#218. 'The Marvels'
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
With JVL out, Sonny and Mike carry a two-man episode dissecting The Marvels, which opened to a franchise-worst $46 million (worse in raw dollars than even The Incredible Hulk) and, per Sonny, has no ceiling above roughly $120 million domestic against a $275 million budget — a flat disaster he blames on sloppy "second sequel" storytelling in the mold of Iron Man 2, Thor: The Dark World, and Avengers: Age of Ultron, movies that try to shove too many disparate franchise pieces (here, a boring Kree villain, a barely-explained genocide subplot, and a singing-planet sequence he calls unwatchable) into one film; his running gag is pleading with Marvel to "stop trying to make the Kree happen," and he savages the trio's power sets — especially Monica Rambeau's, which he decides amounts to "magic plot light shit" that changes scene to scene with no rules. Mike, who admits he dozed off during the climactic battle and didn't miss a thing, agrees it's a mess but singles out Iman Vellani as a genuine bright spot, and both hosts note Brie Larson is far more likable and less "dour" here than in the first Captain Marvel. They close on the mid-credits Kelsey Grammer/Beast cameo teasing an X-Men crossover, riff on Jonathan Majors' legal troubles likely killing the Kang storyline, and debate the best X-Men movie (X2, though Sonny prefers First Class and Days of Future Past). The episode's real centerpiece, though, is the opening third: a long, gleeful tangent on home-library organizing schemes — Sonny walks through his auteur-then-Criterion-then-alpha-by-title shelving system in obsessive detail, the two debate alphabetical versus chronological CD organizing and reminisce about Sam Goody and Suncoast Video, and then pivot into Thanksgiving planning, with Mike floating skipping turkey entirely (and recalling a memorably awkward Thanksgiving hosting his family's Brazilian au pair, her twin sister, and their friends) while Sonny recommends a bagged turkey from Target instead.
From the show notes
Despite being down one host (best wishes, JVL!) for the week, Sonny and Mike dared to go where no host has gone before: home organization. Also this movie here.
Full transcript
Sonny00:00:00What is happening to me?
Guest00:00:03She's entangled our light-based powers, so we switch places whenever we use them. Strong theory. You can absorb light. I can see it. And Kamala... Who's Kamala? Hi. She can turn light into physical matter, which I have never heard of. I could totally show you. No!
Mike00:00:30Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host Mike Warren. With me, as always, is my co-host Sonny Bunch. Our other co-host JVL, Jonathan V. Last, is out this week, but we will sally forth and soldier on. You can go to subbeacon.com, become a patron, join us over there. Tell your friends. They can come join us. They can... They can get these episodes every Friday morning when they drop. They can also comment, become a part of the Sub-Beacon community. It's all over at subbeacon.com. Sonny, you and I are going to be talking about the Marvels later in this show. But first, how we doing? What's going on with you, my man?
Sonny00:01:22I feel like this is going to be a weird episode. Two men's shows are always weird episodes because you got...
Mike00:01:27I can do another voice. I could do...
Sonny00:01:29I would rather not do a show entirely than have you do a third voice in character. So this will have to do while we wait for JBL to return. However, I feel like it's going to be a weird episode for several reasons. One of them being that I have the most boring, boring topic possible for How Was Your Weekend. I'm very excited to talk about this.
Mike00:02:04Then let's get through it so we can move on past this most boring topic. You've really set the bar low here.
Sonny00:02:09I can just feel the people hitting unsubscribe as they go through this segment. But I have spent the last two or three days rearranging my bookshelves. Oh my gosh. Mike Warren, let me tell you, you're a book owner. You buy books. Yes, I like books. I feel like in the business that we are in, we slowly and steadily accumulate hundreds, if not thousands of so many and other things. I mean, like I also, of course, have a very I have a voluminous Blu ray DVD 4K collection that requires constant, constant maintenance and and whatever. But my books have been a bit of a mess ever since ever since we moved here.
Mike00:02:50A book favela, perhaps it wasn't.
Sonny00:02:52No, it wasn't like that. It wasn't quite that bad. The book Favela was was one of the real highlights of my life. Putting that together. No, but since so we moved here and I remodeled this room that you are seeing right now, this room here with the you see these bookshelves, right? But you can see the people can't see here. I'll take a maybe I'll take a screenshot of this and so that people can see see what's going on back here. But the but so those bookshelves were were built in a in a small remodel. We did we put we changed the master bath and put in sliding glass doors and in this room the what was behind me when we moved in here was a wet bar and I had them pull that and they pull that out and they put in bookshelves. And so the bookshelves have been out there for a while and they've had books in them and the books have been kind of sorta categorized, but in the most haphazard way possible. Just like it was just a lot of stuff thrown together, really. And so I finally this week I finally this week I've got I've got tired of it and I put together. An actual organizing schema and I'm curious, Mike, I want the reason I wanna I wanted to ask this the reason I brought this up and the reason I'm risking losing so many of our loyal subscribers is because I like as a book person, I feel like you, you will empathize with this when you are organizing your books, when you sit down and you're like, how should my books be? So I can find them most easily. That's the thing that matters here, right? That's the, that's correct when you were sitting there thinking, I wanna be able to find my books very easily. How, how, what is your organizing schema? What do you think to yourself? This is how they should be. This will help me find them.
Mike00:04:38So it is going to be, maybe it will be unsatisfying to you.
Sonny00:04:44Okay.
Mike00:04:45But the way I approach it is thematic. So if you hold on, I'm gonna move my microphone so I can keep talking. So I'm looking behind me. I have sort of a haphazard book. Shelf behind me here that has been again, roughly organized. Um, because we've gone through several sort of, what are we gonna do with all of these books? We have all these different shelves. We'd like to get built in shelves eventually, but we just, things have been moving around. For other reasons, furniture reasons, and all this stuff that like books have been on the back burner, uh, with what to do with them with, and they're almost all mine. But I will say I've got like. Uh, a collection of my history books, books that I accumulated during college, uh, on history. Um, and some of them are in, you know, are organized such that like, if I need to find a Russian history book, all the Russian history books are all together. Um, I have all of my music related, uh, books all together, uh, all of my fantasy and adventure, uh, novels all together, uh, my bound copies of the weekly standard magazine. Are all on one shelf, uh, that I have in, uh, uh, behind me that you can't see. So, but, but there's also, there's no sort of, you know, it's not like by author, there's no, like, there's no reason, there's nothing like history is all with all the rest of the nonfiction. It's like throw the fantasy in underneath because it fits there.
Sonny00:06:23Yeah. Yeah. So that, that's why I asked, because that's more or less how I had it before this kind of, it was. So I like my, my, my situation, uh, in my house is I have bookshelves in three different rooms basically. And, uh, in, in this room that we're in right now, all the stuff that's behind me is like movie books. These are like, I've got like five shelves of movie books and they, they were organized more or less with like, uh, subject that like the top shelf was subjects on individual artists. So like my Orson Welles books and Clint Eastwood books. Right. Like that all, like any time a book was about one specific artist, it went in that section. And then below that it was critical collections or like basically collections of criticism or it could be book length criticism or whatever, but like criticism, then it was screenplays and books about screenplays. Uh, and then it was, what was it was, Oh, then like kind of business of Hollywood, but, but, but everything was just kind of like haphazard and jumbled up and, and not, not very, it wasn't very strictly organized. So like this week I, I, I, I like have strictly done it and I've organized, I've organized the top shelf, the, the section on individual artists by artist last name, not author last name artists. So like all the Wells books are in W right. Uh, you know, the, the Eastwood books are in E like it's, it's like that. Then critical collection or then, no, wait, then is, then it's screenplays or no, I'm sorry. Then it's actually books about individual movies, books about it. So like. Like a book about the making of Blade Runner, a book about the eyes wide shut that goes there. Then it's screenplays. Then it's, uh, critics and criticism. And then after that is like business and history and everything's in, uh, the, the criticism, uh, criticism, uh, the history of, and business of film. That's, that's all alpha by author. That's just, that was, that's how I did it that way. So then in the shelf I'm looking at right now that nobody can see, that's all my fiction up there. Uh, and then in my bedroom is where I have moved all of my, how to, how to books written by friends. So everyone, everyone who is a journalist or a writer or an author has a bunch of books that their friends have written that they've definitely read. They've read all of them and they 100% have completed them and could like talk to their friends about what was in their great books.
Mike00:08:58And they even bought them some of the time.
Sonny00:09:01They bought them. They usually have purchased them because that's what you do for a friend is you buy their book. That's, that's like 80% of the political publishing industry at this point is people in DC buying each other's books.
Mike00:09:15Um, so to see if they're mentioned in the index.
Sonny00:09:17Um, yeah, so, so that those have all been moved, uh, to, uh, uh, another, another area. And then in the third area, I, it's basically like nonfiction, but also non-movie. So it's like my ancient history texts and things like that, you know, like modern, like, uh, I don't know, all my, my Malcolm Gladwell books to use a low brow, a medium brow example.
Mike00:09:41You know, all of our, all of our library science majors in our audience are losing their minds over this. I'm sure this makes perfect sense to me.
Sonny00:09:50Right. So this is, so this is my big question, right? Is it like, I, I feel like if you're not organizing your books thematically or by like, why even bother? You might as well just have a big pile and just throw everything in there because like, I don't, I don't understand. I don't understand these people who put everything like alphabetical by author. Like, uh, I don't want, I, there's no reason, there's no reason for my Stephen King books to be next to my, uh, I don't even know who a K would be to be next to my, uh, Pauline kale books. Like that doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make no sense. That makes no sense. Why would, why would that, why would that be?
Mike00:10:31But, but this is not a public library. This is Sonny Bunch's private library. Exactly. It needs to be organized for the, for the clientele who is you.
Sonny00:10:42Exactly. So this, this, so this, this shelving situation has to reflect the insanity in my own brain is like the thing. And like, this is, and I think this is true of virtually everyone. And this is why I'm always fascinated by the troll articles that are like, look at this person who, Who organizes their bookshelves by color, you know, the psychos, psychos, that's psycho shit. But I also like, I also understand it helps me understand that person in a very real way because it means that they're not actually a serious person. They don't actually read, they don't care about, they don't care about reading or books saying that it's purely aesthetic.
Mike00:11:17It's for the gram. It's for the gram.
Sonny00:11:19It's for the, it's for the Instagram. So I like, I find, I find this to be an endlessly fascinating topics to the extent that we just got 10 minutes out of it. So again, I, I apologize to anybody who is not interested in this, but it is, I think it is one of the most important things that anyone can do in their home decorating existence is figure out how they want. And so like my movies are also in a very specific, I've talked about this before, but my movies are in a very specific, like I have, I have a couple of rows that are basically, I would label all tours. So it's like all of my Nolan movies, all of my Spielberg movies, Scorsese's, whatever. And then, uh, a row that's a criterion. It's like all the criterion stuff. Of course, if a auth, if an auteur has a criterion, it goes with the auteurs.
Mike00:12:07Okay.
Sonny00:12:08Not with the criterion.
Mike00:12:09The criterion is the everybody else criteria. Criterion.
Sonny00:12:14Yes. Got it. And then after that, it's just alpha by title, uh, more or less I used to do by genres and that got to be unwieldy. It was too, it was, it was too much of a pain in the ass. So I just went to everything alpha by title.
Mike00:12:28So let me ask you this so that we can ring, we could get another five minutes out of this conversation. Let me ask you, go back in your history, in your mind, let's say 15, 20 years, your CD collection. How did you organize? Let's see. You're not a music guy. So maybe this is.
Sonny00:12:48I'm not, I'm not a music guy. It was always just alpha by, uh, artist. Interesting. Interesting. Just always alpha by artists. There was never a, there was never a, I don't know. I don't like, I didn't, first off, I didn't buy enough different types of music to break it down many other ways. There was not like a, like I couldn't have had, there was, there was no, there would not have been a rap section in my CD spinner. You know, it was like, I, I, I collected a pretty static collection to, to use a DC area metaphor that you may even not understand. You may have moved, you may not have been listening to radio when you, but, but like my, my musical taste ran. Pretty much from the classic rock on 94.7 through the modern rock on DC 101, so like that was, that was like the gamut there is like, if you were like, if you were like a white rock musician between the era of 1960 and 2000 or so, there was probably, you were probably represented somewhere by author. So alphabetically by artists, by artists.
Mike00:13:53So, okay. That's because I feel like my. And I was, I was an am a big music nut. I still have my, my zip up leather, massive CD case, or I think most of the CDs in there are like, you know, have like deteriorated so that you can't listen to them. Although I have listened to a few of them over the years, but they were organized just like the books, which is like in my own way. So like, you know, my new. Uh, kind of, uh, early two thousands, uh, rock alternative indie rock stuff was all together because that's how, you know, it was like, that's how I bought all these CDs at the same time I put them in the order that they came out grouped by band. But it was like, you know, um, the strokes were next to the white stripes because I was listening to them all at the same time, you know? So it's like, and then like, here's and, and, and so, but, but then like, you know, you would turn the page and there was no reason, there was no reason for this, but it was like, uh, and then like all the Led Zeppelin albums, why, why would they be there? Like, I don't know, except that that's just what was next. Um, it had no rhyme or reason to it, but it made sense to me.
Sonny00:15:12All right.
Mike00:15:13And the only person who mattered was me.
Sonny00:15:15Yes. Question on this. When you were organizing an individual artists, yes, CDs, did you go alpha by title or chronological
Mike00:15:26for the individual? Yeah. Oh, chronological. Got it.
Sonny00:15:30Go chronological.
Mike00:15:31You got it.
Sonny00:15:32Alphabetical makes no sense. Alphabetical makes no sense.
Mike00:15:34Who would do that? That is some more psycho shit.
Sonny00:15:36Well, that's what, yeah, but except that is how it is organized in a, in a, like a Sam Goody or whatever. Right. Like that, that would be how you would look at it again.
Mike00:15:45But you're talking about the public, the public is looking for a specific Sam Goody. Wow. That's a, that's a throwback right there.
Sonny00:15:52Uh, by the way, um, member Sam Goody.
Mike00:15:54Oh, I remember I, it was, it was, it was. It was like going into, I guess the only thing you really get these days, that's kind of like that is there is a, uh, in, in our town, there is a, uh, a record store, you know, that I can go to. And it's like, it has that same thrill of being like, of like, you know, going through the, uh.
Sonny00:16:14See, I was never like that. I was, I've never been like that. You're just not a music guy. No, but, but I'm also not like that with movies either. Like I will not go to, I will not go to a, I mean, I do this sometimes if I'm bored or whatever. I would never go to a Best Buy and just like flip through the titles, be like what movies are out or like go or like a sudden coast video. I would never go to sudden coast video and like, just like kind of browser. I was a purposeful shopper. I w I was not a browser. I was like, I want this and I want to go get it. And it was never, I was never one of these, like, you know, uh, you know, uh, I, I, I, I'm like Ben Affleck in mall rats. I liked, I don't, I don't have any respect for these kids who just show up at the mall and wander around. You know, I, I wanna, I want shoppers with a purpose.
Mike00:17:01See, I was, I, I am that way normally, except when it came to things like music and movies and at that point it was just aspirational. I was like, oh wow, if I had some money, I would buy all of these. Um, anyway. All right. Well, look at that. We were, we were in a good 15 minutes out of that conversation. You said it was boring and I'm sure we still have listeners, uh, who are awake at this point. Um, what's going on with me? I don't know. I mean, so we're taping this a week before Thanksgiving and we are at the point where like, I don't know, my Thanksgiving plans get sadder and sadder every year because I, I don't know if this is your experience, Sonny. Now that you live in Texas, um, not close to, you know, immediate family, um, it is getting hard. It's getting harder to convince when we first started having kids, it was very easy to convince people to come visit us, wanted to see the babies and all of this, um, which was great because we didn't have to go places. There were a couple of Christmases and Thanksgivings we traveled early on, but we really have settled into that. Now you come to us, um, especially because there are no cousins, uh, on either side. So it's like, we are the only game in town and that front, um, I feel like. Families are, have gotten wise to this, um, because like it, it, it is getting harder to convince. So like we are expecting nobody to come to our house for Thanksgiving this year. It is. Sounds awesome. It will just be the five of us.
Sonny00:18:45That sounds amazing.
Mike00:18:47Does it though? Yes. Because no, but listen, listen, all right, well hear me out on, on this because one thing that's nice about holidays. When other people are visiting, when you have the kids is that there's a, there is a chance and it happens every, every so often during the string of visitors where like you don't have to be like paying attention to what the kids are doing or like parenting fully. There are enough other adults in the house where the parenting kind of, you're still the primary parent. No, no question. But like it gets kind of dispersed through the other adults. You know, you can send the big kids out with their uncle into the yard to just like run around and you don't have to worry about that for a while. What is going to be the difference next Thursday as we tape this on Thanksgiving? Between any other day, any other weekend day when we have nothing to do and the kids and we just have to what make dinner like that's all it is. And so there's none of the joy of a holiday happens when it's just it's just the same people that you're with every single day.
Sonny00:20:11I take your point, but I do think the trade off of like free half assed child care is not worth the having to put people up in your home for multiple days and like one like I just I don't like I don't like people. And as much as I'm as much as I love my family, I don't like having them like in the house because it's because it's it's just like it's just a lot. It's just like I don't like I don't like going to people's house. I like frankly, if I never had to see anybody ever, it would be wonderful. I would be I would be the half that would be my happiest life. I could just stay.
Mike00:20:49You would be you would have you have a lot to be thankful for if that were the case.
Sonny00:20:53Yeah, no, I take your point that like it's less special. Because there aren't people there. And like we we have a weird we have a weird thing where our our daughter does the Nutcracker in like which is in like the the early part of December. So like people don't come to our house for Thanksgiving or Christmas. They come for that like week when she's there and they watch the Nutcracker. And so it's a whole it's this is the second year we're doing it now. It's a whole thing. So like I we have just kind of shifted our holiday time. So I. I still get enough family time.
Mike00:21:29Sure. Sure. Again, it's but it's not about the family. I mean, it's not about the family. It's about me. Sonny is what I'm trying to say. Like, I need I need people here so that I can go be by myself.
Sonny00:21:43I got you just put it in front of the TV. You're just like, that's a good Thanksgiving. You can watch whatever you want for. Watch the parade. You can watch the parade. Watch the doggy ball.
Mike00:21:54The puppy ball. Watch football. Yeah, yes. No, you're right.
Sonny00:21:57You got it. You got to do that because I'm busy. I have to cook. I've got a it's very intensive and labor intensive. I'm, you know, but see, do you do the cooking or just Melissa?
Mike00:22:06We do it together. We share it. So here's the thing, though. We are discussing. Do we really want to do any turkey? Like, we're at that point where.
Sonny00:22:17Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is much more troubling than anything else you've said. It is because that's I'm sorry. American.
Mike00:22:27OK, but hear me out on this.
Sonny00:22:28I won't.
Mike00:22:29Two people in this house will eat the turkey. What are we supposed to do with all that other turkey?
Sonny00:22:38Go to go to Target and get one of the small turkey.
Mike00:22:40Turkey. What? The breast like the turkey.
Sonny00:22:42No, the bag. No, just get that. No, God, just get one of the. They have like they have like turkey in a bag. OK, and you just throw it in and it basically cooks itself. They tend to be a little bit smaller, which is good for your purposes. But then you have. You have lots of leftovers. I don't understand your. I don't understand the issue here. Frankly, you are. You're not. You're not making any sense to me. It's all you have too much. You have too much turkey leftover at the end.
Mike00:23:06We have turkey. We we discovered an embarrassingly not that long time ago. Some leftover turkey in the freezer from last Thanksgiving.
Sonny00:23:16Well, you don't do that. You can't. You don't want to freeze. We do turkey.
Mike00:23:20I know, but you can. And we have done it. And but then you forget about it. And then it's and then.
Sonny00:23:26See, I just. I just I just gorge on turkey for like a week, like and then once it's gone out of the fridge, it's gone. OK, I there there is one there is one thing that I have kind of wanted to try. And I but the but there's a there's this great barbecue place not too far from here that has like they have like smoked turkey breasts.
Mike00:23:46Sure.
Sonny00:23:46Like big smoked turkey breasts. And then they're frozen. But like it's not the same thing as like getting a proper turkey.
Mike00:23:52And, you know, are you do you make the turkey or does Beth do it?
Sonny00:23:56No, we just again, it's like in the bag. You take it out. No, no, no.
Mike00:23:59But I'm saying I'm saying normally you just I don't cook it.
Sonny00:24:03No, I don't.
Mike00:24:03You don't cook it. OK, I don't I don't do it. It's a lot.
Sonny00:24:05No, I don't. I don't really do. I don't really do much cooking. What? See, again, this is the this is the the nice thing about the bag of turkey is that like the way it works is you basically just you like cut slits in the bag or something. You throw it in. You don't have to like you don't eat out or anything.
Mike00:24:20Ah, I see. OK, it's really it's really pretty handy.
Sonny00:24:23Go go to Target and look for look for. Like this is I mean, look, it's not it's not the best turkey you're ever going to have. I'm not going to I don't want to oversell it, but it is the easiest turkey you'll ever make. And like the the the question of like difficulty to taste ratio, it's right in the sweet spot for me. Not hard. Tastes fine.
Mike00:24:43I guess what I'm getting at, Sonny, is and this will shock you. I actually like the preparation and cooking of the Thanksgiving meal like I enjoy. All of you know, I enjoy eating it, but I enjoy like like getting everything ready. You know, hey, we're going to have you know, I'm going to make a cocktail for everybody. Let's you know, once the turkey's in, you know, hey, who's who's going to make the the green bean casserole, et cetera, et cetera. There's something I enjoy about that aspect of the holiday that I feel, you know, it won't happen this year and it would feel pointless. Trying to recreate it because there are no other grownups and it's just it's so it's
Sonny00:25:32just it's just do you know any? All right. So let me ask, do you know any sad single people who have nothing else to do or do or or like young interns who can't fly home or something? Are there any? It's a good idea. Are there any random stragglers you can force by dint of your personality or professional position to come to your home?
Mike00:25:55You know, it. It does remind me that when we had our first au pair, she was from Brazil and she lived in our basement and she had friends who were also au pairs from Brazil, including her twin sister, who was a au pair nearby, and they all came to our Thanksgiving. And it was a similar thing. We just had the two kids and it was the three these three girls and then our family. And like it was a weird. It was a weird experience just because like it's like it's a different. It was a weird experience to have to have three Brazilian 20 somethings in our house.
Sonny00:26:38So you had these three Brazilian women come over. It was a weird experience. Yada, yada, yada. Very tired the next morning.
Mike00:26:46No, don't yada, yada Thanksgiving.
Sonny00:26:48I yada, yada the best part.
Mike00:26:52No, I mentioned the turkey. So. But it's a it is a totally different vibe. Like I do not we we've never done like a Friendsgiving type of thing. But like it is a totally different vibe when it's not like when it's not family, you know, and like like all of the sort of beats over the years that you, you know, everybody knows so and so makes this, you know, my mom makes her seven layer salad every Thanksgiving. You know, it's like that's one thing. And then when you sort of bring in when you. Bring in interlopers into the into the mix, it's just a different vibe. Again, maybe I just need to get I will embrace it. It's just a different kind of Thanksgiving. And I don't like change, Sonny.
Sonny00:27:38I feel you. I feel you there. I mean, look, I again, my my my priorities with Thanksgiving are like I want to eat until I'm sick.
Mike00:27:47Sure.
Sonny00:27:48And I want to watch football. And that's that's and I feel like I can do both of those things without having other family members.
Mike00:27:55There that's a fair. Well, you know what? Fine. You know what? I will give it a shot. I will give it. You try your best. Thank you. I will try your hardest and I will report back if I succeeded or not. OK, well, look at that. We just the two of us. We rung so much dudes chatting just out of out of the just the two of us.
Sonny00:28:17I can hear that. I can hear the unsubscribed.
Mike00:28:20Well, let's let's go quickly here before we talk about the marvels. Let's talk about the box office. Number one this past weekend is the movie we're talking about today. The marvels, the latest marvel cinematic universe offering forty six million dollars and change it made in its first week, making it number one at the box office, pushing down five nights at Freddy's, which is already like a totally total total grossier clocking in at like one hundred and twenty seven. Billion dollars, not that far behind, actually, in the total gross from the number three movie this past weekend, Taylor Swift, the era's door. That is shocking to me. And then, of course, Priscilla and Killers of the Flower Moon coming in at four and five. It's kind of a kind of a quiet moment still at the box office. But the marvels making forty six million dollars feels I don't know, Sonny, not not great.
Sonny00:29:25The worst opening for a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie ever. I mean, literally, it's literally the worst opening. It's the lowest. And that's not even like adjusting for inflation. That's just like in pure dollars, like the dollar number. It's worse than the Incredible Hulk, which was the up until this point, I believe, was was the worst. I mean, look, I it's it's a disaster. There's no there's no way to sugarcoat this. It is a disastrous, disastrous opening. And Marvel's been in a weird place where they've been kind of teetering for a while between respectability and disaster. You know, Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania did not do well. Right. But some of the but like Guardians of the Galaxy three did fine. I think it was only like 10 or 12 million dollars off of Guardians of the Galaxy volume to Thor. Love and Thunder, like gross, basically as much as Thor Ragnarok, Doctor Strange to do. Did much better than the first Doctor Strange. But like each of those movies, you could make a different argument for why they why they did what they did. I mean, Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania did very much within the realm of the rest of the Ant-Man movies. That was like like an Ant-Man movie has a certain gross. And this one hit that again. You can make the same argument with Thor or, you know, Doctor Strange to did extremely well because it was basically a sequel to Spider-Man No Way Home, which grossed almost two billion dollars. Like you could like there. There are ways. But then you look at then you look at a lot of the other stuff that's happening with Marvel right now. And like there there have been red flashing warning signs like Black Panther to gross 30. No, I think it grossed 45 percent, something like that, lower than the first one. And like, again, you look at that, you say, well, Chadwick Boseman died. What do you expect? It's a sequel. It's going to it's going to do a little worse. Shang-Chi did fine. Shang-Chi did fine, but it did not it did not blow the doors off. The Black Widow did fine, but it was, you know, that that also came out with the Disney plus premiere access thing. So like people could watch it at home and in theaters at the same time. Like there's there's like there's a lot there's been a lot of different ways you can slice and dice the numbers and say either Marvel's doing fine or Marvel's like not. It's not as good as it used to be in terms of box office, but like, yeah, maybe it turns it around. This movie is the first one that's a straight up disaster. There's no spinning it. There's no like you cannot there's nothing that you can look at with this. Movie and say like this, probably, you know, this will be fine. This is OK for Marvel. It's not it's it's it's a disaster. It's going to it will be I don't know if it will be the first Marvel movie to lose money, but it there's no there's no universe in which this movie makes money. I like the budget was two hundred seventy five million dollars, something like that. And it's going to look, I'll just my. My favorite stat, and it's not really a stat because it's not true yet, but I think. It'll probably end up being true, is that this movie, the Marvels will end up grossing less in its domestic run than Captain Marvel grossed in its opening weekend's domestic run. So, like, you know, the first one, the first one opened one hundred fifty three million dollars or something like that. If this movie gets to one hundred and ten million, they're lucky. I think I'll put it this way. I mean, look, the the standard multiple on a. Cinema score superhero movie is somewhere between two and two point three. And if this movie if this movie grosses, if this movie does better than that, if it does a two point five multiple, let's say that's, I think, one hundred and twenty million dollars. So, I mean, I would put the ceiling, the domestic ceiling on this movie at one hundred twenty million dollars, which is way below what it again, literally the opening weekend of the last one. This movie. So this movie, it's going to lose money. It's a bad. It's not a good movie. We'll talk about that in a minute. And maybe this is a wake up sign for Disney and Marvel Studios. But I frankly don't know what they do to turn everything around here because it is what they are doing right now is not working. And I don't think they they necessarily have a backup plan.
Mike00:33:44So let's back up for a second here, because you just described a bunch of conditions that make how bad this movie is doing. Make no sense if you don't know anything about the quality of the movie itself. So it's a sequel to a movie, Captain Marvel, that did really well or pretty well. Did really well.
Sonny00:34:11I did shockingly well. Captain Marvel came out. So Captain Marvel came out at the height of the comic book juggernaut. You know, in 2019, Captain Marvel and Aquaman come out. And both of those movies gross. I mean, I think I think. And I can't remember if Aquaman came out before or after that. I think it came out. Hold on. I'll look that up real quick. But both of those movies come out in 2019. And I'm sorry. Aquaman came out the winter of 2018. So Aquaman comes out in the like basically the Christmas season of 2018. And that movie grosses one point one billion dollars. Aquaman Aquaman grossed one point one billion dollars worldwide. Captain Marvel comes out a few months later. Again, grosses one point one billion dollars worldwide. Just enormous sums, staggering sums of money for these third string Marvel and DC heroes. Like these are not this is this is like this is like Batman, Superman and Captain America. Aquaman remains the highest grossing DC movie. It needs to be pointed out the insanity of this moment where where again, like comic book movies could do no wrong. And and go ahead. And all right. So so now we're in a different era. We're in a different era. And I would argue I would argue you said here's what you said, Mike. You said this is a sequel to an extremely successful movie. That's what that's what you said. Yes. Fair paraphrase. Yes, it is. It is not. OK, it is not a sequel to an extremely successful movie. What it is is a sequel to an extremely successful movie, a middling TV show and an unsuccessful TV show. OK, you it's not just that you have to. You have to know what has happened in all other 32 installments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You also have to be familiar with WandaVision, which is pretty good. I liked it. It was relatively successful. You know, a lot of people watched it. The I think Disney Disney was pretty happy with the numbers there. And it was also a sequel to and I'm sorry, in WandaVision. That's where we we find Monica Rambeau, a.k.a. Captain Rambeau in this movie. Right. The she is the she's the African-American. Marvel hero with whose powers I could not explain to you if you ask me. All right. And then you have and then you have Miss Marvel, which is the show that did not do very well. It had it had pretty, pretty bad numbers, by all accounts, for Disney Plus did not blow the socks off anyone. Nobody really seemed to be that into it. And, you know, that's where we find Miss Marvel, whose powers she can turn light into solid matter. Um, which whatever, like, OK, fine. And and if you like, I, I didn't watch Miss Marvel. And I will say that this movie does a fairly good job of pretty quickly introducing who she is and her family dynamic. And that's fine. I did watch WandaVision. I watched the whole thing. And like the whole Monica Rambeau character is I don't understand. I find her baffling. I find her baffling.
Mike00:37:21Like, again, just in frankly, just.
Sonny00:37:25Just on a very basic power power set level. I don't understand what her powers are. And the movie doesn't understand what her powers are. She's doing different things through the whole through the whole fucking picture. And it's really frustrating.
Mike00:37:39So let's let's we'll talk about the substance of the movie in a second. But I want to just go back. OK, I take your point. This is also a sequel. But if you are a not if you are not paying attention to the TV shows and you're just looking at it as a moviegoer, it is a. Yes, it is a sequel to this. This very successful movie. It also has the name of the brand in the name of the movie, the the Marvels. It we used to talk about how the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that the brand of seeing those letters was what was selling it just as much as the the the star. You know, so.
Sonny00:38:20So, yeah, my point, but I think but I think it's a mistake to call it the Marvels, right? Like. What are the like? The Marvels are not a thing. It's not like the Avengers. It's not like it's it's if you were if you're if you're just a casual, I like to go see the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and I see a movie that's called the Marvels. I'm like, what? I don't. I mean, I guess like you see the poster and you see Captain Marvel on it and these other two and you're like, OK, I guess that makes some sense.
Mike00:38:48But well, it just seems to me that it has to be the the movie itself. The word of mouth, the way that the trailers and the promotion has got like the movie itself has to be really bad for it to all, you know, come to this point where it's.
Sonny00:39:10No, but I that's not right. I don't think that's true at all. Opening weekend has almost no correlation to the quality of a movie like that is. This is a thing. This is a thing I've long believed and will continue to believe. Quality of movie, good or bad reviews. These things have very little to do with how a blockbuster opens. I mean, I'm just talking opening weekend. I'm just talking opening weekend because what people are responding to on opening weekend is marketing and excitement level for the thing. Like I this is and this is why Marvel has to be shitting their pants. Right. Because because like it's it is very, very clear that where the the excitement level. For this franchise right now is in the absolute toilet. I mean, like again, 47 like Eternals opened to 70 million something, you know, like who knew what Eternals was. Nobody knew what nobody knew what Eternals was. And Eternals like not a good movie didn't didn't hold very well. I didn't I didn't care for it. But like, you know, like I'm sorry if if you're looking at this movie that again, it technically is a sequel to Captain Marvel, which grossed one point one billion dollars, which opened to one hundred fifty three million dollars. Like you're looking at this. Forty seven million dollar opening. You're saying things are broken. Yeah. How do we fix it? How do we fix it?
Mike00:40:31Well, why don't we dive into it then? Because I think I think, too, I think, yes, we're having you're right. We're having two separate conversations here. There's the question of what is going on with with the Marvel business model, which is in the shitter. And then there's what's going on creatively with Marvel, obviously related. What like give us first. OK, let's just give us the big boy review of Marvel's because this movie will give it because this movie is so creatively a fucking mess that I don't go ahead.
Sonny00:41:08Well, so. All right. So the Marvel's directed by Nia DaCosta starring Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, Tiana Paris as Captain Rambo and the girl as Miss Marvel. Iman Villani, I think, is her name. All right. So the problem with this movie on a structural and storytelling level is that it is very much like Iron Man two or Thor two in that it is trying to pull together lots of disparate pieces of the Marvel Universe and stick them in one central place to give those things a place to go. This was this was the problem with again, Iron Man two had this problem where they were introducing Scarlet Witch and there was all sorts of like I'm not I'm sorry, not Scarlet Witch Black Widow and there was all sorts of other. Like Marvel Universe stuff that they were trying to do and Thor two, the Dark World had the same problem where they were trying to get one of the Infinity Stones and there was like lots of and like an Avengers Ultron Avengers Avengers, the Avengers Ultron age of whatever age of Ultron. Thank you. I could not remember the age of Ultron had had a similar problem where they were trying to do a lot of different things. They were trying to move the universe in different directions. And as a result, the whole narrative didn't quite go here. So like you get these specific. Specifically in second sequels to a lot of these movies, frankly, Black Panther two is the same way. Black Panther two introduces name more, but it also introduces like the Iron Girl, the Riri Williams or whatever, who's going to be the new like Lady Lady Iron Man, Black Lady Iron Man.
Mike00:42:44This is the second movies are rebuilding movies.
Sonny00:42:46The second. Well, the second movies are like with the pieces with the rare exception of Captain America with the Winter Soldier. Which was pretty self-contained, but even that one still like it, but they moved the universe in interesting and effective ways that worked within the storytelling itself. That's like the one real exception to this. I guess Guardians two as well, but Guardians has always been its own little separate thing. Anyway, I'm sorry, I'm getting off the structurally. This movie has a problem that it doesn't actually care about anything that happens within this movie. And it really you can see you sense that in the villain who is this Kree warrior. However, unless you are a historian of Avengers comic books, you have no idea what the Kree are. You don't need to stop trying to make the Kree happen. Skrulls interesting because Skrulls are shape-shifting and devious. Kree, they're just aliens. Nobody gives a shit. They're boring. Kree, boring. Skrulls interesting.
Mike00:43:45Question. Are the Kree the aliens that look like us?
Sonny00:43:48Yes. Yes. The Kree are like essentially humanoid, but then some of them are blue.
Mike00:43:53Yeah.
Sonny00:43:54Like have weird makeup. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Kree suck. Stop bringing the Kree into the universe. Nobody likes them. This Kree warrior wants needs. This Kree warrior is angry at Captain Marvel because Captain Marvel destroyed the Supreme Intelligence in the previous movie. And their her home planet was tipped into civil war. And as a result of the civil war, the the air is polluted. The oceans have burned off. And for some reason, their son has died out because of the civil war. Couldn't explain it. Doesn't matter. So to restart her planet, she is opening up temporary portals on a series of other planets and genociding them by stealing their air and their water. And then Earth's sun. Earth's sun is the last one. We're building to her stealing Earth's sun. And the whole problem with this movie can be summarized, I think, most plainly when we think about the second of these planets, which, Mike, I don't know if you made it to this part of the movie still awake. But the singing and dancing planet, the planet where song is the language. And it's like they're in a Bollywood movie. And it's like I wanted to jump into a lake of fire during that whole sequence because it was so bad. But the the the in the second planet, the planet is ninety nine point six percent water. And the the the marvels go there. And we find out that Captain Marvel Brie Larson is married to the prince of this. This planet, she is she is essentially royalty on this planet. She's, I guess, not quite a co-ruler, but like she's royalty on this planet. She's a consort. And the Cree, the Cree come to the planet and they're like, we're going to steal all your ocean water. We're going to wipe out. We're going to wipe out all your ocean water and we're going to take it. And the marvels start fighting the Cree. And they're like, we're going to stop you from stealing all the water. And then they bug out of the planet because they don't want the Cree lady to get one of the bracelets. Again, none of this matters. And they just they leave and they never mention it again. Apparently, they do mention somebody, one character, one random character mentions at the end, like, oh, that planet was fine. But like, as far as we know, that planet that she, again, is literal royalty of. Is genocided out of the universe, like like I and we it's just it just doesn't come up anymore. It's just like, well, that's done. And like, there are no stakes. Nothing in this movie matters. The the villain is boring and uninteresting. The resolution of the Kree homeworld stuff is so perfunctory and like tossed off like Captain Marvel just goes and restarts the sun. Sure, sure, sure. Why not? And again, this gets me to this gets me to my little nitpick problem, which is that the power sets of all of these characters are total nonsense. Miss Marvel actually makes the most sense of all of them. She can turn light into physical matter. OK, that's dumb, but like I get it. OK, like she makes little platforms and stands on them. OK, fine. All right, sure. Captain Marvel has always been weirdly over and underpowered. She like shows up and she's like she's basically the way I described her in my original review of the first is like a knockoff Goku. We're going to come back to Dragon Ball Z here. Like she's like floating and glowing and she can fly and she's got she shoots laser beams out. Her hands. She can go toe to toe with Thanos. She's throwing punches with Thanos and, you know, taking haymakers and like fly. She's flying through ships and just smashing through them like their tissue paper. And then she comes up against one individual person and like can't beat them. Right. And it's like, stop with this. Just stop it. And then Captain Rambo, Captain Rambo, I swear to God, she like at the start of the movie, she's shooting lasers out of her hands to like as a soldering iron or something. And then. And then moments later, she's flying because she can fly now.
Mike00:47:55She never could fly.
Sonny00:47:57She never could fly. She's now she's translucent. When she turns translucent, she can fly. She can pass through things when she's translucent. Then later she absorbs everybody's light powers and she just like takes them into herself.
Mike00:48:11And then I think I was asleep with that.
Sonny00:48:13What was that? Well, anyway, like I have no idea what I have no idea what her her power set is. None of it makes any sense. It's just like magic light shit. That she can do at any given time to serve the plot. That's her power. Her power is magic plot light shit. So anyway, like again, it's it's a little thing and it's nitpicky, but it it destroys the entire it's it's bad storytelling. It's just bad storytelling is what it comes down to. Anyway, I like the thing is, I I didn't hate this movie until we got to the singing and dancing planet, because I actually think Larson Larson is better in this movie than the first. I thought she was much more likable. She she smiled more, which is great. And she she you know, she's having fun and like she's a little bit looser. She's less she's less dour than she was in the first. Tano Paris is fine. And I like to Bon Villani as the as like the star struck, like, oh, my God, it's like I thought that was cute.
Mike00:49:07I thought she was great.
Sonny00:49:08She was very so all that all that stuff is all that stuff is fine. But it's like everything else around it that is just garbage, garbage on top of garbage. And I like I I don't know what is happening at Marvel with her qualities. Control. But this is a movie that is, you know, you would go to a Marvel movie and expect a certain level of competence. Yes. For a long time, even like even in this post Avengers run, Black Widow competent, Shang-Chi competent. Like, you know, I liked Doctor Strange two more than most, I think, because it had it had some Sam Raimi touches to it. But like at the very least, it's competent, competent storytelling. And and this movie is just it's a big pile of nonsense from start to finish. Like, like, why was Nick Fury? Why is Nick Fury on a space station? Who was the 300 year old man talking about his retirement accounts? Like, I don't know what I like.
Mike00:50:02So I thought I thought it was a I thought he was a Kree, but he's not a Kree. He's just some old. I don't think so.
Sonny00:50:09Space man. He may be. He may be from from Ragnar. He may be from Thor's world. Valhalla, maybe. I don't know. Or wherever Thor comes mid mid.
?00:50:22Or.
Mike00:50:22Midgard. Asgard. Asgard. Thank you. Midgard is Earth, of course.
Sonny00:50:25Midgard is Midgard is Earth. Asgard is like, I think he's Asgardian. I think. I don't know. I don't know. That's the only that's literally just me guessing. Like, who is a 300 year old in the Marvel Universe most likely to be probably an Asgardian? You hit on. Maybe he's been in the maybe he's been in. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't mean to keep interrupting you, but maybe he's been in other things. And I just don't remember him because there's been so much of it. I don't know. There's too much. There's too much.
Mike00:50:52You hit on the on the problem, which is the movie doesn't care about any of these things. So why should we care? And from everything from the very. So the one thing I knew about this movie going into it was that was from the trailer, which was that the the Marvel ladies switch places.
Sonny00:51:13Switch. One, two, three, switch.
Mike00:51:16Did did did they ever? I OK. I know they explained. Why they switched, but I have no idea why they switched places.
Sonny00:51:26No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This gets to an again. This is this is adjacent to the power set problem, which is that like they have this thing where when they use their powers, they switch, except they don't switch every time they use their powers. They only switch some of the times when they need to do it for the movie. Right. It's dumb. It's dumb and lazy and it doesn't it doesn't work on a storytelling level because there are no rules you need. If you're going to use magic, you need rules. You need rules. And and this isn't nom. This isn't nom, Smokey. There are rules, except in this movie, there are no rules. So it basically is not. So this movie is our personal Vietnam.
Mike00:52:05Exactly. Exactly. Let's let's clip that for when we're running for office 20, 30 years down the road. So but like this is the other problem, which is like I I. I feel like you can see the corporate work being done on you as you're watching this movie. Like the great thing about the Marvel movies has been that, like, yeah, you know that it's like a part of this big kind of effort to get you to buy more of their movie tickets in the future and do and buy your Disney Plus account and buy the toys for the kids and the costumes and all that stuff. But like you were having fun. While you were doing it. So it didn't bother you that much. And this, like, I'm sitting there and I feel like, first of all, this must be how, like, how my dad felt watching some of the early Marvel movies. Like, what is all this? I don't understand what any of this is. What happened to Spider-Man and the Avengers? Like, who is all this? Like, that's how I felt because I haven't watched any of these TV shows. I did watch WandaVision. I enjoyed WandaVision. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's the that that's that woman from WandaVision who gets the powers at the end of WandaVision is is in this movie. But like everything else you have to have seen. And then there's a there's a post-credits sequence where Haley Steinfeld shows up and apparently she's in a she's in a show on Marvel.
Sonny00:53:42She's in Hawkeye. Have you have you haven't watched Hawkeye? You haven't watched the six episode miniseries Hawkeye? No, but like I'm supposed to. I don't see how you can blame Marvel for you not knowing who Haley Steinfeld is.
Mike00:53:55So it's both. There's more work that I have to do. There's work I have to do to be entertained. And all of a sudden, the seams on the on the on the on the con, let's just call it that on the con. That is like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Like they're they're very obvious. It's like they shoehorn in these characters from other properties. Right. They shoehorn. They shoehorn in the the the woman from some of these recent Thor movies. What's her name? Valkyrie. Valkyrie. Yeah. She shows up for like two seconds. So you can be like, ah, ah, I remember her. I wonder if they're going to make any more movies with Valkyrie in it. I can't wait. Like you just you can feel that working. And it's it's all it's all of that. It's all advertisement. And it's zero fun. And I told you this. I texted you this afterward. I fell asleep in the final battle. I fell asleep. Yeah, I did not care about I didn't know what was going on. And you know what? I woke up and I didn't miss anything. I didn't miss anything.
Sonny00:55:04So the Valkyrie thing is actually interesting because that is the sort of thing that Marvel has always done and and done pretty well. They have always been they have always been pretty good at shoehorning these things. And and but like doing it in a fairly organic way. And this is like the sort of thing where, like, they need they need a place to send these Skrull refugees. This is what's happening in the movies. The Skrull, the Skrulls are living on this planet. Kree warrior lady shows up, steals all their oxygen. So they got to go to their their now refugees again. They got to go somewhere else. And so the solution here is they call up Valkyrie, who is the mayor of, you know, Asgard 2.0, as we learn in Thor. So that's under right. So this is from Thor, Love and Thunder. And like it's like, OK, they're going to send the Skrulls to New Asgard because that is another refugee settlement colony, et cetera. OK, that makes sense. Except except there is already a Skrull refugee thing going on in the TV show Secret Invasion, which I assume you didn't watch because nobody watched it. I don't complete garbage.
Mike00:56:16I don't even know.
Sonny00:56:16So like so so there was a whole TV show, literally an entire TV show. About the Skrull refugee problem in a in the United or in in in the world on Earth. Skrulls have come to Earth and they want to destabilize the world governments to cause wars so the Skrulls can take over. Basically, there's like a whole there was a whole TV show about it starring Nick Fury. Multiple episodes, many episodes.
Mike00:56:42I believe you. I just don't know it.
Sonny00:56:44Why wouldn't you send the Skrulls there? No, you can't send the Skrulls there because nobody watched that fucking show. So nobody has any idea. What you would be doing if you sent them to live with the queen from Game of Thrones, Amelia Clark, who is the head of the Skrulls, I guess now like nobody would understand what was happening. So instead, you have Valkyrie who like people will probably more people will probably recognize, but makes less sense within the universe. And that's that's the real Valkyrie problem here. It's not that Valkyrie shows up. It's that Valkyrie is actually the character who is not the character who it makes the most sense for to show up. But the character who would make the most sense. You can't. You can't have them there because it would just mess everything else. Like, I guess there's too much. This is this is and this gets to your point, right? That it's not just it used to be. Look, the way I avoid the way the way I and many others have always described Marvel, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is it's basically a TV show, except you only get two or three episodes a year and they all feel like season finales. So, like, there's a lot there. There isn't too much to watch. And the dramatic stakes are always very high because it's a single movie. And like and when the series is clear. Clicking, it's it's moving on and you've got things that are interconnected and you've got teases to the next one. But there's still like within each movie, there's a dramatic arc. There's drama at the at the top. There's big action, whatever. And you move on to the next thing. And now, instead of that, instead of having a TV show where every two or two or three times a year you have like a two hour episode to watch, it's a TV show with two or three two hour episodes to watch, plus another 20 hours of actual television. Every year, too much until you're dead. And like that is just there. There's just people can't keep up with that. People cannot. It feels like homework. It's homework.
Mike00:58:31It is homework.
Sonny00:58:31I don't want to do homework.
Mike00:58:34Yeah. Hated this movie. Didn't care about it. I agree with you. I really liked Iman Valani. I thought she was very winning. I thought she she's funny and she sort of has a natural. Uh, uh, comic timing that I thought was really good. I just, uh, I found the. Okay. In the end credits, you know, Marvel always does these sort of like very kind of artistic end credits where they have the sort of still images. They sort of look stylized artistic images of the main cast with their names, sort of what you might see in an opening credit. They put it at the end credit and like, I feel like this family that she has are barely in the movie. Maybe I fell asleep with their, in their big moments, but like, they're like side characters and they got their own, like, like the, the, the, the, the actress who played the mom, the actress who played the dad. Fine. Like they have like some good lines, funny lines. Then they have like a still with the actor's name and a big, you know, artistically rendered version of the brother. Who had like two lines in the mood, like, yeah, like it just felt like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here in terms of like creating a movie with characters that you like follow and want to know more about. And like, like the brother, the brother who cares about the brother. Anyway, just like it was these like little things that the movie that I was like, this is, this is garbage and it, it, everybody clearly knows it's garbage. So like, what are we doing? Here that's, that's my thought. That's, that's what I have to say about this movie. I did think Brie Larson was much, much more likable and, and, and much better in this movie.
Sonny01:00:32She's so much, she's so much more winning in this movie. I like in the first one, she was just, she was real annoying, dour, just dour. And like, and like, oh, you know, apparently we're sexist for saying this. She wasn't dour. She was stoic. No, she wasn't. She was a man. She was a man. Mike, she'd be called star, but no, she was just, she was just unlikable. And dour. She's much more, she is much more likable in this one. I liked, I, I like Brie Larson more in this movie than in basically anything I've seen her in, in the last five or six years. Yes. Like I, like I, she was, she was real annoying in Kong Skull Island. She was, I didn't like her in Free Fire, that movie. I just, I have not, I've not cared for her really in almost anything I've seen her in since, I don't know, short term 12, but she's very good in this.
Mike01:01:17So what is the next movie coming out of this? Uh, thing. So we're going to, so we, should we talk about before we leave here, the stinger, or should we spare those listeners who want to actually go see this movie because they're right.
Sonny01:01:32This is going to be, uh, should we say, I will, I mean, I, I don't, uh, I feel like if you're listening at this point, you probably know that there are spoilers coming, but we'll give you some time here. If you got to run to your iPod nano, turn it off.
Mike01:01:50Press that screen on your, on, on, on your, uh, console on your car.
Sonny01:01:56Yeah. Turn your, turn your car off. Just turn it off all the way. Pull over to the side of the road, figure out how to turn off. Uh, yeah. So the, so the, the mid it's a mid credits, not end credits, mid credits, uh, sequence in which, uh, so Monica Rambo, captain Rambo at the end of the film disappears behind.
Mike01:02:16I definitely missed that part by the way.
Sonny01:02:17She's in a, she's in another universe and she wakes up. And she sees her mom, but it's not her mom, but she's wearing like a, a uniform and nobody what's going on here. And then she looks up and she sees Kelsey grammar beast. She's in the X-Men universe. And this is how they're going to pull the X-Men. Here's what's, here's, what's really telling about how little anyone cares about this movie. I haven't seen anybody say fucking shit about that on Twitter. I like it. It's wild. I like, nobody is talking even to goof on it, which is, uh, like it's totally goofable,
Mike01:02:50by the way.
Sonny01:02:51Yeah. I mean, I like, I mean, I always were, I like, I actually really like Kelsey grammars, but I always thought he was like perfectly cast.
Mike01:02:58He was great. He was great. Those movies, but it's also hilarious because who's expecting Kelsey grammar as beast in 2023, nobody, but then again, they revived Frazier. So what do I know? You know, this is, we're in a great, we're in a grammar sense.
Sonny01:03:11That's you know, so look, here's, so I, you know, uh, I get the very real sense judging by the fact that, uh, Daniel Dessen Cretton is no longer. No longer directing the, uh, Avengers Kang wars or whatever, uh, that that's that. So like, I think, I think Marvel's pulling the plug on Kang here as quick as they can.
Mike01:03:32Um, because Jonathan majors is, uh, cause Jonathan majors.
Sonny01:03:35Yeah. Jonathan majors did some crimes, but also like the storyline just isn't working. Nobody cares about it. Like, I think it's fair to say nobody cares about Kang. Uh, and we'll see, we'll see what happens, but I get the sense that they are going to shift away from that. Um, and they, they're like. Marvel has to be kind of counting on now. And this is the worst sentence Marvel could ever possibly have to utter. This is the worst thing Kevin Feige could ever have to say to himself. I'm counting on the fantastic four. And, and the X-Men to save us. Cause like, if you're, if you're ever, if you're ever running Marvel and you're like, I really need the fantastic four to pull my fat out of the fire. You are fucked because nobody cares about the fantastic four. They've been around. The longest of all the silver age, Marvel heroes, everyone, you know, they tried to change the game and they keep trying to make a fantastic four movie and they don't work because nobody cares about fantastic four. Nobody cares about the fantastic four. I'm sorry. They just not an interesting, it's, it is. It's a very interesting comic book does not really translate as a movie at least hasn't so far. Maybe they'll get, maybe they'll get it right this time.
Mike01:04:44Well, in three years, the sub beacon will be covering the fantastic four movie and how it fits into the. Night phase of the Marvel cinematic universe. But until then, or actually until next week, uh, that's all the time we're going to give to this episode. Uh, thanks for listening. Go to sub beacon.com. Tell your friends and we'll talk to you next time. I agree with you, Sonny. I love Kelsey Gramer as, as Hank. Uh, as the beast, like it, it's perfect and it's great. It just, it was like, it was so hammy cameo. Like it was, it was overloaded. And what, what happened in my theater was everybody gasped. Everybody gasped when they saw.
Sonny01:05:38Was it an excited gasp or was it a grown gas?
Mike01:05:42Oh, it was, it was an excited gasp. It was weird.
Sonny01:05:45It was, it was like, it was like, exactly.
Mike01:05:48It was. It took everybody by surprise and I was just cracking up.
Sonny01:05:54And look, and look, good, good. And see, this is like the one classic MCU thing from this movie that I think like they actually pulled off pretty well. Was that surprise moment? Cause I had actually, it's funny. I had heard somebody, I had read somebody on Twitter like a week before the movie had come out saying like the post-credits stinger is Kelsey Grammer showing up as beast. And I was like, that's a funny joke. That's a funny joke that somebody would tell. And then it actually happened. I was like, okay, well, I, I mean, look, you got, if you got to get, if you got to get them into the, into the Marvel cinematic universe, the, you know.
Mike01:06:31But it tells you that they had to go back 20 years, you know, to, to.
Sonny01:06:36Yeah, because he was, because he was what the, he, I think he was only in the X-Men The Last Stand, right? Or was he in the second one too?
Mike01:06:42No, I think he was in the second one. I think the.
Sonny01:06:44Yeah, he was in, he was in X2 and X-Men The Last Stand. Yeah.
Mike01:06:47Correct. X2 is the absolute best. Uh, X-Men movie that they made, right?
Sonny01:06:55Yeah, I think that's, I think that is generally accepted. I mean, it depends on how you want to character it. I don't know. I personally prefer at this point, um, X-Men The Last Stand or X-Men, um.
Mike01:07:06Days of Future Past?
Sonny01:07:07The First Class. The First Class and Days of Future Past. I like both of those more. Those are good.
Mike01:07:11But X2 was great. X2 was great.
Sonny01:07:13X2 is pretty good. X2 for a long time was considered to be the best comic. It was like X2 and Spider-Man for a long time. Right, right, right. And then. In 2008, you get The Dark Knight and that's clearly now like, The Dark Knight is still like the best comic book movie since The Dark Knight. Like, you don't, there's no. Correct, it is the same. There's no, no one, no one's like the best comic book movie since Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings.
Mike01:07:35Well, if that is the case, things are really bad. I'm sure it's fine though. Okay.
Spot something wrong in this episode? Suggest a correction →
Comments
Loading…