Speaker 1: Ever noticed how some of the most legendary movies, TV shows,
Speaker 1: and songs were never supposed to work.
Speaker 2: Box office flops on paper, network rejects, songs the artists
Speaker 2: didn't even want to record.
Speaker 1: And yet boom instant classic cultural obsession songs that have
Speaker 1: played everywhere NonStop for decades.
Speaker 2: We dig into the projects that were supposed to flop
Speaker 2: and accidentally became icons.
Speaker 1: Bad ideas, bad timing, somehow perfect results.
Speaker 2: This is the accidental legends, proving that failure is just
Speaker 2: a success that showed up late. Well, Matt, if you
Speaker 2: had one wish, what would it be?
Speaker 1: Wooh, I don't know. I wish I had. I wish
Speaker 1: I was ready for all the things that I wish
Speaker 1: I was ready for.
Speaker 2: Is that kind of like you wish you had a
Speaker 2: dime for every dime you had?
Speaker 1: I wish I was ready for all the things I
Speaker 1: think I need to be ready for, But I'm not.
Speaker 2: That's really deep.
Speaker 1: I've been thinking a lot about just the future and
Speaker 1: the everything that's happening, and I feel exceedingly unprepared for that.
Speaker 1: So I've just been thinking about all the things that
Speaker 1: I need to do, and I just wish all of
Speaker 1: those things were already done.
Speaker 2: Well, that's much deeper than my response. I'm just thinking
Speaker 2: at my age, I wish my back would stop filing
Speaker 2: complaints every morning. And here you are getting all philosophical.
Speaker 1: Sorry you asked.
Speaker 2: That's okay. Well, today we're going to talk about the
Speaker 2: movie Big.
Speaker 1: Big, So big big huge.
Speaker 2: I am big big, But before big was a big deal,
Speaker 2: it was well small, a wish on a carnival machine,
Speaker 2: a kid sized problem, and suddenly a grown man in
Speaker 2: a suit is playing with toys and panicking about adulthood.
Speaker 2: This is the story of how something that started little
Speaker 2: somehow became huge, A movie that sounds like it should
Speaker 2: have been shut down in a conference room and instead
Speaker 2: became one of the most emotionally bulletproof films of the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Eight is one of those movies where if you
Speaker 1: described the plot out loud, hr slowly backs out of
Speaker 1: the room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're going to talk about why on paper
Speaker 2: this thing is a nightmare. And that's not hindsight, that's
Speaker 2: exactly how executives felt at the time. So let's dig in.
Speaker 2: The movie Big was originally the idea of screenwriters Gary Ross,
Speaker 2: who would later write screenplays for Dave Pleasantville and The
Speaker 2: Hunger Games, and also Anne Spielberg. Yes, that's Spielberg. She's
Speaker 2: also known for writing on some of Steven Spielberg's Amazing
Speaker 2: Stories TV series, and as an uncredited writer for Small
Speaker 2: Soldiers That was a what if we did a movie
Speaker 2: that's toy story and child's play mixed together, basically creepy.
Speaker 2: The script for Big was developed under very interesting circumstances.
Speaker 2: It was originally going to be a Steven Spielberg project
Speaker 2: and they were going to have Spielberg direct it, and
Speaker 2: get this, they were going to cast Harrison Ford to
Speaker 2: star as Josh Baskin.
Speaker 1: This is wild to me because Harrison Ford does not
Speaker 1: read as wide eyed child discovering a trend ampline. There
Speaker 1: is nothing childlike or even really all that joyful about
Speaker 1: Harrison Ford to.
Speaker 2: Me, Hey kid, I'm Big. I don't know why can you?
Speaker 2: I gotta get out of here. But unfortunately, or maybe
Speaker 2: fortunately for the legacy of this film, Steven Spielberg wanted
Speaker 2: to spend more time at home with his family after
Speaker 2: the birth of his son, so he ended up dropping
Speaker 2: out and Harrison Ford dropped out. So this probably quietly
Speaker 2: saved the movie in the long run. It eventually went
Speaker 2: to James Brooks as the producer. He brought the project
Speaker 2: to Penny Marshall, who eventually directed the film with Tom Hanks.
Speaker 2: And we'll talk about both of them in a little bit.
Speaker 1: And that's quite the audacious statement. Harrison Ford and Steven
Speaker 1: Spielberg dropped out of the movie and that probably saved it.
Speaker 1: What a statement.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, they're leaving the movie.
Speaker 2: That's okay, we're gonna make a killer film anyway.
Speaker 1: I'll show you it's gonna be awesome. And it did.
Speaker 2: It turned out that way. But why was Big expected
Speaker 2: to fail in the first place. It was considered a
Speaker 2: high concept, calm with a little bit of a problematic premise.
Speaker 2: On paper, Big sounds like a movie executives would immediately
Speaker 2: get nervous about. Let's not dance around it. Big is
Speaker 2: about a twelve year old in a thirty year old
Speaker 2: body who.
Speaker 1: Dates an adult woman. Do you mean sleepover? Well, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but I get to be on top.
Speaker 2: Boom boom, boom boom. Every studio executive just felt like
Speaker 2: their soul was leaving their body.
Speaker 1: This isn't prudishness. This is math, legal math.
Speaker 2: The executives literally felt uneasy about it even in the eighties,
Speaker 2: So I mean we're talking even before the cameras rolled.
Speaker 2: You could just feel the tension in the boardroom. Some
Speaker 2: of their additional concerns and worries about it were, is
Speaker 2: the audience going to feel uncomfortable about this? Is the
Speaker 2: tone of the film going to be too confusing? Is
Speaker 2: it a family movie? Is it an adult comedy? So
Speaker 2: the story walks this raise or thin line between whimsical
Speaker 2: fantasy and accidental creepiness. One wrong joke, one poorly scene
Speaker 2: in the entire movie, it would just collapse under the controversy.
Speaker 2: More than one executive reportedly summed up the fear of
Speaker 2: this film project like this. They said, this is a
Speaker 2: comedy nobody knows how to market or defend, which.
Speaker 1: Is the most terrifying sentence in Hollywood. That alone is
Speaker 1: often enough to kill project.
Speaker 2: So let's talk a minute about the tonal whiplash of
Speaker 2: this and the risks involved. Big didn't really fit in
Speaker 2: or slot into a neat box for Hollywood. For the executives,
Speaker 2: it wasn't really a kids movie. It's not a teen movie.
Speaker 2: It's not a raunchy adult comedy, and it's not really
Speaker 2: a pure fantasy film, and studios hate this. You know
Speaker 2: what Hollywood prefers. They prefer clear audience targets, clean elevator pitches,
Speaker 2: marketing strategies that fit on a post it. But Big
Speaker 2: was essentially a coming of age movie for adults about
Speaker 2: childhood with romance.
Speaker 1: That's not an elevator pitch. That's an all in bet.
Speaker 1: That kind of tonal ambiguity usually screams development nightmare. Executives
Speaker 1: worry audiences won't know how to feel, or worse, won't
Speaker 1: know whether they're allowed to laugh. Historically, movies that try
Speaker 1: to be emotionally sincere and funny and fantastical they tend
Speaker 1: to scare studios more than outright weird ones do.
Speaker 2: In addition to the tonal risks, we need to talk
Speaker 2: about Tom Hanks a little bit.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: You got to keep in mind, everybody, you got to
Speaker 2: put your nineteen eighty eight hat on. Tom Hanks was
Speaker 2: not a billable star yet. It's easy to forget this now,
Speaker 2: but in nineteen eighty eight, Tom Hanks was not quote
Speaker 2: Tom Hanks yet. It's funny. Matt my notes actually put
Speaker 2: a trademark when I said it was not Tom Hanks,
Speaker 2: like he's so popular and so big of a deal.
Speaker 2: Now he's got his own trademark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was no saving Private Ryan in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: No, at this point, all he'd really done was well,
Speaker 2: Bosom Buddies, which I love the show. Did you ever
Speaker 2: watch Bosom Buddies? I never watched Bosom Buddies. I thought
Speaker 2: it was hilarious. I thought Tom Hanks Peter Scillari were hilarious.
Speaker 2: Plus the show also had Donna Dixon in it, and
Speaker 2: what's wrong there?
Speaker 1: Nothing?
Speaker 2: And because of Bosom Buddies, that's why we went to
Speaker 2: go see Splash and it was a hit. But it
Speaker 2: was a comedy, maybe a little silly romantic comedy, but
Speaker 2: it did well. Right after that, he did do a
Speaker 2: raunchia adult comedy called Bachelor Party.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing I was thinking about this earlier.
Speaker 1: Splash was one of my favorites. I loved Daryl Hannah.
Speaker 1: I loved the whole you know, Mermaid in New York
Speaker 1: and all of the things happening, all the crazy zaniness.
Speaker 1: That was fun to me. I didn't see Bosom Buddies
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you, I don't think I ever saw
Speaker 1: Bachelor Party. I don't know that I ever watched it.
Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty eight was like, I was the right age
Speaker 2: for Bachelor Party or Revenge of the Nerds, any of those.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing Revenge of the Nerds. I don't remember
Speaker 1: seeing Bachelor Party. I don't remember seeing Fraternity Vacation. Revenge
Speaker 1: of the Nerds, I remember that.
Speaker 2: Was the headliner. That was the A level. Bachelor Party
Speaker 2: is going to be more like the B level.
Speaker 1: Well, and to be honest, I mean these were the
Speaker 1: movies that I watched. If I was watching them, I
Speaker 1: watched them on the sly. I don't remember a ton
Speaker 1: of any anything about them.
Speaker 2: Interesting little note is that he actually did Bachelor Party
Speaker 2: first and then did Splash. But when the executive started
Speaker 2: watching Splash, you know, watching the dailies and getting an
Speaker 2: early screening, they knew they had something with Splash, and
Speaker 2: so they correctly withheld Bachelor Party until afterwards because they
Speaker 2: knew Splash was going to put Tom Hanks in the stratosphere,
Speaker 2: and they said, then we can put Bachelor Party out.
Speaker 2: They knew that was going to be sort of a
Speaker 2: smaller silly comedy, but they figured they could actually get
Speaker 2: more money out of the ticket sales if they released
Speaker 2: it after Splash. Makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they create the platform that they try to boost
Speaker 1: up the movie on. That makes absolute sense. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He also did a movie called The Money Pit with
Speaker 2: Shelley Long and my family. We love Diane Chambers in
Speaker 2: the TV show Cheers, and so there was that. That's
Speaker 2: about all I can say about that movie.
Speaker 1: It was eh, I loved The Money Pit. I didn't
Speaker 1: like The Money Pit as much as I love Splash.
Speaker 1: I am married to someone who thinks The Money Pit
Speaker 1: is the funniest movie in the world. When she was
Speaker 1: a young lady and flipping loves a money Pit and
Speaker 1: just remembers going to the theater and laughing through the
Speaker 1: whole thing.
Speaker 2: So so far, his career positioned him as a goofy
Speaker 2: comic actor. He not a dramatic lead and definitely not
Speaker 2: a romantic lead, so the studio concerns were very real.
Speaker 2: Could he carry the emotional weight of this film? Could
Speaker 2: audiences believe him as a child without finding him annoying?
Speaker 2: What is broad comedy undercut sincerity?
Speaker 1: How do you talk about that? A little bit? What
Speaker 1: do you mean by that? Which question would his broad
Speaker 1: comedy undercut sincerity?
Speaker 2: Well, so, okay, you didn't watch Bosom Buddies. Bosom Buddies
Speaker 2: was your typical sitcom. So the comedy was loud, you know,
Speaker 2: there was no hinting or subtlety. It was we're funny.
Speaker 2: Look at how funny we are? Okay, and Splash was
Speaker 2: beween him and John Candy. It was a comedy whereas Big,
Speaker 2: you know, Big had to be tamed down a little bit.
Speaker 2: There was humor, but it was more focusing on this
Speaker 2: kid who was trapped in an adult body trying to
Speaker 2: figure things out. And so they were worried that Tom
Speaker 2: Hanks would be a little two out there and not
Speaker 2: reserved to play a role that required more drama.
Speaker 1: Hmm, okay, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: You know, he, like I said, he'd never anchored a
Speaker 2: prestige hit. You know, he hadn't proven that he could
Speaker 2: break your heart. He only proved so far that he
Speaker 2: could fall through floors and yell a lot facts. But
Speaker 2: in hindsight, Big looks like density, I mean, destiny.
Speaker 1: Let's see what you did there, thank you.
Speaker 2: At the time, it looked like a gamble though, So
Speaker 2: here we go, Matt. Other actors considered for the adult
Speaker 2: Josh Baskin, Right now, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna read the names, and you just honestly tell me
Speaker 2: yes or no.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: John Travolta I put.
Speaker 1: Down maybe, Yeah, he gets a no from me.
Speaker 2: No for you, Kevin Costner, Steve Gutenberg, Yes, I agree,
Speaker 2: Warren Baty, Hell no. Dennis Quaid maybe that's what I
Speaker 2: put down. I said maybe, but he was really too old.
Speaker 2: He was thirty four in eighty eight. But I did
Speaker 2: like his charm, Like Interspace was one of my dreamscape.
Speaker 2: Those are two kind of favorites of mine.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think of him. Him and Kostner back then
Speaker 1: were about, you know, baseball movies and westerns. That's kind
Speaker 1: of I think of them the same way.
Speaker 2: I can see Steve Gutenberg as a really top contender.
Speaker 2: I mean I always loved him in the Police Academy
Speaker 2: movies and what was that other short circuit. You know,
Speaker 2: he had that charisma of an adult kind of being.
Speaker 1: More youthful when he was funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the right kind of funny for a movie
Speaker 2: like Big for sure. How about Jeff Bridges. No, I
Speaker 2: think he could totally have done it.
Speaker 1: I think he's talented enough to have pulled it off.
Speaker 1: But why why do you need him to be talented
Speaker 1: enough to pull it off?
Speaker 2: I know your answer to the next one, Sean Penn
Speaker 2: new way, you're saying it like speccoli, But I'm thinking
Speaker 2: by then he's already doing like Bad Boys and Colors
Speaker 2: and some of these other dramatic films. I think he
Speaker 2: would take it way too seriously.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Spaccoli, he could have tapped into some
Speaker 1: of that for Big.
Speaker 2: Interesting. Interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm still saying no. But to me, in my mind,
Speaker 1: Hanks is the perfect pick for this, There's no doubt
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: Well, the next name I'm gonna read you was who
Speaker 2: they actually seriously considered to be cast as the adult Josh.
Speaker 2: Are you ready for this?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Robert de Niro what yep? Only he wanted six million
Speaker 2: dollars to do it. They were ready, I mean they
Speaker 2: were ready to rewrite the Josh character as a street smart,
Speaker 2: meaner kid. Can you imagine in a mirror universe where
Speaker 2: Big was a dark character drama directed by Martin Scorsese,
Speaker 2: Josh Baskin realizes adulthood is a trap and beats Zoltar
Speaker 2: with a tire iron. You think you can make me
Speaker 2: big and get away with it? You I ought of you.
Speaker 2: No Big Rated R starts Friday as your local theaters. No,
Speaker 2: please know, Thank goodness we got Tom Hanks. Let's go
Speaker 2: back and talk about the concept of the film. Hollywood
Speaker 2: already had trust issues with this genre, and it caused
Speaker 2: the studios to have their own degree of trauma from
Speaker 2: the history of these fantasy comedy hybrids. You know, like
Speaker 2: for every Freaky Friday, there's eighteen Again.
Speaker 1: Like for every all of Me, there's vice versa.
Speaker 2: Yeah, body swap movies were mostly seen as disposable gimmicks,
Speaker 2: the latest fad.
Speaker 1: The fear wasn't that big would be bad, It was
Speaker 1: that it would be forgettable. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The studio graveyard was full of movies involving magical realism.
Speaker 2: You had a do Krull, Return to Oz. None of
Speaker 2: those did very well, although I will argue to my
Speaker 2: grave that I think Krull is a great movie.
Speaker 1: I love Kraull. Okay, not on my Bingo car today.
Speaker 1: Any sentence involving Xanadu, Kroll and Return to.
Speaker 2: Oz wish fulfillment fantasies like Labyrinth. Despite becoming a beloved
Speaker 2: fantasy classic, the film was not a box office hit.
Speaker 2: It was a disappointment upon its release. So here's what
Speaker 2: Big does. That's quietly radical. One rule, A wish comes true.
Speaker 2: No exposition dumps, no scientists, no metaphysical explanations, no ticking clock.
Speaker 2: It's the Zoltar machine. He grants the wish, he literally disappears.
Speaker 2: That's it. The fantasy exists to serve the emotion, not
Speaker 2: the logic. You know, the movie never pauses to explain
Speaker 2: itself because Josh doesn't understand it either. That's important. That's key.
Speaker 2: When you watch later films, you know, like Freaky Friday
Speaker 2: two thousand and three that suffered from a heavy first
Speaker 2: act setup. You have scenes that are establishing the mother
Speaker 2: daughter conflict, you know, their inability to understand each other,
Speaker 2: YadA YadA, and then of course the high stakes, high
Speaker 2: stress of the impending wedding. It just it takes too long.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing about Big, I always like is the
Speaker 2: simplicity of it. You know, he becomes Big, he goes
Speaker 2: out in the adult world, and there's no pressure or worry.
Speaker 2: We as an audience. We're not worried about him altering
Speaker 2: the timeline or messing anything up. It's just happening in
Speaker 2: real time, in real life, and the only thing he's
Speaker 2: wanting to do is to figure out how to go
Speaker 2: back to being a kid. And there's not even any
Speaker 2: rules to worry about there. There there's no deadline of
Speaker 2: if you can't find this machine by twelve o'clock at
Speaker 2: the end of the month. It's just I gotta find
Speaker 2: the machine, and once I do, then supposedly I can
Speaker 2: make a wish. And they don't even promise that. I mean,
Speaker 2: I remember, he was just like, I think that's.
Speaker 1: What I should do.
Speaker 2: Big feels like a fairy tale, you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: slightly mysterious, it's emotionally intuitive. Later films feel more like
Speaker 2: a sitcom premise stretched into ninety minutes. That's all I'm
Speaker 2: saying that.
Speaker 1: Yes, I agree with that. Big.
Speaker 2: It did not just smoothly glide into production. Originally Fox
Speaker 2: had the rights to develop this picture, and they passed
Speaker 2: because they had worries about the budget and they weren't
Speaker 2: certain about the creative direction of this. They didn't understand
Speaker 2: is it a kid's movie?
Speaker 1: Wait?
Speaker 2: As an adult. What's the fantasy? They didn't understand it.
Speaker 2: But then comes Penny Marshall. She personally fought to move
Speaker 2: this to Columbia Pictures. And let's talk about Penny Marshall
Speaker 2: for a minute. Hilarious and Laverne and Shirley, right, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: But as far as directing, well, she was pretty new.
Speaker 2: On top of that, there was the existing sexism aspect
Speaker 2: in the industry in the nineteen.
Speaker 1: Eighty That is a shocking statement.
Speaker 2: Shocking, I tell you, shocking. No, she was faced with
Speaker 2: the prevailing and misguided belief that women could not handle
Speaker 2: the pressure or management of large budget studio films. Of
Speaker 2: course we know this is I mean, later on we're
Speaker 2: going to get some amazing movies from the likes of
Speaker 2: Patty Jenkins, who did Monster and Wonder Woman. Mm hmmm,
Speaker 2: Sophia Coppola Lost in Translation with Bill Murray, okay, and
Speaker 2: of course Catherine Bigelow who did The hurt Locker and
Speaker 2: then another eighties film, Near Dark Love The hurt Locker. Yeah,
Speaker 2: great stuff.
Speaker 1: Was Penny Marshall the trailblazer on female directors?
Speaker 2: Well, she's certainly not the first female director, but she
Speaker 2: is widely recognized as the first woman to direct a
Speaker 2: film that grossed over one hundred million at the US
Speaker 2: box office.
Speaker 1: Okay, so she was the one that did it big.
Speaker 1: You see what I did there? Oh boy, Hey, that
Speaker 1: wasn't even on purpose.
Speaker 2: Her previous directorial experience was only one movie, Jumping Jack
Speaker 2: Flash with Whoopi Goldberg, and that had production troubles. It
Speaker 2: got mixed reviews. Studio executives were hesitant to trust her
Speaker 2: with another major project. The script went through multiple tonal drafts.
Speaker 2: Some of the earlier versions leaned more on the sexual
Speaker 2: aspects and humor. Others went broader and more slapstick in nature.
Speaker 2: Several drafts tried and failed to clarify the fantasy refer
Speaker 2: back to when we were talking about setting up too
Speaker 2: many rules. But the movie survived largely because Penny Marshall
Speaker 2: believed deeply in it. Her entire approach was, if we
Speaker 2: stopped caring about Josh, the movie dies. That's it. That's
Speaker 2: the thesis, and all the key creatives insisted on emotional grounding.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting concept. If we stopped caring about Josh,
Speaker 1: the movie dies, it's not just a concept. It becomes
Speaker 1: the organizing factor. Of everything that they're doing. I really
Speaker 1: really like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, normally, this kind of turbulence, it's basically a death sentence.
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's killed more than one project. They
Speaker 2: even considered that maybe they should just release this film
Speaker 2: direct to video.
Speaker 1: Wow, back then, that's a big deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I remember renting direct to video movies.
Speaker 2: They were always sort of the b C level, low
Speaker 2: budget just considering how successful Big was, how well regarded
Speaker 2: it is that at one point before they started shooting,
Speaker 2: they said, well, I mean, we could at least make
Speaker 2: it a VHS film. That's insane.
Speaker 1: That's crazy because I didn't even think that was a
Speaker 1: thing until I didn't What I mean is, I didn't
Speaker 1: even hear about that until it was a direct to DVD,
Speaker 1: So whenever DVD came out, I didn't realize they did
Speaker 1: direct to video as early as nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, we could have a whole
Speaker 2: episode on the beginnings of VHS, your family video stores
Speaker 2: and the rush to get movies out there for people
Speaker 2: to rent. It gave low budget studios an opportunity to
Speaker 2: get their films out. They couldn't get it to the theaters,
Speaker 2: they weren't connected to the big studios. There were tons
Speaker 2: horror movies come to mind a lot. To me, there
Speaker 2: was all genres that were doing this, But to me,
Speaker 2: it seemed like there was just countless number of horror
Speaker 2: films that were just direct to VHS, just fill those shelves.
Speaker 2: You also had marketing nightmares. This is where the real
Speaker 2: panic sets in. How do you sell this thing? The
Speaker 2: trailers could not spoil the twist. The posters had to
Speaker 2: explain the premise instantly. The studios were worried. They were
Speaker 2: worried parents.
Speaker 1: Might avoid it.
Speaker 2: They were worried adults might think it's childish. They were
Speaker 2: worried teens might think it's uncool. Like we kept saying,
Speaker 2: marketing departments hate ambiguity, and Big was ambiguity incarnate.
Speaker 1: Trying to find out what a teenager thinks is cool.
Speaker 1: As a marketing department of adults, what that's horrifying.
Speaker 2: You know, this reminds me of that scene in Big
Speaker 2: when he's sitting in that room with all the different
Speaker 2: executives or toy creators and they're trying to pitch the
Speaker 2: new toy, and one of the guys creates a transformer
Speaker 2: that transforms into a building, and Josh is just he's
Speaker 2: just sitting over their board and the big boss, Robert Leoja,
Speaker 2: he says, what's wrong Josh? He's like, I don't get it.
Speaker 2: And the marketers and the they're like, what do you
Speaker 2: mean you don't get our studies. I mean they keep
Speaker 2: saying things like, well, our research said, and our studies says,
Speaker 2: And He's like, yeah, okay, but I don't get it.
Speaker 2: It's not fun, like who wants to play with a
Speaker 2: robot that turns into a building. I wonder do you
Speaker 2: think maybe some of the marketing and the executives concerns
Speaker 2: in this development if it kind of went into the
Speaker 2: script a little bit as, yeah, this is the problem,
Speaker 2: this is the problem with adulting versus a kid's mind.
Speaker 2: Kids just want to have fun. They don't care about
Speaker 2: the marketing. But the marketers they're all worried about how
Speaker 2: are we going to sell this thing? Who is it
Speaker 2: appealing for?
Speaker 1: What? The research says?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't get it. I don't get it that it.
Speaker 2: Let's shift gears and talk about why Big succeeded. The
Speaker 2: first thing you got to start with Tom Hanks. This
Speaker 2: was a once in a generation performance. What he did
Speaker 2: is he made a crucial choice. He didn't play a
Speaker 2: man acting like a kid. He played a kid trapped
Speaker 2: inside adult limits. And I think that difference is everything.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you watch the way he postures himself awkward,
Speaker 2: he's slightly off on his timing, he's unself conscious with
Speaker 2: his enthusiasm. One of the things I noticed thinking about
Speaker 2: when prepping for this show is if you watch the
Speaker 2: way he plays adult Josh, he's always oh, what is it, fidgeting.
Speaker 2: You'll see him where all the adults are doing all
Speaker 2: the adult things, where like we're at the party. I
Speaker 2: always think of the party where he wears that ridiculous tuxedo,
Speaker 2: thinking of singing fancy. Yes, everybody's talking about fancy things
Speaker 2: and adult things. But he's always fidgeting and looking around,
Speaker 2: and he's bored.
Speaker 1: I mean, kids are bored with that. And then he
Speaker 1: starts eating the corn, the little bite sized corn. He
Speaker 1: tries to just inging, he tries to gnaw at it.
Speaker 2: I love when John love Itz comes over to him
Speaker 2: and hints that one of these women are I mean,
Speaker 2: he's saying that this woman is really easy. And I
Speaker 2: can't remember the scene or what he says, but it
Speaker 2: comes across from a kid's mind is kind of scary
Speaker 2: and not a come on, And Josh goes, huh, well,
Speaker 2: I'll be sure to stay away from her. Get over
Speaker 2: there in the red mutch, say hi to her, and
Speaker 2: she's yours. Sure, rap her legs so you'll be begging
Speaker 2: for mercy.
Speaker 1: We I'll stay away from her.
Speaker 2: Then, emotionally he shows and communicates real fear. One of
Speaker 2: my favorite small moments in this movie is when he
Speaker 2: moves into the cheap hotel in New York with his
Speaker 2: friend and they're having fun, but his friend has to
Speaker 2: go home and he's left alone, and you start hearing
Speaker 2: a gunshot or a car crashing or people screaming or
Speaker 2: a police siren and he just casually hiding in a way.
Speaker 2: He's kind of hiding against the wall and he closes
Speaker 2: the blinds. You watch his expressions. This is a face
Speaker 2: of a kid trying to hold it together but being
Speaker 2: absolutely terrified in the real world. It's a small scene,
Speaker 2: but it just melts my heart every time I see it.
Speaker 2: It's brilliant, like he's got the body of this adult,
Speaker 2: but inside he is still just a thirteen year old boy,
Speaker 2: and he's got all of the fear in all of
Speaker 2: the emotions, and none of them are developed quite the
Speaker 2: way that his body is developed. And I love that juxtaposition.
Speaker 2: This falls right in line with Penny Marshall's vision. We
Speaker 2: have to believe in Josh, we have to feel with Josh.
Speaker 2: We've had all this comedy and that's great, but now
Speaker 2: the comedy's over, the day is over, and there's scary
Speaker 2: stuff out there when you're a kid by yourself, and
Speaker 2: we get a moment to just slow down and witness
Speaker 2: the fear, and I think that's great. There's the wonder
Speaker 2: without irony. The example I have is the toy store scenes.
Speaker 2: For example, He's just he's just playing, and he's not
Speaker 2: embarrassed about it, and he doesn't worry about what other
Speaker 2: people are thinking. He's just a kid playing, you know.
Speaker 2: He celebrates joy without self mockery.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that really it hit me
Speaker 1: today as we were as I was going over everything
Speaker 1: and just thinking about, you know, final final moments of
Speaker 1: game planning. The adults in this movie are all working
Speaker 1: the system them They're telling him how to work social situations,
Speaker 1: business situations. They're talking about research, they're talking about each other.
Speaker 1: They're talking about all of the things that if you
Speaker 1: work these systems correctly, then you get to move up
Speaker 1: in the world. And the purity of this movie. And
Speaker 1: it didn't hit me when I watched it before, at
Speaker 1: least it didn't hit me on a mental level. But Josh,
Speaker 1: all the good things that happened to Josh happened because
Speaker 1: he's just himself. He gets promoted because of the toy
Speaker 1: store scene, you know, and he meets the big boss
Speaker 1: in the store, and the big boss just watches him play,
Speaker 1: and he's just being a kid. He's just being who
Speaker 1: he is. And all of the good things that happen
Speaker 1: to him, including the woman, the girlfriend, the love interest,
Speaker 1: all of those things happen because Josh is just himself.
Speaker 1: He's just a thirteen year old kid. He's feeling all
Speaker 1: the things. He's talking about all of the things naturally,
Speaker 1: he's talking about all of the things honestly, he's not
Speaker 1: trying to put on he's not working systems. And if
Speaker 1: you look at it from this thirty thousand foot view,
Speaker 1: the success he has as a quote unquote businessman because
Speaker 1: he's just really been good at being a kid and
Speaker 1: the innocence and the playfulness and the lack of pretense,
Speaker 1: and man, it's no wonder that I love that movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you talk about the Big Boss, Robert Loja.
Speaker 1: I couldn't remember his name. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He was known for playing a lot of mean, tough
Speaker 2: guy roles, and this might have been the first movie
Speaker 2: I ever saw him in, so when I saw him
Speaker 2: playing in other movies, it surprised me. But like you said,
Speaker 2: all the adults in this movie, they're already kind of cynical,
Speaker 2: they're suspicious, but he's not. But you can see it
Speaker 2: first a sadness because of that. He feels like he's
Speaker 2: the only one that wants to do wonderful fun things
Speaker 2: with toys, but he doesn't know how because he's gotten
Speaker 2: too successful and he's got all these people telling him
Speaker 2: how to do it and how not to do it.
Speaker 2: And he bonds with Josh because of that joy. You
Speaker 2: know who doesn't love the piano scene where they're just
Speaker 2: talking and then Josh is like, this is the coolest
Speaker 2: thing I've ever seen in my life, and he starts playing,
Speaker 2: and the Boss is like, I play a little bit too,
Speaker 2: and they start playing the duet, and I love halfway
Speaker 2: through he just looks at Josh and he's like chop
Speaker 2: sticks boom.
Speaker 1: Boom boom boom boom boom.
Speaker 2: Boom boom boom boom instantly, and they're smiling and they're
Speaker 2: just having fun, and everybody's watching, and you know, you're right.
Speaker 2: It's Josh bringing in a child perspective into a very
Speaker 2: cynical world.
Speaker 1: And that's I think that's what's so fresh about it
Speaker 1: now and in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: Going back to Tom Hanks's performance, the most important thing
Speaker 2: I think he brings to this film is he never
Speaker 2: winks at the audience. The casting directors and the executives.
Speaker 2: They were worried he might overplay the comedy, but he doesn't.
Speaker 2: He You know, that restraint it makes this premise of
Speaker 2: a film emotionally, you're along for the ride and you
Speaker 2: never question the fantasy aspect of it.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's funny. It's funny how they take and
Speaker 1: you said you didn't want to talk about the girlfriend,
Speaker 1: but this is the only scene that I could I
Speaker 1: could think of where there's all of the adult double
Speaker 1: entendre happening, but he just plays it straight like a
Speaker 1: little kid, Like a little kid doesn't think about, well,
Speaker 1: I get to be on top. He's not thinking of
Speaker 1: what that means for a thirty year old to hear it.
Speaker 1: He's just thinking about the bunk that they're going to
Speaker 1: sleep in because they're going to have a sleepover. That's it,
Speaker 1: And that's like that.
Speaker 2: It's like that part when he's in the limousine and
Speaker 2: he's fascinated with the electric locks and the power windows.
Speaker 2: He reaches over to open up one of the windows
Speaker 2: or play with the locks, and she has this expression like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is the part where he comes on to me.
Speaker 1: This is it.
Speaker 2: And then she's completely surprised, like, wait, he's not even
Speaker 2: paying attention to me. He's playing with the car. And
Speaker 2: then he's like, come on, you know, I've opened up
Speaker 2: the roof. Isn't this fun? And she's like, oh no,
Speaker 2: don't you want a drink? Don't you want to know? No,
Speaker 2: get up here and see. Finally is like okay, and
Speaker 2: then she starts having fun again. She starts remembering what
Speaker 2: fun is.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and it's it almost reminds me of airplane.
Speaker 1: Play it straight and it'll be funny. But you just
Speaker 1: got to play it straight, you know. And it's the same.
Speaker 1: It's the same kind of idea where if you are
Speaker 1: trying to be funny, it's not going to be funny.
Speaker 2: The thing to remember about comedy is if it's if
Speaker 2: it bends, it's funny.
Speaker 1: If it breaks, it's not funny. If you just play
Speaker 1: it straight, play it like a thirteen year old would,
Speaker 1: it's going to be funny.
Speaker 2: Right. Did you know that this earned Tom Hanks his
Speaker 2: first Oscar nomination for Best Actor?
Speaker 1: I did not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't realize that either. Doing the research, I thought, wow,
Speaker 2: I don't know a lot of people that get Oscars
Speaker 2: for comedies. I know Marissa Tomay did. It's usually reserved
Speaker 2: for drama and serious, so that says a lot. I mean,
Speaker 2: this performance is really what made Philadelphia and Forrest Gump
Speaker 2: and cast Away kind of films for him possible. This
Speaker 2: was the true beginning for his career and thank god
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 1: Amen to that.
Speaker 2: But it's not all Tom Hanks. Penny Marshall deserves a
Speaker 2: huge amount of credit. You know, she directed this with
Speaker 2: the emotional restraint, character first instincts, and almost zero cynicism.
Speaker 2: The adult characters they do have a cynical feel, but
Speaker 2: Josh doesn't his friend doesn't. The boss really doesn't want
Speaker 2: to be cynical. He wants to feel the joy of
Speaker 2: childhood again. That's why he has a toy business. The
Speaker 2: You know Susan, she is in a cynical world, but
Speaker 2: she starts realizing when she spends time with Josh that
Speaker 2: life can be fun. It's not about hitting your numbers
Speaker 2: working all the time. And so I just think that
Speaker 2: tone makes this movie so enjoyable. Marshall's philosophy was very simple.
Speaker 2: Let the fantasy exist quietly, ground the scenes in human reactions,
Speaker 2: and never exploit the premise. And I think that's what
Speaker 2: you and I have been discussing when we're talking about
Speaker 2: scenes and characters.
Speaker 1: We get this.
Speaker 2: Our message was communicated well. The comedy of Big it
Speaker 2: comes from the innocence colliding with adult systems. It's it's
Speaker 2: not mocking innocence. It never mocks the innocence of childhood. Josh,
Speaker 2: you know, he succeeds because he remembers the joy the
Speaker 2: world never fixes him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would say his innocence is how do
Speaker 1: I want to say this? Not only is it a theme,
Speaker 1: it's an organizing principle. It's the characters play around.
Speaker 2: It the entire time and it never changes, right, the
Speaker 2: fantasy in Big, It's not therapy. You know, Big argues
Speaker 2: something riskier. I think innocence does not equal stupidity. You know,
Speaker 2: wonder has value on its own. You know it's the
Speaker 2: adults that are emotionally stunted, not the kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the kids are definitely the heroes in the story. So,
Speaker 1: and this is what I was going to get at earlier.
Speaker 1: When Susan and Paul, who had a thing before Susan
Speaker 1: and Josh did, they get in an argument and Paul asked,
Speaker 1: what is it about this guy? And she says, he's
Speaker 1: a grown up. He's a grown up, right. That's that's
Speaker 1: the that's the irony of innocence as a character. And
Speaker 1: how you know the whole idea of innocence isn't stupidity.
Speaker 1: Wonder has value. And the adults are you know, emotionally stunted.
Speaker 1: They they're missing something that Josh is placing into their world.
Speaker 1: Your heart dies, Who cares?
Speaker 2: I care? What if growing up is the problem? And
Speaker 2: I think this is why the magic lasts for Big.
Speaker 1: It's what it's part of what makes it timeless.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, what makes it timeless yeah, all right, Matt, we've
Speaker 2: waited long enough. I think we need to do this.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the romance in this movie.
Speaker 1: And not get canceled.
Speaker 2: When we were in the eighties, this whole thing just
Speaker 2: went over ahead. It's like it just it didn't weird
Speaker 2: me out. And I saw this with my parents, and
Speaker 2: I don't remember my parents being weirded out or talking
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: If they were weirded out, you would never know about it.
Speaker 1: They would just talk about it later behind your back.
Speaker 2: Let's be fair. The Susan relationship, it really could have
Speaker 2: sunk this entire movie. But it works, I think because
Speaker 2: it's handled with the restraint and the discomfort. I mean
Speaker 2: it's it's portrayed as quietly inappropriate and honest. Josh's emotional
Speaker 2: immaturity becomes undeniable. You know, it's not again, he doesn't.
Speaker 2: Nobody's winking at the camera, thank you, none of that.
Speaker 2: You know, these two people connected, and you know, the
Speaker 2: movie just lets the discomfort exist and then ends it and.
Speaker 1: We move on.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Big was one of those movies that kind of there
Speaker 1: was some romance to it and there was some innocence
Speaker 1: to it that I mean, it drew me in. It
Speaker 1: didn't make me feel like, oh, you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go get you know, this older woman or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: It was just the kind of thing like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: can be myself, and I can in this new situation,
Speaker 1: and I can experience this. This is a real thing, Josh,
Speaker 1: who is you know, thirteen and a thirty year old's
Speaker 1: body is experiencing this because he was himself. He lived
Speaker 1: his life. This is what happens, So there's hope for me.
Speaker 2: I thought the way it ended was nice. You know,
Speaker 2: when she realizes what had happened, first of all, she
Speaker 2: buys into the fantasy as well, Okay, that's why you
Speaker 2: act the way you do. You're a kid. And when
Speaker 2: he's going home and he's with her and she's talking
Speaker 2: to him, and there's two things I really liked. I like,
Speaker 2: he wanted her to go with him and she said, no,
Speaker 2: I can't, I've already done that. And I remember as
Speaker 2: a kid coming home that was one of the discussions
Speaker 2: I had with my mom as I said, man, if
Speaker 2: I had a chance to go back, I would Why
Speaker 2: wouldn't you? And my mom tried to explain it, but
Speaker 2: she couldn't but again, now that I'm an adult, I go, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think I really want to do the teen
Speaker 2: years again.
Speaker 1: She was right.
Speaker 2: The second thing is I love that he moves in
Speaker 2: to give her one more kiss, and she pauses, and
Speaker 2: she kisses his forehead and he goes home.
Speaker 1: She becomes appropriate as soon as she knows what's going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird, it's a little awkward, but we're moving on.
Speaker 2: She's the mature adult. She understands how it happened. He
Speaker 2: still doesn't fully understand, but he will someday. There's no
Speaker 2: reason to guilt anybody. It's just a thing, and we've
Speaker 2: corrected it. And he's going home and he will, he
Speaker 2: will live his childhood. And Susan will go back to
Speaker 2: New York a little wiser and changed, and whatever she
Speaker 2: goes to pursue, it's gonna be from a non cynical perspective.
Speaker 1: We know this. You know you said something interesting talking
Speaker 1: about what years would you go back and redo? And
Speaker 1: I've always had the premise that there's not enough money
Speaker 1: in the world for me to go back to middle school.
Speaker 1: You can forget it. You could give me, you could
Speaker 1: give me fifty year old knowledge and wisdom and say
Speaker 1: you can go back and be in middle school. And
Speaker 1: I would still say no. I would still say no,
Speaker 1: I did not like middle school, high school, senior year.
Speaker 1: I might, I might think about it. I would do
Speaker 1: college again. I would absolutely do college again. So is
Speaker 1: there a time of your life where you would happily
Speaker 1: go back and try it again.
Speaker 2: I would want to go back fantasy Island style, meaning
Speaker 2: let me go back and experience it, but I don't
Speaker 2: want any of the logic of repercussions or butterfly effect
Speaker 2: or ruining the present. Just let me go back and
Speaker 2: kind of relive it. But then I come back into today,
Speaker 2: no harm, no foul. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Yes? I like that.
Speaker 2: The college years would probably be it that some of
Speaker 2: the best friends I ever made, the best experiences, your
Speaker 2: first taste at independence, individuality. I mean, all through high
Speaker 2: school you worry about conformity or nonconformity, and then I
Speaker 2: went to college and all of a sudden, nobody cared
Speaker 2: if you were like them or not. Everybody was just
Speaker 2: doing their thing, and that was great, That was amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a lot of adventure and coming of
Speaker 1: age in the college years that I would do over again.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think if I would do it again
Speaker 1: with or without the age and wisdom, because kind of
Speaker 1: that was the part of the formula with middle school,
Speaker 1: high school. You'd go back, but you can have the
Speaker 1: wisdom and knowledge. I don't know if I would want
Speaker 1: to do it again without the wisdom and knowledge. So
Speaker 1: I get to I get to be, you know, forty
Speaker 1: fifty year old Matt, but I get to experience all
Speaker 1: of the things, make all of the decisions at that
Speaker 1: point though, it's like a cheat code, right, So I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if I would want to
Speaker 1: do that again. I always say that because I'm always
Speaker 1: thinking about the ball and you know, playing ball and
Speaker 1: all the friends and all the free time, and you know,
Speaker 1: you're an adult, you're making your own decisions, but you're
Speaker 1: not you're certainly not paying your own bills yet, at
Speaker 1: least I wasn't. I don't think you were either, So
Speaker 1: you know that kind of thing. I think, yeah, i'd
Speaker 1: go back, But when I think of all of the
Speaker 1: things that you know, I learned through those years, like,
Speaker 1: do I really want to learn all that again the
Speaker 1: hard way? Do I really want to have that experience again,
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's a good question, you know.
Speaker 2: I think the real problem as being adults is if
Speaker 2: we did go back with the wisdom, it wouldn't be
Speaker 2: the same. We wouldn't interact the same way, right, I
Speaker 2: don't think we would really the experience. There's something to
Speaker 2: be said about you can't go home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's right. And for me, though,
Speaker 1: the perfectionist in me would like to make better decisions
Speaker 1: going going forward. It's like, Okay, if you had this
Speaker 1: and this and this and this figured out, then that
Speaker 1: would change some things. And I wish there was like
Speaker 1: an app or a website or something, you know, futuristically
Speaker 1: that could tell you, you know, you put in Okay,
Speaker 1: this didn't happen. I did this instead, how did my
Speaker 1: life turn out? And I think probably what would happen
Speaker 1: is we'd find out it turns out basically the same,
Speaker 1: because you can change this circumstances, but you're still you,
Speaker 1: you know. Anyway, we've gotten way philosophical on this and
Speaker 1: that's not where I intended to go. But I think
Speaker 1: it's an interesting concept because those are the things that
Speaker 1: I thought about as a fifteen year old watching Big
Speaker 1: you know, if I got the chance to become older
Speaker 1: but still be a kid all of those things. That
Speaker 1: was very much a thought process that I had as
Speaker 1: a fifteen year old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I was a kid, I thought the ending
Speaker 2: made no sense to me. Why would you want to
Speaker 2: go back and be a kid. You've got this amazing job,
Speaker 2: You've got a great girlfriend, go with it. But that's
Speaker 2: the fifteen year old in me. You should watch this movie.
Speaker 2: Every decade in your opinion changes, your perception of what's
Speaker 2: going on changes. That's kind of what I think is
Speaker 2: the brilliance of this story, because now I look back
Speaker 2: and I go, yeah, Now, he couldn't. He'd miss out
Speaker 2: on his childhood. He needs to go back, and she
Speaker 2: needs to stay where she's staying.
Speaker 1: And that's just the way it is. When you're you know, fifteen,
Speaker 1: sixteen years old or twelve thirteen years old, skipping all
Speaker 1: that becomes attractive. But you know, when you're forty fifty
Speaker 1: years old, you look back on that and you say, well,
Speaker 1: that was all really pretty important for the things that
Speaker 1: I needed to accomplish in all. If I had skipped it,
Speaker 1: I'd have missed a bunch of stuff that I didn't
Speaker 1: need to miss.
Speaker 3: Exactly when you get out of school, you have to
Speaker 3: work every day for the rest of your life. We
Speaker 3: all know when that time was that we were no
Speaker 3: longer the innocent child, what year it was or month
Speaker 3: or summer or vacation or whatever. And I think we're
Speaker 3: just a bit saddened because we know that aspect of
Speaker 3: innocence is gone forever. And that was what we were
Speaker 3: trying to point up in this movie, is that let's.
Speaker 1: Not rush these kids.
Speaker 3: Let's let them be kids for as long as possible.
Speaker 3: The longer you can put it off, the better, because
Speaker 3: you do have to put it off eventually. Now hopefully
Speaker 3: you'll put it off when you're nineteen twenty twenty one
Speaker 3: years old. That's the thing I means, Let's cut our
Speaker 3: kids some slack and let them just be kids. The
Speaker 3: world's confusing enough as it is.
Speaker 2: There's a line early on in the movie that really
Speaker 2: sets that up. Is when Josh is at the amusement
Speaker 2: park as a kid and he sees one of the
Speaker 2: older popular girls and he's crushing on her, and he's
Speaker 2: shy and he don't know how to talk to her,
Speaker 2: and she's being nice, and then she points out the
Speaker 2: boyfriend she has, and she looks over and looks back
Speaker 2: at Josh and she says, he drives. It's all about
Speaker 2: where are we going forward? This guy he's doing older stuff.
Speaker 2: I want to be with the older stuff, which is
Speaker 2: why I guess Josh says, well, I want to be big,
Speaker 2: and then you kind of learn, well, that has its limits.
Speaker 2: Let's don't go too far on this, you know, right
Speaker 2: right right, let me reall this back in. There's a
Speaker 2: couple more things I wanted to touch base on as
Speaker 2: far as why this movie worked, and then we'll talk
Speaker 2: about the resulting success. This movie came out at the
Speaker 2: perfect time.
Speaker 1: You know, I saw stuff in my research talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, all of the things that were going on
Speaker 1: in the Reagan years and the economics and the business
Speaker 1: and the way that the eighty's business culture was changing
Speaker 1: and becoming harder and more difficult, and people were working harder.
Speaker 1: There was this grind to it that didn't exist before.
Speaker 1: And this movie comes in and people, even if they're
Speaker 1: not working in you know, Manhattan, can see themselves in
Speaker 1: each of these positions through this movie. You know, from
Speaker 1: the boss to the to the upper and middle management
Speaker 1: to the to the grunts and you know, find just
Speaker 1: some fresh perspective in this little boy that switches into
Speaker 1: a big body, and that's the premise of the movie,
Speaker 1: and what happens when that happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the yuppies had been around for a while. The
Speaker 2: corporate nature, the make money, the Wall Street greed is good.
Speaker 2: It was leading to adult burnout. I think there was
Speaker 2: a wish for nostalgia and simplicity, just take it down
Speaker 2: a notch.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Big tapped into this. It addresses the fear of growing
Speaker 2: up too fast, the anxiety of how hollow success can be.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of adults at the time had
Speaker 2: this desire to reconnect with wonder And obviously it wasn't
Speaker 2: just you and me, you know, audience. They didn't just
Speaker 2: like this movie. They recognized themselves in it, and it
Speaker 2: just became huge. What's the result of all this, Well,
Speaker 2: Big had a budget of eighteen million dollars. Worldwide box
Speaker 2: office brought in one hundred and fifty one million dollars.
Speaker 1: I'd say it did okay, did all right.
Speaker 2: It got critical acclaim on top of that, and I
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier it had some Oscar recognition. It launched Tom
Speaker 2: Hanks as a dramatic star. I mean, do we even
Speaker 2: need to go down his list. I mean, he just
Speaker 2: became huge. You might say that Tom Hanks became pretty
Speaker 2: big in the movie business after this.
Speaker 1: You can't use my joke.
Speaker 2: Penny Marshall, after this became a pretty major director.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: After Big, she did the emotionally dramatic I would argue,
Speaker 2: maybe a little too emotional Away Makenings, And that was
Speaker 2: with Robin Williams and Robert de Niro. And then she
Speaker 2: did one of my favorites, A League of their own.
Speaker 1: There's no crying in baseball. I would not rank it
Speaker 1: with The Natural or Bull Durham, but as a fun
Speaker 1: sports movie, I loved it.
Speaker 2: Big became what I would consider a perennial rewatch. You
Speaker 2: know this, You can watch this movie every decade and
Speaker 2: get a different perspective on it.
Speaker 1: I think this is the kind of movie where if
Speaker 1: you find it on anywhere, you find it on if
Speaker 1: it's on TV, it's if it's at the first, if
Speaker 1: it's in the middle, if it's right at the end,
Speaker 1: you pick it up. You know where it's going, you
Speaker 1: know where it's been, and you just pick up on
Speaker 1: the story. This is one of those movies for me,
Speaker 1: I have probably there's probably ten of them on my list.
Speaker 1: This would definitely be one of them.
Speaker 2: It's just a cultural touchstone for the moment, and funny enough,
Speaker 2: this movie is still a template that the studios they
Speaker 2: still misunderstand. They've never been able to really recreate this again.
Speaker 2: You know, they've tried to make several age swamp movies.
Speaker 2: There was a handful of them, vice versa like Father,
Speaker 2: Like Son eighteen again Jennifer Garner did one never quite
Speaker 2: works the same way. You know, with the newer films
Speaker 2: or the films they've tried to capture the big essence
Speaker 2: on It's like we were saying, there's always a mission,
Speaker 2: there's something they're supposed to be learning from. But Big
Speaker 2: didn't have that.
Speaker 1: I think the genius of Big is it doesn't have
Speaker 1: an agenda. Now, it accomplishes a lot of things, and
Speaker 1: it says a lot of things, but I think the
Speaker 1: basic premise is, Hey, a thirteen year old becomes a
Speaker 1: thirty year old. What happens and there's not a oh,
Speaker 1: you know, Grandpa's got to learn this lesson, or you know,
Speaker 1: she's got to learn responsibility or you know, all of
Speaker 1: the lists of things that we talked about. You know,
Speaker 1: these are the agendas, the underlying agendas on what's happening
Speaker 1: in the movie.
Speaker 2: Well, and the ending of Big to me says, you
Speaker 2: don't get to skip childhood.
Speaker 1: Growth requires patience. Josh chooses loss, pain, reality, and that
Speaker 1: choice it gives the film weight.
Speaker 2: It's very simple. Big trust sincerity over irony. It respects
Speaker 2: its audience emotionally. It commits fully to the premise, and
Speaker 2: it avoids cruelty and cynicism. Big treats fantasy as a
Speaker 2: way to reveal truth, not escape it. And that isn't
Speaker 2: a small task to succeed at, not even a little.
Speaker 2: What are we going to talk about next week, Matt?
Speaker 1: You know, Derek, I got a text this week from
Speaker 1: mister Weber from our group. He was like, Hey, on
Speaker 1: Accidental Legends, are you guys going to be doing Walk
Speaker 1: this Way with run DMC anytime soon? As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, and I kind of laid out what we
Speaker 1: were doing. He was like, all right, gotta love those
Speaker 1: great minds.
Speaker 2: Oh Man, great minds.
Speaker 1: Indeed. Well, I can't wait.
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to talking about that.
Speaker 1: Let me just take a minute here to say Thank
Speaker 1: you to all of our friends that are commenting in,
Speaker 1: sending us text sending emails, sending Facebook messages, whatever it
Speaker 1: happens to be, just talking about how you're connecting with
Speaker 1: the episodes. It's been fun getting more and more of that,
Speaker 1: so we really appreciate that, and Sin keep sending those
Speaker 1: in because we eat it up.
Speaker 2: Yep, hit like hit, subscribe, Tell your friends, tell your neighbors,
Speaker 2: tell anybody. We're really glad you're here and we look
Speaker 2: forward to next week. Until then, we will talk to
Speaker 2: you later.
Speaker 1: We'll see you later.