Hey, it's Brian Curtis from The Ringer, and I want to tell you about the PressBox Podcast. The PressBox is a podcast for anybody who likes news, whether it's about sports or politics or pop culture, and wants to understand how that news really gets made. We have new shows every Monday and Thursday, we have long interviews with everyone from John Crack Hour to Joe Buck. Your social media feeds are bursting with information every day.
Let us help you sort it out. Join us on The PressBox. I need to support staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.
Hello, and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the Ringer.com, and joining me in the studio where every day is Leaf Day is in the degree world. That's nice.
Do you think this is our first Leaf Day show? I mean, you would think after 11 years we've probably done a Leaf Day before. How often does Leaf Day happen? It's been 12 years, but what?
How often does Leaf Day happen? How often does it happen? Yeah. Does it happen every year, right?
No. I could not care. I really never paid attention to this. What is Leaf Day?
It's every four years. That's February 29th. That's why I was confused about why Rhett wasn't due. That's right.
This is fascinating. So you've made it, wait, let me do the quick math. You've made it 11 leaf days in your life without knowing what it was. I have a vague idea about it, but I just wasn't really fixated on it.
Where was your baseball team playing? When they taught that? We were in Florida doing a sprint training. Just pictures and catchers though.
Do you remember the episode, the Great Episode of Parks and Recreation where they find out that Jerry's birthday is February 29th? Oh, yeah. So it's actually, they throw him a sweet 16 party. Oh, that's funny.
It's a 16. That's funny. Was there also a 30 rock? Leaf Day episode?
Probably. Okay. I'm sure Kai can get into that first. Pretty much.
Great. Well, it's great to see you. Yeah. Yeah, of course it is.
Good. I'm glad you're happy to see me. I felt a little ashamed. I'm happy to see me or you're fine.
I feel I was worried because then I wanted to begin with this that I was a little abashed because I made a verbal gaff. I misspoke. And generally American people are very forgiving when public figures make gaffes or misspeaks. Yes, especially aged white men.
Yeah. I thought it was a really enjoyable digression about charity concerts in the 80s. Luckily for our listeners, I think we did this run minute 51. So I know we were retaining 100% listenership according to the data that I'm shown.
And we were talking about how I attended Lollapaloo's in 93 in the rekt, the ruins of the stadium in Philadelphia. They had recently demolished it was the stadium where the Live8 concert had happened a few years before. Yes. That concert was JFK Stadium.
Yes. I called it RFK Stadium. Well, I mean, you're a huge Kennedy guy. Yes, right.
And I think you just betrayed your Bobby Leen's. Well, I appreciate that. You know, I think that he... You love attorney generals.
We don't know attorneys general. Yeah. We don't know what his vision for the country would have been sadly. But I do think that you point that out does help keep the spotlight on me because I was too Philadelphia and sitting here each with equal assets and microphones.
You really let me hang myself on that. I did an interesting question about who bears responsibility of the person who's centered or the person who was paying attention sort of like 60%. I got 60% during that chat. I'm like, you know, how locked in.
I am. You know, Andy, it's great to see you. We okay? Yeah, we're fine.
I felt I was worried how this was going to play out because I've just been haunting me since Monday. It's the first thing you texted. Yes. You know, I can always call Kaya and just be like, I need to punch this in and just be like, absolutely.
Well, we got JFK Stadium. No, we do not. No, no, we give it to the people. Raw and Uncut.
And then we just take the comments as they are. Yeah. Yeah. No, have we ever gone back and edited anything?
Yes. Yeah. For sure. Yeah.
Oh, well, they're all those podcasts around like true detective season one is great. I loved it. That's right. More stories about angry men, please.
Look, that was me. They've never steered us wrong. No. I'm not.
I wanted to talk to you about some news at the top and then we're going to talk a little bit about the first two episodes of the show and we'll do a little preview of the regime, which is coming on Sunday from Will Tracy, who people may know as a writer on succession and starts Kate Winslet. You wrote the menu to you, right? I did write the menu. You did.
Did you like the menu? I don't know why my voice went so high when I asked that. You're worried about what I was going to say because I think you're looking at me like I'm unpredictable. No, I just, I mean, you know, you're one of our greatest critics.
I never know. You are. I enjoyed the menu. Yeah.
I watched on a plane where I was just very happy to watch. Yeah. We're really going to get a lot out of the plane viewing that you would be like, I generally love everything, I see on planes and I weep. So, you know, I just cry.
I just feel like joy eating scallops. She loves it. So that's coming on Sunday on HBO. We'll talk a little bit about that later in the pod for the news side of things, Andy.
Couple ones. Number one, Sally Rooney's got a novella coming out the false. You say what? You break a news.
What? I'm breaking news. You Ky was like, I know when I came in and I was like, did you hear and she was like about Sally Rooney? Intermetto is the name.
But by the way for listeners, it'll be seamless for them, but that was apparently a classic watch step down while we googled something. Chris was googling the Sally Rooney information. I was googling the ninth episode of the sixth season of 30 Rock was called Leap Day. Okay, so I'm glad that we're all ready to go now.
Yeah, three hours past in real life we went got a sandwich. No, I just I love to see your face when I tell you about Sally Rooney news. It's exciting. Yeah, so Sally Rooney's got a kind of kind of coming it's called Intermezzo.
Yeah, tells the tale of two brothers Peter and Ivan Kubeck and how they cope with the death of their father. Peter is a successful Dublin lawyer in his 30s who is medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage relationships with two very different women. He's in doing love first love Sylvia and Naomi a college student for whom life is one long joke and then Ivan has begun seeing an older woman with a turbulent past. This is great.
So Kai is locked in on this. Which one of us is going to read this first? Kai, 100. Has this been snapped up for television yet?
That's why I brought it up because we have we've just been so locked in on the Rooney verse as an expanding television footprint. One thing I think, look I previous to a series where normal people obviously introduced in the world at large to Palm Escal and then Daysie, Daysie, Daysie, Jones and then Conversations with Friends, which I loved. Which introduced people to Jo Owen who no one had ever heard about before. Certainly in the larger culture or tablet.
I think this podcast gets a lot of credit for really being on the front lines of obscure, often violent, noirs that only we like. I don't think we get recognized for being the leading champions of literature written by women in the early 30s because all I want to talk about is Emma Klien's the guest. All I want to talk about is Emma Klien's the guest. All I want to talk about is that right?
She's not even coming to the mic. She just knows this is dangerous. Are you enjoying? I couldn't put it down.
I went to the right too. Chris, you? I have not because I'm too busy. You're in what's reading?
Rachel Kushner is the Mars room dog. Yeah. Well, she's not. She doesn't fit our mandate, which is less listen to men in their 40s talk about novels written by women in their 30s, but why doesn't she fit the mandate?
Because she's a senior to that age. Okay, but she did write a book about being in prison. She rules. Rachel Cuske rules.
Kushner. What? Yeah. You said Rachel Cuske rules too.
Yeah. All the Rachels. I'm smoking that cush. I don't know.
You always talk about cuske. I know. There are two genders. Okay.
Kushner and Cuske, you have your eye on the metrics always and you don't share them with me, which I appreciate. What do you think? Like big picture? What would be the swing if we went from covering big ticket IP and television shows to only talking about- Can you tell that that's not what it is?
I have nothing for you. Like what do you like? You would lose some a little bit, but like we would be okay, right? I think that we would have a floor that would stay.
I think you could go into like the Patreon market with that kind of content because like the real heads would want it. So you think we should, in addition to the watch, launch a Patreon-fueled podcast where we just talk about books written by women authors in the 21st century? Two guys in their 40s? What is the title for this?
This is legitimately the worst. I think there are two genders. It's a good idea. I'm really excited about the inevitable FX adaptation of IntraBets, so coming in to you.
A couple of other things that we're sort of kicking around on this sort of deadline Hollywood Reporter versus Guy Ritchie and Ronan Bennett, who I mentioned last week in association with Shogun because he was, I think the writer originally attached to revive the James Clevo novel in the miniseries for FX. He is a person of interest for me. He's been on the watch before. We talked about his show Top Away, which is one of my favorite shows of the last few years.
Guy Ritchie and Ronan Bennett, interesting pairing, right? You're like, damn, what are these guys cooking out? Tell me. A Ray Donovan spinoff.
It's a wild, but like a movie. It's called The Donovan's. It's a series set in London. It's a series set.
I thought they were doing a movie. I'm pretty sure it's a series. Is this an example of you can't get anything made unless it's been made before? Yes.
I mean, particularly this is for... These guys seem like pretty, pretty certified dudes. I guess the money is money, but I would feel like they could probably get a London crime thriller movie or TV series off the ground. Guy Ritchie makes a movie every nine months, seemingly.
So I guess this paramount idea of like... You're right, it's a series, by the way. Spinning off billions as trillions and doing all these like maybe a Nurse Jackie Revival or whatever. And now this Ray Donovan story.
I mean, I think there's a clear method to the madness, which is... So basically Showtime doesn't really exist anymore, functionally it doesn't exist. It's just a part of Paramount+. And there are two mandates at play.
One is let's just iterate. Let's make multiple spinoffs of successful brands bring back things that have already existed. But let's also take some of the DNA from the Sheridan verse, which is get big, big ticket packages together, get big stars, make things as shiny as possible to stand out and pop. I don't know what the B side of that story is.
I would imagine it means we'll make less other stuff around the margins because the budgets that they have are the budgets. But to me, the story is not just a continuation of the trillions spinoff story, but also in concert with the other announcements this week, it was exciting, which is that George Clooney's long just dating American version of one of our favorite shows, the French series, Le Piojo, is... You always put a little dee-jawn on it. Yeah, you got a slather, it's got a slather, the baguette is moving towards production and with a likely star in Michael Fassbender, which is incredibly exciting.
It got me to uncork the... I want you to put the word out there, we're back up to meet in the text that I sent you. But again, like it feels strange that this is an... This is for what used to be Showtime, but will now be for Paramount Plus.
I mean, it's Clooney, it's an international hit show and he's a VP, it's Fassbender, but this seems to be their strategy. I take almost all Paramount news with a grain of salt just because of the... For clarity of their position. Well, yeah, and also like the rumors of their being sold, being emerged, whatever.
And I feel like when the Showtime Paramount, like Union first happened, there was just so much talk about all the stuff that they were going to do. This adaptation of the Bureau has been kicked around for a while, or at least discussed. And then there was like, you know, there was ideas that the creator of the Bureau was going to do another show that might hit American stores. So I think I'm...
I think I was unrelated to this, that he was shopping a show. I don't know what happened. I think when it comes to Paramount stuff, the only thing that seems to actually go from like, here's a bunch of stuff we've announced, now it's on TV is the Taylor stuff, is Taylor Share and stuff. Yeah, although I mean, I think these things will happen.
I think this the Donovan's and the department will happen. And I think that you could look at this in a cynical way and saying, they're putting the shiny stuff in the shop window to make it attractive. I mean, you could make the case. I don't know if this is the case.
If this is a winning argument to make in like order of murder discussions, if they were even happening, then to be like, boy, it would be a shame to have this incredible Michael Fassbender spy show on the surface that not many people have. As opposed to we are making this in order to get more people to subscribe. It's like there are Olympics. There are Olympics like in the...
Like we bought the right to the Olympics. So the pack is propped up. I thought you meant Michael Fassbender's been changing his blood. I would have asked him.
He's definitely changed his blood. It's hard to do those like long-haul like car races that he does. Is he the upscale Frankie Munoz? Like is that his thing?
I do. The reason I side is just because sometimes you get a little close to the bullseye. Oh, really? He's a guy who's like pretty much like step away from...
Yeah. And like when the killer came out, I was like diving deep into my fast-bender research and like really the only time he had talked over the last couple of years was for a like long like car manufacturer documentary about him doing the mod, I think. How extensive are your fast-binders? They're all color-coded.
I'm glad you asked. They have a special show. Yeah. I mean, I'm obviously like I wait with Bait of breath for the department.
I'm interested enough in the Donovan's just because we're in bed. It's a really cool writer and I'd be fascinated to see a London crime thriller. The Ray Donovan part about it is I mean anything to me. But I think that's what's weird about this.
I don't think anything to anyone other than them saying, hey, come look at our cupboards. And if there's anything to interest, you take it. If this is successful, it's hard to be mad at the strategy of saying, this guy can write a hell of a London crime thriller. We want to be in business with him doing what he does best.
But he has to wear this branded jacket while he does it. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about one other story that came out this week, which was that HBO Warner Brothers Discovery, I guess Warner Brothers Discovery is the right way to put it, are announced that they were down to a three-writer, I don't know, fake office.
But they didn't announce this was reported. Sorry. So it's been reported that HBO is down to or backs us down to its three finalists for a revival of the Harry Potter universe TV show. It's a TV show that Zazlav had met with JK Rowling with some folks and that they were bringing back Harry Potter and they have narrowed this down to three writers to take the job on.
Right. So the understanding, I don't know if this has ever been officially announced, but I think it's sort of been intuited or assumed like they're going to do the books again. They're going to do them in more depth as a 10-year project. And so they were looking and this was out in the town.
This was announced at the end of last year and agents were asking all their clients that they liked Harry Potter books to throw them into the mix for consideration. Your gal Joanne Rowling is in charge of this. So she's deciding who she wants to be shepherding the project and whose vision makes most sense. We could cover her on our podcast about women writers.
That's true. Our most controversial episode. We would do it only for clicks, I promise. Just paddling.
But we're not editing this. I promise. This reminds me of being a lifeguard when I was in my teen years. I just kind of like twirling the whistle.
I see you. I see that you're struggling while you're swimming. I'm not sure if you're waving or dragging it below. I don't know.
Your second reference to the podcast, all the sports you did. That was a job. It was a summer job. It wasn't a volunteer situation.
No, I didn't know it. It's picturing you on a slightly smaller chair. I'm like, I get him. Take your lifeguard to work.
Okay. The reason it's kind of rough. This show could be good. We have no idea.
It's a very high profile project. It's one of our brothers' discovery. It is what it is. I actually do have a question about the artistic merits of this book.
Go ahead. What really bummed me out about it. One was, and I'm sure no one was happy that this was leaked, that they're the three names of writers I'm not familiar with. I don't know.
Personally, Francesca Gardner, Tom Moran, and Kathleen Jordan were named by Deadline as the finalist. What really rough. The first time that's happened, right? There's often these big IP things that's down to a couple of people.
It's great. What really rubs me the wrong way. I've been through one of these. It didn't come out the other side.
Yeah. You didn't need Lord of the Rings? No. I mean, I think it's fine.
What if Frodo was a detective? First of all, what if Frodo was Frodo? What if it was said in? Don't want to protect us.
This is all free work. This is what bums me out. It's an enormous amount of life-disrupting free work to have a chance to be in the room, to be considered for something that could potentially change your professional life. It doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
It's just one of the things that I felt like we went on strike for was to shorten this. If this process began conservatively at the end of 2023, and I believe the Deadline article says that they are going to be announcing this at some point in the next couple of months, the decision might come in June, that's half of a year of stress-inducing time consuming free work. Now, when you say the work, or can you just give our listeners a little bit of an idea about generally what happens when you're quote-unquote up for a job like this? Well, you have to make presentations.
Basically, you graduate levels of zooms up to in-persons of answering questions and presenting to the gatekeepers of something. I would imagine, ultimately, it will involve being with JK Rowling and making the pitch directly to her, as well as the heavy decision makers. In a case like this, I don't think that David Zazlop traditionally sits in on creative meetings, but is he very attuned to this? Sure.
For sure. It's an enormous enormous thing. It's not easy to be preparing presentations, to be constantly refreshing your relationship with the material and preparing for zooms and all this stuff. Again, always the caveat when we talk about these things.
It is not coal mining, but coal mining is generally free. It's not free labor. It kind of bums me out, particularly when it's- It's a little bit itch, because it's kind of borderline. It just bums me out when it's made public.
So it seems like these three capable people are participating in a kind of lurid reality show to win the golden ticket to get a job that they might not even get to keep, because what's to stop? Sure, because every time half the time these things, it's like, this person has been replaced as a certain- Yeah, I'm trying mason steps in at the 11th hour and brings the series over the finish line. I'm just speculating with a little bit of saltiness, because just from the writers go perspective, that part bums me out. Yeah, right.
Do you think that that is the way in which this is being handled or the way in which writers have to work in the sort of, say, the last couple of years, how is that different from the way it was maybe before COVID, or maybe in like 2018 or something like that, where it was like, was it more of a like, here's my pitch, take it or leave it kind of thing? Like a less of like a dry dress rehearsal? I think there's always been, there's always been free work in fall. There's always been the soft pitching leading to the major pitching to get the job.
I mean, you don't hire in any occupation, it's not like you get paid to do the job interview. I mean, I understand the way that looks in terms of the larger marketplace, but there are so many more stutter steps now than there used to be. Part of this is because the decisions have a lot more money writing on. This is Harry Potter, which is arguably the biggest and most profitable franchise in the world.
They can't rush into that, nor would the fans want them to. But as these things have gotten bigger and bigger, the stutter steps to be like, okay, well, could you just give us some ideas? Could you put those in writing? Could you do a PowerPoint?
Could you do a brief outline of what you would do with the first? Give me a mood board. I mean, these are traditionally paid steps. And it's part and parcel with what is going on in the industry at large, which is it used to be you get paid to write a pilot and they make a decision.
Now you get paid to write a pilot and their decision might be, could you write a second episode? Could you write two more episodes? Could you write four episodes and a series Bible? Because you want to maximize the amount of relatively cheap labor they can get before things go into production and a writer's room or prep and all the other things come into play.
So it's extending the runway to a point that is uncomfortable, if not unpleasant for a lot of people. But the real issue for me is just like, I'm sure these people are fine and thrilled for the opportunity and they don't need me keeping up for it. But it's bumming out when it went public. Right.
Because it's hard. It's hard out here. Do you think that there is a huge market? I mean, obviously there's huge market for Harry Potter stuff.
In fact, I think like it's probably unremarked upon how reliably like popular this stuff is. As say, adapting each of these books over the course of 10 episodes, hour long episodes of television, do you think that the material, because I've never read it? We're seeing the movies, honestly, lends itself to that. Yes.
Like, could you just be like, I'm going to shoot each page. Like, that's what I'm doing. I mean, if Mallory was here, I think you could give you a more full-throated answer of excitement. I mean, these are really, really rich and they're very long books, especially later in the series.
People adore them and successive generations are discovering them and loving them every day. And like, you know, this is our put on my Thomas Friedman column just had that like the stores are packed everywhere they are in the country and around the world, people buying the chocolate frogs and the hats and the out. All of it. You could monetize almost every single aspect of it and they kind of have.
Yeah. So the idea of a incredibly rigorous text to screen adaptation is, I think it probably safe bet to be a success. Does that light my fire in terms of like, and I'm not saying, to be clear, no one asks me. I was not involved in this on any level.
I was just asking, like, curiosity, like if I was like, there's a Harry Potter series in 2026, are you like, aside from like, obviously, like probably family members, like, can't wait to check this out. Would you be like, great, like, here we go. Maybe. I mean, I think it depends.
I think generally when people listen to this podcast, no, and I feel like you and I are the same about this. But like, the more if something is trumpeting, it's absolute rock-free-face- Like his feel to it. Yeah. Right.
That, I think the pleasures that can be derived from that are probably not going to be for me, because I didn't read all the books. I read them to my older daughter until she could read them for herself and then she dusted me. And I think maybe there's some other creative possibilities within this world, but, you know, JK Rowling controls all of it and is not going to let anyone else come play with her toys. And that's her right.
And it's obviously very profitable for her. So that's what we get. But I will say, as one extra missive from Daddington Island, I thought that this is completely uninteresting to you, I promise. But I thought that Netflix is live adaptation of Avatar the Last Airbender, which they did last week, was going to be a huge hit in my house.
I was like, it's been, it's not though, right? It has been summarily rejected without even being watched. Now, I don't know if this was- Without even being watched. I showed the trailer and it was lukewarm.
But, you know- When you see your children reject something out of hand after five seconds, are you like my work here? It's done. That's what I was going to say. I was like, as someone who, like, I defy the two of you to name any time when I have rejected an entire idea of a trailer.
Certainly not something that made a billion dollars in box office and it's nominated for a career-obition. Yeah. So I am proud that she's my daughter. But I did think, but it came on last week.
I was like, oh, here we go. Like, I got it. Guess we're going to watch Friday night, family time. We're going to watch the show.
Absolutely not. Because she said, again, I'm not trying to be submerged in this Netflix show. I have not watched it. But it was really interesting that- and this is for people who don't know this is based on the beloved and actually pretty amazing Nickelodeon cartoon that was then turned into an awful- And they- And they- Yeah.
That has been memory-holed and this is like trying to atone for that in many ways. And again, it's preaching itself as like, we're accurate. We're faithful to these source material. She's like, I don't want to take something- see something that's like a wonderful memory for me done as- this is her words now.
Crapy CGI. Wow. Yeah. It doesn't- What's interesting is now that- it's a live action show, but in many ways it is as animated as a cartoon.
And she doesn't see the value at, which I think is interesting. Again, I don't think there's anything- I don't know if there's anything larger to it about the future of our culture that way. Well, I do wonder though, with your- for your daughter's cultural experience- Right. And she's really into anime, right?
Yeah. She's really into anime. She's like grown up with that concept of this is what like this stuff can look like. And also like, my brain can sort of animate this stuff itself, like when I'm reading it or when I'm watching it.
Like, you know, I think we had some of- I've had some experiences, but over the last year, like, scavengers, rumors, blue eyes, and I'm like, actually, I don't think you could have shot that. I mean, right? You could have, but like, I think that there's something kind of brilliant about that kind of expansive- your only limit is your imagination sort of animation. And I know that I'm always dick about animation, but I'm being serious.
And if you are used to that, and if you grew up with that, and that's your- to some extent, like your version of this story is animated to see kind of like this CGI version. I think I'm going through this even honestly, like, watching- I was before Doon. I was watching the trailers, and it was one was for the new Planet of the Apes and one was for the New King Kong. And but it just looked like kind of cartoons.
It's just with like Brian Tari Henry being like, what have we done? And I kind of am like, I don't really give a shit about King Kong or the Planet of the Apes, but my version of those movies is just feels a lot more like palpable and like viscerally real, even though they are absurd ideas. Well, I think it might be time to revisit the very baked-in assumption among generations up to Gen X and maybe one more generation past it, that turning something into live action is- Yeah. ...clasting it up.
Yeah. That it's improving it. When to your point, you can do less or used to be able to do less visually. And now you can do just as much, but then what are you making?
What is- what are you- what is it about Avatar the Last Airbender, which was on Netflix as a cartoon for many years, which is how my kids discovered it? What are you doing with it that makes it better? What do you have to say about this material other than we're just expanding it to the IP? It's an argument that people used to make about comics too, which is just like you can- the world has fallen in love with the Avengers, but they don't actually know what's great about comics because comics can be so batch of crazy.
I don't have to be X, Y, or Z thing in the two-hour movie. Yeah, I don't know. I think that's an interesting point that this- in the context of this conversation, it feels like a very old-fashioned attitude. Like, ah, we've got to bring this to the masses.
Well, the masses speak manga. The masses animate. It's been multiple decades now where that's what people are comfortable with and what they understand and what they- in many cases, what they prefer to watch. Now, on the flip side, you know, one of the things that I think is probably like very safe for people working on movie sets and TV sets now is that I think they use real fire much less.
Oh, are you thinking of Leo in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? I think I was- I was actually just thinking about- there was- what was I just watching where it may have been Master's the Air, but there was something where I was like that is not real fire. Like, those are, you know, it just- yeah, it was Master's the Air. And maybe it was, but it didn't look real.
Master's the Air is still getting better and better every week. I love that. By the way, I don't want to continue to our doing conversation where you've seen it and I haven't, but because I haven't seen it yet. But you know, sometimes I listen to fresh air and your guy, Dene was on yesterday.
And one thing that he was talking about- he said it again. He did. He asked- he was with Guillermo del Toro doing it and they were both just like, who gives a fucking shit about- I mean, I do take larger issue with that, but I appreciate- I appreciate his commitment. I love to see a tixman in the wild, you know?
Well, I'll sharpen his katana as he's like- But he's so committed to his version of cinema that it's a thing. He's not like wishy washing it being like, let's make the cheapest version of all of it. Like, he's making something that's visual and that's his way of telling stories. And frankly, hearing him being interviewed on a podcast, I can tell that he thinks pictures, which I don't mean that as a dig, but he's not waxing poetic about everything about it.
He's like, I want to show you what this means to me. But the thing that he said that I found really interesting, and maybe people who are deeper in these actual like production streets know this, is that his biggest priority in all the Iraqis stuff for especially the sequel was using natural light at all times. Even if that required doing pickups on like two-person scenes in completely different locations because of where the sun was. So some of the conversations are cut between like 12 different takes and locations.
That's very interesting. He wanted it always to be the actual sun which made everyone insane. But I can guarantee sight unseen that that makes fake computer worms look better. I just I believe that.
Yeah, I mean, his this is a whole other cover. I want to wait for you to see Doom before we talk about Doom. But my fire thing- Am I doing too much? My fire thing was really just the other night I was watching an action movie that we're going to be doing on rewatchables.
You can't say it, Spike Larry David. I know I'm waiting. Bill has Larry David role who goes upon Sunday and says what we're doing. But in it, several houses explode and you could tell they blew those houses up.
They did. They really did. And then they were like, let's blow it up some more because of a gas tank inside of the house. And I wonder whether or not someone your daughter's age would watch that and then watch like the CGI version of an explosion or fire and care one way or the other about the difference.
Like she might care about last air benders. Like yeah, I but for things like, you know, we watch Die Hard and like all this glass explodes off the dock until we plazen really gets real. It's like I did to my guys feet. Yeah.
But like they would probably do that as CGI now. Well, it's interesting because these I have so does a young person look at that and say I did that the real version of this doesn't move me. The stuntman version doesn't move. I have two children who are currently seven and 10 and they have known the word CGI and CG for most of their existence.
And comment on it like like in terms of that was good or bad or I see that like that's just part of their visual language. And I'm interested to see what they not just what they bump on if they watch older things, but also what they are charmed or delighted by and how it affects them just almost spiritually or aesthetically when they see other things. Like I was very taken with the fact I mean, not just because I liked it too, but my older daughter really liked the wonderful life of Henry Sugarer, which is the West Anderson short film he made for it's the longest and sort of the lead feature of these rolled all adaptation. These are all different Netflix and this one is nominated for an Oscar for Best Short.
And you know, it is a West Anderson movie. And so everything is very homemade and practical. And like the scene where Yogi is in a lotus position and levitating, he's sitting on a box that is painted the same color as the background. And I think that they really liked that and noticed it.
So it's interesting to see the noticing go backwards too, that like how much was done. I feel like I joked on this podcast a few months ago about how I tried to show them a Harold Lloyd movie. I was like, yeah, so that was didn't go great. But there was a different reaction to the perceived peril.
Like there's the same thing as hanging from the same thing as hanging from the clock. This is in safety last. I think it stressed them out in a way that all of the fire in the movies that Uncle Chris keeps trying to show them does not. That's right.
You know, the anime version of Batterf that you're trying to get off. Yeah, I think there's a huge argument to be made for like when you watch some things like say from the 40s, you may respond to a certain actorly style that's like pre-method that feels very theatrical or declarative. Yeah, like declarative or staging. That's also because of like you know, audio recording was different back then.
And you might also like, I was thinking kind of a better example of what I'm talking about might be the difference between FastX and Bullet, the Stephen Queen movie. Right. Both have incredible car chases. One is completely computer animated or mostly computer animated.
And the other is like guys driving around San Francisco and crashing into things in real life. But I don't know if like that would matter to someone who was watching FastX. Maybe that the whole point is no, I want to see this car crash through a tower in Dubai. I felt like I had a similar reaction though when we talked about it a little bit when we were talking about over the summer.
This is a very close room in pod for us to we were supposed listening to Mr. Friend. It was delightful listening to him on Bill. I owe him a call.
The Mission Impossible podcast we did in the summer and like why the Tom Cruise Hayley Atwell car chase worked, quote unquote, and why Harrison Ford standing on two trains in the Indiana Jones movie didn't work. And I am sure it wouldn't, I don't need Crystal McQuarrie to explain it to me that there is a ton of post production in that car chase. I guess. But there's also maybe the comp more is the, in the same way that like Denis Villeneuve is thinking about the light, you could tell that McQuarrie was thinking about the very, very basic almost silent film comedic possibilities and the choreography of two people trying to drive a car well handcuffed, you know, or a small car.
There are things that are very human scale. This car is little and the other cars are big. Yeah, it's hanging off the building. Right.
As opposed to we can do anything and we will show you that we can. Interesting stuff. Really thought provoking stuff. Where we going next today?
Should we go to a feudal Japan? Yeah, speaking of feudal, the one thing I realized I forgot to do and we can revisit in the future was I was imagining that there is in the same way like in Shogun, there's the five Regents who were left in charge of the Empire. Who were the five Regents in charge of stripping me of my Philadelphia citizenship for my error last week? And I was like, I figured it's like gritty.
Yeah, Ed Rendell. Ed Rendell, the gov, Questlove, the jeweler with the diamond in his beard, RIP. That Robin's Ethan Walnut? Yes.
Rocket Robin's. He's no longer with this. I got it. But late into life when he was a more, you know, like people shrink a little bit and they get older, like he still had the diamond in there.
A little scraggly beard. Get the diamond in. You can sound like we're all going to turn into skeletons. Like, like, vlogger.
Are you watching the presidential race? It's weird. You're like, what? What an interesting, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. You can feel like you're you can feel like your, you can feel like your brain.
Like, like, you will Regents of the term and whether it's failure. Yeah. Okay. So I was trying to think of like, how to approach Shogun because we've already kind of did our, our hosanas for it when we talked about it in the preview.
The two episodes are up, the first two episodes of the series. And I will just reiterate, like my general praise for the show, which is essentially like after rewatching these episodes, there's just so much like craft going on here and so much of like what I think television is great at, which is telling these really dense in-depth stories and introducing us to worlds that like are different from our own in some way or whether it's historically or culturally or geographically or whatever. I was thinking a lot about thrones though, because obviously thrones has been the show that sort of, I think has become closely associated with Shogun in its, in the critiques of the show. Yeah.
I think there's an obvious nod to Game of Thrones and the trailer in the credits rather. So there's like an easy way of just being like, this is FX's shot at a Game of Thrones. This is FX's big swords and sex epic. And I think there's some truth to that, but there's something kind of interesting about the way Game of Thrones starts, which is there was a lot of humility I think to that show.
It was something that they had had to scrap the pilot. They were kind of making a little bit more of a chamber drama. There was a lot of like, obviously, Sex and Violence in those first few episodes that in that first season, some huge twists, but I don't think they knew what they had. And when you read these Benioff and Weiss interviews that have been coming out around three-body problem, I think that that's the case there too.
It's been interesting to hear them talking about making three-body problem because obviously I think the budget is much bigger. I think they know there's a lot more eyes on them. This is an international sci-fi property that people are like, okay, you guys got to nail it. And I think they know that this is like their quote unquote follow up to Game of Thrones and in some ways maybe a way to make things right.
So I was thinking about all this in relationship to Shogun, because Shogun is at once, I think somewhat obscure material to this at this point compared to Game of Thrones? To that generation of fans, I think so. Yeah, and also is about, it's 50% if not more in another language than most of the viewers watching are going to know. I think that there is a kind of complexity to the relationships and the customs in the show.
It's all stuff you have to learn, just like you did for Game of Thrones. We didn't speak Dothraki. We didn't know about yourself, all these things. But I think Shogun has to come out and have a little bit of swagger and it does, because it can't really afford to be like, people are just going to watch the chatty version of the show.
It has to have the ships. It has to have the guy about to commit seppacoo in the waves. It has to have these big swing moments. So I was wondering if you could help me locate where the show is on the meter between like, hey, we're just trying to do our thing.
It's humble. We're fighting our way, because shows aren't allowed to find their way anymore. I think that's a very good point. I think that when we think back about the launch of Game of Thrones, what feels so upside down about it now is that the pressure that existed for the first season was trying to impress the HBO viewer, not to attract Dragon fans.
The conversation around it was, what's HBO doing and why is this an HBO show? HBO has Boardwalk Empire. Why is it making this? Most people when Game of Thrones was a big way through the first season, if you hadn't already had uptake on it, it would get recommended to me is like, you got to watch Game of Thrones.
No trust me. You'll like it. As if like now in retrospect, that seems ridiculous. But I guess at the time I wasn't like a big Dragon's and fantasy.
And now that's just... That's also true. But that's what made the show so smart was something that, depending on the US, may have been something that they thought was a limitation. They had to earn the dragons in the budget that comes with it and the leap into just full genre storytelling.
There had to be a... They had to start small for any number of reasons that I think ultimately benefited the project. And what I find so interesting about Shogun is that it never... I mean, this is why I don't work in the executive suites of networks, but it never occurred to me that we would be talking about Game of Thrones when we talked about this.
I didn't have any sense of what the show would be, so I should say that upfront. But I think that one of the advantages of the FX leadership team that has been in place for so long with John Landraff and the Grahade and Genovalean and many other people who have just been consistent in what they've been doing is that they have a lot of conversations. And they are... I don't know if that's still the case, just by, you know, post Disney merger and Hulu and all these things, but they had the luxury of taking their time.
And maybe... I don't know how granular they get, but I imagine that when Game of Thrones hit and it hit a decade ago, over a decade ago, they had a number of spirited conversations about what was hitting and more specifically, what is their version of that and how to make something that works on HBO work for them. And instead of launching, instead of not that they could have, but basically if you think of a lot of the post Game of Thrones reactions were things like, let's shell out a quarter of a billion dollars for the Lord of the Rings universe. And assuming that what people liked about Game of Thrones was the thing that they actually kind of bumped on by the end, which is just this is storytelling on a level that is no longer human or recognizable.
It's just dragons incinerating stuff. They were saying, people who liked Game of Thrones and the numbers that they liked it also liked XYRC thing. Just fundamentally being like, we're not going to do a fantasy epic. We're going to do an epic.
It seems so logical, but that totally... That's an occur to me and that just as it did occur to a lot of the other programming heads. So I think that's very smart. I would say that...
I mean, yes, you could listen to my argument and be like, if they were so smart, why did they wait 14 years to have their Game of Thrones killer? So I don't really think it's a one-to-one, but I do think none of these decisions happen in a vacuum. They are ongoing conversations about what works for whom and how and why. And I'm sure that when the rights of this were available many, many years ago, someone started to ask these questions.
I think that for me, maybe this is on brand, the things that I bumped on, which were minimal and mostly confined to the first hours I was getting my bearings, were the things that felt more in your face. Whether it's the couple of cutbacks to the piping bowl of man soup that my guy... Oh yeah, when he's boiling in the kettle? Yeah, that my...
Who's my guy? Who's my guy? Yeah, but she's giving it. Or I'm not, at least you're two, I'm not a huge fan of the score.
Oh, interesting. This is Atticus Ross minus Trent Reznor. Yeah, you're a real Reznor originalist. I need to run that through just Trent's keyboard before I can really sign off.
There's nothing wrong with the music. This is not me trying to find something to complain about, but there are moments with the music that feel like they are doing the work of a note that said, we got to grab people faster. And so what they're going to do is pump up the music there. Yeah, just digress really quickly.
I currently am obsessed with the main theme of Masters of the Year, and I've been like, humming it around the house constantly. And we're in the worst down. Like, it's just like, why the fuck do you keep going? Do you do it first?
That's not humming. You could do it first. It's like leap day. It's another thing you missed early.
Do you do that when you tackle some dishes in the sink? Yes, actually. Yeah. So it's really like to get you going because you're a master of Don Sosko.
Yeah. I have a master of the sink. I'm trying to think, I mean, maybe we should save this for our Patreon because I think their relationship moments when this music would be great and moments when I think it might be suspect. You know, the word master is problematic.
So, okay, should you start humming the Shogun music? I actually can't remember it. It didn't even bother me. Okay.
Okay. Okay. You didn't like the music. And that wasn't my take.
You don't like boiling guys. No, I'm open to it. It's interesting. What if this pod was only five minutes long and it was like, Shogun, light, next Wednesday didn't like it's a TV.
Well, this attention economy, I think we would do very well. I mean, so we talked the other day about why we love the show and I just won't surprise anyone. I rarely even the shows I really like. I'm really like, let me get back into it quickly.
I had to stop myself watching ahead because we have trainers and I'm really, really enjoying the show. So I did not watch it. Yeah, this is also a really, I mean, I think that, you know, it's a significant amount of time to spend these two episodes. I think it's like 70 and 50 in runtime for the first two.
Yeah, there is that thirst for the third one because you're almost like, I got all the sort of, I have the family tree straight. I got all the different plot. I'm following Martin, the double dealing preacher here. I got to kind of stay on top of it and then like, wait a week, you make it like, anyway, anyway, I want to talk to you a little bit about something which is the art of the character introduction because I thought that this episode, these two episodes, it had some really like pretty iconic kind of ways of us.
We meet these characters in just like these incredible ways. Now, obviously the first character we meet is the pilot, John, who is played by Cosmo Jarvis. And one of the things I really like about this character is that even though in its sort of maybe 10, 15 years ago, especially when Shuggo was first adapted, as a miniseries Richard Chamberlain, that's your POV character. That's the person that we're going to spend most of our time with.
And what I really loved about this is that from the second you meet John, you're kind of like, he's an abrasive prick, you know, and I do believe that he is probably rating Catholic bases and being really violent. He's untrustworthy. He's unreliable. And so the traditional POV character, the audience avatar, the person that we're experiencing this world through, actually to me, maybe morally, but maybe just like, vibe wise, is it outside her?
A little bit. I think that he is as much a disruption to everything as he is like our way in, and I think that that's a crucial and really fascinating accomplishment. That's a really, I think it's very well observed. I think it's very subtle.
And I basically want to rewatch to think about how exactly they did it, how much thought went into it. Because when he says, and he says a version of this repeatedly, he says, I'm not going to die here. I'm not going to die like this. It doesn't sound like Captain America being like, not today, Hydra.
No, it sounds like I guys deluded by his own ambition. Yes. And that he has this, you know, his crusade might not be explicitly religious. In fact, it seems more anti-Catholic than it is protestant, pro-protestant.
But it seems like the crusade seems to be the glorification itself. He's like, I think I meant for a bigger fate than this. And so what's interesting then is that we see him more clearly the way Toronaga sees him, which is as a tool, a chip, something to bargain with, something to use, you know. And his, and Blackthorn's chaos and his chaotic energy is in interesting contrast to the stillness with which Toronaga leads.
I mean, he keeps, it's very intentional and interesting the way over those first two episodes Blackthorn appears to be dragged out of every scene he's in physically, where Toronaga just gets up and leaves after he's set free. Yeah, even though Toronaga is supposed to be essentially a hostage, you know, in some ways, or a prisoner in a kind of subtle way. But there's an economy to what he says and what he does that is very much in contrast. I also feel like his character introduction is quite awesome as well because he's doing the falconry, right?
He's doing the falconry, which is him controlling, you know, like communication, him controlling, you know. And showing his comfort level with my sworn enemy hurts. That's right. I would never.
I and I would have an elaborate system of rats with information tied to their tiny paws. And helping you make, which I believe that's what that's what it's actually controlling me by living under my hat. Isn't that what Barris did? Master Whispers wasn't a lot of rat stuff.
Was there? No, no, they were his little what do you call them? Birds. You called them birds?
Oh, I had it dubbed. I was like, I can't handle this. So we went back in and we punched in rats. Yeah.
Anyway, it's also the small things. Like, you know, you were joking before and like seeing Mr. Carbonell back on an island brought everybody back. But that was the other thing is his sort of like when he arrives, it's like the gear shift that the show needs at that point in the episode.
But but it's also the way that the show is signaling its interest in multiple people through dynamic characters and dynamic character introductions. It's not through either performer because other than Mr. Carbonell, you know, I was saying before, like Tada Nobu-sanu was recognizable, but I don't know him as one thing or another particular. So you're not they're not banking on us saying, uh-huh, that person.