The Rest Is Entertainment - Can Jesus Save Hollywood?

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Has Cristian movie making resurrected the Box Office? Is 'Reacher' America's favourite TV Show? Why are celebrities obsessed with making hot sauces? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde explore the phenomenal success of religious programming in Hollywood - including the smash hit from Angel Studios 'King Of Kings'. But why are LA's rich and famous flocking to church all of a sudden, and are they all praying for Justin Baldoni? Severance and The White Lotus are some of the most talked about shows in the world, but what about Lee Child's Reacher? Richard looks into the history of getting the anti-hero onto screen. Finally we get saucy with Marina's favourite movie-star Glen Powell. His affordable condiments have gone on sale in Walmart, but will they cut the mustard? The Rest Is Entertainment AAA Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to our Q&A episodes, ad-free listening, access to our exclusive newsletter archive, discount book prices on selected titles with our partners at Coles, early ticket access to future live events, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestisentertainment.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestisentertainment. 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. Visit Sky.com to find out more For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Assistant Producers: Aaliyah Akude Video Editor: Kieron Leslie, Adam Thornton Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor, Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Sky, which is great. TV lovers, we are delighted about. It's fantastic news. I'll be honest though, I'm also a fan of Netflix, of Disney+, of iPlayer, and this is supposed to be an advert for Sky. Well, the good thing about Sky is that it's not just good for Sky shows, it's basically an all-you-can-eat buffet for TV lovers. Mmm, buffet. So it's got everything, the niche stuff, the mainstream stuff, it's got all the apps you like,

it's got Netflix, it's got iPlayer. You know, I love the voice search. If you're thinking, Sky, am I not gonna need a dish? Well, no, the answer is this is all over Wi-Fi. So if you want to go straight to watching the best that TV has to offer without the fuss of searching, Sky is a game changer. Just go to sky.com to find out more.

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest Is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde. And me Richard Osborne. Hello Marina. Hello Richard, how are you? Yeah, I'm really, really well. We've just been given some Lindor mini eggs by Joey, our lovely producer. I'm very excited. As a little post Easter treat. Uh, you've just moved house. Yeah.

Haven't you, has that been fun? Apparently people wrote in and said, what's going to happen about the, um, the books system. The great thing is listeners. Um, unfortunately much of the house isn't finished and the bookshelf issue has been deferred because no books can be put on the shelves. I wouldn't have thought for at least six weeks. So they're sitting a giant monolith that's taller than me and goes, you can walk all

the way around the edge of these huge piles of boxes of books. But yeah, it's like a physical manifestation of a future argument in the middle of the room. Just sitting, I mean, you know, the elephant in the room is bigger than an elephant. It's absolutely massive. Several elephant sizes. But yeah, so don't worry, there hasn't been any discussion on that. Otherwise, great, you know. Fabulous. Now this week, we are talking about, we're talking about faith based films because

it had a very good run of success recently in the box office. We're also essentially God at the box office. God at the box office. And talking of God, we're also talking about, it's like the family genre. Seriously, it's the only thing doing well. We're also essentially God at the box office, God at the box office and talking of God. We're also talking about like the family genre. Seriously, it's the only thing doing well. We're going to talk about Reacher and we're going to talk about two people involved in Reacher, Lee Child and Nick Santoro, the guy behind the Reacher show. I'm going to tell you all about those two. I can't wait for that.

And Glenn Powell has released a source line. This is you know what we were we were we were chatting earlier in the week saying that's good. We wanted to talk about God in the cinema and I wanted to talk about Nick Santoro. And we're going, oh, what would be an interesting third one? And then he just sent me the thing saying that Glenn Powell had released a new source. And I go, well, there's our third item. I mean, first of all, let's talk about faith based God at the box office, as you put it. And this, do you know what, I didn't think about it. It was quite themed, isn't it?

It is quite, yeah, it is quite themed. And in fact, Easter weekend is you put it. And this, do you know what? I didn't think about it. It was quite themed, isn't it? It is quite, yeah, it is quite themed. And in fact, Easter weekend is part of it. But last week, three of the top 10 US cinematic box office spots were taken up by faith based things. And I'm saying things because Richard, you're going to be thrilled to hear only one of them is a film, which is the King of Kings, which we'll come on to in just a second. Episodes two and three of this season of The Chosen, which we've talked about on the podcast before, which is the sort of long form drama series about the life of Christ. Those have been put into cinemas. You know, they love to bring

people in. Two of them, episodes two and three, only that's how many have been out so far as three. They were all in the charts. That is incredible. I mean, it's incredible. They just put one episode out and people come. So King of Kings is made by Angel Studios, who used to be involved in The Chosen, but they now do that separately. But they make lots of, they made Sound of Freedom, which I, which was that. Yeah, I'm not sure I've seen Sound of Freedom. Okay. It was massive. It was, it's like a sort of search and rescue thriller about a guy who, US government sort of agent who rescues people from, children from Colombian sex

traffickers. But like God based? Yeah, I mean, and some people thought vaguely Q and on base, but it made 250 million at the global box office. It became this incredibly, this surprise hit. We can come to the story of that in a bit, but the King of Kings was number two to Minecraft. And I don't need to tell you being number two to Minecraft is no shame. Kenneth Branagh is the voice, it's animated and it's... Kenneth Branagh is involved. Yeah, he's the voice of Dickens. It's Dickens animating...

Sorry, I'm sorry. It's Dickens telling the story of Christ. Now, hang on a second. Dickens telling the story of Christ. Yeah, I know that sounds, yeah, in a sort of very much a kind of, he's telling the story of Christ. Now hang on a second. Sorry, Dickens telling the story of Christ. Yeah, I know that sounds, yeah, in a sort of, very much a kind of, he's telling the story of Christ to his kind of slightly doubting son, a little bit like the relationship between Peter Falk and Fred Savage in The Princess Bride, right? In The Princess Bride. Yeah, in The Princess Bride. But Charles Dickens did actually write a version of Jesus' life

called The Life of Our Lord to sort of educate his children at a certain point. Anyway, but that is the concept of this film. And it's got lots of good, great people doing bosses like Forrest Whitaker, Mark Hamill, half a Thursday murder club, by the way, doing it. Ben Kingsley's in it. Pierce Brosnan is Pontius pilot, which sounds... Is he? Is he? Interesting casting, but you know, it's voice casting is different. Makes them even cooler.

Yeah. Okay. I'm not going to get that Oscar Isaac is Jesus. Oscar Isaac is Jesus. Okay. Listen, fair enough. Anyway, so it's a hugely successful film. This it's taken and it's animation.

Yeah. So it's very interesting how they do this. Okay. So they acquired this film in terms of concept and everything From this direct a South Korean director who's called Song Ho Jang and he's also a visual effects artist. Sorry, there's a South Korean director Yeah, Dickens telling the story of the Bible in animation with Pierce Brosnan and his Pontius pilot Yeah, I'm telling you it's second only to Jason Momoa doing improv, so it's very, very

popular Richard. Anyhow, but it's interesting how Angel Studios have built themselves anyway. First of all, they are also a streaming platform, but they are also, they create their own stuff as well. When they created Sound of Freedom and things like that, they have this thing called the Angel Guild. So they have people who sign up and they're members. There were a hundred thousand of them back then. They crowdfund for distribution and

marketing cash. And so what you have, so they have this sort of pre very engaged audience anyway. And it's their films do, you know, there was a point where I think the sound of freedom was something like a hundred percent on Rotten Tomatoes because people are so engaged. Remember people are thinking. Now that Angel Guild now has a million members. And do you know what they do? I mean, we've talked, we keep talking about this. Meet up.

Well, they ask them about projects and they say, this is how they, it's more than market research. Once you sign up and you become a member, you have, you can vote on projects. You can sort of offer notes on ideas, and then it's sort of equity crowdfunding. What do you think about the idea of Pierce Brosnan as Pontius Pilate? Yeah.

Yeah, we love it. Well, I tell you what, having a million people who you know are very engaged, it's a massive part of their decision to green light or not. And the thing about it is, I mean, I know we keep saying this, but it is a question once again saying, I wonder what people would like to watch. And these people make a big, you know, feed in in lots of different ways. Obviously, it's very democratic. Face-based things are not my cup of tea necessarily, but you can't deny that this model is doing brilliantly for them. And it's really interesting because you talk to fans asking what they'd like to see they say their exact words on it we think the wisdom of the crowd their collective intelligence is much more accurate and trustworthy than a few powerful producers well you know i mean

they've if you look at some of the flops this year you know i don't know that i was thinking about that alto nights the chosen they've only had three episodes of it in movie theatre so far, it's already made more than $40 million. Okay, already. That's episode three of a have-a-money episode series. Okay. That sort of Alto Nights, which was David Zaslav, who's the head of Warner Brothers Discovery, pushed this film to be made. It's got Robert De Niro in it. It's very, very bad. It's written by Nick Pileggi, who wrote Goodfellas, but he's now 92. He just happens to be Zazlav's like neighbour in the Hamptons. And so he just pushed his movie all the way through. It's, I mean, The Chosen, three episodes of television have made more than four or five

times as much as what Alto Nights made. And doesn't David Zazlav get paid about $430 million a year as well? No matter what happens to the share price, we keep discovering his it will go up his pay goes up tens of millions every year. That's clever. I'd love to be on that gravy chain. I must tell you, it doesn't matter what happens to them. I'm absolutely shocked that he doesn't believe in God more than he does.

You think if I was David Zaslav all I would do is make that just thank you Lord. Every film would be called thank you Lord. Yeah, every I mean, well, you know, know I tell you what it would probably be doing well you know Warner Brothers have had a big hit with Minecraft but otherwise it might be doing better than quite a lot of their slaves. Isn't Minecraft like Christianity if you think about it? It's all building something isn't it? I can't continue this but yes so this kind of democratised way of doing it is very interesting and it is very successful for them. Angel Studios, having done lots of smaller projects, they're now doing these

very big things. They had King of Kings, which is done absolutely brilliantly. And then for, I think, Thanksgiving weekend, they've got David, which is the story of David. And remember, all the IP is free, Richard. What, David Attenborough? No, David from the Bible. David out of the Bible. David out of the Bible. Of Versus Goliath fame.

Do you know what? It's such a great business model, isn't it? Isn't it? The IP is free, there's loads of it, it's got an engaged audience. Who wants to pay, by the way? Can I just say that they wanted $60 million for David and they got immediately $50 million via crowdfunding. That's, it's a lot. Yeah.

But if you've got a million members and they're really engaged and you say to them, we actually care what you think. Yeah. I mean, the church has spent their money on worse things. So, come on, this is really, this is good clean fun. I like it. And then in terms of the marketing and the promo, you don't have to spend what to get it in front of people. It's already in front of a big and engaged enough community to get the word out there. Going back to something like The Chosen, which they've put two episodes out, again, the idea of putting television in cinemas, which this community is doing, Richard. Yeah, but of course they are. By the way, the amount of messages I've had saying, oh, I wish I could have seen the last episode of The White Lotus in a cinema, or you know,

just everyone wants to watch TV in the cinema with other people. It's amazing how many messages I've had since we started semi-jokingly discussing this matter. I was never semi-joking. You and him joking. I know, I know. They've got these children's offers, like children go free, or they have a thing called pay it forward, which means you can buy a ticket for someone who otherwise wouldn't see it. And so over Easter weekend, lots of cinemas have shown episodes one to three of The Chosen because they're doing it as a sort of, you know, as a binge. I'm trying to think of other groups who you could get together in that sort of way to

crowdfund television. And there's actually not that many groups with that amount of people with that much commitment to the cause. It's quite a unique group of people, religious communities, isn't it? Well, I mean, have you ever been to Comic Con? I mean, they have a very engaged fan base. Yes, but they absolutely all disagree with everybody else about everything. They're incredibly disputatious. It's like, yes, or they just, everything has to be done exactly. But it's very interesting that the way they've managed to do it, but also just that feeling of not handing down, well, I mean, handing down stone tablets

really and say, here's your film, here's the film you're going to go and watch the cinema, here's whatever. But it's, but also that's a group of people, because the trouble with Comic-Con is if you wanted everyone to be involved in the film, a million different people would have a million different versions of doing it. And we think they had the best version. The best thing with having religious backers is they believe in the omnipotent power of a creator. Yeah. Don't they? Of all people. And this is the greatest exec producers of all time. The IP is not disputed. The IP is not. Bar the book of Revelation, which

may or may not be canon. I'm given to understand. That'll probably be two films. I think it's super neat. It's definitely the way that things are going to be funded in future is communities of people. And they've got an absolute march on it because that community is already there and probably felt that they weren't being served with things that needed to be served with. And Angel Studios jumped in. And I mean, it's like a, it's a thing of absolute beauty. It's extraordinary. I'm, but also can I just talk to you very briefly about something else, which is about, we're talking about religion in Hollywood, which by the way is not a completely godless place. And some people think it's becoming more religious perhaps because that's

where some of the money has gone to. Anyway, a friend of mine went along to a church that I think might be Peter Thiel's church. If it's not your church, this is not libelous, even though he'll sew over anything, but it really isn't libelous. So Peter Thiel is the sort of godfather of the billionaires, right? He's a PayPal founder and he's had his money in all the other different places. And you know, does he or doesn't he use the blood of South Koreans to stay young? I think it's a no from him, but you know, the rumors persist. People are saying it.

Yeah, people are saying that transfusions occur. I'm sure, you know, as I say, he's very, very litigious man. It's just reported speech. Yeah. I got this leaflet from it. She got me this leaflet and I absolutely loved it. I'm going to read you some of the things that they do. They've got an incognito prayer team.

This is, they pray for Hollywood decision makers and celebrities. So by the way, I'm now signed up to all that because I wanted to see what all this was. This is too good to lose. You can get nine oh two eight wristbands pray for the world's most influential zip code. But when you say they're praying for Hollywood's decision makers, do you mean they're sort of just praying for the moral guidance to the big studio heads and I literally had my latest email from them yesterday. So shall I give you something as an example? Okay. So they often tell me which executives to pray for. Coachella, they were saying, the concert

they've seen is very exciting. Coachella's begun and it's all whatever. But the concert's also known for drug, sex and rock and roll. So let's play for the attendees to feel the heart of God while they're there. Let's make it the most spirit-filled Coachella in history. It's super hot as well, Coachella. It's like it's in the middle of the desert. So I would be praying for water. I'd be praying for a thunderbolt. I think it's quite a cursed event. But I had a recent one telling me to pray for Justin Baldoni. Don't worry, I'm already doing it. But saying that because he's from the wrong faith, he's Baha'i. So pray for him for that

reason also because I think everyone's in a bit of difficulty on that particular case. So they sent you an email. that reason also because I think everyone's in a bit of difficulty on that particular case. They sent you an email. Yeah. We've all noted the personnel changes at Amazon Studio. Jen Sarkis out, whatever, whoever's, please pray for the following executives. Really? Yeah.

I mean, I mean to. I haven't done it yet, but you know. Yeah, yeah. Imagine actually dialing into the almighty and say, hi, Courtney Valente is a really amazing film executive. I just want to make sure that the slate next year is just moving in the general direction of you know, if not Christian, then at least pre-Christian. Yeah, it'd be lovely if they could get a shadow made project as well.

I feel like that would be important. That's, talk about wasting your prayers. Yeah. I mean, you know, God's not, you can't listen to everything all the time. Yeah, I mean, really. You've got to save it for the big ones. Pray for the most influential, world's most influential zip code No, thank you. Perhaps you should wind this up because somebody you know when we were talking about

Obviously we've been talking about watching TV and cinemas and when I went to see minecraft we thought that someone had a church Yes in the cinema. Oh my god, and now everyone's got a very nice person has written in past tonight mark Smith I know that I had to pronounce that past or past. I say pastor, but I had to say Glastonbury. I mean, I'm just, I've taught myself not to. Well, I would hope so. No, I mean, you know, I hate me more than anyone. So don't worry about it.

I say, yeah, could Jay. It could Jay. So Pastor Mark Smith, he says I pastor a church in an Odian here in Dublin. We've been in the building since the pandemic. Initially, the cinema reached out to us and other churches to see if we needed event space because they were struggling. We've been meeting here ever since. The cinema has been brilliant. In fact, they're putting on the new animated movie King of Kings for us after our service this Sunday. This is a win-win. The only problem with God Live, as Richard says, is that the cinema is a crappy place to sing in. It's

like being in a cathedral with walls made of wool. It's quite depressingly different. That, by the way, is another great idea, a cathedral with walls made of wool. I had a message from Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the brilliant children's writer and screenwriter and one of the architects of the 2012 opening ceremony. All that stuff, proud Liverpoolian. And he said there was a Liverpool cinema, 60s or 70s, called the JC, which is very down the hill, which they essentially just turned into a Catholic confessional and it was open all the time. He said, but they didn't take the screen or the seats out. He said, so even now, sometimes he'll be in an Odeon and he'll genuflect when he gets to the end of the road. Everyone loves the cinema. Everyone loves the seats. Everyone loves the

screen. Everyone loves the pick and mix. Show different things. There's rights issues, of course there are, but there's people who can deal with that sort of thing, not me. I mean, come on. Then we might have to accept that the religious programming people have got their first and it is actually a good idea. Yeah, it's got to come. I mean, just imagine whatever show you want to watch this week, you go, or just go out for a drink with your mates and go and watch eight episodes of Friends back to back.

All right. On that note, shall we go to a break? By the way, can we talk about Easter very quickly? I was watching The Final of the Apprentice this season, which I rather enjoyed. I rather enjoyed this season of The Apprentice. I mean, it is what it is, The Apprentice, but it makes me think that Easter as a religious festival,

it's like a religious festival that's been invented by a losing team on The Apprentice. Oh, it's about the resurrection of Christ, yeah, but what's the main thing about it? Chocolate eggs is the main thing about it. Okay. And when will we do it? I mean, no one knows. Ever. No one ever knows. However, it is four days. Yeah. And you can't knock it. And you don't know when you're supposed to eat the eggs. Yeah. Anyway, all I'm saying is imagine that pitch. It's yeah, you've pitched enough for today.

Why do people keep saying that to me? Unless you happen to be doing any adverts in the immediate vicinity of this, when I've just gone over to the break. But yes, then you haven't pitched enough. See you after the break. This episode is brought to you by Sky where you can watch the highly anticipated second season of the award winning The Last of Us. Richard, I am very excited that The Last of Us is back on our screens. I watched the entire first series. It was emotional. It was bleak. It was brilliant TV. It follows Joel, played

by Pedro Pascal, who is tasked with escorting Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey, who's a teenage girl. She's immune to a deadly infection and he has to transport her across a post-apocalyptic America in which they face these infected clickers and much more. Season two I think picks up five years later, they're living in a community of survivors. They've done a time jump. They've picked a whole time jump, might just be five years since they filmed the first one. So it's fair enough, isn't it? From what I hear, my nerves, my nerves. The second season sounds like it's going to be

even more intense. There's conflict brewing everywhere, not just on the outside with the infected and all the different factions among them, but inside between Joel and Ellie too. Yes. If you're into emotional gut punches, high stakes world building and brilliant performances, this show is for you. Watch the brand new series of the award winning The Last of Us available on Sky now. Welcome back everybody. Now, last week, the Nielsen figures came out and we learned that Reacher on Amazon Prime is the biggest show on streaming by about a million miles. That's not a technical, actually they do measure it in something even more stupid, which is

billions of minutes views or something. And it's a million miles ahead That's not a technical, actually they do measure it in something even more stupid which is billions of minutes viewed or something. And it's a million miles ahead of everything else. It is. So we're going to talk a bit about Reacher. At the end of this, I might go through the rest of the top 10 actually because there's a couple of interesting things to spot in there. But Reacher, there's two people I want to talk about. I want to talk about a man named James Grant and I want to talk about a man named Nick Santoro. Now James Grant is the birth name of Lee Child, the author of the Reacher novels. Called himself Child. He says he called it everything Lee Child says. He's so smart. You just think of you because he says, Oh, I call myself

Child. So I sat between Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler on the shelves. I think no, you know Come on Lee you said that afterwards No, you said he's called Lee child because there was a there was a thing was it a Renault called La Car Yeah, and their families to call it Lee car and every time they saw something with the in front of it They would pronounce it Lee and so his daughter he used to call Lee child and so It's a good name short really's short, really fits on the front of a book as well. Now, Lee used to work at Granada Television, was fired in the

late 90s and thought, God, what am I going to do? So I thought I'll write a book. And 28 years later is the biggest selling adult novelist in the world. He starts his new book, again, I don't know if this is true, Lee, he says, every year I start writing my new book on the anniversary of the day I was fired. And you think maybe you do, maybe you do, but what if you're on holiday or you've got the dentist on that day or something? Can't you just write three words, then you've begun anyway, it's a I like that as a story That's why he's so brilliant because because even if those two things are not true He he came up with it now. He's so I try and write a book a year and it is it is some listen

It's not mining, but it's it's hard and he did 24 books in 24 years his brother now does them and He has you'd be unsurprised to hear, got huge properties in Wyoming, New York, Sussex. If ever you talk about anywhere, he's got a house there. You know, flies around the world on private jets and all this stuff. But every attempt to turn Reacher into a huge hit on the big screen hadn't really worked.

There'd been various abortive attempts. And then most famously, they did make a Reacher film. Tom Cruise. Jack Reacher, wasn't it? Jack Reacher, the film was called. And Tom Cruise played Jack Reacher. And it is one of those things, you know, you can absolutely mess about with source material.

But the key thing about Reacher is he's 6'5". He's a man mountain. Yeah, he really is. He's like just omnicompetent and amazingly brilliant at everything. And Tom Cruise is amazingly brilliant in lots of ways, but he is not Jack Reacher. The name Reacher, by the way,

do you know how that comes from? No. Lee is also very tall. Not as tall as me, but who is? And in the supermarket once, he reached up and got something for somebody and his wife said, oh, if you ever do lose your job, you'd be a very good professional reacher. Oh, that's hilarious.

And he thought, oh, reacher would be a good name. Oh, that's brilliant. It happened to me. There was a woman in Waitrose and she said to me, also, could you reach the sugar from the top shelf for me? And I said, oh, of course, I got it for her. And she said, can I get anything for you when I'm down here? Oh, my God, that is the most perfect waitress interaction. That's just yeah.

So he wrote all of these novels, all of which are extraordinary that they had lots of, you know, adaptations that didn't quite work until a man called Nick Santoro came along. Nick Santoro is the guy behind the Amazon Prime version of Reacher. We're now on season three. I was having a big discussion with some very, very funny actors and writers who weren't enjoying it and I love it. And then lots of other actors and writers joined in and said they loved it as well. So it is what it is. Some people will say, and that the criticism of Reacher is that, by the way, he doesn't say much, which is I sort of love as a sort of leading character, but that, you know,

it's towns that can't deal with their own problems and he comes in and he fixes it. It's formulaic. Yeah. Yes. But I mean, lots of things have been formulaic forever, but yes. And he, and sometimes people say that that's simplistic. Yeah. And listen, Colombo was formulaic, but it was still the say that that's simplistic. Yeah, and listen Colombo was formulaic Yeah, it was still the best TV show ever made. No, I like I love reach and it is really genuinely funny There's there's some yeah, you know, listen, there's a lot of you have to look away sometimes during the fights But you know the funny bits are properly funny, but Nick Santoro is an interesting guy used to be a lawyer

Didn't want to be a lawyer like most lawyers and they and some lawyers do. And then he wrote an episode of The Sopranos, a spec script for The Sopranos got called in. His first ever published thing on television was an episode of The Sopranos, the greatest television show ever made. In season four, he co-wrote an episode of that and then went on to do lots of episodes of Law and Order, which is a big breeding ground for American writers. So he'd done something unbelievably blue chip in the Sopranos and then he does this sort of telly that absolutely packs them in. As you often say, the sort of TV people actually want to watch. So after

that, his agent is going, well, look, you can do another season of Law and Order. He said, I'd like to do something new. I'd like to branch out. And so what should I do? So his agent gave him every single pilot from that season in America. And the one he liked most was Prison Break. He said, I saw that. And I thought that's the one that could run.

And then he came up with his own show called Scorpion, which I've not seen, but I'm gonna tell you the, pray see it for you. And I would love to watch this for super geniuses and a woman who has to sort of stand in the middle of them and teach them emotional intelligence. It's like he described it as being like Big Bang Theory meets CSI. So you think, well, that sounds amazing, doesn't it? So he's always done that thing of what's the big mainstream

thing, but how can we make it slightly funnier, which is why Reacher is such a huge deal. But the most interesting thing Nick Santoro did in the middle of all of this, and by the way, this is just to say that there are a million different ways to get into the world of having a big hit television show. And everyone's way through is very, very different. Particularly in the case of Nick Santoro, because the next thing he did was he invented the reality dating show, Beauty and the Geek. So yeah, which is beautiful woman and geeky guy. So I'm there in the title team up and do challenges, run for five seasons in, uh,

in, in America, they did, they've done it a couple of times over here. David Mitchell used to be the, David Mitchell used to be the VO. So if you want to know the connection between Jack Reacher and David Mitchell, there it is in one step. Interestingly, they bought it back. Do you want to know how social worries have changed in the UK over the last 16 years?

So in 2006, so they get usually a beautiful woman and a geeky guy, and then they describe them as something or other. So in 2006, one of the teams, in fact, the winning team was Terry Marquez, page three girl with John Gethin, theologian. 2022, you think, well, times have changed surely. And here's your team, Saskia Mastin, cheerleader, JB James, Lego creator. Something's never changed. That's lovely. Yeah. Isn't it just. He also he also wrote a film called Long Shots, which was directed by Fred Durst, the lead singer of

Limp Bizkit. Yeah. So he's had a hell of a career, Nick Santora. My goodness, that is eclectic. Isn't it eclectic? That's the thing is there's a million different ways into the business. If you look at Craig Mazin, yeah, who did Chernobyl I mean his previous credits have been scary movie 3 scary movie 4 Chernobyl came out and people sort of went back through thinking. Oh my god. I need to watch everything this guy's ever done Yeah, okay Maybe I don't need to watch scary me, but he's so amazing and it's just a question of you know, and obviously now is And it's just a question of, and obviously now is co-creator of The Last of Us, but so he's so incredible and it's such a sort of testament to just keeping going and you learn

so much and as people often say, you learn more of the failures than you do of the successes. Well, that's it. So Nick Santore, he'd had failures of his own things like Scorpions didn't massively trouble the scorers, but he'd done things like Law and Order, which is, which, you know, you just have to keep writing, boom, you have to keep churning them out. And when you've got that skill set and then he finds something like Re order, which is, which, you know, you just have to keep writing, boom, you have to keep churning them out. And when you've got that skill set and then he finds something like Reacher, which feels it's absolutely in his wheelhouse, because Reacher is, is very sort of macho, but it's kind of funny. Reacher knows he's a joke. Reacher understands

his own irony and Nick Santore writes that very, very well. You know, there's lots of, you know, very, however much it might sort of feel like an episode of the A-Team. It's like he's all four members of the A-Team in one reach and Nick Santoro deals with that incredibly well. They were lucky with him. They were very lucky. Alan Richson is, I think he's a really interesting person in lots and lots of ways. He's had a really, that is someone who waited, who was around for a long time and went through a lot of stuff. And he's kind of, he's really interesting because he's very open about things. And he's got a lot, he, you know, we talk about screen persona and I'm sorry,

Tom Cruise's screen persona just isn't in my view compatible with the character of Jack Reacher. Jack Reacher has to hide an awful lot all of the time. Yeah, but he's obviously a very moral person and that sort of sense of not really fitting in and you know, he, I mean, that is the whole point. He is the wandering hero. Yeah. And they're all. Stranger rides into town, that old fictional archetype of the hero, the Joseph Campbell archetype, that is Reacher. And I find him very interesting as an actor because of the way he talks. I mean,

he says things like, first of all, he's very Christian. He says, but he says, you know, he hates the church, lots of the established church in many, many ways. He finds it disgusting. He says really openly, you know, I think it's when you think about who's watching this show, oh, it's just ridiculous. You know, Donald Trump's like the worst person in the world. He's a rapist and a criminal.

And I can't believe that the Christian right has sort of pretended that he's one of their people. He says, I'm bipolar. He says, Oh, yeah, of course I take testosterone. How do you think? I mean, it's amazing that he's a very sort of candid, candidly troubled. I mean, he's very, he's such a perfect fit. And he is very, very tall. He's not he's like, he's actually sort of six foot two, which is basically a giant in television terms of, you know with yeah president company accepted Um, but in general, you know, he would he can this is why he can look taller than he is super ripped though

Whenever I love it whenever he takes all his clothes off, which he does sometimes he wants an episode for various reasons Yeah, well, he's only ever he's only got one set of clothes. He's got one set of clothes and a toothbrush But I love it when he has to take his clothes off He's always got these like slim black pants on and there's always a woman around, the woman is literally just going, they're always just going, just have to slightly look away and just go, okay. It's like you can't stare directly at the sun. Yeah. But it's huge, but it is hugely successful.

And again, we mentioned this before when we talked slightly about it in the context of various other shows. You don't read one million articles about it. It's of various other shows. You don't read one million articles about it. It's not all over everywhere. And yet it just is miles and by far and away the most watched thing. Yeah, by a million miles. And they're doing a spin-off, which unsurprisingly, Frances Neely, who was the private eye who used to be in his army unit, they're doing a spin-off with her as well, which I imagine would be an enormous hit. But yeah, so the biggest

show on streaming in America. And should we go through the rest of the time? I just, I just wanted to sing the praises of Nick Santora there, because I think sometimes when you see a show like that, everyone would talk about Adam Rich, then everyone would talk about Lee Child. Uh, and sometimes it's so many things that go from, from page to screen don't work and you get someone like Nick Santora and it's just impressive what he's done. The apprenticeship he served. And then he goes,

right, I've got this one. All those things contributed to this. So in the rest of that top 10, I'll pick up a couple, you might pick up different ones. Family Guy is number two. Well, I thought Family Guy was tied with Bluey. It's, yeah, but I think it's just on- Is it just over?

Yeah, I mean, that's, well, Family Guy, I mean, that says a lot. Well, it says a couple of things. The reason family guy is there. Well, lots of reasons. It's huge, but there's, there's a lot of episodes because they, as you say, they do it per minutes, um, viewed and it's, you know, billions and billions and billions. And the streamers have in the same way that the streams have just worked out that

they can schedule things at particular times of the week and the streams have worked out, they can put adverts in their programs. The streamers are just working out. It would be great to start having returning series with lots and lots of episodes in it, which of course was the, uh, the network business model forever because they're seeing, if you've got family guy, gun smoke, which hasn't been on since the sixties recently went into the streaming top 10, Gunsmoke, because there's 400 episodes. And if you get hooked on it, you just keep watching forever and ever. So they, one of the big new calls they're having now is bring us returnable series, bring

us things that can come back, bring us things where we can do 13 episodes and that are episodic and that are set somewhere. And that we, you know, we can, that there's kind of cost effective for us to do. And it is, they are literally step by step. Yeah, bring us network television libraries. Turning into network television. Exactly, well because they're absolutely eating through the libraries of these things. And we'll all, in the same way,

we'll be still listening to The Beatles. We're still gonna be watching Friends in 30 or 40 years time. But you do slightly have to keep, putting new things into the pool. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah, Bluey, almost identical with Family Guy, which is incredible, isn't it? Again, making programs for kids is a huge deal still.

The White Lotus was at four, which I think is, that is huge. I remember just before the season started, we were saying to each other, is the White Lotus big enough that we might even do it before it's actually on air? And the answer before, you know, lots of these shows that get lots of buzz, they're not actually that high rating. Yeah. And lots of things on HBO, which get huge amount of buzz and a lot of awards don't actually rate very highly. But the white lotus, this is a has just completely tipped over now into some sort of kind of

massive phenomenon that it should be out there at four. Because yes, by the way, it gets an unbelievable amount of coverage because people just write about it. It gets free advertising all the time because people write about feuds between cast members or, you know, oh, this is broken every taboo or whatever it is that you get this constant constant free kind of media coverage, which you don't get for Reacher. You don't get for all these other things. But it's interesting that that has now gone, that's gone stratospheric. And in the rest of the top ten, there's things like 1923, which is, which is one of the Taylor

Sheridan shows. Moana 2 is up there. And Moana 2 is really the biggest thing. It's just a billion minutes. You know, there's only one of them. Love is Blind is the only reality show up there. But number nine on this list, number nine in the top 10, number 10 is Severance, by the way. And number nine on this list, now this is America is a big country. It's like the big entertainment capital of the world. It's absolutely enormous in every way. Number nine on the list, Adolescence. Wow. Yeah. Well, that again, once something becomes a sort of cultural phenomenon and the controversy or the discourse of it all just takes on a life of its own, then, and I thought that,

you know, once you start that it's so propulsive, you'll continue with it. So to get people into that is kind of phenomenal. But it was like that with Baby Reindeer. Suddenly everyone had a view on this thing and you sort of feel like you have to watch it and if it is sufficiently propulsive and Baby Reindeer was sort of helped by in lots of ways I think by the fact that you could just binge it really quite quickly because whatever it was seven and a half hours or some of them a bit longer. And the same with adolescence, you couldn't take your eyes off it once you were in. But again if you're Netflix it is all well and good and adolescence is all well and good

But if you can have an adolescence where you can do eight episodes and then you can do another eight and then another Yeah, no, no, that's that's that's the real dream I'm in severance you can sort of they they can keep kind of slightly going back to where they were but you know Reacher you can do episodes of Reacher forever until you know, Adam Rich and says no to it. So it's that thing of great having these sort of, you know, real marquee shows that everyone's talking about. But if you can have a marquee show that everyone's talking about,

and it can come back and back and back and back, that's the business, the streamers now. And if you go to see any streamer, that's the thing they're looking for. They're not looking for some big thing that they can put a massive star in and it runs for four episodes and it costs more than three movies put together. They are saying bring me a big star, but in the same way that used to sign them up for

seven seasons in sitcoms in the US and drama series, give us a show and we'll tie the star in for a number of seasons. And that's the thing I think that's going to change massively in Netflix. Can I say one final thing about Lee Child? Yes. I've talked before about how I name my characters. He names so many of his characters after Aston Villa players. It's amazing. In his very first book, The Killing Floor,

which is great. If you've not read Jack Reacher, you really can start from the very beginning, The Killing Floor. But in there, he's got Mayor Teal. He's named after Sean Teal, the Aston Villa player. Even in the second book, he's got Paul McGrath, which is a direct name. He's got a character called Milosevic, which people assumed was named after the war criminal

Slobodan Milosevic, but it was named after Savo Milosevic, the Aston Villa striker. He's got Shkimecha, he's got With from Peter With, Gary Shaw, he's got Carboni, he's got a character called Graham Taylor. So he knows loads and loads of his characters after that. But as so often, we save the very best, the very biggest stories till last. Now, an awful lot of things have happened since this podcast began. The world has changed in lots of ways. Politically, in the world of entertainment, we live in a slightly different world than we did way back when. But I think of all the things that have ever happened,

this story might be the biggest. Yeah. And I mean, why wasn't it on the front pages of a lot of places? Catch up guys, because Glenn Powell has launched a sauce brand. Let me tell you what he'll do you, Richard. It's called Smash Kitchen. He'll do you. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Smash Kitchen. He'll do you a yellow mustard, a Dijon mustard. I'll do a ketchup. He'll do you a hot honey ketchup. He'll do you an American barbecue sauce. Your stripper name. You'll give you an American barbecue sauce, a hot honey barbecue sauce, mayo and spicy mayo. And I'll tell you what he'll do, Richard,

which is what makes this interesting is that he will sell it via Walmart at an affordable price. None of that will cost you any more than four dollars 79 and some of it will have cost as little as two dollars now Sorry, did we go to adverts? Yes No, none of this is sponsored But although Glenn if you do want to sponsor, please please get in touch and just anyway get in touch You have to really just make sure it's sealed before you send over you don't want you don't want well I'm sure that he will have taken care of every detail, Richard. Now this is selling

through Walmart, which I think is really interesting. And I'll get into that in a minute, but because lots of celebrities have got Artisan, this and that brands, haven't they? You know, Brooklyn Beckham does a hot sauce and he has done one, you know, especially curated and yeah, he's got a hot sauce, you know, I'm not a hot sauce guy. Oh my god, I absolutely love hot sauce. I have many, many hot sauces. Me, I have many, many hot sauces. This is the one I want most, by the way. All right, Woodward and Bernstein.

Now listen, okay, so he had a big launch party and he had it in, you know, in Beverly Hills or wherever it was in Hollywood. And they, they had lots of sort of fancy celebrities went along and they had a French fries station, but whatever. So they did all the sort of glitzy side of it. And you know, Guinness Paltrow unboxed some on whatever. It's organic. This thing. DiCaprio was there. I saw. DiCaprio. Yeah. I mean, that's, I mean, you know, you've, you know, you've made it in Hollywood if you do sources. Stella McCartney. I mean, I know you've made it in Hollywood if you do sources.

Stella McCartney. I mean, I think it's just like random famous people in town that night. But you think about the stuff DiCaprio must get invited to. Yeah. I mean, it must be sort of nonstop. He's got something, Richard. I'm telling you, he's got something. Powell?

Yeah. Yeah, he sure has. Now, so, okay, why has he done this? Now, I, again, they've all got plans. Because his food was too bland? They've all, well, yeah, no, he's got a backstory. Like, you know, we may, No, he's got a backstory. You always have to have the backstory.

We all made sauces growing up. My sister and my new man, I made my own hot honey ketchup at seven years old. We slathered the sauces on everything. He's the family, we're all there. Sorry, his backstory is I come from a family that uses sauce. That we made lots of sauce. Wow, okay. Look, it's will this do and it will do.

Yes, it will do. Because I put a lot of vinegar on my chips and I've, I've yet to release a wine range. Well, marketeers please get in touch. Richard would like to partner on a, on a vinegar vinegar range. Sarsens come and get me. Yeah. Big Sarsens will be after you. But he, he anyway, but what he's really saying with this is of all the things you can do, I mean, obviously people do luxury things all the time or they do high-end alcohol brands I'll do where they part of things all the time celebrities This to me is different. You know just because it's Glen Powell, but you know, what are you saying is, you know, I'm from tech

I'm from the great state of Texas. We love barbecue. I'm for everyone. Yeah, I am a price point everyone can afford Yeah, let's talk about the source. I think yes. I'm a price over point everyone can afford. Yeah. Still talking about the source, I think. Yes. Uh, I'm a price over Red, State and Blue. Once again, there's very helpful Sydney Sweeney romance rumors I see have reanimated. Can't believe it myself. However, however, again, the Red, State, King and Queen, they were like, and we're for everybody. And what I think about this is really interesting is that it's mass produced. It's for Walmart. He said, my long-term intention is to change every kitchen staple. You're an actor. But anyway, it doesn't matter. It's 2025. They have to all talk like this. But also that's why I went into acting.

Yeah. But nothing's going to cost more than four or five dollars. But he said, no one in our country is more than 10 minutes away from a Walmart and it's almost 30% of the grocery market. Again, he is an actor, but we all talk like this in the year 2025, which I sort of love. What he's saying is, I'm a mass-produced mainstream star because he does want to get back. Remember, I was telling you that Glenn Powell wants to get back to whatever Expendables he was in, Expendables 3, and he was with all the guys, and they were all saying to me, oh no, this is what it's like being a movie star in the 90s.

He's like, he can't believe it. He wants to tunnel his way back to that level of kind of mass appeal. So Glenn Powell is this source, Richard, I suppose, why I'm saying it in lots of ways. But I tell you what it reminds me of, because it's such a sort of direct callback to it. Also so much of the things he does are sort of, you know, that character he in Top Gun Maverick when he's sort of trying to, you know, basically sort of trying to do a, not a simulacrum of Val Kilmer, but a bit of one. And then this one, Newman's Own Source. Remember Paul Newman? This is the story of Newman's Own Source is quite interesting. He started it with a writer called A. E. Hotchner, who

was a, who was Hemingway's biographer. And they,, in some barn that Paul Neumann, they thought well we're constantly talking about salad dressing. We make it, we bottle it for all our friends. They're constantly talking about salad dressing. Yeah. Hodgson's very funny about it. It's like he would ring me the whole time just wanting to talk about salad dressing. I was like, we've got to do something with this. Anyway, so they make this sauce, they give it to some friends, everybody loves it. They keep talking about it and he's like, okay, let's think how we do this. Martha Stewart sets up a sort of blind taste test with proper judges. It's

all done by the book. Everyone puts this Newman's own sauce, which is a salad dressing, I think the first one they do first. And then apart from two who put it as second. So they're like, okay, fine. So they become a company that day. They make a million in their first year. Poor Newman didn't want his face anywhere on it. If you've actually seen the bottles of it, because it was a mass produced item. Again, this is a bit, it went into every American supermarket. And he was, and he was like a proper big A list, scarcity value star. I mean, unbelievable.

But he, and one, you know, one of the great movie stars, but he hated what he called noisy philanthropy. So he said, I don't want to be on this. And he didn't even want them to put a hundred percent of profits, which is still that they still all go to charity. Oh, do they? Okay. I don't know. I smash kitchen's profits. The whereabouts of them have not been specified. So I think they perhaps go to Glen Power and his business partners. But anyway, Fair enough. It's a traditional way to do business. But even back then they were inventing all the stories on the packaging. So there was

a thing that he said, there was a organic pretzels and it said, my daughter, I had to forfeit my house to my daughter when she came up with a better, I said, you couldn't come up with an organic pretzel and she did and I had to give her my house. And the daughter's like, yeah, no, that's not true. And then he said, some of them were stupid. I was like, I bought this spicy pasta sauce back myself from hell. Yeah. So there was one.

I remember, I remember for, for, for my book, the world cup of everything, I was doing chain restaurants and I was looking into Frank and Benny's, I love doing things like that and the Frank and Benny's menu is all kind of, and Francisco and Benedicto came over from Napoli in the 1920s and I sort of looked him up and it was established in Leicester in 1995 or something. Yeah, tell me actually what, tell me I'd like to know a lot more about Jack Daniel's hollow than is on the posters. Every time I'm signing on a tube platform and I read about like, I'm like, yeah, I'd

love to visit. I'd be like a horrible facility. Every branch should start. It was 2021 when two venture capitalists had noticed that Takeda was doing particularly well and they thought, how can we elbow into this market? It's that sweet zip in private equity. Yeah, well, okay, but Glenn Powell is the source. This is what I'm trying to say to you, that he is trying to be a mass market. So I find it absolutely hilarious that of all the, and also just that actors have to talk like that nowadays, which

I just find genuinely hysterical. Shall I tell you why I think it is? Because back in the day, they could be paid $20 million a movie. Yeah. And Glenn knows that because he's gone on the Expendables 3. And what do you think he's on a movie? Eight? Yeah. Something like that. Maybe less.

So he's got to think, how do I make $12 million a year? I'm just literally thinking I'm in a business where it used to be I would be paid $40 million a year. I'm just literally thinking I'm in a business where it used to be I would be paid 40 million dollars a year and currently being paid 18 million dollars a year. So I feel 22 million dollars. But he sells it. He sells it. I believe every single word about this story. He's from the great state of Texas. He's not part of Hollywood. All of it actually contributes to the same overall brand. So whoever is Glenn Powell's sort of brand Supremo, and there'll be about 50 of them on a team.

That's another thing. You've got to pay those people. So whoever's creating the world of Glenn Powell, it was around about 2023 when three brand consultants working for Glenn Powell have the bright idea that he could get into this agency, one of the, you know, please, is it any story about sauce from your childhood? Just anything at all? You go, I think once I mixed up a couple of sauces at home and I got in trouble.

Yeah. That's so you invented your own sauce. I did two sachets. I guess so. Exactly. The occasion I would put mustard and ketchup, like from the same thing on the same burger. So you made sauces. But his aim is quite simply to change every single kitchen staple and they're

going to have others. There's going to be more. I am here for every second of this rollout across Walmart and hopefully across the Atlantic Ocean. Actually, I'm going to America in early June and if you don't think I'm bringing back some Glen Powell sauce. You're going to America? Yeah, I'm going to New York. Will it be available by Coasterly? I'm not sure because it's available in Walmart but I'll see if I can find one in Manhattan. By the way, like they're going to let you in. Have you any recommendations? I do interior design masters. I started BBC one with Anne and Cara, Michelle, a Gundahin.

And I just it's just a well made show where someone gets kicked off every week, but you get to see lots of interior design and you can get to go. That radiator is absolutely going to see you on Michelle's sofa. I'm so sorry. It's just, it's a really lovely bit of TV. The sort of thing that, the sort of thing we're going to miss in a few years time. So let's, let's, let's enjoy it while we can. Thank you very much. It was a lot of fun. Thank you. It was lovely. We will be back with a questions and answers episode on Thursday. And also if you're a part of our membership club,

which you can join by signing up to therestisentertainment.com, we have part two of our two part series on the Island of Dr. Moreau, one of the most catastrophic film productions of all time. The first episode was so ridiculous, I can't wait for the second one. If it was so ridiculous,

I think we're putting a little two minute teaser at the end of this episode. If you keep listening, you might have to listen through some ads, but it's a couple of minutes of a free Island of Dr. Moreau material. Lunacy, pure lunacy. Other than that, we will see you on Thursday. See you on Thursday, everyone. See you on Thursday. Anyway, the ultimate costume that Brando ends up wearing in this is one of the most iconic, ridiculous costumes you'll ever see committed to cellulite. But actually, once he commits, they think, oh, hang on, while Brando's doing this, he's

this Richard Stanley guy, we don't really care. So they try and, behind Richard Stanley's back, they offer it to Roman Polanski, obviously who is living in Europe because he can't go back to the United States because he's been convicted of statutory rape. But you know, this is Hollywood. Yeah, fugitive. He's a safe pair of hands. But Richard Stanley finds out about this and he thinks, okay, he is clever. So he thinks I can see the only way I can get this to happen because it's all about Marlon Brando, is if Brando likes me. So he says, I want a face-to-face meeting with Marlon Brando, and he also-

Just from the neck up. Yeah, just from the neck up. And he also gets a warlock to place a protective spell over this project. That's such a good idea. As I say, Richard Stanley is it, yeah, I know. I mean, you do that for every series of House of Games anyway, but back in those days,

it was relatively innovative. Anyhow, so Stanley gets to go and meet Marlon Brando. They sit down and he sort of charms him and he says, by the way, Wells did say that he didn't base Dr. Moreau on Colonel Kurtz, blah blah. He based him on this explorer, the South African explorer Henry Morton Stanley, which reveal Richard Stanley is the great grandson of. Brando's like, right, this is destiny. Yeah, that's a good one. Fine, fine.

That's clever. It'd be amazing if he wasn't. Yeah. Yeah, what a play. But Brando's like, okay, that's it. I will do it with this guy and no one else. So anyway, we should talk about the warlock just briefly because I said something about warlock and then I just moved on.

Now the warlock, Richard Stanley's mother is very into witchcraft, the occult, all that sort of stuff. Now Edward James Featherstone aka Skip, not a classic warlock name, but maybe what do I know? Because Skip the Warlock. Yeah, he practices something called invisible mending, which is not the same thing. They'll charge you a lot of money to do some actual what I regard as witchcraft for making mending a hole in your jumper or something. You wouldn't know it ever been torn. No, but Polanski is off the project.

So are you saying that the spell didn't work? I don't know. I'm just making connections. As they say nowadays, I'm just asking questions. Just asking questions. I'm just asking questions. So Richard Stanley's back on board and it all looks good again.

Because of the warlock. Because of the warlock. And lying about being the great grandson of Henry Morton Stanley. Which just for the benefit of our readers, he actually is. He actually is. Well that wraps up another episode of The Rest is Entertainment bought to you by our friends at Sky.

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