Actors Paid MILLIONS for Little Screen Time + Movie Review: Fantastic Four + Trailer Park: Mortal Kombat 2

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie Podcast. I am your host Movie Mike. Today, I want to talk about the highest paid actors with the lowest amount of screen time. These are actors who spent a very little time actually on set, but took home a huge payday. A lot of drama went into this in the movie review. Did they finally get it right with Fantastic Four? Is the fourth time of charm? Yes? Even before the movies we had in the two thousands, there was a failed Fantastic four way back in the nineties. In the trailer park, we'll talk about Mortal Kombat two and how this one is finally going to feature of the tournament. Is it gonna be a better version of the Mortal Kombat we got in the nineties. Thank you for being here, Thank you for being subscribed. Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now let's talk movies from the Dustville Podcast Network. This is movie Mike's Movie Podcast. As actors who took home a whole lot of money for very little work, it is good work if you can get it. Let's kick off the list, getting right into all of this drama. I actually saw this first post on movie facts on Instagram, which is a great follow and this led me into diving into this entire topic. This story about Marlon Brando on the first Superman movie in nineteen seventy eight is wild because he was paid three point seven million dollars plus eleven point seven five percent of the profits for ten minutes of screen time. He ended up making nineteen million dollars in total, which in today's money would be ninety four million dollars for ten minutes of screen time. Now, the theme we're gonna see throughout this list is just because you're on screen for ten minutes doesn't mean you go in and work for ten minutes. Obviously, movies take a long time to make. A lot of making movies is sitting around and waiting, So those ten minutes you'll probably put a lot more time than that. Some people here on this list are gonna be on set for three to four days, some people two weeks. Some people will be there the entire time. But when you think about how much you pay an actor versus how much they are actually featured on the screen, it is wild to think about. But sometimes with a big name like Marlon Brando, you put his name on the poster, you put him in all the promotional materials, and that is going to sell your movie. So sometimes you are also paying for their name. We're also going to see a lot of these people are really big names. But not only that, Marlon Brando refused to memorize his lines. So what did they do? They placed Q cards all around the set. And on the other hand, Christopher Reeve, who played Superman, was only paid two hundred and fifty thousand dollars compared to what Marlon Brando got. Brando was also deliberately late to set, and it was actually written into his contract that he received additional compensation every time the production went over schedule. So if he was late and then the production still went over schedule, it was a financial incentive for him to be late and do whatever he wanted with his time because he just kept making more and more money. He had an assistant at the time who was sixteen years old, who reportedly went with him on set to make sure he had a full stomach, because whenever he was full, he supposedly acted better. At this point in his career, he was just doing whatever he wanted. Christopher Reeve even openly called out Brando saying like, I'm not supporting that. Christopher Reeves said, by the time that Marlon Branda was fifty three, he was just done with everything. He didn't give a crap. So Marlon Brando nineteen million dollars for ten minutes of screen time. Up next Fantastic Beasts The Secrets of Dumbledore, which came out in twenty twenty two. Johnny Depp was paid sixteen million dollars. How much time was he on screen? Let me think back to that movie. Oh, he's not in it at all, zero screen time. He was actually dropped from the third film because of all the controversy going on in his personal life, because of all the court stuff with Amber Heard. He was replaced in the movie, but in his contract he had a pay or play clause, meaning that he would receive his full salary regardless if he was in the movie or not. He even had a clause in there if they replaced him, he would still get paid that sixteen million dollars from Warner Brothers. So that is exactly what happened. So this was the final film in that franchise, which I thought started out really strong. I loved the first one. I enjoyed stepping into that world with newt I thought Eddie Redmain did a fantastic job. But I think historically those movies got worse and worse and they ended up just becoming what I would dub as an airplane movie. But that's wild though that Johnny Depp only filmed one scene for this movie before being asked to resign, but still he made that sixteen million dollars wild. Next up, George Clooney and Gravity. When I think about Gravity, I think of it as a Sandra Bullock movie. Very limited cast. It's pretty much her and George Clooney, and really from that, it's pretty much her the entire time. Floating in space. I thought that movie was great when it first came out. It was very immersive, was still popular at the time as far as being able to add depth to a movie in a way that we hadn't really seen before. We were really enamored with it in the twenty tens because of Avatar, which came out in two thousand and nine, and then everybody started utilizing that technology. But I love space movies because they're always very isolated, and this movie really made me feel like I was isolated in space right there with Sandra Bullock. But George Clooney was in this movie for only eighteen minutes, and it's pretty much only in the beginning. We have a lot of George Clooney's voice in the movie as well, and he was paid twenty million dollars and that was just the upfront money, because he also got fourteen million dollars from the box office profits. So in just what was reported that he made for this movie, that's thirty four million dollars right there for eighteen minutes. But George Clooney is one of those actors with that power in his name, and at least with this one, it doesn't really feel to me like his presence is not there. If you were to ask me before I looked up this list, I would have thought he was in it. More so, I guess that doesn't really take away from it. Some of these other people were going to get to. You can tell that they were way overpaid for their amount of time, because sometimes you can be on screen for a very limited amount of time and have a big impact. We're going to get to somebody on this list later who won an oscar for a very limited time that they were on screen. Still got paid a pretty decent amount, But George Clooney eighteen minutes thirty four million dollars. This next one is wild. Nicholas Cage was Superman. He was, the movie was canceled. They only ever brought him back in the Flash movie whenever they had all those random cameos. But the movie was called Superman Libs. So total screen time he ended up having was zero minutes because the movie was never made. But if you ever google Nicholas Cage Superman, you'll see a picture of him in the Superman suit. Tim Burton was all gung ho about making this movie. They didn't really even have a script. They were kind of just piecing things together as they went along. I don't know what would have happened with this movie, tim Burton doing a Superman movie. I mean, he did a really great job with Batman, but it kind of seemed like this thing was under wraps for so long. There was no clear plan but for those zero minutes. Because the movie was never fully made, Nicholas Cage was still paid twenty million dollars, which he went on to spend on like a dinosaur skull or something, or the blood of Dracula, but the movie was canceled in pre production in the late nineties. But Nicholas Cage had what we were talking about earlier, the pay or play contract, meaning he still got paid even though the movie didn't even shoot, so it wasn't even that the movie came out and it wasn't in it. Even though the movie never fully was finished, he still got paid those twenty million dollars for basically wearing a weird wig and some test footage and putting on the suit that doesn't really look like it even fits his body. I'm not entirely shit it was made and fitted to him because it looks a little weird on him. But twenty million dollars for doing a very limited amount of time on a pre production set movie, not coming out, not having to do press for it, I'll take it. Next up, we have Denzel Washington, an American gangster from two thousand and seven. This was a little bit different because the movie initially got canceled back in two thousand and four by Universal, and Denzel was really upset because he was set to make twenty million dollars before that movie was canceled, so he sued them for breach of contract and ended up being paid twenty million dollars anyway, even though the movie didn't come out. But then later in two thousand and seven, famous director Ridley Scott revived the project still brought Denzel Washington back for that role that he was initially supposed to play, Frank Lucas. But then here's the part where it makes this really lucrative for him when he signed back on with the Ridley Scott version and he got paid another twenty million dollars. So when all was said and done for American Gangster Danzel Washington made forty million dollars per that settlement and per that new deal. So sometimes you gotta fight for what you're worth and you gotta fight for the work that you've been promised. And that's the thing not only with actors, but anybody in a professional setting, especially people like independent contractors. If you get hired to do a job that is gonna set you for the rest of the year, maybe you're in a point where like, oh, I just need to get this next big job, this next big opportunity, no matter what you do, and you're already accounting for that money. It is as impactful to you as it is to a Hollywood actor who maybe lives an entirely different lifestyle, maybe sometimes lives in excess, but it impacts you the same way. So when that gets taken away from you, say that contract for building a new school goes away, you're already counting for that money the same way Denzel Washington was already accounting for that money to maybe build a new wing in his house. So that is why these actors fight for all this money. And also, like we've been talking about recently in movie Math, is that just because they are paid that twenty million dollars, that greatly dwindles as they start to pay everybody, which is going to be a reason that someone else on this list took a role that was like, oh my gosh, why are they even in this movie? Now we have an answer. But Denzel forty million dollars when all was said and done for American Gangster, Next up, this one I felt and this one I felt a little bit robbed by a little bit cheated by even Robert Downey Junior. In Spider Man Homecoming from twenty seventeen, he was paid ten million dollars. He was in that movie for about eight minutes, and that was used in the poster that was used in the trailer. This was at a time when the MCU was just banking on everything. Robert Downey Junior, he was carrying the MCU with all his cameos, with all the Iron Man movies. He was holding up the Avengers and he probably could have been for more. And the only real gripe I have with the Tom Hall and Spider Man movies is that they've always been attached to the Avengers, especially this one, and really following the aftermath of the movie that came before it in the MCU, and that was exactly what happened with this movie. I wish it wasn't so tied to Iron Man and we only got eight minutes of him on screen. But the difference between somebody like Robert Downey Jr. And a Marlon Brando is when Robert Downey Junior shows up, he is there, he is zoned in on his character, he is memorizing his lines. You get full charisma Robert Downey Junior. So I think you do get your money's worth for that ten million dollars because he's going to give you the best possible version of Tony Stark that he can do in that role, so he's very pivotal. His presence was needed at the time in this movie. But I'm so glad now with the new Spider Man coming out that they have revealed that Spider Man is going back to street level crime where it's not gonna be in another universe. It's not gonna be dealing with all these things. It's gonna be Spider Man getting back to his roots fighting just average criminals. We know that Frank Castle, aka the Punisher, is going to be a part of this movie, so that is what excites me because the change we started to see in Tom Holland Spider Man because of all the events of No Way Home is I feel like he has that edge to him now he's lost somebody important to him, he has gone through that trauma that every Spider Man has to go through. So now taking them back to the streets, Oh, that's gonna be good. But we're not gonna have Robert Danny Junior in this one, although he's probably gonna make a lot of money for the next two Avengers movies playing Doctor Doom, but for Spider Man Homecoming for eight minutes, he made ten million dollars and speaking of actors really needing a quick payday and not making as much money as you think when all is said and done, that is the case with the next person on this list, al Pacino in Jack and Jill from twenty eleven, which is historically a bad Adam Sandler movie, even though it is my mom's favorite Adam Sandler movie. That is why I've seen this movie. I would say at least three or four, maybe five times, because she loves it so much. So yes, on paper, it is a terrible movie, but the enjoyment I get from watching it with my mom that is priceless. But al Pacino in this is very out of pocket. I wondered why he was even in this, but it turns out he did this cameo which was a pretty short amount of screen time, but he played himself. I would imagine ten maybe fifteen minutes total will probably less than that because it's pretty much a glorifying cameo, even though he does a whole commercial for Duncan Donnut. Oh my gosh, it's so ridiculous because in the movie there's a product that Duncan Donuts is coming out, with this whole promotional thing, and it's duncancino because he's al Pacino. Yeah, that is the level of writing. We have Jack and Jill, But my mom loves it all right, so back off. But al Pacino said, what happened is he had a net worth before this movie of about fifty million dollars. He went from having that to having nothing. He wrote about it in his memoir called Sonny Boy, saying that his accountant screwed him over. And he was an accountant who had a lot of celebrity clients. But I believe his accountant ended up in jail. And even though al Pacino had property, he didn't have any money, not only due to the bad accountant, but also due to his overspending. Because once you get to a level of uh, I'm rich and famous, I can buy whatever I want. If you have a bad accountant not telling you what you're spending, or maybe even allegedly taking some money from you, you're gonna go broke. And fifty million dollars sounds like a lot of money until you're just spending an excess and then not working a whole lot to make up for all the money that you're spending. So that's what happened to him, and then he said he took this movie because it kind of just landed in his lap at a time where he really needed the money. And of those ten million dollars, he says, after you pay the lawyers, the agents, the publicists, and the government, he got about four point five million dollars of that ten million. So what we've learned in movie math is that usually take home about half, at most sixty percent of the money that they are paid. But in this case, from that ten million dollars, he got four point five And for him and the lifestyle he was probably living, that was probably like taking a cup of water and trying to fill this empty tub. So it gave him a little bit of money, but it's like, man, I got so used to this lifestyle and he's at a point in his life where he can't really take the roles he was taken in the eighties and the nineties. He's just not that type of actor anymore, being older in age. And the crazy part is he even criticized this film afterwards. He was like, it's not a funny film. He only did it because he needed the money and he was in such a tight spot. So if you ever see one of your favorite actors or an actor from back in the day end up in a movie and you're like, why did they take this movie? There? Rich and famous, they don't need this. They could actually probably really need it, much like al Pacino needed Jack in jail. So The Sandman saving legendary actors one bad movie at a time, Jit a bit. Next up Dwayne the Rock Johnson in The Other Guys. He is on screen for fourteen minutes and he made nine million dollars. I do believe this is an underappreciated movie which stars Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell, which on paper it is just another dumb Will Ferrell Mark Wahlberg comedy. But the fact that he was in the movie, on screen for fourteen minutes and made nine million dollars when Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg were in the entire movie and they made twenty million dollars each for it. At that time, Mark Wahlberg was one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood, and because he ended up on this list, I have to say the Rock has to be probably the most overpaid actor. He is one of the only actors I could imagine was probably only on set for those fourteen minutes, and then he was in out of there and had to go lift weights or something, because unlike Robert Downey Jr. I don't believe whenever you have the rock on set, you have his full attention. Even though that story came out that he would pee in bottles because he didn't want to waste time on set, so he'd be filming pee in a bottle, give it to like his assistant or a PA or something, and then continue, I do just go take a pee break. You were already hours and hours late, basically adding on another data production. What's another two to three minutes for you to go take a whiz where we don't have to see your Johnson commadwayin. But nine million dollars for fourteen minutes not bad. That is more money than I'll ever make in my life. He could just hit me with the rock bottom and make millions. Next up, Jared Leto in Suicide Squad from twenty sixteen. He was paid seven million dollars for seven minutes of screen time, one million dollars a minute. And this movie was really hurt due to the fact that he was in it so little, because that was a big selling point to Suicide Squad was the fact that the Joker was going to be in it. We were supposed to see more of him and Harley Quinn's story, and that entire relationship just wasn't fleshed out in Suicide Squad. It was really just a quick villain origin story and then he was kind of scattered in the movie. On the other hand, Margot Robbie was paid seven hundred and sixty thousand dollars for doing a much better job and being in the movie, so much more than Jared Leto. I am glad that Margot Robbie is getting paid now because before that, for her role in The Wolf of Wall Street she was paid three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But then for Barbie just a couple of years ago, she made twelve point five million dollars. We still need to get her in that twenty million dollar range. I did see the trailer recently for a big, bold, beautiful journey with her and Colin Ferrell. That looks fantastic. I might have to talk about that one in the trailer part because it looks really good. Let's get through a handful more of these. Bill Murray was in Zombie Lane for about five minutes in two thousand and nine. Pretty much a cameo, but a very memorable cameo. I think that is one of the funniest moments of the movie. He plays himself, he dies on screen. He was paid three million dollars for those five minutes, and that is more money than he was paid for being the lead in Groundhog Day. He even came back in Zombieland Double Tap, which I thought was a little bit underwhelming. Still pretty good, decent, but not as good as the original Zombie Land. But it wasn't stated how much he made for that. But three million dollars for five minutes, and you know, that was an easy filming day one location. All he really had to do was get into makeup and then hang out with Woody Harrelson. He probably could have been convinced he wasn't even making a movie and just hanging out in some random rich person's house. I bet the hardest thing about that was getting him just to show up on set. Mark Hamill in Star Wars The Force Awakens, which came out in twenty fifteen, he was paid an estimated one to three million dollars screen time thirty seconds, and the best part of those thirty seconds he speaks no dialogue. So Disney reportedly had what is called a legacy payscale for actors from that original Star Wars trilogy, which is probably why he ended up being paid so much. That it stated if those legacy actors do come back in a Star Wars project like this, they get a flat rate no matter how much they are in the movie. They kept his cameo under wraps for a vast majority of the time. I don't even think I knew about it, or most people knew about it until we saw that movie in theaters. That was an event. Seeing The Force Awakens in theaters really made me love Star Wars and get back into diving into all of those films. And I know that's probably not the case with that trilogy. A lot of people took that to get out all their hate and their disdain for Disney taking over the franchise and what most people say ruined it. Not for me, those movies made me love Star Wars. I love Daisy Ridley as Ray, I love Mark Hamill and those movies, and I love the fact that he got three million dollars for not saying anything I wish I could do that I would make so much money to get paid for not speaking. Next up, I referenced it earlier, but Anthony Hopkins was in the Silence of the Lambs on screen for just sixteen minutes. Now, he only made it between one hundred and twenty five to one hundred and seventy five thousand. That's why I put it lower on the list. But the most impressive thing about those sixteen minutes that he was on screen he ended up winning the Oscar for Best Actor for this movie, and that was enough to get him the record for having won an Oscar with the least amount of screen time. That is impressive, so that probably didn't push his net worth to a crazy amount like some of the other people on this list, But he's the only person on this list to win an Oscar for being there for such a little time on the screen. Juliet Roberts in Mother's Day from twenty sixteen, she was paid three million dollars for four minutes of screen time. But not only that, she was only on set and filmed all of her scenes in just four days, so that is almost a million dollars a day to have Julia Roberts show up on your set. So when all was said and done, she made seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars per day. And the movie wasn't even good. This was one of those weird ensemble cast movies that they tried to make for every holiday. None of them were good, but either way, she got paid. Also for four days of work. Bruce Willis made three million dollars for his work on The Expendables two. He was on screen for about seven to eight minutes. After that, they tried to get him for Expendables three, but instead of three million dollars for four days, he wanted to get three million dollars for three days. And I know Bruce Willis is going through a lot right now. If he saw the news that came out about him last week. He is in bad spot right now. He can no longer speak, read, or walk amid his dementia decline. And I think what we saw is later in his career, as what he was going through really started to affect him. His time was just more precious. So you may say and dollarge for four days of work. I really think he was taking on roles later in his career to really save more of his money to be able to give to his kids, to have something to pass along to them. Because if you look at his filmography from the last ten years, some movies you maybe haven't even heard of. He's just been consistently working. I think with the time that maybe he thinks he has left as far as just being able to be in front of the camera. So in this case, I'm okay with it. And finally, Shalene Woodley, who was in The Amazing Spider Man two, except she wasn't. She was supposed to play Mary Jane Watson in the sequel to the movie with Andrew Garfield, and even though she actually filmed all of her scenes, it ended up being cut from the final film, which I just don't know how would have even worked in there. I would be curious to watch those scenes put into the movie just to see that cut of it. But apparently director Mark Webb shot three scenes with the actress, including her kind of being the secondary love interest to Andrew Garfield. But why he ended up cutting her out of the movie is because the runtime was just getting too long, so in order to sacrifice it just being more concisive a story, they completely took that storyline out of this one, but even though she was cut from the movie, she still made about a half a million dollars, so not bad. Well, come back and I'll give my spoiler free review of The Fantastic Four first steps. Let's get into it now, a spoiler free movie review of The Fantastic Four. I was excited going into it, but really hesitant because historically I have not been a fan of the films. I can finally say they have done Marvel's first family justice because I've always believed that the Fantastic Four are very fascinating and interesting characters in the comics. If it wouldn't have been for the success of the Fantastic Four, Marvel would have folded way back in the day before we got any of our favorite superheroes. They are what established Marvel's identity. They were the first superheroes with problems. There are so many things about Fantastic Four that really embody Marvel and set itself apart from DC and everybody else out there. But for some reason, when it comes to their adaptation in film, it just hasn't worked. And although I believe they're all great characters, they have really great superpowers that look good inside the panels. Whenever you put that into the big screen, I just feel like it's hard to make that look just not completely childish. But here they finally got their character designs right. The special effects in this movie were great. I think Marvel finally listened to all the people online saying that the special effects have been trashed for the last two to three years. They look great. There are moments where you're like, oh man, that looks a little bit suss, but I still don't believe it was enough to take you out of it. Because all the characters felt like it was the silver Rage comics coming to life, and that was something that really made me excited about this movie. It felt to me like one of the best comic book adaptations. It felt like I was watching that silver age on the silver screen, and that is what brought me the most enjoyment, because being somebody who has read the comics and has been fascinated with these stories and these characters for so long, to finally have that vision that I've had just reading them with my eyes, finally seeing them in live action on the big screen, I think that was exciting for me, just so that other people could finally see why people love these characters so much, and it was almost like erasing a lot of that history of these movies being so bad because the costumes looked fantastic, not just the best to Fantastic Four have ever looked, but I think quite possibly the best superhero suits that we've had in the last ten years, because there's no nanotechnology. They don't hit a button and suddenly they're in their suit. These suits have texture, these suits have style, they have bright and vibrant color. They fit them so perfectly, and they look so good on the screen, especially in Imax, which I was so glad we went to see this movie in Imax because I think seeing it on the biggest screen possible allowed me to enter that world. And there were so many moments that I was just engulfed in the story simply due to the fact that I was watching it on the biggest screen possible in IMAX format, especially the moments with Galactus where he takes up the entire screen. That was just my favorite part of the entire experience that I got to see every little detail come to life, and it made Galactus feel like that much more of a threat when you see him taking up an entire just wall in front of you. You feel that threat and you see that contrast between these characters of how huge Galactus is and how small the Fantastic Four feel in comparison, And for that reason, for the entire movie, I was worried for them, and for the entire movie, I was thinking, like, how are they going to even have a shot at this guy. I will say that did lead me to my biggest criticism with this movie is I never felt like all of them had the perfect chemistry throughout, because all individually they were really good. Pedro Pascal as read Richards, I got the sense that he was playing a really smart character. I understood the complexity of him wanting to do the right thing and save the world and working through every scenario in his brain. I think I identified a lot with this character. Not saying that I'm as smart as him. I'm not smart whatsoever, but I could understand him being so logical and thinking things through much more like an equation and taking the emotion out of it. I really felt that in this character, and I think that is something that is taken from the comics and put onto the screen to develop this character. So I love that Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm. I think she stole the show. I think this was her movie. She was the most just emotionally driven throughout. It starts with her finding out that she is pregnant, and it's a lot of read Richard's reaction to that, but her just kind of being the boss and dominating throughout this entire movie was my favorite. Joseph Quinn as a much different Johnny Storm. Where the Chris Evans version was just a hot head just wanted to hook up with chicks and be famous. This was so much more sophisticated. Joseph Quinn also looked so unique on screen, where he just had this look to him. The color in his eyes and when he was engulfed in flames look perfect, which I think they got that cgi down just so well because it looked believable. Aside from Sue's Storm, I just love the Thing. Any big Marvel character I'm just a huge fan of. That's why I put the incredible Hulk in my top five. Evan moss Backerack obviously I've loved him from the Bear, but seeing him really take a different approach to the thing to make him feel very lovable and soft and very comedic. I thought that was the perfect way to capture the essence of the Thing, because in the first movie from two thousand and five, he very much feels trapped in his body, like he's a freak, loses the love of his life. But here he is so accepting of it, and he's like, yeah, I'm the Thing. He embraces it. Yes, he does get a little bit annoyed by some of the public reaction as we see him struggle with people wanting him to say his catchphrase it's clobber in time. So he obviously has some struggles here he is trying to form relationships outside of being a superhero. But I love seeing him actually enjoy certain parts of it, whether it's entertaining the kids on the street who are a huge fan of him. And obviously they are four years into being the Fantastic Four here, so maybe he's taken some time to deal with it after coming back from space and turning into the Thing and having your entire life just completely changed and you can't go back to how you were, which that was another thing I did enjoy is they didn't do an origin story here, which I think is something not only Marvel is doing, but all superhero movies right now, saying we don't need to do origin stories. People know these characters. I do think some people are a little bit less familiar with the Fantastic Four, so they did kind of condense it at the very beginning because they go on a talk show and they use that talk show as a way to tell you how they got their superpowers. For maybe anybody who didn't see the twenty fifteen version, doesn't remember the two thousand and five version, or just has no idea about these characters, which I think is something Marvel is also showing us now, is that maybe all these movies aren't going to connect as much, and they are going for quality over quantity. Given that this movie is kicking off a new phase in the MCU, you could just go into this movie not have seen any Avengers movies, not have seen any Marvel movie whatsoever, and you would understand it completely. Well. It is obviously building too Avengers Doomsday and Avengers Secret Wars. I just felt like, for the first time, it felt like this was a completely self contained movie, even though I love Thunderbolts, that was still connected in all the remnants of the MCU, and that was closing out that chapter. But it just felt refreshing to me, much like Superman did a few weeks ago, that we can have superhero stories like this that stand alone, that establish themselves, that don't need to rely on what now feels like AMCU gimmicks. There wasn't even I feel the biggest emphasis on the post credit scenes. So I think Marvel is listening to what people have been saying about them for the last few years, that we just want good, solid, standalone stories, good looking characters, great comic book action, and that is what we got with The Fantastic Four. Now where it ranks on all the Marvel movies I've seen lately, it is really good. There's very few things I can say that I didn't like about it. That being said, I still didn't completely love it because it looked good. It went by really quickly. It clocked in right around an hour and forty four minutes. You end up hitting that one hour in fifty five minutes if you stay for the post credits scene and then there's a second post credit scene. But it went by really quickly. About the hour mark, I was like, I don't want this movie to end, and by the time it did end, I was wanting more, and I felt that I kind of held that against the movie because they were able to give us a bunch of interesting characters that I just wanted to see more of, and aside from just our superheroes, I was really invested in both of these villains, which is something that excites me as well as Marvel has just had historically forgettable villains, and I wanted to see more of them fighting, and I don't think this movie had enough of that. I think they were really trying to establish this family story and really shape them into the superhero family that we need to carry on into the Avengers, where I wanted them to prove a little bit more why they deserve our trust, why I feel safe with them. And that goes back to what I was saying is I never really felt them fully become a team in this movie, even though they were all great individual characters, I still think they need to mesh together a little bit better. I feel the fact that I'm also coming off of Superman, which I think was just on another level, and I know it's not the same world, it's not the same universe, but it is the same genre of superhero movies, and I just think the fun was captured a little bit more in Superman. And it's kind of weird that both of these movies have similar aesthetics, even though Superman is set in modern day. They almost feel like twin films to me, which is something that Marvel and DC have gone back and forth on in their history. Where in Superman everything was related to the number three, three years, three minutes, here everything was related to four. I don't know if that was on purpose of it being four years later of the Fantastic Four, that could just be a strange coincidence, but being the fact that they both came out in July and they are both from the two biggest superhero studios, I just kind of feel like maybe they both knew what they were dealing with. Maybe DC was trying to beat Fantastic four to the punch, and in this case, I kind of think they did, because after I watched Superman, I was like, oh, man, I don't know how Fantastic four is gonna compete with that. So maybe that influenced my score a little bit. If this would have came out at a different time of the year, if it had taken the Thunderbolt slot. Maybe I would have rated it a little bit higher. This movie had a lot going for it. It's good, it could have been great, it could have been even more fantastic. Really has me excited for the MCU overall, moving forward into Doomsday, into Spider Man. Oh, I can't wait. I am so in right now. Once we get to Secret Wars, it's just I'm probably going to explode. So maybe I'm holding my higher scores for those movies before the fantastic four first steps. I give it four out of five clobbering times. It's time to head down to movie mikes. Mortal Kombat two, the sequel the Mortal Kombat, which came out in twenty twenty one. It is the fourth movie in the franchise. We got two of these movies in the nineties, and after watching this trailer, I thought, Man, why couldn't they just take this a little bit more serious? Why does it have to be so comical and over the top. Why did the characters have to look the way they do? And then I really sat with that and thought about that, because to me, that sounded like somebody who wasn't a real fan of this video game, which I was back in the day, But that's not what this movie is. This franchise has grown so much since that video game we played back in the nineties on sns and in arcades, where the graphics were just very, very early on. At the time, we thought this is the best most advanced video game ever. The thing that was so appealing about Mortal Kombat was the blood, the blood splattering, you actually killing people, you falling down that tunnel. If you played it in the arcades and it's counting it down, like do you want to continue? That countdown keeps going, You're like, where is the quarter? I need the quarter? And then your guy or girl would hit the spikes and it'd be game over. But that's not what this video game is. Because we got those movies in the nineties, which were charming at the time. I love the first one in ninety five, but again, I was four years old when that movie came out. Of course I was going to love it. Didn't love the follow up to that, Annihilation, that was an abomination. But the franchise has grown so much since then and has gone from generation to generation console, from the PlayStation to the PS five now and I'm just not that in tune with this fan base anymore, because after watching this trailer, I see a lot of people excited about that that it is giving the gamers what they want who have been there with the franchise, and I think that is smart for them making references using characters that you would be familiar with if you'd played this game in the last ten to fifteen years, which is where video game movie adaptations have succeeded, most recently with Minecraft, but also Sonic The Hedgehogs, Super Mario. I also watched this trailer and set my expectations now because for some reason, I kind of want a Mortal Kombat movie to have more of a Game of Thrones vibe, because I think the level of intensity is just it's at that level you fight to the death in these situations. When I think about fighting to the death, I think of every battle and Game of Thrones. But that wouldn't make this movie fun. It wouldn't create that same action. You have these very just out of this world characters that would not fit with that. So now that I kind of have put myself in the mentality of if I was a fan of this franchise, given what happened in the twenty twenty one version, which you didn't even have the tournament in that one. It was all a build up to this one. I think this is where the good stuff if he's going to be We have Carl Urban joining the cast. Now he is going to be Johnny Cage. Before I get into more about the Mortal Kombat two movie, here's just a little bit of the trailer. Where the hell am I? It's a fighting tournament to the death. That's gotta be against the rules. You can't just go around killing people. It's called Mortal Kombat for a reason. Are you pretty? But you're not? Every prose it's just incredibly ass. So that is who Johnny Cage is. Played by Carl Urban, who you would be familiar with if you're a fan of the Boys on Prime Video. He plays Billy Butcher and he does a fantastic job there. He is very Australian, really leaning into the character of Johnny Cage, who is a pretty boy actor and in that movie he said a lot and did a lot of cheesy things, phrases like let's dance, hitting Gorol right in the junk, All right, Let's dance. That is the kind of material that you were working with in a Mortal Kombat movie. And they even point out there that Johnny Cage has no powers. He is just incredibly handsome. In this movie, you have Shao Khan as the main big bad who showed up at the very end of the original movie from nineteen ninety five, And I thought this movie ending was so intense and so impactful. And since then I've been fed clips here and there on TikTok and one I realized how bad the CGI was back in the day, like we were a long way from doing that movie Justice. So I think at the time I enjoyed it because I was a kid. It did capture what the video game franchise was at that time. They just didn't have the technology to do it. And at that very end scene where you do see this villain show up in the sky, which goes from a bright blue background to really dark and you see this image of this character emerge behind this pyramid, and whenever he delivered this line, as a kid, I thought that was the most intense thing ever. It told you that they're gonna make a sequel, which it felt so forced. You couldn't do this ending now it would be utterly ridiculous. And if they do something like this in twenty twenty five, it wouldn't be at the very end of a movie. This is giving more post credit scene. But here's that moment. Oh, it's a little cringe. What is it, apathetic fools, I've come for your souls? I don't think so. Oh theme song. I love how they just get ready and who are they doing that for? They go into like the fight emotion, like they're about to fight him right now. But I think that is what I am excited about this sequel, that it's actually going to feature the tournament, which the twenty twenty one version did not. It was a lot of backstory on Sub Zero and Scorpion, and now we're getting to the good stuff. Now we're gonna see what we did see in that original nineteen ninety five movie. But with today's technology and the thing about that and watching this trailer, it looks to me obviously like they couldn't film this movie on a real life set. These places don't exist, all these crazy worlds that they go to. Which was also a great thing about the Mortal Kombat game back in the day is the different actual levels you could play on. But movies like this are starting to have this identity where they use these LED huge screens. Maybe you've seen on socials recently James Gunn sharing behind the scenes moments from Superman. Whenever they were filming the flying scenes, they had what is called the volume, which are just these giant LED screens. I think The Mandalorian was one of the first TV shows to use them, and now more and more movies have used them because they're able to cast these really bright and vivid scenes onto these LED screens where it looks like you're actually there, and that's how they film it, so instead of filming to nothing like a green screen, the characters or the stunt performers can actually see something. I think it looks a lot cooler when used right, But watching this trailer, I feel that's what they used, even though I searched and they didn't explicitly say that. They used the volume to film a lot of Mortal Kombat. But it's starting to have this kind of identity in a lot of things that we see now on this level in certain superhero movies where you can tell that they are using it and you can tell that there's not this level of depth between the characters and their environment, which in the nineties, twenty even twenty tens, for the majority of that time, it was just green screen and blue screen, where I think this technology did have a lot of benefits of making it feel a little bit more real. But now it's kind of feeling a little bit more homogeneous, where all these movies are kind of starting to look the same, and the only thing that really stands out from this trailer is the unique character designs, because this movie does look like it's going to be a lot of fun, which I think the twenty twenty one version really wasn't that that. I remember watching that movie and I was like, did I hit play on the right thing? Because this doesn't feel like a Mortal Kombat movie. But I think in order for this franchise to carry on, because I assume they want to make a three, they want to make a four, I think they're gonna lead into the fun more and if that works, which overall I really enjoyed the twenty twenty one version. Was it my favorite movie of that year? No, but I gave it a three out of five, which was pretty solid. So we're seeing some new characters here, We're also seeing characters return like Sonya, Blade Jacks, Lou Kang and Kano hero. Yuki Sonata is back as Scorpion, which that guy has incredible range. Whenever I saw him win the Emmy for I believe it was Outstanding Lean Actor in a Drama Series for his role in Showgun, I really felt for that guy because he did that entire speech in Japanese. He talked about how that show was a huge gamble but now is a major success. And what he was referencing in that show being a gamble was the fact that it has a high percentage of Japanese dialogue. So for no one else, I'm watching this movie for him. It is coming out in theaters on October twenty fourth. Geez said that was this week's edition of Movie Live tram or Bar and that is going to do it for another episode here of the podcast. But before I go, I got to give my listeners shout out of the week. For the last couple of episodes, it has been a hater line on the shout out and I don't want to do that again this week. I didn't dive back into that well, even though I did get some of that last week, but I'm actually going over to Facebook, which has surprisingly been one of the more supportive places recently, which is unusual for Facebook because normally it's just people yelling at each other. Facebook is usually the place where people comment on a video referencing me, not really understanding that they're commenting on my page, so they're talking about me, like I'm not going to read it. They're like this guy is an idiot or this creator is stupid, and I'm like, you're commenting on my video. You could say that directly to me, and then I feel weird replying to that, but Facebook has been surprisingly supportive. This week's listener shat Out of the Week goes to jennifers Need, who commented on my post about my I Know What You Did Last Summer review and said, when you're rooting for the Fishermen, you know it is bad. Which of the people I did see that actually went to go see I Know What You Did last summer? I don't think anybody was happy with that, even bigger fans of the original than I was, which I'm not the hugest fan of it, but there were people I know went to see that movie that loved the first one. They still did not like this movie. The highest rating I saw for it was a two point five out of five, and that was from a big fan. I don't know what happened here. I'm still trying to figure that one out. So thank you Jennifer for commenting on that. Hopefully I saved you from going to see that movie in theaters. Maybe, just maybe I would say it's worthy of a stream. Yeah, I'll give them that because it was entertaining enough for me to stay till the very end. It does suck you in in a really annoying way. So probably not one you need to see in theaters at all, but give it a stream maybe if it's been hanging on a service for a while now and you have nothing else to watch and just want to be sucked into something really dumb, that is the only real indication. Or if you get stuck on a plane, although they don't really put horror movies on planes anymore, but if you're stuck on a plane and you have nothing else to watch, check out the new one. Know what you did last summer, because that's where it's probably coming to you next. So 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 you later