Jon Mann: From Borrowing A Stephen King Story for a Dollar to Academy Recognition

A one-dollar licence changed a career. We sit with filmmaker John Mann to trace how Stephen King’s Dollar Baby program led to Popsy, a nine-minute moral sledgehammer that cut backstory, ditched  empathy, and focused on pure dread. John lifts the curtain on the odd rules of Dollar Babies, the surreal “mail a dollar” contract, and why strict screening limits can still supercharge a festival run and land you in the Academy Museum’s spotlight.

From there, we switch gears into process. John breaks down Missy, a lonely survivor tale built on threes, practical symbolism, and a colour map of fire and water that hints at purgatory without ever spelling it out. We talk about how ambiguity keeps a horror audience leaning forward, and how to make short films that feel bigger than their runtime. Then comes Sweetie, a three-minute shock that keeps getting asked if it’s a trailer—now expanded into an 88-page feature inspired by the emotional intelligence of Let the Right One In. It’s a clinic on developing micro-ideas into market-ready projects while keeping tone, pace, and curiosity intact.

Along the way we hit the business side: why true crime often feels hollow, how good villains are half-right, where franchise sprawl undercuts catharsis, and what practical effects can do that CGI can’t. John shares wins with CBC Gem and Bell’s Pub Crawl, turning pub culture into living history and proving that regional stories can scale. 

Chapters

• 0:45 Meet John Mann, Filmmaker
• 1:34 The Stephen King Dollar Baby Program
• 3:23 Making Popsy And Festival Run
• 7:11 Adapting King: What Changed And Why
• 9:45 Minimalism In Horror And Ambiguity
• 10:01 Shifting To Missy’s Lonely World
• 13:38 Themes Of Routine, Purgatory, And Colour
• 17:47 Career Momentum And CBC Pickup
• 18:42 Pub Crawl: History Through Bars
• 21:38 Halifax Food, People, And Places
• 25:10 On True Crime Fatigue And Horror Taste
• 29:13 Dexter, Fincher, And Morality In Thrillers
• 30:13 Sweetie: A Three-Minute Shock
• 34:00 Building The Sweetie Feature
• 36:06 Practical Effects And Craft
• 37:52 Horror That Thinks And Feels
• 39:31 Recent Films That Hit And Missed
• 43:04 Wrestlers, Unions, And Acting
• 47:32 IP, Names, And Entertainment Business
• 50:21 Early UFC, Rules, And The Smashing Machine
• 53:34 Quick Takes: New Releases
• 56:17 Marvel, Endings, And Franchise Sprawl
• 1:01:12 Games, Updates, And Narrative Closure
• 1:04:38 Star Wars, Investment, And Originality
• 1:08:01 Dollar Baby’s Legacy And End
• 1:11:58 King’s Places, Hotels, And Lore
• 1:14:44 Book Clubs, Rights, And Adaptations
• 1:19:19 Casting Against Type And Range
• 1:22:38 Sports Movies, Nostalgia, And Rewatching

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:15

Cheers! Cheers! Cheers! Welcome to the afternoon pint. I'm Mike Dobin. Matt Conrad. I'm John Mann. John Mann. Okay, John. Tell us your story. How did you find us here at this bird today?

SPEAKER_02: 0:29

Yeah, well, um, how far back would you like me to go?

SPEAKER_00: 0:33

He stumbled in and we were just like, hey, you. You look like someone who wants to record something. You look mildly successful. Come sit down with us.

SPEAKER_01: 0:41

No, we're really happy you're here. John, we know and we know who you are. Uh you're you uh you direct films. Uh you've been in the film industry for how long? Uh lucky 13 years now. Yeah, and I guess a high level, there's something that really struck Matt and I's interest was the Stephen King uh venture that you've done. This this film that Matt and I both got a chance to watch before interviewing you. Yeah. Uh can you just tell us a little bit about that project?

SPEAKER_02: 1:04

Yeah, of course. So um, I mean, the elevator pitch for Popsy as a story, uh, it was written in 1993, or who knows when it was written. It was published in 1993 in a collection of short stories called Nightmares and Dreamscapes by Stephen King. And uh Stephen, Mr. King did this really cool thing where he created this Dollar Baby program, he called it, where he would, since 1977, would offer up to license his short stories for a dollar to up-and-coming filmmakers. So um, I had heard about this for a long time. I always thought that it was like a urban legend, too good to be true, kind of thing. And in 2018, I for whatever reason decided to apply. It was on this really creepy old website, like honestly sounded like looked like the beginning of a Stephen King short story, like you stumble upon this creepy website kind of thing. Um and I applied, I wrote a script, applied, they took it, they loved it. I had to send them an American dollar by mail before I got my contract. Yeah, in 2018, we made the film in my hometown of Fredericton, New Brunswick. And uh, I guess the reason I'm sitting here today is because the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures um has decided to spend an evening in November celebrating the 47-year history of the program, celebrating Stephen King and his sort of gifts, his uh cinematic universe, and they chose uh six of the shorts that were made in the Dollar Baby program over those 47 years, and uh my little Popsy, the little train that could, got in.

SPEAKER_00: 2:42

Congratulations, man.

SPEAKER_01: 2:44

Popsy's a huge homage on two uh Stephen King movies. There's a lot of Stephen King lore in there. Yes. So I I mean we won't give it all away, but I think it's really cool. How could people watch this or when when can they watch it?

SPEAKER_02: 2:55

Yeah, so there is um interesting lore about the Dollar Baby program, is that they're very strict on how they can be shown. Like, I am not allowed to make a cent off of this film.

SPEAKER_03: 3:06

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02: 3:07

So it's funny because when the Academy asked me, like, okay, like what is your fee for the film, and I was like, just send me a dollar, kind of full circle moment. I've now made my money back on that movie. Right. Um so it did a festival run in 2018. It uh premiered at Fin here, which is now Atlantic International Film Festival. Uh it did the festival run at a bunch of cool little horror film festivals, and then really it um kickstarted my career in a major way, like being part of that program. And then the that project itself kind of laid dormant for a while because of the contract that I signed. It can't be seen um outside of any sanctioned Stephen King events. So up until after the festival run originally, there was a Stephen King festival in Prince George, BC in 2023 that it was a part of.

SPEAKER_00: 4:00

So you can go show it there.

SPEAKER_02: 4:02

Yep, I was able to show it there. Um, and then it screened at something called King Con last year in Vegas, which was a big Stephen King convention. Okay. It got asked to come back there. And then, of course, now if you guys are in LA on November 19th, I'd love to have you out to the I'd love to be there.

SPEAKER_00: 4:20

I would love to be in LA on November 19th.

SPEAKER_01: 4:22

No, I I can't say it. That's my tell. Yeah, I can't say I'll be there that day, but man, I wish I could. That's awesome. If there's any listeners that want to sponsor our trip out there, we will give you a huge shout out. Yeah, we're talking to you, uh Stephen Kingfest. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we'll need more than a dollar. Yeah. We will more than a dollar. That's amazing, though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:40

So, I mean, so So but just back to the program, though. Like, why can do can you speak a little bit on like why this thing was created?

SPEAKER_02: 4:48

Yeah, so I don't know why King decided to create the program other than like kind of the democratic process of sharing his stories. I suppose I can't think I don't know of any other writers or screenwriters or artists who so graciously will share their work with young filmmakers, young artists to be able to make their own spin um for no other reason other than to kind of give them a leg up and um that's that's a cool concept.

SPEAKER_00: 5:25

That's all I ever heard, like anything that I could find on it. Like I didn't know it was called Dollar Baby until you sent it over to me. I did hear like years ago that Stephen King basic I heard it as Stephen King would sell his movies off for a dollar, um, and I thought like you could just buy them because my what I heard from it was that it was his way of giving back to the you know the industry that was like creatives and stuff like that. Reading more a little bit recently, it my information was only half correct. Uh you can't make money off of it, and uh uh he still owns all the rights to everything.

SPEAKER_02: 6:00

Yeah, yeah. So the way it works, like I'm not the only person who has made Popsy as a dollar baby, but I owned it for the year. I owned it for 2018, and I had 365 days to do that. So it's almost like a lease on the rights. Exactly. Yeah, it's like a it's it's like a like an option window almost. And um, so yeah, there were other variations of popsy that were made, which I like studied vehemently about like what I liked, what I didn't like, what I thought I could do better, what I thought I couldn't pull off, so I didn't want to even attempt to cross that line kind of thing, keep it very like pulp fiction, punk rock-esque. Um, and where was I going with that? Yeah, okay, sorry. So speaking of like what I wanted to change, what I did change from the original short story is that um in the short story, so basically Popsy is about a guy who abducts a child outside of a mall and turns out in the long run that this kid is not just a child kind of thing. Book came out in 1993. I don't think there's any like spoiler alerts here. Um his grandfather ends up being a vampire or a vampire-like creature, and he keeps saying, like, my popsy's gonna be really mad at you, my pops is gonna be really mad at you. Um, and then enter popsy, credits roll kind of thing. And um in the original short story, there's this whole like backstory of why the guy has to abduct a child, and it's all about like he has gambling debts to this Eastern European crime boss.

SPEAKER_00: 7:40

Oh, really? Yeah, so I totally got pedo vibes from so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 7:45

So I thought I didn't realize how big of a risk it was until I met like I knew I was a Stephen King fan, but then when I entered that universe of fans after making Popsy, it was like blew my hair back as far as the fandom. Um fandom is probably like a safe way of putting it. Like, this is the guy who wrote misery based off of an experience of his fans being miserable? As yeah, as uh passionate as they are, I guess is the best way to put it. Um so yeah, I removed all that. And it's like a 14-page story or something like that, and my short really enters on about page four or five because I didn't want us to have any kind of empathy for the guy. I just didn't think that it would translate well. It works in the story, but I didn't think it would work on the screen. Yeah, um turns out that it worked, I guess. Like he I think it was great. Yeah, I I've heard that it worked, people have asked me about it, and the simple answer is just like I didn't want to burn any screen time in a short that I could, and why give that guy any kind of empathy in a nine-minute horror, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 8:55

Yeah, I I honestly I think you nailed it. I really enjoyed it. Um it was uh I I like I think what I liked about it is that you didn't tell too much. Sometimes in horror, people tell too much.

unknown: 9:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:10

I find it rude, right?

SPEAKER_02: 9:12

Yeah, it can be. Yeah, I've made some other shorts. Like I made one called Missy right around the same time or just before.

SPEAKER_00: 9:20

Yeah, I watched that.

SPEAKER_02: 9:21

And it's like quite ambiguous about what goes on at the end, and I've gotten questions about that too, where I always just think like I have a whole bunch of questions about this short. If you want to move into that, I'd love to. I would love to. Let's talk about Missy. So, what's the what's the point of Missy kind of? So, Missy um is kind of uh it's a one-man, uh it's basically like a same guy who does Popsy. Yeah, Rob Ramsey, really, really good friend of mine. Met him at Acadia. We were in the same residence at Acadia. Um while the rest of us were kind of going home to like work for the city for the summer. Rob would go and do a Disney show for the summer. Like he's been acting, he was in theater. Um, this is how small the world is. His my or our resident assistant, our RA, Rob, is now married too, and they live in Toronto with two kids, and um just a small little Odis kind of story. But yeah, so Rob in Missy plays a guy named Man. Um you don't really know if it's like post-apocalyptical or what's going on with this guy, and then one day a mannequin floats up on the river while he's scavenging, and through his like love and loneliness for this mannequin, he starts to reveal stuff about previously in his life, a past life. I have an answer because I wrote it, but I haven't super shared it, it doesn't matter. Like, I just like when people I always think about when I'm writing something like what would a film major write an essay on this movie, like what would they pick up on? And I'm always like super curious about that because I'm such a film nerd and love writing film essays and watching film essays on YouTube, and so that's where the ambig ambiguity comes from, really, with Missy.

SPEAKER_00: 11:50

Yeah, I I um it went in a direction that I wasn't really anticipating. I mean, uh at first I wasn't really quite sure what I was watching in terms of like, is this like suspense thriller or like what, right? Um, you know, because he's doing a lot of things by himself, right? Playing baseball and all this other stuff, right? Um But then yeah, some things obviously started to go off the rails a little bit uh as the film went on and everything. But I uh yeah, like I from what I gathered from it, either, as you said, like something went down, because I mean it there appears to be no heat in his house, because you can see the breath. So it's either a post-apocalyptic or something may have happened, whatever, because there's no like power, electricity, they have fires going. He was really concerned about the fire going out, like it absolutely couldn't go out. Uh he got mad at his mannequin wife because the fire almost went out, and he got mad and was like, You could you have to wake me up if that happens, and all this stuff, right? So a little bit of that. But then I was also like, okay, maybe that's it, or maybe he's just in hiding because maybe he did something real messed up to his wife in his previous life or whatever. And because he does at the end starts to lose it kind of thing, right? Like really lose it with her or it or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 13:10

I I like to think of that movie as like you kind of start to see things in threes in that movie where I think there's three scenes of him chopping wood, and it's like the first one he's completely alone, and then before the next one, he finds her, the mannequin. Then she's up in the window in the next wood cutting scene, and then the third wood cutting scene, she's standing next to him with a head on, and whatever.

SPEAKER_00: 13:36

So one thing that you threw me for a loop a little bit there, where I thought it might have gone in like a true like horror direction, was when he when she was in the window and he was chopping the wood, there was a point where like you could see her in the back of the window, and then he walks in front. And I was almost anticipating him like moving and then her being gone. That would have been great. Yeah, like it I was like, I was like, okay, like the the mannequin's gonna be disappeared, like to have disappeared, right? But even still, like at one point I almost thought that maybe that was the case, and maybe I just missed it, because like there was a part where he moves back and you couldn't see it, but I'm like, uh, maybe he's still still perfectly in front of it. Either way. So I was you had me guessing through this whole thing. Yeah, that's good. That's great.

SPEAKER_02: 14:20

Um and yeah, what we were trying to do is like layering those in threes to see him start, and then there's the baseball scene, and then she's pitching to him because now she has arms now.

SPEAKER_03: 14:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 14:31

And uh what we were trying to establish was just like this guy is stuck in a routine, regardless, and how she kind of threw his routine a little bit off, and then he gets pissed at her about the fire because that would have really thrown his routine off. And um my takeaway from that movie is that he's in like a purgatory, that he can't escape unless he gets out of this routine. Okay, because then of course the big like she comes in from the water in the beginning, that's how he finds her originally, and then at the end, it's very clear that he put her in the water, and whether that means that he hurt her in a previous life, I don't know, and now he's like atoning for his sins or whatever, but he just can't seem to get out of this. He's not learning anything, and I love movies that do that. That like the main character didn't learn a thing from beginning to end.

SPEAKER_00: 15:24

I I I can see how you're getting the purgatory thing because the whole thing was filmed in a very like gray screen.

SPEAKER_01: 15:31

And like I think a lot of people That's just New Brunswick in November.

SPEAKER_00: 15:35

That's fair, basically. So you didn't have to do anything there, okay. Great. But I production value. Yeah. But I was just kind of thinking, like, you know, a lot of purgatory is always viewed in that light, that grayish light where everything it's not black and white, but it like almost is kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02: 15:52

Yeah, and then there's it's almost like a sepia tone kind of thing. And then really, it's cool that you mentioned the color because the only two colors that we ever punched up were the fire and the lake. Yeah. So fire and water became like a little bit of a like she comes from water, but fire is keeping him alive, and she's made out of wood, but he's obsessed with the fire, and like clearly makes a choice for his own survival versus hers. And yeah, that was just a cool movie. And then uh CBC picked that up for distribution in 2019, so it was on Gem for a few years, and it's funny, like we were talking earlier about how um you can't make money off of your dollar baby, but what that program does, and I'm forever forever thankful and grateful, is that like I've kind of made money off. Building block, yeah. It's like such a great career starter, and someone else that I am very um like thankful for in my career is Bell Five TV, who they gave me a show called Pub Crawl in 2020 during COVID that we did two seasons of. Saw that that looked quite interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 17:01

Yeah, yeah, and it's like that's up more up my alley. So, so like go go go in at Pub Crawl for a minute. So, what was the inception of that show? How did that start?

SPEAKER_02: 17:08

Yeah, so pub crawl honestly began. I got an email um from someone in New Brunswick saying it was COVID Bell Five is looking for shows, they're thinking community, but trying to move away from that a little bit. And of course, I work with Rob so much. Rob was on a show called Blue Mountain State for three seasons, like a big big football show on Spike TV. Cool. So Rob has that kind of a following um of those like bro down college football guys. And uh, so and of course, me living in Halifax, Rob's in Toronto, going to all these bars here and the history in them, and then going through COVID and how nostalgic people were for the before times, even if we were only like three months into it. So I pitched Bell this show, like it's a history show, but it's called Pub Crawl, and it's hosted by Rob Ramsey. Nice. Uh what do you think? And then um, yeah, so we went through and basically we told what we thought was gonna be the history of Halifax through the lens of the bars and restaurants, um, turned into like told the history of like the eastern seaboard and like got into like cool the trade routes between here and the Caribbean and the UK and Africa and what that meant for like cocktail history in Halifax and what it meant for um like booze in the military and the history of that.

SPEAKER_01: 18:32

Can you still watch the show or is it?

SPEAKER_02: 18:34

Yeah, it should still be on Bell Five. Still on Bell Five? It should be, I believe. It was a five-year window that we had with them, so it'd be coming up pretty close.

SPEAKER_00: 18:42

Yeah, I remember when you first reached out, I do remember looking that up and seeing that, and uh thought, wow, that is like a dream of mine.

SPEAKER_02: 18:52

It's probably the greatest job I've ever had.

SPEAKER_00: 18:54

Uh honestly, yeah. You get to travel around to different cool pubs and bars and stuff like that, drink beer, and then learn about them.

SPEAKER_02: 19:00

It was awesome, and it's like what you guys were saying earlier about like no bad guests. It's like there were no bad bars. Like every day was just so much fun and got to know so many people in that um like that community, the pub community around here, whether it was like owners, managers, whoever, and like so proud to support now. I love being able to like recommend restaurants from that show that I truly like believe in because I've seen the people behind it, and um man, they know their stuff. Like uh Chef Bryan at the press gang. That guy, oh yeah, you want to talk history with that look with like a character. Really? Chef Bryan, Brian Corkery at the press gang.

SPEAKER_01: 19:44

We could see if we get him on a future episode. I think that would be pretty entertaining. Do it in a heartbeat. Yeah, that would be super fun. I mean, we're we're here, we're here at uh Oli Ban, which is one of my favorite restaurants. So, yeah, two shows in a row here because we did a double recording here today. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:58

But uh press gang would be very much, again, like uh in my in my top five of favorite restaurants in this city currently. Oh, it's the best. This is one, Oli Ban, and the press gang is press gang's fantastic, yes. And I mean like the history of the building. It looks like a dungeon in there. Yeah, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 20:15

All right, we gotta get to the press gang here in uh soon enough. If we have I don't know how many episodes we have left in this season to cover. I think we pretty much we'll we're done. But we'll or if not this year, early next year. We should get that one on the list. That'd be cool, man.

SPEAKER_00: 20:26

Yeah, we definitely, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, so yeah, I mean it it it must be just kind of really great to be able to kind of go around and create and I mean I just I love here, right? I love it here. So I mean like to be able to go and display the things that you love about your home or where you live and all that stuff, and then uh in a cool way, like an interest like it's interesting and cool. Yeah. It's you know, no offense to like people who like you know things that I find boring or whatever, but like sometimes you know you have documentaries or docuseries about really boring things. But beers like what like what? What bores you? I don't know what bores you. What bores you? What bores me?

SPEAKER_01: 21:06

Well, like what what would what would be a boring documentary? I'm just kind of curious.

SPEAKER_00: 21:09

Uh okay. The thing that everyone likes. Serial killers. Okay. Don't care.

SPEAKER_01: 21:13

Yeah, I don't care about those either. Don't care. Now you're probably you probably like the serial killers, because I mean, I mean, there was this there was the quote of Ted Bundy at the beginning of your thing uh Yeah, that was cool.

SPEAKER_02: 21:24

I love that. And like Stephen King has quotes like that too. I believe like the quote at the beginning of Popsy is uh there's no way to tell you can't you can never point out who the psychopaths are.

SPEAKER_01: 21:37

Stereotypes or whatever of a psychopath because there are none, right? They're just psychopaths. And I thought it was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02: 21:42

Actually, a really cool quote. I'm really proud of how like you see the quote and then his name is revealed of who said it. That always kind of gets people like you kind of grab them immediately, and then of course, with Popsy, you don't know who the bad guy is throughout, or you think you know who the bad guy is, but um, and I love stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01: 22:03

I love not knowing that stuff, but yeah, as far as you like the dramas, like the like Matt was just saying, like the real killer.

SPEAKER_02: 22:11

Um I would say like I was raised on Scream and I know what you did last summer and Halloween. So I I gravitate I'd say, yeah. Yeah, I gravitate more towards that stuff. I do find that um I don't want to say anything wrong unless Netflix comes calling for me to direct anything, but uh they they certainly have a format. It's almost always the boyfriend or the husband. Yeah, and yeah, it I just find like they're starting to become almost parodies of themselves. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Once a year, there's typically one that grabs everybody for the right reason.

SPEAKER_01: 22:48

Well, the one the most recent that grabbed them was that one, um, gosh, Ed Glain.

SPEAKER_00: 22:53

Ed Glain and then I couldn't watch it.

SPEAKER_01: 22:55

My partner, she watched it, and I had to leave the room. I just not I just didn't like the vibe. Wasn't my style.

SPEAKER_02: 23:01

That's not a doc though, that's like the new or drama. Charlie, what's his name? The British guy plays him? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 23:07

Charlie that's not a documentary yet.

SPEAKER_02: 23:09

Yeah, and he's a great actor. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that one. I'm down with that stuff. It's it's the it's the true doc stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 23:15

You don't like the true doc where like the reveal could have been given four hours ago?

SPEAKER_02: 23:19

Those are the ones that I'm like, these are these are all starting to feel pretty similar.

SPEAKER_01: 23:23

And like I never mind reading stuff like that short form. Like like Rolling Stone used to write really good articles that I used to read back in the day, and I remember ones like there was ones where I'd always imagine a movie in my head. There's one that it still there was a movie that I ever make, there's one called like Thomas Sweat Burns Down Washington. Okay. And he's just freaking pyromaniac. And he works at a KFC place as a fry cook, and late at night he just burns down buildings. And they couldn't catch this dude forever. This whole show. But no, but it's more though, his name was Thomas Sweat. Like it just like everything about it just seemed like so, and like the cops were on to him, but he would just he'd also be like a bit of a like a uh a fan of fires, so he'd be watching his own fire, the police be coming up to him. No way, and then they never busted him for years, and then he was writing letters out of jail, and like so like shit like that, like yeah, like I love that amazes me, but the serial killers I don't like when it gets gross. I like horror movies.

SPEAKER_00: 24:19

Like, I love horror movies, like I'm a horror guy, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 24:22

Me too. Yeah, some, yeah. Like one of my my favorite director, I think, of all time is David Fincher. Like, I'm fascinated by what he's been able to do. And like whether it's like seven, which was not based on a true story, as far as my knowledge, and then but he also did Zodiac, which is like in like one of the I think that movie was so far ahead of its time. Like we should rewatch that. It's been such a long time. I only ever saw one of the movies. It is a masterpiece. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Um those movies blow my mind, but when it's like, you know, I find it kind of glorifies it a little bit when it's like uh the boyfriend in college killed his girlfriend's whatever. Yeah. It's like uh kind of there's enough horror in the world that you don't need the I I started watching like the I remember the Boston Marathon documentary on Netflix. Yeah. And my sister was living in Boston at the time, and obviously Marathon Monday is like a massive it's a holiday. Yeah. And um I was watching it, and it was like this poor guy in a wheelchair without his legs telling his story, and it's like I don't need this. I that manhunt was wild. Like they caught the guy in the boat in the backyard and all that. It's like I was just watching it, it's like I I know this. I already know this. Like, why am I I don't know, didn't do it for me.

SPEAKER_01: 25:46

I I I find for me it's more of when I mean the one that you said that you're looking forward to seeing, and no disrespect to the arc uh actor Put Charlie Putnam. Is it Charlie sorry, my name's Arrow? Putnam, maybe? I think it's an H. Yeah. We should get this right before this goes out. Yeah, no respect to the actor in the show. I think he's great. Uh, but uh I feel like as soon as we start empathizing with Cheryl Killers, it's just kind of like a guy like a no, I don't really want to empathize.

SPEAKER_02: 26:14

Yeah, so that series is called Monster. Yeah. It's like the egg gain series. I watched the one before that. Dahmer? Dahmer, I watched that one. So that one came under a lot of like heat. I didn't like that one. Because they made Dahmer hot.

SPEAKER_01: 26:27

They made him commons like, yeah, they had a bit of a like easy.

SPEAKER_02: 26:31

Totally wasn't. He totally wasn't. Like he was like the scariest dude. Not a cool guy. On a good day. Yeah, and then yeah, I'm and then there was one a few years ago with Zach Efron and Lily Collins about uh Ted Bundy.

SPEAKER_01: 26:44

Ted Bundy's a bit of an anomaly because he was a he was a charismatic, kind of a good looking guy. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it's a bit of a tough one there. But I mean, I say all that, and hypocritically I I've enjoyed Dexter. And I mean, I I've watched all the Dexter shows, and I think the thing I always loved about Dexter was the moral compass that his father instowed on him so he don't kill.

SPEAKER_00: 27:04

But that's what I think what made it different, though. Yeah. Like that was the thing.

SPEAKER_02: 27:07

Which is a great premise for a show. Yeah. That's fascinating.

SPEAKER_00: 27:09

It's a fascinating premise. It's like, hey, we have a guy who kills people, but he only kills the bad people.

SPEAKER_02: 27:15

And his dad recognized it, like his dad knew, yeah, and put him down a path.

SPEAKER_00: 27:20

That's the thing, right? So it was like, I actually think that that was a fantastic premise of a show. I think it went too long. Oh, yeah. But I think it was a fantastic premise.

SPEAKER_02: 27:27

Really dropped the ball. Was it season four? Season four was awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 27:31

That was great. I like that one.

SPEAKER_02: 27:33

Oh, that's where I didn't like that one.

SPEAKER_00: 27:36

See, after that, after that season, I didn't like it. I kind of I liked John Lithgow, and I liked how that season ended. It ended how his story started. Dexter's story started. So I was like, oh, this is a cool, like, full circle moment.

SPEAKER_02: 27:51

Maybe I'm mixing up. Maybe that was the last it was probably 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_01: 27:55

He was a Trinity Killer in that uh that season, Lithgow, right? Yeah, I think that was Trinity Killer. And that's the last good season, I thought, too. Until they came back with it there this year, and they actually I've heard it's amazing. The new one is amazing. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 28:07

I'll tell you, it's one of the best shows I've seen this year. So what I will say is like, so I've watched a lot of your stuff over the last week.

SPEAKER_01: 28:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:14

Uh, and I think the thing that I have enjoyed the most was the shortest thing that you did, that you sent me at least, was Sweetie. Yeah, awesome. Yeah. Man, I liked that so much. I watched it.

SPEAKER_01: 28:27

I watched some of them, and he's like, You didn't watch Sweetie? And I'm like, No, I missed that one now.

SPEAKER_00: 28:31

That's awesome. But it it was so good. I watched it last night, I think I watched it five times. And I actually five times. I watched it. Well, it's only three minutes long.

SPEAKER_02: 28:40

If that.

SPEAKER_00: 28:41

If that, right? Well, I mean, the whole thing is three minutes long, kind of thing, like with credits and so can people watch this one on YouTube?

SPEAKER_02: 28:47

So this one's currently on its festival run. Like it premiered at Atlantic a month ago. Okay. So it's gone to a few, I think it's gone to eight festivals since then. Like it's on a bit of a heater right now, and that's um I'm a writer-producer on it, and uh Taylor Olson uh directed it, and Taylor we caught up with Taylor at the Red Carpet got to do a little interview.

SPEAKER_01: 29:09

Nice guy. I love his other project too, hey Halifax.

SPEAKER_02: 29:12

Oh, with Bob Mann. And Bob Mann is the lead in Sweetie. Yes, oh gosh, okay, small, small community. And also, no relation, Bob Mann and I. Yeah, we tell people what's going on.

SPEAKER_01: 29:22

You know what I thought about that too, yeah. Because I knew I met Bob when he was doing stand-up five years ago at least, or longer. Yeah, yeah. Love Bob. Love Taylor.

SPEAKER_00: 29:31

On my like fifth run of this, I made my wife came into the room and I was like, hey, you gotta see this. And I made her sit and watch it, and she would be like at the end, she was just like, she was just like, but what did you just show me? She was like, Is this a preview for something? And I was like, uh, maybe. I was like, I don't know. I was I was talking to the guy, and he was like, you know, maybe it's a bigger project. I hope it's a bigger project.

SPEAKER_02: 29:55

Thank you. Yeah, so it's funny. I was at uh film festival on Sunday. It played at Halifax, like H E Double Hawkstick Halifax. Um and it played it was a funny format. It was they were doing one short and then one feature. Oh, yeah, that's weird. It was pretty cool, and then they had a shorts program, but every feature they showed, they played one short before. And of course, the audience didn't know who I was, and I was just sitting in the back row, like enjoying a propeller, watching Sweetie, and um to do a QA after. And as soon as the credits rolled, somebody asked if it was a trailer, like it is that short. And the story behind it was I've had that idea, like that nucleus of an idea for years, and it was truly one of those things where it's like this will take me five minutes, so I'm not gonna do it. And then once you get the it's like a I don't think we explained the idea, Jens.

SPEAKER_01: 30:53

Like, uh what's the idea?

SPEAKER_00: 30:54

I didn't know if I really wanted like give it a

SPEAKER_01: 30:57

No, I don't want to give it away. It's W when could people see this? Um Like on YouTube or wherever.

SPEAKER_02: 31:04

It won't well, I mean, after it does its festival run, it'll be available for sure. Like we'll throw it up somewhere. But um it is basically a little girl comes in to wake up her dad in the middle of the night to say that there's a monster under her bed.

SPEAKER_01: 31:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 31:19

And that's that's just the premise. That's really all you need to know, I guess. And uh I said the idea out loud to Taylor once. I was like, but I don't want to dress like I would just like to write it and move it along. And he was like, We were working on something else, and he was like, We're not going to lunch until you write that. So took the 20 minutes that it like the first version, which was probably terrible. Yeah. Wrote it, gave it to Taylor. We went back and forth with it a little bit. First version was like bunk and terrible, and then Bob came in and helped out punch it up a bit. Um, and then we filmed it in January, and then Taylor and I started to talk about it. Like, I think that we do have a bigger thing here, and that's almost just like what you see now in the short, when that would get you to the opening credits, and then the rest of the movie would start. So now Taylor and I have written like an 88-page feature that we're super stoked about. Um, I don't know if you guys know the movie like Let the Right One In. It's Swedish. Originally it was Swedish, and then the Americans made a butchered version of it.

SPEAKER_01: 32:34

Um What was the butchered version? I might have seen that.

SPEAKER_02: 32:38

Remember? Like it was even it was even like a butchered title of Let the Right One In. It was like Let Me In or something. Oh Let Me In. Yes, the vampire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Little girl who's a vampire. Yes, it's okay. Yeah. So I've never like I don't even think I made it through the American version, but only because I'm obsessed with the Swedish original, and it's like a young girl who is a vampire falls in love with a little boy in her apartment complex. Yeah. And all the while the town, this small town in Sweden, thinks that there's like a murderer on the loose. Oh, okay. But it's so good, it's so great. And so literally one day, Taylor came over to my apartment. We watched Let the Right One In. We went back and forth on what we thought the long version of Sweetie could be, and uh we have that now. So we've been speaking with distributors, and it's looking good. Knock on wood that uh we'll be able to collaborate on that one.

SPEAKER_00: 33:36

The the quality's really good. I again another thing that bothers me about um horror is that it can look campy, right? And uh, you know, the big reveal at the end, I'll call it, uh, wasn't it looked good.

SPEAKER_02: 33:50

Awesome. Yeah, it was good. Shout out to uh our makeup artist L Monster L Munster. That's their name? Yep. Cool name. Yep, great handle. Monsters. Monsters, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 34:01

Like the MU.

SPEAKER_00: 34:02

MUN, yeah, right on. Yeah. So yeah, so I mean, yeah, I hopefully that gets done. I guarantee you I'll be long enough to watch it.

SPEAKER_02: 34:10

Yeah, I'm I'm excited about that one. Like, I love the way that the short came out, and I love what we've been able to do with the feature of the script. So I think that it's like the way that we were talking about Missy earlier, about trying to just like yes, it's a horror, but like elevating it a little bit, making people think a little bit, and not in like a oh, it's a psychological horror kind of way, but in a like this might be some like real life questions are happening in this horror. So, how does a little girl and her doppelganger monster like figure out the world together after the Bob Man's not around anymore? Kind of thing, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 34:52

So um well, if you if you need any podcasters in it, you know where to go. 100%. We have some.

SPEAKER_01: 34:57

We've chased the conspiracy, no podcast uh narrative in the background.

SPEAKER_02: 35:01

That's what left the right one in was missing, is they needed that like conspiracy theory podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 35:06

Yeah, welcome to Bro Zone, and we'll tell you what's happening here in the in the streets of Dartmouth this week. Yeah, exactly. But uh, but uh what's the um what was I gonna say? Yeah, I mean something I just like to ask, man. Like, like, I mean, what are some of your uh uh most favorite recent pictures that you've seen? Because I'm like you, I always want to see the next great movie, and sometimes you know it's hard with there's just such an abundance of choice now. Yeah, most of the time I spend more time scrolling than I do watching. I'm sure there's a lot of people like that.

SPEAKER_02: 35:35

Yeah, I I try and go to a movie a week um in theaters. If I don't, I start to get antsy and cranky, and I feel really guilty, weirdly. Um one movie that blew me away this year, and I swear this is not a Stephen King plug at all, but Life of Chuck blew me away. And I know that it's a pretty divisive movie. It's not a Stephen King. A lot of people have been saying like it's not a Stephen King movie, but if you've read enough of his books, it totally is. Like it's that movie was phenomenal. Um I saw a pretty forgettable movie on the weekend that I won't name. Uh I love Sinners. Sinners blew me away. Sinners was you like that, eh? Yeah, I love Sinners. Oh, the movie.

SPEAKER_00: 36:24

I was saying Sam the Shell. Yeah. So I was like, I like that too, but yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02: 36:29

Um what else have I seen this year that oh I saw uh oh well one battle after another was phenomenal. Good show, yeah. I haven't seen it yet. I really do want to watch that one. Like leaving the theater with three of my buddies on a Saturday afternoon with like a very diverse, let's say, like, spectrum of like I see a movie a week, one of the guys, the last movie he saw in theaters was Oppenheimer. Another guy couldn't tell you the last movie he saw in theater, and then another buddy of mine who sees everything.

SPEAKER_01: 37:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 37:07

Um, and we were all like left with our jaws on the floor, being like, there's nothing wrong you could say about that.

SPEAKER_01: 37:15

And it sucks because that movie didn't do very well. I heard of it.

SPEAKER_02: 37:17

Financially, no. Not financially, is what I mean. No, which is wild.

SPEAKER_01: 37:21

Um yeah, I can't speak to that other than well, it's a weird year for movies, because even like the the superhero genre is not doing as good this year, and that's something that's been, you know, really, you know, the dominant force in for what over a decade, really.

SPEAKER_02: 37:35

Uh, you know, another one, like I find it funny because it's all like it's such a machine of PR and marketing and publicity. Like, I saw the smashing machine with The Rock, and he is incredible in it.

SPEAKER_00: 37:50

So it's a good movie.

SPEAKER_02: 37:51

It is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 37:52

Oh, some people are saying, like, this could be his Oscar nomination. Okay, which you'd never think.

SPEAKER_02: 37:55

Like, it's the role, it's perfect for the role. Like, he's perfect, and uh Emily Blunt's incredible in it. She's awesome. Um, but all the stories you hear about are like, this will be The Rock's lowest opening weekend. It's like, yeah, because he does movies like Jamanji. Like those are his opening weekend. Like, this is an A24 by one of the Safety brothers. Like, but it's by far. I don't even want to say it's his best role, as if I'm comparing it to any of his other roles.

SPEAKER_01: 38:26

It's just a different is a walk on the Yeah, it wouldn't be shocked.

SPEAKER_02: 38:28

If he's nominated, it wouldn't shock me. That's good. I hope he does get nominated.

SPEAKER_01: 38:32

Because reward uh reward taking that brave step and getting into something a little bit uh more demanding of yourself, right? Pretty vulnerable. We're demanding it a different way. I'm sure all these movies are pretty demanding physically now.

SPEAKER_00: 38:44

It was an interesting thing that I saw. I was watching some videos on YouTube, I think, uh, this week. And it was an interesting thing that got asked, and that is why wrestlers aren't in the screen actors kill. And I thought that was an interesting question, because I mean, essentially, shocker to anyone listening, wrestling's not real.

SPEAKER_02: 39:02

What I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00: 39:06

Stone Cold's still real, though. I mean, don't get me wrong, they they get hurt and they're athletic people and all that, but everything's prescripted, they are acting and all that stuff. And some of them, The Rock was one, but apparently Batista was another one that actually early on hired acting coaches. Cool. And so there was a question that was put up there, why are wrestlers not in the screen, like the Screen Actors Guild? And I thought that was that was interesting because it's kind of like Vince McMahon? Well, I mean, Vince McCoy. Vince McMahon was a big union buster. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 39:37

100%.

SPEAKER_00: 39:38

Uh Jesse Ventura actually tried in the 90s to get a wrestling uh union and they like busted him. So I mean, it the thought was like maybe someday, because now Vince McMahon is in the shadows, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 39:52

Kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02: 39:53

Yeah. So here's an interesting thing that I don't know if it applies to the wrestling, the wrestlers, but um professional wrestlers. But so when Rob, who is like a proud Actra member, when he did um pub crawl, he we did not have to go through Actra because technically Rob is playing himself. He's not playing a character, he's host.

SPEAKER_00: 40:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 40:20

But even even that language, it's like Rob Ramsey as Rob Ramsey is not a character. Rob Ramsay as host or Rob Ramsey as narrator, like those are different things.

SPEAKER_00: 40:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 40:31

And the way that it was explained to me is that if I'm in the if I'm an actra and I'm stopped on the street by Katie Kelly at CTV and they ask me my opinion, I can't say like, oh no, I'm in the union. You gotta pay me. Because I'm not playing a character. I'm playing myself. So I'm sure Vince McMahon being a union buster does not shock me in the slightest. Um, but I'm sure that maybe there is some logic to that argument that he I don't know. But it's hard to say, like I think Goldberg wasn't playing a character. You know what I mean? Or like I know what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00: 41:11

Well, there no, but there is there's actually some things to that. I mean, like uh uh the legalities of like Vince being able to own the names and and not owning the names. That was a thing, right? So the IP and all that kind of stuff. So like the the like uh Hulk Hogan, actually Hulk is like it's owned by Disney, because that's like they own like the trademark Hulk. So but uh so that's an exception, but you know, like the Undertaker is owned by the WWE. So if for some reason Mark Callaway went somewhere else, he couldn't be called the Undertaker. The character is owned by WWE. He could be called Mark Callaway, he was Mark Call Callus before when he was in WCW and before he became the Undertaker. To the point where the Ultimate Warrior changed his name legally to the Warrior, so he could be called the Warrior after getting fired from WWF.

SPEAKER_02: 42:04

No way. Yeah, he was a bit of a whistleblower too, wasn't he, of the WWF?

SPEAKER_00: 42:08

Or am I thinking of uh not not his name is uh Jim, but he no, he was nuts. The guy with the sock on his hand? Oh, that's uh McFoley.

SPEAKER_02: 42:17

That's what I'm thinking of.

SPEAKER_00: 42:18

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, uh the ultimate warrior was uh lunatic, uh basically, yeah. But you know, every wrestling child is a fan of it.

SPEAKER_02: 42:28

I it's it's funny, like being in like it's like I said, like it's an industry and it's such a machine, and you start to learn the business side of it, and there are so many reasons why you can't do things. There are so many reasons why things have to be done a certain way. None of that shocks me, but coming back to the movie uh The Smashing Machine, which was like UFC, early days of UFC. Um bit different, but trends those same lines of these guys just being taken advantage of so badly.

SPEAKER_01: 43:03

Early days when there was no rules kind of deal.

SPEAKER_02: 43:05

Uh yeah, they they touch on that in like halfway through the movie, they announce new rules, and that includes like no eye gouging, no fish hooking, no binding.

SPEAKER_01: 43:16

Did you watch like the old UFCs when you were a kid?

SPEAKER_00: 43:19

Like, do you remember that would have been like I watched one end of them before?

SPEAKER_01: 43:23

So when we were younger, I don't know how old you were, but uh I mean so we were gett getting them on VHS, we were bringing them home. We were watching them and watching them over and over again. There'd be like a sumo wrestler versus like a little tiny guy. You'd just watch the wildest fights, and there was really no rules or regulations. It was just it was just the wild west. Yeah. It was um unbelievable that it was allowed to be on TV. It felt like illegal watching it. Well, it was. Yeah. It was like well, I guess it was somewhat illegal. In a lot of states it was. Yeah. Most states it was. Yeah. We could do it in Vegas because there was only a handful.

SPEAKER_00: 43:55

Like they had it at like Atlantic City. Yeah, this movie's all in Japan.

SPEAKER_02: 43:58

Oh, yeah. Like the tournaments that Smashing Machine is going to is all in Japan.

SPEAKER_01: 44:02

They're all 100% in Japan. Hey, cool.

SPEAKER_02: 44:04

At the that was the circuit he was on. Oh, yeah or what the movie chose. I gotta see. It's good. It's a good movie.

SPEAKER_01: 44:10

You want to do it like a thumbs up, thumbs down game?

SPEAKER_02: 44:14

Sure. Um two thumbs up or one thumb up? Just one thumb up. Julius Caesar. Well, Julius Caesar. Weapons. Thumbs up. Is it good? Yeah, I love it. I want to see it. Loved it.

SPEAKER_01: 44:26

Um uh did you see the Superman movie this year?

SPEAKER_02: 44:29

No. Okay. Not yet. Not for any reason. I had a lot of things. I gave it a thumb up.

SPEAKER_01: 44:33

I'll give it a thumb up. I like it. I heard that. I watched it and it was it was really good, really fun, really friendly. It gave you a warm, fuzzy feeling about Superman again. I'm not like too dark and brooding.

SPEAKER_02: 44:43

It was kind of nice. The new Superman, whoever plays him. Yeah, I've seen him on the press tour, and he seems like the real deal. Yeah, very likable. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 44:52

But I like, I liked all I like Zack Snyder's kind of spin on it too. I like them both. I like the dark stuff. Yeah. After all the dark stuff, though, it was nice to see a little bit of let's make this for kids again, you know? Bright blue, bright red, bright yellow. So it's good, it was a good movie. Um, what else? Matt, think uh there's a new conjuring out. Have you seen that? Nope. Nope, me neither. I haven't seen it. Um what other song was terrifying? Sinners a thumb up. That's a 2025.

SPEAKER_02: 45:17

Yep, that's a big thumbs up.

SPEAKER_01: 45:18

I guess uh what's your favorite movie of 2025? You say you go every week, and I mean that's amazing to me. I wish I could go do that.

SPEAKER_00: 45:25

Yeah. Used to do that every time, but then you have kids. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 45:29

Yeah, I've escaped that so far. Yeah. Um favorite movie of 2025? Uh, it's probably yeah, it's one battle after another. One battle after another. And before that, it was Life of Chuck. I remember the good ones. It's like when people ask you, like, what's your favorite concert? Or it's more so when people ask you what's the worst concert you've ever been to, it's hard to remember because you don't remember it. So I'm sorry if I keep repeating the same movies that I liked this year.

SPEAKER_00: 45:58

No, no, it's all good. What's your uh speaking since we talked about Superman everything, so what's your take on the Superman uh superhero movies? Are they uh do you have a Scorsese approach or do you A little bit? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 46:09

I understand it's it is like movies are a democracy in the sense that like people will vote with their wallets, and as long as movies keep making money, they're gonna keep pumping out the same movies. Um unless you get these like original stories, but um I mean, well, even you brought up weapons, it did so well, shockingly, that now there's gonna be a prequel called Weapon. And it's like, that's great. People seem to want it. I enjoyed the movie. Let's make another weapons, you know what I mean? So like I understand that I think he called them like a theme park. Or he's like, they're uh they're an amusement park or whatever.

SPEAKER_00: 46:54

I don't know what's wrong with that concept though, too. Like, what he doesn't what he didn't like about it. I I mean, I I don't know. I I know what he's saying, but I mean I love them. So it's it's you know, they're original stories, they're written in a comic book, and they're just making the movie. It's like taking a book and making it right. So I enjoy them. I like the characters behind them, some of my favorite villains, like Thanos is one of my favorite villains of all time. Like probably I would say Thanos and Darth Vader are probably my two favorite villains of all time. Um so I love them, but I understand like his point was that the actors aren't what like aren't they don't matter. Okay. I disagree with him, but he his point was that the actors don't matter. It's the characters. The characters are everything. That being said, I think that if he sat and watched them and saw what like Robert Downey Jr. did with Iron Man Dr. I don't agree with that. I think he's wrong because there's just an Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr.

SPEAKER_01: 47:56

He changed the game. He made that franchise. Well, Iron Man didn't feel like a superhero movie. It just it seemed like a movie where a guy was put in a bad situation to find a wild way to get out of it. And um that one had a pretty terrible villain. That was like the only thing about the Iron Man movie that wasn't great. They were all great villains. Great actor, but not a great villain, right? Bad villains, I would say.

SPEAKER_02: 48:19

I think where Marvel kind of went wrong. Listen to me talking about where Marvel went wrong. Let's hear it. But when it started to become, they had the spin-offs on Disney Plus. Yes. Oh, yeah. And if you miss season one of this show, then you can't figure out the next movie. You're right about that.

SPEAKER_00: 48:39

And then Kevin Foggy said that that's where they went wrong.

SPEAKER_02: 48:41

Yeah, and I think that it also it that's where it like metastasized, but it got bad five movies previous, where it's like if you didn't see this Spider-Man sequel, then you won't understand Black Widow or whatever. Right. Like all that to say, too, like Black Panther was so dope. That movie was so sick. Um same guy who did Sinners, Kugler, like yeah, there were there were good things. Oh, there's some art. It kept people I went to tons of high points. I went to an early screening of Endgame. Was that the big like one thing? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 49:24

That was the finale. That was very much a superhero movie. One movie before that, Infinity War. I, and you guys might think I'm nuts for this, but I actually think that should have been nominated as like one of the best pictures. It's a great movie. Could have been. I like it. The bad guy wins at the end, right? They left you hanging.

SPEAKER_02: 49:41

So that was part one of two. Correct. Part one, phenomenal. Right? And you know what's crazy? I was like a fair weather Marvel guy. I thought it was over, and I was like, oh my god, Marvel just pulled off the biggest heist ever. The bad guy won, and now it's over. Yep. And then it was like to be continued, and I was like, oh shit, that would have been so great if they had just like ended it with the snap and Spider-Man turns into dust.

SPEAKER_01: 50:10

Left you hanging for a couple of years. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they could they could have done that.

SPEAKER_00: 50:15

I I actually don't disagree with you there. I think like that could have been that would have been a cinema where that would have been phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01: 50:22

Like, even if they did do that sequel, it's kind of like they started sorry, they start they started mapping out their next like 10 years, and you're like, and we got a blade 14 coming in 2029, and you're like, what?

SPEAKER_02: 50:33

I think like something that I like I would never call myself a gamer. Like I played Grand Theft Auto and FIFA and Red Dead. Right. And I'm not a big online guy, so I remember playing Red Dead 2 and like playing story mode and beating it, and like that story is phenomenal. It is, and then I went, turned my Xbox on, it was like, you have a like an update. And then all of a sudden the story mode wasn't over, and there was more for me to do, and so I'd finish that, and then there'd be another update three weeks later, and the story mode just kept going. And it's like, well, what am I what there's no end in sight, like, and that's how I feel about Marvel movies, is that it they it never doesn't work out, and they're just gonna keep making them. So there is like a cathar, cathartic moment missing from Marvel movies, I think.

SPEAKER_00: 51:28

No, that's fair. Yeah, I don't I don't I don't argue that point. I just I hope they keep making them because I enjoy them so much. Sure. Star Wars is going down that road too. Star Wars is very much going down that road, and I love Star Wars, sorry. Um, but that being said, I think I hope, I hope that they, you know, these these you know large uh companies like film industry companies that are pumping out these blockbusters. I hope the fact that they're making like you know billions and profits and all this stuff, that they are they should, in theory, turn around and invest in smaller stuff and more original stuff in our stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 52:06

Maybe, but you know what I'd like a dollar superhero program. No, you know what, you know what I mean? Spider-Man would like to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 52:11

I'd like a dollar baby program, but truly give it up. Like, actually let you guys make money on it. And say, like, listen, we've made we're lined our pockets with millions of dollars. Here's a little bit of charity. We're gonna sell you the rights to this for a buck, and you know what? You can make money on it. Go for it. It do whatever you can with it, kind of thing. That'd be cool, right?

SPEAKER_02: 52:31

I think that'd be sick. Yeah, cool. Or I guess the model is now of like I'm sure that like the billion-dollar companies would love to buy IP for a dollar and not spend 50 million on I don't even know if that's the number, but like we were talking about Life of Chuck or The Long Run, which just in theaters, another Stephen King movie. Um Marathon Man's coming up.

SPEAKER_01: 52:57

Yeah, they're doing redoing the running man, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 52:59

The running man, sorry, not marathon man. No, yeah. Um, and it's the long walk, not the long run. My bad. Um, yeah, anyway, as soon as money gets involved, which I think is what is so cool about the Dollar Baby program and how it was just like this perfect cocktail of being able able to offer short stories to filmmakers who are still in the like short film position of their careers for a dollar. Um it it does become charity in that sense. But also, like Shaw Shank was a novella, so like that wasn't a feature, and there have been other short films of his that have or short stories of his that have been turned into features, so well I mean it's all at the right price.

SPEAKER_00: 53:46

And Shaw Shank was Shaw Shank's one of the best movies ever.

SPEAKER_02: 53:49

So yeah, periods.

SPEAKER_00: 53:51

Yeah, yeah. It's a top ten greatest film. Yeah, so I mean, uh, there's some things like that that are pretty great. But but the so the dollar program has uh Dollar Babies ended. I read that it was because not because they still that the program was over necessary, but someone retired, and basically that person was the one running the program.

SPEAKER_02: 54:10

Yeah, literally, it was Steven's Stephen King's wife, Tabitha. Okay, her sister. Oh, okay. Ran the program. Alright. Wow. And she wanted to retire, and then it was just like that was great while it lasted. And I find that that is such a like Bangor Maine East Coast thing. Have you ever been to his house? Uh yeah, a couple summers ago, I was driving. My sister lives in Connecticut.

SPEAKER_00: 54:36

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02: 54:36

And I was driving home and I was like, today's the day. Gotta go.

SPEAKER_00: 54:39

Yeah, I went there two summers ago.

SPEAKER_02: 54:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 54:42

I was really disappointed when I read that he actually doesn't live there anymore and it's just a museum. Yeah. So I was kind of like, ah, all right.

SPEAKER_02: 54:48

Yeah, he's uh Yeah, I heard recently he's closer to Boston, and that's why he's at so many Red Sox games. New Sox fan. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 54:58

Have you ever stayed at the uh Algonquin?

SPEAKER_02: 55:00

Oh yeah, St. Stephen. Yeah. St. Andrews, rather. The St. Andrews. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 55:04

So cool.

SPEAKER_02: 55:04

Yeah, stayed there.

SPEAKER_00: 55:06

That's where he stayed when he wrote The Shiny. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 55:08

That's the rumor. Yeah, like I heard a rumor.

SPEAKER_00: 55:10

That's what the hotel claimed.

SPEAKER_02: 55:12

Yeah, which is it's like it was something crazy. Like he booked out like a wing of the hotel for eight weeks, and then four months later the shining came out. Like it was something like he went on a binge in the east wing. That's creepy.

SPEAKER_00: 55:26

And it's a haunted, like you can go on haunted tours. There's a haunted like tour thing. And the what bride that threw herself out the window.

SPEAKER_02: 55:35

Yeah, there's a whole that's a that's that's a and also like the overlook looks exactly like the Algonquin. It does, yeah. So yeah. So that's definitely some truth to that.

SPEAKER_00: 55:44

Crazy, crazy. Now, the other thing that we were talking about, giving back, I don't know if this is giving back. I'd be curious to see what your opinion on is. Do you know like what Reese Reese Witherspoon's program is? With her book club? Yeah. Yeah, I've heard it's ingenious as a business woman.

SPEAKER_02: 55:58

Yeah, it is. I've heard it in in a very like oh, that's an executive producer kind of thing. Like, but I wouldn't be able to speak to it if you could.

SPEAKER_00: 56:07

I mean, I have a very high level of it, but basically the idea is that Reese Witherspoon has a book club that obviously, if she puts if she it's almost like the Oprah book club, if she puts you on her book club, often you're a bestseller tomorrow. Boom. Yeah, you're like the next day. It's like it's like performing at the Super Bowl. Oh, yeah. So you become instant famous, you become a best-selling author in the United States, not in Canada, right? Kind of thing, right? It's so it's big. But to do that, you give up your movie rights to her.

SPEAKER_02: 56:36

Yeah, so if you look at like Wild, she made the movie Wild. Yeah. Uh they made Big Little Lies, which was incredible, the TV series. Um but you make no money off the movie?

SPEAKER_00: 56:48

Oh, I'm sure no, I'm sure she she pro I would hope she pays them.

SPEAKER_02: 56:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:52

But she's gotta be back for it. Cool. But they talk about like what a smart move for her, because now she's getting people giving her scripts and she just keep banging out movies.

SPEAKER_02: 57:05

Yeah, or just like someone who enjoys reading and then understands how filmmaking works.

unknown: 57:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 57:12

It's a win-win. That is that's good. That's like not necessarily comparable, but that is like in the same conversation of like writers. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 57:23

I I still look at it, I yeah, I still look at it as her give her way of giving back. Yeah. Because she's making like, don't get me wrong, like I would love for Taylor Swift to come and say, like, the afternoon pine is the best podcast I've ever heard in my entire life. And then all of a sudden, he's just saying that now for the transcript.

SPEAKER_01: 57:37

He's just trying to get that like statement in there. It's like the algorithm's algorithm, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 57:41

But uh it but seriously, like she but she's someone who like you know can say something, right? And all of a sudden it's like boom, there you go. She's doing that, she's essentially making authors instant famous.

SPEAKER_02: 57:53

And what they would make on book sales, it would be worth shaking hands with Reese Witherspoon to say you can have the rights to the movie for a buck or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01: 58:03

We're watching the morning show right now with Reed. That's a Reese Witherspoon. Great show.

SPEAKER_02: 58:07

Seeing that first season or two. I thought it was so genius that it's uh Marty Short and Steve Carell are the two bad guys in that show. Like, the best casting ever. Like the two most likable guys in Hollywood.

SPEAKER_01: 58:25

I mean, that's the whole reason I watched it. I was like, oh man, Steve Carell's gonna be great. That's like totally upside down of what I thought it was gonna be, but really well done. Yeah, Apple. Did you see the fox catcher though? Uh uh no, never saw it. Oh no.

SPEAKER_02: 58:37

Nominated Oscar Nom. Oh yeah?

SPEAKER_00: 58:39

For Steve. Talk about, like again, like not see it coming, kind of playing like the weirdo kind of thing, right? Okay. True story.

SPEAKER_02: 58:46

True story, too. Yeah. What was that family's name? They're big, like they were like uh uh Rose not Roosevelt, but like that type of family, like uh like built America. Yeah, I don't remember but Pennsylvania, like a steel family or something in Pennsylvania. And he was just obsessed with wrestling and he went crazy.

SPEAKER_01: 59:08

Yeah. Okay. I never saw that.

SPEAKER_00: 59:10

Must watch.

SPEAKER_01: 59:11

Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 59:13

If anyone ever doubts like Steve Krell's acting ability, like watch that and you're like, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02: 59:18

Channing Tatum as well. Channing Tatum was the wrestler. Yeah, and uh the Hulk, um, Mark Ruffalo. Ruffalo, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 59:25

Yeah, I thought you were talking about Hulk Hogan. I was like, he's in it. I'd be like, that'd be crazy.

SPEAKER_02: 59:31

And then uh, I believe it's the same director, I forget his name, but he also did Moneyball.

SPEAKER_00: 59:36

Yeah, which I loved as well.

SPEAKER_02: 59:37

Moneyball was phenomenal. One of the better sports movies ever. Top three. Behind Sandlot and Friday Night Lights. That's my top three sports movies. Sandlot.

SPEAKER_00: 59:48

Oh, that's a good pick, man. Remember the Titans is one that's up there?

SPEAKER_02: 59:51

Got me.

SPEAKER_01: 59:52

For sure.

SPEAKER_00: 59:52

I watch it like I probably at least once every two years.

SPEAKER_01: 59:55

Mighty Ducks 2.

SPEAKER_00: 59:56

Oh Mighty Ducks 2, one of the rare sequels that is better than the original. That's okay. That's an okay movie. Mighty Ducks, hot take. Mighty Ducks might actually it's nostalgically great. Otherwise, terrifying. So bad. These guys would do a podcast. I picked it apart. I was watching it. I saw that recently. And like they were funny. It's so well at one point, like Adam Banks is on the bench cheering on Adam Banks on a breakaway. And he goes right hand, left hand between shots. It's actually insane. And like they talk about like how how bad it is that Gordon Bombay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:35

He's on the bench cheering himself and the same thing. With his helmet off.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:37

With his helmet off and everything, yeah. And then they talk about this other part where it's like a Gordon Bombay scored like something like it was something stupid, like 400 goals. I can't remember what it is, but 400 goals in like 16 games or something. Whatever. It's like in 60 games in a season or something. So it's like he would have had to have scored something like one goal every freaking. In two minutes of every game.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:58

Physically impossible. Physically impossible.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:00

And then the last game of the year in the championship in a shootout, he misses one shot and then just decides hangs him up. Nah. Oh my god. Not for me anymore. No. I don't want to play in the NHL. This one shot I missed. Like real bad plot.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:16

It's funny in D2. I had heard about this before, like years ago. If you look in the stands, it's cardboard cutouts. Oh, really? Oh, geez. Just like awesome. Oh man. So great. And uh, yeah, my uh brother-in-law is from Minnesota. Nice. And he has friends who were extras as kids in the original, because they were his like friends who played hockey growing up.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:38

So they're like on the opposing teams and also going back, like as a kid, you were like, you know, you had your kid mindset, and you're like, yeah, Charlie Conway, he's like, yeah. Now as an adult, you watch that and you're like, shut up, Charlie. Like he was like, Why can't we beat Team USA Ducks? And it's like, because you're playing on the national team, dumbass. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:59

Yeah. It's actually, and then if you want to get into D3, the JV team beating the varsity team. Right. When in what world ever in D1 hockey would that ever happen?

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:11

So nostalgically, I love them, but like honestly, when you go back and watch them as adults, you're like, oh my god, no, this is why kids are stupid. I'll say this.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:19

Sandlot holds up. Sandlot does hold up. Phenomenal movies. It is, it's definitely the movie that I've seen the most in my life. Really? Like, okay. Used to watch it. We used to go to the cottage and we'd stop at Blockbuster on the way. You'd have just like The Sandlot, Carrie, The Omen, all these crazy 80s horror movies. And then during the day, I would just like sit and watch Sandlot every summer, all summer, and then watch it as an adult, probably every time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:50

He doesn't rewatch movies very often. So what would you say is the movie that you've re like watched the most?

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:56

I for some reason, yeah, yeah. I think you probably know, but Matrix is probably one of the ones I've seen more than any times. I I love the first Matrix movie. I just thought it was done so well. It's just so I mean, I know it's not completely airtight, but they did such a good job.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:08

That changed the game for a long time.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:11

It was it was a brilliant, brilliant movie. Um, that would be one that I watched. I'm rewatching The Godfather 2 right now. I just rewatched The Godfather 1.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:20

That's an annual for me as well.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:22

Yeah, so I do rewatch, I rewatch some movies, but they're so few and far between. Um I rewatched the Marvel movies through COVID. So I got through all of them like twice, pretty much, I think. Sometimes I feel like you know, and I just fall asleep to them.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:36

You know what I think was genius, and I don't know if it was planned or not, but the fact that all the Harry Potter movies include Christmas was genius.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:46

See, I never saw any, I only ever saw the first Harry Potter movie, dude. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:50

I saw all of them. They get better, uh they actually And I'm not a big Harry Potter guy.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:54

No, no, no. I I I didn't, I really despised it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:57

So I never my wife's a huge Harry Potter fan. Yeah. And uh so, like, I don't know what it was, like eight years, seven, yeah, it's nine years ago, we decided to exchange. We said, she didn't ever watch Star Wars, and I said, Let's watch Star Wars, and I'll watch all the Harry Potters. And we did that. We took two weeks. Takes a while, yeah. Well, we took two weeks. One week, you know, a film a night. Yeah, and that's what we did. Like sometime in the winter or something like that. We just like one movie a night.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:23

I hope that's what they do next with cinema, just mash movies like that up, Star Wars and Harry Potter, and cross it over.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:30

Yeah. Were awful.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:31

Tough to watch. Really tough. That's the best one.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:36

I actually the whole eight of them, or whatever, nine of them, or whatever. Nine of them? It's eight or nine. I can't remember. They did the last book they did in two parts. Wow. Right. I actually think Voldemort's a good bad guy. I was kind of rooting for him to win. Because I think Harry Potter's a loser.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:54

What do you mean by good bad guy?

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:55

Like, he was a good villain.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:57

Yeah. Just like straight up, well written, well, whatever.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:00

Yeah, I like villains, right? So I where I I'm into villains. Like a strong villain means I'm probably gonna like it, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:07

Like I love, you mentioned Thanos. Yeah. Um, for the same reason that like Thanos is great, is like his solution comes from an experience that he went through on his own planet, where it's like, we're gonna run out of like this is gonna be inhabitable soon. Therefore, let me help you, kind of thing. Same with like, I always thought about like Bain. Like Bain, when you hear his backstory, you're like, this guy makes sense. Yep, I love Tom Hardy, kick his ass, kind of thing. Like, yeah, I completely understand. Like, a good you should you should agree with to you should agree to a degree with any villain, and that's what makes a good villain. And it's like screenwriting one-on-one is like if you have conflict, two people are in an argument in a scene, the audience should agree with both of them. Like they should both be right, and that's what makes good conflict in the movie. Yeah, so like even that's what made Batman like all those villains were so great, because it's like no one knows it's Bruce Wayne, the billionaire, but all the villains are coming after the billionaires in Gotham. And like that makes that so like once you get another layer deep and realize that you're like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:25

What another one that always fascinated me was like as a kid watching Scooby-Doo, where format of Scooby-Doo, they have to go to like a creepy house, it's owned by a millionaire, there are monsters and ghouls and whatever. And at the end of every Scooby-Doo, they meet the monster and they take the mask off, and it's always a person. Yep. And I was like, that is the whole point of Scooby-Doo, is that like monsters are human, period.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:53

Like, and they have a backstory. There's generally a reason why.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:57

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:58

There's a reason why theory is deep, right? There's some deep Scooby-Doo stuff. Deep Scooby-Doo stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:04

Like, there, like, yeah, and then I I can't, I don't know how to get more poetic about it, but it's like monsters aren't real, but humans are. And we typically suck and do bad things. And that's what Scooby-Doo was trying to tell us the whole time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:21

There's just like when you think of like some of the great.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:24

Scooby-Doo philosophy, man. They should be that should be the next university course. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:27

There you go. Yeah. Like Green the Green Mile. Fantastic villains. Right? Like you have villains in there that you were just like, you truly hated. Right? Tom Hardy and the Revenant. Man, like I left that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:40

His backstory though.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:42

I know, but like I you just left that going, like, man, I hate that guy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:45

Yeah, I know. Right? But so good. Being able to pull that off, like it's like the easiest thing I think as an actor to pull off was like, oh, he was middle of the road road and forgettable. Or versus like, oh my god, that person was so likable, or oh my god, if I saw that guy in the street, I would spit on his shoes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:07

Oh my god, yeah. What's the guy in the There Will Be Blood? The bad guy? Paul Dano? Also played the Riddler. Oh, Paul Dano. Like he's he's an actor I st I think I still want to fight just because of this. He's done such great performances. I'd be like, you're an asshole. Like if I ever saw him in public. Well, that was like the world.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:23

I'm not a huge Game of Thrones guy, but the guy who played King Joffrey. Yeah, young guy. Oh yeah, he was super unlucky. Apparently, so good at the time. He had to retire hide. Yeah, because he was getting bullied all the time. He just, you know, you do a good job when you're getting the same with the tweets.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:38

Who's the blonde kid? Draco? Draco? Draco. From Harry Potter? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:45

Yeah, actually, that wasn't the first one, but I know who you're talking about. Malfull. Draco Malfold.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:49

Draco Malfur. Yeah, exactly. Heard the same kind of thing about him.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:53

Yeah, yeah. Well, well over our hour, gentlemen. You want to get into our 10 dumb questions? Yeah. Let's do it. Uh these questions are dumb. And uh, some of them aren't dumb. They're deep. No dumb questions. That's what my mom says. No dumb questions. Um, all right. Okay, so question number one. If Stephen King gave you one of his unpublished stories for a dollar, another one, what genre would you not want it to be? What genre would you not like to do out of a oh. Like of a Stephen King story? I guess I don't really like that question. Stephen King, let's just say in general, what genres would you think you'd like to stay away from as a producer or director?

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:32

Uh like a uh true to form period drama. Okay. That'd be tough. I don't think I'd be very good at that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:42

A lot of research and getting.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:44

Yeah, just um I'm not good at like directing actors' mannerisms, and I feel like that would be but I do have like a way that I think you'd be able to. I have an idea. I've never written it, but I have an idea of how you could pull off the uh Halifax explosion in a cool three-hour big Titanic type drama. I like that. Love story kind of thing. Uh, but I don't want to do it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:08

Okay. Sterling Tom Green? Tom Green. Sure. Tom Green is Vince Cole.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:15

Yeah, we'll do a uh we'll do like a period piece with Tom Green. I could do that. Yeah. Okay. But I wouldn't be able to do like a straight up like question number two.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:27

So what's scary? Pitching a room full of film execs or walking alone at midnight through Point Pleasant Park.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:36

I've only ever done one of them. Um, but I've been in Point Pleasant when the sun's starting to go down and your dog's off leash and you're trying to get the hell out of there. But man, the early days of pitching film execs like at CBC headquarters in Toronto, and you're seeing like the Shits Creek 40-foot posters, and you're walking in to pitch something that is not Shits Creek at all, like you are sweating absolute bullets. So Point Pleasant scary, but yeah, I'll go film exactly because that's tough.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:15

No good answer. Yeah. Oh, so so if PubCrawl had another season, which Canadian city would you pick next and why?

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:21

Uh St. John's. Uh pretty perfect choice, too. Yeah. No, no uh explanation required.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:30

Yeah. Question number four. So, what's the weirdest note that you've ever gotten from like a film festival jury or producer?

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:38

Yeah, so there was a note that came back. First season of PubCrawl, we got no notes at all. And I relied on the Nova Scotia archives quite heavily to get like old cool videos of Halifax and photos of Halifax, and pretty incredible. Like photos of the Halifax Club that we were able to replicate almost exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:02

Cool.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:03

And someone gave us the note in season two to not use the Golden Gate Bridge. And I was like, that is not the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh wow. That is the McDonald Bridge in Halifax. Weird that that's your first note two seasons into this show.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:18

Yeah. That's weird. That's amazing. Like that'd be another cool movie. We talked about that once, the old Halifax Club in a heist with the uh the underground tunnels built into it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:30

Yeah, so that was a that was an episode on Pub Crawl, and we saw the tunnels. Yeah. It was crazy. Because for a while, I don't know what the plan is, but they were putting in a restaurant in the basement.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:39

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:39

And uh that was gonna be behind the bar was like the uh tunnel, and they were gonna put like glass over top of it so it would be a floor that you could see down. Oh, that'd be so cool. And then COVID.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's gone now. She's yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:55

My question yours. Five yourself. Okay, so thanks. I do have another answer to that one. Oh, sure. Like if we wanted to choose one. Well, choose both. Yeah. Another one. Uh I was with Rob Ramsey. We wrote this pilot together called Wolf Hill, and it won the National Screen Institute's like television award one year for they took in a bunch of pilots and Rob and I won, which was amazing. And we were pitching some executives in Toronto, and we used a lot of like East Coast colloquialisms in. I mean, it was called Wolfville. It was like a true detective, but set in Wolfville. And they said that it was unbelievable. No one would believe that no one actually talks like that on the East Coast. It's like, have you ever been? And she was like, I've been to Montreal. Oh boy, yeah. So we didn't take that note super seriously.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:49

Can you send this episode to her?

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:50

Yeah, yeah, I'll see if I can dig up who that was.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:54

Us East Coasters, we're like friggin' rights tabernacle.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:01

Uh yeah, so number five over you with. Oh, yeah, okay. So you've done horror documentaries, um, some pub history. You know, which which is the one, you know, if there was a genre film or a type of movie you could make or some lane you could stay in, what do you think you could do secretly forever? What would you your passion uh just keep doing again and again?

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:22

I think that horror is having such a moment right now, and I don't mean like that I'm jumping on the bandwagon because I've been obsessed with horror since I was a kid. I've been making like quasi-horror movies since 2016. And um not only that, but like I mentioned earlier, like I think that horror is so like punk rock in the sense that it holds up a mirror to society and like the zeitgeist of the time to be able to say like this is what's wrong, this is what people won't say that they're afraid of. You mentioned like weapons earlier, that's all about like school shootings without having to hammer it on the head. It doesn't show up as like this put together thing in a tux that like shows up ready to like rumble basically, and like Yeah, the monkey was another good example of that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:14

I saw that recently.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:15

Yeah, the other Stephen King one. Yeah, yeah, phenomenal. I mean like the twins. Did a good job of it. Yeah, yeah. Great movie. So I think I I just like the spirit of horror and how there are so many subgenres of it. But at the end of the day, it's like I think that horror speaks truth to power more than I don't want to say more than documentary, but man, it's in the conversation with documentary of being able to hold a mirror up to society for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:41

100%. That's awesome. Question number six. So I was reading it and I'm not sure I understand, so I'm changing it.

unknown: 1:15:46

Go for it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:46

So question number six, I'm just gonna ask you straight up favorite horror movie of all time?

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:51

Uh, if you my favorite movie of all time is Jaws. Oh, okay. So if we consider that a horror, some people do, some people call it like a monster movie, which to the definition it is. Um, but if we're setting Jaws aside as it's just like a summer blockbuster that everybody loves nowadays, my favorite horror movie of all time is Scream.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:12

Scream.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:13

Scream, the original 1996.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:15

Yeah, great movie. It was pretty iconic that first one forever.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:19

It's the first movie we let uh Gracie, like she's 13, she's like loves horror movies. Yeah, that was one of the first ones we let her watch with us, and then that was she was hooked after that. Oh, it's just like horror, horror, horror movies. That's all we watched after that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:32

Oh, it did the bait and switch with Drew Barrymore being on the poster. Like it was Kevin Williamson is a genius as far as I'm concerned. He went on to do know what you did last summer. He created Dawson's Creek, which is also crazy. Like, he's like, well, just take out the knives. That guy does it all, honestly. Yeah, and I believe he's back. There, there's a new scream coming out, and I think it's like the first one he's written in quite a while. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:59

So I I think that even the last few that came out were okay. They were they were fun to watch. I mean, I enjoy seeing the same old characters and uh same old story, even though I know I mean, I don't know, horror movies I always give a pass for that stuff, right? I just love to see that world keep going. Like we saw the new Final Destination this year. Once I heard it was incredible. It is. Yeah, it is really good. I would love to hear what you think about it, because I would actually say it's probably one of the best movies I saw this year, too.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:24

Cool. And I heard that it like wraps the the uh series like pretty well.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:29

Full circle. Like I even like the I even like the first one. Like people are afraid of log trucks forever because of that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:34

Did you see the marketing that they did where they put there were log trucks in America that they put the billboard on the back of? Like Final Destination. Oh no. Brutal six, seven. That's awesome. Yeah, genius. Yeah, that's brutal. Yeah. When you can like that's what I mean. It's like talk about like the zeitgeist of like you can either like hold the mirror up to what people are afraid of or make people realize that they should be afraid of something, and that's what that movie did to log trucks.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:02

Yeah. That's true. Anyway, check that one out. I don't think you'd be disappointed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:05

Yeah, you know what? It creeped me out the uh the shard of glass going into the bar in the trailer. That was great. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:12

Question number seven. Uh, I think that's over to you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:14

Oh, sorry. I may have my phone. Here, you just read it there, Jimmy. Okay, that's fine. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:18

What's the best advice that you've received that you've ignored, and you were glad you did?

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:23

Oh, that was a roller coaster of a question. That I'm glad I did.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:30

Yeah, you're glad you ignored it. Advice you ignored in your lifetime. Don't make don't go make movies, be an accountant.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:37

Yeah, I I oh, here's one. Um I did my undergrad at Acadia in political science. I took a history of art course, and I went to the prof to ask for a letter, like a recommendation letter for my application to the New York Film Academy, and she said that I would never get into film school. Oh.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:00

There you go.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:01

Send her this episode. We're just sending this episode to a bunch of people now. Yeah, okay. There you go. Here's your receipts.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:09

Uh do you want to do number eight? I don't know what's going on with my phone, dude. All right, I'm just gonna go.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:13

I think I forgot my I forgot my face or something. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:15

Okay, question number eight. If you could remake a movie, what one would you choose and why? Oh man. Heavy hitters.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:24

Oh yeah. Um It's hard because there are so many, like the movies that I love and respect, I don't want to touch ever. Like, no one's gonna make another Shining. I'm sure that they'll try. The sequel was great. Dr. Sleep was phenomenal.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:41

Um, I don't want to touch the original scream. Is Dr. Sleep a sequel or prequel? Sorry. Sequel. It's a sequel. It's about uh I'll have to check that out. Um what's his name? Torrance, the kid is all grown up and it's Ewan McGregor now. And Shine comes back, and yeah, it's interrupted. It's awesome. Yeah. And he goes back to the overlook. It's crazy. Oh yeah. Um a movie that I would like to remake would be This is so funny. There's this movie from 2004 or 5 called Wicker Park with Josh Hartnett. Okay, and it's based on a French movie called uh The Apartment, like La Paltma. And I love that movie, but it is so 2004 like style, yeah, and it still works, and it's awesome, and it's great, and it's Josh Hartnett and Matt Lillard, like from Scream, Rose Burn, like all these incredible actors and actresses, and I just think like you could make a really cool 2025 love story version of it. But also, not saying that I want to, it's a piece of art. Can it stands up to this day? My sisters are gonna laugh at that answer when I just mentioned it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:00

Are you in or do you want me to keep reading?

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:02

I'm in here. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:03

So question number nine. Do you believe Canadian filmmakers have a unique sense of humor or horror compared to Hollywood or no? 100%. You do? 100%. Can you give me an example?

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:13

Yeah. Um growing up, I don't I think that there is something to be said for Canadian winters that if you can make a comedy, nobody can make a like comedic winter movie like we would be able to. And I don't think that anybody does like snow horror better than Canadians. Snow horror. Um snow horror. Yeah, hashtag that one.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:39

I never even thought of that before, but that's awesome. Shoveling. Yeah. Shoveling.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:43

Yeah. It's like I I think that it um gives you an edge for sure. That people like even like you think about Stephen King being in Bangor and me growing up in Fredericton, that's only like 202 miles apart. Not that I've looked up door-to-door, my place is place. But his snow horror movie takes place in Colorado. Like it's not even the main story the way that or misery is, I suppose, a bit too. But I just think that they it gives you an edge, which also, in a funny way, makes us a little bit funnier because you have to be to get through the winter. Okay. Um, yeah, there are characters up here that I, in one sense, I would sit next to them at the pub and laugh all night, but then I would not want to run into them in a dark alley. Sure. 20 minutes later, even.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:41

Did you want to take question 10? Because I asked a bunch in a row?

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:44

It doesn't matter. Go ahead and ask I there's a floating here.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:48

Question number 10 is You're at a bar and someone says, Tell me why I should watch your next film. What's your 30-second pitch?

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:56

My next film? Are we talking Sweetie? Oh, sure. Sure. In general? Yeah. Um Sweetie. I would say that I have been I've had a deep passion for film since my mom took me to see Jurassic Park in the summer of 1993, which would have clocked me at three and a half years old. Um and everything that I do now is devoted to protecting and loving films and filmmaking. Um, and I just hope that every project that I make, um, you can see that in the craft of it all, and that's why I would hope you'd want to watch my next movie. Beautiful answer.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:40

We'll just do the last call and then we're all done. Great. Yeah, another one a super long-running guest, but no, this has been great conversation. So thank you. Yeah. And uh, yeah, so I guess we ask every guest this question. Um, we just frame it as what's one piece of advice you were given in your lifetime? It could be from anybody that you just want to share with us today. And it can come from any walk of life, any show.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:03

Sure. First thing that comes to mind, um, I worked with that show Wolfville that I mentioned was optioned by Alan Hawke and his company Take the Shot up in Newfoundland. Alan Hawko told me early in my career to pay my taxes. And that is something that is not like necessarily a sexy thing, but there are times where you get pretty excited about keeping the taxes on certain paychecks. Um, pay your taxes for sure. My dad always instilled in me like if you're gonna work on something like go all in, um lower your shoulder, never your head. That was always a big one that I love. All those old sports analogies, like never let a wind go to your head or a loss to your heart. That's another good one.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:47

Nice.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:48

I'd I'd go with that. And that was uh that was public enemy who said that. Never let a wind go to your head or a loss to your heart. So that's my answer.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:55

Great answer, dude. Cheers. Thank you very much so much. Thank you so much. And we'll uh we want to see have you back when that movie's finished. Uh the next one.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:03

All right, so happy to be a good thing.