Check Book: One Battle with Zaslav After Another

Plus AI Slop, notable trailers, and the end of March Madness

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Mar 31, 2025

Surprise! Blank Check has started a newsletter! Your favorite connoisseurs of context are gonna go on even more tangents, commit to even more bits, and share opinions on even more pieces of entertainment industry news because - hey, why not. Thanks for joining us!

IN THIS WEEK’S EDITION:

THE BARDI PARTY REPORT

Hi folks! Happy March Madness Championship Day! I can’t believe it’s finally here. The Coen Brothers are facing off against Peter Weir to determine the rest of our 2025 schedule spreadsheet. Based on their knockout performance in the tournament thus far, it’s looking pretty likely that the Coens will take it. But there’s always room for surprises!

Some other things happening in the entertainment world this week:

PTA’s One Battle After Another saw its trailer released to much fanfare amongst film fans. Then a bunch of hit pieces popped up in the trades. Warner Bros is subjecting PTA to indignations left and right - test screenings?? Threatening to revoke final cut privileges?? And now it looks like Zaslav is about to fire studio chiefs Mike DeLuca (that Mike DeLuca) and Pam Abdy in retaliation for greenlighting so many risky (and blank check-y) auteur projects. It’s a damn shame. But it’s also kind of the reason we have this podcast. Sometimes they bounce, baby.
Speaking of Warner Bros, Michael Mann has handed in the first draft of his Heat 2 script to the studio, as revealed in an interview with Bilge Ebiri. Hasn’t Austin Butler been in firearms training for like two years at this point? And we didn’t even have a script?! Anyway, we’re excited to see how this one turns out.
A bunch of AI Studio Ghibli slop made its way onto social media feeds this week, thanks to an OpenAI update or something. The OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE TWITTER ACCOUNT even used it to “Ghibli-fy” a propaganda photo of an undocumented migrant being handcuffed by ICE. We are living in hell. If you or one of your loved ones saw the Ghibli thing and thought it was cute and maybe even used it on your/their own photo, please take this time to educate them on why generative AI is bad, especially as it relates to the work of Hayao Miyazaki, a man who has spent his entire life championing environmental causes and the sacredness of human creativity.
Continuing on the AI Slop / We Live In Hell beat, this article in Deadline (h/t to whomever posted this on our Reddit) revealed that movie studios are generating ad revenue from those garbage fake trailers that clog YouTube feeds. No, you idiot, Titanic II is NOT HAPPENING. Who believes this shit? After this much-needed work of investigative journalism, YouTube has changed its ad revenue policy as it relates to these videos. I wonder if the feeds will clear up.
The trailer for ARP’s Pavements also dropped last week. Griffin was in it, I’ve seen it, it’s really fun and even if you aren’t an aging hipster Malkmus guy, the film has enough music biopic parody shit to make any Blankie hoot and holler:
Non-Jamaican Nepobaby and Northwestern classmate of JJ Bersch Chet Hanks released a music video with himself recreating Forrest Gump. Tom Hanks cameos. This just feels like something you should know about:

I’m sorry about that one. See you folks next week for hopefully some less-cursed news!

EDITED TO ADD: It’s official. Ketchup Entertainment has acquired Coyote vs. Acme. Thank you, Chip Smith. Chip Smith good now.

LET’S CRACK OPEN THE DOSSIER

When director Steven Spielberg transported Always, his 1989 remake of Victor Fleming’s 1943 film A Guy Named Joe, from its original World War II setting to the contemporary moment, he—and (credited) screenwriter Jerry Belson and (uncredited) screenwriter Diane Thomas—had to find a new use for the original story’s airplanes. To do so, Spielberg tracked the evolving function of the many real-life planes produced during the Second World War: “A lot of the old … bomber pilots have kept their old airplanes, or at least restored, bought, and used parts and turned them into firefighting equipment. I thought that would give a timeless feeling. It’s a contemporary movie. It feels like it’s set in the forties, but in fact it is set today.”1 But making a movie about firefighting pilots created an obvious set of practical obstacles, as described here by producer Richard Vane: “Because forest fires aren’t always cooperative and set up at angles that the camera is ready to shoot, we had the tremendous task of trying to create forest-fire scenes that were safe and shootable.”2 So, before principal photography kicked off, the Always special-effects team traveled to Montana, where Yellowstone National Park had suffered an historically disastrous series of lightning-caused fires in the Spring of 1988.3 Spielberg, of course, did not intend to add to the suffering: “[W]e wanted to shoot actual forest fires, we didn’t want to start any new ones.”4 So, as Vane outlines here, a solution was found: “With the expertise and research of special-effects coordinator Mike Wood, we created our own trees that could burn on cue; we did not burn trees that were still alive.”5 Here’s Spielberg with further details: “We reburned areas of the Yellowstone fire that had already consumed thousands of acres. … The special effects people went in and rigged the trees that had already burned. Once they’re burning again you can’t tell that they’re not green. Because of the flames, they’re just all orange and yellow. So, even though we were reburning already blackened trees, once the forest was ablaze you couldn’t tell.” Additionally, the crew was also able to photograph “some of the actual Yellowstone fire. In a lot of the scenes where Richard and John Goodman are flying over the fire, that’s actually Yellowstone burning below. … The Forest Service let us go in with our airplanes and shoot some of the actual Yellowstone fire as it was happening.”6
While that all sounds incredibly difficult and dangerous, perhaps the other biggest challenge facing the production lied in convincing the aging composer Irving Berlin to let Spielberg use his 1925 ode to his wife Ellin—“Always”—in the film of the same name. However, it was a challenge the production was not able to overcome, as Berlin declined to meet with Spielberg in the early 1980s, per the director: “[Berlin] was 94 years old and he ‘planned to use [“Always”] in the future.’ Well, it was interesting; he was making plans for the future, and I’m sorry I never met him and I’m also sorry I never could get his song in my movie. But it’s not because I didn’t try.”7 Berlin passed away at the age of 101 on September 22, 1989—exactly three months before the release of Spielberg’s film.
Though Brad Johnson first entered the public eye as a smokin’ hot emblem of masculinity for the Marlboro cigarette company, it was his clumsier off-screen side that initially appealed to Steven Spielberg, per the director: “When I first met him he was really a klutz. I don’t know whether it was out of sheer nerves or perhaps he just likes to spill things, but he sure ingratiated himself to me.” Spielberg brought Johnson in for multiple interviews before hiring him for his first major big screen role, with Spielberg claiming that, ultimately, “the klutziness helped.” In fact, as the production wore on, Spielberg asked Johnson to lean further and further into his klutziness: “I told him to put some of it into the character, when it wasn’t there before.” Still, Spielberg acknowledged that, despite “all the funny klutzy things [Johnson] did … he is a rodeo rider and a pilot. He’s got shelves of rodeo trophies and he’s obviously done things that take quick thinking and precision skills.” So why was he also so klutzy? Spielberg theorized, “I think he saves his klutziness for when he sees a pretty girl and gets a little flustered and spills coffee all over himself.”8 Now, look, if Spielberg is as big of a fan of watching klutzy people spill coffee as he claims he is, boy oh boy, have I got a scene that definitely made it into the final cut of the movie for him…
Marlboro’s new Man?
Finally, here is an insightful, oft-cited quote in which Spielberg lays out his feelings about what became perhaps his most forgotten movie: “A lot of people said Always was the one movie where you have to cast movie stars. If you’d had Kevin Costner and Michelle Pfeiffer and made it exactly the same way it would have gone through the roof. That might have been true but you have to understand Kevin Costner is not my alter ego: Richard Dreyfuss is. Some movies don’t take off and there’s a thousand reasons why. But I would still have cast Richard and Holly Hunter. It was a good experience for me to make that movie because it was all about human emotions. I have no regret at all.”9

WHAT IS THE TEAM INTO THIS WEEK?

David Sims, Host: “I recommend amoxicillin. When your twins have ear infections: amoxicillin is the way to go. I also saw The Quiet Man. HORIZONS! I’m gonna watch every John Ford movie I’ve never seen I think!!!”

Griffin Newman, Host: “I finally made it out to see THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE yesterday, and am thrilled to say that it’s another winner from Chip Smith’s KETCHUP ENTERTAINMENT. Beyond the basic joy of getting to see a 2D toon on the big screen again it has some of the most expressive, exciting, and funny character animation I’ve seen in years. I also loved it being a throwback to Daffy’s origins as A Duck Who Is Truly Daffy before he slowly morphed into the proto-George Costanza we all know and love today.

Beyond his exceptional voice work, Eric Bauza’s constant drumming of respect for the history and importance of these characters gives me hope for the future of WB Animation. (I expect we’ll be reading that Zaslav has sold the entire classic Looney Tunes lineup to TaxiTV or something by the time this newsletter publishes.)”

AJ McKeon, Editor: “I’ll recommend Alex Mitchell, or @gravity_proof. Alex composes a bunch of music for Blank Check and every March one of his seminal pieces for Blank Check get the love it deserves “The Chip Report” theme. Tagged on as the outro to our March Madness updates it’s “Techno, gauche, Gregorian chants; delightfully ridiculous.” As u/IngmarHerzog said on the Reddit. If you like Alex’s stuff such as that, or the Decade of Dreams stingers, consider giving him a follow. @gravity_proof on IG and Gravity Proof on Spotify”

Marie Bardi, Social Media: “After a busy few weeks, I finally made it out to the cinema to see a new(ish) release. My husband and I caught Soderbergh’s Black Bag yesterday. WOWZA. A movie about how being a totally locked-in wife guy is THE HOTTEST THING A MAN CAN BE. A movie about Cate Blanchett ordering a drone strike from a Pret-A-Manger. A movie about silk pajamas. A movie about how good Tom Burke looks with a bushy beard. A movie about how I need to apologize to Marisa Abela for being mean about the Amy Winehouse thing. A movie about how to pass a polygraph test (clench your sphincter). 5 stars. Highly recommended.”

JJ Bersch, Researcher: “I would like to recommend all of the great restaurants I ate at last week during my family’s Spring Break trip to the great city of Minneapolis: Hai Hai, Christina Nguyen’s James-Beard-winning South Asian street food restaurant; Francis, home of the best vegan burger I’ve ever had; Reverie, a plant-based neighborhood café/bar that was so welcoming and cozy that I earnestly considered moving in; Baba’s Hummus House, where you gotta get the Super Green hummus bowl; and Cardamom, the shockingly great restaurant housed inside of the similarly wonderful Walker Art Center.”

Alan Smithee, Pseudonymous Editor: “I watched a TikTok where Jason Alexander talked about how bad the Seinfeld set was, and how the actors had to constantly just make up reasons to move around the space. So I started rewatching Seinfeld and a) still rips, and b) he’s absolutely right, everybody just wanders around the set for no reason all the time.”