Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 2: Two, KFI AM six forty. It's Later with Mo Kelly.
Speaker 2: We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Cartoon Network and
Speaker 2: Max released a first look clip at the highly anticipated
Speaker 2: series Ayanu, the epic superhero animated series steeped in Nigerian
Speaker 2: culture and mythology, showcasing for the first time a glimpse
Speaker 2: at the series set to captivate audiences with its magical
Speaker 2: storytelling and breathtaking visuals. A Lion Forge Entertainment production, Ayanu
Speaker 2: is in an adaptation of Dark Horse Comics Slash Unique
Speaker 2: Studios popular graphic novel series Ayanu, Child of Wonder by
Speaker 2: Award winning creator and producer roy Akupe. Roy is so
Speaker 2: good to have you back on the show all these
Speaker 2: years later. How are you this evening, sir.
Speaker 3: I'm doing well and it's it's a super pleasure to
Speaker 3: be back here after almost I think five or six yeries.
Speaker 4: I think it might be more than that.
Speaker 2: Also joining us tonight is Vincent Edwards, supervising director.
Speaker 4: Vincent, thank you for coming on tonight, my pleasure, thanks
Speaker 4: for having me and.
Speaker 2: Emmy Award winning writer. Also on the line, Carrie Grant, Carrie,
Speaker 2: how are you.
Speaker 5: I'm doing great? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: And last but not least, the story editor for a
Speaker 2: Young and Brandon Easton, longtime friend of the show, also
Speaker 2: joins us.
Speaker 4: Brandon, my brother and my friend. What's up? How you doing?
Speaker 4: You feeling better? I heard you a little bit under
Speaker 4: the weather.
Speaker 6: I'm doing all right, bro, I mean comic Con beat
Speaker 6: the COVID out a minute. I heard it was a
Speaker 6: super super spreader event. But it's all good man, Great
Speaker 6: to be back. It's been a while, bro.
Speaker 4: Well, Brandon, let me start with you.
Speaker 2: You've written for Agent Carter, Thundercasts, Transformers, War of Cybertron.
Speaker 2: Put another way, you know the fantasy genre very well.
Speaker 2: What for you makes compelling storytelling which appeals across demographics.
Speaker 6: Authenticity and specificity of theme, as long as you have
Speaker 6: a actual story to tell and something to say about
Speaker 6: the world. All the great stories that have last, you know,
Speaker 6: the Test of Tom have had something to say about
Speaker 6: you know, love, loss, fear, anger, hate, all the things
Speaker 6: that make humans humans. So in Thew's case, we have
Speaker 6: great themes of discovery, self discovery, empowerment, and a search
Speaker 6: for understanding. And I think that's something that transcends every
Speaker 6: single culture on Earth.
Speaker 2: Carrie Grant, you, as a writer, understand the process of
Speaker 2: taking an idea, maybe someone else's idea, and putting it
Speaker 2: into a form where it breathes, it lives. What is
Speaker 2: that process like when you're maybe adapting someone else's work.
Speaker 7: Basically, that process is just trying to really get inside
Speaker 7: the work as much as possible. In this case, it
Speaker 7: was reading Roy's graphic novels over and over and over again,
Speaker 7: and then taking what he and Brandon had kind of
Speaker 7: created as a foundation and tried as much as possible
Speaker 7: to really get into the mind state of the show
Speaker 7: itself and the characters, get into the voices.
Speaker 5: And I just I think that just kind of comes
Speaker 5: with practice.
Speaker 7: I've been doing it for a while now, so I've
Speaker 7: gotten better and better at at mimicking really trying to
Speaker 7: deeply understand the story that's being told and the characters
Speaker 7: that are telling them so I can be cohesive.
Speaker 2: Vincent Edwards, you as supervising director have a job which
Speaker 2: is different.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 2: Tell me if I'm wrong that you have more of
Speaker 2: a big picture, punt intended view of how all these
Speaker 2: moving parts are supposed to come together and work. How
Speaker 2: do you know that it is working right and working
Speaker 2: well when you come into the picture.
Speaker 8: Walt Disney famously described the animation as the illusion of life,
Speaker 8: And that's my job. The director team is kicking it
Speaker 8: off the script page and bringing it to life for
Speaker 8: the audience so that they can experience a cathartic emotional
Speaker 8: journey that might give them a little bit of insight
Speaker 8: into their own lives as people and their.
Speaker 4: Fellow human beings.
Speaker 8: And that's really the point of any good story, and
Speaker 8: that's kind of what we focus on doing in our
Speaker 8: animation is bringing that to lots.
Speaker 2: Roy, you have Ianu something I would call your baby,
Speaker 2: something that you've worked on for years and years, and
Speaker 2: then you have to entrust it with people. You may
Speaker 2: like them, you may appreciate them, you may respect them
Speaker 2: as professionals, but you're turning over your baby to them.
Speaker 2: In many ways, what is that collaborative process? Like all
Speaker 2: the people that just introduced and their jobs, how can
Speaker 2: you just hand it over to them?
Speaker 4: I know you're involved, but still it might be tough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you mentioned the keyboard, the trust rights.
Speaker 3: I think that's where it starts for something like this.
Speaker 3: And you know, I always tell people going from you know,
Speaker 3: being on the graphic novel and then being executive producer
Speaker 3: on the show, it's two different things, right. Graphic Novel
Speaker 3: is a very small team. You know, you're right, You
Speaker 3: work with directly with an artist or you and that's
Speaker 3: about it. When it comes to animation, you're talking about
Speaker 3: hundreds of people, so there's no way you can do
Speaker 3: it all on your own. But I think if you
Speaker 3: surround yourself with people with that smarter than you, you know,
Speaker 3: it helps elevate the project as a whole. And then
Speaker 3: you have to be confident in the things that you
Speaker 3: know are your your strengths. And to me, that's where
Speaker 3: I focus on the law of the show, the cultural specificity.
Speaker 3: Those are the things that for me I try to
Speaker 3: really really hone in on because I think that's what
Speaker 3: makes you special. Everything else that I try to rely
Speaker 3: on the people that have been surrounded with to help
Speaker 3: me get this vision to screen. And I think as
Speaker 3: long as you can build a foundation of trust, it
Speaker 3: becomes easier from them. Who is Yan is a teenage
Speaker 3: often girl who loses all recollection of a past and
Speaker 3: then she realizes that she has the powers of the
Speaker 3: gods of her land, and it's one of these powers
Speaker 3: that can save the entirety of ur Baland, which is
Speaker 3: where her story takes place, from what we call the corrupts,
Speaker 3: which are curse animals that all they want to do
Speaker 3: is literally destroy humanity. So that's that's, in a nutshell,
Speaker 3: the story of a Janus as as a person as
Speaker 3: also as a whole in terms of where our story
Speaker 3: is going.
Speaker 2: Brandon Easton, take me into the writer's room, maybe Carrie
Speaker 2: granted sitting right next to you and you were collaborating
Speaker 2: or going back and forth. How do you take what
Speaker 2: Roy just said and then start that process of creating
Speaker 2: this gumbo, if you will, of what's going to be
Speaker 2: on the screen when we see this on the Cartoon
Speaker 2: Network and Max and Show Max around the world.
Speaker 6: What I had to do was break down what could
Speaker 6: work on the screen versus what works on the page.
Speaker 6: And that really was the trick. So as long as
Speaker 6: we had a forward moving narrative that fully established Hueyanu
Speaker 6: was early on, and have the emotional stakes up front,
Speaker 6: everything else fell into place. Then I mean, the writer's
Speaker 6: room was the first season especially was a very small
Speaker 6: but very select crew of people, some of which I
Speaker 6: had known, a few I did not, but we all
Speaker 6: came together very quickly, and that was something I felt
Speaker 6: was very unprecedented based on my own experiences and a bits.
Speaker 4: Carrie, what about you? Do you agree with that or
Speaker 4: would you disagree with that?
Speaker 5: One hundred percent agree?
Speaker 7: I think when I came on, Brandon and Roy had
Speaker 7: already sort of laid a foundation for us to follow,
Speaker 7: like a guide for us to follow. And then because
Speaker 7: we I think all of us in the room were
Speaker 7: felt so deeply connected to the material and really wanted
Speaker 7: to be there, and we all love telling stories and
Speaker 7: telling stories like this. So yeah, the process of kind
Speaker 7: of coming down, we did have to be deeply in
Speaker 7: some ways deeply connected to each other for that short
Speaker 7: time that we were working together, too, Like we really
Speaker 7: shared space. We discussed you have to kind of discuss deeply,
Speaker 7: not necessarily deeply personal, but personal things about being human
Speaker 7: in order to really convey the story.
Speaker 5: So yes, I one hundred percent agree with Brandon.
Speaker 2: Okay, Vincent, now you got this content which is dropped
Speaker 2: in your lap a supervising director. You have all these
Speaker 2: animators to Roy's point, how does it all come together?
Speaker 4: Where's your starting point?
Speaker 8: Design is a start and storyboards are the next step.
Speaker 8: The storyboard is to the completed project what a blueprint
Speaker 8: is to a completed house. And so if your blueprint
Speaker 8: is very concise, the instructions are clear for the the
Speaker 8: contractors the animation studios that will then do the animation work,
Speaker 8: then they're able to bring those characters to life. But
Speaker 8: really it's the board artists and the directors and the
Speaker 8: designers that kind of create the we call it pencil acting.
Speaker 8: When you've got storyboard drawings that show what the visual
Speaker 8: performance of the characters expressions and bodies movements are. That's
Speaker 8: really the foundation of what sells drama, but allows people
Speaker 8: to relate to what are essentially to be drawn images
Speaker 8: as though they're real people. And that's kind of the
Speaker 8: craft that we practice.
Speaker 2: If you just tune in, we're talking about Eanu, Child
Speaker 2: of Wonder, which is coming to the Cartoon Network and
Speaker 2: Max here in the States and show Max are all
Speaker 2: around the world. We'll have more with the creators and
Speaker 2: the writers in just a moment.
Speaker 9: With Mo Kelly.
Speaker 4: Six KFI AM six forty. It's later with Mo Kelly.
Speaker 2: We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app and we're in
Speaker 2: the middle of the conversation talking about IANU, Child of Wonder,
Speaker 2: which was just premiered, and it's going to be hitting
Speaker 2: Cartoon Network and Max here in the States very soon
Speaker 2: and show Max in countries all around the world. I'm
Speaker 2: joined by Roy Akuope, who is the creator and director
Speaker 2: of Ianu. Also Vincent Edwards who's the supervising director, Carry Grant,
Speaker 2: who's a writer, Emmy Award winning writer, and also Brandon Easton,
Speaker 2: friend of the show, writer for All Things Fantasy. He's
Speaker 2: been with me since the very beginning. And so let
Speaker 2: me come back into the conversation.
Speaker 4: Roy.
Speaker 2: When I talked to you years ago, you were at
Speaker 2: a different point in your career and there's this old
Speaker 2: movie called Broadcast News where it says, what do you
Speaker 2: do if your dreams exceed your reality? My question to
Speaker 2: you is, did you could you foresee when you were
Speaker 2: working on EXO and then all this has happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't want people to take this
Speaker 3: out of context when I answered, but yes I did,
Speaker 3: because this has always been the plan, right, So it's
Speaker 3: not necessarily a thing where I'm surprised about where I am.
Speaker 3: It did take over what Exo was released in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: so we're talking about ten years since I released my
Speaker 3: first graphic novel to be able to get to this point.
Speaker 3: So to me, I've always had a vision to adapt
Speaker 3: my stories from comic books and graphic novels into animation
Speaker 3: and live live action in the future. So for me,
Speaker 3: it's always been a goal. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: it took a lot of people and a lot of
Speaker 3: sacrifice from not just myself, different people to be able
Speaker 3: to get to this point. So you talk about people
Speaker 3: like Erica Mottley, who was the first producer to see
Speaker 3: this and you know, say that this has to be
Speaker 3: made into an animated series, and you talk about Line
Speaker 3: for coming on board as a financier, and then obviously
Speaker 3: they cut to network on Max and then everybody that
Speaker 3: you can see or you can hear on this program now,
Speaker 3: and then hundreds of other people that you know obviously
Speaker 3: can't be on this show right now. So it takes
Speaker 3: a village literally to get this to this point. And
Speaker 3: you know, we wouldn't be where we are here to
Speaker 3: deal with the Yana without the help of.
Speaker 4: So many, Carrie.
Speaker 2: I've been someone who's followed the industry for a long time,
Speaker 2: and I remember the difficulties of writers when it came
Speaker 2: to streaming and how many people were in those writing
Speaker 2: rooms I talked about with Brandon and the need for
Speaker 2: different voices, different viewpoints, at vantage points in these writers' rooms.
Speaker 2: What would you make of the generality of shows now
Speaker 2: on streaming. You know, if it wasn't for streaming, we
Speaker 2: wouldn't have a show like a Yanu, Child of Wonder.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, there's still the uncertainty of
Speaker 2: what it will be moving forward for writers in streaming,
Speaker 2: if that makes any sense.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that we're in an interesting time right now.
Speaker 7: Think in some ways it's great because there's so much
Speaker 7: on TV, Like like people have been saying for years,
Speaker 7: you're in some sort of a like a golden era
Speaker 7: of television, and there's so much out there. There's so
Speaker 7: many things, especially in animation, the medium has really come
Speaker 7: a long way, has been adult animation, all of that,
Speaker 7: all of that, and I just think that where we
Speaker 7: there is uncertainty right now for where writers are and
Speaker 7: will be moving forward. My hope I can tell you
Speaker 7: what my hope is that writers get what they're what
Speaker 7: they're doing for the for.
Speaker 5: The work that we do.
Speaker 7: And I think that that's kind of like at the
Speaker 7: heart of the issue that you're that you're referring to
Speaker 7: or alluding to. I think with streaming, I think we're
Speaker 7: in a weirdly transitional period right now.
Speaker 5: I love, I love.
Speaker 7: I think it's just that the industry has to expand,
Speaker 7: and I think it it will.
Speaker 5: That's my that's my optimistic prediction.
Speaker 4: Vincent.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you, because I didn't get the chance,
Speaker 2: is to drill down on your backstory when it comes
Speaker 2: to working with all these animators, illustrators and these storyboards,
Speaker 2: is how emotionally connected do you have to be to
Speaker 2: a piece to do your best work?
Speaker 4: Does it matter at all?
Speaker 8: It matters a lot. One of the things that separates
Speaker 8: just a job that you do for a contract as
Speaker 8: opposed to a project of passion and that you're able
Speaker 8: to really invest some yourself in is connecting to the material.
Speaker 8: And when I became involved with Theano and I saw
Speaker 8: what it was and what the core of its story was,
Speaker 8: I really really resonated with some of the themes. They're universal,
Speaker 8: they're they're they're archetypal, you know, Shakespearean. I mean, it's
Speaker 8: really powerful stuff. And that is my compass heading in
Speaker 8: terms of what is the show?
Speaker 4: Is this not the show?
Speaker 8: Is this the show? It's my job to be sort
Speaker 8: of the conduit between the creative team that's going to
Speaker 8: execute that to achieve Roy's vision accurately, right. But to
Speaker 8: do that, I really have to well have to give
Speaker 8: it darn myself, and I really do.
Speaker 4: It's great stuff.
Speaker 2: There has yet to be a writer that I've met
Speaker 2: who hasn't already thought beyond the story that they're actually writing. So, Brandon,
Speaker 2: I got to ask you, we may get to see
Speaker 2: a portion of the story of a young child of Wonder,
Speaker 2: but in your mind, have you already written season two
Speaker 2: and three?
Speaker 6: Well, season one and two are already done, Like we're
Speaker 6: in the can for that. I have ideas for season three,
Speaker 6: but I don't don't know if I'll be in the
Speaker 6: mix for that. But yeah, we when we were working
Speaker 6: on season one and two, we already had infrastructure for
Speaker 6: where we're going to go, based on a lot of
Speaker 6: Roy's ideas and based on some of the events of
Speaker 6: the future graphic novels so in a lot of ways
Speaker 6: we already had kind of it was like a mad
Speaker 6: libs if you remember that stuff back.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, we just.
Speaker 6: Had to fill in the gaps over what Roy already
Speaker 6: had in his head, and that was it made it
Speaker 6: a lot easier. I mean, it was a challenge, but
Speaker 6: also made a lot easier knowing that Roy had a
Speaker 6: target for both the narrative and the themes.
Speaker 4: Roy the last word is going to be yours.
Speaker 2: When I tune in on Cartoon Network or Max and
Speaker 2: I get to check out a child of Wonder for myself,
Speaker 2: and there may be a kid who's eight years old
Speaker 2: tuning in at the same time, what do you think
Speaker 2: that child and I may take from it, or what
Speaker 2: would you want us to get from it?
Speaker 3: I think that's a good question. I think I think
Speaker 3: I can speak for everybody here when I say that
Speaker 3: we want kids to have fun, right. We want kids
Speaker 3: to have the opportunity to be kids and see kids
Speaker 3: being kids on TV in a way that they're just
Speaker 3: enjoying watching it. The second thing is that I want
Speaker 3: people to get to see side of African culture, history
Speaker 3: and mythology, you know, past, present, and future that they
Speaker 3: don't get to see in mainstream TV. One of the
Speaker 3: things is that we wanted to really lean into the
Speaker 3: cultural aspects, but make it universal and global where anybody
Speaker 3: from any part of the world could watch and enjoy it.
Speaker 3: And the last thing is I want people to be inspired.
Speaker 3: I want people to be able to see this and
Speaker 3: normally see themselves in our characters, but to be able
Speaker 3: to understand that, you know, the people actually working on
Speaker 3: this right have something like Vincent said, we all have
Speaker 3: a stake in Indiana, Like we're all giving our blood,
Speaker 3: sweats and tears, our hearts and putting that into the project.
Speaker 3: And I think you get to see when every character speaks,
Speaker 3: when they move, when they talk, how they act. And
Speaker 3: I hope people are inspired, you know, by characters and
Speaker 3: and and see them as as as people that they
Speaker 3: can aspire to be as well.
Speaker 2: He is roy Akoupe Award winning creator and producer of
Speaker 2: a New Child of Wonder. I want to thank him
Speaker 2: for coming on. The New Child of Wonder is going
Speaker 2: to be on Cartoon Network and Max and I was
Speaker 2: also joined by the creative team behind the Child of Wonder,
Speaker 2: also Vincent Edwards, supervising director.
Speaker 4: Vincent, thank you for coming on. This evening. Thank you,
Speaker 4: Kerry Grant, Emmy Award winning writer, Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me. Mom.
Speaker 2: And Brandon Easton, longtime friend of the show who is
Speaker 2: story editor for A Yannie. Brandon, I hope you're getting
Speaker 2: better and I need you in studio next time so
Speaker 2: we can catch up.
Speaker 6: I'm going fine and I will be happy to come by.
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for everything.
Speaker 1: You're listening to later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2: And we're getting down to the end. I am so excited.
Speaker 2: If you didn't know, tomorrow I'm getting on a cruise.
Speaker 2: And not only am I getting on a cruise, about
Speaker 2: ten of my family members are getting.
Speaker 4: On a cruise. And outside of that, to Wallace.
Speaker 2: Sharp and his son are joining us on this quick
Speaker 2: three day cruise to Ensenada, Mexico. And if you don't know,
Speaker 2: to Walla Sharp has never been on a cruise. He's
Speaker 2: not really big on water. So as Mark Ronner hosts
Speaker 2: this show tomorrow night, we will be sending at the minimum,
Speaker 2: we're going to be sending pictures, We're going to be
Speaker 2: sending video to the anecdotes of how Tuala is handling
Speaker 2: the open Seas. We get on the ship tomorrow morning
Speaker 2: afternoonish and we leave port at about I want to say,
Speaker 2: about four o'clock or so, so by the time Mark
Speaker 2: Ronner hits the chair, we'll have an update on how
Speaker 2: Tuala is doing. We'll make sure that at least Mark
Speaker 2: I don't know how much phone coverage and ability will
Speaker 2: have that first night, but we'll make sure we get
Speaker 2: at least pictures on some video to Mark or Stephan
Speaker 2: or someone they'll be able to share. But we're gonna
Speaker 2: be on Royal Caribbean and the name of the ship
Speaker 2: is Navigator of the Seas. The reason I'm talking about
Speaker 2: this because it coincides with some other news regarding Royal Caribbean.
Speaker 2: When I was booking this cruise, Tualla was asking, you know,
Speaker 2: general questions like how large is the ship, and I said,
Speaker 2: we're gonna be on Navigator of the Seas and that's
Speaker 2: like a mid size ship in their fleet. And of
Speaker 2: course Twala didn't necessarily have any reference, and most people don't,
Speaker 2: but Royal Caribbean is the cruise line responsible for the
Speaker 2: biggest cruise ship in the world right now, Icon of
Speaker 2: the Seas. Don't ask me about all the weight and
Speaker 2: size and height. It's the biggest Mother Father out there
Speaker 2: in the world. And if you see it with pictures
Speaker 2: of it, comparing it to the Titanic, it's like maybe
Speaker 2: four times as big as the Titanic.
Speaker 4: It is a floating city.
Speaker 2: You have shopping malls, it's halfway an amusement park.
Speaker 4: There's so much to do. If you can think of it,
Speaker 4: you can do it on the ship.
Speaker 2: And I try to remind folks if you've never been
Speaker 2: on the cruise, you really don't even feel the water.
Speaker 2: These ships are so massive that unless you are on
Speaker 2: a debt in which you can see the water, unless
Speaker 2: you're in a stateroom maybe on your balcony and you
Speaker 2: can go out and feel the ocean air, you really
Speaker 2: don't have any perspective or context to know that you
Speaker 2: are on the water. You are out in the ocean. Look,
Speaker 2: it could be a hollow deck on Star Trek Enterprise.
Speaker 2: It'd be about the same. You just really don't know.
Speaker 2: And I try to tell people, if you want a
Speaker 2: comparison point, light turbulence on an airplane is more disruptive
Speaker 2: than what you will feel on these massive, just massive
Speaker 2: ocean liners. And if you know what's the largest today
Speaker 2: is not the largest tomorrow. Royal Caribbean is growing its
Speaker 2: fleet of what they call these megaships, and they're going
Speaker 2: to build three more Icon of the Seas style vessels.
Speaker 2: Icon of the Seas, as I said earlier, is the
Speaker 2: largest cruise ship in the world, and presently Royal Caribbean
Speaker 2: has about sixty eight, yeah, sixty eight ships, and they're
Speaker 2: going to partner with Finnish shipbuilder Meyer Turku to build
Speaker 2: additional Icon style and Icon sized ships. And the deal
Speaker 2: includes options for Royal Caribbean to order a fourth and
Speaker 2: fifth vessel in addition to other Royal Caribbean ships. A
Speaker 2: sister ship, Star of the Seas, will set sail from
Speaker 2: Cape Canaveral in the summer of twenty twenty five. The
Speaker 2: third Icon class ship which will launch in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: They haven't named it yet, but Royal Caribbean Group President
Speaker 2: and CEO Jason Liberty said the company ordering the forthcoming
Speaker 2: ships is based on enthusiastic customer response to Icon of
Speaker 2: the Seas and I'd have to take him at his
Speaker 2: word because Icon of the Seas is continually booked.
Speaker 4: You cannot get a ticket.
Speaker 2: On that ocean liner for the for the most part,
Speaker 2: and it's two hundred oh.
Speaker 4: Here's the information.
Speaker 2: The Icon of the Seas is two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand ton ship. It accommodates roughly eight thousand people, and
Speaker 2: it has dozens of restaurants.
Speaker 4: Theme parks, plural.
Speaker 2: And what they call neighborhoods, these clusters of state rooms.
Speaker 4: They have their own neighborhoods.
Speaker 2: There's so many people and so many attractions on those ships.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: Building on the incredible momentum and market response to launch
Speaker 2: the Icon of the Seas and the excitement for its
Speaker 2: sister ship, Star of the Seas coming in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: we're thrilled to join with Meyer Turku once again to
Speaker 2: expand our roster of Icon class ships and continue our
Speaker 2: future growth plans. Since its debut, Icon has changed the
Speaker 2: game in vacation experiences and exceeded our expectations of both
Speaker 2: guest satisfaction and financial performance. Close quote and since I've
Speaker 2: done enough cruises now I've been on very are relatively
Speaker 2: small ships and relatively large ships.
Speaker 4: They are different in a number of ways.
Speaker 2: Now, my wife doesn't prefer the large ocean liners where
Speaker 2: you have more than four thousand people. Because it's just
Speaker 2: a big city, you lose the feeling of being on
Speaker 2: a cruise, or at least I agree with that argument
Speaker 2: some people like to have where you have all these
Speaker 2: thousands of people and you kind of get lost in
Speaker 2: the masses and it feels like you're in a different
Speaker 2: city each day, even though you are literally in a
Speaker 2: different city when you're going into different ports. But I'm
Speaker 2: saying on this ship, especially if you're on a seven
Speaker 2: day cruise, that's what my wife and I usually do.
Speaker 2: This one we're doing this weekend is just a three
Speaker 2: day one coming back on Monday. But if you're on
Speaker 2: like a seven day cruise, you want to be able
Speaker 2: to do something each and every day, but you want
Speaker 2: to do something different each and every day. And when
Speaker 2: you have these super ocean liners, yes you can do
Speaker 2: that and never repeat. Like for example, on our ship,
Speaker 2: there's going to be a casino. I don't know how
Speaker 2: much the wall is going to gamble. He's working on
Speaker 2: the pod right now. That's why it's not in here.
Speaker 2: But you know, you can go to the casino, you
Speaker 2: can do things on the deck, you can go shopping always,
Speaker 2: you can go shopping. You can always find something to eat,
Speaker 2: there's something to do. These are tremendous vacation opportunities. And
Speaker 2: I know I sound like I'm endorsing it.
Speaker 4: No I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying I am someone who has enjoyed cruising
Speaker 2: for the better part of twenty years and it's something
Speaker 2: that my wife and I love to do.
Speaker 4: And if you haven't, you know.
Speaker 2: Hit me on Instagram at later with mo Kelly at
Speaker 2: mister Mokelly and if you have specific questions, I can
Speaker 2: answer those specific questions for you, because, like me, I
Speaker 2: needed someone to help me. You need someone to walk
Speaker 2: you through the process. Not that you couldn't do it
Speaker 2: by yourself, but it's so much easier when you have
Speaker 2: someone walking you through who can answer your questions. How
Speaker 2: about this? What do I do about that? What type
Speaker 2: of documentation do I need? What sort of clothes should
Speaker 2: I bring with me? How much should I bring with me?
Speaker 2: All those things it helped me and I usually passed
Speaker 2: it on. In this one, I'm passing it on to Tuala,
Speaker 2: But just to let you know when you see a
Speaker 2: story like this, going back to the story of how
Speaker 2: Royal Caribbean is expanding, its fleet and they're building these
Speaker 2: three more massive super shifts. It tells you in an
Speaker 2: economic sense that the tourism industry is doing very well
Speaker 2: despite what happened during the pandemic. We remember how the
Speaker 2: cruise industry was just brought to a literal halt because
Speaker 2: of COVID. But now we're getting back to where we
Speaker 2: were pre pandemic, and people are cruising more than ever before.
Speaker 2: Cruising statistics show that cruising is let me see, let
Speaker 2: me say like this, In twenty twenty three, thirty one
Speaker 2: point seven million passengers took cruises and surpassing twenty nineteen's
Speaker 2: record of twenty point seven million passengers, So a jump
Speaker 2: up by eleven million in.
Speaker 4: Just four years.
Speaker 2: And obviously they expect that trend to continue, with the
Speaker 2: number of cruise passengers to reach thirty four point seven
Speaker 2: million by the end of this year. And you can
Speaker 2: count to Wallace Sharp as one of those people.
Speaker 4: Can't wait.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty. Welcome to MO on the Movies.
Speaker 1: Oh right, don't be ridiculous, darling, it's MO on the Movies.
Speaker 1: It's not a chance.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty. It's Later with Mo Kelly. We're
Speaker 2: live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. And before we get
Speaker 2: out of here, just two items I wanted to share
Speaker 2: with you in case you didn't know. We always have
Speaker 2: these dicussions about well should you remake certain movies. I say,
Speaker 2: don't remake classics, don't remake cult classics. You're playing on nostalgia.
Speaker 2: You can't deliver on the remake, and oftentimes it just
Speaker 2: falls short. And a perfect example of that is when
Speaker 2: you take a movie like Point Break. Point Break was
Speaker 2: fine in the nineties Keanu Reeves and also Patrick Swayzee,
Speaker 2: but when they did it, it was something original, and
Speaker 2: then when you come back with the remake, you don't
Speaker 2: have any of the original characters. It's not very good.
Speaker 2: The people who love the original, they're not going to
Speaker 2: fall in love with the remake, and the people who
Speaker 2: were too young are not born for the original are
Speaker 2: not going to feel any affinity or nostalgia for the
Speaker 2: remake or reboot. So usually it's a bad idea. Now,
Speaker 2: there are movies which are very obscure in nature, the
Speaker 2: ones that people don't care much about, or there's maybe
Speaker 2: been fifty or sixty years in between, so there's really
Speaker 2: no carryover. Yes, go ahead and remake those movies. But
Speaker 2: when I tell you that Sylvester Stallone is making a sequel,
Speaker 2: it's not not a reboot, but a sequel to a
Speaker 2: movie in nineteen ninety three, you may think, I don't
Speaker 2: know about that, But then you think about, well, Top
Speaker 2: Gun did a sequel more than thirty years away. Then
Speaker 2: you had a sequel of let's say Beverly Hills Cop.
Speaker 2: Then you had a sequel of Coming to America. So
Speaker 2: there is precedent for waiting a long time to.
Speaker 4: Do a sequel. So it's hit miss. But I wonder
Speaker 4: what will happen when I.
Speaker 2: Tell you that Sylvester Stallone is doing a sequel to
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety three movie Cliffhanger. I know, right, It's like,
Speaker 2: who is asking for a sequel to Cliffhanger?
Speaker 4: Probably nobody. It's one thing when you take a movie.
Speaker 2: Which is below, which is revered, something that people have
Speaker 2: turned into a cult classic or something, you say, whatever
Speaker 2: happened to this character or that character, and then you
Speaker 2: follow it up with a sequel because the fans have
Speaker 2: demanded it. I don't know if anyone has demanded a
Speaker 2: sequel to Cliffhanger. You may remember or you may not remember,
Speaker 2: but let me just refresh your memory. The original Cliffhanger
Speaker 2: was produced on a budget of seventy million. It did
Speaker 2: pretty well all things considered. It grows the worldwide total
Speaker 2: of two hundred and fifty five million in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 4: That's nothing to sneeze at. That is pretty respectable.
Speaker 2: This sequel, Cliffhanger two, is expected to start filming this fall,
Speaker 2: and it's supposed to have a healthier budget in comparison
Speaker 2: to the original. But there's also something else to consider.
Speaker 2: It's not just whether you get some of the original actors.
Speaker 2: It's not whether you just continue the original storyline. We
Speaker 2: were having this debate the other night talking about the
Speaker 2: best trilogy of all time and and how oftentimes the
Speaker 2: best trilogies have a singular directorial vision attached, like you
Speaker 2: have the same director for all three films. Well, if
Speaker 2: you don't have it from movie to movie, then a
Speaker 2: lot of times you may lose your way. The original director,
Speaker 2: Rindy Harlan, will not be returning to direct this sequel
Speaker 2: of Cliffhanger, So that says to me, already that's going
Speaker 2: to be kind of questionable. I'm not so sure that
Speaker 2: it's going to be something that I want to see.
Speaker 2: And Tulla finally got here after finishing the podcast where
Speaker 2: I was talking about you bad, talking about how Royal
Speaker 2: Caribbean was making these bigger ships and how you were
Speaker 2: asking like, you know, what's what you know Navigator of
Speaker 2: the Season and I said, well, it's it's.
Speaker 4: A smaller ship, but it's not like Icon of the Season.
Speaker 4: You didn't have a point of reference.
Speaker 2: And I was trying to explain to people, Yeah, but
Speaker 2: you know, you heard what I was saying about Cliffhanger
Speaker 2: and my trepidation as far as making a sequel for
Speaker 2: that movie.
Speaker 4: Where do you come out on that one?
Speaker 9: I think that this is one movie, especially because what
Speaker 9: we've seen Stallone do as of late is capitalized on
Speaker 9: his age as an action hero from The Expendables to
Speaker 9: his new series on Peacock. He still has that gravitas,
Speaker 9: that action esqueness about him, but being a Cliffhanger and
Speaker 9: doing that that doesn't necessarily have an age on it though,
Speaker 9: because you can still climb rocks. Look, there is a
Speaker 9: mountain climber who just made it to the top of
Speaker 9: Evereston I think ninety not long ago, so it's not
Speaker 9: an impossible film. Some of the things that he was
Speaker 9: doing before, I could easily hear him saying, like, my
Speaker 9: shoulders are getting too tired for all this climbing, you know,
Speaker 9: And I think that that, to me, is what he
Speaker 9: needs to be doing, same as he did with the
Speaker 9: last two Rambo films, where he was an older, worn
Speaker 9: war torn Rambo who still had just that old man
Speaker 9: strengthen that old man violence of like I'm gonna have
Speaker 9: to take you out in two or three moves.
Speaker 4: I don't have a whole fight in me.
Speaker 9: Yes, he can do that with Cliffhanger.
Speaker 2: Okay, I needed to be then to your point self aware. Yes,
Speaker 2: I don't want it to take yourself too seriously, and
Speaker 2: I don't want it to be too campy, now, you
Speaker 2: know if you because Cliffhanger still was an action, serious adventure.
Speaker 2: It starts off with a death, so it was a
Speaker 2: serious tone. So I would want the sequel to be
Speaker 2: in that same vein if you're gonna have a sequel
Speaker 2: now it's been so long, i'd have to rewatch it
Speaker 2: to get all of you know, the threads of the
Speaker 2: storyline for me to understand the sequel.
Speaker 9: But look, I'm complaining, but I'm gonna go see it. Yeah,
Speaker 9: I think that this is one that we have to
Speaker 9: go see. Is this going to win any awards? Is
Speaker 9: it gonna do dead pull Wolverine numbers at the box office?
Speaker 4: Hell to the no.
Speaker 2: But it's gonna be fun very quickly, We're almost out
Speaker 2: of time and then we gotta get out of here
Speaker 2: and turn it over to George Norri. La Bamba a
Speaker 2: remake which is supposed to retell the story of singing
Speaker 2: Richie Valence. It boggles my mind why someone wants to
Speaker 2: do a remake of a biopic.
Speaker 9: This is one of the most ridiculous movie news reboot
Speaker 9: remake stories that we've seen. And I think forever you
Speaker 9: do not remake a reboot or a retelling, or a
Speaker 9: dramatization or a bio of something that's already been done.
Speaker 4: Man, And I get it.
Speaker 9: There have been a couple of different stories that have
Speaker 9: come out about, say, Aretha Franklin or some of the
Speaker 9: greats you know. There have been a couple of different
Speaker 9: interpretations of in temptation stories and things like that. But
Speaker 9: LaBamba is an all time classic. You do not redo LaBamba,
Speaker 9: you do not reduce Selena. And you see they did
Speaker 9: a Selena series and that's fine, it went deeper into
Speaker 9: the business. But no, you don't do this with lobamba.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't need a long discussion about that one. No, no,
Speaker 2: hell no, we'll talk to you soon. Mark Roner is
Speaker 2: taking over tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty