Des Gayle ascends to the sky island of podcastery to discuss his storied career as a producer, the difficulty of enjoying art when you know how it’s made—experiencing it with kids can help—and the joys of self-contained stories in the age of the mega-franchise.

You can learn more about Altered Gene and Radical Forge on their websites.
You also can wishlist Forever Lost and The Analyst, and preorder The Analyst: Redacted.
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• This interview with Joe Russo contains the clearest explanation we’ve gotten of just how, and just how much, the direction of the MCU is pre-determined: Disney makes ambitious, semi-longterm plans about which projects they plan to make, but then they’re intensely flexible and reactive about the business of actually making them. That interview is the main source for that one Screen Rant piece, and that one other Screen Rant piece, both of which hinge on this quote:

The way it works at Marvel, and I’m sure at some point somebody will talk in detail about this, but part of Kevin [Feige]’s brilliance is that there isn’t really a plan. There’s an idea, but you can’t have a plan if the movie you’re making tanks. There’s no plan after that, right? So, it’s really about, as the movie succeeded, there was sort of an enthusiasm about well, what else could we do? […] A lot of the stuff was made up in between the movies. And some of the best call forwards or callbacks were thought of after the fact.

• Here’s our talk with Anton Hand about simulationist tendencies, and the limits thereof.

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“All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
“Effugere” from the Forever Lost OST by Richard J Moir.

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