The Wait For It Podcast

What Did I Miss? (October 2025 Bonus Episode)

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This month, we welcome back Sophie, aka Soupninjaha, and for the first time, Blythe Milligan, host of the Everything is Logistics Podcast and one-half of the brain behind Jax Podcasters United. 

We stack Universal’s Epic Universe against Disney’s current strategy and ask what families actually value: price, polish, and memory-making. Then we follow the money from bloated blockbusters to horror’s lean machine, and explore how IMAX, the Sphere, and fan-first screenings are redefining the movie night.

• Epic Universe’s creative swing versus Disney’s maintenance and pricing headwinds
• How themed events like Halloween Horror Nights create con-like community
• live-action adaptations that work, those that don’t, and what should stay animated
• Universal’s demographic plays in Vegas and Frisco, and what it means for Disney
• Why studios are trimming tentpoles and why horror keeps winning
• The rise of premium formats: IMAX, Alamo, and immersive venues like the Sphere
• The thrill of mystery boxes and the hunt driving modern retail fandom

Make sure to join us at Jacksonville Podcasters United Pod-A-Thon in December to support local creators and charities!


Find Blythe here:

Find Sophie here:

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Music track: Everyday by Eric Lund
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SPEAKER_02:

This is the Wait for It Podcast.

SPEAKER_04:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Wait for It Podcast. I'm your co-host, Phil Barrera, aka Phil the Filipino.

SPEAKER_07:

And I'm your other co-host, Mr. Eric Almighty. And for this edition of What Did I Miss for the month of October, we're bringing back one of our favorite guests and one of our most sought-after guests ever. Way better than that guy from the Shortbox podcast.

SPEAKER_04:

I I agree. That guy just caused nothing but problems. He's ruining surprises. We don't have our Patreon, our gift box yet. So let's introduce his other half. We're gonna introduce both of our guests here. Uh, but we do have a first-timer on What Did I Miss? And you know, Eric, we as we have read brought this back the series back into the rotation, it's been a lot of fun getting to hang out with our friends. So for the first time on the Wait For podcast, we do have Blyth Milligan, who is the host of Everything Is Logistics and one half of the brain behind the JPU, which has been such an amazing resource for us and many people in Jacksonville. So, Blythe, thank you so much for taking the time. How are you doing tonight? And welcome in.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you so much for having me. I I I really enjoyed that intro. I'm sure uh Botor will appreciate it too.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, we we he better you better listen to this. So I was super happy to have you here. And of course, as we mentioned, and as Eric mentioned, uh we have a returning guest. I think this is your third time, second, yeah, I think third time on What Did I Miss? And we were fortunate to see her back at what was it? Yeah, Okala Comic Con. So a couple of weeks ago. So Sophie Soupninja. Uh Soph, good to see you. And how are you doing here tonight? Welcome back.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, thank you so much. So happy to be here. Um, doing awesome. Uh, keep doing some theme park design stuff, keep doing some cosplay stuff. Um, very happy, very integrated into uh all the fun stuff. So, yeah, happ great to be here.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, whenever we see Soph, Eric, it's always like a last-minute thing because we're it's always leading into a convention, and then we see the announcement like Soup Ninjaha will be at Brick City Anime Festival. So we're expecting to see you in January. Very last minute. So hopefully we will see you there. But uh yeah, this is what did I miss for anybody that is joining us. If you're brand new or if you need a little bit of a reminder, this is a very casual episode in which we talk about pop culture stories from the previous month that you may have missed out on. It's a very it's a really fun episode. And then at the end we play a little game. And Eric, who has been pretty successful at Cahoots this year. We're gonna see if our guests can knock him off his pedestal this month. But uh very, very excited. Eric, anything else we need to go over with our guests before I introduce some new chaos to how we decide.

SPEAKER_07:

Oh my god, I forgot! I forgot. Well, I'm sorry in advance that you guys are gonna have to go through this. Typically, traditionally Or you're welcome. Traditionally, we use a wheel to determine uh who goes first. There's been an occasion where we've used virtual dice uh to do so as well. Unfortunately, Phil got his hand on a different method. Uh, one more in turn, but we'll see.

SPEAKER_04:

And uh maybe Phil, you want to explain this here? Yeah, I got it. You can you can stop. So this is I I think I saw this on someone else's podcast, because of course we just stole it from somebody else. And if you can't see, if you're if you're listening, I very highly recommend that you go over to the YouTube page and watch the audio portion. Let me turn this music down because it's very loud. And we are going to be racing horses to see who goes first. I've actually started using this to decide where I go to dinner as well, and uh very once again, highly recommended. Eric, I don't what do we say this time around? Because it's not spin that wheel, so what do we do?

SPEAKER_07:

Can I add a gunshot to my roadcaster?

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, you should have done that. I should have done that. What does it look like when you go full screen? Um have you tried that? Yeah, but I just can't. Well, I guess I don't necessarily Oh, here we go. Oh, perfect. There we go.

SPEAKER_07:

That was the thing that looks better. Oh, you gotta start over.

SPEAKER_04:

No! Maybe if you go back to the timer, it'll be what it was. It's too late, Eric. Uh, now I just have to read it.

SPEAKER_07:

Who are those people?

SPEAKER_04:

It's just random people they put in here.

SPEAKER_07:

Okay. Well, anyway, yeah, my bad. Well, it does look nicer, but uh, I'm excited to do this for the first time officially on What Did I Miss, and uh we will do this each time to determine.

SPEAKER_04:

No, there's other ones.

SPEAKER_07:

Oh, never mind. We're gonna do this just for the first one. Uh so many pop-ups. We got it. That's not a great site. We might have to start paying for this, which is gonna have to go against the budget. Uh Phil, I don't know what to tell you. Uh ready set, go. Race those horses. Yeehaw? Oh, Yeehaw motherfucker would be great.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

No, I don't think so. Okay.

SPEAKER_07:

Well, we all have to say it at the same time. Are we still doing that?

SPEAKER_04:

What, spin that wheel? Or no, what are we doing? How about race?

SPEAKER_07:

We should have thought of this.

SPEAKER_04:

How about yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_07:

Race those horses? Okay, so Blight Sophie, you're gonna have to come off a mute and at we're gonna count down. We're gonna go three, two, one, and in that same cadence, and you're gonna say, we're all gonna say together, race those horses.

SPEAKER_04:

And uh for audio only, I will narrate the horse race.

SPEAKER_07:

Yes, yes, Phil will provide commentary. All right. I would tell you if you're ready, but I don't think any of us are.

SPEAKER_06:

Blythe, Sophie, three, two, one, race those horses.

SPEAKER_04:

All right, and they're off to a good start, and everybody is pretty neck and neck. Eric is out to an early lead with about 10 seconds left in the race. Eric is kind of pulling away. I think Blythe and Phil are not even in the conversation. Eric is gonna run.

SPEAKER_06:

Oh, oh, Blythe at the last second!

SPEAKER_07:

Oh I literally drank my water thinking I was good.

SPEAKER_03:

I was like, I was gonna get some going first. Well, I will say it's very fitting because we throw a huge derby party, a huge Kentucky Derby party every single year. So when you brought up horse racing, I said, Well, uh, oh, I'm sold.

SPEAKER_04:

There you go. Look at that. And and your horse saved its energy for that last push uh right there to take it on the street. It's very important in horse racing. Yeah, you gotta pace yourself. So that was fantastic. Yeah, this is the best decision I think I've ever made on the show. So, Belith, you are new here and you're gonna get your first crack at it. So if you do have multiple stories, you get your pick of the litter as far as which story you would like to present. So, what did what did we miss in October 2025?

SPEAKER_03:

I would say, I and we were talking about this a little bit before we started recording, but I feel like the perfect topic to get started with is the theme park wars. So we have those going on. We have excellent panelists to to talk about this with Sophie, uh having that theme park experience. I grew up going to theme parks and recently were able to organize an entire trip with a couple different family members and get them all over to Epic Universe. And it was just very evident from going to that theme park because right when a lot of the theme, all of the theme parks closed down in 2020, a lot of the Imagineers from Disney were laid off and let go. And during that time frame, Universal hired a lot of that creative talent in order to help them build a new theme park. And so at the same time, you have Universal building an entire new theme park, which is uh the first in my lifetime that I've experienced where you kind of have that blank slate of what would you, if you were to build a theme park, how would you what what stories would you tell and how would you frame it out? Versus, you know, you have Disney, who is essentially, I love Disney. I will I'm gonna preface that, uh, but you have Disney as a company that it takes them five or six years to copy paste a ride in Tron and get that constructed at Magic Kingdom. And so I think it's a really interesting display of what's going on when you have this just magical experience, for lack of a better phrase, over at a competing theme park in Epic Universe versus Disney, where the last few times that I've gone, there's a lot of maintenance issues. The pricing is always it's it always goes up, it never goes down. Uh, it there's probably like theme park etiquette for a lot of the guests that there it hasn't really been the same since before 2020. And so there's a lot of things that are going on in sort of the Disney sphere that we haven't really seen from a company standpoint, uh especially since their pre-renaissance days. So like late 70s, early 80s, when they were kind of struggling as a company, and it feels like Disney is maybe in that same position now where they're just focused on things that are gonna only bring them profits, things that are uh more like nostalgia-bit remakes, they're a lot less creatively risky. But then you have, you know, Universal, which is kicking up the competition with uh an entire theme park that is just so beautifully themed from land to land. I think there's four or five key lands within Epic Universe, and there's so uh Sophie, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's the Dark Universe, there's um constellation area, there's uh how to train your dragon, there's Harry Potter, of course. Um, and then what else am I blanking on? I'm missing something else, something big. Oh yeah, Jesus, yeah, an attendant, which was uh very overstimulating as far as a you know a theme park experience can go. But I just I I find it really fascinating for the first time that I'm able to, as an adult, I'm able to witness how these two big companies are competing against each other, and even you know, seeing news stories about how Disney executives are photographed inside of Epic Universe to kind of check out the competition. I'm fascinated by all of that. So I don't really know where that leaves the discussion, but we had a pretty lengthy, you know, talk about you know different rides and different theming and lands that we really enjoyed. And I just I think the whole business and creative aspect of it is just uh something that's that's going to challenge Disney for the next probably 10 or 15 years.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and that's a that's a good thing. Not only, I mean, when we talk about like obviously here in the in when we're discussing theme parks, but like competition is always good. Like it's going to uh Eric, you and I are big wrestling fans, and for the longest time, WWE didn't have any competitors. And then Tony Khan stroll in with his billions of dollars and opens one up, and look where they are now, they're thriving, they're doing fantastic. So any type of uh competition is going to help, and like for a long time, and and so if you can speak on this, if you know, as far as where you know where this is at now, like I think Disney was able to coast, even though I don't go to a lot of theme parks, I watch a lot of theme park content on YouTube because just like you Blythe, all that stuff is very interesting to me. Like the last one of the most recent videos I've watched is kind of just the problem with Universal in general. I mean, they do they have a lot of screen rides, which people don't like, and also the entrance to Universal. It's there's not in order to like revamp Universal, they're gonna have to level the whole city and like and like if they want to put in new rides, and like some of those new rides they put in have been a disaster and like just have not been it. So Soph, really interested to see or to hear what you have to say about this conversation and and what what do you think Disney is gonna be forced to do, you know, now that Epic Universe has been this big hit. Of course, it's had its hiccups, you know, and tragedies as theme parks do, but like where do you think this goes from here as far as how Disney needs to respond?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. Great question and very well said from both of you. Um great analysis of of kind of the whole thing.

SPEAKER_04:

I think it's absolutely- She's like, you're both wrong.

SPEAKER_01:

So no, uh quite the contrary. Um it's always it's always so so great to hear like kind of like how that's how that's scene, especially because I'm so in it sometimes where it's hard to see like the outside perspective. Um, but I honestly I completely agree. And what's really interesting about you know Disney as a company, especially, of course, it's like the most one of the most like legacy, you know, holding names of all time, but especially in the theme park world, because um, you know, they wrote the book, right? They invented the whole concept of a theme park based on from an amusement park to theme park. Um, and I think that went unchallenged for some time. Uh, of course, we have Universal's competition, but um, I think they did kind of Disney is um functioning as like such a huge tourist designation, especially in this city here in Orlando. Um, I think they just kind of they got a little bit comfortable, um, and I think didn't keep pushing the innovative nature of it. Um, like you mentioned, they redid Trong here, um, which, you know, is is a good ride and it's a great, you know, thematically. I think it's a really big improvement for to Marlon and the Magic Kingdom, but it is a copy paste from Shanghai. It's not a newly invented thing. I think the last time we did that was Guardians, which uh was great. Um, but I think to your point, Epic Universe is really from the ground up. Um, you know, being there, when I went there the first time, my mom, um, also a huge theme park person, she had her honeymoon at Epcot. I called her and I was like, I think this is what Epcot felt like in the 80s for the first time because it's all fresh and new and interesting. Um, and it goes beyond just IP recreation, which is a lot of what the rides are now, is just like, like you mentioned, Phil, like the screen rides are like, Oh, you like Transformers. Well, now you can be Transformers. And that is the ethos of Universal was just IP um recreation and their older parks. But Epic Universe is a breath of fresh air in terms of you know, Celestial Park is it's an entirely new concept, just like Epcot was. Um, and it seems like Disney's almost doing the inverse, where they're really relying more, like you said, um, on the nostalgia and the classic, the old stuff. Like you remember these movies, right? Remember these things, but kind of being afraid to innovate in the same way that Universal has been.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, Eric, and you know, you've obviously been to Epic, but the two of us have been to both of these parks quite a bit in the last couple of years, much to my dismay. But I've done I go uh regardless. So, what has been your as someone who you know uh you're in that demographic where you're gonna bring your entire family and you're gonna you're gonna commit the time and commit the money to this. So, like, based off of your experiences between going to Disney with the family and then having this new experience at Epic Universe and then tying in Universal as well, which one of those has been a more valuable experience do you think when when you guys came away from that, you know, those trips?

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, it's tough because they both have their like their own perks, uh their own benefits. For as much as Disney gets a lot of flack for like the genie uh, you know, program and all of that, it it works for me. Like I I set up in the beginning of the day, I pick my lightning lanes, and I kind of go. Where you know, going to Epic, it's been a minute since I've been to the universal side of things where it's just get your fast pass, uh, which is very, very pricey. But at the end of the day, a much simpler process, worth it. Uh, maybe not getting into the park easier, but once you're in the park, it is much simpler uh from that point. And Epic Universe is also still working out a few kinks, so there might have been some hiccups here and there. But overall, I'd say like the before and after is a little bit cleaner in that aspect for Disney, the during a little bit easier and smoother for Universal. And I think, you know, both of them have different things that you could enjoy. It's gonna just come down to demographic for me. Like ultimately, Universal has always seemed catered to like that older crowd. And I think Epic Universe is a nice turn, you know, in the opposite direction. Uh, Disney hasn't really quite done everything they need to do in that area. I think. I think they are always going to try to appeal to the younger generations. Maybe some recent changes will do that, and maybe some future improvements. I mean, Disney's committed to like a whole buttload of money to improve. We'll see what that looks like in the next decade. For the short term, I think like a move like Epic Universe is a really big power play, though, because I think Universal has some different appeals that Disney just isn't qualified to meet right now, and now they're trying to attack that same demographic. So it's really interesting to see like long term what's gonna happen. I think it is just gonna be a battle of money, and you would think that who's gonna beat Disney in a battle of money, but we'll see. Uh, I would agree though, Blythe did mention this, like some maintenance stuff and things that are going on at Disney is a little disheartening. We wanted to ride the Princess Tiana ride, and we learned as we were there how many issues have been going on with that ride since it has been there. So the fact that it went down is actually not a surprise. We probably should have expected it, but again, that wasn't something we thought. When we're thinking of Disney, you're like, that's not an ongoing issue. They check their rides all the time, they're the top, tippity top. And uh, I don't know. That is a glaring example, I think, of what Blythe was mentioning that I wanted to bring to the forefront from a personal experience. Those things didn't always used to get attached to Disney's names, and it seems like public perception doing some research since then, it seems like it is starting to get attached and it's starting to make a little bit of a bad rap for them.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I don't I don't think you can ride Haunted Mansion without it breaking down at least once. And I love Haunted Mansion.

SPEAKER_07:

I don't think I've ridden the Haunted Mansion without it breaking down. I'm pretty sure every time I've been stuck at the graveyard. So you're right.

SPEAKER_04:

Eric, can you bring up that picture of Grayson on the Haunted Mansion, please?

SPEAKER_07:

Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh, we we uh we brought my son to the Tower of Terror. He wanted to do it. He wanted to do it. Never again. Never again. We've spent two theme park trips fixing the trauma of Tower of Terror. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I I will say to kind of piggyback off of what you were saying, one thing that really worries me is the uh, and everybody talks about this, but the affordability of of Disney and how as a family we used to go all the time as kids. And as you go as children, it becomes as an adult, it becomes nostalgic for you to go back to the parks. I worry that they that Disney has priced out the average family. So they're making those memories less and less, if they're making them at all. And so they're creating this like future business pipeline problem where you have these children that then turn into teenagers, then turn then turn into adults that are not gonna have that same nostalgia for going to the theme park as they did as kids because they can never afford it. And so that that's what does worry me about Disney. I mean, I'm I'm from like sort of reading the tea leaves and you know, reading between the lines, I think they've kind of just like given up to Epic Universe for the next couple of years. They're investing, you know, in a new land in uh Animal Kingdom, and uh hopefully they're investing more back into their maintenance, which they've cut back severely on maintenance ever since they reopened after the 2020 closures. Uh but it I hope it's not too late for them. And it feels crazy even saying that about Disney. I don't know that it'll ever be too late for them, but Epic Universe is absolutely eating into some of that market share because they they've created that environment that's welcoming to all age ranges. Whereas, you know, Disney does cater to more of a younger crowd outside of Epcot where you can kind of you know drink around the world and that's fun from like an adult perspective. Um, but it I I do think that they're facing a few different unique challenges that it's only time will tell, you know, within five years what those attend what the attendance looks like at each of those different parks.

SPEAKER_04:

And how often, like in our lifetime, in in my lifetime, this is the only the second new park that's ever opened. Like Animal Kingdom opened up like right. It was like what 99, something like that, 2000s. So this is the first time like we've gotten a new park, like a lot of people like in our in our age group, and that just does not happen. Which, so yeah, people are gonna flock to it, and it's gonna be people are going to be very excited. What I want to know, we we were talking about like we were throwing around uh like Dollywood earlier on, you know, and and I just looked it up while we were talking about it because Blyth you were talking about pricing people out. And this is not only happening with theme parks, it's happening with sporting events, it's happening with professional wrestling, right? Eric, like they priced out the family, and we definitely don't want to see that happen here. Like, we have friends with kids who have never been able to take their kids to Disney um because of how much it costs. So, what I would like to know, Soph, is like when when you're, you know, in in your business, do you have like the desire to see these other parks? Because we talked about Dollywood's winning awards every single year. The things that I if I'm gonna spend that kind of money and go to a park, I don't want to go to a park that I've already been to. I want to go to Universal Shanghai that has like the most amazing Jurassic ride, dark ride that I've ever seen in my life. I want to go to Tokyo Disneyland that that's also paired with traveling internationally, you know? Those are the kind of experiences like if I'm gonna spend that kind of money, I would look elsewhere. So, what what do you think? So in your line of business, in your line of work, do you find yourself wanting to go to these other parks outside of, you know, Disney and in Universal and find, man, what is what's like bringing people in to Dollywood? What is it about Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, that makes people want to come visit?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh, absolutely. I mean, that's what's been so great. Um, we mentioned it in the pre-show for a second, but that's what's been so great about working for a third party is that I get to have exposure to so many things, even beyond theme parks, um, and kind of more of like regional locations that cater more to the community, um, or regional parks, even um like Dollywood, or um like these Six Flags parks that um they're kind of reinvigorating as well with the merger with uh Cedar Fair. Um, so there's all these kinds of things that are really happening, kind of shaking up in the theme park world. And something else I wanted to mention too, to tie it back into um the kind of park wars and kind of fighting for the same demographic. I don't know if you guys heard about this also, but Universal is doing a really good job at diversifying um their kind of demographic and their parks as well. Um they opened the uh I think I forgot it's called uh Halloween Horror Nights, Horror Unleashed in Las Vegas. And I believe that's you know, of course, more way more adults adult-centric. Um that's a year-round um horror nights, not to tease my my conversation for later, but that's a uh year night uh year-round horror nights kind of uh horror attraction, if you will. And then in Frisco, Texas, they announced the Universal Kids Park, um, which is a park that kind of focuses more on their dreamworks uh kids' IPs. They just announced that recently. Um I think it's opening next year. Um, but that's pretty interesting as well because that's basically coming for Disney's demographic and it's geologically right between Florida and California. Um, so there's all kinds of stuff that I think Universal is doing really well uh in that way too.

SPEAKER_04:

I'll also say this for that Frisco park because I used to live right in that area. Like there is a ton of space, it's about 45 minutes from the airport, and both airports actually, there's two airports in Dallas. So yeah, focusing on those, that IP, that's seeing a little bit of a renaissance, like with the popularity of how to change a dragon, and then whatever other you know worlds they want to bring in, super smart, man. They're coming, they're they're they're making it interesting. So um, yeah. But uh that the what I remember we hearing, I was like, Frisco, like that's interesting. That's where the mall I used to go to in high school is. Like what they're gonna get a universal park, so we shall see. But yeah, a lot of very interesting conversation, and I'll send you this on one of these YouTube uh pages, Blythe, that I watch all the time about all this this park stuff, because again, it is so interesting about like the layouts and how that affects um just the park overall. So um, yeah, but great first uh um conversation there, Blythe. Well, look, you're a pro already killing it. Way way better than Bodder, right, Eric? So uh let's let's bring in the next thing here, which I found, which is Lucky Traw.

SPEAKER_07:

What the hell?

SPEAKER_04:

This I don't think there's anything we can I don't know what we would say for this one.

SPEAKER_07:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Let me make sure I put I've removed Okay, but I scroll. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_07:

Okay, yeah. Alright. Alright. So what's gonna happen?

SPEAKER_04:

It's gonna like it's just gonna spin it. Yeah, it's gonna spin kind of like a slot machine and give us a name. I wasn't confident enough to bring Dice in, so we're getting lucky draw horses and the wheel in a moment. Oh, we are getting the wheel. No, no, we're there's a good rotation.

SPEAKER_07:

Okay, cool. Uh yeah, no, I mean, I guess for this one, I guess for this one there's not much to say. So why don't you uh draw? Oh no, I got it. I got it. Alright, everybody come off of mute. Alright. We're gonna do three, two, one, same cadence. Draw that name. Oh, there we go. Oh, perfect. Yeah, there you go. There we go. That shouldn't have taken so long to figure out on my own. So, all right, guys, let's do it.

SPEAKER_06:

Three, two, one, draw, draw that name.

SPEAKER_07:

Oh, that worked out. There you go. Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Look at that. Look at the presentation. See, we're expanding. So we're upgrading. It's experimental. All right, cool. Well, Eric, it's back to the normal way where both of the guests go first and then we go last. So uh Soph, what did we miss in October 2025?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's very interesting because I had two kind of um two topics uh to choose from and they kind of fall under an umbrella. Um, so I think I'll mention them both um since uh Blake mentioned theme park stuff. Um I'll start there and I'll move into the second one. But um Yeah, I was gonna just talk of honestly super excited about Halloween Horror Nights. Um, because you know, we we have the Frequent Fear Pass, we've gone a couple times, and I think my umbrella topic um that I would like to discuss was kind of like the uh kind of modern adaptation of media. Um, because this year at Halloween Horror Nights, they had um a quite a few IP houses that I think were phenomenally done, uh notably being Fallout 76, or no, sorry, not Fallout, well based kind of a Fallout 76, but based on Fallout the show. Uh and then um Five Nights at Freddy's, of course, um, which I'm a big fan of. Um if you guys are seeing the I'm actually wearing the the shirt from the event. Um, but yeah, I just thought that um it's super interesting to see um, you know, kind of like the the demographic for that and uh people showing up, coming out, dressing in cosplay, being super excited about it, the wait times being insane, and most importantly the theme, the thematic uh overlay of it, and just seeing people engage with media um in that way at Halloween Horror Nights. I mean, I've said it every time that I've gone, but it it's almost reminiscent of like a con environment. Um, because you have all these fans of these different medias being able to experience it in a way that is fully immersive. Um, just to talk about like the Five Nights house. Um, Jim Henson did all the puppets just like they did for the Five Nights movies. Um, it follows the story of the movie. So much time effort. I mean, it it was absolutely incredible the amount of craftsmanship and work that went into that. And even beyond just the whole the the house itself, the haunted house itself, um they actually turned one of their pizzerias into uh the pizzeria from Five Nights. Um so they actually had themed a themed menu. Um they had a very derpy looking cupcake that was based on the cupcake character. Um, and it was just it was so cool to see, um, kind of to our point earlier about like more regional, more like community experiences like that. You don't really see a seasonal overlay done like that outside of Halloween horror nights. Um, and I have so much appreciation for um people's own, like kind of community-based uh haunted houses and things like that. But to see it in this way with so much budget and backing from these awesome IPs that people really care about from video games of all things, I think that's awesome. Uh every year they've done any kind of house that has to do with video games or pop culture. I mean, it's the most popular house by far. Um, so I thought that was super neat just talking about that and kind of media adaptation leading into the second little note I had, which actually happened today, was that they um they've been teasing it for a while, but you guys know I'm a big One Piece fan. Um, and they just announced the release date for the season two of the One Piece live action uh next year in March. So very much looking forward to that. I think the first season was really great, and I know we've talked a little bit about in the past about anime adaptations to live action and how that can be pretty finicky and very difficult to do with the artist's um kind of vision in mind and keeping that intact. Um but I think one piece, uh I know I'm I'm a little bit biased because I love the media so much, but in the same vein, um watching the live action actually felt like I was watching the original anime again with the same ethos and same passion behind it. It's not perfect because it can't be perfect because it's an anime to live action, but um, I am very excited to see how they handle the rest of the series, especially if the first season was kind of more of a prologue to the rest, um, and just hoping that it keeps up the reputation of being the best anime live action so far, in my opinion at least. Um, so yeah, I think. I think I just wanted to talk about kind of how these medias are being adapted and I think we're I think we're finally hit a good stride of an era where these medias are being not only respected and and properly re-recreated and made, but also allowing people to relive their favorite shows, games, movies, in a way that we haven't really seen before.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, Eric, I want to throw this to you first because I'm surprised because you have a horror kid in your household. Yeah. I cannot believe you you have he hasn't like has he asked to go to following horror kids?

SPEAKER_07:

He kind of like he's aware that there's a five nights thing there, and obviously he's pretty obsessed with it. Um, you know, he's uh he's more of a security breach kid. So like when he talks about five nights, it's mainly security breach. So he's like Sun Drop and Moondrop are like his favorite characters, like those types of things. If we were going security breach, we'd probably be there. The only reason we didn't, honestly, because the Fallout stuff looks cool, the terrifier stuff, Phil. Uh, we're obviously wrestling fans, the horror, the why it sticks was like just a cool concept, and it was nice to see that integrated. I think to what Sophie was saying, like the amount of media that's in there from horror to wrestling, horror, like that's just crazy amount, right? The last of us, two years ago. Yeah, so like I think it's a great event. You did mention though, one of the things that I'm probably not gonna spend my money because the wait times, and you know, we talked about Epic Universe in the pre-show a little bit, and uh obviously a little bit here on this episode. The wait times for that are kind of expected because it's new. Where like Halloween Horror Nights, it seems like this is the complaint every year. You know, now correct me if I'm wrong, but like that's whenever I consider going, the years I consider going, the thing I start hearing as the precursor is better get that fast pass. And even then, wait long wait times, and it's really the only reason I haven't spent the money. I kind of made a decision like around the time I was going to Epic Universe in the summer, I started to get the idea of what a Halloween Horror Knight might look like, and I was like, I'm gonna probably have to pick one. And the one that I picked was Epic Universe, so I had a really good time. Family of three going to make a vacation out of it. Uh I would love to go, but I just don't know for the money and for the amount of time you're having to wait for essentially a limited time event. I don't know if it's necessarily worth it. Uh, but man, am I jealous? Like, I've heard nothing but good things, the houses look really fantastic. It's an event I would definitely love to go to, but yeah, that's kind of been my biggest complaint, theme park-wise, and then media-wise, you know, uh Sophie, you've mentioned it uh with One Piece, like having the live action adaptation. I know Netflix in particular is really big of that. Me and Phil have debated uh, you know, when that's effective and when that's not. I think, Phil, I could speak for you on your hot take of kind of like if you don't play the video game, you're gonna you don't get to experience the video game, right? Uh now you've turned that into books, which is crazy. Uh, but you know, we're not gonna get we're not we're not gonna get into that. Audiobooks, nonetheless. Uh, but yeah, so I think that when it comes to those mediums, like we're we're definitely having open debates because I think it can be effective for like maybe older properties or certain stories, where Netflix in turn will then do the the kind of really messy thing, which is like K-pop demon hunters just came out, and there's been reports of uh doing a live action, which if I'm correct, I believe one of my uh didn't make the cut stories was that the uh creator doesn't really like the idea of doing a live action, and I don't blame them. One, I think it would be difficult, two, the movie just came out this year, the year hasn't even ended. So I think there's some times in media where it can get construed and it can be objectified or overused, and then there are times where it can be really effective. And in the case of One Piece, you know, uh story about a rubber boy wanting to be king of the pirates, like that's it's gonna have issues, but it's also gonna be a really good time. So I think it can be effective when used correctly.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, Blythe, what about you? What is your relationship to like Halloween horror nights or just horror in general? Uh, it hasn't really I don't think we've ever talked about anything necessarily horror-related. Seems like it's not necessarily your bag, but we're all Floridians, right? So like it's always present there. You know what you mean? And if you don't, it's right around the corner. You see the Instagram ads, you see the billboards, it's like right there. What do we have here in in Jacksonville? Uh something 13th floors.

SPEAKER_07:

13th floor or something like that.

SPEAKER_04:

13th floor?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, over in Regis, I believe.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, so yeah. Well, have you ever considered going to a Halloween Horror Nights, or have you ever been?

SPEAKER_07:

So I think and if not, Blythe, what what keeps you away from it? Because that's always interesting to hear like what people's thing is.

SPEAKER_03:

The tears keep me away, uh, mostly because I'm a giant like scaredy cat. I uh cry at like just like ghost stories. If I watch a story on TikTok about like Appalachian ghosts, then I will cry in my bathroom. Uh so for Halloween Horror Nights, I did go one time years ago. I was like a teenager, so this is like god, like 20 years, 20 plus years ago. And I waited in line. Speaking of which, I waited in line for one haunted house. We were able to go to one of them, and it was a three and a half hour long wait. And that just kind of turned me off at that, you know, point of age. Um, but then just kind of growing up and seeing scary movies, and I wish I could, I don't know, I don't even know if I wish this, but uh the gr when I saw The Grudge, the Grudge gave me nightmares for a couple of months, and I swore I would never watch another scary movie again. And so ever since then, I if it's it's a scary movie or if it's you know a scary show, like I I watch with, you know, my eyes closed and my ears, you know, the volume is closed. I I just can't do even commercials on TV, which I just increasingly get scarier, and I'm like, these should be banned. I I, you know, just ban them from television because I'm getting scared while doing my hair and makeup, and that doesn't, I don't want my piece interrupted from this. Um, I w I wish I enjoyed it because I from just like kind of studying like movies and you know the the the business aspect behind it, you know, a lot I I've tried to figure out like why are so many movies so expensive, but they also feel like they lack creativity, where the inverse is happening, I believe, from like a business perspective on the horror front, where you have uh these I've heard of this one like movie-making company that only makes horror movies, they make like 20 a year, they're very like strictly budgeted out, and if they have one that does well, then that's made their entire year and they're able to.

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's Bloomhouse, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it well, it was just such an incredible story because I'm like, that's an actual like you're combining business and creativity together. Like, why can't these other movie studios, you know, sort of get it together? So, you know, a movie by Disney doesn't cost, you know,$500 million and then complain when it doesn't make a profit. And it's like, well, no shit. Like, it's really tough to make to have that many people go and see a movie nowadays. And so, with all that said, I wish I enjoyed, I I respect the medium, especially after not to bring it back to Universal again or Epic Universe, um, but the dark universe area was really, really well done. Um, their their Monsters Unchained ride was just on another level, and that sort of brought me back into well, maybe I could like start watching some of these like old school horror movies, and then come to find out there is a new Frankenstein movie, I believe, on Netflix with um Oscar Isaac. And that looks really good. And so I'm like, okay, maybe I can like start dipping my toe back into these things. I'll probably still like watch it with my eyes closed and like my ears closed. Um, but that you know, I'll I'll still do it anyways.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and I'll I'll ask you about um as far as just kind of the media representation here in a moment too, but like I want to touch on like what you were what you're saying, because it's really I also have never done Halloween horror nights. One, also I get scared when somebody enters my room and I don't hear them coming. So that's I'm always I'm really jumpy when it comes to that as well. But yeah, also wait times. I mean, it was really close, like when the last of us year, uh, you know, that's something I've really heavily considered. It's one of my favorite, um, one of my favorite franchises. And then like Eric had mentioned, they they do have a Wyatt Six house, which is uh uh dedicated to uh one of our favorite wrestlers, one of mine for sure. Actually, uh he passed away a couple of years ago, and I actually have like a remembrance tattoo of him. So like just be being able to see it would have been really, really cool. But yeah, even back in like you know, 10 years ago, right in our Eric in our 20s, it always came up like man, we should go, we should go, and it just never happened. And now with social media, like people just highlighting the lines, and like, man, I just don't think I'm gonna do that. Um, but it is horror is in such a healthy spot right now. And I have another website to share with you, Blythe, that actually is called like Where's the Jump that tells you where the jump scares are coming in in the film. It has made watching a lot of stuff much easier for me.

SPEAKER_07:

My whole I swear to god, I thought you were gonna tell her about the kill count.

SPEAKER_04:

Also, there is a YouTube page called Dead Mead, and they do we'll talk about it later.

SPEAKER_03:

But uh well, real quick, have you seen that Halloween Horror Nights? They also have like some kind of necklace that you could buy that tells like people not to scare you.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. You see, I don't want to I don't want to wear the necklace.

SPEAKER_03:

But then they like make fun of you as you're walking through the park.

SPEAKER_01:

Like they call you scaredy cat, and like, yes, yes, that's me. I was just about to mention that. Like, that's literally what I was gonna say of like it's been very interesting. That's something I I forgot to mention that this I've gone a couple I've gone a few years in a row now. Um, but like this year has been very interesting because it doesn't feel like as scary or as intense as previous years. So, you know, as we kind of touched on a little bit with Five Nights, uh especially it being the biggest house this year in terms of like wait time and demand, it tends to lean a little bit to a younger crowd. So I feel like they took it from like, if you will, R-rated to more PG 13 or less rated. So I will say that I didn't really personally I didn't get too scared this year, and I thought that's actually it's a good move. Um, some people are not happy about that because they want to go and feel the adrenaline. I get that too. Um, but yeah, the necklaces is a whole other thing where again it's interesting of how they're marketing it and how that's changed, of being almost more inclusive to all age ranges as well.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and you know, like I I had mentioned earlier, Eric's son, like he loves the horror stuff, and you know, getting into it at a at an early age, but it is like much more rate mainstream than it than it has been. Even me who has had trouble with with horror movies in the past. I mean, I've watched more than I ever have here recently, just because, again, as a medium, and because like you're you're mentioning, that's actually a good precursor to the story that I'm gonna talk about. Uh Blythe is what they're able to do on smaller budgets and then make those films look so good. It's like, yeah, well, that that should work, you know. So, um, and then the other part of it, Sophie, that you were mentioning, right, Eric, we have a really good example, you know, there for every Fallout 76, or for Fallout, um, the Fallout TV show, we have a Halo, or we have season two of The Last of Us, right? Where it was just like not good. Like, man, and that's frustrating because like The Last of Us can go a route of the fall of Fallout. There's a whole world out there outside of Joel and Ellie that you could have explored, and they decided not to do that. And listen, Pager Pascal in season one, excellent, right? Like, really, really good. Well, season one's great, but season two, I don't ever want to acknowledge that that exists. So we're in strange places, like, yeah, we don't I don't want to see a K-pop demon hunters live action. Blythe, I know you mentioned earlier how to train your dragon. Eric really loved that live action. I did not, so but also the animated is like one of my favorite films of all time. So I have a different relationship than than you and Eric have with that. So it's good because One Piece has gotten really good, but then again, Counter, Cowboy Bebop, right? Cancelled after one season, even though people enjoyed that to a degree. So it's in a weird place, but it does seem like for some of these projects, the right people are in charge. Like this has come up, right, Eric. We got like God of War coming down the pipeline. You know, we have all these other shows that they're gonna try and bring to life, and it is I think a good thing if in the right people's hands, but like it's tricky, man.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, I will say that the one the one like caveat to all this is like I'm on board with it, but if they if they fuck up the Bioshock adaptation, I that's it for me. That's uh there's like no way to mess it up, and uh well, there is a way, and it can be done, but yeah, I I I'm pretty disappointed in Carl Johansson. Uh listen, we're not gonna do that. We're not gonna do that right now. Just because she keeps ruining your favorite franchises, yes. Uh that tangled live action in early development, apparently, and she's circling the role of Mother Gothel. I don't know why she gets all the roles she gets, but uh as far as horror goes, uh I do want to mention that like it's always so nice to hear like what people don't like about horror and how like accepted it is. Horror is like the only genre where you could be like, Well, I don't really like this because of this reason. And horror fans are like, Yeah, no, that's cool, that makes sense, that's not for you. Like, Blythe, you seem like you love like the old style, like you mentioned Frankenstein. I don't know if you would have been interested in Nosferatu last year, but that might have been something that you probably would have been more interested in than what people watched. What what was probably the biggest one of the biggest horror movies last year was uh like Terrifier or Alien, stuff like that. Like I could see you straying away from them, but some of those more classic monstery type movies would be your vibe. But it's always fun to hear that from the horror side because again, it's the only genre I can really think of where you can actively talk about what you don't like without being told you have shit opinions, you don't know what you're talking about. Like any other genre of movies or anime or games, they'll tell you you don't know what you're talking about, but horror fans are just always accepting because it's not there's so much under the horror umbrella that not everything can possibly be your jam unless you're completely fucked in the head.

SPEAKER_04:

So, yeah, and that's why I enjoy going to Scaradice formerly Spucala every year because it's a horror-themed convention, but I just love the artwork and the guests there have been really cool. You know, we see a lot of uh there's a lot of horror adjacent stuff, like Jurassic Park, Jurassic World is horror adjacent, like, and that's one of my favorite franchises of all time. So, like when when it comes to some of those, whether it be anime or comic book or video game to live action adaptations, wife, are there any that stick out? You know, of course, we like you said, talked about how to train your dragon. Are there any that you like you would not want to see? Like, don't touch this particular thing. Because you know, we talked about the MCU in the past, and that's basically like we don't discuss the MCU really at all anymore. You know what I mean? It's just too much. Like, is there anything out there that you would like to see adapted or you do not want to see adapted?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I the the one answer to this before Amazon got their greedy little hands on it was Lord of the Rings. Um, I I thought it was an abomination. I'm not over-dramatized or dramatizing, yeah, whatever. I'm not over-dramatizing that it it it's I don't know how the show is still continuing a budget or it being having budget being allocated to it. Um, but I could really go off for a long time on just the bastardization of what they've done to one of my favorite characters of all time, that's Gladriel, and how poorly they portrayed her. Uh, it's it's Tolkien in name only. And so uh that is one franchise that I didn't think would ever have sort of the toxicity behind it that other franchises have around them. Obviously, Star Wars has had toxic fans for you know a long time, and um MCU kind of has gotten a little bit there. I I would argue that it's it's not nearly as bad as Star Wars. Um and I don't think Harry Potter as much, but there is, you know, definitely like some social media drama, I guess, more around that franchise. And um, but Lord of the Rings was just one of just like the bastions of of just culture and movies, especially that original, original trilogy. And when I heard that they were going to be making the series, I I think Jeff Bezos' son famously told him publicly, like, do not mess this up. And they did exactly that. And uh it's just it's very disheartening, it's very uh discouraging. I I would say though that I with your last of us cometh, I actually really liked season two. Uh I'm afraid to uh admit it. Um, because I know a lot of I never played the game, so I'm sorry about that too. I watched a show. Um, but uh the first season, just entranced with it. Second season wasn't as good as the first season, but I still really enjoyed it. And I actually really like the the Abby character, besides obviously what she did. Spoiler alarm.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, yeah. Yeah, no one.

SPEAKER_03:

But the actress who plays her, I thought she did a fantastic job. Um, and starting into season three, I'm really looking forward to it. So I wouldn't say that there's many adaptations that I would like to be brought to live action. Um, not that I can think of off the top of my head, because the one that I I would have really loved has already been ruined.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Yeah, the thing with The Last of Us, like I totally get as well as well. Like, if you are new to that story and what happens, then yeah, you're hooked for for me who's someone who's played the games and it's like again one of my favorite franchises, and I know I keep up with the lore and all this kind of stuff, and we know what they have changed. I think that's the biggest thing is what they change. And the um the you know, the characterization of Ellie and then changing her as as a character that really that really got to us. But um, you know, it still did very well amongst uh and you know, season three is down the pipeline, and I will watch, I will be watching to see what they do because I I Abby as a character is incredibly interesting, and I love Caitlin Dever, so I'll continue to watch the show for sure. Um for us, Eric. I mean, I you know, the the typical things when it comes to like I know one thing right now, obviously, that's uh that's really on our mind because it's coming down to the wire as far as My Hero Academia being wrapped up. Don't ever want to see a live action of My Hero Academia. Oh boy, it's coming, buddy. It's 100% gonna happen after this last this final season too.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

So don't want any of that. I don't want a live action chainsaw man, I don't want any of those things. So um, yeah, I know like people were talking about like a live action goofy movie at one point. Like, no, don't do that. I don't want that either. I don't, you know, so no one will be able to match the aura of power line in live action. It's just not it's not possible.

SPEAKER_03:

I did think of one.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Gargoyles.

SPEAKER_04:

I think that that would maybe be incredible as you make it like penguin, like like penguin? Yeah, okay. Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

The penguin, like HBO show, it has to be done very well because the the writing on the original show was so good. It's I even as an adult, I think back of like we I need to actually like re-watch this. So that one or like uh Pirates of Dark Water. I don't know if y'all watched that show as well. Um as a kid, that was such a great cartoon. Um, and I think that there's a lot that they could do with that in a in a live action format. But I would say probably gargoyles now that my my brain is.

SPEAKER_04:

No, that's a good that's a good choice. Eric, how about street sharks? Eric, how about the part of my brain there, gargoyles?

SPEAKER_07:

That's great.

SPEAKER_04:

Eric, how about street sharks? And they all look like King Shark from the bad uh from the bad um no. Oh, they all look like Killer Croc from uh Suicide Squad, the bad one.

SPEAKER_07:

Not the bad one, please.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, really, really good conversations, and and those that was um a good call to mix those together, Soaf, so great job. Uh while we were discussing that, I had a little time. I found another game. Uh what do you mean Phil?

SPEAKER_07:

Alright. Dang it, I forgot the Well, luckily you only got you only got two on there. I'm gonna ask you. So is this can I ask you a question? Yeah. It's just fish. It's just fish, okay. You could have just committed to the horses, but you know what? No, it's different. That's okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Um You're gonna have to come up with what we say. Turn this down. It's really long. God, your fish is busted, bro. I don't know. My fish is nice and pretty.

SPEAKER_06:

Why?

SPEAKER_07:

Your fish is like mine look like an OD. Like, why does it look like that?

SPEAKER_04:

Your fish is stamped, just walked out of a house at Halloween horror times, and mine's walking in.

SPEAKER_07:

Blythe, uh, Sophie, we're gonna need your help on this one. I'm gonna count down three, two, one, and we're gonna just say uh just keep swimming.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, there you go. Perfect.

SPEAKER_07:

All right.

SPEAKER_05:

Three, two, one, keep.

SPEAKER_04:

Keep swimming. Well, these fish are much slower than the horses. It's Eric Sadie. There's no way you can cover this distance, dude.

SPEAKER_06:

There we go. No way! Twice, dude!

SPEAKER_04:

You can't win with a face like that, man. I don't know what to tell you.

SPEAKER_06:

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_04:

Alright, well, I will go next here. Let me close these tabs. Okay, cool. So this worked out. Uh as far as like what again, like Blythe kind of teased it as far as like movie budgets, because my this was such an interesting story that came up here this month. Eric's gonna be really upset because on the surface, it's gonna seem like the story is about Fast and the Furious. And that's the story that I picked. And this story interested me so much that I paid for Wall Street Journal for a month to read the entire article. Now, I'm not gonna read that today because that's very long. I did just give I have bullet points uh about what is going on. So, for those of you that know so Fast and the Furious is my guilty pleasure movie. I know they're not good, they are entertaining. I love all the drama off-screen with Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson not getting along. I eat all of it up. So there was, so at Fuel Fest recently in Los Angeles, uh, Vin Diesel was there and he told people that the movie he's going to release the the final Fast and the Furious film, or the next one, is set to release April 2027. It was supposed to come out this month of this year, a while back, and um they want to return the story to Los Angeles, they want to focus on street racing again. He also said they want to reunite with Paul Walker's character. That's a whole another thing that we're not gonna touch here. That's not what this conversation is about. There's a problem with him saying that the movie's coming out in April 2027. It's not been announced by Universal, and there has been no accepted script. And the reason is because Universal uh does not want to make this movie unless they cut about um they need to cut another$50 million from the budget. So Fast X was the most expensive film in the series. It cost$340 million to make, and it only earned$705 million. So across all seven, all 11 films, this series has grossed$7.3 billion. It's Universal's biggest franchise. But the last movie did not go, did not go very well. We've talked about like post-pandemic, it's hard to get families to go to movie theaters. Movies are coming out to streaming earlier than ever. And when I talk about a film that costs this much money to make, Universal is finally putting their foot down and telling Vin Diesel and the people in charge, hey, we're not gonna make this movie. And I think right now the budget with the script that they have costs about$250 billion. They're like, hey, you need to cut another$50 million in this budget, or we are not going to make it. So we're seeing shrinking box office returns when it comes to stuff like Marvel and DC. The new Jurassic movie didn't do very good. Um, and budget cuts mean like fewer locations, smaller roles for some stars, which is interesting because they just brought back Galga Dot from the dead. She's a character, so they're gonna have to pay her. Um, Vin Diesel's salary alone is reportedly about 2025 million dollars per film. Um, and then you talk about Yummy The Rock is supposed to come back into the next movie as well. What they really relied on with these films is the overseas markets, and now China and Russia are no longer reliable moneymakers for this franchise. So when the last one came out, uh China didn't really flock to it, and then Russia, with everything going on over there, the movie didn't even show there. Um, so US audiences, of course, have been less interested in long-running franchises, especially those that predate Gen Z. And Universal might actually be exploring like doing a live action in the fast universe that would be a lot cheaper to make, or spin-off films, lower budget reboots that's gonna that are going to reattract fans to come in. And Eric, I think this I brought this up because of course I want to see the movie. I it doesn't matter to me how much it costs to make. I want to see this thing wrap up. It ended on a big cliffhanger, it's got a million people in in the franchise now. None of them die, they all come back from the dead. It's a mess. I love it. Uh, what's that? What's that, Shane Gillis? Girls don't like it, kind of makes me look like a bitch. I enjoy it. You know, like that's that's how I feel about Fast and the Furious. And I think this is a good thing because they're putting their foot down, specifically with Min Diesel, whose ego has for some reason just become overinflated. You can make an argument he has not made a good movie since Chronicles of Riddick, so and Fast Seven. So I think this is a good thing. So, like, I wanted to bring this to the table as far as like these these franchises, like with Marvel. DC seems to be on a good track, like we love Superman. Superman, I'm I'm excited for superhero movies again. So I think this is a good thing. What do you what do you think about Universal? I'll throw it to you first, Eric, telling Vin Diesel and the people in charge we're not gonna make this movie just and just throw money at you because you want it anymore. And I I think that's an interesting discussion and thing that's happening within Hollywood.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, I think uh studios are starting to figure out like why people go to the movies, like they just assume we're gonna consume all the slop they want to give us, and they can have their cake and eat it too. That's very much why strikes are having to happen so they don't use AI in films, right? We have our first AI actress that's out there in the universe. That's a real thing we have to deal with, and I'm sure it would be really great for studios to make up people, write up fake scripts, and for us to say, here you go, have our money, but that's not how the real world works. And I think a lot of these studios, unfortunately, are starting to figure that out that there are there are ways to do this. Like we just talked about the horror genre. Horror is in the best place that it's ever been, arguably, in the past couple years, specifically the last two to three, have been really great for horror, and they're turning those smaller budgets and those more intimate or creative stories into dollars. I don't know where studios got off thinking they have to spend all this money, maybe just spend a little bit more time coming up with things people actually want to watch. Again, a K-pop demon hunters doesn't hit because they put a hundred two hundred million dollars into it just to look nice. Like that movie hit for so many different reasons reasons. Sinners, another film that came out this year, that movie was not poured into uh you know, millions by the dozen. Like it just that's not the reason that movie hit. So I just think again, for every big time movie that throws all that money at the budget, uh, they're expecting unrealistic amount of money for right now, a you know, economy, a lifestyle, everything that people are going through in their daily lives. People have to decide. You and me, Phil, have watched uh over 25 movies. I'm gonna say comfortably, right? We're probably gonna hit 30 or more in 2025, just movies we've seen in the theaters, not counting the ones we've seen multiple times, right? Whether we went by ourselves or we went with a family. Most people are like seeing five in the movie theater, right? They're waiting for streaming, they're waiting for all these other opportunities. So if you're not one of the five movies this person wants to see, you're not gonna get that person's ticket. And I just don't think we're in the era anymore where you can make a movie for 300 million dollars, 200 million dollars, and expect it to hit a billion. I just don't think that's the case anymore. And I think you know, this is a good example of a studio realizing that before they make the mistake and not just saying, We got one more to go, let's throw uh uh you know another chunk of change at it. They spent over a billion dollars on the last three, you know, it's not like they're not making money, but I'm sure for that type of money they were expecting some big hitters and they just haven't been for quite a minute.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, like multiple, which is crazy, multiple fast movies are have grossed over a billion dollars. And then this one, people are like, no, no more. Um, Stacy Snyder, who was a uh universal rep, like she, you know, the way she quoted it was it was when the movie came out in 2001, it was made for 40 million dollars. Nobody knew who Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster were, right? And she said, quote, it's about fast cars and girls in shorts. It wasn't designed to be a 25-year franchise. That's we should have been past Fast and the Furious a long, long time ago. So, like, Sophie, what do you like? What's your relationship or any interest in the fast franchise still? And like, what do you think again about studios putting their foot down and like re-evaluating like what it is we want to see?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, um, it's it's such an interesting thing to talk about um for what kind of like what Hollywood is targeting, and it made me reflect a lot of like what do people go to the movies for? And I was thinking about some of the bigger hits this year, and um spoiler alert, I was thinking about the Minecraft movie because I think um since the pandemic uh and you know, post that, um, I think people started to value experience and like community. Over just the content of the movie. So movies have become this kind of like gathering space for people, of very similar to a con or to a Halloween Horror Nights or to a theme park, where it's fans of the movie coming together to watch it and experience it. And you know, the Minecraft movie was a big deal. Obviously, that one got a little bit out of hand. Um, but it's it's a funny movie. It's not necessarily a good movie, but it's fun and it's an experience, and people want to go to experience it. Another one that I was thinking about was actually uh Eric, you mentioned it, but the K-pop demon hunters, they brought that movie into theaters to do a sing-along. Um, and people were craving that's what people wanted. They, yeah, they love the movie, they want to see it again, but they weren't paying to watch the movie again. They were paying to sit in a theater with their peers and enjoy it with people that also enjoy it with them. Um, so I think that's something that like streaming services can't really provide, um, and the movie theaters are providing. Um, and we saw even back with uh Barbenheimer and the Barbie movie. Um everybody got dressed up and it just kind of became a community event. So I think that that's maybe the thing that um, you know, it with Fast and Furious especially, I think it's a good thing in a way of not relying on just the legacy name and just making another sequel for no reason, uh, which um Disney does tend to do also. Uh Toy Story 5 and all these other things. Not that the movies can't be good, but it's be it's relying on making good content, um, not just for the experience, not just for the sake of continuing the name in the legacy.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, you made such a good point there, and Eric caught on to that too. Is like we're going to the movies for experiences and for community. So the example that I thought of immediately, Eric's gonna be so mad when I bring this movie up. In 2024, I saw this movie, it's called Trap. It's fucking terrible. It's it's got um who what's his name? Josh Hart in it, and he just hams it up, man. He like really like dives into this character and it's so bad. But I saw it with my brother-in-law, my sister, and my daughter, and we had a blast in the movie theater, like making fun of it and laughing. And if that movie's a two, I gave it an extra half star just because we had a fun time in the movie theater. It is no better than a two because it's not a fun time, but like, yeah, people want to go see K-pop demon hunters in theaters. Eric, one big thing as far as us, like with movies, like, are we gonna quote something forever? We're gonna quote the friendship movie the rest of our lives, and we haven't really talked to anybody else that saw that movie, but it's so good, and we want to watch it again. So, like, that's what people are prioritizing now. So, Blythe, for you as well. You know, I I know when whenever it comes to like the films that you and the and and the short box watch and you guys talk about, and like just go see in your free time, we're all so busy. So, like, Eric makes a really good point. Like, you're prioritizing five or six movies. We're the outlier. Me and Eric are going to the movie theater 30 plus times a year. We we we know that we that's what we are going to do. But for somebody else who just doesn't have the time, like, how are you prioritizing? Like, you're you're not are you gonna go see the 12th Fast in the Furious film like in 2027 if this ever comes out or anything like that, you know, diminishing returns on Marvel, things like that. So, like, what's your what are your thoughts on this?

SPEAKER_03:

So, I I do love going to the movies, and uh we go, I I thought it was frequent when you but you guys said 30 times a year um that we don't go that frequent, but I would say we probably go about half of that time throughout the year. Uh but I think uh Sophie, you hit on a really good point about the community aspect because I think about uh like the Taylor Swift and Beyonce, whenever they had their tours and then they had these movies or these documentaries that came out, and then all of these girls are going and women are going to these movies just so they can sing at the movie. And you saw this with Wicked too, that where Wicked had different types of show times where it was like a singing encouraged and no singing encouraged for different movies. And I think that movies in general, as far as like the the company, like AMC and Cinemark, I do think that they need to do a better job of creating those different types of environments. And I think you see it a little bit with like the popcorn buckets or the themed drinks of whenever you're going to the movies. But what Butter and I went to um Austin earlier this year, and we went to this movie theater called the Alamo Draft House. I don't know if y'all have ever heard of it, but it's sort of like a like a for for folks who are looking at.

SPEAKER_04:

We need one here so bad. Oh, so you know, right? I love Alamo Draft House, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So it's an incredible experience where it's highly themed throughout the entire theater. The theaters themselves are a little bit smaller, the seats are so comfortable to sit in. They have these great food that you can order from and you have a waitress and everything, and they have these trays that you can like just as you're laying in your seat, you can pull the tray like an inch from your face and just eat the easiest way to eat at a movie theater. It was it was a really great experience. And I thought, like, why don't AMC or Cinemark do more of these types of settings or these types of viewership parties? And I I think they're trying. I just don't know that the movies are creating that level of demand outside of creating a real event, and part of that is on the the people who are making the movies. I think that for a lot of movies, the writing just sucks, and they haven't prioritized the writers who are taking care of the scripts and the dialogue and the sort of ad-libs that come from shooting these movies. And I think from an efficiency standpoint, uh, you know, Christopher Nolan, I think, gets a lot of praise for this, but he writes out every scene, he knows everything that he's going to shoot in that scene. Uh, there it's a very like tight budget, there's hardly any reshoots, and that's where a lot of these movies get into budgetary concerns, is because they have to, they're starting to film without a completed script. And then they have to go back a year later, whenever that it's the movie is testing poorly, and they have to do all of these different reshoots. That's costs a lot of money to bring all of those people back in. And then you have these graphics departments that they're uh it's practically slave labor of what they're paying these poor studios in order to make them turn around these massive uh just demands, as far as it, you know, graphics are concerned, and they're having them turn it around and around and and continuously building on the demands of these small to medium-sized graphic teams that these bigger companies know that they can kind of bully and kind of push around. And so it's just the whole like business atmosphere. Then I was reading a Reddit thread I think earlier this week that was talking about sort of the shady accounting that Hollywood does, where it go back to Disney, for example, where Disney will form an LLC for a new movie, and then they will rent very expensive equipment at triple the normal rate to the LLC, and so it inflates these budgets artificially, but the the movie has to pay that the LLC of the movie has to pay for that budget, and then when the movie doesn't turn a profit because they're overcharging for all of these services, what they do is they just declare bankruptcy for that movie, and then the movie loses money and then it's a failure, and it's like, well, if if all of these, if you prioritize the writing, if you prioritize the actual screenplay where the directors are, you know, going in, experienced directors, not just people you're just hiring for whatever reason, but you're hiring experienced directors that know how to run a set and know what they're shooting and know what they're looking for, then you create less amount of reshoots, and then you create a movie that can survive on a$40 million budget, which is still insane to say. But I think to go back to to circle it all the way back to Fast and the Furious, they have every right. I think the studio has every right to say you gotta cut some cash off of this. Like the gravy train is over. Make a good movie first, and it will put butts in seats where you see uh a situation where, like, I think it was the Godzilla movie. I'm blanking on like the official name, but it was the Godzilla movie from yeah, Godzilla Minus One, where they made that at a very affordable rate. They it got such high praise that it was released to the US audience. People, the word of mouth spread so much with that movie that they extended it in theater several times because of the the way that the audience was uh receptive to it. And so I think this really like a falls on Hollywood where it's like they have the shocked Pikachu face, like, who caused this? You caused this with your shady accounting, with not prioritizing writing, and then just letting direct inexperienced directors sort of run amok. And it's the whole business aspect of it, I think needs to be burned down. And then I think there needs to just study what horror is doing, because that's clearly the only I would guess category that's working. Maybe anime as well, as I'm not familiar with their with their budgets, but that that these are these different models where the story counts first, especially in anime from from what I know as like an outsider. Like the story is there and it's a really good story. So it makes it easier to make that transition into some of these other different mediums. But until they they prioritize the right creative strategies that also hold in on the right business strategies, I just think that they're just gonna keep floundering.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah. No, I mean that's a really good call out from the anime side of things. Like you you have your pulse on it, even if that's not something you normally go into, because you've got to be hearing some of the stuff people are talking about. So, you know, K-pop demon hunters in the animated side did really, really great. On the actual like anime side, you know, we've had so many different examples of this. The most recent two, the Demon Slayer movie making over 600 uh million dollars worldwide and having a really strong domestic opening. And then the Chainsaw Man movie just came out this weekend and it opened number one in the box office. And yeah, was it against weaker competition? Sure, it wasn't going against one of the top movies of the year, but the fact that it opened up at number one is really telling for how it's gonna do some of the success, and the reception has been really strong as well. So there's definitely been a lot of examples in animation where this has happened. Phil, the example on the animation side, other than K-pop Demon Hunters, has to be Neja 2, right? Yeah, which is a Chinese film that you may not know. This film that came out this year is number five all time, not animated movies, all-time grossing movie. This movie made over two billion dollars this year, and uh, we loved it. It was a great time, but that's a movie that fell under the radar for a lot of people here domestically, but uh uh animation-wise, again, Phil, that's a great example too.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and just like you were talking about Blythe, a movie that I immediately thought of that was swept under the rug. They're like, Yeah, this isn't gonna be any good. It's a it's it's one of the better animated films that came out this year. It was The Day the Earth Blew Up. It's a Looney Tunes movie with Porky and Daffy, and it's so good. And the animation's beautiful, and it is a really fun time. And I watched earlier in this year, I just threw it on, and I found myself really, really enjoy. Eric, I mentioned it to you, like I think it would be a good family movie, but that's one of those movies. And so if it seems like you know about that movie too, because it was so good, like, and they just threw it out to die, essentially. It was it was like gone, and then somebody purchased the rights to to luckily uh distribute it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I was I couldn't hide my reaction. That is so awesome that you mentioned that because I forgot about that, but that's a great example of a movie that had all the the all the aspects to to to succeed, but it was just tucked away. Um great movie. Uh and I was gonna say something interesting too, uh, that we were kind of all touching on, but um, it almost harkens back to the adaptation kind of media thing that we're talking about as well. But I think in Hollywood largely what a lot is happening is that they're trying to make um even with theme park stuff, everything is for everyone. Um, so it's kind of for no one. Um, meaning like when things are more catered to the fans and less distilled, I think it's actually more successful. Um, like the anime movies, like K-pop demon hunters, um, kind of things like that too. And um one other thing I was gonna mention, uh Lythe, kind of what you talked about with Bloomhouse and their model. Um, I know I'm a big Five Nights fan, but I always think about that as an example because I think the budget for the movie was$25 million, which is like a sneeze now for movies, and it made over$250 million. So they're just swimming in profit because they just didn't have to spend that much money. Uh it's not a terribly complicated movie, but they still had to make all the puppets. Uh, they worked with Jim Henry. There's one animatronic that had five puppeteers uh the whole time. So they're just using their money really smartly and correctly, and they're not trying to overinflate um for a movie that may not make these giant, you know, returns back, even though it did. Um, and that comes from kind of being niche enough to stick to the fans of what they want.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, 100%. So, you know, am I gonna be left hanging thinking about this Fast and the Furious uh cliffhanger for the rest of my life? Who knows? It literally ends with a car driving off a cliff. Like, is there this it's the most cliffhanger, cliffhanger that's ever happened in films. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_07:

It's a fitting way for that that uh that series to die, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_04:

It would be, honestly. It kind of would be. So we'll see what happens.

SPEAKER_07:

It kind of happened once if you thought about it.

SPEAKER_04:

What's that?

SPEAKER_07:

I was like, that kind of happened once if you thought about it. Yeah, that's that's that's uh yeah, that's uh that's true.

SPEAKER_04:

But uh yeah, really great conversation there. So uh uh well, so if you're familiar with this Blythe, you may think to yourself, well, there's only Eric left. But Nope.

SPEAKER_07:

Nope, and uh this is what we typically traditionally do each time. Um, you know, we've had a lot of great synergy going on, two great guests, but uh nope, the madness still must ensue in between. Uh, which Eric is gonna be the Eric that has his story, uh, which actually uh talking about perfect synergy is great. Uh Phil, we're gonna do this the old-fashioned way. Blythe, Sophie. This time, you're gonna come off mute. I'm gonna count down, and we're gonna just say spin that wheel. We're gonna do it in three, two, one.

SPEAKER_04:

Spin that wheel. There we go.

SPEAKER_07:

Look at that. Which one are we getting? And we are gonna get oh, it's close. Why is everything so dramatic tonight?

SPEAKER_04:

This is yellow, right? Is this yellow?

SPEAKER_07:

Yes, I forgot your colorblind. You're partially colorblind.

SPEAKER_04:

It's just greens and yellows he's messed up on.

SPEAKER_07:

Phil, what do you think I'm wearing right now?

SPEAKER_04:

Bright yellow. Okay, it's not that kind of green.

SPEAKER_07:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Alright, and what did we miss in October of 2025?

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, so we we talked about synergy with our guests, but the synergy we have is in our stories. Phil, this might be the most like crisp of four stories. Yeah, it's actually pretty crazy because Blythe brought up uh uh Cinemark specifically, and we've been talking about the movie experience. I want to continue that conversation with the fact that IMAX and Cinemark are teaming up again for more IMAX films. This partnership is going to continue, and they have expanded that partnership into a new 17 theater deal. They unveiled this on Monday. Under the agreement, there are gonna be four new IMAX systems with lasers being added in the US, uh, something in South America being actively explored, but additionally, 12 systems that are active already are gonna be upgraded uh to using the uh bigger format in IMAX. There's a lot of talk about 70 millimeter and all of these things. I'm not gonna get into the technical aspects of IMAX, I'm not gonna pretend to know, but what I do know is whenever I go to see an IMAX movie, it's kind of what Sophie talked about. It's purely an experience, and it seems like audiences these days are begging for something like that. When it comes to this deal, this is coming up to the run-up of a huge slate of movies. When we're talking about the end of the year, you've got Avatar, you've got Wicked, you've got all of these big properties. Then in 2026, we're gonna have a new Avengers, potentially a new Spider-Man, and specifically Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, which is the first film theatrically that's gonna be shot entirely in IMAX, and I will be seated. IMAX, though, it's not something you can easily get to. In fact, when they released tickets for the Odyssey a year in advance, those tickets in those limited cities where IMAX theaters are were sold out. So I don't see this being a problem that is fixed with this new deal anytime soon. But uh I do think in the next decade, with the audiences craving an experience, all of these things that we've already discussed in the landscape of movies. I do see more of this probably happening where there are those premium experiences that people are willing to pay for in the movies while your every uh everyday average family isn't going to see these movies. There are many people that are willing to spend top dollar for those experiences. So I want to open up the conversation to everybody here to talk about one, the IMAX experience. Have you gone to it? Is it something that you enjoy? What is your experience there? And is premium viewing at the theaters something for you? If you kind of think about theaters in the last decade, we got trays, we can sit our feet up, the seats are leather, some of these seats move with the movie. Like, what are your experiences or thoughts on that premium uptick in the movie going experience? And uh, Phil, I'll throw it to you first before we give it to our two guests on that, because I know we're very similar uh since we go to the movies very often and how we feel about it.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, so we are Cinemark people here in in Jacksonville, primarily because the IMAX, the AMC, and the IMAX uh experience in Orange Park and Regency sucks. They have not updated the seats at the IMAX at Regency. It is still like the classic, like foldable uh movie theater seat. It is insane. We saw Interstellar there recently.

SPEAKER_07:

We did see Interstellar. Movie was great.

SPEAKER_04:

Movie was outstanding. Screen looks fantastic, but we were so uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_07:

What was worse? The seats at the IMAX at that Regency or the seats at the Los Angeles?

SPEAKER_04:

So five Sofac Stadium Stadium. It's close, man. It's really close. And those were equally like bad experiences, but at least we didn't watch the Jaguars lose by 50 uh when we went to IMAX. That's right, we just saw a fantastic movie. So, yeah, and I also, you know, funny enough, I saw Fast 9 at that IMAX theater. Uh, because they were showing a preview for Jurassic World Dominion. Those all ended up being terrible experiences across the board. So, yeah, so we're Cinemark people here. I'm pretty sure Cinemark or uh Jacksonville Cinemark is not on that list, right, of IMAX theaters, if I had to guess. I don't think Jacksonville is going to make the cut here early on. But I will go, I will spend an extra extra money to go to the XD showing at Cinemark. It's something that I value, it's an experience that I value um when it comes to those franchises and those movies that I really, really want to see. But um, yeah, as far as like an IMAX experience, like I have had that experience, but I feel like I haven't had the true one, right? Like we would have to go to an Orlando or or a Tampa or something along those lines. Like our buddy Ivan down in Orlando, he has an AMC theater he goes to. That's his theater. He goes sees stuff at IMAX all the time, and we're like, well, I don't want to go to Regency or Orange Park, so I guess I'm just gonna miss out on the IMAX experience. But yeah, those films specifically, like, yeah, are we am I frustrated and really worried about Avengers Doomsday? Yeah, but would I go see it in an IMAX theater? Absolutely. Same thing with the Odyssey. I would definitely want to go see that in how it was made to be seen. Um, but yeah, like Blythe, you were talking about like the movie theater experience. Like, it's crazy we don't have a Alamo draft house here or a studio movie grill, which is what we had in Dallas. There's also one in uh Orlando, and it is more of like a traditional restaurant dining experience, but in a movie theater. So it's uh, you know, the the menu is a little bit more um akin to like a nicer restaurant. So we should I I would love to have that here. You know, I'd pay a little extra money for that too. But um, yeah, it it's it's really exciting, and obviously we want to see this expand out to more, but yeah, I'll pay I'll be paying that extra money, man. If if it means to getting getting experience as far as like how the filmmaker wanted you to see the movie, like, yeah, I'll I'll pay it.

SPEAKER_07:

So and uh why don't we throw it to Blythe first?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so I I would add that I don't know that I've ever truly seen an IMAX movie. It like uh Phil, you mentioned uh Regit C AMC is my home theater. That's the theater I grew up going to. Um I still have a soft spot for it, even you know, when their AC is not working properly and the ceiling is kind of falling apart. It's just you know why is it sticky?

unknown:

Why is it sticky?

SPEAKER_03:

It's the theater that I grew up going to, and so when we do go see movies, um that that's the the theater we go to, unless it's like a Tensiltown type situation. Um, but I do agree. I I think that theaters need to cater to the audiences uh in a little bit of a different way. And like I said, I think that they're trying with the different marketing promos, uh, the popcorn buckets, the drinks, and sort of bringing that all full circle. But I can't help but wonder that, you know, I don't know if any of you have been to the sphere in Las Vegas, but that is such a unique viewing experience where you feel surrounded. I so for folks who don't know, they they have residency programs or like I think the Backstreet Boys just played there for like a month straight and had really like record numbers. Um, lots of artists will play there, um, like musical artists will play there, but they do have a daily show that runs that's like a nature type documentary. And it's incredible to see like these giant elephants and giraffes, and you literally have to look around you to it feel it, you feel like you're there. You feel when the camera goes into the ocean, you feel like you. I held my breath for like a half second. I was like, oh wait, I'm that's it's not actually real. And so when I think of what the experience of going to see that show at the sphere, and then I think of like the Alamo Draft House, and then I saw this video just yesterday of these people that were in a bar and they were watching a game, like uh LSU was playing, and they had the screen make it-I don't know how they did it, but they made it so you felt like you were at the game. I was watching the video of the fans watching the game, amazing. I thought that they were actually at the game and it was just some incredible seats that they had, but no, this was a different experience for sports fans to go and sit at the bar and get that viewer format. It I like you were at a real game. And so, between everything that you guys are talking about, I think that there's maybe like a happy medium where you can do a little bit of like what the bar is doing with watching sports games, because sports fans, you mentioned it earlier, Phil, they're kind of getting priced out of going, families are getting priced out of going to those games. Uh, the movie theaters, the traditional experience, I think is kind of on its last leg. And so maybe there's something that can be done with all of these newer experiences that can be like this sort of the newer movie going experience, and you can kind of pick and choose of what experience you would like to have.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and what you're talking about, Blythe, is as I was actually going to bring it up as well because there's one in Dallas, and we thought about going while I was visiting last year. It's called Cosm, and it is, I'm gonna share it here. Um, so I'm trying to find a good photo of it.

SPEAKER_07:

Um let me go back to Is this the is this the one where that you show all the time for the wrestling stuff? Yep.

SPEAKER_04:

So if you guys can kind of see this picture here, so this is this, it's a huge screen, and people are watching it as if they're like at the sport the actual sporting event. And you do have to pay like a you know, a pr not, I don't want to say hefty price, but it's cheaper than going to the actual game. Um, but like experiences like this, I think, are gonna pop up a lot more. Um, so I'm very excited to hopefully get one. Uh, I would assume it will probably be Orlando, would be the first city to get it here in Florida. But there's a couple, I know there's a couple in Dallas, I think there's one in like California, but like, yeah, people like these um experiences. Hi, Sherry. Uh these experiences are things that people are gonna start seeking out, you know, if they can't actually go to those specific events. And the dome. Man, yeah, I mean the sphere. The sphere uh in Las Vegas. I I've only been to Las Vegas once, had a miserable time, but I want to go to the sphere. I want to go check out. I would have loved to check out the Battery Boys, but I'll go check out something else that looks really cool.

SPEAKER_07:

Let's do it. Let's do it. Uh Sophie, what has your experience been? Uh, have first of all, have you gone to the sphere? Also, uh, your movie going experience, like what has your experience been? Have you been to IMAX? What do you think of the premium formats uh and some of what we've been talking about?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, um, so no, unfortunately, I've not been to the sphere. I've been keeping up with all the cool stuff they put on it. Um, it's been crazy, all the different um again, anime stuff, all kinds of collaborations going on there. I think the Fortnite had something else there too. Um, so that's been pretty interesting. But uh no, in terms of IMAX, I was kind of reflecting on it, much like uh Blythe, I can't really recall a specific, like sensational IMAX experience to my memory, uh, if I have done it before. But I will say that something that I believe it's coming out in IMAX that I can't wait to see for next year um is Project Hail Mary, um, which is this the sci-ye sci-fi movie uh based on a book by the same writer um of The Martian, Andy Weir. Incredible book, amazing book. I I tend to not read uh fiction as much as I do like non-fiction, but wow, that one had me completely engrossed. And Ryan Gosling is the lead, um, and the sense of humor is there, the sci-fi cool science fiction is there. Um, I can't wait to see that one in IMAX, and I think it will uh be super awesome. Um, but yeah, in terms of the premium uh kind of viewing experience, um naturally I'm gonna reflect it back to our earlier conversations where people crave experiences and kind of community in that way. Um, but you see this increase uh in all spaces, not just movies, but particularly there, where people really crave like kind of an immersive experience. Um, but not and not only just like, I mean, of course, like the the visuals and the sound, that's the biggest thing in a theater, but I think people really want like almost more dedicated fan events. I think that might be interesting for a movie theater to lead in of like you know, opening night, but they might have like uh well I had um I live near Winter Park here in Orlando, and we have a really nice Regal cinemas. And uh for a time that I was pretty frequent at the Barbenheimer summer, uh I went very frequently to the movies. I had like their um service that's like unlimited watches, and they would have themed drinks and snacks for the movies. And you don't really see that everywhere, but I think that stuff like that um could be really great for the movies, and I would definitely pay for that. Um if one of my favorite, you know, movies come was coming out of a franchise or uh Project Hail Mary where they had a weird alien drink, I am definitely purchasing that. Um, especially if it's uh a dedicated fan event where you can talk to other people who've read the books, or maybe people who haven't read the book but are really excited and have theories of what's gonna happen next. Um so the the short of the long there is I think dedicated fan events um or times or spaces for people to geek out a little bit more. I think people really crave that. Um, and I would definitely um pay for for such thing.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm so excited for Project Hill Mary. Go ahead, Blythe.

SPEAKER_03:

I was gonna say, real quick, as as Sophie, as you were talking, I it brought me back. I don't know if y'all ever went to any of the the short box viewings at Sunray when they would have like the Marvel movie and then they would do the podcast like right afterwards. I think that that should be almost like instead of like a book club, like a movie club, where everybody could watch it together and then all talk about it together. I I love that that type of format. So more like community-driven uh aspects. That is awesome.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, that's such a good idea. Yeah, now what now we'll have to drive down to Corey in Tampa to go to their sun ray uh and do it there. Since he likes to remind us, Eric, all the time that you know he's got a sunray in Tampa. Every time. I'm surprised he didn't pop in to this recording and tell us I'm at sun ray right now.

SPEAKER_07:

Like he's probably riding a bike.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, he's out riding his bike, he's out cycling right now at the moment.

SPEAKER_07:

So yeah, yeah. No, but that was all that was all really great. I figured it would be a nice cap to the conversation. Uh, and again, it's one of those things that I know a lot of movie lovers are really wanting to see, especially those that are willing to go to a movie or two a year in that premium format. Uh, Phil, I mean, there were so many different movies that we would have loved to see in IMAX this year. Sinners, uh, one battle after another. Like, there were definitely several films.

SPEAKER_04:

Sinners is re-releasing an IMAX. I know. I'm not gonna go sit at the Red Regency. I'm not gonna go do it. No, yeah, no, no, we need to. I'd rather drive to Orlando to go watch it if I really wanted to go see Sinners in theaters again. I'll just uh just watch it all.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, yeah, that'll probably be the plan for the Odyssey. But uh, yeah, that was my story. Um, and luckily, there is no wheel, there's no more horses, no more fish, no more. More draws. More visions. Our stories are finito. However, we are now in the section before our game.

SPEAKER_04:

I gotta cancel this Wall Street Journal uh uh subscription.

SPEAKER_07:

I can't believe you did that. I wonder we want to be mindful of time. So uh this is our didn't make the cut section. Where if there's anything at all that you might have missed, you wanted to quickly throw out, we don't have to necessarily get deep into it, but we will throw them out there for our audiences if you had anything that didn't get covered in the main stories today. Phil, of course, I do a Discord roundup, but I know you may take some from there. So, did you have any that you wanted to highlight before I give it to Blythe and Sophie?

SPEAKER_04:

No, not really. Um, we are we kind of touched on the K-pop demon hunters thing. The uh the creators do not want a live action, which is good. Um, really upset that Ubisoft canceled a post-Silver uh Civil War um Assassin's Creed game where a former slave hunted down Ku Klux Klan members. Uh that would have been a really good game. Um, and then Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4. You know, we're still hearing like rumblings that maybe it could happen way down the line, but there's a whole lot of politicking and stuff that goes on behind the scenes. You know, who knows if we're ever we'll ever see it, but those are the only the uh the only other things that kind of came up over the last month.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Blythe, did you have any quick headlines that you wanted to throw out there for this uh segment?

SPEAKER_03:

I I did just one quick one. It was around the topic of mystery boxes or just mystery shopping in general, and how much I think it's sort of taken over a lot of the the retail experience where you're, you know, not just like trading cars where you open those up and it's a surprise, whatever's inside, but you know, a lot of different collectibles are are taking this route where you can buy a package and it's a mystery character inside. Um, I'm also working on a story for my my podcast, Everything Is Logistics, where we're talking about Le Croissant, which is like uh I don't know if I'm even saying that right, but it's like a fancy piece of cookware that's like a generational thing. You kind of pass it down, but they've um sort of really uh honed in on the mystery box atmosphere. So for folks who don't know, they have these shopping events where they have this excess inventory and they travel around all over North America. I think they have some even some shows in Europe where you pay to get you pay for a ticket to get into the building in order to buy like limited edition uh cookware and it's all themed and it all looks different and uh it's all you know, sort of limited edition. And so if you pay to get inside, you also have the opportunity where I think they have up to like a hundred different mystery boxes, and so you can pay the additional like$100, and these women are and men too, of course, but mostly women, um, they buy these mystery boxes and then they leave the store and they go out into the parking lot. And in the parking lot, they're all opening up their mystery boxes to see what they got. And a lot of them are really, really good. You're getting hundreds of dollars of gear of cooking gear and one single like mystery box, and there's all this like you know, additional like sort of secondary economy that's set up because people are trading in the parking lot or people are mad because they didn't get certain things, and um, it just uh it sort of brings me to like a a different experience. We've kind of been talking about you know, experiences with like going to the movies, but even like retail shopping, I think, is experiencing kind of the same thing where you have to like the only retail stores that are successful right now are like a TJ Maxx or uh some of them like the more discount stores. I'm blanking on the you know a couple of Marshalls, yes. And so the the thrill of the hunt. Um, that's why thrift stores are also, you know, just growing in popularity because the thrill of the hunt, the thrill of finding something. And I think that sort of just taps into like us just as a society collectively wanting more out of things that we've been doing our whole lives. And so the novelty is kind of worn off of like going to the movies or going shopping. How can we spice it up a little bit? I think mystery boxes and like just mystery uh purchases in general, I think, are really succeeding in in that area.

SPEAKER_07:

Phil is the resident Pokemon guard guy. I got the more comic guy.

SPEAKER_04:

And this is the one I wanted. I got it at second in Charles, and it's after he got attacked by a Dilophosaurus. I have no idea what you're referring to, Eric. I never would um commit hundreds of dollars into cards. Just trying graveyard.

SPEAKER_06:

This is all cards.

SPEAKER_04:

This is this is all my my excess.

SPEAKER_07:

That's so I know you will occasionally do the blind box or mystery bag thing or mystery box thing. Is that something that you do enjoy as well? Or is it just like an occasional thing where the Pokemon and the Lorcana cards, that's something you're kind of into for collecting. But is there what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_04:

It depends on the thing. So, like this is the Jurassic, like obviously this is the one I wanted, but like I would have been happy with any of the things in Jurassic. It's not like the the the boo-buchase or things like that, you know. I want to find like the Eevee ones that are out there in the wild as well, and I haven't seen any of those at conventions. So yeah, it's something like if I see something that I I have to be like, I I would be okay with any of these things on the box because there are those stores out there. I'm surprised we haven't gotten one of the dedicated stores. We have like kind of one at the avenues, but it's not full-on mystery boxes. But I it's only a matter of time before we get one here. My question is because you're talking about Blythe, all like the kitchenware stuff. How far does this go? Like, what if it's is it gonna be like appliances? Like, man, I really need a fridge, and you open it up, you're like, I already have a washer and dryer, and you're like, you just keep stacking appliances. Like, how far are we gonna go with mystery boxes? Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it's funny you mentioned that because there was one uh they've had amazing marketing from this, like social proof, because everybody is filming their reactions, filming, you know, opening up the box, it's sort of you know, unboxing, but the in real life, or I guess with real uh whatever everything's real, whatever. Um, but everything's real and nothing is real at the same time. But there was an event that was in Cleveland, I believe. Same company, same event, and people paid uh about a hundred-150 bucks for this mystery box, and they got like a butter dish, and they were ready to riot because they did not get they saw all of these other cities get all of this great stuff, and then they come to Cleveland and it's just they get nothing and they're so bummed out, and so it created the the opposite reaction to it. I just find it fascinating that there's like you know, just a bunch of people in a parking lot after buying cookware and they're just ready to riot. And I every other city has had great marketing, but that one city, the comments on every single Lake Poisson, like uh social media post after that, they had to limit the comments because people were losing their minds.

SPEAKER_04:

Want to know what you have to hear us say about this here, Sophie, but Blythe, uh Eric, as sports fans, maybe that's what Cleveland deserves. I don't know what to tell you. So uh so what do you think about what do you think about the mystery box craze if you bought into this uh as far as um whether it'll be a cut event at a convention or a mall or or wherever uh it may be not I have to say not not really just because I I tend to like I tend to like physically responsible like responsible with my money.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, see I say that I say that because I I used to do a lot of like the Disney pins, um like collecting uh back in the day, and I there were so many really cute like attraction ones, and they're all good, but I have my favorites, and I think uh I've had a couple disappointments where it's kind of turned me off generally from taking a risk on something if I'm not like total if if like you said if I wouldn't be happy with any of the options, so personally I tend to stray away from that. However, uh when we talk about card games and things like that, um I think uh you know, with media that I like, I just got into the one piece card game, and as soon as actually um our friend Kendall, um Kendall V, who's a cosplayer, she kind of got me into it, and I immediately was like, Oh my gosh, I need to collect all my favorite characters, and there were these little, you know, the little um the individual card uh packages that are like five, eight dollars. I'm like, that's easy, and I was like, Oh, this is how it happens. This is how it happens, is just one more try, one more try, and you're like, Oh, this is actually maybe gambling a little bit. Um, but the besides that, I think with uh especially with things like aesthetically um that you're like displaying or things like that, I think I tend to stay away um from trying because I would like I like I'll see one that I like and I'm like I really want that one. I wish I could just buy that one.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, that's the thing, is I could have just purchased the Pokemon card that I want by now, but it's about the chase, like you said, like it's about open ripping the pack and opening it up and finding the one that you want. And that's how I started too. I was like, oh, so they re-released like the original 151 Pokemon and they redid the artwork and all that stuff. They did it a couple years ago. I'm like, oh, I only want that, and then that got it a little harder to find. So I was like, I don't know, I'll buy I'll buy this pack too. I'll see what's in in there. And now whenever I find one, I'm just like, yeah, I'm only gonna pay retail for it. Then I go to a convention, I'm like, I'll pay like a little bit more for this pack because I can't find it anywhere. Like, and here I am, uh Eric in debt. So that's how that goes.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, that's how that goes. Uh, Sophie, did you have any uh backup stories or anything we didn't get to? Uh, any headlines you want to quickly throw out there before I do our last call for Roundup?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I had literally my last little bit, um, because I I combined kind of my two ideas. The last thing I was gonna mention was the existence of Tron Ares um and that whole thing, uh, the the marketing around it, the the plot, um, primarily what what I personally was gonna talk about. I did not get to see the movie, but more so the um ironically the legacy of Tron and Tron Legacy and kind of bringing back the franchise and how we've you know the direction that that they're going with it, and people keep making jokes about they brought Tron back just to put it back in the cave for like 20 more years. Um, and then of course to tie it back to theme park stuff. Um, I you know, I I really like Nine Inch Nails. I was really excited about that soundtrack, and they brought it into, I'm sure you guys have heard about it, but they brought it into the Tron light cycle run ride at Magic Kingdom. So they actually changed, you know, Aries is all red instead of blue. Um, so they actually changed the attraction to match that. Um of course, just like with lighting and stuff, nothing crazy, but the bikes and the canopy turned red with the new soundtrack. And I thought that was really neat, especially because they had some a little bit of weird um marketing surrounding it at the beginning. Uh you know, it leans a little AI, leans a little like future techie, but maybe not in the way that we wanted to from Tron. But I think the theme park uh overlay was really successful and really neat. So that was just just the existence of that as a chapter in the Tron book.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, unfortunately that chapter included Jared Leto, and uh, you know, wherever Jared Leto goes, we don't. Uh unfortunately, probably uh probably a nice guy leading his cult in his free time. But as far as as far as Tron goes, I did ride that at Magic Kingdom. Uh the same week I went to Epic. We had Magic Kingdom on the itinerary. Uh, a lot of fun, a lot of fun. So I could only imagine with those changes, it's slapping even harder. But that was a uh a great, great ride. And uh it's been a great ride. Before we do our game, for what did I miss? I'm gonna quickly run down our Discord roundup. Uh, these are stories in our pop culture news channel and our Discord. If you want to join us there to continue the conversation each and every month, I'm gonna throw out the story.

SPEAKER_04:

I have a uh um to no, I have something to offer for this because usually you read it off and then you say, Does anybody have anything to say about these 15 stories that you just read?

SPEAKER_06:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04:

So I know you condensed them now. So I say, How about um we you read off the headline of the story and then you go to each of us and we just say one sentence about that story, even if it's like I don't care or I have no idea.

unknown:

All right.

SPEAKER_04:

We'll go in the same order every time. We'll go Sophie, Blythe, and then me. For great keep it simple.

SPEAKER_07:

Great. Uh, and if you want to also go silent, that's fine, because I don't know that anybody else cares about this first story. Okay. So we're gonna start in the gaming wor uh world. Uh, if you played the game prototype, there is a remake uh remaster that might be happening soon. I know me and Phil are big fans of the game. So, Phil, one sentence, what are your thoughts? Let's fucking go. Okay. Blythe, Sophie, anything at all? Nope. Yeah, didn't think so. That's okay. Uh Claire Obscure Expedition 33 is a big game that came out this year. It's getting free updates with new dungeons, enemies, bosses, and costumes. A lot of people that enjoy the game are excited to dive into more of the world. Phil, will you be jumping into more of it since you still haven't beaten it?

SPEAKER_04:

I was gonna say my sentence is I'll beat it eventually.

SPEAKER_07:

Uh Blythe, do you have any idea what this game is? Because Bodder does. Has he played it? No. He got mad that we hadn't done an episode yet, so I'm assuming so.

SPEAKER_03:

What does the game look like? I've probably seen it.

SPEAKER_07:

It's French.

unknown:

Oh.

SPEAKER_06:

That doesn't explain it at all.

SPEAKER_04:

No, was that not a good that was like? It looks very Final Fantasy-esque. So, like presentation-wise, there's bigger.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, I've probably seen it. Yeah, I think I know what game you're talking about.

SPEAKER_04:

I probably walked by him and there's a character in there that looks strangely like Robert Pattinson, but is not voiced by Robert Pattinson. Yeah.

unknown:

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04:

It's actually Charlie Tox, interestingly enough.

SPEAKER_07:

So Blind said it's seen it. Maybe. Okay. Uh Sophie, what about you?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh no, I'm not familiar with the franchise.

SPEAKER_07:

All right. Uh, next one.

SPEAKER_04:

This you asked for this. I'm loving this, honestly.

SPEAKER_07:

Next one. Uh, Microsoft recently increased the price of Xbox Game Pass uh up to$30 a month. If you don't know, this is essentially the Netflix of games, so you don't own any of the games, but you get to play a lot of the releases. 30 bucks a month, though, is quite an ask. In fact, the subscription site for cancellations broke down the same day this news got announced. So people did not respond very well. I personally still have Game Pass. I do still see some value, but it is diminishing what we used to call the best deal in gaming. Phil, uh, what are your quick thoughts?

SPEAKER_04:

Uh, thanks for the reminder to cancel.

SPEAKER_07:

Crazy. Uh Blythe, any thoughts on a on the Netflix subscription game version?

SPEAKER_03:

This just proves PlayStation superiority. So that I've always been a PlayStation girl at for my entire life. Shout out to the PS2 that just celebrated the 25-year anniversary this week. Uh, but yeah, PlayStation superiority.

SPEAKER_07:

There we go. Shots fired. Sophie.

SPEAKER_01:

My sentence is Nintendo doomed us all.

SPEAKER_07:

That's right. We we don't want to pay$30 a month, we want to pay$90 per game. So exciting stuff. Um, although I heard, you know, that some of the games were Donkey Calling this year, game of the year contender. Uh, not Jurassic World Evolution 3.

SPEAKER_05:

That's not true. That's not true.

SPEAKER_07:

Uh, talking about the PlayStation, Halo campaign evolved, has been uh announced to be releasing on the PS5 in 2026. So if you ever wanted to play Halo on the PlayStation, that is coming. Phil, what does this world come to?

SPEAKER_04:

Uh yeah, never thought I'd see the day. That is what I will say. Crazy, crazy.

SPEAKER_07:

Blythe.

SPEAKER_03:

The console wars have officially ended. PlayStation 1.

SPEAKER_07:

That's true. That's true. Okay, Sophie.

SPEAKER_01:

It has never been better, uh, better time to own a PS5.

SPEAKER_07:

There we go. Uh, talking about PlayStation, uh, they have quietly canceled their PlayStation the concert 2025 tour after there have been troubles in the European tour. If you didn't know what this was, essentially you were gonna get to hear a lot of the great music from PlayStation games in concert. Uh, but that has been quietly cancelled and uh was confirmed this month. Phil, I don't think that was ever something you were gonna see. Thoughts?

SPEAKER_04:

Bummer, but yeah, not gonna piss uh I looked into the pricing and not worth it.

SPEAKER_03:

Blythe, you going to concerts for games? Uh for PlayStation, yes. Uh, I actually looked this up whenever uh because Botter and I went to Newark Comic-Con and I was asking like Chat JPT, like what's what's some events that are going on this weekend in New York? And there was a play the PlayStation concert was mentioned. And then when I clicked on it to try to go and see what tickets are looking like, uh the it was a dead link, it redirected, you know, I think to the main PlayStation website. I was very bummed. I was like, well, I guess they just canceled the concert. Uh, but I tried, I did try to go to this actually.

SPEAKER_07:

That's crazy. We would have never known that, Phil. This might be a good format. Uh Sophie.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, that that's kind of sucks because I I actually just went to the One Piece uh Orchestra Symphony this Saturday, and it was an incredible experience. Um, my fiance was not has not been familiar with the IP, and he was moved by like the music and the experience itself, again with the community and all that stuff. So I think it's it's a sad, it's always sad to miss like uh you know a community event like that, especially something like a like an orchestra or symphony.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, me and Phil found our way through some connections to help out uh the local uh Jacksonville um community uh with the uh promotion of the Naruto Symphony, a show we have never seen, but we enjoyed, we enjoyed the symphony quite a bit.

SPEAKER_04:

Um, 16 sentences, Sophie, Jesus, kind of like yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07:

There was one long one more just a run-on. There was no break.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know, I almost she's right. I almost called out my commas there, but no, you don't have to do that.

SPEAKER_07:

No, she's she's right. Uh now in the world of film, and this is where we'll wrap up, just a couple stories. Uh, if you're a fan of aliens, Sigourney Weaver had recently confirmed during a New York Comic Con panel that she had a meeting about playing Ripley in one of these alien sequels recently with either Fox or Disney. With Alien Romulus coming out, it would have been funny to see a Ripley cameo. That seems something that would happen in 2025. Uh, nevertheless, didn't happen. Don't know if we want to see it, but Phil, we had just had Alien as our late to the party episode this month. So, any thoughts on hearing that news?

SPEAKER_04:

Ripley comes back. You are welcome. It was us.

SPEAKER_07:

Uh, Blythe, did this mean anything to you?

SPEAKER_03:

It would had I seen the original movie. I've never seen it. I'm sorry. Uh, but I do know that Sigorni Weaver's character is like widely regarded as like one of the best female characters of all time, and that is why I still want to see it, but sadly I have not seen it.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, no, that that's fair. Sophie, thoughts.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that's awesome. I think that would be that would be fantastic and kind of a love letter to the fans.

SPEAKER_07:

No, you're definitely right about that. Uh, love letter to the fans. I don't know if that's gonna be this next story, depending on how you feel about Johnny Depp. He is reportedly in Final Talks to play Ebonese or Scrooge for the Christmas Carol that Paramount Pictures is doing. This comes at the same time that Robert Eggers, the director for Nosferatu, is doing an adaptation of the same story with William Defoe, which is gonna be such a different movie. And these two movies may collide in 2026. It's gonna be a big year for Depp coming back, maybe returning as Jack Sparrow, rumored. There's also another film that he's tied to. So I don't know if you have any thoughts about the return of Johnny Depp, but I threw it out here for us to quickly talk about. Phil, you go first.

SPEAKER_04:

I just watched Spirited on Apple TV if you want to watch a modern-day Ebenezer Scrooge.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, Spirited is pretty good. Blythe.

SPEAKER_03:

I would absolutely see both of these movies, and I I welcome the return of Johnny Depp to the movie screen.

SPEAKER_07:

There we go. Sophie.

SPEAKER_01:

I prefer the Muppet's Christmas Carol over any of those.

SPEAKER_07:

You cannot go wrong with that one. You're going with the classic. Um, what's becoming a classic is a movie that came out this year, it seems, because a lot of people are enjoying it. It's called Weapons, and I'm solely doing this as a reminder to myself. I didn't get to see it in theaters. It's finally streaming on HBO Max. If you know about this film and you enjoyed it, say it. If you don't know what this film is, that's okay too. Phil, I know you know about it. I don't think you're ever gonna see it though.

SPEAKER_04:

I I might be able to thanks to the jump scare website, and I know when those big jumps have, there's like three or four of them.

SPEAKER_03:

Blythe, I know for a fact this is not your jam. I just opened up the website for it. No, absolutely not. Like, even just the images on the Google preview. No, I am not watching this. I am Xing out of this.

SPEAKER_07:

This might be one of the times, Phil, where I make the edit to someone who's not talking because Blythe was just like, oh god, Sophie.

SPEAKER_01:

I've only seen the promos and much like Blythe. It's a little I I like my spooky, I don't like my very scary, so it's probably not for me either.

SPEAKER_07:

Fair enough. Uh, I don't think this movie is for anyone. Uh, so I really want to get through this as quickly as possible. Uh, Jim Carrey is in talks to lead a live actions Jetsons movie, uh, Colin Cavarro to direct. Uh who asked for this? I don't know. I'm a hundred percent sure this is movie news that will be dead in a few years and we'll just forget it ever happened. Phil, thoughts?

SPEAKER_04:

Yep, you you already stole it. No one wants this.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh Blythe, you a Jetsons fan? I I am a Jetsons fan, but and I'm also a somewhat of a Jim Carrey fan, especially back in the day, but I I I'll I'll I'll wait to reserve judgment.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, you gotta see that trailer for Sophie.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I think Jim Carrey peaked at Eggman, and I thought that would be his last role. Um, then he said he would retire after. So that's intriguing.

SPEAKER_07:

I think he said that for three Sonic Press tours so far. So yeah. That's what he said. Um, as far as a movie that we actually do like, me and Phil are big fans of a movie called The Mitchells versus the Machines, and the sequel is in the works from Netflix and Sony animation. Uh, it is a great film that's on Netflix. If you like K-pop Demon Hunters, you like the animation style, well, you might like Mitchells versus the Machines. A little bit more of a family story there. And Phil, I know you're a big fan of it. So any thoughts about the sequel finally happening happening?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, a franchise that deserves a second go-around. Very excited.

SPEAKER_07:

Uh Blythe, is this a movie that has entered your radar at all? I've never heard of it. I'm sorry. Okay, too many people haven't. Sophie, what about you?

SPEAKER_01:

Incredible movie. Love it. I think there's never with all the AI development stuff, there's never been a better time for that movie to have a sequel.

SPEAKER_04:

It's super so hard on AI too. It's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07:

It's gonna be so good. Uh, and then our final, final story, of course, has to be something about Star Wars. Does anybody care about this anymore? I don't think so, but I'm gonna bring it up because the discovery of the unrealized hunt for Ben Solo film has shaken up Star Wars fans over the last week. And recently, the person who had been in charge of writing that story, Steven Slauterberg, uh, the brains behind the project, he revealed that the decision not to green light that completed script was a first for Disney. Typically, they don't say no to those things, and apparently they just couldn't figure out how he comes back to life in a way that makes sense. Maybe a smart call, Disney, but Adam Driver seemed interested to return. Phil, I know you don't care, so just let me move on to Blythe if you're okay with that.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, I was gonna say if we want Adam Driver to reprise that role, just get him back on Saturday Night Live.

SPEAKER_07:

Yes. That was the best version. Blythe. Uh any thoughts about that? And we always asked what is your relationship with Star Wars? You can extend it a sentence or two.

SPEAKER_03:

I I would say that Star Wars is definitely one of those franchises that was in sort of the top three for me. It was, you know, sort of Lord of the Rings and then Harry Potter and then Star Wars. And for a while, uh Star Wars and Harry Potter were kind of competing with themselves, but I whatever. I Star Wars is just so disappointing, as is with a lot of their releases outside of Andor, which I thought was one of the the best TV shows I've ever seen in my life. Like I would put that probably in my top 10 of all time. Um, but outside of Andor, I just don't think that Disney has done much that's very impressive. Uh, The Force Awakens was uh something that I felt that they could build on a lot, and then they just completely ruined it without having a cohesive creative team to lead that that trilogy. And I I think we'll forever be wondering what if. But I like Kylo Ren. I like the character. I think they they could have done something special. They definitely could have brought him back, considering that they brought Palpatine back for the 17th time. Uh, but I I I know you said one sentence.

SPEAKER_07:

It would have just been like he returned. It would have been fine. Somehow Palpatine returned. Yeah, no, that was perfectly said, Blythe. Uh Sophie, uh, same thing. Uh, any thoughts on this story? And what's your relationship with Star Wars? You can extend it as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I I'm I'm a big fan of the property and kind of like the legacy that it's had, the original trilogy, uh, the prequels. Um, I think in recent years, of course, uh shared state sentiment is just kind of um quantity over quality. And I think it's just been uh kind of like our Fast and Furious conversation. Uh I think Star Wars is more egregious in the way of just getting stuff out just because the name that will sell, regardless of what they put out. And I think that because it's been kind of going on for so long, people are starting to push back on that. And maybe that's why there's a little bit more resistance, and hopefully, um, we always we can always hope that they will start to change that into quality over quantity.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, 100%. I think they did they learned that lesson between pretty much fumbling two major franchises in Marvel and Star Wars trying to do the same thing. So hopefully uh Disney has learned, but I don't know if they're gonna make the right decision next. So maybe it's just one bad decision leading to another. As far as our Discord roundup, that is it, Phil. Uh, which means we have to end our episode with a game that I'm very excited for us to do. So I'll let you take it over from here.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, so Blythe Sophie, you will need your phones for this final part as we're gonna be doing a Kahoot. Uh as I pull this up here, and I'll get the PIN number for you guys to join. Can everybody see this? Okay, uh here's the pin number up here. You can either go to this website or scan the QR code. If you need me to make that. Oh, look at that. Learning new stuff all the time. All the time. So you'll bring you to a website, you'll put in your name. Uh, you could use a nickname. Eric will probably be using a nickname. Uh, then you pick your you customize your character. And uh as we get everybody set up for those audio-only listeners, definitely suggest you switch over to the YouTube side of things to see this portion of the get of the episode, but I will do my best to uh describe what is happening here, and of course, I'll keep the scoreboards updated. We have bikes, you have uh BM and soup. Alright, perfect. I know who bikes is. Um Bikes! Uh so yeah, Blythe, um, you know, uh you you've mentioned multiple times uh throughout this episode that horror isn't necessarily your thing. Uh it is spooked over, so there is a specific theme to this in this Kahoot. I apologize. So we'll see we'll see how this goes. Uh Eric, uh, because it is spook themed, it means maybe your favorite question doesn't pop up here uh this month.

SPEAKER_05:

Thank fucking god, dude.

SPEAKER_04:

Uh yeah, so there are um uh uh Sophie, you've done Kahoot, right? We did a Kahoot with you before, or did you still do Jeopardy?

SPEAKER_01:

I think we did Jeopardy together. Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Have you, Blythe, either you, the either two of you, have you ever done a Kahoot before?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, but it's been a while. Okay. Same. It's been a while.

SPEAKER_07:

And if it if it makes it easier, you can stay off mute for this whole game. Uh so that way you don't have to worry. Because you'll be you'll be on your phone connecting the whole time. So don't worry about it. So we'll take yeah, we'll take care of all the other stuff. Yep. So we'll mute you when you're not there.

SPEAKER_04:

There are a couple of different question types here in this Kahoot. So there is multiple choice, there's true and false. Uh, there is pin your answer on the photo. There is a um there's a slider in which you will um, there'll be a set of numbers that you'll have to. So like the question will be um, God, what's the question? How many Star Wars films are there? And then it'll be like a number between five and ten, and you'll slide your number based on whatever that answer is. And then the very last one is tiles, which is where you will put things in order. I'm pretty sure all the questions I have here in order is about release dates or something along those lines. So very, very simple. There is a time limit for each question answer. Uh, you get more points the quicker you answer, and of course you have to answer the question correctly. But uh very easy, and there are 12 questions here this month to wrap up our episode. Everybody, ready?

SPEAKER_00:

Ready. Yes.

SPEAKER_04:

Ready. A Kahoot. By the way, for it, by this by the way for it podcast. What did I miss? October 2025. Here we go. The first question is multiple choice. We have a quiz. Which horror franchise takes place primarily in the fictional town of Woodsboro? Is it Halloween? Queen, Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street, or Final Destination. Which horror franchise takes place primarily in the fictional town of Woodsboro? Alright, two people got it right.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

The answer is Scream. It sounds like Eric maybe got it wrong.

SPEAKER_07:

That was a guess. That was a guess.

SPEAKER_04:

Alright, there you go. Alright, Blyth in the lead with 828 and bikes at 741. Sof got it raw. Soup got it incorrect. Alright, there is our scoreboard. Alright. Next one, I believe. Type your answer out. Which movie is this? A photo will slowly appear. Type out what movie it is on your screen. Uh on your uh in your phone. What movie is this? I typically say spelling is important, but like if you can't spell this, concerns.

SPEAKER_06:

Um no. Oh no.

SPEAKER_07:

You got 10 seconds.

SPEAKER_03:

I forgot.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

You probably blank this in theaters.

SPEAKER_04:

Probably didn't blank this in theaters.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh. Yeah, that's what it was.

SPEAKER_04:

Alright, the answer is Saw. Who put Jigsaw? I'm the only one? Did you put Jig Did you who put Jigsaw? Oh no, I just needed the name of the movie, not the name of the character. Yeah, no, that's Eric moves moves into the lead, so five to a rough start, but you can make up ground here pretty easily in Kahoot. Alright, next question is a slider. How many kills does Jason Voorhees have across the Friday the 13th franchise per a 2024 Game Spot article? I made it relatively easier this month, Eric. 155 and 165. What is you do get points for being close as well. So uh feels right. Anywhere between 155.

SPEAKER_06:

Why'd you pick this? Because it was the one for the article.

SPEAKER_04:

I was like, that's my favorite. Alright. The answer is 163. Who put 162? You should get points for that.

SPEAKER_07:

I think that was two of us, right? Just me? It's me. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, both of us. There we go.

SPEAKER_04:

Alright. Alright. There you go. On the board. Alright. Bikes is still in the lead with 1768. Uh we got Byte BM in second, and Soup is on the board with 136.

SPEAKER_05:

Yay!

SPEAKER_04:

Alright, next question is just a puzzle. So you put these things in order. Put these whoops, that didn't really remove that. Put these Tim Burton movies in order of their release. And the order of their release. So we have Corpse Bride, Frank and Weenie, Beetlejuice, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. You do have a little bit of time to do this one because these ones are a little bit more difficult. But the four movies are Corpse Bride, Frank and Weenie, Beetlejuice, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. What order did these release in?

SPEAKER_07:

Oh no. I'm gonna I'm it's the first two I'm not very confident. Alright, two people got it right. Damn. Two people got it right. It was Beetlejuice. Oh yeah, it was Beetlejuice first.

SPEAKER_04:

Alright. Solid, solid. Let's see some movement on that board. There we go. Blythe with uh right there on Eric's tail and uh soup now getting some points, almost to a thousand. Like I said, you can get into this, you can get back into this really quickly, especially if your uh opponents miss some questions. Alright, next one is a pin the answer. Which of these five knights of Freddy's characters is named Foxy? Sorry, Blythe.

SPEAKER_06:

I know I know this one.

SPEAKER_04:

Now look at the character, look at the context. The character is named Foxy.

SPEAKER_06:

Wait a second. Wait. Oh shit, there's two, okay.

SPEAKER_07:

I didn't notice that. Alright. Okay, I'm gonna go with what I would just assume is the one you No way you picked the other one, man. No way.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, to be fair, I asked Stefan this question, and he told how to ask him this with this character specifically, and that's the one that he told me was named Foxy. Did you send him this image? Yes, just exact image. Holy shit, man. So this one is on Stefan.

SPEAKER_06:

Me, me and me and Z both look like wait a second. There's a two.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah. That's uh that's my bad. That's fine. Uh who got it right? Okay, there we go. Soup is it? There we go. It's like from last to first. There you go. Look at that movement. There we go. Just like that. In three in a row. That's all it took. Yeah, I think you do also get points, extra points for getting multiple answers in a row. So there we go. All right. Next question is a quiz. According to Instacart, which candy is Florida's most uniquely popular Halloween treat? This was a 2023 study, I believe. Is it lifesavers, snow caps, high chew, or dum-dums? Which uniquely popular Halloween treat does Florida like?

SPEAKER_07:

I don't like that answer. Oh. The answer is dum-dums. I almost picked high chews, but I'm like, who's eating high chews like that for real? Like, you like popular popular?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07:

Also, snow caps would have made you pretty mad.

SPEAKER_04:

It would have, that's why I put it on here because nobody likes snow caps, so uh Jordan. So yeah, dumdums is the answer, which I was very surprised by. Alright, Bikes moves into the lead. We are on question six, so number seven coming up. Here's a true or false. Uh in 2017, Pennywise the Clown is portrayed by Tim Curry. True or false. God, what a terrifying photo. True or false. Alright, that is false. Yep, it does Bill Skarsgard in 2017. Alright, everybody got that right. Good job. Uh right now, halfway through the game. Bikes at 3481. Soup at 2800 even. And then right there with 2615 is BM. Close game. Next question. Type out your answer. What Halloween movie features a talking cat named Binks? What movie features a talking cat named Binx? Got two answers in. Got one more. 15 seconds left. Who is where where can you see?

SPEAKER_07:

My answer, my answer won't fit. And it's not a movie either. Yeah, I'm just gonna.

SPEAKER_04:

Alright, well, I think you're right. The answer is hocus pocus. Oh, typing in Sabrina, the teenage witch.

SPEAKER_07:

I was like, I'm running out of space. That's also not a movie, but maybe there was one.

SPEAKER_04:

The answer is hocus pocus. Alright. Look at that. Yeah, that's out of my element. Look at that. We got what is this? 25, 35 points separating bikes and BM. We got a close one here. Alright, question number nine coming up. We got another quiz. Who co-wrote Cabin in the Woods with Drew Goddard? Was it Joss Whedon, Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth, or Sam Raimi? Who co-wrote my favorite horror movie? Yeah, it is Joss Wheaton. I put Sam Raimi in there to throw people off, so that worked. But yeah, Joss Whedon uh helped write Cabin in the Woods. Excellent horror film. Then he did the Justice League. And then, you know, Joss Whedon things happened. So no moving on the board there. Coming down to the last few questions. Close game. Next one is another puzzle. Put these 2000s horror films in order of their US release. We have Saw, Paranormal Activity, the Grudge, and the Ring. So which move put these in order of their US release? Saw, Paranormal Activity, The Grudge, and the Ring. We got 45 seconds left. This one, again, it's a puzzle, so you take give you guys a little bit more time, but you do get more points the quicker you answer. We got one answer in. Saw, paranormal activity, the grudge, and the ring. Alright, one person got it right. I didn't feel good about it. The ring, the grudge, saw, and a paranormal activity. I wish we would tell me who got it. Well, I guess it does on the next screen, but I wish it would tell me here who got it right. Alright, who got that right? Oh shit. Blythe moves into the lead. Whoa! With 4,248 with two questions left. What a cru.

unknown:

Man.

SPEAKER_07:

The person who didn't know what Saw was earlier all of a sudden knows the release date.

SPEAKER_04:

Crazy. Alright, Eric, pin the answer. Which one of these fast and curious characters is named Jacob? I lied. I lied, Eric. Which one of these fast and the curious characters?

SPEAKER_06:

I hate this question every time I don't know these people. Who is it? Every month I forget to look up the characters. Who the fuck is Jacob?

SPEAKER_07:

Oh, it's with a K? Hold on.

SPEAKER_04:

Alright, nobody got it right. It's John Cena's character. John Cena is Jacob Toretto. Of course, brother of Dominic Toretto, guys. Like, come on, like, geez. Get it together. Alright. Jacob with a K, huh? One more. Yeah, Jacob with a K. It's it's kind of fitting for this film franchise. Like, they even overthought the name Jacob.

unknown:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04:

Just spell Jacob normally, assholes. Alright, one more question, guys. And it is a close race to for the listening audience again. Blythe is in a lead, 4,248. Soup is at 3,682. And Bikes, 3481. Uh BM is holding on to that lead very, like, very, very closely. This is the last question. It is a type out your answer. I'll let you guys know that. And it is uh an image is gonna reveal itself, and you're gonna have to see what movie this is. So here we go. Plight did not do great with Sauce. So um let's see how this goes. What movie is this? An image will slowly reveal itself. Again, the quicker you answer, the more points you'll receive. Alright, we got one answer, two answer, 20 seconds left. This is a film. There we go. The answer is, of course, sinners. And did everybody get that correct? Okay. Everybody got it right. Let's it's gonna come down to time. As far as who is going to win this game. So let's see.

SPEAKER_07:

I would I would like to I would like to just give the precursor. I lost a few seconds because I was typing G-E-T for get out.

SPEAKER_06:

And it might have been a little racist. And I'm sorry. So I had to do that.

SPEAKER_04:

You also didn't have to reveal that information.

SPEAKER_06:

I know, but I just felt like morally, I felt like I had to get off my team. I do feel good about it, and it might have cost me the game.

SPEAKER_04:

So, which is fitting. Alright, let's see it. Let's go to the scoreboard. Let's go to the podium in third place is Bikes. Yeah, it cost me. Second place is going to be soup, which means first participant. BM Blythe wins the October horror theme code.

SPEAKER_07:

So, Blythe, out of curiosity, uh last five years, you know, 2020 to now. How many horror films have you seen? Zero.

SPEAKER_03:

Maybe the last decade I've seen zero. That's what I thought of. I've heard it's such a good movie, and I will watch it because I've heard it's not that scary.

SPEAKER_04:

No, there's like one jump scare, and it's not even related to the actual. I'll just, it's not even a spoiler. It's there like somebody pulls up a tarp and a rattlesnake like jumps out of it.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. That's the only thing I can do that.

SPEAKER_04:

It's my favorite movie of the year. Um, it's it's creeping into maybe one of my top 25 films of all time. I love it that much. So um it's very, very good. Uh, I wouldn't see it at IMAX theaters in Jacksonville, but maybe you know if you want to make a trip somewhere else. So not reaching it. But Eric, uh another very successful um what did I miss? This was a ton of fun. Shout out to our guest. Thank you so much for joining us. Um, we want to know what you're up to. We want you to give uh you have an opportunity to let your audience know what you're up to. So Blythe, of course, let everybody know um about everything is logistics. And also, a big time of the year is coming up for the JPU here in December, if you want to talk about that.

SPEAKER_03:

That's right. Uh as you alluded to, I I host a podcast called Everything is Logistics. We've been I've been a podcaster since 2014, but this is the first uh sort of industry that I can kind of talk about where your favorite stuff comes from, how it gets from point A to B, and then also um a bunch of interviews with a bunch of different subject matter experts. So if you work in logistics or supply chain, then that is hopefully a show that you would uh like to become familiar with. You can find it on all podcast players and on YouTube. And then we have uh the Jacksonville Podcasters United, which is a local community of audio creators here in Northeast Florida. We have uh a little over 500 members that are part of our community, and we host uh two and two events each year. Uh podcast camp, which happens over the summer naturally. The name kind of signifies that, but then we also host what's called a pod a thon. So think like Radio Thon, but in a podcasting environment. And so Phil and Eric are are great. They they've come to that event every single year, have helped us host a show. Well, Phil has come, he has the the trophy in the background in order to showcase it. But you guys also do a really fantastic job. Part of the the Python is to raise money for local charities, and so the way that we do that is we have some of the podcasters show up, and if you donate a certain amount, then Eric will, Eric and Phil will both, um, hopefully both will interview you, and then we get that video edited and we put it up on the JPU uh YouTube page in order to kind of shine a spotlight on the audio creators here in Northeast Florida. We've built a community that uh we feel really proud about, and it's one of the few podcasting communities in the entire country. Um, I think like to think that we were one of the first to. So um, it's been really a great blessing. So that's happening in early December. I'm blanking on the name, but if you look it up on Eventbrite for Jacksonville Pot a thon, you should be able to find it.

SPEAKER_04:

Awesome. And the links to all of that will of course be in the show notes of this episode. Uh so what are you up to that you can share? I I know again, with when it comes to like your convention appearances with us, it kind of comes up last minute. So I don't know what you know as of right now. Are you going to like hall matter or anything like that? And also, you know, anything you want to uh to let people know that you have been up to.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, um, thank you so much. Yeah, I have my uh usual cosplay endeavors on my Instagram, Soup Ninjaha, with an underscore. Um, if I am guesting, I I anticipate and hope to uh next year, especially in the spring summertime. Uh I will update that Instagram for sure. Um, I have my um my creative business and illustrations at stardust.creative on Instagram for those endeavors, um, for theme park stuff and otherwise uh other fun stuff. But um yeah, uh keep looking forward to you know uh cosplaying conventions and this has been so much fun. So thank you guys.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it was a blast. Uh, you know, always love um introducing new people to each other and just nerding out, which is what this episode is all about. So thank you, uh Sof and Blythe. It's so it's so good to see you guys as we wrap up 2025. Um, if you want to keep up with everything related to both of our guests as well as the Way Forward Podcasts, make sure you click the show notes. You'll find our Link Tree link where you can follow us over on social media, the most important places being Instagram, TikTok, our growing Discord community, over on Twitch where we stream each and every single week. And you can find a video port uh video of this uh podcast on YouTube as well. Like, share, and subscribe. If you want to support the podcast, you can head on over to your podcast player of choice, specifically Apple Music, Spotify, give everything as logistics, and the Wayforward Podcast five stars because it is the lifeblood of podcasting and it's very, very helpful. Uh, and uh we very much appreciate it. But if you find yourself wanting a little bit more from the Wayforward Podcast and also maybe having a hand in the content that we create, Eric will let you know a little bit more about that before wrapping us up.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, you can go beyond with the podcast over on Patreon where patrons of the show, Briar, T3K Dow, Vintage Macaroni, Corey from the Lord of my burrito, Nick Casbaro, the author of the Vidillirium series, and Botter from the Shortbox Podcast are supporting us on Patreon in exchange for behind the scenes and early access to episodes like this one. We just wrapped up October, which means Patreon month has ended, but we'll be returning again next year with a couple more months on the calendar where you might be able to play a part in the episode selection process. We'd appreciate the support there, but all the free stuff that Phil mentioned that only takes your time is also much appreciated. Make sure to show that love to our guests, Blythe and Stu Ninja. And with that all being said, my name is Mr. Eric Almighty. That is my co host, Phil the Filipino, and we release new episodes every Wednesday for the podcast. All you have to do is wait for it.

SPEAKER_02:

This is the Wait for It Podcast.

Head Shot

MrEricAlmighty

Co-host
Head Shot

PhilTheFilipino

Co-host

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