We kick off our two-month "Pulp Frustration" series, dedicated to the 90s obsession with adapting pulp heroes to the big screen, with the 1990 Warren Beatty vanity project, Dick Tracy! How long was a Tracy movie in development before finally happening? How did Beatty convince an all-star cast to appear in something so outrageous? Was the character still relevant enough to entice modern audiences of the time? Why did the movie forever change how Disney did business moving forward? What the heck w...
Mar 14, 2023•1 hr 48 min
"Will You Be My VAMPentine" concludes with a trip back to one of our most dreaded genres - the YA Lit adaptation! But this time, we weren't willing to do it alone. We're joined by our friend Jackie, an ardent fan of the Vampire Academy book series, to discuss its 2014 big screen adaptation. With the director of Mean Girls and the writer of Heathers (!!) in charge, what could have possibly gone wrong? Well...about that. We're taking a look at Vampire Academy 's place in a post- Twilight world, a ...
Feb 28, 2023•1 hr 58 min
In this special bonus "Will You Be My VAMPentine"-themed episode of our "Success to Series" spin-off, we're squeezing into our tightest leathers, cranking the early 2000's nu-metal, and diving into the immortal war between vampires and werewolves...err, sorry, "lycans." That's right, it's a look at Underworld, the critically maligned but financially successful action/monster mash-up that we can't help but love...maybe even more than its own leading lady. What is it about this series that attract...
Feb 21, 2023•1 hr 36 min
Travel back with us to a time when comic-book movies were less cool (and certainly less respectable), to examine how one of comic's most enduring cult heroines ended up with only one feature film to her name: a little-known, made-for-cable oddity from cult-movie king Roger Corman, and T&A/Schlock movie "maestro" Jim Wynorski. Between a leading lady the director didn't want, to the surprising casting of a famous rock star in the villain role, to a Vegas-based production fraught with problems....
Feb 14, 2023•1 hr 34 min
When the latest big-screen reboot of the popular 70s TV series Charlie's Angels - this time written and directed by Elizabeth Banks - hit in 2019, the franchise had already proven its cinematic bankability (Banks-ability??). And yet, despite the much-buzzed-about excitement of seeing Kristen Stewart taking on a "fun" role in a big Hollywood action-blockbuster, and the intrigue of two potential new stars with Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska, Banks's film failed to connect with audiences. But was th...
Jan 31, 2023•1 hr 30 min
Baywatch , the series, was once the most watched television show in the world. Baywatch , the movie, was...well...not the most watched movie of 2017, to put it lightly. So, what went wrong? Did they simply wait too long to make a Baywatch movie? Was it a bad idea to go the tongue-in-cheek parody route? Or could the problem perhaps lie with the lead actor, Dwayne Johnson, who - despite his oft-repeated "Franchise Viagra" reputation - failed to rescue this one from the choppy box office waters. We...
Jan 17, 2023•1 hr 37 min
Are you ready to "Ring in 2023 with the ABC's of TV?" That's right - we're kicking off the new year with three episodes dedicated to feature adaptations of beloved TV shows. First up, Joe Carnahan's adaptation of the classic 80s Mr. T action series, The A-Team . This movie version had a lot to accomplish - solidify Liam Neeson's new action-star career resurgence, make a movie star out of UFC fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, prove Sharlto Copley's District 9 success wasn't a fluke, and show tha...
Jan 03, 2023•1 hr 26 min
In the second installment of this year's "Failure to Franchise with Trev & Chris-tmas," it's a blast from Chris's past, as we're looking at the 90s reboot of a beloved 60s sci-fi series whose reruns were a childhood favorite of Chris's. But does the movie version live up to the show? How does it play for someone less familiar with the original series, like Trev? And why the heck did this thing seemingly kill Matt Leblanc's Hollywood leading man status just as it was beginning? We discuss all...
Dec 20, 2022•1 hr 52 min
The second annual "Failure to Franchise with Trev and Chris-tmas" kicks off with a tribute to the recently departed Kevin Conroy, in the form of an episode dedicated to the one theatrical adventure spun off from Batman: The Animated Series. Long considered by many fans to be one of the finest Batman films ever produced, why did Mask of the Phantasm nonetheless fail at the box office? And, despite its financial failure, how does it succeed in so many elements that the live-action Batman films nev...
Dec 06, 2022•1 hr 39 min
After Vin Diesel's full return to the Fast & Furious franchise in 2009 steered the series back on track (see what we did there?), he once again enjoyed the sort of clout he hadn't seen since early in his career. He utilized this clout to indulge in some of his "nerdier" sci-fi and fantasy interests. First, by bringing back his beloved Riddick character for a third film. And then, in 2015, by trying to start up a brand-new franchise loosely based on the original character he had created for h...
Nov 22, 2022•1 hr 32 min
It's a time-honored "rite of passage" tradition. The biggest action stars of Hollywood attempt to also show their softer side with a light family comedy. Schwarzenegger had Kindergarten Cop . Stallone had Stop, Or My Mom Will Shoot! Dwayne Johnson had The Tooth Fairy . John Cena had Playing With Fire . Dolph Lundgren had, uh, Kindergarten Cop 2 . And in 2005, one of the industry's more recent rising action stars teamed with Disney to make his own attempt at this image evolution. The film was a b...
Nov 08, 2022•1 hr 47 min
Do you want to play a game? It's Halloween, so we're dropping an extra-special surprise bonus episode. In the latest installment of our "Success to Series" spin-off, we're looking at one of our favorite horror franchises...Saw! That's right, the James Wan/Leigh Whannell created series that used to be synonymous with Halloween...and perhaps will be again soon? We discuss why we think the series is better than its critical reputation suggests, our favorite twists and traps of the various films, an...
Oct 31, 2022•1 hr 33 min
In the 70s, Wes Craven shocked unsuspecting audiences with the unrelenting brutality of The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes . In the 80s, he redefined what the slasher-film could be with A Nightmare on Elm Street . In the 90s, he gave horror a thrilling meta-edge with both New Nightmare and Scream . But in 1989, he was, uh, a little less successful with Shocker . So what exactly went wrong with Craven's own attempt to out-do Freddy Krueger with the creation of a new supernatural s...
Oct 25, 2022•1 hr 36 min
After multiple years as a best-selling toy-line and popular animated series, it seemed like a live-action movie was a can't-miss proposition for Mattel's Masters of the Universe property. But between an untested leading man, a notoriously cheap studio, and disagreements over what the movie should be between various involved parties, even the mighty He-Man was no match for the difficulties of Hollywood franchise filmmaking. "Fall Back to the 80s" continues as we take a look at the film that confu...
Oct 11, 2022•1 hr 35 min
Positioned as a "red, white, and blue-collar" alternative to the James Bond franchise, based on an extremely popular series of paperback novels, and starring an up-and-coming leading man...the producers of REMO WILLIAMS has every reason to believe the adventure would not just begin, but continue for many years. So what the heck went wrong? Why is a future Star Trek captain so wasted here? Did Wilford Brimley charge producers more if they asked him to stand up? And is it even possible to discuss ...
Sep 27, 2022•1 hr 30 min
"Custom cars, kissing in the rain, neon, trains in the night, high-speed pursuit, rumbles, rock stars, motorcycles, jokes in tough situations, leather jackets and questions of honor." These were the elements director Walter Hill ( The Warriors, 48 Hrs. ) said he wanted to include in Streets of Fire , a "Rock'n'Roll Fable" which he saw as a tribute to everything he loved about movies in his youth. But did this mixture of so many influences result in a pretentious, style-over-substance mess, or an...
Sep 13, 2022•1 hr 36 min
In the second edition of our "spin-off" series focusing on franchises that actually succeeded, we're sticking with the "Fall Back to the 80s" theme to take a look at a series that might not have started in the 80s, but nevertheless is often associated with the decade thanks to two of its most bombastic entries. So what is it about the saga of Rocky Balboa that speaks to audiences so much? Why do these films transcend the mere "sports movie" label? Are the Creed movies a worthy successor to the o...
Aug 30, 2022•1 hr 25 min
It's own lead actors didn't understand the script. The studio had no idea how to market it. And many critics of the time were utterly baffled by it. And yet, over the years, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension has still attracted a devoted cult following. Is this wild tale of a rock'n'roll scientist battling interdimensional aliens actually a misguided failure, or a misunderstood masterpiece? We're here to discuss that very question, in the latest installment of our "Fall ...
Aug 16, 2022•1 hr 35 min
Join us as we "Fall Back to the 80s" (yeah, we know we're starting in the summer...what of it??), a special three-month event dedicated to some of the most infamous failed franchise starters of the 80s. First up, Dino De Laurentis' cult-classic adaptation of a beloved sci-fi character, Flash Gordon . Not only was this movie clearly made to cash in on the Star Wars -mania of the time, but it even has another fascinating connection to George Lucas. But, needless to say, the movie did not fare as w...
Aug 02, 2022•1 hr 37 min
A bestselling book series about a tough-talking female detective, adapted into a feature starring one of the most successful actresses of the previous decade. It sounds like a can't-miss proposition. And yet 1991's V.I. Warshawski failed to connect with audiences, denying star Kathleen Turner her own crime-thriller franchise. So what happened? Was the hard-boiled style simply out of style? Was the mix of comedy and drama too tough for viewers to take? Or was it just that damn title? Like Warshaw...
Jul 19, 2022•1 hr 25 min
The "Summer Surprise" series continues, with this look at the adaptation of the first book in Alexandra Bracken's popular YA dystopian sci-fi series. A world where the only surviving children of a mysterious plague all end up with superpowers, and are thus targeted for extermination, or worse, by the government - it should have been a perfect match-up of the successful YA and Superhero genres. So what happened? Was it simply too late in the YA movie cycle, or were there larger problems at play? ...
Jul 05, 2022•1 hr 36 min
In the second installment of our second annual "Summer Surprise," we're looking at the final feature film of a legendary comedy director. Not only that, but it was another entry in a mega-successful, beloved franchise from that very same director. So why didn't this attempt to restart the series after a long break catch on with audiences? Well, there are many answers to that (and we discuss many of them here), but let's just go ahead and say the transition from Peter Sellers to Roberto Benigni w...
Jun 21, 2022•1 hr 27 min
It's the first instalment of the second annual "Summer Surprise," where we're letting an online randomizer choose our next watches. First up, a very recent attempt to relaunch a once mega-successful summer sci-fi/comedy blockbuster series...without the original stars or director. But is the addition of two MCU actors (Chris Hemsworth & Tessa Thompson) fresh off the success of another humorous box-office hit (Thor: Ragnarok) enough to nevertheless revive this franchise? Well...no. The real qu...
Jun 07, 2022•1 hr 29 min
In part two of "May the Farce be with You," we're looking at 2015's attempt to reboot a beloved comedy franchise...but this time with a new leading man, new attitude, and without a signature part of the original title. What makes for an effective "legacy sequel?" Is Ed Helms as strong a lead as Chevy Chase? And just how mean-spirited is too mean-spirited, when it comes to comedy? All this and more is discussed, as we look at "NOT National Lampoon's" Vacation . Our Twitter Our Facebook Our Instag...
May 24, 2022•1 hr 21 min
Our "May the Farce be with You" event kicks off with a look at 2015's Mortdecai , the movie that seeks to answer the eternal question - just how many jokes can one film make about a single mustache? While star Johnny Depp had enjoyed an impressive, long-time-coming reign as one of Hollywood's biggest stars during the first decade of the 2000's, his career was clearly floundering by the time he strapped on Mortdecai's signature handlebar mustache...and the resultant critical and box-office reacti...
May 10, 2022•1 hr 38 min
In part two of "April Showers Bring April Powers," we're looking at Disney's mid-aughts superhero comedy, Sky High. With Kurt Russell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Danielle Panabaker, Kelly Preston, Bruce Campbell, Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Kevin Heffernan, Lynda Carter, Jim Rash, Cloris Leachman, and even the voice of Patrick Warburton, it's one of the most impressively geek-friendly casts of all time. But was a pre-MCU audience ready for a movie designed to poke fun at tropes that hadn't yet ful...
Apr 26, 2022•1 hr 29 min
In a surprisingly topical kick-off to our "April Showers Bring April Powers" event, we're taking a look at a film where beloved Hollywood "good guy" Will Smith plays a jerk who the public doesn't really trust, and who is in desperate need of some image-restoring PR. Sound oddly familiar? Well, that's just a happy coincidence, because Hancock was actually a long-gestating project - a superhero genre deconstruction that, ironically, hit theaters just as the superhero genre was really about to take...
Apr 12, 2022•1 hr 41 min
Is 2020's THE RHYTHM SECTION an artsy, introspective deconstruction of the spy-movie and revenge-thriller genres, or is it a high-octane, blockbuster attempt to create a new female-led James Bond-style franchise? The answer, depending on who you ask, is "yes," and therein perhaps is the problem. When EON Productions decided to branch out from Bond and give another literary spy-action series a whirl as a cinematic venture, they probably figured their experience guiding the most successful, enduri...
Mar 29, 2022•1 hr 26 min
And now, for something completely different. In the first edition of our new "spin-off" show, we're turning out attention from the world of failed franchises to franchises that not only very much worked, but that we're big fans of. Join us as we discuss the James Bond franchise, sharing our thoughts on what makes this particular franchise work - why it's so iconic, why it has stood the test of time, and how we each rank the individual Bond actors. All this and more, in what we hope is a little b...
Mar 15, 2022•1 hr 10 min
It's a new month, and a new theme. We're kicking off "March Mix-Up," a series devoted to both the bad and good of spy cinema, with a look at Phillip Noyce's Salt, from 2010. Originally developed as a spy thriller franchise for Tom Cruise, the film was ultimately reworked to instead be a star vehicle for Angelina Jolie. Was this an upgrade? Are influences of the Bourne films a hindrance or a benefit? And how does the movie, while only being a little over ten years old, hold up today, in a landsca...
Mar 01, 2022•1 hr 26 min
