Episode 95: The SSSU

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Odd Trilogies with Logan and Andy. I'm Logan. So. [00:00:23] Speaker B: And I'm Andy Carr. [00:00:24] Speaker A: And on Odd Trilogies, we take a trio of films where they're tied by cast and crew thematic elements, maybe even just numerical order. And we'd talk about the good, the bad, and the weird surrounding each film. And to start off 2025, now that we have talked about the best of 2024, at this point we decided to kind of stay, I guess, quote, unquote, topical because, you know, at the end of 2024, there was a film that was tied to a trilogy idea that Andy had last year that, you know, maybe everyone's already forgotten came out last year. [00:00:58] Speaker B: Well, you know, I was gonna say we're still feeling the. The reverberations of this release. Maybe we're all still reeling. [00:01:05] Speaker A: I mean, technically, Sodi is because certain person who led the ideas for all this is now not there anymore. [00:01:11] Speaker B: Rest in peace, King. Yeah. [00:01:14] Speaker A: But yeah, to start off 2025 with our new episodes, we are talking about what he calls. Is it the sssu? [00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Is it Sue? [00:01:26] Speaker A: Is it the Sue? And that's Sony's Spider man less Superhero universe. [00:01:33] Speaker B: Spider Man Universe. [00:01:34] Speaker A: Oh. [00:01:35] Speaker B: Because they're all Spider man characters, but Spider Man's not in them. So it's a Sony Spider man less Spider man universe. Yeah, it's known by many names. The Spunk, the Sony Marvel or Sony Pictures universe of Marvel characters. I've heard it called just Sony Marvel. It's all over the place. [00:01:54] Speaker A: You looked me right in the eyes when you said that Spump. I was like, oh, God, I forgot that that was one of the things you were calling it. [00:02:01] Speaker B: I think that's the closest thing to an official name that it has is the Spump. [00:02:06] Speaker A: Yeah. You could also call it, I think I've been calling it when we talk about it, Sony's Marvel Scraps trilogy. [00:02:12] Speaker B: Truly scraps. [00:02:13] Speaker A: Because in case you don't know, or if you've already forgotten, which is understandable when we talk about the films we will be talking about today. But due to the popularity of that first Venom film, which we covered all three films last year with our friend of the pod, Evan Dossey. In the process of Venom 1 being a huge hit, way bigger than I think even Sony participate like anticipated, they decided that maybe it'd be a good idea if they made more Spider man spin offs that had no Spider man but his villains and only for one occasion, anti hero side character. We will get to that. In a moment. But in case you don't know what those films are for a bit, they are 2022's Morbius and 2024's Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter. Yeah, these are three films that came out and were in theaters, and there it is. [00:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah, they happened. [00:03:12] Speaker A: They have. [00:03:13] Speaker B: Sure did. God, yeah. No, I mean, especially in the cont. Our podcast. You're referring to them as Marvel Scraps is good because, yes, we've already talked about the piece de resistance of the Sony Marvel verse of Venom. We've already done the most successful, most beloved in air quotes. [00:03:36] Speaker A: I mean, it's a billion dollar trilogy. [00:03:39] Speaker B: Those movies have fans. Those movies, as we found out. I don't even think these and those movies made money. [00:03:46] Speaker A: I don't even think these three films as box offices put together even hits half a billion. [00:03:52] Speaker B: No, I don't. [00:03:53] Speaker A: I think even a quarter of a billion would be a shock. [00:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:57] Speaker A: Because I think. [00:04:00] Speaker B: Let's see, 74. I'm just gonna tally this up real quick. 74, 44. So we're at like 120. [00:04:10] Speaker A: Yeah, around almost 120. And this is all worldwide. [00:04:14] Speaker B: You're just 24. So about $144 million at the box office gross. [00:04:21] Speaker A: Less than a quarter of a billion dollars compared to Venom's billion dollar plus. [00:04:26] Speaker B: Oh, wait, wait, wait. [00:04:27] Speaker A: Trio. [00:04:27] Speaker B: Oh, sorry, sorry. Craven the hunter worldwide, total 60 million. So that puts us more like 180. [00:04:32] Speaker A: Okay, so almost 200. [00:04:35] Speaker B: 100. 180. [00:04:36] Speaker A: Again, it's. And so again, think about this, dear listener, about the fact that when Venom 1 comes out and it makes, I think, 800, almost like million dollars, I think worldwide it's a huge hit. And they are already like, well, of course we have to do a sequel. There's a sequel bait in Venom 1. We got to do a sequel. In this process. They, Sony, has these dollar signs in their eyes and think, holy shit, imagine if we could do $800 million on Kraven the Hunter, Morbius, or of course, everyone's Spider man side character, Madame Web. [00:05:19] Speaker B: Right. The character that most people only know as the weird old lady from the 90s cartoon. [00:05:24] Speaker A: That's really all she really is. Yeah, she really is an exposition machine that sits in a chair and is, I guess, blind canonically or at least blind in the film. Right. Yeah. We'll also be very clear about this. Andy has rewatched these most recently. Or when I say all of them, I say Morbius. [00:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I rewatched Morbius in November. Yeah. As a relief. Amidst the awards season crush of sorts. But yeah, other than that, we both. We saw these movies when they came out and. [00:05:57] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't even see Morbius when it came out. [00:05:59] Speaker B: You didn't? [00:06:00] Speaker A: No, I saw. I watched that on Netflix when Netflix picked that up when it was like the. It's morbid time. Was that it's peak scene. [00:06:08] Speaker B: Well, okay, so around the time. [00:06:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:10] Speaker B: You watched it two years ago. [00:06:12] Speaker A: I certainly didn't see it when Sony put it back in theaters thinking that it was gonna help. And then it just. I got. It's. How do you. I don't. I don't. There's so much to talk about, but it has nothing to do with the actual movies themselves. [00:06:30] Speaker B: Well, yeah, there's. [00:06:31] Speaker A: This is. I mean, because we tech. I guess technically the most recent one we've watched of these three films is when we both saw Kraven the Hunter at different times. [00:06:39] Speaker B: But we saw it in theaters a month ago. [00:06:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And that was the first film, I think in months where I was getting texts during the film and I was checking my phone. [00:06:48] Speaker B: You were actively on your phone? [00:06:49] Speaker A: I was actively on my phone from time to time. I had just. I had decided to have the double feature of Luca Guadino's Queer with Craven the Hunter, which of course, I think our friend Austin said that its name should be either Queer the Hunter, Craven the Queer. I was like, I don't know. [00:07:08] Speaker B: Or just Craven with a Q. I like that. [00:07:11] Speaker A: I like Quaven. But I remember going from the very small theater watching Queer being like, no surprise. This is a movie that is like weirdly released and like it's not Challengers, so it's not gonna have the same, you know, regard as that. And then I go to the bigger theater which is like down the hall from that other theater for Craven. Literally like I think 100 plus seats more. And there's less people in Craven the Hunter than there was in Clear. And both of us were practically silent the entire film. To think that that's the how it all ends for. Yeah, for the SSU with. [00:07:53] Speaker B: With a whisper. [00:07:54] Speaker A: With a real whisper rather. But yeah, they at one point decided that it would be cool to build a Sinister Six esque cinematic universe with no Spider man where it's like a team. But it's again, they've another thing that's so shocking about even this attempt is like they already tried to do this with Marc Webb's amazing spider man 2. [00:08:20] Speaker B: And that didn't even work, that movie because of this franchise that we're talking about today. That movie, amazing Spider Man 2, has kind of lingered in my brain over all of it because, yeah, I remember around that time, the kind of reports coming out that they wanted to not just do a sequel, amazing Spider Man 3, with the Sinister Six in it, but make movies about the Sinister Six characters, which obviously, after the performance, the reception of Amazing Spider Man 2, that never happened. But those, you know, whispers about that plan kind of reverberated out into when they finally decided five years later to actually start making or four years later start making these movies with Venom. And so I've thought about that all this time of just like this. It's not just a bad idea. It's a bad idea that has somehow, like, persisted through at least two or three eras of, like, modern superhero movies. [00:09:32] Speaker A: It has been over a decade since Amazing Spider Man 2 has come out. [00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:37] Speaker A: So it's been over a decade since they probably been developing this idea. [00:09:41] Speaker B: That idea was pretty much laughed at by audiences 10 years ago. And they've just. They keep coming back to it. And then they finally made a. I guess a franchise out of it again. [00:09:53] Speaker A: One of the other most shocking things about that Sinister Six idea is that the reason why Venom has lasted so long in the conversation at Sony is mainly because of Avi Arad. Yeah, he was a huge Venom fan, wanted to make a Venom film, I think, right after the first Sam Raimi Spiderman film. [00:10:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:11] Speaker A: So, like, he basically kept that, you know, boat afloat when it was just a dinghy for a decade or so, Right. Until that first film made 800 million. And then Avi Arad was just on cloud nine for two more films. And then, like. But there's nothing like that for Morbius. There's no Avi Arad for Morbius or Madame Web. [00:10:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:30] Speaker A: Like, Avi Arad, I think, is a producer on. I think all three of these, or at least on Madame Web. But it's still like, there's no creative force really begging, pleading with Sony or Amy Pascal to just make a Kraven the Hunter solo film. [00:10:46] Speaker B: No. It's. [00:10:47] Speaker A: So to just still do it just. [00:10:49] Speaker B: Because it's a strange kind of internal dream or not dream, but, like, delusion that it's. [00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:55] Speaker B: That it's needed. That it'll be successful because that. [00:10:58] Speaker A: That pretty much. Because if anything, even though the audiences. The listeners listening. Proud. No. Probably know how I feel about Venom the Last Dance, at least those. Again, those three films have. Hardy. Have the main writer, who I think is also the director of Venom 3. I can't remember her name off top of my head, but she was like, the writing partner with Hardy. [00:11:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:22] Speaker A: And was like a part of all three of the films in some way, shape or form. And then you get to Morbius, and it's like the creative force for that film is just, Jared Leto wants to do something. [00:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah. He's like, put me in a superhero movie. [00:11:36] Speaker A: He was burned by D.C. to an extent because they made the Joaquin Phoenix Joker film without him. [00:11:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:43] Speaker A: Because he just was like, I can't believe Joaquin Phoenix is just getting his Joker film. And it's not even really Joker. Like, it is the funniest. [00:11:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:52] Speaker A: So he's just. [00:11:53] Speaker B: All three of these movies are kind of like a Mad Libs of. Of the studio being like, you know, who's a fairly big name who's not tied down to any franchises that we can slap into a Marvel superhero. [00:12:09] Speaker A: Aaron Taylor Johnson seemed clearly like he just wanted to get an excuse to get ripped again and do some fun. And guess what? He got very ripped for Kraven the Hunter. [00:12:18] Speaker B: Good for him, I feel like. Yeah. And honestly, being on a superhero movie sounds like a pretty good way to get ripped. [00:12:25] Speaker A: Do you even think they, like, Sony, thought for a second they could on the fact that, like, gosh, isn't it a shame you just never. You know, Quicksilver in the MCU never lasted long. [00:12:35] Speaker B: Here's your chance. [00:12:36] Speaker A: Here's your chance, because there's that. I believe Dakota Johnson has outright said that she pulled a Bill Murray in the Garfield film situation where she literally had no idea what she was signing on to, except she thought it was the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it was Sony instead. And then, yeah, with Morbius, I think it's probably the most egotistical of the three, because it's. [00:12:58] Speaker B: That one's the most driven by the star. Yeah. [00:13:01] Speaker A: Jared. I mean, to the point where Jared Leto was pretending to be disabled at a certain point. And I believe the most iconic story to come off of the set is that he had to go to the bathroom at one point, but at that point in the film, they were shooting him handicapped. And So I think two PAs had to help him go to the bathroom as if he couldn't actually use his legs. [00:13:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:22] Speaker A: That is more fun and hilarious than anything in Morbius, I would say, except for maybe the Matt Smith of it all, which we can get to. But, like, it is just astounding that in the span of two years, we get the first film in our trilogy who basically gets memed to absolute Shit. To the point where people actually start watching the film just to wonder if he says, I'm going to morb. [00:13:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:50] Speaker A: And Sony thinks that that means people would like to see it in theaters. [00:13:54] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:54] Speaker A: Puts it back in theaters and then it just bomb. [00:13:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:58] Speaker A: Because that's not how memes work. And then Madame Web gets so hated on just from a single trailer line to the point where John Mulaney, a few months after this movie came out, I think even. I think a month after the film came out, is making fun of that line in his Oscar speech about screenplays. [00:14:20] Speaker B: Right. [00:14:21] Speaker A: And then you get to Craven, the. [00:14:23] Speaker B: Fervor, the meme fervor is not even there for Kraven. [00:14:26] Speaker A: No. Because it got pushed back six times almost. [00:14:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I think people had no idea if it was still actually happening, if it was real. Yeah. [00:14:34] Speaker A: It's also the only R rated one of the three of these. [00:14:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Which I was not expecting. Not putting any money on, slightly hoping would allow it a little degree of more edge and fun. And it really doesn't. [00:14:51] Speaker A: No. He rips a throat out with his. [00:14:52] Speaker B: Teeth and it's, you know, just blurry CGI sludge. [00:14:56] Speaker A: Yeah. It honestly feels like. Is this how, again, we. We both have no interest in watching it. Probably won't unless someone on the podcast, you know, fan wise, tells us they really want us to watch the Rebel Moon director's cuts. But Kraven the Hunter feels like it was shot in a way that if halfway or to like 75% of editing process, they go, we can't do it. It's not gonna make any money at all. Make it PG13. It'd be an easy swap. [00:15:22] Speaker B: Right. [00:15:22] Speaker A: Because it's just like the blood that's there. I mean, yes, there are some gory elements, but, like, I don't think there's any real practical, gory stuff. It's all clearly cg blood splatters. [00:15:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And the more extreme violence that we do get is so brief and like kind of edge of frame cuttable. Like, you could totally just get rid of it and it would not. It wouldn't feel like a cut down version. [00:15:46] Speaker A: No, it would. [00:15:47] Speaker B: It feels more like they pasted in little bits of violence to make it rated R. Probably be better if it. [00:15:52] Speaker A: Was cut down, but again, there's just so much to unpack. I guess we'll just start with Morbius. Yeah. Again, I completely forgot what I was doing a disclaimer for earlier. I did not rewatch any of these films for the podcast. Andy, technically rewatched Morbius for the podcast, but back in November, just because. So this is a lot of off the cuff. It's going to be probably the most off the cuff by the memory. We have both been. Well, any of the films that we've ever covered on this podcast. [00:16:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, these movies are so. Are like kind of barely coherent for the most part and kind of feel like, you know, a fever dream or a memory anyway. So it's. It's perfect. [00:16:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:38] Speaker B: No need to have a crystal clear memory of these films to talk about them. They're vibes films. I don't know what I'm saying. But yeah, I mean, Morbius is kind of. I guess the one interesting thing about the Morbius as like a development concept is this is the one character who has been kind of considered for cinematic adaptation for a long time. Not for his own movie, but to appear in other movies. I mean, he was supposed to be in Blade. Yeah. They talked about putting him in other Spider man movies. So he's. He's been around the circle for a while. [00:17:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the thing about Marvel is that even though, you know, there are movie interpretations of like Dracula and the werewolf and whatnot, which we've talked about, and on the pod in some way, there are Marvel like interpretations of literally Dracula, Werewolf by Night, which is there, which they made a short film basically with Michael Giacchino, which is great on Disney plus it's a good Halloween watch. But basically it's like they feel like they just push away from doing like, we're not gonna do full blown Dracula for this, I guess. [00:17:54] Speaker B: Right. [00:17:54] Speaker A: So let's have Morbius because Morbius is. Even though Dracula is a tragic figure, Morbius is even more tragic because he's basically just another guy that knows Spider man in his normal life. I think he knows Peter Parker in the comics and then does a bunch of, you know, experiments. It goes awry, which is pretty much how every single Spider man villain becomes a Spider man villain. [00:18:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:17] Speaker A: And then he gets. Yeah. The rare necessity, like the rare kind of change of like, sense. He is a vampire and we have a vampire killer. But they're both not exactly the usual vampire killer or usual vampire. They can probably do. You know, Morbius is more of an anti hero. [00:18:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:34] Speaker A: So of the three of these, this would technically be the one that could make the most sense in terms of like, he can do his own film because you can really. Which the film touches upon is the idea of Morbius being a monster, trying not to give in to the monster side. Of himself to be a good person, per se. The thing that's so funny about Morbius as a script is that we talked about a little bit on the Venom trilogy episode, but I always just constantly think of Venom 1. It's feeling like a film that had been on the shelf for decades. [00:19:07] Speaker B: Sure. [00:19:07] Speaker A: And then they picked it off and barely changed a few things here and there. Maybe they put laptop instead of desktop or, like, you know, certain references. They changed more modern references. But it feels very dated in a way that, like, a lot of superhero films don't necessarily feel like anymore. Yeah. And then Morbius just feels like someone just took the Venom script and just tried to copy certain parts of it. [00:19:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:31] Speaker A: Be like, oh, Venom worked. Let's just do the Venom script. [00:19:36] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a very plug and play superhero script, Especially for that category of hero that's like, am I monster or man? Kind of archetype. [00:19:47] Speaker A: You have the main antagonist who is basically a mirrored version version of our protagonist. You have a film that is mainly focused on our hero trying to curb in some way, shape or form the monstrous aspects of their new developments or changes, evolutions, whatever. The only difference is between the two that really makes or breaks, I think, breaks Morbius more than the original Venom is that Tom Hardy is a man who's willing to be silly. He's willing to see a situation and go, that sounds stupid. I like that. I'm gonna go, very silly. [00:20:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:22] Speaker A: And work like, there's nothing in Morbius that screams, ah, yes. Jared Leto really wanted to have a lobster tank scene. [00:20:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:30] Speaker A: Him sitting in a lobster tank. Like, Jared Leto is taking this almost as serious as everyone else. And the only other person I believe who's taking it more serious is Tyrese Gibson. Because they probably told Tyrese he'd be in more films if he took this seriously. [00:20:45] Speaker B: Yeah. There's not really that weird, silly edge to this that there is in Venom. There. There are things about this movie that are silly, but not really because it wants to be silly more just because it's poorly conceived and executed. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean. And really, all the. Most of the silliness comes from, like, Matt Smith as a vampire again, do. [00:21:12] Speaker A: You know how so funny about Morbius is that every time I think of Morbius in terms of his, like, almost origin story, like, how he gets his powers, you might want to stand back. Like, that whole scene. [00:21:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:21:22] Speaker A: I always cut it together with the idea that Charles Dance is in the film as an older vampire. And then I realize, no. Oh, shit. I am literally adding scenes from Dracula Untold, a film I've never seen before, into Morbius because it seems like it'd be a much more fun idea if More Morbius had an elder vampire teaching to be a vampire. [00:21:47] Speaker B: A vampire legacy. [00:21:49] Speaker A: Yes. Which. [00:21:50] Speaker B: Yeah, because there's not. Yeah. No, this is a. This is a version of vampires kind of. In which, like, vampires don't exist. I mean, I guess they have the word vampire in the movie, but, like, there's no known, like, vampires in this universe. [00:22:06] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it's like, if they make jokes about vampires. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:10] Speaker A: Similar to how I think, like, you know, Hardy makes fun of the symbiotes being aliens. He makes an ET Joke. Yeah. It's. It's one of those things where, like, there's always been the conversation we both had where it's like, I think we've had so many instances of seeing good casts in movies and when we were younger, thinking, oh, if there's a good cast in this movie, automatically there's probably something here that's worth watching. And in this film, we have Jared Leto, Adria Arjona, who is, like, unfortunately, took her a little while to get into something really, really good, franchise wise. I think it was like a year or two after this is Andor which she's really good at, and also was great in Hitman last year. Then you have Matt Smith, who is just a delight. [00:22:59] Speaker B: He is beloved. [00:23:01] Speaker A: Beloved. This is also not his first big budget blockbuster like Misfire, that is not entirely on him, which we will actually talk about at some point, so I won't spoil what that is. And then we have Tyrese, who is, of course, the hit character that everyone loves. Roman. [00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:19] Speaker A: From the fancy Andy's disgust when I said that out loud. And then, of course, we have Jared Harris, who is, you know, Moriarty in The Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes films, as well as in the critically acclaimed Chernobyl. [00:23:32] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:32] Speaker A: You have a solid, really talented cast. And if we were both probably younger, we probably would have been like, oh, they're probably putting a lot of effort into Morbius to be good. And then, unfortunately, even the trailers can't really hide from you the fact that, like, one person is really the one that's really pushing this movie to be a thing, and that is the man who is playing the title character. [00:23:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:58] Speaker A: And everyone else is just there to be good enough that it doesn't feel like they're just there for a paycheck. [00:24:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it's funny to think, too, that Jared Leto, like, that he was so involved in the development of the film. Like, he, you know, he met with, like. He basically was almost the hiring manager for the directors. Like, he interviewed or met with multiple directors to, like, find somebody who had the right vision. It's like, I don't know what he was looking for, if anything, other than a director who would let him, quote, unquote, shine. [00:24:34] Speaker A: A director who would Let him tell 2Pas. All right, I have to go take a piss. Help me go take a piss. [00:24:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:40] Speaker A: And just have to sit there and hold all morale as you watch a man who can use his legs. [00:24:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:47] Speaker A: Tell to be a under underpaid personal assistance production assistants to help him go to the bathroom. [00:24:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. [00:24:57] Speaker A: It is. Again. It is. It is. At the point where, like, with Morbius, I'm like, you know what? His Joker is not good. But there's something at least there that he's trying. [00:25:09] Speaker B: Yeah. There's a discernible character to his interpretation of that figure as opposed to Morbius, who is just. He's just kind of a troubled millionaire doctor. Millionaire scientist. [00:25:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, Jared Leto is the headliner for a Morbius film. Like his own superhero, quote, unquote film. [00:25:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:32] Speaker A: And I feel like even with that in mind, considering how much creative, you know, you know, in the collaboration he had with the team as well as, like, you know, kind of input, I still would probably say he puts more into his Snyder cut appearance as Joker than he probably does in this movie. [00:25:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:48] Speaker A: And it's wild because it's just like, then what are we. What are we doing here? What do we think? And I mean, it's a film that honestly, like, I guess, do you. Is this technically the best of the three? [00:26:01] Speaker B: This is the one that. I mean, there's a reason I only rewatched this one because I was like, you know, it's just. I don't want to say it's good enough. It's just not bad enough that rewatching it is a stomachable prospect. You know, just the fact that it. During the fall, which is my busiest time for watching movies, I was like, eh, I can take a break and watch Morbius. That sounds like a stupid good time. [00:26:31] Speaker A: Thanks for the pod. [00:26:33] Speaker B: That is not something I would say about the other two films in this trilogy, which I guess, you know, Madame Web and Kraven maybe have, like, flickering moments of, like, so bad. It's good fun to them. [00:26:45] Speaker A: Crazy. [00:26:45] Speaker B: But they're really difficult, or at least Madame Web is really difficult to watch. Like, it's. It's Just a cumbersome movie to watch. And Morbius, you can say it lacks anything. It does. But, like, it's. It's watchable in the most basic, breezy sense, you know? [00:27:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:05] Speaker B: It's a bad movie that is easy to watch. Not necessarily so bad. It's good. But good enough to have on and not want to kill yourself. [00:27:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I would probably. [00:27:19] Speaker B: So I guess I would say it's the best. Yeah. [00:27:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it probably is. Again, I remember watching when we. When I watched this with Fred of the Pod and our friend Adam. Like, we both would look at each other and be like, this is still going. Like, this is fucking insane. How long? This. [00:27:34] Speaker B: For which one? [00:27:35] Speaker A: Morbius. [00:27:36] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:27:36] Speaker A: I mean, all three of them. I think I had a personal moment. [00:27:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:39] Speaker A: Still going both. Morbius. I think we were just both unprepared in terms of just, like how. Even when it isn't the worst thing you've ever seen, how inspired it is, how mundane. [00:27:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:51] Speaker A: Everything is. It really is. Until you get to Matt Smith fucking around. Yeah. Who basically is like, I'm going to be a vampire myself. And then it's just like an absolute menace. [00:28:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:01] Speaker A: Every time he's on screen and he's like, this guy is so much. I'm so glad he's here. And I think Matt Smith has even talked about Morbius in a way where it's just like, it was an experience. I had a time. Why not? [00:28:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:14] Speaker A: Like, I'm on House of the Dragons now. Why does it matter? Honestly? [00:28:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:18] Speaker A: And just. Yeah. I would probably say Kraven the Hunter is the perfect folding laundry film because you don't have to pay attention at all. You can look up and either go, that looks stupid and go back, or look up and go, that's funny. And then you just fold your laundry. Madame Web, I think you need to have your full attention for. Especially if you've never seen it before. Because you just need to understand how absolutely insane it is that money was given to that project. [00:28:47] Speaker B: Yeah. That one is the most. The biggest. Madame Web is the biggest. Like, question mark. Like, how did this. How was this allowed to happen? [00:28:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:57] Speaker B: Like, not just as a concept, but, like, the execution of it. How did this get. How did this pass muster? [00:29:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Like Morbius is, I guess. Yeah. Looking at these three is the most palatable of the three. Craven is uninspired and boring. But you can also probably watch it and not hate yourself. You'll just, like, be on your phone for most of it. Madame Web. And again, I haven't Rewatched it. But I. It's. I know at some point I'm going to have to. Because the amount of times I've talked to it with people where they're just like, I'm just kind of curious about it. Like. Well, it's almost like you'll have someone that you can trust with you to like, you know, really make sure that ride goes well. Because I don't want you just walking in blind. [00:29:34] Speaker B: A trip sitter from Adam Webb. [00:29:36] Speaker A: I am absolutely would be. I am definitely gonna be a trip sitter for Madame Web because it is insane how we all saw that in theaters. It was my first. [00:29:45] Speaker B: We got a group together. [00:29:46] Speaker A: We got a group together. It was a fun experience as a group, but I was as sober as can be. And I felt like I was losing my mind. [00:29:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:55] Speaker A: And just how like, I literally. I think. And again, I try my best to, like. I don't like going to the bathroom during a movie because I just like, I would prefer, you know, I don't want to miss. Because even though it's silly to say that out loud, with a lot of movies you might miss something wild or, you know, perfect for the plot, especially if they're long, or for Madame Web's case, something funny. And I think I left in Madame Web when they're all stuck in the forest and they're all talking about what's going on. [00:30:25] Speaker B: Right. [00:30:25] Speaker A: And I went. And I went to the bathroom. I think I at least took 10 minutes. I think I took a breather. I walked as slow as I could, came back and I sat down. And I think Adam said, you literally missed absolutely nothing. And I was like, we have probably another hour. [00:30:42] Speaker B: Right. [00:30:43] Speaker A: And it is just these three films are definitely the test to see how much do you want to, like, really try to be, you know, respectful to a film in a theater sense? [00:31:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:01] Speaker A: Because it's. It's just like. Because I. Again, I don't like having my phone. I have my phone on either, like on mute or off when I watch a movie. But with. With Craven, I literally was just like more curious about how far we were in the movie time wise than actually what we were doing narratively. [00:31:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:18] Speaker A: And, you know, sending emails because I was like, I'm not bothering anybody else. There's literally no one else in that theater. And then. Yeah, with Morbius, it was like, I think, yeah, Morbius. We got pretty decently drunk while watching it. And then my head just started hurting. Like, I just remember being like this numbing pain of like, they thought they were going to get a sequel out of this. Yeah, they thought they were gonna make another three. Another two Morbius films have a Morbius trilogy right next to Venom. Yeah, they even have. And this is, again, it's insane to think about this now considering how much, you know, Sony's talked about why they decided to do a Spider man list, you know, cinematic universe and whatnot. The fact that they had to find a actual reason why Michael Keaton from the MCU is in the not Spider Man, Spider man universe. [00:32:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:14] Speaker A: And to have two different post credit scenes to really try to set up the idea of, oh boy, the Vulture might show back up again without Spider man is insane. And again, in an era in a film where there is a single. There is, I believe, a single shot in the film of Spider man graffiti and it's fucking Tobey Maguire, Spider Man. [00:32:42] Speaker B: My understanding is it's a Screenshot from the 2018 Spider man game of the Rain Suit. [00:32:50] Speaker A: Yes. [00:32:50] Speaker B: Because it's an unlockable skin in that game. And I think the poster in Morbius is a image from the Spider man game. Again, it's just insane. [00:32:59] Speaker A: You have to check our words for this. This is a much more interesting conversation than actually going through the film in full. [00:33:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:06] Speaker A: All three films can be described pretty consistently in a sense. Yeah, like man with a disability becomes a vampire to cure disability and then has to fight becoming a monster in the process. [00:33:20] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I guess I would say, like, you know, not that we even have to go through it, but like, if one of these has an interesting plot, it's probably Madame Web. Just because it's the most insanely structured. Like, you know, just, I mean, you know, it's messing with time a little bit, which is not to its credit at all, but it's bouncing around in different time periods. We're seeing flashes of the future and the movie can barely keep itself together through the present day stuff or the 2003 stuff, or whenever the bulk of the movie is set. And on top of that, it's doing time shifty stuff. And it's just an absolute mess of a movie that's kind of a marvel to behold, but also insufferable. [00:34:13] Speaker A: There you go. Look what you did there. That was sneaky how you did that. That's so silly. [00:34:18] Speaker B: It's the kind of movie that makes me want to grab the end of a DC power cable. [00:34:29] Speaker A: Yeah. It just is so funny how transparent all three films are in terms of what they want in terms of future installments or trilogy stuff. [00:34:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:41] Speaker A: Where it's like the most unique of those three is Madame Web. Only because they would. They weren't going to make a Madame Web 2 or 3. I shudder even saying that they really literally wanted. After, after into the spider verse did as well as it did. For some reason. Amy Pascal and I think a bunch of other people at Sony really wanted to do Spider women content. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that because there's great spider women that of course, it's hard to really bring into the universe without, you know, trying to figure out how do you do that? Well, also, when you have Tom Holland, Spider man, he's got enough on his plate literally fighting Thanos and doing space shit. [00:35:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:21] Speaker A: Way before he. Before he even goes to college. [00:35:24] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:25] Speaker A: So it's like this whole thing of just. Well, they had the idea of doing an animated Spider woman film with Gwen Stacy Jessica Drew, who does show up in across, played by Issa Rae. I love her design. [00:35:39] Speaker B: Yes. [00:35:40] Speaker A: But I think ultimately, while they were figuring out a animated version of that, they also had the idea of what if we could have a film that sets up spider women in a live action sense. [00:35:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:54] Speaker A: Which is why we have in Madame Web, three teenagers are supposed to be like teenagers, early adults, early 20s adults who are supposed to be in the future. Three different types of spider women or spider girls, but whatever. Like basically spider characters. And to really tie them all together, instead of having to be three different origin stories at the same time, which I think would be an absolute mess, they decided it might be best to find someone as a catalyst, have their origin story that just so happens to help them build it to what their origins could be. [00:36:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:35] Speaker A: Which is why Madame Web is basically like, ah, I'm the web that connects them all. These three women have something special that they need to do as spider women. [00:36:44] Speaker B: Right. [00:36:45] Speaker A: On top of the fact that the. The antagonist in Madame Web is an inverted color. Spider man. Can't even call him Man Spider because that's an actual Spider man character. Because Spider Man's been around for 60 plus years, but he basically his character in the comics who dresses up as a shitty knockoff Spider Man, Ezekiel Sims. Ezekiel Sims, Yeah. Is basically in the comics, he just is like, has white hair and almost has beast feet. [00:37:18] Speaker B: Yeah. He wears like normal civilian clothes but. [00:37:22] Speaker A: Goes barefoot because he can basically grab things. Like his feet are like regular hands. Like how Hank McCoy in the comics is with beast and whatnot. And for some reason, the plot of Madame Web in that regard, it will just hop from all three of these at this point, but basically is Ezekiel Sims wants to kill all the spider women because the spider women stop him in the future. They don't really. I don't remember how they explain how he knows the future. [00:37:54] Speaker B: Does he have some kind of vision? [00:37:56] Speaker A: I think it's because since Ezekiel worked with Madame Web's mom, there's something to do with Madame Web's mom that I think introduces that idea to Ezekiel. Because, again, in case you don't know, Madame Web's web connects them all. [00:38:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:09] Speaker A: We're make sure everyone understands that by the time this episode's done, but. [00:38:16] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, he has. It looks like Ezekiel has a limited ability of precognition. [00:38:22] Speaker A: Is this so. [00:38:23] Speaker B: I think he sees the future. I'm looking it up. [00:38:26] Speaker A: Is this the comic wiki? [00:38:28] Speaker B: No, this is the movie. [00:38:29] Speaker A: Okay. [00:38:29] Speaker B: In the movie, I just would have. [00:38:31] Speaker A: Been fine either way. [00:38:32] Speaker B: That might be true in the. I don't know that that is true. In the comments, I think he has something of a spider sense, which I guess is a very limited form of precognition, but in this movie, it's like he can literally see glimpses of the more distant future. And so, yeah, he has this idea that these three spider figures are going to which they're destined to kill him. [00:38:57] Speaker A: It's Sydney Sweeney. [00:38:59] Speaker B: Sydney Sweeney, Isabella merced and Celeste O'Connor. Which I don't know that I've seen Celeste O'Connor in anything else, but obviously, Sydney Sweeney is the real big get, and Isabella Merced is, you know, she's up and coming. I mean, it was kind of. She was kind of a smart grab for a movie like this. [00:39:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Because literally, a few months after this movie comes out, we get alienated in isolation. God, Romulus. [00:39:24] Speaker B: Romulus, yeah. [00:39:25] Speaker A: Who she's really good in. I think she's a fun time in that. But, yeah, Sydney Sweetie is in the film. And she has outright said she was in the film because it helped her get anyone but you off the ground, which was, I believe, more profitable. Oh, I'm sure, like, by plenty compared to how Madame Web's profitability was, which is so funny to think, considering Sony basically, like, Sydney Sweeney almost had to fight at times the release date, keeping it in theaters, pushing marketing on the film and whatnot. And then, yes, Celeste O'Connor and Isabella, I would assume, because they shot this film. This film kind of feels like it was on the shelf a little bit. Not for a long time. Not as long as where the film takes place, because the film takes place in 2007. [00:40:12] Speaker B: 2003. [00:40:14] Speaker A: Earlier than that. [00:40:14] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's. [00:40:15] Speaker A: Wait, it takes place around the Sam Raimi films. [00:40:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Cause they inexplicably use a shot from the original Sam Raimi movie in this movie. It's not a shot of Spider man or any characters. It's just a random POV shot. [00:40:30] Speaker A: So. Yeah. So think about. Yeah, just think about the fact that we have spent the last five to ten minutes trying to figure out how her web connects this all narratively. And I've yet to bring up the fact that while all this is happening, there's also a subplot that goes, hey, Adam Scott is Uncle Ben, and he's taking care of his pregnant sister. Last name is Parker. [00:40:53] Speaker B: Yeah, his. His sister May Parker. [00:40:56] Speaker A: You're not. You can't see it because I'm. Because, you know, you're just listening, but I'm raising. Raising my eyebrows at Andy and just in this corner of where we're recording, because it just is, like, the funniest thing about, really to come out of Craven's flop, as well as Sony talking. Just being way too candid. I cannot believe how candid they've been about these films since Craven released. But they revealed at the very, like, tail end of 2024, when Kraven was out for a few weeks, that for the longest time, everyone kind of assumed that the reason why there was no Spider man is because of Kevin Feige and Disney and Marvel's the MCU being, like, with our contract, if you bring in. If you make a Venom film that is trying to tease the fact that maybe Tom Holland will show up, or if you make a Morbius film that does the same thing, it is going to confuse and piss people off. Don't do that. Fans were. Were just absolutely irate, especially Venom fans, when they were like, the MCU is ruining this. We should. We could have Spider man in all these movies. [00:42:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:01] Speaker A: And then we find out that the real reason why there's no Spider man in these films is because Sony literally went, oh, that's actually. We don't want Spider man in these because it'll just be confusing to the audiences. [00:42:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:14] Speaker A: Because apparently Feige and Disney and Marvel even said, if you kind of want to use Spider man, we can talk about it. They were way too nice. [00:42:25] Speaker B: It was like there was no, you know, there was no actual contractual barrier or limitation on things. It was just. Sony thought, yeah, we don't need Spider Man. I thought. [00:42:35] Speaker A: I read that article right before seeing fucking Kraven, and I was just like, this movie is so banal and, like, is. It feels like a Bourne. A bourne identity ripoff 15 years too late. And I'm not saying Spider man would have made any of this better, but it's just. Why? [00:42:57] Speaker B: Well, the weird. [00:42:57] Speaker A: The weird thing. [00:42:58] Speaker B: Why would they do that? The really weird choice, I think, in the broader, you know, how does this affect a potential franchise is like, if you're doing a Madame Web movie, you would think, okay, at the very least, the idea here is probably to create a character or introduce a character who can establish this ability to cross dimensions and time and things. It's like, oh, okay, so we have Morbius, and Morbius brings in the Vulture from the Spider man movies. That feels like a deliberate, like, okay, we're trying to put our foot in the door to the mcu. [00:43:41] Speaker A: And also to clarify, the Vulture being in Morbius is because of the events. [00:43:46] Speaker B: Of no Way Home. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, clear that. Clear with that stinger that they're trying to be like, oh, see, see, Morbius could end up in the mcu or Tom Holland. Spider man could end up in this universe. Like, we're clearly trying to bridge that gap. And then, of course, Venom 2 also has a stinger like that where. Where Eddie and Venom see Tom Holland, Spider man on the news. They. They, like, get transported into the MCU for a brief minute before getting transported back. [00:44:16] Speaker A: Yeah. The no Way Home has that Venom teaser of them being at the. The bar. [00:44:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:44:22] Speaker A: And Venom and Eddie and Venom being told basically the plot synopsis of the MCU at that point from, well, Venom. [00:44:31] Speaker B: Yeah, Venom has his hive mind knowledge, so he knows about these things from other dimensions and he knows about Spider man through the multiverse. So you get to an idea like Madame Web and you think, okay, we're literally doing a character who, you know, her whole thing is like the interdimensional web of spider characters. She connects them all. Like we. Okay, clearly this is the most on the nose attempt by Sony to bridge that gap to the mcu. Turns out, not at all the idea. [00:45:07] Speaker A: Nope, nope, nope. [00:45:07] Speaker B: No, she's. She. There is no MCU tease. There is not even so much as a mention of anything that happens in the mcu. The whole idea is just, oh, this is a lady who is connecting to future heroes within this movie's future heroes who don't really have any, you know, stake outside the context of this film. [00:45:34] Speaker A: Yeah, you have three characters that Madame Web connects to because again, her web connects them all, who basically are like, at varying different Degrees of just, like, social status issue. Like, internal, like, you know, personal issues. Like, there's a whole part of Madame Web where Isabel Merced's character basically admits that she, like, her father got deported. [00:45:57] Speaker B: Right. [00:45:58] Speaker A: And, like, she has basically been holding back the landlord because of that. And then at the other side, it's like, Sydney Sweeney is just like, my stepdad nearly had a heart attack, and I'm glad he's okay. [00:46:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:10] Speaker A: And it's like. And then Celeste O'Connor is just like, I'm here. I skateboard. And it's like, how are you gonna connect them all? And it's like, how you connect them all. I guess she technically just adopts all of them at the very end. Yeah, it is a weird, like. [00:46:23] Speaker B: Well, and the funny thing, too, is, like, she's not really even the one connecting them. It's. It's Ezekiel and his clairvoy, his visions of them killing him. He's like, ah, see, I have to hunt them down. [00:46:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And it becomes a weird Groundhog Day situation where since Madame Web can see alternate realities, we get moments early on in the film where she fucks up from time to time. And then we see her take that fuck up and then just do it. [00:46:50] Speaker B: Yeah. She has, like, advanced or extended spider sense where she can, like, redo the last 10 minutes or whatever. Basically, it's. There's no rules to it, because why would there be? No. [00:47:02] Speaker A: There's no rules. She also goes to the Amazon. [00:47:05] Speaker B: Yeah, she goes to the Amazon really fast to find where her mother died after researching spiders in the Amazon. [00:47:12] Speaker A: Yes. A line that is not even in the movie. Which is hilarious. [00:47:17] Speaker B: Right? Is a trailer line. [00:47:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:19] Speaker A: Blew this movie because Madame Web is so goddamn convoluted, they had to have Dakota Johnson read that line in hopes that it wouldn't confuse people in the trailers. Why this all is tied together. [00:47:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:34] Speaker A: Well, yeah, because it's so funny, too, because, like, Venom is set up in the way in the trilogy. The first film, it takes place in Seattle, and they constantly talk about the fact that Eddie can't be in New York because of an incident. Never get the end. Never get told what that incident is. We also know that it's not the same New York as the Tom Holland New York. But clearly, when that first film was being made, they had the idea of. [00:48:00] Speaker B: Like, let's put some distance here. Yeah, but also kind of. [00:48:04] Speaker A: Yeah, but what if. [00:48:05] Speaker B: Point our fingers over there. [00:48:06] Speaker A: Yeah, but what if Thanos shows up, Venom shows up and says, hi, Spider Man. Like, it's like, they're clearly trying to sneak in. Morbius does the thing. It was a big thing in the trailer because it was so funny. There's a guy that kind of looks like Gus from now defunct Rooster Teeth. Or like, there's this, like, one guy that I think it's. It's like Tyrese Gibson's partner or something. He's like, this reminds me of that thing that happened in Seattle. And it's like, clearly referencing Venom. So that's Morbius's sneak in until the Venom Vulture shows up. Which there's a shot in the trailer for Morbius where apparently, you know, the Vulture is supposed to run into Morbius while they're going into prison. That never, ever happens. [00:48:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:46] Speaker A: And then in Madame Web, the whole tie of that is. It's probably the. It's the most multiversal of the three films because it literally is just like you have Adam Scott as Uncle Ben. You have Emma Roberts as Peter Parker's mom. Clearly, it's 2003. It doesn't even add. It doesn't even really make sense timeline wise for Tom Holland. Spider man, clearly it wants to do its own thing, but with timey wimey shit, maybe they could find a way to wiggle it into Morbius and Venom side. [00:49:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:19] Speaker A: And then you get to Kraven and Craven's whole thing about trying to get people to, like, remember this is Spider man villain is that he has a nightmare sequence where spiders come down from the sky. [00:49:30] Speaker B: Right. [00:49:30] Speaker A: That was like, the only thing from that trailer besides the whole, you know, why they call me the Rhino? Yeah, because everyone knows the Rhino as, like, Spider man villain. [00:49:39] Speaker B: Even funnier knowing now that, like, none of these movies were, you know, restricted from using Spider Man. It was just. It's like, okay, so clearly this is all Sony's choice to not make more deliberate connections to Spider Man. And as each movie goes on, we get a more and more tenuous connection to Spider Man. Like, clearly less effort to try and bridge that gap. And again, we're all saying this not to imply that it would have been better if they were trying to connect to you. [00:50:14] Speaker A: My God. [00:50:14] Speaker B: But that would at least make sense. You know, it would be like, okay, they're making these movies to try and make a play into the mcu. I understand that it's stupid and I hate it, but I understand because hilariously. [00:50:25] Speaker A: Enough, Kraven, out of these three films, feels the most useless in terms of, like, how you make more films about this guy. Unless you think about the fact that probably in the process of making into the spider verse, thinking about what other Venom esque villains you could choose. Insomniac is making Spider Man 2, which has Kraven be the lead, which I think I. This is a. This feels like a tinfoil hat, but probably a very soft tinfoil hat conspiracy. Probably when they were putting Kraven into development, they had the hope that the film would be done by the time Spider Man 2 came out. [00:51:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:02] Speaker A: There'd be some synergy. [00:51:03] Speaker B: Yeah. The movie got super delayed many times. [00:51:06] Speaker A: A word that nearly makes me vomit in my mouth when I talk about these films. But yeah. And then Craven gets. I push back at least four times. [00:51:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:15] Speaker A: To the point where it now is like Craven's like, check it out. In November of 2023 or 2022. [00:51:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:23] Speaker A: And then it's like, ah, do you want to go see Nosferatu or Kraven the Hunter, which has been out for a month. [00:51:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:51:30] Speaker A: And it's like, okay. So like it. It is just fascinating in terms of the idea. I just want a whole book. I want a book. I want it to at least be 300 to 500 pages. And I want the accounts of how everyone was signed on. Probably particularly the directors are the ones I'm the most curious about because all three of these directors are directors. I don't think I've ever seen any of their other stuff. [00:51:56] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean the Madame Web Director, S.J. clarkson, this is her first feature film. [00:52:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:02] Speaker B: She does like single or maybe a couple episodes of like a ton of different TV shows. [00:52:09] Speaker A: Completely, you know, coincidental. She's the one of the three that gets the most hate when talking about it. It's totally not because she's a female director on a superhero film. It's definitely not that. [00:52:20] Speaker B: Yeah. It is funny how nobody with Morbius and Kraven. I've not heard anybody even mention the directors because we all fucking know these aren't directors movies. These are movies that the studio is pushing to get made. They have a team of writers basically putting them together. [00:52:38] Speaker A: There was literally a behind the scenes promo that I think they were showing for random side ads at YouTube or stuff that had the Craven Hunter director. And if I had not seen that, like just the plate of such and such director. [00:52:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:54] Speaker A: I would have just thought he was, you know, a Sony producer. [00:52:57] Speaker B: Right. [00:52:58] Speaker A: It's just been. He's just like, we are really excited to see this new slate of Sony movies. Like I just literally was caught off guard. [00:53:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:05] Speaker A: By like, yeah, Aaron. Like Aaron was really excited to do this as Craven. And I was like, what? [00:53:10] Speaker B: Yeah, why do you care? [00:53:11] Speaker A: Oh, you're the director. Shit. What? [00:53:15] Speaker B: The weird thing too is like, Craven being the most, like, kind of just farted out. We don't even care anymore. Of these three is weird, especially in the context of the directors, because it's the only one that has a director of really any track record. I mean, J.C. chander did margin Call. [00:53:35] Speaker A: That's right. [00:53:36] Speaker B: He did all is Lost, which is that Lost. I think that isn't All Is Lost. That lost at C. Robert Redford film. [00:53:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:53:45] Speaker B: A Most Violent Year with Oscar Isaac. [00:53:47] Speaker A: That's right. [00:53:48] Speaker B: And then Triple Frontier, which I think is that Netflix action movie, which now. [00:53:52] Speaker A: Means that's the only one of his other films that I've seen. [00:53:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I haven't seen any of them, but Triple French. At least three of those four have their fan like those, you know, those are pretty decently respected movies. [00:54:04] Speaker A: A Most Violent Year is pretty well regarded when. [00:54:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:07] Speaker A: Talk about Oscar Isaac. And because it's Chastain too, I think All Is Lost. [00:54:13] Speaker B: No, that was not Robert Redford's last film. [00:54:16] Speaker A: No. There was Old man the Gun. [00:54:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:17] Speaker A: Old man in the Gun until Endgame, where he shows up for five seconds. Right. But Old man the Gun was the last time Robert Redford had a full role. Yeah, it's something. Yeah. I do remember looking up Kraven the Hunter's director being like. But even just ask the question again, why? [00:54:36] Speaker B: Yeah, like it's. [00:54:37] Speaker A: It's not even like. And it's not saying that, like Chandor didn't have anything to add to it. Again, I think all three of these directors did the absolute best with what they were given. Circumstantially, I could imagine they were given an email that was as long as like 15, like a 15 page contract. Being told what they can and can't do. [00:54:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:57] Speaker A: This is what Mr. Leto would like. This is, you know, we need to have it by this time. You can't do this. We'll do these villains like. Because again, unlike the Venom films, all three of these films, I believe, have separate writers. I think Madame Web and Morbius have one writer. [00:55:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, so, okay, so Matt Sazama and Burke Sharpless wrote. They wrote Morbius and then they also wrote Madame Web along with two other writers, one of whom was the director SJ Clarkson. However, the two of the three writers for Kraven the Hunter, Art Markham and Matt Holloway, were uncredited writers on Morbius. So all three of these films are Connected by their writing teams. They're just not all credited together. So it's. It's kind of as if Sony has this little, you know, think tank committee of writers in a room that they put together this whole franchise with. And they're not clearly, you know, not writers who, you know, deeply care about making these distinct, bold visions. Or if they did, or if they did, all their ideas were squashed. [00:56:10] Speaker A: I would love to see what those scripts would look like because I don't think the films really paint that picture. [00:56:14] Speaker B: In any way, shape or form. No, I mean, and, you know, that's not. Not trying to insult the writers themselves. It's just. I think that's what they were hired to do was, you know, hey, guys, we want a franchise, like, out of these disparate characters with no anchor point between them. Make it happen. Give us some movies, you know, put a. Like, just pump out some specs. [00:56:37] Speaker A: It is. [00:56:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:41] Speaker A: I'm just trying to figure out how we can get to an end point to talking about these three films because, again, how we both are. [00:56:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:47] Speaker A: How we constantly make fun of the fact that even when the films have nothing to do with the MCU or. [00:56:51] Speaker B: Superhero, we always circle back. [00:56:52] Speaker A: It kind of gets back into it because there's just. So. The inside baseball stuff that we barely get of these films are just always so fascinating. But, like, I definitely need to ask you this because this. I knew we had to talk about this because when we talked about it over text, we didn't argue about it, but it was interesting. Like the back and forth. Yeah. But craven. But also, would you. So do you think that the Craven, the Hunter villain. I would. Do you think he's even worse designed than Mr. Not Spider man, who literally doesn't even look like that in the comics. [00:57:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, I, you know, I. We frequently come up against this in general when we, you and I talk about movies, about the kind of, like, atrocious versus forgettable, you know, and, you know, frequently you have said, and I think for the most part, spiritually, I agree with the idea that, like, oh, I would take a movie that is, like horrendously, hilariously, bafflingly bad over a movie that I can't remember. Once I walk out of the theater. [00:58:01] Speaker A: It used to be the opposite, but I think the longest we've done this, I think I've become more like, yeah, yeah. [00:58:06] Speaker B: Just like, I don't want to watch a forgettable movie kind of thing. [00:58:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:10] Speaker B: And, you know, I think I agree with that. Generally, when it Comes to, like, films as a whole. But, like, with character designs, especially if you're taking characters who already exist. Not that Ezekiel Sims is a charact that I previously cared about before this movie or after I watched this movie, but when it comes to character design, like, I think I would take a bland, forgettable character design over one that appalls me. And there's. I didn't find anything appalling other than, like, the nerve about Ezekiel's quote, unquote, Spider man costume, where it's literally just a, you know, you take Spider man color palette and you. You swap it, you invert it, and just to clarify, make it look cheap. [00:58:59] Speaker A: There really is no internal reason as to why he has that suit, why that suit looks like that. [00:59:04] Speaker B: Because, again, that movie has apparently no interest in connecting to, like, the Spider man universe. [00:59:11] Speaker A: There's a decent argument where you can argue that that is the worst in all of these Spider man less films just because of the fact that this makes no fucking sense. [00:59:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:19] Speaker A: It's like, this man can't shoot spiders out, like, webs out of his ass. He has nothing to do with spiders other than his connection to Madame Web's mom. [00:59:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Madam. [00:59:28] Speaker A: So it's like, the funniest shit. [00:59:30] Speaker B: Madame Web is, weirdly enough, the most reliant on, like, intertextual references in order to, like, add interest to the film in the sense of, like, okay, we're gonna. We're gonna. We're gonna have a villain who has a costume that looks suspiciously like Spider man, but we're never gonna make any references to Spider Man. [00:59:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:49] Speaker B: Other than the fact that we're gonna have his mom and his uncle in the film before he's born. We're gonna set the film around the time where maybe Spider man would have been born in the MCU. We're gonna use a random POV shot from the 2002 Spider man movie. Or maybe it was Spider Man 2. I don't remember. [01:00:10] Speaker A: It's funny that you say that in terms of, like. [01:00:12] Speaker B: It's just like all these random little things is like, these are all Spider man references, but they aren't pointing me towards Spider Man. [01:00:20] Speaker A: No. [01:00:21] Speaker B: And they're just there. [01:00:22] Speaker A: And then you get to Kraven. And Kraven honestly does the exact same thing, but in a different light. It does it with Spider man villains. [01:00:30] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [01:00:30] Speaker A: The most Spider man villains out of all of these Spider man less films is fucking Kraven the Hunter. [01:00:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:36] Speaker A: Because you have Rhino, you have spoiler alert, you have Kraven. But Also, the chameleon. [01:00:42] Speaker B: The chameleon at the very end is like a stinger. Isn't Calypso a Marvel character? [01:00:47] Speaker A: Calypso? [01:00:48] Speaker B: I don't know if she's specifically a Spider man character. [01:00:50] Speaker A: Fucking Christopher Abbott's the Foreigner. He is also like a D tier Marvel villain. And all of these villains who. Again, this is also why I was using my phone throughout the film, because I was going. Hold on. Because early on in the film, in Kraven the Hunter, the rhino design. Andy's a pole by the rhino design. Rightfully so. Because they go for the early 2000s idea of, well, he can't have a guy in a suit. That's stupid. [01:01:18] Speaker B: He needs to turn in. [01:01:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So basically he has a disease. He has a rhino disease that just gets amplified. [01:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:25] Speaker A: And that's a better version than just putting a buff dude in a suit. [01:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's. It's just, I think, less conceptually appalling to me and more just like you look at it and it looks like vomit on the screen. [01:01:37] Speaker A: When the rhino himself, played by Alessandro Navola. [01:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:41] Speaker A: Who's probably the funniest part of the movie. [01:01:43] Speaker B: I think he's the only one who, as they say, understood the assignment. [01:01:46] Speaker A: He literally stands at a window at one point and just screeches. [01:01:49] Speaker B: He like. Yeah, it's like a hiss screech. There's no context for it. [01:01:53] Speaker A: It's not even like this man thinks this is a rhino noise. It's literally just. [01:01:57] Speaker B: He just. [01:01:57] Speaker A: Yeah, he just does it. But at a certain point, when Alessandro Navola is explaining his disease and why he becomes a rhino, he name drops someone to a degree where 95% of my brain did not register. But the useless, nerdy ass part of my brain went. That is a name I think I have heard once or twice in my life. And I look it up. And in Kraven the Hunter, canonically, pretty much all the villains that show up in Kraven the Hunter in some way, shape or form are somewhat designed and built by the Jackal from the Marvel Universe. They don't. [01:02:34] Speaker B: They say Miles Warren. [01:02:35] Speaker A: Miles Warren. Yeah. Who is the Jackal in the Marvel. In the Marvel comics? And then you're asking yourself, you're asking me, logan, what is the Jackal known for if it's not for, you know, being a smart man? Well, I'll tell you, if you just look up on Wikipedia, the Jackal, Marvel. His big thing besides science is gymnastics. [01:02:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:59] Speaker A: That is the guy that they use to be the one that is like building all of these like genetically enhanced Spider man villains. They pick the guy who's good at science, but when he is a villain, he just is a really good gymnast. [01:03:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. [01:03:15] Speaker A: I was losing my mind through Craven at times when they would constantly keep bringing him up. They keep bringing up Miles Warren. They keep doing this, they keep doing that. I met this guy in New York. I was like, guys, this is why. Why are you doing this? [01:03:30] Speaker B: It's really weird. I mean, Morbius doesn't really do that because Morbius is really more like trying to make an MCU connection. Whereas Madame Webb and Kraven, they're just name dropping Spider man related things. Because this is a Spider man related movie. So we have to like. It feels very obligatory, like, well, we might as well play in the sandbox. We're not gonna do anything with it, but we gott there. [01:03:57] Speaker A: Morbius feels like he wants to just become friends with Venom to get into the mcu. And Madame Web and Kraven aren't even aware that the MCU could be a thing. [01:04:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:07] Speaker A: So they're just like, they're standing outside the party being like, why is everyone in this house? [01:04:12] Speaker B: It's like these movies were made thinking that, you know, people don't want these to connect to other Spider man movies. They just want to hear all their favorite Spider man words said out loud as if we are suffering from a shortage of Spider man content. [01:04:29] Speaker A: Someone on Reddit in the world. Someone on Reddit, when the initial post came out from like, I think Variety or Entertainment Weekly revealed the Sony. Like, hey, we just didn't want to. [01:04:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:40] Speaker A: Someone said, are you fucking kidding me? You mean to tell me that they could have genuinely been able to probably sell Andrew Garfield on probably just popping in. [01:04:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:51] Speaker A: In any of these films. [01:04:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:53] Speaker A: And you actually get the same thing across of being like, this is not the same universe while also getting people to go, huh? And just like get really excited and like, well, Jack in the theater. Just when they see that. [01:05:04] Speaker B: Well, and after no Way Home, that's a backdoor connection to the mcu. [01:05:08] Speaker A: Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah, it's. It's very much just like it's such an astonish, like astonishing. Like, it's like watching someone who has to prepare for like a big test and they have like the notes of a friend of a friend of a friend who did the class three years ago and they have the actual text next to them and they'd rather just look at the notes to study for the test. [01:05:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:33] Speaker A: It's like dude, just use the book. You can use the resources you have for you. Apparently you have resources you can use to make these much more palatable for audiences who already feel wary about multiverse, time travel, all that shit. You can find a way to make that more interesting to people in the most basic way possible, which is just don't use Holland. Use Garfield. Like, Maguire is not going to be for it. And that's fine. Doesn't have to be that, man. The fact that he even did no Way Home is, like, phenomenal. Like, good for that man. Taking that money. Easy to look like a youth pastor next to Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland, like, good for him. But Garfield is literally constantly talked about. Like, you know, he's made his peace. The fact that he was never able to fully experience, like, the Spider man, like, the thing that, like, Holland has been able to experience with the trilogy, and Toby was able to experience with the trilogy way more than he deserved. Like, Toby almost felt like he was trying to get out of a Spider man film every single time there was a new Spider man film and literally was able to do it when four was announced. [01:06:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:42] Speaker A: When Anne Hathaway was supposed to be Black Cat, ideally. [01:06:45] Speaker B: Well, ironically, I think from, like, interviews at the time, it sounds like Toby was finally, like, more excited by Spider Man 4. And then it never happened. [01:06:54] Speaker A: And then Raimi, then, yeah, just like, Sony let that shit fall. And, yeah, Garfield. And again, I am not saying that adding Garfield automatically adds a star to any of these films, but at least it feels like if you had that, there'd be a much stronger foundation. [01:07:09] Speaker B: It would have made. It made sense. It would have been like, okay, I see why you did this. I don't like it. Yeah, I wish you didn't. But I see the purpose. I see what you're trying to do. Whereas with what we're left with, like, these three movies are all terrible for many of the same reasons, but also, like, so disparate and distinct in their apparent attempt to make some connection to Spider man that it's like, I can't even theorize a vision for why these movies were made. Like, you can, other than. Well, people will see movies because they're connected to Spider Man. [01:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah. It's like at the era where people are saying that superhero film. I mean, again, people have been saying superhero films are dead since, like, 2018. But, like, it is, like, at a time where it feels like if you have a superhero film and it's not that good comes out, you are going to get torn to shreds the fact that they release these films as if people weren't going to absolutely drag them on the Internet and make fun of them. Especially when the fact that like again, Craven, again this is also a hypothetical word. Craven is probably still a piece of shit even with these changes. But like you just have the chameleon be the main bad guy in Kraven, make it be a brother versus brother thing. Which is like. Because again, yeah, haven't really said this up. The big thing about Kraven is that the, his brother in the film is the chameleon, apparently. [01:08:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:44] Speaker A: Which is not, I think, which is not a thing in the comics, I would say. Maybe it isn't certain interpretations but like if you have his brother be the main villain through the majority of the film and it's just Kraven killing drug dealers and this and that and whatever and you literally end Kraven the Hunter on a last ditch effort. We're pulling out all the stops. This is like a trailer shot in my head. We have to hire him. And you have the shot of all the wildebeests in the range and they're all just driving away and then you just see in the distance, giant fucking rhino and it's Paul Giamatti from fucking amazing Spider Man 2. That already would peak more interest in that film than when they showed like the first shots of like, you know, why they call me the rhino? And like you see the skin change. Like just even trying to find a way to be like, oh, by the way, this is in the same universe as Marc Webb's films. [01:09:46] Speaker B: Right. [01:09:46] Speaker A: Feels so much more interesting than like, I don't know, it's its own fucking thing. I don't care. Yeah, well then why would I care? [01:09:53] Speaker B: Right? [01:09:54] Speaker A: You, you're clearly interested enough in these that you're putting like a clearly talented cast, award winning cast, Oscar winners in this fucking film and almost maybe a possible future Oscar winner with Alessandro Navola. Yeah, because he's in the same time Craven the hunter is out, the brutalist is also just getting like glorious love and praise and he's in that film as well. But to have in Craven the Hunter having Russell Crowe, Ariana DeBose, both Oscar winners, I believe. Russell Crowe won an Oscar, right? [01:10:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's won once. [01:10:28] Speaker A: Aaron Taylor Johnson, Christopher Abbott, both, I think, I mean, Christopher Abbott I think I like, I just love Christopher Abbott when I see him as. [01:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah, he's definitely. [01:10:36] Speaker A: Aaron Taylor Johnson is I think a really genuinely, a really good actor who's a lot of fun when you know how to use them, AKA Bullet Train or Kick Ass. You also have, I think, Fred Hershinger, who, at the banner year this year, literally had. I mean, because I haven't even seen the third film in this, but, like, had Gladiator 2, this, and Nickel Boys. [01:10:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:00] Speaker A: And of course, thankfully, the only one of those films sounds like is Dog Shit. It's this one to you. Yeah. You have a strong cast who is just, you know, doing. You know, again, very similar to Morbius. Just being like, I'm. I'll just do what I can. Like, Russell Crowe is supposed to be, like, the most despicable man ever, because he's just like a. He's like a drug lord who's also a shitty father. But, like, Russell Crowe is, like, still just being Russell Crowe. Like, he's just. He's there. He's gonna give you what you're paying him for. He's not gonna. Like, he's gonna not chew the scenery too much, but if you want him to. [01:11:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:41] Speaker A: Let him know. [01:11:42] Speaker B: Chewing is all in the accent, I think. [01:11:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. The accent is just my son. Like, it's. It's all these things. That is like Sergey. Sergey. It is. Yeah. And then when you get to Aaron Taylor Johnson, who is supposed to have an accent and literally has an American accent, even though his character just doesn't make any sense for him to have an American accent. But it doesn't matter. It's craving the Hunter. [01:12:04] Speaker B: It is, for what it's worth, to, you know, swing a stick and keep all the angry nerds away. Chameleon is canonically the half brother of Kraven. [01:12:16] Speaker A: Oh, nice. Again, that seemed like something. [01:12:18] Speaker B: They don't share a last name in the comics like they do in the movie, but they are half brothers. [01:12:24] Speaker A: But I will say that that only just makes it more frustrating if they actually put that much effort into being. [01:12:29] Speaker B: Yeah. They're like, oh, we got to keep that intact. [01:12:31] Speaker A: See, that's how stuff like the Martha Kent, Martha Wayne should be, where it's like, isn't it funny that they're both half brothers? It's like, oh, that's a fun fact. [01:12:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:39] Speaker A: Not a big deal. [01:12:40] Speaker B: Right. [01:12:40] Speaker A: Craven situation. I will say, though, it was. It took me way too long in Craven the Hunter to realize he was becoming the Chameleon. Because, like, when they. When he first does the vocal thing in that film as a child. [01:12:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:52] Speaker A: I was like, oh, that's. That's a cool little thing that he could do. Didn't even think about it until later, when Russell Crowe basically calls him a coward and how he always is a chameleon situation, I went, oh, oh, no. [01:13:06] Speaker B: Yeah, they're not. Right. [01:13:08] Speaker A: Because the thing about. Because again, this is how these fucking movies are. We went on another tangent that had nothing to do with the rhino design until, like, now the rhino design and Grave of the Hunter is genuinely. I agree with Andy. When the worst just villain designs, it's hideous. And I would argue, like, the thing that makes me hate it just a little bit less than the chameleon is the fact. And again, this, honestly, I feel like will just amplify more for you is watching the film, I went, holy shit. There was actual effort put into the rhino design to look like that piece of shit. You can see. You can see in the design how they were thinking canonically how the skin would turn into a hardened form. Not to the point where they can find a way how canonically this man has a fucking horn, even though he doesn't have a horn in his normal. [01:14:00] Speaker B: Right, right. [01:14:01] Speaker A: But he. It is just so funny how his design is like, oh, my gosh. There's like genuine, like, effort put into this and it just is completely wasted because it literally is a buff, gray man with a horn. He shouldn't have blobs on his skin and dress pants and dress shoes and a belt. And then you get to the chameleon, where to me is like, if you don't put actual effort into this character's design, he's going to look stupid because his design in the comics, a very plain design, literally a white face. I think the most color in the chameleon is in his outfit. And I think the redness in his eyes. [01:14:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:41] Speaker A: I remember being like the rhino was honestly, like, one of the best parts of the movie for me because I wouldn't stop laughing. Just like how silly and stupid the rhino was in his full regalia as a rhino. But when the camellia showed up, I literally, for the 15 seconds the camellia shows up, I was in horror. Because, like, you have so much money and you for some reason care enough about these characters that you are keeping. Again, the half brother connection. All these fucking references to villains that no one is going to even really think about. Even people that are like big Spider man heads are probably gonna have to be reminded of who the Jackal is to just do the most basic lazy. It just feels lazy. Designed for the Chameleon and it's all cg. [01:15:31] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and it's bookended by Aaron Taylor Johnson's head photoshopped. Onto Fred Hechinger's body. [01:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it goes. It goes Aaron Taylor Johnson back to. Back to Fred. And then I think, no, it goes Aaron Taylor Johnson's head to Chameleon. [01:15:48] Speaker B: Chameleon face. [01:15:50] Speaker A: And the chameleon face is just like. Yes, it looks like the Chameleon on the bare minimum. [01:15:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:58] Speaker A: But it is all cg and I swear to God, when I watched it, you can see that. You can see the effects floating above the original. [01:16:09] Speaker B: Yeah, that actually happens to Rhino too. At one point, when Rhino first is showing off his skin condition, there's a part where he opens up his shirt and reaches his hand across his chest and you can see the rotoscoping around his hand of his actual skin cut off underneath the Rhino again. [01:16:30] Speaker A: And I would also say back to the Rhino. The funniest part I think really is the cherry on top of this hilariously bad sundae for the rhino is that they had all the time and effort and money to think about how to make a medical, like a biological rhino Spider man villain exists in this world and yet they could not find a way to make the rhino even look like the actor that is playing the rhino. [01:16:59] Speaker B: Right. [01:16:59] Speaker A: It doesn't look like Alessandro Navola, even when half of his face is actually Alessandro Navola. It looks like. It literally looks like Randy Couture or Chuck Liddell. Yeah, it looks like a UFC fighter on one side. [01:17:11] Speaker B: And Alessandra, it's not like a Hulk situation where they try and come up with the monster version of the actor's face. It's just. It's just a random nasty face. [01:17:24] Speaker A: The most, One of the most fun in Craven is literally the last like 15 to 20 minutes. [01:17:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:17:29] Speaker A: In like a two hour film. [01:17:31] Speaker B: Right? [01:17:32] Speaker A: It is. They didn't. [01:17:33] Speaker B: My, my. I think ultimately my biggest issue with Craven is that they didn't spend enough time in the Craven Cavern, his little high tech hideout in the middle of the woods. Oh, my God. Or as you know, super fans might call it, the Crave Cave. [01:17:48] Speaker A: I love the Crave Cave. [01:17:49] Speaker B: Yeah, The Craven Cavern. [01:17:51] Speaker A: Craven Cavern. Yeah. The fact that again, it does that classic bad movie thing or just like marketing wise, where there's a shot in the trailer of him wearing the outfit and lighting a torch. That's literally the last few minutes of the film. The spiders and the hallucination that's also in the very tail end of the film. [01:18:13] Speaker B: Yeah. The fight against the Foreigner. [01:18:15] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. [01:18:15] Speaker B: And then, you know, oh, my God. Not necessarily a terrible design, but we should talk about the Foreigner's Power. [01:18:22] Speaker A: Oh, I love it. [01:18:22] Speaker B: Which is baffling. Baffling and doesn't make any sense. He has, like. It's not time travel or super speed. It's like he can speak into people's minds and kind of make them freeze up. [01:18:37] Speaker A: It's like a mind manipulation thing where it's like they. You can't. You basically get horse blinders put on you for, like, a brief moment. [01:18:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And then he just moves around you. [01:18:47] Speaker A: Yeah. He disappears. He basically just looks at you and goes, you can't see me. And then you just don't see him. [01:18:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:52] Speaker A: It's basically what he does the whole movie. And then towards the end, because you're like, how the fuck does a guy like that fight Kraven the Hunter? And then he goes, oh, hallucinogenics. They have hallucinogens. And he shoots him with the hallucinogens. And it's like. It's like. Honestly, of all the fights where it's like, is this really gonna fight? I mean, I guess it makes the most sense. Like, he's actually thinking outside the box to fight a man who's literally just ripping people's throats out with his teeth. [01:19:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:19] Speaker A: And throwing spears and killing them. [01:19:21] Speaker B: And like, Ariana DeBose kills him and they make her say, motherfucker. [01:19:27] Speaker A: Yes. Because, of course, Academy award winner Ariana DeBose. [01:19:31] Speaker B: Right. She did the thing. [01:19:33] Speaker A: She did the thing. And, man, I really, really hope something comes out soon with her that, like, people just like her again. [01:19:43] Speaker B: Yeah. She's had a bad beat. [01:19:44] Speaker A: She's had a rough beat. I mean, I hope. I mean, that is also saying that I've seen Wish, and I've not seen Wish, but I think that says a lot where there was a new Disney film that had an Academy Award winner and, like, original music and, like, I don't think I know anyone who really saw that in person. [01:19:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:00] Speaker A: Other than maybe our friend Sabrina. [01:20:02] Speaker B: Well, yeah. People I know who have seen it were like, it exists. Yeah. [01:20:08] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I mean, it's funny, too, now that I'm thinking about, because we're talking about casts and characters in each film. And to be like, oh, that's right. Madame Web's, like, big pulls are Sydney Sweeney, Dakota Johnson, and I guess Adam Scott to an extent. Yeah, I know. Madame Web's mom is somebody. [01:20:28] Speaker B: I think Madame Web's mom. [01:20:30] Speaker A: I don't think she's anyone huge. [01:20:32] Speaker B: Peter Parker's mom is Emma Roberts. Yeah. Which was weird. [01:20:37] Speaker A: Yeah. It was so funny how, like, Because Emma Roberts, I guess, has a decently dedicated fan base. I don't know if it's because of American Horror Story. [01:20:46] Speaker B: Yeah, a lot of it. [01:20:48] Speaker A: The Ryan Murphy verse of it all. And I remember people talking to us, I think separately and maybe in groups, where it's like, I heard Emma Roberts is in this movie. And we're like, what? [01:20:58] Speaker B: Why? [01:20:59] Speaker A: Why would you be in this? And then when we're, like, watching the movie and I'm like, oh, she's. She's Peter Parker's mom. [01:21:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:21:07] Speaker A: What the fuck? It's such a weird choice. [01:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And she's only in the movie briefly. Like. [01:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a strange Adam Scott. It's. It very much is like, another thing. Another ding on Madame Web is the fact that, like, it's cast is, like, the biggest star at the point the movie comes out technically is Sydney Sweeney. And she outright, like, a few months later goes, I did that to help with other stuff. [01:21:34] Speaker B: Yeah, Well, I mean, Dakota Johnson is basically slagging on the movie during the press tour, too. [01:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Because again, that. Because that woman basically already has. Anyone who probably hires her from this point forward should constantly be reminded of the fact that Ellen DeGeneres show practically doesn't exist anymore because of Dakota Johnson being brutally honest. So when Madame Web is basically like, Dakota Johnson being like, this movie's stupid. [01:21:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:21:59] Speaker A: It's like, what do you think is gonna happen? She has given you the receipts. She's giving you proof that she is just gonna be honest about it. And that's coming from someone who thinks Dakota Johnson's a really good actress. [01:22:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I like her. [01:22:11] Speaker A: It's a damn shame that she doesn't have more stuff that is akin to, like, maybe bad times at the Out Royale or Suspiria, but instead it's a lot of 50 shade or what. Cause around Madame Web's release, there was that one Sean Penn cab film that she was in. [01:22:26] Speaker B: Oh, Daddy O, Daddy O. Yeah. Which I heard is not very good. But she was in a decent. I mean, this movie was kind of divisive, but I enjoyed it. The Cooper Ralph film, Cha Cha Cha Cha was smooth. I liked her a lot in that. She's a lot. [01:22:44] Speaker A: Again, she's a lot of fun as an actress. And she definitely has the energy that, like, she's willing to do. She's willing to go the distance if everyone, you know, if it feels like it's necessary for a role. And then in Madam Web, it is just like. It almost feels like at certain moments she's not reading the script and Ms. Moore just being honest about like, I don't know what's going on. I don't know how any of you are connected. I don't know why I'm here. [01:23:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's like, okay, credit to her. I feel like she uses her kind of signature deadpan fairly well, at least for like the first half of that movie. [01:23:16] Speaker A: Yeah, she. [01:23:17] Speaker B: She does have a level of charisma that like, even when the character is terribly written and everything about the movie is baffling, she's like kind of human. [01:23:28] Speaker A: But when my caps dies, there's not really much. She can only push so much. She can only pull so much from the inside. [01:23:35] Speaker B: Yeah, she. [01:23:37] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, again, these are films that in all honesty, I feel like, you know, I. The only thing we can probably say in terms of who's to blame for this and I think a genuine sense is I don't think you can really blame most of the production crews or teams or just like marketing. I think it literally is just like Sony looked at these ideas and said people would actually like to see these in theaters and put nearly hundreds of million, put hundreds of millions of dollars into all three of these films. Not like $100 million budget for each, but like, I think total, the budgets were like maybe 150, 200 for all three of these films. [01:24:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:19] Speaker A: So like, technically they probably made their money back to an extent, but like, not as single productions. [01:24:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:25] Speaker A: But a movie studio thought it would be a good idea to release super villain films that aren't really about super villains in an era where people are just like, I want more Spider man content. As if there's not already too much Spider man content constantly. It's always funny how when people talk about Spider man, it's almost. There's some fans who say, oh, we're in a Spider man drought. As if we've ever been in a Spider man drought. [01:24:57] Speaker B: Yeah. The closest thing to that would be the brief period, the two year period between Amazing Spider Man 2 being. Or like the Amazing Spider man movies being canceled and Tom Holland being showing up as Spider Man. Like, that's the closest thing we've had to a Spider man drought. [01:25:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's like at the same time you just talk to other people where it's like, hey, I'm just glad that like Moon Knights and Marvel Rivals. [01:25:22] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. [01:25:22] Speaker A: That's kind of cool. And it's like, that's how, that's how just disproportionate. Like it is where it's like when X Men 97 was coming out. And people are like, guys, we haven't had X Men like this in like 30 years. Like, let's get more of this as much as possible. Then people are like, yeah, what about Spider Man 97? And they're like, no, it's like, guys, that will happen. That is no doubt gonna probably happen, but please. Yeah, just Spider man content is at a point where we are not desperate to just have films that kind of are coinciding with Spider man in some way, shape or form. Yeah, I mean, you don't need. [01:26:03] Speaker B: It's just. It was just a poorly, you know, and a misguided idea from the start. Like, I mean, I think people would laugh at the idea, aside from Joker, of doing a universe of Batman's rogues gallery without Batman in it. [01:26:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:26:22] Speaker B: I think that movie would get laughed off the stage. And Batman probably has the most iconic rogues gallery in all of superheroes and. [01:26:29] Speaker A: At the same time. [01:26:30] Speaker B: And Spider man has a lot of good villains, but nobody's ever been like, I need stories about these characters that aren't about Spider Man. [01:26:38] Speaker A: But what's crazy though, too, is, like, it's funny that you bring that up because currently, right now, we just had news a few weeks ago that, like, one of Batman's rogues gallery is getting his own film in Clayface. [01:26:50] Speaker B: Oh, well, sure. [01:26:51] Speaker A: But the thing is, is because Gunn and Saffron understand that the name Clayface is not going to make people shiver with excitement. They have Mike Flanagan as the creative force, which is enough to be like. [01:27:04] Speaker B: So it'll be a tragic horror film. [01:27:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's like, oh, fuck, yeah, let's go. The guy from Hill House is doing a Clayface movie. [01:27:09] Speaker B: Well, and it's like, it was the same thing with Joker as well. It's like, okay, that movie, we can go all day about our qualms with it, but, like, it was a movie with a distinct vision as to how to depict that character. Like, if we're not gonna have Batman in the movie, this needs to be something entirely different. It was. It was, you know, it was a. It was a 70s crime thriller, you know, Taxi Driver for babies. Yeah. And Clayface will be a Mike Flanagan film. [01:27:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:40] Speaker B: And, you know, there's just none of that in Sony's attempt to offshoot Spider man characters. And, you know, would it have worked if you had taken a more intentional approach about director's visions? I still don't think so. But, like, at least maybe the movies individually would have More merit instead of just being digital slop that spanned about seven years. Four, six years. [01:28:07] Speaker A: I mean. Yeah. For this it's. It's two years. [01:28:11] Speaker B: Well, yeah, two years for these three films. Yeah. [01:28:14] Speaker A: Again, it speaks volumes how technically when we talked about the Spider man less spider universe. Venom also counts in this. [01:28:21] Speaker B: Right. [01:28:22] Speaker A: But I have to constantly remind myself that Venom has. [01:28:26] Speaker B: Has even those movies feel nothing. [01:28:28] Speaker A: Like even with the Last Dance being the way that it is and was it still to me just like those films have such a more concrete vision that feel like they can't even be really tied into those three. So in my head it's like in the span of two years we have gotten three films that are basically. Are like, do you want these? Oh no. [01:28:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:28:51] Speaker A: Okay. Spider Man 4 is in development. Daniel Destin Crenton. Don't worry about the non MCU bullshit we just put out. Like, don't worry about that. [01:29:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:29:02] Speaker A: Like it's almost like it just. Honestly, it feels wasteful. [01:29:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:29:07] Speaker A: It feels like a waste of. Waste of money, a waste of talent, budget production, like. Because it just is like cuz. Yeah. Like you look at like something like Madame Web where it's like supposed to look like it takes place in 2003. The production on that probably was not easy in a lot of the ways. And with like, you know, with fucking Morbius and having to do a lot of CG in terms of like going to like the mountains where they got the vampires and you know, the action sequences towards the end of that film as well as the morpies action scene. [01:29:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:29:39] Speaker A: I mean just Morbius and so much money. [01:29:42] Speaker B: To a lesser extent. The other two movies feel like, you know, full blown, full budget superhero movies. Like they, you know, they, they put all the resources into it and somehow zero effort. [01:29:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. We have talked about these for too long. Too long, too long. [01:30:02] Speaker B: It's time to be done. [01:30:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it's time to be done. Because here's. I mean if anything, just to give. Going into this, if you've gone into this episode completely blind, if you haven't seen any of these films, hey, thank you for listening. That's very nice of you to do that for these kind of films. Yeah. And I'm glad that you have decided to take the easy route in this case and just listen to us talk about the things about. Instead of finding out yourself how convoluted, stupid and sometimes pretty consistently shitty a lot of these three films can be. But if you take anything from these three films, Craven is the perfect banal laundry Folding film if you want that Morbius is technically the most palatable and is again, Andy literally watched it in between award, like award watching, award winning films. [01:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:49] Speaker A: And it was just like a palate cleanser. And it was enough for him to be like, that's fine. [01:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:53] Speaker A: And Madame Web is an absolute travesty that I think if you watch that, you should not watch it alone. [01:30:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Get a trip sitter from Adam Web before you get connected. [01:31:04] Speaker A: That is my. Yeah. Before her web connects us all. Make sure you get someone to be there for you, to hold your hand, maybe provide alcohol if you need that for this. But it is something that, again, to clarify all, not all three of these, because Morbius didn't come out this year, didn't come out in 2024. But both Craven and Madame Web were not only in my worst of last year list. Madame Web is my least favorite film of last year and is Andy's second least favorite film of the year. That should be enough to kind of tell you where these films last. But that is our take on the SSSU or Sony's Marvel scraps. [01:31:46] Speaker B: Right. [01:31:47] Speaker A: We are starting the year off getting the fun, goofy, gotta do it episode out of the way. I'm glad to start off with a truly odd trilogy that, you know, only us could really think, yeah, why not subject ourselves to talk about this? And we're excited to talk about what we're gonna be doing in February and just for the rest of the year. But we're gonna still keep that a bit of a secret. We're still trying to figure out and kind of work out the kinks of what we want. But knowing Andy and knowing what I've already kind of thought of myself for this year, I cannot be more excited to talk about and reveal what we're going to be planning for the next few months. So tune in, you know, in the next February 1st. February 1st for us. You know what the surprise kind of situation is. We will definitely watch our socials. We will announce what it is before that comes out. But thank you all for listening. I'm Logan Soosh. [01:32:40] Speaker B: And I'm Andy Carr. Bye.