Will AI destroy humanity? Plus: Netflix’s “Death of a Pastor’s Wife” & Hollywood’s massive summer | Ep. 86

Conner Jones: [00:00:01] Hi, I’m Conner Jones.

Alex Kondratev: [00:00:03] And I’m Alex Kondratev.

Conner Jones: [00:00:04] And this is Culture Brief, a Denson Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of stories and news, politics, sports, pop culture, and so much more. We do it all from a Christian perspective. And yeah, you heard that right. Our resident East Coaster, Alex is here.

Alex Kondratev: [00:00:16] Hi, from Charleston. Here I am.

Conner Jones: [00:00:18] Yeah, from Charleston. Um, you know, southern and eastern, kind of right there.

Alex Kondratev: [00:00:22] And coastal.

Conner Jones: [00:00:23] And coastal. Yeah, honestly, you got the beaches, beautiful weather out there, although summer’s really hot there too, right?

Alex Kondratev: [00:00:28] It’s probably as hot as here, but just add more humidity.

Conner Jones: [00:00:32] Golly. So. Yeah, it’s dry heat here in Dallas. And honestly, I’m ready for rain. We’re on like day 60 of no rain here in Dallas.

Alex Kondratev: [00:00:38] Oh my gosh. We get rain at least. So.

Conner Jones: [00:00:40] Yeah. Uh, you should see my grass. It’s all brown. So, just brutal.

Alex Kondratev: [00:00:43] You don’t have to mow it if it’s dead. You don’t have to mow it.

Conner Jones: [00:00:44] This is true. I haven’t mowed in like two weeks. It’s been kind of nice. Um, but also I’d like my grass to survive, so that’d be nice. Well, Alex, we got a loaded show today. You want to give us kind of a rundown of what we’re going to be hitting on?

Alex Kondratev: [00:00:53] Yeah, so I saw that you’re covering a uh disturbing story. Is AI going to destroy us? So can’t wait to hear more about that. And then to keep things light, I’m actually talking about a documentary that is actually really dark. I’m sure many of you have seen it. It’s number one on Netflix right now, has been for two weeks. And we’re going to be chatting through some of that and what that means for us, uh what that means for the church and how we can combat some of the the dark stuff covered there. So.

Conner Jones: [01:01:22] And the name of that Netflix documentary specifically is Death of a Pastor’s wife, right?

Alex Kondratev: [01:01:25] Death of a Pastor’s wife. I was going to hold it. I was going to keep it a secret till my segment, but now you know, Death of the Pastor’s wife. You’ve probably watched it.

Conner Jones: [01:01:32] Spoiler alert. After those two, honestly, kind of heavy subjects, we’ll we’ll we’ll turn the page a little bit and I’m going to be joined by AJ Baxley. She’s the one who came on in May. We predicted how the summer box office would go in the movie theaters with all the big studio movies. And uh we got to reconcile our predictions. Look back at who was right, who was wrong, who won our little game, Bust the Block. So she came into the studio yesterday, joined me for uh just a review of that and she’ll be tacking on here at the end of this time with you, Alex.

Alex Kondratev: [01:01:58] I’m glad you didn’t do that with me. I’m like sitting here thinking like, what was it? I saw PAW Patrol. And that’s where I’ve been. That was not in our game. I saw PAW Patrol, the Dino movie or something along those lines. And it was sold out and I literally had to sit in the front row like this. Oh man. I woke up with a crick in my neck the next morning. So I I That’s my blockbuster of this year. I will not see a movie if I’m on the front row. Like if it’s only front row seats left, like now that you can see what seats are available on the apps or whatever. What will you do for your son though? That’s what I’m saying. For his benefit, I’m not sure I’d want him to sit on the front row either. I know. It was horrible. But Lev loved it. That’s great. He ate a lot of popcorn and that is the movie I’ve seen in theater this whole year.

Conner Jones: [02:42] Incredible. Well, you know, can’t all make it out. You just had another child and you’ve got a toddler and everything. So I don’t blame you at all. All right. Uh so stick around at the end for that conversation with AJ, but for now, let’s jump into the brief.

Alex Kondratev: [02:54] The brief.

Conner Jones: [02:56] Okay, yes, there’s a big question going around this past week. Uh it really is pretty broad, pretty vague, uh but also very scary and it’s will AI destroy humanity? This is not a new question. People have been saying this for a long time, but it really came to the forefront over the last few days with some AI engineers coming out and just saying, yeah, we’re on track for a pretty devastating consequences if we don’t do something now. Uh and the really started when AI researcher Jacob Coxon posted a tweet that now has over 160 million views. So it’s

Alex Kondratev: [03:28] 160 million.

Conner Jones: [03:29] That’s it’s extremely viral. It’s caught the attention of a lot of people, a lot of people in power, including in DC and Silicon Valley. Everybody’s seen this uh tweet thread that he posted. So I’m going to read you part of what he said at the beginning. It’s a long tweet thread. I’m not going through the whole thing, but I’m going to give you the gist here. He wrote, I resigned from Anthropic. Anthropic’s the company that runs Claude, if you’ve seen Claude AI or used Claude. He said, I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing uh pertaining research at both Open AI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving super intelligence and gambling with our lives. Do not, right? Uh do not underestimate the power of this technology. There will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains and progress is not slowing. The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.

Alex Kondratev: [04:27] Stop.

Conner Jones: [04:28] No, that’s what he said. I know. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible, but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity possesses this level of danger.

Alex Kondratev: [04:44] The end of the decade?

Conner Jones: [04:46] That’s what uh yeah, that’s what him and several others are saying. Um so let me follow up with this. Another guy, his name is Evan Hubinger. He also works at Anthropic. He’s their alignment science lead. I don’t even know what all that means, but his tweet in response to this got 40 million views. So it’s also going viral. He said, Jacob is correct here. We really do earnestly

Alex Kondratev: [05:04] He’s wait, he’s still there?

Conner Jones: [05:06] Uh no, no, no. This well, this is a different guy. But is he still at Anthropic? He’s still at Anthropic. He still works at Anthropic. So he’s even just saying like, he’s right and I’m still keeping my I’m still here. Right. Exactly. He’s like, yeah, this Jacob is correct in his assessment. We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans. I personally think it’s a greater than 10% chance within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for super intelligence and are not clearly on track to. To be clear, I think the risk from present models is low. What I’m worried about is super intelligence arising from recursive self-improvement as we have said is happening faster than we thought. Uh Doomer mindsets here, right? Um but also from people who are working on this stuff. Alex, I mean, just what are you thinking about this?

Alex Kondratev: [05:52] Okay, well, I I am not on Twitter. That’s probably a good thing. But I still have seen this tweet. My husband is chronically on Twitter. So I at least get like the at least if it’s getting 160 million views and 40 million views, then it has come across my

Conner Jones: [06:06] Right, it’s it’s it’s reached across social media. A lot of people in America and around the world have seen this stuff.

Alex Kondratev: [06:11] So what freaks me out here is, so the alignment alignment science lead, which you said like you don’t know what that means. I don’t know what that means, but he even said, we’re trying our best, but to solve the alignment, but we’re not on track. And so like even the guy who knows what his title is says like, hey, we’re doing our best but we still do not have this under control. That freaks me out. Um I think what it makes me feel, I mean, I’ve heard my friends, like I was at book club last week and the friends were saying like, oh, are you storing water? Are you storing? And I’m like, we’re doing like hurricane prep stuff for AI. Right. And I don’t even I live on the coast and I don’t even hurricane prep because I’m like, I’m not made for a world that starts to go like apocalypse. So I think I like to protect myself, typically I go to, well, surely it won’t get that bad. But then I read stuff like this and I’m like, the people who are in charge of it don’t even have it under control. So I I kind of just I hope we’re okay.

Conner Jones: [07:10] Yeah, I mean it’s it’s a little frightening. Um and we’re going to talk about like how as Christians we should respond to that because it can be you hear that you’re like, what in the world? Are we really on track for destruction of the world? And in 10 years? Not even within well, I guess yeah, within the decade, you know, which The other guy said within the next what, like three years. But I think one guy said by the end of the decade, that’s 2029. Like that’s not that far from now. Um so, you know, there’s so much we can take here. I will mention Jeffrey Hinton, he’s considered the Godfather of AI. He was also asked about this 10% chance of human extension uh extinction this week on a BBC interview. And he he he did advise some caution. He’s like, you can’t describe a specific figure or number or percentage to something like this. Like that’s just impossible to know. But he did say a 10% chance seems like not an unreasonable estimate to me. Um so he did I can’t believe this. Right. Uh when asked like how AI would destroy humanity because I think that’s a question you would say next is like, okay, how’s a computer going to kill everybody? Or maybe not kill everybody, but up end our lives. Well, there’s several different scenarios and this Godfather of AI said it would be able to cause complete chaos by just talking to people. If it can start communicating with human beings in a way that makes it feel real. So does it like convince them that they should do things that are destructive? Potentially, yeah. I mean, or or maybe not convince, but um you know, deceive. Like, hey, I’m telling you to do this for your sake, it’s for the good of the world or for whatever, but actually it’s it’s telling them the wrong thing or lying to them. Uh he also said it would be able to design very nasty viruses, like biological viruses or even computer viruses and it could do devastating cyber attacks. So you could see this being like uh a way where it gets in the ability to shut down all of our networks, all of our grid, electric grid, all that stuff. So maybe it’s not destroy humanity in terms of like everybody’s dead, but it’s going to destroy our way of life, the modern technology that we have. Um which is almost ironic because this is the most modern technology you could potentially have. Uh or, you know, it releases viruses or it gets its hands on systems that control weapons and nuclear missiles and all that. That’s what people always uh run to. I I liked what Isaac Saul of Tangle News, he summed it up perfectly this week. He said on he responded on Twitter and he said, it’s incredibly it’s truly incredible to watch a bunch of people who are purportedly the smartest in the world tell us on repeat that the thing they are building and refuse to stop building is going to kill us all. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Alex Kondratev: [09:27] That’s the piece where I’m like, maybe we should stop. Like we should pause. If you have the heads of all of these places saying like, we don’t have anything under control, we understand that we don’t understand. Like, should we hit a pause button until like I feel like that’s normal in family life. If I don’t know what’s going on, I’m like, okay, let’s pause and have a a conversation here between me and my husband and make some decisions. And I feel like that’s not happening.

Conner Jones: [09:53] Yeah, I in one regard, I’m like, I respect the confessions. Thank you for telling us. Thanks for telling the truth. Yeah, I I thank you for alerting the public that hey, we are actually in grave danger here. That’s great. Thank you for that. Um stop doing it, please. Like that somebody somebody else on Twitter respectfully stop. Right. Somebody else on Twitter posted they were like, okay, if you got on a plane and the engineer said there’s a 10% chance this plane is going to go down, would you actually get on it and fly? Yeah, I’m flying home tonight. No, not doing that. No chance. Um or or would the airline still take off? No. Maybe stop building something that you’re so worried is going to be that destructive. So that that’s the way a lot of people are approaching this. They’re like, hey guys, if you’re saying this, um and you’re still building it, then there’s some hypocrisy to the whole thing, right? Uh this also all followed some recent hacks that models from Open AI and Anthropic have both uh done. Uh Open AI specifically had a pretty frightening attack on another technology company called Hugging Face where its agents just went rogue uh and attacked a company without their knowledge. Once they found out, they were able to finally shut it down, but those little AI agents did serious stuff on their own without any human uh interference or intelligence telling it to do so. They started coming up with their own minds and all that. So it kind of gave an idea of what a cyber attack could look like if they can’t get this stuff contained. Uh then Anthropic released a report on September 10th detailing how criminals and state sponsored groups, spyware vendors, scientists and propagandists have attempted to use their models to design missiles and bombs, create deadly pathogens and surveil dissidents. Uh not great. That’s a company releasing a public report and they say they’re doing it out of responsibility. They feel like they have a responsibility to the general public to inform when their tools are being misused. Once again, if you’re having to inform us of this, maybe it’s time to pause for a second. Yeah, literally. And they talked about how there’s terrorist groups that are using their AI. Like in this report, they they shut down accounts to terrorists who are building things or using AI to help them engineer missiles, as well as uh five cases of scientists who are circumventing their safeguards for biological research, uh which could literally be used as they stated in this report for biological misuse and that is one of the most serious risks of frontier AI models. Without the correct safeguards, such capabilities could have catastrophic consequences. All just kind of insane and you’re sitting there thinking, what in the world and what am I supposed to do about this? Uh and why is this all coming out now? What like is this new? Is this a concern that just now came out? So I do want to talk about the timing here. I think there’s several things. Um these are not the first warnings of AI doom and gloom. We’ve seen this before. There were some other viral posts even earlier this year about what AI is going to do and people resigning from their companies and all that. Well, and all the talk too of around like even if it’s not this catastrophic, it might take your job or so it’s been, I feel like since this like mass use of AI, we’ve constantly been worried of like, what’s this going to do to even regular life, not necessarily all of all of life, like what’s this going to do even just to the day-to-day.

Conner Jones: [12:45] Sure. Yeah, they’re it’s big questions that many just we’re just regular people. We’re like, is this going to take my job? That’s been the primary concern. Now it’s, is this going to take my life? Take my life or destroy our world? Uh that’s a whole another that’s a whole another ball game, right? Um because they’ve all been able to kind of pivot and say, well, no, AI, it’s going to eliminate some, you know, jobs, but it will create more jobs. Well, if you eliminate the world, you’re not going to be able to create another world. Um that’s yeah, that’s true. Um so, a couple things with the timing here. Uh the Anthropic and Open AI have both in the recent months called for cooperation and creating safety regulations. They’ve called on Congress to do something about it. Congress has not really been that interested until these posts this week. I’ll talk about that in a second. And no offense, but our whole political system is full of very aged people. For the most part. So I’m wondering if they’re going to have to like get on board here, but get some support from people who are very Well, technologically. That’s true and these companies have extremely talented lobbyists in DC. Like they have entire lobbying arms that are talking to Congress and saying, well, no, here’s why you should not stop us from building uh these AI models. They’re going to change the world for the better. is what these lobbyists entire jobs are to do. Um and that’s part of it. Also, the Trump administration has just been light on AI companies under really the guise of America needs to be at the forefront of AI or we risk surrendering that power uh to China. And that’s even Ted Cruz was asked about these posts this week and he said the same thing. He’s like, we can’t just stop building AI. China’s not going to stop just because we do. Um so we got to be ready for that. And you know, they say it’s for economic reasons to to compete with China, but also defense reasons, obviously, like and if we got terrorist groups using AI to build stuff, who knows what other state actors like China or North Korea are using. Well, once you put out something like this, it’s hard to ever pull it back. It really is. Yeah. Um okay, so several things to consider as well. Here’s what the detractors to these posts are saying. Some are saying it’s super alarmist. You’re you’re freaking the world out for no reason. Um and that might be true. I mean, and even in these posts, they’re saying 10% chance. Like Sure. assuming their little estimates are right. Like put it on this way, like if it’s a 10% chance that it’s going to rain, my family’s probably still going to go to the beach. Right. So there is like that other side. 10% chance my plane’s going to crash, I’m not getting on. So there’s like, you know, Yeah, this one seems a little serious enough to say maybe don’t pursue that 10% chance at all. Like just because it’s 90% chance of a positive outcome doesn’t mean you should keep going. Take away the 10% that’s horrible. Uh something to consider though is Anthropic is considering going public later this year, meaning they’re going to join the stock exchange, become a public company and they’re expected to be valued at around $2 trillion. So there’s a lot of money at stake here. So a lot of people who like that money including people who get donations from AI companies or the the investors who will be behind this IPO of Anthropic, right? So to specifically to Congress. Um there’s reasons why congressional members have been hesitant. They don’t want to make their powerful Silicon Valley friends upset because they need their support, right? Politics. That’s that is the game of politics. Um so some have actually argued that this is all a PR stunt that this could be a strategic way that uh Anthropic is trying to show their power. Like, hey, let’s get some of these guys who are working on this to say our tools are so powerful, it could destroy the world, but we believe we’re the one company responsible enough to prevent it from happening. The ethics of that are so questionable. It’s not for sure that that’s what’s happening. That’s just what some detractors are saying that they’re they’re compiling kind of evidence of like different tweets at the right times and from AI safety companies at the right time. It’s not out of the question. that makes it feel like a coordinated effort to say to to bring this to the world’s attention and they did this week uh and then also say, well, we’re so good at our AI models, we could destroy the world, but we’re also the only company that’s going to prevent it from happening. So So you need us. So you need us and please buy our IPO stock in a few months when we go on the, you know, the stock market for $2 trillion. Um yeah, and somebody else mentioned this is another Anthropic employee. He also tweeted about this and he said, why do AI developers continue despite the risk, which is the question we’re asking, right, Alex? And then he says, it’s due to a mixture of commercial incentives and a belief that they are in a race with other less responsible AI developers that will abuse the technology or develop it less safely. Uh these tweets also did get the attention of a lot of congressional members. Many of them tweeted in response to this 22 politicians specifically tweeted and response to this whole thread, right? Uh that included governors and senators and house representatives, but the interesting thing here is only 20 out of the 22 of those politicians, 19 of them were Democrats. So the Republicans are kind of like standing back. Um and I think there’s two reasons for this. One is Democrats are generally more in favor of regulations. They they lean more towards bigger government, more regulatory policy. Um and I think the Democrats are also catching on to the just deep unpopularity of AI. Everything we talked about with like, is it going to steal our jobs? That freaks people out already. Uh and then the data center backlash that’s been happening. Um and we’ve talked about that on previous episodes too. Yeah. Um and so I think the Democrats kind of see an opportunity here. This is a place where Republicans are not really speaking into and they’re not really doing much about it. So the Democrats are like, hey, we realize AI is not popular. People see that it can do some great things. Maybe it’ll lead to medical advances and cure cancer, which would be amazing. But there’s so much more to consider. Right. Um and then Bernie Sanders specifically, the senator out of Vermont, obviously well-known kind of socialist, big government guy. He said, Mr. Coxon is right. The very people building this technology admit that it could threaten the future of humanity. That is why I will soon be introducing legislation to ban I’m giving him some snaps. super intelligence to pause AI developments. I think that’ll get a lot of backlash. I do not think that would pass the Senate, at least not banning super intelligence, but maybe some sort of legislation that comes up with regulations and rules. I’m giving the snaps to the pause AI development just for a minute. Like let’s just have some conversations. I’m not saying we need to do it indefinitely or for even a year. Let’s just have some let’s put some attention around this. Yeah. And let’s make it non-partisan. Let’s just actually come to the table and say what’s what’s what do we need to do here? I fully agree with that. Um and I think a lot of people do even Axios dove into this and Axios is read by a lot of people in Washington and Silicon Valley uh by very powerful people and so they know the reach they had and they basically said the same thing. They were like, hey, you companies need to stop um stop competing and work together on cooperation. Like This has to be a team sport here. Yeah, like team sport to put in safety and uh stop worrying about what China’s going to do. They’re going to do their thing regardless. Um so stop saying you need to compete with China. Well, that’s the thing that we do so bad at here in America. and maybe it’s happening, I’m sure it’s happening in other countries, but like we get so fighting with each other and China’s over here doing, I mean, obviously because of their government, they have one person who’s choosing and and they’re doing their thing. But over here we get so divided into our factions that we can’t actually get anything done. It’s true. Because we won’t sit down and talk like this and say, okay, this is how I see AI. This is how you see AI. Maybe let’s come to a reasonable agreement and then I’m like, and then it makes it worse with whatever China’s doing because we’re over here fighting and they’re like, okay, keep doing what we’re doing. Well, yeah, that’s the thing about China that’s in a way there’s an advantage to that is like people can have their own opinions here, uh but it does lead to factions, but in China it’s like you don’t get an opinion. You’re doing what the government tells you to do. Like and so they are telling these companies work on this. This is what you’re doing. I just think the power is in us actually having that discourse. Yep. I mean, that’s how it works in our faith too. That’s how it works in our families. Have the discourse, make a wise decision, move forward, pivot if you don’t make the right choice. Totally. So I I’m like we have the superpower here to do it. I just wish we would sit down and and do it. Oh, I totally agree with that. Um and obviously they this this report does as well. They also encourage the White House and Congress to step up and do something, put in safety guard rails, some sort of regulation here. Um and then also just acknowledge. They were telling Congress, the president and these companies, acknowledge the AI backlash in this country and that people are very wary of your technology. They don’t trust you, they don’t trust the technology. They are not in love with your data center, please. Uh like they don’t want you to come build massive buildings on their in their towns that are going to eat up their energy and water and be loud and ugly. Recognize that. If you work in AI, recognize that. Like you’re not popular. You’re not tricking us. And if you want to be popular, show us the great things that are coming out of AI and not just AI slop and deep fakes and uh nicely written emails. Show us the potential end of the world messages. Right. When it’s all this doom and gloom, it’s not great for your PR, you know? Um okay, let’s take a step back and let’s look at this as Christians. Um because I I think Alex, we have a decision to make today as we talk about this doom and gloom stuff, right? We can opt to either trust God in this or not. Um it makes me think of Peter when him and the disciples were on the boat in the sea of Galilee, it starts storming, the waters get raging. It’s kind of frightening, but then here comes Jesus walking on the water. It’s got to be one of the coolest scenes. I would love to have, you know, had a cinematic camera there to capture this. And the chosen’s kind of done their own like remake of this whole scene too. Um Peter first steps off the boat and he’s walking on the water to Jesus. There is an immense faith there. There is an immense trust there. But then he lets fear creep in and he allows it to get to him and to his heart and to his mind and he starts to sink in the water. He’s no longer walking on water. Of course, Jesus gets to him, pulls him out of the water. Um and the question that he asked Peter is, oh you of little faith, why do you doubt? And then we see Jesus take him to the boat, he calms the storm and everything is fine. Is that not the truth of this AI situation? Is that not the truth of every, you know, just big situation in our lives that causes fear and anxiety? Like are we going to be Peter at the first part of the walk where he’s actually on the water and he has full faith and trust and he’s not scared or are we going to be the second part? I think we have to answer that question today. And Dr. Ryan Denson, he wrote in a he he was actually writing about how AI, here’s another one. He wrote last month about AI creating diseases. Um and releasing them essentially. But at the end of his spiritual application in that article, he said, there’s nothing most of us can do about the threats AI could pose. What we can control is our response. But if we’re waiting for God to calm the storms before we’re willing to move past our doubts, then we’re not going to experience the peace that only he can give. So are we going to walk on the stormy water and trust that our God is in control with this AI stuff? Um that he’s omnipotent and he knows everything and he’s always in charge. Um that when those wind and waves come and they rage in our lives and they rage in our mind and they’re fearmongering all of that. Um are we going to listen to him or are we going to say that AI is not more powerful than our Lord and it never will be? All these questions are how are you answering those today? Uh and I’ll leave us with this quote from Professor John Lennox. He’s a great theologian and mathematician. He wrote a book a couple years ago, I think in 2019, which is kind of just interesting because that was right as AI was really starting to get kind of to powerful modes before most of us even knew what it was. So in this book 2084, Artificial intelligence and the future of humanity, he said, man thinks he can become God. But infinitely greater than that is the fact that God thought of becoming human. And so there’s this aspect where we could take AI and think, well, it’s going to displace us, it’s going to destroy us. Man, I would just say trust in the Lord in this. Don’t let this sit in your mind all the time and and scare you and everything. We’ve we’ve seen this not just with AI, we’ve seen this before. I mean, a lot of people get scared of like climate change and global warming. Is that going to destroy the world and up end our lives and all that? You can sit in that fear too or other fears. Um man, just trust God. He’s got you and he’s got us. Um and we’re going to trust his plans for us. That’s good. Yeah, you can you can do your best to do what you can to change things, but even like what Ryan said, there’s a lot that we can’t do to change what’s going on with AI. And so I do think like it isn’t just a a pat response to say trust God. And uh I have experienced, I experienced a lot of suffering in my early 20s with the uh passing of my first husband in a tragic accident. Um and a lot of people will say like, oh, you you just have to trust God. And I I hear what you’re saying here is it’s not just a pithy like, just trust God. Like he’s got this, he’s in charge. No, we’re in a very real world where things regardless of trusting God can be hard, can be scary, um can cause us to have anxiety, uh to be in pain, to fear for those we love. Uh but at the end of the day, you actually get stronger as you proclaim your trust in God. As you say, irregardless of all of this, in the midst of all of this fear and pain and anxiety, I am still going to trust you. And I remember in those darkest days for me, um about 11 years ago, I had to say, well, all of this is going on and I’m going to choose God to say I trust you. And like like every five minutes, I would turn to him and say like, I trust you, God. And like whenever I would start to fear, whenever the anxiety would creep in and I would think about my future and what it may or may not hold anymore, I would just whisper that, God, I trust you. God, I trust you. God, I trust you. And I think that’s the position we need to be in in a world where the news has the opportunity to just tank us day after day is just whisper, God, I trust you. And it may at first sound wrote and sound just like a statement. They’re like, well, what is this actually going to mean? I I promise you as you exercise that, as you say it over and over again, it actually becomes true in your life. You actually start to realize like God moving in your life and saying like, yeah, you do trust me. And yes, I am here. He’ll start showing up and you’ll start recognizing where he is in control and where he is giving you peace and replacing that fear of doom with this eternal peace that you are not going to be shaken, that you are not going to be ultimately destroyed. You have him, he has you and your family and and I think that’s the piece is like, yeah, a lot of Christians can say, just trust God. But that’s not what we’re saying here. We’re saying that trusting God is a scary thing, but the more you place your trust in him, the more he fills that bucket with the peace, with the understanding of of his omnipotence, his greatness, his his care for you. Yeah. Yeah, and we saw it in that scripture. He cared for Peter, he cared for the disciples in the boat. He was not going to let them go astray and sink. Um he took care of them and calm the storm. So, thanks for sharing that Alex. I know you put a personal touch on that too, so I appreciate that. Yeah.

Alex Kondratev: [27:10] Another not so easy story. Uh so Connor already revealed what I would be talking about. So really there’s no big reveal here, but the death of a pastor’s wife came out at the end of August. It’s a Netflix docu series. I think there’s three episodes if I’m not uh wrong. And at the time of recording this episode, it has been holding the number one spot on Netflix for at least two weeks. And then I checked it today and it’s had like 14 million views this week. Uh so everybody’s watching it. I don’t know if y’all have watched this yet, but if you have not, I’m sure you have heard people talking about this. I mean, it came out. I had no idea what it was. My husband was like, oh, have you heard of this? I was like, no. So we turned it on because we’ve watched everything else on Netflix and all of the other streaming platforms. That’s what happens after you have a baby, right? That’s what happens. You just put the kids to bed and then you like screen time yourself. And so we started watching this and then shortly after that, I mean, we of course, like binge it. I think we watched two episodes and then the next night we watched the third episode. Um and then I started hearing everybody talk about it. And it was Christians, non-Christians, everybody’s had a had an opinion on what happened here. Have you had the opportunity to watch?

Conner Jones: [28:19] I did watch it. I watched it uh kind of at the behest of you. You were like, hey, I might want to talk about this when I’m on next. I was like, okay, maybe I’ll check it out. And then my wife was also like, yeah, I keep seeing it all over my algorithm. I’m seeing all the, you know, the conspiracies of what really happened here. So I was like, let’s watch the documentary. We watched it this past weekend and man, I it’s a hard one. Yeah.

Alex Kondratev: [28:37] Yeah, be forewarned because yeah, we’re about to dive into, first of all, we’re going to talk about the major plot points of this docu series. And just know that we’re going to mention domestic abuse, spiritual abuse, uh suicide. And so I I want to put out a trigger warning there even because this story is uh no matter how you look at it, it’s very sad. Um and contains some stuff though that I really think we needed to to talk about today, especially because it happened in the church.

Conner Jones: [29:02] It happened in the church, happened to a pastor’s wife. That’s it’s in the name. And part of the reason they probably named it that is because they’re like, they know that there will be an attraction to, whoa, a pastor’s wife. Something happened in a, you know, a clergy member situation, an authoritative figure in the church. So it is crucial that we talk about this.

Alex Kondratev: [29:17] Definitely. So, I’m going to give a little summary here of of the documentary, but like I said, uh it’s called Death of a Pastor’s Wife, three-part docu series on Netflix. Um it revolves around Mica Miller. She’s a 30 uh year-old worship leader from Myrtle Beach, um whose death in 2024 became a national story. So, I think it wasn’t as talked about, but definitely where I’m from, it was popping up in the news.

Conner Jones: [29:42] Yeah, South Carolina. I remember seeing the initial sermon that they they hit on where this pastor gets up and announces his wife’s death so nonchalantly. Like in the midst of a sermon too. Like in the middle of the sermon. And I remember that going super viral and people were like, something is fishy here. I remember seeing that and a lot of people at the time were like, well, we’re going to have to wait for the Netflix documentary. Well, here we are two years later and it’s out.

Alex Kondratev: [30:03] Here it is. So Mica, the worship leader, she’s the woman in this story. She was 13 when her family began uh began attending the Solid Rock Church, pastored by John Paul Miller. So he goes by JP, uh who was 15 years older than Mica at the time or he is 15 years older. So both eventually married other people. So they’re both going to this church, he’s pastoring the church, both eventually marry other people, but Mica was working closely with JP. Uh it ends up unfolding that they have an affair. Both of their previous marriages then end up failing and ending and Mica and JP get married when she was 23. Yep. So from the outside, you know, JP announces like, oh, I had a failing, the church seems to accept that this marriage ended and then they kind of build this image that everything’s fine because they ended up together, you know, Mica and JP are together, they’re this prominent couple in the church. Um JP’s preaching and she’s leading worship. Uh but what this documentary does is it uses Mica’s journals, messages, videos, police reports and interviews with the family to tell a very different story. And just by the way, JP was not interviewed during this docu series because he declined to be a part of it. So they reached out, the filmmakers were very clear that they reached out to him to hear his side of the story and he declined any interviews there. So what happens is in her journals, in Mica’s journals and all of the video messages, you kind of see some of her social posts and what she’s actually written. It was is sad and compelling. But she alleges that he abused her in multiple ways. Um and her family says he increasingly started to control and monitor her and isolate her. Um and when she eventually tried to leave the marriage, she was filing for divorce, uh things started to really escalate. Uh she contacted the police multiple times. She told her close friends that she was afraid of JP. And about a month before her death, she actually told the police, hey, I’m afraid for my life here. So eventually on April 27th, 2024, two days before JP was served with the divorce papers, Mica drove to the state of North Carolina, called 911 so authorities would be able to find her and then she died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. So her death was officially ruled a suicide and authorities established that JP was not in the vicinity. He was elsewhere. He had an alibi. And he’s not been charged in connection with her death. However, this is what the Netflix documentary of it all, her family completely declines that this was that JP had no involvement here. Uh at least even in how he treated her and what led her to this state. Um and of course, this case has, like it does in today’s day and age, like with Gabby Petito and others, exploded on social media. People really sleuthing out like what really happened here. Um so that’s really what the documentary focuses on. Not trying to prove JP killed Mica, but of the coercive control and alleged abuse leading up to her death.

Conner Jones: [33:07] Yeah, well, and I believe the FBI did end up charging with things, uh including some of that coercion aspect of it, right? Uh

Alex Kondratev: [33:15] Yeah, he was indicted on charges of cyberstalking her, uh making false, I’m looking at it here, making false statements to investigators, uh and he pled not guilty, but and has not been charged in connection with her death, but there is a federal trial scheduled for October 26th around all of the cyberstalking and different like I think he lied to the FBI too at some point during the investigation. So those are, but not necessarily around her death.

Conner Jones: [33:42] Yeah, um you know, we don’t know all the answers here. There’s even the Netflix documentary makes it clear there are questions here. There are conspiracies out there of what really happened. There’s a a the woman that he married now, uh also lost a husband in a very interesting kind of like questionable way. And so there’s conspiracies around all of that. We don’t know what happened there. What we do know and what the Netflix documentary does show is the spiritual abuse. Um and makes it very clear, shows all the evidence of that. And that’s where I think this really ties into our conversation today about what man, just what leads to that type of situation? Um how did he get away with this? He was um not just doing things like domestic abuse or, you know, tracking her car wherever she went and making sure she was always answering her phone and all these other things. Um and terrible, honestly, terrible sexual things as well. But he had this authority over her and he claimed it over her and he enforced it to immense measures and he told his congregation that’s how you have to go about your life. That’s the way it should look. And that that’s the piece is like the through line of the whole documentary is the faith and spiritual leadership being used as a means of control. And I think that’s what even peaked my interest as I started hearing people talk about this, even though I had already watched it, is that I started having people who were not believers being like, this is why I don’t go to church. And so that broke my heart because this does happen, but it should not happen. And so I think as believers, we need to make ourselves aware of what is uh the boundaries, what are the boundaries there between faith and trusting a leader of a church and a community. Yeah. Uh but making sure we understand where that separates. Uh one of the things that really stood out to me was how intertwined his role as her husband and his role as her pastor became. And I think one of the red flags was early on when you have this young girl who is seeing him as a spiritual leader, then they get married and he intertwines that and says like, you are me leading you as a pastor is exactly the same as me leading our family and then him using scriptures to make sure that if if she didn’t obey him, that she wasn’t following scripture. Like you’re being a bad, you’re being a bad congregant, you’re being a bad, you’re going to lead our church astray.

Conner Jones: [36:01] Well, they had like a 12-year age gap too, right? So she saw him as yeah, as that leader and as an older man, a wiser man and all that and then the twisting of scripture. And this is something we’ve talked about on this podcast before as well. Not just in this case, but anytime you can’t actually find the reality of what uh a not even just a pastor, but anybody is claiming as truth to be true in scripture when you actually open your Bible. Then it’s not true. Then it’s not true and you have to be so wary of that. There were so many it’s crazy because in this documentary, some of the biggest evidence against him is actually just his sermons. Like the things he’s saying as at least as somebody who knows scripture, um and if you if you even just have like an inkling of knowledge of scripture, you might question the things he’s, you know, saying in these sermons to a congregation because you’re like, whoa, buddy, that is not true. Like there are multiple instances of that. There was one time, I can’t remember exactly what it was said, but there was one time where I looked over and me and my wife both just like her jaw dropped at something he said to an entire church and just stood by it and the church was like clapping and I was like, oh guys. Because I think that’s the slow fade there is if you put some one person in the position of power and you refuse that they could have faults, then you’re going to set yourself up for failure because we are all human and and and JP is a dark person and so I’m not saying like, oh, his were basic failures. No, they were not. They were dark, heinous failures. But if you put someone on a pedestal and you say like, well, this is who God has put in charge of us as a as a community and we are not going to question what he says, you’re going to fail. Your church is going to fail and there’s going to be abuses that happen behind even if they’re micro that happen behind the scenes when there is no accountability at a church and when you’re not taking what a pastor says and taking it back to scripture. If a question mark pops up in your head, you’re not wrong for questioning what this pastor says or what this church leader says. Take it back to scripture, take it back in prayer and reconcile that. It you’re allowed to question what someone says from the pulpit.

Conner Jones: [37:57] Yep. Yeah, you could question if the Holy Spirit’s actually leading that or not or if it’s just a human human made uh leading that. It reminds me um Alex of the rise and fall of Mars Hill. If you’ve ever listened to that podcast from Christianity today, they did a, you know, a big deep dive into the Mars Hill mega church at Seattle that had this exact problem where there was a leader, the pastor who was not being held accountable in any way whatsoever by the elders or anybody else in the church. And when people started to raise issues with what he was saying, they were just they were pushed out of the church, which probably happened here too. There might have been people who were like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, well, yeah, there were people who were questioning and I think they all felt like, well, it’s like that spiral of silence. I think is what they call it. I it was in one of my classes in college, but like where people want to say something, but because no one is really saying something, they’re like, well, I’m sure someone is taking care of that. So I don’t need to say something. And so I think it just like perpetuated the issue of like, well, I don’t need to be the one to stand up because surely someone who’s deeper in the situation is going to stand up and no one did. No one did and that’s also a a flag on leadership. Like leadership in the church should have been the one standing up. Um but yeah, we also all get to make a decision and if something’s not lining up, well then say something or man, don’t be a part of that situation. Like get out. That’s not what you want. So man, all around, it’s it’s a good reminder for all of us this whole story. It’s really tragic what ended up happening here.

Alex Kondratev: [39:17] Yeah, the executive director of the documentary, Alana Goldstein had said, the broad thing that JP was doing was trying to strip away Mica’s freedom, her independence, her self-esteem, not once, not through one single event, but through years and years of continuous micro events that trapped her in a state of dependence on him. And I think that’s what he was doing at the church too. He was giving these sermons, he was kind of letting people know like this is who I am and this is what I stand for. And I think a bunch of just micro events trapped them thinking that, well, JP is basically God and who’s to question him when all this dark stuff was going on in the background. And it it really did make me think and I think this is why people are saying, well, I don’t trust trust a church. It made me think like, yeah, faith can be used as a means of control when someone has that much power in a person’s life. Uh and so I I think there’s some big spiritual applications here uh of about what healthy spiritual leadership is supposed to look like. The first thing, I’ve already mentioned here, but you know, you see in Mark 10:43, it says, not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. So being a pastor or a spiritual leader does not give someone permission to control another person. And I think I just want to empower people to believe that where you’re at in your church, just because your pastor has been placed, hopefully by God to lead in that place, does not mean they have permission to control someone else. They are meant to serve. Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And so Jesus gives such a different picture of leadership. It’s about serving people, caring for them, pointing them towards God, not using their position to get power. It’s about humility. Jesus was humble. The best leaders are humble. Exactly. And I think that’s another piece is like looking at the fruit. So what you were saying is like, just watch his sermons, bring it back to scripture, watch the fruit. Is he acting humble? Is he loving, kind, patient, all of the things that we see in the fruits of the spirit, look at their fruit. Just because someone is spiritually gifted, meaning, you know, he was a good speaker. He was a dynamic person or is a dynamic person. Just because they were spiritually gifted does not mean that they have godly character. So we always need to look at the fruit of what’s going on there. Um and I think another kind of application I have here is we have to be really careful that anytime scripture um is used around submission, forgiveness, marriage or someone’s relationship that it’s not used to manipulate them. Jesus wasn’t trying to manipulate people. He was speaking the truth in love. He was speaking peace, he was speaking um connection. And so he wasn’t trying to use scripture to manipulate people. He would not use that to manipulate you. And so I think that’s the piece is uh that’s not biblical authority. When you’re using words in the Bible to manipulate people, that’s not authority, that’s a that’s a distortion completely of what scripture is.

Conner Jones: [42:13] It’s fleshly. Yeah, I mean, the devil is the manipulator, not our Lord and Savior, right? He if anybody could have manipulated somebody, it Jesus could have, um but he turned away the devil when the devil tried to get him to jump and be caught by angels, when the devil tried to get him to eat food in a 40-day fast, when the devil tried to get Jesus to do anything, Jesus said, no, devil, get out of here. Not doing that. And so, you know, it’s it’s really a great picture of what we are supposed to be like, which is everything you just said, loving and servant-hearted and speaking truth and love.

Alex Kondratev: [42:42] Yeah. And I think most importantly, uh the takeaway I had from this is the church should be a place where people can say something is not right. I know we talked about this, but I I want us to have churches where we feel safe to say, something doesn’t feel right. And know that you’re going to be heard and taken seriously. Our churches need to be places where accountability is at the forefront, where scripture and the truth of scripture and the um power of scripture is not used to manipulate and that if someone feels as if they are in danger, feels as if truth has not been spoken, that we create churches where saying something isn’t right is okay. Even if even if at the end of the day, it was a misunderstanding or whatever it is, we talk a lot about sitting down and having conversations. We need to be places of of humility, have churches of humility who can say, maybe we won’t get everything right. And maybe, just maybe if that would have started happening way early on in all of those micro events, maybe we wouldn’t be here. It’s so sad where where this church ended up and uh I wish it was a place where when people said something isn’t right, they were taken seriously.

Conner Jones: [43:51] Fully agree with that. Yeah, Alex, thanks for just that deep dive. This was this was a heavy subject, um but I think it is important. Um you know, we talk about all kinds of cultural things here. One of the stalwarts of our culture is the church. And if the church isn’t doing the job right, um then culture’s not going to succeed at all. I do think most churches are. I think many churches are, but um there’s a lot of situations like this too and not just the church, but specifically this is one individual who really went super far, but he was surrounded by individuals who enabled it. Um and

Alex Kondratev: [44:18] And I would say if you are a person who is in a situation like this, I know I would be remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity, you can speak up. Speak to a trusted um medical professional, speak to a trusted friend, speak to a trusted small group leader. Uh speak up because it is not okay to be controlled or manipulated by scripture. It is not okay for uh someone who is supposed to be in charge of your church to be uh misusing their place of leadership. And so uh if you or you know someone who is going through something like this, it is okay to speak up. It is right to speak up. Um and especially around the suicide topic, uh if you are anyone you know is struggling with that, there is a suicide hotline. I believe it’s 988. That sounds right. Yeah. We’ll put it in the show notes, but um God cares for you and he does not want his word to be used to manipulate you. Uh he will bring you peace and he does care about you. So definitely speak up.

Conner Jones: [45:16] Yeah, definitely. Thanks Alex for that. Um thanks for joining me uh on this episode discussing lovely topics of uh destruction of humanity and church abuse. But truly, it was a good conversation. I think if there’s one thing we can take away from both these stories, it’s like, yeah, communicate. Um whether you’re leadership in a church, whether you’re just a church member, whether you’re an AI company leader, communicate with each other so that we can avoid destruction. Destruction is not just of the world, but it’s destruction is anything the devil wants to get us with. Um sin and temptation and everything that’s fleshly. The devil loves these things. He loves the fear AI creates. He loves abuse in the church. He loves it. That’s what Yeah. Because it can divide us. It can divide us and it can destroy us. I mean, it just it it’s what he is seeking to do. But God is so much better than the devil. Um and so much stronger and more powerful. And so I think through all of it, we just we can cling to the idea that we can trust in him. So Amen. All around, great conversation. Alex, thanks for joining me. This is great. Thanks for having me. Okay, I am here with AJ Baxley to review our summer box office predictions. We played a game back in May, AJ, called Bust the Block where we were just predicting how the summer box office of movies would go. And we are here for a little reckoning to see who won our little game. But welcome back to the show, AJ.

AJ Baxley: [46:32] Thanks. I’m glad to be here in person.

Conner Jones: [46:34] Yeah, she’s here in our studio, which is amazing. AJ doesn’t live in Dallas, so she’s here in town for some meetings and we had to take advantage of this moment and look back at our box office predictions. So, yeah, uh AJ, I’m glad you’re back on here. Man, I just who would have guessed that this summer box office would be so huge. It was such a success for movie theaters and for Hollywood studios, um for a bunch of big name actors and actresses. It’s just a crazy summer. I know we were talking before this and we’ll talk about it here in a minute that you and I both went and saw a handful of movies this summer. And I think a lot of people listening to this did as well. Uh some massive movies. Just as some context here, this was technically the most lucrative summer in history for Hollywood. The US domestic box office from May through Labor Day hauled in a whopping 4.76 billion dollars. That just edged out the previous record from 2013. Uh it was up 30% from last summer. So way more people went to go see the movies this year uh over last year. And in 2024, there have been a total of 568 million tickets sold in America, which means a huge chunk of our population has actually ventured into a movie theater this year and sat in a movie theater seat and watched a film all the way through. I love that. I think that’s great for our society. I think that’s great for movies uh and our culture as well. Um and especially for just an industry struggling to remain relevant given there’s just been huge changes in technology and consumer behavior and what people want as entertainment now. It’s way easier to stay home, watch on streaming or watch YouTube, uh live sports, whatever it is. So this is just a huge win for Hollywood creators, especially with the World Cup being here this summer. Like people watch soccer and went to the movies. I love that. It’s great. Uh AJ, I just want I just want to like pick your brain real fast. What do you think could be behind the surge in movie attendance this year?

AJ Baxley: [48:15] I think it could be a couple factors. I think one, there was a diverse genre of movies. We had a superhero movie, we had a Christopher Nolan movie, we had a family-friendly cartoon and some indie thrillers. So you had a diverse population of people going to see movies. So I think it was that combo with just post-COVID rebound. Um I think a lot of movies got delayed after COVID and then the writers and actors strike happened. And so I think it’s all just hitting out at once and I think the people are showing up for it.

Conner Jones: [48:46] Yeah, I I think that’s a big piece of it. I imagine a lot of it’s also just it is always going to be the movie slate. Like 2025 summer just didn’t have the best movie options. Um but even the ones that you would expect to be hits like Mission Impossible 8 kind of faltered. Um I think this year we’re seeing movies and I’ve talked about this several times in the last few months is these movies seem to have um either a creativity element that’s sets it apart. It’s not so franchise oriented. That’s what you saw with the the massive hit of obsession. A movie we didn’t even put on our prediction sheet because we didn’t know that was going to be something. The $750,000 movie that turned into a $300 million behemoth. That’s crazy. Because it was an indie movie, like you said, and there’s originality to it and authenticity and you can feel people really working hard to try to make it in Hollywood versus big franchise films, big CGI monsters. You get some of that too. Um or, you know, some of the superhero things. We saw Spider-Man, which was a big hit, but that felt different than other Marvel films where it’s just been a CGI mess and one big multi-universe, all this stuff. Uh Spider-Man kind of reset the boundaries there. So we’ll we’ll hit back on Spider-Man here in a minute, but I think you’re right. There’s just something about the movies that came out. They felt hopefully, they felt energetic and original, which is fun. Even though it’s Toy Story 5, not the most original idea, but the ideas of this movie were a little bit different and more a little more resonating with today’s generation with iPads and iPhones and all of that. So Yeah. Um yeah, before we begin, AJ, what movies did you end up seeing this summer?

AJ Baxley: [50:12] I saw Disclosure Day, The Odyssey, of course. Uh Spider-Man and I didn’t get around to seeing Backrooms even though that was the one I was looking forward to the most other than the Odyssey. Um

Conner Jones: [50:23] I think you did say that back in May. You were like, yeah, I can’t wait for Backrooms. You never made it around to it. Okay, yeah. Uh what was your favorite of those films?

AJ Baxley: [50:30] Definitely the Odyssey. It was just gorgeous. The acting was insane and I love the cast and the story, everything. I want to see it again.

Conner Jones: [50:37] Uh yeah, I fully agree. Uh you know, I came out of the Odyssey thinking that was kind of a I didn’t feel much hope, but as I resonated more with the movie and listened to a few podcasts about it, read some articles, I was like, you know what, actually there was some really good uh even tinges of Christianity in the film that you see uh with hospitality and caring for one another um that was a big piece of that. Uh and almost felt like Christopher Nolan wrestling with some religious themes in there. Um but yeah, from a filmmaking perspective and acting perspective, top notch movie. Uh I saw all those movies you saw, Odyssey, Spider-Man, Disclosure Day, which was kind of my biggest disappointment of the summer. I also did see Backrooms. Uh just a fun summer, man. I loved going to the theaters. Um it was it was such a blast and getting to go see these big, big films and the Odyssey on 70 mm and Matt Damon was just huge and in your face the whole time or Tom Holland back-to-back weeks with the Odyssey and Spider-Man. What a time. Um and Zendaya too. Crazy stuff. Um okay, let’s look back at our game here. So we played the game called Bust the Block where in May we were going to predict if we thought the movie was going to uh essentially how it was going to perform against its budget. What was the budget to make the movie, to market it and all of that. So we looked at the budgets of each of these films and we determined uh really just predicted if we thought the movie was going to break even, which meant it was going to hit the industry’s two and a half times metric. Uh it has to make two and a half times what it was what it cost to create essentially in order to break even. Uh or if it was going to bust the block, which meant three times the budget, it’s a blockbuster is what that means. Or if it was going to flop, which means it didn’t even make back its budget and it was a big loss for the studio that created that film. So let’s take a look at those results. Our first movie that we did, um golly man, I forgot about this one. The first movie we predicted, we did this in order of release date from May through uh August was Mandalorian and Grogu. AJ, you had predicted that that would bust the block. I don’t really even know why I did. I I thought it was at least going to break even, man, it did not do either of those things. That was the biggest flop in Star Wars history. Really? Just terrible. Um yeah, Disney really took a hit on that one. Uh if you saw that movie, maybe you enjoyed it. I never heard great things. I never made my way around to it. I just was like not interested in honestly seeing this TV character into in a movie. It doesn’t seem like most Americans were either. Yeah. Uh next was Backrooms, the movie you never made it around to. Yep. Okay, this was the movie that was made for $10 million and it ended up scoring $390 million. Just a huge hit. And then it was at the same time as obsession, which was doing the same type of thing, uh kind of a Blair Witch project style, just a super hit on a cheap budget. Uh we both Oh, no, I predicted this would bust the block. You said break even. Um Ouch. Yeah, ouch again. Sorry. That one definitely busted the block. Huge hit. That’s awesome. Uh and then what did we have after that? Masters of the Universe. Just not even worth diving into. Big flop for the studios. We both predicted that one. There you go, AJ. I got a point. You got a point. Yeah, I should say that each of these guesses we get correct equals one point. So we’ll tally up the final score here at the end. Yeah, Masters of the Universe. I was actually um I was with my wife at her sonogram the other day and the sonogram tech was telling us that she was like, oh, I saw Masters of the Universe and my boys loved it and we threw a Masters of the Universe party. I was like, wow. I didn’t know even kids even knew who He-Man was. I didn’t even know they were aware of him. Exactly. Our generation’s not really it’s it’s an 80s character. And she’s like, you know, I’m a kid of the 80s. I was like, you know what? Good for you. You took your kids to go see an 80s character in a modern day movie. Then Disclosure Day. Yeah, uh you predicted you predicted it would break even. I actually predicted it would bust the block. Wow. And that movie flopped. Steven Spielberg with a flop. Was it because the budget was so big? Had a high budget and just I don’t think the concept really hit with the zeitgeist very well and then the the reviews weren’t like amazing. Now, I thought Emily Blunt did really well in the movie. I enjoyed it. Um I thought the movie was okay. I I think it kind of missed the mark on landing the plane with if you’re going to tackle aliens and religion at the same time, it’s got to be a little more in depth in my opinion. He tried to, you know, tack on like what would what would the Christian faith look like if aliens really if we get if we find out aliens really exist, will that up end our faith? And we’ve talked about this before. The answer is no. Um but Spielberg kind of tries to wrestle with that in the film and I just don’t think it hit the nail on the head. Yeah. Um next we had Toy Story 5. Hey, we both got this one right. It busted the block. Nice. Happy for them. Yeah, happy for them. But you and I neither one were a part of that uh group that actually bought a ticket to go see it. Although definitely want to see it on Disney Plus, right? Oh yeah. I feel like that’s one you rewatch for years with when you have kids. Yeah, I can’t yeah, I can’t wait to watch that with my son. Um someday. Actually all the Toy Stories I can’t wait to watch. Then Supergirl came out. Uh we both predicted a flop here and we were right on that one. It’s like we just knew that was not going to that was not going to sit well with audiences. Um I don’t have anything to add. I just wasn’t it for me. It wasn’t it for me. It looked bad in the trailer and it apparently was bad. Um might have upended the entire DC universe that they’re trying to build out. Um so, we’ll see what happens there. Then Minions and Monsters, was this on your bucket list to go see? Definitely not, but I’m glad people care to see it. Yeah, you you you thought it was going to break even. Uh I thought it was going to bust the block and it did in fact bust the block. So there are still tons of people who love the minions. They are funny characters and kids obviously love them too. Um now, it didn’t do as well as past minions and despicable me movies, but still did pretty well with $514 million. Uh just a huge haul in there. Moana live action. Did you have any desire to see the Moana live action? No, I think it was too soon. I feel like Moana the first one just came out maybe it was a while ago, but it felt like yesterday. So Yeah, I agree with that. Uh and I think most people did. They were like, what who asked for this? We this movie just came out in 2016 and you basically just recreated the exact same thing, but just with the rock in human form instead of animation. Uh and it just didn’t like visually it did not look colorful or good. Uh I could be wrong there. I’m sure some of you all went to go see it and maybe you really enjoyed it, but the reviews were not great and this movie was a huge flop. Again for Disney. They had two big misses um with Mandalorian and Grogu and Moana. Shocker. Disney usually owns the summer. Now they had a hit with Toy Story 5. So two out of three there for them. Yeah. Then the big one, the Odyssey. Yeah, this was uh we both thought this was going to bust the block. It did bust the block. This movie had a $250 million budget and it made $1.63 billion. That’s awesome. Guys, a swords and sandals Greek epic that’s like 4,000 years old made $1.6 billion. That’s awesome. That’s Christopher Nolan for you, you know, and Star Power and Hathaway and Matt Damon and everything. Hey, you got that one right. I got that one right. That’s great news. Yeah. Next week was Spider-Man Brand New Day and this is now the third largest movie opening of all time. Only after Avengers in game and only after Avatar of all movies. 2009 Avatar with uh James Cameron. Third largest movie opening of all time, 2.4 billion dollars. I’m kind of surprised since it’s like the fourth Spider-Man of Tom Holland. It really is. Um there there that character, I talked about this with Parker a few weeks ago. There’s something about the character of Peter Parker and Spider-Man in general that feels very uh relatable and like you can just you can always cheer for him. You never have a moment where you’re like, oh man, I don’t really like Spider-Man in this instance. You always like Spider-Man. Uh he’s just a kid trying to make his way through the world. and in this one specifically without his friends uh and dealing with isolation and trying to figure out what that’s like. um as well as still save New York City from a bunch of bad things. Really great movie, honestly. I I enjoyed it. Did you like that one? I did. What I appreciated about this one is they didn’t dabble too much in the multiverse because I just am not up to date with all the characters. And so I kind of understood what was going on a little more. Uh I feel that and I think that’s another reason this hit was they didn’t require a lot of homework for this movie. Yeah. You didn’t need to know all the Marvel lore and multiverse stuff. Um now here’s the thing, you and I both thought it was only going to break even. Yeah, because remember the budget was like huge already. The budget was $275 million. And so that did mean it had to make $687 million. Obviously, it blew past that. 2.4 billion is way more than that. For whatever reason, I just thought people were done with Marvel. Um I mean, honestly, I didn’t really have a huge interest in seeing this movie until I started hearing how well it was being received and it was like apparently really good. I was like, well, I guess I got to go see this. And then there’s another Avengers movie in December. So I guess it was good to, you know, go get the education of Spider-Man here, but yeah, I agree. Great movie. I cannot believe we both thought that was not going to be a blockbuster. Spider-Man’s always a blockbuster. Learn my lesson here. Don’t doubt Spider-Man. The next movie was uh our last one of the summer and that was the end of Oak Street, which had you and McGregor and Anne Hathaway uh like running away from dinosaurs. This one was not a huge hit. It actually technically did flop. It made $115 million. Still pretty good haul and it’ll probably make more money uh on, you know, post-production sales, streaming and all that. But we thought it was going to break even. Both of us did. We were wrong. It technically flopped from a financial standpoint. So, all around, AJ, our game of Bust the Block, the final score was you had four points, I had six points. What do you say? I hate losing. We’re going to have to do a rematch. Rematch next time. Do we need to do a Oscars one too? Like all the Oscar bait movies? Yeah. Maybe we do. It’s hard to vote on Oscars though. I feel like they always pick the weird ones. They always go for the artsy fartsy ones, which, you know what? This year they might go for the Odyssey. It kind of hits the like How could it not? It hits all the epic points and the artsy points uh and it’s of course just a cherished manuscript of of a, you know, text that was translated into this movie by Nolan and kind of done a little differently than the original text. But yeah, all around, what a fun summer, you know? So fun. What a fun summer of movies. Uh I just really grateful that we had this uplifting summer of movies. I didn’t feel so downtrodden coming out of it. I mean, the difference between the Odyssey and even like an Oppenheimer style movie from Christopher Nolan is you left Oppenheimer and you’re like, man, the world’s in a bad state of affairs. This one’s totally different. I feel I feel I’m like Spider-Man’s going to save the world, you know, like we’ve got this. Uh great time and knowing that movie theaters are probably safe for another little bit. Um and they they survived COVID, they survived the strikes of Hollywood, they survived the Hollywood fires. It’s actually crazy. It’s been a hard few years for movie studios, but our culture longs for stories that are engaging and are hopeful. And so I love to see that. Um and there’s usually, you can find in every single one of these movies just about some sort of Christian um narrative. Like maybe unintentionally, but there’s usually something there, whether it’s friendship, whether it’s love, whether it’s service, uh servant-heartedness, uh you see that in characters, you see that in the storyline. And so to see that on a screen, on a big screen, it’s really unique. So, yeah, AJ, thanks for coming back in. Of course. Going through these predictions. I’m sorry you lost. Um It’s okay. We’ll we’ll come up with some sort of consolation bracket next time. But grateful for your time, grateful for for the fact that you talked through these movies this summer. I’m glad you enjoyed the movies this summer. Thanks for having me. Thank you for joining us on this week’s episode of Culture Brief, a Denson Forum podcast. All articles and videos mentioned in this episode will be linked in the show notes. If you want to help us reach more believers with truth in today’s chaotic culture, please share this podcast around and leave a five-star rating and review. All episodes are produced by Sound of a Rose. For more information, you can visit sound of a rose.com. See you next Thursday.