SvB Is Ant-Man the Big Flop that Ends the MCU ?

The guys, @mrbenja and @therealtheoharvey, discuss the latest MCU Movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Is this the end of the MCU as we know it? We had to bring in special guest Andy Lowe (@chinessepirate_) to discuss.


Show vs. Business is your weekly take on Pop Culture from two very different perspectives. Your hosts Theo and  Mr. Benja provide all the relevant info to get your week started right.

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Transcript

Mr Benja: I was in a bad mood and I had to go see a movie. And Theo, I saw Quantum Mania and I got thoughts on it, but I heard you saw it too. Is that true? 

Theo: Yeah. Yeah. I saw it. 

Mr Benja: Uhoh, you know, I don't know if you sound enthused or not, but I got online and I saw that another one of us, another one of our boys had seen it.

Andy saw it too. . 

Andy: I did see it. Isn't that weird? 

Mr Benja: It's so weird how that worked out. Andy, what are you doing? What are you even doing here? How'd you what is this? We got a third person on Welcome. 

Andy: It's crazy, right? There's a tram written out. 

Theo: the Holy Trinity . 

Mr Benja: So we don't usually do introductions, but we gotta do a quick one here because we have Andy Lowe on.

Andy, tell us who you are. 

Andy: Hi, I'm Andy Lowe at Chinese Parrot underscore. I am one of the hosts of the the the Pod Squadron podcast over in Geekish Network, and I'm also director producer here in Los Angeles. 

Mr Benja: Awesome, awesome. Well, welcome to show versus business season. Are we calling to season three?

We're going into episode 1 0 7 now. So yeah, it's 

Theo: like season three. We're we're, we're, we're just moving on, man. We're just keeping going. 

Andy: seven. The never ending, never ending battle. 

Theo: Yeah. After, after you hit that triple digits, you just stopped keeping, you know,

Mr Benja: Yeah. So Antman qu Antman and the was Colon Quantum Mania. The new big Marvel thing. Everybody's been excited about it. And, you know, coming off of Loki, coming off of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, I was like, you know what? I am not feeling awesome. I'm just gonna go. Go see this right off the bat. I need to, I need to do my meditation, my Marvel therapy and see something good and happy and I don't know, man.

I wasn't that good and happy afterwards. . 

Andy: It was . 

Theo: Oh man, you're going, going right for it. Got right for it. Yeah, I try to go in code two. I mean, you know, you just, at this point you're just really hard to avoid spoilers and, and you know, sometimes you just run to stuff. So I was getting rumblings that this wasn't the best Marvel outing, but I tried to, you know, go in with an open mind.

And I mean, you know, I think there is some, some good things, you know, let's just get that out the way. But you know, I think overall, you know, it, it was a little. Underwhelming. Right. You know, and it's starting to, it's starting to creep in across, you know, just the, the whole M C U. We'll talk maybe about that later, but So what made you see it right off the bat though?

That that's the reason why? I mean, you know, because I wanted to not let the general public conversation spoil my interpretation of it. You know, like I, you know, I try to write all my notes after I watched the, the, the, you know, content and then I go, you know, watch everybody else's. And so so what I wrote afterwards was, you know, somewhat similar what, you know, other critics were saying.

And so, you know, but you know, I think we'll get into a little bit of what was underwhelming, but I think there was some positive things, you know, you can take from it. Some of the upbeats, but you know, we're starting to see the seams and. Maybe we'll talk about this too. I knew there was something up when Kevin Figge was like talking a lot right before the release.

Like, what's going on? He's just like throwing stuff out there all of a sudden. Right before, you know, this movie got released, aunt Man Noos. And so I was like, okay, this is like, you know, hey jazz hands, right? There's nothing to see here, right? , you know, I'm just, distract you with some conversation and get you hype and 

Andy: for the show.

Well, can, can I ask you, you guys this, like, going into it, what, what are you, what were you guys expecting or looking for from this movie? 

Mr Benja: A continuation of the, the high that I got from watching Loki interest. I, I'll interesting say that, that was my big feeling. I was like, you know what? So, so, 

Andy: so you were focused more on the king of it.

Ye, 

Mr Benja: what do you think? Well, you know we talked at, at length in another podcast about the whole multiverse saga. Mm-hmm. , and, you know, what this means about putting all these characters together, leading into the multiverse of madness, which was also relatively mid. But yeah, I, I went in just thinking, Hey, I'm gonna continue that story.

It's gonna get bigger and we're gonna start seeing, you know, the stuff from this, this new phase. You know, kind of start to come together where they're hinting at stuff from, maybe that was hinted in Shung, CHII or Hawk or whatever, because it seemed like they were like, Hey, we're not, we're building up something.

We might be building up something. Mm-hmm. , we might be building up something. So I was like, I gotta. . 

Theo: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . No, that's a good question. Yeah, I, I was looking for just yeah, a continuation of the king of it all and what that meant for the Marvel and what they were gonna do for the future.

I mean, they pretty much set this as, it was a flex, let's be honest. Mm-hmm. , Canman, the previous two movies were pre pretty much, you know, pun intended, small and stature like . There was no, there was no overall like, Hey, we're going to do something life-changing in an MCU with these movies. They were kind like, it's Ant Man, you know?

It is what it is. It's just a character study. And, and, and, you know, day in the life, kind of, of a, of a character of a actor and, excuse me, of a character and of a hero, but now they were like, this is a flex. We're gonna lynchpin our main character, our main, he villain for this next phase in an Atman movie.

And you are like, oh, wow. So hey, 

Mr Benja: maybe they were, and they do that. Maybe they were starting small. Oh man, I'm a flex. Talking about flex. I'm gonna flex some puns on this one. Baby . 

Theo: I see, I see. So, so to me, big puns, you know, to me I was kinda like, you know, I mean, you know, you just can't count out marble, right?

So look, they, they, they did it with, regardless of the galaxy. I, everyone said that was their big flex back in the day. Right. Regardless of the galaxy, to kind of do a storyline about them, which is more very obscure characters, even for us, diehard comic, comic book fans. But to me, I thought the first store was a, a flex, right?

I mean, you have a Rainbow bridge, , Experian speaking, you know a magic hammer. I was like, damn, that's, that's a flex right there. And they still won with that. So, so, you know, and then they've always taken more risk. And so this is a, another risk. And you know, that was my expectation is like, what can they do to lynchpin this new huge, huge new villain for that's gonna just underpin their next phase?

In a such a small movie. And so, you know, we'll see what happens. But that was what my expectation was. What about you? So 

Andy: I, I, I think I enjoyed it than both of, more than both of you. That's not to say that I don't see it's, it's its weaknesses. But I mean, in terms of SEG Up King to me it kind of delivered.

I have questions about the ending and, and but I mean, you know, I mean, it was kind of a thing where I was like, so much of the spectacle of it worked for me. I, I really, you know, talk about guardians. I, I've really enjoyed some of the things I've enjoyed. Most of the M C O M C U is the weirder or more out there they get, right?

Just go full Jack Kirby crazy aliens and whatever. It's like, you know, just let it be weird. And I, you know, the, I, I, you know, I, I, I got a lot of that. I could also definitely feel that the screenwriter was, you know, a, a former writer's room for Rick and Morty. It was like that, that's definitely like an element there.

And I really enjoy Rick and Morty. But, but like, you know, it, it, it is the thing too where, yeah, you know, it was very interesting to watch this and go, this really isn't an Antman movie at all. Right? Like, like an man himself doesn't really do much in the whole movie. And, you know at which point you go, everything is writing on Michelle Pfeiffer, who I think does some great stuff in her scenes and in her, you know, and Jonathan Majors and, you know, and I think Jonathan Majors absolutely brings it the way he kind of simmers.

Everything. 

Theo: Yeah. John Majors plays King, and then mm-hmm. Michelles, Pfeiffer plays Janet Prim. Right. And so mm-hmm. . Yeah, I agree. That was a linchpin of that story, and I think those helped pretty well together. And, you know, lowkey man the was man, Evangeline Lilly, I mean, think her role was really key, pivotal.

It was, it was a lesser role, but she really was a hero. , I mean, just everyone. She has a lot of, 

Andy: she, she has a, she has, yeah, she has a lot of great action beats, but she, she never acts anything, right. They're just kind of like, mm-hmm. , you know, . 

Mr Benja: So I didn't, her character never landed for me. And so when they did the WASP thing, you know, Antman and the WASP in part two, I was like, okay, they can build on this.

So hopefully I was thinking, oh, they subtitled it. I mean, the title is not Antman Quantum Mania, it's Antman and the Wasp. Quantum Mania. So when I read that, I was like, oh, okay, well we're gonna get a little more of that relationship there. Maybe there's gonna be a little more family building. And for a character I didn't really take to light way of saying I don't like her character I was like, well, why is her name on the headline?

Gimme more Janet, gimme more Cassie gimme more old man Pi, you know? But it, it just, it's, it fell flat so in so many places for me, because the characters, I just didn't care about any of them. And I think it started with, I don't know who it started with, but I just didn't really care about any of the characters and that's where the whole thing kind of fell for me.

Andy: So, so, and, and I'll give you this, right? I mean, to me, I definitely noticed it's like, oh shit, the movie just start, like, they went right into an action beat in the first like five minutes. Like all the establishment was. Literally like that inner monologue bit with like the montage and him, you know, reading from his book, and it's like, yeah, if you don't, if you don't have like the previous Antman films or even like Ant Man's contribution to some of the, the, the Avengers films in mind, then it's like there are no character stakes at all, right?

Mm-hmm. , like, if, if, if you remember that in the last two movies, the, you know, the, the, the. s like, well first of all, like the first two movies, a they, they made conscious efforts to go, we are a heist film. This is going to be a heist film. Yes. There's will be an ensemble of characters working with Antman to, to pull off a heist.

Right. We completely dropped that with this. Right. The other thing is, of course the, the central Did 

Theo: we, did we, I mean, you know, they try to shoehorn in there with the, but 

Andy: it's not really a heist, right? It's, it's probability. It's, it's, it's with the one guy being told to go in when it's like, well, why didn't Kang just say, I'm gonna steal all your pimp particles and do it myself if I'm so smart?

No, no. Right. Yeah. But, but yeah, spoiler by the way. But, but but yeah, so, but the other thing is too, is like the other thing from established from the first two movies, it's that more than anything else, Scott Lang wants to be a dad and always has shit getting in the way of that. Right. And then that's always in contrast with hope and her kind of absent relationship with her parents, right?

So like, if those are gonna be the central threads, and of course those things are sort of brought up, but the conflict is not really established in terms of, okay, has he been a good dad? Cassie's been raising herself for five years, you know how does he become a better dad? How does, how does you know, hope's relationship with Janet suffer from her being gone for?

So, you know, it's like, yeah, none of that is very established. And we go right into, you know, Quant. You know, the quantum real that becomes up Yeah. A, a quest. Right? But you, 

Theo: you sound like, did we want to did we want to just say, Hey, you know, this is spoiler territories . I . 

Mr Benja: Just let everybody know. Oh yeah.

Theo: we're, we're getting into spoilers here. Put banner on the thumbnail. Yes, yes. So just let everyone know you haven't seen it. You know, come back, go listen to us. Or if you don't care, just listen to us now. Yeah. Andy, get the spoilers. 

Mr Benja: Speaking of not caring Andy you sounded like in from that last little thing on the characters, and this is why I was curious to what you thought about the characters, cuz you're a character guy.

Yeah. You don't sound like from the character perspective, you didn't seem like you liked it, but you were saying the weird and wacky was enough to pull you across the finish line. Yeah. 

Andy: I mean, you know, that's the thing because I, and this is why I asked, like kind of what you guys went into this with, right.

For me, I listened heavily to the fact that They're saying that this is basically act one of the Avengers saga. Right? Which means to me, then I go, okay, I I'm not gonna expect a whole lot of story other than let's set up King as a threat. The other thing is just like, you know, for Ant Man, it's like, yeah, if, if, if I hang on these beats from previous movies, then that's, that's in my head in terms of Scott wants to be a dad and that's above ELs.

And then we get into the idea of is he more selfish and not the hero that, you know, like that, that's one of the big themes in the first movie where Hank Pi says, says to Scott you know, with the suit you can, you can become the hero she believes you to be, right? Mm-hmm. , and of course that's a thing they try, they very lightly try to set up of, is he living up to that?

Right? And he's not because. You know, stature or what's her name? Cassie. Cassie is out there protesting and, you know, whatever. And it's, again, it's, it's too short, but it's like, okay, they said it, it's out there. She wants to be doing her own stuff. And Scott is not, you know, either helping her or channeling her or mentoring her.

And also not like being a hero. He's kind of being self-centered and having an audio book and all that. Right. . But it's like, that's so, so, you know, so it is kind of a thing where like, okay, if I keep that in my head, then I'm like, okay, then I can, I can compensate for the movie there. But I mean, ultimately it's still like, okay, this is really more about the spectacle of exploring the quantum realm and setting up Kang.

And that is, I think what just kind of took precedence over everything. Then I was like, okay, I'm willing to, to kind of go along for a ride. It's, it's not, it's not a movie. I think I'm gonna come back to a lot, but it's like, it's a ride that sets me, sets up, you know, The threat for later. Mm-hmm.

Theo: Mm-hmm. . Do you, yeah, I mean I agree. I think there's a lot of things in here. I think expectation was riding on this, and I think Marvel is in danger of, you know, , their, their, their previous success is kind of influencing our expectations for these next movies because mm-hmm. , and you're, you're totally right, this is pretty much movie one, act one, right?

Of the whole mm-hmm. , you know, multiverse saga, right? And so if we just saw this going in and just say, Hey, they're just setting up this, you know, 20 picture arc, right? We'd be like, okay, you know, just gonna sit down, read this, you know, just like you read a comic book, I'm gonna read this first, you know, issue.

No, all this stuff's gonna get set up, but the challenge is , it's a movie again. So yeah, they have to set up this whole expansive world and you, and introduce you to all these different weirdness and characters and let's be honest, using a Star Wars type story template, right? to kinda shoehorn you into this.

So now you're already judging it with the weirdness, right? But then it doesn't even stand out on its own cuz it's using a template that we've seen way before and better use and, and a beloved. You know, movie called Star Wars. And so it's like, what are y'all doing? No, it was like a movie. Star Wars. I'm with you.

Yeah. So it's like, what are you guys doing? I mean, it's like, let's , let's just tell a simple story about a simple guy going against this existential threat. Right? And I think to me, if they kind of simplified that, that may have been a better story as opposed to create this whole world. And I mean, let's be honest, we've seen this in every movie, Marvin Property even what?

Black Widow, we have a whole list of black widows out there now, right? Mm-hmm. because they, every, every hero has their own world now. And I get it, it helps with storytelling, our possibilities and all that. But I think that's leading to, you know, what we're feeling, which is superhero fatigue. It's like, dang, I gotta know all these different you know, black widows.

I need to know about the, the quantum, quantum realm. Now I need to know about you know, the guardian's world. I mean, it's just like all these different worlds it'll take, you know, it's like almost each is like its own. Tone of comic books, right? Remember how, you know if you wanna know Wolverine, you gotta read like, you know, thirties of history.

Aqua 

Andy: Flight Fly. Yeah. Fly. Yeah. 

Theo: Orf Flight X-Men is bad like that. Yeah. I mean, X-Men. That's why I was never, I mean, you know, I love X-Men is, but you know, I'm not a big X-Men person cuz there's a lot of X-Men stuff out there, and that's kind of like how I feel about this stuff. You know, the party movies, you say, 

Mr Benja: you say something in the, in the comic book store, and somebody from aisle, aisle three, you know, looks out and says actually in Weapon, in the Weapon X Project series, you've, you've forgotten that X Force was allowed to come in and you're like, wait, what?

And oh my 

Theo: God, oh my God. Imagine when the X-Men come to the mcu, man. You think it's bad now? 

Mr Benja: is this, I, I don't know. is it, is it sustainable? I mean, I'm, you know, I'm mad at this movie for a couple reasons, but that may actually be a good idea, right? If you can segment your audience well enough to where it's like, Hey, listen, you guys go hang out at this side of the park.

You guys hang out at this side of the park and you know, do your black Panther Marvel thing or whatever. We're gonna be over here with the guardians of the Galaxy stuff. I don't know. Is it, is that even possible business one on 

Theo: one? Well, business one on one. I'm trying to do that. What the business 1 0 1 is.

You know, there is no middle ground for movies anymore, right? Either you have a low key movie or you have a big blockbuster, and if you segment your audience too much like that, you're not gonna make these billion dollar movies anymore. You know? And I think that's gonna be the challenge of trying to segment the audience.

They still have to be, you know, all four quadrants. They still have to be big budgeted in order to draw, you know, getting, you know, a hundred million dollars in opening weekend and maybe, you know, a hundred, almost close to a billion dollars in Rev. That's the only way they're gonna be sustainable, if not that, cuz that middle market's gone.

Streamings took that, let's be honest, any movie that's getting released now, you know, if it's a Yeah. You know, trying to make, you know, I'm trying to make 50 million, you know, if it's not a horror film, right. Or just a, you know, a character study or, you know, real cheap, it's, it's not going to movie theaters anymore.

So it might be exclusively, to your point, Ben, just a lot of streaming TV shows, movies, you know but. . I don't think we'll see those big budgets if they want to go into this segment world, but that's just me speaking as a business person. I just think there's not what they call total adjustable market.

Right. Big enough, right. To go after this opportunity. 

Andy: Well, so you know, this is also interesting in terms of, you know, we are still, it's hard to know if this is really affecting this particular project, right? But we have seen like a, a little bit of a 180 degree shift in the overall Disney strategy. That is to say we've had two or three years of Bob Jeck, where arguably you could say that that quantity was.

Was prioritized. We're gonna have all these Disney Plus series and we're still gonna do the same amount of feature films per year. And then with the, the, the return of Iger, right? He's doing a bunch of layoffs, he's cutting back in development costs and, and his, you know, his whole ethos of I want to invest in creatives to make quality product, at which point it's more qu quality than quantity.

Right? And so you, you do kind of wonder is like, did, did figi. , kind of fast track a bunch of stuff and or this whole philosophy of the last phase being, throw as many things at the wall and see what sticks, and then we'll adjust everything later, right? Mm-hmm. Is that part of that quantity over quality ethos?

Theo: Yeah. So truth, I, I've come become a more of a a chap pick, apologist, over the last couple of years. So so I think he got a bad rap, let's be honest. Mm-hmm. lot of this stuff was set up, you know, before he became in, I mean ire was the one that. Purchased Pixar and then Fox, right before he left.

Mm-hmm. for, for billions of dollars, put Disney, a lot of debt. Iger was the one that said, Hey, we can't be selling our, our, our, our content to Netflix. He, he said, that's like, you know, a a superpower selling nuclear arms to a third war country. Right. And that's what Bob Iger said. So that's why they went down a path of, you know, creating Disney Plus cuz they wanted to compete against Netflix.

And then the pandemic hit, right. And when he had all the revenue was gone from the parks. , you know, from, from, from movies. So only way he by, you know chap Could Grow was the number right, which was the streaming number. So, so, like I said, I'm more of apologist now because the strategy was set by a previous person and then he hit by a pandemic.

He had no choice but to create a bunch of content to put on the streamer, cuz that's where, you know, people were judging the stop price. Now, you know. You know, he's just not smooth as ire, let's be honest. . So that's when you got your cfo F O basically talking to the ex c o behind your back to get you out of there.

That means you, you ain't paying politics right? On that level. That's basically what happened to Chap because c f o was basically running our mouth to the, to, to Iger and say, Hey, we want you back . So that's, so it was a coup to get Chap pick out of there. So make a long story short now that Iger is back, you know, I think, you know, he's pivoting against his original strategy cuz we know what happened.

Netflix, you know, is showing that, hey we, this is not a good model. We're gonna cut costs. They're taking away things h b o Max, they're, you know, me and Ben talked about on previous podcasts and getting rid of shows left and right. You know, tomorrow your favorite show, you gonna be looking like, hey, what, what happened to Team Titans gone.

So it's like, you know, Disney is also aware of that. So I think you're right there are looking at you know, Kevin was just accompanied man. Hey, you need more contact. I got Moon night. Hey buddy. Woo. . I'm ready. It's moon night. Here's, you know, she, here's, here's his that, and you know, I, I'll, I'm ready.

But now everybody's like, wait a minute, . 

Andy: This is good. I, I to, I totally see that. And I, and, and I don't wanna say, you know, I think Iris's innocent on, on on anything, but I will say like, for the Disney fandom who remember this, the days of when Chek was mm-hmm. in charge of parks and how, how Penny pinching and how like quality product was devalued maintenance was devalued.

Cast members were devalued. Everyone saw this coming, right? Mm-hmm. No one saw thought JK was going to lead the company. Well. Mm-hmm. So whether he was set up to like, because Iger knew that he would, you know, Do it poorly and, you know, open the door to come back. Which, you know, I don't know. I, I think he genuinely wanted to leave , you know?

I mean, but I don't know. 

Mr Benja: Well, yeah, but I mean, that, that is a, you know, relevant long-term strategy where it's like, well, hey, we'll put this guy in the seat to do the dirty work we don't want to do, and then after a couple years, we'll throw some rotten fruit at him and get him out the box , 

Andy: even though he did one more at that next level 

Theo: corporate strategy.

Boy, . 

Andy: That's very possible. 

Theo: I mean, cause wait a minute. Hold on, hold on, wait a minute. So, you know, the, the, the conspiracy theory is that I, I saw this coming cuz you know, he was, you know, he had connections in China, you know, he saw what was happening and he, he, you know, remember he postponed his retirement for a couple years before and all of a sudden he said, I'm gonna be gone during the worst, the worst time.

That 

Andy: kinda hit here. Here's the other thing though, right? Is that the, all of the people that he was actually setting up for, For succession, we're getting systematically like shut out of the company by Chek. Mm-hmm. . So ch so Chek was working moves and being political until that he was the only option left.

So, so that's, that's also at play. 

Theo: Yeah, that's a fair point. I mean, there was a couple of guys, I think Kevin Meyer, he went over to TikTok, I don't know if you remember that. He was a guy, a high executive over there and he went over to TikTok and then, you know, that didn't work out. So now he's part of a company that's trying to buy content and, you know and sell it to streamers.

But that's not working well too well now, cuz streamers are not buying as much content. But yeah, there was a couple of guys that, you know, everybody thought, but you're right, the other guy, Peter Rice, that was the one that, you know, chap pick kind of got rid of to kind of just, you know, protect his, his back.

But you saw how that worked out. So, so guys, look, we're getting into some of the corporate strategy and shenanigans, but we'll get back into Antman, you know, . 

Mr Benja: Well, and speaking, speaking of this long term strategy, I'm wondering you know, we, we kind of hinted at it, so I'll just come back around and pick it up, but you.

everybody going in thinking, okay, there's, there's a little remnants of what happened in the Avengers that led into Loki. Loki gets all this buzz that leads into Dr. Strange, that leads in spider. You kind of see in all this multiverse stuff. And they kept saying King, and they did like the first time where you see a large scale movie character introduced in, in streaming.

So now it's like, wow, okay, you built him up. And then what I I, I'm actually wondering if he is gone, but at the end they kill him off. They kill off the king. I mean, it's, can the conqueror, they could, there's plenty of cans that they could bring up, but that was the one that was like iconic. So I don't 

Andy: understand.

I, I, I don't think he's dead. I, I, it's, it's too easy if he's dead. And you know, I, I think it's like, I think. , I don't know. It's Marvel. Is anyone ever really dead? . 

Mr Benja: Okay. Speaking of which, cuz I mean, that pissed me off in the, in the theaters. Yeah. You know I don't know if it's true or not, but they didn't leave enough of a question mark in my head until that second Right.

Post credit scene cuz they had the post credit scene, the first one being, wait a minute, what was 

Andy: the first one again? Okay, the, the first one is you're talking about where we see the three, the three, 

Mr Benja: Right. That's the council We saw the council, council Kings. Yeah. Yeah. That's not the one I'm talking about.

I mean the, the council was fine. It's say, okay, cool, they're gonna go do their thing. Wreak hav, you're talking about the Lokey scene, whatever. But then after that they had the Lokey scene and like Looch was like c you know, he is really powerful and he's talking to the Owen character. Forgot his name.

Yeah. I can't remember anyone's name except Darren. Cause they kept saying Darren . 

Andy: So we, 

Theo: we didn't even go into, we, we didn't even go into Modoc yet. That's a whole nother conversation. I mean, do we wanna skip to the end, just talk about the characters like King and how to set up, or how do you guys want to do it?

I mean, we can go, we're not really discussing plot. I mean, I know , 

Andy: it's kinda like 

Theo: we kinda skipped ahead. Yeah, we did kinda skip ahead here. I mean look, high level, you know, I think our, you know, so we kind of got a sense of where we, you know, Interpretations of it when we first kinda looked at it, but we kind of look at the storyline overall.

You know I thought it was decent. They kind of just throw you in, like you said, Andy, into this plot of a kind of a war on, in the quantum realm, introduce you a bunch of characters, but it's really center around the Ant family. Right. And how they kind of deal with, you know, being together and being those one.

And then King is the, the, the conqueror is the one that's kind of, you know, leading this, you know, this change and trying to keep these, these people down in this world. And so, you know, it is kind of a knockoff of Star Wars, I mean, . I don't wanna get into the plot too much cuz this really is kinda like a knockoff, but I think, you know, we kind of wanna talk a little bit about Tron Tron 

Andy: legacy too, right?

Theo: Yeah. You know, Tron. Yeah. So, you know, I think what we kind of maybe wanna talk about is just like the character development. Maybe we can kind of start there, Mr. Benja, and just kind of just say, Hey, you know, how were these things set up? You know, who are the characters that kind of pop for us? And you know, and then kinda lead into maybe that big king discussion or, or we can start with King, you know, I'm thinking, well, I mean, 

Mr Benja: yeah.

You know, I didn't mean to jump to the end, but that was the, that's the overriding thing that mm-hmm. people were talking about, or that I was talking about at least that where you had such a buildup of a character and then you killed off one version of 'em. And maybe this is the strategy they're going with.

They got rid of one version of them in Loki and then they get rid of another version of them in this movie. And the, so you know, I don't know if I'm excited to see all these other kings. You know, but, 

Theo: So did you like this king? And did you like Jonathan Majors portrayal this king? Yes. And that, 

Mr Benja: that, that's what I'm saying.

He's the iconic king and you know, their others are interesting. I'm sure they'll be able to try other things and you know, you know Egyptian King, I forgot his name. , you know, you have wilding out, wilding out King in the stadium. 

Andy: the camera, 

Theo: slitter, slitter and King, you know, from 

Mr Benja: Hogwarts. Yeah. It was like Kings Silver.

The silver, the Silver Hawk King, you know, came out there. 

Theo: Hot Wing king, hot Wing, king , basically Black, Batman Week King. We were all out there. Mr. Ben. 

Mr Benja: Yeah. So, okay, so that, that's where the characterization kind of. Centered around to me, like what are they doing with this character, this idea. And I, I think it kind of extends our, our, our discussion that we had a long time ago where they're not trying to rely on one singular character.

They're using this idea of a, a mantle, as we said before. So can they do this with a, an enemy over, you know, several movies where, you know, maybe, maybe the young Avengers are in the west Coast ave, however they decide to do it, are going up against, you know, Egyptian King and maybe these other guys are going up against this king and it's all this one big idea that they're going against.

So when I was watching the movie, I kind of was waiting on them to say, okay, King's gonna escape. He's gonna do his thing. But it kind of wrapped up there, you know. Well, 

Andy: okay, so, so I, I said this on, on, on the, on the cha. . So, so one of the things that I kind of questioned with the ending with was that, first of all, you have to get past, okay.

So if an man defeats king does that diminish his level of threat? Right. You know, I'll just, I don't, I have no answer for that question. Right. But to me it was kind of like, okay, if, if we're gonna contain this to this movie, okay, a man definitely has to defeat him somehow. I felt that the stakes though, become derailed.

Not so much if Kang the conqueror is killed mm-hmm. , but that there is no consequence for defeating him. The fact that Cassie immediately opens up a portal and they, they get back. It's like that, that was like maybe a mistake. The only kind of pass I give them is, You know, he's carrying the ice cream cake, he's doing the monologue and, you know, it's like, okay.

It, it's frustrating because Scott Lang doesn't really have a character shift. He's just kinda the same guy doing the same thing. Mm-hmm. But, but he does do the whole little moment there where he's like, wait a minute, if he's the most dangerous one and all these other ones are out there, that means, you know, did, did, did I just doma?

Because this is the one guy who could stop all of them. Mm-hmm. And I was like, oh, okay. So that's, that's kind of an interesting setup. And that said, I, I don't necessarily believe that, you know, if, if, if, if Darren Cross, can you. shrink down and turn, go into the quantum me and come back as modoc, you know, king to conquer can still come back after the Avengers have defeated all the other kings and said, thank you for getting rid of them for me.

The only people who could stop me now. Fuck you guys. Right? I mean, there's, there's still there. There's still an interesting. various ways you can play that 

Theo: hand, right? Yeah. So couple things here. I'm not a big King, the conqueror guy, you know, I don't know his history. Maybe Mr. Bender or Andy. You guys know more about King than I do.

I think he's more like a fantastic for villain, right? But I, I do think that to your point, I think it was lazy screenwriting, you know? Mm-hmm. , it didn't seem like they were kind of just telling you it was like they probably film. You know, like an hour. Oh, we gotta film a coda here to kind of, yeah.

Give you something else. Like who does that? I mean, you know, just a voiceover and just the actor just looking quizzical. Hmm. There gonna be other kings. I mean, that was opportunity to kind of sell something else. And, you know shout out to, you know, we always give Grace beyond the trailer, her shout outs, but she mentions that, that's a good point.

I think they probably could have showed a king sitting around lurching, right? Mm-hmm. Looking, you know, sinister. Right. You know, ordering his sweet tea or something. But I thought, you know, there, there was a missed opportunity there. And then also to your point, the sacrifice, right? I mean, what is Ant Man?

You know, what is his, his goal was to protect his family, right? Yeah. And it's like, and they, they showed in a trailer that scene where they're fighting and he said, well, I don't have to win. We just have to both lose, or something to that effect, right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and, and he doesn't, and, and what happens?

Nothing. I mean, I thought that was, when he dies, I'm like, that's perfect time for him to sacrifice himself and then, you know, give up, you know, his family. And so that king doesn't escape. And then that, to me, when made King. Oh, and then, then at the end, we see King is still alive, even after Antman made that sacrifice.

But of course it's Marvel. They don't wanna make you feel sad. And so they had to not only, you know, get rid of King, but make, you know, Scott feel better. And then also, you know, have him come back the ne within the 30 seconds right back from the quantum realm. This is like, what is this ? 

Andy: So, so, okay, can I just say this?

Here's like the ideal ending for me. If you do it this way, the way they did, they get stuck and then you just end with Cassie freaking out because she's now obsessed with getting her dad back. And then that's when she comes in with like Wong and Shang Chi in, they go, okay, we've been seeing things about these rings and you know, it's a similar energy single and now they've gotta collaborate, you know?

Mm-hmm. And then you leave it on that thread of Cassie's, gotta figure out how to get her, her, her, her parents back. Right? And it's like, okay, that's a, that that'd be a good little tease for something else, but. , 

Theo: but you know, you make a good point. I mean, you know, those master villains, right? They, they got machinations on top of machinations.

So to your point, maybe he's not dead, really, you know, he's just like pretending he's dead so that the, the Avengers can beat all his enemies and he comes at the end. I, I thank you for getting rid of all these other kings. Now I'm back. Yeah. You know, but they didn't hit, I mean, I don't know, I think that's maybe where they're going with it, Mr.

Benja, but it doesn't seem like, you know, it was well executed . 

Mr Benja: So I think what they did is they left themselves a lot of little ways out. Mm-hmm. . And with the writing and the structure of the movie, I do think it was kind of quick and not fully developed. And I, I didn't, I didn't think about that until I was watching the restaurant scene with Bill Murray.

Mm-hmm. , and, you know, they're all sitting down eating and, you know, Hank Pi goes, Hey , you're human. And he's like, well, I don't know. You know, I'm, I'm just me. And I was kinda like, wait a minute. They had to actually stop and say, are you human? And it's, it's, it was like, how are we explaining all these people in this world?

And when you start having to kind of throw these little bits out to explain that, well, they're humans or they're not humans, it, it was kind of weird, meaning the story didn't set it up that you could have a civilization, some. That wasn't earth and you had to actually stop and throw that little nugget out there.

You, you know what I'm saying? It's just, it really felt weird to me that they would include little bits like that 

Theo: and, or, or even the, the, they didn't finish the story. Because remember, he. He drank the drink and he drank the little creature inside. Mm-hmm. , I guess the other side was he was gonna get eaten by the big creature.

Right. But they kind of cut from that cuz it's Marvel. They want to keep it pg . But it's just like, you know, just tell the whole story. You know, the, the, his comeuppance was, he was gonna get eaten by the thing he was eating. Right. And so that they didn't really kind of tell that story. They kind of edited that out.

So, to your point, Mr. Bitch, it was like, there's a lot of things that were done here that just didn't make the, the story overall gel now. And including King. Right. King , no. King of it all. And so didn't 

Andy: tell a telepath 

Mr Benja: with absolutely no purpose . Except, except to tell jokes about holes.

Theo: Exactly. So, I don't know. I mean, the world building, I mean, did we like it? Did you I I felt that was rush too. It didn't seem, it didn't seem real, I mean, you know, obviously it was, it, it looked fake. I mean, you know, which, I dunno, that's a GFX series. 

Andy: I, I just wanna say this, that, you know, I, I think I was able to get past that having watched Loki, right?

And once I started to go, oh, this is definitely the same hallway set from the tv. A you know, when they're where in whatever monopoli or whatever the name of the city is, right? Mm-hmm. . So it's like, to me that's like, okay, so then there's, there's people out here in the content building, this is the same realm, and of course they don't confirm it, they just, they hinted it, right?

Mm-hmm. partially as by reusing the same sets. And again, I think that's kind of the thing where it's like, if I have that fresh in mind and I'm thinking about that stuff, then it's like, okay, then those cues, let me get past it. 

Theo: But yeah, I don't know. , yeah, I mean, you know, like I was just getting to just overall, just the world building of it all.

Sure, you're right. It does seem like that is something that. You know, so you are right. They didn't, did they, did they confirm that in Loki or after Loki that this, that t b a was in the quantum realm? 

Andy: I mean, it's like, it's all, they haven't said anything explicitly, but like even when you see that, that Council of Kings and you go, oh, there were three of them and imply that, that, you know king, the conqueror was the fourth.

Right? And if you remember back to the first time that Loki goes to the, the whatever, the castle, the temple or whatever like that, and, and yeah, the, the time variance authority are three figures with hunky heads. And there was a fourth. a fourth statue that had been smashed. So it's like, and, and, and that's another thing that I, I think interested me, of course, the meta textual aspect of all of this is that Oh, okay.

So then we're seeing the beginning of what will end up being the TV a 

Theo: right. Oh, 

Mr Benja: okay. Got it. Like that could be pretty slick. Yeah. They should, they should write this down . 

Theo: I mean, but, but I think guess what, it could all change by between the day 

Andy: tomorrow, . Well, and, and if anything, yeah, I, I absolutely agree with you guys in terms of just, just commit to it.

Right. Just tell us that the nine rings are another version of the same time or thing, you know, because they, they're, there are a bunch of rings that spin around the same way that we saw the 

Theo: Good point ring, right? Yeah, you're right about that. Oh, yeah, 

yeah, 

Andy: yeah. We, we also have seen that the, that Ms.

Marvel's band looks a lot like, like the way they use the, the rings as well as, as like arm band, right? So it's like, okay, so. There are these little hints which they can either use or decide not to. And it's just like, just, just commit. I 

Mr Benja: mean, come on. Okay. So I, I will say that we did that a lot in, in video game development where, you know, you have people just throwing stuff in the game and, you know, you go through, you know, checking, okay, what's this about?

What's this about? Hey, wait a minute. You have this weird symbol here. Well, yeah, it's a symbol of da, da da da da. It's like okay, put that on the put that in the, put that in the official database, but change the symbol to look like this because it kinda, it kind of looks like what this guy did over here, and we're gonna put these together.

If somebody makes a link, cool. If they don't, whatever. Yeah. And we just had all these avenues where we could add on stuff or take away stuff and either say it meant something or just kind of let it drop. So I, I definitely think they're doing a whole lot of that. 

Andy: And that's how you get Ray Papa. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mr Benja: That's right. Yeah. But check this out. So people have been talking about like you were saying with the superhero fatigue earlier Theo threw out the, the link that Figi was, he had a plan to cut down to do maybe more spaced out and fewer titles and, you know, just, just because of the superhero fatigue, what people are seeing.

And a lot of people are calling, calling out Marvel now for being sort of a, a storytelling Ponzi scheme.

And the fact that you're laughing, you might, you probably already get, get this idea, but is how, I don't even know how this thing develops. 

Andy: I'm just like, though, has it ever not been. ? Ooh, that's a 

Mr Benja: good question. First Ironman, the first Ironman of Shield where, you know, Aiden of Shield had that hashtag it's all connected and everybody was like, 

Andy: ah, shout out.

This didn't get enough. This has been the reason why everyone has loved Marvel, that that connected universe, this long form storytelling, this kind of serial, you know, new version, Nevo cereal cereals, right? Yeah. And, and, and why everyone has been trained to copy. Either successfully or unsuccessfully is because you can now get people to go and re-watch content and, and suddenly your old movie is new again.

Because when you release a new Ironman movie and it calls back, then everyone wants to go back and, and, and re-watch 

Theo: it. Right? Right. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I mean, and you know, you guarantee, I mean, we got what, 20 something movies and you know, over three fourths of 'em make a billion dollars. I mean, you know, and you just, you just train your people on sitting in the theater.

I mean, they change behavior. We talked about this in one of our marketing and a, you know podcasts. You know, when you're, you can change people's behavior. That's powerful, man. And Marvel has changed people's behavior. Mm-hmm. , you actually stay, I was in the mar, we all were. Right. No one left his seats.

Right. , because he knew there was gonna be in credit sequence. Right. And that's, that's Marvel's doing from the first Ironman. Right. When, you know Dick Furry said, have you heard of the Avengers Initiative? And it's just like, boom. There you go. So, I agree. It's just like but I think the challenge is now with this, this mid-face, you know, this multiverse war, I don't think Marvel has a clear template of what they're building toward.

Right. Because I mean, as a old head comic book fan, yes, there's, there's, there's a way. You know, we knew how the Avengers were gonna be built because there was a template for that. Right. You know, even for Affinity, you know, war, you know, we knew how that was gonna built. There was a comic book story, you know, that everybody, the beloved one that they could take from and build that out.

And then even Secret Wars, there's a, a classic comic book series that we grew up on, you know, with the her and that's gonna be awesome. And then they had a recent reboot with with what's it called? Dr. Dr. Doom. Right. That that's gonna be awesome. So they can take that. But this multiverse award, this is totally different.

This is more like variants and different versions of people and different things like that. It's almost like they're kind of like creating all these different worlds. Just so they can explode it and get rid of it. Right. And create their own kind of crisis on in infinite Earths, right. The M C U is probably gonna come to a point where they, if you don't know that storyline from the dc that's what happened.

They had so many different worlds. You know, you had Superman here, super boy here, Superman from Earth this, Superman for this sport, . And they had to just get rid of all that crap, right? When you had the flash run on this cosmic, you know, treadmill. So yes, guys, deep cuts. . 

Andy: So . But it just, 

Mr Benja: that was a real thing too.

The cosmic treadmill. . 

Andy: Oh, oh, you know, we're gonna see it. That's, that's coming, man. 

Theo: The new Flash movie. We'll talk about the Flash red movie later. But I'm just saying, I think that's kind of where they're trying to go with, they're just going blow this all up and get you all hype, all these stories. But I think they're gonna fatigue everybody and they're gonna blow it all up.

So it can be one single thread again. But see, this is what's happening. I, I 

Mr Benja: think, and I think they've kind of already messed it up. , they've had the, the cracker jack problem for a while, and I don't know if you guys remember the little cracker jack candy. The whole thing about it was, Hey, there's a prize in every box.

And it's like, oh crap. There's a prize in every box. And you'd go get the prize and you know, you show your friends. And it was neat and interesting. But then that novelty wore off and you kind of realized, Hey, wait a minute. The cracker jacks aren't that great. They haven't been spending any money making the products any better.

you had only a limited number of sizes. They didn't make like a honey caramel cracker jack. They didn't really flex on it too much. They just kind of sat and kept wanting you to get the prize. And to me, the prize that Marvel's trying to get you is that whole connected thing where you go in the movie, you're already, you, you've already got story from before coming in that made you go see it in the first place and then exiting it.

They're like, Hey, wait, there's more coming. So it never actually made, gave you a good, solid product. It's just, it's not even a commercial for the next movie. It. , like it's all the Cracker Jacks prize. It's all about the connection. And they just kind of dropped the story. They dropped the ball on the story.

And I, I was, in terms of the big overall picture, I'm like, Marvel, if y'all starting out this way, y'all got issues. 

Andy: Well, I mean, it, it depends though, right? Because, okay, this is starting phase five, right? And, and we know that going into phase five, you're gonna have, they have like, they've already like, have different buckets, right?

They have the multi universal like bucket of stories. They have the street level character like things, and then they're gonna have the space like galactic ones, right? Sounds like meditation. Well, I mean it is and Right. And of course all those threads will eventually have to like knit together in some way when it, when you, when we get to probably secret war or whatever it is, right?

Is is that, is that what the, the, the Avengers culmination is? Yeah. For this thing supposed supposedly, So like, yeah, so like we know that secret Invasion is supposed to be co coming up on Disney Plus. The Guardians movie is gonna be another space movie. Then they have Echo the, the, the kind of Daredevil character also Disney Plus and Loki Season two is this summer.

So then we'll continue the, the, the, the multiverse thing. The Marvels is coming up, and that'll be another space thing. Ironheart, Agatha Daredevil. Oh, okay. Then, okay. So that, that's okay. Daredevils when we get into 2024, but at least for this year, it's like, okay, so there's, there's still, there's still bouncing between the three different, three or four different buckets.

Yeah. 

Theo: I mean, that's just a lot though. You just, even you announcing all that. I mean, you know, I can see myself, I mean the movies, you know, obviously are showing some thread. I mean, you know, I was just thinking about Dr. Strange, remember we were also hype about the multiverse of Madness, man, they went to what, one, two different worlds.

Yeah. wasn't, wasn't that multi, wasn't, it wasn't that multi wasn't that mad. I mean, it was almost like incomprehensible. And then what they did too, and then what they did to me. The 

Andy: single verse of mid Yeah. It was

Strange. And the single verse of Mid, mid, 

Theo: I mean, it just like, you know, and it's like, it, it is starting to to rack up. Right. You know? Yeah. And then you have this one, you know, which I mean, You know, all shout outs to all the actors and you know, there's some good character beats and some good, you know, half, you know, some decent stories.

But, you know, it's just, there's, there's just, I mean, I think they're just a, a victim of their own success. I mean, the Nadar, the, the highest point was when, you know, captain America was bloodied and, and battered and bruised, you know, called their Avengers in and everybody came in, everybody got hyped and he said, Avengers a symbol.

And that's it. That was the hype , that's the height. I don't think they can get to the Hateness anymore, man. Mm-hmm. When, when Captain America, you know, everybody was dead. He was on his feet, he was bloodied, he was ready to go fight Thans for one last time, and then, you know, hears on your left captain, and that's when everybody came in.

And I think that's, that was the height after that. I think that we're still trying to chase that and we're not gonna get that anytime soon. , I 

Andy: mean, it's, it is interesting though that, yeah, I mean, if, if it to, to take a step back and go, okay, I, I managed to enjoy quantum mania because I approach it as. An act one or a scene one right of, of a longer serial.

Mm. And I didn't really have much more expectation beyond that. You know, because, can I 

Theo: just say something, Andy, I don't mean to interrupt you, but you know, I'm gonna let you finish. But , I'm sorry, wrong podcast. . No, I just wanna say this, but the first Ironman, yes, that was the beginning of this whole story, but in itself it was a great movie.

Matter of fact. Yes. It was so great. I wanted to go see it multiple times. I mean, can't, I can't re, I can't recall the last time I wanted to go see any of these Marvel movies more than once anymore. You 

Andy: know, well, yeah. And, and actually, and I absolutely agree. That's actually what I was gonna say, right?

Is that, is that, is that the strength of the last two Ant Man movies was that they let them be their own movie and then they was like, we, we've decided on a genre this is gonna be a heist movie, and we're. use the tropes of the heist movie genre to, and, and, and, and up them by making it superhero, right?

Mm-hmm. Same thing with, you know the Captain America movie, political Intrigue, but with Super Soldier here, right? Mm-hmm. That's or, or even the Spider-Man movies have been, you know, John Hughes coming of age movies, but with superheroes, right? Mm-hmm. . So the question of course is what genre was this?

This was act one of a serialized epic. Does that, is that what makes it mid? Is that also like, what genre would we say that the Multiverse of Madness was? 

Mr Benja: I, 

Theo: I mean, exactly. It's supposed to be horror, right? But, you know, but 

Andy: Yeah. And it didn't quite succeed there either, right? So, I mean, so that's the question of, with, with these other properties coming up, Can they get back to like, is secret invasion going to succeed in being an espionage thriller?

Right. If, if they can stick that great. And, and you know, and I think James Gunn has been very, you know, solid on keeping his guardians movies about, you know various themes around family and daddy issues, right. , mm-hmm. . So we're gonna see more of that. Even, even the holiday special. Yeah, it sure was.

Yeah. 

Theo: Yeah. Sure was. And real, real talk. I, I did you guys see the was it fast X or whatever trailer I did. Wait, did you, did you, did you count how many times they said family? You know, not as much as I 

Andy: was expecting. I counted, I was expecting more . 

Theo: Yeah, I counted. It was seven times they said Family , and 

Andy: I was still waiting for more.

I was like, 

Theo: that's what, a few movies that you always know what the theme is,

But anyway, I digress. . Yeah, I think, you know, it's, you know, like I said, it's just, Marvel has a lot going on with it right now, M C U and I think Kevin Faye is aware of that. So, to your point, can they get back to a quality kind of conversation with these stories? And I think they can, it's just, they just gotta think of new ways to kind of think through what these, these stories mean, you know, because, and, you know yeah.

Do we think that well, you know, let's, let's talk about this. Our, our, I mean, now you still got, you know DC right? DC Studios is ascended, right? Because James's gun, he basically, you know, learned the defeat of Kevin Figge and helped Kevin Figge with creating this whole, you know, space, you know, Odyssey for, for the M C U.

He's even kind of took shots at M C U. Do you know what he said? He said most of the MO we said, we're writing out our scripts before we film anything. Mm-hmm. . So that's been a knock against, you know, MCU is like, either they do the VFX far in advance and so they gotta make the story fit into that, or they didn't even finish the story , they just kinda winging it on third act or cutting things based on, you know, up to the last minute.

So I'm wondering, you know, does DC have a shot here? We talked about this on one other Path pods, but does DC have a shot here to kind of win back? , even in the midst of maybe superhero fatigue, can they, can they win audience against one? Well, 

Mr Benja: if you take a comparison between the guardians, the Galaxy three trailer and the Flash trailer, the internet will tell you yes.

Dude, I spent about a half hour watching reactions to that trailer just from people. It just, they just kept rolling in different, which, which trailer? Which trailer? 

Theo: Which flash trailer. And what was the reaction? Oh 

Mr Benja: my God, I'm there. I, you know, I, I, you know, Edgar Miller has, has problems that he needs help, but did you see that trailer?

Andy: Okay. I, I, I, I'm gonna say this, I, I'm looking forward to the movie, but to me, like everything that made the movie or made the trailer exciting to me was just seeing Michael Heaton. At which point I'm like, is this just member Berri? Right. . 

Mr Benja: I have never heard that term before. I don't think it's ever been said on this podcast,

Andy: It's, it's a, it's a, it's a South Park reference. . Okay. 

Mr Benja: Remember Bees? Maybe. I mean, I don't, I don't 

Andy: care. are 

Theo: people that hype about this movie. The Flash 

Mr Benja: people. Pretty hype. Yeah. People, dog. I will show you some tr I will show you some reactions that will have you dying. , 

Theo: people lost their damn mind on that.

Wow, man. I mean, this is crazy. I, I reason why I'm just questioning it is, is just like almost a hodgepodge, right? Let's throw in some Batman. Mm-hmm. . Let's throw in some Flash two. Flash some, some Batman. Batman, some, you know, a little, a super girl, you know, shake it all together and here you go. It's a movie.

It. I mean, yeah, I, I just 

Mr Benja: don't see, I kinda like how the kid had the little, the waddle run too, you know, those kid version . I was like, alright, good job. Good job. 

Theo: So anyway so the M C U, I think the cookie line assembly of it all, you know, they may need to kind of reevaluate this and then to your point, you know I think there is some concerns about just in general you know, the overall market right.

Of this right. You know we were, have we hit peak superhero, right? Is the market, you know, going to get decreased? I don't know what's gonna replace it cuz I think they broke you said they, they marvel has broken. Almost theaters with the help of the pandemic. It's like you can't get, I I, I said this before, but you can't get you know, blockbuster movie in, unless it is a superhero movie.

I mean, you know, you had Top Gun get, get in there Top Gun, but it's few and far Avatar, right. Those, that's it. And they said this year it's gonna be nothing like that. You know, you, you're just gonna have a lot of superhero movies. So I question if, you know, if Marvel can, you know, get our, our Trust back.

What's the next movie up? Does anybody know off the top of their head that think you The next movie is Guardians. Oh, guardians. Oh, guardians, okay. Yeah. So I think, you know, they'll do decent, but I don't think they'll do billion dollars worth and, you know, and that, that the guardians will probably be something, some stakes.

I'm, I'm hoping cuz that's gonna, I 

Andy: think Guardians will do well. I think people, cuz particularly people know that this is gonna be, I mean, it's, it's a popular franchise and people know this is gonna be the last one for James Gunn and, and this group of characters. 

Theo: I'm worried about Marvels though. Yeah.

Marvels is, yeah. Oh, shit. 

Andy: I, I want it to be good so much. I I, I, I, I mean, talk about mid, I thought the first one was kind of mid, but, but like, 

Theo: it did a billion dollars though. That's the thing. I mean, but it was a different time, you know, sometimes you, with the timing, but it was, yeah, it was very mid. That was when you know, I started to say, Hmm.

I, I don't know. I mean, throw it two, throw it to the dark world. But we, 

Andy: that was Well, I mean, okay. And, and that I I think it's another, it's another case of not really choosing your idiom well. Right. I mean, the, like, they, they went into that going okay, we're gonna do Marvel captain Marvel as like a nineties mm-hmm.

sci sci-fi action movie. But it was like, that's not really a genre. You're, you're, you're making some references to Terminator and some references to, to buddy cop movies. You need to choose a genre as choose an idiom that works for this character. And, and you didn't quite. choose one. Mm-hmm. . So yeah, I don't know, but I mean, I, I mean, I love the other two actresses.

They're a, they're, they're, they're adding to this and hopefully that gives more for Brie Larson to, to, to play off of instead of just being like, having nothing to play off of. Right. . Yeah. 

Theo: Yeah. Can you believe she, she was only 27 when she won the Academy Award. Yeah. And so, you know, this is her career now.

Yeah. Mid. And so it's like, you know, I mean now Angela Bassett, she could change the game with when an Oscar for a portrayal, right. For black Panther wa kind of forever. But I just, you know, it's just kind of shocked how much Marvel mc just sucked up Hollywood and just taken everybody into their little hands.

Right. So, anyway, 

Andy: you know, it's like, okay. Just, just the bit, sorry, go ahead. But 

Mr Benja: No, I, I was gonna say you know, we're talking about, you know, how are they gonna make it happen? , an analyst was talking about this and you know, I, I agreed with them. Disney kind of seems like it has no choice but to make it work somehow.

Mm-hmm. . Yeah. With all the investment they're putting into the merch di it's Disney plus rides on that pretty much. You know, the parks have all these different, you know, rides based on all these characters, all these different attractions, the, the food and everything. So it's what choice 

Andy: do they have?

Well, and so what I was gonna say in that, this is actually segues well into, to my point, people have been speculating this was the way the industry was going to go as far back as, you know, the early two thousands, right? I mean, you think about like, they were already noticing that television and.

Entertainment technology was getting better to the point that people weren't going to movie theaters as ear. I mean, since like nine 11 even, right? Mm-hmm. like when mm-hmm. , the first plasmas were coming out and, and you know, you can have a 7.1 audio system in your home and, and the more accessible that was, that was when we had that whole boom of, of adding IMAX Cedars and IMAX 3D to the format.

Cuz they were just going, how do we make this an event again that gets people out of their couches and back to movie theaters. I mean, even as early as, what was it, 2012 when, when you had George Lucas and Spielberg were at like an a AFI talkback scene saying look, guys, theaters are dying. Like, like George Lucas can't get red tail.

into a distributor. Yeah. And Steven Spielberg can't get a, the Abraham Lincoln biopic into theaters for more than a two weeks like this. Our industry is going to fundamentally change, and we have to figure out, figure out how to, to deal with that. 

Theo: No, I agree. I agree. I think I'm looking at here, someone said that movies, and I'm looking at some data here, they said that you know, movies have been a steady decline really since 1942.

but , no, seriously, it was like 60% of the US population went to the movie theater at least once a week. And that's been in state of decline. Right. And so, but it leveled out in 19 what's is 1962, and it's been roughly on average, around 10% ever since. So, you know, when you look at the numbers right, it does say that, you know, the.

10% of the population is just always gonna go to movies at least once a week. So basically four times, four times a month, you know? And so I think, you know, that's what they're saying is saying, Hey, you know, the, the audience is not gonna grow any bigger. But, you know, Hollywood has always found a way to keep people going to, you know, movie theaters over, over, since 1960s.

So that goes to show you that they find ways if it's 3d. Yeah. Or, you know did the new cinnamon wave with Spielberg and, you know, Kubrick and everybody coming with new ideas. Or in the eighties action films, Cobra and, you know Rambo, you know, so they always found ways to kind of keep people coming in, even now with the superhero genre.

So I think Holly was very, very resilient to 

Andy: kinda figure this out. And that's, and that's the question, right? Is like, right now we're kind of decrying you know, is, has Marvel and Disney kind of screwed up the movie industry? Or if you wanna flip it and spin it, did Marvel extend the life of the old way of Hollywood?

Right. For just a little bit longer. And that's, and that's, you know, mm-hmm. , 

Theo: I don't know. But like I said, I mean, if you look at the numbers, and maybe we'll put it out there, Mr. Bender, but it is been steady since 1960s. It is like, and there's been a lot of changes since the sixties. And so, but it does show you that it's just, you know, we we're, you know, they're always gonna have the same kind of audience.

Now the question, and, and this is a lot of technology, you know, changes. So what you're saying is that maybe, you know, it's, it's fundamentally broken now, you know, since the pandemic and stuff. But then, you know, MCU u's kind of sustained in that a little bit longer. But now if they go away then, then that audience is just gone.

Andy: Well, and, and also think that's interesting. It's like, when I think about it, like 1960s, that's kind of about the point of the decline of the big spectacle musical or like Ben Herr or whatever like that mm-hmm. . And you get into the seventies when it's like raw, gritty, real life filmmaking. And then by the eighties we like the advent of the blockbuster.

Right. So like, just, just thinking about how the industry changed so much in just those, you know, what, 20, 20 years and, and from there to where we are now and like how the blockbuster is, you know, is moved on to franchise blockbusters. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. 

Theo: So yeah, I don't know. Yeah. So it's gonna be interesting to see.

Mr. Benjamin, man, anything else we wanna talk about when it comes to just the. Movie in general. Was this, you know, we talked about where we trying to go with M C U, we talked about just the characters. Anything else? Like, did you like it at all? Any part that you liked? , how about there? Let's start there.

Mr Benja: You know it was extremely just middle of the road. And if, if anything, I like that I, I I, I still like the excitement of pulling the crackerjack toy out of the box, you know, where it's like, Hey, this is what they did, here's how they're connecting, here's what they're gonna do next. I was still impressed by that.

I do think an man as a character and his family are very likable. Hope included. I think all their dynamic is just very likable in general. Mm-hmm. . . And so I, I still like that dynamic. I really like the first Ant Man and I always shout it out, you know? So I think it has good things to do. Are we done with Ant Man?

I don't know. I don't think so. Which is good. But anything I really like, liked about it, dude. There is no shining star for that to me. Mm-hmm. is just, everything was just kind of average. Nothing like, made me go, whoa. 

Andy: Not, not even Jonathan Majors, just being Jonathan Majors. 

Mr Benja: I think right when he started to get Buck that they nerfed him a little bit.

Mm. And you know, that's fair. You know, you're talking about all this scientific advancement. There was, there was cooler stuff inside that they did on Loki. Sure. When he was playing with like the little, you know, future group, you know? Yeah. Showing his story. There was more coolness there than there was in this movie.

He did hand blast. Walked on platforms and made his mask come on and off and that, that's nothing like this highly super advanced technology that we were thinking about. I mean, when you think of King, it's like, wait, he didn't, he didn't like teleport. He didn't, you know, twist modoc to do weird things. He didn't, you know, he just moved him and flu 'em into a wall, you know, but he didn't like, he didn't like get crazy where you're like, oh, oh, oh, he's coming.

He's coming. And I expected to see like maybe the whole aunt, family, all five of 'em, like really coming together to do some crazy thing, but just didn't play out like that. So, Hmm. Part of that's in my head, but I didn't get to see anything majorly Cool. . Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . He did his job though, as an actor. He did his job though.

Theo: Yeah. I mean, you know, kudos to him. I mean, it's totally different role than he played in Loki. I mean, and that was pretty impactful and powerful as well. And so I thought, and it was funny seeing him kind of come in this role. It was just more regal and, you know, but it was also, you know, kind of cordial.

He was, he was, he was, you know, kind of manipulative. Right. You know how he, yeah. And like you mentioned in the very beginning, the scenes where he shares with Michelle Pfeiffer were really pivotal. I mean, I, I didn't know Michelle Pfeiffer was really gonna do a lot of heavy work in this movie. Good. Kudos to her.

She, 

Andy: she got him a ride. You can't say I, I, I, I, I, I re this reminded me how much I love Michelle Pfeiffer. I mean, this just brought me back to being, you know, 88 year old watching Lady Hawk and going like, oh, the most, the most beautiful woman ever,

Theo: The Yeah. Kuda. That's right. Yeah. I just called Lady Cat Catwoman. Cat Catwoman Batman, you know, so Michael Kea shot out and so she was the original Catwoman in the movies that we grew up on. But yeah, she did a good jre. The only thing, story wise, it just kind of rubbed me the wrong way. It was just like we knew she had a secret for like three fourths of the movie.

It was like, just tell us a damn secret. It's like, you know, I can't tell you now. We gotta do this. I hate when they do that and scream. Right. It's just like, just tell us what, then finally she sat down, but like, the whole time to, you know, just tell him who King was, what was going on. Well, I can't tell you about that.

He's still down there. They're like, who is that? Hold on, we got, I gotta do this real quick. Okay. Okay. Now let's talk about King. No, no, I gotta go talk to Bill Murray. Okay. Okay. Let's talk about King. No, we gotta put your hand in this Goop stuff so we can fly to the next place. 

Andy: If, if, if they, if they had given us, if they had given us like one little moment of like tangible trauma, right?

Mm. In, in all of that, I, I, I would've. Yeah. I, I, I, I agree with you that I, I, I went along with it, but it's like, but yes, more. 

Theo: No, that's a good problem. You're a screenwriter, huh? Andy? You know, storytelling. You're right. Deep. If, if there was something deep that she felt, you know, that you saw, like maybe, you know, she had some scars on her arm.

I mean, yeah, I know. Just something vi visual. Then we could say, oh, or she, she's like, hide it. 

Andy: or, or, you know, she comes across a graveyard and she, and like she, she knows the story behind that. We don't know what, but like, she feels responsible for the, for all of those deaths or something like that. Right?

Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. 

Mr Benja: Hey, she was even sleeping around with non-humans and nobody cared. 

Andy: with Bill Murray actually, you know, , quick, quick shout out for that one tiny little scene. I, I did think Bill Murray did great with that, as goofy as that scene was. But when he makes the shift of, of, you know, you left us and now there's great gravity to it.

I was like, yeah, that's Bill Murray. Bill Murray's fucking 

Theo: great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He did a good job. Like shifting into more menacing, you know. Yeah. As opposed to goofy. And I, I did like that aspect. What do we think of Mr. Hank and the Ants Man? That was, that was a lot. . 

Andy: I, I, I, you know, I thought it was fun.

It's like, it's, it's, you know, we went through this whole movie without any ants and it's like, it is Ant Man. And so like, it's like, okay, that's a payoff. You didn't do anything else in the 

Mr Benja: movie. So it, like, I was actually, I was actually fine with that. I was, yeah. You know, kinda like, it's, it's a, it's one of those surprise things where Kang is expecting, you know, space shifts and, you know, yeah.

Buildings with, you know, fire lasers and stuff, and all of a sudden ants, he could like, oh, oh, 

Andy: what, what is this? And, and you know, again, like the, the wild swings. Like, okay, these are ants that have evolved because of a time verex, like, like that, whatever. It's fine. 

Theo: Yeah. Big as stuck in time. And they've created this advanced evolution and now 

Andy: they're smarter than, what does he say, a fifth, a fifth level civilization or something like that.

Like . 

Mr Benja: Yeah. Reaching into the philosophy of 

Andy: futuristic life folks. I mean, socialism is a bad word, but you know, hey, they got something going here. It's like, . Why would they want so silly? I dunno. Why 

Theo: would they, I bought it. I, I, they were so advanced. Why did they wanna help, I guess, outta . Oh. 

Mr Benja: And, and to really quickly pinpoint your dis discussion, and we had a discussion thread about this earlier, Andy, when you said, when I said a lot of it seemed implausible, totally not talking about the world, totally not talking about the jelly monster, whatever.

I was talking about stuff like, you know, he cuts off a d you know, old lady kind of cuts off a guy's arm and turns around and goes, I scored us a ride. I'm like, wait, , how did you get to that? And then they did what? Okay. And there was just too many of those little moments, like, oh, breaking out girl from breaking out girl from the.

You know, 

Andy: electric, the savage, savage lady, whatever. 

Mr Benja: Yeah. How, how do I get you out? Oh, this guy bonk. Oh, he fell. Okay. Well, yeah, he fell on the, his, with his face and his face opened it up. I'm like, yeah, I, okay, let's go. I, I would, I 

Andy: would, I would've appreciated it if they had just had them do that one more time.

And then it's like, okay, that's how we do this. So it's an EyePrint or whatever like that. But instead the, the Savage land lady does a little hack thing the next time they open up a cage and it's like, no, you should've done the same thing. 

Theo: Yeah. . So you guys are pointing, you know, if it was a great story, then you probably would've overlooked that.

Oh, totally. Stuff. Totally. But that's the challenge. Wouldn't, it's not a great story then you've seeing all these nitpicks and you just like, Hey, what's that? Yeah. What's that? That don't make sense. So 

Andy: do we wanna do anything? See, I, I, I was fine with it. I, I, I went with it. I was like, yeah, because again, I'm.

The first movie ended with Thomas De Train smashing a house. But that was funny. , 

Theo: which was hilarious. Wonderful. Well, but it was so funny, they would go low and they were fighting, you know? Yeah. We would get into that Darren in the second, but my gosh, they were fighting. They were fighting and then, then, you know, they used to Oh, the scale of it.

It's just literally, we actually missed that here. 

Mr Benja: No. Could you, could you imagine them fighting on a key, you know, Kang and man fighting on a keyboard because he actually hit a button and they both shrunk down and they're like, you know, running through keyboard buttons trying to hit find each other.

Yeah. 

Theo: Whatever. I dunno. Want done some of that Modoc, the modoc 

Andy: derail him, right? They, they, yeah. They, they left, they left all the silly stuff to, to modoc 

Theo: and, yeah. So do we want to the modoc up at all? Did it work for you? What, what did y'all think? I think 

Mr Benja: they played the comedy wrong. Oh. Mm. I don't, I didn't mind it.

But then when you have a big guy, big head floating, it's like, I understand you're giving it to people who just think that's funny and silly. And it's like, look, it's, it's a big head in the chair kind of floaty. Yeah. You gotta joke with it. So I was like, all right, I'll step back from my Marvel comic you know, roots and just let that one be 

Theo: so mm-hmm.

Yeah, I, when I went in into it, I didn't like the VF vfx, I was like, didn't look real. It looked kind of like super fake. I was like, dang, this is how much this cost. So that was the first thing that threw me off. And then coming to find out was the original character that, you know, so it was like, you know, he's a great actor, you know, Corey Stall, he's been in a bunch of stuff, house of, you know, cards, things like that back in the day.

But yeah, I don't think, I mean, you know, he was funny, but he wasn't like a comedian, you know, who could just, you know, really, you know, I always think of , did you guys see the Hulu what was it, Hulu or fx? I can't remember. They had a a, a animated series, you know, on Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's the, and that Pat. Pat Oswald. Yeah. Oswald, you know, I was thinking something along those lines, right? And so someone that's kind of like that, but they trying to find, I guess, a connection to the first one to kind of say, Hey, this is of a piece, when it really isn't. So, you know, I thought he was okay, had some moments, and, you know, they try to make it funny at the end, but I don't know.

It didn't, didn't too, too much work for me. I, I think they tried and tried to, you know, they, they, a for I would say, you know, a, a c for effort, you know, b for execution, basically. So they passed, but barely, they, they could have kept that 

Mr Benja: as a reveal, you know, him being this weird guy floating around all this time, and then, oh, for later, right?

Yeah. At some point when he's about to kill somebody, he re reveals his face and starts laughing and they're like, Darren . And then it kind of, it kind of brings him out of the killing mode and like, Hey, what's going on? , you know, why are you calling me that? Don't call me that. And it could have been a reveal, 

Andy: but yeah.

You know what? Okay, I'll, I'll, I'll agree with you. That actually is that they, they, they revealed it too early. Cuz like, it got to be too much. I was like, e even like the first, it was like, okay, this is kind of funny, I buy it. But then like, they kept repeating the joke. It's like, it's the same joke every time.

Mm-hmm. . But I don't know. I, I mean, I, I, I let it go. I was kind of like, okay. And, and again, and, and to me it was also again, like, we need to have King taken seriously the whole time to not, to not derail him or deflate him at all. So, and that's the problem. Let's do, let's do the, all the, the, the, the, the silliness of an an man fight with, with Modoc.

Theo: So, and I think that was a problem. You know, you're trying to shoehorn such a serious thematic character. The themes were off. Yeah. Because the first antman, you know, remember that character Lewis, you know, he was. Fundamental to the first two. You know, the, the, the, his partner in crime, right? The guy who always tells lu stories.

Lu, yeah. . 

Andy: I, I, I, I do miss having Luis. Yeah, 

Theo: Louis, you shows up again. Yeah. And so it's like, you know, that, that was the whole theme of just like, like you say, and then we miss that whole crime element, right? Yeah. Trying to steal something and try to shoehorn in. And I don't think it worked too well.

So, so, but you know, Andy, you were very you know forgiving for a lot of stuff, so that's, yeah. That's good. I love it. I love it. . Cassie, do we do We like Cassie. Cassie was okay? Yeah. 

Mr Benja: Okay. Cassie was fine. Underdeveloped, you know, I thought for sure, I thought for sure in the quantum room, I was gonna see a police helicopter or a police van show up and help, you know, people escape or something because she had 'em in her pocket.

You remember from the beginning? Yeah. She had the police 

Andy: car. So that, that, that would've been a nice payoff. But yeah. I mean, it's still kind of a thing. Yeah. Where it's like, okay, am I, am I looking forward to seeing her with what's her name? The, the, the new Hawkeye and, and 

Theo: Yona? Oh yeah. For the, yeah.

Well, they're not, she's not, yeah. Blackwell, they're not gonna, she's gonna be on Thunderbolts, but I think there's gonna be this young Avengers team Right. With Right. It like, 

Andy: eventually they're gonna put them all into a young, you know, it's like if, if, if we're, if we are to see, you know, into the future and, and just kinda see what they're doing.

Yeah. The, they'll, they'll have a thing where the re Avengers reform, all the old Avengers will get sent to the Quantum, or, you know, abducted by the tv. A and then you'll be stuck with all the young kids. Mm-hmm. having to form a young Avengers and save them all, or something like that. I mean, that'll be 

Mr Benja: fun.

They all, they all need their story developed. She was under. 

Theo: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I agree. And then, you know I, you know, we talked about Janna a little bit, but Yeah. Very underdeveloped, really. And I agree Mr. Bitch. They never really defined, you know, I mean, she's been in all three movies. I can't recall any, any, you know, one characteristic only that she's a badass.

That's it. Right. You know, she's a badass chick. Right, right. and she could do anything. 

Mr Benja: Yeah. 

Andy: Her, her, her only character beat is that she's now the head of Pim VanDyne Industries, and she's. Doing all the things that like, you know, we thought that stark was trying to do, fighting about energy 

Mr Benja: and wait, I thought I thought Janet was, I mean the hope was the, 

Theo: oh, hope, hope, hope.

Yeah. Hope. Sorry, I said Janet, I meant hope that apologize to daughter. Yeah. Hope you know, and so I agree. This is, that character is just, you know, I, and I know they're trying to make an antman and a wasp. Mm-hmm. , I mean, Paul Rus, let's be honest, he's just being himself. I mean, it's just, he's just a funny guy, charming guy.

I mean, you know, making a check. Yeah. It's just kinda like you. What's the purpose of Anmp Man in general? I mean, that's the joke, I guess, but it doesn't seem like, you know, it is one of those things that's, that's necessary. It's just more like, Hey, you wanna see Paul Rudd hang out and be silly and fun.

Yeah. Let's, let's do it. I'll, I'll check it out. I mean, 

Andy: okay. I, I'll say this though. He doesn't even really get to do much of what he does best. Right. It's like, you, you want us, like Paul read in all of his other movies, it's like he's, you know, riffing and doing, doing improv on the spot and coming up with funny curve balls.

He doesn't even really get to do much of that. Right. Good point. He's kind of there . 

Theo: Do you do when Conan was on, do you ever remember when, every time he showed up on Conan what he always used to show? Nah. No. What was, what was that? He, whatever movie he was promoting didn't. Aunt me 

Andy: else. Oh, that's right.

I do remember that Cat , the, the wheelchair 

Theo: thing. , the old McDonald's movie called Mac and Me. And it was a scene where the character, you gotta look it up on YouTube, maybe we'll put it out there. The character was in a wheelchair 

Andy: falling 

Theo: the ravine and blew up in a . And he showed that no matter what movie he was promoting, and Kelly used to always tell him, he said, please don't show me that again

He said, no, I'm not. No seriously, this is gonna be Antman Antman. I'm promoting an man or Antman in the was. And every time it was a good bit. Remember that. And then, you know, he did all kinds of stuff like on Jimmy Fallon, he did those remakes, you know, like so all the singing, so he is, yeah, you right.

He didn't get a chance to do, I mean, you know, he has his funny moments here and there, but against, and that's, that was my original theme was like, , you know, how are they, this is a flex. How can they shoehorn such a serious character into this kind of comedic kind of genre crime caper and it didn't work.

And so that, that was probably what threw me off. And, and the word was so weird that, you know, for this character, it, it's just like, I mean, if it was Thor or somebody knew, you know, fine, but it was like, this is Ant man. What, why is he in this weird Star Wars type world? You know? He's and Star Wars. Do we have a, a Han Solo doesn't act like that.

Lou Skywalker doesn't act like that. So, you know, gimme somebody that, that, that remotely reminds me of Star Wars . So anyway, that's just my regret, right? Ruth it. But I would just say this and I'll let it go. I did like the the probability storm concept. I mean, some of it was kind of silly, but you know, just the concept that all these different versions of you exist and then how you all can work together and you have to stay focused.

And so I thought that was kind of interesting. Yeah. But overall, Mr. Benja, anything else you wanna say? I think we exhausted the Antman story. Anything 

Mr Benja: else? Yeah. You know, it's just, I I, I, you know, I wanna make sure Andy gets his closing words in here. I got nothing else to say. Yeah, let's just go jump Andy.

Andy, what you gotta say, what you gotta say? Oh, I 

Andy: mean, about the movie or, 

Mr Benja: yeah. We're, we're closing this out, right? Or? Yeah. 

Andy: I, I mean, I think it's, it's, it's, I still had fun with it, right? So it's kind of like if you go in with an open mind and you're not like, you know, you're, you're kind of, you know there for like the larger franchise serialization of it all, there's stuff to get out of it.

I think they, they do set up Kang. And, and it'll be interesting to see how that expands. You know, and this is like one of the things I, I saw in another person's review of their, their ultimate criticism, which is not necessarily. , like the worst thing to say about the movie, but when you come out of the movie really looking forward to seeing Loki season two.

Is that a strike against the movie? It might be , but that, that's your takeaway is I'm excited to see Loki season two, which I am. know, I don't know. Maybe may, you know, it's not the strongest in the world, but, but I think it, it, it'll still offers pos possibilities for the kind of serialized long form of it 

Mr Benja: all.

You want a new Cracker Jack toy?

Theo: Guess what? Figes got your box right here, buddy.

Andy: I, I mean, I suppose, you know, I mean, and this, you know, if we go back into talking the business of it all, if we want to get into this though, right? But it's like as, as you were mentioning Mr. Benja, like, like. Disney is like invested in this, right? They've got theme parks. They've announced a new, a new ride for you know, Avengers campus.

You know, it's like they have to kind of keep the longevity of these characters for as long as they can. Mm-hmm. , and, you know, can they, can they keep these characters relevant long enough that the investment in these physical theme parklands, you know, pay off their investment. Meanwhile, you know, you have Universal that just opened up, you know, super Nintendo world, you know, across the way.

And it's like, yeah, you know, I mean, super Mario has some long seated universality. There's, there's nothing, there's no current rel relevant story that needs to be in the zeitgeist because everyone's played a Super Mario game, you know, at this point, . So you can connect with it on, on eight bit level or 16 bit level, or, you know, Modern games, right?

Theo: Mm-hmm. , the interactiveness of these theme parts have to, you know, level up and MCU U has to level up as well for the 

Mr Benja: storytelling. Well you just reminded me of something. My closing words, I guess totally with you there. Just what was interesting is that a lot of people in my theater we're actually happy about it, and they did clap and they were excited, clapped at the end, mind you.

Mm-hmm. . They were excited. So, you know, it may not be as bad as it looks from our movie going, you know, Marvel deep, deep type of place. Cause I go to a little family theater and they always bring their kids. And so, and a lot of them loved it. Same thing happened with Antman, the Wash. Same thing happened with Antman.

So it may be doing its job, but it's on such a scale that, you know, outliers and industry people like us are kind of like, eh, . Mm-hmm. . 

Theo: Good point. Good point. They didn't clap at my theater. Oh. So just fy . 

Mr Benja: I was shocked. I was like, what the, yeah, I 

Andy: know. 

Theo: I, I was looking around. I said, am I gonna clap ? 

Andy: I, I, I don't think we got a clap, but we did get a whole theater of Ooh, when they got to the, the, the, the Council of Kings, mm-hmm.

Mr Benja: Yeah. So your theater knew what was up. My theater was like, oh, there, there's a Incr , 

Theo: man. He was gone. He was going ape on that dude, man.

Andy: He was hype . 

Theo: What? What king is he from? Man? WWE came in . So, anyway, Mr. Benja, man, I think we're going to go ahead and wrap it up here, man. I think we exhausted that. Andy, it was a pleasure. Thank you for stopping by. Yeah, always a a pleasure. Yeah. Anything you wanna shout out where they can follow you or anything you got, wanna promote, 

Andy: talk about?

Yeah, so I'm still on the Pod Squadron podcast. We're talking about the bad batch and of course Mandalorian using threes coming up. So we'll be covering some of that. And yeah. I also work at East West Players. We just opened a, a really great one woman show called Sweatshop Overlord by performance art artist Christina Wong.

It's out at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City. 

Theo: Go check that out. Awesome. My old neck of the world's awesome, man. Awesome. Well, hey everyone, thank you for stopping by. Please light subscribe and comment at show versus business on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Listen to us at Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you listen to podcast.

Visit us also on our website show versus business. All right, Mr. Benja. Take care. 

Andy: Peace.