SEASON PREMIERE - The Secret Ingredient That Makes Sam Raimi's Spider-Man So Great (Patreon)

Or watch the extended ad-free version on Nebula

We're back! Finally! A new season! The dawn of the post-coconut era!

I didn't realize until I uploaded this and checked the dates that it's been two months since the last video, and almost FOUR months since the last proper video essay. In between there I did release a movie and make an 80-minute class for Nebula but still, it's been a while.

I think I took exactly the right amount of time off, because I'm genuinely excited to be back making video essays again, and hopefully figuring out how to do them better than before. We've got a really good team working on these and a lot of really fun stuff planned for what's ahead.

Since I know people are wondering this, I want to be clear that there is no plan to do another year-long story arc culminating in a feature-length movie. There is no intention to do a Night of the Coconut sequel. Unlike last season, I have no idea where the narrative is actually going to end up. I just like making videos when we have a narrative context to place the essays in, so they'll continue to be set in this semi-fictional world we've made. But don't expect it to be as heavily serialized as before.

As for why we did two Sam Raimi videos so close together, it was honestly never planned that way. This particular one has been planned for over a year (co-writer Siddhant Adlakha and I are obsessed with Mr. Ditkovich and wanted an excuse to talk about him). It had been planned for later in the season but we bumped it up because the topic connected thematically to the narrative of me returning to NYC, and also a big trendy topic like Spider-Man seemed like a good way to hook viewers for the new season. The previous video, about the Hudsucker Proxy, had been a last-minute idea since I had a tight deadline and needed a topic that didn't require too much research.

Now, a few bits of info I want to make sure everyone knows.

-You probably know this since it happens automatically but being a patron gives you access to our Discord server. Former intern and Lockefluencer Emma Logsdon has come on board as our community manager and has made updates to the server to basically make it a more fun place to hang out and chat about movies and stuff

-This season we are actually announcing the video topics ahead of time (at the end of each video we announce the next one), and are releasing viewing guides, with a list of movies that will be discussed if you want to get ahead and watch any of those. I neglected to post the one for this video on the Patreon because I'm dumb and forgot but I won't make that mistake again! If you missed it, here it is:

And that's all for now! Be back soon!

-Patrick