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Archive

The Podcast Archive: Movie-News Shows That Ran on This Domain, 2015–2019

EXT. THE PODCASTS — NIGHT

A weekly movie-news podcast ran on this domain from 2015 to 2019, in the way most movie blogs of that era ran one: episode-numbered news shows, plus sibling shows for drafts and Star Wars. The audio has not survived. This page records what each show was.

The flagship: the movie news podcast

The numbered weekly (episode 17) followed the format of its moment: the week’s casting news, a trailer reaction or two, box-office scores settled by argument. Episodes pegged to bigger events hold up best; the Civil War trailer episode’s analysis segment is the archive’s best surviving example, and that same trailer now has a full breakdown page checked against the released film. The episode subjects, casting rumors that resolved, sequels announced then vanished, cover much the same ground the sequel tracker follows today.

The Hollywood Bunker

A drafts-and-hypotheticals show: top fives, recastings, best-of-year arguments conducted as competitive lists. The same format now appears in the site’s settled-verdict pages, where an argument is run properly once and filed, and in the versus board, a ranking tool anyone can argue with.

The Padawan Podcast

A Star Wars show, born the autumn The Force Awakens speculation peaked. Its defining running argument (is Rey Luke’s daughter?) was the era’s defining fan question, litigated weekly between 2015 and 2017 with theories the films went on to answer brutally (neither Luke’s nor a nobody, but a Palpatine, the one theory no episode proposed). The show’s other beat tracked rumors like Boba Fett spin-off casting — the same species of unconfirmed announcement the tracker’s method is built to check today.

The slate the shows talked through

The 2015–2019 window was an unusually dense one to cover weekly, which is why so much of the talk has aged into something checkable. Marvel ran the back half of Phase 3 across it, from Ant-Man in 2015 through Infinity War and Endgame, closing a decade-long arc that the weekly news format had followed announcement by announcement. Star Wars released a film almost every year in the same stretch: The Force Awakens in December 2015, Rogue One, The Last Jedi, Solo and The Rise of Skywalker. The DC films moved in the opposite direction, from the contested reception of Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad in 2016 to Wonder Woman’s success a year later and a Justice League release that was re-cut late. Underneath all of it the business changed shape: Disney completed its purchase of Fox in 2019, the Netflix Marvel series were cancelled across 2018 and 2019, and Disney+ arrived that November. Weekly shows covering that period spent most of their time on announcements, and a large share of those announcements never became films — which is the reason a tracker exists at all.

Questions about The Podcasts

What was the movie news podcast?

A weekly show, episode-numbered news roundups (episode 17) mixing casting reports, trailer reactions and box-office talk, running on this domain through the 2015–2019 era.

Were there other shows besides the news podcast?

Yes, the archive includes the Hollywood Bunker (top-5 drafts and hypotheticals, "top 5 actresses" being a representative episode) and the Padawan Podcast (the Star Wars show, home of the era's "is Rey Luke's daughter" arguments, a question the films settled with "no, worse").

Can the old episodes still be heard?

The audio has not survived; episode pages now record what each show WAS rather than stream it. Where an episode's segment grew into something durable, it lives on as a page: trailer breakdowns, showdown verdicts and the like.

What happened to the best recurring segments?

Two current formats cover the same ground: checked-against-the-film breakdown pages resemble the old trailer-analysis segments, and the showdown pages and versus board resemble the versus arguments. The archive below points to both.

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