Warning, Today's episode contains spoilers for Mad Max Fury Road, which is almost a ten year old movie and it's prequel Furiosa.
Hello, my name.
Is Jason Koncepsion and on Mesday Night and welcome back dex Revision, the podcast where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture. Coming to you from My Heart podcast where we're bringing you two episodes a week, every Tuesday and every Thursday.
In today's episode, in the previously on, We've got so much news. There's a new elder ring DLC and I know Jason's excited about it. Greg Cappollo, he's been all year that he's going to be joining Marvel. Everyone thought they got pranked, but no, it's happening. We'll tell you on what series. There's an end credible clip from The
Acolyte which we will touch on Craven the Hunter. It's getting moved to December, but don't worry this this news bite is actually more hilarious than expected thanks to Sony Execs. In the airlock, we will be discussing Furiosa, It's strange path to the big screen and what we think about it. In the omnibus, Jason will be digging deep into the troubled production of Fury Road and Charlie s then's just
awful time filming it. And in the back matter, we're gonna have a quick chat about the evolution of the summer blockbuster and how it's changing.
But first news, first up.
In the previously on elden Ring, fans, Soulsborn, fans, get ready. The Urentree DLC is about a month out. There's a trailer out there, folks, and I'm ready to be very frustrated again. This is a game that took over my life for a large chunk of its release window, and folks, I think it might happen again. Story trailer was dropped on a couple days ago yesterday. We're filming this on Wednesday, May twenty. Second came out yesterday, Rosie. Your thoughts and will you be playing The ur Tree DLC?
I will?
Finally, this is my reason to play. I'm finally catching up on the fantasy games that I have failed. Boulders Gate is finally happening, much to the happiness of all of my friends, and this will be my reason to play elder Ring. Literally, I was so obsessed with Diablo for last year that like every other game just went out the window. So this will be this will be good for me. I'm very excited. It looks very scary and fantastical, and I love to have like a giant
sword and stuff. So I'm sure i'll be I'm sure i'll be very frustrated, and I'll probably get through like thirteen percent of the game. But I have a lot of fun playing it.
Yeah, lots of Tanta, hints at the expansion of some war, new relationships for potentially MICHAELA, seven new characters, what looks to be a new portion of the map.
Very very excited.
DLC comes out June twenty first, stay tuned because it's it's gonna be very very bad for my ability to work.
You will hear a lot about it on the podcast You.
Will up next Rosie teas did.
Greg Boolo returns to Marvel for a new Wolverine series with Jonathan Hickman. Woo.
The crowd goes mad. So all year Greg Coppolo had been like teasing a little bit and it kind of hinted at Wolverine, and then they announced the new Wolverine team and he wasn't on it, and everyone was like, oh, we got pranked by our comic book uncle, but no. Greg Coppolo has finally revealed, thanks to an exclusive at Polygon, that he will be drawing Wolverine in a limited series with Jonathan Hickman that promises to pit Wolverine against a cardurra of foes who will turn his world upside down.
He's beaten, he's been bloodied, and Logan only has one thought on his mind. Revenge. The cover is extremely nice, easy, He's standing in the mouth of like a t Rex. The logo is great. Capolo told Polygon. I finally returned home to Marvel, and I'm ready to raise some hell. And who better to do that with than the hitman Hickman. I love that. I don't know if there's ever been a name before, but it's the most great Capilo thing
of all time. I love it to celebrate Marvel has removed the fences and let us off our leash so that we can bring the most vicious and punishing Wolverine story possible to fans this summer. I hope they're prepared. Okay, this is also the thing our Discord users were really excited about, is this is going to be another one of the Red Band comics where that will be poly bagged and there'll be a version that will be like an R rated like extra Blood, Extra Gore, and that's
been really popular recently. I think it's during the Blood Hunt rain. There's been a lot of Discord users who've loved that. So yeah, I think this is great. I love Gregor, Greg Copulo and Paul mcfallan. I that like my comic book dads. I just love you, So I'm excited. I also, I think the Hickman collab is really interesting because that means this isn't just gonna be some nineiest throwback.
I agree.
It struck me as like not the creative team that one would immediately expect, especially if you're thinking Hickman, you're certainly not thinking Capulo.
But I think that's what's so exciting about it, even.
You know what, I'm not even thinking Hickman for Wolverine, Like that's not It seems like such a smaller palette than what you expect of Hickman's, certainly Hickman's work recently, so that I'm really excited to see where it goes with this because Hickman it's just a weirdo.
Just way, so I like this could be really this could be one of those mini series that people are reading in trades for like decades, and it's always fun when you're around when those are coming out in single issues.
Up next, a new exclusive clip from The Acolyte has been released, showing.
More of the action style, the very like.
Hong Kong ish John Wick ish action style that seems like it's gonna be a hallmark of this series, which we'll release on June fourth on Disney.
Plus your thoughts about this clip.
I mean, it looks so good. I'm so happy for Amandlas Stemberg because I feel like you must be so stoked to take this role because the action choreography is unbelievable. And something I think is really interesting here is we see Lee Jung Jay his character Master Soul, and he's fighting May. But the thing is we're seeing a Jedi here who are more composed and powerful than we've ever seen. He is not scared at all. He is doing matrix
level like bullet time avoidance. And I think the casting of carrying this movie as Indira is because this is going to have a lot of that matrix Hollywood Hong Kong combo kind of style because as she fights him, you know, and he says, you're fighting me without a weapon, like why, And I think that we're really going to get to see this kind of force fighting. I'm really excited.
I think that it's air you're breathing right now.
I also love, I really love Leslie Hedlund, and I think that whatever we think this show is gonna be, She's gonna make something completely different because Russian Doll is legit like one of the weirdest best shows I've ever seen if you haven't watched it on Netflix now. So yeah, I just think it looks amazing and I can't wait to do it. I'm actually going to be doing the junket for the show tomorrow for IGN, so I hopefully will be coming back with some insight into the show.
But yeah, can't wait. Looks great.
Next up, disappointing frustrating news for fans of a Russian dirt bear who kills rare animals, Craven the Hunter has been pushed back for a third.
Time Friday, December.
That's in good luck fosts this.
The original release date was January twenty twenty three, and then it was pushback, push back to October twenty twenty three, then August twenty twenty four, and now December twenty twenty four. This is almost two years after the original release date.
They're spinning it. They're spinning it as positive.
Yeah, Producertok said, quote Craven moved to Christmas because we're excited about it, and Christmas is the best release period there is when you get people with time to go back to the movies over and over again. That was a real reflection of how the studio felt about the movie. We're really excited. But that's a great move that reflects just the feeling about the movie. We wanted to delay it for a third time. It just shows how excited we are about it.
I feel like this is either secretly like a fantastic movie unlikely, or this is like a Cats level miss mistake, because because if you recall fans of Cats and the Star Wars universe, they decided Universal decided to open Cats against Star Wars at Christmas because they were like, it's counterprogramming. It didn't work. I'm guessing they've moved it to Christmas because there's they're probably scared of Deadpool Depool comes out in July depul Wolverine, so that will have long legs.
And they're moving it to Christmas because I don't know what the big Christmas releases are this year because that's like a different world away. But I think this is hilarious and I love the idea that they think people are going to go and see it time and time again. Was this because once again they were surprised that Madam Webb became the number one Netflix movie and they were like, oh, maybe we should release it again like morebeus. I don't know, but this is hilarious and I love it.
Uh.
Finally exciting vague x Men use.
According to Deadline, the X Men movie is gaining momentum over at the studio that houses the MCU quote following the success of its animated series x N ninety seven Marvel Studios.
It's now ramping things.
Up on its live action X Men movie with Hunger Games, The Ballad of Songwords at Snakes scribe Michael Leslie in negotiations to pen the movie. So this is what I love about Listen. I read the entire article because anything that says X Men movie, I'm gonna read that. Said, the news here is that the project has quote gain momentum because a screenwriter has almost agreed to do it, literally has not quite yet agreed to do it, but may soon.
Nevertheless, we are excited.
Yes we want an x Men movie. Will this guy be the guy who writes it? Who knows that the last of five screenwriters? But you know what, that was a time when the MCU couldn't even make it an x Men movie, So I'm taking it as a win.
Up next, we let the winds take us to the Wasteland woo as we step out of the airline to talk about furios.
Set in the eighteen years leading up to George Miller's groundbreaking Fury Road. Furiosa tells the tale of the titular would be Imperator from her days as a kidnapped child in the wasteland, living under the wrathful eye of the evil Dementus, played with much screen chewing a plum by Chris EM's shoeing chew shoeing, chewing chewing all the way to the literal events of Fury Road. It's a wild wide through the wasteland that showcases the gorilla filmmaking skills
of Miller and the acting chops of his cast. Furiosa had an intriguing path to the screen, originating as a screenplay that was actually finished before Fury Road was even made, then given to the cast and crew as a way to build out the world. At one point the screenplay was going to be an anime series. You might have
seen the leaked images from that. And actually one of the things that I learned, I spoke to George Miller at screening at the Imax, said cause, and he actually said that there was one thing that made it from the anime, which is the Teddy Bear that Dementus wears on his chest. That was like the one thing that had been that had made it through from the anime version.
And eventually it was made into a big screen movie, you know, coming out nine years after Fury Road, and that is the form that we will be getting it in wide release weekend. Jason, what did you think of the movie?
I thought it was an exciting and very much in the world sequel prequel to Mad Max Fury Road. It felt almost more akin to the first two Road Warrior movies than Furiosa in a lot of ways, in terms of the action, in terms of the scope, in terms of the way it dealt with its characters. But if you love listen, if you love Eroding, all the furios, because.
It was all there.
They're incredible action, the weird stakes, the like funny slapstick like almost Charlie Chaplin esque moments that happened, and just like.
Action that you're like, I don't know how he did this.
Yeah, I can't believe that fifty people didn't die making this movie.
It was just like it blows up.
I feels like that. Yeah, it's it's completely wild. I find it. As soon as it started, I was like, Oh, this man does not care if this movie is successful. Like it starts with like a chapter break, and then like a weird like Jodarowski esque like spinning scene with like an old man doing like narration. It's like unbelievably weird, and that really won me over, And yeah, I enjoyed
it thoroughly. I just thought, I think the thing I like the most about it was it felt like there wasn't any kind of care for the rules of like franchise filmmaking. It didn't feel like you'd seen a prequel and you had to make it like another prequel. It didn't feel like he was particularly worried about making it accessible. It didn't feel like he was like, Oh, I wonder if people who like Fury Road are gonna like this
because Fury Road is set over like three days. In this movie is set over eighteen years, and it's just pacing wise, like completely different kettle offish, Like you have an your Taylor Joy is only in the movie for like half the movie.
She is up for an hour.
She doesn't show up for at least an hour. You have a liar Brown who plays young Furiosa, who's so fantastic and who gets to really grow and showcase the journey Furiosa goes on. It's also incredibly gory. I'm sure that Fury Road was. I've seen it so many times, but I think that action kind of took focus. But people are getting like torn apart in this movie, Like it's it's gruesome. I'm I'm wondering if it will be
the blockbuster hit Warner Brothers wants it to be. I want it to be that, but I do think it's incredibly weird for like a Hollywood blockbuster.
I mean, I suspect it will be certainly the at the screening, Eye was at the reception and you you know, so would be careful with these things.
Was electric.
People were cheering film. I do think, you know, summer is the time for action, and this is like a Walt Wall not quite as walts Wall as Fury Road,
but a Walt Wall action movie. And I think the other interesting thing to me, which will I think be really interesting to fans of the series, is this film does more to establish the lore and the context for the Wasteland then almost I need to go back and watch all of the movies in the series, but basically more than any other film in this series, you learn about the different citadels of the of the Wasteland, the different fortresses wait to each other.
Yeah, how we got to this place? And that was another thing that shocked me where I was kind of like WHOA, Like you really, I think he sees this movie as a chance to build out this world that he's been telling stories in for like fifty years, because you're right, I feel like tonally this is actually closer to the older Mad Max movies, but also it does build out the law in a way that we've never
seen before. Like you learn so much, Joelle, just before we were we came on and side recording was saying to me her biggest takeaway was like, it adds so much context and impact to Fury Road that when you watch Fury Road again, you're gonna be like, oh, fuck, like now I know these things, which I think is huge because a lot of times a sequel can actually a prequel can actually weaken the impact of the original movie.
But I do you feel like here they work equally well as separate entities, but when you put them together, you are getting an emotional core and a contextual kind of landscape that does add to both versions, and it was fun. It's I think as well. He's not afraid to just introduce a new character or introduce an old character and not do the kind of mcuification of like a, oh, it's a cameo, or or oh, here's an explanation of who this character is. He's like, no, here's just like
a scary, terrifying character. Do you remember them from Fury Road. If not, here's a reason to be terrified, you know. And I like the way he doesn't He trusts the audience.
If you loved Rictus Rectus from Man Max Fury Road, guess what you get to meet his brother scabrous scrotus.
Oh he's the worst. I'm a hate.
And that overall kind of subtext of like big dumb dudes, big dumb dudes and all the dumb shit they do that is still here in as trenchet as ever in Furiosa.
I mean going.
I was watching The Road Warrior before Furious, and then I watched some a Thunderdome and you know, I guess when I was younger, it just went over my head, like these the commentaries on like the big muscly dumb guy, Like that's one of George Miller's absolute favorite, like pincushions is the big dumb guy with the microphone.
He loves.
He loves to make that guy look scary and ridiculous.
Yeah, and there's no one better.
Yeah. I also, really, I just love the fact and obviously this is context outside of the movie, but it still just blows my mind that the man who made this movie is like the man who made Babe or the man who made Fury Round is the man who made Happy Feet Like that to me is and I love the nature of his filmmaking. And I also like the fact that his radical kind of filmmaking can have
an impact on people in real life. Because the guy who played the Farma in A Babe, he became a vegan after being Babe, after making Babe, and then became like a very quite radical direct action environmental activist. And I'm like, would that have happened if Babe had been directed by anyone else? I don't know. I don't know. I feel like that's George Miller's funny impact on that kid's movie.
You know, it's funny speaking of Miller. I mean we were talking before we start recording. You were noting the kind of gentle, urbane grandpa, like very very intelligent grandpa vibe that George Miller puts out. He strikes me as someone like like if you didn't know who he was and someone said, oh, that used to be be like the ambassador to Spain, you'd be like, Okay, that makes sense.
And the juxtaposition of his very gentle, very keenly intelligent persona with this, like with these films that have the energy of just like a little kid like crashing toys together, like.
This is like cramy gorilla filmmaking.
It's like crazy to me because like that's really the energy of these movies Furiosa and Mad Max, fur Your Road and to a different extent, the previous Road Warrior Mad Max movies is like part of what's great about them is it's just that feeling of when you first got action figures as a kid. Yeah, and you just started throwing them on.
The ground or throwing.
Them against the wall and putting them in the microwave or whatever it was.
Yeah, Like you got a Bobby and you're like, you know, trying it the Bobby. What if the Bobby took drugs? Like you know, You're like, you'll okay, You're like, what if I cut all the Bobby's hair off? That's Furiosa, you know.
And it's it's so weird to square that with every interview I've ever seen of George Miller, where he's just a very very laid back, smart, well dressed normal dude. Yeah, okay, do you want to do a box office prediction? Furiosa opening weekend will do?
What?
Oh?
Okay? I So I'm going to go on the optimistic side because I do feel like in this place where we are right now, I think Firosa in the US, I think it will open to like forty five mil.
Okay, that's about on track with I believe that's what uh Fury Road did.
I like that'd be.
I think it's Look, it's R rated. I know in America that's kind of a weird thing because you can take kids to go and see an R.
Here's let me let me just stop there.
Yeah, kids can get an R movies exactly, but they do you know, the people that work at the movie theaters. It's not like the TSA, you know what.
I mean exactly, But you can just get any adults to buy a ticket. And I just need to tell you. In England you don't understand how much you guys, how lucky you are. They will literally like make you take your passport to prove that you can go to an eighteen movie, which is the equivalent of an rated movie. So it is like the TSA. But like so it could be there could be that you know, families that go into this. I will never forget go to a
twentieth anniversary screening. I think it was of Scream or like some kind of anniversary screening, and the kid the whole cinema in Torrance. Here in California, it was just like families, and there were like four year olds in there who were like.
Yeay, ghost face, you know.
So, so I think that there is a generational thing where this could And I think if that's the case, if people so if Fury Roads kind of become that like family action movie, the way that The Walking Dead became a family TV show, we could be looking more like a sixty mil opening, kind of like blowing up, like word of mouth. But I think because it's a little bit weird, because it's R rated, because we're in this kind of cooler period. I thought the Full I
thought four Guy was gonna make so much money. I thought it was the most accessible, easy to watch, much good, easy to sell movie. But you know what, it didn't happen. So I'm gonna I'm gonna play it safe. I'm gonna say about forty five.
Okay, I'm gonna go on the slightly lower side. I'm gonna say forty mm hm. And I too, I hope it's a hit. Up Next, we're gonna talk more about the Wasteland and George Miller's vision in the Omnibus.
Welcome to another edition of the Omnibus, where law, analysis and understanding come together. Today, Jason digs into the very troubled production of Fury Road and the horrors that Charlie's Theron the Star had to put up with to make that classic movie.
In the summer of twenty fifteen, after over twenty years of ideation, production and various hurdles, George Miller's Mad Max Fury Road debuted in theaters, instantly becoming an action movie classic. Among the many, many, many fascinating details of the film's tourvirtuous path through production, it's the onset antagonism between its stars Tom Hardy and Trumps Theron that has become kind
of like legendary Hollywood lore. The short version, they really didn't get along at all, and tensions escalated to the point where Thron has said she felt unsafe on set. Now, for those who love Mad Max, love Fury Road, love the Mad Max universe, I highly recommend Kyle Buchanan's Blood, Sweat, and Chrome book came out in twenty twenty.
It's an oral history of.
Mad Max Fury Road, and I use it a lot as a resource for this essay. I also use the Mad Max Furior behind the Scenes documentary, which you can find on Warner Brothers YouTube. But that book is really great and gives you a really firm, an engrossing understanding of just how difficult it was to make this movie and how difficult it was for the act There's specifically, we didn't have a script, Thron says in the book. We had pictures, and I think that's just part of the problem.
The other part of the problem why.
It was so difficult for the actors is you know, if you've seen Fury Road, you know it's basically all action, a continuous chase scene, which is what George Miller first envisioned when he first got the idea for the movie back in the mid eighties, and it's a movie with
minimal dialogue. By the time principal photography commenced in Namibia in twenty twelve, Miller had by that point spent decades visualizing and perfecting each sequence in his mind through the use of an over thirty four hundred panel storyboard that took up a room. However, understanding the full scope of the vision for the crew, for the camera people, for the actors was really a challenge, especially in our form
like move making, which is by necessity very collaborative. Miller's process, however, often left actors puzzled about their characters, about their motivations, about what they were doing, the relevance to the story. Okay, why is that? Here's a quote from camera operator A. J. Johnson to kind of give you a window into it. He'd call action and then okay, cut and the actor would be like, hang on, what can we keep on going for a bit and George would say, no, no, I
don't need that bit. Set dresser Tate van Oodshorn is quoted in Blood, Sweat, and Chromis saying that Miller was shooting six days a week, twelve to fourteen hour days to achieve twenty four to thirty seconds of usable footage
per day. So usually when you film a scene, let's say we were making a movie about Rosie and I doing X Ravis right, we'd shoot like a master coverage shot, which is, you know, one camera set up so that it gets both of us and we'll record the podcast, we read our lines, and then there'd be a second and third setup for Rosie's close up and my close
up respectively. Right, And going through the scene three or more times would give Rosie an idea of like, okay, I know who I'm playing, I know what we're talking about, I know how this fits in the overall story. With George, because there were so many moving parts and dozens of stunt people, cars that have to be rolling, he would shoot things that would be like, Okay, an explosion just happened to your right, look to your right.
Cut.
Okay, now there's a guy that just jumped on the truck. You look up and see him.
Cut. How do you figure out who your character is?
What is my character feeling? Where does this scene exist in the movie? I have no idea, And so that was very confusing for the actors and made it very complicated. It was also a very conf using and frustrating for the camera operators as well, because you could never feel like you were getting a rhythm. Another thing about actor is before we dive into the specifics, just to kind of defend them a little bit, or defend Tom a little bit, you know, it's a very naked and vulnerable process.
You're doing something that if you could step back and watch yourself doing, it's fucking ridiculous. Like there's all these people around and you're like screaming and crying and doing a thing that doesn't exist that. You know, maybe you're acting to a tennis ball or whatever, and to do that you just have to be like naked to emotion. And I think there's no way for it to not creep into the rest of your workday, your life, your dreams, et cetera. Okay, so Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy was originally
cast three years before shooting started. That's a pretty long window. Originally, Miller envision Mel Gibson reprising his role as Max. Then the first kind of furtive attempt at filming the movie was halted by nine to eleven and the kind of global financial crash that happened after that. Then Mel had to exit when it turned out he was a really, really terrible human being. Which side note, George puts it in very diplomatic terms in the Mad Max behind the
Scenes documentary on YouTube. I think he says something to the effect of, then Mel had his personal problems. He's a very interesting way to put it. So when production years later eventually started up again, Miller settled on a young, not yet well known.
Actor named Tom Hardy.
Now fast forward three years, filming has started, and in that time Tom Hardy has become a star it was an inception and his bane in the Dark Knight. And on the one hand, this is great, we have a star in our movie. On the other hand, now Hardy's reps and the studio are like, hey.
Why does this guy not speak?
We've got this guy who's a draw and he doesn't say anything. And also Tom is confused about like what he's doing in any given moment and doesn't know who he is. Tom Hardy notably is a very method type actor who wants to live in the role, and he didn't feel like there was enough there to dive into
to live with. So another screenwriter, Kelly Marcel, who had previously worked with Hardy on Bronson, was brought into how both Hardy and Thorn understand their roles better, and this usually took the form in just kind of improvs as their character that would never be in the movie, that would never happen, but just so they could try and inhabit the character more. Next, we come to the clash between Hardy and thro On. Maybe there's a world in which,
no matter the circumstances, they would have clashed anyway. They have very very different approaches to acting, and everyone in Blood, Sweat and Chrome notes that they are very for people with very different takes on their craft. That said, the shoot was not ideal. The Namibian desert was very challenging, not just that the temperatures, but in the pace. Forty days were cut off the shooting schedule from one forty to one hundred, so they were under a tremendous amount
of pressure. Also, security on the set was a problem. There was a lot of break ins, burglaries, muggings of crew members, etc.
Charlie's was a new mom there's.
A lot of stress already built in.
To the process.
Now, according to those who were on set in the book Tension between Heart and Thron, it was there basically from the beginning. Ricky Schomberg, who was a member of the camera crew, observed that quote Tom is very provocative, Charlie's isn't, and it was a clash. Fight coordinator Richard Norton noted Tom would want justification for every bit of choreography, not just in the actual action, but in the pre setup of the action. Charlie's, on the other hand, had
a straightforward desire. I want to kill him. Jay Houston Yang, who's part of the marketing department and would see. Dailies noted that quote. It was clear that those two people hated each other. Hardy's frequent tardiness amplified this. He was often hours late to set, with people just standing around and then na maybe in desert, waiting for him. There is one day that is particularly detailed and talked about in Blood, Sweat and Chrome, where Charlie's apparently had just
had enough of waiting for Tom. She's in full hair and makeup. Call time eight am. She goes and sits in the war rig and is waiting there for hours.
Crew is coming up to her and saying, do you want to take a break, Do you want to go to the bathroom? Do you need anything? You you want to And she's like.
No, no, She's making a point of it, like calling out, like I'm here, ready to go, where's Tom Hardy?
Three hours past?
Tom Hardy kind of just casually saunters across the sands up to the war rig, and by all accounts, Charlie's blows up on him, calls him to the carpet, saying, you know, how could this is so disrespectful? You should be fined. You're making all these people stand around and
wait for you. Tom apparently reacted very aggressively to this, and Charlie's quoted as saying it kind of came to blows between me and Tom, which I mean, if you take that at face value, they essentially physically came together and fought, perhaps, and after this, thron apparently felt unsafe. She's numerous quotes in Blood Sweating chrumb where she's saying she just didn't feel Listen, they have.
A lot of scenes together.
A lot of those scenes are antagonistic where they're almost fighting in the movie. They have a fight scene in the movie they're sitting a foot from each other in the cab of a war rig, and Charlie's was saying she felt very exposed, very vulnerable. She asked for a female producer.
To come in.
That was kind of agreed to. But then Miller, who has been again shepherding this very very specific vision that he understands to the screen over the course of two decades, was a little bit like, well, if I led another producer on, they're going to try and change my movie. He fought it a little bit, and eventually the movie got made, of course, and I think everybody came to a place where they felt regretful about the ways they.
Went about it.
Tom Hardy was a little bit more dismissive, but I said, like, I wish I could have handled it better. He notes that he was feeling pretty insecure his stepping into the shoes of Mel Gibson, an iconic character, and he didn't know what he was doing. George Miller is later quoted as saying, there are things that I feel disappointment with about the process. Looking back, if I had to do it again, I would probably have been more mindful.
Well, it's a learning process.
And I don't think Charlie Starn will ever work with Tom Hardy Agan, and I don't think Georgia.
Villa will ever worked with Tony again.
But that was it.
They hated each other and they actually fought, physically fought, crazy crazy movie wild Up.
Next we talked Blockbusters.
Yeah, welcome to the back matter section, where, just like our favorite comics, we end the show with a little bit of insight into something really really cool or important, or something that we just feel like you guys would probably like to hear us talk about. And today seeing as we're talking about Furio, so which is you know, really hopefully going to launch the summer blockbuster season. After a couple of misfires, we're gonna talk about it. What
is the summer blockbuster season? How did it start? Well? Since the seventies, some has been a really lucrative time for studios to release big budget, high concept films with a list stars and flashy spectacle.
Jaws exactly, those are the big Jaws is really seen as the beginning of summer blockbuster season, flashy spectacle young moviegoers or on break from school, you can make money.
This season typically runs from March to Labor Day and accounts for forty percent of Hollywood's annual box office revenue. I would say in the last decade or so, because of Marvel, we kind of see it starting in May now is usually the first weekend of May what we call the free comic book Bay movie. So this year it was The Fall Guy, which obviously didn't kind of spark off that blockbuster box office that people wanted. But yes, like you mentioned stars the Stars, that's the scary Jaws
in space movie. No Jaws Star Wars. But even like, the really interesting thing about some blockbuster season is it became so well known and kind of predictable for audiences that even smaller films like Clueless and which I love like one of my favorite movies, and laya Liar, the Jim Carrey movie found like huge audiences and massive paydays. Obviously, post you know, two thousand and eight, let's say the summer blockbuster has evolved into like a more established IP
franchise space. Marvel would always release their big movie on that first weekend of May to coincide with Free Comic Book Day, and since then, you know, with the whole conversation of is Hollywood doomed by IP and comic book movie fatigue, they've also had the conversation of does summer blockbuster season still matter, especially when you know we've had releases as February has now become a space where you
can release a huge blockbuster. That used to be a space where they would bury a movie, but after the success of Get Out it really opened up the space for horror movies. Then obviously we had Black Panther that opened then that was just absolutely massive. So I think that that the idea of where we can open a movie now has broadened distinctly, but still it still has a big shadow of a Hollywood the side air of the summer blockbuster.
I think one of the most interesting recent developments which you really saw pickup speed over.
The pandemic was digital releases coming at times right on the heels of the theatrical release. Fall Guy, which I think we both noted had a little bit of a disciplining run in the theaters, is coming to digital two weeks after it's run in theaters beginning just two weeks.
And you know, this has been a thing that.
Cinema theater chains and companies and owners have complained about because obviously that cuts into their bottom line, But I think it's it's indicative of how different the business is now. Like normally you'd be like, Okay, leave it, leave Fall Guy there, and you hope it builds an audience over time.
Yeah, and it would. With fo Guy, it could have happened as well, because in its third week of release, which is the same time that they're about to launch this vod it would It actually only dropped forty percent from its first week, which is actually a really good hold for any movie. So it feels like that word of mouth could have built up. And we've seen with movies like Pixars Elemental, which had you know, a real it would think it was Pixar's lowest box office release
since Toy Story, not even adjusted for inflation. But it ended up making almost half a billion dollars because it stayed in and families took their time and they heard it was good from a different family and they went, and the word of mouth meant that it was able to make a really great box office kind of qum, you know. And I think it's a shame that they're doing this with full app with a full guy, because I thought it was a really great movie. It deserves
to be seen in the cinema. But I did read something really interesting which is apparently now a new Hollywood strategy is and this was not the case with four Guy. Thought I had an unbelievable huge marketing spend, like we saw it everywhere. This was not the case. But with some movies, like horror movies. The first omen Taro was
a recent one. I was reading an interesting article about how apparently studios now will do a lower marketing budget with the knowledge that if the movie doesn't do well at the cinema, they can just immediately put it on VOD and get some of their money back. So it's almost it's changing so much that they're prepared for it.
But it's really interesting because obviously it's not the same with every movie, so like doing Part two, which made a ton of money, that's been two and a half months and it's only just about to go on Max. So yeah, I find the whole thing really interesting, and I do think it's a shame in this particular situation that the fall Guy is kind of falling into this trap, because I do believe it could have found it and
it will find its audience. It will be like so many movies before it, Scott Pilgrim, a movie that didn't make very money much money at the cinema, you know, True Roman, and the Quentin Tarantino written, Tony Scott directed movie, which is like one of my all time favorite movies. Another movie that didn't really make a lot of money at the cinema but found a new home on home video.
So I guess in a way this could be like a modern version of that, where people can find a new fandom for these movies when they're on VOD and the way they used to find it in the video shop.
Do you think that the age of the sleeper film you know, the film that like opens very quietly and then builds through essentially word of mouth in the theater. Do you think we're just that just doesn't it just doesn't exist anymore. We're never gonna see that like by big fat Greek wedding type of movie that just opens very soft but then grows and grows and grows because people are like, Hey, that's a really fun movie.
Are we gonna gonna see that again?
I think we will likely see it again, because this stuff is all cyclical, and I'm sure that there will be some movie that will come out that was a small, low budget movie that they're not even really concerned about putting it on VOD and it will end up making a ton of money. Kind Of honestly, everything ever where at all at once was almost that movie. And yeah, because because that had the small, staggered release and it ended up making a lot of money and becoming this
huge hit that nobody saw. But I do think it's gonna be a lot less likely now. I also think this is another sad kind of trend towards the erasure of like the mid budget movie. You know, like we like Joel pointed out that, you know, the zach Efron movie Iron Claw, which everyone who saw it thought was going to be like a huge Oscar movie but didn't end up being that way. It's had huge success once
it hit VOD. So I think that we're in this space where we're gonna see more mid budget kind of drama movies going to VOD going straight to streaming as well. Sadly need to see a change in the way cinema go are looking at films to kind of see it change, but I hope not, because I do think there's so many fantastic movies out there, and I would love to see more movies getting cinematic releases rather.
Than less same. That's it for our show.
Stay tuned for more extra vision on Thursday when we're hopping into the time capsule to talk about the much maligned but actually good, fun, solid movie The Marvels, and on Friday dropping a mini bonus episode about Echo on Disney Plus.
I want to say that this is actually very relevant because guess what The Marvels is, a movie that didn't do well in the cinema has now found an audience on Disney Plus. Yeah, look at how we tied that together.
Thanks for listening, See you next time.
Bite x ray Vision is hosted by Jason Gitsubsion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive ducers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Laude. Kenny Goodman and Heidi our discord moderator.