The 15 Most Anticipated Movies Out of CinemaCon and Our Trip to the Sphere!

Sean and Amanda are joined by Puck’s Matt Belloni to recap their trip to the annual Hollywood Studio and theatrical exhibitor trade show CinemaCon! First, they break down their trip to Las Vegas and review their experience seeing ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at the Sphere (1:12). Then, they discuss the general state of movies in 2026 and share all of their main takeaways from CinemaCon (18:14). To close out the show, they each share their five most anticipated movies coming out of the event (54:21). Have a question for our 900th episode mailbag? Email us at [email protected] or call us at 323-488-3241 and leave a message! Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Matt Belloni Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh 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.

• 0:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 0:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:17Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture Right Conversation Show about CinemaCon. Today on the show, we are discussing our visit to Las Vegas this week at the annual Hollywood Studio and Theatrical Exhibitor Trade Show, CinemaCon. They showed us their big movies, coming later this year and beyond, and we are breaking them all down today with the one and only Matt Belloni from the Town Podcast. Programming reminder, next week, we will have our 900th episode of The Big Picture, and we are doing a mega mailbag. So send your questions in now, [email protected]. What is that, Amanda?

• 0:47Amanda Dobbins?

  [email protected].

• 0:50Sean Fennessey?

  Or call us at 323-488-3241. That's right, we're taking your voicemails to play on this episode. 323-488-3241. Send us questions about movies, this show, Amanda's hair. Anything is on the table. We'll get into CinemaCon right after this.

• 1:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Matt, welcome back.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Thank you, I'm honored to be invited back.

• 1:16Sean Fennessey?

  We were just in Vegas together for 72 hours. We not only survived, but I feel like we thrived this year.

• 1:22Amanda Dobbins?

  We had a lovely trip. We forgot to take a photograph. So this is our official, and maybe Craig Horlback, producer Craig, can come in later. And, you know, but here it is on Netflix. Yeah, hello, Vegas.

• 1:33Sean Fennessey?

  Is this your Netflix debut?

• 1:34Speaker 02

  No, I've been in several little, not little, but I've been in documentaries before. I mean, the Murdoch one that's on right now. So I pop up every now and then. But this is certainly the longest I've ever been on a Netflix show.

• 1:46Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  So we'll see if they deplatform it or the algorithm will not be kind to this episode. Let's just say that.

• 1:54Sean Fennessey?

  So you conquered Apple TV in 2025, Netflix in 2026. Hulu next year, maybe?

• 1:59Speaker 02

  I may be, I've been on Hulu too.

• 2:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  I've listened to a couple documentaries. But this is not like, they're not ordering the shows for me. I happen to be in the documentary that then gets bought by Hulu.

• 2:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so Vegas, you know, we did the usual. We stayed at Caesar's Palace, where CinemaCon is typically held. Last year, we all.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Fun fact, I did not stay at Caesar's.

• 2:19Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, wow. Also flexing.

• 2:23Sean Fennessey?

  Caesar's Palace is fine.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  I love it. I actually, for what it is, it's great. I'm fine with the $8 waters. I'm fine with the $20 cocktails, 25 at some point. But it's, it's good because you know exactly where everything is. The party's in the same places. The Colosseum's a nice venue, so it's good.

• 2:40Sean Fennessey?

  It all, it's all very conquerable. You probably, you understand the mapping of the space now, right?

• 2:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I do. It was nice to feel like an expert to know where to go. And also, as you learned, I have a great sense of direction. So, you know, it just, it all spread out before me. I also got a great room. So shout out to Caesar's Palace. I was on the 45th floor. I had a view of the Bellagio and the fountains and I just did Ocean's Eleven every night before I went to bed.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  And you probably learned from your first year that the celebrity food hall is not where the celebrities go.

• 3:07Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's not. Yeah.

• 3:08Sean Fennessey?

  No, that's, that's indicating whose names are on top of the restaurants that are selling food.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Yes, the celebrities in question are Bobby Flay, Daniel Balud. Those are celebrities.

• 3:18Sean Fennessey?

  So last year, the three of us and Craig went to go see David Copperfield. And that was entertaining. Things have changed for David Copperfield and the world at large.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  I would like to point out, we are not here to discuss that. I would like to point out that I did do some cursory research before we went last year. And I determined that he had not really been canceled. And there were some questions about his behavior.

• 3:40Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Since then.

• 3:42Amanda Dobbins?

  He has been canceled. Though the ads for his show have not been removed from the Burbank airport. So I would let the good people at Burbank know that they might want to bring those down.

• 3:53Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, well, Sphere is, is going strong right now. No cancellations going there at all. And, and you know, Amanda and I have been talking for a long time, basically since it opened, about our desire to go check it out and see it and understand it. I know you've talked about it before on the show. You were kind enough to, kind enough to help us get in to go see The Wizard of Oz. Now, you'd already seen it.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  I had.

• 4:13Sean Fennessey?

  We had not seen it before.

• 4:15Amanda Dobbins?

  So you went, you gambled.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  I did, and I won.

• 4:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, congratulations.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  And I watched a little of the Dodger game, which was delightful.

• 4:21Sean Fennessey?

  Please not here.

• 4:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Happy for you.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  But I am very curious what you guys thought of this beer, because my opinion doesn't matter. I'm not a professional podcaster when it comes to this kind of stuff. I want to know what you guys like.

• 4:35Sean Fennessey?

  Well. Real, real mixed bag. Real, real, real mixed bag.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  I had a feeling.

• 4:41Sean Fennessey?

  Matt, I don't know if you know this, but you know, The Wizard of Oz, I often say is sort of like the critical movie experience in my young life. It's one of the very first movies that my mom showed me. And I probably watched it 100 times between the ages of three and 13.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  I think you're not alone, and that nostalgia has been effectively mined and exploited on a gigantic screen.

• 5:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, and, and you know, we've seen it, obviously, in our world with Wicked and Wicked 42.

• 5:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, not for the first time.

• 5:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and so it's a very sacred text to me, and we know that, that there's something unsacred about what's been done. It's fear. What, what, what did you think?

• 5:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I would say that it was not just the desecration of our beloved childhood totem, and also a cinema classic that I expected, but it was in many ways sort of a, a half-hearted desecration at best. It was both way, way too much and absolutely not enough. There is, the, the practical experience of it is that it's a combination of 4DX and ScreenX, and a larger ScreenX experience than most theaters can.

• 5:44Sean Fennessey?

  You're surrounded by screen.

• 5:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, though, I will say, not as much screen as I expected. Craig and I noted as we were walking in, I thought the Sphere was like a 180 experience.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  You thought it went all the way around?

• 5:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I did.

• 5:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Well, how did, but how did you?

• 6:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I didn't think through it, Matt, you know? I saw the photographs of the Sphere from the outside. I saw Timothy Chalamet sitting on top of it, and I thought, okay, so when I get inside, it will be what is on the outside, but on the inside.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  But they have to put the audience somewhere.

• 6:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yes, I thought perhaps it was like a theater in the round experience.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Sure, like the old, I don't know if you went to Disneyland back in the day where they had like 360 thing, where they'd come in front of you and then behind you. That's not this.

• 6:24Sean Fennessey?

  This is roughly 240 degrees, 66%, something like that.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  It is immersive.

• 6:29Sean Fennessey?

  It's very immersive.

• 6:31Amanda Dobbins?

  It is immersive, but so.

• 6:32Sean Fennessey?

  It's, it's an, before we even look, talk about the screen, like the space itself is beautiful. It's really organized. It was very easy to navigate. It's obviously a new space that they poured a ton of resources into it. And the screen itself is very impressive, but I also similarly thought we were going to be fully surrounded.

• 6:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, so you, you sit down and. There's that moment when it lights up. And I think we all gasped. We were like, ooh. Because, you know, it's exciting and it's unlike something you've seen, even though it does have the architecture of the Screen X wide experience and the 4DX effects and movement.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  And to be clear, you had had a Wizard of Oz themed margarita?

• 7:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Well, it was, you can take them in. So I was halfway through the margarita at that point.

• 7:22Sean Fennessey?

  I had a Kona Big Wave.

• 7:23Amanda Dobbins?

  But, but also on a pretty empty stomach, just because of how the, how they worked out. So I was, I was feeling good. I was happy to be there.

• 7:33Amanda Dobbins?

  But the, so to go back to the 4DX, there are effects. But really just the tornado? They go big on the tornado, which is in the first 10 minutes in this edited version.

• 7:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the, the early black and white segment of the film is very truncated. You can see there are a lot of hard cuts. Some of the, some of the awkwardness of the experience is just knowing explicitly where the cuts are and there being some, I don't know, discomfort with the way that they're cutting the movie. But they kind of dispense with a lot of the setup of the film and it gets very quickly to the tornado. Now, I thought the tornado sequence was fucking incredible.

• 8:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  It is worth the price of admission.

• 8:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally.

• 8:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's very cool. It's very, it's a very original conception. It is, it is 4DX, but it's not that your chair is shaking around and moving. It's that wind is blowing at you. It's that they have cut up leaves and they are shooting them into the sky. And that immersive screen, it really overwhelms you. I mean, it's a very.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  And the haptics match, like it's all done really well.

• 8:29Amanda Dobbins?

  It's great. I felt like I was in a Beyonce video for a little bit. There, you have my hair blowing back. It was great.

• 8:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so that part of it is very, very fun. Unfortunately, it does come just a little bit too early in the experience because the rest of the film unfolds and there's, there is a lot that is awkward and a little ugly about it at times. And then there's some other things that are compelling in a unique use of the space, but.

• 8:49Amanda Dobbins?

  But not really. That is the one big set piece.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And so then the rest of it, which is, you know, about another hour is still awkwardly edited, you know, sped up and deeply disorienting and off-putting visual experience because-

• 9:06Speaker 02

  You think so, really?

• 9:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  I got a lot of the stuff in Oz and the musical sequences and, and when, you know, the munchkins show up. I thought that was pretty fun.

• 9:14Amanda Dobbins?

  The disconnect between the old footage, the actual Wizard of Oz footage and Judy Garland and the Scarecrow and the Tin Man and they're using, they're using and whatever quote unquote restoration, upgrade, enhancement, like AI, CGI slop, I, you know, I can't tell you the 45 things that they did, but like I could tell you what was from the original movie and I could tell you what were like the weird poppies that they drew on.

• 9:44Sean Fennessey?

  I, I agree. And I can pretty much identify what's been changed.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  And I found myself looking around at different things to try to evaluate. And if you look closely, you can see faces that aren't there. You can see a lot of things.

• 9:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And you could even see, you know, they did something to the yellow brick road to try to make it, you know, yellower, I guess, and more exciting and, but, but then so like Dorothy's feet don't actually touch the yellow brick road when she is, she's dancing.

• 10:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 10:14Amanda Dobbins?

  And this is at such a scale that I, I didn't have to squint, you know? It was right there and I was like, those feet are floating on the yellow brick road.

• 10:21Sean Fennessey?

  Like for me, I first saw the film on TV, probably on a 24 inch screen on VHS. So imperfections in the production of the original movie, you never would be able to pick up on that stuff. In an attempt to kind of upscale this image and to have a movie projected at that size is really challenging, even if it's a clean print and it looks great and the original film is perfect. So I think it's just, maybe we're moving in some sort of evolution of how these things are going to be changed over time, but the movie is, you know, 85 years old. And so there are already a lot of imperfections and that became part of its charm over time.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:55Sean Fennessey?

  In an effort to kind of fix some of those things, I think they did a little bit of a messy job. And then there, there's like something else about the like matte paintings in The Wizard of Oz are, is like great craftsmanship in old school studio Hollywood. And something like this attempts to just kind of erase that stuff, you know, it's kind of painting over it with this new technology. That being said, Like, and I knew I wasn't really gonna click with it, cuz I'm very dubious of changing something like this.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  I figured, yeah.

• 11:22Sean Fennessey?

  I do think that the venue itself and the experience makes a lot of sense. And I wish we'd seen a concert there. I think a concert there would be so fun.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  They're great. I saw U2, great.

• 11:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:34Sean Fennessey?

  And I would have known of these, like, preconceptions about what I'm supposed to be looking at and how I'm supposed to understand it. And honestly, I said to you, if you, I asked you if you'd seen the Aronofsky film that he made for the format, because I would like to see something made exclusively for that room. Instead of something that they're trying to convert, and in doing so, I think chopping it down, to your point, made it feel,

• 11:57Sean Fennessey?

  it actually made it feel too long. Like, you know, because of the way that the seats are oriented, because of the way that you're absorbing the movie, because the lights are up for most of the film, which is very strange, but for roughly 70% of the movie, the lights are on.

• 12:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 12:10Sean Fennessey?

  And you can see the screen clearly. It doesn't affect that ability, but it doesn't feel like you're sitting in a movie theater.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:15Sean Fennessey?

  It feels like you're sitting-

• 12:15Speaker 02

  It's a stunt.

• 12:16Sean Fennessey?

  In someone's auditorium.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  It's a tourist attraction.

• 12:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  And for me, it works on that level.

• 12:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Like, you took home an apple. There are apples that fall out of the sky at some point.

• 12:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Which is, I thought that was fun.

• 12:25Sean Fennessey?

  It was cool.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  The monkeys, not as much.

• 12:27Amanda Dobbins?

  They don't have that locked down.

• 12:29Sean Fennessey?

  That actually felt like 80s Disneyland.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. But as a stunt, like, I always look at this stuff from a business perspective. The numbers on it are very good.

• 12:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  The, you know, it was about a third full.

• 12:40Sean Fennessey?

  I would say it was maybe half-full, yeah, when we saw it. You think less than half?

• 12:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I think, I think it was less than half.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  But they're making money. And my, and my question to you guys is, does this make you want to see another beloved movie in this format?

• 12:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it was interesting. We went with your, with Craig, producer Craig and your colleague Alex Bigler, and the minute it went up, the, the movie started, Alex said, this, I'm just thinking of other movies that I would wanna see in this format.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Like Titanic, but just the sinking.

• 13:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. No, that would be great.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Not the big gym would ever allow that.

• 13:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  But if he did, I would be in.

• 13:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 13:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that I am with Sean that I would rather see like movies made for that format. Because in addition to the ugliness of trying to make this old movie and its imperfections fit on a large screen, there was a very funny disconnect on the on the margins where they clearly had to like expand the frame. And so then it was someone's like interpretation of a mid century modern light fixture, but like through the prism of Oz over here on the side, because you just you need extra stuff for that that screen. So I but but then you think about like Star Wars, you know, and you're just imagining the ship going over it. And you're like, Yeah, that seems.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  They want Star Wars. They want ET. They want Jurassic Park. Like you can you know what they want.

• 14:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, my God, the dinosaurs. I would be excited.

• 14:09Sean Fennessey?

  To me, it's just about what are you doing to the original film, you know, like you just named three of the most iconic movies of the 20th century and three movies that changed movies and three movies that people have as deep a relationship to as they do Wizard of Oz. So I think you use the phrase tourist attraction that obviously is what it is, you know, you tickets are expensive, you wait in line to get in, you're seated as though you're going to a concert, not as though you're going to a movie, and you have to go in knowing that if you're going as like a cineast.

• 14:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 14:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's it's more of it's more of a negotiation with yourself, I think.

• 14:40Amanda Dobbins?

  We were not behaving as good film goers throughout the experience. And I and I think some of that is because I had had half of a wicked margarita on a empty stomach, excuse me Wizard of Oz margarita on an empty stomach, but also because the lights are up and because it is such a different setting than a movie theater setting. Well, I know, but you know.

• 15:00Sean Fennessey?

  That's part of it.

• 15:00Amanda Dobbins?

  But there is a little bit of tension with us. Like, I would never be taking reaction shots of Sean watching any other movie during a movie, even though it was content gold.

• 15:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 15:09Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 15:10Sean Fennessey?

  But it was as though we were seeing Phish and Phish was playing two nights later. So.

• 15:13Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, so so that is interesting when you think about like other if you're bringing classic movies, we're not really treating them as a movie experience, even as an audience in in that setting.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  You just interviewed Spielberg. Do you think he'd be down for this? I don't know. I mean, he obviously has a big relationship with the Universal Parks. There was an E.T. ride for many years. He's done stuff with them on that front.

• 15:37Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I can't speak for him. He's obviously done a lot of things that have evolved the experience of movie culture.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  But they don't touch the movies themselves.

• 15:46Sean Fennessey?

  I find it hard to believe that any living artists would be on board with this unless they engineered it themselves and were actively interested. Like, obviously, George Lucas changed.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  Changed those movies, yes.

• 15:57Sean Fennessey?

  Spielberg has done that before and has said he's regretted it when he's done it before. For example, the guns in E.T., that's something he's talked about in the past. The idea of cutting E.T. down by 45 minutes just seems anathema to what that film's supposed to be. So I just, I find that hard to believe, but, you know. Look, we're about to talk about the state of movies and movie theaters. And things are gonna have to keep changing for the business to stay afloat. This is like a pathway. I mean, does this go into box office receipts on the year?

• 16:26Speaker 02

  No, no, no. It doesn't.

• 16:28Sean Fennessey?

  Shouldn't it?

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 16:29Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, this is theatrical exhibition.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  I know. It is.

• 16:33Sean Fennessey?

  At a premium rate.

• 16:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but we did not behave as, and we did not experience it as if we were going to a theater. I think they should go the other way. I think that if you're gonna do Star Wars or Jurassic Park, get a live orchestra in there playing the music as loud as you possibly can. Really turn it into an eventized experience.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  Hollywood Bowl does that, and they're very popular, and 15,000 people show up with their lightsabers.

• 16:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I need them to start it before 8 o'clock so I can take my son. But anyway, but I think that the blueprint of the sphere is to be more event and touristy and less.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they do need content to fill this place.

• 17:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, which is, but that's also, as we learned, the blueprint for every single theater. Certainly is how eventy and stunty can you be? And how unlike sitting in a dark room and not talking.

• 17:23Sean Fennessey?

  Over the next 20 years, I think there'll be like a kind of slow convergence or evolution where they're both kind of moving in each other's direction. Because you can see, we heard a lot about PLFs and the formats that the movie theaters are pushing towards. This is in the same conversation and. Someone's gonna make a 90-minute narrative feature film for this format.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  Right, well, and the plan is to have spheres all over the world where, just like Beyonce could play spheres and have her visual show played all of them, they could have this, or whatever movie, if Spielberg says yes, play for a month at each of them, or play at the same time at each of them.

• 18:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  And, you know, the next one is gonna be outside of DC and others around the world, so maybe it'll happen.

• 18:06Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, well, thank you for helping us get in there. It was an interesting experience.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  I have a Sphere guy.

• 18:10Sean Fennessey?

  You have a Sphere guy.

• 18:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you, the Sphere guy. Thanks for coming to dinner afterwards.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  It was fun. We had a good time.

• 18:14Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's talk about CinemaCon and the state of movies in general.

• 18:19Sean Fennessey?

  Attendance and ticket sales and box office receipts are all up this year.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  They are, about 20%, and before this past weekend, which had a bad comp with Minecraft last year, it was up like 23, 24%.

• 18:32Sean Fennessey?

  Right, so we thought maybe people would be coming in in a positive mood. Did you, was that, what did you sense? How was everybody feeling in the world of Hollywood exhibition?

• 18:41Amanda Dobbins?

  To me, I sensed dissociation. I was, it was kind of a, let's, let's just focus on what we're doing here right now because this year so far is strong, and I think what we saw broadly across the studio slates is like more sure bets than last year, and so for right now, for the immediate future, everyone is feeling good. And if you think more than six months ahead of time, then things get really, really dicey, really, really fast. So it seemed like on both sides, both the studios and the exhibitors, at least what was being presented, right?

• 19:22Amanda Dobbins?

  At least what was, you know, for show, was just, was a very, short-term thinking. How about that?

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I talked to a lot of the exhibitors and a lot of the executives. They are optimistic. This was definitely the best mood I have seen at CinemaCon since I started going, and that was a long time ago. Certainly pre-COVID. Like, since COVID, it has been like the, you know, beaten-up stepchild. These, these executives, they just don't know what's gonna hit them next.

• 19:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  And it was not just COVID. It was the studios pivoting to streaming, and it was all the different changes to the model and the windows and all that stuff that we talked about on The Town, and- I think that there was cautious optimism this year and these leaders, they don't have the luxury of thinking five years down the road.

• 20:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  They are trying to not go bankrupt this year.

• 20:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  And many of them believe they will survive this year now.

• 20:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, interesting. So the group of people that are there, this is increasingly, I would say, a press-friendly event, and it's meant to generate a lot of hype coming out of it.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  It used to not be.

• 20:27Sean Fennessey?

  I know.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  It used to be very, very press-unfriendly and...

• 20:30Sean Fennessey?

  Since I've been going, it has gotten dramatically more friendly to the press. But, you know, it really is meant to be there for, and, you know, not just AMC and Regal and the chains that you know about, but a lot of independent theater owners, a lot of small consortiums of theater groups.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  And international.

• 20:42Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of, you know, a legendary Canadian exhibitor was honored when we were there.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 20:47Sean Fennessey?

  That's the thing is, there's a lot of time spent talking about the people who run the theaters before presenting.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  And they have a propaganda video that goes along with it. Yeah.

• 20:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Some of it is charming, some of it's very boring. But it's like we are attending the most high-touch, star-laden plumbers convention in the world. I mean, that's really what it is. And it's a very nice event, it's very well-run, but it's like going to a trade show.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  And then all of a sudden, The Rock comes out.

• 21:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, exactly. Or Tom Cruise.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Or Tom Cruise.

• 21:16Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's the most famous people in the world attending the trade show.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  And it's like, oh, holy shit, that's Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, like, standing next to each other.

• 21:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Here's Tom Hanks standing next to Tim Allen. Like, over and over again this year, the star power was high.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:29Amanda Dobbins?

  But there is also, there is a lot of actual trade show stuff and panels and, and things happening.

• 21:35Sean Fennessey?

  You hosted too.

• 21:36Amanda Dobbins?

  You hosted too. There are a lot of things about, you know, popcorn machines and...

• 21:39Speaker 02

  Have you ever done that?

• 21:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And movie theater carpeting. No, I haven't.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  You guys need to walk the trade show.

• 21:43Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I've walked the trade show before.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  I mean, the flavors of nachos that are available, unbelievable.

• 21:49Sean Fennessey?

  You needed that before your margarita.

• 21:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I know. I needed the Cheetos popcorn that is, that I've seen at the theaters but still have not tried. Movie taste test coming soon.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Varying shades of carpets?

• 21:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  And things like that?

• 22:01Amanda Dobbins?

  But so all of that is happening in, you know, individual ballrooms and beyond the, the main stage presentations that we're seeing. And then obviously also, there are lots of meetings and people talking. And Matt has a lot of reporting on the... The machinations behind the scenes, which feels like where a lot of the real conversations and a lot of the power is concentrated. And then, you know, we get Investor Day presentations. And they have that feeling of what is being shown to the world and also what is being studiously avoided at all times.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  But, but to Sean's point, the press is a big component of that now.

• 22:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Pre-social media, pre-video streaming, all of it, it really was for the theater owners.

• 22:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  And they would feel free to show them stuff that they weren't going to debut in months. Now, you have to be so careful with what you show and who you showcase because you know that this is the first time that the narrative is being created.

• 23:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Around it. Like, there is now a narrative around the Tom Cruise movie because we have seen, even though they released nothing, public has not seen Tom Cruise.

• 23:12Sean Fennessey?

  Only we have seen it.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Only we have seen it. But that was never a factor. And the amount of press, and now, like, there's rumors that the studios are flying in influencers to be there. Like, we heard some people.

• 23:22Sean Fennessey?

  You could tell based on where we were sitting.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  There were people that were going absolutely nuts for an Evil Dead reference and like things that you're like, what?

• 23:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  And that was never the case before.

• 23:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, per se. In fact, it probably behooves them to keep exposing more and more people to some of this stuff to keep building word of mouth. The thing is, is there's a real distortion effect because when you invite people whose job it is to cover only Marvel, when you launch a trailer inside of a room for people who only care about Marvel, you're obviously going to get overstated enthusiasm for certain things. It's a good strategy, but it's just not an honest representation of how the public at large will understand it.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  And what I used to like about CinemaCon is that it was a tough room. Like, these were not people that stood up and applauded for every trailer. They were like, okay, is this going to be commercial? Is this going to fill my theater? And it's sort of like, it's merging with Comic-Con a little bit in that these, these fans are there with the express purpose of promoting the content.

• 24:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  And it's taking away a little bit of the objectivity and the stuff that I like, which was really the ability to evaluate.

• 24:36Sean Fennessey?

  Right. Hopefully, we'll be able to do some of that here. We're also gonna do an episode of The Town together.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:42Sean Fennessey?

  And when we do that, we will go through each studio presentation bit, you know, section by section and talk about what we thought worked well. But for this conversation, I at least wanted to know who you guys feel like is best positioned right now and maybe who's in a bit of a tough spot out of the six majors who presented.

• 24:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  And who would you rather be? If you were the head of one of the studios this year?

• 25:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Who would you want?

• 25:03Sean Fennessey?

  With the, with the understanding that we're on the brink of consolidation between Warner Brothers and Paramount, of course.

• 25:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah. Well, I mean, that, I don't want to be either of those people. And I think that even though, you know, Pam Abdi and Mike DeLuca came out and did a victory tour and that was a, a major part of their presentation.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  You rarely see mention of Oscars.

• 25:23Amanda Dobbins?

  That's.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  They went on and on about all their Oscar nominations.

• 25:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Many times.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  These theater owners do not give a shit about Oscar nominations. If you are not filling their theaters, like, they hated Enora. They thought Enora was garbage because it didn't do any business.

• 25:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's a good point.

• 25:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. So, you know, they, they won Oscars and congratulations to Mike and Pam. They're very good at their jobs. But I think that for many reasons, I would prefer to be Donna Langley right now, which I think what's interesting is that we would have said that before we even saw the presentations, right? Some of it is just what is on.

• 25:57Sean Fennessey?

  What do you got?

• 25:57Amanda Dobbins?

  The schedule and how guaranteed. And they have a Steven Spielberg movie and a Christopher Nolan movie coming out this summer, plus the Minions movie, plus, you know, plenty of other, plus Super Mario, which so they're doing fine. Donna Langley also came out to God Save the Queen.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  She did. You know, she is the dame.

• 26:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I know that she is Dame Donna Langley, so, you know, that seems fun. Just if we're, if we're choosing to be people. But, you know, Universal has its own strategy, is not in the, in the merger game, has figured out the balance between franchises and big name directors and not just auteurs, but auteurs who put butts in seats. So, and, and it is their year. Last year's Universal slate, they, they had the second Wicked sequel, but much of it was just like, wait till 2027.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  They were vamping a little. They brought their full orchestra to the stage.

• 26:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly, you know, and, and I, and I enjoyed that from a showmanship perspective, but this is the year where they're just like, here are our goods. Like, we've got it.

• 27:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think they're in a generally a good spot because it's just a very smartly, creatively led company.

• 27:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 27:06Sean Fennessey?

  But they're also in a tricky spot because they're not as big as Disney and they're about to be a lot smaller than Warner Paramount and they can't compete with specifically what Netflix does. So it's unusual. Like, they're gonna have to jump from lily pad to lily pad if they're gonna keep playing the director-led Christopher Nolan game. There's only one Christopher Nolan.

• 27:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 27:23Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe Denis Villeneuve's coming up behind him as another brand name who's under 70 years old that can do that, but it's few and far between. You gotta be really, really savvy.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  They have Jordan Peele.

• 27:32Sean Fennessey?

  They have Jordan Peele.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  And now they're trying to do it with the Daniels.

• 27:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and I, nobody believes in that idea more than I do. That's my favorite thing. So I'm pumped that they're doing that, but it's gonna be hard to consistently nail it. I just think for our show.

• 27:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 27:45Sean Fennessey?

  Universal is, that makes a lot of sense.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  I get it, I get you saying that.

• 27:49Amanda Dobbins?

  You ask who I wanna be, and that's this year, and also that's part of the thing where it's, you're saying that the theater owners are only thinking short term. There was a, so for this year, on that stage, that seemed like the strongest position. But to your point, you know, what we know about 2027 and 2028 will be an interesting discussion.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Well, Universal has Shrek 5 in 27.

• 28:13Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  I don't wanna pre-draft on my next year draft, but like, that is a consensus number one.

• 28:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Are you personally a Shrek person?

• 28:21Speaker 02

  No, I don't know what that means.

• 28:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, let's start with this. Have you seen the films?

• 28:27Speaker 02

  I have seen them all, and I enjoy.

• 28:29Amanda Dobbins?

  You've seen them all, even Shrek 4?

• 28:31Speaker 02

  I believe so.

• 28:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow, okay.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  I like them. In fact, I distinctly remember seeing Shrek 2 in the theater and loving it.

• 28:37Amanda Dobbins?

  So I would like to let you know you are officially a Shrek person. Can we have like Matt Bellamy's Shrek person here on the Chiron?

• 28:44Speaker 02

  But isn't there like a weird fetish community around Shrek? He's become this like icon.

• 28:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I.

• 28:50Sean Fennessey?

  Be careful with fetish.

• 28:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think that's to a younger generation.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  He's a millennial icon.

• 28:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I think he's more cuss millennial Gen Z.

• 28:59Sean Fennessey?

  I think young millennial. I think young millennial.

• 29:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so we're, and we're counting, so when Bobby Wagner, his parting gift to us was making us watch Shrek 2, I believe.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  Which is hilarious.

• 29:09Amanda Dobbins?

  It was, yeah, it's funny.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Some of the references are dated now because it's very much of the moment, but.

• 29:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, I saw Shrek in theaters. I remember, you know, the donkey, it's good stuff. Um, I don't think I've seen all four.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Also, I love the, the industry narrative behind Shrek is still amazing. The fact that Jeffrey Katzenberg gets fired by Disney, has to sue them for money. And what does he do? He goes and creates an animation company. And not their first, but one of their first movies was a movie where the king is a tiny guy, just like Michael Eisner, and he is power mad and he uses all the fairy tale characters that Disney has dined out on for decades and he kind of perverts them.

• 29:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  And then he goes and makes one of the biggest franchises of all time.

• 29:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:52Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. You want to be Universal. Who do you want to be?

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Disney.

• 29:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  I mean, as much as I would love you, for the purposes of this show, I get Universal, but.

• 30:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Some of it's about lifestyle choices, you know, and that's where I would rather be dealing with the minions than.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  And I, and I want the Spielberg movie to work.

• 30:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  It is still a big risk, even though we loved, we talked about, we loved the new trailer and it's much better. It's still a risk. Uh, Disney has come the closest to de-risking the movie business. Not certainly hasn't solved it and questions about some of their titles. But if you look at what they're doing, Toy Story 5 cannot miss.

• 30:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  That is going to be gigantic. And I'm not just saying that because I have it number one in our draft.

• 30:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that was your first pick.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  It was my first pick for a reason because it is, if, if, if Zootopia 2 can do 1.9 billion, what can Toy Story 5 do?

• 30:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And, and nothing that they showed us indicates that it's anything less than just a Toy Story movie.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  They nail, they nail those movies. This one is a great idea. Cannot believe they have not had an iPad in these movies before. And it's, it's going to be gigantic. Moana looks like it's going to work. Um, you know, I.

• 31:07Sean Fennessey?

  Not for me, but sure.

• 31:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Not for me.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  No, but, but.

• 31:09Amanda Dobbins?

  But no one cares. But no one cares what we think. Yeah.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 31:12Amanda Dobbins?

  That's fine.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  And Avengers.

• 31:14Sean Fennessey?

  Just when it comes to Moana live action. I came, I, I was, I was getting my daughter ready for school this morning. And I, and I was like, okay, Alice, here's what I did this week. I watched clips from Toy Story 5, The Mandalorian and Grogo and Moana. And her response was, can I go next time? So, you know.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  I know. Tried to explain CinemaCon to my 10 year old. Very difficult.

• 31:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's weird.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  So you saw all, uh, no, I didn't really see the movies. I saw like 17 minutes of the Mandalorian movie.

• 31:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  Oh, is it good? Yeah, it was good.

• 31:42Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's the thing about being Disney is, um, you know, I think their slate this year is seems strong, but very uninspiring creatively.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 31:49Sean Fennessey?

  And.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  I'm not judging the creativity, I'm judging the performance, likely performance.

• 31:53Sean Fennessey?

  And to your point about the de-risking, it's just, it's been a trend over the last 15 years that they're engineering purposefully a kind of loss of originality. It's really like hopeful to me that Hoppers worked.

• 32:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Imaginering?

• 32:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:06Sean Fennessey?

  Imaginering, yes.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  Hoppers worked, but Hoppers grossed $350 million. That, for Disney, that's not enough.

• 32:12Sean Fennessey?

  Modest, yeah, I agree.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  But, but they.

• 32:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you see Hoppers?

• 32:16Speaker 02

  I did, and I liked it a lot.

• 32:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  And, and, and people liked it who saw it. So like, I'm not, Hoppers is a success.

• 32:21Sean Fennessey?

  It's gonna do well and it's gonna do well on Disney Plus.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  And it will do great on Disney Plus, and they may in five years be able to do another one, which is The Judge, you know.

• 32:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  And.

• 32:29Sean Fennessey?

  Just like we'll get in Kanto 2 at some point, but we didn't know, we thought that was not a success at first.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Coco 2 is coming.

• 32:34Sean Fennessey?

  They're still doing that stuff, yeah, yeah.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  So that's, I, I just feel like Disney is still the machine. It's diminished, they don't have three Marvel movies this year, they have one, but it's gonna be huge. I actually had to leave, I couldn't see the Avengers stuff.

• 32:48Amanda Dobbins?

  So maybe your willingness to be Disney is that you didn't have to deal with all of the people cheering.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  And I didn't have to see the Avengers trailer twice.

• 32:56Sean Fennessey?

  Let's, let's, let's just talk about that right now, because I think that's one of the most anticipated things coming out of this.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  Educate me.

• 33:02Sean Fennessey?

  Amanda and I did see it.

• 33:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Twice.

• 33:05Sean Fennessey?

  So during the Disney, the closing moments of the Disney presentation were, uh, Kevin Feige was introduced, he came and spoke about this upcoming film. He introduced Joe and Anthony Russo, the filmmakers who made two Captain America movies and the last two Avengers films, they're making this Doomsday movie.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  The erasure of the electric state is, will not be tolerated on the show.

• 33:24Sean Fennessey?

  And Cherry and a number of other films.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  The Gray Man.

• 33:28Sean Fennessey?

  The Gray Man, yes.

• 33:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And didn't they do that TV show that was?

• 33:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 33:33Amanda Dobbins?

  The international spy TV show? Yeah, that no one watched.

• 33:37Sean Fennessey?

  It was called?

• 33:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Citizen or something?

• 33:39Sean Fennessey?

  Citadel.

• 33:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Citadel, okay, I was close.

• 33:42Sean Fennessey?

  They've had a complicated previous eight years.

• 33:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And I would say that it was like, it was not the most enthusiastic response from the theater owners when they, when they walked out.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  When they came out.

• 33:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, because they've been doing.

• 33:55Sean Fennessey?

  Few directors have made more money for them in the last 10 years than those two guys.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  But, I mean, we know who's running the show at Marvel.

• 34:00Sean Fennessey?

  Of course. They introduced Robert Downey Jr., who was playing Victor Von Doom, Doctor Doom, in this new film. A character that, whose name has, I don't think ever been uttered in any Marvel movie. In that, in this iteration. And.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

• 34:15Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it indicates, I think, what, a little bit of the challenge of what we saw, which is we saw, after Downey came out, he introduced Chris Evans and we watched the full trailer. And the trailer, I think, did what it needed to do, but what it did, we've already seen before. Which is to say, it's a movie about a group of disparate heroes coming together to fight a big villain. But the Thanos thing in the Infinity Saga, they took 10 plus years, 14 years, years and years, to build that story out over time and build anticipation. In this trailer, where you see the Fantastic Four, the Fox X-Men characters, the Avengers from the previous films,

• 35:00Sean Fennessey?

  the characters from Black Panther, you know, Shang-Chi, Gambit introduced in the Deadpool and Wolverine movie, all these characters. They all need to come together and fight Doctor Doom. And that's cool. Like, I read comic books as a kid. I'm a huge comic book movie fan in general. I've been way down on what they've been doing the last five years, but we don't, like, what is the conflict? Why are these people coming together? What?

• 35:26Speaker 02

  And more importantly, why do we care?

• 35:28Sean Fennessey?

  Why do we care?

• 35:28Speaker 02

  Because the goodwill that led to Infinity War and Endgame was the momentum of all those movies we cared about.

• 35:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 35:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and also the buildup of those characters. Can I say that it, it did feel like the B-team of, of people? Because it is, it is Thor. Narrating, but you're seeing a Shuri as Black Panther. You're seeing Florence Pugh, who I like a lot, but has really, she had Black Widow, which was a COVID thing, and she was not Black Widow. She was the second, she stole the movie from Scarlett Johansson, but that's fine. And then Thunderbolts. All of the other, the characters seem like they are newer. We've spent less time with them in this franchise. They've had less time to develop them and they, and they do feel like the replacements. In many cases, they are the replacements, whether that's because of like story or life reasons. And so it felt like reheating a little.

• 36:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, the two major, major characters that are back are Thor and Captain America.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  How do they deal with the Iron Man paradox?

• 36:24Amanda Dobbins?

  He's just not there.

• 36:26Sean Fennessey?

  He's not there. I mean, he died at the end of Endgame.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Right, but so did Chris Evans.

• 36:30Sean Fennessey?

  And they buried him. And in fact, one thing that they did show, which drew a huge pop from the crowd, but which I found to be incredibly cynical and lame, was there's a moment where Thor sees Steve Rogers and he's blown away and he says, how? You know, how can this be? Cause he's gone, right?

• 36:46Speaker 02

  It's Palpatine returns.

• 36:47Sean Fennessey?

  It is very Palpatine returns.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  Somehow he returns.

• 36:50Sean Fennessey?

  And as he's, as they're approaching each other, he reaches the hammer out and, and Captain America catches the hammer, which is of course something that was like, that was a high point moment in Endgame.

• 37:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:02Sean Fennessey?

  But like, that's fan service. And that's all that is. And it worked in the room. It played to the maniacs that we were sitting with. They loved it.

• 37:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I think there was, there is a group of maybe like a 40 primarily young men who were there just to start yelling and like yell they did.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Paid or not paid, we can't say.

• 37:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I don't know. I didn't interact with them, except just be like, please.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  I'm just saying, it costs a lot of money to go to CinemaCon if you are not pressed.

• 37:26Amanda Dobbins?

  It's true.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  So, yeah.

• 37:28Sean Fennessey?

  Anyhow, I thought what we saw probably did what it needed to do, just to kind of feed those who are already locked in. I, I'm very curious to see if it will. Convert the skeptical and they have become more skeptical over the last five years.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  Or just the casuals who are out.

• 37:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Like who haven't followed the new movies and they're like, what? I don't even know the Fantastic Four.

• 37:48Sean Fennessey?

  Those people though were still like, oh, Captain America. I like him and I'll go see that. And I think in that way, like it was effective enough, but creatively I was like, man, this feels so bankrupt.

• 37:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And then even they, they brought, so Downey's back playing a new character. They bring Chris Evans out who is dressed just like Sean. Uh, it was really kind of alarming. And then they tried to do their, you know, like some banter, you know, some like bring back some Avengers.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And much like at the Oscars, it just felt like totally flat.

• 38:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 38:17Amanda Dobbins?

  They like, they don't have any of the chemistry. So even there where you're trying to recreate the, you know, the buddy, the buddy, like we're all on a team together. And it's like, oh, you guys, you don't have that for this movie.

• 38:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I, I think the press they got out of it was very effective. Um, but I, I, I think it just needs to see more. We're going to watch it. We're going to talk about it on the show, of course. It's going to be one of the biggest weeks of the year.

• 38:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, obviously, just from like an effects, it looked incredibly ugly. Yeah, I just, I thought it just looked bad.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  But they all.

• 38:45Amanda Dobbins?

  They all do, but I thought that it looked.

• 38:47Sean Fennessey?

  I don't even know what we saw.

• 38:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought it looked ugly.

• 38:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  The big industry narrative is the doomsday versus Dune three.

• 38:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  So can we talk about that for a second?

• 38:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  You know, obviously Avengers is going to be way bigger. The last one grossed almost $3 billion. So even if this one grosses half of the previous Avengers.

• 39:04Sean Fennessey?

  It's still a massive film.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  It's still going to probably be the number one or two, probably the number two movie of the year.

• 39:09Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  But I think that the Dune three footage was so good that they showed and the goodwill and relevance of that franchise, where it doesn't feel thirsty. It doesn't feel like these guys are grasping at straws.

• 39:24Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  This, this movie has Zendaya, Timothy Chalamet, Robert Pattinson, Jason Momoa. Uh, who am I forgetting? Florence Pugh.

• 39:33Amanda Dobbins?

  It just has.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  Robert Pattinson. Yeah, more relevant stars.

• 39:37Sean Fennessey?

  Josh Brolin, yeah.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  More relevant stars for right now. And that footage they showed kicked ass. It was amazing.

• 39:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to spoil my number one most anticipated movie out of CinemaCon because of what we saw. They showed us the first seven minutes of the film. They also put the biggest stars onstage. Zendaya and Timothy Chalamet were there with Denis Villeneuve talking about the movie along with Jason Momoa. And the first seven minutes are.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  It was Saving Private Ryan in space with spaceships.

• 40:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  And lasers.

• 40:05Sean Fennessey?

  It was a real like, we got the goods. This movie's not coming out first eight months and we don't care. We'll show you exactly what we have because we know that it plays. Now, those movies are darker, they're more violent.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  They are.

• 40:16Sean Fennessey?

  They're not pop. They're are like, they've never grossed a billion dollars, either of those movies. But we've been making this comparison about like, that series's Oscar chances around The Lord of the Rings. But it actually felt more like The Lord of the Rings to me, watching this sequence, because I was like, this movie should exist. Like, there's more story to tell. Like, they have to finish this, which was the one hurdle that I thought the movie might have had.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:39Sean Fennessey?

  Where it was like, are we gonna need to feel like we need to see how this concludes? And they sold that really well with what they had. So I thought it was really special. I don't know if a movie that dark can be that big. But the thing that Disney did was they introduced something called Infinity Vision.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Are we gonna talk about this?

• 40:56Sean Fennessey?

  To combat, yes.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Infinity Vision. So just for prelude here, one of the reasons why I'm so bullish on Dune 3 is that it has the IMAX screens globally for three weeks. Prenegotiated. IMAX loves Denis. He shoots in IMAX. So over that holiday week, we should say, they're both coming out December 18.

• 41:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  And. As of today. As of today, yes. And Disney, instead of moving Avengers, which many people think they should have moved it a week in advance, they would have a week all to themselves. There's nothing on that date and on December 11.

• 41:29Sean Fennessey?

  I thought they would. I thought for sure, as soon as Jumanji.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, when Jumanji moved, I was like, okay, well, this makes sense.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  Because now Jumanji is in that Christmas corridor. They have not done that yet. Instead, they introduce Infinity Vision.

• 41:41Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a new, quote, "certification" that Disney has acquired for their films.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 41:47Sean Fennessey?

  When they are displayed in non-IMAX and presumably Dolby movie theaters, where they're improving the sound in the picture.

• 41:55Sean Fennessey?

  For, I guess, laser projection in other movie theaters. Now, of course, there are more non IMAX screens than there are IMAX screens, but they don't charge the same amount typically and they're not the preferred ability to see a movie.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  And IMAX, for better or worse, has become the brand. When you look at billboards, sometimes IMAX is larger than the actual title of the movie now.

• 42:13Sean Fennessey?

  Forget the amateur.

• 42:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, they have the branding.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  Exactly, including on many Disney billboards. Let's just be clear about that. But they know they're not getting those screens. They want Avengers fans to feel like they are going to see the movie on the biggest possible format, hence Infinity Vision.

• 42:30Sean Fennessey?

  You excited?

• 42:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I'm reading from my notes taken at the time. Infinity Vision in quotes, is this because they can't get IMAX? Question mark. It was so obvious and desperate and instant. And, you know, cynically clever because they are in front of theater owners. And so it is acknowledging in a way this idea that premium screens do matter and that they understand that and are gonna, are playing into that branding as well.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  It's also picking up on something that is a narrative within the theatrical industry, which is they believe that there should be a competing brand to IMAX. The others, whether it's, you know, Xfinity or not Xfinity, X, whatever the Regal brand is, or I don't even know, or there's many different brands of large format screens, and it's confusing to the consumers. And they've recognized this. So they have talked about coming up with a name for non IMAX PLFs. Should it be Infinity Vision? No. I mean, we bumped into another executive in line, leaving the Caesar's Palace, who was laughing at it. Like, they were all laughing at it.

• 43:40Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's one of those things that feels cynical and cheap to hard-bitten people like us, but they could work over time. Disney is pretty smart about this stuff.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  It 100% could work in this context.

• 43:51Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not gonna bet against it. It just, in the room, we were just like, come on, dude. Like, really? Anyhow, a couple of quick things before we get into our list that I wanted to hit on. To me, the video game era is here. Based on the presentations, almost every single studio had major video game titles to either celebrate that premiered, or are coming soon, or in development. A lot in development. Just at Sony, there was talk about the completion of The Legend of Zelda.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, big applause for that.

• 44:18Sean Fennessey?

  Big applause. They also announced Bloodborne and Helldivers adaptations. Helldivers coming from Justin Lin.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  I thought those were Coachella bands.

• 44:24Sean Fennessey?

  These are not games I've played, but they got big pops also from the same cohort who popped over Marvel. Warner Brothers has got Mortal Kombat 2 coming soon. Universal's celebrating the Super Mario Galaxy movie, where there's gonna be more of those. Paramount has Sonic 4, Street Fighter, which had a huge presentation. Call of Duty, directed by Peter Burke, written by Taylor Sheridan. We can talk about what that means when we talk about Paramount. And Angry Birds 3.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  You didn't even put on there Minecraft 2.

• 44:48Sean Fennessey?

  And Minecraft 2 coming from Warner Brothers 2.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:51Sean Fennessey?

  This is, if there is a little, um, loss of interest in superheroes, a lot of it is going in this direction. And it feels like people are on board with it.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  They're following the money.

• 45:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  I mean, look at the big hits. We just came off Mario. Minecraft, huge last year.

• 45:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  Makes sense.

• 45:07Sean Fennessey?

  The other thing is Windows, which you've talked about quite a bit. In fact, the first time you ever came on this show, several years ago, when we talked about War Machine on Netflix, we talked about Windows.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:15Sean Fennessey?

  When does, when does War Machine, how many theaters will it play on, if any? You know, what does, what does Windows mean? And now, we're kind of like slowly creeping back to where things were. And I think everybody is finally off of the streaming methadone.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  Well, they've either leaned in, or they've gotten out. Like, we, Apple, Apple is basically out of theatrical until they tell us differently.

• 45:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 45:41Speaker 02

  Netflix clearly out now that they're not buying Warner Brothers. The other remaining theatrical studios are all pretty much falling in line with this 45 days to

• 45:54Speaker 02

  Peavod or, you know, uh, premium video on demand where you pay money to rent the movie or buy it. And then 90 or more to subscription streaming. Streaming service. And we saw David Ellison commit to that onstage. He actually said, starting today, which was a big deal to some theater owners, because he'd talked a lot about it, but he hasn't actually done it until now. Um, if they succeed in buying Warner Brothers, presumably the policy would be the same there. Sony, in their recent deal with Netflix for the output on pay one, they have committed to 120 days to Netflix, which is four months, which, pretty significant. Yeah. It's not quite how it was in the 90s, but it's closer than it has been the last five years.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Yes. I actually personally believe 120 is the, the, should be the benchmark. I agree. I think three months is too soon. Yep. I'm with you. People, people will wait. It's like, they have to break the habit that they created. And that's clearly what they're trying to do. But I also think that the premium video on demand window is less important. 45 days to me is fine for that, because it is an affirmative choice you have to make to buy or rent the movie. When things go to Netflix or Disney Plus, people consider that free. Yep. They, it's all you can eat. They see it on their TV. That, to me, reduces the value of movies, movies in theaters. Um, but, and Universal recently changed their windows where they were the most aggressive and they kind of kicked this all off during

• 47:18Speaker 02

  COVID. And they are now going to give all their movies, starting in a little bit, five weekends. Mm-hmm. To Peavod, which is about 45 days. So, that's a big, big change. It is a big, any, any thoughts on the, because basically every studio chief addressed this issue when they spoke this week. Yeah, except Amazon. And Amazon, they say they're doing windows, actually, what they said about Project Hail Mary is that they're lengthening the window. Right, yes. But obviously they are. I, I, I'll give them a little slack because there's, this gets a new administration. Totally. They're, they seem to be making a sincere effort to make a theatrical push, but if they start to struggle, they might pull back and make a change. Totally. And they, and they pissed off the theaters with Red One, the rock movie, because they put that in theaters for Thanksgiving and then all of a sudden it was on the service

• 48:02Speaker 02

  for Christmas, which, not a very big window.

• 48:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, Amazon is an interesting one because there are a couple of movies that we are anticipating, Sean and I at least, that I would put under the rubric of made by directors, featuring. Like, real directors, featuring actors, like, people talking, ideas. And they were not mentioned.

• 48:22Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:23Amanda Dobbins?

  And that's, you know, maybe that's because they are... Well, certainly Artificial by Luca Guadagnino, which is absolutely silent. After last year, Luca Guadagnino's After the Hunt was presented big time. Like, was Julia Roberts?

• 48:36Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think she was in the building.

• 48:37Amanda Dobbins?

  She wasn't there.

• 48:38Sean Fennessey?

  She was on screen.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  They lost a lot of money on that movie.

• 48:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly. They lost a lot of money on that movie. But that's also, that is not a big, like, event, 40x theater spectacle movie. So I think you guys are, like, obviously right. And in terms of the industry and getting people into movie theaters.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  It's also a Sam, it's a Sam Altman movie.

• 48:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, yeah.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  If they were, if they would have shown footage of whoever is playing Sam Altman, who is it?

• 49:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Andrew Garfield.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  Andrew Garfield. That would have become a thing.

• 49:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. And they should, but more to the point, like, that seems like a movie that is, you want to see everything in the theaters, but it's not as reliant as a big spectacle movie is in theaters. And I still worry about the health of those movies long-term. And, and those are movies that probably people, I don't think that they'll go to the theater just because they have to wait four months instead of three months for it. I think the, the middle continues to fall out. And so, I, I agree with you guys, but it's just, it just underlines that the, the strategy is giant spectacle or nothing.

• 49:41Sean Fennessey?

  There was one notable thing that I'm sure we'll talk about on The Town as well, which is that Warner Brothers announced the name of the smaller internal shingle that they're launching, Clockwork, which has got the same...

• 49:52Speaker 02

  Is that a reference to something? I haven't asked them.

• 49:54Sean Fennessey?

  A Clockwork Orange.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  Oh, is that what it is?

• 49:56Amanda Dobbins?

  It's orange, yes.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 49:58Amanda Dobbins?

  The logo is...

• 49:59Speaker 02

  I didn't realize that was a Warner's movie.

• 50:01Sean Fennessey?

  It is. All the Kubrick movies, those Kubrick movies are all Warner's films. So he's a, he's a Warner's filmmaker. And I guess maybe that gives you a little bit of an indication of the style and tone of the films that you can expect from that shingle.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  They wish.

• 50:12Sean Fennessey?

  Hopefully. So they announced that they're making the Sean Baker movie, right, Tiamo? And I think to the, the point that you're making about Artificial and movies like Artificial...

• 50:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 50:21Sean Fennessey?

  I think we've been kind of excited about what A24 and Neon have been able to do. And A24 especially in the last 24 months has put out three or four movies.

• 50:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 50:29Sean Fennessey?

  They've grossed $100 million that like, they feel like adult plays. They're, they're connecting with the audience that you're describing. This is Warner's doing that. And now it feels like we're back in 2003 with Paramount Vantage and, you know, Sony Pictures Classics and Warner Independent and all of those shingles that the studio has built up to have this kind of secondary business. Like Focus obviously still exists. Searchlight still exists. So that was notable. It's on a smaller scale, but they did take some time out to at least talk about these things.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:54Sean Fennessey?

  At the presentation and Neon got its own time to present films at this, at this convention. A24 still doesn't do it. I feel like they should at this point, honestly.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  They've done stuff at CinemaCon and I would like to see them do a full-on presentation.

• 51:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:07Speaker 02

  They probably think they're too cool for that.

• 51:08Sean Fennessey?

  Possibly.

• 51:09Speaker 02

  But you know what? Good for them.

• 51:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I think when you're putting Robert Pattinson in Zendaya in your movie and putting it on 3,000 screens, like.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  When you're.

• 51:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. We should work with them, you know?

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Your Timmy Chalamet movie is grossing $200 million. Like you got The Rock in movie, multiple movies like.

• 51:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, right. Though that didn't help them make any money. Yeah.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  But just a note on that. I think Warner's, they, A, they want to make more movies. And when you have multiple labels like this, it gives you the freedom to do movies at different sizes. It also gives them the freedom to push back maybe a little more on star salaries and the cost of some of these movies.

• 51:43Sean Fennessey?

  This is for this label, this brand.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:45Sean Fennessey?

  We only do it at this size.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  This is what Focus does. They're like, oh, at Universal, we love your script, but we see this as a Focus movie.

• 51:52Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 51:52Speaker 02

  So ratchet back those expectations and let's bring this budget down by half. And Warner's, I mean, they famously spent a lot on these auteur movies and they get a lot of attention in the media and the business press when they do that. So maybe this is an opportunity for them to make those movies, but at a lower cost.

• 52:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 52:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 52:10Sean Fennessey?

  And also bring someone like Sean Baker into the studio system, somebody who's been a little bit.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 52:15Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I would say suspicious of how that system works.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  And then you get to know him and all of a sudden he's directing Minecraft 3.

• 52:20Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we'll see about that.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  I would like to see a Sean Baker version of Minecraft.

• 52:26Sean Fennessey?

  I think it would have a lot of sex in it.

• 52:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I think the audience of Minecraft would also like to see a Sean Baker Minecraft.

• 52:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Any other thoughts?

• 52:36Speaker 02

  Chicken, what's the?

• 52:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Chicken jockey.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  The Chicken Jockey would have a whole new meaning.

• 52:40Sean Fennessey?

  Cam Abdi did apologize to the theater owners for the Chicken Jockey popcorn phenomenon. Any other presentation thoughts before we get into our, our most anticipations?

• 52:51Speaker 02

  I mean, Tom Rothman at Sony told the theater owners to get off the ad crack.

• 52:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  Which I thought was a nice line.

• 52:58Sean Fennessey?

  He, he was very forceful and encouraging them to, uh, improve their business.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the whole dynamic between studios and theaters is so effed up.

• 53:09Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, I mean, it's very, very codependent and unhealthy.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Unhealthy.

• 53:14Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of bad boyfriend energy.

• 53:16Speaker 02

  Imagine if you were the CEO of a theater company and your entire business is dependent on something you do not control. The amount of movies and the quality of those movies and the marketing.

• 53:27Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a terrible, it's really tough.

• 53:29Speaker 02

  And the marketing of those movies. And then on the other side.

• 53:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but when it hits, it hits so hard.

• 53:33Speaker 02

  Exactly. And it's easy money. When it hits, it's easy money. And you can charge $10 for popcorn that costs you 20 cents.

• 53:38Sean Fennessey?

  It's part of why it's just fun to talk about this business is because it's so unpredictable. And so that no one really feels like they know what they're doing at any given time. That's part of why this event is fun, just to hear people talk about like, oh, we're betting on this. Really, you're betting on that?

• 53:51Speaker 02

  But then if you're Tom Rothman and you're gonna spend $250, $300 million on a Spider-Man movie, and put that kind of effort into making it something that people are gonna love, and then they show up to the theater and they've got 30 minutes of ads and the floor is sticky and the seat is broken, and it's not a good experience.

• 54:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 54:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  He doesn't control that. He has no ability to control the actual environment in which his movies are consumed. It's gotta be so frustrating.

• 54:21Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's talk about actual movies now.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 54:25Sean Fennessey?

  We each chose five.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  Well, we all get off the ad crack.

• 54:27Sean Fennessey?

  We sort of cheated. Well, unfortunately, we're on podcasts, so we're not off the ad crap either.

• 54:33Sean Fennessey?

  Amanda, would you like to start?

• 54:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Absolutely. Number five.

• 54:35Sean Fennessey?

  You wanna go from five to one?

• 54:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I do. That's, that's how we do things on this. Uh, my number five.

• 54:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Even though I did not get my hoped for photo app off with a minion is minions versus monsters, which we were treated to not one, but two clips of. And possibly like a full recap. It was really sort of Spielberg interviewing Paul Thomas Anderson after one battle after another. And here's another thing that happens. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm going to bring my four year old. You don't have to tell me anymore. This was Chris Meladondri from Illumination, talking about his film very excitedly. Craig and I both thought that these two clips were electric. And we, this is a movie about minions, but also about the birth of cinema. It is in many, many ways minions singing in the rain.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  It's a love letter to cinema.

• 55:23Amanda Dobbins?

  It's the Babylon of animated movies. Even to like the, the recreation of the scene that Spike Jones is directing in Babylon. They're doing that with minions. So I'm on board. I'm really, I am delighted. They make me laugh. They just, they really make me laugh. You were surprised to learn that I'm a minions fan.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  A little bit.

• 55:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but they're funny.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  Don't get me wrong. I enjoy my, the minions as well.

• 55:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:49Speaker 02

  But I kind of enjoy them for what they are. They're Tom and Jerry cartoons.

• 55:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's silent comedy. Yeah, of course. But so I'm, of, of all of the offerings for families and children that were presented, I'm clearly team minions versus monsters.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  The Illumination movies in general, and I think minions are the most pure distillation.

• 56:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  They are engineered for constant stimulation. Even the, the camera angles and something's going on and they're coming at you or they're coming from the right or left. And I know that people in the animation community look down on that a little bit. They say it's cheap. They, not cheap, like inexpensive, just kind of cheap enjoyment and throwaway. They don't last. I don't care.

• 56:32Sean Fennessey?

  They work.

• 56:32Speaker 02

  They work.

• 56:33Sean Fennessey?

  They, they, they always work.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  And they do last. Kids watch them over and over again on the services.

• 56:36Sean Fennessey?

  They work. They ma- they really, they do, those movies do matter to young people in a way that very few do. Um, not gonna be as enthusiastic as you, but you know, I'm glad that you have something that you love.

• 56:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think that we can like get the kids together to go see this movie?

• 56:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 56:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, you know, all at once, a big trip?

• 56:52Sean Fennessey?

  Alice will be thrilled to watch it. I don't know. Is your 10 year old still locked in on Minions?

• 56:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, he's in. But, um.

• 56:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Where is he on Babylon?

• 57:00Speaker 02

  Not seen it yet.

• 57:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Have you seen Babylon?

• 57:02Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm, I'm registered in the hive.

• 57:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Oh.

• 57:05Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm a fan.

• 57:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 57:06Speaker 02

  We've talked about, we've talked about this on the town.

• 57:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I do you?

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Craig and I were both.

• 57:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Because I'm a pretty regular listener and I don't know. Well, every time on the town you talk about it, you're like, I'm not, I'm not a critic. You're not gonna go too far into the opinions. But so I'm, now I'm pushing you here in big picture land. So Babylon Hive.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  I am. I thought it was great.

• 57:25Sean Fennessey?

  And of course.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  It's so fun. And I partly love it because the ending is so crazy and bad and weird and like should not have happened. And what is Avatar doing in this movie? But up until then.

• 57:36Sean Fennessey?

  I can explain it all to you.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  But I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure you have five theories on it, all of which have been discussed. I just enjoyed it for how crazy it was.

• 57:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally.

• 57:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  And I'm like, I can't believe this movie happened.

• 57:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I think the middle two hours are a masterpiece. Yeah.

• 57:48Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, number five, Matt, what do you got?

• 57:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Can I throw a wrench into this?

• 57:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 57:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  All five of my picks are Jeremy Strong.

• 57:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Okay, so speak on it. This happened.

• 58:00Speaker 02

  All five of my picks.

• 58:01Amanda Dobbins?

  This happened during the Sony presentation and I got there too late to attend the Sony presentation.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  You missed me embarrassing myself. I started, I just said, holy shit. I started laughing out loud at how great it was. This is Jeremy Strong.

• 58:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 58:16Speaker 02

  Playing Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning, the follow-up to The Social Network, which is written by, by Aaron Sorkin and now directed by Aaron Sorkin. Questions about that element of it. They showed extended footage, which is it the trailer?

• 58:31Sean Fennessey?

  I think it was the trailer. I think it was the proper trailer, yeah.

• 58:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um. Interesting, there were some elements of that felt choppy, especially the scene they showed where Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison are having their first kind of discussion. She's a reporter, no, she's a source, he's a reporter. Weird cuts on it, did not, sort of disjointed, but then they get to Jeremy Strong. This is either going to win him the Oscar he deserves, or he will be the record holder for Razzies. They will create a new category of Razzies if this movie does not go well. I am hopeful, and I dare say confident, that he will nail this and that the movie will be good enough to get him the Oscar. It is amazing how much he's like Zuckerberg.

• 59:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I feel sick to my stomach right now, but not like out of, not because that sounds bad. I just, I have so much invested in this and I'm also so stressed out and unsure about the quality of it.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  It is so self-serious. He is 1,000% locked in on this role. He has the voice mannerisms, he looks like a robot, he has the haircut, he walks the same way that Zuckerberg walks. It's not like Jesse Eisenberg where that was sort of a...

• 59:45Sean Fennessey?

  It was an interpretation, it was, yeah, it wasn't a mimicry.

• 59:48Speaker 02

  Right, exactly, and he was a lit, he had that kind of scowl that I don't think Zuckerberg has. This is, this is like on another level.

• 59:56Sean Fennessey?

  That's the thing is that The Social Network is an adaptation of a book that is then reimagined by a filmmaker. And so it's not, it doesn't feel like docudrama. It feels like a character study. This looks like a docudrama. This looks like a recreation of events. And Aaron Sorkin, a less skilled director, obviously than David Fincher. It's also a movie that's clearly going to be happening on two tracts. One is Frances Haugen and the Wall Street Journal reporter, to whom she blew the whistle, and Zuckerberg and his, the world that he has built, and him trying to prevent it from coming apart because of this whistleblower.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  And there's, there's a legal proceeding at the center of it again, which is the, you know,

• 1:00:38Sean Fennessey?

  I think isn't it a testimony in front of Congress?

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  I believe it is, and he's being prepped for it. And it's, there's a funny line where he calls himself a professional defendant. And this is where Sorkin cannot be matched.

• 1:00:48Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's the thing is that's, you know, that stuff is gonna work. And that's the stuff in the trailer that really pops. I, I, I think the Jeremy Strong thing is gonna work. He's got the posture down. He's got the tone of voice down. He's got the weird blondish hair color. You know, he's got that kinda like pasty skin, like all of that is working.

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  It's a thousand memes like waiting to happen.

• 1:01:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And I, you know, look, as a, as a succession devotee, like I, I love Jeremy Strong. His self seriousness, I find fascinating and funny and I enjoy it.

• 1:01:15Speaker 02

  I can only imagine him on set.

• 1:01:17Sean Fennessey?

  The other stuff just felt a little anonymous to me. And there's nothing anonymous about The Social Network, you know? Like that is a, that's a very specific and defined tone and execution of a story, so.

• 1:01:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe anonymous is best case for Sorkin directing?

• 1:01:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, look, Jeremy Allen White and, and Mikey Madison are, are both good actors. And it doesn't feel like they're like misstepping in their performances or anything like that. It just looks a little bit standard. It looked honestly a little bit like, like TV mini series to me, to be honest. Whereas the other stuff felt, it was like Bill Burr and Jeremy Strong going at each other. And it had real vitality to it.

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. The, the risk is that it feels like a polemic, like Sorkin lecturing us about the dangers of the internet, which The Social Network had some of that in it. But it was done in a way and Fincher had a detachment from that, that sort of preachiness that it worked.

• 1:02:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  And I don't know if he's gonna be able to nail that. Even the, we, we were looking up the music. The music is not Resner and.

• 1:02:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Even though they use the dun dun.

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  They use that.

• 1:02:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, which is. The Resner and Ross tone is hit on the title card, but it's Alexander Dussplod this, this year doing the score.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  Which is a huge difference.

• 1:02:23Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  That is a major difference.

• 1:02:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so I've, I've been skeptical. I stay skeptical. I'm fascinated. It's, it's, it's at least two full episodes of this podcast.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  So yeah, so I am copping out by picking Jeremy Strong as my.

• 1:02:37Sean Fennessey?

  That's a great one.

• 1:02:38Amanda Dobbins?

  One, five, three, one. Okay.

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  But I do have other movies that I like. So you go next.

• 1:02:42Sean Fennessey?

  My number five, I'm not sure if it's specifically the movie that I am most anticipating, but it is representative of an idea and it was a very good presentation, which is Spaceballs, the new one, which is the Spaceball sequel, which you didn't even know was happening, right? When we were sitting there?

• 1:02:56Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think that was someone behind us who was like, they're doing a new one? I knew that there was.

• 1:02:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's so funny. Who didn't know, who didn't know, who with it, didn't know there was.

• 1:03:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I know some things.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  But it's always funny to me when family members of mine, like where news from my world gets to them. And I got a text from my sister last night, they're doing another Spaceballs?

• 1:03:14Sean Fennessey?

  The biggest, I guess, news item out of this is that Rick and Ryan is coming back for this film, has not acted in a film in over 30 years. He was there. They had a great bit during the presentation about not allowing him to speak. That was very effective. Film's directed by Josh Greenbaum. It's written by Josh Gad. I guess in concert with Mel Brooks, it's like Josh Gad's dream to do this. Bill Pullman is back. Daphne Zuniga's back.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  Bill Pullman's son.

• 1:03:37Sean Fennessey?

  Lewis Pullman is in the cast. I thought all of the effectively like promo material that they made for this presentation.

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  Don't forget Kiki Palmer.

• 1:03:47Sean Fennessey?

  She wasn't there, but she's in the film as well, was all really funny, was pretty much in the spirit of the original, which for a person like me is a sacred totem of my childhood.

• 1:03:54Speaker 02

  And that's saying something at CinemaCon. You mentioned it before, but most of the banter is inane and unfunny.

• 1:04:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Poorly written, poorly executed. They did a really nice job with that. They included Mel Brooks in it. He recorded a video for it.

• 1:04:07Speaker 02

  So bad that when De Niro presented for Little Focker or for Focker in Law, he literally said, I did not write this.

• 1:04:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Although I found that entertaining what they did nevertheless.

• 1:04:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that was after he had to say, I prefer the minions, which was scripted and then aggregated as if Robert De Niro came out like as a pro minions over Madagascar. I was like, guys, that was bad writing.

• 1:04:28Sean Fennessey?

  Anyhow, Spaceballs, the new one, which looks fun. And who knows if it'll, it'll actually end up working. I think is also an indicator of where a lot of this stuff is, which is like Masters of the Universe from Amazon, Doomsday and Mandalorian and Grogu from Disney. A lot of the like recycled, you were six years old in 1988 and here's what you probably like now at 45 years old and we're gonna force you to watch it. Some of these works, some of them don't. Master of the, He-Man was very important to me as a young child. I'm not totally sold on that movie based on what they showed us.

• 1:04:58Speaker 02

  The less said, the better.

• 1:04:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but it is, um, a whole space for your youth kind of thing.

• 1:05:04Speaker 02

  I'm surprised that you put it on your most anticipated because to me, that struck me as a very fun and effective presentation of a movie that looks like a sad retread.

• 1:05:17Sean Fennessey?

  We'll see. I don't, I, I think it's more of an opportunity to talk about a lot of other movies here at number five, but like I'm more excited about Rob Eggers' Werewolf personally than I am the new Spaceballs movie. But there's, they showed us a, a trailer from Werewolf and it's like, it's a really gnarly Werewolf movie from Rob Eggers. Like you know what it is. It's gonna, probably gonna work really well. We saw the Nosferatu trailer a couple of years ago at CinemaCon and it tore the house down and then that movie went on to be a big hit. So, um, okay. Number four, Amanda, what do you, what do you got?

• 1:05:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I am, I've collected three films together. One Night Only, Verity and Other Mommy, uh, which

• 1:05:53Speaker 02

  Other Mommy.

• 1:05:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Which I'll, which I'll call gals having fun. And One, One Night Only also includes Callum Turner. So that is the new romantic comedy, sex comedy from Will Gluck, who did Anyone But You and was introduced with like a, an Oscars-esque montage about love at the movies and we have to save romantic comedies. Uh, and apparently we're saving them with One Night Only, which I'm very excited about. It stars Monica Bobaro and Callum Turner, who I'm on record as, as supporting both of them, honestly. And the premise is that Two people meet on the one night a year where it's legal to have premarital sex.

• 1:06:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did not get that from the footage. You explain that to me after that it's basically the purge for rom com.

• 1:06:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. And so they don't totally communicate that in the trailer. That's right. And it is pretty high concept. And I think the effectiveness of the movie will be as much about like, do they communicate and like tease out the premise and the ideas as much as the performances? Those are, those are two attractive people that I like. They seem to have decent chemistry. Yeah, that seems fine.

• 1:07:04Speaker 02

  Asinine to me.

• 1:07:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I think it's, I think it would be funny.

• 1:07:07Sean Fennessey?

  It's interesting that they're trying to make it work in a non dystopian setting. It basically looks like any other rom com with that idea attached.

• 1:07:14Speaker 02

  But that premise is basically like The Handmaid's Tale.

• 1:07:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:07:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I know. But then, don't you kind of want to know more? I do. Oh, okay. Well, that's fine.

• 1:07:21Speaker 02

  I just want to see them meet you and have fun and like complications and then they get together.

• 1:07:26Amanda Dobbins?

  There are complications. They only have so much time to have sex before it's not legal anymore. Yeah, well, I'd like to see how they pull it off.

• 1:07:33Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think that film ends with a mass slaughter?

• 1:07:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I really don't know, but I'm curious. So we'll see how that goes.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  There are some jokes about his ears also.

• 1:07:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but the ears work for him, you know, and Josh.

• 1:07:43Sean Fennessey?

  I enjoyed that.

• 1:07:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And Josh O'Connor's ears. Listen, it's fine. It's okay.

• 1:07:46Sean Fennessey?

  Great time to have big ears. Yeah, it's wonderful. It's wonderful to be Irish.

• 1:07:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, the next verity is the latest Colleen Hoover adaptation. This is directed by Michael Showalter, stars Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, Dakota Johnson. This is like the high touch Colleen Hoover trash, you know? And if it works, I'm excited. I'm not opposed.

• 1:08:06Sean Fennessey?

  It had real, um, kind of M. Night Shyamalan, What Lies Beneath vibes, you know, like kind of a spooky thriller as opposed to some woman hit a guy with her car kind of energy, you know, or like all the other Colleen Hoover movies are just like, why did you fall down the staircase energy?

• 1:08:22Amanda Dobbins?

  They may be a little bit more.

• 1:08:24Sean Fennessey?

  All the, all the Colleen Hoover stories are always just like, ah, man, you tripped over some chicken wire. Why did that happen?

• 1:08:30Speaker 02

  I thought abusive husbands were the.

• 1:08:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And then people were abusive to each other. Um. Yeah, this has a little bit more of the housemaid. We had a lot. We had ongoing discussion this week about what our actual opinions of the housemaid was. And I'd just like to stay on the record, as I did originally, I had a good time. So I'd like to have a good time at Verity, and it seems like that's possible. Other Mommy is a Jessica Chastain horror movie.

• 1:08:56Speaker 02

  Blumhouse.

• 1:08:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, Blumhouse, about a woman whose home is seemingly invaded by a clone of her, but evil. So it's like, single, white, female, but supernatural mommy.

• 1:09:15Speaker 02

  Well, I think that's exactly right.

• 1:09:17Amanda Dobbins?

  And Jessica Chastain is playing both. And it was one of those, watching the trailers, where like, the concept and the performance of the other mommy just like, really spoke to me. And I was like, well, this is a big picture bit already, just the silent smile.

• 1:09:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:32Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 1:09:32Speaker 02

  Hang in there, other mommy.

• 1:09:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Hang on, in another mommy, or, you know, you can identify the other mommies all around you as you are going about your own mommy life. So.

• 1:09:41Speaker 02

  I will never not chuckle when I hear that title.

• 1:09:43Amanda Dobbins?

  It's really, really good. So I'm excited for other people to at least, to be more aware of other mommies, so that it can become like, a cultural touch point, which is kind of all those movies need at this point, that it just has like, a little bit of like, pop culture sickiness.

• 1:10:00Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. It comes also from Rob Savage, who made Host, the Zoom horror movie during COVID, which was very effective. He's a super talented dude. So, should be fun. Also, Chastain's got a lot of history. You know, she made Mommy some years ago with a horror movie.

• 1:10:13Speaker 02

  Anytime you get an Oscar winner into a horror movie, it's usually.

• 1:10:16Sean Fennessey?

  A good thing, yeah. Okay, I like that one. Matt, do you actually want to give us four more?

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  I'm just gonna give you something that I liked, and that I'm optimistic about. And I'm gonna put Digger on there.

• 1:10:26Sean Fennessey?

  It's on my list, too.

• 1:10:27Speaker 02

  The Tom Cruise movie. Lots of discussion about this. Alejandro Iñárritu, coming off of Bardo, maybe not his best movie. This is him, you know, getting back into the big star game, big studio movie with Warner Brothers. I thought the footage was good. I thought Cruise as this like, cantankerous, oil man type, southern accent, profane, looks nothing like Cruise, old, fat, bald.

• 1:10:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:10:53Speaker 02

  And then. He, it's essentially, it seems like a movie where he's trying to cover up the fact that his company blew up an iceberg in the Arctic that is gonna destroy the world.

• 1:11:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. I think you nailed the premise.

• 1:11:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:07Sean Fennessey?

  Amanda and I are quite dubious of Inaritu on the show, not the hugest fans of his. Oh, wow. Why not? tend to think he's, uh, takes himself too seriously. Um, I think his filmmaking style is ostentatious but a little empty.

• 1:11:21Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:11:22Sean Fennessey?

  Anyhow.

• 1:11:22Speaker 02

  Even, even Man Fighting a Bear and The Revenant, you're not into that?

• 1:11:26Sean Fennessey?

  Never been a fan.

• 1:11:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't care about that.

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 1:11:28Sean Fennessey?

  He's just a little bit of a, a, a, a blank spot for us in general.

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  Bardo was objectively bad.

• 1:11:34Sean Fennessey?

  Quite, quite bad. I, I haven't hated all of his, I liked Amore's Peros. We heard Tom Cruise on stage say that he loved Amore's Peros and that's one of the reasons why he wanted to do that.

• 1:11:41Amanda Dobbins?

  This is the film that Tom, and the presentation that Tom Cruise showed up for us this year.

• 1:11:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:11:46Speaker 02

  And I enjoyed Birdman a lot, too.

• 1:11:47Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I have a little more time for Birdman, but it doesn't hold up in my mind. This film, film feels very, it feels like Birdman at scale, that it's like about the male ego at large. I'm a little skeptical of how the movie will turn out, but I'm very excited to see Cruise. And I thought what Cruise was doing was like, great change of pace, like really good idea to just get out of your persona.

• 1:12:09Speaker 02

  Finally.

• 1:12:10Sean Fennessey?

  Do something super big.

• 1:12:11Amanda Dobbins?

  1,000%. And it was funny, like it worked.

• 1:12:15Sean Fennessey?

  He was funny.

• 1:12:16Amanda Dobbins?

  He was funny. He was doing, you know, McConaughey times a thousand, but in a fat suit. And I was like very amused by it. And even he landed the jokes. The rest of the jokes were kind of hit and miss, even though it's a great cast.

• 1:12:28Speaker 02

  It feels over the top a little. John Goodman certainly doing a bit.

• 1:12:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, playing the President of the United States, yeah.

• 1:12:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I have been wary since they debuted the poster that has a comedy of catastrophic proportions on the poster. Anytime you have to announce yourself as a comedy, or anytime you have to, to explain what you're doing before you do it, which is kind of the Inaritu bit, he's just like, hey, look at me, like I'm, you know, look at my tracking shot, look at this fancy, this is about like what the camera can do and the making of art. Or this is about a primal, you know, male urge in the, in the wilderness. It's... He doesn't always bear it out, so I'm nervous about that part of it. Also looked quite washed out, you know, I just.

• 1:13:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I made a joke on X that it looked like a Roy Anderson movie, who's, you know, this Scandinavian filmmaker who tends to make movies where everybody in those worlds look like white and gray.

• 1:13:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:13:21Sean Fennessey?

  And everybody in this movie, mostly because it was old men who are making decisions, and the movie looked like they were in a Roy Anderson movie.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  Certainly, yeah, certainly like the boardroom scenes.

• 1:13:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, the palettes match it as well.

• 1:13:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we'll see. I mean, for Cruise alone, it's like, it's a must see movie. It's gonna be one of the most discussed movies of the year.

• 1:13:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I need them to bring it to Venice. Don't be cowards, Warner Brothers. I know that they won't. I know, I know, they got burned on Joker 2, but that's a bit like, but Cruise, give him, give him the Venice moment. What else are you gonna do to sell that movie?

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  You know how many film festivals One Battle After Another went to?

• 1:13:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Zero. I do remember that. I know.

• 1:13:55Speaker 02

  I just, I don't.

• 1:13:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 1:13:57Sean Fennessey?

  That's the thing is, and this movie could go in any direction. Could be a huge Oscar movie, and a bomb at the box office. Could be a hit at the box office and an Oscar movie. Could be a hit at the box office and not an Oscar movie. Like, it could be any number of permutations, which is really interesting.

• 1:14:09Speaker 02

  My fear with it is the same fear as Social Reckoning, in that it'll be a polemic. In that the allegory, obviously, is, you know, the environmental catastrophe movie. This movie reminded me of Don't Look Up.

• 1:14:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:14:21Speaker 02

  The Adam McKay movie, which also did not have much nuance to it, but.

• 1:14:25Sean Fennessey?

  But tons of people watched it, because it had a big star.

• 1:14:27Speaker 02

  And it had two big stars.

• 1:14:29Sean Fennessey?

  Three, if you include Shalhoub.

• 1:14:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:14:31Sean Fennessey?

  Or Meryl Streep.

• 1:14:32Speaker 02

  And, but it was on Netflix.

• 1:14:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:34Speaker 02

  So, I don't know if this is entirely.

• 1:14:37Amanda Dobbins?

  That was 2021.

• 1:14:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:38Amanda Dobbins?

  It was, it was still different.

• 1:14:40Sean Fennessey?

  Look, it's got stealth bomber footage, and it's got, you know, it does have scale.

• 1:14:44Speaker 02

  It feels bigger.

• 1:14:45Sean Fennessey?

  So, I'm fascinated by it. I put it at number two on my list just out of a perverse curiosity. I'm like, I just need to see this. I'm really interested in it. Okay, my number four is a movie called Hope, which I don't even, I don't know, did you see that footage?

• 1:14:58Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:14:59Amanda Dobbins?

  No, because it was Neon.

• 1:14:59Sean Fennessey?

  It was the end of Neon.

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did not.

• 1:15:01Sean Fennessey?

  Um, so, you know, Neon is in this interesting position where they're the kings and queens of Cannes. They've got six films going to Cannes this year.

• 1:15:08Speaker 02

  Not a good week for them, though. So the day of their presentation, Warner Brothers announces that Sean Baker is doing his follow up, not for Neon, but for Clockwork, Warner's label. Same day, the Long Legs sequel was announced at Paramount. That's Neon's most successful movie. And they didn't get the sequel.

• 1:15:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, and they've also put out the two following Oz Perkins films, and they're not getting that Oz Perkins movie. Nevertheless, I thought their presentation was solid, especially because they're a much smaller company. They really touted their success over the last few years. They were another studio who talked about Academy Awards. They said they are the most awarded independent studio of the decade.

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  Oh, take that, eight twenty-four.

• 1:15:49Sean Fennessey?

  With fifty-seven nominations.

• 1:15:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, they're sizzle real. It was just Oscars, Oscars, Oscars.

• 1:15:52Speaker 02

  Poke, poke, poke, poke.

• 1:15:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:54Sean Fennessey?

  The movie that they showed that I was most excited about, and I know that you're gonna want to talk about one of their movies too, but it's called Hope, which is by a South Korean director named Na Hong Jin. And you might hear that and think, oh, an artsy Cannes movie. This movie is going to Cannes, but it is a post-apocalyptic action movie starring several Korean performers and also Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. And the footage that they showed was just fucking sick. Like, it was just great action movie footage.

• 1:16:17Amanda Dobbins?

  It looked awesome. I was so excited. I was like, I can't wait to see that at Cannes. I wished I had not seen the monster at the end, just because, you know, I want to be excited, but I totally agree.

• 1:16:25Speaker 02

  Are they still married?

• 1:16:26Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, Alicia Vikander, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:29Speaker 02

  Good for them.

• 1:16:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I think they live in Portugal a lot of the time.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  Oh, wow, sounds like a great life.

• 1:16:34Amanda Dobbins?

  That's the last I heard.

• 1:16:36Sean Fennessey?

  They're barely seen in that trailer, though, which is kind of fascinating. It's mostly, you know, I think the film is set in Korea, and it is mostly about what is happening in this post-apocalyptic world. But it was just really, really good stuff from a filmmaker who hasn't made a movie in ten years. And his last movie, The Wailing, is one of the more acclaimed Asian horror thrillers of the century, so I'm very excited about that movie.

• 1:16:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:00Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:17:01Amanda Dobbins?

  My number three.

• 1:17:02Sean Fennessey?

  Number three.

• 1:17:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so my number three is The Thomas Crown Affair. Directed by Michael B. Jordan, who was their Academy Award winner, Michael B. Jordan. First thing you see during their promo. First thing you'll see for the rest of his career. Yes. Which is still wonderful. And he kind of even acknowledged that on stage. He was like, that's still crazy. But so this, this was kind of Amazon's centerpiece and they are releasing it in March 2027, which is, you know, one year after Project Hail Mary. So it's the same, same CinemaCon to release strategy playbook as, as Project Hail Mary. This is also one of my sacred texts, right? And so this next, so well, but here's Literally means nothing to me. Here's the real heresy. Thomas Cronifer, 1999, not the Steve McQueen.

• 1:17:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I get it. I, for whatever reason, have seen, well, I mean, I know the reasons. Pierce Brosnan, love. Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. And seeing, you know, a beautiful woman in a chunky turtleneck, not taking any shit at, at a young age was important to me. And also then she, you know, went to Chipriani's and went to Martinique and Sue and, and understands art, you know, like a lot of important touchpoints. So I've seen that movie a million times. That's one of my most important texts. We have two more movies coming out this year that are either, that are new installments

• 1:18:26Amanda Dobbins?

  or new adaptations or new versions of my most beloved holy films, which are obviously Devil Wears Prodigy, which comes out in a few weeks. And I, my, my emotions go up and down and, you know, do I feel happy that it's finally getting its place in the sun or is it going to be ruined? I don't, I don't totally know how I feel, but it was Devil Wears Prodigy was the opener of the It was. Disney presentation and is getting a huge push. But what we saw was fine. Like I said, I'm

• 1:19:02Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not trying to hurt you, but I really was like, okay, this is what you got?

• 1:19:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And I'm gonna have to

• 1:19:06Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I don't know.

• 1:19:08Speaker 02

  You just want to see Meryl Streep being mean to people, right?

• 1:19:10Sean Fennessey?

  I guess so.

• 1:19:10Amanda Dobbins?

  And she was being mean to people.

• 1:19:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. It just felt a little low energy.

• 1:19:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's the Miranda performance is not gigantic in context. It works.

• 1:19:21Sean Fennessey?

  What if she were dressed as Doctor Doom?

• 1:19:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Have you rewatched the original?

• 1:19:26Sean Fennessey?

  Not in some time, but I will before.

• 1:19:27Speaker 02

  I just remember Emily Blunt was great in it.

• 1:19:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, she's wonderful.

• 1:19:31Sean Fennessey?

  She gets the best line in this one, too, actually. Have you not heard of Christmas?

• 1:19:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that is, that's true of all of them, except for when Miranda is doing all of her one liners. Did she die or something? And then the other is the new Sense and Sensibility coming from Focus. And, you know, we have a copy of Emma Thompson's screenplay and diaries from Sense and Sensibility behind me that because I read it every year, that movie came out in 1995. So I was the right age and it was that movie and Clueless all in one year. And I was just like, wow, look at the possibilities of cinema.

• 1:20:08Speaker 02

  Could not be more different movie.

• 1:20:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. I have seen, but they're both awesome adaptations.

• 1:20:12Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:20:13Amanda Dobbins?

  And I've seen Sense and Sensibility like at least 50 times for what it's just become a comfort rewatch. So it's, it's a very specific to me issue of being like, okay, you're redoing these things that I know so intimately and I have such a personal relationship with. And that's not normally the case with Hollywood. They normally just make comic book movies. So Thomas Crown Affair is the one that I'm feeling the surest about. I thought it looked very fun. It's, it's the, the action of it is updated and kind of expanded. And it seems a lot more like high octane, but that is cool and great.

• 1:20:53Sean Fennessey?

  I saw a lot of people comparing it to Tenet and some of the action style of Tenet, which was cool.

• 1:20:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Which I think is interesting. The, he stars opposite Adria Arjona, who I am a huge fan of.

• 1:21:05Speaker 02

  Replaced.

• 1:21:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Replaced.

• 1:21:06Speaker 02

  She replaced Taylor Russell.

• 1:21:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:21:10Speaker 02

  Like pretty far in the shooting, not that far, but like enough where they saw what they had and replaced her.

• 1:21:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I like her work and then she was there as well. So I'm, I'm looking forward to it. I think, and it just, it feels like. It's since 1999 was also a remake.

• 1:21:27Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:21:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not as, it's not as high stakes.

• 1:21:29Speaker 02

  But that's the problem I, I have with that movie. I like the footage also and I thought MBJ looks great in it. Like definite movie star performance.

• 1:21:36Sean Fennessey?

  Good fit for him as a material.

• 1:21:38Speaker 02

  Definitely, and Amazon lucked out that he just won an Oscar. Like elevates that movie a lot. Like that IP though, does that, is that meaningful IP to the general public?

• 1:21:49Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know, was it in 1999? I think you just gotta make a cool movie and hope people care.

• 1:21:53Speaker 02

  This movie was called Art Heist. Like.

• 1:21:56Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you would care about that too.

• 1:21:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, yeah.

• 1:21:58Speaker 02

  Michael B. Jordan stars in Art Heist.

• 1:22:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Art Heist is kind of one of, that's one of Amanda's things.

• 1:22:03Amanda Dobbins?

  That is, been there and there are many versions of them.

• 1:22:05Speaker 02

  Other Art Heist.

• 1:22:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I do feel like the, the McQueen and then the Pierce Brosnan of it all. I, Thomas Crown Affair is sort of a reference point at this point, like.

• 1:22:16Speaker 02

  I guess that's, maybe I'm, I'm like downplaying it and it's more meaningful than that. I just know how desperate Amazon has been to mine the MGM library. And like so much of that stuff is encumbered or that's been remade in the 2010s. This is what they got.

• 1:22:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:32Speaker 02

  And they just went all in on it. And I just don't know if they, I think they think it's more important than the audience does.

• 1:22:39Sean Fennessey?

  We're gonna find out.

• 1:22:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:40Sean Fennessey?

  We're gonna find out. Footage was good.

• 1:22:42Amanda Dobbins?

  It was good.

• 1:22:43Sean Fennessey?

  That was encouraging.

• 1:22:43Speaker 02

  If it's a good movie, it doesn't matter.

• 1:22:45Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay, Matt, you want to shout something else out?

• 1:22:47Speaker 02

  Uh, yes. I mean, should we talk about Disclosure Day?

• 1:22:52Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about it.

• 1:22:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I'd love to.

• 1:22:54Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I didn't put it on my list, but I was hoping that you would put it on yours.

• 1:22:57Speaker 02

  Uh, and full disclosure, I have it in my box office draft. So I am personally invested in it, doing well. But I, I think that people of our age and our sensibility, we want this movie to be good. And we wanted the first trailer to be impressive and it wasn't.

• 1:23:13Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:13Speaker 02

  And this has made me calmer.

• 1:23:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they, they, um. Are trying to be very careful about what they show us. And in fact, Steven Spielberg, who was interviewed onstage and received a prestigious award from CinemaCon.

• 1:23:27Speaker 02

  Prestigious.

• 1:23:28Sean Fennessey?

  Prestigious award.

• 1:23:30Speaker 02

  No, not from CinemaCon, from the chairman of the Motion Picture.

• 1:23:33Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:23:34Speaker 02

  The MPA chief got up there.

• 1:23:37Sean Fennessey?

  The America 250 Award.

• 1:23:39Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:23:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:40Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a real thing.

• 1:23:41Speaker 02

  Which is a real thing, a one-time award, they were clear to tell us.

• 1:23:44Sean Fennessey?

  Well, maybe in 250 years, there'll be another one, you know?

• 1:23:47Speaker 02

  This is not some bullshit CinemaCon award that everybody gets. The Rock has gotten it 10 times.

• 1:23:51Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right.

• 1:23:51Speaker 02

  This isn't a unique award.

• 1:23:53Sean Fennessey?

  Right, so he was given this award and then he was interviewed by Coleman Domingo. And during his conversation with Coleman Domingo, he said that there's nothing from the third act of the movie in the trailer. But there is more in this new trailer that we saw. I don't, it feels weird to be like, should we spoil this or not?

• 1:24:07Speaker 02

  I, let's not.

• 1:24:08Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:24:08Speaker 02

  Because there is a reveal at the end in a very cool shot, which I'm shocked is not in the third act.

• 1:24:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, um, which I think is actually encouraging that we have like gotten up to this point.

• 1:24:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, I know.

• 1:24:20Sean Fennessey?

  But I think what it does is actually, and we talked about this, it alleviates, I think, some of the anxiety from the first trailer. That it explains maybe something you didn't totally click with.

• 1:24:32Sean Fennessey?

  I'm right there with you. I hope this movie's great and I hope it's successful and we'll see when it comes out.

• 1:24:37Speaker 02

  Can I make a controversial statement? I wish there was a bigger star in this movie.

• 1:24:43Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:24:43Speaker 02

  Like, I don't know, I mean, no disrespect to Josh O'Connor. Like, good actor, loved him on The Crown. Not a movie star. And if this movie had a Michael B. Jordan or a Ryan Gosling or a Leo or someone, I mean, I know there's issues with the age range that they were kids.

• 1:25:02Sean Fennessey?

  Seems like they were looking for a 35-year-old.

• 1:25:03Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:25:04Sean Fennessey?

  Who's a 35-year-old movie star that can carry this? Because you have this generation.

• 1:25:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, they just all graduated. Who is our oldest 34-year-old movie star? I mean, Timothy Chalamet is the only.

• 1:25:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he's 30.

• 1:25:14Speaker 02

  But he plays a little younger and I think he's supposed to be the same age around Emily Blunt. I know she's a little older.

• 1:25:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:20Speaker 02

  I just, I need, I want this movie to feel bigger. I want it to feel like the Spielberg movies of the 80s and 90s.

• 1:25:28Sean Fennessey?

  You gotta remember that. Like, this is the person who used Richard Dreyfuss as his avatar. Like, he likes a slightly, like, pointy-headed, you know, anxiety-riddled, kind of smart, motor-mouthed person in a lot of his movies.

• 1:25:40Speaker 02

  But he's made movies with Hanks, Leo, Cruz.

• 1:25:44Sean Fennessey?

  Totally.

• 1:25:44Speaker 02

  Also recognizes the value of a big movie star. And if, I know nervous, like, everyone around this movie feels a little nervous. Like, we put this movie in the summer, does Steven Spielberg still matter in a way that will put butts in seats on that scale? And they have made the bet that Spielberg plus Aliens is that summer movie. I think it should have been Spielberg plus Aliens plus A-list movie star.

• 1:26:10Sean Fennessey?

  Would have ensured a higher likelihood of success.

• 1:26:13Speaker 02

  And no disrespect to Emily Blunt either. She is up there in female leads, and, but I don't think she is on that A level. She is not Zendaya. She is not even like, you know, that generation above her where those stars were more meaningful. She is.

• 1:26:29Sean Fennessey?

  It's really only Robert Pattinson, though, who is a, like, mid to late 30s star who fits in this spot.

• 1:26:36Speaker 02

  He would have been great.

• 1:26:37Sean Fennessey?

  You could see him in that spot.

• 1:26:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And he was booked, so.

• 1:26:39Sean Fennessey?

  He was booked.

• 1:26:39Amanda Dobbins?

  He's booked and busy.

• 1:26:40Speaker 02

  His visuals can be reworked.

• 1:26:42Sean Fennessey?

  He had to go see Arrakis, you know?

• 1:26:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I'm, I'm excited. I mean, I, I, I hope that it works. I don't know from a box office.

• 1:26:49Speaker 02

  Don't get me wrong, I'm excited.

• 1:26:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I know that I'm gonna go and be like, wow, movies.

• 1:26:53Speaker 02

  I wanna be there, and I wanna see this movie today.

• 1:26:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:56Speaker 02

  I just, I hope they do a great enough job to make this a mainstream movie.

• 1:27:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:02Speaker 02

  Mainstream hit.

• 1:27:03Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Number three for me is, uh, I'm just, I'm, I'm gonna borrow your, your trio idea here.

• 1:27:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:11Sean Fennessey?

  Um, but I'll primarily say Resident Evil, which was, um, the trailer for the film was presented, Zach Craigers new sort of adaptation of the video game. Um, this is his follow-up to Weapons, and it, it has been described as a Mad Max Fury Road journey through a zombie apocalypse starring, starring Austin Abrams. Um, I thought the footage was sick. It seems like it's gonna be a really, really gross, violent, scary, fast-moving monster movie, and...

• 1:27:42Sean Fennessey?

  I'm in. It's a big-ish bet for Sony. The movie did not feel that big.

• 1:27:48Speaker 02

  Oh, they needed to be a hit.

• 1:27:49Sean Fennessey?

  But they wanted to be really big.

• 1:27:50Speaker 02

  They want, I mean, they're looking at the weapons numbers and they're like, okay, that, but we have a franchise. Like, why, this should do double.

• 1:27:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Craigor introduced the movie and he did not, um, he said that he had played it for hours and hours and hours and hours over the years and has been addicted to it. But my understanding is, is that it's not like a proper adaptation with characters you know and love and moments that you'll recall. I'm sure there will be plenty of stuff for the fans. But I agree. That was sort of my takeaway was the idea of just like using this as a launch point. Instead of trying to be too faithful to it, it makes me more excited for the movie. Similarly, we saw some absolutely brutal, violent, disgusting footage from Evil Dead Burn. Which is, as we like to say on the show, my birthday movie comes out July 24th, my birthday weekend. I will be there like a sicko.

• 1:28:35Amanda Dobbins?

  It was gross enough that I like checked out because I couldn't watch what was going on.

• 1:28:39Speaker 02

  I started playing Words with Friends.

• 1:28:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I had to ask you, what, which one was that again? Because I had to remove myself from the experience.

• 1:28:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I.

• 1:28:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Good job then.

• 1:28:47Sean Fennessey?

  For those of us who really care about Evil Dead, it was very good.

• 1:28:50Speaker 02

  It's funny for someone like me who is, does not engage with horror movies at all. This is the only time of the year when I actually see horror trailers or to the extent I'm actually looking at them. I'm often looking down at my phone.

• 1:29:05Speaker 02

  They're really gross now.

• 1:29:06Sean Fennessey?

  They're really gross. Well, this is coming on the heels of the big success of Final Destination Bloodlines.

• 1:29:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:29:11Sean Fennessey?

  Which we saw a bit of last year.

• 1:29:13Speaker 02

  And I looked away.

• 1:29:14Sean Fennessey?

  And I said on the show, I was like, this is gonna be a fucking thing. Like, they clearly unlocked something with this. The last Evil Dead movie did really good business, Evil Dead Rise. You know, Sam Raimi, who made the original films, is producing these movies and he's just, he, he just had a hit with Send Help. He knows what these people want. He knows what I want. So that one's gonna work. And then the third one I want us to talk about that is kind of in this like expanded genre freakout zone is Whalefall.

• 1:29:38Amanda Dobbins?

  That's right. Great. Did you leave before Whalefall?

• 1:29:41Speaker 02

  I did not see Whalefall. Is that the Ridley Scott movie?

• 1:29:42Sean Fennessey?

  No, that's the Dog stars.

• 1:29:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Starring Jacob Elordi, uh, who looks quite tall.

• 1:29:47Sean Fennessey?

  Two months later is Whalefall, which is adapted from a novel. We've not read it. We made a bit of a joke about this movie when we did our, our box office or summer preview.

• 1:29:55Speaker 02

  It's gotta be a novel because no one titles their book, their movie Whalefall.

• 1:30:00Sean Fennessey?

  But what they showed us, speaking of Austin Abrams.

• 1:30:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:03Sean Fennessey?

  Is. A scuba diver doing battle, trying to survive against a squid and a whale.

• 1:30:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:30:11Sean Fennessey?

  And this ain't Noah Baumbach and.

• 1:30:14Amanda Dobbins?

  It was awesome.

• 1:30:15Sean Fennessey?

  It was, the footage was sick.

• 1:30:17Amanda Dobbins?

  It was, and everyone was so stressed out.

• 1:30:19Speaker 02

  Killer whale? Like, is it supernatural? Like?

• 1:30:21Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:30:22Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:30:23Speaker 02

  So it's like.

• 1:30:23Amanda Dobbins?

  It's underwater. Yeah.

• 1:30:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's an.

• 1:30:25Speaker 02

  Nature thriller. Oh, I like that.

• 1:30:27Sean Fennessey?

  And the footage was real good. And honestly, Disney was getting a little sleepy in there during the presentation at that point.

• 1:30:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and then everybody was.

• 1:30:35Speaker 02

  Is that a 20th title?

• 1:30:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's a 20th title. Yes.

• 1:30:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:30:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And, you know, we were, we were joking, but it's gotta be, the premise of the movie is that the guy gets caught inside the whale.

• 1:30:46Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 1:30:47Sean Fennessey?

  And he's gotta get out.

• 1:30:49Amanda Dobbins?

  And then that raised for me a lot of questions about what happens inside the whale.

• 1:30:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:30:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And they showed us some of what happens.

• 1:30:54Speaker 02

  Is that scientifically accurate?

• 1:30:56Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 1:30:57Amanda Dobbins?

  So I don't know. I did get some more whale facts after this.

• 1:31:00Speaker 02

  We're gonna get some emails.

• 1:31:02Amanda Dobbins?

  And apparently.

• 1:31:03Sean Fennessey?

  From the whaling community?

• 1:31:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, a whale's throat is only the size of a grapefruit, which I did think of while watching this film. It's, you know, maybe it's a muscle that expands.

• 1:31:15Speaker 02

  Pinocchio has gotta be based on something.

• 1:31:17Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. Yes, he goes inside a monstro.

• 1:31:19Amanda Dobbins?

  There's also something about various stomach compartments and how we digest, how whales digest things. I don't know how that's gonna be portrayed.

• 1:31:26Speaker 02

  And you see all that in the movie?

• 1:31:28Sean Fennessey?

  Not quite.

• 1:31:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Brian.

• 1:31:30Sean Fennessey?

  At least what we saw.

• 1:31:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Brian Duffield, the director, did weigh in on Instagram to let me know that there is gravity inside the whale.

• 1:31:38Sean Fennessey?

  Huge.

• 1:31:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Or that there is some, so he just wrote, there is gravity. I didn't actually follow up to like interrogate how the gravity acts.

• 1:31:48Speaker 02

  Presumably, the movie will explain that.

• 1:31:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. And I'm told that the book, the novel on which it's based, also does explain it. I'm not gonna read the novel.

• 1:31:55Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not either.

• 1:31:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm gonna go in.

• 1:31:57Speaker 02

  I don't need the Andy Weir 30-page discussion of how it works.

• 1:32:00Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 1:32:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I just thought this looked awesome. And I was glad that Whale Fall is already like a pet project of the big picture because the footage backed it up.

• 1:32:09Speaker 02

  You're gonna see a double feature Whale Fall and Other Mommy.

• 1:32:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Have a great time.

• 1:32:15Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so your number two is my number one, and we've already talked about it a little bit here. And I assume that Dune Part Three is also on your list for the most anticipated.

• 1:32:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Unreal.

• 1:32:26Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like, it does seem like they, they got it, right?

• 1:32:29Speaker 02

  They know what they're doing.

• 1:32:30Sean Fennessey?

  They know what they're doing.

• 1:32:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:31Speaker 02

  I don't know. This guy knows how to make this feel big and important and cool looking with still a focus on the actors. You get a sense of the place of this whole planet.

• 1:32:44Sean Fennessey?

  Javier Bardem is leading the army that we see in this footage.

• 1:32:47Speaker 02

  Right. And there are particular soldiers that we follow. Some live, some die. There's a gun that appears that is like no other gun I've ever seen. And then it's attached to something that may or may not be alive, but looks like a spaceship.

• 1:33:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Yeah.

• 1:33:06Speaker 02

  Do, do we get the sense that that's a creature or a spaceship?

• 1:33:08Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 1:33:08Amanda Dobbins?

  We don't know. I don't know how you interpret. I interpreted it more as creature, but I could be wrong.

• 1:33:14Speaker 02

  I interpreted it as spaceship.

• 1:33:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:33:15Speaker 02

  Or base.

• 1:33:16Sean Fennessey?

  This is why I'm so excited.

• 1:33:17Speaker 02

  Military base that is buried in the ground. So they shoot the gun up first to kind of clear the way. And then they rise up and then all the people get out, maybe?

• 1:33:26Sean Fennessey?

  It's just one of those things where I could feel myself going like this.

• 1:33:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:30Sean Fennessey?

  Leaning in further and further as they were showing the footage. And I didn't have that much. You know, we sat through a lot of presentations. We were in those seats up in the rafters in the Dolby Coliseum for hours over the last three days. And, you know, sure, we're burnt out cynics or whatever, but when something is, you know, when something is hitting. And this was just hitting. Everyone was mesmerized.

• 1:33:49Speaker 02

  Like, I went through the kitchen sink at this presentation and finished with this.

• 1:33:54Sean Fennessey?

  They did. They did. Um, okay. Do you want, you have one more you want to throw out there before we get into the final?

• 1:33:59Speaker 02

  I do. I just want to say something brief about Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

• 1:34:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, please.

• 1:34:03Speaker 02

  Which I actually liked and appreciated that at these things, we typically see the spectacle and the most, you know, impressive sequence like Dune 3. They instead, for this one, went with a college party scene. And I thought that was actually cool and made me way more interested in this version, you know, this continuation of Spider-Man, because it's what we liked about the first of this Tom Holland Spider-Man. He feels like a real guy.

• 1:34:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:34:33Speaker 02

  And he feels like these are real, like- Whereas it was high school before, now it's college. And they don't remember him, so he's sort of starting over. And he sees that like MJ has moved on. And it just, there's a, an authenticity to Spider-Man that you don't often see in the superhero movies. And certainly it sounds like you didn't see in the Avengers.

• 1:34:53Amanda Dobbins?

  No way.

• 1:34:54Speaker 02

  That made me much more interested in this.

• 1:34:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I wasn't wowed by what they showed us, but I hear what you're saying. And it's directed by Dustin Daniel Cretin, who this is his first time working on the Spider-Man movies. John Watts has moved on. And, you know, he made short term 12, right? Like he's, he came up as an indie character drama person. And so that part of the movie, I think is going to be good. Tom Rothman went out of his way to be like, there's never been a Spider-Man movie like this. And we've done things you'll never see before. And then they just showed us some character stuff footage.

• 1:35:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:20Sean Fennessey?

  So I was a little bit like.

• 1:35:21Speaker 02

  But I like that.

• 1:35:22Sean Fennessey?

  I, I guess I do too, but I have some, it's given me Spider-Man three vibes of the Raimi thing where there's like five villains. And we don't really know what the story is. And it's going to get a little, I'm just a little bit concerned about that, but that's as a fan. I mean, I love the Holland Spider-Man movies. I think he's nailed it as the character. We were huge fans of No Way Home, like.

• 1:35:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:42Sean Fennessey?

  I'm generally on board with the project. I just, I think I was like, maybe sell me harder on the spectacle in that room.

• 1:35:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I agree with you, but I think some of that is why I think Spider-Man is the best of the, the film superheroes. And it's really just the best character. It's a teenager, so.

• 1:35:59Speaker 02

  It's so relatable.

• 1:36:00Amanda Dobbins?

  There's always something.

• 1:36:01Speaker 02

  Who hasn't been to the college party where the girl is unattainable and your friends try to urge you, you know?

• 1:36:05Amanda Dobbins?

  There's always something, something grounded. Whereas like with Captain America, I don't know what's relatable about him coming back to life as a super soldier. And grabbing a hammer, you know, like same, I guess, but not at all. So, yeah.

• 1:36:20Speaker 02

  I just feel like I, I know they're going to nail the spectacle. And I didn't know that they were going to actually take some time to make me care about it.

• 1:36:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it's a good pick and I'm glad that we're talking about it because it's obviously going to be one of the biggest movies of the year. Let's talk about your number one.

• 1:36:33Amanda Dobbins?

  What's up to my Nolan bros?

• 1:36:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I am back in the club.

• 1:36:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:37Amanda Dobbins?

  The Odyssey.

• 1:36:38Speaker 02

  You were out?

• 1:36:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I, you know, I think the first two hours of Oppenheimer are excellent. And then I have some notes about the, I have some notes about what Robert Downey Jr. is doing in the, in the last decade of his life. And they, and they continue.

• 1:36:53Sean Fennessey?

  Not the final decade of his life.

• 1:36:54Amanda Dobbins?

  No, the most recent decade of his life.

• 1:36:57Speaker 02

  Unless you know something we don't.

• 1:37:00Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I, and, and as the, you know, the Nolan fanboy-ness has grown, I, I'm allergic to that, to that type of fandom generally, but I, they showed the Trojan Horse sequence from The Odyssey and I was just like, "Yes!" I think it looks awesome. And I mean, Dune does as well. It's kind of splitting hairs what's first and second for me, but I think that I had forgotten how much exciting material to work, there is work within The Odyssey. You know, I remember it as like a doorstop textbook that I had to read several times

• 1:37:37Amanda Dobbins?

  throughout my education. And it is, it was thrilling. And there is still that, you know, that, that excitement of seeing something that you've only read about in like boring verse, being portrayed so excellently, you know, spectacularly on the screen, amazing cast. You know, I'm excited that like every movie star in the world is gonna be in one movie. That's, that's Amanda Cour.

• 1:38:03Sean Fennessey?

  Nolan joked about that.

• 1:38:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's great. It is great marketing.

• 1:38:06Sean Fennessey?

  And he didn't feel they needed to bring any of them to CinemaCon. It was just him.

• 1:38:09Speaker 02

  What a flex.

• 1:38:10Sean Fennessey?

  It was a flex.

• 1:38:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, but I thought everything looked great. It's Matt Damon in a Christopher Nolan movie, like big summer spectacle.

• 1:38:19Speaker 02

  And his archery skills seem decent. Like, credible.

• 1:38:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:23Sean Fennessey?

  No, I mean, they, so apparently, um, I haven't, I hadn't seen what we saw in theaters, but other people have seen it.

• 1:38:28Speaker 02

  Well, this was longer. This was more than what they showed in the 70 millimeter.

• 1:38:32Sean Fennessey?

  So in the 70 millimeter screenings, they showed this six-minute sequence of the Trojan Horse moment, which of course is not in The Odyssey and is, is.

• 1:38:38Speaker 02

  It's referenced.

• 1:38:39Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, yeah, it's referenced, but it's, I mean, it's crucial to concluding what happens in the Iliad, which sets up The Odyssey.

• 1:38:44Sean Fennessey?

  And so it's told as a kind of a memory from, from Berthold's character to Tom Holland's character. And it's just high-level Swords and Sandals siege warfare. I mean, it really is like.

• 1:38:56Speaker 02

  Looks real.

• 1:38:56Sean Fennessey?

  It looks real.

• 1:38:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:57Speaker 02

  And I, and I talked to Nolan a little at the Universal Party afterward, and he's like, that, and so that's the appeal. Like, everybody's read the story, but like, how did they pull that horse from the ocean and get it into the, the, the bounds of the fortress? And you see hundreds of men pulling this horse. It's super cool.

• 1:39:20Amanda Dobbins?

  And you know, you know, I had never really thought about like the, the Dunkirk-esque quality of all the guys in the horse as it's like sailing on the ocean, you know? But it's, and there are echoes of his other work in it. It's, it was very exciting. I'm ready.

• 1:39:32Sean Fennessey?

  It was.

• 1:39:32Speaker 02

  Music was great, too.

• 1:39:34Sean Fennessey?

  It was. Um, you know, most anticipated movie of the year, I think.

• 1:39:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:38Sean Fennessey?

  Safe to say.

• 1:39:39Speaker 02

  Certainly for us. I mean, I don't know about the general public. They're probably more.

• 1:39:43Sean Fennessey?

  I wonder.

• 1:39:44Speaker 02

  Spider-Man. It's gotta be Spider-Man.

• 1:39:46Sean Fennessey?

  Or Doomsday.

• 1:39:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Or Doomsday.

• 1:39:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm fascinated to, to see how well a movie like this can do, because the truth is, is when you go back through Hollywood history, there are a lot of Swords and sandals movies, but not a lot of big ones. And not a lot of ones that have stood the test of time. And, um, you know, Troy is probably the most recent example of one that is like really huge. I guess you could make the case for 300 as well.

• 1:40:05Speaker 02

  How dare you insult the Ben Hur remake?

• 1:40:08Sean Fennessey?

  Right, exactly. Exactly my point. Um, so this'll, this'll be an interesting test of that.

• 1:40:14Speaker 02

  Was Jerry Butler in that one? I believe he was.

• 1:40:17Sean Fennessey?

  In the Ben Hur remake?

• 1:40:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was an infamous bomb.

• 1:40:20Sean Fennessey?

  It was.

• 1:40:21Speaker 02

  MGM made. I believe it was around.

• 1:40:22Sean Fennessey?

  Wasn't it Toby Keble? Wasn't he the Ben Hur character?

• 1:40:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's see. Hold it. It's Jack Houston, Toby Keble. Yeah, I don't think it's, but that, but I will say that I thought the man on the poster was Jerry Butler, so.

• 1:40:38Speaker 02

  Maybe I'm mixing up.

• 1:40:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think, I think that you took the, their intention.

• 1:40:42Sean Fennessey?

  You didn't see Jerry.

• 1:40:42Speaker 02

  300, actually.

• 1:40:44Sean Fennessey?

  That's a, that's a big one.

• 1:40:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it kicked off the Zack Snyder thing for sure. Uh, some honorable mentions.

• 1:40:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:40:51Sean Fennessey?

  Intrigued, but holding my judgment on J.J. Abrams' The Great Beyond.

• 1:40:57Speaker 02

  See, I was totally not interested in that.

• 1:41:00Sean Fennessey?

  I felt like they were really trying to not show us anything.

• 1:41:02Speaker 02

  But then why show anything at all?

• 1:41:04Sean Fennessey?

  Well, because they have a big November movie that they gotta get people interested in.

• 1:41:06Speaker 02

  But is it big? See, that's the, I don't know. Was it you that, someone told me that they felt like J.J. is sliding into Shyamalan territory.

• 1:41:14Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:41:14Speaker 02

  Where it's like.

• 1:41:15Amanda Dobbins?

  That's not me, but that's a.

• 1:41:17Speaker 02

  It's, it's like, okay, maybe.

• 1:41:19Sean Fennessey?

  It, it felt very Twilight-zony, and I'll say like, it, it also felt kind of.

• 1:41:23Speaker 02

  But that's Shyamalan.

• 1:41:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but it felt in the spirit of. Alias and Lost, which is really, most of JJ's best stuff is in television. And it's in television that's clearly inspired by Rod Sterling. And he's very good at that kind of, um, character-based genre. So like, I want it to be good. Like, I like the Star Trek movie.

• 1:41:41Speaker 02

  But he's made stuff that feels big. And this does not feel big. It's a bunch of people hugging each other.

• 1:41:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but I did, I also got the feeling that, I, I mean, maybe you're right. Either there's nothing there, or we saw just absolutely nothing. Most of what we saw was like, a computer quoting H.G. Wells. We were just looking at a screen. It was very clearly like teaser trailer, kinda like Easter egg-y, not give stuff away, which I found like, slightly irritating because I, you know, I don't, I'm, I don't know whether I want another puzzle box, whatever, but it, I also didn't get the sense that we were shown everything. So, we'll see.

• 1:42:18Sean Fennessey?

  Couple of other honorable mentions. Um, you know, I don't mind saying it. This is the only Paramount movie I think that's come up so far. Uh, I, I got, I got a little misty-eyed watching Mr. Irrelevant, The John Tuggle Story, which is a football drama.

• 1:42:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I did too!

• 1:42:32Speaker 02

  I, I am abstaining because I actually walked out for this portion, so I did not see this.

• 1:42:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:42:36Sean Fennessey?

  David Cornsweat plays, it's true story about the last man taken in the, in the NFL Draft, John Tuggle.

• 1:42:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Who's a New York Giant, but David Cornsweat, an Eagles fan, a Philly boy, came on and did an intro with a lot of, of dedicated Philly, um, explanation as to why he was ultimately willing to play a New York Giant. I thought he did a great job.

• 1:42:59Sean Fennessey?

  Um, it was real, just like, classic Americana Disney live-action circa 1997 sports movie.

• 1:43:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And then it's coming out on Christmas Day. And I will watch that with my family.

• 1:43:10Sean Fennessey?

  With Michael Shannon as Bill Parcells.

• 1:43:12Speaker 02

  And it is Paramount, so they're gonna plug the shit out of it during football.

• 1:43:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and it's like, real, like, middle of the country, like, it's just gonna, and, you know, it's, it's gonna be hokey, and it's gonna be manipulative, and it honestly looked good. If you, if you like a movie like that.

• 1:43:25Amanda Dobbins?

  It's gonna work.

• 1:43:26Sean Fennessey?

  I liked it. And I, I didn't know anything about this movie, so it was one of the few real surprises that, that, that I saw this.

• 1:43:31Speaker 02

  What did you think of the I Play Rocky trailer? This is the...

• 1:43:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Not enough Tracy Letts.

• 1:43:37Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, yeah, our buddy Tracy Letts is in the film, and he seemed to be very funny. I thought the guy that they found to play Sly was really good.

• 1:43:43Speaker 02

  This is the movie, uh, directed by Peter Farrelly.

• 1:43:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:43:48Speaker 02

  About the origin story of the movie that became the franchise that Amazon bought in its MGM deal.

• 1:43:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:43:58Speaker 02

  And they have so exploited Rocky with the Creed movies. Someone in a room said, what else can we do? And then now we have the origin story movie.

• 1:44:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, is it a movie I think needs to exist? Not exactly.

• 1:44:13Speaker 02

  And also, what are the stakes?

• 1:44:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we know that Rocky went on to work. I think it basically just rests on that guy's shoulders. If you like watching that guy as Sly and you have warm feelings towards 1975 Sylvester Stallone.

• 1:44:24Speaker 02

  And his meeting with the studio maybe went bad.

• 1:44:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:44:27Speaker 02

  That's the stakes.

• 1:44:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:44:28Speaker 02

  And they want to recast him.

• 1:44:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:31Speaker 02

  But there's no, like, Rocky works because there's a boxing match at the end.

• 1:44:35Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:44:36Speaker 02

  Is there a boxing match at the end? We know that the movie has one.

• 1:44:40Sean Fennessey?

  Well, so you'll have to tune in for I Play Rocky 2.

• 1:44:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe he's not gonna like be up to snuff in the boxing scene. And then he has to like really fight. I just, I don't know what the stakes are in this movie.

• 1:44:51Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I don't either, but you know, we will see, I guess. Other honorable mentions. Uh, I'm just, for, for Chris Ryan's sake, I'm just gonna give some love to Occult is My Passport, which is the new Gareth Evans shoot 'em up movie, which looks like a John Woo movie set in 1970s Detroit, um, which seemed pretty appealing. I mentioned Werewolf. You know, I think we'll maybe spend some time on Supergirl on the town, but, um.

• 1:45:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:45:21Sean Fennessey?

  Clayface is a really interesting thing to me. I just want to talk about it for one second. It's the, it's the other DC movie that's coming out this year and it's way smaller. And it's directed by James Watkins, who's a horror film director. And it's being pitched as a pure horror.

• 1:45:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, R rated.

• 1:45:35Sean Fennessey?

  R rated horror movie about an actor who experiences a very traumatic accident and then develops this new power. And that's an interesting choice. And I'm so interested to see if it works because it can change the dynamic of what superhero movies have to be.

• 1:45:52Speaker 02

  Well, Joker grossed a billion dollars. So they're giving it that release slot.

• 1:45:56Sean Fennessey?

  It's definitely not gonna gross a billion dollars.

• 1:45:57Speaker 02

  No, of course not, but, and I don't think it's gonna win an Oscar.

• 1:46:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:01Speaker 02

  But they see a lane here where the DC audience, they can do this in a way that Marvel can't.

• 1:46:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:09Speaker 02

  So why not?

• 1:46:09Sean Fennessey?

  It looked, I mean, it looked good. I mean, I don't know if it's gonna be, make $200 million, but it looked cool. And that's kind of really all it needs to do for that, because. Supergirl had some concerns.

• 1:46:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, this is, this is just the thing about the new era of superhero movies, but I guess all movies, which is like, is it allowed to just be really good and enjoyable to the audience that cares about it and not the broader world?

• 1:46:34Speaker 02

  When, when you're working at a sub $100 million budget, and I don't know what that movie costs, but I'm presuming it costs less than $100 million, I think you can.

• 1:46:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Then, then, then it looks great because you were like, you turned to me before, you said, I'm very excited. I watched it and I was just like, I'm happy for you or sorry that that happened, you know? And that's, and you will decide whether it works or doesn't.

• 1:46:54Speaker 02

  And if the horror movie crowd shows up, it could overperform. If you get that, you get the DC incel crowd and then you get a little bit of the general audience.

• 1:47:02Sean Fennessey?

  You know what the other thing is? Clayface is a very famous Batman villain and the trailer was not like, and Bruce Wayne is around the corner. Like there was none of that fan service-y bullshit. It was like, we're actually just giving you a genre movie, which I just thought, I don't know if brave is the right word, but I was like, this is smart. This is interesting. This is a little different than what other studios would do with this kind of material. So I want to give it a shout. Last one I want to shout out is Godzilla minus one, which is the new movie from Takashi Yamakazi, the Japanese filmmaker who won an Oscar for visual effects two years ago for the previous Godzilla movie. They showed us some footage from the new film, which looks fucking amazing. It's part of the G Kids presentation. He, they also announced that I think for Sony, is it Sony? He's doing Grand Gear.

• 1:47:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:46Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a new like Kaiju versus robots mega movie produced by J.J. Abrams. That's coming in 2028.

• 1:47:52Speaker 02

  Also a Coachella band.

• 1:47:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, exactly. Grand Gear. But all that stuff looked cool to me. So I'll give it a shout. Any other honorable mentions you want to hit?

• 1:48:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. A Place in Hell, which is the new Chloe Demont, who did Fair Play film from Neon, starring Michelle Williams, Daisy Edgar Jones, Andrew Scott, which kind of looks like...

• 1:48:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Legal meet, like me too lawyer, um, singway female.

• 1:48:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. It was like Fatal Attraction meets Disclosure.

• 1:48:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And I thought it looked really good. I'm really excited about it. They also, they did a little intro reel ahead of time that was a bit and it actually worked, which is a good sign, you know? And then, uh, we haven't said Beekeeper 2.

• 1:48:37Sean Fennessey?

  Probably the most fun trailer of the week.

• 1:48:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, really good.

• 1:48:40Speaker 02

  A little over the top on the violence, but you know what?

• 1:48:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's very violent.

• 1:48:42Speaker 02

  It is what it is.

• 1:48:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:44Sean Fennessey?

  They, they, they, they're giving you what we're asking for.

• 1:48:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. What was, was that the one with the mallet through the face?

• 1:48:50Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, it was a flamethrower.

• 1:48:51Speaker 02

  No, that was the flamethrower in the mouth.

• 1:48:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, a flamethrower in the mouth, which I've not seen before in a film.

• 1:48:55Speaker 02

  I have not seen that.

• 1:48:55Sean Fennessey?

  Enjoyed that.

• 1:48:56Speaker 02

  And I did laugh when I saw that.

• 1:48:57Sean Fennessey?

  Also like a, like a glass canister full of weaponized bees and then smashing it on the ground to attack people. Just good shit.

• 1:49:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:04Speaker 02

  I did not see the original. I was kind of confused by whether he's an actual beekeeper.

• 1:49:07Amanda Dobbins?

  No, you need to see the original. Don't, don't listen to, say nothing else.

• 1:49:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, alright.

• 1:49:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Go in cold, but you really have to see the original Beekeeper and then we'll, then we'll discuss. Yeah.

• 1:49:17Speaker 02

  I am, I gotta say, I'm kind of Statham curious. Like I am not a Jason Statham.

• 1:49:23Sean Fennessey?

  One out of every four is really good.

• 1:49:25Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:49:25Sean Fennessey?

  And then the other three are like, this was a huge waste of time. But if you get into the one that is good, you'll just have a grand old time.

• 1:49:31Speaker 02

  Okay. And Beekeeper is good.

• 1:49:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I think so. Yeah. A lot of ideas. I don't know whether Beekeeper 2, the trailer communicated as many ideas.

• 1:49:40Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you, but I didn't know what we were getting when we saw the Beekeeper.

• 1:49:43Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true. And that's why I don't want to say anymore to Matt, except sit down.

• 1:49:46Sean Fennessey?

  Implications.

• 1:49:46Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. So it's a, it's a, it's a polemic movie.

• 1:49:49Amanda Dobbins?

  And personal implications. Listen, there's a cold open. I just.

• 1:49:53Speaker 02

  It has a lot to say about the world.

• 1:49:54Amanda Dobbins?

  You can't be looking at your phone. You gotta watch Beekeeper. It's, it, you know, it's, it might be evil, but, uh, we really enjoyed it.

• 1:50:01Sean Fennessey?

  Just two things that were not there. James Bond?

• 1:50:05Speaker 02

  Of course not.

• 1:50:06Sean Fennessey?

  No announcement, no news.

• 1:50:08Speaker 02

  Everything you read on the internet is bullshit.

• 1:50:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:10Speaker 02

  They have not cast James Bond. They have not even seen the, the script yet from Stephen Knight. They, that might, that might be happening now. I, spring, summer, they're gonna get into it.

• 1:50:21Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:50:21Speaker 02

  And we'll see news there. But why, they, they can't, they're not gonna be able to debut Bond at some event like this.

• 1:50:28Sean Fennessey?

  I was thinking the same thing.

• 1:50:29Speaker 02

  It's gonna leak the second it happens. They will put, I'll report, somebody else will report it and it will blow up. It's the biggest casting thing around. People in the real world care about it. The British press is like hounding them every single day. So not a surprise.

• 1:50:43Sean Fennessey?

  And then no Batman part two.

• 1:50:45Speaker 02

  That was a bit of a surprise.

• 1:50:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:48Sean Fennessey?

  What's?

• 1:50:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, he just handed in the script, you know?

• 1:50:50Sean Fennessey?

  Matt Reeves, yeah, yeah. Interesting to not even tout it.

• 1:50:54Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:50:55Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of an important one.

• 1:50:56Speaker 02

  Big franchise and unless there's something going on where the the 2027 release date is gonna be no more.

• 1:51:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Shifting, yeah. Was it on the the list of like the infographic that Warner Brothers put on the?

• 1:51:10Sean Fennessey?

  At the end, Warner, well, they had so many titles.

• 1:51:13Speaker 02

  They had a Game of Thrones movie, they had a Baz Luhrmann movie.

• 1:51:17Amanda Dobbins?

  They had the Ocean sequel, you know, it wasn't like they were waiting for a title or for any sort of they they just put whatever on that infographic.

• 1:51:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, The Hunt for Gollum, Man of Tomorrow, they have a ton of big movies coming out over the next two years. And Practical Magic two, how can we forget?

• 1:51:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:51:35Speaker 02

  They were adorable.

• 1:51:36Amanda Dobbins?

  They were great. I loved it.

• 1:51:38Sean Fennessey?

  Sandy, I was feeling it.

• 1:51:39Amanda Dobbins?

  It's just they and they had Nicole do we come to this place for magic, but like Sandy did it in a cute way.

• 1:51:46Sean Fennessey?

  It was fun.

• 1:51:47Amanda Dobbins?

  It was they talked for a very long time, probably longer than they needed to.

• 1:51:51Speaker 02

  But that's every.

• 1:51:51Amanda Dobbins?

  And I don't personally have a lot of attachment to the original Practical Magic, but.

• 1:51:56Speaker 02

  Never seen it.

• 1:51:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Happy for everybody.

• 1:51:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but a lot of people have.

• 1:52:00Speaker 02

  I get it mixed up with Hocus Pocus a lot.

• 1:52:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that witch core.

• 1:52:04Speaker 02

  But the fact that Hocus Pocus two was like the number one movie on Disney plus for a long time, that's why this movie happened.

• 1:52:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's in it's in that youth mining territory.

• 1:52:13Speaker 02

  And if it's and if it's halfway decent, it will play each holiday season.

• 1:52:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm rooting for those crazy gals.

• 1:52:19Sean Fennessey?

  I think you're right. Anything else you want to hit before we wrap this up and we go hop over to the town?

• 1:52:23Speaker 02

  We have not discussed Mandalorian and we saw 17 minutes of it.

• 1:52:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh my, we saw so much of it.

• 1:52:29Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it looked totally uninspired, totally uninspired. I I am like baffled as to why this is a movie, honestly.

• 1:52:35Speaker 02

  I was more impressed than I have been from the trailers. I thought the opening sequence was pretty cool from a Star Wars fan perspective.

• 1:52:42Sean Fennessey?

  Do you do you watch the Mandalorian TV show? I mean, it just looked like an episode of the show like it was a little larger in scale because there are AT ATs in it, but like.

• 1:52:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they.

• 1:52:50Amanda Dobbins?

  But then you were mad about that. You were like, why are they on a mountain?

• 1:52:53Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it was just like it just had no real like Star Wars logic. It was like, well, why are the why would they be sending these like? Droids up the side of a mountain that they could get pushed off of like it's just one of those things where it's like. It didn't feel coherent in the world of Star Wars. It was just like, we need spectacle. It just felt like kinda anxious.

• 1:53:08Speaker 02

  Well, what I didn't like, and I don't want to judge the whole movie based on 17 minutes, but it feels like the opening sequence does not continue into the movie.

• 1:53:17Sean Fennessey?

  Set up where the movie is doing.

• 1:53:18Speaker 02

  Like a standalone.

• 1:53:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:20Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I'm saying. It was like they shot the movie and then like, shit, we need a second.

• 1:53:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, they had, they had a bad guy who looks like, looked like the most interesting man in the world. Like that guy died.

• 1:53:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:53:28Speaker 02

  In the opening sequence.

• 1:53:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:53:29Speaker 02

  So like, what, what is that for? And then like, the movie could have started with Sigourney Weaver giving them their mission.

• 1:53:37Sean Fennessey?

  I, I totally agree with you and I.

• 1:53:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, though that would not be that exciting.

• 1:53:42Speaker 02

  No, but that's what I'm saying.

• 1:53:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:43Sean Fennessey?

  They probably looked at that and they were like, we gotta do something here. We gotta get something going.

• 1:53:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I don't know.

• 1:53:48Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe they didn't, but it just.

• 1:53:49Speaker 02

  And maybe it will. I don't, I don't know. Maybe there's something in there that will.

• 1:53:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:53Speaker 02

  Translate. Also, when you have, when you have Grogu, that's the premise of this, the relationship between the two of them. I felt like that Grogu was sort of just along for the ride.

• 1:54:06Sean Fennessey?

  Well, he was the comic relief instead of the centerpiece. Like in that series, he's like the emotional core of the show. So because the Mandalorian doesn't have a face, so he doesn't, he can't express emotions.

• 1:54:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:17Sean Fennessey?

  But every moment that Grogu got in the 17 minutes that we saw was a joke, basically, right?

• 1:54:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:22Speaker 02

  Well, he had that, he has a moment where he kind of battles a droid a little bit.

• 1:54:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:54:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:27Amanda Dobbins?

  It's true.

• 1:54:27Speaker 02

  I just thought it looked cool. It looked big and I, and I was worried from the trailer that it was going to feel like an episode. This felt, there was a, there was some directorial touches, that sequence where he kills all the bad guys.

• 1:54:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that was cool.

• 1:54:39Speaker 02

  That was extremely cool.

• 1:54:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:41Speaker 02

  So I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic.

• 1:54:43Amanda Dobbins?

  And I'm just worried it's too violent now for my kid, which is sort of the flip side of the, they're trying to make it not like a TV show and add again. And I agree that, you know, I don't care about the TV show. I will never watch it. And it doesn't matter to, so the distinction doesn't matter to me as much, but I was like, oh no.

• 1:55:00Sean Fennessey?

  No, that sequence that Matt's talking about is very John Wick, you know?

• 1:55:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:03Sean Fennessey?

  It's like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

• 1:55:05Speaker 02

  But it's Star Wars violence. It's.

• 1:55:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's blast, it's blast.

• 1:55:07Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I know. And it's lasers and yada, yada. I thought the Ludacris score was.

• 1:55:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, that's from the show.

• 1:55:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, I understand that, but again, I'm never gonna watch the show. I don't acknowledge it here.

• 1:55:17Sean Fennessey?

  When the show came out, we were like, holy shit.

• 1:55:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:19Speaker 02

  It feels like, it feels like a Western.

• 1:55:21Amanda Dobbins?

  But good for him. And he's like, but, but also, you know, with enough homage to like John Williams and that universe, I, good job. So.

• 1:55:27Sean Fennessey?

  I think in that. We'll see. I don't want to judge it too harshly. I just, I needed it to be a little something more to get excited, and I'm not really excited. I think that's it. You want to jump over to the town? Yeah. Let's do it. Okay. Thank you to, thank you to Matt. Thank you to Jack Sanders. Thanks to Craig Holbeck, our traveling companion. Thanks to Lucas Cavanagh for his production support. Next week, as I said, is our 900th episode. You can email us or you can call us, and we will definitely respond to what you say, and we will not delete anything that you do or send it to the FBI, I promise. Just please be gentle in some of that correspondence. And we'll see you next on The Town and then on The Big Picture next week.