The 2023 Hype Draft
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Wherever you go from here, you have to promise to take care of that little boy for me. Make sure he never forgets where he came from, and he never doubts that he's loved, and he never lets anyone tell him that he doesn't belong there. Greetings, and welcome into the Ringerverse, here on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to the quantum realm,

but also to join us right here on the ringers nexus podcast feed for all things fandom joining me today. Now that she's finished telling me she's the podcaster who can give me the one thing I want. It's Kang. No, it's my beloved house of our title.

co-host Joanna Robinson back after a rare Friday away. Joe, I missed you. Oh my God. I'm thrilled to be here. There was a moment where my laptop tried to force an update and I was like, no, I cannot miss another Friday. So thrilled to be here. Can't delay our reunion. Thanks so much to Ben Lindberg for helping fill the gaps last week for me and too bad he's not here so that I can tell him in person. Oh, wait.

Where is he? I'm here again. We can podcast together, too. Isn't this a treat? Look at this. It's not just us today. It is a two special guests, two pals of the pod kind of day here at House of R because it is time, as we had previously teased, for the 2023 House of R hype draft. And if it's a draft...

That means only one thing. It means that ringer draft daddy Sean fantasy of big picture movie draft fame is here as well. And as you already heard, Ben Lindberg of Lindberg and Associates is here. Ben and Sean.

Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I'm hyped to be here, but I'm also apprehensive because I've made it this far in life without ever doing a draft with Mal, which I think is why we're still friends. It's just, it's a whole different energy. It's just a raw ferocity. I've heard it.

but I've never witnessed it firsthand. And I feel like once you draft with Mal, you can never see her the same way again. Like the mask slips and you see the stone cold killer lurking beneath the animal loving exterior. So I'm worried. She was trying to lull us into a false sense of security before we started recording because she was saying this was going to be a positive draft and just good vibes. But I think it's rope-a-dope and she's just going to come out swinging.

Get ready for her to mock your love of, I don't know, water. You know, whatever you... Who needs water? Whatever you think is innocuous and you hold dear, she will come for it. I've mellowed. I've mellowed in my old age and relentless fatigue. And we're here today to celebrate things we love. Sean, I know you're bringing the positive vibes and the positive energy, right? Yeah, I do want to share for the listeners, though, who can't see this. When you're not speaking, Mal, you are putting a Bowie knife in your mouth.

and holding it between your teeth. And I would say that that intimidation is working very effectively. I'm delighted to be here. I'm a huge fan of the Ringerverse podcast and House of R, one of my favorite houses on the block.

And I'm a very competitive drafter. I don't have... And there is a psychological aspect to drafting, of course, but I'll put it this way. I'm not as crazy as you are, Mallory. I just want to put that out for everyone. And yet, you have chosen to light the entire room that you are currently inhabiting in what I would describe as Raven's Purple, which I can only...

Only read as an intimidation tactic. You're trying to distract me. Mind games. We're heading into wildcard weekend. Ravens bangles on Sunday night. A lot of anxiety for Ravens fans. And I know you want me thinking about that and about Lamar Jackson's knee, but I won't. I'm going to think about hype.

and nerd culture and all the stories that I can't wait to share and celebrate with you, my beloved co-hosts and pals. That's the mood I'm in today. By contrast, I put my shade down so that I would be shrouded in shadow, just hidden by the mic so you can't read my micro expressions. Why are you implying that's new or different from how you usually appear to us on Zoom? This is my lighting situation for every appearance on this podcast, but

This time in particular, it will help me just by camouflaging my intent. Joe, have you ever seen Ben's face in your 75 Zooms together? I was just about to say, Ben, you have significantly downsized your pop filter. I got a smaller pop filter for you, I thought, when I got it. This is great because Joanna will know what I look like now. Yeah, now I know what Ben's face looks like. It's great. Oh, boy. Okay. Very quickly, before we get into the rules of today's draft...

Let's hit the programming reminders, as we always do at the top of a show. The Last of Us starts this Sunday, and we are going to have pods aplenty on the Ringiverse Podcast Network. We already have some awaiting. We have some more coming. This past week, on Wednesday, the Midnight Boys, pew, pew, chatted about the new Quantumania trailer and, in honor of The Last of Us inching ever nearer, embarked on a hilarious...

Video game character draft that you owe it to yourself to listen to. And Steve, I just want to say that we're all thinking of you, buddy. You're in our thoughts. You're in our heart. I loved your draft. I did. You're true to yourself. Yeah, it was wonderful. Steve, I didn't like it. I thought it sucked. Here you come. Oh, boy. Speaking of video games.

On Thursday, right here on the O-Ringerverse, Ben and Daniel Chin offered the video game experts guide to the impending Last of Us TV universe. So check that out as a primer before the new show begins. And then once it does begin, head over to our sister pod, the Prestige TV podcast, where Van and Charles will be sharing their instant reactions on Sunday nights. And then Joe and I will be diving deep into the latest Last of Us episodes midweek, which

But we're still going to be here on the Ringiverse too. Jo, you want to do a quick tease for what we've got cooking for next week here on House of R? Oh my god. So excited for this. So we're launching a new series, unless you hate it, and then it'll be a one and done. But we're launching a new sporadic

sort of special kind of episode that Mallory and I will be doing, which are centered on tropes, various storytelling tropes that we love. And we want to sort of like dive deep on like those tropes and look at all the various stories

film and television books over the years that have exemplified that trope and also what we think it means and what it brings out and why people go back to it time and time again. So this next Friday, we are starting with the trope that is known as lone wolf and cub. Or I was talking to someone about it last night. They had never heard of lone wolf and cub, but they're like, oh, reluctant daddy. I was like, sure, reluctant daddy, if you want to call it that.

Pedro Pascal and someone else. Yeah, yeah. So Mandalorian, The Last of Us, Pedro Pascal, and a small, defenseless, your mileage may vary creature. That's what we'll be talking about next. I'm really excited. There's a lot of stuff that is really cool that falls under this umbrella. So Mel and I are going to be talking tropes. It's going to be great. Ben and I are actually a couple of reluctant daddies, if I recall correctly. That's true.

It took us a while. No longer reluctant. Of course. No longer reluctant. No, no, no. At one time, perhaps. Joe, how can everyone

follow all of that? How can everyone follow what Sean's got cooking on Big Pick? How can everyone follow all of the podcast goodness here on the Ringer Podcast Network? I am so glad you asked me this question because there's a few ways they can do this. First of all, follow us on socials. Like, Ringerverse specifically, but just the Ringer in general because then, yeah, you can find out

what Sean's doing on the big pick. If Sean's going to show up on the watch, like what he's moving and shaking, you don't know what he's going to do. So I want to check all of that out. Uh, so yeah, on Twitter, on Instagram, et cetera, wherever you find your social entertainment. Um, um,

to the podcast. What about that? What a concept. Why don't you just subscribe and then we're always here and you don't miss a thing, you know, in the words of Steven Tyler. And last but not least, this is not a way to like track us, but, you know, hobbitsanddragons.gmail.com is 2023. That email still works. So we're still getting emails at that email. I still read them. So, you know, if you have thoughts about

reluctant daddies, please feel free to email us and we can incorporate that into the show. But those are all the ways to keep track and get a hold of us. Okay. Spoiler warning, slightly tricky for today. We obviously won't be revealing any particular spoilers from impending releases because we don't know any. But in talking about things that might be coming, anything

Anything from that canon from the past is in theory on table. So there's a spoiler warning for basically the pop culture universe. Okay, the rules. Everyone ready to establish the rules of the 2023 House of R hype draft?

And then break them? Yes. Yes. And then immediately thwart and challenge them. Yeah. So normally, Joe, we enter every season with a hype meter. And do we contain the hype meter in our respective top 10 lists to that exact season? No. What are seasons? What is time? But we try. We generally take the year in quarters. But the beginning...

of the 2023 year is a little lighter and there's a lot to come later. And so we thought, wouldn't it be fun to kick things off by looking at the entire year all at once? And that's why we decided to do it as a draft. That's why we decided to have our pals with us. There is so much to talk about. So our four drafters, Joe, Sean, Benjamin Limburg,

Mallory Rubin. We'll be drafting in a snake order. Steve Allman, after we go through these rules, will be determining that draft order via random draft generator right here on Zoom. We don't know the order that we're drafting in yet. We will be drafting into five categories. They are TV show, movie, animated, sequel, wildcard.

Now, yes, many, many, many 2023 releases could go into more than one of those categories. That's part of the fun, right? Is Thing X your choice for movie? Is it your choice for sequel? Is it your choice for wildcard? Hey, that's up to you. That's part of the strategy. What is eligible? Anything confirmed.

For a 2023 release or, and this is the key, this will come into play at some point, reasonably expected to come out in the year 2023 is eligible. What?

What does reasonably expected mean? We will probably find out together here today on this very podcast. If you push the bounds of reason here, though, if you make the case that something that we all know is coming out in 2024 is coming out in 2023, your fellow drafters reserve the right to challenge you. Any questions about that first rule about what we mean by coming out in 2023? Just so I'm clear, Fantastic Four starring Adam Driver is eligible, right?

That is eligible today. Is that what you're calling 65? Yeah, exactly. You can definitely pick 65 if you want to. That's too bad. Okay.

You can pick something. I expect nothing to come out so that I cannot be disappointed. It's definitely going to be a historical document. I mean, of course, this is the podcast where we once picked Sandman in our fall of 2021 hype meter because Netflix had said coming soon. And it turned out that was not true. But that's fine. Well, soon is debatable. What is soon? Exactly. In a cosmic sense. A year from now, it turns out, according to Netflix. What is soon? What is hype? You know, it's open to interpretation.

You can, though, we should clarify, you can pick something that has already started as long as it started airing in 2023. So, for example, Bad Batch, which started airing the first week of this year, is eligible for selection today because it is a 2023 show. Sean's going to grab that first pick. I know that's number one on Sean's big board. He's a big, big, big crosshair guy. I literally have no idea what you're talking about. Speaking of television shows.

Subsequent seasons of a TV show. So, for example, The Wheel of Time season two are eligible in the sequel category. After much discussion among the group, that is where we landed. Any nerd culture release is eligible. Sci-fi, fantasy, superhero stories, comic book stories, you name it. If it is a nerd culture genre story, if it is something that we could potentially podcast about here on The Ringiverse, you can draft it onto your hype squad.

And any type of media is eligible. This will probably mostly be a film and TV draft, but if you want to pick a novel, if you want to pick a comic, if you want to pick a video game for any eligible category, you absolutely can.

can. Any questions on any of the eligibility rules? Anything we want to hash out on the eligibility front? Sean, any teasing you want to do for what is nerd culture? What counts as genre? I think even internally here at The Ringer, we are constantly flummoxed by where things live and where they ought to live. And so with that in mind...

I want to challenge convention today. Yeah. I want to break borders. He's a maverick. Sean's going to use the all culture is nerd culture now. All nerd culture is mainstream culture now to sneak in all sorts of pics. Ben, we won. Just look back at us. We were 11 years old. We were like, why won't they just make an X-Men movie? And then that's all they do now. We did it. What is a flower moon? And is that nerd culture? Yeah.

Yeah, there's something mystical, I'm sure, in that wonderful work of nonfiction true crime by David Graham. Let us bring Martin Scorsese to the ringerverse. Martin would love that. He would love to be here. He would be thrilled to be nominated. Oh, boy. What is the goal?

What is the goal of today's exercise, pals? It's to have fun. It's to share in celebration and joy of the things that we love and can't wait to see. Also, it's to win. It is to assemble the most hype-tastic roster of 2023 Nerd Culture releases, the most anticipated releases, the most exciting list of releases, the most likely to be good or acclaimed, whatever hype means to you and whatever you think it will mean to our voters. Because, as is always the case for a draft, people have the opportunity to vote for their favorite draft online.

on the Ringerverse social handles. Tune back in to Instagram, to Twitter, so that you can vote. All right. Those are the rules. Questions, comments, concerns. Okay.

Steve, please establish the draft order. Joe will be first. Sean will be second. Mal will be third. And Ben will be fourth. Are there like very obvious, like, well, this is quite clearly the number one draft pick. You know, like when we'll do a big picture draft. Yeah. Or like even listening to the video game characters draft. I was like, well, Mario, right? Mario is like he's a critical figure in the video game history. Like, do you guys see this as...

I need to get one of these three in my first pick or my draft is F. Yeah.

I think it's difficult to answer that without revealing our respective draft strategies. But what I feel comfortable saying, and I think we can each answer this question and also give a little bit of a snippet of how we're assessing the content year to come and what trends we see maybe and are anticipating. I think there's a clear number one overall seed, and I think there's a clear top two seed line. I would be surprised if the first couple rounds didn't play out largely in a way we're all...

anticipating with maybe a couple surprises and bits of variance in there. From there, I think it's absolute open season. But who knows? I'm prepared to be surprised. I think that's really part of the fun. And I do think category strategy impacts how you see it quite heavily. It sort of has to.

Category strategy is impacting my number one. I feel free saying that because I'm about to pick it, but like category impacts my number one pick. I think if you were to ask Mallory and ask me, we would have different answers for what the...

most imperative pick should be. Yeah. I think everyone will have the same number one overall. I don't know how you couldn't in this draft. But maybe not. I don't know. I wouldn't say it's so clear cut for me. Yeah. There are some categories where the field is deeper, at least for me personally. Yeah, exactly. It also depends, I think, on are we just

Going completely by our own personal level of hype for these properties? Or are we so cutthroat? Are we so hellbent on winning that we are pandering to the masses that we are trying to curry favor here? Because there could be certain things that I think would be high on the general draft board of the culture at large that might not be as high on my personal hype pick.

So I'm going to have to decide whether I want to be true to my authentic hype. That is like, do I pander to the Craven voters or do I not? It's a good question.

Okay. All right. So I'm going to go first. Should we kick things off? All right. Is there any sort of preamble? Okay, great. Here we go. As I mentioned, category strategy plays a lot into my first pick. I was really hoping to go first so that I could nab this off the board. In the category of animated, I am picking across the Spider-Verse. Okay, we all agree. Great. There was no question.

Already, this is just a disaster. So would all four of us have had Across the Spider-Verse as our number one pick? Without a doubt. Not only because of the overall anticipation, but because animated is so thin as a category. Why is this a category, is my question. For fun. For the challenge, for the fun. Because we love animation here at the Rainverse. Chris Ryan's not here. Because Chris isn't here.

Should we let Joe explain why she picked this, though? I don't know if we all agree that it should be the number one pick. This is actually my pick. Trial by Content did a big movie bet of 2023, and this was my pick for what might wind up being the biggest movie. And we have a whole metric that we sussed out for that in terms of critical rating, audience rating, box office, et cetera. I don't know. Box office might screw me, and it might be a different franchise. But...

But the first movie was so good and had such a long tail on it in terms of people discovering it. It won the Oscar. It became so vaulted that a lot of people will name it as the best comic book movie ever into the Spider-Verse. And so this, you know, it could go in sequel. You know, there's a lot of places you could put it. But as you said, animated is pretty thin on the ground. And so I felt like I really needed this here to...

shore up the spine of the draft. And I'm just... I think there's no way this isn't going to be extraordinary. It's going to be fantastic. So...

Yeah, it's a strong pick. I mean, it was eligible in four categories, right? But obviously, you took what is perhaps the weakest field. Don't want to rain on any animation fans parade here, unlike Sean Fennessey. But yeah. Not a matter of quality, just maybe volume, right? In terms of the number of potential entries here. Okay, excellent pick, Joe. Sean, you're up.

Yeah, this... So now I'm freaked out, right? So my whole strategy is out the window. And now I'm like, well, animated, I have to figure out what I'm doing in this category because of what Joe just did. And...

So now I'm going to just, I'm going to make a panic pick that I, this is not, certainly not in the top 10 of the things I'm most excited about on any of my lists, but I am excited about this thing that I'm going to draft because now I feel like I need to feel animated. Now there may be more animated films and TV shows that you both are excited about, Mal and Ben, that,

But for me, that's not the case. So I'm taking X-Men 97 with my pick. That's great. It's a great pick. Which is the show that was announced by Disney+. I don't even remember how long ago this was announced. But the thing that I have been most looking forward to

since the sort of like massive Disney plus Fox merger explosion happened for a very specific reason, which is that I am a child of the 90s. X-Men the animated series was one of my very favorite things. I did not know that you could...

comic book storytelling so elegantly in a Saturday morning cartoon. And, uh, I love that show greatly. The fact that it's being revived in this way that I think will be simultaneously kind of kitschy and knowing, but also very faithful to the original tone and text. Um,

is exciting to me. And of course, the Wolverine pawing at the photo of Jean Grey meme is one of the great memes of our time. Yeah, classic. I'm hopeful that there'll be some mindfulness about that for this series. So I'm taking X-Men 97. I assume it's coming out this year. I believe it's undated, though.

Yeah, I think we can allow it. It was announced way back in November 2021. So, you know, they have to make it eventually. This is my feeling on that. Sean, when you were a child and I was watching the original X-Men animated series, did you have a favorite character

of the animated X-Men? Well, you know, what 11-year-old boy who has not yet hit his growth spurt has not yet, has not identified with Wolverine. You know, I think Wolverine is... It's not where I thought you were going to go. Okay. I was going to go with Professor X. I thought you were going to be like, Rogue was the, you know, object of my desire or something like that. That's not, that was more like 13, 14, you know, that's... But I...

But I love them all. I mean, you know, one of the things about that show is that it is so celebrated for being really the only thing that has kind of gotten Storm right as a character. You know, like Storm has been done so dirty by those movies and is such an important character in the X-Men story. But, you know, in general, I love all the X-Men. And I can't wait until they're integrated into all of my favorite intellectual property at the movies. I'll see you at the intellectual property at the movies. Yeah.

I'm excited to see if we're going to get just a run on animation now. Is everyone going to get their animation pick out of the way? Well, that's what I was going to say. I think that X-Men 97 is a great pick for anybody's team. I don't know if it needed to be taken in the first round. That surprises me. I think after Across the Spider-Verse went off the board, I assumed we would be waiting a minute or two to circle back to animation. But that's okay. Sean, you went with your heart. You went with nostalgia. He said it was a panic pick.

I have very little behind it, honestly. That's why. My list is pretty short in that category. Okay. Well, here's what has happened as a result of that. I, sitting here at number three, find myself in a situation I did not believe or frankly dare to dream would be possible. Now, I do think that there are two reasons

maybe even three really valid picks at this spot. But to get back to Ben's earlier question, are you drafting from the heart? Are you drafting to anticipate what the masses might want? There's one thing that does both baby. March 1st, 2023.

Global holiday, House of R, Ringiverse holiday, The Mandalorian Season 3. This was number two overall on my draft board after Spider-Verse. I can't believe I get it at three. My sweet baby Grogu, back in my life, back in our hearts, Bo-Katan.

Live action Mandalore, Darksaber lore, Din's quest. I mean, we are in the land now largely absent of monoculture, but Mando is one of the last things left that we all truly share. The Din Grogu takeover of the Book of Boba Fett

us of their force, of their power, of their love. It is a bond that not even Luke Skywalker could contain. When you boot up that trailer and you hear Din say, all right, kid, hang on. And then we get the classic subtitling of Grogu coups and we get to hear, that's me. I'm going to show you all a Hanukkah gift I received. Here's

that if I could figure out how to make it work with my headphones, I would be wearing for every future podcast. I can't believe I got to pick Mando at number three overall. I don't know what any of you could possibly say. I hope you could also see Grogu sitting behind me on my shelf. I can't believe that we got through that whole X-Men 97 conversation without anyone like breaking out the very famous X-Men animated theme song. But we did get Mallory warbling the Mando flute. Yeah.

The pan pipes. Love it. I've always been musically inclined, as you know, Jo. I do know. You're a prodigy. It's true. I wasn't even sure partway into that monologue which Star Wars series you were drafting because everything you said at the beginning of that speech could apply to multiple Star Wars series. I should clarify it by the way that I'm picking it in TV show. Okay.

All right. It's a strong pick and it dropped. I think the upset of this draft really is that X-Men 97 went before Mando. We have not finished the draft yet. Okay. Nope. You can make it up. Remarkable stuff so far. The thing is, is you guys have entered, you've invited me into your tent and I don't care about winning. I need to be true to my heart. And so let's make, let's make a mess. Simply not true and all of us know it.

And you're fucking lying to us. And worse, you're lying to yourself. Come on, Ben. Make a mess with me. Let's do some crazy stuff. I might bend some rules and some definitions a little later. I'm really excited to see on the turn here, Ben, because you get two picks. So I genuinely don't know what I might have the opportunity to select next. This is an exciting but anxiety-inducing moment. What are you going with? Yeah.

I'm going to stay in TV, which is a deep category, obviously, although a lot of potential TV picks are also eligible in sequel, let alone wildcard, of course. And I'm going to go with something that we will be talking about over the next several weeks and we are currently hyped about, which is The Last of Us, which I think that's got to go off the board early here. It is not a sequel, the rare non-sequel that we're all extremely hyped about.

I've been writing about video game adaptations, including this one specifically, for much of my life. Sean, we did a podcast about the not-so-strong track record. And I think it means a lot that we are finally fully on the board. And I don't say that to discount Arcane or any of the other excellent animation platforms.

But this is going to be big in a way that I think no previous adaptation of a video game has in a mainstream culture, Sunday night, prestige TV, HBO slot sort of way. And I think if we were measuring hype kind of adjusted for calendar, I think this would be big too, just because...

There's a lot of oxygen in the room right now. Nothing else is stealing the hype away from The Last of Us. So between now and Ant-Man and Mando, The Last of Us has the spotlight to itself, but

Also, I've already seen a good deal of it, so I know it's really good, which I guess you could say might make me a little less hyped because I'm not anticipating it, but I've only seen the first four episodes, so I'm still hyped for the rest. And I have a certainty that I'm giving my pick to something solid here. There's nothing perspective. Is this going to be good? Are they going to stick the landing? It's good. The

The reviews are out. My own review is out. I can have total confidence in The Last of Us being great and dominating the cultural conversation for the next several weeks. I'm very curious to see how this breaks into the larger culture and if it does. You know what I mean? Because it is a zombie show. You know what I mean? And obviously, HBO has had success with genre on Sunday night with a little franchise called Game of Thrones. I'm your host!

But like, and obviously The Walking Dead was one of the biggest shows that ever existed. I am just very, very curious. Having only seen the first episode, I'm very, very curious how far this is going to break. But Ben makes a great point that there's not a lot clamoring for people's attention otherwise. But yeah. And it's technically a zombie show, but it's really a relationship show. It's a Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey show. Isn't everything really a relationship show? You would hope. Yeah.

Exactly right, Joanna. That's exactly right. How far do you think it will break? I'm, I mean, I'm, I'm quite curious about that as well. It's going to be huge. Like I probably, uh, I, I,

I have questions after the first episode, but again, I have not watched beyond episode one, but a lot of non-genre friendly people that I know who are TV critics said that episode three was like a stunner and really like turned them around on how they, how they felt about the season. So like,

I don't know if it will launch as big as it's going to get once episode three hits and a bunch of people say like, no, this is sort of similar to WandaVision where people watch WandaVision. They're like, no, wait, come, come here. There's something else going on here. You know what I mean? So. Right. Yeah. And it has a pretty sizable built-in fan base of people who love the franchise already. And I think we'll embrace it in a way that fans of previous video game adaptations have not always because they haven't been happy with the results, but

because the video game creators are just so intricately involved in this and because it's a pretty faithful adaptation, I think it will be welcomed and embraced and seen as something of a trailblazer. So, yeah.

Last of Us. Love it. All right. I have another pick to make. I'm nervous now. I really don't want you to take the thing I want to take. I think I know what you're talking about. But if I do, that's a deep category. I mean, I can pick anything with wild cards. So I'm going to...

potentially let you have it and I'm going to go with Dune Part 2. No, that's what I'm talking about. God damn it, Ben. Well, then I'm not going to let you have it. I'm going to take it myself. Fuck. Dune.

Dude part two off the board. I think that the movie category and we're playing with Mr. See You at the Movie, so I'm intimidated by that just because I feel like he has such mastery of the subject matter that I'm outclassed. Didn't stop him from taking X-Men 97 with his first overall pick instead of doing the shock of the draft. I'm just already on tilt. It's unbelievable.

No Dune Part 2, no Across the Spider-Verse. Why am I even here? I can't believe you didn't take... You not taking Dune Part 2 at 2 is... I think we were all astounded. Astounded, but no one wanted to say it because we all wanted to pick Dune. We all wanted it to that level. Should I just leave? Should I just go? Sean, you're dismissed.

I wanted the last of us too, so I'm just effed. Like, this is brutal for me. Sean, I would like to see you change the hierarchy of the Ring of Mercy universe. I need to call James Gunn first. Just checking. Dude part two, because dude part one was wonderful. And because Villeneuve has said that part two is where the fun begins.

Now, I thought the fun began already. So if this is going to bring the fun even higher, then that's exciting. The second part is definitely more cinematic, he said. Again, it was pretty cinematic already. And I think it's just a fun part of the book to adapt. I mean, there are some challenges, but also a lot of the world building and the ground laying has been done already.

and the exposition is out there, and now I feel like they can fully roll into it. And he's familiar. We're all familiar with the landscape here, all the production complications, the crew, everyone's on the same page. They're just at...

full cylinders, firing on full cylinders here. So I'm pretty excited. And I think this category was slightly thinner for me than maybe some of the others. So I'm very pleased to get this. I mean, if it was good enough that some people could not comment on Don't Worry Darling because they were just so busy filming Dune and on set, then it's got to be pretty good.

So that's why people couldn't comment. And don't worry. That's the only reason. What other possible reason could there be? They were bringing us the best version of theme part two that they could. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for me.

I'm despondent right now. I really wanted, I can't believe I was one away from picking Dune. I also really wanted Dune. There was one slot in the draft that I didn't want and it was the number two overall slot because I felt so sure Spider-Verse would go first and I didn't want to have to make the Dune or Mando choice and then I had to make it anyway at three and I went with my heart and Mando, which was the right choice and the one I was excited about and I still thought I'd get Dune and then I didn't and Ben, you're cruel. You're cruel and I know the thing you thought I was going to take. Sorry to snipe you. Yeah, I know. That's still there.

I know, but I think I'm going to go in a different direction. There are a lot of good picks right here. Still. It's, it's, it's crowded at the top. We have some good choices. God damn it. Ben movie is just thinner than it is. Right? Boy, I don't know that that's going to sway me into picking a movie though. Oh, I'm really torn between two things. This is torment already. All right. I'm doing it again. I'm going hard. I'm going hard.

I'm going heart. I'm going mind. I'm going glorious purpose. Grab your grapes and grab your nuts. I'm making my sequel pick Loki season two. Season one was one of my absolute favorite shows of 2021. One of the best installments of phase four without question might be the MCU release I'm most anticipating in phase five. It's a race with a couple impending releases at

the top there, but I think it is the MCU Phase 5 impending story that I am most excited about. An essential...

television show and series, not only for the truly joyful time we get to spend with a character that we love who constantly evolves and surprises us and grows in new ways. We love an arc here at House of R, and Loki gives us an ever-evolving arc. This show is as essential as anything else to where we are in the MCU, to the multiverse saga that is increasingly unfolding in full in front of us. And

I think maybe more essentially than that, it's one of the few things that we can count on being excellent in an inconsistent Marvel moment, which I think is really crucial because there's a lot of Marvel stuff coming. And this is top of the hype list and top of the quality list, I think. What role will Loki, Sylvie, Mobius, Ravonna, I gotta shout out Miss Minutes, Tarjuna on the Zoom, what role will they play now that the sacred timeline has splintered and shattered?

I don't know. And that's the fucking fun of it. I can't wait to find out. This was such an inventive and emotionally rich and vibrant storytelling universe. So hyped to return to the TVA Loki season two sequel.

I feel good about that one. I'm excited that I got that. I didn't think I would be able to get Loki. I know. I was like, am I going to get Loki? I really can't believe it. The dude thing threw me, but guess what? I recovered. I landed comfortably in the cradle of a drawer full of useless Infinity Stones. No wonder why Loki gave me.

No one does hype better than Mallory hyping herself. Hyping her own thing. Listen, if you don't believe in your own draft, no one else will. You can see her hype meter just climbing slowly as she was delivering that case for Loki. I got really excited. My dude pic took a sequel off the board also, which...

which is, I think, a pretty deep category. I mean, when is it not? Sequels, right? Everything is a sequel. I would move that perhaps for a future draft, we should add a prequel category because we're at peak prequel now. You're all in on prequels after despising them and campaigning publicly against them for years. Yes. I've done a total 180 on this. They've figured out prequels. The question is how Sean figured out his draft. Yeah. Because he's up. Well... Gosh.

I think all the stuff that's actually going to be good is off the board now. So that's not true. There's a lot of good stuff here. Wow. Sean, believe in yourself and believe in content. You're a pessimist about culture. Yeah. Well, I'll say the things that I was, that's not true. There are things that I'm, I'm looking forward to, but that I have questions about. I'm going to, I'm going to try to inspire myself a little bit here. Um,

I am going to take a movie. I don't know why I didn't take a movie in the first round. That was a shameful act and I apologize. I'm going to take Guardians of the Galaxy 3. I'm going to do this for one reason. I haven't given much thought to this movie. I think I might have even mentioned on another podcast that the trailer came out and I didn't know

And that was the first time that an MCU teaser or trailer came out, and I just was not aware of it. And I watched it like 10 days later. And I think that that certainly speaks to sort of where I am with my engagement with the MCU. But also, I unabashedly love

Guardians and Guardians Volume 2. I loved James Gunn as a filmmaker before he became this kind of like on font to read absurd figure of Internet discourse before he became, you know, a power broker at DC. I do think that him saying farewell to the MCU in a very kind of concrete way at this point is

means that he will throw a lot at this movie. I think he is a very gifted filmmaker, setting aside all the other stuff I just mentioned. And I think it's easy to forget that the first Guardians film, I think, is actually the movie that unlocked what the MCU could be. It is. Because not just in tone, but the way that it showed us that it didn't just have to be Cap and Iron Man and the characters you know from the golden age of comics. So...

I've always loved the tone of those movies. I also love the collision of massive science fiction influence that Gunn brings to the table. And I'm excited about this movie. And I rewatched the trailer to prepare for this last night and was just amped. I was like, let's go. Let's do it. Let's go back to me and my friends and Groot. Let's get together. How did the reluctant daddy inside of you feel about baby Rocket Raccoon in the...

In the trailer. I want to nurture him. Okay. I want to take care of him. I'm all about nurturing now. That's as you can hear from other draft experiences I've had. I know this about you. I'm a protector. Yeah. I'm looking out for my teammates and my family. Yeah. It's been six years between Guardians movies. It's just unbelievable. So the hype for volume three is real. I think you picked this a little early. Yeah.

Okay. Slightly surprised by this being a second round pick and certainly shocked by you leading the explanation for the hype by saying you didn't know the trailer had come out and that it wasn't on your radar at all. That's weird. That's weird. You should have just said Baby Rocket made me weep and I want to cradle him at my breast. I'm just genuinely thrilled that Mallory has picked one singular target and it's Sean. And I can just sort of like, it's just, it's intentional and I

know it. I mean, this Ben will end up annihilating her in this draft and she will have no realization about it because she's too worried about the big draft or who's on from the other show. Don't worry about Ben's picks. I like about your experts. Ben is a fucking expert in this field. It has been for decades. All right. Not to mention Joanna, for Christ's sake, your co-host. Thanks. Thanks.

I'm loving their picks so far. Keep your eye on the others. My one solitary pick? Yeah. Joe, you're on the turn here. You got double barrel action. But like, yeah. Okay. I'm tempted to take something just to fuck with Mallory. It would hurt my feelings, but I also, I think I would almost be more wounded if it wasn't selected soon. If that makes sense. Yeah. Oh, God.

All right. For... But it's not my heart. Okay. All your heart. It's not my heart. It's your heart. I'm going to let you have that. Okay. So push at the boundaries of the definition of the ringer first. I know what you're going to do. Wow. I thought Sean would be the one testing the definitions. Yeah. All right. I'm so excited that you think you know. I hope you're right. Then I'll feel very connected to you. In the category of...

television show. Oh, okay. Twist. No, go ahead. I am picking Yellow Jacket season two. I was going to ask about this. I was, yeah. I'm throwing a flag here. I'm throwing a flag too, I think. There's weird, spooky, mystical stuff going on in Yellow Jacket season two. Or is there? It's because of horror and like preying upon our

Do we not cover horror? Tendencies to things. No, but like, is there a supernatural element, actually, do you think? Or is it just that people can't be trusted? There's like clairvoyance happening. Like, there's like, and like, prophecy, soothsaying, predictions about deaths and visions. Uh-huh. It's happening. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to take visions, you could take Star Wars visions in animation. That would be allowed. That would be allowed. That would be allowed.

Oh, okay. So that's the case for why it fits in the genre. Do we just now, do we all say whether we think it's appropriate and whether we're going to allow it? Sounds good to me. Yeah, Sean's going to support me.

Sean's going to support me. You guys are going to be against me. You know what? I'm comfortable actually with it. I like the idea of opening up our definition here a little bit. I think that fandom encompasses a... It's a big tent. It's a big tent and all are welcome here at The Ringiverse. And it's a great show.

So why not? Plus, maybe it can help other people with their strategies later in the draft who can say. Right. Who could possibly say? Banking some goodwill here for future fix. you threw a flag. So do you want to make a case against it? I did.

I guess we were all weighing this, right? It all came to our minds. I considered drafting it. I'll allow it. I'm outvoted anyway. But I wasn't going to take it probably, but I did consider it. It's borderline, right? I mean, we all love the show, but I guess it's still kind of an open question about whether there actually is a supernatural element to it and whether that's required for it to be

eligible here. So clearly they're flirting with that. There are some characters who believe that they have those powers or others believe that those characters have those powers. And that's one of the central questions of the show, right, is whether this is real or whether this is people who are abandoned and starving and becoming cannibals in the middle of the forest somewhere.

Could go either way. But yeah, take it. It's a great show. Thanks. I so appreciate that magnanimous attitude. All right. Next on my list, and even... Again, this is going to be a hard draft. I'm taking it even though I don't know that there's a lot of heavy competition for it. But in the...

sequel, I guess is what I'm going to put it category. I'm going to pick the doctor who anniversary, uh, special it's coming later this year. Um, I saw on Twitter that you were getting back into your doctor who bag. Oh my God. So excited. We have a whole curriculum plan for the ringer verse around it. It's going to be a year of hype around doctor who. So, uh, yeah. So for those who don't know who haven't like weren't into doctor who, um,

There have been several eras marked by different showrunners on Doctor Who. And the era where I got into it started in the mid-aughts, mid-late aughts, run by a guy named Russell T. Davies, who's gone on to do a lot of other great television. He left, other showrunners came, the show got not as good as far as I'm concerned. But Russell T. Davies is coming back with...

A lot of friends from that era of Doctor Who. This is for the 60th anniversary of the show. And so David Tennant, ever heard of him, is coming back to briefly play the Doctor, the role that made him. And my favorite companions are coming back. I could not be possibly more thrilled to watch this. And not only that, my hype around it is this idea that

And Mallory has willingly and enthusiastically, and perhaps also Van, we haven't nailed that down yet, like agreed to go on a Doctor Who rewatch journey with me over the year as we prep ourselves and our listeners with like, you know, because it could be daunting to try to catch up to Doctor Who if you've never watched it. There's literally 60 years of show. So we're, you know, we're trying to curate a rewatch.

that can get everyone up to speed to enjoy this anniversary special but not spend every waking hour watching Doctor Who for the rest of the year. So, yeah. Doctor Who 60th anniversary special. It's coming in November, I believe. Fascinating strategy. Two things you love. Two things that many people love. Two things that are really good. Also,

fair to say two things that nobody else would have taken yeah but i honestly don't have anything on my list that i want that like i'm scared you guys are gonna steal so okay this is sort of i think i think miles morales is holding up the like high center tent pole of my of my draft and then everything else is just gonna crowd in underneath that so that's where i am okay all right

All right. I support you, Joanna. For my next pick, I'm taking Ahsoka in TV series because fuck Mallory. Fuck Mallory Rubin. All right. I have literally never seen one second of the series Star Wars Clone Wars, nor have I seen Star Wars Rebels. I did see Ahsoka's appearance as portrayed by Rosario Dawson, and I thought it kicked ass. And I'm this huge Thrawn guy. I'm always thinking about what Thrawn's up to and how he needs to be stopped.

And I'm just so excited to have another Dave Filoni show. You know, he's tremendous, obviously. Sean knew he lost this draft and now he's just he's playing spoiler is what's happening here. Here's the thing, I think Ben would have taken this next. I don't think this would have made it to me.

You're nice. I mean, Ben, you can go right under the truck too. Yeah. I'm glad that this got selected. I am. Well, well, well. Genuinely. It isn't the consequences of Mallory's own action. No. I feel great about this. Ahsoka deserves to be recognized as a

incredibly hyped 2023 release. I thought it was weird that it hadn't been taken to this point in the draft. And look, I consider this a win because one of the things that Ben and I chatted about in our Bad Batch and 2023 Star Wars Look Ahead pod last week was like, will people who haven't seen literally hundreds of hours of animated Filoni-verse programming be ready to welcome Ahsoka into their lives? Like, if you didn't see...

the mural and shout out loud, live action rebels, two point, the search for Ezra, burglars, then would you be excited for this? And Sean just proved that the answer is yes. Even if the reason is nefarious and dare I say cruel.

He still proved that the answer is yes. And I want as many people to be excited about Ahsoka as possible. What if I just didn't watch it? What if I was just like, I'm skipping this one? I mean, if you want to deprive yourself of the wonder of this new experience. This was number five overall on my ranking. I'll just throw that out there. Into the spite verse. But I have some strategy, so...

You're taking a top prospect and just benching him out of spite. That's what's happening here. I love it. Can you give me a baseball comp here, Ben? What would be the example here?

I mean, Ahsoka's a 5-2 player without question. Why didn't you ask me for the baseball comp, Sean? This is the Mets drafting Kumar Rocker and deciding not to offer him a deal. It's a painful, painful comparison point. I wanted to inflict a little pain on you because you just tried to do that to us. Oh my goodness. Okay. You drew blood. I can't wait for you to learn more about Ahsoka, Sean. Great character. I probably won't.

I probably won't. This will probably be the last time I say that word. You're a piece of garbage. Much like Ahsoka once purified Six Brothers' bled kyber crystals into her signature bright white blades, we need to purify your heart.

So that you're ready for the goodness of Ahsoka. I think we should call our pals at Disney. We don't have any pals at Disney, but if we did, we should call them and say, hey, can you put as a pull quote on the Ahsoka poster, I'm always thinking about Thrawn, Sean Pennessey, the reader. I

I am always thinking about Thrawn. What is that guy up to? What's he been doing? Is he on Twitter? Thrawn? Where can I find him? Sean, you're a big Chiss ascendancy guy. You always have been. You always have been. I'm saying so many words. All right. Well, it's my turn again. And...

Despite Sean's mind games, despite his trolling, despite his frankly rude behavior, I have the pleasure of making a selection right now that I'm thrilled about. So I'm fine. I'm doing great. I'm not only content, but I am delighted. I will be selecting my movie right now. I am selecting a movie.

that comes out in March of 2023. This is what I thought you were going to do, Jo. Yeah. I am selecting a movie that is undeniably, inarguably a superhero story. Super strength, super precision, super healing factor, a signature iconic suit, a grand, sprawling, ever-expanding mythology.

John Wick, chapter four. I support this. I am astounded. Astounded John did not pick. I support this. We actually had this debate with, I had this debate with Arjuna and the Trial by Contact guys just the other day. We were talking about, does John Wick fit under the ringer verse umbrella? And like, I think it does. I think the case is pretty clear. I mean, the super healing, the super healing alone. Super healing is the number one thing on the list, honestly. You don't need anything beyond super healing. He's got the healing factor. I don't know.

And then there's just like increasingly something supernatural about the like Assassin League or whatever. Everything happening with the Continental on the high table has the, yeah, the whiff of the supernatural expanding mythology around us. We're getting the Continental spinoff series. It's all happening. You guys are lying to yourselves that this is ringer versus material.

lying tears. This is a noir crime series. Why can't it be both? Now it's just a podcast turf war here between hosts is happening about who gets to cover this. You're the one who said you wanted to push the boundaries of what we could cover. The rest of us are doing that.

I did write down John McTagg before. I thought it would have been very controversial to try to take this movie. Because there is literally no indication that there is supernatural power here. None. There is no mythology around that aspect of things. How is he still alive, though?

After everything that has happened to him. Sean, I'd like to see you a regular person kill someone with a pencil. He's like a Donald Westlake character. You just can't kill him. Do you want to vote on it? We voted on Yellow Jackets. I think I have the three to one vote here, though. Well, I mean, I'm not going to. I'm not going to.

I'm not going to make hay. You can take it. Take chapter four. That's fine. Is it going to be good? Is it even going to be good? I have a question about that and I don't have an answer. It'll be fun and it'll be something that people are excited for. And this is a hype draft. Damn it. One was really cool. Two was amazing. Three was solid. I liked three. A fourth film in a series is always a tough...

It's a tough one. Yeah. Well, technically after the holiday special, Guardians. Guardians Volume 3 technically 4. That was a good, the best fourth films in a series. That's a good ringer versus pod. Or a big pick pod.

Maybe a team up. I think after this, they have to be the same podcast. Yeah, we no longer have standalone feeds. I'll talk about pop culture in one place. Proud to announce we have combined forces officially. You can find all of our shows all on CyberDust. Yeah. Great. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. You know, for me, fitness has always been about finding that groove, whether it's hitting the pavement outside, which I've been allowed of, or dialing up a sweat session indoors.

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All right. A couple of clarifying questions here. Okay. Is Cocaine Bear an animated movie? Yeah.

It does have kind of a Marcel Dechelle with shoes on thing going, right? Where that bear is, you know, that's not a practical bear. No, not at all. I love an impractical bear, as you know. Second question, is Cocaine Bear a fantasy movie? Does that count as Rigorverse content? Are you taking Cocaine Bear when Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey is on the table? That's my question. Good question. Is Cocaine Bear not a documentary? No.

This is why I let yellow jackets slide, just in case I wanted to bank a little goodwill, in case I wanted to push this case. But I won't. There's cocaine in yellow jackets, too. So, kind of all tracks. Right.

All right. I have a hidden advantage in this draft. I have an ace up my sleeve, which is that there is an entire ecosystem of culture. I knew you were going to do this. That the rest of you are not quite as plugged into, not quite as hyped about, perhaps. And that would be video games. Okay. In present company, I didn't have to worry about...

my most hyped video games getting vultured here. This is rude. I would just like you to know that I have multiple video games on my list, but carry on. If Steve were drafting, then I might have had to spring for some of these earlier, but I've just been hanging back, just watching these other picks go off the board, knowing that I had the cream of the crop just waiting for me, just falling down the board indefinitely, waiting for whenever my pick rolled around. So I have...

the equivalent of number one picks just hanging out here waiting to be selected. Now, I did consider trying to, in the sequel category, steal Severance Season 2, but I don't think the release date is solid enough to get away with that. I think we would have had to challenge the 2023 there. I don't think we'll see that this year. Right. I figured. So instead, I'm going to go with Marvel's Spider-Man 2 as my sequel pick.

Could have gone either way. Could have gone with Jedi Survivor here. Strongly considered that would have been more on brand for me, maybe. But I'm even more confident that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 will be fantastic. I got to get some Marvel on my board somewhere. This is another case of a big release that's going to have a part of the calendar somewhat to itself, but

It used to be that the holiday season was when the big games came out. Now it turns out all the big games get delayed and thus they come out early in the year instead. However, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has a solid release date, is slated for the holiday season, seems fairly reliable, and just is hugely hyped because it's the sequel to...

arguably the best superhero game of all time. There are some other games that you could make strong cases for, but I think the caliber of the talent here, the track record,

Having Miles, having Peter Parker, having the sequel to an incredible game. I know that Mint Edition would back me up on this one, that Steve is not looking at him, but he's probably silently nodding along. I'm thinking behind the boards. So Marvel's Spider-Man 2 for me, that's my sequel pick. Now I have a second pick here, and I guess I'll go with my animated choice.

Now, I considered, I don't want to be a bad sport here, but I did consider drafting a video game in this category too.

Because you did not specify anything. You said animated. You didn't specify animated movie, animated show, video games are animated. Pick a second video game if you want. Pick a second video game. Molly's just saying that so that she can make sure she gets it right. What kind of rechart do you... I'm worried about what your next pick is going to be. But you seem really calm and normal right now, Mal. Anybody listening to this is going to be like, she is so chill. What a great hang. Pick a game, Ben. Just pick a game. My feet.

It's like the exact same color as the little red recording dot on the Zoom screen. It's like identical. Cocaine bear energy coming from Mallory right now. I will stay in the spirit of the draft here and color inside the lines. And I will take an animated movie, but I will not take the Super Mario Brothers movie, although I am hyped for that. I will take How Do You Live?

which is, I believe, the final film by Hayao Miyazaki for Studio Ghibli. It's coming out this year. And the man doesn't miss. He has never missed. Every movie he's made has been good. I have no reason to believe that that won't be the case for his final one. Now, he has come out of retirement multiple times in the past, so it's possible that this will not, in fact, be his final film. But he's 82 years old, and it's taken him several years to make this one.

I believe this counts, right? We don't know all the details, but it's a big fantastical film is how it's been described. So I'm going to say that it firmly fits into the Ringiverse rubric here. And just even the description of this movie has made me come close to tears, which is that his longtime producing partner and co-founder of the studio,

said that he came out of retirement to work on this film as a way of saying for his grandson, grandpa is moving on to the next world soon, but he is leaving behind this film. This is his final statement for his grandson. So as someone who is nurturing left and right, Sean, you should appreciate that sentiment, I think. And I can't come up with someone, a creator with a more unimpeachable track record than Miyazaki.

And this is the last time, right? I could have. There will be another Mario movie if the Mario movie is good. There will always be more Star Wars and more Marvel, but there will maybe not be more Miyazaki.

I'm actually participating in this podcast, so I have something to leave to my daughter, actually, just to tell her about the next life after Joe murdered me by taking Spider-Verse. She'll be embarrassed by this performance if she ever listens to it. No, I like that you're a vengeful ghost. The Ahsoka move is real haunting. Mallory, challenge for you. If you're about to pick Super Mario Brothers, I'm going to need to...

Okay. That's not a concern. Great. I assure you that I am not.

Can we just, great pick, Ben. Yeah, really good pick. That was beautiful. And beautifully stated, Ben. I'm in the middle of Miyazaki's memoir right now, the first of his two memoirs. And it is quite moving. He has quite an acid pen. I really relate to his, he has such a beautiful and pure vision of the world, but also a real acidic tone in his writing, which is, if you've ever seen him in interviews, I mean, I really relate to him. I mean, his movies are fantastic.

I gave a wistful sigh when you picked that, Ben. I was just sort of like, oh, what a great pick. Okay. I am about to make my fourth selection of the draft. That means we are in the fourth round of the draft. And yet, for reasons that I will never be able to explain, this is still here. It's still available. And I now get to select it as my wild card. Folks...

Our time this year with Jacob Dutton has just been a warm-up. Those days have come and gone? Perhaps. Perhaps not. June 30th, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Damn it. Ever heard of it? I'm starting to

this i don't understand i didn't think anyone i didn't think anyone would want it and so i was saving it it was on my board yeah i i thought every single one of you would take this before this point in the draft i'm floored but it's time to prepare together for another magical adventure where scholarship meets the supernatural and one of the most immersive and gripping mythologies of our uh let's just say movie going lives

opens anew and we get to live inside of it one more time. When Harrison Ford came on to the stage at Star Wars Celebration to reveal at that point what was just a photo, when he introduced John Williams and John Williams conducted the Indy score, I thought that the very air

had split. That the fabric of our universe had rent in half. Such was the hype. Such was the passion in the room. Exactly. I'm hyped about James Mangold directing this. I am so excited for Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Point On.

two of my great loves to enter the indie-verse. I just frankly can't believe that we're this fortunate. Literally my only, oh boy, this is a risk, but hey, it's an indie movie. We'll allow it. Note is, are we sure de-aging the most handsome person who's ever lived digitally is a good idea? But other than that, I have no notes. I like indie.

in the trailer have come to believe that it's not so much what you believe, my friends, it is how hard you believe it. And I believe that this movie is going to fucking roll. And I proudly select it as my wild card. Thank you. Uh,

Sean, on a scale of one to ten, where would you put the last installment in the Indiana Jones franchise? Doesn't matter. Does it not? It's a hot one. Did I say anything positive about that movie? No. I think that's part of the hype is everybody's excited to rediscover the possibility and the magic, right? And the shared passion. How do you feel about the complete erasure of the...

seminal cinematic character Mutt as played by Shia LaBeouf has just been sort of like blown out of the universe snuffed out like so many candles when I said the pick every one of you went damn it or had a little sharp intake of breath or a frown on zoom I just thought it was safe

I thought it was safe. I thought everyone... I thought everyone remembered Crystal Skull clearly enough that this would be like a low on the list, you know, pick, you know? Guys, was this trailer good? I'm not so sure it was. Doesn't matter. It does, because that's showing us what the film might be. I mean, there's something happening right now. You didn't know the trailer came out for. I was excited for Indiana Jones and then I watched it and I was like, this is a lot of CGI for a series that should not be dependent on CGI. And, you know...

I'm a big fan of James Mangold, and so I'm hopeful for it, but...

I don't know if you guys read in Matthew Bellany's newsletter recently that the excitement for this is surprising Disney by how low it is in terms of how it's tracking, in terms of how the... The trailer is not very well viewed relative to other properties. That's just because everyone's focused on my first round pick, Mando, once people move forward through the calendar year, do their rewatches. They're not the same audience. The hype will kick in. I think, I mean, I don't want to like...

give more credence to Mallory's pick because that's not the game here. But I will say that like, I think there was a similar thing around Logan where we had seen a couple Wolverine outings and we were like, eh, do I really want to watch? You know, like people are excited for old man Logan who knows what that means and X-23, but like, you know, are we really excited to see this? And then Logan came out and everyone's like, holy shit. And there was a DH2 document in Logan. That's true. It plays a big part in Logan. But yeah,

Mangold is the reason why. I mean, people, Willow Bridge, Boyd Holbrook, who, by the way, threw some, blew some cigarette smoke in my face last night. Best film of my life. Wow. What in the world? We need literally everyone. What is this side? Stay on film after we finish wrapping.

Um, but, uh, was it like a, there you are. And like, he was mad. And so he blew it in your face or no, he was just a bystander. He was just smoking in proximity to me in a, in a, he was like, I hear you're about to draft yellow jacket season two before Indy. I'm going to blow some smoke in your face. Make you think about what you've done. You would welcome that secondhand smoke. Just breathe, breathe in the carcinogens. I did. I did. Yeah. Yeah.

I was considering it. I was concerned when Indy said he doesn't believe in magic in the trailer. But what did he say right after? Yeah, he did kind of caveat that a little bit, right? He's witnessed a lot of magic up close. Doubt opening your eyes and your heart and your mind to the possibilities all around you. Isn't this one of the reasons that we enjoy stories? Also, Harrison Ford. Yeah.

You could have snuck it into animated for the de-aged Harrison Ford. I would have let you get away with that. What about, how did you describe the Indiana Jones mythos a moment ago? Did you, you phrased it as one of the defining myths?

Mythologies of our age. I said immersive and gripping, I believe. I don't think I said defining, but perhaps I said defining. And if I had, I'd stand by it proudly. What is the mythology? It's a serialized adventure story. There's no mythology. He got his hat. We know how he got his hat. Yeah, he has a dad. We know how he got his scar. Yeah.

There's a Scar origin story. I feel like that's mythological in and of itself. We know various phobias. Why does it always have to be snakes? I do love Indiana Jones. He's great. Of course you do. Don't pretend you don't. What a great guy. You're better than that. No, Dad. You never would have made it. There were rats. Okay. Sean, you're up. Is it my turn? Yeah.

It is. Close out this tour de force performance. Squeakquel. How dare you? How dare you, Benjamin Lindbergh? Shots by bus, by the way. Watch my words. Mallory's mine. I don't think that we need to worry about it. Let's just keep fucking flying through the air fearlessly. I'm picking Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom for my sequel.

Okay. Now this energy I love. I do. First of all, loved the first Aquaman movie. The only DC movie that really understood what DC should be trying to accomplish, which is saying these stories are ridiculous. Let's have a little bit of fun. That movie is so fun. Secondarily, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,

is directed by James Wan, who is a great director and is a very good spectacle filmmaker. I'm very excited about this movie. I expect to have the same relationship to it that I have to many of James Wan's movies, which is that I do not have to spend four hours on a podcast talking about it. All I need to do is watch it, have a gigantic cup of Sprite, and then go home and think about something else. That can be a great night at the movies for me. So I'm excited about Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

Are you a Sprite guy at the movies? Yeah. Sprite is so good. We all have some questions, I think, about the Sprite. I mean, 7-Up as well. I love a lemon-lime soda. Okay. Burst of Citrus. Okay. What about Sierra Mist? Sierra Mist was just discontinued, I believe. What?

Yeah. Literally like this, I think this week. Yeah. Late breaking news. Breaking news. It's true. Wow, the hierarchy of sales. I think the fact that it didn't change is why they are retiring Sierra Mist. But if you want to stockpile, hoard your mist. Wow, I know. Get on that fast.

Wow. So I just want to recap. Sean's explanation for why Aquaman is a good pick here is that Sean, the host of the Big Picture Movie Podcast, does not have to think about or talk about the movie Aquaman after seeing it. It does not merit discussion. No, no, no. Just want to make sure that we're tracking that. I co-sign this. Sometimes you just, like, you know, those of us who watch things for a living and read things for a living, et cetera, sometimes you want to get really into, I don't know, Harry Potter fanfic because you don't want to, like, have to think

about what you're looking at. You know what I mean? So I get it. Also, Aquaman rule, like the first Aquaman movie rules. It was so fun. I loved the first Aquaman movie. Sean, do you read a lot of Aquaman fanfic? I write a lot. Yeah, I write a lot of it. No, I've read it. It's pretty spicy. This is the last ride for Aquaman too, right? That's what they're saying. This is the end of the line. So you're just, you're drafting like all of the things that James Gunn is ending in this draft. Killing, murdering all his darlings. Yes.

Yeah, there's some speculation he may be ending Matt Reeves' Batman universe. Is that also possible? No? I'll be... I'll have a lot of...

I mean, what I would see easily happening is that we're not going to get all those 90 TV shows that they said they were going to do. Yeah, where's my Penguin TV show, for Christ's sake? Colin Farrell going directly from winning Best Actor at the Academy Awards to an eight-episode Penguin series is the best thing that could ever happen. Sean, are you personally very excited for me that Colin Farrell might win Best Actor at the Oscars? No, I'm not only that, but I'm proud of you, that you stood on Colin Farrell Island for decades and your time is coming. Thank you.

All right, is it my turn? This is tough because I did not intend to make this really franchise heavy. And yet here we are at the end of the line. And I'm like, oh no. You have to do it, right? I mean, it's sitting there. I know. So, and actually I'm kind of surprised this is still here. But in, and you know, I was saving movie for Dial of Destiny of all things. But since I'm bored, I will say...

I understand why people might be nervous about the state of the MCU right now, coming off the year that we had. I can understand how the Ant-Man franchise has not been the most exciting franchise that has existed in the MCU. However, I just have one word to say, which is Kang. The latest trailer of Quantumania that came out that was so Kang-heavy, that was just Jonathan Major's

Jonathan Major's zing all around the shop was some of the most exhilarating time I've spent at the YouTubes recently. I'm so thrilled by that trailer. Mallory has Loki season two on her draft, but I think this era of Kang that we are about to fully dive into, I am...

but excited about Quantumania. And then in addition to all the kanginess, which is great, the way in which they've centered this on the opposite of reluctant daddy, eager daddy, Paul Rudd, Scott Lang, and centering this on his relationship with his daughter, you know, has made me very excited, much more excited for Quantumania than I was like three weeks ago. So Quantumania is here on my movie slot.

Any questions, comments, or concerns from the peanut gallery? What does it mean that it lasted this long? Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. I thought about taking it in my Guardian spot. I'm pretty excited about this. I did an anticipated movies of 23 pot and I put this on my list in part because I love Peyton Reed's movies. And I like what he did on The Mandalorian quite a bit as well. So, and yeah, after all the Kang, it looks good. Right? Yeah.

Great. We all agree. I made a great point of pick. Good job, Joanna. All right. Um, and then the last on my list, this is tough because like, well, you can go anywhere at the, how wild do I go with my wild card? I mean, my draft is already kind of a little fucked. So, um, I think there are safe choices, but we've, we've, we've left the realm of safety. I think now, um, um,

Too very strange. You should take the Zelda game so that Ben can't. Don't you dare. Just fuck Ben here at the end, Joe. I'm going to pick something that no one wants. And in fact, Arjuna has repeatedly told me is going to be bad, but I'm sticking by my guns and going with Dungeons and Dragons on our among thieves. You can only be you and...

You're a maniac. You're the truest you can be. I mean, this...

This pays off the way my longstanding Colin Farrell has paid off. And say that Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daly, who are the team behind Dungeons & Dragons. I've already talked about this many times. Dungeons & Dragons, colon honor among thieves, made one of my favorite movies of the last decade, Game Night. It's an extraordinary film. The pitch of the sense of humor is just like exactly for me. Yeah.

And I love fantasy. I love Dungeons & Dragons. This cast is amazing. Chris Pine, Hugh Grant, Michelle Rodriguez, Sophia Lillis. Like, it's going to be extraordinary. And then, like, we've talked about this, but the press tour alone is going to be worth the price of admission for Dungeons & Dragons Honor Among Thieves. Because already Hugh Grant is just sort of like,

where am I? Why am I here? What is a dungeon and or a dragon? I don't understand. And it's just been extraordinary. So I think I really, really hope and think, and I'm hyped for the possibility that this is going to take us all by surprise. Except for those of us who are huge Game Night fans, and we will be like, see, we told you, don't underestimate the Johns. So yeah, there you go.

Dungeons and Dragons on our monthies. Astonishing stuff. Astonishing stuff from Joe. I don't even know what to say. What is on my to-be list?

13th on my movie list and obviously lower than that on my wildcard list. Sean, will you buy me a Sprite if this movie is good? Well, I like the Johns too and I love Game Night and I held the opinion that you were just promoting all the way up until I saw the trailer and then I saw the trailer and I was like, oh no.

Oh, no, they did not. This didn't turn out the way that I had hoped it would. Now, I could be wrong. I'm happy to be wrong. I love when a movie is good and not bad. So it'd be great if it's good. Yeah, I'd say it's a high ceiling, low floor pick. You're going with variants at this point in the draft. I think, you know, take the ceiling with your final pick. That makes sense. And I think also to concentrate your picks properly.

in the near term in the release calendar while people are hyped right now, right? If we're picking stuff that's coming a lot later in the year, people haven't ramped up their hype meters yet. So if you're going for the popular vote, I think we should have two votes, frankly. I think we should have a vote right now where people assess the hype in the moment. And then we have a retrospective end of year vote to see whose hype meter was actually accurate in advance. We could have a

I have a later vote, but I think it would actually just... Well, at any rate... No one's going to do that. We're going to have yelled at each other on Zoom about 500 other things by then. But maybe if we do this again next year, we definitely should revisit this draft and be like, oh no, Joanna, Dungeons & Dragons. That's embarrassing. Because on my hype meter at the end of last year, I definitely had Willow. Oh dear. Yeah. Joe, you're going to open next year's hype draft with...

Looking back at your list, and you're going to open with an apology to us, your fellow drafters, and to all of our listeners that you didn't take Kraven the Hunter when you could have right here. It is reportedly testing well. That's true. Tipping our caps to Sean for snagging X-Men 97 as early as he did show of the year. And Aquaman. I really want to take Kraven the Hunter here. You should. Do it. I'm not going to, but...

J.C. Chandor is directing Craven the Hunter. I mean, J.C. Chandor, Margin Call? Perhaps you've heard of it? I have. Have you heard of Triple Frontier? Oh, yeah. That other incredible crime drama whose name escapes me starring Oscar Isaac? A Most Violent Year. A Most Violent Year? Yeah. Yeah, quality film. All is Lost?

Robert Redford stuck on a boat by himself. Also a JC Chandor movie. I'm not even, I'm just remembering these films. You're just going to name old movies or are you going to make a pick? Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That's a film. Um,

No, I'm not taking that. Although I am quite curious about that. And I look forward to seeing the first on-set production photo. Because Kraven is a very strange character. And Aaron Taylor-Johnson doing a Russian accent as a hunter in the middle of New York City seems like a bit of a stretch. What could go wrong? But, you know, maybe it could be good. I bet you never saw that coming. Yeah.

I'm going to take Secret Invasion, which is the show that I'm most looking forward to from the broader MCU. I have been very out on the MCU shows. Loki is probably the only show that I've truly connected with. Yeah. Hell yeah. This is a great series. More praise for Loki. You heard it here. I mean, we'll see about season two. I'm talking about season one.

This is a Brian Michael Bendis series from 08, but it incorporates a lot of the long history of the Skrull invasion. And it has an insane cast. I don't know if you guys realize who's in this show. Yeah. Well, for starters, it's created by Kyle Brett. Fucking Olivia Colman is in this show. Yes. Olivia Colman is in Secret Envy. I don't think people know that. No.

Amelia Clark. So it's obviously Sam Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn, two of my faves. And Colby Smulders is returning. Kingsley Ben-Adir. I love him. Incredibly exciting young actor. Yes. Amelia Clark is in this show. Yep.

Olivia Colman and Martin Freeman and Don Cheadle. Those are the stars. Those are the stars of this show. We're all aware. However, the fact that you think people aren't aware might indicate that the hype for Secret Invasion is not as high as you think. So, okay, you've raised an interesting question. Are we drafting against hype or are we drafting against quality? Yeah, it's a good question to ask after you've drafted your entire team.

I think it's weird Secret Invasion fell this far. I'm surprised. I do too. It was higher on my board. Yeah. If the quality is there, the hype will come eventually. It should be really fun.

Yeah. I'm excited for Secret Invasion. Do we know, is this like coming later in the stretch of shows this year? We have no idea. That's the semi-concerning thing is that we still don't know when it's coming out. Right. I do want to say the other thing that has me excited about it is that it's created by Kyle Bradstreet who comes from the Sam Esmail tree. And the two shows that he has worked on most recently are Mr. Robot and Berlin Station, a very, very good show. So...

I'm, you know, we say, we've said this so many times over the years with MCU projects where it's like this cool writer or this interesting voice is coming on board and then it kind of gets MCU-ized and it fits into the puzzle pieces.

But I'm hopeful for this one. And there is a real political undertone to the storytelling in Secret Invasion. So maybe it'll be cool. Sean opening the pod by asking how far we could push the boundaries of what qualified for a ringer for a story and what qualified and then picking the most main IT team of anyone is... Wow. Wow.

It was inspirational for me. What can I say? I love X-Men. You guys seen X-Men? They're great. Oh boy. Okay. We're down to the final two picks of the draft. I am down to my final pick. I, friends, colleagues, cherished pals, I am overwhelmed and astonished. When Across the Spider-Verse went number one overall,

Which we knew it would and which it should have. Great pick, Jo. Thanks. I thought, what does this mean? What does this mean for my strategy? What does this mean for my pick in animated? And here we are. My final pick of the draft, round five, and I have my second animated pick, number two overall on my animated list here, sitting here, available, and

I now proudly get to select in animated the best superhero show on television. Invincible Season 2. Why didn't anyone pick this? What's happening? I don't understand. I just forgot. I just forgot this is coming back. This show is amazing. I can't even shit talk. This is one of the best shows on TV. I can't believe it. We don't have a release date yet, right?

Mallory, we can't, you went into like a, sometimes you go into a pitch that your microphone refuses to pick up. I just want to let you know. And so then you just like, we can't hear you and all we can see is you like beautifully tomato red, like gesticulating. I can see like my jugular popping out of the side of my neck just now as I was talking. Oh my goodness. You were like Pete Maverick Mitchell pretending to break up while speaking to Ed Harris at the beginning of Maverick. Nine. Oh,

Oh, boy. That's how you sounded. Here's the thing. Our listeners are going to hear the pick and that's all that matters. I have nothing else to say here. This is a mic drop for me at the end of the draft. Invincible Season 2 animated. Thank you. Did anybody watch this show? Like, besides us?

I don't know how broadly popular it is. For people who like superhero content, it's rated really high, but I don't know how broadly popular it is. Here's just this anecdotal evidence. I had not read the comics before the show, and I tried to find them during the run because I was interested in catching up in real time. They were pretty much impossible to track down when it was airing because so many people were interested in falling deeper into the world, which I did and loved. Yeah.

Wow. That was just a pleasure, I have to say. It's a steal. Yeah. You read stories about drafts in sports where teams just... Don't! Don't give her more... Don't! She doesn't need it. This is the Brock Purdy of the hype draft. No, I mean...

You read these origin stories, right? It's like you don't realize that an athlete is eligible. A scout just finds some incredible talent on a backfield somewhere and hides them until draft day. And you just snuck invincible. I don't know. We were asleep at the wheel. I don't know what happened here. Boy, that's...

Our prep is lacking. I'm thrilled. Last pick of the draft, Ben. Bring us home. Last pick. You taking Zelda? You going double video game? Yes, you know where I'm going here. Yeah. Thank you for not sniping me. I appreciate it. I almost took it. Yeah.

Yeah. I left Super Mario Brothers out there. I thought you were going to take that. Little did I know that you had Invincible Season 2 up your sleeve somehow. But yes, because you have all seeded a rich and thriving and much-loved area of culture to me in this draft, I will take one of the most exciting releases of the year, which is The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.

I considered taking this in sequel because it is a sequel to one of the best games of all time, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

And I guess there's maybe a little less hype about the fact that it's not its own original new thing and it's still on the Switch, which is showing its age these days. But on the other hand, they've had several years to just refine what was already an unbelievable, incredible world and game and polish it, as Nintendo always does with Zelda. I've been playing the series since I was seven. It's a lifelong love. And...

We've had to wait a while. I think it's actually been the longest gap ever between mainline Zelda releases. And it's unusual for there to be a direct sequel. Not unprecedented, but unusual. And the last thing I will say to make the case here is that just for the sheer...

entertainment time per pick that we are getting here. It's not necessarily the metric that we're drafting on, but all of your hype is over two hours after the fact. You watch a movie, it's over. I mean, you can savor it. That's a big part of the case Sean made was, I don't have to think about this ever again. Right. Yeah. I can forget I ever saw Aquaman. That's how I want it. Ben, you have a child. How do you play video games? I will make time for Zelda, even if it means neglecting my child, because this...

This game, if it's anything like the length of Breath of the Wild, average playtime, 50 hours. Average playtime for the campaign and the side quests, roughly 100 hours. Average playtime for completing everything in the game, close to 200 hours. So I am getting, I mean, 200, that's like 2% of the entire year I might be playing this game. Just if I play it without sleeping, which I probably will. So...

I think this will be the gift that keeps giving. I'll get this game in May and I'll be playing it the rest of the year. Can you call Jessie in so we can talk to her about this? She plays Zelda 2, so we'll both be doing it. I don't know what that will mean for our child, but...

Is it tears, T-E-A or T-I-E? Good question. People have asked this question. It is tears as in the wet things that come out of your eyes. That's the worst way you could describe tears. Yeah, I bet it sounds gross somehow. I don't know why you phrased it that way. The wet things that come out of your...

blank is just a blank. I've not moved to tears as often as you are, Belle. I'm less familiar with the concept. You sounded like a scroll describing tears. Yeah, I've never seen Ben cry and maybe the next time he does, he'll be like, what are these wet things coming out of my eye? It's like a bag of sand from 40-year-old virgin energy. It's like a Drax answer. Yeah.

Can I circle back to Midsommar really quickly and maybe do a release date challenge? I was going to say, are we sure? So I was definitely not listening to Ben talk about Zelda and looking at my phone trying to figure out the release date of this. So Vernon Sanders, who's the head of programming at Midsommar,

Amazon did tell Collider it's coming in 2023, but all the creators have been like... Someone officially associated with the show is saying it's coming out in 2023. Okay. If it doesn't... And we have a long enough gap, I think, for that to be considered viable intel. If it doesn't come out in 2023... Retroactively disqualified. Mallory is booted out of the drafts. I just take this as further proof that you think I've won.

and might need to have my championship stripped. Yeah. This is why it slipped through our nets. We probably all, I would imagine, Googled at some point animated stuff coming out in 2023 and Invincible was nowhere to be seen. I was looking at what I thought was the comprehensive spreadsheet that Arjuna has put together for the ringerverse of all the things that both do and do not have release dates. That's a recent update. No, it's from December. It's from December, yeah. It's holy jay!

That's recent. I'm just blaming Arjuna for this. That's all I have to say. Okay, that's fine. No, it's not your fault, Arjuna. I love you and respect you. You can blame Arjuna and then Ben can comfort him by playing a video game with him for 200 hours. Everyone wins. Everyone wins. Okay, we completed our draft. What fun. Any final...

Thoughts or final assessments on your own squads? Anybody else's? Everyone feeling good about their balance across franchises and across categories? Would anyone like to apologize for their performance? I feel like I have a couple gambles on my list, which means I may not necessarily win, but if they pay off, it's going to look really good.

12 months from now. You're playing the long game. Yeah. You're a Sawyer fan. You always play the long game. It's all about the long con games. It's true.

Are there any snubs? Anything you all had fairly high that you're surprised? Snubs and surprises. Yeah, not drafted. Shazam? Yeah, I thought Super Mario Brothers was going to be picked at some point. And I thought Mal might go for Elemental, perhaps, in that category. Little did I know that she had Invincible lurking all along.

And also kind of low-key excited for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, Mutant Mayhem, which is, it looks kind of good. Apparently they're really leaning into the teenage part of it. They're actually like prioritizing the authenticity of how teen they are. This is a line from the Wikipedia page. For the first time in the franchise, the four turtles will be voiced by actual teenagers,

at Seth Rogen's behest on honing in on the authenticity of the teenage element. Do teens nowadays say cowabunga? Is that something that teens say? I don't know, but this is going to be cinema verite. Are these turtles going to be talking about TikTok? If so, I'm out. I'm out.

Strange New World season two. I thought one of us might take Joe cause that'll be back. Yeah. And also the Picard, the upcoming Picard season. Cause they're just like basically doing a next generation reunion. I know. I mean, I know. I agree. Rough. But they're like, what if we just threw out the whole thing where we were like, we're not doing a next gen reboot and just do a next gen reboot and bring everyone from next gen back. But something I've learned on trial by content, um,

which in which we run polls every single week is you should never put anything Star Trek on your poll because it's gonna lose the rare audience and the Star Trek fandom are like two separate circles honestly on the Venn diagram so well that's our failing not theirs House of Harkness I thought yeah some Star Wars and Marvel stuff didn't get picked that I thought would

Harkness, Echo. I mean, there's a lot coming. Is Harkness the Agatha show? Yeah. Skeleton Crew didn't get picked. Yeah. We don't know enough about it. Ironheart. I mean, I know if... Three body problem. I was going to say three body problem. I thought, yeah, someone would pick. That was on my long list. Avatar. The Last Airbender.

Oh, the Netflix one? Yeah. No. The one that the creators quit? Yes. And Netflix is like, we'll do it without you, Mike and Brian? No. Can I tell you what I think might end up being the highest grossing movie of the year? The Transformers Rise of the Beast? No, although that was on my wild card. And if I didn't take Secret Invasion, I was going to take Transformers Rise of the Beast. You know what I mean?

that are robots? Come on. I know that Steve would have taken it number one overall if he had been in the draft and gotten the top pick. No, the movie I'm talking about is The Flash, which, you know, is obviously entrenched in some controversy, but I think that movie's going to be very successful. Very, very successful. And we will be tangling with it

As a culture and at the ringer here. The reason why Zaslav hasn't put it in the vault is because it is reportedly very, very good. Yeah. And that's just sort of a real, yeah, as you say, a tangle for the culture. In terms of high box office, if John Wick isn't here...

Surely, I could have made an argument for Mission Impossible. I thought someone was going to pick Fast X because we've covered the Fast franchise on Ringerverse before. I'm surprised no one picked Fast X. Sean, you started this by saying, let's expand the definition of the Ringerverse and you're the one holding the line on all these things. Yeah, but you were the one who exploded the concept and so I was like, you know what? Let me just retreat back to my 11-year-old self. Yeah.

Opened everything up. They really did. I'm surprised nobody made a pitch for a 2023, like late 2023 release date possibility for the next season of The Boys, which certainly could come out this year. I'm just not up to date on that show. Gen V, the spinoff. I thought that would be picked. I mean, there's just a lot of stuff coming, you know? The Dune prequel. Yeah. Hmm. Black Mirror. Is Black Mirror coming back? Yeah. Yeah.

What's the release date certainty around that? Don't know. Yeah. I do love me some Black Mirror. I would regret not getting Black Mirror. It's fucking same. Black Mirror is... All-time fave. It's actually underrated, in my opinion. Nobody picked Foundation. What about Gremlin Secrets of the Mogwai? Someone should have picked Foundation Season 2 just so we could have talked about Lee Pace. Did you say Mogwai in the Year of Our Lord 2023? You said Mogwai? Yeah. Yeah.

I love Gremlins. I went to a Gremlins and Gremlins 2 double feature on Christmas Eve this year or last year. Gremlins is such a good Christmas movie. It's a really underrated. Like, I'm so tired of the is Die Hard a Christmas movie conversation. Let's move it over to Gremlins. That's how I feel about that. Wow. Okay. Okay. Final thoughts? I think we all did great except I did the best.

I just look forward to the joyous fandom watching experiences that we have this year. I hope that wet things come out of our eyes often as we watch. Thanks for saying that one more time, buddy. Yes. I look forward to my first friendly draft. I've never had one. Yeah, this was surprisingly amiable. No, this wasn't it. Betty, you were pretty mellow. You.

I think everyone's teams are great. There's just so much stuff to be excited about. Just love content. I love you all. Love you. Please. My favorite cocaine bear. All right, folks. Thank you for your time today. You haven't seen the voting, so you don't know, but we're all about to find out.

Because that's a wrap on today's draft. Remember to head to the Ringerverse Twitter and Instagram handles to vote for your favorite 2023 House of R hype draft. Thank you to Steve Allman for producing this episode.

Arjuna Ramgopal for his additional production work on this episode. Jomi Adeneron for his work on the social for this episode. Send us your House of R and Prestige TV emails at hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. We will be back on the Prestige TV feed next week, middle of the week with our Last of Us episode one deep dive. We'll be back here on Friday next week with our lone wolf and cub TV trope history lesson exploration. Reluctant dad

Reluctant daddies. Two of our reluctant daddies are leaving us today, but we will still be spending our time with our reluctant daddies this time of the fictional sort. Until then, if you don't think there's hope for the pod, why bother going on?

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff when things go wrong, but these are the words you really need to remember. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They've got options to fit your unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk to your agent to choose the coverage you need, have coverage options to protect the things you value most, file a claim right on the State Farm mobile app, and even reach a real person when you need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.