The Odyssey 2026
Chris keeps dive-bombing the show with unverified Nolan casting rumors: Holland as Telemachus, Zendaya as Athena, Hathaway as Penelope. Sean wants a real plan, not X.com screenshots.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Review · Interview
‘The Electric State’ Is a Netflix Nightmare. Plus, 10 (Better) Movies We Missed.
March 17, 2025/ 137 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins · Chris Ryan
The Russos' $320M Netflix tentpole gets taken apart, then the crew catches up on ten films they skipped over a dire box-office weekend, before Sean sits down with his old friend Mark Anthony Green on his debut, 'Opus.'
18 films across 4 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
The box office and the shrinking theatrical windowOdyssey updates, VOD, and a $52M weekend
Mickey 17 2025
Warner is putting it on VOD March 25, 17 days after release, the example everyone reaches for on the collapsing window.
Black Bag 2025
Soderbergh's $50M adult drama that most of its target audience won't hear about until it streams.
Anora 2024
Tom Quinn said it made eight figures in VOD profits, cited as the transparency the studios will never give.
Captain America: Brave New World 2025
Clawing to barely $400M; not the Marvels-level disaster, but bad.
Moana 2 2024
A November release that only just hit Disney+, the last domino if Disney adopts the two-week window.
‘The Electric State’ Is a Netflix Nightmarethe Russos' $320M streaming-only tentpole
The Electric State 2025
Adapted from Simon Stålenhag's crowdfunded illustrated novel. Millie Bobby Brown hunts for her brother across a post-robot-war 1994 with Chris Pratt and a Woody Harrelson-voiced Mr. Peanut; Stanley Tucci is evil Steve Jobs. Sean calls it one of the worst movies of the decade: the 'Chewbacca cheat' gone wide, where nothing is ever really at stake, and a distillation of everything wrong with big-budget studio filmmaking.
10 (Better) Movies We Missedthe catch-up round
Novocaine 2025
The weekend's No. 1 at $8.7M. Jack Quaid as an assistant bank manager who can't feel pain; a winning first 45 minutes, then iterative violence. A fine mid-budget movie that would play great at home.
Borderline 2025
Small 90s-set indie with Samara Weaving as a pop star and a very good Ray Nicholson as her unwell stalker, king-of-comedy energy.
The Gorge 2025
Scott Derrickson's Apple movie: two hot snipers (Teller, Taylor-Joy) fall in love across a pit full of bioweapon demons. A great setup and first act, then it becomes Resident Evil. 'The purest distillation of COVID-era filmmaking.'
Last Breath 2025
Apollo 13 underwater, based on Alex Parkinson's own 2019 documentary. Gripping and genuinely suspenseful, if top-to-bottom miscast save Cliff Curtis. Soft recommend.
The Monkey 2025
Oz Perkins' Stephen King horror-comedy, big on extravagant gory kills. Both hosts mixed on it, gore for gore's sake, but it makes more sense as a movie about processing a parent's death.
Eephus 2024
Carson Lund's one-last-amateur-baseball-game movie, tactile and dreamlike. Bob loved it; a favorite of the year so far. Go support it.
Becoming Led Zeppelin 2025
Bernard McMahon's IMAX doc, seen big. Pro-forma as documentary, overwhelming as a performance movie, and it only covers the first two records. Sean would rather this replace the Bohemian Rhapsodys of the world.
Chaos: The Manson Murders 2025
The new Errol Morris doc, based on Tom O'Neill's book. Flat: over-reliant on archival zoom-ins, not enough O'Neill. It breaks Sean's heart to say it's not good.
Love Hurts 2025
The Ke Huy Quan movie. Terrible: 83 minutes, looks shot on the Good Place set. Made Novocaine feel a lot better.
The Actor 2025
Andre Holland as an actor who wakes up amnesiac in small-town Ohio, from a 1960 Donald Westlake story. Great premise, but a dreamlike style Sean found distancing; it came and went.
Mark Anthony Green on ‘Opus’the writer-director, and one of Sean's oldest friends
Mark Anthony Green on
Opus 2025
His 19-day debut: Ayo Edebiri as a young magazine writer, John Malkovich as a reclusive pop star at his A-plus. Green flew to Riga to convince a one-eyed Malkovich not to wreck the schedule; Nile Rodgers and The-Dream wrote the original songs nearly for free. On tribalism, being challenged, and the 13 years he spent at GQ.
Also mentioned raised along the way
What 'The Electric State' is cribbing from The TerminatorWALL·EReady Player OneThe CreatorThe GooniesE.T. the Extra-TerrestrialEnola HolmesStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
The Netflix tentpole graveyard The Gray ManRed NoticeExtraction6 UndergroundTriple FrontierRebel RidgeCarry-OnThe Adam ProjectRomaThe IrishmanMarriage StoryThe KillerKnives OutPredator
In the catch-up round CompanionLonglegsDeath Becomes HerMaximum OverdriveKeeperChristmas Eve in Miller's PointApollo 13The RescueThirteen LivesBohemian RhapsodyThe Song Remains the Same
Mark Anthony Green's touchstones The Fifth ElementRoundersWhite Men Can't JumpPhantom ThreadAuditionTrain to BusanMidsommarBatman ReturnsBlink TwiceThe MenuJurassic World RebirthAnomalisaOnce Upon a Time in Hollywood
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV LionessLostCommunityCitadelAdolescenceRipley
Podcasts Sonic Boom25 for 25You Must Remember This
Ads State FarmTremfyaFanDuelT-Mobile Home Run DerbyCarvanaWhite ClawBest Western