The Highest Paid Actors in Hollywood in the Last Year + How Actors Make Money on Streaming vs. Theatrical Release  + Movie Review: Spaceman + Trailer Park: Borderlands

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I am your host Movie Mike. If you're listening early on release day, the oscars happened last night. I'm gonna talk about them. I will be putting up a bonus episode in the feed as soon as I get a chance to record that, but it's Monday. I value that you are subscribed to this podcast. You go there expecting a brand new episode every single week, so I'm gonna do my normal episode here as well. Forbes put out a list last week of the highest paid actors for twenty twenty three. I'm gonna tell you who I think is making too much money, who I think should be making more money, and who I think shouldn't be on this list at all. Then in the movie review, we'll talk about Adam Sandler's latest Netflix movie called Spaceman. It combines itself with our topic because I'm gonna let you know whether or not he is worth the millions and millions of dollars that Netflix is paying to him. And in the trailer park, we'll be talking about a movie based on a video game called Borderlands. Was an insanely popular video game that I have the cover just memorized in my head even though I never really played it. But I'll give you my thoughts on it from a non fan of the franchise. So thank you for being here. Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew, and now let's talk movies.

00:01:10
Speaker 2: In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast, one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like never before in a movie podcast. A man with so much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTV with glasses.

00:01:28
Speaker 1: From the Nashville Podcast.

00:01:29
Speaker 2: Network, this is Movie Mike's Movie podcast.

00:01:34
Speaker 1: Orbes put out their list of the ten highest paid actors in twenty twenty three, and of these ten actors, they have made four hundred and forty nine million dollars combined almost half a billion dollars, which to me proves the theory that I have had. I still think the real bankability and true test of an actor is can you sell tickets? Therefore, are you able to demand more money from the studio and then get more money on the back end. So I still think that movies rank supreme in generating revenue in the entertainment business. Just the fact that all ten actors on this list are primarily movie stars. Really says all you need to know about the landscape of Hollywood right now. So in order to make this list, Forbes conducted a lot of interviews with agents, lawyers, managers and executives and industry experts. They also use sources like IMDb, pro and Pollstar. And these numbers represent pre tax earnings, so before all the money gets taken out of their paychecks. That is the numbers we are looking at here. They also subtracted fees for representation, which is ten percent to the agents, ten percent to the managers, five percent to the lawyers, which is all industry standard, although some actors do not have all three of those. And on this list, actors were credited for money they made on projects that were released all in twenty twenty three, despite the fact that sometimes the upfront fees are paid when a movie is filmed, so that could be a couple of years before it actually comes out, and it could also be years in the future because sometimes the actors who have more of a pull on their name, they are able to get money on the back end. So say Margot Robbie, who is probably going to get Barbie checks for the rest of her life. Not only did she make a lot this year, she's also going to continue to make money off that movie on the back end. And additionally, this ranking only includes earnings related to entertainment, so acting, producing, directing, or other forms of performance. So if they have a side hustle, a liquor business that is not related to entertainment, it is not included on this list. So no endorsement's, beauty products, nothing like that is accounted for on this list strictly acting and performing. So before I get into this list, let's just talk a little bit about the differences between a movie that comes out in theaters and a movie that comes out on Netflix in terms of the way an actor is paid. In simple terms, an actor who is going to be in a Netflix movie gets all the money on the front end. They are paid one big lump sum because there is nothing to be made on that movie once it is released on Netflix. So oftentimes this amount is much larger because that is the only sum of money that they are going to see. So this is where you'll see deals like Ryan Reynolds making thirty million dollars for one Netflix film because they're gonna pay him that they're gonna hope that his name draws people to getting Netflix subscriptions or just keeping the subscribers happy. But he gets those thirty million dollars and then that goes away. The movie remains on Netflix, or later they could decide to take a tax right off to erase it from the Netflix service, but that is it. In other cases, say we're still talking about Ryan Reynolds here, and he puts out a movie that comes out in theaters. Say if coming out later this year with someone like Ryan Reynolds, who has a very very big name in hollyw would he can start to negotiate how much money he is going to get on the back end. So maybe it's a little less than that thirty million dollars he got for that Netflix movie. Maybe for a theater release he's getting more in the range of fifteen to twenty million dollars. But then he can also negotiate that he gets some of the box office earning, some of the video on demand earnings. He could also have some money tied to the movie's first streaming window. So all of this refers to what they call points on the back end, which is where a lot of actors have made a lot of money. One famous example that I use is Tom Hanks took a considerably less amount for his salary in Forrest Gump in order to get a percentage of the movie's earnings and to continue to make money off that movie in order to get Forest Gump made back in ninety four when it came out, so they were able to make it because they didn't have to pay him a ton of money. But the movie was massive, so it was almost like betting on yourself and banking on your projected earnings that you will get. Another famous case that I love Jason Weaver, who was a kid actor and he was the voice of Young Simba and the singing voice in the nineteen ninety four Lion King animated version, and Disney initially offered him two million dollars just to check up front to be compensated for that role of Young Simba and doing the singing parts. And his mom knew that movie was going to be huge and instead took one hundred thousand dollars check in order to get a lifetime of royalties from that movie. A great business decision there, which is hard to do. Could you imagine being a young actor thinking two million dollars. I don't even know what that is that could honestly change my life. But knowing that, oh, this is going to be huge, I shouldn't take this as winning the lottery right now. I should set myself up for the rest of my life. I think that is one of the best decisions in movie history. All Right, So I think we covered it there how theatrical and screaming releases differ. Now let's get into it. At number ten with a gross income of twenty eight eight million dollars taking home at the end of the day twenty four million dollars, it is Denzel Washington. Last year he put out the third installment of The Equalizer. Just been a pretty average film series. Overall, each one of those movies has crossed one hundred and ninety million dollar mark at the box office. And the real reason it has done that because of Denzel Washington. Without his name attached to that movie, nobody would really care about it. And in addition to that movie last year, why he continues to remain in the top ten is because of his catalog, all the royalties he is getting from all of his back years of work. That is really so important to an actor is that library of movies that you build. Really in anything, I will even say that in podcasting, it comes down to the amount of work you can do and just have like this fast portfolio of all these episodes, all these movies. That is really where you start to see money grow in entertainment. So it is really precious. That is also why you see a lot of fights over rights to things and rights to episodes, is because that is where the money will be there for you always. That is also why you see musicians selling their catalogs in order to have guaranteed money every year, because they can sell their catalog and know they're going to have that said amount of money for the rest of their life. And Denzel Washington has been doing it for over forty years now, he's sixty nine years old. He can really do any movie that he wants and it's probably gonna make a pretty good amount of money at the box office. I kind of wish he would go in a bit of a different direction and get back to those really big dramatic roles that he would do all the time, and the ones that he is known for. I think the last movie I really love from him was from twenty sixteen call Fences, which was an adaptation of a play, and I thought that really showed the true power of Denzel Washington, the reason everybody fell in love with him and the reason he is a movie star. She would go back to doing movies like that. But at number ten is Denzel Washington. At number nine with a gross income of forty five million dollars, and on the list listed at thirty eight million dollars is Ben Affleck. Again, this is only including his money that he has made with acting. Out of everybody on this list, this is the most surprising to me. I do not think he is worth thirty eight million dollars a year, especially when you look at the movies he did last year. The fifty one year old starred and directed Air, which is a great movie. I love this movie, but financially it didn't really cross a big threshold of making money at the box office. I know, it wasn't even supposed to come out in theaters, but Amazon decided to move forward and give it a theatrical release and it ended up making ninety million dollars at the box office before just straight going over to Amazon Prime Video. But the other movie you put out Hypnotic was so bad and such a bomb, one of the worst bombs in the last decade. That movie costs sixty f five million dollars to make and only made sixteen point three at the box office, but I guess he still got paid. He am making no money on the back end of that movie, but he has been around for a long time enough to be in Duncan commercials and probably made a lot of money off of that, even though that amount is not included on this list. At number nine, as Ben Affleck so there is a tie at number eight, two people come in with forty one million dollars. The first one is Jason Statham, who had a gross of forty eight million dollars before taking home forty one million dollars. Statham is just a quietly dominant actor. In the last year, he has been in Fast x Meg two, The Trench, and The Expendables four, and as of the recording of this podcast, he is the star of the highest grossing movie so far in twenty twenty four, The Beekeeper, so he will probably be back on this list next year. He is the quintessential action star right now. I think he is to the point that if you are a die hard fan of action, you will probably go watch every single movie that Jason Statham is in. And he's fifty six years old and has been doing this so well now for the last twenty years. It is honestly surprising to me how successful he has been, kind of being typecast in the same role over and over again, the guy who gets angry, he's very cold, and then gets into a fight, then drives a car really fast. As far as the dynamics of an actor and his range, they are so limited, extremely limited when you really look at them. I've never seen any movie with Jason Stathum and thought, oh man, he really took it there on another emotional level. No, he hasn't done that, But by the looks of this list, it doesn't really need to do that, because just crashing through windows and going on epic chase scenes is essentially enough to make you forty one million dollars and put you at number well tied at seven on this list. So as much as I don't want to give him the credit for being a great actor, he can crush me with his wallet. And Jason Statum comes in at number seven, tied with Leonardo DiCaprio, who also had a gross of forty eight million dollars and took home forty one million dollars to put him tied at seven eight. I don't know why they put two sevens on this list. The crazy thing here is Leonardo DiCaprio made a majority of this money on one movie. He was only in Killers of the Flower Moon last year, which he earned a reported forty million dollars just for that one movie. So it kind of shows you how much money people can make, at least him in particular on the back end from his library of work, which I wonder about that. I feel like he should make more because he's been in Titanic alone, which I feel like he will continue to get checks for the rest of his life. If he ever has kids, they will be getting checks probably for the rest of their life. But at forty eight million dollars gross and a forty one take home, that is inredible for one movie, and Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the panful of actors that could do something thing like that, even though he was snubbed an Oscar nomination for that movie. I don't really think he's hurting because he can be so selective, just doing one movie a year if that, and do movies that he really cares about, work with directors that he really has a great relationship with, and obviously him doing a Scorsese movie is probably a no brainer. So I think at this point, even though he made forty million dollars of one movie, I almost think he is at a point where the money doesn't really matter anymore. And I also heard Bradley Cooper talking about this recently when he was talking about he maybe only has three or four movies left in him, because to be an actor at that level, it takes so much time to focus on one project. It is four to five years of your life from the moment you start developing a movie, get attached to it, and it finally comes out that he thinks that he maybe has four or five left, maybe three or four, that he thinks he only has a handful of movies left in him. I think that is the same case with Leonardo DiCaprio, who is later in his acting career but by no means is anywhere done. He could continue acting into his seventies and eighties. Just look at Robert de Niro, but I think he has to be more selective on how he uses his time. He is obviously going to do movies now that are either gonna make a lot of money at the box office, therefore earning him more money, or really I think he is just interested in doing movies that are going to warrant an Oscar nomination. So tied at number seven Leonardo DiCaprio and Jason Statham with forty one million dollars at number six with a gross income of fifty six million dollars taking home forty two million dollars. To put her at number six is Jennifer Aniston. She is one actor on this list who probably doesn't earn the majority of her money just for movies. But on the film side, she starred in Adam Sandler's Murder Mystery two on Netflix, which was a little bit worse than the first one, and Murder Mystery is a movie you go into just wanting to see something really ridiculous, and mainly just the fact that it's Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston together who have really good chemistry. Even though the wacky nature of those movies it is almost like an off brand knives out for the masses, which is really what Adam Sandler does over there on Netflix. And Jennifer Aniston is one of the most beloved actresses in the United States and has been for so long that them together just somehow makes sense. But aside from that movie, she makes a lot of money from TV. Everybody knows she was in Friends, and that's probably what she still makes the most amount of money on. But she also makes two million dollars an episode for acting and executive producing each episode of The Morning Show on Apple TV Plus, which this last season was all right, I think I'm a little bit over that show because it was so groundbreaking in season one. Season two took a little bit of a dip. Season three started out strong, but I felt really fizzled out there towards the end. So I'm not sure how many more seasons I'm gonna invest in The Morning Show. But man, making two million dollars an episode that is crazy. So at number six is Jennifer Aniston with forty two million, getting into the top five. Now which there is a tie here with a gross income of fifty million dollars taking home forty three million dollars. First up is Matt Damon, who his first project of last year was Air, which was directed by Ben Affleck, who has already made this list, so that's where a majority of his money came from last year. It probably got some money on the front end of that after they sold it to Amazon for one hundred and thirty million dollars, which was a pretty high price stag for a project like that. But again, when you have names like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon attached to something, you can ask for a lot of money. Matt Damon is fifty three years old, so he has obviously been in the game for a long time. So he is also an actor making a lot off of his catalog, and he also was an Oppenheimer last year, which he got four million dollars for his role in that, which was one of the bigger supporting actor roles in Oppenheimer. And when you start to look at how many just giant actors were in that movie with really small cameos, I wonder if their salaries are comparable to that four million. I would imagine they would have to be significantly less to get that many actors of that caliber in one movie. Matt Damon obviously one of the bigger names out of all of the supporting cast, so maybe other people depending on who it is, Like a Romi Mallick probably got maybe three two million dollars, but I have to imagine somebody like a Josh Peck who is just happy to be there, would probably be in the thousands in but I would assume a majority of that money went debaying all those people. I don't hate. Matt Damon in the top five is not the sexiest of actors to be the highest grossing for me, and I mean that saying that I usually have to be convinced to watch a Matt Damon movie. As big of a movie starts or as he is. He's not somebody that I see as like, oh he's in a movie, I have to go see it. He has to convince me through a really great story or a really great supporting cast for me to want to be excited to see a Matt Damon movie. In the case of Air, I was more attracted to the story of the creation of the air Jordan, and I'm honestly more interested in Ben Affleck as a director than I was to see Matt Damon's performance. He could win me back, eventually, but he has always just felt kind of like a generic vanilla actor to me. So I don't mean he's not sexy in the sense that he's not good looking. He just doesn't have those qualities of a go to actor for me. On the other end, the person who is tied with him on the list in this same slot, with that gross of fifty million dollars taking him forty three million dollars, they have him at four on this list is Ryan Gosling. Now, he is somebody that no matter what he is in, I'm going to watch that movie, whether it's an action movie like The fall Guy coming out later this year, or whether it's Barbie he made a majority of his money for last year. No matter what he does, I'm just drawn to it because I think he is an actor who has also been very selective of the projects that he takes on that I can't think of one time I have gone to see a Ryan Gosling movie in thought this was just a paycheck for him. The only time I had that feeling was going into Barbie or I didn't really know what to expect, and this was in the early stages before a lot was known about the plot. I just thought, oh, man, Ryan Gossling is just doing movies for money. Now, this could be the decline to me liking him and then going to see that movie and completely having those thoughts blown out of the water and realizing that I was right all along that he wouldn't take a movie on unless there was some more depth to it, unless it was attached to a great director like Greta Gerwig, and unless he was going to get an Oscar nomination and have one of the biggest payouts of his career in Hollywood now that he is forty three years old. And not only that, as an added ball, he also made some money off of I'm Just Ken, which has been streamed over one hundred million times on streaming services, so that song actually adds to his total. It's considered a performance. Ryan Gosling tied with Matt Damon forty three million dollars at number three, with a gross of fifty three million dollars, taking home forty five million dollars. It is the sixty one action star Tom Cruise. I have often said that Tom Cruise is an actor that I just don't like. That It took a lot of me realizing how much he values filmmaking, and that's not even the amount of danger he puts himself in to do this crazy, outrageous stunt work, but he has also changed the landscape of how actors get paid. He is one of the last, if not the very last, movie star who can still command what is called a first dollar gross deal, meaning that he can get that percentage of the box office and other revenues on the day a movie is released. So well, that is also why he pushes so much for movies to come out in theaters. He was so big on that push post COVID of these movies deserve to be seen on the big screen the way they were meant for you to enjoy. And sometimes I take that with a grain of salt, because, as somebody who does a movie podcast and I love that experience of seeing something in a big screen with full sound, I don't have those same exact qualities that I can replicate at home. I obviously think that is how a movie should be seen, but I also know that it's coming from somebody like Tom Cruise who has money literally in the game of you going to see it in theaters. That is how he grows his empire. The more a movie makes at the box office, the more he ends up taking home. I also think for him it's an ego thing. He wants to have the number one country, not just in the United States, but in the world. He does movies to have number one movies, to have the most amount of people see him. That is why these people are movie stars. They like to have eyeballs on them. They liked the attention. That is why they are so charismatic. Is because they want the most people to see their work and therefore make the most amount of money off of it. And that is how we ended up on this list. He took home a really substantial upfront salary for Dead Reckoning Part one, the Mission Impossible movie that came out last year, and then he also continued to receive streaming and on demand profits from twenty twenty two's Top Gun Maverick, which saw a lot of that increase in twenty twenty three once it finally hit streaming. And he will continue to make more money because he just signed a big deal with Warner Brothers to develop all these new movies. So the Tom Cruise empire is only going to grow. And even though I don't love all of his movies, I do love that he had a big part to play in saving Hollywood post COVID with the amount of money that top gun Maverick earned, but also just eased audiences back into the theaters when it really really was needed. I have to give him credit for Thatnumber three, with forty five million dollars is Tom Cruise at number two, with a gross income last year of seventy eight million dollars, taking home fifty nine million dollars. Is the one the only Margo Robbie, who is the youngest person to be on this list by a decade at thirty three years old, which is weird for me because she's only one year older than me, and to think that she's making that insane amount of money. I know I shouldn't compare ages and status, but man, just to think somebody else around the same age as me is not only worldwide famous but also made fifty nine million dollars last year. I'm going to stop thinking about it because I just start thinking about what I could do with all of that money. But I love the representation here of a female not only being in the top ten, but being in the top five, so close to number one, which I honestly think she could be Number one. If not for the fact that actor number one has been around for so long and has a really big deal in place, she is number one in my heart. And when I think this list needs more is female actors. What I also think this list needs more of is Black, Mexican and Asian actors, who are fairly absent from this list. I think that shows us that Hollywood is still a primarily white male dominated industry, because on this list, if you're not a white male, you either have to be Margot Robbie, Jennifer Aniston, or Denzel Washington to be considered. So again, shout out here to Margot Robbie, who is really cashed in on Barbie, which made one point four or five billion dollars at the box office. There's also tons of money attached to licensing and partnerships, and she is also a producer on the movie, so she is cashed in roughly twelve point five percent of all the back end profits, which Forbes in this article has estimated is worth more than sixty million dollars. She also has a really successful production company called Lucky Chap that put out Saltburn last year, so she's also raking in money producing movies and in February she just signed a new exclusive first look deal with Warner Brothers, the studio behind Barbie, So she's going to keep getting those checks. She's going to start producing more and more movies and making more money off of that. And I think that Margot Robbie is really just getting started, despite the fact that she has already been around for over a decade, just grinding and putting out consistently good movies time and time again. At number two fifty nine million dollars is Margot Robbie. At number one, with a gross income of ninety seven million dollars, taking home seventy three million dollars is the Sandman. Adam Sandler signed a two hundred and fifty million dollar four movie deal with Netflix back in twenty fourteen. He's fifty seven years old now and has started in eight movies for Netflix and produced more through his company Happy Madison, which has made a lot of great movies and also a lot of stinkers. But the majority of his backlog, which are primarily all comedies, are all now licensed through Netflix, so they have become the home of Adam Sandler, which last year on Netflix he put out Murder Mystery two You're so not invited to my bar Mitzvah, and the animated movie Leo, which has been a really big hit with kids and families. But the other thing they accounted for inside of this seventy three million dollars is the money he made off of touring, which he did forty four stand up comedy shows in twenty twenty three. Me and Kelsey saw him. It was a great show, But I kind of don't think that should be included here. Even though it is performing. It is entertainment, but I don't really think that is the same as starring in a movie or starring in the TV show. I imagine that he made a lot of money millions off that tour. They don't have the exact numbers here, but in my heart, Margot Robbie is at number one. Because Sandler has had this deal in place for so long now that it's gonna be hard for anybody to beat him, because nobody is getting that deal. The Netflix CEO said whenever they re upped Adam Sandler's deal back in twenty two, there is no such thing as too much Adam Sandler, So that shows you they're going to continue to pay him boatloads and boatloads of money, and the great thing about it is it gives him a lot of creative control. Just look at the movies he did last year. You have an animated movie, you have a movie that's a little bit more of a snapshot of his life. You have one that's just fun, over the top action with Jennifer Aniston. And now what he's doing with the sci fi movie Spaceman, which we'll get into later in the review. He can really do whatever he wants, which puts him in a great place. Because I feel like which as an actor puts him in a great place. He can do movies where he takes all his friends on vacation and gets paid for it and gets a movie out of it. I feel like it can be hit or miss with us, though, because to see a bad Adam Sandler movie isn't really out of the realm of possibilities on any given occasion. But you can't deny his bank ability. At number one, seventy three million dollars is Adam Sandler, who am I surprised wasn't on the list? I would have to say Ryan Reynolds. But when you look at the movies he put out last year he was pretty non existent in the box office game kind of took the year off, But this year he's coming back strong with Deadpool and Wolverine, and if so, he will probably enter the top ten next year. Also surprised The Rock isn't on here. He has taken a little bit of a step back from acting, focusing more on his tequila company on the XFL. Maybe it's because Black Adam did not go as well as he thought, and maybe he was planning for being in more DC projects. Doesn't look like that's gonna be the case. So he is going to be in a new A twenty four film that I hope we get a little bit more of a serious side from Dwayne the Rock Johnson. And again, this list wasn't accounting for all of the endorsements that he gets, probably amount of money that he makes off on Instagram, because honestly, that alone would probably put him in the top ten. Also surprised that Mark Wahlberg was not on the list. He put out some movies last year that I guess to do so well, and I thought maybe the Apple TV Plus movie he did alone would warn him a really big payday. I don't think he deserves to be on the top ten list, but just surprise, his name wasn't there. And who do I think will be there soon? Look no further than the cast of Dunes, Zendeia, Austin Butler, Anya Taylor Joy, and Timothy Shalomey. I think are right there on the cusp of being the new A list actors in Hollywood. The bankable names, the one everybody recognizes. But they're all still fairly young right now and not in a point in their career where they can negotiate like some of these heavy hitters. They can't really get money on the back end the way that a Sandler or a Tom Cruise does. But I think they will be there eventually, and I am all here for it because we need fresh blood and we have it. We have some really great talent with just the Doune cast alone. So that is the list. We'll come back and talk about Spaceman on Netflix with the number one highest paid actor of twenty twenty three, Adam Sandler. Listen, what's the movie. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free review of Spaceman on Netflix, starring the seventy three million dollar making Adam Sandler. Is he worth the vast amount of money that Netflix has invested in him in over the years, and I am a huge Adam Sandler fan, so much so that in the early stages of this podcast I had to enlist the rule that I would have to stop talking about Adam Sandler so much, because I mentioned him in literally every single episode, and a very nice member of the movie crew was like, dude, you gotta stop mentioning Adam Sandler. And in regard to Spaceman, I was very interested and intrigued by this movie. When the trailer first dropped, I included it here on the Trailer Park because that is the type of movie I love to see Adam Sandler in, the more dramatic side of him, which I think he does really well. I listened to him recently on Conan O'Brien's podcast talking about how we decided to make that switch knowing that he wanted to have a longstanding career in movies, and credits a lot of that to Paul Thomas Anderson, who was able to put him in Punch Drunk Glove, which everybody saw and thought, oh, the Sandman can do different things, but he really hasn't done a sci fi movie like this, and you pair him up with an amazing cast with Carrie Mulligan and Paul Dano, who if you just look at that lineup, that is like my dream lineup. I have loved Carry Mulligan ever since Drive, and Paul Dano has also become one of my favorite actors with The Riddler, The Fableman's Dumb Money. He is another actor who can do it all, from drama to comedy and comic book movies. So all this cast together and then in one of my favorite genres. I love movies about space and isolation. But what we learned in this movie and what you've learned from past sci fi movies, those are really hard movies to do because space and isolation can quickly turn boring because really the trouble that space movies have is that they are so isolated and have such a limited case that it creates this level of boredom that you're trying to represent, because in space it is boring. I've never been to space, I've never talked to an astronaut, but the way it is depicted it is very isolating, It is very lonely. It is very hard on the body to be that far away from humanity is a whole nother level of isolation. And when you start to showcase that, it's going to be really hard to create a captivating movie. So you have to have a really really strong story and a really strong lead to make it work. Did it work in this case? Sad to say it did not, But I'll tell you more about why it did it. When it comes to Spaceman, the movie costs forty million dollars to make. Not that bad really when you look at it. Primarily, what a space movie spends a lot of the budget on is just the dynamics of creating a space ship and also creating the weightlessness of somebody in space. Just having that effect them tethered throughout the entire movie is extremely expensive. I've come to learn by researching these movies. And this movie did a very average job on creating something that looked like we hadn't seen it before in a space movie. I almost wish it had a little bit more of a dynamic presence. He is half a year into this space mission. He is the furthest away from any human in history to go way out into Jupiter. He is investigating this really mysterious cloud that has formed. It is like this purple cosmic presence and the sky that they can see from the earth. The movie takes place in a retro futuristic version of the nineties, and it really deals with isolation in Adam Sandler's character being described as the loneliest person in the world because he is so far away from the love of his life and they're not only separated in distance, but also separated emotionally. Essentially, what this movie is about isolation and the crumbling of a relationship. And I don't think Adam Sandler was strong enough to really pull it off. And I've loved him in the dramatic roles I've been mentioning, but I think this one required another level of acting that I realized he just didn't really have it in him. And that hurts me to say, because he did an amazing job in movies like Uncut Gems, where I thought he deserved an Oscar. That one had a lot more action. I felt like he really owned that character. But in this case, seeing him as a spaceman was a little bit unbelievable for me from the very beginning, just him floating around on the spaceship, but even just seeing a photo of him in the astronaut uniform. I just couldn't buy into the fact that Adam Sandler, this really wacky guy, was a spaceman. And in other times I've been able to look past that, but it was really hard in this situation just hearing him deliver some of this dialogue. Found it really unbelievable in probably an unfair way, just because of the association I have with him. I do like some of the avenues that the movie tried to explore with commentary on the human condition, but also on corporate sponsorship, because in the movie, they prioritize his cameras working more than they prioritize his toilet working. Because they are live streaming this entire thing. They have these weird sponsorship things that he has to read and do commercials while he's in space, so they never really got back to a whole lot of that. I thought that would have been a cooler angle to approach the live stream aspect, kind of more like a Truman Show vibe of people that were also invested in his relationship. The appeal of watching him in space and people being able to control things, I think really would have been a cool way to make this movie more interesting. I know it's based on a novel, so they were probably following the source material more, but that light was going off in my head of they had a great opportunity here to make this movie a little bit more interesting, because, quite honestly, it felt like his character and funny people who was kind of a version of Adam Sandler, and in that movie they make fun of the movie roles he takes on because they're so over the top and wacky. This almost felt like one of those movies that it would cut to him like I just did this sci fi movie and it's him looking at a place in a spacesuit, and overall, when making a movie that deals with isolation, I felt isolated and bored while watching it. This movie should have been retitled The Sandman Talks to a Spider because that is what Paul Dano voices in this movie. It's this weird alien, futuristic spider looking thing that comes onto a ship and they formed this really weird relationship and it tries so hard to reach this emotional level that doesn't really quite get there. And I love Paul Dano. I think he did the best job that he could with this role, but I found the character so annoying and so uninteresting just a look and design of it. It felt like a first draft to me, and maybe it's because I wanted it to look more like an alien. I just thought the idea of a spider crawling around didn't really match with all the other aspects of the movie, and the dialogue was so repetitive. I hated the way he kept calling Adam Sandler's character skinny human, kept saying it over and over again. I was about to shut off my TV and stop watching it because I was so annoyed by that line and quite frankly bored with the entire story, which leads me to my next point. Is the only reason I continue to watch this movie to the very end is because of the cast. So when you start to think about is Adam Sandler worth the money that Netflix pays him with the over five hundred hours that Netflix viewers spend with his movies for this reason alone, he is worth it because what they value so much is completion rate. Somebody to start and finish a movie on Netflix, that is the goal, and that is the only reason I finished this movie because I wanted to see how Adam Sandler was going to get out of this what the conclusion was going to be, and that was very underwhelming to me too. But I think that is the reason you pay him a lot of money, because people are going to Netflix to watch an Adam Sandler movie. It's still number one on their streaming service after over a week of being out again. I don't really know how they determined that they could easily boost it, like, oh, look, it's number one, the most people are watching it. They could lie about it just because they want to promote that movie the most. So I don't fully believe in that top ten ragging on Netflix, but it's the metrics we have to go on because they really don't share how many people watch their movies. You really only get stats like the amount of hours that Netflix users have been watching Adam Sandler movies. He ranks up there in the top. So overall, I just don't think this role was in the range of the Sandman. You have to be an actor on the level of like Sandra Bullock and Gravity, Brad Pitt and ad Astra to really be able to show something so isolating. Outer space movies are a really, really tough category, and I just felt like he didn't have all the tools in his acting abilities to pull this movie off, and the overall story really wasn't helping him carry. Mulligan was still fantastic in it. She can really do no wrong in my eyes, It's just I wasn't really buying into their love story. It was also cool to see Conalney r aka Rod from the Big Bank Theory. It took me a second to realize it was him, so I think that is another sign that, hey, he can do roles outside of the Big Bank Theory and not seem so distracting. He was the guy communicating with Adam Sandler's character throughout, so not the most outstanding of supporting roles, but it was just nice to see somebody familiar in a much different space. I was going into this movie expecting to love it ended up having a pretty mediocre time. For space Man, I give it two out of five Space Suits. It's time to head down to movie.

00:39:39
Speaker 2: Mike Trey lar.

00:39:41
Speaker 1: Par I think video game adaptations are the hottest they've ever been right now. They are a cash cow in the movie industry because you already have a built in audience, and usually a built in audience of nerds, which I love some video game adaptation myself, so I am one of those nerds. When it comes to Borderlands, I am familiar with the game, but I never played it myself. I would see a lot of people who would rave on and on about this game. I really don't know much about it, aside from it always having a really cool cover with a very unique character. But Borderlands is a video game set and an abandoned fictional planet of Pandora, where people search for a mysterious relic. This movie has been in development since way back in twenty fifteen and is now set to come out on August ninth by Lionsgate. It is directed by Eli Roth, who is known for really bloody horror movies like Hostile one Hostile two. He also recently did Thanksgiving, which is available now on Netflix. He was also the Bear Jew in Inglorious Bastards. When I go watch an Eli roths movie, I know it's gonna be a little bit left of center, especially when it comes to the gore. So I am surprised by the PG thirteen rating on this movie given the violent nature of the video game, and just given what I expect from him as a director. But I know the reason they do that is to cast a wider net and not close anybody off. Who is probably gonna be the key demographic in a movie like this, the younger audience who played the video game. But that gives me one strike against this movie, because I think a film like this would really benefit from being able to show more of the violence, more of the blood, and I already know it's going to be scaled back a little bit, so we're not going to see that in this movie. So it's going to have to really ramp up the action given the fact that they will only be able to get one effort out of this movie. The movie cost an estimated one hundred to one hundred and ten million dollars. Looks like a lot of cgi work we have going on in this one. So before I get into more of my thoughts on Borderlands, here is just a little bit of the trailer. God, I hate this planet. What does that smell? Pusquash color the window? I don't want him roll the window. It's peak, it's peap like, it's call pis wash. I'm gonna get today. This movie, to me looks like suicide Squad meets Guardians of the Galaxy doing a mad Max impression, and that's a pretty impressive cast list with Kate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, who you heard here in that clip. Kevin Hart being in this movie is probably my biggest concern because anytime Kevin Hart is in a movie, he plays the exact same character. And there is not one Kevin Hart movie that I can honestly say that I am a big fan of. I would probably have to go all the way back to his cameo in The Forty Year Old Virgin, but that was way early on in his career, and unless he's working with the Rock like in Central Intelligence or Jumanji, I'm just not the biggest fan of his comedic work. I honestly don't even find him that funny as a comedian. I think he did one special early on that I found funny, but ever since then, I am kind of surprised of how big of a household name he's become doing arenas, doing stadiums at the level he is doing. Props to him for being able to cash in on that, but that is exactly what I feel when he takes on a movie role, is he does it more for a status symbol and more for money than he does for the love of making movies. As you've probably learned by listening to this podcast, I enjoy actors who take a little bit more of appreciation for the craft of acting, or fake it really well and are really just doing it for the money and the attention. Visually, the movie does appeal to me. It has this cosmic color palette. It looks like it's gonna have very big action that demands the big screen, which I'm always a big fan of. It doesn't really look that funny to me. I took that one clip from the trailer to show probably the funniest moment they are trying to showcase. I just feel like that scene has been written before. Those interactions, that punchline, I have seen that in a comedy like this before, so it doesn't really show me the unique perspective, the unique take that this is going to have on a video game adaptation. Just from that line, it really looks like comedy by the numbers. It's really given me street fighter vibes from back in the day, and video game adaptations recently have been pretty hit or miss. I think it also has to do with how much you played the video game and are a fan of the franchise. That greatly leads to the enjoyment of the movie. Because when I came on and did my review of Five Nights at Freddy's, much like Borderlands, I wasn't familiar with that game aside from seeing people talk about it on Reddit and see clips on YouTube. I did not enjoy that movie, and I got so much hate from the fan base that made that movie a success because I just didn't get that. But you also have TV adaptations like Halo and Twisted Metal The Last of Us that are crushing it and also doing very poorly. But that demand of having video game adaptations is huge right now, and we've also seen some really big success with at the Super Mario Brothers movie. Last year, Grand Tarismo did pretty well. I still think King Dingling when it comes to fun video game adaptations is Sonic the Hedgehog, which we're getting the third part this year. I think that really blends making a movie that's fun for kids and families and also pays tribute to all the fans of the video game who played it back in the nineties and two thousands. But either way, when you do a video game adaptation, you already have that built in audience. Also in this cast you have Jamie Lee, Curtis, Bobby Lee. But the person I think who is going to crush it the most is Jack Black, who isn't a live action character. In the movie. He does the voice for a character named Claptrap. Jack Black is a great voice actor. I just went to go see Kung Fu Panda four and it was also great in the Super Mario Brothers movie. And I think it's because to be a great voice actor, you have to lend more than just your name to a movie. And I feel that some actors just go in a booth and read some lines and they think it's an easy paycheck. But for somebody like Jack Black, he takes a lot of pride in doing great work and voice acting of making his voice sound a little bit different, which he did with Bowser. They also did some effects on his voice there, but there's a lot of different emotion in his voice and doing a more zany character like he's doing here in Borderlands. He also gets physical in the booth and makes the movements he was talking about. In Kung Fu Panda four, he would actually do some kung Fu movements to put some more emotion into it. He takes it seriously and quite honestly, he is probably going to perform better than any actor on the actual screen. It seems to me that they are giving his character the Rocket Raccoon treatment that they did Bradley Cooper and Guardians at the Galaxy. This movie really mirrors a lot of aspects of that movie. They have their Rocket Raccoon type character, they have their group type character, they have their drags. They also have their Peter Quill. So to me, this this movie doesn't really have its own unique identity yet. It seems to be borrowing a lot of inspiration from other superhero movies and video game movies. I feel like overall this will be a fun, average movie unless you're a huge fan of the video game. I hope they proved me wrong in that, But again, it is coming out later this year on August ninth.

00:47:23
Speaker 2: At that point was this week's edition of Movie Line tramor Bar and.

00:47:27
Speaker 1: That is gonna do it for another episode here of the podcast. But again, don't forget to look out for the special bonus Oscar coverage that I will be posting here later in the week to recap everything that happened at the Oscars and see if I was right or not all my predictions. Before I go, I got to give my listeners shout out of the week. This week, I am going over to my YouTube channel, which is YouTube dot com slash Mike dstro. If you ever forget that or forget any of my social links, it is always in the episode notes of every single podcast. But this week's listener shout out goes to Sash, who commented on my interview with the director of Wonka and said, Wow, interviewing directors of big movies is such an achievement. Here's two more great things to come from you and your channel. Thank you, Sash. Which the weird thing about YouTube is I find that people just go and watch my reviews on YouTube and maybe don't even listen to the full episodes of this podcast. So it's cool to have a new audience over there just discovering it from the individual movie reviews. So if you ever miss one of those, you can always go watch them on YouTube. Be sure to subscribe to that channel as well, because it really helps me out in the long run and lead some comments rate the videos. That also helps more people discover my channel. There therefore bringing people back to the podcast and become a part of the movie crew. So I'd really appreciate that if there's a specific review you enjoyed, host it on Instagram story, share that link, help spread the love because that goes a long way. Thank you for listening, thank you for being subscribed, and until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later.