George Clooney contemplated suicide, writer-director Stephen Gaghan was kidnapped, and Harrison Ford almost played "Bob". Warner Brothers gave the film Syriana an unlimited research budget, and the resulting script netted one of the best casts of an adult drama in film history (George Clooney, Christopher Plummer, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper, Matt Damon, Amanda Peet, Tom McCarthy, Max Minghella, Alexander Siddig, Tim Blake Nelson, William Hurt, and Mark Strong). Yet Syriana did not turn a profit in its theatrical release, and audiences were mixed on it. Why? This movie is incredible, and I did a deep dive into it for this episode. We didn't know how good we had it back in 2005.

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