Five Narratives That Could Swing the 2026 Awards Season

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nearly all of the major contenders have been shown publicly maybe except for Dune part three apologies to Fokker-in-Law and Avengers Doomsday probably not happening for awards I've been checking out our friend Scott Feinberg's predictions and there are a ton of great movies this fall some interesting campaigns shaping up I count 12-15 legitimate best picture contenders A24 alone has four of them in the invite the debut Club Kid and the Elizabeth Holmes documentary yes a documentary could get a best picture nomination and all of them from the usual specialty films like Wild Horse Nine and Artificial and Elsinore to commercial hits like Project Hail Mary and Obsession and maybe even the Michael Jackson movie a few foreign films like La Bola Negra Fjord maybe even Digger the Tom Cruise financial debacle could that redeem itself with a couple of awards nominations all these contenders seem to be in the shadow of course of the Odyssey from the reigning Oscar champ Christopher Nolan so it's got to be the front runner right or is he lots of questions this season and lots of film podcasts talking about the movies and what's good and bad we are not going to do that on the town we're talking about the campaigns how the various teams behind these movies are positioning them and how they're positioning themselves and how they're planning to get them all the way to the finish line on Oscar night for that we've got our friend Kyle Buchanan here to discuss he's the former awards columnist for the New York Times he just left to start his own thing so today it's the Oscar campaign narratives the table is set let the jockeying begin from the ringer and puck I'm Matt Bellany and this is the town all right we are here with Kyle Buchanan formerly of the New York Times now the host of the about to launch the Kyle Buchanan show welcome back Kyle you and I did you and I have the best seats at the Sony Classics dinner at Toronto we have the adjacent to Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz seats and then Isabel who pair joined the table don't forget oh see I left I went to see the Rocky movie I don't believe I was there when that happened yeah but um yeah you had the better seat I'll be fair you were literally sitting next to them I don't believe I was there when that happened yeah but um yeah you had the better seat I'll be fair you were literally sitting next to them you were literally sitting next to them I was next to you there's no bad seats when they're passing out as many free um uh lamb chops as they do at that dinner if anybody thinks that we're bragging like truly like journalists going to the Sony Pictures Classics dinner we are like raccoons let loose at a five-star restaurant we are just grabbing all the food we can it's not flattering and not only that it's it's sort of a celebrity petting zoo it is where they make all that go to this gigantic dinner in Toronto and the media are sort of free to roam and take their bites as they see fit so uh Craig Craig was not at our table where were you Craig uh I was at the table of a small Korean film I believe had a great time though met a couple cool people all right enough about that let's talk about the Oscar race because I feel like this is shaping up as not only a really competitive year but a competitive year that is going to be great for the Academy because there are movies that people have heard of and people feel strongly about and are going to be like popular and maybe do some business at the box office before the Oscars come do you agree there I definitely do I mean I feel like we've had a lot of recent Oscar years that are like that and people you know even surprised that a blockbuster gets nominated people talking about sentimental value and could it sweep and all these movies that nobody is ever going to see so I I do feel like this year I mean first of all the Odyssey kind of hanging over the entire season they haven't even started campaigning yet and part of me feels like this is all nonsense like these people are jockeying for nothing because Nolan and Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway are just gonna drop the number at some point and the noms are going to come out and the Odyssey is going to start sweeping I don't know if that's going to happen and I feel like if Oppenheimer had not happened then we would be talking about the Odyssey much differently because it would have been Nolan's time it's like how can you deny a movie that did this kind of business and brought theaters you know such great windfalls but Oppenheimer did happen he did win his Oscars and finally get all his flowers and now he's back so we have to kind of take that into consideration we do but still how can you deny it that's going to be the question hanging over the season just like you said because a movie that is this well respected that makes this kind of money that is firmly within the Oscar wheelhouse and employed half of the middle-aged actors in town that is as close to a best picture front runner slash lock as you can get I do think the thing that comes into play here is that in just about almost every other category it's going to get nominated for it'll be a contest simply because well not simply because that you know there will be some strong competition in some of these other categories but also because a lot of the people Nolan and a lot of his department heads have recently won so there might be a temptation to you know give them best picture which they're almost certainly going to get oh you think so you think it's done you think Odyssey best picture what do you think what else do you think it's going to be oh well we could get I mean there's I think there's like 10 to 12 movies that can win best picture that can that will be jockeying for like the five or so that could legitimately win and that's sure they'll be jockeying no no no I do think they'll be jockeying until January but I do think that narratives can take hold here and I want to get into that because I don't want to go into the different races it's too early for that let me hear him Matt let me hear him I want to get into this here because I do think that one of these narratives could sweep up a movie and kind of take it to the finish line and the first one is the whole debate about AI and artificial intelligence and how first of all how it's potentially going to end the world and secondly almost importantly as importantly for this show what people in Hollywood think of it so artificial is there a scenario where this movie picks up the narrative that it was dumped by Amazon this is the Sam Altman scathing open and die and open AI indictment and everyone votes for it as an FU to Amazon for dropping this movie as an FU to the entire tech industry for infringing on the ground of creators and we're talking about this movie as a sweep on Oscar night my hunch is that if that if that sentiment is strong that it can be a middle finger to AI that you're likely to see that in a Best Picture nomination and possibly that gets rolled into Andrew Garfield's supporting actor campaign especially because that category is you know not filled necessarily with with strong seeming front runners right now but I don't know I I think that this is a kind of a pivot point whether artificial ends up being you know evidence of it or or some of the other Oscar contenders that use AI you know like ink um like 14th like Musk yeah that's the Ava DuVernay documentary Inc is the Danny Boyle movie that we've talked about in the show about Murdoch in the 70s and Musk the Elon Musk documentary has some AI and moving Elon's lips for him do you think they do you think what do you think Hollywood people are how are they judging these movies that have used the AI is it a no-go because remember the the um brutalist had some AI and it became a problem for that campaign oh barely come on I mean yeah it got some ink it got some Variety headlines but I really don't think that moved the needle on anyone who was actually going to vote for the brutalist the thing that I wonder Matt is you know was is really will people hold that against them I mean I sense that this year has been a real pivot point for established Hollywood figures not just using AI not just confessing to readily using AI but you know the evidence of it being in their films I mean Ben Affleck used it in animals yeah Ben Affleck the big, the big champion. Yeah, no, I know. I think it's just, it's a normative, it's being normalized. And some people don't like that though. Some people don't like it. And certainly people on social media don't like it. You know, I saw Steven Soderbergh had a John Lennon documentary at Cannes where he used it throughout. He had all of these fantasy sequences that looked like they'd been generated by Grok. And I think that if you are a power social media user, you know, you're turned off by that because you see that a lot, you can distinguish it. But I think that for a lot of other people in the industry, it's somewhat negligible or they've already been using it or they're using it in their pitch decks and they weren't telling anybody. So there's a, there's, it's already sort of warmed its way into the Hollywood bloodstream. And I'm curious to see if there's real backlash or if there's just that sort of backlash that the trades continue to generate in their headlines, but that, you know, more people than not won't hold it against them. Yeah, I think I agree with you. I think if people like the movie, they're willing to brush over that fact. And I think that was ultimately the case with the Brutalist. We'll see. All right. Second narrative here is the Skydance merger. And I think this was a factor last year when this was all going down and Warner Brothers was going out of existence and one battle after another was this big auteur driven movie. kind of movie that Hollywood people wish the studios made and it wasn't going to make a lot of profit it ultimately ended up losing a lot of money but the sentiment sort of uh coalesced around that movie in part I think because of what it represented and I think that the big question this year is what is going to happen with Digger because I would have written this movie off and I've talked to several awards people that are like not gonna happen it's done you have to at least show that the movie can find an audience in theaters before you launch a campaign this movie is going to lose uh depending on what report you read 100 or 200 or more million dollars yet it's a Tom Cruise movie David Ellison and Tom Cruise are besties and people like Anne Hathaway and Guillermo del Toro and other you big name academy members are already stumping for this movie saying it's a work of art a genius you know overlooked movie what happens if Digger gets traction well to me the questions are how long will those people stump you know and who else will do the stumping yeah is this a two Leslie where Andrea Risborough all of a sudden has all these people standing up at award shows talking about how great her performance is next thing you know she's got a nomination I mean that could happen yeah Tom Cruise does a few well-placed Q and A's and the the buzz starts building Alejandro Iñárritu has a PR team behind him and they all you need is you know to see that around town and it starts going going crazy here's what I would need to see Matt are Iñárritu and Tom Cruise going to go to the governor's awards and work it you know is Tom going to be there at the end of the night shaking hands meeting people like he was when you know Top Gun Maverick was in contention you know Tom Cruise is in contention I think it's a quite a different thing to be fronting something that you're almost certain is going to get in to be riding that wave and another thing altogether to be like look we know we flop but we really believe in this and you're going to see us in all the places that you're going to see the other front runners if they do that I think that's an indication of something that people who like Digger can get behind because ultimately you know people can say what they will publicly but there's this sense of wanting to back winners and there's this sense of wanting to back front runners of wanting to back things that have momentum I don't know man Birdman the Revenant two hits I mean the Revenant was a hit Birdman did well but my point is that he has the track record in Iñárritu and if you look at that movie it is a murderer's row of top of the line below the line people that have worked with him for years they spared no expense on the crafts of that movie and I could see the funny thing is like Skydance has a lot of people that have to pull the trigger for a campaign to spend the money on it and are they going to do that on a movie that lost so much money and which if it does get nominated would be a total vindication for Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdi at Warner Brothers who Ellison just fired and this would be if this got a best picture nomination and everybody's up there thanking Mike and Pam for green lighting courageous movies like this and David Ellison's sitting there with his hand you know sitting on his hands going uh just fired these people not great for him look I do think that there's room for you know some strange things some unexpected things to happen this year I think especially because the Odyssey feels so firmly in its front-runner position that kind of gives cover to almost every other part of this Oscar season for wild narratives to develop so this could be one but you know if this movie had come out in November and December and this had happened it would be easier this is going to be a months-long slog and are any of the principal talent willing to slog it they could have been doing stuff already to plant the seeds so that when it didn't perform maybe the campaign was already on its way and people were already praising it in town um the else the other wild card is the critics don't like it if the critics were on board with Digger it would be a little easier because it would have maybe won some of the critic awards at the end of the year and that gives a little bit of a boost there all right next narrative is the whole opposite end of the spectrum the populist narrative here because we've got several movies not just the Odyssey this year that were hits and that the studios think could turn into Oscar nominations I'm not just talking about the Odyssey I'm talking about Obsession Curry Barker has been like you know dragged around by shackles doing these Q&A's so far I mean it's unbelievable what they're making him do to reposition this movie for Oscar contention you've got the Michael Jackson movie Michael which Lionsgate thinks could get a Best Picture nomination or a nomination for Jafar Jackson or some of the crafts you've got uh Project Hail Mary which Amazon thinks is a full contender for Best Picture and other categories Gosling in particular the Academy has shown a willingness over the past few years to dole out a few slots for the and those movies that kind of show that the movie business is still alive. And I wonder if those movies, given all these fall festival hits, are going to still generate as much noise and get those nominations. I think a lot of them will. I mean, Project Hail Mary, I think, feels the safest to me. They've barely even started relaunching that. And they're going to spend. Amazon is definitely going to spend. They're going to spend and they ought to. That was a big hit. It was a hit with critics. It was absolutely a hit with audiences. So many of the- Gosling did stuff for Barbie, too. It's not like he's too good for this, for the campaigning element. He campaigned for Barbie. He's not too good for it, but I also think, you know, I think that he's done, he did so much for Barbie that maybe he's a little less inclined to do stuff for this. Also with Barbie, there were so many other castmates and so many other people that he would get behind. And there are fewer unless they trot out the Rocky puppet for Project Hail Mary. What about Sandra Hewler? For her five scenes. She does sing. Oh yeah, she loves, she loves to shake hands and kiss babies. Sandra Hewler. Sandra Hewler has like five movies this year. No, but I think, I think she can get nominated for that. And I think that the advantage that Dune has over the other movies you named, or I'm sorry, that Project Hail Mary has, is it's, you know, going to clean up below the line. So there's, there's so many other things that it can get nominated for. We didn't actually, until I said it just now, mention Dune part three, but that also is a populist movie. That could be a big hit and certainly will be a contender. Even if Dune part two, I think deserved more Oscar love than it ultimately got. Me too. The fact that Denis Villeneuve was snubbed for director for Dune two is unbelievable to me. I know that the Dune factor here, there is a scenario, given the footage that we have seen of that movie, that it turns into Lord of the Rings, Return of the King. And people just say, these movies are such an achievement. We need to give, give this movie all the awards to acknowledge the trilogy. Yes and no. I mean, I keep seeing people liken this to Return of the King. And certainly that is the, you know, situation that Warner Brothers would love, right? Legendary mostly. I think they're going to be the ones that really want it. Sure, sure. Yeah. But I just think that that Return of the King situation was one of one. And that was a completely different academy voting for it, a completely different movie landscape. They shot all three of those movies together. So it genuinely felt like you were rewarding one single project. And I mean, I say this as somebody who loves Dune, who thought Dune Part 2 was even better than the first and deserved more Oscar love. But, you know, Denis can't even crack director, which is absurd. This is exactly the sort of auteurist blockbuster filmmaking that they ought to be rewarding. But will that snobby branch suddenly reward him and decide third time's the charm? All right. All right, buddy. We'll let you in this time. So those are the things that give me pause. This is an academy that is a lot less inclined to reward a franchise as it goes along. And so Dune will have some, you know, significant, upwinds to deal with. Is Michael an Oscar movie? You know, I think Coleman Domingo will be out there for that. And supporting actor is pretty permeable right now. But not picture? It's hard to say. I said the same thing about Bohemian Rhapsody this time that year. How could this movie be an Oscar movie? Next thing you know, Rami Malek is winning Best Actor. And he didn't even sing! Well, Bohemian Rhapsody had a Best Actor winner, which Jafar Jackson is probably not going to be unless things go real haywire. It's just such a stacked category and he's up against these huge names. And Bohemian Rhapsody was coming at the end of the year, so there was, you know. No, it was an October movie, but it wasn't April. Well, but yeah, Michael came in the spring. I think Michael was, you know, more critically derided than Bohemian Rhapsody. So there's things working against it, but I think when you have somebody as likable as Coleman, you know, who's practically Oscar royalty at this point, certainly an awards season fixture, that's a great way in for that movie. Interesting. And what about Indy Navaretti from Obsession? I think she's in. I think she has a shot, right? In. I think she is, capital I-N. I think Best Actress is Julianne Moore, Indy Navaretti, and then. Well, Anne Hathaway from The Odyssey. She's going supporting. Oh, she is. Oh, I didn't know that. So there's no lead actress in The Odyssey? Unless the Academy feels that she is the lead actress and votes her there anyway. But yeah, no, she's going supporting. So I think Best Actress, it's truly going to come down to who wants it, who's willing to be in L.A., who's willing to be seen, and who, you know, who do the critics groups and everybody else get behind. I think that will be fun, but I think that means that Indy is sitting pretty. Interesting. Well, that's good to hear. That would be crazy. I mean, I guess it's not that out of the blue. I mean, Amy Madigan won last year for a horror movie, Weapons. It's also an incredible performance. It is exactly the sort of. Star-making. It's a star-making performance. We know she's already booking. She's already busy. She is showing off so many aspects of, you know, it's just like a very well-rounded performance, not one note. And I think that the Academy loves rewarding an ingenue. This is exactly the sort of thing that they love in Best Actress, where an actress comes seemingly out of nowhere and is going to be a major star, and they get to be part of canonizing that. I would also just add Indy Navaretti, first guest on the Kyle Buchanan show next week. Oh, there you go. The plug is there. But I swear, I swear, completely unrelated. She's doing you before SNL. Good for you. She is, she is. You scooped SNL. Last narrative here. And then we'll get to a couple of wild cards. The whole documentary thing, the Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim, Elizabeth Holmes documentary, which I have not seen. I'm seeing it tonight, actually. Is there a real shot of this movie becoming the first documentary to get a Best Picture nomination? 100%. You think so? Even though A24 has four legitimate Best Picture candidates, they're going to have to choose at some point where they put their chips. Do you think they're going to put their chips behind this movie? It's called You Can See Everything. I genuinely think this is going to be one of the most talked about movies of the fall. I think it's going to be a word of mouth sensation. And that seems wild to say. See, I think it needs to be a hit. It will be. If it grosses $50, $75 million, then I think it's a Best Picture candidate. If it comes and goes and grosses $10, $15, it's not. Man, I mean, I think that that's possible. Because even though this is a three-hour documentary, it has that thing. I mean, it wasn't just in Telluride. It was also in New York Film Festival and other people I know who've seen it and I saw it at that Telluride screening. You walk out of that movie and you are telling everyone you know, you've got to see it. And you've got to see it before people spoil it for you. That creates this feeling of an event. It's already doing so well in pre-sales. I genuinely think that this is going to be this is going to make a lot of history when it comes to how well docs perform, not just at the box office, but with the Oscars. I just wonder if it's not a Twitter phenomenon. It's not. I swear to God. Listen, I believe you. I am just, it's not on tracking. The movie's not on tracking because it's only debuting in 800 theaters this weekend. But, which I think is smart because they'll get a high per screen and they'll get buzz out of it and then they'll go a little wider if it does well. But, I just wonder if it's not an online thing and these, you know, old fuddy-duddies or foreign people in the Academy are just going to be like throw up their hands with Nathan Fielder and the doc branch I think could snub. Well, could or will. You know how snobby and insular that branch is. You know, as soon as there's a front runner in that category, they love to bat that film back. And they hate celebrities and Nathan is a celebrity They do. And there's a little bit of, you know, people have referred to it as a hybrid documentary and I don't want to say too much because I feel like that gets into the surprises of the movie. So, there's a little bit of playing with form that perhaps that branch won't respond to. But, honestly, I don't think A24 cares. They have their eye on the bigger prize and that's best picture. Who is going to be the winner of the Eddie Redmayne award this year for most aggressive campaigner? Taylor Swift could be a contender. If Taylor Swift is playing the Academy Gala, the Museum Gala this weekend, I could see her being cringy and popping up at like little awards parties. Oh, come on. And things like the Governor's Award. All these things. She wants it, man. She wants an Oscar for the Toy Story 5 song and she's going to do whatever she needs to do to get it. Who else? I think it's less that and more that Taylor is, you know, making entrees into Hollywood, into filmmaking. She's directing. You know what? You're being nice. You want her on your show. Who else? Who's out there really working it? Indy Navaretti, probably. She, if she wants it and she gets early traction, she will be on everyone's doorstep saying hello. Yeah, I mean, like, the big question is do a lot of these people who are presumed to be frontrunners really work it? I mean, Penelope Cruz could get nominated for two different movies. Yeah, she's in The Invite, which I loved. She's willing to fly out a lot. She could be around all the time. What else is she in? Wait, she's in The Invite and then she's in La Bola Negra. Yeah. I think that there are some things that are going to limit people from doing as much press as they'd like to. You know, Anne Hathaway's having a baby. Olivia Wilde is shooting a movie in London. So I think that strategically you're going to see those people come in and do a flurry of activity. But I don't know. Who wants to plant themselves in L.A.? This is a season, and I can tell you this is somebody who's booking a show right now, I'm sure you feel the same, where all the contenders aren't in L.A. They're elsewhere. They're scattered to the wind. Oh, is that true this year? Oh, interesting. There's so few people actually just, you know, here in L.A. and available. But if somebody just wants to, you know, move here for a couple months and do everything, there's so much room to do so. Get yourself, do the Chloe Zhao. Get yourself an apartment here for three months. And all of a sudden, you're in contention. You're out every night doing a screening. Well, you said all of a sudden. You know, Virginia Fiera from All of a Sudden. That's one of those people that could break into the best actress race. She's very personable. I don't even know what that movie is. What is that movie? So what are the, like, what are the two or three foreign movies that I'm going to have to see and that everybody is going to have to talk about and watch when the season starts? Well, definitely La Bola Negra. I think that's, you know, one of the only, I have not seen it yet and Netflix keeps hounding me. I will see it. What are you waiting for? I will see it. I heard it's great. It's fantastic. And that's one of the only movies that I think is, that should be considered a legitimate Oscar threat aside from The Odyssey. Oh, so we're not going to have two or three foreign language films in the Best Picture race? What about Fjord? Fjord one can. Fjord can get in there. Fjord also is like, you know, practically half English. So there's that and it has Sebastian Stan and Renata Reinsvah. I also think, you know, all of a sudden that's the new film by the director of Drive My Car, Ryosuke Hamaguchi. It was at Cannes and won the Best Actress Award. Both those actresses, Virginia Fuhrer and Tao Akimoto are really good. And, you know, if they plant themselves here and are introducing themselves to a lot of voters, I think a lot could happen there. I have a theory about Drive My Car that nobody actually finished. Nobody actually finished it. No, Drive My Car is good. Drive My Car. And they fell asleep and they said, okay, this is, I can't, I get it. It's good. I'll vote for it, but I don't want to sit through it. It's three hours. It's super slow. Matt, are you speaking from personal experience? Maybe. That might be my experience. And then I would also say, you know, don't count out Possible Love. That's the Lee Chung-Jong film. It has an incredible lead actress performance from Jun Do-hyun. I think the only thing that would hold that back at all is that Netflix, you know, is also releasing La Bola Negra because, you know, but I do think that they are getting behind this movie and, yeah, all those movies can get into picture because like you said, it's, it's very top. heavy with populist blockbusters. But I think, again, that creates a lot of cover for unexpected movies to get into that category. And there's a searchlight spot for Wild Horse 9. And there's like, there's a lot of things that in traditional years are automatics. And I just think there's too many movies this year. So somebody's got to get left out. All right. Well, it's going to be a great season. Congrats on the new show. Thank you. Starting next week. Yeah, we'll have you back. Once the season really gets started. Thank you, Matt. We are back with the call sheet. Craig, we finally got it. The Narnia trailer has debuted. Remember, this is the big Netflix theatrical release. Greta Gerwig fought very hard. She got a full theatrical release for this movie coming in February. Narnia, the magician's nephew. What did you think? I didn't expect it to be like a psychedelic drug trip rock opera, which I respect Greta Gerwig making a choice. With Christianity. Don't forget, she cares very much about her Christianity. And there's definitely the Jesus stuff, which is from the books. Sure. But we got introduced to, I guess, what's going to be like the Narnia multiverse, the Greta Gerwig multiverse, which, you know, we thought multiverses were over. They're not. They're back. They're not. No, they're not going away. And honestly, this is what I want to talk about because not quite a prediction today, but more of a warning here. Because if you look at the materials, that Netflix is putting out, it's pretty thirsty. We know they need franchises. We know they want their version of the Avengers or whatever. And it started with the poster. The poster, the tagline was, a universe begins. And then the first line of the trailer and spoken dialogue is, sometimes the story is the beginning of all the others. I believe one of the characters in the trailer also said, there are infinity worlds. Yes, infinity worlds that could be explored in infinity streaming sequels. No, this is cart before the horse time, guys. Like, what are we doing? You cannot tell the audience that this is a franchise. The audience has to tell you that this is a franchise. And this has happened over and over throughout Hollywood history, that whenever you put it out there, that you think this is a monster and this is a multi-movie affair, the audience often will tell you that it's not. Right, any time you tell the audience buckle up, there's gonna be five of these and you're gonna love all of them, you get a little bit ahead of yourself. Yeah, I mean, the famous example is Universal with the dark universe, that infamous photo with Russell Crowe and Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp and all of them, and the mummy bombs and the dark universe goes away. But like, it happens with book adaptations a lot. Remember, they canceled the final movies of the Divergent franchise because the audience wasn't there. Warner's wanted to do a big King Arthur multi-universe with turning the Knights of the Round Table into the Avengers. That didn't work. You've gotta sell the first movie and then tell people it's a universe. And I know these are books and they've been adapted before and everybody kind of knows that Narnia is a multi-part thing. But if I was Netflix, I would be going so hard on just selling this movie and not trying to turn it into Harry Potter. Yeah, not this is the first of many, but just this is a great single movie that you gotta go see. Exactly, exactly. So I hope they do that. Trailer looked good to me. I don't know about you, but I like the rock opera thing. It feels like a family movie, but actually a little bit edgier and something maybe that could be a Netflix style franchise and not necessarily Disney. So maybe it'll work. I trust Greta Gerwig. Yeah, I mean, you have to trust Greta Gerwig. It's not my demo. So I'm not the demo for this movie. So it's hard for me to judge whether a 13 year old will like it. They want everybody to be the demo. You think a 32 year old man is the demo for this movie? Yeah, why not? I guess, I read the books as a kid, but I don't know if this is particularly my specific interest. No, I know it's a little more for kids, but whatever. They also are hiding the Meryl Streep as the Jesus figure also as Aslan the lion, which was somewhat controversial. Yeah, well the lion's in it, but she's just a voice which they didn't unveil, yeah. They did not, but that's somewhat controversial, but you know what, who cares? If it's good, it's good. So your prediction is the marketing already, the strategy behind the release of this movie is already potentially on shaky ground and they're getting ahead of themselves. I am worried, I am worried. I'm not saying it's necessarily not gonna work, but I'm worried. Unless they've seen the movie and it's such a guarantee that it's gonna be a hit that they have just, they've already planned out three or four of these things. Do you think this movie pushing to February is a good sign for it or a bad sign? Well, there were a lot of factors at work. The movie wasn't done. And once they decided to move it, then that enabled them to give it a wide theatrical release, which Gerwig wanted, and not just the IMAX release, which is what they originally agreed to. So ultimately I think it's better for the movie. Also a little less pressure in February than if they had dated it in like June or July or something. Right, now it can kind of live on its own and have its own dedicated time, 45 days before it hits Netflix, yeah. I still have high hopes, but Netflix, come on, hit the brakes. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Kyle Buchanan. Producer, Craig Horlbeck. Our editors, Stefano Sanchez and Steve Allman. And I want to thank you. We'll see you one more time this week.