Episode Transcript
36 Overdraft (00:05)
What up everybody welcome back to another episode of the Nerd Jim Report I'm your host Pablo and joining me as always is Mr. Shultz. Brian, we had spoken about it Brian.
And I brought up the names of the movies that they did, Brian, were without question successful and what put the Russos on the
Just a few days later, Brian, after our conversation, out of nowhere, the Russos are back. Under what conditions, Brian? That's what we have to explore because the initial reason was because they spent too much money on projects that didn't go anywhere. Citadel, some other films, projects that they've worked on with Netflix and other platforms.
So the Russos are back. They're doing secret, secret wars. Supposedly for two movies, Brian? Yep. Brian, what happened? Where, from our conversation, it seemed like it was a quick conversation, but not a well thought out conversation, Brian. Well, I mean, the prior rumor indicated Disney was the one that said no. That the Russos made the call.
Offered their services and it was Disney that said thanks, but no thanks. And the reported reason was concerns about their ability to manage on budget given Disney's trying to limit cost. that certainly seemed well founded given, you know, what they spent on the gray man, what they spent on Citadel, what the rumor to be spending on electric state. mean, these guys have gotten a lot of so they're becoming big time Hollywood film directors. And as you said, since
or outside the MCU, they've not really delivered much in terms of return. Their biggest win, ex Marvel, has been as producers. They were producers on everything, everywhere, all at once, which obviously won an Academy, won a number of Academy Awards, but they were not the directors for that. This obviously in theory would end a bizarre saga for finding a director for not just Avengers 5, but Avengers 6.
We had Destin Cretton at one point. The rumor was they actually, there's still a lot of reports saying they offered it to Sean Levy, whose Deadpool Wolverine is coming out this week. But there was a report also that they also offered it to Kugler and he said no. Yep. Which we said he would. So everyone has been passing on this. There never was a director for Secret Wars, even
All the, all the reports we had were for Avengers five. There never had been a report for Avengers six, but the thought at the time was there were going to be different directors. And now we wind up back with the Russos doing five and six, albeit with five no longer being Kang dynasty, but being retooled and rethought. I'm guessing more made into a true part one, part two, more similar to how infinity war and end game went together. Look, I mean,
In the end, right? can get your Thanos image ready, except you can have them side by side this time to Thanos's from the multiverse twins. we have to sort
Do you think there was another conversation had because the way I look at it is that, hey, nobody else wants this. Yeah. These dudes did four joints for us and they were all successful. Perhaps these other projects that they've done don't fit or I guess don't connect with other fans. These are just projects that they were given
do for other platforms and they took it. They wanted to spread their wings, so to speak. $3 billion? That's what it was. It was 2 .7 or 3 billion? 2 .7 billion. Endgame is just a tiny shade under three over 2 .9. Yeah. Oh, okay. And Infinity War is two. So it's like, what's Civil War was billion and Winter Soldier was 750. Do you think the Russos are going back to the MCU and saying,
We'll do this movie, hey, it's gonna cost what it's gonna cost, right? Because considering what we're doing here. And to be honest, with the roster that we have now, I don't think we can do it. I think we can bring, this is the Roots was talking, I think we can bring back the gang.
Pitch him a compelling story. Get that money ready so we can do this because another way will be the wrong way because there's no way you can get to three billion dollars or even get to two, Brian, even a
Possibly Brian with the roster that they have you have to put it into question Well, I think you could argue both sides of the table need each other right now We just went through the Russo's lack of success Since endgame. We've obviously had a lot of discussions about Marvel's Mixed results since endgame so maybe you could argue that both sides of the table now have a motivation to say look we were better together than we were apart and we both need this we both need a hit
If we take it from Marvel's perspective, your obvious advantages are you hit on one. Familiarity with current cast, old cast. I would add familiarity with the process. Right? So all the people we don't see who are behind the scenes, familiarity with the Marvel machine. The Russos obviously had no problem operating within that. I think from the studio's perspective, it gives them a feeling
on the one hand, safety, because they feel like, okay, we know what these guys are about, whereas if we're bringing in new directors for Avengers 5 and 6, there's some variability there that we haven't dealt with. And they could be talking themselves into, yeah, we know the Russos will spend a lot of money, but a director who's never directed an Avengers movie and now steps into an Avengers movie that's a mess, might wind up spending even more money, just not intentionally.
So maybe there is incentive on both sides. Now, I think as you and I have discussed, it does not seem at the moment like Marcus and McFeely are part of this and that's concerning. And it's especially concerning in light of another headline that didn't get as much attention. I think I sent it to you in the last couple of days. So Michael Waldron, who was rewriting Kang Dynasty is no longer on the
about the Mariuszkova, right? Well, I haven't said. So the question is, did Waldron finish the script and now it's being polished? Or was he taking off the project? Now the Russos are coming in. Is it going to get redone? And if it gets redone, then I would say, I don't understand why they're not beating down Marcus and McFeely's door to say, you're the ones who have to write this because you're the only ones who can.
What I guess is a conversation of determining what do they bring to what everyone brings to the table, right? And that negotiating aspect of it, because it's not for the fun of it, although it is fun. At the end of the day, we got to pay bills. So.
It's just a very interesting turn of events. lot of the, there's one word that was thrown out desperation. Now I've seen Brian there's desperation on both parts possibly for them to get together and relive that magic.
For the Russos, know they've publicly stated in the past, Secret Wars was their dream project. So there is that incentive of if this is migrating more toward a true part one and part two of Secret Wars, creatively, they would certainly be more interested in doing that than any other version of this. But none of it changes the fact, Pablo, the pieces on the board are a mess. I mean, I don't care who's directing and who's writing.
You're not facing, the Ruzos came into the MCU at a key time. We talked about it with Winter Soldier. Winter Soldier is sort of the seminal movie that supercharges the next six years of MCU projects along with Guardians of the Galaxy.
The MCU today is far more... This one was more chaos than there was in 2013. There's more characters, there's more projects, there's more IP and not a lot of it's working. There's not a lot of known heroes that people are really fired up about. So I don't know that having the Russos back changes that in one movie. You still have to make us care about these heroes and you still have to now write in a new villain that we don't have any real history with. Yeah.
I think there's a far greater chance that this winds up being.
disappointing, certainly relative to what the studio and the brothers would be expecting. And it is they come over the top and match or exceed what they did previously, which I almost think is impossible. But what if you heard the names of RDJ, of Chris Evans, and some of the OGs coming back, it nudge you towards the positive? Well, yeah, I mean, guess...
If we hear that, to me, that's the Avengers equivalent of Deadpool and Wolverine. Right? I mean, you're taking the existing stars and you are using them for kind of one last big ride to make a lot of money. Does it make me feel any better about the bigger picture, longer term prospects and, you know, the arcs of problems that Marvel's having? No, it's more of
billion dollar band -aid. Yeah.
And it's very Star Wars -y to my mind, right? It kind of is starting to imply that like, you cannot grow this universe past this one original family of characters. understood that reference.
Yeah, yeah. I
We always knew, Brian, my vision for what Kevin was trying to do or accomplish was nothing.
For me, it was past a certain point where we would have to recast. I always felt that we were always gonna go towards the James Bond treatment, but for many characters in order to keep it going because these characters don't go away. Right? Instead, they continued along with this multiverse and this created chaos. Let's just call it that because that's what it was and that's what it has been since
introduction of the multiverse again our first Tracy said open door. Well, the first open door that was that was the beginning of curiosity in terms of what this would look like and then ultimately this point. So what they're trying to do here is perhaps go for that final one and that happened and we start everything because that's what we're heading towards anyway right right.
I think that's what it has to be and that's what they want to tee up to get to the mutants and so forth. I I do... I understand all of the incentives to do this. And given that nobody else wants the job, I can certainly understand why this is a marriage that would happen. I just think it obscures a little bit the core fundamental issue of where we're at. And I think even bringing the original cast back is doing that. It's the look over here, not over
But Brian, because they were a four for four Brian, and if they're able to bring back the OGs and give us a compelling story of the Secret Ward Brian, I don't see how the excitement doesn't build up, especially after that first
what they reveal in that one in order to make us hope for that second one because Endgame was that big one. Right, everybody, yo, Endgame had people scratching, you know, it was like, when is it coming out? When is it coming
And when we got it, we were blown away. Not by everything, poke. But you know, for the most part, they did a fantastic job in delivering a second part to this, Brian, because of the way they ended that first one. So some of those elements, Brian, how they go about doing this part one, part two, and giving the Russo's
having a vision for this because they've been wanting to do this. They know it, Ryan. I don't see why it would be a bad move. There's still more to come and hopefully we get those anomalies of the OGs because without them, don't, you and I, I think would agree that whatever they able to bring to the table is not gonna be enough food. I agree, but again, the emotional beats of Infinity War,
were already built in the prior project. So think about when you watch Infinity War, you get that opening scene, you see Loki get his neck snapped. You have history with that character. Yes, I make you care about that moment. When you see the Hulk get served on that ship, you have history with the Hulk that makes you go, no, like what he's getting when he gets
Even Heimdall getting killed in front of you. You're like, you've been with this character on a couple of projects where you're like, I don't like that. That's one of my guys, like a supporting guy, but still a guy. When you see, you know, bearded cap and Natasha and Falcon show up in the subway station, everyone cheered, like because of everything that came before. And this is my point that like you don't have any of that with anyone new. you have you have the pops.
of, hey, look, it's RDJ. Hey, look, it's Chris Evans. And I'm not saying that's worthless, but I'm simply saying that the degree of difficulty to pull off Infinity War and Endgame was a 10 out of 10 in cinematic history to make that worthwhile and make it pay, make it land, and make it live on as it has. I would argue the degree of difficulty to do this is 100 because you're not starting from a position of strength and momentum.
You've got to rebuild that and then come over the top. In two they do it. Yeah, how they do it will be very... Yeah, I mean, when thinking about it like that, yeah, it's exciting that the Russos are going to come back and are going to do Secret Ward, part one, part two, whatever they decide to do there. But there is that absence of momentum, connection to the characters.
and connections to storylines that we just don't have and that we perhaps forgotten because there's just been so many and quite honestly not worth remembering. So I think what you're hoping for, the analogy is you're hoping for this to be the 98 Bulls, not the Jordan Wizards. If you go back, the 98 Bulls were running on fumes. Scottie Pippen's back injury, contract issues, you they almost got knocked out by the Pacers. Didn't look like they had much left in the tank,
He still had MJ, right? And that carried them ultimately to victory, but it was kind of ugly. If you go back and actually break down those games and those playoffs, it was ugly, but they got there. Versus a couple of years later, Jordan comes back with the Wizards and it's like, I didn't need this as a note to his career. So even though he was still actually pretty good, right? And that's the thing, like Jordan still averaged 23 points a game that first year with the Wizards. had a 50 point game. Disney may look at this and say, you know what?
If we can squeeze a billion five and a billion out of these two movies, that's a job well done. You and I not going to like that because I guarantee the kind of movie that settles around a billion. If secret wars, Avengers six makes a total of it makes rise of Skywalker money. You and I are probably going to be looking at it as saying it's probably why it's rise of Skywalker quality. And that's not what we want. But Disney may be like, that's good enough right now. We'll take
Well yeah, let us know in the comment section below what you guys think of the latest developments and how quick the turnaround in terms of the news saying that it was a quick sort of interaction. They said no thank you to the Rusos because obviously we already know what comes with working with the Rusos after endgame.
and let us
whether this will bring back the excitement juices that we've been lacking because they aren't in. And this is just anticipation for films that don't deliver on none of what we're not necessarily listen. We sit down and give you money to spend 2 hours with you entertaining us. If it doesn't.
work Ryan. That's a problem. Because of that time people's attention spans is crazy right now. Even me. So if they're not able to hook us. Which will be difficult. It will be very difficult because of all that absence of history and the momentum of storylines. We haven't gotten after the end game. Well, let's say no way home.
I mean, Guardians of the Galaxy, but that's remnants of the past. People that worked on that. But let us know in the comments section below, are you excited now what the MCU will have to offer in terms of Avengers films? Do the OGs come back? Do they have to come back? I think they do, I agree. order for this to work. But yeah, let us know in the comments section below. Remember to hit that like and subscribe button and we'll see you next time on Another Jimi Foy.
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