The Rest Is Entertainment - Eurovision Secrets & New Doctor Who

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

It was Eurovision at the weekend so Richard & Marina reflect on all that happened plus Richard provides some excellent trivia. The Fall Guy had an average box office opening weekend, does it reflect the current health of Hollywood and the star power of Ryan Gosling & Emily Blunt? Lastly Doctor Who returned with Ncuti Gatwa as the new Doctor and the first taste of the BBC & Disney co-production.... how will this impact the franchise in the future? Twitter: @restisents Instagram: @restisentertainment YouTube: @therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Recommendations: Marina - William Goldman - Adventures In The Screen Trade (read) Richard - The Sixth Commandment / Black Ops (iPlayer) 🌏 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

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Buy it today at major retailers. Hello and welcome to another edition of The Rest Is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. me, Richard Osmond. Hi Marina. Hello Richard, how are you? I'm really well. We've got so much to talk about this week. We have a huge amount. We have Eurovision, which we spent together. We did. More on that later. More on that later. We have the possible collapse of the movie industry. We will filter it through the prism of the Fall Guy. Yeah. And we also have Doctor Who, the return of Doctor Who. And of course it is now a Disney show. Yeah. Not just a BBC show, it's a Disney show and that tells us lots of interesting things about the industry and whether that's a good deal for the BBC, a good deal for Disney and a

good deal for viewers. We shall find out. Quite right. Well we won't find out but we'll give our opinions on it. We'll get close to the bottom of it. We will approach the bottom of it with a scraper. Every week is an approach to the bottom. Exactly, talking of which, last week we spoke about the wonderful Clarkson's Farm. Yes, which we love.

It continues to do unbelievable numbers on Amazon Prime. I'd said during it that there's some artifice in it in that Jeremy Clarkson is making jam using a Henry Hoover to hoover up BlackBreeze and then making this jam himself. I said, but there's no way he did that himself. The man himself, Jeremy Clarkson, got in touch and said he did indeed make all that jam himself with the aid of a single Henry Hoover and made £230 profit on it. So Jeremy, I apologise. Thanks for dialling in. Thanks for dialling in. We talked briefly didn't we about having a taste test between Jeremy Clarkson's jam and Meghan Markle's jam, but we can't get hold of any of Meghan Markle's jam. No, because that's

a prestige product as you know, a limited edition product of which there are only as far as we know 50 jars. None of her friends have put it on eBay, I guess because she put a number on it. So gutting isn't it? Yeah. I know the guys at The Rest Is History got their pot each, but none of the rest of us. Do you know what, by the way? Also, we made several allegations against The Rock, and he has not been in touch. And that speaks volumes, I think.

Well, he's quite lazy, is one of the allegations. Yeah. And he literally, do you know what? I'm going to email those guys. Ah. Can't be arsed. Can't be arsed. I've got reps to do.

He'll get around it. He'll get around to it in a few weeks. Eurovision. Eurovision. Yeah. It's been described as the most political and chaotic Eurovision. Politics and chaos are two things we hate. Yeah, no thanks.

Tell us how it panned out. We came round to your house, which was delightful for a Eurovision party. I was worried people wouldn't take Eurovision seriously enough, but it was fine. People were taking notes and what have you, which is what I like to do. Ingrid likes to keep score. She was glad that people were keeping score. Your kids were terrific. They probably entered into it.

They didn't get bored. They understood the importance of whether the Croatian song is better than the Swiss song and so on. Yeah. So we were in absolutely safe hands. Now let's get onto the actual contest itself in a moment, but it started with the controversy of certain contestants thinking Israel should be banned from the from the Eurovision Song Contest, the Dutch contestants then being disqualified for an

altercation backstage with a member of the crew. Yeah, if you were just watching this on Twitter, you would think it was an absolute nightmare. And obviously another part of the run-up, the weeks ahead, was many, many of the acts being pressured not to take part because Israel was being included. And I suppose the argument that Russia was excluded after the invasion of Ukraine. I thought the online campaign against some of these artists was totally vicious. And whilst we can talk about cultural boycotts quite a bit, but I don't think that being in Eurovision, if you're sort of like a young act and you're not like some megastar rich, it's not the same as,

I don't know, playing Sun City in the 80s, where lots of rock stars maybe broke the cultural sanctions against South Africa. It's not the same as kind of sting going taking a million to do at some Uzbek tyrants birthday party or wedding or whatever the ones he's done are. I've felt that some of the pressure on them was really extreme and I'm wondering whether it was slightly one of those campaigns that seems extremely important online and actually as you say in real life life, it has overestimated its purchase. It's a tricky one because Eurovision, like an awful lot of brands, and this is the problem with brands, when they lean into saying, the thing about us is we are all about peace.

We're all about inclusivity. As a brand, as a pair of trainers, we are about world peace. And as soon as corporations do that, and lots of them do, you then have to put up with people saying to you, well, listen, this goes against that. If you never set yourself up as a moral arbiter, you do what you want. If you just say, look, we're the ultimate display of pan-European kitsch with an arcane scoring system that you absolutely should fully get behind and some of the most hilarious

staging you will ever see and I have to say my favorite entry was Finland, Windows 95 man, a man who can either sing nor dance. And well, I mean, the singer could actually sing, but the extraordinary leaping around sort of, sort of like a Bez figure, was he? I mean, he was not actually, as far as I can work out, operational within the band at all. Was he, he didn't actually have a role

other than kind of general loon and I hugely enjoyed every moment of his lunacy. Well, that's it. Once we were there. So, you know, I genuinely, I just listened to Talk Sport on the way in and Jeff Sterling's very anti Eurovision. He was having none of it. We caught a bit of it, Jeff, and we're saying this is tripe and about a very few people in my love of Jeff Sterirling. But Jeff, listen, come on. It's genuinely wonderful entertainment. Eurovision always has been. I've loved it since the mid 70s. I've always adored it. But the finest moment of my career

was reading out the votes for the UK jury a few years ago. Oh my God. It's the best thing I've ever done in my entire life. It's been downhill since then. Oh my God, it's been downhill. Do you know what? Weirdly, it was downhill all the way to there and it's been downhill all the way since. So that was amazing. I've got to say, this is London calling here with the votes of the United Kingdom jury.

I mean, I had to stand completely stock still in a very dark warehouse near Heathrow for about nine hours before I did that 15 seconds of uh... Well it's like being extraordinarily rendered by the CIA isn't it? It's like you've gone to a black site. It's like being extraordinarily rendered by the EBU. It's exactly what it was.

Here's the thing, on that they said right you have to write down exactly what you're going to say. It has to be exactly 15 seconds long and you rehearse it for them like five or six times during the day. There's lots of run-throughs you have to say um hello this is London calling, um, good evening, Sweden, good morning, Australia, wherever you are. And here are the, here are the votes. So it's absolutely, you're only allowed to say that. And then you watch it on the night and they're all, they're all going off script.

You know, they go to like Moldova and they're, you know, they do like a tight 20 about something and I thought I could have really, I could have outlined some of my political views. Yeah. There's all sorts I could have done but you know what because I'm a producer yeah I've read the lines I told him I was going to read because you've got code but anyway that was the best thing I ever did so I absolutely love Eurovision I'm sorry when I think about the great sort of dignified protest moments of various cultural bike or sport or even to be sporting whatever you're thinking of like you know John Carlos and Tommy Smith on the podium at the next day and Peter Norman actually the Australian who back then at the 68 Mexico Olympics and they've got their arms raised and their heads

bad and all of that I mean Euro Papa pretending to fall asleep at a press conference no thanks go home is that what he did? Yeah. What I do think is quite interesting is the public vote and how Israel and Ukraine really snuck in on that inside rail. I don't know, I don't wish to be a conspiracist, but one thing I would say about them, they both as countries have very good cyber operations. Okay. And obviously, if the UK also has probably quite good cyber operations. Okay. And obviously, you know, if the UK also has probably quite good cyber operations, and if we wanted to,

I think the vote itself, the public vote, is open to manipulation. I don't want to say that it was at all because, but I, please don't write in on this particular subject, but I'm just saying that it's possible. I honestly think, well, I'll get onto that because there's a really interesting thing about the running order of Eurovision,

which people I don't think know. But in terms of the public vote, I think this is the situation. Let's say there's a pro-Israeli vote and an anti-Israeli vote. The anti-Israeli vote, of course, is split 24 ways because there are other countries competing against them. The pro-Israeli vote all goes to one country, which is Israel. So actually, you would expect them to get an awful lot more votes in the public. If there is a schism

Even if only a small amount of people are pro-israel They're still going to get quite a lot of public votes because all of that vote goes to one country So I think that explains the Israeli votes. Explain the moon landings then because why is the flag blowing in the air Richard? Why? Leave me to my conspiracy, okay? That's true. Yeah So yeah, so I think that about that, but definitely there are ways you can manipulate

the result of the Eurovision Song Contest. Now, for years and years and years, Oli Alexander reference, for years and years and years, there were, it was completely random, the draw of who goes where in the Eurovision Song Contest. So you pick numbers out of a hat. Now, famously, if you perform later

in the Eurovision Song Contest, you're much, much, much more likely to win. So out of 24 countries, I think 17th is the average starting position of a winning country. My God, I love this. The last 20 years, in the last 20 years, only three songs that have appeared in the first 10 songs, only three have won. And those appeared in positions nine, ten and ten and lots by the way from 20 onwards including this year which was Switzerland who went in 21st position. Now something that's changed this year the producers now have

much more say on the running order so bits of it are drawn out of a hat but the producers have their own choice as to who goes where in the running order. So very late on in the running order here, Switzerland, Croatia and France, all of which were big favorites with viewers already, all of which were countries who had said to the EBU, we're very, very happy to host Eurovision again next year. So they were all very, very... So there is a conspiracy, but it's Big Producer rather than the equivalent of the CIA. Yeah but Big Producer is the equivalent of the CIA. I've worked in the industry a long time.

They've got an office at Langley, it literally has it on the door. Exactly that. So most of what the producer is doing by the way is making sure that ballads, you know, it's not four ballads in a row and stuff like that. So the argument that producers should be allowed to choose the order of the entries is that you get a decent running order and you get a very smooth running order and the Swedes are the absolute geniuses that Krista Borgman, who is the producer this year and has been for a few years, he's very good at getting that flow. But definitively, he knows what we know, which is Ukraine went number two two Switzerland went number 21 Ukraine and not gonna win. No one's ever won from number two ever in the entire

70 odd year history of Eurovision No one's ever won and Ukraine by the way would not particularly want the mantle of hosting Eurovision next year either So he's gets a he gets a great big favor out on second place, but that is not going to win So he knows that for a fact and And later on, he's got Croatia, Switzerland and France, the big favourites all in one place. Interestingly, puts Israel in sixth, which is sort of nothing. If you know what I mean, it's certainly not a place you put a song if you wanted it to win, or if you wanted to highlight it, or if you wanted it to be a big deal. But where you go in that running order will almost certainly define where you finish at the end, is the truth. So you'll see it next year. If you win from that top

ten you're doing an incredible job. I love knowing this. And the producers now have an awful lot more control over that. Someone else who was at your lovely Eurovision party was the brilliant music writer Pete Paphidis. His book Broken Greek, if you've not read it, is terrific and I was thinking what if I'm the geekiest person here and then I saw Pete just making so many notes. With a borrow and paper! I loved it. Honestly I was in my tribe and we were talking about how to win it and you know the last two times we've won it, one was Katrina in the Waves with Love

Shine a Light. And that was a song that was written for a charity in Swindon. It was literally written for an advert. This is all Pete told me, all of this. He takes credit for all of this stuff. Written for a charity in Swindon and Jonathan King said to Katrina in the Waves, have you got any songs? And the drummer said, what about that song we did? So that one. And before that, Making Your Mind Up, which is based on a hook that the writer had written for a sanitary towel advert. And a fellow writer said, there's something in that.

There's something in that. And that became Making Your Mind Up. So if you want to scientifically work out how to write a European number one, it's impossible because those are your predecessors. So I think you have to take it seriously. I think you have to love it. And I think you just have to wish for a bit of luck. But every year people say, I can fix this.

I know how to do it. And honestly, if you said last year how to fix it, you go, why don't we put Olly Alexander in with a disco banger and incredible staging? That should do it. So if that's not gonna do it, it's very difficult to work out what is other than something out of left field like Sam Ryder. Yeah. But it'd be

lovely just, it'd be nice to, you know, just be in amongst it. I mean look at Ireland. We wouldn't have chosen Ireland's song Bambi Thug, you know. I thought that was so extraordinary because honestly within our lifetime Ireland was sort of a theocracy really. But really, I mean apparently being represented by a sort of Satanist. This, or a witch, she's, I believe she may be a witch, sorry, there was a pentavarate on the, or whatever, a pentagon, you know, that was one of those on the floor. There's a lot of crossover between those worlds. Yeah, I think, you know, they're kissing cousins as it were, but anyway,

it was something to behold as usual. It was, and you know, the way it's been reinvented in the last 20 years, Eurovision has slightly fizzled out as a phenomenon. Certainly in the UK it had ratings were way down and now it's huge again. It was eight and a half million on Saturday night. I imagine top 10 million by the time everyone's done. So it's a huge show. It's a wonderful kind of celebration of things and I do think that the controversy, the Israel controversy, at least it's been aired for the last week. At least we're hearing people's opinions and people's views and

people are arguing about it. At least it's a big cultural moment where we are discussing important things in the world. I do think that Eurovision has overreached. It's just a song contest. That should be their slogan for next year. Did you want to talk very briefly about block voting? Yes, please. Which is the thing whenever you talk about Eurovision people go I know it's all it's too political and it's all kind of when you look into it there's proper big big academic studies into it. I mean yeah you know online you can see masses of this stuff. Have gone crazy and

you know definitely doesn't help the UK because nobody votes for us. Cyprus and Greece are the biggest two sort of circle jerjerkers. Yeah. I would say it's usually 12 and 12. Moldova and Romania as well, Russia and Belarus when they're Russia and the Nordics is the big the Nordics is you know Sweden, Denmark and Norway always do very well and they always vote for each other. Sorry the Swedish entry were Norwegian. I'm putting it out there. I know right. I'm gonna call for a stewards inquiry, but, or I'm sorry, if they'd won I would. That's because it's the Eurovision Song Contest,

not the Eurovision Singer Contest. So as long as the song is Swedish. Ah, okay, okay. That's how they get away with that. It's just a song contest, not the singer contest. The way I would fix it, I would say you nominate three other countries that every country's not allowed to vote for.

So you would say, for example, Cyprus,, you would say obviously you can't vote for yourself, also you can't vote for Greece. Yeah. You know, maybe just one, maybe just pick one country that they can't vote for. All right, what about the geography of Eurovision? I'm not a great big fan of the inclusion of Australia, I have to say. In general? You boycotted home and away for years. Yeah, I love him anyway. I will not buy a Danny Monogue album, Marina's always saying. I'm not sure that Australia should be in Eurovision. Okay. And obviously there are a lot of people who think maybe Russia and Israel and some of

those kind of more peripheral, arguably not European places. Well that's the thing, and the people have said that forever, it's not the European song contest, it's the European Broadcasting Union, which includes lots of Middle Eastern countries. Eurovision, a vision of what Europe could be if it wasn't what it is now. So North African countries are very welcome to enter, Middle Eastern countries are as well. By and large, they boycott because of Israel and always have, but the last time one of the North African countries was in it was 1980, I think, when Israel weren't in it and Morocco entered in that year. I was gonna say was

it Morocco? Yeah and they haven't since so it's the European Broadcasting Union and that includes other countries so it's not crazy the countries outside Europe are doing it. Australia I think is just because Eurovision is quite expensive to put on which is why the Big Five get put straight through to the final because they essentially kind of fund the whole thing And I think Australia loved Eurovision so much and Australia had some money they could put into it as well. And you know, Australia, they're virtually the same as us, aren't they? The Australians. And so yeah, I think they came in because it felt like A, they wanted to, and B, they had some money. So like a poker game at your

friend's house. More than Maria. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, that was pretty fun. Shall we now go to a break, Richard? Okay. Want visibly glowing skin in 14 days? With new Olay Indulgent Moisture Body Wash, you can lather and glow.

The 24-hour moisturizing body wash is infused with vitamin B3 complex and has notes of rose and cherry crème for a rich, indulgent experience. Treat your senses with new Olay Indulgent Moisture Body Wash. Buy it today at major retailers. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMAGE, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness

and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. Welcome back everybody. Now we're going to go on to cinema and The Fool Guy, which came out a couple of weeks ago in the US and it's become slightly symbolic of a worry that the UK and US movie industry now has. The Fall Guy is a sort of action comedy starring Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling, who by the way were

in the two sort of biggest films of last year, Oppenheimer and Barbie respectively. They were not the leads in those and we will come to that later. As you say, it came out on Memorial Day. Now Memorial Day is one of the big big weekends for movie release in the States. Now The Fall Guy, this movie cost they say it cost 130 million dollars. I reckon it cost a bit more than 130 million. The stunts are very expensive. Sorry we should say originally it is based on some IP which is the original Fall Guy TV series. From the 80s? From the 80s, very early 80s. I don't know it's a Glenn A. Larson series I'm gonna come back to him later because he's one of my absolute TV heroes. But say it cost about 150

million and a big part of that is star salaries. They're then gonna have to spend another hundred million to market this thing. So in order for this movie to break even, you need to make $250-300 million at the box office. Opening weekend is a huge part of that. And they would have hoped for 45-ish, I would have thought, maybe plus, and they got 28 million. That is not enough because they have actually been quite lucky in that it's held, it's been quite sticky and it did alright the second weekend, not too bad, not too much of a die

off because normally there's a die off so you really need it to be big on opening weekend. But it wasn't. Now it might just eke out a profit. As I say, these are two movie stars who've come off the biggest things of last year and they talked about it in their interviews Emily Brunton Ryan Gosling This is now the big narrative you hear so much. We are about movies that get people to go to the cinema We are about theatrical release. We're about big studio movies We want everyone to turn up and you know movies are a uniting experience all this sort of stuff

And this one by the way is very emblematic because it's not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe It is not a sequel to a Pixar thing, it's one of those good old fashioned, here's two movie stars in an original script, although based on something that has male and female appeal, if this doesn't hit big, then what is gonna hit big? Yeah, if we can't make it with this, then what can we make it with?

So this is perhaps why it's caused quite a shiver in Hollywood that's already shivering. I would argue there are issues with this. Let's talk about the stars first okay. You've got Ryan Gosling. Now I said on this podcast a few weeks ago that he was a B movie actor. I was sort of mildly joking, but what I'm saying to you is can this guy open a movie? And it's very interesting. This is not the first time Ryan Gosling has played a stuntman because he played a stuntman in Drive which is much more of like an early Ryan Gosling movie in that it's varn, it's brutal, it's kind of you know it's not some big mainstream big studio movie it's a fantastic movie I love it by the way

but his screen persona now seems to have evolved into this I felt he was playing Ken in a way again. By the way, I absolutely loved this movie. It's a proper treat which puts those figures into... I caveat this but carry on. So I absolutely loved it. But yeah, from the moment he appears on screen there is Shadow of Ken for sure. Now, I would have thought that actually that sort of Shadow of Ken is probably quite a good thing because people liked Ken and people want more Ken. But I don't think that persona's got legs. I worry that Ryan Gosling's got to that stage in his career where he's thinking, I want to make movies that my kids can see. Whenever an actor says that, I always get really worried. I always think, why don't

you spend time with your kids and make movies that we want to see? Because, but don't you think that? That you hear it all the time. It's like, I don't really care. This is not, your childcare is not my issue. Could you please? please anyhow. So let's, let's go on now to Emily Blunt, who I really like as an actor. I love her. I really like her screen. Well, I love that screen persona she has where she's quite buttoned up, but underneath it, you know, there's huge mischief, but she's slightly frustrated and harassed because she's got to hold it together because other people aren't stepping up. And this is why she can sort of play Mary Poppins in a way why she can play Kitty Oppenheimer, these really different roles. But she was in the biggest movie of, second biggest movie of last year. Oh, actually, we're

not counting Super Mario Brothers, and I'm not, even though I should do. She was in Oppenheimer, but she's not the lead in Oppenheimer. And that is really a Christopher Nolan film. And that's the marquee that you'll get. That's what people are turning out for. He is opening the movie. Christopher Nolan, unusually for a director, is opening the movie. Sometimes it's a brand, Marvel opens a movie. If you look at her big openings,

things like Jungle Cruise, that is based on a ride. Maybe people are turning up for the Disney ride, but they're turning up for The Rock. He has opened that movie and maybe The Ride has opened it. So- Sorry, is The Ride your nickname for Jack Whitehall? The Ride. Always, always. He was super in it by the way. But can anybody open a movie these days?

Well that's the question. Because that's the era we just come from, you know, Stallone, Stamford, Sondag Bullock. I'll tell you who can open a movie. Okay, what about, I'll tell you something else that's also in theatres now. Also these people are to be, they're younger than me, but you know, Ryan Gosling's 43, Emily Blount is 41. I remember being 41. Yes. That's a long time ago.

I like the fact that someone who's much younger than me is now much too old. Yes, but I mean, this is the reality. Kevin Liger at ITV often says, if there's not a young person on the screen, a young people are not gonna watch that particular thing. And I think there's something to that in movies. screen, young people are not gonna watch that particular thing. And I think there's something to that in movies.

I'll tell you who can open a movie, Zendaya, Challenges is out at the moment. Now that is obviously a much smaller budget movie, that probably cost 50 million, and probably 10 to 15 of that was for her. This is easily going to make its money. I'll tell you who can open a movie, Timothée Chalamet, oh my God, that guy can open it.

And he's so like Bigfoot, one of the last people who can open a movie, Timothy Shalomer, oh my god, that guy can open it. And he's so, he's so like, you know, Bigfoot, one of the last people who can do it. Yeah. He actually pulled off in the last eight months, the number one and two movies at the box office, which were, uh, Wonka and June Two. And he is basically the star of both of those. Now you can see why Warner Brothers have tied him up with a big first look deal because that guy can open a movie without any question. Yeah, June and June 2 are not gimmies in terms of box office. No, they're not. This is definitely

going to do 100 million in its opening weekend and they both did and June 2 was much, much, much bigger. Oh, that's interesting. So you think because you think perhaps that other generation, perhaps now we have to go down a generation, we have to go down into people in their 20s to really open movies. Yeah, but we talked when we talked about the biggest people who are earning money and a lot of them are getting it from streaming, which is fine, but movie stardom has become very old. Yeah.

You know, the people who are still regarded as people who can open a movie are in many cases much, much older than they ever were. It's fine, but is it the future? Can we talk now about the IP? Because I think that is a really interesting part of all this. And by IP, I know we've talked about it before, that's intellectual property, which is any movie that's based on something that pre-exists, whether it's a book or an old TV show or a

toy or anything. So this is based on the 80s TV series, The Fall Guy, which to me is like a real, well, I'm going to make you rank some properties from that exact time. Because that was not a bit, that was, I mean, I was very much, that was my era. It was not a big show. It was a perfectly acceptable show and everyone remembers the theme tune, the Unknown Starman. Lee Majors was in it and he was a big star, but yeah. Who turns up in the credits to this, so if you're watching the film, stick around to

the end. But yeah, it wasn't one of the big shows. Okay, can you please rank for me? The Fool Guy, Magnum P.I., The A- A-Team. Oh no. Night Rider. Yeah. And I'm just going to chuck it in for a laugh. Airwolf. It's going to be an easy five. Okay. That might be the first time I've ever heard Neil, our producer, go, yes! Big Airwolf fan. Neil, I mean that explains a lot of the vibe of this show, isn't it? Is knowing that the producer's a big Airwolf fan. Okay, interesting. So Fall Guy, Magnum P.I Magnum PI, 18 Night Rider, Airwolf. I'm

gonna put Airwolf fifth yeah sorry Neil of those five Fall Guy has to be fourth there's no way with you however it's got a great premise for a movie because it's about Stuntman yeah okay third you're gonna say Magnum yes second I'm gonna say Night Rider and first the 18Team. They remade the A-Team though, didn't they? Yeah, and that Liam Neeson can open a movie. Yes. Bradley Cooper, who was not quite yet Bradley Cooper, but he is now. Now that did badly. You know, when you, I can I just say that I was going to give my little shout out to Glen A. Larson. He was the original fall guy, the guy who created it. He also created Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider,

Buck Rogers, Magnum, Quincy. This guy is like, that is the, I think that must be one of the biggest run of hits ever in the history of television. He is an incredible guy. That's pretty good going. It's really amazing what he did. It's like the Steven Lambert of the 80s. Yeah, if you can imagine. So what's happened in this situation is that some studio executives said, oh yeah, this is a beloved IP, The Fall Guy. And you're thinking, it's more of a fig leaf. People say this all comes with a built-in audience. Could you please show me your market

research for this? Because I don't honestly believe that The Fall Guy comes with a big built-in audience. No, zero. But so much about movie making. It's all a gamble, nobody knows anything, we know this, but is people convincing each other to sort of say let's all hold hands and jump together? And any movie to get off the ground is sort of like a table that needs four legs, right? And you know, and Emily Blunt is a leg, Ryan Gosling is a leg, and oh we used to watch this on TV when we were kids, is a leg.

You're not thinking, hold on that leg doesn't look all that firm. That leg's made of jelly. It's just a leg, because you think please give me another leg. And then you know the fact that what it's about, which is a huge stunt movie, which is sort of a real celebration of the stunt artist's art. You were both in Barbenheimer, you know all of this stuff. So there's four, there's your legs. You've got ten dodgy legs.

But what I'm saying in that analogy is the fact that it is pre-existing in IP is just a leg amongst many others that perhaps you're not quite concentrating on quite so much. And I'll say again, I absolutely loved, I genuinely love this film. It's like, see how it's hard to market because it's a love story, it's an action thing. And if you can absolutely get a movie that is a big love story and a big action movie, then everyone in the world is gonna watch it. However, it's very, very hard to balance on that pinprick, I would say.

The one thing all the way through, I was thinking the only thing that is gonna top this, the thing I hope beyond all hope at the end of this movie, the post credits thing is the real stunts they did in this movie with the real stunt people played over the unknown stunt man, the original song from the Fall Guy. And it's exactly what they did at the end of the movie. And it's an absolute joy.

So I would say go and watch it. But so box office in the US this year is down 23%, 22, 23%, which is very, very serious, because obviously post pandemic, you need to see a sort of uplift. So Hollywood has got the gist. There's a couple of big movies coming out in the next few weeks, which again are not sort of those IP based ones. So IF is coming out, which is that Ryan Reynolds,

the other Ryan and John Krasinski. From the mind of John Krasinski, as the trailer says. Yeah, exactly. He's gone elevated now to something which is his ideas are described as from the mind of John Krasinski. So if that gets over 30 million odd then it will settle Hollywood's jitters. Mad Max comes out after that, that would need to do about 50 million. I'm calling that, I don't think it will.

Oh really, but last week Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes came out and that did 56 million. People really like that. Yeah, which is what all its previous ones have pretty much have done as well. So there's signs that people will still go to the cinema, but why have people fallen out of love with going to the cinema, do you think? Well, they've fallen out of the habit. It's very expensive. I'll tell you what has gone is that idea of that you'll go in and see what's on and watch that. Every screen showing may be the same thing. I think actually that franchise moviemaking, whilst seeming to

be almost like a form of investment banking for quite a large part of the last 15 years, has eaten the rest of cinema and now that's not working and they just don't have any other ideas. Well that's what I think. I think if you are not a huge fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or you know, and by the way most people aren't, enough people are to make it very very profitable. And by and large actually only about 15% of the UK population or the US population would describe themselves as moviegoers so it's not many people if you talk about movies on pointless or something like that people don't really know anything

about films yeah so people who know about them know a lot so you've got 15% of people anyway if you've got half of those people are not really interested the Marvel Cinematic Universe it means for the last three or four, there's been an awful lot less for them to watch because you certainly go to a multiplex and a lot of the screens are taken up with those huge ... Well for the last 15 years there's been not so much for them to watch. And as you say, habit is one of the most important things in culture. People get out of the habit. Can I tell you what I would do if I owned a cinema?

Yes please. If I owned a cinema chain? Make a climbing wall, that's what lots of them are doing. Put TV on. Put a TV on, a big TV in the cinema. Yes, I am the cinema chain. Make a climbing wall. That's what lots of them are doing. Put TV on. Put TV on a big TV in the cinema. Yeah, I would if I was a cinema chain, I would sign big deals with TV companies, back catalogues, episodes of Friends, episodes of Doctor Who.

And I would schedule them at the same time every week. I would have just a I'd make it have a big bar. And I would say that every night you can come and watch Colombo, then you can come watch Friends. You can come in and watch The Simpsons with your mates. It's a bit more chatty than it would be just for a movie, you make it a very different environment, but you sit there with a hundred people.

People are talking in the cinema anyway, let's face it now, let's face it. Exactly, exactly. But in the same way that people will go to a cinema to watch a football match or to watch Eurovision. Or stage shows, plays that people can't afford to go and see, because it's crazy, some of these prices, theatrical things,

really do quite well in lots of places but if my local cinema was showing the Sopranos for example yeah great we'll get you go along and watch it go and watch it with other people who love it that to me would be that would be my business genuinely though if you I know you have your reservations I thought was a wonderful film as it's really entertaining there's lots of good stuff and it's funny, lots of great stunts. The two of them have great chemistry, you know, they are both actors. So whatever the box office is, I think you'll have a fun time if you go and see the full guy. And if you don't have a fun time then I apologize, but you're very much Team Marina. You know who else has got that slightly

buttoned up but actually lots of fun seething underneath personality is Kit, Knight Rider's car. Emily Blunt's screen persona and Kit's screen persona are quite similar. So Emily Blunt as Kit. He wanted Michael to press turbo boost. He did. Yeah, exactly.

Somebody's gotta be the sensible one but actually he's a huge amount of fun, Kit. That's a come and get me plea to the kit producers to say you'd like to write the screenplay. God, I didn't know how you'd start with that. I mean, it's got its own issues structurally, hasn't it? But anyway, now what are we ending on this week? Doctor Who is back.

Doctor Who is back, but a new era of Doctor Who. Doctor Who, which is now co-owned by Disney. So it opened in the UK this weekend, but also opened on Disney Plus. Aired on broadcast directly before Eurovision on Saturday night, so there was a double bill before that, so it's in that sort of tea time slot. But because of this Disney Plus deal, you could get it from, I think, midnight on iPlayer. Just so in the US you could get it in prime time.

Now Russell T. Davies, the absolute genius reviver of the show, who is now back for his second stint. And by the way, the only way that deal would have been done with Disney is because he was doing it. He is like an absolute legend. He's the Gandalf, not just because he's so tall, of our TV industry. He's not tall.

Oh, not compared to you. He is actually quite tall, but you're right. Was he five seven? I realize you're, he is very tall. So it, not compared to you. He is actually quite tall, but not, you're right. Was he 5'7"? He is very tall. So it's purely thanks to him, but I would say, in fact, I feel I can see that he was not particularly thrilled about the way it dropped on iPlayer before it aired and broadcast. So on the ratings of that, there were two episodes and they were super, one was sort of Space Babies. Yes, which is so cute.

Oh my God. And the other was about this kind of sort of satanic chord, the devil's chord, and it was about music. Which is brilliant. Which is really, really amazing. And obviously there is a new Doctor, we've seen him before, but it's Shruti Ghatwa and his first Christmas one, I think 10.1 million, watched it eventually on iPlayer, which is mega, mega, mega for iPlayer. we've seen him before, but it's Shooty Gatwick. And his first Christmas one, I think 10.1 million watched it eventually on iPlayer, which is mega, mega, mega for iPlayer.

The overnights for these two episodes were around the two and a half million mark. And obviously people will catch up on iPlayer and whatever. It would be interesting to see what the sort of combined. Yeah, it would get to about five, I suspect, by both of those episodes, which is absolutely fine. But the big question about it is really, BBC Studios used to sort of wholly own it and the BBC had a huge ownership.

It is now, the ownership is shared between the BBC, obviously Disney putting a huge amount of money so they have the rights in most other territories. We should say why they did that deal, by the way, just purely before we go on. They need to do this because the budget for the show needs to be much higher than the BBC can afford to pay in order that it can compete with those other things. Russell T Davies himself said things like the MCU or whatever. The effects, the things that need to happen are so expensive that you can't get the money enough from the BBC. Yeah, and do you know what? Even if it weren't that expensive, you can't get the money from the BBC. You couldn't get the money from ITV.

That's not how TV works anymore. On TV now you get a bit of UK money, but you need to top that out elsewhere from one of the streamers or from, you know, a foreign broadcaster. So every show is sort of deficit funded by other people. So a few years ago, when the BBC were thinking about what to do next with this, Russell T. Davis said, well,'ll gladly come back. In order to do that, the BBC signed a deal with Bad Wolf, who are a production company.

Who are amazing, extraordinary company. Incredible. And Russell said, well I'll do it, but you have to do it through Bad Wolf. Bad Wolf, by the way, part owned by Sony. So BBC have given away quite a lot of the rights to Doctor Who now. People who I talk to say they think they've given away too many of the rights. I slightly don't think so. I think they don't really have a choice. Doctor Who cannot continue if it's just a BBC alone show. The BBC are not going to get enough money in from other places if they don't give a window to a streamer somewhere else in the world. So doing a deal with Disney is very sensible.

Doing the deal with Bad Wolf is very interesting because they're giving away a lot to Bad Wolf, but that is essentially Russell T. Davis saying, you know, I'm the person who can save this. He doesn't say it like that. No, of course he doesn't. He's sort of self-effacing in lots of ways, but he is, and just a little sort of enthusiast is the TV's sort of ultimate enthusiast really. But the BBC are bright enough to understand that if they have a Russell T. Davies helm

to Doctor Who in the next sort of 10 or 15 years and he wants to build a whole Who-niverse of you know different franchises, better to own a piece of that than to own all of something which just becomes a back catalogue. So they've given away an awful lot of rights but they've opened it up to a huge new audience as well. So bigger budgets, you know, Shruti Gatwar, I think is just brilliant. And you can see him in every territory in the world. You could just see Doctor Who becoming a big franchise. Listen, it might not do, it's very hard to do. But certainly with Shruti Gatwar as the Doctor, with Russell T. Davies behind it, with the bad wolf producing it, you have an opportunity and the BBC then have an opportunity to have something which

they used to own completely, they don't really own a huge amount of now. And sell it around the world and now. But for it to be massive and you know, the halo effect of that and what it brings into the BBC and you know, suddenly they've got these deals and partnerships. The truth is though, it only works if the show is great and certainly from those first two episodes, I thought they were absolutely terrific and you know, the BBC in 10 years time is not going to be fully funding anything and this is a sort of a very, very, very big example of what the BBC's future might be. It's so interesting, my wife Ingrid

as you know was in Doctor Who. I was about to say, but you are related by marriage. Yeah, I am and Osgood who was a proper iconic character. And everywhere you go in the world, it's just fascinating that the love that she gets and how much it means to the people. And when people say Doctor Who's gone woke, you think the people have always been attracted to Doctor Who

and the people who come up and talk to Ingrid. That's always been the audience, always been a marginalized audience. It's always been people who feel slightly out of the mainstream. And that's what Doctor Who has always been the audience, always been a marginalized audience. It's always been people who feel slightly out of the mainstream. And that's what Doctor Who has always been. And just because you remember watching it with your mom and dad in 1974, doesn't mean it didn't used to be woke. It's always been about accepting differences

and about the world being bigger than you think it is. And it's such an eye-opener seeing how people are with Ingrid when they talk about Doctor Who and seeing, especially her character who's sort of very nerdy but strong and a female scientist and the sort of love she gets from it and the love that that whole franchise has. And I hope it goes on for 50 years. And I do think that this deal that the BBC have done with Disney, it may have some financial disadvantages to it, but in terms for the Doctor Who fans and for the Who-niverse, I think it's the best thing that could happen. I think

hopefully it means that Doctor Who lives and lives and lives for many more generations to come. Apart from their sort of reach, do you think Disney will have a creative influence on Doctor Who? I don't think so really, because I think the sort of Disney aesthetic is very similar to the Russell T. Davies aesthetic, which is mainstream stories told in brilliant ways. I think that Russell T. Davies already has that sensibility, that sort of Disney and Pixar sensibility. So I think actually it's rather a good marriage, but it'd be fascinating to see what the numbers are for Disney coming

in. But the UK, if the BBC are gonna get five million an episode, they'll be absolutely delighted in getting the show that looks glossy, that's much more expensive than they could afford by themselves. And it'd be lovely, by the way, if we went back to the 80s and we could all sit around and watch this thing that was fully funded and fully owned

and everyone in Britain watches the same thing at the same time. But that's not where we live anymore. And the BBC understood that much quicker than most viewers understood it. They would certainly be the BBC in charge of things like the show's compliance, the safeguarding, all those sorts of things which I'm just slightly to follow up on our Baby Reindeer discussions that we had.

Russell T. Davis did talk about it last week and he said, oh no, the BBC would have been so much stricter if they had been the producers of Baby Reindeer book, in fact it's a Netflix show as we know in Clark and Wilde films, but he said, the compliance people sort of drive us mad, but I can sleep at night, which was quite forthright, but he is a sort of Gandalf as we say, and so everyone listens, and I thought that was a very significant intervention in that particular thing, because since our discussions

the Baby Reindeer safeguarding thing has unspooled even further. Yes gosh hasn't it just and Fiona Harvey was on the Piers Morgan show which is very very uncomfortable. This is the so-called real life Martha the stalker from the show. The whole thing that is unspooling in such an unpleasant direction I would say and but it's listen it's an enormous hit it's a great piece of work as well. Yeah, the kind of long tail of it feels like it's gonna become very uncomfortable. It's interesting when you hear someone like Russell T. Davies talking about it, to think about how Netflix is, I mean, first of all,

what a lot of people don't realize is Netflix is not even regulated in the UK. They're based in Amsterdam. And so they are regulated by sort of Dutch Broadcasting Authority or whatever it's called. So Ofcom and Nox. Ofcom have nothing to do with this show or any Netflix show and they're not regulated and as for Piers Morgan Online, Uncensored or whatever it's called, I mean, no, yeah, they're definitely not being regulated, paying £250 to someone. It'd be fascinating also to see, I mean, Jessica Gunning and Richard Gad, who are the two stars of it, I suspect they'll go on to great things off the back of it, but I think some of the

rubble of it will not be forgotten anytime soon. It's much more fun to talk about Doctor Who. Yeah, far more fun to talk about the space babies. We should talk to Russell T. Davies. Yeah, we should, I mean. And then we could do a height thing back to back. Yes, okay, I will. And then we could do a height thing back to back. Yes, I will.

And I'll prove he's 5'7". He is 100% not 5'7", but he probably is shorter than you, but I don't think we can have that as the literal benchmark, can we? Only people taller than Richard will ever be interviewed on the show. That's Greg Davies. So we've got Greg Davies, and that's it. Yeah. Stephen Murchin, just so I think we're similar.

How tall is The Rock? He's like 6'5". The Rock? Yeah rock yeah he's tall isn't he after after you called the rock lazy and said he weighs in water bottles if you say every week eventually he will sue and he didn't keep saying it but he'll sue because we said he's he's short oh yeah that's why he'll sue he'll have a sort of rock physician like Donald Trump's physician he says he weighs you know yeah half what he does and is twice as tall. He's six foot and a quarter inch. Yeah.

Yeah. Really? On tiptoes. Okay I'll Google how tall the rock is after this but don't ever believe those websites by the way who tell you how tall people are in Hollywood. Yeah. Where Johnny Depp's always six foot one. No.

Jeremy Renner really six two. Jeremy Renner? I mean I'd tar over him. Very quick recommendations. I've got a recommendation for a book which perhaps lots of our listeners have read, but actually many more people haven't read it and it's a real oldie book goodie. It is William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade. It is one of the definitive books about Hollywood and what it's like working in the industry

and how his, the most famous line from it I guess is nobody knows anything and if you really want a super primer to start and reading I probably have read more books about Hollywood than things or anything else I've done in my life that is a really super one to start with if you haven't read anything like that before and it's I recommend it so I'm gonna do quite a few older recommendations not just things that currently happening going forward because then they're a good sort of primer to it all. Talking of slightly older, it was the BAFTAs on Sunday nights. So a couple of things there

if you've not seen them, Tim Spall won for the Sixth Commandment, which is brilliant if you've not seen that. I mean, it's sort of mortifyingly bleak, but in a brilliant way. Written by the brilliant Sarah Phelps. Yes, written by Sarah Phelps. So that's great. And Bemisola Okomolu won Best Female Performance in a Comedy for Black Ops, which was such, it's such a fun series. I'd really, really recommend that as well if you haven't seen it. It was on BBC One and I'm sure they'll be doing more. But if you haven't seen the first series, then watch that. Those have been my recommendations. By the way, on that height matter, we will come back on Thursday

and we will have cleared up the actual height of the rock. Yeah. So in fact, it's not, God, I mean, we're ending on a cliffhanger. I really want to end on a cliffhanger. Given that people are going to go, what should I do? Wait two days or just go on the internet and check it now. Can I literally just use the phone

that I could even be listening to this podcast on? But anyway, cliffhanger, let's go. How tall is the rock? And it's good to have a cliffhanger on a rock. Yes. I like what you've done with that. Thank you so much. See you on Thursday.

All right.