#192. 'Extraction 2'
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The main event is Extraction 2 (Netflix, Chris Hemsworth as mercenary Tyler Rake), which Sonny declares the "platonic ideal of a Netflix movie" — cheap, disposable, and forgettable, but genuinely well-crafted, anchored by a ridiculous 20-minute faux-one-take prison break/train/helicopter set piece he compares to a $70 million Scott Adkins VOD movie; Mike agrees it's a solid three-action-sequence machine (though he notes the quality declines with each successive set piece) and recounts watching it with his visiting, sarcastically unimpressed mother, who nonetheless recognized co-star Olga Kurylenko from a Bond film; JVL likewise enjoyed the craft but ribs it as a shitty, over-mythologized version of John Wick aimed at people with nothing else to do with their lives, and the trio riffs on stunt-casting tricks (helmeted henchmen to hide the same seven stuntmen), Netflix's "Burn Notice"-style disposable-content strategy, and a tangent into Blair Witch 2 as a case study in how studios ruin a good indie idea. Before the review, the guys spend a long stretch on banter: JVL delivers an extensive researched "dudes chat" report on upside-down-pineapple swinger symbolism on cruise ships (a callback to Mike's softball-league swingers bit), Mike reports his doubleheader got rained out, and Sonny tells a long story about a karaoke-bar host who, paid $10 to perform a screaming Slipknot cover, single-handedly cleared out the entire bar — which spins into JVL's "Nazi bar" thought experiment about how one bad element drives everyone else away. They also dig into the week's big box-office story, The Flash's catastrophic 72.5% second-weekend drop and what it means (or doesn't) for Warner Bros./DC now that there's no studio left to hold accountable, with detours through Aquaman, Green Lantern, and other historic bombs.
From the show notes
Tyler Rake!
Full transcript
Sonny00:00:00Sub-Beacon, a podcast on movies and pop culture hosted by Sonny Bunch, Jonathan V.
Mike00:00:30Last eyebrJVL (- Victorino Matusedsiębior Sub-Beacon, a podcast on movies and pop culture hosted by Sonny Bunch, Jonathan V.
Sonny00:00:59Last unintinted Sub-Beacon, a podcast on Movies and pop Culture hosted by Sonny Bunch, Jonathan V. Last unintinted Sub-Beacon, a podcast on Movies and popiage hosted by Sonny Bunch, Jonathan V. Last unintinted Sub-Beacon, a podcast on Movies and popagę hosted by Sonny Bunch, Jonathan V. Last unintinted Sub-Beacon, a podcast on Movies and popagę hosted by Sonny Bunch, Jonathan V.
Mike00:02:59A little later, but first, Sonny, how are you, bud? I'm okay. I'm okay.
JVL00:03:07I can't believe you didn't come to me first. Sometimes I come to you first. I know, but last week...
Sonny00:03:11I like to mix it up. You go to JVL first. JVL, what's going on with you?
Mike00:03:15Well, wait a second. Who's moderating this? Who's hosting this show?
Sonny00:03:20I'll defer. I defer to JVL. I will receive second.
Mike00:03:25Hold on. I accept your deferment and pass it to... To JVL.
JVL00:03:31So I feel a little guilty about not having anything for dudes chat in the last week. So I went and did my homework this week. And I am here to educate you people about the upside down pineapple. I went and did a lot of research on this because this was something when Mike talked about the swingers from his sexual deviant softball league that he is in. And as friend of the show, Ed Condon said to me, there's got to be some sort of... Wine and cheese mixer for this league. And if there isn't, Mike has got to host one because I bet it'll get wild. So the origin of the upside down pineapple seems to be on cruises. Cruises being a big place where people swing.
Sonny00:04:16Really?
JVL00:04:17Shocking. One of the things that people often do is they will bring little pineapple magnets.
Sonny00:04:23You're saying they were... You're saying they're love boats?
JVL00:04:26I'm saying they're kind... They're all for swingers. Who knows? It's all coming together now.
Sonny00:04:33That makes more sense.
JVL00:04:34So, you know, if you've ever been on a cruise, you have a little metal inbox next to your door and people would pop a little magnet pineapple upside down and that would be a sign for, you know, if you're just wandering the halls of the ship at night, you see one of those, you just knock on the door and it's like the beginning of old school. Hi, I'm here for the gangbang. And there are other people. People would... Bring their own straws to sip and drink at the bar that have like little upside down pineapples on them or they would discreetly wear a little pineapple lapel pin. But then evidently, this is like a whole thing. They would have...
Mike00:05:14So, question, question, question. Yeah, please. The pineapple, it does come from, as you suggested last week, it does sort of originate from the idea of the pineapple as a symbol of hospitality. Yes. Correct? Correct. This is a non-sexual... Non-swinger related long time symbol in, I guess, British...
JVL00:05:35Again, dating from Polynesian culture. Or French. Ah, okay. Polynesian cultures. And the upside down pineapple means you can fuck my wife. That's what the upside down pineapple means somehow. And anyway, so, but the whole etiquette for this seems to be that during the day on the cruise ship, because there are a lot of vanilla people, that's what the swingers call them, vanilla couples who, you know, don't want to be bothered with this sort of thing. The squares, right? And those people don't, you know, you don't want to rub their face in what you're doing. So you just discreet things. But by the time you, like, after 10 p.m. on the ship, you break out, like, the big pineapple button that you put on so that when you're at the club, Club Pulsar or whatever, everybody knows, hey, we are DTF. But here's what I want to bring to the table. The magnet on the... The mailbox by the side of your stateroom door is evidently no longer especially favored because what some pranksters have taken to doing is bringing sheets of pineapple stickers with them on cruises and then just sticking them randomly on the little metal mailboxes of by people's staterooms. So that... And the vanilla, the squares, you don't know what that means. You're thinking, oh, there's somebody stuck a sticker on my thing. All of a sudden, they're getting... In the middle of the door. Hey, hey, can I come in and fuck your wife? You guys down a swing? You know...
Mike00:07:07They're just ruining it for everyone. Exactly. It's, you know, it's this kind of... It's this kind of culture. It just ruins swinging for everybody else. You know, it's... A few bad apples. A few bad pineapples.
JVL00:07:21A few bad pineapples spoil the whole cruise.
Mike00:07:25There. I came to play today. Wow. Well, you know... I mean, you can't go anywhere from this conversation. I mean, this is like... This is about as high level as it gets.
JVL00:07:36All right. I got one question. Yeah. JVL. What do you think the swinging scene is like on a Disney cruise? Because I bet it's wild.
Mike00:07:46Wild. So, things I've never contemplated or really wanted to contemplate... Look, there's a lot I'm having to contemplate in recent days that I never thought I would ever have to think about. One of them being...
JVL00:07:58Oh, did you... Did you have a... Did you have a doubleheader with the Dirty Sanchezes?
Mike00:08:03No. I was... I was going to mention... Or the Cleveland Steamers? I've now seen... No. We... In fact, our doubleheader was postponed this past weekend because of weather-related problems.
Sonny00:08:16Was it raining?
Mike00:08:17So... No, it wasn't raining, but it was... The fields were still flooded from the, like, deluge that had...
JVL00:08:24Were you playing the Arlington Finger Cuffs? No.
Mike00:08:27I don't even... Now you've lost me. I don't even... I don't even know what's... What... What is... What is going on here? I really... I think... I do think I got myself mixed up into something. I... You know, I... Because I thought it was really going to be a, like, let's drink beers while we're on the bench kind of softball...
JVL00:08:47It turns out it's all sexual deviant... It's a sexual... If you'd done the lower, the non-competitive softball level, that's the one for people who just want to drink beers and hang out. The one you're in now, like, eventually you're at the Eyes Wide Shut Club. That's what the... That's what the end of the season gala looks like.
Mike00:09:01I'm... Yeah, I may be... I may be pulling myself... Putting myself on the DL for the rest of the season. All right, well, JVL...
Sonny00:09:10They don't call us that anymore, though, right now. It's not the injured... No, it's the IO. Yeah, the IO. Sorry. Injured list. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike00:09:16Sorry. How dare you? I've made many... I've made many a microaggression...
Sonny00:09:20It's one of my... One of my... One of the annoying things about my fantasy baseball team now is that they changed all the lingo. Now we have, like, NA spots for, you know, for, like, people who... Who haven't even been drafted yet. Like, I don't have the... I don't have the wherewithal to pick up fucking minor leaguers and stash them away on my team. What am I supposed to do with that? Nonsense.
JVL00:09:39You could have had Ellie De La Cruz two years ago. You know... I don't know who that is today. As somebody who keeps up with minor league baseball, you should consult me on this, because I can give you, you know, a list of prospects. No, but that's...
Sonny00:09:49Well, so, we made a rule in our league that you actually can't use the NA spots, that you, like, you aren't... You aren't allowed to, because we have, like, two or three ringers who, like, actually really like minor league baseball, and we're, like, and picked up, like, guys in the single A... Adley Ruxman.
JVL00:10:05...system. Adley Ruxman when he was 18.
Sonny00:10:07Yeah, and was just like, well, okay, that's not... We're not... We are casual fantasy baseball players. We don't have the wherewithal for this.
Mike00:10:15Yeah, that's a violation of the spirit of the league, really. Yeah. So, all right, Sonny, what's going on with you? Since you deferred earlier, I'm coming back to you.
Sonny00:10:25Yeah, so, this weekend, we went out with... some friends here in Dallas. We went to dinner, and then we went to a bar afterwards for some drinks, and unbeknownst to us, this was a karaoke bar after 9 p.m. or whatever, and, you know, whatever, that's fine, except nobody there was doing karaoke. There was a guy... The guy, like, came and set up his karaoke booth and, like, had the list of songs out, and he did, like, an Icebreaker song. He sang a song. I didn't recognize it. I was like, this doesn't really feel like the point. of karaoke, but okay. And, I don't know, it was something like Weird Emo Song. I was like, okay, this is weird. But, again, like, there was a, like, a relatively full bar. I would say it was, like, two-thirds full, maybe a little less than, maybe, like, half full.
Mike00:11:15But it's not a strictly karaoke bar.
Sonny00:11:17Not karaoke all the time. It's an Irish bar that, after a certain time on the weekend, there is karaoke. So, like, this guy does a song, and nobody goes up to do karaoke. Somebody has put his name on the list, or somebody else has put this person's name on the list, and the guy running is like, hey, Edward, where are you, Edward? And Edward's like, I have no interest in doing that. I don't, I'm not, I'm not doing that thing that you're up there doing.
Mike00:11:43He's doing the Jonah Hill, you know, cut it off gif.
Sonny00:11:47Knock it off. So, like, the guy who's running it does another song just on his own. Just, like, does another song, and we're all just kind of looking at him like, can we maybe pull the plug on this? Is this a thing we can just stop doing? That's so sad. Can't stop, though. It keeps going. The music, the music continues. It's very loud. It is, and slowly but surely, people start leaving the bar. Just, like, going to outside. Not leaving the bar, but, like, going outside to the patio. Just getting away from the noise. And then he does another, he does another song on his own. And at this point.
Mike00:12:21He's saying Islands in the Stream by himself.
Sonny00:12:22At this point, it's just sad. It's, like, getting sadder and sadder, but now it's super sad. Another group leaves. And at this point. It's, like, us at one table and, like, a big group at another table. And this is where the story really begins. The host of the karaoke bar, again, has not had a single other person come up to sing songs yet. But a guy does come up, and he hands him, like, a $10 bill. I couldn't really see the denomination. I assume it was $10. Maybe it was only $1. I don't know. And then the karaoke guy's, like, we got a request. We have a request for Slipknot, a Slipknot song. And the guy starts singing Slipknot, screaming.
Mike00:13:11Oh, he had that in his rotation?
Sonny00:13:15The words are all right there. So, I mean, I assume he probably knew the song because he was singing along. He was doing it in rhythm. But he starts singing this Slipknot song, like, screaming and then doing the, like, the overtones. Like, overlapping lyrics. I don't know if you've ever listened to Slipknot. But, like, there'll be, like, there'll be, like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. But he's, like, doing them all. He's doing them. And at this point, the other, the large group that was next to us was like, fucking out of here. Peace. Peace out. We are out of here. They go outside. And I was just like, I can't hear a thing. I cannot hear a thing. I can't hear myself think. I can't hear the conversation we're having. Do you guys want to go? And they're like, yeah, let's get out of here. I've never seen, I've never seen anything. Like it just absolutely decimating the patronage of the bar. This carry. Well, I don't.
Mike00:14:05And doing the exact opposite of the whole point of hosting. The whole point of karaoke. The karaoke. Right. The whole point is to get people to stay in and buy more drinks.
Sonny00:14:15Be like, come on, let's do some Billy Joel. Let's do a sing-along. Let's do, you know, let's go around table to table. Be like, hey, we're doing Piano Man. He's doing Bon Jovi.
Mike00:14:23He's doing Bon Jovi.
Sonny00:14:24And I was.
JVL00:14:25This is literally a socioeconomic test case, which is talked about. Right. What happens if your bar becomes the Nazi bar? Right. The first the first time a Nazi shows up at your bar, you, the bar owner, have to kick them out no matter what, because if you don't, everybody else will leave because they see the Nazi and they'll be like, oh, it's a Nazi.
Sonny00:14:43Well, no, what happens is that's what just the first the first Nazi shows up and he's polite and he, you know, pays his tabby tips. Well, whatever. And so they're like, whatever, I guess we can let this guy stay. And then the next weekend, two Nazis show up and they're fine. And then by by weekend four, you've got like 10 Nazis and then it's all. All of a sudden, a Nazi. But now it's a Nazi bar. But that's what now it's the Slipknot karaoke bar. And I can't imagine I can't imagine ever going not to equate Slipknot with Hitler. Precisely, but I can't I can't imagine I would ever go back to that bar now. I would just be like, ah, that was unpleasant for me.
JVL00:15:20Isn't Slipknot the preferred musical of the neo-Nazis?
Sonny00:15:25No, Slipknot's just like they're just like metal. Just like I effort that while you guys. I mean, I'm sure there are Nazis who like Slipknot. I like I would not I would not be surprised by that. But I don't think that they are. They are.
Mike00:15:40You know, it's not like it's not like it's not like a skinhead group of not like Nazi punks.
Sonny00:15:49Yeah, it's not like Green Room. It's not like, you know, or a screwdriver.
JVL00:15:52Did you see Green Room, Mike?
Sonny00:15:55Mike, that's the movie about Nazi punks and running a meth. Meth lab up in the.
Mike00:16:01I remember I didn't.
Sonny00:16:02Patrick Stewart plays the head Nazi.
Mike00:16:04Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Sonny00:16:05It's pretty good. It's I actually don't like it very much, but it's kind of it's kind of amusing.
JVL00:16:10It's like I would take that back. I was thinking of a different band that is not Slipknot. That is a white nationalist favorite. I am sorry. You apologize. I apologize for my mistake.
Mike00:16:23I like I don't even to the noughties, the noughties, the Slipknot.
Sonny00:16:26I don't even I don't even, you know, necessarily. I don't necessarily hate that form of music. It's not my it's not it's not really what I would do. Certainly karaoke, too. And if I'm in a certain sort of mood, I'll listen to, you know, that that sort of stuff. But very, very infrequently and certainly not when I'm like trying to have a conversation with people. I just I remember the question about the economic.
JVL00:16:47Oh, yeah. Who pays who in the arrangement between the barkeep, the bar owner and the karaoke. Guy is the karaoke guy being paid like a decent amount. Is he a DJ or is he paying the bar owner for the floor space?
Sonny00:17:04My understanding is that the bar pays the karaoke guy because in theory, karaoke is like a thing people come and they want to do.
Mike00:17:11It's like a comedy act or band or trivia.
Sonny00:17:15Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, I don't like I don't know otherwise how he would get money like from tips from patrons. I don't like.
JVL00:17:22Well, from tips. Well, I mean, I want the guy to play a song.
Sonny00:17:26I've never seen anything like that before. I've never seen. But he didn't. No, but it wasn't like the guy who went up there wasn't singing. The guy the guy gave the karaoke runner money to sing Slipknot.
JVL00:17:41Oh, the guy.
Sonny00:17:42The guy like, oh, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I not explain that properly? The guy the guy went up to the guy. So the customer who was drinking his beer went up to the guy running the karaoke booth, gave him ten dollars, I guess, five a dollar and was like, would you sing? Slipknot for me. And the guy was like, yes. He was like, absolutely.
Mike00:18:05Wow. That's what is going on. Bizarre. It's bizarre. I didn't I didn't care for it. Area.
JVL00:18:12What a hellscape. Why would anybody ever go to a bar?
Mike00:18:15Bars are fine. But that bars can be fun. But but here's the thing. Like, so karaoke bars, it is like a thing. It is not like a band or a trivia night or it's like you really have to be. Wanting to go to a karaoke specifically, like specifically, and that is your choice. Like there there was when I was in school in Nashville, there was a particular bar that was the karaoke bar and every night they had karaoke. And so it was like you would go down there for this express purpose of, you know, getting drunk and singing songs badly. And if you didn't want to do that, like you knew not to go there because it was it was karaoke bar like you were like that. That was it to sort of introduce it to, like, throw it into the mix when it look maybe maybe this bar is normally like has karaoke, just they were all out of town. But it just seems like you're playing with you're playing with fire. I don't know.
Sonny00:19:18Anyway, don't like it.
JVL00:19:20Don't like it.
Sonny00:19:20I don't know, man. It was it was one of the weirdest things I've I've ever experienced at a bar.
JVL00:19:25Just like, well, it's much less weird if Slipknot is not a white name. It's like a nationalist neo-Nazi band, which is which they are not, which is what I know. I think I was thinking of Fry Corps, maybe, or I don't know what you're thinking.
Sonny00:19:36Unimportant.
JVL00:19:37Well, Michael, how are you, buddy? Oh, I'm fine. How'd you do with the dish this? Oh, you were postponed this weekend.
Mike00:19:43You were you were rained out.
JVL00:19:44Did you get the link I sent you about getting getting yourself a hot bat?
Mike00:19:48I did. But look, I am not that invested. Can I get a softball thing? No, you cannot, because I don't want you to waste your money on something. This may be the last season I play softball. We'll have to.
JVL00:19:59Well, it depends on how lucky you get at the dinner.
Mike00:20:03Thanks. Thanks. Yeah, no, no, no softball, no swinging. Just I'm getting ready for and we can talk about this. Maybe we'll talk about this more in the bonus episode. But I am getting ready for a road trip with my two oldest boys and my mother. So let me explain.
Sonny00:20:29Well, why don't we save it for the bonus episode?
Mike00:20:31Should we save it all for the bonus episode?
Sonny00:20:33You want to talk about it on the bonus episode? I guess. Okay, then I'll save it. Here's the tease. Mike's driving around the country with his kids and his mom.
JVL00:20:42Tease only works if this show gets posted to iTunes, though. So, you know. Okay.
Sonny00:20:46All right. It's a tease for people listening to the bonus episode.
Mike00:20:50Why don't we just move on then? And before we talk about the movie we're supposed to be talking about, we've got to talk about The Box Office because it is a huge story this week. The Box Office.
JVL00:21:07I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It was like I was watching Saturday morning. I was back on Sunday morning. Just, oh.
Mike00:21:16Well, to sort of get us ready here, let's talk about what movies are number one and number two at The Box Office this past week.
JVL00:21:24Big superhero movie is number one.
Mike00:21:26Yeah. The big superhero movie. After the summer, Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse back on top as number one at The Box Office. Number two is Elemental, the Pixar movie that I guess Sonny thought was okay. And then number three, this is the big story this week, is The Flash dropping from number one to number three. Not just dropping two places on the list, but dropping 73% from... From the previous week. Is that good? I think it's not great, Bob. Sonny, is this the biggest disaster box office-wise in, I don't know, a while? What's going on?
JVL00:22:13How far are we from John Carter of Mars territory?
Sonny00:22:16I mean, I think we're already clearly in John Carter of Mars territory. No, it was funny. So before the weekend numbers came in, I was doing some math in my head and I was like, look, if Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse only drops 33%, which I think is a reasonable idea for a hold, and if The Flash drops 67%, they'll be about even. And Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse held better than that. It only dropped 29.6%. The Flash dropped worse than that. It dropped 72.5%. So, like, it was a pretty big disaster for The Flash. I mean, look, I don't see any universe in which The Flash is not in the all-time, like, top five money losers at the box office. I mean, just, like, it's going to end up losing. It will not end up making its production budget back in terms of just total box office gross. Like, I don't know exactly how to quantify this, because, again, like, if you do box office math, you figure this movie probably costs $225 million to make. That's what they say. Maybe it was more. Maybe it was $250. And then it probably costs another $100 to $150 million to advertise, plus there were tons of reshoots and blah, blah, blah. So, I mean, like, you're looking at a movie that probably costs $400 million to make, which means it needs to make about $800 million to break even, but it's going to make $300 million, which that's not enough money, turns out.
JVL00:23:49So, go ahead, JVL. In the history of box office disasters, one of the ways that we think of them is, what are the real-world effects of them? And, for instance, Heaven's Gate, famously one of the biggest disasters of all time, it destroyed the studio which produced it. United Artists, a studio with a long and storied history, went out of business because of Heaven's Gate. A whole bunch of people lost their jobs because of Bonfire of the Vanities, another gigantic disaster. Ishtar, I forget who lost their jobs because of Ishtar. I don't think anybody will lose their jobs because of The Flash, because the people responsible for it already lost their jobs.
Sonny00:24:34Yeah, well, that's the thing, is that, like, The Flash exists in this weird, this weird in-between state for Warner Brothers, where, you know, first off, there were, like, 17 steps along the way where somebody could have killed this movie, you know, it was in development hell forever, like, Ezra Miller was a pain in the ass getting it made, he also is engaged in a multi-state crime spree, they could have, like, shelved it. And pulled the, pulled the, the background, I mean, they're, like, there, there's a, there's a, there are a lot of steps, and, and, like, on top of all this, like, it basically goes into production after the Snyderverse has collapsed in on itself, like, all of the other DC properties have basically washed out, like, there's no reason, there's really no reason for this movie to exist. And the, the, the fact that they pushed on with it, despite all of, despite all of the signs saying, no, nobody wants this. There's, there's no reason for it to, to, to exist. Um, it, like, a very, it's like a, it is a very Greek tragedy, like, demonstration of hubris that, like, winds up destroying a bunch of things. Now, as you say, though, JVL, like, because Warner Brothers got sold, and it merged with Discovery, and it's, like, part of the AT&T cast, like, there's nobody really to punish for this.
JVL00:25:55Well, but there is somebody to punish. There's something to punish. And unlike all of those other things, unlike John Carter of Mars and Ishtar and all those things, uh, The Flash is part of pre-existing intellectual property. And intellectual property is more important even than executives at this point in time, right? It may be more important than studios themselves, right? Studios are only valuable to the extent that they own intellectual property in order to make hits from. And The Flash... Which is the first one of these mega-bombs to maybe blow up an entire line of intellectual property? Then we don't know. We won't know until it happens again, right? We won't know until the next DC movie comes out and it's even worse, right? We'll see if Aquaman 2 is punished for the sins of its father. We'll see if, you know, can they make another... Does this screw with the Batman stuff?
Sonny00:26:51No, but I mean, this is a thing. Is that DC has always had one very valuable property, Batman, one kind of valuable property in Superman. And then a bunch of other stuff that's extremely hit and miss. I mean, like Wonder Woman made a lot of money, but Wonder Woman 2 bombed. But that was also pandemic related, who can say? Like, it remains... Again, I stress this all the time and it is worth repeating. The biggest grossing movie of this whole run of DC EU stuff was Aquaman. Aquaman is the movie that... That movie made a billion dollars. It's the only one of these movies to make a billion dollars.
JVL00:27:24It's because it was so good.
Sonny00:27:26Because it was so good. So, like... You know, DC is a weird company because they have tried to make a bunch of other things and none of them have worked. I mean, remember Green Lantern? Remember the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern? That's another, like, epic cosmic bomb. That's another movie that probably lost $150 to $200 million. Like, I don't know. I don't know, man. I don't think it hurts Batman because Batman is on its own at this point. You know, maybe they aren't able to reboot Superman, but Superman's a shit. He's a shitty hero anyway. So, like, they can't. The reason Superman doesn't work as a comic book movie hero is because he's deeply uninteresting. And Zack Snyder tried to make him interesting and people were like, no, we don't want that. We want boring. But we're not going to go see that either. Look at Superman Returns. Like, I don't know.
Mike00:28:18By the way, Green Lantern only lost $98 million adjusted for inflation. Good for him. Yeah, because, yeah, I'm looking. You have the list here and, like, so you have John Carter and then the Lone Ranger. Like, one after that. There's, like, two in a row for Disney. Like, total bombs. Yeah. And yet look at Disney. It's, like, the biggest, you know, biggest kid on the block now, 10 years later.
Sonny00:28:46Because all you got to do is have one Pirates of the Caribbean turn into a multifilm franchise and you're golden for, you know. You've got, like, three of those bombs in you, so.
Mike00:28:56JVL, I was too young to really. be around for this. But Cutthroat Island, do you recall that?
JVL00:29:02Rennie Harland directed, Gina Davis starring Cutthroat Island? Is that the one you're talking about? Oh, yeah.
Mike00:29:11Do you remember who the male lead was? I don't. Who was it? Matthew Modine.
?00:29:17Wow.
JVL00:29:17Yeah, I mean, what America had been clamoring for that moment was a Gina Davis-led action movie. About pirates. About pirates.
Mike00:29:28All right. Why don't we talk about the movie that we did watch? And I don't know if we all liked it. Maybe we did all like it. Extraction 2, not in theaters or maybe, I don't know, maybe it's in some theater. I don't think it is.
Sonny00:29:40I think it played in like one theater in L.A. and one theater in New York.
Mike00:29:45Right. So it can be.
Sonny00:29:47For its Oscar qualifying run.
Mike00:29:48Yeah. Extraction 2, Sonny, give us a review of Netflix's Extraction 2.
JVL00:29:57Extraction 2, starring. About Vic Mattis with a tooth that is buried deep inside his head.
Sonny00:30:02No, that's malignant.
JVL00:30:04Oh, sorry.
Mike00:30:05Extraction. Come on. That was pretty good. Yeah, but that was the first one. Extraction.
Sonny00:30:10Extraction 2 stars Chris Hemsworth as the extractor. His name's Tyler Rake, actually. He's got a great character, Tyler Rake. The extractor, Tyler Rake.
Mike00:30:24Tyler Rake.
Sonny00:30:25And he's an Australian murderer. Mercenary who gets people out of jams. And he in this movie, he has to get he has to extract a family out of a prison where they're being held so they can be near the Eastern European gangster husband slash father. None of this matters. So here's here's here's what's interesting about Extraction 2. Extraction 2 is the platonic ideal of a Netflix movie. And here's what I mean by that. It's the sort of movie that has that has one big star in Chris Hemsworth. It has some really good action scenes, some really some like really well done, memorable action scenes. When the action scenes aren't happening, you can look at your phone and check Netflix. You're not really going to miss anything. It's less than two hours long. It costs 60 to 70 million dollars. Watch it. You kind of enjoy it and you immediately it goes out of your head. It's fine. And I again, I say this. I say this is the perfect Netflix movie because Netflix makes a lot of movies like this. But most of them aren't really that like this is a million times better than Red Notice, for instance. Like it's it's it's not just better on a it's not just better because it's cheaper for Netflix. Right. But it's better. It's better made it like actually it actually, you know, director Sam Hargrave. I think his name Hargrove, something like that. He actually is a he's he's he's one of these like John Wick style directors who like he's a former stuntman. He understands how to coordinate the action and get everything to make it look like a unit director on some big movies. Yeah, he's he's he's like a stunt guy, second unit guy. But he understands, again, how he understands the the physics of action and how it works. And there's this really there's this really silly and kind of wonderful set piece about 20 minutes into the film. It is a 20 minute long kind of faux one take trip through the prison that Tyler Rake is pulling this family out of. And it's again, it's just very it's just like a series of escalatingly ridiculous action moments. Like at one point, he's fighting an entire prison yard and his arms are on fire like he's a character out of Street Fighter. At another point, they they they're in a van. They make a break for it. They get to they get to a train. Are they they I don't think they actually say they're on a train and he opens a door at one point and it's just like they're on a moving train. And there's a helicopter that's behind him firing a rail gun at him and he's hiding behind a ladder that is open. Minigun.
JVL00:33:13It's like it's a minigun. Whatever. Whatever. That's OK.
Sonny00:33:16It doesn't matter. None of this matters. You know, the best way to think of extraction is like somebody gave Michael Jai White or Scott Adkins 70 million dollars to make one of their VOD. Movies and they went to town and they made they made just a series of escalatingly ridiculous and fun action fight sequences. If you watch it on that level, it is it is a very entertaining movie. I'm not it is not high art. It's not you know, it's not going to win any Oscars. There's nothing there's no there's no reason for this movie to be in theaters. And indeed, as I like, I'm somebody who often says like, oh, I wish these Netflix movies were in theaters. I would love to go see a lot of these pictures on the big screen. But this is what this is one of the very rare movies where I'm like, this is actually a perfectly acceptable watch at home movie because I can again, I can just kind of zone out when there's not something interesting happening on screen. The movie kind of zips along, gets to the next plot point, the next beat. And it's fine. I mean, look, Chris Hemsworth is great. He's he is great as the kind of, you know, gruff, gruff, but funny father figure. I've always that's like his his. Uh, best mode of operation. Um, uh, the the action sequences are very good. Again, fine. It's a perfectly fine movie. I like it, uh, a lot for what it is and what it is is a fairly slight thing. This is what Netflix should be doing. This is my broader point here is that this is precisely what Netflix should be doing. Netflix should be making three of these for every one red notice. There's no instead of everyone right now, there's no reason to spend two hundred million dollars on a blockbuster that really doesn't look very good and has more than one star. You only need one star. You only need one person there, uh, to, to, to get the audiences in, um, that you throw $20 million or whatever at this is, this is precisely the sort of thing Netflix should be making all the time instead of these ridiculously huge budgeted movies.
Mike00:35:20Yeah, I think this was, I did some math and looked up some things cause this was an Indian production. So like the, the stated budget for it. Was in rupees. So I had to do some, some very complex 35. It was like Chilean rupees. I had to do some very complicated, uh, you know, conversion, uh, through, uh, google.com and found that it was essentially about $65 million, um, on production, which just looks very good. It looks very good. For right. JVL, what did you, what did you think of extraction two? Did you feel like having not seen extraction one, you were missing a part of the. I saw extraction.
JVL00:35:58Oh, so it was just, uh, and I had forgotten everything about extraction one before the credits had even, I mean, forget, I wouldn't even say before the credits had finished, but of course I didn't watch for the credits to finish before I had clicked the home button on my remote. I had already forgotten everything about extraction one. And that'll leave me to the one thing that I find frustrating about this. Uh, I, I agree completely Sonny that the, the platonic ideal in, in so many other ways than you mentioned even, uh. The fact that great chunks of this are subtitled because they're not in English, which is going to make it friendlier for European audiences and probably Indian audiences and maybe Arabian audiences, right? There's a reason that the female lead is, uh, a famous Iranian actress, um, that will play presumably across Saudi and Dubai, et cetera. Um, it's made to be a global property. Uh, it is. Um, every, except for like the three named actors in it, which is, uh, Idris Elba, um, Chris Hemsworth, and then the, the Iranian gal, everybody else is locally cast. Well, no, no, no. There is also all the X exactly. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Although at this point, isn't she basically a look like if you're shooting over there in Eastern Europe, like that's just what she, she's the star of, of that, of that world,
Mike00:37:27right?
JVL00:37:27Like, yeah, she's the. Star of that world there. Um, but I'll tell you in a second, but go ahead, go ahead. Yeah. They're just, they're just picking up like, you know, Serbian guys on the street or whatever, you know, wherever it was that they actually shot.
Mike00:37:38Like that giant, like, like beast of a man who was, it's like, they literally like, just like we're walking through Sarajevo.
JVL00:37:46We're like you, like you, Oh, we got, you're, you're going to be a heavy for us. Um, uh, and it, you know, the truth is, I bet this movie looks as good as it does because it's on a small screen. And if it was on the big screen. Yeah. You would see all of the seams show up. Totally. Yeah.
Sonny00:38:01And so it's, you know, there is, there is obvious green screen work that does not look obvious on my TV. That would probably be annoying in, in, you know, particularly with the apartment.
JVL00:38:11Um, so yeah, there are, you know, it's, if, if you are the type of person who says, I wish that there were shitty versions of John wick for me to fill my time with, because I have so few responsibilities in life that I just am looking for ways to, to, to, to kill two hours because otherwise I wouldn't know what to do. I don't have any children to rear. I don't have a job that needs working on. I don't have any books to read. I have nothing that I could possibly do with myself. And otherwise I would simply be sitting there on the sofa, staring at a blank wall. If only somebody could make a crappy version of John wick so that I, you know, I guess I don't want to watch John wick again because it has thematic things in it. And that makes me think, God forbid, I watch a good movie again. I want to watch an original movie that is that is kind of like a crappy version of John wick. This is for you. And I assume that that is the media Netflix customer, right? People with no responsibilities, no jobs, no children, no marriages, nothing to do in their lives. Just looking for ways to pass time before death shows up for them. You know, I'm just looking to mark time to the Grim Reaper knocks on the door. No.
Sonny00:39:26Well, there's a whole. Markets, there's a whole market of films like this, though. I mean, again, like, yes, the proper.
JVL00:39:32That's what I'm saying.
Sonny00:39:33The proper the proper context here is not John Wick precisely. It is like again, it's like Undisputed Four or, you know, Universal Soldier Six. Like that is that is that's the kind of area star, but with a star and like again, like 50 million extra dollars or, you know, 60 million extra dollars. Like.
Mike00:39:58This is this is like this is the Titanic of VOD action movies.
Sonny00:40:03Yeah. All right. So, Mike, you you have not seen the original extraction, so you didn't have the backstory on Tyler Raitt. I felt a little.
JVL00:40:11Can I I want to set you up here, though, Mike, because here's what I didn't like about the movie. OK, this movie seems to think that there is an important mythology going on in it, because as I said, I had forgotten everything about the first extraction. Before I press the home button on my remote the first time. And so when this starts out, like with callbacks, the first movie, I was like, what the fuck is going on here? All I remember is that Thor is in this.
Sonny00:40:38Well, they had I have no idea how he got out of the filthy water, but they didn't but they
JVL00:40:44didn't do a very good job. And they this is what I'm saying. I think everybody is starting as if they didn't see the first movie because everybody has forgotten everything about the first movie.
Sonny00:40:53No, see, I thought I thought I thought this was fine. They set up the entire movie in like 15. I mean, it's like it's like it's just like a series of quick montages. You even get a you even get a montage of him working out Rocky four style in like the snowy woods. He's got an axe. He's swinging an axe from one arm. Great.
Mike00:41:11Here's OK. Here's the thing.
Sonny00:41:13Ice fishing.
Mike00:41:14Here's the thing about this. So I did not learn until after the fact that Olga Kilianko Kilianko. How do you say your last name?
JVL00:41:22Kilianko.
Mike00:41:22Kilianko and Idris Elba were not in the first one.
JVL00:41:26No, correct.
Mike00:41:27They. It's so I was as I watched the movie, I thought, oh, these are like it wasn't until maybe in the second the second appearance of Idris Elba that I realized it. And then I looked it up. I said, oh, they neither of them were in it, which tells me it confirms JVL's point, which is like like it was totally accessible and watchable to me, even though I thought, oh, they're bringing characters back. And maybe I should know who those characters are. And I don't. But I'm not lost. So, you know, I guess I had to. I had a question about how we ended up in the hospital bed in the very beginning of the of the of the movie. But like, I didn't really care. Like, whatever. It doesn't matter. He's going to get out of it soon.
Sonny00:42:08You know, again, they zip through this pretty quickly. I like I was I was actually I was actually relatively impressed by the efficiency of how how long it takes us to get to that first twenty five minute single.
Mike00:42:20So so I here's here's what I liked about it. It is literally three distinct action segments with film. You know, like, right. So like that is that that is getting in the platonic ideal because like, you know, I knew exactly it's like I knew what beats they were going to hit and I didn't care. I was like, OK, yeah, good. All right. Now we got to get started again with the next action sequence. Oh, this is this is going to be the last one, you know, because they got it. You know, I guess my my complaint about it is I did feel like the first one is so like intense and adrenaline pumping and like impressive action. Actually, for a movie like this, that the last sequence felt like an afterthought. It's like felt like it felt like the last third of a of an article that I'm writing where I'm just like, I'm just trying to get this done. Yeah, it actually builds downward. Yes.
JVL00:43:11Each each action sequence is a little bit less cool than than the one before it instead of going the opposite.
Mike00:43:17But this could be a Netflix strategy, right? Because like you got to you got to get them in and like they don't really care if you're finishing it. So I will say I watched this. So my my mother is visiting us this week and my my wife had to go to what just like went to bed early and I need to watch this movie. And so I watched it with my mom, which was hilarious because she spent the whole time basically sarcastically dismissing the movie. She's like, oh, yeah, that's realistic. Oh, that's oh, sure. Yeah, you can just. Get up after getting stabbed with a with a knife in the leg like that. And I was like, it's a stupid action. Like it was it was a very interesting window into like somebody who's like, this is not the type of movie that she would ever choose to watch. And like, I thought she might be grossed out by it or like covering her eyes. No, she was just like, like had her arms crossed to me like this is dumb. But she did recognize Olga.
JVL00:44:22What's her name? Olga. Carolina. What did she recognize her from? Hitman or James Bond? I think James Bond. James Bond is where she recognized her from. So. So I there was one moment that for me, I literally laughed out loud. Yeah. And there were, again, many things that I liked. I like guys being killed in the gym with weights. That was cool. You know, a guy with the treadmill and stuff like that. But when we the Austrian section of storming the building fails, we get a scene with the Georgian bad guy. And his uncle sitting at a table in a hangar. And the uncle is trying to convince him that we should stop this revenge mission. And he says, we lost 10 men. And I like, I literally paused the movie and almost went back to do a body count because I thought it feels to me like they killed about 50 guys. I, I can't don't believe that only 10 of their team.
Sonny00:45:21I think they kept getting back up, but also really is that.
Mike00:45:25But I think that maybe they lost 10 of the maid. Men.
JVL00:45:29Oh, okay. The cannon fodder. There was exactly 40 of the cannon. Exactly.
Mike00:45:34Exactly. By the way, like this whole idea, like it is kind of funny how the movie has this like semblance of like seriousness with like the, the Georgian kids being sent to Armenia. And like, like it's like they almost halfway get to like something quasi interesting or attempted interesting with them. And then it's like, they obviously. Like, don't care enough, but it's, it's, it's kind of a weird, why even bother with that?
JVL00:46:02I know it's, that's like misplaced ambition. Exactly. So, um, absolutely misplaced.
Sonny00:46:06I know, but I think it's, I think it works as like basic shorthand. It's like, well, they got sent to war torn country and now they love fighting. That's it. That's the whole, that's the whole takeaway there. Now they're just, they're, they got sent to war. Well, now they're, they're, they got sent away from war. They got sent into crime. I don't, it doesn't matter. Again, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't tell you, I couldn't tell you anything about the motivation of the villains. I think they're drug dealers. Yes. One of them is in prison. They're just gangsters. Mostly drug. They're just Eastern European gangsters. That's all that matters.
JVL00:46:37But they run Georgia. They're so powerful that they run Georgia, but they live in a bar. But they're also, but they're also very religious. And very religious.
Mike00:46:45Right. And, but, but, but are they? Because when the uncle, well, I don't want to spoil it for our listeners. Quotes the good book. Quotes the good book. Then he gets shot and the blood pours on the Bible, which is a metaphor if you think about it.
Sonny00:46:58Oh man, it's so deep. Again, not unlike John Wick.
Mike00:47:01Just not unlike.
Sonny00:47:02Filled with biblical imagery throughout.
Mike00:47:04Can I? So two, two other guys. I just, there was a question I had. And the problem is I started to watch this movie on my phone. And so maybe I missed something and I finished it on my TV with my mom later. So like.
Sonny00:47:22Wait, did your mom not get like the first 10 minutes of the movie? She didn't understand where Tyler Rake was coming from?
Mike00:47:26I explained it all to her.
Sonny00:47:28Wow. No wonder she didn't. No wonder she didn't buy it.
Mike00:47:31She got enough. She got enough information. All right. But why was the wife? Why were the wife and kids in the prison with him? And what does that have to do with? What does that have to do with? Because I thought when the brother killed the governor, which was pretty badass, I have to say. Like, and I saw coming a mile away. Thank you very much. You know, Chekhov's pit in the ground. But like, like, why were they in there? Because I thought he was supposed to be getting out because he killed the governor because he put him in jail or had extended his sentence. Like, none of that made any sense to me. Like, all of a sudden, the family's in there, too.
JVL00:48:13I'm like, wait, were they just put in there or have that was no, that was at the request of the brother who was in jail. He wanted his family with him so he could protect them. Can you imagine anything worse than being in prison with your kids? I know. I mean. I can't get away from them. It's a prison. It's a prison at my house. I understand wanting to have your wife in prison with you. So you're like, you know, I still have your conjugal trailer right there all the time. But to have your kids right there. Dad, I don't want to eat that. I'm not going to take a nap. I don't want to go to bed. Why do I have to? She's not going to bed. It's not fair.
Sonny00:48:48Yeah, but I think I think if you're a Georgian gangster, your kids backtalk a little less because you really smack them around.
Mike00:48:56Yeah.
Sonny00:48:57Well, hey. That's how the daughter seems here.
Mike00:49:00The daughter seemed very well behaved. The son was a bit of a problem and really kind of the catalyst for everything bothered that the son wasn't killed.
JVL00:49:07I would have liked this movie more if the son had died.
Mike00:49:09I kind of deserved it. I kind of thought that there was there was a moment where I thought they were going to do it and then they didn't like not at the end, but like in the middle. Like I thought it would like it would have elevated the movie. Yeah. Like as soon as he's with him. Remember in the. Here's what I thought was going to happen. I thought he was going to walk out. Remember, he walks out and then. Uh, Nick's brother is like, don't go, don't go. And he like stops and turns around. I thought he was going to turn around and start walking back and they get shot by his uncle in the back of the head. And it was going to that Nick that Nick's brother should have shot him at that point.
JVL00:49:44Like, hey, man, you're taking sides against the family. You're going to go over to the other side. Sorry, dude. Fucked up. You got to die.
Sonny00:49:50That's not how you extract something.
JVL00:49:51Yeah, that would be, you know, they extract the people who aren't trying to get everybody killed.
Sonny00:49:56They're trying. They got to do the extraction.
Mike00:49:58My laugh out loud moment though came when they're on the balcony and the, and he's basically like Chris Hemsworth has basically been like, you fucked up kid. And the kids like, uh, he's like, but, but, but it's okay because you're a kid and I've just taught you a valuable lesson. And the kids like they're on their way and then they look up and they're literally in a helicopter coming straight for, I was like, I did laugh out loud. That's pretty ridiculous.
JVL00:50:23So the other, I had a stunt. I, ever since you started. Sonny did a bulwark goes to Hollywood episode with the guys who did the action movie hall of fame Oscars.
Sonny00:50:34That's stunt awards. Yeah.
JVL00:50:35The stunt awards. I, so you guys mentioned something during that episode about suddenly we started seeing all of the bad guys in movies wearing helmets and masks. And I, I had registered that this was a thing that had started happening in movies, but I didn't understand why until you guys mentioned that this is a practical thing, which is they're only so many stunt people. And if you are doing a movie where hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of these, uh, cannon fodder characters get killed, you can't show their faces because then the audience is like, wait a minute, they just killed that guy five minutes ago. And I, I couldn't stop looking at that all through this movie with, you know, the endless numbers of guys with helmets, goggles, and, and, uh, face shields purely so that we, the audience don't understand that it's the same seven stunt actors the whole time. But, and I, I also noticed that there's a female stunt actor who plays one of the Georgian, and again, it was just like, I was just, it's so obvious that I sat there and I was like, oh, interesting. They found work for a, uh, female stunt star and she's doing great work. And then there was that big Husky guy who was an interesting screen presence. And anyway, I just feel like I have a whole new appreciation for stunt workers, uh, ever since that episode of Bulwark goes to Hollywood.
Mike00:51:57Cross-referencing there.
JVL00:51:59Um, all right.
Mike00:52:00Well, any, any other thoughts on extra, I, they're clearly setting it up for a extraction three extraction three. Um, when can we expect extraction three?
Sonny00:52:09Do we know what I don't know? What are, I'm not the boss of Netflix production.
JVL00:52:13Can I, can I just say this also bothered me? Cause that felt like burn notice, right? If you guys remember burn notice, a USA production, I didn't watch burn notice. You watch notice. I watched a little bit of burn notice, but I know what. It is. But the point is, this is for me, that is pre Netflix USA was making what would become Netflix content, which is incredibly stupid stuff with one quasi star in it. Uh, and designed to be compulsively watched with, uh, one episode ends with a teaser into the next episode. And there's always a new mystery. There's always another thing you've got to uncover. It never actually ends. And that's what they're clearly doing here is like, oh, we're, we're laying out the extraction mythology. And the answer is none of us give a shit. We just want to see like one take action sequences in which Chris Hemsworth hits a guy in the head with a 20 pound barbell extract a verse.
Mike00:53:09Can I say, since you mentioned it, JVL, uh, there was a fantastic Saturday night live sketch from about 13 years ago called, uh, it's a, it's a game show and it's called, uh, what is burn notice? And he is literally asking people, uh, I think Jason Sudeikis is the host. He's like asking, what is burn notice? And the, and the contestants are like, they're like, uh, burn notice is a show about firemen. I'm like, no, that's incorrect. It is the currently the eighth highest rated cable show. What is burn notice? Literally every question is what is burn notice? And it's the only thing I think about when I think of burn notice. Cause like literally nobody knows, nobody watched that show, but yet everybody watched that show. So I really disposable.
Sonny00:53:54The only reason I know about it is because I listen, I listened to. Uh, Bruce Campbell's second memoir and he like has long section. Wait, he has two memoirs? Absolutely. He's got one. He's got one that goes up to like. Army of darkness.
Mike00:54:07Okay. Oh, okay.
Sonny00:54:07He's got one that goes up to about 2000, 2001. And then another one that goes from like 2001 to 2013 or so, I guess. I, whenever burn notice ended.
Mike00:54:16That's so funny. Um, yeah, I have no idea. I know nothing about burn notice. All right. Uh, anything else to say about Chris Hemsworth about extraction to electric boogaloo? Anything? No, no. All right. Well, we're clearly jazzed.
JVL00:54:30Big energy.
Mike00:54:31About big energy. Uh, please clap. Uh, thank you for listening, uh, to another episode of the Sub-Beacon podcast. Sub-Beacon.com is where you can join us. Uh, and we'll talk to you next time.
Sonny00:54:48It's funny. I, I kept trying to get us to do this episode because you guys, you guys were like, oh, we should go see asteroid city. Cause we're classy, smart people. We want to see smart. And I was like, no, we should watch the dumb Netflix movie because that's, it's fun. I, I enjoyed it. You guys will enjoy it. It's easy to watch. It's right there in your house.
JVL00:55:07So, you know, I, I really wanted to do asteroid city until I read your review and it was so hard negative. I haven't read it.
Sonny00:55:14I thought, eh, I didn't love it. Really worth anything.
JVL00:55:16I do want to see the J loss X comedy though. And I'm wondering if I should, it's number four.
Mike00:55:21It's number four on the, yeah, you should definitely, it was almost number three.
Sonny00:55:23It almost beat flash, which is crazy saying something, uh, real quick.
Mike00:55:27I just, I found the transcript of this SNL sketch. The answers that people were giving were pretty funny. People asking, is it about, is burn notice about the detective team of Michael Byrne and Chet notice, uh, um, is it, is it, Oh, this is the show that they play on TVs at Best Buy to show how good the picture is. No. Um, and somebody correctly guessed that they were in Miami.
JVL00:55:49So, uh, Jeffrey Donovan, this is Jeffrey Donovan, who was the star of that, who was the class, the perfect answer, right? A guy who's a pretty good. Actor and an underused leading man who never really popped like Mark Harmon, like Mark Harmon on NCIS, who you write, who you could build a bad show around. Uh, and then you throw two other Gabrielle Anwar and Bruce Campbell in it, who are again, recognizable ish actors without being stars.
Sonny00:56:18And then you just, my favorite, my favorite Jeffrey Donovan, uh, performance is actually in Blair witch to book of shadows. Did you guys, did you guys ever watch Blair witch two? No. All right. So Blair witch, I very real quick before we go here. So Blair witch two is a fascinating movie to watch, uh, after seeing the first Blair witch, because Blair witch two is like, what if you made, what if, what if you came to a studio with the idea for the Blair witch project and the studio was like, this is great. We're going to make a studio movie out of this idea. That's what Blair witch two would look like. And it would look dumb and terrible. Bad, but like bad incompetent and interesting ways. I it's really, again, it's, it is a fascinating movie to watch because you can see all of the processes that go into like, here's an interesting original idea for a movie. How do we run it through the studio ringer? Right. Uh, it's weird. It's like, I actually recommend it to people when I'm like, if you want to understand how the studio system works, watch Blair witch two, you'll get a good sense.
JVL00:57:23Is Blair witch the most profitable movie ever made? Is a percentage over budget, right?
Sonny00:57:31It's up there with it's either that or paranormal activity, paranormal activity costs like $60,000 to make. Um, and Blair witch projects was probably not, not far off of that. I think it was 130,000, maybe all of those, all of those, uh, all of those cheap horror movies are on that list. So like, you know, like Texas chainsaw massacre, Halloween, uh, like anytime you're looking at a ROI. A list of like the most profitable movies of all time. They are on it. Cause they're all like, we made 7 trillion percent of our profit, uh, of our budget in profit.
Mike00:58:08It's, you know, whatever. Sure.
?00:58:10That's fine.
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