In this episode of So Many Sequels, Josh Gammon, Garrett Powders, and David Prock dig into Disney's 1997 Hercules for week three of Mythology Month — the extremely American, gospel-choir version of the Greek myth that somehow still works.In this episode:-The wild casting history behind Hades-Why the Muses might be the best storytelling device in any Disney movie-Disney's Americanization of Greek mythology, and why the backlash from Greece makes sense-Ranking "Go the Distance," "Zero to Hero," and "I Won't Say (I'm in Love)"-The Michael Bolton needle drop nobody saw coming-Three different star ratings — and the real Letterboxd numberSo Many Sequels is your book club for movies.Follow along: Website: somanysequels.com Instagram: @somanysequelspod

Troy made nearly $500 million worldwide, cast half of Lord of the Rings as extras, and turned Brad Pitt into a Greek demigod for two hours and forty-three minutes. It also cut every god out of Homer's Iliad and left Achilles as a straight-up atheist.

Josh, Garrett, and David dig into what David Benioff's screenplay kept, what it invented, and why removing the mythology from a mythology movie might be the reason nobody in it feels worth rooting for. Plus: the Letterboxd guessing game, a Peter O'Toole story that did not end well for anyone, and a rating that dropped the more they talked about it.

Part of Mythology Month, timed to Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey — now in theaters. Follow So Many Sequels at somanysequels.com and @somanysequelspod on Instagram.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? opened in five theaters on December 22, 2000, went on to make $71.9 million worldwide on a $26 million budget, and somehow got outdone by its own soundtrack — which sold over 8 million copies and beat out Bob Dylan and U2 for the Grammy for Album of the Year, only the third movie soundtrack ever to do it.

Josh, Garrett, and David kick off Mythology Month with the Coens' loose, sun-bleached riff on the Odyssey. David's watched it since he was eleven and it's in his Letterboxd top four. Josh has loved it since childhood cassette-recording "Man of Constant Sorrow" off the radio. Garrett watched it for the first time this week — and tried to track the Homer parallels in real time, which he'll tell you was a mistake. They get into the Cyclops-with-an-eye-patch stuff, the Homer Stokes subplot and what it says about 1930s (and 2026) politics, and why George Clooney's pomade matters more than you'd think.

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