#264. 'Deadpool & Wolverine' (Theaters)
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The hosts are split, and mostly sour, on Deadpool & Wolverine despite its status as the highest-grossing R-rated film ever (past a billion worldwide, and it edged out Colleen Hoover's It Ends With Us and a stumbling Twisters at the box office that week). Sonny calls it "basically Barbie for boys" and admits he understood and enjoyed most of the constant continuity references — the Void full of exiled 20th Century Fox characters, Channing Tatum's long-rumored Gambit cameo, the mocking-then-sincere Green Day tribute montage to the old Fox X-Men movies — but says the experience left him self-loathing, calling it emblematic of everything wrong with both modern filmmaking and comic-book storytelling. JVL is harsher: he says he felt "beaten down" with none of Sonny's compensating enjoyment, argues the film mistakes references for actual jokes ("pornography is to sex as Deadpool humor is to actual funny things"), and singles out Ryan Reynolds as "nails on chalkboard" and Hugh Jackman as simply not funny. Mike, the group's more casual comic-book fan, says he didn't hate it but found it "a chore," laughed a few times involuntarily but felt empty afterward, and spends much of the discussion asking Sonny to untangle which corporate-owned universe (Fox X-Men, MCU proper, Sony's Spider-Man umbrella) each character technically belongs to. The long opening banter covers whether JVL should spend $150 on a giant G.I. Joe art book, Sonny's confession of owning two copies of the limited Sucker Punch art book plus an imported Army of the Dead edition and his obsessive, so-far-unsuccessful hunt for a rare hundred-copy Batman v Superman edition signed by the cast, a Hoarders-inflected tangent on collecting psychology, and Sonny's discovery that he'd accidentally bought a second copy of Don't Breathe on Blu-ray without remembering the first. Mike also recaps his family's Outer Banks beach vacation to Nags Head, noting that his toddler — unlike his older sons at the same age — loved the sand and surf, which Sonny attributes to babies simply being too dumb to know better. The episode closes with JVL previewing next week's film, The Instigators, which he pitches as "Deadpool and Wolverine, but with Matt Damon in the Wolverine role — and it's good."
From the show notes
It's funny, because they know they're in a movie!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00I want to do some cocaine. Hey, cocaine is the one thing that Feige said is off-limits. What about Bolivian marching powder? They know all the slang terms. They have a list. Even snowboarding? Even disco dust. White girl interrupted? Even Forrest Bump. Do you want to build a snowman? Yes!
?00:00:14But I can't.
Mike00:00:24Welcome to another episode of the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts, who are going to be doing this until they're 90. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at SubBeacon.com. Tell your friends and family. You can comment, become a part of the Sub-Beacon community, and get new episodes every Friday morning at SubBeacon.com. We're going to be talking about Deadpool and Wolverine in this episode. But first! Let's hear how everyone is doing. JVL, what is going on with you, my man?
JVL00:01:05So, uh... How wrong would it be to spend $150 on a gigantic, large-format, hardcover book of the art of the G.I. Joe toys? Asking for a friend. Is this... Question. Yeah, go ahead.
Sonny00:01:31Is it, like, a limited edition? Is this signed by anybody? Is it, like, you know, collectors? Or is it just big and nice?
JVL00:01:39It's big and nice, and it is... I mean, they just only printed, like, 3,000 of them now, because it's a small, Kickstarter-ish kind of thing. Okay, sure. Yeah, so it's 712 pages.
Sonny00:01:53That's a lot of pages.
JVL00:01:53It is... I mean, this is going to sound crazy in the world. With Mid-Journey and, you know, stock art and all of this. But back in the 80s, the G.I. Joe toys were sold in boxes where, like, somebody had done Alex Ross-level art for the toy boxes. I mean, it was just... It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing.
Sonny00:02:22You should buy it.
JVL00:02:24Yeah?
Mike00:02:25You should buy it. 150 bucks? Absolutely.
Sonny00:02:27Buy it. You'll regret it if you don't. For my friend.
JVL00:02:30For my friend.
Sonny00:02:31You'll regret... Your friend will regret it if you don't buy it for him. That's... No, I'm pro... I'm pro big, expensive books. Here's the... This is one of my... One of my saddest... One of my saddest things is... So, I... I... Very shamefully... I like... I'm almost... I'm almost embarrassed to... So, I have... I have a collection of art books from the... From almost all, not quite all, of the Zack Snyder movies. I have... I have an art book.
Mike00:03:07And you admit that.
Sonny00:03:09Right here. I have an art book for... I have an art book for Watchmen. I have an art book for Man of Steel. And most of these are... Most of these are relatively... They're like mass-produced thing. You know, they're like 30 or 40 bucks. They're not... They're not... Most of them are not that expensive. However, a company called Titan Books puts out some limited editions of these things. And in these limited editions, they're signed by Zack Snyder. And they come with sometimes prints and that sort of thing. And I have... I own... I own not one but two editions of the Sucker Punch limited edition print book. Now, to be fair, one of those was sent by a reader at the Bulwark who stumbled upon it and was like, Sonny would like this. And that was very nice of them. But I have two. I have both the first printing and the second printing. Of this limited edition art book. And I have one for Army of the Dead, which I had to order from overseas. I had to get that imported. And I am probably going to... Guys, I said yes immediately to this because it makes me feel better about spending $200 on a limited edition Rebel Moon part one and part two art book, which I will probably... Probably wind up buying just because I'm an insane completist and I need all of the books. I can't have some of the books. And this is...
Mike00:04:39Even for the movies that aren't very good.
Sonny00:04:41And this is my... Fuck you. And this is my shameful... And this is my shameful obsession is that once every two or three months or so, I'm struck by the urge to search for... There's a limited edition Batman versus Superman one of these. It isn't just... It's not just signed by Zack Snyder. It's also signed by like Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, like Henry Cavill. It was limited to like a hundred copies worldwide. It had like art books inside of it that were limited to like... Again, it's like insanely limited. I don't even know that they sold these, frankly, in the real world. They may have just been given... But there's a hundred of them out there and I think they cost like a thousand bucks. And I literally cannot find them for sale. I literally... Nobody sells... If you own a copy of this, it's in a safe somewhere appreciating with your gold and your action comics number one. And I will never get my hands on it. I'll never even be able to see it, let alone buy it.
Mike00:05:46Question. Question for both of you. Because I am familiar enough with collectors of various things in the various areas of my interest. And of course, I know you guys have the collector's instinct as well. And my question is, what is the point? And I don't mean that flippantly. I mean, what is it about collecting or being a completist for some of these things? Does it simply give you joy to see it on your shelf, to see your collection on your shelf? Is this something that you... Actively take down off the shelf and page through as a way of generating pleasure? Like, what is the point of the various things that you guys collect?
Sonny00:06:43Hoarding.
JVL00:06:46Hoarding.
Sonny00:06:47Okay. Okay. That's the answer.
Mike00:06:52Because you could say, it's mine. I have it.
Sonny00:06:55The answer is to have a hoard of things. And sometimes you just want to look at the things. Mostly you just like to know they're there. And if somebody comes and starts messing around with your hoard of stuff. Like, I mean, I don't understand how anybody could be mad at Smog in The Hobbit for being annoyed that this band of disgusting, dirty dwarves and a dipshit burglar hobbit came rummaging around his things. He's totally, he was totally in the right.
Mike00:07:31Smog is the hero, the true hero of The Hobbit.
Sonny00:07:33Smog isn't the hero. I mean, he's just a guy. He's just a guy. But like, he's like, it's a totally reasonable response to want to murder all of them. I like, I don't blame him and then go to war with everybody else who sent them in there. I like, I don't blame Smog for being upset.
JVL00:07:48JVL. Knowing that you possess these beautiful objects and others don't. It's like, it's like. It's like life's scoreboard. I'm kidding. That's not actually, that's not actually what it is.
Sonny00:08:04That's what it is with that Batman versus Superman book. There's a hundred people out there who have that and I'm not one of them. Fuck them. I want that fucking book.
JVL00:08:15No, it's about objects of art that you love and enjoy. But do you enjoy them? That you would like to possess.
Mike00:08:23Yeah. So this $150 book that your friend wants, would your friend leaf through it? Periodically.
JVL00:08:29So this, so this is the point of, so I would say a book like this is not a to collect. This is very different from Sonny's Zack Snyder fetish. This is a, like it's a beautiful thing and it'd be really cool to be able to pull down from the shelf and just look through it all the art. There are things that I collect like baseball cards and comic books, which are a different category, which, which is why I was going to say, suggest to you, when you, when you do eventually find the Zack Snyder justice league, ultimate special edition, you should not only buy it, whatever the cost, but you should buy two because then in, in a five years you sell the second one and you've paid for both.
Sonny00:09:12Like if I could find two of these things, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. I can't find one.
Mike00:09:19Yeah. But when it rains, it pours, Sonny, you never know. Just be on the lookout.
Sonny00:09:22There's somebody, there's somebody somewhere who's going to die and their idiot family is going to put these books in Goodwill. I'm going to wander into that store one day and I'm going to, I'm going to realize what they have and I'm going to take Goodwill for everything they're worth.
Mike00:09:36So my only comment on this discussion, this part of the discussion is, so I have, I have a general aspiration to be a collector, but I don't have the patience or attention for it. So the only really two collections I have to speak of guitars. Uh, no, I don't even, I only have at the moment, I only have two guitars, but once my, uh, once my dad gives me the rest of his, then, then I will have his collection. So that is true. That's a good point. I didn't think about the guitars, but yes, currently I only have two guitars and a mandolin and a ukulele. Um, but, uh, no, I was going to say I have, uh, in terms of complete collections, I have a complete collection of every issue of the weekly standard. Um, they're sitting in cardboard boxes in my basement. Um, I should probably do something with them at some point, but I make sure they're not
Sonny00:10:37on the ground so they don't get soaked whenever you're, they almost, they almost did get soaked
Mike00:10:41once. Um, so I did have to, I did have to take care of that, but I got to get them graded and slabbed. Is that okay? Thank you. This is, I'm learning so much from you comic book nerds. Um, and, and the only other like collection I have is I, but I, but see, I'm using this this particular collection is just, it's, it's, it's all utility, which is I have collections of the writings of, uh, of J.R.R. Tolkien because I like to read the books and I will pull them down and just like read them.
Sonny00:11:11And I like, well, yeah, but that's different. That's it's different than owning, owning like a run of an author or a bunch of books by an author is, is different than like collecting.
JVL00:11:22That's, that's not, that's like I'm going out and finding a first edition of fellowship.
Sonny00:11:26Right. Right. You, you, you wouldn't go, you wouldn't go to like Sotheby's and bid on like, uh, first assigned inscribed first edition of Lord of the Rings, you know, but like in terms of
Mike00:11:39like, in terms of like lesser writings and stuff like that. I mean, I do like collecting some of those lesser known writings and stuff like that so that I can read them. Um, but I, I guess my, this is, this is the problem is like, I, I generally just want to consume. I have no, I think I ultimately have. I have no part of my DNA. That's like, that is what you guys have, which is the satisfaction of knowing that you have them. I guess that's just the difference between me and you guys.
JVL00:12:10I mean, when you put it like that, it sounds base and empty.
Mike00:12:15What, what you guys do or what I do? No, no. What I do. I'm just, I'm a, I'm a rapacious consumer.
JVL00:12:23Okay. No, no. Uh, all right. Nothing more for me. What are you guys up to? What's going on with you?
Sonny00:12:29So here's the downside of being a hoarding collector. This is, I'm very, I'm very, I'm very embarrassed to share this story as well. I, I get a lot of embarrassing revelations about me, uh, this week, but, um, so I, you know, I own, I own a lot of books. I buy a lot of books. I buy a lot of books used. I buy a lot of movies, you know, uh, oftentimes because it like, it breaks down to not being that much more expensive to buy them on Blu-ray, particularly used. But like, frankly, new as well than it is to rent them. If they're not streaming somewhere, like if, if I don't own a thing and it's streaming, I'll, I'll watch it on, on streaming free, but renting it on VOD is often like it's, it's often not that much more expensive just to buy, to buy the movie. Um, and I, like I said, I, I, I own a fairly large number of objects of this sort books and movies and that sort of thing. Uh, and very recently I had to very recently I was, I was re I wanted to rewatch don't breathe. Uh, the Fidi Alvarez movie, which came out in 2016, 2017, something like that. Cause he directed the new, uh, alien movie alien Romney. Oh yes. I doubt we're going to be doing that one.
Mike00:13:44Cause I've seen, yeah, I've seen JBL.
Sonny00:13:45I don't think we'll enjoy alien Romulus. Uh, maybe, well, I don't know, but, uh, but, uh, but we, but I wanted, I wanted to rewatch. I wanted to rewatch, uh, don't breathe. Cause it's his best movie by far. I had, I had watched. Evil, the evil dead reboot remake thing that he did, uh, a few years ago, it's streaming on HBO max. Um, and I, I wanted to revisit don't breathe and it's not, it's not streaming anywhere for free. And it was like $9 or something like that on Amazon, uh, instead of spending $4 to rent it or four 50 to rent it. So I was like, I was just like, all right, I'm just gonna buy it. Cause I liked, I liked this movie a lot. I've watched it. I've watched it since a release and I remember liking it. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna get it. So I don't have to worry about this anymore. So I buy, I buy it. I watch it and I watched it last night. Good movie. Still very, very tense, very effective 88 minutes or whatever it is. Steven Lang is great in it. Uh, scary, tense. I loved it. Uh, still love it. That was one of my favorite movies that year was on my top 10 list. And I put that, I put the movie back in its case and I went to put it back on a shelf right next to the other copy of don't breathe that I own already. I've never done this before. I've never, I've never accidentally bought, no, no, I've never accidentally bought multiple copies of the same thing. Uh, you know, I not on books. I have, I've occasionally intentionally bought a second copy of a thing I sometimes have needed to replace, uh, particularly books, you know, they fall apart or, or if I'm working on a story and I need, uh, if I'm like working on a story and I need a searchable copy of a book, I will sometimes buy a Kindle. That makes it easier to, you know, like, cause whatever, but that's like, that's, that's a separate thing. That's a, I've never accidentally purchased multiple copies of the same thing because I did not remember having bought it before. And sure enough, I had, and I went back and I went back in my email cause I was like, when did I buy it? When did I buy this? It was in 2021. It was in like the tail stage of the pandemic. God only knows how drunk I was at the time. Uh, I did not, I did not remember at all buying this from Best Buy, which doesn't even sell Blu-rays anymore. Uh, and that's the other thing is, is that like, if this had been Amazon, there would have been a little notice at the top that said, you bought this, you last purchased this on February 16th, 2021 or whenever it was, uh, but not, not this time, not this time folks. So I have, I have, uh, you know, again, the thing about hoarding, the thing about the hoard is that sometimes you have multiple items. Like did you guys ever watch the show hoarders? Did you ever watch that? Yes. So hoarders is a fascinatingly horrifying show, uh, where people will go to a home where a person has accumulated so much stuff that it's like dangerous to live in. It's it's, it's, it's like filled with animals and disease filth, you know, it's like there, there are piles of things that could fall on them and collapse them. They like, can't walk to their rooms. They have to climb on stuff to get there.
Mike00:16:51They often know exactly where to find the things that they need.
Sonny00:16:55They always know exactly. And what they always know exactly where everything is and they know what they have and what they don't want to get rid of, which is everything because they're hoarders.
JVL00:17:03It's psychotic. So, uh, I'm sorry in this show is the idea that we just get a window into their lives or that somebody cures them or that they then destroy, like set fire to their dwellings to watch them melt down.
Sonny00:17:19The show is always twofold. The first half of the show is, uh, somebody, usually a family member comes to the hoarding team and says, my mother. Lives in a hoard of filth and we want, we need, she needs to get help. She doesn't understand how bad it is. And then that part of the show then goes to the person whose home it is. And they explain how they accumulated all the stuff. Usually there's some sort of trauma, like my husband died and I started not wanting to get rid of his things and then I just couldn't get rid of anything. Yeah. It's, it's always something like that. Uh, and then the second half of the show is a team comes and cleans out the house. They like remove all of the filth. The detritus. And they take it to the yard and they start sorting things and some of it gets thrown away. Some of it gets donated. Some of it gets auctioned off. Sometimes they make some money from these things, but usually most of it just goes in like a series of dumpsters that pull up to the house or are these like forcible committals. So that's, that's the tension of the show is that like half the time these people are okay with it. Maybe like a third of the time that people are okay with it, a third of the time there's some resistance. And a third of the time they're just like straight up fighting back like, no, I don't want to do this. I don't want to. And so like the question of whether or not they're cured as a more complicated one, but like in the best case scenario, what happens is these people agree to get rid of their hoard and the house is cleaned up and it's clean and they, they bring in like real cleaners who like do deep, deep cleans and, and the house often looks nice afterwards or at least nicer. Um, anyway, uh, usually, usually what happens is that there's, there's like it, it, the house gets mostly cleaned up, but there's like, yeah, are they gonna backslide probably cause they still have trauma mental cause they still have mental problems. Um, but yeah, that's, so that, that's the, the problem. But often in these hoarding situations, when they clean, when they clean everything out, they'll take the person outside and they'll be like, all right, you have 38 Barbies and they're not in their box. It's not like they're collectors items. You just have like, you know, 38 dirty, disgusting toys. And like six of them are clearly identical. They're like stewardess, airline, Barbie, whatever. Can we get rid of these? And the lady's like, you can get rid of one. I can, I can afford to be rid of, uh, and, and that is how I feel with don't breathe now is that I finally reached the point where I'm like accidentally getting multiple things. I really gotta re-examine my life.
Mike00:19:50But here's the thing, the, the, the, the likelihood that you do this increases as your as your library grows, right? You just like you don't have enough mental space to remember what you have and what you don't have as it grows. So this is understandable. Don't, don't feel bad, Sonny, I shouldn't beat myself up about don't beat yourself up. I mean, beat yourself up over a whole bunch of other things that are embedded in this,
JVL00:20:15in this obsession of yours, but not this, you know, in comics, we often get two copies of the same thing as a matter of course, so that you get a one copy graded and the other copy is your reading copy. Sure. Makes sense.
Mike00:20:30Okay. All right. Well, Michael, what are you up to buddy? So, uh, thank you very much to KSA and MKH, our friends for filling in, uh, by the way, it was a great show. Um, they were terrific and I loved the discussion. My only thing is you guys missed the, my favorite Josh Hartnett in your discussion, Sonny, which is like lucky number 11.
Sonny00:20:56Oh, that's a good one.
Mike00:20:57Yeah. That is a good movie. And well, we could talk about this. I, I saw a reference to lucky number 11 somewhere recently. I can't even remember where it was. I feel like it was in something. I was, oh, I know where it was, but we're gonna talk, we're gonna talk in a future episode about the instigators. I think it was in the background somewhere, uh, in the movie, the instigators, but we
Sonny00:21:17have a lucky number 11 poster.
Mike00:21:19I feel like, I feel like that was the case anyway. Uh, it was great and, and it was helpful that they filled in. Because, uh, my family and I were at our annual beach vacation. We skipped last year because we had a newborn and we just didn't want to do it. So, um, we went this year and we had a, we had, despite, uh, a hurricane causing lots of rain and wind, uh, we, despite those limitations, we got to the beach almost every day. I think there was one day we didn't and, uh, we were there for a week and we actually had great time, uh, and so much so that we did something we've never done before, which is we've gone ahead and rented the same place for next year, um, which we get a little discount. So, uh, yeah, so that was good. Um, but, uh, it's, it's, we're, we've like, did you already book the dates? Oh yeah. Already booked the dates and everything.
Sonny00:22:20How do you know when you're going to be able to take a vacation?
Mike00:22:23Uh, it's, it's the same, about the same time.
Sonny00:22:26In August, you know, vacation should all be planned like three weeks out.
Mike00:22:29That's that's in an ideal world and an ideal world I'm I'm with you. Um, on the other hand, this is like, this is like the other version of winging it, which is like, it, it, it, there's sort of like in the horseshoe of winging it. It's like either at we'll figure it out like three weeks beforehand, or we'll figure it out a year beforehand. It, you, you, you're throwing caution to the wind either way is my, that's an excellent
JVL00:22:52point.
Mike00:22:53So, um, anyway, so, so. Yeah. So that's what we're doing. We're we're excited. We had such a good time. Uh, we wanted to do it again and, uh, and so, yeah, so, so there's nothing significant happened at the beach. We just had a great time. Which beach did you go to? So we go down to the outer banks and this time we went to, uh, Nags Head and specifically to South Nags Head, which is as far down on that island body island, which is kind of the main giant, uh, uh, uh, what's the word? I'm looking for the, the, the, the island in between where all the outer banks beaches are. Uh, it's the last ones, the most Southern most point, um, before you hop on a causeway and go to the other ones on the way to Cape Hatteras. And, um, and it was great. We were, we were not close to any kind of commercial development, um, but it wasn't a far drive. Uh, we enjoyed that. We went to the aquarium, which is, um, on Roanoke Island and had a terrific time with the kids there. Um, the, the toddler, unlike the older boys, uh, just loved the beach, loved the sand, loved the surf, loved all of it. He is sunny. You would not have understood his reaction to it as a, as a, the problem is that babies
Sonny00:24:12are idiots. So I like, uh, you're not, you're not, you're not really making a very convincing case here or the least developed individual in our party had a great time. The, the one with the least mental acuity was so entertaining. You're like, okay, it sounds about right.
Mike00:24:28Yeah, exactly. Uh, no, but the other boys, like when, when they were that age, they hated it. They were like screaming. They were, you know, it was like, oh, smart.
Sonny00:24:36Those babies are smart. They have a natural aversion to awful danger and dirt.
Mike00:24:41Um, so yeah, I don't know what that means if it's, I'm starting to wonder if our third born is either being conditioned for this or is just naturally this way, but if he's being conditioned. It's like nothing bothers him in the way, I mean, he, little things bother him here and there, but like he has such a higher tolerance for like just anything because he has to go with the flow. Like he's got two big brothers who are like forcing them to do this, that, or the other. And like, we're like tag bringing them along places. We didn't bring the older kids. So, um, I'm wondering if that's, if, if like he's been conditioned now to just be like, eh, I'm in the sand. Maybe I like it. Maybe I don't, but I can't complain about it. Like, what am I, what am I supposed to like? Nobody's going to listen to me. So, um, anyway, it was a good time at the beach and that's all I have to say about that.
Sonny00:25:36We all went to the, we're all, we all went to the beach, big beach summer for the sub beacon. Unusual.
Mike00:25:42Um, anyway. All right. Well, let's, uh, shall we move on and talk about box office, uh, box office, number one of the box office. It's the movie that we're talking about today. Deadpool and Wolverine. Yeah.
Sonny00:25:56Isn't it? Isn't it enormous? Enormous hit box office, highest grossing R rated film of all time. I think both worldwide and domestic at this point. Uh, let me see. Is it over? Yeah. It's over a billion.
Mike00:26:12Uh, it's, it's, uh, it's closing in on, uh, half a mil, half a billion domestically a
Sonny00:26:17lot. It's past half a billion domestically. Uh, so the, the, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's gonna, it's putting up basically Barbie numbers is where it's. It's where it's gonna shake out. It's, it's an enormous hit, which makes sense. It's basically Barbie for boys. It's very meta and clever and all that.
JVL00:26:33Um, that's not true.
Sonny00:26:35It's Barbie.
JVL00:26:36We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it.
Sonny00:26:38We'll talk about it. It's, I mean, it's Barbie for boys, but it's better. It's good. Cause it's for boys. It's not for girls. Uh, the, um, yeah, but it's, it's a huge hit. Uh, the other, the other big hit, uh, is, uh, Mrs. Ryan Reynolds is it ends with us.
Mike00:26:54It ends with us. It ends with us.
Sonny00:26:56So I, I don't know if you guys know anything, JBL, I feel like this, maybe you, you have some inkling of, but do you guys know who Colleen Hoover is?
Mike00:27:03No, no idea.
Sonny00:27:05Colleen Hoover is the most successful author of fiction books in America right now. Probably like, I mean, like, I, I don't think probably, I mean, literally when I, when I talked to, uh, I talked to Eric Nelson for my, uh, the editor, uh, over at he, uh, editor, he's an editor at a conservative imprint. Um, and I talked to him a couple of years ago on Bulwark goes to Hollywood. And even then he was like, nobody knows who Colleen Hoover is. Maybe, maybe some of your, some of your listeners might, uh, especially if they're women, but most people have no idea who Colleen Hoover is, or at least most people in our, our universe have no idea who Colleen Hoover is. And she's the most successful author in, in America right now by an enormous, enormous margin. I mean, she just, uh, like at, at any given time, she has multiple books in Amazon's top 20.
Mike00:27:51Um, she, what, what are we talking about? Like romantic?
Sonny00:27:54But it's like, it's like. Women's literature. It's chick lit. It's, it's women's, you know, it ends with us as about a battered woman who, you know, fleas or whatever. I couldn't tell you, I haven't read any of these fucking books.
Mike00:28:06They're all, they're all, I mean, it's, it's, it's this like Reese Witherspoon book club type material.
Sonny00:28:10Yeah. But like, like a step down from that, even, I think, I think it's like, I think even like, I think even like connoisseurs, I think like serious readers of chick lit, I kind of looked down on Colleen. It's like, it's like the James Patterson.
Mike00:28:22She's like, it's like on the lower. The, on the lower end of middle brow to, to higher end of low.
Sonny00:28:29Oh, oh no, I would not put her in middle brow at all. It's all low. It's like it's low. I would say it's like low. But again, I haven't read any, so I don't, I don't have any strong feelings either way about her. I like, she's not my understanding from the few conversations I've had with folks about her is that she's like kind of looked down on by the ladies book clubs of the world, but, but still enormously popular, still like huge, like she's, again, she's like the James Patterson of question, but she writes her own books. That's what I was going to ask.
JVL00:28:57That's what I was going to ask. Is she an industry with like, you know, a team of writers or is she actually writing
Mike00:29:03books? James Patterson writes all of his own, all of his own books. He writes them with, with Bill Clinton. He wrote it. He wrote a couple of book. The both of them sat in a room with, with, with type, with one typewriter and banged
Sonny00:29:16it out. Well, they're on, on the bestseller list for the last like two months has been a book by James Patterson and Michael Crichton and I just want to know who actually wrote that fucking book.
Mike00:29:24I'm sure Michael Crichton who has been dead for years is, did more writing in that book than James Patterson.
Sonny00:29:32Who is the person who actually sat down and wrote that book? Because uh, no, I, and then someone, someone like very seriously explained to me, no, when James Patterson teams up with a famous person, he actually does the writing and like, okay, fine. I, I, the joke, the joke is he doesn't do writing. He's whatever. Um, so anyway, uh, but no Colleen Hoover enormously, enormously popular. It ends with us was a huge bestseller, uh, and it, it has done, uh, I mean it beach, it beat Deadpool and Wolverine on a per screen basis. It grows $50 million on like a $25 million budget. Um, it's a, it's a big hit. Twisters is still holding in there too. Twisters is, Twisters is an interesting one because Twisters, so Twisters opened pretty big, right? It opened about $80 million, something like that. And it's held relatively well, it had a big, it had a relatively big drop in its first weekend, dropped 57%. Something like that. But that's because it was up against Deadpool and Wolverine, which had the biggest opening in the last thousand days. Like whatever. Um, it's holding relatively well, it's doing fine domestically, but it's kind of a disaster overseas. Like it's gross, less than a hundred million dollars.
JVL00:30:38Why is that? They don't have, cause they don't have tornadoes, so they don't understand.
Sonny00:30:41So many people have said this and it doesn't make any sense. The original Twisters did $250 million worldwide in 1997 dollars or whatever. So, and it's not like they had any more tornadoes then. Uh, so I don't know. I, I don't know. It's, it's interesting that the, the movie has not done very well. I think part of it is because Warner Brothers is handling foreign distribution and they are out of money is my, is what I've been hearing that they are just straight up out of cash. They, they don't have it. Uh, so who knows what, what sort of push it got overseas. Um, uh, anyway, it's like the, the big, the big news at the box office is that the, the box office is actually starting to catch up to last year's growth. Grosses. You know, this was, this was going to be, this was going to be a soft year. This was plant people, people had thought this was going to be very much a down year compared to last year. And it's still, I think the box office is still 15 or 16% behind something like that on a year to date basis. But uh, I think it's gonna, it's gonna be a closer run thing than people thought. And, and, and you know why family movies inside out to huge, enormous hit, uh, comic book movies are back baby, uh, Deadpool and Wolverine doing huge, enormous numbers. Um, it's, uh, it's, you know, you, you make that face, but well comic book, let's talk
Mike00:32:01about, let's talk about it in the discussion, but it just did, this did seem like a sort of, it felt like a last gasp, uh, of a comic.
Sonny00:32:10We keep saying that, but okay.
Mike00:32:12All right. Uh, and sorry, Sonny.
Sonny00:32:14Sorry, man. No way home was supposed to be the last gasp right now that grows $2 billion. And here we are with an R rated version of it kind of, you know, and, uh, you, you wash
JVL00:32:24your mouth out. Spiderman. No way home is a good movie.
Sonny00:32:28Spiderman. No way home is much better. I much prefer Spiderman. No way home to this movie, which made me kind of want to kill myself, but I also enjoyed
Mike00:32:34it. So let's talk about it. Uh, let's talk about Deadpool and Wolverine, which, uh, listener, Michael Steele suggested to me in a text, uh, a couple of weeks ago should be called Deadpool versus Wolverine. Interesting. They didn't go with that, that, uh, terminology, but Sonny, do you wonder, I wonder how many
Sonny00:32:54meetings, the people, that's what I was wondering had to be like, do we do versus Wolverine? Are they fighting? But people don't like it when they fight, like, look at Batman for Superman. They didn't, they were like, why are Batman and Superman fighting there?
Mike00:33:06But, uh, but people like, uh, Avengers civil war, but that wasn't called iron man versus
Sonny00:33:12captain America.
Mike00:33:13Yeah. But it was called everything, but iron man versus captain America, the poster called
Sonny00:33:18iron man for that movie was iron man for.
Mike00:33:21All right. Well, we're not talking about iron man. Four. We're talking about.
Sonny00:33:25They couldn't call it iron man for, because Robert Downey Jr. Who's back. He's going to be back in comic books, movies, guys excited. They called it. They called it captain America for the, or iron man for, they would've had to pay him even more money. He probably still got like $50 million. Yeah.
Mike00:33:41He's on the poster. Uh, all right. Uh, Sonny, give us a big word for you of the movie we are talking about. That does exist at the moment, Deadpool and Wolverine.
Sonny00:33:49Deadpool and Wolverine is the movie that you were dreaming of when you were 14. 14 years old. And you had a stack of wizard magazines next to your bed. That's like this high. And you read them all and you were like, Hey, there's going to be a gambit movie, right? They've been talking about this gambit movie for 10 years. When's this gambit movie coming out?
JVL00:34:07Good news. That's right.
Sonny00:34:09I'm all sure. Here's your gambit movie. It's Deadpool. And so Deadpool and Wolverine is, I, I am, I'm almost, look, I kind of want to just read my review. Uh, because. It's, it really gets at how I feel about this movie. Um, but the way I feel about it is that it's, it's indicative of everything that's wrong with filmmaking and it's indicative of everything that's wrong with comic book storytelling. And I understood all of it and I enjoyed most of it and that's, and it makes me hate myself. All of these things combined into one ball of like self loathing and hatred. So like the, the, the. I, do we need to, do I need to discuss the plot mechanics? Do I need to give a spoiler warning?
Mike00:34:58Yes, because I didn't understand half of the plot, so you got to explain it.
Sonny00:35:02Jesus Christ. Deadpool is out of the Deadpool game. He doesn't want to be an assassin anymore cause he didn't get into the Avengers. And then, and now his universe is ending because, uh, Wolverine died in Logan. Remember, remember that movie Logan that was very touching, fitting into the X-Men universe. The last movie with Wolverine never, they're never going to do another one while he's back because they need to keep things going. Um, uh, and because, because Wolverine was the anchor being of that universe, a person at the time variance authority, which is a thing that you only know if you've watched Loki. Did you watch Loki?
Mike00:35:45Mike? That was a TV show.
Sonny00:35:47TV show. See, you didn't watch Loki, so you have no idea what's going on in this movie.
Mike00:35:51No. I kept wondering if this was like a. A joke on something that I didn't know about.
Sonny00:35:55Oh, it's a joke. It's a joke. All right. It's joke on all of us. Uh, not me. So the time variance authority who's played by Tom Womboggin from whatever succession. I didn't watch succession, so I have no idea how to pronounce his name, but it's got the big guy. It's got the, it's got the slightly less tall, but slightly wider big guy from succession. Uh, and he works for, he works for the time variance authority. Yeah. Which is a organization that involves keeping the timelines separate and pure. I, it's too complicated to explain. Point is Deadpool's universe has died. Deadpool's timeline is dying because his anchor being has disappeared and to save the universe, uh, save his timeline, he has to go to another timeline and get a Wolverine and bring that Wolverine to his timeline, which will save his timeline. So it goes and he gets the worst Wolverine. There's a whole montage of Wolverine. He's a Wolverine montage. He sees a hundred different Wolverines and there it's a series of references to things I mostly understood. And once again, I just wanted to die because I was like, oh, I get it. That's the Wolverine from age of apocalypse. I know things about comic books that I shouldn't know. This is knowledge that is being, taking up all sorts of space that should be occupied by more important things like what DVDs you have, like, like how many copies of don't breathe I own. Uh, and. And the team up and they're gonna, they're, they're gonna take down the TVA at the time variance authority, but, uh, the guy from succession sends them to the void, which again is from Loki. If you haven't seen Loki and a lot of stuff in this thing, this movie that you might not understand. So anyway, they go to the void where they run into Chris Evans, who was playing not captain America, but the human torch. Cause it turns out the void is filled with all of the 20th century Fox characters. And I understood that reference here's where the movie gets kind of interesting at least is that the, the void is where they send all of the characters from all of the comic book movies that are not proper MCU titles. They're not, they're not the MCU or Sony Spider-Man universe. It's like, here's where we're sending blade and Electra and, uh, and, and, and characters who literally don't ever exist like Channing Tatum playing gambit. And this is all kind of like it it's again, I found this all vaguely amusing because I understand it and followed all of this, but I, I am Mike. I am curious how comprehensible any of this division of universal labor, how much sense any of that made to you as somebody who was like more of a casual. So comic book fan.
Mike00:38:41So I'll just answer that question. Then I want to get JBL's thoughts on this movie before I share my bigger thoughts. I understood at a. Surface level, what was going on? I feel like, like, I know who Wesley snipes his blade is. I know who Electra is. Um, I, I know what the 20th century Fox logo looks like. So like those kind of references and jokes, I was like, okay, I get what's going on. And I kind of was like, I mean, I had questions about what, so, so a question. I have a question. Is this movie an MCU movie or is it a 20th century Fox, uh, the, the, the, the X-Men fantastic four movie, like universe, is it they're mixing them together? Like with Spider-Man from the Sony stuff, like that was where like everything broke down for me where I was just like, uh, I get that they're like mixing things up. What is supposed to be, what am I supposed to be accepting as true in universe? And we have multi for like, at that point, my brain broke.
Sonny00:40:04Mike, I want to introduce you to a problem, uh, that all comic book readers have had for the last 80 years. This is what, what counts, what, what counts where, I mean, I like that's literally the, the, the, I've, I've talked about this before, but the comic book movies have really done a. Speed run through the entire existence of comic books to get us to a point where like all of the problems that the comic book companies were having in the 1970s, eighties, nineties, uh, and beyond we're having like 10 years after the birth of the MCU. It's, it's a real problem. Uh, so here's, I, I would, my, I want to say, I'll say one last thing and then we'll get to JBL. My, my big problem in this film besides the self-loathing that it induced to me is, is that you have this kind of snarky Ryan Reynolds doing his uh, fourth wall breaking stuff and, and it's all about the, you know, the absurdity of the corporate shenanigans involved and it's, you know, Oh, look at how silly all this is. We're so dumb for caring about it. And it doesn't like, ha ha ha. And then the thing, I don't know if you guys sat through the credits, but the, it closes with, it closes. Well, did you see, did you see the montage to good riddance time of your life?
Mike00:41:21No.
Sonny00:41:22As the credits are playing, there's this, there's this incredibly mockish montage that's like, that's set to again, green days, good riddance time of your life. Uh, that's like, look at all of these fond memories we have of the 20th century Fox movies of the X-Men movies of the, of daredevil and Electra and the fantastic four films, all of them, even the Josh Trank, fantastic four
Guest00:41:46films where we're, I hope you had the time of your life and it, and it, and
Sonny00:41:51it's. It's, I find it, I find it offensive. I find it offensive as a viewer to sit through this, like two hours of making fun of all this shit and then be expected to care about this nice little montage paying tribute to the world of 20th century movies. And then frankly, also like feeling moved. I like, I fucking hated all of it. I, I, it really got, it really got on my last nerve, but it was effective in a certain way. And the, the, I like, obviously audiences love this. They, they can't get enough of this slop. They want the slop poured right in their mouth forever. And that's what we're going to get. It's where that's what we're getting slop. It's the MCU multiverse slop in our mouth forever. And I like, again, I'm not an MCU hater. I like a lot of MCU movies. I've given, I like, I'm probably more mixed than the average critic, I guess. Cause I do throw some thumbs downs in there, which was not, was not the case for a long time, but like, I like comic book movies. I grew up reading comic books. I enjoy, I enjoy lots of this stuff, but man, I, uh, I felt, I felt beaten down by this movie, even as I was enjoying it on a moment to moment basis. And that's how I feel about the world of filmmaking. Kind of at the moment.
Mike00:43:11J JVL, how did the slop taste to you?
JVL00:43:14Yeah, I felt beaten down too, but without any of the enjoyment, uh, it just. So I, I remember kind of liking the first Deadpool and I, I really did not enjoy the second one. I rewatched the first Deadpool recently does not hold up. Like, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's what was interesting about the first Deadpool was just, it was very different. And there has been no, it's not only that it hasn't evolved. Like this is operating the exact same milieu, but it is like watching season five of a formula sitcom. None of the, the writing is not sharper. Like people are not better at what they're doing and it, uh, I, I, to me, it's just not funny. The humor, the humor to, so I will make an analogy. Pornography is to actual sex as Deadpool. Humor is to actual funny things like none, nothing in it was actually funny. Everything is like supposed to be funny or ironically funny or, but not actually. So we're going to talk about the instigators next week. I laughed almost all the way through that movie.
Mike00:44:41Well, almost all the way through that. I had the same exact thought JPL that you did and, and Deadpool.
JVL00:44:46I, I don't know that I even cracked a smile once I just sort of sat there beaten down by like, Oh, we got to do another one of these, another, Oh, he's going to make another dick joke. That's great.
Mike00:44:58And believe me, nobody likes dick jokes more than I do.
JVL00:45:02I will watch the, uh, Silicon Valley D two F like jerking off 4,000 guys at the same time sketch. I will watch that on repeat for an entire 24 hours and I'll laugh the whole time. But it's like, because it's funny, this isn't funny. References, references. Aren't funny.
Mike00:45:24And it's the family guy of a comic book.
JVL00:45:28I mean, like the jokes about like, Oh, I'm going to make him sing the second act of music, man, without warming up. That isn't actually funny. It's just supposed to make it, Oh, I know that Hugh Jackman was in music, man. And so, because I have that knowledge, I'm supposed to laugh at this thing that he has said.
Mike00:45:47Wait, he was in music. Did they make a new music man video movie? No, he was on Broadway. Hugh Jackman was on Broadway for like a year.
Sonny00:45:55You know that, you know, the cultural powerhouse that is Broadway that everyone knows about wasn't,
Mike00:46:00wasn't Hugh Jackman in the greatest show, man. That's what I thought that was referencing.
JVL00:46:03Yes, he was in, he was in, he was also the greatest showman, which when they're flipping through the car stereo, they played two bars or three bars of the greatest showman music too. And he was like, Oh, I don't know any of those songs. There's the Rob Liefeld is referenced and Rob Liefeld's feet is one of the stores. And that's funny because Rob Liefeld doesn't draw feet, but it's not like none of these things are actually funny. Like make, make a joke, make a joke. Don't stop making references, make jokes. The only one who I thought was funny was, uh, uh, what's his name? Rob Delaney, Rob Delaney, like a little bit of screen time. He had, this was the friend, the.
Sonny00:46:51Yeah, his friend, Peter, the friend who everybody, who all the other deadpools get excited about.
JVL00:46:56Right. The Rob Delaney stuff that kind of worked for me a little bit. I think he's funny. I've always liked Rob Delaney. I liked him in whatever the sitcom he did was. I like him and everything. Not his stuff worked, but the rest of it in a fucking, I just, oh my God, Ryan Reynolds is just nails on chalkboard for me at this point in his career. I hate it. You don't enjoy.
Mike00:47:21Those mint mobile commercials.
JVL00:47:23I, uh, I'm sure he's a great guy and I can see why people like him and certainly he's a movie star, but, but it doesn't work for me. And I say one more thing. Hugh Jackman is not funny. I like Hugh Jackman a ton. I think he's a great action hero. I really like him, uh, in musical theater, but he's not funny. And he's not funny in this. He's not even funny as a straight man. He's not even funny as the straight man. Like his straight man stuff just feels again, like he's in a slightly different movie. And I don't know, like people, but people like this. This is why in 1995, uh, seven out of every 10 comic books on the shelf had Deadpool or Wolverine on the cover. It's because the sheep will buy them, right?
Sonny00:48:18The sheep will just go out and buy them. They like it.
JVL00:48:20I don't understand it, but they like it.
Sonny00:48:24Okay.
JVL00:48:25Michael, you hated it, right? I mean, I hate it even more than me.
Sonny00:48:28The self-awareness of it, the self-awareness of it is, is the draw though. It's like, it's like being in a club, like knowing all of the things, getting all the little jokes. It's like, oh yeah, that's, this is my tribe. This is where I belong.
JVL00:48:41But I'm in that tribe. I should, this is what I'm saying. Like I, I am here for in jokes. I love that sort of thing though. They, I, I would like. Like so many of the, all of those things seem like it should be geared towards me, but it can't just be that it has to be actually funny.
Mike00:49:03So you're asking, you asked JVL if I hated this movie and I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it. I just, it felt like a chore. It was tiresome to watch. Yes. Felt like a chore. I was kind of like. Like ready for it to be over. But I also found myself like, I mean, I found myself involuntarily laughing, which I guess all laughter is involuntary, right? You see something or, or hear something funny and you laugh. So like I had that sort of physical reaction, so it crosses, I guess that, that, that low threshold of making me laugh, but I didn't. I didn't, it wasn't like I was satisfied after it. I didn't have satisfied laughter. I should say I was, I was, yeah, I felt empty after each laughter. I was like, oh, that was funny.
JVL00:50:03Do you remember any of the things that made you laugh?
Mike00:50:06No, not one. That's, that's my, yeah, that's my point. It was just like, it was the same way. Maybe we've talked about it on the show before. The same way that I laughed when I saw Borat, Borat made me laugh because it was like, oh, I can't believe I'm watching this. I can't believe I'm seeing this. I can't believe he's saying that. But like a Borat certainly does not stand up. It does not hold up well anymore.
Sonny00:50:32It's I've always hated. I've always hated that movie. Yeah, no, it's like I, I find, I find that whole mode of humor.
JVL00:50:39Well, I'm cheap and Sasha Baron Cohen's greatest work. Sasha Baron Cohen's greatest work is Talladega Nights.
Mike00:50:47Yes. And I will put no dissent on this. No, I think.
JVL00:50:50No dissent.
Mike00:50:52So.
JVL00:50:53Ricky BB.
Mike00:50:54So here's, here's my question because I, I saw Deadpool too long ago. I don't, I don't quite, I remember enough. I remember TJ Miller in it and Marina Baccarin, Baccarin. Is that how you say it? Baccarin. I remember her in it. And I remember the bar that they're in. That's basically all I recall about that movie. And I never saw Deadpool 2. So, and I, and I'm, I'm asking this in a way that I hope does not get me canceled. But was, was it always so gay?
JVL00:51:35Yes. Deadpool has always been. Okay.
Mike00:51:37So that's like a thing.
JVL00:51:38Always been. So he's pansexual.
Mike00:51:40The character is pansexual. Okay.
Sonny00:51:43Because it's very, it's, it's interesting though, because it is very like kind of winking fratty.
Mike00:51:49Yes. So, so much. Is my question about all this.
Sonny00:51:52I would say, I would say at least 80% of the humor is based in like kind of gay panic stuff.
Mike00:51:56Yes. Yes. Like, but there's like all, like there was all these references, right? Like the, the big fight in the Honda Odyssey. Like it's all very much. I mean, I would say that was, that was actually a joke. The, the, the, the, what I'm about to describe. Like I would say that was a joke. I didn't find it particularly funny, but it was an actual joke, which is they, the fight, the end of the fight scene. They sort of like, they, they have like a low angle shot of the van and it's like shaking in the woods. And then like, then it cuts to the next morning and they're like laying next to each other. So it was very much like a, um, Hey, they were fighting, but really it was like, they were having sex. Again, didn't find it funny, but it had the, you know, to, to quote Bert Happily, it had the cadence of a joke. Um, so I don't know. Like, I just. I, I found the first couple of those kind of gay panic jokes like, oh, ha ha. Yeah, that's kind of funny. And then it just, it just kept going. And I was like, this feels really weird. And the, the thing that I come back to is like, it seems so odd to me that this movie is as popular as it is because it feels niche in all kinds of ways. Like it doesn't feel broadly, like it should be broadly. And yet it is, is it just that it's violent and there's cursing and, and that's what people like about Deadpool? I don't know. And otherwise it's like, you have to be in on all the jokes and I'm certainly not in on all the jokes and I, you know, I didn't like it, but maybe it's not for you.
Sonny00:53:39I, did you guys, did you guys think Channing Tatum was funny? Cause I thought Channing Tatum was funny. His kind of like mumbly Cajun-y accent.
Mike00:53:46Well, he's, he's actually a funny actor.
Sonny00:53:49He's funny. So I thought that was, I thought that was fun.
Mike00:53:52I enjoyed, so I didn't quite understand.
Sonny00:53:54So there was, there's supposed to be a, you don't understand that there's like 15 years of rumors about a Channing Tatum Gambit movie. Literally like, literally.
Mike00:54:02So I recognized him as Gambit.
Sonny00:54:04The joke is the, the joke is like Channing Tatum is a Gambit in this movie that got consigned to the void, which never actually existed.
Mike00:54:13Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. Yeah. Very, very meta. Um, I hate meta. Um.
JVL00:54:20Jennifer Garner said she didn't care that Dead, that Daredevil wasn't there. Yes. I got that joke. I got that joke. She's divorced from Ben Affleck.
Sonny00:54:29Yes. He played Daredevil.
JVL00:54:30Um. Wesley Snipes. He was in that movie. Wesley Snipes. I was waiting for Colin Farrell. Maybe Colin Farrell could have made me laugh. Yeah, maybe.
Mike00:54:38Wesley Snipes was like looking pretty old, looking pretty worse, worse for the wear. Um.
Sonny00:54:44Wesley Snipes making a joke about how there will never be another Blade. Get it? Because there's that Blade movie, that new Blade. The last Blade movie with Mahershala Ali has been in development hell for like.
Mike00:54:53I'd say I didn't even know that.
Sonny00:54:54Three years now. I had no idea about that. Since the Eternals.
Mike00:54:56I had no idea about that. Um. Yeah. I don't know. It didn't. It's terrible. It's not good. The whole thing is terrible. I actually liked Matthew McFadden. Uh. I thought. Tom Wamsgans. Tom Wamsgans. And maybe it's because I watched Succession and I loved, I loved his character. Emma Corrin. What did you guys think of Emma Corrin?
Sonny00:55:17Uh. Bald, hot, Professor X. Yes, please.
JVL00:55:20She gave me very confusing feelings. No.
Mike00:55:24No. Well, I saw her in that show that we watched. Uh. Uh. We did a couple episodes for. Oh, yeah. The, uh. The FM show. The, the murder at the end of the world. Yeah. Um. I don't know. She was in that? Yeah.
Sonny00:55:36Yeah. She was the. She was. She was the hacker lady.
Mike00:55:39Oh. And she was also Princess Di.
Sonny00:55:42Do you remember that show at all? Do you remember watching? You watched two hours. I remember watching two episodes of it. My wife and I watched the whole thing. We watched the whole thing. We watched the whole thing. It was not good. One of the most disappointing. Disappointing. Totally.
Mike00:55:51Even, even with Clive Owen. It was disappointing. Um. Anyway. I don't know. Just. I just kept thinking as I was sitting there. Like. I really hope I don't have to watch another one of these movies.
Sonny00:56:04Well, the good news is that this grossed a billion dollars and it's probably going to make another like 400 million. So we're going to have to watch a bunch more of these movies. Mike, get excited for Fantastic Four. The first thing.
JVL00:56:16This is. Again, as you said, Sonny. Yeah. In the same way that like. Cryptocurrency invented. All of the like 500 years worth of problems in finance over the course of 10 years. Marvel has created, like, as you said, speed run through all of the problems, the structural problems of the comic book industry in like 15 years. And so we are now at the point where we're going to get to have Deadpool and Wolverine fatigue, too. And I can't wait. It's good.
Sonny00:56:48Are we? Are we? I mean. I mean, we, the collective, we, the three of us. Sure. But like, I don't know, man. There's nothing. There's nothing about the response, the reaction to this movie that suggests to me that fatigue is anywhere in the offing. It's holding incredibly well for a movie of this size. It's it's the it's going to it's.
Mike00:57:09So is it now is our Deadpool and Wolverine in the MCU? Yes. OK.
Sonny00:57:16Although they're still so are the X-Men in the MCU. The MCU is working through its multiverse problem. My understanding is that the whole doom, the whole Kang thing was supposed to be culminate in the elimination of the the multiverse or the consolidation of the multiverse into one timeline. We'll see what happens. I don't know.
JVL00:57:39Kang Kang is gone.
Sonny00:57:41Kang is gone. Kang's not coming back. The reason they brought Robert Downey Jr. back was because Kang is gone. And they're like, we need something that'll make people stop talking about Kang being gone.
Mike00:57:50So so maybe I know we only have a couple of minutes left. So Deadpool is an X-Men adjacent character, correct? Yeah. In the comic books like he's supposed to be in the X universe.
Sonny00:58:04Yeah, he's in the X. That's why he was. That's why he was a 20th century fox.
Mike00:58:08And he was in one of the original X-Men. Brian Reynolds.
Sonny00:58:11He was an X-Men. He was an X-Men Origins Wolverine where he played. Yes, where he had the Catanions. Brian Reynolds. Brian Reynolds played Deadpool. And the funniest part about that movie was that they made him mute for like the last half of it. The whole point is that this guy is like the smart talking Merc with a mouth.
Mike00:58:31The Merc with a mouth.
Sonny00:58:33And they literally.
JVL00:58:34Give me Casey Affleck instead.
Sonny00:58:35They literally covered his mouth with flesh so he couldn't talk. And it's like it's that's a that's a very interesting little microcosm into the ways that comic book movies can go horribly wrong. And this this whole series is another. Is is a very good example of the ways they can go horribly wrong, but also be successful.
Mike00:58:55So OK, so so other questions. The Fantastic Four. Are they a part of the X universe?
Sonny00:59:01No, they're not. They're their own.
Mike00:59:03They have their own universe, but they were both movies produced by 20th Century Fox. So they were in their corporate.
Sonny00:59:11The very the very short version here is that 20th Century Fox owned a suite of characters that were basically. The X-Men, Fantastic Four and some ran like I think Ghost Rider. Interestingly, I don't think Blade actually. I was kind of surprised Blade was in this movie because Blade was a new line movie, which is now owned by Warner Brothers. I wasn't I wasn't sure exactly how that bit of corporate synergy worked, but whatever. And then the MCU is the MCU is essentially everything else that doesn't fall under the Spider-Man umbrella. Now, the Spider-Man movies, of course, are owned by Sony. Sony has the rights to not only Spider-Man, but any character that could conceivably can be considered an ancillary Spider-Man character. So it's like Spider-Man and also all the Spider-Man villains and also like Venom. Right. Well, I mean, he follows under Spider-Man villain, but also like, oh, God, what's an example of something? I don't know. I mean, again, it's like it's Spider-Man and all his villains, but that's like a thousand characters. I mean, there's like the whole Spider-Man universe.
Mike01:00:20OK, another question. Electra and Daredevil, because didn't MCU have a show about Daredevil?
Sonny01:00:31Yes, my understanding is that the MCU regained the rights to Daredevil and Punisher as part of some sort of swap with maybe Paramount.
Mike01:00:45I don't really. But yes. But are they in in universe in story? Are Daredevil and Electra in the same universe? They're closer to Spider-Man. They're closer to Spider-Man. They're not.
Sonny01:00:57Punisher was originally a Spider-Man villain, and he kind of he took on a life of his own.
Mike01:01:01And Ghost Rider was. Who was he involved?
Sonny01:01:06Ghost Rider was always his own kind of separate thing. Yeah, he's shown up. He shows up all over.
Mike01:01:10That was like the one comic when I was a kid that I like read a couple of issues of was Ghost Rider. So so that was my my.
JVL01:01:19Well, that's why you never. Never fell in love with comics. Ghost Rider sucks.
Sonny01:01:22Oh, yeah. Ghost Rider is a shit villain. Shit hero. OK. Ghost Rider and Johnny Blaze.
Mike01:01:28I don't even know what that is. OK. Any other thoughts on Spirits of Vengeance, Deadpool and Wolverine?
Sonny01:01:37Kill me. Pass.
Mike01:01:41OK, well, that is all we're going to give to this episode. Join us over at Subbeacon dot com. Tell your friends and family. Give us a comment and we'll talk to you next time. I feel like I feel like the conversation that we just had, like that would be like if you guys were to ask me questions about the the classification of the elves and Tolkien in the Silmarillion. Like, I feel like that would be the equivalent of the conversation that. We just had, because like. All that actually feel like I know less than I did before I was asking all those questions.
JVL01:02:27I'll tell you what, we're going to talk about the instigators next week, and I'm really happy about that because the instigators is Deadpool and Wolverine. But with Matt Damon in the Wolverine role, it really applies as Deadpool and except it's good, brilliant insight.
Sonny01:02:45I'm sure it's fine.
JVL01:02:48All right, I.
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