Kung Fu Panda and The Fast X
The Fast and the Furious take off this May with Fast X! With the announcement of Kung Fu Panda's fourth installment, Film Center takes a look at franchise longevity. Fast X is sure to make money as the 10th installment, but can Kung Fu Panda pull off a fourth masterpiece? Why do some franchises last while the good die young? Listen in to find out in this episode of Film Center.
Transcript
This is Film Center, your number one show for real entertainment industry news.
Speaker:No fluff.
Speaker:All facts.
Speaker:Now here are your anchors, Derek Johnson II and Nicholas Killian, everybody.
Speaker:Welcome to Film Center, your number one place for entertainment industry news.
Speaker:My name is Derek Johnson.
Speaker:I second.
Speaker:I'm Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:And Nicholas, what are we getting into today?
Speaker:Today we're going to be talking about the con.
Speaker:Food Panda Franchise and the Fast and the Furious franchise.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Kung Fu Panda and Fast and Furious.
Speaker:Kung Fu Panda has just, has announced a a fourth movie.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And people are already talking about Fast X that's gonna be coming out in may.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Two franchises.
Speaker:That, to be fair, I didn't think either one of these would
Speaker:be reaching these numbers.
Speaker:I, no.
Speaker:First of all, Kung fu Panda.
Speaker:It felt like a one off and then, Fast and furious.
Speaker:I'll be honest, I was six when that came out to the first one.
Speaker:Yeah, I was pretty young myself, but I have enjoyed it over the years.
Speaker:So what are we looking at when it comes to these two franchises?
Speaker:So basically what we're looking at is quality versus quantity.
Speaker:So we have the quality.
Speaker:Me personally thinking that it's the Kung Fu Panda franchise is
Speaker:the quality one because obviously it came out six years afterwards.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:But there's only three completed movies of Kung Fu Panda versus the nine.
Speaker:Or 10, whichever you would want to say, versus the Fast and Furious franchise.
Speaker:Well, I think that if you're including Hobbs and Shaw it's 10.
Speaker:Cuz that's a spinoff though.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:There's 10 movies in the Fast and Furious.
Speaker:Franchise, but there's only nine in like the main line.
Speaker:And also I assume that you're not including the Kung Fu Panda TV show.
Speaker:No, no, no.
Speaker:Definitely not.
Speaker:Just to, we're just talking about movies right here.
Speaker:Now you can include the offset of the Hobbs and Shaw, but it's still a movie.
Speaker:Right, Kung Fu Panda one did just come out five years later, but I
Speaker:still believe it's Anthony Bedley franchise in terms of quality.
Speaker:According to the Washington Post, Kung Fu Panda was not only wildly successful here,
Speaker:grossing at 631 million against a 130.
Speaker:Million dollar budget, which let's be honest, no one
Speaker:expected, Dreamworks guaranteed.
Speaker:Did not expect it was going to blow up like it did.
Speaker:, Disney make their , animated movies expecting them to do well.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Dreamworks.
Speaker:Makes their animated movies hoping that they do well.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Some of them have famously not done well.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But they will.
Speaker:They always have some that just blow up unexpectedly.
Speaker:No one expected kung fu Panda to have the lineage that it does.
Speaker:And the more famous example would be from Shrek, right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They did not expect Shrek to be as big as it was.
Speaker:Shrek has several movies in its own franchise, and then I
Speaker:don't Did it have a TV show?
Speaker:I feel like, so, yeah.
Speaker:I feel like there was a TV spinoff.
Speaker:The crazy part was, is that the part was given to Chris Farley.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But Chris Farley had recorded like 90% of it.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:R i p man.
Speaker:And then, you know, unfortunately, yeah, he, he passed away.
Speaker:So then that's when Mike Meyer stepped in and cha and, you know, he did,
Speaker:you know, he did the entire thing.
Speaker:And then one, they were animating it and he was like, you know what,
Speaker:I'm redoing the entire voice.
Speaker:And yeah, it costs like, like $4 million or something.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Just like, cause he was like, I wanna do a different accident.
Speaker:And they're like, are you serious?
Speaker:But when it comes to Dreamworks, they don't really know they're going
Speaker:to pop off like that until they do.
Speaker:They just hope that they do.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And then like I said, that was according to numbers.com.
Speaker:But one of the things I thought was really crazy was the fact
Speaker:that China was so confused at how.
Speaker:Hollywood made such a great Chinese movie without being, you know, Chinese.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And they even interviewed one of the guys, he was a sports marketing manager,
Speaker:and he said for, for the Washington Post.
Speaker:And the guy was like, listen, the Chinese have given up on the traditional
Speaker:culture that was left to us by our.
Speaker:Our ancestors.
Speaker:That's why no one cares about what we have.
Speaker:And then they talked to another college student and he was like,
Speaker:listen, everybody's too busy and these are his words, not mine.
Speaker:Worshiping the Western trends that we have out here, rather
Speaker:than looking at what they have.
Speaker:These are pe, these are people from China.
Speaker:These are people from China.
Speaker:That's amazing.
Speaker:Like in China, you know, , the China as the entertainment industry itself,
Speaker:we're not gonna pretend like they haven't been making movies, right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But it's so obvious the power of Western filmmaking and the
Speaker:western entertainment industry.
Speaker:It is our number one export.
Speaker:So much so that,, a lot of China and a lot of other countries invest very heavily.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:In American entertainment because it makes so much money.
Speaker:And it's quite interesting to look at.
Speaker:In fact, they even said that, wasn't it Kung Fu Panda that made them
Speaker:get really more into animation?
Speaker:Yes, yes.
Speaker:Well, and then also, like you said, let's not pretend like the,
Speaker:like China doesn't make movies.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But the thing was, is they were saying like the average movie costs them
Speaker:about 1.5 million to make according to the same Washington Post article.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:Kung Fu Panda had 130 million budget.
Speaker:Well, it's because, you know, over here, first of all, shout out to Chinese
Speaker:Americans who worked on this, right, who worked on this film, and were like
Speaker:hey, some of this is not accurate.
Speaker:We're gonna help you make this right.
Speaker:More accurate.
Speaker:And as soon as I heard there's a movie with Jack Black and Jackie
Speaker:Chan in it, I don't know how that's not going to be successful.
Speaker:I don't get it.
Speaker:How would that not do great And plus Dustin Hoffman, dude, I
Speaker:was about to say is also in it.
Speaker:Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Lou, Seth Rogan as Mantis.
Speaker:Angelina Jolie as Tigris.
Speaker:Now, we've talked about this before with star studded cast, but it's so good,
Speaker:, you're gonna watch this movie, dude Crane.
Speaker:Is David Cross?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:This the, the cast is completely stacked and that's why I was saying like the cast.
Speaker:Of Kung Fu Panda versus the cast of Fast and the Furious is not even,
Speaker:you can't even compare the two.
Speaker:Do you have Dustin Hoffman, man to be?
Speaker:Okay, so wait a minute though, to be fair, you gotta consider
Speaker:the beginnings of each one.
Speaker:Let's not like Fast and Furious is big now, right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But very humble beginnings.
Speaker:Very humble beginnings.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The original, let's be serious here.
Speaker:The original Fast, the Furious movie, they were stealing VHS players.
Speaker:Everybody knows it was a, like, it was a early thousands movie
Speaker:that was meant to be one of those.
Speaker:Just throw away movies like Cody Banks, remember the, the right.
Speaker:Cody Banks or Kangaroo Jack.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Kangaroo Jack.
Speaker:This early thousands where it's like, we're gonna make a movie.
Speaker:It's going to be funny, it's gonna get us some dollars, and then
Speaker:we're gonna move on with our lives.
Speaker:, the first budget for fast Ne Furious.
Speaker:This is coming from all my numbers come from the numbers that come.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Ironically.
Speaker:And then it's the best source.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then Statistica.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:I can run through each one of these numbers, but there's a lot of 'em, so
Speaker:I'm gonna save you from them instead.
Speaker:I'm just gonna say the first one the budget was 38 million,
Speaker:but grossed 206 million, right?
Speaker:That's, and none of these includes, that's any DVD sales.
Speaker:This is back in the early thousands, the more recent one F nine.
Speaker:The budget was completely different.
Speaker:200 million.
Speaker:The budgets were steadily increasing.
Speaker:Everyone can see that, right?
Speaker:It started off with stealing VHS tapes.
Speaker:Next thing you know, they're throwing a, a safe up and down
Speaker:the road and stuff like that.
Speaker:They're in Dubai and stuff, so the, weren't they in space at some point?
Speaker:That was the last one.
Speaker:They went to space, which is on like a duct tape car.
Speaker:Like there's a joke that's crazy in the there's a joke in F nine
Speaker:where he is like, oh, what?
Speaker:I think we're immortal because that's how ridiculous things have been.
Speaker:So their last budget was 200 million for F nine, but then
Speaker:they grossed 720 million, right?
Speaker:That's correct.
Speaker:It's like a money printing machine.
Speaker:Their two biggest successes are F seven, well, it's not
Speaker:called F seven, but the seventh.
Speaker:Vast and Furious.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Made it was made for 190 million.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Do you, I want you to guess how much it made.
Speaker:It's, it's the highest grossing one for made like $800 million higher,
Speaker:$900 million higher, a billion dollars higher, more than a billion dollars.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:In the box office?
Speaker:No, no DVD sales.
Speaker:Higher.
Speaker:1.2 billion higher.
Speaker:You are lying.
Speaker:No, I'm not lying.
Speaker:You're lying.
Speaker:I'm not.
Speaker:I'm not.
Speaker:It made 2 billion.
Speaker:No, it's too high.
Speaker:1.5.
Speaker:That's, and what was the, against what?
Speaker:A one 90 budget.
Speaker:$190 million budget.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:, you wanna talk about it made over a billion dollars in profit because
Speaker:if it made, I'm rounding down.
Speaker:That's that, that five has some change after it, man.
Speaker:1.5 billion.
Speaker:That has changed because you think about the marketing budget and everybody else
Speaker:has gotta get paid, you know, whatever.
Speaker:But they still made that one movie made over a billion dollars in profit now.
Speaker:Then how much did what, what was, what was the how much did Kungfu Panda make?
Speaker:So, overall, well, I'm sorry.
Speaker:Hold on.
Speaker:Let, let me say there is another one that is kind of crazy too.
Speaker:So the budget for the eighth Fast and Furious was actually higher
Speaker:than the ninth one, ironically.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:How much did it make the budget for?
Speaker:The eighth one was 250 million.
Speaker:Right, okay.
Speaker:But how much do you think the, the profit was.
Speaker:A billion dollars more.
Speaker:What's that?
Speaker:One thing is bigger.
Speaker:Bigger.
Speaker:It's 1.2.
Speaker:1.212.
Speaker:So multiple times crazy.
Speaker:They broke into over a billion dollars at the box office, and the crazy part
Speaker:is, is that Kung Fu Panda in total?
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:Has grossed over $1.8 billion Against Total?
Speaker:Yeah, total.
Speaker:All against a 420 million budget.
Speaker:That's like one fast and furious money, so leaving them against each other.
Speaker:1.38 billion.
Speaker:So that means one, what was it, fast?
Speaker:Seven you said.
Speaker:Well, we have Fast that made Fast Point, fast.
Speaker:1.5, they're gonna fast eight that weigh 1.2.
Speaker:The most recent one of F nine is going to be about 720 million.
Speaker:Although Hobbs and Shaw, they, their budget was also 200 million, but
Speaker:they actually made more than F nine.
Speaker:They made 760 million.
Speaker:We were talking gross here.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So what would you say total, all the fast and and furious movies have made?
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So if we're including Homs and Shaw, which I will Okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:In this case, right?
Speaker:Cause we were talking about films, right?
Speaker:Even though it is technically a spinoff still in the world, and it wasn't like
Speaker:it was a spinoff and they had like, multiple movies, it was just one.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So, and I love how like F nine, it took us this long to say, oh,
Speaker:hey, Dom has a brother, even though he's all about family, right?
Speaker:Which is crazy.
Speaker:So total budget, I all fast and furious movies went the Hobson Sean
Speaker:spinoff 1.3 billion for budget, right?
Speaker:But they're grossing 6.5 billion.
Speaker:That's crazy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker:It's, it's a huge, huge amount , this thing is a, a money printing machine., so
Speaker:this has kept Vin Diesel's career afloat.
Speaker:What is he doing other than this?
Speaker:Seriously, I, I don't think all that much.
Speaker:And you know what's crazy?
Speaker:Like private Ryan to 20 years of fast and nefarious.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, and then I also have a I have a teacher who is really good friends
Speaker:with Vin Diesel's makeup artist.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:And she was saying that, she was like, yeah, the, this is the reason why
Speaker:Vin Diesel is culturally relevant.
Speaker:It's the Fast and the Furious movies.
Speaker:What, like, you could, you, he could literally not do anything
Speaker:else in every two years.
Speaker:Put out a Fast and Furious mo Money movie.
Speaker:And you know, it's just printing money, like you said.
Speaker:Who said who?
Speaker:No one thinks when they think Vin Diesel.
Speaker:No one.
Speaker:No, they don't.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:He's been in other movies.
Speaker:I'm having trouble thinking all Oh, he was in Reddick?
Speaker:He was in Reddick.
Speaker:Reddick, yeah.
Speaker:Keep Whatchu kill.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He was also in that babysitter style movie.
Speaker:The Pacifier.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Remember in like the mid, late.
Speaker:Thousands where for some reason the, it was this genre of films
Speaker:that was like, I'm a tough guy, but I'm here babysitting these kids.
Speaker:Or I have a daughter now.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I didn't, I didn't really, I didn't really understand that The Rock did one
Speaker:of those, Jackie Chan did one of those.
Speaker:Yeah, it was, it was like the Tooth Fairy yeah, the Rock was
Speaker:like the Tooth Fairy, I think.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Then it was like, there was one is it is like someone saw Annie and
Speaker:was like, oh, I'm gonna make movie versions of like the Annie genre.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Then they remade Annie , but you have to look at the average rating of a
Speaker:Rotten Tomatoes Fast and Furious movie.
Speaker:Are we're talking about audience scores here if you look at the Kung
Speaker:fu Panda movies, across the board.
Speaker:They're in the eighties Uhhuh.
Speaker:They're early eighties to mid eighties, which I personally
Speaker:think is a little too low.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:What is your favorite Kung fu Panda movie?
Speaker:My favorite Kung fu Panda movie was probably the second one.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Not the original.
Speaker:You gotta defend it.
Speaker:You gotta, why?
Speaker:You can't just say that, I would definitely give.
Speaker:I would say Kung Fu Panda, the original was my second favorite.
Speaker:But the thing, it's kinda like what I think when you think about Toy
Speaker:Story, the story is already developed and now it's got a jump off point
Speaker:to go wherever it wants to go.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:The Fast and Furious movies.
Speaker:There are definitely some that I'm not even like, I don't
Speaker:think I need to say it though.
Speaker:I know some people already just can imagine that some of their
Speaker:scores are low, but, well, only one of them got in the eighties.
Speaker:Just just out of the 10 movies.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Only one was in the eighties.
Speaker:What one was that?
Speaker:So it was Fast and Furious seven.
Speaker:That was the only one that had a Rotten Tomato score of in the eighties.
Speaker:But no one is watching the Fast and Furious series.
Speaker:And it's like, oh, I'm going in here, in here expecting an Oscar.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:I'm going in here expecting like, you know, that's true.
Speaker:Think diesel's gonna give us such a huge differential performance
Speaker:than anything he's ever given.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:I'm coming in here thinking that Tyrese is not going to cry.
Speaker:I'm coming in here thinking ludicrous is gonna be just phenomenal.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:It's entertainment versus.
Speaker:Quality.
Speaker:Well, they're both entertaining , Kung fu Panda is entertaining
Speaker:as well as just a quality movie.
Speaker:Yeah, but why can't you have both intertwined like Kung Fu Panda?
Speaker:I know I'm sounding kinda like a douche bag right now, but, but when
Speaker:you have both, that's called Star Wars.
Speaker:That's called Harry Potter, right?
Speaker:Where it's so big that.
Speaker:Like mult, like multiple of those movies make over a billion dollars.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:This is according to the rap, but a lot of people have heard this around town
Speaker:that the budget for Fast X ballooned to 340 million, which is dude, that's
Speaker:over a hundred, that's like 140 million more than their last movie.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, but they the only ones who could really do that., it's
Speaker:a printing machine, right?
Speaker:So it's like, oh, okay, well, You know, if it's, if it blooms up, you know,
Speaker:you're gonna make, make this money back.
Speaker:Do you think Fast X has the potential to make 2 billion?
Speaker:Like no, I don't think that, I think that part of the reason why F seven made so
Speaker:much is cuz it was kind of like promoted as if like, this was like the last one.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:And now it's kinda like a trend of doing that.
Speaker:A trend of, you know, kind of like those stores that you see around
Speaker:town and they're always closing.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:They're always going out of business.
Speaker:They always liquid eating's.
Speaker:Kind of like on Hollywood Boulevard where the, where, where isn't
Speaker:there, that one store that's just like closing everything $5.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's outside of the Chinese theater.
Speaker:Obviously it's still there, so it's been there for decades.
Speaker:It's been closing for decades, but that's, but it's a fair Furious.
Speaker:, I don't know.
Speaker:Their last movie, the fni, it's still, they made a lot of DVD sales.
Speaker:They got 34 million in DVD sales.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's last year.
Speaker:Yeah, man.
Speaker:In 2021, you're making 34 million in DVD sales.
Speaker:That's some people's, that's some movie's, budgets.
Speaker:That's crazy.
Speaker:In DVD sales, which is in 2021, right.
Speaker:When everyone, when DVDs are potentially non-existent because of streaming.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I have a theory . Kung Fu Panda was something that was
Speaker:like special and original.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It wasn't made for, the origins of them are different.
Speaker:Kung Fu Panda was made as if it was as if it was going to be like a Disney movie.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Get a great cast, phenomenal cast, get a script work on the script.
Speaker:Their script technique in Disney is that they write a script.
Speaker:Or get a rough draft of script, right?
Speaker:They make a real like it's like a storyboarded, kind of like a rough draft
Speaker:of it with temporary voices and temporary like movements and stuff like that.
Speaker:They show it to the brain trust.
Speaker:If you don't know anything about this, look up create creativity, ink.
Speaker:Which is a phenomenal book.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You were showing me the, the video of how it's like, the cycle.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How they made a toy story three, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It was, it was like the, the script.
Speaker:Then they had limited animation.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Then they put it in front of the writers, and then they gave notes, and then it's
Speaker:like a cycle, and it was just a cycle.
Speaker:Ana did a similar thing.
Speaker:That's why it's so great.
Speaker:It's phenomenal.
Speaker:I tell you, it's one of my, it's my favorite.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Dreamworks franchise.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:, out of everything.
Speaker:Dreamworks is make and they make really great stuff.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Kung fu Panda.
Speaker:Is it?
Speaker:It's phenomenal.
Speaker:The story was made with room to Grow, but it was made for not a lot of room to grow.
Speaker:It was really just made for that one movie, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker:Like, they are things that allow them to have these other movies
Speaker:keep up with the quality, right?
Speaker:It's like, okay, well we already explored how we became the
Speaker:Dragon Warrior in the first one.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:That was the first movie, like, loser Guy Becomes a Hero guy.
Speaker:Jack Black is a perfect, I hate how that's always Jack Black's character.
Speaker:There's always some fat.
Speaker:Nobody who's like, I'm gonna be cool one day, and then he becomes cool.
Speaker:It's like, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But he, he does great at it.
Speaker:Yeah, he does.
Speaker:Like when he was casted as Bowser, I was like, he's a bad guy.
Speaker:That's crazy.
Speaker:I'm sur surprised.
Speaker:I'm surprised they didn't create a Poe character just for Super Mario
Speaker:Brothers for Jack Black to play.
Speaker:Right, exactly.
Speaker:So then, you know, then they explored, okay, well who killed his parents?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Then it was like, oh, one of his parents is, you know, still alive.
Speaker:Why did they have to be separated and why is he the only panda in the first place?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But now they hear.
Speaker:Four.
Speaker:It's like, where are they gonna go with this?
Speaker:Well, the thing was is at the end of three, it took them three
Speaker:movies for him to find his family.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But it's like those seeds were there, man.
Speaker:Like, he's like, it's not like they were like, oh, okay.
Speaker:The second movie is about him freeing the country of Of, of Uganda or
Speaker:something, it wasn't something that was so completely foreign to the core story.
Speaker:Right, true.
Speaker:But so, you know, if guarantee, if Kung Fu paid two was about freeing
Speaker:the country of Uganda, people were like, what is happening?
Speaker:Like, I would not have wanted to.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:But so you have to, because they're trying to keep up the quality.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:They're digging deeper into the story, the backstory, da da da da.
Speaker:Fasting and Furious.
Speaker:It's like a TV show, man.
Speaker:It's like a Saturday TV show.
Speaker:Hey.
Speaker:There's a bad guy.
Speaker:It's like Jerry Springer.
Speaker:It's like, fight the bad guy, win over the bad guy, family, rin, rinse and repeat.
Speaker:It's, it's something you can repeat over and over and over again.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:. They're both franchises that are powerful.
Speaker:However, I don't see Kung fu Panda going the distance for 10 movies just
Speaker:because that's not what it's for.
Speaker:Do you, do you think it's done after four?
Speaker:I.
Speaker:I, to be honest, bro, I thought it was done after two.
Speaker:I have my, I have my predictions of not been the great, I thought
Speaker:it was done after two, bro.
Speaker:So I don't, I don't know.
Speaker:I don't even know what this fourth one do you know what the fourth one's about?
Speaker:So the fourth movie, according to Collider Kung Fu Panda will feature Poe leaving
Speaker:the valley of peace to go to the big city where an unexpected personification of
Speaker:evil will already be waiting for him.
Speaker:The new villain called The Chameleon is in town and the Dragon Warrior's
Speaker:new adversary is not someone he can mess around with, which makes this
Speaker:new adversary particularly dangerous, is their ability to summon enemies
Speaker:from Pose Pass, which have included one of Shifu previous students and.
Speaker:A crane called Gary Oldman,
Speaker:a crane called Gary Oldman that wanted to get rid of pandas once and for all.
Speaker:One is so.
Speaker:This seems like, what did I just say?
Speaker:With the Fast to Furious.
Speaker:It's like, do, yeah.
Speaker:Didn't I?
Speaker:Didn't I just say it's like, oh, they didn't go off to fight
Speaker:some random person somewhere.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Because that's what Fast Furious is.
Speaker:It's a rinse and repeat thing.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's a story that you don't really need to have.
Speaker:It's not really based in the character.
Speaker:The previous ones have been based in the character.
Speaker:Oh, well, you know, who is his family?
Speaker:Where did he come from?
Speaker:Who killed him?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:It's like, oh, also I gotta master some chi and grow is
Speaker:the dragon warrior, this one?
Speaker:I'm not saying he's not gonna grow as the Dragon warrior, but it doesn't sound like
Speaker:it's gonna be the same as the other ones.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, Thinking about it a little more, it makes you think like
Speaker:the story was kind of complete at the end of Kung Fu Panda three.
Speaker:I thought it was weird, the end of the first one, but it
Speaker:made too much money, so, yeah.
Speaker:I think it's dangerous to kind of go the fast and the furious route, where Fast
Speaker:and the Furious characters, everything are so entrenched and so explored that
Speaker:now they're like, well, we're gonna go to space, so we're gonna go to now.
Speaker:Now this guy has a family member you didn't know about.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Now, you know potentially dangerous.
Speaker:Yeah, I could definitely see that.
Speaker:But the last three, you know, Kung Fu Panda movies were, were
Speaker:pretty amazing in my aspect.
Speaker:And apparently everybody else is.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What do you think is the what, what, what do you, so what do
Speaker:you think might go wrong here?
Speaker:I think what could happen potentially is the fact that they stray too far away
Speaker:from the source material, or they stray too far away from what makes Kung Fu
Speaker:Panda great, which is the fact that it.
Speaker:It's all about family.
Speaker:It's all about a, you know, it's also talking about a different culture
Speaker:that we are, as Americans are really fascinated by because it's thousands
Speaker:and thousands of years of, of history, but to try and go out because what they
Speaker:might try and do is plan this out, right?
Speaker:Studios have a history of really stretching out movies.
Speaker:Past the point of Well beyond the past.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well beyond past the point of somebody wanting, somebody wanting to watch them.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You know, beating a dead horse.
Speaker:The only think, the only reason the Fast the Furious works like that is because
Speaker:everyone knows what it's going to be.
Speaker:It's not, it's not a secret.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's not like, oh, this is gonna be this.
Speaker:The same high quality.
Speaker:Like you don't go in, like I said earlier, you don't go in that fast furious movie.
Speaker:To be for the highest quality, you go there to be entertained.
Speaker:Well, I think the reason why Fast and the Furious also gets away with
Speaker:it being the way it is, is that it does not take itself seriously.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like they even, like you said, even in the last movie, they're like, Hey
Speaker:man, aren't we kind of like immortal?
Speaker:Like they're breaking the fourth wall saying, listen, I get how ridiculous these
Speaker:stories are, but you still keep seeing them, so we're gonna keep making them.
Speaker:Right that mean for people like me who are quote unquote action trash, which
Speaker:means if it's an action movie, oh, love.
Speaker:It doesn't really matter what it is.
Speaker:I'm probably gonna see it.
Speaker:But that's the thing, like Kung fu pan takes itself like really seriously.
Speaker:And it's like, I'm going to give you a really high quality movie.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But if you take yourself seriously, you can't do things that are, you know,
Speaker:like you, you get to know your lane.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Which, which.
Speaker:Maybe it's not as sustainable actually.
Speaker:It's not as sustainable as just being like, like you said, action trash.
Speaker:It's proven like it's been proven again and again.
Speaker:Longevity is king.
Speaker:Yes, longevity is king.
Speaker:It used to be longevity, meaning DVD sales, right?
Speaker:People were still buying DVDs.
Speaker:They wanna watch a movie that was not in theaters.
Speaker:Now it's not like that, right?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:So you need to just keep producing.
Speaker:And the crazy part is that fast and and furious.
Speaker:Like when those movies come out, there's no other giant.
Speaker:Blockbuster movies with as many cars or people that you know, there'll be
Speaker:stuff like, I don't know, like the Rocks rampage or something like that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But you don't really know that character or any of those characters.
Speaker:Like first of all, it's based off a video game.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Second of all, based off a video game.
Speaker:And plus the Rock plays in it.
Speaker:Like, no, no disrespect to the Rock, but it's like, are you, is he really
Speaker:gonna give you an Oscar winning performance based off a video game?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's all.
Speaker:But you're not really, well, to be fair, you're not expecting it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:You know, it's like, eh, compared to the Fast and Furious where it's like,
Speaker:oh, at least I know these people ? Yeah.
Speaker:You grew up with these people.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'd rather watch my best friend jump over an explosion than some rando, yeah.
Speaker:Some experimental art film that could potentially be very
Speaker:high class and stuff like that.
Speaker:Yeah, and especially they've gotten so far they can't really go off story
Speaker:cuz the story ended so long ago.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:, like you said, the story started with them stealing VCRs.
Speaker:, it's not really much of a story to begin with.
Speaker:Right, exactly.
Speaker:It's a Saturday morning where you know the good guys versus the badass
Speaker:and they win Kung fu Panda has a way deeper meaning man, unfortunately,
Speaker:because it's a deeper meaning.
Speaker:You don't have that far to go.
Speaker:Yeah, you don't have, you don't have that repeat success.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Alright.
Speaker:What are your predictions for the outcome of fx?
Speaker:I think fast X, since you said it, it spent so much money.
Speaker:370 million, right?
Speaker:340 million.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:340 million.
Speaker:I predict.
Speaker:That it'll probably make at least 1.7 billion.
Speaker:1.7 billion.
Speaker:Do you think it's gonna break their its record?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, I definitely think it, it might break its record, but it,
Speaker:people could be tired of it.
Speaker:Why do you think it's gonna break its record?
Speaker:Well, because studios don't typically spend more money than they need to.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Like if they, they're very stingy with their money.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They clearly make enough anyway.
Speaker:So for someone, for them to green light, oh, I'll give you an
Speaker:extra a hundred million dollars.
Speaker:Something had to happen.
Speaker:Something.
Speaker:Something had to happen for them to be able to be like, yeah, no problem.
Speaker:I'll give you a hundred million dollars more.
Speaker:Which means it could be a horrible, something horrible could have happened.
Speaker:We don't know.
Speaker:I don't know what happened.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And then so what's your prediction for a kung fu pan to four?
Speaker:I think kung fu pan de four is going to do pretty well.
Speaker:What do you think it'll berated as high or will take liked
Speaker:as much as the previous one.
Speaker:Possibly no, because it's straying away from the complete story of Kung
Speaker:Fu Pan because the, the story of Kung Fu Panda is based around Poe.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Dude, I to, I totally joked as like, I did not know the, what the Kungfu
Speaker:Panda four story was about until you just said it when you were like, oh
Speaker:yeah, cause I made it, I literally just made a joke, like, oh, if he goes
Speaker:to some random place like Uganda and then saves it, it's like, you know,
Speaker:that's not really, you know the story.
Speaker:And then you literally like, actually he goes to some random place.
Speaker:It's not Uganda, but he goes to some random place.
Speaker:Right's exactly what I just said.
Speaker:In Kung Fu Panda three , the story was pretty much complete.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So if you wanna make another movie, you have to venture outside of the universe.
Speaker:. But they could have done other things.
Speaker:, okay, we've digging the Poe, he's our main character, this, this, and that.
Speaker:He doesn't really have a ton of insecurities left.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:But there aren't so much you could poke fun at.
Speaker:You can still poke fun at his weight, even though he's a kung fu master.
Speaker:So it doesn't really, doesn't really work.
Speaker:Doesn't really track.
Speaker:You know, what he could do is you could do some stuff like, oh, He's,
Speaker:you could redefine his relationship with the five, like in the, in
Speaker:like when the five were presented.
Speaker:I remember watching the first movie and watching the trailer for the
Speaker:first movie when I was younger.
Speaker:They were like the best warriors.
Speaker:These were the guys, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker:Like, oh my gosh, they were so cool.
Speaker:Not only types of kung fu but stances in kung fu as well.
Speaker:Different, right.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:So there was so much depth to these characters they're just brimming with.
Speaker:And then in the pa and then I, it's kind of annoyed me that they
Speaker:just never like touched on it.
Speaker:Like, yeah, they could have definitely, they could have, they
Speaker:could have done some prequels, like what I would imagine you'd have to,
Speaker:they'd have to do market research.
Speaker:It's like, what if you did a standalone films for each of the Furious five
Speaker:of how they became the Furious five?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think that prequels would've been cool.
Speaker:I think that they should have.
Speaker:I think they did one for Monkey, where you met Uwe, but that wasn't a movie.
Speaker:It was like a I think it was , an episode of the TV series or something.
Speaker:Yeah, I I saw, I forgot why I saw it, but no, I was really thinking that they
Speaker:could do something more like, You know, if the Furious five feels like, cuz he's
Speaker:furious five, they mixing my franchise.
Speaker:If the five kind of feel like they're not useful or something like that,
Speaker:cuz Poe kind of has everything now.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:So then it kind of like puts a wedge between these five protectors
Speaker:where they were at once the top top of the class there once the
Speaker:people who protected everyone.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Cuz there was no Dragon Warrior.
Speaker:There was no Dragon Warrior.
Speaker:I.
Speaker:They are prestigious.
Speaker:The Dragon Warrior, were supposed to be one of them, but that was already
Speaker:kind of explored in the first movie.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:They touched on it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But I feel like it's still there.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:Like they can still go somewhere with, okay, well if you don't need
Speaker:us then you know we're gonna leave.
Speaker:Or some or something.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Have some conflict.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't know, but those are those are predictions for Fast
Speaker:X and Kungfu Kungfu pan to four.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, fast X is coming out in May, but we're gonna have to see what's
Speaker:as, as if today we have not seen it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's not.
Speaker:Of this recording anyway, so, but we'll have to see what's really
Speaker:gonna down with Kung fu Panda four.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:This has been Film Center.
Speaker:My name's Derek Johnson.
Speaker:Second.
Speaker:I'm Nicholas Killian, and we'll see you next time.
Speaker:See you.
Speaker:This has been Film Center on Comic-Con Radio.
Speaker:You can follow the show at Film Center News on all major social media platforms.
Speaker:Until next time, this has been film center.
