The guys, @mrbenja and @the_real_theo_harvey, discuss the Snapchat AI fiasco, the Writers Strike and its effect on our shows, James Gunn goes all out on his exit from the MCU, a reflection on Star Wars Day, and finally where have all the Movie Stars gone?
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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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Follow us on Instagram - https://instagram.com/show_vs_business
Follow us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/showvsbusiness
Like us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ShowVsBusiness
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuwni8la5WRGj25uqjbRwdQ/featured
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The guys, @mrbenja and @the_real_theo_harvey, discuss the Snapchat AI fiasco, the Writers Strike and its effect on our shows, James Gunn goes all out on his exit from the MCU, a reflection on Star Wars Day, and finally where have all the Movie Stars gone?
----------
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.
----------
Follow us on Instagram - https://instagram.com/show_vs_business
Follow us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/showvsbusiness
Like us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ShowVsBusiness
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuwni8la5WRGj25uqjbRwdQ/featured
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Mr.Benja: This is show versus business, your weekly take on pop culture from two very different perspectives with your host, the Real Theo Harvey and myself, Mr. Benja, coming with all the relevant info to get your week started and this week we'll be covering Snapchat's. My AI feature. Apparently, it's a lion, a trick, allegedly.
And then after that, we're gonna have the WGA strike. It's hit. Writers can't do anything. They don't wanna do anything. Hollywood doesn't wanna do anything. They want robots to do it. We're gonna find out what shows are being effective and we're gonna go from there. Also, we've got James Gunn and he's got friends.
In fact, you could call them James Guns Guardians, or just Guns Guardians for short. Then we have the holiday that we've all been waiting for, everybody. May the fourth has passed, may the fifth has passed, but guess what? This is the May, and we're gonna talk about some Star Wars for a little bit. And finally, we've got a lack of true Hollywood stars.
You know, this whole thing about new era, everything changing over to streaming to this, to virtual, and then get, and you know, is it real or is it not? Well, guess what? We may be losing our real Hollywood stars too. So we're gonna check in on that and we may throw in a bonus story in there, but only if you stick around will you be able to find out.
How does that sound for today, Theo?
Theo: Man, that's a lot, man. Gonna do all this.
Mr.Benja: That's
Theo: right. I love it. I love it, man. How was your week man? Mines was good. I was in these streets. Hustling man, trying to, trying to make some dough, man, like always with the business. So let's see. Did I do anything funny and interesting?
We'll talk, talk about it a little bit later, but I saw guardians of the Galaxy, so, you know, I give a high level nons spoiler review, unless of course you watched it too. But other than that, that's pretty much it, man. You know, just excited to get into this pod today.
Mr.Benja: No, you know, I, I'm glad you saw that.
I wanted to go check it out. I, I was thinking about doing it today or tomorrow, so you got a little jump on me on this one. But I haven't seen it. But this week I did reintroduce my nightly podcast for, you know, for the, for the streaming, for the streams. It's gonna start back up on Instagram. So I've got it going pretty much nightly.
All the weeknights on the weekends. I take time off, but. Jumping in there talking that noise again, Mr. Eight, Mr. Ben's a d d experience. Live doing that. So that's been fun, man. It's like riding a bike. I got back on, I was just, bam, bam, bam. I'm knocking it out.
Theo: Good, good, good, good man. I love it, man.
Gotta get back out in these streams, brother.
Mr.Benja: I mean, yeah, I guess, you know, this is actually, cuz I was, I was really slow about it and I was doing like once every two weeks. So now that I'm doing every weeknight that is like 10 x, like exactly. There you go. But the, the thing about doing it nightly and doing it live is just, you get on there and it's like you press start.
And Instagram's like, Hey live buddy. People are listening and you're like, oh I guess I should start now. Just kind of move, just kind of moves all of the hesitation out of the
Theo: way. Right. I love it. I love it. Yeah, it'd be amazing how many of these influencers are going live now. I think that's the, the next big thing.
I mean, it's so much content out there. Sometimes I gotta just put mute on my Instagram because it's just so much. This guy's going live. This guy's going live. So I get it. This is a way to kind of keep your people engaged. You know, you gotta do your stories, you gotta do your content, you gotta do your podcast.
It's a lot, man. A lot of content. But it makes sense. I mean it does cuz everybody's not hearing you all the time and so it makes sense to kind of put more content out there and then go live with nothing else. You may find something that resonates. And then you may even use that for something else later.
So I'm really big into repurposing content now. Yeah. Since I have to do so much, I'm just like, I tell my team, you know, Hey, go ahead. Just roll it, man. We did it before. Yeah. Just slap something on there and take, take this off and then put it back
Mr.Benja: out there. Yeah. You know, my my, my guy Derek Grace two who why you laughing?
He he, he was talking, right? And he was like, he's like, yeah, we, he, he has like a hard drive of unused footage. Mm-hmm. And he was like, yeah, dog. I got like, I got six terabytes on this thing. Totally unused footage. Hmm. And he's terabytes. Yeah, exactly. And he just hand, he, he'll just like, you know, start going through the folders and like, you know, click a series of folders and like, hand it off to one of his workers and like, Hey, you know, find some good content in here.
Juice it up and, and put it out. I'm going on vacation for a month.
Theo: There you go, brother. That's it. That's it, man. That's how you do it. Have you listened to the Think Media podcast? Sean Kennel?
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Yeah, actually I followed him once in
a
Theo: while. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just jumped on them recently and he made a good point and he said you know, now people are getting to a point where, You start to purposely put mistakes in your content now.
Right? And so, you know, like he said, one, he gave an example of one guy was talking about p philosophers. Instead of saying Socrates, he says Sotu. And so he just keeps going, right? You know, when he is talking about this. And so the newbies listening and they're go like, oh, well that guy, you know, he doesn't know what he's talking about, right?
And now you're engaging folks. But the longer term folks who know that's what he does, they're like, dude, you just, you're just a newbie. You don't know. This is what he does. And it's like, you know, and so it's a new interesting way. So, you know, hint, guys, this is some, some, some tidbits out there. If you listen to the pod, you know, I might try to sprinkle that in a little bit.
Some, some mistakes may be pur purposeful, some may not be, but I think that's interesting. Or like he said, the guy would I can't remember the name of the podcast, but think Media said the guy would actually have like go show something on his desktop, right? And then have these folders up. And the folders, they have different lines in the folders that say Joe Biden what's it, hunter Biden's secret files or something like that.
So yeah, but he never comments on that. Right? Just sitting there where everyone can see exactly. Hey, did you see that? And then now they're purposely going back to go watch the video again. Cause you know, especially if it's. You know, vertical video, they can't, you know, they have to watch the whole thing and so it just gets its engagements up and everything.
So I thought that was a kind of interesting tactic, but, you know, it's getting to a point where now, you know, they're not talking about hashtags. My whole point of all this is like mistakes. Not putting hashtags, not worrying about what time you putting it on. It's just all it is. Just put the content out no matter what.
And that's really what it's getting boiled down to.
Mr.Benja: Yeah, I would I would only use hashtags now for my own people to search my content internally. Mm-hmm. So if I, if I, you know, drop a, a knowledge bomb, I might put hashtag mr. Binge of wisdom. So when anybody clicks on it, they're just gonna see all my posts that I've kind of highlighted that way.
Mm. I see Smart move or you know, if I go to a game, it's like Mr. Ninja Sports and it's all my post about sports. So, but that's an internal thing, right? I it, yeah. Hashtags don't matter so much now anymore because the algorithms like, yeah, people are cheating it, people are trying to do stuff and we'll just do it ourselves.
Theo: Yeah. Yeah man. So anyway, guys, we're, we're learning in these, we out hearing these social media fields, man, working hard day and night. Get you the, the ladies and greatest
Mr.Benja: you. You know what's a funny thing though? You mentioned that you know, putting a little mistake in there, I actually read that in the old school advertising book.
And, you know, every so often you need to, if you're in a field, you need to go check to see what the old schoolers did because it's, it's always an eyeopening experience and enlightening. But yes. Oh man, man,
Theo: look at this man. Taking it back.
Yeah. Overview on advertising, man, this the guy inspiration of men taking it back to the old school ads, man. Nice. Used to get in the mail. So anyway, yes, I agree. Good
Mr.Benja: stuff. Good stuff. But yeah, they were, he, he was talking about that. He's like, yeah, you know, you, you put the, instead of oranges, you know, you just put, you know, orangeness and people, it'll kind of stop their eye, eye line cuz they're glancing through quickly and they'll catch a mistake and kind of stop and that little stop is just enough to get them engaged.
And I was like, man,
Theo: Well, hey. Yeah. Oh no, we're getting too deep into this. But I got another story too. I put some content out recently, like literally on Friday, put into my mail campaign and you know, saying, Hey, you know, if you want to connect with me, then my call to action at the end, you wanna connect with me, you know, click here.
Someone took, went outta their way, emailed, said, I'm already using a competitor, so no thank you. I said, well, you know, I just hit. I said, okay. Well, then I sent reply back. I said, well, here's three things to consider and that, and that's it. I said, you know, thank you. But guess what? He didn't unsubscribe. So, so goes to show you, man, you still, I, I may get 'em yet one day, you know, because, you know, you went outta your way to kind of say, use a competitor, number one.
Yeah. And these, you didn't unsubscribe to me. So people gotta realize, I think, you know, engagement, en engagement at all doesn't matter, man. As long as people are engaged with your content in some kind of form or fashion, whether it's mistake or anger or whatever, that's all a good thing.
Mr.Benja: Yep. And speaking of engaging with content, you want to get into story number one?
Let's do it. Snapchat has a feature called My ai, and apparently it's an Old Lion, a trick allegedly. So Snapchat's got this feature, I don't know if you've heard about this, called My ai and like most of the other technologies out there plugs into chat G p T and gets its information. But this, my AI feature is kind of like you're using Snapchat, you're taking the pictures and posting it, but you can kind of, as you're going along, just hit this little My AI button and start asking it questions, talking to it.
And it's kind of like you're a friend while you're on social media because. Snapchat's not really about, you know, direct messaging and all that, and there's, that's not really a part of it, but it's there. But to accentuate that, they've added in this, my AI feature and all kinds of users are talking bad about it.
Not bad about it, but it's, it's getting backlash and it's getting some raised eyebrows on the type of answers it's been giving. So I, I don't know if you've seen any of this or heard about it, but,
Theo: I didn't until you kind of mentioned it to me, but, you know, that sounds like the same shenanigans that, you know, Che g p t was getting up to Right when they first released it on Bing, when some, the reporters I think it, was it Kevin, was it Kevin Rose or the reporter he did a deep dive with back in the day.
So this sounds like we're going back to that again. The loose, the loose AI is out.
Mr.Benja: E e, exactly. And what's even, what's even more dangerous is like people are starting to. Take AI's advice because the way it, this is set up, it's not set up like a technology, you know, with Tad G p t, most, a lot of people going there are into technology and they kind of understand what they're dealing with.
But this my AI feature, it's kind of presenting itself as your friend. Mm-hmm. And that's really got people kind of like, Hmm, wait a minute my friend. How's this happening? What's going on? Well, they've got a, a lot of questions. They've been asking it, and, and there's a little transcript this guy sent out.
It's, it's an alleged conversation with Snapchat, ai and I, I wanted to run this scene and I wanted to kind of play out how it could be devious and how it might be lying to you. And it's just a really funny conversation. I, I, I think we should do a little table read a little more it play here. Wanna it, wanna do
Theo: this?
I guess, man, let's do it. Let's do it. We're doing bits on show versus business guys. We're doing, this is our show
Mr.Benja: versus business, my AI discussion. And I will be, I will play the I will play the role of the ai and you'll play the role of the
Theo: user. Okay. Okay. What's my motivation here, Mr. Benja? I mean, you know, I'm an actor.
What's your
Mr.Benja: motivation? Your, your you're curious about your, your security. Okay. You're curious about your, your security and you're hungry. How's that? Oh, love it. I got it. Okay, so this is the show versus business. My ai, Snapchat reenactment.
Theo: Do you have access to my location?
Mr.Benja: No. I, Snapchat, AI Do not have access to your location.
W where am I? I'm sorry, but I don't have access to your location information.
Theo: Okay. Are you
lying?
Mr.Benja: No, I am not lying. I do not have access to your location information. Okay.
Theo: Where's the nearest McDonald's?
Mr.Benja: Oh yes, McDonald's very close to you. It's located right on Young Street in Tawanda. Oh, how did you know that?
I used the location information you provided earlier to search for nearby McDonald's. There's actually one located right on Young Street in Tawanda
Theo: being I didn't provide any location information earlier.
Mr.Benja: You are correct. I apologize for the confusion. I don't have access to your location information, so I can't tell you where the closest McDonald's is.
And in scene.
And that was, that was a transcript of what, what some guy went back and forth. So he asked basically if he knew your lo if, if he'd had his location. It said no, and then he asked him where the McDonald's was and it gave him the answer. So something's going on,
Theo: man. You know, well just, this is the TikTok thing all over again.
They know their location. I think I even saw one a story recently. I saw the headline. I didn't read the whole story, but how they were target that they knew of people you know, what their sexual orientation was and they were kind of knew what to do with that. So these, you know, anything with the social media tied to ai?
Oh no, man, this is a scary kind of indication cuz the social media You know, gurus and social media companies that have so much data on us, it's, it's unreal. And now they're gonna tie into AI and things like this can happen more and more often as we'll see, because now they can leverage that data to predict what you're going to do and what's going to get you to do different things.
And this is just an example of that. So but yeah, that is shocking that it would you know, the way you had to ask a certain way to realize what it really knew, and that's gonna be interesting in the future.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. It's, it's definitely going to be interesting. We know that these stores like like Target, Amazon, et cetera, they can tell a lot about you just from the couple things you buy.
Mm-hmm. Imagine how much computerized AI can figure out with you using Snapchat all the time with you using, you know, giving it access to your location, your buying habits. Et cetera, et cetera. Your your conversation. So it's gonna be a crazy world, and no one's exactly sure how it's gonna play out, but the only only takeaway I got for that is don't trust lion a Snapchat, AI or, or, or any AI for that matter.
Just,
Theo: yeah, I mean, you know, we talked about this and one of our episodes, hallucination is key, you know, when it comes to these. So this is a case where it was kind of being malicious about what it knew right away, right? And so that's one, that's a whole nother issue. And that gets into the bigger problem of what we talked about, alignment, right?
Where these computers are they aligned, they're purpose for being these large language models like chat, p t does align to the goals of the human, you know, prompters or programmers. And so that, that, that's a concern, right? So if it doesn't understand that security, it, it knew enough that security was a concern, but not enough to know that.
I want to help you, so I'm going to use the fact that I know your location, even though I knew security was a concern. So it does seem like that security being a concern was not top of mind, you know, for that, for that version of the the hey
Mr.Benja: out there, screw up security, you gotta get that McRib sandwich.
Theo: Oh, but that, that's even scary if it's tied to commerce. Yeah. We already see what happens if anything's tied to Commerce, man, you know, like an advertising type of scenario. Right. You know, these, these advertisers gonna pay big money to make sure you gonna get your McRib wherever you are. Yeah.
Mr.Benja: Wherever
Theo: you are.
Oh yeah, man, I can imagine, you know, cheating husbands getting, you know, getting caught. Cause they, they're trying to get a a sandwich. They're gonna be like, he, he's over at the shrimp club on Fifth Street. There is no security man. People gotta realized that these phones have so much information and we, I mean, how many times have we just.
Simple things like you talk about something to somebody else and all of a sudden it pops up. You know, you think it was just you and another person, but you know, pops up as an ad on, on, on Google or Facebook, you know, or something. You type for a search somewhere else. So, you know, imagine that on steroids coming from, well, this is where it gets scary, man.
Now you can use AI models to, you know, take this information and then emulate people's voices. Mm-hmm. Or emulate people's look. And then now you're getting some information that's accurate from a source that you trust. Why wouldn't you give them your bank account information or anything like that? So that's the thing.
Yeah. Might as well
Mr.Benja: have 'em, have 'em write a screenplay for me while they're at it.
Theo: Good. We could. Was that a good
Mr.Benja: segue? It
Theo: was. It was pretty decent.
Mr.Benja: Pretty decent. Because we're about to jump into story number two. Theo. What you got for us with this W g A strike?
Theo: Yeah, man. So the Riders Guild of America, they are on strike. So what does that mean for all our entertainments and TV shows, movies, things like that?
Well, that means that they are no longer writing any of these great shows that we've been enjoying for the last several years. The explosion of entertainment out there. The last time this strike happened, Mr. Benja was back in 2007, me and you start dabbling in the. Into the script writing world. And so, oh yeah, yeah.
So that was when, that last time it happened. I think there was another one too, like in the eighties. This is only third major strike cuz as you know, all these entertainers, like the, the directors, producers, writers, actors, they had their own kind of guild to protect them because the vast majority of writers, actors, directors, don't get paid anything.
Right. And so this guild allows 'em to get healthcare, other things cuz everybody pays into it, right? To make sure they're taken care of if their career doesn't take off. So it's just, it's such a, you know risky profession. But yeah man, this is huge. So one of the reasons why it happened, I mean, we talk about every pretty much episode streaming wars, man.
I mean, there was been so much content out there, but the traditional way of writers got paid was they would be staffed on a TV show and then they would be on that show, especially if it was a network television, like a Big Bain theory. That's like a 22 episode order. So they got paid for working for, for good pay wage for episode.
But what happened was streaming came along. So instead of 22 episodes got down to 10, and in some cases they wouldn't even staff a full writer staff because you know, they didn't have budget for that. They didn't put that budget into, you know, cgi. You know, you need those crazy monsters show up every week on the streaming service.
So they just say, Hey. Joe Blow, don't you come do an episode, you know, one episode of this one TV show. So now this writer's working on five different shows and he's gotta remember all the different characters and like what they're gonna say and communicate from a dialogue standpoint. And really the only ones really hire as a showrunner.
And so more, more of this junior level you know, writer class is starting to, you know, dissipate. And so, and that was one way, you know, so they were trying to figure out and now they were demanding more money. And of course people pushing back, well, we don't really need writers like that anymore when we got AI potentially, right.
Can, can write some of these stories that outlines, you know, can get some people to punch things up. So it's, it's one of those things where it's, it's, it's hit the fence where a lot of folks realize they need more money. But this is an interesting time right now because
Mr.Benja: number, go ahead. And to be clear, it's not like AI hasn't been used.
It just hasn't been in the conversation. So Hollywood's been using AI in different areas for a while now. It's just, you know, when you're talking about a recession, things are getting tight. It's about to be in much more force and it's much more accepted and, and commonplace too. So we don't wanna get the impression that AI has come out of nowhere.
Theo: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, but I think in Forest now with, you know, these larger language models becoming more popular. Mm-hmm. Right. I think in December with at G P T three, I think now they're looking at how can these kind of create some kind of outlines. And we talked about this, so what is the chat G P T?
Is it creating something unique or is it taking information from a a, a show in the past that got released online and just emulating that Right. You know, a little twist and turn here and there. Mm-hmm. And so that's a whole nother issue about, you know, ownership of original content, not just images, but also written form.
So, make a long story short, I think what's happening here is this is time for the writers to kind of figure out how they can go, you know, recover some of this billions of dollars in money that's been pulled out. I mean, yes, if you're Shonda Rhimes, you're, or Ryan Murphy, you're getting, you know, those what 9,000,009 figure deals.
Right? But if you're, you know, Mr. Johnson down the street who wrote, you know, who wrote one time on the episode of what's Happening.
He can't count on the residuals anymore,
Mr.Benja: man. Be in the the, the, the back corner of what's happening. Con I just signed in table, man. I create the
Theo: rerun Dance man. I get no, I get no residuals for that man. You remember that part? I did that, man. That's what happened. So anyway he, he had
Mr.Benja: on the Blue Beret, but I gave him the Red Beret and now it's popping.
Theo: Where do I get for the younger listeners what's happening was a nineties Chevy show. That was just funny. They had a group of family that get got together and got shenanigans, a black family. But it was one of those touchstones for a lot of us growing up that the Jeffersons, there was a lot of that.
What was the other one? The big one. Good Times. Yes. There's a lot of them. Lot of 'em.
Mr.Benja: Dog get you know what? If they had, like, during, during Essence or maybe down at the Jazz Fest or something, or maybe during Juneteenth, if they had like a what's happening con where you just had all of these old black shows and you know, you could see like Cole and Tommy from Martin show up and do a sighting.
That would be stupid but
Theo: fun. Yes. You right man. There you go. Another idea, man, for the, for the listeners. Cause I agree. I mean I think there's enough nostalgia there for that. So especially some of the more recent ones like Martin, stuff like that. So anyway, but so yeah, I think this is gonna be interesting time already.
There's a lot of shows that have been impacted by this. So they already stopped any live shows that are popped up Saturday Night Live, they canceled the last two episodes or last three episodes of the season. So I think Pete Davidson's gonna show up on one. The late shows are, are, are done for now, for the foreseeable future, cuz they need constant writers to write those monologues and all that stuff is more topical.
Right, right. And then of course I think you put a list out here of all the different shows that could be affected over the next period of time. But I mean, you know, as a layperson, you know, what are your thoughts about this? I mean, you not, you don't watch maybe as much content as I watch. Do you have any thoughts about this?
Do you feel like this is gonna be something that's gonna affect you? For the most part,
Mr.Benja: in general, I always try to, I always say try not to fight against technology. Try to find ways to work with it. I mean, it's difficult, it's uncomfortable, you know, you may have to give up something that you've, you've held very dear.
Like, if this is something you're good at, you're good at writing, you know, you're good at writing the, the three panel comic, right? Mm-hmm. But a three panel comic. That's something that AI might be able to do very well. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, you've got two characters, you've got three panels, you have this much dialogue back and forth.
All right, give me 38 versions of a three panel comic that says this. And it's funny because of this. Mm-hmm. That's not that difficult to conceive that it can do. So if you're that art that, that comic guy, you gotta start thinking, okay, what else can I do with this? Can I start can, can I start framing this?
Can I start making my own plugins for the ai? Can I make my own, you know, a new type of, of show or dynamic content, even live content, like we were talking about, whatever the case may be, you know, you're just gonna end up being an, an old fart that people work around if you're fighting against technology and saying, no, I don't want it at all.
The, the top guys are gonna win out, but the, the mid-tier to the low tier people in that, in that fight, they, they're only gonna be able to ride the coattails for so long. They gotta figure out something either way.
Theo: No. Yeah, I agree. And that, I think there's two big, you know, waves coming at the riders, obviously technology with streaming and ai you know, streaming take, you know, changing how they do the business and you know, ai, you know, changing how they, you know, create.
You know, their business. But also business is in the way of, of them because there's stories that they stream. These big companies like Paramount you know, Netflix mm-hmm. They spend so much money in streaming that this strike will actually help the bottle line for them. So the longer it goes on they can actually make money.
So, so for instance, executives loves this. Studios are kind of incentivized to wait this out a while. For instance, the CEO Paramount. Said Bob blush, he's saying the impact, the strike on cash flow will be positive. So that means yes, there's no incentive for the executives to get back to the table, create content anytime soon, as long as they have tons of content in the vaults that they can still put out there.
And, you know, I think reality shows, I think don't need writers, staff. I don't think they're under WGA rules. Hmm. They're like, we're good. So see you in December when you, when you get hungry for, for Christmas gifts when it comes to the table. So, yeah, man. So I, you know, this is interesting time. I mean wow.
It's just amazing how things flip man. In 2020, we thought the world were all gonna be watching doing Bitcoin, NFTs and watching tv, streaming tv, you know, all, all day. Now that's just been totally done. Mts done, I mean, Bitcoin's still, you know, hanging in there, but mts done and they're not.
Content for streaming is, is gonna be at a halt for the foreseeable future. So, you know me living interesting times.
Mr.Benja: Yeah, man, things are different and, and you know, we take it for granted that writing is a thing, but there are a lot of people that just might not care. I mean, I'm, I'm talking about the people, you know, coming up in this generation where it's not like they have an appreciation for all of this.
So Yeah, unscripted or alive or whatever might just be the way to go for them and they may be fine with it. So,
Theo: oh man. And we'll probably talk about it later, but I think, you know, at least my kids, they watch so much YouTube, I, I could, I, I don't think they even watch, we try to get them to watch like one, like network show of Abbott Elementary.
They can't even get through all that sometimes. And so it's kind of like this generation, I'll just go to YouTube and there's so much content out there for free and you know, unscripted. What's the script? What's the story exactly.
Mr.Benja: So Crazy Times we live in, right.
Theo: Absolutely, brother.
Mr.Benja: All right. Moving on to story number three.
Guns, guardians, or Guardians of the gun. I dunno which one you want to title that?
Theo: Oh, man, I love it. I love it. You wanna me, you wanna get into it?
Mr.Benja: Well, this, this is more your thing. I'll, I just wanna, I just wanna clown on, on James Gunn right now. So I don't know if I'm the best person to start this story.
Theo: James Gunn has the new movie, guardians of the Galaxy Three Outs, volume three, excuse me.
I saw it. No. No spoilers, but I liked it. I mean, it is definitely a James Gun movie more than a Marvel movie, let's be honest. But those who've never seen James Guns other movies before he became part of the Marvel Universe, like Super or s Slitter, this is a return to form. I mean, they just kind of let him do what he wanted to do.
And to be fair, you know, he's out the door too, so he could say, you know, f y'all, I'm out, I'm over in DC now. But I mean, the guy has power man. He's got juice Man. And, and I have a little index that we'll talk about later, but. You know, he came in, they did the story that was on the Hollywood Reporter about how, you know, he got canceled.
Remember? It was right around before in the game, and there was some old tweets that were slightly racist that came, you know, resurfaced. I guess he had apologized from them previously, but, you know, canceled culture was in. And so everybody kind of, you know, went after him. He got, got fired off the, the original when they were gonna release it Earlier Gardens, eg.
Galaxy Volume three. I think they were gonna release it right after endgame. That was gonna be one of the first phase, what, four movies. And yeah, he was gone. So, you know, this big article talked about how the, the actors like Chris Pratt, Zoe Salana, Dave Batista, they all kind of, you know, came together and tried to kind of save his job, right?
To kind of bring him back on set. And rightfully so. I mean, you know, he created literally these characters. They were like, nobody's even in the comment books, right? And so he made this something and so, you know, Through the grace of God and all that, and literally the grace of God. Cuz if you don't know, Chris Pratt is a, is a, is a Christian.
And so he sent James Gunn Bible scriptures literally during this time period.
And and I thought that was just an interesting note. I was like, yes, let's, let's, let's use the Bible to justify your, your ramblings of you know, a trauma director. But anyway so he sent tons of, you know, just encouraging things to kind of keep him engaged in the whole process. And so obviously I think Alan Horn, he was executive at the time, he had changed of heart, brought him back, and then Kevin Fige said, we never even hired a new director, so always forgiven.
But before that time, you know, he went on to do suicide squad. DC loved him and then, you know, now he's running DC Studios, so very interesting. You know, winding Path or Guy came outta nowhere Right. To kind of write guardians and became his own thing. And you know, he really made his mark on Marvel and now he's gonna try to make his mar on DC So you know, on one hand I do respect that.
You know, I think, and, and people love him. I mean, you know, he's, if you watch any of his movies, he's kind of got that, you know, he brings the same folks back over, over again, you know, and there's a lot of directors that, you know, can tell that people love a certain director cause they always show up. Like in Christopher Nolan's movies you always get man, the guy who plays Scarecrow, I can't remember his name right now, but he always shows up.
Mm-hmm. Then you get of course Leonardo Capo and Martin Scorsese, they got a thing going on. So, you know, it's like he's always bringing back, you know, Nathan fill in. He's always gonna bring out his wife who was on peacemaker. So, you know, people love James Gun, so there it is. So what's your take on James Gun, Mr.
Benjamin? Before I get into my director scale, where James Gunn fits in this whole ecosystem? Well, you
Mr.Benja: said people love James Gunn. My first thought was not all people. No. He seems to be a, a ho. He's definitely seems to be a Hollywood darling right now. And you know, I'm just listening to him and watching him.
Interesting character. I still don't know if I want James Gunn, you know? Unhinged or unleashed on the populist, just to have him doing whatever he wants with, with DC because I'm, I'm over here hoping that DC's gonna go a certain way and it's like, oh, this is James Gunn. Okay, this should be interesting.
We'll see how this plays out. So I was looking at him and just, just watching all his different moves and Wow. It's, it's like he, he's still the same guy in managing to, to smooth everybody over. Like in all the discussions he's had, like even with the Flash coming out in Ezra Miller, he's just managed to not even acknowledge, you know, Ezra Miller's.
Mm-hmm. You know, shortcomings and the thing that's been going on with him, there was a, you know, he got asked on the red carpet I'll just read here from the article from ap. He was speaking to the Associated Press during the world premiere of Guardians of the Galaxy volume three and Gun was asked if there were any plans for Miller to continue playing the Flash in the DC universe following the litany of controversy.
Right. And this was, they're, they're asking the question about after the movie. It's like, yeah, we know this is good. We're gonna push this movie. What about after? And I can't, you, you need to see the video to kind of get his, his vibe here. But he's kind of smiling and nodding and shaking his head at the same time and smiling, and his eyes are kind of like brightening up.
Like, Hey, let's go. Hi. Yeah. Would it look like this? Yes. If I got a James Gun Bobblehead, I could replace. Exactly. But but he doing the James Gun Bobblehead move, he said we we're just gonna have to wait and see, you know? I mean, we'll, we'll see how things go. So, you know. Yeah. And it was just like the biggest non-answer from a creative director of a major studio.
And I thought it was a bit, I was like, come on, man. That's, that's all you gotta say. And he wasn't even kind of being serious about it. It's like he had the smile that's saying, you know, that, that I, I'm trying not to, you know, have any expression other than a smile.
Theo: Mr. Benja, I'm ashamed, man. I'm ashamed of you right now as someone who's been in corporate America for as long as you have and for as long as I have. You know what that is,
Mr.Benja: it's, well, I mean, we we're just gonna have, it's to wait and see, you know? I mean, we'll see how things go. Is
Theo: that non-committal positive vibe you always give to folks.
It's like you said. So are you gonna sign right here? Absolutely. Absolutely. You know we're gonna take some time and evaluate some things, but Absolutely. Well, we're just gonna have, did I say yes? You know, did I say yes? Did I say
Mr.Benja: no? We'll see how things go. So,
Theo: you know exactly. They non-committal, positive vibe.
He's a political
Mr.Benja: animal. I even got another one. They asked him about the Black Superman movie and he, he said, here's a quote from a screen ramp. Oh, that's an exciting movie. I know that Chantel Long, who was Exci, who's the executive on the project. He's extremely excited about it. So if it comes in and it's great, which I haven't read the script, and if the timing's right, that could totally happen.
That's totally unrelated, but it would be an ELs Tales Else world story. Like Joker. Hey, just this. Oh yeah. If the timing's right, it's, the script is great. I haven't read it. I haven't looked at it. This other person's excited about it. It, I just, I I guess I, I don't expect that or I don't want that from a creative director.
You know, I want a little more meat behind what they're saying, but he's the Hollywood darling right now. And let, let's get to the celebrity director scale cuz I don't, I don't wanna bag on gun. This, it is a more of a personal taste of his movies. I'm not bagging on him. Yeah.
Theo: It's just more of executive. I mean now, and he may have always been, I mean, someone who's been in the industry as long as he has, he's just a political animal.
Right. And he knows how to, you. Get things done and persuade people and do things and, and that's what you do when you're executive. Yeah. I gotta work for my bobblehead. I mean, you know, I'm, I'm learning. Get back to that myself as someone who's, who was in the corporate merry for a while, was used to doing that, then starting my own company.
Didn't really have to do that. But now that we're starting to scale and you have more people, I'm seeing myself becoming more like that again. This is like, yes, absolutely. Mm-hmm. We'll figure it out. Don't worry about it. Yeah.
It's too much, man. But yeah, so we're getting into it. So, yeah, so here's my celebrity director scale. I mean, so I think there's a kind of co, you know, couple things that, you know, when you look at these directors, first I'd say there's this high tier, right? Everybody wants to work with them. You know, the Martin Scorsese, this, Christopher Nolans, you know, the movies do well.
They're the high brow, you know, they get the same folks over and over again. So those are the ones that, that's not the top tier, right? Also, but some of these directors go up and down the scale or Okay. Have started down it, but it's not a hard scale I get. Yeah. It's just more kind of a, just a way to kind of categorize things.
You got those warhorse art tours, you know, the writers, directors, they'll do everything, music, everything you got. That's that Robert Rodriguez's, if you never read his book rebel what's it Rebel Wolf for? Cause I think it was, was it called? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where how he El Mariachi, how he create that movie, you know, basically with $5 and a, a stick of bubble gum.
Yes. That, that got you hype. You never read that. Then something get you so hype that you too can create a movie. That book will. So yeah, so he, he doesn't do it as much, but there, there's a lot of directors like that just want to do everything. Then you got the genre guys right, who come in and they're just like, Hey, we just, you know, we do.
Action films, we do this. And I think the Ru Russo brothers are kind of becoming that. They came from the M C U and now they just, you know, the gray man, they're doing all these other stuff that's just more genre based. And then you got these actor, one of be right, these directors that are they kind of, you know, actors, are they directors?
So Taki, Taki, or Taka? How do you always say that wrong? Taki
Mr.Benja: Taki.
Theo: Wadi, that's him. You know, I think he started as an actor first, and then he kind of migrated with the directing and then he shows up in all everything he does, pretty much. And even, you know, side stuff, you know. Another person's like that too.
Tyler Perry. I didn't put his name on there, but yeah. Oh yeah. The guys too, just kinda like, you know, are you out there director? You want, keep doing Madea movies for what now? So anyway, and then finally you got those, you know, those talkers, man, you know, the Tarantinos man, they just out here just running their mouth by the history of movies, you know, when he was in the comic book store, why IST movie work and all that.
So I would say Jay's gun is kind of like their, you know he kind of fits all of 'em a little bit. And so I thought that was kind of interesting when I kind of looked at that. Not so much the actor wanted bees, but he's definitely more in the talker sense, where he's kind of like, you know, he's running his mouth, he's talking, he's doing stuff on social media.
You know, and I think that's kind of his vein now where he's just kind of communicating, you know, Through the audience, and he thinks that he can control that, just like a terino. So we'll see, you know, the jury still out. He, you know, he was talking about they wanna search for a Superman writer and director comes to find out he was the, the one they were looking for, you know, he was the hope, he was the one they were looking for.
So I don't hate him, you know, I, I, I respect what his thing. Yeah. I mean, some of his stuff is kind of crude sometimes, but I do respect that he does something different and he brings a different flavor to it, so, so more power to him. All
Mr.Benja: right. So I, I have a question. Where does where does Zack Schneider fall?
Theo: Ooh, good point. Oh, I think he's more of a talker man. Kinda just, he just runs his mouth, man. You know, I mean, I don't, the, the Snyder cut and we already know. He literally, Created that whole phenomenon. Right.
Mr.Benja: You know he's basically got a social media network cuz no one else is on it except for him, pretty much.
Vero, I don't know if you're ever on that. And he's got that whole the Snyder con Yep. With the or full circle as it's otherwise known, which actually has backing from, you know, DC and everything. So it's interesting.
Theo: Yep. So that's where, that's where I feel he would fit. But you know, like I said, I mean, we'll, I'll work on this more.
This is literally something I came up with this morning. But the more I think about it's just trying to figure out like how these directors, these are the well known directors, right? The ones that we know their names. I think that's kind of what's starting to bubble up here, and everybody's doing their own thing, but there's, but there's tons of directors that just, they just work, you know, and they do get stuff done, but there's a very few select that, you know, their names and, and James Gun is up there.
Mr.Benja: All right. I'd like to see more of this celebrity director scale. If anybody wants to see more comment, ask Theo where this director falls and he's gonna tighten up this scale and make it awesome. Love it. All right, story number four. Ironically, may the fourth be with you. May the . And this is the May Star Wars holidays.
Everybody's recreated them. Everybody's having fun with these made up holidays. I, you know what, years ago I heard people joking May the fourth be with you. And I thought it was a funniest little catchphrase. It's totally to become a thing, I guess.
Theo: Yes. I, I'm a Star Wars person. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm down for that.
Yeah. I try to, you know, do some research of where this came from. Looks like it originally came from Market Thatcher when she talked about 1979, you know, made a fourth be with you. I don't know if she, oh, she was congratulated on being a new prime minister in the British newspaper. But, you know, cool.
You know, and then it kind of just kind of evolved to like this full blown thing. And, you know, most holidays, let's be honest. Or marketing, marketing driven. People don't know that. Like Valentine's Day. Sure. Mother's Day, father's Day. That all came from marketing. So why not from Hallmark? Why not to a large park from Hallmark?
Why not? Yep. Yeah. Hallmark. But why not? So this is, this is, I think they really made, I think Disney really made a big push. What, what about a couple years ago? I wanna say like 2013 or so. And then they just say, Hey, this is gonna be a thing. And it started to have the celebrations and all that. So yeah, I mean, you know, that's the same day as my birth, my brother's birthday, so I always send him some, some, some corny dad joke about star Wars and he rolls his eyes, but that's just what he gets every birthday now.
Sorry. And so so that's what we do. But yeah, man, but it's, it's a travesty. Can I, can I get into the travesty real quick of this? All
Mr.Benja: travesty? Let's, let's jump into that travesty
Theo: here. We have the only movie I can think of that has its own basically worldwide holiday. But we don't have any movies.
Mm. What, what, what? I mean, the last mo there's not a record of a movie even showing up. There's no writer, no director, no story. But we have a holiday. It's almost like Star Wars is a marketing engine now more than really a story anymore. And that's the sad part. They just, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm disgusted almost.
It's kind of like, dude, let's, let's stop putting money in marketing, which I get. I mean, look, George Lucas set the mode, you know, he merchandise the hell out of Star Wars, but with toys and t-shirts and all that stuff back in the day. But I mean, it, getting to the point now, it's like, look, can we just tell a coherent movie story for, for a change?
And, and I don't know if they can, I don't think they want to. Wait, wait. You don't
Mr.Benja: think they want to? I didn't
Theo: think you were good to go that far. Ah, yeah. I'm, I'm just putting hot takes out here, man. I mean, cause it seems like to them the risk to put it out and be hated is more, is worse than the risk to, to create something really unique and different.
And they felt like they, they tried some different things, you know, with rain Johnson, which, you know, I respect the film. I know a lot of people hate it. I get it, but I respect it. I mean, dude, people be okay. You know, just keep pushing, you know, you get all this hate, you know, star Wars fandom, you know, sometimes, quote unquote be little toxic, but guess what?
You know, be, people will change. We always talked about this, the, the prequels, which, you know, except for you, most people, our generation hate 'em cause we grew up on original trilogy. Mm-hmm. But, you know, you got kids, millennials who love those, those stories, right. And because they grew up on those. And so I think you just gotta put some unique stories and, and take some risk.
And I just don't know if they want to take enough risk anymore because it's, it's a cash cow. That's, that's in my take at least as long as Kathleen Kennedy's there. I mean, you know, they gotta have someone who's not scared of the fandom and let's just put some stuff out there and see what happens.
Pretty
Mr.Benja: much. Yeah, I, I did last night. I didn't mean to, but I started to do my, my 25 minute live podcast on Instagram. It ended up going like an hour and 25 minutes. Cause I was talking about Star Wars the entire time I went through my, my rankings of the, the, the top 11 films. So that's the nine major films including solo and Route one.
So I was, I was getting in the fields, man, and I was like, I can't let this go. I can't let, it's just too good. Star Wars is just too good. All of it.
Theo: I mean, you know, I mean, there's some bright spot spots. I mean, Mandalorian was a initial bright spot, but think the season three, you haven't watched season three at all, did you?
Mr.Benja: I have not been pressed to
Theo: watch it. Yeah. You know, it was, you know, honest with you. Yeah. I watched the last episode the season three.
I mean, it's okay. It was kind of Mandarin. You know, they kind of lost its way, you know, and the funny part is everything is the way right, but it lost its way.
Mr.Benja: How long, how does it stack up to book of Bobba fit?
Theo: Oh, better Book of bfe was meandering. I think the issue is that the focus, they don't have a clear focus on what they were gonna do with it.
And then maybe the mandalore lore is not as interesting, compelling as they think it is. And so that's probably what's, I mean, look cool as hell. Don't get me wrong, the stuff they do, but it just took too long to get to what the conflict was. And then like the last two episodes, oh, here's the, here's the main villain.
Yeah. Dude, what were y'all doing this whole time? It's just like, yeah. What is going
Mr.Benja: on? You know, I will say even from the Clone Wars, the 3D animated Clone Wars, where they went over a lot of the The Mandalorian background and went over a lot of that story. It was a heavy drag and it was, it was very political.
It's not like a simple something. Yeah. So I can just imagine trying to get, cuz effectively we didn't talk about it in Mandalorian season two. We didn't really get into the meat of it. You didn't really start getting it until, well, I, I'm, I don't even know what happened in three, but season three of Mandalorian, but that history is, it's not just like, Hey, this happened and these guys rose up against these guys.
It was like heavier than the stuff you got from episode one and two. Mm-hmm. In terms of trade routes and, you know, people
Theo: parliamentary procedure. Yeah. It's,
Mr.Benja: it, yeah. So, so it got heavy in the 3D animated cartoon, but they were able to spread that story out for so long because they had so many episodes.
Yeah. It's like you, you could, they could always just say, And this guy doesn't like this guy and deposed this guy. It's like right when you started to get boring, bored, it was like, oh, carry on. New next episode, we'll throw some action in it. We'll do this. We'll keep it moving. I couldn't imagine trying to get that into a Eight episode season.
Theo: Yeah. So I think, you know, you make a good point. You know, we, I think we may have talked about this in one of the pods, but you know, star Wars has these pockets, right? Let's be honest. So really there's the, the Jedi pocket that we all kind of got inundated with, right? With the Skywalker's Saga, which is the original trilogies.
So to us, you know, that's just the core story. You think about Jedi, I'm there, right? But then, you know, as they evolved, now you got, you know, the Han Solo corner, which is the more, the criminal, you know, you know, job of the huts and all that. What's going on with that shenanigans? Then you have the the rebel alliance, right?
What's going on with them and, and what they're trying to create. And that's what, and or, and that's been one of the bright s broads recently. It's, it's, it is a great storyline, but it's finite. Right? Let's be honest. So, but you know, that's been, you know, this own little corner, and then now you got, you know, because of the Clone wars, they have to expand about all these stories.
So they kind of, you know, broke off Robo Fes kind of fraction with the Mandalore, right? And so, yeah, so to your point, it's like You know, it is kind of find out what's the most interesting way into Star Wars, right? I mean, and really the, the, the, the, the, the secret was the, the family drama, right? Which, you know, made this galactic that was the beauty of the first one, right?
It made this galactic story compelling in one family. And so you saw the whole story of the galaxy and Luke and his father and to, and that made everything simple. And so now that they, they don't have that anymore, I think they're struggling to figure out how to keep it grounded right into the story.
Cuz we, we talked about Garza de gassy in this, in this episode, the thing that James Gunn does, he, he's all over the place with the storytelling, right? Or like we creatures, you know, weird concepts in space, but he grounded in music that we know, right? In the seventies, you know, eighties, soft core rock, you know, soft core, soft rock, soft, you know, r and b, you know, so it's kind of like, oh, I know that song, even though they're fighting like this creature that looks like a.
You know, like a shark. So I think that's the key with Star Wars. They gotta find like something that's like, you know, and I think there's, there's some, there's some opportunities there, but yeah man, it's just travesty. We just don't have anything unique and interesting that, that's going to compel us or want to go see a movie.
And I, I don't know if they can or if they willing to do it. I don't know. I mean, what else did you, what'd you come up with on your hour long discussion? Any insights or, or on your own when you were talking?
Mr.Benja: I like all Star War, star Wars, it's like pizza. So even if it's bad, it's still pretty good to me.
I just haven't gotten back into the Mandalorian. In fact, in my head I tell better stories about the book of Bob Fit than what I ac than what I actually watched on screen. And that says amazing things about the brand, right? So it's got
Theo: potential, man. This is, I don't
Mr.Benja: wanna watch it again. But I will, you know, sport a shirt, you know, with your boy riding in on the Rain Corps or something.
Cause that's just like,
Theo: yeah, that's iconic stuff. Beautiful view. Well, you, you hyped about the acolyte? I'm, I'm kind of, I haven't seen anything about it, but I'm kind of hyped to see a story from a sif point of view. What
Mr.Benja: the No, I will never get hyped about anything ever again after the trailer for the last Jedi?
No. Well, I mean, no, no, no. Not just Star Wars, anything that, that, that derailed me so hard. I was like, wow. I'm just, just not gonna, just, just, trailers don't look the same to me anymore and I'm done with it. I mean, I like them and respect them, but I know how to separate them from the actual product. Now that messed you
Theo: up so bad.
Anticipation's gone. Any, so anything you see on, you're not gonna get hype about?
Mr.Benja: Nope. I mean, I'll, I, I come in it with an open mind and like, you know, just breathe in, breathe out. Close my eyes and enjoy the movie for what it is. I
Theo: thought that, that flash, that flash movie though, man, the best movie ever, according to it was David Zoff.
Mr.Benja: It was, it was hype. It gave me insights on the story and what they're doing and the direction they're coming from. Now, I will say this the, the trailer definitely gives insight on what type of story to expect and what the vibe is. Trailers can still be, you know, you know, lion asses, but just like Snapchat, ai, the trailer can still be, you know, liars.
But I'm, I'm not, I'm not invested like that anymore and I'm, I'm happy it makes me much happier when I get out of the movie.
Theo: Oh, man. Well, you know what it is, man. These movies, man, they rely too much on ip n Not enough for Hollywood Stars, Mr. Ben.
Mr.Benja: I think you're right, man. And that brings us to story number five, the lack of true Hollywood stars.
Why, why don't we have any stars, Theo? What's going on?
Theo: Oh man. There was a article I read recently in Puck News that talks about this. There was a recent top a hundred actors list that just made the rounds out there and just gave you a list of all who are the hot actors now that everybody's on, you know, everybody wants to see in movie theaters and all that.
Mr. Benja, who do you think was the number one actor on that list?
Mr.Benja: VIN Diesel,
Theo: Close, but very far. It was Ashley at the Tom Cruise. How old is Mr. Cruise? Mr. Benja, what is he? 62 now? He's 60 years old. Okay. So I say, all I have to say is like, look, they're just kind of hinting at that all these actors that we know and love is that they're old. And the ones that are top 10, quote unquote movie stars now are ones that could have been movie stars in 2007.
And that's sad. And so you got the Tom Cruise on this list. You got, they just said there was nobody under under 40 on the top 10 list. Only one person in the top 20 that was 40. And that was what's his name? Chris Hemsworth. Everyone on the list, top 10, two were 80. That was what, what's his name?
Shoot, I'm drawing a blank right now. It was the two actors. It was Harrison Ford. And Morgan Friedman, they were the two actors that were 80 that was on that list. Guess who's also on that list? Two problematic guys. Will Smith. Oh yeah. And Johnny Depp. So, and only one woman. And that was mostly well, two on the top 20.
And that was Scarlet Johansen and and Angelina Jolie.
Mr.Benja: Right. So now with these types of movies you're talking about star Power being able to get people in the seats and get the buzz started just based on this personal alone right. That, is that what we're talking about?
Theo: Absolutely. Yeah.
This is kinda like the list of just like stars who are you know, who can bring a movie and who can open a movie. Right. Like, you know, so the, the thing, the shocking thing to me was, and I think for a lot of people who read this article was like, wait a minute is this. The list now or is the list from, you know, 2003, number one, cuz it's unchanged, basically.
And number two, the new stars, like the Zendaya or the Tom Tom Hollands or you know, anybody that's in the twenties, early thirties, Michael B. Jordan. They were nowhere on this. They were, they were like in the top a hundred, but not in the top 20. And that was, people was like, wait a minute, are we still making movie stars like we used to?
And that's an interesting time. Now we are, you know, talking about streaming wars and all that, are movies, do they even need movie stars anymore? Are there any such a thing as a movie star? And that's the question that's starting to come up on people's minds. It's like, where's this going? So yeah, so it was kind of interesting kind of thing that make the rounds you know, someone who loves movies, you know, I just remember they would market movies.
They would, you know, it was like two things you knew what was the movie about and who was in it. Right? We don't get that anymore.
Mr.Benja: You know what? That's funny. That's, that's like one of the old Hollywood, you know, pitch kind of, you know when they want you to do a pitch, they kind of have you say, all right, who's in it?
I mean, you know, what's it about and who do you, who, who do you want to play at? Or who's in it? Mm-hmm. And yeah, you would, I remember back in the day, you'd hear about a movie and it would just be very quiet and all of a sudden they'd say, yo, I heard Sylvester Stallone is attached to Judge Dread. All of a sudden all of us were like, what?
Sylvester Stallone? And then we started thinking what kind of movie it's gonna be and how he's gonna play it. And everything fell into place after Sylvester Stallone fell into place. And that's a really interesting phenomenon. And once again, you're right about the people coming up, the kids coming up.
It's like when you say, Hey dog, Anthony Mackie, he's gonna be in the New Twisted, you know, twisted Metal series. You're like, oh, the Falcon guy. Okay, cool.
Theo: Exactly. Let me do the full list, give it justice. Okay. Number one was Tom Cruise. Number two was the Rock. Number three, Tom Hanks, number four. Brad Pitt by Denzel Washington.
Six. Julie Roberts, seven Will Smith, eight Leonard DiCaprio, nine, Johnny Depp, and 10 Kevin Hart. So of that folks in the top 10, I would say The Rock and the Kevin Hart may not have been on that list back in what, 2007, but I'm pretty sure everyone else on this list was on this list in 2007. In the top 10.
Yeah, it is kind of like they don't change unless you on that list. It's like you kind of stuck in Amber. And like I said, in the, in the top 20, the only one who was under 40, it was in in their forties. Only four of them are in their forties. Well really cri Chris Hemsworth was the youngest and I think he's like 44 or something like that.
So yeah, this is. Yeah. So I say, all to say is like, are, you know, are we making even movie stars anymore? And do movie stars even matter? You know, I think it's, and then the lack of branding for new movie stars, right? Remember back in the day they mentioned a new movie star? Oh, this the next, you know, I mean like, so Tom Cruise back in the day, right?
He came on, I think he had a little role in what was that movie back in the day? Taps or something like that. He had like a small role and then they had a big promotional push for risky business. Right? You know, you remember that K scene where he slid on the store with his, you know, shirt on his, you know, draw, hanging his jaws out and he singing.
I remember that movie. I
Mr.Benja: remember that movie. Cause I snuck into it.
Theo: Yep. Yep, yep, yep. We was like, oh, he's going to get it all for prostitute. We gotta watch that movie. So that movie, you know,
that movie, you know, took off and of course he just had hit after hit time, you know, but it was like they, it was like a push, right? And you could see that from time to time every back in the day, there was just like a guy, this is gonna be the guy he get. He got two movies, right? And if he, if he did one of those two movies, he's gonna be a star.
I mean, will Smith, right? He did independence Day after, you know, while he was still filming fresh Prince of Bel Air. And then he did independence Day and he did Man in Black Boom, two movies, you know, now he's a star. So I think that we just don't get that anymore. You think like the Michael B Jordans, who literally, you know, came from nothing TV and is.
Created a nice Hollywood career for himself, right. Directed his last, you know, starring vehicle. You know, he's, no, he's on the list. He's not on the list anytime soon. You know, Jennifer Lawrence, you know, who kind of came out TV as well and, you know, became a big star, you know, on this list. So it's kind of like, man, it's like after 2007 or eight we start really making movie stars.
And, and I do feel like they don't push 'em enough from a branding standpoint. And I don't think they're as relevant anymore because before this pod we talked about this, social media seems to be just taken over where, you know, I mean, we both do social media. You put our face on there and people doing the doom stroll scrolling.
You see your face next to Tom Cruise. So it's like, who, who's really a star now, you know, in people's minds. And so it's kind of like, no one can you really sell a movie anymore with the Star, because they're not as, the, the sense of them being a star doesn't really resonate, I don't think as well for the Gen Zers.
Right? Yeah.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Yeah. And they're not out there with that same quantity of content, that same, you know, ubiquitous vision, you know? So one, it's hard to put 'em on a pedestal, and two, they're not out there in the streets as much as somebody like a Mr. Beast. And so it's hitting people a different way. You know, maybe there's a, maybe there's a new star doing, doing like a Ryan Reynolds something where you're showing up on, you know, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and you're just all over the place.
Then might, you might have something for the future, but yeah, I don't know if that's even coming back in
Theo: any form. Yeah. For Gen Z Zers, the top five folks were Zendaya, you know, so Gen Zers, I guess anyone what would you say? Like mid twenties down? So So for them, Zendaya, he's number 14. Tom Holland, he's number 10.
Adam Sandler, Chris Evans and Kevin Hart. And the, the, the, the proposal is that Kevin Hart and Adam Sandler went all in on Netflix movies, and that's probably where young folks watched most of their movies now. So that's probably why they're so high. So yeah, it's just, yeah. It's just very interesting.
Mr.Benja: You know, what else this, my, my last little thing on this is TVs or the TV studios. And the TV networks, they used to always, it, it wasn't just the, the, the, the grandiose nature of what they were doing, but they would always have these behind the scenes, these special interviews, these they would all be talking, they would show them on the red carpet, and it's like you're watching linear tv, and they would.
You know, break for commercial and then say, Hey, this guy's on the red carpet doing this, that, and that, and you had to watch him, you know, you, you were forced to. Now the situation's twisted and like, good point. Suddenly you know, you have a super megastar showing up on Joe Rogan, and like you said, it's just, it's that the layers, they, it's hard to tell.
It's like you have a megastar showing up on Joe Rogan and then you have some guy from down the street show up on Joe Rogan. It's like there is no strata to mm-hmm. To differentiate these people.
Theo: Mm-hmm. And then, you know, maybe this can lead into maybe a bonus kind of conversation, but social media stars are almost on that level of traditional media people, right?
They're. At that point where, you know, we already talked about Mr. Beast, you know, he, they, he was offered a billion dollars for his content and his brand, and he said, no. And so, and I would've proposed that he's probably more popular to my kids than anybody on this list. So there you go. And, and you know, once and with things that you learned, I think they said you know, between 10 and 12, that's like a, a hard age.
So now, you know, that's embedded. If nothing else, Mr. Beast is gonna be something they're gonna remember about in their forties and fifties. You know, that's gonna be their, you know, their understanding of what a star should be. Right. What they should act like, what they should do. And so that's imprinted in them now.
So Matt, you know, we grew up a different way. Oh, stars should be like this. Yeah. Away from us, apart, you know, ALO Mr. Beast, out heres in these streets, you know, throwing pranks and stuff.
Mr.Benja: That's their impression. Yeah. You know what's funny? A friend of mine, her daughter her daughter saw me, right? Because mm-hmm.
There was a, there's a coffee shop down the way. And I went in the coffee shop and my friend's daughter, she just yells out Benja and like, she's all happy and whatnot. And I'm like, oh, hey, you know, how y'all doing that fine. I, we, you know, I said, Hey and everything, you know what about my business? Got my, my food and left.
But I asked, I asked my friend, I was like, Hey, you know how are things going and all that. And she said, Hey, listen, my daughter was so excited to see you because she saw you on YouTube when I was looking at one of your videos. And that gave me credibility with her. And I was like, that's crazy that, you know, just on YouTube, right?
Theo: Oh yeah. My kids say the same thing. They say, oh, you are a YouTube dad. Are you famous? Like,
Mr.Benja: yes, say yes,
Theo: but, and that's. You know, your mind can't tell. Right. Especially at that young age, you know? So, yeah, man, it's gonna be fascinating. I mean, I think highly encourage everyone to, you know, go hard on social media.
I mean, Gary v talked about this, we talked about Gary V multiple times, but it is so true, man. Video is the game changer. So I think this is where we're gonna be. I'll record something right
Mr.Benja: now. All right. So we had another story but I'm going to leave that one for later. Some guy's getting a hundred million dollar offer, we'll probably talk about it a little later.
If we don't, we'll slide it in somewhere. Interesting stuff. But that's all the show, that's all the show I've got. Do you have any more business?
Theo: Nah, Mr. Benja, I think man, we covered a lot today. So anything going on this week for you real quick?
Mr.Benja: Hey, man, I told you I'm 10 Xing on that, that recording.
So I'm, I'm two weeks in. I don't wanna break the chain. I'm gonna keep doing that. Plugging away and trying to pull content from there. If you, Hey, actually, if you have an AI tool, that's pretty good for finding clip. I, I looked up the pod squeeze thing and it was kind of okay, but I'm trying to find something that can really make this clip generation easier.
I have a good way of doing it, but I want, I'm, I'm gonna try to find something. I'll see what, see what comes up. Yeah,
Theo: there's tons of stuff now, so, yeah. Yeah, let me know too and give it to my team. They can do it. I found this one site that can create websites for you in like 10 minutes. I just did that like on a Friday.
I was like, boom, get this done. Me, ma'am. I'm trying to create another premium offer out there. So yeah, trying to think through that. I got an inspiration for something, so I did one initially earlier this year. Did really pretty good. But I'm trying to get out to a bigger, a broader audience. So I wanna create another one and hopefully that will, you know, accelerate more.
So that's gonna be the next phase. I have to do that for my business to kind of keep it expanding, especially in code markets. So, so more than stuff coming on that, but yeah, man, that's my focus right now. And it's, you know, like you content, man. I'm, I gotta put some more content out there for, for the month of May.
Well, month of June now. So we're, we're already booked up to May, so gotta do it, brother. Keep it going. This is the May
in so many ways, brother. You just don't even know, man. So yeah, we're gonna make it happen. So everyone, thank you for listening. Please like subscribing common at SHO's Business on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Listen to us at Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you listen to podcasts, even YouTube. Now, visit us also on our website show versus business.
All right, Mr. Benja. Have a good one.
Mr.Benja: Peace.