‘Predator: Badlands’ and the 'Predator' Movie Rankings

29:06So that's like, I'll watch Blue-Eyed Samurai and be like, these guys can really draw. What a compelling tale. You watch Scavenger's Reign, right? Yeah. That was a cool show. Killer of Killers is more in that vein. And Killer of Killers was really interesting to me too because we're in the midst of this big anime wave. Killer of Killers is not an anime film per se, but there is some influence there for sure. And Trachtenberg also directed that movie, which I think is really cool. I think... It's pretty... I wonder... I was going to ask you how would you have felt if Badlands had been the animated movie and they had tried to make Killer of Killers as the live action?

29:41I mean, I would have loved to have seen the live action of Killer of Killers but it would have been extremely expensive because it's four different stories across history where real life... Yeah, Vikings, Samurai, World War II and then a team up at the end. Yes, the battle at the end. And... You know, you'd have to do the 9th century, the 17th century, and the 20th century. Yeah. But, man, just purely in terms of the design of the action sequences, the battle sequences, really, really cool stuff. I love the Viking chick's blades shield that she uses. Yes, yes. That was awesome. Incredible creativity and just a clever idea for the use of the Predator character.

30:27and one that doesn't really develop the character of the Predator that just kind of lets it be a killing machine, which made it a lot of fun. People haven't seen that. They should check it out on Hulu. But just thinking about that movie a little bit, it did have me thinking about something that happened with the Predator series because this movie made$40 million over the weekend. This is one of the biggest hits of the fall now. You could probably tell that was going to happen a couple of months ago for a few reasons. One, especially The Running Man was supposed to come out on November 7th and it moved a week.

30:53And it moved off of the date the Predator had landed on. And it was like, I don't know if I want to mess with this. And so the movie does very well. And I think there's something going on here that feels like the inversion of what has become commonly accepted wisdom. So Knives Out came out in 2019. And after it came out, Rian Johnson signs this deal with Netflix to do the next two films. Now thinking is very clear. It's like that movie was a box office hit. It's an established brand. Now we can make it a streaming property. And that did work, clearly. Glass Onion clearly drove a lot of views. He got an Academy Award nomination.

31:27Wake Up Dead Man is coming out later this year. I feel like the opposite was true for Predator, where Prey and Killer of Killers reseeded the land in terms of Predator interest and got more and more people kind of hyped up for what a Predator movie could be. Prey was one of the first movies I remember people being like, God damn it, put this in fucking movie theaters. I'm sure I said it on the episode we did. That was, and also was that post-COVID, like Fox was like doing that with some streaming stuff, right? Like there was that thriller set in the like park ranger building that we really liked.

32:02Was that, I can't remember, I can't even remember what it was called now. Right. So the movie you're talking about is called no exit. That's right. Which was a crafty little thriller about a bunch of people who are all trapped in a cabin with a criminal. And they've done this a few times, you know, deep water went straight to streaming. Um, prey went straight to streaming, you know Barbarian could have gone straight to streaming I'm very thankful that it did not but the same studio Rosaline went straight to streaming with Caitlin Deaver the White Man Can't Jump remake No One Will Save You two years ago another Caitlin Deaver film the sci-fi movie which was very good and so this is part of the studio strategy is to kind of keep bouncing back and forth they release Romulus in theaters they release the amateur in theaters but Killer of Killers goes on streaming they just released swiped on Hulu.

32:52Did you see swiped? No. That's the... Is it dating horror or is it just like a rom-com? No, it's a biopic about Whitney Wolf Hurd, the founder of Bumble, starring Lily James. Oh, I've seen ads for it. So kind of a dating horror movie in a way. How's your Bumble account looking? Well, it's also just so funny that you're like swiped and I'm like, so she swipes right and the guy's a killer, right? Can I just need to maybe take some air in? Swiped right to hell. The Hand that Rocks the Cradle also just came out straight to streaming the remake of that movie so it's like this is what 20th Century Studios does some of these things I think have like legs to be franchises and some are kind of interesting just gambits of like this would be a programmer this would be to quote Bill Simmons's dad a five o 'clocker you know the kind of like it's Thursday I'm on my way home from work don't feel like going there yet let me stop at the movies what's on kind of thing now that is streaming now that is when you go home and you're just like I'll just fire up Netflix or Hulu and see if they've got anything new one thing I wanted to talk to you about is something that I think is becoming pretty common with these franchises is the use of a essentially a television writers room now I don't have any like deep reporting on this I gleaned this from the internet but I've heard about it with other big franchises especially Disney ones where they get five or six pretty talented screenwriters in a room just to whiteboard blue sky it let's talk about like where this could go what this should do what if this happened on predator badlands at least there was reporting and there was wga like kind of you know extra literary credit given to um brian fuller who's probably best known for tv work like pushing daisies and hannibal uh patrick somerville who did station 11 obviously and i believe brian duffield who wrote a movie that we're really big fans of or i am uh underwater yeah he wrote and directed no one will save you right and i don't know if those guys are just like sounding boards for um tractenberg and azen to be like what do you think about this or what do you think about that or what if how would we do this but it's an interesting inversion of the development process or maybe it's something that Disney feels very confident in doing because of the way that they've made Marvel movies over the years.

35:12But Chris Storer and Aaron Sorkin had extra literary credit on F1. This is something that I think is a little bit more common than we realize. And maybe it helps for something like Predator to come up with a bunch of different takes on something like this that is essentially like, I want to see the Predator kill some things, but what we do around it is not that important. I think it's incredibly logical for this kind of material management. I think it's not ideal when it's a movie that is meant to be. You don't need it for tar. Right, an original story that's character-driven and meant to be from an auteur.

35:47You don't want to hear that nine guys had to get into a room to say, here's how to improve your movie. But when you're talking about managing the next phase of a Predator movie, this has been happening for a hundred years in Hollywood. There's an entire scene in Mank that's just nine guys who went to Yale talking about how to make a Frankenstein movie. Drinking. Yeah, and being absolutely hammered. And those guys were all geniuses, and they were talking about the same sort of low-rent monster material that Predator could be. And there's nothing wrong with it. It's honestly probably a good idea.

36:20If these were the great works, maybe you'd have a slightly different feeling about it. But I guess the idea of it being more public is kind of interesting. This is something that has historically gone on behind the scenes. You know, back in our days writing about rap, you would always hear about ghost writers. They would always be like, oh my God, did you know that Jay-Z wrote half of 2001? Like, isn't that so crazy? And these things were kind of, they became mythological over time. But, I think for guys like you and me, it should be public. Yeah, I mean, but we're big fans of like the hidden lore of PTA wrote Killers of the Flower Moon kind of stuff.

36:56But it took less than a year and a half for that to become not hidden anymore. That's sort of the point. Yes, that's true. It's like nothing can really stay quiet in that way. I remember the first time I told you this, the first time that someone called me and they were like, PTA wrote Killers of the Flower Moon. I know it. I'm looking at the screenplay. I was like, that makes all the sense in the world. When you go back and watch that movie and the fact that it did actually trickle out that he worked on that and that he wrote parts of Napoleon at least, that makes me appreciate the movies more.

37:20It makes me understand the movies more. I don't have the idea of Patrick Somerville being able to contribute to Bud's energy in Predator Badlands. I'm about it. That's cool. Yeah, and your mank analogy is very good. It's just, it is like nine guys being like, this wrestler needs an orphan that he's taking care of because we need people to care about the outcome of this. I mean, I had high hopes. I know we're going to talk about those sort of other films in this franchise. High hopes for the Shane Black version of this. It seemed like something in my mind was tailor-made for him and that he would obviously, since he appeared in the first one, and I think maybe did some uncredited work on it was going to be a perfect union of writer, director, and franchise, but that obviously didn't work out.

38:08Do you feel like Trachtenberg's staying on this and I think he's going to make another Predator movie with the success of this one. I think he could make probably as many as he wants. Is this a waste of his talents or is this a good use of his talents? It doesn't have to be a binary, I know. It's a really interesting question because the only other film that he's directed that is outside of this franchise as 10 Cloverfield Lane, which is a damn good thriller. And that's a movie that used the Cloverfield brand to kind of get through the door. But if it had nothing to do with Cloverfield, still would have been tremendously effective.

38:40So you can tell that there's something... He could probably do a lot of different kinds of genre storytelling. And we need guys and women like that making these kinds of movies. Him being in predator mode for 15 years is a little depressing to me. Sure. However, I would rather someone talented be making these movies if they're going to get made than someone who is less talented. And we saw, like, an Alien vs. Predator, we saw, like, you've got to be careful who you give these characters to because you can kind of torpedo the whole thing if it's not the right... A steady pair of hands. Yeah, and you're not going to be able to make a large-scale action film about a Comanche woman in, you know, the 18th century or whenever Prey is set.

39:19I can't remember, but it's like that... You're going to have to have a Predator show up in that movie for it to be economically feasible for something like Disney or Fox to get to work with. Yeah, it's definitely true. I think to me, it would be nice to be able to have both. It would be nice if Trachtenberg's next movie was a scaled down$25 million thriller and we could see if it's commercial and it could be a studio movie or we could see if it's going to be something a little bit smaller than us to go to streaming and then he can mount a$150 million alien predator movie. Can you handle an alien predator movie in 2028 if that's announced?

39:52If he's doing it, yes. and I think I think weirdly like audiences have now arrived at the fact that they would like they would actually enjoy that whereas when those Alien vs. Predator movies came out I just remember that being like this is this is used bin stuff like this is pretty cut rate movie making with no disrespect to the people involved in that I didn't take them very seriously he is obviously with all the Whelan stuff with the fact that Ridley Scott's getting on years the Alien franchise is you know tussled over but will belong to Fox long after some of these figureheads are no longer working on them you could very easily transition over to this and I think the direction these things are going is going to be more stuff throw it against the wall see what works see which way we want to go rather than we're banking 15 years and it's like whoops we got Jonathan Majors on our hands or something like you have to kind of be nimble and so I think that I could very much see Trachtenberg taking a bigger role in the alien stuff.

40:52Does that mean I want to see Ripley in it? No, but yeah. Yeah. I, do you think that these movies can continue to successfully be one-offs? That like, it doesn't really matter what came before. That's an interesting journey. I have been wondering, this is probably not going to happen. I don't ever, ever, ever want to see a trailer for a Predator movie that says the epic conclusion of the decade-long saga. I just don't care. I don't want it to feel like Fire and Ash or Return of the King ever. Like, I want it to just always be like, what if we put the Predator in? Fire and Ash is the third in a planned five film series.

41:31But he said he's giving up. Even he knows. He's like, I can't keep making these. Who's giving up? Jim. He'll never give up. Yeah, he is, man. He's like, if people don't see Fire and Ash. He never agreed to make those films officially. CR is out there pounding the pavement, asking people what they're doing with their lives. Maybe I should go make something else. I'm pleased to announce right here on this podcast, roughly an hour into our discussion, that on December 2nd, we'll be recording an audio commentary live watching Avatar The Way of Water. So we have to ask you right now, will you be watching the first Avatar film before you record that commentary with us?

42:11What do you think would be better for the pod? I think there would be a lot of explaining necessary if you haven't seen the first one. it if both me and Amanda are like what's this? Who's that? I'll firmly agree with that. Amanda has seen The Way of Water though. What questions should she be asking? Do you think she retained a lot of it though? Do you think it's still right at her fingertips? I mean she learned about the Navi when she was studying the classics back in college. I just think she's going to hold on to that for a long time. I'm very interested in where they take this. I think this movie was a fun time at the movies and And I also, as all, you know, middle-aged dudes who grew up obsessed with Alien, as soon as the words Weyland-Yutani were uttered, I was like, hmm, don't screw this up, but I'm excited.

43:01Yeah. Did you like the loader, the mech loader? To CGI. Okay. Part of the magic of Aliens is that all of that is practical and feels real. and the movie does it does slip into a big conclusion with a big CGI monster and a CGI power loader and Bud and all of these there's just a lot of stuff on screen that I find a little bit disorienting but when we're on the ground with the actor playing Deck and Elle Fanning that stuff is really cool to me where this stacks up is interesting in terms of ranking these films because we did do this last time and I actually don't know where we landed and I'm not going to look because I don't want to have to, I just want to go off the vibe of seeing this movie and seeing how it connects to the other films.

43:53Now, it's safe to say that the first film is still the best film, right? Yes, goaded. The first film is a five-star masterpiece. Yes. One of the leanest, meanest, just one of the greatest achievements in action filmmaking, John McTierney. And one of the most searing portraits of American military intervention in the southern hemisphere, you know? When you were talking about how you sometimes watch those scenes to get fired up, you think Hegseth does that as well before he gives a big speech? For his calf exercises, yeah. Oh boy. Would you leave the ringer to go work at the DOD? Do you think me and P.

44:28Hegseth have the same letterbox top four? That would be really fucked up. Let me see if I can guess it. So Predator, obviously. Sergeant York. Lone Survivor and An American Tale Five of Goes West he doesn't like Lone Survivor because we lost it's all about winning it's all about winning Predator is the best film in this franchise by a pretty wide margin even though I think there are some very good movies here now what comes next I don't remember what came next last time I think there's going to be a nostalgic contingent for Predator 2 there's going to be a hipster action contingent for prey. Yes.

45:12That's not, neither of those are my number two. Are you going to say Predators? I am going to say that. That's a very bold take. Yeah. Now, I like Predators. Nimrod Antal's story about like a, like a prison camp, like a space prison that is, crash lands. It's a bunch of mercenaries and criminals are marooned on like what is essentially a giant hunting ground planet. Like a game warden. This is probably Hexeth's favorite as well when you think about it. It's kind of got a similar training ops vibe. This features like a bonkers cast of Adrian Brody, Walton Goggins, Mahershala Ali, Lawrence Fishburne, and oh, Topher Grace.

45:59This is funny because I think that we should go one of these days is most stacked cast movies or most random stacked cast movies because you know what might be like the clubhouse leader of that that I was just watching the other night? Hostels. Oh yeah, Hostels. Hostels has a crazy, Chalamet is like the ninth dude in Hostels. Yeah, you really are holding that Cooper stock. Even after the bombing of Springsteen, you are not letting go. You sang Badlands. You know it's still raining around your heads. I know. Badlands, what a jam that song is. Predators is really cool. I haven't revisited it. I did see it in theaters and I was like, this is what the world needs right now.

46:36We need to let mercenaries get hunted. Yes. You know, it's very clearly a riff on The Most Dangerous Game. It's like a clever movie, but kind of a dumb movie at the same time. Yeah. I really wish I could have rewatched this before I agreed to let you put this at two. Fishburne basically is what Elle Fanning is in this Badlands film, where it's like, for a long time, you're like, this is pretty cool, but like they are really holding the reins tight on this cast who are just like, just like look at each other and be like, brother, don't get my six. Don't follow me. You know, whatever. And then Fishburne shows up and he's just like, welcome to the continental, you know, he's really having it up.

47:19But he's been living there for years, right? Isn't that the reveal that he's like, he's made it through several tours and is like living in a bombed out spaceship somewhere. How do you think you do face to face with the Yautja? You think you'd be able to hang? no I mean not after watching Killer of Killers it just seems like everybody who tries to reason with the youcha gets put in cryosleep or beheaded but you have the secret sauce of you could do impressions you could do funny bits sure you could be like she's got a great ass and then and then the youcha would be completely neutralized you putting Predators at 2 is kind of crazy but I'm gonna do it what's the alternative Prey?

47:59Predator 2? I think Prey is probably the best made, I think Predator 2 is probably the most satisfying. Because it's just so crazy. I'm showing people a third way. A third way. The third way. Like Mom Donnie. Yeah. Okay. Prey or Predator 2? That's the big question. Inside of Me or Two Wolves. I think I will re-watch over the course of my life Predator 2 more than I re-watch Prey. but acknowledge that Prey is a more watertight movie. This is what's going to happen. It's going to be 2052. Yeah. You're going to be into your 70s. You're going to be living on a sky planet somewhere. I'm like Possible Weight in Inception.

48:49I'm going to buzz you on the video phone. You're going to pick up. You're going to be in your smoking jacket. Yeah. You've got a pipe in your mouth. it's full of zen and you've got a 360 degree screen in your study what the purpose of zen is and you're watching predator 2 yeah and you're like sean it's nice to hear from you uh it's been some years i just wanted you to know that when we had our predators conversation i was true to my word i've revisited predator 2 38 times since we last spoke of these films and we haven't talked so this is This is our last conversation. This is our last conversation.

49:34But you at least will be doing the work with Predator 2. You'll be logging it several times over the next couple of decades. I'll do you one better. It's going to be the same thing. You've gone through on your oft-made promise that you're just going to abandon city living. That's right. You're living in Zawantaneo, working on a boat. And I show up one day. I take off my hat. I have a full head of hair. And I'll be like, just wanted to let you know, Predator 2 won 32 to 15 over prey. And I dropped dead right in front of you. I'll bury you at sea. It'll be perfect. Oh God. That's going to be beautiful.

50:14I'll be putting the whole thing on TikTok, by the way, when that happens. Just 20 seconds at a time, the burial at sea. It'll be like when they buried Megatron at sea in the Transformers films. okay

50:31predator 2 at number 3 yeah and prey of 4 okay wow I got badlands at 5 this is like incredibly un-woke of you this whole list no the un-woke version would be if I put the predator 2 which I won't do oh well yeah that would be truly un-woke okay prey no I was just gonna prey is I think a more like solid film than Predator 2, but Predator 2 just has Busey and Paxton. And so just by thus needs to be higher. How do you feel about all the Rastafarianism in Predator 2? You think it works? Was that your introduction to Rastafarian culture? It honestly probably was. It really was. That and Steven Seagal.

51:14I mean, that movie came out in 1990, so I was eight. I probably saw it when I was nine on cable. Yeah. The cinema of Steven Hopkins, we don't talk about it enough. You know about Stephen Hopkins' work? Did he do Cliffhanger or was that Rennie Harlan? No, that's Rennie Harlan. How dare you? Come on. Stephen Hopkins. Let's talk through his filmography. First of all, the movie he made before Predator 2 is Nightmare on Elm Street 5, The Dream Child, which just came up in our 1989 movie draft. He followed up Predator 2 with Judgment Night, which features a remarkable soundtrack and is a dog shit movie.

51:471994, Blown Away. Now that's a picture. That's a quality film. Incredible accents in that film. One of Bill's favorite movies. Boston movie? He hates that movie. Jeff Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones, Forrest Whitaker. Right after that, Ghost in the Darkness. Honestly, a fiasco. Should have been the coolest movie of all time. Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer go on a lion hunting expedition in Africa so they can build trains. It's kind of boring, unfortunately. 1998, Lost in Space. It's pretty much over from here. Do you remember the Lost in Space remake? I do, yes. This was a horrendous, I mean, it seemed like they couldn't build a jail that could hold Stephen Hopkins in there, a director's jail, but then he found it.

52:33How many of the two, four, six primary cast members of Lost in Space, how many of them can you name? Well, it's, oh no, you know what? I got confused between Lost in Space and Galaxy Quest because I was going to say Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver. No, Galaxy Quest, wonderful movie. Okay. Lost in Space. I don't know anybody in Lost in Space. You can't name a single person. there's a very famous TV actor. This was one of his first big film roles in the late nineties. Is it David Caruso? It's not. No, and David crew, come on. He'd been in King of New York. Come on. Um, this guy started on the film friends.

53:09Schwimmer. No. Oh my God. What are you doing? Well, who is it? Is it Perry? Matt LeBlanc. Oh, is it LeBlanc's big screen debut? Well, I think that was Ed, the monkey baseball movie. Have you seen that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, the cast of this movie is deranged. Gary Oldman, William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, and Lacey Chabert in her feature film debut. See, this is why we have to do stack cast movie podcast. I mean, that's battling with predators for sick cast. Okay, we got Prey at four. We got Predator Badlands at five. You agree with that? killer of killers or badlands there's like dead even to me there's like a limitation on how great killer of killers can be to me because of its filmmaking style but it is more satisfying as a predator movie for my taste so it's like they're almost tied at five yeah if they i mean killer of killers would have been like nc-17 if it had been live action yeah yeah there's a lot of hurtling blood.

54:15Would you consider getting into anime with me? I would, but I do feel like we're reaching the limits of the amount of things that I can get into as a man. Wow. Interesting. What are some of your other hobbies? And I also don't want it to be like old guy tries to get into anime to relate to people or to stay relevant. But this is the work. You're not getting into it to relate to 14 year olds. Like that's a little creepy. You're doing it so that, you know, 14 year olds will listen to your deep thoughts. But they're not going to want to listen to me on Chainsaw Man. You know what I mean? They want to hear me about degrading, you know, depraved men in the 70s, you know, hustling.

54:58Like that's what they want. I disagree. I honestly, I think the listeners are at least curious about my thoughts about Chainsaw Man. And I will share them. It was really, really fun. And I enjoyed myself. I found it to be largely incoherent. I was not aware of the fact that it was basically before sunrise meets killer of killers. Okay. But that's what it is. The first 40 minutes of Chainsaw Man Reza arc is like a basically a romantic comedy or like a romantic dramedy. It's kind of 500 days of summer walking around. Okay. A guy with chainsaw head and chainsaw arms battling a girl who he's fallen in love with who is secretly the bomb devil meaning she's a devil that is terrorizing him and she is working for an even more powerful devil source and she's just, she's made of bombs.

55:49So like, if you get close to her, she's like, boom, you're dead. Explodes. That just keeps happening over and over again. Yeah. You know, she's the real killer of killers. She's extraordinary. Chainsaw Man, I thought, pretty fun and I want you to come on the journey with me. Well, I mean, they print money now. Like, pretty soon it's going to be like, you know, Black Bag will be like something that you can, you can maybe rent as like a two-minute video on your phone and we'll just all be going to see animes. Yeah, we're going to have to put you in the let's get you to bed grandma meme when you explain Thunderbolt and Lightfoot to the listeners of this podcast.

56:24Okay, Killer of Killers at number six. That means... Okay, so the Alien vs. Predator and Alien vs. Predator Requiem are terrible. The Predator is also terrible. The Predator has been dramatically recut to become incoherent. and there also was some scandal during the production of the film. It's kind of hard to rate The Predator highly. It's more enjoyable to watch for me. The first half of The Predator, where it's like the PTSD soldiers led by Boyd Holbrook, and then they team up with Olivia Munns. I think she's like a scientist. Yeah, Dr. Christmas Jones situation. But when it pivots in the middle and it becomes about her son played by Jacob Tremblay, who's autistic, and that's why the alien, the predators want his DNA.

57:14That's where it starts to go off the rails. And then the end, it makes zero sense. You did a good job remembering that. I forgot Sterling K. Brown is in this film as well. Why did Sterling K. Brown not become a big action star? I don't know, but he's still doing great. He's killing it all. He's in paradise, right? Yeah. Did you watch House of Dynamite? Not yet. What's your story, man? I'm sorry. dude it's not like i'm not doing the work over here i was at the night of the jugglers like screening like i'm i'm here how did that go it was so great it was so awesome i was so jealous to not be there yeah i can't wait for people to see it if they haven't seen that film before it's like a really like legitimately like you know you were talking about like sometimes you'll watch like a 70s crime film and you'll be like i dig it but this is not actually like a film that needed to be excavated from from the annals this was like an excellent movie i hope people check it out yeah that's a movie that for years had been on the cult list of you got to see it.

58:13I think I first saw it on YouTube because I had read enough people talking about, I think it had played the new Bev a couple of times, but it has been fully restored now. And there's this great transmission, uh, radiance release in the, in the U S there's a Kino Lorber 4k as well available. So there's a number of ways to check it out. They should just drop a, drop a predator in the middle of that movie and remake it. Maybe that's track. Trachtenberg's next movie is like 1980s New York. Dog day. like Dog Day Predator. That would be sick. Predator versus Serpico. I mean, James Brolin is still alive.

58:46Should we get him back out there? Sure. As Detective Sean Boyd? Yeah. What if we were like Alien versus Predator? Requiem is way better than Alien versus Predator. I just can't do it. I don't have... So you want to do the Predator and then the two Paul W.S. Anderson movies? That's my personal feeling and it's like there's too much good Shane Black dialogue in The Predator for me to rate it below either of the Alien vs. Predator movies. I'll be completely honest with you. Which one takes place in Antarctica? That's the first one, Alien vs. Predator. Is there another one that's in Colorado, right?

59:24I guess that's Requiem. I think Requiem is set in Colorado and it's like, I don't quite understand the relationship of the Predators to the aliens. They seem to be like basically protecting humans because if the aliens get loose in America, like they will lose their fertile hunting ground. That's, I think, kind of what's going on there. It's been a minute since I've rewatched these, though. I forgot to bring up something else in our news segment that is related to all of this, which is that there was an announcement last week that Gremlins 3 is happening, written and directed by Chris Columbus, who, of course, wrote the original Gremlins film.

1:00:00And I'm a little concerned about this. Yeah, if you look at... Gremlins and Gremlins 2 extremely meaningful to me and of a similar vintage of fun genre movie as the Predator and Aliens films. The Predator and Aliens films are much more serious. The Gremlins films are kind of a laugh. But do you know what Chris Columbus has been up to in the last 10 years? Can you name a single film he's directed since 2009? He produced somebody's movie where I was like, good job, Chris Columbus. Oh, yeah. and Robert Eggers spoke frequently on his press tour for that film about the Hollywood orthodoxy that Chris Columbus brought to that film which I thought was interesting but literally the movies he actually directed a film that came out this year which I have not seen but Amanda saw and talked about on the show but here's the 20 years in Chris Columbus directorial films 2005 Rent I would say not a beloved adaptation of the beloved musical Rent 2009 2009 I Love You Beth Cooper.

1:01:03Have you seen that? Oh yeah. That's the zombie movie right? No. It's a teen comedy. Cool. 2010 Percy Jackson and Olympians The Lightning Thief. Lerman. Cooking. Logan Lerman is the star of that film. Yeah. 2015 Pixels. Don't know who that is. That's an Adam Sandler movie where the video games come into the real world. Okay. That guy gets a lot of mileage out of inanimate objects like remote controls. Well, he's about to take it even further because in 2020, he made a film called The Christmas Chronicles Part 2. You know about this movie? Nope. Kurt Russell plays Santa. Oh, yeah, for sure. And Goldie Hawn plays Mrs.

1:01:46Claus. What the hell? 2025, The Thursday Murder Club. Yeah. Which seems like a kind of a harmless... Enjoyable. Old person, yeah, detective movie. starring Pierce Brosnan. I, maybe, I don't want to tell Chris Columbus how to live his life. He's given me a great many things. I think he's doing fine. Primarily Home Alone, which is a masterpiece. Mrs. Delfire, a film I like. I would appreciate it if he didn't make Gremlins 3. Joe Dante should be making Gremlins 3, and if not Joe Dante, someone younger and cooler, in my opinion. I was at the Running Man screening a couple weeks ago, and Joe Dante was at the screening as was Walter Hill.

1:02:32I got to meet Walter Hill. Two of the goats of genre filmmaking. What did you say to Walter Hill? I said I love Extreme Prejudice. You said I relate to the Nolte character in that film? I tried to just like go deep with him and he was like, oh, Powers Booth. He's great in that. He was awesome though. Walter Hill is the man. Here's our ranking. Are you ready? This has definitely been one of the most. So you just let me do it. You just let me rank it. You're not going to... I mean, Predators is not number two. Like, Prey or Predator 2 are both better. Predators is sick on the page and has a couple of cool moments.

1:03:09But it is also dumb as shit. Adrian Brody plays a mercenator named Royce. Yeah. Is it a sequel or a prequel to The Brutalist, do you think? He has openly said he would welcome returning to that world. I'll bet. You know why? He would welcome returning to the character of Royce. Money is good. but there's a few guys in dotted throughout predator franchise history that i think tract and bird could be like what if he was frozen we could you know get him you know what if he was frozen yeah because like the the end of killer of killers you find out that a bunch of the protagonists of predator movies have been cryo have been frozen in in cryosleep for the predators to to you know do whatever they do with them if you could bring anyone back would you bring back Jacob Tremblay?

1:03:58No, I'd bring back Jesse Ventura. Saw him back up. Well, he was annihilated. I don't know if that's going to be feasible. Gosh. No, I'd bring back Billy. Billy who fucking cuts himself across the chest. Billy, yes. I love that. That's a great call. We're going to put this on social media. We're going to say courtesy of CR. Okay. I'll turn my notifications off and enjoy London. Number one, Predator. Number two, Predators. Number three, Predator two. Number four, Prey. number five, Predator Badlands, number six, Predator Killer of Killers, number seven, The Predator, number eight, Alien vs. Predator, and number nine, Aliens vs.

1:04:34Predator Requiem. If you live in London and you agree with me about Predators being number two, come up to me and I'll buy you a beer. Chris, you just sealed your fate. You're going to be murdered in the street. This is unbelievable that you would say such a thing. How are you handling that now? What, homies? coming up saying what's up being a beloved icon of culture podcasting several big picture fans out here have said sir you always deflect and be like oh no it's big picture no no there are men who are like thank you for everything that you said about internal affairs you roiled my loins with your commentary on andy garcia's beauty yeah that's true yeah your byron mayo got me through covid you know i did a rewatchables in your in your absence it really was like i was in the chris Ryan seat and I did I was trying to detect what you guys were doing based on Bill's the excerpt of the pod that went on Bill's show so yeah I'm happy to say it was snake eyes it's not a big deal um for a second I thought it was Carlito's way and I was getting like honestly mad no we wouldn't do that we talked a lot about how there will be a running man style game show between me and you and Van for who gets to be on the Carlito's way pod which was pretty funny um I we need to go Yautja and take Bill out for that.

1:05:52You know, we just say off the Carlitos' tripod. Well, I was doing like, I was literally doing Pacino for that with the whole, you know, you want to be big time? You're going to die big time. But I did do a little Byron Mayo, even though I know I couldn't come within one one hundredths. I think I may have to retire all those guys because I just got blanked so hard when I did Wayne Jenkins in front of Glenn Powell and he was like, cool, man. seemed like you got a lot of interests he was so nice and he was really like didn't make me feel bad about it but i was like holy shit i just exploded

1:06:34oh my god it was just like i was like fucking just jumped right off the edge of a building there yeah that's interesting did you bring up predators to him about how cool it is i was like you know you might want to look at that it's a lot of meat on that the royce character bone you revive that I think Glenn would do well in the Predator world fuck yeah the action in Running Man is extremely good extremely good action too bad you're not going to be on that pod what the hell man come back to America what's your story I'll be back on Friday okay and what are you going to do when you return if they let me back into the country I will be probably talking about prestige television and movies with you what's coming up in the world of TV anything cool industry's coming back This year?

1:07:20I think so. I'm not sure. Don't quote me on that. I feel like I would have heard about that.

1:07:28And yeah, Stranger Things is kind of taking up all the oxygen. I'm not going to let you leave until we talk about Sidney Sweeney for a minute, okay? Sure. This is the most recent run of her films. I wanted to go through this with you because she's just had Christy come out over the weekend and it didn't do that well at the box office. I saw the film. I thought it was perfectly fine. I think she gives a really good performance in the movie. as it's a biopic about Christy Martin, the boxer. And it's a very sad story, very complicated story, but it is a kind of a rote drama directed by David Michaud, who's directed some movies that you and I like quite a bit.

1:07:56And it's been a little bit on a wayward journey in the last five or six years. But in 2021, she made a movie for Netflix called Night Teeth, where she played a vampire. Didn't really connect. I don't think I saw that. In 2023, she played a reality winner in a film called Reality that was on HBO. that was a fucking banger interesting film very good performance by her she's great in it yeah then she was in the smash sensation anyone but you yep with the aforementioned one pal correct our boy Glenn 2024 Madam Web not her fault not ideal I would say maybe nobody's fault who knows whose fault that was it's fair to say the filmmakers the studio everyone who participated they're all kind of in the wrong on that one okay then Immaculate an amusing non-horror film that did modest business we dug that we saw that yeah we talked about it on the pod then she made Eden with Ron Howard which was just released this year didn't do very well Echo Valley which is a film that went straight to Apple TV Plus that was Julianne Moore Julianne Moore sorry yes did you see that movie?

1:09:07no I've seen that it's on Apple TV okay thanks for your commentary and then and then the film Christy so we've got Anyone But You Smash Sensation uh-huh and then not too much not too much we did have a jeans controversy at this time didn't she also make like a pretty like gritty B-movie like with Paul Walter Hauser that came out she did she made Americana which I have not seen yet which I have not seen that either I think that played at South By in 2023 but was only released this year but I will see Americana. It's on my list. Now, I bring this up for two reasons. One, her next movie is The Housemaid.

1:09:48Have you seen the trailers for The Housemaid? I haven't, but I know what it is about. What's it about? Isn't it about her and Amanda Seyfried and it's like a thriller? Yeah, I wouldn't say that's like what it's about. It's not a great logline. I'm sorry, yeah. Is it about a woman with a maid and the maid might do something wrong? Like, what did I miss? I'll read you the logline. A young woman with a troubled past becomes the live-in house made for a wealthy family. However, their seemingly perfect life unravels when she discovers their household hides dark secrets beneath the surface. This movie is directed by Paul Feig.

1:10:20I think it's going to be a very big hit. And I'm wondering where we're at with Sidney Sweeney. At the box office. Look, she's a controversial figure right now. I continue to find her choices as a performer to be very interesting. and I look forward to Euphoria season three coming sometime in 2029 when they finish filming it. Shot entirely on VistaVision. Yes. Is it 70? I can't remember what it is. It might just be 70. I can't remember, but it's like something where I'm like, why are you shooting this on VistaVision? I'm trying to think of, I think reality is probably my favorite performance by her as of yet.

1:11:05I admire the fact that she's real big she's a big believer in Bill Simmons' bet on yourself doctrine like not a lot of like I'll be the fourth person in this movie more like I am the star I don't know she seems it seems like a little earlier in her career to go ward hunting with like Christy and stuff like that but like whatever we'll see how it shakes out I think it's cool that she's trying to make films like that I think it's smart to be under 30 and to not limit yourself to being the bombshell in everything that she does. She drives people insane. So I don't know if she's going to be able to ever just be herself or truly be seen as a character because I think she's such a controversial figure in pop culture.

1:11:54And people use her as a litmus test. Like, oh, do you like Cindy Sweeney? You must have enjoyed the government shutdown. Who's the last America's most wanted babe that elevated up to credibility. Is it Halle Berry? I'm trying to think of who is the last actress who really, because, you know, we've had a lot of young actresses become very successful at a young age, become honored, you know, beautiful actresses, but maybe not in the same category of like desirable, I guess, like Emma Stone, Jennifer Lawrence. Like these are like really glamorous actresses and who are celebrated in their work, but it's a different thing where the like ogling is a part of the persona.

1:12:32Yeah, I mean, she is kind of a throwback to like the Maxim era, you know. Or the Marilyn Monroe era, you know? Like there is like a long history of actresses trying to elevate, utilizing what people think of them. I can't think of the last person who's crossed over from that world, mostly because it's become so lucrative to be in that world now with the ways you can kind of make money that, you know, like you don't necessarily have to become a serious actress to sort of elevate your career financially. That's another reason why I think it's cool what she's doing, which is that like she keeps making independent films.

1:13:03She works with filmmakers that she likes. She's trying to make movies. She cares about movies. She's producing movies. I mean, you know, she could just have like a reality show called like Simply Sydney and probably do quite well for herself. So the fact that she's like, stop giving ideas away. That's insane. You just gave away literally a$10 million idea. Simply Sydney. It's just Sydney Sweeney. She wakes up, she makes eggs. And she looks at her phone. Yeah. And everybody's like, wow, this is incredible. This is slow TV. This is amazing. uh Sierra just nice to spend some time with you this is the first we've spoken in 10 days I know uh I gotta run out still happy hour it's always happy hour here um so I'm gonna go meet my wife for a lovely uh like some pheasant or whatever we eat here give her my best um if you eat pheasant that's weird do me a favor ask Phoebe to just text me her thoughts like right off the top of her head about Sydney Sweeney like I just wanna know unfilled don't give her any setup don't like just I wanna know what Phoebe thinks she's sometimes next to me in bed will watch an Instagram video like the GQ interview that's obviously gone quite viral.

1:14:02She'll just keep watching those clips and like plays the audio out loud and then like out of the side like looks at me to see what my reaction is.

1:14:12And I'm like, I don't know what you expect. Like, I'm not going to be like Sylvester the cat like with my eyes popping out. I, uh, you know who she reminds me of in that very specific respect is Jennifer Love Hewitt where Jennifer Love Hewitt kind of drove a generation of women, at least women that I knew crazy. Cause they were like, she's not that hot. What's the deal? And I said nothing. I just said, whatever you say. Thank you. Yeah. Uh, we'll give you my best. I will give the youcha my best. And are you dining with hike Seth tonight or what are you doing? No, no, we couldn't make it work. Time.

1:14:47Too bad. Uh, when are you going to be back in American shores? Friday, Friday. Yeah. So look for me hitting LAX. You said the TMZ cameras. And just so we can circle back, Like you said, if someone agrees with you about predators on this list, they should kiss you on the mouth in the street. No, I said, if you come up to me in a bar, if you see me in a bar or whatever, and you're like, I also think predators is number two. I will buy you a drink. That's a beautiful sentiment. And I'll put it on my expense report so you can approve it. CR, nice to see you. Thanks so much for your work. Bye. Thanks to Jack Sanders for his work on this episode as well.

1:15:22Later this week, number five. Thanks to Bex for staying late in London for producing. Oh, thanks Bex. Later this week, Chris, we're doing number five on 25 for 25. I told this to the live audience when we did our show on Saturday night, our secret screening, that number five is Freddie Got Fingered. So congrats.

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