Batman Buzz, and Clayface’s Horror Story! Marvel Missteps! -01052025

[00:00:00] Speaker A: What's going on, everybody? Happy New Year. Welcome back to another episode of the Nerd Gen Report. I'm your host, Pablo, and joining me, as always, is Mr. Brian Schultz. Brian, happy New Year. [00:00:09] Speaker B: Likewise. [00:00:10] Speaker A: A lot of DC News creature commandos. All it took, it was a silhouette to start the conversation. Brian, I've been. And. And we gotta get into this Batman delay and how they're trying to go. I have a proposal. Not even, you know, something to think about is rolling the dice for sure. But I think is worth doing it. The Lobo conversation is going to be very short because we spoke about this a year ago. Nothing has changed. The only thing there's one thing I would have done with this announcement. Clayface. They're really moving forward with this. Brian, the fact that you mentioned Clayface is that there's news. There's news, There's. There's a reason why James Gunn wants to release this. Obviously he feels that the script is good and that they're ready to roll on it. And if he's excited, I'm somewhat excited because there's a bunch of things you could do with Clayface that could make it interesting. More Superman screening chatter. To me, Brian, this is just another. What do you expect when it comes to, oh, this looks like this, or that looks like that. Where do you think it came from? It doesn't. This is, to me a non. Sort of debate, sort of. It's just a mention and it just doesn't really do anything other than what this movie has to do for me. There's a lot more to discuss in terms of the future of the DCU based on this movie, not this. And then we'll get into some Marvel news. A lot to talk about there. How I was talking to Freddie yesterday, because I usually use Freddie to prep me for my flow, you know, and it's crazy when I think back, think back in terms of how we used to talk about marvel in D.C. and now the tables have turned completely. But Bowden Mayo says some stuff that I agree with him with regards to the what if. What if to me is I. I didn't like it at all, Brian. And you. And you heard what I had to say in the last show. Godzilla, Yo, Voltron. Spider Man. Teaser. My friendly neighborhood Spider Man. That one, Brian, I am sort of interested in seeing. [00:02:51] Speaker B: Agreed. [00:02:52] Speaker A: You know, it took me a little because I'm so turned off by Marvel. I sort of scoffed at it at first and I was like, I don't want to watch this. And then I looked at it again. I'm like, this is interesting. I want to see where this goes. Long ago, Brian, I said the leader would look ridiculous, and here we are. And then we'll get into Garfield. Joe. Brian. They went to him and said, lie. Just lie. Now he's walking around with an L on his head because he's a liar. That's crazy. Just say. Don't say. Anyway, we'll get into it. Dcu, Creature Commandos. Brian, have you seen. Have you caught up to the entirety of all the episodes? And how many are there? Are there still any more? [00:03:52] Speaker B: Six. There's six. Yeah. [00:03:54] Speaker A: There's just six. [00:03:55] Speaker B: Yeah. But the Dr. Phosphorus one is the one that everyone's talking about. And it's literally. It's so funny. I didn't even see. So I was watching it. I gotta be honest. This show is. As I said, I. I can see that it's well done. I think it's. I think some of the voice work is really good. I'm enjoying Frank Grillo in particular as Flag. And obviously, we know Viola Davis as Amanda Waller was fine. So I've been enjoying some of the voice work. But it's not a show that it's, like, riveting me the same way that X Men 97 or Blue Eye Samurai did. So I do find myself, like, I'm watching it, but then I'll be, like, getting distracted a little bit. So I didn't see the shot because it's like, wow, yo. [00:04:39] Speaker A: I was, you know, what, half a. [00:04:40] Speaker B: Second, and I didn't even see it the first time. So when you texted me, I was like, what? So I went back and watched it again because I didn't. I was like, what? What? See? And it's literally like, it comes and goes, and it's literally taken over the Internet since that. Which is what we said. The second this dude does anything, the world notices. [00:05:00] Speaker A: I went to the episode and I was just fast forwarding and I couldn't find it. That's how. That's how long he was in the episode. I had to, like, pause and. And see. Oh, is from here. Whatever. But look at what everybody's talking about. [00:05:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, you don't think about Superman. [00:05:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:23] Speaker B: Over analysis. I mean, the. Where people have taken this one shot tells you everything you need to know about Batman as a character. [00:05:32] Speaker A: That's all it took. James Gunn, I don't think, realizes the power of Batman. Yeah. Because why put him out there? Because now no one's thinking about. I wasn't thinking about Superman. I was thinking about who's Batman gonna be? How they're gonna do that? Those are the questions that you don't want to ask because you want to. You want people to stay on Superman. [00:05:55] Speaker B: So if you have. Okay, we're spoiling it. But honestly, like, there isn't that much to spoil. Like, it's so it's an episode, by the way. There's one more. One more episode of Creature Command. [00:06:03] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. [00:06:05] Speaker B: So there's a shot in the Dr. Phosphorus Centric episode. Sort of they're at almost like a club or a dance, like a club party. [00:06:16] Speaker A: There's a montage and then it ends there. [00:06:20] Speaker B: And then you hear like a scream that's. Pan up to skylight and you just see the silhouette of Batman for half a second and that's it. He doesn't move. You don't hear him. There's nothing else. It's just that. And like every story has been dissecting how he's drawn the, like the physique versus Robert Pattinson. Then James Gunn then like just pours gas on the fire where he's basically like, yep, that's the DCU Batman right there. [00:06:53] Speaker A: But nobody's talking about Superman now. [00:06:55] Speaker B: No. [00:06:56] Speaker A: Until. Until Super Bowl. Yeah, when we get another trailer. Right, but this is. This is the problem, Brian. This is the problem with Batman. And it's not a bad problem. But you wanna. You want all the attention on Superman. I think you should have all the attention on Superman. Showing Batman at this stage, knowing that he's going to be in there. We've had no announcements. Has been fine, has been good. But now that we see this, the conversation is always going to be this, regardless of what happens with Superman. [00:07:33] Speaker B: I agree. Now I do understand. So James Gunn offered a little commentary about this because this went so viral that he basically had to like, way in I think what he was, he. [00:07:46] Speaker A: Said, I'll be back, kids. Sorry that I got to go to work right now. [00:07:52] Speaker B: Yeah, got it. Well, if it gets too out of hand, what they'll do is they'll go into post production. They'll like re release the episode minus that shot. It'll be like, did you see the version that had Batman in it? No. What he's trying to communicate, I think is two things. And he sort of alluded to it in his comments, in his responses. Number one is he wanted to emphasize the kind of the malleability of the dc, his DC universe, which includes animated to live action. That's what he's. Right. So this is the point about Viola Davis and Frank Grillo and the Creature Commandos, we know there's a plan someday for them to effectively transition cameo appear in the same world as a David Coren sweat Superman. That's been a creed of James Gunn's. So by showing an animated Batman, he's effectively letting you know, like, these characters all can kind of go back and forth as we need them to. [00:08:51] Speaker A: Yes. [00:08:51] Speaker B: So David Corenswet, for example, could voice an animated Superman at some point in the future. And maybe he. He doesn't see that he is Superman. Doesn't really fit the Creature Commando storyline. But I guess you could argue had you wanted to keep the Batman conversation off the Internet, you could have just had corn sweat pop up as either Clark or Superman in Creature Commando somewhere to let people know about this interchange. But I think that's the number one thing that he was trying to do, and I think the number two thing he was trying to do was he was trying to let you know that no one is off limits when it comes to the anime. That's the part where I do wonder if James Gunn understood the power of that one shot, because he understood that, like, if I put Batman in here, it will let everyone know that, yes, like, Batman exists in this entire world, animated and live action. And he does make a reference to that in his comments where he kind of is like, yeah, we're just trying to inform people that everyone is out there. Like, so this is. I think that's what you say, like, in the Superman teaser. The reason why you see these. Some of these other characters is an acknowledgment that they're all there. Like, all the fans know that. We're not trying to hide that from you. [00:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:01] Speaker B: And so in this case, we're not trying to hide Batman from. From something that maybe James Gunn would argue would draw the attention of Batman over time. So, you know, I kind of get it. I just wonder if he understood exactly how big of a deal this was going to be. [00:10:19] Speaker A: This part of a type of idea that is. Could be very. Couldn't work. I mean, it could work, but it is a risk because there's this talk of having various Batmans out there and the fans being confused. I think the fans being confused part, especially new people who may not follow, I think we should be able to treat people intelligently with respect to what's going on so that you're not confused. Right. You get ahead of that. Now, once you've done that, I say, go ahead with your DCU Batman, and have Matt Reeves do his thing and Even go beyond that with a Batman beyond movie. Here's what I'm saying. We've seen three Spider man in a film. We've seen all these different Spider man, and everybody's applauding it. Whatever your can do this with Batman. Why I saw Batman Ninja. That movie was horrible. What I'm saying is, with Batman, you roll the dice. Because I think Batman fans will see anything that's good. Batman. I've seen the Batman, the Animated Series, Batman, Justice League, all this Batman all over the place, regardless of what world he's in. Batman, the Caped Crusader. Everybody tuned in on everybody. But, you know, Batman fans. If you're a Batman fan, everybody tuned in. What I'm saying is roll the dice, do what you want to do. Let people are gonna go see the Batman. Why? Not because the Batman was dope, even though it was dope, but because of the Penguin, the attention that it got, people are gonna see that regardless. And now that you've put this out, this obviously doesn't look like a Pattinson version. [00:12:29] Speaker B: I want to get into that. I think people are reading a little too much into that. The patents and thing. I was thinking about this when we. When Gunn is talking about the kind of the fungibility of animated versus live action, that means you do have to be careful how you draw your animated character. Because that actor or that portrayal, if you intend that to then become a live action version, can't look radically different, right? [00:12:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:59] Speaker B: So when I see Rick Flag in Creature Commandos, I'm assuming that's been drawn with Frank Grillo's kind of grizzled some extent, so that when he comes into live action, he kind of looks the. [00:13:12] Speaker A: Same and he won't brighten in this movie. I think he's a wearing all black and his hair is not great. [00:13:18] Speaker B: So to that point, I think it was very purposeful that you only see Batman silhouette. Right. So people are drawing a lot from the physique, but you don't see his face, even the part underneath the cow. You don't see exactly how the suit looks because to me, that part is all tbd. Like, I don't believe they finalized that. I think all that Gunn was trying to signal was, yeah, it's a. It's a prime Batman. Right. It's not like, to your point, it's not a Terry McGinnis, you know, sort of sleek junior Batman. And I think people are interpreting. Well, they can't be Pattinson because Pattinson is younger Batman. And I'm not totally saying that because I'm like, wait a minute, look at the time frames here. In which Brave and the Bold is realistically going to appear or DCU Batman Live Action is realistically going to appear. I mean, that is five years off, you know, six years. It is years away. [00:14:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:10] Speaker B: And like Robert Pattinson by then, just to say it will be 40 something. And like, you're telling me he can't put on 20 more pounds if he had to. 20 more pounds of muscle and be a little. Of course he could. So this idea that like, well, he. This bill looks different than Pattinson's Batman. Now, I put no stock in that. It's like a conclusive. I tend to agree with you. Again, I think the betting favorite is because Gunn has said it himself. Pattinson is not the DCU Batman. But I think again, that that debate is happening at a studio level. It's not happening at a creative level. And so I just don't think it'll be resolved until after the Batman, Batman 2. And I certainly don't think it's going to be resolved before Superman. To your point, look at what 1/2 second of a Silhouette animated Batman did to the Internet. What will it do if they announce who did you see? [00:15:05] Speaker A: You forget about Superman. [00:15:07] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:15:08] Speaker A: You forget until you see release and more stuff that they'll have to like. Stuff that we don't like, Brian. They'll have to show us more to get us excited. Possibly we're already excited. But the silhouette of Bat. Yo, it was a silhouette of Batman for like a half a second and everybody went crazy. [00:15:28] Speaker B: Yep, you got my. You got my brain turning now. Okay, so the Crisis on Infinite Earths Batman story, basically the Batman offshoot where we get Pattinson, Bale, Richson, Keaton, Clooney, and I guess, all due respect, we probably would get the headstone for. For val. I don't know if they could get VAL in here in a meaningful way like they did in Top Gun. But Aflac. So we get all of them in one movie. Can we get all of them in one movie in one. One fight scene? [00:16:06] Speaker A: I doubt that. But what I'm saying is, Brian, what are you. What are your thoughts of having different Batmans? Like you have DCU and we have the Bat, the Batman, Matt Reeves universe. [00:16:19] Speaker B: I think there's, in my mind there's, because of the Batman lore, there's room for three, I think. And I think there's room for the Batman beyond, like that specific relationship of elderly Bruce Terry McGinnis. Absolutely, there's room for that. And it Looks so different. The suit is so different. It just doesn't compete in my mind with another. [00:16:45] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:16:46] Speaker B: There's Prime Batman. Now that one is a lot of room. You can kind of go anywhere from Pattinson's age or even a little bit younger to obviously you could go as high as, like, Keaton or you could kind of go anywhere in there that's your prime Batman. And then I think there's kind of the Brave and the Bold, Dark Knight Returns type of Batman. So now you don't have a Terry McGinnis. It's not a beyond world. It's just older Bruce. He's kind of doing something for someone else now. He's not necessarily the only show in that. Yeah, I think you can do all three of those. As long as the age gaps of the actors and the looks of the actors are appropriate, I think fans can keep that straight. I think if you do. If you're doing like two prime age Batman at exactly the same age in time, I think that's where it starts to get kind of funny for the audience. So I would say three is kind of where you want to talk about. [00:17:40] Speaker A: That's exactly. And my reference to Spider man and some of these other. Where two. Well, I mean, Spider man has been just the one. Right? Has there been any other films where there's been multiple of one character? [00:17:55] Speaker B: I mean, you mean for any length of time? Because the Flash movie, obviously. [00:17:59] Speaker A: Oh, yes. There you go. There you go. There you go. That was the other one I was thinking about. Yes. So. And I'm not saying we should do that with Batman, just saying that we've seen it and we haven't gone crazy. What I'm saying is release your. Release the bat. Release the map. Reeves universe, his Batman universe. He's doing it way different than I've ever seen it done. Yeah, I'm there for that. DC youu brave in a boat. That's a different Batman. I understand that. As a Batman fan, I understand that. And whoever doesn't understand, let me show you. Let me help you understand. And then you do your Batman Beyond. I don't see a. If you do those. If you tell good stories and do them appropriately, which I know James Gunn is going to do, what's the problem? Take that chance. Forget about all the fans are not going to be. I can't cannibalize. Whatever. Yo. Is Batman, yo. You guys are not realizing the power of the Batman, yo. [00:19:08] Speaker B: I mean, look, I think. I think your idea, if it hasn't been kicked around already, will come up at some point in the future, I think certainly when they get Brave and the Bold or whatever, the next iteration of Batman is on screen. Because it'll probably be Before Batman 3, the Batman Part 3 comes out. I think that discussion will be had of a can we no Way Home this somehow. Because Hollywood is all about imitation, right? I mean, it is. They see the $2 billion next to no Way Home. And every studio that's got this ip, Marvel included, is looking at like. And they were involved in this one, but they're looking at that angle specifically. Right. And Secret wars effectively is going to be Marvel trying to do a no Way Home on a grander scale. [00:19:49] Speaker A: Right. [00:19:49] Speaker B: We're going to bring in all these universes that people have played, characters across time and blah, blah, blah. But you're right, Batman in particular has a unique lineage just in Hollywood because it's been done so many times and the actors who've done it generally are big name actors, you know, and have their fans. All of them do, right? They do like even. I mean, as actors, maybe not Clooney as Batman, but actor people have liked in other roles. So, like, yeah, the idea of a on screen moment where they're brought together, of course that will be talked about, if it hasn't been already. And it was, if it was done like, you know, if you were to expand again Crisis on Infinite Earth, if you were to expand the DC multiversal story to make that feasible, people would absolutely show up for it. [00:20:38] Speaker A: But here's my thing. And because that's not the approach that I would take and put in them all in one film. I don't want to see all three of them on one screen. I. I want them to take their separate paths. [00:20:51] Speaker B: I get it. But I'm just telling you that if you do that, the inevitable discussion will be how to bring them together. [00:20:57] Speaker A: And you know, that's where James Gunn comes in and says, no way. That's his job. But let us know in the comments below what you guys think of that idea. Continue your Batman with Matt Reeves universe, James Gunn. Do your DC announce all you need to announce after Superman, because right now look what, look at, look at what you did. And then you got Batman beyond, which is a different take. Not even a different take. It's just a different Batman with an older Bruce. You can do those things with the Bat, with Batman, because that. He's that popular of a character. Yo, he's right up there with Spidey. He's right up there with Wolverine. That's $3 billion. I just mentioned to you right now because I guarantee you that the Batman 2 is gonna make a billion. Guarantee guaranteed, Brian. [00:21:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I would agree. [00:21:55] Speaker A: Dcu. Whatever the potential is, whatever however you use him, you can possibly get that. Because look at what you just did with a half a second. [00:22:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:06] Speaker A: Batman beyond whole, you got Batman fans and younger. This pg, that's another billion dollars. Possibly. Brian, stop playing games. [00:22:18] Speaker B: The Batman, to Matt Reeves has confirmed is set in wintertime. [00:22:22] Speaker A: Ah. [00:22:23] Speaker B: And a rumor popped up that one Victor Freeze might make an appearance in the Batman Part 2. Now, this is different than some of the other villain lines we've heard from Hush to Court of Owls or would Barry Kyogan's Joker thing and blah, blah, blah. But I gotta admit, in Matt Reeves parlance, given what we've seen him do with the other villains, and just thinking back to how the Animated Series treated Victor Freeze, I saw the Internet being like, it. It doesn't make sense. He's too. I'm like, stop it. Yeah, Victor Freeze could be awesome in this universe. Got me excited. [00:23:01] Speaker A: Like you said, he's two for two with villains to have him. And Victor Fries is a tragic character, but you understand his motivations. If you go back to our previous episode where we talked about the Heart of Ice episode, I think that's where he makes his first appearance. [00:23:22] Speaker B: Yes, it is. [00:23:24] Speaker A: That is a. That is a captivating performance from whoever performed that. Whoever wrote that. That episode. Didn't it win some awards? [00:23:32] Speaker B: Won an Emmy for writing that episode. [00:23:35] Speaker A: There you go. So I'm in for that because Matt Reeves. And listen, yeah, he's taking a long time, but when he gives you the goods, you ain't complaining too much. I gotta ask this because I had this conversation with Fred. For me, if it ain't Alan Richardson as Batman, I say, go, new guy. Start fresh. No, no. None of these actors that John can't. I've heard John Campus say Jake Gyllenhaal, and it's like, dude, really? He said, what's that dude that played the guy that plays the. The. Not the Patriot. He's on the boys. The Captain America variant. But the Captain America guy. [00:24:34] Speaker B: Homelander. [00:24:35] Speaker A: Not Homelander. The other dude. The one that can beat Homelander. [00:24:38] Speaker B: He's like, oh, Jensen Ackles. [00:24:40] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes. [00:24:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:43] Speaker A: Which he's voiced before. [00:24:44] Speaker B: He's. Yeah, he's been Batman in the Animated. [00:24:47] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm looking for somebody new. I'm looking for actual representation. The ways James Gunn is doing this. I'm looking for somebody that's going to be as big as the silhouet that we saw on this in Creature Commandos. He has to be for me. You saw the disparities between Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill in terms of height. I think the way we've seen him in comic books, they're there in terms of physical. [00:25:18] Speaker B: Yeah, they look about the same. I mean, Superman 6 foot 4 to 25 and Batman, Bruce Wayne is supposed to be about that. He's pretty close to that. So. [00:25:26] Speaker A: So I need. I'd like to see that your thoughts on whether it should be. I'm pret sure you don't care whether. I mean, you would. Wouldn't mind if it was Alan Richson, if it ain't Anna Richson. Would you consider going brand new and finding your Batman? [00:25:40] Speaker B: Of course. Of course. I mean, I think, you know, and honestly, like, let's be honest about the Alan Richard discussion. That is something that has evolved over time. Right. Alan Richen, I remember him as Arthur Curry in Smallville, as Aquaman. That's a long. He's playing a surfer dude in his 20s. That's a long way from Bruce Wayne. Right? Yeah, I. We obviously know him as Hawk from Titans. Like that's a long way from where. It's only when he bulked up and started bringing honestly some Batman affect into Reacher because that's what the Reacher character in the novels is like at times. That's when people started to make that comparison. So the idea that there's another actor out there of some age who can't similarly transform physically or vocally. Of course there are like, you know, like, not to bring in he man here, but like, I don't know anything about Nicholas Galitzen. Right. But I think that's good in the sense of I'm not biased in any way for or against whatever he's going to do with he man. So I think yes, you could bring someone in total white space and just be like, yeah, I don't know anything about this guy. But you know, you start to see the photos of him training and bulking up like, okay, the guy's 6 foot 3 and now he looks like he's 220, 230 pounds. And you know, you just wait to debut the voice and I think it's fine. I don't have a problem with it. I think what will be interesting for me to see is the studio willing to put another relative unknown into that role in the sense that David Corenswet, relative unknown, gets the Superman role. Would they do another Relative unknown as Batman, or do they feel pushed to have a bigger name somewhere on one of these posters? That I think is more the question. [00:27:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, if you want to. If this is about business, then business tells me, find somebody new that can play the role. And at the. In the movie, you have him say, I'm Batman. That's it. That said, that's what it is. [00:27:45] Speaker B: Well, Christian Bale wasn't. I mean, so Christian Bale is interesting, right, because he had been nominated for an Oscar and Empire, the sun as a kid, but he basically disappeared from Hollywood in the 90s, right. It was only then he re. When he comes back as American Psycho, people saw Bruce Wayne, right? They saw, like, almost a. They saw the sadistic side of Bruce Wayne, but they saw it in that movie, which has led to the fan casting that then, you know, ultimately translated to Chris Nolan picking him. But at the time, it's not like Christian Bale was like, oh, my God. [00:28:14] Speaker A: Biggest name in Hollywood for me was Equilibrium. That's when it clicked for me. [00:28:20] Speaker B: But again, like, he was not. Like, his role in the Batman trilogy is what made Christian Bale the guy that could go on the top of a poster in a lot of other movies. It wasn't the other way around. Like, honestly, if they announced Richton and Chalamet, that would be by far the most established, biggest name, like, tandem that we've seen of this type in. In a while. Probably, really? Since they used to do it with Batman in the 90s, right. Like, when Val Kilmer became Batman, he was a star. Like, when Clooney became Batman, he was a star. Like, that was more Stardrin. You know, Michael Keaton got Batman. It was like people were like, what? Who? Yeah, like gung ho. Like, they weren't. You know, it wasn't. It wasn't like, Michael Keaton. Oh, my God. [00:29:04] Speaker A: Yeah. I was like, Michael Keaton. This was. It was Michael Keaton. That's the reaction. [00:29:09] Speaker B: See, people need to remember that, right? Because history gets revised. Yeah. Jack was the. Like, oh, my God, they got Nicholson to be the Joker. That. That was the name. Keaton was kind of like the. Really. He can do that. [00:29:20] Speaker A: Even Heath Ledger. Right. [00:29:24] Speaker B: In that part, for sure. He was like a young heartthrob actor. [00:29:28] Speaker A: We didn't get Heath Ledger. We got the Joker. [00:29:31] Speaker B: That's the Aaron Pierre parallel. Right? Heath Ledger, there's. He's unrecognizable. [00:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:36] Speaker B: But he is the Joker. Yeah. [00:29:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Lobo, we ain't gonna spend too much time here because again, we spoke about. [00:29:46] Speaker B: It a year ago. [00:29:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And this is what I think they should have done with this announcement. Not announce it. Try to. Try to keep it as secret as you did with Blade in Deadpool Wolverine. That was a huge surprise. Keep that. Because it's. It's not a secret that this dude is Lobo. He hasn't cut his hair for a reason. So what are we talking about here? Why announce it? And now everybody's drawing him up. By the time we see him, we were already have visualized what he looked like. Even though I think Brian, they're going to make him look dope. There's no. This is gonna. He's gonna look fantastic. I have questions about his performance. Is it going to be Jason Momoa in makeup or is it going to be the ferocious Lobo and witty one? Right. That'll be the difference maker for me. Visually. I think he's perfect for, for this role. But why announce it now for a movie you probably haven't started. You. I know you gonna start filming. It doesn't come out to when. [00:30:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:01] Speaker A: Why announce it now? Wait. Oh, don't announce it at all. Because everybody knows. Come on. Your thoughts. [00:31:12] Speaker B: I have only two thoughts. One is I think the casting announcement was done backwards. So they should have announced that Lobo will be playing Jason, not that Jason Momoa will be playing Lobo. Because if you're a comic book character look like it would imitate life. It is this. This is the worst kept secret of all time. [00:31:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:33] Speaker B: And quite honestly, he lobbied the old D.C. regime to play Lobo the last time. And effectively when he's playing Aquaman, he's basically kind of like sticking in little bits of pieces of Lobo personality. [00:31:47] Speaker A: Because it's his personality. [00:31:49] Speaker B: This is what he's always like. Right. Is this acting? I think that's the question. Is this acting or is Jason Momoa just waking up and doing his everyday life when he plays this part? Look, it's great. I mean, look, I understand you could have minor concerns about it, but he is born to do this. [00:32:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:06] Speaker B: And he will look great in it. And I think the thing that I liked and this is why I think they announced it, he. He can help sell Supergirl. That is why I think they announced it. [00:32:20] Speaker A: Very good point. [00:32:21] Speaker B: Because there were rumors initially he was going to cameo in Superman and I was very opposed to that. I was like, why? Like what is that? Right. We don't. But Supergirl, where you know, you're trying to basically put over a character that has never been successful on the big screen before there I could see his value. And then also the idea of what Lobo is. Right, Lobo, this intergalactic bounty hunter who's kind of planet hopping. Well, the Supergirl story is a revenge story that takes place over multiple planets. So it makes sense that she might encounter him somewhere in deep space, which would then create the natural tie in again to the broader universe. So I like the placement of. And they said what I heard after was Momoa's like schedule. It's not that much. He's basically a small part, it's not a cameo. But he is not. He think like maybe Michael Keaton in Flash, like he's, he's not in an enormous amount of this movie. So he's not going to upstage Millie Alcock, but he is going to get some people buzzing in a way that like a just a post credit scene wouldn't. So I think they're playing the cards smartly here and that's why I think they made it public early. [00:33:37] Speaker A: Lobo is definitely sort of that thread like character and, and I'm a put a link so that everybody can go back to our conversation regarding, you know, female led superhero films or female led films, period, and being successful. Right. The conversation that we had is basically what people used to say about black films. It can't make, it can't be global, it can't make a billion. Then you got Black Panther. Right. And so we're saying with fema, look at Furioso, there's people that thought this, the movie was great. Right. Apparently I didn't see it. [00:34:20] Speaker B: It's not, it's not nearly as good as Fury Road, but it's not as bad as the box office would tell you it is. That's what I would say. [00:34:27] Speaker A: Yes. [00:34:27] Speaker B: So this is not, this is. Our point was that's a recurring theme across female led action and sci fi. [00:34:35] Speaker A: So using Jason Momoa to sell this is the right call. [00:34:39] Speaker B: Yep. [00:34:40] Speaker A: I just wish they would have waited a little bit, a little bit later to do it. Not now. [00:34:46] Speaker B: But I hear what you're saying about like they could have just waited six months. I mean, they didn't have to do it before. There's a lot of like, why are you getting anything in the way of Superman? There's a, there's a little bit of that right now. I guess that I am a little intrigued because I'm assuming shouldn't assume this, I guess, but I'm kind of assuming his small role in Supergirl will be that he's in conflict with Supergirl, the star. Because I'm assuming the way they're building this up is that he's gonna bounty hunt Superman at some point. And you have to kind of set the stage for that. Even if he winds up being a quasi anti hero, not necessarily on the side of villainy in the long run. I assume that one of the things people want to see on screen is a Superman versus Lobo. [00:35:26] Speaker A: Guess who will be tight. Guess who's gonna be tight when they see that? [00:35:31] Speaker B: Who? [00:35:32] Speaker A: The Rock cl. You know, he gonna be tight because that's what he wanted to do. But guess what? It ain't happening. Clayface. What seems to be, because the more news that comes about, comes out about this movie has me thinking about where they're trying to go with this film. So what. What news have we gotten for Clayface? [00:35:59] Speaker B: I think probably. I think we're gonna be proven. I think your theory for Marvel is going to get proven right in D.C. and we're going to test it with Clayface. So people have asked Gun a lot, why this? Like, why are you kind of like, why are you bothering when you've got all this other stuff? And he got kind of prickly about it. And he basically was like, look, I told you guys, it's about script and writing. And he's like, Mike Flanagan came in with a completed script and an idea he sold me. He pitched me and won me over. And he said, I can't believe that I want to make a Clayface movie. But Clayface is ready. Those other things you guys are talking about are not. So we're making Clayface, like, end of discussion. [00:36:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:36:47] Speaker B: So there are rumors that this thing is gearing up to shoot by February, so next month. Now, we don't have a director, we don't have a star, but presumably if they're getting that ready, they must know one or both of those people. And we just haven't announced it because Flanagan wrote it. He's not. He's not directing it. [00:37:09] Speaker A: So it's Flannigan, a notable writer. [00:37:12] Speaker B: What's that? [00:37:13] Speaker A: Is Flanagan a notable writer? [00:37:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I think he's got sort of a. He's got sort of a following from. From stuff. I would say he's the thing that stands out because I don't do a lot with horror. [00:37:26] Speaker A: Me neither. [00:37:28] Speaker B: So he only writes horror genre movies. So that's what kind of got my attention. [00:37:36] Speaker A: That like, go. [00:37:37] Speaker B: And then they said, this is a low budget film. Which also to my mind was, that's a horror movie. So this is going to be an R rated, low budget clay face movie that I looks to me like they're gonna test drive. Can we do like a creature feature, make it dark, make it maybe gory, make it scary. And oh, by the way, I didn't know this until they, they put this out for the film. You know when they're putting this out? [00:38:07] Speaker A: When? [00:38:08] Speaker B: Month before Batman 2. [00:38:12] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:38:13] Speaker B: So that's gonna be like. Even though it's not necessarily Pattinson, right? This is in theory something else. This could be Elseworlds again. We know where Clayface comes from. We know what universe he belongs to in the comics. Like, so if you get a world where you've got like Penguin, you've got Clay, you got a lot of Batman stuff leading into that. [00:38:34] Speaker A: The thing that comes to mind, Brian, when I hear that is okay, great. This is what Batman has to contend with. And that's what doing these sort of experimentate, experimenting with these villains. That's what it does. This is what Batman has to contend with and this is what we want to see. I'm not interested in seeing a non scary villain because if at first glance you may see Oz, if you put Oz in a situation with Batman, your first time seeing him, what makes him scary? What makes. We know, what makes us do dangerous. And this is what Batman has to contend with. We saw what the Riddler was doing and his reasons for what he was doing. We get it. This is what Batman has to contend with. So I'm all for it. [00:39:29] Speaker B: I. And I do think that fits my idea. Why would gun fast track it? Because he can experiment with it. That's what it feels like to me. This actually feels more significant than people realize in terms of, you know, and they're saying with the budget, most of the budget reportedly is basically just about making Clayface look good on screen. Which obviously, as we know it will be an interesting proposition. Which again tells you if they're not spending money on sets, then I mean, that's like it's all pointing to horror movie. That's what horror movie is. It's like you pick one house, one forest, one place, and then you just shoot for $10 million to scare the bejes out of everybody for an hour and a half. And if that's what this is and it works, you're gonna see like six of these. Which is exactly what you asked Marvel to do with the Ghost Rider sort of Midnight Suns buildup. [00:40:20] Speaker A: That's what it has to be. [00:40:22] Speaker B: And it's feeling like DC might beat Them to this idea. If it works, we'll see. But I think it's a noble experiment that doesn't cost them a lot of money. [00:40:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it makes total sense. And I'm interested in seeing what this. This was. What this is gonna look like. Cause I have a sort of visual in my mind about how they gonna make this look. What games are. Is he going to be playing in terms of getting what he wants? How is he gonna change? Because I remember in Batman, the Animated Series, he had to really concentrate on who, what who in order for him to remain as who he changed into. And so what happens when that concentration falters? What does he turn into? Who does he horrify. This is brilliant. So there's some more Superman screening chatter. Yeah, I have my thoughts on it. Because to me, is not really a subject of conversation unless something different from. I like to hear your thoughts on it. For me, this is expected because of who's doing it. [00:41:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it validates a little bit of our former discussion, which was. It was a little peculiar that there was a screening with no leaks. Then all of a sudden we got this flurry of leaks, good, bad. And in between, we were kind of debating like the validity of that. And I was sort of saying, well, this project, there's agendas involved with whether it fails or succeeds. And then you come to find out that some of these screening reviews have been debunked as just fiction. Like pure. Basically, someone saw a rumor that someone hated it. So then it was like a fan crafted. It's awesome. Total bs. Like, I think we're back at square one, which is. He showed a first cut, like unedited, basically, with some visual effects to friends, crew and a few WB execs on the lot. Like, that's raw. Like, I don't even. Yeah, like, to me, like, I don't even. Like that is meant for critique because it's gonna get edited in post production. I'm like, so I don't. When I read, I was like, I don't believe I'm back to not believing anything good or bad that people say about that cut because it means almost nothing. [00:42:46] Speaker A: But that's. That's this. That's sort of the. I told you, I edit. And so when I'm showing my stakeholders a first cut, I go to them and tell them, listen, I haven't edited this in for finally. This is just a rough cut of what we have so far. This is. Forget about the colors. Forget about all this other stuff. I just want you to See this. But people go into it. Oh, it's missing this. And I'm like, I know. It's missing music. I know, I know. That's why I'm telling you what I'm telling you. Go into it just to see. Listen to what's going on here. Tell me is this is the message, whatever it is. This is just the first cut. This is nothing. This is similar to Tom Holland talking about the first draft of Spider Man. Do you think I give a damn about what that first draft is all about, whether it's good or not? There was also mention of, oh, that looks like Guardians of the Galaxy. [00:43:43] Speaker B: And also made up. Also made up. Yeah. [00:43:48] Speaker A: But even so, what would you expect it to look like when it comes from the hands of James Gunn? He did Goddess of the Galaxy and those movies, I think, except for Guardians of Galaxy to. It looks like you want a studio said when they went on Ego the planet. [00:44:06] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. [00:44:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I didn't like that part too much. But outside of that, he's doing it, so I expect it to look somewhat similar. Not ex, you know, but still, it's James Gunn. You know, his James Gunn. So that does it for dc. [00:44:23] Speaker B: Oh, we got one more. [00:44:24] Speaker A: Oh, what? [00:44:25] Speaker B: Our boy Aaron Pierre. Oh, making some news. We got to give him a shout because we got him his job. [00:44:33] Speaker A: Since we influence. Because that's what we do, we influence the people out there and realizing, yo, there's nothing to really debate or to discuss. That's your guy. Stop trying to sell me on these other dudes. Some of them could have done it, but this is not the guy. Especially if you start an off. We need to see Green Lantern. And there's your Green Lantern, Aaron Pierre. There was a movie, Brian, that Chadwick Boseman, may he rest in peace, did. Where he was a cop from Africa. I forget where I think it was Nigeria. I don't know. South. South Africa. I'm not sure. It was on Netflix. And he was investigating the disappearances of his. The disappearance of his sister. In that movie. He has an accent not so different than what he had in Black Panther. Nobody really saw that movie. I saw it after the fact. But when I saw that movie, I said, that's where they got. That's where they said that. There's our Black Panther. Rebel Ridge is. There's your Green Lantern. And we spoke about it immediately after we saw it, and boom, three weeks later, Aaron Pierre. And what's he talking about? How he's. How his approach for this movie, contrary to other people. [00:45:58] Speaker B: Go ahead, look I mean, he's saying all the right things and it's nice to hear. So he appeared on a show in the uk. First off, you made a comment. Because his first thing he said was, quote, D.C. gave me the call. [00:46:13] Speaker A: They called him immediately. Yo. [00:46:17] Speaker B: Very grateful, very happy to be part of the team. The character is Jon Stewart, part of the Green Lantern Corps. He said, for me, this character has always radiated class, always radiated charisma, strength and identity. So I'm very happy to be bringing him to a live action context. And then he was asked, are you training for the role? And he said, most of what's happening right now is my homework, my physical preparation, and my extensive DC homework. Pierre said he's been doing a deep dive into anything relevant from the comics, films and TV series and more. Quote, I'm trying to be the best student I can, trying to get the best, best grades here. I'm mildly ocd. I'm very, very meticulous as a person. So I really want to leave no stone unturned and want to feel as prepared as I can going into this. End quote. [00:47:08] Speaker A: And that, my friends, is how you approach doing a superhero character. It's not about bringing your own flair. Sure, you can bring some of it a little bit, but if it's unrecognizable to us as fans as that not being a trait of this superhero, we have problems. [00:47:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:28] Speaker A: So take note. People, actors and actresses out there wanting to play a hero or a character in from the comics. This is the homework. He. He's taking a page out of Tom Cruise because that's what he does. He does research. [00:47:43] Speaker B: Later, Cruise stopped transforming as an actor, though. [00:47:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:47] Speaker A: But he talked about it when he was doing the Last Samurai, about the research that he had to do in order to really portray the character that. That. That he did portray that in that movie. So Aaron Pierre is doing what he needs to do in order for us not to go crazy when we see it. [00:48:08] Speaker B: Well, I think it's. I think it's. Look, it's what you want to hear. To your point, it suggests to me that people aren't tuning into lanterns and ultimately going to the theater to see Aaron Pierre. They're tuning in to see Jon Stewart. And so his job is to inhabit a version of Jon Stewart or mix up several versions of Jon Stewart, more likely, and sort of bring that to life as best he can. That's very different than the actors who kind of say, I'm just going to be myself in every single role, which we know more than a few of those. And you can be successful doing that as a star. But that's not what a role like this demands. So we'll see what he comes up with, but at the very least, you'll know that whatever you see will have been a product of what he's read and what he's watched and what he studied and kind of felt like, okay, I can bring some of the animated series version here, some of that comic storyline there, and then I can kind of infuse that into the storyline that this particular show wants to have. So, yeah, it's just a different approach than say, Anthony Ramos publicly took with regard to his hood character. He basically was like, I didn't look at any of that. I'm just going to do my thing with whatever's in the script. Like, I mean, that's, that's an approach, but it's probably not one that's going to resonate as well with fans of your character. You think they're going to see you in the costume. [00:49:35] Speaker A: But I would say for most fans who don't know the Red Hood, that's what they're going to see. Brian, because not a lot of people. Did I say the Red Hood? Again, the Hood. Not many people know the hood. Marvel fans, even Marvel fans who've read the comments on the casual, they may not know too much about the Hood. You're gonna have to contend with the fans who know who the hood is. How much of them are there, I don't know. But for, for Marvel or comic book, you know, guys that really study the comics and read the comments on a day to day, they know these things and they're going to be judging your performance. Other people who don't know, they're going to be judging Anthony Ramos and he's playing this hood character. I don't know how that's going to resonate at the end of it, but we'll, we'll definitely know. Marvel people stirring things up. [00:50:35] Speaker B: Oh, man. [00:50:36] Speaker A: People are opening, not people. [00:50:39] Speaker B: I think it's pretty clear this is going to be, this is going to be a recurring bit on our show. You might have to make it its own segment. [00:50:48] Speaker A: Marvel. [00:50:56] Speaker B: Jackson back in the day. [00:50:57] Speaker A: Yes. [00:50:57] Speaker B: My guy Bo knows. [00:51:00] Speaker A: Bo knows. Oh my God. Bo knows. Okay. Bold Emanuel versus Disney. Oh, and what if, Brian, we already had a discussion about what I thought about what if I did not care for it visually was dope. I, I, I'm, the problem here is storytelling and the types of stories that you're telling. We have no issues with the animation. I think the animations, when there's action and things are happening, we're like, oh, snap. Except for. I don't. I'm telling you, this Godzilla Hulk thing was. I'm telling you what they've done to the Hulk is just a mockery. It's a mockery. And then you try to do Voltron in my face after we're excited for the real Voltron that's coming up. You want to do this Avengers assemble. Like, dudes, I'm sorry. If I'm in the room, I'm like, yo, I'll do a Kevin on Born Again. Stop what you're doing. Erase all of that and start again. Read these books. I'm not saying do these books, but it's the inspiration of these things. Standalone, this multi connected stuff and, and what you guys are doing to these characters, in my opinion, it is a horrible job. [00:52:18] Speaker B: Here's the irony, I think. I think we're going to look back on what if the show and this is going to go down as one of the bigger what ifs in the history of Marvel. Because I really feel like this could have been an Emmy level concept. Especially with the, as you said, over the course of the three seasons, they really found their stride from an animation perspective visually. And yet they just didn't seem willing to either do the obvious in their storytelling or write things that were more meaningful. Something happened in the back room. I think you may have hit on it for season three, which is they may have gotten orders from a high to make this more for the kids Disneyfication. Because there's no question this entire season is pretty light. Like even when you get to the end and they're sort of like saving the watch, that you just don't feel the gravity or the stakes of that compared to where we were at points in season one. I mean, there's even these, I was thinking like little bits in season one that are small but were really kind of eye opening in the moment. Like when it's perfect Ultron and he just dispatches Thanos like severely in like two seconds. And you're like, that was a moment. It was just like interesting, you know, and this show got away from that type of stuff, you know, like Godzilla, Hulk and mechanized avenger of Ultron. That's really light. Like, that's more Agatha fluffy. Yeah. And there felt like this season they almost felt a little bit hostage to the characters of the moment. Right. The Agatha point. Like we got to bring in, like we got to put over the people who were showing you in live action and it's like, you don't. I read an article critiquing the show that I completely agreed with this one point, which was why did they stay away from the really big fundamental questions of the MCU they had already built? Which I think in season one, even parts of season two, they did start to go in that direction, and they didn't. So someone was like, well, what if the. What if Thanos snapped away the other half of the universe, right? Like, what would that have looked like? Or even in this season, the one time they did something remotely interesting, they made it. They botched it, which was the Red Guardian stops Winter Soldier from killing. I was like, okay, that as an idea. I am interested. But then when you turn it into a comedy, a buddy cop comedy, you lose me. And I think that's this show that was this. That was this show in microcosm. It's like, interesting question. [00:54:44] Speaker A: Terrible execution by people who probably haven't read the what if comics or glassed over it. Who took the Anthony Ramos approach. I'm sorry. [00:54:53] Speaker B: But something clearly changed because season two was serialized. Like season two, like, basically was like you had to watch one, the one, and we had to watch them in a row. And this season was like, there was a little bit of that at the end of the season, but a lot of these you could just watch like one offs, like old school, like Transformers cartoons or something. Like, again, it's inconsistency. You couldn't. They couldn't figure out what they were doing or what. What they wanted to do. And the show really suffered and left so much on the table now that it's. It's gone. [00:55:23] Speaker A: I was hoping for the. What's that. What's that show that they do is the anthology type show, the horror. The. The. [00:55:36] Speaker B: Oh, it was American Horror Story, the one on Netflix. [00:55:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:40] Speaker B: And there's also even. What was a Star Wars Visions? That's like an anthology animated series, right? Like the beginning of in particular, but gives people. [00:55:49] Speaker A: Yes, but yeah, the first is Star Wars Vision, the first episode. And in Star Wars Visions 2, there's two episodes that are really well done. I don't know if you checked them. [00:55:58] Speaker B: Out, but I haven't seen season two. So. [00:56:00] Speaker A: No, I don't. I want to say watch season two. Look, you can look at the thumbnails of it. This is the one I want to watch. Yes. Yeah. Man, they really botched what if. And this was when we talked about a long time ago what we were looking forward to, what if was high on our list. We talked about what if. You can do this for as long as the MCU is working. You can do what if. Instead, they've treated it like whatever, go to town, I don't care, and put it out and. And look at where we are. [00:56:39] Speaker B: So there's someone who agrees with us. So Bo de Mayo, he was the showrunner and writer of X Men 97. He took two socials to talk about what if? And this is a layered, loaded commentary. So his first lead, what if season three, hashtag, yikes. Just yikes. I'd watch more to give notes on how it could easily have been done better, but I have to watch some water boil. Then went on to talk about how the dialogue was kind of simple, flat, boring. Okay, so lest anyone miss what's really happening here, the writer and showrunner of what if season three is Matthew Chauncey. Who is Matthew Chauncey? Matthew Chauncey is now the writer and showrunner of X Men 97. He is the person tasked with rewriting Bodimayo's script for season two of X Men 97. So don't get it twisted, people. Bodimeo's criticisms and commentary on what if season three are less about what if and much more about X Men 97. There's no way that's a coincidence. [00:58:03] Speaker A: How does that make you feel About X Men 97 Season 2? [00:58:07] Speaker B: Well, why don't we ask Bo how he feels about this? Because Bo knows did. And he then went on to spill the beans a little bit on what was going on behind the scenes on X Men 97. So he said the dialogue is flat and obvious and the premises are just weird. I mean, amen. I can't argue with the creators of that. But then he said his X Men 97 Season 2. So the one that was set up that we saw where we left it, he said, quote, it's been torn up because it intercut time hopping across the first few episodes and was deemed too complicated. End quote. So, meaning Chauncey ripped up what he wrote and is rewriting it. But see, this is what go back to. We pull the clip from our show. We talked about with Tracy. We talked about what was going on here. And I said at the time they were going to rewrite enough of X Men 97 to make sure they didn't have to give him a credit. I think he's basically confirming to you that that is what is happening, that they are basically getting rid of enough of what he put in there as his arc. So as not to have him be attached to this show in any way when they put it out. And the guy who's doing that is Matthew Chauncey. So Bono Mayo is coming for Matthew Johnson. [00:59:30] Speaker A: You know, you know what this makes me think about, man. And not to say that in either setting or scenario, they were right for doing what they did or saying what they said. But like, yeah, he did. What he did was probably inappropriate or whatever. So. But so was. And I hate to say it, but so what? So were the things that James Gunn said a long, long time ago before anything. And they. And they fired him. [00:59:59] Speaker B: Fired. He was fired by Disney. [01:00:01] Speaker A: But guess what happened? He came back. [01:00:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:08] Speaker A: And so it's just a. The approach here is obviously different. It's like, get rid of him and that's it. Destroy what he did. Let's rewrite it and make it horrible or what? Because Brian is disheartening to have witnessed and seen season one of X Men 97. It being up for an award to perhaps based on what if season two, when it's season three, and to see what they've done to them to now having to see what they do to X Men 97. Something that we treasure. Like, oh my God, if it's, if it's bad, I don't know. [01:01:03] Speaker B: It's a huge risk. It's a huge risk. I mean, I'm not. It doesn't guarantee that it will be bad, but I think it will be unfortunate if we see this show and it feels like the Joker 2 of Animated, where the first one captivates and wins awards and you're just chomping at the bit for what comes next. And then there's this massive step down in quality which is in play. And again, when you're. Again, wait, this is not. This is not a commentary on Botimayo's behavior because we don't know that. That's a whole other conversation. Right. So we can't, we can't say the studio was 100% wrong to dismiss them because we don't know what happened. [01:01:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:43] Speaker B: What we're saying is from a creative standpoint, when you have a two season arc, which this was. The first two seasons were built together with one unifying idea and you cut that off in the middle and totally change it. The degree of difficulty is high and the element of risk is high and the odds that this disappoints are way higher than it would have been otherwise. And it really does make me feel like, you know, my thing of like I felt like Caped Crusader season one ended with some momentum. Took a while to get going, ended with some momentum. But obviously we know Bruce Timm and Ed Brubaker, they're going to be. They're the ones shepherding season two. It makes me think like, if I'm laying eyes, I think Caped Crusader Season 2 is going to be better than X Men 97 Season 2 for this reason that the creatives are going to be carrying one forward and the other one, they're ripping it up and trying to patchwork it. And the people doing it their other work would say we should not have a ton of confidence. [01:02:39] Speaker A: What if was an atrocity, should be in the same bucket as Secret Invasion. [01:02:50] Speaker B: That's the right comparison. Because, like, it's the idea of it should have been at the highest of levels. So the disappointment is greater when you flub something like that than it is if you mess up something that's kind of whatever to begin with. [01:03:08] Speaker A: This is. I'm gonna be thinking about this the whole day. [01:03:10] Speaker B: Like, damn, what if should be the fifth engine, right? It should be basically Blue Eyed Samurai, Invincible X Men 97, Caped Crusader and what if should basically be locking down all of the nomination spots for Emmys. Every season they come out basically, that's kind of where we should be at some point. And this show never getting there in three years is going to go down as one of my bigger Marvel disappointments of the last 10 years. [01:03:36] Speaker A: This is more. This is even more disappointing than what they've done with the Hulk friendly neighborhood Spider man teaser. Because of my feelings of what Marvel has done lately, I really didn't give this a first glance with an eye of whether I'm gonna like this. And then I saw, sort of looked at it again after some time and this looks interesting. [01:04:06] Speaker B: I agree. [01:04:07] Speaker A: I was having a conversation with Freddie and I told him, listen, I'm. I liked the original Spider man because he was, you know, college student, he was working, he was at a different stage in his life. And I like the storylines that they were heading with with that character and the different adventures that he was in. You know, it wasn't so much connected. Some of them stood on their own, but it wasn't about the villains so much. It was more about Peter and navigating this life that he lives. And so we're going to go back to high school. What has me interested is to see whether or not this new look of Spider man because I remember them doing a version of 3D in the fox joint and it was horrible. When he was swinging and it just looked weird. Yeah, right. [01:04:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:58] Speaker A: This one looks different, but. But better, obviously, in the terms of the idea of the 3D swinging stuff. So I think that's cool. The. This is a comics comic book ripped from the pages and just sort of. We're seeing it sort of, you know, come to life in animation. [01:05:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I appreciated that. It is distinctive visually From X Men 97 and what if I actually really like that. [01:05:27] Speaker A: Yes, yes. So your thoughts, Brian, and what you saw. And there's gonna be a lot of, I think, just like they did in the Spider man series on Fox, we're gonna see a lot of villains, we're gonna see a lot of heroes, we're gonna see a lot of characters. How they use them in this hopefully is not Disney fide, which I'm probably. I don't know at this point. I would have put it past them, but let's see how this is written. And your thoughts? [01:05:56] Speaker B: Yeah, so I really liked it. I really liked the visuals first. That's what caught my attention was just that it's looked different. It looked, as you said, very classic comic bookie, but it didn't look cheap and it didn't look fake or like, sort of stilted in the way Spidey moves. So I was very happy with that. Interesting. So my. My daughter turns 10 in a couple of weeks. So I popped this up and I said, what do you think of this? She was fired up. So just so you get a sense of like. And. And she grew up watching like, you know, Spidey and His Amazing Friends for, like, little kids. And like, you know, she's seen most of the Marvel movies at this point, you know, and. Interesting. I haven't shown her Holland's Spider man trilogy yet. She's seen Toby's Spider Man 1 and likes that quite a bit. That's actually her favorite. But she was excited. She was like, I can't wait to see this. So that gives you a sense of like that tween teen, like, it probably does hit that nerve. It is granted one data point, but she's somebody who has seen other stuff, is, like, interested in it. Things I'm probably interested to see. So, you know, Colman Domingo voicing this version of Norman Osborne. I'm interested to see that take. Although we're gonna. We're gonna. We're gonna bring Bo back in here in a second on this because he has thoughts. [01:07:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:11] Speaker B: But I didn't realize. So, you know, Charlie cox and Vincent D'Onofre are also in this series. So they're, they're animated forms. To our prior discussion about James Gunn and the fungibility of dc, Marvel is starting to kind of move in that direction too. So Daredevil and Kingpin have smaller roles as the same actors in this series as well. But, yeah, overall, I'm, I'm, I'm intrigued. This looks better than probably I thought it was going to when they first announced it. And I think they repurposed it because initially it was like, they called it like the college years or something like that. And then they changed it to friendly neighborhood Spider man and made it more, I think, freshman year. Yeah, so they kind of. Yeah, but I think it was freshman year college. It wasn't freshman year high school when they first conceived it. So I think they have tweaked it. [01:07:54] Speaker A: So. [01:07:54] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I'll be there. It's the end of January, January 29th, and I think, like, I'll be watching. Looks like the household will be. Will be watching when it. When it comes out. [01:08:01] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, looking forward to seeing friendly neighborhood Spider Man. What this. So what did. What. What does Bo know this time? [01:08:11] Speaker B: Bodemayo resurfaced after. After this Raila came out and he said he called out Marvel to put a stop to what he referred to as race swapping white antagonists into black people, saying it reads funny. And of course, Colman Domingo as Norman Osborn will be the latest iteration of that. And he said, here, let me rephrase. Marvel Studios, please stop race swapping white villains to black people. It reads funny. Kang High Evolutionary, Norman Osbo, Electro, Norman Osborn, Electro Mordo. And he kind of went on to list everyone. They said abbott do. And then he said, much of what we consume, especially kids, visually influences how we see the world. And he added that when the heroes are often white and canon and villains are race swapped into black characters for representation, the visual story becomes the white good beating up the black bad. End quote. [01:09:07] Speaker A: And supposedly Brian Denzel Washington is going to be in Black Panther 3 as a villain. [01:09:14] Speaker B: Oh, that's the rumor. Gonna carry forward his. [01:09:18] Speaker A: You know what that. Yeah, you know what that is? You know what that is? Bo is gonna probably look at it as a black on black crime. Yeah, me in my mind, when I look at stuff like that, I'm. I'm not even really looking at it that way. When you point it out, it's like, yeah, yo. It's like, why are we using. Why are we wepping these characters all the time or these types of characters? Yeah, definitely reads funny. But I mean I'm still mad that Isaiah Bradley goes crazy and they do built a statue of this dude. [01:10:04] Speaker B: Well, that runs counter a little bit to what both saying, right? Because yeah, Anthony Mackie is Captain America now. Right. So that's the, that's the opposite of what he's saying. And assuming we get Miles Morales in the next iteration of Spider man, that would be the opposite of what he's saying. I get his point, but I would say like it's not been universal. I do think where his conversation starts to tread into a, you know, probably the bigger picture conversation of what is possible and what is saleable. You know, it's like we've talked about on our show, you know, because it came up actually predominantly because of the, the presumably dead J.J. abrams T.A. nehisi Coates, Black Superman discussion of like what could you, what, what could you change the ethnicity of and have it be okay versus what seems a little off to do that with. Right. It's like we've had that discussion on this show before and I think that's kind of what he's sort of touching on here. This sort of implication of like, you know, you're only race swapping the bad guys. Does that mean you feel like you can't race swap some of the good guys? And I think that's a probably a fairly legitimate question because you start to run into again, the studio is going to say, well Black Panther sold perfect. But then people will say, yeah, but that's not a swap. There's no equivalent of that that you're going to put out. [01:11:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:11:22] Speaker B: Whereas like if you do, you know, we're going to find out with Captain America, we've obviously made Captain America Anthony Mac instead of Chris Evans. That's a change. Like could you do that with Thor? Could you do that with, I mean they're trying it a little bit with Iron man because you're getting Iron Heart. But like I don't. [01:11:37] Speaker A: But here's the thing, Brian. There are other black characters out there that they can, that can be done blue Marvel for Marvel as Heroes. [01:11:43] Speaker B: So this is the question, right? There are, there are characters you don't have to make a swap that they could bring to life. Aaron Pierre as Jon Stewart is going to be another, an example of a classic non swap heroic character brought to life. [01:11:56] Speaker A: Yeah, let's see. [01:11:58] Speaker B: Bo knows, but considering this is like already the fifth or sixth time this guy has weighed in since he was fired, whatever his lawyers are telling him, he either doesn't care or it doesn't apply to his social media. So I kind of feel like all kidding aside, as we start to get more Marvel product and especially As X Men 97 season two comes out, we're gonna be having a Bono segment because he's gonna talk a lot about what's going on. [01:12:28] Speaker A: He's making, I guess he's making people just pay attention to certain things. And if we all agree on what's being, what's happening and we don't like it, Disney has a change. Right? Or they're gonna have to change. Because the only way they change, if it hurts at pockets in the theaters, that's that. That, that is the only way it is going to change. But Brian, I told you a long time ago the leader was going to look ridiculous. I don't. [01:12:58] Speaker B: I told you he looks like Funko Pop Dr. Strange. He was like, he looks like Dr. Strange's mustache, mustache and hair. But he's got like the fat heads or like the. Yeah, like, ignore. Like, I know he's supposed to have an enlarged head, but like, yes. The combination of making him look like this bizarro Doctor Strange. If it doesn't, it doesn't work. I don't think it works. And we've heard. I guess the one thing I've seen about him from the screenings there hasn't been as much relative to some of the other stuff is that he's, quote, very divisive. Some people are okay with it and some people hated it. That's the word. [01:13:32] Speaker A: And we'll see how much more people. Because there's going a lot. Going to be a lot more people weighing in on this look. And that is going to be a topic of discussion. And you've heard it here first on the Nerd Jam Report. Listen, he is just a piece of the puzzle when it comes to Captain America 4 again. This movie has been put together, ripped apart. Put together, ripped apart. And despite whatever Anthony Mackie says or any of the damage control people are saying, this movie was a mess. [01:14:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:09] Speaker A: And so we'll see what the result. [01:14:12] Speaker B: You see the quick cuts of like, you know, weird stuff out of place because you're like, I know that was shot like weeks apart or months apart. [01:14:19] Speaker A: And that is a challenge, man. Being an editor myself, when you get into different cuts and you got to make it match. I'm telling you, one hair out of place and we're going to be like, aha. So they better keep that that fro tight. [01:14:34] Speaker B: Do you think Tim Blake Nelson is intended to be a one and done return oh, yeah. Oh, you think. You think he's toast in this movie? Like, we don't get any more leader after this because it makes it seem like he's like, behind the scenes and. [01:14:45] Speaker A: Like, okay, it's gonna depend on whether people care enough. Well, that's how this movie is received. [01:14:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:51] Speaker A: If it's. Yeah. If this movie is. Is bad, makes hardly no money. If they lose on this movie, why try to continue trying to work on a headache, man, that just won't go away. You keep on trying to fix it and it just. People still don't like it. How much money and resources are you going to spend on a project that isn't working or hasn't worked to me, is just irresponsible in terms of business. [01:15:18] Speaker B: It's an odd creative to me that they really seem to have leaned on the Incredible Hulk movie a lot for this film. That's an odd creative one for me that I can't quite get my arms around. [01:15:28] Speaker A: Right. [01:15:28] Speaker B: Because, like, Liv Tyler's coming back, Tim Blake Nelson coming back. Obviously they're using that as a connectivity to Red Hulk and whatever's going on with Harrison Ford. But, like, considering it's a movie that Marvel itself kind of tends to leave to the side in most of its sort of broader MCU discussions. Odd that they kind of seem to have used that as a springboard for Cap four. I don't know. I just. That's one of those things that I would love to know, like how they landed on that. [01:15:56] Speaker A: And here's the thing. We know that there's. It's been rumored that whatever storyline that they're going with this Captain America forward lead into World War Hulk, which again, I'm not for, obviously I don't care for it. I don't care what they're trying to do here. But again, if this movie is a failure at the box office, all that stuff is not going to be talked about again. Nobody right now. Yo, the disappointment that I don't get that they don't understand is the Hulk right now. The Hulk character is not a character that people are high on. [01:16:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:16:36] Speaker A: If they think they are, they are crazy. And lastly, it sucks that they told this dude, yo. I hope. I don't think Andrew Garfield is the type of dude that will just lie just to lie. I think he was probably told, yo, just lie. And now he looks like a liar. You know how many relationship you've. You've made questionable for other people who have relationship with Garfield now because of this? I'm joking. But but it's like, why would you believe him? He straight up lied to everybody about him. His just say, no comment. No comment. Make it funny. Look over there and disappear. I don't know. Yeah, but don't go out and just lie, because we already know. We were putting the clues back together a long time ago in the trailers that they put out. Who are these? Who are these? Spider man fighting? You know, there was. There was a bunch of stuff out there that just points pointed to, like there were pictures. And he was like, nah. [01:17:50] Speaker B: He kind of buried himself again though, with this late. So he gets asked. He was asked by British GQ about Spider Man 4. And he basically starts up the exact same routine as last time, where he says, you know, no, he's like, I'm gonna. He's like. He's like, no. He's like, I haven't. He's like, but I realize no one's gonna trust anything I say from now on. And I'm like, okay. But then he puts in a quote about, you know, I lied to everyone except a handful of people for two years. He's like, I lied to the Internet for two years. He's like, and it felt great. It felt great to be able to just keep that secret. That's the part, Pablo, that went too far. Nah, like, don't. Don't make it seem like you troll. We knew better. That's the thing, right? You didn't really surprise us. [01:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, don't, don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You didn't fool anybody, yo. [01:18:47] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. So, like, you're saying it felt great, but you weren't actually fooling anyone. You were just insulting our intelligence. [01:18:52] Speaker A: You just lying. [01:18:56] Speaker B: So I'm sure the studio did have something to do with that. But like, at the same time, like, come on, we. We know. The question has never been, like, whether he and Toby are coming back. The question is, how central are they to Spider Man 4? And that's where it feels like the creative debate has been between Kevin and Tom Rothman. Right. Rothman clearly wants more Toby and more Andrew and more team up. And it sounds like Kevin wants more live action friendly neighborhood Spider man. Smaller scale. And it feels like Sony ever so slightly is starting to win that battle. Unfortunately, it looked like Marvel had it won, but now it kind of feels like Stoney is sort of pulling it back toward making it more spectacle and a little less story. But Andrew's in this movie. He's in this movie. Like, we know that. Just a question of how much. [01:19:45] Speaker A: At this point, I don't really care anymore, man. I'll see if it comes out and see how people react to it. But yeah, there's no excitement for this. [01:19:57] Speaker B: That's what I was going to say. Like, this has the feel of like, if you dropped it, kind of. It kind of parallels a little bit to Avengers Doomsday, but in a different, like, in a different way. It's like Endgame was such a high that if you had come out and said, hey, we're doing Avengers 5, like next year, I don't think I would have had the energy for it. You know what I mean? I would have been like, I am riding high off of the completion of this MCU Infinity Saga arc. I almost don't want to see the Avengers for a little while. And with this, like no Way Home was such an improbable, like an improbably good movie, an enjoyable movie that like the idea of like, hey, we gotta, we gotta gear up and suit back up and do another one of these team up spectacle. I'm just not jazzed for it. Like, that's why like to me, like the friendly neighborhood Spider man thing I can get excited for because it's so different and so tonally, like not multiversal battle, but I'm with you. I'm kind of just like a little tired and don't need, you know, another of these, like Deadpool and Wolverine, like, like mass and like these massive team ups, characters and cameos everywhere. Like I don't need it. Like I don't need it. [01:21:15] Speaker A: This is when business is just business for these guys. And they don't care about story, they just care about getting that book. [01:21:23] Speaker B: It's why I'm kind of. I'm still having a tough time getting there on Thunderbolts, which I realize is a different type of team, but it's still that idea, you know? And I'm kind of like. And it's why it's, I think for us so easy to get excited about Superman because that really does feel like the breath of fresh air. [01:21:40] Speaker A: I'm a little bit not excited, but curious to see Thunderbolts because we've heard good things. [01:21:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll see it. [01:21:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:21:47] Speaker B: I'm just not going in with like, I probably have more curiosity momentum for Fantastic Four just because they. With the, with that looking so different. I'm kind of like, are you got my attention with that. [01:22:00] Speaker A: There's a tug of war in terms of ideas of what story they want to tell. I don't care who wins anymore, really. I mean, if their news comes out in terms of continuing the storyline that ended up in no Way Home, which was a perfect ending and a possible continuation into Spider Man 4. That's what I was waiting for. That's what I was looking for. The fact that they're going back to the. Not the drawing board, but to going back to what they did previously and made them a lot of money. Of course. Yes. But there's where it would get dicey for any situation, Brian, because you got exist counting their money and you got the creatives thinking about telling a great story. And sometimes you don't want to have that battle. Right. And you see who loses. [01:22:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:56] Speaker A: When you see the movie. But. Yeah. But let us know in the comment section below what you guys think of all the things that we've discussed. Batman is always a topic of discussion, and it was just a second of it. That's what's crazy. Brian Lobo. Whatever. I would have just taken a different approach on how to reveal that. But I get the. The announcement now based on our conversation. But they should have done a little bit different. Clay Face is something that is becoming more and more interesting to me because of the approach that they're trying to take with the genre of superheroes, which is the approach that Marvel should really consider when considering certain characters. The Superman thing is. Is whatever. Now we don't. I don't care. I only care about what James Gunn shows me. That's how I'm gonna put it. I only care about what James Gunn is showing me. I'll listen to what people are saying, but my, I guess thoughts are just on what James Gunn shows. And we'll see more hopefully in the Super Bowl. I gotta craft something for Bo knows because it's just. We can't pass up on that situation like this. Listen, what if was a disaster? Disappointing. And you got a question. Who's in the room when they're writing this? Are these people who are familiar with the characters and familiar with the. The reason or the theme behind what if? I don't know. These are just people. Oh, this would be cool. We did this. Yeah, make him Voltron. Yeah, make. Let's make the Hulk Godzilla. If I'm in that room, I'm like this, like. And hopefully, man, again is upsetting, man. That X Men has to. I just feel like we're gonna be disappointed. Yo. [01:25:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm with you. [01:25:14] Speaker A: I just feel like that's. This is a rap. Is a rap. Friendly neighborhood, friendly neighborhood Spider Man. The teaser looks interesting, and I'm definitely gonna show up for the first couple of episodes to see what is what this is gonna feel like and what story they're trying to tell. So that's something that we're looking forward to seeing. The leader, we said it a long time ago what this was gonna look like, and it looks like that he is gonna be the mayor humdinger of this movie. And then they got Garfield lying again. It is like, dude, Aaron Pierre doing the due diligence compared to other people who are just gonna bring themselves to the character. Let's see how that works out. Hit that like, and subscribe. And we'll see you next time on a Nerdgen Report.