Damon Lindelof on ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’

Andy is joined by Damon Lindelof for a full breakdown of ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps.’ First, they talk about the teaser that was released for Vince Gilligan’s new show, ‘Pluribus,’ starring Rhea Seehorn (4:24). Then they talk about ‘Fantastic Four’ and discuss whether, between the success of this movie and ‘Thunderbolts*,’ Marvel might be back on the upswing (22:31). Host: Andy Greenwald Guest: Damon Lindelof 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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• 1:12Speaker 01

  I need sports staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.

• 1:18Andy Greenwald?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Andy Greenwald. I have no official title at The Ringer and I am joined in the studio, not by Chris Ryan today, but by the next best thing, our good friend Damon Lindelof. Welcome back.

• 1:31Speaker 03

  I'm, I'm, I'm hair deprived. I wear hats.

• 1:35Andy Greenwald?

  You do.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  I have glasses. So other than my complete lack of sports knowledge, I know a little, a little bit about sports.

• 1:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, you, you've, you've talked about attending sporting events recently, right?

• 1:47Speaker 03

  Yes, it's true.

• 1:48Andy Greenwald?

  You go to a basketball game here and there.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  Yes, and I understand the rules.

• 1:52Andy Greenwald?

  Where the ball goes.

• 1:53Speaker 03

  Yes, I know the difference between goals and.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  Touchdowns.

• 1:59Andy Greenwald?

  That's a whole different sport, Damon. You know, you're showing off.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  That's where it ends.

• 2:03Andy Greenwald?

  Thrilled to have you back on the podcast.

• 2:04Speaker 03

  Great to be here.

• 2:05Andy Greenwald?

  Great to see you. We are here to discuss the Fantastic Four film.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  That's alliterative. We have to see how much alliteration.

• 2:15Andy Greenwald?

  The fun and fabulous Fantastic Four film, finally. Before we get into that, though, there were just two other pieces of business. One, for people who did listen to the Kaia-tastic episode last Thursday, I did want to give her a chance to respond to her, I believe you said the word was haters.

• 2:34Speaker 04

  I don't want to invite anymore. I'm sorry I didn't engage with you more on K-pop Demon Hunters. I'm sorry I didn't rush to watch it this weekend. I'll try to correct that as soon as possible.

• 2:46Andy Greenwald?

  So Damon, the framing of the show last week was that, you know, whenever I talk to Kaia, first of all, it's a gift. She was great. We had a great time. She is also the youth correspondent of The Watch.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  It's true.

• 2:56Andy Greenwald?

  And so I assumed that she would have a lot to say about the sensation of the summer, K-pop Demon Hunters on Netflix.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 3:03Andy Greenwald?

  Turns out, I'm the K-pop Demon Hunter, and she was completely unfamiliar with it. And thankfully, the internet, which is always fair-minded,

• 3:12Andy Greenwald?

  gave her the business for it.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  What kind of business are we talking, Kaia?

• 3:16Speaker 04

  Just like, how dare you not be more open to this journey? How dare you not engage with this more? I was just trying to play Chris Ryan. Do you think Chris Ryan is watching K-pop Demon Hunters?

• 3:29Speaker 03

  1,000%.

• 3:30Andy Greenwald?

  No, the face that he would make if I even suggested it. I mean, I think the problem was you kind of walked the middle, like where you were open to the possibility of seeing a movie called K-pop Demon Hunters, where he would have spat it out like he'd eaten something rancid, and we would have had to move on.

• 3:44Speaker 03

  Are you actively resisting it, Kaia? Or, I mean, is the algorithm saying, I think you'd like this, and you're like, we'll see about that? Or now, now it feels like, because you had the weekend, if you really were worried about what the haters were saying, you could have watched it.

• 3:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, she could have done it.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  Now it feels like you're just kind of spitting in their eye.

• 4:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, my Netflix algorithm is definitely not surfacing this for me. It's surfacing too much. I watched that this weekend. If anybody would like to connect on that.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  I don't know what too much is.

• 4:13Andy Greenwald?

  That's the Lena Dunham show.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 4:15Andy Greenwald?

  People are too busy watching K-pop Demon Hunters right now to engage. Have, I know I've mentioned this in the podcast before, but Damon, my, my children did change the,

• 4:25Speaker 03

  I have.

• 4:26Andy Greenwald?

  The, the, the names of my Netflix account.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  Yes, so the algorithm has been infected. It's been compromised.

• 4:31Andy Greenwald?

  Not just as a compromise, I get emails regularly from Netflix that say, Daddy, we just added a new movie you might like.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 4:39Andy Greenwald?

  It's, it's a little disturbing.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  A little excellent.

• 4:42Andy Greenwald?

  Or excellent, depending.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  And it sounds like it, it's correct.

• 4:46Andy Greenwald?

  Daddy, there's a new cartoon for you.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. This is a cool way to connect with your kids.

• 4:51Andy Greenwald?

  It is.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  There really should, you shouldn't have separate profiles. I do like the idea of like, everybody in your household is watching Netflix and it's curating and for the Venn diagram of where you all overlap.

• 5:03Andy Greenwald?

  This is the Spotify problem where at the end of the year, I can't do the fun, cute thing where you share.

• 5:08Speaker 03

  My favorite Ludlum book, by the way. It's excellent. It's really good.

• 5:12Andy Greenwald?

  It's, at the end of the year, I want to, I want to participate in the discourse of like, look how interesting my music taste is. And it's just inevitably, it's Taylor Swift because they're listening to my Spotify.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Kai, you can check off Ludlum reference on the Chris Ryan.

• 5:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  There's eight things that I've been told I have to do.

• 5:29Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, that's right. It's like the bingo card.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 5:31Andy Greenwald?

  You did that one earlier. That was the hardest one, I think.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  It's gonna be tough to get in there and then you, then you alley ooped me.

• 5:36Andy Greenwald?

  The last thing that we should bring up before we get into Fantastic Four, in terms of TV news, is the first images and title emerged from Vince Gilligan, Breaking Bad's famed new show.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 5:49Andy Greenwald?

  It's going to be called Pluribus.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 5:51Andy Greenwald?

  This is a show that he, starring Ray Sehorn, that is apparently sci-fi-ish, and he sold it to Apple with a two-season guaranteed pickup, uh, which also I think guaranteed his ability to, A, call it whatever he wanted.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:05Andy Greenwald?

  And also release a teaser trailer that's a lady licking donuts.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  It's true. I saw that.

• 6:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. How do you feel about that?

• 6:12Speaker 03

  I feel like. Vince Gilligan is the goat. He can do whatever he wants. I mean, there's not, there's no, there's no show I'm probably more excited about than whatever he's got next. And as soon as I heard that, you know, not that Breaking Bad and Saul are not genre, but they're a crime genre, kind of getting back to his X-Files roots and doing something overtly sci-fi and, you know, and supernatural. And then also, you know this as well as I, it is almost impossible to make a

• 6:49Speaker 03

  show and not know anything about it, you know? So, so the idea that I'm more excited about a donut licking teaser, which I'll just be honest with you, is a bit just upsetting, you know? Like, as someone who enjoys a donut on occasion.

• 7:08Andy Greenwald?

  And probably someone who has enjoyed a donut on a help yourself table.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  Right. But I'm guessing like that woman is up to no good. Like, there's just, if that's what she's doing to prepare the donut to be consumed in some kind of Brundle fly fashion, bad, but also I think she's going to be serving that donut to someone she doesn't like. You know, that's my read on it.

• 7:30Andy Greenwald?

  Look at the story engine never quits on you.

• 7:32Speaker 03

  Well, why would one lick a donut and then not consume it?

• 7:36Andy Greenwald?

  Because you're maybe, you're trying to spite someone. You're mad. The donuts aren't for you, so you want to hurt the people for whom the donuts are for.

• 7:43Speaker 03

  Right. And this is the energy with which we're being presented the very first data point on Pluribus.

• 7:50Andy Greenwald?

  There's power here also, that like, he gets two seasons in order, he doesn't have to tell anyone, maybe even not even Apple, what it is, what it's about, what they paid for, and he can promote it however he chooses.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Are you completely, do you really know nothing about what it is?

• 8:05Andy Greenwald?

  Nothing.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Because I literally know nothing.

• 8:06Andy Greenwald?

  No, I know nothing.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  Legit. If you had to guess.

• 8:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  Based on this, okay, I have one other data point, which is they went down to Comic Con, and they had a donut truck.

• 8:18Andy Greenwald?

  Pre-licked or post-licked?

• 8:19Speaker 03

  I wouldn't order donuts from that truck personally, unless Vince was licking it.

• 8:25Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  I would I would eat a Vince licked donut.

• 8:28Andy Greenwald?

  You, I'm sure you've seen that like part of the perils that I'm, I mean, that's slightly tongue in cheek of like of no, first of all, it's it's great. This is a safe space. No one will hear this.

• 8:37Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 8:39Andy Greenwald?

  Like contemporary authors now, like in order to promote their book, have to sign like a thousand bookplates, like just to get them stocked with autographed and Barnes and Noble. What if his promotional duties involve licking 10,000 donuts for the first subscribers to Apple TV plus?

• 8:54Speaker 03

  Well, the thing, he would only need to lick 10 donuts, and here's why. You might get a.

• 9:01Andy Greenwald?

  How do you know?

• 9:02Speaker 03

  You might get one, you might not, but the but the idea that you might is just as good as him licking all 10,000.

• 9:08Andy Greenwald?

  I agree. The only other data point we have is the image, the promotional image is just a yellow screen with a Petri dish with someone in a Q tip.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  And a smiley face, which is, you know, a little Squid Gamey, a little Watchmany.

• 9:23Andy Greenwald?

  It's also there's I believe there's a movie called Smile.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 9:26Andy Greenwald?

  Like a horror movie?

• 9:26Speaker 03

  There's two of them.

• 9:28Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, canonically, we're recognizing both.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  No, there's a Smile and a Smile Two. There's a sequel.

• 9:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but you get it in the first one, right?

• 9:34Speaker 03

  Okay, well, I don't.

• 9:35Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't see either.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  I haven't seen the second one.

• 9:36Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, so that I I assume it's some sort of aliens are making us happy, aliens are controlling the algorithm?

• 9:42Speaker 03

  That's what you think the Vince show is.

• 9:43Andy Greenwald?

  I'm just pitching you here. What do you think?

• 9:45Speaker 03

  Pluribus.

• 9:47Andy Greenwald?

  You want you want you like the money thing.

• 9:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, well.

• 9:50Andy Greenwald?

  It's Latin for many.

• 9:51Speaker 03

  But maybe maybe it's kind of like a like a Unimind, sort of like Rick and Morty, like everybody, like a collective, or all being kind of like taken over by some kind of intelligence.

• 10:04Andy Greenwald?

  It's like a body snatchers.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, and the show is about resisting this idea. I don't know, maybe.

• 10:10Andy Greenwald?

  What if the show is about joining? What if Vince is on the other side? What if his zag was, let's just give in?

• 10:17Speaker 03

  I'm there for it.

• 10:17Andy Greenwald?

  I know.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  It's the, it is the time.

• 10:20Andy Greenwald?

  Before, okay.

• 10:20Speaker 03

  He's got his finger on the pulse.

• 10:21Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think, not, so a couple of weeks ago, and I don't presume you listen to every episode of The Watch, just the, most of the ones where we mention you. And, or you avoid those.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:30Andy Greenwald?

  We had a conversation about-

• 10:32Speaker 03

  I got an email from Spotify saying, Daddy, you may want, you may want to listen to this episode of The Watch.

• 10:37Andy Greenwald?

  And by Spotify, you mean it's from me and Chris?

• 10:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, you just got shouted out, yeah.

• 10:42Andy Greenwald?

  We talked about the different paths towards following up showrunner greatness. We were talking specifically about Mountain Head and Jesse Armstrong's movie. We, we mentioned you.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  I don't think I heard this, but-

• 10:55Andy Greenwald?

  But, but the idea was like, the pressures you might feel having made-

• 10:58Speaker 03

  Oh, sure.

• 10:59Andy Greenwald?

  -a great show or a successful show, what do you do next? And we were talking about how Vince Gilligan did one of the more unique career turns where he just stayed in the same sandbox that he'd been in. And empowering people he'd worked with and sort of dipping in and out, and then he made a movie based in it. But he was, seemed very happy to just be staying in the same place, finding new corners of it, employing the same people, staying in Albuquerque. I think this is back in Albuquerque, but other than that, he is now moving the ball forward. Do you have any insight or thought about that as someone who has showrun created beloved programs? About the next thing?

• 11:35Speaker 03

  I think if you, and, cause I, I do believe that I did hear The Watch, where you and, and Chris were discussing the Avatar films.

• 11:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  Which I think is a good comp for this-

• 11:46Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  -conversation.

• 11:47Andy Greenwald?

  Well, this, no, this was when Chris was ranting about it on The Big Picture.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 11:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  But, yes, but then you guys circled back, I think.

• 11:53Andy Greenwald?

  Gave him a hard time?

• 11:54Speaker 03

  You had some kind of conversation about Avatar.

• 11:56Andy Greenwald?

  Probably.

• 11:57Speaker 03

  Or maybe I'm transposing him going on The Big Picture and, and going hard-

• 12:02Andy Greenwald?

  He went hard.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  -anti Avatar.

• 12:04Andy Greenwald?

  I believe his quote was, this guy has wasted his fucking life.

• 12:09Speaker 03

  Right. And so, I, I think on one side of the spectrum, you know, look, you, and, and, and I gave Chris a hard time because I'm like, these- Whatever you want to say about them qualitatively, you have to acknowledge that they're the biggest movies of all time. Like, I still think those two movies sit atop the the box office championships. And what's kind of amazing is like, most people can't answer basic questions about Avatar. But the idea that that he is just resisting, he's like He's the resistance. For all the things that he

• 12:43Speaker 03

  puts into his body culturally, he's just like, I'm not taking any Avatar is in and of itself an incredible choice. But to your question- They are Pluribus, he is Unum. Yeah, exactly. But it's sort of like

• 13:00Speaker 03

  to get serious for one second. Please.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  People like ask us, like, where do you get your ideas from? Or what inspires you? Or why this? Right? Like, that's a really reasonable question. And the answer, ideally, is the satisfying answer is not, I've got to feed my kids, you know, or they're offering me X amount of money. The answer is going to be some version of, you know, like, an intangible attachment, which I believe is like romantic. That isn't to say that I want to have, you know, sexual relationships with the with the books and television shows that I fell in love with. Maybe some. Some of them you probably do. But but it's romance, right? And you fall in love with this thing. And and so the

• 13:47Speaker 03

  idea of like, once Vince was inside of the Breaking Bad universe, he fell in love with it and wanted to stay there. And James Cameron is basically like, never wants to fucking leave Pandora. Like, and who are we to say, we demand you leave these things that you love and move on. But I think that the more interesting thing is, when you decide that a thing is finished and you're going to end it, then what's next? And are you going to do something that feels like it's kind of the same flavor? Or are you are you going to zig instead of zagging? And and the answer is, is like, you can't be deliberate about it. The heart wants what the heart wants. And I think that you, we

• 14:29Speaker 03

  do tend to fall in love with the same kinds of things over and over again. But more importantly- It's a business and so when the audience like says, oh, so and so is working on a new thing. They want, they wanted to feel like the other things and you feel that on your shoulders. So the idea of like, you know, kind of going off and doing some like avant garde, you know, crazy deal like. Uh, I'm sure we'll be talking about Pedro Pascal at, once we, we are supposed to talk about Fantastic Four.

• 14:58Andy Greenwald?

  I was giving you time to watch the movie. You claimed you hadn't seen it.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  But I saw three Pedro Pascal movies in this, in Ford, over the course of four days, just by sheer.

• 15:08Andy Greenwald?

  That's because as it turns out, he wasn't that committed to Last of Us, season two.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  Exactly. That's right. Uh, which I did was unspoiled on, by the way.

• 15:15Andy Greenwald?

  Me too.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  But, but, um, but Eddington.

• 15:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  The, the thing about that movie, which I loved, um, is that it's on, it's completely and totally unlike Ari Aster's previous three movies.

• 15:28Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 15:28Speaker 03

  But it still feels like it was made by the same guy. And that's the most exciting kind of like storytelling.

• 15:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  And filmmakers, the Kubricks of the world who like are, it's like shining Barry Lyndon, then Fullmetal, like.

• 15:40Andy Greenwald?

  The connective tissue is him.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:41Andy Greenwald?

  In his curiosity.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  They're all, they all feel like they were made by the same person.

• 15:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  But you can't really put them into a box, you know, in terms of, and then it's why Spielberg is like, basically like, I'm going and doing Schindler's List.

• 15:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 15:54Speaker 03

  You know, and also there's Jaws and also there's Always. And I think that, um, we, we want storytellers who have talent and ability and the opportunity to bend studios to their will. That is to say, this is the thing that I'm passionate about. And to basically say, I'm taking a big swing. And it may feel like the Odyssey is not a big swing.

• 16:17Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  Like that it's Christopher Nolan. He's gonna, he's gonna win all the Oscars and the movie's gonna make a billion dollars. But he's still gotta execute.

• 16:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 16:26Speaker 03

  You know, and it doesn't feel like it's a safe bet to me that his follow-up from Oppenheimer.

• 16:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 16:31Speaker 03

  Is The Odyssey. And we start assuming that every time these guys come up to the plate, like if Shohei goes one for five, but the, but the one is a, is a three-run homer, we're good.

• 16:44Andy Greenwald?

  It's your third sport, by the way.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Right. Okay. Um, take that off the list. Kai, you got that? Number two, Otani reference. Um, uh, so, yes, I, I think that it's great that Vince is, is not doing more Breaking Bad. At the same time, he's using one of the great actors from Breaking Bad, centering her. So there is some level of fundamental continuity there.

• 17:12Andy Greenwald?

  And comfort.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  And I think that show is going to be a banger no matter what it is.

• 17:16Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's exciting. I think the, the next part of it is that we don't need to get into right now, but I think that what you're speaking to, especially in terms of TV, which is a different, ongoing time investment relationship with creators, as opposed to like every few years, there's the new Kubrick or whatever it may be, is the expectation and the interrogation of the work using pre-existing assumptions. Meaning, like, anything that you do, people are gonna be like, has he got the answers? You know, I mean, you know that.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Sure, right, yes.

• 17:47Andy Greenwald?

  But that, but that framing is going, you carry that framing with you, even though you don't want to. That's where, where the reality of it is that you like a certain type of story, or there's a way of approaching story that you are passionate about, you're curious about, but you're carrying the reactions to everything and how it's gonna be received throughout.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  Sure, and I, and the tricky-

• 18:05Andy Greenwald?

  And it's true for him as well.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  And the trickier part is, pursuant to that is, that like, someone like Vince, who, when you talked about Saul, for example, you said like, he start, like, that was Peter Gould, and like, there, there are other collaborators, but I, I do think that there is like, this idea of that there's a distinction between when someone is showrunning something.

• 18:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  You know, when it's, when it's, when it's quote unquote theirs, or, or that is to say, like, who's locking the cuts? Like, and when they're involved with something. And we all know great creators who are, uh, like, who are, uh, basically like, what does it mean for JJ's name to be on Duster when it's, when it's Latoya's show?

• 18:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Right? Like, and so that, I, I've had that experience on Lanterns now, where, you know, I was in that writer's room, an amazing writer's room, like, I, I, I've always liked the character of Green Lantern, but- To, you know, I was always a Marvel guy. And, and so, and then Chris Mundie is running that show from, and I loved Ozark, had never met Chris before that. And so going in and being like, I'm in service of this guy's vision. And what, what does he want to cook? And like, and how can, that's like super duper exciting. But then understanding that once the writing is done, I'm moving off to the next thing. Chris is locking the cuts. He's on, on the set every day. He's the one who's working the 80 hour weeks and I'm like now working on a movie project or whatever.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  And then, but I'm still gonna drive by a, a poster that's probably like, you know, from the producers of Watchmen and Ozark.

• 19:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  And like the, the audience, what, what they're expected to, to make the distinction there. And I, and I will say like, this feels like it's Vince's, you know? That's one of the, and, and it's being, and, and, and he's coming and saying, I'm the front man for this. In the same way that like, you know, um, you know, Mick Jagger is doing a solo album, right? It's like the, the, there's a difference between, you know, Tom Petty, you know, doing an album and being a Wilbury.

• 20:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Um, that's not on the Chris Ryan list.

• 20:06Andy Greenwald?

  No, but it is in the sweet spot.

• 20:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:08Andy Greenwald?

  I appreciate it though.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  Exactly. Thanks. Um, can you name all the Wilburys?

• 20:11Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 20:12Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, they're Wilbury names? Because remember they all took on.

• 20:15Speaker 03

  They all had alter egos. One of them is like named Otis, is all I remember.

• 20:19Andy Greenwald?

  In a way, they're all named Otis.

• 20:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true.

• 20:21Andy Greenwald?

  But I, I, do you know anyone in your life that actually could name the Wilbury fake Wilbury names? I don't think that person exists.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  No.

• 20:32Andy Greenwald?

  We're talking, we're talking Petty, Lynn, Harrison, Orbison and Dylan.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  Yep. No.

• 20:37Andy Greenwald?

  But their real names? No.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  They all are Wilburys.

• 20:40Andy Greenwald?

  Also, I remember when the second Traveling Wilburys record came out before, uh, well before Kaya was born, I believe. And, um.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  Kaya, do you know what the Traveling Wilburys are?

• 20:51Speaker 04

  No.

• 20:52Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's a, she's gonna, they're gonna celebrate you for this though.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:55Andy Greenwald?

  Like, that's good. That's not like the K-pop Demon Hunters. This is back on the youth correspondent beat.

• 21:01Andy Greenwald?

  As you recall, the first Traveling Wilburys album was called Volume One.

• 21:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay.

• 21:06Andy Greenwald?

  Do you remember what the second Traveling Wilburys album was called?

• 21:08Speaker 03

  Volume Three.

• 21:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:10Andy Greenwald?

  That blew my mind. Like, in terms of foundational cultural moments, like, there's the Twin Peaks pilot and there's maybe the...

• 21:17Speaker 03

  Do you think they, I've, it's possible, though, that they did record a volume two and, like, Martin Shkreli owns it. You know, for the, it's like, right, it's that, it's right next to the Wu-Tang.

• 21:27Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's guaranteed they didn't. The only person, I mean, now we are living in an era, boy, let's just make this podcast older. Kaia, cover your ears. You might, this might be like the end of Last Crusade. Like, she might just start aging by listening to us talking. That, um, Springsteen's, like, Lost...

• 21:43Speaker 03

  You have chosen poorly.

• 21:45Andy Greenwald?

  You should not be producing this podcast, Kaia. The, uh, Springsteen Lost tapes, volume two, is just, like, the six albums he made in the 90s but changed his mind about?

• 21:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 21:55Andy Greenwald?

  That's crazy.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  It is. And, you know.

• 21:59Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think the Wilburys did that.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  I don't think so either.

• 22:01Andy Greenwald?

  All right, well, we really, this podcast isn't afraid of the big questions, including...

• 22:05Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 22:05Andy Greenwald?

  What did we think of Fantastic Four: First Steps? So, all right, let's talk about it.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:10Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, Fantastic Four: First Steps, uh, came out this past weekend, did quite well at the global box office.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  It did. The MCU is back.

• 22:18Andy Greenwald?

  It's back, baby.

• 22:19Speaker 03

  I, I, did it, was it not?

• 22:21Andy Greenwald?

  I liked Thunderbolts.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  Did it go away? Yeah, I liked, it's called The New Avengers.

• 22:25Andy Greenwald?

  It's not officially.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  What do you mean?

• 22:27Andy Greenwald?

  They didn't officially change the name of the movie.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  It's got an asterisk next to it.

• 22:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 22:31Speaker 03

  And then, and now it's The New Avengers.

• 22:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, but like, they did, they, they did that for the marketing, but they didn't...

• 22:37Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 22:38Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think that was a mistake?

• 22:39Speaker 03

  I don't, I, I don't have clarity on what it's called.

• 22:42Andy Greenwald?

  Camera One will go straight to Feige. Just speak to camera. Tell him... Tell them what you think about this.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  I am confused about what the movie is called, but I liked both of them.

• 22:50Andy Greenwald?

  Also, Kevin's in his office right now being like, I heard what you said. You worked on Lanterns, but you're a Marvel guy.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  I thought it was clever that there was an asterisk. And that the asterisk was that they're not really the Thunderbolts.

• 23:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, because it's sort of like the new thing. And I'm sure that James Gunn was like quite upset when he saw Thunderbolts and like, there's a running gag about what they're called.

• 23:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  When I'm doing this with the Justice Gang.

• 23:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  Both gags work on their own merits, but I think that like the idea that they're, they both happened, that's the worst is when you kind of like have been lapped, but you haven't seen the movie that's coming out before you. It's not, it's not like an Armageddon, like deep impact situation where we're like, hey, we're both doing like, we're both doing asteroid movies.

• 23:33Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, it would be, it would be worse if Herbie was a robot dog.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 23:37Andy Greenwald?

  Like that would have been a little too something's in the.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  It's true.

• 23:41Speaker 00

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• 25:35Andy Greenwald?

  All right, we still haven't talked about the movie. Let's talk about the movie.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  I liked it.

• 25:39Andy Greenwald?

  I loved it.

• 25:39Speaker 03

  You loved it.

• 25:40Andy Greenwald?

  I, I loved it.

• 25:41Speaker 03

  Great.

• 25:42Andy Greenwald?

  I got nothing. I mean, I, I have plenty. We could talk for the next hour about it, but I was very much looking forward to the movie. I very much liked everything that they seemed to be doing from like the decision to make it, to make a strong aesthetic choice and say, this is like a retro future Jets and 60s thing. Liked the cast. I liked the way they're promoting it. I thought it seemed like the kind of project that Marvel hasn't had in a while where they had their arms around the totality of it. Like, we get what it is. We understand how to market and sell it. And on a fundamental character level, this seemed to be back in Feige's sweet spot, which is, um, understanding the most boiled down concentrated version of why these characters are appealing and translating it. He did that with Captain America, Thor, Iron Man.

• 26:26Andy Greenwald?

  I would say he did it, uh, less with the Marvels.

• 26:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:30Andy Greenwald?

  And was finally back in his, in his bag with this. And all of that said, I didn't think that I would find it to be as just joyful and enjoyable a moviegoing experience as I did. I was in from the beginning and I was kinda moved where you're supposed to be moved and I was excited where you're supposed to be excited. And I found the limitations of a different universe, starting over, to be so, such a relief.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, that, I mean, that I think is its, is its greatest attribute, which is it feels so clean.

• 27:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  Um, and, and again, for, for someone who loves serialized storytelling and, um, and the idea of like, like me, I know that you read all of these comic books and the idea of sort of like keeping the different universes straight and the, the ultimate universe comes in and, and, and, and all of these characters, there's four different Wolverines at any one time, you know, one of them's an old man who's not necessarily gone through the experi- i- i- it's like that.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  Part of that is amazing to have that sort of like insular tommatic knowledge of everything that's going on. But then there, when the fresh take comes, you know, when the ultimate universe was first launched. Um, and that sort of idea of saying like, you don't need to know anything. And more importantly,

• 27:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  This story, it, and may, maybe, this isn't necessarily a quibble, but it's sort of like the last, the, the, the post-credit scene is the only scene in the entire movie that, that undoes what I'm about to say, but it's not in service of anything other than what, than, than these characters.

• 28:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  You know, and so like, when, when we saw like Captain America, the first Avenger, it's basically like, this story is taking place in the forties and we know that he is eventually going to get frozen in a block of ice. And, and, and will be in whatever the contemporary story is, but this story is just in service of, of this.

• 28:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  And, and, and to do that without it being an origin story, cause that's the other,

• 28:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  That's the other slippery slope. And I think it's, um, it's very hard to thread that needle of, do we need to see the act, you know, the, the cosmic rays?

• 28:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  And I, and I felt like even they did a really good job of messaging before we saw the movie. This is meteor res. Like,

• 28:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  These guys are, are already up and running, but they, you still have to communicate to the audience. How long have they been around? What does the world think of them? What, what's up with subterrania?

• 29:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  Like the, the kind of like, the confidence and, you know, and montage-y musical, sort of like boppy vibes of like, kind of, the, the movie obviously starts with the scene between Reed and Sue.

• 29:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  And I, my, my editing brain is basically like, he's talking about liniment like two scenes from now. So maybe this scene used to be second, but I'm really glad they moved it up first because like, if the movie just started with the montage.

• 29:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  You know, it, it would, and then I had to like, jump into this kind of like intimate scene between these two people where someone finds out that they're pregnant and that, and, and he's a little bit scared, but ultimately like the MacGuffin has just been conceived.

• 29:44Andy Greenwald?

  Also just side note, sorry to interrupt you.

• 29:46Speaker 03

  Please.

• 29:47Andy Greenwald?

  Taking an eight-year-old to the movie, eight-year-old has now lived in this world long enough to understand like, sure, there are celestial space gods that eat planets, but she did not understand what was happening in the first scene.

• 29:56Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 29:57Andy Greenwald?

  Absolutely confused.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  You might need to have a talk with your A-.

• 30:00Andy Greenwald?

  There's a deeper talk I need to have. I probably shouldn't have spent the whole car ride over talking about Jack Kirby. I should have been talking about something a little more basic. Anyway, go on.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  No, I think that, like, to instantly, this is when genre or superhero movies writ large are at their best is when they're basically like, hey, these people have incredible powers and they're about to have to save the world. But I'm gonna make them relatable. This is just a married couple finding out some really exciting news. They're a little bit nervous about it for reasons that we don't entirely understand yet. They don't, and then to basically say like, the parable, the allegory of, oh shit, I'm terrified that

• 30:48Speaker 03

  everything's gonna change when this baby is born, is this giant galactic, you know, world devourer that like wants my baby. Like, the math is like, it's so simple and so intricately sketched. And I just think like, these things are so hard, man. I mean, this isn't you and I sitting here whining about, we're living the dream. Like, I've lived beyond the dream. I've gotten to play in sandboxes of the things that basically inspired me. And sometimes the love letter is received and sometimes the love letter went horribly awry, but it was always done with love.

• 31:25Andy Greenwald?

  It was a good letter.

• 31:26Speaker 03

  And, well, and, yeah, and so, did, did the people who make this, like, were they able to convey how passionate they are about the characters and how this is supposed to feel?

• 31:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  And it's just, yeah, it's just check, check, check, check, check, you know, all the way down, down the column.

• 31:44Andy Greenwald?

  It did, I mean, there's a version of our conversation and my affection for the movie that is based on like the sort of the meta-indu- meta-industry observance and awareness and be like, oh, they, they did it. They accomplished something here. They solved for whatever. The other part of my enthusiasm and joy is that I did feel the ghost in the machine of larger corporate structure being like, we love this shit. We love it. And we love the purity of the original Lee and Kirby imaginative idea of scientists' family can fix themselves and fix the world. And with- Optimism and with ingenuity and it feels particularly out of step with the moment and thus it made it even more appealing.

• 32:27Andy Greenwald?

  But the moment, I liked the movie from the beginning and I want to circle back to your point about like the little decision making that helps with scale, like moving that scene first, which surely was a discussion at Marvel and Disney. But for me, the moment when Reed turns to everyone at like the crisis moment and is like, I do have a plan and the plan is I'm gonna teleport Earth. I was like, these guys like comic books. That is the most purely batshit comic book idea and that your hero of the movie, the smartest person in this and many other universes suggests it and everyone's like, okie dokie.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:04Andy Greenwald?

  Inject that into my veins.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 33:06Andy Greenwald?

  That is something that is, that is a unique chemical of this type of storytelling that I think, you know, obviously decades of bad comic book movies ran in the opposite direction from, but this one ran towards. In that, it is similar to Big Jim Gunn's Superman.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:22Andy Greenwald?

  I think in that he's just, the scene when-

• 33:24Speaker 03

  Big Jim Gunn.

• 33:25Andy Greenwald?

  That's what he should be called.

• 33:27Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm sure he would love that.

• 33:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:30Andy Greenwald?

  Do we start that here?

• 33:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:32Andy Greenwald?

  If you, you've met them, like, does he introduce himself as James or Jim?

• 33:37Speaker 03

  He just says, hey, how are you? And like-

• 33:40Andy Greenwald?

  Assumes you know he's Big Jim Gunn. That's Big Jim Gunn energy.

• 33:43Speaker 03

  No introduction necessary.

• 33:44Andy Greenwald?

  I think when he's like, yes, Marvel's risking something with me and the Guardians of the Galaxy, he's James Gunn, but now he's Big Jim.

• 33:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:51Andy Greenwald?

  Gotta be.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 33:53Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway, the scene when there's the like, the space imp outside of the window when Clark and Lois are having another, you know, and they're not even paying attention to it because that's normal.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 34:01Andy Greenwald?

  That is a table setter for the type of comic book storytelling that he wants to do and I think the people who made this movie are in line with.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 34:08Andy Greenwald?

  Right? We're not afraid of how dopey and goofy and bug eyed some of this stuff can seem.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  Right, and you know, and I think that-

• 34:17Speaker 03

  There's this word grounded that is like kind of pervasive and and everybody says they love, right? Where it's sort of like, we, we want this thing to feel grounded and real. And I think it's actually, it's a lot more nuanced than we give it credit for. And I, and I think that that sense of, well, certain things should feel grounded, right? In terms of, you know, Christopher Nolan's Batman movies. We understand that like, Christopher Nolan is making a more grounded version of Batman than, than Joel Schumacher is, right?

• 34:50Andy Greenwald?

  Although Batman lends itself because he is powerless.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  But then you watch Tim Burton's original and it's like, there's a Prince song and Joker is like, like it's, it's pretty, it's, it's pretty not grounded.

• 35:00Andy Greenwald?

  Although as two of the three people in this room who were alive for that movie, I'm just, I'm just burnishing you here, Kaya. This is good for you.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  Was Kaya alive for any of the first iteration of the, where like?

• 35:10Andy Greenwald?

  I, I don't want to speak for Kaya, but I think she was.

• 35:12Speaker 03

  Who's Kaya's Batman?

• 35:13Andy Greenwald?

  God, that's a great question. Clooney.

• 35:16Speaker 04

  Christian Bale, probably?

• 35:17Speaker 03

  Christian Bale's your Batman, yeah.

• 35:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would say so. Or I mean, honestly, let's give it to Robert Pattinson at this point.

• 35:21Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 35:22Andy Greenwald?

  When the Burton movie came out in 1989, like so much of the dialogue about it was, finally Batman has been returned to its more serious Dark Knight detective origin.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Because the comp was Adam West.

• 35:34Andy Greenwald?

  The comp was Adam West.

• 35:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 35:35Andy Greenwald?

  And then now you look at the Bat Dance scene, you're like, it really was not that far from Adam West.

• 35:39Speaker 03

  It's called the Batousi, if, if, uh, if we're, if we're really checking each other's.

• 35:44Andy Greenwald?

  Sure.

• 35:45Speaker 03

  CV.

• 35:45Andy Greenwald?

  I don't, I don't remember. That was on volume two of The Wilburys, if I remember correctly.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  Um, all, all this by way of saying is, I think that there, there is also an appetite for the ungrounded. That is to say, like, when you're, when you're talking about grounding, you're talking about emotional grounding. And so that conversation between Lois and Clark as the, as the, as the battle is happening beyond their window is very grounded. Like, they're, they're.

• 36:08Andy Greenwald?

  We're here and they're there.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  He's about to tell her, I'm gonna go turn myself in because that's, that's the right thing to do because it doesn't, I, I'm not sure what my, what the message from my parents, it, it, assuming that it's real, but I, but, but the best thing for, the right thing for me to do is to turn myself in. That, that, it, it's, it's sort of a morality thing. And so it's okay that, that, that what's happening outside the window is kind of heightened. And it's also providing this kind of like very beautiful romantic, you know, light. And everything feels like it's in service of the characters and the emotions. For something like Fantastic Four. Which in its, in its bones, in its DNA is Kirby.

• 36:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 36:46Speaker 03

  The sort of, it has to be a little weird. You know, maybe a lot weird. And for me, the, the moments in the movie that I was like most delighted by were like Mo Man like coming and throwing shade.

• 37:00Andy Greenwald?

  The, the Mo Man is so great. They didn't run from it.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  And then doing the, the jokes about the dirt. And it was basically like Hauser is a Paul Walter.

• 37:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, he's great.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  He's incredible. Uh, and, um, and, and I'm sort of like, I know that Malkovich was in the movie and then, and then he wasn't in the movie.

• 37:16Andy Greenwald?

  The Red Ghost Erasure with his super apes.

• 37:18Speaker 03

  But I'm, but I'm sort of like, but that's, maybe that was about rhythm. Maybe that was about pacing. Maybe that was about, you know, it, it, it felt, I, I don't know what the story was.

• 37:29Andy Greenwald?

  I think it would have extended the opening montage to the point of feeling like, oh, is this the movie?

• 37:33Speaker 03

  Or maybe we're like, maybe there was like an introductory scene where they were fighting Red Ghost and that's how we were like meeting them and.

• 37:39Andy Greenwald?

  Or maybe he was too grounded. Like you just believed that this older man would have a reason to employ an army of super apes.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  When's the last time John Malkovich gave a grounded performance, Andy? No, just let's.

• 37:50Andy Greenwald?

  Maybe every super ape had a Malkovich face and it was a little bit too.

• 37:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. Was he doing the rounder's accent is the only thing I want to know.

• 37:58Andy Greenwald?

  God.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  Anyway.

• 38:00Andy Greenwald?

  DVDs.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  That, that.

• 38:02Andy Greenwald?

  Extras.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  But, but that idea of like, the movie is not afraid to get weird and strange and, um, and, and speaking of strange, I think like, that's another character, Doctor Strange, who is like, that's built into the DNA of, of the thing. And so when the MCU was first launching, this is before even people were like Guardians? How are they going to do a talking raccoon? That the Thor movie was the third movie, right? It was, it was, well, maybe Iron Man two came out before Thor. I can't remember. But it was Iron Man, Cap, and then Thor. And it was like, how's Asgard going to work?

• 38:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  In this grounded universe.

• 38:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, where we understand.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  Super soldiers and like.

• 38:43Andy Greenwald?

  A rich guy in armor.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  Right. And it was like, they kind of like let us in. But, but I do think that, um, again, until the post-credit scene, you're just like, this is not in service of anything other than these people, these characters. I'm not, nothing is being asked of me. I don't, there, there's no. Characters being mentioned or named that I that I need to know about. And I and I think that that sort of idea of like, I feel a little bit bad for the Fantastic Four as they're I don't know if they're on that rocket ship that is hurtling into the the MCU writ large at the end of Thunderbolts. You know, yeah, New Avengers, but but the idea of like, they're about to be overwhelmed with so much exposition.

• 39:23Andy Greenwald?

  I know, and and grimness, like, I think that they did the best they could folding in comic books in service of what they had already built, which worked for them. But your point about Strange is an interesting one, because I think that I remember the the stuff about it. Well, they were like, they I'm sure they had many meetings about how are we going to make magic a thing in a world where we've established? We've already bought, we've gotten America to buy in.

• 39:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 39:45Andy Greenwald?

  And now we're going to say there's also magic.

• 39:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:47Andy Greenwald?

  And the movies, you know, kind of advanced it a little bit, and the movie worked. And then, you know, the the Raimi movie did got a little weirder on the margins. But it didn't do the like Ditko or like a more contemporary artist like Trad more like, absolutely, you are on mescaline.

• 40:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:03Andy Greenwald?

  Doctor Strange can do anything in alternate universes with his third eye open.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 40:07Andy Greenwald?

  And there's fun in that, because the creators were doing lots of drugs.

• 40:10Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 40:11Andy Greenwald?

  At the time. Fantastic Four ran with it, with with the goofiest parts of it, and also the sweetest parts of it. And all the things that may have been a little discordant, once you have to have them walk down the same New York streets that these other characters have already trod upon. So like, we are in a lower Manhattan that isn't defined by Strange's building or Peter Parker swinging overhead. Ben Grimm just goes to get cookies.

• 40:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:35Andy Greenwald?

  And that is New York, and it's his New York, and I love that feeling. And I do, one of my takeaways from the end, not to, we should get through more of the movie before we get to the end, but I I can't wait to see these characters again, but I kind of want to see them in their own context.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  Right, but because it feels like they're going to get swallowed up and.

• 40:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  You know, it's like their story is basically now continuing in. They've leapfrogged over, you know, two decades of, of, um, of story.

• 41:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  And they're now kind of like the new blood and obviously we're gonna get the X-Men at some point too. Although I don't know if the X-Men are gonna be introduced inside the body of those movies. Cause it doesn't, their movie has been announced, right? The X-Men movie, yes?

• 41:21Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that's intentional, that it's coming, but first.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  But that will be after Secret Wars.

• 41:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, my assumption is, and, and people have heard me nerd out about this before, but that like, they are following loosely a Jonathan Hickman-written guideline that he did in the comics, in which realities crash into each other.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 41:38Andy Greenwald?

  So my assumption is the Fox X-Men will have a last stand of some sort, although I believe that was the name of the Ratner X-Men movie.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 41:46Andy Greenwald?

  Before their universe gets.

• 41:48Speaker 03

  That turned out to be the penultimate stand.

• 41:50Andy Greenwald?

  That was the penultimate stand.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 41:52Andy Greenwald?

  Asterisk.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  Yes. Oh, wow.

• 41:54Andy Greenwald?

  We could, we could do that.

• 41:55Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 41:55Andy Greenwald?

  But despite what Rebecca Romaine was saying this weekend of, I'm not sure if I'm coming back or not. We're not sure if there's even a script. My guess is they're in that movie, but then probably that X-Men door is closed.

• 42:07Speaker 03

  Gotcha.

• 42:08Andy Greenwald?

  Um, but yes, all right. In terms of all the work done, uh, uh, for this world, what do you think?

• 42:17Andy Greenwald?

  Well, let's talk about, let's talk more specifically. Matt Shakman directed this. I thought he did a phenomenal job.

• 42:21Speaker 03

  Agreed.

• 42:23Andy Greenwald?

  Again, we know that the mighty Marvel method is not what Stan Lee wrote anymore. It's what Kevin Feige still says proudly, right? That he doesn't think you need a finished script to make these movies. I believe the verb he used in the interview he did recently was plusing. Like you can keep plusing the story or the opportunities by having people.

• 42:40Speaker 03

  Doesn't sound good.

• 42:41Andy Greenwald?

  It doesn't sound great. It does sound like all streaming strategy, right? We'll just plus the name of the network.

• 42:46Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 42:48Andy Greenwald?

  But.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  Sounds dangerously adjacent to supersizing, which we know leads to, I think, organ failure.

• 42:56Andy Greenwald?

  Or, no, if it worked for Jeff Zucker for a while.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 42:59Andy Greenwald?

  I was, oh, I went straight to NBC in the 2000s.

• 43:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 43:02Andy Greenwald?

  He went straight to, um.

• 43:03Speaker 03

  Uh, Morgan Spurlock.

• 43:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah. R I P.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  Who, who's, he started it, though. No, I mean, McDonald's started it.

• 43:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  And then Jeff Zucker appropriated it.

• 43:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yes. So, Kaya, in the early 2000s.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  Yes. You could, you could watch a 41-minute episode of Friends.

• 43:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 43:20Speaker 03

  And they could sell an extra ad block. And they called that supersizing.

• 43:23Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm. And it worked.

• 43:25Speaker 03

  It did.

• 43:26Andy Greenwald?

  So.

• 43:27Speaker 03

  Turned out that people's appetite for Ross and Rachel was insatiable.

• 43:31Andy Greenwald?

  It's still true. What do you think contributed to this feeling of coherence in this movie? You know, just purely, before we, we can veer off, and I'm sure we will, into the comic bookiness of it. But there was a, Matt Shakman, I think, clearly got the job because of what he did with WandaVision in playing with style, vibe, genre in the service of what ended up being a fairly emotionally consistent piece of storytelling. He went all in on the, the style and they really, I thought, took full advantage of it. Like, one of the great small beats of it is when, before they go back into space, they eject Herbie's, uh, Earth tape face and put in his space tape face.

• 44:08Speaker 03

  Sure, yeah.

• 44:08Andy Greenwald?

  Um, but it did feel like a consistent, I mean, there are five screenwriters plus six people doing a story by, it's a Marvel movie. But I felt like it was pretty, uh, pretty put together. I didn't feel the weight of changed decisions, you know, or, or, or obviously servicing some larger ultimate landing place.

• 44:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, a- again, these movies are so hard and I, um, I, I feel much more comfortable in a television landscape as a story, storyteller, even though even saying, self-identifying as that is now like weird, like, um, like, uh, as a writer, I guess. But like, this, this kind of idea, and particularly when you're playing inside of IP, you know, like, uh, it's now your turn at bat with someone else's story. And so, there, there's, there's legacy, uh, many writers preceded you before you take your, your shot at this thing. And so. Like the joke that I always tell when a friend of mine says that they're writing a movie and it's based on pre-existing IP is I just say Portal or Bomb.

• 45:13Speaker 03

  And they go, what? And I say, is in the third act, is a portal opening up? Or is a bomb about to go off? Like, and, and then they, they, they, like, you, you see them kind of get befuddled, but, but then it's, it is always one of those two. You know, like even, even in Superman, it's Portal, right? Like, and, um, sometimes, sometimes really bad things are gonna come out of the Portal, and you've got to stop them from coming out. It's like sort of a Hellmouth scenario.

• 45:40Andy Greenwald?

  Avengers one was the portal.

• 45:42Speaker 03

  Or, or there's a bomb that's about to kind of like go off, or whatever it is. And so like, uh, and, and, and then if you can somehow just like say, it, it's not Portal or Bomb, uh, but like, but it's the fate of the world, right? I'm like, and I, I'm coming up with some other kind of Deus Ex Machina that is threatening the world, that doesn't take the form of Portal or Bomb. That, that in and of itself is a challenge. But if you can, if you can completely and totally sideline all of those things, and, and just make it like Black Panther, for example, where it's, it's just a child versus Killmonger. And it's like, there, there's a sense of if Killmonger is not stopped, he's gonna, he's gonna send these weapons out and there's gonna be that. But they're not really fighting to save the world in that moment.

• 46:27Andy Greenwald?

  No, you're focused on the, the.

• 46:29Speaker 03

  In the way that most of these third acts do. And so, all this by way of saying is like Fantastic Four is that thing. And it, and, and, and, and it's, and it, we know before we even go into the theater what it is. We, everyone knows the Galactus story, and if you don't know what the trailer tells you.

• 46:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 46:43Speaker 03

  And, and Julia Garner, uh, tells you.

• 46:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 46:46Speaker 03

  Um, and, and, um, and, you know, she's spitting bars about what she's heralding. And, and so, the promise of the movie is this guy is coming to eat your planet. Good luck stopping him. He, he's really hungry, but, and so the, the-

• 47:03Andy Greenwald?

  He needs a supersized planet.

• 47:04Speaker 03

  He does. And, and that is Earth.

• 47:07Andy Greenwald?

  Jupiter was right there.

• 47:08Speaker 03

  I do wish there was a follow-up question when, when Johnny says, like, you picked Earth.

• 47:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 03

  And she's like, yes, that he would just say, why?

• 47:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, what was, what's so great?

• 47:18Speaker 03

  What's wrong with Venus?

• 47:19Andy Greenwald?

  There's so many other ones.

• 47:21Speaker 03

  Right, yeah, that seem like-

• 47:22Andy Greenwald?

  I thought if you're gonna pick Nits, Silver Surfer stuff was a little half-baked. Like, only in the sense that we don't follow up on her moral culpability.

• 47:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 47:32Andy Greenwald?

  And also, um, I thought the CG was a little odd, like, she, it is, it is a tough one.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 47:38Andy Greenwald?

  But I found her, I found it to just be a little bit, like, neither here nor there. Like, are we fully a Silver person, or are we, uh, Julia Garner? I, it was a little bit hard to tell. I love her as an actor.

• 47:49Speaker 03

  I mean, I feel like the way that the movie looked, you know, just sort of across the board, was really great and a vast improvement over, like, we all understand how these things are put together and how many different effects houses, but, but again, I think that, like, I think that the idea of, like, just Galactus in and of himself is like, just, like, it, it's both completely and totally intuitive to say, just do Galactus.

• 48:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 48:15Speaker 03

  Cause the other Fantastic Four movies, which we don't need to, are sort of like, what if it's a cloud of nanites, or, but it's just like, just do this guy, and it, but that's not easy, right?

• 48:24Andy Greenwald?

  No, well, there's two, there's two things.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  And there's a performance there, too.

• 48:27Andy Greenwald?

  I was like, to my daughter, I was like, he was on the British Office. I don't know why I've become that person, because she started to watch The Office.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 48:33Andy Greenwald?

  And she, she's like, this is of no use to me.

• 48:35Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 48:36Andy Greenwald?

  And I was like, but your dad knows.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 48:37Andy Greenwald?

  They love me.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 48:38Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway, um, first of all, Superman and this movie deserve to be commended for just choosing a different color palette and brightness level. Okay, so I don't feel like we're on the same soundstage with the same effects houses getting burned out. There's a brightness, there's just a, a aesthetic decision-making at work here, but I wanted to bring up-

• 48:55Speaker 03

  I'm outside, I feel like I'm outside.

• 48:56Andy Greenwald?

  We're outside, and we live in a world. And in that case, having a stylized world helps, because everything is slightly tweaked and artificial. But I think, um- I was gonna bring up the same thing you just did, which is the story of the multiple years of adapting successfully, mediocrely, or terribly the Fantastic Four franchise is kind of a lesson in how to do this stuff, or how best to approach it. Because they spent so much time saying they love the material and then running as far away as possible from it. Particularly, like, yeah, we have a Jesus figure who's on a surfboard, and we have a planet-eating space god, and they're like, well, who wears a purple helmet? And it's like, well, no, no, no, no, no. We like the idea, but it has to be a cloud.

• 49:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 49:38Andy Greenwald?

  Or similar, or like in the Josh Trank version, it's like, we want to see the burden of this transformation. It's like, that's a version of Grounded that I'm so over with. Like, life is hard enough.

• 49:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 49:47Andy Greenwald?

  It's interesting to see someone who's like, it's pretty sick that I can fly.

• 49:49Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 49:50Andy Greenwald?

  Or there's maybe a few advantages here to be special.

• 49:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 49:53Andy Greenwald?

  Um, well, and so running towards the Galactus thing, being like, yes, we're going to honor this Kirby design, and the just the absolute insanity of it, and then bring him to Earth and do something that's like a Kaiju battle from a Toho movie, like, at scale. So when he's walking through Manhattan, I was laughing. It's delightful. It's funny.

• 50:13Speaker 03

  Did I?

• 50:14Andy Greenwald?

  It's bizarre.

• 50:15Speaker 03

  Did I have the wrong read that he was a little bit turned on by the Statue of Liberty?

• 50:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, he's like, finally!

• 50:21Speaker 03

  I mean, he looked and he was like, hello, lady!

• 50:24Andy Greenwald?

  This is a different hunger for Galactus.

• 50:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. So, I think that whatever was going on there was inappropriate and, um, and very interesting to me.

• 50:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, you'd think that would make him question what he's doing here. Like, this is a better planet for me. They make them my size.

• 50:39Speaker 03

  And if he knocked it over, the Statue of Liberty, then the movie is woke?

• 50:43Andy Greenwald?

  Oh!

• 50:44Speaker 03

  Or, you're making some kind of anti-American...

• 50:48Andy Greenwald?

  If he knocked it up?

• 50:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:50Andy Greenwald?

  I thought you were gonna say.

• 50:51Speaker 03

  Cause I kinda felt like, I was very into that look, because I was like, what's this, what does this mean?

• 50:56Andy Greenwald?

  So...

• 50:57Speaker 03

  And it was just really to get a sense of scale, I guess.

• 50:59Andy Greenwald?

  So the Marvel Story Council, if it had Dee Lindelof added to it, you would wait till everyone else quieted down and just lean forward, take off your glasses, and say... What if Sexy Galactus?

• 51:10Speaker 03

  I would just say that somewhere in the multiverse, Ghostbusters 2.

• 51:14Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, okay.

• 51:15Speaker 03

  And this Fantastic Four movie are both happening in the same New York. And-

• 51:21Andy Greenwald?

  John Malkovich goes from red ghost to red ooze.

• 51:23Speaker 03

  Ooh, keep going. Or actually stop.

• 51:27Andy Greenwald?

  You're catching what I'm pitching.

• 51:28Speaker 03

  Stop.

• 51:31Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, so the spirit of it, yes.

• 51:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was just gonna say one thing reflecting on your point about, about just do, just do, do what we love.

• 51:40Andy Greenwald?

  Do the thing.

• 51:40Speaker 03

  Is there, and speaking of the thing, there is that great moment where Ben is, is at, looking at the television and it's, and it's Evan Moss, uh, Baccarat, and, and, and then the reflection is the thing. And, and we're like, we get it.

• 51:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 51:54Speaker 03

  You know, we don't need five beats of Reed saying, "I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna change you back", when nobody wants that to happen.

• 52:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 52:02Speaker 03

  Right? That's the thing is like, you know, every episode of The Incredible Hulk when I was growing up, the TV show, was basically like-

• 52:09Andy Greenwald?

  So, Kaya, in the seventies-

• 52:10Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, there was a show called The Incredible Hulk.

• 52:13Andy Greenwald?

  And, and Bill Bixby wandered from town to town and inevitably he would get angry while wearing his purple pants.

• 52:17Speaker 03

  They could only afford it once.

• 52:18Andy Greenwald?

  One time.

• 52:19Speaker 03

  You know, he would get angry a couple of times, but he would only turn into the Hulk once.

• 52:23Andy Greenwald?

  He would get miffed.

• 52:23Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 52:24Andy Greenwald?

  He would get peeved.

• 52:25Speaker 03

  And then Lou Ferrigno, who was constantly competing with Arnold Schwarzenegger to be Mr. Universe.

• 52:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 52:31Speaker 03

  Painted green.

• 52:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 52:32Speaker 03

  With a, an amazing wig, he would Hulk out, beat the shit out of people, and then he'd have to roll out of the next town just kind of like as the FBI McGee was the name of the guy who was kind of chasing the Hulk.

• 52:41Andy Greenwald?

  His name was, his name was FBI McGee?

• 52:43Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know. I don't know what his first name was. I think his last name was McGee. You have to look it up. I'm gonna guess it's Jack McGee?

• 52:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, probably.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  Or Big Jim McGee, something like that.

• 52:53Andy Greenwald?

  You liked it.

• 52:53Speaker 03

  I did.

• 52:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 52:54Speaker 03

  Um, but anyway, he's looking for a cure. So that he doesn't have to be the Hulk anymore. But it's a, but it, but the premise is terrible because the audience wants him to stay the Hulk.

• 53:04Andy Greenwald?

  And to be the Hulk more, in fact.

• 53:05Speaker 03

  And so I do think that the idea of like, um, again, first off, we're getting like a real performance. Like, which, uh, and for, for a character that is primarily a visual effect.

• 53:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 53:17Speaker 03

  You know that that guy was on the set.

• 53:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 53:19Speaker 03

  You, you hear his voice in a way that it wasn't done in an ADR booth. The people reacting to his performance and like, and he's a wholly realized character. I'm sure you felt the same thing that I did and I'm sure many others have felt, which is there was more there with Natasha Lyonne. Right? Like-

• 53:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 53:34Speaker 03

  It's just like, okay- I'm hungry for that, but I also understand, you know, it's time to cook.

• 53:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 53:41Speaker 03

  But like, but sometimes when they shoot them more and you feel them more, it's not a bad thing.

• 53:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 53:46Speaker 03

  Because it's sort of like, oh, okay, like, there was a journey here that this character went on.

• 53:50Andy Greenwald?

  And for the actor to attach to and understand.

• 53:53Speaker 03

  And I love that Johnny, who is like, you know, always just the ladies man, right? Just the cad, like, who can also light himself on fire. And they retained that.

• 54:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 54:04Speaker 03

  But then there's this.

• 54:05Andy Greenwald?

  Flirting with a sexy space alien.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  He's an astronaut, you know, like, he was on that ship for a reason.

• 54:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 54:10Speaker 03

  And so the idea of him being like, a little bit missing going to space and like, hot for space. But then he's like, I want to figure out this language thing because I have value too. I'm not, I'm not just that guy.

• 54:23Andy Greenwald?

  That was the one. I thought it was cool. I thought that was the one moment where I'm like, this feels like a successfully executed, top-down thoughtful note about a character beat. I didn't know if I bought the John Storm. If you went by John Storm.

• 54:36Speaker 03

  Oh, big Jim Storm.

• 54:38Andy Greenwald?

  I get that he would then be like, you know, intergalactic linguist.

• 54:41Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 54:42Andy Greenwald?

  But, but again.

• 54:43Speaker 03

  Also dirty.

• 54:44Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that's what Galactus is, actually.

• 54:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:46Andy Greenwald?

  I wished he'd had the opportunity to show it off.

• 54:48Speaker 03

  He speaks excellent English, though.

• 54:50Andy Greenwald?

  They all do. It's like, why, Shalaball, why are you speaking Zen Lais when you also have a wonderful, regional, nonspecific English accent?

• 54:59Speaker 03

  It's the power cosmic, baby.

• 55:01Andy Greenwald?

  It is. I shouldn't. I respect that Marvel was like, they all speak English.

• 55:05Speaker 03

  Power cosmic, it's just better than Google English. They've been doing it. Everybody's been speaking English. Occasionally, like, someone doesn't speak English.

• 55:12Andy Greenwald?

  Well, it's the idea is that they have options.

• 55:13Speaker 03

  Right, yes.

• 55:14Andy Greenwald?

  You know, it's like, it's a beautiful, borderless future that we are not getting. But it's nice to think about. No, but like, the little details that made sense for the movie that they didn't run from also, like, that Johnny is a cad, right? That he's always, and that he always wants to try to date the aliens they meet, like, that's additive. That's fun here. I thought, I don't think I'd seen Joseph Quinn in anything because I'm not up to date with Stranger Things, but I thought he was very good.

• 55:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 55:38Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that you can't.

• 55:39Speaker 03

  He's great on Stranger Things.

• 55:40Andy Greenwald?

  And you can't fake. I feel like this is an overused talking point, but I think it's legitimate that like these four actors that they cast seem to enjoy each other's company and you can't fake that. And so again, that's additive vibes to the scenes that we get with them together. I also thought it was an interesting, and I credit my eight-year-old with this, she noticed it is the inverse of Superman in that there's one and a half Clark and Lois scenes in Superman. Like, I think Jim's interest is really a world of superheroes and how they interact with each other. This movie spent a lot of time with them as people, as a family, in the Baxter Building, which I enjoyed more and I appreciated. Let's talk about the Pedro of it. You've seen him in four movies.

• 56:23Speaker 03

  Three movies and a TV show, I guess.

• 56:25Andy Greenwald?

  Recently.

• 56:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, so I saw Eddington, The Materialists, and Fantastic Four inside of four days. And then I guess the TV show is Last of Us.

• 56:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 56:36Speaker 03

  Which, we have the spoiler alert, but he's like, you know, he's only in the early episodes.

• 56:41Andy Greenwald?

  Enough for the Emmy voters.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, and quite surprising for me. I did not, I was miraculously considering how close I fly to the cultural flame, did not know that that secret was effectively kept. But, like, I do, I know that it's a bit of a joke, that it's like, this guy's in everything. You know, it's like, that he's kind of like transcended culture. But I will say, like, my appreciation for his skill, like, and this isn't even mentioning, like, what he's able to do on Saturday Night Live, which is like, kind of like, next level. It's like, his comedic chops are incredible.

• 57:20Andy Greenwald?

  Or on the red carpet, he's just a delightful person.

• 57:23Speaker 03

  What he does in Eddington and what he does in The Materialists, both movies that I liked a lot and were just like, really interesting. Even if you don't like them, I think they're interesting. But I liked them a lot and found them interesting. And then Fantastic Four was the last one. And then to say, like, he's...

• 57:43Speaker 03

  He's playing an iconic Marvel character, Reed Richards, who actually isn't that iconic. And by, and by that, I mean, like, he, he's really smart. Now, you and I have read The Hickman, so it's like, there's a much more interesting version of Reed that begins to emerge.

• 57:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 58:01Speaker 03

  In, in, in terms of what his future holds, but at this point in his life, what are the, what are the, like, adjectives that we use to describe Reed, Reed Richards? And they're so limiting. They're like, he's really smart, he's good, he's a good husband.

• 58:15Andy Greenwald?

  He's heroic.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  Like, he's a good father. But I think, like, once you get into that territory of, to me, one of the, the most interesting scene in the movie is, is, is basically like, is Sue saying, like, you thought it.

• 58:28Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 58:28Speaker 03

  You fucking thought it. I know you, she doesn't use the F-word.

• 58:31Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 58:32Speaker 03

  But she, it's implied, you know? And she's great, by the way, like, I, I think that that's the standout performance.

• 58:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:38Speaker 03

  Um, and, uh, but, but the sort of idea of like, and it's kind of a relief, and maybe this is a bit gendered, but I think that the idea of like, in the moment that Galactus is like, give me your kid and I will spare your planet, I think it's easier for men to go like, man, that's, that's a bad beat, but you gotta do it.

• 58:57Andy Greenwald?

  Especially.

• 58:57Speaker 03

  And I think women are just like, well, goodbye, Earth, you know?

• 59:00Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 59:01Speaker 03

  Like, and I think that the movie has to call that out between Reed and Sue. And he's like, I'm not gonna do it, but we have to consider it. Like, that's, if you don't have that moment, then the, the movie doesn't work.

• 59:14Andy Greenwald?

  It, it also spoke to, I think it is, I don't wanna assume it's a universal thing, but, uh, when the baby is born, like, the role of the father is never less important or defined, like, the first few weeks and months. And there is an attachment that is instant and ongoing with the mother.

• 59:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 59:33Andy Greenwald?

  And the father, it takes a while to figure out your role there.

• 59:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 59:35Andy Greenwald?

  And that was subtext here as well. And he's like, well, you know, I don't know, I don't know him that well yet.

• 59:42Speaker 03

  Right.

• 59:42Andy Greenwald?

  And I know these other people. I, I also thought it was another smart.

• 59:45Speaker 03

  I have to ask you, though, while we're on the subject. You took your eight-year-old daughter to see the movie.

• 59:49Andy Greenwald?

  And I was side-eyeing her.

• 59:50Speaker 03

  I have a 19-year-old son, but did, does your kid ask you when you leave the theater, hey, what would you do if it were me or the planet?

• 59:57Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 59:58Speaker 03

  She asked?

• 59:59Andy Greenwald?

  Um, she was curious.

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  Uh-huh.

• 1:00:02Andy Greenwald?

  And I was like, you when?

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Andy Greenwald?

  You last week?

• 1:00:05Speaker 03

  Right, yeah.

• 1:00:06Andy Greenwald?

  Or you now?

• 1:00:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're pod committed at this point.

• 1:00:08Andy Greenwald?

  We're good.

• 1:00:09Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:09Andy Greenwald?

  But honestly, your attitude about seeing this movie made me wonder.

• 1:00:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:00:13Andy Greenwald?

  You know, she was not super into it.

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:00:15Andy Greenwald?

  Um, the other thing about that scene that I also wanted to call out, it's another example of the ambient collective knowledge of comic books behind the scenes, of the story council, of the people who work at Marvel Publishing still, of Feige himself, is really valuable. Because one of, because they are able to pick up the strands and crumbs that have been dropped by generations of very talented people, dust them off and say, well, this is still interesting. This is, this has become core text in a way that we want to play with. The most interesting version of Reed maybe in the history of the character is the one from the Ultimate Universe, where he's the greatest villain ever, the Maker. That shades everyone's understanding of the canonical character now. And that scene

• 1:00:59Andy Greenwald?

  brought that shade into the movie, into the MCU in a way. It's my job to think of the worst thing. It's not your job. You think of those things.

• 1:01:07Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 1:01:08Andy Greenwald?

  Great. Does that mean there's going to be evil Reed? I mean, probably in one of the multiverses of Secret Wars, yes. But beyond that, makes the character more interesting. It's additive.

• 1:01:17Speaker 03

  Right. And we've also like, they're playing a bit fast and loose in terms of, um, in some, in, in the multiverse, there are different versions of Peter Parker who look different and maybe are even different ages, right? Like, and, and in some instances, uh, it's the same exact actor, right?

• 1:01:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:01:35Speaker 03

  Like where it's like, the Patrick Stewart that we're seeing sitting next to John Krasinski

• 1:01:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:01:39Speaker 03

  is not, he's not the Professor X that we see in, uh, in Logan.

• 1:01:45Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:01:45Speaker 03

  Right? Like, or, you know, I mean, he's just played by the same actor.

• 1:01:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  And so it's sort of like, we, we have to kind of like, accept that. And, and whatever their logic is going to be for how RDJ is going to play Doom, right? And looks exactly like Tony Stark. The question just basically becomes, and I'm sure that they've had this conversation ad nauseam, do we have to solve for that? Or like, do we have to explain why Victor Von Doom looks exactly like Tony Stark? Like, is, was there a switched at birth thing that happened in the Ladverian Hospital? You know, like, that-

• 1:02:19Andy Greenwald?

  John Slattery's Howard Stark character was a little drunk.

• 1:02:22Speaker 03

  Because that's extremely fast and loose, right?

• 1:02:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:24Speaker 03

  Like, but, but, but when- When he took the mask off at Comic Con last year, everybody was just like, I don't care. You need, you need to do it. You need to explain it.

• 1:02:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  But we're, this is actually kind of brilliant because he, and, and they said this after the fact. We, Tony Stark has to stay dead.

• 1:02:42Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  You know, or else all of those movies mean nothing.

• 1:02:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  It's like, the reason, and, and again, we talk about these comic books and like scripture, they're not. I'm not likening them to, to religious texts, but for some they are.

• 1:02:58Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:58Speaker 03

  But the idea that Tony Stark died for, to save us all, you can't take that away. It would be like, the, the Christ story, it has no impact until the resurrection.

• 1:03:09Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:09Speaker 03

  Right? Until, until he dies on the cross and comes back, but he's, he's not in corporal form.

• 1:03:14Andy Greenwald?

  For what it's worth, for me, the New Testament and Paddington 3 are similar.

• 1:03:19Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:03:19Andy Greenwald?

  They don't exist.

• 1:03:20Speaker 03

  You haven't seen Paddington 3?

• 1:03:22Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I saw it. I just, the joke in my household is that they never made another one.

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  Oh, you're just not gonna acknowledge it.

• 1:03:27Andy Greenwald?

  No, we've just moved on. We're not mad.

• 1:03:29Speaker 03

  I tried to start watching it on a plane and my, um, my tell, my, my in-system TV didn't work for, only for Paddington 3. Which I took as a sign.

• 1:03:40Andy Greenwald?

  That's a kindness.

• 1:03:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:41Andy Greenwald?

  That's a kindness. Um, so there's, there's internet people who are like the, the post-credit scene that is the first glimpse of doom in the Marvel Universe. That Franklin is fixing his face, fixing his scars.

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  I need to ask you a question. So I saw an interview with Shaqman and it may, and, and.

• 1:03:58Andy Greenwald?

  Interview with the child playing Franklin.

• 1:04:00Speaker 03

  And they, and they asked him, and I may be misunderstanding this, was that Downey? And he said, yes. Cause they asked him, did you direct this? And he said, no, the Russo's did. And then they said, was it Downey? And he said, yes. And my brain just said, what?

• 1:04:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  What? It is? It's him? It's, I mean, I understand.

• 1:04:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  It's supposed to be Downey, but do you think on the day when they shot that?

• 1:04:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and Pedro Pascal is always in the Mandalorian armor.

• 1:04:24Speaker 03

  Gotcha.

• 1:04:25Andy Greenwald?

  Right?

• 1:04:25Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:04:26Andy Greenwald?

  He always is.

• 1:04:27Speaker 03

  We're on the same page.

• 1:04:28Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, no, in that case though, it's possible because this post-credit scene, like the post-credit scene in Thunderbolts asterisk, second asterisk, The New Avengers, was directed by the Russo brothers from the never-ending set.

• 1:04:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:04:40Andy Greenwald?

  And so in theory, these scenes are in media res, they're gonna film the A and C of these scenes at some point. So it's possible.

• 1:04:47Speaker 03

  Gotcha.

• 1:04:47Andy Greenwald?

  There may be more to that scene.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:04:49Andy Greenwald?

  And they may have just. Yeah, but I guess we don't know.

• 1:04:53Speaker 03

  Because it would have cost them $25 million for him to turn around and be Downey.

• 1:04:57Andy Greenwald?

  A billion percent.

• 1:04:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:59Andy Greenwald?

  That deal must be

• 1:05:00Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 1:05:01Andy Greenwald?

  Really special.

• 1:05:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:02Andy Greenwald?

  Really special deal. Let's talk.

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  And by the way, earned every penny.

• 1:05:05Andy Greenwald?

  He did.

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:06Andy Greenwald?

  Let's talk Franklin. Let's talk, let's talk kids. So.

• 1:05:09Speaker 03

  Sure. Golden Child.

• 1:05:12Andy Greenwald?

  This is, again, them running towards something that is controversial and difficult in the comics. Like, you know, historically in comics, like advancing relationships past the, and this is true in TV too, right? Like Peter and MJ, flirty, flirty, awesome. Tenth year of marriage. Less dramatic stakes potentially for a comic book, or, and they've addressed that a number of ways. Many of them controversial. Unmarrying them. They forget about it. They made a deal with Mephisto. And by the way, Mephisto is ripped now. I don't know if you saw.

• 1:05:40Speaker 03

  I did see.

• 1:05:41Andy Greenwald?

  So, yeah, that's, he's ready to do the shirtless red body stuff.

• 1:05:44Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:05:46Andy Greenwald?

  Bringing in kids, bringing in babies can be an unforced error on TV shows because then you have to answer to what, we have to take care of the kid.

• 1:05:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:05:54Andy Greenwald?

  If we're running from zombies or running from Thanos, that makes it more challenging. Franklin is particularly challenging because the one thing that is agreed upon canonically in the comics is that this.

• 1:06:03Speaker 03

  It's a bad name.

• 1:06:03Andy Greenwald?

  Is that it's a weird choice of a name.

• 1:06:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's just a bad name.

• 1:06:06Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, it's Reed and Sue. Like, it's all a little dated.

• 1:06:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, and Ben and Johnny. But like, I mean, the only other Franklin that I'm aware of

• 1:06:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:06:13Speaker 03

  is the Peanuts Franklin.

• 1:06:15Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, you're not aware of the short-lived Philadelphia 76ers mascot, a dog named Franklin? There's the Sixers Mad Lib Kaiya. Cross it off.

• 1:06:23Speaker 03

  I'm not.

• 1:06:24Andy Greenwald?

  Well, that was, Franklin existed, I believe, right after they retired the eagle, whose nickname was Hip Hop?

• 1:06:29Speaker 03

  Gotcha.

• 1:06:29Andy Greenwald?

  The bunny, I'm sorry, not eagle. It was a bunny.

• 1:06:31Speaker 03

  I feel if you're Franklin, you don't even get to be Frank, because Frank is short for Francis, and that's cool. Because you've got tough Catholic parents.

• 1:06:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:39Speaker 03

  And you could have been Pope, you could have been a fighter. You could have gone either way. But Franklin, there's only one road, and that road is Golden Child.

• 1:06:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, the most powerful.

• 1:06:49Speaker 03

  Savior of the galaxy.

• 1:06:50Andy Greenwald?

  The most powerful.

• 1:06:51Speaker 03

  Potential planetator. Yes.

• 1:06:52Andy Greenwald?

  And they've run at this, and then they've said he's a mutant, and he's the most powerful X-Man. They've, they've done a lot of storylines where Franklin from the future, always with a. Ponytail comes back and is like, you need to whatever. And they're like, okay.

• 1:07:04Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:07:04Andy Greenwald?

  Son.

• 1:07:05Speaker 03

  And he's got a sister, not yet.

• 1:07:06Andy Greenwald?

  Valeria, yeah. And they, and they depowered Franklin. They've nerfed him, as they say.

• 1:07:11Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 1:07:12Andy Greenwald?

  Um, they brought him back. But all of this is challenging and canonical, including, we keep referencing the great comic writer Jonathan Hickman. In his Fantastic Four run, there was a whole digressive story where Galactus is actually Franklin's herald. Which is pretty cool.

• 1:07:31Speaker 03

  Right. Okay, yes. I remember that.

• 1:07:33Andy Greenwald?

  So, anyway, all this, like, this, whoever this kid is, he is worth sacri- saving a planet for, for Galactus will do anything. Theoretically, maybe he will become the new Galactus. Um, and then at the end, he brings his dead mother back to life.

• 1:07:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:07:50Andy Greenwald?

  Which is cool. That's pretty cool for a baby to do.

• 1:07:52Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:07:54Andy Greenwald?

  How, just give me, give me everything. Do you think this was a smart story play? Does it create more problems than it solves? Did it, did it emotionally work for you?

• 1:08:03Speaker 03

  I mean, I think that, let's talk about McGuffin's for a second.

• 1:08:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:07Speaker 03

  Um, and, uh, this is like, one, one of my favorite talking points inside and outside of writers' rooms. And I, I, I, I seem to recall Alfonso Cuarón being the first one to say it in, in an interview about regarding children of, of men. And he was essentially, he said something like, and I'm paraphrasing, the be- the best McGuffin, McGuffin is not a what, it's a who. You know, and when you look at children of men and you're basically like, okay, that's how it is structured.

• 1:08:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:34Speaker 03

  It's not a get the thing. It's like, it's about her. And more importantly, you know, what she represents in a world where babies can't be born anymore.

• 1:08:42Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:08:43Speaker 03

  Hope incarnate, et cetera, et cetera. So Franklin checks that box, right? It, he, he's, they, I believe that Marvel has introduced their new Infinity Gauntlet. And it is a who, it is now not a what, it is a who, right? And so the, the idea of like Franklin as a being of immense power is, is the thing that is the McGuffin of these next two movies. Doomsday and Secret Wars.

• 1:09:07Andy Greenwald?

  And there's a personal.

• 1:09:08Speaker 03

  Right. And so the question becomes, which I hadn't considered until I saw the tag. Is Doom even a bad guy?

• 1:09:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:17Speaker 03

  Would Downey play a villain? Because you've read the Hickman run and like Doom is sort of like chaotic good.

• 1:09:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:26Speaker 03

  At a certain point, he as an ally, and so is there some version where he is where Franklin, he believes is the ring of power?

• 1:09:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:09:37Speaker 03

  Right? And he is taking Franklin to throw him into the Galactic Mount Doom.

• 1:09:41Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:42Speaker 03

  Because Doom is saying like, "I need to kill this thing, your baby, in order to restore some..."

• 1:09:50Andy Greenwald?

  Or order to the multiverse, right?

• 1:09:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:09:52Andy Greenwald?

  If there's a chaos and these universes are dying.

• 1:09:54Speaker 03

  And so now that creates kind of like a new, I would say that's not probably the way they should go. Because they just did that story in Fantastic Four, which is like, is our baby's life worth, you know, catastrophe, et cetera, et cetera.

• 1:10:08Andy Greenwald?

  But now it's a five-year-old's life.

• 1:10:09Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 1:10:10Andy Greenwald?

  Which, you know, it's worth having. It's a conversation.

• 1:10:12Speaker 03

  That's true. He's, I think he's, is it four years later or five, whatever it is?

• 1:10:16Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, right. So he's not quite five?

• 1:10:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:18Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 1:10:19Speaker 03

  So I think if Franklin is what is all the marbles that we're basically playing for, and this movie was like, sort of like, setting that up, because they were gonna need that thing, right? And what's good is he's neither a portal nor a bomb.

• 1:10:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:10:31Speaker 03

  Um, he's a being of sort of like immense power and capability and strength. And, you know, we've seen different versions of a being who has the power to destroy the universe, must be destroyed, is always like a good story. Because it seems to present how can we win if it's someone that we like?

• 1:10:55Andy Greenwald?

  It's also a way to do Secret Wars without introducing the Beyonder, who was a very eighties character in like a, you know, velour tracksuit.

• 1:11:03Speaker 03

  White, yes.

• 1:11:03Andy Greenwald?

  White tracksuit with long mullet.

• 1:11:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:05Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, who was able to create universes. This is cooler. Although we don't know what, future Franklin's hair choices are often suspect.

• 1:11:11Speaker 03

  But then Doom like becomes the Beyonder, kills the Beyonder, like takes the Beyonder's powers, at least in the original Secret Wars.

• 1:11:18Andy Greenwald?

  That's right.

• 1:11:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:20Andy Greenwald?

  So I do think, I mean, I think it's safe to say that regardless of the twists and turns of Doomsday and Secret Wars, which even people involved are, remain unaware of, the end game, if I may, does seem like Franklin can restart the universe and now Michael B. Jordan could play Black Panther or whatever we want, like, we can start over.

• 1:11:39Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:11:39Andy Greenwald?

  We can have a new Iron Man and we can do this for another 20, 30 years. This is barely a serviceable question, but I am always interested in your brain as a fan of this type of storytelling and then also as a, someone who works in the business and has, you know, made a number of references during this conversation, as well as our text messages, as to how hard this all is.

• 1:12:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:01Andy Greenwald?

  So.

• 1:12:02Speaker 03

  Borderline impossible.

• 1:12:03Andy Greenwald?

  So what are your broadest possible feelings about the next decade of this stuff? And you could bring in the DC stuff, which you know a little bit more about from personal hands-on experience, or even like Marvel, like, is, are we stuck in the same kind of Doctor Doom loop of the comics where it ultimately can't end and it can't iterate past a certain point, it just has to reboot?

• 1:12:28Speaker 03

  It's a great question and the short answer is, I, it, is, I don't know. I mean, I do feel like there, there is a finite amount of ore inside this vein. And the vein is, is, is a superhero vein and it's not just, there's a Marvel vein and a DCU vein and, and, and the boys and all the, all the sort of like, it's superheroes writ large. And I think that there is a hunger for original, surprising, you know, fresh takes on, on this genre and there's a hunger to play the hits.

• 1:13:09Speaker 03

  I mean, the thing is like, if you're gonna go see U2 at the, you know, at the Sphere in Vegas, you don't, you want to hear them do the Joshua Tree.

• 1:13:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:13:18Speaker 03

  You know, and like, and maybe mysterious ways, like, so, and, and so that idea of sort of like, we want. The classics and, and, and we don't want you to change the menu. Like throw in the McRib once a year, you know. Super size it if you will. We're, we're good. And I think that the idea of like, you can't choose one road or the other. You kind of like have to do both. Mm hmm. For me, the most consistently strong MCU movies have been the Spidey movies. Yeah. They're the ones that I love the most, that I look forward to the most, that feel like the most sort of like heartfelt and like, I'm completely and totally engaged by. And even when I heard that they were going to do some multiversal storytelling,

• 1:14:02Speaker 03

  and I was a bit skeptical, that movie worked incredibly well for me. Cause once Toby and Andrew Garfield are there, I was like, like I'm, my eyes are watering when Andrew Garfield fucking saves MJ. And there's justice for a character that I hadn't thought about in 15 years. It's just like, tho- those movies are like so great. And so I think that that idea of like, it's possible to kind of like skate along the edge of this kind of multiversal storytelling and still do, you know, new and exciting and, and fresh things. Um, that's, that's the sweet spot. But, but then I see all those director's chairs and I feel simultaneous excitement and overwhelmedness.

• 1:14:42Speaker 03

  Cause it's just sort of the idea of like, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna go and see these two movies and it has to service like 50 characters. Now that said, I, I'm like ride or die for, um, for Infinity Wars and Endgame. Yeah, that's great. And, and, and I'm just basically like, give me Shuri, give me, you know, give, like, give me all of Wakanda. Give me Bucky, give me, you know, now, now I've got a Rocket Thor story where they're fucking hanging out with Peter Dinklage. All of it. Like it didn't, it, it shouldn't have worked and it did work. And, and I, but I do feel like that was the culminative, like it was like they had just done such beautiful setup. For all of those payoffs.

• 1:15:24Speaker 03

  And I'm just like, I'm, I'm just really curious and a little bit nervous about where now these two movies. I think are they the, there's a Spidey that we're gonna see before.

• 1:15:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:36Speaker 03

  Before.

• 1:15:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, Spidey is next summer and Doomsday is pushed to December 26.

• 1:15:41Speaker 03

  That's next, that's a, that's in eight, a year and a half.

• 1:15:44Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:15:44Speaker 03

  So there's two MCU movies.

• 1:15:46Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm.

• 1:15:47Speaker 03

  That, one of them is a Spidey movie and the, and the next one is Doomsday.

• 1:15:50Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 1:15:50Speaker 03

  And so Doomsday is the, is the, is, is, is, is the next sort of big.

• 1:15:55Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:55Speaker 03

  Kind of like crossover event. And I just wonder, have they done all of the, the setup work?

• 1:16:00Andy Greenwald?

  Because they flailed for years.

• 1:16:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:02Andy Greenwald?

  Some of, a lot of the stuff just didn't work. And I do wonder that like, having recently rewatched with my kids and they loved it, like Infinity War and Endgame. Part of the fun was it almost doesn't matter what Marvel team up they do in the next scene because I like all these people.

• 1:16:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:16:16Andy Greenwald?

  And it's fun to see them mixing and matching. I don't know if I feel the same way about Wyatt Russell and Joseph Quinn and Winston Duke in a scene. Like maybe.

• 1:16:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:16:23Andy Greenwald?

  I like all those actors. I like them in their movies, but in terms of the like, the, um, the IP sweat equity of spending time with them. But. Is different.

• 1:16:32Speaker 03

  The larger thing is that Tony and to some degree Steve and Tony.

• 1:16:37Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:16:38Speaker 03

  Um.

• 1:16:38Andy Greenwald?

  There's an anchor there.

• 1:16:39Speaker 03

  They were the co, the cohesive sort of like narrative through line through Civil War and, um, and Winter Soldier. And, um, and leading into those movies. And so the idea that they were estranged and had to come back together and, um, and like all of that stuff. And that doesn't mean that the other characters aren't relatively important. And I guess I just go like, is, who, who is the anchor?

• 1:17:05Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:17:05Speaker 03

  Is it, first off, Downey is just, he's a celestial being in and of himself, his star power. So I guess Doom is actually the lead of these two movies, whether villain or hero.

• 1:17:17Andy Greenwald?

  Correct.

• 1:17:18Speaker 03

  Because he, the biggest star in those movies. And what is it gonna look like when Tom Holland and RDJ are in a scene together? And Tom Holland like has the emotional reaction to seeing Tony again. And that character doesn't recognize him.

• 1:17:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:17:32Speaker 03

  Like, like, have they done that math? So my, my bet is it's Peter and Doom are the anchor of these movies. They're the ones that I care the most about. And although I've now bought in on.

• 1:17:43Andy Greenwald?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:44Speaker 03

  This version of the Fantastic Four, um, like, and I care about them.

• 1:17:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:49Speaker 03

  I don't think that they've earned them being the leads, you know.

• 1:17:54Andy Greenwald?

  True.

• 1:17:55Speaker 03

  Because they've only had, you know, an hour and forty-five minutes of screen time and investment.

• 1:17:59Andy Greenwald?

  It is guardiansy in the sense that like they have a working thing within themselves that I think will translate. And you'll be happy to see them, but I agree with that. After I saw this movie, I was talking to my daughter about, because she said, you know, to see them again in Avengers Doomsday. And I called up the like, the cast list. And it did feel like a potluck where everyone brought a dish, but you're like, but what's for dinner?

• 1:18:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:18:19Andy Greenwald?

  There's thirty actors.

• 1:18:20Speaker 03

  Where's the protein?

• 1:18:20Andy Greenwald?

  And I see all of them. And I'm happy to see Shang-Chi and I'm happy to see Nightcrawler and all this, but I'm like, but who's actually gonna be feeding us in this film?

• 1:18:32Speaker 03

  Right, and who are the Avengers? I mean, like, because again.

• 1:18:35Andy Greenwald?

  They didn't.

• 1:18:35Speaker 03

  We're back to the asterisk, but it's like, those guys are the new Avengers.

• 1:18:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:18:39Speaker 03

  But it's sort of like, who are the Avengers right now? Did I miss that one?

• 1:18:44Andy Greenwald?

  So they have fumbled the first steps towards Doomsday, I would say.

• 1:18:47Speaker 03

  Gotcha.

• 1:18:47Andy Greenwald?

  Like, you know, I think that's generally, like, everything they did on TV and everything, a lot of these movies, they just, it didn't work. Like, they had the time and they had the space on their calendar to make Eternals the important cornerstone of this that they hoped it would be. And, you know, and then Harry Styles would fly in as Star Fox and everyone would be like, wow, this world just keeps getting bigger.

• 1:19:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:07Andy Greenwald?

  But those are all kind of swings and misses, Shohei.

• 1:19:09Speaker 03

  I mean, these movies are going to work. Like, I don't think that that is a bold prediction. In fact, it's like a relatively safe one. It doesn't mean that Russo's and Feige and everybody else behind the scenes has their work cut out for them. But it's sort of like, I'm not betting against.

• 1:19:26Andy Greenwald?

  No, there's too much.

• 1:19:27Speaker 03

  These movies. I think they're gonna be great and I think that they're gonna potentially push Avatar out of the conversation entirely.

• 1:19:37Andy Greenwald?

  Great. Because we don't want to talk about it.

• 1:19:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:39Andy Greenwald?

  Um, okay, before we wrap up.

• 1:19:42Speaker 03

  Do you think Chris will watch the Avatar trailer that is basically runs before Fantastic Four?

• 1:19:46Andy Greenwald?

  I saw it and I was like, what the fuck is this?

• 1:19:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:19:50Andy Greenwald?

  That was so.

• 1:19:51Speaker 03

  Am I supposed to remember who Spider is?

• 1:19:53Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't know what any of it was.

• 1:19:55Speaker 03

  It's okay.

• 1:19:55Andy Greenwald?

  And they're so worked up and they're just, I'm more Chris. I just don't get it. I don't get it. But not everything is for everyone. So. You have worked in a lot of these sandboxes and you've you've loved them, you've worked in them to varying degrees. Um, as you said, love letters, some of which have been sent.

• 1:20:13Speaker 03

  And returned to sender.

• 1:20:14Andy Greenwald?

  Which were returned to sender.

• 1:20:15Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. One of which was literally torn up and thrown in the garbage.

• 1:20:20Andy Greenwald?

  I think I was, I was in the room for some of that.

• 1:20:22Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 1:20:25Andy Greenwald?

  If you, you know, and you just, you did just work on lanterns, you did, I think, maybe you didn't know until I told you, you were special thanked by Big Jim at the end of Superman.

• 1:20:33Speaker 03

  That was news conveyed by you.

• 1:20:35Andy Greenwald?

  That was, that was exciting to see.

• 1:20:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:20:39Andy Greenwald?

  If you get a call, I assume you may get a call, like to, to play in one of these again. Without spoiling anything or breaking confidences, like where is your head in regards to that? All, you know, that it's not just that there's still stuff that you haven't ticked off your bucket list, it's that the entryway now to some of these universes isn't what it was five, 10, 15, 20 years ago. There's all this other shit.

• 1:21:00Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:21:00Andy Greenwald?

  So what is your personal calculus these days of what it makes something interesting, enticing, meaningful to you?

• 1:21:06Speaker 03

  I think, and, and I'm, I'm sure there are many out there who would agree. Uh, like I've, I've said and done and brought everything that I have to say and do and bring to the superhero canon. I felt that way pretty much after Watchmen was over. And again, Watchmen, you know, the romantic love that I held for that, that, that comic book.

• 1:21:36Speaker 03

  Is like off the charts. It's like, it is, is so fundamentally important to me. And it, and it in the, in the eighties was like enough with these fucking superheroes.

• 1:21:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:47Speaker 03

  You know? And, and so here we are 40 years later. Like still doing, they're not going anywhere, right? They're, they're around. But, but I do think that the sort of idea of, um, uh, not like I didn't bring. Every idea that I could to help Chris and the team on Lanterns, you know, do their best version of Hal and John, inside of what James and Peter are trying to do at DC. And, and both tonally, both in terms of, sort of like, again, a lot of this is just sort of like about vibes. But if you can bring something new to the character, that is not in, in opposition to the canon, but actually kind of like enhances the canon.

• 1:22:32Speaker 03

  That's always the, the search, which is like, how can I make this character feel more relevant without taking away the destruction of Krypton, or the, or the, or the murder of the Waynes, or, or Hal's dad dying in a, in a, in a test flight. But how can I nuance this? That, that said, it's, it's sort of like, it's time for me to move on to other things. I think like, creating original worlds is something that's still immensely difficult. Cause you have to kind of build that world. But like, um, maybe there are pieces of IP that are not as familiar to people. Like, I think Game of Thrones is a perfect example of this, whereas like,

• 1:23:17Speaker 03

  if, if you were, if you were hip to those books, then great. But they weren't like tearing up the New York Times Bestseller list, and people weren't like cosplaying those characters until it came to HBO. So it's like, that kind of IP is like very interesting, where you, you can introduce it. But in terms of like, you know, what do I have to, to say about any of these characters? Like, I would, you know, I'm into Spidey, but I think I should be watching Spidey, not writing Spidey. Unless, unless I suddenly like woke up one morning and had the incredible idea. So, I really do go into these movies with- I feel, I feel sorry for people who go into these movies with their arms crossed and say, "Impress me."

• 1:24:00Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:24:00Speaker 03

  Um, I, I used to be that person. Now I go in and I'm basically like, I've got my fucking Galactus popcorn bucket that I spent eighty dollars on. And I'm like, I'm, I'm here for, for fun. And all you have to do is deliver. And I don't think that my bar is super duper high.

• 1:24:17Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:17Speaker 03

  And that isn't to take anything away from this movie, but it's like, if, if, if you go in saying like, entertain me, make, make this worth my while, it's, it's almost impossible to clear that bar. You'll always find something to be angry about. Um, and I just don't want to be that person and I don't like, and I don't want to have to try to please that person anymore.

• 1:24:37Andy Greenwald?

  Spoken like the person who paid for my ticket to see Madame Web.

• 1:24:40Speaker 03

  Oh, oh my God, come on. That was an amazing.

• 1:24:43Andy Greenwald?

  I wa- it was a wonderful day.

• 1:24:44Speaker 03

  An amazing rainy day.

• 1:24:45Andy Greenwald?

  I was very entertained.

• 1:24:47Speaker 03

  And, and, and shout out to C.R. who was also with us. And that, we went on a Monday. It was like a holiday.

• 1:24:54Andy Greenwald?

  It was like a Monday at 1:00 P.M.

• 1:24:55Speaker 03

  But it was sort of like, I believe it was the first screening of the film where everyone in attendance had gotten the memo.

• 1:25:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:25:02Speaker 03

  Of what it was. And it was so fun.

• 1:25:04Andy Greenwald?

  It was really fun.

• 1:25:05Speaker 03

  Cause everybody was, everybody was there for it.

• 1:25:08Andy Greenwald?

  I think it's a beautiful message to give to our listeners that, uh, you gotta make your own fun sometimes.

• 1:25:13Speaker 03

  You do.

• 1:25:13Andy Greenwald?

  That's what the Wilburys did.

• 1:25:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you don't have to-

• 1:25:15Andy Greenwald?

  Low those many years ago.

• 1:25:16Speaker 03

  You don't have to travel to the Amazon.

• 1:25:18Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 1:25:19Speaker 03

  No. To find your own fun.

• 1:25:21Andy Greenwald?

  No, we, we, we may never know who was researching spiders with our mother right before she died.

• 1:25:25Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 1:25:26Andy Greenwald?

  I still don't know. I'm trying to figure it out.

• 1:25:28Speaker 03

  Do you think we'll find out on Avengers Doomsday?

• 1:25:30Andy Greenwald?

  God, I fucking hope so.

• 1:25:31Speaker 03

  Dude, if they bring in any of the Madame Web characters.

• 1:25:35Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:25:36Speaker 03

  Just, just get friggin', um, uh, Zosia Mamet behind a fucking screen.

• 1:25:43Andy Greenwald?

  She's the one in the, or it's another part of like this, the low-key big time war between Jim Gunn and Kevin Feige that's happening right now, where if Kevin Feige's like, "I know you're planning for Hawkgirl to be a core part of the Justice Gang, but we need Isabella back on set because we're doing the Madame Web characters in Doomsday."

• 1:26:00Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 1:26:01Andy Greenwald?

  And just takes her off the board.

• 1:26:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, cause I'm sure they've got her under, well, that's the, she's under the Fox deal, but-

• 1:26:07Andy Greenwald?

  No, the Sony deal.

• 1:26:07Speaker 03

  Oh, the Sony deal, that's right.

• 1:26:09Andy Greenwald?

  But really, all these deals are negotiable these days, I think.

• 1:26:12Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 1:26:13Andy Greenwald?

  Look at you. We got you on this podcast. We thought you were exclusive to House of R, but no, you're here now.

• 1:26:17Speaker 03

  It's, uh, well, I had to ask Joanna if, um,

• 1:26:20Andy Greenwald?

  It's fair.

• 1:26:21Speaker 03

  if she would.

• 1:26:22Andy Greenwald?

  She's very generous.

• 1:26:23Speaker 03

  Loan me out.

• 1:26:24Andy Greenwald?

  Uh, thank you for talking about this with me.

• 1:26:26Speaker 03

  It's always a pleasure.

• 1:26:27Andy Greenwald?

  No one better to nerd out about this stuff with.

• 1:26:29Speaker 03

  There are two things I didn't get to check off on my Chris list.

• 1:26:32Andy Greenwald?

  Sure. You want to save them?

• 1:26:32Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I, I would have to.

• 1:26:33Andy Greenwald?

  Save them?

• 1:26:34Speaker 03

  We have to leave them for next time.

• 1:26:35Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, and hopefully you'll come back for something less, um, uh, Marvel. Or less IP. I don't know what it would be.

• 1:26:42Speaker 03

  I would love that.

• 1:26:43Andy Greenwald?

  Anytime.

• 1:26:44Speaker 03

  Excelsior.

• 1:26:45Andy Greenwald?

  See, you can't resist.

• 1:26:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:46Andy Greenwald?

  So, Kaia, in the 60s, Stan Lee used to say, "Excelsior."

• 1:26:50Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:26:50Andy Greenwald?

  Thus, the name of the show. You could just fade this part out. It'll sound real good.

• 1:26:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. Cue, cue and titles.

• 1:26:56Andy Greenwald?

  And, oh, we didn't say Chiquino's music. It was good.

• 1:26:58Speaker 03

  It was amazing.

• 1:26:59Andy Greenwald?

  Really good.

• 1:27:00Speaker 03

  Great vibes.

• 1:27:01Andy Greenwald?

  Don't add that.

• 1:27:11Speaker 07

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• 1:27:41Speaker 08

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