Welcome to another exciting episode of the show that refuses to be about anything specific. This week our hosts dive deep into the world of valuable franchies hiding in plain sight, waiting to be transformed into cash cows. From secret conspiracies to games with the Devil, listen as they shed light on the hidden gems that the entertainment industry overlooked. It's time to cash in on these classics, Hollywood!
Welcome to another exciting episode of the show that refuses to be about anything specific. This week our hosts dive deep into the world of valuable franchies hiding in plain sight, waiting to be transformed into cash cows. From secret conspiracies to games with the Devil, listen as they shed light on the hidden gems that the entertainment industry overlooked. It's time to cash in on these classics, Hollywood!
Check out the trailer for the Richard Donner banger, Conspiracy Theory, starring Julia Roberts, Patrick Stewart, and Mel Gibson.
Have you seen Devil's Advocate starring Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino? If not, put it on your list!
Reach the pod at DontEncourage@gmail.com
Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads
Steve: Saw something the other day about that, uh, pretty much a fortune. I read that the, um, and I also read that the CEO or the founder was paying him himself around a million or more than a million dollars a day. In like 2022
for like two years. So they're doing all right. They're doing pretty well. Yeah.
Jason: Yeah. I wasn't losing any sleep, but it's good to know he'll be fine. He'll be okay. Welcome to Don't Encourage Us, the show where we talk about the big ideas behind fiction projects of all different kinds, books, movies, TV shows, video games, nothing's off limits.
We have a special topic today. We're going to discuss valuable and neglected intellectual properties. But first, what's been on your list this week? Um,
Steve: this week actually has been pretty quiet. I haven't been jumping into any long form content. I've been looking at YouTube videos, just kind of scrolling around, but nothing, nothing in particular.
Jason: Lost in the YouTube forest, just wandering around, learning nothing.
Steve: Remembering random facts that I can use for future podcast
Jason: episodes. For selecting other YouTube videos. Right. It's just an endless cycle. A skill.
Steve: It's a real skill.
Jason: How about you? I went by the Museum of Failure. Have you heard of this? I have not.
So there's a museum. I think it's touring It's one of those they, you know, rent out an empty space and put up the exhibits, but it's actually pretty well done They have a ton of creative ideas Most of them were pretty big budget Failures are disasters and they talk about in small placards. They talk about like why it worked, why it didn't work or what worked about it.
What didn't work about it, why it ultimately collapsed. And they had a lot of really fun projects in there. It made me think about the podcast a lot. Um, they had, for example, the mono ski or monoski, which is a ski, but you stand facing forward with both of your feet together pointed in the same direction.
I
Steve: wonder why that wouldn't work.
Jason: Well, this predated the snowboard, uh, so instead of being turned kind of sideways, like a snowboard, you're just facing straight forward. And my initial reaction was like, you're just going to fall on your face. Like there's no way to like maintain that balance. But apparently, according to the placard, some people still use them every now and then.
I don't know if they're doing it ironically, if this is like a hipster thing, or if it's still really caught on, but it was fun. It was a good exhibit. Was it right next to
Steve: the square? Wheel.
Jason: Yeah, that was, that was, uh, that was in the back, but
Steve: it's still occasionally
Jason: used. Yeah, exactly. They did. They did have a ton of different vehicles. Like they had a bunch, like they had the Segway, they had these little go karts that I guess people were supposed to drive around in England, uh, with no helmets and in full traffic.
Uh, they had some sex toys. They had a lot of fun. food products like New Coke and Crystal Pepsi, stuff like that. They had McDonald's. They, they launched the, was it the Arch burger? No. You remember that one? Oh gosh. It was aimed at adults.
Steve: Is it the Arch
Jason: Deluxe? Yes. The Arch Deluxe. Man, Wicca Stevia. Comes in again for the win.
Thank you, you too. Yeah, so, um, the Arch Deluxe and they talk about how McDonald's really wanted to capture adult tastes. So they put these commercials out with kids trying the Arch Deluxe and not liking it because it's too adult. Uh, obviously that did not work out. But they had a lot of really fun stories.
Didn't McDonald's
Steve: have a burger where they, they kept the two different sides separate or something? Yes. The lettuce side and
Jason: the burger side. Oh yeah, the hot stays hot, the cold stays cold, yeah.
Steve: That was the stupidest idea I've really ever
Jason: seen. Yeah, it was like double the styrofoam. But that was also around the time they switched to cardboard containers, I think, too, right?
I
Steve: think so. I mean, those are the glory days of styrofoam, I guess.
Jason: Yeah, but you can still revisit that area, that era, let's try that again. You can still revisit that era in any of our worlds and oceans, if you like.
Oh, all right. So this week's topic is intellectual properties that no one is using. These are things that we think have potential. If you're listening, you might have your own ideas about what's been abandoned and what could, what could be, uh, what squeezed for more cash. Is that a fair way to put it? I think that's fair.
Yeah. Yeah, so we should pay attention to monetization, right? Because it's not all about like what would be fun or interesting for like a small niche group of fans But also like how do you make money out of this thing? And you don't have to limit yourself to a TV show or a movie. It can really be anything.
It can be a video game It can be virtual reality, a board game. It could be something to do with AI, just really anything at all So I have some suggestions, but before we dive into those, is there anything in particular that you wanted to talk about? Any projects?
Steve: No, not in particular. I think for this episode, I think that the two projects that you chose are really good.
I think it gives us a good, uh, good conversation pieces, like how we can integrate the Arch Deluxe. Product placement into either one of those
Jason: So first off is the 1997 film Conspiracy theory. Yeah before you turn it off I know Mel Gibson's not the most popular person at the moment But we don't have to put Mel Gibson in any kind of project we do with conspiracy theory or we can if you're a huge fan, I also starred Julia Roberts And Patrick Stewart too from next generation So, Conspiracy Theory was a Richard Donner film.
It was basically a romance. It had action and adventure and a lot of conspiracies in it. It was about Mel Gibson's character, uh, Jerry Fletcher, who was really obsessed with all different kinds of conspiracies. He put out a, uh, like a self published... Printed at home newspaper all about conspiracies. I think it was called conspiracy theory and he would mail copies or hand deliver copies to people Uh, and he became really pretty much obsessed but in a cute romantic Kind of way with julia roberts character who I think she was in the government.
She's like a lawyer or something like that, so He, it turns out that he was right about something in his newspaper and the bad guys are chasing him around. He has no idea which conspiracy was correct. She gets pulled into it and you know, they develop feelings for each other over the course of the film.
So I don't know. Did you see that one when it came out? Do you remember that one at all? I
Steve: remember bits and pieces of it since I just saw the trailer again. It just kind of, yeah, it helps. It brought it back a little. I think I saw it maybe 10 years after it came out or. More than that, actually. Um, but yeah, I remember it being a good movie overall.
I mean, there were huge stars back then.
Jason: Oh, yeah, and a great filmmaker too, Richard Donner. So when you watched the trailer, what to you stood out? What were your impressions of this movie? I thought
Steve: Mel Gibson He's really a great actor. The way he's able to pull off that kind of the charismatic kind of mentally unstable character, he leads you into like a feeling of being able to trust him with kind of like that edge of something.
Something's really wrong with this guy. But so I think it's perfect for a movie like this, right? Because you're always supposed to be kind of off off kilter. While you're watching it, that was the one thing that really stood out. I remember watching the movie
dead-franchises: too.
Jason: Yeah, that's an excellent point. Uh, Mel Gibson always did a great job playing a character who's vulnerable.
So he can do a little bit nuts like his lethal weapon character. He can do a little bit nuts, but not in a way that scares you as an audience member. So in this case, he could play someone who's not so much a scary stalker, but more like quirky and romantic and vulnerable. So yeah, that stood out to me too.
Anything else? Even those behaviors
Steve: is really bizarre. Very
Jason: disturbing. Yeah.
Steve: I don't know. I, it seemed like taking a look at a movie shot on film versus digital movies. Now the way they're shot digitally, you can really see that difference. Like it, it didn't age well. What are the, the film, right? You can, it's really dated. You can really tell that it's something that's. from the 90s or even 80s, the way everything looks, you know, the color, kind of the graininess.
And the sound even seemed different. Did it seem different to you?
Jason: Oh no, absolutely. I don't think the trailer, I watched the trailer as well and I don't think it had been digitally converted. So it, it still had that, um, I think it's probably worse now than it was. I don't think it's just that we're used to higher quality digital and, you know, video and audio.
But I think also like. You know, trying to put VHS onto YouTube just does not look good. I think it, it loses even more quality in the process, so pretty ugly. Yeah. What about Julia Roberts? Uh, anything about her character or her performance stand out to you at all? Julia Roberts
Steve: is kind of like Tom Hanks, right?
Always a, a solid go to actor no matter what she's in. So I don't think there's anything that particularly stands out, but she's always very good and you kind of get used to that, to her performances. And I almost feel like with her performances, she's always just playing another version of herself. I'm sure that's not true, you know, but it's just, she's very good at acting in a way that I don't know how you would describe it.
Maybe like your typical movie star. That they're solid in any role, you know, they can pretty much
Jason: find, they find, find the character that works for that dynamic. Right. Absolutely. It actually brings to mind a really important aspect of this property if, if we were going to develop it further, I do think the dynamic between Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson was particularly good.
In that film, um, she's a very strong character. She's very accomplished and professional, but she's not, what's the word, closed off from others. Like she's open and she has empathy and she's kind of rescuing him a lot of the time. Now he's clever as a character. He's clever and he's, um, resourceful and he, you know, he's Paranoid.
So he plans ahead and it works out pretty well. So sometimes he's the one rescuing her, but unlike, um, who's at the lost city. Remember, we, we talked about the dynamic between the main characters. This film does that better, right, where they compliment each other. They do rescue each other, uh, frequently, but they compliment each other in a way that makes a love story make more sense and be more enjoyable.
So I think this film did that, what they should have done with Lost City, uh, much, much, much better in a broad sense. It's really a balance,
Steve: isn't it? Between driving that action portion of a movie like this and also developing the characters in a very natural way. Now, I think the ebb and flow is really important with this type of movie.
And getting that balance right, I think, is critical to keeping you engaged and also feeling for the characters when something, something good or bad happens to them. I think a lot of modern movies, and we've discussed this before, they seem to kind of gloss over that and they just jump into the action piece.
Yeah. And skip over any type of character development. It's like, okay, they don't like each other at first, that lasts about five or ten minutes. And then all of a sudden, you know, they're in some kind of mission or situation where they're fish out of water. So now they both depend on each other. There's an even back and forth.
And then the movie ends.
Jason: Absolutely. And I think the performances are really, really key. Like the actors really need to understand the characters and how they fit together so that they can play that up. They can play that nuance really, really up in those scenes and all the scenes. throughout the whole film, even with their body language.
And that's obviously that requires a certain level of talent and professionalism. So the question is, what would you do with this intellectual property if it fell into your lap? I think
Steve: I would turn this into a series.
Jason: Yeah, like
Steve: a streaming series where every episode is, is a new adventure for them in terms of conspiracy that they uncover.
So they kind of become kind of like a detective agency looking into conspiracies. Ooh. Yeah. See, if we did it now, you'd have the issue of, of the internet. You'd really have to use that to play into how they're diving into the conspiracies. Are they looking at like the dark web consistently? Are they being hired by other people to look into it?
Is it almost like a mission impossible where they look into conspiracies that no one's willing to look into? I think that's the way I would go with it. Because I think it leaves, um...
It leads you to a lot of different storylines. With a situation like
dead-franchises: that.
Jason: I think I agree. I hit on the same thing. That's actually why I picked this. Uh, and my initial thought was to do episodic, but I think if just building on what you said, if we make the conspiracies seasonal. So you do like eight episodes covers, not just one conspiracy, but maybe two or three well known conspiracies that end up being wrapped together to tell a story.
And you include things like people are concerned about today, like privacy and artificial intelligence and, you know, being spied on and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, international tensions and economic competition. Um, and you mix all that in with some pretty funny. conspiracies and you make one tight, you know, six to 10 episode package.
And over the course of that, you have the two main characters relationships, a relationship evolve, and you add some other characters. And I think there's a lot of potential for it to stay engaging and interesting, even if, you know, it's not necessarily your thing per se.
Steve: Yeah. So you're seeing it more like.
There's, what did you say, two or three conspiracies per season?
Jason: Well, like, wrapping together into one story, right? So maybe the first season is an extended version of the film. So it's where they meet, you know, we don't have to like say, oh, it's a sequel to the film because it's been long enough and Mel Gibson's controversial.
So you just start over. You know, used to one season where they know each other, but they're not, there's no romantic connection. The main character, Jerry Fletcher, is, um, you know, obsessed with Alice Sultan or Sutton, I think is her name. Uh, and he's got his little newspaper that he puts out or his blog or whatever modern version of that is, and very few people are into it.
And then it turns out one of his conspiracies is true and they're out to get him and she helps him. And then you don't really know what their relationship is going to be and so on. Um, and it just takes its own life and it takes on its own life. And then if, uh, that season works out. Then you do another season where now they have more of a partnership, you know, she's still working in her job but he you know but they're seeing each other more and They get pulled into another conspiracy because of his connections and his interests and now her interests So there's a little bit of a role reversal in season two where she discovers the conspiracy and he's recovered From what was done to him and like, not interested in that anymore.
And that's kind of season two. And when I say two or three conspiracies, I just mean they start following one, one thread and it leads them into what, as the, what the audience experiences as a couple, maybe two or three famous conspiracies. Sort of tied together, it turns out they're connected. So it's one journey through six to 10 episodes.
Um, and I think that'd be a lot of fun. Now. I do like your idea of every episode is a different conspiracy, but I just don't think that's the way tv is going at the moment or streaming is going. I think it's, it's a little harder to do that, but netflix,
Steve: I'm, I'm thinking about shows like that, to your point, you know, like an eight episode or 10 episode series, you know, I think that the way that I was thinking about it, this episodic, like one episode is one conspiracy, it might be a little harder to, to really make that work and to make it complex enough to really engage the audience.
Right,
Jason: you know, I think if this was 2001 then yeah, I think you know, that's what would be expected 22 episodes 22 conspiracies, maybe you have a couple two parters that are one conspiracy and then there's an underlying Conspiracy that kind of runs through the season and pops up in a few episodes and then in the finale So that like the X files exactly.
Yeah, very good. Yeah, so I like this one because there's mystery It's primarily a romance. I really don't want this to just fall into like it's action adventure every week. It's a romance, right? It's that kind of moonlighting thing where Yeah, they get in caught up in in solving cases But the romantic piece is really really important and then there's you know, all the all the other pieces, you know action adventure intrigue Conspiracy rabbit holes.
I think it could be fun. So, I don't know anything else about this one anything else about conspiracy theory I mean Um,
Steve: going back to that point about the internet, how do you think the internet would play and social media would play into the plot of something
Jason: like this? I think every week. I, I think it would just be like the use of devices and, um, this main character, you know, actually both of them probably at some point strike me as characters who would be doing those things that tech people do, like using the, um, The secret app store or jailbreaking their phones or, uh, you know, actually opening up their technology and in replacing pieces of it internally.
Uh, you know, being really up to date on which apps have good security presently and which ones don't. And that would just seem to me to be a part of their daily lives. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I was just
Steve: thinking how they would integrate it. Would it be? the two characters who are using technology heavily or are they going the hacker route how a lot of shows go right there's someone who they know who's a hacker character exactly who knows the ins and outs of like it and they're helping either helping them find new conspiracies or somehow communicating with the people that are hiring them secretly so there's a lot of ways it could go But I don't know if you'd want to use that trope necessarily.
I mean, you might want to equip one of the two characters with that skill.
Jason: I think Jerry has that skill. And in my hypothetical season two, when he's on the mend and he's no longer paranoid or he's recovering from what was done to him in season one, maybe Alice picks it up. And she, you know, asks him to stay on top of it and she's more interested in the driving force behind it, but I think the two of them can handle it.
I mean, I'm, I'm sure occasionally there'll be conversations with other people that they interface with and probably some interesting characters, uh, in different parts of, or in, related to different parts of conspiracies, but, um, yeah, I think in, in the center of it, the two of them can handle a lot of that.
Steve: How far into his backstory would you go in season one? What do you do as flashbacks? Would you have him on the tail end of having all this stuff happen to him? Like where would you
Jason: start it? So as I mentioned, instead of like saying this is a sequel to the film, like a sequel series, I would just reboot.
With new actors and have them do a version of the film. So I would pick up in roughly the same place the movie did where there's some talk about his past, but it's a little bit confused and mysterious because he's not like a really reliable witness or reporter. So I think, you know, I don't know. It sounds like you're knocking at a door there though.
Like, what are your thoughts about his past? I'm, I'm going
Steve: back and forth. One part of me says it would be great to see it in some kind of flashback situation, but then you're going to kind of ruin the mystery of, of him where he, you'd want, I think want that revealed in bits and pieces maybe throughout the season, like nightmares or he talks to someone regularly, but maybe you find out that he's not talking to anybody, but he's just kind of recounting what happened.
He could
Jason: be rediscovering his past, he could have memories of his past at the beginning of episode one, and then partway through that episode, he could realize that his memories of his own past, like the last 10, 15, 20 years are inaccurate. And then over the course of season one, or the whole series, he could find.
digital bits that would restore the actual past, like not necessarily trigger him to remember it, but he'd find like everything from security camera footage to, uh, you know, bits of audio taped conversations, emails, like any, any kind of digital footprints or any kind of really any footprints, letters, anything that a human being would leave.
He might discover that and then try to reconstruct his own timeline, you know, just maybe visually up on a wall with like information and pictures and things that he's gotten from all over the web and from rating other people's iClouds and stuff like that. Um, maybe he's trying to figure out what the last year of his life looked like, you know, that he has a completely different memory of.
And there's a mystery there. I mean, we would definitely want a mystery running through the season, not, maybe not just the conspiracy or maybe tied to it, but yeah, we could, we could do it that way. It sounds
Steve: mento esque. Mm. Mm hmm.
Jason: I like that though. Yeah. Kind of like the tattoos are similar to random digital bits and, uh, pieces of, or like his own fingerprints and footprints that he'd discover and kind of, you know, find over time.
Yeah. That'd be interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, if we were doing 22 episodes a year, that's the kind of stuff we would need. You would need a lot of that. And
Steve: more side characters, of course. Of course.
Jason: Younger female character who comes in with jokes that aren't funny. And a
Steve: spin off possibility for a couple of the characters where the internet would be wondering, could they have a, you know, Saul?
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. You need some character who is more of a scary stalker, more nuts and, you know, more paranoid than our main character to make sure that he still looked kind of charming and non threatening. It
Steve: reminds me a little bit of, uh, Sherlock, that series, that BBC series. Okay. With um, who's his arch nemesis on there?
The name Moriarty. Oh, Moriarty. Yeah. You could have someone like that. You know?
Jason: Oh, oh, you mean like a, like an antagonist. An antagonist
Steve: who's kind of working against them, you know?
Jason: In the film, there's the, whatever, the head of the conspiracy. And Patrick Stewart, I believe, is part of that. So yeah.
Steve: So that would make sense.
And maybe just keep him as a recurring character in all of it. Maybe working in the shadows against what they're trying to do, you know? Oh yeah,
Jason: sure. Yeah, he could pop back up after you thought he was dead. Mm hmm. Absolutely. And it could be chat GPT with a mask on.
Steve: You mean the uh, Mission Impossible AI
Jason: comes after him.
Oh, the entity? The entity comes after
Steve: him. Yeah. Nice tie in. We also have a podcast episode about Mission Impossible. You should check out.
Jason: So go do that. All right. Anything else about conspiracy theory from 1997 before we move on?
Steve: No, I think we, we covered, uh,
Jason: covered it pretty well. All right. So I have several others that I wanted to talk about.
Uh, do you have any preference what order we do or what kind of project we do next? We can do Devil's Advocate. All right, let's do it another 1997 film. What a coincidence, huh? Very coincidental So devil's advocate is a Keanu Reeves film. Uh, it's our Charlize Theron as his wife and Al Pacino as the devil.
So in this film, unbeknownst to Keanu Reeves, the devil is attempting to recruit him or succeeds in recruiting him for For, uh, to be a partner or be a junior member or partner on it, partner tracked new lawyer, I guess, is that the right way to put that at a major international law firm? And, uh, basically it's a play for Keanu Reeves soul.
It's a really good film there. Any, uh, any thoughts about that
Steve: one? Yeah, a lot of thoughts about it. Did you notice, uh, John Milton? The significance of the, uh, I did
Jason: Al Pacino's name. That's actually something, uh, Paradise Lost and other philosophical and literary references or something that I, I think belong in this intellectual property, maybe even more developed.
Yeah.
Steve: How would you go about developing this if you were, if you were looking at it, do you see this as a series,
Jason: a sequel? Yeah, that's a great question. So I usually ask myself, What about this is good? Like what makes it popular? What made it stand out? Like what, what are the essential elements that I would want to capture if I was going to develop this IP further?
And one of the things that I think really stands out about this and maybe. Wasn't necessarily as big of a part of the film, but could be for developing this intellectual property further. It's a legal drama. So you get a lot of time in the courtroom. You can have different types of cases, different defendants, right?
You can do a little bit of that law and order stuff or so many other shows. You can have that component. In every or nearly every episode. I mean, even you mentioned better call Saul, right? So that also has that not every week, but sometimes, and it's a really interesting part of the show. So people love legal dramas.
So I definitely would want to do a legal drama. The other things that stood out to me, uh, this is a, it's a man verse devil series, right? Or, you know, man versus the devil. So that's kind of classic, but what I liked about it is you don't really know who. The devil is necessarily, uh, you don't have to, and this film you do just because of the casting, but it doesn't have to be clear.
So if we made this a streaming series, there could be some mystery, at least initially around who the devil is and who works for the devil, like who's been corrupted by the devil or who's, uh, you know, a demon or a human who's, uh, sort of sold their soul, and who isn't. Because if you think about it in a legal drama, especially around a law office, like that one, they're going to be a lot of people who are a lot of characters who are not good people, but they may not be under the influence of the devil, not directly right.
And they may not be in on this plot to capture the soul of. Uh, you know, Kevin Lomax, our main character. So I kind of think that's a cool mystery element. You don't really know who's who in this story. Yeah, your,
Steve: your take on this is different than what I was, what I thought might work as a
Jason: series. Let's hear yours.
I like
Steve: the way that you, you take it into a series format where Kevin, there's still a fight for Kevin Lomax's soul. Mm hmm. In my mind. I would do it as events taking place after this first movie where he actually gets corrupted again.
Jason: Ah, you're gonna pick it up, sequel series. Yeah, okay. It's take two.
Take two, right?
Steve: Right. Yeah. He's already been corrupted by the devil and then there's a fight in his mind now that he knows everything that's going on so he gets really tempted by the power element like he does at the end again, you know, that how it goes full circle at the end of the movie. Yeah, I just thought it would be really interesting how It would be a traditional legal drama, but the devil is in charge, is still in charge of this law firm.
Now Kevin Lomax is the first one that got tempted and pulled into it. And then what would happen? Subsequently, like, is he still working for the devil? Is he working against him in some ways or a bigger plot for him to take down the devil? But you don't really know at first.
Jason: Okay.
Steve: So you don't really know if he's good or evil and it kind of flip flops back and forth until maybe some point down the line you realize, wait a minute, he's actually working against him but the devil doesn't, doesn't realize what's, what's actually happening.
But that could be really fun.
Jason: That is really good. We can actually cram all of our ideas together and it would get very layered and very complex and we'd have to kind of lean one way or the other in terms of the structure of the story arc. But that makes a lot of sense and it's almost like a Game of Thrones thing at that point.
But with a good ending, fingers crossed,
Steve: you really don't know, you know, whose motivations are what. Like, if the devil would really... May know the whole time because he's the devil or he figures out a way for him not to know I mean, there's so many ways to take it I just thought it'd be really fun to have a series like that where you're constantly
Jason: guessing.
I think that's really cool So just to recap that a little bit Kevin Lomax Uh, seems corrupted, but in reality, he's playing a game with the devil or he is trying to outsmart him. Correct. Is that what you're, okay, and there are a lot of other characters involved who are interesting, but the audience doesn't know who is an uncorrupted human, who is corrupted, and thus in on it.
And, you know, sort of building on what you said of the corrupted humans, which ones are working towards undermining the devil and which ones are serving him essentially. Almost like the devil bit off more than he could chew with this bunch, this group of humans. And so you don't really know, is this all part of the devil's game to have them think that they can trick him and he's really playing with them and it's all part of corrupting them even more.
Is it actually, is there a chance here that the devil could be overthrown, I guess, or defeated in some way and lose these souls? Are they competing for power between each other, like the corrupted people? And are some of the characters who are seemingly really bad people not corrupted at all? Not exactly, not by the devil.
They're just bad people, right? They're just jerks, self centered thieves or whatever. Uh, and then you could mix in court cases. And bring in characters who are on trial or who are accusing someone of something, uh, in order to add more layers to this.
Steve: Yeah, I, I just thought of something. I think it would be fascinating if the way those cases go, wins or losses.
You don't realize it until much farther down the line. They were still part of a plan, like that case, that person had to lose this other one, they had to win. And it's explained further down or someone realizes what's happening. So the devil's motivation is a lot larger in scale than what you initially think.
Maybe the audience is led to believe that it's just a corruption of the souls at the law firm or in a small area, but there's something much bigger at stake. Maybe there's a backstory that we don't know, the traditional backstory isn't the complete story about the devil, and how he fell from grace, kind of playing on that mythology.
So the whole time, the humans think that his motivation is one thing, but it's actually been something different all along.
Jason: Yeah. So now I think you're getting into the mythology of the show. And this is where I think the reference to Paradise Lost and other. Literary and philosophical references to not just the devil, but things associated with the afterlife and what it, what humanity is or what the soul is can be brought in to explain how the devil could be vulnerable in essence and why, and I'm not sure if you planted the seed, but it seems like Keanu's character, uh, Kevin Lomax, he, even though the devil reset reality, essentially he remembers, right?
Yeah. Is that what you were saying? Yeah. Okay. So then you can bring in these, these literary references and this, um, mythology to help explain why he remembers. Or at least provide a false explanation if it's all part of the devil's plan and he intentionally made him remember as a way to corrupt him into, you know, using this game, but you can add those layers this way and you can also reset it again.
Like you can allow the drama to reach like chaotic proportions. And it seems like either all good, like the other hero is going to win or he's going to lose, or just the whole story, the whole like office is falling apart because of all this drama. And then the devil just resets it and that can start another season or be the end of the season.
Um, but again, Kevin Lomax remembers. And we call it that. Kevin Lomax remembers. Yeah, that's the new title.
Steve: A Devil's Advocate spinoff.
Jason: It's called Devil's Advocate colon, but Kevin Lomax remembers. Is
Steve: it not the name of the Home Alone kid, Kevin Lomax? Is it? I don't know, Kevin something, right?
Jason: Kevin McAllister.
There it is. I was going to look it up on Wikistevia.
Steve: That's funny. Yeah. I mean, the more you talk about this film, the more directions you can take it. I mean, there's so many spinoff movies, there's the series, there's depending on where you pick up the storyline and from whose perspective. You know, you,
Jason: but let me throw in something here to tonally, the film is perverted and dirty at times the series should be to, there've been a lot of popular shows about the devil, a lot of like serialized, Oh, you know, the devil solving crimes and he's really not that bad.
Whatever, all these, all these things lately, right? Or he's, um, somebody's dad and, you know, it's a situational comedy because the kids like half the devil or whatever. But I really, I think this is going to be closer in tone to these sort of prestige channel, you know, HBO Showtime, that kind of stuff where it really does get.
Perverted and dirty like these court cases are not going to be clean law and order stuff You know, they're gonna be not even the what's the law and order sex offenders one or whatever they call it What is that one again? Law and Order Special Victims. There it is. Uh, so, it's not, that stuff gets pretty dirty but, but I think there's more of a like, this film captured the experience in close ups more, you know what I mean?
Does it make sense? So you want
Steve: this to be the, uh, the first OnlyFans. Nine episode limited series is what you're getting. Just come right out and say it. Paramount Plus, OnlyFans,
Disney Plus, OnlyFans, OnlyFans Plus,
Jason: Devil's Advocate, colon, OnlyFans.
Steve: And OnlyFans exclusive.
Jason: So call us, OnlyFans.
Steve: If you are in on the ground floor, hint, hint. We've got
Jason: something for you. So totally, uh, a pretty, pretty, um, adult, let's say, fairly adult material. Good. Anything else about this one? Any other thoughts?
What
Steve: do you think of the role of the wife? Did you think it worked well? Do you think it was a little distracting to the main drama? What was your
Jason: take? Yeah, so in developing this as a series, I think her role needs a lot more development, like a lot more beefing up, you know? Because I think she was there partially to show, uh, Kevin Lomax's vulnerability, like she was a point of vulnerability for him.
Uh, and not so much a full, fully developed character on her own. I mean, Charlize Theron, I think did a great job and they had some really good scenes, but I think her character needs more to do that's central to the plot. Um, I don't know. What were your thoughts? Yeah.
Steve: I mean, I thought the same thing. I thought.
That she could have been, um, much more fleshed out, but then again, would that have been very distracting to the rest of the film? Or would the film have to have been much longer in order to make that work? In order to build on their relationship more, maybe it wasn't even necessary. Maybe it's
Jason: just perfect.
The way it is. No, I think for the film, her role is fine. I think for a series, I want to have a lot of really interesting characters that have their own games that they're playing and their own, um, understanding of the rules of the game on all different levels. You know, you have everybody from the like seemingly innocuous, uh, assistant.
Who, you know, is nice to everybody and just seems to be happy to be working somewhere where they're paid well and the job isn't that bad all. And then you have your, you know, lawyers who are gaming each other for a seat at the table and, you know, in front of the boss. And they're really not part of the supernatural part of it at the moment.
Uh, and then you have your characters who've been corrupted and they're. Sort of double agents in this drama and you don't know which side they're playing in any given time, even though they're supposed to be evil. Uh, and you know, then you have our main characters and so on. And so I would want the wife character to get pulled into all these dramas and have her own dramas.
I mean, you know, I don't remember this character, what her career was, if she had one, but. You know, that can be part of it as well. She could also be a lawyer at the same firm or at a competing firm, like just something interesting for her to do. Yeah, that would make sense.
Good. Any other thoughts about this one?
Steve: No, overall, I thought it was a really well done movie. I think it. It holds up because of its universal themes,
Jason: you know, right, right. Yeah. And it's, it's well done. It's well written. Well performed. Um, I, for the two we've talked about so far, conspiracy theory and devil's advocate, I do worry a little bit about casting because it is so, so hard to find actors who can carry the weight.
Of what we're pitching, um, you know, it's not a coincidence that in both cases, these are, you know, they're the main cast are all very famous, very talented actors, especially talented. Uh, and these films, I think devil's advocate was probably a bigger. Or it's lasted longer its impact is lasted longer. I don't know which one made more money at the time Um, but in order for these stories to really work and we're I think we're sort of leaning towards streaming series in both cases Is that your thought as well?
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so then you need really really really Strong actors and excellent writers, of course, like extremely talented actors who can, um, work with the writers and vice versa to create these characters in this world and have them interact in a way that's believable and entertaining while there's a lot of other sort of balls in the air, a lot of other things happening.
So it might be too much. You know, it might be more about like trying to find the right writers and then you just start trying to interview actors and shooting, you know, some test scenes and test footage and you just go around and round and you only go forward with one of them when you have the right cast.
Steve: What I imagine is a BBC series for both because they get such amazing actors for their productions.
Jason: So then you're basically saying that it'll go about 12 episodes and then be done?
Steve: No, then Netflix will buy it.
Jason: Ah, there we go. And then it'll go downhill.
Steve: That sounds about right. Amazon, Amazon Prime. And they'll pick it up and we'll never hear about it again.
Jason: Yeah, right. Well, I guess we'll find out what OnlyFans does with their series.
How serious they are. Wait, you mean they'll
Steve: get, they'll get OnlyFan models to be the, uh, the actors in the movie?
Jason: Hell yeah. In the series? I don't even know what they would do. Well, none of them are in the same city, right? So it's not like OnlyFans is going to be flying people around. It's going to be like, you mail us some footage and we'll clip it in.
It's all
Steve: Zoom calls. They do the acting through zoom and they clip it all together.
Jason: Yeah. Oh man. Good stuff. Actually, that, that is probably worth exploring a little bit. I don't know how much money OnlyFans is sitting on right now, but I'll bet they're wondering what to do with it.
Steve: Saw something the other day about that, uh, pretty much a fortune.
I read that the, um, and I also read that the CEO or the founder was paying him, himself around a million or more than a million dollars a day in like 2022,
for like two years. So they're doing all right. They're doing pretty well. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason: I wasn't losing any sleep, but it's good to know he'll be fine. He'll be okay. Luckily.
Steve: You know, Netflix might go under. Paramount plus Michelangelo, but there's always, always only fans.
Jason: It's just gonna be only fans at some point.
Only fans
Steve: plus. Of course, it'll have to be plus.
Jason: Or it'll be a Paramount plus only fans. Maybe that's the winning big merger.
Oh, I love it. All right, so I think that's good for those two, and I think we're getting close to a good time to wrap, but I just did just want to mention briefly that some of the other ones we considered, and I'd love the audience to weigh in on this. Again, what would you do with these IPs? So one thing we talked about, or one thing that I considered for this is the TV show ALF.
It was, uh, uh, like a situation comedy from 1986 to 1990. And there's also a cartoon and a ton of t shirts and other products. Big, big property. To my knowledge, nobody has ever successfully relaunched that. To me, I think alpha is all about family. It's about that weird uncle and cultural clash within a family.
And I think that's a very relevant set of ideas today. I think you could absolutely develop the series. The question is what art audience do you target? You know, how do you update the comedy? What format would you use? So questions for, for the listener. Uh, another one that I considered was thunder, the barbarian.
1980 cartoon actually the designs for that were done by Jack Kirby in part his famous comic book artist did the silver surfer a lot Of other stuff so huge name involved there great backstory. I'm gonna save it for later I know if you go when you watch episodes of it, it's it's silly. It's aimed at kids, but Think about the rich mythology they created for this world.
And then think about where you would take that. Not necessarily a movie or TV show could be anything could be a board game, could be a video game, anything at all. You can think of, I have a lot of ideas. I'd love to hear yours. Uh, another project that I considered another IP. This is something goes way back for a lot of people, but it's still in production.
It's a novel series called Xanth, I think is the right way to pronounce that. X A N T H, Piers Anthony is the author. If you've never heard of this, it's a, it's a little bit controversial. It's a very popular with a lot of people worth. Looking at this again, another rich mythology. There are a lot you could do, um, slots really nicely into what's popular today.
And over the last 10 or 15 years, another one, greatest American hero. Probably a lot of you guys remember that one. I think that could be relaunched. Superheroes are still popular. Despite all this stuff about superhero fatigue. I think there's room for a good comedy superhero TV show. It doesn't have to be a big budget or.
Launch it in a different format. Maybe it's a clothing line. I don't know. So any other projects that you were considering for today? No,
Steve: I was thinking about V the aliens coming down to earth as Looking like humans. It was a really I guess say a very fascist type of take on aliens I thought that would be kind of a fun series to reboot.
I know they rebooted it once I think in the early to mid 2000s There was a, there was a reboot and also, uh, Pitch Black with Vin Diesel.
Jason: Ah, yeah. Yes. That was a great film.
Steve: Yeah. Just to see if, um, which way we take that one. If we turn it into a series or it would just be, you know, rebooting this, the movie altogether.
And what, what we would change about that one. Those are the two that really came to mind that I thought would be kind of fun to,
Jason: to talk about. Great choices. So if you're listening to this, maybe ask yourself, what's at the core of what made those properties good? Or maybe you're thinking of a different one, but ask the same question.
Like, what is at the core of that? What's universal? And then how can that be relevant today? Think about how you would distribute that to people. Like what's the right format? How it could be developed and think about ways that it could make some money. Cause it does need to be popular to some degree. And then let us know so we can steal it and talk about it on the show.
Or maybe you want to be a guest. I don't know, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Anything else today before we wrap it up?
Steve: No, I think that's it.
Jason: Another good one. All right. So thank you to the people who made all the projects we talked about today. As always, thank you to the listeners. Please stay away from those like, and subscribe buttons.
Feel free to write a review, but only a nasty one. We'll be back next time. Do we happen to know what we're going to come back with next time?
Steve: I think it's a surprise. To both us and the listeners
Jason: I I have doubts that you'll get through it We did talk about something for next time and i'm gonna go ahead and say at the risk of uh being totally wrong And everybody being mad at me when they put the time in to do this, but there's a tv show That I really enjoyed they got canceled years ago called threshold And i'm sure most of you have not seen it or not heard of it But i'm trying to get my co hosts to watch some episodes at normal speed At normal speed.
Steve: You called me. I was trying to get you to forget about that one. Because I saw it on the calendar. Threshold it is. I've watched every episode. So don't worry. I'll
Jason: be more than prepared. You watched every episode in six minutes. I'm
Steve: sure.
Jason: Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting your thoughts on this one. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the series and the acting in it, but we'll see.
Maybe you'll just be really mad. So I guess that's a little cliffhanger for the audience.
Steve: You never know. There'll be, uh, another exciting episode guaranteed though. So make sure you stay tuned every Monday. Lots of
Jason: conflict every Monday. That's right. Yep. Episodes drop at 5 AM Eastern standard. So feel free to wait up all night.
All right, everybody. Thanks again. See you next week. All right. Take care.