Show Vs. Business

SvB #85 - Wakanda Forever

November 14, 2022 Theo Harvey | Mr Benja
Show Vs. Business
SvB #85 - Wakanda Forever
Show Notes Transcript

 Theo and Mr Benja are joined by PacingPete this episode!  They do a pod on all things Wakanda. First they discuss their memories of Black Panther 1  with the Digging in the Crates  Section  [1:56]. Next they cover the News [15:46] on what are the projections for the Black Panther Box Office and Disney Layoffs. Finally the Feature [31:08] is all about the new movie,  Wakanda Forever Black Panther 2 

 

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Theo: Welcome, welcome, welcome to Show Versus Business, your weekly take on pop culture from two very different perspectives. I'm your host, Theo, on a line. I have the man himself, Mr. Benja. What is up my man? 

Mr. Benja: What's up Theo? What is up? I am feeling extra good this weekend. Last weekend I wasn't so awesome. This weekend is much better, so it's happening.

Theo: Let's go. So, yeah, man. Well look, I'm so excited too, because guess what? We got special guests. Let's bring them on. Mr. Pete

Hey Pete

Pete: What’s going on?

Theo: What is going on, my man? Oh, you've been on this pod before? You know, we did the Super long, Super Long Justice League Snyder cut. We've done some you know, Wednesday shows.

So Pete, just introduce yourself again to the audience. 

Pete: Fellas. Thanks for having me on again. You know, usually when I, when I chat with you guys, DC centric and after I get at Wakanda Forever, I had to get a, I had to message you guys, I gotta jump on this and be on this interview.

So first off, I am pacing Pete. That's how I go by on social media. I host a little podcast called Halloween Never Die. Where we talk about the Halloween franchise. So that is me. I'm excited to be here and share my thoughts and, and chat with you all

Theo: All right. Well, as you can tell, this is the Wakanda forever. Wakanda forever Pod man. We are going deep, deep into the Wakanda, Just release the Forever Black Panther, the two movie that just got released this week. And so yes, we're gonna do our normal thing like we normally do. So we're really excited about getting into it. So anything we wanna cover? Mr. Benja? I know you said you were out a little bit and you know, for me this week, just traveling, getting ready for the week. So but look, this is gonna be a quick pause, so we're just gonna get into it, guys. We saw hype, so let's go ahead and get into our first segment, digging in crates. 

All right, for this one, we wanna talk a little bit about our Black Panther One Memories.

And so you know, typically that came out. Oh man, Mr. Benja, help me here. I should know this off the top of my head. Was it 2000 and. My goodness. , 

Mr. Benja: I dunno, 2018

Theo:. 2018. Thank you. I was trying to riff on it, but guess we didn't do it quick enough guys. But 2018 Black Panther one came out. So we're just gonna go around the table and just, you know, talk about our memories.

So Mr. Pete, as a honored guests what were your memories of the first Black Panther when it came out? 

Pete: I really, I really, really liked it. I, you know, I thought Chadwick was amazing as a Black Panther, you know, obviously he passed on and I thought he would've gave us so many good years as T’Challa. It's unfortunate we didn't get to exhaust that potential.

But it was, he was great. Michael B. Jordan was fantastic in that movie. I've always liked Michael B. Jordan in anything he does, and he was just a amazing as kill monger. I just, I, I just remember coming out just feeling like, great. Like that was one of the better Marvel movies I had seen in a long time.

Theo: Yes, yes, yes. Mr. Benja, what about you? What do you remember about Black Panther One? 

Mr. Benja: I just remember the, you know, wanting it, it's like a, it was like a social movement. I was like, this is kind of weird cuz you got this character and, you know, a lot of the, the black community was waiting for Black Panther to show up and finally after all this time, he's really getting his, his due and yes you know, all respect and love to the late Chadwick Boseman, we were like, All right, this guy's gonna do it.

We're liking what he's doing. And, you know, there was so much buzz around about people taking pictures in front of the theater. I remember, I remember I saying, All right, I gotta go out opening night and just check this out. And it did not disappoint in that respect, so just it left a mark on me, just the whole theater experience.

Everybody clapping. I mean, I saw saw far more. Black men and women in, in the Marvel movie that I'd ever seen in before in my life. I was just like, Where have all you come from? It was just very bizarre. And I'll contrast that with this one later. . 

Theo: Yeah, . Yeah. I mean, you know, I just remember it was, I don't know if it was a Super Bowl commercial, but just one, they had the run Jewels step into the spotlight, you know, and that came on and I was like, Oh, sh this is about, they about to do this thing and this got you so hype man.

And then and then, you know, you're right. Then you go, you go see the movie and you just like, amazed, you know, like you said, themes that we never seen in a Marvel movie. I mean, you know, Ryan Cooper, Michael B. Jordan, they, they, they did Creed, they did Fruitville Station together. So there was some, you know, things about, you know, being a Black American.

I mean, be honest with you. I mean there's that scene with Kill Monger and his dad when he goes to the ancestral plane. I actually cried, you know, I teared up on that part, you know just, you know, him being lost and I was just like, Wow. And and then, you know, just the action and then so yeah, I mean that was one of the few movies I saw, like literally four times in the movie theater.

It was so good. , I had to go watch it again and again and I think I seen it like eight times already in my, so it was one of the rare Marvel movies. I seen that up there. Ironman number one, be Honest with You, was up there with me too, cuz that was like a game changer to me. But yeah. So yeah, so it was, like you said, it was a cultural moment.

I think we all stood in front of the poster and did the Wakanda Forever signal and Yeah. But, you know, it's just tragic. I mean, I remember Chadwick Boseman showing up in Civil War and he was awesome in that. And then now, you know, he was great in Black Panther one, so he'll be surely missed, man. But definitely that was just a, you know, awesome, awesome experience.

Mr. Benja: Wakanda forever. 

Theo: Yes, Yes, yes. I mean, I just always remember you knew, I knew, I knew this was gonna be a black movie when they were up on they all doing the little shoulder thing, shoulder back and the fight scene and the musics, Oh yeah, this is getting real, this everybody's, everybody's invited to a cookout, . So so yeah, so it was, yeah, it was awesome, man. So it was a good movie and I think we all were excited to be a part of that experience. But yeah, so look guys, we're gonna go deep into Black Panther two Wakanda Forever.

So before we do that, this is our next segment. What you checking out?

So Mr. Benja let's start with you, man. What is the, the TV show movie? What, what you watching this, What you watching? 

Mr. Benja: Man between Bryant, Andy you Theo. Y'all got me checking out Andor before I wanted to, I wanted to check it out like 12 days before the finale so I could watch it one, one episode every night.

But y'all got me in there checking out Andor it's the most re-watching I've ever done of Star Wars series because it's so deep, Right. Of a show and there's a lot in it. I've got positive things say about it, negative things, but I'll wait till the show ends before I really give my feelings on it.

But, Andor that's, that's the thing now. 

Theo: I love it. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, like I said, I, I, I watched the first show first couple episodes, but man, once they get into that, Pete, I know Pete, you haven't seen, We're not gonna get into the spoilers too much, but Yeah. There's, you know, let's just say prison break.

Once they get into that, I was like, Oh, let's go . So yeah, it is one of those, it's like I said, I, I, Pete, I said this on our previous podcast, but Mr. Benja I think was it Tony Gilroy? Right? He's created this series and he created the Born Identity movies. And so he has a real, or Dan Gilroy, excuse me, and he has a real vision for Star Wars that's totally different than I've seen before.

And it's a more mature version of it, Right. As opposed to maybe Dave Filoni's vision or demand DeLorean and, and stuff like, and Clone Wars. So, I mean, you know, Have you seen those other ones and have you seen Andor and what's your take on it? 

Pete: Yeah, I've seen the first couple episodes of Andor and I really liked it.

I was excited about this project when it was announced because Rogue One is by far one of my favorite Star Wars movies and all. The entire franchise. I love Rogue One. I, I kind of call it, it's funny, it came out the same year as Suicide Squad, which didn't do as well as DC had hoped, and I kind of call low key Rogue One, the real suicide squad.

Cuz if you think about it, they, they, they were. But I love Rogue One so much and I dig what they're doing with and or I, I, I definitely love what Philo's doing with the other part of the universe. But man, I wish we could get more, more and or more Rogue one type stuff. Fleshed out in, in on Disney Plus if they plan on Keep continue, which it seems like they're gonna do, I would most definitely love to see more of that.

Theo: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I mean, you know, I think the next big one I'm kind of hyped about is the acolyte and I wonder it's gonna take a page outta this, right? To be a little bit more, you know, And that's, that's gonna be interesting cuz it's gonna be from Theif point of view, right? And so I'm very curious to see if they kind of follow the same kind of path.

It's, I'm really excited about that. So cuz I mean, you know beyond and or did they have the cute little joy? Remember the first couple episodes, you know, cute little joy, but they got rid of that joy so fast. , . 

Pete: I said, 

Theo: Okay, this is, no, he gone . They always got that one little cute little joy, you know? But that's about it, man.

He, I thought the joy was gone with him on the adventures and all this, Nah, this ain't happen. Maybe they hit the Star Wars 

Pete: quota and now it's like we can do our own thing now, , they. You gotta have one. And, and now we're gonna do our own thing. We're gonna make this actually 

Theo: Disney. You gotta have one joy in every movie and TV show.

Just one . 

Mr. Benja: No, no. I, I've been in creative rooms like this where they're like, Hey, you need to have X, Y, and Z for it to be, And somebody puts up a slide, See, he's in there, all the executives, neither heads. And then it's like, All right, . Now what we were really saying is, All right. So, so that's me and, and or jump to you, Pete, what do you have?

What are you watching now? 

Pete: Well it's been about a year now, but I finally got, I started to check out dope Sick on Hulu, which is Talks about the opioids crisis, kind of how that all started, which is really interesting. You guys should definitely check it out. I've only watched one episode, but it's really sorry about that.

It's really interesting. Michael Keaton's the lead on it and I know he won, he actually won an Emmy for that. And so I'm, I'm curious to keep watching and see where it goes. But besides that I finally checked out Black Adam this past week. And I, I loved it. I thought it was great.

Good action. You know, just a regular, typical comic book movie, lot of fun. Probably would've blown, blown the box off his doors off if this was in the nineties. But we live in a time of social media when people like to rip things up for no reason. And that's kind of why you have, I think, black Adam doing just okay at the box office right now.

So that's just kind of my, my 

Mr. Benja: hot take. That's what it. 

Theo: Yep. I mean, you know, me and Mr. Benette, we both were pleasantly pleased with it. It wasn't, it was anything, It wasn't awful. Yeah. I mean you know, so I, I think, you know, I, I like what they were trying to do. I mean, it was actually interesting interplay between was a hero, was an anti hero.

And I don't think Marva hasn't had that yet. Right. I'm trying to think. I mean, 

Pete: maybe a little, I do that with Naor in Black. Yeah. Yeah. We can get into that a little bit. Yeah, we can talk about that. I don't know, my, my whole thing, I won't get into it super deep, but I, I'm kind of curious, like after this movie, like, does he become a villain more just because I know him through comics, more of a villain, and I feel like in DC the dcu, whatever they're trying to call it now, like, They're trying to have him be more villain or hero.

So I'm curious, like going forward, is he gonna be more of a character that shows up in movies as a villain or, you know, besides with the back. You're 

Theo: talking about Black Adam, right? Black 

Pete: Adam, sorry, yeah. Yeah. Black Adam. Like what? Like what happens like with like, is he gonna do another solo movie as a another?

I don't know. I just like, it's The Rock, but I don't know how much, how far you can keep pushing that before you kind of. Put 'em on a side, especially if they decide to do like some sort of Justice League thing 

Mr. Benja: going forward. Yeah. And if anybody wants to check out our black Adam discussion, we actually have that in the podcast.

So go back to your favorite podcast player. Scroll down a couple episodes and Black Adam. Oh yeah. 

Theo: Black, Black. Adam . 

Pete: They did it. , 

Theo: aka. Skinny Rock. Anyway,

Mr. Benja: it'll make sense later. Yeah. So what's up with you? 

Theo: So, yeah. Man, you know, this is a TV show that got a lot of accolades when it first came out and you know, people were hing about it. And I think, you know, because they introduced two seasons in one year and it was gone for almost four years from the tv, it kind of, kind of petered out.

But if I think it ended great and that, that show is Atlanta it was a serious finale that just aired on Thursday of this week. And man, it went, it went out like it should. I mean, you know, it wasn't anything groundbreaking, but I would just say that the show itself was right. I mean, I, I don't know if you guys watched the first earlier seasons, but people couldn't.

Talk enough about it, right? I mean, there's an episode called Teddy Perkins, right? I don't know if you remember that episode where basically it was a, it was a , it was basically a, a, a take on Michael Jackson, basically, and what, you know, what that means, Fame does to people who that super famous. And and literally Donald Glover was doing crazy things, like showing up at the it was him or maybe someone else that was showing up as Teddy Perkins, all these different events.

And so it just, it became part of the zeitgeist, right? And so it just was one of those things. And then, you know, I, I used to live in Atlanta, and so I was just like, one of those things that's like, Oh, we got a show about Atlanta and, you know, Yes. It was more surreal type of show. It's kind like David Lynchian, you know, with like dream sequences.

And is this real, you know, like a, I don't know if you remember, there was a scene where they were in a club and. Everybody said, Yeah, he got this ghost car and literally the ghost car hit somebody , no one could see the car. It was just like an offshoot joke. And it was like, it was like Atlanta, but just off to the center.

And it was like they, they got that feeling just right. So, so shout out to, since Atlanta down a Glover and the rest of the crew, I know he's moving on to bigger and better things, but I think they did a great job with that show. And so, you know, I hope it gets a little bit more, you know, I think everybody was just tired, so that's probably what it was.

And he just wanted to end it on his terms and, and move. Cool. So that's kinda what I checked out. So I guess you guys haven't watched it or haven't been up on it, so again, it's not getting 

Mr. Benja: a lot of buzz right now. As, as you said, it was far removed. So now I have to come back to it. I'm gonna, I plan to watch it all at once, so 

Theo: I'm not Yeah.

Yeah. 

Pete: Same here. Same 

Theo: here. Good, good, good. Well man, Miss Ben, man, so Oh, and Pete, real quick, I did wanna comment dope stick. I've been meaning to catch that too. Yes. Michael Keaton did win the Emmy, and yeah, I've just been fascinated about this, you know, the opioid crisis and stuff. And there was another guy who ran for I think he won too, ran for Senate recently what was it called?

Hillary Hill Billy. Effigy. I can't, JD Vance, that was the guy's name and he talked about that, about the Appalachian and you know, how people are suffering from that. So and then how the pharmacy, you know, folks came in and, you know, messed things up a little bit. So but anyway I definitely wanna check that out and thanks for the the guy who's gonna play Adam Warlock.

I forgot the guy's name, but he's go, he was in that right? Will Porter Will Polter. Yeah, Polter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's be Adam Warlock, so mm-hmm. . That's right. That's interesting. So shout out to my brother Martin. Met him in Abu Dhabi several years ago. So shout out,

Send

All right, so, hey guys, we're gonna keep it moving. Let's get into the news. All right. News, relevant news stories. So Mr. Benjamin, where do you wanna start? 

Mr. Benja: Well thanks. Things are going as they always do. We got a little more news this week but black Adam, for those of you didn't know it was holding down the box office since it came out and it's been a slow box office season in, in terms of what, what was out there to battling in.

So that's not necessarily the biggest compliment, but Black Adam did in fact hold down the top spot until this week. Did you? Well, we know why, but did you think it was gonna hold it down all this time, Theo? 

Theo: I did. I mean I remember going, seeing Woman King at Woman King had been out for like three weeks at that time.

Yeah. I mean, it was like a ghost town in theaters Right. For like a month and a half. Right. There was nothing. I mean, you know, if you like some horror here and there, I think SMILE was out then. Mm-hmm. , but what was the other horror film? I can't remember. Purifier. Well, yeah, that was on a small level, but that maybe you could talk, you could talk about that Pete

But but yeah, Smile was out and you know, but it was just like I talked to the theater, you know, the folks at the theater and they were just saying, Yeah, we just, you know, waiting for November, December, right. Cuz they gonna have Black Panther and then next month it's gonna be avatar too. So, It's just like, it's, it's like that man, they're live and dying cuz you got, you know, concession stands, you got all this stuff from a business standpoint that they're losing money on.

Cause that's where they make their margins right on, on the food. And so they, you know, they're doing everything they can. Oh, come in and watch you know, some some, some sports, you know, or come in, watch the football game on the bit screen, you know, . So it's like, you know, come, come, come do a church service here with us.

Come on , do a birthday party. You know. So theaters are, yeah, theaters are hurting. I mean, they always kind of did something like this, but like now, cuz they gotta, you know, make it up. So, so yeah. I, I did believe that Black Adam was gonna hold on as long as it could cuz it is a superhero movie. But yeah, Black Panther probably is gonna blow it out.

The water. 

Mr. Benja: Yeah. Speaking of blowing it out, the water, it blow, it's projected to, at the time of this recording, projected to actually I don't have a good projection on it, but opening day came in at 84 million and. That's already gonna just, we, we know it's gonna kill the box office for this, this weekend.

Nobody else is even close. 

Theo: So, you know, you know, I knew it was gonna be a hit, Mr. Bender. You know how I knew how, How'd you know? When you went yesterday, , so this, this gonna be ahead. You don't get outta bed for nothing. and you went literally the, literally almost the first night it came out. I was, Oh wow.

Yeah, man, Mr. Ben goes, 

Mr. Benja: now, now in my, in my seasoned age, I like to, I like to check it out in the morning or the afternoon to just kind of stroll in there, you know, with nobody around and get some nice food. At the Del Taco or maybe a nice, I don't know, I just like to chill that day. Right. kind forever.

Thur Thursday night, man. I, I was just standing around scratching my chin, like, God, dog it, I need to go. So yeah. Thursday night I went and saw it. Not even Friday morning, like, oh, 

Theo: Thursday night. Okay. Yeah, same here. I saw Thursday afternoon with the family we saw at 3:00 PM they had closed school because there was a hurricane coming our way.

Ended up becoming a tropical storm here in Florida. Oh. So. Luckily everything was okay. So I was like, Well, the movie theaters to open, we're gonna go. So we all went at three o'clock. So, you know, so 

Mr. Benja: enjoyed. It's interesting having like a, a hurricane, a big water event right before watching a forever.

That's interesting taker. And yeah, by the way, by the way, very interest if you, by the way, if you've listened this far, we might be dropping spoilers, so just, just be aware of that 

Theo: spoiler. So, yeah. Yeah. Mr. P, any thoughts on the news so far? You know, with black Adam, I know that's, Yeah. D c U guys, so, I mean, you know, D ceu, I mean, what Batman was up there, right?

You know, Matt Re the Batman, right? They did pretty well. 

Pete: They did. They didn't crack a billion I I, which I, I think they wanted to, but, you know, it was the first outing with Reeves and, and Battison. So, you know, I, I mean, you gotta kinda have keep back expectations in check because of the whole like, Snyder thing and, and people having their separate camps and everything and whatever.

But no, I, I thought, you know, black Adam did admirably box office wise for the last few weeks. I mean, there was nothing else to challenge it, so it's not surprising that it, it held up. But, you know, once Wafa were coming out yesterday that just like you knew that was gonna just like, just. Kick it off the, the cliff, so to speak, and, and take that top spot.

And it's probably gonna be there for a while. So, 

Theo: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. The Batman 770 million. Yeah. And I think it was like literally 45 days is back on HBO Max, so squeeze some more money out of that. But yeah, Black added Adam as a November 11th, 143 million just in United States and only 330 million worldwide.

So, sorry, Rock . I don't think that's, But the challenge with these movies, you know, I was listening to is another podcast from Matt, Matt Bellamy. He's to run Hollywood Reporter. He's got a little podcast. He talks about different things and he said, Man, just China man. A lot of these superhero movies, they're losing a lot of money cuz they can't get into China anymore.

China, you know, just like number one, they're shut down because of Covid. But then now they just kind of used Hollywood movies to get people, you know, and they habit going to movies and then now they're producing their own kind of big, big budget movies. So the Tesla would be avatar because that's just one of those that they love.

And so, Gets into China. I'm, I'm, I'm guessing that's gonna be like the biggest movie of the year. That's just my, my prediction. So, yeah. Yeah, Black Adam and, oh yeah. Real quick. I forgot. Andy Circus was in the Batman right as Alfred. So it's funny, Andy Circus, man, he's working more than he is, than Motion Cap.

He used to be the motion cap guy, man. Now he's out in these streets, man. And or Heed, obviously Black Panther one. Black Panther 

Pete: one . He directed Venom two, didn't he? Didn't he, didn't he direct the second Vena movie, 

Theo: right? Yeah. Cause he did the junker book also. Yeah. So, mm-hmm. . Look at Andy Ci. It's come a long way from press.

Yes.

Lord Rings guys. Lord rings. Lord rings. So alright. It's, What else you got? News? Anything else? 

Mr. Benja: So by the way, the the projected for the weekend, I had the numbers mixed up. That's why I didn't wanna say it before. The projected for the weekend for Black Panther two is 180 million. Oh. So yeah, that's gonna be, that's gonna be huge.

So that's the projection for the first weekend. We'll see how it goes from there, but projections are looking good. And past that, you were just talking about getting people back in theaters. AMC is they, they're not done, man. They're, they're trying things and they're teaming up with Zoom to take your network, your networking session or your next meeting to the big screen.

So basically, real quick, the they figured out that, hey, we're not really doing too much during the day. And you know, this whole pandemic's got, got us down with a lot of empty seats and a lot of theaters. What can we do? It's like, well, let's have a big ass Zoom meeting in a theater . And they're, they're pitching it towards companies that like have different offices in different places.

Like you may have your Microsoft offices out in the Carolinas and the Microsoft Office headquarters and somewhere else. And it's like, well, hey, let's just get all these three companies, the major people there. Instead of cramming into a conference room or some janky theater type setup, which I've seen some corporations try to try to put together.

It's like, Hey, just do it in a, in a movie theater and go about your business. Interesting. Right. 

Theo: Yeah, I mean, you know I used to work for Cisco Systems and they did something similar. It's called Telepresence, but they built this big room, you know, it wasn't, you know, a theater size room, but it was, you know, they could fit up to 30 people.

And in theory, these, the screens were bigger and, you know, people go you know, when you saw the speaker via the video screen, that would look like we're standing up and, you know, walking around and the the sound kind of traced you, you know, So the room was really set up to kind of just create this, this experience.

Like you were there in the room with the same person via the video screen. Movie theaters ain't built for that. So I don't know, , why this is gonna work. It's like, you know, it more seems like a, a, a, you know, just a, a. Ceo, Right? He's talking to all his employees in different areas of the country and it is just bi, you know, one direction, right?

It's not Zoom is, we're familiar, is bidirectional, but this seems like it's just more like, Hey, hey troops, this what you're gonna do? And everybody's just like, Okay, I gotta listen to this. 

Mr. Benja: Yeah. I don't know, I don't know if you've heard of that, but how does that sound to you? 

Pete: I don't know. I, so I work, so like so I work for Life 360 and we're strictly work from home.

You know, we have like offices and stuff like I could go to, but you know, working from home's obviously much easier. I don't know how I feel about that cuz like all our meetings are on Zoom. I don't know if I'd want to go to the movie. I love going to the movie theater. I don't know if I'd want to go there just to do a Zoom meeting.

Maybe I don't, I don't know. The draw for me would be the popcorn and the ics, but I don't, like, I, I don't, I, I don't know. This is gonna be really interesting. Like, I get it, They gotta make money. They gotta figure out some way to generate revenue because they're losing a ton of money, people not coming to the theaters.

But yeah, I don't know, man, That's risky. It seems, I don't know. 

Mr. Benja: Yeah, it's like corporate, corporate meetings. The idea of, I mean, there are big brother vibes in there, right? Where it's just like, like Theo is kind of hinting at, if you've got, talk about Microsoft, if you've got. One of the executives big face on the screen kind of saying, Now we are Microsoft, we're going to blah, blah, blah.

Say, do you want that? Microsoft probably wouldn't do that because they're mad, mad that it wasn't them on the screen instead of Zoom. But , you know, they've got Microsoft teams going on. But yeah, 

Theo: Teams, that's, that's, I've been on some team calls. I'm like, What is this now? , I always forgets like, so used to Zoom, so yeah.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Well, you know, I forgot the name of the ceo, amc. I don't look him up in a second, but man, that dude is off the chain, man. He's just wilding out, man. This whatever it takes right? To get amc. Remember, you know, they did the, you know, they were doing NFTs for a little bit, a Adam Iran.

Iran. He's he's off the chain cuz everything he oh, he used to be he's co-owner of the 76 ERs. Okay. So anyway Yeah, this guy, what they, they create their own kind of you know, remember they were talking about popcorn. Remember during the the clubhouse days of the pandemic, they were getting people excited about like, you know, popcorn and of course the, the, the short squeeze, right?

That was part of the whole AMC was up there with Game Stop, right? Where people trying to make money off the short squeeze of emc. So he's just doing anything that he can, He's like using all these different things to just keep AMC in the news. And I mean, you know, , I guess it's working, but you know, we, we, the core, the business is, is definitely, I mean we saw what, what's the name of Cent Mark?

I think they're, you know losing money. I think they filed for bankruptcy. And so AMC is like the top dog, but I think he's hanging on, man. He's hanging on. So, so he's doing stuff like this to either put his name out there or trying to drum up some business interest, something. So kudos to him. 

Mr. Benja: All right, well segueing off of that if we're gonna get into Black Panther soon, but really quickly, Disney made an earnings report, Theo.

And were, Is this Black Panther thing gonna help him out or what's going on with Disney Man? 

Theo: Disney , Bob Chopik. Bobby Bob. Let's talk. Well, the positive thing is they added 12 million new subscribers but it comes at a heavy price tag. They're basically losing almost 1.5 billion, so an operating losses to deliver this content.

So streaming is expensive. , so Oh, yes. As many subscribers as Netflix, Right? Over what, 200 and 240 million or so? But, you know, is it sustainable? That's, that's always a question, right? And now that the Wall Street Journal, you know, the Wall Street is at one time, right? It's all about subscriber growth.

How fast can you grow? But now that the market has changed, people are kind of like, Hmm, is it really about that? Or is it about profitability? I dunno if you notice Netflix and their earnings, they talked about profitability and they were like, Well, we're the only streaming service that's profitable. So, you know, so the question is what's, you know, Disney's gonna do, Disney's fine.

I mean, they make so much money in parks and experiences and other stuff. You know, they, they could sustain losses. Yeah. So. They did announce recently a layoff. And so so Disney, you know, is looking at, you know, how they can cut costs to kind of you know, get rid of some of these losses in on the, on the streaming side.

And also they were what they call the ARPU average revenue per user was so down because they, they were basically giving away for free, you know, And so they're raising prices this month and they got rid of a, a deal they had in India with Star. So they got rid of it? Yeah, they got rid of that.

Cuz it was, it was too low. The Indian they were basically the the Indian country was buying, you know star or the version of Disney Plus out there so they could get access to cricket. And so they were only paying like a dollar, $2 per month or something like that. And it was like they couldn't 

Mr. Benja: sustain that.

Yeah, I thought they were trying to figure out how to subsidize that or something, but I guess it didn't work out. Well, 

Theo: they were smart for them because then the market changed when Netflix, you know, , you know, the stock is down. I mean, it's going back up. So, so anyway, so like Netflix and Disney plus, I mean, Disney's gonna be fine.

I think that, you know, it was smart for them to invest in that. So true story. I was driving to go see my cousin play football down in my, my young cousin down in Fort Lauderdale. And we listened to the Disney story while Disney Man, that dude is a gangster man. . So, so, so you know, one of his first things he's did before Mickey Mouse was Allison Wonderland, right?

And so, you know, he did that and he did Oswald the Rabbit. And the challenge was they stole that from him. And he, he, he, he vowed never again to, you know, let that happen to him. So that's why Disney to this day is very litigious, right? If you try to use their ip, they'll go after you. So I say all to say is they got a hundred years of.

Content, you know, that they can just release on Disney Plus. So, so I don't think they're gonna get out streaming, but I do feel like they need to figure out you know, what's the path to profitability? And I think experiences is one, you know, how can they bundle pro going to the parks with the Disney Plus experience and then also raising prices.

That's always easy to answer. So, so she'll, kudos. Sit in. Yep. So, Mr. Benja, man, so, yeah, I think we're ready, man. This is it guys. We're about to get into it. So let's get into our feature. Well, oh, you got something to. Oh, . 

Mr. Benja: No, no, no. I'm good. I was just going through the notes. I 

Theo: prepared. Yeah. Hype. Hype. So we're gonna get into our feature, the Epic Black Panther discussion.

Let's go. Woo. All right guys, we are about to get into it today. So Wow. Mr. Bencher, you know, like you always do. You wanna give us a rundown where you wanna start? 

Mr. Benja: Well this has been an awesome weekend. I'm just going through Twitter, jumping in the comments, going through some YouTube videos, finding out where the people are at, talking to my boys, checking out all my Facebook friends, seeing what they're talking about, and it's been.

For the most part, pretty damn positive for Wakanda forever. Black Panther two. And we're gonna get into how we, how we felt about it. The things that we want more of, things that we might need some improvements. Wait, some , some some gifts. Cha keys or swag that you may have picked up along. Did you got, Oh, 

Theo: real quick.

I'm showing them a street. Did you guys get some of this swag? They gotta get that swag, man. What's my coin? I'm trying to find my coin . 

Mr. Benja: I ain't got nothing in the fancy gold box like that. What is that? 

Theo: This is, this is too much. I don't know why I spent it, but I had to the kids. It's a light up popcorn box for Oh, that's cool.

Yeah. That's cool. So I had to buy that. My goodness. Yeah. What kinda forever. Which theater 

Pete: did you get that at? Amc. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Nice. 

Mr. Benja: Yo, man, do you gotta break that out for special occasions? 

Theo: Absolutely, man. June

Mr. Benja: you start hearing the drum drums play as you

So yeah. Basically, you know, you guys all know the story. Chadwick Bozeman passed away after his epic performance in Black Panther won in Game and Civil War and the other Marvel movies. And, you know, people were wondering, How's this all gonna work out? Your boy, Ryan Coogler co-wrote and obviously directed this one.

After a series of changes, people weren't sure where the story was gonna go. The fan base seemed divided, and there weren't many Marvel movies really knocking it out of the box at the time. And now we were like, Okay, what's going to happen with this Black Panther movie? There was a lot of thoughts in the air, a lot of feelings about how, how this was gonna go down.

And I, I guess I just wanna start off in general, how are you guys feeling going into this, given the whole situation? I'll start with you, Theo. 

Theo: Well Yeah. Man, I was hype man. I mean, you know I just curious, I, I, I stayed away from spoilers, you know, I just kind of wanna see how they kind of handle it, how they were gonna go into it.

I know we're getting into the movie itself in a second, but I just wanted to go and totally prepared. I mean, we, I think we talked about in this pod about the the trailer that was released when they used No Women No Cry, and they have Kendrick La Laar. Yeah. And that trailer just like, was emotional.

And so I knew going in it was going to be some emotion in it. And yeah. So so yeah, so that was one of the things. So I had to go see it as soon as I could, cuz I didn't wanna get spoiled on anything. So that was my expectation. All right, Pete, 

Pete: You know, I was Genuinely curious to see how this would hold up because, you know, obviously Chadwick had such an impact in Black Panther and, and even in in endgame, you know, in the Infinity War endgame, like his Black Panther was pretty, you know, irrelevant even before you got dusted, came back and he had that.

Great moment where he walks through, you know, such a great moment in end game. But I was really curious, like how would the, how would they respond? How would Kugler handle this? You know, giving pretty much the reigns to the supporting cast and, and really elevating shei and ramono ramono. Like, what would, would these, would they be able to carry this through?

And I, it blew me away, It blew my expectations away, you know, whatever I thought going in. I just were erased by everyone's performance and the story and how it was shot. And I mean, can we just start the campaign for Angela Bassett, but supporting actress and Oscar now? Because her scene where she, where she rips a aqua from her title as general like, This is her performance is probably my favorite performance.

Anyone in any marvel of a movie ever, like, Ooh, she is so good. She is so powerful in that moment. Like to me, she sold, I mean, she was great in Black Panther one, but like I said, this goes back to the direction of Kuer and how he handled this and the story and how he elevated these characters the way he needed to, to carry this story.

And that's why this movie's gonna have legs going forward and why it needs, it's it, to me, it's like the best movie they've done since end. 

Theo: Oh man, it's just hot. Take hot. Take hot take 

Pete: Pete. I 

Theo: love it. . I love it. So, so that's 

Mr. Benja: a, that's a good point. You know, I had never thought about it in the sense of handing the range to the supporting cast.

And that actually ties into the vibe of the movie. And I think it sums up a lot of my feelings about it too, where this wasn't so much a singular Black Panther movie where there's one person you're thinking about as the Black Panther, but we know the you know, the Spirit ba or whatever, the Black Panther spirit is supposed to represent more of a collective community thing.

And I think that's one thing the story really did well, was said, Hey, you know, this is, Culture, community. There are different people involved, you know, and Baku was very involved. You had sure you had NAIA coming back, you know, Acoe and the generals, the guard, everybody kind of played their part and, you know, built up a nice, a, a collective.

So it was. Just really interesting and powerful to me how they, how they pulled that off. Cuz that doesn't always work out well in hero stories where you're traditionally thinking about one person as a superhero. And you know, once again, r p Chadwick Bozeman That tribute at the beginning? Well, well, let's, 

Theo: let's, let's talk about that.

I mean, so, you know, I mean, we all knew it was coming. I mean, they kind of saw, we knew there was gonna be a funeral. They're gonna, I mean, if you didn't see anything, you just knew that. But were you guys expecting going in that that was the first thing they were gonna do? I didn't expect that at all. I mean, literally it was just like, it was dark and then you see Sure.

Running around. He's dying. You're like, What? They're about to do this right. Yeah. And I was like, Damn, . 

Pete: Definitely. Yeah. My theater was silence during that whole time. It was just like, like what's happening right now? 

Mr. Benja: Yeah. No, that was definitely strong. It it was a great way to lead off, I thought.

Because, I mean, you know, one thing they save, you're telling a story very quickly. You want to answer the question that's already in the person's mind. So if someone's thinking about something you're saying, and you're probably thinking this, and then like, Oh yeah, it is. Everyone's going in thinking about Chadwick Bozeman's death, and it's like, you're probably thinking about Chadwick Bozeman, so let's start there.

Theo: Whew. Yeah, they went right into it and I was not ready. I was like, Oh, wow, they're really getting into this. And then, you know, just the whole scene, which is amazing. Just like at the beginning think I was listening to you know, shout out to Beyond a Trailer, Grace. But she kind of made a good point.

It was black. And then you hear Sheri praying, she never, she's a woman of science. She's praying to best, you know, Please let me help him. And it's like real, it's a whisper, right? And she's, you know, then you see her, you know, trying to figure this out, talking to ai and then, you know, she's just trying to solve it.

And then at the end, you know, he said, What's his heart rate now? What's his heart rate? And then the mother comes down and says, it's. And then that's when she know, and they don't even, don't even see the Well, her mother didn't even say anything. She just, you know, she just looks at her and then they go into the, the Marvel, you know screen.

And it's all Chad with Bozeman, and it's silent. It's almost like a moment of silence and you just all, you know, we all just kind of quiet and man, Yeah. That was like, you know, that's, that's how you do it. I mean, I mean, do we kind of talk about the end, not the, the end end, but like, I also like the fact that they did it at the end too.

Mm-hmm. when Sherry had a moment to herself and that's what got me. I'll be honest with you, that's, I mean, the first part was more like a shock to me, but the end when she just like, you know, sitting by the, you know, quiet, you know, all the stuff had happened at the, in the movie and she just got quiet like her mother told her.

And. You know, just the tears came down eyes and you saw all the images of, you know, Chad with Boesman. And then that got me, you know, I was like, Aw man, . So so yeah, so I think man, they did a great job. I mean, and it, I mean, kudos around Kuer, man. That dude, I, I mean, like you said, I mean I think he's probably one of the top filmer cuz every challenge he's has knocked out a park from like his first movie Fruitvale Station, which was, you know, very controversial to trying to bring back Rocky franchise, you know, outta the blue.

And then, then, you know, spearheading the first big, you know, black basically Marvel movie and they had to deal with Chad with both mean all his four movies that he came out with so much challenge and he just knocked out the box. So that dude, I mean, I'll watch anything he'll do, I mean, if he just wants to do like cartoons, I'll watch that.

So kudos, 

Pete: I, I will never, like, not that I have questioned Kugler before, but I'll never. Ever doubt that guy. And like I said, I didn't doubt him before, but anything he releases, I'm gonna go in knowing It's kinda have to. 

Theo: Yeah, I mean you kinda have to, I mean, that was tough. I mean, how do you do that? I mean, you lost your main character.

Yeah. They already had a script ready to go, , and he found out about his, his, his, you know, basically his friend, the guy who helped him create this. Cause Chad was already Black Panther before Ryan Kuer was hired. Right. And so, cuz that was gonna be another director first. And so anyway, so I, I just felt that what he, that, that, that was an impossible task.

And I, I mean, I think, you know, We'll talk about the movie itself, you know, some, some, some things here and there, but, you know, be honest with you, I think everybody's great on the curve because what he had to do and what the cats had to deal with, because even if, you know, you know, they may have gotten through, you know, the initial shock, but I, I guarantee they were all feeling it cuz you're there in the same kind of characters and the action, I mean, you going to have those emotions come on.

Mr. Benja: I mean, when the set, the actual set has a big mural on it and you're having a funeral for a character that's also a person you care about. Like, that's so interesting to me how they, because I, I was on Twitter earlier and they were just, people were discussing how interesting it was to have a real life event kind of blend into the way the movie plays out as well.

So, I didn't even think about that at the time because I was just so in the moment. But after I got out, I was like, Yeah, they just kind of, they did something very new and novel that you really don't see a lot of. Mm-hmm. . I don't know. I don't know if I've ever seen anything like that where it's like, here's a tribute in the movie as part of the movie.

And they're both kind of inseparable now. 

Theo: Yeah, I mean, I mean, words can't describe, you know, so I mean, you know, it, that, that yeah, I mean, and then, yeah, I can't just how they were able to do it, man. I mean, you know, it just the emotions behind it and everything, but did it. They did. And so so yeah, so, you know, after that 

Mr. Benja: but did you, you cry, You didn't.

Huh? But did you cry? 

Theo: Oh yeah. It got dusty, man. It got dusty. I ain't gonna lie. You know, I brought my kids there. Why are you crying Daddy

I'm just like, Oh, oh. You know? So but yeah, I mean, you know, it is just, you know, it, it's such a sad thing cuz it was so sudden, you know, when it, was it April during the pandemic? Do you guys remember? But it was just came outta blue, right? And we were just kinda like, what happened? I mean, you know, and so but yeah, they did the impossible just to kind of, you know, set that as a peace and, and then it got into the story.

So yeah. What happened after that, Mr. Bender? It 

Mr. Benja: was 2020 when you passed. So yeah, it's like once again letting the reality of the emotion and the situation transfer into the story. After we do the tribute, there's. You know, what, what do we, what do we do? How do we carry on? And just like any good story, you can't really let up.

You've got you know, problems going on in your country with you know, with being able to protect your, your country. There. The continuing story of the government trying to get all up in Wakanda's business and, you know, some people don't like the, the way they throw around the term colonizer, but they kind of let you know like, Hey, this is what's happening there.

The government's coming in trying to get what Wakanda has. It's still kind of happening. So that sets the stage for moving along with the rest of the movie. Like, God dog, it you know, you're trying to mourn and now all this is happening with the government. We found out there may be some, you know, vibranium that didn't land in Wakanda.

Where else might it be? So that opens the door for a lot of story right there. And yeah, it just moved everything on towards towards the government and, and leading into, Well, we'll just go ahead and jump there. The I don't, I was about to call them at Atlantans. Don't do that. I don't know if they, I don't know if they have a name, but yeah, we, we get an intro, a soft introduction to another group of people, kind of off in the shadows and it sets the story off.

Great. So I, I was invested in the story heavy at this time cause I was like, Oh crap, here we go. Pete, I don't know how you felt about that whole intro and rolling into the water scenes and the government, but, Oh. 

Pete: Well, as far as the government goes, I thought it was pretty funny how they, how they called him out quickly at the United Nations meeting and like literally brought in their, their team that was supposed to steal the vibranium.

Like, that was hilarious. Like watching the, the Prime Minister of Fra of France like, like put her head down, like totally embarrassed. Like obviously France, they didn't point evolve, they didn't point. I know, right. And it was so funny cuz like, they weren't naming names, but it was, it was like super obvious who, who was.

But as far as the intro to I mean what are we calling, like what are we call, what are we calling this, this group of people, like the Nemore's people. Like what are they, Is there an official name for like, for, for his group of people? 

Mr. Benja: So the, there the city is, if it's supposed to be Atlantis, which it's not, now they renamed it to, to con because they're going with the Mayan influence.

So if it's supposed to be the city of Toons, maybe they're. Tolo Ka. Don't know 

Pete: Kas. Yeah. Oh, well. Well, I, I, anyway, I, I thought it was a cool introduction. I really like the backstory of the name more as a brown person myself. I thought it was awesome to see that Represe representation. Like, I was like, I think that's one of the things that hit me in the middle of the movie.

I was like, Wow, this is, like, it's not like , it doesn't sound silly, but like, white superhero versus white evil guy. Like, it's like people of color, like, this is awesome. Like this is really cool. 

Theo: And so, but more importantly, they're like, you know, leaders, you know, it's like countries, you know, this is like real world stuff about like, you know, they don't just represent themselves as superheroes, but as like, you know, I gotta think about my people.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Pete: And so I think, and, and I kind of, this is where I was talking earlier about the whole antihero thing. Like, cuz I feel like, like I, I, I don't know much about Nemore as, as a, as you know, in Marvel mythology, but I know that he's typically been a bad guy. I dunno if you guys can answer like, is he, does he tread on that antihero versus good, you know, a hero villain like line?

I mean, because it seemed to me. He had the right idea, but like he was going about it all wrong. Like he wanted to kill basically everyone on earth and just rule earth. And I'm not saying like that was good, but I'm like, I, I understand where he was coming from, but I'm like, That's not how you do it. Cuz even Sure.

He was like, No, we're not doing that. Yeah. 

Mr. Benja: Well historically name war's always been kind of a jackass leave us alone, you know. Oh, okay. Okay. If you, if you see me coming to the surface, I'm gonna punch you in the mouth and something bad's gonna happen. 

Theo: Yeah. He don't really, Yeah. He's like, Don't mess with me and don't, I won't mess with you, kind of thing.

Right. It's like a was right. You know, don't, don't, don't store up the, you know, I'll leave you alone, but you come, come my way. It's going be something. Don't start, no, won't be something you want this smoke kind of thing. And yeah, he's always connected to the Fantastic four. So that's another thing.

Cause he's always had a little for Sue Richards from the Fantastic Four. And so, you know, he's you know, he's kind of hunting, know, it's kind of, and then I think he was one of the first. Here it was called the Submarine Mariner, I think. Yeah. Sub Mariner. Yeah. Back in the day. Yeah. So he's one of the first marble ones that kinda came around, but those wings on his feet, they always existed.

Right. 

Mr. Benja: So while we're on Na War now more no love. I loved, I loved the way they put that name out there. Yeah. No love. He's got no love for y'all, man. Just no more. Yeah. Love it. The. His representation, his his style. I couldn't totally get it from the trailers and I needed to see the movie to understand it.

For those of you who, I don't know if you agree with me or not, but I thought, I thought no more Na Moore killed it just mm-hmm. and I am now a fan of ankle feathers. I was totally , I was totally, you know, dropping them on ankle feathers. I was just like, I don't, I don't care to see that. That's goofy. That's corny.

I came out of the theater like, yeah, bride need some ankle feathers. Just to just to get across the parking lot, you know? 

Theo: I mean, that was, that was pretty dope. How did he moved in the air man? And just like you know, it was like he could just stand on air almost. Right? And I never thought of it like that, so, you know, and he could move, you know, step around and, and so, yeah.

That, and then, you know, they finally hinted, you know, he is a mutant, you know, and so they just like put it out there. So it's, it's a weird kind mutant case because basically his people drank this herb and they changed themselves and he's also mutant, he's changed people, but it is what it is. Yeah. 

Mr. Benja: I don't know.

That totally makes sense to you. I, I, 

Theo: not really, but I, I'm just 

Pete: gonna go with it. , is that, is that their way of forcing the mutant thing into the mcu? Is that their way of. Injecting. Well, they, they 

Theo: said it before. Miss Marvel. Miss 

Pete: Marvel. Yeah. Yeah. Know. They said that too. 

Theo: Yeah. But it's like, yeah. I mean, they're trying to seed it more and more in OB obviously, but and he is technically supposed to be the first mutant, right?

Mr. Bender from Yeah. Yeah. Oldest. 

Mr. Benja: I mean, he's the oldest one around. So between No apocalypse would be the first apocalypse is in the weird Yeah. Apocalypse. That's 

right. 

Theo: Uhoh. Look at you. Oh, you know your Marvel. Look at Mr. Beak. . I'm more X-men 

Pete: than, than everything else though. Yeah. . 

Mr. Benja: So I believe that that Naor was the, the first mutant in terms of them putting him out there as a character.

Like, Hey, this is a character. But if you talking chronologically, apocalypse would be the first music. Yeah. Because longer so. Mm-hmm. there, there, there's that. But yeah I think that Marvel's looking to do a bit of. A reasoning behind mutant. It's not just this weird accidental thing. Maybe it's the fact that, you know, you've had vibranium in the water all this time and it's affecting the ecosystem somehow.

You know, maybe they're gonna use that as their way to have a reason for mutant instead of, because all this time we never had a reason. It was just like, Oh yeah. Mutant just a weird mutation somehow. Mm-hmm. and we never questioned it. So that's a volution as 

Pete: they put it, in in the original X-Men 

Mr. Benja: movies.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I'm not, I'm, I'm, I'm not mad at that idea. I think that'll, I think that's, that'll serve somehow. But yeah. How did Miss Marvel get it? How did. 

Theo: Na more actually what they called the Yeah. They, they don't wanna introduce the inhuman, Right. The was the TerraGen mist . They didn't wanna, they didn't wanna go into that with Miss Marvel, so he just threw mutant on that.

But I think he is a mutant for his people because of all his people. He can breathe air. Right. And he can fly so, and super strong. Right. So, so I guess that's what they're trying to say, that, you know, even among his people, he is a, Cause remember they all had to use that breeding apparatus Yeah. When they were on the land.

But yeah, I, I, anyway, I just hot take, I mean, not hot take, but I just, the, the, I guess what's the, what's the word? The gall, the , the imagination that Stanley had. Just say, Hey, you know what, you know, fuck all that explosion shit and all that. Nah, they're just mutants. . That's why they're superheroes.

I was like, Okay, they're just born this way. , . I'm tired of thinking of a spider explosion. Gonna our space cosmic way. Nah, no, they're just born this way. Okay. X-men . 

Mr. Benja: So anyway, yeah. So we, we got, we got the, the new, this mutant, I was about to say the new mutant. So we have this mutant out here causing havoc, breaking things.

And this sets up just a great tension between you know, the US government, the Wakas and now this new third party, you know, the toons. And it went through the store. I, I know we don't have too much time to spend on every, every little, little bit of this, but I really like the way they set them up, not.

Pure hero, villain. Mm-hmm. . And you've got this whole story now that's basically, Hey, here's something we want, here's something they want. Mm-hmm. , you've just got these, these different parties. How do you think this whole story played out played out to you? I mean, did it, did it all work? Were you missing some things or did it just give you everything you needed?

Pete, who are you talking to? Oh oh, I'm Jamie Eman jumped in. Come 

Pete: on, man. You know I , I, I thought the story worked. I, I like, like I said, I loved the backstory. I thought Nemore had a clear vision as to why he wanted things the way he wanted and, and why he wanted to stay away from the surface, surface people as he called them.

And, and you know, I, I just, I mean, he was a man of his people and, and wanted to protect them and, and was gonna do any, any, you know, just like Ramono was gonna try to find Sure, you know, by any means necessary. Nemore was gonna do what he felt was right. You know, and then, you know, adding the US government obviously, I think is always a, a funny little thing, you know, cuz you know, they always have their hands in everything.

And of course they have their hands trying to find the vibranium, which is. It's so funny watching the whole, like Martin Freeman and Julia Lu drive's characters, kind of like navigate that kind of subplot going on. 

Theo: Real quick, before we get to that, that was the other kinda, Oh, sorry, sorry. Surprise. Yeah.

That we saw Julia Lou Louis Dryfus showing up as Valentina, Allegra de Fontain, mm-hmm. , which we, we learned was a former wife of, of agent. So, which was interesting. So did we, Is that Cannon or ? I dunno, Its, it's Now who knew? Yeah. But she was, so, so for those that don't know, she's showing up and she's gonna bring, you know, bring together the thunder bolts.

Right. Which all mm-hmm. , she kinda showed up in what's it, the captain and wind Captain Black America. What do we always came with , The 

Mr. Benja: Captain. Black American Falcon . 

Pete: Yeah. 

Theo: Captain.

Oh man. Captain American. And yeah, yeah, it does. But yeah, she showed up there, right? And then Black Widow. Right. So she's kind of recruiting as like mm-hmm. , you know black ops team or of all these pseudo superheroes. And so she shows up in, in. In this movie Wakanda forever. So she's kinda like, you know trying to, you know, is inferred, I don't think she says outright, but she's controlling, trying to get access to, to the vibranium.

So so it's gonna be interesting to see where this goes with that. So, but she was good, you know, lightening it up and so kudos to her. Did you guys receive, 

Pete: did you guys ever see Beep the 

Theo: show? Of course. Yeah. I love that show. 

Pete: I love hilarious how I thought she was just basically her Selena Meyer character, just like super watered down to, to, to this.

I was like, Oh, she's just Selena Meyer. But I thought it was hilarious the way she was, that character. So, Cause we got to see, this is probably the most we've seen of her since she's come in, right? We, we've only seen her in, in spot scenes, like never this long of a, of in, in the 

Mr. Benja: movie. Right. And with the purpose too, so.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. 

Theo: Good point. Yeah, she had an agenda, so so I think kind of making her kind of like Vilo Davis character, mm-hmm. , Amanda Waller, I think. Yeah, I think that's kind of like their. What they're trying to do here. 

Mr. Benja: You know, with everything out here you can say DC did it first. 

Theo: Yeah, they did.

Pete: They did a lot. Things 

DC 

Theo: did do first, they just don't do it as well. . 

Mr. Benja: I will, I will. No, I I will take my shot that the Aquaman visuals. If, if you could have had some vi I see they tried, but this did not hit the Aquaman visuals. Sorry. Gotta say it. Aquaman. That's fair. Beautiful scenes. I'm like, man, and, and we had the avatar trailer before Black Panther.

Yeah. I was like, Man, we're gonna see some beautiful water scenes. And I was like, that was alright. 

Theo: Yeah. You weren't oppressed with the water scenes at all. I mean, it was 

Pete: okay. It was okay. Like, like when she, when he introduces surey to the city for the first time, it was nice. But whereas it's like, it's nice.

I think Aquaman is like more majestic and more you know, everything is more colorful and, and you know, like, and, and, and Atlantis is way more visual versus what, you know, what we saw in, in the Black Panther. Yeah. 

Mr. Benja: Good point. Yeah. But nobody cares because that box office is about to ring em. Boy. Yeah, that's true.

Pete: That's a good 

Mr. Benja: point. 

Theo: What what about the new, 

Mr. Benja: other new character? Yeah. You wanna talk about her? Yeah, that's where I was about to go. Re re Williams. Re 

Theo: re My girl. Re re . Yeah. And that's pretty much how she was introduced. 

Mr. Benja: Go ahead. Go ahead and take that one. You go ahead and take that one. Tell us. 

Theo: I mean, you know.

Yeah. It's just, you know, I don't know the character as well, but I guess she's some hood character. I mean, you know, I'm just gonna say it, it's just like, you know, which I'm not, I'm okay with that. I thought the actress did a great job. She was kind more like the light part of it. Right. But, you know, super smart.

I don't know anything about the character at all. I'll be honest with you. I usually, I'm pretty good about this stuff, but I liked the way she did with it. I mean, you know, given what she had to do. But it does seem like, hey, you know, this is you know, Ironman kind of rip off and we're gonna try to do something different with it.

But yeah, she was like, you know, straight up, like, you know, Hey , you know, let's go. Hit me up, hit me, hit me up later. You know, that's cap, you know, just everything. You just, you know, thinking about what the millennials are doing right now, that's, that was her 

Pete: character. I, I, I wanna ask you guys, what do you think of the fact that.

Cause I don't know her, I don't know. I know she's an original character from the comics, but I don't know her connection beyond that. So I don't, you know, I don't, I'm not poking too many holes in this, in, in Waka fabric, cuz I love, I loved everything about it, but the only whole, the only hole I will poke is the fact that I, I, I was waiting for like a, a Tony Stark reference.

Like, like as far as the you know, as far as like the how, how she was like, I'm forgetting the, I'm losing my words here, but 

Theo: protege or like, 

Pete: not protege, but like how she was like Ironman. Like, I, I just find it hard to believe with Tony Starks being such a huge character in this universe.

He saved the world and she's doing kind of a similar thing. Yeah, like I get it that her, like she built stuff with her dad who was an engineer and she kind of got her influence, Oh, that's the word, influence. Like I kind of hard find it, hard to believe. Like there, there was no connection to what Tony's cause she's doing another Ironman suit.

So it's like, you know, I was waiting for her to say, oh, I was kind of influenced a little bit by that, but the rest of it came from me and my dad's connection building things. Yeah. I was kind of waiting for that and it never came. That's all. 

Mr. Benja: If that was the movie, I would've been pissed by that. But she was a side character kind of there for the humor, so it didn't bother me that much.

You know, they did mention that when they broke into her little compound where I don't, I don't know how a 19 year old MIT student has this much money for , this kind of 

Theo: compound. Well she did build the what? The metal machine that found Verium, what's it called? Vibranium. So she must have got paid something

Mr. Benja: You know what I. As that, as that was happening, that was the only time I actually got taken out of the movie because I started thinking, I was like, Wait a minute, Why didn't they just say that it came from that grant that Tony Stark put out? Exactly. Why didn't, you know, Why didn't they say that she was an intern in the, you know, Tony Stark?

That would've made sense. Yeah. You know, where you're like, Oh, it's a Stark Tech intern. Cuz they did mention Stark Tech and they did mention that Hey, it's an Ironman suit, and it just seemed kind of outta nowhere. So maybe those bits of information got cut out because it was such a long movie. Yeah.

But that was something I would've wanted to see and only time I got taken out of the movie was trying to put together her story. Yeah, 

Pete: like I said, I mean little poking holes, but that was it really. 

Theo: Yeah. Do you guys believe that they were gonna introduce Namar in the, if Chad where Bozeman had survived or, you know, lived on?

Because it does seem like it was, that was seem like was gonna be part of the storyline. They may have just had to change a, you know, a few things of course. But it does seem like that was always gonna be a part of it. I don't know what your thought 

Mr. Benja: I think Naor is, has been in the plans for a while, but was that going to be this story?

That's a good question because I know that Black Panther has a lot of things to work out with Captain America. I know he has a lot of things to work out with just fighting against the US government and people tried to get into Wakanda. There's also internal struggles, right? There's, there are, there are stories where there are other warriors within Wakanda who are like, All right maybe Kill Monger was right.

Let's push back on that. So there are several different storylines that could have taken. But I think you're right. Right when we heard about Chadwick Bowen's passing, I think Naor really jumped to the forefront as, this is the story we're gonna go with. I think that's where that came from. Yeah. That's 

Theo: why it seems a little for stuff.

Yeah. 

Pete: I was following some spreads and, and I'm, I'm curious, apparently there's another script out there. I don't know if this is true or not, that dealt with. It's, it's not, it's not, I don't know if it's the, if Nemore is the main villain, but it dealt more with the blip and how that affected Wakanda when, when he was gone.

And it, and it is also something in play where they would've recast Black Panther. So I'm kind of curious what that would've been, because obviously it's a completely different story than what we got. But I'm just, just outta sheer curiosity, I'm wondering. That would've been like had they had gone with, with that idea.

I mean, I'm curious what you guys think, too. Do you, like, do, do you, are you curious as to if they would've done a recast of Black Panther? Is that even a thought or, or you're happy with, with what transpired? 

Theo: Well, we can talk about the end later. You know, I think they have a vision for what that is, but Yeah.

You know, we're bearing the lead a little bit. Like Sure. You know, So as the, I mean, you know, just get said she's the new Black Panther. I mean, you know, what do you guys think of you know, the character, you know her as the Black Panther? I mean, it is canon to the comic books. You know, his sister did take the man on, I think we all suspected as such, especially last couple trailers where they showed, you know, a female, obviously a female in the in the Black Panther suit.

So did we like her portrayal? Do you know her arc? 

Mr. Benja: To me, I, I was concerned that it would be contrived. A lot of these types of stories where ideas or some executive mandate or social pressures seems to make something that it seems to make something where something shouldn't really exist and it gets shoehorned in, right?

Mm-hmm. , So I thought they were, I thought they were going to fumble it a little bit and just kind of hope the people would accept it. But the way they ran the story where you actually started to take this goofy little scientist sidekick a little more seriously, where, you know, you start seeing her having arguments with her parents, you know, you see it, you know, trying to push away from people like Baku who are trying to help her.

You see her just at all these different crossroads and no one really to talk. You know and then that gave her kind of a little motherly role herself when she met up with re re. So it's kind of like all these different things and they're, I don't wanna say centered by, but they're, they're all surrounding Shri.

So as the story played out, I was like, This is working out. This is totally great. I, I, I get the character, I see how it's playing out and my ideas of a re. that might have worked, but I think that would've left a less realistic watching a Marvel movie. Right. I think that would've left a less realistic taste in my mouth.

So I'm, I'm a total I don't wanna say convert cause I really never on a side, but I'm a total believer in what they've done now. I wanna see where they take it in the future. And they definitely leave the door open for other people coming in as Black Panther, So. 

Theo: Mm-hmm. , I mean, they, they've kinda hinted at that it's a mantle Right.

That people, you know, pass 

Mr. Benja: on. Yeah. And that's for every property. Now in general, they want mantle. 

Theo: Yeah. Cause you know, they wanna keep paying, you know, , Tony Stark money Right. To actors. So, Oh, look at you. Robert Downey Jr. 

Mr. Benja: Yeah, that's, that's funny. Cause hey, Don't make us don't make it sure you, you know, get you outta there.

Just , you know, we can write, we can write a story without you and we'll just pass the mantle on. 

Theo: Well, I would just say this with Latisha Wrights you know, portrayal and then obviously the, the, I mean, you know, shout out to Grace again, but from beyond a trailer. But it's, it's obviously you know, the five cycles of grief that she went through in the movie.

Right. You know, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, then finally acceptance. And so I think that was the spine of the movie. Her, her growing into the mantle of the Black Panther was her getting into, you know you know, dealing with grief. Right. Unimaginable grief. And I mean, you know, getting the spoilers here, you know, the fact, and to your point, you're right man, Angel Bassett killed it.

That scene with Coer Man, I am the strongest woman in the nation and my family is dead cuz she had thought. Sure he had died that time. Yeah. That such a powerful moment. Who 

Pete: was 

Theo: it? Man? My god. Oh man. She killed it, right? He said, You get outta here. I told you not to take her. And she was just like, You're vanished.

And you could feel it. I mean, that, Yeah, you're right. She should get a, She went full 

Pete: mama bear and like, just, that was a class. Acting 

Theo: is what that was. What is it? Just let Angela Cook, man. Just let it cook, man. Just let her do it. So yeah, so, but then, you know, spoiler, you know, she dies in this movie, Right.

And, you know, trying to say rere and yeah. And then that hit me too. I was like, Dang, man, this movie is, And then literally she was wearing the same thing, you know, with the earrings and the white cloak. And that was a cloak she couldn't burn throughout the movie. And so it was just like she had, I mean, Man, they just put, I mean, that's the hero's journey, right?

You go through the ringer as a hero so you can merge as somebody greater. And, and you know, I think she did that. And so and then, oh, since we're talking about her arc, I love that scene when she went into, you know, they finally took flower and she went into the ancestors. And so who we gonna see? Oh, gonna see it.

I was like, Oh, they gonna do chat with Bozeman. You know, Bozeman, what's gonna happen? Cause I didn't hear any rumors. Did you guys hear any rumors about anything 

Mr. Benja: like this? This one caught 

Theo: me by surprise too. Yeah, that. They show kill monger. So what'd y'all think about that? 

Pete: I, I kind of heard rumblings, well, not rumblings, Okay.

But I, I had kind of seen, well, it was more speculation because I remember people, you know, the speculation began with who's gonna be the new Black Panther, you know? And obviously most people were, were guessing, was gonna be sure, which we all founded. It was, But the question was, was she gonna have a mentor?

Was somebody, you know, when she goes through the whole process, she's gotta see somebody. Obviously it's not gonna be Chadwick who's she gonna see? And a lot of people were speculating that it would be Michael B. Jordan, which would've been a nice surprise. So when I saw him, I was like, Oh, that's cool. Like, it was, it was still a surprise, but I know people were speculating on who it would be that would kind of lead her in that direction.

So that was cool. I thought. Really nice touch. 

Mr. Benja: Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was a total thing of like, right when the scene started happening, my mind started racing like, Okay, wait a. Wait a minute. Hold on. , are they, Cause I knew she wasn't totally into the mode of being the Black Panther, and she wasn't totally there yet in spirit, so I wondered if they were going to, you know, do like some, you know, she's alone by herself or the ancestors are far away and she can't reach them.

There's some chasm or something. I didn't know what they were gonna do and yeah, when, when Kibar showed up, I was like, perfect. She's in, she's in an effed up state. That's a great way to play it. You know, get some tough love from kil monger and get your ass back into the real world. Keep the story pushing.

I loved it. 

Theo: Yeah. And it's, you know, rumblings. Latisha write the, write the actress, she had some issues just, you know, she got injured on set and there was a whole covid thing, you know, with her. And so, so I don't know if that was some of what she brought to the park, cuz she was very in her whole, Cause remember first movie she was full of joy.

She was a comic relief. Yeah. And so it is like, I think she cracked a joke maybe once during the whole movie. And so which, you know, which fit the tone. But it was like, I think her experience on the movie, you know wasn't pleasant don't, needless to say so. Well, yeah, 

Mr. Benja: you gotta think, people still know her as the girl who says, what are those , You know, So if they're, they're hearing about her being Black Panther, it was just kind of like, Ah, man, I don't wanna see that.

And I think as I can tell from the people in the comments and in YouTube, it's what, that's kind of the error that's going around. So I think people really need to see this to understand it. 

Theo: Oh, they're not accepting her as a Black 

Mr. Benja: Panther. I mean, just in your, in your head space, it's like, Mean that corny girl's gonna be Black Panther.

Now how is this gonna be a movie? It doesn't make sense out of context. Right. Cause Yeah, 

Theo: yeah, yeah. I mean, well, you know, and the other, the other thing I heard about it was that it, they kind of emasculated men a little too much. I mean, between Umba, I mean, you know, he's, he's more a comic relief than anything.

I mean, you know, so he's not really doing much of anything. And then Martin Freeman, you know, he's basically everything he's in, he's being emasculated. So I get it. You know, we got strong black women. We've never seen that. We got four black women superheroes, 

Mr. Benja: but, you know, you know, Val even put your boy in handcuffs at the end, you know?

Yeah, no, exactly. 

Pete: It's just like, That's right. , you 

Theo: know, So, you know, I get it, you know, people are, but you know, I, I was just like, man, We're not gonna see this, you know, pretty, you know, I mean we just, Well, you know, we saw what's it the, I dunno if you saw that Pete I saw, or Mr. Bender, but the woman King that was awesome with Vila Davis.

So, you know, I'm glad we're seeing more representation and then obviously from the Mayan side, right? We have, you know, great actors, you know, who, you know, represent the country, who, who, you know, they were, they were imposing too, I can't remember their names, but the, the one who played his, the right hand and the left hand, they were both good man.

And you know, having the presence, you know, doing that, their scenes with Naor. So so yeah, I mean, just have a rep representation, you know, was really important. But, you know, they didn't have to lessen , the presence of other people. Right. Just to highlight, you know, the. 

Mr. Benja: Yeah, So that, that was definitely strong.

Definitely worked. And as Rip Taylor he actually, I actually got a chance to speak to the old comedian Rip Taylor once in my life, and he actually, I actually asked him like, Hey, how do you do X, Y, and Z when you're trying to create something? And he's like, Look, dog, if it's good, it doesn't matter.

It'll just plow through all that other nonsense. I was like, Well, yeah, well what about, he's like, If it's good, it doesn't matter. . And he was right. I mean, you know, it's just like that could, that saves you from everything. So I think that this movie did that. Real quick let's jump back over to what you were saying Theo, about name, war and representation.

Pete, you know, let us know. Let this whole, this whole Mayan thing, how did that hit you? I want hear it from your perspective. Cuz that was, it was strong for me. And I was in, I was honestly in a theater of Mexicans out here, and it was the greatest thing. I was like, First Black Panther. It was a theater full of black people and my mom, moms and aunties and stuff.

I'm like, hey. And that was it. Theater me. I was like, Hey, . It, it was great. It was great feeling. So tell us. It 

Pete: was great. It was great. I mean, you know, like I said earlier, like it wasn't like, you know white superhero versus white, bad guy villain. It was, it was people of color and, and I thought it was awesome, you know, and, and, and I think it was just the way that Nemore was portrayed too.

Like, I liked his character. Like I did not hate his character. I loved the story behind how his people came to be, you know, the, the Mayan culture. Like, you know, they're injecting that in, obviously getting away from the Atlanta storyline. And I, I think I loved it. I just, I, I want more of that. Like, I think that's what I came away from wanting more of this, of this, of these characters.

More of, of that representation too. I mean, leave it to the Black Panther franchise to start, you know, making all these things relevant when really, they probably should have been relevant years ago. But it's just the way Hollywood works is the way that what is, you know, why we're getting these things so late.

So yeah, I, I complete, I loved everything about that. And then even the way they handled the, the final battle between Sheri and, and, and Naor, like, you know, they kept them alive, which I figured they would do. But you know, they, they kind of left it open to see like where he could go and the rest of the, of the mcu and I'm, I'm excited to see like where that, where that path takes us.

Theo: No, I dug it. Yeah. Yeah, I dug it. I mean, the fight was good, you know? Yeah, they did a good job, man. I mean, it was more like, you know, hey guy, you know, they're both on the ship together. Hey, it's the truth. Hey, stop fighting . It's like, Oh wow, that's anti-climatic, you know? But no one fell off a bridge and slow motion or

Yeah. Oh gosh. Exploded. You know, just, it was just like, eh, you know, let's just, yeah, for our people, let's just stop. So they stopped. 

Pete: And so, and also, I just wanted to let you guys know I listened to the entire Black Panthers, the Wakanda Forever soundtrack. It's fricking amazing. You guys need to check out, like, and it's all like, it's not, it's like all in different languages.

Like it, it's representative of the movie and of the people and the cultures. Like, it's it's fantastic. I think Rihanna's song is the only one, might be the only one in English. The rest of it is all in different, like languages I thought was super awesome. 

Mr. Benja: Nice. Yeah. Speaking, that's an interesting detail and I think we can jump to some details and interesting bits here throughout the, the, the movie.

I really like the way they played up languages and cultures. There's a lot of little connections, like you were talking about the French government, and lo and behold laps character is often, you know, Haiti. Yeah. You know, she's often Haiti hanging out. I'm like French colonization that theme once again, she's out there doing her thing on the underground.

But you know, when they had the, all, all the characters talking and doing their different communications, they would switch up the colors of the SubT title. I don't know why. I thought that was a really great detail. Oh, they did it? Yeah. Like how they were switching languages. Mm-hmm. here and there.

Mm-hmm. . So certain people understood something and certain people didn't. It was some really interesting wordplay they were doing with the different languages of the, At Atlantans. The Wakas English, Haitian 

Theo: Mexican. Yeah. I mean Spanish, Excuse me. Yeah. Yeah. So they, I mean, Yeah, that was good. I like NA's character.

She's, I remember she was in Korea. She's speaking, you know, Korean, and so it's just like she's a spy. So that's what she does, man. She's in these streets. knew what's up. She said, Call the spy when you need somebody. Right? Go find my daughter. 

Mr. Benja: Well, yeah, when she, when she was talking to the old lady and her her subtitles changed color and her, her language obviously, but if you weren't catching that, the subtitles changed color.

And the old lady was like, Oh, you know, you know the language. Who are 

Theo: you? Yeah, man. So yeah, man, I mean, you know, overall what do we think about the movie, you know You know, did the, Well, I mean, you know, they, they did leave it open like we kind of hinted at you know, we stayed for the end credit scene.

You know, it's very sad, you know, like I said, it just ended with her Sure. You know, on the beach kind of crying and then had that nice Rihanna song playing over. And then no one left in the theater. My theater, I don't know about you guys, but we suspected there was gonna be something else. Cause you, I don't know if you remember Ramon the Queen, she had mentioned.

You know you know cha you know, left something out, right? And so I was like, Oh, you know, Marvin never leaves a thread just hanging. So I was like, Oh, this, this is gonna be something else. And it's revealed that Tala had a child and so, and his name Da Prince Tagala. So there you go. They have a pathway to the future, so sure it can still be Black Panther, but then, you know, when this dude kid goes up, is he 10 now?

Cha. So what do you guys think about that as the future for, for the Black Panther franchise? 

Mr. Benja: I mean, when you need to wrap back around to it in, you know, about a decade or so, then you just got the, It's, it's, it's perfect timing. I mean, that's, that's a great little seed to plant. I, I, I loved it. . 

Pete: Yeah, it was, it was awesome.

It was obviously a great way to honor Black Panther and Chadwicks to Cha character. And you know, what about, I'm a big kind of bookends and movies, and that was a hell of a bookend. It was to do that. And you know, it, it's, you know, like you said, like, you know, phase what 10. We'll see maybe we'll see the new Prince Ella, Black Panther popping out, taking the baton from, from, Sure.

But I, I, I think it's 

Mr. Benja: great. I loved it. And another little quick Easter egg if you didn't catch the historical reference to the guy's name, Tucson, Tucson Overture Haitian Revolutionary went around kicking that ass being a revolutionary for Haiti against you know, the friendship or whatever. And that whole thing.

You can look up the history books about that. But once again, a reference to colonization. The French the, the, the government of France being a problem that they showed in the beginning trying to come into Wakanda. Good for it. So a lot of interesting connections and things they're saying there. 

Theo: Shout out to, Right man.

You man, man, shout out. You're right, man. This, there's like three themes that were booked in by the end. Right. It was like the, you know, the French, right? Like you said, it was the the, the. Of the cha. Right. And the secret baby, and then her grief. Right. You know, they kind of booked in that, Wow, that's good , that's some damn good storytelling

Pete: Mm-hmm. . 

Theo: So anyway yeah. So overall, I guess, you know, look, we highly recommend, I recommend it. I don't know about you guys, but I just thought it was phenomenal on me. You know, I mean, I guess I, you know, I am great a little bit on the curve, but I mean, even, I mean, it was just an unimaginable thing that he had to, he had so many boxes to check and, and one of them was just like, how would you kind of fill that void?

But, you know, I think he did it with flying cutter colors and I think it's, you know, moving on to the next phase and you know, I think we're gonna get Disney plus series about the Wakas and mm-hmm. , what they're doing. And and so, so that should be interesting. So so yeah, I'm there for it. So Wakanda forever, man.

Great. Great. Yeah. Any thoughts, any final thoughts on that? 

Mr. Benja: I didn't like how they tried to shoe in Iron Man a coer, but that's a . I was like, What is this? They, they made it look like a blue beetle too. I don't know if they were trying to dig on DC or whatever, but I don't know what that 

Theo: was. What were they called?

Midnight What? I forgot what they called her and the other. Mina what's her name? Michaela Cole. That's a great actress. I don't know if you've seen some of the stuff she's in, She's always shows up and she had a show this made Assure you on HBO Max at the beginning of the pandemic. Oh, is that okay?

Yeah. Phenomenal show. And then back in the day she did some crazy show. It's on Netflix, but she's, you know, phenomenal, you know, very small part though. But you know, she was also one of the midnight, I forgot what they called it, 

Mr. Benja: Midnight? Midnight Angels. Midnight Angels, Yeah. Yeah. I don't know when they showed up exactly in the story, but they've been in the comics before.

They're, they're connected to Dr. Doom and stuff like that. So there is a deeper cut connection there, but it just threw me off. And if you don't know anything about them, like I don't know much about them. It just kind of, it was just kind of weird, but 

Pete: it kinda reminded me of the Blue Girl and fifth element.

A little bit . I was like, it took, it took me to the . I was like, Oh, okay. That's interesting.

Mr. Benja: Speaking of Emasculation, I was wondering why Umba, who's voice when he was doing the, was all high pitched, Like, oh, oh, was I was like, right. Minor notes, but overall you're right there. I 

Theo: mean, he was, he was there for comic relief. I mean, he was really, Yeah. I mean, you know, and some, you know, sense of like, you know, gentleness here and there, but Yeah.

Yeah, , that's sad. Could have been bigger, could 

Mr. Benja: have been bigger water and we killed the Fishman end of story, you know, . Yeah. 

Theo: So but yeah, so I guess you both loved it or had any thoughts that overall highly recomme. 

Pete: Like I said, start the campaign for Angela Bassett now, please. Let's just do it. . 

Mr. Benja: Yeah.

That's awesome, dude. Solid, solid movie. It remained relatively self-contained where a lot of movies now are, you know, Easter ratified and you can't really concentrate on what's happening on screen. This was the, the movie to talk about, Hey, we have an idea, a concept, and we're gonna go with it. I can definitely see myself rocking with multiple viewings of this even at two minutes, 41 seconds.

I mean, two hours, 41 minutes. Excuse me. 

Theo: That was a lot. Yeah. when you get a 10 year old and a six year old. Yeah. I had to . I mean, you know, I mean, they got it, but it was like some parts that was a little bit 

Mr. Benja: slower. Did you have to dip out at any times? 

Theo: Yeah. Well, of course, you know, peeking the test. I mean, you know, the kids always gotta take a piss, you know, take, go to bathroom during a movie, so you just like, Oh, come on.

I just, I just gotta threw 'em in the toilet. . 

Pete: That's true. 

Theo: Always, always. No matter, you try to go before, 

Pete: Don't matter. Don't matter. . 

Mr. Benja: Yeah. Let me let know if you missed anything. We'll 

Theo: we'll discuss. Yeah, I was so quick. I think, I think I went down there when Nik was looking for you know, she was trying to get into the water mm-hmm.

and look for Sherry, and so I was, Okay. I'm not missing too much. Did you 

Mr. Benja: see the, did you see the murder scene where they murdered the Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was one of those moments where it's like, okay, this is real. Yeah, 

Theo: yeah, yeah, Yeah. That's, yeah, that starts a political fight, so I like that part too.

So that was kind of cool. Real quick on my side from the business side. So let's go over this phase four movies. Not as over. What do we feel, you know, Black Panther would fit, you know, Will kind, Black Panther two will kind forever. Where would fit here? And overall was phase four any good, you know, for Marvel?

So loving the top one was Dr. Strange Malta verse of madness. That was 954 million. Well, let me take a step back. A true Marvel movie, the biggest one obviously was Spiderman, No Way Home, 1.9 billion. But now we get into just the Marvel only movies. It was Dr. Strange 954 million. Next was Love and Thunder, 605 million.

After that was Shawn Chi 4 32. Internals 4 0 2, and then Black widow, three 79 million. Is that a good thing for Marvel? 

Mr. Benja: Hmm. You know with the, with the movie length and the style that it is, and dealing with, you know, people not wanting to see it because of a recast, I wonder if it might not reach Spiderman levels.

That's a possibility. I'm not sure how people are gonna take it. You know, I know how the early fans are digging it, but it's a, it's a question. 

Theo: You don't think 

Mr. Benja: it'll hit a billion dollars? Basically. I'm not, I'm not sure if it'll hit Spider-Man. 1.9 billion. 

Theo: No, I don't think that. What about Dr.

Strange's level? 

Mr. Benja: It it should take out Dr. Strange to me. 

Theo: Okay. At two Peak, 

Pete: I'm kind of curious where the first Black Panther movie is boxed up as Wise. Cause I think, I think that because generally or historically the sequels always outgrows the first movie. So I'm kind of curious to see if they will surpass that.

Cuz obviously Black Panther, the first one was, was like a huge event. And then this was two because it's coming off of Chadwick's passing. I, I, I'd like to see, I, I feel like if good wor if, if there's good word of mouth it could reach 1 billion. I think it has the legs for it. I think the, the, you know, plenty of Marvel movies have, have hit the three hour mark and still.

Incredibly well. So I, I, you know, I agree with Ben that, you know, it should take out Dr. Strange I don't know if it'll reach Spiderman level numbers, but I'd like to see it get their way, cuz I think, I think it's a better movie than no way home. So, you know, from that standpoint, I'd like, like, I'd hope business-wise it goes.

It goes up there, but, We'll, yeah, it's 

Theo: gonna be tough, man. I'm just thinking about my prediction's not, it's probably gonna be closer to love and thunder, maybe around 700, 800 million because, you know, they're competing against avatar coming in a month. Yeah. So so that's gonna be, you know, huge.

And, and I think avatars gonna get more of a worldwide push. Cause I don't think Black Panther two is in China. So the first movie, to your point, Pete, was 1.3 billion. So I don't know if it's gonna hit 1 billion mark. That's tough. Yeah. So, yeah. So it's gonna be tough, but you know, definitely good word of mouth, but you know, you never know, man.

You know, people start Yeah. And if, what if avatars are dead? I don't know, man, people, this might be viewings until new The new year. Yeah. Yeah. So it just, it just depends. I mean, I think there's a lot of good will also You know, a group of individual, you know, like black women, you don't see that often in a big, you know, movie like this.

You, like you said, we have the Mayans now represent, you know, representation matters. So they got a lot of things going for it. So and it is really gonna be this and Avatar for next two months. So we'll see. So so you both say it's gonna pass Dr. Strange, I say will not. We'll see who's right. . Here we go.

Pete: So

Theo: Yeah, man. Well, Mr. Well Pete man, this has been great man, and thank you for your time. You know, I just can't thank you enough for spending time with us and going over Black Panther. Anything you got planned for the week, you wanna let everybody know about? 

Pete: Nothing at the moment. You know maybe I'll go see Black Panther again.

I really want, I really like that. I really. Kind of forever. So good. Nothing, nothing crazy going on. Hoping to get my Halloween Never Dies podcast ramped up again here. But no, that's it, man. Just trying to check out some new streaming stuff catch up on and or you know I know everyone's loving it right now, so that's pretty much it for me, man.

But thank you guys for letting me come on and join you guys for this, this pod, cuz you know, like I said, I came out of this movie and the first thing I thought was I gotta, I gotta, I gotta message these guys, jump on the show. Cause, you know, we always have a good time chatting about comic books and, and comic book movies.

And so I, I had to make sure I was joining you fellas for 

Theo: this. She right, me and Mr. Mr. Pete, man, we, we did Freaking by podcast. Yeah, man, Every episode, man. The last season. So we did, that was a long time ago. First podcast experience, man. Oh, love it. Thank you. What about you, Mr. Bender? Oh, will I be 

Mr. Benja: seeing 

Theo: it again?

No. Well that or what you got going on this week? Anything. 

Mr. Benja: Oh you know what, man, I'm probably gonna be arguing with somebody over and, or . And I, I am still putting together the next version of my podcast. So I'm reformatting some things, learned some things in the last phase, and I got some, some new things coming down the pipe.

Be very watch out for that at Mr. Benja. 

Theo: I love it. I love it. Well, yeah, same here. Miss guys. Yeah, I got be traveling this week, but you know, so I'll be on the West coast with, Sorry. So y'all see me out there? Hopefully if you go out to the great state of Nevada. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so yeah, just like you, you guys, I think looking to, you know, relaunch some things in 2023, so probably do more podcasts, do things.

I'm really excited about what the future holds for, for this medium. And so start having some things out there in my core business and the healthcare space is, you know, starting to take off a little bit more. So just really 2023 is gonna be a big year. So the odd years are always better for me, for whatever reason.

So, so, so I'm 2023 . Here we go, . 

Theo: So well, hey guys, thanks for listening. Look, please like, subscribe and comment at show versus business on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Listen to us at Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Visit us on our website at show versus business. But if you want to hear us live, please check us out around nine Eastern, six Pacific Wednesdays on IG Live and Mr.Benja during his a d d experience where we go in on all the news from the previous week. Right guys, Take care. Have a great one 

 

Wakanda forever.