The Juiceless Fall Movie Season, ‘The Running Man,’ and ‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’

26:38They took it from those guys. Will Smith came and had a tug of war with Tom Cruise. Hanks took it from Dustin Hoffman and all that stuff. A lot of those guys, like Hackman would be like, I'll do Enemy of the State with Will Smith. Will Smith, yeah. Because I got to be the younger guy in a movie in the 60s and now I get to be the old guy in this movie and we show, I mean, we're going to talk about Robert Redford later this week. Redford in Spy Game is like a version of that. He's like, I'm handing you the three days of the Condor baton, Brad Pitt. It's your time now. And this proposal. Yeah, exactly.

27:09Cruz, he tries to do this. Nah, he's not fucking with it. No. No, he does. He does. He showed up to the Running Man premiere into the photo op of Glenn Powell. He has a, he has, he is in simpatico with Glenn Powell. If Tom in that bitch, Tom the man. He the sexiest. That's true. He the strongest. He's the strongest. He run the fastest. It's true. If Tom and that bitch, Tom the man. This problem is not limited to movies. It maps onto our current political climate. And everywhere in the world. The corporations I love so much. Politics, everything. Yeah, it's just a bunch of old people who won't get out of the way.

27:42In this equation, is Glenn Powell Zoran Mamdani? I'd love that. Okay. Yeah, for both of them. Well, I hope that the manorship of New York goes better than the movie did. Incredible, incredible segment. Great segment. Let's talk about The Running Man. I do as well. Okay, perfectly teed up, Van. The Running Man. Let's talk about it right now. This is the new film from Edgar Wright, his first film since last night in Soho. It is based on a 40-plus-year-old novel written by Stephen King under the Richard Bachman moniker. stars our guy, Glenn Powell, Josh Brolin, Coleman Domingo, William H. Macy, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Amelia Jones, Jamie Lawson, great cast.

28:23The premise of the movie is this. In the future, The Running Man is the top-rated show on television. It's a deadly competition show where contestants must submit themselves to a survival game. If they last 30 days, they earn a wild sum of money. They live in a dystopian future where there is a real division between the haves and have-nots. Who can relate. Ben Richards, the Powell character, is convinced that he can survive. And even though he is being tracked throughout the entirety of this game, he goes to great lengths to try to do so. Amanda, I'll start with you. What did you think of The Running Man?

28:55All of the adjectives that I would use to describe this film, which include rickety, implausible, and tonally inconsistent and not to my taste would suggest that I had a bad time at the film. I did it. I had a good time. I, or I had like a fine time and was occasionally entertained and I was not angry when leaving the theater. I don't think that I'm an Edgar Wright person, which we have known. And I, I, you know, I think that there are some, some gaping holes and some, some issues here, but also sometimes I just like turning my brain off and going to the movies and this did feel like an old school turning your brain off and you do need to to go to the movies Dan what'd you think?

29:48So I am an Edgar Wright person for the most part Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is legitimately one of my top one of the first things you probably knew about me we talked about this one of the first pods we did together on this show one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time I love Baby Driver I love a lot of the stuff that Edgar Wright has done. I think he's best when the tone is very concrete, adhered to, and very linear and clear. This movie is tonally all over the place to me. If the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of this is, let's take the conceit and make it into a hyper-violent, colorful, winking at the audience type of action movie.

30:30There's another version of the film that's probably super serious that really explores the dystopian nature of the film and the income inequality and it's very dark and it's gritty and there's no, the only time you ever see any lights in the show itself. And then there's this one which is trying to do both things and doesn't do either of them very well to me. The movie is fun for 70 % of it. Yeah. And then, man, the last part of it, man, like when you get into the third act, it is just so messy. I'm not sure why they're not trying to kill Ben, when they're trying to kill Ben, who he's up against, like what's going on.

31:17The lady from Task comes into the movie and it's kind of like, what the hell is she? Amelia Jones. Amelia Jones. Oh, Amelia Jones is on Task? Oh, I had no idea. I spent the whole movie trying to be like, who is that? I don't know who that is it's the gal from CODA and then I googled afterwards and I was like CODA yeah beautiful film were we happy with were we happy with TASC at the end TASC I haven't seen oh me either me either I was like well that train I just you know good luck I haven't seen it I'm definitely more positive on this movie than both of you guys I think as far as like action movies in 2025 go to me it's near the top of the heap just in terms of the pure staging of the action the way that all the sequences go there's like a level of creativity and execution and practicality that is like the thing that I'm basically begging for in movies.

32:04The feeling that I had in Vegas when we saw the trailer, I was like, I need this. I need movies to be like this. I do think that this is a fascinating paradox though of IP opportunity. So the 1987 film starring Schwarzenegger, which you just referenced, to me is not a good film. I know that it has a lot of adoration for mostly men of our age. You know, if you grew up watching it on cable, Jim Brown yes and the Richard Dawson of it all Jesse the body Ventura yeah it's like a video game it's like a video game that adaptation comes very shortly after the book is published but the the 87 film is basically not even an adaptation it uses just the framework of a game a survival game show and goes off and makes an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie in a small like in a very small scale way a very like subterranean way this is a very expansive movie that like is jumping from city to city, has lots of production design.

33:01It's a huge big budget action movie. And so like there's opportunity to significantly improve the material. However, the book is set in 2025. It's unclear where the movie is set. I don't think it actually says 2025. So instead it just seems like either an alternate reality or another 35 years in the future. And the satire that's in it feels like it's 2025 American satire, but we also live in a time in which you can't really satirize America anymore because America is unsatirizable because it is such a preposterous, you know, hive of scum and villainy. Like it is just a really, really bizarre time to be alive.

33:39You know, it's funny. So there's a part in the movie where there's a game show before The Running Man, Ben is watching on TV and it's a guy running on a hamster wheel while asking questions. I thought to myself, they would make that. Oh yeah. A thousand percent. I thought to myself, the running man, everybody's trying to kill him. Maybe we're not to that point yet, but you doing the physical thing while the guy is asking you questions and then watching your heart rate, they would make that show. Yeah. We're to that point. I do think that they did, there was a marketing stunt for another Stephen King adaptation, The Long Walk, where everyone was on treadmills in the theater and you had to keep going.

34:24And if you stopped, then you left the theater. Now, like, it was stunt for another, like, Stephen King adapted dystopian story, but, like, they did it, kind of, pretty much already in 2025. Yeah, and that was an odd stunt for that movie, which is incredibly grim and difficult and changes the book's ending in a way not unlike this movie changes the book's ending, which is something I want to talk about. The one thing with the tone is Edgar is at his best when he's doing a postmodern riff on something. when he's saying like, I've seen every zombie movie. I'm going to make the funniest zombie movie of all time.

34:59You know, I've seen every, you know, simple guy with a gun diehard style action movie. I'm going to make Hot Fuzz. You've just isolated also why I'm not an Edgar Wright person because like the thing I don't want to hear before we start anything is a guy being like, so you know what? I know this better than anyone and now I'm going to do my own thing. I'm like, oh, really? Thanks so much. But you also don't love the movies that he loves. And I think that's a big reason why. But there is an attitudinal like aspect of that. you know underpinning that that is that is off-putting the the tricky thing in this one with the tone is that like it it doesn't pick one and so it is it's it's it is at times mean but never really mean enough and for the most part pretty toothless about some very very dark stuff um it's violent it's not quite violent enough yeah he's angry but he's not quite mad enough.

35:51Yeah. Like, and it's, it's, the movie has a tremendous amount of, of commentary on obviously the income inequality and all of these things and urban blight and all of that, but it doesn't really go into those things. So even when the, uh, like it has like a bunch of sick kids, which is incredibly upsetting, but they're just essentially used as, as props or story devices. I mean, like the coughing stressed me out the whole time, but there's no development. The first 15 minutes of the coughing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no character development. It's just, you know, it's kind of like, oh no, baby, you know, baby going to be ill.

36:30You know, they say cancer a bunch and then, you know, are trying to manipulate your emotions on a very surface level. Even the decision to go on the running man is made kind of cavalierly. I understand from an intellectual standpoint, like why he did it. But it's like, you're going to die. Like no one has ever, ever survived this. You're going to die. And he just kind of, I don't know. I didn't really have as much of a problem with this stuff as you guys were saying. I think to me, the bigger issues in terms of like the toothlessness is that this is a story that necessitates the ending that, an ending that the book has that this movie doesn't have.

37:12The movie is trying to represent at the end a kind of up with people conceit. And I'll just say for anybody who hasn't read the book, the ending of this book is that when the Ben Richards character gets on the plane in that big final act conclusion, he flies the plane into the network building and it explodes and kills thousands of people and himself. That's the end of the book. Just a fire. And it's like, this is the only way to solve things is this nihilism. in the face of this level of corporate greed and, you know, the government run rampant and intersecting with corporate power. And the movie, one, I don't think a major studio would let anyone end a movie like that.

37:54No, you can't. You know what? It did happen in Fight Club, which we also talked about last week, but it's very rare for a big movie studio to let a movie happen that way. Also, Fight Club is pre-9-11. I mean, that's... Yeah, you're not going to let you fly. Obviously, in 9-11, you're not going to do that, right? And then... Secondarily, like where they land, I think just continues to contribute a bit to the tonal confusion of what Ben Richards stands for, what the movie is trying to stand for. I think it's just it's unfortunate that it is attempting to be so satirical, because I think if you had stripped out some of the satire, it actually would have ultimately been more successful.

38:28Because they're mostly cheap broad shots that don't land. Like there's a there's a Kardashian's motif, which is obvious and like not particularly insightful. And, you know, this is the problem with all satire in 2025, which is like the Internet's got this covered and we've had it covered for 10 years. And so we don't need you to be making jokes about the Americanos, Kardashians. Exactly. And there's like a Shake Shack, you know, reference or something. I'm like, oh, like we're all sad people waiting in line for Shake Shack. But like actually the lines at Shake Shack have improved dramatically.

39:03You know, it's like that's like a 2012 problem. You know, like this script was written when there was just the one Shake Shack and we watched the Shake Shack cam. And I'm just like, well, you can pretty much go anywhere now and get a Shake Shack. It's funny. It wasn't actually because if you listen to Edgar talk about it, like they made this movie really fast, too. You know, they made it in a very short window of time. Very unusual, like basically in one year, this movie started and finished. So, yeah, this is an interesting one. Let's talk about Glenn Powell. Okay. So Glenn is attempting to do a thing that we just spent 20 minutes at the top of this conversation saying is no longer feasible.

39:39Yeah. He is attempting to become an old school movie star. Now, he has checked a number of boxes along the way. He has been part of a massive billion dollar franchise movie. He has helped shepherd the reestablishment of an old franchise movie in Twisters. He has opened a rom-com. I forgot about that. to hundreds of millions of dollars with another young star in Anyone But You. He has had a hit streaming movie that he worked on with the celebrated auteur in Hitman. He's checked all the boxes. The next box is Solo Action Vehicle. This is very against type for the Glenn Powell that we know. Yeah.

40:19Glenn Powell is a fast-talking smoothie who is very funny and very charming. And he's a quick-witted Texan. That's his persona as a movie star. Ben Richards is a deeply angry person. He is a proletariat who has been literally wounded by corporate power. What do you think, Glenn? I don't think it's his fault. And I thought that there are moments in the script, because it is all over the place, where he gets to be funny. Like all of his little video cams and all of the moments where he's in disguise because Glenn Powell loves a Halloween costume more than... And that's great. It's important to find your passions, as Van and I were discussing on the way in this morning.

41:02This is true to the book, for the record, the disguises. Well, but still, that's why he was into it. Because our guy... He loves to dress up. loves a fake hair piece, you know? So, I, he can sort of be himself sometimes. There are glimpses of it. And also, like, he is, like, a physically convincing action star. Like, when he is running, when he's sliding under things, I was fine with that. The sequence in the YMCA where he, you know, within the, the sort of the vet hotel in Boston, he's doing amazing action star stuff in that set. So I don't think the character is very well written or well positioned within the film, but I don't blame him for that.

41:48I don't know if you, you know. You guys remember a movie called First Night? Sure. Heath Ledger. Heath Ledger. No, no, no, no, no. Oh. That is like the Heath Ledger movie. I think that is. Heath Ledger. A Knight's Tale. A Knight's Tale. Oh, my bad. First Night is Martin Lawrence? That's Black. Ooh. That's Black Knight. Black Knight. First Night is. Richard Gere? Richard Gere. Okay. as Lancelot Sean Connery as King Arthur and I can't remember who was Guinevere we used to do a night movies draft night movies draft Julia Ormond Julia Ormond oh man I loved her god damn loved her Sabrina Smell a Sense of Snow yeah that was her and Sabrina right am I remembering yeah so that movie is cast perfectly except for one person Lancelot Richard Gere was not Lancelot.

42:40Richard Gere was a lot of things. He was beautiful. I don't think I've seen First Night. All of that. It's actually kind of one of... He looks pretty silly. I'm just looking at the poster and he's like stuffed into the suit. It's a Van Classic. But Richard Gere is not Lancelot. This is outrageous. Do you know who directed this movie? Who? You don't know? I don't know. Jerry Zucker, the man who directed Airplane and Top Secret. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fantastic. And so... He looks so uncomfortable on this course. He's not... He's wearing the breastplate, but it doesn't fit him. It was the first time I can remember a conversation about casting.

43:16I'm super into King Arthur. I love Excalibur for all of its crazy wackiness and all of that stuff. Miss of Avalon? Miss of Avalon? Yeah. Miss of Avalon? I learned a lot. I watched the Merlin show when it came on NBC. Like, all of that stuff, right? It was like they had a show on NBC on Merlin. Very weird. so all of this stuff just to great actor super just not quite right for that role that's how I felt about Glenn Powell in this like Glenn Powell everything Twisters is just him in his skin in his bag right Hangman doing his thing Hitman all of this stuff it works this just wasn't quite for him now there are people actors like Glenn Powell with technique who can then become this role.

44:07I just don't think there was enough narrative clarity for him to kind of do that here. And it kind of, the movie really hums when Michael Cera is in the film in that part because it is so clear on what's happening. Weird guy with a vendetta, killing all of these people and you're just on, you're loving everything. I thought Michael Cera was great. May I just say that I literally had no idea what was happening when he hits the button. I was like, why did you do that? What's going on? I didn't understand the narrative stakes. I didn't understand the motivation. I was like, I literally do not understand what's happening right now.

44:48Revenge for his daddy. Yeah, I think it was like a chaos agent kind of completion of his mission. Is his mom in on it? I don't know. It's just like a bunch of people running around in a hallway. I like that part but I think I like that part because Michael Cera is he is an Edgar Wright actor there is a tone that he knows how to do and he crushes it in Scott Pilgrim he's so great in that movie the performance is great but in terms of basic scripting and character motivation and explaining to you how we get from A to B to C I was baffled I was quite literally just no idea so you know again I blame the script not the performances.

45:29As far as Glenn is concerned, like we have, we kind of remember movie stars in nostalgia. So we think as soon as Cruise took off, it was hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit. And we don't remember that it wasn't like that. No. It wasn't like that at all. So there are, this movie probably will be a hit. It probably will make a lot of money. But if people are going to look at this film, which I don't think is a strong display of his talent and use this as a referendum on him as a movie star, I think that would be unfair to him. Because I think he's already kind of shown that. But in this film, he's miscast.

46:05To me. To me, in this film, it doesn't really... You wouldn't have put a young Matthew McConaughey in this role. And I don't think that... Well, they might have tried and it wouldn't have worked out. Like many young Matthew McConaughey roles as well. It's interesting. It took him a second to kind of find his thing as well. I do think one of the... There's two types of action stars, especially that are in the mold of these kinds of films. One is your typical Stallone, Schwarzenegger, tough guy. Like right now, Jason Statham is probably the height of that for us, right? He is probably the single most reliable mainstream lunkhead guy with a gun.

46:41That just kicks the shit out of you, kick you in your face. Don't matter what it is. The conceit is, hey, I'm an electrician. You fucking turn the lights out on the wrong family. That's right. Everyone must die. Yeah, and The Electrician would be a good film for you and I to write together. He's the electrician, yeah. You go to those movies to watch Jason Statham kick a guy in the neck. Like, that's the whole reason to go. And those movies are good for what they are. I go to learn about the beekeepers and the rogue society that is upholding, you know? And kind of plot to take down Hillary Clinton.

47:11I liked it. It's very good. In the very best of Jason Statham's movies, you get stuff like that. There's another version of stardom, of action stardom, that Bruce Willis helped to bring along the kind of like fast talking, I can't believe I got, I'm in this shit kind of star. Mel Gibson was one of these stars. The guy with the gun, Jamie Foxx has been a guy like this. Like there have been guys like this where it means that you can do every phase of movie stardom. It's not surprising to me that Glenn Powell wants to be able to be the guy with the gun in a movie. But maybe he's not a guy with a gun.

47:43Well, I mean, I think he could be the cowboy with the gun. I agree. I agree with that. I think he could be... Glenn in a Western. I think he could be the soldier I think he could I gotta see another western let's just do shoot out at the okay crowd all over again if there was a world war two movie where he had to be an army ranger like if he was in Save a Private Ryan he could be that guy with the gun but to be this role would have been perfect for a young Bruce Willis he actually would be a really good Private Ryan in Saving Private Ryan he can do it he can be the jackass yeah so a little old a young Bruce Willis would have been like really good for this role.

48:22Super angry. Maybe his career didn't go the way he wanted. His next movie is a J.J. Abrams. I think I think it's a fantasy movie. Oh, okay. What's it called? It's untitled. Ghost Rider is the title now. I don't know if that's actually going to be the final title. Not the Ghost Rider TV series. Do you say what the fuck? I don't think it's based on that. Do you remember that? If it's based on the Ghost Rider TV series, that's a wild choice by J.J. Abrams. Are you saying Ghost Rider? Writer. Oh, right. I thought you said Ghost Rider. I was about to say I would have heard of that. No, no. The Ghost Rider 90s TV show was incredibly important to me.

48:55Unsurprising to learn that when you know what that show is. I liked it too. I just want to say I thought Coleman Domingo was great in this movie. It was fantastic. Every time he was on screen I was having a lot of fun. He really knew the assignment. I thought he crushed it. He had a lot to live up to because Dawson doing that part was like very shocking at the time because... It's the guy from Family Feud. Yes. Yeah. And Coleman embodied it and did the whole... I thought it was great. Okay. So you didn't like it. You kind of liked it. I liked it. I was just kind of like shrug emoji about it. Why not?

49:25Okay. You know? Why not? Movies, 2025. Movies. I will tell you what. You know who I like no matter what he does? I think one of my most, these are my two most dependable guys right now. Okay. Denzel Washington. Yeah. Capital D, dependable. Okay. Bold choice there. Josh Brolin. I strong agree. If Josh Brolin is doing his thing, I'm fucking with it, man. I'm fucking with Josh Brolin. If he's talking shit to people in Sicario, I'm fucking with Josh Brolin. When he's doing his thing, I'm fucking with it, man. If I just came into a pod wearing those veneers that Brolin is wearing and didn't say anything, would you guys let me get away with it?

50:07Or would you mention it on the pod? Hell no. Sean, what would you do? I'd throw some walnuts on the table.

50:16I'm trying to not comment. I'm just trying to go along with your ride, you know, support, be supportive of you. Are you going to get veneers? Is that why you're not, you're trying to hold it, hold off. I also, like I've said about it. I'm not going to get that. But like, I do. You're on an insane journey. No one knows what's going on inside of you right now. This is crazy. I'm like, I'm not going to do it because no, I'm not. I like, I talk about all of these things. Have you explored like getting a butt lift? Like, where are you at? Are you really going down the whole journey of potential change?

50:48The only surgeries that I actually would do would be like functional. So like breast lift because like I breastfed two kids and it's just like, it's just, it's a crime, you know, like they don't. Right. But that's functional. But that is functional. Like I just need somewhere to put them, you know? So, but veneers I've thought about just because I'm like. I promise you, if you walk in here with veneers, I will make mention of it on the pod. But like, what if I got, no, that's why I can't do it. Right. And also it's like not aesthetically for me, but like. It also changes your speaking voice. I know.

51:20I'm not going to do it. I just like, we are all in front of cameras. I'm not doing it. Sometimes, you know, you know, people with veneers and you see them when they first come on and you just, you can't, you can't not. It's all you can think about. It's all you can think about. Even in this movie, I get obviously why the Dan Killian character has the veneers. But the whole time I'm watching Brolin, I'm like, what is in your mouth? So you mentioned Redford and we've been doing a lot of... Relax. We've been doing a lot of Redford prep. And so I've been watching a lot of older movies. And I guess it was maybe I was rewatching...

51:58I don't know. But everyone just had, you know, perfect veneer teeth in like 1986, when I, whatever movie I was watching and I was like, they all do look nice. You know, I associated it with movie star teeth and maybe I'd like to have movie star teeth too. But I'm not going to. Good luck. As I said, I just think about it because we're in front of cameras all of the time and they're not designed to support aging faces. Just like Ben Richards. Yeah. On camera. Stop filming me. Stop filming me. Do you feel like the movie did a good job of maintaining the tension of his chase the entire time? For the most part, I do think it really slows down and falls into a really gnarly area when he stops Amelia Jones in the street.

52:41And then I kind of got confused as to what the momentum of the movie was meant to be. So you were mentioning it too. Like it gets a little bit confusing. It is, again, it is like, it's a very faithful adaptation all the way up until the end. And that may have just been a huge mistake to be so faithful. Is the part where they don't, shoot Ben and Amelia Jones, whatever her character's name is. And then they get like waved through to the jet. That's all. Well, it's because he's suggesting that he has a bomb on him. And that is also in the book. Right, right, right. He's saying he has an explosive device.

53:20But then the whole time, Killian knows that he doesn't as soon as he gets on the plane. He has the shit on it. But then he's making this decision to offer him a role as a hunter. They could have given us more time with Lee Pace without his mask on. I was wondering why he was wearing the mask the entire time because Lee Pace, you know, obviously has scars his character in the film, but he's a handsome guy. Right. And they even acknowledged like when he finally takes his mask off, like the Ben character kind of, you know, jokingly catcalls him. And I was like, yes, that's what we're all thinking right now.

53:53Annoying Mallory. She couldn't, she didn't like it. I mean, it just seems like it's a real waste of Lee Pace's time and handsomeness, personally. Well, I guess that'll do it for The Running Man. Any closing thoughts? Because I don't think you... Did you see Now You See Me? I have not seen Now You See Me. Okay, I didn't think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But those movies hold a very, very special place in my heart. I just like magician shit. Yeah? Wow. I love magician shit as well. I'm not sure... Well, don't worry about it. Amanda and I will talk about it. Okay, cool. It's great to see you. Are you telling me there are no tricks in the movie?

54:27There's tricks. There's one trick scene. okay well then they're fucking up I'll check back when you guys do you have any other movie thoughts now that we have you here I don't even know when you're going to be back what do you want to come back for whatever is out there that you know you guys it's always an interesting conversation this is one of my favorite things to do just talk about movies I am much like you guys in that I sometimes see things and I wonder what we're trying to be told about the culture that we love so much and like how we should be thinking about it. And I'm not sure. I'm not sure how we should be thinking about it because there are a lot of interesting young stars, a ton of interesting young filmmakers, a ton of them, like so many people with so many different perspectives and all of this stuff.

55:14And I wonder if our brains even relate to film in the same ways that it used to, or if there's just so much other stuff in there now that we don't have the relationship to movies anymore like we used to. I know some people do. I know that it is getting to be smaller and smaller, but I also think the one other point that I wanted to make that worries me a little bit from the very top of this conversation is that Jennifer Lawrence and The Rock and all these big stars making these much smaller movies feels a little bit like when all the movie stars started shifting towards television. I remember that.

55:49And that kind of spiked TV in a bad way. We thought it was going to be good, but actually the best shows, The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, even Sex and the City. Like, we didn't really have like a huge relationship to the stars of those shows before they became stars. But then when TV was like, it's very important that, you know. Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman. Yeah, Nicole Kidman and Kate Winslet or these are your TV stars. Something just kind of shifted and then that became the only way to make a TV show and it hurt TV, I think, in some ways. it does feel like TV is sort of evening out right now which is more of a conversation that the watch can have but for movies I do worry if the life raft of independent cinema at scale for movie stars is where they all start going that things are going to continue to tip in a direction that is not sustainable well that's why I think it's very important for an established movie middle class and I think it's like you have people talk about the event film well we usually go see the movie in the theater that's not what we would do We just go see the movie in the theater.

56:49The movie come out. Booty call come out. We go see the movie in the theater. All right. Woo comes out. We go see the movie. The movie would be in the theater. You're only referring to black-led sex comedies right now. But I'm saying we would see them. Okay. You would see those two films. We would go. But, you know, other movies as well. Are there any other movies that you saw? Joe versus the Volcano. We talked about that. We talked about this. Like, first night. These are movies with big stars in them and stuff. But we would go. And so now, we just. All of the movies. Woo was terrible. Woo is terrible It has a special place in my heart Booty Call is good Yeah Booty Call is hysterical It's very funny Booty Call is hysterical But like now I think to what we're saying is like you have the really important A24 movie that you can't be viable in film conversations if you haven't seen it and then you have the Minecraft or whatever film that is a fun amusement part time in the theater Who is going to establish the good worth it film in the middle that doesn't change the world, but was cool and interesting to talk about that keeps, to me, film healthy.

57:55I mean, this is the central problem. It's gone. And it is what keeps film healthy. It is what keeps - Robot lady movie, man. Go see it. See the robot lady movie. Companion. Oh, yeah. But that's genre. They're just movies for adults that don't have to make a billion dollars, but that grownups would go see in theaters. It's just, it's TV now and it's dead and it's sad. It was wonderful to see you. Wonderful to see you guys as well. Thanks for coming on. I'll see you at Wicked. Exactly. I'll be there.

58:55Okay, we're back. I don't see it, but then... You might... I don't know. There's some things about it you would enjoy. Mm-hmm. Tatiana Maslany and Rossif Sutherland, who is Donald Sutherland's son, is very good in the movie. But it is a little twisty, and so I don't want to ruin it for you. So, you know, we'll set aside Keeper. We'll talk about it later at some point this month on the show. We have to talk about Now You See Me, Now You Don't. Yes. Now, this is the third film in the Now You See Me franchise. Yes. Van mentioned that he loves those movies because he loves magical stuff. Yes. Do you love these movies?

59:34I've seen the first one. Okay. I haven't seen the second one. Okay. I remember very little of the first one and didn't revisit it before I went to see a screening of this movie for which I purchased like an extra large glass of, I think it was Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc. I think that's what they were serving at the MacGuffins. Nice. Can you bring your cocktail from the Moonguffins into the film. You can. Okay. And I did. I mean, this wasn't a cocktail. It was wine. I checked to see if they had Campari, Is this a Burbank screening room? No, this was Century City. I see. So I drove across the city to see the magic movie.

1:00:05And then I said, I will have a large glass of vacation wine and watch the film Now You See Me 3. And that was the spirit that I brought to the film. And I would say that the film rewarded me in kind. I had a similar reaction. This film is directed by Ruben Fleischer. Yes. It returns the vast majority of the Now You See Me cast, including the four horsemen, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, and Isla Fisher. Yes. In addition to that, we're kind of getting into spoiler territory the minute we start talking about it because there's some reveals about who comes back in the movie. Okay.

1:00:38Lizzie Kaplan comes back in this movie. Morgan Freeman comes back in this movie. And then we have this new trio of magicians who are joining the cast. Among them, Dominic Sessa, who people may remember from The Holdovers. Ariana Greenblatt, who was one of the stars of Barbie. Right. and Justice Smith. I had another, with Ariana Greenblatt, I spent 20 minutes trying to be like, who, what was she in? Who is she? And then I was like, right, of course, Barbie. Barbie. Barbie Borderlands. She was in that film. I don't think you saw that one. So the logline of this movie is the Four Horsemen, this quartet of magicians, are reunited to recruit three skilled illusionists for a high-stakes heist involving the theft of the world's largest queen diamond from a powerful family crime syndicate.

1:01:21Now, the head of this powerful family crime syndicate is Rosamund Pike. Sure. I don't think this could have worked out any better for me and you. No. And to spoil the movie further, Rosamund Pike is playing a South African diamond heiress and entrepreneur is a generous term. And she does a South African accent. She does. I did not know that until the movie started. And I was just like, first of all, Like we need to get Chris back from London stat. It is the most diplomatic immunity movie of all time. We need to like zoom Christopher in. And I was like, I can't believe that this is happening. And I'm so happy that this is happening.

1:02:08I was quietly cackling at every single line reading. She is amazing. She is having the time of her life. She looks great. I literally, I would click through like a, what Rosamund Pike wore to be like a diamond villain in Now You See Me, Now You Don't. She's a Bond villain. It's a total Bond villain character. It's so funny and sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Everyone else is taking it like a little bit more seriously than she is, with the exception of Dominic Sessa, who I thought was quite funny. Yeah, he was pretty funny. I mean, he's kind of doing an imitation of Jesse Eisenberg in these movies.

1:02:44And Jesse Eisenberg is also like, they're the most in on the joke on purpose. Um, but good for her. Good for everyone who thought that this would be a funny thing to do because it was. I, first of all, she's 46. She looks amazing. Yeah. Second of all, she's having a blast. Yeah. And the accent, I have no idea if it's accurate. It is probably extraordinarily entertaining to listen to. And these movies, I would say I don't have the most warm relationship to them because I love magic and I love heist movies. These are magic heist movies. These should be the best movies of all time. And they're okay.

1:03:20They're okay. One is okay. Two is less good. Yeah. Three, I think, is definitely better than two, maybe even better than one, though obviously less novel. It does have that interesting feeling of a Bond film, though, where it's sort of like the lore doesn't matter that much. Yeah. We're just kind of on to the next one. You just have to have a familiarity with the characters. Right. And if you know that, like, okay, this guy is, he's the illusionist. This is the mentalist. This guy does card tricks and throws cards at you. Like, if you just know, like, what M and Q do in the Bond movies, you're good.

1:03:53This is kind of the same thing. I do remember what any of them do, but then they just kind of, like, pop up. And then they're just, like, cards are flying somewhere or someone's. And I go along with it. I don't take magic as seriously as you do as a craft. Well, I don't know if I take it seriously, per se. You admire it. I admire it. I admire it, too. I do. It is like a performance and an art form. I don't know that much about the nuts and bolts, and I'm not really trying to solve the tricks ever. Well, and I'll say, nor do I. I am not a trick solver, and I never did magic. I never performed magic.

1:04:27I never tried to learn how to perform magic. What I like about it is the same thing that I like about movies, which is this feeling of how did they do that? I love that feeling. You know, even in a movie like The Running Man, which we had some notes about, there are sequences in that movie where I'm like, oh, like, how did he do that? How do you pull that off? That's my favorite feeling. So magic, when done well, it gives you that feeling. And it can be a big disappearing elephant illusion. But for me, more often, it's close-up magic. It's like things that are right in front of you. I love that.

1:04:55It's really hard to put that in a movie. Movie, right. Because the answer to how did they do that, I don't know, I was like, well, it's a movie. So they did movie magic or they did something or they CGI'd it. I agree. So it doesn't offend me as much because I'm not there being like, I wish you were doing the close-up magic to me, but I would agree that the illusions in this film were not exactly like, you know, maybe they felt a little bit more like an Arrested Development reference. I agree with you. There was some Job energy coming off of these tricks. There was also one set that was like almost literally the set of David Copperfield in Vegas.

1:05:33Which set? One of the times when they're doing like their pop-up magic show or something, and I'm like, this looks alarmingly like an alien. puppet is about to come out and start farting root beer or whatever before exploring daddy issues. Spoilers for David Copperfield's live show. There's one major central set piece in the second act of the film where all the characters are led to a mansion and in this mansion they will learn what is really going on with this case that they're going to have to solve around this diamond that Rosamund Pike possesses. And in that mansion they all get to perform their magic.

1:06:06Right. And they all get to have a little set piece, show piece where this is what I do and this is the thing that I do and this is what I'm capable of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the getting the gang together montage, but also the magic. Yes, it's like the 360 shot in the Avengers of like all of their powers getting ready to fight aliens. But in this case, it's just like, here's how I throw cards at guys. I enjoyed that. It's the most comic book movie quality of this movie. Yeah. It definitely doesn't take itself too seriously in the story until we get to the end and then there's definitely like a very heavy note that shows us why the movie is playing out in this way and who the real villain slash hero of the movie is.

1:06:45Right. I don't want to spoil that for people because that's not, it doesn't help us to talk through that anyway. Like it's not going to change how you feel about it specifically. No. It kind of worked. Well, I was like, oh, so that's why you did all of these things. Yes. And obviously if I were thinking hard about it, I would know that that's why they did all these things, but it's a Now You See Me movie. So I thought we were just doing like a Bond villain take on everything. Yes. I mean, it was fine. I didn't have a bad time. I really, I wonder how much time the original Four Horsemen or everyone besides Jesse Eisenberg spent on set.

1:07:20It seemed like it was maybe a one to two day commitment for Woody Harrelson. I think part of the reason that the new crew, the new crop has been injected into this movie was to create some balance, you know? I believe Isla Fisher was not in the second Now You See Me so her returning to the franchise was kind of a deal Isla Fisher what do you think about her? The heels that she's wearing in this film are very very high I always wonder how someone can walk doing those so I was very impressed with that She is petite That's not a judgment on her performance or her personality as a movie star I spent most of the time that she was on screen looking at the size of her shoes and being like, wow, that must be really hard to do that.

1:08:12So that in a way is a judgment on her performance in this film. I was distracted by other things. She hasn't, you know, she was I don't know if she was a big star, but she did carry a few movies, Confessions of a Shopaholic you may recall. I do. Obviously arguably the funniest part of Wedding Crashers. Hasn't really been in a movie of note in a good long while. Five or six years and then this year she's got a voice in dog man she has a cameo in the bridget jones movie yeah she's got it was mostly cut out yes it's like one scene right yeah no she's like she's like the neighbor and you're like wait is that isla fisher but then it's like very clear that they shot more that didn't um she's she's in jake kelly for a hot minute yeah and she's in this movie play date which is actually the movie that i was thinking of when i was thinking of like what what action movies are.

1:09:01Don't worry, Play Day is not infringing upon your big dreams. But this is an Amazon Prime movie that just came out maybe yesterday. And her being back is kind of funny. I guess she just got divorced from Sacha Baron Cohen. I was going to say, yeah. I think there are some financial changes in the home. Makes sense. Dave Franco, fine. It was funnier when he was on the studio talking about being in these movies while being, you know, really stoned. They pay the bills. In character. Woody Harrelson's character is a mentalist. Yeah. And do you know about mentalism? There was a show on CBS. Called The Mentalist.

1:09:41Yeah. But do you know what mentalism is? No, I don't. But could you suss it out from watching these films? You can read people's minds? Sort of. They can sort of deduce truths based on information that is shared. Okay, so are you just like Sherlock Holmes again? You're like a mind detective. Okay, so you're Sherlock Holmes-ing it. You're reading the clues. You're not actually accessing someone's brain. Well, there's some debate about that. Say more. Well, I don't know more.

1:10:12By no means, an expert in mentalism. There's a very famous sequence in Hard Knocks, the series of where we follow an NFL team before the season starts on HBO. We is being used very loosely there, but continue. Okay. where a mentalist, I want to say it was the Cowboys season with Mike McCarthy. Sounds right. A mentalist goes into the room. No, it was the Rams season with Sean McVay. A mentalist goes into the room before the season and he reads all the players and makes predictions on the season and he's extremely confident and he's able to pull dramatic information out of people in real time in the room.

1:10:47He's a very gifted mentalist. And in retrospect, like no one, like I don't, he didn't get like anything right during his predictions. Nevertheless, watching it was very entertaining. This is how I feel about Woody Harrelson in 2025. Okay. Like, I'm not really sure what's going on under the surface here, but I'm having fun. I'm having fun watching you cook. I spent a lot of time trying to imagine, like, what his Maui green screen studio setup is like. He's on set for some of this. Come on. He's on set for, like, three days. But the opening, which, spoiler alert, it turns out that the Four Horsemen are holograms for the opening.

1:11:25but that was clearly like structurally written into the text so that they had to spend less time actually there. Yeah, yeah. These movies are fine. I think they're like comforting in a way. Yeah. Like I said, I didn't have a bad time. I went with a friend. We each got a glass of wine. I was like, okay, let's like go to the movies, you know? And it was a real go to the movies type of energy in the room. So the question is whether that energy really exists for anyone under the age of 55. That is a question I wanted to ask you guys. Very brief side. Hard Knocks, Oz the Mentalist, New York Jets, Aaron Rodgers.

1:12:07Sean, so you memory hold that. That must be why I remember it so not well. That's it. But the question I had was when this movie came out, I was 12 years old. It was like crack to me. I've probably watched the ending on YouTube 550 times. but now I'm 25 and I don't care at all about this movie I'd be fine if I never saw it I think most people my age now I feel like they kind of missed the boat a little bit my question is kind of like who is this movie for like when this came out in 2013 did adults aged 30 to 44 care about this movie and have a relationship to it I don't know if I saw it in theaters I mean I definitely did I remember being very disappointed by it It has like a big dramatic twist at the end.

1:12:52It's just like, what? How did that happen? Yeah. Regarding Mark Ruffalo's character in the first film. Sure, right. And I remember getting like pretty middling reviews and there are some reviews that will tell you it's the worst movie of all time. It's one of those films where if you look at Letterboxd, you'll never see a more dramatic, my favorite movie of all time to zero stars. Right. Because there's so much about it that is implausible and stupid and everybody's cashing a paycheck very clearly. And if you like magic, it's not a great magic movie. If you like heists, it's not a great heist movie.

1:13:23But I disagree with the idea of the like, who is this for? Because I think that this movie is actually going to do very well. And I think that there are people who are like, this is a reliable property to me and I know what I'm getting. I do also think most people your age, Jack, who saw it at 13 have not ascended to the upper echelons of film snobbery that you have. Their favorite film is not Die My Love. We say that with pride. Yes. So, you know, You keep doing you. But do you think young people are going to show up for this movie? I do. I went to a promo screening. Now, obviously, those are people who are actively interested.

1:13:55But there's like heavy laughter and applause at the arrival of characters that they remembered from the past. They're really trying to like marvel this up a little bit. I don't think it's going to be like a$300 million movie or anything, but I think it's going to do pretty well. And I think it's going to do better than The Running Man, which I would not have guessed that nine months ago. And I don't know. That's part of why I brought up this discussion about the juiceless fall. I was like, yeah, Predator Badlands is going to be okay. Those movies are not going to be a problem. Now you see me is not going to be a problem.

1:14:24They got in, they got grandfathered in. I was literally about to say IP that's grandfathered in is fine and it's everything else. Damn. Yeah. It's a tough way to go out. Any closing thoughts that are more spirited and emotional? Like I said, I thought that the new generation was pretty good or fine and it seems like maybe they're setting us up. You know. Would you watch five more Now You See Me films? You know, they go to some interesting cities that I've never been to in this. I was like, oh, is that what Antwerp looks like? I guess it does. Nice. What did you think about the Vanity Fair photographer?

1:15:04I was like, yeah, that would be lovely if anybody working in editorial were paid for that level of hotel and flight. You're saying it's not like that anymore? Well, I guess this is a private commission, you know, so your outside rates could be higher. But yeah, no. Does Vanity Fair have staff photographers in 2025? I don't know what's going on over there anymore. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to guess no. Oh, that just about does it for us. Yeah. Now you see me, now you don't. Soft recommend. I don't know if you're there already. Where already? Like near a movie theater. In Antwerp? We're in Antwerp. Okay, let's go to my conversation with Edgar Wright.

1:15:55Edgar Wright, back on the show, first time in person. I know, it's nice to be here. You're real. I'm real, and so are you. I knew you were. I wanted to start with this. So I didn't realize this until looking at your filmography last night prepping. But since Hot Fuzz, you've gone English film, Hollywood film, English film, Hollywood film, English film. How do you see yourself now as somebody, do you see yourself as an English filmmaker? Do you see yourself as a Hollywood studio director? I don't know. It's a good question. I mean, it's funny when people ask you sort of filmography questions, because I think, I think I, maybe it's like Brian De Palma said once that like, you know, most directors don't come, they can't curate their own filmography.

1:16:38You know, you're not necessarily, I mean, probably, I think, you know, somebody like Chris Nolan can probably do whatever he wants to do, like, in whatever order. But most sort of, you know, directors are sort of like doing the film that they can get made next. So there's no chance to really get any sort of like macro, like, you know, like view of everything. So, yeah. Yeah, and it's also, I mean, the irony is as well, as you probably know, we're in Los Angeles right now. Los Angeles is a sort of drought of production here in the sense of that not many films get made in Hollywood anymore, which is, you know, maybe like 20 years ago when I made Shaun of the Dead and, like, you know, you come to Hollywood to have a Hollywood career, but now that's all in inverted commas because Hollywood films get made all over the world.

1:17:28and you know the irony why did filmmaking come to Los Angeles in the first place? Tell me. The weather. Yeah. Right, so because it started in New Jersey, right? And they were like, hey, we should go to California. It's sunny all year round. Then of course now it's like, hey, let's go and make something in London or Eastern Europe. The weather is like terrible for like half of the year. Yeah. It's cheaper. But I feel like there's so many productions in Ireland now. There was like three times as many productions in Ireland as there were 20 years ago. Obviously, part of the reason for that is, you know, the tax incentives and all those things.

1:18:02But you're closer now to sort of the center of studio filmmaking being in Europe than when you're living here. Yeah. No, totally. So it's a strange one, I think, probably for actors and filmmakers. You know, you don't have to come to Hollywood anymore to have a Hollywood career, whatever that means. I don't know. I mean, that's it. I just want to say on record, I'd love to make a film in Los Angeles. Yeah, I think we've seen one battle after another. Like it is good to shoot in California sometimes. There is upside there. And Eureka, California as well. Exactly. It doesn't have to be Los Angeles.

1:18:39So your filmography, I also think of as often in conversation with the genres that the films are working in, right? Sometimes in response, sometimes, you know, sort of like warmly satirical or admiring of something. The Running Man. Do you see that in the same way that you see Hot Fuzz or Baby Driver or movies where you're like, I see Edgar working in a tradition? Is The Running Man to you your action film? How do you think about it? I guess, I mean, I guess I think about it as an adaptation of a book I read when I was a teenager. And in a weird way, I mean, the thing, it's funny, like, because the book is sort of, you know, famously sort of fiery and gritty and intense.

1:19:20but also like very satiric and, and also incredibly prescient in terms of its satire. So I think if there is a sort of satirical streak in the movie, I mean, that's present in the book as well. And that's the thing that's exciting to kind of like, sort of like, you know, like, you know, grab it between your teeth, you know? So I think when you're making, when I'm making a movie, I don't really think about the sort of the different percentages of like myself or the like original novel. You're just trying to make a good movie. And, you know, those things, I can't like kind of like, it just comes out organically in a way.

1:19:59I don't really think about it too much. I don't know. And you tweeted in 2017 that you wanted to make this movie. Was that, were you trying to will it into the world? What happened? Well, I think it, you know, it's a question that would come up. It's one of those questions that kind of you get in junkets or like on websites say, if you could remake any movie, which movie would you remake? And I think maybe I was answering a fan question there. So it's not the first time I'd said it, but actually the reason that I said it is because, not because I had a desire to remake the 1987 film, but because I had read the Stephen King, Richard Backman book when I was a teenager, before I'd seen the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, I was well aware that they hadn't really adapted the book at all.

1:20:48Like if you've read the book and you've seen the Arnold Schwarzenegger version, it's extremely loose adaptation. And it's only really maybe some of the stuff on the game show itself is the only thing that's even vaguely similar. Does he even have a family in the film? None of that stuff is in the original film, right? No. and so it was more the case of not necessarily you know my favorite remakes and again I don't really think of this as a remake it's more like a new adaptation of the same source material but my favorite remakes kind of you know take the ball and run with it like I mean the perfect example is like David Cronenberg's The Fly which is like wildly different from the 50s one and yet both are entertaining and I love both films for what they are in this case it was something where I felt like oh there's actually like a Stephen King book that hasn't actually been adapted for the screen at all, you know?

1:21:40So I, yeah, so I did, I did say that. And actually, even before that, I actually had looked into the rights once before, maybe about 15 years ago after Scott Pilgrim, I was sort of curious and it was complicated and they were unavailable. And then about four years ago, one of the producers, Simon Kingberg, emailed me and said, is it true that you have an interest in adapting The Running Man. And I was like, yes. He said, well, we have the rights. We should talk. And I said, yes, we should. It was sort of like, it never happens like that. It never happens that something you actually want to do appears in your inbox.

1:22:16So that's very rare. It's never, I mean, it's never happened before. Maybe never happened again. I don't know. Let's talk a little bit about the book and adapting it. So as you said, it's fiery. It's a pretty brutal book, even by King's standards. It's very intense, very violent. And it is prescient, as you said. And it is set in 2025. Yeah, I only found out the other day, this is like going to start sounding like name dropping, talking to Stephen, but we were doing an interview together, but I didn't actually realize that it was written in 1972. It was written in 72. And he said he sent it to a publisher who said, we don't do dystopian fiction.

1:22:49And so it just sat on the shelf. And he started releasing the books under Richard Backman because he wanted to bring out more than one book a year. And his publisher said, you shouldn't do that. So he said, okay, I'm going to release these other works that are non-horror under like a different name. And as you probably know, like Richard Backman, he always said is like his Richard Stark to Donald Westlake. Donald Westlake used to write under Richard Stark when he was in a bad mood. There's that great quote where Donald Westlake said, if I wake up and it's sunny, I write as Donald Westlake. If I wake up and it's cloudy, I'll write as Richard Stark.

1:23:25So, yeah, so there's definitely like the sort of the Backman books are in the Richard Stark mode. Um, so yeah, I mean, I, I, I think that's the thing is that I, I probably started reading Stephen King books when I was like 12 or 13. I did as well. It is a life changing kind of thing when you start reading those books. Well, I think the thing that's interesting about them and the, then the running man is no exception is I started reading them. They're probably like the first kind of like adult, like books that I read as a sort of gateway into kind of like grown up, like fiction. and obviously because it's like fantasy, sci-fi, horror elements, but then the reality is the really eye-opening stuff is like the real life and the sort of the grittiness of them.

1:24:09And I think obviously what Stephen King is amazing at is the sort of the world building, all of the world building that happens before the genre element starts. And The Running Man is no exception. It's exceptionally well-drawn. And even though it's a much leaner novel, the Richard Backman books are generally pretty sort of like sharp and short, that it has an enormous amount of world building. And that's something that just really stayed with me, you know, and the other thing that really stayed with me and the other thing I really wanted to do in this film is tell it all from Ben Richards' point of view.

1:24:43So that you stay with him the entire time. Because often in films of this ilk, even the micro genre of dystopian game show, like TV shows and films, there'll be this tendency to like, oh let's cut back to the studio let's see what the baddies are up to and even actually when we were working on the script you know after maybe the first or second draft we get some notes from the studio saying what about if we went back to the network building and saw what Killian's up to or what about if we checked in with Sheila and Kathy and we were like no we think it's really good if you stay with Ben so why though?

1:25:17why was it important to do that just single perspective on the film? I think so you just feel like you're on the show with him You live vicariously through him. And I just think it makes it more exciting and intense that you don't have any information that he doesn't. Like you don't see what's around the corner. And also all he knows about the world is through the freebie and what's on the freebie is not necessarily the truth. So, you know, he's on the back foot the entire time. I just thought it would make it like more exciting and intense to stay with him, you know? Were there things that were not in the book that you felt that a film in 2025 would need?

1:26:01I guess it's just more about expanding some of the sort of scenes in the book a little bit. Like, so, yeah, I mean, I think it was trying to sort of, I mean, that's a good question. But I think the other thing that is a big part of the book that's not in the 1987 film is that the kind of the playground is the world. like it's like hide and seek on a national even global level i mean there's no rules to say that they can't leave the country although you would assume it would be kind of difficult to you know get around with even with fake id so it was always and it's funny when i was a teenager and i enjoy the original movie but when i was a teenager i was and i watched it i was i was sort of disappointed that the area of play was more contained it's mostly in that sort of subterranean arena it's It's almost like an abandoned hellscape, I feel like.

1:26:52I think it's probably right around the corner from where we're recording this right now. I'm pretty sure it's in downtown LA under the LA freeway, right? I think you're right. But your movie is very different. It is in an extremely populous world, at least for the first half of the film. It's like we are in contemporary city life. Yeah. Well, that was, I mean, what's funny, so when I saw the 1987 film and I was a little disheartened that it was on a smaller scale, at least the action, now having made the movie and shot in 165 different locations I'd like to say to the makers of the 1987 film I understand the practical decision you made it was a sensible decision and you probably got more sleep than I did we've been talking on the show recently about how there are a lot of movies right now One Battle, Eddington, Begonia that are all kind of about you know the idea that we're being controlled and the way that the media and politicians and the nation state just kind of tries to lull people into a sense of relaxation so that they don't really work against what's really happening around them.

1:27:59That is the absolute core theme of this story and this film. And I'm just kind of curious why that appealed to you and maybe just the timing of it arriving right now. I mean, a lot of the timing is just coincidental. You know, it's even funny, before I saw One Battle After Another, I was sort of following like sort of the, on Instagram, PTA is not on Instagram, obviously he's too cool for that. But like Mike DeLuca, you know, the head of Warner Brothers is, and I noticed every time he was posting about One Battle After Another, he was using the Gail Scott Heron song, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

1:28:34And eventually I like emailed him and said, hey, I haven't seen the film yet, but is that song in the movie? He goes, oh yeah, it's on the end credits and it's kind of referenced as a motif throughout. I said, ah, it's in our film as well. And then when I saw One Battle After Another, I felt better about it. I was thinking, oh, it's actually the second song in the end credits. And in ours, it's like an orchestral sort of cover. So it's not the same thing. But I was thinking, well, if there was any year, any calendar year where that song was going to show up twice, it's 2025. But as you know, like the Richard, well, you know about the book when it was set, right?

1:29:10Well, tell me. Well, so the Stephen King book, And again, written in 1972, even before it was published as Richard Beckman, is set in 2025. Yes, of course. And the cover of the first Richard Beckman paperback from 1982, the logline on the cover says, Welcome to the year 2025, where the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives. The running man, Richard Beckman. Now, the thing is, is that when we started working on this, so the email from Simon Kinberg was like in late 2021, and me and Michael Bacall started working on it in early 22. And then there were a couple of drafts that Michael did.

1:29:50And then there was a production strike in 2023. And then early last year, and this is something that a studio has never done because usually when you're making a movie, and I want to say this, not to say that making this movie was easy, but usually you're pushing a project uphill and you're trying to get it made. And then there was a very rare thing that happened was in early 24. I was sort of working on this other film as a sort of interim thing because The Running Man was so big. I thought, well, maybe I should do this smaller film first. And then during the productions, the actor and writer strike, it completely fell apart.

1:30:26And Mike Ireland, who was then the president of Paramount Pictures, called me and said, why aren't we making The Running Man right now? And he said, you could be in production by the end of the year and we could have it out in cinemas at the end of 2025. And I was like, yeah, no, that sounds great. So it was a weird thing. Usually you're kind of trying to sort of usually, and again, not to say it was easy, but usually willing something into existence. But in this case, somebody actually fired the starting gun. So now to be sitting here with you in the last six weeks of 2025 with a finished movie that I only finished a couple of weeks ago is wild to me.

1:31:08in the year in which Stephen King set the movie and also I asked him the other day I said why did you pick 2025 out of interest he goes it just sounded like a cool number and it was far it was far away enough like he didn't think that Nessie was that's what Kim said well also it's that thing it's like we don't say what year it is in the film and the reason we don't say what year it is in the film is I think most science fiction films don't go far enough like as a fan like 2001 A Space Odyssey one of my favorite films I wish we were living in that 2001 like you know 24 years later we're nowhere near like Kubrick's 2001 like Escape from New York the John Compton film the start of it says the year is 1997 it's like no go further guys so I always think most films I mean you know Blade Runner I guess the sequel they kind of went far enough but most of them they don't go far enough so it's thinking let's just not say the year at all okay That's smart.

1:32:08That makes sense. So was the fact that you basically made this movie in one year, in what ways did it help the movie? Because that's unusual to have to, that breakneck pace is really strange, especially for a movie of this scale. No, it's not my biggest and most complicated movie. I mean, I'll say this is I couldn't have done it without working with a lot of regular collaborators that was i mean and you know like all movies that i've done we kind of like prep the shit out of it and just you know you want to kind of go in with like sort of like a really good plan even if obviously you know there's always something that kind of throws a spanner in the works and you have to kind of like pivot but like you've got a really solid plan and we prepped really as much as we could but also the prep was kind of shorter than actually previous movies like usually you do have like three months prep with a whole crew we had two um i mean i can't quite believe that we put off as well but i think really like the the key to it is that there are a lot of regular collaborators and people i've worked with before some new people that i on the crew that i'd not worked with before like the costume designer julian day and the stunt coordinator nikki berrick but most of the people i'd worked with on other films and that was obviously not to say that I couldn't have done it with all new people, but enormously helped to have a shorthand with regular collaborators.

1:33:34And so, you know, it's a film with a lot of moving parts. We didn't finish filming until the end of March. So we didn't start editing until the start of April. And, you know, it's got lots of effects. Yeah, I have some questions about that. I mean, ask me. Well, you know, I think that visual effects are in a complicated place in movies in general. I think a surprising number of movies, just from my untrained eye, have weak visual effects. Your movies historically have very good visual effects. And I know that you try to do as much in camera as you possibly can, but also in all your films, I find that the visual effects work is really good.

1:34:12But the idea of finishing filming in March and then having good visual effects seems a little scary. How do you do it, I guess, is my question. I think the idea is, and why, if you notice in some films, we won't mention the names, but if you notice in some films that have got wildly variable special effects, it's usually because they're changing it right up until the wire. And there have obviously been lots of stories, like exposés in the VFX community complaining about this. The people are working stupid hours at the 11th hour to sort of change a whole climax to include some other... I feel like I'm sort of...

1:34:51I think we know what you're saying. I feel like I'm subtweeting now. No, no. I'm not going to say the word. But with this, because we had this kind of schedule, it's like Andrew Whitehurst... It's actually my first time working with Industrial Light and Magic, but the supervisor, Andrew Whitehurst, worked on Scott Pilgrim. So when his name came up... And in fact, the reason I went to talking about special effects, one of the films in the last couple of years I was really impressed by the effects work was the creator. And Gareth Edwards is a friend of mine. And so I actually picked his brains and said, talk me through how that worked.

1:35:23And we sort of employed a similar thing with the location work. It's like shoot on real locations and do like production design for the ground floor. And then as it goes higher, then you can go into your amazing kind of like VFX Escher world. So that was the idea is always shoot on location. And in fact, the location manager, Eugene Strange, another person working with for the first time, who's like Jonathan Glazer's guy, an amazing like location manager. Literally the first we did on the movie is me and him and Marcus Rowland, the production designer, just like walked around the cities that we were looking at to find the, you know, not just the brutalist stuff that would work for the sort of downtown areas, but all of the new kind of high rise stuff of the, you know, the uptown, more sort of advanced areas.

1:36:10And so, you know, and obviously this, this is something that goes back to so many great movies and great dystopian movies use kind of existing architecture um you know thx 1138 is a great example of that also probably shot just around the corner as well you know the one actually that i re-watched and i i i actually now like re-watching these dystopian sci-fi films i was usually looking at on a practical level and things i didn't notice as a kid or i didn't really look into like um how they were made or there wasn't the internet then. I was watching Rollerball and when I was watching that, I was thinking, where are these locations?

1:36:48Where was this shot? And it's like, oh, this is Germany. I was going to say, it looks like Europe. Yeah, but it's Germany, but it's like they shot kind of like, I think Houston and Los Angeles in like sort of brutalist Munich. I think it's Munich. It was definitely in Germany or like Brazil, like a movie that I love. And I knew that there were London locations in it and sets, but there's also like some shooting in France. Some of those, like when Jonathan Price goes to visit those apartment blocks, those are not sets. That's like, that is a sort of mid-century apartment block in France. So with all those things in mind of looking at ways to kind of like use existing architecture and then expand it.

1:37:30So, you know, so yeah, so I talked to Gareth Edwards about the creator and I was just like, sort of wanted to sort of pick his brains. And that was exactly what they did on that film is use existing locations and then kind of expand on it, you know? I think you've always had a great knack for action choreography, but this is on a significantly different level. Oh, thank you. Really amazing. I was hoping maybe you could talk me through designing a sequence. So like the Boston sequence in particular, I think is unbelievable. Oh, with the car? Yeah. Well, and the VA hotel and all that stuff. You can see me get exhausted as soon as you mentioned it.

1:38:09I got PTSD as soon as you entered. It's literally like, I don't know how they did that situation. The lower moving parts. So can you talk maybe about design and then design versus execution? Like when you think something is going to be and then how achievable it is when you're confronted with the physical production. I think that sequence in particular, the kind of like the sequence in the YVA in the sort of halfway house that he's in, is there's so many elements to it. Like, cause there's like sets, there's like his bedroom, there's the hallway. there's the second floor, there's an elevator, then there's like a roof set, then there's like a real exterior set.

1:38:47We shot in London and we shot a bit in Glasgow and then at the end of the shoot, we shot in Bulgaria. And in Bulgaria, they have a lot of like exterior sets standing. One of them actually, I'm going to dive. There's one bit where he walks into kind of like a, mansions, like unfinished houses. It was literally like an advert set that was just standing there in the middle of a field and Bulgaria said, we should use this. We should make this the location, right? But in the case of the YVA sequence, it was, in terms of designing it, one of the things, and this goes back to the adaptation, that was like a through line that helped you kind of like focus everything is like it has to revolve around Ben Richards.

1:39:35so you have to be kind of with him the entire time so it kind of helps focus how the stunts are going to work how the cinematography is going to work what glenn can do glenn you know is like so gung-ho he wants to be he'll do any stunt that he can do and uh safely so you know myself and and nikki berrick the stunt coordinator are sort of designing it around that and thinking about how can we utilize our main actor as much as possible and have him front and center, you know, and he's not in a mask in the movie. And, you know, obviously we have amazing stunt doubles as well, but he's doing a lot of his own stunts, as you can probably see in the film.

1:40:15So I think that's it. It's just sort of design and prep in terms of like starting with storyboards, then maybe animatics with the storyboards. Then, you know, you can draw stuff, but then you still have to sort of do it with bodies in motion. so you don't really do like CG previs that much I don't really like that but like doing stuff with like a video camera and the stunt team so they can like literally like run through it and see how it works with people actually doing it and then you shoot it so it's like an amalgam of these things and you're just kind of you know just I mean there's no version of it on an action film with like sort of special effects when I say special effects I mean physical effects where you're coming onto the set and winging it, like sort of, you sort of have to kind of like work out what you're doing.

1:41:06And, you know, because of the schedule, I would constantly, there would be things where we'd be shooting like that YVA scene, but there'd always be like a meeting for an hour before call and afterwards. And there's some sequences, I get kind of like just the hives thinking about like the, you know, I think it's a good thing to go to work with some kind of low-level anxiety is probably a good thing because I think the day that you go to work, very complacent and say, ah, yeah, we got this. It's probably the day that you should quit being a director. But when I think about the basement scene in the YVA, my main thought of it is that every day would be like, hey, Edgar, we've got to go and meet at the basement at seven o 'clock in the morning to talk through how the fire effects are going to work.

1:41:53and so like you know to actually see like the finished kind of like scene all like seamlessly coming together hopefully seamlessly I'm putting I'm not trying to put words in your mouth but like but seeing it all together like with so many different moving parts it's such a rush because you you know like the amount of work that goes into it is enormous you know yeah I I kicked this to Joseph Kaczynski earlier this year because we were talking about F1 but some years ago I did a piece about Michael Bay and I talked to James Cameron for the piece. And James Cameron said, Michael Bay is an incredible filmmaker because the big train set is the hardest thing to do as a kinetic filmmaker, somebody who's trying to make maybe not action movies, but movies like that.

1:42:34And he said, Bay is amazing at the train set. And the train set seems really stressful. Like anytime you're trying to do, when you know you have like a centerpiece in your film and you want people to walk out of the movie and be like, God, that part was incredible. But you said low level anxiety is a good thing in doing those. I say low level, sometimes high level anxiety. I mean, I think, listen, I got to say as well on record, because I don't want anybody out there to say, oh, bitching and moaning about making a movie. These are champagne problems to have. I'm very, very grateful to be working, number one.

1:43:09But it is a thing when you're making a movie is that you, they would say you got to go into like a movie scared of something. And this, I think, had like several set pieces where you got to figure out how to do it. And like, even on a, you know, like we had a good schedule, but it's always the sort of the ambition of the movie is more than the time and the money you have. So then you're just really having to be like super focused about that. There's no like fat is like the way it's designed. I mean, actually, you know, because we've been doing this sort of Blu-ray stuff at the same time. And like, there's some deleted scenes, but there's like, like everything's in there.

1:43:46Yeah. You know, and like, and we didn't kind of shoot any extra stuff. Do you know what I mean? And it's also something, I think the way that you shoot is, you know, it's kind of what the sort of the old Hong Kong method of like you're shooting, the piece that you're shooting of the action is the only angle for that piece. it's not like you're shooting a master wide and then the mid shot and then the close-up you're kind of like designing it piece by piece by piece which is both um you know in some ways more complicated in some ways it makes it kind of easier because you're only shooting something once but then also it kind of has to work and it has to edit together as well so it's both like sort of simpler and and potentially more risky at the same time so this is stupid question just like talking about it is giving me the highest Sean.

1:44:37So how do you know it's going to cut together? Well, that's something that most people don't think about but if it doesn't work the whole thing goes like this. Paul Matchless, my amazing editor who I've worked with since Spaced, you know, like the TV show I did before Shaun of the Dead. Since, probably we started doing it on Scott Pilgrim but then from sort of the world's end onwards and particularly on Baby Driver Last Night in Soho and this, we edit on set. and mostly if you have a dialogue scene you know that's you know as long as you've got it you've got it but like especially with like transitions especially with action stuff as you're editing it together on set just to make sure that it works and also with a script supervisor so does the continuity work and so at least you're able to see if there's an issue or something where you need an extra shot to tell the story you're able to kind of like um you know like adapt it and sort of um and like modify it and and sometimes that'll be something that you do way later you watch the finished thing and it's like it'd be really great if we had like one more shot of him putting his hand on the gun and like you know like like weeks and weeks later you just get like an insert that kind of like sort of suddenly makes the whole piece work and it's it's an ongoing sort of like process but but yeah that helps you don't really want to and and it's definitely something that i think has been a real benefit to do that throughout the shoot and also i think probably a way in answer your question of how you can finish the movie and the effects is that you're getting ahead of yourself and you know again because it's like designed in such a way of like okay this shot of glenn running down the hallway away from the camera and away from the bullets and sliding into the elevator there is only one this is our favorite take and this is it so because you've sort of done that through production you can then hand that over to the vfx people and say this is the shot so he's on set with you then when you guys are adding it together okay and that's unusual i mean we hear these stories about soderbergh like cutting the movie in real time while he's making it but how often is an editor on set during film production well i always used to be against the idea like initially um but but then it was when we were doing scott pilgrim because we had to sort of edit together the action to make sure that it worked and it just was incredibly useful and it just it it really just it it's also a wild thing for some actors like when we were shooting the scene with like glenn and michael cera you know you could say at the end of the day say hey do you want to see what we've done today and kind of show them the sequence with the song that's in the finished movie yeah and they could sit back and go oh wow like sort of like oh this is it like this is this is not just what we did today but like here it is you know obviously you keep i'm not to say that you don't keep working on it and finessing it but but um it's it is it it has especially for something like this and especially for action or anything with choreography it's a similar thing with music stuff like obviously in baby driver and last night soho there's so much music choreography.

1:47:43And if you're, you know, it's, you're going between setups, you need to make sure that kind of things are on beat or on step or like that it works within the kind of the piece, but it's the same with action. And it's a really, it's a really great resource to kind of just keep sort of like, um, uh, working on it as you're doing it and seeing what things work and seeing where there's a problem or seeing where you need an extra bit of storytelling, you know? I'm curious to hear you talk about Glenn we've been rooting for Glenn on this show since it started and it's been kind of fascinating to watch it happen you know like he is becoming the thing that I know he wants to be and that is rare now there's not a lot of leading men under 40 who can carry a movie who can do a lot of different kinds of parts who can do a lot of different tones inside of one movie why was he Ben for this film?

1:48:34Oh, I mean, I feel so lucky that it was like the right guy at the right time, because I was a fan as well. And like, you know, first through the Richard Linklater films, and then obviously kind of like Top Gun was huge for him. But it was actually like, we'd already been working on the script. And as it like, I got that call from Mike Island about like, why aren't we making this movie right now? it was just like as Glenn was kind of like really starting to pop and so when his name was in the mix as they say um you know with a with a big budget film like this it's something like you might have ideas of who you want to be in it but also the studio would definitely have a list of like who they would green light the movie with and I was given that list of saying hey these are the kind of people we would uh consider in this role and Glenn was on that list and that made me very excited and happy because I knew him a little bit and I was a real fan of him.

1:49:31Hitman had been out. Um, and I had seen it at the London Film Festival and there's a funny thing. This is before his name was in contention for the, for, for my film, um, to play Ben Richards is I had seen Hitman at the London Film Festival and it was during the SAG strike. So he wasn't there. It was that festival period where no actors were promoting their movies. Richard Linklater was there, but Glenn was not there. And because I knew him, I took it, I was at the screening and you're sitting there and there's the big graphic that says, you know, London Film Festival Gala, Hitman. And I took a photo of it and I sent it to him and he was in, you know, he was back in like Austin and he said, he goes, oh man, he goes, I wish I could be there tonight.

1:50:10And then he sent a second text. He said, consider this my audition tape. That was the text. Now later, later, when his name was in like, sort of like in the mix, both me and Michael Bacall were just like he's the guy and the reason that he's the guy is the only person on the list who hadn't already played a superhero or a trained killer he's playing a fake hitman in Hitman that's true like and it's a thing I think where it's a difficult thing in an action movie where you need to believe in this movie that Ben Richards is a guy off the street he's an out of work dad he works in construction so it's not like he's not tough or he has a thick hide, but he's not a cop like in the 1987 movie or a military policeman in that, or he's not a trained killer.

1:51:00He's not an amnesiac who has special like sort of like fighting skills. Right, no Bourne situation. Krav Maga, that's the word I was looking for. It was just in my head. It was like, what's the name of the fighting style? Krav Maga. He doesn't know Krav Maga. He's not a superhero. And the thing is, is that most people on that list, the other names are all people who who had done all of those movies they're saying well I've seen them do this movie I haven't seen Glenn do this movie and it made me think about even in Top Gun Maverick it's like it's an action film but it's not the same kind of thing and you know you think back to the first Die Hard when that came before that came out Bruce Willis is the guy from Moonlighting and I'm sure probably at the time there was probably some kind of like raised eyebrows about the guy from Moonlighting in an action film oh I think there was for sure yeah going up against Stallone and Schwarzenegger as like the moonlighting guy.

1:51:51And then of course, after that film, he's Bruce Willis, you know, the action star. The same, I think, with like actually Matt Damon before he did The Bourne Identity. So those things were sort of like thinking about that. And, you know, so I just, when Glenn's name was, we just, we, you know, we said to Pam, I said, we love the idea of Glenn. Glenn would be perfect for this. And they said, and Mike Ireland and the people at Parham said, we love Glenn. you know so and then this is another thing this is the second text from glenn powell usually in this situation when people are in sort of contention for something you never hear from them because they're not gonna you know sort of embarrass themselves to get in touch you might hear from the agents but i remember being in my like sort of like house where we me and michael were writing and i remember getting a text from glenn he said hey i'm not sure if this is true or not, but I heard my name might be in the mix for The Running Man.

1:52:49And if it is, I just want to say to you, I would like do everything to work on this movie and you'll never work with an actor who works harder than me. I promise you that. And, you know, he was true to his word. It was sort of amazing text to get. And it was like, sort of like I said, and I was like, you know, you had me at hello, Glenn. I said, you already, you already have the part. Ironically, what's funny. And I didn't know this i i so we basically gave him the part and then somebody from the studio said oh you know stephen king has cast approval on some of the main parts that oh i i didn't know that and so i talked to stephen about it and and i said you should watch hitman so hitman wasn't out yet so i got him a link to watch hitman and then he watched him and he goes oh yeah great fantastic yeah i'm there's a surprising amount of you know disguise work and costuming and there is like a little echo of hitman and at least in the first half of your film too i know it's funny that through like multiple movies glenn is like it's almost like he's like sort of the like the new peter sellers what do you think that is why does he why does he like that i mean that was already that's a coincidence it was already in the script and it's in you know like the book as well yeah that like he he has like different kind of like disguises i mean the thing that is funny about and maybe in a similar way to hitman because what what's fun about hitman is that that first moment where you see him very quickly have to, but he suddenly becomes like a, like a movie star in that first scene.

1:54:17Yes. What we liked in this is like a couple of incidents, incidents where, um, you feel like he's trying out the accent for the first time. Yes. He's not good at it. Well, yeah. It's like, or he's, it's like when you, you know, sometimes if you try and do an impression of a celebrity and you've never actually done it out loud before. And so we sort of like that when he's like playing like a businessman at the train station, he's sort of doing his kind of uptown voice. And it sort of comes out of this kind of strangulated, weird, like non-Glenn voice. And then also like he does an Irish accent later.

1:54:48And I said, you've got to do it like you're doing an Irish accent out loud for the first time. It does sound like that too. It was nice to see you and Michael reunited as well. Oh, what a joy. That sequence is also quite crazy. Yes. And seems like, again, how much, I don't, is all of that in the book? like when you're thinking about adapting something like that? Not quite. It's similar, but the action is different. And also, I don't want to ruin anything because of the like, you know, who the liability is is not quite the same. It was something that's a little bit different from the book. But the mother is in the book.

1:55:28And yeah, so it's kind of sort of similar, but not quite the same, no. What is your favorite aspect of filmmaking at this point? um i think the thing is is that you know filmmaking is really sort of like it's really it's really tough making the movie so it's it's very it's not frequently that you get to enjoy it as you're doing it because it's funny people say ask you they say oh you know when you've done this kind of like shot you you guys look like you're having so much fun and you think you think about all the scenes in the films that you did that eventually become maybe people's favorite bit or their funniest bit in the movie.

1:56:08But when you're actually shooting them, you never stand around high-fiving each other and patting yourselves on the back. Usually as soon as you've done the shot, you go, okay, so now we're going to move the camera over here and then we're going to move the camera over there. So I think probably the part, I wish I enjoyed the process more, But that's kind of goes more to that thing of like the idea that, um, you know, having the constant butterflies in your stomach of wanting it to be as good as it is in your head. You know, you want to, you want to live up to the film that's in your head. So you're kind of setting the bar for yourself.

1:56:41And usually it's that thing where you talk about the ambition of the film. I can't really blame it on anybody else. You kind of, you've set the bar yourself. So you can't stand there on set on a really tough day and curse the heavens. because you say, whose idea was this to make it this complicated? It was my idea. And I think on this film as well, even on top of this, it's like you're always trying to live up to the movie that's in your head, especially if it's a book that you loved when you were young and it stayed with you. It's like, oh, I've got to do the best version of this. So you're living up to the movie that's in your head.

1:57:15But also in this case, Stephen King also had to sign off on the adaptation. So we sent him the adaptation. I sent it to him very late because we'd actually emailed over the years, but I didn't want to send it to him too early because I didn't want to be like the boy who cried wolf because it would be too heartbreaking to send it to Stephen King and him like it and then the film fall apart. So I did it as late as I could when I knew it was probably going to happen. And he loved the adaptation and he was very, very generous in his praise and loved what we kept and loved what we changed. Great. But now it adds a new pressure.

1:57:48It's like, now I have to live up to the film. This is Stephen King's head as well. I have to make it, I have to make the film that he read. So you're kind of putting a lot of pressure on yourself. So it's like, so throughout the shoot, I kind of feel like I don't have as much fun as I'd like to, but then maybe that's not the point. I actually always remember like when I was making Baby Driver, John Bernthal said something to me that really stayed with me is that John Bernthal is in that opening sequence, which is a very complicated sequence. And because it was a complicated sequence and there were various issues, we kept having to shoot that sequence throughout the whole movie.

1:58:25And most of the actors were run of show except John. So poor John Bernthal had to fly back and forth from LA to Atlanta about eight times. And on the final day of the shoot, he was actually there on the last day of the shoot and it was finally wrapping his character. And I said to him, I said, hey, John, I just wanted to apologize to you. I know that you drew the short straw in terms of like coming back and forth. And obviously a really complicated sequence. I just want to say I really appreciate the fact that you like kept coming back. And Jon Bernthal said, hey, if this shit was easy, every asshole would do it.

1:59:00And I was thinking, words to live by. If this shit was easy, every asshole would do it. That sounds just like Jon Bernthal too. I've never done a Jon Bernthal impression out loud and I immediately regretted it. Well, you didn't quite get his essence, but no one really else could. How's your Blu-ray collection doing? You really, during COVID, you were putting some of us collectors to shame. Yes, but I have this kind of like, it makes me feel, I sort of have this kind of existential crisis when I look at them because I started to think during the pandemic thinking, I'm never going to watch all of these before I die.

1:59:34Yes, I have that too. But how do we get over that? Well, you know what I started doing, this is so silly, is that I'm a secret Letterboxd user. I don't have a public account and I don't rate movies. I just use it to kind of log what I've watched and more over like make lists of what I want to watch. I started to make a list of like, first I had a list of everything that's in the house that I haven't watched. And then I started to kind of make it bigger. It's like just everything that I own on physical media, I just have a list of it on Letterboxd. And of course, then you have that thing where you think, oh, I can change the ratings.

2:00:08I can figure out what is the highest rated film, according to Letterboxd users, that I have in the house. Then as soon as you see that and say, this is the best film I have in the house that I haven't watched. But of course, what's the next thing you do? What's the worst film I have? And then like a fucking contrary bastard, it's like, let's start watching the worst films. So I don't know why I keep doing that, but I have. There are so many of you filmmaker Letterboxd lurkers that you're not showing yourself. but you are present. You're there doing something. I learned very early on in my career, and I'm always stunned when I see screenwriters and directors and actors do this, is never bad mouth anybody publicly.

2:00:53There's absolutely nothing to be gained from it. You look like a dick. And I learned my lesson early on because when we were doing Press for Shaun of the Dead, me and Simon Pegg, in a very good natured way, was sort of taking the piss out of Richard Curtis a little bit. Because Shaun of the Dead is sort of like a piss taker of rom-coms in a way. And so we made some comment like, I think we said things like, oh, it's like Love Actually being shot through the head by George Romero. Or I think I said in some like thing, I said, if you ever watched Love Actually and thought more people should die, which is a really dumb thing to say when Bill Nye is in your movie.

2:01:36Anyway, we were being cocky. And of course, what happens next? You meet Richard Kerr and he's the nicest guy of all time. And I actually apologized to him. Of course, he hadn't even read the quote. He didn't know what I was talking about. But I felt like such a sort of like piece of shit. So then from that moment on, it's like, you know, I've got plenty to say about other movies and I'll talk to you about it over coffee. But you'll never find me doing it publicly. Understood. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what is the last great thing they have seen. So if you've been logging on Letterboxd, what have you loved?

2:02:09You know what? Well, I loved One Battle After Another, but I saw a bunch of things at the London Film Festival, which surprised me given that I was still finishing the movie two weeks ago. I really loved No Other Choice, the past 10 week film. I actually had read that book. I read The Axe by Donald Westlake. Yeah, Donald Westlake, speaking of. That's right. And it's funny when you read that book. I read that book. It's funny. And I thought, this is like the best film the Coen brothers never made. Why has nobody made this movie? Then I discovered, I've never watched the French version that Costas Gavris made.

2:02:38Oh, I don't even know about that. Yeah, called The Axe. And then I loved his version. I also really loved Pillion. Have you seen it? You're the second person in a row to recommend it. It's fantastic. I saw it in Telluride and it was amazing. Actually, Rian Johnson said, he was like, that was my favorite thing I've seen recently too. It's so good. It's so good. Harry Leighton, is that the director's name? I read somewhere that it's getting cut in the United States which is like it would be terrible no because of what's because of the content well yeah it's explicit sex in it there is but yeah but like this is what we want kids it is it is what we want but it's also it's such a sweet movie despite that I find it heartbreaking there's a I won't spoil it but there's a moment towards the end that has kind of like haunted me I think it really like sort of just like a heartbreaking movie but funny and just fascinating and like the performance is just like Alexander Skarsgård and is it Harry Melling?

2:03:34Melling. Melling, of course. Yeah, from Harry Potter. Amazing. Leslie Sharp. Everybody great. I love that movie. I thought it was fantastic. Great recommendations. Congrats on The Running Man. Thank you very much. Nice to see you in person. Thank you to Edgar Wright. Thank you to Van Lathan. Thanks to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode next week. Amanda and I will dig into two new Richard Linklater films. Nouvelle Vogue, which hits Netflix this weekend, and Blue Moon, which is in theaters, starring Ethan Hawke. What else are we going to talk about? Anything else?

2:04:14I haven't thought of it yet. Okay. But, you know, maybe we'll just do like a 45-minute teleprompter, telestrator breakdown of the Devil Wears Prada 2 trailer. That's honestly a good idea. Honestly. And so just... You should prepare for that. Should we just do like emotional therapy check-ins with me throughout the five months leading up to Devil Wears Prada 2? Is that not what this show is on a regular basis? Yeah, to be honest, we mostly talk about your emotions, but it's fine. We can... Mine are ready. Mine are ready as well. We'll see you next week.

2:05:01Refresh your good vibes with Tic Tac. With the right vibes, it's...

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