Speaker 1: Bushkin. On a recent snowy day, I took my four
Speaker 1: and a half year old to a movie theater on
Speaker 1: Manhattan's Upper West Side. This was only her second time
Speaker 1: ever at the movies. She was very excited. I bought
Speaker 1: her a large tub of popcorn. The theater was crowded.
Speaker 1: We were there to see Disney's Zutopia Too, a film
Speaker 1: that is now the highest grossing animated movie of all time.
Speaker 1: We sat enraptured for the better part of two hours,
Speaker 1: and at the end she turned to me and said,
Speaker 1: thank you, Daddy, And I said to her, Oh, this
Speaker 1: wasn't for you, this was for me. I'm an assignment.
Speaker 1: My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History,
Speaker 1: my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. The story I'm
Speaker 1: about to tell you is the strangest Hollywood story you
Speaker 1: have ever heard. It makes no sense, It invites all
Speaker 1: manner of absurd speculation. It's going to take us two
Speaker 1: episodes to unravel it, and even then your mind will
Speaker 1: be in such a swirl that you will almost certainly
Speaker 1: feel compelled to seize Utopia two for yourself. And if
Speaker 1: you've already seen it, to grab any one of your
Speaker 1: available children and see it again. And to whisper under
Speaker 1: your breath when you think your little companion isn't listening. WTF.
Speaker 1: All of this started when we got a call from
Speaker 1: Angus Fletcher saying a friend of his needed to speak
Speaker 1: to me. It was urgent. The friend had a story
Speaker 1: to tell, a story with so many layers. The friend
Speaker 1: said that there was no way to do it justice
Speaker 1: in a single episode two minimum for future reference. If
Speaker 1: you need to get my attention, this is the way
Speaker 1: to do it, all right, can you hear me? They
Speaker 1: are Gary, Angus. The gang is back together right away.
Speaker 1: I hopped on a zoom with two of them.
Speaker 2: If you want, I mean, I can tell you how
Speaker 2: the story started, and then Gary, you wanna go?
Speaker 3: Okay, all right? Jump in.
Speaker 1: If you are a longtime listener of Revisionist History, you
Speaker 1: will know the name Angus Fletcher. He's an English professor
Speaker 1: at Ohio State and runs their narrative project. I love Angus.
Speaker 1: I think Angus is a genius. Angus has been featured
Speaker 1: on more Revisionist History episodes than anyone else. Our three
Speaker 1: part rewrite of the Little Mermaid in Defense of Paw
Speaker 1: patrol and and this is relevant to the story I'm
Speaker 1: about to tell you. We did a series of episodes
Speaker 1: a few years back called Development Hell, where we interviewed
Speaker 1: screenwriters about their best idea that never made it to
Speaker 1: the screen, and the Angus came on to talk about
Speaker 1: an absolutely been nana sci fi project he worked on
Speaker 1: with a good friend of his, the Hollywood screenwriter Gary Goldman.
Speaker 1: And during that episode I concluded that not only is
Speaker 1: Angus a genius, but Gary is a genius too. Anyway,
Speaker 1: back to the matter at hand.
Speaker 2: So basically I get a phone call from Gary, and
Speaker 2: Gary and I are old friends. We brought together in
Speaker 2: a bunch of screenwriting projects. Gary's one of the most
Speaker 2: famous and eminent screenwriters in Hollywood. If you love the
Speaker 2: end to Total Recall, you can thank Gary for that.
Speaker 1: Gary Goldman grew up in the South. He was a
Speaker 1: protege of the novelist Walker Percy, went to Brandeis, spent
Speaker 1: some time working in a hospital in Israel during the
Speaker 1: Yongkpur War, ended up in Hollywood and has worked with
Speaker 1: everyone Paul Verhoeven, James Cameron Ridley, Scott, David Fincher, Steven Spielberg.
Speaker 2: So Gary calls me up and he goes, Angus, have
Speaker 2: you seen Disney's latest movie?
Speaker 4: Here?
Speaker 1: Angus is referring to the first Zotopia film, which came
Speaker 1: out in twenty sixteen, featuring a rabbit named Judy Hops
Speaker 1: and a con artist fox named Nick Wilde, who live
Speaker 1: in a world inhabited entirely by animals, and who have
Speaker 1: to work together to solve a mystery involving the disappearance
Speaker 1: of predators. It's very good Zutopia, a gleaming city.
Speaker 5: Were animals of all breeds, predator and prey alike, lived
Speaker 5: together in peace and harmony.
Speaker 1: Zutopia did very well. It grows to zillion dollars and
Speaker 1: won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Gary watched all
Speaker 1: this success closely.
Speaker 3: And it's a big deal. I mean, it's a big family.
Speaker 3: But I got to send you to pictures of us
Speaker 3: drinking champagne when Zutopia won won the Academy Award. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is our lost daughter who knew Yah was doing great.
Speaker 1: Why was this such a big deal for Gary? Here's
Speaker 1: what he told Angus.
Speaker 2: And so he tells me the story of how he
Speaker 2: goes to the Disney, how he pitched them this idea,
Speaker 2: how he wrote it down on a physical document which
Speaker 2: he gave to and he goes, I think they might
Speaker 2: have stolen my idea. I said, what's on this document?
Speaker 2: And Gary goes to me, okay, Well, in my pitch
Speaker 2: it says, when you grow up, quote, if you want
Speaker 2: to be an elephant, you can be an elephant. And
Speaker 2: in Disney's movie, it says, quote you want to be
Speaker 2: an elephant, when you grow up, you can be an elephant.
Speaker 2: And in Gary's pitch it says, this is going to
Speaker 2: take place in a land where quote an animal can
Speaker 2: be whatever it wants to be. And in Disney's movie
Speaker 2: it says this is going to take place in the
Speaker 2: land where quote anybody can be anything. And then I
Speaker 2: say to Gary, what is this land? And Gary says
Speaker 2: to me, in my pitch, it's called Zootopia, And amazingly,
Speaker 2: in the Disney movie, it's called Zootopia.
Speaker 1: Wait, okay, so there's so many things to to to
Speaker 1: pick up on. Gary, take me back to the beginning
Speaker 1: about the origins of the idea of a movie called Zutopia.
Speaker 1: What period of time are we talking about here.
Speaker 3: Two thousand, two thousands, Yeah, I have two sons, and
Speaker 3: my sons were I don't know, four and six, and
Speaker 3: you know, at that time, you start thinking about, oh,
Speaker 3: what can I do creatively that my kids can relate to?
Speaker 3: And so I came up under interesting, very specific circumstances
Speaker 3: with the idea for Zutopia. And I'll tell you when
Speaker 3: I came up with the words utopia, I was elated,
Speaker 3: and I ran into my house and I ran upstairs
Speaker 3: and I talked to my wife. I said, you're not
Speaker 3: going to believe. I've got the most incredible title. I've
Speaker 3: got the most incredible idea. It's called Zutopia. You know,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't think it's such a great idea,
Speaker 3: I said, trust me, trust me, it's a really it's
Speaker 3: a really good name. In fact, we can't say this
Speaker 3: word in front of the kids because if we say
Speaker 3: this word in front of the kids, they're going to
Speaker 3: go to school and they're the parents of these kids
Speaker 3: are in show business, and then the word is going
Speaker 3: to get out, and it's very hard to protect a title.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we just have to keep secrecy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we had to keep it secret.
Speaker 1: Fast forward nine years, Goldman's doing a project with the
Speaker 1: comic book legend stan Lee for Disney, and he goes
Speaker 1: to the Disney exec he's working with and he says,
Speaker 1: I have this idea, gives them an eight page outline
Speaker 1: of the concept. It's called Looney. It's about an animator
Speaker 1: who creates an animal world called Zootopia. He has drawings
Speaker 1: of the animals who are going to inhabit the Zutopia world,
Speaker 1: Roscoe the hyena, who is cynical and obnoxious, his ssidekick
Speaker 1: Mimi the squirrel, who is cute and curvaceous and optimistic.
Speaker 1: Goldman thinks that this is the best idea he's ever
Speaker 1: had for a movie, and Angus agrees.
Speaker 2: So first of all, I just want to point out
Speaker 2: that you have the writer of Total Recall, which is
Speaker 2: generally considered to be one of the greatest stories of
Speaker 2: all time, telling you that Total Recall is nothing compared
Speaker 2: to Zutopia.
Speaker 3: So I should give you some indication.
Speaker 2: And you know, Gary's legitimately a story genius. Why is
Speaker 2: Zutopia so good? Well, because what you're really trying to
Speaker 2: do with a story is not just create a plot.
Speaker 2: You're trying to create a world. That's why Star Wars
Speaker 2: is so brilliant, Because the movie great, But really what
Speaker 2: you want is you want to wander around with lightsabers
Speaker 2: and Darth Vader and the Force and the Jedi and
Speaker 2: Lea and all that kind of stuff, And Zutobia is
Speaker 2: exactly the same thing. Utopia is a mythic universe. When
Speaker 2: Gary first told me this, he sent me a basically
Speaker 2: a Bible, which went on for, you know, hundreds and
Speaker 2: hundreds of slides explaining to me all this sort of
Speaker 2: like complex mythography behind Utopia. So I'm not going to
Speaker 2: pretend to be able to kind of expound that to
Speaker 2: you here. It was like having a conversation with like
Speaker 2: Joseph Campbell or something. But basically the point is is
Speaker 2: that you have an entire universe in which these animals
Speaker 2: are there to expose the lie that you can be
Speaker 2: whatever it is that you want to be. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's basically. The twist is that we are all told
Speaker 2: these fables in America growing up, which is you can
Speaker 2: be whatever you want to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Kerry, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well the idea here is all of us tell our
Speaker 3: kids pretty much, or you have to decide whether or
Speaker 3: not to tell your kids you can be whatever you
Speaker 3: want to do when you grow up, and there's an
Speaker 3: enormous pressure to say it, even though we know as
Speaker 3: adults that's not exactly true. That's really kind of magical
Speaker 3: thinking masquerading as good advice. So do you want to
Speaker 3: send your kids out into the world knowing nothing except
Speaker 3: you can be whatever you want to be? And then
Speaker 3: you just go out there and try, try, try, try, try,
Speaker 3: and then you encounter real life and you're not prepared
Speaker 3: for it. On the other hand, if you don't teach
Speaker 3: your kids that, they're going to be totally out competed
Speaker 3: like all the other kids in the class who have
Speaker 3: been told they can be whatever they want to be.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to basically surround this these cliches of
Speaker 3: conventional wisdom with ridiculous any cautionary tales about animals who
Speaker 3: are told they can do whatever they want to be
Speaker 3: and basically encounter the constraints that all of us encounter
Speaker 3: in life.
Speaker 1: The world where all this took place was z utopia.
Speaker 1: Gary takes his idea to the executive he's working with
Speaker 1: a Disney The executive, according to Goldman, basically says, this
Speaker 1: is interesting. Should I give it to the folks over
Speaker 1: to animation?
Speaker 3: I said submit it. He said, okay, and I got
Speaker 3: my papers together and I put it in the portfolio
Speaker 3: and I handed it to him, and then I hear
Speaker 3: from my agent they passed, you know, that's all. They passed.
Speaker 1: Six years go by, and then one day Gary gets
Speaker 1: a call from one of his sons.
Speaker 3: Both of my sons are in the cardigether and they said,
Speaker 3: they said, Dad, we're driving down the freeway and we
Speaker 3: see a billboard and you're not going to believe it,
Speaker 3: but it has your looney characters on it. I said,
Speaker 3: my looney characters. What are you talking about?
Speaker 5: Is?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you're you're, You're there. It's a giant
Speaker 3: billboard and it's got your characters on it. And I said,
Speaker 3: that's it. Said what's the name of the movie, And
Speaker 3: he says Utopia, And he had never heard the words Utopia.
Speaker 3: He called me up to tell me that he'd seen
Speaker 3: my Looney characters, So I know, I was flabber guested.
Speaker 1: Obviously, the Goldmans go and sees Utopia at the Grove
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. They can't believe it. As far as
Speaker 1: Gary can tell, his character Roscoe, the cynical, obnoxious hyena,
Speaker 1: has been turned into Nick Wilde, the cynical, obnoxious fox
Speaker 1: and his optimistic, cravacious scirrel Mimi has become the optimistic,
Speaker 1: cravacious rabbit. Judy Hops Goldman gets one of the biggest
Speaker 1: and baddest of law firms, Quinn Emmanuel, to represent him.
Speaker 1: Quin Emmanuel does not usually take suits like this, but
Speaker 1: for Gary, they make an exception. That's how compelling his
Speaker 1: case seems. So Quinn Emmanuel files a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement.
Speaker 1: The case goes on for seven years. Everyone who is
Speaker 1: anyone at Disney is to post. What's Disney's defense?
Speaker 6: Is it?
Speaker 1: They never saw it?
Speaker 3: Yes, never saw it, because, so.
Speaker 1: They claim, is a series of incredible coincidences.
Speaker 3: That's right, Yeah, yes, called independent independent courage.
Speaker 2: Just like I independently created Mickey Mouse the other day.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And what happens. Goldman loses, He appeals, loses again, He
Speaker 1: switches to state court, loses. The courts find that the
Speaker 1: similarities between Gary's idea and z Utopia didn't look like
Speaker 1: copyright infringement, and the case is dismissed before the courts
Speaker 1: ever get to the question of whether Disney actually used
Speaker 1: Goldman's pitch. So the Goldmans give up the fight.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, there are a million things to say here. The
Speaker 1: first is that it isn't surprising that Goldman loses his
Speaker 1: copyright case against Disney. It's almost impossible under current case
Speaker 1: law for a writer to win a case like this
Speaker 1: against the studio. In one analysis, two Los Angeles lawyers
Speaker 1: looked at over fifty copyright infringement cases writers brought against
Speaker 1: Hollywood studios, and in every case, the plaintiff lost. The
Speaker 1: law basically says you have to show that your work
Speaker 1: was copied word for a word, and of course you
Speaker 1: can steal someone's idea without copying it word for word.
Speaker 1: I could go on and on about this, but I
Speaker 1: won't because what matters is what happens next.
Speaker 2: Then Gary calls me up a few months ago and
Speaker 2: he says, at Angus, have you seen the sequel to
Speaker 2: z Utopia? And I said, no, Garret, I have not.
Speaker 2: What happens in the sequel to Utopia?
Speaker 1: Exactly? That's the question, what happens in the sequel to Utopia?
Speaker 1: Everyone has a theory. Why do you think I dragged
Speaker 1: my daughter to see z Utopia too? Because I have
Speaker 1: a theory. Garry Goldwin has a theory. The team of
Speaker 1: movie buffs and literary analysts we put on the case
Speaker 1: have a theory. You will have a theory too once
Speaker 1: you finished listening. And why does everyone have a theory,
Speaker 1: because there is absolutely something weird going on with Utopia
Speaker 1: too that requires a theory. That's after the break. At
Speaker 1: what point do you hear that there's a sequel in
Speaker 1: the works.
Speaker 3: I mean, it takes years and years to make these movies.
Speaker 3: I mean they were making beginning to make the sequel
Speaker 3: while we're still involved in the lawsuit.
Speaker 1: We're back with Angus Fletcher and Gary Goldman, and the
Speaker 1: sensitive topic of the sequel has finally come up.
Speaker 2: Oh truly interesting because the main character in the sequel
Speaker 2: to Utopia is called Gary the Snake.
Speaker 1: The sequel's central character is a snake called Gary the Snake.
Speaker 3: And I thought, well, that's obviously they're just planning to know,
Speaker 3: don't make it. Don't make a character a snake unless
Speaker 3: you're planning to. I mean, so you're in.
Speaker 1: The odd thought when you heard of this character, Gary
Speaker 1: the Snake, as it it was.
Speaker 3: An attack on it, as a personal attack on it.
Speaker 1: Now, of course this could just be a coincidence. Gary
Speaker 1: is a common name. There are lots of Gary's in
Speaker 1: the world, so maybe it makes sense there should be
Speaker 1: lots of snakes named Gary as well. This is essentially
Speaker 1: what the Zutopia two screenwriter said in a publicity interview
Speaker 1: with The New York Times. He's because I think Gary
Speaker 1: is a hilarious name. I apologize to the Garys of
Speaker 1: the world. But multiple times over the years, when I've
Speaker 1: been writing a nice guy character, it's Gary. But needless
Speaker 1: to say, the Goldman family, fresh off seven years of
Speaker 1: legal hell, do not see things this way? Who gets
Speaker 1: the angriest among all the Goldmans? Who gets the angriest?
Speaker 3: Oh, well, my younger son, I can't show you, but
Speaker 3: I'm in my office and there's a door that has
Speaker 3: a broken hinge, which was when he punched the door
Speaker 3: in anger after one of these rulings.
Speaker 1: The repository of Goldman anger is in the youngest scent.
Speaker 1: Do you know what this is? The psychological principle here
Speaker 1: is called transactive memory. You know how in families we
Speaker 1: store our memories in other members of our family. That's
Speaker 1: why the family unit is so powerful. But you guys
Speaker 1: have transactive anger. So you hear about this and you
Speaker 1: think you have a sense of foreboding. And where do
Speaker 1: you see? When did you go Seesar Twopia two in
Speaker 1: the theater?
Speaker 3: Oh? The day before it opened. I mean we tried
Speaker 3: to you know, we tried to get tickets to screening.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't even give you a ticket to the premiere.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, they don't talk to me. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm no, no, no, no, I didn't ask them. We're
Speaker 3: not in touch.
Speaker 1: The whole Goldman family, Gary, his wife Judy, their two
Speaker 1: grown sons gather at a movie theater in Dublin, California,
Speaker 1: just east of San Francisco.
Speaker 3: So we go there for sitting and we watches this
Speaker 3: story unfold and my wife says, he looks like you.
Speaker 3: I said, what are you talking about? This snake looks
Speaker 3: like me? He says yeah, she she's an artist. And
Speaker 3: so she says, yeah, I can see how that. I
Speaker 3: think they you know, in any case, she thinks, Garry
Speaker 3: the snake looks like me.
Speaker 1: Now does Gary the snake really look like Gary Goldman?
Speaker 1: Or is this just the Goldman's being paranoid? Well, let
Speaker 1: me describe Gary Goldman. He's seventy two, his large, expressive eyes,
Speaker 1: a self effacing, understated manner. I mean, and you've heard
Speaker 1: him speak, match that voice to your mental image of
Speaker 1: your kindly uncle. And what is GARYD. Snake? Weirdly? A
Speaker 1: nice snake, a sweetheart snake, large expressive eyes, a self effacing,
Speaker 1: understated manner, middle aged with one fang instead of two,
Speaker 1: conceptually defanged as the middle aged so often are.
Speaker 4: Oh Gary, Gary D Snake and your last being snake.
Speaker 1: Everything is going to be okay. Gary says that after
Speaker 1: the movie came out, all kinds of people texted him
Speaker 1: to say, Gary, the snake looks just like you. And
Speaker 1: when I went to Caesar Twop You two with my
Speaker 1: daughter right after I'd interviewed Gary, that was my first thought,
Speaker 1: as well, good lord, it's the same guy.
Speaker 3: Oh so.
Speaker 6: Well, Gary doesn't have that cheat. So the the fang
Speaker 6: was afore but but yeah, man, I'm so Gary. Is
Speaker 6: this Gary the snake is sweet? His eyebrows kind of
Speaker 6: go up a little bit, his eyes kind of drew
Speaker 6: a little bit.
Speaker 1: I called up Goldman's lawyer, Debra Drews.
Speaker 6: I mean, this is gonna sound ridiculous. The snake kind
Speaker 6: of looks Jewish.
Speaker 1: Yes, this snake looks Jewish.
Speaker 6: Yeah, said okay, I'm Jewish, so no, uh. Anyway, yes,
Speaker 6: I did think the snake looked Jewish, and I thought
Speaker 6: the way he behaved and the way he moved. Gary
Speaker 6: Goldman's a sweet He's a sweet guy. So every once
Speaker 6: in a while that just that Southern charm. And there's
Speaker 6: a little you know, like when you're playing a stringed
Speaker 6: instrument and bend the string and it gives you a
Speaker 6: little it gives you a little twang. That's Gary, you know, charming.
Speaker 6: So yeah, that was That was Gary the Snake. I
Speaker 6: mean that it was clear to me, and I think
Speaker 6: it probably is clear to the people who worked on
Speaker 6: both films.
Speaker 1: Just saying, Oh, by the way, a good chunk of
Speaker 1: the movie takes place in a swampy coastal area called
Speaker 1: marsh Market. And I'm quoting now from a review of
Speaker 1: the movie. Marsh Market could well be the z Utopia
Speaker 1: equivalent of New Orleans. Everybody thinks this. Here's the La
Speaker 1: Times critic Matt Brennan interviewing the screenwriter and director of
Speaker 1: Zutopia before the movie came out.
Speaker 3: That you mentioned Marsh Market, and I have to say,
Speaker 3: is a longtime New Orleanian.
Speaker 1: I love seeing version of a Bye. Why does all
Speaker 1: this matter because Gary Goldbman is from New Orleans, and
Speaker 1: because Gary Goldman is Jewish. But still, I know what
Speaker 1: you're thinking. We haven't yet crossed over into gandal. That's
Speaker 1: after the break. Screenwriters put caricatures of real people in
Speaker 1: movies all the time. Many people believe, for example, that
Speaker 1: Doctor Evil in the Austin Powers movies is Lorne Michaels,
Speaker 1: the creator of Saturday Night Live the Villanevian Fleming's James
Speaker 1: Bond thriller Goldfinger. Rumor has it was based on the
Speaker 1: modernist architect Erno Goldfinger, who Fleming was feuding with at
Speaker 1: the time because Goldfinger built an incredibly ugly house down
Speaker 1: the road from him. So what if the Walt Disney
Speaker 1: Company wants to make a movie about a middle aged
Speaker 1: Jewish snake named Gary from New Orleans. That's not a crime.
Speaker 1: But now we get to the heart of the issue,
Speaker 1: which is what is Utopia Too really about? Well, it's
Speaker 1: a movie about intellectual property. Zutopia exists because of incredibly
Speaker 1: sophisticated weather walls. They make it possible for animals from
Speaker 1: all over the world to live in one place. The
Speaker 1: walls were invented by Agnes to Snake, Gary's great grandmother,
Speaker 1: who wanted to build a world where all animals could
Speaker 1: live in harmony, but her pattern was stolen by the
Speaker 1: evil Lynxes who run Utopia. Big chubby, evil Lynxes literally
Speaker 1: corporate fatcats. Listen to how Paupert Lynxley describes his family's scheme, But.
Speaker 5: When my great grandfather saw what her idea could be worth,
Speaker 5: he plotted to steal her plans for himself.
Speaker 1: The lynx has then cast all the Reptiles out of
Speaker 1: Zutopia to keep their theft a secret, and the plot
Speaker 1: of the movie involves the intrepid team of Judy Hops
Speaker 1: and Nick Wilde teaming up with Gary to Snake to
Speaker 1: get the patent back, restore the Snake family's good name,
Speaker 1: and bring reptiles back into the city of Zutopia. The
Speaker 1: whole plot of Zutopia, too, the entire movie is about
Speaker 1: repairing the damage done by the theft of intellectual property
Speaker 1: Snake on the bad guys.
Speaker 7: I have to set things right, and when I do,
Speaker 7: my family will finally be able to come home.
Speaker 1: So t Rika. Just as the Walt Disney Company emerges
Speaker 1: from a bruising seven year legal battle in which a
Speaker 1: Jewish man from Louisiana named Gary claimed that he invented
Speaker 1: Zutopia and had his idea stolen by the corporate fat
Speaker 1: cats at the Walt Disney Company. The Walt Disney Company
Speaker 1: comes out with a sequel to z Utopia in which
Speaker 1: the central character is a Jewish snake from Louisiana named Gary,
Speaker 1: whose family invented Zutopia and had their ideas stolen by
Speaker 1: a bunch of corporate fact cats. This is why Gary
Speaker 1: Goldman called Angus Fletcher, and why Angus Fletcher called me, And.
Speaker 2: So Zootobia IWO is basically an allegory of what Disney
Speaker 2: did to Gary in Zootopia one, but it's an allegory
Speaker 2: that's created by Disney. So anyway, that was the point
Speaker 2: where my mind imploded and I knew we had to
Speaker 2: call Malcolm.
Speaker 1: This is why I love Angus because whenever his mind implodes,
Speaker 1: he thinks of me. The movie's over, the Goldmans walk out, right,
Speaker 1: and what do you guys do? Do you guys go
Speaker 1: out to dinner and discuss?
Speaker 6: What do you do?
Speaker 1: How do you download all this information?
Speaker 3: Well, Malcolm is I don't think we are filled with
Speaker 3: questions and doubs. We were now in the twilight zone.
Speaker 3: Disney has spent over three hundred million dollars producing and
Speaker 3: marketing this movie. Yeah, and it seems to me that
Speaker 3: it's about me and this lawsuit. Yeah, it really sucks,
Speaker 3: and we're trying to figure out how this happened? Did
Speaker 3: whose idea was it? Is the company behind this? Is
Speaker 3: it an official statement of the company? Did the writer
Speaker 3: who are carried over from the last movie, did they
Speaker 3: have something to do with this?
Speaker 1: If you think that all this is paranoid nonsense, then
Speaker 1: I suggest once again you go to see ze Utopia
Speaker 1: two for yourself and they will come a point, trust me,
Speaker 1: when the insanity of the plot will become impossible to ignore,
Speaker 1: and you will turn to the little person next to
Speaker 1: you nursing their popcorn, and you will cover their ears
Speaker 1: and say out loud, along with everyone else in the
Speaker 1: crowded theater, wtf.
Speaker 3: Did they sneak it past? Did the Disney legal department?
Speaker 3: Does the Disney legal department know about it? It's a
Speaker 3: legal If any legal knows about it, why did they
Speaker 3: approve it? It's the Disney higher ups know about it?
Speaker 3: Why did they approve it?
Speaker 7: No way Disney legal department knew about this, right Angus,
Speaker 7: No way, no way, no, this is that let's we
Speaker 7: can we can remove that possibility. This sounds to me
Speaker 7: so somehow, somehow, the the this Gary the Snake as
Speaker 7: a the positive portrayal of Gary the Snake sneaks past
Speaker 7: the Disney legal and corporate infrastructure.
Speaker 1: This is unbelievable. This is we're now in that We're
Speaker 1: now in a heist movie. They sneak the idea out
Speaker 1: of Disney, out of Burban.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Now why did the studio make a
Speaker 3: movie that can be interpreted as reopening a case that
Speaker 3: that was settled? They won? Yeah, and now they're going
Speaker 3: to talk about it again? And to me, all this
Speaker 3: does but I mean, from a personal and legal point
Speaker 3: of view, it invites speculation.
Speaker 1: Were there clues in the original litigation that might help
Speaker 1: us make sense of what happened? I checked with Deborah
Speaker 1: Dru's Gary's lawyer. Are there copies in the public realm
Speaker 1: of those depositions of all those Disney guys? Do you
Speaker 1: have copies of them?
Speaker 4: I have a couple of answers for you, but one
Speaker 4: of them is that Disney was it was very scrupulous
Speaker 4: about obtaining a protective order in which pretty much anything
Speaker 4: that Disney said was proprietary or confidential or this trade
Speaker 4: secret would have to be filed under seal, so not
Speaker 4: accessible to the public.
Speaker 1: So then I thought, well, I'll just go to the top.
Speaker 1: I emailed the CEO of Disney himself, the redoubtable Bob Eiger,
Speaker 1: Hi Bob, Happy New Year. I have become obsessed with
Speaker 1: Utopia too, and the question of whether the movie is
Speaker 1: an encoded apology to Gary Goldman, It's maybe my favorite
Speaker 1: Hollywood story ever, and as you may know, Gary Goldman
Speaker 1: is in interpreting the film's hidden message as an act
Speaker 1: of graciousness on Disney's part. Would you ever consider talking
Speaker 1: about this for my podcast, even five minutes, even if
Speaker 1: you just want to say something brief and funny. I
Speaker 1: just saw it with my four year old. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: know this is a long shot, but thought you might
Speaker 1: enjoy a little distraction from your day. M He writes back.
Speaker 1: First of all, great to hear from you, and the
Speaker 1: picture of you with a four year old makes me smile.
Speaker 1: Kids are truly life changers and blessings, aren't they. Then
Speaker 1: he goes on regarding Zutopia and Gary, I am sorry
Speaker 1: to tell you I cannot comment. I should say Bob
Speaker 1: Eiger is an incredibly kind and gracious man, and there
Speaker 1: is a version of this story where he is the hero,
Speaker 1: the greatest of all heroes, the kind you can never
Speaker 1: publicly acknowledge their courageous act. There is also a version
Speaker 1: where he was the victim of a crime so perfect
Speaker 1: that he can never bring the offender to justice. We
Speaker 1: will get there, I promise. Okay, would anyone else talk?
Speaker 1: I called up Hollywood big shots, moguls. No one would
Speaker 1: go in the record, don't use this, or you can
Speaker 1: use this, but don't use my name like this guy.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure why they did it, to be honest
Speaker 2: with you, Yeah, because like that's so on the nose
Speaker 2: and it's such a bleep you if you pardon my French.
Speaker 5: I mean, I didn't know they were that bull.
Speaker 3: To be honest with it, I kind of laugh about it.
Speaker 6: I think it's funny.
Speaker 1: It's funny, but it's hysterical.
Speaker 6: But here's the truth.
Speaker 3: You rarely poke talent in the eye, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I don't know how the lawsuit ended, but
Speaker 2: I would guess this is a.
Speaker 3: Little bitterness because people don't lose.
Speaker 6: Well, right, so.
Speaker 5: I just find it wildly bizarrely.
Speaker 3: It's too good.
Speaker 1: It's too good, I kept going Mogul upon Mogul, Hi retacted.
Speaker 1: I'm doing a very strange and hilarious story about Disney
Speaker 1: and Zutopia too, and wanted to talk to you about it.
Speaker 1: The Moga writes back, nice to connect. I would talk
Speaker 1: to you about anything except Disney. I respond, I totally understand. Rejected,
Speaker 1: but I appreciate you getting back to me. I suspect
Speaker 1: that you will at least be amused by what we
Speaker 1: end up doing. It's a story about how the script
Speaker 1: for Zutopia two never should have gotten past Disney Legal.
Speaker 1: Moga writes back, not surprised, good luck on the matter
Speaker 1: of Gary de Snake and Zutopia two. There is nothing
Speaker 1: but silence from the powers that be. We have been
Speaker 1: left to our own devices, and there is nothing in
Speaker 1: the world more exciting on a story as strange as
Speaker 1: this than being left to our own devices. Next week,
Speaker 1: on Revision's History Part two, we venture a bold theory
Speaker 1: about what exactly happened behind the closed doors of the
Speaker 1: Walt Disney Corporation. Revisionous History is produced by Nina Bird Lawrence,
Speaker 1: Lucy Sullivan, and Ben Adaff Haffrey. Our editor is Karen
Speaker 1: Schakerji fact checking by Sam Russick. Our executive producer is
Speaker 1: Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence, original music by
Speaker 1: Luis Kira, Sound design and mastering by Marcelo di'elivera. I'm
Speaker 1: Malcolm Glavo