Diminishing Returns

The long-awaited return to the James Bond franchise is finally here... and without wanting to sound as arrogant as Bond, himself, it might just be the best episode of the show to date. We give you some in-depth film chat, some particularly high-calibre pitches for sequels to You Only Live Twice, and, because it's a special occasion, a whopping 15 special guest stars!

This week's sequel pitches include Bond getting into the #YOLO mindset from several years ago, Bond becoming a Friday the 13th-esque movie slasher and Blofeld's cat being given centre-stage in a film of its own.

This one should tide you over until we do On Her Majesty's Secret Service very nicely.

If you're new to Diminishing Returns, head to www.dimreturns.com and listen to our previous episodes covering Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball (and get involved in the listener vote that Back to the Future's Doc Brown mentioned at the very end, whilst you're at it).

We typically spend somewhere over 3 hours recording episodes of the show. As you can see, this is then edited down into something usually under 2 hours in length. We cut a lot of good stuff for the sake of time or purely because we're going off on too much of a tangent, so in this episode, please enjoy a whole load of all-new material that was cut from some of our classic episodes.

This episode contains previously-unheard outtakes from:

"It's a Wonderful Life"

"M. Night Shyamalan season: Unbreakable"

"M. Night Shyamalan season: The Happening"

and

"Fifty Shades of Grey"

We covered the original Planet of the Apes movies last week, so this week, we're doing the current Apes franchise (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes) starring Andy Serkis as Caesar. We also look at Tim Burton's remake because why not?

As always, we cap things off by pitching our own ideas for what a new Planet of the Apes movie could be like.

War of the Planet of the Apes is out this week, capping off a trilogy of snazzy, modern apes movies, but before the franchise was a surprisingly intelligent and emotionally resonant, it was a load of films in the '60s and '70s about chimp-men with coconut-faces, running around, causing chaos for people like Charlton Heston. We dive into those original films (Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes) in preparation for our modern P.O.T.A. episode, next week, covering the new movies (and Tim Burton's weird attempt in the middle).

Diminishing Returns returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which, with this week's release of Spider-Man: Homecoming, itself returns to the characters of Spider-Man and Iron Man, last seen in Captain America: Civil War.

This episode takes an in-depth look at Sam Raimi's trilogy of films that helped shape the modern superhero genre (as well as, inevitably, touching on his Evil Dead movies) before getting to The Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2 and various, cancelled Spider-Man projects.

The Minions are quickly assimilating themselves into all areas of life; films, games, phone covers, shampoo, cereal... and now episodes of Diminishing Returns.

With Despicable Me 3 out soon, we let the Minions take over the show for a week with a look at their spin-off movie and both Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2. As always, we pitch some Minion movies of our own.

In case the current heatwave didn't tip you off, you know you're deep into Summer when a new Transformers movie comes along. Transformers: The Last Knight is out this week, so we took a look at 1986's Transformers: The Movie, as well as Michael Bay's 2007 effort, Transformers, and its sequels (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Transformers: Age of Extinction).

We also discuss things like Hollywood commercialism, Shia LaBeouf's career before he stopped being famous and, of course, pitch our own ideas for Transformers sequels.

Happy birthday, Diminishing Returns! 1 year old today (well, last week, actually, but we wanted to cover The Mummy).

In order to prevent our end of year review episode being 5 hours long, we decided to celebrate our 1-year anniversary with a look back at the last 6 months of cinema (and some films we wanted to revisit from last time).

This episode contains reviews of:

- Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

- Star Wars: Rogue One

- M. Night Shyamalan's Split

- Fifty Shades Darker

- Logan

- Kong: Skull Island

- Disney's live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast

- Power Rangers

- the live-action Ghost in the Shell remake

- The Fate of the Furious

- season 4 of Bates Motel

- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

- Alien: Covenant

- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (aka Salazar's Revenge)

- Wonder Woman

...and more!

There's also some games, special guests and all the usual fun and japes (and arguments) that come with the show. Be sure to listen to the end.

Also launching with this episode: the brand new Diminishing Returns website. From now on, head to www.dimreturns.com for all of your Diminishing Returns needs. It's more than a mere episode guide so go and check it out!

Diminishing Returns heads back to the Universal Monsters franchise (now known as Dark Universe apparently) to explore the The Mummy movies (1932's The Mummy, The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost, The Mummy's Curse, Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, 1999's The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, The Scorpion King and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - as well as Hammer's 1959 remake).

We're not exactly sure how we feel about the new Tom Cruise movie coming out, but we talk through how we'd reboot the franchise all the same.

In a Diminishing Returns first, here's an episode about a film that we did an episode tying into (yes, we've been going so long that things are going to start getting meta).

If you haven't already heard it, got and listen to our Review of the Year 2016 episode, in which Calvin and Allen butt heads over whether Suicide Squad is a solid action movie or complete and utter dross. Afterwards, come back and listen to this one in order to hear Sol cast the deciding vote

All before some of the usual sequel-pitches and general pratting about.