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We're up. What's going on, man? How are you?

I'm good. Welcome aboard.

Thank you for being here.

No, thanks for having me.

My pleasure. You made two of my all time favorite movies, the Watchmen I fucking love.

Awesome.

300.

Okay, awesome.

I have, like, a top 20 list. I've never formally put together a top 20 list, but those are in there.

Oh, that's cool. Well, first of all, I appreciate that, because 300 was a complete labor of love and insane. I was a Frank Miller fan for a long time, right? And I thought I would do Dark Knight Returns. Frankly, that was the movie I wanted. I still want to do it. I always tell everyone, like, Dark Knight Returns. If I could do Dark Knight Returns, I'd be done with comic book movies really well, because if you've done watchmen, oh, sorry, I'm banging the mic. If you do Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, for me, your legacy is set. Batman versus Superman literally steals a lot of dark Knight Returns. I'm not going to say it didn't. It did. But it's still not dark Knight Returns. I think that's still out there. But for a long time, I had 300 on my coffee table at my house when I was making tv commercials. And I'd have my friends over, I'd be like, I'm going to make this one day. It's going to look exactly like this comic book. And they'd be, yeah, sure it is. And, yeah, I was having a general meeting with Gianni Nunari, who was one of the producers, and he was asking me about what I like, and he had that graphic novel in his office, like on his table.

And I went, well, okay, you know what? If I could do anything, that book right there, I would make that. And he goes, well, what do you mean? How would you make it? And I literally just opened it up, and I go, we'd film this. We'd film these pictures. It would look like this. And he goes, okay, that's cool. So you're saying you would just shoot the movie and it would look like this graphic novel? I go, that's what I'm saying. But at the time, we couldn't sell it. We tried. We went around town with literally, we went to all the studios. They were all kind of like, yeah, sword and sandals.

Wasn't it the same time that Troy was being made?

It was exactly the same time as Troy. And when we went to Warner, brothers originally with it, they literally were like, we have Troy, so why would we want this? We have Brad Pitt. Like, literally, Brad Pitt is in our movie. What do you. I go, we're going to do something crazy. We're not even going to shoot it outside. And they were like, what? Okay, you're nuts. And I go, yeah, we're not going to go for one shot outside. We ended up going for one shot outside for this. When the persian messengers are coming, that super high speed shot where the horses are kind of coming over the hill, we shot that outside because we just couldn't get the horses going fast enough. It's the shot right before this, I think, oh, no, it's this one. That's it. It's that shot. So that shot was the horses. That was a high speed shot we did with photosonics outside, but that was it. That's, like, the only shot outside. Everything else is on the horse. Because they couldn't get the horses fast enough inside. Yeah, it was too expensive. That was a low budget movie.

We couldn't get 300 was a low budget movie.

Yeah, because we shot it all on stage. 60 days. That's, like, why there's no director's cut of watch of 300 is because every frame of film we shot is in the movie in 60 days. 60 days? Yeah.

Wow.

Crazy. That's insane. It almost killed us, but it was fun, but, yeah. So when we took it to Warner Bros. They were like, finally, well, what happened was I did dawn of the dead, and then from dawn of the dead, I was supposed to do I am legend, right? And I am legend was this movie that was at Warner Brothers that they were like, what do you think? And then there was some kind of crazy mix up, and they ended up giving that movie to someone else. And then I think they felt bad or whatever, and they said, well, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I really still want to do 300. And so we shot that test shot. I think it was on the DVD. There's a test shot we did. And they said, okay, if you can make the movie look like that, go do it.

Was that one of the first movies that was ever shot in front of a green screen? Basically, most of the movie, except that one scene.

Sorry. Yeah, I don't think it was like, look, green screen photography was like a well known way to make a movie. Visual effects and all that movie. Yeah. I don't know about a whole movie. That was weird. I always say, they go like, well, what innovations? And I always go, it's basically the same technology that the weatherman uses when he stands in front of the green screen and says, like, oh, the front's coming in from the same. It's literally the same technology. Because, look, easily you could put the weather behind that guy right there and it'd be the. Oh, that's Eli. That's my son.

Oh, wow.

He's now making movies. He was the second unit director on Rebel Moon.

Oh, that's so cool.

Yeah. He also plays the young Rorschach in watchmen. Really? Yeah. Like the baby Rorschach? Yeah, because you put your kid in a movie. And I always was like, oh, let's have Eli do that. Because it's easier. He has to beat the other kid up. Eli's better because I don't have to talk to. Cause, like, actually, there's a scene to watch when, you know, where he bites the kid's face and he pulls the flesh off the face. And I go, you know what? Let's just get e to do it. Because then I can just be like, okay, e, bite this. Now pull it. Like, rip it off.

Right?

The only troubling part of that is that there was a scene that we did in that movie where know. Because Rorschach's mom was a prostitute, right? So there's that scene where Rorschach's mom in the flashbacks, like, I should have had that abortion, right? And she slaps him in the face, right? Because he hears mom, is he hurting you? Because she's having sex with some john in there. And then she opens the door, and she's know. He's like, is he hurting you? I should have had that abortion. Slapped him. And I had wanted the mother to be topless in that scene. And they were like, nah, you can't have. And it's cool because his mother was visiting set that day, and his mom was there, and she was like, oh, you're putting our son in a movie. We weren't together at the time, his mom and I, but we're really close friends. But she was an actress. And I said. And they went, the only way that the woman could be topless is if it was actually his mom. And I was like, I go, Denise. And she was like, no chance.

Imagine asking your ex wife to play a terrible prostitute who slaps their son and says, I wish I had an abortion. Holy shit.

I go, come on. It's for the drama. It's not like, oh, my God. I know. And she was like, you were insane. I was like, come on that would have been awesome.

But it's at least slightly insane. But that would be the only way to do it.

Yeah.

Could you CGI boobs on her?

Yeah, that's cool. At the time, probably. Now I think we could. Now I think we could have. Yeah, I think we could have. If I'd wanted to do it now, I think that's how you would do it. You do it with some sort of chest rig and they would paint them out and then redo the boobs. That's a good idea, actually.

How much?

Go back in.

How much of any CGI was used on their bodies?

In 3000 CGI on the body. Really? We didn't have the money, honestly.

So many people talk so much shit.

I swear to God, I'm like, you did Mark twight on this show? And then Mark will tell you. Mark trained the guys. Mark's like this amazing. I've known Mark for years and he's an incredible alpine climber. He's just like this insane. He can shoot. He could do anything that anyone can. And, like, when I asked him to train the guys, he's like, this sounds like Hollywood bullshit. Like, train actors for a movie. They're all fakers. They're all liars. And I was like, look, you will make them honest. And so he's like, all right. So he started training everybody. Yeah, there's Mark right there. And his Gym was called Jim Jones. Right. Just as an example of how hard he is. But yeah. And so he had trained all these seals and basically it was basically the same thing that he was doing with the seals he did with these actors.

A prerequisite had.

You can imagine, it had to be.

In some form of some shape, some.

Teeny bit of shape. A couple of guys came to us. They were pure actors, but 90% had some shape.

How much time did you have to work with them?

I'm trying to remember. Normally what I like is at least five weeks. I like five weeks. And I'll take more if you'll give it to me.

Sure, for a film. But I mean, prepare physically.

I'm talking about before the film starts at two months or three months. I like before the film starts of training.

That's enough time to get them into that.

It never is. These guys trained doubly as hard. And they knew a lot of them were athletes anyway, so they came in with like. And Jerry had had more time. And Jerry trained with his own guy. Jerry didn't train with know it. When Henry Cavill. Mark trained Henry for Superman and that was longer. I think that was three months or four months. But, yeah, it's never enough time because you just can't get it. Actors, ideally, you'd have half a year, six months would be perfect. Really?

At least.

Yeah. I mean, just to get you visibly. I always say the one thing about movies is that. And the thing about Mark that I loved was that he went to psychological war with the actors in the best possible. He. What he was looking for. He would always say, I'm going to put you in your pain cave, and you're going to find out a lot about yourself when you're in there. Right. And then when you come out of the workout, you're going to grow. I'm going to grow you here. And some people just don't like that, especially people who haven't, like, fitness isn't like a lifestyle that they've chosen.

No, that's a journey that you have to be really dedicated to go down. If you're just a kind of a casual, and someone comes along and says, I want to put you in the pain cave, you're like, I'm not interested in that.

I think it works with actors because he makes it part of the crucible of the performance. And I think if you can connect it to the performance, it makes the training mean something. I've always been like a sort of bodybuilding fan, like in the trained with this guy in the 80s who was just like a teacher that lived. This guy, Jim Arden, who lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, where I grew up. He was a teacher at this school called Greenwich Country Day, which was near the boarding school that I went to. And I was know, everyone expected me to be like, I played soccer. I was like an really. But then I sort of got into weight training. I was like, that's what I want to do. Everyone thought I was insane. And I think it was my meeting Jim, and Jim being like, because Jim had this. In the basement of Grange country day, there was like this weirdo, Jim and Chris Dickerson and Mike Katz, all these crazy 80s bodybuilders would show up and train with him. And it was like this weird. I'd be like, this is awesome. And we went to the Olympia.

He took us to the Olympia in New York City. What year was that? Like 82 or three. I forget what year. But anyway, it was just really cool. And I was just in this. And then, of course, I was like, schwarzenegger. I read his book, education of a know, it's a weirdo book.

Did you get involved in bodybuilding yourself?

I mean, I trained with Jim because I thought, like, okay, yeah, maybe I'll be a bodybuilder one day. That'd be cool. But of, like, I was also painting. And I remember when I was a senior in high school, after I graduated, I went to London for a year to art school to paint, and I lost like 40 pounds of muscle in that year. Just literally, I was in the best shape of my life. Went to England to be a painter and literally just ate baked beans on toast for a year and starved to death.

Wow.

But I was like, this is amazing. I'm an artist, but it definitely. But I always had that esthetic bug in my head. My trainer now is this guy Alessandro. He trained everyone for Rebel Moon, and in his early 60s, Italian, was a bodybuilder, was a power lifter, became a bodybuilder, and he's a hard Italian. No bullshit. It was cool because during the training for Rebel Moon, one of the actors was like, I have an idea for a workout. Do you want to hear it? He's like, I have an idea for a movie.

Stay in your lane.

Exactly. Or like the guys at the gym, because he used to judge bodybuilding competitions and has his pro card and everything was like a real bodybuilder. And they'd say, like, hey, can you come and look at me? I have a contest coming up in the bathroom. And they'd go in there and the guy take his shirt off and he'd be like, how long till the competition? I got two months till the competition. And all the time to be like, I think next year for you is going to be better. It's like, oh, and he has no problem saying, I think I need to lose, like 40 pounds. More like 80. Jesus, he's hard, but he's awesome. He's like, no bullshit. He trained the guys for elbow Moon, and he's like a pure esthetic trainer. Pure esthetic.

Just going for a look.

He's seen everything and he's just like, okay, your abs could be sharper.

Yeah, that's a weird thing.

Yeah, it's like a whole thing. It is a whole thing.

Yeah. I had Ronnie Coleman on.

Oh, yeah, exactly.

You know, Ronnie Coleman, at one point in time, was the freak of all freaks.

Oh, he is hands down, like, no one's ever going to be better.

He's the freak of all freaks.

Yeah. Just like, the way his muscles attach is like crazy. Like, you can't.

Well, he was probably one of the strongest bodybuilders ever.

Unbelievable.

And that's part of the reason why he looked the way he looked. He didn't look just big. He looked super powerful.

Well, also, the thing about Ronnie Coleman, you see guys that are just incredibly swollen where they can't, like, they're muscle bound. And he could always just, like, he could just touch his back of his head. Look at him back.

So insane.

Yes. Alessandro was in a competition with him, night of the champions, I think, in San Francisco. And he said, he goes, I come from, I I'm in my first. I, like, pull a card and, like, realize, like, I'm next to Ronnie Coleman and me, I'm like, he's like, great. This is fucking perfect. And he goes, like, the guy, you know, like how bodybuilders, like, the whole thing is about your skin being super thin. So everything shows. He goes, I saw him backstage and I thought, you know what? The skin's, like, not there. It's not going to happen. He goes, but then so much muscle. He pulls and he's like, oh, my God. How is it possible that the skin just can't, the muscle so thick just like, pushes all the stretches, all you see all the striations and everything that you, with him just relaxing backstage, you thought, I'm more ripped than him. But then he's like, no way.

It's such a weird sport because they're literally on death's door.

Oh, literally.

They dehydrate themselves to the point where they have kidney failure almost.

Yeah. The thing that we can all learn from the bodybuilders is I think that just now, in sort of everything that's happening with longevity and all this, the bodybuilders will do stuff to their bodies that nobody else would dare do. They'll do dosages that no one will do. And so it's cool to say, like, okay, if you want to know what quadruple the dose of anything does, just ask those guys. They'll tell you. Because I think you'd be like, okay, this is the most you could take. And then it's toxic. Oh, cool. I'll take triple that and see what happens. Because they're all searching for the magic bullet.

It's kind of amazing how few of them have died.

Well, and also, they do die all the time, so it's not.

They do die, but it's not like you'd expect.

It kills all of them. Think every single one of them.

Great shape.

Yeah. And how can you have been on the edge of it for so long? Yeah, the body's incredible. That's what you learned.

He's really suffered unfortunately, Ronnie, but I think he suffered from surgery. I think the surgery got know there's so many guys who get back surgery, and back then, stem cells weren't available and people weren't aware that there's other ways to fix your back. The doctors just want to go in there and start fusing disks and scares the shit out of me. Everybody that I know that's had that done has had real problems afterwards. It puts extra pressure on the above and below disks as well because it's an unnatural sort of unit. Now instead of having three pieces, you now have one. Sure.

It's crazy.

It can be a real problem. It can be a real problem.

Yeah. And I think that healing, the science behind healing, it's changing so much. Leaps and bounds, leaps and bounds. And I think that really, that's where the future is, in my opinion. How we learn to heal is really how we learn to really stay active and getting stuff done for longer, because recovery is the whole thing.

100% recovery. And also being cognizant of what your little issues are and not letting them get chronic. When I was young, I was just too much of a meathead.

Ignore, ignore, work through pain.

And also, when you're doing jiu jitsu, you're always in pain. So I was just like, just work through the pain. But then I started developing some real chronic problems and it wasn't until I started doing stem cells and then starting to understand you can, but it's not wise to just go and only do jiu jitsu, really, you should be doing maintenance, weightlifting that's designed to strengthen your joints. And so I really started doing that, and that made a giant difference, too. And instead of just thinking of it as a workout, it's always like, okay, is your car ready to get on the track? No, it's not. You need to change your tires. No, it's not. Your suspension is off. No, it's not. You need more gas, whatever the fuck it is.

Sure, absolutely.

Treat your body like that. Don't just say, I'm fucking tough. I'm going to show up with the flu, and I'm going to go seven rounds. No, don't do that. That's stupid. That's stupid. Every time I've ever done that, it's set me way back. It's never helped me. Never. One time that I was like, push through the pain. Has it ever been good? Not a single fucking time. So now at 56, now I'm smart enough to go, okay, don't do chin ups. You're getting tendinitis in your left elbow. Stop. You know where this goes? It's right here. You get at the same spot every time.

Every time.

Let's start doing some wrist curls. Let's work the legs. Let's do a bunch of other shit. Let's do heavy bag rounds. Stop doing this.

You do a pull down, too, by the way. It's fine.

Yeah, there's different stuff you could do that doesn't pull on that very specific tendon, but overuse injuries, those kind of things. So when you're doing a film like 300 and you're getting these guys prepped for this, are you telling them what to eat?

I mean, nutritionist. It's awesome. If I ever put you in a movie, the cool thing is you show up, you work out, they hand you food, they massage you. It's like the greatest.

Oh, that's great. They treat them like pro athletes.

Yeah, like pro athletes. They're just a pro athlete. And you're like, in training camp, dude.

I just watched 300 again this summer because my family and I went to Greece.

Oh, cool.

And so we watched 300, and my 13 year old had never seen Greece 300 before, and she was like, holy shit. I'm like, yeah, that's a fucking movie.

We were just in Greece this summer, too, and it was cool because we were, like, in Athens, and we were walking up this part of the on, and I noticed, like, all the gift shops, they have, like, spartan shit in them. And I said to the guide, I go, I'm sorry about that. And she goes, what are you talking about? And I go, I apologize for all this spartan stuff in here. And she goes, yeah, it's a fucking movie. 300. I go, yeah, that's why I said, I'm sorry. I made that movie. And she goes, what do you mean, you made it? And I was like, yeah, that's my movie. That's my movie. And she goes, no. And I go, yeah. And then she was like, that's awesome.

Now she likes you.

Yeah, it was cool. It was a cool swing, but it was.

Well, it's a fucking awesome movie. If you don't like 300, you can go eat shit. Anybody who didn't enjoy that. What do you hate? Fun.

Well, the thing is also I met a lot of seals, a lot of first responders, as you can imagine. Really? I've seen a lot of spartan tattoos because of that, and I'm proud that they find some sort of inspiration.

Leonidis, what every man wants to be.

Yeah, he was perfect. Look, he knew who to look to, to find out whether to burn the whole thing down. And she gave him the okay.

Also, the movie was brutally representative. It was both, like, mythical and beautiful and magical, but also very tied into the ethics of the Spartans and how absolutely brutal their world was and how they just accepted things in a way that's just like, wow.

Yeah. That's the thing that people are always know with mean. They ask, like, what about the morality of the movie? What do you think of it? And I go like, sparta is also another can't. We would not make it to say, like, oh, yeah, I'm cool. Like, with the Spartans. They would have chucked me off the cliffs like day a. It's hard for a cool thing to imagine you want to say, yeah, I'm with the Spartans in this. But they were brutal people from the.

They were a tool.

They were a tool.

Yes.

Like, we have democracy maybe because they existed, but they weren't necessarily democratic. There was no voting on whether or not we would go in and die. That was just, like, what they wanted. That was in their basic genetic makeup or in their philosophical makeup was like, okay, a beautiful death. If I can get one of those, I'm good, and I won't give it to you. You got to take it.

Right.

But, yeah, I love that Fassbender when he's looking down and he says that whole thing about, like, you know what's awesome is that with all the world's armies, there's got to be one guy down that fucking place that can kill me and do it right. And they're like, are you serious? That's what's turning you on? You're excited about the fact that the guy that kills me might be down there.

I think when we look at things like that and we put ourselves in the mindset of someone who lived so many years ago like that, there's this understanding that human beings are capable of fitting into a bunch of different bizarre groups, bunch of different strange cultures can rise. And when you have a particularly barbaric time in history and you have this group of people in Athens that are literally changing the world through democracy and through the illusinian mysteries and all the shit that they were doing, people are traveling from all over the globe to come to this one spot. And then you got these fucking savages. These people are the savages of savages. The Spartans. Yeah. If you think about it, if someone says, what kind of a warrior would you want to be?

Right?

If you're a little kid, I want.

To be a spartan. Yeah, of course. Why all these crazy sports teams have spartans as their mascots.

Yeah. And to imagine that there was a group of people that existed, a culture that existed, that was completely warlike and had these tenants that were just unbendable. And from the time you were a child, they tested you.

Yeah, that's it.

And if you fucked up, if you failed, if you fell apart, if you quit, you were chucked out.

Yeah. The kryptea, that whole thing where they would send you, like, around seven, you'd go on the agogi, you'd go into the wilderness and you're basically living among other kids that were between like seven and 13, and you just were like, wild. And the sort of elite of those groups were called the cryptea. And the cryptea would come down and just kill hellots whenever they wanted. They were encouraged. The hell outs were that slave, the slave class, that the Spartans sort of maintained spartan society. And these guys, these kids, imagine, like, if you lived and in the hills, you knew there was just like this 13 year old gang of 13 year olds that were going to just come down and murder you at any moment. And they were encouraged to do it because they like. And also the hell outs were fine. If the hell outs killed them, that was fine, because that meant that they weren't good enough anyway. And then they did this ritual with this table of cheese where all these spartan warriors would stand around the table and all the 13 year olds who were ready to transition into becoming true Spartans, you'd have to try and get and pull a piece of cheese off this stone table.

And the spartan warriors who guarded the table could do anything to stop you. And it was just like just beating the crap out of these 13 year olds. And finally, if you got it, then you were given to a spartan soldier who raised you. And basically the idea was that he was your lover, he was your teacher, he was everything to you. Because the Spartans believed that really, they believed that you would die for your brother if you were also lovers. They thought that if you were confused about why we're fighting, fight for that guy who's not only your best buddy, but there's like a story, I guess, where they were like, when the Persians first came, they sent a scout over and they looked down at the Spartans, right the night before the big battle. And he went back and he goes, they were all like, having sex with each other. It was like a weird, we're going to be good. And one of the spartans kings was, the old spartan king, was now working with the Persians and said, like, oh, no, we're fucked. They're saying goodbye to each other. Do you know what that means?

We're completely screwed. We're going to get murdered tomorrow. And they were like, you're nuts. You don't know what you're talking about. They're a bunch of softies. Like, let's go get them.

What if that's the key to being the absolute greatest armor? You have to be gay.

Yeah.

You have to be gay.

Well, there's precedent, so I don't know. There is precedent. Yeah.

Right. Like, imagine if that was applied today.

Yeah. It could be amazing.

Yeah. But that would be a real problem. We'll see the family structure.

We'll see what they say. Yeah. Well, by the way, in the end, the Spartans had a real problem because they couldn't. There's this really crazy thing, like, where on their wedding night they would have to shave the head of your bride and dress her like a man, and she would fight you. Because there was no.

That was the only way they got hard.

That's the only way they could get it. Yeah. Get her off. Because they needed. Unless they got, like, a bloody lip, they were like, not. It wasn't going to happen. Isn't that crazy?

That's so insane.

So you can imagine that it was hard to generate enough offspring with that. You had an awesome army.

Right?

They were fucking the best. But as far as your procreation was going, it wasn't it.

God, imagine being a woman back then, too.

Well, they had to run the whole show because basically the guys were just training. So all the commerce and the deals they were making to. Okay, we're going to make a trade deal with this. That was all done by the women because the guys were like, no, we got to fucking work out. It's kind of awesome in some ways.

It's kind of awesome, but it's kind of crazy. And it's kind of crazy that it requires you to be gay to be the greatest army, because that's the one element. How much do you love this person beside you?

Yeah. You got to love them with everything.

Imagine the difference between you being with some random stranger on the street and a bunch of thugs attack the random stranger. How you would treat it versus if they attack.

Yeah, yeah. Do anything.

It's different.

It's totally different. I did that in Rebel moon. There's a bit where I put that. There's a part where Sophia's character says, like, that. They basically say, they encouraged me to find a lover in the military academy, because when the politics of war became too abstract. Like, okay, take that beach or climb that mountain. A lot of times, soldiers, like, why? There's no why. But if you have a lover who's next to you, who's your life, and if they get killed or they're in danger, you're going to be back on it. You're back on it. Yeah. And I think that it's an interesting. Of course, in our modern society, we don't play with that aspect of. In war. We try not to, anyway. We seem not to. But, like, with using the relationship to create a bond, there's camaraderie, brotherhood, of.

Course, but they've replaced that astrospect of it with technology.

Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah. Which is interesting.

And maybe that's good.

Maybe it is good, but, I mean, I could imagine a world in the future where things go totally sideways. Will we go back to that?

Yeah, absolutely. We'll make a movie about it.

That is a possible future dystopian movie. A new Spartas. The Spartas of the 2059.

Well, as soon as. What is that Einstein thing? World War Three is fought with nuclear weapons where four be fought with rocks. Sticks in rocks.

Yeah. Well, if it's world war that does it, it's probably going to wipe out the whole race. But if it's something else, everyone thinks of dystopia as being something man created, which is real possible. But it's also possible we get hit by an asteroid.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

That's more possible. I think that's more likely. I think we could fuck up and nuke each other, but it's probably not going to happen because people have been really good about it since 1947. Yeah, it's nice. Thank you. 45, I guess.

Good work.

But there's a giant difference between things that you can control and things you can't control through diplomacy and people aging out. It's possible that we could never have a nuclear war. It's not possible. We're not going to get hit.

Oh, yeah. No. That's why I very much encourage any NASA programs that they got their telescopes pointed into the stars. They're like, oh, here comes one. Let's see if we can go get it, nudge it.

They're close to being able to do that. Neil deGrasse Tyson said they're about a decade away from being able to deflect asteroids.

That'll be a big deal.

Yeah. But the hope is in that decade that we don't.

We don't get it.

We miss one because some of them come in from behind the.

Yeah, yeah, no, they're like, oh, yeah, we don't.

Yeah, that's not like, there's so much weirdness in space anyway. There's solar flares that could take out our whole grid and kill all our communication systems. And they just ran.

And also, the thing is, we don't know. Say we had one of those, like, 300 years ago, which in cosmic time is not that long ago. Nothing. It's nothing. And we didn't have the infrastructure to know that it would happen. Like, we were just a bunch of guys hanging out. So we were just like, whoa, that's a weird. Like, the aurora borealis is pretty strong today. Yeah, that's cool. But now we're like, oh, shit. Our computers are fried. So it's like a whole different. Stakes are different.

We have the ability to go and look at the data that they had from a couple of hundred years ago and say, it appears that there was an event. And the event, if it happened today, we would be fucked.

Right.

And we did not prepare for this event when we were constructing all this equipment.

Well, because also the equipment got built. It got built over time. It was like a slow. This made this and this made that. And we relied on this. So now we made this. Yeah, we built our house of cards pretty quickly, too.

And the foundation is the weakest part.

It doesn't exist. I don't think there is a foundation because it's all dependent upon the grid. I really don't think there is a foundation.

Well, the foundation is what powers it, and it's all dependent upon a grid. And the grid is very vulnerable, physically vulnerable. It's vulnerable to cyberattacks.

I like that. Also, we were like. We thought we were geniuses by putting all that online. Like, oh, yeah, we'll make the grid automated. No, don't do that. It's much better when there was just a guy throwing switches. You can't do anything to him.

Just guard that guy.

Yeah, guard that guy. Give him a lot of money.

I love that expression. In the cloud, bitch. Where's this cloud? That cloud is in fucking Cleveland.

What are you talking about? There's no cloud. Is not.

That's such a lie. Stop calling it the Cloud. That's a dirty lie. Oh, it's in the cloud.

Just go get it. How do you say that?

Why don't you say it's in the stars? Why don't you just lie to me and say, it's in heaven? Tell me it's in heaven.

Say it died.

All my photos of my.

Resurrect it. Yeah, we can resurrect it.

My family, my dog, they're all, print everything.

I say, print everything. That's my philosophy.

Even the print everything thing. The real problem with us is all of our data is on hard drives. All of it. There's just paper books, hard drives, and that's it. So something big happens. Everything's useless, and we start from scratch.

Yeah, paper books are still kind of work, but, yeah, a lot of the modern innovations aren't probably even in paper books.

A lot of them. A lot of them.

Well, it's funny because, like, the movies, for instance, one of the things is I always archive a film print of all my movies, because the digital storage of movies, if you ask anybody, even in the business, they don't know whether in ten years you'll be able to play a movie that you have now, like, whether. Wow. Physically or how it degrades all those things. They don't know.

That's crazy.

And so that's why I make film prints, because I'm like, I know that we keep the film prints in this locker and you can at least pry them out and always have it, but I just think it's crazy that we don't know whether the movies will exist. It's a crazy thing.

Don't worry about it, Zach. It's in the cloud.

Yeah. It's fucking in the cloud.

Cheers.

Cheers, brother.

Thanks for doing this, man.

Yeah, no, it's my pleasure. That's hilarious. It's in the cloud. Why are you worried?

Yeah, that's a dirty expression, that they should ban that expression.

They love that expression, though.

I know, but it's a dirty lie. There's no cloud, but it makes people.

Feel safe because it makes them feel good, because it's like the cloud is so reliable and also a thing you don't need to worry about or understand.

It's also beautiful. It's fluffy, it's in a blue sky.

And all your info is safe in there. Yay. Nothing can hurt it. Except for everything.

It's just horseshit. Total horseshit.

It's so crazy.

It's on hard drives.

It's so crazy.

And if you had to start from scratch, imagine stumbling upon some ancient egyptian hard drives and go, okay, where do we even begin?

You can't play it. You might be looking at it and you don't know. Yeah.

How is it encoded? What is the equipment I need to connect it to in order to. Does it play out loud? Do I see it? What is this? Do I experience it in my head.

It's like when you show your kid a vinyl record, right? Right. I'm showing my kids a vinyl record and they're like, this is incredible. How does it work? I'm like, well, the needle kind of bounces up and down on those grooves and makes sound. Sounds like a song. And they're like, that's an insane technology. I'm like, no, that's not insane technology. Your ipod or your fucking phone, that's insane technology. That's a thing. You can't explain this to me, okay? I just explained that to you.

I love the fact that I'm in my car and my daughter loves Melanie Martinez, so I have no idea what the song is. Tell me what the song is, and she'll tell me what the song is. And I can say, play Melanie Martinez, whatever the song is. And it just plays.

It instantly plays. Unbelievable.

Instantly. And it's coming through the speakers and it sounds amazing.

There's all this sound. That is incredible. It is incredible. Or you could say, like, play Johnny Cash instantly. Instantly.

Play hurt.

Yeah, play hurt right now.

Instantly.

Instantly.

And it just starts playing it and.

You'Re like, oh, God, why'd I say that? Yeah, why'd I say play hurt?

Play God's going to cut you down. What a world that we live in instantly.

By the way, I was just listening to that the other day.

This is going to get us in trouble with YouTube.

Is it? Oh, sorry. I did want to show you this picture of Alessandro's legs if you hum it too.

Well, we were so much better off when we were trapped in our walled.

Oh, yeah, we got out and now it's over.

It's fucking nuts, man. It's nuts. I think it's beautiful because I love the fact that you can tell me about something and I can get it instantly. Like, someone could say, oh, my God, you have to see.

That's Sandra's legs. Oh, my God.

That's insane. He looks like he's going to die.

Yeah, and he loves that.

That's particularly ridiculous.

Isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's awesome.

That guy has no body fat.

Zero body fat. The guy said to him, the guy at the gym said, are you 8% body fat? He goes, if I was 8% body fat, I'd kill myself.

That's so ridiculous.

But that's his thing, though. He literally is like, I'm in space. You know, like, we get stuff from the space program. We figure out how a razor works or get shaving cream that keeps the hairs from flying. That's what he is to me. He's like, I'm up here on the ragged edge, so I could give you this information back.

That's an interesting way of looking at it. Right. You do learn health and wellness things from people that are on the fringes in the bodybuilding world.

Yeah. And he's in his 60s, so it's like, you're like, okay, this guy can have legs like that in his 60s. So give me some. Give me a little of the knowledge. And he's funny, too, because he's like, look, I don't have a family. I don't have kids. This is what I do. This is what I do. I just get jacked and I research. I test my body constantly. He's like, on the ragged edge with every single, he's always making these small adjustments. He goes, I ate a sesame seed, and I saw that I was a little less ripped because it's like, oh, he's constantly like, it's like he's on a razor's edge, which I love.

People like that are too extreme, super beneficial to any sort.

Well, that's what I mean. Like, extreme sport. That's what I'm saying, is that those little pieces of information they tell you about, like, oh, whatever, I'm taking this, or I thought about this and I experimented with that, and you're like, okay, thanks for that. Thanks for being out, you know. Thanks for being the oxygen mask, like, up on the stratosphere.

Yeah. The possessed mad genius.

Yeah. By the way, the world's made of that.

Oh, yeah. There's a guy out here in Austin, Texas. His name is John Donahuer. He's widely considered to be the greatest jiu jitsu coach ever.

Oh, really?

He was a professor of philosophy at Columbia.

That's cool.

And was spending time as a bouncer, wanted to learn martial arts, got into jiu jitsu, and became a jiu jitsu fanatic to the point where he's teaching it and sleeping on the floor.

Did he have a natural? Anyway, like, it was like a.

Well, he's a very strong double double. Okay, he's very strong. He played rugby, but rugby destroyed his knee, fucked his body up, which kept him from ultimately competing. But he's just a crazy, mad genius. It doesn't give a fuck about anything but fighting. So all he's doing is, like, teaching people how to strangle people during the day and then watching tape and reviewing techniques and creating the next workout schedule, and they work out 365 days a year. 365 days a year. And his number one student is Gordon Ryan, who's widely considered to be the greatest jujitsu athlete of all time. Without question. That's his belt up there, the Abu Dhabi belt, when he won Abu Dhabi. But he's his number one student. And they just train 365 days a year. They take no days off. Christmas, fuck you, your birthday, fuck you.

That's cool.

And it's just cool. You've got days where you don't train as hard. Are you worn out? Well, you're not going to train as hard today.

Yeah. Like you were saying. Yeah, you understand the. But at that point, you're in a rhythm. You understand your body. You know, like, well, okay, I'm hurt today. I know how to do this. But we're always learning. We're not going to stop learning. We're not going to stop understanding. That's the one thing that's crazy about YouTube, too, is that this idea that there's a resource, you know, like it used to be to find a technique or to learn something, you have to go to the guy's house, fucking sleep on his porch. He's not going to fucking train you. He's going to slap you around. Like, whatever. Where? Now, these kids today, a lot of their shit, the basic shit. They're like, I can learn something that I had no access to. Absolutely zero access. One, I think is incredible.

I have a folder on my phone that's all jujitsu moves that I didn't know existed. And I just watched the. How is he? How is he doing that left leg in? Oh, he went with a right arm.

Wow.

And then I'll send it to my friend Eddie Bravo, who's a jiu jitsu instructor. I'll go, is this legit? And he goes, I'm gonna try this tonight. And then we'll text each other back. And, like, it's a constant new thing.

Sure. There's the basics put in the workshop and let's see what happens.

A kid could be just. All you need is a computer that connects to the Internet and a friend. And you can get good at Jiu jitsu. Yeah, it's better to have private instruction. Of course, it's better to have a coach know. When you're teaching classes, you've got to make sure this arm is protected and keep this here. And you have to have the defense. You have to put your hand on the hip. If you don't have someone like that, it's going to take you longer to figure it out. But if you are diligent and you're really dedicated, and you have a fucking YouTube connection. You can get good at Jiu jitsu.

Yeah, no, I used to have to.

Go to the mountains.

Well, that's what I mean. And that's true of a lot. That's true of a lot of things. Now. Look, I had this, like, recently, I had this crazy Fortnite addiction, right?

And I was like, no.

Yeah, I started playing. I started playing Fortnite with my son, who's ten. And he was like, nah, he tapped out immediately. And I was like, well, you should come back because I'm just. This is kind of cool. So I'm playing, and then three months later, I'm like, what the fuck is the matter with me? My wife is like, you got to stop. I am done with this. I am done. You and I are the same thing. She's like, I'm so done. You need another fucking hobby. And so she's like, I bought you some clay, right? And so I started doing some pottery, right? And that's where I was like, oh, YouTube is insane because in, like, three weeks, I had done. So now she's like, every search engine is like, hand build pottery. Like, glazing, firing kiln. Oh, that's cool. Much more productive. Well, by the way, I get something at the end.

Like, I feel better.

I feel so much better.

Feelings that you get when you play video games for 12 hours in a row.

You feel terrible. When you feel sick to your stomach, it's literally too, like. And you have something good happen. You're like, yeah. I'm like, fuck, yes. I look over and my wife is, like, in the doorway going like, what's wrong with. Are you serious?

You're a grown ass man.

Should you not be making a movie right now or, like, writing something or doing something?

Well, it's important for people to know that even people who are successful movie makers are still going to get addicted to those goddamn things. They're heroin.

They're too good.

They're so good.

They're so well made.

We had a giant quake problem, and I had a giant quake problem for years. And I quit. And I quit cold turkey when I realized it was like, just. I was playing 810 hours a day.

You can't see the hours. That's what does it. When you see the hours, when you see, like, a total number of hours that you've played, you're like, okay, yeah, I could have written a novel.

Literally, so much. I could have done so much. So I stopped. But then when we had a new studio in Los Angeles. We had a big warehouse, and we said, let's put a fucking land in here. So we put a local area network and bought some gaming computers and set it up for quake. And instantly, I was a junkie again, scratching my face. I was fucking every day. We were playing three, 4 hours a day. It was nuts. It was nuts. See, it just gets right into your. It's too good.

It's too good. They're good at it. Well, I saw that. You're better. Like your racing simulator. Racing simulators.

I haven't even hopped on that yet. We've had it for over a week.

The problem with it is it's like racing. Yeah. The one thing I did, like, I saw this the other day where they had one of the f one guys went against some kid and he beat him. And I was like, that makes me happy.

On the racing simulator.

On the racing simulator, yeah. And I was like, that made me happy. Well, only just because you want in your mind that skill set to translate. Like, you're like, see, I was watching this thing.

Drivers, like, all the different things that they have to be able to do. Their response time is so much faster than anybody else's. They had this thing where they have the lights and the lights go off and you have to touch the light when it goes off.

Sure.

And the Formula one race car drivers were, like, off the charts.

Oh, really?

And they all just wired different. They have crazy thick necks.

Oh, yeah. From.

Because just.

And also the helmet's not light.

It's like a serious, fucking serious piece of weight up, bouncing your head around.

No. And you're crazy.

Whipping around. And I'm sure you've seen the comparison between a GT three car and then a Formula one car on the same track.

No, it's wild.

But the GT three car looks amazing. And then the Formula one car, like, no way. That's not real. Is this real time?

Oh. As far as, like, it being able to stick to the track where it's so much faster. So much faster.

It's so much faster. And the time that you have. Watch this. So on the left side, you have the. These are the. So these are just.

The.

Oh, the. The right is the GT three car. The left is the Formula one car.

Look how much faster it's gone. Yeah.

They're fucking insane. I mean, they're so fast. And the way they hug. I went to the Coda, the Formula one crazy race out here.

Here. Yeah.

It's insane to see it live. To see it live. You really appreciate it.

She's like, oh, my God, my daughter will is addicted to Formula one. She's like, I sent her down two years ago to it, and it was like, look at that.

That sound, too, is amazing.

Yeah. They look like they're not even moving in comparison.

Yeah, it's not even closed.

Yeah. And I sent it out because at the time, Formula one was wanting me to. We were going to do a film. I was going to do, like, a commercial for them, and I was in the middle of pitching them, and they were like, oh, can we send you down to Austin to the race? And I said, I can't because I'm in the middle of this thing, but you can send my daughter. And Willow was like. She had, like, pit access. She was, like, losing her mind. She's calling me every 5 minutes going like, are you insane? Look at. There's, like, hamilton. I can't believe you're right there. And I was like, okay, calm down. Don't be a. Like, I want you to. Like, she has, like, a tattoo of Formula one. Like a. Like a car. Yeah, she's really into it.

Well, I know that Netflix series out here in America made it way more.

Popular because it didn't make any sense.

That it was so popular worldwide, but not popular in a place that's most obsessed with cars.

Yeah.

Makes no sense.

You feel like we would just be, like, drinking the kool aid of that. So hard.

Well, our thing is just going around a circle. Real. Like, our thing is so silly in comparison. Like NASCAR.

Yeah, no, NASCAR is so silly. It's crazy. And you'd think that we would dig this kind of all the turns and the insane technology. It feels like it's right on our wheelhouse. And I think it can be.

Well, it turns out it is. It's just got to take. And it has something like a Netflix special has to happen for it. It's like, what happened with the UFC, with the ultimate fighter. The UFC was always crazy exciting, but then the ultimate fighter put it on television, everybody's like, wow.

And you get to invest in a personality. I think that's, in the end. Americans love that. They want to hook onto someone and ride them through the whole thing.

Yes.

That's the fun.

They want to get connected to that person and root for them and feel the journey. Especially the ultimate fighter, was such a brilliant idea, because you get these guys to live in a house together, and then they're going to beat the fuck out of each other, and they know they're going to have to fight. So there's all this psychological warfare going on. There's like chest pump puffing and there's so much weird shit happening.

Yeah. By the way, it's a great show also, because the drama, if you have fighting and drama together, it's kind of like an amazing combination. You can't look away.

And it's real fighting.

And it's absolutely real fighting. Yeah. It's not like fucking around. And these guys are fighters. You know what I mean? That's the thing. It's not like you got a bunch of schmucks and said, okay, you guys get in a ring and sort of see what. You can see what happens. These guys suddenly are like.

And guys have gone from that show to become world champions.

Absolutely.

Which is wild.

That's cool. And you're like, oh, yeah, I saw them when they were just, like, scrapping around the house. It's cool to see them rise like that. It's an amazing show. It's cool.

Well, there's a few things like that, like Formula One racing and fighting that it just has to get in front of enough eyes. It's just we have these things that we've always like baseball that's always been around. If you brought baseball out today, no chance.

It doesn't have no chance in hell. No chance. Golf? No chance.

I think golf would still make it.

Well, also, because it's a ludicrous concept, golf. That's what I love about it. I'm an okay golfer. I've done a lot of golf commercials. My dad's a scratch golfer. He's an amazing golfer.

You've done a lot of golf commercials?

Yeah, back in the day. Because when I got out of college, I did, like, ten years of tv commercials. I've done all the brands. I've done a bunch of Super bowl spots. I did the Clydesdale 911 tribute spot. There's a lot of all these kind of, for me, that were all these kind of touchstones. But along the way, I did, like, PGA, I did titleist. I did. I have a tour bag, like, in storage that says, like, zach daddy Snyder on it. Like, on my tour bag. Yeah. So. But the guys, you see these. Phil Mickelson is like an insane. He does this trick where you stand with your hands, like, know, and then he's behind you with this pitching wedge and he takes a full swing and cuts it. If he skulls it, it's going to crack you in the back of the skull, but it goes over your head and lands in your hands. Right. What? Standing right in front of you.

I haven't seen the landing in hands.

But this kind of video goes, yeah, it's literally this watch. He's going to do it.

Oh, my God.

See that? Yeah, it's like, that's the. I did a spot with Phil.

Fuck that.

I did a spot with him where he. I did a spot for him. I think it was with David Robinson for the PGA Tour, and he was sick. He had like a hundred degree temperature. And what it was, was basically, we did these things. These guys are good. It was the name of the campaign, and it was like all these football players and golf would be. It was a ludicrous idea. Golf would be in these scenarios. And this was basketball. It was like, 1 second up, Phil Mickelson comes in to play this basketball game. They're going to play with a golf ball and they throw him the ball. The ref throws the golf ball to him, and he catches the ball on the blade of his pitching wedge, traps it on the ground, and then picks it off the gym floor, and the ball flies up and then David Robinson dunks it. That was the commercial. So he's sick and he's like, zach, I don't know, man. Oh, also, we did a version of it where we had made the floor, bought a balsa wood so he could take a divot. And then the PGA was like, well, we don't want to look like it's.

They were kind of mad because they were like, we don't want to look like we're destroying property. I was like, come on, guys. It's like, cool. It's cool that he digs the floor up, right?

They can fix wood.

Yeah. It's also not real. You can't actually do that.

That's funny.

But, yeah, it was cool. They were that sensitive. But Phil comes out and he's like, zach, sorry, man, I'm sick. I don't know. I go, well, let's just try. Do what you can. And it'll only be a couple of shots. And so he's like, I'll do the best I can. So I throw him the ball and he just cuts it in the air. And he cuts it in the air and then traps it with his club. I'm like, holy shit. And he's like, how's that? I'm like, how's that? Fucking unbelievable. He was like, I'm sorry. I'm like, I don't know what you would do different. It was so crazy.

It's interesting when you see wizardry at that level, like the technique and the perfection of it at that level, so incredible.

You're like, I don't even play golf.

And I can appreciate it.

Yeah. Like, john Daley, too. Like, we had, I did a spot with John Daly, too, and he was like, he comes out, and I guess the tournament before, the one we had done before the shoot that we did, we were doing it in Kaminsky park in Chicago, right? And the idea on that one was like, he's top of the 9th, two outs, down by three, bases loaded, whatever. And the pitcher. Here comes John Daly. Right? And so what we did was, so the idea was like, we had this minor league pitcher was supposed to throw a pitch, and we did it with visual effects. He takes the ball of the air. So what we did was we got this super long tee, right, and we put the ball on it. And I was like, john, do you think you can, can you hit a drive with a two foot t? That sounds crazy. He's like, no problem. But when he came out, he was mad because he had picked up his ball. He got fined by the PGA. If you pick up your ball halfway through the tournament, you can't just leave. They don't like that.

And I guess he was having a bad round, and so he just said, fuck it. And he just picked up his ball and walked off. And they were like, so they find him, and he was super mad that he got fined. And so he goes, I'm going to fuck up that jumbotron. And I was like, john. I go, that's me. I'll have to pay for it. It's not the PGA. And then he's like, oh, man, I'm so sorry. Okay, I won't hit it. I didn't know. I thought he's like the sweetest guy, and then he just cranks this. He's like our babe Ruth. Literally. I've done a bunch of spots with him, you know, like on his, on his backswing, the club head is pointing down at the ground because he's so twisted. And then he just uncoils, and it's just unbelievable the amount of power that the guy. And he hits the ball out of the stadium. And it goes, literally, we had pas in the parking lot, and they're like, the ball just goes over their heads and into the know. He's just a freaking.

Jamie, do you have that video that I sent you recently of that, this. There's this fucking guy who does this step in.

Oh, right, sure. Like the happy Gilroy.

Not quite that, but with technique. And it's perfect. And the drive is insane, and the torque is insane. Again, this is coming from someone who doesn't know jack shit about golf. Look at this kid.

Jesus. Jesus.

I mean, that is fucking insane.

The fact that he can actually, with that amount of backswing, the fact that he can actually hit the ball cleanly is unbelievable.

Is that chinese? I don't know.

It looks like japanese to me. Is it japanese? Writing is japanese.

So he's japanese, isn't it?

There's a lot of.

I mean, it's.

It.

Yeah, his name is japanese.

But that's unbelievable. Fucking technique is mad. That's so cool. Let me hear that again, because that sound is awesome. That's where that could be.

There's balls that do that. I don't give a fuck. What does that.

Look like?

The club ends in front of his.

Face, past his face. So much whip on the.

It's amazing.

That's crazy. But, yeah, it's fun. It was fun, actually, that time in my life, traveling around and doing all those tv commercials all over the world. Like, I had a crew of guys. It was like, me and my boys, and we would just literally go, one job, Papua New guinea, one job, Germany, one job, Mexico, one job, Iceland, like, over. And we were just on the road, completely out of our minds. And it was like, whatever product. We'd be like, okay. I'd be pitching the guys. Be like, what are we doing next? I'm like, I got to get on the call. Like, I have an agency. And I'd get on the call in the hotel room, and I'd pitch them, and I'd be out of my mind. I don't know what I'm saying. And I'd come out, and they'd be like, how'd it go? And I think I got it. And they were like, did you nail it? And I was like, yeah. I told them it's going to be, like, low angles and slow motion, and it's fucking cool. And they were like, okay, cool. Let's go. And we were just in this machine, and frankly, I learned everything.

I spent ten years, you know, like that 10,000 hours thing. Literally, I spent ten years with every production problem, because I was a director of photography. I was the DP and the director, and we were a pretty small show, but we had giant clients, anything you can think of. So then when I went to make a movie, there was no thing I hadn't seen. It wasn't like, I stepped onto set, like, oh, I'm a first time director. Everyone's like, oh, this guy's a first time know what's he going to say? And I'll be like, the tools were my tools. You know what mean? Like, I was very comfortable with the tool set that I had in front of, like, more so than I probably should have know. I remember Matt Leonetti, who was the DP of Dawn of the dead. That was my first movie, was like halfway through the thing. He's like, you know what you're doing. You know what I mean? You know what you're doing? He goes, they can't fire you now because we were halfway through because I was so diligent. Like, on my first movie, I was so know Scott Stuber, who was the executive at Netflix, who was my executive on army of the dead, he was the one that hired me to do dawn.

And I wanted to be so conscientious, and I was so scared of going over budget and not nailing it and making sure it was cool and all that. That Matt Lee and Eddie at one point was like, look, man, you got to just fuck it. Make it cool now. Don't give a fuck. Just make it do what you think. And it was such great advice because I think the movie's edge and all the coolness in the movie and the man comes around and all that weirdness, the whole montage with the Richard Cheese song in the middle, that was all just me going, all right, good. Thanks, Matt. I'm going to just go. And he goes, good, because otherwise he goes, you're just going to make a movie that this zombie movie is going to disappear unless you fucking add your sauce. Yeah, you got to add your sauce. Because he goes, otherwise it's like, look, another zombie movie. Who cares, right? He goes, I know. You know what's cool?

Well, you made it fun.

I think that that was the whole thing for me. It was like, how do you make a b movie that's self aware that it's a b movie, right? And in that self awareness, it lets you off the hook to enjoy it because you can still be smart. Like you deconstructed the genre. Because I've always been fascinated with genre and the deconstruction of genre. I'm a genre filmmaker. I always say to everybody, people are like, what kind of film? I'm a genre filmmaker. And that is to say that in genre, though, you can explore philosophy, you can explore mythology, especially, which is like, myth is like, my main. We make myth, modern myth. Movies are modern myth. Superhero movies are modern myth. Is it not the same when you say we have Superman, right? And Batman, whatever. Are they not the mythic answer to a lot of modern questions about how we should live? You say Superman. Is he not an invention, a 20th century invention that says to us all the fucking shit that we run up against, whether it be war or, like, class struggle or whether it be interrelationships between different countries, does Superman not appear in answer to us primitive brains trying to figure out where we are?

Like, you make a guy like Superman so he can answer some of those questions. He can represent a point of view that is not helpless in the face of the insanity that is like the problems of the 20th century. And I think in Batman, in the same way, he's an answer to urban. What is urban? The urban jungle needs a myth, just like the ancient jungle needed a myth. Or the ancient. In those days, we'd say, why is the volcano erupting? Right? But now we say, because we didn't know. We're just like, I guess it's the gods are mad, right? But now we have. Now the problem is, like, why do I feel helpless in the face of technology or whatever? So we need an additional answer, and I feel like genre has allowed me to make those comments. Look, the funny thing about what I always find interesting, the thing that I always find fascinating about sort of the movies I've made and how they've landed on pop culture, is that I remember in the last article, it said, zack Snyder, love him or hate him. Right? And I'm like, hate him? I don't understand.

It's a movie. You look at Rebel Moon, you're like, okay, well, there's not a lot. It's not weird enough. It's not offensive enough to hate him for. Right? In my opinion.

Find a reason to hate today.

Oh, yeah.

And 99% of those people also hate themselves. That's exactly what's going on. And when people are very hateful over art, you can like it. You don't like it. There's a lot of stuff I don't like.

I have no issue with you not liking the movie. That's not the question. Who cares? The thing is, like, you would personalize. You'd hate me because of it. I don't understand that.

Unreasonably successful. That's how they feel. And that's what happens with people. You've done so many hit movies, like, fuck this guy. People compare themselves to someone like yourself that's been so successful, and they get angry. That's why you can't read comments.

Yeah. No, that's why you cannot read comment. Never read.

Comments are essentially long form. Comments are what a lot of articles are. It's the same thing.

That's exactly what they are.

It's these people that are film snobs that get very pretentious about certain aspects of movie making and decide that their way is the only way. Like, listen, I like the Barbie movie. Okay? I found it enjoyable.

Awesome.

I went with my daughters and I had a good mindset. I said, let me just enjoy this movie. Just not be like, what the fuck is this?

Men didn't fuck this.

I just said it was a Fun movie. It didn't offend me. I laughed a bunch of times. I thought it was fun. And I went online and saw so many people angry about that fucking movie. And it was all men. Yeah.

As it would be.

Listen, first you're out of your fucking mind. If you go to a Taylor Swift concert and expect to see AC DC, you're out of your fucking mind. You're going to a Taylor Swift concert. You know what it is? So if you go to see the Barbie movie, you know what it is. Why are you mad?

Yeah. Were you shocked? It's literally called Barbie Girl's doll. Yeah. What did you think was going to happen in it? Also, and by the way, I love the movie and I'm actually lampooned in that film. There's a line in the movie that says, I feel like I was in a dream where all I cared about was the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League. That is a line in that movie, literally. And I'm like, that's awesome. I think that I was like, okay. My wife was like, she goes, that's cool, right? That's cool that they came after you. I was like, that's 100% cool.

Yeah, it's fun.

Yeah.

But it's interesting to see when there's such a strong reaction to certain things and especially amongst really wild hardcore fans. Because there's hardcore.

I know.

Yeah. Well, you also face it because you cover these genres. You cover these subjects that are iconic. Superman, Batman. I mean, just those.

No, no. And by the way, that's a lifestyle choice for a lot of people. It's not a. Right, right. It's not a like, it's not like if I made a romantic comedy, you'd be like, okay, that was fun. The people who love, and by the way, I love that they feel this passionately. In no way would I criticize that because I live the same life. Right? Because for me it's morning, noon and night. But so for those guys, it's not just a movie. And so on some level, you have to acknowledge that this is their religion and they feel strongly about it. And by the way, the truth is, it's my religion, too. I tend to get in trouble because of my. I do take a deconstructivist point of view because of dark Knight returns, because of watchmen. If you've read those two comics, it's hard to go to. And it's because I care that I want to take them apart. I want Batman. People are always like, well, Batman, Batman can't kill, right? So Batman can't kill is canon. And I'm like, okay, well, the first thing I want to do when you say that is I want to see what happens.

And they go like, well, don't put him in a situation where he has to kill someone. I'm like, well, that's just like, you're protecting your God in a weird way, right? You're making your God irrelevant. If he can't be in that situation, he has to now deal with know if he does do that, what does that it, what does it tell you? But does he stand up to it? Can he survive that? Right? As a God, as your God, can Batman survive that?

I never thought that that was canon, that Batman can't kill.

But for a lot of people, it is.

That seems ridiculous, given the circumstances in which he operates.

Don't read the comments right now. Don't read the. This huge, like, so in dark Knight returns, there's a scene where. And I copied it kind of in Batman versus Superman, where he grabs the m 60. He busts through the wall, and he grabs the m 60, and he's like. The guy's like, in the comic book, he's like, got this kid. The mutant has this kid with a gun to his head, and he's like, I'll kill him. I swear I'll do it. And Batman says, I believe you. And he shoots him straight in the head. Because it's like a no win scenario. It's like the Kobayashi Maru of, you know, the Kobayashi Maru is that in Star Trek, it's that test they put Kirk through where there's a no win, right? Because they want to see how you'll react. So they say, okay, we're going to make a scenario, a test scenario, where you don't win, where there's no way to win. And in that situation, we find out what you would do in a no win situation. Because if you're going to be the commander of this spaceship, you're going to be in situations where it's life or death, and especially when there's no tricking it.

Right. There's no tricking death in this case. And the famous thing with Captain Kirk is he went and hacked the machine and made it. So there was a solution. And so that was his response to the no win situation was create a scenario where he wins, which is a cool character. That's a cool character move. But that's kind of how I felt. That's what they would say. Don't do that to Batman. Don't put him in a no win situation, because we don't want to see him lose. Like, we can't see him lose. He has to maintain this godlike status. And that's what the cool thing about Frank Miller. Frank Miller said, fuck to. I want to see who this guy. So you're saying to me that I've got a gun to this kid's head. You're Batman. There's no move. There's no trick. There's no throwing the Batarang. There's no dust ball to distract me. I've just got to pull the trigger and I kill this kid. So you're saying in that scenario, Batman. What's Batman supposed to do? Right?

Right.

Yeah. He's going to lay down his gun. What's he going to do? The guy says to him, I'll do it. I swear it.

I believe you. Is perfect.

Yeah, I believe know. So I'm just like, that's where Frank Deacons takes Batman and just tears him in half. And you've got to now come out the other side of that. And Batman is still the hero. Batman still does the right thing. He maintains his code. He doesn't change, but our perception of him changes. And I think that's like. And I have run afoul of but a lot of the fandom who have, I feel like, who have gotten to the same place I have with the characters where they need to test them. And I feel like the characters, it's been my experience that the characters have not let us down. Like, these myths have not let us down. You've put them to the ragged edge into that scenario, and they come out the other side and you're like, fuck, yeah. There's a reason why Superman is Superman. You know what a read. Like, he can handle it. He can fucking take it because he's so iconic. You see, like, the red s. You go anywhere in the world with that Superman T shirt on, anywhere, and you say to any kid, like, what's exactly like, you know, that means something.

That's, like, fucking cool.

Well, not only that, it's one of our first ever superheroes.

Literally.

Yeah. I mean, just think of the name. It's so.

The most. You couldn't figure that today. That's not. You can't do that. I know.

If you tried to come up with a Superman today, everybody shut.

The Superman. That's horrible.

That's your guy.

Yeah.

Come on, man. We've got so many different. Interesting.

That's why the Trinity, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman are so powerful, because they're literally, obviously the origin concept. Right. Wonder Woman.

Literally, yeah. Batman.

Batman is the only anomaly because he's, like, a Batman. What does that mean?

He doesn't even have powers.

Yeah, he's half bat. Like, what is that?

Just got a lot of money.

Yeah, he's got a lot of money. Yeah. That was, like, my favorite thing we did in Justice League, where Bruce says that line about when flash says, like, what's your power? And he's like, I'm rich. I always thought that was cool.

Kind of crazy that no one decided to genetically experiment on a Batman. Make a Batman for another version of Batman. Like, take a guy and hit him with some wolverine juice or whatever the fuck. Just turn him into a superhero.

Yeah.

Instead of have him just be a rich guy, give him some crazy genetic mutation, something that they do to him that turns him into something.

But I think that. And that is the thing. Not to that extent, but that's the thing that Frank does. And that's the reason why I wanted Affleck, because to me, Batman's a big dude. Right? Affleck's six four. He's like a legit big dude. And in the shoes, the boots are, like, two inches. So he's literally almost like six six in the costume. When he comes out in the costume with that little bit of. I mean, we would put some muscle on him, and then there's a muscle suit under the suit, and he's, like, legitimately a scary looking thing. He's just, like, standing there and you're like, holy shit. Like, dude, the chin is so insane in that cowl. Look at him. I took that picture, by the way. He's like, legitimately. That's Batman to me. I don't know what.

Christian Bale was a great Batman.

He's a great Batman, but he's still, like, 510. It's cool. I'm not being rude about Batman.

Giant in the comic book.

In Dark Knight returns, and in Frank's comics and in the classics. He's pretty big, dude. He's always been pretty thick in dark Knight returns. If you look at Dark Knight returns, there's a line where he's trying to hold someone's gun and his finger can't get in the trigger guard because he's so big. I like things like that where you're just like, he has this genetic gift of just being this big fucking dude. And other than that, his parents were murdered in front of him and he's also, like, a billionaire, so that weird. You want it to not be just one of those things. Right.

Right.

It needs to be all of them in order for him to really do what he can do.

But if somebody really wanted to fuck around with the genre today, if he had all that money, wouldn't he invest in some wild genetic engineering that turns him into an actual superhero?

Yeah, I think that's the Batman.

Fans are pulling their hair.

Yeah, they don't like, Batman's on steroids. Not just steroids. Not just steroids. You wish it was steroids.

I'm talking something way crazier.

Well, it's funny because I did that scene. There's that scene. I don't think it might be in the theatrical, but it's definitely in the director's cut where he wakes up and there's some chick in the bed with him from the night before. Because I always say Batman fucks to forget. For sure. Batman's a drunk for sure. Because he has huge trauma, right? And I think that you wonder why he's a playboy because anybody fucking forget is a common. That's a real thing. That's a way to deal with trauma. And I think that there's that bit he wakes up and there's like, just painkillers on his bedside table and he just pops them and drinks some wine. I'm just like, to me, that's Batman. He's got a Maple Thorpe above the bed. He's got his glass house. And he's just like. He has an esthetic that's like, clean, but that's all he does. That's like his life.

The thing about Batman, the modern versions of Batman, the Miller Batman, your Batman's, what's interesting is that now superheroes are these flawed, very distressed.

Sure, sure.

Like, the Watchmen is the best example.

Watchmen is all trauma.

It's all trauma. And they're all crazy.

They're completely crazy.

And it's such a good movie. Why the fuck was there never a Watchman too?

Well, because frankly, the comic book doesn't exist for me. That's why there wasn't. I just was, like, the thing that's awesome about also that it's one of those things, like, when you start to really look at, like, night owl not being able to get it up because he's not in his costume. That's just a cool, to me, that's boiling down superhero to its fucking purest thing. I don't get turned on unless I, like, I got to go out, fucking save some people, do some crime fighting, and now I'm fucking ready to go. That, to me, was like that as a superhero movie, as a concept. Took a long time to land with the boys or these other kind of superheroes where now it's cool to deconstruct superheroes. It's kind of fun. Everyone's having a good time with it. And I was doing it, whatever, almost 15 years ago, and I just don't think superheroes were as deep in the culture as they are now, where all those things would land. All that deconstructive kind of work that we were doing at the time was really in reference to comic books, not comic book movies, because Watchmen was know in response to the comic book industry, not necessarily comic book movies didn't exist when the book was, you know, Alan Moore was very much obsessed with the morality of comic book heroes within comic books, and he just took an adult look at it.

He's a smart genius. He's a fucking pure genius.

Well, that was the thing that people figured out along the way with graphic novels as well, was that comic books aren't just a thing that children like. I was a giant comic book fanatic when I was a kid, and I wanted to be a comic book illustrator. That's what I wanted.

Oh, that's awesome.

And I had one bad high school art teacher, and it ruined it for me.

Fucking guy.

Fucking guy. He ruined it for my friend John Devore, who was the most talented guy in the class. When I found out that he gave him an f, I was like, are you out of your fucking mind? This guy was so talented. He was like, I was pretty good, and he was quite a bit better than me. And then there was this other guy named Kevin, who was in our class, was also really good. And all of us wanted to be comic book artists. And I was really into the more adult versions of, like, there was some amazing horror genre comic books back in the day, like, creepy and eerie that had these incredible frazetta covers. Have you ever seen creepy and eerie?

Sure. Of course.

Yeah.

God love those things, I'll tell you. My. Sorry. Go ahead, finish your. No, good. So what I was going to say was that I was obsessed with, growing up, this comic book called Heavy Metal. Yes. And heavy metal is like my thing. Basically what happened was my mom, I was like, 13 or whatever, and maybe twelve even. I'd bought a copy of heavy metal, whoever sold it to me, because it says adult illustrated fantasy magazine right underneath, like, in kind of small letters, but it's there, right? I would cover it with my thumb when my mom was around. But she one Christmas got me a subscription to heavy metal.

Did she know?

She didn't know. She just thought it was a cool comic book. Right? And I didn't say anything of really that comic book. And when you see the r rated version of Rebel Moon when it comes out, because basically the deal I made with Netflix was they said, I wrote this script. And I said, this is the script I want to make. And they said, that is insane. And I said, yeah, but it's like heavy metal but in live action. And they were like, yeah, is there any way it could be PG 13? And I was like, well, if it's PG 13, it kind of misses the whole point a little bit. But I can imagine that for a mass audience and for viewership, that seems like it's a smart way to go. I go, what about this? What if we make. If I take this script, I make you a PG 13 version that you can just blast into the world and hopefully as many people see it as possible. And then you let me, as a bonus, you just let me make this version exactly as I think. And they were like, okay, that sounds cool.

So coming at the end of the summer, you'll see my two three hour versions of Rebel Moon that are, like, hard, r rated. The hardest.

Which you wanted to do.

Which I exactly wanted to do. So they said, yeah, go do that. And so they were able, because normally, when I do this director's cuts, which is a thing now I'm weirdly famous for, the director's cuts were always an answer to a thing that the studio made me do. Right? Like, here's my movie. They're like, yeah, we really want you to cut these parts out because they're not cool. They're like, the movie's too long or the movie's too violent or whatever. And I would be like, wow, really? Because I really think that's kind of the why of the movie. And they'd be like, no, it's really important. Focus groups told us that they don't like that. So take it out. So I'd take it out, but then I'd go like, you know, I'd go over to home video right across the street, and I'd be like, hey, guys, you want another movie to release? Because I got the shit. And they'd be like, absolutely. Whatever you say. Because at that time, there was a huge market for directors. It gave them a second kick at the can in home video, right? So they would be like, that's so cool.

We get a whole other movie to market that's like never before seen footage. It just feels like a cool thing. And so that was how I've always done my directors cuts, always as a response to what the studio was telling me couldn't be in the movie because I never planned. I would always go into it, like, bright eyed, like, oh, everyone's going to love this. The studio, when you see my cut, you're going to think it's amazing. And they would look at it and go like, bro, no, this is too much. And so that's where my director's cuts, kind of just as a practice, were born. It was born out of that me needing to show the world what I intended originally. And so by the time now that I've got to Netflix with this Rebel Moon movie, and the mythology around my director's cuts was kind of a thing, especially with Justice League, as you can imagine, they were like, you know what? Why don't we do a director's cut as part of the process rather than as a response to it? And I was like, that's really smart. That's really cool. Because in a lot of ways, I totally get the economics of making a pg 13 version of this insane genre movie.

Because what I'm asking from a budgetary standpoint is high for, like, a boutique space movie that's like a heavy metal comic. People who love that will love it more than anything else, right? If I can land that, they'll think it's the coolest thing ever. But for a mass audience, it might not be exactly what you would imagine. So I'm like, I can do both. And that's why when you see the r rated version of Rebel Moon, you're going to be like, fuck, this is heavy metal. I come to life is really what it is. And that's kind of what I really wanted to do. That was the thesis of my whole me being turned on by this Sci-Fi because the thing you can do, I feel like the thing that you can do with that format was you could really deconstruct Sci-Fi like we always talk about. Like I said this at the director's guild, I was like, when Luke Skywalker walks into the cantina and is confronted by walrus man, is that like, he's fucking with Luke? Looks like some farm boy in this bar, in this rough bar. Like, what's going to happen to Luke?

Right.

That's a conversation you cannot have in the context of Star wars.

Right, right.

There's no chance. But in heavy metal, that's real. That threat is real. And it's not anything other than a naive farm boy walking into a gritty city bar that he doesn't know what the fuck. He's out of his element. Other than that, he's our hero, right? And he's got to go through a crucible, and he's got to learn these are the Joseph Campbellian parts of his journey. So, anyway, and that's kind of what, it's cool because I've always been, like, the hugest fan of heavy metal. I think it's, like, the fucking cool. It was the coolest thing.

Heavy metal was amazing.

It kind of broke me for comics a little bit because it was always, like, super sexy and super violent. And so you'd get a normal comic and be like, when are they going to start fucking?

Because, yeah, it was always sexual. And there was one that I remember that I remember was, like, very stunning to me. Very shocking when I was a kid, and it was pretty sure it was heavy metal, but it was one of those genres where it was a guy and his wife started a relationship with a robot.

Oh, yeah. Cool.

And he tried to fight off the robot, and the robot broke his arm with his big dick hanging out. Like, the robot had, like, this big, giant, flaccid dick, and he broke the guy's arm and was, like, smiling at him, and it was just like, right, sounds amazing. It was amazing. But it was also indicative of that genre those days. Like, this is the, when they first started publishing that.

Yeah. All that was on the ragged edge, which was so, and was so underground and so cult and so weird. That's what I loved about it, and that's what I wanted to do with the movie. It's like, say, what does the cult underground, raw Sci-Fi movie look like?

So is it hard to do the PG 13 version?

It was very hard. It was really conflicted. It was super conflicted. Although the only thing I will say is that I was liberated by the fact that I knew the r rated version exists. So there was. In the other versions of this work, in the other director's cuts, there was a version where that director's cut never was seen. There's a very good chance that that movie never got saw the light of day, because where would you show it? In the old world, in the movie days, all you had was DVD as your option. And if DVD said, yeah, we're good with just the normal version, then that would have been it, and it would just die a death, and whatever you intended for the movie would just never be seen. And that's just how it was. And so in this scenario, I was super grateful to Netflix because I was like, you guys have done a thing that I've never been able to do in my entire career, and that is, like, know that this version of the movie exists and is going to be seen. So I'm happy to do whatever you guys think is right for the PG 13.

I'm like, I'm a good soldier, and I'm proud of it, and I love it. But yes, it is different from what I was.

What if the r version, is it NC 17 or r?

I won't say the exact rating we're waiting to see. We're still, like, up against it, but we're trying to get it. It's TVMA right now.

What does that mean?

I don't know.

No one does mature audiences.

Yeah, like any tv show. That's not. Because the cool thing about tv is they have tv 14 and then it goes to TVMA. TVMA literally has no top on it. I think it's like, almost like porn is TVMA. I don't know. What. Look, no one understands the ratings. No one does. It's an alchemy that is impossible to know.

It's all subjective.

It's all subjective and bizarre, and it's genre related. Right. So, like, say, for instance, the ratings board might say something like, well, this is a Sci-Fi movie, so it's too much. If it was a horror movie, it'd be fine. But it's a Sci-Fi movie, so it's not fine. Or it's a superhero movie. That was the whole thing with Batman vs. Superman. I remember the ratings board said, we just don't like the idea of Batman fighting Superman. I was like, but how is that your. That has nothing to do with the ratings.

The ratings?

Yeah. They kept saying. They kept making it an r. They kept coming back with an r for us, and we were really. What do you want us to cut out? And they were like, well, we just don't like the idea of Batman fighting Superman. I can't take that out. That's the movie.

That's so ridiculous. They would have that kind of power.

So it was crazy. So we really had to trim it. Super.

Do you think that affected the final version?

I mean, if you see the director's cut of Batman vs. Superman, it's much better. It's a much better movie, in my opinion. It's much better movie.

Well, it's representative of what you actually wanted to create.

Yeah. And I think that's true of all the director's cuts that I've done, is that it's just a glimpse into the why that you get to see better. The why of the movie, the why of its origin. Because obviously something kept me awake for two years writing. Something kept me jazzed about, like, fuck, yeah, I can't wait to do this. I'm drawing for Rebel Moon. I drew 3000 storyboards for that movie. That is, like, a lot of work. That's a lot of work. You got to care. That's five months of drawing after I've written the script.

Wow.

So I've written the script for a year and a half, and then I draw the movie for, like, another five months. Wow. It's fucking insane.

Oh, my God. You must been going nuts.

Yeah.

Must have been missing Fortnite.

Yeah, that was before Fortnite, by the way. It's a good thing I didn't have Fortnite, because I would have. Like, the problem with writing and for me, drawing is if I have one procrastination, I can do one. I'll take it. Because if I look at that blank pad and I look at the video controller, video game controller, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is way more satisfying. That thing wants to fuck me up. That pad is trying to fuck me up.

The thing about the delayed satisfaction, though, is that if you could force yourself to get to the pad when you're done, you'll feel good. And if you play the video game. Last night, I started fucking around in my office. I was just watching YouTube videos and looking at pool cues. And then I said, all right, go to work. And I snapped. And I went to work, and I worked for a couple hours. And when it was done, when I went to bed, I felt great.

Awesome.

No, I felt like I did it. I did something. The feeling of doing something is so much better than the feeling that you have to carry for hours of fucking off when you knew you were supposed to do something.

100%. I couldn't agree more. And then, by the way, and in the end, I did it. I did that work. And when we went to film the movie, and I've always drawn the storyboards for my movies, it's a problem, but it's a thing that I do. It's my only process. It's funny because when I made soccer punch, I remember we were talking about it, and I think it was my script supervisor, she said, one day you're going to not need to draw these drawings and you're not going to need to spend that time. And it's just funny that in retrospect, it's like, obviously I have to draw the drawings. That's my process. Now I realize there's no way around it. You want a cheat. I wish I had a cheat where I didn't have to draw the drawings, where I'd be like, oh, no, it's going to be fine. I think I can make it up on the day and it'll be good. And I do make it up on the day. But the truth is, that process of drawing is the process that I vet a lot of the ideas in that drawing. It's not just drawing, it's writing as well.

I'll change the script. I'll do whatever. I'll be like, no, because that doesn't make sense. Look, when I see it physically, I'm like, no, that doesn't work. So I have to re sort of construct it in the drawings a little bit sometimes.

When did you start doing that?

I started doing it. I did it throughout. I did it 300.

Did you learn it from someone?

I'd always drawn. I draw, and I'd gone to school for fine art, so I was always drawing shots. It's also a thing like in film school or when you're trying to think of something. Movies take so much resource, right? To make a movie, you're like, basically an architect, and you have to convince someone to build a building, right? And it's so much work to convince people to invest, to dig the, get all the cranes and the steel. It's, like, impossible. So drawing is like a little taste of it, right? So these are the shots I want to make, right? So in a weird way, it's drawing that beautiful sketch of the building. In a lot of ways, that's what it's going to be, so you can get a feeling for it. And I think that's what it does for me. It satisfies the impossible group activity that's going to require me to convince people. Maybe that's why I love Fountainhead. It's that process of getting people to believe in this thing that it's going to take resources and so much crew and building and designing and all that other work that's down the road. It's the drawing that I think is a little bit of a.

It satiates that desire a little bit for me.

It gives them a framework, too.

It's hugely beneficial in the production process. Once they have that, everyone knows exactly what to do. It's incredible tool. Once I have it.

Did you do it for watchmen?

100%. My watchmen books are insane.

Did you draw Dr. Manhattan's dick?

Of course.

That's the question.

Here's the question.

Could you make that movie today?

I don't know. Would they allow?

That's what's interesting.

Someone once gave me a statistic of how much time Dr. Manhattan's cock is in the movie. Like, just full frontally in the film. And I think it's a fair amount. I think it's the only studio film. It holds the record for most frontal nudity, male frontal nudity of any.

And it's kind of important.

It's super important. He doesn't give a fuck.

He doesn't give a fuck.

Obviously.

Yeah.

He walks around like that.

He's a God.

He's a God. Like, what the fuck? You can't deal with it? I'll fucking vaporize you, or I don't even care what you think. You're a cockroach. It's like, what does he say? He goes, the world's smartest man is no more dangerous to me than its smartest termite. It's like, such a cool thing to say. You know what I mean? You really realize in the face of a God, I've walked across the surface of the sun. He's like, I know. Don't.

He was the coolest.

He's the best.

He's the coolest. And the transformation scene is fucking amazing.

By the my. We were just talking about the other, like, one of my favorite sequences in any movie I've made is the birth sequence of Dr. Manhattan. The whole thing with the Philip. Because it's. Philip Glass did the music. Right. We borrowed the music because I had heard that music. And I was like, it's got to be this music. And we tried to, like, Tyler Bates is an amazing composer. I go write me something that's better than this. And we just couldn't do it. So we just had to license it. And I had to send Philip Glass, the sequence. And he watched and he said, okay, it's cool. You can have the music.

That's so cool.

Yeah. Because it's just so. It's just so rad.

I love this fucking.

This. That's Philip Glass's music when he knows he's fucked. We built this giant, oversized watch for those shots. That's good. Yeah, that's that Philip Glass. So good. That music is.

That fucking birth scene is insane.

It's so good.

It's so insane. It's so good. The skeleton in the hallway with the muscles screaming, oh, my God.

I remember shooting that exactly. Like, as if it was yesterday. Yeah, we had this air cannon. We had to fire at that guy with the mop because he gets hit with it and he was, like, overacting. I think we did, like, three takes. I was like, guys, the first time he flew on the ground, I was like, okay, it's too much. It's good fun. Yeah, that's really cool. It's interesting, because I think one of the things that we, after Justice League, I think one of the things that we really, as a group, as a family, anyway, because I lost my daughter over that at the post side of Justice League, I lost my daughter to suicide. And I left the movie famously. And then the movie went on. And then later we were able to finish the movie sort of in the way that we had always hoped. And I think the thing is that the thing that I kind of sort of come back to when I look at that and when I look at the movies is like, they're these markers. The movies are really these markers of time that we. Even though they sort of transcend time, weirdly, they exist beyond the time they were recorded.

These weird. They're in the computer as sort of these singular. You press it, but then it runs, and it's time, and it takes time to enjoy it and time to, like, you can't just say it. You have to watch it and feel it again. It's a weird thing in that way. And I think that the thing that you hope is that in the end, the markers meant something to people. And I think that we've really fought around because a lot of these. Mental health has been a big thing for my wife and I since losing my daughter. And we've tried the best we can to support. The fans have done incredible. The fans have raised, like, millions, over a million dollars just to support AFSP, which is against suicide in America foundation. And it's been cool that the movies, these moments have now, in retrospect, have a purpose, and that the fans have gotten this opportunity to kind of join with us and kind of be with us because it's a huge stigma. Nobody wants to talk about that they're having trouble, that they're not okay. And I think that what we've been trying to do lately, as much as we can, is say, no, it's good, it's okay.

It's not a sign of weakness. It's nothing. It's real.

It's part of being human.

It's kind of 100% part of being human. And I think that it's an easy thing to kind of say that it's just stress or, I'm good, I'm not depressed, I'm fine. And it's an easy thing to just try and muscle through right where I think that it's my hope anyway, that as a family, that the movies and our connection to the fans and our connection to that cause has been really deep. And just watching this actually just, it started me thinking about, like, what the movies mean, you know, like, how their. What is their legacy? You know, what are they? And if they can do, on one hand, they are the moments you see for me, Dr. Manhattan, Leonidas, whatever it is. But then on the other hand, there's this other narrative outside of the was what I was experiencing and what made me think of just, like, what I was going through on that day when we filmed it, like, what I was struggling with, what I was trying to deal with is real. That's hard stuff. That was just life being lumpy for us, just trying to make a movie, living in Canada, being away from the kids, just all that struggle.

And then it's cool when it's been cool for me that when the fandom and the movie, like, in the case of Justice League, they lined up where these people were like, no, there's a movie out there that we want to see. And it's around a struggle that we had as a family, and all of it sort of came together. I always say people are like, the fandom was toxic or whatever. They were so angry to get the cut that they were like, I go, also, people's lives were saved by the money that those kids raised. Like, literal lives, real, tangible lives were saved by that money. That those kids that you call that you would say are these toxic fans. They're also responsible for the saving of lives. And that's just real. You have to acknowledge it, because if you don't, in some ways, the legacy that they were able to create is like, dismissed. And I can't.

Well, that's just a reductionist view of things that people always like to apply to things that are controversial, especially when they're talking about your fans saying something like, they're toxic. That's such a dismissive thing. No, there's going to be some elements of any passionate, rabid fans, of course, that are going to be toxic because it means so much to them. And that's what you have to understand. The reason why they're behaving the way they're behaving and the reason why they're screaming is, first of all, they don't think they're being heard. And second of all, it means everything to them. These people that are deeply invested in your films, and particularly things that have this sort of iconic history, like the Watchmen or like Batman, these are very important things. 100% the same way people are fanatical about sports teams, the same way they're fanatical about music.

It's tribal.

It's tribal. 100% very tribal. So for you, when you have vision and you have these storyboards and you have all this stuff, and then you see something like, in my opinion, that birth scene is one of the great masterpieces of that genre. It's a masterpiece. It's like, watching him be born and become Dr. Manhattan is fucking amazing. It's like, I remember being in the movie theater watching, going, oh, shit. It was the perfect feeling. It's like, what you want from these fantasy escapism, graphic novel turn films. It was perfect.

Yeah, it's cool. And even just, like, watching it. And the comment, I never said that the Superman was real and he's american. I said that God was real and he's american. And if that doesn't give you religious fear, then you're just not human. It's okay. It's okay to be scared, right? Because it's fucking scary.

Yeah, he's real.

Yeah, it's a scary thing.

It's a very scary thing, but it's cool. But when you have these ideas and you have all this work and then it comes together, I mean, that's got to be insanely satisfying to watching a scene like that.

It is. I guess, for me, the process of putting it together and then when it literally lands and it's what you drew and it's what you thought and the music and everything lands, I'm sure it's like anything. It's probably like the same thing, like doing stand up or whatever. When you're in the groove with it and it's just happening. You're kind of surfing it, and you're like, God, this is the feeling right here, right? You can't acknowledge it in the moment, but you could feel it. It could push you. It's like a wave, and you can feel it. That's how it is for me. It's such a long process. It's not instant gratification. It's like you really have to have a head down mentality to get it to that position. But when I watch it that first time and it comes back and I'm like, yeah, that's the why of it right there. And I think that that keeps me going, frankly. That little high, it's really fun.

Well, that's the goal, right? The goal is to create that and that high. People leave a film like that, you'll do things that you wouldn't have ordinarily do. Like, maybe you'll be inspired. Maybe you'll start working on something. Maybe there's certain things. I think that's the beauty of creation in a lot of ways. This is not just escapism, but it's like a drug. It gives you this boost of excitement that often leads to inspiration. It inspires you to action.

100%. 100%. I feel like if you can do that, then your movie is like, yeah, it's a huge success. If one guy comes up to me, the thing about man of Steel that I felt like is that man of Steel is the movie that people will come up to me and say, that movie changed my life. Like, that movie, I thought it was about me. I'm an immigrant. I just saw myself in Superman. It's really like, I was struggling at the time, and when I saw it, and I'd just be like, man, that's so cool. I'm so grateful that you felt that way about the movie, because for me, it's like, I send it off into the world. You think about, like, Netflix, for instance, where you push a button and rebel moon, right? The zeitgeist is crazy because, like, rebel Moon. So say right now, it's like almost 90 million views, right? 90 million people, 90 million starts, or 90 million accounts said turned it on, give or take. They assume two viewers per screening, right? That's the kind of math. So you think if that movie was in the theater as a distribution model, so that's 160,000,000 account or people supposedly watching based on that math.

So 160,000,000 people at $10 a ticket would be, what is that math? I don't know. 160,000,000 times ten. That's 1.6 billion. So, like, you look at the view numbers, you can use that rough. So more people probably saw Rebel Moon than saw Barbie in the theater, right? That's how crazy. Netflix. That's the distribution model that they've set up. I was at this thing the other day, and we were talking about Rebel Moon two, and I said. And they were like, well, talk about Rebel Moon one. I'm like, no, go fucking watch it. I know you have it at your house. It's not like a theater situation. You could turn it on your phone right now and watch it right here if you wanted. That's how crazy it is. This model, this machine they've built is really something else. It's really crazy if you think about it. Just like we were saying about the Formula one, they're able to insert something into popular culture that's so, like a deep cut, like a documentary about Formula one. How else do you get that to the people, right? No way.

No way.

No way. You release that in theater, five people go. Yeah. Literally five people go. Put it on tv, and, like, 100 million people see it. Yeah, it's crazy.

It's strange. It's interesting because it shows that there was an audience there. It's just like, to get someone to go out of their house and buy a ticket, that's just too much of a tough sell.

It's a different model. It's a different model. And it's weird how they think about it, when you think about it in those terms, that you give the audience an alternative. Like, you give them a chance to go on this. Rebel Moon is like, okay, that's new ip, right? No one knows what the fuck that is. What's a Rebel Moon? Some space thing, I guess, like, okay, well, let's watch it. The barrier for entry is so low that it allows. I think what's cool is it allows a lot more original and weirdo stuff to exist. Because especially, like, you think about the director's cut of Rebel Moon, which will be, if it was in theaters, a very boutiquey concept, right? Very singular. It's like the animated version of heavy metal, the movie. I'm a huge fan, but not a lot of people have seen it, where I feel like this is a chance where when this movie is released, the amount of people that can lay eyes on it is crazy compared to what it would be if I was releasing it, say, theatrically or whatever. It's a three hour movie. Both of them are 3 hours.

So it's much different. Like, both the PG thirteen s are two hours. Right. That was one of the things that we talked about. Also, like, I want the movie short. PG. Right. That's kind of the prerequisite where I'm like, on the r rated version, it's like there's no rules. There's no expectations. No rules, no nothing. That experience is a completely different experience.

And when does that one come out?

It comes at the end of summer. The end of summer. I want enough time. Yeah, probably right in there. We don't have an exact date, but somewhere I wanted enough time so that I don't want them to be too attached to the PG version. Because I love them, by the way, like I said, I'm proud of the PG version. I think it's fun. I think when you see Rebel Moon two on April 19 you will see a very war movie. It's a fucking war movie, is what it is. Because the first thing is like, gather the team. Second movie is a war movie. The r rated version is just a different journey. Like, you just get there in a different way and it's just more. Like I said, it's just more weird. It's more boutique and more bizarre and.

More like the original.

More like heavy metal. Heavy metal? Yeah, more like a genre. You can't really pitch a studio a live action heavy metal movie right now. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how you'd make that unless you are willing to do some sort of song and dance. I think that as a product, like I said, I'm proud of it. And I think it works for what they've generated. Because basically for the same price as two movies. Right. They get four movies, which is pretty. That's pretty crazy because the director's cuts for the hour, additional hour and extra stuff that we did inside of each of those movies. Each of the movies is an hour longer. What we did inside those movies with tone and with gore and sex and all that stuff within the same framework, you're getting two entirely different movies. It's not like extended version that I'd be like, okay, whatever. Oh, you did an extra weird little. Here's the thing you cut out that you thought was too long. It's not like that at all. It's just a lot more. I don't know. It's just true to the vision. Yeah, it's got balls.

It's got a lot of balls.

And is. That's got to be this thing where you're waiting, like, wait I want you to see the real thing.

It's a weird thing because, look, it's up to the viewers in a lot of ways. I don't want to, like, by no means am I saying that you can't watch both. For sure you can. It's really how you do it. I feel like if you've seen pg 13, Rebel Moon, part one, you should see pg 13, part two, because they're really closely related. I mean, it's a direct. It could be one movie. You could cut them together, literally, and just keep going where it's chapter two. It's part two where I feel like, in the r rated experience, it's just like a different. They're both going to release on the same day, so you can just fucking binge it. Yeah.

That's the way to do it, too. With Netflix.

Yeah.

One of the things I love about Netflix is why I don't find out about something until, like, two or three seasons in.

I'm like, yes, 100%. 17 episodes. It's the same muscle that made me play Fortnite for, like, six months. Yeah.

But if you have the time, and a good series is bingeable.

God, it's so satisfying.

Yeah.

I think we could do another. That's what I always say to my wife. I'm like, how do you feel? And she's like, I feel good. Are you sleepy? No. Let's go.

Have you ever thought about doing, like, a Netflix series? Like, something that's so big that you couldn't do in one or two?

Yeah. Yeah, we've talked about it. A mean, nobody wants Fountainhead, but that's what I wanted to know. I pitched him fountainhead because I've written this super adaptation of that book, and I think it would be amazing. But no one wants to make it because they think it's taboo. Ayn Rand is taboo.

But why is she taboo?

I don't know. She's taboo among the intelligentsia because they think she's a fascist, and they think the book's a fascist propaganda piece of fascist propaganda. That's not why I like the. You know, I happen to just like it because to me, it's a direct comment on making a movie. Right? A movie about an architect who won't make the buildings that everyone wants him to make and what the struggle he goes through to get the buildings made the way he wants to make them. Of course I like that. No movie director. I'm sure there's plenty of movie directors that don't like Fountainhead, but I just think that it says so much. Iron Rand wrote Fountainhead in direct response to being noted on a script that she had written, and she had been studying this movie about skyscrapers. And they told her, she kept submitting versions of the script, and they kept noting her, noting her until it was unrecognizable. And then she was like, this is what happens to work. It gets noted until it disintegrates, until it disappears. That's one thing that I've always wanted to do, but I don't know that the world will allow that.

I don't know why. It's one of those weird things where is she's connected to incels or angry white guys or finance people.

They're cruel.

It's this very strange Steve Jobs'favorite book by the. Interesting. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, that is interesting. But it's one of those things where it's like, if you hear that I'm an Ayn Rand fan, you're like, oh, okay.

Yeah, you're one of those guys. Yeah.

And coin, too.

Exactly. It's true. But it's funny because, look, and I get, by the way, Alice shrugged. Fair. You can play with that. That's a game that I. I'm pretty exclusively a fountainhead fanatic. And for that also because it's melodrama, too. Like, it's the most melodramatic thing ever. I mean, as far as just like.

Why won't Netflix let you do that?

I don't feel like they should. I think it would have a huge. I know it would work. I know it would work.

I know it would work, too. Why don't.

Fuck.

Come on, Netflix, let's go. Well, I'm a fan of letting artists like yourself do what is their vision? And I think people are often wrong about whether or not something is going to be successful commercially or whether or not it's going to resonate with a lot of other people.

But that's the thing. No one knows. That's the awesome thing about movies and why I'm not that worried about the AI influence over motion picture, because there's obviously no formula. No one can predict what's going to be successful, or they would have gotten rid of the directors and writers a long time ago. There's alchemy. There's still magic. There's still, like, an impossible. All these elements come together and you're like, you feel something and you're like, what? That was cool. Fuck. You know? And it's a thing, like, who knows? You know?

Yeah.

It's like, you know, any. Anything that you see that maybe if someone described it to you in an abstract, you'd be like, that sounds dumb, I know. And then you sit and you watch it and you experience it moment by moment. And you feel it. Yeah. And it's fucking cool.

Well, it's also, I think there's always going to be a thing that people resonate with where they know it's made by a person. They know that artists thoughts were involved in the creation of this thing. This is the vision. They worked tirelessly to produce this, and they put it out and they're proud of it. Here it is. And there's something about that, that you're getting to take in another human being's group of human beings creation, and that means something to us. And I think it's always going to mean something to us. I think there's going to be AI songs and AI movies and AI art, and it's going to be cool, but it's not going to be as cool because it's not going to be from a human.

Correct.

From a human being.

And I do feel like the squishy fingerprints on the thing are the thing that make it, like, unbelievably cool.

Chisel marks.

Yeah, I want the chisel mark. I love them. I live for them. To me, that's the bit. The best movies, my favorite movies, the best movies are where you can feel the hand of the filmmaker. Yes, I want that. I do not want the movie made by committee.

Exactly.

When you go to a movie that feels like it was made in the boardroom, I feel dirty when I watch that. I don't like it. I don't want the cold hand of marketing on me like that. That's why I love the weirdness. I feel like in the end, all my movies are just a little bit weird in a good way. Like, 300 for whatever. It's like all the kind of coolness of it as far as like, yeah, let's go fight. It's still a weirdo movie.

Putting a bunch of gay stuff in there.

It's Frank's book. I made what Frank wrote now in retrospect, and we've been talking about doing a series where I really wanted to introduce those concepts a lot more because I just feel like it's important if we go forward and do more in the 300 universe, I would want to bring that part in and let people, which I think just shakes it up again. Like you're like, what? When you thought you knew how to feel like, I'm going to make you feel like another way. People have always said, like, 300 people have accused me of being, like, homophobic or whatever, and I'm like, I don't know, they just. Somehow they feel like that because the.

Spartans weren't doing gay stuff or because.

There'S that one line where he says, philosophers and boy lovers. But I think that he's clearly being cheeky, Leonidas, because I, of course, was hyper aware at the time that the reality of spartan culture. He means philosophies and boy lovers, not. He's using that maybe as a derogatory comment, but when in reality he's a lover of men, probably.

Absolutely.

And we talked about, as we go forward, I would love to just kind of stress. I said, look, 300 in some ways is like one of the gayest movies ever made. It is incredibly male centric, male obsessed. You really feel, like, very strong male energy from the movie, even though there's a strong. Gorgo is an incredibly strong female character and we wrote her and made her. He doesn't decide to kick the persian messenger into the well without getting approval from Gorgo because he's like, I'm going to burn it down. Is that cool? And she's like, go do it. And he's like, all right, here we go. This is Sparta, is that guy? But I just think that. And maybe that was just me understanding, doing the research and understanding the reality of spartan culture. That energy was in there, because I just felt like it was important to make sure that there was this kind of visceral sexuality to the way the men actually interacted that was there. I mean, regardless of whether you acknowledge it, it's there.

But it wasn't acknowledged, really, in the film. Like, if anybody didn't know the history of the Spartans, they wouldn't know.

No, but I just mean, from sort of an iconic standpoint as far as this, just sort of indulgence in the male form, it's not casual.

Right. I have to be fascinating to see, if you did do a series and you had them behave the way Spartans actually did, the reaction.

Yeah, it'd be interesting. I think that hopefully we'll find out one day. That'd be fun.

Yeah, that would be fun.

Yeah. Look, in the end, it's a weirdo show. It's fun to enjoy it and it's fun to fuck with it. That's what we do. You got to tear it apart a little bit to take a look at it. You got to know, when you choose.

Things to do today, how do you go about doing it? Do you just sit with an idea and bring it to studios? Do they come to you? How do you choose what you.

I don't develop. I've always had a bunch of stuff that I work on, and I just go, I want to do this. And then whoever wants to do it, then we do it.

That's a nice position.

It's an awesome position, and I appreciate it, and I don't take it for know. There's a few things like, I've always been obsessed with Richard Bach. I don't know if you a. He has this book called illusions that I've owned for a long time that I've always wanted to do. I grew up as a christian scientist.

Isn't that a book about, like, channeling?

Well, illusions is about a book about this guy flying his biplane around in the 1970s, and he lands in a pasture, because in the 70s, he would fly his biplane around, land in a pasture, and then sell rides for $3 for 10 minutes. And that's how he lived, right. He's just a gypsy pilot flying around the midwest, and he happens to come across this guy who also is flying a biplane, who happens to be, like, a messiah, who happens to be, like, this super spiritually advanced dude who's on the run from. He doesn't want to be the said. It's called illusions, the adventures of a reluctant messiah. And it's about the two of them spending a summer together. Just the one guy teaching him about, like, it's a shit job being the messiah. Don't do it because you know what happens. The messiah is in the end, right?

Yeah.

He goes, do you always have to die a violent death? And he goes, yeah, I don't think always. And he's like, really? He goes, yeah, you know what? It's cool for? Like, he goes, what about just a quiet little ascension just on the side? He's like, yeah, I don't think the universe will let that happen. So it's this really cool. Again, it's like this sort of, again, like a spiritual deconstructivist, like, messiah story. And it was like this book when I was growing up. In a lot of ways, it's religious philosophy is similar to christian science. So I superimposed my religious beliefs onto this book, and I felt like it kind of spoke to my doubts and my questions about my religious upbringing and what I thought for real. So my brother passed away when I was 13. He got in a car accident, and he was like, this incredibly spiritual dude. Anyone who knew my brother was like, that guy was the guy. He was the man. Sam Snyder was, like, among his peer group was like. He was like. In retrospect, like he was in a Tai Chi and just like super cool 70s dude, right?

He kind of looked like Billy crude up, right? Billy crude up from almost famous, right? Imagine that guy. But just like the coolest guy smoking dope, just being cool as hell. So when he passed away, I always thought, like, okay, my brother just, like, tired of this world and went looking for another one. He was just, like, on a spiritual journey. But then when you're 13 and you see what that event, though, does to your family, your mother and father, your sister, all of their friends, the devastation that they feel. And these are people that I believed, believed in, the religion that I believed in. And the pain, it made me really go, like, what the fuck? What's real? What are we supposed to believe? It really tested me. And I think that illusions, that book, in retrospect, and I won't spoil alert. I won't tell you what happens on the last page of the book, but it kind of speaks to where I was. So it's always resonated with me. And I'm friends with Richard Bach. I became friends with him. And his wife is constantly texting me, like, when are we making illusions?

And I was like, soon. Soon. She's like, I found the planes. So it's cool. We have the planes. We can make it anytime. That's how we develop. It's all these things that I have that are kind of close to me that I'm always constantly saying, what about that? Maybe it's time.

That's awesome, dude. Well, listen, it's been great to talk to you. I really appreciate what you've done. I love how excited you are about filmmaking.

Got you. Cheers.

You've done some awesome shit, man. You should be proud.

I appreciate it. Look, man, I'm a fan of the show, and it's an honor to come on and talk to you. Thank you.

Honor to have you. Thank you very much. All right. Bye, everybody.

Thanks, brother.