The Juiceless Fall Movie Season, ‘The Running Man,’ and ‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’

The Big Picture

The Ringer

Tv & Film

4.3 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2025

⏱️ 126 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sean and Amanda are joined by Van Lathan to cover two new releases that they collectively had mixed feelings about. Before diving in, though, they theorize about why the fall movie slate has been such a huge disappointment both commercially and critically and what it represents for the industry at large going forward (0:34). Then, they break down Edgar Wright’s new action film, ‘The Running Man,’ starring Glen Powell, which they found deeply messy but also full of impressively staged action scenes (28:01). Next, they unpack the new magician legacy sequel ‘Now You See Me: Now You Don't,’ starring Jesse Eisenberg and Dave Franco. They explain their personal relationship with the original films and why Rosamund Pike was born to play an evil diamond heiress villain, and they hypothesize about what its potential box office chances are (59:23). Finally, Edgar Wright joins Sean to discuss the evolving landscape of studio filmmaking, how he constructs an elaborate action set piece, and the amazing story about how Powell was cast for the lead part (1:15:55). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Edgar Wright and Van Lathan Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Adobe Acrobat Studio so brand new.
0:02.0	Show me all the things that PDFs can do. Do your work with ease and speed. PDF spaces is all you need. Do hours of research in an instant. Key insights from an AI assistant. Pick a template with a click. Now your Prezo looks super slick. Close that deal. Yeah, you won. Do that, doing that, did that done. Now you can do that, do that with Acrobat. Acrobat, now you can't do that, do that, doing that, did that done. Now you can do that, do that with acrobat.
0:22.9	Now you can do that, do that with an all-new acrobat.
0:26.4	It's time to do your best work with your new Adobe Acrobat Studio.
0:40.8	I'm Sean Fennessey.
0:41.6	I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture A Conversation show about a very awkward movie fall.
0:47.8	On this episode, we will be talking about two new movies.
0:50.2	Now You See Me, Now You Don't, and The Running Man with our friend Van Lathen.
0:53.9	Later in this episode, I'll have it great on the show to talk about The Running Man, director of the film. He's been on the show before. A very, very smart and interesting cinephile. Great conversation. But first, I did want to talk about what's going on at the movies. You and I had this long conversation on Bill Simmons's podcast recently about the future
1:11.6	of the art form. That was a very kind of broad, vague discussion about who gets to make movies
1:16.7	and who doesn't. But I've been reflecting on the October that we exited and the start of this
1:23.3	November and something feels off. And I've been trying to figure out what it is.
1:29.5	You could very easily diagnose it.
1:31.2	So the movies just haven't been as good as we wanted them to be, right?
1:34.3	We are going to come back to that.
1:35.8	Okay.
1:36.1	But we can have your conversation first.
1:37.9	Okay.
1:39.1	I have a few theories as to what's going on because at this time now, everything was supposed to be sorted out.
1:47.4	You know, we've gotten past the pandemic era with theaters. We've gotten through a couple of strikes.
1:52.8	We've had enough production time for everything to catch up. We're getting big movies like The Running Man.
1:57.9	Like, now you see me, now you don't in the fall.
	...

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