The Rest Is Entertainment - Bond and Meghan Markle’s Big Gamble

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

After Richard & Marina asked if Bond was in crisis on last week’s show, longtime custodians of ‘brand Bond’ Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson announced they are stepping down. Who will next play the role of Bond, and the likelihood of future films or spinoffs, are now in Amazon’s hands. Following this bombshell announcement Marina takes us inside the bombshell story and why they’re stepping back now. Meghan Markle has had yet another rebrand. Ahead of her Netflix lifestyle series drops on Netflix on March 4th - Marina and Richard ask if this is the final chance for the Duchess of Sussex to launch the next Goop? Recommendations: Richard - Blatro (iPhone App) Marina - Joan Rivers Fashion Police (YouTube) Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club for ad free listening and access to bonus episodes: www.therestisentertainment.com Sign up to our newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Assistant Producer: Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina High. And me Richard Osmond. Hi Marina. Hello Richard, how are you? I'm really well, it's lovely to see you. It's very nice to see you. I've been squirreling away this week. I'm nearly, nearly, nearly finished the new Thursday Murder Club book, which is out in September. I can't believe that you have really put some pace on in the last few weeks.

I'm over 90,000 words, so I could stop now. Put the handbrake on. But it hasn't finished. Yeah. I could just leave it where it is. But we've got a title as well now, which I'm not allowed to say, but I'm hoping maybe we could exclusively reveal on the podcast at some point. I'm going to force you to do that.

Excellent. Yes. And your week? Yeah, it was quite strangely quiet, but I'm looking forward to a rambunctious morning. Yes. Because what are we talking about? Oh, if you're looking for a rambunction, you've come to the right place. We are talking about Megan's new show on Netflix with Love, Megan.

Yes, we are also, as you know, we talked about James Bond last week and there have been significant developments. Haven't they Jess? Almost within minutes of the podcast dropping. Of minutes the podcast dropping, but I have a lot of insider stuff on that which I think is really interesting and quite sad in some ways. But oh sorry by the way we're not ignoring the whole what's cool and what's not cool for Argo that happened after our questions and answers edition but we are going to talk

about that in our questions and answers edition this week. We can't do it now otherwise it would take up the whole thing but I have things to add. Oh my God, really? How brave of you. Right. Anyway, after its debut is delayed for the LA wildfires, next week is going to see Megan's show, a sort of lifestyle show, launch on Netflix. And actually last week she did a little sort of Instagram video explaining that her brand, that What Three Words brand, American Riviera Orchard, is sadly no more. That brand is now As Ever. As Ever. Now I tell you what, that is a great name for the fragrance that you know I believe she will at some

point launch, As Ever. Megan, As Ever. She claimed in that little Instagram video that in that sort of, I'm so excited to share this with you. I always feel when people say, I'm so excited to share this with you, that whatever's coming out will be appalling. Anyway, if you have to say, I'm excited, you know you're not because you show you're excited. I mean, just talking, you could say, oh my gosh, she looks really excited. Whereas if you're going, me, I am excited. You think, well, tell your face love. I'm so excited to share it with you.

Anyway, she says that Netflix are my business partners. That is a real citation needed. I would love to know more about that particular deal. So when they stepped away from their royal duties, Meghan and Harry signed various deals. One was for him to do this book with Penguin Random House. One was with Netflix, which was sort of 100 million. And one was with Spotify, which I think was in that kind of

sort of overall creative thing. Maybe they were around $20 million. Yeah, and the story of it all is you start off doing the projects you want to do, and then when no one watches them, you do the projects that the people pay and you want to do. Well, Netflix managed to get them, and that was the biggest ever debut,

the Meghan and Harry documentary. That was, I think, their biggest ever documentary debut at the time. I don't know if it's been surpassed by Beckham, but it's only something like that would have surpassed it. It was huge. They came out of the traps quite quickly with that because that was watched everywhere

and it was number one all around the world. And that's what they, don't forget, that's what they want Netflix. They want globally appealing shows. As we know, they paid Meghan and Harry like $100 million for sort of overall production deal. She does say they're gonna sell her products in whatever those may be, in their bricks and mortar stores, which is a whole separate item and we're going to

come to that on a different episode of the podcast because it's very interesting what Netflix is doing moving into these kind of bricks and mortar things. But there is a trailer for the Netflix show which actually dropped a while ago. I mean, it's lifestyle. She's picking some flowers, some celebrity friends are dropping over Mindy Kaling, there's a chef. She wants to create, as she says, she wants to create joy in every moment. What would create joy for me is people stop talking about creating joy. There's something so sort of extreme and religious about that.

But also in every moment. In every moment. Honestly, you can have too much joy. Don't you think? She says she's always loved taking the idea, taking something pretty ordinary and elevating it. Like Harry. I was just, oh, you beat me to it.

Sorry. But also, of course we don't actually think that, I'm joking. But Netflix says this is going to reimagine the genre of lifestyle programming. At this point, they've just got to say anything because they're a hundred million dollars in the hole for those people. Okay, so we're gonna, I think we should start by

talking about sort of what show she's, what type of show she's fronting to achieve this, and can she do it, can she become a guru? That's the interesting thing because actually the prize is enormous. If you can become a paltrow or a Martha Stewart then the money is sort of endless and it's possible that she can do certainly, you know, it's everything you see looks great and the celebs look great and you know, she's she's like a roasted chicken. Yeah, but that's what people like. People like Instagram. That's really interesting because you see, I tell you what, I know that Netflix is looking for that kind of programming where people just say you can have it on. I will come to whether I think you

can have Megan just sort of randomly on as a form of wallpaper because she's so polarizing. But anyway. But she's not polarizing if you like her. If you like her, then you want to watch it. The lovely thing about TV ratings is it doesn't matter that people don't like you because they just don't watch. You know, you don't need most people to watch a TV show. Untrue. And I'm going to come to that at the end of this whole thing because I really want to talk about hate watching. You know what, I'd be fascinated because I don't buy that hate watching thing apart from the first half an hour or something and apart from the odd Instagram clip. I don't buy it

in terms of a, if you, you know, Megan wants to have that show running for 10 seasons, right? And that's a, that's not a hate watch thing. That's a lot of people like that. I agree. And there's lots to talk about. We'll get there. We'll get there. But let's look at what the show is. There's a lot of, there appears to be what I would call a lot of people like that. Well, I agree and there's lots to talk about. We'll get there, we'll get there. But let's look at what the show is. There's a lot of, there appears to be what I would call a lot of farm to table bullshit. It's the kind of Rosemary cocktail garnish of it all. They should have called it that. You know, that slightly religious way of talking about, you know, laying the table or tablescaping in the parlance of the NAF.

Tablescape. Yeah. Oh my God. It's, you know, this whole, and so the aesthetic is somewhat tradwife, somewhat luxury would be mogul, because it's very expensive, it's that sort of, listen, by the way, maybe it turns into Brilliant Sass are halfway through, we should say it hasn't fully dropped and we don't know, maybe it's just like an absolutely groundbreaking program.

It's a sitcom. Yeah. That would be a hell of a way to launch a sitcom. To be honest. She's an actor. Yeah. Could be. That would be great.

It would be absolutely brilliant if it just became like a carboenthusiasm, actually like ripping the whole format apart. And you can never make proper sitcoms after this. Yeah, amazing. And Prince Harry plays Jeff. Which is, which is Prince Jeff. Which is a great idea.

But anyway, I don't think we're going to see that I have to say that sort of dollar for dollar the deal that Penguin Random House did is much better than the Netflix deal they but remember they both did deals at the sort of time when they sort of stepped away from royal duties and That book his book sold on so unbelievably insanely. I think they paid 16.5 million or something like that. They were made out like bandits. Yeah. That made a huge amount.

And also the documentary they did for Netflix did good money. Everything else Netflix has invested in them has not really paid off. The Polo series that Harry did, for example. So this is a big swing. And if it works, then actually that hundred million will look like good business. She's got to go with. She met the TV they've made is like TV that they think people should be watching rather than what people want to watch. You know, there was some series called like Live to Lead,

which was about global justice activists. No, thanks. That's not going to be a rating smash. Sorry to break it to you. But you know, the polo documentary, all of that's just been a washout. Stories themselves, and it only ever has been, but they can't continue to complain about their terrible treatment at the hands of the royal family because they don't appear to have any contact with them to speak of. They live in the lap of luxury. They've got Netflix money. Yeah. Which is even more than Queen money.

So they cannot whinge anymore. So they've got to find a new thing to do. I think they've got to find joy in every moment. Yeah. They've got to create, no, create. I'm so sorry. No, she is the presiding intelligence. She's not foraging for joy. No, no, no, she's the godhead. You're the person, you know, you're supposed to be the worshiper.

It's difficult because in the type of show this is, all these kind of shows, she's had to return to social media, which, by the way, she spent a huge amount of time slagging off and how toxic it is, but then she's had to come back on it. So there are people who are sort of native to those, to particular like Instagram and that kind of platform, the Kardashians, and you can see those kind of plot lines and it sort of works. But I think that because of her position and because of what's happened to them and who they are, they have to be more buttoned up and they can't surrender. You're never going to see, you might see her crying in the Meghan and Harry documentary about this or that, but they

can never do that again now because it's over and that plot line is finished. And they can't really do the extended universe in the same way the Kardashians, because their extended universe very quickly is King Charles and people who are not going to appear on this program. Imagine how much of a hit this would have to be before King Charles went, do you know what, I actually need this more. I might go down there and cook a roast chicken. Can she become the question of whether she can become a guru is interesting. There are like housewife influences, tradwife people, there's people like Nora Smith, Hannah Neilman, but they're on TikTok and they're on Instagram. This is not Netflix. It's weird. This sort of feels like looking at it. It feels like something that should be on social

media rather than a platform. Even Gwyneth Paltrow, when she went on Netflix and I've watched every episode of The Goop Lab, she knew that... The Goop Lab? Yeah, she knew that what that show had to be was not like all the rest of her lifestyle-y stuff that she does on Goop. It had to be the absolute fringe woo-woo. You know, they had to be going with Wim Hof, they had to be the like psychedelics and all of that sort of stuff and it had to be really out there. So you think Megan might have might do psychedelics? No. That's a headline. Yeah I mean it would no I don't think she can do things as I say she's too buttoned up

she can't be that sort of person. Yeah. But the big gurus are clearly no one is as big as Martha Stewart. Gwyneth for a time was a sort of gen-x Martha. Meghan clearly wants to be a millennial Martha. Goop was, and I say that, was the lodestar for celebrity brands, okay. She's, you know, you get to be that thing that they all want to be when they stop wanting to be just celebrities. They want to be a tastemaker and they want to be a revered CEO. And whatever you think about Gwyneth Paltrow, she really, she did a nice job with that.

Yeah, it's interesting. She did a nice job. She created a brand around her personality, but it's very coherent. She has got very good taste. She is incredible at drawing eyebrows. She's incredible at drawing eyeballs. Eyeballs, yeah, which are harder. I find eyebrows easier to draw.

Then as soon as you get to eyeballs, I'm like, this is honestly, I'm just going to cover this in black. But eyebrows, I can do. She's very incredible at drawing eyebrows. But Goop is really faltering. I think in the last year, you know, it's not a startup anymore. It hasn't ever made a profit, which isn't unusual in the startup. But how can you call it a startup anymore? It basically started in 2008. So it's been going a long time. And that thing that they always talk about, you know, it's going to get bored, there's going to be IPO or whatever, it's sort of always receding. They had, I think they had three rounds of layoffs in the second half of 2024 alone. Yeah, but beautifully scented. Yeah, amazingly. But I struggle to think how Megan can actually do, we do live in slightly different times now.

I think so. If I were being cynical, I would say that the brands that really work in that area come from the ground up and have an authenticity to it. And, you know, I'm sure that people are playing a part, but you believe that someone is in their own house doing their own things, and you attach yourself to the one who you most feel like. This feels like there's a path Megan could have taken where she starts this from the ground up with no money, films it herself and you know, gets an organic audience who fall in love with her. Organic in all senses.

All senses, but Netflix is one of the few places who will give you a hundred million. You're not going to get that from Instagram or TikTok. There just, there isn't the money there. So she has front loaded the success of this. And if it fails, you know, it's hard to think she'll make an awful lot more money than the first bit of money that she got. But if it succeeds and it does become a goop, then great. I think it's hard. If I were her and Harry, this is a deal I would have done. This is the program I would make if I were Megan, you know, if that's her lifestyle and these are her people, it gives her, as you say, the things she's done before, you know, the podcast with archetypes, which again is about who you are as a human being and, you know, how we can...

Again, it's what she feels we ought to be listening to rather than what we want to listen to. Exactly. They've gone through that period. I imagine she'll be able to pepper some of that stuff into what she's doing. I imagine if she's got people around for dinner, she could have interesting people around for dinner. I mean, we're focusing on the roast chicken, but at the same time, we find out something about being a social justice warrior that I imagine is what they want to do. But this is the way around to do it. If you're going to do something for Netflix with these two, come on, come to the

end of the deal. Yeah, they're like, this is it. Yeah, we don't want any more documentaries. Doesn't feel unreasonable though, as a throw the dice doesn't seem crazy. I also agree, and if I may now begin to talk to you about hate watching. Yes of course. Okay, hate watching, Variety, which is the sort of magazine that covers Hollywood, they did a survey with this, it was actually run by a sort of polling company called Canvas, and they did it in 2016, and it suggested then their figures that hate watch dramas increased viewership at twice the rate that love-watched dramas did. And they did this, they cross-referenced tweets, positive and negative,

with Nielsen ratings, which is the US TV rating system. But they did it again in 2023, seven years later, and they found it had increased 79% hate-watching just in the previous year alone. Netflix accounted for 50% of all hate watching comments, all of them saying I'm hate watching. I agree, maybe people lie about why they're actually watching it. But also, as you know, comments are absolutely, I mean, that's not a polling organisation's job to look at comments. But it is popular.

What's the show, a worldwide smash, that is a worldwide smash because people don't like it? They say people will always tell you Emily in Paris and people say I hate watch it. Everyone says it. I think they love it but they can't say it out loud. I agree having said that it helps when these shows come and they're bingeable so you've got a hangover and you'll watch like four hours of it. It's like a four hour doom scroll or whatever and you'll get completely involved in it. An eyeball is an eyeball as we've said before. Yeah, hard to draw.

An eyebrow is an eyebrow. We all know one when we see one. And hate watching it causes release of, you know, dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin. So I do think that chemically Megan Cho could have a whole lot going for it. No, I think- Maybe not in psychedelics. People sometimes hate watch the first episode of something, certainly in the old days, you know, for appointments, television, you would do it.

I don't buy it. Of course, it adds some things and it makes a noise, but you cannot have a career in television, you cannot have a career in any of the creative arts without connecting with an audience who love what you do. You can't do it. I agree with that, but there are certain shows that don't, we do know that social media has to a large extent changed sometimes the way we watch television and that there's a way people want to be part of various conversations. They want to second screen it. They want to

be, so it has changed, not in all cases, but in some cases. And there are certain shows that are a sort of lightning rods for that. And often, you know, a show that there's many shows that come out on like New Year's Day and everyone's like, I watched it when I was hung over on New Year's Day, I hated it, but of course I watched the whole thing. And there is a lot of that sort of stuff about and people like go into a frenzy of being part of the conversation. I think it is actually a thing and I do think it makes a difference. I think it's guilt watch not hate watch. That's what I think. I think people feel... I know what you mean, but I think they enjoy being part of a negative conversation. Sorry to say, people enjoy being part of a pylon. Otherwise, it wouldn't keep happening.

And Megan is an absolute lightning rod for that. I was reading, there's one of the... I think this might be the worst article I've ever read in a national newspaper. It's not one of the third worst I've ever read. So I was reading this article, it was about Megan and it's about her, everything she ever does, she copies. So it was saying, oh my gosh, she's not got an original thought in her head. By the way, the secret of all creativity is nobody has an original thought in their head. That's the point. It's how you package your unoriginality. But can I just go through some of the things that they accused her of? She wrote a book called The Bench and there was another book called The Boy on the Bench and

it said both of these books explore themes of father-son relationships. They feature similar titles. Yeah, both got bench in the year thing and colour illustrations. Most books have the same colour illustrations. But the author of The Boy on the Bench addressed the allegations, and she said, this is not the same story or the same theme as The Boy on the Bench. I don't see any similarities. But still, they put it in the article. Just so, I mean, literally the author of the other one herself has said, no, no, I know it says bench. I have to get to 40 paragraphs. That's three.

Yeah. And then the archetypes podcast, of course, we talked about. They're saying, oh, interestingly, just six years earlier, there was a book called Archetypes, and both of these works delve into the concept of archetypes and their influence on personal identity. Yeah, that's what everything does. You've got the word now. All the time. And also, yeah, that's a word in the English language. So people are going to use it. So that's not so I'm not saying it's original, but she hasn't directly gone hard, but called archetypes, you say, let me look into what that word means. I am interested in that. I'm going to do that.

That's not what happened there. The initial launch of American Riviera orchard, Megan faced allegations, air quotes again, because that's how they always write which means one person on Twitter said of mimicking goop a promotional video showcase Megan preparing a roast chicken which very reminiscent of goops early content yeah people cook roast chicken critics again in air quotes one person on Twitter pointed out the parallels which extended beyond content with both brands I mean if this isn't a ripoff and what is this how you can tell that she's ripped it off both brands focusing on wellness, lifestyle tips and personal growth. Yeah. Again, I think maybe she hasn't gone lifestyle tips and personal growth. That's interesting. I could deal with that. The logo of as ever has come under fire.

Okay. So the logo of as ever. Oh, I saw this bit. This is such bullshit. It's a palm tree flanked by hummingbirds and that has drawn, air quotes again, immediate criticism, immediate criticism. Do you know who from? I love this. It's drawn immediate criticism for its striking resemblance to the coat of arms of Pereires, a small town in Majorca. The town's emblem dating back to 1370 is a palm tree between two birds. The mayor, Shishkamora, said, we don't want our coat of arms being perverted and urged Megan to reconsider because of the distress caused to residents. I can tell you exactly what happened there. The news editor's like, right, what does this look like? Get on a plane to Majorca now. I want you to get the mayor. I want as many

people saying that they are up in arms about this. Take a picture, say she's going to be in the paper if she just gives us a quote. Just saying that this has had a long history, this thing, and, you know, she shouldn't be cashing in. And then whoever wrote this article has surely delivered. And then the name as ever, they're saying an Arizona based photographer called Jen, voiced her frustration, air quotes, as her photography business named in honor of her late grandmother, is also called as ever. She tagged Megan and Netflix into her posts and said, this by the way, I quite admire Jen, because she's shooting her shot here.

She's like, she's called it as ever and that's fine. And she knows, you know, Megan's allowed to call it as ever. She says, when the most famous people in the world start using your business name of over 12 years that you named in honor of your grandmother, seems like they could throw me a little bone. Yeah, Jen, by little bone, what do you mean? Do you mean a little parcel of cash? Come on, man. Let me live in your pool house. I don't want to be in the main house.

The best rabbit hole I went down there was this. It says, with love, Megan viewers quickly drew comparisons. By the way, no one's seen with love. Megan yet. So, but so viewers again has to be an air quotes quickly air quotes drew comparisons to Emma's Kitchen, a series by Emma Weymouth, the Marchioness of Bath established in 2015. I probably went down a rabbit hole.

It says, again, I'm quoting this terrible article, both shows feature similar formats with hosts sharing personal recipes and lifestyle tips from their respective homes. Critics, air quotes, highlighted not only the structural similarities, structural similarities, someone cooking in their house, come on, who knows James Martin, but also Megan's choice of attire and set design, looks like a kitchen, which appeared to mirror elements of the previous show. Now Emma's kitchen, listen, I'm sure it's terrific. I've seen loads of it. There was literally one person on Instagram whose entire account is anti-Megan saying, look, look at this show. And it's a little Instagram thing. She's done like a 150 posts in nine

years Emma's kitchen. This is. This is not a thing. It's a thing that someone's found on Instagram. This entire article, I won't even say what newspaper it's in. Every single bit of it, every single paragraph just drips with disdain for Megan. There's nothing that stands up here. I think if I was Megan, I'd be doing this show. If I was Netflix, I'd be doing this show.

I wouldn't have given them 100 million in the first place. It might work. I can say chemically, I think it has a lot going for it. I think it just it's gonna hit a lot of people's releases Yes, I think as you say a lot of people will real farm to cortex show Yes, listen a lot of whether it's hate watch or whatever it is A lot of people will want to have an opinion on it and will want to have watched it We'll certainly be watching it. Oh, yeah And discussing whether Megan and Harry are cool or not. Shall we go for a break?

And after that, you have a lot of insider info about the Bond situation as it is now. See you after the break. ["The Bond Theme"] Welcome back everybody now. James Bond, what a saga. Big, big developments last week. Why don't you fill us in on exactly what has happened? Well I think it was two days after.

Maybe in response? Yeah. It's possible? Well it's very interesting talking to people within sort of the Eon, the Bond setup and also within Amazon. We talked about this last week. We said that despite the Bond mark effectively having come under Amazon's control when they bought MGM in 2020, she still had creative control. Barbara Broccoli. Barbara Broccoli and her father, the legendary Cubby Broccoli, who originally got the Bond film rights. And she's been stewarding

it basically since the middle of the PS Brosnan era. Yeah, and stewarding rather well. Brilliantly. Yeah. And by all accounts, she is a fantastic person. People really, you know, but she's, she had, there was this very well-sourced story in the Wall Street Journal that she was sort of surrounded by idiots at Amazon and that Jen Salka, the head of Amazon Studios had referred to it as content.

And she'd been resistant to all this franchising, blah, blah. Anyway, there is now, they've taken a reported billion and Amazon have creative control and it's a joint venture, but it's quite clear that he's- So they paid Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson a billion? Reportedly. Reportedly, wow. Air quotes. It is a very big number.

Critics are saying. So many people, even within their setup, were completely blindsided by it and it came as a bit she phoned around the sort of wider bond family on Thursday morning telling them and you know she's very loved and people think she's a sort of great human being as I say but and but Amazon and then it was press release Amazon with all these things everything with to do with bond leaks so they want to get it out and own it very very quickly. Came up very quickly didn't it? Anyway, so trying to work out what happened. I must say that what is going to follow contains

spoilers for things that happened in the last three Bond movies. That's Skyfall, Spectre and No Time to Die. And if you don't want, if you don't know what happens in those, therefore- That's a small group of people who are trying to avoid skyfall spoilers. Yeah, okay. Well, yeah, there we go. I once got in trouble for giving away the plot of Great Expectations, so on pointless. Oh no, that's amazing. I thought surely the statute of limitations has gone.

So a lot of people think that this is a bit of a smokescreen, her saying that, you know, that quote you keep seeing from her father in all the coverage of this, don't let temporary people make permanent decisions. Actually, what happened is that she was in a funk and since the end of No Time to Die, here is the spoiler, where Bond is killed, killed off, she didn't know what to do. And all this goes back to the relationship between her and Daniel Craig. As I said, she took over midway through the Pierce Brosnan era, but Daniel Craig was her pick. And it was a big swing and it came off utterly amazingly. They have five incredibly successful, critically acclaimed films or four. Four on Quantum of Solace.

But that made a lot of money, Richard. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm the only person in the world who quite enjoyed Quantum of Solace. Well, yeah, I mean, I think there might be a few more, but it's not the brand leader, let's put it that way. But he was a sort of platonic ideal of what Bond was. And she had an incredibly intense relationship with him. Not a relationship, obviously, but he meant a huge amount to her. And it was a very kind of creative one, as does the character of James Bond, by the way. So for that last movie, in order to discuss

this properly, we have to discuss something quite weird and quite, which you'll love, which is time in the Bond universe. Because it exists in this kind of rolling present. And if you, God, if you want to get into like incredible subreddits on people's trying to work out, they spend hours or days or weeks thinking about this and how things fit in. Okay. But it is all there for you if you want to have a look. It will fry your brain. In Nick Harkaway, who wrote the latest John Le Carre novel, who's John Le Carre's son,

said, I literally, I reread every single George Smiley thing just to work out the timeline. He said, I realized quite quickly that the timeline was absolutely all over the place. He said that he said, I can't either, you know, so I've sort of put it in a gap somewhere, but you know, he's been various different ages at various different times. And so I just, I've chosen just to sort of play along. Yeah. So Daniel Craig's era, his bond, if you try and link it up with other events within the universe, was born in 1971, which is by the way, not like nine years after the release of Dr No. Don't exempt. Don't think about it too hard. It's going to send you very mad.

Okay. But a key thing happens, which is in Skyfall, the death of M, Judi Dench. Now that, of course, like everything, you have to sort of petition for it and it happened and but that was and it was obviously it's an incredible moment but Daniel Craig lots of people will tell you that he saw that and he wanted a big moment for himself. He wanted a huge moment and don't forget how hard it was always to keep him involved. How many interviews every time he did it he'd say I'm never going out there again I'm not doing it again and so it's really I know it sounds like fun to be James Bond, but it's tough. I mean, it's a huge commitment. The filming is crazy, you know, the fitness,

every, just everything, especially if you're an actor like Daniel Craig, who can sort of do anything. You know, he's got other opportunities. But it's not going down the mine, is it? Let's be honest. Oh, no, for sure. I'm just saying. The end. The end. I mean really some of the interviews became ridiculous. I please let me slit my wrist let you slit your wrist if you ever take 15 million pounds to do it X Y's I'd have lots of sex with lots of people in six star hotels boo hoo. In some films it goes down the mine to be fair so. Yeah. Or volcano. More volcanoes. Okay but there should perhaps have been and you could see how difficult this was, there should really have been a film as you suggested, between Spectre and No Time to

Die. But he was very powerful creatively too, he got a producer credit, he, when No Time to Die eventually came, you know, he was the one saying, I want Phoebe Waller-Bridge to punch this up, the script. He wanted a huge moment because it was definitely his last movie. And the condition for his return was that he had this huge thing, this huge moment. And originally Danny Boyle was going to direct this, don't forget. And it's not correct that Danny Boyle left because he was going to have to kill off Bond and he didn't want to do that. In fact, Danny

Boyle wants to do all sorts of kind of subversive things with the character, as he's talked about a lot. And Barbara Broccoli, who has a lot of ideas of what you cannot see James Bond doing, didn't want to do it. So it was creative sort of differences there. Danny Bode, I think, wanted Bond to do a lifestyle show on Netflix. I have heard some things that I thought, okay, yeah, it's fine that you can't see James Bond doing things like that. But it's obviously a different order of magnitude to kill off Em, who is a desk-bound state functionary and the title character.

And so many people connected with Bondworld could not believe that she was doing this and that she had allowed this to happen. They thought it was crazy that her dad would just be like completely appalled because she had all these great instincts, but it sort of creates beyond a temporal paradox, whatever. But the maddest thing that people couldn't understand is okay, if you are going to do it before you even do it and before you even greenlight that decision, you've got to know how you're going to get out of it for the next movie after No Time to Die. Kick around the ideas at the time before you okay this because it's

such a huge thing to do and they didn't and more to the point they still hadn't for the last five years better mind they film this and went you know before the pandemic well the thing is she didn't know how to get out of it if you do that if you if you take that character and you kill that character there is only one place to go and that's spin-offs that is going back to when he was younger that's sort of doing you know that's the thing to do and that's the thing that she was resistant to. The one thing that's hard to do is keep doing these big tent pole movies with the same character

when you've just done what you've done. And so actually, the Amazon thing of this is content, how do we spin this off? There has never been a better time in the Bond universe to do that. Yeah, I spoke to someone at Amazon, by the way, who also said, how we talked about it last year, please don't solely believe that everyone at Amazon is this kind of, you know, awful kind of content driven, whatever, rapacious. I don't think that's awful. That's what I would be doing.

Many creatives, creative executives, creative people also thought that in the world we live in now that you could franchise this more. And it wasn't just, you know, it wasn't just like there's some accountant at Amazon telling you you've got to do this. But anyway, what they didn't do, what she, so she was completely stuck in the terms of like, what, where does this, how does this go forward? What you could have done is say, right, okay, let's get Britain's sort of best writers, let's get Stephen Knight, you know, Jesse Armstrong, Phoebe Wallenbridge, back up the money truck and they can sit in a room for three days and see and you think okay scheduling that might be a bit of a nightmare but they're writers, they're just in bed with their

laptop anyway so it's totally... When they're doing something they're busy, when they're not doing something they're doing nothing. Yeah and it's quite fun, you're never going to work, you don't have to write the script, just work out how you come back for that before you allow it to happen. But it didn't happen. Anyway, afternoon or time today, so she was stuck and there were meetings had or whatever of bringing people in. A lot of people said this to me, that she's pining creatively for him, for Daniel Craig, who's obviously sort of moved on in this career and is doing what you would expect. Knives out. Yeah, yeah, queer, whatever.

I mean, he's doing lots of interesting movies. He's having hits and he's doing unusual indie movies. And it's freeing and you can look kind of crazy on the red carpet and grow your hair out and just be a different kind of person. Yeah, let yourself go a bit. Well, let your hair go a bit. But now, so now she's walking away. So now people

are saying, well, what type of deal is this? It's not specifically like what George Lucas did when he sold Star Wars to Disney, when he just basically completely walked away and they've done whatever they like with it. It is supposed to be a joint venture. However, they have creative control. So we'll see. So, joint venture in financial terms rather than in creative terms. Yes, and the finances are so key because people on Amazon would point out, say, the last movie cost 300 million.

I, by the way, personally, I definitely think it cost more than that. They built a load of Danny Boyle sets that they never even used. Oh, really? Really expensive stuff, and they never even used it. Megan's Kitchen, for example. Megan's Kitchen Island, that was 100.

If you're having a movie like that every sort of five years and it's a huge amount of money to spend, like do a spin-off movie, make a Q movie for 90 million or do something that's different that will make a series for 100 but you've got lots of, you know, you got eight one hours or whatever it is. Now, it's not clear whether, you know, they'll even... eight one hours or whatever it is. Now it's not clear whether you know they'll even, in terms of what to do next, my view is if they get Christopher Nolan it will be great. He will, he wants to direct Bond film, he's always wanted, he's doing the Odyssey at the moment but rather than like let's have a cameo in Reacher for one of these characters, it's best if they start off saying we remain at this main prestige, even if they do something else before they do the whatever you want to. Chris Nolan does want to do a Bond at some

point. He's doing the Odyssey at the moment, so he couldn't, you know, that comes out, I can't, it's like July 26 or something. It's famously long. Yeah, famously very long. You know, they need some form of content, oh dear me, before them. But if he, you can see he would be drawn to being the first director of a new Bond's lifestyle, life cycle rather. So he would have obviously have a lot of input in the casting or whatever and rebuilding the world. Go back to the 60s. Yeah, whatever you do.

I think one of the key things is that there's lots of actors who were told they were too young for Bond. I think that's out the window now. They probably do want a young Bond. Definitely. Because you want someone who can still be doing it in 10 years time. It's not all these tent pole things all the time, but there are fun little things you can do every now and again. It's good news for some of the younger people on the list. I think it's interesting though in terms of whether Marvel changed everything, even though they've kind of pulled back now and they're not having so many releases a year, whether

audience expectations sort of changed and people say you can't just parcel out like one thing from the character every five years. But one of the key things will be, by the way, if Christopher Nolan does a James Bond film, then he always wants his three months theatrical release window. So that's when the movie can be seen in cinemas and nowhere else. Amazon, I mean, some of their stuff is like a 21 day. Yeah, 21 minutes.

Yeah, 21 minute theatrical release window. I do think for definite that it is the end of Bond as we know it, this for definite and Talking to people on both sides of the set up, you know, particularly on one side of it It is a it's another sort of family business swallowed by big tech a guy who I mean You know, it's owned by a somewhat preposterous bald villain Amazon You know, even though he's married to someone who in my view should be the next bond girl Oh Lauren Sanchez, I was thinking about Bezos owning the whole thing. The thing is, if you've killed 007, then you just leave everything behind the bins at 009. Does that work?

Yeah, there's something there definitely. Can I pitch a couple of things? If the Amazon people are listening, it's not drama stuff. It's more entertainment spin-offs that you could do. Green Finger, which is Titchmarsh playing Bond. A remake of Embarrassing Bodies, which is Thunderball. Another remake of Embarrassing Bodies, which is Doctor, no. You only live twice, which is This is Your Life, but only for people who've been on This is Your Life before. A dating show called The Spy Who Loved Me. There's genuinely something in that. We all, you just meet up on benches. Or-

Wait, hang on. The dating show, okay, right. All right. You've got my attention. Yes. That's good, right? That's why you love me. A dating show called The Spy Who Loved Me- Yeah. Containing real life form of people who worked in the security services. This is like a real noughties reality. No, but you're dating like you would date a spy like at first is all coded And then you just you meet for like five seconds on a bench

And then you meet it like in a warehouse, but it's completely dark if you also a spy Otherwise if you would normally know you're no you're someone's been drawn into that world Because the spy you love me is meaningless if you're already a spy except would be like my colleague who loves me Like that was of someone you see every lunchtime. This is like what's not born me a couple of times Yeah, what would it be like to date a spy, except it would be like my colleague who loves me. Like that was someone you see every lunchtime. This is like what's that movie a couple of times. Yeah. What would it be like to date a spy? Yeah, that's a show. Okay. That's the spy love me. That's that's the only one that isn't just a pun. diamonds are forever. That's competitive bridge. Military Antique Show, the man with the olden gun for your eyes. Yeah, the man with the olden gun military antiques I think yeah, is maybe next huge vertical. That could work and you bring back like a hologramic M. I

love it. Yeah and Q. M and Q are both on that. Okay. For your eyes only that's their version of Gogglebox. Their version of Great Pottery Throwdown a view to a kiln. A version like a charity thing like their version of Comic Relief is likember, but it's Octopussy. I won't say how that works. A hairdressing competition. I'm speechless. A hairdressing competition called Die Another Day. And then the same hairdressing competition, but shorter,

which is No Time to Die. There's some stuff there, right? Oh my God, and you've given it all away for free. Like you always say, you have great ideas, tell everyone. Tell everybody. Tell everyone. Listen, because if you keep having great ideas. And that is a premier example of it. Yeah, exactly. But I think maybe the spy who loved me, Amazon, let's talk.

Yeah. Have the rest for free, that one. That one, you're just shouting copyright and that counts. I'm just shouting copyright, exactly. But yeah, I think that interesting times for Bonn, but I think you're absolutely right. This idea that Amazon are rapacious and are going to do 50 different spin-offs, I don't think they will. I think they'd rather have something that works for 10, 15, 20 years than something that works for five years. And that means being very smart about their choices. Because

there's so many people, you can see when they do the Bond novels, everyone wants to have a go at it. The fact that Christopher Nolan wants to do one. People want to be involved in that Bond universe. Really great people, really great actors. And if you can give them a gentle in, then you know. But they've got a huge problem with what they did at the end of that movie. They have a really big problem. I don't think so. You just go back to the 60s. Is that what you think?

Yeah, of course. That's what I do. Forever, and then you just start the continuous again. Well, no, and then, you know, in the 60s, like, there's, there's a scene where he finally gets someone pregnant. And, you know, there's a young James Bond. Yeah, presumably got quite a few people. But we never see it. You know, there's no, but then, you know, suddenly you've got his son and Barbara Blark, I mean, come on, it's not no, but it's not rocket science. You know, you know, you can pretty much get... Quite a lot of movies is rocket science. If, yes, actually in Bond, yeah, there's a lot of rocket science. But if you're making

great stuff, as long as in the first couple of minutes you go, oh, by the way, this happened, people are like, yeah, okay, they'll go, okay, I'll watch. I think you miss something through not being able to have him in the contemporary. Yeah, but I think you can have him in the contemporary. I just think there's ways and means. You just go, oh no, did you not see at the end that he had like a special rocket pill? You know, and so sorry, we didn't see it. Yeah, I know. It is still tricky, I think.

I think they can probably do it, but it's interesting that she couldn't see her way past it and perhaps past that incredibly intense and amazing sort of creative relationship. I feel bad that I didn't pitch the spy who loved me to Barbara Broccoli now, she might still be on board. Well pitch it to Amazon because they greenlit that, what was it called? Oh Race to a Million. Race to a Million.

Crikey, that's the second series. Seriously, they will greenlit. That's the side of it. Honestly, if Amazon are listening, there are people out there who could, there's, come on. You can do better than that. Come on with that. It looks amazing.

It genuinely does. But it isn't. But it, well, it's, there's, it is a bit more, listen, it's hard to make a television programme. But it's certainly, listen, there could be stickier parts of that format, I think, for sure. She really had the power to kill Bond in the way that Agatha Christie was the only one with the power to kill Poirot and absolutely did it. And there was a bit of you that thinks, well, this feels like my life's work so I should be the one who's allowed to shut it down. But it came from him. It came from the actor. And that is so she, I think, overrode all those incredible instincts that we talked about a lot as to what should and shouldn't

happen with a character and what you could see him doing, et cetera. It came from the actor. Well, then I would do a film where we portray Daniel Craig and Barbara Broccoli, where we talk about exactly that and we realize the whole thing was a fiction and that the real life of James Bond continues. That's what I would do. I'd stick no time to write.

A tight two-hander. In the meta unit, yeah, like a Frost Nixon. Yeah. Craig Broccoli. Yeah. And suddenly you realize, oh, those things were films. Those things were films about a real character who's still with us. And then we watch films about the real Bond, not the one who's been put on screen.

Incredible. Done. Sold. There you go. That works. Thank you once again to the format king of West London. And then hello, it's Alan Titchmarsh here. Any recommendations? Yes, I have got some. Ahead of the Oscars on Sunday, I've been watching so many old clips of Joan Rivers just destroying dresses on the red carpet and also just her and fashion police in the years after. She's so iconic. It's so hilarious.

I mean, almost all of the things are quite unrepeatable, hugely of colour. It's amazing what she was doing. And it was amazing when she died, how many women, really huge celebrities came out and said, I just can't believe she'll never trash my outfit again. I really can't believe it. And it was anyway, I think she's incredible. I know there are Nanda people like Nikki Campbell, who does it, not that Nikki Campbell, another one who does it on TikTok. But I- You're weird if Nikki Campbell, don't you?

Yeah. There's another Nikki Campbell who does it on TikTok, just really quickly goes through people's outfits. But there's something so brilliant about her. These jokes that she's doing are incredible. They are absolutely brilliant. Just enjoy it. She once came on Eight Out Of Ten Cats and she was wonderful as you would expect but one

of the writers she really took a shine to, the least likely Joan Rivers writer, just you know like a typical sort of man in his mid-twenty slightly diffident guy and she was just going this stuff is great, said you have to come over to LA and work for me and he's like oh I don't, I wouldn't have anywhere to live. She goes you will live in my pool house. He didn't do it, he didn't do it. But what fun if he had. Oh my God, I would have loved to have lived in her pool house. I would have done anything to live in her pool house. I think she's amazing. Absolutely amazing. Anyway, that's my recommendation. What about you?

I'll recommend a game on your phone. It costs a tenner, but I've literally played nothing else for about a month last month. It's called Bellatro and it's sort of a poker type game with jokers and you have to build up scores it's one of those things that you think I've seen this a million times before but it's so utterly addictive I'm making it in a crazy way so if you have say you've got a you know long-term stay at a hospital or something up ahead something or a long flight Bolatro I would really really recommend because it is it is currently ruining my life so why shouldn't it ruin yours as well?

Just share that ruin, it's wonderful. recommend because it is currently ruining my life so why shouldn't it ruin yours as well? Just share that ruin. Yeah exactly. And it's B-A-L-A-T-R-O. Our bonus episode this week is we're going to do a two parter on Ryan Murphy. On Ryan Murphy, the creator, the presiding intelligence over many, many huge hit shows. Starting with Nip Tuck going through Glee, American Crime Story and all sorts of true crime things. He's become sort of more and more controversial, strangely,

the bigger he's got. He's an amazing character. I'm looking forward very much to sitting and listening to you talk about his, his, his excesses. But before that, questions and answers. See you on Thursday. See you on Thursday.