Tower of Babble Podcast

  • live
  • Listen
    • Tower of Babble
    • Small Screen Star Wars
  • Archive
    • Game of Thrones
    • Westworld
    • Watchmen
  • Subscribe
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • live
    • Tower of Babble
    • Small Screen Star Wars
    • Game of Thrones
    • Westworld
    • Watchmen
  • Subscribe
  • Donate
  • Contact

Tower of Babble

Discussing the goings on in geek news with a focus on film and television. We're talking about the things you care about. Characters, places and events that aren't real... but are.

  • Tower of Babble
  • Small Screen Star Wars
  • All
  • Bonus Episode
  • Fireside Chat
  • Game of Thrones Breakdown
  • Interview
  • Small Screen Star Wars
  • The Tower of Babble Podcast
  • ToB Games
  • ToB Interlude
  • Watchmen Breakdown
  • Westworld Breakdown

Episode 190 - Sequels and Spider-Man

Julian Meush December 5, 2023

With every media company in some state of crises these day, it's nice to be reminded that there are things worth looking forward to, even if it's mixed in with a lot of other crap. You really need to try these days to cut through the noise. Fortunately, at least one new trailer dropped recently that made us feel alive again, 'Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga', taking us back to the simpler times of bombastic explosions and a post-apocalyptical setting. As this weeks episode title suggests, yes it is a sequel (or I suppose a prequel as well), and yes, sequels in general have been on the top of Hollywood's mind as of late. Disney's Bob Iger, who has had a rough go of it recently, chimed in saying that Disney was going to pull back on the amount of sequels it was creating. Meanwhile, Sony, who can't help themselves, released a trailer for 'Madame Web', highlighting for everyone exactly why less sequels are needed. Julian and Jeremy discuss all of this, as well as a lay-up "Agree of Disagree" featuring Chris Nolan, which dovetails nicely into a conversation on 'Oppenheimer' to close things out. All this, and more, in the week's Tower of Babble Podcast!

If you enjoy the show please subscribe and leave a nice review on Apple Podcasts, and check out Patreon.com/TowerBabbleCast to become one of our latest patrons.

Show Notes

Movies

  • Trailers

    • Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

    • Fallout

    • House of the Dragon S2

    • Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

    • Madame Web

    • The Boys S4

  • Marvel/Disney

    • Tom Holland discusses the potential of Spider-Man 4 saying “We have been in active discussion about it. I feel very protective over Spider-Man. I won’t make another one for the sake of making another one. It will have to be worth the while of the character.”

      • This echoes Bob Iger’s recent comments about Disney wanting to be smarter about its sequel decisions after going sequel crazy as of late, saying “moving forward we will only greenlight a sequel if we believe the story that the creators want to tell is worth telling”

    • Bob Iger has been in the press a lot lately. He also recently said that their creators at Disney have lost sight of what their job should be, entertain first, not messages. He went on to add that stories infused with “positive messages for the world” can be great but that it shouldn't be the primary job.

    • A fun rumor, Sam Rami apparently is one of the top contenders for the directing job of ‘Avengers: The Kang Dynasty’ and ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’. 

  • WBD

    • David Zaslav says that it takes courage to write off movies for tax purposes. His quote: “what content is going to help us win? The content that wasn’t, we made a strategic decision on. It was difficult and painful but it was necessary.”

Agree of Disagree 

Chris Nolan on Scorsese’s comments about superhero films:

“Established titles can assure a return in audiences and give people more of what they want, and it pays for lots of other films to be made. But there always needs to be respect for the audience’s desire for something new. A healthy ecosystem in Hollywood is about balance between those two things” - AP

What We’ve Been Watching

  • Oppenheimer

  • Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey

  • Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire (4)

  • Invincible S2

  • Scavengers Reign

  • Blue Eye Samurai

  • Tower of Babble
  • Older
  • Newer
Subscribe

Support the Show

Become a Patron!
Donate


REcent Episodes

Featured
Bonus Episode - ToB Film Club - Surviving Christmas (2004)
Dec 24, 2025
Bonus Episode - ToB Film Club - Surviving Christmas (2004)
Dec 24, 2025

Happy holidays ToB Fans! Completing a string of 3 straight publicly available Film Club episodes, commemorating the show's relaunch, we finish with our annual tradition of doing a Christmas movie for December. This year, with Matt joining the show it was his choice. He went with a movie from the mid-2000s that he's revisited time and again - 'Surviving Christmas'. A Ben Affleck vehicle that comes from a rocky era of his, just one year removed from 'Gili'. Fortunately, it features a strong supporting cast, with both Catherine O'Hara and the late James Gandolfini stealing the show and preventing this from being a complete disaster. Devoid of any type of strong holiday message, we spend much of the movie indulging Affleck's character's obnoxious desires, and despite some funny moments peppered throughout and a relatively strong third act, the tonal inconsistency and unlikability of the main character leave this movie mired in mediocrity. See you all again in 2026!

Read More →
Dec 24, 2025
Episode 202 - Could Things Be Worse?
Dec 17, 2025
Episode 202 - Could Things Be Worse?
Dec 17, 2025

It is often said we're living through "unprecedented times", and I must admit that it rings true when reading the news. Normally, we're fortunate enough to be discussing the frivolous world of entertainment - shielding us from much of the dower nature of the the modern world. Unfortunately, that does not mean we are immune - this week proves there's still plenty of bad news in the entertainment world to go around. And while we try to focus on the fun stuff, sometimes the bad stuff threatens things we love, like creators, and movie theatres, and therefor must be called out. As such, Matt and Julian spend the front half of the show talking about the Netflix/WB deal, and the Disney's investment in AI. Pick your poison on that one. However, stick around, as things take a turn back to the fun as the latest in film and tv news is covered, including discussions about a new '28 Years Later' movie, a new 'Men in Black', 'Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair', and 'Stranger Things',. All this and so much more on this week's Tower of Babble Podcast!

Read More →
Dec 17, 2025
Bonus Episode - Warner Bros. Sales Chaos - Daily DVR
Dec 11, 2025
Bonus Episode - Warner Bros. Sales Chaos - Daily DVR
Dec 11, 2025

Julian joins Axel and Andy on The Daily DVR Podcast to wring out all the angst surrounding the impeding sale of Warner Bros. and their myriad of assets, including HBO, to Netflix. With Paramount still sniffing around this is far from done but all of it is far from good for fans of movies and TV.

Read More →
Dec 11, 2025
Bonus Episode - ToB Film Club - Dark City (1998)
Nov 28, 2025
Bonus Episode - ToB Film Club - Dark City (1998)
Nov 28, 2025

The term often used to describe the 1998 Alex Proyas film, 'Dark City' is "Proto-Matrix" given the many similarities between the two movies. Fair or not, they do have a lot in common but I think the comparison does a disservice to what is still a very clever and well made genre-film that largely holds up today (minus some questionable early CG effects). The 4K re-release gives it a fresh coat of paint, looking extremely sharp on modern televisions, accentuating the mostly dark and moody imagery of this sci-fi film noir, and given it's title this is all very fitting. Alex Proyas has some bid ideas here; what is the human soul? Are we the sum of our memories? Can memories be distilled into chemistry? Is love transcendent? Many of these themes are explored with depth, with answers to many of the films mysteries being laid bare in mostly satisfying way. Performances are strong, with everyone seemingly understanding the assignment, though there isn't much for the female characters to do here. Which is unfortunate as what we do get from Jennifer Connelly is intriguing, if lacking depth. On the whole, despite being pretty weird, this is still a very fun movie, if a bit silly at times, that was unfortunately overshadowed by the phenomenon that was 'The Matrix' dropping the following year.

Read More →
Nov 28, 2025

youtubetwitchfacebook-unauthtwitter-unauthapplepodcastspotify-unauthurl
  • About
  • Contact

Tower of Babble Podcast

We're a podcast network talking about the things you care about. Characters, places and events that aren't real... but are. Three friends chat about the goings on in geek news. Film and television are the focus with a variety of shows that also concentrate on gaming and comics.

, Winnipeg, Canada

youtubetwitchfacebook-unauthtwitter-unauthapplepodcastspotify-unauthurl
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Google+