The 2026 Summer Movie Preview "Boom or Bust" Game
2026-04-14 10:00:00 • 2:21:14
I'm Sean Fennese.
I'm Amanda Davin.
And this is the big picture and conversation show about the summer.
Today on the show, we're previewing the summer movie slate with another one of my little
games.
Later in the show, I'll be joined by Daniel Goldhaber.
He is the co-writer and director of Faces of Death, the new super smart super nasty reboot
of the 1978 cult horror curio.
Danny was last on the show talking about his second feature, How To Blow, a pipeline,
which was one of the best movies of 2022.
A great thinker about movies and media and excellent discussion.
Listen to it after our chat here, programming reminder, Amanda.
We are just a week away from our 900th episode.
I mean, don't jinx it, but yes.
Yes, unless something fiery and terrible happens in the next six and a half days.
To celebrate, we're going to do a mail bag.
You can email us at what?
Big pick mail bag at gmail.com.
You can email us.
However, you can also call us.
You can call us.
The number is three two three four eight eight three two four one.
And you can leave a voicemail.
We've done this before.
It went very well last time.
You're all very normal.
Yes.
And we encourage you to be creative.
And but let's be real.
I want to bring I want to bring the younger generation in.
There's a difference between a voicemail and a voice note.
That's right.
Yeah.
Okay.
If you don't know, if you don't know, call an elder, one is one shorter, one's to the point.
And then one is seven minutes that I'm never going to listen to.
Whether I know you or not.
So voicemail, we'd love to hear from you.
I've never sent a voice note.
I have a couple times because I felt like someone had sent me a voice note and then I was
like, I got a, you know, but I've like, I'm terrible.
It's really the most boomer in me.
I don't know how to do it.
I send it to the wrong person.
It's just I sure you it's not the most boomer thing about you.
Anyhow, if you want to talk at us and have us respond to you, you can call us once again.
That number is three two three four eight eight three two four one.
We will send a reminder about that later this week too.
We got to get into our show now before we do that.
Some movie news and then we'll chat.
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Not a ton of movie news out there.
Take a look at the box office.
You were galvancing over the weekends.
Traveling the world.
I did where I was traveling the state of California.
I had a lovely time.
Thank you to the people at Berkeley.
So did you go to the movies several times this weekend as well?
No.
Okay.
You didn't see what was happening.
I did go on Thursday afternoon to a solo screening of you, me and Tuscany.
It was the only person there.
I was supposed to see it this weekend.
Yeah.
Couldn't go.
We're not discussing the film today.
We will discuss it in a future episode.
I was also quite busy this weekend.
Super Mario Galaxy still on top, unsurprising.
I just wanted to talk quickly about Project Hill Mary and the drama.
The holds were very strong for these movies.
And Project Hill Mary is heading towards like 600, 700 million dollar zone and the drama
is heading towards like 100, maybe 150 million dollar zone.
I know we've talked about a three weeks in a row.
This is just awesome.
Great.
This is good news.
It's kind of interesting to be heading into.
To Cinemacon, we're both headed there later tonight, which is the annual trade federation
meeting of various movie theater owners in the movie studios who present their wares
to those groups.
And I think that it's going to be like a positive vibe for a change in those rooms.
I think what do you think?
I hope so.
And I think that there is enough this summer as we'll discuss to look forward to that
the indications are good.
There's some other sky falling in news.
That's never far away from us.
Well, there's a giant merger that seems to threaten the entire totality of the business.
I wonder how that will be addressed this week.
I will say at this time last year, we were getting ready to go to the Warner Brothers
presentation.
And Mike and Pam were in the balance.
Under fire.
And I remember we were sitting through that presentation being like, well, this is
pretty awkward.
And then Warner Brothers ran the table.
So you know, maybe, maybe it'll be good news.
Maybe what we learn can be positive.
I think last year, Cinemacon was it a week before centers was released?
I think so.
And then they went on that incredible run throughout the rest of the year.
I don't know if any studio will have that kind of 2026.
But anyway, just interesting that a couple of grown up movies with real movie stars and
real ideas are thriving in this environment right now.
I find it very promising.
And so we're going to do the summer movie preview game, the boomer boss game, which we did
last year, which I thought was a fun experiment, but I kind of fucked up the rules a little
bit, I think, or maybe more specifically the scoring.
That was the thing that seemed confusing and obtuse to both you and I think many of the
people at home.
So I've refined it.
Do you remember what we did last year?
Have you looked at what we're doing this year?
I did look at what we're doing this year.
Doesn't make more sense to you.
I know it's still just like I feel trapped in the confines of your mind.
And as I was preparing for this diligently last night before I went to bed, I once again
got angry at the experience of spending too long in that particular prison.
It's full of wonderful couches.
The number of times that I almost texted you just like, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Like why?
Like why?
You know, and I'm guessing the metacritic numbers because this is how we do the game,
right?
We are going to project both the box office, domestic, and the metacritic score.
For these movies.
Correct.
And what we learned last year when doing our exercise, at least with respect to the metacritic,
is that it's actually a pretty narrow window and it is sort of just like throwing numbers
that you know, throwing guards at the door.
I thought we did fairly well on the metacritic scores last year.
Well, that's true because it's not that wide a range.
It's not.
It's not which indicates something to me interesting about the middleness of film criticism because
I don't, I didn't want to use the rotten tomato score because I find that it's very inflated
and it's very inaccurate.
And there are a lot of people that participate in that score.
Metacritic is much more stringent about what the sources are and how they identify the
score.
But very rarely these days, do you see a film get zero stars, a zero out of 100?
You know, also on metacritic, you very rarely see, I shouldn't say rarely, but you don't
often see 100 out of 100.
No.
So everything tends to sit between like 48 and 84.
Yes.
But so I've changed the scoring a little bit to reflect that likewise with the box office.
So shall I describe?
Go ahead.
But I've done to, okay, just like, just work with me here.
Just be my partner.
Okay.
I did this.
I, I prepared.
Okay.
I'm here.
I'm ready.
I've got thoughts.
At some point, it did just become me like thinking of numbers that sounded nice in my
head.
I need to.
But you do any research into previous scores and franchises?
I, not really so much metacritic scores.
I want to metacritic, I was just all vibes.
And then box office, I did research.
I mean, the reason we're doing this is so that we can talk about all the movies that are
coming out for the next three months.
That's the idea of the game.
It's not really to be right about it because I don't know how you can be right about this.
I never would have guessed that the drama was heading towards $138 million worldwide.
That's wonderful.
It's nice to be surprised.
Here's the scoring.
The margin of difference between your guesses and the final data points determines your
score for the film, the highest total score wins.
So you get one point if your guess falls between within five points of the metacritic
prediction in any direction.
So if you guess 68 and a film comes in at 63, you get a point.
Got it?
Yeah.
Five points if you get your guess exactly right.
I don't remember how many we got exactly right last time.
It might have been zero.
This is a little bit difficult, hence the number of points you get.
You get one point if you are within $50 million of the box office prediction.
So you're going to get a lot of points here because a lot of these films are very small.
So we're going to get within.
This is just to kind of boost the point total.
However, you will get five points if you are within $10 million.
You will get 10 points if you are within $5 million.
Do you think there should be a bonus if you hit it exactly?
Sure.
What would that bonus be?
20 points.
20 points for an exact right guess.
I like it.
You guys listening in the booth there?
Absolutely.
You'll be telling all these total.
100%.
Yeah.
Is the booth ready because this is your math project?
Well, the good thing for me here is that I don't really need to lock into this until like
two months from now.
That's right.
So right now I'm just kind of enjoying the vibe.
We do a check-in.
I believe in July last year just to see how things were going.
Yeah, but that's just going to be like a really shitty Sunday night at 10 30.
You know what?
100%
100%
Did they even teach you a long division in your school?
Come on.
I don't know.
Really?
Do you guys know cursive?
Yes.
Okay.
Long division.
Why would they not learn that?
Because computers can do it all.
He's 25.
Do you think of 12?
I don't know.
Listen, there were way too many AI signs in the Bay Area.
That's all I have to say.
That's my feedback.
That's unsurprising.
So anyway, whoever gets the highest point total is the winner of the game.
The winner, what does the winner get?
A lovely steak dinner.
But the twist is.
Do you know how many either reorganizations of your closet, your DVD closet and or blue
right fine, whatever?
I like to call it DVDs to annoy you.
And or like fancy dinners.
Do you have promised me and I've gotten none of them?
Haven't been a don't you?
One of them.
We haven't been to.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I haven't been to nuns more.
I haven't rearranged the closets.
Well, look, the closet thing, the closet thing, that's on you.
Okay.
So I've got some time on my schedule.
I'm available.
I haven't left my home.
No, you are not.
And that is the scheduling with you when I don't have to.
I'm very professional purposes.
I know.
I know.
I know.
I don't want to ever do it about you think.
What?
Schedule.
I'm just doing a lot of stuff.
I'm a busy person.
And you're also such a great communicator, you know?
So it really makes the planning so much easier.
When you not describe this as the great communication of our times.
This is the portal through which it's right now is when I'm remembering that some
event just like disappeared off our calendar with like no explanation.
And you're not, you just canceled it.
And I'm like, what happened?
We can talk about that later, but this is how I'm.
Oh, yeah.
I forgot to tell you.
Yes, there we go.
No, I did send a note.
You sent a note that it was happening, but not that it was not happening.
That's not correct.
No.
Check your email.
No, I didn't get it.
Okay.
This is a great podcast.
Anyway, so we're going to have a very important meeting together.
Okay.
Yes.
And now that meeting has been rescheduled.
Okay.
Not on the podcast.
All right.
One other thing about this game before we start playing it, streaming movies are not
eligible.
Here's my note to the studios at home.
Put your movies in movie theaters.
If you do, you'll be a part of this game.
If you don't, you're not.
So movies like here's a handful of bigger streaming movies that we know are coming.
So Netflix has swapped and remarkably bright creatures.
Amazon has Jack Ryan Ghost War.
Sure.
The dink is on Apple.
That's a comedy.
We won't be discussing those films.
They will have metacritic scores.
They will not have box office totals.
Anything you want to say, you think this is going to be a good summer.
You indicated that you think it's going to be a healthy summer at the box office.
Quality wise.
I'm open.
I've got a couple of high metacritic scores.
And I think that without spoiling any of my predictions, I think the overlap between
box office and quality or I guess that like the meeting, the center of the Venn diagram,
is going to be a little closer this year than it has a couple years prior, which feels
nice, right?
Wouldn't it?
If it happens, I mean, obviously the Odyssey kind of stands alone in terms of it.
And that is definitively what you're describing, I think.
How many more we have beyond that I'm quite curious to see.
How many good movies will make more than $100 million in good, obviously, being subjective?
From our point of view.
I guess not that many when I look at it, but that's okay.
I'm hopeful.
Maybe, yeah, maybe one or two more.
Okay.
To be begin.
Let's, we have a lot of films.
You didn't skimp.
Anything that I think is either going to be in wide release with a strong release from
a boutique studio or is an awards player.
I put into the mix here.
So, you know, every studio movie is here.
Most of the indies are here that I expect to get wide release.
We're going to start with the big one.
We're going to start with the real summer kickoff.
The summer kickoff used to be Memorial Day.
Now it's usually last week of April, first week of May.
That film, of course, is the Devil Wears product too.
I ask you, what is your box office prediction?
Remember domestic.
Yes.
And what is your metacritic score?
Guess.
Just to start things with a bank in this exercise.
And also to be positive.
And to put my hopes and my beliefs and my projections on one page together, I'm going big.
Okay.
So, the Devil Wears product too is apparently tracking at 66 million for the first week
again.
So, that's good.
That's very good.
So, I'm going to go with 210 domestic.
Interesting.
Now, that's a good guess.
Yeah.
It's a big guess.
As I said, I'm going big.
I'm taking the over as it were.
I am, I guess a little bit in a cheerleader aspect of this, even though I have not seen
the movie.
And if it's not good, I will be the most hurt of anyone of anyone more than Merrill Street
or David Frankl.
Or, and Hathaway or Emily Blunt or Stanley Tucci.
No, I think they'll all be fine.
Maybe a Leon Brochemakana, who's the writer of the previous, will also be a little disappointed.
Everybody else is just, you know, on their global press tour.
Okay.
So, just for context, the previous film made $124 million in 2006.
Correct.
Inflation has been skyrocketing since then.
Also, this movie, as you pointed out, as Bill Simmons has pointed out, has become a big
deal in that 20 years.
It has become a proper franchise.
Off to rewatched.
I went a little bit below you in that, but before I share mine, what is your metacritic
guess?
68.
68.
Now, that to me is high.
You think so?
Yes.
The previous film got a 62.
Well.
And there is, there is a potential for a downgrading quality here.
I think the, I think the critics are suspicious of this one.
I don't know how much I trust a metacritic aggregation score of like pre 2010 movies, just
because the, not that anyone was doing anything wrong, but it's just because like movie review
and culture was so different in 2006 that what even counts and the type of criticism
and everything.
Yeah.
I don't know if I think it's like a one-to-one.
I think, I think there's something to that for sure.
I think there was also something with this film where it was perceived as like 13 dresses.
You know, there was kind of flimsy year.
27 dresses.
Or 13 going on 27 dresses.
Yes.
Nailed it.
As you can see, I love those films.
Sure.
I think it was discounted in a way.
And so that might have spoken to the first wave of criticism.
Right.
That being said, are the discounting, this counters in the room with us right now, Sean?
I didn't, was not reviewing films at that time.
So I can't really say.
I'm going into this film with an open mind.
I have to revisit the original.
Yeah.
Because I have only seen it a couple of times.
I guess 184 million domestic.
Do I think that's good?
The two triangulation points I used for this, which are in no way exact, were Thunderbolts,
which was the same weekend in May.
Sure.
And like...
And both films are about trauma.
And lower grade franchises, you know?
So sorry to Thunderbolts, Astrox, whatever's going on there.
What's the call now?
No Avengers.
Sure.
Yeah.
Congratulations to all of you.
And that was around 180 domestic, I believe.
Okay.
And I looked at Twisters, which is a legacy that is like different and obviously like an
action movie, but also bringing in a similar generation of movie viewers.
And that was much higher.
I think that's like high 200s to 7280.
So I went in the middle.
I mean, you just described two movies that are high action spectacle.
And now I think for a lot of female audiences, this is high.
Yeah.
And I do think it's a different type of high action.
But, you know, even the Anne Hathaway and Marl Street, like, you know, global press experience,
like all of the tie-ins, they are...
It is a different type of movie and it's a different audience, which I think could actually
be a positive.
But it's big.
This is...
What even is a comp?
Like a female lead.
I mean, I guess anyone but you and the housemaid are probably the two closest in terms
of like what audience they're shooting for?
I guess so.
I mean, I think they're shooting for the Barbie audience.
But they...
Obviously not that big.
And like, let's not be crazy.
But even the rollout and the way that they have been, you know, doing the, like, the fashion
and the costumes and the...
Do you think the devil was brought to appeals to like 11-year-old girls?
No.
So that's why...
That's why this is, you know, 200 million.
Why I'm going big with 200 million instead of 600 million, you know?
Right.
I knew it's a much smaller audience, but that phenomenon and that audience of it, that
concoction of like a female audience that doesn't normally go to the movies for an event
in this way.
My medicartic guess is 57.
Okay.
Just because sequels tend to come in behind originals.
Yeah.
And I looked at the original.
I didn't do that for every single film that was in a franchise, but in this case, I don't
know.
I think there's a little bit of skepticism based on some of the glossiness of the trailers.
Sure.
Which I don't think are bad, per se.
But, you know...
I just stopped watching them.
I would just like to see the film.
Okay.
Understood.
So that's our first film.
We only have 78 more to go.
We probably won't spend that much time on all the other movies that we talk about here.
The next film on our list is called Hokem.
It is a new horror movie directed by Damien McCarthy.
Neon is releasing it.
It stars Adam Scott.
It's about a man I think who gets trapped in a scary Irish hotel.
Okay.
Which is kind of what it was like for you preparing for this episode.
Yes.
You go first.
My box office guess was 18 million.
My Metacritic guess is 78.
Wow.
Now, Damien McCarthy has released two films that are available on shutter that are very
acclaimed.
However, since I wrote down 78, I saw a couple of letter rocks reviews that were not very
kind of this movie.
Okay.
I haven't seen it yet.
A bunch of these movies we'll talk about I have seen.
This is one I just haven't gotten out to a screening yet.
I was just banking on my previous experience with the Damien McCarthy uvra to determine
this number.
So what do you got?
I bounced around on this box office, which is just anywhere from I think they ate to
14 million dollar range and I landed a 10.
Okay.
Seems reasonable.
So 10 million and I have a Metacritic of 62.
Okay.
There's a thing with the horror movies this summer where every two weeks, one of the
studios is putting out a horror movie.
So they've kind of like caught on to the wave that has been going on in the last eight
to 12 years.
So we've got Lee Cronin's The Mummy coming out this Friday.
We just had faces of death last weekend.
On May 1st, we've got Hokem.
On May 15th, we've got Obsession, which we will get to.
On May 29th, we've got Backrooms.
And most of these movies are coming from relatively new filmmakers and they're trying to, you
know, who's the next Philip O'Brothers, who's the next Sack Kregger, who's the next Jordan
Peale.
There's this attempt to filter these people up.
I don't know if Damien McCarthy is going to get there, but I'm looking forward to the
film.
Okay.
The next film on our list is called The Sheep Detectives, which is a new film from Amazon
MGM about some detectives who are sheep.
That's right.
That is quite literally what the film is.
Yes.
It also stars Hugh Jackman and my beloved Emma Thompson.
Yes.
And a myriad of young stars.
So this is, it's a, it's a cozy mystery.
Mm-hmm.
And an adaptation of a cozy mystery book.
The comms for this have all been direct to streaming.
So like literally every single one of them.
So there's no real number.
And that also did it.
Inflact my guess, which is an 8 million box office.
Total.
Total.
No one who's going to go see this respectfully.
I think this is going to do okay.
You do?
Yeah.
I think because I think old people are going to be into this.
You know, but even if you look at like all of the recent old people movies, they're not,
what's your guess?
$51 million.
That's absolutely insane.
I don't know.
It's like.
Song song blew.
It's talking animals and the mystery.
Only did 39 million songs.
No, I know.
Song song blew is a hard to watch melodrama.
But that is sold as Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson singing Neil Damans songs to you.
And in this, I know.
It's a talking animal movie.
I would guess that we probably, probably land somewhere between us.
I would guess we, given this conversation, maybe we land at 27 million.
Maybe.
I mean, look at all the people in this movie.
Hugh Jackman.
I know.
Nicholas Kelsen, Emma Thompson, Molly Gordon, Brian Cranston, Nicholas Braun, Brett Goldstein,
Regina Hall, Hong Chow, like those old voice performances.
I'm a fan of all of those people.
Okay.
But I am also familiar with the cozy mystery genre.
I mean, like, I just need, why is this not being released on Amazon?
Well, because they're making a push towards the actual.
And they're trying to make fun of me.
I understand that Project Hill Mary worked.
And I don't know if this one is going to sheep you like them.
In different.
Okay.
A metacritic score.
What did you guess?
63.
I also guessed 63.
There we go.
A wonderful.
Okay.
The next film, I have no idea what to do with this movie.
It is Billy Ilish, Colin, hit me hard and soft, dash, the tour live, not the tour comma
live, the tour live.
Is the name of it the tour live?
Have some questions about the grammatical choices in this film's title.
Yeah.
We need a copy corner with Craig Gaines.
This film is directed by Billy Ilish and James Cameron.
Yeah.
James Cameron, who's never made a film that is made less than $50 million.
I think.
Right.
I think.
I mean, I...
I mean, I...
I was going to say, I don't know what was going on.
I was going on there with the 80s and 90s, really, really says, okay.
I...
It's your turn.
I guessed 42 million.
Oh, I went really big.
You did.
I went 160 million.
You could be right.
I'm fucking no.
You could be right.
I'm fucking no.
I mean, I went Eras Tourin then revised down.
But like, people, the children, they love Billy Ilish.
Do they know this is happening, though?
I have seen a lot of trailers for this on YouTube while getting my nails done.
I guess the movie is 3D, right?
Yeah.
It doesn't have iMac screens, does it?
Because it's coming out the same day as Mortal Kombat 2, which we got to...
I don't know.
What do you think Big Jim's up to in terms of...
160 million.
Well, the Eras Tour made 180 million.
People really...
What Billy Ilish is no Taylor Swift when it comes to...
But still, she has...
Okay.
As more Oscars, you know...
Wow.
You believe in Big Jim.
You really do.
I believe if I have learned one thing, it is do not underestimate Big Jim.
And if I have learned another thing, it is that Jack and Lucas's generation will give
Billy Ilish her flowers at the expense of Dua Lipa whenever they need to.
Two people I know who love Billy Ilish are...
My wife, who is not in Jack or Lucas's generation, and my daughter, who is not in Jack and Lucas's
generation.
See?
There you go.
You're surrounded.
There's no chance that Eileen brings Alice to see this movie.
No chance.
You don't know.
Well, you mean...
She doesn't know what exists.
Not yet.
Oh, okay.
I was going to say there's going to be time to fill.
Maybe I'll take him.
There you go.
And I'll contribute to that 160.
Okay.
I don't see that happening.
But you know what?
We're doing this because maybe it lands somewhere in the middle.
Maybe it exceeds 160.
That seems very hard for me to believe because of the number of films that are coming out
in this month.
But we'll see.
My Metacritic guess is 71.
Minus 65.
Okay.
You know, James Cameron.
A lot of the reviews of this will be...
Well, I...
Yeah.
It will be a little bit more fandom oriented, like the critics who raised their hand to take
this one on are probably not doing it because they hate Billy Ilessh.
Yeah.
So we'll see what happens there.
Okay.
Mortal Kombat 2.
Did you see the first Mortal Kombat?
No, I didn't.
I think you were on leave for that film.
No, it's 2021, right?
Yes.
So I know.
You just skipped it.
I just skipped it.
It was pandemic.
I was pregnant for a lot of 2021.
Okay.
And also...
I was also pregnant.
Respectfully.
Yeah, respectfully.
This is not...
I did occasionally play a Mortal Kombat, like arcade game at the beach where we went
to the snack bar.
How do you carry your choice?
I don't.
I didn't know that.
You have scorpion energy.
Okay.
Do you know about scorpion?
No.
He has the yellow fighting costume.
He wears a mask.
He throws like some sort of demonic hook tail at people.
Okay.
Like a scorpion's tail?
Like a scorpion's tail.
And he says, get over here.
And he pulls you towards them and then he does something very violent.
You know about how you conclude a battle in Mortal Kombat with a fatality.
Yes.
You can kill them.
Yes.
Slice off their head, explode them.
Any number of brutal mutilations.
Who are you in Mortal Kombat?
Good question.
Did you ever dress up as a Mortal Kombat character for...
Reader?
Perhaps.
And the mysterious figure who is able to channel the power of lightning?
Okay.
I think I'm getting that right.
Is that accurate?
Thank you.
Yeah.
Lucas gave me a huge thumbs up there.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
The movie, this Mortal Kombat 2 movie, which was supposed to come out last year and
is now coming out in a May window, is projected to make a lot of money.
Carl Urban.
Is the star he plays the Johnny Cage character?
Okay.
What's your guess?
I just wrote down a number, 60 million.
I don't know.
Okay.
I wrote down 137 million.
Okay.
So you think that Billy Eilish is going to dominate Mortal Kombat 2?
Yes.
I do.
Okay.
I don't think that's the case, but I could be wrong.
What's your meta-credit guess?
46.
44, I guess.
Okay.
I don't think this is going to be a critical darling.
I do think it might gratify the people who are disappointed by the first
Mortal Kombat movie, which was like the origin story of the Mortal Kombat tournament.
Okay.
Instead of being just a series of guys saying, get over here.
Yeah.
Which I enjoyed.
Yes.
Thank you, Jack.
Okay.
May 15th.
Yeah.
We have a handful of movies.
The first one is, is God is.
Now this is also a new film from Amazon MGM, directed by Alicia Harris.
It stars Vivica Fox, Janelle Monet, Eric Alexander, Sterling Cape Brown.
It's about two sisters who go on a quest for revenge against their father.
Which guess?
I think it's your turn.
It's my turn.
I guess 12 million box office, 74 million meta-credit.
Oh.
74, not a million.
74 million positive reviews.
I guess 11 million box office.
Okay.
And then 57 bucks, a meta-credit.
They showed us a teaser of this last year, do you remember?
Yeah, I do.
It seemed like a very kind of like outsized exploitationy, like kill-bill style movie about
two sisters who will stop at nothing to destroy their enemy.
It's definitely my flavor of movie.
Haven't seen the movie yet, so it's a little hard to say.
But does seem like a challenging movie to drop right in the middle of May.
Yes.
Obsession.
May 15th.
I've just seen this movie.
Right.
I really enjoyed it.
It's your turn, I guess.
I wrote down 15 million.
I wrote down 42.
Okay.
I think this is the one that's going to happen.
It has a chance to break out.
Okay.
It's directed by a guy named Curry Barker.
It played at TIFF last year.
It's about a young man, I don't know what H.E. is, somewhere between 18 and 24, who is in
love infatuated with a close friend of his.
And he wishes upon a special item for her to be obsessed with him.
And his wish comes true.
And that wish has tremendous consequences.
Real classic monkey paw kind of a movie.
Yeah.
Thought it was very effective.
Metacritic score 69.
66 is what I have.
Pretty cool.
Yeah.
Kind of curious what you think about this movie.
I think you might find it a little bit frustrating.
Yeah.
I had a grand old time with that.
That's great.
I know that there is going to be one or movie that is your long legs or your weapons.
And I was like trying to, but I don't know if I picked which of them will be.
It does really feel like everyone's throwing spaghetti at the wall.
And one of them will be the breakout.
Yes.
There's a lot on this here.
I couldn't.
I couldn't.
I was just out in the gray.
This is the new, this is the 387th film from Guy Richie.
Sure.
All made in the last two years.
Stacked cast Henry Cavill.
I use a Gonzalez Jake Jell-in-Hall Rossmann pike.
It's about a covert team of elite operatives getting up to some stuff.
Yeah.
Like the other 12 movies.
Yes.
Something he's interested in.
Simantically.
Sort of like Scorsese with gangsters or Celine Siamma with the female identity in the
modern times, but just for operatives hanging out doing stuff.
That's what Guy Richie does.
I am also interested in that premise.
It is the execution that sometimes comes short.
This movie doesn't feel real to me.
No.
What did you write down for box office?
37 million.
I wrote down 18.
It's possible.
But I think it's because I looked at the last three to four Guy Richies.
And one of them did break 30.
And the rest were between 15 and 20.
Okay.
It was like the League of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
Yes.
I fell asleep during that.
That was one.
I was thinking that I'd be coming down.
There was before they redid the regal cinema closest to us.
And I just was on several seats.
That's very rude to Guy Richie.
Well, the movie was rude to me.
Okay.
Fair enough.
Amanda, I'm very curious because last year we're kind of having the inverse of last year.
We're last year you were consistently saying bigger box office numbers than Sean.
And this year it seems the exact opposite.
I'm curious if there's anything.
Except in the case of Billy Eilish.
That is true.
I was just curious if there's anything that informed that thinking if you were looking
back at last year's doc, if there's something you think that's different about this
year's sleep.
No, I was looking back at last year's box office.
And I mean, I end 2024.
And I pretty much went by distributor and then type of movie and looked at all the comps
and went in there.
And often with the smaller movies was a bit generous.
So I, you know, like for every, it's the way the box office is now, right?
Like for every $500 million.
So I don't even think we got a $500 million last year.
Maybe one in the summer.
There are a lot of movies that, I mean, Eddington made $10 million last year, you know?
Yes.
And yet it grows every day.
I mentioned and a lot of the movies that we loved are under 15.
Yeah.
We did not get a $500 million movie.
Lilo and Stitch made $423 million.
So I think especially with all of the small movies where like the non-event, I was sort
of unimaginative.
I really am in the 15 to 20 million range for a lot of them.
I think that's wise.
I probably went a little bit over on too many things, including this one.
I went 37.
Okay.
Just because it's like Jake Joan Holland Henry Cavill blowing stuff up.
Yeah.
To me, there's like a, there's a bar there.
But I could be wrong.
One of them did, maybe the League of Gentlemen was in the 30s, but I think the covenant
was 18.
Yeah.
That was low.
See aren't I saw that together holding hands thinking about the future of our country?
I mean, I think that's beautiful.
What's your medicality guess here?
37.
I said 52.
Okay.
We'll see.
I love Booster's Boots Riley's new film.
His first feature since Sorry to Bother you, which was I think eight or nine years ago.
This one comes out May 22nd.
It stars our beloved Kiki Palmer.
I guess 18 million.
19 million.
Interesting.
I guess 81 medicardic.
Oh, good.
That's high.
It had good reviews out of South by.
I'm excited to see it.
I'm guessing 64.
Okay.
Just because it's about the fashion world sort of, right?
Uh, yes.
Sort of.
Yes.
And it seems in the same way that you think that critics are going to be resistant to
the devil wears part of two.
You know, people don't take that seriously.
It's a good point.
What was what was sorry to bother you as medicardic score?
I'll look it up right now.
Right up quickly.
I'm quite curious.
Um, all right.
The next film is a movie called Passinger, which was recently dated into this spot.
Um, Andre Orv of Rdahl, who is a Norwegian director, who's made some horror movies
in recent years, including the last voyage of the Demeter and scary stories to tell in
the dark.
Here's a premise of this new movie, which stars a bunch of people I've not heard of in
Melissa Leo.
A few weeks into their van life adventure, a young couple witnesses a horrific accident
that leaves the driver dead soon.
They're being pursued by a demonic stalker who's impossible to outrun and follows them
wherever they go.
Um, this movie kind of popped up out of nowhere.
Mm-hmm.
I haven't seen a trailer.
It's coming out in a month.
Yeah.
What's your guess?
Nine million?
I was said 12.
Okay.
Metacritic?
52.
34.
Okay.
Now, I've heard all got really good reviews for scary stories to tell in the dark or pretty
good reviews, I should say.
Mm, much less so for voyage of the Demeter, do you remember what that was?
No, but I read about it last night, and it has since forgotten.
It was the first chapter of the, uh, of Brand Stoker's Dracula.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Anyway.
The next film is a big one.
Yeah.
It's Star Wars, Colin, the Mandalorian, and Grogo.
Yeah.
It comes out on May 22nd, Memorial Day weekend.
Mm-hmm.
And I mean, the streets are in tears.
I can't believe this is happening.
I can't believe this film is coming to us.
I've been waiting seven long years for a new Star Wars film.
They're saying.
Right.
And through those tears, they're feeling redeemed.
They're feeling seen.
They're feeling understood.
Mm-hmm.
They're feeling a sense of deliverance, because they love Star Wars.
And they love Star Wars in the cinema.
Yeah.
And I predict $275 million for this movie domestically.
Wow.
That's so low.
Yes.
Because you think that all of your, your cohort will be mad.
And I don't think they'll be mad.
They'll be all the Chris Ryan's of the world.
I think the most.
Here's the thing.
Everyone's like, oh, Chris Ryan's not going to see Mandalorian Grogo.
Yes, he is with my child.
So there are a lot of people who are going to try to...
We're going to have some like a threat.
Well, you know, I haven't bought the tickets yet,
but I probably need to lock those down.
I know that there's resistance.
I know that among the community...
What community?
Of people who are older than five,
who are really, really into Star Wars.
Have you ever wished anyone may the fourth be with you?
No.
I have not.
And in this...
One of you were saying that I was like, is today May 4th?
No.
I'm making some plans for the week of May 4th with my family.
That's nice.
That's beautiful.
I...
Listen, Star Wars is big in our house.
Both children can now say Grogo or Grogo.
Sweet.
So I just went with Lilo and Stitch numbers.
So I'm going 420.
421 is actually what I wrote down because I found myself not wanting any more round
numbers.
My only concern here...
My primary concern here is that this is committing a sin that Marvel has struggled with,
which is that they have made something that is connected to a TV show.
And that not everybody is up on the TV show.
And that that sometimes limits the audience for who decides to go out to see a movie like
this.
Now, it is the first Star Wars movie in forever.
I may be making a huge mistake and it may be a $700 million movie domestically, but
I'm not so sure.
I have my doubts.
What's your Metacritic score for this movie?
48.
I have 52.
Okay.
John Favreau directed this.
I...
You know.
He's directed many movies, people like...
People like Sigourney Weaver.
They like Grogo.
I don't think Sigourney Weaver is going to be like in a lot of them, but...
Oh, okay.
You know, don't cheat.
How am I supposed to play her Navi character?
Curie?
Is that her name?
In this film.
That would be interesting.
Could we cross over?
Like, does...
Griffin and David explaining Sigourney Weaver's character journey in the Avatar films on
Blankcheck was very special to me.
Yeah.
What's like the ninth time they've done it, though?
So it's not as though it was novel.
Okay.
What...
Your Metacritic score was 48?
Yeah.
So you think this is going to work?
I think box office wise financially.
Yes.
I mean, I...
I...
I...
I...
Listen, I have a skewed perspective, which is like two tiny men in my house yelling, Grogo, Grogo, Grogo, Grogo.
Right.
But I'm not...
You know.
I...
It's Star Wars.
What is that?
It's really powerful.
I...
We haven't talked about it.
Really?
Yeah, but I wouldn't say that we talk a lot about Star Wars in our adult life.
Oh, that's something that my relationship has that you're doesn't.
Okay.
May 29th Pressure.
This is the new World War II film.
Yeah.
This is about the meteorologist who determined the correct day to launch D-Day.
Yeah.
That's the premise.
Are they releasing it on D-Day?
Uh...
We're like a week before.
Around that time.
Yeah.
And they're, you know, doing us the soft release.
Yeah.
And then...
When doing it.
Maybe early access, screening for influencers.
Yeah.
How many World War II influencers do you think there are?
That's kind of a lane for me.
I could lean into in the second half of my life.
Just a guy who knows a lot about that stuff.
Yeah.
But maybe like only in a very narrow way.
Like I only know about how Belgium worked during World War II.
Do you know a lot about Belgium?
I don't.
Generally.
Do you speak Flemish?
I don't.
No.
No.
I just lost it out.
If you knew all like Lenin's full Russian name and spoke Flemish, you know?
Nope.
I don't know any Flemish unfortunately.
Uh, what's your prediction on pressure?
I looked up the box office for Nuremberg, which was $14 million.
So that is what I'm predicting.
I'm roll 27 million just because it's a summer release.
Okay.
And you think all the old people are just like, well, it stays light later so I can drive to the theater.
Honestly, yes.
Um, is is Brendan Fraser a bigger draw than Russell Crowe right now?
Probably not.
But maybe also what's more appealing, D day or the Nuremberg trials as an idea.
I mean, I'm saying the great attack more so than the aftermath.
Sure.
But meteorology movie or courtroom drama.
Let's see.
That's 1989 talking.
Okay.
I'm talking about meteorology is big now.
Yeah.
You've been to weather.com.
You looked at those apps.
No, I've, I've moved on to a weather underground because it had AI hasn't ruined it because
it uses your local weather station as a part of the revolutionary force that is looking to
up end American power.
Well, I think no, I wish.
Um, what is weather underground?
It's, it's an app.
Am I saying they need an app after the weather underground that can't be right.
Well, I guess it's wonder ground, which I couldn't really say outside.
So I was, you know, ascribing to, I can't say it loud.
So I was ascribing to them politics or leadership that perhaps they don't have.
Yeah.
Wunderground.
Wunderground.
Yes.
Not underground.
Wonder.
Did you say wonder ground?
No, I said weather underground because saying wonder ground out loud is really stupid.
What is happening?
Because weather underground, you know, has has my respect.
Yeah.
It's like, have you seen my new social media app, military home.
Okay.
Anyway, wonder ground uses local stations.
Okay.
So because AI has ruined the traditional weather apps, as you know.
Metacritic score for pressure.
Um, 61.
It's exactly what I guessed.
There we go.
It's very funny.
The breadwinner.
Yeah.
This is the, the, uh, debut lead feature film from the highly successful comedian Nate
Bargazzi.
Yeah.
A comedian whose work I've enjoyed over the years.
The movie comes out May 29th.
What's your box office prediction?
35 million.
I wrote down 52, which feels like a reach.
Yeah.
Because the film to me does not look good.
However, Nate Bargazzi straight up selling out stadiums.
Exactly.
And he is huge.
But there is not, I even looked for recent comps of comedians making that which has not
happened in the last few years.
It does not happen.
It needs to be one of them sure fire things we can expect the movies.
You know, and I was like, I looked up the last movie that John Malaney was in was like
the ship and Dale movie.
Rescue.
Rescue rangers, but he voiced, which did not make 35 million.
So I just, I just wrote a number down.
I feel like he's making a bid for like the Kevin James corner.
Yeah.
And Kevin James was in an angel studios movie this year, I think called Solomio, which I think
made like $27 million.
It did pretty good business.
So like there is definitely an audience for this kind of thing.
This is a family comedy about a man whose wife, I think wins something on Shark Tank.
And so she has to leave for like a month.
Yeah.
And he has to take care of I think three daughters and their home while their home is under construction.
Things go terribly right.
Yeah.
My Metacritic score is 27.
Wow.
Mine is, well, this seems too high now.
48 is what I say.
May 29th, tuner.
Yeah.
New thriller from Daniel Roer, the film stars Leo Woodall and Dustin Hoffman.
It's a movie about a piano tuner who becomes entrenched in a world of crime box office.
I'm going nine million.
Oh, I went bigger on this one.
Okay.
I don't, I guess the Leo Woodall of it all.
And there's some other people.
I feel like I've been hearing about this.
I have a rose Lewis in it.
Yeah.
I went 28 million.
I hope that happens having seen the movie.
I think it's hard.
It's an indie studio.
It's black bear is putting it out.
Yeah.
No, I know.
It's going to be a little more challenging to get in front of people.
I've had some troubles.
Yes.
But it's a really good movie.
So I hope people check it out.
I picked this as the one that would go relatively viral as far as these movies.
I hope so.
Metacritic score, I guess 74.
That's exactly what I have.
Wow.
We've matched on a lot.
I think three metacritic scores so far.
Okay.
May 29th back room.
Yeah.
I did finally see this trailer.
What do you think about it?
Well, again, it's one that I saw as a YouTube ad at the nail salon.
And it on YouTube with those specs really just looked like a YouTube movie.
Okay.
So I have not watched the YouTube video that this is based on the cane parts since made
when he was a teenager.
I think I'm going to watch it beforehand.
It's very popular on the one viral.
And it does look similar to the way that the film looks, but the film is obviously shot with different
cameras and it has movie stars in it like Renata Rhyne's and Chooie's all as you are.
So I'm really looking forward to this.
There's just something in my gut that tells me that this is the one in terms of the horror movie.
Okay.
Yeah, because I think that there's a very young audience that is very tapped into this.
It's also an A24 film.
I think it's been marketed very well thus far.
What's your guess on the box office for this?
So I did 16 million.
Okay.
That would be a 24's what third biggest movie ever?
Probably fourth or fifth.
Okay.
I mean, if you think that's where it's going to go.
I got a feeling.
Okay.
I just got a gut feeling about it.
I could be wrong.
I think it's kind of a weird time too because how is that audience being served?
You know, you've got the Star Wars movie, which is kind of playing a little younger.
And so you've got this two week, three week period after Mortal Kombat 2,
where that just seems like a big fit for them.
And then after that, we'll get right into what are going to be the June 5th movies.
And I think they're all a little soft.
So.
I do too.
67 million domestic would be a 24's fourth biggest film,
behind Civil War at 68 and right above Uncut Gems at 50.
Wow.
All right.
Just to just to guess, my medicated guess is 82.
Mine is 61.
So you're not a believer in this movie.
Good to know.
I mean, I, what is interesting about is that I only saw it like in its natural habitat,
which is a YouTube ad.
And I was like, oh, I don't know.
But maybe it'll be great on film.
I got to see the game.
Haven't seen it.
Okay.
Just want something to be like this to be good.
June 5th, Masters of the Universe.
Yeah.
How you doing?
How you feeling?
I've got some concerns.
Yeah.
I'm real concerns.
You know, I Travis Knights made a lot of good movies.
He made the Bumblebee film you recently referenced.
Right.
He made many stop motion animation films for his studio, like a, I think he's super talented.
The son of film night, the Nike founder.
Yes.
I guessed 88 million dollars for the last couple of years.
I guess 90 million.
We're very close now.
This I think would be considered a disappointment.
I based on what I know about the budget and your reactions in the room at last year's
cinema con.
Yeah.
Yes.
I have been told that the trailer is not properly communicating the tone of the film, which
is a little bit more of a comedy.
Okay.
And that they're given real like this man must pick up this sword to rule the land, which
is of course in the text of he man.
But even the he man cartoon, which I adored as a five year old, had a real camp quality
to it.
And if they don't hit the camp on this, I'm going to be worried.
Also Jared Leto, not doing the Skeletor voice.
I don't know if you're familiar with the Skeletor voice, but he plays the villain in this
movie.
There's a very specific Skeletor voice to it now.
I really couldn't if I tried.
It's in a register.
I can't reach high or low.
High.
Oh.
So it's sort of like the.
He's like a maniacal and annoying.
Just like the skin of a ring.
Like, hello.
Not not quite, but you're not that far off.
Okay.
What's your medicrytic guess on this?
My name is Grinch.
Yes.
It's 49.
I guess.
I don't even know what's that Skeletor is.
Do you haven't seen skin of a ring?
No.
Will you see masters of the universe?
If you invite me.
Okay.
We'll see about that.
But you won't because you're like, I have to have a safe space for this to talk about
my feelings about human.
That is what I said.
Do you think Knox would like it?
I do.
Okay.
You guys can go.
Okay.
Actually, that would be fun.
Unless it's terrible.
And then I access to see me sob in a theater as my childhood is destroyed.
My medicrytic guess is 55.
Okay.
Next film, June 5th, Power Ballad.
Yeah.
This movie debuted itself by Southwest.
I just saw it this weekend.
Okay.
It was okay.
I don't want to spoil my review.
Yeah.
New film from John Carney, of course, a musical.
It's got a cool premise.
Premise is there is a never quite made it singer, songwriter played by Paul Rudd, who
has moved to Ireland.
He has a family there.
He's playing an American man.
And he performs in a wedding cover band in Ireland and does weddings.
And one night, randomly a wedding, a huge pop star as a former boy band member who's played
in the film by Nick Jonas shows up to perform with the band.
They strike up a connection.
And the Paul Rudd character shares a song that he's written with the pop star.
And months go by and then all of a sudden that song that he shared with him.
Here's on the radio.
He performed by the boy band kid who's having a huge comeback with this song.
And then the film is about the guy's quest to get credit, get acknowledgement for something
that he couldn't get throughout his career as kind of a never was.
I guess 26 million for Box office.
I guess 16 million.
I think maybe you might be more right than I am.
We'll see Lionsgate film.
Metacritic I guess 71.
74.
Okay.
John Carney usually does pretty good.
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June 5th again, scary movie.
This is the either the sixth or the seventh scary movie film.
How many of them have you seen?
The first.
That's it.
So one.
Okay.
Did you enjoy it?
Yeah.
Okay.
I guess $84 million for this movie.
Okay.
Because this is a built in brand that hasn't been around in a while.
I kind of compare it to Final Destination Bloodlines with the like, oh, I forgot how
fun it is to see these movies in movie theaters.
Yeah.
I could be wrong about that.
That's smart.
I I went 52 million, which is lower but not like.
Yeah.
That's disastrous.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
That people who are excited to go see it will go see it.
One thing in this movie's favor, I think is just that like everybody came back on a
Ferris came back.
Yeah.
Regina Hall came back.
All the people who are known for these movies came back.
So we'll see.
Metacritic, I guess 52.
54.
Okay.
We're pretty close on that one.
June 12th Disclosure Day.
Yes.
Steven Spielberg's new film.
Yes.
Shrouded in secrecy.
I this is a hard one.
I I went back and forth.
Really hard one because it's an original, but it did, but it is sci-fi.
It Spielberg has been not on a huge box office streak the last 10 years, but also he's
Steven Spielberg.
Um, many movie stars, but they have to keep the reveal.
It's sort of a marketing challenge just in terms of what is in the movie and what, what
you can tell people.
So I went, I wish I could remember the, the math and the triangulation I used.
I did 165.
Ooh, that's big.
I, I, I went big.
Okay.
But because as Jack observed and kind of, you're doing the math, I like, the smaller things
are going to be small and I think the bigger things will get at least some attention.
I mean, you know, 165 is still like, I mean, I'm projecting it lower than Devil Wars
brought it to you.
Right.
No, and I think wisely.
Um, I went 121.
Okay.
The thing is, is I do think that the film can play overseas as much as here.
Um, I mean, Ready Player One only made 137 million and that was pre branded IP.
Yeah.
So I looked at that and thought about that a little bit.
But Ready Player One, even at the time, well, first of all, it doesn't have any of the,
like the movie stars.
Mm-hmm.
And it, there was, there's a difference between aliens and, and robots and whatever is going
on over there.
Mm-hmm.
And it also had a little bit of like built in backlash, I think.
It did.
So it wasn't very well reviewed.
Yeah.
Although I kind of, I, I did enjoy it at the time and I, I, I think I, I think I'm
even written about it.
Um, this is very much like a much more serious state of affairs.
And I think if the film is able to really tap into the anxiety of UAPs, um, then they'll
be able to really do some business.
But you, you're, you're a good friend, Stephen, our third chair is just out there being
like, I believe in aliens, you know, he's like, he's, he's doing it.
It was not a sell.
He's working.
I guess 74 for Metacritic.
I guess 83.
I would guess we're going to end up somewhere in the middle of that.
Okay.
These, this is a challenging genre to nail if you're not like, Dennyville Noove right
now, um, in terms of the critics.
He, that's, he has Steven Spielberg.
And the last few.
I think I'm undershooting for fear to protect myself.
I think that's fine.
Um, the last few Spielberg movies have been critically beloved.
True, especially, uh, West Side Story.
Um, at Fable Mines.
Yeah, Fable Mines did very well too.
This is, it's more of a swing in a big genre like this, but we'll say no, no, the next
film, there's only one thing that is in this movie's favor is that every clear out for
it.
There's only one other movie coming out on June 12th.
It's called Stop That Train.
Yes.
It's a comedy starring RuPaul directed by Adam Shankman.
I guess 16 million.
I guess 3 million.
Okay.
You could be right.
It's counter programming, obviously.
I didn't even watch the trailer for this yet.
Just came out last week.
Um, I got the guest of 43 for Metacritic.
I guess 47.
So there we are.
Next film is Toy Story 5.
Yeah.
The Toy Story films have been very consistent at the box office.
Did you look at the history at all?
I did.
A lot of money.
This film comes out June 19th.
I guess $401 million.
I guess $500 and $3 million.
As a Toys for Movie, Crossed 500 before domestically.
No, but Inside Out 2 was such a banger.
It was over $600 million.
And I think just the breakdown of the kids of it all and what we have seen about kids
movies with recognizable IP built in.
They're doing well.
So I kind of, I rounded up slightly from Lilo and Stitch and Minecraft and some other stuff.
You might be right.
This might be huge.
It's also just, I've had the villain really smart.
I agree.
It looks good.
My daughter's really pumped about it.
My Metacritic guess is 89.
Mine's wow.
Okay.
That's pretty much in the, in the median of the Toy Story films.
They're all kind of between 86, 84 and 92.
I remember the first Toy Story film, one of the best reviewed movies of all time.
Yeah, yeah.
And I know that Toy Story 3 is Tarantino's number one.
Yeah, I want 78, which is not bad.
Interesting.
That would be a low for the Toy Story movies.
You know.
A lot riding on that movie for the health of this summer, actually.
If it's like a $2.5 billion movie, I don't know.
Where did Inside Out 2 get to?
Did it get to $2 billion?
No, I think it was like $1.6 or something.
I'd be very curious to see how many legs the, how the legs are on that movie.
Okay.
And the next movie is The Death of Robin Hood on June 19th.
This is a revisionist portrait of the bandit, the English bandit, Robin Hood starring
Hugh Jackman and Jody Comer.
Yeah.
Also an A24 film.
I guess 26 million.
I guess 12 million.
That wouldn't be good.
No, but you know, there are the A24 experiments that work and they're the ones that do not.
I don't know.
This comes from Michael Sarnoski who directed Pig and a quiet place day one.
I like those films.
Yeah.
I guess 66, Metacritic.
64.
Okay.
Girls like Girls, which is a new coming of age, dramedy from Focus is coming out.
June 19th.
We'll see probably a little bit more about it at Cinemacon shortly.
I guess 9 million.
I guess 5 million.
Metacritics score 78.
58.
Damn.
Not feeling it.
Well, because it has girls in it.
Yeah, that's because it's only girls.
It's got you now.
It's tough.
Haley Kioko is the director of this film.
Um, alright.
Now, these are tricky.
These next two.
Yeah.
Got two movies on June 26th.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, did I forget one?
I think I forgot one.
What did you forget?
I think I forgot the invite.
Oh, you did forget the invite.
Let's add the invite as well.
Because we have three movies coming on June 26th.
Okay.
Let's just add that.
And in real time, we're going to be able to guess what we think scores in the box office.
Let's start with Super Girl while you're thinking about the invite.
Super Girl, new DCU movie.
Um, directed by Craig Gillespie starring.
Millie Alcock.
Is that her name?
Yes.
From House of the Dragon.
Yeah.
The titular girl that is super.
Uh, got some worries about this movie myself.
Yeah.
I guess 159 million.
I guess 190.
Because I think that once again, I just looked at what Thunderbolts made.
Mm-hmm.
And there was maybe another even, I can't remember my other comp.
I don't know.
It's the one word title where it is in the title something very recognizable.
Mm-hmm.
Super man, super girl.
Mm-hmm.
It's good marketing.
Uh.
Okay.
And there's a dog, people like the dog.
Got some concerns.
Mum, yeah.
Your daughter is really excited?
I'm not, this movie looks very violent.
Well, I'm not sure if I want to put her in this.
Because we've been watching the live action Spider-Man movies.
Okay.
The Tom Holland ones.
Yeah.
And they do have violence in them, but they do have a cartoon quality.
This had like a, she's shooting lasers out of her eyes at a thousand robots.
Kind of energy, though.
Like, even the Star Wars films don't really glance at.
So I'm a little worried about that.
Uh, I guess.
She knows about it.
She does.
She said, who is that?
That's my friend.
Um, Metacritic Square 50.
53.
Okay.
Jackass 5.
Yeah.
Now, the Jackass films have done very well at the box office, surprisingly well and very
sturdy.
The most recent film actually did very good business.
There's not as much pre-release hype for this movie right now.
Mm-hmm.
I'm wondering if it will be one of the centerpiece things we see from Paramount at Cinema
Con later this week.
What'd you guess?
60 million.
I guess 81 million.
Okay.
I mean, we're not that far away.
You never know.
Yeah.
Uh, Metacritic?
56, but that's their review, not mine.
Right.
I guess 64.
Greatly looking forward to this movie.
One of my favorite franchises in active movie, them.
Let's talk about the invite.
You haven't lost the trailer.
This is the forehander about two couples who come together for some sort of interesting
evening.
Right.
34 picked it up out of Sundance, Seth Rogen to live you wild Edward Norton, penalty
cruise box office.
I'll say 34.
I was going to go 44.
Okay.
34 is 36 was materialists.
Okay.
And I think it'll kind of in that zone.
Be in that zone, but I'm looking at the last years, uh, 44 to 48 range were, um, down
Navi, Paddington and Peru, Mickey 17 and regretting you.
Which I, you know, all in my own way, I had a lovely time.
Yeah.
I'm sure all of those.
And I was, but sort of the, if you're interested, you're, you know, you'll go to the movies.
So and I think people are interested in the invite.
Yeah.
I'm interested to see myself.
Metacritic, I'm guessing 79.
76.
Okay.
Minions and monsters.
You're most anticipated movie of the summer.
Right now.
Before we leave, do you think I'll get to take a picture with a minion this week?
100% do.
Will it only be one?
There are thousands of universal employees.
And which one?
Waiting to help you.
Which one?
I don't know what their names are.
The goggles, the overalls, which ones Bob?
You mean Kevin Stewart and Bob who are apparently are not even going to be in this movie?
What are we doing?
What is that true?
Wow.
Where are they?
I don't know.
Okay.
That's what I've heard.
I don't know if that's confirmed.
I saw them in the trailer.
I did not in the trailer.
I don't think so.
They do.
Do.
That's minions racist.
Do minions drink negronies?
I think the answer is yes.
You're going to find out shortly.
According to our slash letter box, Bob Stewart and Kevin will not be the main characters.
Well, that's different than not being in it.
Yeah.
That is true, but isn't there the main draw?
I think you got to remember about this movie is there are minions, but they're also monsters.
Yeah.
Right.
So what's going to be the balance?
Will there be more monsters than minions?
We don't know.
But what about what if it's about the monster inside of every minion?
Oh, good point.
Yeah.
It's a metaphor for trauma.
A minion's trauma.
I feel so monstrous, even though I'm a springy yellow pill shaped creature.
Uh, 352 million.
350.
Wow.
Yeah.
Now that's now that's close.
Yeah.
That's really close.
Metacritic 61.
54.
Again, they're, they're score.
Not mine.
To me, the blooms off the rose on the minions franchise.
I don't care.
It's fine.
Not, not of note to me, gentle minions.
This is a movie about making movies.
Uh-huh.
And this is a movie about creature features.
It is where you end the gronies and screw ball.
Why do you keep trying to make new gronies a part of this?
Well, I really, when I was at the film for the absolutely excrucible Super Mario Brothers
Galaxy, I once again was treated to this trailer.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm pretty sure they were drinking a negroni in one of the minions were drinking
in a grony.
Yeah.
In like, uh, you know, sort of like Mousseau and Frank's type bar, like a, a, a bankette.
And if you look at the cocktail and the glass choice, it looks like a negroni.
I mean, it could be an old fashioned.
It's not a martini.
I've never, it's not a margarita.
I've never heard of such wish casting in my life than my minions drink negronies.
I was just there engaging with cinema, you know?
I've just said, I've read the films where they are.
We got to get through the rest of these movies.
So a couple big ones coming up.
The first one is Young Washington.
Sure. Yeah.
Which comes to us from Angel Studios on July 3rd trying to get that Independence Day
dough.
This new film stars Ben Kingsley, Andy Circus, and William Franklin Miller as George Washington.
It's the story of George Washington as a young man.
What'd you guess?
I'm going 15 million because the angel with the exception of, um, not the sad in the
fury.
What was that?
What's the big one called?
Uh, the kind of first, not the Bible, the emblockner and the sound of freedom.
The sound of freedom is an angel studios break out.
Yes.
Uh, movie.
But otherwise you get to have Jesus in the mix for those, those movies to really pop.
Yeah.
Um, and this is, you know, this is about Washington, George Washington.
So I only did 15 million.
I did 19 million close.
44 metacritic 39.
Okay.
Let's talk about Moana.
Okay.
It comes out July 10th.
It's a live action remake of the beloved Disney classic Moana.
I guessed 412 million.
I guess 410.
Wow.
There we go.
Perhaps we're spending too much time together talking about movies, uh, metacritic score.
53.
I have a 39.
Wow.
I think people are very mad about this.
Okay.
I doesn't matter to seven year olds.
I think they're going to be just fine.
When you say people once again are the people in the room with us right now.
I don't know.
The reviews on that trailer are bad.
Okay.
They're very bad.
The movie looks bad.
We don't need it.
I'm sick of the live action thing.
I think it's going to do fine business.
It does feel a little bit like a low in stitch.
I am genuinely curious to know if they change anything from the original Moana, which is
like maybe not a perfect movie, but it's pretty damn good.
So it just feels too soon.
It just feels like that movie just happened like 10 years ago.
Why are we anyway?
Okay.
The movie in the celebrity sex pass, new movie from David Wayne of Wet Hot American
Summer Film and many other great comedies.
The state TV show comes out July 10th during Zoe Deutsch box office.
I said 6 million.
Nine million.
Okay.
Metacritic 58.
71.
I think it looks charming.
I saw it.
It was okay.
Okay.
The Odyssey.
He's shit.
Sorry to say.
I love David Wayne.
I'm a big fan of his.
The Odyssey.
Biggest movie in the summer.
Yeah.
This is a new film from Christopher Nolan adapting Homer.
What's Homer's last name?
He's like Madonna.
He's one name only.
I say.
I guess.
What did you guess?
I did 350 million.
I guessed 412.
Wow.
Which is really high.
I mean, that's great.
So I, Oppenheimer was 330.
And that was with most of the premium screens.
But not all of them.
You're right.
And there's no one coming for this movie for two full weeks.
That's true.
It is also still, well, you know, Oppenheimer was about the American history and American
Prometheus and the bomb and, you know, epic action film.
Sure.
That's true.
So, we're the sandals.
In theory, and it's got more way more stars.
I like it.
It would be fun if it were 412.
Now that would be a huge accomplishment.
Because if a movie like this makes $400 million domestically, it's making $2 billion
worldwide.
It's possible.
That would be wonderful.
I'm so interested.
What's your Metacritic guess?
83.
I guess 88.
Okay.
Wow.
I feel like the tide has just fully shifted with him, not just with me, but with many people.
No, I think so.
I mean, 83 is high.
It is high.
It is high.
I'm really interested to know if this is like a Oscar contender or not.
Or if it's just a spectacle film.
July 17th cut off.
This is a new comedy starring Jonah Hill and Kristen Wig about two rich kids who are cut
off from their parents' wealth.
Yeah.
That I've heard good things about.
Dangerous date to put this movie on though.
Obviously, the Odyssey.
I guess 47 million.
I guess 28 million.
It seems like a lot forward to it.
Metacritic score.
59.
66.
Okay.
July 24th, my birthday movie Evil Dead Burn.
This is the 123456th Evil Dead movie.
Okay.
Last one I loved.
Evil Dead Rise.
Directed by the guy who's got the Mummy movie coming out this week.
Lee Kronin.
New director on this one.
Sebastian Vanacek.
Pretty sturdy franchise.
The last few of them.
I guess 67 million.
I guess 60 million.
Okay.
Metacritic 64.
63.
Damn, we're getting too good at this.
Spider-Man brand new day.
Yeah.
We talked about the trailer.
It's coming out July 31st, your birthday film.
Tom Hollins in Daya.
The whole gang is back.
Yeah.
We got Bernthal in as the Punisher.
We got Michael Mando in as Scorpion.
Yeah.
We got a whole bunch of other villains.
I think Tombstones in this one.
Did you remember how much Spider-Man no way home made domestically?
I'm going to guess it was like 630, 700.
114 million dollars domestic.
Wow.
And it was like 1.9 total.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I remember the total.
And that was December 2021.
Yes.
But it had a superpower that this movie does not have.
Yeah.
That's true.
I'm not.
And it brought the movies back, right?
Yes, totally.
Well, actually Top Gun Maverick did, but that's mine.
They did it together.
That's really beautiful.
I'm sure that that is, you know, what David Ellsson would say.
What's your guess?
I did go big on this, but not H.
What did I put down?
This seems crazy, but I rode down 580.
So I have 527.
OK.
Could be unknown.
I think I'm just accounting for the Odyssey.
That the Odyssey is the movie that's like, you have
to go see this in a movie theater.
Spider-Man, of course, has a built-in audience in this huge 527
would be a huge hit.
No way home was like a quasar.
That was very unusual.
We'll see.
We'll see what happens.
Metacritic, I said 62.
I said 51.
And you think it's going to take some hits?
Yeah, you know, they've already reached the pinnacle.
We were all very, very generous about no way home, which
was very charming.
And now they got to keep going.
And no one remembers anybody.
Like, OK.
Understandable.
Did you see the film Fall?
We're entering August, by the way, which
is one of the things that it'll dice you.
Yeah.
I did not see the film Fall.
I read about it last night.
It was a film about two women who climb a giant tower.
And maybe they don't fall.
Are you afraid of heights?
No.
Not at all.
I am afraid of heights.
So you should check out Fall.
It would really tap in your cerebral cortex.
No.
Fall was fine.
OK.
This is called Fall 2.
It's equal to Fall.
They just go back up the tower.
I think it's two new people.
OK.
Oh, no.
I don't know what they're going up this time.
This was like an abandoned electrical tower
in the middle of the desert.
See, see, see, see, see, see, see, something
you wouldn't want to climb.
Yeah.
This film, who knows what they'll climb?
Maybe they'll climb Jacob a lority.
The box office, I guess, 29 million.
Oh, I guess 7 million.
That's possible.
I don't know.
Metacritic 53.
41.
Also on August 7, many movies on August 7.
Ice Cream Man.
Yes.
This is Eli Roth's new horror movie about an ice cream man.
Yeah.
I guess 17 million.
I guess 9 million.
Metacritic 36.
34.
Damn, you're down on Eli Roth.
Thanksgiving was actually a hit.
I just, the Metacritic was very easy.
You go look at Eli Roth's director of Metacritics
where they're not fans.
He's not, he's not beloved critically.
I'm a fan of his movies.
One night only.
Yes.
Now, I just booked a vacation,
so I'm not going to be here for this episode.
This might be a solo Amanda Pod.
No, I think this is also when my vacation is.
No, yours is the next two weeks.
Oh, interesting.
Okay.
Oh, great.
This is written and directed by Will God.
I know, I'm very excited.
It's his first film since anyone but you.
And of course, he's made easy.
I ain't a number of other quality films.
Starts column-turner and Monica Babar.
Yes.
And it's a rom-com.
It's a romantic dramedy.
About two strangers try to fall in love
on the one nighty year when pre-marital sex is legal.
Yeah, they filmed in Manhattan.
Incredible supporting cast here, including Molly Ringwall,
the VAR Burton, Maya Hawk, Julia Fox, SD,
Heim, Zeeway and King Princess.
What's your guess?
What is my guess?
My guess is not at the levels of anyone but you.
So 38 million?
I guess 76.
You did.
I think it's going to be the chance.
I would love for it to be a thing.
There's been a Colleen Hoover movie
in the zone the last couple of years.
I think obviously anyone but you was a winter release.
But you know,
Callum Turner, Monica Babar,
are not nearly as famous,
but there's not really a lot of movies for women
in the entire month of July.
And it's going to feel like a little bit of a desert.
And I think this movie could fill that in.
Okay, Super Troopers 3.
Oh, my Metacritic is 61.
What is my 52?
Okay, Super Troopers 3.
Yes.
Beloved franchise.
I haven't made one.
I think I had Jay Chandra Shaker on the show
in like 2017 when Super Troopers 2 came out
and really fun conversation.
He came into the studio.
I guess 48 for this.
I guess 22.
Okay.
Metacritic 52.
47.
Okay.
Here's a sticky wicket.
Yeah.
Some hope dicting going on here for me on this one.
Mine too.
This is this is, I think my last high number.
Not well, not totally, but yeah.
The end of Oak Street.
And I, and I don't remember why it's this high.
I mean, I know why,
but I can't remember what my comps were.
Comes out August 14th and halfway
in you and McGregor's star in a Twilight Zone-esque
fantastical story of a suburban community
that undergoes some dramatic changes.
Apparently, I guess 81 million.
Oh, mine's way higher.
Really?
Yeah.
I guess 131.
Well, that would just be a home run
if this movie did 131.
I, I, I kind of, I don't remember why I think I wish I could.
Damn.
What a summer for Anne.
I guess I put it, I guess you know what it was.
I remember it was.
I put this in the weapons slot.
I mean, it is in the weapons slot.
It is the same weapon slot.
And we were all like, wow, what's happening?
The Visionary O Tour.
And so, you know, by this point,
people who are gonna see the Odyssey,
will have seen the Odyssey.
And this really feels like it is entirely dependent
on pre-release hype.
If they get people to see it a month early
and are like this movie,
I think that actually will help it.
The same way it helps weapons.
I don't know, what my Metacritic is 71.
I guess 73.
Okay.
Paw Patrol, the Dino movie.
Yes.
This is either the second or the 900 Paw Patrol film.
I don't know the answer.
So, yeah, I was gonna ask,
so how are the dinos involved
with the Dino's join Paw Patrol?
This is a prequel to the end of Oak Street.
Box office 42 million.
I guess 59.
Okay.
Maybe a little high.
Metacritic 39.
29.
The rivals of Amziah King.
Yeah.
This is a very interesting movie
that I'm very eager to see.
It premiered, I believe, at South By 2025
and is also coming out from Black Bear.
It's directed by Andrew Patterson,
who made a little movie during COVID called The Vast of Night.
Mm-hmm.
And you guys would not stop talking about it.
Chris and I love that movie.
This movie starts Matthew McConaughey.
Yes.
It seems like a very hard sell.
I've had it described to me as a very odd movie,
but I was such a big fan of The Vast of Night.
I guess 6 million for the box office.
I guess 11 million.
Sounds good.
But, you know, we're not that far away.
Metacritic?
68.
I guess 84.
Okay.
It got really nice reviews.
There's even some people who think it's possibly
on the outskirts of the Oscar race.
I don't know.
I haven't seen it.
I don't know.
Next film, we're getting down to the end of August here.
In City, it's the bleeding world.
We have like 18 more movies.
Yeah.
Yes.
I wrote down 38 million.
57.
Okay.
I guess I'm 54, Metacritic.
44.
In City's movies, you're solid.
Yeah, but this is sort of a restart, right?
Is it?
I think Patrick Wilson is not in this film.
I think that's right.
So these roles are bleeding.
That's a down, that's a downgrade for me.
Where is the, is the bleeding world R world?
I don't, you know, I know that Patrick Wilson
directed the last one, right?
He did.
But I confess I didn't see it.
A trio of stalkers infiltrated quiet suburb
and forced a new family into the astral plane.
Hey, when that happens, where they uncover a terrifying truth,
the further is bleeding into the real world.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
I guess we'll have to look into that.
The next film is Mutiny.
I'd like to speak about this briefly.
Yes.
I watched the trailer for this film.
It's the new Jason Statham movie.
Mm-hmm.
It looks fucking awesome.
It's about Jason Statham getting stuck on a boat
and having to kill everyone on the boat.
Yeah.
I've used, step into a world by K-R-S-1 as its music
and the trailer.
You know, there's like two Jason Statham movies a year.
That's true.
Most of them are not really very interesting or useful.
Mm-hmm.
I got a feeling about this one.
I'm not saying it's going to be a huge hit.
But you're excited.
I think this is Beekeeper Land for you.
I don't think it will be as absurd than Beekeeper.
Yeah, I don't think it will have the political trench and sea
of, is that a word?
Well, I also remember the cold open of Beekeeper
and the online scam.
It's just absolutely rapid.
It totally rocked.
This movie is from Jean-François Rixé,
the French director of Plain and the Messrine movies,
starring Vincent Coussell.
So he's a good director.
I don't know.
I just got to vibe.
Watch it after this.
It's got style.
It's got a great look.
Stay them, you know, punching people in the throat.
Something I enjoy.
What's your prediction?
38 million.
29 million.
Okay.
Metacritic 58.
42.
Okay.
But again, they're scoring on hours.
It's a fall weekend, August 21st.
Yeah.
This is a new film.
It's a comedy.
Yes.
Starring Leslie Mann, I La Fisher,
Anna Faris and Michelle Boutot.
There's about four gals who go for a fall weekend.
Yeah.
You know what happens after that?
I have no idea.
They get into some high drinks.
And probably some fights also.
Got a girls trippy.
Yeah.
Um, comes to us from John Lucas and Scott Moore.
What do you think?
Eight million.
I guess 41 million.
Wow.
Okay.
This isn't the bad mom zone.
Sure.
Bad moms now would just go straight to streaming.
This, I mean, this is just a very classic.
Like I can watch that at home.
You have your right.
I'm sorry about that.
And some of that is just because of the demo
that it is, it is recreating.
So you're saying that because you hate women?
Yes.
And spies.
Do you like spies?
Kind of don't have an opinion.
Yeah.
Seems like a lot of money for something
that disappears quickly.
I, I don't really like them.
It's not how I would like choose to spend a day
even if the resources were given to me.
It's just, it's forced patients.
It's kind of like, you know, meditation.
I can't really go there.
For patients.
Yeah.
I can't turn it off in that way.
I invented that.
That's interesting.
We should explore that.
Well, I don't think we need to explore it.
I think we explored on every episode of this podcast.
And it's just that me not really wanted to deal with this shit.
But yeah, I don't know.
I'm not, I'm not good at that type of lounging.
Okay.
It's like lounging by the beach where I have a book to read
and then I can go swim.
Perfect.
But where you're just supposed to sit there peacefully
without any stimuli, it's not me.
Okay. Thanks for sharing those feelings.
Cliffhanger August 28th.
This film is coming.
Can we get your Metacritic score for a while?
Sorry about that.
39.
53.
So Cliffhanger is coming us to come into us from Roe Kay,
which has been under some.
So is it?
So it may not be coming out.
And we could take it off the board
if we think we're not going to see it.
This is a remake of the Sylvester Stallone Action Classic
starring Lily James.
And when I think sliced alone, I think Lily James.
I'm guessing 27 million.
I'm guessing 14.
I guess it's at least got the Cliffhanger.
I'm probably going over on my small movies
and under on my big movies.
That's something I'm learning.
Metacritic score 54.
33.
Okay.
Coyote versus Acme.
This is the film that was sacrificed
at the altar of big Warner Brothers.
Yeah.
Well, of their taxes.
Yes.
The altar of their taxes.
Just an altar we all share.
I am going to say it's a new Lini Tunes movie
or hasn't been won in some time.
I'm going to say $36 million.
Oh, that's great.
I'm saying $10 million.
You're probably right.
Well, this is Sue.
It's now.
Exactly.
And they have not released a lot of giant movies.
They've never released a movie with the Lini Tunes.
Oh, that's true.
Or maybe they have.
Maybe they was that actually that porcupig
and Daffy Duck movie, the animated movie that came out
from Catcher.
It may have been actually.
Catcher Entertainment.
I looked at this last night and pulling it up right now.
They get both of them.
The day the Earth flew up.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay. They did get that.
And they have this movie too, right?
I think it grossed $9 million, $8.9 million in the United States.
Okay.
So interesting.
Well, we'll see what happens there.
A couple more movies to go.
Yeah.
Wait, did we get your Metacritic score for that?
78.
72.
Really scots the dog stars.
Yes.
This is a calender.
Action movie.
It's Jacob O'Loury.
How dare you?
Sheesh.
Who's the female lead?
I feel ill prepared.
Margaret Kwale.
Interesting.
And Josh Brolin, Guy Pears and Benedict Wong.
This comes to us from Mark L. Smith, who wrote the Revenant.
And shop by Eric Messerschmitt, David Fincher, cinematographer.
It's a movie that is set in the aftermath of a catastrophic flu virus,
supposed to pock elliptic thriller.
What do you got?
I'm probably going too high here, but it is a Ridley Scott movie.
I'll be at one that was delayed.
85 million.
I went 61.
Yeah.
I think I'm just being cautious for some reason.
No, I think that's smart.
I think Napoleon was around 60 million,
but that was still sort of COVID-19.
And you wonder if the Loury and the Ridley Scott of it all
will pick up some juice.
It would help this show for it to be good.
Yeah.
Because it would do a lot towards two young stars.
Obviously, Ridley, somebody we really enjoyed despite not always hitting it.
That's true.
It would be...
We got to do an episode before we go to fall film festivals.
Yes.
Don't want it to be just cavernous out here.
Okay.
I'm guessing a 70 on Metacritic.
I'm guessing 53.
It's late Ridley.
It's late Ridley.
I love him, but he fast-forwarded Swethinks.
Very true.
August 28th, we also have Finding Emily.
We do.
Finding Emily is basically like a teen dramedy.
When a love sick musician is given the wrong number for his dream girl,
he teams up with a driven psychology student to find her
together they spark a hilarious campus-wide frenzy.
And Gory Rice and Spike Fern, Lassine and Ella McKay.
I guess...
Oh, right.
9 million.
I guessed 4 million.
Okay.
That a Crick score?
61.
72.
Okay.
80 hits.
It's coming on August 28th, formerly titled The Shit Heads.
David at Sundance, new film for Making Blair.
Heard this is really fun.
Yeah.
Uh, Dave Franco, stars in it alongside...
Oh, oh.
Oh, Shae Jackson.
Yes.
Really, really good trailer.
I guessed 8 million.
I guessed 7 million.
69 Metacritic score just for the jokes.
53.
Because the jokes only get you so far.
Um...
Who do you think won this?
Every movie coming out this summer.
Mm.
Can I add one quick?
I put it at the bottom of the dock.
Oh, yeah.
Honorary Cliff Booth guess rumored August.
It's very difficult.
No, it's not.
Do you know where that is being released?
First of all, Netflix.
So even though it will get a limited release, would it be...
It don't, they probably won't track the box office.
Yeah.
Number two, Ben is Film Festival, baby.
Is that confirmed?
No, but it's confirmed in my soon-to-be-booked plane ticket.
We could guess what we think that movie would have made if a different studio released
it.
Okay, well...
No, we know we had to check against it, but just as a thought, exercise.
Once upon a time in Hollywood, domestic box office...
What was it like?
350.
Let's see.
Domestic was 142.
Oh, am I thinking worldwide?
What was worldwide?
Yes, and worldwide was 377.
377, okay.
Um...
I would guess that it would have made...
107.
Domestic.
If Warner Bros. were releasing it.
Uh...
Or Sony, which released once upon a time in Hollywood.
Yeah, yeah.
Um...
95?
Okay.
And we'll never know the answer.
Metacritic score?
Um...
73?
Yeah, I was gonna say 78.
Yeah.
But only because people are too sour about David Fincher.
So I saw the man on Saturday night.
I went to...
Mr. Fincher?
Yeah, I went to a screening of Zodiac at the Academy Museum.
Oh, that's fun.
And there was an interview before the film played with Fincher conducted by Bong Jun Ho.
That's so cool.
Because the movie was screened as part of a series of inspirations for Bong.
And um...
He talked to Fincher for 30 minutes or so, 35 minutes.
And it was fascinating.
Bong...
Director Bong just faned out the whole time.
Love it.
Real Chris Farley show vibes in a very charming way.
And Fincher was incredibly withholding.
That's my guy.
And you know, he had some answers.
They went into great depth about the making of Zodiac.
And there were many times...
I mean, at least three questions.
I think he gave a total of like 12 word answers with a real shit-even grin on his face.
It was...
I found it very charming and funny.
Um, I do think some people were probably a little bit frustrated by his unwillingness.
Mostly because...
I think Bong was experiencing something I felt many times while interviewing directors,
which is...
You want to ask about an idea in the movie, say, I feel like thematically this indicates
this.
For example, in Zodiac, there's this passage of time in the final third of the movie where
the San Francisco Chronicle offices.
They shift a kind of color tone from yellow in the late 60s or 70s to blue in the late
70s.
In particular, there are three huge columns, pillars in the middle of the office that
are painted yellow in the first half and then the back half are blue.
Bong located this fact and asked him directly about it and said, is this supposed to indicate
something about our feelings, about the characters, the murder, the movie, a precise question,
yeah, what he was looking for in that answer.
And Fincher was just like, yeah, that was the idea of Don Bert, who's a genius, a production
designer.
And yeah, we just thought, you know, that's what it would look like.
Like just like a real...
Ha ha!
Just like not giving you anything on the metaphorical insinuations of a creative decision.
And I felt seen.
That's really beautiful.
Yeah, it was great.
Fincher...
I thought...
He's like he's doing well.
I thought a lot about him this weekend when I was in the Bay Area.
Verily, of course.
His old stomping room.
Yeah.
I guess he's who I think of most when I'm up there.
He's used to be having a very fun time not giving anybody anything.
I know.
That's what he does.
Very admirable.
And that's what I love about him.
Something unfortunate I'm not able to do in my walk of life.
Well, this was fun.
You think you won?
I have no idea.
I guess you kind of kept to a median and I kept to big and little.
The only one that I think is quite large is Billie Eilish that you guessed.
Everything else feels totally in play.
If I'm wrong about Billie Eilish, that'll be great.
I currently don't even have it on the discussion plan for the show.
But maybe we should.
I guess I'll go see it.
Learn about Billie Eilish.
Of course.
There's one song I like.
Bad guy.
No, I like lunch.
Okay.
Yeah.
I don't know that one.
I have nothing against Billie Eilish.
Just have a special...
She and I have the same Jake Roushirt that we wear from time to time.
She looks great in it.
She wrapped his episode up.
Are you ready?
Are you ready for the amount of clothes you have to talk about in Devil Wars Prada too?
I'm ready to listen to you say things.
Okay.
Thank you.
That's all I ask.
That's what I do.
I listen to women and men.
Sure.
Yeah.
And let's listen to this conversation with Daniel Goldhaber right now.
Almost three years later, Daniel Goldhaber back on the show.
Okay, Danny.
When I was a teenager, went to a sleepover and they had faces of death on VHS and we watched
it and we believed it to be true.
We believed it to be the most vile and yet accessible in video stores, product imaginable.
I assume you had a similar experience, but maybe you did not?
I did not.
Okay.
I was talking to a friend earlier today and they were talking about how like...
There are a few things that are kind of like the JFK assassination where everybody like
knows where they were when and like faces of death is kind of one of those things which
I think is kind of funny.
Everyone has such a tactile and evocative way of describing their first time.
But for me, my first real encounter with faces of death was getting an email from my agent
in 2019 saying legendary has acquired the right to face of death and there was an exact
their name John Celcoire where he was interested in talking to me and he said about it.
And so we went and watched face of death.
Was this because they had seen Cam and they just thought this is the kind of person who
would get what this material is?
He had well, John had, I think identified as kind of a like, what do you do with face
of death?
I think John had identified the exact thing that like faces of death is everywhere now.
And that was, you know, you know, you said I experience generationally is that after we
saw the movie, we realized that we had seen faces of death just like clips of it on rotten
dot com or ebombs world or whatever like it.
It we remembered it, but it was totally decontextualized from this original movie.
And so for us and like for John, that was like an immediate like point of connection of
being like, okay, like there's something here at this thing that like used to be this
like cursed object that was really hard to get out of the hold of.
All of a sudden is accessible by basically anyone in the world 24 hours a day.
That feels like a pretty profound shift in our relationship to violence and media, our
relationship to media in general.
And so that was very much a starting point for talking about the movie.
And then, you know, I worked for a summer as a content moderator for very somewhat informally,
but for some friends who got to start up.
I had always thought that that would make for like just a great character or somebody who
kind of like, you know, they're seeing stuff you're not supposed to see.
And so I thought that that would make for like a really good, you know, way into this
subject matter.
And and then once we kind of combined the two of those, we were off to the races.
Can you tell me a little bit about that time as a content moderator?
Yeah.
And so like, what did you see?
And maybe even explicitly what it was that you had to do.
So basically in this particular case, this was in the early 2010s, I had some friends who
had a social media startup that was like just getting off the ground.
And at the time, I don't know how true this is today.
You know, there was a thing where it's like, okay, a new social media app goes up on the
app store.
People who like, you know, the kind of you know, drags of the internet.
No, there's no robust moderation department here.
There's no, you know, pipeline to law enforcement that's been set up.
And so they just start, you know, using it to like share child porn and, you know, it's
not tape.
And I think that, you know, this was something that the people that ran the company, but
they were a little like, oh, we're entirely anticipating that.
And so basically they just like hired friends.
They're just camp on the feed, watch everything that was coming in.
And then just like try to take down especially like the child porn as quickly as
possible.
And again, it was a small app.
And so it was like, it was a very different kind of like moderation that we see in the movie.
And then this kind of like, you know, very corporatized moderation that you have now that
often is even just like a smoke screen for companies to kind of, you know, enact censorship
of speech that they want or to otherwise kind of try to protect their liability when it comes
to what's on their platform.
But, you know, I, and, you know, the first few times you're doing this, some of the stuff
you see, you're like really deeply affected by.
And then at a certain point, you just, you stop feeling the effect of it.
You can if that doesn't mean that you're not still on some level being affected by it.
You at the very least kind of just adjust.
And yeah, so I only did that for like a summer.
It was a virtual job.
It was nothing, you know, I was, I was, I needed money.
One of the ideas that I really like in your movie is this very thin line between what we
are allowed to let titillate us and what we are not allowed to let titillate us.
And this idea of a person whose job it is to kind of enforce, you know, I guess that kind
of that ethical gray line.
And also that a movie like faces of death is, is your movie is doing the same thing, which
is it is a discrete slasher with like insincere hardcore violence, which we know is like
something we're allowed to enjoy.
Right.
And these defined buckets.
Right.
I'm curious like how you thought about blending what the original project was doing with
where we are now and what we're allowed to be excited about in a movie in 2026.
Yeah.
I mean, I think for me, it's like that's also like the whole thing.
Maybe like one of the best ways I can talk about that is like for us to kind of cornerstone
movie that we were looking at is Peter Bogdanovich's targets, which I think is like one of
the greatest movies of the 1960s.
But it was a very similarly, you know, Korman had this like Boris Karloff movie that
didn't totally work and he had a few extra days on Boris Karloff's schedule and going
to Bogdanovich and was like, you know, if you do the Korman formula, you all let you do
whatever you want.
And then Bogdanovich turned that into this like unbelievable meditation on, you know, alienation
and media and the suburbs and violence and when I watched targets as kind of research
for this, I kind of realized like, you know, it was part of what really strengthened this
kind of like dual perspective narrative we have.
But also it was like one of these things of that's kind of a weird assignment.
Like I have this kind of these elements for a movie and I don't know, do something
with it.
And it's not dissimilar from how it felt kind of having a company be like, we've acquired
the remake rights to faces of death because we understand that there is like value in
this IP.
But like this is not a movie that needs to or should it necessarily exist.
And it's, I think that like that's something that the movie is ultimately reflecting on at
its core is like why remake faces of death like, you know, and because the movie is about
somebody remaking faces of death and trying to squeeze value out of this IP for his own
personal gain.
And I think that, you know, ultimately, I think for my perspective, the movie more than
anything is about the kind of just like idea of what has happened now that our media has
become centralized in these giant corporations.
You know, they're very, very few corporations that essentially control the vast majority
of human speech.
You know, not even just public speech, but even the way that we communicate with each other.
And it's ultimately these companies that are the ones setting the parameters for what we
are and are not allowed to say what we are and are not allowed to see, you know, just
how easy it is for them to adjust an algorithm and bury a movie because they might find some
of the ideas in it unpalatable, which is something that we definitely dealt with with
pipeline.
You know, and so I think that that's the thing is like, you know, the movie very much
starts with this perspective of like kind of getting the audience to think about the fact
that like the people that are adjudicating what isn't is not going on to our phones are
ultimately employees at a company that has its own goals and ambitions.
And I think that relationship applies to all of the media that we see.
I'm curious how you and Esau work together.
So this is the third film in really a written together, right?
No, Esau wrote Cam.
Okay. So she was not a high-borey.
She was a producer on pipeline.
So she came, she, you know, she was a creative producer on the movie along with myself
and Ariela, okay, two other producers too, who made the film, but the three of us going
to develop the material and then this one we co-wrote.
So, you know, I know that a lot of her personal experience went into Cam.
But how do you guys right now?
Like I always ask duo writing teams like are you like back to back typewriter to typewriter?
Like how are you kicking ideas around in this world?
Because you do have this raw material of the original film, which you've managed to work
into this project, but then you're also creating a whole world of characters that were not previously there before.
Yeah, I mean, it's always a, it's just a lot of conversation.
Ultimately, like when we get into the writing process, like it generally is passing drafts back and forth,
you know, she'll do a first draft, I'll do a big revision.
And then eventually it gets to the point where like you're just doing line edits and then you're just kind of,
you know, that's when you're in the room together, usually, you know, like on set or the night after a shoot.
And then I think, you know, obviously he says, you know, a co-film make around the movies and that writing process
extends all the way through production, through posts, through the marketing, you know, in terms of not just coming up with lines on set,
but you know, other ideas, you know, costumes and performance and, you know, I think, you only benefit from that in the case of this
because we're kind of conceptualizing what the movie is from the ground up together.
You know, it's great to have somebody who is able to kind of really have their eye on the prize of what movie are we trying to make.
Well, I can, you know, have the benefit of going getting lost in the weeds of, you know, just the logistics and minutia of pulling it all off
and always have somebody I can turn to to kind of be like, hey, are we on track?
You know, when you finally got a chance to watch the original, what were your, like, what did you make of it?
Especially being at the age you're at now and what you've heard about it and how you consume pieces of it over the years.
I can't say I thought it was a good movie, but it's an interesting movie.
And I think that what I find so interesting about the film is also like, there's a lot of Mondeau horror.
There's a lot of, you know, fake snuff film. There's a lot of, you know, gross out movie.
Like this came in a moment where like there was plenty of kind of cursed horror stuff to choose from.
Like, why this one?
I think that's one of the most interesting questions around faces.
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that like it doesn't feel like a movie anybody would make on purpose.
It feels like it just like appeared on VHS.
And I think that that's one of the questions that our movie is asking to is like, you know, when I was doing my content moderation job,
the most disturbing thing that I honestly felt about the footage was this question of like, who's posting this stuff?
Like, like, you have a content's bad, but I'm way more frightened about the person on the other end of this.
And I think that that is, you know, very similar with the original faces of death in the sense that
you feel like a truly deranged and like diseased mind at this.
Because it's like horrifying images and it's like,
John T. Music, you know, and like even just like some of the like,
like the monkey is so macabre and like, and like, it's goofy,
but that only weirdly makes it more disturbing because it's presented so straightforwardly.
And I interviewed the director of the movie before doing this, you know,
had a long conversation with him.
And, you know, as he told it to me, because there's a director that's credited,
it was not the real director. He was like the writer and the collaborator who essentially like
took the public credit for the film, but the actual guy that made it made nature documentaries for
ABC and he had a big documentary production company and he was approached by a group of investors
who were like, we want to make Mondo death. And he was like, that sounds like a weird art project.
And he didn't want to be credited because he didn't want it to like, you know,
disrupt his actual day job. But he approached to something where he's like,
I can't really lose here. I'm just going to have fun with this. And so like, you know,
he was like, yeah, what if I put John T. Music in like that's like fucked up and weird.
But like the combination of all those elements really does leave it feeling like it's something that
you know, no human hand like whatever make.
It's so interesting though because that perfectly echoes the probably some of the content that
you experienced in moderation where people are submitting material anonymously. And then also
what the killer in the film is doing, which is operating in a kind of shadow. And it's so different
from the act of public creation, especially historically promoting a movie through a corporate
studio system where you kind of have to put your name on it. And that friction between those two
ideas is really, really fun. Exactly. No. And I mean, it's one of the interesting things about
Arthur as a character to me is that he's chasing something, but he's not chasing any version of
fame that we really understand because his name is not his face, is not it. And yet it's so clear
that what he cares about is kind of like what he's getting out of it. And I think for me,
one of the fundamental ideas of the film is that we live in an intention economy. And
in that we've said the more attention that you have, the more value you have. And simultaneously,
we've gone and said, do you know how to generate a lot of attention very quickly, go commit an
asset, act of mass violence. And so we've set the incentive structure up for young people that like
very literally it's like if you commit an act of mass violence, you have a lot of value as a person.
You know, worth the very least your name does your reputation does your go down in history. And you
see the way that people talk about this stuff on message boards, where they talk about like
high scores for kill counts. And then those conversations also generate attention. And so for me,
Arthur is in many ways just a literalization that he's somebody who is actually very rationally
looking at the system that has been set up in front of him and say, how can I feel like I
matter? How can I feel like I exist? How can I feel seen? And you see where he lives and
and and and you kind of get a sense for how kind of totally isolated and alienated this guy is.
And on some level, it's like, you're like, yes, this what he's doing kind of it, it makes sense.
It's awful, but it's there's a logic to it. And that I think is a logic that is again,
something that has been systemically given to us by media companies. Yeah, it's fascinating,
because I know you finished this film some time ago, but our hero balthasar and the drama and
your film coming out effectively within a week of each other is also fascinating, because they're
all kind of they're not about the same thing, but they're located in the same vibe of how can people
say, how can people be seen through something cruel and dangerous and violent? Tell me about making
a slasher movie, because one of the things I love about pipeline is it just use like a pure
heist model mentality to demonstrate something socially politically different, but you know, in the
execution of it, it seemed like you had some real standards that you were trying to follow.
How did you think about this? Because there are thousands and thousands of slasers.
Yeah, I think it's interesting, because in all honesty, I never really thought of it as a slasher
movie. I thought it's because it's it's not really, right? You don't the slasher movie doesn't
introduce you to the slasher on minute 15, and you're not spending, you know, about half the
movie with him. Like genuinely, the model was whatever targets is, you know, like it's a thriller,
it's, you know, and like there's a silence of the Lamsey kind of, you know, cat mouseness to it.
Like that, that was always the conception. And then it's just a movie that then has a handful of
slasher set pieces in them, right? And those were very consciously supposed to kind of be riffs
on old classics, because I think there's this fun thing about Arthur, which is like he's very clearly
an extremely media literate person. And so people are like, oh, I love this stock he kind of
said, it reminds me of, you know, Tom Nune and Manhunter. He also reminds Arthur of Tom Nune and Manhunter.
You know, like he's aware of the kind of homage and illusion that he himself is engaging in.
Seems like he's only in a glomeration of his influences. Exactly. Exactly. And so I think that
which is how a lot of people like communicate their personality on social media as well, which is
another thing I like about the movie. And so, but you get this, there's this moment I really love
where, you know, I should get fine-grained about the movie. Yeah. I guess it's out at this point.
Where Margot is hiding in the garage from Arthur and Arthur walks in. There's this like really
amazingly just tense moment where, you know, she's hiding. She's like, see or does he not? And
it's kind of unclear if he sees her or not. And then he walks out and then she runs out and then
she's like, about to jump to fence and then all of a sudden he's back in the garage door goes up
and he shoots at her. And it's just really great question of like, does he, does he know?
Yes. He actually chasing for himself a greater slasher said, does he want to jump scare her?
To just shoot her in that moment would have been boring. Exactly. Exactly. And he's not in it to win
necessarily like that. He's in it for the narrative. And so I think that like, there's something
about the way that I wanted it to be a slasher movie that also is like, is performance in itself
in a certain way. And without, I never really wanted the movie to be self-aware in Meta,
but I wanted Arthur to be someone who is so completely seeing his existence through this
performative lens that even he is kind of seeing the movie that he is experiencing and living
was kind of part of the goal. Is it Dockrey Montgomery?
Daker. So don't just amazing performance. Yeah. And it's hard to do this because of what you're
saying, which is there are a lot of sort of reference points, but I do feel like he makes
something that feels also like a singular person in its own disturbing way.
Had you guys talk about the character? How did his performance shake out the way that it did?
Yeah. I mean, Daker is an incredible actor and just like, I think in general, an incredible
collaborator, both you and Barbie are. And with Daker, when I first met with him, I'd met with him
for pipeline, which hadn't ended up really being a fit, but I really liked him. And we met for this
and he got on the Zoom and he was like, I have to play this role. I've never felt more
passionate about a role. And he's like, I grew up, I have severe OCD. I was also like a super alienated
bullied kid. He's like, but I had this problem where I could not sleep for 10 years under the
covers of my bed because if I felt even a crease in the bed sheet, it would keep me up all night.
So I slept on top of the covers for 10 years and he goes, I really relate to Arthur. I feel like,
you know, I see this guy's a version with blood. I see his like compulsion to do things that even hurt
himself. And he's like, I really feel that. Everyone else had met with had kind of been talking about
like the southern guy they'd seen in the media. But Daker was like, this is how I'm Arthur. And I
think for me as a starting point of a collaboration, like that's a great place to start because as you're
then building the character from from the inside out, everything is coming from something that's
like profoundly honest to the actor. And so for Daker, he has a real obsession with textures and
fabrics. And I think because that was the starting point of his connection to Arthur, that became the
starting point for, you know, the entire thing. So a lot of what was originally scripted changed
dramatically, especially just in the details of how this was rendered based on what felt the best
to Daker. Like we would go in for fittings for his character. And for him, it was all about kind of
like skin type. Really the skin tight suit in the way that felt on his body. And like it was more
important to him that the fabric of the clothing felt better than then then maybe even like the look
or the fit. And that's the thing is like, okay, then I'm trying to back that into an aesthetic that
works for the film. But I also know I can see it in the fitting. He's like rubbing the way he
rubs himself like he's doing that because he's finding that part of the character, you know, in the
fittings, we're like, the stalking over his head. That wasn't in the script. That was something that
he wanted to do. Like that's something that Daker felt like spoke to him about kind of like the
way that Arthur would want to access that kind of performance. And then for me, I'm like, oh, that's
also like manhunter. And then, you know, we're we're bringing that in. And so it's it's a lot of just
kind of a back and forth with I think, you know, hearing how he's personally engaging with this
and then finding a way to just make that work for the movie. But I think maybe the only one of the
other funny things that I can share is I was about six months into the edit of the film. And we
were going back through some take or something. I heard me give a direction to Daker. And then I
heard Daker do the take and I went I called Daker. I said, Daker, are you are you doing my voice
when Arthur's directing? And he goes, did you just figure that out?
It's pretty good. Yeah. Okay. I have a theory that all of your films are about young people
trying to utilize the media to seize control. I think there are about young people who feel driven
nuts by the world that they live in and are trying to do something to change it, to break free of it.
And they're ultimately kind of trapped by the fact that ultimately, even if they have essentially
what becomes a personally redemptive act of violence, you know, I always felt the ending of
pipeline was a little misread because you see comments or people like and all they do is post a
TikTok. It's like, yeah, because ultimately it was done the thing. How do you communicate it?
Yeah. Oh, you're right back. You're right back where you started. And there's some interesting.
So that's that's a slightly more cynical. I think it's just realistic. Uh-huh. I think that this
is the problem is that like we're at the point where there is so little free media and communication,
you know, we don't have alt weaklings. We don't really have zines. We don't have underground
newspapers. We don't, you know, we don't congregate in public, especially in the US nearly as much as
we used to. You know, um, and I think that that like you're seeing the effects of that, which is
that even when revolutionary acts take place, telling the story of them and finding a way to tell
that story in a way that actually brings people together around a movement or on a progressive idea
is harder than ever before because with a push of a button, you can completely disrupt how that
storytelling is actually disseminated to people. Um, and this is I think the most clearly
communicated at the end of faces, right? It's that in order to prove that there's a
statistics serial killer who's murdering people on the loose, uh, and making snuff films and
posting them online, she's got to make a snuff film. Get a post about it, yeah. And then she's
got a post about it. And, and because because everybody in the movie is kind of told her that's the
that's the only thing that will take is truth is once we see it on the internet, do you feel as helpless
and as stuck going back to where he started as the characters in the movies? I feel totally trapped
by social media. Um, you know, I grew up on the internet. I grew up as a very, very alienated person.
But also like, I think I've built a life in which I'm very reliant on, you know, I, I live between,
you know, Berlin, New York, LA, I work in film and media, you know, it ends up being a very
effective way to keep in touch with very large group of people that I work with and that I care
about. And it's also an important vehicle for me to broadcast about my work. Um, but it's also like,
it consumes my life and I can feel it like sapping and stealing the minutes from me. And, and I don't
know, I don't know how to escape it because I don't really know. It's like I work in film, right?
Like, how do I, like there are people that that aren't online, you know, um, but then even some of
the people you think are on Instagram, like they have, they have, they have, they have,
they have, you know, um, they're, they're, or they're paying attention. I have learned at the
highest levels that this is true. Yes. Yes. Yes. Cause like this, you mean to tell me that like,
you know, some big actor doesn't want to know like what the, what the skinny is on them. Like,
no, they definitely do. And so it's like, yeah, I'm like, how do I, how do I belong to a culture
that is so online? And then at the same time, like, there's so many parts of the online culture,
I don't understand, like something like iron lung kind of like, I thought that was so exciting.
It's so exciting. It's also like, it's like, it, it, it's like absolutely every element of like
how Hollywood thinks it should be working. That was where exactly where I wanted to take this
conversation to because, you know, you're working as an independent filmmaker, you're making all
movies now that are pretty actively kind of poking the bear and trying to say like, how close
of the edge of like radical leftist point of view can I get into a mainstream experience?
Into an AMC movie theater, which is a really, I really admire that as a, as a mission creatively.
But I also think that there's like kind of inherent anxiety around that too, or like how far can you
push it and how big can you get and how successful can you be? And what do you ultimately want for
yourself out of all of those things? I think I, you know, it's interesting with faces
finally coming out. And I think just like, we've finally seen the later day getting a pretty,
I think, the reception that I think it should get, which is like some people like really love it
in championism. A lot of people like, this movie shouldn't exist. And I'm like, yes, I agree with
you that that's probably true. Think about that. Like, you know, but it's, I think that like,
I'm very happy to be trying to continue to just prove out that this work can be entertaining
and theatrical and fun. And like ultimately, even though there's like, I think some radical ideas
in the work, like that's very rarely what we're thinking about on the day. Like I'm thinking about
like, how do I make a fun movie? How do I, how do I stage the scene in a nice way? And, and you know,
how do I just like keep the audiences engagement? And that's ultimately like, I think, for me,
it's just very hard to want to make a piece of entertainment for the sake of making a piece of
entertainment. I only get excited when I feel like I'm doing, you know, hopefully something new
in terms of, you know, cinematic form, something new in terms of like, you know, narrative form,
and something new in terms of thematic form. And generally speaking, the new thematic stuff that I'm
interested in is leftist. And so like, there are obviously ideas I care about, but I think,
yeah, it's, it's, in all honesty, I had I think hoped that it's not like that I hope that
pipeline would give people to go blow up pipelines. But I had hoped that it would maybe have served as
a little bit more. We got like so much press and like, you know, national security bulletins.
And I'd hoped it would like, at the very least, maybe in gender like a bigger conversation about,
you know, just tactics and what's working and what's not working. And you know, how we should think
about organizing differently, potentially. And what I saw was like, a lot of people watch the
movie and we're like, I watched the movie. And that's my catharsis. And, and like, and that's fine.
Like, I have to meet the audience where they're at, you know, and I'm like, okay, that's interesting.
Like, I don't think movies, I think there was a time that movies would like get people to go out
and do stuff. I don't think that's how movies operate anymore. Yeah. That's that idea is in your
mood. I mean, there's the refraction element of like, I said something out loud. And so I have
done my, my duty, you know, I've done my starship troopers moment, you know, and it's like,
did you though? Exactly. You consume something. Exactly. And you at home. And, and so I think for me,
I'm also trying to get, I'm more interested, I think. And this is something that we started with
faces that I will be digging into more and more. I, I think I'm actually becoming a little more
interested in like, instead of trying to like spur people to action or spur people to change,
it's, it's more about like getting them to understand more, using film is like a way to be like,
this is how the world is working. And, and if you can kind of like peek under the hood and look
at the little watchgear is running, they're like, Oh, that's what this is doing to me. Just,
just an idea. And like again, this is like a little bit a design idea in faces of death that like,
you know, when you're texting somebody, when you're doing email, that's a video game.
That's a video game. It has little notifications. It has things you have to check off. It's like,
I had this revelation during the pandemic when I was just like in my computer, I was playing
Zelda Breath of the Wild in a new email notification popped up on my computer. And I was like, wait,
I also have like, I have a task to do over here. And I have a task to over here. And like,
I actually am having the exact same feeling. Yeah, the endorphin rush. Exactly.
Yeah. And both of these things. Oh, something new. New quest and new email. Same thing. And I'm like,
Oh my God, like, everything is a video game right now, right? But like, no one's thinking about it that
way. No one's seeing it that way. No one's experiencing that reality. Or like, because, because
there's also like, there's no good video game criticism. All sorts of stuff like that. So it's like,
for me, I'm like, okay, how can I like get an audience to like start thinking or feeling or like
perceiving these kind of ways that like systems are being built around us in ways that like, at the
very least, will allow them to reflect on their experience differently. You know, even just thinking
about the fact that like that, that an attention economy does really kind of engender somebody wanting
to commit mass murder is like, that's the argument of the movie. And I think if somebody walks away
from the film and be like, Oh, that's, that's interesting. I think that there's a tremendous amount
that could be extrapolated from that that, you know, would hopefully be productive for that individual.
Yeah. I think there's also something interesting about that, which I don't think is quite true
for pipeline, which is that I think a lot of people will also see the movie and be like,
cool serial killer movie. And then stop thinking about it. Yes. Which is a, you know, that's an
unusual opportunity that I think filmmakers have that very few other artists have where sort of like,
I have all of these thematic load bearing ideas that I bring to my project. But I have to accept
and probably even know clearly at the head of time that like, it is also a product and that people
will receive it in different ways too. Like your intent can't be confirmed. I think that at the same
time, one of the beautiful things about being a filmmaker is I think that sometimes movies operate
on people five years after the fact, you know, there's a movie that for no good reason you can't
shake, but it lodged itself in your brain like a thorn. And I think that, you know, and like,
that's obviously true of faces of death for a lot of people for no good reason that movie is this
thing, but it is. And who kind of knows why and who kind of knows what that means. And I think that,
you know, we also know that like our images will now more than ever become de contextualized from
our movies. Like the ways in which, you know, you see like the White House posting fan cams of
war films is like, that's a real total shift in terms of like just one way I put it is up until
10 years ago, we never as humans used images to communicate directly one on one with each other.
You know, people would make images and then show them and then that would be something that was
experienced. But now if I want to communicate an idea to you, I can send you a gif. I can send you
a gif of a movie. So now all of a sudden, like the like legacy of like, you know, cinematic imagery
has become language. There's also something else that is a consequence of that, which is the
the extraction of language from communication, which is a whole lot of it.
Kelta, yeah. But I think that that's the point is that it's like, okay, so that's language now.
And like that also is like a complete change in terms of like, I'm definitely aware now what I'm
making a movie. I'm like, this image, this shot, I hope that could be a good meme. Do you think that?
Yeah, yeah. Of course.
Yeah. Do you think a lot of filmmakers think that way now?
Yeah. I think anyone who's on line and I think they might pretend that they're not.
But it's like how well that's I know that's how I'm going to live in the cultural imagination at
this point. That's how my work is going to live on. Like it used to be like, oh, you got a great
quotable line. Now it's like, no, you have something that like communicates a very specific feeling
and emotion and aesthetic in a way that like actually language feels like it can't totally capture.
And like you've done that and you've brought a cultural moment around it. And now it's being
used as language. And that's cool. That's that's interesting. Yeah. Well, there was a thing
previously when we didn't think about communicating in this way. And I love how you've put
how you've circled this. There was about the primacy of the shot that had to be something grand
or epic or physically difficult to achieve. And now it is about the image like the still or the
the locked, you know, moving gift. And that is different too. And like that, I think to pretty
dramatically changes like our cinematic expectations of what we think is good. What we think is
memorable. What we think has value. And so the idea of someone like you saying like, I'm going to
try to make one of these or at least I think this could be one of those things is really fascinating.
I'm never I'm never approaching me like, yes, this is like and this is the meme moment. But it's
like, maybe I'm on set and I see something and I'm like, oh, I can see how this could be used
in capture that way linguistically because that's just that's how my mind has become wired.
It's fascinating. So as I alluded to, we spoke three years ago. You said, I'm just about to start
doing faces of death. And that's a long time has gone by since then. If you would have asked me a
year ago, well, I ever see this movie, I probably would have said no, just based on how I know
things work. What happened? How did you get here? Yeah, maybe we can close with that? Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I think that this is a project that East and I initially pitched in 2019.
And just for context, when we were putting together our idea and we were trying to figure out
which platform this take place on this Instagram is it YouTube in terms of not literally,
but spiritually. It was like, I've ever heard of TikTok. And I go, no, what's TikTok? And she
introduced me to TikTok. And I think she immediately had this vision of like with what TikTok is,
with how it works, like the kind of phenomenon that we're talking about in the movie becomes
like much more plausible. And so we built around TikTok. And then we pitched, we got the job,
we closed our deal like March 10th, 2020. So then COVID hit. And by the time we finished the
script and we were like thinking about making the movie, like the business had completely changed.
Legendary, which was kind of trying to get into the low budget genre game that started to make
a little bit less sense. And you know, but they still had some projects that they were passionate about,
but we couldn't really figure out a path of faces. And then I used that moment to go make pipeline.
So I kind of used faces as like a casual to get pipeline together. So that's how I put my
cast together. And and and then I finished pipeline. And then all of a sudden, like I had heat and
they were like, great, let's go make faces. And then the writer strike happened two thirds of the
way through our shoot, which was very challenging. And we were like, you know, writing is we were
shooting. And that caused some some issues. And then, you know, even getting into the post-production
process, you know, we had to hiatus for long periods of time because I wasn't allowed to do
writing work on the film, right? And easy wasn't allowed to do writing work on the film. You can't
work with the actors on anything because you can't record a DR. So like that just made that whole
experience very complicated. And then I think by the time the movie was done, I think it became very
clear that like it, as you said, it is a movie that's poking the bear in a number of ways in the
kind of extremity of its content. But also in the fact that like it is very explicitly kind of
calling out corporate media culture for also trying to kind of like own our, you know, Nistelja
our childhood ring every last drop out of it. Like it's a weird question. Like why remake
faces of death? And I think it's an interesting prompt, but it's one that ultimately we are kind of
like, you know, pointing the finger back and being like, yes, why make faces of death? And that's
not exactly the kind of thing that I think, you know, the big studios are going to be excited
about releasing. I know that at least the head of marketing for one major studio is said that he
thought the movie was morally despicable. And so I think that, you know, because a lot of
legendary business, you know, like the way that company is structured is they put movies out through
the studio system when it became clear that that was not really going to be a viable path for the
movie. When I think that we hoped it would be, then it was about, okay, now we have to kind of
figure out where this lives in the market and the marketplace. And that just that just took time
because it was it was a shift for them and a shift for, you know, how the movie was kind of
initially built. And then even once we had found IFC as a partner, you know, because that conversation
with IFC started a year ago. You know, so it just like once we even figured out, okay, this is maybe
a place to do the movie just building out the deal and figuring out how to put the movie out,
you know, just just took took took time. Do you think you'll try to make another movie that could
be released by a major studio? Yeah, absolutely. I'm working on one right now. So what were your
takeaways from going through that particular process with this movie? I think, you know, I've
actually been trying a different process with the way I've been working with studios. I think it's like
studios, everybody is just trying to value the movie. And everybody has their ideas about what is
going to get an audience to go see a film tell their friends to go see it all of that. And just William
Goldman famously said, nobody action has anything about that. And I think that what I've witnessed is
that as more and more of a private equity mentality moves into Hollywood, there's more and more
of a push to kind of like get rid of the old I in my gut as a producer or as a studio. I just got
a good feeling about this. I know enough about the culture. I know enough about this like guys,
let's go make this movie. That's how it used to work. Yeah. You know, and now it's like, no, no, no,
no, all of this stuff has to be like somehow proven out and de-risked and like in a way that the
model likes. And part of that is so that then if the movie doesn't work, everybody goes, hey,
the model said it was okay. It wasn't, wasn't my fault. Yep. Like, you know, and so I think for me,
I have a whole jag about how the like the death of the Hollywood studio executive, which is used to
be a villainously perceived character in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. But now that person has been
transformed into the de-risk analysis monster that you're describing, which is actually, in many
cases, significantly more insidious. Because I think there's some incredible execs I've worked with,
you know, like John Silket legendary hired us, you know, Alex Garcia over there, like, you know,
helped with like really brilliant people, you know, but they're often sometimes I think the executive
class in Hollywood right now is by and large, like they just have a fraction of the power that they
used to have, you know, it. And so I think that for me, it's really about
seeing the ways in which I did not understand the valuation mechanisms of pipeline, of faces of death,
and knowing a lot more of the questions to ask from like a very early on part of the process,
like, you know, very exactly like what are the set pieces you need? What do they look like? Whether
it's in a horror, whether it's in something else, you know, understanding like a head of time,
like, where is the value add cast for you? How are we, you know, I have a product I'm working on
where like, you know, I think figuring out even just the age range with a studio partner of like,
you know, here's what we would want. Where does that leave? Like, what are possible talent pool would be
so that I can actually like go and build a great story around something that I know make sense for
my partner's valuation incentive structure, you know, because like I can like, you're always
working with like a limited set of things as a filmmaker in the studio system. You're always kind
of working with like what you have. And so I'm kind of just trying to figure out like, okay, what,
what do they care about? And then how can I make that a movie that I really also 100% want to make? And
again, that's what everybody's been doing. But I think that is every financier and buyer and
distributor becomes more and more boutique, you know, everybody has their own cast list, everybody has
their own idea of like what set pieces matter, you know, you know, some director will come down
where somebody's like, we did a case study and jump scares aren't working anymore. And then that
company will be like, we're not into jump scare game anymore. But then another company will like,
not have gotten that memo and they still feel like, you know, the jump scare ride is like the thing
that matters. And like, you're trying to take this project out to marketplace and like, people
are making decisions based on like, whatever market research they've done, this is like a very
different kind of situation. And so trying to really like find partners very early on. And then like,
ask a lot of questions and build something from the ground up with them. So I feel like there's
a studio buy-in on every single major decision. And that's all essentially documented.
Yeah, it's really interesting you have to be an anthropologist and a data scientist in order to
be a director now. Yeah, but that's filmmaking and art making is always a reflection at the time.
You know, I think for me, I had a big revelation. I took a Renaissance art class in college that I
rarely showed up for. But I just like, there was this thing where like you kept showing me
it's like, great paintings of the Western canon. And then you realize that like, it's all
Sponkahn for the church and the king. Yep. It's like, like the entirety of like what we think of
is like, you know, Shakespeare was Sponkahn for, you know, Queen Elizabeth. Who can afford to pay
these artists to make something? Exactly. And they're always, they're trying to figure out how to
why do there's this amazing painting, Las Maninas by Velasquez. And like this was like learning
about this painting. And it's like, well, this is like, this is like a super critical painting of
the court. Like this is a painting where he's like, he's like really like given the middle finger
to the court and to the king. And you know, and and then like he paid for it, you know. And so it's
like, okay, this is just the game. This has been the game since the beginning of time. It's always
going to be the game. You've always had to figure stuff out about art that has nothing to do with art,
especially if you're working it any sort of a bigger commercial system. And then hopefully that
experience feeds back into the work. Yeah. I as I've been thinking about your movies, I did feel
there was something really interesting and and convulsive about pipeline that I liked because it
felt like more of a stick up and less of a smuggle. And I think that your other movies are kind
of smuggles. And there's like a difference and kind of like how you can't get away with a lot of
stick ups. You know, it's like you might get shot. And a smuggle is a different venture, you know.
It's funny though, because I think that I really do feel like
faces of death is is a bit of both. But I think it is working inside of a genre that I think is
just the the ways that you are fulfilling those genre expectations are inherently kind of like
they're big, but they're very expected. There's lots of tropes that you kind of end up following.
So it ends up feeling like it's more in one lane. But what again, what I feel really proud about
with faces is like I do hope that the movie is also in many ways a reflection on those tropes,
on those tropes as they're deployed in kind of a big, you know, studio horror, IP film. And that,
you know, there is this question of like why is this a structure that we kind of keep returning to
and obsessing over? And so I'm hoping it's doing both. But I also know at the end of the day,
I also just want people to go have fun and enjoy the ride.
Okay, Danny, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they
have seen? And I've fallen on letterbox. You're the, you're log in frequently? Yes, I,
I honestly like a real all-time or like top 10 for me is the Bukowski's speed racer,
which I think is a movie that is still not gotten its due. And I think it's a movie that
it came at such a strange moment where, you know, digital tech was just getting good. And
the Bukowski's were like, what if we did everything that we could even think of? And you watch
this movie and there's like shots that still don't have names that I've seen nowhere else.
And I saw 4K restoration of that at Beyond Fest. My first time seeing it in a cinema,
it's incredible. It plays like gangbusters. It still plays like a movie from the future. It's
amazing. And for those people who haven't seen it, I highly recommend seeking it out. It's a,
it's a really, really, really special film that I think works on every single level.
Great recommendation. Congrats. Thank you for the new film. Thanks for coming back. Thank you.
Thanks to Daniel Goldhaber. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode.
Thanks to our production support from Lucas Kavanaugh. I mentioned we're heading to Vegas.
I'm getting in the car in one hour. How long is it going to take me to get there?
I don't know. You've alleged that you'll be able to be there for dinner and drinks
before cinema concerts. I hope so. That's my plan. Yeah. I've got to see the Sony
presentation at 630 as well. Yes. With all respect to Zach Kregger, I will be having family
dinner before I fly into Las Vegas here. No, no, family dinner. I see. I don't with boys.
So boy dinner. Yeah, boy dinner. I'll be having three boy dinner. We'll have a great dinner.
And then I will meet you in Las Vegas. Sounds good. See you then. And we'll see you back on the
big picture at the end of this week. We'll be joined by Matt Bellany and Craig Hool back to talk
about cinema content.