The Greig Fraser Key Light Challenge (ft. guest, Taika Waititi)

22:33It flopped within this world. that like the sort of run up to it has felt a little bit shakier than previous Avengers movies and so I wonder if you know you need that that that momentum you need that sort of snowball and you need to bring people along with it and I don't know that this Avengers quite has the same momentum and also doesn't maybe have the same sort of clarity of purpose that that a Thanos had And, you know, I just don't quite see it being as big. But who knows? Who knows?

23:08Chris Hewitt:We shall see. But there you go. I think we've spent enough time, sadly. There's one more question. Maybe we can do it next week. Someone said that The Odyssey is Christopher Nolan's 13th film. Can we name a better 13th film in a director's resume? And that might take too long. I'd have to go away and look at IMDb. Yeah. Precisely. That's the thing. it would take too long we'd have to do too much research there'd be too much dead air as people scrolled through the IMDB but we'll do it next week will we? we will do it next week alright shall we have a little break sure in which we don't actually take a break we just go straight into the next section but it'll be a break for you the listener if you choose it to be so if you're listening to this on Empire Plus of course it doesn't have to be a break you can just barrel straight through if you are not listening to this on empire plus you may be about to hear some adverts and that constitutes a break here it is see you in a second bye-bye okay okay folks we are back we are back back back and it's time to talk about movie news but first before we do so today as we're recording this is wednesday the 5th of august in pretty much one month in a few weeks anyway also on the 5th of the month the 5th of September that is, we will be having our live show, our next live show, our next incredible Empire Podcast live show at King's Place in London.

24:34Chris Hewitt:Very exciting part of the London Podcast Festival. We do it every year. If you come along to those shows, you'll know that they are a ton of fun. And if you don't come to those shows, well, here I am to tell you that they are a ton of fun. Hells Bell, is that right? Ton of fun. John, you've been to live shows, haven't you? Sure. Yeah. Ours, specifically, are they good? Yes, they are good. Fantastic. They are good. I like them. Fucking hell, John. What did I say with feeling? They are really good. They are really good, says John Eugent. There we go. Kingsplace.co.uk. Kingsplace.co.uk to pick up tickets.

25:10Chris Hewitt:Tickets are still on sale for that. It's going to be a lot of fun. Me and Helen. John, are you going to come along to that one? Sure. Okay. You got my cold. I'm losing my voice. Helen, we're both losing our voices. Great. It may be up to you to steer the ship home. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Okay. So, kingsplace.co.uk. Pick up your tickets. Come and see us live. It'll be fun. Also fun were things that happened in the world of movie news this week, weren't they? Helen O 'Hara. I mean, honestly, as the host of the Bah Humbug Christmas Movies podcast, the most exciting thing that happened this week by a country mile is the new trailer for Violent Night 2.

25:48This is the sort of, you know, Father Christmas the movie diehard crossover where Santa Claus is the John McClane character taking out bad guys and terrorists because it turns out he was kind of a Viking before he became like Santa Claus. He's played by David Harbour and he's back, back, back. So last time it was a very self-contained thing. Basically, one rich family were under siege from some ne 'er-do-wells, and Santa had to take them out to protect a small angelic child caught up in the middle of all this. Of course, yes. This time it seems to be a bit bigger. So the idea is that after that he got a taste for not just bringing presents to the nice, but also punishing the naughty.

26:30And in so doing, he himself has landed on the naughty list and lost his powers. so he has to wouldn't you know it rediscover the true meaning of christmas i cannot tell you how many films i have watched about rediscovering the true meaning of christmas it must be the most easily undiscovered thing in the world maybe this is the undiscovered country the captain kirk and hamlet were looking for i genuinely okay sure it looks stupid it looks if anything more stupid than the first one, but I'm kind of here for it. What do you mean kind of here for? It looks like the greatest movie ever made. I'm 100 % here for it, but I'm just explaining that my bar for Christmas movies is a different bar to my bar for normal movies.

27:12Your bar humbug, if you will. My bar humbug, yes.

27:14Chris Hewitt:So Helen hosts a Christmas movie podcast, in case you don't know, it's called, what's it called? Bar humbug. What? You fell into my cunningly laid trap. Bar humbug. And this must be, because I know the sort of fucking unwatchable shit that you have to wade through for that podcast. I mean, sometimes, yeah. And so, a movie like this... Oh, it's a breath of fresh air. Yeah, you must have put it on your Christmas list, right? Oh, it's like, 100%. It's like a peppermint-scented, dreamy waft of goodness. I'm super here for it. And look, this year I also have to watch Ebenezer, don't forget. So, you know, this is particularly necessary and needed.

27:56Hey, Ebenezer might be good. It could be good. Every day is literally Christmas Eve.

27:59Chris Hewitt:yep so yeah John were you taken by this Christmassy version of taken sure I have to confess I never saw the first film but it looks it looks fun it's like very very bad Santa is that the idea I guess so yeah yeah but like he's doing it in a good cause at least in the first one yeah okay but he does kill people he 100 % kills people and he is to be fair even in the first one drunk and slightly you know cynical about how people are losing the true meaning of Christmas. So he starts off the first film quite embittered that other people don't believe in Christmas and now it seems like he's one of them.

28:38So that's going to be interesting, I guess. I don't think they'll get that deep.

28:44Chris Hewitt:Speaking of getting deep, Mrs. Claus is in this as well. Oh no, Chris. Was that a bad segue? That was terrible. Oh no. Yes, Kristen Bell is introduced this time as Mrs. Claus. A Christmas bell. Oh, wow. Every time a bell rings. Oh, my God. Every time a bell kills a bad guy. And she does. She does, yeah. Fair play to her, yeah. That's extraordinary. Yeah. Is she the first Mrs. Claus since Goldie Hawn in The Christmas Chronicles 2? I mean, almost certainly not if you include all the Hallmark channels and Netflix and all the rest. But, yeah, in terms of big screen closes, she's the one I'm thinking of, yeah.

29:22Chris Hewitt:Oh, my. It looks good. I mean, I also, I must confess, don't like to say this in front of the host of Bar Humbug. Sorry, Bar Humbug. But hey, that could be your next one. Bar Humbug? Law movies. I object. Yeah, overruled. So I also have not seen the first Defiling Night. I know it's right up my boulevard, right? It is so your boulevard. But I haven't seen it. But this trailer looked like a lot of fun. And it's the same director, isn't it? Tommy Fricola? Yeah. and take it from me guys if you see only one movie this December starring David Harbour as a red guardian then perhaps it should be Final Night 2 I can't think of any others I can't think of a single one no not a single one so it looks good to me which film do you think will win the box office wars well it depends on if Helen goes to see it a billion times then maybe it'll be Final Night 2 but we shall see was there another trailer you wanted to talk about yes we also watched this week, Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother.

30:24No, I haven't just developed some kind of brain freeze. That is the name of the film. This is the Mahershala Ali action movie where he plays a deeply religious hitman, I immediately have notes, who is left trying to carry out his hits, but also look after his three children who he is now solely responsible for following the tragic death of his wife. Oh no. So he's literally trying to get milk for the baby at the same time as like Smoking Fools, except not Smoking Fools because he uses a blade. This is a blade-led movie for Mahershala Ali.

31:01Chris Hewitt:Wow, he's finally getting to make his blade movie? That's it. With Bassem Tariq, who was the director assigned to the blade movie for Marvel, which will be made any second now, right? Well, I've got bad news for you about that, Chris. Oh, no. Yeah, because Mahershala Ali has been doing interviews, I think, promoting this or maybe something else. I'm not sure. because this is now for a couple of months. But he's been saying that as far as he's concerned, Blade is no longer happening at Marvel Studios. And if they'd wanted to make the movie, they would have made the movie. Now that seems like a fairly unequivocal calling out.

31:39Chris Hewitt:But perhaps they didn't want to make a bad movie, I'm guessing. And no one say anything. No one say anything. Do not say Quantumania. You fucking say Quantumania. I will hit you with a key light right now. I was only thinking it. I didn't say it. Don't you even... My God. I think maybe the bigger issue was just how does Blade fit into this world that they have at the moment and they couldn't figure out the way to make that sort of canon work, I guess. Yeah. I mean, there's all sorts of rumors flying around about what happened with that film. It got close. It got real close. It had a release date.

32:15Chris Hewitt:It was in pre-production. People were cast. Sets were built. and then it just went away. I feel very sad about this. Mahersha Ali is, you know, he's a two-time Oscar winner. Like, the fact you can't get one of the best actors working in Hollywood today to lead your movie and just find a way through is really sad. But I'm very interested in this Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother book, which seems like it's almost, I don't know, they're sort of exercising their demons. you know this is a film that could only have been made because they were both available because they weren't working on Blade and it does seem quite bladey there are blades in it it feels like this is maybe them sort of like dealing with the trauma of that fallout somehow I think so too it's very interesting did we also see before we move entirely away from Marvel eventually, I guess, the news that Samara Weaving is reportedly going to be playing Emma Frost.

33:18Now, this is all quite speculation-y, I think at the moment, quite unconfirmed-y. But I have to say, I'm into it. I feel it. I feel like, first of all, you need two things, right, to be Emma Frost. Maybe three. You need to be smoking hot. She's got that on lock, right? You need to be a little bit funny, I think, ideally.

33:40Chris Hewitt:Yep. not all the ones on screen have been, but in the comics, she's often very funny. And except, and you need to be convincingly mean. And Samara Weaving, while I'm sure she's a delightful human in real life, can play mean really well and can play kind of disdainful really well. And I'm super into that as a piece of casting. That feels right to me and a really good sort of place to start from. I don't know if I'd start my return of the X-Men with Emma Frost. She's not core X-Men to me, but she has done some really interesting stuff. So I'm kind of interested to see where they take that. I never read X-Men comics, so I don't know this character except for her appearance in X-Men First Class.

34:20Played by January Jones. January Jones. So is it like that? Yeah, I mean, kind of, yes. So she is smoking hot and super psychic. Like, that's kind of what you need to know.

34:31Chris Hewitt:She's super psychic. I mean, she is. She's very psychic. Like, she is very powerful as psychics go. Maybe not quite like Charles Xavier, but pretty close and in some of the comics she can also she also has this diamond mutation which they did with her in those movies which to me is a little bit silly but fine whatever diamonds are a girl's best friend well that's clearly where they started and ended that thought process let's be honest but anyway she also wears a bikini a lot and does she? I haven't noticed and has it all hanging out but everything that she has hanging out is as I said smoking hot Emma Frost I think is famously one of the most bosomy comic book characters Okay.

35:09You were reading them for the articles, these comics. I read them for the Thought Balls.

35:14Chris Hewitt:That's what I was reading them for. Yeah, this is really interesting casting. Because we don't know what the makeup of this X-Men team is. Jake Schreier, the director of Thunderbolts, is directing the X-Men movie, which hasn't been given a date yet. But it feels to me like it wouldn't be wider than Mark to say 2028. So Marvel are beginning to slowly roll out their post-Secret Wars refitalization slash resetting of the MCU. Secret Wars is next after Doomsday. That's in 2027, December 2027. We have Black Panther 3 coming December 2028. We know there's a Ghost Rider movie at some point in 2028 as well.

35:55Chris Hewitt:It wouldn't surprise me if Ghost Rider was, say, July. and X-Men was May. It wouldn't surprise me at all if it was that. And the fact that they're casting right now, clearly they weren't ready to announce the cast of X-Men at Comic-Con, which I thought there was an outside chance they might do that. They might go, please welcome your new X-Men. But they haven't quite done that. If Emma Frost is an X-Man in this, because she might not be, she started off as a baddie, and then she became a goodie. she becomes involved with Cyclops and that kind of helps swing her towards the light side. There could be a lot of powerful telepaths in this movie.

36:40Chris Hewitt:Not the most inherently cinematic power, I would say. So I'd be fascinated to see what the makeup of this team is, whether it's Cyclops, Jean Grey, the kind of traditional X-Men or whether they'll throw Beast, Iceman, Angel or whether they'll throw a Wolverine curveball in there. I think they might hold off on Wolverine a little bit. Do you think? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. It's, yeah, a lot, a lot remains to be seen. But if Samara Weaving is Emma Frost, it's pretty much perfect casting. I wonder if she asked her uncle, Hugo Weaving, aka the Red Skull, for advice. She addresses the large portrait of him that she has in her hallway.

37:24She does? Yeah.

37:25Chris Hewitt:And she goes, Uncle, would you recommend I work for Marvel in a Marvel Cinematic Universe? did he have a good time in that movie Captain America the first Avenger and the portrait spins around at a great speed he goes no

37:41Chris Hewitt:just give me a sign any sign I'll be waiting so could be that could be that wow okay kudos to the man with two brains for that joke yeah yeah yeah works in an audio format anyway so yeah looking forward to that that'll be fun anything else there are a couple of quick things that won't detain us long I'm excited that Odette Farah is returning to The Mummy. Oh my God! So am I! Are you? Ardus B! Yeah? He's back! Also, I am excited. I think this is cool. They're doing a Welsh dub of Star Wars. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. We need to go back.

38:18Okay.

38:18Chris Hewitt:We need to go back to The Mummy. All right. So this is the radio silence. Yes. Legacy sequel to The Mummy. Yes. Incredibly Samara Weaving's not in this movie. It's getting the whole team back together. we've got Brendan Fraser we've got Rachel Weisz John Hanna we now have Odette Ferre so that's like the core four if you will of the old team the core four you're damn right is Arnold Foss Lubach as Imhotep I don't know that that's been announced oh Imhotep but there's another bit of casting there is you've elided I'm getting to it well you weren't getting to it you're well done banged on by fucking Star Wars and Welsh okay well Numan Ackar is during the cast but also Michael Johnston from Obsession.

39:03Chris Hewitt:Yes. Again, that's not the casting I was talking about, but it's a good casting. Which one are you talking about? You don't know this casting? Maybe not. All right. Well, it's exciting because the Michael Johnston thing is very interesting. So the casting that Helen overlooked and in fact has just discovered in real time, if you heard the intake of breath, is that Kevin J. O 'Connor is coming back for The Mummy 4. Slash 3, because I think they're going to ignore The Mummy 3. Now, this is interesting because... His character, Benny, did he die in the first movie? Yeah, well, he seemed to. I don't think we'd like literally saw bones, but he seems to be about to get squished in a tomb.

39:41Chris Hewitt:That's the one thing we always need. We need proof of death in movies. We need people to hold up the bones of the person who's died. Literally, unless someone is beheaded, they're pretty much like liable to come back. I mean, they cut your man. What if their head, what if you cut someone's head off, right? Right, right. And their head flew through the air. Yeah. And landed exactly. Back on their neck. Yes, but also what if, and realize that this is a pretty, you know, pretty high odds. Yeah. What if their head landed in someone else's body. That had just been beheaded. Who had just been beheaded.

40:22Chris Hewitt:And all their veins and tendons fused. I'm seeing something a little bit Mars-a-taxy. I think so. Yeah. I don't think that's likely though, Chris. I'm not a medical doctor, but I think they would still die. Okay. But like when people bring back, for example, Darth Maul, who got literally chopped in half and like nobody has a problem with that. Yeah. I feel like all bets are off. Unless you see their body chopped into small pieces, like they might come back. And especially with something like The Mummy, which is all about bringing the dead back to life. Yes, exactly. It's like the whole series is he died and he got better kind of thing.

40:59Yes. It's he died and he got better the movie. Yeah. Yeah. You excited about this, John? You excited about The Mummy 4? Yeah. Oh, come on. It's all our favorite favorite gals and guys. Do it up to adventures. It's exciting. Honestly, I love The Mummy.

41:15Chris Hewitt:All right. Anything else you want to talk about? What was this Welsh Star Wars business? They're doing a Welsh dub of Star Wars with Matthew Rhys and Rhysa Fans. Matthew Rhysa Fans are going to be voicing some of the voices in the Welsh dub of Star Wars. Ejuba! And where will this be shown? Wales. I mean, I'm guessing. Wales. Wales, most likely. I think this is because Lucasfilm's new co-president, Linwen Brennan, is Welsh. No way. With a name like that. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it's great. You know what? I was actually born in Wales. I am technically, I know I don't sound it, but I am technically Welsh.

41:57You can play football for Wales. I could play football for Wales.

41:59Chris Hewitt:Do you have Welsh parents? No. Okay. So explain the story. I grew up on the border of Wales. I grew up in England, but right over the other side of the border. John's story is falling apart. My grandparents had a farm in Wales. They lived in Wales. Oh, okay. I have little patches of Welsh in my family tree, but I am. Your Welsh accent there was sublime. Did you see there was also a Disney animator who did a sign language reanimation of several Disney songs. Amazing. What, a couple of years ago, I think now? They didn't make a big deal of it at the time, and then I heard about it quite recently.

42:35That's really cool. It's beautiful, and you kind of wish they would do that more. I think it's a wonderful thing to do. The problem is, of course, they obviously have to do different kinds of sign language as well, but it'd be cool.

42:45Chris Hewitt:Yeah, very cool. All right, should we have a guest? Let's. Let's do it. Shall we have Taika Waititi? Ooh. Yes. Sure. Because, incredibly, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is 10 years old. Whoa. That's crazy. Yeah. How has that been allowed to happen? Hmm. It's wild. This is Taika Waititi's 2016 movie. I'm going to say it's not quite the movie that put him on the map because, you know, he was a filmmaker of note, a New Zealand filmmaker of note before that, with things like Boy and Eagle vs. Shark and, of course, What We Do in the Shadows. but I think it's the movie that is the most Taika Waititi. I think it's fair to say, Hell's Bells, you adore this movie.

43:27Chris Hewitt:I do. It's one of your favorites of all time, of all time. Yeah, it is actually. I think it's his masterpiece so far. Even more than Thor Love and Thunder? I thought you were going to say Thor Ragnarok and at least make me think about it but no. No, no, didn't do that. But a tremendous, tremendous movie of course starring the late great Sam Neill as Heck, who is a bushman, who goes on the run with, I guess it's his young foster child, right? He's a bad egg, yeah. Yeah, technically a bad egg. Ricky Baker, played by Julian Dennison, and they go on the run in the New Zealand bush. And many, many wonderful, whimsical, and witty and madcap things happen to them along the way.

44:16Chris Hewitt:It's a tremendous, tremendous, tremendous movie. It's being re-released this week in the cinemas around the country. So go and see Hunt for the Wilderpeople. And it's coming out on pristine Blu-ray and whatnot next week as of the 14th. So very, very exciting. And Taika was in London last week. But he leapt onto Zoom and had a chat with me about a great many things. Obviously, we talked about the recent loss of the great Sam Neill. and Taika dealt with that in a very, very Taika way. Oh, gosh. So this is a, it's always a blast talking to Taika Waititi. This was a funny, irreverent, tangential conversation about a great many things.

45:02Chris Hewitt:And we try, I tried manfully to get him to talk about Hunter for the Wilder People at some point. And you know what? I think I succeeded from time to time. Here we go, Taika Waititi. Enjoy. Taika Waititi, welcome to the Emperor Podcast. How are you, sir? great thanks so mate how are you i'm very very good i'm very very good indeed um obviously excited to be talking to you about 100 for wilder people but under very very sad circumstances because obviously we've lost sam what are you is this how you're learning what this is news to me i know it is sad and it's it's very it's very strange because it's pretty fresh and it's not like i'm not gonna say oh i expect him to call me any second but it is weird that i can't just text someone like you used to.

45:51But that's when you start thinking about the finality of it you're like, oh that's all gone. And it's just a weird thing to know that you can't get something back. I don't have any regrets or I wish I should have said something or any of that stuff. It's just a weird thing. I can't text that person. I can't call them. I won't see them. Yeah, it's horrible.

46:11Chris Hewitt:I had a role for him too for the next film. Did you? Yeah. Oh my god I'll play it now When was the last time you saw him? Because we did a little virtual Zoom reunion with you guys Yes Was that the last time you saw him? That would have been it On that Zoom And then I saw him in Auckland We did a little 10 year thing Earlier this year We had a big reunion there And Then before that Was at Jurassic Park That you loved so much Chris That Jurassic Park ad That I did for the Super Bowl Where we got him And Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum together to advertise the internet. I wasn't aware. I wasn't aware.

46:53Chris Hewitt:It didn't terrify me in any way, shape, or form. Yeah, get onto the internet, man. It's world of possibilities. It certainly is. But, you know, I think it's really fascinating, you know, the idea that we're talking about Will to People 10 Years On, you know, because this feels like a movie that is, strangely a movie that came out yesterday but also a movie that's been around a lot longer than 10 years does it feel like that to you? It does my idea of how time passes is very different now I don't even know what 10 years ago means when the book has been around since the 60s I started trying to adapt that in around 2004 I think, 2003, 2004 it's a really long time ago and so I spent about two years developing that you probably know this I think I've talked about this bit and that version of the script was before I sort of had found my voice and I thought I was going to be a really dramatic um uh see filmmaker and Sam's character died in the end and it was like hellish there was no hope at the end and I was like this is what people want to see I'm going to go to Cannes um and um if I just kill this kid I'll get into Cannes.

48:11So that never happened. And so, and then I just put that aside. I was like,

48:17Chris Hewitt:oh, this is not really me. Then we made three or four other movies, three movies and sort of figured out what my, you know, what I, how I spoke in film and what my voice was and then came back to it. And I was like, this makes perfect sense. This should be a comedy, but also have some meaning and some depth to it. And it should be about this and this. And so, I'm glad I took the time to wait. I think time always helps with everything I've ever made. All my films have taken so long to make, but What We Are in the Shadows, I think we wrote for seven years. Was it just like one page a day for seven years?

48:51It was one page a month, actually, with me and Jermaine. It went notoriously slow. Just grunting at each other in cafes.

49:01Chris Hewitt:They made a werewolf. We're trying We're wolves at the moment, and we haven't written a single page, and we've been officially writing for about six months. So what do you guys do when you get together to write? Everyone who's listening to this or reading this will be dead by the time it comes out. Is that a threat? That is a threat. No one's allowed to see it unless they're dead. Because this has been in the works, Tiger, for a long, long time. you've been promising this movie well maybe not promising I know and you know what now I've got kids I know the value of a promise and like how you know you shouldn't just promise things willy nilly and then and then draw it out for years so I'm not going to promise anything in fact I'm going to reverse that Werewolves is never coming out now here's the catch when it does come out you're going to be like what I'll play this back to you I'll play this clip to you well that'll be for a different interview a different promoting a different thing it would be although what I'll do is instead of playing the clip from this interview to you to you during that interview I'll just play this entire interview you won't because you'll be dead fuck I haven't thought this through so will I shit this could be an amazing amazing conversation between what our souls they will play this later on in the future Wow how right they were They didn't know it So you and Jermaine Basically you're getting together to write this movie But you think that what's the point Because everyone's going to be dead So then you don't write the movie Is that essentially what happens This is how a film works You talk about things forever And then you don't do them You've spent any time in Hollywood That's how the system works Well yeah I mean obviously you've been attached to a number of things over the years There's been a Star Wars What happened to them?

50:59where are they? What happened to that? The point exactly. It's best actually to just shut your mouth and never talk about anything you're doing because we're all just doomed to jinx everything by...

51:11Chris Hewitt:Yeah. With that in mind, do you regret saying five minutes ago that you're writing werewolves? Oh, yeah. I do. Because you're going to only use that bit and then people are going to be excited. Maybe like hot Empire podcast scoop. 20 vampire fans that left in the world. That is not true. That film was a huge hit, and my understanding is a television show. A million people saw it a time, or a 20 people saw it millions a time. I think that might be it. The 20 What We Do in the Shadows fans would be overjoyed by this news. What is your process then when you get together with Jermaine to write this?

51:50Chris Hewitt:What are you doing? It literally is just us sitting around and grunting and just talking and just sort of suggesting things and they're sitting in silence for a bit. It's like two very spectrum-y dudes sitting around trying to just figure out a story that should be so simple that somehow we always figure out a way to make it way too complicated. Is that the most important thing for you, though, as writers? Yeah, you've got to go through it. You've got to kick that can down the alley, as they say, or go down the... I don't know what the sayings are. I'll make up one. Go down the cul-de-sac, knock on every door.

52:23That's right. that's the wrong cul-de-sac um and but you've got to that's why like the first film we you know we we um we shot so much footage um i think 160 hours and we had to get that down to 90 minutes and that was a hard it was a hard job we had to overshoot all of that stuff so that we could sort of really figure out and we should have shot it basically like a documentary you Most documentaries, they have a script and they're just very precise. We shot it where we had way too much stuff and then we thought, okay, now we'll find the story in the edit, just like a real documentary. And I hated that.

53:04Because it took two years to edit.

53:06Chris Hewitt:Well, I guess also something like that, you're being confronted with hundreds of hours of footage. That's a long time in itself, just pouring through that. Yeah, of you and your best friend dressed as vampires on wires floating around a house. no idea what the story's about. Listen, I'm not implying for a second that any of the stuff you shot didn't work, but were you ever confronted with stuff that didn't work and then suddenly you're going, oh god. Yeah, it's 159 hours of stuff that didn't work. Problem is we had to watch it all. And the film is the only stuff that worked. Basically. We finished the film, we premiered it at Sundance and in the premiere we were trying to sell it with buyers from all over Hollywood in the screening and we were watching it and it was the first time we'd seen it with a proper audience who weren't our friends and Jermaine leaned over and said we've still got a lot of work to do and we ended up telling we were on stage and Jermaine says basically it's not really for sale and basically we just pulled it and went back and kept working on it for another six months.

54:22Taika, I've got to let you go in about five minutes and I realize we've spoken mainly about what we do

54:26Chris Hewitt:in the shadows. So when you started, you came back to Wilderpeople after what we do in the shadows. Did you look back at that screenplay that you'd written when you were a tortured serious artist in waiting? I knew it was bad, but I did scan through it. Did any even survive? No, it did a page one rewrite. Oh wow. I read it and I thought something might survive when I write it from scratch, but it just didn't, none of it seemed to work. So in terms of the tone of the film though, was that something that you, was that there in the script? It didn't even have that tone in the original script, it was just sad.

55:08There were a few jokes here and there but it just didn't have that sense of adventure or fun or whimsy. People like to use the word, love to use describing my films um and uh and i just had this feeling that you know it's okay to make a film that was like that sort of that just fell into a bit more of a genre um uh feel like you know being like a chase film and like having that kind of you know this one villain who was the poor character who didn't exist in the book or in any other version of the script i'd written I thought, oh, let's have this woman who is, you know, chasing this kid for no reason at all.

55:48And she's just a social worker. She has no power to actually do it. This is her ventriloquist and this is her mission. And that just made it more fun. And so I knew underneath it all that, you know, there was a serious, you know, some serious issues. It was like, you know, the foster care system and not just in New Zealand, in the world and how children are treated. They passed around these families without much care and they get lost in the system a lot. And I wanted that to be the sort of underlying thing and not for that not to be like the big message, but just the way that, you know, children and also adults can get lost in the system and forgotten about.

56:23And, you know, when people live on the margins of society, they, you know, it's ironic because like we get born and we get our feet stamped and we say you're part of society now. But if you choose to leave you don't want to go off and have an adventure or live in the book Yeah, if you don't want to take part in society, you're labeled a radical and crazy and you know people Really object to that behavior. I'm wanting to do your own thing And which is really sad for you.

56:52Chris Hewitt:How dare you not have any freedom and so I just like the idea but yeah underneath that or It's just about people who you know who wanted to a bit of freedom to just be who they were. And then have fun along the way because it's always been my thing is to try and bring audiences in with entertainment. Were you writing it with Sam in mind? I wasn't writing it with Sam in mind or Julian or anyone. I just was picturing these characters and then I met Julian on a commercial and instantly knew he was the one that they should play it. So I didn't audition him, I just gave him the role. And then Sam, and then when I started thinking about casting Sam's name popped up and he was basically the first choice because I just thought he's you know New Zealand royalty and it just he just felt perfect and he was what was a commercial you did with Julian by the way it was a uh anti-drug driving PSA because in New Zealand we uh we don't not only do we have to um stamp stomp down on uh clamp down stamp down what is the saying I think he's saying you kick the can then you stamp down on it you stamp down on drink driving we also have to do psas for drug driving for people getting stoned and trying to drive their cars we don't have crazy big uh they don't have very big messy accidents they have like slow sort of um they drive too slow is like one of the problems one of the big issues people get stoned and they drive too slow and sometimes they like ruin their rims on the curb or bump into trees and but that's a big deal that's a big deal and so we need to stop that we also have psa's for don't don't drink and fry which is a real ad where it's you don't get drunk and come home and fry food because people have been burning their houses down um so that's a big thing this is i'm not lying don't drink and fry look me in the virtual eye and tell me that's that's definitely real It is absolutely true, and you can look it up.

58:53Don't drink it, it's by commercials. Zealanders got an amazing, a plethora of incredibly weird PSA-type ads. There was one from, I think, the early 80s where a guy drove his car outside a store. He went inside, and there was like a clock wipe, and he comes out of the store, and his car's gone, and the PSA was, don't leave your keys in the car. That was it. It's a quaint country, but it's charming. Well, listen, I'm going to Google that. I'm going to let you go, but I'm going to Google that.

59:21Chris Hewitt:That's your gift to me. Here's my gift to you in terms of PSAs. Have you ever seen, this is the thing I'm going to leave you with, in Northern Ireland, where I'm from, we also have drink driving PSAs. You're not going to go about bloody all those stuff, are you? No, no, it's got nothing to do with this stuff. I'm joking. I will say that these are PSAs from a country that is inured to violence because these things are spectacularly gory and incredibly violent. And you should Google them or YouTube them immediately after this because it'll fuck your shit up. Northern Irish PSA is what I'm going to look for.

59:59Before we go, I've downloaded a vocabulary app and I'm just going to test you on a word. I'm just scrolling through. Let's find one. Okay. Okay. Oh, this is how I describe myself. you want to know this Aphorist Aphorist A-P-H-O-R-I-A-S-T You know what, this is over Contumacious Which one? Contumacious Do we spell it or do we define it? C-O-N-T-U-M-A-C-I-O-U-S That's how I would have spelled it but I don't know what it means Stubbornly disobedient rebellious That's also how I would describe it myself I'm contumacious Boom love to see you mate absolutely and good luck riding werewolves I can see why it's taking so long screw you alright that was

1:00:52Chris Hewitt:Taika Waititi director of Hunt for the Wilder People his new movie Clara and the Sun is coming out relatively soon might be a player in the Oscar race you never know Hells Bells it's reviews section of the show sure is obviously this is a 10 year old film we don't tend to talk about reissues and re-releases on the podcast but are we going to make an exception in the case of Hunt for the Wilderpeople? Hooray! Honestly, I just love it. I think it's maybe still my top film of the last 10 years. It's definitely up there. It is a beautiful story about sort of found family and two very lost people kind of finding their way back by being lost, if that makes sense.

1:01:34Ricky Baker, the Julian Dennison character, and Heck, the Sam Neill character, Both of them are old timers, but Ricky Baker in particular is one of the most indelible characters of the past couple of decades. I think he's magnificent. And Julian Denson did an incredible job at the age of 12 playing him. I also spoke to them recently for the magazine and they all have rightly fond memories of it. And Sam Neill was the one who knew even as they were making it, he was like, this is going to be special. This is going to be embraced by people. people are going to take this to their hearts and i think he was 100 correct um because it is it's really funny it's absolutely hilarious at times um there's a whole riff about terminator 2 in the middle that's just one of the greatest sort of pop culture references of again of the past ever but um but it's also but it's also just got so much heart to it and so much um soul and it's kind of got this melancholy undercurrent that keeps all the humor kind of grounded and um Yeah, I love it.

1:02:37Love it to death.

1:02:38Chris Hewitt:Yeah, it has for me... It skucks. Yes, it is for me cinema. It has for me one of the best, I think, tonal transitions I've ever seen, which is, there's a bit in the film, I won't give it away, but there is a scene of major and sudden grief in the movie, and then there's a hard cut to one of the most incompetent eulogies in cinema history delivered by Taika Waititi himself as a bumbling priest. and just I've always been in awe of what he does in those two simple cuts from something that rips your heart out to in the very next scene something that makes you laugh yourself silly and that I think is kind of an encapsulation of his entire career as a director but anyway five stars for Hunt for the Wilder People I don't know have you given him five stars we're giving him five stars fuck it five stars we did give it five stars yes ten years ago amazing much deserved So multiply that five stars by the 10 years.

1:03:35Chris Hewitt:50 stars then for Hunt for the Wilderpeople. But that's talk about movies that are out right now or over the next few days for you to see in the multiplexes and indeed on the sofaplexes. Shall we start with The Last House, which is on Netflix as of today and stars Greta Lee, Fagnamura, and it's directed by Louis de Terrier. I don't know why I did that. And it's directed by Louis de Terrier. Hell's Bells? Yeah. Tell us about this movie. This is an interesting one. So basically, Wagner Mora and Greta Lee are a married couple. They have two children. He gets back from an early morning fishing trip one morning.

1:04:14There's a storm brewing off the coast. I think they live in sort of Seattle area. And they're going about the business of getting the kids out to school and getting out to work and starting the day. And then the door won't open. And then the windows won't open. And then nothing in the house will let them out. and the rain falling outside seems to be causing this unnaturally and they are basically trapped in their house and over the days and weeks that follow they have to start rationing food and they have to start figuring out how to survive in their house with nothing coming in and nothing going out and what is happening and what has caused this it seems to be connected to this unnatural rain that is sort of still falling most of the time, but what's causing the rain?

1:05:03Who's controlling this? Is it aliens? Is it a government conspiracy? Like, what's going on? So there's some really interesting stuff in here. At times I felt about this the same way I felt about the war between the land and the sea last year, which is that if you're going to adapt... The Doctor Who thing. If you're going to adapt John Wyndham's The Kraken Wakes, just adapt John Wyndham's The Kraken Wakes and don't like fuck about. But that said, that's me just like feeling like there's a better version of this story out there. But there is something interesting in this. And to the film's credit, I think it tries to grapple with that.

1:05:41Like this is not just a film about, ooh, this is an alien invasion and they're hunting us down. There's quite a lot of an interesting, you know, middle section about, okay, so how do you survive just with what you have in your house? What can you do? What are the survival techniques? What hope do you have? How do you keep your children alive? How are you going to manage this? And so I find all of that really quite interesting and relatively fresh and relatively new. I hadn't seen that particular thing kind of done in this way before. And then it kind of remembers that it's a Louis Leterrier film and it starts sort of trying to get into a bit more silly stuff.

1:06:22I would definitely not survive this scenario. They can do things in a house that I can't do in a flat. It helps that Wagner-Mora's character is a bit of a mechanical genius and can come up with all these kind of Rube Goldbergian devices that will enable them to kind of trap animals and things like that. It's sometimes a bit silly, but I was at least interested in it in a way that I'm not by all streaming films of this nature. So I thought it attempted some stuff and it gets some points for that, but I didn't think the whole last act was entirely successful. No, that's very fair. I think, you know, there's some interesting stuff about, like, it reminded me a little bit of the first lockdown, you know?

1:07:07It's sort of this, you know, we're forced into a confined space against our will by these bigger outside forces and you can actually find some joy in that. And there's some actually really lovely played, sort of, you know, wholesome family activities. They learn the value of physical media, you know, like it's a really lovely, there's some very nice montages where they get to know DVDs and vinyl and board games. And I appreciated that a lot. And, you know, Wagner Moore and Greta Lee are very, very good actors and they're very good company. You know, we've seen them do slightly more subtle work in things like Past Lives and The Secret Agent.

1:07:49This, I would say, is not subtle. it's um it's pretty sort of you know like dunderheaded in its plotting and its characterization um i mean it's yeah it's like you say helen it's very daft um uh i i kept like they they talk about the rain a lot there's sort of like strange rain that's happening um outside i kept thinking about bow finger and the chubby rain that they talk about in that film um it's very silly i think the stuff in the third act where it goes a bit more cgi was just nonsense um but it's fine it reminded me a lot of like bird box it's kind of that sort of thing they're trying to do a kind of quiet place mysterious monster force um uh what what would happen what if kind of thing it's trying to be a sort of quick and and easy like uh water cooler kind of film and it you know it modestly achieves that i don't think it's anything more than a three star no but um but but yeah it's fine all right what are we officially giving it well i i'm currently writing the review as we speak right now.

1:09:08Really?

1:09:09Chris Hewitt:During the podcast? I've been doing it the whole time. Yeah, it's a three star. Three stars. Okay, three stars in for The Last House, which is on Netflix. There's another film, Hellspells, Love Me Tender. Yeah, this is a French film starring Vicky Creeps playing a woman who was married for 20 years and had a small son and then left her husband and is now and left her job and is now trying to reinvent herself not as a corporate lawyer but as a writer and um and sort of discovering herself her identity as a bi woman after being married to this guy basically her entire sort of adult life and um when she sort of comes out to her husband their their cozy shared custody arrangement and their easy relationship just disappears and he starts getting very vengeful.

1:10:04He files for divorce. He files for sole custody. And she starts this fight to regain access to her beloved child, but also, you know, try and maintain her own sense of self that she has found and sort of, you know, continue her own life. So it's quite an upsetting film a lot of the time. I definitely would not recommend this. If you have been through a difficult divorce or a difficult family time yourself, it is really quite harsh that way. So this was written and directed by Anna Kaznev-Kombe and is based on a novel. And I thought it was just well done, well put together, beautifully shot by Christy Babool.

1:10:47Nicely acted, but just it really is quite a lot emotionally. you know this woman who is a really good devoted mother apart from obviously leaving her marriage and you know breaking up the family I guess to that degree but she is still devoted to her child and she just suddenly is put in this position of completely losing access to him so it's really kind of quite emotionally traumatic so so yeah but but good performances well put together um and yeah just what one to avoid if you if you've been in that situation yourself I think I've spent the week basically warning friends about this

1:11:26Chris Hewitt:so is that the opposite of what a film critic is meant to do I don't know I think it's a decent well made film it's a really good film but I do not see this film look I told all the friends I warned about it I said look this is a really good film and you're the kind of person who might go see this but just so you know here's a content warning and yeah that's the situation just keep repeating it's only a movie it's only a movie it's only a movie what would you give it? A high three, low four. I think it's a really solid film. It's just, you know, it's not going to be for everyone. Sounds good. All right.

1:11:57Chris Hewitt:So pick one. Four. Four stars then for Love Me Tender, but do not under any circumstances go see this movie. No, I was only just recommending it to specific people. Yeah, specific people. All right. Okay. So there we go. All right. Last film to review this week is the interestingly titled Nimrods, a Green Day Comedy. John Ugent, please explain what that means. Yes. Well, it was originally titled New Year's Rev, but this is very much a Green Day film. It is produced by Green Day. It has a story by credits for Green Day, and it also stars Green Day. And it is sort of about Green Day. It's about three young men who are in a punk band and they're big Green Day fans.

1:12:53And they're trying to not only get tickets to see Green Day, but they think they might have even got an opening slot at one of their gigs. And so they travel across the country to Los Angeles in attempts to play alongside their heroes. and it's I understand it's like loosely inspired by the Green Day story it's sort of about or inspired by Green Day Green Day's sort of early years as a band in the 90s yeah so they a lot of the elements of the story came from from their life is what I understand and it's directed by Lee Kirk who also directed a film with Green Day's lead singer Billy you don't know

1:13:37Chris Hewitt:anything about Green Day do you just I have heard of their one song. You think they're Trey Cool? They're Trey Cool. Very good. John said, do you have the time to listen to me whine? Their lead singer is Billy Joe Armstrong. Billy Joe Armstrong. And he was in a film called Ordinary World in 2016, which was also directed by Lee Kirk. So there's a relationship there with the band and the filmmaker. and yeah I mean it's it's it's kind of a coming of age film it's kind of a uh an ode to punk music and punk sort of ethos um I felt the formula of it a little bit I felt like it was hitting a lot of familiar notes you know um and I don't know that I totally got like a deep well of character from the three leads other than they love rock music and one of them has a dead dad.

1:14:38I wanted a little bit more than that, but it's very sweet. It's really sweet. I thought the cast are really engaging and fun. Who are the cast, John? The cast, it's a really good question.

1:14:51Chris Hewitt:I like to test your powers of observation. The cast, of course. Mason Thames. Which apparently is not pronounced Thames. It's Thames, isn't it? Like the river. It's either Thames or Thames. We had this discussion when How to Train Your Dragon came out. I think it's Thames. I think it's Thames. Yeah, I think it's Thames. Okay. But he's really good in this. I liked him, but I kind of agree they're a little bit underwritten. I think it's Kyler Kaufman is the sort of goofy, slightly addled, green-haired one. Green-haired guy, yeah. And then Ryan Faust is the kind of straight-laced, oh my mum won't approve of this kind of one you're right there could have been a little bit more to that and maybe more about I think the problem is the relationships between them are being tested so much during the film that you don't get a lot of a sense of do they like each other in the first place you know but they play together I guess and the music is pretty fun actually like their songs not just like the Green Day stuff and then yeah you know you have a really good supporting cast like there's a tiny Sean Gunn bit there's McKenna Grace turning up Fred Armisen Fred Armisen your buddy Chris is in it and of course also Green Day turn out playing themselves yes I like this a bit more than I expected to but I did find it formulaic I did think they could have done more maybe with the road trip kind of elements of the film but I thought there was a warmth to it and a charm to it I think that I didn't necessarily expect I think you I think both of you are nimrods wow you mean we're great hunters thanks very much would you say I'm an American idiot I would say you're a Welsh idiot hey a board of you non-welsh idiot I I like this movie a lot I liked it a lot more than I was expecting to I interviewed Mason Thames slash Thames slash Thames and Lee Kirk at Comic Con which you'll hear either in next week's show or next week's episode of the interviews so we should say this is out on Tuesday by the way this isn't out this week it's not out this Friday was out on Tuesday, but next week's fairly packed, so we're bringing it forward to discuss this week.

1:17:03Chris Hewitt:And even though I never established in that interview how to pronounce Mason's surname, I did establish that I liked the film a lot more than I was expecting to because I'd seen the trailer and I thought, oh, this feels like it's, I don't know, strangely out of touch. I couldn't quite understand the concept of and I like Green Day I'm a big fan I think American Idiot is a masterpiece but I couldn't quite get my head around the idea that a bunch of 19 year olds would travel the country to follow Green Day I couldn't quite are 19 year olds into Green Day? I don't know if they are maybe they are Presumably Green Day knows some who are well Lee Kirk said that Mason Thames was a big Green Day fan so he was massively delighted to be in the film.

1:17:52Chris Hewitt:But I don't know. There's got to be bands who are maybe connecting with the youth more than Green Day are. But that aside, I thought it was really sweet. I thought it was surprisingly funny. I thought the characters were better drawn than you think they are. I think Kyler Kaufman is really good as Fred, the green-haired one. These characters are very much in the tradition of characters. that you will have seen in a million teen road trip movies. But there's something about the way Lee Kirk shoots this. It's either with a key light or without a key light. I'm not entirely sure. But there's a really lovely, wistful, autumnal tone to this.

1:18:36Chris Hewitt:A lot of stuff was shot kind of around magic hour as the sun was going down. And I think they shot it in winter in February in Nebraska, I think. and so the light was that kind of subdued light that you get at that time of year and I think that informs the performances and informs the tone for me and you know yeah the dead dad thing you were talking about there John worked for me tremendously because it's something that is introduced very early in the film his mother Mason

1:19:12Chris Hewitt:Mason River Mason River's mum in the film is played by Jenna Fisher uh pam from the office who is lee kirk's wife yeah um in real life and uh angela kinsey is also in the film also from the office also from the office ladies podcast uh and that scene really got me and i think it establishes the stakes i think it does explain a lot of what tommy does in the film and it doesn't hammer it home that much but there's a nice kind of subplot about his older brother who's meant to be the one who was looking after him until their dad died which is something by the way that came from Billy Armstrong's life okay his dad died when he was young as well so you know there's lots of I think real emotion here which worked for me yeah his brother's played by Keen Ruffalo as in Son of Mark holy holy shit really yeah that's amazing that's amazing we have the Son of a Hulk that oh my god the owner of a dragon the lady of the office oh my word is he the guy who played Hulk's son in She-Hulk I don't know is that the same one he looked less green this time so it's hard to tell yeah amazing well I liked it more than you guys I still liked it yeah yeah we liked it that's fine he was very sniffy he was he was absolutely no he was like wake me up when this movie ends never mind September because they have a song yeah yeah no I know okay I'll be taking a holiday after this I don't really know any other tracks Chris your Chex Notes basket case thank you it's always nice to be compared to one of the great trash classics oh you mean the song not the film okay so there we go John would be giving this three stars three stars we spent a lot of time talking about this movie it was three stars unbelievable would you send a cautionary text to your friends going Do not see this in case you and your friends were fooled into thinking that you were going to be supporting a major rock band.

1:21:20Look, if they had a bad experience at a Green Day concert, I'd let them know, hey, this film features a Green Day concert. So just make up your own mind with that knowledge.

1:21:28Chris Hewitt:That's a good thing. There's good Green Day songs in this. No, but I'm saying if they had had a bad experience at a Green Day concert, then they might be re-traumasized. Oh, I see. I'm not saying don't go. That's not what I told people. I just said like be aware like this film may trigger some emotions for you. And I think there's... Helen, I think it's a good service that you are providing people and I think you should do it for more films from now on. All right, I'll bear that on. You're like the canary down the coal mine. I think you should go see all films first and then text us afterwards going, no, avoid that because...

1:22:01I do this for you already.

1:22:03Chris Hewitt:There's a bit where Dr. Doom says something to the thing and you won't like it. So don't go see it. I do that a little bit for you already you do on a more limited basis yeah she's a bellwether James is a bellendweather anyway three stars then for Nimrods a Green Day comedy do not be put off by the Green Day comedy part it's just focus on the Nimrods yeah you don't have to be a Green Day fan to work don't have to be it's not yes it's not it's not compulsory so there we go anyway on that note that is it for this week's Empire podcast join us next week for more film related fun will be joined by either Matt Johnson making his second appearance on the Emperor podcast in a matter of weeks after Nirvana banned the show the movie his new movie is director Tony which is a kind of biopic of the young Anthony Bourdain starring Dominic Sessa he'll be talking to us about that movie or it'll be the aforementioned Lee Kirk and Mason Thames slash Thames slash Thames of course Mason and I think I'm getting right.

1:23:08Chris Hewitt:But it might be Masson. Masson. We don't know. Masson Thames. Masson Tehemes. Masson Tehemes. That's his new name going forward. So, yeah. So it'll be one of those two people. Okay. Exciting. Actually, three people because it's Lee Kirk as well. Okay. So there we go. Anyway, until then, until we meet again, until that auspicious occasion, it's time to say goodbye to my two colleagues of such lethal cunning. Goodbye, John Nugent. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye, Helen O 'Hara. Toodaloo. and it's goodbye from me I am off to have a listen to that new Welsh dub of Star Wars do you think they get around to the Phantom Menace how would you do a Welsh Jar Jar I guess you start off John how would you do a Welsh Jar Jar

1:23:53Chris Hewitt:do you want a Jar Jar line yeah yeah give me a line give me a line he goes you so thinking you so people going to die oh Oh, yous of people. Yous of people. Yous of people. It's demanded by the gods, it is. I don't know. Is that Welsh? Definitely not. How rude. How rude. I don't know. I think it's a hate crime. He's a liking this. Yeah. Jeez. Yeah, Bosnass is a lot easier to do in Welsh. Bosnass. Yeah. So much easier. All right. This Welsh dog. Definitely a hate crime. It's not a hate crime. We love the Welsh. and we love the Welsh accent and we love the Welsh language. Okay. All right. Thanks for listening.

1:24:40Chris Hewitt:See you in the next week. Goodbye.