Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
S6 EP7 | Jason Statham is one of the last true Hollywood stars, and the studio demands an IP driven franchise for the cockney, manly, muscly, martial-arts movie master.
Two screenwriters attempt to recreate, reimagine, or flat out fix, existing film franchises when 'the studio' demands...MORE FILMS! It's an exercise in creative thinking where they will challenge themselves to conceptualize, pitch, and craft a film based on the stipulations of a hypothetical Hollywood overlord. | Sixfive Media
Hello and welcome to the studio demands in an exercise in creative thinking where we will conceptualize, pitch and craft a film or series based on the demands from one of you listeners acting as a hypothetical Hollywood overlord. Overlord. As professional screenwriters ourselves and massive cinephiles, we talk movies all the time.
JIM:All the time.
T.C.:And we'd like to believe that we can meet any demand thrown at us. We will be your screenwriters for this episode. I am TC DeWitt. And joining me as always, is Jim going in reverse, Berzelik. You're always backing up.
JIM:I am.
T.C.:We so I it's a it was a a very, very ranty, angry aggravated moment from Jim. We were leaving dinner Yep. And a guy was backing up, and you went, oh, I hate people who go in reverse.
JIM:Did I say go in reverse?
T.C.:That's what you just said. You just very angrily said
JIM:That's not
T.C.:oh, I hate people going in reverse. That's not what you meant.
JIM:No. Pooh back in.
T.C.:Who back in?
JIM:It was it was very because he gave me a screwed up face look like I was the one in the way, but he's the one doing a y turn backwards into a parking
T.C.:space In a
JIM:big truck. With a dually. Not not even not even a big truck, a dually.
T.C.:Well, you gotta get out his
JIM:fat ass truck.
T.C.:Get out of his way.
JIM:Yeah. I was trying. Not fast enough. Clearly.
T.C.:You should've just paused and let him run run his course.
JIM:Yep. I should've.
T.C.:Well, it's it's I don't mind people parking head out because I get it. It's a swifter escape plan.
JIM:I mean, I guess, like, what are you escaping from?
T.C.:You never know what's out there.
JIM:I know everything that's out there.
T.C.:Which is vampires, the unhoused.
JIM:Which one?
T.C.:That's one thing.
JIM:Oh, that's all the same thing. Yeah. Oh.
T.C.:A vampire witch unhoused person. Oh, no. Change. And blood. Yeah.
T.C.:It's it's Yeah. It was it it was bad enough that he was yeah. But it's the big truck issue that
JIM:And just seeing that someone is backed in doesn't bother me. It's specifically when anyone else is there in the way waiting on them. That's it makes me crazy.
T.C.:I I'm I'm with you on that, but it's I I don't like when I see big trucks park in two spots. Like, they they just deserve it because their truck's big. That's on you. You find a parking spot that fits you. You don't get two spots.
T.C.:That's that's taking a spot away from someone who needs that spot.
JIM:I normally would, but, like, I I don't know. I guess that's a fight I I gave up a while ago. I'm I'm not gonna like, because the trucks are huge and the parking spaces here, at least, are real small.
T.C.:So you'll park on the street, big truck man.
JIM:They're they're small there too, but they probably should.
T.C.:Yeah. You hear me?
JIM:But then someone might dent their big truck.
T.C.:Good. We have a an acquaintance who, whenever someone parks like a shithead, will deliberately park, like, an inch to their to their door. Like, we'll we'll we'll strategically back their car into the spot so there's, like, six inches between doors.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Because this person's vehicle can get damaged. They don't care.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:So they will, you know, as a as a point of protest, like, oh, you're gonna park like a jerk? Watch what happens now. Good luck getting in your car. Oh, no. I got a new ding on my car.
T.C.:I wonder where that came
JIM:from.
T.C.:Yeah. There was a time where every it was a white Silverado. There's a in one of the neighborhoods I lived at out here. This d bag drove like a maniac, just ripping around, changing lanes, running red lights, and it was always this big white Silverado truck. Mhmm.
T.C.:And I never
JIM:Never caught him?
T.C.:Never caught him. I never got him. I was gonna I was gonna give him
JIM:a piece
T.C.:Get of my him. I was gonna say, hey.
JIM:Have this.
T.C.:Who do you think you are?
JIM:Then then what then where did that go?
T.C.:Well, I would wanna know. Oh. I'd say I'd say, hey. You who do you think you are?
JIM:Jim Berzelik.
T.C.:Woah. Is this is this your big white Silverado?
JIM:It sure is.
T.C.:Why are you driving like a maniac? You're gonna hurt people. I'm in a hurry. Oh, I didn't know. I'm so I'm so sorry.
T.C.:Are you in a hurry right now? Yes. I'm holding you up. You are. I am so sorry.
T.C.:Oh my god. You need to go. Get out of here.
JIM:Thank you. Oh, man. That's that's how it went in your head,
T.C.:Feel bad. Or or worst case scenario, I get my ass kicked. Just a big beefy man who
JIM:just Yeah.
T.C.:Pounds me into the dirt. Speaking of.
JIM:Speaking of dirt?
T.C.:No. A big beefy man pounding me into the dirt. Let's get to today's episode. Yeah. Jim, our amazing listeners have given us demands from studios literally all over the world.
T.C.:And you listening right now, you can send us any demand you'd like, and we will have to meet it right here on the spot. And when we reach the end of the episode, if we've done our job, we will have pitched a full script or story and story meeting or even exceeding those demands. And we when the end of the season comes, your demand could have helped us craft the script that will be greenlit by the fans for the finale. Thank you everyone who keeps submitting. Keep them coming.
T.C.:Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Today's demand comes from oh, uh-oh. I don't have any Uh-oh. I gotta know the demands.
JIM:Oh, no. No. I
T.C.:I so I had I had word searched Jason Statham.
JIM:Okay.
T.C.:I surely, we had a demand for Jason Statham knowing that's working man.
JIM:Yeah. Yep. Working man. Went to see went to see working man.
T.C.:You went to see working man. It sure was
JIM:A working man.
T.C.:Anyway, so I I wanted to do a Statham movie. So I okay. Here we go. Buster. This is from Buster at crumble cake production studios.
T.C.:Okay.
JIM:Delicious.
T.C.:Yes. This is this this is the right one. Okay. You two have said it before, there are very few movie stars left. The Rock, Scarlett hansson, Tom Cruise, and Ryan Reynolds all sell movies on their name value.
T.C.:Is that true? Yeah. Scarlett Johansson, I think that's I I don't know if I would have considered her one of the few.
JIM:She was. Yeah. Yeah. She may still be. I haven't decided if the new Jurassic World I didn't want to see I'd like, knowing that they're making more, I'm like, they're just gonna get worse.
JIM:Why would I keep I saw Dominion Yeah. And I regretted that. Why would I watch this next one? And I saw the trailer for it.
T.C.:He leans over and just curses under his breath loud enough for me to hear. I'm like, what? Does it does it look good? Yeah. Yeah.
T.C.:Enough that you said you'd
JIM:that I'll go see it. I'm it it intrigued me.
T.C.:Oh, god. Can maybe talk about directors you do not like?
JIM:Sure. But but real quick, thinking about it, like, Scarlett Johansson's in it, I don't think I wanna see the new Jurassic World just because of her.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:But she doesn't detract from it.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:She might act that might actually be a part of the reason why I want to. It it looks like they're trying to move on from the previous cast.
T.C.:Yes. It does.
JIM:And what's weird is, right, I I love all of those people, but can't can't stand them in a Jurassic World movie.
T.C.:They they missed another trick, folks. We've put it on the table before. You need to pick it up and use it. There's a dweeby guy in there who's a dinosaur expert. That should be Tim.
T.C.:Yeah. It should be Tim. Owen should have been Tim. This guy should have been Tim. Yep.
T.C.:If you wanna keep connecting but you know what? You're right. They may be moving away from the old stuff, and it shouldn't be Tim. That's on me. I'm sorry.
T.C.:I take it back. Drive away in your Silverado. I apologize. I'm sorry, Buster. We walked all over your no.
T.C.:You know what? I wanna keep going on this. Tit. We'll come back to it. We'll come back to it.
T.C.:Okay.
JIM:This episode is all over
T.C.:the place. We should we need a nap.
JIM:I think so. I think so.
T.C.:The Rock, Scarlet Johansson, Tom Cruise, Ryan Reynolds, all sell their movies on name value. And there's one guy you never mentioned, Jason Statham. We're just talking about this last name.
JIM:Were. And we're gonna talk about it more today.
T.C.:Statham is one of the last true movie stars. People see his movies because he's the man. And even better is that he's making box office gold while not being in any huge IPs. That's true. He's not Expendables, but he's not the star of that.
JIM:Nope. Fast and Furious.
T.C.:He's not. Yeah. That's right. Okay. Sorry.
T.C.:Let's finish. Let's finish. Making him even more impressive than any of those losers who need Marvel or Fast or Impossible. Hey. He's managed to be this big of a star without IP.
T.C.:But what if he was on an IP? The only time Statham was ever used to his fullest potential was Crank and Crank two. The man is a living video game character. Now now I'm not demanding you stick him in a video game IP, but you can if you choose. Okay.
T.C.:Thank you, Buster. Okay. My studio demands you find the franchise that has been waiting for the cockney muscled manly man to make a mint. The studio demands, quote, a Statham. That's the demand.
T.C.:Okay.
JIM:Alright. I You know what? I'm sorry. What was
T.C.:the name
JIM:of Buster? Buster. Yeah. Buster is spot on. He is correct.
JIM:Statham is a movie star. So I would've I might've questioned this last season or or the season before. Mhmm. But so we went to see Working Man. Working Man.
JIM:We're gonna talk about it a little bit. I did not care for it. There it is. There it is. I'm super sorry.
T.C.:Putting it out there.
JIM:But the thing I had said, I leaned over to TC and I said, all of the goodwill that the beekeeper Yeah. Earned because the beekeeper was just a ridiculous concept of a movie. Then we went to see it, and it was a bunch of fun.
T.C.:Yeah. It was.
JIM:Like, it it was dumb in places, but it but it knew that, and it was fun. Mhmm. And and I remember it being shot well. Yep. And and, yeah, it it it was fun.
JIM:And it at the time, I didn't realize it garnered a whole bunch of goodwill
T.C.:At least it
JIM:did. For for for Jason Statham. Mhmm. For basically, this sort of the same way Keanu Reeves has has garnered a career of like, hey. This is gonna be a Keanu Reeves movie, whether it's John Wick or another John Wick.
JIM:Mhmm. It's like, we're going to see this, and Keanu Reeves is gonna kick ass shooting guns and Mhmm. Punching people. It's gonna be a good time. Yeah.
JIM:Jason Statham did the same thing. And I think it's not all on beekeeper. There was a lot of steps to get there, but I think beekeeper was sort of
T.C.:Like a deciding factor.
JIM:Yeah. Yeah. Right. When when's the last time we saw a Jason Statham movie previous to Beekeeper
T.C.:Hobbs and Shaw.
JIM:Like, stood on its own in the theaters?
T.C.:I think Hobbs and Shaw, like, was just as much a Statham movie as a rock movie.
JIM:It was.
T.C.:And given the rock's track record from then from therein on
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:I think Statham was the most more reliable bet. Sure. And honestly, I go all the way back to transporter. I I I know Statham hit my radar with Snatch.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Where he is a dork. Like, he's Yeah. He's he's not a fighter in that movie. He's a bookie, a gangster. When Transporter came along, it he was Statham was great in it.
T.C.:Mhmm. So much so that I don't remember
JIM:Actually, that really was sort of the original that that what the beekeeper was, which was this is like, so my experience my experience with transporter in the theater was it was ridiculous and me and my friends made fun of it. Mhmm. But it created an experience we all love and remember. Mhmm. And thus that first transporter was a touchstone for us.
JIM:Right. We went to the second one hoping hoping to to repeat the thing, and it didn't quite do it because the second one tried to be in on it. Yeah. Does that does that make sense?
T.C.:He literally flips a car and takes a bomb off the bottom of it. Yeah. And
JIM:and and, like, the reverse corkscrew that should actually work.
T.C.:But you're not wrong. The two dialed it up, but then dialed it even further and you get cranked. And then dial even further, you get cranked too.
JIM:And so I guess Statham has been doing this for a while, but it would on all kind of camera, I feel like it had kind of fallen away
T.C.:Mhmm.
JIM:And the beekeeper felt like a return to form, if you will.
T.C.:Sure. Sure.
JIM:And I didn't realize how much goodwill, at least for me. I shouldn't speak for anyone else. But for me, the beekeeper was like, yeah. Yeah. Let's go see just a Jason Statham movie.
JIM:It's a crazy Jason Statham movie. Let's do this.
T.C.:Watch him.
JIM:And then we went to see What can I a working man, and it just it just emptied the
T.C.:bank? Yeah.
JIM:It sucked up all the goodwill that beekeeper provided, and it just was it it became a chore.
T.C.:Well, here's the here's what I've I distilled it down to. A movie musical is gonna live or die on whether or not those songs are staying in your head. Let it go. Let it go. Like, if the if there's a hook in there, that's a good movie musical.
T.C.:Even just one or two songs that have, like, that you remember. Sure. So if you walk away from a movie musical and the next day you can't remember a single one of those songs, that was a bad movie musical. I'm sorry to say. In a Statham movie, and this isn't an action movie across the board, but it could be.
T.C.:But for Statham specifically, no good fight scenes. Like, the but it's not that the fight scenes were choreographed bad or performed bad because you could see that those fight scenes were well conceived. Mhmm. They were just poorly executed in the filmmaking. The editing was bad.
T.C.:It was all shot
JIM:to Probably because it was shot poorly.
T.C.:It was and
JIM:But you could you could tell it was fought well.
T.C.:Yeah. And that's that's why that I would have forgiven everything dumb and bad about the plot
JIM:Absolutely. If
T.C.:the fight scenes had been bicycle pedals on oil fight.
JIM:Yeah. Right? Or even or even beekeeper level. Like, fine. Give us a computer room fight.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:Dodging between pillars.
T.C.:Let's see it. Yeah.
JIM:Yeah. Well, and I guess that's actually yeah. That's that's true. That is what they had. Every one of the fights stood on its own, like, conceptually.
JIM:Right? Like, they they didn't really repeat things. It was always a different type of fight in a different set piece, but we couldn't see it. Like, it was competent clear filmmaking until the action started.
T.C.:And then suddenly
JIM:And then the camera, like, got up in there like it was throwing punches too.
T.C.:The camera guy was in on a fight.
JIM:And and you couldn't see anything.
T.C.:And, actually, this is this is a good conversation to be have for what the demand is is because we are we are trying to understand what a Jason Statham movie is and and what works and what doesn't. We could again, we could paint this across action movies specifically. Action movies in general, but specifically Statham. Yeah.
JIM:Hot theory? Yeah. Jason Statham, we this might be years late to it. Jason Statham is a twenty first century Jackie Chan.
T.C.:Yeah. I an American British. Oh, yeah. That's right. He's British.
T.C.:Is he is he British? Yeah. That's his actual voice? Yeah. All this time, I thought that was a choice.
JIM:I mean, it's also a choice.
T.C.:No. I distilling down what makes state the movies work is likened to Jackie Chan movies. Like, you wanna see a good fight
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Jackie can just be Jackie. Mhmm. The the plot can be just pretty straightforward, get to bad guy to bad guy. That but there is there it's more than just any action movie. Statham comes with a charm.
T.C.:He's he he doesn't he doesn't stretch his range to be anything more than Jason Statham now in this.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:It's it's reminiscent of that nineties, late eighties, early nineties action film star that went away with when the the big muscle bound machismo went away.
JIM:Sure. Went away with Die Hard.
T.C.:Right. Yeah. Thanks a lot, John McClain. You beautiful man. The that classic era of muscle bound manly men is what Statham is.
T.C.:Honestly, I think Mark Wahlberg wishes he was Jason Statham.
JIM:And he's tried a couple times.
T.C.:He has. And I think Mark Wahlberg has had some successes career in the action movie realm, but more often than not, Wahlberg playing Wahlberg in a movie doesn't really like you know, it's not unwatchable, but doesn't I don't love it. But when Statham shows up, even in, like, the Expendables movies, I'm happy to see him.
JIM:I think a big part of it is because Jason Statham, he doesn't, but he looks like he does his own stunts.
T.C.:Yeah. And he does do a lot of
JIM:his own fighting. Like, he does his own fighting. Yeah. Like, that that that's a big part of it.
T.C.:It really is. It really is a big part of what makes him so compelling to watch is that he is capable of
JIM:Like, that is that is him throwing the fake fake punches and
T.C.:He won't be able to do it much longer because he's, you know, he's gonna get older. But as long as he wants to keep kicking ass, like, yes, please. He's, like, almost 60. He's 57, and he's still he's still good at what he does. I I like the male pattern baldness he's embraced.
T.C.:It's like it's like taking John McClain and reinjecting him with the machismo of the late like, the early nineties action hero.
JIM:So Die Hard five? No. Die Hard six?
T.C.:No. A new IP. What DieHard seven. What is the IP waiting for I'm John McClain, New York's finest. What is so to get on point here, the demand says, actually, rewind here.
T.C.:He is a living video game character. When you think of transporter
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:When you think of beekeeper, it honestly, when the hit man movie came out, it was like, why are you not casting Jason Statham?
JIM:That was gonna that was gonna be my first suggestion.
T.C.:Give him Hitman? Yeah. Well, we've seen Timothy Olafant, and we've seen can't remember his name. They did and there's a TV show for transport. Oh, no.
JIM:Hitman?
T.C.:For Hitman. Was there a TV show?
JIM:I don't know. Whatever. Agent 47. Yeah. I I like that idea.
JIM:What appeals to me about the Hitman franchise though that Jason Statham wouldn't be good for is Jason Statham is the one man army type where he will fight a bunch of goons to get it to big bad Yeah. To then have another fight. And hitman, you could do that. They did do it in the movies. It makes for a fun action movie, but I think what would make a really good hitman is actually trying to do something more spy like, something, like, really embracing the the spy element of of hitman to do it doing sniper shots and poisons and and garrotes and and stuff, and just being really quiet about it.
JIM:I I so I wanted, basically, that first notion and say, no. We're gonna we're gonna go to the next we're gonna find another one.
T.C.:Yeah. Weirdly, the opening of a working man was so James Bond esque. Like, the the
JIM:didn't have the montage of of his backstory
T.C.:Yeah. And, like of the military? Very stylized. Like, the bullets were pillars that he was moving between.
JIM:Oh. Oh, like that. Yeah.
T.C.:You could literally remove the audio and put up a Bond theme, and it would not miss a beat.
JIM:Yeah. I I think A Working Man was an attempt to be the first in a continuing franchise. To me, it felt like they just took Taken and John Wick, put him together, and then ended it in a way Yeah. A Cliffhanger. Cliffhanger.
JIM:Oh, no. I don't know.
T.C.:Sequel Sequel bait. Yeah. Not a cliffhanger. Sequel bait.
JIM:Yeah. Actually, that's true. It wasn't a cliffhanger. It had a definitive ending, but there was sequel bait.
T.C.:Yeah. Snitches get stitches. The the one of Jason Statham's one of my favorite performances from him, and it also says a lot about him willing to to do this, is the movie Spy with Melissa McCarthy. He plays, like, a spy Yeah. In this silly movie, and he's very in on the joke, and and it's a it's a good comedic turn for him.
T.C.:And that's something that Statham is good at is his his comedy chops. His timing is just as good as his action, and and he has proven some drama ability too.
JIM:So so to that end, I don't wanna make it sound like he couldn't do my idea of the taut thriller hitman. Yeah. He very much could, but that wasn't the demand. The demand was to make a Statham.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:Yeah. And that that has oil getting oiled up to fight six guys at once Yeah. Action.
T.C.:So So not not not Hitman.
JIM:And and and weirdly, think that kinda takes him out of it, I how cool would it be to see him in, an Assassin's Creed hood?
T.C.:Oh, man. Yeah. But with the exposed arms. Yeah. Assassin's Creed, Kratos, like, seeing him as Kratos Oh, like, God of War.
JIM:Imagine That could be cool.
T.C.:I'm I'm
JIM:a The the only thing is it doesn't do it's a weird so so trying to find a video game to also be a Statham is a weird one. Yeah. Because some of these do require being specific characters. Mhmm. Whereas my notion here at least that I'm picking of up of what a stathem is is ultimately, the story can kinda be thrown away.
JIM:Yeah. It's it's this bare bones thing to get us from one fight to the next, which to be fair oh, I guess that's the that was the other problem with working in because all the action scenes were so garbled cable looking fights. Yeah,
T.C.:middle of the movie, Jim leans over. He's like he's like watching scrambled cable. Yeah. And I was like, yeah. And there's no chance of us seeing a tit.
JIM:Like you said, it anything else, it wouldn't have mattered. But because the fights Yeah. Because you couldn't see the fights, that meant all you could really focus on then was the rest of the movie. Mhmm. And you really see where the the the plot of that doesn't come together.
JIM:Right?
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:So so we're, I think, complaining more about this movie we have about, like, any movies
T.C.:in Hundred plus years. Let okay. So thinking of let's let's let's dabble with video games.
JIM:Yeah. My my my point, yeah, my my my point coming coming back to it was in a Statham done right, you want to get to the action. It's about these fight scenes.
T.C.:Right. Right.
JIM:Right. Right. And who who Statham is. Right? Like, is is he, right, just a working man who who used to be a soldier?
JIM:Is he a trans like like, all these things, it it it doesn't matter. We just wanna see Jason Statham fight a bunch of
T.C.:guys. Yeah.
JIM:And so as cool as Kratos is, I feel like a lot of a God of War movie would it would have amazing fight scenes, but it would also be a lot of there would be a lot of story, which, again, Jason Statham could do, but Mhmm. That does not a Statham make.
T.C.:Right. So are you looking at, like, double dragon or street fighter or mortal karma? Or you're like
JIM:Streets of fury. Or is it Streets of Fury? Yes.
T.C.:Something like Fist of Fury.
JIM:Actually, I'm thinking of oh, my god. I can't believe I'm not thinking
T.C.:of Seedal theory?
JIM:Are you a bad enough dude to save the president? That's what I'm thinking of.
T.C.:Are you
JIM:the Is it is it bad dudes? Is it just bad dudes? Is that what I'm thinking of?
T.C.:There's dude force or No.
JIM:Bro bro force.
T.C.:Bro force.
JIM:Which he is a character. Actually, he might have more than one because they're they're always they're they're characters. Trans
T.C.:like the bro porter or whatever. Yeah.
JIM:Trans Where where are
T.C.:you trying to get to? You're you're thinking of?
JIM:I I didn't have one in mind. I was just trying to say, so story heavy video game properties wouldn't be the right way to go. So, like, fatal theory technically Streets
T.C.:of rage.
JIM:The oh my god. The Ouvee Bowl movie that Jason Statham was in.
T.C.:Oh my god. In the name of the king of dungeon siege tale?
JIM:That was a video game movie.
T.C.:That was a video game movie. Oh my god.
JIM:In in which Jason Statham's character was named farmer.
T.C.:I'm a farmer.
JIM:Because that was his job. I'm a farmer. So, right, that technically should that that should qualify as a stathom.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. The Streets of Rage is the side scroller old school Nintendo.
JIM:Just punch
T.C.:punch your way through. There's the the blonde guy. The I I no. I think video games are the right way to go, but I'm trying to think if there's anything outside of video games that he would be suited for that's just punch, punch, punch.
JIM:Right? Absolutely.
T.C.:But why mean, just nothing's coming to mind because I'm not on the spot here. But do so let actually, back up. Let's go back to fighting games.
JIM:Like Honestly, you can pick almost any job and just and we could come up with a plot from there.
T.C.:Like an accountant? Could he be could he be the accountant?
JIM:Can't be the accountant.
T.C.:Why not?
JIM:One job.
T.C.:Oh, it's a stolen job? Yeah. Someone already has that job? Yeah. Who'd win in the fight?
T.C.:Whoever this accountant is or Jason Statham? Jason Statham. Hang on. Wait. You're gonna say Ben Affleck's the accountant could beat up Jason Statham?
JIM:Jason Statham.
T.C.:Jason Statham. I
JIM:had to do all of the calculus.
T.C.:Oh, you did all
JIM:of calculus? In my head. Yeah. I I did I did the meme. The all the equations were floating in front of my face.
T.C.:Oh my god. I just thought of I just thought of a job, and then I thought of an IP. And I know I know what we can do.
JIM:I mean, the first place I went that I thought would be a hilarious joke would be Mario Brothers. He's like, I'm just a plumber.
T.C.:But it's been done. Yeah. I'm a plumber. I but I I've got something, Jim.
JIM:What do you got?
T.C.:I think this might okay. I'm a sailor man.
JIM:Yeah. The
T.C.:movie's it's Statham is Popeye.
JIM:Oh, my goodness.
T.C.:Jason Statham is Popeye the sailor man.
JIM:Popeye, a Statham movie.
T.C.:Think about it. Like
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Put a put the freaking anchor on his shoulder.
JIM:He's gotta save olive oil.
T.C.:He can wear the little hat. Yep. He's even pipe it up. He doesn't have to
JIM:do the He just doesn't have the Popeye.
T.C.:He doesn't have the voice.
JIM:The gritty reboot of Popeye.
T.C.:Is the gritty reboot. Jason Statham is Popeye, the sailor man. Keep the accents, and he's just got and it's excuses to punch and punch and punch and get to that spinach, baby.
JIM:Yep.
T.C.:Now, like, I I don't know. Oh my god. I don't know if he goes full, like, he eats the spinach and buffs up or if it's just like
JIM:That so that's sort of the thing. And and and I feel I wanna I wanna say yes just because I think it'd be hilarious to have Jason Salem as Popeye beating the crap out of sailors or whoever else. Yeah. And to to kind of, like, have all the all the different Popeye bits. However, Popeye is so cartoony because it is a cartoon.
JIM:Yeah. I like, I don't see that being included in the Statham.
T.C.:But I it's the gritty like, it's No. I know. You know how, like, SNL does, like, when Joker came out, David Harbour hosted, they did Grouch.
JIM:And then Grouchy.
T.C.:Or, like, when Pedro Pascal hosted and they did Mario Kart as the as the last of
JIM:us. Sure.
T.C.:Yeah. This would be Jason Statham's
JIM:Is Popeye.
T.C.:Is Popeye, and it's it's a Statham. Yeah. So all the Popeye pastiche is, like, is is as as as as twisted and turned around as Grouch or or or the the Mario Kart movie that Pedro Pascal. Right?
JIM:Well, alright. Episode done.
T.C.:Alright. Popeye the sailor man. So because, like, Popeye has a kid in Sweet Pea. Mhmm. You've got olive oil who's kidnapped and then Pluto as an enemy.
JIM:Yep.
T.C.:Tangentially speak tangentially from a Jenny Tartakovsky did a Popeye pitch, an fully animated a scene
JIM:Oh, cool.
T.C.:Of a Popeye cartoon ten, maybe fifteen years ago. And it's it is it would have been a dialogue less movie
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Where it would be like, Like, they didn't have
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:Clear data. So, like, speaking in simmish or whatever. And you can find the Sizzle reel short film. It's, like, three, four minutes long on YouTube. It's so good.
T.C.:And I why it just has all the right sort of comedic animated timing that it should have. He's a great, great filmmaker, and he knows animation and action and timing so well. That's just a non sequitur for a second. But, yeah, imagine Statham in a little sailor outfit rescuing and just finding someone big ass to play Pluto that he has to fight in the end.
JIM:The rock. Oh my god.
T.C.:I was more I think Momoa.
JIM:Rock's bigger.
T.C.:Rock's bigger than Momoa? Yep. Okay. So can we get the rock?
JIM:Like, I'm I'm just talking size. He's you gotta get as big of a guy as you can mountain. Wait.
T.C.:You can
JIM:get the mountain.
T.C.:The the the rock already looked like a sailor man, like Bluto in Jungle Cruise. Yeah. So we just get that outfit back on the rock and now just put a beard on him. Yep. His conquistador beard from Jungle Cruise.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:And he has to fight Statham. Yep. Now the thing is, can The Rock humble himself enough to let Statham beat him?
JIM:Yes. I I I feel The Rock's career has has pivoted in a way that he he might embrace being a villain.
T.C.:He might be okay with it. How about
JIM:I mean, I don't know if you've what what how much you follow. He became the villain in WWE.
T.C.:That's right.
JIM:He went back and he became the the He's
T.C.:the he's the he's the he's the Vince McMahon villain now. Right? Yeah. Because Vince McMahon's a bad dude in real life.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:I I was aware that. Yeah.
JIM:So why wouldn't he do it in his movies?
T.C.:Okay. So
JIM:I I I could be wrong. The Rock might still be like, no. I only do good guy stuff, and I don't lose. I don't know. I don't know if he's still
T.C.:pushing The
JIM:Rock don't kidnap women. Yeah.
T.C.:What about me? Need to like, who's wimpy then? Like, the guy who eats all the hamburgers?
JIM:Jim Gaffigan. Jim Gaffigan.
T.C.:Are oh, He's kidnapping. What? Why is he kidnapping? I don't
JIM:think he should be doing That's your Jim Gaffigan.
T.C.:Come on.
JIM:Oh. It's okay. It?
T.C.:You know when he does, like, the hype? Yeah. Oh, mommy. Why is she eating a burger again? Hot pocket.
JIM:No. It's okay. Yeah.
T.C.:It's good. I'm gonna sit over here and work on a little bit. You talk to the you talk to the listeners.
JIM:How are guys doing?
T.C.:You don't talk to my
JIM:people? Oh. So honestly, the the wimpy.
T.C.:Oh, look at me. You
JIM:I'm How do I vamp while you're
T.C.:working on a new impression? I'm working on Jim McAfee again's wimpy over here.
JIM:Stop. No. I no. Nope.
T.C.:Look. Look at me. Why I gotta eat all the wimpy burgers? Oh, what are you doing? I have a lot of kids.
T.C.:Wimpy burgers. Oh, why is he still doing it over here when Jim's trying to talk? I'll let him do the episode. Is that better?
JIM:Yep.
T.C.:Yeah. Nailed it. Alright. What did I miss?
JIM:We we finished the episode.
T.C.:We did a Statham. Me and the
JIM:He's the audience.
T.C.:Popeye the sailor man. Yeah.
JIM:I I'm lost.
T.C.:Who's Olive Oil? We get to we can get the girl who's just in a working man to be no. She's way too young for him. We need a we need, like,
JIM:No. So the reason I picked Gaffigan is because he most reminds me contemporarily of the guy who played him in the the Robin Williams one. So it doesn't have to be him. Okay. It could be else.
T.C.:We don't have to do Statham the Sailor Man if you're not you don't seem
JIM:No. No. I'm I'm into like, I don't I don't I don't know what's a craft for the movie. Like, I I feel like just naming the IP and then it's like
T.C.:Okay. Do a Popeye. I guess, like, let me you know what? I will do a moment here to like, what is a Popeye story? I've seen Popeye cartoons.
T.C.:It's been a long time.
JIM:Well, I'm but it's it's it's sort of like what you just said. Pluto comes into town, sees olive oil, like, ah, she's the girl for me. And, like, literally and she's like, no. Thank you. I have a man.
JIM:And Pluto's like, I don't care. And he scoops her up and takes her off. And she goes, Popeye, Popeye. And Popeye hears her all the way across town. It's like,
T.C.:was No. No. No. It's Statham.
JIM:What?
T.C.:It's Statham.
JIM:No. But I'm telling you what a Popeye is. Okay. Then he has to go across town. And then sometimes, a Bluto will have henchmen that Popeye has to beat Mhmm.
JIM:Before then. Sometimes, he just has to punch fish that get in the way.
T.C.:Punch a fish. Do you think it'd be go full rated r, or is it gonna be p g 13 for salty sailor talk and, like
JIM:Oh, no. R because of salty sailor talk.
T.C.:I'm gonna you up.
JIM:Yeah. Yeah. Just like that.
T.C.:Okay. What's the what is the spinach situation here? Is it is it really like he's down for the county, spinach, or is there some equivalent here? Like, equivalency. Like, are we one for wanting this?
T.C.:It's just set in the thirties in a seaside harbor town, and there's, like, an old timey dock and a greasy diner and a dangerous back alley and and everything looks vintage, but the action hits like a modern John Wick movie dipped in Sailor Grease. Like, are we doing that, or are we, like, setting it contemporarily?
JIM:That was sort of that that's that's the crux that that I earlier was was having a problem with with, like, it it's it could be too cartoony.
T.C.:What if Guy Ritchie directed it?
JIM:What I no. Even even then, but what even just the concept of even if spinach just revitalizes them, that's kind of
T.C.:Silly. It's silly.
JIM:Yeah. Yeah. And and and and so having that be, like but to not but to make Popeye without spinach
T.C.:Right.
JIM:There has
T.C.:doing that. There has to be a a thing that is equal to spinach. That, like Yeah. It's not just eat spinach and zaps up. If it's like
JIM:It's cocaine.
T.C.:Cocaine. No. So the Crank movies exist, man. Oh, Dave Bautista playing Bluto.
JIM:Oh, there you go. Yeah. Oh, that's great. And he would totally do it too. Like Yeah.
JIM:He would.
T.C.:He has the the beard and the bald head in in 2049 in Blade Runner. Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
JIM:No. He didn't have a beard in that.
T.C.:No. He had I can Yeah.
JIM:Picture him. Yeah.
T.C.:Picture him. Whatever. Yeah.
JIM:He had a goatee in James Bond.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As as a as a cue to kill.
JIM:Yeah. Yeah. Cue to kill. Yeah.
T.C.:Okay. So Batista is Pluto, and and so Popeye is retired. He's retired.
JIM:He's just Never Yeah.
T.C.:Yeah. He's got his baby girl that
JIM:No. No. He's not retired. He comes back because he's a sailor man. So he's been out sailing.
JIM:He's And he comes back to town and Pluto's taken over.
T.C.:Oh, yeah. So he's the town, there's, like, a a corrupt Pluto. Mhmm. Brutus Pluto. He has he's bought the harbor, and Sure.
T.C.:And he's running the town, and and there's and it's a drug smuggling ring. So we can okay. It can be it can be cocaine in the end or whatever that jacks him up. The the spinach is him just taking an injection of whatever drug it is. They're calling it spinach.
T.C.:Yeah. Like, it's it's in spinach cans that other, like, exporting exporting it. Yeah. And and Bautista wait. Wait.
T.C.:Wait. Is maybe okay. Wait. Is Pluto the boss or is Pluto the muscle to the boss? Like, can we have if Pluto is the muscle and not the brains of the villainous operation, then there's muscle to get through and
JIM:Oh, no. No. No. Pluto Pluto was always the bag
T.C.:Pluto's bag guy. Okay. It I don't know if that I did he ever have a single other villain?
JIM:Pluto can have henchmen.
T.C.:Yeah. That's true.
JIM:They're all running his his operation. Yeah. So there's there's lots of pins for the bowling ball of Jason Statham's Popeye to to knock down.
T.C.:Yeah. The there was another Ludo type character at some point in Popeye's history because there was, like, a, like, like, a a mistake by whatever syndicated Japanese, like, foreign company bought Popeye and, like, misnamed him or something.
JIM:Oh, yeah. But Was it Brutus?
T.C.:It was Brutus. Yeah. Okay. Yep. But whatever the case.
T.C.:Okay. So Bluto runs the town and, so Olive Oil is like, what's her role? Like, is she does she work is she, investigating? Is she like a cop investigating the docks or is she run the diner?
JIM:Yeah. She runs the diner.
T.C.:So she runs the diner.
JIM:No. She doesn't even run it. She's she's she's a waitress.
T.C.:Oh, she's a waitress at the She's
JIM:a waitress at the diner.
T.C.:With her brother, Wimpy.
JIM:No. No. No. Wimpy ran the diner, it would be out of business.
T.C.:No. No. Exactly. Yeah. He's just he's just is always there.
T.C.:Yeah. Oh, give me some more hamburgers. Oh, why you gotta always eat all
JIM:the ham? See, I'm I'm rethinking I'm rethinking Jim Gaffigan now.
T.C.:Oh, you just don't wanna hear me do this perfect spot on impression anymore. I'm this is an insult. I'm gonna be over here working on it some more. Can you believe this guy?
JIM:Am I who am I wanting now? He already kinda had the look. What what's his name? From Balls of Fury.
T.C.:Oh, yeah. Dave Fogler.
JIM:Yes. Dave Fogler is wimpy.
T.C.:Yeah. Sure. He's lovable. Who's Olive Oil? Florence Pugh.
T.C.:Too young. Like, it's gotta be someone that, like, that is in in her late forties at best. No. No. You can't have a 30 year old hottie hook up with 60 year old Popeye.
JIM:They're why? They're cartoon characters.
T.C.:No. These are live action people. Zoe Saldanha.
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:She's as thin as as olive oil. Yeah. I'm not body shaming. It's just she's a very she's a very lithe individual.
JIM:I'm telling her.
T.C.:Oh, she's
JIM:gonna be upset.
T.C.:To punch me in the face. Mhmm. She's very tough. Mhmm. So yeah.
T.C.:Oh, and she's Popeye's ex. She'll need Sabin. I don't need Sabin. I'm I'm actually, like, not using
JIM:They're not they're not no. They're they're they have trouble because Popeye's constantly going out to sea.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah.
JIM:And she's here all alone. What is she supposed to do? She needs a man who's gonna be around and can protect her. I'm around. This is real.
JIM:This is real. That's not what Dave Fogler sounds like. It is now.
T.C.:Oh, no. I'm, like, racking my brain to think if I can do anything that That's fine.
JIM:Fogler sounds more like this.
T.C.:Yeah. I'm Dave Fogler. So she they've had it on again, off again, and she's finally it's off. Like, he comes back, like, I'm back olive oil. She's
JIM:Sure. I I I don't think that I I don't I don't know that I'd say that they're off.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:Because when Pluto comes around Mhmm. Okay.
T.C.:Wait. They they've had it they've had this disrupted relationship. Yeah. He's back, and he's like, I'm staying this time. I'm done.
T.C.:Mhmm. And then she's like, alright.
JIM:I'll believe it when I see it.
T.C.:But I'll give you a chance. Let's meet for dinner tonight. And then that's when she goes missing.
JIM:Oh, no.
T.C.:Yeah. Like, she mixes it up with Pluto, he maybe she maybe she's like like, no. I'm not gonna pay your your tithes for owning the dock. This is my diner. I don't I'm not gonna be run out of your don't need your protection.
JIM:You run your spinach through my kitchen anymore. Your
T.C.:spinach. Sounds silly when you say it that way.
JIM:So And then and then Pluto can be like, you know, I've let you get away with a whole lot on these docks because because I I I have a shine for you. I I fancy olive oil.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:You you you just come be my Goyle. My Goyle. Oh, Dave Bautista will say Goyle.
T.C.:I got it better I got it better than Dave Fogler.
JIM:Okay.
T.C.:Paul Walterhauser.
JIM:Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You found it.
T.C.:Sorry. You're my Goyle. Yeah. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
JIM:No. No.
T.C.:That's okay. Me now.
JIM:But, basically, he he he basically says, one way or or one way or another, you're gonna be my Goyle. So either another. You come you come willing yeah. You come willingly One way another. That's a perfect that's a perfect David
T.C.:What David D. I forgot. Okay. Yeah.
JIM:Well, one way or another, you're gonna be my girl.
T.C.:That's pretty good. My impression rant today.
JIM:So and and so he he abducts her. Yeah. Yeah. And and trashes the diner.
T.C.:Yeah. And then and then Popeye shows up. He's like, what's going on? Wimpy's there hiding.
JIM:Like, he took oh, man. The docks are overrun by Pluto, and he's running his he's running his His spinach. Spinach through here. You can say it. It's spinach.
T.C.:What are you talking about? Show me this spinach. He, like, squeezes the can open and smell don't cringe. He he pops it open. He's like, this ain't spinach.
T.C.:It's yeah. We know it's drugs. Why would he be smuggling actual spinach, Popeye? Jeez. Just imagine him finally taking it and just like, like, goes into slow mo and he's like and we just watched that guy, Richie, like, speed up slow, speed up and slow punching guys' faces off.
T.C.:Like, once he finally start like, finally goes full tilt and kick some ass Mhmm. Seen bones just snapping out of arms. Yep. Just full stathem. We're giving you the full stathem.
JIM:The full stathom.
T.C.:The full shot into a beautiful wide as well. So you can see every bone breaking and vein bulging and forearms swelling like overinflated airbags because he he will swell. Yeah. He's all oiled
JIM:up. Yep.
T.C.:Sorry. I'm just thinking about this.
JIM:Yeah. Yeah. I I you're you're really you're very much getting into it.
T.C.:So then, yeah, the the place is trashed, and and then he wait. Like, when he first rolls into town so backing up, like, when Popeye first rolls in
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:He has his first little confrontation with docs where they're like, gotta hey, mate. You gotta pay the toll to to to port here now. Like
JIM:I don't pay nothing. No.
T.C.:She gets enough.
JIM:No. No. It has it has to be something else.
T.C.:They have to go after him.
JIM:It's not anyone going after him. It's because I think the way it needs to start is just like just like in a couple of the the the it needs to start with him inserting himself. Himself. Mhmm. Like, he's helping he's helping someone.
JIM:Mhmm. Like
T.C.:I see him shaking someone down just like we saw him in the movie last night. He he rolls back into town. He he thanks the the crew he was with. They thank him because he's so good at punching
JIM:fish. And
T.C.:then he
JIM:See you, pop.
T.C.:See you, pop. You know, and he, like Mhmm. Has the bag, and he's coming down. He he, like, goes to grab a bite to eat or whatever and sees someone getting roughed up in an alley. And he's like, alright.
T.C.:What are you doing? Leave him alone. You know? Sure. Then they, like, you know, hey.
T.C.:Stay out of it. And he's like, oh, yeah. And they, like, you're gonna see how much money you got on you. And then they come after him, and he's like, you don't wanna do this. I'm a sailor man.
JIM:And he beats him up with with his bag.
T.C.:Yeah. With the bag. He doesn't even put the bag down. He just kicks their asses. And then he goes to get goes to see about a girl.
T.C.:Mhmm. And then that's when he runs in olive oil, and she's like, things have changed around here.
JIM:Yep. That that was a perfect Zoe
T.C.:Nailed it. Well, see, this is gonna be a huge franchise, and she is in all the biggest movies of all time.
JIM:It's true.
T.C.:This makes sense. Oh my god. So then yeah. So then he has to just tear his way through the docks to get to Pluto.
JIM:Mhmm. And the the the thing is that all all of those people well, actually, the first place he goes after Pluto takes Olive, the first place he goes actually is Pluto's He just goes Hide hideout.
T.C.:Just goes right to him.
JIM:Yeah. Yeah. And Pluto's not there. Mhmm. So that's why he has now he now he needs to to bust some heads Yeah.
JIM:To find out where Pluto's gone.
T.C.:Yeah. Is he where is Pluto? Did he is he closing a deal? Like
JIM:I see. I'm still not sure how goofy, how cartoony I wanna get with it. But basically, he's gonna have to beat up a number no. You said keep it it's we're doing this.
T.C.:Go ahead. Go ahead.
JIM:He's out on an island. He has a secret island that he's out on. Mhmm. Basically, I was wondering, is Popeye going to have to fight fish men?
T.C.:Oh, yeah. Okay. You know what? Let's let's let's readjust here. Because you're right.
T.C.:The cartoonish nature of this simply being a Popeye movie, we could verge more into, say, like, Pirates of the Caribbean or Jungle Cruise where there is mystical and fantastical elements here.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Honestly, if we crack that can of spinach open, it allows us to franchise this if he's punching merpeople. It then allows him to fight the the the Cyclops in the next one. Right?
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:Like, if we if we allow this to go into a fantasy territory, it opens up for everything.
JIM:I just don't know if it's a state them anymore then.
T.C.:It yeah. You're right. Like, it it we if we go too far into Lord of the Rings, then we're in the name of the king of dungeon siege territory, and then it stops being
JIM:And even that didn't have that much fantasy to it.
T.C.:Yeah. So keeping this as real world as possible allows him to fight as many goons as possible Mhmm. And gives us that state from man on a mission fight through stuff. Okay. Let's try this then.
T.C.:The the
JIM:So it it could just it could just be it could just be Pluto's not actually at his his office there on the docks if if Pluto himself is the port master. But I don't think I don't think he would be. I think Pluto actually just runs everything from he himself is purportedly just another sailor. Mhmm. Or maybe the he's the captain of one of the ships.
T.C.:Yeah. Give giving him a ship or a submarine that would be a fight sequence. Like, if it's the the ports, so, like, if he gets on the dock, gets to the, diner and the fight has happened there, gets to Blueto's hideout warehouse
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Fights there. Blueto's not there. Then goes back to the dock, another fight there, hits the water Mhmm. Fights on the water, gets to an island, fight on the island, gets to the submarine, fight on the submarine. Like, moving him like a video game character from location to location location.
JIM:I don't know if this is an hour hour and a half. We can make it an hour and a half.
T.C.:What? This episode or this movie?
JIM:This movie. Don't worry about it. It's fine. Okay. Right.
JIM:So yeah. He gets back. We didn't establish stakes enough, I think. So he gets back. He gets in that that initial scuffle where he he shows he's a do gooder.
JIM:He he does write. He inserts himself in situations for the betterment of of the the good people. Mhmm. Goes to the diner. We meet Olive Oil, we learn about their trouble.
JIM:Pop, you're never in town. Just just because you swing by every every month or so Yeah. Doesn't mean that we're an item. It's like, oh, don't be like that, Olive.
T.C.:Dead, Olive.
JIM:And and and bay basically, like so so she is trying to say, no. We're not a thing. Mhmm. But he is charming enough that she's like, okay. Alright.
JIM:Dinner dinner tonight. Mhmm. I guess this is gonna be an an in in near real time movie. And I I don't know what we're gonna do with Wimpy, but Wimpy is there too. Yeah.
JIM:And so then Popeye goes to his bungalow or wherever he is staying. Mhmm. I basically, we just we just need a bit of time to pass now.
T.C.:So Halov can get Yeah. Get snagged by Pluto. Yeah. And and I think that there could be a twofold thing here. One, she's not playing nice.
T.C.:Like, if the if if Pluto's goons show up and say, pay. And she's like, I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. No. Get the hell out of here. So they're like,
JIM:oh, that's easy enough. That happens right before Popeye shows up.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. So then when they show up again, she's like, I already told you I'm not and then Blue walks through the door.
T.C.:It's like,
JIM:who's saying no to my men?
T.C.:No. This is Dave Bautista.
JIM:It's got yeah. You know, he's gonna he's gonna say it like that.
T.C.:So and then she's like, oh, Beluto. Like, she knows him. Yeah. So then it's a matter of, like, one, you're not paying the fee that everyone has to pay here, the tax. Yeah.
T.C.:And also, looks like you were set up for dinner tonight. I'd love to have dinner with you. It's like, no. I I want nothing to do with you.
JIM:It's like,
T.C.:I think you do. And then he's just being Sure. He just kidnaps this woman. Yep. And and then when Statham shows up, it's it's oh, they
JIM:It's game home.
T.C.:They trash the place, and that's when Wimpy reveals. Yeah. The you know, and then so she's taken, and he's just going to save a girl. Simple as that. And it's a little, maybe a little dated that, the the princess needs rescuing, but staying in we can still empower, Olive.
T.C.:Honestly, the working man tried to do that, but it mishandled empowering the kidnapped girl.
JIM:Kinda. Yeah.
T.C.:It it, like, it didn't quite go to the right lengths to to contrived a lot of Well,
JIM:that that was a part of problem with the working with a working man was they they I I had a point. I interrupted you before. I'm
T.C.:sorry. You
JIM:were saying No. No. No. You're fine. You're fine.
JIM:You're fine. What what was I
T.C.:The contriving Her Strength as opposed to, like, Beekeeper, it's a revenge movie. Or The Transporter, he was given a job that happened to include a girl and he doesn't transport humans. Yeah. And that pisses him off and then puts a target on him that now the bad guys are like, knows too much. Kill him.
T.C.:So it's a it's it's a sort of running and gunning type movie.
JIM:Weirdly and there there are definitely ways to do it, but I feel like the angle they were going, they were trying to empower her without empowering her enough to be like, well, why doesn't she get away on her own? Yeah. Ultimately, we need Jason Statham to save her.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah.
JIM:If she was able to do any of this on her own, if if she's able to get out of the bad guy's grips or give them enough trouble Mhmm. Then
T.C.:He does.
JIM:Then we don't have our our hero punching as many people. So and that's the whole reason we're here.
T.C.:Yeah. And so if Olive is a stand like, she's tough she's tough as nails, but she's at the mercy of this behemoth and his goons and maybe if he even, like, breaks her leg. Like, if she's this this this this debilitated in some way that she can't fight her way, she does need to be rescued. But just not making a straight up damsel in distress like she is in distress, but she's got enough of a chip on her shoulder that we're Okay.
JIM:She's I don't I don't need a reimagining of olive oil. Okay. Help me. Help me. Like, I realize it falls into into a pretty well trod trope.
T.C.:Right. Right.
JIM:But we're doing Popeye.
T.C.:Yeah. I'm yeah. I'm just trying to like, what's the balancing act here of staying true to the source material and also updating it for this reimagining? I I I have a tonal idea that might allow us to do more fantastical things.
JIM:What so to so to do that, all all you gotta do is she can defend herself, just not against Pluto. Mhmm. Mhmm. He is too big and too powerful. So when the goons show up, she is able to fight them off.
JIM:That is not the problem. Mhmm. But then Pluto shows up Mhmm. And, like, she tries hitting him with a frying pan and he catches him. Or he or, yeah, he takes it and then no.
JIM:It's not a cartoon.
T.C.:Go ahead. Keep saying it.
JIM:Takes a bite out of the frying pan.
T.C.:Cuticle had the the metal fingernails. Yeah. Jaws had the metal mouth.
JIM:Yeah. And and Bluto has it all.
T.C.:Blutista is just can just do whatever he wants here. The the okay. So a a tonal shift that we could use that would allow us to have a little more fantastical things that would still allow Statham Farm to be punching a lot of dudes and goons is and I hate to evoke this movie because it's not a good movie. So maybe I shouldn't say it. But, like, if you look at LXG, it is
JIM:No. No. No. I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't think we need we don't actually need to go fantastical.
T.C.:Okay. Okay. Okay. Then I I retract any any suggestion.
JIM:Right. The different groups and types of fights, that that's really more that's what makes us Statham. We need to come up with fun set pieces Mhmm. And group characters to fight in different ways.
T.C.:So I was trying to think of some sort of like submariners that he fights
JIM:That's easy enough.
T.C.:Dudes in in Scuba gear. Like some sort of
JIM:And I'd be if we're gonna set it in the thirties, it wouldn't be Scooby Scooby. It'd be the full diving diving belt.
T.C.:Yeah. So, like,
JIM:slow moving on him or Yeah. He's on his ship, his little tug Mhmm. Him and Wimpy Mhmm. Sailing out to to where Bluto went with olive oil. Mhmm.
JIM:And these guys in these diving suits come up out of the water and climb up onto the ship. Yeah. Never mind how they did it. They would but they do. And so so he's gotta fight four of these these big daddy looking dudes.
T.C.:Yeah. And they got armor on, so he can't quite, like, get a good ear.
JIM:And and a lot of lot of Clang. Clang.
T.C.:Clang. Wimpy tosses him two frying pans. Yep. The no. He actually uses an anchor and does, like, chain fighting.
T.C.:What is that? Fred does it in Scooby Doo. The the
JIM:Yeah. Well, a chain dagger.
T.C.:Chain dagger. Yes. But it's a chain anchor, and he it's a full anchor, and he's just, like, swinging it and clipping their bodies and just yeah. Yeah. That's a good fight.
JIM:No. I don't well, as as fun as that would be, I actually think him just whipping around a ship. Like well, I guess, no. If it's a if if it's a steam tug Mhmm. There wouldn't be a sail for him to, like, throw the the mast into a dude.
JIM:Mhmm. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yep.
JIM:I'm back to to chain anchor.
T.C.:And, like, maybe the last kill is, like, an oar snapped in half that he just skewers a guy through the chest.
JIM:Of course. Yep. Yeah.
T.C.:You to Davy Jones' logger.
JIM:You know,
T.C.:just overboard. Like, getting to the island, having some sort of, like, camouflaged, like, a paramilitary guerrilla group that works for Pluto Yep. And, like Yeah.
JIM:That's where the spinach is grown.
T.C.:Oh, on the island. Yeah. Where else are you gonna grow spinach?
JIM:On the mainland where everyone can get it?
T.C.:No way. Do you like the idea of Pluto having I I mean, having a big boat or, like, a mini battleship? Or, like, when you play the game of battleship, what is the little gunner ships? Is that just
JIM:The destroyers?
T.C.:Yeah. Like, they're the two the there's the two pegged ones.
JIM:That's destroyers.
T.C.:So sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So having, some sort of gunship that Statham has to get to sorry, Popeye has to And get then him and Pluto just have a throw down on this thing as it's sinking in on fire.
JIM:Sure. Yeah. Well, after he's rescued Olive Oil, Pluto would be trying to get away, and he'd be getting away on his ship. Mhmm. I'll be right back.
JIM:And he'd probably tried blowing up the island Oh. As he's getting away.
T.C.:Statham or or Batista
JIM:Pluto. Pluto will be blowing up his his his island Mhmm. To to wipe out the the evidence and so and to take out Popeye. And that that that harlot, olive oil, who wouldn't love him. So they have to get back to their tug.
JIM:Wimpy will take olive oil to safety. Popeye does something. Actually, this is probably where I'd rather use the anchor. He just needs to get close enough that he can get the anchor onto the ship so that he
T.C.:can pull Yeah. Himself Yeah.
JIM:By by the chain onto He
T.C.:takes the anchor and puts it in like a little mini cannon.
JIM:Oh, sure. There you go. It just
T.C.:boom and fires it. And then, yeah, Pluto hears the clang. Mhmm. It goes up and, like, looks down and sees the anchor. And then he's like and he turns around and pow.
T.C.:And he's already got on he already got on the boats. And then they have a big throwdown as the ship is sinking.
JIM:Yep.
T.C.:And Popeye defeats Pluto. Now there's a there's a an issue here.
JIM:Uh-oh.
T.C.:How do we franchise this? How do we make more Popeye movies?
JIM:We don't have we don't have to make more Popeye movies?
T.C.:Yeah. We can. That was the idea. Like, the demand was to create an Oh.
JIM:Oh, I thought it was just to make a Statham.
T.C.:It was to
JIM:Just to make a bunches of Statham.
T.C.:Let me let me relook. Let me let me check the demand again. I'm not demanding you stick them in a video game IP, but if you can, if you choose my studio demands you find a franchise that has been waiting for the cockney muscle demand. The studio demands us Statham. So the suggestion seems to be here that to put them in an IP that allows itself to be franchised with Statham in the lead.
JIM:Ah, okay.
T.C.:So the that's why I was suggesting earlier about if we go just a slightly a little more fantastical, it allows us to see Popeyes sailing around the world fighting villains. So you could have some sort of Mediterranean adventure where he does a nineteen thirties equivalent of Jason and the Argonauts.
JIM:Okay.
T.C.:So giving giving just that slight skew of reality allows you more cartoonish stuff.
JIM:Well, off the top of my head, the other reason Pluto tries to blow up the island is because that's where all of, his schemes have been laid out. Mhmm. So Popeye sees his his inner inner sanctum, sees the his his his HQ and sees all of these plans and all of these maps leading to all of these other places
T.C.:Mhmm.
JIM:And people who are a part of his network. Mhmm. And so he takes those plans with him.
T.C.:Okay. There you go. So, yeah, some sort of nineteen thirties high it's kinda like Tintin esque, but, you know, with a man who can punch a head off. Oh, is Statham Tintin? No.
T.C.:That that's already been done. It's Jamie
JIM:Bell. So
T.C.:then Pluto's defeated but gets away.
JIM:I'm just an adventuring boy.
T.C.:Oh, boy reporter. So Pluto gets away. It's Statham.
JIM:Oh, does he? Oh, Blue We
T.C.:could kill Pluto, but then we
JIM:Didn't didn't defeat him?
T.C.:We could we could kill Pluto in the end. It's like, we could totally kill Pluto and then
JIM:I think Pluto goes down with the ship and it's assumed that he was killed.
T.C.:Yeah. Like, just if he just pull like, this if the movie is such a success that we can contrive a reason that Pluto survived, like
JIM:Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. He he had a a would they have tanks of air back then? Yeah.
JIM:Yeah. He he
T.C.:We already saw scuba men, so he just have a hose.
JIM:Yeah. And that's how he survived in his sinking water.
T.C.:And he does a Frankenstein. Yep. There you go.
JIM:How did you survive? I did a Frankenstein. I did
T.C.:a Frankenstein. Sorry. It's it's it's Batista, so it's Yeah. He's very he's very soft
JIM:about it. Your Dave Batista is very much like Harrison Ford.
T.C.:It's true. Dave Batista is a lot like Harrison Ford.
JIM:It's true.
T.C.:You heard it here. In a lot of ways.
JIM:You heard
T.C.:it from Jim. Okay. Statham the sailor man. This is what we're gonna do. We're gonna take a break.
T.C.:We're gonna come back, and we'll do another Statham. Okay. Because I don't think we've exhausted Popeye, the the Statham man. Right?
JIM:I think so.
T.C.:I mean, that's fun. I I had fun doing this, I just don't I I don't know. Well well, we could take a break here and then discuss if we if we should delve further into it. But I'm I'm willing to take our five and then come back and and see where else we go with a Statham.
JIM:So Okay.
T.C.:We'll be right back after these messages from six five. If you hit skip, it's just thirty seconds or sixty seconds. You'll be fine. Or listen. It's fine.
JIM:No. Listen. Listen
T.C.:to the ads, Okay. Listen to the ads. Fine. Alright. We didn't, didn't say it, but, in that final fight, Popeye finally, like, inject himself or take the spinach to just amp himself up to fight Pluto so that he is super Popeye?
T.C.:Because we gotta we have to spinach it up. Right?
JIM:Oh, you want I guess that could be the third act thing.
T.C.:Yeah. That he finally like, let's let's see what the fuss is about. And he takes it to, oh, shit. Knock. And he just, you know, beats the shit, like, goes super saiyan.
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:Okay. There. Did it. I just realized we'd never did the spinach moment and Mhmm. Just be in the finale there.
T.C.:Did not expect to hijack the entire episode from you
JIM:from No. No. No. That that that's fine.
T.C.:Okay. But let's let's let's back up here and because you would you didn't realize it was supposed to be the demand asked for a franchise. Mhmm. Do any did any come to your mind in the in the break as we were sitting here?
JIM:So I don't know if you know this about me. I'm a big fan of zombies.
T.C.:Hell, yeah. I'm aware.
JIM:I don't think we've never seen Jason Statham. And and I know I said, oh, Statham doesn't really have weird stuff. Yeah. I think zombies could fall in such a state that it would actually work for a Statham.
T.C.:Okay. Yeah.
JIM:And trying to do a video game franchise. I mean, I would love to just invent an entire Statham zombie franchise that is its own thing.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah.
JIM:But in lieu of doing that, the two zombie games that jumped to my mind that I could see Statham in. Now a part of it is I'm not as familiar with these games as maybe I should be.
T.C.:Okay.
JIM:One is dead space.
T.C.:Oh, okay. He
JIM:is the janitor that Okay. He's fighting all of the zombies on this space station.
T.C.:So he has himself a zombie alien.
JIM:Yep. Or dead rising. He is Frank Frank stone Frank something is the the name of the the photographer in Dead Rising.
T.C.:Oh, yeah. I'm a photographer. We know. Jesus.
JIM:And and in that game, you assemble weapons. Right? Like, that that had the the double the double chainsaw Yeah. Bow staff type
T.C.:of thing. Weapons.
JIM:And so he could Jason Statham totally could turn any random thing into a weapon.
T.C.:Yeah. Like, going to it's a mall in Colorado and it's just it's it's the it's no has no association whatsoever to George Romero's No. No. No. No.
T.C.:Because that says on the box.
JIM:Well, because that was in Pennsylvania.
T.C.:That's right. Completely different. But Frank having Stapleton be Frank West showing up as a photojournalist and then fighting his way through zombies zombies for ninety minutes? Yeah. Well, because there's a ticking clock.
T.C.:He has to get he has to get back to the roof to get out of there.
JIM:Sure. Well and because there's gonna be people he has to save. Yeah. Yeah. Around the mall.
T.C.:And he just gets to beat the crap out of zombies?
JIM:Yep. Yeah. Okay. And I mean, they turned that into a franchise. There's more than one
T.C.:That's true.
JIM:Dead rising.
T.C.:My my favorite achievement in the first dead rising is so when the when the when the game starts, it tells you the city, something Colorado, and the population of the city. If in the time frame, you can kill the population total of the city, you are you unlock an achievement.
JIM:Okay.
T.C.:Because that game, like, you can restart the game any time you want. If you don't die, you can choose to restart the game with all your safe slots. Mhmm. And and you just have to keep starting the game over with more more experience, like more XP. Uh-huh.
T.C.:So you can you can take the three days you have in game time to just mode. And the best way to do it is to get a car, go into the parking garage, and just do donuts for three days straight and try to kill 30,000 people. Zombies. Put them out of their misery. Anyway, dead rising is not bad.
T.C.:It's having him fight and punch his way through the undead. I'd I'd watch that. Like, that's there's something to that.
JIM:Particularly, again, I don't I don't think dead rising has this. Were I to make a Statham zombie movie Yeah. Which again wasn't what was asked, but I could franchise way easier, make my own idea. Yeah. There would there would basically be unique zombies.
JIM:There there there or let's steal a word from Attack on Titan, aberrant. There are aberrant zombies that aren't just mindless shufflers or even runners. There are ones with, like, bits of personality and, like, and they do so. So those would sort of be characters.
T.C.:And in dead in dead rising, there are crazy humans that that exist in the show. Clown guy that's taken over the freaking amusement park and they're like, and he's got the dual chain saws. Nice. So you could fight that guy. Yeah.
T.C.:There are enough villains. Those people you're saving are so dumb. Some of them deserve to be eaten alive. Come on. I'm paving a path here.
T.C.:Just stick with me. Here, take a gun. You don't run out of ammo. That's the that's the hack.
JIM:That's the trick?
T.C.:You give them guns. Give them the guns. They don't run out ammo. They accept they are freaking useless.
JIM:Honestly, that works for a Statham. Jason Statham is kicking the shit out of zombies left and right. And the person in the background, every once in a while, like, kacha. And I think you they would be effective shots. Right?
JIM:Sure. Sure. But they're only once in a while, and they're clearly not enough to to keep the zombies at bay themselves, which is why Statham has to be here.
T.C.:And and having it the ticking clock, the three days get to the roof to get as many people out as possible on the helicopter. Yeah. You got stakes. You got you have and and the fact that I don't know. I've never I've only played the first Dead Rising, so I don't know if Frank West remains the main character.
JIM:I think he I think I the what I know about Dead Rising two, I think he does. And I think the story, like, gets more serious and, like, there's the whole countryside. Basically, I remember I remember watching a friend play, and there's this there it's a it's a it's a cutscene to get you to to the action, but you get, like, you get grabbed by a road gang. Like like, they've gone they've gone insane. The the leader's gone insane.
JIM:Mhmm. And he hates you, and he throws you into this pit where all of these I think it's at first, it's you have to fight zombies Mhmm. And you beat them all.
T.C.:Oh my god. The
JIM:and the gang it like, the the gang leader's mad about it. So gang members then come into the pit and and you have to beat them. And then the the the the big the the the gang leader jumps into the pit. Mhmm. You have to beat him.
JIM:And if I remember right, it cheated because you beat him, but then it goes to cut scene where he beats you.
T.C.:Oh, no.
JIM:Knocks you out. Oh, no. And the story continues from there.
T.C.:Alright. Frank West is in the first three games at least. He is the main character of the second one for sure. It sounds like he's one of the playable characters in in three. I'm just checking.
T.C.:Doing it quickly. Yeah. The the oh, yeah. And he's the main character of the fourth one too. Yeah.
T.C.:Jason Statham killing zombies through a dead rising franchise.
JIM:Unfortunately, I don't know more about Dead Rising to pitch, like, what the the story of the movie would be.
T.C.:Well, I it seems to me it's it it and correct me if I'm wrong, dear listeners, that it seems to me like Walking Dead or the Romero universe that it's zombie apocalypse has happened, the world has fallen, and the humans who have survived are just as dangerous as the the zombies. Sure. And it's just moving yourself through the through the landscape of this horrible nightmare and surviving against all odds and giving Statham an excuse to punch dead walking dead as well as the, like, gang leaders and motorcycle gangs along the way. Yeah. That's that's yeah.
T.C.:I I don't know if there's much more to it than that, like, story wise.
JIM:Me me neither, unfortunately.
T.C.:So, yeah, dead rising. I think that's a good good Statham. How about Pitfall?
JIM:Honestly, that was another one on my list. And I think do letting Jason Statham be a punchicizing Indiana Jones Yeah. Would be great.
T.C.:To have him just, like, running through the jungle, jungle punching dudes.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:I mean, hell, go let's just go all in. Punching Nazis in the jungle. Sure. Like, just state them is Indiana Jones. Mhmm.
T.C.:Like, even if the even if the preview of it was, like, you know, you see the the leather jacket going on and the hats and, like, building up to it and then, like, turning and be, who are you thinking? Who'd you think who are you expecting? Right? Like like, who
JIM:are you? Harry. Name's Harry.
T.C.:Pitfall Harry. Punch. Punch. Punch. Punch.
T.C.:Yeah. The Super Nintendent Super Pitfall was one of my favorite games on the Super Nintendo
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:For how elastic and bouncy rubber ball
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Animated they did Pitfall Harry Junior.
JIM:Nice. He's like, why can't I think it was PlayStation. They they did they did a new Pitfall, and Bruce Campbell
T.C.:did the Oh, yeah. Harry. Perfect. Yeah. That's great.
T.C.:I I I it's a it's an Indiana Jones running through the jungle, punching things, looking for an idol. So there's not there's a story to be had there. Mhmm. You see, you'd mentioned Dead Space. Now if if it's zombies and zombies on a space station.
T.C.:Right? Like, it's it's
JIM:alien space. Everyone has died. The one person who has survived is the main character who I'm to understand is the janitor.
T.C.:Mhmm. Mhmm.
JIM:And and he has to cobble together weapons, like different guns in in in that game to defeat the crazy zombie aliens.
T.C.:The the Alien zombies? The aliens they're yes. The I'm trying to remember. I've seen I did watch my one of my friends play it. Planet Crackers?
T.C.:Was that the name of the ships? Like, the
JIM:I'm not sure.
T.C.:There's just, like, they were harvesting resources because Earth was, like, had a resource shortage. That's what the whatever the case. Yeah. The the zombies in space. Yeah.
T.C.:Yeah. I think that's actually less interesting than Dead Rising because the sci fi element of it.
JIM:I you're you're not wrong. I thought it would be neat to see Jason Statham punching zombies Yeah. On a space station. Yeah. Okay.
JIM:And and right. The the excuse me. The the the the job kind of fit his his thing. I'm I'm just a janitor.
T.C.:I'm just a
JIM:janitor. I just wanna survive.
T.C.:The
JIM:And but he's also gonna know all of the nooks and crannies of the space station.
T.C.:Okay. Here's a here's another pitch for a game
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:That would have Statham just tearing through people and punching and kicking their asses, shooting, stabbing
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Using some enhanced weaponry that he gets along the way. Sure. It's a timeline where Nazism has not been eradicated following World War two, and fascist undertones are present. Mhmm. And they were in this game when it came out in '87.
T.C.:And the the game actually, like, got rid of the the the final boss battle is a giant Yeah. Hitler Yeah. With a snake head. Yeah. I'm talking about Bionic Commando.
JIM:Oh, you weren't talking about the game I thought you were talking about.
T.C.:The guys are.
JIM:Wolfenstein. Wolfenstein.
T.C.:Oh, not bad too, but I'm talk talking Bionic Commando where he's got he's got a grappling gun hand that you that Yeah. And and the Bionic Commando is working his way up That's right. Through the map of, like, tearing through Europe to get to their their ultimate weapon, which turned I played this game. This is an original Nintendo game.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:A friend got got rid of all of his cartridges. I got them. And and I played this one because it's one of, like, those classic best of games Yeah. Of the era. You can't save.
T.C.:If you die, you start over. Yeah. And that's a hard game. Mhmm. I got to the second to last level.
JIM:Oh.
T.C.:And at the end of every level, you get a new weapon that you can use.
JIM:Okay.
T.C.:Like little additions to your character. At the end of the second to last episode, you are given a specific gun that you must equip before you go into the final battle. I did not know that. So I went into the final battle without that weapon, and you can only beat the final boss with that gun.
JIM:Oh, no.
T.C.:And it's not like you can die and choose that. Once you've entered the level, if you die, you just start that level over again. So there was no way for You can't rechoose. You cannot rechoose. So I was stuck.
T.C.:I must have played and survived fighting giant headed snake Hitler for like half an hour before I finally just said, I beat the game. And I just turned it off, and I never went back.
JIM:Wow. I made it to level two. Oh,
T.C.:yeah. It's a tough game.
JIM:A part of it was I made it to level two and then it wasn't as much fun Mhmm. Because the fun to Bionic Commander to me was swinging around on the arm. Mhmm. Mhmm. And at least that level didn't really let you do that.
JIM:It was like it had very low ceilings, and it was like, ah, how do you play the game without the arm? Like, I don't. I don't. I turned this off. I'll just play the first level again.
JIM:End of game. So it's it's weird to say that I only ever played that first level, but I loved that game.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. Behind the commando gets a World War two Jason Statham. Guy Ritchie can direct that one too. I think Dead Rising has the most heat in what we just pitched, like throwing games out there.
T.C.:I think having, like, having writing a Jason Statham dead rising adaptation of just the first movie where he's going through them all and following the beats of that game.
JIM:Yeah. And I think and and then if we didn't follow the rest of the game franchise, if we just pulled a resident evil here
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:Hope. I think that'd be easy enough. Right? Like, so the people he gets out on the helicopter, he gets out on the last one as well. Or maybe he doesn't.
JIM:Maybe that's sort of the cliffhanger of it is he's the last one left behind. All he has is a walkie talkie and the zombies are closing in. He's like, I'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah.
JIM:And that that's that's how we leave our hero. Like, the next one could be the the group that had him rescue those people. Mhmm. Like, hey, Frank, we need you to go into this other area. And over here, there's these people are
T.C.:I'm just a British lens photojournalist. Why am I doing it?
JIM:Well, my guess is actually they'd reach a point where that's actually just his cover.
T.C.:Oh, he had a life before he was a photojournalist to explain his inexplicable fighting skills.
JIM:Yep.
T.C.:So, okay, so he he's brought into the into Colorado town, the isolated town. He hires a chopper to fly him there with nothing but his camera and, like, a and his, like, a duffel bag full of protein bars because he's gotta stay small.
JIM:It it doesn't have to he he doesn't necessarily have to have hired them. He could've he could've
T.C.:Well, in the game, he hires them.
JIM:Oh, oh, okay.
T.C.:Yeah. He's like Ah. He's like, come on.
JIM:I'll be I'll be quiet. You you you educate me about this
T.C.:So he because he wants to get the scoop. He will Sure. Like, it's there's this city's been shut down, and no one's allowed in. So he he gets in the and they he they land on the roof, just as the military is setting up a perimeter, and then all hell has broken loose.
JIM:Gotcha.
T.C.:Yeah. Like, hard r, extreme zombie dork. Yeah. And working his way through. He just wants the scoop, then he he reluctantly has to start saving people.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Because he's got the skill. So yeah. Drop him in.
JIM:Right. Again, don't know enough about the game, but my first inclination is he thinks there's a government cover up here, and maybe there is. Yeah. But, right, he reaches that point where it's like, these people these people are gonna die if I don't help them. Mhmm.
JIM:So I'll get the scoop on the government covering this up and I'll rescue people.
T.C.:Yeah. Because he he he would befriend some of the survivors already. So it's like Otis, I think, the janitor who's the the man at the computer kind of thing
JIM:Ah.
T.C.:Who, like, gets on the walkie talkie and says, hey. I see two guys in the shoe store. Can you go save them? Goddamn it. There's, like, psychopaths running around the mall that are just they have like, in at night in the courtyard, if you get stuck out there, there's, like, this rock music that kicks in, and there's these people who've escaped from the prison on a Jeep with a gun on the back of it.
T.C.:Of course. Just tearing ass dude.
JIM:Just driving through the mall. And
T.C.:then the zombie outbreak is tied to government experiments
JIM:Oh, okay.
T.C.:And unethical meat production.
JIM:Mhmm. And,
T.C.:yeah. And then he yeah. He gets up. And so your suggestion of not following the two. I think the biker gang idea that gets thrown in a pit and has to fight.
JIM:Yeah. I don't know enough about that story to know yeah. That that could be put in there. I I was just thinking it doesn't have to always be this Colorado town. I don't know if the all the sequels take place there.
JIM:Like, it could be like, oh, the zombie outbreak went to the next town. We need to send you to Salt Lake City. Yeah. And, like or you need to go there from where you're at, like the movie the the sequel since franchise could pick up from there, I really feel like the like, there are people who've played these games that are screaming at me right Yeah.
T.C.:They're like, no. Yeah. I'm sure I got some facts wrong too from, like, because it's been a while since I played it. I still have my hard copy of the game. It's one of the, like I have, like, maybe 10 games
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Xbox three sixty games that I've kept because I've never beat Dead Rising, but damn, did I play the hell out of it. Yeah. Because it's just it's a cool like, it's an endless game.
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:There's endless zombies. Yeah.
JIM:Not unless 30,000. No. They keep they keep you said you can kill the town.
T.C.:Can, but they keep you can kill the total of the town.
JIM:But there's more.
T.C.:But there's always regenerating
JIM:more. I see.
T.C.:And, yeah, I think I think that's the that's the stathem right there in fighting psychopaths and zombies and saving people. And I'm just a photo journalist with with a particular set of skills.
JIM:Yeah. I I can strap a chainsaw to anything.
T.C.:Watch him swinging that. Now he's chain dagger fighting with a with a with a chain dagger. It's yeah. So I say I say another Statham. That that has more at least three movies in
JIM:it. Mhmm.
T.C.:More than Popeye.
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:Popeye is probably a one and done. Dead Rising, you can have as many stathems as there are games. Mhmm. I mean, how many there's seven or eight Resident Evil movies with Mila Jokovich.
JIM:And only one of them pretends to follow well, no. I guess, technically, two or three pretended to follow
T.C.:The games.
JIM:The games as well. But there there there is a point where it it's just Paul WS Anderson doing what he wants. I'm gonna do it out, which
T.C.:is what you were trying to do with Dead Rising.
JIM:It's true.
T.C.:Are you
JIM:I was trying to Paul WS Anderson
T.C.:They asked for a rising. A not a Paul WS Anderson.
JIM:Not a not a PWSA? PWSA.
T.C.:I have a I have a PSA about PWSA. Oh. Which is I just love the idea what it is. It's been fun. I complimented him.
T.C.:Still need
JIM:to see him in lost land.
T.C.:Oh, I came and went before we got a chance. Did. With Batista.
JIM:It did.
T.C.:Yeah. It had you. Bluto. Mhmm. Our Bluto.
JIM:Yeah. From from our Popeye
T.C.:From our Popeye movie. Okay. I you know, we've we've we've gone through quite a bit here in this Statham centric episode.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Is there anything else you wanna delve in? And we we could this is a shorter episode, but I'm not I don't hate it. I think I've No. Hashed out an entire film. I
JIM:I love the idea of Statham just being the descriptor of a type of movie.
T.C.:Yeah. Give me a Statham. Yeah. What are the specific tropes of a Jason Statham movie? Like, I think we I think we know Mhmm.
T.C.:Specific things of a of a Statham movie. I think we've done it. We've you know, he's got a very simple job. Mhmm. A very simple thing launches him into action.
T.C.:He punches his way through everything and solves the problem with his fists and guns.
JIM:Yeah. Yeah. That that's that's mostly it. Like like, you can you can describe some of that that a bit more like the crap. Now now I can't.
JIM:I said you could, and then I couldn't.
T.C.:Like because, like, he's not a hero, but he's a guy with a code.
JIM:Kind of. Yeah. Which makes him a hero. Yeah.
T.C.:And he and he and I I'm just minding my own business. Like, he's always minding his I don't want trouble.
JIM:Yeah. Or sometimes sometimes I guess sometimes he does. The trans well, no. The trans even the
T.C.:transporters He's just doing his job. Doesn't want trouble.
JIM:He's just
T.C.:doing his job. But then the second someone crosses the line, it's on.
JIM:But, like, Statham also does a good job of setting up unique fights. Like like, I know I know that's weird to say, like, there's No.
T.C.:You're right. You're right. Yeah. The the hand to hand combat expert he's like a hand to hand combat expert. Mhmm.
T.C.:He's usually mastered some firearm.
JIM:Yeah. But then guns usually don't play a key role. They're they're they're just they're another side tool where whereas he will most often end up needing to resort to fists Mhmm. Or or sticks.
T.C.:And he improvises like a. Yeah. Like he's which is sort of what I get what you said earlier about Jackie Chan, the Jackie Chanism Mhmm. Of getting himself in a mixing it like, fine. This is what's happening.
T.C.:I'm do this.
JIM:Yeah. He doesn't, like, jump through ladders, but he will lift up a ladder to hit someone with it.
T.C.:Yeah. Only thing different between those two, though not the only thing. But Statham doesn't really become the underdog ever. Does he ever have to No. He way
JIM:off? Well, technically, he is always the underdog. He's just not Jackie Chan is very much the, no. No. No.
JIM:I don't wanna fight, and then he has to throw a punch back. Yeah. So he's very much he's very much put upon. Mhmm. Jason Statham is perceived as the underdog in every fight, which is why all of the henchmen are always like, this is ridiculous.
JIM:Mhmm. We're six guys who are all bigger than you. Yeah. And then he proceeds to dismantle them.
T.C.:And he's like swinging a sledgehammer with nails in it. Yeah. Improvising like Yeah.
JIM:Yeah. Absolutely.
T.C.:Yeah. And he's efficient. Statham's Statham fights are efficient. Similar to John Wick where where I think Keanu Reeves' John Wick is a surgeon with a gun. Mhmm.
T.C.:He is efficient with a gun. Statham tends to, like, when he gets to work, he's efficient with his fist or whatever improvised tools he grabs around him. It's quick takedowns. He uses his his or the power of his enemies against him. Mhmm.
T.C.:And, like, the the best Statham fights, those the hits, you feel them. You're like, oh. Oh. That's something that Love Hurts earlier this year managed to do is when those hits hit, there was a lot of
JIM:Yeah. There's a lot of impact. Crack.
T.C.:The impact Yeah. How you felt it, like, the way they
JIM:With with a working man, I remember the first punch that's thrown doesn't involve Jason Statham. It's a goon shows up several goons show up to rough up this guy at the work site. Mhmm. And one of them hits and punches him, and it was the loudest punch.
T.C.:Correct. We were in the Dolby. We were
JIM:in the Dolby. We were
T.C.:film for Dolby Atmos. Correct. Just imagining Frank West tossing zombies over railings and, like, smashing their faces in with frying pans Mhmm. Like, whatever. He's in an he's in, like, a a sharper image using a massage thing and just shove it through an eye.
T.C.:Using his camera tripod like a bo staff.
JIM:Probably very quickly, he would figure out a way to wrap his hands to be able to just straight punch the zombies.
T.C.:Yeah. Drive one liners. Like, he usually has some it it goes back neck.
JIM:They're not they're not necessarily they're they're not like classic Schwarzenegger, I'll be back.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:I eat green berets for breakfast. What what what do you eat? Or I'm a green beret. I eat guys like you for breakfast. What do you eat?
JIM:Yeah. I eat green I'm fucking up the line. It's from commando. It's really good.
T.C.:No. The Statham's more like like, you know, a dance with a lawn mower. He just literally just plow, like, drives it into the scene. You should've stayed dead. You know?
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Not not cracking them off like Deadpool. Mhmm. But, like, even like, he'll pull the pin on a grenade and go, Covey. Mhmm. I think my statement is sounding more Australian the more I do it.
T.C.:He doesn't emote. Right? He is always pretty stoic. Yeah. Calm.
T.C.:He's He's got, like, a clipped tone to him. Mhmm. And the more insane the situation, the calmer he gets.
JIM:Yeah. There there there there's there's pensive and super pensive.
T.C.:Yeah. Like, if the survivors are panicking and dead rising and screaming like, oh, like, oh, god. What's the the opening like, Madonna. Madonna. Like the old lady is like her dog they're already Yeah.
T.C.:In the mall. Yeah. Yeah. And the freaking dog gets through and the old lady ruins everything by going after a stupid dog. Anyway, Frank's just like, stay behind me.
T.C.:Yep. And then takes out away the zombies with like a hockey stick.
JIM:The embodiment of calmness.
T.C.:Yeah. Oh, transporter.
JIM:Oh, so another thing happens in a lot of right. Right. Transporter. Another type of Statham movie is what Transporter is, and that's and you'll often see chases, driving scenes
T.C.:Mhmm. Mhmm.
JIM:In a Statham. And I know we discussed this one, what, season one or two? Mhmm. Spy Hunter. If The Rock isn't gonna make Spy Hunter Then let's give it to Statham.
T.C.:The yeah. Yeah. Having him be an expert driver, he didn't do any, like, real driving, and he isn't all he isn't beekeeper, and, like, he doesn't always have to be a good driver because that is such a transporter thing of his. Yeah. Like, honestly, I was I thought when he entered the fast and the furious franchise, I'm like, just let him be frank because that's the his character from transporter.
T.C.:But, yeah, like, the the driving aspect of it. I I think the the the being on a timer really works for him. Like Yeah. Having having a a ticking clock element
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Is more state is a stathem. So dead rising works in his favor for Sure. Being on a ticking clock. Having, like, oh, the explosion's gonna happen. Like, literally or figuratively, the movie's always about racing some clock in his in his library of films.
JIM:Sure. Well, right. And as we've discussed when making films, ticking clocks help increase the drama. We will often incorporate Oh, yeah. Yeah.
JIM:Some kind of ticking clock.
T.C.:Honestly, if we can take a moment to acknowledge Chris McQuarrie's writing for the for the Mission Possible movies starting with Fallout. Fallout has a ticking clock in, like, every scene, and it's not I'm pointing it out now so the next time you watch it, you're gonna go, oh my god. Yeah. They're constantly going, we got this much time. We got this much time.
T.C.:It helps create tension really easily and really effectively Yeah. That there is this this we and I think Mission Impossible does that almost better than anyone. You know I love the Mission Impossible franchise. I think it's the best action franchise that exists right now. Sure.
T.C.:There's nothing better. And it's because of stuff like Macquarie's scripts, and even going to Ghost Protocol with Brad Bird. Those movies are constantly about this is all gonna fall apart any second now.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:It's it's a beautiful way to create tension is by putting someone on a clock figuratively or literally.
JIM:And the Statham movies
T.C.:Do they? Yeah.
JIM:Follow suit.
T.C.:There let's try another. Oh, we have to get his shirt off. Like, he has to be
JIM:Oh, he's Yeah.
T.C.:He's gotta get his shirt
JIM:off. Yeah. The zombies are tearing at him.
T.C.:Did did he get his shirt off in beekeeper and maybe he's done with shirtlessness? But I'd like to believe in my heart, he'll still get oiled up. It's canonically required of his of his of his library films.
JIM:Does he in Fast and Furious?
T.C.:Oh. I have to go look at my
JIM:Gotta go gotta go watch him again.
T.C.:Gotta go watch him. And, of course, the mysterious past. Right? Like, he's got a Yeah. He's he's where did he learn all these skills?
T.C.:You know, I mean, I've done things.
JIM:The military.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:Yeah. I don't talk about it.
T.C.:I I covered wars. Yep. Frank Frank West is a photo show saying, I've been in I've been in war. Cut to a flashback of him strangling him like a warlord with a broken tripod of his camera. Yeah.
T.C.:I think Dead Rising's the the correct movie here. It was fun to do Popeye, but I think Dead Rising is the one that allows that checks off all of these boxes.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Like, really effectively, I think. Yeah. I I I guess the
JIM:And you and you don't have to worry about, like, well, who are these mooks and minions that are coming after? It's just more zombies.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. But also the psychopaths within the mall.
JIM:Yeah. Yeah. It adds to There there is a variety.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Buster from what was it? Crumple crumble
JIM:Crumble cake. Crumble Delicious.
T.C.:What did we how did we do? We we gave you two offerings here. We gave you something that's a little sillier with Popeye. I just like the idea of him being the sailor man, but I think I think dead rising might be the correct answer here. But how do we do?
T.C.:Agree, disagree? We'd love to know if we did meet your demand today, and you can hit us up if you agree or disagree, and you can whatever we missed. Right? But mostly, this this was a good dissection of a of a care of an actor Sure. To and I don't the closest approximation I can think of is when we did two Escape From movies in one episode.
JIM:Oh, sure.
T.C.:We looked at Kurt Russell as Snake Pliskin and then built the movies based on the tropes of those.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:But yeah. Yeah. Buster, you're clearly a fan of Safe and Sole. Did we did we achieve what you would hope? You can message us, obviously, directly.
T.C.:You know how to get to us. But for those listening, you can message us directly at studio demands it dot com or on Instagram at studio demands it. If you're not already, you can subscribe to us on all your podcaster catchers of your choice for that random person who is listening to this and does you know, just subscribe.
JIM:Do it.
T.C.:Yeah. This is a weird one to start on, but go for it. Go for it. Wait. This is the first episode I've I listened
JIM:mean, it's Statham. It's that's gonna it's bring in.
T.C.:One of the last movie stars.
JIM:It's true.
T.C.:And, you know, if you feel like giving us a review, you can do that in the algorithm.
JIM:It's a little clickity click.
T.C.:You can find us on YouTube and TikTok where we post video content including material not heard on this show. And guess what? There's other places we can go, Jim.
JIM:You can come to Reddit at r slash studio demands it.
T.C.:I'm looking. I'm doing the Reddit part.
JIM:And you can go to you can join us on Discord.
T.C.:I knew you was gonna say Discord.
JIM:You can go to studiodemands.com. And at the top of the page, there is a link to Hot link. An invite for Is it Hot Discord page.
T.C.:Is it Hot Link?
JIM:No. It is not.
T.C.:My gif Jim Gaffigan over here.
JIM:Yep. I'm
T.C.:throwing up
JIM:your name. That is that is okay. Yeah. So those are the things.
T.C.:Okay. You can also find us on Patreon if you want more No. Not content. Material. We we we're we're more than than just content.
T.C.:We are we are crafting material here. Yeah. Material is a better word.
JIM:Patrick. Infotainment.
T.C.:Infos yeah. Right. Patrick Wilms is in my head about that word, and I kind of agree with him. His goal. Anyway
JIM:Content is is that it bloop bloop bloop bloop bloop. There there you go. There's some content.
T.C.:You if you want more of what we do, you can go to Patreon. And for a couple bucks a month, you can get episodes early, commercial free, extended episodes, and movie commentary tracks. And you can also just show us some love by subscribing for free. And as I've been mentioning the past this whole season, the commentary tracks have additional episodes in them. We don't just talk through the movie.
T.C.:We also have additional, sometimes thirty minutes or longer before, after, during the movie. We talk. We just we just keep talking. Keep in front of ourselves and we just never shut up. And you people for your benefit.
T.C.:Thank you. If it's a So
JIM:so rather than content, quality editorial entertainment.
T.C.:That was good. That was good.
JIM:I should be a writer.
T.C.:You should. Massive thank you to Six Five Media for everything they do for us. Please check out the other Six Five shows such as another Zelda podcast, an artificial podcast, and plethora of others in the library. Jim, do you have anything else?
JIM:The lumberjack.
T.C.:The lumberjack. I mean, him with a with a freaking axe in his hand just kicking ass
JIM:with Or even a chainsaw. Like, I'm imagining it starts with him with one of them belts. He's way up in a tree, and it shows that he's just a working lumberjack, and there's a crew. But then what do you think? Drug dealers or terrorists or terror drug dealers?
JIM:Oh. Terror dealers.
T.C.:Like, are in the woods. Drug
JIM:arrests. Arrests.
T.C.:The drug arrests are in in the woods. And he's just like, I don't know. Get involved.
JIM:Yeah. But then he has to get involved.
T.C.:You know what he has to do?
JIM:And then you have fights in the woods. You have fights around trucks. You have fights on the highway.
T.C.:In mill.
JIM:You have fights in the mill.
T.C.:We're gonna We're gonna
JIM:Fights in the river.
T.C.:We're gonna raise the bar on the Final Destination two log truck scene.
JIM:It's true.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. And the poster is just him. Like, his back is to camera. He's got his his weapon of choice in his hand.
T.C.:He's looking back, so we see him in silhouette, and it just says, lumberjack, kick some axe.
JIM:Yep. Yep. That's that's
T.C.:the poster right there.
JIM:Your character's name is Jack, by the way.
T.C.:Jack. Jack, lumberjack. Yeah. Alright. Thank you, everybody.
T.C.:We will be back again soon with another one of your demands to challenge ourselves to take on the world of cinema on TC.
JIM:I'm Jim.
T.C.:And this is where this is it.
JIM:Oh, he would he would it would it's a line from Pale Rider, but I want him to say at one point, he hits someone with just a piece of wood and he says, nothing like a good piece of hickory.
T.C.:But say it like Jason said,
JIM:nothing like a good piece of hickory.
T.C.:Oh, man. You should have been doing The Voice the whole episode. Do a Jim
JIM:Well, I don't I don't I I no. I can't do it. I no. But I can see why you went there. That's that's the place you start with a Jim Gaffigan impression, but I don't think that's actually because what that voice is is that's actually his other people voice.
T.C.:When he's like, why are doing?
JIM:Yeah. Oh my god.
T.C.:He's he's still going out
JIM:about this.
T.C.:Jim Gaff crowd is more like her.
JIM:See, and that that sounds like a cartoon Jimmy Stewart.
T.C.:I'm gonna tell jokes about all
JIM:living in
T.C.:the Midwest.
JIM:That's a that's a Jim Gaffigan.
T.C.:That's Jim Gaffigan. Thank you very much.
JIM:It's all of us Jims sound alike in one way or
T.C.:another. Yeah.