Matt (00:00.641)
Hello and welcome to an even more extremely special, I think special is the right word, version of popcorn and blood holes. Wow. didn't. Yeah. Let's just leave it. It was implied, I think. Listen, you've heard two voices and that's all you're going to hear. Spencer, Parts Unknown. I think he fell into his money pit house. maybe he's trapped in Montreal.
Luciano (00:09.998)
Shark Bo Special? You didn't say that, but I did.
Hahaha
Luciano (00:27.8)
Yeah, is. Yeah. Went to the moon. Again? Wow! That is a blast from the past. I think it's from the other podcast even. Might as well say Spencer has been held hostage by Wolfie.
Matt (00:30.549)
Yeah, hermit.
Isn't it?
Matt (00:37.035)
He's in a time vortex. Yeah, I don't know. He might be.
Matt (00:43.233)
Oh yeah, that's a good one too. Yeah. Good references. and, uh, in lieu of guests, because I can't keep saying I would never bring my brother back and then bring him back. I would be a liar and a fool. Um, we was no guests and we're not going to talk about love hurts because the two of us would make you, uh, want to gouge your ears out. If you listen to us talk about that movie instead, we're going to talk about
I guess the state of, we want to talk about superhero movies after seeing Brave New World and talk about that. I think the key point here is we want to talk about the trailer for, is it Doomsday that they're calling it? Avengers Doomsday? I think hopefully you've all seen now the trailer that is just the seats and the names of all the quote unquote 27 stars that are in this movie. And I don't even know if that's like
Luciano (01:24.492)
Yeah, Avengers Doomsday, yeah.
Matt (01:40.577)
I assume it's a double movie like the last Avengers climax. Hopefully. Oh dear. Oh dear.
Luciano (01:44.288)
No, I don't think so. I don't think it is. Doesn't look like it is. And like the reason why they showed only the seats is because that's all the time that they had. Because if they had to show anything, it would be like a 17 minute trailer, which means this movie is going to be like four hours long.
Matt (01:53.909)
Yes.
Matt (02:02.111)
Well, yeah, or everyone gets one word. You know those videos where like everybody says one word to make the story? That's what it's going to be.
Luciano (02:05.186)
Three sec, yeah.
Luciano (02:10.382)
Yeah, it's an auteur piece.
Matt (02:15.285)
Yeah, I guess so. So, I mean, let's just talk about this because, I mean.
You know, I think I've seen the buzz coming out and this is just so we're clear on the buzz because I
Matt (02:34.521)
The the reviews for Thunderbolts are Positive ish Muslims I seen a positive one. I've seemed kind of like man. It's okay. It's better than the last ones And so we don't know exactly what the movies like yet at this point recording But you know watching Brave New World and sort of the stuff that's a lot up to it It's kind of like they seem lost in the
Phase five, mean, is that what we're in? Running phase five, starting phase six? I don't, yeah.
Luciano (03:01.518)
Let's see, let me ask the internet. It's... My God. Multiverse Saga, this is phase five. Phase six begins with the Fantastic Four movie.
Matt (03:06.148)
Thank you, internet. Tell us.
Matt (03:19.61)
Yes.
Okay, now that does seem promising.
Luciano (03:29.11)
Yeah And then avengers doomsday is the next one and then spider-man brand new. No, this can't be right. I I didn't notice that this was the name of the movie so we had Captain america brave new world now. We're gonna have spider-man brand new day in what we're gonna have fucking I don't know Colossus brand new dick like what the fuck is going on?
Matt (03:39.684)
Yeah.
Matt (03:54.778)
Brand new world, brand new day, brand new. I guess it to be dick. You're right. That's the only D word I can think of. That's the only possible one. That's how it works. It seems like it's weird to do. I don't know. I don't like it's lost in naming conventions yet. We can go there later. I'm always hopeful. you know, as we talked about in Brave New World.
Luciano (04:00.654)
That's the only word, the only other word with D that we have in the English language.
Matt (04:22.902)
It probably would have been an alright movie if they just let the reveal of Red Hulk be a reveal and not like ruin that for us.
Luciano (04:29.43)
Yeah, I don't understand what the thinking is because, okay, let's, you know, as we're one to do, let's look at, you know, the past, right? The whole thing with the MCU that kicked off this whole superhero movie smorgasbord era, let's call it, was that it was, you know, the story was cohesive and they took some chances, right? They picked
Matt (04:39.735)
Okay.
Luciano (04:59.828)
Not because they were brave necessarily, but because that's all they had. They picked the B-level heroes because nobody gave a flying fuck about the Avengers other than comic nerds before.
Matt (05:10.828)
No. Yeah, they sold all of the A tier characters to different studios. Yeah.
Luciano (05:13.902)
to Fox and Sony, yeah, So they did it and they were like, you know what, we're gonna make this work and they did. And they picked like, nobody knew about the garden. Even comic nerds didn't know about the gardens. And it all to me, personally, I'm not some big time lawyer, or big city lawyer, but to me what made it work was that it was all
Matt (05:28.163)
now.
Matt (05:32.9)
Sure.
Luciano (05:43.214)
cohesive in the story and they had some interesting casting they had some good directing blah blah blah move it forward but
Matt (05:48.954)
Sure, yep. And we'll just speak about the things like the Big City lawyer team of Guardians of the Galaxy. They had fun stories to tell. And I think that's where like quantum mania, M and quantum mania lost it for me. It's it's not fun. I don't care about any of this. yeah.
Luciano (05:56.142)
You
Luciano (06:00.438)
Yeah, yeah.
Luciano (06:07.566)
This is not fun. Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing. That's a good segue into what I was gonna say. It's like they lost, like you said, they lost the sauce. Like what we liked about those movies was not that, you know, they had this message or whatever, or they were trying to be super detailed with, you know, this is how it happened in the comics or, no, it was just like, let's pick it. Like look at Civil War, right? The movie.
Matt (06:31.662)
Yeah.
Luciano (06:37.89)
They took hints and ideas from the saga, but it was not near the same saga. And I know some fucking Reddit, Super Reddit or whatever is going to be... Yeah, they're just gonna be clutching their own balls about it. Yeah, same thing.
Matt (06:39.556)
Bits. Yep.
Yeah. No, God no. Yeah.
Matt (06:53.754)
Big city Redditors, actually more like parents basement Redditors. Yeah, that's fair.
Luciano (07:04.11)
And like, fuck them, because we've said this plenty of times in the podcast, right? It's an adaptation. It shouldn't be the same. It's a different medium, right? And that's to me, that's what was fun was like to see how they converted it. they were doing not all the moves are bad, but they were doing a much better job than they are now.
Matt (07:24.09)
Yeah. Well, like the question here is, is it a matter of, know, story, like they've mined all the really good stories in the first four phases.
Luciano (07:33.358)
I don't know. I think it's honestly if we're gonna, it's probably a combination of things, right? One is now they have a formula they have to follow.
Matt (07:44.73)
What formula is that? Paint me, show me the formula because I are confused.
Luciano (07:49.358)
So I think the formula is pick up a story that exists in the comics, however loosely, even if it's just the name, and then pull things out of there so that the comic nerds can go, right. And yeah, yeah, exactly. And then Arla even read whole.
Matt (07:57.338)
Okay, yes.
Matt (08:12.13)
Yeah, extremists comes to mind.
Matt (08:19.865)
Mm-hmm.
Luciano (08:20.206)
Right? Just the fact that there is a red Hulk and leave it in the next... This is not that episode. Yes. The last one we did, And then they try to pull in some like grandiose or not grandiose necessarily, but like some overarching message, let's put it this way. Like they did even in the series, like with...
Matt (08:22.564)
Sure.
We did that podcast. If you want to listen to it, it was the last one we did. Yeah, the last one we did. Yeah.
Luciano (08:49.006)
what's the name of it, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, right? It's it's interesting, I'm not necessarily knocking this, it's interesting that they try to do that. Yeah, and then insert some quips over here, here and there to make it like, ha ha ha, this is funny. And that's the formula. And therein lies the problem, because if you've noticed, I didn't say anything about the story.
Matt (08:58.156)
No, it had a storyline to it and yeah.
Matt (09:08.324)
Mm-hmm.
Matt (09:16.984)
Well, I think one of the things you're missing from the current iteration of that formula is they seem to do a really good job of taking the stories, but also taking archetypes of movies and inserting those stories into them to give a framework people are familiar with, right? Like, know, Captain America, the first Avenger, it is a superhero story set in a war movie. Easy to understand. Right. And then when you go to Winter Soldier for Captain America, then you're now you're looking at more of like a
Luciano (09:30.838)
Mmm, true, true, yeah.
Luciano (09:39.331)
Yeah.
Luciano (09:45.806)
spy movie or yeah yeah
Matt (09:46.522)
A spy movie, yeah. However you want to term it, right? And so those were like, they did really good job doing a spy movie with superheroes. was like, I mean, that might be the best movie of the bunch if you don't count the Avengers, because they get to tell a different story over, you have two movies, right? So they get to cheat a bit.
Luciano (10:03.436)
Yeah, it's hard to pick though, right? Because like you said, the genres are so different. you can't, how can you compare Winter Soldier with, I don't know, Love and Thunder?
Matt (10:05.412)
But anyways, yeah.
Matt (10:13.57)
Yeah, well, it's easy. Love and Thunder sucks. yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. And Ragnarok is like, you know, it's like a comedy, buddy comedy, like action. Yeah, sure.
Luciano (10:16.502)
Okay, Ragnarok then. Yeah. Yeah.
Luciano (10:26.974)
It's that that's a mashup, right? And I think it works well. Because it's a mashup of genres like there's like the goofy comedy. There's also like the well, yeah, Taika Waititi on on a leash. Yes. But also there's the space of like the over over the top like alien magic space shit that that is, it doesn't take itself seriously either, which is also important. Right.
Matt (10:32.718)
Yes.
Yeah. Restraint goofy comedy as we learned in Love and Thunder. Yeah.
Matt (10:50.756)
Yeah, I-
Matt (10:54.304)
Yeah, yeah, it's a I it's this thing fantasy does and I cannot name the exact archetype it's doing but it's like it's like 80s space like space balls but like
Luciano (11:08.374)
Yeah, yeah, it's baseballs with pull the little pull the little to the to the size. Yeah
Matt (11:13.698)
Yeah, and it's like, it's very like, it's very bright. The colors are all like, neon colors, right? anyways, I'm losing the threads here.
Luciano (11:19.278)
Yeah.
Luciano (11:23.49)
So yeah, but you're right. So they were, you're right. hadn't actually thought of it that way, but you're right. They were able to insert superheroes into like movie archetypes, right? Yeah. What was the archetype of Brave New World?
Matt (11:33.4)
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, it could have been the trailers suggested it was another like spy thriller. And I was like, that seems really cool. I could go for another one of those. And then the movie, I'm trying to think of, it kind of stole a lot from Winter Soldier in a bad way. then then stole the Hulk's story and told him without it being in it.
Luciano (11:45.667)
Right.
Luciano (11:56.524)
Yeah, in a bad way.
Matt (12:06.66)
for reasons that no one will ever know. And so it just...
Luciano (12:08.929)
Yeah.
It picked up without not wanting to be an owl. I'll keep it sharp. Not wanting to be that guy. But they also picked the Red Hulk story and flipped it on its head for no reason.
Matt (12:24.676)
Sure. Yeah, and we've been through this again in the podcast. but they, to me, they're starting to lose the threads of that, right? And so hopefully Thunderbolts starts to bring it together because each of these stories, yeah.
Luciano (12:28.312)
Yeah.
Luciano (12:37.208)
Well, Thunderbolts has to be a similar movie to Suicide Squad on the DC side. Not the shitty first one, the second one. Yeah.
Matt (12:47.482)
The good one. Yeah. Yeah, it could be. That would be helpful. But I think the thing that has to happen is the stories need to have like a point outside of the movie itself, right? Like if you think of, you know, yes, Winter Soldier or yes, Iron Man 2, like the movies are self-contained stories, but it's moving the character along in a meaningful way. It's moving the world along in a meaningful way. Yeah.
Luciano (13:13.774)
The world, was gonna say more than the character. This is one of the main differences I found with the MCU movies, especially in the beginning, is that they were like Iron Man, it's in the title, right? Thor or whatever. But that they are not the first class, the only first class citizen there. Those heroes exist in a world that is shared by the other movies and series.
Matt (13:26.606)
Yeah. Yeah.
Luciano (13:42.39)
And that's what they, for me, that's what they did super well. Right. You got at the end of R-Men one and suddenly I think that that's the one where Nick Fury shows up in the, the stinger, right? In the first, the very first one, right? Or no, it was the second one. You're muted, man.
Matt (14:03.726)
weird. pressed spacebar, I didn't come off. it's, it's the first one because he's
Luciano (14:06.765)
Hahaha
Luciano (14:11.79)
they talk about the Avengers program or initiative yeah. So anyway whichever movie it is it'll go like oh wait a minute this isn't just a story about Iron Man in a vacuum this is the story about Iron Man in a world where these types of people and heroes and characters exist and then you get the Hulk which you know leaving aside the problems that that movie had
Matt (14:13.964)
initiative and it's this yeah it's fine yeah it doesn't matter
Matt (14:41.348)
Sure. All right.
Luciano (14:42.114)
did the same, and Thor did the same, and did the same. Well, Cap was a weird movie because it was set in the past and then he brings it back to the future only in the end so that he can join. But it's moving. And it talks about Hydra for the first real time, right? And so on. like you said, it's moving the world along. But it was doing a really good balancing act of
Matt (14:53.946)
It still connects the dots.
Yes. Yeah.
Luciano (15:12.022)
evolving the character, telling you little bit more about the character, not just the character as the hero, but the person, right? And also advancing the world and culminated with Endgame, probably the best ensemble movie we've had in a very, very, very long time. Certainly the best ensemble movie, like superhero movie that we've ever had, I would say, right? And then that's, I think to me, that's when they went, now the fuck what?
How do we top this, right?
Matt (15:41.858)
Yeah. So like, yeah. So like that, that that's like you see it in. They start, they start. It's like they when they finished the arc for Avengers, they started experimenting, right? Because you see them in quantum mania. They're going to go with Kang and they're going to go with Jonathan Majors, which, know, yeah, I mean, that's unfortunate, right? And so they had a plan to some degree. And Jonathan Majors was a great actor, really enjoys work. But unfortunately, he his extracurricular activities are
Luciano (16:01.272)
Well, that was unfortunate.
Luciano (16:10.104)
He's a trash human being, yeah.
Matt (16:12.314)
Subpar to say the least and so they had to jettison another plan So I think that creates some of the uncertainty but you know stuff like having Darren Cross play Modoc was just like
Luciano (16:23.514)
And in the way that it was like, yeah, Modok is goofy, always has been. But Modok himself always took himself seriously, which was part of the joke. It's like Batman has to take himself seriously to some extent, right?
Matt (16:24.94)
Right. Yeah.
Matt (16:30.136)
Right. Yeah.
Matt (16:34.766)
Yes.
Yeah, and so like it's it's it's the implementation isn't what I'm questioning. It's the experimenting without like it's like they lost the pulse and so they're experimenting there and the whole quantum mania thing. It felt like a little bit right like and quantum mania is like, we gotta get Kang in here and let's find in the quant like it's fine to go to the quantum world. I don't care, but it's like the story outside of introducing Kang was pointless. Nothing they introduced all these characters and nothing mattered right?
Luciano (16:50.846)
It's like throwing it against the wall and see what sticks. Yeah, yeah.
Luciano (17:03.939)
Yeah.
Well, that was going to be my other point. My other point was bringing in either characters that everybody wants to see or actors that people are... So like, the whole reason in my mind, the whole reason why quantum mania exists is just so they can go, ooh, Michael Douglas, ooh, Michelle Pfeiffer. And nobody cares. No, but yeah, but they're like, but we want more. Again, missing what was fun about, you know what mean?
Matt (17:07.162)
you
Matt (17:24.76)
Yeah, but they are they already had them in the other movies. They could have.
Yeah, I don't... I disagree. I don't think anybody gave a shit about that. Like, if you're gonna show those people, you didn't need to put them in the quantum world with Bill Murray. Like, none of that shit made sense, right? And so, anyways, we're losing the... Yeah, we're losing the thread. We're getting distracted. You can't see the forest from the trees. with this, we're laying out a very long and complicated thing because...
Luciano (17:36.014)
I agree that nobody gave a shit, but they thought they did.
Luciano (17:43.188)
yeah, well there's that too.
Much like Marvel, we're losing the thread, yes.
Matt (17:58.03)
This comes around to the idea that now we're on a path to Doomsday, right? And I don't know when Doomsday is coming out. Let me see here. Next year? So like, this is the thing that I'm confused by because we'll have Thunderbolts and that will start setting like Captain America, Brave New World did nothing to set up Doomsday. It has nothing to do with anything. And we have...
Luciano (18:06.538)
next year 2026 yeah
Luciano (18:17.806)
Yeah, Thunderbolt concludes, technically, phase five. That's what they say.
Matt (18:23.148)
Right, okay, so in theory then Thunderbolts might not have much to do with Doomsday. Maybe there's a stinger, could they get at that on? So really, Fantastic Four is going to be the first step. Sure.
Luciano (18:30.934)
Yeah, which makes sense if you're gonna set up Doom, you have to do it in a Fantastic Four movie.
Matt (18:39.108)
But like what else comes after that before doomsday?
Luciano (18:42.122)
Nothing. It's fantastic for our first steps. Doomsday. Spider-Man brand new day and then concluding with Avengers Secret Wars.
Luciano (18:55.148)
Which, what?
And I want to talk a little bit about what you started this with, which is Doomsday. So like you said, it wasn't their original idea, right? They wanted to set up, there was even the name for the movie, right? Kang Dynasty, yes. And then the whole Jonathan Majors debacle happened. They had to change it, right? So, okay, fine.
Matt (18:59.354)
Yeah, all right.
Matt (19:13.434)
Kang Dynasty.
Luciano (19:21.944)
But then, this was kind of sparked the conversation between us in the podcast, on WhatsApp where we talk about it. And I said, why, first of all, why are they putting the X-Men in this? Like it's already enough.
Matt (19:36.984)
Well, okay, yeah. So let me, let me set the stage for anybody who hasn't seen the trailer, just so you understand why we're complaining at the X-Men, because it's very specific, it's a specific thing, right? So we all know that apparently Robert Downey Jr. is Victor Von Duhmann. We can speculate on how we think that's going to work. Then we have Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards. We have Thor, we have Sue Storm, we have Sam Wilson, Bucky Barnes, Ben Grimm, Shang-Chi, Elena Belova.
Luciano (19:46.136)
Right.
Luciano (20:03.726)
We have everybody. We Neymar. We have fucking... Yeah, yeah.
Matt (20:07.502)
Baku, Loki, Mystique. And so this is where we get down. When we get down to the cast and we talk about the X-Men, one of the big challenges is that the X-Men are the X-Men from the Bryan Singer movies. That guy can go fuck himself too, by the way, but that's a whole other thing. And so Patrick Stewart, Rebecca Romaine, which that's not so bad, but it's not great.
Luciano (20:22.254)
Yeah.
Luciano (20:26.754)
Yes.
Matt (20:35.606)
Also sidebar, Channing Tatum is coming in his gambit, which sure, whatever. James Marston is back. Kelsey Grammer.
Luciano (20:38.711)
Yeah.
Luciano (20:43.862)
Let's say, for our younger viewers, of which we have none, so James Marsden is Cyclops, Rebecca Romaine is the original Mystique, Alan Cumming was Nightcrawler, Ian McCallin and Patrick Stewart, I think people know because they've been on the other movies.
Matt (20:56.91)
Yes.
Yeah, I think Kelsey Grammer is coming into the voice of the beast, which you know again, whatever fine so so I think the big Two questions and one I think it's a really throwaway question how do you make a movie where 27 people matter and to How would you make a movie where There's a chance that by the time the movie comes out several of the cast members may have died of natural causes and being old yeah
Luciano (21:03.97)
Yeah.
Luciano (21:26.03)
Old age.
Matt (21:29.602)
I love Patrick Stewart, I love Ian McCullen, but I hope they hold on, but yeah, they are fucking up there. like, yeah, right? So how, like, I don't know if anybody watched the latest Indiana Jones movie, but Harrison Ford can't move very well because he's in his eighties. And so like, how do you do this? Like, are they going to do action? Are they just going to be mentors for five seconds? Like what, what the fuck?
Luciano (21:32.046)
They're both pushing 90, yeah.
Kelsey Grammer is almost 80. Yeah.
Luciano (21:47.939)
Hahaha
Luciano (21:57.41)
Yeah, but then why would you introduce likely, if not the most awaited, some of the most awaited characters to come into the MCU, the X-Men? Because now we're talking about A-listers in terms of comics and like people that have never read comics or whatever, they knew the X-Men from the movies in the 2000s from the animated series, right?
Matt (22:22.98)
TV show.
Luciano (22:25.888)
So why would you introduce these characters when they're, know, and it sounds ageist and it is a little bit, but like they're in DOR, that's DOR. Like, even if this works, let's say this works perfectly for this movie, how many more movies are you going to get out of them? Why not introduce the new X-Men?
Matt (22:49.326)
Well, like you could have if you wanted to go with names you knew already, you could have gone with the help me here. Lawrence. Yeah.
Luciano (22:50.53)
You know what mean?
Luciano (22:59.833)
Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique yeah it could could have pulled James McAvoy Michael F. S. Bender that's the proper way to say his name
Matt (23:06.042)
Fast Bander. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, that would have, but like you could also, I mean, and like, I guess you're, it's interesting that like, uh, Ryan Reynolds and, uh, uh, Hugh, uh, Jackman are not, but anyways, so it's just the biggest question is like, it feels like to me, they're doing the same thing they did with, uh, Brave New World. I was going to say the Red Hulk, but you get it. Like,
Luciano (23:21.314)
Jackman or not in this, yes.
Luciano (23:35.47)
Captain America Red Hulk. Yeah.
Matt (23:36.01)
You're telling me ahead of time it's happening instead of like, because if you're saying these people are starring in this movie, like, you know, let's let's give them credit. It's probably a two and a half plus hour movie just because of all these people. But like, you know, like, are they all going to get five to 10 minutes of screen time? Like is every single person?
Luciano (23:50.999)
Yeah.
Luciano (23:54.944)
Or I have a feeling it's gonna be what happened with the Illuminati on Multiverse of Madness, where they all show up together in one scene. Well, hopefully not that bad, but like they all show up in one scene and they all go, they all do the little quip thing of saying some like catchphrase or just show, and then that's it.
Matt (24:04.366)
They die within five seconds.
Matt (24:20.29)
Sure
Luciano (24:22.158)
But then I go back to my question, why introduce these characters to the MCU this way?
Matt (24:27.266)
Well, or and or, like, I don't want to dismiss your thing, but it's also like, if you're going to do that, just make it a thing that happens in a movie, right? It's so minor to the movie. Like, no one was like, hey, guess who's in Multiverse of Madness? John Krasinski, right? He just shows up and they're like, shit, that's fun. This is the thing, right? This is the thing. feel like the Marvel is just like everything, like, and I don't think it's Marvel's fault. I think every movie that does sequels
Luciano (24:42.86)
Yeah, which was awesome for the five minutes when he was awesome. But yeah.
Matt (24:56.268)
suffers from this idea that bigger, better, more. And to some degree, you can't just do the same old thing because that's boring. But the disease of bigger, better, more is like, I think it's starting to like, Ouroboros Marvel and eat its, you know, because eating its own tail, right? Because it's like, why can't I have some surprises in the movie? Like, why can't I be surprised that fucking, you know, I don't know, like Channing Tatum is still showing up in Gambit?
Luciano (25:02.05)
Right.
Luciano (25:10.018)
Yeah.
Luciano (25:19.01)
Well, yeah, exactly. I was going to say, you don't have to go far. We've had some of those surprises, you know, when, when Deadpool and Wolverine, which we all loved, right? They, know, like Hugh Jackman was there and we knew about that, but we didn't know that, you know, fucking Chris Evans was going to show up as Johnny Starm again. And that was fucking incredible, right? The chain and Tatum. Exactly. Yeah.
Matt (25:37.89)
Yeah, yeah. Especially when you when we all assumed he was Captain America, right? Yeah, yeah.
Luciano (25:46.13)
and you know, Jennifer Garner and like all of those things as a cameo as something like, okay, here, this exists. It's a thing. It's part of the universe. Fine. Just leave it alone. Don't say that they're all coming back. Give me a cameo of like a scene or two. Right. And that's fine. I agree. But like, and this is again, we talked about this in the last, you know, when we talked about the movie, but stop showing me everything on the trailer and then the fucking
Matt (25:49.518)
Yes.
Matt (25:56.868)
Yeah. Yeah.
Luciano (26:15.822)
Call sheet right like
Matt (26:17.594)
You need, you just need to, especially with Marvel now, it's just like, we don't, I don't think we care about the, like, it's like, oh, do you want say has the most cool actors ever? Make the movie good. You've made enough shit movies that you need to just make a good movie.
Luciano (26:31.866)
Yeah, yeah. When that's the thing when when this started, again, going back to 2008. Yeah, people knew who Robert Downey Jr. was, but he wasn't like a big name actor. He was like a B-leaster, maybe a C-leaster back then. Right. Chris Hemsworth had done stuff but was not famous at all. The really famous actor they got was Edward Norton, who fucking bailed. And then he got Mark Ruffalo, who nobody actually really knew.
Matt (26:41.816)
Yeah. No.
Matt (26:46.638)
Somewhere in there, yeah.
Matt (26:56.45)
Yes. Yeah, that's a whole thing. No. Yeah.
Luciano (27:01.974)
And then Chris Evans was also like, had done some stuff, but nothing.
Matt (27:05.942)
If you know, they did a good job of mixing in, you know, like much like how Star Wars had to get Al Kiddness right to have a named actor in the movie, like having Anthony Hopkins or Sir Anthony Hopkins in Thor was fun, right? Yeah.
Luciano (27:13.837)
Yeah.
It was great because it wasn't big. He did a terrific job and he, you know, got the fuck out of the way. Right. The first first Iron Man movie had Jeff Bridges. Right. There you go. You're right. You're right. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that, but you're right. They're the one person. Right.
Matt (27:24.504)
Yeah, so I like
Matt (27:30.606)
Yeah, another person to help. Yeah. So that's good. that, yeah. And so now you're big and everybody knows who these actors are and that's fine. You don't have to do that stuff anymore. I don't think you need to like, it's like, you're just trying to like...
Luciano (27:44.514)
No, but continue doing this. It's fine if you do it with the actors that you already have. Sure, you want to have Doomsday be RDJ. I don't understand how that's going to work, but whatever, fuck it. Fine. But then here's the pool. People are already going to go watch for that.
Matt (27:55.556)
Yeah.
Matt (28:00.004)
Sure, I'm gonna come to this movie because I wanna see how you fucking justify Robert Downey Jr.' doomsday. And we can go into this for five seconds because to me, you basically have to say that he is Tony Stark in a fucked up timeline where he becomes doomsday instead of Iron Man.
Luciano (28:03.532)
Yeah
Luciano (28:14.476)
Yeah, that's the only way. It's either going to be that or there's going to be 17 jokes about, you look like Tony Stark. That's going to be awful. I hope they don't do that. Yeah.
Matt (28:25.346)
Yeah, that'll be awful. It's the same way they made God for the second Avengers movie where they had the man getting no, no, no, the main bad guy.
Luciano (28:37.23)
you mean, Quicksilver? Or no?
Luciano (28:45.107)
Ultra?
Matt (28:46.618)
Yeah, so Ultron in this universe, Ultron is created by them fucking around with Jarvis. Right? And that's not how, that's sort of the mainline story for Ultron is he's not like a creation of Tony Stark. Yeah. So like they, and that's fine. Like it's a good way to introduce into the storyline and make all those stories cohesive, right? So I think you have to keep with that mindset of like, how do we make this cohesive? The idea is like, oh, you look like Iron Man. And it's like, it's going to fuck up a couple of people. like there, Iron Man died and like,
Luciano (28:53.132)
Right, yeah.
Luciano (29:00.617)
Not at all, yeah.
Matt (29:16.248)
you his daughter's gonna say, I hate you 3000 or whatever, like, fine, knock yourselves out, but that's, that'd be the lame as shit, like, you gotta be better than that. You have to resist the urge to do that shit.
Luciano (29:25.804)
Yeah, I because I think they're gonna take a page out of Deadpool Wolverine where you know, Chris Evans was Johnny Storm in that right? And they're gonna say, I mean, if Cap can be Johnny Storm, Tony Stark can be doomsday. But like, exactly. Right. And and it's like, you can't like, what are you saying? this is Tony Stark, but he has a different name. That doesn't make any fucking sense.
Matt (29:40.324)
But Cap was Johnny Storm, there's a difference.
Matt (29:53.978)
Yeah, I don't know.
Luciano (29:53.986)
Because the one thing that stays is the person's identity, right? They can be completely different people, like personality wise, but like it's not like, you know, Dr. Strange is Stephen Strange in one universe and then I don't know, Jebediah Strange on another, no, that's not how that works, right?
Matt (29:57.859)
You think so.
Matt (30:13.402)
Well, I mean, maybe they're trying to use the what ifs to prime people for the idea of like weird things happening, right? But it's like, there are things you can do in the comics, because I think there's a series of comics where, I don't know the exact details, but Doc Ock takes over Peter Parker's body, or Peter gets trapped in the same body, right? And so Doc Ock is like Spider, like he's playing both, and it's like, it's a whole, but like, that's shit comic book readers accept, because comic book readers are used to like the wildest crazy shit ever happening, right?
Luciano (30:31.17)
That's different. Yeah.
Luciano (30:36.29)
Mm-hmm.
Luciano (30:42.828)
Yeah, what? Yeah. And even it doesn't matter how much they announce because they announced this a long time ago on Comic-Con or something. And it's like, people are to OK, cool. I like RDJ. He's fun. But like, first of all, Victor Von Doom is probably the closest thing to a polar opposite of Tony Stark that we have in terms of personality. He is
Matt (30:43.042)
movie goers are going to be like, come again. Yeah. And so.
Matt (30:51.48)
Yes. Yeah.
Matt (30:58.744)
Yeah. Yeah.
Luciano (31:12.02)
annoying. He is pedantic. He is self grandiose. Well, that's that's self grandiose is similar. But he's not he's not likable. He's not charming. He is a pain in the ass. Right. And that's how it's supposed to be. He's supposed to be the sort of like tunnel vision, super driven person.
Like he gives Reed Richards a run for his money and being uptight, right? Is RDJ gonna play him like that? Not that I don't think he can, he's a good actor, he can. Like we've seen him in fucking Oppenheimer doing something like that, right?
Matt (31:50.818)
Yeah. yeah, like it's not that he can't do it. It's like, how do you make it work within the canonized universe? Right. It's
Luciano (31:56.15)
Yeah, it's one thing when you cast against type an actor that has never been on any of the franchise movies. That's fine. But like how are going to reconcile that? I'm very curious to see and I don't think I'm going to like the answer.
Matt (32:10.432)
I mean, it's kind of like our curiosity around can DC finally make a Superman movie, right? Like, the trailers look promising and there's a lot of crypto and I don't know about that. You know, James Gunn is going deep into the Superman lore, which I can appreciate, but the core crux of the problems with Superman is that it's really hard to have a superhero who is impervious to everything be put into peril. And if...
Luciano (32:16.884)
Yeah.
Luciano (32:22.444)
Yeah.
Luciano (32:35.982)
It's hard to write a compelling story, right?
Matt (32:39.704)
Yeah, like the difference here is that I trust James Gunn. He has enough of track record that I think if anybody can do it, he can do it. And I gotta be honest with you, I don't fucking trust the Russo brothers anymore. Like they did a great job with Avengers, all credit to them for both those movies. But everything else they've made, and we've pretty much watched almost everything they've made somehow, we just picked them. They suck. They are like,
Luciano (32:46.285)
Yeah.
Luciano (32:52.969)
No, I don't either.
Luciano (33:04.778)
Yeah.
Matt (33:06.83)
fucking the electric state I don't know where they spend five hundred bajillion million dollars on it but it's not a fun time
Luciano (33:10.73)
Yeah, and to the point where you go, how the fuck did they make Endgame so good? I don't understand.
Matt (33:17.482)
Yeah, honestly. I'm concerned, right? So they come out swinging their dick around being like, look at all these actors we got, it's going to be the best. got RGJs, Victor Von Doom, blah, blah. I'm I'm just scared. I don't.
Luciano (33:33.366)
Yeah, I don't I don't understand like that to me when they announced it I was already very very skeptical like Chris like Chris linked the thing to us like it was his birthday and Christmas rolled into one when they announced that I was like, did you stop to think about this for a second? How is it gonna work and I don't I think your idea Matt is the one that makes the most sense which is like, this is like some fucked up
Like you said, some fucked up timeline or some cloning shit. I don't know, something like that. But I have a very snagging feeling that there's just gonna go like, no, they just look like each other. Kind of like Cap and in one world and in like a bunch of worlds, not just the one, because we do see crossover. And that one world where Johnny Storm looks like Cap.
Matt (34:22.49)
Sure. Yeah.
Luciano (34:30.51)
They're gonna do the same thing there. They'll just say, no, they just look like each other.
Matt (34:34.328)
Yeah, I mean, all right, God bless them if they do, but I think that'd be a mistake. If they do that, they just have to never, like, have to be like, fuck, it looks like Iron Man and just never talk about it. Yeah, yeah, because, which should be, which to me is a waste of casting Robert Downey Jr. in that role.
Luciano (34:38.606)
Hahaha
Luciano (34:44.191)
Leave it alone and never talk about it again. Yeah
Luciano (34:51.82)
Yeah, and it's a waste of a potential, like if they can find a way of doing this correctly, like it's some potential for really bad drama. Like imagine Pepper seeing him.
Matt (35:04.63)
yeah, Peter would lose his mind, right? Yeah.
Luciano (35:06.378)
or Peter yeah right like this is like my god i have to are you telling me i have to fight this guy this guy who looks and for all intents and purposes basically is the person the loved person that i lost because he saved the fucking world it's yeah i don't know
Matt (35:27.002)
So we'll see. I'm cautiously pessimistic is the way I'm terminating. Yeah, there you go. That's it. And maybe we need to be more positive like Chris. Chris has a very positive outlook on this stuff and I'd love to be positive. And you know, if they can do something with Thunderbolts that's interesting, I got to say Fantastic Four does look cool and I like the idea of going to a retro futuristic world to do it. That could be a lot of fun.
Luciano (35:27.246)
Whatever. Coerciously pessimistic. Enthusiastically pessimistic.
Luciano (35:41.953)
Yeah.
Luciano (35:54.424)
Yeah.
Matt (35:56.088)
I'll believe it when I see it at this point. I won't watch it, but I just, you know, they're getting...
Luciano (35:57.964)
Yeah. we're we're all bitches. We're gonna watch it.
Matt (36:02.584)
Yeah. But it's like, it's, haven't, they've lost the, like any, any actor or any movie franchise, like they've lost the automatic, see guaranteed good time.
Luciano (36:12.526)
Well, yeah, we had a good run, right? In the late 2000s, like early 2010s and so on until the end, like let's call it until the end of like phase one. Well, phase one was amazing. Phase two was a little bit all over the place. And then it just went downhill from there. And I think...
Matt (36:16.695)
yeah.
Luciano (36:34.286)
Obviously, there's also the expectation, right? We go to these movies now expecting a certain level of like quality, I guess, and entertainment. I don't know. The last couple of movies that we watched, certainly for the podcast, did not deliver.
Matt (36:50.234)
Yeah, I mean, like, I was just like,
Luciano (36:51.552)
Other than that, that blue Wolverine did deliver.
Matt (36:54.724)
Sure it did, but it's not even like, so I'm looking through the phases, right? So phase one starts with Iron Man and culminates with the Avengers, right? So a nice easy storyline. Phase two is all over the place because it starts with Iron Man 3 and it culminates with, technically, Age of Ultron, but.
Luciano (37:08.054)
Yeee. Ooh, the first two movies of phase two are really bad. Yeah. Yeah. And then Winter Soldier just redeems it entirely. Yeah.
Matt (37:13.986)
Yeah, there are some bad movies, right? But they're still better. Yeah. And then Ant-Man rounds it out. But it's like one of those things where it's like, almost can consider Ant-Man to phase three. And then you dip it to phase three and they've got a lot of movies packed in there. But, you know, in general, they had a good plan for everything. that's, you run into end game, right?
Luciano (37:35.79)
Yeah, Phase 3 was lots of ups and downs, right? Like Civil War. Doctor Strange, good movies. Guardians 2 is bad. Homecoming is great. Ragnarok's great. Back Panther is great. Infinity War. Yeah. And then you have Endgame, right? Which was...
Matt (37:39.928)
Yeah. Yeah.
Matt (37:50.426)
So like, think almost all of them are good. uh, and so, yeah. And then again, it's like, have, it's funny how they tack on like a spider nine movie afterwards, but it's like, it's kind of almost in, and in phase four, and then this is kind of where things start to fall off, right? Because they, they lose phase four. just feels like they had a bunch of movies. You know, when you talk about, in phase four is considered black widow, Shang Chi, the eternals.
Luciano (38:00.396)
Yeah.
Luciano (38:08.812)
This... Yeah.
Matt (38:16.122)
Spider-Man, No Way Home, Doctor Strange, and the Multiverse of Madness, Love and Thunder, and Wakana Forever. And like, I've watched them all. Yeah.
Luciano (38:21.75)
I haven't watched Wakanda forever, of those movies, Shang-Chi is good. No Way Home is good. That's it.
Matt (38:26.034)
But all of those movies have nothing to do, like they're all just movies that are existing in their own tiny, bubbled universe.
Luciano (38:32.865)
Yeah, you could almost like have like watch them on their own in a vacuum and it'd be fine.
Matt (38:37.998)
Yeah. It really wouldn't matter. Like there's some, you know, superhero crossover, but only in the sense that, they've kind of crossed over before. And that's, that, that same sort of thing, you know, happens into, into this phase five well, right? And so I, seems like almost like they didn't have a target for the overarching storyline. Yeah.
Luciano (38:55.95)
There's no through line like there is in the other movies or the other phases it feels like.
Matt (39:01.69)
Yeah. And so like, you know, it's good they have a, I guess they have a through line for phase six. Like, it seems like they have one. It just seems like it's coming in fast. It seems like we've been spinning our wheels for the last two phases and all of a sudden they're like, dooms here, fuckers. So I guess we'll see.
Luciano (39:08.087)
Yeah
Luciano (39:19.118)
Yeah, yeah, we'll see I I'm just sad at the whole state of like, you know MCU stuff Not because I think we would be complaining either way because first of all, we're and second of all There's the expectation like I said, but I don't think that this is that's just what it is. I think it's There's a problem there
Matt (39:29.955)
Yeah.
Matt (39:45.382)
Yeah.
I tend to agree. It's just interesting. Maybe I wonder if you could get some truth serum into Kevin Feige, how much the Kang thing blowing up really, yeah, fuck them up. Because like, you'll never know how many of the movies, especially in phase five, were
Luciano (40:03.256)
Fuck them over.
Luciano (40:12.012)
Yeah, they had to be like changed completely. Yeah.
Matt (40:13.946)
We're just like, just do your thing. We don't know what we're doing. Don't worry about it. Like, obviously Deadpool and Wolverine could just do whatever they wanted because it was never really made in line. and you know, like Brave New World, you really wonder, and even like Guardians of the Galaxy 3, like you wonder what those movies were setting up for what they were going to do or what they chopped out. Cause obviously, yeah.
Luciano (40:35.862)
I haven't watched Guardians 3 but you get Namor, Namor, or Namor and Adam Warlock in them, right? In it. okay. So Adam Warlock is on Guardians 3. Okay, okay.
Matt (40:43.299)
Neymar shows up in Wakanda forever.
Adam Warlocks in Guardians of the Galaxy 3. So like there are plans there but you wonder how much it scuttled them and how much of things are a problem. And then you know then again they made the Eternals in the base for us and who the fuck knows what they were thinking. But they brought it back in and it was important. I'm rambling at this point.
Luciano (41:07.562)
It was that they were, are you saying that it was adamant that they bring things back?
Matt (41:15.674)
It seems like they're like, like, listen, did they stitch Brave New Hulk into the Hulk storyline? It wasn't the worst.
Luciano (41:25.322)
I like it. I like it. Captain America, Red New Hulk.
Matt (41:31.384)
Yeah, Red New Hulk. Like, Brave Red Hulk. Like, it was... I don't mind a callback like that, but the problem was you can't call back in someone else's... We talked about this already. You don't call back in someone else's movie. The Hulk has to show up in a movie where it has everything to do with all the Hulk characters.
Luciano (41:35.621)
Yeah
Luciano (41:39.307)
No, it's fine.
Luciano (41:50.208)
No, yeah, that whole movie was like the whole the movie was like a bunch of a pile of ideas together that they tried to stitch and didn't work like.
Matt (41:57.722)
Yeah. And I wonder if that happens because... The Kang thing can't happen.
Luciano (42:01.387)
The Kang thing? I don't know. This had nothing to do with that. Like this movie, like even if it was Kang, there's nothing that happened in this movie that would have changed because Kang was there.
Matt (42:13.614)
Well, that's thing. We don't know what the movie was before they had to ditch Kang, right? I think Brave New World or Brave Red Hulk may have been completely rewritten or done because they didn't know what else to do. And so they just did this one off story, right? anyway, so the gist of this conversation is, you know, is Marvel, I guess the question I would pose, Steve, is Marvel on the way up? Is it like a plateau before they plummet? Like what do you think it is?
Luciano (42:18.382)
Oh, I see. Maybe there was. OK, I see what you mean. Yeah.
Luciano (42:42.126)
I think it's a combination of things for me. One is doing too much because for the first however many phases, all we had were movies. There were movies that were in the same universe and that was it. And then Disney Plus happened and then they started to do a bunch of series. I'm not complaining. I like most of those series, but now it's too many things to keep up. Like it's too many spinning plates, I think.
And I think what's happening now is a combination of that with Disney wants money, we've got to make these and these are like printing money, right? And not giving Kevin Feige, I don't know, that's speculation obviously, but like not giving Kevin Feige the time.
or the resources maybe both to do what he wants to do. I don't have a reason to think that Kevin Feige lost the plot.
Matt (43:39.354)
Oi?
Well, I wonder if Kevin Feige had too much to do. And so he couldn't keep the story together in a meaningful way because now he has to run television and movies.
Luciano (43:46.506)
Or maybe that, right?
Luciano (43:52.43)
I mean if she Hulk is anything to go by you would be right. Yeah Yeah, I know What a waste of a carry I love is we had this conversation in the other podcast She Hulk is one of my favorite characters and they did her dirty a lot Yeah
Matt (43:56.08)
Yeah
Anyways, we don't have time to talk about that.
Yeah, we did. Yeah.
Matt (44:08.58)
Sure, yeah. Why not, So, yeah, I'll be curious to see. We'll talk about all these movies on the podcast at some point.
Luciano (44:17.582)
Because we're complaining but we will watch them, there's no doubt in my mind.
Matt (44:21.268)
yeah, we're definitely going to cover them, you know, especially leading up to, we're kind of locked in now leading up to, to do stay to, to cover them. Like, certainly I think a hundred percent will do a fantastic for, whether we do, brave new, apartment building or brand new Dick. Yeah. I don't know. but probably cause that's how we work.
Luciano (44:34.072)
Thunderbolts and Fantastic Fire.
Luciano (44:41.528)
Brand new dick.
Matt (44:49.53)
Actually that's after Doomsday, so really you just have to do a Fantastic Four. And the Thunderbolts. I'd probably do the Thunderbolts, I don't see how we wouldn't do it at this point.
Luciano (44:49.676)
Yeah. Yeah.
Luciano (44:57.306)
Honestly, I would watch Thunderbolt just for the reason that Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan are in them because I just like them. I like the way they play their characters so much. I was so pissed that Winter Soldier showed up for so little time in Red New Hulk. So, yeah.
Matt (45:09.292)
Yeah. Well, I like David, David Harbour.
Matt (45:16.322)
Yeah. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah, so we'll see. Listen, if.
If you like superhero movies, you're to watch this stuff. you're like, don't know if they're ever going to stop making superhero movies, but it's going to take a while.
Luciano (45:30.55)
it's gonna take a while. Do you know about the Westerns? in the early, like the spaghetti Westerns and all that, like how long they made those movies before someone went, okay, it's not making money anymore. Let's stop. It's the same.
Matt (45:42.458)
Yeah, mean like, you like if you think about, you know, the, you know, people who grew up with these movies, right? so we grew, we didn't really, we already old and we started coming out and we had comic books to our name. But, you know, if you were 16, 15 when the first Iron Man movie came out, that, that's still, that those things are like when you're, the shit you're into in your teens, it's like entrenched in your soul. So those people who love those movies then will still watch well into their fifties and sixties.
Luciano (46:05.23)
100 %
Luciano (46:09.646)
Spenser. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt (46:11.822)
Spencer Spencer's the young old at heart. So we'll see I'm hopeful I don't I don't ever want any movie ever to fail Like I don't care if every movie ever was good. That'd be amazing. That would be awesome but Well Your your nature's greatest monster so that's that's story tracks. Yeah
Luciano (46:24.007)
I some movies to fail, but for the most, these movies I don't want to fail, I agree.
Also true. Yeah, no, I agree. I hope like I hope I'm wrong and whatever they do with doomsday actually really worked and I'll gladly eat my shoe for having said I don't think it can work but you know
Matt (46:43.63)
Yep, but I'll leave the listeners with this parting thought and it's that for every Star Wars you have a rebel moon.
Luciano (46:53.71)
Wise words my friend. Yeah. No, I just, you know, just to say that even Star Wars now can't really use it as a good example anymore. Unless you're talking about some of the, like Andor, Season 2 came out, but like other than that, I
Matt (46:57.016)
Yeah, so there's that. Anything else from you?
Matt (47:08.538)
Exactly.
No, you're overthinking the analogy. It works on many levels. Yeah.
Luciano (47:19.022)
Okay. All right. I'll leave you with this thought then. Don't be a Katherine Kennedy, be a Kevin Feige. That's, yeah, I know.
Matt (47:27.308)
Wow, the year the big shark is back.
Luciano (47:34.744)
Yeah.
Matt (47:35.552)
It never lasts. All right. Next week we will talk about love hurts, love hates. I was going to love and thunder. We don't need to talk about that again. We already did. Hopefully with Spencer and Chris.
Luciano (47:41.377)
Love hurts.
Luciano (47:45.631)
No, no.
Yeah. Hopefully we'll like that movie, who knows? It's not like we watched it already.
Matt (47:52.664)
I doubt it. No, we definitely didn't do that. Okay, bye!
