So Many Sequels: A Movie Podcast

In this episode of So Many Sequels, Josh Gammon, Garrett Powders, and David Prock dig into Disney's 1997 Hercules for week three of Mythology Month — the extremely American, gospel-choir version of the Greek myth that somehow still works.In this episode:-The wild casting history behind Hades-Why the Muses might be the best storytelling device in any Disney movie-Disney's Americanization of Greek mythology, and why the backlash from Greece makes sense-Ranking "Go the Distance," "Zero to Hero," and "I Won't Say (I'm in Love)"-The Michael Bolton needle drop nobody saw coming-Three different star ratings — and the real Letterboxd numberSo Many Sequels is your book club for movies.Follow along: Website: somanysequels.com Instagram: @somanysequelspod

Troy made nearly $500 million worldwide, cast half of Lord of the Rings as extras, and turned Brad Pitt into a Greek demigod for two hours and forty-three minutes. It also cut every god out of Homer's Iliad and left Achilles as a straight-up atheist.Josh, Garrett, and David dig into what David Benioff's screenplay kept, what it invented, and why removing the mythology from a mythology movie might be the reason nobody in it feels worth rooting for. Plus: the Letterboxd guessing game, a Peter O'Toole story that did not end well for anyone, and a rating that dropped the more they talked about it.Part of Mythology Month, timed to Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey — now in theaters. Follow So Many Sequels at somanysequels.com and @somanysequelspod on Instagram.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? opened in five theaters on December 22, 2000, went on to make $71.9 million worldwide on a $26 million budget, and somehow got outdone by its own soundtrack — which sold over 8 million copies and beat out Bob Dylan and U2 for the Grammy for Album of the Year, only the third movie soundtrack ever to do it.Josh, Garrett, and David kick off Mythology Month with the Coens' loose, sun-bleached riff on the Odyssey. David's watched it since he was eleven and it's in his Letterboxd top four. Josh has loved it since childhood cassette-recording "Man of Constant Sorrow" off the radio. Garrett watched it for the first time this week — and tried to track the Homer parallels in real time, which he'll tell you was a mistake. They get into the Cyclops-with-an-eye-patch stuff, the Homer Stokes subplot and what it says about 1930s (and 2026) politics, and why George Clooney's pomade matters more than you'd think.Let us know what you think.

Disclosure Day is Steven Spielberg's first alien movie in over two decades, and he's calling it the conclusion to a spiritual trilogy that started with Close Encounters and E.T. That's a big swing. We went to see if he pulled it off.Josh, Garrett, and David caught the film together at Circle Cinema in Tulsa — packed house, no assigned seats, the whole thing — and then recorded this. They talk about why the final act works harder than the first two, Emily Blunt's shot at awards season, what the film gets wrong about how the internet works (and why that doesn't matter), and whether Spielberg is actually using aliens to say something about loneliness, faith, and a world that stopped listening to itself.Ratings land at 3.5, 4, and 4.5 stars — which means someone's wrong. Go find out who.So Many Sequels is your book club for movies. Find us at somanysequels.com and @somanysequelspod on Instagram.

Josh, Garrett, and David close out Spielberg in Space month with War of the Worlds — the one where the aliens finally turn hostile, Tom Cruise plays peak divorce-dad energy, and the hosts argue about whether the most unlikable protagonist in the Spielberg canon actually makes the movie work.Follow So Many Sequels at somanysequels.com and @somanysequelspod on Instagram.

Part two of our Spielberg in Space series leading up to Disclosure Day — this week it's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.We dig into E.T.'s insane box office run (28 straight weeks in the top 5, nearly a year in theaters, $2.2 billion worldwide adjusted for inflation — second only to Jaws in Spielberg's career), then connect it back to Close Encounters of the Third Kind as a kind of spiritual sequel. We talk about how Spielberg shot the film almost entirely from a child's-eye view, why his parents' divorce shaped both Elliot's story and the absent adults in this movie, and why this whole thing might be the secret blueprint for Stranger Things.Also covered: the Reese's Pieces vs. M&M's candy debate nobody asked for, the Star Wars/Coors/Coca-Cola product placement, John Williams' score, and our final star ratings — including a Letterboxd community score that genuinely shocked all three of us.Subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts, and follow us on Instagram @somanysequelspod.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out in December 1977, made $116 million in the US alone, and lost the box office crown for that year to exactly one movie: Star Wars. Not a bad second place.Josh, Garrett, and David kick off Spielberg in Space Month with Spielberg's pre-E.T. love letter to alien optimism. They get into why Richard Dreyfus was the right guy for a role Steve McQueen, Al Pacino, and Gene Hackman all passed on, why the mashed potatoes scene is actually the emotional center of the whole thing, and what it means that this is basically the only alien movie where nobody tries to blow anything up. All three hosts land at four and a half stars. Josh finally wins the Letterboxd guessing game. David's son watched the aliens and said they looked like naked five-year-olds.So Many Sequels is your book club for movies. Follow along at somanysequels.com and @somanysequelspod on Instagram.

Summer movie season is officially kicking off, and the box office is already throwing curveballs. This week, we dive into the numbers for The Mandalorian & Grogu, which defied early tracking worries to pull in a solid $81.9 million over the weekend. But the real story might be the horror-thriller Obsession, which pulled off a rare 30% weekend-to-weekend jump thanks to an intense viral billboard campaign and massive word-of-mouth.Before the box office breakdown, we catch up on everything we've been watching on screens big and small. Josh and Garrett check in on the brutal fatalities and Karl Urban's washed-up Johnny Cage performance in Mortal Kombat 2. Meanwhile, David checks out the streaming survival-thriller Send Help starring Rachel McAdams, and gets surprisingly emotional over the Netflix book adaptation Remarkably Bright Creatures, featuring Alfred Molina as a brilliant, human-helping octopus.Go check that out at somanysequels.com to subscribe, and let us know what you're watching on Instagram at @somanysequelspod.

The guys wrap up their Golden Oldies theme with a divisive debate over Alfred Hitchcock’s voyeuristic classic, Rear Window.-Listen to more episodes: somanysequels.com-Follow on Instagram: @somanysequelspodSo Many Sequels is a movie podcast where Josh Gammon, Garrett Powders, and David Prock talk about new releases, old favorites, and everything in between like a book club for movies.

By His Hand is a cult thriller road movie shot in Utah on a bootstrapped budget by three brothers who grew up in the LDS faith — and left it. Josh and David sat down with director Taylor Paur, co-writer Ethan Paur, and producer Connor Paur to talk about how the movie got made and what it's actually about. They get into why Fowler — the film's cult leader — is most dangerous when he's making people feel loved, the Mad Max: Fury Road obsession that quietly shaped the film's structure and maybe even its title, what four seasons on Yellowstone taught Taylor about filmmaking, and why the brothers hope young men especially find this one.By His Hand is available to rent or buy on Amazon now and hits Tubi free on May 29. Let us know what you think at somanysequels.com and @somanysequelspod on Instagram.

This week on So Many Sequels, Golden Oldies Month continues with John Ford’s 1940 adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath.Josh, Garrett and David dig into the film’s Dust Bowl-era Oklahoma roots, its connection to John Steinbeck’s landmark novel, and why a movie released more than 80 years ago still feels uncomfortably current in 2026.We talk Henry Fonda’s Tom Joad, Jane Darwell’s Oscar-winning performance as Ma Joad, the film’s depiction of poverty and displacement, and the way its story exposes systems that keep working people desperate, divided and disposable. We also get into Oklahoma’s place in the story, the case for a modern remake, and why any new version better actually film in Oklahoma.It’s a classic for a reason — and maybe a warning we still haven’t fully listened to.Watch, listen and subscribe wherever you get podcasts.More at somanysequels.com and follow us on Instagram at @somanysequelspod.