Warning, this podcast contains spoilers for actually nothing this time, but references to a Foundation season two airing now on Apple TV Plus.
Hello.
My name is Jason Cepcio and I'm Rosie Night and welcome to Extra revision of the Crooked Media podcast, where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
In this episode, Strike Watch. Then we're heading to previously on for an SDCC scene report and a little talk about that Barbenheimer box office.
In the Hive mind as an.
Interview with writer, producer director David Eskoya, and in the Nerd Out, some thoughts on Indiana Jones coming up.
Strikewatch the historic double Strike continues, and some updates here. Dwayne Johnson, who we have been tough on on this podcast, has has come up big. We talked about in the previous episode how important it is that the most powerful and successful members of the WGA and SAG have been support have been in this fight to support, you know, some of the people who are in the lowest rungs of the ladder. And here is Dwayn Johnson who has come through with a historic seven figure donation to the
SAG Fund per variety during the COVID nineteen pandemic. The sag after Foundation work to provide financial relief to many unions one hundred and sixty thousand members via the foundation's Emergency Financial Assistance Program, which will again be used during the strike, and just in recent days it has been that Dwayne made a truly historic donation to the fund.
Yeah.
I think like you made a great point when we talked about the strike for the first time, which is like, this is the thing that makes us love comic books. It's like the people who are most powerful, who have the power, looking after the people who don't. And in this reporting there was something really interesting which I think sums up the power of why a union like this when it works like this is really really great.
Because it was saying that Courtney b.
Vance, who's the Sagafro Foundation President and executive director Sid Wilson, actually wrote a letter to the twenty seven hundred of the union's highest earning actors being like, look, we need money, Like you're rich, give us money, And I'm like, that's
exactly how it should be. And I love that Dwayne was the one who stepped up and was like, well, I'm given seven figures, so who else wants to jump in, So I'm ready to see more rich people giving money to this, because, like you said, this is for the workers who are going to be in a situation where they're not going to make healthcare this year. The twenty six thousand dollars that they need to make annually is
not going to happen. I could even be if they were still working, that might have happened anyway, with the way residuals are.
So it's really great this is happening. I love to see it.
George R. R.
Martin, who our good friend, George R. Martin, has came in on the strike the King. In his latest entry on his not a Blog blog, he has weighed in on the strike, calling it quote the most important of my lifetime. He continues, no one can be certain where we go from here, but I have a bad feeling that this strike will be long and bitter. It may get as bad as the infamous nineteen eighty five strike.
Though I hope not now. Of course.
George has been a member of the WGA since the mid eighties, and he also continues with updates about How's the Dragon quote How's the Dragon is shot? Mostly in London, a little bit in Wales and Spain and various other locations, which is why filming is continue. The actors are members of the British union Equity, not SAG after and though Equity strongly supports their American cousins, British law forbids them
from staging a sympathy strike. If they walk, they have no protection from being fired, breach of contract or even sued.
That's terrible, terrible, terrible law.
It's really strange too because England has a history like as George actually says in this blog, one of the major two parties is called the Labor Party, is built on the idea of protecting workers, but that has changed
as the parties moved more centrist. And it's really interesting because the subways in England we call it the Tube, right, they have an incredibly powerful union, the Transport Workers, and that the fact that their union is so powerful has kind of been used to turn union sentiment in the public.
To be like, oh, well, they're getting it and you're not.
When the big reminder that we all have about unions is if you see someone in a job and you see them getting good benefits and going on strike to get better pay, and they get paid.
Better than you.
Don't ask why they're getting that, ask why you're not going on strike to.
Get it, you know.
So it's kind of that thing. Yeah, I really I was actually even shocked. Even though I knew the union protections weren't strong, I didn't realize they were. You can get fired and sued by HBO Max if you walk not strong.
Absolutely absolutely nuts.
Also, wait, I just want to say as well, because this is a great This shows how scared the studios are right now.
George R.
Martin, his overall deal with HBO was suspended. That's right June first, which they're doing with a lot of people, but you don't expect him to be one of them.
I think they're doing it, I will say, it seems like they're doing it with everybody. They're taking the opportunity to not pay people. Now there's a there's a significant calendar date coming up in August sometime, which is the I'm not sure of the exact day, but it will be the point at which contractually the studios have the opportunity to cancel some overall deals completely wow by claiming force majures. This happened last time and you would back them to do it this time.
You know. One of the talking points you.
Hear is, oh, so who actually likes this early part of the strike because they want to save money, they want to get rid of deals that aren't performing.
I'm sure George will not.
Be among those who are whose deals are canceled. But yeah, I think everybody is not. Is everybody on an overall is not that cost check Claire, and some of them may be maybe done away with in the coming weeks.
SAG approval.
SAG has granted approval for thirty nine productions to continue during the strike, including two films from the artistic Darling studio A twenty four. The list includes two projects from A twenty four's the independent production company. The titles are Mother Mary starring Anne Hathaway and MICHAELA. Cole, and Death of a Unicorn starring Paul Rudd and Jenny Ortega. So basically, SAG has kind of signaled that indie projects that aren't you know they were, they're going to like forensically look
through their accounting. But anybody that's not taking money from the studios and not is not going to be distributed by any of the major players. It's truly an indie movie. And as in the case with A twenty four, studios who agree tacitly to the WGA and SAG's demands and says we'll go by, we'll go by what your proposals are. Now, we'll just willingly do that are allowed to continue shooting. So if a twenty question is if A twenty four
can do it, why can't the rest of them? Yeah, we'll see where this goes.
Yeah, what what's have you you been on the picket line? Obviously, what's the feeling been on this, because I've seen it's been quite controversial. Some people are like, yeah, A twenty four are doing it, that's amazing. But some people are also like, well, this is giving the biggest name actors paid work when people are out on strike who are kind of the lowest rung workers who are really need that money.
It it's a little bit of a wait and see. I think people, I think everybody understands the idea, which is one, support the independent producers out there are truly independent film number one, which is just a good thing to do, and number two try and create these divisions by saying, hey, if you if you agree to our proposals, we can serve them and right away like who wants
to who else wants to come in? You know, that's how they notably the agency campaign from a few years ago, which I won't delve into, but part of how that eventually resolved is you know, the studios one by one saying okay, fine, we'll work with you if you were working, if we end so, if they can peel off some of the members of the AMPTP, that's all for the good.
That said, I think that there is there's also some Okay, well, let's see how this goes, because I thought the idea was we're not working, so we'll see.
Yeah.
The ampt released a twenty three page document a few days ago. We're recording this on July twenty fifth. They released this document on July twenty first, and it had their version of the I guess last few negotiation rounds with sag AFTRA, their proposals and counter proposals. You can find that in various places, but the Hollywood Reporter had
a good write up of it. But there's one thing that I wanted to So one of the things that of course has been a sticking point is the the issue of revenue sharing, you know, aka residuals, which is how many writers and actors you know, keep the lights on when they're not you know, in the months often you know, significant amount of months between jobs. And the aptp's position is that they don't want.
To pay them exactly.
They don't want to those anymore. You know, they say, well, the business has changed, you know, tech has come in Netflix, Apple and Amazon, and they have different cultures. Their culture is based on secrecy. They don't want to give up the streaming numbers. Any kind of revenue sharing sharing and the success of a project would necessarily involve the sharing of the viewership numbers, and they don't want to do that.
So in their kind of counter to SAG's revenue sharing proposal, the AMPTP statement says, quote, the union is proposing that performers share in the rewards of a successful show without bearing any of the risk. The union proposes to share in success, but not in failure. That is not sharing one.
This is the way it's been done in the yes, of course, like the actors are not putting up their own money and mortgaging their houses so that like, you know, the project can go through that said throughout the entire history of TV, this is basically how it's been done.
It's been understood.
Yes, of course the studios are making the capital investment, but anything that succeeds beyond a certain set point, then it's time to share in the wealth. And the AMPTPI now says, well, that's the old thinking, We're not going to do that anymore. I don't think that the unions should accept that. But number two, this idea that because the actors are not taking on a form of like
scaled capital risk is actually completely wrongheaded. First of all, a lot of this is a fight for actors and writers to be able to one make their year, which has been which is something that's gotten harder and harder. Making the year essentially means making enough money through the guild through guilt work to qualify for health insurance. Anybody who has struggled to figure out, like, where's my health insurance coming from? How am I going to get it? Can I keep it?
What am I going to do?
Understands that like living in a world in which one you're trying to make it as either an actor or a writer, and two trying to figure out, okay, do I need to get some kind of straight job in order to get benefits. You're taking a risk in your life just going out of the house without health insurance
and trying to get it one. Two the amount of A large part of this struggle is about the amount of free work that goes on in this industry, whether it's actors spending their own money and time to send in a self tape, which you know, part of the complaints that actors have is these self tapes are becoming more and more intricate with like lighting and like scenes, and now it's like not everybody has the resources to do this. All of which is to say actors and
writers take on significant risk. It's not capital risk in the same way that the studios do, but they take on plenty of risk, and they should absolutely share in the success of a project when it succeeds.
Yeah, completely. And also I mean that you talk about self tapes. I also saw that there's been a movement for people to get paid for auditions because legally and contractually you are supposed to be paid for an audition already, but that hasn't been happening for a really long time. So even these base protections that you would hope these actors are getting for this alleged small investment of time that they're giving.
The studios haven't been paying them anyway.
That's right.
Well, the strike continues and we'll be covering here on Extra Vision up next. Previously on.
It was SDCC just gone, our first SDCC since Twilight took over hall H and invented hall H culture. That there hasn't been a major studio presence inside the convention because I will say, when you go to San Diego, they always have activations, they have things that people can do without tickets. You can sign up online, and there were still a few of those. I believe FX turned up. I believe Hulu turned up with that kind of stuff. But inside there were no major hall H panels. There
was no DC movies, there were no Marvel movies. There weren't even any big TV panels aside from a couple of little premieres where there wasn't any talent apart from maybe a director who was able to turn up. But I have to say San Diego was bumping. It was incredibly busy. Tiffany Babb, who's an incredible pop culture journalist and comic book journalist at pop Verse did a great write up about how she spoke to lots of different retailers. Yeah I read that, Yeah great, like Silver Sprocket, one
of our favorite indie publishers. They said they had their biggest preview night ever, and preview nights usually a pretty quiet night, mostly.
For industry folks.
I spoke to multiple different exhibitors who said it was the biggest year they'd had. Qu Bok was also quoted in pop Verse, So basically what happened.
Funk oh, I believe historic.
Also the Marvel booth.
They had like a Marvel merch booth there that apparently did really really well. Basically what happened was because people were not in the whole h Q lines and there were not six rounds and people they were. They were on the show floor, and you know what I have to say, they were also in the panel rooms. I did three panels, all of which were busier than most panels I've ever done, but the one that really stuck out to me, and I think this is representative of
a lot of people's experience. I did a panel with Webtoon called a Golden Age for Women in Comics and the idea is was to highlight that women have always been making comics, but they've just been raised from the narrative and now thanks to webtoon, thanks to incredible indie publishers like Black Jerse Press. The publisher Jimmie Larrouser was on the panel, women are being recognized for making comics
even though they've always been here. That is the kind of panel I've done at San Diego before about like disability or about different aspects of representation. You get an eager crowd, but not a necessarily packed room, right. Those rooms can hold like two three hundred people. Our Golden Ajor Women in Comics panel, which did feature Rachel Smythe who makes Laura Lympus, who is arguably one of the most famous cartoonists in the world, so I'm giving her
credit for how many people came as well. But that was a one in, one out panel. It was standing room only and they had a Q outside.
To let people in.
And I started to hear that other people there was a Queer Horror panel and that was the same thing where they had a Q outside. So what happened with haul h not being there is it drove people into the show floor. It drove people into the convention center, and the coolest thing is people.
Just were excited. The vibes were great.
I didn't see anyone who was disappointed or who wasn't prepared for the fact this was going to be comics focused, and it was just a really wonderful experience. Also, I will say there was a lot of great strike support. There was lots of cosplayers with strike signs. Actually, like Duncan Crabtree Island came on Saturday to speak on a panel about AI and voice acting and kind of advocate for the voice actors, and there were people giving I know, Danny Fernandez, one of our friends of the Pods, she
was giving out a lot of strike pins. And one of the coolest things was they had these signs that were like SAG signs, and they said support the strike, carry this sign, and people would just hand them off to each other, so you'd see like Deadpool carrying it, and you'd see and it really kind of opened my eyes to the fact we obviously care about this stuff, like deeply, not just because we're involved in it, but because it's something.
That we care about.
We care about it because we love comics. We care about it because we love TV and movies. We want people to get paid. I don't think the studios realize how widespread that mentality is. That you can have a kid in a comics accurate Deadpool cosplay because there was a lot of comic accurate cosplay, because people didn't want to do movie cosplay because they felt like they were supporting Struck studios. It was really heartening, not only to see the love for comics, but also to see people
recognizing that they understood why this SDCC was different. It was really cool, and I would say if I was in charge of SDCC, I'd be having very different meetings with the studios next year, like how can you help us if you want this platform, we don't need it, But if you want the platform of being on hall Ah, how much are you going to invest in the convention? How much can we use this your resources to make this an even better place for comics, for the museum,
for artists who can't afford an artists Alli table. Because the truth is hall H not being there did not impact how that show was aside from positively for smaller press and artists ali people who felt like they especially by the end of the weekend. I heard that Saturday and Sunday, it was almost like on the first two days folks were walking around kind of being like, Okay, I've never really been on the show floor. What am I going to buy? Like budgeting out you kind of do.
And apparently Saturday and Sunday those sales just went absolutely crazy.
That's great, that's great, and it's you know, it's interesting. Now I'm kind of reflecting on the fact that certainly in the hall H era, I have never never once heard someone talk about the kind of hall Ah culture and immense lines and what it takes to get in there with any kind of warmth.
No, you know, it's like I don't want to queue out that for two nights.
Yeah, it is only complaints about the slow, whole rigamarole of getting through that. And it's nice to see that there was almost like a turn of the clock back moment of uh, this the energy and the community is still here. It's not going anywhere. And to your point, maybe there is a conversation about like what the relationship will be in the future between the studios in comic Con, and hopefully that conversation can make the experience of comic Con kind of just better.
Yeah, And you make a great point, because I think something that was really special. So Dorian Parks is really great who's a host and a kind of journalist in the same space to us. He moderated the Spider Man two panel, which was about the video game, right. But what was really interesting was so many it was in hallh and so many people who would never have got to experience hall Ah got to experience it because that wasn't necessarily the.
Two day wait. So I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned.
And the thing that made me the happiest was my worst case scenario was like people won't come, or they will come and they'll be really mad, and it will affect the people who've invested thousands of dollars, who are indy cartoonists, who know that this is the time that they can make they can make the bag that we can that can be the one show you do that really makes you money. And it turns out it was the complete opposite. And it was just an absolute delight
to be there. And because people were on the show floor and there weren't Hallah lines, San.
Diego was actually p a chill to walk around. So yeah, it was.
It was overall just wonderful, and I'm hoping that we learn a lot of great lessons and kind of see them come into play more as we go.
Ahead.
Up next, let's quickly talk about the insane Barbenheimer Weekend.
Wild.
Okay, so barbon Heimer Weekend has come and gone. Barbie is currently at one hundred and sixty plus million and climbing. Oppenheimer as well as around eighty million ish and climbing. Both movies are handily beating their projections, and the movies are back.
Folks.
Here's my manager, Kenny, who you know has been endlessly roasting me because I was not able to get into eger movie.
I was not I try, I really tried.
My Usually my usual move is Friday morning or Saturday or Sunday morning, I'll take in a Matt nae whatever the new nostalgia, nice Matt wonderful matinee for whatever the new movie is. I tried every movie time for both movies, and there was like nothing except for like the front row seats at at Imax, where you're sitting basically.
You can see one foot of the screen.
And you're my fucking vertebrae will snap in half because like my head is completely like looking up at the top of the screen, and I just couldn't do it. But two huge movies obviously a marketing bonanza and one of those things a counterprogramming coup in which both projects have been burnished by this entire scheme, part of which
is just like the overall pettiness of Warner Brothers. So you know, one of the things that has happened in the past that led up to this is Christopher Nolan, among many filmmakers, was upset with Warner Brothers move to take movies out of theaters, only give them a short run in theaters and then put them right on Max.
Right.
He's a lover of movies. He wants movies to be seen in the movie theater, and evedn't like that, so he left his longtime home Warner Brothers, and as a kind of like pettiness, I guess they were like, oh, yeah, well, we're gonna have our movie a Barbie Open opposite Oppenheimer when you do Oppenheimer at your new place. And guess what happened. Both movies are succeeding through this because the Barbenheimer phenomenon has become a thing.
Yeah, I mean it's I read a really interesting interview with like the head of global marketing from Warner Brothers, and it used sometimes I'd never really heard of. So there's like, you know, obviously paid advertising, right, which is paid marketing, which I have to say, Warner Brothers did an unbelievable job of Like they did the weirdest, coolest shit, like the they did an architectural Digest video tour of the Malibu dream.
Hat like Barbie Dreamhouse, Like they.
Just did really weird stuff that kind of hit in the ship post era of the Internet that we're really in. But he also talked about earned marketing, and that's essentially what Barbenheimer comes under the umbrella of which is an organic Internet like fun like people getting excited. And I mean, this is one of those wild moments where like neither
of the studios saw this coming. Warner Brothers had it Barbie tracking, They had Barbie tracking at seventy five mil, and Oppenheimer was tracking for Universal at.
Like fifty milt.
These movies made five hundred million dollars globally over this week.
I was half a billion dollars.
That doesn't exist without all the people online who made memes. It doesn't exist with people like without people like super Yuky making t shirts in the Barbie font that say do you guys ever think about dying? It doesn't exist without it. Incredible artists who made Barbenheimer mash up posters, like one of our Discord fans and friends, like Rodrigo.
He runs this film magazine called Layered Butter, and they did a Barbenheimer poster that went totally viral and it's now basically used as almost as if it was an original official piece of art that both the studios made.
They didn't.
Neither of them could ever have imagined that these two ridiculously juxtaposed movies would create this fandom. But I also think that that comes from Nolan being an auta, Gerwig being an auta. Yeah, and this kind of hilarious dichotomy between like this serious talkie three hour biopic which I always should never have been able to make eighty million, that's a superhero movie cat truly insane.
And then Barbie Witz should be.
A flop that later finds a cult following, kind of like you Know Gem and the you Know Gem and the Hologram.
So that has found less of.
A cult following, but something like Josie and the Pussycats, right, like that's kind of where people expected Barbie to land. So Barbie is now the biggest opening weekend of the year, beating Super Mario, which by the way, had a ridiculous opening weekend, also beating Guardians of the Galaxy one three also now the biggest opening weekend ever for a female director, beating both Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, so beating two superhero movies. Also in the international box office, Barbie almost
made two hundred million dollars over this weekend. And I have yet to see Barbie because try seeing that in San Diego on SDCC weekend. People were not busy at SDCC and today obviously bargain day at AMC. Good tip there if you want to save some money seven dollars. A team of I looked going with friends from who work in the OC, and I looked from every theater from like Irvine down to la and it was almost impossible to find a ticket that was not in the
front like three rows. Like this movie's going to keep making money. The drop for Barbie from Saturday to Sunday was nine percent, which is basically unheard of, and Oppenheimer's was also really low by my understanding. So I think that the Barbenheimer weekend is over, but the Barbenheimer summer is not over. Like sorry to the Haunted Mansion, but you're not touching either of these movies this weekend.
You know, you just know that right now there is an entire floor of people, yeah, who work for like Apple Studios marketing, who are trying to figure out who Napoleon's Barbie is exactly.
This is what I'm saying, we too, How upset do you think every studio is right now that they can't be on the phone to like every screenwriter and every director being like, so do you want to do like Street Sharks?
Is it like the way?
Can you think of like an A twenty four take on like Street Sharks? Those meetings would be happening if the strike was not on, And I know they're all sitting there stewing in their juices, writing things like Gritty Polly Pocket like trying to find ways that they can do this. I love that what is Napoleon is Barbie?
We can we Russian Indie, Carmen san Diego.
You know, I feel like those conversations are happening, and you know, this is one of those things where the real truth is.
Is there really a lesson here?
It's hard to know because counter programming has always worked.
This is organic. You can't really replicate it.
But the lesson that studios are gonna learn is like toy movies, but with like an auto director and also like I guess, biopics can make a lot of money now if they're programmed against something like that.
So, yeah, I did see.
I don't think it was a coincidence that yesterday they announced that Ryan Reynolds is rebooting Biker Mice from Mars.
So I think we're gonna see that.
What we've been seeing as the IP rush for comics, I think we're gonna see that moving back to toys, which it hasn't been for quite a long time.
So that'll be interesting.
I'm sure we're gonna get many terrible toy movies, but maybe some good ones too. Yeah.
I made listen. T re Formers is out here. G I Joe has been out here, Lego has been out here. The toy movies have been doing well.
It'll be interesting, but this is the first one that's coming.
This is a culture. Culture.
This isn't the top fourth opening weekend of all time, only beaten by the Force, Awakens, Infinity War and Ending Game.
So now toys are in that. They're in that superhero.
Movie space and it beat Transformers. Dark of the Moon is the biggest movie based on a toy. So yeah, toy movies are back, baby for.
Better or for us?
Up next to our interview with David Escort.
Welcome to the Hive Mind, where we explore topics with an expert guest. Today, we're thrilled to welcome writer, showrunner, and director David Eskoya to discuss his career, creative process, and foundation.
David, thanks for joining us.
My pleasure. I'm I'm a fan and I was happy to return the favor because you co hosts that other podcast you and I did, and it is.
A delight to do it. So how is your summer going?
Well? You know, I was I was filming something and we got shut down because of SAG and I was over in Europe and we got shut down early Saturday morning, and then I booked a flight on my phone right there and went back to my hotel and packed. Had got on a plane about five hours later, and then I picketed in La yesterday in ninety five degree. But I'm look, it's that it's a crazy, once in a
lifetime situation and completely justifiable. But I'm also you know, after spending the bulk of my last four years over in Europe, I'm really grateful to have this time with my family and not during a pandemic. So that's this over lining for me.
Yeah, tell it.
Could you tell us about that? Obviously, this this strike is a is another bit of complexity and challenge on top of everything that's and it impacts everyone industry wide.
But like what the show that.
You were making is so grand and complicated. You just mentioned that you were in Europe for a lot of the last couple of years. Tell us about some of the challenges that you went through producing that.
I mean, it foundations the most complicated project I've ever worked on. And don't we don't film it in sort of a volume of VFX box like some of the shows out there. We film more than half the show on location. In season one filmed in six different countries. I think season two filmed in five different countries. We do what we call crossboarding, meeting like the schedule gets we don't film one episode and then another. Everything gets
put in a blender. It's incredibly difficult, and it would have been difficult even without a pandemic and multiple strikes. But it's it's just we just keep you know, we had the initial lockdown and then season two lockdown wasn't happening. But we actually had many more delays because of COVID than in season one because in season one everyone was
in a bubble, so called bubble. We would take over hotels and we would charter flights and it's just like the hits keep coming and coming and coming and coming, and it's it's awesome. It's crazy because it's the shows so weildly ambitious and and I'm so grateful to have made the first two seasons. But all of the changes, the seismic changes that are happening in your industry are like, I worry there the very things that will make a show like ours not possible anymore.
So who knows, you know, Yeah, I mean there's lots of things that from basically from the very inception of adapting foundation, you're in a situation where it's going to be a challenge because there's many things over the years that have been called unfilmable, but this is probably like one of the most unfilmable US unfilmable things. So like, what was the origin of you wanting to adapt it or what was your origin with Asmov's foundation and kind of how this came to become a TV show?
Okay, I'll answer that, but I I should qualify I'm speaking to you in the capacity as a director, and because I've directed episodes two and three of the show, and not only am I allowed to promote in that capacity, I've been encouraged to promote by one of the two guilds I'm involved in. But what was it like? I mean, I was given the book by myn'er do well father when he was thirteen or I was thirteen, not him, he was thirteen. He said, this is the greatest science
fiction book of all time. You should read it, And I didn't read it because I was angry at him. And I think I read it in my twenty my twenties, and I got some of it, didn't understand what the big deal was. We read it in my thirties and then over the years because for the first two decades of my career is writing almost exclusively features. I was offered the opportunity to adapt it a couple of times,
once with Warner Brothers and once with Sony. Even then I just thought, oh, people were thinking, oh, we want to do a trilogy of films, and I just didn't think it was possible to condense all of that. It's anthological in nature. A lot of the stuff's been strip mined, you know, by Star Wars and Dune, and how do you make it new again? And so I said no a couple of times, and over the years, just like everyone, i'd hear, oh, this person or that person is trying
to adapt it. And also I'm not sure I was a sophisticated enough writer to have adapted it earlier on in my career. But then maybe I don't know. Five years ago, streaming had started and people were suddenly tackling these big novelistic projects and saying, okay, now you've got at least ten hours or twenty or thirty. And then it seemed like it might be possible. And I'd had enough weighty adaptations under my belt to be crazy enough
to try. But what was crazy was I was I was waiting into adapting foundation at the same time, I was waiting into adapting Sandman, but another famous lady, and I just thought it was just so surreal. And I flirted with Sandman for more than a decade as well, and it was they both sort of came together at the exact same time. And then it just was a race.
I was meant to run either one of them, and it was just a racist to which one was going to be Greenland first and Foundation was so then after working the initial adaptation with Neil and then Alan Heimbury, allen Heimberg took over that. But I don't know did that answer your question? I got lost in my answer,
by the way. I heard you Rosie describe me as a friend of the pod on one of your podcasts the other day, and I'm I'm honored to be considered a friend of the problem, although you and I have never spoken prior to this.
So you know what Jason's friends my friends friends.
Yeah.
Yeah, you mentioned that you didn't think that maybe you were a sophisticated enough writer.
Yeah when you first.
Some people would argue, I'm still.
Not, by the way, but what do you what what is it about your writing evolution that you think is it made you able to take on that project at that particular time.
What it changed, what you learned?
I think that you know, I guess over my career I started to become the sort of one of the go to guys to adapt to take on like weighty IP or complicated IP, and and I just remember I think one of the things that changed was when Kris Nolan and I were working on Batman Begins, and we we had this very methodical approach to Batman in which we would try to we would just before we came up with a story, we spent weeks just talking about what makes Batman Batman and so writing lists of the
things that we felt were like essential Batman tropes and then things that don't make Batman Batman. And then this was crazy at the time, but we flew to New York and we met with all the editors of DC for three days and we asked them the same questions and they said, no one in all the decades prior to that had ever even asked d C what made Batman Batman? And we just thought it was a no
brainer to do it. And so so then we before we even came up with the story, we just thought, Okay, have we identified the core DNA of this thing, do we have it right? And the editors at d C, you know, Paul Levitt and people like that. At the time, even Neil Adams, who we talked to, felt that we had gotten it right, and then we started building our story. And so what's amazing to me is how many people
don't do that. And so that is an approach that I've just applied and everything I've worked on over the last two decades is just try to figure out, can I, you know, what makes this thing unique? And can I tell a story that doesn't betray those elements? And it
sounds simple, but it's amazing. You know, I've talked about this before, but like I had this feeling like with a lot of superhero adaptations that they'll think about, Okay, what villain are we going to use and then build a story around it, as opposed to figuring out what makes you know, you know, superhero X superhero X and then figuring out what's the right villain to tell that story. So Chris and I did not decide we were going
to start with rajah Ghul or the Scarecrow. We were going to tell this story about Batman overcoming his fears or bris Wa and overcoming us fears and having all these daddy issues, and so fear led to Scarecrow, and daddy issues led to Raja goal was you know, one of the only villains. Yeah, that was like more parental and so I guess the approach was just very holistic in that way. And we applied the same things to Salman.
And in the case of sam Man, we had gaming with us and and Alan and I said, we spent like three or four days just saying, Okay, you know what makes sam Man Samman? What do you think? And I did something similar with Robin Asmav Isaac's daughter on Foundation.
Yeah, it's I was gonna ask, that's really interesting that you brought out because I feel like, often as comic book fans, people who love this stuff, comics have been seen since you know, they first in the eighteen hundreds when it was strip comics or whatever, to you know, the Worthm Trials, they're seen as like low brow and disposable that for kids, you know, that's still something people see.
So it's kind of incredible to you talking about how adapting comics taught you how to adapt these kind of huge epic sci fi stories for prestige. Were there any other kind of things that you learned from adapting so many superho stories and comic books that helped you when it came to adapting something like this that takes place over thousands of years, the way that comics kind of have that modern mythology of going over many many centuries.
Do you think, Yeah, I do think that it's funny if you go to classic comic book storytelling, right, I think comic books are the closest to serialized TV storytelling is almost any other art form, right, because you've got the individual episodes which are akin to the individual issues, and then you've got these arcs which would be akin to like the season, and then you've got like the super arc, right, you know. Yeah, And so because I spent so much Si'm reading comics as a kid, that's
that's just the way structurally, I think. So with regards to sam Man and Foundation, we definitely think about, Okay, this is a serialized story, but is each episode? Can each episode be a complete meal? And then how does it fit within the season, and is there a beginning and middle and end to the season, And then how does it fit with a superstory, and that's definitely something I picked up from, you know, Dennie O'Neill or Chris Claremont or you know, Frank Miller or something like that.
Can I ask you about the there anything, Jason.
We'll see whether or not.
Well, since we're on the subject of comics, A few years ago a letter that you wrote to editor and writer at Marvel, Mark Runwald, who's then in charge of the Captain America book, emerged and it was you basically, uh, giving notes on on a particular storyline and the challenges the character faced in that particular era mid eighties, you know, Reagan and the White House. Did you always take comics
that seriously? And were you was it in your mind to be a writer at that point, because surely, I mean it's not very many people write a like seven hundred word letter to the editor to Marvel Comics.
Yes, and yes, Tom those questions. I mean. I also have a letter in the Alan Moore run of swamp Thing American Gothic, which y, yeah, in which I incorrectly guessed at what was behind like all the various sub monsters that were growing out a swamping. But yeah, I've probably got about I mean, I will say this, every letter I wrote up printed, I probably have about seven.
Wow.
Wow, that's a solid run.
Yeah. Yeah, but I was I was, you know, growing up in Michigan going to my local comic book store, and and I I, you know, I don't know, from the time I was about fourth or fifth grade, I thought about, you know, right, becoming a comic book writer first and foremost. And the idea that I would become a screenwriter was just crazy. We didn't know anything anyone in Hollywood, but comic writer felt like attainable possibly, And yeah,
I revered them. I just thought because I was coming up in the you know, teen Titans when that when that started, and I was I was reading you know, Burn and Claremont's uncunning X Men while that art was happening like in real time, and it was when it was I think it was bi monthly, and that was just blowing my mind. That was that was one of the first ones that really blew my mid mine was what was happening with X Men? And I just thought it was amazing.
Yeah. Well, I will say there is a grand tradition one of my favorite things. I have a lot of back issues and one of my favorite things to do is read the letters page, because you actually see a lot of letters from people who had gone to write comics.
For sure, Martin.
You can go in there and you will find letters from like big name people, and you're like.
Okay, you are the fans.
So what was it like to then go from being one of those fans and then continue that tradition of actually getting to write comics.
Well, the funny thing is I wrote movies before I wrote comics. Like a lot of people, yeah yeah, and they go. And then I was so I had already you know, it was making a healthy living. I'd already had Blade come out. And then randomly I was introduced to James Robinson, who was on the Starman Run at the time, and and we met and we had dinner one night, and he confessed to me that he had writer's block and he was trying to figure out where
to go and what to do. And I started pitching some ideas for him and he said, that's a really good idea. Do you mind if I use that? I said, no, go ahead, And then we had dinner a couple weeks later and he said, you got any more ideas? And then he just said, do you want to start co plotting it with me? Because I feel bad I'm using so many of these ideas. And so then I did, and I co plotted it with him for a while, and then he said, hey, DC wants to revive the
Justice Society. Do you want to just co write it with me? And I said, sure, that sounds great, and irony there was. James bailed in the second issue. His name is still on like like five more issues, but he bailed. He had this sort of crisis of conscience and I literally I'd only written like two full scripts and these he said, well, do you want to keep writing? We like it? And I said sure, sure, but I
need help. And so here's what's really crazy at the time was I was also friendly with Geoff Johns, who had just written I think he was still like Richard Donner's assistant and had just written like I don't even know if Stargirl had come out, but he'd like written a proposal for something. And I said, hey, Jeff, do you want to write this with me? And DC wouldn't. I had like really pressure them to approve him to change.
But Jeff started on JSA with me as like the second issue, and then obviously he became Geoff John's, you know, with a capital G and a capital J. But I backed into comics and you know, just a really weird way, and then, you know, we kept it up for about four years and and then it became too unwilly for me. But that was I loved doing it. I would still go back and write comic at some point. I really really enjoyed doing it. I didn't do the Marvel method though we wrote full script.
Yeah, yeah, bad to do it in the full part way.
So how did you break into screenwriting? Then?
You know, I remember I've told you this story before, but in ninety eight I worked in a movie theater. So I said, every single movie that came out in ninety every single movie that came out that year I saw in the theaters, including Blade and Dark City.
To which movie.
Crazy?
So how did how did that happen?
I broke in two movies. Well, basically, the short version is I didn't know anyone in Hollywood couldn't figure out how to make a path into writing. So I was going to become a cop in Michigan. I was going to become a homicide detective. I was going to get a degree in police administration go to Michigan State University. And then my high school teachers said, oh my god, you can't do that. You got to write, which I
wanted to, but I had a single mom. We didn't have much money, and they kind of staged in an intervention. They came over to our house for coffee and said you. They suggested I applied to USC screenwriting, and my mom said we cannot afford it, and they said, just we think he can get in and just get scholarships and whatnot. And so we had enough money with financial aid for me to attend one semester. Wow, and I got in and this was an undergraduate degree. And then every semester
was sketchy. It's like whether or not I could keep going. So I worked two or three jobs and I would apply for all these grants. But I made it and I busted my ass, and I in the program. You were meant to come out with one screenplay, and I had three by the time I was done. And in my last semester, I thought, oh, I'm going to get an agent. And I remember reading about this particular a
agent who'd become an agent. I believe at ICEM at the time, which is one of the Yeah, I think they're defunct now right.
No, no longer with it.
Yeah, they'd been absorbed by one of the other mega agencies. And I read about this guy who had he'd gone through Berkeley in like two and a half years and become an agent at twenty three, and I thought, oh, that guy seems like a real, you know, firecracker. I'm going to I'm going to have that guy be my agent. So I started cold calling his office from my dorm room and I called I think it was forty two business days, but I would say, hey, this is David Goyer.
You know he talked to so and so. Finally, on like the forty second day, it became a joke. I was just but I was in my dorm room. I was like, what do I want? Yeah, And finally the assistant he jumps on the line and says, who the fuck are you and why you keep calling me? And I realized I forgot like thirty seconds, and I said, listen, I'm about to graduate USC film School. I'm going to be a giant filmmaker one day. You should represent me.
You're going to kick yourself if you don't. And there was this pause and he said, Okay, send me your script, but don't fucking call me every day. It's going to take me a while. And by the way, I had, I had nothing to lose. I was in my dorm room in my underwear and so and I waited two weeks, and then I started calling him again and for another couple of weeks. Finally he answered, and he said, I'm going to sign you. So I got an agent before I even graduated. And but what was interesting is he
said in your script's really good. But I decided I was going to sign you even before I read it. And I said why, And he's because you were so damned tenacious that I just thought this kid's going to succeed. And then I graduated and I got a job as a production assistant on a studio and it was my job to deliver mail ord on the lot and also snacks like I had like a hand card with, you know,
And and I did that for about four months. And at the time he said, I thought it was gonna write funny, sort of like American Werewolf in London movies, And he said, can you write I think Diehard had just come out, and he said, can you write an action movie? And so I studied some and I wrote one, and after four months he said, I think I can. I can sell this, and like two days later he sold it and he sold us to MGM, and he sold it for more than ten times what I was
making as my yearly salary as a PA. And he sold it to Jean Claude van dam And who had just come out with Cyborg. And I hadn't watched any movies and there I remember that this. He called me at work, this before cell phones, and he said, Jean Claude Vandam wants to buy your script. Do you know who?
No?
And and I could hear. I could hear him like unfolding the newspaper, and he said, there's a there's a there's a show at like one forty five at the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. Go see it and meet with him at like five o'clock. So I feigned sickness. I saw this movie, which is terrible. Then then I met with them, and I met with him, but he was you know, say what you will about him, but he was effusive, and he said, you're a great writer.
And I remember I can't do a Belgian accent. But he said, I will protect He said, Hollywood will try to destroy you, but I will protect you like an eagle. And he and they made the moviet like like two months later. I was on the set. So I was I was twenty two and it was four or five months out of school. And then I kicked around and did some other Jean Claudi movies for a while, and
then eventually I got the gig to write Blade. And that was the first time that I Mike Delugo, who is running New Line at the time and now it's running Warner Brothers, just let me write what I want to write and just didn't give me notes. And so you know, I guess the proof is in the pudding. With that another long answer, Well.
I was gonna it was a great one, one great answer. And I love that gen carelled Vandamn story.
It makes me very happy as someone who is a huge fan of his spincare.
I mean, that's the most gen cole Van Damn thing I've ever heard. He's going to protect you like an eagle.
Okay, so let's talk about Blade, because a it's like a fucking masterpiece and b that essentially establishes the superhero genre for the next you know, still now it's still going on.
But yeah, people cite x Men the first one, which was great.
But Blade, Yeah, but it's Blade and Studios. You know, you have this, So could you talk a little bit about Blade, Like, was that a character you'd come across before? Did you go back and read the black and White stuff or was this just a story? I mean, it's such a cool concept that you were just like, I immediately know what this is going to be.
Well, I was a giant comic book geek anyway, so there was almost no Marvel ordazy character that I wasn't familiar with. So I had read all of Too Madracula, and I'd read the black and white yeah, sort of more mature and magazine stories, and I was so I was completely familiar with with Blade. And I had heard that Newline wanted to make they had had some success
with House Party and Deep Cover like so called urban movies. Uh, And I'd heard that they wanted to do a black superhero and so they were thinking Marvel and at the time it was Luke Cage, it was Blade, or it was Black Panther, And I thought Blade could potentially be made for a price because it was a horror film,
you know, action horror film. And I was also really I was watching a lot of Hong Kong action films at the time, you know, way before they became in vogue, and so I had this, yeah, crazy idea, like movies like Bride with White Hair and stuff like that. I had this crazy idea to fuse like Hong Kong action films with you know, vampire movies with it was just like, I don't know why it came up with it, and I pitched it, and I and I pitched a trilogy.
I remember to de Luca and I said, I'm going to pitch you the Star Wars of Vampire films and he said they and at the time they wanted to make it for six to eight million dollars and they liked the pitch and he just let me write. So the movie that got made is largely the one that I wrote. But the funny thing is he said six to eight million, and my first draft came in and they budgeted it and it came in at forty five
million and it was R rated. And the crazy thing is DeLuca who took these huge risks at the time, just said screw it, We're gonna make it. And then actually the budget even escalated fifty five million, and people were I spawned come out, and people were just making fun of the movie before it came out. I remember reading early chatter even on like ain't it cool way back when?
You know?
But I knew what we'd made and I knew we had the goods and it was amazing being in those first couple of audience previews because you could just feel the audience like, oh my god, this is something. Yeah, yeah, see me before it was cool.
Okay, sorry, I just need Jason, I know, we a film about it.
I need to know about the blood rave because it is like one of the most iconic sequences ever and is now like constantly spoken of it. And also it's like, you know the Batman, there's definitely like they have the rave sequence there and it's like definitely red and very thing that could you just talk about that, like, because did you know that that was going to become like such an iconic moment.
Well, I mean, look that was in my pitch. Was that opening? I mean I pitched that scene in the old because I was trying to reinvent vampire movies in vampire stories, and and and I just thought, what's the most decadent, you know, thing I can possibly think of, you know, a kind of vampire let them eat cake or something like that. And so that was in the first pitch. And then you know, Steve Norington did an incredible job shooting it. It was it was completely miserable.
We shot it in Los Angeles, and we shot it over the course of like I can't remember how many days. But it was hot, it was summer, and the crew had to wear those sort of like white hasmat suits, you know, like breaking bad clean suits. Yeah, and it was all this fake blood and the floor was really sticky and it smelled awful, I mean just awful. And you couldn't walk around without your like your feet sticking to things, and and it was I mean, it was
a miserable sequence to film. But I don't know, it's it's like we're talking about something that I wrote twenty more than twenty twenty seven years ago, Like where did I come up with the idea? But I was just trying to come up with breaking down the conventions. I was trying, Look, don't get me wrong. I love Hammer House of Horror films, but I was trying to come up with like the anti you know, Hammer vampire story. Yeah, and also tip into black exploitation and all of those things.
It's it's crazy that it worked, yeah, you know, because we're sort of fusing so many different elements.
Sarah writer For a number of years increasingly successful writer, you become the go to guy for adaptation, comic adaptation IP stuff. As you noted, how do you then make the transition to director and showrunner?
And how hard is that to do?
Good question? Well, at the time when I started to do it, it was very hard because I built up ahead of steam as a screenwriter back in the days when one could make a good living as a screenwriter
as opposed to what's happening right now. And I was a fast screenwriter, so I could write four feature scripts a year, and I was making a really good living, and I had had the fortunate well, I would say with Blade in Dark City, those were the first times I'd worked with, you know, genuinely good directors, and I'd worked with some not so good directors prior to that, and i'd seen one of the things that's hard as a screenwriter is you can have your name on a
movie or a teleplay and up to thirty percent of it could be rewritten by other people, but they won't get credit, their names won't appear, but you get the blame they massively altered. So I'd had this experience of just either being rewritten by people or worked with some mediocre or bad directors, and I wanted to retain more control. So I wanted to start producing and then eventually directing, and I thought, well, I can, I can at least be a mediocre director. I mean, you know, maybe at
the beginning I was. I think I got better at it, and it's it's the whole ten thousand hour thing. But it's hard because my agents did not want me to do it, and we're making money off of me and Dave.
We got a good thing going yeah and.
So, and people don't want to give a FIRSTI director a shot. So I adapted a book called Zigzag that I had a budget for two point eight million dollars, and I Wesley agreed to do a cameo. He worked on it for six days. He was like the anchor.
And then I got some other people like Oliver Platten, Natasha Leone and John Leguizamo and I worked in that movie for a year, and I took what's called scale, so I can't even remember what I made to write it, something like eighteen thousand dollars and to direct it forty thousand and fifty eight thousand seems like a lot, but I was making far more than that as a writer, and my agents were not happy with me making the shift.
And how much more complicated because obviously you've been in this business now so long and seen so many changes, and now you've got productions on TV slash streaming that are essentially multi episode movies. How did you put you know, it seems like a very daunting task to try and put all those tools together and say, now I'm going to manage a multi episode, multi season movie that takes place on you know, one continent, but across the continent and multiple time zones at once.
You know what, what were the things that you.
Encountered that you were like, well, I'm glad that I had been through these other experiences to let me know how to do this.
Well, first of all, I mean, it is daunting. It is really hard. It's there are times when I I, you know, wish I could work on a show that just took place in one city, that you know, one time zone, that didn't have a ton of visual effects or things like that. But I but it was also kind of bit by bit by bit by bit over the course of twenty years. So it's just building upon
what I learned before. And I had, you know, the first show that really made some waves was a show that I had co created called flash Forward Way Back on ABC at the time, and I directed the first two episodes of that, And then I had another show on Stars called Da Vinci's Demons, which was a little
more ambitious. It's sort of each one was successfully a little more ambitious, and it's it's just building upon you know, look, you look at a lot of people, a lot of filmmakers, and Chris Nolan started out with you know, following, which is most people I've me even seen or heard of, and and and then why am I blanking on Momento? Memento? Yeah, then Memento and then Insomnia and then you know it just he didn't start He was incredibly talented, but he didn't start out with inception.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, so with something that's also like, you talk about ambition, and you've already set up this kind of huge challenge for yourself, and then coming into the second season, you arguably switch everything up, yeah, and kind of go one hundred years in the future and change like one hundred plus and change like a lot of the major costs. Could you talk about those kind of choices and challenges and how that adds to the ambition and the storytelling.
Well, when I pitched Foundation to Apple, I said, this is going to be a crazy hybrid because it's it's going to be a cross between a serial ie show and kind of a seasonal anthology. And so I said, we're going to have, like, you know, a complete story, and they're going to be a handful of characters that are going to continue from season to season that are through the various trusts of science fiction, they are going
to be effectively immortal. And then we're going to introduce new characters each season and they're going to have a complete story and then you know, either succeed or die or whatnot, and then they won't come back. And I just I couldn't really think of a show that had pursued that format before, and I thought it would be an interesting way to kind of tackle some of the more theological aspects of Foundation. And I guess Apple was
crazy enough to go for it. You know, Normally, normally, when you pitch something that just like breaks all the conventional rules of storytelling or storytelling as it's known on streaming, you're like, oh, you're crazy. That'll never fly, and on top of it be hugely expensive. But there were some fans at Apple of Foundation and and and that helped. And I, you know, at the time, I created it with Josh Friedman, who left after the third episode or so.
But we spent a lot of time on that pitch, and each of us had, you know, had a certain body of work that we worked on prior to that that I guess they, you know, bought our crazy pitch, you know, I think that the in terms of changing it up, I I I think, on one hand, what we did with season two, you could say you're crazy to have attempted that, like why not continue what you know,
why are you just doing a refresh on everything? But people seem to have really, you know, gone nuts for it, And so I just felt like it would be boring if we repeated ourselves or boring if we just I just wanted to try something really bold and challenging. And I'm kind of amazed at how well Season two has
been received. I thought more people would be freaked out by the fact that we're just we're just jumping forward one hundred and thirty years and just introducing a whole slew of new characters, and even many of the characters that you know are are you know, we're perceiving them in a different way. And I love how we just start with the first episode and we just plunk you in the middle of this black and white film, you know, with Harry Seldon, and we just say you got to
catch up. Sorry, you know, I don't know. That excited me and I am amazed though that it didn't throw more people.
I will say that opening scene where Harry is trying to knit his mind back together, Yeah, how much of that was written? How much of that is Jared just kind of going.
About half So, so we wrote some stuff. I will say this, It's it's not all random. Well, because you've seen this season, like some of some of the some of the stuff that he says loops back around. People go, oh, interesting. Jared's a really smart, shrewd guy, and we talked about the themes of things that he could talk about, so he said everything that was scripted, and then it was just kind of an open mic letter rip stream of consciousness.
I mean, honestly, I would have gone on longer. But those that stuff is also really expensive because whether it's whether it's the black and white stuff where we're trying to erase things, or whether it's the stuff in the prime ratio in itself where we're trying to erase crew reflections. It's but he's we used there were times when he said a bunch of stuff and he said, oh, you're not gonna use that. You're not gonna use that. You're not gonna use it. And we then ended up using a lot of course.
And then you get that juxtaposition with that like incredible action sequence, Oh my dealy naked fighting the assassins, and that's like a very different tone shift too. Could you talk a little bit about that because the action is so great.
You know, I loved juxtaposing those two scenes together though, because there's like one is as heady, kind of hard filmy, you know, THHX eleven thirty is you can get and then the other one is just kind of a Game
of Thrones action sequence. But I I again, I wanted to challenge the audience and challenge people's expectations of what if they'd seen season one, or even if they hadn't seen season one and then heard about it, what kind of scenes we could take on in the show, because I think there was some people had heard about it, but maybe there was a barrier to entry because they thought it was like too highbrow or too heady or exactly exactly, and it is still cerebral, but I thought
it's a big tent and we can embody a bunch
of scenes. And I'm excited with you know, I don't know when this episode's going to drop, but episode two will drop the twenty first, and we also start to introduce some more elements and some more dry humor as of episode two and particularly with episode three, and once again, I'm excited for the audience to you know, on the surface of it, it feels like it wouldn't work, but it does work, and you realize it's such a foundation, is so serious that it's good to have some characters
that don't take psychohistories seriously or the Empire. It's good to have characters like that kind of in your quiver.
Yeah, well, David, this has been such a fun conversation. Thank you so much for joining us.
Yeah, thank you so much.
My pleasure. And if I can do a tiny plug.
Yes, please please.
I've got a little website that i've I've neglected for a while, but I've also because of the striking stuff Davidescory dot com. I'm doing show notes as episodes drop, and I'm also including kind of behind the scenes making of photos and things. And so if people want to log onto there and I'm going to put together a mailing list, they can get some more sort of fun behind the scenes details. And that's all I got.
Cool, that's awesome. Thanks again, David, my pleasure. Up next, nerd Out.
In today's not Out way, you tell us what you love them why, a theory or excited chat or a quick question we can answer. Matt offers a thought on Indiana Jones. Matt begins with some kind words towards us. Thank you, Matt. I won't make everybody listen to them, but we appreciate.
You, Matt says, with Indiana Jones back in the limelight, I wanted to share a realization I had during the last time I watched Traders of the Lost Arc throughout the introductory sequence, walking through the Peruvian woods, encountering bats, double crossing aids, outsmarting traps, shrugging off scary wildlife, even taking a gorgeous relic and surviving a collapsing tomb. Many excamation points there is not so much as a hint
of the legendary John Williams theme. It's only when Indy grabs the vine to swing into the water and escape his pursuers that we hear those trumpets blare out his motif. That got me reflecting on how the heart of Indy is truly the escape. He doesn't get to keep the Arc at the end of Raiders, or the Shankara stones at the end of Temple of the Doom, or the grail at the end of the Crusade, or the skull
at the end of Kingdom. I haven't seen Dile of Destiny yet, but I kind of hope it keeps to this tradition of Indy getting into something way over his hat and just making out by the skin of his teeth, because that's who Indiana Jones is. The oh I'm up fuck around him. Find out here. Thank you for indulging my observation, sending you all the love in this nutsp map.
Thank you, Matt. I think that's true. I think it's all about the escape.
I think that's true. It's about the close calls. It is about that.
I've been thinking about something we talked about during our conversation about Indy, and that's how in the final act of most of these movies, the agency goes to a higher power, God, aliens, whatever, and it's actually not Indy kind of doing whatever the big thing is at the
very end of the movie. And I was thinking about it, and I think, you know, to Matt's point, not only is it about the escape, but what makes Indy the hero in these stories is the fact that he has he is able to put uh whatever the object and the power behind the object is in the correct framing. He understands like I'm just a man. I'm not I don't I'm not going to fuck around with God, Like I'm not even gonna interro I'm not gonna mess with
that right like he has that respect. And all the other villains of our various pieces, mostly Nazis never do right. They always want to say, Wow, I want to seize God's or an alien's power for myself. Indy never does that. And number two, uh, you know, kind of attaching this observation to Matt's observation. Part of the reason it's about the escape for Indy is, think about it. He can only he can only go for objects that he can carry out in a medium sized duffel bag.
That's it.
It's not or it's not happening, folks.
He's got to be able to tuck it into like a postman's bag and climb out. So it is often about the escape because he was gonna help him carry the thing out of there. How is he gonna like, how is he gonna get the arc like out of tennis and out of the building, Like I guess they were gonna have a truck or something.
But there was come on, there was.
No gonna happen.
No, it was never gonna happen.
Thanks Matt.
If you have theories, passions, or quick questions you want to share, hit us up at extra at crooked dot com.
Instructions in the show notes.
A huge thanks to David Eskoyer for being so generous with his time this episode, and that's it for us this episode Rosie and he plugs.
Yes, I'm gonna plug mutual aid. It's very hot out there. So on Saturday, when I was leaving San Diego, I went CVS. I bought twenty eight dollars of water, which was like six big cases of water, and I just handed it out to all the folks who live in San Diego year round. If you were at San Diego, there are loads of great mutual aid organizations there that you can donate to if you weren't able to be there and help out the folks when you were actually
at the con because you were busy. There's a great one called we All We Got SD that's their Instagram handle. Also, if you have a freezer that is big and you live in America, maybe because a lot of the freezers here are really big, put a case of water in your freezer. Then when you're driving around, if you see anyone just sitting out in the sun, you just give them.
An icy bottle of water. Cold water saves people's lives in these heat waves.
And if you can't and don't have the time, we aren't physically able, there's loads of great spaces, homymade meals, community fridges.
There's loads of different places that you can do it.
But right now it's really hot and being outside is really dangerous, so cold water is a great thing to having a fridge, or just throw some throw some crash to one of the mutual aid orcs in your area.
Well said.
Catch the next episode of x ray Vision Friday, July twenty eighth for the finale of Secret Invasion.
We'll be there.
Yeah, Secret Invasion. It's the final finale, final episode. It's time, It's happened.
Can You can watch full episodes of the podcast on YouTube and check out our Twitter at xr V pod and our discord hang out with all those core fans are always talking.
About five star ratings, five star reviews. We need and we gotta have them. You gotta give them to us. Here is five from ash.
It's the only podcast I prioritize listening to. Wow, if you care about any nerd stuff at all, this is the podcast for you. I've been a loyal listener since episode one and I love the show so much I even joined the discord, something I'd never done before.
Welcome and yeah, thanks for joining us.
Extra Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rumin and executive produced by me Jason Concepcio and our editing at sound design is by Facillis Fatopoulos. Video production by Delon Villanueva and Rachel guy Eski. Social media by Awa Oglatti and Caroline Dunfie. Thank you to Brian Basquez for our theme music.
See you next time.
Bye,