Diminishing Returns

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: th

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.

In which we take a look at all four films in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man's Chest, At World's End and On Stranger Tides) in the run up to Dead Men Tell No Tales / Salazar's Revenge (depending on where you live). Lots of talk of pirates, Johnny Depp, zombies, monkeys... pretty much anything and everything you could want... ...and, as always, we pitch our own ideas for what the sequel should be. This week, Sol and Allen actually pitch real sequels instead of joking around like they normally do which makes for a nice change of pace.

Alien season concludes with our Prometheus episode. If you missed the last two week's, we highly recommend listening to the entire trilogy as we cover the real Alien movies (the quadrilogy), the shit Alien movies (vs. Predator) and, this week, the sort of in-the-middle Alien movie (Prometheus). Opinions on this one vary between the group (spoiler alert: Calvin loves it, Sol and Allen hate it), so there's some great back and forth and discussion, not to mention a chance to hear Calvin's impression of Meryl Streep near the end!

We're continuing our Alien season, in anticipation of Alien: Covenant, by taking a look at the somewhat less acclaimed Alien vs. Predator spin-off series made up of AVP: Alien vs. Predator and AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem - two of the most stupidly titled films ever made. Chat includes the likes of the original quadrilogy, Prometheus and Batman for some reason - and, as always, we pitch our own ideas for Alien vs. Predator 3. If you're enjoying Alien season, be sure to come back next week for the thrilling conclusion!

Alien season is here! In the run up to the release of Alien: Covenant, we're taking a huge look at the Alien series starting with the core franchise (Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection).

Guardians of the Galaxy, the bad boy of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is discussed in the latest edition of Diminishing Returns, which looks at its place within the superhero genre as a whole, the meteoric rise of Chris Pratt (as well as the work of other cast members Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, John C. Reilly, Benecio Del Toro and Howard the Duck), and, as always what Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 might have been, with three pitches for alternative sequels.

This week, we take a stab at Calvin's favourite film of all time (Psycho) and its surprisingly many sequels and off-shoots (Psycho II, Psycho III, Bates Motel - the TV movie, Psycho IV: The Beginning, Psycho - the Gus Van Sant / Vince Vaughn remake and Bates Motel - the TV series). The sequel pitches are also particularly on form here, as Calvin dusts off an old Psycho sequel idea he had as a youth, Allen pitches a very different TV series based on the films and Sol takes the podcast into its most self-indulgent territory yet with an entire sequel pitch dedicated to mocking Calvin.

The Fast and the Furious franchise (The Fast and the Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast and Furious, Fast Five, Furious 6 and Furious Seven) shows no signs of slowing down any time soon, and with the impending release of The Fate of the Furious (aka Fast and Furious 8), we decided to take a retroactive look at the franchise and do the usual thing of pitching our own sequels to the films. Topics include the differences between Vin Diesel and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, driving in general and some really self-indulgent stuff about plums.

This week, we take a break from the huge blockbuster fare that's been dominating our output lately and focus in on this classic B-movie franchise starting with 1990's Kevin Bacon vehicle: Tremors and followed by a number of sequels (Tremors II: Aftershocks, Tremors 3: Back to Perfection, Tremors 4: The Legend Begins and Tremors 5: Bloodlines, not to mention a SyFy TV series, an upcoming Tremors 6 and an upcoming Amazon original series). Listen through headphones in order to minimise risk of Graboid attack.

Our love of discussing films where an actor portrays a character of another race culminates here, in an episode focused on Ghost in the Shell, the seminal 1995 anime adaptation of the manga of the same name and, also, the upcoming live-action remake starring Scarlett Johansson. Is the old film any good? Does the new film look any good? How many puns based on the title can we think of? All of these questions are addressed and more in yet another thrilling installment of Diminishing Returns.

Go, go Diminishing Returns! Power Rangers will soon find new life in the movie of the same name, so we felt it apt to look back to our nostalgia (or lack of, depending on which host you're talking about) for the series, compiled from a re-edited Japanese series, Super Sentai, combined with new footage featuring American 'teens'. As always, we round things off by pitching our own takes on what the new Power Rangers movie should have looked like.

Disney's new take on Beauty and the Beast follows hot on the heels of films like The Jungle Book, Pete's Dragon, Cinderella, Maleficent and Alice in Wonderland. Is the new trend of Disney remaking all of its animated classics harmless, nostalgia-driven fun or a tragic symptom of the end of cinematic creativity? We explore that as well as aforementioned films, Disney's upcoming slate of (at least) 17 further remakes and our pitches for the remakes that Disney should greenlight next. Oh and, also, does the new Beauty and the Beast look any good?

With Kong: Skull Island upon us, we take a look at the long history of King Kong films, starting with the 1933 original, but also the 1976 and 2005 remakes, Son of Kong, King Kong vs Godzilla, King Kong Lives and, even, some lost Japanese Kong movies. As always, things are rounded off with pitches for what the next entry in the King Kong franchise should have been.