The Rest Is Entertainment - Bake-Off, Boris' Book and Bad Movies

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Why don't contestants change clothing overnight on The Great British Bake Off? Was Snakes On A Plane a serious film? Did Boris Johnson get overpaid for his calamitous autobiography? Richard Osman a...nd Marina Hyde answer your questions on the world of entertainment. https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a-purity-spiral/ Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.com The Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Requires relevant Sky TV and third party subscription(s). Broadband recommended min speed: 30 mbps. 18+. UK, CI, IoM only. To find out more and for full terms and conditions please visit Sky.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Assistant Producer: Aaliyah Akude Video Editor: Kieron Leslie, Charlie Rodwell, Adam Thornton, Harry Swan Producer: Joey McCarthy Senior Producer: Neil Fearn Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:22 Because when you're doing big things, your tools should to. Visit square.ca to get started. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment, Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I am Richard Osmond. We're still apart from each other. I cannot infect you.
Starting point is 00:01:43 Your COVID has not passed, but is not cleared. It hasn't cleared. I must keep you safe at all costs. But by the way, we've got such, someone writing something so nice. Do you remember we talking about AI commentary on local sports? You mentioned that. Oh yes. I was saying that the thing I would like, if AI can do anything, I would like it whenever you're walking through like a local park and there's a cricket match going on or a football match going on, I'd love it if somehow AI could commentate on it for me. I would sit and watch the whole game. That was my, that was my AI dream.
Starting point is 00:02:15 Well, this is like hearing that flying cars are reality because listen to this. Chris Wright has written in and he says, I thought your listeners might like to hear this story. I'm an expat in Singapore and my 10-year-old son plays cricket in a local competition here. The competition is done. by Indian kids and the games are live streamed on YouTube, which is great as it allows my family to tune in live from Australia when he's batting and bowling. A few weeks ago, I got a message for my brother asking who is providing the colourful commentary for the game and I had to wander around the field looking for the commentator who I couldn't find. After making inquiries, it turns out that $50 of the match fee goes to a guy living in the middle of nowhere in India who commentates on four hours worth of local 10-year-olds playing cricket based on the live stream a team sheet and presumably some messages from the scorers.
Starting point is 00:03:01 It is a great service and well worth the money. That's so cool. That's so cute, isn't it? Can you imagine that? If you're a kid and you had all of that? I've watched an unbelievable amount of small boys cricket games. And actually Kieran used to do the scoring on a sort of WhatsApp for all the different parents.
Starting point is 00:03:20 Sometimes they can't, you know, if people are working and couldn't make it there, then there would be like this sort of group and he would do some sort of commentary on that. But this is of a different level and I'm absolutely gripped by it. I now want to watch this specific version of it. So Chris, please get in touch and give me a link to that feed and I will watch it. But I absolutely love the idea of this. It's literally Richard. It's nearly flying cars.
Starting point is 00:03:46 Your dream is nearly a reality. It's nearly a reality. I have a tiny bit of any other business. A friend of mine was listening when you were talking about showing the shining to your nine-year-old child and lots of people have told us about the inappropriate things they've watched with their children. And a friend of mine, he should remain nameless. He said, when our youngest child was five, he and his wife often watched Grey's Anatomy. He said his wife watched it more than me, but Grey's Anatomy is one of those things we were watching.
Starting point is 00:04:15 And sometimes if I was out, she would watch an episode without me. And I was fine with that. He said, so I come back in one day, and his wife is sitting on the sofa with the five-year-old. And watching this thing and my friend looks at these two characters on screen and says, God, I thought those two had split up. And his wife said, well, it seems not. And then this five-year-old daughter said, hmm, they're not really back together, Daddy. It's just break-up sex.
Starting point is 00:04:43 And at that point, the five-year-old was no longer allowed to watch Grey's Anatomy. Well, how precocious, in the most charming way. In the most charming way. I have a question for you, Marina, from Thomason, who has a question about, Zach Snyder, the, let's say, controversialist director of things like Man of Steel, Justice League, a lot of the DC movies. Anyway, Thomas's question is this. Do you think Zach Snyder is aware his fans were as toxic as they are and purposefully doesn't care? Also, what effect will the success of James Gunn's Superman have, if any, on them?
Starting point is 00:05:14 I ask, because I find it ludicrous that no matter what happens, they've decided on their version of reality that continues to change as facts change. Yeah, I mean, this is the sort of emblematic, well, it's not, well, I mean, there's so many toxic fandoms, But Zach Snyder, who's a big D.C. director, when he made Justice League for D.C., for four years, there was a fan campaign, released the Snyder cut. I mean, Zach Snyder is a particular sort of guy. And by the way, during the making of that film, something awful happened and his daughter took her own life. And it was a sort of, and he does credit the fan movement with sort of bringing him back to filmmaking. So it's a more nuanced story that could be. I think in general, yes, I think he's definitely aware of how toxic it became.
Starting point is 00:06:01 And I think he probably got a lot of toxic stuff as well. But he's a particular type of person. He has an unproduced screenplay for the Fountainhead, which I always feel as a character note in a director. The Iron RAND book, Beloved of Tech Bros Everywhere. Yeah, beloved of Tech Bros everywhere and terrible people. He's personally, he's very, very obsessed with director's cuts. He always does one. Sometimes he does two director's cuts, which I feel like.
Starting point is 00:06:32 So, you know, the critics of whoever, ever, any studio ever, are always just like, well, the director's cut is better. You know, I would personally much rather sit through nine and a half hours of Heaven's Gate or whatever it is. Zach Snyder does actually claim, I think, never to have seen the Warner Brothers theatrical release cut of Justice League. Same. Like Ditter, no I have actually seen it But I didn't see it in theatres But I think it's really interesting
Starting point is 00:07:00 As always with these things If they're not doing it to you Then there is a sort of secret delight That they're kind of doing it in your service And will you explain who the fans are And the forums they use They're a very toxic online Group of people
Starting point is 00:07:16 Who would just say I want release his car And we're kind of obsessed with it And like all of these things that I think they're sort of mirrored in those Star Wars fandoms who kind of went absolutely nuts about The Last Jedi and said, I don't know, that the character of Ray was a sort of terrible, perfect little feminist that, and they completely hounded Kelly Marie Tran off social media completely. And she was subject to sort of terrible racist and kind of sexist bullying.
Starting point is 00:07:50 I don't know. a lot of critics nowadays feel that they're under constant siege from fandoms and that fandoms take critical reviews as kind of personal attacks on them. And what I think all of this shows is, it's become so interesting, you know, fandom has become such an identity, fandom has become, and to some extent, you know, and those old, you know, I have friends who before, way before it was cool, who would say to me, this is literally the most uncool thing you could do,
Starting point is 00:08:23 would go to things like Star Trek conventions, would go to, you know, that was all uncool. And then suddenly it's like, oh no, Comic-Con is very cool. All of these things have become cool and they've become much more mainstream to some extent. But rather than being for kind of shy, nerdy, outsidery kids who were quite nice, they have become places of huge aggression. And that's one of the big stories of, in fandom of the past decade. decade or two is the idea of fandom as a kind of identity, it's part of identity politics
Starting point is 00:08:53 and like all the rest of identity politics become very vicious. It's like a football team. It's like having a, it's like having a team. Suddenly, Star Trek fans can be Millwall fans. I totally agree with you, but I was thinking about this just when you were saying that. I was thinking, but it's sort of like factions within the fans of one football team. And you can say, okay, yes, there are the people who think of themselves as the kind of OG fans and then there are the prawn sandwich brigade and there's some kind of friction between them
Starting point is 00:09:22 but it's not really like this kind of interneesine warfare which is really odd because it's like you're this is these are battles between people who essentially supposedly love the same fiction you know they love Star Wars or they love whatever and it becomes this real sort of it's definitely a story that is something of the last decade or two not even to
Starting point is 00:09:43 you know who loves who's voice matters as most. Who's purist? Who's purist? Who's liked it longest? Who's liked it in the right way? Rather than feeling like it's a lovely kind of camaraderie, a brotherhood and a sisterhood that you all get swept up in because you basically like the same characters, it's become like everything a battleground. And I would say that the Snyder fandom was a particular example of that and a kind of like, and to anyone else, like any of these other purity spirals or anything like that within about a month or two of it running to anyone else on the outside it looks just completely deranged but people have gone this nuts about like a director's
Starting point is 00:10:26 cut of a movie and yet and it's become bigger and bigger and as you always say those voices are just the loudest most people who like Star Wars are not like this and most people who like DC are not like this but it just those the loudest voices really have taken over and it has become fandom in so many ways and in so many different strains of fandom have bizarrely become a form of identity politics well you have to be obsessional you have to want to there are certain types of people who will spend eight hours a day on bulletin boards and almost everyone in the world will not do that and there is something about your personality if you are able to spend eight hours a day on a but it's important. It says something about you. I loved this expression, a purity spiral.
Starting point is 00:11:12 Yeah. Oh, there's some so, there's some really interesting things about how purity spirals form. And there's actually an incredible sort of deep dive article about one in a, which I'll try and put into the show notes, about a knitting circle. And how, no, no, I mean, it's, it's quite extraordinary. But it's, it becomes so completely awful and it becomes caught up with all different types of identity politics. It's honestly just some people who got to. together and formed a non-like community because they like knitting and it becomes beyond toxic. It's really such an interesting long, deep dive article. I thoroughly recommend and I'll put that in the show notes. Do you have any, have you ever been aware of like a stomach, like a sort
Starting point is 00:11:52 of provisional wing of extremist Thursday Murder Club fans? Not especially. It was interesting with the film that there were certain things that changed from the book that people got very exercised about, but as far as I can see in quite a fun way that it seems to have been, oh, we'd have loved this, we'd have loved that. I hope in the next movie they do this, they do that. And so, yeah, that feels like quite a healthy, enjoyable version of this. But to speak to the actual question, to Thomason's question, do you think Zach Snyder is comfortable with that?
Starting point is 00:12:23 Do you think actually it sort of feeds in to his brand and to the movies that he makes? Well, as I said, it's always nice when they're not doing it to you. And I've never seen him come out and say, this is absolutely disgusting don't do this in my name but as I also said it's something so awful happened to him in his personal life
Starting point is 00:12:44 it's probably not the number one priority is dealing with this particular aspect of something that he to some mostly can't control but I think you know I think it's very difficult for people you just anything you say to some extent just makes these things worse
Starting point is 00:13:01 but as always when something quite fortunate is happening in your favour you have to really step back and think, yeah, but what's the right thing to do here? Because otherwise, as I say, it can be just, you know, oh, well, I won't get in the way of this thing that is singing my praises to high heaven. Well, I've got a question for you, Richard, about Bake Off outfits from Sarah O'Day. I hope I've said your surname, right, Sarah. She's watching the new series of Bake Off and once again find myself screaming at the television. Why are the contestants always made to wear the same outfit two days in a row?
Starting point is 00:13:34 we the audience know it's filmed over the two days so they could have two outfits aren't they sweating covered in flower from the first day thank you sarah for that question this is i could probably answer this myself but uh the lovely wardrobe mistress on house at games and lots of other shows i do which works with lots of uh on lots of big entertainment shows sharon smith works on bake off and she does all the costumes and wardrobe mainly for the talent so because she is i love Sharon to bits, but she loves having her voice out there. She does it. Every time we used to do, like on Pointless, if ever we did like an East Ender special, we would do like a little pre-titles tease on the square. And it would always be Sharon walking out of a house going,
Starting point is 00:14:17 oh, I'm having your baby. So I knew that Sharon would be delighted to turn to the voice note and tell us the exact answer to Sarah's question. I will say this. I think in the history of this podcast. Every single time someone has given us a voice note or filmed something for us, they always start by saying, hello Marina and Richard. I'll say this. You can tell the sort of relationship we have that that is not how Sharon starts this, but she does have an answer to your question, Sarah. Hello Marina. In answer to question regarding bakers wearing the same outfit for two days, no, we don't try and pretend that it's all filmed over one day. There's clear parts where we sort of say, well done bakers, get some rest tonight and we'll see you in the morning. But
Starting point is 00:14:58 kept in the same outfits pretty much because there's lots of interviews that are filmed across the two-day period and those interviews might be social media or there might be interviews that go into the show so it looks far smoother to have a one-hour show where everybody's in the same outfit rather than jumping in and out of different tops and distracting the viewer it's easy to keep the all in the same thing and they also do get messy for continuity if they make a mess on one day that mess is still there the next day on their tops unless it's something really drastic like our audio department pretty much look after the judges and the presenters They don't really get too involved in the bakers.
Starting point is 00:15:30 Unless something drastic happens, like, say, for example, a mixer exploded and they got completely covered in cake mix, then we would obviously go into the rescue, or their button fell off, or their zip broke or something like that. But other than that, they're just kind of left to it. They're just asked to bring nice, bright colours to wear underneath their aprons, and off they go. I hope that helps. That does help.
Starting point is 00:15:47 Thank you so much, Sharon. She'll be so happy to have her voice on the podcast. But it is that thing, Sarah, you don't, please don't scream at the TV. But if you are making a show like that, you are, you are. making so many other things these days. You're not just filming those two days. You are filming so many clips, social media clips, all sorts of things. Also, there might be something, if you do an interview with someone on the first day and they say something, which actually would work perfectly on the second day, and suddenly you can't use it because they're wearing something
Starting point is 00:16:16 different. So as a producer, it doesn't make any difference to anyone that people are wearing different clothes, but as a producer, it just makes your life so much easier in an edit. It also has that thing of, especially early on in a series, if you are getting to know a whole series of different people and you're not quite sure who's who, if they are wearing something distinctive, you notice them and remember them more easily. Whereas if they're suddenly wearing something else the next day, there's a bit of our brain in the very early parts where we're not sure who people are, where we get confused between people as well. So it just makes everybody's life so much easier. So if you're watching it, again, this is always
Starting point is 00:16:57 the question if it is something that makes you scream at the television and it doesn't make any sense there will always be a reason there'll be a production reason why it's easier and by all means by the way if anything else like that crops up do ask us and we'll always be able to ask somebody if not always Sharon but I love that I have a question here from Mark and James O'Moran and about the traitors island and they said my son and I are loving the first series of the Irish version of the traitors it's really good if we haven't seen it we've noticed that the round table looks the same as the one used in the UK version of the show. Is it the same table? If so, how has it transported? It is not the same table. There we go. That was a nice easy one. They made their own
Starting point is 00:17:34 absolute copy because, again, on a TV crew, you are surrounded by these brilliant people who can make anything. And it's absolutely cheaper to get one of those brilliant people to make an exact copy of something than to dismantle it in the castle up in Scotland, send it over to Ireland, dismantle it and send it back. So, yeah, it is not the same table, but it's a testament to the art of set designers that it looks exactly the same. That's a nice, easy one. Right, everybody, shall we now proceed to a break?
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Starting point is 00:18:47 messy, riotous and impossible mistake by anyone else. They're leaving the stage the way icons should, with a proper bang, Finalee stitched together with mischief, misfits, and just enough mayhem to feel like Hawley to the end. Watch the final farewell of Brassick Now on Sky with new episodes weekly requires relevant Sky TV subscription. Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia.
Starting point is 00:19:16 So your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with Stellist lenses for Myopia Control. Learn more at SLR.com and ask your family eye care professional for SLR Stellist lenses at your child's next visit. Welcome back everybody, Marina. A question for you from Darren York. He asks, are films able to achieve box office success through a rage-based? so bad it's good campaign. Is that commercially viable?
Starting point is 00:19:56 Oh, good question, Darren. In our imagination, we think that this has happened quite a lot. But actually, normally that happens after release. Things become cult classics and so on, and the audience finds them and embraces them and they become something that people kind of go back to and they become sort of, as I say, cult classics. Funny enough, if you listened to our bonus episode on Rocky Horror, which isn't bad, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but there was a significant flaw in it, if you've listened to that episode, which lent itself to audience participation, which meant that it became that sort of a cult classic.
Starting point is 00:20:35 So every now and then you get some that are absolutely deliberate and that they lean into it. Fewer than you'd think. Lots of old B movies became, you know, like sort of killer clowns. from outer space, attack of the killer tomatoes, but Shark Nado, which was made by sci-fi, that was marketed as in, even though that was, you know, relatively recent, it was marketed in the way of those old B movies. And the tagline for that was enough said. So that is, that I would say is an instance where they definitely lent into doing it. Now, one of the really interesting ones that people think was marketed as so bad, it was like was snakes on a plane, when that came out
Starting point is 00:21:19 that was New Line cinema and when it was announced and people were like sorry Samuel L Jackson is going to be in a movie called Snakes on a plane you might remember it like it sort of blew up
Starting point is 00:21:30 and it became a sort of you know a meme and everything beforehand and fans were suggesting scenes and dialogue the whole title was obviously very memeable now so New Line took the view that they were going to
Starting point is 00:21:44 lean into that whole thing and they did include some of those casted fan scenes and they did include, you know, and yet it lost money. So that thing that you said at the end of the question, which is what you're saying, is it commercially? Do you ever really want to say that something's so bad? You can code the language and kind of euphemize it. You might want to say, don't miss the madness or see it while you still can't.
Starting point is 00:22:05 And there are films that sort of do that or. Everybody's talking about it. Yeah, everybody's talking about it. Exactly. But you're not honestly saying that this thing isn't very good is just like never do that. It's really bad vibes. So you might call it the ultimate midnight screening movie or you might do anything you can to get audience participation.
Starting point is 00:22:25 A lot of them start out, like certain ones, like, I mean, cocaine bear, that was, you know, everyone, you can't make a movie called Kay. I mean, Kerry Russell did that, but you can't make a movie called Cocaine Bear without everyone thinking this is obviously supposed to be bad. And I'm not, you know, zombie strippers. I'm supposed to go, I need to go and see this because they're just making a joke about it. Yeah, there was a movie that actually did surprisingly well, like a little tiny movie. It did surprising well for a horror comedy.
Starting point is 00:22:56 There was something called The Velocaster, which I love. And it's actually just a funny thing. What I quite like about it is this guy, this guy called Brendan Steer directed. When he was at film school, he was like either NYU or the Tish, you know, he was one of those New Yorkshire film schools. And his phone auto-corrected Velociraptor to Velocaster, and he was like, well, I mean, what's that film what would that film be sorry okay fine i'll make that um you know a priest travels to china he gets bitten by a radioactive artifact i've seen bits of this but i haven't seen the whole thing oh pasta like pasta like like like a yeah like like a like a priest right and he yeah no not like
Starting point is 00:23:34 not that one um it harder to persvonify anyway and he turns into a dinosaur when he gets angry um so certain things like that but i mean that's a tiny little sort of you know independent sort of student thing, really. Most of them start out serious. Even these things that are like unbelievably bad, like Tommy Wiso's The Room, that starts out serious. They become more popular because they become part of memes. I personally don't think, as I said, Sharknado is really the only one I can think of
Starting point is 00:24:04 them saying, you know, enough said. But even that isn't saying, what you're kind of saying is like, there's a tornado of sharks, right? Come on, why would you not want to see this? So you can code it, but you cannot say, I don't think. It's just what you are nonetheless getting people to leave the house and pay money to see something. You're either deliberately setting out at the beginning to do something that catches a sort of kits aesthetic. But once, if you're doing something that isn't trying to do that, it's very hard to turn that into money.
Starting point is 00:24:35 It's difficult to turn ironic watching into money. I couldn't agree more. Try and make me a cult classic. someone tell you say go on go come up with a cult classic and you can have all the ingredients it's like someone saying to you oh my god i've read loads of self-help books i could do one of them you couldn't okay because your heart's not in it and you think oh i could do something so cynical it's really it's very very difficult in any kind of artistic project at all or even a literary project or even a self-help book to think i'm that cynical i can see all the elements of how they do this and i can produce something like that something gets in the way and You won't make something brilliant by accident, but you also won't make a cult classic. You'll just make, you're nothing more.
Starting point is 00:25:19 Your heart sort of has to be in it, which is why the things that do become cult classics, they would really definitely trying very hard. And there's also that thing of, you say, oh, but me and all of my friends, we watch it, we just watch it and laugh at it. So everyone I know, so this must be making money, that mainstream culture does not do that.
Starting point is 00:25:40 There is a part of our culture and we're absolutely part of it that will do that and will enjoy that. But in terms of actually making big box office, you have to find the heart of culture, and the heart of culture does not ironically watch things. No, you have to mean it. I mean, obviously, within a fiction, you have to mean it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:00 Oh, God, talking of cynicism, I'm so devastated to have to ask this question, Richard. But I've got to ask you a question, because Simon's written in to say, with the first anniversary of the release of Unleashed by Boris Johnson approaching, could you guys give us an update of how sales have gone and how that works commercially? Yes, I will. So, yeah, we talked, we worked out that his advance had been two million pounds. So he was given two million pounds to write this book. So, and we gave a few updates on how it was selling.
Starting point is 00:26:34 But now it has settled, so we know exactly what it's, you know, it's not still selling. So I've looked into all the numbers this. week and spoken to various people, various publishers about exactly what we think about who's made, what's money. I wish you hadn't had to do this, but carry on. Well, it's not all good news. It didn't do terribly. It did not.
Starting point is 00:26:53 It certainly most political memoirs absolutely disappear, and it hasn't done that. But it's a question of whether they paid Boris Johnson too much. You'll be shocked to learn that they did. So Boris Johnson, we know how much he's made, which is two million pounds. That's his advance. And then it's a question of, on top of that, you have. hope to make royalties. So I can tell you now for a fact he has not made royalties. So he has not earned out that two million pound advance. So since it came out, it's sold in hardback
Starting point is 00:27:21 150,000 copies, which is not terrible. It's not great. You saw that in a week. Sorry. Yeah, it's not amazing. And it's certainly not a two million pound advance level. I mean, it's not even close to that. It's absurdly far away from a two million pound advance level. So he sold 150,000 copies. Now, one of the key things in this world is your average sale price. So when you look at the Nielsen ratings, I'll show you how many you sold, plus they will show you your average sale prices. Almost all books are discounted. Amazon will discount them quite heavily.
Starting point is 00:27:54 So you'll see the average sale price. Now, the average sale price for Boris's book, I think the recommended retail price is 30. The average sale price is 17. And sometimes again, if you see that written about in the press, they go, oh, it's half price. And it's not. It's put at 30 pounds so that, you know, you can discount it and still be making money. And £17 is actually a pretty good per unit sale price. You look at some of the Freedom at Fadden books that are huge at the moment.
Starting point is 00:28:20 It'll have an average sale price of £4.30 or something like that. But even for a hardback, $17 is not bad. So you multiply $17 by $150. You get somewhere around $2.5 million. So the book in total has grossed $2.4.4. million in hardback you want to add in your audio and things like that as well let's say three and a half million it's made the publisher who in this case is harper collins if a book makes 3.5 million the rough rule of thumb is once you've taken out retailers and what have
Starting point is 00:29:00 you the publisher will see back about half of that so they'll see back about 1.75 million now you've got to take all your costs out of that as well it's not like a movie but there are substantial costs so maybe that takes them down to 1.3 1.4 million something like that so they have paid Boris Johnson 2 million I'm going to say and this is again not just my numbers but various people I talk to maybe they've made back 1.3 1.4 million so they're losing 600,000 they still have the paperback to come they have overseas sales Neither of those are going to be enormous... Is he big in Japan?
Starting point is 00:29:40 For this, but not so much. Not so much. He's not like the Vrosa. He's not like the Velocaster. Harpaconda say they've made money on this. But I've, speaking to every single person I can from every single side of the business, no one could work out how they have made money. So they weren't serialisation rights because Boris Johnson's got, you know,
Starting point is 00:30:01 it's Colin with the Daily Mail. So over the, you know, the line. lifetime of this book, it may well be that Harper Collins would be able to say we will probably clear that two million. But this is not a book that is kind of, they were hoping to sell half a million, for example. You, well, you say it's not like a movie, but it did have a, he did to do a Christmas advertising campaign for this book, which I, I only remember because he was writing his naughty list in this advert. And on one of the pages, right at the top, he wrote Richard Osmond. without any question purely because of this.
Starting point is 00:30:40 He always does that. He lets you know that he's like, why are you showing weakness, Johnson? He should have just pretended you'd never heard us talking about you. Regrettably, he must have heard you analyzing his book sales and he allowed himself
Starting point is 00:30:55 to reveal himself as being very upset by it. Oh, listen, I mean, he's right. As I say, he's made that $2 million, which he doesn't have to pay back, doesn't have to pay back a penny of that. But certainly if he'd sold half a million, he would have made another what would he have made on top of that
Starting point is 00:31:11 he would have made at least another million and a half plus every single sale of every single paperback for the rest of history he'd be making money on at the moment anytime anyone buys this book he is not making any more money so he's made a lot already but he's not making another penny Harper Collins say they've made money
Starting point is 00:31:29 I don't possibly see where they are I heard I've heard this theory a number of times but I cannot back it up but I say it anyway because I've heard it from a lot of people, which is political memoirs tend to get massively overpaid for. And I've always slightly wondered why, because you think, oh, at the end of, you know,
Starting point is 00:31:47 when someone's memoir is out, they can no longer sort of do you any favours. And Harper-Connors almost always do the big political memoir, certainly for people from the right. And the thing I've heard a number of times now is that a publishing company might make a deal with a sitting politician while they're still in power
Starting point is 00:32:05 for their memoirs after they're out of power and a politician knows that of the things they can cash in on when they leave power one of the big ones is a memoir that's one of the big sort of chunks of change that you can get you know
Starting point is 00:32:19 Boris knows there's this two million and if you are pre-agreeing a deal with somebody while they're still in power then actually there is some sort of payback for you you know you do actually get advantage of that person owing you a favour because they're still in power I'm not saying that's what happened here, by the way.
Starting point is 00:32:36 I'm not saying that Harper Connors has ever done it. I'm not giving any specifics. But certainly if you were to say, oh, by the way, at the point where you do leave power, shall we pre-agree that you'll get a million pounds for your memoirs or whatever it is? And that sort of makes some sense because then you don't really have to make money out of it because you've already got your money's worth in a different way. But this book has not sold terribly, $150,000 would be, $150,000. hardbacks is a good sale if you had a half million pound advance, you know, then everyone's
Starting point is 00:33:10 laughing. Boris Johnson's making royalties, Harper Collins are making money, but if you pay somebody two million pound and you sell 150,000 hardbacks, then everybody is losing out apart from the person who has given two million pound in the first place. I think that about wraps us up for today. Yeah, doesn't it just? Pleasure as always. A great pleasure. We will return tomorrow with a really interesting bonus episode, I think, because it's about script doctoring, which is a sort of deliberately unsung part of the movie business. But there's lots of interesting stuff about that. People who have sort of flown in for a week just to punch things up and get paid a huge amount of money for a very small amount of time and usually have their names
Starting point is 00:33:51 kept off the final script as well. Yeah, it's fascinating. And it always has been for like how many decades of Hollywood history. So that's for our members. If you want to join and have ad free listening and so on. It's The Rest is Entertainment.com. Otherwise, we will see you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. This episode was brought to you by Sky. Skyglass is the new television from Sky, the kind that makes your old Teddy feel like a dress rehearsal.
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