The 10 Most Misused Stars in Hollywood and the Gnarly Magic of ‘Send Help’

The Big Picture

The Ringer

Tv & Film

4.2 • 5.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2026

⏱️ 112 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sean and Amanda open the show by covering A24's win in the 72-hour bidding war for Olivia Wilde’s ‘The Invite’ at the Sundance Film Festival (1:16), react to the leaked photographs from the upcoming biopics about the Beatles (5:33), and share their brief takeaways from the BAFTA nominations (8:38). Then, they cover ‘Mercy,’ starring Chris Pratt, which they found to be an evil and disastrous misfire (17:01). Next, they talk through Sam Raimi’s ‘Send Help’, starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien, and celebrate Raimi's use of his signature trademarks to explore some really morally thorny material (41:34). Finally, they use McAdams’s wonderful performance as a segue to have a conversation about the 10 most misused stars in Hollywood (1:00:16). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	300 years of expertise in every twining sleep blend.
0:06.0	100 hours of craft in every cup.
0:10.0	Eight natural ingredients in every sip.
0:14.0	One night of winding down in every drop.
0:18.0	Your moment of serenity. Brought to you by twining sleep.
0:23.6	Twinings.
0:25.6	Alive in every drop.
0:27.6	The I'm Sean Fennacy.
0:47.8	And this is the Big Picture A Conversation show about sending help to some of the best movie stars around.
0:52.5	I see what you did there.
0:53.3	Thank you.
0:53.7	Today on the show we're talking about two late January genre movies, the AI courtroom
0:59.0	drama crime thriller, Mercy, starring Chris Pratt and the survivalist workplace satire
1:05.7	send help starring Rachel McAdams.
1:07.4	Which movie star do you think will be sending help to on this episode?
1:10.4	They show two very different potential futures for movies, so we dig into both of those. Send Help has also inspired an exercise. It's built around McAdams, and we love Rachel McAdams. We do. And there's not enough movies with Rachel McAdams. And trying to figure out why that is. I have some theories. I'm sure you do as well. but we're going to talk about the other movie stars that have been around and with us for some time
1:30.3	who are misused,
1:32.2	underutilized, not identified, and supported properly. Are you excited about that exercise?
1:38.4	I am. Listen, Rachel McAdams, be in more movies. Yeah. Before we get into that, we need to talk
1:43.5	about a couple of quick things in the news.
1:45.1	Okay.
1:46.0	First thing is, first big Sundance acquisition happened. Yeah. It's called The Invite. I mentioned this to you earlier on the show. I got a lot of texts about this movie when it's screened over the weekend at Sundance. $10 plus million. A-24 picked it up. Olivia Wilde, who is the director of this movie,
	...

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