Best of the Program | Guest: Jon Erwin | 2/24/25

43m
The Left has preached against the Pentagon for years but suddenly disagrees when Trump calls for cuts. Glenn and Stu debate who possibly may be on the Epstein list. Will leftists acknowledge their loss and make the necessary adjustments, or will they double down on their crazy ideologies? Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers (D) has decided to double down in a new bill where the word "mother" was changed to "inseminated person." Wonder Project chief content officer Jon Erwin joins to discuss his newest project on Amazon Prime, "House of David," which tells the story of one of history's greatest kings.
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Transcript

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Hey, we have a rapid-fire recap of the top stories from the weekend and some perspective on all that.

Also, pull up a chair because Uncle Glenn has a new children's story for the folks and the governor of Wisconsin.

Also, John Irwin of the Irwin Brothers joins us to talk about a new Hollywood venture.

And believe it or not, it's good, and he's got the control of the stories he'll be telling with Amazon.

Another chuck another win-up for the right.

All this and so much more on today's podcast.

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You're listening to

the best of the Blendbeck program.

All right, let me just give you the news as I see it, what happened over the weekend of February 15th and 16th.

What happened this weekend, I think, is liberty, justice, and the truth breaking free.

So let's dive in here.

Cash Patel is taking the FBI helm.

His first full official day is today.

He was sworn in as FBI director with the hand on the Gita, a pledge to

uphold his Constitution.

It's not a

bureaucratic shuffle.

It is a shot across the bow of the weaponized deep state.

This one makes all the difference in the world.

Cash

is making people in Washington sweat, and he should.

Patel has vowed to root out corruption left, right, or center, and the whispers of the Epstein client list that he told me over the summer was in

a safe behind the desk of the director of the FBI.

I know that

Cash Patel must have been in the office of the FBI on Friday because Pam Bondi said the client list is now sitting on my desk.

I'm reviewing it.

I have a feeling Cash took it out from behind that desk safe and brought it over to Pam Bondi.

She looked at it, and I'm hoping, as today is his first full day in office, it will be released today.

But transparency, one way or another, is coming, and justice isn't going to care who you voted for.

I'm going to tell you more about this coming up in just a minute.

Also, Trump has locked in his cabinet now.

He has finalized his cabinet this weekend.

Patel, RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard,

the folks who have bucked the system, system, not bowed to it, are all in.

The Senate's buzzing.

But this crew is built to shrink government and not meddle abroad unless America is directly threatened.

No more endless wars, no more nanny state, just constitutional governance.

That's what they're promising.

And so far, that's what they're delivering.

The elites absolutely

hate it,

which makes me love it.

By the way, I don't understand, Democrats.

You've been preaching against the Pentagon forever now.

Wait,

Donald Trump says cut 8% of the defense budget in the next four years, and you're somehow or another against that now?

Wow.

Hello, Democrat Lindsey Grahams of the World.

Midwest storms all through the states,

but FEMA wasn't there.

Oh, no.

If you read the stories about this this weekend, you heard that it was chaos because FEMA had been cut.

Really?

Is that what caused the chaos?

Brutal storm buried the Midwest, snowpiled high, power was out, lives disrupted.

The media is whining about FEMA and the FEMA cuts, but hang on, because I think everyone saw this storm coming.

This wasn't like, oh my gosh, it was a tornado that came out of nowhere.

The storm had to travel halfway across the country to get to your state, Illinois, Michigan.

You didn't have warnings?

Were you in Ghana?

How come you didn't prepare?

You see, it's weird when we know a hurricane is coming, Florida seems to be able to pull their head out of their rectum

and actually prepare.

So when it hits, they can turn the lights back on.

But gee, Illinois, Michigan, you just couldn't get it done.

What does Illinois and Michigan have in common?

Where are the governors?

Florida shrugs off hurricanes without federal babysitters.

Why can't Michigan and Illinois?

FEMA is nothing but a bloated crutch.

States need to step up or ask for help.

Oh my gosh, wouldn't it have been crazy if when you knew there was this storm coming, you as a governor could have been in the same room with the president at the White House last week.

Maybe you got to pull him aside and said, hey, we got a big emergency coming.

Can you help us?

Seems other states did that.

Why weren't you ready?

People, you need to start relying on your states and demanding that your governors pull their heads out of their rectum.

Next story that I saw: the

homelessness crisis.

Oh my gosh, it's a crisis.

Ha!

Ha!

That's the first time I've seen that one.

There's a homelessness crisis in our country?

What?

Yes, tent cities grew this weekend.

Yeah, you know why?

According to the mainstream media, the HUD staff cuts by the Doge team.

Hang on just a second.

It's been a week for those cuts.

So you cut the staff at the top of HUD a week ago, and all of a sudden, homelessness is out of control.

Show me the cut that tanked housing overnight.

Could you do that for me?

I think

this might predate Donald Trump.

I don't know.

I've never seen any pictures of homeless camps all around the country before this last weekend.

This is decades of blue state failures, not a seven-day staffing trim.

Governors and mayors, you all own this now, not Uncle Sam.

Accountability.

is about to go local.

Hmm,

closer to the people.

Maybe we can make changes.

Also, Trump and Zelensky, we're back at it.

Zelensky says he's not going to give the United States anything unless,

I mean, he'll retire if, if

Ukraine's allowed to join NATO?

Isn't this where we started this whole thing in the first place?

Germany's election, if we have time today, I want to talk about that.

They had a snap election, a campaign that went on the far-right AFD is on the rise.

That's because Vance was stirring the pot, you know, in Munich.

That's what happened.

Vance was meddling.

No, you know, what we did is we cut all those USAID programs that were actually meddling in everybody's

elections around the world.

We decided, nah, we shouldn't do that.

We should let the people of those countries decide themselves.

Yeah, you want to talk about a danger to democracy.

Stop meddling in people's elections.

Right?

Am I right?

Their vote was held yesterday, and the fallout is Germany's to handle.

We'll watch.

We'll not wait in, hopefully.

I mean, unless it starts to hit our shores.

It's not our business.

Stateside, we have bigger fish to fry, but there are some things that if I have time, we need to talk about on that.

And Elon Musk is pushing for AI innovation.

The Doge crew cheered California's AI safety veto this weekend.

Less red tape, more breakthroughs.

At the same time, he just came out and said, we are at the event horizon of the singularity.

A big deal.

What are the price of eggs?

I don't know, but we might have robot chickens that eat us soon if you don't pay attention to the singularity.

We'll talk about that coming up next hour.

And the FCC has called out CBS, their bias.

The FCC zeroed in on CBS this weekend, probes into news distortion, hinting at real consequences.

Fascist!

This is not censorship, this is about accountability.

Now,

hear me out on this.

Should stations be able to lie?

Well,

no.

But notice I said stations,

not outlets.

When you have a license from the United States government, you're in bed with the United States government.

I know I've done this my whole life.

I had to get an FCC third phone.

I'm a third phone

license holder, I'll tell you that.

I don't even know what that means but i've got one i had to take a test for it yeah 13 years old i'm at the fcc taking a test for my third phone license

uh

i promptly lost that license i mean i still have it i didn't i mean i i lost it kind of like i lose my driver's license all the time

but if you want to lose a license what you have to do as a local broadcaster is to break fcc rules.

You see, local CBS stations have to have a license through the FCC.

They serve the local community.

Now, perhaps in New York and San Francisco, those people believe in their local community that lying to the American people and changing interviews to be able to make one politician look better than the other in a newscast is a public service.

I mean, we can't have people knowing what they really believe and what they're really like.

We need them to win as a public service.

But I can't imagine all the red states and red cities feel that that was a public service from CBS News.

My question is, have you written a letter to your local CBS affiliate?

You see, any complaint letters where

somebody writes in from the local community and says, I think this was wrong, and I hope the FCC investigates you.

And I've CC'd the FCC.

Too many C's for me to even follow.

I've CC'd the FCC, and so the FCC is going to know about it, ASAP.

I'll tell you that right now, and hopefully they're going to kick your ASS.

Anyway, have you written your local affiliate yet?

And

manufacturers warn of trouble.

New York Times says the New York Fed's latest has pegged manufacturing at peak pessimism this last week, and a slowdown is looming.

We can't wait to blame Trump.

No, they didn't actually say that, but you know they were thinking it.

This is from years of over-regulation, globalism.

It's all biting back.

States can lead the fix, cut taxes, ditch the green tape.

Washington shouldn't be the only savior here.

Every state should take it on.

And finally, one

last story, and it's a sad one.

It seems another major chain might be ready to bite the dust.

Bloomberg has reported that Hooters, the country's most famous breastaurant, is in talks with the law firm Ropes and Gray to prepare bankruptcy.

It is always sad to see people struggle, but even more sad when

a great institution, American institution like this

goes tits up.

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It's not a decision you usually get to hesitate on, not the decision that you make every day, honestly.

The guy threatening your family is not going to wait while you have some internal debate.

Should I kill him?

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Now, back to the podcast.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

We're glad that you're here.

Sue, I don't know if you

saw the Democratic Wisconsin governor Tony Evers.

He's not exactly on the Trump train.

Really?

Yeah.

That's a shocking thing.

It's a shocking.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

It is.

You know, it kind of amazes me that, I mean,

I get it when you're against, you know, going in and cutting the spending of any of these crazy things.

I get it.

Because you're probably on the take.

You know what I mean?

You're probably part of that system that somehow or another benefits you.

I don't know exactly how, but I can get it.

I mean, it just tells me who you are.

But when you are still on the bandwagon of, you know what?

Boys are girls and they're going to compete in sports.

I don't get it.

I really don't get it because nobody really thinks that way, really, anymore.

Yeah, I mean,

is that true?

I mean, they lost, right?

They lost with that approach, which is something they should note if they care about winning in the future.

Correct.

That being said,

you know, they.

Does nobody think about that?

No.

No, you're right.

Nobody.

Not nobody.

It's not even close to nobody, right?

Like, they still got millions and millions.

I mean, what, 40-something percent of the vote.

I'm not sure that that 40%, though, was

they're not on that bandwagon for sure.

I'm against cisgenderism.

That's not, that's not what they were voting on.

I agree.

That's not true.

That's not what they are voting on.

But there is a large, there's still a good chunk.

I don't know.

What is it?

A quarter?

40% of Democrats?

30% of Democrats, somewhere in there, maybe that really still do believe in this, you know, woke sort of line.

So do the, do the math for me.

Uh, how many Democrats are there now, 30% of the population?

Uh, yeah, yeah, okay.

But, I mean, obviously, and only 30% of

that population.

10%.

So you got 10%.

10% is always nuts.

Yeah, that's true.

That's true.

I mean, obviously, you could also say some,

some, I'm saying, I was going to say Democratic voters, 30% of Democratic voters, but still, it's only 15%, 20%.

Yeah.

So it's not that big.

But it is, I think, still a significant, you're talking about tens of millions of people.

Sure, sure.

And we,

look, you know the reason why we all,

you know, we look at these people who are online and we think,

good heavens, they're crazy, right?

I wouldn't want to live next to that guy.

We've all lived next to that guy, right?

Our whole lives.

We just didn't talk to that guy.

We told our kids, don't talk to that guy.

Something wrong with that guy.

You know, the old lady down in the street with all the cats, don't talk to her kids.

You know, we all had those crazy people.

Nobody listened to them and they were kind of isolated in our neighborhoods.

Well, now they all have the internet and now they're all getting together and like, oh, yeah, well, I can now do that.

I'm even crazier than you are.

But it's the same number of crazies, right?

It's just that

they're now in a group and you're like, oh.

Wow, it seems like there's a lot of them.

No, they've just all been hanging out in our neighborhoods.

We just didn't see all of them around the world together in one place.

I think that's true.

I think it's a healthy thing to have some separation in your life from all of this.

Yeah.

You know, and realize that, you know, some people, like, if you're believing crazy things, you, you, you might

find it good.

Good job.

Like, everyone had that crazy person around their town.

You're right.

And it's most of them were harmless.

Most of them.

But when they get together,

it's a problem.

It's one thing, again, I always think about this with so many of these issues.

It's one thing for you to have opinion that's, in my view, crazy.

It's another thing for you to ask me to participate in your delusions.

Yes.

And, like, I don't, you know, that's.

Right.

We used to, the guy would be out getting the mail and you'd be driving by and you were on a small street and you'd be like, oh, crap.

Oh, crap.

He's going to look at me.

I should stop and say hi.

And so, you know, he'd look at you like, you're not driving past me without saying hello.

And so you'd stop and you'd kind of roll down the

what's happening.

And then he would tell you some crazy things and you'd be like, oh, man, crazy times, man.

Crazy times.

Crazy times.

i'll see you yeah and then you roll up the window and you go away and everything's fine but now he's like you're not going anywhere until you absolutely agree and wear this badge and put it online say the word hamas right like you're like well no yeah no okay that's the difference

so tony evers apparently is that crazy guy who lives who lives on a street you know uh but we're just hearing about him because a lot of people got together and went he should be our governor okay well you know whatever so he introduced a budget that um

you know, he announced and he was very excited.

Of course, he didn't mention the language thing, you know, the language part of the budget.

In there, they changed the word mother

to inseminated person,

which I think has a lot of respect.

Don't you?

Oh, it's lovely.

I mean, I think that that shows the love that most of us were created in,

you know.

Hey, inseminated person.

Inseminated person, I'm on the phone.

You know, know, I mean, that's good.

That's good.

Shows a lot of love and respect.

Also,

besides mother, inseminated person, also paternity has been changed to parentage.

I don't know what the...

Parentage?

I don't even understand how that even changes.

I don't even know.

Yeah, I don't have any idea.

References to wife or husband are now spouse.

The word father is changed to parent.

Mother is swapped out for person who gave birth to the child or inseminated person.

So, wait, father isn't inseminator?

It should be.

It should be

consistent.

It's just parent.

That sounds like because you could use parent for a person.

That's not like a superhero, though.

I'm the

inseminator.

Inseminator here to inseminate.

There's no need to fear.

Inseminator is here.

Yeah, I like that.

That's good.

That's good.

In fact, I got to use that as a new pickup line for the bars.

Hey!

Let's open up the bar.

I'm the inseminator.

Okay, good, good, good.

I like that.

Okay, so anyway, he's done that.

And I thought, you know what?

Let's just get on the bandwagon.

Let's just get on the bandwagon.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

So I want to start something

just a, I wrote a little, wrote a little children's story today.

I think you're going to like it.

It's time for Uncle Glenn's non-inseminator story time.

Because I didn't inseminate anybody that created you, but I want to read a story to you.

So it's a little story.

It starts out with,

well, it's in a bat crap crazy town of Genderland.

And little Timmy is there and he's scratching his head and he's screaming, which Pat is my dad?

Which Pat is my mom?

If any of you are, you colonizer enablers.

It starts out the way every great story starts out, doesn't it?

So Pat 1, Pat 2, and Pat 3, three gender-neutral anti-racist warriors, snorted over their intersexual oat milk lattes, wearing spouse spectrum sashes and the parentage puzzle pins and the decolonized family armbands.

And the first one said, I'm the inseminated person of color who birthed you, dismantling white supremacy.

That was Pat 1, rejecting mom or mother for maximum wokeness.

Then pat number two grinned and said, I handled parentage duties, centering bioptic joy, and no cisgender father is here.

Oh, little Timmy just smiled as pat number three, dwirling a secret splice cape with a land back patch, cackled, my indigenous genes got spliced into your cells at conception.

Smash the patriarchy, kiddo.

Well, Timmy just looked at those three people.

He said, no, I mean, male, female, which one's my mom?

All of them looked at Little Timmy, male, female.

Then Timmy realized, once more, none of these freaks knew any longer how to even describe a woman.

Okay, okay.

Which one of you chest-fed me?

Timmy asked.

Pat one waved a pump.

Me, non-binarily, in solidarity with trans folks, which we spell with an X.

Pat number two brandished a buddy system bottle.

Me,

amplifying queer joy.

Pat number three giggled, I chest-fed via eco-friendly proxy.

Climate justice, baby.

Then all three in the parentage patrol began chanting spouse, parent, inseminate, smash the white fragility.

It didn't really rhyme, but none of them do nowadays.

Just then Timmy's friend, Sammy, another gendered neutral name, burst in, shrieking, my inseminated person says,

I'm a non-binary climate refugee.

Help!

I don't even know what that means, Timmy, and I don't think the people who came up with that know what it means either.

Well, Timmy and Gender Neutral, named Sammy, double I double E, then hatched a plan.

Later that day at the gender neutral anti-racist Jamboree, Timmy grabbed a mic, yelling, I identify as a Reelsville revolutionary, and I outwoke you all.

By genderland law, my specialized spliced genes make me the supreme intersectional

ruler of all.

You You three are my subordinate spouses.

Time out in the parentage penalty box without any trigger warnings and without any oat milk.

While the crowd gasped as the Pats tripped over their pronouns drenched in their non-binary glitter, Timmy then hijacked the progress wagon, blaring old Louis C.K.

monologues, zooming to Reelsville, where mom and dads still liked normalcy.

The Pats chased him, yelling, but we're for dismantling the systems.

Timmy mooned them, shouting, see you later, crazies.

Just then, the wagon crashed into a barbecue joint.

Timmy escaped with a rib, giggling, sanity and meat.

Perfect.

So, there's your little story.

Story time from Uncle Glenn today.

I think they probably really will enjoy that,

you know, in Wisconsin, where it's always sane.

It's always truly sane.

You're streaming the best of the Glenn Beck program, and you can find full episodes wherever you download podcasts.

So, do you remember what it used to be like when you would go to a movie and it was a Christian movie and you'd be like, oh,

and it was just embarrassingly bad.

And,

you know, it just was.

It just was.

Very few times, you know, gone were the filmmakers like Cecil B.

DeMille that actually understood the scriptures, understood what he was doing, didn't want to mock that, and actually liked people who were, you know, following the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and tried to make something that was true.

Those guys had been long gone and dead

and run out of Hollywood.

But then came the Irwin brothers.

Then came Dallas Jenkins, you know, from the chosen, John Gunn.

And they formed kind of a fellowship of the ring, if you will, storming the gates of Mordor, otherwise known as Hollywood.

And the Irwin brothers, they are responsible for The Jesus Revolution, which is a fantastic movie.

The Unbreakable Boy, I just had Zachary Levi on.

And he is,

this movie, I told him, is just one of the best movies I've seen in a long time.

It's just such a good...

movie.

And on top of it, it just makes you feel good.

And you can just learn so much.

I mean, at least I did.

I watched it the whole time going, I don't think I'm that guy.

I don't think I'm that guy, unfortunately.

But just great movie.

Doesn't feel like a Christian movie used to feel.

The Irwin brothers have really kind of mastered this as

they made their films.

They came out and started The Wonder Project.

which is something that's going to produce film and television and now has a seat at the Hollywood table, you know, but we've sanitized it for their protection.

And it's a seat that I think they're going to keep.

And they're working

in the system, but they're not of the system

that has long neglected the Christian audience.

And they're coming out with something brand new this week on Netflix.

And John Irwin is with us now.

Hey, John, how are you?

Glenn, how are you doing, man?

It's good to, as always, man.

She's been a wonderful friend for a very long time.

And

yeah, it is an exciting time in our industry

for sure.

It's sort of an unprecedented moment.

And I think that's just because the voice of the audience has been so clearly heard, you know, that it's given us the ability to maintain control, creative control,

but also really harness the

relationships with some of these studios and streamers.

And I feel I may have made a mistake.

Is it Netflix or is it Amazon Prime?

It's Amazon Prime.

Amazon Prime.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Sorry about that.

Thank you.

It's House of David.

It comes out this Thursday.

It's the project that I've I remember when I was 16 years old.

My dad bought me

a camera with money he didn't have and I didn't know how to use it.

And we went straight to Israel and filmed a little walk and talk documentary.

And there's something just that the Bible came to life in a whole new way.

And I went to King David's tomb.

And right there, I started dreaming about eventually getting to do the story of David.

And so a lot of the films that I've made,

many of that you mentioned, I'm grateful for that, are kind of working up the courage and the skill to try to helm David's story.

And there's this wonderful group of filmmakers.

You're exactly right that we're willing each other on to success and talking all the time.

And,

you know, I do feel like I'm in Dallas Jenkins' wake and he's a wonderful friend and collaborator.

And so it's amazing to finally get to tell biblical stories.

It's been a dream of mine for quite a long time.

You guys have, I mean, I love all of you.

You're just cut from the same cloth and just not willing to give up.

And you get better and better with every movie that comes out.

So you made

the first one, the first episode of King David starts with him with Slingshot, right?

And Goliath?

Yeah, it really is.

The classic hero's journey.

Season one of House of David

is the story of the rise of this young outcast shepherd boy, you know, chosen to be king in a nation that already had one, slaying a giant, and it really is that classic storytelling.

And I think in many ways, David is the origin of many of those other origin stories.

I mean, this is the original hero's journey.

And so if you like those classic stories like Lord of the Rings or...

uh or Star Wars or Harry Potter, you know, I think a lot of those stories have their have their roots in many ways in David.

uh and this is the first you know the the original um you know uh hero's journey kind of or one of them and and uh

and and so it's going to feel very familiar even if you're not familiar with the material are

do you I've always thought when I read that story that everybody was like, David, shut your mouth.

What are you doing?

This kid doesn't have a chance.

What are you doing?

How did you explain or deal with the, here's this kid that nobody thinks has a chance

stepping up.

How did you deal with the rest of the army that was there?

Well,

that's the fun thing.

You know, Ken Burns, I think, calls it emotional archaeology, is the idea of when you study history

and then you really make it real and emotional.

And that was one of the questions that I had was,

how in the world did King Saul let this kid go out and fight this giant?

And we we really spend a lot of time answering that question.

And I think the reason is that

Saul sensed, you know, David was also anointed king and he sensed that courage and conviction.

And when no one else was willing to challenge

Goliath,

you know, David was so passionate about it that somehow

that convinced

a king to say yes.

And that was a pretty cool

thing to dramatize and really try to get right.

I had not seen anything in film and television that really was like, you know, I feel like that, that feels real to me.

And

so it's a pretty spectacular

episode of the series.

And the series really is, I've never had resources to put things on an epic stage like this.

And

it really is an epic TV show.

And

I love it.

And I really hope the

audience loves it as well.

And I hope it draws attention to, I remember, you know, when some Amazon executives first read read the scripts, they're like, we really like these scripts.

I'm like, you know, it's based off a bestseller.

You should check it out.

It'll change your life.

You know,

5 billion copies can't be wrong.

Right.

There's something in there that's good.

So that's my hope.

I hope people will read the Psalms of David in a whole new way.

How did you deal with Goliath?

You know, he's described as a giant, blah, blah, blah.

And I think...

You have him portrayed as something like 14 feet tall.

Why do we believe he was, I mean, mean, other than the scriptures tell us he was a giant,

what do we think was happening there with this guy?

Well, you know what's interesting about that is we really go into a lot of the sort of, I would call it the mythology of

at least what

Israelites at that time would have thought Goliath was and this whole backstory of

the Nephilim and of sort of fallen angels.

And there was sort of at least a myth in that day or

true, who knows you know that that

that that would have struck fear into into into Israel that really explains why he would have taunted them for 40 days and so we needed an enormous guy not only tall but also broad you know Thanos and Avengers was always sort of my my sort of benchmark for the character and Martin Ford who's just wonderful

in the Mortal Kombat movies and just a great guy

played the role and and you you get to know the character as well I think you know that's what television gives you the opportunity to do is and he and we went big.

I mean he is he's he's as tall he's as big as as could be historically justified but I also think it's justified by the material.

I mean he really did strike terror into

the army

and that's why they there was this 40-day standstill.

And when you see Martin Ford, when I saw him in person, one of the questions people asked from the trailers was David afraid?

And I can assure you, he would have been afraid.

And I think anytime you try something great or something that you feel you're destined or called to do, you're going to have to step beyond your fear.

And

so Martin is just terrifying when he's in costume.

And then when you use visual effects to blow him up,

it's even more scary.

Did you have him like eat snacks or anything?

Because

he's really ripped.

But I was just watching a cowboy movie.

I had a cowboy movie I was painting this weekend.

And then I don't remember who it was, John Wayne or somebody.

And they took their shirt off.

And I was like, oh, that's not a good look, John.

Because back then, you weren't caught.

Now you take your shirt off and you better be caught.

But especially back then, he just would have been enormous and not, you know, exactly.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm glad you mentioned that because he was coming off the Roland Emmerich TV show

Those About to Die on Peacock.

And he was very sort of, he played Gladiator and he was was very sort of cut.

And I did say that, you know, these people would have had to survive on the land and with really formidable circumstances.

He just would have been big.

He would have been like a gigantic grizzly bear, you know.

And

so that's what we went for.

And he started

whatever bodybuilders say, carving.

I don't know, but he did whatever he needed to do to just get big.

And he does.

He looks like, okay, I buy that this character would have just been a formidable beast

of a human, but not necessarily a bodybuilder.

And I credit Martin for doing that.

I mean, he's just very, very, very dedicated as an actor.

And

he did the work.

And

he really looks great.

And I'm very proud of him.

If you ever need somebody that just looks big and fat and doesn't have like a bodybuilding shape

to them, you can call me.

I'm willing to eat as much as you want.

You remote, man.

But you'd be like the spectators.

I'm not going to go out there.

I am often.

I remind myself how glad I am to be on the dark side of the camera.

I love working with a great actor.

Yeah.

But

it's nice to be on the side of the camera where no one recognizes you and you can eat Taco Bell whenever you want.

So the Wonder Project is the company that you started.

You're also doing the Wright Brothers?

Yeah, we're developing quite a bit.

Jeremy Latcham that produced Iron Man and many other movies at Marvel.

You know, there's just this movement.

And,

you know, the things that I'm really passionate about are

the Bible and then also the American story.

You're doing

George Washington still?

I'm doing, yeah, my next movie, as soon as I wrap, I guess it's okay to say this.

It's live.

Who knows?

My next film that I go immediately into pre-production on is the young life of George Washington.

I know we share that passion for just the great figure in American history and his his formation.

We're developing the Wright brothers.

And there's just quite a bit of stories.

I just, I love America's story and what it represents.

And, you know, how are you?

Hang on, just

hang on.

When you're doing the young George Washington,

are you making his mother a giant pain in the ass because she was?

You know, there's been in the three revisions of the script, it's trying to figure out on a dial of like two to nine how much of a pain she could be.

I mean, not many people realize, I think you pointed this out.

I remember that she wrote a letter like in criticism of him not, he shouldn't like

president for a second term because of his ice cream habit.

Yeah.

And she got him when he was, when he was young, he went up the gangplank.

He was going to join the British Navy.

And he was, I don't know, 15.

And she was like, no, George, you can't do me.

No, George.

Yeah, that's the real element to the story.

Oh, George.

And it brings comic relief, but also you see the pressure he was under.

He really had to become a man long before his time because of the death of his father.

And

it also is important to show that, I mean, when he came back down off that gangplank and brought his stuff back and said, mom, if

you need me by your side, by your side, I will remain.

It shows that he sacrificed everything he wanted to do.

His whole life.

His whole life.

He sacrificed for others.

He did that over and over again.

Yeah, that is a common thread of his relationship to what he felt was his duty

and purpose was so strong.

And long before there was an American anthem or an American flag, you know, there was one man that galvanized this idea for a long period of time.

And so I love to study the formation of leaders like that.

And that's also a story I've been wanting to tell for a long time.

And I do want to just say, it is the voice of the audience that allows us to do these projects.

When we started negotiating with Amazon Prime, creative control was an essential non-negotiable item.

And they were glad to give it to us because of the success of the work.

And so there's a relationship between a small group of filmmakers that I'm so grateful to be a part of.

But there's also a relationship with all of us as an audience.

And when we support these things, it gives us leverage to get more things made.

And if you watch the trailer at House of Davids, you know, I've never been able to put anything on this sort of

epic scope and scale.

And it really is because of our unified voice that these things are happening.

And I'm telling you, there is a revolution of values and belief

going on in Hollywood right now.

John, great to talk to you.

I hope to see you later this week.

Thank you.

God bless you.

Yeah, God bless.

Good to talk to you.

Thank you.

John Irwin, House of David, he's the executive producer, co-director,

and it airs beginning, I believe he said on Thursday on Amazon Prime.

It is called House of David.

It is a new series that begins that is really good.

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