Where's The Cueball Going? (ft. guests, David Corenswet and Joseph Kosinski)

11:51Alex Godfrey:Yes. Yeah, this is a guy who won't be distracted by having to put gel in his hair or comb his hair. He will just spend all of his time fucking you up. Yeah, well, there's the scene in the bathroom in the mirror where he's looking at himself and basically having a bit of a mental breakdown with him. himself and yeah there's something about that chrome dome that's quite I think it's just bald Ben Kingsley's terrifying Sir Ben

12:11Chris Hewitt:Sir Ben Kingsley yes Sir Ben Kingsley yes let's start that again shall we Gandhi will fuck you up he will yeah faster than a bullet should we discuss Lex Luthor because I think that's what really inspired this week's question it was also last week's question that inspired this question but we are in the week of the re-release of Superman Nick Holt Nick Holt did shave his head for this role oh we're talking

12:34Alex Godfrey:which

12:34Chris Hewitt:Nick Hull in Fury Road is a great bald villain, right?

12:37Alex Godfrey:Is he a villain? He's kind of a villain. Well, he's a war boy. He's just misled.

12:40Chris Hewitt:How's he a villain? He's a hero.

12:42Alex Godfrey:He's one of the good guys. He starts as bad guys. No, he becomes one of the good guys. He's a foot soldier. He's not like a villain. Well, you could say that about the Nazis. You could say that about most of the Nazis, but not the ones at the top. What I'm saying is he's like a foot soldier. You can still be an evil foot soldier.

12:57Chris Hewitt:He's not evil at any point in that movie.

13:00Alex Godfrey:He's part of the evil gang sent to do evil things, isn't he? Hey, hey, if Thanos taught us anything, it's the villains don't need to be evil. Thanos didn't teach us anything, James. Am I wrong about this? Have I got it wrong? No, I mean, look, I guess we can push the point, but I'm kind of with Chris. Like, he ends up as a good...

13:18Chris Hewitt:Not even ends up, he very quickly changes sides and, you know, makes a noble sacrifice, spoiler alert, at the end of that film. And he's great. Nux is very much... Does he use Max as a blood bag, which is frowned upon? but it's not his choice to use Max as a blood bag he has given Max as a blood bag he is he has bought into the Morton Joes doctrine and he believes every single word that he's been fed then over the course of the movie and very quickly indeed after the sandstorm his eyes are opened and he even has a little relationship with one of the wives one of the Morton Joes wives the five wives when presented with any alternative he quickly grabs hold of he does

13:59Alex Godfrey:I sidetracked us here terribly we were talking about Lex Luthor I'm sorry yeah Mr Luto quite a lot of good comic book bald villains actually maybe because of Lex who I think was the first of them but you know Bullseye Kingpin fucking gorgeous Kingpin yeah Kingpin amazing on TV yes yeah but Lex probably was the original and I don't know what best but he's he's the original

14:21Chris Hewitt:he's not really bald in Richard Donner's first Superman film is he he is he is bald he takes his wig off at the end at the end

14:28Alex Godfrey:isn't that

14:28Chris Hewitt:yeah in prison

14:29Alex Godfrey:yeah

14:30Chris Hewitt:he snatches it off proudly the reason for that of course being Gene Hackman refused to shave his head before the role he also refused

14:36Alex Godfrey:at first to shave his moustache until Richard Donner encouraged him to that's right are we still doing Lex we got more Lexers I think I think that Nicholas Holt Lex is a pretty cool bold guy like he you know he's got the head for it he wears it well he wears it well he wears it well he looks good we know now from Nicholas Holt's recent peroxide do that it kind of looks good whatever he does yeah that's true actually he does is annoying. Yeah, bastard. If I shaved my hair off,

15:05Chris Hewitt:they'd push me in the sewers. This is what worries me because, you know, as we said, I'm rapidly going this way. James has been bald ever since I met him. But James has got, you know, as we've discussed in the podcast before, he reminds me of Terry Gilliam's quote about Bruce Willis. His bald head is a monument to cranial architecture. It looks good. I'm giving you a compliment here. Thank you. It's killing me. It's making me very uncomfortable. It's killing me. And I'm maintaining eye contact with you throughout. It's weird. It looks good. I'm worried if I shave my head, what lies beneath will be some sort of Caliban-esque misshapen monstrosity.

15:38Chris Hewitt:Yeah. That I'll resemble the craters of the moon and it'll be awful. Or I'll look like Michael Berryman in the Hills of Eyes. I don't want that to be the case. Maybe we should bring back, what is it called, phrenology or something? Where they would try and, you know... Yes, by the bumps on your head. Yeah, they would tell your character by bumps on your head. And, you know, at least in the disc world, presumably then by creating new bumps on your head you can change someone's character so we can just hit you over the head with a hammer please do until you make sense but I don't invite the listeners I invite you to only my trusted friends not you two they would be terrible at hitting me with hammers maybe they'd be good maybe they would Larry could do it Larry he'd be great at hitting people over the head with hammers Alex you have a wonderfully tall thin head so I think yeah I think your bald head would be good thanks But I think you might have a lot of capacity at the back.

16:29It might look like the leader.

16:33Alex Godfrey:Did you start out as a compliment? It has strayed from the path. The leader. I would say. Misshapen, elongated, brain experiment.

16:40Chris Hewitt:No, no, no, no, no. The leader, not as he is in Captain America Brave New World, which is not great, the makeup job on Tim Blake Nelson, but the leader as he is in the comic books, where he's got this great big noggin, and it looks lovely. I don't want to walk around looking like the leader. people might follow you they might taking pictures from behind favourite Lex Luthor? no

17:05Alex Godfrey:Gene Hackman obviously well

17:07Chris Hewitt:wrong it's not Kevin Spacey by the way it's definitely not Kevin Spacey any votes for Jesse Eisenberg? none I do think his scheme was clever in BVS is that how you rate your Lex's by the schemes? genuinely I think the scheming is important it's an important Lex factor Lex factor I think the one in Smallville Michael Rosenblum he went up and down a bit but I think he was generally quite a good Lex

17:31Alex Godfrey:it was a very different reading of that character very different it was a lot of fun to the extent where he is not Luther Corp he's Lex Corp and it's his dad Lionel Luther who's Luther Corp who's even more of a dick that's right but I enjoyed I enjoyed Nicholas Holt very much yeah we'll get to that I also enjoyed the performance of that character dear God hey how about Nosferatu original flavor and 70s flavor

17:56Chris Hewitt:Count Orlok yeah yeah Count Orlok's pretty terrifying there are a lot of famously bald horror films why do why do movies equate baldness with evil I don't think they do they do we've just given you a litany of bald baddies yeah but there's also like every Jason Statham film pretty much there's apart from maybe Fast 6 but then everybody else in the Fast movies is bald you've got anything Patrick Stewart has done practically I would say there are more... Yul Brynner, Bruce Willis. There are a huge number of bald heroes in movies. Well, Yul Brynner, Terrifying Baldi in Westworld. Admittedly. Patrick Stewart, Terrifying Baldi in Green Room.

18:34Okay, but mostly, you know...

18:36Chris Hewitt:A force for good. A force for good, is what I'm saying. Bruce Willis, mostly a force for good. Mostly a force for good. Jason Statham, mostly a force for good. Okay, but there are evil baddies in horror films. Yeah. Freddy Krueger, for example, doesn't have long, luscious locks. Now, in fairness... as a human, he did have hair. Unfortunately, it was burned off in that fire. Yeah. So he is bald. Unfortunately. What a shame for him. Unfortunately. Sad story. Well, unfortunately for him, from his point of view, it was most unfortunate. Oh, here we go. Fan-os all over again. Oh, boy. I'm not defending Freddy Krueger.

19:09Chris Hewitt:I'm really misunderstood. No, no, no, no, no. I am not defending Freddy Krueger at all. He deserved it. Jason Voorhees. What about Bane? Bane.

19:21Alex Godfrey:Can I drag us out of genre? for a second and just say a properly scary evil character is Edward Norton's Derek Vineyard in American History X oh god yeah but also the hero of that film well hang on context I mean it's true though isn't it protagonist though he does have hair by the time he becomes the hero I don't think he becomes the hero he tries to be good I don't know if you would call him the hero he tries to send I think he's the hero of that narrative he's like he's the center he goes through redemptive arc as that film goes along. Yeah. But he also introduces someone's teeth to a curb in a very unfortunate way.

19:58Alex Godfrey:But I think when he is bald, he is definitely the villain. And when he comes out of prison and has hair, he is the goody. So quite clearly, that is the arc showing you that baldness makes you villainous and growing hair is your redemption arc. Well, if you say so. Unfortunately for you, I remain in my villain era. One for you, Chris. I thought of you. Thanks, man. Terrence Fletcher in Wet Fletcher. Oh, yeah. but is he a villain or is he just looking for excellence he's just a teacher

20:25Chris Hewitt:he's just a perfectionist

20:27Alex Godfrey:he wants the best

20:28Chris Hewitt:that is my fucking tempo that's a great choice wow what a belter on which to end I enjoyed that and I have seen another question that I would like us to pursue on next week's show that is coming from Blue Sky so don't send in any more questions just yet but what you can do is buy some tickets to see us live yes so tickets went and sailed last week We are coming to you live as part of the London Podcast Festival on Saturday, September 13th. Unlucky for you guys. At King's Place London, our spiritual home. Tickets went in sale last week. Are selling very, very well indeed. But obviously we'd like to sell out.

21:05Chris Hewitt:If we sell out, then we can look at offering a streaming service for lists of people who can't make it on the night. We'll be able to see the show live. That is important because as ever with our London Podcast Festivals and with many of our live shows, in fact, this is a one-off show this is a bespoke show this will be an evening with the Empire podcast and will not be released on the podcast feed so the only chance you have to experience it is either live buying tickets via kingsplace.co.uk or streaming should we get to that point so there you go kingsplace.co.uk and also buy tickets for Pilot 350 which is James how long to go now?

21:47Chris Hewitt:It's just a month It's just a month. August the 8th, Friday, August the 8th.

21:50Alex Godfrey:Do you have a guest yet? I'll be there. In a succession of wigs. I will be there, putting on a variety of accents that somehow all sound the same. Yes, there will be guests. We had a meeting about that today where there will be desperate shout-outs going out to all the famous people we know. But I'm sure we will have guests and all sorts of exciting things as well.

22:11Chris Hewitt:That's exciting. I also have to put out some panicked shout-outs to publicists for a guest for our live show. so that'll be that'll be a lot of fun that'll be exciting alright shall we have a guest? please shall we have Superman? Superman! Superman! Superman! so James Gunn's Superman opens this week and cinemas opens today in fact as you listen to this the 11th of July and it is the latest big screen iteration of Superman and that means we have a new Superman Henry Cavill is no longer the possessor of the cape and the little undies that go over his trousers although Cavill didn't wear those in fairness it is now David Correnswet who is in possession of the Great S-Cape and he is very good in this movie indeed very wholesome, very likeable, very relatable he is a very very lovely man to speak to as I discovered when I went along to speak to him at the Superman Junket at a top London hotel the Shangri-La in the Shard that's where the Superman is suspended the Superman energy Gory and Shard?

23:13Chris Hewitt:No, sadly, they did not follow through. So the giant Superman is suspended in between the towers of the Shard at the moment in London. Still there, right? I believe so. I believe so. You can see that. It's very, very cool. David Cornswit had just been on the very top of the Shard just mere minutes before we spoke. And that is one of the things we speak about in this very fun interview with the new Superman. Here we go. David Cornswit. Enjoy. We're delighted to be joined in the Emperor podcast by David Corenz with Superman himself. I love hearing my name. My last name is best said with a slight English accent.

23:50So thank you. What about Superman following immediately afterwards? Yeah, that's not too bad. It's not a bad way to live. Are you still getting used to that? Yeah, I'd say I've given up on getting used to it and I'm just going to let it continue happening. And it's a bizarre thing to hear or to say out loud. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, you were just up in the building, on the top of the building. Right at the top. And actually, I'm still up there. You're still up there. Yeah, they left me up there dangling between the spires. How was that for you? Oh, pretty cool. Yeah, I love it. I got to take flying lessons for about a year, so I flew small planes, mostly over LA.

24:29And the perspective you get from just a couple thousand feet in the air really is quite a magical experience. So getting to see that view of London is pretty amazing. It is pretty amazing.

24:42Chris Hewitt:So you took flying lessons, not in preparation for this role. No, no, no. Unrelated. Okay. So I'm guessing you have a head for heights because it would have been wild if Superman had been up there on top of the shards and then had a panic attack. Like Chris Reeve does in Switching Channels. I don't know if you've ever seen that film. No, I haven't. No, he has a panic attack in an elevator. There you go. Well, I don't think I'm above a panic attack in an elevator, but heights seem to be okay. Small spaces plus heights, that's part of the reason I was excited about taking flying lessons, because when you're flying a very small plane, you've got the height, but you've also got the claustrophobia.

25:18So I figured I'd just knock all the phobias out in one experience. So have you had a heights thing in your life? I don't think so. Not that I can remember. Probably when I was young and I did some kind of, you know, outdoorsy ropes course, You know where you're walking on a rope only about 10 or 15 feet off the ground That was probably pretty but when you're on a building, you know, or you have a plane underneath you So it doesn't get to me so much how close were you to the edge. I looked right down over the edge I like to I like to push my luck And how nervous were the suits of Warner Brothers when you They were very happy as I said as long as you don't hold anything out over the edge.

25:53Chris Hewitt:We're fine You didn't want to drop a coin. Yeah, and then test that old old legend. I couldn't afford it Oh, come on. But there's so much to talk about this role. This is a role that effectively you manifested. People keep saying this, and it's the one thing that I push back on. Okay. I opposite. Should I say super manifested? That's very good. I haven't heard that yet. That's very good. I sort of opposite. I inversely manifested it. When I was asked about it, the quote that people are referring to, which was about six years ago, I was asked whether I had been whether I was aware of of people's impression that I had sort of a Superman look about me yeah and at that point I really I meant to sort of dismiss the idea because it felt a bit too big for my britches to say like yes I I know that people think I'm like Superman but but when I when it was said to me I did it did occur to me that it would be an amazing role to get to play at some point.

26:59Yeah. But it felt completely impossible. I mean, it was the kind of, it was like somebody said like, you know, have you ever thought about wanting to go to the moon? I mean, sure, yeah. I mean, if somebody, yeah, it's never going to happen, but sure. So at that moment, it was very much not a goal. It was not on my to-do list or my bingo card. It was something that I sort of had to think about because enough people had mentioned it to me. But I mostly tried to keep it out of my mind because you certainly don't want to get wrapped up in ideas of, you know, grandeur when you're a working actor and you're struggling and you're hoping desperately that the phone will call a couple times a year, you know, with a small job here or there.

27:42So to dream of something as big as this was not my style back then, and today either.

27:49Chris Hewitt:You're absolutely right. It is a little counterintuitive to, when the job comes up to go, oh, I could play that role. But inherently, that's not Superman. To think I could be Superman is to not be Superman, if you know what I mean. I hope that there's something to it. You struggle with that? No, I like the idea of that. A sort of a... Well, not a reluctant hero. I think one of the great things about Superman as a character and a thing that sets him apart, distinguishes him from a lot of other great superhero characters is that he doesn't feel so much like he carries a burden or that he bears a heavy responsibility.

28:26It's a joyous responsibility for him. It's the thing that makes him happiest in the world is that he has these powers that allow him to show up and put people at ease and save the day and inspire people. It's a great gift to have that kind of energy. And people have that energy, too. You know, if you're lucky enough to be one of those people, when you show up in a situation, everybody else sort of breathes a sigh of relief, like, oh, that person's here. You know, nothing can go that wrong. I'm the opposite of that. You walk in the room, something's going to go wrong, surely. Not him again. You know, I have that, depending on which room I'm walking into.

29:06Give me one or the other. But yeah, I think I certainly hoped that. Well, no, I didn't. And looking back on it, there's a nice sort of synergy with the idea that I really never thought that I was going to play Superman. Even when my agent called me and said in this sort of controlled, excited, you know, I think you know what this is about. The Superman audition. It's kind of like, oh, okay, so we're here now. In some ways, I felt sad at that point because it had been so fun having this joke with my friends and family and my agent. of like, oh, if they ever remake Superman, maybe it'll be you. And then once the audition came around and it was all becoming real, I thought for sure that it wasn't going to be me.

29:53And so that was going to kind of close the door on this fun little game, this fantasy game we had been playing. I said that to my wife, that there was a sadness I felt in that we were going to close the door on this chapter, thinking that with most roles, just the odds are against you. And it's unlikely. in this case, I sort of thought impossible that it would be me.

30:15Chris Hewitt:But you sent a letter to James Gunn with your self-tape, your first self-tape for this role. Do you remember any of the contents of that letter? That's a great question. I should go back and reread it. The gist of it was I was writing about the idea that I had, the sense that I had that that Superman is a sort of an or had been a misunderstood character, especially in the public eye, not so much by the people who contributed to his his canon over the years, but but in the public eye that he could be misunderstood as being boring or or difficult to relate to or difficult to care about because he's thought of as kind of invincible and then also doesn't have the internal struggle of feeling this great burden or having a traumatic childhood.

31:08And so one thrust of the letter was talking about this, the way that I related to the idea of the character of Superman, which was through the juxtaposition between his great joy and what he's able to do, the lightness with which he goes about saving the city and the world and playing the character of Clark Kent and a loneliness that's connected to that where he takes such joy in connecting to humanity, but ultimately knows that he's not one of them. And that I related to, I think, a very universal experience we've all had of being in a room of people and feeling lonely and the paradox there.

31:53And yeah, that was sort of that was the thrust of the letter. but I should go back and reread it and remind myself. It's not exactly what James wanted for the character. It's funny. It's not like when we, with the version of the character we ended up with, it's not like I would go back to that letter and think, oh, I knew exactly, I happened to guess it exactly. But I think the spirit of the thing, in addition, I think that the spirit of having a point of view and having a perspective, it turned out that James is the kind of director who really appreciates and counts on his actors and his department heads and all the people he brings into the fold to come in with strong perspective and to be willing to share it and to go out on a limb for it, knowing that ultimately he's got to be in charge and he's got to filter what fits with the vision and what doesn't.

32:40But he really relies on and takes great advantage of great craftspeople and artists who bring their best work to him.

32:47Chris Hewitt:Well, the film obviously is a very, very fresh take on Superman and doesn't do what previous Superman movies have done before. We don't get the origin story. We don't get to see Clark meet Lewis for the first time. He drops us right into a world that is already fully formed and a Superman that's fully formed as well. And I haven't timed it with a stopwatch, David, but I think I'm right in this. You spent more time in the Superman suit in this movie than any other actor has in any other Superman movie. That sounds right to me. And what was that like for you? Because you don't really get to play the bumbling Clark Kent that much or as much as people might think that you were going to so yeah well I I am it reflects my experience shooting the film as well because usually when I'm in the Superman suit we're doing an action sequence or some flying or you know when you're shooting those sequences you spend a lot longer getting a lot less film essentially you'll spend all day getting about three or four seconds of the final picture.

33:49Whereas when I'm in my Clark getup, the interview scene with, with Rachel, you know, we shot 10 % of the movie in two days, which was about, about 2 % of our shoot days. Yeah. Um, so, so yeah, I certainly, I, I got very comfortable in the suit. I got used to putting it on. There's, there's a little bit of, of an element of, of putting on a wet bathing suit after you've, you know, taken it off where every time you get into it, it's a little, there's a little element of, of, I don't know, getting, getting back to it and not so good away. But then once you're in it and you're back, back to fighting back, you know, back in the pool, it's, it's fantastic.

34:28And it, uh, you, you really, you really get used to living in it, uh, in a way that feels comfortable, may not quite be the word, but, uh, you feel settled in it. I always ask people about day one, um, on, especially on a movie this big with a role this

34:42Chris Hewitt:big. Was day one a Superman suit day? Day one was a Superman suit day in I wish I knew it in Celsius, but about four degrees Fahrenheit out lying in the snow in the Arctic in Svalbard, Norway. So it was a pretty intense first day. So that's presumably one of the times you're beaten up. So not feeling very Superman. Just about the first shot of the film is where we started. Well, James and I talked a lot about this part of the fun of getting to spend so much of the film in the Superman suit is we get to explore a lot of the different states that Superman can be in. We get to swoop in and save the day quite a bit, but we also get to have our asses kicked.

35:26And starting there in some ways was difficult because I was working with an invisible dog a lot of the time. But in those cases, it's very helpful to have real cold it's hard to to pretend two things at the same time i can pretend the the dog that wasn't there but if i had also had to pretend to be cold that would have been rough um uh but um but that's i mean one of the reasons james wanted to start there was to to establish the wide range of experiences you were going to go through with superman in this film and i think beaten and bloodied lying in the snow you know really needing a rescue from a best friend And I don't think we've seen that.

36:10At least we haven't started with a Superman position yet. So it definitely it sets the tone immediately. What was your first strapping Superman hero day? Yeah. Well, so once we got back to it really in the Arctic, it only got worse from there. I started lying in the snow and ended up getting dragged through the snow. So it was bad to worse. But once we got back to Atlanta, the first week was these two days with Rachel for the interview scene. And then two days of sort of not quite finding my feet, literally, no pun intended, but literally on a blue screen on a stage doing a lot of flying bits.

36:49Just pieces where I would be flying through the air, tumbling a little fight piece here and there, which was good for the stunt team to kind of get their legs under them. And then the last day of the first week was the first day that I got to combine the two and we had a sort of a Scene that was in the Superman suit. There was a little bit of flying a little bit of action But it felt like a real character moment And it was me checking on bystanders. We have this this great big action moment and then I take a second to make sure that everybody's Safe and feeling okay. And that's when for me. I felt like all right great.

37:23That's that's the spirit of this character So how did you approach that sort of dichotomy of of Superman?

37:30Chris Hewitt:because Clark, the Clark we see with Lois in private and Superman are essentially the same guy. But there is the other side of Clark as well. You know, the bumbling Clark. So how did you approach that side of things? And do you think that Clark in private is exactly the same as Superman? Or once he puts on the suit, does he change? No, definitely there's something presentational that happens when he puts on the suit. He wants to symbolize, in the same way that I've described, you know, a firefighter or a paramedic or a nurse or a doctor, you know, they're human and they're going to have their doubts and their uncertainties.

38:04But for the most part, when they're on the job, when they're showing up to save the day, they're going to put those insecurities and those uncertainties on the back burner because part of the job is to convey calm and reassurance. And I think the same is true for Superman when he's in the suit um clark the the real clark who plays both of these characters um i think has has all of the flavors of both of them he feels a little awkward and bumbling sometimes but he also has the confidence of knowing and you know being superman um the character that he plays at the daily planet is a lot of fun just because it is i think ultimately clark uh kind of cosplaying as a as a journalist, as a human being, it is for fun.

38:49He gets a, he gets a certain amount out of having that alter ego, um, to maybe get at a story in a way that Superman wouldn't be able to. Um, but mostly it's about having these relationships, nourishing himself, feeling connected to humanity, reminding himself what it feels like to be human. Uh, it's one of the things that superheroes can struggle with is, is forgetting what it's like to not have these powers and not have, have this role in society and just be a regular guy putting on his shoes going to work in the morning i think clark really enjoys you know taking the train to work and being late and getting you know yelled at for that um he feels like a human yeah it keeps him human which is

39:27Chris Hewitt:his favorite thing to do i love that idea that clark plays superman and clark plays clark as well so would clark be a good actor do you think he could do all my sons or oh that's a guy i think he'd struggle with somebody else's dialogue he's not so good when somebody else is writing his dialogue, but, but he'd love to give it a go. That's for sure. He'd be good at improv. Yeah, I think he's very good. He gotta be. Yeah. That's amazing. I'm gonna need to go in a second David. But I saw that amazing interview did with Ben Mankiewicz. Oh, yeah, that was a lot of fun. It was fantastic. Did you did it come up at all that he's the cousin of Tom Mankiewicz who co wrote the first Superman?

40:02Yeah, we talked about it a little ahead of time that the first the first thing that connected us, he remarked at the fact that I was a Marx Brothers fan, I had them. And I I'm going to forget, but I think it was his father or someone like the grandfather who wrote for the Marx Brothers, co-wrote some of the Marx Brothers' more famous movies. I think it was Horse Feathers, Day of the Races. So that was where we connected. Obviously, we were there for Superman, but he was so astonished to see that in my Playbill bio as a nine-year-old, I had written that I was a fan of the Marx Brothers.

40:40Chris Hewitt:That is amazing. The very last thing is, in that interview, you talk about how you've woken up for the last five years to the strains of John Williams' Raiders' March, which is a very, very good choice. Superman theme is pretty good as well. You know, the way it builds slowly. Have you ever done that? Have you ever woken up to the soothing strains of Superman's theme? Now that you mention it, I have a vague memory. I can't know whether this is true or not. but I have a vague memory either on the day of my screen test or maybe on the first day of shooting I set my alarm as the John Williams Superman theme um because I did feel whichever day it was it was true uh I didn't feel like Superman and I and I sort of felt like I was showing up to work um unprepared in a way that nobody could fully be prepared to show up to play Superman and you know it's John Williams music that is sort of that it's the reason that I felt like I could be a Jedi when I was a kid when you're watching the movies it's the music that sort of tricks you into thinking that you're in the world and that you belong there yeah I'm so grateful that we have such a great score for this film I'm really excited to hear it all together absolutely fantastic well whatever you did it worked bless thank you so much okay that was David Carr and Sweat We'll be talking about Superman later on in the show, folks.

42:09Chris Hewitt:Now it is time to discuss this week's movie news. It's not a lot. No, it's a very quiet week. I think people have the July 4th weekend off. Lazy. Look, I didn't want to say lazy. I was thinking it. I'm saying it. Okay. I'm saying they're lazy. But there has been some movie news. There has been movie news. Most important. Some of it's very sad, but some of it's very, we'll get to that at the end. A few people did pass away during the week, but there's some good stuff. What were you going to say? I was going to say the very important news, that there is an official title for June 3. Yeah. What is it, Helen?

42:40It's the last thing you would have expected. It's Dune Part 3. How do you think they came up with it? I think it must have taken sleepless nights and a lot of whiteboard usage.

42:51Alex Godfrey:I'm going to go, I see, I said that on this very podcast, that, oh, well, I assume it will be called Dune Part 3, and you were all just like, why do you say that? Why do you think that? It will be Dune Messiah, surely. I don't know why I thought that. I just kind of assumed that this is what he'd go with. Although whenever I've discussed it with him, he's referred to it as a desire. He being Denis Villeneuve. Denis Villeneuve, yes. But I always assumed that this would be Dune Part 3. I think mainly because of the way Dune Part 2 ends, in that it doesn't. And it feels like this is the completion of a single story, as opposed to a sequel.

43:20Alex Godfrey:Yes. I think I always thought it would be a Part 3.

43:24Chris Hewitt:Interesting. So that was your, what's your equivalent of a Hugh Bitter-Believer buddy or an Amon guarantee? a dire warning. So that was a dire warning. And one that came true. So well done you. Hooray! I am one for one. June part three. Is that really the best we've got to talk about this week? Yes. It's the only news we need. There was news that a new writer has been attached to National Treasure 3. Oh Jesus Christ. That is anti-news. It does feel like a little bit. Don't you come for National Treasure? Well I'd like to come for National Treasure because then I'd be rich rich beyond my wildest dreams.

44:01Chris Hewitt:You would. No. Well, tough. You'd have to fight Chris Bremner for the privilege who worked on Bad Boys for Life and Ride or Die. Oh, well, you say no more. He's in. He's apparently in, so, you know, I mean, there's probably worse things. Okay, Helen, it hasn't come to this. We can't discuss this. That's just, that's a nonsense. I have stories. Okay, bring a story. I have stories. Dory, I'm going to sell, save you guys. No, that's rubbish. No, that's rubbish too. I've got some casting news. Oh. All right. some casting news so Michael B. Jordan he is moving ahead with his Thomas Crown affair right great and we talked last week about how Kenneth Bernard is ramping up his acting after years of directing and being Poirot although he was acting there as well in fairness not bald no no hair he's never been bald also not a villain not a villain never seen him bald anyway think on that anyway he's going to be in The Devil Wears Prada 2 he's also going to be in the Thomas Crown Affair, as is Lily Gladstone.

45:02Chris Hewitt:So that is some interesting casting news. Also, in other interesting casting news, in terms of The Devil We're Proud of Two, Simone Ashley has joined the cast of that movie and hopefully, unlike in F1, won't get entirely cut out. Okay. So, okay, that's interesting. Yeah, you see, you see, right? She could be a kind of successor to the Emily Blunt role. Who's Branagh? is he the psychiatrist? Or is Lily Gladstone the psychiatrist? She'd be good. How do you mean? In Thomas Crown Affair. As in the one that Michael B. Jordan has a relationship with. They're saying Branagh is going to be a villain of some kind.

45:43Chris Hewitt:Is it interesting? I don't know. I honestly don't know. Interesting. Yeah. We shall see. I guess. We shall bloody well see. Simone Ashley, Devil Wears Proud of Two. That is happening right now. There's a report going out there as well that Cosmo Jarvis is no longer going to star or be one of the stars of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Yes. And he is dropped out to be replaced by Logan Marshall Green. The other Tom Hardy lookalike. Well, that's it. Presumably, they're not even going to bother refilming. If he has filmed anything, they're just going to substitute Logan Marshall Green in and no one's going to know the difference.

46:18Chris Hewitt:No one will notice. Do you think that Cosmo Jarvis looks that much like Tom Hardy? Like Logan Marshall Green, 100 % that's better.

46:24Alex Godfrey:I think they are both of them like brilliantly budget Tom Hardy. Do you think? I think Cosmo Jarvis is his own thing. Budget Tom Hardy. He's a bit harsh. Oh, no, no, to be fair. To be fair. They're very good. And Cosmo Jarvis was fantastic in Shogun. This is no, I'm throwing no shade of Cosmo Jarvis. Cosmo Jarvis is great. I'm just saying. Chameleonic. He has a Hardy-esque sort of thing going on in the same way. I think he's got a sort of, maybe they share a certain unpredictable volatile energy. I don't think physically. In that they look the same. Yes. In fairness, there are moments in Shogun where he does look more Hardy.

46:56I will admit that but he doesn't generally to me like in Cam with horses he doesn't look anything like him

47:00Alex Godfrey:that's true or in Alto Knights with that massive neck oh that was weird yes we don't know who he was playing in the first place do we?

47:08Chris Hewitt:the horse I think I mean that does explain Alto Knights I suppose but no we don't we don't know how does it explain Alto Knights? the neck the neck thing why the long face? hey come on now alright that's exciting that's exciting for Logan Marshall Green his career I would say never really quite took off the way that I thought it was going to because there's an actual

47:32Alex Godfrey:Tom Hardy

47:33Chris Hewitt:he gets a lot yeah but he did really well in Upgrade and he never seemed to get a bump out of that he did very well in fact he got downgraded no but like you know he did well the film did well and yet it didn't seem to translate no it's true I thought he was great in that film really good hey this is exciting okay I'm desperately trying to find some news to justify that

47:51Alex Godfrey:well you ruined it I mean the biggest news of the week is genuinely that Hugh Grant went to Wimbledon fell asleep Can we talk about the trailer for I Swear, which went online Thursday, time of recording? Today, yeah. I've seen this film. Helen, you've seen it too. And I think it's absolutely fantastic. It's one of the best British dramas I've seen in a long time. It's a true story about John Davidson from Gala Shields in Scotland who has Tourette's. And it's basically his life story. And there are lots of twists and turns. I don't want to ruin any of it here. but he's a really inspiring, fascinating guy and he's really been through the mill with Tourette's and he's come out the other side and it's a great film, I think.

48:31Alex Godfrey:I think a lot of people are going to like it. He's played here by Robert Aramayo from The Rings of Power, Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power. He's Elrond in that. This is extremely not Elrond. This is like him with... He has Tourette's. He swears a lot. He has uncontrollable physical movements. he is just you know he has a difficult time so it's a really really good performance by him but it's also a very fun trailer I think it does you know give away quite a lot of the beats in the film but doesn't doesn't give you the whole story I don't think it spoils too much it is also a true story you may have seen documentaries about this guy anyway but yeah it's not a bad trailer

49:09Chris Hewitt:there we go alright that'll be out later on the year I'm guessing maybe around the time of the well exactly around the time of London Film Festival my god it's almost as if you read my mind because the LFF has announced its opening film and I am genuinely excited about it yeah wake up James wake up dead man listen to this yeah mention of you too once again because it is going to be wake up dead man a knives out mystery still can't believe you're persisting with that title it should be a Benoit Blanc mystery oh dear lord anyway Ryan Johnson's third Benoit Blanc movie Wake Up Dead Man is going to open the LFF in October a couple months ahead of its release on Netflix I believe that's very exciting that shows a large degree of confidence in this movie because evidently they must have seen it right?

50:01based on probably yeah based on the previous two they should have confidence in it it's going to be great

50:05Chris Hewitt:it's my most anticipated film of the year really? that I haven't seen okay yeah so very very excited about Wake Up Dead Man that's good that's going to be opening the LFF. And John M. Chu is going to direct Hot Wheels. Okay, I said Hot Wheels. Like tiny cars.

50:25Alex Godfrey:Yeah, tiny cars. So what's the story with the tiny cars? I don't know. Why is it? My head hurts. I think there'll be a story. How far are we from making Kool-Aid the movie? It feels like not far enough.

50:37Chris Hewitt:We are in the studio at this point, I think. Oh, boy. We have the answer to the question, how much money did John M. Chu make from Crazy Rich Asians and the Wicked movies? and the answer is evidently not enough. Maybe he has a killer idea. Maybe this will restore our faith in the raw power of cinema.

50:55Alex Godfrey:Maybe he thought he was doing a Hot Ones movie and misread the script. That would be even worse. Also not a great idea. Speaking of bald villains.

51:02Chris Hewitt:Anyway. Okay, moving on. Anyway, I did say that we have some very, very sad news to finish off the movie news section and sadly we do because we lost a number of really, really great people last week in the movie industry we lost Mark Snow who is the composer one of the most iconic TV themes of all time the X-Files theme

51:28there you go

51:29Chris Hewitt:we lost Julian McMahon who of course was in the likes of Nip Tuck who was Charmed yes I met him I was charmed yeah because I met him when he was Dr. Doom in the Tim story of Fantastic Four movies. And most recently, he was in The Surfer. He's great as well. Genuinely scary in that film. Very scary, yeah. He was 56, Julian McMahon. He was battling cancer for some time and kept it to himself. And it was very, very sad to see that happen. I remember interviewing him on the first, probably actually both, of those movies. And yeah, he was really, really great. This big two. We lost Michael Madsen. Yeah.

52:09Chris Hewitt:As well. Absolute giant of a guy. The great Michael Madsen. I mean, you know, had been working steadily for years before he kind of broke out in, you know, Thelma and Louise and Reservoir Dogs and kind of stepped up a gear. But, you know, had a really extraordinary personality. If you've ever watched, which I did recently, a lot of Quentin Tarantino documentaries and things like that. He had such warmth and such charisma in his personal life, never mind on screen, you know. I feel like we still didn't get to see his full range as an actor because he did play a lot of tough guy roles. And he was magnificent in tough guy roles, don't get me wrong, but it felt like even that was really scratching the surface.

52:50Chris Hewitt:Absolutely. He was terrific. He was 67 years old. I mean, Tarantino used him, I think, better than anybody. But even then, Tarantino used him mostly in tough guy roles. But when he did, my God, he was great. He was obviously Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs, obviously one of the most iconic scenes of all time where he cut off the cop's ear. He was Bud in Kill Bill. I love him in Kill Bill Vol. 2 in particular. He's so good. On one hand, like all that sort of, you know, she deserves her revenge and we deserve to die. On the other hand, straight up burying her in a coffin. Oh, yeah. Terrifying fate possible.

53:23Alex Godfrey:Yeah, amazing. Amazing. We should say about the Reservoir Dogs scene, obviously this is credited to Tarantino as well, but he is so good in that scene that you think you see him chop off the ear.

53:32Chris Hewitt:Yeah.

53:32Alex Godfrey:We never see it. No, yeah, the camera pans off to the left. But you feel it happening because of his intimidating presence. And he improv'd a lot of that stuff. Like, a lot of the dance he was supposed to do, he was not given particular directions in that, he just did his own thing. He did cut off Torque Walter's ear. Yes, and talking into the ear was his thing, because Tarantino just said, I'll just throw the ear away. And he was like, well, that's not going to work. And so he did the thing where he's like, hello, hello. Okay. Which is particularly sinister. Yeah, really, really. That scene is so fucking effective.

54:00Alex Godfrey:Like, even now, I find it quite hard to watch. Me too. He's also like a much nicer Tarantino character in Hateful Eight. I mean, by the standards of that film. By the standards of that film, at least. He's one of the warm people, I think it's fair.

54:15Chris Hewitt:Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Maybe. And he was sadly cut out of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Because he was a sheriff. Yeah. He was great. I interviewed him once for Pint of Milk and he was fantastic. And that was in LA. and then a couple of years ago we were going to do a shoot with him in New York to celebrate Reservoir Dogs and I think I can say this now he did not turn up he was a bit like James the first 20 minutes of the podcast he was eating banana bread yes I have a picture of the chair that we had in a warehouse we found a warehouse in New York and we propped the chair up and we had it beautifully lit and sadly he was a no-show which is a shame I spent a long time waiting in a warehouse for Michael Madsen but in a way I think that's kind of the quintessential Michael Madsen experience.

54:59Alex Godfrey:It's a good thing he didn't show up. Had his troubles, which I think explains a lot of his filmography and the sheer amount of work that he did or maybe had to do. But he was one of those guys that when he found the right director would be like no one else on earth. Yeah. You know, I think unfortunately they were few and far between but you could see how incredibly unique he was.

55:18Chris Hewitt:He was probably born in the wrong era. Like he was this generation's Robert Mitchum. Exactly. But he just wasn't given those Mitchum roles at all. but you know he was a tremendous tremendous talent and I interviewed him once and he was everything I wanted and then he didn't turn up for the second and in a weird way that's everything I wanted as well so Michael Madsen what if he'd come with a straight razor I'd have shot myself I'd have been out of there I'd have nothing to defend myself at all but he was great the late great Michael Madsen who passed away this week at the age of just 67 alright time for our second guest now Joseph Kaczynski's F1 has been burning up the box office around the world.

55:58Chris Hewitt:It has done very, very well. It's one of my favorite films of the year so far. And we have done a spoiler special on that movie, which is going to be up next week on our spoiler special feed, including a full 25-ish minute interview with Joseph Kaczynski. But right now, you're going to hear an excerpt from that to wet your whistle. And in case you don't subscribe to the spoiler specials, maybe you would like to. So go to empire.supportingcast.fm to sign up for that and a lot more besides stuff that's already there and stuff that's coming over the next few weeks as well. So here we are, me talking to Joseph Kaczynski about F1.

56:32Chris Hewitt:And yes, from the off, there are spoilers. Martin Bruntle related spoilers. Enjoy. We are delighted to be joined on this F1 spoiler special by the film's director, Joseph Kaczynski. How are you, sir? I am good. I'm good. Good to be here. Good to have you here. Very, very excited to talk about this movie. Yeah. First thing I'm going to throw at you. People might be surprised by the sheer amount in this movie of Martin Brundle. Yes. Can you talk about that? As someone who has idolized Brundle for many years. He is an icon. He is an icon of Formula One. I was delighted that I was able to convince him to play himself in this movie.

57:09And he plays a very important role, as people will see, along with his broadcast partner, David Croft. What I love about Martin is he's an ex-driver, as fans of him know, and, in fact, would have driven alongside Sonny Hayes back in the day in the early 90s. Yes. So I like the idea that he could have the perspective of someone who knows Sonny. And, yeah, he's fantastic in this movie. And for people who know nothing about Formula One, they're going to love having Martin's voice there to kind of help them along and introduce them into the world of this incredible sport.

57:48Chris Hewitt:Do you know I've never put that together until now, that Brundle would have driven around the same time as Sonny was active in the world of this movie. Yes, yes. Because you mentioned, like, he mentions having raced with Prost, with Senna, with Nigel Mansell, who I grew up idolizing as well. Yes, yep. And, yeah, Brundle was right there. He was there too, yeah. Did you consider having him act opposite Brad at any point? This isn't a Martin Brundle spoiler special. Yes. Did I consider having a scene with them together? Yeah, maybe at one point there was something, you know, we thought about the Brundle, you know, walk, a pre-race walk would have been good.

58:24But ultimately, yeah, you know, he ended up staying in the broadcast booth and did a fantastic job for us. Absolutely.

58:32Chris Hewitt:Sonny's backstory in this movie is really interesting to me. And you pick and choose your moments to show young Sonny. Yes. Startling. I mean, Lola's really coming on. It's incredible. Is it Lola? It's not Lola. It's a company called Metaphysic. Metaphysic. who use a technique where you load in imagery or footage of our actor at the age we wanted him to be. So I think we licensed A River Runs Through It, if I'm not mistaken, loaded it into the system, and then shot Brad for real, the flashback sequences. And then the software program, obviously with guidance, is able to take Brad back. And having, you know, I have some experience with the digital euthening process, having started my career with Tron Legacy.

59:30I know the Uncanny Valley very well. I thought it worked. I thought it was a really interesting system and worked beautifully for this film.

59:41Chris Hewitt:It's really come on, but I was just fascinated by when you deployed it and when you deployed it and how you kind of parceled out Sonny's backstory. Yes. We know that obviously something's gone wrong in his life. We know he's had various issues, gambling, multiple divorces, that sort of thing. Yeah. But really, I kind of filling in the flaws of the character to the audience was interesting. So how do you know when to choose those flashbacks, when to deploy those flashbacks? and the heart he has with Kate on the balcony in Las Vegas is really crucial. Oh, thank you. Yeah, we played around, you know, initially I didn't have the hints of that past in the opening scene of the film.

1:00:26It was something that came about later, but I realized that it would be good for the audience to feel that experience poking through subconsciously, which is why I included it in that opening sequence. and then feathering it through with glimpses in the Will Buxton, speaking of another journalist. He does a little story on Sonny, and then obviously experiencing it through Joshua's eyes as he pulls up the old documentary and watches it, and where he finds out information and deciding to put it right before the Hungarian Grand Prix proved to be the right spot for it story-wise. The scene on the balcony that you're referring to, that actually came out of a really interesting conversation that Brad and I had with Lewis Hamilton.

1:01:18We were actually here in this hotel, actually. And we had a long script session day. It was like 12 hours, I think, where we went through every line in the script with Lewis. And when we got to the scene where Sonny talks about why it is he races, Lewis opened up to us and shared his experience, which influenced that scene heavily. And that is really Brad putting in his own words what Lewis was describing. And that's something that you could not have gotten, you know, to get it from a seven-time world champion, to hear his experience of what it feels like to be flying, you know, to have that flow state.

1:02:00in a race car was unbelievable. And to be able to use that in the film was, you know, I really felt honored to do that because that came from a really personal place.

1:02:15Chris Hewitt:And that really informs, I'm just leaving ahead now to the end, but I was really taken by how you presented it at the end when Sonny is about to win the race. Yeah. And the way you've shot this thing is tremendous. this. But if I'm right in thinking, you don't show first person POV on the track until then. We show it from inside the cockpit. So there are shots where you see the steering wheel and the halo and all that stuff. But the way that Lewis described it to us, he said the car disappears. Yes. And so I put a camera on the front nose of the car for that final lap, which is clear of everything you don't feel the car at all you don't see the wheels and it really it does have that effect and then it's the only time where I bank the camera um so if you look closely you'll see that POV is actually um banking around the turns which is different than the reality of it it's it actually does feel more like flying when you do that uh and then obviously just kind of pulling the sound down and experiencing it uh in a much more subjective way was the best way I could feel to describe the sensation that Lewis was talking about.

1:03:27Yeah, there's a serenity to that. Yeah, which is how he described it. It's very peaceful. It's very quiet. It's something that now, you know, I think... And we all want to experience what that's like, you know. So I'm glad you responded to that.

1:03:42Chris Hewitt:So they have nine races left when Sonny joins the team. Yeah. And you show most of those nine races. There's a couple that you montage. Yeah, more montage, yes. But can you talk about your visual approach to each one? Were you trying to mix it up for each race? Yeah, I wanted them each to feel different, you know. So, for instance, Silverstone, there's no music, there's no score in that one. that's pure sound design and then just being the first race it felt like the one that should feel the most kind of present um hungry is kind of a chaptered uh score because we're jumping through the laps uh with with hans's electronic score there manzo we start dry with no sound but then bring in the orchestra uh as the tension builds to the back half when it starts to rain um vegas This very subjective race, again, the sound of the cars is muffled and kind of bubbling underneath Hans's score there.

1:04:41I wanted that one to feel much, you know, that's the one where Sonny's kind of angry. It's an angry race. Yeah, it's an angry race, and I wanted it to feel angry. So that was different. And then, yeah, and then obviously in Abu Dhabi, we've got a mixture of all the different techniques because it's such an epic race and has so many chapters to itself. But ultimately building to the flying moment, which is, you know, from what I like, it's like the character journey, both in terms of plot and in terms of character, both kind of reach their conclusion in the exact same moment. And when you can do that in a movie, I think you can build to this moment.

1:05:22It's really powerful in emotion.

1:05:24Chris Hewitt:Absolutely. In that 12-hour script session that you had, or many of the other script sessions that you had on this movie over the years, what sort of discussions did you have about how it would play out at the end in Abu Dhabi at the final race? Because you could have gone with Joshua winning as well. Yeah, we could have gone either way. And we talked a lot about that. like you know which one you know jerry said the problem with racing movies is that the ending if you know if the hero uh wins it's predictable and if he loses they're disappointed you know and and uh so it's like okay well the journey there is the most important thing it's like you know the end of titanic doesn't make the movie any less uh entertaining um so uh the journey to get to that final victory for Sonny has to be engaging, has to be unpredictable.

1:06:18In the final race, I really did want to create the situation in Aaron Kruger writing the script. We tried to create this thing where it's like, one of them has to win, but which one is it going to be? and ultimately what I felt made most sense was that Joshua who's the one who has a whole future ahead of him in this sport sacrifices his race for the team which is what he does in that final lap and Sonny's the one who from a character point of view this really is his last shot at getting that victory and wouldn't it be great if he could get there. So that to me felt like the right ending for this movie.

1:07:04But certainly, you know, if the audience responds and we get to make another one, it'd be fun to see Joshua's version of that too. What would you call that movie? You couldn't call it F2. I know that's the problem. We slowly, as we get to, you know, through the sequels, we end up in go-karts as we work our way down the classes.

1:07:23Chris Hewitt:Nobody wants that. Yeah. Joseph Kaczynski, it's been a pleasure as always. I'll see you down the road. okay that was Joseph Kaczynski talking about F1 spoilers the full podcast will be up next week for spoiler special subscribers so do yourself a favor sign up £3.49 a month empire.supportingcast.fm for all the goodies including Team Empire talking about that movie but right now it's Team Empire talking about some other movies that are out this week there's only one movie really in town this week at the multiplexes that is James Gunn's Superman Superman we're going to get to that very, very soon.

1:07:58Chris Hewitt:But there are a couple of other films, a couple of choices for you to watch on your sofa plex. We're going to talk about them very quickly now. Hellspells, we said we would review K-pop Demon Hunters. And by God, of the people in this room, you have been true to your word. You've been true to my word that we're going to review that film because I didn't have time to watch it. And actually watched it. Yes, I did, however. So this is the new Sony Pictures animation. It is directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhands and takes from Maggie's Korean background, hence the K-pop stuff. And also a lot of the stuff, the mythology of this film is based in Korean mythology.

1:08:34So the idea is there are demons, they want to break into this world and like eat people's souls. But centuries ago, a group of three women realized that by singing together and having people join and listen to them and enjoy the music, they could create a sort of shield around the world that would protect us all from the demons. A suit of armor around the world. Indeed, exactly, Iron Man. Yes. And they have essentially this lineage of sort of singing protectors, guardians has continued ever since, down to the girl group of Huntrix, who are a trio of Korean women who sing K-pop and are like the biggest band in the world.

1:09:16They're the sort of BTS, but girls of their day. The Blackpink, I guess.

1:09:20Chris Hewitt:Behind the scenes. Wow. Yes. Anyway, they are coming to the end of another triumphant tour. They're celebrating the launch of what they think will be their biggest single yet, the one that could really cement this shield for a generation. And just as they're about to do that, a boy band appears. An evil boy band, actually made up of demons. So like all the other boy bands? How's that different from... Oh, now come now. That's very unfair. We all enjoyed the Robbie Williams film last year. You've got to be nice to them now. Yeah, anyway, so basically they have to fight an evil boy band of demon hunters through the medium of music.

1:09:58Chris Hewitt:That'll make them feel blue. Oh. Come on. No, take that. Look, anyway, this is genuinely a lot of fun. I had a great time with this. It doesn't hang around. It's very pacey. It is a full-on musical. Both bands have bangers of songs. Good. And they have taken the sort of John Carney approach of making the songs in their film, you know, genuinely good songs in their own right. I mean, these are really, really fun. I think the soundtrack has already been huge online. And yeah, I had a really good time. And this is on Netflix? This is on Netflix, yeah. Great. So yeah, recommend actually. What would you give it?

1:10:40I think it's probably a high three, low four for us, somewhere in there for me. I think it's, you know, it doesn't have the wild imagination of like a Spider-Verse from the same studio. Okay. But it's much, much better than it needs to be. I really had fun.

1:10:53Chris Hewitt:Sounds good. So K-pop Demon Hunters. So if you're watching Netflix and you've tried to get through The Old Guard 2 and you've given up halfway through, then this is a great option for you. This is a much better story of fighting evil than The Old Guard 2. Okay. Which brings us nicely to The Old Guard 2. Wow, seamless. I know. I should win awards for Segway. You should. Jimbo. Yes. Tell us about The Old Guard 2.

1:11:20Alex Godfrey:And be quick about it, boy. I'll do my best. So, The Old Guard 1, as you'll recall, came out in 2020. This was Gina Prince-Bythewood's film, and it's based on the Greg Rucker-Trunk graphic novels, and it starred Charlize Theron as an immortal, the head of sort of an immortal posse, been around for thousands of years, and they kind of put right problems with the mortal world. I gave this film two stars when we saw it. It was during the height of the pandemic. I watched it, I gave it two stars. I then very publicly climbed down from that two-star review, changed the review, rewrote it after having seen the film again and gave it three stars.

1:11:52Alex Godfrey:Not in any way controversially, but I didn't love it because it was like it was a group of immortals who'd get on the wrong side of Dudley Dursley. And for me, that just wasn't what I was looking for. But that said, I watched it again and thought it actually was a lot of fun. This film, on the other hand, I would give two stars to and then possibly go back and change those two stars to one star at some point and really revisit it in that way because this is not a good film. It's coming five years off the original. That's quite a long time to wait for a sequel to a film that wasn't that warmly received to begin with.

1:12:23Alex Godfrey:But this is directed by Victoria Mahoney. Gina Prince-Bythewood was not available for this. Victoria Mahoney did second unit on Rise of Skywalker, but we're not going to hold that against her. Good movie. All right, Ben. It follows on, obviously, from the first one. The first one has a set-up at the end where a character who was once lost is now found. Matthias Schoenharts, one of the immortals who betrayed them, has been exiled, which means they're basically just not allowed to be friends with him for a hundred years, which is generally hilarious. What's good about the first film is there's a real sense of kind of era-spanning camaraderie between these characters.

1:12:52Alex Godfrey:And I love that. Like the way they interact, the fact that two of them have been in a relationship for like a millennia. It's actually quite touching and you enjoy spending time with these characters. Kiki Lane plays Niall, who's like a new, a baby immortal who's just come into her abilities. And so there's actually, there's some good stuff in the first one. This second one feels like It retreads that ground, but it only pays lip service to it. The camaraderie's kind of there, but it feels like a dim echo of it. The actual action sequences are really quite disappointing. Now, you've got Henry Golding, who's an immortal who we've not met before, who's friends with them, he turns up.

1:13:25Alex Godfrey:And then Uma Thurman plays this character called Discord, who's essentially the first immortal, and she's the villain of this piece. And all of that is, by the numbers, a relatively disappointing sequel, and that's fine, and it isn't great. But the problem here is not any of those things. The problem here is this isn't a fucking film because it doesn't have an ending because this story literally ends at the end of the second act. So you get to the second act, you're about to go to the big confrontation, and it just goes, a film by Victoria Mahoney. And you're like, I'm sorry, what? They just stop the film.

1:13:56Chris Hewitt:I thought you would have liked it

1:13:57Alex Godfrey:because it feels like a big TV show.

1:13:58Chris Hewitt:It starts like a TV show, it ends like a TV show.

1:14:01Alex Godfrey:Why do you not like it? Except it's like a cancelled TV show because there has as yet been no indication that there's going to be a third film or we'll ever find out what happens. And on the grounds of this, on the basis of this, I can't recommend anyone watch this. So it feels like maybe you'll watch Old God 2 if Old God 3 ever comes along and is actually good, then this becomes a slightly laborious introduction to it. But I just don't understand it. There's a big fight with Uwe Thurman, which you're like, okay, that was kind of not very good, but it was an amuse-bouche. Except it turns out, that's the fucking climax of the film because it ends.

1:14:31Alex Godfrey:It was, I have rarely been this frustrated by a film experience. It was, yeah. You owe us an ending. If we're putting an hour and a half or nearly two hours into this, we deserve to see the end of the story. Yeah, I would agree. And there's so much more mythology added on this time and the whole thing about first and last immortals. Charlize Theron has kept the bad haircut and, you know, why? Like, change things up, man. Just mix it up. I just, I find it very, it felt like it made the world smaller, not bigger. And what's the point of a sequel that seems to make the world smaller? I know there's two new characters, but even so, it just felt it felt minuscule it's very sub Highlander and I mean like sub Highlander 3 not like even sub proper Highlander sub Highlander is a TV show hey don't you come to Adrian Paul I'm not

1:15:15Chris Hewitt:I was going to say this is Adrian Paul Highlander not Christopher Lambert Highlander I like Adrian Paul I actually like Adrian Paul quite a lot

1:15:23Alex Godfrey:this is sub the Raven spin-off series of Highlander that's what it's sub nobody's standing for the Raven there should only be one

1:15:30Chris Hewitt:is what you're saying

1:15:30Alex Godfrey:yes that's right there can be only one and it is not this sequel oh yeah

1:15:36Chris Hewitt:Yeah, I thought it was desperately disappointing and poorly shot and poorly written. But apart from that, I loved it. We gave this one two stars. Two stars then to the old guard two. But enough of the amuse-bouche. It is time for the mighty bush that is Superman. Oh, no. It is time for Superman's mighty bush. No, this has gone badly wrong. Helen, tell us about James Gunn's Superman. Okay. Yes, so this is the first of the new era for DC. David Cornswit is Superman. We meet him, not just Mediarez, but Mediaphite. I think we meet him in Metropolis, but okay. Maybe you don't know comics as well as I do, but it's actually Metropolis and not Mediarez.

1:16:14Chris Hewitt:Oh, good Lord. Yeah, just wanted to get that right. You are the worst. You looked at me there like I was actually correcting you for a second. You were so affronted. What have I said wrong? That's all actually accurate, Chris. What are you doing? Anyway, there's a little textual introduction that sets the scene a tiny bit, but basically they're assuming that you know the biography of one of the best biographied fictional characters in history. Like, you've either seen an episode of Smallville or a previous Superman movie, and we don't need to give you the whole origin story. So the idea is that he has just lost a fight.

1:16:44He's landed near the Fortress of Solitude where we first meet his dog, Crypto. He's going to be divisive in this conversation. And that kicks things off. There is a big bad pummeling him, and it turns out pretty soon... Oh, God. It turns out pretty soon that Lex Luthor, The Nicholas Holt version is involved in this and sets a train of events in motion that will involve Lois Lane, played by Rachel Brosnahan, doing some investigative journalism and not caring if anyone gets in her way or who gets hurt by her investigative journalism. We've got the Justice Gang, led by Nathan Fillion's Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, Eddie Gathegi's Mr.

1:17:26Terrific and Isabella Merced's Hawk Girl, and a whole lot of other things. Superman has recently tried to stop a war between two nations, and this has proved geopolitically sensitive stuff. So he is now being targeted by the US government as well. I had a good time with this, and I do think there are flaws. I do think it's messy. I think there's too much going on. I'm very much of the keep it simple, stupid school of screenwriting, and this ain't that. But I do think that James Gunn is a good enough writer and director to just about bring things together at the end. I think that the Lex Luthor plot in this film is better targeted at what makes Superman Superman than almost anything else I can think of in Superman screen history.

1:18:10I think it's really, really kind of well thought out. I love the relationship between Cornswet and Brosnahan's Clark and Lois. I think that they're both very, very good at those characters. I think Cornswet is my best Superman since Reeve, who remains undefeated. and yeah so while I do have notes about I could have done with a little bit less crypto and a little bit more Luther for example that kind of thing I really really enjoyed this and I enjoyed it more on a second viewing when some of that kind of madness and kind of manicness of the story kind of settled in for me and I kind of knew who was who and what was what and what was going on and then I could just sit back and enjoy it so I had a good time but that all says

1:18:53Chris Hewitt:well interestingly we gave this I think people listening to this may already know what we've given us. Yeah. So Empire has given this two stars. James, Alex, do you concur?

1:19:05Alex Godfrey:Well, I do, very much so. But it's interesting because we, me and Sophie and Alex, all saw it in the same screening. And we were all very much of a piece on this film. There have been mixed reviews, I think it's fairly safe to say. But I think they've been more positive than not. We are certainly at the lower end of opinion on this. but I was very, very disappointed with it. And we talked about this a little bit on our Spoiler Reaction podcast that we did. So the point where I'm genuinely gobsmacked by how positively people have reacted to it because I really did think it was a devastatingly disappointing sort of first step into the new era of DC.

1:19:48Alex Godfrey:And look, I'm not as down on the Snyderverse as many and I will totally give you that the Snyderverse is at times incredibly dour and self-serious and a little bit ill-conceived at times. I don't actually mind that. This, for me, was a wild overcorrection the other way in that, and this is definitely partly something where it's my sensibility greats against it. It seems to me that tonally, it has gone for the Saturday morning cartoon version of Superman. And that may be your thing. It is bright, it is colourful, there is a flying dog. It leans into the goofier aspects of DC, which I do not get on with.

1:20:24Alex Godfrey:I also found it sort of tonally and from a character point of view and even from a story point of view, I found it a little bit shallow and unengaging and I couldn't really bring myself to care about anything that really happened in it. The media res thing, I understand. I understand we don't need a Superman origin story. Again, we all know what happens, but Sophie's review, I think, is absolutely spot on in this, is that because you don't come up with it, you don't see his ascension, you're not engaged, it's really hard to care about what's going on for me. anyway. I couldn't, like, I understand, like, he has a relationship with his parents, which you do not see until a certain point into the film, his adoptive parents, I should say, the Kent.

1:20:59Alex Godfrey:And the storyline between these two countries that he got involved in this war, it all becomes quite mind-boggling to me, because you start off with all of these, and then this happened, and then there's a new era of gods and monsters, and then metahumans here, and then there's two countries you never heard of, and I was like, oh my god, we're 20 seconds into this film, and it is already more of a convoluted muddle than the Snyderverse was after 15 films. And I thought the point of this... Did you feel that way

1:21:24Chris Hewitt:about the crawl in Star Wars? Which similarly throws concepts at you that you've never heard of and names that you've never heard of.

1:21:31Alex Godfrey:I don't think it's the same problem. I get that Star Wars is a story that starts in media res. I completely get that. And I don't even necessarily have an issue with this, but I don't think this does a good enough job of making you follow or really care about what's going on. And it's quite a lot. Like, it's 3 ,000 years of history condensed into an alarming number of titles at the beginning of the film. It's like five sentences. And I... We're not doing this again. And, you know, so I really struggled with that aspect of it. But more than that, I found the characterisation kind of cartoonish and slightly trivial and superficial.

1:22:06Alex Godfrey:I didn't like Lex Luthor at all. I thought the performance was great. I thought the character was wildly two-dimensional and shallow. I really liked Brosnahan, and I really liked Corrin Swift. I thought their relationship was the heart of this film. I thought it was the strongest part of the film. There is a scene between the two of them, which is, to my mind, the high point of this entire thing, which is great. And I would have liked to have seen much more of that. I thought Mr. Terrific has a silly name, but he lives up to it. He has a great action scene in this. I really enjoyed him. Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern, also great.

1:22:33Alex Godfrey:Really liked him as well. That is colourful and not dour is kind of a nice change. But honestly, for me, I found this to be a convoluted mess of ideas and I just was not happy with it. I'm sorry. Alex. I appreciate what James Gunn was going for here. Certainly in that he wanted to pay tribute to, you know, the comics, certain Superman comics and tone of comics and the worlds of the comics that he was into. And rather than doing a carbon copy of Richard Donner's films, which is what Bryan Singer was transparently doing, although mostly very well, I'm mostly a Superman Returns apologist. but we don't need another one.

1:23:17Alex Godfrey:I like that James Gunn was throwing a lot of madness, a lot of fun, a lot of invention into this film. For me, the problem is that that's sort of all it is. He throws a lot of stuff at the wall to see what sticks, and none of it really stuck for me in any sort of profound way. I did enjoy what he was going for for a while, for the first 30, 40 minutes. I thought this is quite fun. I was quite enjoying it. It's quite fizzy. It's very peppy. I quite like the dog. I thought Crypto was fun and quite sweet. I don't quite understand why there is a super dog, but that's fine. That's fine. Or why he has a cape.

1:24:00Alex Godfrey:And like you, James, or like Mr. Terrific, I think he's, on the paper, he's a bit of a run-of-the-mill character. But he's brought to life. I mean, it's funny. He's written with a lot of wit and a lot of attitude. and he's performed by Eddie Guthurge with an obscenely charismatic performance, I think. Every time he's on screen, it's a blast. It's arguable that he has the best action scene in the film. Yeah, and some of the best laughs come from him as well. I think the rest of his Justice gang are a bit of a cosplay convention.

1:24:31Chris Hewitt:I liked Fiddley and his Guy Gardner. I think Isabella Merced is not particularly well-served as hot girl.

1:24:38Alex Godfrey:But yeah, a lot of stuff is thrown at war. I did, about halfway through, I started to tap out when I realized that this wasn't going to be an emotional experience. Because for me, Superman, as an on-screen presence, needs gravitas and sincerity and real passion. And although the character as written has that, I didn't really feel it in the film. There is a lot of nonsense in this film. A lot of inconsequential ideas. is there is one sequence especially that I thought I had a whiff of Attack of the Clones about it. There's just some stuff that happened. Oh, five stars. Yep, sounds good to me. Five stars, same for Superman.

1:25:17Alex Godfrey:Let's move on. There is some stuff happens as the film goes on that gets more and more and more fantastical and ungrounded, and it's quite fun, but it doesn't really serve a lot of purpose. And basically none of it really pushed my buttons. I just found it quite impossible at the end of the day to care about anyone in it or anything that happened in it. And like I say, it's not unfun. But when that's all it is for two hours, I mean, it's mostly gone from my head now because it didn't stir any emotions in me as well. And I think Superman has the potential to be one of the most emotional characters in this whole universe.

1:25:54Chris Hewitt:Yeah, think about the end of the Donner movie when he loses Lois and you feel the raw power there. Hells Bells, we'll finish off, we'll come back to you for this, a rebuttal to these two Lex Luthors. What do you feel about that side of the things, the emotional side of things? Gunn cultivated a reputation for a long time as a very cynical, glib writer and director who stayed away largely from emotion, but then his Guardians movies, for me, are soaked in it. Yeah, absolutely dripping with emotion. What do you think about the emotional side of this? Do you think that Gunn was the right fit for it?

1:26:30Because, of course, he's the head of,

1:26:32Chris Hewitt:along with Peter Safran, and he's the head of DC Films. Yeah. He wrote this. He wasn't initially going to direct it. Yeah. Then he wrote it, took his screenplay to the head of DC Films, James Gunn, who said, this is great, no notes. Who do you think should direct it? And the head of DC Films, James Gunn, said to the writer of Superman, James Gunn, I think you should direct this. Which is obviously not entirely what happened. But do you think that he was a good choice to direct his own script, or would someone else have unlocked the emotion? Or was the emotion unlocked for you anyway? The emotion was there.

1:27:03It's not the most emotional Superman movie to me. I would agree with that. I would concede that. But I think it was there. Now, full disclosure, I did speak to James Gunn last week for Dunbar. Here we go.

1:27:16Alex Godfrey:You're a crypto bro. Oh, wow. Okay. That's insulting. But yes. But he said, literally, this is always his process, that he always writes it as if he's not going to direct it and then falls in love with it while writing it and then can't imagine anyone else doing it. I do think actually almost there may be our times where another set of eyes coming in and, you know, maybe, like I say, stripping it back a bit for me would have been would have been preferable. Like I say, I would have loved more scenes with Lois and with Lex and with Superman slash Clark. And that to me would have taken it up to a four or five.

1:27:52For me, it's at least a high three, low four somewhere in there for me personally, not obviously Empire. A high three or low as four. A low as four, yes. But I did feel the emotion. And I thought that you get that in that early scene. You've seen some of it in the trailers, but, you know, where Superman is kind of defending himself for going across borders and stopping a war in protection of international law. And he's saying people were going to die. I had to act. And you get that passion that he has. Like, he cannot... He feels like he cannot let bad things happen to anyone on his watch. If it's his watch, he has to kind of be the one who's there and protecting people.

1:28:30And that, to me, is the essence of the character. And so I just love those kind of moments I thought really, really worked. Yes, I will consider it's not the most emotional Superman movie, and maybe a few more sets of eyes on it, like I say, would have helped that. But I don't think it is bad, and I do think the emotion is there. And I got it in moments like, well, a couple involving the dog, actually. I thought you got the sense that this is a guy who cares for everybody even the world's worst dog you know and that's he admits that the dog

1:29:04Alex Godfrey:is a bad dog he says it's a bad dog it's not a very good dog not least because it's not a real dog but yes it's a real dog it's just from Krypton the effects are very good it's a CGI dog it's a very it's a very very good piece of CG

1:29:16Chris Hewitt:yes very very good that's really genuinely fantastic work yeah the dog's real but Corn Sweat's entirely CG

1:29:22Alex Godfrey:I think the problem for me is that it never really stops to breathe. It hits a certain point tonally and then just stays there for two hours, and I did feel a bit numb to that, basically. It's an interesting choice, though, isn't it? Because to a certain extent, this refresh, this reset of DC from the DCEU was in part a response to a tonal shift, but also the DCEU had become quite bogged down and convoluted. And the same way the comics often do these refreshes when the mythology when it sort of buckle under the weight of its own mythology it resets i thought it was a it was a i mean a bold choice i'm not sure it was a good choice to almost begin this with something that is already quite heavy with plot and characters and background and what like there's a lot going in and i think one of the downsides to that approach is it's not the most accessible film i don't think in that you know superman certainly the donna ones i think have that advantage that they're so easy to get on board with you don't need to be into comic book movies you don't need be anything it's such a there's a purity to it there's so many on ramps to that film i think this this film is less approachable less accessible to people uh which is why i think it's an odd thing

1:30:28Chris Hewitt:to begin this new universe with well we shall see where it goes uh because that is all the time we have i'm afraid to discuss superman we have recorded a immediate reaction supporter special which will be up today as well uh that's the three of us plus amon warman talking about the movie that is going to be available. There's so much happening in this movie. We were only able to cover about 40 % of it. So there will be a second part which will be out maybe next week. We shall see. And then we do have a spoiler special interview as well with James Gunn which will be out in a couple of weeks time which we get into some of the big revelations in the movie.

1:31:02Chris Hewitt:But right now as you can see it is divisive. It's divided this room. It's divided the office. It's divided a lot of people out there. Let us know what you think as well. But please don't shout at us if you think we're terrible. Two stars then for Superman. Superman! Which is in cinemas right now. And on that note, that is it for this week's Empire Podcast. Join us next week for more film-related fun where we'll be joined by Alex Cox, the original host of Movie Drum and, of course, the director of Repo Man and Matt Shackman, director of The Fantastic Four First Steps. Very, very exciting indeed.

1:31:37Chris Hewitt:But until then, until that suspicious occasion, until we meet again, it is time to say goodbye to my three colleagues of such lethal cunning. And Albie. Bye, Albie. Bye. Bye. How was it? Good. Okay, good stuff, Albie. Thanks a lot. We can release Albie. That is excellent. From his torment. From his torment. Alex Godfrey, goodbye. I've been super, thanks for asking. You have been super, man. This has been really, really great. It's goodbye from James Dyer. Ruler of Australia. Son of our jailer. Who is this Superman? It's goodbye from Helen O 'Hara. You've got me? Who's got you? And this is goodbye from me.

1:32:18Chris Hewitt:I want to dedicate this podcast to Andre Silva and Diogo Chata. You'll never walk alone.