#2527 - MrBeast

[00:00] It must be very easy to get people to do your show. Well, I mean, yeah, seeing how we give away millions of dollars. Yeah, usually people are very excited about it. The actual, the only hard part for us is, you know, if it's a longer one, just the time off work. Yeah, [00:27] So, because sometimes when we shoot like Beast games or stuff, you know, it can go for a month. [00:32] But besides the work stuff, of course. [00:33] Are there people that haven't been able to do the show because they couldn't get a month off work?

Oh, yeah, tons, of course. So we always have like – even like the day before, sometimes people get cold feet. So – [00:43] If we're doing something with 100 people, we usually have 10 backups just because... [00:47] I would imagine that the type of person that would do your show would have a job that they could quit. [00:55] Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends, right? Whether it's the YouTube channel where we're doing 100 families compete for $250,000 or it's B-scans where they're competing for $5 million. [01:05] People are way more excited for.

Some of the YouTube videos, it's not as grandiose. They're like, I don't know if I want to lose my job for a 1% chance of winning $250,000. Well, how many people, when you do Beast games, how many people are competing? So the newest season we just shot, we grabbed one person from every country on Earth. So it was around $200,000. Whoa. Yeah, which was actually pretty cool because you would put them in these crazy games, and you'd see how someone from the Asian Pacific countries would react versus someone in South America.

[01:35] different upbringing so it's really cool did you have to i mean you must have had to thoroughly vet these people right make sure they're not insane uh make sure you have a serial killer we do the psych and background checks of course no how do you get that information if you're going i mean if you have how many countries are there first of all it's 190 we went off of whatever the olympics do so it's like a hundred something around 200 yeah plus or minus a couple yeah [02:00] So some of them have to have some shitty infrastructure.

Oh, I mean, I think one of them has literally 40,000 people living in it. Like, it was – what is it? Not the – [02:09] something sea islands, not the Cayman Islands, but some island country. And yeah, I was like, wow, like my town, which has 100,000 people is two and a half times the population of your country. Well, I was joking with the contestant because I was like, [02:22] If you win the $5 million, you could technically give a $200 dividend to every single person in your country. It's like – it's that crazy.

It's that little people living there. Wow. Yeah. That's the kind of country where you're like, I wonder if you could buy that country. [02:35] I mean, the GDP is probably... [02:38] a couple hundred million dollars if I were to guess. Someone like Elon or something like that could buy a country. There's probably thousands of people in America that could. I mean, I feel bad. People from that country listening. Well, we didn't say the country. Okay, true, true. We're good. We didn't say it. Exactly. It's not yours. They should know what they are.

They're a country of 40,000 people. That's just what it is. Nothing wrong with that. [02:58] But it's... [02:59] It is weird how many countries there are, and if you've got a person from every country – [03:05] what are the odds you're going to get good data as to whether or not they're a criminal? [03:09] Well, that's why, I mean, if you saw our budgets on what I have to spend on casting those people, it was ridiculous to be able to get them all. Because basically what we did is we grabbed multiple options for each country.

And what I was worried about is that the contestant from blank country would suck. And then the country would be like, Jimmy, you hate us and you purposely picked this absolute moron. So we would pick two or three from each country and then we let people from those countries vote on who should compete. Oh, smart. It wasn't even one. I had to get multiple from each. [03:39] I think I ended up spending over a million dollars just on aggregating and casting and background checks and everything and then putting it out there so people could vote on it.

But that way, whatever, like Georgia and Europe, if that guy is an absolute moron, it's on them. They picked him. Right. That's actually very smart. Exactly. How did you come up with the concept for this show? First of all, how the fuck do you have time to do that show as well as do your YouTube show? Yeah. [04:09] of just 18 hours a day filming. And for people who might not have heard of it, it's essentially the largest cash prize of any show in the world. Season one, we had the most contestants of any show in the world and the largest sets of any show ever to exist.

And I was just like, what if you take a reality show, but you just ramp everything up to the absolute maximum and season one, we gave away $22 million just in one season. And some of the biggest game shows in the world right now give away $250,000. We're giving away $2 million every episode. Look at that. That's wild. [04:39] That's so crazy. That's amazing. And then we build a city. And so also, holy shit, my, my whole thesis behind it with this is, you know, you when you watch these, you know, game shows or reality shows, there's a lot of takeaways.

And like, after the show, they'll put people in a room, and they'll be like, hey, talk about what happened here. And it's like intercut. And I was like, [04:59] Well, what if we just have a thousand cameras and we just let people be themselves and we kind of just show it in real time? So we also like in season one, we broke the world record of most cameras ever used in any production of any movie show, anything ever. So like this set right here, there's over twelve hundred cameras in there.

And the most room is so big. Yeah, it's bigger than the football field. And so there's a thousand contestants. We have to have an A-cam on all of them. So there's like a poll on each of the platforms on them. [05:29] blah blah there's over 1200 here which outside of this the most ever used in production was 400 so like i i literally had to and and this might seem insane but this is why i think the show appeals to quite a few people because normally in a show they would have a story producer walk up to you hold a camera and be like all right you got three minutes you're kind of the bad guy say roughly along these lines almost basically put words in your mouth and then they'd go like person to person with like one camera whereas i go in the microphone i go [05:55] Say whatever the hell you want.

We're recording you for the next 10 hours. I don't care, right? And you all have a dedicated camera on you. So then instead of putting words in people's mouths, they can just do whatever they want. So do you have someone who actually has to go back and watch all that footage and edit it and then put it all out as a show? Yeah, exactly. How many people do you have doing your editing? That season, over 150 editors worked on it, yeah. Holy shit, man. It's crazy. And that's obviously why people don't do it because it's like basically we had to spend millions of dollars in cameras.

[06:25] record for most cameras ever used, which then we also broke the world record for most camera cables used, because it's 27 miles of camera cables, broke the world record for the largest control room. Each of these is millions of dollars, and you have to bring in millions of dollars of extra editors, and so next thing you know, you're going to have a lot of money. [06:38] you know, to take it from 10 cameras where you just essentially put words in people's mouths [06:42] to unlimited cameras and they can do whatever you want.

You can show who they actually are as opposed to what you think they should be, right? With the story producer, it costs a lot of money. It's a lot of effort and time, but it shows through in the final product because now, [06:54] You know, you get more natural, like less scripted things when people are just themselves. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. We all like to find ways to save ourselves some time, like ordering out for dinner or meal prepping so you don't have to cook during the week.

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Like I always thought that about you when you were doing – when you first started doing your YouTube show. I'm like the amount of money and time and effort involved in this is like above and beyond what most people are willing to do. And it's way more than a traditional television network would ever do because a traditional television network would look at the upside. [08:26] at the money and they would go we're going to spend x amount of money to make it this much better but if we just take it down a couple of notches we save 80 yeah and they would do that but you're like can we make it even cooler let's put all the money back into the show which is very risky man because not just very risky uh [08:46] Um...

[08:47] It's just very... [08:49] you have great foresight like you really see the big picture of it obviously you have the number one show in the world like you have the most watched show on earth you know your youtube show is the most watched show on planet earth so it's obviously working but it's like that ability to take to make that set must have been bananas that is a fucking enormous building did you have to build the building uh no so that that's in toronto but it's basically an airport hangar i mean we [09:19] this, that also is like a thousand trap doors because every single one of those, the trap doors open when they get eliminated.

So that set alone was like $15 million. I mean, it was crazy. Oh my God. And thousands of people's time and stuff like that. It's actually... [09:32] Where we film Beast Games is actually a pretty big deal because it creates so many local jobs for people. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, like there, it was pretty wild. Can you say where you film it or do you keep it under wraps? That one was Toronto, Canada. Okay, cool. And every time I'd walk around on set, people were loving it. Because even though we filmed for 30 days, there's months leading up to it and months after.

Sure. It gives people consistent work for six months, whereas before they're going project to project every week. But yeah, back on the going above and beyond, that's kind of my whole thing is like, [10:00] why make content that isn't great? And we just ask ourselves, how do we make the best content possible as opposed to, you know, how do we make the most money possible? And when you just... [10:09] shockingly going with that approach, you just kind of make a lot of money. Yeah. And well, and also it's I tell my team all the time to like a big difference between us and other media companies is [10:19] you know, usually like people at the top will always shoot down crazy ideas or tell you it's not possible.

Like whenever you have like these crazy brainstorming sessions. And I tell the team, [10:28] Technically, anything is possible. If as humans, we really wanted to, we could technically blow up the moon with enough nukes. Now, we're not going to do it because it's not worth the time and it's not worth spending the money. But you have to have that frame of mind. Everything's for the most part possible if you're willing to spend the time and spend the money. So before you do the work and just figure out what time it takes and how much money it costs, you can't say no to something.

Because almost all the time, like we filmed in the pyramids and I spent 100 hours living in the pyramids of Egypt. It was crazy. [10:53] fucking awesome. And, you know, for years, everyone's like, they're not gonna let you, you know, live in the pyramids for a couple days. Like, that's crazy. And I'm like, [11:02] Why not? Like, did you get a no from the, you know, the leader of Egypt? No. Then I'm like, well, technically it's possible, you know, and and after years of talking with them and helping them understand that, you know, it's going to be more of an educational type video.

And it's not like I'm not going to run up the pyramids and take my shirt off and be like a lunatic. It'll be really cool. [11:20] Eventually they came around to it and they loved the video and it worked really well. And it's literally like I could go anywhere in the pyramids for 100 hours. I went all the way up to the top of the middle pyramid. We went underneath it. It was really cool. And I tell my team, even some of my most veteran people, when we get these crazy ideas, their default reaction is to go, I just don't think it's possible.

And I go, look, it is. Sometimes it's just time and money. Yeah. [11:44] And is it worth the effort? The pyramid one must have been nuts. Oh, it was crazy. It was one of my favorite videos. Is that your first time ever being there? Yeah, actually it was. And so that made it even more special because I was like learning things at the same time as I was just walking around. [11:57] I'm going to be honest, it was like a year and a half ago, and it's all a little fuzzy because I was so tired.

I was just walking around all night, but it was pretty crazy and surreal. And then going down into... [12:07] What's that tomb called where you go down the ladder and like a couple hundred feet? [12:12] underneath the pyramid. I don't know. Is that Osiris's trap? Yes, Osiris's. It was flooded and swimming around under there. It was pretty wild. [12:22] Yeah. Wow. [12:23] I feel like you should do something like that. A hundred percent. I need to go there. I've been talking about going there for years. I just, for me, it's just a time thing.

[12:32] My time is – I have so many different jobs. It's not like one all-consuming job like you have. With me, it's like commentary for the UFC, doing stand-up comedy, doing the podcast, and also married with children. It's like I have a lot of responsibilities. So it's tough to just jet off for a – really, ideally, if you're going to go to Egypt, I feel like you should go for like 10 days. Yeah. I feel like at least 10 days. Do you think the – [12:57] Yeah, I feel like maybe honestly, realistically, like five days, you could do it.

Yeah. I'm curious, though, if they'd let you just do a video where you walk around and go everywhere. I wonder. Yeah. I've talked a lot of shit. Exactly. Without saying it, I'm kind of implying I don't even know if they want you there. Well, I never have said anything bad about it. I just think that the people that run it have a very narrow-minded perspective of how all that stuff was made. [13:27] I don't think they really know, and I think there's a lot of gatekeeping in terms of what the official narrative is.

It's like how it was all made and who made it and what it's all about. That's why they're really hesitant to accept any alternative perspectives because they have a timeline, and they attribute all this construction. And there's a lot of evidence that that timeline doesn't make any sense. Did you check out the Sphinx? [13:57] it and go in that little room yeah did you do that yeah which that's the stuff i i feel like it would mean even more if you did you've talked to dr zahi right yeah did you have him on the show yeah yeah i'm on the show yeah okay good yeah and so he's obviously the guy so you should just call him and see yeah i'd rather go with somebody else i'd rather i didn't listen to that episode i'd rather go hang out with one of the historians that i know graham hancock yeah graham hancock would be the perfect guy to go with yeah you and graham hancock walking around [14:26] Oh, boy.

There'd be some crazy stuff. Yeah. Well, whatever happened in that part of the world during that time frame is pretty spectacular. It's kind of amazing that no one has ever achieved anything even remotely similar to it since. Yeah. And it's at least 4,500 years old. That's just a guess, though. They really don't know. Yeah. You know, it's a crazy place. Yeah. [14:49] The fact that you got to film a show there is nuts. Yeah. I love how you call it show, and to me it's just a YouTube video, but it's just funny.

It's a show. Yeah, I know, of course. And it makes sense because you do stuff with the UFC, and in your world a lot of it's called shows. I mean, whatever it is, people are watching it alone. Yeah, I know. It's a show. It's just funny to me. I haven't heard it called that in years. [15:09] But, yeah, that one was crazy. [15:11] I mean, one thing that I'm really proud of that we did for Season 3 of Beast Games, which, like, in hindsight, I'm not even sure how we... This one we pulled off.

So I want to see your reaction to this. Okay. So... [15:24] Basically, the finale, where we have the $5 million, we have the final contestants, [15:29] We filmed it in the Roman Coliseum. Whoa! Yeah, we crowned the winner of season three with the $5 million cash prize in the middle of the Roman Coliseum. Played the first game there in over a thousand years. Wow! That's crazy! I know. I'm so grateful. Like, we just filmed that too, so I'm like coming off the high and I just like... [15:50] like it almost makes like gives me tears like what we shot was so cool we had like a [15:54] a live orchestra.

I like the top ring up there too. So like, as the game got dramatic, we would have them like, play louder music and stuff. It was like, so surreal. Like there's multiple, because I've done really crazy things in my life, but there's multiple moments during that where I'm just like, [16:07] Looking around in the middle of the Coliseum as we're like filming the show and I'm like, oh [16:11] Like this doesn't feel real. It was pretty wild. It doesn't feel I mean I went just to visit a few years back and it didn't feel real.

It's so strange to imagine like. [16:22] What that was like... [16:24] How many thousand years ago? What year were they doing the games in the Roman Coliseum? [16:32] I would guess 1,900 years ago. [16:34] So – [16:36] I mean... [16:37] what the fuck was it like being in there while that was happening? And imagine when they flood it and they'd have the ships in there. Yeah, the boats. It's like, whoa, I know. Crazy. I know. It's nuts that you could go walk around it and just try to understand, like, this used to be a place where people used to go to see people die.

They used to see people get hacked to death by swords, to see people get killed by lions. Like, what the fuck was? Well, it's also interesting, too, because I did a lot of research, you know, [17:07] job of [17:08] Back then they had the hierarchy and the noble people would sit at the bottom and the poor people would be at the top. It also played a good role of showcasing unity even though there are all these different people from all these different economic statuses. They would all be in the arena there, but it also reminds them where they are.

There's so many political implications of it too. Just everything about it. Like basketball games. [17:28] Who gets courtside tickets? I didn't even think about that. Yeah. Jack Nicholson, courtside tickets. Or Jay-Z or whoever. Famous people. Yeah, courtside tickets. True. Yeah. I mean, it's the same thing. I think in the Coliseum, though, that was the most dangerous seats because, like, there was a couple of incidents, I believe, when either a lion or a tiger leapt up and got a hold of some people. Yeah. Well, I didn't hear about that. But when I was walking around, you know, they would have the, you know, emperor, like, seat right there.

And I was like, man. [17:58] If I was a warrior, I could throw a spear at him. This is a killer view, but how did no one ever just kill this guy? [18:06] That's all I could think about. This is a little too close to the battlefield. How close is it? It was like, whatever, four rows up. It wasn't anything too crazy. [18:14] But there's obviously walls when you're walking around, like little walls, so you can't just walk into the stands. So they're kind of trapped in the arena. But it was definitely within spirit-throwing distance.

I wonder how long it took to build that place. [18:27] Because when you're walking around, you're like, this is an [18:29] Epic. [18:30] piece of real estate. You guys built an insane structure and they did it [18:39] almost 2,000 years ago or whatever it was. Yeah. [18:43] So it took eight years to build. Wow. From AD 72 to AD 80. Wow. [18:49] Wow. Construction started under Vespasian between AD 70 and 72. [18:58] It was completed and inaugurated under Emperor Titus around AD 79 to AD, so the main build phase lasted roughly six to eight years.

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[20:21] Yeah, it's fascinating too because I like to think of like something equivalent now would be like maybe SoFi Stadium. Like that's such a beautiful, massive stadium. I wonder if like 2,000 years from now. [20:32] would that still be there? Like Roman Coliseum is like, [20:36] Relatively still intact. It's pretty crazy. That's what's crazy. Well, it's because it's made out of stone. All of our stuff, like cement, will rot out. There's no way cement lasts a thousand years. All the glass, everything will just get absorbed back into the earth. Dang.

[20:49] Do you ever see that show? They had a show like – what was it on the History Channel or something like that where it was After Humans I think it was called. And it essentially showed how long it would take for cities to completely be absorbed back into the earth. It's not that long. [21:04] Yeah. It's not that long. No, it's like a few hundred years and there's nothing left. Wow. Yeah. Actually seems like a good show. [21:10] Yeah, it was kind of interesting. You know, it was a while ago, so it was probably like shitty AI.

It was shitty CGI. They could probably do it really good now. Yeah, but I mean... [21:19] If you go to Detroit, there's houses in Detroit now that have trees growing out of the basement of the house through the roof. Yeah. Like they've taken over the house and nature is slowly but surely absorbing the building. And then skyscrapers are a bigger endeavor, but nature could still do it. It just takes enough time. That makes me – where my brain goes to is it makes me want to do a video where it's like – I bet you there's like an abandoned village or city that's been overgrown.

[21:49] on Earth simulation and then living there for a month or so and seeing what it's like. [21:54] That would be kind of cool. Kind of like the Will Smith movie back in the day. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be so fascinating to... [22:01] Or maybe do it with a contestant. Like, hey, if you spend one month in this isolated civilization, I'll give you a million dollars or something. And then seeing how they... [22:10] you know, use, you know, 100-year-old buildings or something. I don't know. [22:13] It's got my brain churning.

It was not a bad idea, like an I Am Legend type deal. [22:17] Yeah, but real unscripted, exactly. Right, real unscripted, but then also hire people to be zombies and haunt these people while they're sleeping. I love where your covering goes. You know what I mean? Yeah. Hire people, like CGI them up, scare the fuck out of people. I've been wanting to do that for a while, but I always get, like, hung up on, like, okay, I can make some real zombies, but the problem is, like, how do they kill them?

Well, the other problem is what happens if you're not telling these contestants that zombies are coming, you're just trying to get a reaction out of them? [22:47] thinks it's a real zombie and kills one of the people yeah well i we would tell him i would have to say this is a zombie simulation and you know and then i'd have to set rules on here's how you kill a zombie you don't use a sword you use this phone and it's lame which is why we never gone around to it but if there ever was a way i do think that would be cool to like recreate a actual zombie apocalypse and and like let someone try to live in for a week because it'd just be cool because everyone's exposure to this is through scripted shows right but to see someone [23:17] down gas stations and there's like food that like we would say this is set in the year 2060 so i'd have set designers and everything design it where it's like only laffy taffy still edible and stuff and it was like a true recreation of it i've always wanted to do stuff like that you could totally do that there's a bunch of abandoned towns no it's just the one thing we could never figure out is how does someone kill a zombie and it's not lame right because imagine someone with a nerf sword hitting a zombie oh now it's like okay this is fucking lame you know yeah uh [23:43] Maybe...

[23:44] A paintball type deal? [23:46] Yeah, that's where our head goes, because we're... [23:49] We have a different video, a similar thing. But the problem with paintball and airsoft is then you have to wear a mask, right? Because you don't want people to get shot in the face, obviously. And then it kind of kills it. [23:57] Yeah, unless the zombie masks was the protection. Yeah, we put it over top of the paintball mask. That's your poor actors. Or you just have, instead of like a regular paintball mask, have something that's just a hard structure that is like the shape of your face.

Exactly. So you make it deformed fits to your face, and then you give them goggles, something clear so their eyes are protected. [24:27] You know what, I should hit you up for these zombie things. That actually would work. There you go. That's perfect. That's an airsoft mask. [24:37] That'd be pretty cool. I mean... Oh, dude, that's actually dope. Look at those masks, the half-faced zombie ones. Yeah. That's fucking dope. Like, you could... That would be terrifying. Coming at you in the middle of the night, and you have to shoot those off?

Hey, if anyone listening wants to live in an abandoned town for 10 days while zombies try to kill you... I think we're onto something now. Now that I saw those masks, I'm like, okay, I like it, because that could be the zombies. Well, where my head goes, because the videos are so big, right, this is probably a... [25:05] $5-$10 million project, probably would build this abandoned city, do... [25:09] I'm the last man on the planet, and it's like me there for some time. And then afterwards, like a couple months, like film then right afterwards, film a video where I give someone a million dollars.

They live there for 10 days, but they have to fend off zombies with their friends. So then we can reuse the set location because if I'm going to... [25:23] completely set deck, basically a whole city. Oh, my gosh, that's going to be a monster. But, yeah, if I did both of those back-to-back, that would actually be pretty gnarly and worth the effort. I think I like the idea now. Now that I see those masks. And I think about, like, paintball or something along those lines. What I'm picturing, too, is, like, ideally we could find a city with a skyscraper because I want, like, someone with a long lens pointed down of, like, someone picturing them on a street.

It's pitch black, and they have, like, a fire, and it's them and their three friends. [25:53] and stuff. Like, those shots would be so beautiful. Like, I mean, it would probably be one of the most beautiful videos ever. And I'm picturing we put, like, vines, like, on all the buildings and stuff, too. So... [26:03] Well, if you wanted no one around... [26:05] It's going to be hard because you're going to have to do it in an abandoned place. Exactly. And you're not going to get an abandoned skyscraper. [26:11] Maybe. Unless you're in Detroit.

Well, it doesn't have to be in the S. We did a video seven days in an abandoned city where there's like some place in Europe where there was a city that was like war-torn and stuff like that. And it had like hotels and tall buildings and everything. It was pretty wild. Really? Yeah. And there's no one in it now? No, no one in it. Like tourists go there or whatever. But they let us close it off for a week. It was pretty crazy. Well, that's the place then. Yeah. I just wonder if they'll – you know, it's a little bit of history there.

[26:41] And also paintball everything. Exactly, yeah. Well, with those masks, we could do airsoft, which would be maybe even easier. Well, actually, no, the problem with airsoft then is the truss system. You don't know if they got hit, so paintball is probably more effective. Yeah, you need paintball. Yeah. You need paintball, and it needs to look good when it splatters against them. If someone on my team is watching this, just clip the last 10 minutes of this and send it to the creative team. [27:04] You guys, I believe in you.

Is there another way to kill a zombie other than paintball that would be wild? Yeah. [27:11] Like, is there something else? Well, one thing we've been working on, because I've always wanted to, like, do Hunger Games in real life as well, is to, like, these, like, suits where you could, you know, electronic, like, laser tag where you could just shoot and then it just, like, lights up. What about shotguns with beanbags? [27:30] Because they use those for people to take out [27:33] like when the non-lethal loads, you know, they have like beanbags that they shoot out of a shotgun.

The question I would need is like... [27:41] If I shot you with it like three feet away, would you still be fine? I guess you could probably adjust the pressure and stuff where it's not. Not really. Okay, well. I mean, you could, but you couldn't bury it. See, this isn't Fear Factor. This is Mr. Beast. I understand, but it's a gray line. You know, it's so funny. I need to give you a blunt and let you just help me cook on this video. I can see this is something you're interested in.

There's something there. You just have to figure out an exciting way to kill them where it doesn't actually hurt the stunt people or whoever's wearing the masks. [28:11] whoever pretends to be a zombie. It would have to be something. I was thinking light him on fire, but that's... Could you pull up the Seven Days Abandoned City video and just skip to some random part? I'd love for him to see, like... [28:23] the like how it looks because that with what you're picturing and that really would be something you can't find anywhere else and that's what like gets me excited is when it's content you can't find anywhere else that's typically you know a huge indicator that if it's done well people like it have you seen the show from [28:39] from, I don't think so, no.

It's great. Great show. But it's about these people. Wait, wait, wait, look at that shot. Pause it right there. So that's just one random building. But you can maybe go to the intro or something if you want to just show them, like... [28:52] Yeah, this whole place. Look at these buildings. Whoa. Oh, my God. This is perfect. Yeah. And then if you pause it there, those are all the buildings in the city. Oh, dude, this is the spot. Listen, the show starts at sundown every night. Okay. [29:06] As soon as the sun goes down, that's when the games begin.

Nothing happens until it gets dark out. Everything is in the dark. And these people have no idea when it's going to happen, when they're going to get hit. And so they try to get their sleep whenever they can. But you keep them awake during the day with tasks. You keep them awake. So during the day, they have... [29:28] All sorts of materials. They have supplies. They have all sorts of things. And they have to figure out how to protect themselves, how to develop shelter, alarm systems for when the zombies are close.

Oh, really? Yeah, give them time to, like, figure out stuff to do to keep the zombies away. And eliminate an amount of materials that they can work with. And just let these people get creative in their ingenuity. But then you keep – so they'll be busy during the day. So they're not going to be able to sleep. [29:58] time when it gets dark out yeah then they don't know when it's gonna hit so you have these people sitting around and it might be 7 m 8 m 9 m and then three in the morning shit starts zombies come in and they gotta shoot them all at paintballs and they're creeping in yeah like they're creeping in bro you're getting me excited i mean it would be so fucking cool to like let them build a structure or something and then like in i'm legend where he has to point the lights

[30:28] hide lights throughout the city that they'd have to collect and then set up. So they have good vision around their fort and everything. And then they have like, you know, cycles where they take turns watching and stuff. And then we only send the zombies out theoretically at night or whatever the structure would be. So they have chill time or maybe every night, 40 zombies are unleashed. And then, so they're like, they shot like 35 of them, but they're like, Oh shit, there's five hidden around the city. So that day while they're walking around, they're like on edge and the tension throughout the day would be phenomenal.

Yeah. There's so many cool ways to do it. And you know, [30:58] You don't have to tell them that the zombies are only going to come out at night. [31:01] Just have it that way. [31:03] I'm excited. We need to stop talking about this because I'm going to leave and go film it right now. I'm fighting the urge to go call my team. You also, with the zombies, they can come out in the daytime. These people don't know because they never do it. True. Like the first five days, it's only a night.

And then day six, boom. Exactly. So people get snatched up in the middle of their house. [31:23] This company we used before as a gel blaster. It's almost like Airsoft, but it doesn't hurt as bad. Oh, it shoots water? And these vests that they have set up, [31:33] are sensors so you can almost like what you're saying. It's like VR, laser tag. So it lights up when you hit it? Yeah, and there's like a whole talking system that says, like, you have this many shots left, you have this much energy left.

Can we see a video? Yeah. Wait. Is this a video? We did this at night at somebody's house. Oh, you did? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When did you do this? A couple months ago. Oh, nice. I don't. [31:53] Oh, shit. It's only coming out. Ah! [31:56] Wait, actually, now that you've got music... [31:58] You pointed out, I have seen Nerf gel blasters. I actually never thought of that. [32:01] so that's I mean you could just redo the set the suits that it makes sense yeah and then reskin the guns because those look a little lame but yeah that would be it's kind of lame yeah I kind of like shotguns with beanbags I think I let's fuck people up easily picture the aesthetic you're looking for I gotta I have to find the blend between Joe's like recreation of this video and like what I could actually do but they're [32:22] I actually am more inspired than ever.

I think it's very doable. It's very doable. You just have to figure out a way to make it exciting, but still not hurt anybody. Exactly. Not hurt the zombies. You'd have to, like, armish people up somehow. I mean, well, the thing, too, is, like, [32:37] you know, um, [32:38] One thing that would help is like if the zombies were ex-Navy SEALs or something, then it's a little different than if they were like typical Hollywood actors and things like that. So I've learned for like some of these other things, like it's also who you cast to do it.

Right. If it was like Navy SEALs dressed up as zombies and I paid them all, you know, they wouldn't care. [32:55] Also, it could be like a zombie army, like an army army. [33:02] some [33:04] army somewhere got... [33:07] Taken over and turned into zombies. Yeah, those are the people you're fighting against so you could you could put them with like a [33:14] plate carriers on and you know you could armor them up a little bit so they could take some hits. Have some lore behind it. Yeah. It would make sense too.

[33:25] Bro, I'm sold. I just got to find an abandoned city. Give them glowing eyes. That's the only way you know they're out there. This whole podcast is going to be Joe helping me figure out how to do zombies. Dude, it would be fucking terrifying. It would be awesome. Imagine there's people that are in this city. There's no lights. There's no electricity. And then at nighttime, it goes dark. And maybe they have flashlights, but each flashlight only has one hour of battery life. And so you have to judiciously use that flashlight throughout the evening.

[33:55] Shut it up. So you give them a little extra tension that the flashlight's going to die because you only have one hour of flashlight battery. And then you see these red eyes. [34:05] Like, you give them, like, a slightly glowing red eye. Yeah. And that's how you can find the zombies. True. That would be cool. Yeah. So you just look out into the woods. Yeah. You can see the fucking eyes, man. You see the eyes. That would be crazy. Yeah. And the other thing, too, would be... [34:20] Because I go to, like, how do we execute it?

We could do it, too, where, like, there's, like, every day at, like, a certain period, we pull off all the dead zombies, which are humans, and we just swap them with, like, I can have recreated versions of them there. So there's, like, actual zombie bodies, like, piling up. Right. So as the video progresses, they're, like, literally stepping over, like, mannequins that are set decked identically how the people were so when they die. And then they're just, like, literally stepping on zombies as they go building to building. And that would be crazy.

That would be crazy. [34:50] chalk outlines around the zombies. [34:52] So you can identify the fact that this one's a dead zombie. Or no, don't. Do it. Let that be the fun part. But then if we put a crazy prize on it, we could do – you only get the – or maybe the prize is split amongst everyone who survives the whole 10 days or whatever. And then it's like to really build up like this crescendo at the end. We could have it where the final day there's a massive invasion coming or something.

So it's like the whole time. What if like every day more and more came? So day one it was 10. Day two it was 20. And then 50. [35:22] 400 zombies come on the final day. So the whole video, they're prepping for this Game of Thrones type invasion. Not only that, but the people that get killed by the zombie, we think they're out of the game, but they actually become zombies. So when you think you won at the end, now the final game is you're competing against the zombies. The zombies who can't win because they're already dead, but they can make you lose.

Yeah, and they know you're for it. [35:52] What if the contestants are ex-Navy Seals, too, so they have real strategy and stuff like that? That would be cool. Just get the most badass people that you can get for this zombie thing, like survivalists, martial artists. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that would be crazy. Dude. Actually, that's not bad. Like a UFC champion, a Navy SEAL, like a Taekwondo, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, all right, what happens if you put six experts in different fields together and simulate a real zombie apocalypse? Right.

[36:22] 50 acres of this abandoned city sealed off. We set decked it all. And every day a wave of zombie that gets bigger and bigger until the big crescendo at the end hits. And if you survive it all, you split a million dollars. I think the really difficult challenge is figuring out a way to kill zombies that's not lame. And doesn't hurt anybody. [36:41] Actually doesn't kill people. I don't know if that's your second thought process, but of course. But it has to – because if you're hitting them, even with the gels off, it'll look kind of cool, but it's like pew, pew, pew.

Exactly. Pew, pew, pew. No, it's got to be ba-bang, ba-bang. And I could add those sounds and pose, but we're big fans of practical. So I'd have my team take apart the guns and see if there's some way they can make it, even though it's shooting the gel, like make it go bang, bang, and then add like the effects. And we'd have to reskin the guns to look like real guns. It would have to be some – it doesn't have to look like real guns because it could be a gun from the future.

[37:11] But that's lame. When you think of zombie apocalypse, it has to look like a gun that they grab from some dude's tape that they found in a house, right? That's what a zombie apocalypse is to me. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. [37:23] so it would have to look like a real gun so that's why i like the shotguns with the beanbags and also with a shotgun like you're only going to get so many shells like you like as long as you don't have one of those big like tarant tactical ones that has actually a magazine it holds like [37:38] 15 rounds.

I think a regular shotgun like a Benelli, how many shells can you put in one of those? I think six. [37:46] I think maybe six. Something like that is good, too. You have a limited amount of bullets, and reloading is hard. [37:51] We just got to find out. Maybe if it was like 20 gauge shotgun birdshot with a beanbag. [38:01] Maybe that wouldn't fuck people up, but it would make a big bang. Yeah. And you'd be hitting them. [38:06] And if you could find a way to light up wherever they got hit, like if you could put them in some sort of a suit – [38:15] Where when they get hit, there's like gel packs.

There's no way you can shoot shotguns at people. Yeah. There's just not possible. Not a real one. You're so wrong. But here, he's living in his utopia. No, no, no, no. I haven't seen his eyes light up like this in years. Let him have fun. No, no, no, no, no. The shotgun's like a gun at a person. Okay, well, I don't know a lot about shotguns, so let's find out. I'm never going to have someone point a real shotgun at someone else. Yeah, you will. Trust me, we're going to work this out.

Oh, you want to help co-direct it? I'm going to help. Yeah, you'll see. [38:45] I'm basically seeing the back on one shot Joe. He's like "Yeah!" It's like the Navy Seals are fighting off the zombie apocalypse. I want to be one zombie one night. I'll sneak in. Everyone's like "Who's that bald guy over there?" That's just like "Oh fuck yeah!" Shotgun damage on a zombie. You have to blow their head off, right? How would you? Oh god. Don't even get them started. He's gonna be talking about hit damage for 20 minutes forever.

It depends on what kind of zombie. Walking dead zombies are so stupid you can stab in the head with a pencil and they die. [39:11] Remember, it was just going through the head because they would shoot them with those crossbows. And, like, crossbows wouldn't even kill a person. Like, with those field tips, they're using field tips. This is basically like a pencil going through you. It's not like a broadhead. Like, if you shot an animal with a crossbow, you would use a broadhead, which is a big, sharp blade that cuts a giant channel through an animal.

What those things are using is target points. [39:41] It would just stick in their head and then they'd be dead. It's so funny because – Get the fuck out of here. I watched the same thing and I'm like, oh, that's cool. Different audience. Well, it's just all it takes is like one arrow to go into your head and you're dead if you're a zombie. Yeah, totally. One arrow. This is nonsense. Yeah, right, guys? Yeah, one arrow in the head. You'd be – yeah, you wouldn't die. The thing is people have lived – humans have lived through arrows through the head like that.

Accidentally gotten shot in the head with a bow and arrow, with a field tip and lived. [40:11] pencil going through your head. Really? The way people die from an arrow is hemorrhage. You die from massive hemorrhage. And it's usually because there's a blade. So like this, like this is what the Native Americans used to use. But that's wide. This is actually, yes, that's an actual arrowhead. But the thing about this is when it's attached to a stick, this is cutting. So it's causing hemorrhage inside the body. The little field tip doesn't do that.

And the field tip wouldn't puncture enough veins where you just bleed to death? Maybe, but most likely not. I mean, [40:41] heart, yeah, you'd be dead. But if it just goes through this side of your lungs and pokes out your back, you'll live. Wow. Yeah. Would you want to live? You would be in pain. It would suck. It would certainly suck. But it's not like getting hit with a broadhead. My point is... [40:55] I don't remember my point. But if I had a point, it would be there's got to be a level of shotgun that's the – what is the lowest powered shotgun available?

It's not a – I know 20 gauge is light. I've used those before for like shooting clay pigeons, and I've used 12 gauges. [41:16] You don't want to get hit with a 12-gauge. [41:18] Even if it's a beanbag. [41:22] Uh... [41:24] smallest gauge. [41:25] Equivalent to a 67-gauge shotgun. Oh, here we go. Now we're talking. That's a bitch-ass round. Let's see. [41:31] Oh, God. Let's see what that looks like. You're so funny. Let's see what a 410-gauge shotgun or a 67-gauge shotgun looks like when they shoot it. It looks like a bullshit gun.

It looks like it's going to still hurt. No, no, no. You'll be fine. [41:46] Okay, can I test it on you? Yeah. [41:49] Yeah, just give me a plate carrier and if you're going to use a beanbag, yeah. Because that's what I'm thinking. Like if you have a chest plate, so a plate carrier is bulletproof. Yeah, but what are you going to hit? Everything you'll cover up. You'll cover up the shoulders and the arms. You give them like military style armor, like body armor. [42:08] Because none of this is going to penetrate.

So if it's a beanbag round, what it is is just like it's basically a bag that's going to like – [42:17] Yeah. Shoot out of the shotgun and blast you. But I don't – they're not lethal. Yeah. [42:23] Let me see what it looks like. I don't know which one. Just go to a video. Just go to a video of lowest-powered shotgun. That's weird looking. That's cool. That one looks cool. That one does not exactly what it looks like. That's a revolver shotgun. Yeah, that's dope. I've never seen one of those before.

Huge power, it says. [42:40] Interesting. Yeah, the title is Smallest But Deadliest Shotgun. Yeah, I think it's smallest in terms of the size of it, not the round itself. Yeah, this isn't good. I did ask for lowest power, but that's not what people want to click on videos. I know. I feel like most people who buy shotguns are looking for shotguns that don't. Well, how about this? Look up 67-gauge shotgun. Oh, I've done that here. And does it show you a video of that? [43:05] Okay, let's see what it says.

[43:07] Let me see what it looks like when it's shooting. [43:10] This is a 12-gauge. [43:12] Oh, that's a big... Yeah, that's... I'm trying to... Yeah. So they're like modified 12 gauges. [43:18] That's a lot. I just don't get what the point. The shotgun isn't going to kill a zombie. Yeah, but it could in this game, Jamie. I know, but you have to get so close to get a fucking headshot or whatever. It's more fun to get snipers and grenades. I don't know if you have to use headshots. [43:36] This little kid's going to shoot a shotgun?

Yes. So that – okay, let me see. Can you give me some volume? Yeah. [43:42] Let me hear this. Back that up a little bit. [43:46] Yeah, that's what we need. We need that kind of shotgun with like a beanbag round or rock salt. I got it. The team, they're listening. They're on it. Yeah, something where it makes an impact. There's a sound like a gun going off, but you can't really kill anybody with it. Yeah. This is totally possible, dude. You'd have to have like very strict safety protocols in the set, though, because one of the things, [44:12] When I first moved to LA in 1994, there was a guy that a friend of mine actually knew, who was an actor, who was on a set, who took a gun that had a blank in it and thought it'd be funny to just put the thing to his head and pull the trigger.

And he didn't realize that just the actual air coming out of the gun, if you put it right to your head, is lethal. And he blew his brains out. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, with a blank. [44:37] He just didn't. I mean, or like the Alec Baldwin situation. Yeah, that was actually probably negligence because it seems like there was an error where they were using like real rounds. And then they would take the same guns. They would use like real rounds on a range and then take the same guns and bring them to set.

And they didn't clear everything. [44:59] I don't know who's responsible for that. I don't know what ultimately came out of that. [45:04] You're never supposed to point a gun, even if it's not loaded. You're never supposed to point a gun at someone, ever. In movies now, like if you and I were doing a movie – Which is why I'm like so hesitant to this whole shotgun thing. Welcome back to reality, Joe. We're going to be fine. In movies, you're supposed to – like if I was shooting at you in a movie, I'm really supposed to shoot over here.

Yeah. And I think that came out of the movie The Crow. [45:25] because Bruce Lee's son died because there was something that was in the gun itself. It wasn't even a bullet that killed him. It was like there was a particle or something that hit him from the blank. When there's effects in CG and everything is so good now, too, you probably don't even have to put a blank in there. You just overlay the sound effect and put the effect in. No one would even be able to tell sometimes, too.

That's true, but you want something that's scary for the actual people. And the recoil. Yeah. [45:55] Like a really light shotgun. And I guess even if you know it's a blank, like having a gun pointed at you as an actor makes you feel more in this situation too probably. Well, just rock salt. If you have a really light shotgun, even if it's a 20 gauge with rock salt, it would suck. It would sting. But if you've got these guys all protected – [46:16] And you could find a way where when it hits them, like you have gel packs on them or something.

So if you have them all, they're in like these like tattered looking white outfits, right? And when you hit them, there's red gel packs underneath and they splatter. Yeah. And you could, you know, if you get a direct hit. We did something similar when we recreated Squid Games. We put like squibs on them when they got eliminated and grew up. And so, yeah, you'd put like little squibs. [46:46] would go across the body. Yeah. Yeah. So you could do that. So [46:50] If you do that, actually, you could have blanks and maybe a laser sight.

Exactly. That's where we went with the Hunger Games stuff is laser tag, and then it would just trigger squibs if you pointed at them. And then maybe in post, like, we'd have a track where the trajectory of where the bullets were, and we could just overlay, like, the lasers or whatever in post so you could visually see it. But obviously in the time that you were actually filming, practically, it would just be, you know, invisible. You'd just know if you got hit, if your suit lit up. [47:20] You could... [47:21] sync up a laser tag with an actual blank round.

[47:27] So you can make the boom and then the laser actually hits the person at the same time. Okay. Right? Yeah. That wouldn't be hard to do because if you have lasers, you have guns that shoot lasers, that's what laser tag is. That's a pretty simple mechanism. [47:43] All you would do is have sort of a dual trigger setup where you have, as you pull the trigger back, you get the explosion from the round going off, and you also get the laser at the same time. And so the squibs go off.

You say the boom, and then the squibs go off, and you have it all coordinated together. And then it looks wild. And so then you have these zombies. [48:04] Boom! You shoot them. You see splatter all over their chest. Yeah, the only other thing we have to figure out is where is this going? [48:13] gore and have a lot. So we might have to hit up... Amazon. Yeah, wherever you used to put Fear Factor and stuff. Because that definitely seems like a more... It's going from, like, we're usually family-friendly to now this is very rated R.

But it is sick. Yeah, it's not family-friendly because you're killing zombies. Well, yeah, you... [48:30] You know if something's family-friendly or not, if you say eliminated instead of killing? Yes. If you're eliminating zombies, that's family-friendly. If you're killing zombies, that's rated R. Well, they're already dead, so you're eliminating them. There you go. See, now we're back. See, they're already dead. And you can tell if a show's for 18-plus or 13-plus before they shoot the person or whatever, if it cuts away. And there's all these little things. Dude, this could be wild.

This could be fun. [49:00] whatever, whatever, a blank check, just make it happen. Oh my God. Amazon should do it. They need people over there anyway. Yeah. Or I mean, really even Netflix, anyone, really? Like it's, it's the biggest no brainer in the history of ever. Like the, actually the fact that no one's recreated this is kind of absurd when you think about it, but it's also like, [49:15] If traditional, independent of the shock and stuff, you're talking about traditional people with traditional worldviews did this, it'd be so stringent and structured and stuff like that.

[49:24] If we did it with, like, the Beast Games mindset where it's just, like, there's cameras everywhere. They can truly do whatever the hell they want. And it's not, like, this, like, guarded thing. And it's an actual abandoned city. Oh, my gosh. It would go crazy. Now we need a task. Right. [49:39] We need a goal. The goal would be survival. Right, but maybe survival while you're trying to accomplish something. Okay. Well, then this is like a mechanism that usually would work well, is the tasks every day will grow the prize pool.

And if it's on a streaming platform – [49:54] then the price will look could be crazy, right? It doesn't have to be a million dollars. It could grow to 10 million theoretically if they weren't being cheap. And so then it could be like every day. If you complete the task, I put a million dollars in the price pool. Each episodes one whole day. [50:06] It's 10 episodes, 10 days. And so they could technically grow the prize pool to $10 million. [50:10] You put some, like, you know, the UFC people and, like, Navy SEALs and, like, these hardcore people, and you tell them, like, they could potentially share $10 million?

Bro, they would be trying their butts off those 10 days. The footage would be crazy. I mean, they would probably be, like, practicing during the day, like, their rotations and everything on, like, holding off zombies. It would... [50:27] That would be really cool. Yeah, they would run training routes. Exactly. You know, it's really interesting. We'd have to figure out how the zombies get them. [50:34] Because you don't want physical conflict between the stunt people, the zombie people, and the contestants. You don't want them to actually fight. Exactly. Right? So you would have to have rules as to what – [50:45] It would probably be [50:47] My default intuition is if the zombie just purely touches you, then you're just dead.

Like, we wouldn't be able to take it any further than that. Right, like 28 days later zombies. All they have to do is, like, scratch you. Yeah, or breathe in front of you. Yeah, exactly. But in this case, if they touch you, that way it's not like the Navy SEAL, like, [51:03] pushing and flipping them off like because if you went to push them or touch them then you'd be out so people be keeping their distance but even then it'd get pretty crazy if they're like because they're obviously they would run and there'd be chase scenes and stuff so uh honestly like i know some great stunt choreographers like ken and a bunch of other people i would just call them and be like yo how do i do this and they'd probably be like oh here's how i would do it or whatever dude this could be mad yeah this could be a mad to set the stage it's like abandoned city dozens