u/lit_geek

We've got A Star is Born and The Thomas Crown Affair -- what else belongs on the list?

Versions of this idea have been pitched before, but, as we're about to start the longest miniseries in the podcast's history, I was just thinking that it could be fun to follow it up with a whole miniseries of one-offs. There are a lot of ways you could do it, but this is the list of a dozen films from actors who only ever directed one movie that I think would be fun for them to cover:

• Charles Laughton, Night of the Hunter (1955)
• Marlon Brando, One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
• Barbara Loden, Wanda (1970)
• Bruce Lee, The Way of the Dragon (1972)
• Eddie Murphy, Harlem Nights (1989)
• Bill Murray, Quick Change (1990)
• Dan Ackroyd, Nothing But Trouble (1991)
• Steven Segal, On Deadly Ground (1994)
• Tom Green, Freddy Got Fingered (2001)
• Drew Barrymore, Whip It! (2009)
• John Carroll Lynch, Lucky (2017)
• Scarlett Johansson, Eleanor the Great (2025)

What do you think? Any that you would add or subtract?

This came up in a conversation on another thread, but it's crazy how Community served as an incubator for people who would dominate blockbuster movies. Just looking at Donald Glover (actor), Ludwig Göransson (composer), Chris McKenna (writer), Justin Lin (director), and Joe and Anthony Russo (executive producers/directors), the movies that they've made since Community came out have grossed a combined $26.9 billion:

1	Release Date	People	Movie	Worldwide Box Office
2	2011-11-23	Ludwig Göransson	30 Minutes or Less	$37,800,000
3	2011-11-23	Donald Glover	The Muppets	$171,800,000
4	2011-04-29	Justin Lin	Fast Five	$626,100,000
5	2012-07-12	Donald Glover	Shut Up and Play the Hits	N/A (limited-release documentary; negligible theatrical gross)
6	2013-07-12	Ludwig Göransson	Fruitvale Station	$17,400,000
7	2013-08-07	Ludwig Göransson	We're the Millers	$270,000,000
8	2013-07-19	Justin Lin	Fast & Furious 6	$788,700,000
9	2013-07-26	Donald Glover	The To Do List	$2,443,058
10	2014-04-04	Ludwig Göransson	Top Five	$26,300,000
11	2014-10-16	Ludwig Göransson	Stretch	N/A (direct-to-VOD; no theatrical release)
12	2014-10-17	Ludwig Göransson	The Town That Dreaded Sundown	~$1,000,000 (limited release)
13	2014-04-04	Joe & Anthony Russo	Captain America: The Winter Soldier	$714,400,000
14	2015-02-27	Donald Glover	The Lazarus Effect	$46,600,000
15	2015-07-01	Donald Glover	Magic Mike XXL	$122,600,000
16	2015-10-02	Donald Glover	The Martian	$630,200,000
17	2015-11-25	Ludwig Göransson	Creed	$173,600,000
18	2016-04-06	Ludwig Göransson	Central Intelligence	$216,900,000
19	2016-05-06	Joe & Anthony Russo	Captain America: Civil War	$1,155,000,000
20	2016-07-22	Justin Lin	Star Trek Beyond	$343,500,000
21	2017-05-19	Ludwig Göransson	Everything, Everything	$61,900,000
22	2017-02-10	Chris McKenna	The Lego Batman Movie	$312,000,000
23	2017-07-07	Donald Glover, Chris McKenna	Spider-Man: Homecoming	$880,200,000
24	2017-12-20	Chris McKenna	Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle	$962,100,000
25	2018-02-16	Ludwig Göransson	Black Panther	$1,347,000,000
26	2018-03-02	Ludwig Göransson	Death Wish	$50,900,000
27	2018-04-27	Joe & Anthony Russo	Avengers: Infinity War	$2,048,400,000
28	2018-05-25	Donald Glover	Solo: A Star Wars Story	$393,200,000
29	2018-06-08	Ludwig Göransson	Slice	N/A (limited release; negligible theatrical gross)
30	2018-07-06	Chris McKenna	Ant-Man and the Wasp	$622,700,000
31	2018-11-21	Ludwig Göransson	Creed II	$214,200,000
32	2018-10-05	Ludwig Göransson	Venom	$856,100,000
33	2019-04-26	Joe & Anthony Russo	Avengers: Endgame	$2,797,500,000
34	2019-07-12	Chris McKenna	Spider-Man: Far From Home	$1,131,900,000
35	2019-07-12	Donald Glover	Guava Island	N/A (Amazon Prime release; no theatrical box office)
36	2019-07-19	Donald Glover	The Lion King	$1,663,000,000
37	2020-08-26	Ludwig Göransson	Tenet	$365,000,000
38	2021-02-26	Joe & Anthony Russo	Cherry	N/A (Apple TV+ release; theatrical gross not publicly disclosed)
39	2021-03-26	Ludwig Göransson	Bad Trip	N/A (Netflix release; no meaningful theatrical gross)
40	2021-06-25	Justin Lin	F9 (F9: The Fast Saga)	$726,200,000
41	2021-12-17	Chris McKenna	Spider-Man: No Way Home	$1,921,900,000
42	2022-03-11	Ludwig Göransson	Turning Red	N/A (Disney+ release; no theatrical box office)
43	2022-07-15	Joe & Anthony Russo	The Gray Man	$454,023
44	2022-11-11	Ludwig Göransson	Black Panther: Wakanda Forever	$859,200,000
45	2023-04-21	Chris McKenna	Ghosted	N/A (Apple TV+ release; no theatrical box office)
46	2023-06-02	Donald Glover	Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse	$690,500,000
47	2023-07-21	Ludwig Göransson	Oppenheimer	$975,800,000
48	2024-12-20	Donald Glover	Mufasa: The Lion King	$718,000,000
49	2026-04-01	Donald Glover	The Super Mario Galaxy Movie	$992,000,000
50	2025-03-14	Joe & Anthony Russo	The Electric State	N/A (Netflix release; no theatrical box office)
51	2025-04-18	Ludwig Göransson	Sinners	$371,368,759
52	2026-05-22	Ludwig Göransson	The Mandalorian and Grogu	$342,200,000
53	2026-07-17	Ludwig Göransson	The Odyssey	$264,100,000 (opening weekend)
54	2026-07-31	Chris McKenna	Spider-Man: Brand New Day	N/A (unreleased)
55	2026-12-18	Joe & Anthony Russo	Avengers: Doomsday	N/A (unreleased)
56	TOTAL			$26,912,165,840

The next three episodes will be the fifth time that the podcast has covered three or more new movies in a row (defining "new" as movies released within a year of the episode coming out). The other four times were:

• Benedetta 12/12/2021
• West Side Story 12/19/2021
• The Matrix Resurrections 1/2/2022

_______

• Three Thousand Years of Longing 9/11/2022
• Pinocchio 9/18/2022
• The Woman King 9/25/2022

_______

• The Boy and the Heron 12/10/2023
• Maestro 12/17/2023
• Wonkquaman 12/25/2023
• Ferrari 1/7/2024

_______

• Honey Don't 12/7/2025
• Ella McKay 12/14/2025
• Avatar: Fire and Ash 12/21/2025
• Is This Thing On? 1/4/2026
• No Other Choice 1/11/2026

There would have been another time in August 2024, with Trap an the two Horizon films, had Horizon Part 2 come out as originally scheduled. That would have also been the only other time they would have covered two new movies from the same director in a miniseries.

* edited to fix my shameful Ella McKay omission.

• Stardust
• Babylon A.D.
• Sherlock Holmes
• Kick-Ass
• Robin Hood
• Green Lantern
• John Carter
• Shazam!
• Cruella
• Murder Mystery 2
• Dune: Prophesy
• The Penguin

If you need a supporting antagonist in a big-budget genre project that people are probably going to forget about a week after they've seen it, accept no substitutes.

(I actually really like him, but boy has he played a lot of villains in mediocre movies and TV shows based on existing genre IP.)

I was on vacation last week so I only just caught Disclosure Day this weekend, and have been pretty successful at avoiding the discourse until now, so I'm not sure if others have noted this, but I was stricken by the parallels between the film and the Wachowskis' Netflix show. Both use a sci-fi premise involving telepathic connections between people to explore radical empathy; both are "chase" stories about evading a quasi-governmental private corporation that is managing a vast conspiracy to cover up the sci-fi premise, and both feature a bearded older white man as the antagonist, who uses the telepathic gifts to jump into characters' minds and appear before them. Those are obviously tropes and ideas that Spielberg and others have played with before, and I doubt it's a conscious influence, but as a lover of Sense8 and the Wachowskis in general, I enjoyed seeing Spielberg invoke those tropes better than just about anyone has in years (minus the rainbow strap-on). The world needs more open-hearted sci-fi adventures.