I was a big fan of Leverage so I was excited when I first heard about this podcast. I've listened to 11 of the episodes over the past few days. It's been very interesting for me to hear the perspective of professional male writers. They happily employ tropes and call out the specific movies that their own pitches are referencing. I think the most interesting thing to me is the issue of gender. Almost all the pitches feature male protagonists and when female characters are introduced, they are particular kinds of side characters or their roles are diminished to further highlight the male characters. I have noticed that Chris in particular has an urge to diminish the roles of the female characters or turn the conversation to the male characters. Aside from the fact that they recycle so many old ideas, I don't have major issues with the movie concepts that Chris pitches and I find the podcast fairly entertaining but I just think that these narratives and this type of storytelling reinforce a larger story that prevents us from seeing more interesting female characters in the spotlight.

Love this podcast - so entertaining to hear about what could have been. I feel like I'm listening in on a writer's room and learning how each different story develops.

This podcast is a hoot! The truth about writers: often when they are in a room trying to complete a job they have, they create an entirely different project they will never sell. Each Downey Files episode is the story about how one of those crazy projects might come to exist. Maybe writers should work together more often on projects if this is what they can create (or maybe not...)

I think it's interesting to 'see' this process; very entertaining and informative for writers & non-writers alike. I just wish the sound was better since there's often an issue with the mic picking up the guests' voices. Even using noise-canceling headphones & volume cranked up, I can't listen to the podcasts on the train because the ambient noise drowns out half of the conversation. If that could be corrected, I could give this podcast 5 stars.

This podcast is hilarious but also extremely useful for aspiring writers. It helps understand the process of writing and how bad ideas can become gems or the inception of superior ideas later on. A must listen.