The Rest Is Entertainment - Minecraft: A Huge Mess But A Huge Hit

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Is 'A Minecraft Movie' going to be the biggest hit of 2025? Do young people know or care about The Beatles? What was the inspiration behind Charlie Brooker's seminal 'Black Mirror'? Like many parents across the world, Marina watched the Jack Black and Jason Momoa fronted Minecraft movie on the weekend. How has a video game based off chopping wood become the biggest cultural phenomenon of the 21st century? Black Mirror returns to our screens this week, but what is the secret behind Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones' continued success with the Netflix hit? Finally, we look at the news American Beauty and Bond director Sam Mendes will release four Beatles biopics in the same month - starring heartthrobs Paul Mescal, Harris Dickinson, Barry Keoghan and Joseph Quinn. But do Gen-Z even know who they are? Recommendations: Marina: The Accidental Soldier, Owain Mulligan Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club for ad free listening and access to bonus episodes: www.therestisentertainment.com Sign up to our newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producer: Joey McCarthy
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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. If you've got something specific in mind. What about that thing you were talking about the other day?

Memento Mori. It's a one-off drama. It's on BBC iPlay if you like that sort of thing. Based on the novel by Muriel Spark. Which I love. So it's got everything. The niche stuff, the mainstream stuff. It's got all the apps you like.

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 Osmond. Hello Marina. Hello Richard, how are you? Yeah, I'm not bad at all. If you had a nice week?

I've had a lovely week. Part of it was having dinner with you, which you're in Ingrid. We went out to dinner. Yes, that was very nice. But also part of it is you've been to see the Minecraft movie, but let's keep your powder dry on that because we're going to talk about it. We're talking about two very, very similar creative projects today. We're going to talk about Minecraft and we're going to talk about Black Mirror. Yeah. And also I think we're going to talk about three very similar projects and also the four Beatles movies, the four Beatles movies, which has just been revealed last week.

Listen, I love dance, I'm gonna enjoy Beatles. Shall we get straight on and talk about Minecraft because it is clear in your mind you've been to see it. Remind us. Remind me why I'm talking about it. How well you thought it was gonna do, the Minecraft movie. I'm not alone in this, but when we did our look ahead to the box office of the,

and I was trying to name the biggest movies of what I thought would be the biggest movies of 2025. I was like, oh, quite iffy on the box. I certainly didn't include it as one of the ones I think would be the biggest movies. The tracking has been so wildly off on this. The reason we're even talking about it is because it is a massive, massive hit. It's an enormous smash. It's coming against the backdrop of the worst box office since the 1990s bar the pandemic. It is an enormous, it's made like 157 million in the opening weekend in the US. It's made more than the Mario movie. It's made more than Mario.

It's like about three million off Barbie. It is, it's way beaten the inside out too. By the way, it's made 75-25 split between Warner Brothers and Legendary and it's about the fourth Warner Brothers film ever to open over 160 million dollars and they were Batman, Superman, Deathly Hallows Part 2 and Barbie. The biggest movie, video game movie opening ever. So... Now remember, because just before you were going to see it, you texted me and just said, why have you got all these old people on the posters? Okay, so I went to the 920 showing a bit at Westfield. That's 920 a.m. on Sunday morning.

You know the film's doing good business when it's got a 920 show. We weren't alone in the cinema. My children were like, there will be, I managed to persuade two of my children to accompany me. So 14 of them left at home. Yeah, in the shoe. In the shoe. And there was, and we saw the poster, my son said, and Ian's got Jack Black on it, and

he's like, oh my God, he's about 90. It's like, have some respect for the star of School of Rock and the guy who's been, you know, number two or three on the call sheet ever since. Yeah, this guy- Except for Kung Fu Panda, but it's a voiceover. This guy was number four on the call sheet of The Holiday and there was only four people in it. Come on. I don't know where you put him on Jumanji, but it's obviously not a number one. Now listen, the point- anyway, and Jason Momoa, I mean, I don't know, I mean, he's a, does he get the joke of Jason Momoa? It's sort of, it's hard to say from the film.

But I think the fact that he doesn't get the joke of Jason Momoa is the joke of Jason Momoa. Yeah, I guess, yeah, but you're never quite sure whether they do. In a way, I think Nicolas Cage perhaps does. Anyhow, Minecraft movie. People made a lot of fun about that indefinite article when that first came out. Let me assure you, this will not be the only Minecraft movie after these numbers. So another Minecraft movie? Oh yeah, another. There'll be several others. Block two.

But yeah, I mean, it's really hard to describe it other than, critically, it's been completely panned. Under 18s have given it an A on CinemaS cinema school which tells you a lot. I mean it is a genuinely it's just a constant endless loop of gibberish kind of would-be comic action sequences that my 10 year old was like why was none of that explained there was no narrative what you know what happened to their parents we were talking about orphans again why is everyone an orphan? I was like, oh, I've just done something on this. Please, if you've got questions for me, send them to the podcast.

And also, can you wait till the end of the film? But you know, in America, they religiously break down the demographics of the box office, like what in almost in real time while it's happening. So we know that 78% of the opening night box office was aged 13 to 24. I think 35% was 13 to 17. Now, again, people say, oh, they don't want to go to the cinema anymore. You know, they only watch YouTube. Okay, if you go on to YouTube, you can't watch anything without having to watch a Minecraft advert first. And I have to I mean, it's almost as if adolescents what adolescents really want to watch is not necessarily adolescents. It's this rubbish. Sorry, no offence. I watched it. It's a nice

Saturday. I can say what I like. If any of you goes in Westfield at 9.20 on a Sunday, if not, don't write in. It's funny. No one's saying, you know what? I think they should show this in schools. It's very important they show this in schools. But imagine if you're going to school and they're showing this, you'd be, oh my god, it's the best day ever at school. Yeah, it's amazing. What are they showing? Adela- Adel- what? Sorry.

So who's it? Stephen who? Sorry, written by Jack Watt? Yeah. Well, there was lots of reasons that people thought, oh, it's not going to do very well. Yeah. There was, you know, like always when they're, especially when gamers are involved, there was some sort of vocal fan opposition and people saying, oh they shouldn't have made it effectively, it is CGI but it sort of looks like it's live action, they should have done it in as animation. Bear in mind by the way this movie, this is another crucial part, it cost 150 million which is not very much. Obviously they'll have spent 100 plus on marketing

but it's not crazy. It doesn't matter really if the CGI is not great, which it isn't in lots of parts because, and it's certainly not the main problem with the film, but it doesn't matter if it isn't because, you know, how lo-fi is Minecraft? It's supposed to look like it, you know. So there was some vocal fan opposition and people sort of looked at the trailer and said, here's how I would have done it, you know, I'm building my own Minecraft trailer. And everyone's like, oh, these are so beautiful. These are great. The fans should have been allowed to make this movie have done it you know I'm building my own Minecraft trailer and everyone's like oh these are so beautiful these are great the fans should have been allowed to make this movie well you know what the fans love this movie okay yeah and also you probably wouldn't have made a hundred and fifty three million dollars in your opening weekend yeah it's with your version of it yes absolutely the other reasons

people in the industry didn't think that it would do so well is because they thought yes sure by the way it is the most popular video game of all time and it's had you know got every month they've got a hundred million 180 million players and 300 million copies sold, the guy who came up with it Marcus Person he's a billionaire quite rightly I think it's kind of a great thing though it's a wonderful thing if something's going to be the big phenomenon of someone's childhood Minecraft is so imaginative it's creative yeah it's you know that is so imaginative, it's creative. Oh God, it's so creative, yeah.

That's the fascinating thing about it. We'll get back onto the movie. But the thing I love about Minecraft is there's lots of different ways to play it. It's kind of open-ended, it uses kids' imagination, it's building stuff. It just seems like an extraordinarily useful thing to have in a child's life. It's absolutely wonderful. They're gonna watch some nonsense. And it's interesting you talking about

the amount of trailers there are for it on YouTube because the game itself became so enormous, really through the internet and through people playing it and people watching other people playing it. And the fact that you can design your own mods for this game, just the whole thing is so inathema to anything that we grew up with. We had sort of, you know, choose your own adventure. If you think you should jump in the river, go to page 17. You know, that's that was how interactive our childhood was.

This is I mean, it's extraordinary. And for anyone who kind of bemoans children sitting in front of screens, if your kid is playing Minecraft and they're really engaging with Minecraft, I mean, you couldn't have a better sort of route into life. I mean, it's extraordinary the challenges you're set and the way you have to collaborate with people and the ways that you can use your imagination. Or the way you can just use it like Lego, on screen Lego. If you're not playing in survival mode and if you're not, you survival mode or watching KSI play it, which I'm afraid I've seen an awful lot of. I've watched a lot of Mr Beast and KSI playing Minecraft. There are a lot of videos of people watching them, watching them do it.

Yeah, and funny enough in the New Thursday Murder Club book, out in September, there's a scene where someone is watching somebody watching a video on their phone and next to someone they're listening out loud on their phone as well. I went to do what happens to that person but they regret it. It's nice having a universe where you can... Just dispose of them Richard. It's nice to create your own universe which is sort of what Minecraft is. But the other lovely thing I think about Minecraft and this I think the computer games industry has hit upon this beautiful thing which we haven't quite gotten in other creative industries yet, early access model that they

have for their game. So they've nearly finished a game. They will then release it to a select group of people. We have to pay for it. But essentially they're saying, can you be our testers? Because it's quite hard with a video game, there's bugs everywhere. And people are so excited to be involved at that stage at Alpha stage or beta stage that they pay to play this game

To then send off saying oh, there's a bug here. This is a problem. This is an issue So they're doing the job of a you know a games tester, but also They are spreading the word about this thing. They're saying oh, we've got this incredible thing It's gonna be coming out this coming September, and then they still buy the thing when it comes out as well. It's such an amazing, it'd be interesting to see how you could make that work in the world of sitcom or sketch show or something like that. I suspect you could.

So it's not quite Kickstarter, it's not quite crowdfunding. It's something even more impressive than that where people really feel part of something, but are also providing an incredibly useful service to that product. So again, Anyway, enough of that because everyone just wants to hear your view of the movie at 9.20 at Westfield.

Okay. Do you know how you know cinema's in trouble? I'll tell you. And I think apart from the box office, which we're going to come to, but I think it's really interesting. One of the things I walked past on the way to the Minecraft screen, one of the other very big screens, there was a sign for a church and one of the screens is now a church on Sundays. Is it? Good day for me. Celebration church. What do you think of that? I think it's great. We know that sometimes cinemas are sort of closing down in half and becoming climbing

walls and soft place, but there was something so weird about people going into one of the screens and it being used as a church. I think that's great because what is a cinema? It's an enormous screen where you can see something and it's quite comfortable chairs. Don't say it's a religious experience. Don't say it's a religious experience. Well it sort of is. You can watch, you know, you can watch National Theatre live and stuff like that. This is just God live. Let me just download some further thoughts on that for a future episode. I think... I'm going to investigate more.

Listen, in the same way that Fulham now has a private members club so they can make money during the week, if you've got a massive screen there and loads and loads of chairs on a Sunday morning where there's only one film a year they're going to see and that's Minecraft, you might as well rent it out to a church. Okay, fine, fine. Let me think about it and let me investigate more about that church thing because I find it quite fascinating. Anyhow. But you know my view of, I think cinema should show television. That's been... I know your thoughts on this.

I mean it's crazy that they don't. I mean that to me, that's the easiest win in the whole world. Just show TV. You know, people would go crazy for it. Well you don't run cinema chains but... Not yet. You know, people would go crazy for it. Well, you don't run cinema chains, but let me tell you, not yet, but let me tell you who does run cinema chains. Okay. And this is really shows it. So maybe we should have predicted this because let's go through the top 10 box office of the whole of last year.

Right. Number one, Inside Out 2, number two, okay, Deadpool and Wolverine. Number two, Inside Out 1. Yeah. Number three, Moana 2, number two, okay, Deadpool and Wolverine. Number two, Inside Out 1. Yeah. Number three, Moana 2, number four, Despicable Me 4, number five, Wicked, number six, Mephasa, the Lion King live action spin-off, number seven, Dune, number eight, Godzilla V-Kong, number nine, Kung Fu Panda 2, Kung Fu Panda 4, sorry, and number 10, Sonic 3, okay. That's seven out of 10 straight up kids movies, right?

It also sounds like the football results. Kids run cinema chains, okay. They are keeping the lights on. And that's why we've got, when we got to the end of the last year and we were saying what looks in relatively good shape, we hope, is the family genre, because that is all, this is keeping it going, okay. So, it helps that it's become a sort of event movie, this thing in that way, you know, like the gentle minions when people put on the suits and they go and see, you know, it's been such a phenomenon. Doesn't matter how, of course, it matters how good the film is. But it's of course, if you're a kid, you are going to want to watch this film, whatever the reviews are, because it's been such a large part of your childhood. I mean, it's really like, well, and they thought, oh no, unlike Mario, which had generations of people who'd liked it, this has only got 15 years or 16 years or something. And maybe people won't go for that in the same way that you, because your parents have

got to take you in lots of cases. But as it turns out, they have. Every parent has seen an awful lot of Minecraft, has been exposed, let's say to an awful lot of Minecraft. And realize this is not the worst thing in the world. Yeah. And also kind of goes, what else are we going to be doing at 9.20 on a Sunday morning? Well, you know, because there were relatively young children in my screening, so they didn't do the TikTok trend. Have you seen what this is? Oh no, go on.

People are having to, you know, like all things, like how can I eject these people from the cinema in the same way that the gentlemenians were ejected. They scream and they throw popcorn at the trailer lines. So if a line from the movie that's been in the trailer appears, they everyone screams. So, you know, and they like to get thrown out and they film themselves being thrown out. So it has become an event movie, you know, for good or for ill, Richard. I don't know about that. Yeah, no, I know you don't know about that. Yeah no I know you don't know that. Lucky this did not occur but I could hear children all around me and

there were you know quite a few in there for 9.20. They're so excited when they see the physical version of the sort of diamond sword or whatever it is. But it is exciting. So if your favourite book is made into a movie it's exciting whatever it's like. It's just a thrill. Oh yeah but it's really weird now, which was an original, that movie Free Guy with Ryan Reynolds, which is a sort of gaming sort of fantasia, I suppose. Now during that, when they had various bits of IP sort of clashing into it, it was like, oh, there's this from Fortnite, there's that. The children in the cinema are going nuts because they can see things from games they play on the screen. So as

I say, children are keeping the lights on and everyone's saying they'll only watch YouTube or whatever. It just doesn't understand it. There'll be advertise on YouTube and then they will make you go. If it goes through their school or whatever it is, they don't want to wait till streaming. So they will make people go. Well, if you re-imagine cinema, so to us, cinema is a certain things. We grew up and there were like three movies came out a week and, you know, your mum would take you to one once a month and then where you're a bit older, you started going to see them.

Kids have not grown up with that. So what they're actually saying is, you know this thing that you love on your tiny screen at home, they have built a huge room with an enormous screen. They made it like an experience, like a live experience of it. They've got loads of chairs you can go see with all your mates and you can sit and watch it. And they go, that sounds like the greatest thing that anyone's ever invented. Oh my god, they had such expensive slushy cups with like Minecraft figures on the, you know, sculptures on the top of it. They've got the whole lot.

Can I say before we talk further culturally? That slushy cup. No, because that's piqued my interest. At a 9.20 screening of a film, is that too early? You know, like, if you go on holiday, you can have a drink at the airport. A weather spree, yeah, of course, if it's 5am. If you're at the cinema, can you have pick-a-mix or popcorn at 9.20 on a Sunday morning? I was amazed that neither of my children tried it. Maybe they just think I'm a dragon and would have said, don't be stupid, we're going out to lunch.

But maybe it's too early. We're going out to lunch because I couldn't let this be my day. That's why I've made you come at 9.20. I just wanted it out of the way by 11.35. Like always, but the first day disappointment. 11.26 it finished. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I thought, yes. I mean, people were getting stuff. Yes. Were they?

Bear in mind, cinemas are food retail. And also bear in mind that a lot of kids have been up since 5am. Yeah. So for them it's sort of lunchtime. Of course. We're going to talk more about the movie industry later, from a completely sort of different art house-ish end. The Beatles who were the Minecraft of their time.

And they were. Well, we'll talk about that. I think we will end up talking a little bit about some of that. But it's interesting what sort of weird kind of convulsion Hollywood is in at the moment, apart from all the fires, apart from all those terrible things. As there was last year when they had, you know, terrible quarters and then suddenly a movie comes along and saves it. They had, remember they had the whole mantra survive till 25, which was post-pandemic, we'll get back and then everything will be alright in 25. Well, it's not alright in 25. The box office is down 11% year on year.

Because of the Minecraft movie, it's now only down 6%. That's one movie and that's not good. And so lots of movies that they thought would be bigger have already failed. They're in that thing now where they've had one kind of huge hit and they're all saying, oh, well, this is great, you know, everybody's back. That is not the sign of, I don't think, of being back. And I think that the big, big, which we'll talk again later when we talk about The Beatles,

they had CinemaCon last week, which is when all the studios in Las Vegas, and we're definitely gonna talk about that later, when all the studios go and they show their upcoming wares to the people who put them on in theaters. And it's quite secretive actually. And I don't know that it's a shame that this movie didn't happen just a week before because then people might have thought, oh, well, you know, there's still stuff out there, but it is a time of worry for that business. Very big worry.

If I'm going to go to cinema con next year, I'm going to get up, I'm going to say, put TV on. I want you to do a presentation there. If you're on Amazon or someone, just buy a cinema chain and put loads of TV on. Just put friends on all day. Just put your new stuff on. People will go absolutely nuts for it. It's a great advert for your new things as well.

You keep giving this idea away for free. Yeah, because I want someone to do it. I'm too old to get involved in all that. I know you thought I'm getting involved in theatrical distribution. I know what you mean. You know what, you've had a few career changes, but I think that one's got to jump too far even for you. What's Richard doing now? Oh, he's running a series of cinemas in the Midwest. How's it going? He's really having a bad time. He's not enjoying it at all. But they're doing an incredible documentary about it. Turns out people don't want to watch

TV in the cinema and it's so he's lost an awful lot of money. Give us a 30 second review of the movie and what it is and what people can expect. Okay, I've, I, the, the Jack Black is not 90. He's 55, Jason Momoa is 45 apparently. Harder between them. Enjoys partying I think, if I can put it that way. And yeah, I mean, they're two, my children are quite old people, having a sort of buddy, you know, there's no dead wood. Everyone wants to put a joke on a joke. I don't know if the lines are so bad that Jack Black's delivery throughout is extraordinary. It's like he's in a panto.

And I wonder if you just thought, I can't, I just, we've been through about a hundred rewrites. I don't know where to start with this. If I just do everything in a stupid like stylized voice, like I'm just doing an SNL sketch, then maybe it will just somehow cohere. Yeah. And also they can fix it in the edit and he's going going to watch it at 9.20 and he's gone, sorry, you left all of it in.

I was, I was, all those dinners giving you options. I really felt a significant amount of it was improvised. And at a certain point, Jason Momoa is like, I'm great at improvising. Can you just say? Not sure you are, but anyway, the children in it, the boy is very forgettable. The girl in it, Emma Meyers, the sort of older sister who's, because of course they're orphans. She's in Wednesday and she's in Good Girl's Guide to Murderer. But she doesn't have a whole lot to do. Daniel

Brooks, nobody has a huge amount to do. I mean, the plot is genuinely... What's the basic storyline? You see, that's the thing. They've got to get a glowy thing back. I mean, that's the story of every... Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, get the glowy thing back and unite it with its special case. That's pretty much all in the Shakespeare. You just... Yeah. Yes. And I think they try at a certain point to sort of foreground it.

It begins... The whole way that they even get into it starts with a sell-off in storage units because, you know, obviously the guy hasn't claimed it's not at all explained. Also, no children in that cinema, let me tell you, knew on earth what a storage unit was. They didn't appreciate that sometimes things get sold off at the end of when no one's just turned out to pay the bill for a while. That would pass them all by. They were literally waiting to get to the Overworld and to be in the, you know, to go through the portal. I mean, it is honestly completely episodic, you know, nothing. They're just sort of moving through the world with no rhyme or reason, much as you might if you were playing the game and making, I really have to say it is

a complete mess. But they all seem to be. It's a lucrative mess. It's unbelievable. So there you go. It is and that doesn't mean that of course that the critics are wrong, not at all. It's interesting and it's great that young people do want to go to the cinema. And just I mean, it is blindsided everybody even the tracking, which is an industry and is a business. They missed it. It was way under half what they were saying.

They were saying even less than it was extraordinary and people were just thinking it wasn't going to take off. So there'll be lots of people listening to this now who are very aware in the week ahead that they are going to this with a child or a niece or nephew or grandchild. I mean, is it... If you don't go to the 920 show, say you get to go at five, I don't think it would be unreasonable to have one of the little bottles of Blossom Hill that they dry and sell you. That might help. Just let it wash over you like a hundred minutes where you don't have to really do any parenting.

Yeah. And if anyone is listening, because their parents listen to this podcast in the car and they're in the back of the car and they're huge Minecraft fans are they going to enjoy it? My children like Minecraft and didn't but the children around me liked it very much. They were younger than 10 and 14 but they liked it very very much and I'm you know if you like what you like so go and have a look. I assume an amazing, just a genuinely amazing, ironic watch for students in their early 20s who also grew up with Minecraft. Oh yeah.

I mean, watching it ironically would be one of the great joys. The ultimate Edibles movie. Yeah. Let me leave it at that. And on that note, we will go to our break, where I believe we're not advertising Edibles. We're not, but we're gonna talk about Black Mirror straight afterwards.

Yes we are. This episode is brought to you by Sky where you can watch unmissable shows which includes the new season of the multiple Emmy award-winning Hacks starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder. We love Hacks so much. Absolutely love it. I'm so looking forward to this new series. For people who don't know Hacks, Marina, talk us through it a little bit. It's focused on the relationship between the older comedian who's played by Jean Smart, Deborah Vance, who's one of those real old showbiz troopers.

She plays Vegas, she does residency, she's sort of, yeah, almost like a Joan Rivers-y type character. Exactly. Old school. She's the boomer and Hannah Einbinder is a kind of gen z-er. It's really interesting on the stuff between the ages. Yeah, so she plays Ava Daniels, who essentially becomes Debra Vance's writer. So she writes for very cool, very hip things. Having sort of been cancelled for a joke at the start.

Yes. So we start in the culture war and we continue in it. But what I love about the show particularly is the absolute reverence for comedy and the graft and the craft of it. And what a tough kind of man's world it remains, definitely, definitely. And so how hard it is to be a woman in that male dominated industry. Yeah, amazing on showbiz, amazing on comedy, amazing on the industry, but also just the

relationship between the two of them is a really lovely generational sort of, it's like a sitcom thing. It's very dramatic, but a lot of comedy in there as well. They've got some terrific gas stars in this season. They've got Helen Hunt, Tony Goldwyn, Eric Balfour and obviously the returning cast who are pillars. Yep, the mix of comedy and drama is spot on. You can watch season four of the Emmy award-winning hacks right now on Sky. Hello, I'm William Durrimpeal.

And I'm Anita Arnand. And we are the hosts of Empire, also from Goalhanger. And we're here to tell you about our recent mini-series that we've just done on The Troubles. In it, we try to get to the very heart of the violent conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the 1960s all the way up to 1998. It's something that we both lived through and remember from our childhoods, but younger listeners may not know anything about it. And it's the time when there was division along religious and political lines, neighbours turned against each other, residential city

streets became battlegrounds, thousands were killed and the IRA bombed London. It seemed as if an end was out of reach, but in 1998 a peace process finally brought those 30 years of violence to an end. But the memory of the troubles is still present, not only within Northern Irish communities who experienced it, but in international relations and political approaches to peace. And new audiences are starting to understand this national trauma through films like Belfast and kneecap and TV shows like Derry Girls.

In fact, our guest on the mini-series is Patrick Radden-Keefe. Now, he's the author of the non-fiction book that inspired the hit TV drama Say Nothing. It's one of my favourite books. It's, I think, the kind of inko blood for our generation, extraordinary work of non-fiction. To hear the full series, just search Empire wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back everybody. Now we are going to talk about Black Mirror which comes back on Thursday of this week, which is obviously Charlie Brooker's amazing series. So Charlie, who started as a video games journalist and then created this sort of Fate Radio Times listings page, which just seems like an ancient thing in Earth idea anyway, called TV Go Home. And then he had a column in The Guardian. Then he began

writing for television, a touch of cloth, all the screen wipes, news wipes. I mean, it's been an incredible journey. But I always think he's very interesting about it because it's wrong to suggest it, oh, the technology is so evil. It's really a show about people because the technology, as he says, is neutral. And it's the people technology is so evil. It's really a show about people because the technology, as he says, is neutral and it's the people who are using it and how we're becoming warped or not by it or how we're trying to claw something back from it anyway. Exactly. That's the season seven just coming out, as I say, starts on Thursday. They've gone a bit more old school again on this one. I think, you know, the last series, there's

great kind of horror stuff, folk horror and things like that. This one is a bit more old school again on this one. I think, you know, the last series, there's great kind of horror stuff, folk horror and things like that. This one is a bit more traditional, black mirror and the dangers of technology. But it's worth pausing really just to think what an extraordinary success this show has been. You know, so many enormous shows come on every five seconds. And you know, this started in 2011 and it's still such an extraordinary brand created by Charlie and by Annabel Jones, his producer, and they've worked hand in hand on the whole

lot all the way through. It started on Channel 4 and it went to Netflix. Jay Hunt commissioned it, he was head of Channel 4 at the time, commissioned so many huge hits that are still going now. We've talked a lot about, you know, Tresti was not being able to afford to do big things. And I think Black Mirror might have been the very first example of how that was. And actually, when you look into it, and you know, there was a big, there was a split between Annabelle and Charlie and Channel 4 and whose fault was that? And actually, you look at it, it

was no one's fault. Everyone did the right thing, I think, at the time. So Charlie and Annabelle had done a thing called Dead Set, which the brilliant Andy Niemann starred in, which was like a zombie thriller set in the Big Brother house. And, you know, it had been a huge success and they'd loved making it and they, you know, it looked amazing. It had this great scale and they said, well, I wonder if we can do some sort of, you know, an anthology. Now it's worth saying now that anthologies are the worst nightmare of every single TV channel that's ever existed. Well, that's what I, yeah Well that's what I always think. It seems like, oh he's just a different thing each week.

I think it's so much more work. Well it's so much more work for the people making it. It's so much more expensive for the people paying for it. And if you're a channel... Just to be really clear, because you have to have a whole new load of sets, a whole new row of characters, actors, all of it. The whole thing is all standalone. There's no economy of scale really because each one has to be conjured from nothing.

Exactly that. Which is why no one ever commissions it and then people go, oh yeah but you know, the Twilight Zone, which is the one that's most often talked about, the Twilight Zone was so wonderful and so successful. The Twilight Zone was cancelled more than almost any show in history. The Twilight Zone was constantly cancelled because it was really expensive and no one really watched it. We look back now and go, we've got this great library of Twilight Zones, aren't they amazing? And you know, some of them are. But yeah, it was not something that people were particularly excited about.

And go back and look at it, because it was nothing like as expensive as this, even on its own terms. Exactly that. So Charlie has this idea and Charlie and Annabel go into Channel 4 and Channel 4 quite rightly are not that excited about it. They're like, I don't know about this. Shane Allen, who is the head of comedy at Channel 4, said, oh, I'll do this black mirror thing. So it actually came through Channel 4 comedy, which is a very peculiar place for it to come through. Obviously a lot less money there than drama. So it really was a big punt and took a huge amount of their budget as well. And that first series is hugely memorable for everyone because it started with National Anthem, which is the one with Rory Kinnear, where he is forced by black male to have sexual relations with a pig, which of course foreshadowed so much of

British politics. So there was that and a couple of others, it was ludicrously expensive, but you know, there was some buzz around it for sure. Oh, absolutely. It felt incredibly exciting. Amazingly directed, all three of them are very different, amazingly directed, great actors in them. Charlie is a wonderful writer, Annabel, an incredible producer, very involved in the process. You know, I think Channel 4 realised that they

had a sort of buzzy show on their hands. The return on investment wasn't really there. They did another series of it, at which point Channel 4 said that we have to get co-production money. We know this show is great. We know people love this show. We need to get co-production money. And Annabelle and Charlie had gone over to the States and seen everyone really, seen all the networks and they all went, no, it's an anthology show. Are you crazy? There's absolutely no way we will do this. We all know that anthology shows don't work. We all know they're too expensive. We all know it's essentially, you know, commissioning six standalone films instead of a series where you have returning characters and cliffhangers

and you know, catchphrases and stuff like that, the stuff that TV is usually made of. And so all the networks said no. So Netflix got the rights to show it in North America and in the rest of the world as well. And you know, it didn't cost them an enormous amount of money and but it looks you know it looked great and so they showed it and that's when that's when everything changed. It went absolutely crazy immediately because there's something about them that although you know they're very British and obviously Charlie and Annabel have a very British sensibility there was something very worldwide about them the

whole world. They speak of the age that what's so interesting is that they really do seem to satirise the now via the 10 minutes into the future, which is, I suppose, your dream of all those kind of dystopian things. You know when something's crossed over into a completely different realm of kind of buzz and reception, when it sort of becomes the brand name for a feeling. Yes, exactly. And people saying the whole time, oh my god, this is so Black Mirror. The Twilight Zone, people used to say, oh my god, it's like an episode of The Twilight Zone. And people do say things like, this is so mad, it's like an episode of Carburet

and Thies or something like that. I think that is almost the most, the most mass market one I can think of, of everyone, because everyone is living in this time of incredible technology acceleration. And to always have a word, to have two words for it which always like oh my god this is so blackmailer. I know pretty much anything that's happened in politics in the in the last ten years has been very black mirror esque. So goes out on Netflix suddenly everyone in America is going crazy and more importantly every single actor writer and producer and director in America watches it and loves it because they recognize the job that Charlie and

Anna have done. They recognize it's brilliant. Jay Hunt, Channel 4 and Shane Allen, all the people who've been involved, they recognise there was this amazing thing. Channel 4 and Charlie and Annabel go, let's do a Christmas one. And John Hamm comes on board, who's the first big star really to have been in one of these big star and he came on it because- He was coming off Mad Men. I mean, it was a huge thing to have someone do something like that. And since then, their leads have been, I mean, their leads are always really incredible. Yeah, always interesting. But Bill Hader had said to Jon Hamm, you have to watch the show. And so Jon Hamm had watched Black Mirror and just went, I mean, of course I do. And he

did it for Channel 4 regular rate like everybody else. And, you know, and so he came in and did it. And that was that Christmas episode, by the way, one of my favorite ever Black Mirror. So then they're in the situation where every single network in America is saying to Charlie and Annabelle, we want the show. Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah.

Americans trying to say yes now. You know when we said we didn't want to do the show? Well, you know, now because every single dinner party we go to, people, it's all they talk about it. We would now like to do this. It had this huge buzz, but it's still very, very expensive for Channel 4. They can't really make it. So she said, well, look, if we can get co-production, so then they can. I think the one place Channel 4 didn't want to co-production with was Netflix because Jay is very perspicacious and she

sort of knew that Netflix was the beast that was going to eat everything. And for Charlie and Annabelle, actually, because Netflix were able to say, here's an immediate six episode order, it can be any length you want, any genre you want. Here's the money, which is probably four or five times the budget you would get on Channel 4. Here's the freedom. Would you like to sign up with us? It's sort of impossible to say no to that. So Jay has to say goodbye to it. It's the truth. You can't keep doing it. Whether it would to say goodbye to it. It's the truth. You can't keep doing it. Whether it would have been the phenomenon is if it stayed on Channel 4, it's difficult

to tell. You know, Charlie and Annabelle have said always... No, it wouldn't. I mean, I think it just definitely wouldn't. But you know, they had the bravery to commission in the first place. They had the bravery to put out National Anthem as the first one. So, you know, they are absolutely part of the architects of the success of Black Mirror. As I say, now we understand that Netflix comes in for things and, you know, prices other people out of the market. This is such a perfect early example of exactly that happening. Big hit show. That was already on a terrestrial broadcaster. Terrestrial broadcaster

cannot afford it. Netflix are able to come in, throw a huge amount of money at it and throw a huge amount of creative freedom at it, which also Channel 4 are not able to do. Well, that's how they got everybody in. Yeah, I think Channel 4 said we might be able to find out some money. We need to see all six ideas, which is like a year's work. And you simply, yeah, but we could just go to Netflix and not do it. And yeah, so ever since then, it's been this phenomenon, you know, shows win Emmys all the time. So, you know, Sopranos will win Emmys every year, Frasier will win every year, but because, you, because you know what you're getting.

Black Mirror won Emmys three years in a row, but for shows that were entirely different, made by entirely different crews, entirely different genres. So, San Junipero, some people think is the greatest ever. Black Mirror won the Emmy. Then USS Callister, the Jesse Plemons one. Which they're doing a sequel of. They are doing in this new one. And then Bandersnatch, which I think is one of the greatest technical achievements.

Unbelievable. There's a trillion different ways to watch it. They won Emmys three times in a row with things that are entirely different stories. That they've got up from the ground each time. For me it's extraordinary in the way that something like the day-to-day right back in the 90s was, which is it sort of satirises the future and it somehow manages to stay ahead of things. As I say, everything's moving at such a pace and television, as we know, takes forever to make. I mean, it takes forever to make. So I wonder how much, there must have been a couple of times where they've had an idea and in development shelved it because for some reason that particular area of our crapsack world

has accelerated so quickly that you think this would actually look like, you know, we'll be looking back fondly on whatever this concept is. And they sort of gut things for parts and take things from, you know, kind of other ideas. The one thing always anyone is ever around Charlie or Annabelle, there's always, always, oh, I had an idea for a black mirror and they never work. The hardest work I've ever seen anybody do on any show because they are making like a whole series of movies at any given time. I think they're so amazing. Everyone knows Charlie's amazing but as you know I think she's brilliant. Yeah she's incredible but one of one of them is always on the set.

Yeah. They're absolutely hands-on all the time You know, they it's an extraordinary achievements. Yes. So this new series there's that there's a there's a follow-up to USS canister. Yeah, which is going to be very very exciting this sword There's a sort of follow-up to bandersnatch as well called plaything, but no interactivity I think the interactivity thing nearly killed them. I think it must have yeah There's a Paul Giammetti in something where you can walk into like old photographs. Which people are already saying you're going to be able to do. All of it keeps pace so brilliantly. Yes it really does doesn't

it? It's amazing. They're just sort of 18 months ahead. But they're much more than 18 months ahead because it takes so long to make. To make them as well. And it's funny to think back, I tell you the interesting sliding doors thing. When Charlie and Annabelle met at a company called Zepetron, which was like a comedy company, the other side of Zepetron went off and made What I Like To You, which I think is a great program on television. So you got this group of amazing people. It was Charlie, Ben, Peter and Neil. When they started, like Charlie was doing TV Go Home, you know, the fake listings thing, where I think the idea of having relations with a pig came from. Yeah, so they went off and did Black Mirror, this enormous sort of

dystopian world beating thing. And the other side of it, Peter Holmes, especially, went off and made the most joyful, beautiful bit of funny television anyone's ever made. And how lovely that it comes from a shared sensibility. But yeah, a huge British success story. People, of course, always want to say, oh, yeah, it's not as good as it was. And you know, they'll never top this, but it's because they're doing all these six episodes and you know what, any season of Black Mirror and there's at least three of them that are heads and shoulders above pretty much anything else on television. And that will be the case this time as well, I'm sure.

It's not, yeah, because it's not so much a kind of visual aesthetic, although they do sort of coherent lots of different ways, but it is a sort of a mood of the age. Well, the interesting thing is they have entirely different production teams on all of the different shows, different directors, different everything. So there's no, it's not like Inside Number Nine where there's a shared team. It's you know, everything is entirely different. As someone who likes to set his creative bar to easy mode in terms of how is this going to be difficult to do and if it is can I do a different idea that's

going to be easier to do. That's why I love House of Games. I just knew I could sit in a room with a bunch of people and you don't have to worry about what the scores are particularly and you just make it as much fun as possible and Charlie and Annabel every single time make things as difficult as possible for themselves and it pays off in spades. Every time. And every time I see them picking up Emmys or something I think that's where this absolutely if you're brilliant and you have an incredible work ethic that's where it gets you. We've done Minecraft, we've done Black Mirror, where do we go from there?

We're going to the Beatles Richard. Oh I've heard of them. Now as I said earlier, there was CinemaCon, which is the event where all the studios take their best wares, their best upcoming wares to Vegas, and show them to the theatrical releases. But they do try to make it. I mean, they did some really, you try and get all the stars

along. Everyone is sort of, you realize that people are still committed to putting things in cinemas. But obviously, we're looking at a pretty gritty landscape. Okay, so, you know, Tom Cruise will turn up to talk about Mission Impossible Final Reckoning, but he did a minute silence on stage for Val Kilmer, who by the way, we've got a special episode on later this week, which I think will be for our members. What I find interesting about CinemaCon is that you don't get to see, the fans don't get to see anything.

It's just for the business. Business to business. Yeah. Okay. Now look at Comic Con, which has understood that it has this intense fan community and that you give something back. I'm going to get onto the Beatles in a minute, but this is giving you the landscape. And here, they showed a trailer for Avatar. They showed a trailer for After the Hump, which is the Luca Guadagnino film with Julia Roberts, this sort of post-MeToo thing, Andrew Garfield, Io Adderiri. But you don't see any of these things. So you can see people writing down what happened or else journalists are properly banned from reporting it. They have lots of stars there,

but it's mega, mega controlled because people don't necessarily want their client to be out there. Maybe they'll do some ad lib that will go. But actually, I would start saying, you guys have got to reach to understand the people who watch your films in cinemas are the fans. That thing I said at the Oscars, which when you watch them at the Grammys, all they do is thank their fans from the winners. You never see anybody at the Oscars thank, you know, what Norma Desmond called all those wonderful people out there in the dark. I think that instead of just being so controlled, they're just going to have to try and reach out, make it more of an event, just try and get some buzz out.

As you say, the buzz that people, the way that Minecraft achieves buzz, the way that other people, other industries that are doing better achieve buzz. Especially as it is an industry thing that is specifically about movie theatres. And so if you're creating the buzz, you're not creating buzz around IP or around, you know, actors. It's literally buzz around what is going to come into a movie theatre, which is it makes that much more an event. If you're excited about the thing that is coming into a movie theatre, then you know. Yeah, and you're made to feel like, excuse me, as a ticket buyer, that you actually matter.

If you're never thanked, you don't feel like you're part of someone's fandom, you don't feel like you're part of a community, then why should you turn out? Why not wait till streaming? Well, someone who does really care about theatrical release is Sam Mendes, and he is doing something extraordinarily ambitious, which is bringing out four Beatles, I don't want to say biography movies, set at a certain time and the way they all intersect, all the different stars and he went to CinemaCon last week and they unveiled the casting. And it really is the fan four. Oh yeah, I mean yeah, so Harris Dickinson is John Lennon.

And so we know him from. So Harris Dickinson, who you know from Baby Girl is, is John Lennon. Paul Mescal, who you know from all sorts of things is Paul McCartney. Barry Kiyogan from Saltburn, Banshees of Nisreen is Ringo Starr and Joseph Quinn, who had his sort of breakout in the last series of Stranger Things, but is going to be in the Fantastic Four is George Harrison. Someone said all four of them are sort of internet boyfriend types. Well that's that way of talking about things. Yeah, I mean I suppose what you're trying to do is, and they also did which I thought was quite unusual which you don't normally see when people have just sort of signed on for something, they had a photo shoot of all of them. I'm wearing a

black jumper in honor of it today Richard. They're all in their sort of all in black, all together. And then they were brought onto stage and they all said a line from Sergeant Pepper. And it was there is a sort of these movies are by the way, all coming out in April. We don't quite know the release schedule, but we know it is April 2028. So it's April 2028. Yeah, I mean, it's four movies. There are some economies of scale, but you know what, anyway, so, but these particular actors, and there are other actors who have something of that quality, but they are really sort of viral ones who

are obviously, you know, they're always in fan edits that there, you can sort of see that there's going to be an attempt yeah and there's an inevitable mania that will be created a little bit around seeing them all together what could they call it yeah well putting them all together does make them seem greater than some of their parts and and all of these things are designed to sort of create a buzz because you know this is a huge sort of theatrical event buzz because, you know, this is a huge sort of theatrical event. Funny enough, Sony Pictures is being done with Sony. Sony Pictures and the chair, Tom Rothman said, this is the first bingeable theatrical experience. Now, you

know, there's an element of this that is a sort of art house. It's not supposed to be art house because you want everyone to want to go and see it's like they want to go and see Barbie or Oppenheimer or whatever it may be. But there's something sort of slightly franchisable about it. Like to say this is something different. I told you what would be a bingeable theatrical franchise showing television and cinemas. Okay, strangely they didn't talk about that at CinemaCon, but as you know, you're doing a presentation next year where you explain this. With Paul Miscael. The medium that's eaten you. Why don't you put it on in your television, in your theatres?

You might as well, right? Yeah, okay. Well, I look forward to your presentation. Right now, we're talking about The Beatles one. Okay. Anyway, so it is a sort of, you know, you're trying to create a sort of release phenomenon. That thing where people feel like, oh, they must have, you know, I have to see this and I have to have a view on it. But Tom Rothman did actually also say this is slightly giving me avatar flashbacks because he oversaw that when he was at Fox. And that was it. Yeah. So it's a big beast. It's quite black mirrory in that there's four separate, although there's presumably there's a shared aesthetic.

Yes. Yes. And there's, well, he's directing them all. And there's a bit, but there's something interesting you said to me about Beatles questions in your time on Pointless. Yes, I always find it fascinating. Pointless tells you an awful lot about what people actually know about it. You show pictures of famous people and you, you know, because you ask a hundred people, you find out, you know, exactly who was well known and who is not well known. You said they didn't know about movies in general.

No one knows about movies. No one knows who wrote books. No one knows anything about who was in movies. They sort of know about television. They know about pop music. That's about it. But yeah, towards the end, so the beginning of pointless, if you had a Beatles question up there or McCartney or Lennon, you'd be up in the high 80s.

And then as the years went by, firstly you'd say to someone, it's about the Beatles, you're a fan of the Beatles, and people under 25 would go, I don't really know who they are, I have heard of them but I don't really know them. And you didn't see that at the beginning of the series, it was something that came in.

And also the scores for Beatles things would start going down, still much bigger than pretty much anyone else you could find from their era. But they were coming down and down and down. And I was thinking it's interesting that every generation has their, the thing they go to. I think the generation who fought in the Second World War grew up on cowboy movies. Because it was a thing that happened sort of 40, 50 years before them and was iconic. And then our generation, funnily enough, grew up on Second World War movies, war films, because it was something that happened, you know, 40 years ago and

it was something that could be mined. And now there's so much Beatles stuff around and it feels like almost like the Beatles are the second World War for this generation. That's really interesting. I think people not knowing so much about them. But that's the thing is because we didn't, you know, the second World War, so much of what we learned from it was from films. Obviously we've got grandparents and stuff like that in the same way we can talk to grandparents about the Beatles. but the showing of on television made everything kind of, you know, made that tale much, much longer. And it feels like the Beatles now will live

forever because we're starting to go, we mustn't forget. Well, yes. We mustn't forget what happened. And it's creatively, that's a really interesting position to be able to be in to say, oh, let me illuminate them for you completely differently for a different generation. Because I'd seen, you know, the biographer, Hunter Davis, the band's biographer, official biographer, said on the Today program, maybe quite recently, the strange thing about the Beatles is that the longer we get from them, the bigger they become. I don't think that's true. And I think that

the appeal of this is that you can certainly, I'm stunned by how many people, young people I've seen say, I don't really know anything about Bob Dylan. After a complete unknown, I've done a deep dive into his music. It's like, oh, wow. Okay. But, and that was quite a small movie. This is obviously- Yeah, huge. With the four biggest young stars in the world apart from Timothy Chalamet, who couldn't be in it because he's French. Although he is Bob Dylan. But also, yeah, he couldn't be in it because he's Bob Dylan. You can't put Bob Dylan in The Beatles. It's interesting.

God knows I've tried. Bob Dylan didn't mind what they did with his life. He's one of those people who just said, do what you like. But it'd be interesting to see how The Beatles, the surviving Beatles, think about this. But I think the best thing you can always do is just say, make what you will. Make what you please, and there'll be a sort of greater treatise in some ways than when you're trying to sort of really kind of stick to a particular line. But one interesting thing is that nonetheless, and it's such a sterile way to talk about it, but this is the age we live in, the Beatles are nonetheless IP. They are a form of IP.

They really are. And this is the first narrative feature that's been granted the music rights to their catalog. There's been lots of movies before. Backbeat is a great movie about the Beatles. Nowhere Boy was about the Beatles. But yeah, this is the first one. This is like the full theatrical, it's got everything that you could want from the Beatles. Well, they're trying to create event cinema and they're trying to do something, create something that enough people feel like, oh, they can't miss. And you'll get all those

things. There'll be memes about the marathon of it, like going in again for number four, whatever. But that's what you want. That's what you need in order to create, you know, in the same way that Barbenheimer happened as a sort of organic. You need there to be that kind of euphoria, the need to have an opinion on it, like everyone felt they had to have an opinion on adolescence, the need to get the backlash. You see the amazing thing where, was it Nick Ferrari who was sent to Kimmy Badenock, have you seen adolescence? She said, no. He said, well, you should. He was like, really saying, I think it's a dereliction of your duty that you haven't watched it. She was like, I don't

have to watch everything on Netflix. Yeah. And I saw, you know, those people descent, you know, like that, what's his name at Spiked? The sort of, sort of high wanker at Spiked who had to descend down and be the, do the contrarian thing and say, you know, I mean, really on the pages of Spiked, you're writing a contrarian thing page saying that Stephen Graham's done something bad to the working class. Oh, how's he now? Please do die. Have a listen to yourself, honestly. But you need all the backlash. You need all of that stuff really to create these organic moments. And it's a long time till 2020 and there will be, but having chosen those particular four stars and they've all

got different projects coming up, very different, you're hoping that the alchemy happens all the time and that there's a sort of mania about seeing them together. I do think that the observation that actually the Beatles, the anti-Hunter Davis observation, or not anti-Hunter Davis, he's a brilliant man, but this idea that actually their memory has got fainter and fainter I think is actually a huge strength because there's obviously still an enormous amount of people who know the Beatles were the greatest band of all time and a younger generation like, oh yeah, I sort of know the name and then they will see these four kids and then they'll go to the movie and the music stays the music.

The song remains the same. And so I think it's one of those things where people, a new generation will find this band for themselves. And that gives you another 50 years, doesn't it? Well, let's hope so. I think we've done quite a lot on cinema this episode but one of the things I spoke to a few people who were at CinemaCon, different people who were at CinemaCon last week and I did get the distinct vibe from all of them. They all said that anyone having a hit now is good. Bear in mind, this is all like the old, is it the Gourvydal quote, you know, it's not enough for me to succeed, my friends must fail. That is sort of in, things are in such a parlour state that actually you want hits even if rival studios are having hits. And that's

something different than has always been the history of Hollywood is that lots and lots of people just want anyone to have hits now because they want it all to be kept alive. And you know, going for a big swing like this, well, why not? Yeah, absolutely. Any recommendations this week? I've been so looking forward to recommending this book for you, which I have known about for years. This is by the way, this is such a funny book. I got sent this, someone wrote to me and said, and I've got a quote on the cover of this is such a funny book. I got sent this, someone wrote to me and said, and I've got a quote on the cover of this book in case you're looking and thinking,

someone wrote to me and said, I've written a book and I'm writing a book. I wonder if you'd consider giving a quote, looking at it when it comes out. And I thought, well, maybe you'll finish it or maybe you'll, anyway, it did come. But he did also say, I've given my advance to War Child, who are an amazing charity who deal with children in conflict zones, and I'm giving all the profits to War Child. So when the book came, I thought, I'm really going to have to read this one because of the War Child thing anyway. It's called The Accidental Soldier by Owen Mulligan. Okay. Honestly by page five, I'm like, sorry, who the hell is this guy? This is so funny. It is the story. He's in the TA in the territorial army in 2006, and it is the story, and he

actually gets sent to Iraq. He obviously thinks he's going to be doing, he's very clever, something to do with maps or something. He is leading a fighting unit in Basra. I mean, I don't want to, can I say after that? It is so funny. I laughed out loud, but it's a genuinely funny book. He is a first time author. The book is out this Thursday. Pre-orders matter so much to first time authors. You know this. It is such a good and funny book. It is absolutely fascinating into the world of what it was actually like. And, you know, there's a whole world of the army. It's very, very funny. I mean, people in the army, I always find, are quite funny, but this is just genuinely brilliant. And with a real gut punch, you know, it's incredible. I really, really

recommend this book. Right. Owen Mulligan. The Accidental Soldier. I was going to do a recommendation. I'll save it till next week because that- It went on sale on- No, no, no. Absolutely not. But that's so heartfelt. And it's, as you say, anyone who could, if you'd like the sound of it, buying it now is worth more to Owen Mudigan than buying it in three weeks.

Buy it in three weeks if you want to. Yeah, it's so good. It's so funny. Okay. Question and answers on Thursday? Very much so, Richard. Look forward to seeing you then. See you next Thursday.

I can't remember. And also, as you said, a bonus on Friday, celebrating the life and times of Val Kilmer. A lot of very interesting stories in there. That's for our members. If you want to sign up, the rest is entertainment.com. Otherwise, we will see you anyway on Tuesday. Oh my God. On Thursday, maybe? On Thursday.

Yeah, because today's Tuesday. I'm so confused, aren't I? Yeah. Well, that wraps up another episode of The Rest Is Entertainment brought to you by our friends at Sky. Now, what have you got on your must watch list at the moment? At the moment, the White Lotus enjoying the latest season of that. Oh, it's such a treat. Oh my God, it's incredible. It's so good.

A dark treat. The visuals are really great and with your Skyglass TV you'll be able to enjoy it all in its 4k glory. And also the built-in soundbar means you can also listen to it in its full whatever the sound version of 4k glory is, but it sounds immense, I'll say that. It is indeed. It brings everything to life and it really gives that cinema experience at home. It feels like Jason Isaacs is in your house. Like sometimes I go downstairs and I'm like, Jason Isaacs, come on man. Go for a seat please.

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