This episode of Big Pictures presented by Starbucks. We are Big Starbucks Frappuccino fans over here. So when we heard about the new Strato Frappuccino blended beverage, we had to try it. It's a crave worthy ice blended beverage topped with cold foam, making for delicious layers of flavor.
I love how Starbucks leans into the seasons, especially summer. From vibrant refreshers to cold blended beverages, there's always something exciting to sit on. Available now for a limited time, only your Strato Frappuccino blended beverage is ready at Starbucks. I'm Sean Fennissi and this is The Big Picture A Conversation Show about Superman again joining me today.
Let's talk about James Gunn's Superman and to rank all the Superman movies. It's Rob Mahoney and Van Lathan, a couple programming things last week on the show. Amanda and I broke down the movie in full, as did Van and the Midnight Boys on the Ring Rivers, as did Van and I on the House of R. So if you wanna know what we think about the movie, you've heard it.
There's roughly 14 hours of me and Van potting about it. But Rob Mahoney, I think you're the last living Ringer podcaster. This is true. Who has not had a chance to weigh in on this film.
So before we start getting into the box office and where this movie sits in the hierarchy of power in the Superman universe, you saw the movie Superman. I did. What did you think? Did you like it?
I just think it's really affirming when you see characters that are really important to you represented well on screen. And it's been a while, but they finally got Big Head Green Baby. Just right. They fucking nailed it.
They aced it. Wow, it's amazing that James Gunn knew exactly what you were looking for and delivered. Do you care about Superman? See a character for you growing up in the movies?
What's your relationship with him? He is a guy in the mix for me. So I grew up as part of the lowest in Clark Generation. The Smallville Generation, as I was a teenager, like the DC animated stuff.
Like that was kind of my entry point. You know, like Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, those kinds of things, more so than eventually finding the Reave movies a little bit later. But I would say I'm definitively more of a Batman guy. But Superman can hang out.
We can do worlds finest. We can do, I guess, Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice. And through that, I'm finding all these other entry points to some pretty good Superman stories here and there. What's interesting about that is I think that he was all of those things that he's describing all those properties.
It was a part of people's willingness or their want for Superman to not culturally expire. Because when the Reave movies are coming along, and when we're growing up in the 80s, Superman is still a very strong cultural force. Like a really strong cultural force. Then Batman's there.
He's huge, big deal. But Tim Burton's Batman comes, that changes things. And that re-oriented DC. It also re-oriented people's connection to those characters.
And then it's kind of Batman-first. And it's Batman-led for a long time. Superman comes back to TV, then Smallville comes. And then a whole new generation of people kind of get into the Superman lore.
But we might have been the last actual Superman generation to wear our fathers. That was the biggest deal in the world for them. And they talked us into it. Well, there's a funny conversation that we could have that we are not prepared for.
But I think it's relevant to what we're discussing today, which is we've talked about the championship belt a lot over the years. And Bill kind of developed this concept. Many years ago that only one person can be holding the belt as the very best at a certain thing. He was off and talking about the NBA.
So Ron has done this a lot. Chris and Andy do it about TV shows on the watch. What's the number one show right now in the consciousness overall? The superhero belt in terms of decades is really interesting.
Because in the 50s, you do have a Superman TV show. But then in the 60s, you have a Batman TV show. And then in the 70s, you finally get a Superman movie. And then in the 80s, Superman reigns.
And then in the 90s, Batman takes over. And then in the 2000s, I think it's Spider-Man. And then you get the baby X-Men Iron Man's not in 2008? Well, in the 2000s, it's Spider-Man, but then you get Batman begins and the dark.
And then obviously in the 21st century, we have this wave of superhero movies and properties. So it's a little bit harder to sort out that period of time. But I agree with what Van is saying, that when I was a kid, Superman was like Clorox or like Kleenex. It was just like a part of the fabric of day-to-day life.
In the 90s, my experience with Superman is basically entirely through Jerry Seinfeld. And Jerry Seinfeld, man obsessed with Superman. He loves Superman. He had routines about Superman and his stand-up act.
And he often talks about him on the show Seinfeld. And Superman kind of went away with the exception of Lois and Clark. It's interesting that you were exposed to Lois and Clark. Oh, yeah.
Probably a little too young. But I'm here for the Superman antics. And my parents are there for the Lois and Clark. Right.
I wasn't sure that I watched with my parents too. I was just really interested in that. The Superman stuff probably doesn't look very good these days. If you go back and look at that, you can go back and look at that.
Lois and Clark, the Dean Kane stuff doesn't look very good. Well, that's a whole other conversation as well. The Dean Kane aged against Superman. If people are pulling up all of the clips from that show where they're treating Superman, like an illegal alien.
And Superman is talking about the rights of people. And he's talking about what he's standing up for. Oh, you think that being on that show, Blackpill Dean Kane? No, no, no, no.
I'm thinking that would be incredible. That would be. But no, I don't think. What I'm saying is, I don't think Dean Kane remembers the portrayal of Superman.
Like Lois and Clark were some coastal elites. But not coastal elites, coastal liberals that really look at the war. Members of the media. Members of the media.
And so people keep reminding him about this and it's just funny to see. Oh, yeah. Well, and fairness, if you did a pod 30 years ago, would you remember a single take that you had on that pod? It's probably going to be the same stuff.
Recycle it? Kind of. I use different lenses to funnel in the kind of the same. I'm kind of reading.
I'm kind of hitting an endpoint. I think in terms of like stuff I got to share with you guys. I'm rounding into like my second decade of this. And there's only so much material.
That's true. I mean, I find that you're having existential crises on the show all the time. You're hitting new depths to explore. Honestly, I think creating new depths to Superman too.
One thing I'm fascinated by as we're talking about the timeline of when Superman was popular when was he not? During my formative years, Superman was very lame. He was straight boy scout. I went the edge of Batman.
I went the cool of X and then I went all that stuff. This movie supposes and implies and suggests like, what if this is cool? Like, what if this version of a moding and caring and this kind of expression of power is cool for today? And if you're a teenager, especially if you're like a tween into teenager right now, I would love to know what their relationship is to the Superman movie.
Like, is this a cool movie or is this still a boy scout type like story? I've been thinking about that a little bit too because my perception of this Superman is very kind of pop punk, post emo, very sensitive, very thoughtful, very engaged with the world, very engaged with humanity. But that is also still not present day teenagers. You know, that is actually maybe more speaking to somebody that's your age or even a little bit younger.
You're a direct hit, unfortunately. Like, now the superhero movies that are being made by 60 year olds are not being made for me and man anymore. They're now being made for you. How do you feel about that?
It's fine. I'm good about that. I can also tap back into how I felt when I was 30 or 15 pretty easily, I think. But I find it fascinating because it's a really good point to teens like this movie, which is kind of important for the DCU to really proliferate in the next 10 years.
I don't know if anything else you want to say about the movie before we talk a little box office. Sure. I mean, I think it is fun and bold and genuinely moving, which is something that to me is very important for a Superman movie. And it has all the elements of a Superman story that I want.
And a lot of things I didn't know you could do with a Superman story. So you're able to pack all that stuff in and we can talk about the varying degrees, which they're successful or not. I know you guys already talked about a lot of that. But I have incredible admiration for the fact that they tried so much.
That James Gunn tried so much. That's so much as packed in here as far as the messaging and the themes and the characters and introductions of world building, it all kind of worked for me. Give or take a proton river or two. I think most of this stuff is really, really works.
Should I corn sweat? I really loved him. I think they nailed kind of like the big three casting with Clark and Lois and Lex Luthor. All three of those I think are knocked out of the park has not historically been the case for most Superman movies.
I would say most of them get maybe two, sometimes one, sometimes zero to be honest with you as far as those three go. So the fact that all three were hitting at a really high level right off the bat, I understand what the relationships of these characters are. I'm understanding this articulation of Lex Luthor in a very specific and important way where he's like, and this is the thing about the Gene Hackman Luther too, where he's just kind of like a weird terrorist living underground. I want the Nicholas Holt's untouchable quality to Lex Luthor, where he's the guy in the high tower.
Superman needs to walk up to him and he needs to want to punch Lex Luthor and we need to want him to punch Lex Luthor and he's not going to do it. It's like the restraint is such an important part of the story. I feel like a lot of Superman stuff misses out on that, but this movie certainly did not. It is.
I think our relationship to guys like Lex has changed. It actually evolved over the course of Lex's comic run. Obviously Lex starts off as this really brilliant corporate captain of industry who hated Superman and used all of his money and wealth and genius to do that. You know what's funny when I go back and watch movies from like past eras captains of industry, titans, like really wealthy guys were pretty much celebrated.
They were it was always thought what type of exceptional person you would have to be to get to that perch, right? And it was kind of celebrated in movies. Of course, there was like the asshole rich guy in movies that existed, but I think about movies like the Edge with Anthony Hopkins where he's this billionaire and he knows everything and he's completely in control of all of these situations and all of this stuff is actually not so Superman three that there's like just somebody's complete corporate greed that kind of gets litigated. And then over time, Lex Luthor himself becomes the president in the comics and it's like that's the kind of guy that becomes the president.
So now this version of Lex Luthor. I would never have in the real world. I'm just a comic story. Now this version of Lex that you're talking about, I think is freer for examination than it's ever been and it makes that character a little bit easier because even as I was in my rewatch Kevin Spacey's Luther, like kind of a fast talking loser, right?
Like a fast talking loser. A con man. It's brilliant, but takes advantage of an old lady and all of that. It was really the small bill re read sort of centering of that character that kind of got us to the point that we are at now.
Got PC optimum points? Is it shoppers drug Mart for the bonus redemption event and get more for your points? Friday May 8th to Wednesday May 13th, valid in store and online. I think part of that obviously there's a lot that has happened in the world in terms of the industry that he captains that I think makes him in theory of more vulnerable to some of those criticisms and the way that we're framing him like him being a tech billionaire specifically that's a very loaded phrase in our modern time.
More specifically though, the like real the matching sensitivity of Lex and Superman that in a movie they both are like kind of frail emotionally, like they're kind of very unsure of themselves and they're kind of I don't think Superman overcompensates and this movie Lex is really overcompensating in this new movie. But Superman is almost having to convince himself of certain things at times which is just like maybe a slightly different emotional balance than we expect from these movies where square jawed Chris Reeve is so confidence in his goodness. Yeah, so confident in his goodness that he nearly lets Lois die because he promised somebody that he was going to, he promised his marketing was going to save her for a month or something in Jersey first. Yes.
So confident in this Superman isn't really confident at anything as much as I said but it's also because he's continuously being questioned which they never do for past Superman. I'm very curious to see what the recession is of this movie over time. Like not just will it continue to do well with the box office but will it be warmly accepted? Yeah.
There's two components to judge that one is the box office and the other is the DCU movie. So let's just talk about that very quickly. So this movie came in at $217 million worldwide which I think is a little low. It did very well domestically.
It made $122 million domestically. That puts it roughly where we expect a Superman movie to live in America. It's above man of steel slightly, 12 years later and it's lower than Batman versus Superman even though that was a huge event movie that we'd all been waiting to see for decades but then had a precipitous drop in the second week. So I think for like Warner Brothers it did pretty well here.
I thought it was going to go to 150. I thought people were going to go crazy maybe just because of my own personal bias of really liking the movie. Didn't quite get there. Probably a variety of reasons for that.
I think there's a Jurassic movie that's still doing well. There's an F1 movie that's still doing well. And also I think like the right kind of like jumped on this movie and said don't go see it. There's some politics to it that people are probably keeping some people away.
I think this is a good outcome for the movie. Now overseas there's two ways to look at it. It was light man. It was light in a lot of places that they thought they would do better.
Very light. You're extremely light. Now what America represents in 2025 and the American ideal is very different than in 1978 or even in 2013. So this movie is going to struggle to get to some of those like $600, $700 million thresholds.
And I guess that matters to what is and is not made over time. The next two movies that are confirmed for the DCU are Supergirl and Clayface. Those are much more modest propositions on a worldwide scale. So it would be kind of fascinating if we had a comic book universe that was more like singles doubles in the occasional home run with very few desires to pick grandslams.
I feel like the MCU set this precedent and the DCU kind of followed the precedent of like, yeah, we could just throw off a billion dollar movie. I feel like when that happens, you don't get this kind of message. Like frankly, this is the cost of doing this type of business. You want to make a Superman movie that's overtly about immigration and Gaza.
This is what happens. There's going to be a cost in certain markets. As you say, there's a projection of Americanism in Superman that is distinct among every superhero. Like I would say Superman is more American than Captain America is.
It is truth, justice in the American way. It's baked into the character. He interacts with the American government in this movie and all these movies, more than basically any other superhero does. They all have fake dummy governments that represent whatever place they're from.
But this is an American story. Right. And if it's an American story at a particularly turbulent American time dealing with incredibly complex world issues, I think there's going to be some people aren't going to see it. As long as it creeps over the line of let's make more interesting things, I'm totally fine with it.
I don't need the grandslamps frankly. And if we want to play double baseball all day, I'm cool with that as long as you get runs on the board. Yeah. What do you think?
Well, it depends on their approach to the movies that follow. If the movies that follow go, you know what we need to make sure that these are the most four quadrant things that could possibly exist. Let's snatch a little bit of this stuff out, the real world critiques out. I would be disappointed.
I'll be disappointed because the DCU has the opportunity to actually tell these stories the way they're told in comic books. And there are very few stories that are told in comic books that are not directly influenced by the world that we live in. Like you see World Leader show up in these books sometimes. So I thought that the movie was pretty on the nose with some of the stuff that it was talking about.
And I was surprised. But I also felt like it gave the movie some weight. Yeah. Totally great.
It grounded it a little bit. And I was happy about that. Less of that gun in particular is, I say this as a compliment, a very strident filmmaker. It's very comfortable saying this is what this movie is about.
And I will make you understand in clear terms what it's about. And even in the press sometimes, I'll tell you what the themes are. I interview a lot of filmmakers. Many of them are very reluctant to do that.
He always goes the opposite way. This is sometimes the downside of that. 122 million in the US is a huge success. It's not criticizing that.
But it's not. We are far away from the $357 million opening end game. I don't know if we're ever coming back to that. I'm sorry to the ringer first for that.
But that just that feels like 50 years ago now. No, it's over. Because I think sometimes we underplay or under discuss just how impressive the filmmaking experiment that the MCU was to lead people throughout all those different episodes of the MCU, which is essentially what those movies are, to this grandiose final act where every single character for the most part gets their ending. There are a couple of new beginnings that we all were like, it's not going to work.
Even where we were going to go with that. But it was just very special. Very special. I'm going to go with this a little bit.
It went almost perfectly. And I don't know if like secret wars at this point doomsday at this point, they're just saying, hey, we're going to throw everybody in a movie and expect kind of the same results. But it wasn't the same way. Yeah, they haven't built us up to something in the same way, obviously.
So I do want to do some quick accounting on Warner Brothers, which at the beginning of the year was the punching bag of the punditry about how they're going to fail this year. And they are in fact currently the most successful movie. So maybe not from a pure dollars perspective, but in terms of the swings that they're taking and the fortune that they're reaping from exciting movies. So Minecraft movie, $955 million worldwide so far sinners, $366 million worldwide.
That's crazy. Maybe even crazier final destination bloodlines, $285 million. That's bad. Yeah.
F1, $393 million and counting. Now they just distributed that movie. They didn't produce it. Apple produced it.
But still that's a win for them. And now Superman two 17 in one week. Only a couple more movies for them for the rest of the year. This weapons very excited about that on the show.
The Conjuring last rights, apparently the last Conjuring movie. Then there's one battle after another probably doing an episode or two about it. I think I mentioned seems important. I don't know if it's going to make $285 million like final destination bloodlines, but we'll see.
What makes you say that? You never know. You never know. If it does, we're good.
We're getting full of risks. I'm scared of weapons guys. I don't know if I can do it. Weapons is freaking me out.
I can tell you this. Terrifying. Weapons is freaking me out. I don't even know what weapons is about.
But weapons, no weapons reminds me of just real quick. 30 seconds. Big pick audience. I'm sorry.
I'm doing a fan thing. Don't sell actualize. Just do it. So we're going to move the ring.
Sure. Yes. All right, man. There was a show that came on BET called BT uncut.
I know it. You know what? There you go. I don't know.
It was exactly what it sounds like. Gotcha. After hours. So I would watch BET uncut, obviously.
The commercial for the ring came on. Who was going that was like a two-shore video? Who was really in the rotation? I don't think this was the drill era.
This was the tell me what that thing smelled like era. I'm on a kick it tonight. Oh, baby. Tell me what that thing smelled like.
That was the song. I promise you, Rob. That was the record. It's late.
And so the commercial for the ring came on. And that was a freaky commercial with the little girl. She's crawling the ring. I'm like, and a lot of times you're high.
I'm like, what the fuck is going on? I've never seen the ring. I can't make myself watch it. You couldn't get there.
I couldn't get there with the movie. You never saw it? I never saw the ring. It's very good.
My guy, Gorvobinsky. This sounds like great content waiting to be made. And watch the ring. Never saw it.
And for some reason, weapons is doing the same thing to me. Weapons is freaky, is kids. It's all these really talented actors which tells you that the script is good. If all of them are in it, normally that means it's a good script.
You know what's supposed to be in it instead of Josh Brolin? Which would have been a lot of Pedro Pascal this summer. Yeah. And he dropped up.
Not that at that switch. Yeah, that was really good. We're very hopeful here on the picture. And then the last movie that WBS is Mortal Kombat 2.
Oh, sure. I thought the first one was not great but I really think the second one will be great. Why do I feel that way? I don't know.
I'm an idiot. I just have vibes. Donny Cage. I thought your saying Sean is a Johnny Cage type.
The first Mortal Kombat movie was, it's got a special place on the heart because. The original, the Paul W.S Anderson one. No. That one is legitimately good.
Okay. No, it's not but okay. It's fun. not a couple years ago, it was just in the pandemic, and I was ready for it, and it was so stupid, but it just has a special place in the heart.
They're selling the new one on Johnny Cage's so hard Carl Urban will be Johnny Cage in this movie. Look at this poster. It looks like the name of the movie is Uncaged Fury. What's going on here?
This doesn't even say Mortal Kombat 2, absolutely not. They teach Johnny Cage the end of the movie. I'm waiting for Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. You know, until we get to the proper installment, I'm not fucking around, understood.
Future of the DCU, aside from Supergirl and Clayface, you know, technically the Batman 2, they turned to Matt Reeves turned to script in. Yeah. I think the first time we convened this panel was the first time was the Nicholas Cage Hall of Fame the first time. It was one of the two.
So one of the two, during the pandemic, we talked about the Batman, and we ranked Batman movies. And so I thought it was right for us to come back together to do that. What form Batman is going to take is interesting. I heard a rumor slash sourced rumor aggregate this that I cannot share.
It was very exciting to me. OK. I'll tell you off, Mike. OK.
I'm very sorry the audience for that, but I just cannot share it. I'm like, I'm casting right there, Chef. That's called Holding the Information. I'm holding it for a later date.
But I think what they decided to do with Batman is obviously pretty important with all this, whether they can actually make characters like, Lobo, Matter, 2, movie-going audiences we shall see. Is there anything you'd really want to see? I just talked about this on your Midnight Boys episode. You didn't, right?
What is the DCU movie you really want? I think I also want to see characters, then. I want to see specific movies. I was really actually excited for the Authority movie, which it doesn't seem like is going to happen.
They were always really cool. Even though the engineers in this film, it doesn't seem like she is coming back as part of the Authority. She did survive the movie. She did survive the movie, which I thought that maybe there might be a turn for her at the end.
But she was a little bit skeptical of Lexi- It seemed like it. I think they set us up for that. A little bit, right? But I'm interested in Lobo.
Clayface will tell me whether or not the DCU works. That's the movie to me that I'll tell you whether or not it works. Yeah. This one, the fact that James is going to make a fucking awesome super-naked movie, I always knew that.
But it did you? I did. I remember you being so scared. I was scared once I saw the trailer.
Before that, it seemed like a mid-sense. Yeah. Before that, it's like, oh, you need an earnest, sweet movie with a lot of spectacle. James Gunn.
But now, Clayface, it's such a swing. And it's such a distinct and interesting project to even take on. That tells me whether or not their world has won a change. Yeah.
Honestly, I'm really looking forward to the Damon Lindelof lanterns show. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
Green Lantern, a character like, again, is kind of like in the mix for me, but not like one of my guys distinct place. I'm very curious what they do with a variety of lanterns in that context. Obviously, we get one here in Superman too. Actually, I was really pleasantly surprised and heartened to see Hawker on this movie, a character who I know, again, mostly through the Justice League animated show.
And it's a really cool character in the context of that show. And I just assumed, like, would never really be on screen in a meaningful way in a movie. And so the fact that she can be done well in a movie, I think it's very strongly for what they could do with some of these minor characters. Now, can they hold their own movie in the way that I'm sure they hope that Clayface won't hope that a logo will.
We'll see about that. But incorporating some of these world building elements, I think so far as I'm more smoothly than I would have imagined. I'm very curious to see if they market Clayface as a hard DCU movie or as just a movie along the lines of Conjuring. Yeah.
It's directed by James Watkins. It's written by like Flanagan. These are horror filmmakers. And they might just position the movie in like a DCU dark.
Like there might be a kind of like sub universe in which they can make 50 to $75 million movies that don't have to make $800 million to justify themselves. I would love that. I was asking for that from the MC. A long time ago while understanding that they were building towards these epic events, that's part of the fun of comic books is like not every comic book needs to be, you know, the infinity crisis or whatever.
Like they don't have to be these like leadups to something. Anyway, do you remember how we ranked the Batman movies? Do you want to hear how we did it some years ago? I would love to hear it.
There were 14 Batman films at that time. I think there are still only 14 Batman films. If you don't include those animated films that you're talking about other than that, I remember we did Mask of the Phantasm. That one's at the ass.
Yeah. Anything related to Batman and animated series that was theatrical, you would do. So 14, well, first of all, three of these movies will come up again today in our rankings. Batman and Robin was 14.
All right, P. Joel Schumacher. Justice League directed by Joss Whedon was 13. Justice was 12.
The Snyder Cut was 11. The 1966 Batman movie was 10. The movie I really liked. It's good.
The Lego Batman movie was nine. Too high. Batman Forever was eight. Now would kill you if she heard this.
It's not a funny movie. I don't think he's funny. I think he's funny. I think he just didn't work for me.
Right. And so if you might be sitting at nine because of you, I can't recall us. If you've got a joke a minute movie and the jokes aren't landing, I just feel like I'm being told that I'm watching Batman eat lobster, Thermador. It's like, really, he sees this.
He sees this. It's terrible to me. Number seven is the Dark Knight rises. Very silly movie.
Maybe funnier than the Lego Batman movie. Number six is Batman begins. Number five is Mask of the Phantasm. Number four is the Batman.
Number three was Batman Returns. Number two was Batman. And number one was the Dark Knight. Are you guys ready to admit that Batman Returns is better than Batman 84?
Yes. Are you ready to put the proverbial bird in your mouth? I'll not count. You don't know.
And just to swallow it down. You weren't there. You don't know. I know which movie is better.
I remember arguing about it. I still am quite upset. And I just feel like a residual frustration in my chest with the two of you. I don't want to generationally other you, but I will.
And you weren't there. Stuff. It's not better. But for some reason, it's not better.
It's not better. But because my Nicholson, right? Like it's not better. Prince.
Yeah. Sure. Yeah. It's not a Jack Nicholson participated in Batman.
Jack Nicholson participated in eight minutes. He was fucking cooking in that movie. It's true. But it is.
He got paid so much money to do that. We're going to get 10% of the gross numbers. And $1 over the top of $1. Yeah.
Over the top of $1. But I will say that Batman Returns is the more contemporary story of the two. Oh, it's the straight strong? It's the eight.
I was one couple of them. Batman Returns is the more contemporary story of the two. Precious. Yeah.
The first one is a better movie to me. But when I watch, I can connect more to Batman Returns watching it right now than the original Batman. I appreciate that all of Branch Fan. Keep an eye on for you.
Nothing. Superman rankings. I'm going to list the movies that we're going to rank today. I think we should talk about each of them with some care.
Can we go before we leave? You know what's it? Before we leave Batman real quick, what we've been at? The cleave crun out.
There is a discussion to be had about that I think the nerds will back me up about the Dark Knight Rises versus Matt Reeves the Batman. Now we did do this ranking in the immediate aftermath of the Batman. Right. The Dark Knight Rises is very silly.
OK. It has cool stuff in it. Yeah. We did ridiculously cool stuff.
Like shit, that's so fucking cool that Bane's interested into that movie. It's so fucking cool. It's like shit, that's so cool that you go OK, all the pilot. But like, it's really cool.
I think there's an argument there. I still would have Reeves Batman a little bit over it. Charles would not. He loves the Dark Knight Rises.
I think the Dark Knight Rises is it's got some momentum with the people in it's interesting. Are they familiar with the back half of that movie? They are. And they like it, which is it's a pretty terrible third act in my opinion.
It's quite quite bad. Look, all I'm saying is there are a lot of people who are looking at Bane. They're looking at Batman's art in the movie. I'm looking at Catwoman.
That was about to say. Looking at Catwoman. It's something all of us are looking at. She's fantastic in it.
The movie was it was Glen Powell as a stockbroker. Sure. Quick concussion. It was received to me in a fairway, which is this is a movie that like doesn't really work towards the end.
Yeah. Knowing this would never happen. Like even watching the movie in real time. I was like, there's this guy on the movie back.
Like no one's never making other movies. I'm not going to continue this universe. No. Right.
But I think that the movies aging really well and people are reexamining. I don't know why, maybe because it's all cable so much. Maybe it's very watchable. In an idol, like I can just walk out of the room for 20 minutes during the back half.
Like that John Rive movie. I think it's quite successful. We did a watch along on this show of the movie because it's just a fun to watch. It's whether it's good or not.
It's the middle. I think also how the Batman 2 is and what Reeves does in the future will probably help determine some of the these rankings in the future. But we're not doing that right now. We're doing Superman.
There have been a lot of Superman movies. Probably not too many yet. I think there's it'll be interesting to see how many movies either James Gunn or the DCU decides to focus on Superman. When we were kids, there were four straight Superman stand alone movies.
And I don't know if it was Zack Snyder or Warner's or whatever kind of blinked in that era. It immediately was like not another Superman movie. It's got to be Superman and other stuff. And that's quite fascinating.
Even different from what the MC was largely done. So you've got technically five but literally four Superman movies from the re-vara. We will be talking about the Donner Cut on this episode. One Brandon Ralph movie from 2006 by Brian Singer.
Then the Henry Cavillara. There is Man of Steel, Batman versus Superman, Donner Justice, Justice League, and Zack Snyder Justice League. We will not be addressing the ultimate cut of Batman the Superman, which has an additional 30 minutes of footage that I have not watched in preparation of this episode. It will not watch probably ever.
And then now we have David Corn sweat era, James Gunn Superman. How many movies is that? 11 movies. Okay.
You've talked a lot about the Christopher E. The first two films are directed by Richard Donner. One of the signature Hollywood directors of the 70s and 80s responsible for the weapon franchise. The Elman.
The Elman number of really good movies. Inside moves. Big Bill Simmons movie. Then Chris Ryan refuses to watch for the watchables.
Conspiracy theory. He directed that movie. I remember that. Julie Roberts.
No, give us anything around. I have not. It's about 4chan. So Superman it turns out.
There is a lot of posting happening. There is a lot of posting. So you came to the read movies later. A little later.
Like I would say I watched the first two in my later teenage years and I heard the third and fourth ones were so bad. Like don't even bother watching them. Came to those a little later in life. Different opinions on them to some extent.
But yeah, the first two I was not as locked in as I was on Batman but early enough to kind of have it be a semi-formative part of the experience. So for me the first Superman movie and this is not a criticism is at the very top of the second tier of 70s blockbusters. The first tier is very clearly Jaws, Star Wars. There's a handful of movies that are so totemic that are so impactful in my life.
The Superman doesn't get over those. But it's right below those. Because I watched it all the time from 4 to 12. Reeve is Superman to me.
It will always be Superman to me. The movie did something that I think was very smart that other filmmakers have tried to do but have struggled to do with this character which is that they cast a lot of really, really good actors to elevate the material. It's actually not to do this too and it didn't work quite as well. But when you look back on those movies now and you see Marlon Brando's face and he's kind of terrible in Superman.
But it doesn't matter because he has so much gravitas that you're convinced that even though he's pronouncing the word Krypton instead of Krypton, you still kind of buy it. He has that like Alec Guinness and Star Wars effect where it's like, credibly. Immediately right off the bat. He's featured so early on the movie and then like robbed out of the second one.
He does bring a sort of like a sense of legitimacy and grounding to it for sure. And he was the father of acting for that time. He was everybody's dad. And so seeing him, he was legitimately the father of the greatest film that's ever been made.
So him going from Vito Corleone. I wonder about Camaro you're talking about? It's a band classic. I don't know.
I'm worried about you. It's a band classic. It's a band classic. So being Superman's dad, it just made sense.
Yeah. You know who didn't really respect this Christopher Reeve? He fucking killed him. He really did not like him and talked about it publicly about how he did not work hard on this movie.
When I saw that for the first time, it made me respect Reeve so much more. He did that on David Letterman. Yeah. Just ripped Brando a new one.
That is something that would never happen now. Like never. And it didn't seem uncomfortable for anyone. He was just talking his shit.
Yeah. He was like, he must really have had an odd or bad time with that. I think I'd seen that before, but seeing it in the recent Christopher Reeve, I came out last year is it's bracing. I mean, Reeve, that's an interesting portrait of him as a man and the kind of the positives and the struggles that he had in the way that he got a little big for his bridges too when he was super man and like his relationship to his family.
It's an interesting movie, but he's not really portrayed as like a braggadocious A-list movie star. He actually seems relatively humble about his work. So for him to have done that, he must have really hated Brando. Yeah.
Superman holds a very special place for me. Do you agree with that A-tier thing or is this movie over those others too? No, I have to agree with it. And it's funny because in the research, they wanted Spielberg maybe to have a shot to direct this movie, but after Jaws, they couldn't get him.
So they just, they thought he was out of reach. So it showed that there were tears to it. Donner was obviously a big director to begin for them. And the production of it is almost itself deserves a documentary or a film made about that.
But no, it's certainly under those movies, but it is unique in that it is proof of concept to big budgets, superhero storytelling in a very direct way. It's legitimately the father of all the other two. It is like patient zero. It's the thing that kicked every, I think it is really the thing that kicked everything off.
Like without this movie, we're not in this place right now. Superman II, I think the Lester Cut is fine. And it's what I grew up watching. The Donner Cut is like roughly 15 minutes shorter, tighter.
It's a little bit hard to evaluate because there's ADR and there's some like special effects and stuff that's not as sharp as you would want to be. And you would expect if he remained on the film, but he was fired from it and replaced by Lester, who I think to that point was probably best known for like the three Musketeers movies. And then before that, the Beatles film is hard days night, the album, stuff like that. I unequivocally love this movie.
So I don't, even the two cuts, like it's not even like a problem area for me. It's not, we were discussing the idea of like the which cut is better than the other history on House of Art earlier. And it's going to be hard to move past these two and these rankings. It's kind of interesting that they're almost 40 years old.
I know. And they still feel like maybe the purest conception of the character. Superman too is fucking amazing. It's just, it's fucking amazing.
The first movie is proof of concept to the fact that you can make a man fly. The second movie is proof of concept that you can make people care about, not super but man, by overwhelming him with forces, by making him contend with the legacy of his family and the past of his planet. Depowering him, repowering him is just a really fucking good movie. There's a surprising choice that is made in the first movie of, you know, inserting Terence and you know, zod, and sending those three figures from Krypton to the Phantom Zone and then paying that off in the next movie, which is that, is that the first kind of purposeful, not even Easter.
That's the first Thanos. I'll do it myself. Yeah. It's like a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a pre-singer, you know, it's a little, a moose bush before the, the meal of Superman too, which is kind of a fascinating.
I mean, I'm sure they thought Superman would be successful. So it's a good idea to set something like that up. But in 1978, that was pretty bold. And it was kind of a double production, but also kind of not, I would say if you're going to pick any knit with the first Superman, it's that it takes like an hour for Christopher B.
Second, she does that movie takes off. Yeah. And so it's like, do you need the zod preamble in the Kryptonian justice system up top? Maybe you don't.
But I admire that they were trying to see that so early. So the thing, first of all, I was going to ask you this about the double production of movies, had that happened before because now we see it on a film that undertaking them knowing that we are getting into a franchise. But this is a franchise. Yeah.
Like we're getting into a franchise. I can't think of one off the top of my head. I'm sure there must have been some version of this, but the thing that works about Superman one in terms of the beginning to me, the Krypton stuff is like, you watch it and you go, Oh shit. Alien.
Like I'm on another planet. Yeah. And I think to myself for all of Man of Steel's problems, which it has a lot, the Krypton stuff in the movie is really well done to me. It's pretty good.
It's really well done. You come back to that. But when you watch that stuff and like the, the, the it's glowing and it's like, oh, he's writing a fucking dragon on it. I'm talking about the original.
Oh, okay. They're trying to throw it. The same thing though. But like when you watch that first movie and it's like, oh shit.
And it's like the little baby that's walking through the thing. You're like, Jesus Christ. This is where he's from. And it's such a contrast to the world that we live in.
That I think it was probably deeply, deeply, curiosity inspiring for a lot of people who watch the movie. Yeah. Okay. Superman three trust me.
I got a lot of math still takes Superman three Richard Lester stays on this project. I haven't seen this movie in some time. And I think it's very silly. And yet I liked it.
I didn't love it. Yeah. It's a, it's a little long, it's a little long. And it definitely wants to be silver streak instead of a superman movie.
You know, like it wants to be a zany Richard prior movie and kind of like won't let itself be a superman movie for long stretches of time. But I didn't hate it. I also say, an Edo tool is very important to me. Yeah.
And I don't, I don't love the sidelining of Lois. We understand some of the reasons why I'm hard of a kid or having some struggles and suspects both of the next two Superman movies. But I was happy to be with Lana quite a bit. And I got maybe a little bit too much Robert Vaughn and Pamela Stevenson.