Edgar Wright, Vol. V

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0:34Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now. Hey guys, it's Josh. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Today on the show, Edgar Wright returns. You know him. You love him. The Cornetto Trilogy. Scott Pilgrim, Baby Driver, and now The Running Man. Hey, guys, thanks as always for joining me on the podcast, for listening, for watching. However you're enjoying the show, I appreciate you guys. Yes, Edgar Wright is back, and of course he's back. He's always welcome on this podcast, one of our favorites.

1:16Any film nerd worships this guy. He lives and breathes this stuff. He is cut from our same cloth. We have the same reference points, the same movies. Although I will say he knows movies way more than you or I do. I will venture to say that. Unless Martin Scorsese, you're listening or watching to the podcast, Edgar Wright knows movies better than you. But he's always such a great chat. And this movie is such a fun ride. Glenn Powell adapted from the classic Stephen King book. This is a way different movie than the Arnold Schwarzenegger adaptation back in 87. And I think you guys got to dig it. It's out in theaters now.

1:56So support Edgar, support The Running Man. Check it out and enjoy this conversation. Before we get to that, though, some quick reminders. We do have some very cool upcoming events, live events here in New York City. If you're listening or watching this before Tuesday night, November 18th, still tickets available for Brendan Fraser talking about his entire career. He's never done the podcast, so there's a lot to cover. And also we're screening his new, very sweet film, Rental Family. It will probably make you cry. Fair warning. Link is in my show notes to get your tickets. And also we have, for the Percy Jackson fans out there, and I know you're out there because these tickets have been selling very well, Walker Scobell.

2:37Percy himself is joining me at 92nd Street Y. I believe that's December 19th. get in on that quickly because that that is I think that's going to sell out that's that's going fast some more things to be announced coming soon as always patreon.com slash happy say I confused for all the announcements the discounts the merch early access to the pod what more can you ask for patreon.com slash happy say I confused okay not much more preamble for Edgar I'll toss right to this conversation just to say a conversation with him is always so easy and fun. If you love movies, he just speaks our language. He lives and breathes this stuff and has all the reference points.

3:23This is a conversation that dives into Running Man, but also weaves into our love of Brian De Palma and Paul Verhoeven and potential future projects like the Baby Driver sequel and Barbarella and more. So a lot to enjoy in this conversation. Edgar's one of the great conversationalists out there, in addition to being one of our most unique filmmakers. So check out The Running Man and enjoy my conversation with the one and only Edgar Wright. Edgar Wright, here we go, man. You're still alive. I know. This is your running man is surviving this gauntlet. It's maybe, this is towards the end of the press tour.

4:06I mean, this is like in the last couple of days. of what's being pressed or and i was just saying that i feel like i'm in the conference room from the matrix at any point hugo weaving is gonna come in and tell me that this is all this is all fake as you as you know yeah press store is kind of a a bit of a psychological warfare so i appreciate you um we had a good night last night as we taped this it was a opening night last night we did some q a's got to see a live audience feel that energy which must be must be a boon on an exhausting press tour as audiences are starting to receive it and you're feeling feeling the love to give me give me a sense of like your your coping mechanisms your attitude about opening weekends at this point because you've had like you know big successes you've had disappointments like all filmmakers like where are you at in terms of like how you get through an opening weekend i think if you're smart and i think i i learned this on scott pilgrim and not that i necessarily would have seen that coming but I remember on Scott Pilgrim was the first time I thought, maybe don't read the internet the weekend it comes out.

5:13So I think I just was like, and, you know, so whatever deadline articles there were about the box office of Scott Pilgrim, I never read them. I just thought like, stay off the internet that weekend. And, you know, I think the thing is, is that, I guess the thing is there's so much put on a movie in terms of how it performs in the first 48 hours of its life when we as film fans know that that is you never know what part of the story you're in and so I think there's you know listen and I'm guilty of it as well I read all the sort of like the news sites too but there's so much put into the idea of film being like a horse race and and it being like sports and ultimately you know that's not really the kind of story of any film you know so I kind of I think over the years I've sort of tried to sort of like just try and ring fence myself to just I'm here to promote the movie I'm really I'm really proud of it I'm really proud of the movie and I think just in terms of making a film that I've thought about since I was a teenager and then and then actually doing it on a large scale and working with this amazing cast and crew and getting to connect with Stephen King you know one of my favorite authors um is just um the whole thing has been sort of like a dream even as it's been an exhausting marathon at the same time a sprint like a marathon rather than a sprint, I guess.

6:50I wouldn't have been able to sprint for a year straight. Right, that would be impressive. So when I saw the film, I immediately hit you up. And I think I said something to the effect of, like, I knew you were making a Stephen King movie. I didn't know you were making your John Carpenter, Paul Verhoeven movie, which like, I feel like, you know, you know your films, you know your filmmakers, you wear your influences on your sleeve, yet somehow your films are all uniquely you. were those two filmmakers in particular on your mind among others in making running yeah i think yeah absolutely and i think some of those and it's interesting actually even though um even though there was a 1987 version of this film um it's ironic that the the the 1987 film that's probably more of an influence would be robocop which i think is kind of like just a peerless sci-fi action satirical classic and then weirdly i think the arnie film that has more influence on this film than the 1987 running man it is total recall also by paul for heaven and actually when me and glenn met arnold after he watched the screening and talked about the film at length you know he he really wanted to stick around and talk about it i was able to say that to him because um you know the 1987 film which is like super fun and obviously has its own sort of following is wildly different from the book and so the whole reason I wanted to do this in the first place is because I'd read the book as a teenager I love Stephen King I knew I knew there was another movie in the source material and I wasn't really interested in doing a remake that was like karaoke my favorite remakes are ones that do something wildly different with the source material the the biggest and best one to me being um david cronenberg's the fly you know like so and john compter's the thing another another incredible one but the fly in particular because i think it deviates from the source material so much and it is it's so sort of fascinating kind of like um you know microcosm of its time um but yeah the fly for me is like top 10 like period film of all time it's a perfect movie it's and it really holds up i mean the thing too i'm not dismissing that as another but to go back to what you're saying about john carpenter paul verhoven i think part of it absolutely yes an influence and escape from new york definitely an influence on this just in terms of like what i would call like um fun and dystopia it's not all bad we can have fun in here well listen like the new york that's in escape from new york is obviously grim as hell and manhattan has been turned into a penal colony but of course you know we've all had fantasies about being in that film and running around you know like sort of on a kind of like a fetch quest in the middle of like um crazy inmates um yeah grand theft auto lives off of basically I mean, I watched it again.

9:55Actually, I watched it recently at the cinema for the first time. I realized I'd never seen it on the big screen. And then it was actually just as I was wrapping up the movie. I don't remember, recall. I could count the days off on one hand in the last year. But one of them was as we were coming towards the end of post, it was like a public holiday, like a bank holiday weekend. and my girlfriend was in town and we hadn't made any plans because i'd just been working like 16 hour days seven days a week i think at some point i figured out on the calendar i'd work 30 days non-stop and then it was like there's a couple of days off and i said what do you want to do and she said well let's just go and watch some old movies at the bfi and i was like perfect and what was the movie that happened to be on that night escape from new york so i was like it's kismet it's research on the big screen well i mean i've made the movie at this point but to go back to what you're saying i will say this is that a thing that i've done throughout my career is i gravitate towards films and genres that i miss and that i miss on the big screen and i feel like i was kind of spoiled growing up in the 80s and 90s going to the cinema because it felt like you got a sci-fi action movie every other week right and you know and John Carpenter and Paul Verhoeven like a huge part of that and you think about all of the you know and James Cameron and everybody like just like the sort of the films that kind of came out even if you look at 1987 alone the year that The Running Man was released there's so many and sometimes even on the same opening day it's just insane so it is a genre that like has especially from this from a studio point of view that seems to have kind of been a bit more fallow of late.

11:43So the opportunity to do one, you know, with a studio based on a book that I love, you know, on a good budget with like lots of great actors and ILM working on the movie, first time ever with them, like a dream, a gift. I don't take any of it for granted.

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15:27Look, we've talked about virtually all of your films throughout our years of chatting, and this is your biggest film in terms of budget. And you've worked with IP in a sense. Scott Pilgrim is obviously IP, and you've danced around other projects. But I don't know, it seems like you could have done, you've had opportunities to do things of this scale before, or at least they've been talked about. And it's very telling that like, you know, you did your own thing for as long as you did and waited for like one that was like, this is a passion project. This goes back to, you know, like this is in your bones.

16:01You read this book when you were a teenager in formative years, I guess. And visualized it as a teenager as well. That's right. You can't not do that when you read a book when you're you know exactly so i guess my i'm what i'm curious about is like having now done it having done kind of like the tent pole hundred million dollar movie whatever the budget was it's a big one i don't know i think it looks twice as expensive as it was as well exactly exactly people say it's like they say i always get asked this question on the press or say what's the difference between making a big hollywood movie and making shawn of the dead and And I said, basically, your job is no different.

16:41Number one, people are giving you the money. You're going to make sure the film's good. Number two, you're going to make sure that money is on screen and that people don't watch and saying, and how did this cost this much? Which is a terrible thing. And the third one, ideally, and I think I've hopefully done this throughout my career, make it look more expensive than it actually was. Make it look twice as expensive as it was. And then when you tell people the budget said, oh, I would have guessed twice as much as that. I said, well, good. Did so did I guess give me a sense of sort of like where you're at now in terms of like why this was the time to tackle something this big?

17:16Was it just about like this lined up? The opportunity was there. And yes, you were passionate as opposed to others that for whatever reason didn't click in the right way. And and what was the experience like finally having kind of some more tools at your disposal? I mean, I don't feel I've been lacking in tools on previous films. I mean, I mean, and actually a lot of the crew are all people returning from previous movies. And to be honest, I mean, we can talk about this separately, but we we had quite a kind of time crunch. Right. I wouldn't have been able to get through the movie if I wasn't working with a loyal crew that I've worked with several times.

17:52But I think the thing that's interesting, I think maybe people. And again, I take none of this for granted. I feel very fortunate just to be, you know, kind of working in this business in a time when the sands are sort of shifting and and especially making this movie coming out of the production strikes of 2023. I've never felt so much like an employer as well in that, like hundreds of people get to work on this movie after like, you know, like there's been a desert in 2023. Just production of ground to a halt in many countries. um what i think people don't realize is that directors unless unless you're certain directors i think can kind of write their own check most people like their the order in which their filmography goes is not necessarily up to them right there are a number of factors that come into making a movie especially in this day and age and it's about like the right timing the right budget the right tax break where you can shoot it kind of like when you can shoot it like and those things kind of all have to line up so the crazy thing is that um in early 2024 i wasn't sure what the next movie was going to be i i'd sort of been working on a couple of other things that were like in a in a finished place there was actually a smaller film that i was working on which nearly went this adaptation of The Chain by Adrian McKinty and the SAG strike and the WGA strike sort of threw everybody's schedules into kind of chaos and so it just fell apart and in a weird way it's telling maybe about the business, the current state of the business that it was easier to get this going than like a smaller movie.

19:42That's what it is, right? It's the extremes. It's easier to get the$150 million than the$20 million movie now. It's wild to say that, but it's an unfortunate sort of like nature of the business at the moment. And so listen, given all of that and the actual opportunity to do this movie, something that I've really wanted to do and with like a big budget and an amazing crew, it's just a gift. it's it's and it's and it feels sometimes you feel these things are sort of that it's it's it feels miraculous that it came together in the way that it did and i have to give a lot of credit not just to my sort of crew but also to like simon kinberg and also mike island who was the head of paramount pictures and brian robbins at the time that kind of greenlit the film and not just greenlit the film but kind of like said in early 24 there was a point i was doing this other movie it had fallen apart and we couldn't kind of get it going quickly and i was working on something else that may or may not go it was just all again it's all dependent on like the numbers and etc etc and mike ireland called me and said and i've never had this experience in my career he called me and says why aren't we making the running man right now you could be in production this year and have it out in late 25.

21:09I never had that usually and not to say that it was easy but usually you're pushing a project uphill all the time so for somebody to actually fire the starting gun was really crazy and actually a friend of mine Don McKellar you know the great Canadian sort of film legend who you know works with Park Chan-wook a lot I had seen him in los angeles in may last year and and then he watched the film in toronto the other night toronto gotta drop the second t so i apologize toronto canadians toronto he watched the movie and he said this is just wild to me because i saw you in la 18 months ago and you said oh i think this running man film might happen might happen like so it was only like less than 18 months ago that it hadn't been greenlit yet.

21:58We were sort of, it was all sort of coming together. And suddenly, as soon as it came together, we were like working and just didn't stop until, well, I mean, I haven't stopped working. This is part. This is still work. There's a good lesson there too for you, you know, a reminder to yourself, because, you know, there will be stops and starts for films again, but some of like your probably artistically most rewarding experiences, like I would think Baby Driver is one too, which came out of, you know, the Runes of Ant-Man. And this one kind of comes out of the rooms of a film that you wanted to do.

22:28And there are other opportunities and things can emerge and you can't beat yourself up too long. Oh, no. I mean, listen, it's, you know, like, I think that's the thing is that sort of like the business is in such flux and nobody really knows what's going to happen. That, you know, I think, honestly, just grateful to be making movies, you know, and getting them out onto big screens. like exhibition as well means such a big thing to me because i never kind of bought into this idea of uh i kind of felt that we were sold a lie about streaming that everybody like treated it like there was this kind of fancy new development and the way that people talk about that and it's like but isn't it just watching movies on the couch it's not it's not any different than than that right So actually, and obviously in the pandemic, it was such a terrible blow for cinemas that I found myself that after the kind of the restrictions lifted, I probably gone to the cinema even more than I ever had done before.

23:31I would just kind of like get off the couch and go watching old movies, watching new movies. And just like, you know, if you practice what you preach and you want to be a filmmaker, you've got to go out there and see it with audiences. you know there's some people that i think work in the industry that once they achieve a level of success never mix with the great unwashed ever again right they go to industry screenings and they go to like you know award screenings but like i sort of pride myself and a lot of my favorite filmmakers do too on like sort of go and go and see it with an audience you've got to you have to be the audience member it's really important correct me if i'm wrong you haven't you haven't done a tv project since spaced no no yeah no i'm not to say i'm not dismissing i'm not dismissing ever but people it's not something that's necessarily like a a move it's it would always just be about what the story is if there was something subject matter wise that i thought like yeah i really want to do this and this is the perfect outlet to do it great i mean and and also i i mean and yes it would be it would almost be something more like space the thing that i don't quite get and happens a lot is i'm still really excited about the form of a of a feature film and when sometimes you see tv shows that are like you like this movie back in the 70s now watch 10 hours of it yeah watch 40 hours of it like yeah but can i i can also watch the 105 minute version right yeah like so i don't know i mean not to say and again i find like i'm subtweeting a lot there are exceptions but there are absolutely exceptions but i still believe in the theatrical experience and i believe in the feature film you know do any you know we talked about you know some of the false starts and some of these films do any sequences or ideas from any of those films that didn't come to pass ever seep into other projects Like, were there any, like, sequences from Ant-Man that kind of came into another form in Baby Driver or even Running Man that are still in your brain or still in your brain now?

25:42Not really, not specifically. I think maybe in terms of an idea of, like, how to, I mean, I definitely kind of found myself from Baby Driver into Soho into this wanting to kind of do, I guess, more like, I just sort of you know you're always trying to push yourself and it's just visual storytelling the way that you kind of board and the way that you think about things and I think I think because of the nature of of those films I mean Soho's a bit of a spoiler but but it's got dance sequences so it's a similar thing but there's something about kind of like about choreographing sequences without cuts where you're creating like a different reality and and and in this i think it was taking further stuff that i'd done on those films where well ben richards is the lead and he's also kind of the the subject of the show so sort of designing these sequences where you could go for longer um unbroken takes yeah i mean not specifically i don't know how any kind of ant man action could find its way into the running man right that's pretty specific saw that sequence where ben richard slipped under a door yes yes yes there you go you talk about unbroken shots maybe we've talked about to palma in the past i'm sure we have i know you i know you your phantom of the paradise is one of your your big ones but i'm sure you love virtually all of his work um there's a big one we're missing that relates to i mean carrie is one of my favorite films of all time of course and it's my favorite stephen king adaptation too any i was just listening to a podcast talking about snake eyes which is kind of a guilty pleasure and there's so many like iconic unbroken shots throughout his work obviously what stands out to you i'm just curious from a fan of his work do you have a favorite i think um i mean what i love it well Well, actually, I'll go for like a classic, acknowledged classic one, and I'll go for a deep cut one.

27:44OK. I mean, what I'm this and I'm a big Hitchcock fan as well. So I know sometimes people kind of like sort of sometimes kind of sniff at De Palma as a sort of Hitchcock acolyte. But I think they they do two different things. And I think the thing that Brian De Palma does that I love is when the films become fully operatic. Yes. Like it is it is really just it's not it's not like it's self-conscious, but it definitely has this larger than life feeling. And my favorite is in Carrie is the the long crane shot leading up, like from Tommy Ross and Carrie White on the dance floor through the crowd as they go to the stage, going up the kind of going up to the bucket with that Pino DiNaggio score.

28:32It's just fantastic. it's just like and that to me is just like that is like pop opera at its best i love it a more deep cut one that i love is in raising cane there's that amazing exposition scene i forget the name of the act actress lynn um oh god i'd have to look this up so screaming that oh francis sternhagen that's an episode yeah yeah yeah there's the scene where she is the doctor and she's basically doing a massive exposition dump about what's happening it's kind of in the middle of the movie and it's like Clark Gregg and another actor I forget are kind of taking her through this police station or is it in a hospital one or the other either way basically it's so kind of meta because it's like and here's here's the big exposition dump where we're going to explain what's happening and it's in a steadicam shot where Brian De Farmer does that meta joke of Francis Turinghagen keeps turning the wrong way and they can move her the other way so she's going left and they say oh no no this way and it goes it keeps going down an escalator and then goes all the way to like a dead body on a slab and they pull back the shroud perfection i love have you now have you seen the raising cane version that's on the blu-ray where somebody re-edited it to be in chronological order no it's actually funny enough name drop alert i'm not that i had not been doing this already but i was actually i went to see john lithgow in um giant the play about oh yeah oh doll and we started and i've never met him before one of my you know an incredible actor but we started talking about that and he said oh i've heard about this because the original version of raisin kane was in chronological order and then after a bad test screening they went non-linear and put the kidnapping sequence at the start and i forget the name of the guy who did it but it was like a fan edit where somebody had restored the screenplay and just re-edited the filming chronological order and brian de palma saw and said oh yeah it's pretty good stick that on the blu-ray so if you have the blu-ray you can watch the original version which is pretty pretty great i'm digging into it yeah for folks who don't know an amazing out there let's go performance or performances it's performance fizz exactly um you know we always talk filmmakers and like you you know i love that you are kind of like part of this cadre of like filmmakers that are all supporting each other they show up for each other and like i saw i think at your premiere ryan johnson was there macquarie was there um alfonso coron this is a good company to be in um how did you end up being kind of a a go-to for macquarie on mission impossible i guess not not the most recent one you weren't a consultant too much because you were busy with your own film yeah but i didn't know actually it's really i mean i got to know chris i guess in the last few years and it's very sweet like i think because you know they i think it was mostly on like fallout and dead reckoning it's just like invited into the kind of the edit and i guess because of the way those guys work that they're kind of constantly chipping away that you get to see the movie in the longest form and then as it comes close to release and you know and they're really i mean i i actually it's actually sort of inspired me in a way to kind of do the same thing as that you know when you have these what's called friends and family screenings you want to show it to people to sort of make sure that it's working and also just because there's test screenings you know we did two test screenings on the running man um in new jersey which and those those you know test screenings are like nerve-wracking as hell because obviously it could not go your way and I've definitely had some that have gone better than others um and probably the only ones that have like where the first screening has gone really well was probably like Hot Fuzz, Baby Driver and The Running Man and then you know like I remember like the Scott Pilgrim the first Scott Pilgrim screening I think we test screened that five times and it sort of went from like a like 60 to like a 91 but then you know and then yeah but it but but it wasn't like the film changed it was more that it just got finished that's a fair change like erratically but those things are sort of like a kind of like it it's very nerve-wracking a friends and family thing is a bit more well it's not low stakes because you're inviting people whose opinion opinions you've very you know and people like who who you know if they're a true friend they'll tell you exactly what you think and that might be hard to hear sometimes or there might be something where even if you've got kind of like a a big note you can't really do anything about it like so you kind of like know know that you have a problem with something but there's not the obvious soul but But I guess, you know, probably inspired by Chris and Tom, who were kind of sort of for like a small group of people, so sort of transparent about it.

33:42And we'll show you, you know, it's funny. I remember going to see like Dead Reckoning and they didn't tell us that the running time of the movie. And then I watched it and I really enjoyed it. But it was long, but it was really enjoyed it. It was longer than it was in release. And I said at the end, I said, how long was that? And Chris said, how long did you think it was? but yeah I think that's it's it's um it is I mean on this what we had to do we had such a sort of like a a a deadline to hit with the movie we had to edit we edited through production Paul matched us with editing on set and to kind of be able to hit the deadline the key thing that we had to do is hand over like effects to ILM way ahead of time right which you know if the film looks kind of as finished and polished as it does it is because we we stuck to what we were doing and didn't deviate i think problems if you see a movie like where you think wow like the effects really like dropped off in the last half an hour that's probably because there's been some 11th hour changes and like even the best effects companies in the world can't can't do things like with weeks to spare you know at the highest level the only way to get through this was and and ilm and andrew wyhouse just did an amazing work is that we had to kind of like um be really sure what we were doing hand over those sequences early and stick to it you know and not deviate maybe there was a one like situation where like very like much later i'd say andrew don't agree but can i change his take to a different take yeah just to follow on the mcugh mission and tom cruise from heat tom also came out to support which was lovely to see i could see you you two vibing have you ever discussed seriously collaborating on anything whether it's a mission or something else i did at one point get like um they talked to me about one of the missions but it was a sort of kind of just a schedule clash.

35:49I just, I wasn't able to do it at that time, but it's very flattering to be asked. I mean, obviously he's, you know, and also I think he's in an interesting point in his career as well, where I I'm excited that he's doing the film with inner E2. Yeah. Same. Because I think it's like, he's more than proved himself. Yeah. Blockbuster at this point. He's like literally with Top Gun Maverick. He like saved the whole industry. So he's, he's, allowed himself to kind of like you know be the tom that did magnolia again and so whatever he's doing with inaritu which is all top secret i have a feeling it's going to be pretty wild um i just want to another thing i love about you we talk about kind of these all these filmmakers that you know and love and they love you um next to soderbergh i think you're the person that has the most like thank yous and credits like on the imdb and other people's films um you are thanked let's look to this like diverse list of films mickey 17 maxine tick tick boom the lighthouse the shape of water and snow white yes edgar i didn't even know i was thanked on tick tick boom that's nice i mean any of those jump out as something that were you it was fun to kind of like at least drop in to whether it was a friends and families or the edit room or give a thought or note yeah i mean um on on the shape of water i'll say this is that um and i come i'm very very grateful that i got like a thanks credit on that there's two things about the shape of water just that's funny number one is that i felt like i gave no notes i remember guillermo sent me the script and said and he was really i remember he said yes this is really important to me this film read the script be brutal like it needs to be great and i read it and i said i don't know man i think it's great i think you should just shoot it that was pretty much it i didn't have any notes so the fact that i got a credit on it is kind of wild the other thing that's wild about that is that i was on the jury at the venice film festival when it won best film and on the jury and i kind of was like sort of i think when my credit came up i kind of think i went look over there hey guys look over there guys i think i probably shouldn't be thanked on the credits of a film that then wins but i i did i have to say on show me what i did nothing all i said to guillermo was like hey it's great go for it and you know i think but that's very sweet um i'm trying to think i did go into the edit on maxine actually so that was like fun and i love ty i mean all of these people and also you know snow white is like jared laboff produced that who produced scott pilgrim and so you know i think me and my brother went in and kind of like sort of like watched it with mark and an early cut and sort of gave notes and stuff so that that stuff is is is sweet and and i i appreciate it when other people come to see me and sort of like watch the movie early you know i can't wait to see the credits hit in the next avatar movie like big thanks edgar wright he made it all possible jake sincerely jc he's he's uh yeah he's he's he's our icon the guy can do no wrong as is george miller where do you stand here's a controversial one furiosa or fury road well i mean why pick yeah that's true but if you're what i do love i'll say this furiosa i feel like immediately it was kind of like the immediate reaction and this was frankly for me too was like i loved it but i was like it's not fury road and that's but then i was like a week later like it's still amazing and it's still like the bar is too high nobody makes movies like he does and i think it's like i just think within you know anytime an author gets to make a studio movie like that you know we we have to kind of stand up and applaud because those sort of like idiosyncratic visions are becoming rarer on on that scale yeah so it just has to be applauded i mean i love the movie i mean fury road i think is a very specific sort of um you know i think that's just a sort of like a a classic for the ages and i think just a sort of a film that i aspire to do something even half as good as fury road yeah and um furiosa i think just just the way it was made and just the sort of the amount of imagination in it i mean i just like george's brain you know also you know just making movies i i would if i could be making movies like that in my late 70s i was so happy it's just extraordinary it's just he's incredible we like the world needs more of george but any anything like that when you see a movie i mean I felt the same way when I saw one battle after another on opening day.

40:42I'd missed the premiere because we were doing one of our 16-hour days. I was so bummed out. I was like, I'm really not going to make it. But I got to go opening night. And it was amazing just sitting with that crowd and watching like a cinema crowd. It was so electric in the room. And you got this feeling like these people have been starved of nutrients. Yeah. No, I'm not talking about international cinema or independent cinema. And when people say about like, I think specifically you're talking about studio movies. And just when you have a level of authorship with a studio movie, it's rare in this day and age.

41:20And it has to be celebrated and applauded when it happens.

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44:31You've talked, you know, ad nauseum about, you know, the so-called Cape Break since Ant-Man. And I'm curious, though, like, is there an attitude or thought? like James Gunn on his side actually seems to be giving some free reign, more free reign to filmmakers. You know, Mangold is not going to make a swamp thing that is a cookie cutter. Like he's going to make his film. Mangold. Exactly. Exactly. That pun was just sitting right there. Exactly. So, I mean, I don't know. Is that, does that, I don't know if you've had conversations with James or not, but does that make it hypothetically even more interesting if you can still make your film within that framework i don't know i mean i i think again it's all based on the the the title i think it would be something where i think the thing is when those things have come up and actually ant-man unfortunately fell into this as well is the reason i wanted to do that in the first place was because i was inspired by the people who had got to do the first of something and kind of set the pace i mean we were talking last night about the age we were when we saw Tim Burton's Batman.