keep talking about it?

• 2:33Andy Greenwald?

  No, I just like it.

• 2:34Chris Ryan?

  You can email us at [email protected]. You can follow us on Instagram at thewatchpod underscore. You can watch us on YouTube at ringer-tv. That's the channel. Please watch us on Spotify where you're also listening to us on the watch feed. Trying to think of if there was anything else besides Superman I wanted to talk to you about. Uh, I watched the director's cut 4K of Kingdom of Heaven this weekend.

• 2:57Andy Greenwald?

  See.

• 2:58Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and then read a lot about the Crusades.

• 3:00Andy Greenwald?

  Chris, that just seems like light work for you. I feel like most people who are fans of you and people who, you know, habituate the Reddit community devoted to you and your comings and goings and beings. I think that's what they think you do most of the time. So why, why was this, the Passover question, why was this weekend different than all of the weekends?

• 3:18Chris Ryan?

  Because the, the Kingdom of Heaven 4K finally, director's cut finally arrived, little, little steelbook.

• 3:23Andy Greenwald?

  But you'd seen the director's cut?

• 3:25Chris Ryan?

  I had, yes.

• 3:26Andy Greenwald?

  In what K did you see it?

• 3:27Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I'm not sure. It was whatever was available on streaming, um, or on, on VOD. So now I, I own it. I have the director's commentary.

• 3:36Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 3:36Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I have all the special features and I have the glorious tale of a blacksmith who becomes, like more or less like the, the leader of, of the armies of Jerusalem.

• 3:50Andy Greenwald?

  Where is he now?

• 3:50Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 3:52Andy Greenwald?

  Seems like.

• 3:54Chris Ryan?

  Orlando Bloom.

• 3:55Andy Greenwald?

  Oh great, it's Orlando Bloom.

• 3:57Chris Ryan?

  It's Orlando Bloom, which was always like the kind of like the critique of that movie. I just, I will just say, this movie is one of the best movies of the century.

• 4:04Andy Greenwald?

  Now, here's a fun thing about me. First of all, there's so much that's fun about me. But I think the number one fun thing about me is I now have the chance to experience Kingdom of Heaven for the first time as a 4K director's cut.

• 4:17Chris Ryan?

  It's a three hour and 20 minute cut.

• 4:19Andy Greenwald?

  I love it.

• 4:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:20Andy Greenwald?

  I love going to the theater for three hour movies. Otherwise, it's hard for me. No, I'll do it. It's slow summertime. What if, what if I watched it and I became?

• 4:29Chris Ryan?

  Summer of Heaven? Is that what we're gonna do?

• 4:31Andy Greenwald?

  What if I became a Kingdom head?

• 4:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:34Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that's possible for me?

• 4:35Chris Ryan?

  Um, Greenwald, what about you, man? Anything else besides Superman on your mind?

• 4:38Andy Greenwald?

  I have a great headline that I'd like to share with you. We don't even have to talk about it. But I just feel like if there's any sign that these are the dog days of summer in the cultural landscape, this is a, this is a real headline.

• 4:48Chris Ryan?

  Who is Pamela Jo Bondi, the mind behind holding the Epstein files?

• 4:53Andy Greenwald?

  Listen, do you want to talk about that?

• 4:56Chris Ryan?

  Want to talk about it? We need to differentiate this Superman pod from all the others.

• 5:00Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, so it like, it's, it's a bird. It's a, it is not a bird. It's a plane. It's Jeff Epstein's plane? Is that your new intro?

• 5:12Chris Ryan?

  Would Jeff Epstein have been a better villain?

• 5:14Andy Greenwald?

  First of all.

• 5:14Chris Ryan?

  Was he the villain of Superman?

• 5:16Andy Greenwald?

  One of the best things about Trump's long friendship in history with Jeffrey Epstein is the quote that's been surfaced a lot, and let's surface it more, from 2002, where he's like, "I've known Jeff a long time." I love, like, I love that he calls him Jeff. That's an intimacy you can't fake.

• 5:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:33Andy Greenwald?

  You know?

• 5:33Chris Ryan?

  The financier.

• 5:34Andy Greenwald?

  The financier. Don't you think that like, don't you feel like Bill Clinton should take one for the team here?

• 5:40Chris Ryan?

  And do what?

• 5:41Andy Greenwald?

  Be like, okay, I got, I got the manifest. Like, I, I was there. Like, you know what I mean?

• 5:48Chris Ryan?

  By the A's? What do you want Bill Clinton to do?

• 5:51Andy Greenwald?

  I feel, I feel like someone.

• 5:53Chris Ryan?

  Oh, he like, he has it?

• 5:54Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, I don't know. To the wind horse shit. Who you got an eye on in this? Who do you think's the squeaky wheel? Who's gonna bring this whole house of cards down? You don't think Pam's got the juice? To just muscle this thing across?

• 6:08Chris Ryan?

  I just, I think, I don't really know what I think anymore, you know? Uh, that's a good question, though. If there was something, it'd be funny if Bill was just like, here it is.

• 6:16Andy Greenwald?

  I think the list. I made some mistakes. I have flown some bad airlines in my time.

• 6:23Chris Ryan?

  Everybody, you gotta use your points, use your miles. I did.

• 6:27Andy Greenwald?

  Sure did. Do you think he's platinum medallion on Air Epstein?

• 6:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I bet Sapphire Club.

• 6:34Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, okay. That was fun. Does that feel cleansing to get that out? Um, I, unrelated, the only headline I liked today from, um, Dateline Hollywood, July 14th, 2025, 10:27 a.m. Smurfs is a Rihanna passion project, colon, she was pursuing it.

• 6:55Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like not making a record in a decade is understandable if you are a billionaire off of beauty products and your beauty line. If you are pursuing a beautiful family, which she's doing with Asepraki. Not making music because your real passion is voicing Smurfette in the ninth adaptation of The Smurfs?

• 7:17Chris Ryan?

  Is that actually what she's saying? Is like, oh, this is holding up my music career?

• 7:21Andy Greenwald?

  A long time, first of all, how could it not? I mean, when you are devoted to getting the minutia of Smurfette correct, you know, like really digging in the vaults, like trying to understand what the Belgian artist Peyo's vision was? Sometimes I say things just so I can see in your eyes.

• 7:36Chris Ryan?

  Now you're going deep on Smurfs because you're trying to remember what you think of Superman.

• 7:40Andy Greenwald?

  I can't confirm or deny that.

• 7:44Chris Ryan?

  You'd fit right in on the list.

• 7:45Andy Greenwald?

  It's just a weird comment. An admitted, admitted Smurf superfan. Oh, you got me.

• 7:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Dude, if you pay me enough money, I would be an admitted Smurf superfan.

• 7:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that's how I felt when I saw the trailer for The Cat in the Hat cartoon with Bill Hader. I'm like, Bill Hader's paid him enough to be an admitted The Cat in the Hat superfan.

• 8:04Chris Ryan?

  Plus, Seuss, you know, he has his accolades, you know?

• 8:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. Did you think that the joke in the trailer about, what was it, toot farts? Do you think that's like from the original text of Theodore Geisel? Do you remember that?

• 8:18Chris Ryan?

  Not at all. Wiped that one from the memory bank.

• 8:21Andy Greenwald?

  Kai, before we move on to Superman, um, do you have anything you'd like to share about Smurfette or the Epstein plane?

• 8:28Andy Greenwald?

  Think carefully. I'm not saying she was on the plane.

• 8:31Chris Ryan?

  Stop vamping, let's go. Let Kaya speak. What about, what's up, how do you feel about the Epstein plane or Smurfs? You keep switching the order.

• 8:41Chris Ryan?

  That's, that's that classic Bondi shit. That's how Bondi gets you. From both sides.

• 8:46Andy Greenwald?

  Whoa.

• 8:46Speaker 04

  Were the Smurfs on the Epstein plane?

• 8:48Chris Ryan?

  Well, we don't know. We don't know. I'd like, I'd like to see the manifest. Andy, Superman was written and directed by James Gunn. Stars David Cornsweat as Clark Kent slash Superman. Rachel Brosnahan is Lois Lane, Nicholas Holt as Lex Luthor. Uh, and then, you know, big ensemble, Skylar Gazondo as Jimmy Olsen, Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern, Eddie Gettegi as Mr. Terrific. We're gonna talk about the movie, obviously. I think we should just do a spoiler.

• 9:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 9:16Chris Ryan?

  Spoiler, safety off, uh, conversation.

• 9:19Andy Greenwald?

  The biggest spoiler for me was that it's Lex Luthor.

• 9:22Chris Ryan?

  As opposed to?

• 9:23Andy Greenwald?

  Luthor.

• 9:25Chris Ryan?

  Oh. Did I say that or did?

• 9:26Andy Greenwald?

  No, I just think that's always how, I don't know. That's how it always read in my head.

• 9:31Chris Ryan?

  Well, that's actually where I want to start. I want to ask, first of all, like, you know, obviously the, the log line here, I'll just summarize the film itself. Superman gets canceled by Lex Luthor, uh, goes to prison, breaks out with some help from his friends and his dogs.

• 9:44Andy Greenwald?

  You said he got canceled by Lex Luthor?

• 9:46Chris Ryan?

  He does. They, they find, they find some, some footage.

• 9:49Andy Greenwald?

  Brad Cooper footage.

• 9:50Chris Ryan?

  The missing minute. Um, I gotta stop.

• 9:55Chris Ryan?

  I gotta stop it. It is a missing minute.

• 9:58Andy Greenwald?

  So you're suggesting, you're suggesting that Lex Luthor went to Antarctica with the engineer. Broke into the Fortress of Solitude, killed 20 plus Superman robots.

• 10:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:10Andy Greenwald?

  Just to get the client list?

• 10:11Chris Ryan?

  I'm just saying like he, he gets the footage that was lost to even Clark.

• 10:15Andy Greenwald?

  This is so great. None of the other podcasts did it like this.

• 10:19Chris Ryan?

  I, I, I like to do, I like to make sure that we provide some sort of listener value.

• 10:24Andy Greenwald?

  Can I, can I also just say one thing just by, because of the law of averages?

• 10:27Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 10:28Andy Greenwald?

  We're gonna get a text from Bill about this one.

• 10:31Andy Greenwald?

  I think Bill like listens to two and a half episodes of The Watcher Year.

• 10:34Chris Ryan?

  Heard you guys talking about Epstein.

• 10:37Andy Greenwald?

  It just feels inevitable.

• 10:38Chris Ryan?

  Um.

• 10:39Andy Greenwald?

  Guy's thinking about which one of these clips to clip.

• 10:41Chris Ryan?

  Uh, well, I'm, I can't remember where I was in my, my plot synopsis. I want to start with, uh, the broadest, the broadest of broad, did you like it? And also, if you could maybe also, in your classic greenwald way, weave in a little bit of your relationship to this character.

• 10:57Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, well, I, I don't have much of one. I was a Marvel fanboy, but, um, I,

• 11:05Andy Greenwald?

  okay, I liked it.

• 11:06Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:07Andy Greenwald?

  I want to start here. Uh,

• 11:10Andy Greenwald?

  Sean and Amanda on the big picture started their conversation in a way that I thought was really useful and also very interesting, and I think relevant to our conversation too. I think they both took a turn to say it worked.

• 11:21Chris Ryan?

  You listened to that big picture?

• 11:22Andy Greenwald?

  And someone clipped it for me. I saw it on Instagram. Um, I turned it off before you start talking. I was like, I, I'm good. I get enough at the office. Um, they said it worked. That was the response to it. And I think that there were moments in this movie where I was like, I love this. There were moments when I thought, I can't stand this. Um, my biggest takeaway though, was this was an enormous, enormous celebration of and validation of James Gunn, the universe builder, and the comic book whisperer. At times I felt his success in that half of his job was a little bit in direct conflict with his abilities as a director and as a filmmaker.

• 12:07Andy Greenwald?

  That like, one of the, one of the, I think maybe the, the, the best way to articulate that is to say, I don't think I have any interest in watching this movie again.

• 12:15Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:16Andy Greenwald?

  But I am weirdly fond of the experience of watching it, the world he created, and I'm pretty psyched to go back to that world again.

• 12:24Chris Ryan?

  And Superman two.

• 12:25Andy Greenwald?

  Or Supergirl, Woman of Tomorrow, or Justice Gang, or whatever the next thousand movies are going to be. Um, so to circle back all the way, it really worked and there are some key reasons why, and we can get into it, but I'm curious about your thoughts.

• 12:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I, I liked it as well. I really liked the first half of it and felt somewhat bored by the second half of it.

• 12:45Andy Greenwald?

  When it just became building punching?

• 12:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, not out of any kind of like, I think, I think I had pretty high expectations for just given Gunn, even though I'm a little dubious of some of his sensibilities, or maybe I'm a little deaf to some of his sensibilities. I think that I was really excited to see.

• 13:05Chris Ryan?

  For the lack of a better term, like a pretty auteur-driven Superman movie or superhero movie, which I don't feel like we get that much anymore because the way that these franchises have kind of worked and the way that these cinematic universes have kind of worked is it's become more of almost like a top-down executive incorporation, like we need to move all these pieces around to have a sequel. So I was excited to see this. Like Guns talked a lot about the importance of script. He told Rolling Stone, "I do believe that the reason why the movie industry is dying is not because of people not wanting to see movies. It's not because of home screens getting so good. The number one reason is because people are making movies without a finished screenplay." And I was excited to kind of see this in action.

• 13:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 13:51Chris Ryan?

  And I think you can see what he's talking about on screen.

• 13:55Andy Greenwald?

  Can I jump on that point? Just to say, one of the best things about the movie, no caveats, is that this is the movie he wanted to make. This is 100% the creative aesthetic vision of one guy who has certain feelings about this character, about how he should be portrayed, about how a comic book universe should look and feel and be on the screen.

• 14:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:15Andy Greenwald?

  And it's tactile. And sometimes those decisions, those very personal decisions, can rub you or me or other people in the audience the wrong way. Or you sort of bump on them in a way that you are not used to bumping with such streamlined, hyper-expensive IP entertainment. I think that's a good thing.

• 14:33Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 14:34Andy Greenwald?

  And the mark of a creator is probably the reason why I netted out so much on the positive side of the ledger.

• 14:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think he basically has, first of all, there's very recognizable recurring themes and images in his movies. There's eyeball slash body horror. There's an obvious deep affection for animals. There is...

• 14:56Andy Greenwald?

  Superman saves squirrels now.

• 14:58Chris Ryan?

  And there is this tonal, sharp turn that he...

• 15:04Chris Ryan?

  He can make, I don't always enjoy the ride, which is from real tongue in cheek, everybody's a fucking wise ass, to this is the most sincere and emo moment I can possibly manufacture in an absolutely ridiculous circumstance, be it a raccoon and another guy talking, or Superman and his dog and a black hole, kicking himself into a black hole or whatever.

• 15:31Andy Greenwald?

  Well, he's holding a green baby.

• 15:33Chris Ryan?

  Yes, yes. So like, there's a lot of sass and there's a lot of sentiment, and sometimes it really works for me and sometimes it doesn't. But in this movie, generally speaking, I kind of walked out and I was like, I got, you did what you set out to do. I think you're right. And I think my, a lot of like my like kind of trepidation, or maybe my, um, my 70%, 75% enthusiasm for this movie is really just about my, my relationship to Superman as a character. And a conversation I kind of want to have with you a little bit here about

• 16:08Chris Ryan?

  what we want these movies to do that adapt comic books.

• 16:11Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 16:12Chris Ryan?

  I think I've realized that the thing that I love most about comic books is the depth of mythology and history and the overlapping narratives and character relationships. And, you know, we joke about like asterix, refer back to Fantastic Four 263.

• 16:31Andy Greenwald?

  I thought you were talking about the legendary French comic asterix. Get at me and the Patreon. I'll do a whole pot on that.

• 16:36Chris Ryan?

  But you know, I was doing research for this last night and inevitably started reading about all the different, um, you know, crises that affected the DC comic universe.

• 16:46Andy Greenwald?

  The crises of infinite earths.

• 16:47Chris Ryan?

  Exactly. I don't mean, I don't mean behind the scenes. I mean literally like

• 16:50Andy Greenwald?

  Comics Call Back.

• 16:51Chris Ryan?

  Planets, universes collapsing, time portals, all this stuff. And I was like, man.

• 16:57Chris Ryan?

  That, that, we're never gonna get that. Like, you're never gonna get the amount of movies, the length of movies, whatever you wanna say. We're never gonna hit that, like, we're on a trapeze without a net. I have no idea, like, how they're, how, I, sure, yes, in a perfect world, you could do it. Like, you could do it. But, but I spent, like, most of the weekend, I was reading a bunch of Jonathan Hickman for some reason. So I was reading, most of, mostly, I was reading East of West, which is his apocalyptic western that he, he did about 10 years ago. And I couldn't even start to explain it. I couldn't even start to explain the mythology and, like, the religious iconography of it. I could, but we'd be here all day. And it's so hard to get to a movie.

• 17:42Chris Ryan?

  Even, and, and even a character as straightforward as Superman, that would be so hard.

• 17:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 17:48Chris Ryan?

  To ever replicate the, so I guess you have to take the, basically, the peanut butter and jelly version of it, which is like, this is a guy who stands for hope and justice.

• 17:56Andy Greenwald?

  See, I, first of all, I'm just thinking of the spinoff pod, House of CR. It's just been right there the whole time, where you just talk about the Jonathan Hickman comics you read on your iPad sometimes on the weekends, a few days away. I, I think, I think both things can be true, and I think that this movie uniquely delivered on both poles of the Superman existence, or of the Superman, um, character. Pole one, which I think is, like, immovable and vital, is the true origin of the character. Not that he's sent from Krypton, for whatever reason, and this movie complicates that in a way that was clever, I thought. Although, I believe that has some precedent in some alternate storytelling in the comics or in the cartoons.

• 18:39Andy Greenwald?

  That Superman was created in the shadow of World War by two Jewish-American guys, who absolutely were talking about fear of a planet collapsing into fascism and being an immigrant and being an outsider, and being accepted or not accepted, and what truth justice in an American way might look like.

• 18:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:59Andy Greenwald?

  That is what makes the character useful, and that's what makes the character unique and special, and you can't get away from that. The other half of it is, yeah, there's been 70 years of this character, plus 80 years. So it's, um, uh, there's Bizarro Superman, and there's, you know, multi-universal Superman, and there's so many different versions of him and iterations of him. The thing about James Gunn that is- Increasingly, I'm realizing, almost one of one, is that he is the, he gets everything there is to be gotten about comic books and what makes them special. And he so far is the best translator app for that to the big screen. So when you're talking about hallmarks of his storytelling, like, he loves splash panels.

• 19:42Andy Greenwald?

  There's no other way to call it, because when he does things like he did in the first Guardians movie, where the Guardians are like escaping the prison, and then it slows down, and they all look so fucking cool, it's not even possible. That's a comic book splash panel. He does that a bunch in this, too, when like the camera slows down and pans across the S on his chest, or, you know, there's a certain punch that's delivered in a certain way. He thinks in comic book panel storytelling, which is amazing. But I think he also understands the purity of the character awash in a world that has spiraled up to the modern day of not just the canonical changes and craziness of comic books, but also our collective societal-changing relationship to this character that himself hasn't changed that much.

• 20:23Andy Greenwald?

  So there are these little details that I appreciated, not just that, yeah, at a certain point, like Superman would be friends with other superheroes or know them, okay. But that when he dislocates his own super arm to allow his mad clone to be sucked into a black hole, you think, whoa, that was a clever way for Superman to win this fight without violating his moral code, and also, that clone's gonna be back as some kind of villain, take your pick from 80 years of DC continuity. He's doing all of it at the same time, and so there can be a feeling of too muchness. But the other thing that he gets about comics that is crucial is that part of the joy of

• 21:05Andy Greenwald?

  becoming a comic book fan at the age that he did, or the age that I did, or I think it's happened for you in the last 18 months, but like, you know what I mean? Is that when you're, what you just said about like the larger mythology? No one ever starts a comic book, or certainly like a legacy character, with issue one. The idea that we need to onboard people is a handholding of modern contrivance.

• 21:30Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's the idea, if you're gonna spend $300 million making a movie, you have to make a billion dollars to make it a relatively profitable exercise. So then, what is, like, as I have a note here, which is basically like, I wonder if seeing this movie without any familiarity with DC would be like watching F1, having never come across in a Formula One car.

• 21:49Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that, first of all, I haven't seen it yet, but that would be me. But second, I think that it's built for those people. I think he thought about that. Like, one of the best things about the movie, to me, is the way it starts.

• 22:00Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 22:00Andy Greenwald?

  And it starts by saying, 300 years ago this happened, 30 years ago this happened, 3 years ago this happened, 3 months, 3 minutes. Here's Superman.

• 22:08Chris Ryan?

  Yep.

• 22:09Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, great.

• 22:09Chris Ryan?

  And they're already dating. Him and Lois are dating.

• 22:12Andy Greenwald?

  Oh my god, there's so much time saved. And I think there's a quote going around with him saying that we never need to see Martha Wayne's pearls in the alley when Bruce loses his parents, or Spider-Man get bitten by a spider. Like, we collectively get it. It's like if you say Hercules, or you say it like The Klumps did it, right? Like, a nutty professor, like. Either way, we know who we're talking about, right? Like, you don't need to explain that he's like real strong. Great movie.

• 22:36Andy Greenwald?

  The, uh, it saves, it saves so much time. And like, for me, and I imagine many people listening, like, who have a comic book entry story or introduction. Like, I remember in 7th grade, when my friend Mazzy gave me an issue of X Factor Cold. And I was like, wait, that guy shoots lasers out of his eyes? You know, actually, he doesn't, but I'll explain that in another upcoming pod. But what was exciting about it was the same excitement I got when like, I got a book about Greek myths when I was in elementary school, and you're like, oh shit, these guys know each other?

• 23:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you're jumping in in the rapids. It's like, you're not dipping a toe in and like, okay, and now this is how it starts. You're like, whoa!

• 23:12Andy Greenwald?

  And this is what fandom used to be too, as a music fan, or as a fan of literature.

• 23:16Chris Ryan?

  You look around and everybody's like, don't you know this already?

• 23:18Andy Greenwald?

  Well, this person's influenced by this, and this, so that, that piece was really fun. And I found that the way that he did that to be relatively bold, considering the stakes here, for, you know, to save an entire, not just like comic book, you know, cinematic universe, but a studio essentially, in Warner Brothers. But I, I thought it was fun.

• 23:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I thought it was cool. It lets every character... Kind of already be in the, in, in the sort of late first part, beginning second part of their arc. And I've wondered for an actor, that's very exciting. Cause it's almost like you can rev the engine up a little bit and be further along.

• 24:00Andy Greenwald?

  Who you are.

• 24:01Chris Ryan?

  And yeah, they like Lois is Lois. There's no like, who's this guy with glasses, you know? The only person I thought that it was challenging for was also my, I don't know if I, I really liked Corin's wife, but I thought it was challenging for Luther.

• 24:15Andy Greenwald?

  Let's talk about it, cause I think that we're talking about things that were just.

• 24:19Chris Ryan?

  Should I say Lex? I don't, I don't know what I'm.

• 24:21Andy Greenwald?

  No, they say Luther in the movie, so we have to say it now too. I think the two things that are unambiguously good about this movie that are the reason why it works, just hands down it works. If it's a yes or no question are Corin's wit and.

• 24:34Chris Ryan?

  Corin's wit?

• 24:35Andy Greenwald?

  Well, so, okay, sidebar here.

• 24:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:38Andy Greenwald?

  I've never actually listened to him say his name. However, there was a family at my school, which apparently, growing up, apparently this David went to my middle school.

• 24:48Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 24:49Andy Greenwald?

  20 years after me or whoever old he is, but so already, you know, we're supporting this kid.

• 24:55Chris Ryan?

  Sure, yeah.

• 24:56Andy Greenwald?

  But they pronounced their name Corin's wit.

• 24:58Chris Ryan?

  Okay, my bad.

• 24:58Andy Greenwald?

  Does he say Corin's wit?

• 24:59Chris Ryan?

  I haven't really heard him say his name either.

• 25:02Andy Greenwald?

  Thank you. Anyway.

• 25:03Chris Ryan?

  We could just say Dave.

• 25:04Andy Greenwald?

  Big Dave.

• 25:05Chris Ryan?

  Philly Dave.

• 25:05Andy Greenwald?

  He's awesome. I loved him in this role. I think it's fantastic. I think that's, they did it. They got a Superman. Um, and I think Nicholas Holt is just, he's always been one of my favorite freaks. And I think that he is just, he just kills it.

• 25:19Chris Ryan?

  He's great. Did you at all trip over? It's just Lex is already like, I'm losing my mind about this guy.

• 25:28Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, like the sense that there wasn't a long, there wasn't an arc for him to travel?

• 25:32Chris Ryan?

  It was, I, I just, I was just wondering whether anyone else tripped over or had like, kind of was like, oh, so he's already just out of his mind about Superman.

• 25:43Andy Greenwald?

  What's funny is that like, you're talking about how it's beneficial to actors maybe to start midstream. And I was reading about this, that like when the great Wendell Pierce, whom we love, of course, don't we folks from The Wire and other things? Thinking about the plane still. Um, he wasn't on it, but he, uh. Do you think this is gonna be the famous lost episode of the pod? It's just gonna get like stripped from the internet?

• 26:09Andy Greenwald?

  He, his, he said in an interview that his version of Perry White, and he doesn't have a lot of like, there's not a lot of room for him to do much of anything other than to be the archetype of the character, which he does well, was that, uh, he did the part as if Lex had stolen his wife? And had like slept with his wife and broken up his marriage. So he was, now I feel like that might be a conflict of interest journalistically speaking, but like, let's be honest. Like, what's that dude that Veritas project?

• 26:37Chris Ryan?

  I think the Daily Planet has some ethically-

• 26:40Andy Greenwald?

  I think there's some issues.

• 26:41Chris Ryan?

  They don't have a standards and practices department there.

• 26:44Andy Greenwald?

  But so there, there's some backstory there. I think that, um, what I, I hear you about the emotional A to B of, of the part, but what I loved about it was that he already had built a pocket universe to do all of this. The mad genius of it loved it, but also the, it's a fucking comic book, man. He built a pocket universe. That's what I love most. There is just an assumption of a pretty trippy superhero world that actually is one of the more radical things about the movie. It, that it, that there's just a sort of a shrug element to it.

• 27:25Andy Greenwald?

  The, the, the best illustration of that was the scene where Clark and Lois talk lit by the Justice Gang fighting an interdimensional space imp-

• 27:36Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 27:36Andy Greenwald?

  -out the window.

• 27:37Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 27:37Andy Greenwald?

  You either, it, it, these are little, little stress tests in a way that I kind of admire. It's like, are you buying this or are you not? If you're, because if you're not, you're like, why is anyone living in a city that could be ripped apart by a black hole river at any moment?

• 27:52Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 27:53Andy Greenwald?

  If you accept the fact that somehow there are no casualties and everyone has a pretty good attitude about it and weird shit happens all the time, you're on board. And I, I, I actually kind of like that a little bit more all in than I like the fact that the Marvel Universe has been wrestling with the tragedy of Sokovia for 15 years.

• 28:12Speaker 00

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• 29:38Speaker 05

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• 30:09Chris Ryan?

  That brings me to my next topic I want to discuss with you. Does this movie position DC to out Marvel Marvel? Because for the longest time DC under Snyder and, and all the stuff that was going on, you know, from the tens on.

• 30:27Chris Ryan?

  I think we're trying to position it visually, tonally, as like an alternative, as a different brand. Desaturated, dark, traumatized, you know, superheroes who were breaking each other's necks, throwing each other off the planet and stuff. And it's just very like gritty, you know, but also just humorless, joyless, and kind of obviously lacked a kind of, uh, obviously didn't resonate with people as much, Snyder fans aside, like on a, on a mass level, like the way the Marvel stuff was. Uh, but I got what they were trying to do in so much as like, you can't, can't do bantery fun. We're standing here on a set in Atlanta,

• 31:12Chris Ryan?

  just kind of making jokes and then like, we'll have a MacGuffin to, to figure out. You can't do that while like Marvel's doing the same thing. Uh, this felt like he basically was like, I have the, I am actually to some extent, the later period Marvel secret sauce.

• 31:31Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 31:31Chris Ryan?

  And I am bringing that to this movie. It's colorful. It's funny. The characters all feel like they know each other. The actors have great chemistry. And yeah, it has the same problem that a lot of Marvel's do where it's like the last 40 minutes of it are just like flying, like seal, seal up the core of the earth.

• 31:49Andy Greenwald?

  Punch, punch.

• 31:50Chris Ryan?

  But then punch the building and then this. Um, do you think that this like sets DC up for an exciting future?

• 31:59Andy Greenwald?

  Well, specifically in terms of the aesthetic thing, like James Gunn has talked about how influenced he was by the Grant Morrison and Frank Whiteley All-Star Superman comic, but particularly the colorist, Jamie Grant and the, and the, the sort of bright pastels and the wash of it. Um, that alone changed my mood. Like the, the colors and the lightness visually, everything in Marvel is dark purples and greens now. And I think that's because of the CGI budget. I mean, you see these leaked photos from the set of Doomsday and it's four people walking around with essentially the contemporary equivalent of ping pong balls.

• 32:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:36Andy Greenwald?

  Because they draw in everything.

• 32:37Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 32:38Andy Greenwald?

  I'm not saying that Superman was some like cinema verite experience, but you don't feel the sameness, which I think is the kind of intentional choice that you can make when you are the filmmaker and the, the Kevin Feige architect of everything. Um, so that was nice to see. Um, I think.

• 32:57Andy Greenwald?

  I think what remains to be seen is how much of the next few years of this stuff is individually distinguished articulated visions, the way that he has talked about wanting to make some things, like what's the one, the Clayface is the one that's like weirdly being fast-tracked. And I can't imagine that that's gonna have a similar color palette. It's also interesting to consider how Lanterns, which is coming to HBO next year and is filming now, is set in this universe with the same Green Lantern Corps. And I believe Guy Gardner is going to appear even maybe just passingly in it, but it's a

• 33:35Chris Ryan?

  Nathan Fillion.

• 33:35Andy Greenwald?

  Nathan Fillion's character of Guy Gardner, but it is gonna be showing very, you know, the log line is that it's basically like True Detective with space cops. So how that's gonna talk to each other, I don't know. I think one of the things about the movie that may repel some people, honestly, and it was probably the thing that I was having the most trouble with in the beginning, was it's just sort of untroubled, shrugging acceptance that movies, the way, at least on the big screen scale, the way you and I like to think of them, just don't really exist anymore. Like, the first 30 minutes of this movie was a much better expression of it, but was not too dissimilar in its storytelling style from the last Mission Impossible movie, which just felt like

• 34:17Chris Ryan?

  It starts five times.

• 34:18Andy Greenwald?

  It starts five times with almost unrelated haikus of scene work, you know, just like laid on top of each other, as if they are streaming videos that you're scrolling through. And that, all told, like, this movie, it's the first thing I said, like, it created a world and a vibe and a spirit that I really enjoyed. And sidebar on that, like, the movie is about kindness and like, great, please, more of that. I think that that is not corny. I think that is fantastic. But it is not a standalone vision of something. And maybe there's power in that, like, admitting that. I think that a lot of the Marvel movies have kind of fumbled a little bit in the last few years, because maybe we have still been

• 35:02Andy Greenwald?

  viewing them as, this one is good, this one is not good, this one is exceptionally good, this one is, well, they've all settled into kind of a C-plus range. Maybe a more successful expression of that would be Look, we're just admitting that these are $300 million TV shows now and they are all kinda connected.

• 35:20Chris Ryan?

  Well, I think that was actually, if I had, I would say that the Marvel fatigue really set in when they were doing $300 million versions of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. where it was like,

• 35:30Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 35:30Chris Ryan?

  We're treading water to get to some next big thing.

• 35:35Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 35:36Chris Ryan?

  But we don't know how to tell a story.

• 35:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, with that.

• 35:38Chris Ryan?

  That doesn't have the, at least like the suggestion or the lure that Mephisto's gonna show up or Reed Richards is gonna show up or something in this thing is gonna be huge for the future of Marvel. And they never really did that, you know, like actually post Endgame, they really kind of lost the ability to pay the viewers back for their really like long-term service to the, to the company.

• 36:06Andy Greenwald?

  But also when we look back on it, is it, is it old fashioned to look at it like, oh, Black Panther and Endgame were, and you know,

• 36:17Chris Ryan?

  The second Ant-Man.

• 36:18Andy Greenwald?

  Winter Soldier or whatever.

• 36:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right.

• 36:20Andy Greenwald?

  Those are really good.

• 36:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:21Andy Greenwald?

  Because I, I will also say that like in my re-watch of some Marvel movies with my kids, like my memory, I've talked about this in the pod before, but it's relevant here that like, in my mind, I was like, Ant-Man was really great. It was really fun, you know, like it really hit all of the pleasure centers and told a story, but also, and I watched it and it's pretty rough. It's a good hang. It's a good vibe. It creates a good character and there are really good scenes. But how much of that movie is Corey Stoll being like, you'll never get the formula? Like it's, it's weirdly.

• 36:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:53Andy Greenwald?

  Kinda rough.

• 36:54Chris Ryan?

  I don't know if they're meant to be re-watched in the way we re-watched Die Hard. I think they're meant to be re-watched as a chapter in a long saga.

• 37:02Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 37:03Chris Ryan?

  And, and as part of like, uh, oh, well, if Doomsday's coming, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do a big MCU re-watch, you know, like.

• 37:11Andy Greenwald?

  So I, so what did this movie do differently that I think?

• 37:14Chris Ryan?

  Cause I think the end of the movie, you're just like, the movie's over. Like, like this film is over. You know, Lex is in prison.

• 37:21Andy Greenwald?

  They did that on purpose, which I appreciated. Like, and the, and the extra scenes are just nice. They're fun. I think it's, it's an interesting way to respect the viewer in both directions because one of the fun things about the movie is, oh shit, there's a pocket universe. Oh damn, it's a prison. Wait, Metamorphos just sad and sitting in a corner here? Okay, like, how'd he get there? What's the story? Maybe we'll never know. But then also respecting audiences at the end, leaving them feeling good, knowing that like the nature of these things, the rules of the game, is that like when, when, is that Lex isn't gonna die? Cause they would just be resurrected. So we put him in prison. Okay, we'll see how long that lasts.

• 38:00Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 38:00Andy Greenwald?

  Like, there's a certain kind of-

• 38:02Chris Ryan?

  Like prison where, you know?

• 38:03Andy Greenwald?

  What's that?

• 38:04Chris Ryan?

  Where?

• 38:05Andy Greenwald?

  No, they said where, and it's the prison that, um, that the character, what's her name, from Suicide Squad runs?

• 38:10Chris Ryan?

  Oh, uh, Viola Davis does?

• 38:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. Yeah, so there's a lot of like little winky winkies like that.

• 38:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and Peacemakers in it.

• 38:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 38:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:18Andy Greenwald?

  Peacemakers in it. You wanna, you wanna, you wanna drill down on that? Um, by the way, like, the other thing about James Gunn that I, I feel like, like, I've, if you've never, I've never had any interaction with that guy. I don't know him at all. But the, kind of like what Chris Storer-

• 38:34Chris Ryan?

  Actually, I have, I, you know, he's only responding to my tweets.

• 38:38Andy Greenwald?

  No, I just feel like, on that, on a, on a personal and professional level, I'm never gonna get over the fact where you're like, Tracy Letts is my friend. That was so wild. So you could be like, well, Jim and I text, but we only text about golf. I would be, I would believe it.

• 38:51Chris Ryan?

  No, I have no interactions with him.

• 38:53Andy Greenwald?

  It reminds me a little bit of, of Chris Storer's vibe on The Bear, where he just seems to be so beloved by the people that he works with, that they'll just show up for him. And I kind of like that feeling.

• 39:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he has-

• 39:05Andy Greenwald?

  He cultivates the same people, he has a large family of-

• 39:07Chris Ryan?

  Has a theater company, yeah.

• 39:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and they, and they show up for him, and they seem excited to be a part of the world, and he pays it forward also by not just recycling the expected people. Um, he also pays it forward by casting his brother constantly. So his brother now is like Maxwell Lord in this new universe.

• 39:24Chris Ryan?

  I do think though, if, uh, one of the reasons why, you know, I saw a lot of stuff where it's just like, is this movie successful enough? You know, and I bet it's gonna be just fine. And I think part of the reason is that Gunn's really good at, he has talked about this himself, making stars rather than casting stars.

• 39:44Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:44Chris Ryan?

  Um, obviously, he made one with the casting of Superman, but Brosnan's great, uh, Eddie Categi is, is great, like-

• 39:54Andy Greenwald?

  My guy from Prior Patch, he's great to see Eddie.

• 39:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, like, all these people are kind of like, oh, I've seen this person on TV, or I saw that David Corn, I now really got my head-

• 40:02Andy Greenwald?

  I'm in your head? Kai, what did we decide?

• 40:04Speaker 04

  Core and sweat.

• 40:05Andy Greenwald?

  Core and sweat?

• 40:06Speaker 04

  Core and sweat.

• 40:09Chris Ryan?

  What was your version of it?

• 40:10Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I, I shout out.

• 40:11Chris Ryan?

  Krenswit?

• 40:12Andy Greenwald?

  Shout out to Jessica Krenswit, who I don't know what happened to her. A nice person who I went to school with. I don't mean something bad happened to her. She didn't fly on the plane.

• 40:19Chris Ryan?

  She's sitting right next to Bam Boddy.

• 40:22Andy Greenwald?

  She's passing notes. I'm just saying, that's how she said her name.

• 40:25Chris Ryan?

  The note, "We don't actually have the list."

• 40:30Andy Greenwald?

  And then the fucking Veep music plays.

• 40:35Chris Ryan?

  It's like Roman, Roman Roy. Seeing the fucking.

• 40:40Andy Greenwald?

  Satellite explode or whatever it was. It is. Uh, uh, uh, yes, all of that.

• 40:47Andy Greenwald?

  We're talking about his star making apparatus.

• 40:48Chris Ryan?

  I just, I think that he can keep costs down in that department. You don't have like 60 million dollars to get.

• 40:54Andy Greenwald?

  No, he's clearly also a Barry fan. Um, because not only was Anthony, um.

• 41:00Chris Ryan?

  Kerrigan.

• 41:00Andy Greenwald?

  Kerrigan Metamorpho, but.

• 41:02Chris Ryan?

  Kryg, Krygnan, yes.

• 41:03Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, is this what we're doing now?

• 41:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:05Andy Greenwald?

  Um, no, the guy, the guy from, the guy was investigating him was also the hype, the, in the government.

• 41:13Chris Ryan?

  Which guy?

• 41:14Andy Greenwald?

  So there's Frank Grillo.

• 41:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Frank Grillo.

• 41:16Andy Greenwald?

  And then next to him is the guy from Barry.

• 41:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, the FBI agent.

• 41:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, he was awesome.

• 41:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:22Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, I, yeah, I, I, he's so good at, Gunn is so good at putting together a team of, of jokers and losers.

• 41:32Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:32Andy Greenwald?

  That's just his vibe and it was interesting because he, his heart is so much in the, the B stuff. Like the, the Justice Gang stuff, the, the single perfect joke of Skylar Gisando, who's awesome. But just being an unambiguous ladies man that everyone loves.

• 41:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:50Andy Greenwald?

  Is just, that's just a good bit and that kid is great. And that was really sweet and funny that it was interesting to see Gunn trying to lay the heavier A story on top of it. That said. I think the best, in a way, I think that was the secret sauce of the movie. Because in other, in everything other than the original Richard Donner, Christopher Reeve movies, Superman is a man apart. He is a god among mortals, right? And he's a little bit, he's extremely stoic because of that, which is just not that compelling to watch all the time. Or at least in my experience, brief experience with the comics, it's just not that. What's interesting is about Superman in most of the comics that I have read outside of

• 42:32Andy Greenwald?

  the Grant Morrison version of it is that he and Batman have a funny rapport. Because Batman's just like, it's kind of like us.

• 42:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:40Andy Greenwald?

  You know what I mean? Someone floating above everything, another one just down in the trenches with the people, popping zins, punching dudes. But with all of the nonsense around it, the boy scout who says, golly, who actually is more powerful than all of them, works.

• 42:55Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 42:56Andy Greenwald?

  And the humanity of him comes across. And I didn't mind things like literally giving the character a mission statement that you feel like James Gunn may have delivered to David Zaslove or whoever was in charge of DC at the time when he was hired.

• 43:07Chris Ryan?

  Like upon the pitch.

• 43:07Andy Greenwald?

  When he's just like, I am more human than you and here is why.

• 43:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. More human than human.

• 43:13Andy Greenwald?

  It worked. It's good.

• 43:14Chris Ryan?

  Uh.

• 43:15Andy Greenwald?

  You a Brosnahan guy? Where are you at with that Lois? She was a punk rocker.

• 43:18Chris Ryan?

  Thought they had really good chemistry.

• 43:23Chris Ryan?

  Don't, I thought Jimmy really got that scoop and Lois was like, I'll dictate the story, you know? Some newsroom politics going on there?

• 43:32Andy Greenwald?

  He goes Haberman, Haberman vibes. First of all, why didn't we start with this? This movie really, really still believes in the power of journalism.

• 43:41Chris Ryan?

  Not only that.

• 43:42Andy Greenwald?

  And the press.

• 43:43Chris Ryan?

  Uh, if the core of the earth is opening up to reveal a black hole and I'm being attacked by multiple supervillains, I don't know if my notifications are on for the Daily Planet.

• 43:57Andy Greenwald?

  No, nor am I glued.

• 43:59Chris Ryan?

  Or like, oh, look at this story about Lex.

• 44:00Andy Greenwald?

  To Michael Ian Black's talk show at that exact moment. You know? And I don't know if that would move my needle. Now, again, it's a suspension of disbelief. Half of Metropolis has been literally torn asunder and then 20 minutes pass where there's room for some banter.

• 44:18Andy Greenwald?

  And then the crack is making its way across the river. And I think Lois says, people live there.

• 44:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:23Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, do they not live?

• 44:24Chris Ryan?

  They live everywhere.

• 44:25Andy Greenwald?

  Is it like LA where everyone's just like, maybe we'll go downtown to a restaurant, but otherwise we pretend it doesn't exist?

• 44:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:30Andy Greenwald?

  I think people are everywhere, but Superman's still saving the squirrels.

• 44:34Chris Ryan?

  They seem to be pretty familiar with like evacuations and stuff like that.

• 44:37Andy Greenwald?

  They're used to it.

• 44:37Chris Ryan?

  So we've talked a lot about what we've liked. We said, I liked this movie, like in a kind of normal way at the beginning. Then we've talked for 30 minutes about all the cool things in it.

• 44:48Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 44:48Chris Ryan?

  So what didn't you like?

• 44:50Andy Greenwald?

  Um, well, I did talk about that in the sense that like it felt sort of narratively incoherent at the beginning. I didn't like, okay, I didn't, I was surprised, although when you see how super stuffed the movie is, I guess it kind of makes sense. That there is basically only one Clark Kent scene.

• 45:06Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:07Andy Greenwald?

  Um, and then really only relatively little room for Clark Lois stuff.

• 45:12Chris Ryan?

  I think it's honestly like not my favorite convention is like no, I know the glasses thing, but like.

• 45:17Andy Greenwald?

  That was cute.

• 45:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And it's good for him for explaining it. And I know it's in the canon, but it is one of the things where I'm just like, that's Superman.

• 45:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. So why does he need to have an alter ego? Like I would.

• 45:28Chris Ryan?

  Why does he need to be a journalist? That's a, that's one less job for journalists.

• 45:32Andy Greenwald?

  That's a really good point. And also he's making up his shit.

• 45:35Chris Ryan?

  He's interviewing himself.

• 45:36Andy Greenwald?

  He's basically like Jason, what was the guy's name? Jason Blair, Stephen Glass, these guys, he's a fabulous.

• 45:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:43Andy Greenwald?

  I don't care for it. Um, was, was the Daily Planet's web publishing system similar to what you use at The Ringer? Or what you used to have back in Greenland?

• 45:52Chris Ryan?

  It looked like they had a proprietary CMS, like their own thing. I've never seen the to copy, but also to web and publish thing. But I've never worked at a print, I haven't, it's been a long time since I worked at a print organization.

• 46:05Andy Greenwald?

  Have you ever hit publish to web from a spaceship?

• 46:10Chris Ryan?

  Uh, no. Have I ever published anything off ground, like from a plane? I don't think so.

• 46:15Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 46:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:16Andy Greenwald?

  That's not where, is that where you will choose to release the client list? You're flying. Over international waters to avoid prosecution. Um, okay. I think that what you're setting me up to do is talk about the dog. And I would like to hear your thoughts.

• 46:31Chris Ryan?

  Let me ask you this.

• 46:34Chris Ryan?

  I didn't like it.

• 46:35Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 46:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I'm not, I just, that was just way too much screen time for a dog.

• 46:40Andy Greenwald?

  Now, you're not a dog guy.

• 46:42Chris Ryan?

  I was, I was, I was trying to think of like, would I have a problem with it if it was a cat?

• 46:46Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 46:46Chris Ryan?

  And I would. I would.

• 46:48Andy Greenwald?

  That, that is the kind of accountability.

• 46:51Chris Ryan?

  I think that it was just like. It would have been, I know that. I, I don't even know how to articulate this without coming off anti-dog or something like that.

• 47:00Andy Greenwald?

  I'm gonna sit back. This is. Kaya, zoom in.

• 47:03Chris Ryan?

  I like dogs. I think dogs are cool. Yeah.

• 47:06Andy Greenwald?

  Sounds like, said exactly the way someone who doesn't like dogs.

• 47:09Chris Ryan?

  Really want to get into it? We can talk a little bit about where we are at as a Los Angeles city.

• 47:14Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, in terms of our.

• 47:15Chris Ryan?

  Of our dog owners and maybe how too many people got dogs during COVID. And now are just like, the world is my dog's toilet. And I don't really care about sidewalk space. We can get into that.

• 47:28Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 47:28Chris Ryan?

  It doesn't seem like you want to.

• 47:30Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I'm not afraid of a tough conversation. I'm not Cash Patel over here.

• 47:33Chris Ryan?

  So you, when you're walking around LA, you're just like, this is normal.

• 47:36Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, walking around LA, fuck out of here.

• 47:40Chris Ryan?

  When you're outside your house.

• 47:41Andy Greenwald?

  Uh huh.

• 47:42Chris Ryan?

  You're just like, this is a normal amount of dogs.

• 47:45Andy Greenwald?

  Um, well. It's a question of which part of town I'm walking in. Am I more concerned about the roving packs of dogs or the tent cities? You know, so like walking around LA is, it's a kind of a fraught.

• 47:58Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 47:58Andy Greenwald?

  Thing. I, I do. I, I think that there is, as a, uh. Uh, what's the opposite of child free? As a child full person?

• 48:08Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:08Andy Greenwald?

  I do think that sometimes there's a little over, uh, investment in the dogs.

• 48:13Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 48:13Andy Greenwald?

  You know, as like children. But, but what's, one of my favorite thing about this podcast so far is that we're just like, Bill Clinton was on the Epstein plane. But when it comes time to saying something slightly sideways about the way people are with dogs.

• 48:26Chris Ryan?

  You know what it was?

• 48:27Andy Greenwald?

  Shut it down.

• 48:28Chris Ryan?

  I didn't like it, but I appreciated, I didn't like crypto, but I appreciated that it was a choice. And then he was like, this thing is actually fucking important to me. And, and it's gonna be in the movie for 20 minutes.

• 48:39Andy Greenwald?

  And he keeps saving him. Like, that's the thing.

• 48:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:41Andy Greenwald?

  I. Was surprised how, how much Superdog there was. I like it again, I think I overall liked it because I liked the ways that Gunn was just letting everyone know what DC comic book movies are gonna be. Like, he's not afraid to go towards the parts of the canon that most mainstream adaptations have run screaming from ever since the Batman show in the 60s.

• 49:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:12Andy Greenwald?

  They're like, this is all part of it and we just gotta roll with it. And I've said it before, I'll say it again, like, that I think is one of the genius things of Grant Morrison in their comics, which is like, oh, it's all one story. You don't just cherry pick the cool parts. Like, the 60s Batman was a part of Batman lore and we're gonna have to wrestle with it in some fun or surprising way. So I kinda like that. The fact that the dog saved him so many times was kinda surprising.

• 49:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. The dog's facility with black holes.

• 49:41Andy Greenwald?

  You mean like avoiding them?

• 49:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:44Andy Greenwald?

  That's true.

• 49:45Chris Ryan?

  Like, why was everybody so nervous about the proton river?

• 49:49Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that was the thing, like, so Mr. Terrific says, "That is a raging river of like negative energy protons. To go approach it would equal death." And then, four to six minutes later, Superman is fucking whitewater kayaking.

• 50:05Chris Ryan?

  Fighting himself while holding a baby.

• 50:07Andy Greenwald?

  While holding a baby and the dog's just like jumping from thing to thing.

• 50:11Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 50:11Andy Greenwald?

  So, you know, forgive me Superman, I wasn't familiar with that part of your game, that you can just actually cannonball into a negative proton black hole river. But that's cool, that he can.

• 50:22Chris Ryan?

  I mean, he can do anything as long as kryptonite's not evolved, right?

• 50:25Andy Greenwald?

  It seems like it. I mean, and then as long as he gets, as long as he gets that vitamin C.

• 50:30Chris Ryan?

  He has to get his.

• 50:31Andy Greenwald?

  He's gotta get the vitamin D. Oh no, I've done it completely wrong. Which one comes from oranges?

• 50:37Chris Ryan?

  C, but D is the sun.

• 50:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 50:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:40Andy Greenwald?

  Great.

• 50:40Chris Ryan?

  Um, what else didn't you like?

• 50:42Andy Greenwald?

  So, oh, but last thing on the dog.

• 50:45Chris Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 50:46Andy Greenwald?

  I did like that the dog's not his.

• 50:50Chris Ryan?

  Sure. Cool joke. It was a good joke. Or a good twist.

• 50:54Andy Greenwald?

  And I liked also the way.

• 50:55Chris Ryan?

  I didn't see that coming.

• 50:56Andy Greenwald?

  One of the, oh, really? You didn't have that in your?

• 51:00Andy Greenwald?

  I, again, it was like a thoughtful way. When we praise him for not putting, you know, scenes from future DC movies in the tags during the credits. The other thing to say is he artfully wove all that into the main body of the movie itself. So it's not like, oh, it's not like half the credits run and then ding dong at the Fortress of Solitude. Well, I have a cousin. It's like, he's had a cousin. Supergirl is here. It's Millie Alcock from Sirens and How's the Dragon? And totally different vibe, totally different character, and the dog's her. So there's a little connective tissue. I thought that was artfully done and amusing.

• 51:40Andy Greenwald?

  What else didn't you like?

• 51:42Chris Ryan?

  I think this might be a Superman problem and not a James Gunn version of Superman problem. But I don't really get up in the morning and be like, it's cool that that guy can just stop anything from falling on anyone.

• 51:55Andy Greenwald?

  At the right moment?

• 51:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And just like generally the action of Superman. I think the flying is cool, but generally speaking, like, I think the action is way too over the top with too many rules. So he, what does he just like throw the engineer in the ground really hard? What happens to her?

• 52:14Andy Greenwald?

  Other than setting her up for the authority movie that they're gonna make at some point? You don't want to get, you don't want to talk Wildstorm comics? All right. Fine.

• 52:26Andy Greenwald?

  What did he do? He flew into space and then crashed into the earth.

• 52:30Chris Ryan?

  He doesn't kill anyone, is my point. Yes. Although it does sound like the president of Baravio did not live that through that fall.

• 52:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, because Hawkgirl is not Superman.

• 52:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Hawkgirl is an alien?

• 52:43Andy Greenwald?

  I I I I'm gonna have to get back to you on that.

• 52:45Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 52:46Andy Greenwald?

  Because my understanding.

• 52:47Chris Ryan?

  She's a reincarnated alien.

• 52:48Andy Greenwald?

  Are you goading me into saying Thanagor on this podcast? I can't go there, but but yes, when I Googled it, I was like, why? Why is she in a dorm room? And also, why are they making such a big deal about Superman being the only alien? But I guess she's the reincarnated alien. So it's a little bit of a loophole, you know, for her refugee status application.

• 53:06Chris Ryan?

  No, I'm just saying like when I read about hot girl, it was like she. There was like all this stuff where it's like she's a reincarnated alien.

• 53:12Andy Greenwald?

  Cool.

• 53:12Chris Ryan?

  And that's why she like kind of is on Team Supes.

• 53:15Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 53:16Chris Ryan?

  As as Guy Gardner is like, ah, fuck this guy. And she's like, I don't know, I like.

• 53:20Andy Greenwald?

  But he hangs with aliens. He's in an internet intergalactic space police force with aliens.

• 53:26Chris Ryan?

  And this is just all of them, they're workshopping names to get to Justice League.

• 53:30Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, that's what I would think.

• 53:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:32Andy Greenwald?

  But wouldn't be. You never know.

• 53:34Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 53:34Andy Greenwald?

  You could mix it up. Yeah, that's what he's doing, I guess.

• 53:37Chris Ryan?

  So, yeah, the action was colorful and I guess, you know, thrilling, but I thought that the more like kind of down to earth moments worked better for me just because I find Superman to be kind of like a one note kind of action.

• 53:54Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it's also it's a, I think, an issue that the movie, the the original series of movies faced especially, which is like, okay, you're establishing him as the most powerful person alive. What are the stakes here? What is he going up against?

• 54:06Chris Ryan?

  Basically that he has these like, he he has a code he lives by. So like there are certain things that he doesn't really want to do, right? Like he doesn't want to just.

• 54:13Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 54:13Chris Ryan?

  Pull someone's head off their body.

• 54:15Andy Greenwald?

  Would you like him more if he did? You just, that's the most excited I've seen you this whole pod. I I think the other thing.

• 54:20Chris Ryan?

  I'm excited. I'm excited to talk about this.

• 54:22Andy Greenwald?

  Here's the other thing. Gunn is a maximalist, so he wanted to take all the pieces of Superman that he's interested in and put them in the same movie. And I think that he is. Really, really talented so that he pulled it off.

• 54:38Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 54:38Andy Greenwald?

  That said, the most, I think, compelling, modern idea about Superman, actually not modern idea, because some of the first comics had him stopping wars, you know, like that's always been baked into these superheroes, especially the ones that came out of that era and of, and of, out of the shadow of World War II. But the idea of like, what is his personal moral authority or responsibility to involve himself?

• 54:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:59Andy Greenwald?

  Is a really rich text and a really compelling one. And I think that it was tough to integrate into such an already overstuffed movie. So that, like, you have these fictional countries that are either very cleverly hidden, uh, and, you know, one-to-one comparisons to things in the real world, or just really kind of ham-handed. I still haven't decided which is which. Um, and so that's-

• 55:26Chris Ryan?

  I think it was a ballsy move, but a bit ham-handed.

• 55:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 55:30Chris Ryan?

  It's like a little bit of both.

• 55:31Andy Greenwald?

  And I don't know the fix. I mean, is this the best version of it? But what was tricky about it is that it also wasn't alone, because it was also part of Lex's plan to create his own country, or to enrich himself, or to whatever. So it is tied into the supervillain plot, but it also has, you know, like, refugees waving Superman flags and praying for him.

• 55:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:55Andy Greenwald?

  There's also just, I, I, it's, I guess what I'll say is, it's, it'll be interesting to see how that resolves itself in the storytelling, because he is making a world, planet-sized epic here over the course of the DCU. The movie ends, or one of the endings, is Frank Grillo's character being like, I guess they're in charge now, or the other guy saying that to him. Um, what's that gonna look like? Like, and, and is James Gunn, the filmmaker, and is David Zaslove's Warner Brothers, the studio that actually wants to walk down that path and have conversations about other movies? I don't think they actually do. I think they kind of want to, you know, tease and feint at it, but-

• 56:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think that this will be-

• 56:40Chris Ryan?

  I think that the way that he manages this enterprise going forward is probably of great interest to us on a storytelling and a business side story, you know, like the idea of can you get away with telling really cool, somewhat siloed, unique stories? And he's already doing the thing that I think people are, I think that he did so well with Marvel by resurrecting Guardians from like the back of a drawer somewhere in the Marvel catalog is doing Clayface and Supergirl right after this?

• 57:15Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, well, in the same way of like doing who else are Superman's friends? Well, it's not Aquaman, Flash, and Wonder Woman. The people he knows are the Green Lantern, but not the one you're thinking of.

• 57:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:25Andy Greenwald?

  And not that other one either, the third one, Mr. Terrific, character I was not familiar with, and then Hawkgirl. I think it's smart and I think it's engaging and-

• 57:38Chris Ryan?

  Well, it allows him to put his own stamp on it. And that's ultimately, I think, the thing for better and a little bit for worse is like what you come away from this movie is that you feel like you got a unique vision of the character and a unique vision of the world. I don't know how many of these he's gonna direct or write, you know, like I'm very curious to see what his creative involvement, it was funny to go back and read the history, the recent history of this character and all the different sort of Henry Cavill pitches that had been made.

• 58:08Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, you mean within like what the recent history of the film version of the character?

• 58:12Chris Ryan?

  Yes, and in that there is a little bit of Dick Cheney being like, well, Mr. President, I'd be happy to serve, you know, it's like he takes over DCU and does a lot of like, I couldn't possibly direct Superman before, it's like, guess what, I'm gonna write and direct Superman.

• 58:30Andy Greenwald?

  I thought it was interesting that he was talking about now, this, I don't think he had talked about this publicly before, but during the time when he was fired from Marvel.

• 58:38Chris Ryan?

  Yes, well, I forgot to mention that that is a major plot of this movie.

• 58:43Andy Greenwald?

  Getting canceled for things that you didn't, or that you don't feel were worthy of-

• 58:47Chris Ryan?

  Are not the totality of your character.

• 58:49Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm, that's great, that's lucky you're finding the artist in the art, you're really good at this. He talks about how during that time, you know, then he- He bereft, he wandered, he wandered the town in DC, brought him in and they're like, do you want to do anything?

• 59:05Chris Ryan?

  He wandered the town stepping over all these dogs.

• 59:07Andy Greenwald?

  All these dogs. He was just like, I love you. I will be your champion.

• 59:13Andy Greenwald?

  He, then Alan Horn, who was then head of Disney Films, like called him back, like this isn't sitting right with me. Like, let's see what we can do here. And they basically said, you're welcome back in a meeting with Gunn, Alan Horn, and Kevin Feige. And he was like, this is beautiful. I've always, you know, I, I, I wanted to finish this with you. I love working with you guys, but I'm going to go do another movie first over at Warner Brothers because I've, during this interregnum, I've committed to it. And apparently Feige was like, are you fucking doing Superman? Like they knew, he, that was always the thing that he was going to do, even though he was playing very coy about it.

• 59:47Chris Ryan?

  But it's interesting. I mean, like, I think that in, in the reading about it, Gunn was like, oh, I finally found like this personal connection with the character through my father and small towns and et cetera. And then it's like, yeah, but you also like, you were, you were like riding high, you got brought down a little bit and now you're riding high again. It's like, that's the thing that interests him is the way the public reacts to the bit larger than life figures.

• 1:00:11Andy Greenwald?

  We have a Superman who, who scrolls social media sometimes.

• 1:00:16Andy Greenwald?

  Did you believe that?

• 1:00:17Chris Ryan?

  Right across the table from me.

• 1:00:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, who definitely, definitely doesn't read the Menchies.

• 1:00:22Chris Ryan?

  Okay. So we can wrap it up there, I think.

• 1:00:25Andy Greenwald?

  I think, I mean, I found it fascinating.

• 1:00:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I think it was a cool movie. Actually, I don't think it was cool, but I thought it was good.

• 1:00:31Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think Superman's punk rock?

• 1:00:32Chris Ryan?

  No. I think James Gunn, his vision of this is like outsiders becoming, you know, the insider. I think it's like, I, I got what that was about, but I don't think that this is.

• 1:00:46Andy Greenwald?

  I think he's really good with music. I mean, I liked, I liked the hard cut to that Teddy Bear song from 20 years ago.

• 1:00:54Andy Greenwald?

  Shout out, shout out the Swedish art punk collective Teddy Bears, featuring the singer from a band I used to like called Caesar's. Like, good for them. Maybe they get a little something off of that. And I also just like. I do still like the fun that he clearly has that is like very much informed, I think, by like the Roger Corman era of his career, when I think the idea of being able to be the guy to make any shit like this would have been impossible to imagine. Just that, like, I'm going to go so far as to create a fake pop punk band for young Clark Kent to have liked, for Lois to not have liked, to then make a poster of, to then, you know, art direct a song that will play in the closing credits of this movie.

• 1:01:36Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:01:37Andy Greenwald?

  That's fun.

• 1:01:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:38Andy Greenwald?

  That's fun shit.

• 1:01:39Chris Ryan?

  It's a depth of feeling for the material. And sometimes I think that that is the thing that we've lost over the last 10 or 15 years with this stuff is just kind of a like, yeah, yeah, just standing for those tennis balls, we're gonna draw it in later, don't worry about it. Like, you actually have to think through like, what's in the frame, what are the interpersonal relationships between these people?

• 1:01:59Andy Greenwald?

  I think that the main, the divider here is that this is the guy who loves comic books, and he loves comic book movies, full stop. And you, and this is a celebration of them, and it celebrates some things that I think you and I are tired of, just like the giant buildings crashing into each other punching. But at no point does it ever apologize for itself for being a comic book or a comic book movie. There's a fucking flying dog that saves the day. There's no moment in this where you think, you know what, you know what there's nothing of here? The director bullshit we still make fun of. He was not out there being like, actually, this is Butch Cassidy. He just happens to be wearing a cape instead of holding a six shooter. No, he's like, this is Superman.

• 1:02:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Andy Greenwald?

  And that's actually kind of refreshing.

• 1:02:40Chris Ryan?

  Don't run away from what you're doing. Yeah.

• 1:02:42Andy Greenwald?

  It's actually kind of refreshing.

• 1:02:43Chris Ryan?

  All right. No show Thursday, as it is well this week here at Spotify, so...

• 1:02:47Andy Greenwald?

  We gotta recover from our kryptonite poisoning.

• 1:02:51Chris Ryan?

  We will be back next week. We'll have a mailbag and then an Andy, Andy hosted episode, because I'm out of town.

• 1:02:58Andy Greenwald?

  Kai, should I just solo it?

• 1:03:00Chris Ryan?

  I don't think, we're not gonna be together for a couple of weeks.

• 1:03:02Andy Greenwald?

  I hate that.

• 1:03:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Andy Greenwald?

  I hate that. I think the quality suffers, honestly.

• 1:03:07Chris Ryan?

  When you're not here.

• 1:03:08Andy Greenwald?

  When, sorry?

• 1:03:11Chris Ryan?

  Thanks to Kai, thanks to John. We will be back soon and enjoy your weeks.

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