The Inflection Cut

This month, the team heads to the final frontier to look at the decade-long struggle to revive Star Trek in the 1970s.  Even though there were no new episodes in the 1970s, CBS almost immediately had regrets about Star Trek's cancellation and spent the disco era trying to find a way back to the quickly growing legions of fans. As always, Halstead and Eric are ready with the tough questions, like: What stopped the creation of a new Paramount TV network mere months before it was to go on the air with a new Star Trek show that was deep into pre-production? How did Lucille Ball (yes, as in I Love Lucy) save Star Trek not once, but twice? What the heck is a Medical Parapsychologist? The answer to these questions and so many more can be found in this episode of The Inflection Cut! Show notes

Halstead and Eric take a slightly different approach in the latest episode of the Inflection cut. They focus on Orson Welles' originally planned first film, an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's 1899 novel Heart of Darkness. However, along the way, they can't avoid the '70s elephant in the room - Apocalypse Now. While it was finally brought to the screen by Francis Ford Coppola in 1979, it was initially planned to be directed by George Lucas in guerrilla fashion while the Vietnam War was still going strong! The team pulls on every thread on the crazy sweater, like: What do a hard-left socialist director and a right-wing, self-proclaimed 'Zen Facist' screenwriter have in common? Could Heart of Darkness have wound up even more groundbreaking and influential than Citizen Kane?  Why might Citizen Kane subject William Randolph Hurst end up helping Welles get Heart of Darkness made? These questions and many more are answered in this month's The Inflection Cut! Show notes

On a new episode of The Inflection Cut, Halstead and Eric tackle the internet's safe space, Star Wars and its fandom. Specifically, the Episode IX that almost was, Colin Trevorrow's Duel of the Fates. The team tackles the questions that really matter, like: What if the final film in the Star Wars trilogy of trilogies was actually good? How did a little-seen indie destroy Disney's planned production of the final film in the Skywalker Saga? Would Duel of the Fates have been Disney's New Hope or Revenge of the Space Bros? These questions and many more are answered in this month's The Inflection Cut! Show notes

On this episode of The Inflection Cut, Halstead and Eric look at Guillermo del Toro's many attempts to get his passion project, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's novel At the Mountains of Madness, to the big screen. At one point, we were mere inches from a $150 million blockbuster written and directed by Del Toro, produced by James Cameron, and co-starring Tom Cruise! As always, the team tackles the questions that really matter, like: What if instead of Kaijus vs. Mecha in 2012, we got Tel Toro, Cameron, and Cruise vs. Cthulhu? Was the world ready for a big-budget Hollywood take on Cosmic Horror? What film drove the stake through Mountains fo Madness' heart? Was it Prometheus or The Hobbit? These questions and many more are answered in this month's The Inflection Cut! Show notes

On the Season 2 premiere of The Inflection Cut, the team returns to the early aughts WB and DC to look at the big-budget Justice League by the director of Mad Max that was inches from production start when it was cancelled. They also offer a shocking follow-up to the Coyote vs. Acme-focused season finale. Were we robbed of supreme Aussie superhero goodness? What if the Snyderverse had been the Millerverse? Did Christopher Nolan kill this fresh take on DC's mightiest heroes? These questions and many more are answered in this month's The Inflection Cut! Show notes

In a special mystery season finale, the team looks at a film that was actually completed but never released - Coyote vs. Acme. After a smooth production process and very successful test screenings, the film was nevertheless hidden away by Warner Brothers in 2024, never to be seen again. Why did WB Discovery refuse to release or sell Coyote vs. Acme? Was it wrong place wrong time, or was it MURDER? Can the team finally defeat The Inflection Cut's own Thanos? These questions and many more are answered in this month's The Inflection Cut! Show notes: https://tinyurl.com/57hy7tbn  

Eric and Halstead celebrate the holiday season with a special speed round we're dubbing The Infection Game. We get to the bottom of what really matters, like: Why has there never been a movie of the popular 80s Top Gun-meets-Gundam series Robotech? Was Superman a coded look at the post-WW2 Jewish diaspora? Is Scott Rudin a villain in the Inflection Cut multiverse, our universe, or both? Brooklyn - great borough or the greatest borough? All this and much more in this month's The Infection Cut!

On an election's eve episode of The Inflection Cut, the team turns its multiversal projector on the MCU. They dig into the crazy story of when the director of Shaun of the Dead and Baby Driver left a major Marvel film he had been working on for almost a decade, less than a month before filming was to start. Why did Edgar Wright quit Ant-Man so close to production? Could his "Ocean's Eleven as a superhero film" have been salvaged? Is the Marvel Cinematic Universe chamber music or jazz? These questions and many more are answered in this month's The Inflection Cut! Show notes

In the latest episode of The Infection Cut, the team unspools the crazy story of Crusade, Paul Verhoeven and Arnold Schwarzenegger's wild, big-budget epic about the 13th century Catholic Crusades. This film had a cast, sets built, and yet was killed just days before filming started. As always, we focus on what really matters: What could make a Hollywood studio cancel a film with $10 million dollars already spent on cast, crew, and sets? What's a reverse donkey show? What is the 'Full Verhoven', and how does it differ from the 'Full Dutch'? These questions and many more are answered in this month's The Infection Cut! Show notes

We had too much fun stunt casting Batman Year One and discussing a new vision for DC films in the 21st century, so we spun that discussion off into our first-ever bonus episode! Hopefully, that was a good idea.

After the underperforming Batman and Robin, a young filmmaker named Darren Aronofsky pitched a hard-R, 1970s set reimagining of Batman's origin. And it got surprisingly close to seeing the light of day. What if it had been made instead of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins? Would we have the Aronofsyverse instead of the Snyderverse? Join Halsted and Eric in their second adventure in the cinematic multiverse! Bibliography: https://tinyurl.com/47yhy9c2

In our inaugural episode, Eric & Halstead look at the tortured history of Peter Jackson’s never-made film based on the Halo video game franchise. What led to the film’s failure to launch? Who could have brought this film across the finish line? Why would a Halo film lead to the streaming wars starting a decade earlier? Bibliography

After the blockbuster success of the Alien sequel Aliens, producing a 3rd movie was a top priority for 20th Century Fox. The tortuous development process that followed eventually led to 1992's divisive Alien3. Eric and Halstead look at the many false starts to see if there was a better way. Could the second Alien sequel have been salvaged? How might that have led to a golden age of auteur-driven science fiction? Join Halsted and Eric in their latest adventure in the cinematic multiverse! Bibliography: https://tinyurl.com/38uaem7v