Silver Surfer Casting, Jon Bernthal Returns as the Punisher,, DC Movies on Disney+, and more!

[0:19] Hello, everyone, and welcome to Superhero Slate, the show where we run down the latest superhero entertainment news. We love TV, movies and superhero show. So let's talk it all out. My name is. Chris and my name's Mike. And this week we have a trailer for Star Wars Tales of the Empire. Yeah. Chris, explain to me. What. What? That. Yes, I we will explain. I, this is, I didn't expect this. This is kind of out of the blue, which is great. I love a surprise drop mike, rather than like, oh, it's going to come out in, like, three weeks. So awesome for that. Daredevil photos confirmed Jon Bernthal as Punisher. I know we've talked about it before, but they're officially dropping some photos.

[0:58] Mike. So we'll we'll dive into some of these official things and some more returning characters. And Daredevil, DC movies are now on Disney+. No April Fools and more. So strange. Well, when you told me that I ran to my, Disney+ app and I was like, no, he's got to be, like, talking about maybe some sort of region outside of, like, North America where, you know, the streaming deals are, like, really weird and different. And I was like, no, there it is, Wonder Woman. Yeah. Looking right at me on this newly branded Disney Plus app is very strange. Very odd. They, Yeah, absolutely. They, again, I think that news dropped on on April 1st, which was on Monday,

[1:39] Which is notoriously the worst day for internet news, by the way. So, like, you have to take everything with, with a huge grain of salt. Just, just take the lid off the salt shaker. And I was like, is this real? And then Mike was like, so you're sending me. You already sent me a screenshot. I'm like, good, like like everything. corporate America has kind of ruined all the internet fun of April Fool's Day. like, it was cool, like ten years ago, which kind of felt like to me, it was just the other year that, you know, they were making, fun stuff for us to enjoy on the internet for April Fools. But it's no like, it's like,

[2:14] It's like, like a restaurant, like a Burger King or something. It's just like, oh, we're making this crazy product. We're happy. And it's just like, no one thinks you're making this very. No one cares, like, shut up. So, yeah, if everyone did it. So the one I will say when I saw IGN did a, Nintendo's, switch was releasing a Virtual Boy. I saw that was actually good. IGN I usually attempts to do something interesting. And it was funny because I literally I've just got a Virtual Boy in the past few months and I was like, this, this sounds right, because I had the Nintendo Labo, right, with the VR headset for it. And I'm like, I'm like, man, this is this is a little too close to home.

[2:49] But but yeah, but then they started to do like it, like on the everything you watch, it looks like an Apple Pro screen with the VR. And I'm like, oh, there's no camera on a switch. So they got me. They got me. Good. Well, I also like to that it's like it's technically plausible, right. Like if anyone had used some of those early gen like cell phone VR glasses where it kind of splits the video and it puts two lenses, like literally in a cardboard box in front of it. Like, you could theoretically make this with the switch, you know. So they do. That's that. They literally have that with the Nintendo Labo. It's a cardboard VR thing for, for it.

[3:20] Oh, I didn't I didn't know they actually ended up making one that put it on your face. yeah. There is one that is VR. But it is very limited in what it does. So okay. But but absolutely, absolutely. And I will say the one thing we, we ordered out, dinner on Monday from, I believe it was Panera. and, I got, I think my wife got mac and cheese from Panera, but they served it in a chick fil A cup and wrote April Fools on the Cup. that's it. When she got it. I feel like maybe, is that like a fun, just like, local, like, franchise move? Like. Oh, corporate didn't tell us to do it.

[3:56] They'd probably hate it if we did it. You know? Right. They found out they we probably, you know, get in trouble. Yeah, because the chick fil A's across the street from it. So I thought I thought that was very entertaining and like, oh, this is this is cool. someone's having fun today with it. They're not that hurting anybody with it. Well. Chris, speaking of, locally, I was actually going to ask you this, but I was like, I'll ask him on the show. are you in the path of totality? if you are outside of the United States, there is, total solar eclipse coming in like 48 hours. I think less than 24. It's 30 3 p.m. tomorrow. My time. Oh, I thought 18 hours a day.

[4:34] Okay. Yeah. Wow. We are definitely in the countdown stage. Like Zelda majora's mask. The moon just impending to destroy us all. Yeah, I was watching a couple, videos this weekend about it. Like. Yeah, I've seen, like, solar eclipses in my in my lifetime, and they're cool, but I guess this one's kind of a bigger deal, because the path of totality or the area in which you can see the full eclipse, is actually fairly large and spanning a large swath of population. So actually, a lot of people in the United States are going to get a chance to see this. And you're kind of close to it, right? Because we are 99%, my, my hometown I grew up in

[5:15] Is 100%, Indianapolis is 100% in Indiana. Most of Indiana is, but we are 99% here, tomorrow. So I'll probably pop out around two 5245 or so. stare at the sun for a little bit and see how it goes. Yeah. Is this the segment of the podcast where we should tell people not to look at? Don't do the naked eye? yeah. There's this, like, 70 year old woman that keeps showing up in, like, local news, reports the last week of, like, this woman looked at a total, total solar eclipse in the 70s, and now she's, like, partially blind. And she, like, you know, tells me. She's 85 plus, so, you know, that happens. I, I, I'm probably going to try to look for like,

[5:55] Maybe like a live stream or like a post recap as well when they have, like, you know, the cameras that are like, can do this kind of stuff too. Yeah. That would be interesting. I think you're kind of right. I feel like most like natural phenomenon, like, oh, there's going to be like a blood moon tonight or a harvest moon, or you're going to be able to see this planet with the naked eye. And then every time I go outside and try to see it, I don't I don't know where it is. I don't know where to look or there's like a building in my way and I can't even really look at it. And then I just end up finding like

[6:24] A professional on, like Instagram that set up all of the right, you know, UV filters and everything into the the best shot. So I was like, I'll just wait for the hashtag to blow up tomorrow. Yeah, it's going to be again after 3:00 here, you know, around noon for you, it's going to be just everything, every social media thing, the jokes, the memes, everything will be be covered. So it'll be it'll be interesting for that. but but yeah, I'm, I'm excited to to see what that 99% is pretty good without really having to leave my house. Yeah. right. So, we have like, four bridges. They go from Indiana to Kentucky, and I can guarantee you the traffic tomorrow would be a nightmare no matter where you go.

[7:05] So, you know me. I'm not. I'm not in the crowds, Mike, and I'm not into it, in that in that regard, there's something else I was going to say with that. I don't remember what it was. but, anyway, so we'll we'll jump into what we've been, jump into what we've been doing. So you, you got to watch some stuff this week in the show and a movie. and I, I already I feel what you're going to say about the second one is not good. But let's go ahead. Jump into the first one. Yeah. So we'll start with the with the good one. I won't I won't spoil anything about it because I know it's relatively new,

[7:38] But the three body problem, Netflix hit about a week ago, and my wife and I just finished it up this weekend. If you're unfamiliar with it, like I was before it came out, it's based on a science fiction book series, which I had to look up afterwards to see that it's a three book series. and I think the first season of the show, it seems to roughly follow the first book. So I'm anticipating three seasons, which kind of fits perfectly with what Netflix likes to do anyway, with three seasons of a TV show. But anyway, this book is being adapted by the Game of Thrones guys, so, they are taking a story that hopefully is complete

[8:21] And we won't have to worry about a Game of Thrones situation where, you know, kind of scrambling to figure out, oh, how are we going to end this, television show? So it seems like we have a full narrative here to do, to adapt. but the show is really, really fun and exciting to me. I believe the book was written by a scientist. I don't know if they were like, a physicist, an astronomer, or what the deal was, but they get really nitty gritty into the science and problem solving. And it's it scratches the same part of a brain, Chris, that like, you know, when you're like, you're watching a heist movie and there's that whole segment of the movie where the characters

[9:00] Are getting together, trying to figure out what they're going to do. Oh, how are we going to get into the vault? Who are we going to put where? How are we going to plan this out? What are these things that we need to do? there's a lot of that kind of stuff happening in this show, and it's extremely satisfying because they're dealing with these really high concept, theoretically possible, like science fictiony things. And it's really, really cool. but I do have to say we almost didn't get back into it. We watched about like 2 or 3 episodes and I was like, okay, there's some stuff happening here. This is kind of interesting, but I haven't really been hooked yet.

[9:35] Like, I feel like the teeth haven't sunk in and I could easily just abandon this and go on to watch something else. But I kept seeing, I guess, to Netflix's social teams credit, they kept tweeting and retweeting or posting or Instagram storing like people's reactions to like the fifth episode. They're like, oh my God, this fifth episode, this is crazy. I'm never going to forget it or something like that. So I was like, all right, I'll stick around at least to see what happens in this fifth episode out of a total of eight episodes. So we watched episode five, and that's where kind of like, everything opens up. It's kind of like a combination of what the end of a pilot episode

[10:13] Of a television show does, and what the season finale of a TV show does, where like like you finally get the twist, the hook, the direction, the trajectory for the show in the series, it, like all blows up in episode five and it's like, whoa, this is really, really crazy. They answer, like a lot of questions that you've been trying to figure out. So I don't want to spoil anything. I don't even really want to bring up the subject matter all that much, because it's just kind of fun learning it along the way, kind of how the characters in the TV show are doing it. It has the guy who voices the watcher, right. I don't think Jeffrey Wright's in it. No.

[10:51] Okay. I keep seeing them in photos on the on the new things. And I was like, you know. Maybe you're getting, because there is a little bit of Marvel crossover. It has, one addict Wong. Yeah, yeah, he's in it. He kind of plays like this, kind of like Private Detective or something along those lines. And he's really, really good in it. I love his characterization. There's a lot of, The internet has lied to even me. The internet has lied to me through and through. So unless unless he's possibly doing the voice of something that is not attached to a face, maybe. but I didn't see Jeffrey Wright in it anywhere. Yeah, but yeah, there's so many fun concepts happening in here.

[11:34] There's like these, like quantum physics, physics coming up a lot. It's just really, really fun. it's dire at moments, but I, I if if the really crappy adaptation of Avatar The Last Airbender, I guess I should maybe be a little bit more, tame. I mean, it's a crappy. It's just not for me. It's not like, mean. If that can get three seasons, I hope, they end up making more, three-body problem. Yeah. the wife and I are hooked. It was really exciting. It was really fun to watch. So obviously, I assume the best thing to do after watching a binging a season of a show I really, really liked was to, self-harm, myself by watching a show.

[12:17] I know a movie which I had very easily avoided. I never felt like I had the desire to watch it, but, there's a reason for that. the wife was out last night, so I was just left to my own devices, and I don't know why I decided to do this to myself, but I watched, Argyle, which was the, Is it Matthew Vaughn? Right. Am I getting the director? Right. Okay, that's on. And it was on Apple TV. Really? No. not an Apple TV, but an Apple TV theatrical release. Yeah, I believe it came out in theaters, so I remember, right? Yeah. It did. No, I did, I'm just saying Apple TV was the production company.

[12:50] Yeah. So I was I watched this and okay, it's not a dumpster fire. I'm coming out. It may be a little too hot. It's not like the worst movie I've ever seen. It's just exactly what happens when you when a streamer gives an accomplished director a lot of money and no, restrictions like this is what they make. Like, I haven't seen The Gray Man, but I feel like this is kind of, like, in the same category as the Gray man. and it's just all over the place. Like, one thing that really kind of stuck out, stuck out to me was, the visual effects shots that just straight up didn't need to be in the movie.

[13:26] I'm not even talking about, like, oh, well, they should have gone out of their way and done this all practically. I'm saying there's like little simple moments where, like, a character puts on like spy glasses to like, scan documents, and instead of just like letting the audience use their own intelligence and assume that's what they're doing. Or maybe even just put like a little tiny blipping light on the glasses, there's like a whole cutaway where they're close in on Brian Cranston's face and there's like these scanning motions going across the lenses, and it wipes to a giant monitor or shows all the letters and stuff popping up on screen. It's just like, okay, we it's like it's very a maximalist approach to

[14:02] Like a spy thriller. I mean, the performances are good, like Bryce Dallas Howard, her characters like, kind of fun. Sam Rockwell is great in everything that he's in. So I, you know, that kind of goes without saying, but, man, the story goes all over the place. The twists and turns. I don't they weren't super exciting for me. Some of them were really predictable, some pretty cheesy dialog on occasion. And, it was just like, somebody needs to really, rein in Vaughn and like, just, Well, so I would also. Tighten this all up. I would also blame the writer. He didn't write it like Jason. Jason. Fuchs, I believe he's he wrote Ice Age Continental Drift. Mike. And,

[14:50] The story of Wonder Woman 2017. So, you know, I would say, you know, probably yes, him, but also, like, you probably have a nonfunctional duo at the heart of this film somewhere along the way. Yeah. Mean, I don't know if, if they're connected in, someway at all, but Matthew Vaughn is definitely, like the spear, the tip of the spear. I'm sure he could have made decisions if he. Well, the the the writer was the is the producer, so maybe. Maybe not. I guess we'll never quite know, but I, I think. I've not heard good. I've not heard good things like I haven't watch this, but everyone was like, no, this is, this is not a good movie despite having a stacked cast, if you will.

[15:30] Yeah. It's at the end of the day. Yeah. It's a pretty easy skip. And like also like the cast is like it's kind of it's a little bit of a bait and switch because there's kind of like, like false memories. Or if you've kind of seen the trailer, like, you know, it's kind of about like a writer. So there's kind of like that, stranger than fiction vibe to it, where sometimes you'll, like, cut away until the story that's in the book. So it's like, okay, these characters, like they're not really in the movie. They're just like the personification of a character in the book. Then there's like, there's like this crazy moment at the end of the movie

[16:05] Where, like a character comes back from the dead and everyone's like, oh, whoa, you're still alive. What a twist. But like, we never really get to meet the character anywhere in the movie. So it's like, everyone is so excited to see this character that the audience never really got to me. And I'm just like. Like I'm supposed to care. Like. Like Rebel Moon, like like every character rebel. But. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I know when the movie came out, I saw some people online that was like, oh, it's fine. You know, don't don't take it too seriously. But I'm just like, This is Apple Plus money. This is an accomplished director. This is a stat cast.

[16:39] Like it's just like you couldn't have just like maybe like, you know, taking it a little bit more seriously, you could have possibly made, like, a cult classic, and instead, like, no one's. It feels like someone's trying to play catch up, like. Like Apple is trying to play catch up to, like, Glass Onion. And you know, those films. Yeah. Kind of feels like that. Like like there's, there's there's some big twists coming. But you know, from what I've heard, the twists never stop happening and you just get tired of them because you're like, oh, they're there's too many of these. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's like kind of like twist fatigue. Like I'm sure the pitch to the studio is just like all the audience at the end.

[17:17] They're not going to know who to trust, but actually it ends up backfiring and you just end up not knowing who you're supposed to care about. Which is like, oh, they're like a bad guy now. Like, well, that's kind of shitty. But then they end up being like a good guy again, but then like, oh, they're but they're so they're always bad. And she's like, I don't care anymore. Like I don't care. Just I got to about two thirds through this movie and then I, I finally, succumb to the fast forward button. And I was like, okay, fast forward, fast forward. Okay. There's kind of like a fun Matthew Von like, action style scene here.

[17:49] Okay, I'll stop for a second because, you know, he's pretty good at, like directing the camera with the choreography. He kind of has a very distinct style, which I won't take away from him. I think it is fun. In the Kingsman, it's like, okay, fast forward to okay, I got a little bit of that. Oh, there's a dumb twist of some sort of like a music box. Okay, this is stupid. Fast forward. So I don't think I could recommend this maybe be a good airplane movie. It's kind of like it could last, through, like, maybe like half of a flight of cross-country. Yeah. Possibly. I don't know. I'm not watching it. I haven't been interested in it.

[18:19] Chris, since you've been doing this week, I'm glad you brought to the table because I've been wanting to know about this. I keep hearing people talk about it and I feel like it's been too long and I'm like too embarrassed to ask what it is now. So now you can tell me what it is. Yes. So I purchased held. I was to, for actually my PC and PlayStation five, even though it is cross-play, I thought it had cross-progression. It does not. So I end up with two copies. It's fine though, because this is a great game. hell diver is two is a sequel to how I was one, which I don't think anyone ever heard of, but when how they came out a month ago,

[18:52] Maybe a month and a half ago, it just took the video game world by storm. I like a very unexpected, kind of hit. And what has been cool about it is, is $40 Microsoft a full price game? When you play, you get credits towards the Battle pass, and the battle pass is free. Like there's there's paid two paid tiers, but I've gotten enough credits in the game that you actually can find premium credits on the ground in the levels as well to get the free or to get the paid stuff if you want it to. It is mind blowing how they've done this game, through and through. But the way it works is you are a,

[19:28] A military person from Super Earth, and you've been sent out to the galaxy, these planes, to liberate them from either, the automatons or the Terminator automatons are essentially Terminators. If you want to shoot massive waves of Terminators, you go fight the Ottomans. if you want to do Starship Troopers where you're killing bugs, you go fight determined. It's Mike, and it's really fun to like because you land on a planet, you have some missions to do, like, oh, maybe you'll you'll have to destroy, the the automatons, supply depots, or you're exterminating bug nests or something like that, like you have missions to do before you can extract and you play, you can play by yourself, but it's way better with friends.

[20:07] I've got two friends. So you can play with one of the interesting facts of this. there are two things that I think, you know, take a little bit of learning. One, there's friendly fire grenades, bullets, anything you can kill your teammates very quickly calling in, something, you know, like a bombing run. If you call it a bombing run, you can blow up your teammate if you don't tell them where it is along the way. So, friendly fire is a very interesting thing. And then the other one is it takes a, a page out of battlefield two, which is one of my favorite PC games. When you reload, you lose the whole clip. Mike. So like, it's not like, oh, you just have 100 bullets, you spend two,

[20:42] You reload, you have 98 bullets, you have that clip and that's it. Like, and you have to like maintain your your ammo very efficiently throughout this game. so I wouldn't say it's realism because obviously it's not realism, but it's really fun to have that. And the personality of the game as you're coming from super Earth, and when you do the training, you're like, oh, we're going to make you the biggest badass and you know, the Galaxy has ever seen. So it's got like that big again, starship trooper ego mentality like in it, which is really fun. Like we're doing this for Super Earth. You know, I'm doing my part. And, it's been really fun. Like, I, it's been fun to play with people.

[21:16] And they have different setups and different guns. You unlock guns, there's no PvP, so you're not actually fighting other players. All the humans are working together in this and for my understanding is the game. So today we liberated three planets from the robots and because everyone contributes to the big to the actual planets liberation, everyone who's playing, we liberated those. We get a bunch of free points, which is great. And then they have this person who who's essentially a game master running the game, like, all right, next up, we're going to be fighting the bugs on these planets. And this is what you have to do to get the extra credits and then be successful in this region.

[21:49] And they set a time limit on if you fail you fail. You don't get the credits. They, you know, you get pushed back and bugs take more planets, so on and so forth. So it's really like a nice ebb and flow of military tactics in space, which I think is cool. So yeah, I. Kept I kept hearing people compare this to like, oh, this is like Starship Troopers. The game. And I saw a couple clips were like, I guess the are the bugs kind of comparable visually to some of the. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Like they're very bright colors and know there's a big balmy one. And then they have different, you know, different styles, different abilities.

[22:22] So absolutely, they look very much like some of the stuff out of Starship Troopers. Yeah. It is kind of crazy like you brought up the fact that this is called Like Hell Divers too. I feel like this is a thing that happens only in video games, with media like not often is there like a movie comes out. No one has really ever heard of it. And then the sequel comes out and then like, oh, everyone's on top of it. It's almost usually the opposite of like, oh, well, the sequel wasn't as good as the as the first one, but this is kind of funny. I have no idea what Hell Divers one is. I couldn't

[22:52] Even tell you what consoles it was, how old it is, or anything like that. I think it's like a 2019 game, maybe 2018, 2019, and this is made by PlayStation Studios. So that's why it's on PlayStation. And yeah, it kind of makes you wonder what made, you know, the second one pop off. Was it like creative marketing? Did they just place it just right between like, you know, like a lull in releases and it was like just enough to get the streamers to get it going? Well, that price point, I know a lot of people who, who play this game, because like, again, it's $40, like a $40 game is very digestible in a world of $70 games. and then also

[23:33] Like there's like there is in-game currency, but you don't need to buy battle like there's no, you don't have to buy anything. You can just play and unlock stuff and it's great. Like and it's really cooperative. You don't have a lot of PvP games like where it's like you're fighting an AI, enemies together in a lot of games like, you know, Fortnite or Call of Duty, like shooting other people all the time. So this is really, I think, just a different genre that happened to be at the right price point, at the right time and just have enough of, you know, the game to always evolving. They're introducing new enemy types. They're introducing new, new guns and vehicles for the humans.

[24:12] Like, it's just a quickly evolving game. And I think that's, you know, how games need to be sometimes. I was playing Halo last night with my brother in law, and, you know, it's Halo Infinite, but for two years feels like the same Halo two years ago. Like, where's the updates? Like adding new mass or adding new guns or vehicles? And there they have it. In two years in this game has done, you know, dozens of different updates in the matter of two months, you know, give or take. So, absolutely love it. it works great on my Steam deck. It works great on, PlayStation five. I would recommend that. Again, it's not a solo game. There's no story you're playing in a live universe.

[24:48] You know, we had issues with software as a service, live action games. But I don't think this one's going anywhere in anywhere, anytime soon. I think it'll be pretty good for a while, but, I absolutely love it. I can't recommend enough. And the other thing I watched, I signed on here. Mike. we both went to Purdue University, who was now in the final basketball game for college. What's it. Called? Yeah. This is this is really funny. Especially for two guys that, self admittedly not really into sports. I've had a lot of, family and friends, like, text me like, oh, Purdue's in the elite Elite eight. They're going to the final. Are they going to the Final Four?

[25:27] They've already beat the Final Four. They're in the last two. Their last two. One of the last two teams last night. Oh okay. Yeah. And I'm just like I don't know how to respond. So I just keep saying good for them. Good. That's great numbers. Those are good numbers. Lower numbers are better. yeah. It would have been more impactful for us if we were still students on that campus, because then the parties would have been, really, really fun. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, apparently it was wild last night. This is the second time since Purdue's existed that they've gone to the the final game in the tournament. I think it was like 1969 at they said, 55 years ago.

[26:00] So yeah. Well it's great. Great for them. Yeah. Boiler up. Everybody out there. Exactly. Yeah I actually have them winning the tournament in my work bracket. that I had to put one in for. So I'm pretty excited that I got this far just by kind of guessing pretty the whole way through. So go, go team. All right. We are 20 minutes into this 20 protocols 25 minutes. And let's let's jump into our news Disney. This week there was a big shareholder meeting, voting system going on. but the current board of directors, I believe, has won the attempted takeover by other bad investors. and this has been labeled as the most expensive corporate proxy fight in the world. And you might be saying, Chris, what the hell does this?

[26:46] It literally means that there are people out there. I think his name was Nelson Peltz and Ike Perlmutter, who we've, before has talked how bad he was for Marvel. On him on here. The the guy who tried to fire Kevin Feige after, you know, Guardians and Captain America, the. Guy who also said, why does a Black Panther movie have to have only black people in it like that? Like, what do you like Ike Perlmutter? What are you saying? Shut up. Well, go away. And then I think and then Nelson Peltz doubled down and he's like, why do we have to have the Marvel's movie that's only women. Well, obviously there's not only women in these movies,

[27:21] But the Marvel are Captain Marvel and Black Panther both made over $1 billion at the box office. So yeah, you know that that's that's not really the right argument to make here. so obviously they were trying to get a bunch of investors to, you know, say, put us on the board, we'll get your money back. But obviously Bob Iger has been making on good directions. And you know, you're not going to see wins immediately. But they have been making of course corrections. Right. And we've got some course corrections in the episode notes below. So they, they retain. So everyone over there is safe. We are not having bigots and, millionaires with no creative industry experienced before, at the helm of.

[27:59] Yeah, this this should be good news overall. especially since, Iger has been trying to kind of, rework he had like a terminology that I forgot what he called it of like, oh, I'm going to like, I like reinvigorating or renewing or basically he's saying I'm fixing everything. You got to give me like a year so I can fix it. I can't just turn this ship around the second I come back. Right. I was I was telling Chris, something interesting that I learned from some articles that I was reading about this, potential takeover is, I guess, most kind of, publicly traded companies. You'll find maybe only about 15% of the shares are just held by individuals. And I think they call those people retail investors.

[28:48] I'm not 100% sure on the terminology there. So like if you go to like, like, like a CVS or something like that, like, like the stock of CVS, like maybe only about like 15% is just like held by individual. Like they log in to like a trading portal. They like get. But let me buy one share of CVS, please. Something like that. and that's kind of typical. Well for Disney, since they're such an icon brand and well known, 40% of the stock is just owned by individual investors. So when something like, this kind of like when one of these like, takeovers, is, is attempting to happen, like the person trying to force themselves on the board, like, Perlmutter or Peltz, they can't just like, go to, like,

[29:32] Different, like mutual funds and these big corporations and appeal to them, be like, oh, we know you, you own a bunch of Disney stock. We're trying to get in there. You should let us in. They have to somehow mount a campaign where they reach out to these 40% of just individuals. And, like, how do you even do that? Like, yeah. Like, how do you get, like, their contact information? How do you get their email address? How do you appeal to like a longtime Disney fan that like, oh, hello, I would like to hastily put myself on the board of this company that you bluff well. And then also along the way, I get news articles that we're not.

[30:06] The first person to talk about. This news article has been covering these people in their their bad faith comments for the past several weeks. so obviously if anyone got it, they did the research and they're like, oh, well, obviously this person doesn't know what they're talking about. You would find this in the news articles other than that. So, absolutely wild. But you know, at in this, investment meeting or whatever it was called as well, there's also first looks at a Mufasa movie, Moana two. Toy story five was given a release date of, I believe, 2026. Moana live action was given a release. Nothing we would talk about normally in the show, so I didn't put them in here, but they were putting focus on franchises

[30:46] That have been successful yet again to, you know, let people know we are focusing on quality. We are going back to the things that people, know and trust and will be making your money back. Yeah, it's like a band going out on tour and then reassuring the fans, don't worry, we're playing the hits on this one. We're not going to like, put the new album in front of you, you know, which, you know. depends on the band, but yes. Could be, you know, a bit of a drag if we are not getting because we always want to strive for original stuff in some context, in any creative medium. Right? So maybe this will at least.

[31:22] But Disney back on the board and then, you know, they can use some of that investment, go back and make some new stuff. Right. Yeah. And it's how companies work the ebb and flow. And obviously a lot of those things they announced were not for us. They're now, you know, for the main audience. kids and people with kids. Mike. So which will be, you hear in a few months. Yeah. It's when you have to take your, your child to see more on a live action or. The first. Two action. Movies. I like. I, I'm looking forward to the Moana. yeah. I am so. Sure about the live action one, though. We'll see. well, yeah, but the mana sequel, the only reason I'm on the fence

[31:57] About monitor this year is because it was a TV show re-edited into a movie. So I'm like, how coherent can this be? Yeah. How much is, you know, getting polished up? How much is it new? Right. Yeah. You were making this for TV and then you're switching within a year or so. But anyway, I'm not here to knock. It's fine. So this is great. This is great news. So anything on this to talk about before we're in the clear. Moving on to Disney Plus. We talked a little at the top show. There are now three DC EU movies on Disney Plus including Wonder Woman, Shazam and Shazam! Fury of the gods. So I guess two out of three aren't bad at the end of the day.

[32:35] Wonder Woman and Shazam feel pretty good on this. Yeah, I mean, I didn't hate Fury of the gods that I felt like got some unintended, ire from friends. I don't want to get fans. I'm more levelheaded, Mike. And I said, I don't like Fury of the gods, but. But these feel like movies that would be on Disney, right? Like Wonder Woman. She's like, feel like Disney movies, like you'd watch on the streaming service around everything else. Like, I don't want Batman v Superman. We're not getting Snyder movies on Disney Plus, right? So it's kind of a weird feeling. It's like watching like a cartoon and like Sonic the Hedgehog is like talking to Mickey Mouse or something,

[33:12] You know, just to totally different brands, like, mixing. I guess this is, it seems like Disney Plus attempt to say like, hey, we are not just the home for, read distributing Disney stuff. We want to be like a streaming service, a hub where, like, maybe you consider rolling off of Netflix and rolling on to us because we got other stuff too. And this also shows, you know, Warner Brothers will literally license their content to anybody they like and even who will pay us. We'll take the money, at this point. So but and again, like I said, you know, this the third time these shows line up with what I would expect on a Disney owned streaming service, not just Disney Plus.

[33:54] Like, yeah, these these are perfectly fine for these, the things I'm really surprised Wonder Woman 84 is on there. Maybe. You know, I, I know it's not our favorite movie. I know it's not great, but I'm just surprised they didn't put both of them on there to have all four movies, across the board. But, you know, I'm not complaining. I'm not watching any of these on there, but, I thought it was funny, and I, I think that's, That's good. That. And then hopefully we will see more, more content move into two more places. Mike, along the way. let's get into some Fantastic Four news. This was great. This was a great week for Fantastic Four. And I'm very excited to talk about some of this.

[34:30] So first and foremost, newest casting announcement, actress Julia Garner, who was known for her role in Ozark. we'll we'll star. Well, I say star will be the Silver Surfer in this movie, Mike. And, I know you're over there. I hear you clutching your pearls. How can a woman be the Silver Surfer? And we've talked about, Anya Taylor-Joy being in the running for this and. Yeah, kind of links up. But, yeah, this was like a rumor, like a little while back. So we've kind of been primed. I they kind of might go outside the box, but, I see here in the show notes, you have something interesting here that this might not be the Silver Surfer that we are super familiar with,

[35:10] But somebody close to the source. Yes. So that she has been confirmed to be the character shallow ball. Shallow ball is the first, love of Nora and Rad, who is the Silver Surfer that we all know historically. So, in a comic book series called Earth X, she actually becomes the, Silver Surfer, and is a herald of Franklin Richards who becomes Galactus. And that one. So she has been the Silver Surfer before. Mike, you know how we talked about the spin offs for the 90s cartoons, like doing reboots of them? she was actually in Silver Surfer, the 1998 show as well. So, but, yeah, we again, we don't know. Again, people in the MCU, they will borrow names from comic book

[36:02] Characters and then not be what they are in the comic book. But she will be a Silver Surfer in this book, or in this movie. And she has been historically been in there, before. So, that that brings me into the very point, that we're going to make here. is that we have a new on for for April 4th. We got a new image from the Fantastic Four for Marvel showing a Human torch, flying over a city, making the for right now. How do you think I'm going to be pedantic here, Chris? I'm going to get into the weeds here because we talk about these theme days all the time and how, like, Batman has like 20 days in a calendar year.

[36:45] That's his holiday. How exactly is for for Fantastic Four day? I get it, there's some flaws in the day that can't be. That can't be all that it takes. I it's fantastic four. Not fantastic 44. Not fantastic eight. So we're adding two numbers. I mean. It's this. Is like it's like. You're like you're looking too far. This has never been celebrated before. This is just to put up a piece of promo art for us. Like, this is not the fantastic four day that's ever been historically. Until 44 rolls around. Next calendar year, and they want another marketing day. That's fine, as long as it's something from the movie. Maybe the trailer drops next year. at that time, I don't know.

[37:24] But they they have they have leaned into the same art style that we got back on Valentine's Day. Right. and, you know, we get to see the Human Torch lit up as, you know, lit up as on fire, which we didn't get any other one. So we got to see that he also is creating the for, those flames which are lingering somehow. I don't know how this works, but if you look closely. Boy, does that look like the Jetsons city below it. Zoom at this. We got our retro future skyline in this poster. Exactly. So there's nothing to take out of the Human Torch. Yeah, he's on fire. And he's got his suit on. Perfect.

[38:01] But that city, if this is artwork that they're, you know, inspiring this on, that is not what you know the 1960s look like. That's not what now looks like. So is this again, not to to beat the drum again. Another universe where, you know, the 60s were the peak and they became essentially Tomorrowland or that that retro futurist thing keeps advancing. And that's with the movie set leaning into, you know, shallow ball being that alternate universe Silver Surfer that she has been before in the architect's comic books. Yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, why go out of your way to kind of render this futuristic city in the background?

[38:42] I mean, I'm sure somebody could look at this and go like, oh, it's just promo. you know, this is just supposed to be hyping you up. But we've had previous art where the characters and the actors are being rendered as what they're supposed to look like in the movie. So and if you, if you zoom actually the, the, the version that they put out on like, Twitter as a pretty high quality version so you can like zoom and enhance on the Human Torch in it is supposed to be the likeness of the actor. So if we were to take this at face value, we are going to see the Human Torch flying around in a city that looks like that.

[39:15] And it's stamped on there. Marvel Studios, the fantastic for it like it is stamped on there. It's not like, oh, we made a fantastic four image from a comic book. It's Marvel Studios on there. So absolutely. I think they are, you know, leaning that, teasing us a little bit with it, if you will, with this and that leans into that literally since the, Julia Garner announcement was the day before, that helps lean credence into, hey, you know, we're going to have Silver Surfer. This isn't the Silver Surfer, you know, yet, but, you know, we're gonna leave that door open for for later down the road. Yeah. I mean, I've been thinking about this alternate universe stuff for a couple of years now, right?

[39:51] And I keep imagining a scenario where these universes start to collide, or they start merging, or somebody gets trapped, or they get lost and they can never go back to their dimension. Maybe it was wiped out by some sort of like, cosmic force, right? And I'm imagining like, just like an individual character like that is like extremely like traumatizing, right? To never be able to go back home, to be in a totally kind of, for lack of a better term, alien world, it's not your own. And then you kind of have to, like, reestablish roots and like, just learn to live in it and like imagining in an individual character, it's like it's just very dark.

[40:29] Like even in, like the last part to, the Spider-Verse. You know, we've seen some of these characters, like, get thrown around and just like, oh, yeah, like, I can't imagine Miles trying to start a new life without his parents. Like, that's really deep and intense. But if all of the Fantastic Four kind of as, like, scientists, they're all grown up, they're all adults, they're a team. You know, I could see them getting plucked out of their universe and being dropped into the mainline MCU, and she's like, oh, and I could see, like, read, like looking at his computer monitors like, oh, we're stuck here now. We better dig in. This is our home. We better get used to it.

[41:03] I think that's kind of an interesting concept. Or even, you know, again, if it's Secret Wars at the end of their own battle world, which is a mixture of all the earth, and then they're like, well, the only way to fix this is to make one merged Earth. So we're all going to have to just suck it up and deal with it kind of thing. I think that that's a good way, because, you know, the end of The Marvels we had, what was her name? spectrum. Right. Went to the other universe where there's a big talking blue beast. And, you know, obviously that's going to be a little shock for. And then, Doctor Strange how a lot of that stuff as well.

[41:31] But absolutely. The other part, you know, to help with your idea here, if they are, you know, as a team slash family, get ripped out and put somewhere else. the rumor that Frank Franklin Richards, the first child of, Sue and Reed Richards, will be in the film, or at least born during the the movie's timeline. So if the whole family, including the kids, go, it's probably a lot easier at the end of the day, right to, to adjust. So, very, very excited for this. Fantastic four is getting me pretty, pretty hyped. Mike. I love the unique take on again, the artwork of the design, the messaging, the logo, everything just feels different. It doesn't feel like they're just going through the motions.

[42:07] It feels like there's fun and energy behind it. At the end of the day. It it feels like there's a creative direction. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And Matt Chapman, who is directing this, he worked on WandaVision. WandaVision had a good direction, right? And we knew what it was doing. And every episode had a really good, good vibe. So very, very excited for this. You can check out that image in our show notes. Now, this is leaning into this multiversal just a little bit more. Mike. we have fresh off the pressure presses, literally a shirt press, a hot Topic Deadpool shirt showing off for other variants. Mike, taking a photo, a hot topic. and it says we are Deadpool, including dog pool,

[42:47] Head pool, baby pool and kid pool in this image. So, we've seen dog pool before. Head pool is the Marvel Zombies variant of it, which looks, I don't know if it'll be animated or live action or what, but it'll be interesting to see. And then kid pool and baby pool as well. So this is, this is wild to kind of get confirmation from a hot topic. Dead bullshit. Yeah. I can only assume, kid Pool is going to be swearing a lot because, little kids love to swear. I'm anticipating that. I think it'll be the kid from the Adam Project who was, like, the young. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. so he's got he's got that down, down pat pretty good.

[43:28] Yeah. It makes me think I'm starting to get the idea that maybe all of these X-Men cameos that we have been hearing about and anticipating and seeing some set photos, maybe those are kind of short lived and maybe the variant of Deadpool or kind of more of the thread that goes through the movie. But yeah, who knows? I don't know, maybe it's gonna maybe it's both it. Yeah. If they're if they're hiding this and showing that that mean that's great. That's gonna be fun again. We've seen shirts with stuff that don't come to fruition either. So I'm not banking all my money on this, other than the fact that we've seen Dog pool, who looks exactly like that from Ryan Reynolds.

[44:03] But, you know, I, I'm very much looking forward to, to this movie as well and all the secrets and fun things it holds. But if there are multiple variants, Deadpool probably in the void and probably have been culled from other universes for being Deadpool. Right. So, very, very excited to kind of see how these kind of play out. At the end of the day, I think Ryan Reynolds is going to voice, almost all the characters, except probably, Kid Pool and Lady Deadpool along the way. I think he'll be every, every other Deadpool. So, we'll find that out in July when the movie comes out in theaters. All right. We got a bunch of stuff to look at for Deadpool.

[44:42] Are not Deadpool Daredevil born again? Mike? so, we got a bunch of things to look at here, including, the first look at Jon Bernthal on set with Charlie Cox. So we get to see, the filming. We can see Charlie Cox in his red daredevil outfit. We get to see Bernthal in his, Punisher outfit. Looks very much like the one from Netflix, right? With, the spray painted on. Let's go there. It looks like they've been, they're a little worse for wear at the end of the day here. Yeah. So it's it's weird looking at, like, all of these set photos, right? Because, I feel like you could just easily convince somebody like. Oh, yeah, this is just back when they're filming for Netflix, right?

[45:18] You know, like, nothing looks category ethically really different or out of the ordinary, except they everyone's a little bit older, so, Yeah, I don't know. It's cool that. That's, that's a, that's a compliment. Yeah. That's a that the fact that they're making it so seamless, if you will. And that kind of ties into you know, the next photo, which is, official release where Jon Bernthal is punch of it with the, people playing the police in the movie. he, he looks he's looked even worse in this photo than he did the one before in terms of like, the the, the blood make up across him throughout, very, very serious. And then we go on to the next photo, with a one of the, actors.

[46:01] It's a police officer wearing the Punisher logo, which we have heard that he, the Punisher is against, corrupt police using his logo for vengeance rather than justice in the police system. So, they're they're they're doing a lot with this stuff. I'm excited to see the Punisher return in that regard. The other news from today is we have an official photo from filming of David Bergen with, actress Ayelet there. I pronounce that she's returning as Vanessa Fisk from the Netflix series. They. They rumor that they were recasting her, but they've brought her back from that show, and they show up here with, Vincent D'Onofrio, on set filming. So they're just really bringing those people forward for this show.

[46:48] Yeah, I. I'm really curious. I think, filming is, finishing or. Done, actually, that's the last that's the last bullet point here. filming for the first nine episodes has completed right at this time. So they're not going to film all 18 and then hope it works. I think that'll do. Nine going to take a look at it, make sure everything's good, work on those and then do the back nine, which makes you think the release schedule is not going to be all 18 in a row either. Mike. Yeah. Like because they're gonna are they going to do kind of like the Netflix approach, which actually might have been now outlawed by the latest writers strike? I'm not 100% sure if they put in protections

[47:29] Of where you get more seasons out of a show by calling it part one. In part two. because, you know, you get to renegotiate after three seasons. So it's like, well, if we split your seasons and a half, you know, we can technically get like six kind of many seasons out of your three, out of your three seasons. So, yeah, I wonder if they'll do that or if they'll, you know, I know Invincible season two just kind of release their second part. And they had like a bit of a gap. So yeah, we'll see what the release strategy is going to be I. Think even if they don't, since they already announced 18, they would fall under whatever those contracts were to begin with.

[48:10] But retooling this has really done a lot of different things. you know, for this, you know, getting in good faith can't get more of the Netflix stuff, obviously, bringing back a lot of the, legacy characters, but, you know, knowing that if they're filming the first nine and then like, okay, we're going to at least make sure it's working, that that gives me pretty good confidence, right? We don't want them to do all 18 and like, well, hope we can fix it because, that was the old approach to Marvel TV. And, you know, if we end up with something like Secret Invasion again at the end of the day. So, there's also a photo release. I don't have it in here, but it has Charlie Cox, Jon Bernthal, and,

[48:47] The lady who play, Deborah. Deborah. What's your name? Karen page. Karen page? Yes. Yeah. Deborah wall. Darren. Well, so, yeah, they have them together on their, wasn't anything new, but like, you know, just showing. Hey, it gives me, you know, I wouldn't say nostalgia, but really good vibes, you know, remembering whenever they were doing the Netflix show, like, we weren't doing this podcast yet, you know, when that first came out, you know how exciting that was to watch those and see the people get together and let them get together ten years later, right after filming those two to make make some more, I believe the first season came out 2015. So we were doing the show.

[49:26] Actually, we were just brand new, but, Daredevil, the rumor is next spring, on the ten year anniversary of Daredevil season one on Netflix, they're going to put it on, Disney Plus, which I think would be really cool, really cool. Nod to that. Right. To to to have that back. But but we'll see at the end of the day, later this year, we're gonna shift gears into some Disney Plus, but Star Wars The Acolyte is coming in June, and we have a set photo of Daphne Keane, her character, I, I don't know how it starts, but it's Jackie Lawn. and her Gemini on on set here. she she played X-23 in Logan. The actress did, so we see her Padawan going Padawan bridge

[50:13] Or Jedi clothes on a green lightsaber, on some sort of, planet. I thought it was cool looking to see kind of how. Yeah, we always see the same, I guess. Fauna. flora and fauna on, like, Star Wars planet. So I. This is this looks like an interesting planet to me. The red, red dirt, the trees. Hopefully it looks, pretty good. It's not a volume. How about that, Mike? That's a plus, right? I mean, it looks it looks like the volume, so I don't know, maybe once it's in motion, it'll be a little. Yeah. It's weird how much space is in the shot to be completely, like how much? Like they just like, there's not, like, a zoom in.

[50:47] It's like it's a wide shot of a person standing here, but, there's another one with a bunch of lightsabers, released, and then, like, look in the right series, but I don't like looking at these lightsabers. Right. Because they look like, like light sticks that are just glowing rather than, like, actual lightsabers. So, I don't I don't care for that too much, but we'll we'll get more into the acolyte when it comes out in June. Hopefully we get more. This was, you know, put this in early on. But the real big reveal, this week was Star Wars, tales of the Empire trailer dropped, and I don't remember. Did you watch Star Wars Tales of the Jedi last year

[51:21] When it came out on Disney Plus? I remember it coming out and I saw some, you know, recaps of it. Never got around to watching it. But yeah, it's getting kind of hard to keep track of some of these animated, Star Wars offshoots, right? You know, The Bad Batch, which I think also they had a season come out on, May the 4th last year. So this seems to be a popular animation release date. Yeah. I don't know if it came out last year because the new one just started. I don't know if it would have been that long ago, but like, this new it ends on May the 4th, but yeah. So so tales of the Empire is essentially, another six part

[52:01] Episode or a six part little thing, three episodes, focusing on, character Morgan Elsbeth and the other three focusing on Bears off. Morgan Elsbeth. It was introduced in, The Mandalorian and Asoka shows. She is the essentially the person who goes to find Thrawn, who's, like, obsessed with finding Thrawn and Sokka and was in, she fought, Sokka in, The Mandalorian season two. So, you know, she did not make it out of a Sokka, so they're going to be kind of focusing on three episodes, usually three parts of like, you know, early, middle, older. But she's a Darth Amir, which. So it's gonna be interesting to see that because off she is from the Clone Wars and, she was a Padawan, and she,

[52:44] Did this, she blew something up or killed somebody. I think it was like a bombing. And then she, like, had a soaker blamed for this. And then that's when she left the Jedi Order because she became disillusioned. Like they didn't believe her. Like she wasn't killing someone. So, we get to see her, you know, as a padawan, we get to see her, you know, in jail. And obviously, it shows a lot of, when she becomes an inquisitor. later in the series, the Darth Vader's, Jedi hunters, if you will, if you find a lot of those and, fallen order and some other stuff. But it's all in the same Clone Wars animation style, right, of this stuff.

[53:19] So, if you're familiar with that or if you watched that, this is essentially just another plug in for the Clone Wars, because I we're never going to get a Clone Wars another season because they they ended up they wrapped it up pretty good. And I enjoyed it. I think these characters focusing on these little characters are really cool. We get to see a couple things. in the poster they had, General Grievous. Right? We haven't seen him very. We don't even see a lot of him. So good to see that some of the other inquisitors that we saw in the, Ahsoka show tales of the Jedi, and then another one who was actually in this show.

[53:51] You can see their backgrounds in this. I like the Clone Wars. So, I mean, for me, this is a more, more of the same, right? More, more goodies, more three, three part stories on the character that are very focused and then get out of the way. I was worried that they were going to do more, tales of like a tales of the Jedi season two, but to see them focus on, like, unquote villains, if you will, or like, you know, antagonist is an interesting approach for this. but Star Wars and Star Wars is, yeah, we're good. And we're going to keep moving on to the next Star Wars topic with Star Wars Dawn of the Jedi.

[54:27] That's the movie that is set 25,000 years before the events of the main movie. So the First Jedi and Seth and Beau Willimon, who wrote three episodes of Andor, including the episode One Way Out, which was, I believe, the the, when they're making the parts and they have to escape, episode and he was a showrunner and House of cards will write the script for for this. So, pretty good grab. I mean, I think if you know, so what he did with with Andor, especially those three episodes there, I think it was pretty good. Yeah, we will, cross our fingers and hope going back in time is beneficial for everyone. Yeah. It's, so they have no release dates for this.

[55:09] I mean, we're going to talk about the next one, but, like, they have no release dates for done the Jedi. Yeah, but, we did get an updated release date for, The Mandalorian and review, at the at the, Disney conference or whatever it was earlier this week. has been moved or at least confirmed to be May 22nd, 2026. and it's the first major Star Wars film since solo. But, that also suffered from what was it, the it have been the last last Jedi had been in December right before it and like five months later was that. So there's a bunch of other things. Well, so but it's interesting that they're going to me with this one, for that release at the end of the day.

[55:47] Now, I've also heard on this note, Mike, that season four, it seems that they haven't again counted out a season yet. Now, I think they probably would at this point. Right. Like they're not going to wait three years between seasons a season and maybe then do another season at the end of the game. I think I think this will be it. Right. Like this is the last one of this before. Yeah. The it's dive into Falcone's movie. Yeah. Honestly, I feel like once Filoni is movie is done, it kind of seems like they're going to sunset The Clone Wars as a whole. I mean, they've I mean, for mostly better than worse. they've really, they've really explored that whole era of Star Wars, and it kind of

[56:30] Seems like Filoni is the one that really fleshed out to begin with. He's going to get a whole feature film. I feel like you, you in that era, with that movie and then move on to other parts of Star Wars. Yeah, it seems like the push is, was episode ten or whatever it is, the, the next film with the Rey film. So moving, moving forward down the line. I know they have that the Dawn of the Jedi, but it can be a one off and not have to to carry over anything. So, we'll see how that carries out. shifting gears into DC for a little bit. Superman rumor, as out there that the movie, will feature

[57:12] A Superman doppelganger as the villain, and, it's possibly a clone of Superman based on the character Ultraman from DC comic books. I thought Ultraman was somebody else than the DC character. I thought it was like one of those, Japanese robot fighting. And it's like an I. Yeah, it's not an anime. Yeah, it's not actually. So there's. Apparently Superman of Earth three is Ultraman, and he uses Kryptonite to get stronger. Is his abilities. So like, he will, like, expose himself to different Kryptonite to get more powers at the end of the day. And that the rumor is that also this will continually be played by David Cornwell. rather than casting someone else to play as this doppelganger.

[57:52] Yeah, they will just reuse them twice. And that he will be created by Lex Luthor, who is more science based in this universe than, real estate focused as the on the Superman hold. If you. I mean, I feel like the the biggest takeaway I have from, this news is, of course, kind of a, a topic that reappears on our show. It's seemingly every week of just like James Gunn. Just put the put your phone down. Stop responding to everybody. He had, he kind of had a bigger, post the other day where he was just like, I he's like, I don't understand where all these rumors are coming. Coming from. They pop up, what new ones pop up every day,

[58:31] And I try to get in front of them and tell you what is or isn't real. So just to reiterate again, unless you're hearing it directly from me, these are all rumors. And it's like, at what point is he not realizing he is the one that's like spinning up these rumor mills? Like it like it seems like people are now just trying to invent things in just in hopes that James Gunn engage in. Response to it. Yeah. Yeah. Because. Because even if it's not real, you're still getting traction. And there's like, no journalistic integrity when it comes to like, superhero movies on the internet. There's totally just going to be people that make up fake stuff just so they can, like, be seen by Gunn.

[59:08] Like, I like, I don't understand, like, I don't need him on the internet. Like trying to debunk this stuff. Like, does he really think that rumors like flying around are going to, like, make or break his movie? Is he just worried people are going to get false expectations based on a rumor? Like he just needs to, like, just put the phone down and just put your head down and just like, get back to work. You're just driving yourself crazy with social media. He. So yeah, that's it's funny because it's two things. One, he shared that like they're 18% done with filming, which is a very specific number. Yeah. For filming. Very weird. And then he also said that, you know, to this to this rumor, hey,

[59:47] We are not using Ultraman in this movie. He didn't say they're not doing it. Clone. They didn't say that this wasn't real. He just said, we're not using Ultraman. So the only reason I included that in because it has not been completely debunked in this universe yet. So, we're going to see how this plays out. But I wouldn't be mad. I wouldn't mind this at the end of the day if I if I was honest. So yeah, the concept as a whole, like sounds cool. I mean, Superman has been explored quite a few times in the movie, so to try, like, a new type of villain. no one's mad at Gunn. Nobody is mad like we know the movie's not done yet.

[1:00:22] Like, just just just chill. Yeah. All these, all these will be forgotten in two weeks. And then when we see a trailer, no one will remember that. We even said this, a year ago. Right. So, so, so don't worry about it. Let people have their online arguments and conversation because all they want to do is go out. For your mental health, man. That's all. Yeah. But, yeah, I think a scientific Lex Luther is something we've not had before. I think that'd be awesome. So that's that's my take on that. Moving on to Supergirl, woman of tomorrow. The movie has hired, Craig Gillespie, writer of Cruella and I, Tonya, to direct the film, are now director of those.

[1:00:59] He didn't write it. he wrote he directed Cruella. And I tell you direct, this movie is written by Ana Nogueira, who is also writing Teen Titans, as well. All right. A treatment for Teen Titans of DCeU. that the the only reason I put this in here is the fact they've hired a director for this movie, and not some of the others, means that this is going to probably be hot on the heels of Superman, right? Like they don't even have a like, I think they have a theorize director for Batman The Brave in the bull. But the fact that this has already been written and has a director, I think it'll be Superman and Supergirl will probably be in that movie at some point.

[1:01:38] Should we just should we just spin up a fake rumor about Supergirl? woman of Tomorrow, see if we can get James Gunn to, to respond to it. What's what's what's a what's a good one for this one. I heard Spider-Man is going to be in it. Yeah, from a reliable source. Yep. They're crossing the universe. Warner Brothers, getting coffee with, Marvel. Yeah. Spider-Man's making make. Him make it more realistic, because Marvel has no say in that. That's Sony. You know, I really want to see how far Gunn will go to debunk something. Yeah, yeah, we can we can say, you know, this is this is set in the Cruella universe. How about that? Okay. That's fine. Yeah.

[1:02:18] But yeah. So yeah, yeah. we've got that confirmation. The other confirmation we have last week is, that the Joker two trailer is set for four nine, and I kind of, referred to this earlier. I'm like, why are why are they telling us a week ahead of time that we're going to get a trailer, like, just just drop the trailer, right? Like, is that not what we should just be doing? Get some a little extra buzz. This is motivation to not like, again, like we were saying, don't stare at the eclipse, because if you go blind, you're not going to be able to watch the first, trailer for Joker two. Right? And to see that it is, in fact a, a musical or not.

[1:02:56] Right. Like, that's that's going to be the fun part here. I've got a poster as well. The poster is probably, I'm going to put it in the notes here because I didn't put it in there earlier. Is, interesting because it's boring. It's a very boring poster. it's called the The Joker. Foley. do the world is a stage is now in there as well. I think that's the tagline. and the interesting part about this movie, it has, it's been rated R for strong violence, some sexuality and full nudity. Mike. So if you're wanting to catch some Joker dong in this movie, you're you've got your hands up right here. Who's hanging? What are they hanging? And for how many frames?

[1:03:39] We'll go in, we'll grab the screenshots and, tune back in later this year. That's right. We're going to get the cameras and we'll be the first people with the conversion, to, to get that. But I mean, like I said, look at this poster. It, you know, it's like, the light shining through. Like what? Prison or like the psychiatric ward cells on them. But, like, I get nothing out of this, and I don't know if that's just me or what. So, not not very in enticing to to look at, in surprising news, here, The Matrix has a new movie in the works, announced with Drew Goddard to write and direct. was it cabin in the woods fame?

[1:04:22] I know he did some Daredevil season one stuff attached to that. So, yeah, this is kind of interesting, right? Because the Last Matrix movie was kind of a middle finger to Warner Brothers. if I remember the story correctly, they were like, oh, we're going to make it with or without you. So if you kind of like, don't want us to strangle your child, maybe you should be in charge. So they kind of came back and made this whole meta commentary about, you know, doing, a reboot sequel type thing right in the story. And the movie was actually pretty good. I remember liking it. I haven't gone back and watched it, but it didn't really feel like a sequel, a continuation of The Matrix.

[1:05:01] It just kind of felt like, commentary on Hollywood, which was just kind of weird. So, I mean, I don't hate the idea of returning to the world, maybe, especially if we get kind of get a different creative lens on it. I see here that you have in the notes that, which is returning to executive produce, but yeah. So is that just in name only? How much are they going to be? So they're just going to make sure they don't do any cardinal sins with the story. And, you know, as long as they pass that test they can do whatever they want. Yeah. So so the Chelsea siblings did the first three movies. Lilly with Chelsea did not come back for the last one,

[1:05:40] The one you just talked about resurrections. Lana Wyshynski did direct it. So they are returning as the EP here. So I think yes, it's more of a hey, you know, I'm here to guide you in this world without, you know, running it into the ground. But even if it is a reboot, the idea of The Matrix is that it reboots itself, right? Like it rewrites itself. It re you know, the world does itself and the machines make it new every time. So if they want to do a new one, perfectly fine with me. you gotta have been in the talks to, one top running to direct Spider-Man four. So that makes me think that he's out of that.

[1:06:17] If he's signed up for this movie as well along the way. Maybe. I think it would be kind of cool to see the story go in a progressive direction. Right? You know, the I feel like there was I it's been I'm not like a matrix like super fan. Right. But like they were supposed to be liberating humanity from the machines. And so it would be let's let's push that forward. What does it look like? Okay. Now that the humans are finally kind of like separated from the tyranny of these robots, how do they make it back to the surface? How do they kind of clear the skies back up? You know, I'm sure they'll be some, like, rogue machines that maybe are running like,

[1:06:53] Some, like, separate code. Maybe they're not as organized. So that's kind of like the new adversary. Like. And I would also think, well, I think you give humans a choice and some people will just want to stay in the matrix. Right. Because machines can't run without the human batteries. So like maybe there's like some cultists that like, yeah, like just stay and they have to stop the humans, you know? Yeah. Like because like at the end of the day, like, yeah, if you're moving forward, like you need to have conflict from every side, right in that regard. So like people who like, yeah, we want to stay here. This is great. You know. Well it's like the guy in the first one. What was his name?

[1:07:25] I forget he he's a guy. No, no, no, the one who turned over Neo to Agent Smith. Like the location. Oh, he's like, I want to be plugged back in because I miss I miss this. I hate the real world, you know, eating, playing boring stuff every day. He wants eat the steak. So, I think there's opportunity there. I mean, this, that the matrix. As long as we're not doing a direct reboot, like, it has a lot of scene for scene reboot. I think it's fine. I think it's going to be great fun to revisit this franchise after all time, because I still think that first one holds up so well after all this time. So,

[1:07:58] Absolutely fantastic. And Drew Goddard is a good, good guy to do that. So knock on wood. All right. So last bit of the thing here. This is again this is an X-Men show. I don't know what else you guys want coming here for. We only talk about X-Men 9724 seven. but, this this week was interesting because I want to talk about this because it's full spoilers ahead. If you've not seen episode four of Expo 97, you know, go watch it come back. But, this new one was called Mo Tendo Slash Life Death part one, which is a interestingly, a two part episode in the fact that showed two different episodes within its running time. and one of those is a two part episode in and of itself.

[1:08:36] So, very interesting structure here, but I can't complain because it was like two opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of storytelling. Right? The first one is Jubilee's 18th birthday, and they want to play video games. The arcade Magneto won't let them. So they get sucked into their Super Nintendo run by Mojo. I loved the eight, or the 16 bit animation they threw into this mic. all sorts of times. Whenever they cut away to, yeah, what the arcade game would look like, I was like, oh, this is really fun. This is exciting. This, this episode felt the most like a Saturday morning cartoon episode to me. Yeah. We're like they're appealing directly to the child and me

[1:09:18] With the video game aspects, but the story feels like it's maybe I don't want to say less important, but since we didn't really get a conclusion, really, of any of the story, well, maybe jubilee's a little bit. Well, that that kind of came full circle. That and, what's his name? The kid, son sunspot, you know, at least welcoming his powers a little bit. Right. You know, he's he's warming up to using his powers was the point of it, but it wasn't like the stakes weren't very heavy at the end of the day. Right? We knew everybody was going to get out of the Nintendo game at the end of the episode. Right? I had no I had no doubt everyone was going to live through this

[1:09:57] At the end of the day. Yeah. Mojo looked really, wild, you know, like, we keep reporting, and every week our partners are really enjoying the show, but they don't really have any, nostalgia for the previous, version of the show back in the day. So my wife is just like, who the hell is this ugly dude? Like, like. And he shows up, like, on Ozempic at the beginning of the episode. He's like, so skinny. And I'm looking. I'm like, maybe this is Mojo's redesign. And then like, oh, I understand why. by the end of the episode, when he gets to the, the likes and the views and that makes him fatten up right there at the end.

[1:10:35] So, yeah, he's so creepy looking like, especially with this kind of slightly updated animation style where they can, like, really kind of bring those like, details and like line work and it's like, yeah, this dude is freaking creepy. I don't like looking at him. Oh yeah. And he again, he's a returning character from, the original X-Men 94 show. So, you know, no, no stranger to to a couple episodes there, but the idea is that he's in a universe where he is, feeds on people's, entertainment. Right? If they're watching the show that he feeds from become strong. I enjoyed the Super Nintendo aspect. Someone was having a good time writing this short episode and then also visualizing it, right?

[1:11:16] Because I have a lot of X-Men fighting games that are side scroller first, like Sega or like Mutant Academy, or just the X-Men games or like the X-Men arcade game. Right? The side scrolling, you know, one that's like Nintendo. Like, I have so much nostalgia just playing those games. This was great to look at. Like I was like, oh, there, there I am. We're back. Having a good time at the end of the day. And then it was also cool. And I don't know how you feel like, you know, Jubilee learning from her future self, what other powers or what, what more she can do with her fireworks other than just blast fireworks on people's faces.

[1:11:47] Cool. I mean, the continuity and the story and the timeline of the episode was a little harder for me to follow because at the end it's revealed that, like the older joke, Jubilee is like actually like a digital clone, I guess is kind of how they would. This is very similar to The Matrix. Yeah, like so Mojo to test beta test. This game created a AI version of Jubilee, and this is the one who lived the longest and got away in the in the AI. So I felt like they maybe could have like streamline some of that in some way. But still it was really, really cool to kind of, see her using all of the,

[1:12:23] Her advanced versions of her techniques to kind of see what does, like, a mature season jubilee look like, which we've yet to really see. I don't know if they've explored Jubilee in more length in, like, the comic books of her character getting older, but we've kind of known her perpetually as like a teen from the mall. So that is really fun to explore and see. And there's some cool, great, slick animation in that fight scene. They're like chopping, Moto's like, legs off and stuff. Oh, yeah. cool stuff. I love when sunspot uses his powers and has, like, the crackling black dots from the solar energy. The Kirby dots and motion just looks so cool. Like, I can't I can't get over that.

[1:13:03] So absolutely love that. And then the second part was the episode Life death, which obviously we talked about this very early on in the first episode. storm is not losing her powers forever, right? That is that it was kind of a red herring, if you will. And then at the end of last episode, she meets forge, and then forge. You know, is trying to help get her powers back, and, you know, fight him about. He made the bullet that took her powers away at the end of the day. Well, I don't think he literally made it. He helped. He helped the humans to vax, but he didn't know he was going to use the bullet like that, but. Yeah. Absolutely.

[1:13:41] Yeah. I mean, and, you know, he can't. How can you stay mad at forge? He's got the shortest shorts I've ever seen. He's got the mustache. He's got it all going on. I really like his smooth talker. Yeah, I really like his mutant power because it is very adaptable and useful. Whereas, like, you're looking at someone like Scott Summers, he has to solve every problem in his life with his laser beams, like. Come on, I've got to wear sun. Why does he forget to sunglasses? He's he's done that. He can't go anywhere. He's got no other solution except blast it with his eyes. That's the only way he can fix stuff. Forge can come at it from any angle.

[1:14:16] He can invent anything. He can make anything like. Yeah, he might. I'm sure he's trained in combat. I feel like every kind of mutant. He makes a lot of weapons in the comic books. He makes a lot of weapons. Yeah, yeah, but. But, like, he is the. He makes the most sense, for storm to go see, I don't know if historically, these two characters align, in a, in a romantic way, but it makes sense for them to kind of get together. He's there to help her. You know, there's a connection there. yeah. So I. I'm I'm curious. What, like this vision this demon owl is supposed to be, you know, is it like a projection from another mutant?

[1:14:54] Is it just all in her? Her mind is like. Like a vision quest. I'm not really sure. Exactly. Yeah. Well, to me, it seemed like a character called the Shadow King. who was the villain of, like, Legion? a mutant who feeds on or is essentially just a nightmare kind of mutant, like it takes over people's minds and, like, controls in that way. So I think it's Shadow King. If I was to pick a mutant out of a lineup, of offhand, because I think he was also teased in some of the character models when they did this San Diego Comic-Con a few years ago. But. Right. It's this is a part one of this. It kind of leaves that mystery. Like, who is this? What's happening?

[1:15:31] You know, did she get her powers back because she was riding that horse into the rain. And then, you know, she appeared back at the house and it was raining, so, I don't think storm's powers are gone for good. I again, I think that's a red herring, but, you know, it's going to be an interesting journey to get there. Not an easy one, if you will, where they just, you know, drink a little cough sirup. And she has storm powers back at the end of the day, I, I enjoyed it. I mean, it was a very, again, low key episode, if you will, like that part of it. Like compared to like the high energy, high action stakes of mountain, though,

[1:16:02] This was very much like a very slow kind of burn, if you will, right now. So I'm excited to see the second half of it. And I love forge. To forge is one of my favorite characters lately in the comic books. The X-Men era. For the past several years, they were on a, an island called Krakoa, which is actually mutant in and of itself, the islanders. And he was creating weapons and technology using the island as the base. So it wasn't technologically based, organic based weapons and technology, which was really cool. So, I'm excited to see more of this. you know, we're at four episodes in of a ten episode season, and, you know, I don't feel like there's maybe, like, other than storm's powers

[1:16:42] Coming back, I don't feel like there's a big bad right now. you at the end of the day. Yeah. Magneto alluded at the beginning of the episode. Oh, we got to prepare in case, you know, Mister Sinister return. And so. But, yeah, nothing seems to be more just like, is Magneto going to be able to kind of uphold his social contract? You know? Yeah. What I also like about this episode and this is nothing against, last week's was very much to the Madeline prior Goblin Queen. How do we deal with the cleansing? Great that as a Saturday morning cartoon, you don't deal with those ramifications in the next episode, you just jump into the next sequence of events.

[1:17:22] I, I appreciate that about this show. They they imagine you're watching them on Saturday morning and you're like, I don't want to. I don't even think about last week's what's this week's episode going to be about? So, I did appreciate that kind of jump into it, but I'm sure we'll get the repercussions of Gene Bray. later. Someone also sent me an intro screenshot. The introduction changed it where Jean gray no longer has her hair down. She has it in a ponytail. After the revelation that it was Madeleine Prior last week in the intro. Yeah, I thought. That I thought that was clever. I saw that as well. So, absolutely, absolutely loving that. But yeah, more X-Men 97 is more more happiness in my life.

[1:17:58] That's what I'm thinking here. So, can't wait to to see see more episodes. One that has going for it. Mike. that's in the episode this week. If people know what you're up to, what you're doing, where can I find you? At my friend. Yeah, they can find, my webcomics at Life Rewards, risk, A.com and Pickled comics.com. Chris, if people want to catch up with you, where can they find you? You can find me on Instagram. Bald in 87 Valdez in or Instagram, Instagram or video games of the same name. if people want to know more about a show where they can, listeners every week or watch our video clips, where they can like and subscribe, where can they find all them goodies at?

[1:18:37] Oh, all you got to do is visit superhero slate.com. That is the best place to find all the avenues we host our show and to get our awesome shownotes. So if you want to see all the things that we talked about this week, we got a nice itemized list over there at superhero, slate.com. We're on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, wherever else you love to listen to, find podcasts. we love hearing from you. Let us know what you think about the Fantastic Four news this week. Do you also think James Gunn should put the phone down and stop worrying about all these crazy people out there at the rumors or. Or send us a better rumor?

[1:19:06] Because if we can beat them, we'll take it. Yeah, we'll. We'll see what we can do. And we love our super fans. So if you want to be a super fan of this show, all you got to do is share the show with a friend, share the show with a buddy, and we'll be here next week, folks. That's right. We'll catch you in next week. Bye.

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