Cinematic Universe

It’s our first ever Halloween Special! And by “special”, we mean it’s just a two-hander with Seb and James, and there’s no news, and we’re covering two movies in a shorter space of time than we’d normally afford to one movie. But there are good reasons for all of this, and we’re delighted to be talking about this pair of seminal early ‘90s black comedy films that happen to be based on a comic stri...

Seb and James spend a lot of time talking about corporate structure and overarching narrative coherence at Marvel, in the wake of Kevin Feige's promotion to Supreme Overlord of Everything. We also give our thoughts on the latest casting news from The Batman , the possibility of Tom Holland making it Into the Venom-Verse , those wacky The Suicide Squad set pics, and what might be going on in The Bo...

Okay, look: it’s Joker . Whatever we say about it is going to annoy somebody somewhere, right? But Seb and Caroline are joined by some bloke called Joe who apparently used to do a podcast, or something, to talk about Todd Phillips’ divisive, controversial, and possibly actually surprisingly a bit boring “not a comic book movie” comic book movie. Regular listeners will know that we don’t ordinarily...

We’re righting a longstanding wrong as we finally, finally get Steve Lacey of The Fantasticast onboard to talk about a Fantastic Four movie. Having enjoyed the original 2005 film a surprising amount, how did we feel about the Doug-Jones-cum-Laurence-Fishburne-enhanced sequel? In the news, we run through the casting announcement for The Suicide Squad , giving Seb the opportunity to talk for a while...

James finally gets his Monkey’s Paw wish, and has persuaded Seb and returning special guest Caroline Siede to watch Robert Rodriguez (and James Cameron)’s Alita: Battle Angel ! But will they find themselves surprisingly charmed by it, or just mock him relentlessly for fancying a robot? Meanwhile, the news section gives Seb the opportunity to talk about Peter Capaldi and Grant Morrison for quite a...

We're finally back doing minisodes again! Seb and James have a run through all the Marvel news out of D23, which now feels a long time ago; as does the Joker trailer, but we give our thoughts on that, which were recorded before all the post-reviews Discourse started to happen. We also have time for a quick bit of consideration of the Titans trailer and DC's televisual future. Cinematic Universe is...

We head into Cinematic Universe’s new era with one of the biggest films we’ve yet tackled – and it’s so big, we had to get TWO guests to cover it! Making their long-awaited CU debuts are Sam Clements (of 90 Minutes Or Less Film Festival and Picturehouse Podcast) and Simon Renshaw (formerly of Picturehouse Podcast). And yes, there will be Bane impressions. We also take a run through the latest comi...

Well, here we are. It's our hundredth episode, we're tackling one of the most self-referential-joke-filled superhero movies of all time - and one that some people have been waiting ages for us to do - and what's more, we've got some Extremely Significant Personal News to announce, which you'll hear at the outset. There are laughs, there's reminiscence, there are quizzes, there are listener tweets,...

Almost coinciding with its twentieth anniversary theatrical re-release, Seb and James are joined by comics critic and editor Claire Napier to look back at the Wachowskis' era-defining sci-fi classic. And if you're going "Hang on, that's not a comic book movie" or "Hang on, that's not a superhero movie", well, we get into both of those discussions, and a lot more besides. Elsewhere, with Joe tempor...

"Let's do an hour or so on the SDCC news," we said. Two and a half hours later, we emerged. Unsurprisingly, we had a lot to say about all that MCU stuff - although even when we're done with Thor: Love & Thunder , Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and all the rest, there's still plenty more to cover. We chat in depth about the Brandon Routh Flarrowverse Crisis news, and the trailers for T...

It feels like an age since we last did a Minisode, although - the Thor 4 news that landed after we recorded this notwithstanding - we didn't find ourselves with a huge amount to talk about. So why is this our longest ever minisode, longer than the Endgame trailer one, longer even than all the doubled-up ones we used to call "Megasodes"? Well, because one of the things is The Sandman , something we...

Okay, THIS time we've finally caught up with the MCU. We really have. For the first time since we began this podcast, there does not exist an MCU movie that we haven't covered. And we're celebrating with... a surprisingly large amount of argument. Yes, the reaction to Spider-Man: Far From Home is far from universal in these corridors, so tune in to find out which one of the three of us has decided...

It's been a long time coming, but we have finally - finally - caught up with the MCU (or at least we would have, if we'd got this episode produced and released before Far From Home arrived in cinemas). The last MCU film to be released before we started this podcast also happens to be one of the best and most important movies not just of this series, but of the entire genre. We've an awful lot to s...

The main part of Fox's X-Men franchise comes to an end with a film that... well, let's face it, it would be charitable to call it a whimper. We don't want to just relentlessly give Dark Phoenix a non-stop kicking, we'll try to find the good where we can... but let's just say that if you're Simon Kinberg, you probably don't want to be giving this one a listen. As usual with a new release, we've ski...

It's taken its sweet time - nearly six years! - but Bong Joon-Ho's 2013 post-apocalyptic epic is finally available legally to UK viewers, courtesy of Netflix. We might have considered it for inclusion on the podcast purely based on the number of previous comic-book-movie stars featured within, but happily, it is actually based on a comic - Jacques Lob's La Transperceneige - so it counts entirely o...

Right, we're declaring a moratorium on talking about things the writers and directors of Avengers: Endgame have said about the film after its release, although not before talking for a bit about how we're not talking about it any more. Then we've got some chat on the latest Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer, a dive into the Disney/Fox release schedule (and a sad lament for the absence of Gambit ),...

Well, this took us a while, didn't it? We missed the slot for it when it came out in cinemas, because of Spider-Verse . Then we missed the slot for it when it came out on home release, because of Endgame . And we've even had a slight delay on getting it out to you after having recorded it. But here, finally, finally, is our Aquaman episode. We promise we haven't just been avoiding talking about it...

It's been a long, long time. But the Endgame is finally here. Just like the last go around, be warned that this is ABSOLUTELY SPOILER FILLED almost from the word go . We're skipping news, we're even skipping spoiler-free, because what's the point in having spoiler-free thoughts on this? And yes, we really have done an episode that's even longer than the film. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy...

We've got a few news bits to get out of the way in this busy month for new films, so here's a slightly longer than usual mini catching up on a bunch of matters including Black Widow and Eternals casting, Hawkeye's Disney+ series, who Idris Elba might be playing in The Suicide Squad , Iain Glen being the new Bruce Wayne, and finally a belated catchup on the Joker trailer. Hosted on Acast. See acast...

It still absolutely boggles our minds that movies about both versions of Captain Marvel have come out within a month of each other, so here we are talking about DC's Actually He's Called Shazam! Now . Is it the first truly great DCEU film? What kind of a future for the series can we see spinning out of it? And isn't it good to finally be able to talk about all of the spoilery stuff that it's kept...

After a slower-than-expected March, we're kicking off a busy April with Joe and Seb on a news roundup that covers those Batman comments, the completion of the Disney/Fox deal, James Gunn's return to the MCU, Angelina Jolie's arrival in the MCU, the imminent new season of The Tick , some general TV stuff, yet more Endgame discussion, Morbius filming outside Seb's office, and yes - but we did put a...

Yes. We know. Sorry. We've had all manner of catastrophes befall this episode, leading ultimately to our having to completely re-record it having already done it once. But we got there in the end, and hey, we got there before the end of the month of the film's release! So we're sure you've all already seen Captain Marvel and formed your own opinions on it by now, but join us as we give you our tho...

Yes, we know - we haven't got the Captain Marvel episode out yet. It is on the way, we promise, but in the meantime (and after a bit of explanation at the start about those recent scheduling problems) here's a recently-recorded minisode to fill the gap, in which Joe and guest Rhys Williamson rattle through a bunch of recent news - including latest trailers for Hellboy , Dark Phoenix and Shazam , t...

We're joined by Al Kennedy of the outstanding and venerable House to Astonish comics podcast to talk about a movie that never really found its audience back in 1999, but would its satirical superheroics have landed better in the here and now? We talk one-time-only directors, corporate-sponsored superheroes, Eddie Izzard's accent... and yes, of course, that Smash Mouth song. Hosted on Acast. See ac...

It was Superbowl Sunday this week, which traditionally means an influx of absolutely massive movie trailer news. Or, at least it does in theory - in reality, it can end up being a bit like the movie equivalent of Transfer Deadline Day. Either way, and because we needed to catch up with some outstanding news matters anyway, Seb and James have roped in Den of Geek news editor Kirsten Howard to run t...