Episode 189: “No Cultural Impact”
In Episode 189, “No Cultural Impact,” Flourish and Elizabeth look at the entertainment industry’s “fan-first” strategy for franchise-building, and the already-massive box-office success of Avatar 2: The Way of Water, part of a property that, as people continue to say on social media, no one remembers or cares about. Are fan activities, memes, or online chatter necessarily good indicators of franchise success? And when Hollywood privileges a certain idea of “fandom” in their strategic plans, does that actually serve fans—or viewers in general?
Show notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:05:08] We talked about fic preferences at the end of Episode 188: “The Year in Fandom 2022.”
[00:11:28]
[00:14:36] Flourish can only DREAM about this spirit flowing through them.
[00:15:50] Our interstitial music through is “Tech toys” by Lee Rosevere, also used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:16:37] Read the show notes from our Glass Onion episode; for the audio and a full transcript, that’s patreon.com/fansplaining.
We also have show notes for our Interview with the Vampire episode—the audio and full transcript are accessible to patrons at $3 a month and up!
[00:19:33] Elizabeth did, in fact, tweet that.
[00:20:39] The specific tweet that inspired this episode.
[00:21:27] A week after we recorded this—following the weekend of January 7-8—Avatar: The Way of Water had grossed $1.7 billion globally, and had climbed up to be the seventh highest-grossing film of all time.
[00:22:20]
(And for a bit of backstory: “The Intertwining History of the ‘Avatar’ Papyrus Font and the ‘SNL’ Sketch That Spoofed It”)
[00:24:00] It’s absolutely possible that in December, there were more Goncharov fics than Avatar ones, but not now—searching via date range, it appears the number of Avatar fics has almost tripled since the new film came out.
[00:25:40] APOLOGIES TO STEVE GUTTENBERG!!!
[00:29:15] “Ms. Marvel: The Jersey City Superhero Who Made Good”
[00:31:26]
[00:33:16]
[00:33:37] Elizabeth’s SDCC article was “You’re Gonna Love This Franchise”—and the Predator movie in question was 2018’s The Predator.
[00:37:28] The M*A*S*H finale in 1983 was watched by 106 million people domestically!! A decade later, the Cheers finale came close with 93 million viewers. For context, 2022’s most-watched broadcast, the Superbowl, was just shy of 100 million, while the next two, the NFC and AFC football division championships, each pulled in about 23 million (lol look at all that football). Obviously the TV landscape is wildly fractured today—but there are like 100 million more people in the U.S. now than there were in 1983, and yet!
[00:49:18] Aside from the colonialist/white savior themes of the Avatar films, people were specifically discussing Cameron’s comments in this 2010 article.
[00:51:57]
[00:53:24] Henry Jenkins on transmedia storytelling in 2007. His book on the subject, Convergence Culture, was published the following year.
[00:56:49]
[00:58:07] Is Tom Cruise a ghost in Top Gun: Maverick? One critic argues it’s “the only way to really make sense of the movie.”
[00:59:17] When Flourish said James Cameron “got in trouble” for saying ~whither the poor blockbuster~, they actually meant Marvel fans got mad for saying of the Avengers films: “Not that I don’t love the movies. It’s just, come on guys, there are other stories to tell besides hyper-gonadal males without families doing death-defying things for two hours and wrecking cities in the process. It’s like, oy!”
[01:07:23] Easy A actually came out in 2010! But still. A Time.
[01:07:35]
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth!
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: This is episode #189, quote, “No Cultural Impact,” unquote.
FK: [laughs] You threw in the quotes for me!
ELM: Yeah. People need to know it’s a…it’s a quote.
FK: [laughs] So, “no cultural impact” is what people have been saying about the Avatar franchise. Specifically, both before Avatar 2 came out and also today. But we aren’t just talking about the Avatar franchise in this episode. We’re talking about sort of the general question of fandom and, like, memes and visible fandom stuff versus, like, blockbuster movies.
ELM: Right.
FK: Is it necessary? [laughs]
ELM: The question is—so, the basic premise of this episode—and you should say your disclaimers about Avatar up front.
FK: Right. So as some of you guys probably know, I have worked on a bunch of things including Avatar, at one point. I haven’t worked on Avatar for over a year and a half. So we’re gonna be talking about this in general, and I am not gonna be able to get in any detail about anything that I did on a specific franchise. But! I still have a lot of opinions about [both laugh] this in general. So we’re gonna have the episode anyway.
ELM: Right. So the basic premise of this episode is this kind of idea that for the last decade, maybe a little bit longer, the big studios have had—obviously, everything is super franchised now. You know?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And, like, trying to make big arcs out of various beloved—quote unquote “beloved”—properties. And it’s a very, you know, in quotes, “fan-focused” strategy, right? To say, “We’re gonna play for the fans first. We’re gonna build fandoms.” Right? And this is a lot of what your work was about, you know?
FK: Yes. Absolutely.
ELM: Is them trying to tap into this.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And, you know, the argument around Avatar has been, for years, people saying, “Well, there’s no fans. There’s no memes. There’s no fanfiction.”
FK: Right.
ELM: “No one cares about it.” And then it made $1 billion in, like, 10 days or something, right? You know? The sequel, so—
FK: Yes. It is definitely on track to make back its money, and I would be surprised if it didn’t end up doing better than that, because the first Avatar had, like, a super long tail of people continuing to see it in lots of places, and I kind of suspect this one will be like that too.
ELM: So the big question for this episode is whether kind of chasing fandom, whatever that meant, whatever that continues to mean, is a mistake. But, before we do that, we have a totally unrelated letter [FK laughs] that we are going to read.
FK: We do! And it’s a good letter. Should I read it?
ELM: Yeah! Please do.
FK: OK. This letter is from Liz.
“Dear Flourish and Elizabeth,
“I very much enjoyed your year-end episode on fandom trends in 2022. I found myself agreeing with a lot of what you said. Near the end, Elizabeth mentioned that she had stopped reading fanfic for a lot of shows she enjoyed because her underlying motivation for reading fanfiction meant she didn’t enjoy reading fic for shows she already liked. It helped me realize something similar about my own fanfic habits.
“There are two fandoms I read fic for. The first one is a TV series about a war where a lot of the characters die. I like it a lot, but it makes me sad, and in my opinion, the writing is of variable quality. Certainly, some of the deaths feel very cheap or unnoticed by the narrative, especially when I really liked that character who died. So I read fanfiction where the war ends and everyone goes on adventures, because I don’t want those characters to die, and I want them to go on fun, non-fatal adventures.
“The second fandom I read for is a book that is also very tragic (I’m being very vague because I don’t want to drag the two specific fandoms into this). There’s one group of characters who are especially tragic and their relationship ends badly but is also left unresolved. I only read fanfic about them, and they’re very popular in fanfic for the admittedly small fandom, to the point where people complain about how other characters they like don’t get as much attention. I always felt guilty about that, like I was being a snobbish or otherwise a bad fan for not being interested. But what I’ve realized recently is, I really want emotional catharsis for this specific group of characters, and I want to read stories where they meet again, apologize or otherwise resolve their relationship, and start healing from the events of canon. It doesn’t mean I don’t like the other characters, just that I don’t like them in a way that motivates me to read fanfic about them.
“I wanted to thank Elizabeth for helping me understand why I engage with certain fandoms and parts of fandoms and not others. Thank you both, too, for a wonderful podcast, and have a wonderful New Years.
“Sincerely, Liz.”
ELM: Well, you’re welcome, Liz. [both laugh]
FK: I really related to this in a lot of ways. Like, especially the, like, “Why do you care about certain groups of characters and not others?” bit.
ELM: Yeah. OK, so let me very quickly, if anyone didn’t hear that episode, I think that it was kind of hinted at here—or, not hinted at, but you know, touched upon here. [both laugh] It’s a secret. But basically what I said is, one thing that, you know, getting really into Interview with the Vampire, the show, this fall has shown me is the last two shows that I really loved, I read fanfiction for, and it kind of really was a sour, and a souring experience, right? You know? It actually made me feel worse about these shows that I loved and admired and I thought were really well-made.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Even when some of the writing was really good in the fic.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And with this one, I have zero desire to look at the fic in any way or to write any, and I feel like I have learned something about what motivates me. And as I said in the last episode, I’ve always been, like, very vocal about, like, fanfiction is not just about fixing bad canon or unsatisfying, [FK laughs] or whatever, et cetera. But for me, if I admire something, I think that I need to just accept that it is what it is, and fanfiction is not going to give me more of what I admire.
FK: Yeah, yeah. Totally.
ELM: So that’s a summary of what I said, and Liz, I think, is going into kind of bringing new facets into this, too. Because that letter definitely made me think about some of the things that I have liked fanfiction for, and what I was there for, and it was actually usually pretty specific things. It wasn’t, like, general displeasure, you know, [FK laughs] with the show. There were often specific motivations of what I was missing from those shows.
FK: Yeah, I definitely agree with that, and I think that for me, there’s also been specific kinds of—for me, it goes even beyond that, also, to, like—this made me think about, “Why is it that I can read some fanfic for shows that I barely saw any of the canon on, and not for other ones?” And I was like, “Oh, actually, there’s factors.” You know? There’s reasons behind this.
ELM: Like what?
FK: I actively hated Merlin.
ELM: Oh.
FK: I watched, like, one episode of it. Sorry to Merlin fans. I really hated it.
ELM: You’ve dragged it before on the podcast. But I don’t—or, you just said you didn’t like it, but hate. I didn’t know you hated it.
FK: Oh, hate is strong. But I didn’t watch the rest. I usually—I watch a lot of bad TV.
ELM: You sure do.
FK: And yet I’ve read a bunch of fanfic for it, and I think that part of the reason is that, like, it involved sort of stuff that I already knew about in some sense, and kind of a sense of familiarity, and—
ELM: Like, Arthurian legend stuff?
FK: Right! The Arthurian—well, the Arthurian legend stuff was, like, I was already very familiar with that, and then I watched one episode, so I sort of had some idea of the basic idea.
ELM: You knew what their faces looked like.
FK: And then I was like, “Fine. All solved. I know what the faces look like, I understand this is a joke about Arthurian legends and stuff. Like, don’t care what happened in the show. Let’s watch the fanfic.”
ELM: Sure.
FK: And I didn’t feel like I was missing anything, because I knew that I actively disliked the show so much that any questions I had, I was not going to solve, [laughs] you know?
ELM: Right, right.
FK: Whereas there’s other stuff where, like, I don’t know. People have recommended to me Stargate fanfic, and I can’t get into it. It’s because actually, like, I could envision myself watching Stargate someday. [both laugh]
ELM: Surprised you haven’t already.
FK: I mean, I’ve watched a little bit of it. I just never really fell into it in that way. But I could see myself doing it. Like, it’s not because I dislike it. So, anyway, that was interesting. That is another thing that Liz was not talking about, [ELM laughs] but that Liz’s letter made me think of. [laughs]
ELM: But it’s interesting, you know, and obviously, like, not to, you know, problematize what Liz is saying here, but, you know, it does make me think about discourse of people saying, “Why don’t you care about X character? Why don’t you care about Y?” Right? And absolutely, you know, there are broad patterns that happen, and there are different reasons why people don’t engage with certain characters, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But I have always found it interesting that it’s so clear within fandoms that people are there for different reasons, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know? And, like, in my current fandom, I focus on the ship, but I also care about making all the minor characters—you know, I care about them, and I care about fleshing them out as much as I can, right?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Or doing some stuff that’s a little more ensemble-y. And I see people regularly, you know, being like, “I don’t care about—” You know, like, not in my comments or whatever, [FK laughs] but just the way they write their own posts.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Just, like, making it so clear that they actively don’t care, or don’t want anything to do with some of the other characters outside the ship, right? You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: And it’s like, OK. You know? We’re on different pages. Like, I’m not gonna force you to read stuff that I’ve written that focuses on other ones, you know?
FK: Yeah, totally.
ELM: You know, but obviously I think you have to say when talking about this, [laughs] that there are certain kinds of characters that get prioritized and focused on, and some of that is also coming from the kinds of characters that get focused on in the media the fic’s based on too, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: It’s kind of a domino effect, sometimes.
FK: Yeah, and I mean, and also, who is most vocal and present in fandom. I mean, I’m thinking about more, like, gender issues there than about anything race-wise, or anything like that, right? But, yeah, like, there are fewer cis gay men in fandom and the things they, you know, maybe are interested in are not always the things that everybody in fandom—fanfic fandom—is writing about.
ELM: Sure.
FK: Like, OK, you know? I mean, like, that’s not—you know? Like, OK. [both laugh] So, yeah.
ELM: Right, right. Yeah.
FK: Yeah, complicated. But also, like, yeah, whatever. The things that we’re interested in are certainly political, because the personal is political. But that also doesn’t mean that it’s bad to be interested in the things that you’re interested in.
ELM: [laughs] Right?
FK: [laughs] Sorry, OK. This maybe is getting to a navel-gaze spot. [both laugh]
ELM: No, just a little recursive, I feel like. But anyway, yeah. I feel like—I mean, and now we’re talking about big patterns and stuff, and I brought us to this direction. I think it was interesting, too, that Liz had very specific reasons. And I think that, you know, I love this kind of thing, where it’s, like, where people come and analyze their own interest in stuff—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —and, like, what—you know, “What was lacking in the show? Why did I want that?” Right, you know, like—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Yeah. And I’ve been in a fandom similar to the one that—the first thing that Liz describes, when I was in the Torchwood fandom, where they kill most of the characters and the writing was somewhat uneven, [FK laughs] I would say. You know? And not just seeing ones, you know, like, fix-its that are AUs where they’re all alive—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —but I wrote and read, like, stuff—I really like seeing them resurrected, you know? [FK laughs] It wasn’t just—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: It was, like, literally reversing what they did, right? I loved that back in Harry Potter fandom, too.
FK: Yeah. Yeah.
ELM: Like, I loved, like, back from—not like it never happened, but like, “No.”
FK: Sure.
ELM: “I am changing what you did.” You know?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: And, like—so, I don’t know. I think that it’s interesting to kind of—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —zero in on that sort of thing.
FK: Yeah, no, that made me think also about, like, you know, how you can both like something that happened in canon and also want to change it at the same time. [laughs]
ELM: That is not what I was talking about with Torchwood. I did not like any of that.
FK: [laughs] OK, yes, but I said—I was doing a “yes, and…” [both laugh] You know, this made me think about my feelings about the end of Game of Thrones and Brienne and Jaime and, like, what happens to them. And that’s actually something that I thought was a really great ending in Game of Thrones. I’m like, “Yes, I think that you did good on it. Also, I hate you [ELM laughs] and I want to see them run off into the sunset together!” Like, I can hold both of these feelings at once. And fortunately, I have fanfic to rewrite that ending in various ways, even though I like it.
ELM: That’s interesting. I feel like you don’t hear that sentiment a lot from people who are shipping, because—
FK: Yeah, well—[laughs]
ELM: —there’s usually only one outcome for the ship, right? You know? I mean—
FK: Yeah! They—I mean, they can feel however they want. I felt like it was clear that, like, that was a good end—
ELM: Well, yeah, I mean—
FK: It was a—I mean, it was a sad ending. But it was a good ending, writing-wise. [laughs]
ELM: Sometimes shipping is antithetical the actual—to, like, actual good, well-written—
FK: Right, exactly.
ELM: —you know, narrative on a show, right? [FK laughs] So…which is why people complain about shipping sometimes.
FK: Yeah. But we can, in theory, enjoy them both.
ELM: You should try to help people figure this one out, [FK laughs] because I don’t think a lot of people are on the same page as you.
FK: Uh-huh. Well…
ELM: Anyway! Liz, thank you very much.
FK: Liz! [laughs]
ELM: I’m very glad that you were able to articulate this stuff for yourself, based on the way we’re talking about it. Maybe more people will be able to sort this out. I feel very free, now that I know this about myself. My own preferences.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: I feel so free, not even looking at the Interview with the Vampire [FK laughs] fanfiction tag.
FK: Uh-huh.
ELM: No offense to anyone who’s having a nice time reading or writing Interview with the Vampire fanfiction. That’s just not for me. What is for me is the works of—
FK: Anne Rice.
ELM: —my beloved Anne Rice. [both laugh] Also, you know, I’m sure some of those people also are reading that, too, so, you know…
FK: Oh, no doubt. No doubt.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Here’s what I have been slightly tempted on, but am not going to do, is to try and write fanfiction [laughing] in a pastiche of Anne Rice’s writing voice. I don’t think I could do it. I don’t know.
ELM: I don’t know. I feel like there—it is so erratic [FK laughs] that I don’t know how you could know—I feel like the spirit has to be flowing through you, and I don’t think it’s ever flown through anyone but her.
FK: [laughing] Quite the way that it flowed through Anne Rice.
ELM: Like, that exact spirit. I just, like—you could try to mimic it, but it’s too—she just—every fourth page is something just wildly out of leftfield, and you’re like, “Excuse me?” [laughs]
FK: “What just happened?” [both laugh]
ELM: “What did you just say?” Right? And, like, that’s magic that’s really hard to recreate. I don’t think I could do it.
FK: No, I don’t know that I could either. I was thinking on a sentence level, but it’s—you’re right. It’s not the sentences. It’s the—it’s the—it’s the, you know—
ELM: It’s the paragraphs. [laughs]
FK: It’s the entire work, you know? There’s a German word for this, you know? “The work in total”? What is it?
ELM: I don’t know.
FK: Anyway. There is a German term for it. I can’t remember.
ELM: [laughs] OK, well look that one up. You think about it.
FK: I think that I’m—I was thinking of Gesamtkunstwerk. [laughs]
ELM: Ah! Yes, of course.
FK: Yes.
ELM: Yes, yes.
FK: See, you knew it too. There we go. Anyway, yeah, that’s Anne Rice. Creator of Gesamtkunstwerks. [laughs]
ELM: Anyway. That’s great.
FK: All right. Think we should take a break before heading into the main part of the episode?
ELM: Uh, yeah, I think we should.
FK: All right, let’s do it.
[Interstitial music]
FK: OK, we’re back! And, as usual, we want to talk to you about Patreon. The way that we make this podcast is, patreon.com/fansplaining. The donations of listeners and readers like you. And there’s lots of levels at which you can contribute from as little as you want to absolutely as much as you want. We have some exciting stuff going on, like our new special episode.
ELM: Yes! Oh, is that my cue?
FK: Yes.
ELM: [laughs] Yes.
FK: That’s your cue.
ELM: So we just put out a special episode on Glass Onion, the film.
FK: Woo-hoo!
ELM: [laughing] You’re jamming right now.
FK: We liked it.
ELM: We did like it, and we talked about mysteries. What else did we talk about? It mostly just we talked about the movie, we talked about mysteries for a while. We talked about true crime.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: We talked about, um, some of the reactions. Some confusing reactions.
FK: Yeah. We talked about the way that we liked it on rewatch, which is unusual, I feel like, to be like—
ELM: Oh yeah, that’s probably the most important part of the episode—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —was that we were, uh, we liked it well enough the first time around, but the second time we were like, “Oh, yes.”
FK: Yeah!
ELM: Which is unusual. But it’s actually interesting, now I’m seeing more people saying the same thing because it’s been out on Netflix for a little while. Like, long enough to reasonably watch it a few times.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So there’s that, and we also have a special episode from a few weeks ago on Interview with the Vampire, which feels like so long ago. I kind of want to redo it, [FK laughs] now that I’ve read so much of the work of Anne Rice.
FK: We can have another episode that is about the work of Anne Rice.
ELM: We are going to.
FK: Great.
ELM: At least one.
FK: Wow. [ELM laughs] I don’t know if any—I mean, this may get to a point where it’s like, does anybody want to listen to these special episodes? These many [ELM laughs] special episodes? This, like, almost mini podcast that you’re thinking that we might have? Like, an entire series about—
ELM: Do I care? I wanna do what I wanna do.
FK: Wow.
ELM: Just like Lestat.
FK: Just like Lestat. [ELM laughs] Anyhow, so there’s those things. We also have cute little pins that get sent out to people. We’re about to send out a new batch to some folks who have just, um, who have just signed up, so look for those in your mailboxes if you’re one of those people.
And of course, if you don’t have money or don’t want to give us your money, you can also support us by sharing news about the podcast, especially about our full episode transcripts every time! At the same time as the episode! So people don’t have to listen. They can read. And you can write in, or call in. 1-401-526-FANS. Fansplaining at gmail.com. We have an ask box on Tumblr, where we are Fansplaining, and we have a little form on our website, fansplaining.com. And you can send us your thoughts, and they may appear in an episode, as Liz has discovered today.
ELM: And it’s 2023, and we still have a Twitter account, so…
FK: Yeah. [laughing] We’ll have that as long as you’re willing to update it, Elizabeth.
ELM: It’s not a lot of work, and I dunno. People are still there, so…
FK: Great. That exists.
ELM: It’s for those brave souls.
FK: [laughs] Great.
ELM: I like how we got a response to our last episode, and he said, “Pass this on to Flourish.” [laughs] So now I gotta, like, share messages with you, because you’ll never see them. I love it.
FK: I will never see them. [laughs]
ELM: It’s great.
FK: Not if it’s on Twitter.
ELM: To be fair, I did say in my tweet that I could say whatever I wanted about you, because you’d never see it, so…
FK: Oh my God, you said that?
ELM: Yeah! [laughs]
FK: Wow. Well, I guess I never would have known if you hadn’t just told me. [both laugh]
ELM: I could be making TikToks about you every—actually, oh, no, you have TikTok, don’t you?
FK: I do have TikTok.
ELM: Still, you wouldn’t know where to find it.
FK: I mean, you could be doing a lot of things.
ELM: That’s so true. I could be writing fanfiction about you, and you would never know.
FK: I love how you’re coming up with all these things that I, too, could do to you, and you would never know.
ELM: Yeah, but the one that I’m literally doing to you is I said I could say anything about you on Twitter.
FK: Yeah, I know. I know.
ELM: That actually happened.
FK: All right. Anyway! Anyway, I think that this is enough conversation about that. I think that it’s time to get on to the main part of the episode.
ELM: Avatar.
FK: And I would say, the general question of, like, has the entertainment industry kind of gone astray by chasing franchise fans, in specific, and memes and online conversation over other metrics.
ELM: Right. OK, so this is something that’s been swirling in the ether. There was a specific tweet that I sent to you that was the impetus for the episode, and lemme just read it. It was from, I believe, a journalist, Alan Zilberman.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And it said, “Avatar’s quote ‘lack of cultural impact,’ unquote, is a good thing. Folks who see the film want spectacle, they want entertainment. It should be that simple. When we see quote-unquote ‘cultural impact’ nowadays, it involves toxic losers [laughs] tying their identity to the MCU, Star Wars, whatever. It’s awful.”
FK: Right. Absolutely. And just, you know, as we said earlier, we are living out the reality that even though there is not, like, a massive wave of blue memes [ELM laughs] on everyone’s computer screens, Avatar has currently made, as of yesterday—today is January 2, so, as of January 1—it had earned $1.37 billion globally, making it already the fifteenth highest-grossing movie of all time, and—
ELM: And that’s in about two weeks, it’s been out.
FK: Yeah, and it’s done a huge amount in China. $152 million, and like I said earlier, the original Avatar, a lot of its worldwide gross came because it had legs. People were continuing to watch it in the theater over a long period of time, and there’s no reason to think that this isn’t similar. So it’s looking like [laughs] it is in fact making a lot of money—
ELM: Right.
FK: —even though there is quote-unquote “no cultural impact.”
ELM: Right. So the “no cultural impact” thing has been a, like, that’s the biggest meme about Avatar, I might argue. Other than the Papyrus font.
FK: Yeah, which was, I mean, like—yeah. Godspeed Papyrus people.
ELM: If anyone hasn’t seen the SNL Papyrus Avatar sketch with Ryan Gosling—
FK: Yup.
ELM: —we will put it in the show notes.
FK: Yup.
ELM: Always worth a rewatch. So that’s the number-one meme about them, and then, I would say the second-most popular meme is people continually saying, for the last three years, “Avatar has had no cultural impact.”
FK: I will actually say that the “no cultural impact” meme is bigger.
ELM: [gasps] You think so?
FK: In my experience. I think it is.
ELM: I was trying to be generous, uh, with the more fun one.
FK: No, it’s bigger.
ELM: Which is fascinating.
FK: The more fun one is less large. [laughs] The less fun one is bigger. In my opinion. I mean, again, context, I haven’t worked on this in a year and a half, and, you know, but—but no, it’s a huge part of the conversation, and yet, Avatar is laughing all the way to the bank. [laughs]
ELM: Right. I think within fandom, I mean, how much does fandom care about how much money movies make? I guess if you are a fan of the thing, you should care because that’s how you’re gonna get more of that thing, if it’s something that you want to continue.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: You know, for pure transformative fandom, like, I—when Goncharov—am I saying it right? [both laugh] [ELM affects a “Russian” accent] Goncharov. [FK laughs] At a certain point—which, if anyone somehow didn’t see that, it was a fake Martin Scorsese film that people created vast amounts of fanworks for. And I remember at a certain point, pretty quickly, it surpassed—this fake movie, people are writing basically original fiction, communal original fiction—surpassed Avatar on the AO3, and everyone was like, “Ha ha ha!”
FK: Yeah. Sure.
ELM: And it was like, “OK.” [FK laughs] I don’t know, I just—I don’t—like, OK. You know? There are a lot of things that—that’s also a weird metric. There are so many things—Mad Men’s always the example. There are things that have had extraordinary amount of cultural impact, in the United States, anyway—
FK: Right.
ELM: —that have almost no fics. So, like, that’s not, you know…
FK: Absolutely. [laughs]
ELM: And there are some things that have a vastly disproportionate amount of fic for, like, how much general society cares about them.
FK: Right. And there’s stuff that has, like, been very successful and made a lot of money and has no fic or interest in it. Like, I don’t know, like The Big Bang Theory, or, like, not Law & Order, but almost all of the sort of, like, cop show things. There’s fic about them, sure, but there’s not, like, fandom or quote-unquote “cultural impact” the way that, like, people mean it when they say that.
ELM: Right.
FK: But there’s an awful lot of people watching those shows, including, I mean, certainly me, if there’s nothing else. I’ll, you know, whatever. Like, at times—
ELM: You watch The Big Bang Theory?
FK: OK, not that. But, you know, whatever. [laughs] Or, what was it? Three Men and a…you know. Whatever that one was. The really awful one.
ELM: Two and a Half Men.
FK: Two and a Half Men! [laughs]
ELM: Three Men…he’s half a man, Flourish!
FK: I was thinking of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), which is actually good.
ELM: You were thinking of Three Men and a Baby, starring Ted Danson—
FK: I may have been thinking of all these things at once—
ELM: —Tom Selleck—
FK: —but not knowing what I was thinking of.
ELM: Who was the third man?
FK: Anyway. That stuff. Or, like, soap operas. Like, if we’re gonna go back in time, right? Sure, there’s a lot of fanfic about Star Trek, but people also watched soaps for many, many, many years and did not, generally speaking, write fanfic about them.
ELM: Right.
FK: You know?
ELM: Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, again, I don’t understand why that gives people in fandom, in fanfiction fandom, pleasure? Like, I just, I don’t understand that joke. Like, OK. [FK laughs] Exactly what we’re saying, like, “All right. Well observed.”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know, but, like, godspeed, but—
FK: Well, I have one idea about this, which is—
ELM: OK.
FK: I think that we have a genre issue here, because I think that there is not just coming from fans, but also coming from people in—you know, people who make movies, people who make TV, there’s an idea that the only way that you have sort of successful science fiction/fantasy or sort of superhero—you know, which is sci-fi/fantasy, depending on what kind of superhero, I guess.
ELM: Sure.
FK: The only way that that happens is with this model of fandom that involves memes, people obsessing, people going to midnight showings, you know, all of these things, on a massive scale, right? Whereas no one is gonna say that about many other genres of thing, right? Sure, people were excited about Top Gun: Maverick, but there was not an expectation that you were going to have people cosplaying as Tom Cruise, and, like—
ELM: Missed opportunity, to be honest.
FK: You know what I mean? Yeah, right? [laughs]
ELM: That’s a pretty easy cosplay.
FK: [laughs] You know, but all I’m saying is that this is a genre issue. People think that you can have an action movie that’s super successful that doesn’t feature these sort of trappings of fandom. But when you get into sci-fi/fantasy, it’s like, “Oh, you have to.” And Avatar is kind of defying this. It’s saying, “No, actually, this is a movie that lots of people can enjoy, and there’s a small group of dedicated fans who totally love it, and that’s great. Power to them and their cosplay, but we don’t need to have necessarily everyone in the world operating in that way for it to still be successful.
ELM: OK, absolutely agree with you, but there’s a few things that I would like to unpack there. One is, I’m gonna argue that this is not new but, like, newish.
FK: Oh, yeah!
ELM: And then—so I wanna talk about that. And then the other thing I wanna kind of pick apart is how much of what you’re describing is coming from the culture—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —whether it’s people within fandom or just general people who see movies, or both—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —and how much is coming from the industry side.
FK: Sure.
ELM: So I don’t know where we want to start. Maybe the newness of it, because I think when you had, I don’t know, for the Star Wars prequels, or whatever, you know, there was a certain small number of franchises or movies that people would do what you’re describing, and dress up for midnight showings, or whatever.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And it was presented as a novelty—
FK: Right.
ELM: —20 years ago, right?
FK: I think that’s right.
ELM: Or, like, the—you know, just the—people being astounded that, like, kids were putting on robes and, you know, going to the bookstore at night. Which, to be fair, that was actually kind of a novelty, because I know they tried to recreate that for a bunch of these books, but, like, that’s not happening now. There aren’t midnight book releases—
FK: [laughs] The midnight release of the book thing is not…
ELM: Yeah, that was, like, a moment in time that has ended now.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But definitely, it would be weird to do a news story now about people dressing up for the next Star Wars film, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Maybe not just Star Wars. For a lot of them, right? For the next Marvel film or whatever, like—
FK: Right. I mean, you might have something that was like—but it wouldn’t be, like, in a newspaper. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, I mean, the only way I could imagine it, it would be, like, a local story. There was a nice one a few years ago. It was about, like—that I included in The Rec Center. It was from WNYC and it was about Kamala Khan, because she’s from Jersey City.
FK: Right!
ELM: And so—and I think it was about New York Comic-Con, and it was about, like, South Asian fans—girl fans—
FK: Yeah, South Asian fans—
ELM: —who like—and it was a very local story—
FK: —girls from Jersey City being like, “I’m the real Kamala Khan!”
ELM: Yeah, right? So it’s, like, that kind of local story, right? You know, like—
FK: Totally.
ELM: That I can see, right? You know, if there’s some kind of local connection or specific cultural connection or whatever.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: But other than that, the act of, like, fans being—you know, normies just being fans, you know, is not—
FK: Yeah, it’s not like it was, where there was, like—especially, like, at the Harry Potter midnight release thing, it was, like, the front page of the culture section [ELM laughs] of every regional newspaper, you know? [laughs]
ELM: [laughing] “What are you kids doing?”
FK: The pictures were from the local bookstore, but it was all the same, like—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —story, which was like, “Guess what? [both laugh] People are craaazed.”
ELM: Right. Exactly. So, like, I don’t know when that shifted. I don’t know if it was the rise of the superhero franchises. I don’t know…I actually really don’t know, honestly.
FK: Yeah, I’m not sure either. And it’s interesting to me because I was looking at the highest grossing films, and then I was like, “Oh, yeah, a lot of these are franchise films,” right? You know? It’s like, Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, Titanic, are the top three. So there’s two James Camerons, because never bet against him. But, you know, then Star Wars, Avengers, Spider-Man, Jurassic World, The Lion King—arguably not—then Avengers, Furious 7, like—
ELM: Wait, Lion King original or new Lion King?
FK: Original.
ELM: Oh, thank God.
FK: [laughing] Um…
ELM: If you had told me that the new Lion King—[laughs]
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —was in the top 15…
FK: Yeah. But then it’s like, you know, all the way down, it’s, like, you know, almost all of them are franchise movies. So I was like, “Wait a minute, hold on. Except that these are not adjusted for inflation.” And when you do adjust for inflation, you get, like, Gone with the Wind is still the highest grossing.
ELM: Interesting.
FK: Ever. Second is Avatar, third is Titanic, fourth is Star Wars, fifth is Avengers: Endgame, then The Sound of Music—
ELM: Hmm!
FK: —E.T., The Ten Commandments—
ELM: Wow.
FK: —Doctor Zhivago—
ELM: This is a great list.
FK: —and Star Wars: The Force Awakens comes in as #10.
ELM: Wow.
FK: So you can see that, like—
ELM: [laughing] Doctor Zhivago…
FK: Right?
ELM: I love it. I love it.
FK: Never would’ve guessed it. 1965. It grossed worldwide, like, over $2 billion.
ELM: Wow!
FK: In 2021 money.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Obviously. Not, you know—$2.3 billion in 2021 money. That’s a very different list, and it’s very visibly—like, it’s clear that a lot of these movies—like, the stuff that was being highly successful in the ’50s and ’60s was not franchise-y. Like, it didn’t—[laughing] that is not what it was, you know?
ELM: I mean, what was franchise-y in the ’50s and ’60s?
FK: I don’t know, you could have—you know, there were lots of, like, novel series that, you know, and movie series and things like that, that existed even back then. You could take, like, a popular novel series and make it into a bunch of movies.
ELM: Wh-name—
FK: Like, you would take westerns—
ELM: OK. But those were presented as separate. Like, it wasn’t—the idea of a franchise didn’t exist.
FK: It didn’t—well, that’s my point! You could—if they wanted to, they could have made a bunch of, like, Zane Grey movies. Like, westerns being popular.
ELM: Sure.
FK: And, like, you know, come up with—but the franchise didn’t exist.
ELM: They didn’t want to do that.
FK: And the fan thing, they weren’t doing that. That wasn’t sensible.
ELM: No. Right, and I’m sure a film historian can talk about the specific economic reasons why they weren’t doing that.
FK: Right, and I mean, I know it’s a little silly to say it. I just, for me, I was still surprised to look at the list, and I had to remind myself, “No, it hasn’t always been like this.” [laughs]
ELM: Right. I mean, I think that there’s a lot of, like, pushback when people say, like, the franchise thing is very new, because I think when you get past that point, like, especially, like, into the ’80s, right? Like, there were a lot of sequels—
FK: Yes.
ELM: —and so there were a lot of, like—
FK: Sequels, not franchises.
ELM: I mean, like, attempts at franchises. Like, but very, like, reactive. So it’s like, “Oh, the first one was a hit, so we’re gonna make three more.”
FK: Right.
ELM: And then the other three are garbage, right?
FK: Yeah yeah.
ELM: As opposed to the very strategic, everything being a franchise from the very beginning—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —and using the language of fandom and—
FK: Right.
ELM: —dedicated fans around franchises. You know, like, I’ll never forget when I wrote that piece for our companion publication a few years ago at Comic-Con, “You’re Gonna Love This Franchise,” and it was the people from the—some frickin Predator movie. Not the recent one that people liked that I didn’t see, because [FK laughs] this is not a franchise I watch, but one that got panned, right? And they were like, “You’re gonna love this franchise.”
FK: Right.
ELM: And it was like, “This franchise?” Like, just talk about this movie. Like, what, you need to tell me your strategic plan, so I can see whether I’m gonna—you know what I mean?
FK: Right.
ELM: It was just such a weird language choice, and I felt like representative of the way that they talk about this stuff now.
FK: Absolutely. Well, I think that—so I think that the other thing that’s intertwined with this, which I don’t think people talk about that much, but I really think is related, is the growth of really long-form content both on TV and in movies. And here’s what I mean: TV, obviously, there were people who were fans of things before you had sort of serialized TV that was truly telling a story over the arc of a season, right? That only became kind of universal in the late ’90s.
ELM: Sure.
FK: Not even universal, then, right? I mean, that was coming into its own in the late ’90s, and it was only fairly recently that it became ubiquitous.
ELM: Right.
FK: And I feel like, when that started to become more ubiquitous, people’s emotional investment into long stories is different, qualitatively, I think, than investment into things that are more “pick ’em up and put ’em down.”
ELM: Hmm.
FK: And I think that we began to see sort of those things bleeding over into movie ideas, and I think that relates to what kinds of movies end up having quote-unquote “big cultural impact,” in the sense of franchises. You have Marvel movies, and you’ve got a lot of them planned out, they’re coming out on a regular basis, you’re always caught in this cycle, versus something like Avatar, which is like, “Well, one came out, and then there was nothing for many years.” And so, of course everyone forgets who the characters—I mean, like, we can say separate about what, you know—we can have arguments about quality or what have you, but there’s lots of things that are very poorly written out there. So no matter how badly you think of Avatar, you have to admit that, like, [laughs] it’s not worse than lots of terrible stuff.
ELM: Sure.
FK: But there’s nothing out there for you to grab onto, for you to go to next. Whereas with a lot of these franchises, the idea is, you’re getting fed constantly, so you never lose interest.
ELM: I’m not 100% sure I am on board with this analogy. I understand everything you’re saying, but I think that—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —prior to, you know, the Golden Age of Television, when people started to do, like, full-season arcs and stuff like that, right?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: You know, there are a few things that were motivating viewership. One was, it was on. So yes, that’s what you’re saying, right?
FK: [laughs] Yes.
ELM: That was, like, the big one, right? Like, “OK, sure.”
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And, like, inoff—“It’s inoffen—OK, I don’t mind this.” Like, “Oh, not my favorite—”
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: “—but I get four channels, so here it is.”
FK: Right? [laughs] Behold, my viewing of every episode of Friends I’ve ever seen.
ELM: I—again, you watched that one?
FK: “Well, it’s on.”
ELM: That’s—I feel the same way about that as I do about The Big Bang Theory. No offense, Friends fans. Nope.
FK: It just was on. Whenever I was in high school, I would go to someone’s house and it was on, and I was just like, “Well, I guess it’s in the background.”
ELM: Nope. Nope. But, you know, if I think about the kinds of things that people might say that they liked prior to that, I can think of two different motivations, though I’m sure there are many more. One is, you liked the format.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: So if it’s something like a Law & Order—and I think people got attached to the characters.
FK: Right.
ELM: Or any detective show, right?
FK: Oh, definitely. You get attached to the characters, but the format is the—
ELM: Right. But even with those, first and foremost, and absolutely with every sitcom, it’s about the characters, right?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: I mean, yeah, it’s about the format, too, right? The sitcom format obviously has a lot of appeal. But, like, you know, so it’s not like—I wouldn’t frame—I think people were massive fans of a lot of things. Like, you know, some of the most watched TV of all time—
FK: Hmm.
ELM: —are certain sitcom finales from the ’70s and ’80s, right?
FK: Sure. [laughs] Sure.
ELM: Astronomical numbers—
FK: Thank you, M*A*S*H.
ELM: Yeah, well, Cheers as well, right?
FK: Yeah. True.
ELM: Astronomical numbers of people watched those shows, right?
FK: Yeah yeah.
ELM: And there are other ones, too. And those were, like, because they really cared about the characters, right?
FK: That’s true.
ELM: So I don’t—
FK: That’s right. That’s right. You’re right.
ELM: And I think that what motivates the successful franchises—I mean, I don’t know. I think that you get different answers from different people about why Marvel has been successful.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: You know, I might say cultural hegemony, for example, right?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: But, like, I definitely think they frame it as character-driven, you know? You love these figures.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Which, they kind of have to, because the plots are so absurd, right? [FK laughs] So it has to be about, like, being pleased to see Robert Downey Jr.’s face again, right? You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And, like, we’ve talked about this before, but I just—when we were at Comic-Con and we’d be, like, in the Marvel presentation, it felt like the beginning of the football game when each number is called out, and then they run on the field, right? It was like—
FK: Woo! [cheers]
ELM: Yeah! Tony Stark! Tony Stark! Right? You know?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: And it was just like, “OK…” Like—Oh, I scared Orlando. You know, like—[both laugh]
FK: You know, it’s not a good Fansplaining episode until you’ve scared the cat.
ELM: I’m sorry. [FK laughs] I know you miss Tony Stark, Orlando. You know, and, like, that’s very, like, that’s the thing that I feel like a lot of these, you know—there’s a lot of cart before the horse with so much of this big franchise stuff that they’re trying to build, right? You know? Where it’s like—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: “You’re gonna love these—you’re gonna love this. You’re gonna love these guys. You’re gonna love ’em,” right? You know? And it’s like, well, if you haven’t created compelling characters, if there isn’t a preexisting relationship to them from another source material, right, and if you also make, like, a—do, like, a bad plot, like, you’re not gonna love this franchise. You know?
FK: Right. I mean, I think the thing that I’ve heard—and I can’t say that I’m an expert on this, by any means—but the thing that I always heard when I was working in this area was that one of the things that was driving this was that development budgets were being slashed.
ELM: Mmm.
FK: And so one of the big issues was, like, “Well, are we gonna take the time to develop a story that’s really, really, you know, that’s new and risky and great? Or, are we going to plunge our money back into something that we already happen to own?”
ELM: Right.
FK: And, like, that’s—and that’s—I mean, that’s actually how we got the Marvel movies, right? We always forget that when Iron Man came out, Iron Man was, like, a C-list—
ELM: We don’t forget this. This is now part of the legend that people dredge up all the time.
FK: [laughs] OK, sure, but the reason that they were doing it was because, like, they happened to have this thing, and they were—
ELM: And they didn’t own Spider-Man. Yeah. [laughs]
FK: And they didn’t own Spider-Man, and they were like, “We don’t have a development—” You know, like, I imagine—
ELM: Or the X-Men, like, who are their most beloved, right? You know? Like, yeah.
FK: Exactly, and so then you’re like, “All right, I guess we’re gonna have to do something, but is it gonna be, like, developing something new? Or is it gonna be trying to use this thing that we already have, that we’ve already got all this work done on.” [laughs] You know?
ELM: Right, right.
FK: So that’s depressing. And it also explains why, you know, stuff like Avatar and, frankly, stuff like Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion and so forth—well, Glass Onion’s not a great example because it’s now a sequel, but why Knives Out manages to happen is because you have, instead of saying, “Oh, we’re going to invest the money in the development thing,” it’s like, “Oh, but, we can bet on this because it’s a famous director.”
ELM: Sure. Yeah.
FK: And Jim Cameron, like, has his own fame. With Rian Johnson it’s like, “Well, he did Star Wars!” [laughs] You know?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And, like, he’s—you know, there was a lot of discussion around it. So sure, we can bet on him by letting him make what’s ultimately a much cheaper movie than any of that. Right?
ELM: Right, right. But still big-budget and blockbuster-y, right? Maybe blockbuster not really, but—
FK: Right, exactly.
ELM: —big-budget, sure. Yeah.
FK: Big—like, I mean, but not big-budget the way that a science fiction movie is big-budget—
ELM: Right. Right, right.
FK: —because you don’t have to have any of that, right?
ELM: But it’s still, that was something that we talked about in the last episode, you know, it’s—
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, it’s not shoestring.
ELM: It’s big, yeah, and it’s not even like a middle thing, you know, it’s not like—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Right? Like, I don’t know how much that movie cost, but it’s, like, a big, fun movie, you know? Are you gonna look it up right now?
FK: Yeah. As far as the characters go, yeah. OK, so, uh, Knives Out had a $40 million budget.
ELM: Oh, OK.
FK: Which is [laughs] one-tenth of Avatar 2’s budget.
ELM: [laughs] How much was Glass Onion?
FK: So this—OK, now I’m confused, because this says that Glass Onion also had a $40 million budget.
ELM: Hmm.
FK: Wikipedia says that they’re both $40 million budgets, which, I think is…I mean, obviously it’s estimated. This is the thing with these budget—this is also something that I think is worth noting, is that these budget estimates are always, like, someone pulled a number out of—
ELM: Cool.
FK: —a hat somewhere, [laughs] unless you hear it from somebody in the actual production.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: But also, like, Hollywood accounting is, like, [vague hand-waving noise] I don’t know, so…[laughs]
ELM: I mean, it feels like they could roughly figure out how much it cost.
FK: Sure.
ELM: Right?
FK: Roughly. Yeah.
ELM: This is interesting, and it makes me think, I don’t want to—this is a little bit of a tangent, but, you know, there’s always been a lot of talk, for the last decade or so, there’s been a lot of talk about, you know, Marvel and Star Wars and stuff. Marvel, in particular, is kind of pulling up, as they diversify who gets to direct, right?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And they’re pulling up these, you know, promising, young, non-white men directors, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And what a loss that is for film more broadly, because now they’re, like, kind of trapped in Marvel land, right? When they could be—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —making the kind of movies that they got tapped for, right? You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But it’s interesting to think about, like, Rian Johnson getting to make something bigger after Star Wars—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —and, like, being seen as a—this is a white man, so, I don’t know—and I wonder if some of these directors who this commentary has been made about will also have that opportunity.
FK: I hope that works out. I hope that’s the way it works out. Yeah.
ELM: Yeah, yeah.
FK: I really do. That said, I think that there—you know, I mean, I really do have suspicions about whether the obsessive chasing of fandom—and I don’t—when I say this, I don’t mean people should ignore the existence of fandom [ELM laughs] where it exists.
ELM: Very, very ironic kind of shooting your former coworkers in the foot.
FK: Well, no, I don’t think so.
ELM: OK.
FK: Because there’s been plenty of times—you know, speaking in generalizations, there have been plenty of times in my work history—which again, ended over a year and a half ago, so, please don’t read anything into this about anything that happened recently [laughs]—but there have been many times when we would be sent something to look at, and it would be like, “Well, there’s lots of cool stuff in this, but there’s nothing there yet. There’s no people who are fans of it.” Or there’s some. It’s rare that you get something that there’s truly none.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: But there’s just, like, not much. You know? Like, OK. Could be good. Maybe should be good. Not something where you immediately have to have, like, a huge understanding of this really deep thing, because it’s just not there. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make it, right? And it doesn’t mean that there might not develop a fandom that might not exist. But should the obsession be, like, “There must be one or else we’ve failed.” Right?
ELM: Well, yeah. One thing that’s very confusing about that to me is, one of the things that you see when people are adapting or rebooting or whatever, is you see the producers or the directors or whatever, talking about the fans that already exist as a somewhat malevolent question mark, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And I can think of a bunch of different examples where I saw this, and they were like, [fearful pearl-clutching voice] “You know we tried to be very—we tried to be faithful.” You know? And it’s like, “Oh my God, calm down.” Right? And they’re thinking—they’re expecting some sort of, like, wild reactionary response, right? You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: And sometimes they get it from some people, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: And so it’s like, “OK, well, I guess what do you want here?” You know? You want existing fans. You want to pander to them. You think they’re just gonna like it because it’s there. Are you scared of them? I mean, maybe this also, like, I’m talking about what, like, TV writers and directors and actors say, which is different than—
FK: Not, yeah, what executives say. [laughs]
ELM: —what development executives say. [laughs] Right, right.
FK: I would say so. Yeah, I mean, and then there’s also cases like with Battlestar Galactica, where pretty much the reboot people looked at the fandom and were like, “Well, there’s, like, five of you and we don’t care.”
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And dusted their hands off and moved on, you know? And, I don’t know, strategically that seemed to be an OK plan—
ELM: Right, right.
FK: [laughs]—actually, right? So it’s—I mean, what I’m trying to say is, I have always had the view that not everything should have a fandom in that sort of “cosplay and fanfic and making 10,000 memes and having giant fights on the internet” way. If it already exists, you have to deal with it.
ELM: Sure.
FK: And if you want it, like, there’s some things that are more likely than others to develop such, [laughs] you know, such a fandom, I think. But the whole idea that that is the marker of success is not right. And I think part of the way that it gets to feel like the marker of success to some people, not to the money people, right? [ELM laughs] Who are just crunching numbers. But to a lot of the people who we hear from, to actors, directors, you know, to some people who are doing producing, is because having sort of seen behind the curtain, those are the visible people.
ELM: Sure.
FK: It feels good when someone walks up to you wearing cosplay of the character that you—you know, you remember that person, right?
ELM: Right, right.
FK: And you remember the million people who tweeted angrily at you.
ELM: [laughs] Yeah.
FK: You know? In a way that you don’t actually necessarily remember, you know, the, like, difference between, I don’t know, like, past a certain point of money-making, it doesn’t really matter. You know what I mean? You hit a milestone and you’re like, “Yeah!” And it makes even more money, and you’re like, “Also great!” [both laugh] You know?
ELM: Right, right. I mean, it’s funny, because all this is, like, the cultural impact is, like…[sighs] people making memes about you, you know? They’re not saying your movie’s good, right? You know? One of the movies that was brought up in this conversation was Morbius.
FK: Morbius! [laughs]
ELM: It’s morbin time.
FK: Morbius, the movie that flopped twice. [laughs]
ELM: Right. Which, if anyone missed this, was it Sony?
FK: Probably. [both laugh] Sorry to Sony.
ELM: Who was in that? I can’t even remember. Someone famous.
FK: Was it Jared Leto?
ELM: Yeah. That’s right. It was Jared Leto.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: [imitation of Jared Leto’s terrible Italian accent in House of Gucci] It’s-a him, Jared Leto! [laughs]
FK: Jared Leto and Matt Smith, who—
ELM: Stop.
FK: I had completely forgotten that Matt Smith was in it.
ELM: Wow, Matt Smith. He really gets around. And it was a huge flop, but then it became, like, a very quick meme and a very strange meme, where people just said things like “it’s morbin time.”
FK: Yeah, as though they were going to go see Morbius, which none of them had. [laughs]
ELM: Right, and so then they brought it back to theaters on the strength of the meme, and then it failed an additional time.
FK: Again! Because people, spoiler alert, people say “it’s morbin time” and don’t actually mean [both laugh] “I am going to Fandango to purchase a ticket to Morbius.”
ELM: [laughing] That’s how I interpreted that phrase. That’s not right?
FK: [laughing] Just as a lot of people who’ve never tweeted a single damn thing, even before Twitter imploded, went to Fandango and bought a ticket to see Avatar: The Way of Water because they like spectacle movies, and—
ELM: Right. So yeah, like, this is the thing too, it’s like, I don’t know. It’s fascinating to me, with the Avatar thing, I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t pay enough attention to James Cameron’s press, though I did hear the very racist thing he said about…whatever. We don’t need to discourse about this film, but—
FK: James Cameron says many things. [laughs]
ELM: But I can understand why people are not happy with him.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But I can’t, like—first of all, he’s not gonna say, “You’re gonna love this franchise.” I also think that, like—
FK: [laughs] No. He is not gonna say that. He’s gonna say something along the lines of “you’re gonna—” what was the quote? “You’re not gonna be able to believe your eyes while you’re shitting your pants,” I think, is—
ELM: Yeah, “you’re gonna cream yourself,” or something. [laughs]
FK: No, he didn’t say “cream,” he said “shitting.” Anyway, I remember that quote very well. [laughs]
ELM: Oh, you think he’d be shitting and not ejaculating over these blue people?
FK: Wow! [both laugh] Yes. James Cameron told Empire magazine two things: “I can tell you one thing about the Avatar sequels. They’re gonna be bitchin.” [ELM laughs] And then he said, “You will shit yourself with your mouth wide open.” [both laugh]
ELM: OK, that sounds kind of erotic.
FK: Yeah. I mean, depends on what you find erotic, I guess. [both laugh]
ELM: I don’t know.
FK: But he’s definitely not gonna say, “You’re gonna love this franchise.” [both laugh]
ELM: But I also feel like it’s not, like, he’s, like, you know, he loves the aesthetics of the world, he loves the—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: He’s a very visual man, you know. But it doesn’t seem like it’s—I mean, and that’s not to say there isn’t, like, “lore.”
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: But it doesn’t feel lore-led. It feels like—
FK: Yeah, yeah. I mean—
ELM: You know, it’s like—I feel like—I haven’t seen the movie yet—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —and I may see it, with drinks.
FK: Yeah, we’ll go see it with drinks.
ELM: With drinks.
FK: I enjoyed it very much.
ELM: Yeah, I know. I know. You drank the Kool-Aid, [FK laughs] but I don’t feel any need to even look on Wikipedia about what the last one was. I remember the basic concept.
FK: Yeah, you’ll be fine. There’s—
ELM: That’s it, right?
FK: There is a lot of lore, like, you know. The one thing I will say from behind the curtain is that there is in fact a lot of lore that James Cameron has written.
ELM: Sure.
FK: But you don’t actually need to know any of that stuff to enjoy it at all.
ELM: I—but—yeah, but—right. Whereas, like, I feel like some of these other franchises, they’ve gone so hard on this idea. And also, like, kind of framed the idea of a fan as someone who cares about lore, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: Which is a very classical definition of a fan, a particular kind of fan.
FK: Absolutely. And even more so—like, all the more so when you get to things like Avengers: Endgame, where, you know, I mean, it’s like the shot where all of the people are popping in from all the multiverses.
ELM: Right.
FK: And it’s like, you’re supposed to know who all of these people are. [laughs]
ELM: I mean—
FK: And they’re like—
ELM: I—but—I did, because I’d seen the other movies, so I was familiar with all of them. It’s not like they added new people at that moment.
FK: I know! No, they didn’t, but I’m just saying that, like, actually there were a lot of people. You had to have seen a lot of movies. [laughs]
ELM: Sadly, I saw a lot of those movies. So I was familiar with these people in the very end. But yeah, no, I—right. I mean, that’s the whole, like, economic strategy behind these, too, right? Is, like, you can’t miss one. Right? And there was, like, a lot of discourse when they were launching, like, relaunching the television stuff via Disney+, where, because the Marvel people had been saying things like, “You’re gonna need to see everything.” Right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Like, “You’re gonna need to get Disney+, because you’re gonna need to watch every single one of these. Otherwise, you’re gonna be lost.”
FK: Right.
ELM: And people were like, “That’s classist!” And it was like, “OK.” [both laugh] Like, sure, OK. But, like, I don’t know. The idea that you would need to watch every single Marvel movie is a much bigger financial ask, right?
FK: Yes.
ELM: Especially if you have a family of more than one, you know? And you gotta take your two kids at $18 each to see every frickin’ one of these [FK laughs] so you don’t miss a tiny little detail—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —and are confused for the next one, you know?
FK: Yeah, you know, this also kind of seems to come to—to me, this all seems to come from the same root of, you know, we talk about Henry Jenkins in the context of fan culture on this podcast a bunch, but after his work about fandom particularly—well, related to it—you know, he came up with a concept of transmedia storytelling, meaning a franchise that goes across multiple mediums. The idea being that people who, like, see something in a movie theater are then going to go buy Disney+ to see the TV show, or they’ll go spend money on a book, or they’ll get a video game, and they’ll be sort of migrated across different media in order to max—basically, to, like, from a storytelling fun point of view, you could say, “Oh, well this is because there’s some stories that are told better as a novel, and some that are told better as a video game, and some that are told better as a TV show.” And so ideally you have a franchise, and all of the, like, best kinds of stories for the different media are told on those media, and then it’s great. The cynical way of saying it is, you’re gonna get people to spend money [laughs] in all of these different areas—
ELM: Right, right, right.
FK: —and that to me feels like, you know, the franchise thinking today. I mean, that book—Henry’s book was hugely, hugely popular in the entertainment industry.
ELM: Oh, I can imagine.
FK: In large part, that’s how I got my career started, [ELM laughs] was because of, like, knowing—it wasn’t because of Henry’s work on fandom.
ELM: Right.
FK: It was because of Henry’s work on transmedia storytelling being so popular. My first company was all about transmedia storytelling, and so I really see that as sort of the root of what’s happening financially here.
ELM: Just to clarify, because I think “transmedia storytelling” gets misused a lot. The point is, what you’re saying, the point was that it’s not like there’s a movie and then maybe you’ll get people to buy the novelization of the movie—
FK: No.
ELM: —that’s the same story. The point is that different parts of the story are being told on different platforms.
FK: Exactly. Like, you know, I mean, [laughs] a weird but very real example is Twin Peaks: The Return—
ELM: You’re always frickin’ talking about this.
FK: —[laughs] which I loved, also had a book come out at the same time, and the book has a bunch of the weird, like, actually, I’m not sure that it’s very good, [laughs] but it does make more sense than what happens in the TV show, in ways that, like, you know, are things that you can say in a book and actually not in, you know, the multi-hour art film that David Lynch felt like making, right?
ELM: Right, right, right.
FK: So, but, yeah. They’re dif—it’s different content. It’s not the same thing covered over again.
ELM: The less cynical version is to say, part of it is, like, on a website, right? And you want people to go and—
FK: Absolutely. Well, I mean, and that was the way that a lot of this—
ELM: Right, because that’s for free. Yeah.
FK: And well, and that was the way that a lot of this got started, was during the writers’ strike, writers could create webisodes, but they couldn’t create—
ELM: Hmm, yeah, yeah.
FK: —things that were on actual TV. Like, the old writers’ strike, the one that, like, killed—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: You know, the one that was, like, back when Heroes was on, and stuff.
ELM: Right, Right.
FK: Smallville, and that kind of thing. So then you had people doing stuff for the internet, because it was a way to sort of keep people interested and engaged, and that was free.
ELM: Right, right.
FK: And it was telling things in different media that you couldn’t do on TV, and I still find that interesting, but. There’s this cynical end of it.
ELM: Yeah, yeah. That’s—I mean, that’s an interesting connection to see where we wound up, though. So I guess going back to Avatar, or Top Gun: Maverick, you know, I think that, you know, your point about Avatar being a science fiction film is well taken.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: But you think about—you know, I think about the science fiction hits of our childhood—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —and yeah, they had sequels, right? But, like, I don’t know. Independence Day, [FK laughs] it’s just a blockbuster, right? And, like—
FK: Yeah, Independence Day. Everyone loves Independence Day. [laughs]
ELM: Arguably that has more cultural impact, because I feel like—I mean, whatever. Memes ≠ cultural impact, right? Memes do have cultural impact, but it’s not the totality of cultural impact.
FK: It’s not. Yeah.
ELM: But there are certain parts of In—that was a random example, but of Independence Day, or Men in Black, to choose another Will Smith blockbuster, uh, sci-fi blockbuster, that I definitely think have stayed in the culture in a way that mostly Avatar is not. I mean, I think everyone knows Avatar is tall, sexy blue people. [FK laughs] I don’t know why I called them sexy. I guess James Cameron has possessed me. But beyond that, you know—
FK: I don’t know, we could be having this conversation about Top Gun: Maverick also, right? I mean, like, Top Gun is obviously part of the culture—
ELM: Yeah. You feel the need for speed.
FK: Yeah. But I don’t know. Like, Top Gun: Maverick, like, I don’t know that people are gonna be quoting that.
ELM: Actually, yeah, I found that fascinating, [FK laughs] and I didn’t see it, and I guess it’s too late for me now, because that’s the movie that you had to see in the theater—
FK: [laughs] Yes, you did. I saw it in Norway, which I have to say was one of the best choices ever. It was hilarious.
ELM: That’s really funny. Yeah. Everyone I saw talking about it or heard in real life was like, “A total delight. What a great film in the—like, a theater film.” And I don’t know any details about this. I mean, I know Val Kilmer—the Val Kilmer stuff, and whatever.
FK: Yeah, and you know there’s a theory that the entire thing is, like, a dying hallucination.
ELM: Yeah, I did hear that theory.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: OK, so I did hear a little bit. [FK laughs] But beyond that, like, you know, I’m not really seeing a lot of memes, like, a lot of GIFs—
FK: Memes. [laughs] Yeah.
ELM: —like, memes, you know, but very successful and people enjoyed it, so…
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Job well done, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: And, like, I just feel like there’s so little space for that now.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: I mean, whatever. Whither the poor blockbuster, aw. But, like—
FK: Yeah, but—
ELM: —it’s just—the alternative that we’re left with is so tiring.
FK: Right, and I actually, you know, we say there’s so little space left for that, but I feel like that’s something that people have been saying. In fact, I think possibly James Cameron got in trouble for saying it a couple years ago. But, you know, I think that he was right. Like, yeah, whither the poor blockbuster, in the sense of, like, sometimes you just wanna go to the movies and see a movie.
ELM: Right.
FK: [laughs] And then you saw a movie and it was really good, and then you’re done.
ELM: Right, right. And, like, this kind of, you know, one of my theories that I trot out a lot, and I think I actually talked about it on a relatively recent episode, is this idea of, like, why fandom seems so weird to a lot of people—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —compared to, say, sports fandom. Like, why media fandom seems weird, because a lot of people go see the movie—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —they’re like, “That was good.”
FK: [laughs] Yeah.
ELM: And they never think about it again.
FK: Right.
ELM: Or they think about it a little bit, and they’re like, “Yeah, that was fun.”
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: If, like, two weeks later I’m like, “Did you see that?” And you’re like, “Yeah, I enjoyed it.” Right?
FK: Right.
ELM: And now you have this kind of quote-unquote “fan-first perspective” on the audience—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —and this idea that they’re gonna be really into it, and they’re gonna want to see it again, and they’re gonna want every detail, and they’re gonna want all the quotes, and they’re gonna want all the things, and—you know what I mean? It’s like, “No, I think a lot of people still just wanna just go see it and have a nice time, and then think about it minimally for the rest of their lives.” You know? And, like, I don’t know. I don’t think that the studios focusing on fans, or a version of a fan—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —actually serves fans that well, you know?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: That’s, like, only one small portion of fandom, and I don’t know. I mean, I think the response to Marvel that we’ve seen over the last year or two—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —has been very interesting. I feel a real weariness from people who even three, four years ago, were still all in, even if they weren’t in love with every single film, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: They were still—and now, I know people who saw every single one, and now they just can’t—you know, they’re just like, “Who cares?” You know?
FK: Yeah, totally.
ELM: And I think that there’s a real—there’s a fatigue element that is interesting to me.
FK: Yeah, I mean, to some extent, this probably is something that goes in cycles, and I mean, just because it feels like everything does. Maybe we’ll see, like, you know, these things sort of fall away because people are tired of them, and then show back up in 30 or 40 years, and it’ll be like, “OK, great, we’re back in Franchise Land again.”
ELM: We’re not gonna have movies in 40 years, Flourish. We’re going to be fighting in the Climate Wars.
FK: Wow, way to bring it down.
ELM: I don’t know what to tell you. You’ve seen Mad Max: Fury Road. [FK laughs] A one-off blockbuster.
FK: A one-off—
ELM: Oh, are they making a sequel, though?
FK: Oh, probably. Still! Like, you know, it was—I mean, well, it also—it was part of the Mad Max franchise, so really you could argue…
ELM: It was a reboot. [FK laughs] I did not need to see the originals to enjoy that film, and I enjoyed it.
FK: Nope. And I also never saw the originals and loved the film.
ELM: I liked it a lot, and at the time I was like, “Could this be a fandom for me?” And then I was like, “No.”
FK: I just enjoyed it!
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Sometimes we can just enjoy nice things. [laughs]
ELM: I thought about it for, like, a couple of days after, which is more than, you know—which, usually I only do about, like, you know, independent films. [laughs]
FK: [laughs] I mean, all of this is interesting to me because we’re talking about this at the same time—and obviously, it’s one thing to be saying, like—it’s a different thing to be talking about TV than about movies and, you know, so put in a pin in all of the sort of larger economic stuff that we’re really talking about here. But from a personal perspective, this is—we’re talking about this at the same time as I’m living through the Star Trek renaissance of, like, a billion Star Trek shows at all times, and I’m not feeling fatigued by that. I wanna hesitate before saying that, like, as a trend, everything is happening—like, it all happens at once. Like, “Everyone’s sick of big, trending fandom things, and so then every fandom’s gonna tank that’s related to a long-term franchise, and they all kind of suck, and we’re all tired of it—”
ELM: Sure.
FK: “—and it’s all gonna go away.” Like, I don’t actually think that’s true. I think maybe it’s true if we’re talking about sort of the trying to make big blockbuster movies at this scale, but maybe it’s not. I don’t know.
ELM: Yeah, I mean, I—
FK: I just, I wanna hesitate before making these large statements, because I realized, as I was saying it, I was like, “But wait, I’m also enjoying this other very franchise-y thing.”
ELM: Hmm, I’m gonna argue a little with that. TV and film are not the same.
FK: I said that!
ELM: I know you said that, but I’m gonna say it harder, and—[laughs]
FK: [laughs] OK.
ELM: You know, similarly, the Star Wars stuff, the Star Wars shows—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Obviously, people have mixed responses to some of them, but it seems like there is—I don’t know. It seems like there’s a lot of general goodwill towards that.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: You know, these two franchises pumping out television content, specifically.
FK: Right.
ELM: And I think that one thing that we’ve talked about with the changes from the pandemic, though I feel like some of this was already happening, and I’m curious what’s gonna happen the next time a Star Wars film comes out—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —is this kind of big, tentpole thing seems to be on the decline. And even, like, in Marvel. You know, they’ve still had big movies come out, and obviously Black Panther’s doing very well right now.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But it did really feel like they put so much into, like, Endgame. It’s like, the biggest, the “you need to see it”—
FK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ELM: Like, the biggest countdown, right? And then after that, it became less of a spectacle launch kind of thing, right? You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: And so I think there is a big difference between these big movies, with these kind of short windows to show that it’s a smash success, right?
FK: Yes.
ELM: Even if there’s a long tail. Versus, like, enjoying the wide range of—you know, you have mixed feelings about the Star Trek content, but you’re still gonna see it all, [FK laughs] right? You know?
FK: I sure am. [laughs]
ELM: So it’s like—but also, it’s a lot less pressure. It’s not like the new Star Trek movie comes out once every two to three years and that’s what you get, and do you like it or do you hate it?
FK: Right.
ELM: And do you need to see it the first weekend to prove to them that you love it, you know?
FK: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that’s all right. And, you know, I mean the other thing is, maybe the pandemic did kind of a reset, because before the pandemic, there was a lot of difficulty around—frankly, there were so many large blockbuster tentpole movies that it was hard to get a date that didn’t conflict with anything.
ELM: Right, right.
FK: You know? [laughs] I mean, like—
ELM: And the pandemic calendar that they kept leaking and shifting everything around and pushing back, right?
FK: Yeah. Like, and so with all the pushbacks, and it just feels like there’s fewer movies. I don’t know if it’s true. But it feels to me like there’s just fewer movies coming out on the big screen.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: You know? And I think maybe that’s actually kind of a good thing. It’s weird, it’s bad, when you have a situation where every single, like, major weekend for a movie to release, there are multiple really huge movies going head-to-head. That doesn’t feel like it’s actually…
ELM: Maybe there should be fewer movies.
FK: Yeah! Maybe. [laughs] Maybe.
ELM: Yeah, but I mean, like, I don’t know. Talk about the middle again. You know, like, there’s some that are going onto streaming—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —that I would’ve loved to see in theaters. And it’s not the same. I’m sorry, like, I know there’s a lot of reasons why people like to watch stuff on their TV. But, like, I don’t know, like a rom-com or whatever, I would like to watch that in the theaters. You know? We used to do that all the time back in the day, right?
FK: Yeah…
ELM: I went to go see Meet the Parents in the cinema.
FK: Yeah, moviegoing was fun.
ELM: And honestly, that made the movie a lot—if I had watched Meet the Parents on TV—
FK: Right.
ELM: —that would not be enjoyable.
FK: Yeah, I think that being in a movie theater makes movies more immersive, whatever kind of movie they are. And so I generally find that I enjoy movies more when I see them in a theater than when I see them on my TV, because when I see them on my TV, it’s so easy to get distracted.
ELM: There’s two good places to see movies.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Theaters.
FK: Uh-huh.
ELM: Planes.
FK: Yeah. That’s right.
ELM: And you’re trapped in both places.
FK: You’re trapped in both places, and so you’re forced to totally focus on whatever that thing is.
ELM: Oh man, I watched some movies—can I tell you, do you know what I watched on the plane back from Europe? Oh, it was incredible.
FK: What—what did you watch?
ELM: It was really—I was like, “This is an eight-hour flight. I’m gonna watch three movies.”
FK: Uh-huh.
ELM: Right? I committed early on. You really gotta start, you know, if you’re gonna make that happen.
FK: Uh-huh.
ELM: So I watched Easy A. I’d never seen that before.
FK: Oh yeah, Easy A, yup.
ELM: It felt of its time, which was 2006.
FK: It very much feels of its time. But—
ELM: I’m glad I saw it.
FK: Yup.
ELM: Now I’ve seen it.
FK: Yup.
ELM: And then I watched Sunset Boulevard. Extraordinary!
FK: Had you never seen Sunset Boulevard before?
ELM: I had not!
FK: Oh, what a treat you had.
ELM: I—the—look, that’s my—she’s my style icon [FK laughs] in every way. Oh my God, her car? Her leopard-print upholstered car?
FK: Oh yeah.
ELM: I wish that was my car. OK, and then I saw—and this is the one that I can’t—if high-school me had actually watched this, it would have been game over, and I don’t understand why I didn’t watch it in high school. Talented Mr. Ripley.
FK: Yeah, that seems like something that high-school you would have really loved.
ELM: I mean, 30-something me also loved it, but—
FK: [laughing] Also really loved it.
ELM: God, he kept doing the—he kept [laughs]—it’s like, by the end, you’re like, “Please stop doing it.” You know? [FK laughs] I won’t say what, in case someone hasn’t seen it. But, you know, by the end, you’re like, “Oh no! Tom, no!” Great. Great stuff.
FK: Well, I’m glad you experienced these things. I feel like we’re now getting a little bit far afield, [ELM laughs] and maybe it’s time to wind up. So, I don’t know. I mean, coming out of talking about this, I don’t necessarily feel like I have a good handle on how to make predictions about, like, the international movie market or anything like that. But I do think that, I don’t know. I feel kind of confirmed in the idea that some things can just be fun. They don’t have to be a fandom thing.
ELM: Yeah, I agree. I don’t know if that’s going to—the commentary about having “no cultural impact” continues.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And, like, I don’t really get that.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: I don’t know. Yeah, it’s easy—I mean, I guess it’s easy to be like, “Yeah, how much money does cultural impact make? And how much money is this making right now?” You know, is money the be-all and end-all?
FK: Yeah, and we could also talk about, like, I don’t know. How much cultural impact did this thing that you really love have in China? Or in India? Or in—you know what I mean? Some of these things, it had a bunch of cultural impact, and other ones it didn’t have any. We could talk about this as a global issue, we can talk about this as all sorts of things.
ELM: OK, but let’s say Avatar did have no cultural impact.
FK: Sure.
ELM: Who cares? Who cares!
FK: Who cares! [laughs] Yeah, you know, here’s how I feel about it, and I do know that I am fully immersed in this because of having worked on it, but I went, I saw, and I shit myself with my mouth wide open.
ELM: [laughs] He literally paid you to say that.
FK: [laughs] I have not been paid to say anything about this in a long time.
ELM: He retroactively—it was future—it was like, he was like, “Someday, when you’ve left this job—”
FK: Yeah. That’s not how that works.
ELM: “Flourish—” He looked you right in the eye and he was like, “Give it to me straight, Flourish.”
FK: [laughs] This is Elizabeth’s fiction. This has never happened. I’m going to—
ELM: As I said, I could be writing fanfiction about you, and you would never know.
FK: Oh my God, I am hanging up on you right now.
ELM: All right, well, it’s been real, Flourish. Can’t wait to have a few drinks and watch Avatar: The Way of Water.
FK: Oh my God, I’ll talk to you later. [laughs]
ELM: OK, bye!
FK: Bye.
[Outro music]