On this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the legendary director of Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns joins us to discuss the making of both of his films, 300 and Watchmen. He also talks about how he got to where he is today, what it's like being the director of two of his all-time favorite movies, and what it was like being in charge of one of the most iconic movies of all time, Batman: The Dark Knight Trilogy. Also, we talk about his top 20 favorite movies he has ever made, and why he doesn't want to make another Batman movie. If you haven't checked out the show yet, you should definitely do so. It's a must-listen! Thanks to Joe for coming on the pod, and for being a pleasure to have him on the show. Enjoy the pod! -JOE ROGAN PODCAST Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Theme by Mavus White. Music by PSOVOD and tyops. "Goodbye" by Suneaters. Good Luck Out There. -The O.J. Experience by Joseph Rogan. Thank you for listening and Good Morning America. by John Rocha. Outtro Music by The Wanger Show by The O.K. Crew. Thanks for Listener Experience. and Good Luck! by PSODCAST, & Good Morning Outtro by Sweeny! and Thank You! by . - Thank You, My Brother and I'll See You Soon! (featuring , by and , and Thank You For Coming Back to You, by Mr. John R. Rogan Joe Rogans ( ) -- Thank You for Coming Back To You, Thank You & Good Night, My Love & Good Blessings, Cheers, My Thoughts, By The OVY! & Thank You , My Thoughts & Good Luck, My Best Effort, Love & Blessings x - -Joe Rogan Podcasts, The Odeys, Cheers! -- The Ollie & The OGSOODYS -Jonestown Studios "The OVYS, & @ , John Rooker, -- And Podcast
00:00:32.000Well, first of all, I appreciate that because, you know, 300 was a complete labor of love and insane—like, you know, 300 was—I was a Frank Miller fan for a long time, right?
00:00:46.000And I— I thought I would do another...
00:00:50.000I thought I would do Dark Knight Returns, frankly.
00:05:33.000Because, like, you put your kid in a movie, and I always was like, oh, let's have Eli do that, because it's easier, you know?
00:05:39.000Like, he has to, like, beat the other kid up.
00:05:42.000Just Eli's better, because, like, I don't have to talk to, like, some, you know, other...
00:05:45.000Because, like, actually, there's a scene to watch when you know where he bites the kid's face, and he pulls the flesh off the face, and I go, you know what?
00:05:53.000Let's just get E to do it, because then I can just be like, okay, E, bite this!
00:05:58.000The only troubling part of that is that there was a scene that we did in that movie where the, you know, because Rorschach's mom was a prostitute, right?
00:06:08.000So there's that scene where Rorschach's mom, in the flashbacks, like, I should have had that abortion, right?
00:08:06.000He's like, I've known Mark for years, and he's an incredible alpine climber.
00:08:11.000He's like this, he's just like this insane, he can shoot, he can fucking, he can do anything that anyone can do.
00:08:18.000And like when I asked him to train the guys, he's like, this sounds like Hollywood bullshit, like train actors for a movie, like they're all fakers, they're all liars.
00:08:26.000And I was like, look, you will make them honest.
00:08:33.000And his gym was called Jim Jones, right?
00:08:36.000Like, just as an example of, like, how hard he is.
00:08:41.000But yeah, and so, like, you know, he had trained all these SEALs and, you know, basically, it was basically the same thing that he was doing with the SEALs he did with these actors.
00:08:53.000So a prerequisite had to be, though, you had to be in some form of shape.
00:09:38.000These guys trained doubly as hard, and they knew a lot of them were athletes anyway, so they came in with, like—and Jerry had had more time.
00:10:28.000I always say the one thing about movies is that...
00:10:32.000And the thing about Mark that I love was that he went to psychological war with the actors in the best possible way.
00:10:41.000What he was looking for, he would always say, I'm going to put you in your pain cave and you're going to find out a lot about yourself when you're in there.
00:10:49.000And then when you come out of the workout, you're going to grow.
00:11:02.000Especially people who haven't like, you know, fitness isn't like a lifestyle that they've chosen, you know?
00:11:07.000No, that's a journey that you have to be really dedicated to go down.
00:11:11.000If you're just a kind of a casual and someone comes along and says, I want to put you in the pain cave, you're like, I'm not interested in that.
00:11:18.000I think it works with actors because he makes it part of the crucible of the performance.
00:11:23.000And I think if you can connect it to the performance, it makes the training mean something.
00:11:31.000I've always been like a sort of bodybuilding fan like in the 80s.
00:11:35.000I trained with this guy in the 80s who was just like a teacher that lived, you know, this guy Jim Arden who lived in Greenwich, Connecticut where I grew up.
00:11:43.000He was a teacher at this school called Greenwich Country Day, which was near the boarding school that I went to.
00:11:48.000And I was like, you know, everyone expected me to be like, I played soccer.
00:12:01.000But like, you know, and I think it was my meeting Jim and Jim being like, because Jim had this, in the basement of Grinch Country Day, there was like this weirdo Jim and like, you know, Chris Dickerson and like, you know, Mike Katz,
00:12:17.000all these like crazy 80s bodybuilders would show up and train with him and it was like this weird, I'd be like, this is awesome.
00:12:24.000And like we went to the Olympia, like he took us to the Olympia in New York City, I don't know, what year was that, like 82 or 83, I forget what year.
00:12:49.000I remember when I was a senior in high school, After I graduated, I went to London for a year to art school to paint.
00:12:57.000And I lost like 40 pounds of muscle in that year.
00:13:01.000Just like literally, I was in like the best shape of my life, went to England to be a painter and like literally just ate baked beans on toast for a year and like starved to death.
00:13:12.000You know, like I'm an artist, you know, but it was definitely, it definitely put a, but I always had the like, but I always had that aesthetic You know, bug in my head.
00:13:22.000And now I have, my trainer now is this guy, Alessandro.
00:13:56.000He's like, or like the guys at the gym, like, because, you know, he used to, like, judge bodybuilding competitions, and, you know, has his pro card and everything, was like a real bodybuilder, and they'd say, like, hey, can you come and look at me?
00:14:06.000You know, I have a contest coming up in the bathroom, and they'd go in there, and the guy'd take his shirt off, and he'd be like, how long till the competition?
00:14:12.000Oh, he'd be like, I got two months till the competition, and all the time he'd be like, I think next year for you is gonna be better.
00:15:35.000Alessandro was in a competition with him, Night of the Champions, I think, in San Francisco, and he said, like, He goes, I come from Italy.
00:16:05.000He goes, but then, like, you know, he, like, so much muscle, he, like, pulls, and he's just like, he's like, oh my god, like, where, how is it possible that the skin just can't, the muscle's so thick, it just, like, pushes all the- It stretches all the skin out.
00:16:20.000You see all the striations and everything that you do.
00:16:22.000With him just relaxing, like, backstage, he thought, ah.
00:16:25.000I'm more ripped than him, but then he's like, no way.
00:16:28.000It's such a weird sport because they're literally on death's door.
00:17:39.000You know, there's so many guys who get back surgery, and back then, stem cells weren't available, and people weren't aware that there's other ways to fix your back.
00:17:46.000The doctors just want to go in there and start fusing discs, and it scares the shit out of me.
00:17:51.000Everybody that I know that's had that done has had real problems afterwards.
00:17:55.000It puts extra pressure on the above and below discs as well, because it's an unnatural sort of unit now.
00:18:02.000Instead of having three pieces, you now have one.
00:18:16.000And I think that really that's where the future is.
00:18:18.000In my opinion, like, how we learn to heal is really how we learn to, like, really stay, you know, active and, like, getting stuff done for longer.
00:18:28.000Because, like, you know, recovery is the whole thing, you know.
00:18:42.000I just worked through pain and also when you're doing jujitsu, you're always in pain.
00:18:47.000So I was just like just work through the pain, but then I started developing some like real chronic problems and it wasn't until I started doing stem cells and then starting to understand like You can, but it's not wise to just go and only do jujitsu.
00:19:04.000Really, you should be doing maintenance weightlifting that's designed to strengthen your joints.
00:19:09.000And so I really started doing that, and that made a giant difference too.
00:19:13.000And instead of just thinking of it as a workout, it's always like, okay, is your car ready to get on the track?
00:20:04.000Yeah, there's different stuff you could do that doesn't pull on that very specific tendon, but, you know, overuse injuries, those kind of things.
00:20:12.000So when you're doing a film like 300 and you're getting these guys prepped for this...
00:22:29.000It was also the movie was brutally representative of both.
00:22:35.000It was both like mythical and beautiful and magical, but also very tied into the ethics of the Spartans and how absolutely brutal their world was and how they just accepted things.
00:23:52.000I love that Fassbender when he's looking down and he says that whole thing about, you know what's awesome is that with all the world's armies, there's got to be one guy down that fucking place that can kill me.
00:24:18.000But it's also, I think, when we look at things like that and we put ourselves in the mindset of someone who lived so many years ago like that, there's this understanding that human beings are capable of fitting into a bunch of different bizarre groups.
00:24:35.000A bunch of different strange cultures can rise.
00:24:39.000And when you have a particularly barbaric time in history, and you have this group of people in Athens that are literally changing the world through democracy and through the Eleusinian mysteries and all the shit that they were doing.
00:24:56.000People are traveling from all over the globe to come to this one spot.
00:24:59.000And then you got these fucking savages.
00:25:03.000These people are the savages of savages.
00:25:19.000And to imagine that there was a group of people that existed, a culture that existed that was completely warlike and had these tenants that were just unbendable.
00:25:34.000And if you fucked up, if you failed, if you fell apart, if you quit, you were chucked out.
00:25:39.000Yeah, the Kryptaea, like, you know, that whole thing, like, where they would send you, like, around seven, you'd go, in the Agogi, you'd go, like, into the wilderness, and you're basically living among other kids that were between, like, seven and thirteen, and you just were,
00:26:05.000The helots were the slave class that maintained Spartan society.
00:26:10.000And these guys, these kids, imagine if you lived in the hills, you knew there was just this 13-year-old gang of 13-year-olds that were going to just come down and murder you at any moment.
00:26:26.000If the Helots killed them, that was fine.
00:26:27.000Because that meant they weren't good enough anyway.
00:26:30.000And then they did this ritual with this table of cheese where all these Spartan warriors would stand around the table and all the 13-year-olds who were ready to transition into becoming true Spartans, you'd have to try and get and pull a piece of cheese off this stone table.
00:26:48.000And the Spartan warriors who guarded the table could do anything to stop you.
00:26:52.000And it was just beating the crap out of these 13-year-olds.
00:26:56.000And finally, if you got it, then you were given to a Spartan soldier who raised you.
00:27:03.000And basically, the idea was that he was your lover, he was your teacher, he was everything to you.
00:27:08.000Because the Spartans believed that, really, they believed that you...
00:27:14.000You would die for your brother if you were also lovers.
00:27:18.000You know, they thought that, like, if you were confused about why we're fighting, fight for that guy, who's not only your best buddy, but, like, there's, like, a story, I guess, where they were, like, when the Persians first came, they sent a scout over, and they looked down at the Spartans right the night before the big battle,
00:27:37.000and he goes—he went back, and he goes, they were all, like, having sex with each other.
00:27:40.000It was, like, a weird— They're like, we're going to be good.
00:28:26.000By the way, in the end, the Spartans had a real problem because they couldn't...
00:28:29.000There's this really crazy thing where on their wedding night, they would have to shave the head of your bride and dress her like a man, and she would fight you because there was no...
00:30:00.000There's a part where Sophia's character says that they basically say they encouraged me to find a lover in the military academy because when the politics of war became too abstract,
00:30:16.000like, okay, take that beach or climb that mountain...
00:30:21.000A lot of times, you know, soldiers are like, why?
00:30:39.000It's an interesting, we don't, of course, in our modern society, we don't play with that aspect of, you know, in war, we try not to anyway, we seem not to, you know, like with using the relationship to create a bond.
00:30:55.000I mean, there's camaraderie, brotherhood, of course.
00:30:59.000But they've replaced that aspect of it with technology.
00:31:47.000I think we could fuck up and nuke each other, but it's probably not going to happen because people have been really good about it since 1947. Yeah, yeah.
00:35:21.000Well, it's funny because like the movies, for instance, one of the things is I always archive a film print of all my movies because the digital storage of movies, if you ask anybody, even in the business, they don't know.
00:35:36.000Whether in 10 years you'll be able to play a movie that you have now, like whether you physically or how it degrades, all those things, they don't know.
00:40:29.000Because it's like, oh, he's constantly like, you know, like, it's like he's on a razor's edge, which I love, you know, because it's extreme.
00:40:36.000People like that are to be super beneficial to any sort of extreme sport.
00:40:39.000Well, that's what I mean, like extreme sport.
00:40:41.000That's what I'm saying is that, like, you can, the little, that, that, those little pieces of information they tell you about, like, oh, you know, like, whatever, I'm taking this, or like, I thought about this, and I experimented with that, and you're like, oh, okay, like, Thanks for being out there.
00:40:57.000Thanks for being the oxygen mask up on the stratosphere.
00:41:36.000He played rugby, but rugby destroyed his knee, fucked his body up, which kept him from ultimately competing.
00:41:44.000Just a crazy mad genius that doesn't give a fuck about anything but fighting.
00:41:49.000So all he's doing is like teaching people how to strangle people during the day and then watching tape and reviewing techniques and creating the next workout schedule.
00:42:30.000Well, you're not going to train as hard today.
00:42:32.000Yeah, it's like you were saying, like, yeah, like, you understand, like, at that point, you're in a rhythm, you understand your body, you know, like, okay, I'm hurt today, I know how to do this, but we're always learning, we're not gonna stop learning, we're not gonna stop understanding.
00:42:44.000That's the one thing that's crazy about YouTube, too, is that this idea that there's a resource, you know, like it used to be to find a technique or to learn something, you have to go to the guy's house, fucking sleep on his porch, he's not gonna fucking train you, he's gonna slap you around,
00:43:51.000It's better to have a coach who, you know, when you're teaching your classes, you've got to make sure this arm is protected and keep this here.
00:45:32.000Should you not be making a movie right now or writing something or doing something?
00:45:37.000Well, it's important for people to know that even people who are successful movie makers are still going to get addicted to those goddamn things.
00:48:45.000Yeah, and she, I sent it out because at the time Formula One was wanting me to, we were going to do a film, I was going to do like a commercial for them, you know, and I was in the middle of pitching them and they were like, oh, can we send you down to Austin to the race?
00:48:55.000And I said, you know, I can't because I'm in the middle of this thing, but you can send my daughter.
00:48:59.000And Willa was like, she had like pit access, she was like losing her mind, she's calling me every five minutes going like, are you insane?
00:49:04.000Look at, there's like, you know, Hamilton, I can't believe you're right there!
00:50:21.000They want to get connected to that person and root for them and feel the journey, especially The Ultimate Fighter was such a brilliant idea because you get these guys to live in a house together and then they're going to beat the fuck out of each other.
00:50:31.000And they know they're going to have to fight.
00:50:34.000So there's all this psychological warfare going on.
00:50:36.000There's like chest puffing and there's so much weird shit happening.
00:51:54.000When I got out of college, I did like 10 years of TV commercials.
00:52:01.000And every day, I've done all the brands.
00:52:06.000I've done a bunch of Super Bowl spots.
00:52:08.000I did the Clydesdale 9-11 tribute spot.
00:52:12.000There's a lot of all these kind of, for me, that were all these kind of touchstones.
00:52:16.000But along the way, I did like, you know, PGA, I did Titleist, I did like all these like, you know, I have a tour bag, like in storage that says like Zack Daddy Snyder on it, like on my tour bag, yeah.
00:52:29.000But like the guys, like you see these like, I mean, they are, like, Phil Mickelson is like an insane, like, he does this trick where you stand with your hands like this, you know?
00:52:43.000And then he's behind you with his pitching wedge, and he takes a full swing and cuts it.
00:52:49.000If he skulls it, it's going to crack you in the back of the skull, but it goes over your head and lands in your hands, right?
00:55:19.000I did a spot with John Daly, too, and he comes out.
00:55:23.000And I guess the The tournament before the one we had done, before the shoot that we did, we were doing it in Kaminsky Park in Chicago, right?
00:55:33.000And he was, the idea on that one was like, you know, top of the ninth, two outs, down by three, bases loaded, whatever, whatever, you know, and pitcher...
00:55:43.000And so what we did was, so the idea was like we had this like minor league pitcher was supposed to throw a pitch and he's, you know, we did it with visual effects.
01:00:13.000The tools were my tools, you know what I mean?
01:00:15.000Like, I was very comfortable with the tool set that I had in front of me, like more so than I probably should have been.
01:00:22.000You know, I remember Matt Leonetti, who was the DP of Dawn of the Dead, that was my first movie, was like, halfway through the thing, he's like, You know, you know what you're doing.
01:00:42.000Like, on my first movie, I was so scared.
01:00:44.000You know, Scott Stuber, who was the executive at Netflix, who was my executive on Army of the Dead, he was the one that hired me to do Dawn.
01:00:57.000I wanted to be so conscientious and I was so scared of going over budget and not nailing it and making sure it was cool and all that.
01:01:08.000Matt Leonetti at one point was like, look man, you gotta just...
01:01:19.000And it was such great advice because I think the movie's edge and all the coolness in the movie and the man comes around and all the weirdness, the whole montage with the Richard Cheese song in the middle, that was all just me going, all right, good.
01:02:17.000I always say to everybody, people are like, I'm a genre filmmaker.
01:02:20.000And that is to say that in genre, though, you can explore philosophy, you can explore mythology, especially, which is like, myth is my main...
01:02:46.000The mythic answer to a lot of modern questions about how we should live.
01:02:52.000You say, Superman, is he not an invention, a 20th century invention that says to us all the fucking shit that we run up against, whether it be war or class struggle or whether it be interrelationships between different countries.
01:03:15.000Does Superman not appear in answer to us primitive brains trying to figure out where we are?
01:03:23.000Like, you make a guy like Superman so he can answer some of those questions.
01:03:28.000He can represent a point of view that is not helpless in the face of the insanity that is like, you know, the problems of the 20th century.
01:03:37.000And I think Batman, in the same way, he's an answer to, like, urban...
01:04:21.000The funny thing about, you know, what I always find interesting, you know, the thing that I always find fascinating about sort of the movies I've made and how they've landed on pop culture is that, like, I remember, like, in the last article, it was, like,
01:04:36.000it said, Zack Snyder, love him or hate him, right?
01:05:53.000It's these people that are film snobs that get, you know, very pretentious about certain aspects of movie making and decide that their way is the only way.
01:06:03.000Like, listen, I like the Barbie movie, okay?
01:06:34.000Listen, first, you're out of your fucking mind if you go to a Taylor Swift concert and expect to see ACDC. You're out of your fucking mind.
01:06:42.000You're going to a Taylor Swift concert.
01:10:03.000Well, I mean, and, you know, there's this huge, like, there's, so in Dark Knight Returns, there's a scene where, and I copied it kind of in Batman v Superman, where he grabs the M60, he busts through the wall, and he grabs the M60,
01:10:40.000Test, they put Kirk through, where there's a no-win, right?
01:10:44.000Because they want to see how you'll react.
01:10:46.000So they say, okay, we're going to make a scenario, a test scenario, where you don't win, where there's no way to win.
01:10:53.000And in that situation, we find out what you would do in a no-win situation.
01:10:58.000If you're going to be the commander of this spaceship, you're going to be in situations where it's life or death, and especially when there's no tricking it, right?
01:11:08.000There's no tricking death in this case.
01:11:10.000And the famous thing with Captain Kirk is he went and hacked the machine and made it so there was a solution.
01:11:18.000And so that was his response to the no-win situation, was create a scenario where he wins.
01:11:24.000Which is a cool character, you know, that's a cool character move.
01:11:40.000He has to maintain this godlike status.
01:11:44.000And that's what the cool thing about Frank Miller, Frank Miller said, fuck it, I'm gonna like, I wanna see who this guy, like if a guy, so you're saying to me that I've got a gun to this kid's head, you're Batman, I'm gonna, there's no move,
01:12:00.000there's no trick, there's no throwing the batarang, there's no dust ball to distract me, like I've just gotta pull the trigger and I kill this kid.
01:12:09.000So you're saying in that scenario, what's Batman supposed to do?
01:13:12.000You put them to the ragged edge into that scenario and they come out the other side and you're like, fuck yeah, there's a reason why Superman is Superman.
01:15:13.000Legit big dude and you know like in the shoes the shoes the boots are like two inches so like he's literally almost like you know 6'6 in the in the costume like when he comes out in the costume with that little bit of I mean we put some muscle on him and then there's a muscle suit under the suit and he's like it's a he's like Legitimately a scary looking thing,
01:15:37.000you know, he's just like standing there and you're like holy shit Dude, the chin is so insane in that cowl.
01:16:17.000In Dark Knight Returns, if you look at Dark Knight Returns, there's a line where he's trying to hold someone's gun and his finger can't get in the trigger guard because he's so big.
01:16:58.000But if somebody really wanted to fuck around with the genre today, if he had all that money, wouldn't he invest in some wild genetic engineering that turns him into an actual superhero?
01:17:20.000Well, it's funny because I did that scene, like there's that scene, I don't think it's in the, it might be in the theatrical, but it's definitely in the director's cut, where he wakes up and there's some chick in the bed with him from the night before.
01:17:33.000Because I always say, Batman fucks to forget, for sure.
01:17:41.000And I think that, you know, you wonder why he's a Playboy because like, you know, like anybody, like that's a common, you know, fucking forget is a common, that's a real thing.
01:17:51.000You know, and I think that like, there's that bit, he like wakes up and there's like just painkillers on his bedside table and he just like pops them and drinks some wine.
01:17:59.000I'm just like, you know, to me that's like, that's like, that's Batman.
01:18:04.000He's got a Mapplethorpe above the bed, he's got his glass house, and he has an aesthetic that's clean, but that's all he does.
01:18:19.000The thing about Batman, the modern versions of Batman, the Miller Batman, your Batmans, what's interesting is that now superheroes are these flawed, very distressed characters.
01:18:52.000I just was like, the thing that's awesome about also that, it's one of those things like when you start to really, you know, look at like Night Owl not being able to get it up.
01:19:27.000That, as a superhero movie, as a concept, took a long time to land with the boys or these other kind of superheroes where now it's cool to deconstruct superheroes.
01:20:30.000Well, that was the thing that people figured out along the way with graphic novels as well, was that comic books aren't just a thing that children like.
01:20:37.000You know, I was a giant comic book fanatic when I was a kid, and I wanted to be a comic book illustrator.
01:21:47.000Basically what happened was my mom, I had bought, I was like 13 or whatever, maybe 12 even, I bought a copy of Heavy Metal, whoever sold it to me, because you know it says Adult Illustrated Fantasy Magazine, right underneath, like in kind of small letters, but it's there.
01:22:03.000I would cover it with my thumb when my mom was around.
01:22:06.000But she, one Christmas, got me a subscription to Heavy Metal.
01:22:59.000What if we make, if I make, take this script, I make you a PG-13 version that you can just blast into the world and hopefully as many people see it as possible.
01:23:10.000And then you let me, as a bonus, you just let me make this version exactly as I think.
01:23:16.000And they were like, okay, that sounds cool.
01:23:19.000So coming at the end of the summer, you'll see my two three-hour versions of Rebel Moon that are like hard, R-rated, the hardest...
01:25:38.000Like, that's really cool because in a lot of ways, I totally get the economics of making a PG-13 version of this insane genre film.
01:25:48.000Because what I'm asking, you know, from a budgetary standpoint is high for like a boutique-y space movie that's like, you know, a heavy metal comic, you know, that's like a, people who love that will love it more than anything else, right?
01:26:01.000If I can land that, they'll think it's the coolest thing ever.
01:26:05.000But like for a mass audience, it might not be exactly what you would imagine.
01:26:22.000And that's kind of what I really wanted to do.
01:26:24.000That was the thesis of my whole, like, me being turned on by the sci-fi.
01:26:29.000Because, like, the thing you can do...
01:26:31.000I feel like the thing that you can do with that format was you could really deconstruct sci-fi.
01:26:39.000Like, we always talk about, like, I said this at the director's guild, like, when Luke Skywalker walks into the cantina and, like, is confronted by Walrus Man, like, is that sexual?
01:29:47.000In this scenario, I was super grateful to Netflix because I was like, you guys have done a thing that I've never been able to do in my entire career.
01:29:54.000And that is know that this version of the movie exists and it's going to be seen.
01:30:00.000So I'm happy to do whatever you guys think is right for the PG-13.
01:30:05.000I'm a good soldier and I'm proud of it and I love it.
01:30:10.000But yes, it is different from what I was...
01:30:14.000What if the R version, is it NC-17 or R? Do they do NC-17 anymore?
01:33:19.000The thing about the delayed satisfaction though, is that if you could force yourself to get to the pad, When you're done, you'll feel good.
01:33:28.000And if you play the video game, you'll feel...
01:33:30.000Last night, I started fucking around in my office.
01:33:33.000I was just watching YouTube videos and looking at pool cues.
01:33:37.000And then I said, all right, go to work.
01:33:40.000And I snapped and I went to work and I worked for a couple hours.
01:33:43.000And when it was done, when I went to bed, I felt great.
01:33:49.000The feeling of doing something is so much better than the feeling that you have to carry for hours of fucking off when you knew you were supposed to do something.
01:36:17.000It satisfies the impossible group activity that's going to require me to Maybe that's why I love Fountainhead.
01:36:28.000It's that process of getting people to believe in this thing that it's going to take resources and so much crew and building and designing and all that other work that's down the road.
01:36:46.000It's the drawing that I think is a little bit of a...
01:36:50.000It satiates that desire a little bit for me.
01:39:48.000It's interesting because like, you know, I think one of the things that we, after Justice League, I think one of the things that we really, as a group, as a family anyway, you know, because I lost my daughter over that.
01:40:03.000You know, at the post side of Justice League, I lost my daughter to suicide.
01:40:12.000And, you know, I left the movie famously, and then the movie went on, and then later we were able to, like, you know, finish the movie sort of in the way that we had always hoped.
01:40:26.000And I think the thing is that, like, the thing that I kind of sort of come back to when I look at that and when I look at the movies is, like, you know, we...
01:40:36.000They're these markers, you know, the movies are really these markers of time that we...
01:40:40.000Even though they sort of transcend time, weirdly, you know, they exist beyond the time they were recorded.
01:41:25.000We've tried the best we can to, like...
01:41:27.000The fans have raved over a million dollars just to support AFSP, which is the Against Suicide in America Foundation.
01:41:42.000And we've been like just it's been cool that the movies these moments have like now in retrospect have like a purpose you know and that they have like that the fans have gotten this opportunity to kind of like you know join with us and kind of like be with us to like you know Because it's a huge stigma.
01:42:05.000Nobody wants to talk about that they're having trouble, that they're not okay.
01:42:13.000And I think that what we've been trying to do lately, as much as we can, is say, no, it's good.
01:42:30.000And I think that it was a, you know, we've all, it's an easy thing to kind of say that, you know, it's just stress or it's just like, you know, I'm good, I'm not depressed, I'm fine, you know.
01:42:45.000And it's an easy thing to just try and muscle through.
01:42:49.000Where, like, you know, I think that, you know, it's my hope anyway that, like, As a family, the movies and our connection to the fans and our connection to that cause has been really, really deep.
01:43:04.000And just watching this actually just started me thinking about what the movies mean.
01:43:17.000On one hand, they are the moments you see, for me.
01:43:21.000Dr. Manhattan, Leonidas, whatever it is.
01:43:27.000But then on the other hand, there's this other narrative outside of the stories.
01:43:34.000What I was experiencing and what made me think of it, what I was going through at that moment, On that day when we filmed it, what I was struggling with, what I was trying to deal with is real.
01:43:48.000That was just life being lumpy for us.
01:43:51.000Just trying to make a movie, living in Canada, being away from the kids, just all that struggle.
01:43:58.000And then it's cool when, you know, it's been cool for me that when the fandom and the movie, like in the case of Justice League, they lined up, you know, where these people were like, no, we're not gonna, we want, there's a movie out there that we want to see.
01:44:16.000And it's around a struggle that we had as a family, and all of it sort of came together.
01:44:22.000I always say like, you know, people are like, you know, the fandom was toxic or whatever.
01:44:26.000They were like, they were so angry to get the cut that they were like...
01:44:30.000I go, also, also, they literally, people's lives were saved by the money that those kids raised.
01:45:04.000Well, that's just a reductionist view of things that people always like to apply to things that are controversial, especially when they're talking about your fans and saying something like they're toxic.
01:45:16.000No, there's going to be some elements of any passionate, rabid fans that are going to be toxic because it means so much to them.
01:45:24.000And that's what you have to understand.
01:45:25.000The reason why they're behaving the way they're behaving, the reason why they're screaming is, first of all, they don't think they're being heard.
01:45:30.000And second of all, it means everything to them.
01:45:33.000These people that are like deeply invested in your films and in particular like things that have like this sort of iconic history like the Watchmen or like Batman.
01:45:45.000I mean these are very important things to people.
01:45:47.000It's like the same way people are fanatical about sports teams, the same way they're fanatical about, you know, music.
01:46:56.000But when you have these ideas and you have all this work and then it comes together, I mean, that's got to be insanely satisfying to watching a scene like that.
01:47:06.000I guess for me, the process of putting it together and then when you...
01:47:12.000When it literally lands and it's what you drew and it's what you thought and the music and everything, like, lands, it really, it is, there is a, like, I mean, I'm sure it's like anything, it's probably like the same thing, like, doing stand-up or whatever, like, when you...
01:47:27.000When you're in the groove with it, and it's just happening, you're kind of surfing it, and you're like, God, this is the feeling right here.
01:47:37.000You can't acknowledge it in the moment, but you can feel it.
01:47:50.000It's like you really have to have a head-down mentality to get it to that position.
01:47:56.000You know, but I do, when I watch it that first time, and it comes back, and I'm like, yeah, that's like fucking, that's what we, that's the why of it right there, you know?
01:48:07.000And I think that that keeps me going, frankly, you know, that little high is really, it's really fun.
01:50:42.000That's the distribution model that they've set up.
01:50:48.000I was at this thing the other day, and we were talking about Rebel Moon 2. And they were like, well, talk about Rebel Moon 1. I'm like, no.
01:52:21.000You know, it's that, the barrier for entry is so low that it allows, I think, what's cool is it allows a lot more original and weirdo stuff to exist because, you know, especially like you think about the director's cut of Rebel Moon, which will be, if it was in theaters...
01:52:43.000It's like the animated version of heavy metal.
01:52:47.000The movie, I'm a huge fan, but not a lot of people have seen it.
01:52:52.000Where I feel like this is a chance where when this movie is released, the amount of people that can lay eyes on it is crazy compared to what it would be if I was releasing it theatrically or whatever.
01:54:38.000Unless you are willing to do some sort of song and dance.
01:54:44.000I think that as a product, like I said, I'm proud of it and I think it works for Yeah.
01:55:13.000What we did inside those movies with tone and with gore and sex and all that stuff, within the same framework, you're getting two entirely different movies.
01:57:48.000I happen to just like it because, to me, it's a direct comment on making a movie.
01:57:56.000A movie about an architect who won't make the buildings that everyone wants him to make and what the struggle he goes through to get the buildings made the way he wants to make them.
01:58:11.000I'm sure there's plenty of movie directors that don't like Fountainhead, but I just think that it says so much.
01:58:21.000Ayn Rand wrote Fountainhead in direct response to being noted on a script that she had written.
01:58:26.000And she had been studying this movie about skyscrapers and they told her she kept submitting versions of the script and they kept noting her and noting her.
01:58:37.000Until it was unrecognizable, and then she was like, this is what happens to work.
01:58:44.000It gets noted until it disintegrates, until it disappears.
01:58:49.000So that's one thing that I've always wanted to do, but I don't know that the world will allow that.
02:00:02.000Let's Well, I'm a fan of letting artists like yourself do what is their vision, you know?
02:00:08.000And I think people are often wrong about whether or not something is going to be successful commercially or whether or not it's going to resonate with a lot of other people.
02:00:16.000But that's the thing that no one knows.
02:00:19.000Like, that's the awesome thing about movies is like, and why, you know, I'm not that worried about the AI influence over motion picture because there's obviously no formula.
02:00:31.000No one can predict what's going to be successful or they would have gotten rid of the directors and writers a long time ago.
02:00:37.000You know, like, it's still, there's alchemy, there's still magic.
02:00:40.000There's still, like, an impossible, like, you know, all these elements come together and you're like, you feel something.
02:00:49.000Fuck, you know, and it's a thing, like, who knows, you know?
02:00:51.000It's like, you know, anything, you know, that you see that maybe if someone described it to you, In an abstract, you'd be like, that sounds dumb.
02:03:05.000Now, in retrospect, we've been talking about doing a series where I really wanted to introduce those concepts a lot more because I just feel like it's important if we go forward and do more in the 300 universe, I would want to bring that part in and let people...
02:03:22.000Which I think just shakes it up again.
02:03:41.000Because the Spartans weren't doing gay stuff?
02:03:43.000Yeah, or because they, you know, there's that one line where he says, you know, philosophers and boy lovers.
02:03:50.000But, like, I think that he's clearly being cheeky, Leonidas, because I, of course, was hyper aware at the time that the reality of Spartan culture was...
02:04:03.000He means philosophies and boy lovers, not...
02:04:12.000He's using that maybe as a derogatory comment, but when in reality, he's a lover of men, probably, you know?
02:04:21.000And so, like, I just think that, like, and we talked about, like, as we go forward, I would love to, like, just kind of stress...
02:04:29.000I said, look, 300, in some ways, is one of the gayest movies ever made.
02:04:36.000It is incredibly male-centric, male-obsessed.
02:04:44.000You know, like, you really feel, like, very strong male energy from the movie, even though there's a strong, you know, Gorgo's an incredibly strong female character, and we wrote her and made her.
02:04:55.000Like, he doesn't decide to kick the person messenger into the well without getting approval from Gorgo, because, you know, he's like, I'm going to burn it down.
02:05:05.000And she's like, go do it, you know, and he's like, all right, here we go.
02:05:08.000And you know, this is Sparta's that guy, and that's like, that was, and I just think, but I just think that like, you know, And maybe that was just me understanding, doing the research and understanding the reality of Spartan culture that I really,
02:05:24.000that energy was in there because I just felt like it was important, you know, to make sure that it was, you know, that there was this kind of visceral sexuality to the way the men actually interacted, you know, that was there.
02:05:37.000I mean, regardless of whether you acknowledge it, it's there, you know.
02:07:19.000Well, Illusions is a book about this guy flying his biplane around in the 1970s, and he lands in a pasture, because in the 70s, he would fly his biplane around,
02:07:37.000land in a pasture, and then sell rides for $3.
02:08:35.000Again, it's like this sort of, it's again like a spiritual deconstructivist messiah story.
02:08:42.000It was like this book when I was growing up.
02:08:46.000In a lot of ways, its religious philosophy is similar to Christian science.
02:08:53.000So I superimposed my religious beliefs onto this book, and I felt like it kind of spoke to my doubts and my questions about my religious upbringing and what I thought for real.
02:09:08.000So my brother passed away when I was 13. He got in a car accident, and he was this incredibly spiritual dude.
02:09:15.000Anyone who knew my brother was like, that guy was the guy.
02:09:42.000The coolest guy, you know, smoking dope, just being cool as hell.
02:09:45.000So when he passed away, I always thought, like, okay, my brother just, like, tired of this world and went looking for another one, you know?
02:09:52.000Like, he was just, like, on a spiritual journey.
02:09:57.000When you're 13 and you see, like, what that...
02:10:01.000Event, though, does to your family, your mother and father, you know, your sister, all of their friends, like, the devastation that they feel.
02:10:10.000And these are people that I believed, believed in the religion that I believed in.
02:10:17.000And the pain, like, it made me really go, like, what the fuck?
02:10:29.000And I think that Illusions, that book, in retrospect, and I won't spoiler alert, I won't tell you what happens on the last page of the book, but it kind of speaks to where I was.
02:10:42.000And I think, so it's always resonated with me.