‘Project Hail Mary’ Will Amaze! Amaze! Amaze! With Phil Lord and Chris Miller

Sean and Amanda open the show by reacting to a ton of movie news, including the Oscar ratings being down 9 percent from last year, the new trailer for ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day,’ and Kirsten Dunst joining the cast of the upcoming ‘Minecraft Movie’ sequel (1:22). Then, they cover the biggest movie event of 2026 so far: Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s science fiction film ‘Project Hail Mary,’ starring Ryan Gosling (31:57). They break down why the film’s practicality is incredibly essential to its success and how the movie is beautiful in a way that mainstream Hollywood productions typically aren’t. Finally, Sean is joined by Lord and Miller themselves to discuss why they felt Andy Weir’s novel was the perfect source material for their next project and how the complicated process behind shooting space scenes was incredibly rewarding (1:08:19). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Phil Lord and Chris Miller Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®️. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®️. Drivers wanted. Learn more at https://vw.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Coca-Cola. For the big, for the small, the short, and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers. For the optimists, pessimists. For long distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you.

• 0:46Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy.

• 0:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Davenport.

• 0:47Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about a Hail Mary in the first quarter. On today's show, we will dive into the highly anticipated Ryan Gosling space saga, Project Hail Mary. Then I will be joined for a conversation with directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who are back with their first directorial effort in more than 10 years. We talked about how they made this movie by hand. The practical effects, the physical effects, the science, the puppeteering. It is a truly amazing act of craftsmanship in a time of a lot of digital glop that Amanda and I complain about a lot on the show. So stick around for that conversation. But first, we have some movie news to get into right after this. This episode of The Big Picture is presented by State Farm. Sure, being an expert at movie trivia is impressive. You know what's even more impressive?

• 1:32Sean Fennessey?

  Being smart about saving money. And a great way to do that is by saving when you choose to bundle home and auto with the State Farm Personal Price Plan. Bundling, just another way to save with the Personal Price Plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

• 1:52Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Dobbins. I was whinging about the Oscar ratings.

• 1:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Why did I get a Dobbins?

• 1:57Sean Fennessey?

  Well, because this is serious matter. This is really important.

• 1:59Amanda Dobbins?

  That's really, we put on our, we put on our big kid hat?

• 2:02Sean Fennessey?

  I should say Ms. Dobbins. That's how we're gonna open this. Because Mr. Fantasy's here and we're gonna talk about the Oscar ratings. They came in, they came in very late, suspiciously late. And I believe the reason they came in so late is because they're not good.

• 2:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:14Sean Fennessey?

  They are down 9% year over year, 17.86 million. I was very wrong. I thought they would be up this year and they were not. And of course, I know that linear television ratings are going down across the board for everything other than football. But I was surprised. And why do you think that happened?

• 2:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I was also, I was wrong, I should say, not as wrong as you, who both thought that they were gonna go up and also like invested your, you know, week's happiness in it. I thought they were gonna hold and they're significantly down. This is the lowest broadcast since 2022. So whatever like post-COVID uptick is back down. We're still in the, in like a 5 million person range here, which is just to say the, you know, the 90s and the 2000s heydays is gone.

• 3:08Sean Fennessey?

  That's over, yeah.

• 3:08Amanda Dobbins?

  We're talking about a different, like just a completely different segment of the audience. Um, I think this award season was way too long. I think it was way, way, way, way, way, way, way too long. And I do think that in the same way, we have sort of trained audiences to expect blockbusters in the summer and fancy prestige movies around Thanksgiving and Christmas. And now a surprisingly good movie in, you know, March or April that you aren't. We have trained people to expect awards shows around the awards show season, which is January and February. And it was March 15th. So I, I do honestly think some of it is just habit. Like people have moved on to their spring and summer pursuits and have been hearing about this for a long time.

• 3:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And there's a real wait. The Oscars haven't happened yet.

• 3:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 3:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, especially, you know, when Sinners, which was one of the two main competitors, had been out for almost a year.

• 4:02Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

• 4:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Just...

• 4:04Sean Fennessey?

  There were some other components too. I think one, obviously, the show is not like on an upward trajectory long term. I'm very well aware of that. I think the World Baseball semifinal. Which featured the United States against the Dominican was not something that the show anticipated could happen. But this is the risk you run when you start getting really close to baseball season. You start getting in the way of potential sporting events cutting into your audience. And that WBC game, I think, did 7.86 million, which for a baseball game is huge, let alone basically an exhibition tournament before the season even starts.

• 4:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:38Sean Fennessey?

  So that's a factor.

• 4:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Though, counterpoint, I who enjoy baseball, literally found out that the World Baseball Classic was happening on this podcast when you told me. So I don't know if the audience is overlapping to the same. Sure, people turning on their-

• 4:55Sean Fennessey?

  10% is a lot.

• 4:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, people turn, 10% is the amount that it was down from last year. But sure, like, the people who are, you know, throwing a dart at the, at the, or, you know, the TV lineup before they turn it on for the night? Sure. Everybody else, they either tune in for one or the other.

• 5:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, hardcore movie fans, obviously, weren't, weren't missing the Oscars. I shouldn't say that. Hardcore award show fans aren't missing the Oscars. Some movie fans don't care about the Oscars. I think this is really interesting because, obviously, there's two more telecasts coming on ABC, and they're losing the show. I don't really know how much they're gonna care about the ratings in those final two years. You know, that's not really their problem, so to speak, going forward. YouTube, and the way that YouTube pursues audience, and what the Academy will do to be more like a YouTube show, is of some interest to me. And I think will become maybe like a little pet topic of discussion on this show over the next couple of years.

• 5:48Amanda Dobbins?

  And/or possibly a pain point.

• 5:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, truthfully, you know, driving engagement on YouTube is done very differently. It is like a lot of gamifying, a lot of direct address, a lot of like tricks and tools that are used to keep people locked into their screens.

• 6:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 6:07Sean Fennessey?

  As opposed to kind of idly watching television. And it's just a very different ballgame. And I'm just fascinated to see how the Academy kind of adapts or doesn't adapt to that future.

• 6:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, in some ways, this show is like pre-itemized in a way that is actually very helpful for YouTube, once the show has happened.

• 6:25Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 6:25Amanda Dobbins?

  And then they have 24 bite-sized acceptance speeches that we already all like look up. And I think that many people consume the next day on YouTube or TikTok or Instagram, rather than watching the broadcast itself.

• 6:40Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:40Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's kind of finding its home, but you have to assume that they want live views of the entire broadcast.

• 6:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 6:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, which is not how most people consume YouTube.

• 6:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's gonna be interesting, because the Academy historically is a very prestigious group that sees itself as shepherding the past and future of movie culture, and at least in America, and increasingly abroad. And, you know, I say this as somebody who loves YouTube. YouTube is kind of a slop pen. You know, it's just kind of like, there's a lot of stuff out there. Some of it's good, some of it's not so good. It's a wild, wild west. And, you know, I have joked for years that they should do the countdown from 10 to 1 in terms of revealing who the winner of the show is. That sort of thing feels way more in play in a YouTube future. ABC, I think, is just sort of like happy to have a big Sunday night event in the spring for the next couple of years, and then, you know.

• 7:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:38Sean Fennessey?

  We're more or less dispensing with linear television, like, across the board. I mean, every kind of show is down in that environment right now. So that's just us getting older. That's what that is.

• 7:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Welcome.

• 7:50Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, other news. There's a new trailer.

• 7:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:53Sean Fennessey?

  For a film called Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

• 7:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Coming out on July 31st, I learned. It's my birthday movie.

• 7:58Sean Fennessey?

  Your birthday movie.

• 7:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:00Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think?

• 8:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, watched it while I was getting a manicure at the nail salon. Intended, like, maybe not the intended environment, but also maybe.

• 8:07Sean Fennessey?

  Running it on the television there?

• 8:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 8:09Sean Fennessey?

  They were running the trailer?

• 8:10Amanda Dobbins?

  It was as an ad in between music videos. So this is, this is how I keep up on music videos from 2008 to 2015.

• 8:18Sean Fennessey?

  I see.

• 8:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And also see trailers. And I wouldn't say that, you know, the settings on the TV at. My beloved L nail spa was like primo for this, so it looked quite dark.

• 8:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 8:31Amanda Dobbins?

  And.

• 8:32Sean Fennessey?

  Some motion smoothing going on?

• 8:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but that's, you know, that's okay. I I got the gist, which is that Peter Parker is still a teenager and yearning to be, uh, you feel a larger connection to the world and also dealing with bad guys. And Zendaya doesn't remember who he is, but is still in the movie.

• 8:50Sean Fennessey?

  Most of the people don't remember who he is.

• 8:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 8:52Sean Fennessey?

  He, there was a bit of a mind wipe.

• 8:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 8:54Sean Fennessey?

  For Peter Parker as Spider-Man.

• 8:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, related, Zendaya and Tom Holland, married or not married, go.

• 9:03Sean Fennessey?

  I don't care. I, I, sure, yes.

• 9:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Have you paid any attention to this? Has this made it to your internet?

• 9:09Sean Fennessey?

  I'm aware of it being a thing. I saw that there was, um, an AI image of them at their wedding.

• 9:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 9:14Sean Fennessey?

  It was spread around. They tricked a lot of people.

• 9:16Amanda Dobbins?

  It did.

• 9:16Sean Fennessey?

  I did see that. Um, I mean, I genuinely don't care.

• 9:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 9:19Sean Fennessey?

  Like, I hope they're happy.

• 9:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Me too.

• 9:21Sean Fennessey?

  I, whether or not they like are legally bound to one another forevermore, not really in my interest set.

• 9:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, from purely financial perspective, I think it would be unwise at this point. I don't know why they need to legally.

• 9:34Sean Fennessey?

  They both accumulated some assets.

• 9:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, but why, at this point, why do you need to tie them together? You know what I mean? Maybe it's an immigration thing. Maybe it's gonna make it easier to go back and forth from the UK and the US. But when you're that rich.

• 9:48Sean Fennessey?

  Feel like, just let them do what they want to do. They want to put their assets together.

• 9:52Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true, but like, I don't know. It's.

• 9:55Sean Fennessey?

  Do you have regrets?

• 9:56Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't, because I'm in the tax bracket where it made sense to put assets together.

• 10:00Sean Fennessey?

  I see.

• 10:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I love like, even though I didn't understand that totally at the time, um, makes sense is one word or where I am forced to in order to, you know, scrape by in the American economy. But no, it's good. I'm glad I got married. If they want to get married, that's great. If they don't, I, you know, I hope they're not, whatever they want.

• 10:18Sean Fennessey?

  Let's circle back to the film.

• 10:21Sean Fennessey?

  Spider-Man.

• 10:22Amanda Dobbins?

  They're playing teenagers in the film.

• 10:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 10:24Amanda Dobbins?

  How much longer are they gonna get to be teenagers?

• 10:26Sean Fennessey?

  Exiting that time.

• 10:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 10:27Sean Fennessey?

  I think maybe we're going into young adulthood with these characters.

• 10:33Amanda Dobbins?

  What's the oldest that we've ever seen Spider-Man?

• 10:36Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we saw, we saw Peter B. Parker in the Spider-verse films, who was like a thirty something dad.

• 10:41Amanda Dobbins?

  But he's not the protagonist.

• 10:45Sean Fennessey?

  He was the second lead, Jake Johnson's character.

• 10:47Amanda Dobbins?

  He was very good, but you know what I mean, where like.

• 10:50Sean Fennessey?

  You want old Peter?

• 10:51Amanda Dobbins?

  No, the essence of Spider-Man is a teenager.

• 10:53Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you.

• 10:54Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's a little bit of like a nine oh two one oh Saved by the Bell Goes to College situation here.

• 10:58Sean Fennessey?

  It's a fair point. Um, Tom Holland's getting older. I don't know what you want me to say. I mean, they can't de-age this guy. How old is Tom Holland? Let's look that up. This is, he's 29 years old. He's gonna be 30 on June 1st.

• 11:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so he will be, we'll have, we'll have a 30-year-old Spider-Man when this movie comes out.

• 11:17Sean Fennessey?

  I think there have been great runs in Spider-Man history when Peter is a young adult.

• 11:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 11:21Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and so it's not out of the realm of possibility. This trailer, I'm not so sure. Did not look good. So one, they're making a shift away from John Watts, the filmmaker, and Destin Daniel Cretton is coming into direct.

• 11:40Sean Fennessey?

  No Way Home was a very silly movie, a little, a little bit incoherent, but so fun. Such a fun time at the movie theater. And because of the kind of universe collapsing and bringing in the three Spider-Men and all the villains from those different Spider-Man movies, and getting to see Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield and Holland all together, you know, we, we were, we were very enthusiastic about that movie when it came out. And it felt like also it was, along with a couple of other movies, the kind of like, let's break through COVID here and like get back to movie going. And it was a huge event. It was almost a $2 billion movie. And this trailer just seems a little small compared to that movie. There are a number of villains. Would you like to hear about the villains?

• 12:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Please.

• 12:24Sean Fennessey?

  Well, do you know who Jon Bernthal plays, right?

• 12:26Amanda Dobbins?

  No. I mean, I saw him and they put the, and then Tom Holland put his web on the gun to stop the gun. So I, I saw that.

• 12:34Sean Fennessey?

  So John Bernthal plays a man named Frank Castle, who is also known as The Punisher. A very famous Marvel Comics character, a kind of vigilante, a gun toting hero seeking vengeance after his family is murdered. There was a Marvel TV series starring Bernthal playing this character some years ago on Netflix. He was brought back, I think for Daredevil, the most recent Daredevil TV show. Spider-Man and The Punisher, they have a thing over the years. They have an interesting dynamic. This movie seems to be getting into that. He's kind of an anti-hero, not really a villain. Then there was, uh, Michael Mando, who was in Better Call Saul. He's playing Scorpion. Do you know about Scorpion?

• 13:14Amanda Dobbins?

  If you're following along at home, like this right now in real time, is the exact moment that I realized that because the Oscars are over, now it's just you telling me about comic books again for at least 20 minutes a podcast.

• 13:27Sean Fennessey?

  There's only-

• 13:28Amanda Dobbins?

  You're just talking.

• 13:28Sean Fennessey?

  There's only two-

• 13:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And then you guys are gonna do a clip out and you're gonna try to include me with the face of just being like, oh yes, Sean, tell me more about the comic book. And I'm just like, uh huh.

• 13:38Sean Fennessey?

  I'm just telling you about the movie.

• 13:39Amanda Dobbins?

  But you monologuing. I know, but you know, then here we go. All right.

• 13:43Sean Fennessey?

  This is something I know about.

• 13:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. That's awesome.

• 13:46Sean Fennessey?

  Scorpion?

• 13:46Amanda Dobbins?

  It's cool to know about things.

• 13:48Sean Fennessey?

  He's a Spider-Man villain.

• 13:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 13:49Sean Fennessey?

  He's one of the last big Spider-Man villains who has not been the focus of one of these movies.

• 13:53Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 13:54Sean Fennessey?

  He's not a great villain. I didn't really like his character design in the trailer. Way too Mecha. Scorpion in the comic books, he's like, he's got like a green latex suit on with a huge stinger. You know, like swings his tail stinger around and stings you.

• 14:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 14:05Sean Fennessey?

  In this, it's like, he's like some sort of robot man. I wasn't into it.

• 14:12Sean Fennessey?

  Mark Ruffalo is in the trailer, returning as Bruce Banner, AKA The Hulk.

• 14:15Amanda Dobbins?

  The Hulk?

• 14:16Sean Fennessey?

  We don't see him in Hulk form. Jacob Bottal on his back is Ned. Love Ned.

• 14:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you like, I like Ned, but Ned also doesn't remember who Peter Parker is.

• 14:24Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 14:25Amanda Dobbins?

  As Spider-Man or as Peter.

• 14:27Sean Fennessey?

  Is that true?

• 14:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I don't know. Was Peter erased from his?

• 14:31Sean Fennessey?

  I don't remember.

• 14:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyone in the booth?

• 14:34Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not entirely sure. I might need to circle back to No Way Home. Also saw Tremel Tillman in this trailer. Nice to see him getting some work. We didn't see Sadie Sink. Now, you know who Sadie Sink is in this movie? Do you know who that is?

• 14:47Amanda Dobbins?

  She's one of the Stranger Things?

• 14:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Do you know who she's gonna be in this world?

• 14:52Amanda Dobbins?

  She's one of the Stranger Things. Well, which one does Zendaya play?

• 14:57Sean Fennessey?

  She plays MJ.

• 14:58Amanda Dobbins?

  So is Sadie Sink Gwen?

• 15:01Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think so.

• 15:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, then I'm out of ideas.

• 15:03Sean Fennessey?

  I think she's gonna be playing Jean Grey, the ex-woman.

• 15:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay. So it begins for you.

• 15:09Sean Fennessey?

  Sounds like that's the case, and that's, yes. But she's, they're hiding the ball in Sadie Sink. So we didn't get that. I just thought this production just didn't look that great. It just did not look that inventive or different or really like meaningfully special. And when so, I just rewatched Solo with my daughter because we were going through all the Star Wars movies.

• 15:27Amanda Dobbins?

  How'd it go?

• 15:28Sean Fennessey?

  She's, she liked it a lot. I didn't get it at all. She was really into Kira, who was Amelia Clark's character. Remember Amelia Clark from Game of Thrones?

• 15:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I do.

• 15:36Sean Fennessey?

  She was in Solo.

• 15:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I remember that. That was, that was her big run, her mid Game of Thrones run. It didn't work out.

• 15:41Sean Fennessey?

  And like Last Christmas.

• 15:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Remember when you left Last Christmas in the middle?

• 15:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, terrible movie.

• 15:45Amanda Dobbins?

  You know what happens at the end of Last Christmas?

• 15:47Sean Fennessey?

  No idea. Don't tell me, don't spoil it. I'll get back to it one day.

• 15:50Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a fairly big twist.

• 15:52Sean Fennessey?

  I'm good. I don't want to know. Don't spoil it.

• 15:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 15:55Sean Fennessey?

  I may rewatch it someday with my family.

• 16:00Sean Fennessey?

  Why am I talking about this right now?

• 16:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, you watched Solo?

• 16:03Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah. And Solo, I remember watching Solo and being like, oh, this is the first not special Star Wars movie. Like, every Star Wars movie, good or bad, it felt like it was a big deal. It felt special, and Solo is not special. This doesn't look that special.

• 16:17Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 16:17Sean Fennessey?

  I could be wrong. I hope it's good. It's also my birthday movie, obviously.

• 16:21Amanda Dobbins?

  You're not claiming Odyssey is your birthday?

• 16:24Sean Fennessey?

  That's the 17th.

• 16:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, they moved it up. I thought it was the 20-something.

• 16:28Sean Fennessey?

  No, I think, I think there is a movie on the 24th. Let's look at what that movie is. It's Evil Dead Burn, which I do claim.

• 16:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 16:36Sean Fennessey?

  And I am looking forward to. But the Odyssey is the 17th.

• 16:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 16:39Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. That's Brand New Day. More blockbuster news. Kirsten Dunst has joined the cast of Minecraft 2.

• 16:46Amanda Dobbins?

  She sure has. So I provided the context for you and Jack because you received this as a defeat, a sign of like another one of our greats giving in. And I say to you, no, this is dreams coming true, which is literally what Kirsten Dunst posted. She screenshotted Deadline on Instagram and she said, my dream came true because she publicly campaigned for this. And she said, my kids like this movie and I would like to make, I believe the exact quote was a pile of cash. Maybe I could be in a movie that doesn't lose money for once. And lo and behold, she's in Minecraft too.

• 17:24Sean Fennessey?

  So will you watch Minecraft one?

• 17:25Amanda Dobbins?

  No. As I said to you, Kiki can just catch me up on the lore, you know?

• 17:30Sean Fennessey?

  Like individually?

• 17:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Or she can like make a YouTube video. This is actually great marketing if they just want to do just like Kirsten Dunst recaps Minecraft one, just for people who care about her.

• 17:40Sean Fennessey?

  For all the millennial moms who are obsessed with her?

• 17:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:42Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 17:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Why not?

• 17:43Sean Fennessey?

  Sounds good.

• 17:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And then helps us relate to our children. Though if I have anything to do with it, my children will never know about Minecraft.

• 17:50Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, good luck on that one. Uh, I think this is interesting.

• 17:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 17:57Sean Fennessey?

  No double standard here for you in terms of stars wasting their time with certain franchises.

• 18:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Am I really the one that yells at people for going to make money?

• 18:08Sean Fennessey?

  Who can really keep track with what you're yelling at people about these days?

• 18:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't really think that's ever been my thing.

• 18:13Sean Fennessey?

  It is something that Chris Ryan historically does not like. He does not like the like, well, Chris Evans is inside the MCU for 13 years during the prime of his career. So we'll never know whether he's good or not.

• 18:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. James Cameron is making Avatar movies for 45 years.

• 18:27Sean Fennessey?

  That's also consistent with that point of view.

• 18:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I, I guess every once in a while you're like, was the check really this worthwhile? Say Rebecca Ferguson in Mercy, being an AI person, you know?

• 18:38Sean Fennessey?

  That wasn't good.

• 18:39Amanda Dobbins?

  That, that wasn't good, you know? And we did spend some time wondering about like what that funded in her life, you know? Um, but in general, I don't know. People got to make money.

• 18:51Sean Fennessey?

  Would you ever be friends with an AI?

• 18:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, this, okay.

• 18:55Sean Fennessey?

  Would you ever make love with an AI?

• 18:57Amanda Dobbins?

  So has the, has the whole comedian dating an AI chatbot thing made its way to you? The rumor that Zach Braff then denied Zach.

• 19:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Denied it, right. But so, but so there's someone allegedly who is dating an AI, a noted comedian who's dating an AI chatbot and quote, bringing her places. And this is what I really want to understand is the bringing her places. Like, what does that mean?

• 19:23Sean Fennessey?

  There's a whole film about this called Her.

• 19:25Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true, but he just talks to Scarlett Johansson at home and then.

• 19:28Sean Fennessey?

  No, when he's out, he talks to her too.

• 19:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, but.

• 19:30Sean Fennessey?

  But he like.

• 19:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Amy Adams and Scarlett Johansson don't really interact.

• 19:35Sean Fennessey?

  No, they don't.

• 19:35Amanda Dobbins?

  This, so when he bringing her places, I mean, the way it's presented implies that the person in question is like introducing her.

• 19:45Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And then I, so I want to know how this person thinks they're integrating the AI chatbot into the social circle.

• 19:52Sean Fennessey?

  In the shrouds, Vincent Cassel definitely interacts meaningfully with an AI chatbot who is actually secretly Guy Pearce's character.

• 20:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 20:03Sean Fennessey?

  And he's manipulating him, as I recall.

• 20:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:06Sean Fennessey?

  I don't remember if he introduces her to anybody. Maybe he does. Maybe he does introduce her.

• 20:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but so it's like, so you have a friend, an AI friend, and you bring them here.

• 20:16Sean Fennessey?

  I don't have an AI friend.

• 20:17Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's like, do we get like a little selfie stand and you just put the phone here?

• 20:22Sean Fennessey?

  Third chair.

• 20:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And then there we go.

• 20:24Sean Fennessey?

  Third chair.

• 20:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 20:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. What would your AI friend's name be?

• 20:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, Money.

• 20:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Cause that's the only reason I would do it.

• 20:33Sean Fennessey?

  Well, take note, Sam Altman, Amanda is listening. Uh, okay. Kirsten Dunst is doing that. There was a report in Deadline this week about Netflix and what Netflix is doing with their movies. I guess Dan Lin and Bela Bajaria presented some of their wares and some of the new things that are coming out later this year. There was a lot of discussion about. The rumor that Netflix encourages or forces their filmmakers to restate the plot during the films because of the expectation that a lot of people are folding their laundry and not looking at the screen while watching.

• 21:02Amanda Dobbins?

  We didn't mention the Casablanca Conan bit that he did at the Oscars with Sterling K. Brown.

• 21:08Sean Fennessey?

  That was very funny.

• 21:08Amanda Dobbins?

  It was very, very funny.

• 21:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, similarly intentioned idea about over enunciating what your character is doing in a movie. But a couple of things came out of this and there was a lot of pushing around the idea of theatrical with Netflix because they said that were they to acquire Warner Brothers, they would have kept that theatrical business in place and they did a lot of research around that part of the business, which is something they've never really pursued. And I would say Dan Lin was circumspect but dropping clues about what the future could hold. Dan Lin for many years was a theatrical film producer. He in fact produced The Lego Movie, which is made by Lorden Miller, and had a lot of success doing that over the years.

• 21:50Sean Fennessey?

  And in the original Deadline report, there was a note that said, "The Adventures of Cliff Booth was coming out in August." That has since been scrubbed, so we don't know, even though I have felt like it feels like a summer movie and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was also a summer movie. And then there was also some insinuation about what the theatrical plan would be for Narnia, the magician's nephew.

• 22:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Correct.

• 22:13Sean Fennessey?

  The forthcoming Greta Gerwig adaptation of that novel. And it kind of feels like Netflix is like six months away from announcing that they do theatrical. Maybe that's just wish casting, but this was kind of a weird story and you don't drop those little morsels and hints the way that Lin does if you're not thinking about making some changes. Did you follow this at all?

• 22:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I read some of it and I did see the Cliff Booth stuff and that it was then deleted. You know, I interpreted it as... The fruits of a lot of prep over the last six to nine to 12 months to try to buy a theatrical release studio in Warner Brothers.

• 22:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 22:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, they said that they had different intentions. Were they to buy Warner Brothers because that's a business that works for Warner Brothers and it's different from their business. But you do kind of wonder as they're looking at what owning a theatrical distribution and studio would mean that it maybe gave them a couple of ideas as well.

• 23:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 23:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Of how to make money. You know, and it is also just all hypothetical, like corporate presentation speak. So some of it is floating it, testing to see what the reaction will be because they are a publicly traded company. So so much of it is like, what do the shareholders think about this?

• 23:36Sean Fennessey?

  Good point.

• 23:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Some of it is also just you say things to fill up like a deck. And then what actually does or does not happen six months from now can be totally, totally different. That's how corporations work.

• 23:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you know, I'm about to bring up the forthcoming Martin Scorsese movie to you. And obviously when Apple was putting out Killers of the Flower Moon, or when they were putting out Napoleon, or when they put out F1 last summer, they worked in conjunction with a legacy studio to do the distribution for those movies. And it does seem like there's a real like meets like partnership in play with Sony and Netflix because they already license a lot of content in that output deal from Sony. They have this standing relationship with Sony Pictures Animation, which just got us K-pop Demon Hunters. And Quentin Tarantino's last movie in the Cliff Booth universe was distributed by Sony. And so if we heard in a month or three months, and I have no information, I'm not reporting it.

• 24:31Sean Fennessey?

  But if we heard that Sony was going to put The Adventures of Cliff Booth in movie theaters in conjunction with Netflix for Two weeks, four weeks, I wouldn't be shocked. I think they should. I think, obviously, think they should. I mean, we've been saying it makes no sense to not put like Frankenstein or Knives Out movies in movie theaters. Like, that's just bizarre to me that they don't really do that at scale.

• 24:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. So then that puts the August release date into a little bit of question, which is perhaps why it was scrubbed. But if, if it's gonna be on Netflix in August and they do wanna do a theatrical release before, then that's June or July, and that's gonna, that schedule's very full at this point.

• 25:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, then you're running up against The Odyssey, which is not really where you wanna be. I mean,

• 25:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And Disclosure Day.

• 25:12Sean Fennessey?

  And Spider-Man, and yeah, and Toy Story 5.

• 25:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And Minions.

• 25:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. It's a very, it's a very crowded June, July this year with big, big, big movies. I think it's a question of like, what does Netflix want out of that side of the business? Do they really wanna make money now? Or is it continuing to placate the feelings of the high-level filmmakers? That was the other thing. It felt like there was a little bit of sensitivity to will people still be willing to work with you guys? If you're not gonna start to do this, because we saw Emerald Fennel, for example, with Wuthering Heights, passed up Netflix to make her film with Warner Brothers, and that turned out pretty good for her. Obviously, Ryan Coogler made centers at Warner Brothers because he was able to get that, not just control of the, the print after 25 years, but a strong theatrical commitment. This has been discussed and debated for seven or eight years at this point, and we've talked about it a lot on the show.

• 26:01Sean Fennessey?

  I do think Greta Gerwig making her first streamer movie, and Tarantino being the writer and producer of a, of a big movie like this, and he's like, he really prizes theatrical.

• 26:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 26:15Sean Fennessey?

  Feels like an interesting rubber meeting the road moment for the studio. We will continue to cover it. I mentioned, um, speaking of streamers, Martin Scorsese's new film, What Happens at Night. We saw a first look at the movie today, a still photograph of Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, the stars walking down a driveway in a snowy background. And that's probably the image of the movie we'll be looking at for the next 18 months.

• 26:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's because it's currently filming in Prague. Um, do we normally get first looks for Martin Scorsese movies 18 months?

• 26:49Sean Fennessey?

  Famously, we did for Killers of the Flower Moon. There was that image of Leo and Lily Gladstone at the table.

• 26:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 26:54Sean Fennessey?

  And that was the only thing that we saw from the movie for almost two years. And then the movie came out.

• 26:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 27:00Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know when this movie is supposed to come out. I presume in 2027. Um, I'm very excited for it, obviously. Moustache in full effect for Leo.

• 27:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Big fan.

• 27:08Sean Fennessey?

  Looks, he looks good. Um, I haven't read who is helping distribute this one. What studio? I think Paramount did Killers of the Flower Moon.

• 27:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 27:18Sean Fennessey?

  And Warner's at F1. So who's helping out here? We shall see. Is it you?

• 27:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I have exciting new business to announce. Me and my AI producing partner. We'll be making lots of money. That's a joke. Yes. Her name is money.

• 27:33Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I'm looking forward to this movie. It's, we're probably going to be talking about it for the next two years though. So I don't want to get too over my skis.

• 27:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm incredibly psyched. You were talking about the 100th Oscars and what would be in competition? And if it releases in 2027, it would be in the mix. That's exciting.

• 27:50Sean Fennessey?

  It is exciting. We're trying to get Marty that second Oscar.

• 27:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 27:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Well, are we gonna make it?

• 27:59Amanda Dobbins?

  To the Oscars, to 2028.

• 28:02Sean Fennessey?

  Should we, should we go to the 100th Oscars?

• 28:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, but then we gotta work, right?

• 28:06Sean Fennessey?

  I know. Jack is, I mean, Jack was trying to encourage us to go to the Oscars when we were down in Austin and I was like, I don't know.

• 28:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, this, we gotta, we have to figure out mobile recording, you know? That's the thing.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  No, that's not it. I'm booking the Uber, timing it exactly correctly. Best picture goes to what happens at night. We are in the car. We get here. We're the first people out of the building. We fire up the microphone.

• 28:28Amanda Dobbins?

  That is very sweet and I like, I like that you, like Marty Supreme, are dreaming big. Um.

• 28:35Sean Fennessey?

  I also like the energy you're bringing to this. Thank you.

• 28:38Amanda Dobbins?

  But, uh, listen, an Uber won't be able to get within like half a mile.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  That's true. That's true. I'm getting a helicopter.

• 28:44Amanda Dobbins?

  On that particular night. They do have the helicopter pad on the Lowe's as we saw in Crime 101.

• 28:50Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 28:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Filmed on location in Los Angeles.

• 28:53Sean Fennessey?

  Lime scooters?

• 28:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:54Sean Fennessey?

  Should we take Lime scooters?

• 28:55Speaker 03

  I also forgot to mention, we lost the iHeart Award, unfortunately.

• 28:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, who won?

• 28:59Speaker 03

  Watch What Crappens.

• 29:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm. That's, that seems about right. Um.

• 29:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I'll go to the, sure, I'll go to the Oscars.

• 29:08Sean Fennessey?

  I was thinking about when I shared that comment with you that I've never won anything and that's not true. When I was in third grade, I won a national contest. That contest was about health and the food pyramid. And I created a meal.

• 29:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 29:24Sean Fennessey?

  That was like the ideal meal to get all the food groups in. And I drew images of what it was. And it was just a meal that my mom made. I can't totally remember what the meal was at this point, but it was like entered into the contest I won at my school, then I won in New York State, and then I won nationally. And it was just like a meal that my mom made in my house.

• 29:41Amanda Dobbins?

  So were you awarded based on the, like, the meal planning on the, the drawing itself? On?

• 29:48Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of the totality of my essence, I think, is really what it was. I think they identified me as a comer in the industry.

• 29:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you submit the, did you submit yourself? Or was it your teachers who decided that you had the best work and we would be submitted?

• 30:03Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I was in third grade.

• 30:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well.

• 30:05Sean Fennessey?

  So I'm not totally sure. But as you might imagine, I was a confident young man. You know, I had some strong feelings about where I was going in the world. And at that time, it was 1989, I want to say.

• 30:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 30:25Sean Fennessey?

  Third grade? Maybe 1990? And we were right in the middle of George H.W. Bush's America.

• 30:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 30:31Sean Fennessey?

  Right? And there was Operation Desert Storm.

• 30:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:35Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of tumults in the world.

• 30:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Storm and Norman.

• 30:37Sean Fennessey?

  Storm and Norman Schwarzkopf, of course. I didn't interact with any of these people, but the national body was, was, was Bush, was Bush's governmental body that recognized my work. Yeah, so that's the one time I've ever won anything.

• 30:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 30:50Sean Fennessey?

  And we didn't win the iHeart Award.

• 30:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's too bad.

• 30:53Sean Fennessey?

  That happens.

• 30:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe next year.

• 30:54Sean Fennessey?

  What were, what were the kind of qualifications? What was being, what were they looking at to determine?

• 31:00Amanda Dobbins?

  So I guess the good question is who submitted us for the iHeart Award?

• 31:03Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 31:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Because we did not.

• 31:04Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I'm not sure.

• 31:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I assume that it costs money to be submitted.

• 31:06Sean Fennessey?

  Presumably.

• 31:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but that's not one of those where we didn't fill out an application.

• 31:11Sean Fennessey?

  Is Watch What Crappens an iHeart show?

• 31:14Speaker 03

  It is not. It's a, it's like a Bravo reality recap show.

• 31:18Sean Fennessey?

  No, I know that, but who distributes it? Like, what is the?

• 31:20Speaker 03

  I don't think it is, but maybe I'm mistaken.

• 31:22Sean Fennessey?

  Cool.

• 31:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Watch what?

• 31:23Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not accusing anyone of dirty pool. I'm just asking questions.

• 31:26Speaker 03

  The Rewatchables was also nominated for what it's worth. Yeah.

• 31:30Sean Fennessey?

  But it was submitted before CR month. If they had known CR month was coming, would have been a whole different kettle of fish.

• 31:36Amanda Dobbins?

  This is hosted by Ronnie Karam and Ben Medelker. Congratulations to them. I'm learning about them in real time. I do know about Bravo. You watch any Bravo shows?

• 31:48Sean Fennessey?

  No, I've watched many an episode of the Real Housewives franchise over the years, but Eileen has kicked that franchise in the last five years, so we never have it on anymore.

• 31:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I've seen the meme where they scream, "Take a Xanax!", which I want to scream at you fairly often, but...

• 32:01Sean Fennessey?

  Doing really well. I feel very calm.

• 32:03Amanda Dobbins?

  That's good.

• 32:04Sean Fennessey?

  Feel very measured right now.

• 32:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well.

• 32:07Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so Spider-Man.

• 32:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:09Sean Fennessey?

  My youth is dead.

• 32:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:10Sean Fennessey?

  But Marty's coming back with a movie.

• 32:12Amanda Dobbins?

  That's right.

• 32:12Sean Fennessey?

  My youth is alive.

• 32:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Kiki's getting paid.

• 32:14Sean Fennessey?

  Kiki's getting paid.

• 32:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And reminding us all that sometimes you've just gotta go chase that bag, you know?

• 32:20Sean Fennessey?

  We lost an award, but we've gained what? An AI friend named Money.

• 32:27Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's talk now about Project Hail Mary. This is, safe to say, the most anticipated movie of the year so far. Would you agree?

• 32:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I would.

• 32:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's a new film from Amazon MGM. It's, as I said, directed by Lorden Miller. It is, the screenplay is written by Drew Goddard, based on the 2021 novel by Andy Weir, which is the same formulation we had from 2015's The Martian.

• 32:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 32:49Sean Fennessey?

  A beloved movie on this show and a hugely successful movie, award-winning movie. Goddard adapted Weir's novel back then, and this movie does have a lot in common with that movie. This new movie stars Ryan Gosling, who also produced this film, Sandra Huler, Lionel Boyce, Ken Lung, Melana Vaintrub. The cinematography is by the great Greg Fraser, who you may have seen shooting the Dune movies recently. Charles Wood does the production design, Neil Scanlon, we will talk about him quite a bit because he did the creature effects on the film, and the score is by Daniel Pemberton. Plot synopsis is as follows. Ryland Grace, the sole survivor on a desperate last chance mission to save humanity from an extinction level solar event caused by space algae known as astrophage,

• 33:31Sean Fennessey?

  wakes up with amnesia on a spaceship and remembers his mission with the help of an unexpected alliance with an alien named Rocky.

• 33:40Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think of Project Hail Mary?

• 33:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I really liked it. I think that the first half hour and a half is truly magical. And then it keeps going, but that is true of many great movies and what it accomplishes. I think both scale and and production wise, and as you said in the intro, feeling made by humans, even if it is not always portraying humans, as opposed to being inside a computer is palpable and exciting. And the there is one element that they just have to get exactly right, which is Rocky, the alien. And, you know, I guess that's a little bit of a spoiler, but it's not because So I Met an Alien is in the trailer.

• 34:24Amanda Dobbins?

  And if they don't get that creature and that not just the actual recreation of the alien, but the characterization, the mood, if they can't use it in the story, then the story sucks. And they absolutely nailed it, I thought. It really worked on me and I was charmed and emotionally invested in this alien in a way that I haven't really been invested in an alien since ET. So, I mean, I don't spend that much time with aliens, you know, but they're they're clearly, they really owe a debt to many films, including ET. And I think they get that. And so the rest of the movie's flaws or missteps kind

• 35:08Amanda Dobbins?

  of float away for me.

• 35:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it's good to go into the movie expecting a little bit of pastiche. The movie very purposefully wants to remind you of the best versions of these movies. In fact, there's a moment when Ryland Gosling's character is attempting to communicate with Rocky, and he literally sounds out the Close Encounters theme to him while banging on the glass that divides the two of them. And the movie has a self consciousness about that in the way that I think a lot of Lord and Miller films have a very kind of we're pulling together a lot of the vibes of things that we love, you know, they they are similarly like recombinant filmmakers, you know, 21 Jump Street is a movie that is like trying to have its cake and eat it too, and often does so successfully. The Lego Movie is another

• 35:51Sean Fennessey?

  example of this. Their work is very much influenced and addled by pop culture. This movie, though, for them, is a really interesting shift tonally, because it does have some some of their trademark silliness. And Gosling is doing a lot of, at times, like,

• 36:09Sean Fennessey?

  Chaplin-esque solo silent comedy.

• 36:14Amanda Dobbins?

  So is Rocky.

• 36:14Sean Fennessey?

  Rocky is as well, but there is also like a real sentimentality in this story and a real sincerity in this story about a lost person, a person with really no connections. And then what happens when you're millions and millions of miles away from home and you make a friend? And that stuff also really worked for me. I think the movie is beautiful in a way that very few mainstream Hollywood productions are. I think that craft that you're talking about, the way that the ships are designed, the way that they move through space, the way that the characters interact with each other physically is just unusually specific and considered and artful. And it's also pretty funny, like all the way through, it's pretty funny.

• 36:59Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like, there's a lot of laugh lines. Gosling is, I was just listening to Bill and Craig and Chris talking on the rewatchables about how Gosling is in that like A tier of SNL hosts. He's kind of using that same muscle in this performance where he's, you know, doing some mugging and doing a lot of like talking into camera.

• 37:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 37:17Sean Fennessey?

  But he's very adept at it and he sells it in the same way that Rocky has sold really well, too.

• 37:21Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's also different than like the full character actor Ken or even Nice Guys or one of the other, the other comedic performances that he does where he's, he's being Gosling being a dope.

• 37:36Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right. This is a leading man part.

• 37:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, exactly. And he, and he's just using it's his innate charm and, and timing.

• 37:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, this is in that Matt Damon, Paul Newman realm of like, cameras on you. You gotta carry, your face has to carry this movie all the way through. And if you're, if you're not bought in on that as well as Rocky, then the movie won't work.

• 37:58Sean Fennessey?

  I've seen, we've both seen it twice now. Both times, the same thing was true for me and I think it was true for you, which is, it is a very epic tale with a lot of like, we're going here and then we're going here, we're going here through space. It also has a very, an interesting shape, like an interesting structure. Because in the novel, as I understand it, and this was explained to me by our pals Mal and Joanna.

• 38:23Sean Fennessey?

  The flashbacks, as they are in the film, are really more like Ryland remembering moments in real time as he's going through the journey on the spaceship and remembering how he got to this point. The movie doesn't quite communicate it in that way. It doesn't quite feel like he's remembering something that has happened. It more just feels like a traditional flashback structure. But that structure, in addition to the extended nature of the mission, makes this movie feel long.

• 38:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 38:54Sean Fennessey?

  It is too long. And I'm usually a little reluctant to say that about movies because I like long movies. But there's something a little redundant in Act Three.

• 39:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 39:04Sean Fennessey?

  That is like my one kind of strike against it.

• 39:08Amanda Dobbins?

  They have to, it's not that they have to save, solve the same problem several times, but you can feel the moment where they're like, we need one more big set piece. You know, we need one more emotional resolution moment here. We need to do one more alien thing here. You can all, you can feel them checking off the demands of, or what they think their various like plot, uh, building blocks are. And you're like, no, no, no, you don't actually, like, we've gotten there. Uh, we, we understand all of this emotionally. We also are a little bit tired of the actual adventure stakes. Uh, so, you know, I think

• 39:52Amanda Dobbins?

  some of that, they're just like trying to do a lot because they have three different things going on. They've got the flashback structure. They've got the actual save the earth structure. And then they've got Grace, the Gosling characters, you know, emotional relationship and like buddy structure. Um, then there's also a thing where the movie ends about five different times. Like, just literally, and I can, I have two different propositions of what shot the movie should have just ended on, just like, stop. Uh, and without even having to reshoot anything. And that would sort of help. Cause it's not just that it is overstuffed, but it really doesn't know when to end. And so the last 15 minutes are really, really, really baggy and kind of over the top. And I think a little...

• 40:37Amanda Dobbins?

  You walk away with an impression of greater sentimentality than is maybe in the rest of the movie.

• 40:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think that's right.

• 40:45Amanda Dobbins?

  That it gets kind of a little lopsided at the end. I will say I rewatched The Martian. I went on House of R to talk about The Martian with them. And that movie is two hours and 25 minutes.

• 40:57Sean Fennessey?

  Same thing.

• 40:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Exact same thing. And like, you know, bless Ridley Scott, who directed it, but it is also, by the time they're going on that last, that last mission, which is another spacewalk in order to do like a very vital thing, or else everyone dies. It's both stressful and you're just watching people spinning around and you're like, let's wrap this up, like, let's go, let's go. So some of it may also be the nature of the source material.

• 41:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Andy Weir likes an epic tale.

• 41:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly. And likes, and likes a lot of science. And some of it is just, I guess, how movies are now.

• 41:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I really liked the science component of this movie.

• 41:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I did too.

• 41:34Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it was simultaneously very specific, but not over intellectually overwhelming. Like, I thought it was pretty legible. I was by no means a good science student, and I don't host Science Corner on this show. But like, there are jokes about Xenon, you know, like, it is that kind of a movie. It is detailed.

• 41:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I think, I'm really impressed with both. I've never read an Andy Weir book. Mal and Joanna were, have read both and were telling me a lot about them. And, and that's an interesting conversation to listen to if you're curious. But I think I have now seen two novel adaptations, both adapted by Drew Goddard's. So I think the combo of Andy Weir and Drew Goddard handle the science very smartly.

• 42:13Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 42:14Amanda Dobbins?

  It is always middle school science, even if they have to, you know, say a lot of words at first. It is whether it's growing a plant, or recreating water, or elements, or, you know, every, everything is like this, it's a cell, is one of the big reveals. And it's like, you know, I can't tell you what mitosis is, but I know what a cell is. So it's something that is at least recognizable. And then the actual problems themselves are, are so basic, right? You either have to get off Mars, you gotta get home, or you gotta save the planet. Even the basic setup of this, which... You know, I'm sorry, it's the sun is dying. So it's getting colder. You know, that's not.

• 42:57Sean Fennessey?

  It's fairly simple.

• 42:58Amanda Dobbins?

  There are a lot of, they complicated a bit, and I think they do that in smart and interesting, interesting ways, but even like the, the science experiment that Gosling's character Grace runs in order, it's his big breakthrough is like built out of plywood and is very much like a diorama that you.

• 43:15Sean Fennessey?

  Go to Home Depot.

• 43:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, like your parents had to help you make when, by the way, I'm just absolutely dreading that, when, when that day comes, when we have to do the dioramas. I, no, I, it's, I just.

• 43:26Sean Fennessey?

  You're an artist and a content creator. You're great.

• 43:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know if I'm great with my hands. I'm certainly no Rocky. So, and even that was just, they use puppet shows to explain things to each other, right? So there, there is so much, both in the, like the science that they choose, I think is very clever and accessible, and then the way that they have to communicate it.

• 43:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 43:48Amanda Dobbins?

  That, um, that lends itself, it's just, it's understandable. And the other thing is that you, the, the flashback structure is very helpful in that you don't really ever have to wonder what time it is. It doesn't, it aligns it, because you know, there's like past and present.

• 44:06Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:06Amanda Dobbins?

  So you don't have to worry about light years, or where are they, or what's happening, or blah, blah, blah. It's, I thought it was very, very well done.

• 44:14Sean Fennessey?

  I thought so too. On the one hand, I, I actually enjoyed the movie more the second time.

• 44:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 44:19Sean Fennessey?

  Because I knew what I was getting in that respect. So I didn't feel like I was having to keep up with the plot in any meaningful way.

• 44:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:26Sean Fennessey?

  On the other hand, I did start to have a few more questions about how much people had aged, how, for example, the coma process works when they send the astronauts into space. Well, obviously they lose two astronauts in the flight.

• 44:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 44:40Sean Fennessey?

  We are spoiling this movie at this point, if you're still listening.

• 44:44Sean Fennessey?

  But like, does Gosling's character not age over that period of time in which he takes that journey?

• 44:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 44:50Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I don't really know how all that works.

• 44:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, absolutely. They just skipped up.

• 44:53Sean Fennessey?

  There's a yada, yada-ing of those things.

• 44:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, the, the most yada, yadded thing is, there's a beautiful sequence where Grace and Rocky, you know, are starting to try to communicate and they do puppets. And then they say, like, this is the word for. Rocky, and this is the word for grace. And he's using a machine and he's using money, our favorite AI bot, to, to start a language machine. And then two seconds later, they're communicating as if they've been living together for years. And I was like, I think that would have taken a little longer.

• 45:33Sean Fennessey?

  I think it did, and they just cut that out.

• 45:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally, totally.

• 45:36Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I think, I think the movie kind of acknowledges that they're like, we gotta move this up a little bit.

• 45:39Amanda Dobbins?

  That's a thousand percent the right decision. And I was absolutely willing to go with the first time. And the second time, I didn't really care. You know, they've, there are other things that they've solved, but sure, they cut corners.

• 45:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it's helpful. It's kind of what makes the last kind of 25 minutes more frustrating because I think the movie mostly does a really nice job of not getting weighed down within, well, then what would happen? Well, then what would happen? They don't have to kind of over explain all of those things. I do want to go back to both like that weight of influence and also how it manifests in the movie.

• 46:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:10Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, you can hear Phil and Chris talk about it, the, the very specific steps that they made to accomplish this, but I am obsessed with these movies and have been obsessed with them since, you know, you know, I just talked to Steven Spielberg. I mean, his movies in this world definitely changed my relationship to science fiction, made me fall in love with these kinds of stories. This is a really, really high level version of it in terms of how it looks and feels. And, you know, there is of course, a lot of CGI in the movie, but it almost always feels like you're in a thing that was built by a person.

• 46:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 46:42Sean Fennessey?

  And that quality, whether we're on Grace's ship, whether we're on Rocky's ship, whether we're at the base with Sandra Huler, or in a bar on a boat, it always feels like a real place and a real thing. All of the things that Rocky sculptures that he makes out of his kind of solid xenon, clearly an artisan made those for the movie. And Like, this is, this is how it should be.

• 47:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:08Sean Fennessey?

  I genuinely feel like this is, if you, I know it's expensive and I know it's hard, but it, for me at least, it really helps a movie like this. I feel like it's earning its believability, it's earning its setting and story structure, when it feels like Ryan Gosling is in a room with an alien.

• 47:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, which, to some extent, he also was, which to not, I mean, he was not, listen, Wolverines and wolves are different things.

• 47:34Sean Fennessey?

  What a week for you.

• 47:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And the aliens are, Rocky the Alien is not real, that I am in at Abins Noah, but again, I'm not Steven Spielberg, but they chose a puppet, you know? They didn't choose like a green screen or a person with all of the motion capture stuff.

• 47:50Sean Fennessey?

  Such a good choice.

• 47:51Amanda Dobbins?

  It's an essential choice, and if it's anything else, then he's acting with some form of computer, and I think, and you don't get the physicality, which is such an essential part of like both of their comedies.

• 48:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 48:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, and then the comedy is what creates the chemistry that kinda is the foundation of the relationship, which is wonderful and like very moving, and I like teared up every single time. Like, it, it got me, it a thousand percent worked. And then the rest of the, the production design and the physical nature of the world takes its cues from that decision, that, cause if like Rocky is real, a puppet, and then it's all just like in the void.

• 48:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 48:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Then what's, you know?

• 48:34Sean Fennessey?

  No, I mean.

• 48:35Amanda Dobbins?

  What's the point?

• 48:35Sean Fennessey?

  There are a couple of moments when the two characters hug, and they can only hug through this kind of apparatus, but when they hug, Rocky's in the, he's in the glass cube, you know?

• 48:43Amanda Dobbins?

  What's happening? What are we doing? How do you know when it's over?

• 48:45Sean Fennessey?

  You feel like you're watching these characters hug, which sounds like a silly thing, but, um, you know, Neil Scanlon, who, you know, designed all these creature effects and, um, who, what is the puppeteer's name who worked through it? Is it Ortiz?

• 48:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, James Ortiz.

• 48:58Sean Fennessey?

  James Ortiz. It's just a... It's a miraculous and odd little thing that they've made. You know, and it's like kind of a rock alien, hence the rocky name. Doesn't really have a face. His, his opposable thumbs only go down, uh, which becomes a running gag in the movie.

• 49:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, they use the design or, or maybe that's in the book and then the design like, you know, is meets exactly.

• 49:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 49:23Amanda Dobbins?

  The inspiration, but it really is very funny.

• 49:26Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 49:27Amanda Dobbins?

  He uses a little roller ball to run around the ship and like keep his environment. And that's just extremely funny.

• 49:35Sean Fennessey?

  The other thing that's really fascinating about the movie is that Ryland Grace is not much of a character.

• 49:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:42Sean Fennessey?

  We don't really know much about him. The movie purposefully, I think, withholds a lot of information about what has come before. You get a little bit when he is first approached by Sandra Heuler's character to come experiment so that they can get a little bit more clarity on what's happening with this astrophage and why it is dimming the sun. And he kind of, you know, at one point he tells Rocky that he had a mate and then he lost her because his head was in the clouds and we know that.

• 50:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Now he's with Mark.

• 50:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 50:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I hate Mark.

• 50:13Sean Fennessey?

  That was really funny. I like that part a lot. There's a lot of really good laugh lines in the movie, but you know, we learn a bit of like, he's a middle school science teacher, even though he has a PhD and has some pretty dramatic ideas.

• 50:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And even that is used expositionally, like both obviously, but like effectively. Where we learn about astrophage and why the earth is in danger because he is explaining it to his like group of medical school students who won't stop asking about it. And even there, he also, he has like a real diorama in, in the classroom that he uses, like a, like a physical explanation as opposed to screens.

• 50:50Sean Fennessey?

  No iPads in those classrooms, you know?

• 50:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's how you know that it's a fantasy, but anyway.

• 50:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I, I like those choices and I think it is.

• 51:02Sean Fennessey?

  It's kind of like more McQueen, Cary Grant style stardom from Gosling, where he's like, you don't need to know too much about this guy. His name is Roger Thornhill. He's been thrown into this world of North by Northwest. Go. Like, and Gosling, we bring a lot to a movie with him, and he brings a lot to a movie starring him. And he's just fun to be with for two and a half hours. You know, he really is in that rare class of actor. It's a relief to see him in something like this, honestly. I was a little worried that it was gonna be the gray man and the fall guy and variations on these things. And he's very well suited to this kind of a thing, that blend of serial comic drama, epic drama.

• 51:42Sean Fennessey?

  There's a moment in the very first images of the movie in which we see the lights changing, the lights shifting in the ship. And we see that this bold red and this bold blue that are very purposefully invoking 2001: A Space Odyssey. And that is no doubt on the minds of the filmmakers. You know, you mentioned E.T., which is no doubt as his close encounters.

• 52:04Sean Fennessey?

  Interstellar is very much on the minds, but I liked what you said before about the simplicity of the science, because it is almost the inverse of Interstellar, which is like kind of begging you to keep up with the wormholes and the fractals and this kind of mega-science that is at the heart of that movie.

• 52:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Very Nolan-esque, Jonathan and Christopher.

• 52:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And this movie is more, like you said, a little bit more middle school style.

• 52:30Sean Fennessey?

  I think also, like, we've seen Ryan Gosling in a space movie before. You know, this isn't the first time he's been an astronaut. And in First Man, he's kind of, it's sort of like the sad boy version of Ryland Grace, you know, Neil Armstrong? He's much more internal and has this kind of unresolved angst.

• 52:46Amanda Dobbins?

  It's flipped. He's like incredibly professionally and outwardly successful and, you know, like, internal crisis.

• 52:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 52:54Amanda Dobbins?

  So, and cannot, and literally, you know, a man will do anything not to go to therapy. A man will literally go to the moon to not go to therapy, which is what happens in First Man. And then at the end, they just, they're staring at each other through the quarantine glass.

• 53:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the thing that really jumps out to me is watching, there's a moment in the film where it becomes clear that these two ships are gonna encounter one another, right? That Ryland has realized that there's a

• 53:24Sean Fennessey?

  A foreign spaceship that is sending out a blip, which is basically like a message. And the way that the ships move in space.

• 53:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:32Sean Fennessey?

  I've never really seen that in a space movie before in that specific way.

• 53:36Amanda Dobbins?

  They were like gliding. It was almost like you were turning them on a like an abacus or one of my children's like, you know, rail toys where they just like.

• 53:44Sean Fennessey?

  Sort of slides.

• 53:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Kind of dancing.

• 53:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And there's a rhythm to the way that they move. And it didn't feel like the way that the ships move in Star Wars. It didn't feel like the way that the ships move in Apollo 13. It didn't feel, it felt different. It looked different.

• 54:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:00Sean Fennessey?

  And it's hard to make something look new. After 70 years, 80 years of space movies. Actually, this year is really funny. I have been trying to figure out a way to do something about the origins of science fiction at the movies. And 51 is the day that the earth stood still. And there's one other classic. I can't remember which one, but that's really the set. That's the 75th anniversary of like the dawning point of science fiction at the movies. There were other previous films like Metropolis and things like that. But how we know them, where there's, there's aliens, there's humans.

• 54:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 54:39Sean Fennessey?

  There's US mission control and we're putting rockets in space and all of our anxieties about the Cold War and all of these stories being introduced to us. And the idea of being able to still make something look and feel new in these worlds is really exciting for me and rewarding. You know, I was reading a couple of reviews and I saw some, some tisking a Daniel Pemberton score, which I thought was magnificent and is like rhythmic and jazz like in the first half and then more kind of like epic and choral in the second half. And I found both of those strokes to be really, really impressive. What did you think of the score?

• 55:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it understands that the movies both are procedural and, you know, an emotional epic. And a lot of this film, even though it's set in deep space and was filmed on IMAX and is meant to see on the biggest screen possible, like. Is a guy and a small alien in a room.

• 55:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 55:32Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, or they're looking at a cell or they're doing very, very small things in rooms. And so I think that the bigger score especially communicates like some of the grandness that is meant in this movie, that like they are still in space.

• 55:48Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:49Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, even though you're just watching them float around in tubes for a while. So, so I liked it, but I particularly liked the percussive stuff.

• 55:57Sean Fennessey?

  The first half.

• 55:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And also, um, it, it plays up the comedy, which this is, this is a very funny movie. And I find that comedies don't always have scoring or soundtracks that like meet the, the level of the material.

• 56:15Sean Fennessey?

  Very true.

• 56:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. It can often just take away or distract or not take it as seriously.

• 56:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Pemberton, my favorite thing he's ever done is the Spider verse scores. And obviously he's worked with Lord Miller before, because they produced those movies. And he is an incredibly variable composer. If you go and listen to his work on Spotify across the many films he's made, it's a lot of different styles and he has clearly a lot of different influences. But I was really impressed by this. And you know, speaking of Lord Miller, the other thing too, is like, like I said, it's been a long time since, since they've directed a movie.

• 56:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 56:48Sean Fennessey?

  And I mentioned Solo earlier in this episode. And they were directing Solo. They did direct chunks of Solo and then they were fired by Lucasfilm. And Ron Howard was hired to replace them. And that, one of the reasons why that movie is ultimately a nothing burger is that it's like two completely different filmmakers with completely different sensibilities, smashing together a story and a script. You know, some of the suggestion in that story is that Lawrence Kasdan didn't really like the tone that Lord Miller were pursuing, because he is kind of the author of Han Solo. He writes all the great Han Solo dialogue. And they were trying to do something different and presumably just much more in their tone. I've always wanted to see their version of Solo, just because it would have been a different kind of Star Wars movie.

• 57:33Sean Fennessey?

  But this does, this movie does kind of feel like revenge for that, that experience, you know?

• 57:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And I mean, and better for sure, now that I've seen.

• 57:42Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely better than Solo. Yeah.

• 57:46Sean Fennessey?

  This episode is brought to you by Volkswagen. There is such a thing as becoming too comfortable in your day to day. But our favorite films with stories that make us change the way we think, they weren't made by people content to just sit back and watch the world pass by. This is your sign that you shouldn't either. From us, from VW and the other drivers out there, grab the wheel. Do what you love, even if it means taking the road less traveled. Learn more at VW.com. Do you think people are gonna like this movie? Or should I should say, do you think people are gonna love this movie?

• 58:17Sean Fennessey?

  Cause it is a very big and expensive swing from Amazon. They have had a checkered past with their movie distribution.

• 58:25Sean Fennessey?

  They're attempting now to be a real, we release 12 films theatrically per year studio. There's a gap. We could use a studio who's willing to do that.

• 58:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 58:35Sean Fennessey?

  You kind of can't get a bigger, more big tent, original story. Obviously it is based on a novel, but

• 58:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 58:42Sean Fennessey?

  This, this feels more like 2009 than it does 2026.

• 58:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And it certainly feels like 2015. And people loved The Martian. The Martian made a tremendous amount of money.

• 58:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it was like $500 million.

• 58:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And, and I, I will say, now that I have rewatched The Martian recently, I think this might be better than The Martian. The Martian,

• 59:01Sean Fennessey?

  It's pretty close for me.

• 59:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Which we love and really enjoyed. And also had that feeling in 2015 of being like, wow, they just made, you know, a classic, big budget, adapted from a book, studio movie. And it's Matt Damon and he's being a movie star. And then all these people got to save this problem. So, you know, save this guy and solve this problem. But it's, it's baggy. Matt Damon isn't as funny as I remembered, though it's not his fault. I just do think some of the, the Andy Weir character humor, like, like we gotta science the shit out of this.

• 59:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 59:36Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, which is

• 59:36Sean Fennessey?

  I think in its time, it was very funny. And now, like, how is it aging that comic sensibility?

• 59:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. But, but it is just kind of funny to locate that there is like a A noticeable strain of humor to both of these that is like stands out.

• 59:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 59:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and I, anyway, people really liked The Martian. I really liked The Martian. So theoretically, they would also like this, which is The Martian and like maybe slightly more complex, but also with acute alien.

• 1:00:12Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, yeah, I don't know. The Martian, as I recall, was an October film, right? Yeah, it was released October 2nd. And Project Hail Mary does kind of feel like an October movie. This is an interesting release date.

• 1:00:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Sean Fennessey?

  For this movie, we were in Vegas last April, where they showed us the extended first look at this movie. And we were both like, whoa, holy fuck.

• 1:00:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:33Sean Fennessey?

  This looks really cool. And I didn't even know this was coming. Um, and that has me thinking about how there's usually one movie at the beginning of every year now that it becomes a movie that we talk about for 12 months at the Academy Awards. And last year it was Sinners, couple of years before that it was Top Gun, couple of years before that it was Everything Everywhere All at Once. I, I don't really know if this is a Best Picture contender. I think it is.

• 1:00:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it is too. We went and saw it for a second time the night after the Oscars. And again, that first hour and a half, I was still very much an Oscars mindset and shattered, you know, uh,

• 1:01:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's been a long week.

• 1:01:11Amanda Dobbins?

  intellectually and emotionally. And I was like, oh, this is definitely, this is definitely an Oscars movie. There's so much to like about it. It's such a big scale. And we do have this precedent of, you know, big scale movies being released earlier in the year.

• 1:01:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:01:25Amanda Dobbins?

  And making it all the way.

• 1:01:27Sean Fennessey?

  Gravity being nominated for Best Picture. Like, there's some precedent for the kind of movie that it is too. Martian, obviously.

• 1:01:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Arrival.

• 1:01:32Sean Fennessey?

  Arrival, yeah.

• 1:01:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, so I think it could be. I do.

• 1:01:38Sean Fennessey?

  Is it too much of a comedy?

• 1:01:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. There are a lot. Ryan Gosling cries like a lot in this.

• 1:01:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, a lot. And he, you know, holds the camera just so for a lot of it. I was absolutely dying laughing at both times, at the close ups of him watching Sandra Huler say, sing a, an emotional karaoke song.

• 1:02:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:02:00Amanda Dobbins?

  We don't have to spoil anymore, even though it's been widely reported.

• 1:02:03Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great scene. I love, I love, her performance is amazing.

• 1:02:06Amanda Dobbins?

  She's amazing. Um, but I mean, he's just sitting at the bar in a sweater that you turned to me halfway through and said, I need to buy this sweater. Um, and he's got these rimless glasses and it, it is framed just so, and he's leaning just so for, you know, his, his movie star shot.

• 1:02:26Sean Fennessey?

  The camera is looking at him, looking at her.

• 1:02:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And, but he knows it. And he's like, okay, here it is. Here's time for me to be Ryan Gosling. And for everyone who showed up to see Ryan Gosling, um, to get some Ryan Gosling. So he is doing all of that along with all of the puppet stuff. But I don't know. I guess it's how much can you market the, the Rocky of it all before? And, cause I was thinking about it, like our children would love Rocky. They would be bored by the rest of it, but that's okay. Even the way he speaks is so funny and they would like definitely laugh. It, there is a physical comedy element to it. Um, and I think that you have, that is a real crowd pleaser. But, but you can't.

• 1:03:13Sean Fennessey?

  That's the word for the movie. It is a real crowd pleaser.

• 1:03:15Amanda Dobbins?

  But you can't, it feels like there's already too much in the trailer, you know, of.

• 1:03:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. You know, I will say, when the trailer first hit, I think you and I were both a little disappointed that we even learned of the existence of Rocky. But then you learn pretty quickly, it's about 45 minutes before Rocky shows up in the movie. But then he is.

• 1:03:33Amanda Dobbins?

  He's there.

• 1:03:33Sean Fennessey?

  He has as much the center of the movie as, as Grace is.

• 1:03:36Amanda Dobbins?

  They do, I think, almost, it's 45 minutes before you get to Rocky. And then I think they do almost, it's 35, 45 minutes of just Grace and Rocky before you go back to Earth.

• 1:03:46Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:03:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is another, I mean, again, this is just part of, there's so much to fit into this movie that. You know, they can't actually start the plot for an hour and a half because they had to do all the setup and then they had to give you your Rocky time.

• 1:03:58Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:03:58Amanda Dobbins?

  But you can't do without the Rocky time because it's so charming.

• 1:04:03Sean Fennessey?

  The second time around, there was a little bit of like some plaintive moments of them like staring at each other that are a little drawn out, but for the most part, I agree with you.

• 1:04:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, they were doing the ET, but then they were pointing.

• 1:04:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot of times it's been in that tunnel that is built from ship to ship.

• 1:04:18Amanda Dobbins?

  They got to dance for more physical comedy.

• 1:04:20Sean Fennessey?

  Dancing.

• 1:04:22Sean Fennessey?

  I think Below the Line, this movie's going to do very well. There's definitely production design, visual effects, maybe score.

• 1:04:33Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I don't know how you recognize the puppeteering work.

• 1:04:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Creature design?

• 1:04:38Sean Fennessey?

  That is something that, you know, presumably it goes into production design.

• 1:04:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it goes into, I mean, Neil Scanlon has been nominated for visual effects.

• 1:04:47Sean Fennessey?

  For visual effects, yeah.

• 1:04:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I guess, I guess visual effects would be the place where that, where that work goes.

• 1:04:55Sean Fennessey?

  But it does have that feeling of like a Mad Max Fury Road-esque, like there's a lot of places where they could recognize this movie in the awards. I'm very, very curious to see how well it does. The Martian made $630 million worldwide.

• 1:05:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:11Sean Fennessey?

  That's very good. If this movie makes $630 million, that's a huge success. In terms of the Oscar race, though, Dune Part Three is coming out.

• 1:05:21Sean Fennessey?

  And it's unusual for two huge science fiction movies to be nominated for Best Picture. In fact, I can't really think of a time when it's happened.

• 1:05:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Though, let's see, it's in the 10 year run, so since 2009.

• 1:05:37Amanda Dobbins?

  What was in 2009? What was the year that like District whatever?

• 1:05:40Sean Fennessey?

  District 13?

• 1:05:40Amanda Dobbins?

  District 13. There weren't two that year?

• 1:05:44Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe there were. I believe that was the, was that ultimately the 2010 Oscars?

• 1:05:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And then I'm looking at.

• 1:05:50Sean Fennessey?

  Or District 9, not District 13. Oh, you're right, Avatar.

• 1:05:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:53Sean Fennessey?

  District 9, a smaller movie.

• 1:05:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I think Katniss Everdeen is from District 13.

• 1:05:58Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:05:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Guys, Hunger Games in the booth?

• 1:06:01Sean Fennessey?

  District 12.

• 1:06:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:06:03Sean Fennessey?

  Volunteer as tribute for me and fight in the Hunger Games? Before you, you actually got to the screening of Project Homicide a little bit late and they showed the new Hunger Games trailer beforehand and I was sitting there with Chris and I was like, I'm just in on this. I just think this movie looks good and I want to see it. I didn't really care for the last Hunger Games movie. I don't even love those previous films, but I'm, I'm, I'm interested.

• 1:06:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, The Martian was also nominated up against Mad Max Fury Road, just which are different, but you know.

• 1:06:29Sean Fennessey?

  One's more like epic war movie in the desert.

• 1:06:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:06:32Sean Fennessey?

  But you're right, they're, they're not, they're not that far afield. Post-apocalyptic for sure.

• 1:06:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Would I volunteer for you?

• 1:06:37Sean Fennessey?

  Would you?

• 1:06:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I think I have a way better chance than you do.

• 1:06:41Sean Fennessey?

  Of surviving in the Hunger Games?

• 1:06:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Training more, pain tolerance higher.

• 1:06:46Sean Fennessey?

  I'm pretty shrewd.

• 1:06:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm fairly ruthless though. And just, and there is a physicality to it. Respectfully, like you haven't been at the gym recently.

• 1:06:53Sean Fennessey?

  I look, I feel like I'm doing very well.

• 1:06:55Amanda Dobbins?

  And I've been meeting people in Pilates class who listen to this. What's up Chase? If you're listening at home.

• 1:07:00Sean Fennessey?

  Chase's story.

• 1:07:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I saw Chase at Motivate. Um, he was very friendly and he lives in the neighborhood. It was great. I was very excited.

• 1:07:09Sean Fennessey?

  Nice.

• 1:07:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, there's usually one man in a Pilates class and I'm always a fan. I think it's very brave to be the one man in the Pilates class. And that was Chase.

• 1:07:20Sean Fennessey?

  How do you feel when someone approaches you and say, says, hey, are you Amanda Dobbins? What do you do?

• 1:07:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I usually introduce myself and ask their name. I'm happy about it. Can I tell you about what happened last night?

• 1:07:30Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Where I was out to dinner in, um, at Queens with friends and a nice man named David came over with a Negroni in hand and put it down for me because he's like, I would, I needed to bring you a Negroni. That's my best friend for life, David. So I feel amazing. Also, by the way, it was my third Negroni and look at me here and thriving.

• 1:07:50Sean Fennessey?

  Wow. That's impressive.

• 1:07:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you.

• 1:07:52Sean Fennessey?

  I had zero Negronis.

• 1:07:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Once again, I've been training, right? I've been in the gym. I've been at the bar. I'm ready. So I could win Hunger Games.

• 1:08:00Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think there's a bar component in the Hunger Games, but duly noted.

• 1:08:03Amanda Dobbins?

  What do they have to drink?

• 1:08:04Sean Fennessey?

  There's no Negroni challenge.

• 1:08:06Amanda Dobbins?

  What do they have to drink though? You know?

• 1:08:08Sean Fennessey?

  We gotta ask Katniss.

• 1:08:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Access to fresh water?

• 1:08:10Sean Fennessey?

  We gotta, you holler at your girl Jen Lawrence.

• 1:08:13Speaker 00

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• 1:08:43Speaker 04

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• 1:09:14Sean Fennessey?

  Project Mary Dynamite. Really, really good. Lot of fun. Yeah. What a great way to kick off, I guess- What's it tracking? The post Oscars 60 million, I think, in that, in that vicinity. That would be good, even though I know the tracking is broken. I think that's just domestic as well. Okay. You know, it's gonna take a while to get up to 250 or whatever this movie cost, but, let's go to my conversation with, with Phil Lord and Chris Miller, because they'll tell you all the ways in which this movie was built and shaped and looks the way that it does. For the first time, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, thank you both for being here. It's been a minute since you guys have made a movie. Curious, when did the book hit your desk?

• 1:09:58Sean Fennessey?

  And then how do you decide you want to direct something?

• 1:10:03Speaker 05

  Um, let's see. So, Ryan sent us the book with Amy.

• 1:10:10Speaker 06

  As a manuscript before it was published.

• 1:10:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Ryan Gosling and Amy Pascal.

• 1:10:14Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 1:10:14Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:10:15Sean Fennessey?

  To you, they're Ryan and Amy.

• 1:10:17Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly. And, uh-

• 1:10:20Speaker 06

  And we had a pre-existing relationship with Andy Weir. Our producing partner, Aditya Su, discovered The Martian was an ebook and-

• 1:10:28Speaker 05

  And put together that movie and brought Drew on. So, um, when we got this, we got the manuscript, Aditya said, guys, this is your next movie.

• 1:10:40Speaker 05

  And then we read it in one night and we're like, you're right.

• 1:10:43Sean Fennessey?

  What is it that he saw that made him say that to you?

• 1:10:47Speaker 05

  I think it's, first of all, we've made a lot of movies about friendship. And people whose friendship is the reason they can do something really hard. Our movies are, we like to say 51% optimistic. And this movie, this, you know, novel is so affirming. And we try to make movies that help people imagine goodness. And that's what the book did when I read it.

• 1:11:15Speaker 06

  Also, it seemed really hard and that's kind of exciting for us. You're like, oh, the, the co-star of this movie is an alien with no face and no eyes, no mouth, and speaks in whale song. Fantastic. And you have to fall in love with it. Great. And, and like the spectacle, the scale, the, the massiveness of it, you could just feel it on the page. And, and but it really was like the, you know, the emotional heart of it. And, and you, it was crazy that by the end, with all the twists and turns and surprises that the, the last third of that book has, like how I found myself like, oh my God, I would die for this rock. And you're like, I don't know how he did it, but we have to, we have to make you feel that way.

• 1:11:57Speaker 05

  I got confident reading about that he had no face.

• 1:12:00Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:12:01Speaker 05

  I was like, oh, we know how to do that.

• 1:12:02Speaker 06

  We know how to do this and I feel like somebody else might not do it right.

• 1:12:05Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean when you say that?

• 1:12:07Speaker 05

  So like, so Rocky, the, the co-star, alien co-star of the movie, in the novel, has five limbs and no face and no mouth and no eyes, and he speaks in whale language. And so we, you know, most people would be, most people who finance movies would be really scared by that. They would say, oh, he has no eyes, but the eyes are the window to the soul. How could you possibly relate to a character? And I was like, well, I don't know, like, every Pixar movie opens with like a lamp, you know, being a parent. Right? So I was like, we, human beings are so good at projecting personality onto inanimate objects. That's why every car has like a smiling grill on the front of it and little, little light eyes

• 1:12:50Speaker 05

  and, or windscreen eyes. And so I was like, oh, we, we know how to help the audience project a personality onto a rock.

• 1:13:00Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. I'm curious, like the, the hard part that you mentioned.

• 1:13:05Speaker 05

  What does that mean to you practically? Is it like the scale of the movie? Is it space? Is it just the translation of the rock?

• 1:13:12Speaker 06

  Well, it's like a lot of things. There's, you know, this, you know, has a lot of zero microgravity, which means like a lot of wires and like a lot of like, like technically complicated choreography. This, you know, having, we wanted to do, have Rocky really be there and have a, have a be a creature that was puppeted. So that Ryan would have a scene partner and so that we could, you know, capture, you know, Rocky really and not have him have to act with a tennis ball on a stick. So we knew that that meant, okay, now we have to, this thing's gonna have to be operated by a team of five puppeteers that we called the Rocketeers led by James Ortiz.

• 1:13:55Speaker 06

  But now we're gonna have to like, find a way for us to like, find a place for them to even exist to operate the puppet.

• 1:14:03Speaker 05

  Right, it means we have to build the sets, you know, five feet off the ground.

• 1:14:06Speaker 06

  Right, so that they don't block the light and, and then.

• 1:14:09Speaker 05

  And by the way, the two main characters are always separated by glass.

• 1:14:14Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:14:14Speaker 05

  And so that means that like, oh, it's gonna reflect all the cameras. It's going to like, make really gnarly, like bright lights blocking your view. It's gonna require tons of touch up. Meanwhile, we're gonna have to erase puppeteers, but behind glass. So it just made the whole movie, it's a book about overcoming odds, right? Impossible odds and solving problems. And so it meant that the, the making of the film was going to be a way to experience the story ourselves and that we had to solve a lot of problems by gathering a bunch of smart people and working together.

• 1:14:52Speaker 06

  We also create our own obstacles, the thing, we make things even more complicated. And the book. You know, there is, the ship has centrifugal gravity, but it's all, all the rooms are sort of stacked like, like a rocket ship or a lighthouse. And we thought it might be interesting if it had one orientation of gravity when it was, when it was traveling like a lighthouse, but then when it separated and started spinning, that, that it would turn on its side so that it wouldn't be vertical, it would be horizontal and the wall would become the floor. So we'd have a secondary version of gravity. So that meant that the ship, which we built in its entirety,

• 1:15:32Speaker 06

  had to have, had to be oriented vertically and then disassembled and reassembled horizontally, each room of the ship, which was an insane thing to do, but.

• 1:15:45Speaker 05

  We, two of the H O Ds are Greg Fraser, the incredible cinematographer, and Paul Lambert, who's like won four Oscars for visual effects. And they looked at us one day and said, this is the most complex film we've ever worked on, and we made two dunes. And so there's something about those like obstacles that make, that get us excited. I, have I ever told you this? I have a close family friend who had Parkinson's and he, when he was struggling to move around, one of the things he would say to us is like, will you put your foot and, and, and place it in front of my feet? And then he was able to step over it. But

• 1:16:26Speaker 05

  it was only by placing an obstacle in front of him that would like get him over the, when he got like stuck. And I always thought that was a really interesting thing.

• 1:16:36Speaker 06

  You know, like sometimes like limitations or like hard problems to solve make you do something that you haven't seen before. And that's really what we're always trying to do with the, with everything is make something that feels new and original.

• 1:16:49Sean Fennessey?

  You started to talk about. Gravity and the construction of the ships and the way that they operate. And the movie is, I've been told that it is less scientific than the book, which is tremendously scientific, but as a movie watcher, I was like, this is deeply rooted in science. And there are extended passages where there is a lot of conversation that is scientifically based.

• 1:17:07Speaker 05

  Yes, and, and like, long passages with no dialogue where they just like, put things in pipettes and centrifuges.

• 1:17:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, totally. And it is its own little science experiment in that way. But I was, I'm curious how you guys thought about how an audience might feel about that? What's the line between keeping it true versus keeping it coherent? And how you worked through that with Ryan, too?

• 1:17:29Speaker 06

  Well, we wanted all the science to be real. And we wanted, other than the invented stuff from the book, like an alien species and an alien.

• 1:17:37Speaker 05

  Even those things, we were like, the novel is true.

• 1:17:39Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:17:40Speaker 05

  Everything that Andy established, that's real. Let's pretend it's, everything is real.

• 1:17:44Speaker 06

  But we also didn't want, this isn't a lecture, this is an entertain, piece of entertainment. Right? This is supposed to be fun and exciting and entertaining for everybody. So how, we didn't have the advantage of the book where you can hear Rhineland Grace's thoughts. So we had to show the audience what was happening in a way that was easily digestible, entertaining and fun. And so that was the real challenge of the movie, but thankfully, we, you know, we, we test our movies with friends and family and strangers more than probably anybody. We're very like thorough on it.

• 1:18:18Speaker 05

  We probably screened this movie 11 times before we locked the cut.

• 1:18:20Speaker 06

  Right. And every time it was sort of like, is anyone confused? Is anyone bored? Is anyone, where's the parts that are, people are, are feeling like either like they're losing engagement or they're, they're not following what's happening. And so like, how can we, how can we simplify this? How can we make it, uh, make it interesting and cinematic and tell you without like, having a lecture? And so that's how we ultimately find the right balance. We shoot too much and then we like hone it into something that is, that's entertaining.

• 1:18:49Speaker 05

  But we imagined that the audience would go with it because it's kind of like watching Rafifi or Thief or something where you're like watching someone like crack a safe or dig a hole for 20 minutes in the floor. And you're just kind of interested in the process.

• 1:19:02Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:03Speaker 05

  You know, in watching people do a job well, like one of our favorite genres of cinema. And so we thought, well, if the, it's actually something I've learned from watching Denny's first Dune movie. If the emotional story is palpable, then you will pick up the lore. And in our case, like, the lore is like the science.

• 1:19:22Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:19:22Speaker 05

  You'll pick it up as you go and you'll look for it and try to understand it because you're so invested in the character.

• 1:19:27Speaker 06

  And if you don't follow the, the, like, ins and outs of the science of the story, it doesn't matter. You're following the plot and the characters and that's what you care about. Is he gonna get the thing that he needs?

• 1:19:36Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:19:37Speaker 06

  I don't know exactly why he needs the thing, but I really want him to get it.

• 1:19:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:40Speaker 06

  I mean, he seems to think he needs it.

• 1:19:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's true. There are like Xenon gags, though, so you are still touching the very specific languages.

• 1:19:47Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 1:19:47Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I always call what you're describing ingenuity porn, like there's something about like really exciting about watching someone solve something. And this movie is full of that.

• 1:19:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:19:54Sean Fennessey?

  Um, the legacy of space movies is very intense. There's like hundreds and hundreds of movies about space, but then there's also like four or five movies that stand way above those other movies.

• 1:20:04Speaker 06

  It's true.

• 1:20:04Sean Fennessey?

  And I do feel like your movie is really grasping to be like, I'm one of those four or five movies, you know?

• 1:20:08Speaker 05

  It is. It's kind of like, Katie shows up early at the party.

• 1:20:12Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, time will tell. You never know, right? But I, though, even just the way that objects moved in space, I was like, this feels different. This feels like, um, the energy is different. The way that the objects are operating feels different in a way that it is like communing with the history of space movies, but not imitating. I don't know if that was intentional. I'm just like reflecting on how I felt about it.

• 1:20:33Speaker 06

  We wanted to do our own thing, right? We didn't want to, we didn't want to do an homage to anything. We wanted it to be its own movie and have its own space and.

• 1:20:42Speaker 05

  I think we often said this movie is not a Mac, it's a PC. It's not slick. It's not shiny. The guts of the ship are on the outside. You can, like, it's, it's messy. He's messy. You know, it was like really important to us and to Ryan to represent what like a regular person would be like in this scenario. And so we were like, oh yeah, there's no one else on this ship. He would just throw all his like crap on the ground. And then it would be a huge problem when it, when zero G hit and suddenly it was like floating around everywhere. And we wanted, and this was a great thing about working with Greg Fraser is like, he is an amazing DP, but he's not a perfectionist. He's an imperfectionist.

• 1:21:23Speaker 05

  And so he's always like, I want to find something kind of messy or sloppy or imperfect about the image. And so it all kind of coalesced around making space a little bit more tactile and, and, um, and weirdly relatable.

• 1:21:37Speaker 06

  Right. Like it feels like immediate and intimate and you're, and. It was like, it felt sort of found in a way and less formalist. Like that was sort of, we, at every scene, we would do what we called a Greg vibes pass, which was after we felt like we got the scene, we were like, okay, we're gonna do one more. We're just gonna run the scene and then Greg's gonna come with a camera on his shoulder and just sort of find the moment. And that was, what was cool was that, you know, because we had the sets really built and there was no green screen in the movie whatsoever, right? And because we had a real rocky, it didn't matter the scene, he could go anywhere and find a shot and line up something that felt like it was discovered and it didn't feel,

• 1:22:22Speaker 06

  it felt like, you know, it had a sort of little magic to it. And, and a lot of that stuff made it into the movie because it just feels different from, from other space stuff.

• 1:22:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I was gonna ask you, what percentage of the vibes shots do you think actually made it into the final cut?

• 1:22:37Speaker 05

  A lot, a lot because, you know, like, that's the hard thing to do when you're making a movie that requires so much planning, is for it to be driven by intuition. So we're trying to create the conditions that allow Greg, you know, to shoot 360, basically. You know, Greg like lit most of the scenes in such a way that he could point the camera anywhere and create the conditions for Ryan to improvise, to respond directly to his scene partner and have things feel more captured and spontaneous, which is like so hard to do, you're like strung up on wires. But we wanted space to be, we wanted the movie to be playful.

• 1:23:18Speaker 06

  And it requires a lot of planning to be able to have that freedom, right? And so you have to like, we like pre-shot all the space stuff virtually first is make sure that we had the walls of the set can move out that we needed and we had the right size and shape of everything and that we were gonna be able to be using the right equipment. And, you know, and when we did, but that allowed us to be free when we were shooting. And then similarly, like when we did wire stuff, like.

• 1:23:49Speaker 06

  There was like, there's a very trope-y version of space where everyone's on like, a wire and going slow motion like they're in a ballet or a, a bad high school production of Peter Pan or something.

• 1:23:58Speaker 05

  When we talked to astronauts, they said, it's not like that. Like, you're suspended in the air, but like, you move at regular speed. And it's clumsy. You can get stuck in the middle if you're too far from the walls. So like, you're constantly pushing yourself off one wall and bonking into another.

• 1:24:13Speaker 06

  And the first few days that you are experiencing microgravity, you are a total klutz and you're smashing into everything. And so, we, you know, and so we set up this rig, which was on, where Ryan was in a spin ring. And we had like flexibility with the way that the wires could move so that he could spin his body in any direction, flip around, basically do air parkour. And we'd be like, okay, you gotta get from here to there. And just like, do however you would and, and give him the freedom to sort of like, uh, mess his way to, to the spot. And, and that kind of, like, planning and preparation to allow for freedom is like, it's so much harder than you might imagine.

• 1:24:57Sean Fennessey?

  Can you tell me a little bit about, um, directing Ryan to make this work? And like, how much did he like, uh, acting opposite a puppet? Did, was it difficult to do that? Like, you hear a lot of, obviously a lot of stories about actors, acting opposite tennis balls, like you mentioned. And this is different, but it is also, it's a different performance style.

• 1:25:18Speaker 05

  It is, you, you, you, you know, for Ryan, I think, you know, he was such a big believer in the book. He was, um, excited and scared, which is like, where you want to be. And like Sidney Pollack would ask his H O Ds when he started a movie, he would say, do you want to get scared? And the whole point of it is, again, those obstacles. So I think Ryan is like us in that he likes having those provocations from like the challenge. And then, you know, it, he's such an important part of Rocky's performance, his belief.

• 1:25:51Speaker 05

  That Rocky is a person and that Rocky has status in the scenes is so critical. One of my favorite things about Ryan is how he, as a handsome movie star, who's really smart and a great filmmaker, he always confers status to the characters around him. Even when he's on SNL, like the way he, like his clown is to be the low man in the scene.

• 1:26:13Speaker 06

  Mm hmm.

• 1:26:13Speaker 05

  And so when he's around Rocky, he's going like, hey, you know, I'm sorry I'm talking so much. You know, I just really want to be here. Like, he's trying to get on, he's playing get on the team.

• 1:26:22Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:26:23Speaker 05

  And so that's what we talked about as a, you know, the four of us, us, you know, us, Ryan and James Ortiz, who plays Rocky, is like, you're older than him, Rocky. You think you're smarter than him. You're certainly not as clumsy as he is, and you pity him.

• 1:26:39Speaker 06

  And I think the big difference is that you had this actual performances coming with, with James and the Rocketeers, what we call this team of puppeteers. And, and there was like this back and forth, they could improvise and would improvise scenes for, for long, long stretches. And, and you could get these real reactions from Ryan that are like, he was surprised by the thing that James did and was like tickled by it or, or surprised by it or thrown back by it. And then, and then Rocky was reacting to whatever it is that, that Ryan did. And, and like, and James, the voice that he was doing on set was the voice that we used in the movie. And so their banter is natural because he has a real scene partner. It's not him imagining himself having.

• 1:27:23Speaker 05

  Right. So you're responding to each other and suddenly like you stop acting or having.

• 1:27:28Speaker 06

  You start reacting, guys.

• 1:27:29Speaker 05

  You start just behaving, right?

• 1:27:31Sean Fennessey?

  I'm always interested to talk to directing duos.

• 1:27:35Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:27:36Sean Fennessey?

  Because it's a unique relationship. And I, division of labor is always interesting to me around this. You guys have known each other for a very long time. You've been working together for a very long time. But I'll sometimes ask, like, writing duos, are you back to back in a room? Is one person standing and the other person talking? But when you're on set, like, who's responsible for what? Are you changing every day what you do?

• 1:27:56Speaker 05

  We're side by side at a monitor. Often, the communication is nonverbal.

• 1:28:02Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:28:03Speaker 05

  And whomever is most preoccupied with something in that moment is the one who's taking charge and running onto the stage.

• 1:28:10Speaker 06

  We try not to have, like, two people run up to an actor and, like, give thoughts, because then it can be like, whoa, the contradictory. And so usually, when we've gotten to, onto set, like, we have worked and reworked that scene, and we know exactly what we want to get out of it.

• 1:28:27Speaker 05

  And we've written together. You know, that's one, like, rule we have, is that we ride together on the way to the stage, so that we can-

• 1:28:33Speaker 06

  We can talk about the day's work.

• 1:28:35Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:28:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:28:36Speaker 06

  And then, and then we, like, are watching, and then we can look at each other and go, like, needs to be a little faster, right? Okay, I'll go, I'll go talk, go and talk to them. And then, you know, then, or it'll be like, one of us will be like, I feel like, like, it should be, they should be yelling, and I'm like, oh, but I feel like they're too mean, and they're like, well, let's do the angry take now, and then we'll do a safety that's like a sweetie pie take, and then we'll figure it out in the editing room. But we sort of like, allow that each version to have its own moment. So we go like, okay, let's go, and let's, let's just, like, really let them have it, and then come back around after that, okay, that was great, now just to try a different version, let's try one where you're, like, trying to be kind to each other, and then-

• 1:29:16Speaker 05

  Just trying to give them whiplash by, like, alternating-

• 1:29:19Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 1:29:19Speaker 05

  Ideas. You try to, like, start with one and then guide towards the other. And I think for, for us, like, this relationship is not unlike the one that, you know, Ryan has with Rocky, or with, you know, Eva Stratt, played by Sandra Huler, is like, you have to accommodate one another's, like, quirks. Like, and what you're hoping to do is to magnify one another's differences, not like, like, a Lord Miller movie cannot be like the Venn diagram, like, subsets of the things that we both agree on. It has to be like, the full, like, both circles and the part in the middle, so that you get a broader set of ideas, and you stop, don't worry about-

• 1:30:02Speaker 05

  Editing them, you just go, you just have to like trust and embrace what the other guy is interested in.

• 1:30:08Sean Fennessey?

  Would you know how to define what are the things in your own individual parts of the circles?

• 1:30:12Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:30:13Speaker 06

  Hard to say. I mean, it's.

• 1:30:14Speaker 05

  Depends on the moment, right? And then we sometimes switch.

• 1:30:18Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:30:18Speaker 05

  Because like if I'm like always like I'm if if I if Chris gets super upset, I immediately become a peacemaker, like a married couple, basically. Like you, you, you, like some of your functions atrophy because the other person is stronger.

• 1:30:37Speaker 06

  Yang someone's yen sometimes.

• 1:30:39Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:30:39Speaker 06

  But but we're usually coming at it from the same place and it's only about like 5% of the time that we're like seeing it slightly differently. And so we just try to get as much as we can and then figure it out in the editing room.

• 1:30:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm sorry if that's an unsatisfying answer. Do you have a good answer?

• 1:30:54Speaker 06

  We don't really, we don't really.

• 1:30:55Speaker 05

  Division, we don't divide labor. We do sometimes have different interests.

• 1:30:59Speaker 06

  In writing, what we'll do is we'll talk, talk, talk, talk about the scenes and whoever's got a clearer idea of the scene, they'll write that scene and someone else will write the other thing and then we'll swap pages and they'll get back together and we'll talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And then like figure out something and then similarly like take turns on stuff.

• 1:31:16Speaker 05

  When we ran a TV show room, like we thought that there was a great value in group writing and also a great value in individual writing and concentration and just the things that pop into your head and that you accept without being challenged. And I think we tried to balance that and have a little bit of both.

• 1:31:31Sean Fennessey?

  I'm curious also about the tone. I've had this nice experience of showing my five year old some of your movies. Not on, she's not to 21, 22 Jump Street.

• 1:31:39Speaker 05

  Not there yet.

• 1:31:40Sean Fennessey?

  But um.

• 1:31:41Speaker 05

  It would not be the first five year old to see that film.

• 1:31:44Sean Fennessey?

  It's probably true. Uh, but you know, even 22 Jump Street and and the Lego movie and Cloudy, like they all, they have a vibe, they have a tone, they have a sensibility to them.

• 1:31:53Speaker 05

  They're friendly.

• 1:31:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, they are. And they're they're antic and they're excitable in a good way.

• 1:31:57Speaker 05

  Yes, that's true.

• 1:31:58Sean Fennessey?

  And this movie has some of that, but not all of that. Like it is different. And I was kind of curious like what it was like to confront material and try to make sure that you're putting your your stamp on it, but maybe not get in its way as well because you have your own sensibilities, but this preexisting material is here. How did it feel doing that?

• 1:32:17Speaker 06

  I mean, you really want to honor this book. Like, we were so blown away by the story and the and the tone and the vibe of the book. Luckily, the book is doing a lot of things that we like to do, which is like, it's funny, it's exciting, it's really emotional, you know, it's about like a friendship and all this stuff. So it's in our wheelhouse of things that we like. And so we didn't really think too much about like

• 1:32:44Speaker 05

  Adjusting the tone or anything?

• 1:32:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, just sort of like, this is what the scene is, this is how the scene goes. And we, and you know, like, what's cool about human beings is that we can laugh and cry right on top of each other. And the best dramas make you laugh and the best comedies make you cry. And so if you make a movie that makes you feel all of the feelings, you've laughed, you've cried, you've been excited, you were scared, you were on the edge of your seat, you were curious, you had all, everything, then you come out of that movie going like, wow, I just felt, I went on a ride and I had a whole experience of feelings. And then, and then you feel like it was worth going to the theater for. What was the single hardest thing to capture in the movie?

• 1:33:29Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 1:33:31Speaker 05

  You mean? Like hard fun, hard, or like hard hard? Like?

• 1:33:36Speaker 06

  Like, I would say, I'm curious about so many things that were hard in this movie, but, but one thing that was, it took a while to R and D, but when we got it, it was, it was crazy magical was, so there's a scene when they're collecting astrophage, which is the sort of space algae that's eating the suns. And you can only see them in infrared light. And so Ryan's character is out on the hull of the ship, collecting a bunch of, of this astrophage, and he's surrounded by this invisible thing. And we sort of get a moment to visualize what an IR camera would be seeing and what was actually, what's actually all around him.

• 1:34:18Speaker 06

  And the way that we did that was you take a filter out of the camera that's blocking the IR light so that you it is an IR camera and it made this like beautiful pinkish reddish color thing and what we did was we put Ryan in a on stage surrounded by a bunch of chicken wire filled with infrared lights that were like sparkling and and then we had

• 1:34:45Speaker 05

  Greg built an aquarium sort of like a double glass window with a hose dripping water through it.

• 1:34:55Speaker 06

  In front of the handheld camera and then he would sort of stand around Ryan who was like going like this in this chicken cage where he couldn't see anything because he couldn't see the lights because they're invisible to the naked eye.

• 1:35:08Speaker 05

  It looks ridiculous to the naked eye and then when you look on the monitor.

• 1:35:12Speaker 06

  It's this beautiful thing with all these like Boca lights flickering everywhere all around like surrounded by it and you're like watching the monitor and then watching the reality.

• 1:35:22Speaker 05

  If you look on the you walked onto the stage like Amy Pascal walked onto the stage. There's like a huge spaceship over there taking up most of the stage and in the corner a bunch of dorks like crowding around this like cage that we built around Ryan and we're all going like, oh my God, it's incredible. I'm seeing heaven. And she's like, what are you losers doing? And then we showed her the monitor and she lost her mind.

• 1:35:49Sean Fennessey?

  That's that's really good problem solving. Did you have to do like 10 other things?

• 1:35:54Speaker 05

  We did so many experiments. We wound up shooting that like really late in the schedule because on the day we planned to do it, we didn't have a good enough answer.

• 1:36:03Speaker 06

  Methodology to get it done.

• 1:36:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, we were just like we like, well, let's try. We were kind of winging it and we're like, let's cut bait and do it for real.

• 1:36:09Speaker 06

  Like the lights need to like interact with his body and light him up as their lighting or else it will look fake. And so we're like, we tried a bunch of different versions and it wasn't quite getting there. So then they built the cage.

• 1:36:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:36:21Sean Fennessey?

  One thing that the movie has that a lot of great space movies have is incredible score.

• 1:36:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:36:27Speaker 06

  Pemberton.

• 1:36:27Sean Fennessey?

  Daniel Pemberton's score is very memorable and it feels essential. And I'm, I'm just like wondering, when did he come in? At what point do you have music? Is it before, after shooting? Is he looking at a cut and then adding?

• 1:36:38Speaker 05

  So during shooting, we asked Daniel, we were shooting in London. We just said, come by the set and just see what we're up to. And like, just write a few sketches because sometimes Ryan likes to perform with music. And so we had all these sequences that were, you know, silent or without much dialogues. We're like, let's just, just like whip something up. And one of those pieces is in the, is in the movie. And so it gave us like a feel. And the other thing we discussed with Daniel was I don't want Ryan to feel alone. We want him to feel like the entire earth is rooting him on. And so that's why it's full of choirs and like lots and lots of players. He brought in a bunch of school children to like stomp and clap.

• 1:37:22Speaker 06

  For the percussion.

• 1:37:23Speaker 05

  Like, like his kids from his classroom were like still part of his consciousness. Because it just didn't, again, we kept wanting the movie to be affirming and warm and feel like you were, we were all in this together. And so one of the early things that happened is he, he found a leaky faucet in his friend's apartment, flat. Pardon me, because he's English. And he, and it, and it became one of the signature themes of the movie is what opens the movie.

• 1:37:49Speaker 06

  When you turn it a certain way, it would go.

• 1:37:53Speaker 06

  And, and he was like, I gotta record this. And he recorded it, different like pitches of it and then turned it into music.

• 1:37:59Speaker 05

  And so the melody that winds up, so that's like kind of a spooky sound. And, and what we talked about was like, it can't, it can't sing a spooky song. Like Ryan is waking up in great distress. He has no idea where he is. He's in a weird amniotic sack. Outfit that we made for him and he's upset. I don't need the music to tell me I'm upset. I need the music to tell me that this guy is gonna go somewhere, that we're rooting for him and he's worthy of great things. He's going to do great things like Call to Action. And, and like figuring that stuff out was a real back and forth, trial and error process.

• 1:38:38Sean Fennessey?

  I think his music in the Spider-Verse films is also amazing. So it's like a really nice little union that you guys have going with him.

• 1:38:45Speaker 05

  It's, it's, the scores are always really playful. I think for this one, it's like we all knew that what was possible and that it could be one of Daniel's great scores. And, and he knew it too. And I think we, we, we put a lot of effort into trying to make it work.

• 1:39:03Speaker 06

  And he worked really hard on it and totally nailed it. In my opinion, my unbiased opinion.

• 1:39:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:39:10Sean Fennessey?

  You guys are both movie fans. Movies like this are not that common anymore. And I love how you just described for 30 minutes, how you made this movie basically practically. You built everything. It looks just more real because it is more real. And I think people really like relate to that. But that's hard and that's more expensive than ever.

• 1:39:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:39:29Sean Fennessey?

  Feel pressure about the movie being a success. You know?

• 1:39:31Speaker 05

  Of course, why wouldn't we?

• 1:39:34Speaker 06

  You want to make sure that they can still make movies like this in the future, right?

• 1:39:37Speaker 05

  So the bet you have to make is A, you're gonna make someone's favorite movie. And you have to be able to like live with that. Like if it doesn't hit. And then the thing is like you go, well, on average, I have a, I know that we can make something that appeals. And if you, and that's smart. It makes you feel good walking out of the theater. You know, the bar we have to clear, every movie has to clear is undeniable greatness.

• 1:40:03Speaker 05

  It is the truth of like where the audience are. Somebody told us that really early in our career. It's like the bar, anything, it was television executive.

• 1:40:13Speaker 06

  If you're doing something new, if you're doing something original, it has to be great or it's not gonna like. Make it past like the, everything else, all the big franchises.

• 1:40:21Speaker 05

  People need to walk out of the theater and tell, call their friend and be like, "Oh my god, you have to see it. I'm going to take you." All the movies that we grew up with, that we loved, E.T., Little Shop of Horrors, Star Wars, those are movies, my, I remember my dad seeing, he's done that for two movies. Little Shop of Horrors, he's like, "We're taking your mother to this tomorrow night." Right? And then the other movie was, uh, was, uh, South Park, Bigger, Longer.

• 1:40:46Speaker 06

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:40:47Speaker 05

  I don't know why.

• 1:40:49Speaker 06

  The two classics.

• 1:40:50Speaker 05

  I'm, "We're bringing your mother tomorrow." You maniac. But, but there is that, that's where you have to get to. So I think every H O D, every, you know, every day on set, we're trying to discover moments that make you want to bring your friend.

• 1:41:06Speaker 06

  And it was like, everybody on the crew, like, felt like they were, felt like they were doing something special, and so they put a lot of heart and soul and ideas into it, and everybody really cared, and I think you can tell.

• 1:41:19Sean Fennessey?

  We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, "What's the last great thing they have seen?" Have you guys seen anything good lately?

• 1:41:26Speaker 06

  Ooh, I've seen a bunch of good stuff. I'm trying to think, the last one.

• 1:41:32Speaker 05

  I'm trying to give you an answer that's not.

• 1:41:35Speaker 06

  Obvious?

• 1:41:35Speaker 05

  Not super obvious. We are at the tail end of award season.

• 1:41:39Speaker 06

  Have been catching up on stuff.

• 1:41:40Sean Fennessey?

  Could be old or new.

• 1:41:41Speaker 06

  I tell you what, I just saw, I just watched all the Oscar animated shorts, because the voting has begun.

• 1:41:47Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:41:48Speaker 06

  And they were great.

• 1:41:48Sean Fennessey?

  I just finished them too.

• 1:41:50Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:41:50Sean Fennessey?

  You don't have to say your favorite, but maybe can you talk about a couple of them?

• 1:41:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:41:53Sean Fennessey?

  Because they're fresh in my mind as well.

• 1:41:55Speaker 06

  There was, um, Papillon, which was, uh, like, like a beautiful, like, painting, like, painting and repainting story about a, like, a swimmer, uh, and I, I thought it was, I watched them with my kids, and, um, and that, my daughter especially was really interested in the process of how that was done. It was beautifully done, like, a beautiful story. I mean, they were all really good, so, but that one was, just from a, from a technique standpoint, I thought was really, really beautiful.

• 1:42:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I just watched that last night. Great timing on that. What about you?

• 1:42:26Speaker 05

  The last great thing I saw, I went to the CityWalk IMAX and saw Crime 101. And particularly, they have these unbelievable shots of the 101 freeway.

• 1:42:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:42Speaker 05

  Not considered, you know, like-

• 1:42:45Sean Fennessey?

  The most beautiful freeway.

• 1:42:46Speaker 05

  Beautiful subject to-

• 1:42:47Sean Fennessey?

  Not our favorite place in the world either.

• 1:42:48Speaker 05

  And normally a place you're stuck in traffic. And, you know, Bart is a filmmaker we got to know in London while we were shooting. And just to see the way he turned that into poetry and like spun the camera and took the whole theater for this crazy ride, I just thought he's, I thought he was masterful.

• 1:43:11Sean Fennessey?

  I like that, yeah. That movie looks incredible.

• 1:43:13Speaker 05

  It looks incredible. And it's like, it's a, we love a heist movie. It's a good old fashioned like crime picture where the characters and their relationships are in the foreground. You know, it's like the thing you, it's a one last job movie. Another one of my favorite sub-subgenres. Yeah. And it makes, and it's LA for LA. It makes LA look great. You know, it's, it's such a pleasure to watch that picture.

• 1:43:38Sean Fennessey?

  Phil, Chris, congrats. Thanks, guys. Thank you so much.

• 1:43:40Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:43:43Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks to Phil and Chris. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Thanks to Lucas Cavanagh for production support. We'll be back on Monday with a special conversation. See you then.

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