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The Rest Is Entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now, one talent can make a career. 3 usually gets you an official title.
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Yep. And that official title is a triple threat. You call triple threat Anyone who can act, sing and dance.
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Now, these days, three can seem almost modest.
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The same person might write, direct, produce and have another career on the side.
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J. Lo would be a triple threat. Huge music career. Started as a dancer, huge acting career as well. It's an amazing talent to be able to have.
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Now drinks mogul as well, is she?
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You have to be the mogul now.
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C
I think the mogul is always the third thing. Now that.
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B
So she's a quadruple threat.
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C
Yeah, I sing, I act and I
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have a lifestyle portal.
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B
But that phrase, all singing, all dances, it escaped entertainment and now it's used for anyone and anything that does several jobs very well all at once, which
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A
is a pretty fair description of octopus. It's the UK's largest energy supplier, one of the country's biggest installers of heat
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C
pumps, solar panels and batteries. And.
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And it runs a major electric car leasing business for good measure.
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B
I mean, that's a quadruple threat, isn't it?
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Yeah, that's a quadruple threat.
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C
Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest Is Entertainment with me, Marina
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Hyde, and me, Richard Osmer. Hai, everybody. Hi, Marina.
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Hi, Richard. How are you?
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I'm all right. Nice weekend.
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C
I have had a lovely weekend. Thank you, Richard. Splendid. How about you?
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B
Yes, not bad at all. Last week I did an interview for my audiobook with Nicola Walker, who reads my audio. It's. Oh, my God, she's so amazing. So amazing. I love her and she was brilliant on people, how people read audiobooks and how, you know, getting the voices and. Oh, my God, it was so.
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C
I might have given her a couple of tips after my vision quest.
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B
Yes, I did talk to her about how much you'd enjoyed your audiobook adventures.
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C
Anyhow, what are we talking about this week?
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B
We are going to talk about Holly Willoughby has launched a new show and it is a YouTube exclusive. It is not on terrestrial TV. We're going to talk about the reviews for that, which have been sensationally, I'd say misguided, but we'll talk about whether it's a good move for Holly and what it means about the future of talent on television.
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We're going to talk about mockbusters.
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Elon Musk's now several months obsession with how accurate Christopher Nolan's odyssey is has reached new heights as he threatens to actually go ahead and make a New version of it on his own.
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B
Yeah.
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C
We'll talk about the different ideas he's
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B
got for doing it all with a. You'll be delighted to hear. And we're also talking about the Jared leto documentary on BBC1. Should we start then with Holly Willoughby? So she's got a new show. It's called Holly Willoughby Together, launched on YouTube last week. The second episode came out on Friday. It is sponsored by Voy. The. It started as a men's health brand. I think that was a men's health brand and a women's health brand.
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C
It's a weight loss thing, really.
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B
They do other things as well. They branch out.
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A
It's a sort of deconstructed morning magazine show, isn't it? This show? It's lifestyle programming. It's chat, it's cooking. You can see there's going to be interviews and fashion. It's the sort of thing you might have seen to some degree on this morning. The one that's come out is her. Stanley Tucci comes round to a kitchen and makes some pasta with her and chats with her.
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B
And then the one on Friday is Catherine Ryan. And because she doesn't cook with her, they have a little drink, they just sit down on the sofa. So, yeah, it's sort of this morning light. It's what Holly is good at. But it is YouTube exclusive. Now, the reviewers. I mean, it's a fun show to review because, you know, and everyone's been punching down that it's. The reviews have been scathing. I don't want to review the reviews, but my review of the reviews are equally scathing. Oh, good. Let's review the reviews.
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A
Okay. They've reviewed it as a TV show, which it isn't. It is a YouTube thing. And if you could review all sorts of things on YouTube in a different way than you might on TV. It's not the same as With Love, Meghan, because that is obviously made for Netflix, and it was very much a TV show.
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B
They were all comparing it to With Love, which is one of the most expensive pieces of content you're ever gonna see.
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C
Yes.
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And is very much a TV show. And it's designed as a TV show.
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C
Whatever.
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A
This is supposed to be different. And there's lots of sort of little clues for how they want to make it seem different, I think, which we might as well talk a bit about the visual language of it, that it's kind of deconstructed. You can see the people with the cameras sometimes.
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C
They have quite a few cameras, obviously, on YouTube. Normally, people.
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It can be quite lo fi.
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They even had a camera inside the
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fridge to see her getting the stuff out there.
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Definitely more camera operator.
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I. Well, we kept seeing her. Cause sometimes she'd wander across the shot, I think on purpose because it's deconstructed. They want you to think it's authentic and it's in a kitchen.
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C
But it's a built kitchen.
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B
Yes, but they're showing you it's a built kitchen.
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A
They're showing you it's a built kitchen.
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C
Yeah.
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And you know, there's flags saying it includes paid promotions. So it's definitely a YouTube thing. By the way, I would say to a lot of the reviewers, this is
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what lifestyle programming is. It's what morning magazine shows are.
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It may not be for you. It reminds me occasionally when you'll get one of the food critics will go, and, you know, I don't know, review Wetherspoons or something. It's like. Yeah, it's not for you.
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C
Okay.
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Yes.
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C
It's not.
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It's not supposed to be what you're thinking.
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You know, you're not.
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But it's still good.
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C
Yeah.
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You're not understanding on its own terms. So she is a native to this kind of thing, Holly. She's. That's where she comes from.
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B
And they're sort of deconstructing her as well. We start with kind of. We start with the thing that funny after we were talking about the Q and A, the Netflix thing, where we sort of see the bit before, the bit where she's sort of wandering around and Stanley's about to arrive and she swears and stuff like that. And you know, they're sort of setting up a stool that says, this absolutely is Holly. There's absolutely going to be cooking, there's absolutely going to be celebrities. But this is not a terrestrial television program. So the visuals of it, it deconstructs what that show is and the way
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C
she is allowed to show all the working.
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B
Yeah. And the way she is allowed to present deconstructs who she is as a human being as well. It doesn't take long before you get. Before you realize Holly has always been exactly what she is on tv. So, you know, it's absolutely her. Also, of course, if you're a TV reviewer and listen, what else can they do? I don't review the first episode or something because they don't know what it is yet. They don't quite know. You can see what they're. Absolutely. If you're reviewing it, you have to understand the process of making a television program, you have to understand the process they're going through, what it is they're trying to do and how they're trying to do it.
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Well, I would actually counter that you have to understand the process of making
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a YouTube video, which I don't think anybody that I read any reviews of did understand.
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Stuart Heritage.
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Oh, yeah.
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To be fair enough, he always understands. He gets a free pass.
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C
He gets a free pass.
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B
But. But, yeah, the rest of it. And listen, I get it. You know, you've got to fill a colum, haven't you? It's. It's absolutely fine. And, you know, Holly can handle herself. But, yeah, I thought that if anyone had read the reviews and read the thing, that they might get a different impression as to what's happening here, because I think it's rather interesting.
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A
Okay, so let's talk about how it's performing, which is interesting. Again, we're comparing something this morning gets about what, 600, 700,000 viewers.
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Yeah.
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So this had 35,000 viewers in its first 24 hours, 11,000 subscribers quite soon after launch. Now that it's not yet backed by YouTube's recommendation recommendation system, I'm going to
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get onto what I think they didn't do right. For YouTube, because I think that, you know, you can talk about it as
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a YouTube video rather than TV show. So what you're. What they'd be looking at is, are the view counts going to continue to grow? Does it have some sort of tail as content? Do clips start appearing in recommends? I think that as with all these things, and this is such a different medium, and obviously lots of things, so
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much from goal, hanger goes on all
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the time, goes onto YouTube. They learn, they refine all the time. This is what people who make things for YouTube do is they learn.
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It is unlike television, the feedback in this sort of world is almost immediate. And for a good producer. And we'll go on to the producer. This is Holly's husband, Dan. For a good producer, that's absolute gold dust because they can just change as they're, you know, because they see what viewers respond to in almost in real time.
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I agree. And in this case, the things that
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they didn't get right from Talking to various YouTube experts is the thumbnail's wrong.
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The headlines and the production design are much more like something off tv, you know, the sort of things that, you know, Stanley Tucci's coming around. That's the sort of thing you might have put for an item on this morning if you don't have an unbelievably hooky and good 30 seconds at the start, people will just drop off YouTube. 30 seconds is the absolute key. So if you have a rambling thing, which they had, like all Stanley teachers, come on, I get that it was good for her in some ways to set up the show like that, they will have to drop that because that doesn't work. You have to have an unbelievably hot first 30 seconds and that hooks people in. Otherwise it's much more. You can get away with it on TV but you can't elsewhere. And if they don't have that hooky thing and they don't keep people, then the YouTube algorithm will not push it. So they have to get that right. That will have to change, which it
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will, by the way, because again, it's.
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That's what people on YouTube do.
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They realize very quickly where they're going wrong because they get so much data
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and then they change it and then
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they do it right. So why is she doing it? Is the next question, which I think is far and away the most interesting one. So Holly Wouldoughby is not someone whose career is on the side. Hollywood Wouldoughby wants to work on terrestrial tv. She can go into any office tomorrow and get a job on terrestrial TV that is absolutely open to her in every way. And her husband, Dan Baldwin, he's making this with her. His team, Hungry Bear, he is making loads of things on terrestrial TV at the moment as well. So why does Holly would it be launch a YouTube show when, as you say, you know, you might get 40, 50,000 viewers in a day, as opposed to 600,000 viewers, you know, which feels a very different thing. Well, I mean, the reason that she does it is because it has a brand behind it, which is, as I say, voi. And there's plenty of other brands who are investing in these areas. We talked about micro influencers last week and brands are getting incredibly proactive about this sort of thing. And the argument might be, oh, my God. Well, God, she's doing it for a brand. It's all sponsored, it's all this. That the other. Anyone who's ever worked for ITV and Channel 4 have been working for the advertisers for the entire history of those channels. It's just the advertisers throw all of their money at various little slots that is then apportioned out. That money then goes to itv, that money then goes down to the talent and to the program makers. There's an awful lot of fat in between. Say Voy wants to make a 30 second advert, put it on channel four. They can buy, you know, four hours worth of airtime, they can stipulate roughly where they want it to be, but they don't get the exact thing of where they want it to be. That money goes into ITV via about four different middlemen and middle women. That money then goes back down to the production company again via lots of different people. In this instant, Dan Baldwin, Hollywood will be considered across the table from Voy. Voy can say, this is our marketing spend. They can say, this is what we can make for you. Let's make this show together. So they're working for advertisers, but they've cut out every single middleman in that process.
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You own your own value.
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You own your own value, you own your own ip. So everything she creates belongs to her or belongs to the production company as well. So you own everything. You're getting paid directly. We are in a world now where brands are savvy enough that they do not compromise the content with their brand. I remember when this all started 20, 25 years ago and people say, oh, you can't make shows made by Pepsi because it will just be all about how great Peps. I mean, that's a long, long time ago. That attitude, you know, brands. A brand like Voi understands that the only way they get any benefit from this relationship is if the show is successful. And the only way the show is successful is if Holly is allowed to be herself and that people come into that and it appeals to them. So for the brand, it really, really works. It's much, it's a much cheaper way of advertising because they are absolutely laser focused. They know that Holly has got the exact audience they're looking for. They absolutely understand that. So they're happy to go all in on Holly rather than spread their money across different demographics. Holly, where the money is coming from and understands that she's getting all of it. And the production team, team do as well. And if it grows, it grows. They make up plenty of money. If it doesn't grow, we move on. But you can be yourself. You can make programs in a way that you haven't done before. You don't have to sit across the table from a commissioner. Now, the flip side of this, by the way, is there's still plenty of money in terrestrial tv. So this is, this is not, oh, you know, everything is going to be YouTube. Now if you look at this morning, that's still a very profitable television show. And Ben Shepard and Kat D Who do that, they're making plenty of money and doing a brilliant job and the audience are enjoying it. And advertiser, you know, get a lot of benefit from advertising in this morning. So these two things are coexisting at the moment. But if you are talent like Holly, who knows that people will come to the thing that she does, I don't know why you wouldn't do this. Two, like really, really obvious examples. Well, too well. Gordon Ramsay, who still does a lot of terrestrial tv, but his terrestrial earnings are dwarfed by his earnings from YouTube and Insta and TikTok. I mean, he, a very, very long time ago worked out this is where he wanted to be. An even better example, Piers Morgan. Piers Morgan does nothing on tele and makes an absolute fortune because he understands that if you can talk directly to a particular audience, your ad rates are enormous, the engagement you get is enormous, the feedback you get is enormous. And it's a really, really seductive thing for a piece of TV talent to do. And it employs a crew in a way that like an individual YouTuber doesn't. So it's not terrible for the industry. There's people being employed there on proper contracts, being paid properly, and it is going to be the first of many.
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A
But it's across media and apart from big stars doing it, there's so many people, if you look at, you know, journalists are now starting to think, well, I only need a certain amount of paid subscribers before I get up to what my salary was, so I'm just gonna go off and do this myself and then it will stand or fall on me. And there are so many. The whole of the creator economy is eating media as we know it in lots of ways. And I think that so many people will go off and do these things,
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B
but she is so in the heart of mainstream. And the interesting thing about it, I've looked a little bit deeper into the numbers for first week and one of the interesting things is the 35 to 55 audience is really, really, really significant. And that was an audience we didn't think watched YouTube. And again, because we're thinking about what things were like 15 years ago. But that is an audience who has grown up with watching YouTube. They are watching it, 50% of them, on their televisions. So you have got an audience who absolutely are bang in the middle of the ITV daytime demographic, who are now very, very comfortable not only with watching YouTube and on YouTube, but watching it on their big television in their living room at a time that they want to. And that's Incredibly significant.
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A
I want to say a little bit of something about the type of criticism that I think, particularly women who do this kind of thing get. There's a continuum between lots of this stuff and people who say, oh, no one likes her. It's like, okay, you cannot front one of those shows and no one likes it. It's like people say, oh, my God, everyone hates Claudia's hair. It's ridiculous. It's like, okay, she's got a deal with the shampoo brand. I think that's because they know a
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bit more about whether people actually like her hair.
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I'm sorry, I have to stand up for women. In this particular case, people really like her. Okay, not everyone really likes her. And it may be that you don't really like her, but people in general really like her, which is why she's had such an unbelievable, successful, frontline career.
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B
Yeah. And why a massive company like Voy who are very, very targeted in what they do. Again, this is the literally the perfect person for us. I mean, you should be so lucky to be the perfect person for a company with massive marketing spend. You know, it's because you're trusted by a large demographic and you're not trusted by a large demograph for no reason. You know, she's built that over years and years and years. And. And the people out there who just, you know, will go, I don't know anyone who watches that program. I don't know anyone who likes her. You think, what?
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Yeah, it's not for you.
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That's you. That's not for you. That's not her. That's you. You have to just look at, look, look at what's happening out there. You know, and some. I mean, the reviews genuinely. There was one amazing. You shouldn't be allowed to review TV if you don't know about tv. There's one brilliant book because, oh, my God, the worst bit was they should
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have to apply to you to be
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allowed to review tv.
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B
They had run out of steam, you could tell. And so they had this emergency drawer with British food on it. So, you know, she bought out, you know, free be. And you think, oh, my God, how desperate are you? Think, no, that's an item. Yeah, that is an item on the show. You've got one of the great epicureans of the world, Stani Tucci on. And so you make sure you've got a Rustlers Burger and you talk to him about it. I mean, that's just an item on a television show. Always has been, always will be. That is not then going, oh my God, we've run out of stuff. Oh, do you remember the emergency drawer, Holly? There's the emergency draw. That was the programme.
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Yeah.
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It'll be interesting to see how they change up each week. I will definitely watch to see how they adapt because that's the mark of any. Anyone who's successful on YouTube is just constantly feeding back what you learned last time out, really.
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B
And I think that's the thing that she will. That's the difficulty of it. There is something about making terrestrial TV that actually is sort of. You have a huge amount of support all of the time. You get holidays off, you know, you get people who come in on Friday and do the gig for you, all of that kind of stuff. Lunches and people take you out and stuff. And you don't get that here. What you're going to get here is the more work you put in, the more money you will make if it works well and which is a, a really, really, really great thing. But after a few years you might just think, God, I'm really, really knackered. I wouldn't mind just something a little bit more cushy. This. You have to be a self starter, you really have to be in it and you're competing against these kids who are sort of 20, 21 in their, in their first job who are just doing this non stop and absolutely understand how to do it. So it is very, very, very possible that this show will fail. But only because all shows fail.
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Yeah.
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B
Not because it's Holly, not because it's YouTube. This is the where things are going to go next. This is what everybody wants to do. And if a brand wants to spend their money and wants to reach a certain demographic, you can see the sense in them being laser focused on somebody who brings all of those people in at once rather than diffusing it through a terrestrial channel and just saying, well, let's slightly be slightly scattershot. They're not scattershot, they're the, you know, people at Channel 4 and ITV and 5 are very, very good, but it is more diffuse and it is harder to measure what it is that your brand is doing. One of the interesting here, of course, is that, you know, brands are very good at when all the data comes in of working out who to back and on this one. And this is going to happen more and more and more. They're in at the very, very beginning. Yeah, they're in before there's any view counts. They're in before there's any feedback. You know they're absolutely in at the start of this and they're trusting the production company and they're trusting Holly. And it's just, you know, I just find it. I find it very, very interesting. I just.
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A
I want to say one more thing actually, as well, because. Because I think what happened to her was so unbelievably awful. The story of what happened. This guy who plotted to kidnap, rape and kill her and was imprisoned. I literally don't know how she's gone back out and done all this. I think she's absolutely amazing, you know, and every. People have no idea the rubbish that people have to deal with. But that is an extreme example. I mean, every woman in the public eye. I've got some of my own. But you can't even talk about it. Cause it might make them angry or they believe you're talking directly to them. But I think it's absolutely amazing that she has just. Just got up and started a completely new thing. I think it's such a testament to a spirit that, I mean, you know, not to be too trite, will carry her through thinking, okay, I'll lean in, I'll change, I'll do whatever is necessary. I mean, I think she's a real hero.
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B
And I'll do it with my family and I'll do it with the people that I trust. One of the reviews said it's not even her own kitchen. And you're like, come on, read the room.
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C
Really?
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B
Come on. I mean, I mean, really, let's have a little think about it. So I think it's. Listen, it's. I think there's jobs out there for the thing I. Talent is all well and good, and Holly will always make money wherever she wants to be employed.
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C
A lot of people that one, by the way.
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B
I want people in the. I want people in the gallery. I want lighting directors, I want all that. I want these people still to be employed. And I think if we can start making shows a bit like this and it's a success, it's good news for the TV industry. And as I say, this is not YouTube versus ITV, because ITV is, you know, you can still make money on these things, but, but it's, It's. It's a direction of travel, you know. Equally, the BBC this week, as we know, they're having to cut down on their content spend and they canceled a few shows, so they cancelled Celebrity Mastermind, which I sort of get again, which. Lovely to watch, but we don't really need it. They canceled Blankety Blank, which again, is a bit of fun, but we don't really need it. They canceled Live at the Apollo, which is an interesting one, because when that came out, it was, you know, the sort of savior of Stand Up. So I talked to loads of comics this week about what are people thinking? And they're all going. They're all kind of going. I mean. Yeah, I mean, I get it. I mean, Stand up really, really has worked out how to use Instagram and TikTok and YouTube. You know, it's really, really worked it out. And. And to have this show.
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C
No one's suggesting Stands Ups on its knees any longer.
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B
Yeah, and it's had this great history and it's been brilliant. It's launched an awful lot of people, but it's. Even the comics are kind of. And actually, I think a lot of the production companies are kind of kind of going. I think that's probably fair enough. I think if the BBC has got license fee money, there might be better places to put it. So I think terrestrial TV is really, really working out how to cut its cloth to keep competing with these other channels. But it's fascinating that Holly, with the demographic that she has, which, which is a younger demographic, is understanding that YouTube is a place that they are now going as well. And that is a change that's never gonna stop. You know, we're gonna get more and more and more YouTube natives and we'll see more and more of this stuff, I think. And equally, if you're Dan Baldwin, who. I mean, he's Holly's husband. But it's just interestingly instructive in here. If he was the producer, whatever, I'd talk about it, you know, Hungry Bear, who he runs, you know, they do gladiators, they do all sorts of different shows. So, you know, he understands there's still plenty of money to be made in terrestrial television. They still makes very, very good terrestrial television. But he sort of understands that also he's a content creator, that his company makes content. And they can do that for BBC One or ITV or Channel 4, but they can be doing it it by themselves. And the one thing you will learn very, very early on as a producer is the different returns you get from different channels. Like which channels will keep your rights, like Netflix will keep your rights. BBC, you're obviously getting a lot less money anyway. There's all sorts of different commercial deals you do with different channels, and that really affects your back end and what you're making next year and in three years and in five years. And the thing about YouTube for almost all production companies, if you can get a decent brand on board as well, is the back end position can be incredible. You know, it is. It gives you a creative freedom. Because no one's telling you what to do. Because I'll tell you now, a brand will tell you less what to do than a channel will do. And you get to keep that IP and you get to exploit it. And there's all. There was all sorts of paid content in there and there's all sorts of brands.
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C
Yeah, there was a lot, yeah.
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B
And you kind of think, well, I mean, listen, I. I guess that's.
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A
I mean, not on that platform. You can't be fussing about that. I mean, that is the platform.
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B
Yeah, I think exactly that. And you can, you know, you can earn. There's all sorts of commercial opportunities you can get off the back of it, which you can't. You could. Which you either have to share with the channel or on the bb. You can't have at all. So it makes absolute sense for producers, it makes absolute sense for presenters, it looks like it makes sense for viewers, but I don't think it's the death of television. But I just think these two things are going to coincide for a long while to come. And that's sort of borne out, actually, by the Ofcom report that came out this week. The big headline of was, oh, more people now have Netflix as their default than the BBC, I think, is 25% to 24%. I think my television, which is an LG, I think, automatically defaults to Netflix. So I don't know about those numbers.
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A
You know my thoughts. I just think DCMS should put a button on the remote.
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B
Correct.
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A
Just get a button on the remote,
- [23:26]
C
put Iplayer on the remote. I'm just going to keep saying this, but it's right. Iplayer on the remote.
- [23:30]
B
Yeah. No one's going to mind that. You're not going to get in trouble for doing that. Yeah, that's an easy win for Andy Burnham at time of recording. But then you look at the, you know, the top 10 most watched shows in the UK in the first half of the year and. And eight of them are terrestrial. Number one, of course, is Traitors Night Manager is number two. Number three is Traitors Uncloaked, so I think that has to count with traitors. I'm really sorry. Listen, it's lovely to have a visualized podcast up there, but it is, it is still, you know, it's.
- [23:58]
A
I don't think it should.
- [23:58]
C
I think it's standalone and I Think it should be allowed?
- [24:00]
B
I think it's correct. I absolutely get it. Small profits is up there, which is really lovely.
- [24:07]
A
I mean, how cool.
- [24:08]
B
Yeah. There's only two Netflix shows on the list, one of which is Stranger Things, Unsurprising. The other one is Runaway, the. The Harl Hoban show. That's there in the top.
- [24:17]
C
Ingrid is in.
- [24:18]
B
She is, yeah. She is in. And. But then actually, you look slightly further down that top 10 and you see there's the BBC entries there. You've got Call the Midwife, Silent Witness and Death In Paradise. And there you go. And they all skew slightly older. Yeah, that is the interesting thing. They all skew slightly older. But those are the biggest shows and it's incredible how well the BBC does on that. So this idea that people have got Netflix. Netflix is the default. Is absolutely. It's a thing. But again, the strength of terrestrial tv, I think, is still.
- [24:50]
A
You can make lots of numbers, say
- [24:52]
C
different things, depending on which way. Yeah, you're doing your report.
- [24:55]
B
Anyone who listens to this show regularly knows roughly the direction of travel. But it's. But we're not going there super fast. No, that's the good news. We've got a few years left yet, us oldies. Shall we go to some adverts?
- [25:06]
C
Let's.
- [25:06]
A
Credits. This episode is brought to you by Lloyd's Rewards. Now, a big mistake that people make is leaving the cinema as soon as the credits roll because there might be
- [25:19]
C
a bonus scene right at the end.
- [25:22]
B
Yeah, absolutely. One of the scenes. There might be one in the middle. Yeah. You never know.
- [25:26]
A
In Marvel Ones there used to be a mid credits scene and then there'd
- [25:29]
C
be an end credits scene.
- [25:30]
B
I remember the first one. I really remember well. Two, I remember Ferris Bueller's Day off, where he tells you to go home at the end, but also Smokey and the Bandit with Burt Reynolds, where they would do bloopers. It just feels like a secret little glimpse into a.
- [25:42]
C
And it doesn't quite have to be over.
- [25:43]
B
Yeah, exactly. And it's just a lovely little added bonus. You've done everything. You've made your show right. You've given everyone everything. It's just a lovely little extra.
- [25:52]
A
Which is also the idea behind Lloyds Rewards. Extra value appearing inside something you were already doing anyway. Your daily banking, from shopping to streaming, you can bank on Lloyds to help your money go further.
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It's rewards like this that make 14 million people bank on Lloyds. Search Lloyds Rewards in your app. Eligibility criteria terms and conditions apply. Retailer offers and cashback amounts may vary. UK residents, 18 plus.
- [26:24]
A
Welcome back, everybody. Now, when we talked about Christopher Nolan's Odyssey and Elon Musk having spent, like, seven months wetting his pants about it, one of the things we did say was, why don't you make your own version?
- [26:38]
C
Then if you've really so upset about
- [26:40]
B
it, why did we open our mouth?
- [26:42]
A
Well, any.
- [26:42]
C
Yeah. Now, he's had two ideas in the last week.
- [26:45]
A
He's an ideas man.
- [26:46]
C
Above all.
- [26:47]
A
The first one was to give $100
- [26:49]
C
million to Mel Gibson.
- [26:51]
A
Which reminds me, I've got to check in on the resurrection of the Christ. That's gone very quiet, hasn't it?
- [26:56]
C
Do you remember they started filming initially. I need to check in on that.
- [26:58]
A
Okay. To give Mel Gibson $100 million to
- [27:02]
C
make a historically accurate Odyssey. He's now pulled back from that idea. I think.
- [27:08]
B
I think. And in the original Aramaic. Right. Was the idea. I think that was the idea.
- [27:14]
A
He now wants to grok his AI.
- [27:18]
C
He wants grok to make a version.
- [27:19]
B
I trust.
- [27:20]
C
Grok of it. Yeah.
- [27:22]
A
I mean, he's very, very angry about Matt Damon in that role for some reason. I don't know why. Because for me, okay, you know, I loved it.
- [27:29]
C
And I did say. Right on the. I completely loved it.
- [27:32]
A
But for the movie to be.
- [27:34]
C
Which I think it is somewhat about, you know, American dads who cry in their cars on the way home from work.
- [27:39]
B
Yes.
- [27:40]
C
Okay. It has to be Matt Damon. Of course. It should be. It can only be Matt Damon. He's. That. He's every American dad. Right. He's in the Chevy Tahoe on the way back. But I don't know why he's crying. We don't know why. That's what the film's about.
- [27:51]
A
So. But anyway, he said, I want to go make my own, and he's gonna use. He thinks it will be somehow more authentic in some way.
- [28:00]
C
We know that he fundamentally misunderstands art and interpretation and all of that, but
- [28:05]
A
we honestly can't really litigate that because it's just too stupid.
- [28:07]
B
He also slightly seems to think that the Odyssey is a true story. Yeah, but you know what I mean, every time he says it has to be historically accurate, you think, sorry to. Sorry to what?
- [28:17]
A
Well, you know, when the gods walked on the Earth.
- [28:19]
B
Yeah, I mean, I can see why he think that that was true, but, yeah, he definitely sees. And he doesn't seem to realize that almost the entire history of Western literature is people. Is people retelling the Odyssey. And that's the Point in it.
- [28:30]
A
Let's get into stat. Why don't you actually even know if he does properly?
- [28:34]
B
Can I say, by the way, it'd be interesting. I wonder if A, he's watched the Odyssey or B, if he's read it. I would. You know what? I absolutely wouldn't put it past him not to have watched the movie.
- [28:44]
A
He's got very Cliff Notes take on everything.
- [28:46]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [28:47]
A
I mean, not space rockets and stuff. But there is nonetheless an interesting story here which we are gonna get into now, which is okay to get into the numbers. The Odyssey cost $250 million to make. I have seen people say $125 million on marketing. Personally, I think they have spent more on marketing. It's universal. And what is interesting is that obviously that is right at the very top end of anything that you'll spend in Hollywood today. And what is interesting is that I think we will see multiple versions of the same story. As people think, oh, why can't I just. Especially on this public domain stuff, which is obviously the Odyssey has been out
- [29:27]
C
of copyright for some time, for a few years.
- [29:29]
A
It's interesting, by the way that happened, people, they made lots of multiple things. I've said this on this podcast before, but it's really interesting. Warner Brothers made mockbusters, right? Yeah, well, yeah. But also people going over and over the same thing until they are light
- [29:41]
C
on the version that they like.
- [29:43]
A
And Warner Brothers made three versions of the Maltese Falcon between 1931 and 1941.
- [29:49]
C
And the 41 version is the Humphrey Bogart one. Oh, I see. That's what we were going for. I'm not saying that you're going to get your perfect version of the Odyssey,
- [29:57]
A
but it's interesting what Elon Musk, someone like Elon Musk can do. He obviously Grok has bazillions of users. He has a distribution platform. He marketing is very, very expensive, but
- [30:11]
C
it's not if you own a platform.
- [30:14]
A
And what I think is quite interesting is do people even want the whole movie or do they actually just want to. This is a bit like what we were talking about during the World Cup.
- [30:23]
C
Do they really want to watch 90 minutes of football anymore? I hate to say it, but what
- [30:27]
A
they really want is a clip from
- [30:29]
C
the Odyssey, the Nolan version. And then next to it, you know, here's how it should have been.
- [30:34]
A
I honestly think that that's what a lot of people want.
- [30:38]
C
They don't want.
- [30:38]
B
People would be much happier. I'll tell you what no one wants is a three hour AI Version of the Odyssey. No, no, I mean, literally no one in the world wants to watch that. I mean, I tell you, who knows that? Elon Musk. Right. And everyone knows that. You know, there's, there's, there's an element of trolling going on here. He knows exactly that. And he, what he objects to more than anything is how much publicity the Odyssey is getting and how excited everyone is about it and how often, how many people.
- [31:05]
A
I mean, no one's giving it more than Christopher Nolan.
- [31:08]
B
No, but he wants to, he, he wants to ride that same thing. If you talk about the Odyssey now, we talk about, about Elon Musk. He's absolutely. That 125 million or more that Universal has spent on marketing, he has gone, I will have a little bit of that. I will take, I will, I will inhale the fumes of the Odyssey and I will use it once again to, you know, put me at the center of the conversation, which is what it's done. He doesn't give a toss about making a three hour version of the Odyssey. He's, he's talking about Grok doing it and it's still costing 100 million. You go, what's the point of AI then if it's costing 100 million? The whole point of it is, you know, you can do it cheaply to your point. So lots of people have said, this is why people have taken them seriously. They said, well, look, he could make that. And as you say, he doesn't have to worry about distribution or anything because he has this platform, which is X and he could use that platform to show it. I don't think X is a platform that can sustain a phenomenon. Maybe Twitter could have done 10 years ago, not anymore. I think the audience for it is too soft. I think the users of it are too soft. I don't think it's the sort of place that can really build a huge enthusiasm for anything. I think it can definitely build a huge train that says we hate the Odyssey. Definitely. That's very, very easy to do. They can absolutely monetize rage. I don't think it's the platform, Unlike Instagram, unlike TikTok, that can create something and build something that's really sustaining and beautiful and artistic and nourishing.
- [32:34]
C
A three hour movie for everyone around the world.
- [32:36]
A
Every time it has to do a
- [32:36]
C
live stream, it falls over. Over.
- [32:38]
B
Yeah.
- [32:38]
C
So I'm not convinced that it can do that.
- [32:41]
A
But I do think this whole idea of mockbusters and people sort of coming in and doing that, especially with Stuff in the public domain. People coming in and doing. Doing their own. People have been talking about. I've seen lots of stuff this week about the sort of the middle bit. There are cheap films, which is fine, and that will keep going. And then there are these incredibly expensive, massive marquee efforts like this, which is, you know, at the very top end of everything, but then in the middle, there's lots of this stuff. And if, particularly if it's on in public domain, if it's Jane Austen or it's Dickens or whatever it may be, Dracula, those sorts of things, people have always done this in films, but you can see people creating AI versions that just cannibalize some of that, or just coattail on the marketing spend of something that's already out there.
- [33:24]
B
That's the key, I think.
- [33:25]
A
I think it's just. It's like a companion piece. It's for the people who don't like this sort of thing. But your version is also out in the cinemas at the same time. That's actually quite an old Hollywood trick. You know, if you go right back into the past, people were always trying to do spoiler films or try and, you know, piggyback on somebody else's buzz and publicity and whatever, you know, and
- [33:43]
B
Piranhas comes out straight after Jaws, all that, all that, all that type of stuff. That's exactly what's going to happen. Because it is this thing of when Universal is spending 125 million on marketing or more, they're not just marketing the Nolan film, they're marketing the idea of the Odyssey. And you look at the book, you know, the books have got, you know, racing up the charts and Emily Wilson's translation is now, you know, right at the top of the charts. There an awful lot of eyes on the idea of the Odyssey. And if you had decided to do your own half hour version, made entirely by AI, or if you're a comedy troupe, you've done your own very cheap version of it, now would be the time to do it. Because everyone is talking about the Odyssey, everyone wants stuff about the Odyssey. And as these barriers to entry get cheaper and cheaper, every time there's a Sherlock Holmes movie or a Dracula movie, as you say, any of these things that are, that are out of copyright, Frankenstein, you can just do your own version of that. And people are going to do that more and more and more and more. I don't think Elon Musk is going to be one of them. I think you're absolutely right. I think if they're going to do anything, it'd be to take some chunks of the film, do their own version of that because that's, that's a much more entertaining watch because you're looking at, you know, like, with, like, that's all people can handle.
- [34:54]
A
They can only watch a three minute
- [34:55]
C
video, as I think we've proved.
- [34:56]
A
They can't.
- [34:57]
C
They can't be doing with a three hour film.
- [34:59]
A
They just want clips that they can
- [35:00]
C
compare side by side.
- [35:02]
B
Yeah, definitely. If it's an AI one and they don't even get to see Matt Damon. I haven't seen that. He had a problem with Matt Damon. I know he's got a problem with Elliot Page and Lupita and Yongo.
- [35:10]
A
And I just think he wants to just clear out the whole lot and start again.
- [35:13]
B
He said, you know what? It's nice to hate a white guy for once. He's thinking, he's thinking, maybe I'll do that for once. Yeah, I get it. But yeah, so listen, whether he will do this or whether he'll probably move on to the next, you know, bright and shiny object that turns up, but I do think he's been very clever at putting himself at the heart of the biggest cultural conversation of the year. I mean, I mean, he, you know, he's increasing the rage in the world. He's not doing it, you know, he's not making the world a better place by doing it. He's making his life slightly more bearable. Maybe whatever it is he needs when he wakes up in the morning, he is getting from this. But it's, you know, I just don't think that sort of thing is sustaining in a creative economy. I really don't. So I think he's doomed to failure. I genuinely, I would, you know, if the Odyssey had been maybe in three years time when the technology had moved on a little bit more, I'd be fascinated to see some of the younger filmmakers doing little versions of it, doing little takes on it, you know, that kind of thing that if you love it, you can go home immediately and you can watch 10 different versions and you can watch different people's takes on it and different, you know, that I would love. Did you see, we were talking about reviews earlier on for the Holly Thing. Did you see Emily Wilson's review of the Odyssey?
- [36:21]
C
It's quite a thing.
- [36:22]
A
First of all, it's a brilliant commission.
- [36:23]
C
Whoever just thought we should get her
- [36:25]
B
to review it, I'm happy to quote it now. But if you're gonna do it in a recommendation, we can quote it in your recommendations if to you'd like. Like, would you rather do that?
- [36:33]
C
Yeah, let's do that.
- [36:34]
B
And bear in mind, by the way, that this is Christopher Nolan's favorite adaptation of it as well. And he quotes it in his thing, but it's. Yeah, gosh, keep listening for that. Now, shall we finish, if we could, with Jared Leto?
- [36:48]
A
Yeah. I would be remiss not to cover it. And it's. The BBC have done a documentary directed by Alex McShane and kind of put together by Jessica Sartine. Four women have accused Jared Laitier on the record of sexual misconduct ranging from sexual assault, threatened sexual assault, statutory rape to grooming. He says, I'm gonna run.
- [37:12]
C
Well, let's put his denial up at the top.
- [37:13]
A
He says, I've never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false. Little primer on Jared Leto. He started in My so Called Life. Then he was in Requiem for a Dream. He. He got a best supporting actor for his role in the Dallas Buyers Club. He was in the Suicide Squad. A lot of weird stories appeared during that when he was sending his castmates rats and things like that. His last two films. I don't think this is a particular coincidence in lots of ways either. Tron eras and Masters of the Universe have been massive, massive flops. But he also had one of those
- [37:48]
C
rock bands that actors have will insist on.
- [37:51]
B
30 seconds to Mars.
- [37:52]
C
30 seconds to Mars.
- [37:54]
A
Now we've talked before about. It's interesting because these stories have been in the ether for a very long time. In 2005, the New York Post ran some stories sort of hinting at this
- [38:05]
B
stuff and not just in the ether. They have, you know, literally reported. Yeah.
- [38:08]
A
Air Mail ran stories last year. There'd been. You could see people have. Part of what got people into James Gunn into trouble was joking about these sorts of things. James Gunn who runs the DC Universe now for Warners. And we've talked before about Open Secrets and why if something is a so called open secret. Again, I say Jared Leto denies all this stuff and how hard it is nonetheless to get things onto the record. I have to say that in terms of the documentary, the documentary is really well done.
- [38:37]
B
Yeah, it's really good.
- [38:38]
A
It's really good. Have a watch of it. It's on iplayer. Absolute credit to them. Cause it is incredibly hard to get people to women particularly to talk on the record, for obvious reasons. They've got four of them on the record. Ten of them spoke and they've corroborated Friends and family, they've got contemporaneous messages. There's lots and lots of people running it. Some sort of masterclass in trying to get stuff to air, which is incredibly difficult with this kind of stuff. What. And I think it's great actually that in lots of cases, I think people think, you know, it's not great for the BBC to put their stuff on YouTube. In this case, it's great to put it on YouTube because it gets maximum possible discovery, particularly in the US. I know that what people will be asking is, you know, what happens now? Because you get these documentaries come out and then I have to say I'm quite pessimistic about sometimes what happens with these things because people cannot, you know, you've got two pathways. Either people can get charged with someone, something or they can't. Again, I would say no one has been charged. These are accusations at the moment. Remember, in terms of the Epstein files, absolutely no one other than the dead person and the woman who is in prison have been charged. And I don't think they will be, by the way. And, and the most depressing thing of that for me was seeing, just being able to see how some of the most powerful men in the world named, who we all know, talk about women
- [40:03]
C
because you can read their emails and it's just like. And they're just carrying on, I guess, running their companies.
- [40:08]
A
And we all know. Cause we can see it.
- [40:10]
B
And so that's the stuff we can publicly see. And there's still a group of people who would go, no, I think that's where it ends. I don't think any of those people are taking any of that into their private lives. I think that's. I mean, yes, you've given us absolute, solid gold evidence that these people talk that way and these people talk about certain things that happen. I don't believe any of these people actually do the things. It's a weird worldview if you think none of these people have ever done anything.
- [40:36]
A
It's ridiculous. Yeah, right, it's ridiculous.
- [40:38]
B
I'm not casting any expressions on anyone. But if you know something about somebody, you cannot take them to court because you don't have the evidence. And we know that. How hard it, as you say, if no one in the Epstein files is getting prosecuted, it's hard to prosecute anyone. You can't do that. So what can you do? All you can do is sort of keep them away from things. All you can do is sort of is just not employ them anymore. And it's.
- [40:59]
A
But it's a bit about the. I mean, the armies of enablers that always shock me. Just like how many people are effectively informed about certain types of behavior that are definitely off color and just act in that way every day, enabling it and allowing it. And as I say, he denies everything and we'll see where it goes. But as always with these things, it's much less likely that any charges will come. Come of it.
- [41:23]
B
And also, just to nail the lie that they always say, yeah, but the women are getting something out of it. They're doing that. They're doing this for money. They're doing. No one's getting money out of accusing Jared Leto or something.
- [41:31]
C
No, just so you know, let me just tell you.
- [41:33]
B
I mean, they're really, really not. They're doing it because they're. Because it takes incredible bravery to do this stuff. It really, really does. We see it time and time and time again, and it's the same people every time going, oh, yeah, no, there's no evidence. There's no proof. You go, oh, you've said this about every single instance of this. So every single time it hasn't happened. Even though we're showing you evidence of the world in which they live, we're showing you evidence of, you know, where. Clearly you can see that this world exists. Clearly you can see that there are enablers around people. But every time, it's still, no, no, no, I do. I. I don't believe any of it. Nobody is getting famous from going on a BBC documentary and alleging abuse against Jared Leto. So you have to ask yourself, why are they doing it? Recommendations.
- [42:13]
C
Well, you know what I'm recommending?
- [42:14]
A
I'm recommending, first of all, I love
- [42:16]
C
the London Review of Books. Love it.
- [42:18]
A
This is an absolutely great commission that's
- [42:20]
C
been incredibly newsy and it's brilliant. It's such an amazing magazine. Obviously, Emily Wilson, whose translation of the Odyssey is very influential and big part of Christopher Nolan's kind of preparation for the film. They asked her to review it.
- [42:35]
B
I'll say this. She at first said, I'm very glad that it's brought the Odyssey back into the public conversation. And I bet she is, because she sold a lot of books, but she watches the film. She also says, by the way, that her teenage children enjoyed the film. But this is. This is Emily Wilson's take, or a part of it. Nogan's Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or the relationship between one warrior's glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbors. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmick. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes and all the food looks horrible.
- [43:21]
C
Wow.
- [43:22]
B
I mean, you love the film. I mean, she knows everything in the world about the Odyssey so she is allowed to have her own take on it for sure. But that's great.
- [43:30]
C
Yeah, yeah, just great. I love that she didn't hold back.
- [43:33]
B
It's.
- [43:33]
C
Yeah. Rising tide lifts all boats.
- [43:36]
B
It really does. The recommendation is to watch the film and to read her translations and to
- [43:40]
C
read the LRB as well.
- [43:41]
B
Well, and to read the three. Hold on. Three recommendations in one. We're really treating people. We'll see everyone for a Q and A on Thursday. Yes, and the bonus episode, this week's Another World cup of the World cup of bald men and show business. It is an absolute celebration of the Jason Stathams, Samuel L. Jacksons and Bruce Willis's of this world. Ross Kemp is in there.
- [44:06]
C
Oh, I knew he would be. I didn't even need to ask.
- [44:09]
B
Not going to give away any results. It was really, really good fun. It was really good fun.
- [44:13]
C
This is huge.
- [44:13]
B
Why isn't this like that's again, I've done that with Bella Hull and Ivo Graham. We're also. We're still recording our history of James Bond army as well, which we are loving. And that will be out soon as well. For members. If you want to be a member, go to thereses entertainment.com otherwise we will see you all on Thursday.
- [44:30]
A
See you.
- [44:45]
B
Hello everyone. We've got some exciting news to share with the listeners of the Wrestlers Entertainment.
- [44:49]
A
We do indeed. We are holding a summer sale so you can become a member of the club for a third off the regular price.
- [44:55]
B
That's right. With the code Summer26 you can head to thereses entertainment.com and claim an annual membership with this brilliant discount.
- [45:02]
A
So if you want to spend your
- [45:03]
C
summer listening to us discussing celebrity drama, behind the scenes stories and industry gossip, but have none of the ads and why wouldn't you?
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A
It is a no brainer.
- [45:10]
B
Plus you can catch up with all of the archive of our members only shows you may have missed, including Marina's latest series of Vibe shift.
- [45:16]
A
And we've got lots more of those special series planned. But remember, this deal will only run until the end of August, so don't wait around. Head to therestasentertainment.com now.