S4E43.5: Sorceror

**November Kelly** (0:17)
Hello, and welcome to season four, episode 32 and a half of Kill James Bond. I am November Kelly, I am joined, as always, by my friends, Abigail Thorn and Devon.

**Abigail Thorn** (0:29)
Hello, gentle listener.

**Devon** (0:31)
Hello, how are you doing? Cowabunga. It's definitely not that episode. I don't know why you, are you doing a new thing?

**November Kelly** (0:37)
Yeah, well, the thing is, the thing is that in season four, episode 32 and a half, we confronted a film made in France, which is where they invented the concept of having seen something before, you know? I forget what it's called.

**Devon** (0:50)
Yeah, there's some kind of term in French.

**Abigail Thorn** (0:53)
It's in French, yeah.

**November Kelly** (0:54)
At this point here, we have to confront that French term, whatever it is, because we're watching a remake of that film. That film was Wages of Fear.

**Abigail Thorn** (1:04)
Yeah, which we enjoyed. We really liked it. Very much.

**Devon** (1:07)
I had a really good time with Wages of Fear. I had a somewhat difficult time watching it, like physically finding and watching it, but that's probably a me problem.

**November Kelly** (1:16)
It's something that has in common with its remake, I'll say.
But yeah, the Wages of Fear was a black and white, existentialist sort of death march of capitalism film. And in this case, we are doing the American 70s remake of it, Sorcerer.

**Abigail Thorn** (1:36)
Yeah, where they kind of remove most of the anti-capitalist themes and it becomes a kind of Man v. God movie, as they call it in the industry, or a Man v. Nature movie. Which I think is still a good film, and it's well made, but I just can't set the table. I like the original better, but all right, we'll get into it. Sorcerer.

**Devon** (1:54)
I like the original better, definitely. There's some things in this I like more than the original, but not everything, not the whole movie.

**November Kelly** (2:02)
Crucially, this is a film directed by William Friedkin, who directed Fruzzy.

**Devon** (2:06)
We've done one episode of that before, and that was the one where it was everyone v. Devon.

**Abigail Thorn** (2:11)
Oh, yeah, okay.

**November Kelly** (2:13)
I don't mean to just do this exclusively to you, but I'm not a huge William Friedkin fan. We've done two, actually. We've done Rules of Engagement as well, I believe.

**Abigail Thorn** (2:25)
Oh, okay.

**Devon** (2:26)
Ages back, yeah.

**November Kelly** (2:28)
Which was also a-

**Abigail Thorn** (2:28)
We did not like that movie.

**November Kelly** (2:29)
This is an evil film.

**Devon** (2:31)
Also an evil film.

**Abigail Thorn** (2:31)
Yeah, that was an evil movie, yeah. Is this guy evil?

**November Kelly** (2:35)
Yeah, I think maybe, yes. I mean, we're gonna do To Live and Die in LA at some point, which absolutely is an evil film. I'm trying. Hopefully just the living part, not the dying part. But Sorcerer is- this was like William Friedkin's passion project. If you remember the tweet that's like, my new script, bright, if made properly, could be my Star Wars.

**Devon** (2:59)
Yeah, yeah, I think about that a lot.

**November Kelly** (3:01)
He went all in on getting the rights to the book that Wages of Fear is an adaptation of, and doing not a remake in his mind, but a sort of a different adaptation of it. This was going to be the thing that put him on the map. And then this came out in June of 1977 And do you know what else came out?

**Devon** (3:22)
10,000 decibel, Star Wars music kicks in. No one's seeing any other fucking movies, moron.

**Abigail Thorn** (3:31)
George Lucas said, if made properly, this could be my Star Wars on account of that it's Star Wars.

**November Kelly** (3:38)
And so this really underperformed.

**Abigail Thorn** (3:40)
Thank God my wife is editing my movie, Hope We Never Divorce.

**November Kelly** (3:45)
George Lucas driving the longest car in the world, perfectly running over and killing William Friedkin. And Friedkin never really kind of got over this, even for the rest of his career. He was like, no, this should have been the thing that made me like...

**Devon** (3:57)
It should have been a huge hit...

**November Kelly** (3:59)
.Lucas Big, right? And I don't think that it's good enough to do that.

**Abigail Thorn** (4:06)
No, it's decent, but it's not good enough to do that.

**Devon** (4:09)
Very, very glad you teed that up.

**Abigail Thorn** (4:10)
Glad he put his heart and soul into it.

**Devon** (4:12)
He's been on record all the time about how good this would have been if not for Star Wars.