The Rest Is Entertainment - The Melania Doc: Hit or Flop?

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

What do Ryan Reynold's unsealed texts tell us about his power in Hollywood? Why has the world’s biggest TikToker sold his entire identity for a billion dollars? What did Marina think of the Melania documentary? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde discuss explain how Ryan Reynolds texts fit into the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni drama, and what they tell us about how power and fame in Tinseltown. TikTok superstar Khaby Lame has signed over his brand and AI likeness for an eye-watering sum - but what does the deal mean for the future of influencing? And Marina went to see the Melania documentary so you don’t have to. But has it actually been a success? The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Video Editor: Joey McCarthy & Charlie Rodwell Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Bex Tyrrell Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Shop L'Oreal Paris Panorama Mascara on Amazon now. Did you know that Staples Professional can tailor a custom program to make running your business easy? With a Staples Professional account, you get one vendor, one delivery, and one invoice for all your must-haves, from tech to cleaning supplies, and dedicated support from Staples experts who guide you on everything from product selection and ordering to payment. Join today at staplesprofessional.ca and get expert solutions tailored to your business. That was easy. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Resters Entertainment with me, Marina. Hi.

And me, Richard Osman. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? I'm all right. I've been away. I've been in the United States of America, if you've heard it, for a week. And I bring slightly grave news to you about The Rock, which is firstly, I saw smashing

machine on the plane and he's really good in it, I thought. Yeah. It's a really good performance. Have you ever seen the original HBO documentary, which is called The Smashing Machine? No, I have not seen that. Watch that. Is it exactly the same? I think it's better.

Yes, he is good in it. Oh, the film itself. Yeah. I'm not sure it knows what it wants to be. No. But he was very good. It's a story about prescription drugs addiction and not a fighting movie. But then I also had dinner with someone who is working with the rock at the moment on a film.

And he said, not only is he lovely, but he's deeply professional and turns up on time every day. Wow. Well, he must be showing up for that one then. Yeah. Can I say one other thing about America? because I can't believe I haven't noticed this before. I know a lot of people say a lot of things about America, but I'm going to weigh in.

Do you know they pronounce Purcell, Persil? Oh my goodness. Uh-huh. I was watching an advert. Well, they said the cleaning power of Purcell. What's going on over there? I think it's part of their fancyness, you know, when they say Andrea and Honor and all of that,

there's a sort of... Well, I suppose so. Listen, I know there's other stuff going on in America, but that was my main takeaway. That's a huge takeout. Yeah, thank you. I have an announcement to me. Oh my God.

Which is that I am very excited. They're going to do another book of my Collins. And it's coming out on September the 24th. Okay. This year? Yeah, is that the date of your book? I think I'm a couple of weeks earlier. Oh my God, thank God.

I would have really wanted to get out the way for you. There's more murders in your book. It's called What a Time to Be Alive. You can pre-order it now. Because last time I did a book, Liz Truss had just been triumphantly installed as Prime Minister. And very recently Brooklyn and Beckerman had Mama's Boy tattooed. to get on his chest. So update needed. Yeah, it's got, you know, there's a lot of Lauren and Jeff in it. Everything's the space trip, the wedding in Venice. The Gwyneth Paltrow Ski Massacre trial.

A lot of no drama, starma. I hope you can hear my sarcastic air quotes. Marina High's greatest hits. Jeffrey Epstein and his many, many friends, don't worry, we can still take in columns still quite late in the year. 24th of September. At 24th of September. Anyhow, what are we talking about today? We are talking about, do you know what, we've got three absolutely Bobby Daslanders this week, I think. We're talking about the Melania movie. Are we not? We are.

Talking of America. Yeah. We are talking about Ryan Reynolds' text messages, which are amazing in the lively Baldoni saga. Yeah. We're also talking about, I think it's the single biggest entertainment story that's probably come up since we've been on air pretty much. And it has not been reported in the media at all. billion dollar deal that has not been reported anywhere. You'll find that exactly. Not in the mainstream. There's like in niche sort of, you know, specialist publications and things. But it's odd not to

have seen it anywhere. But anyway. Yeah, exactly. So you'll be learning all about Carby Lame later on and his billion dollar deal. Also, by the end talking of Beckham, there was an article in the mail about goalhanger and the fact that I'd refuse to take part in our, in your Brooklyn Beckham emergency podcast. Don't say emergency podcasts. We will go through that article line by line and say exactly why it's wrong. But should we start with Melania? Let's start with Melania. Obviously, I've seen it.

I saw it on Friday afternoon. It's interesting now because we've got some numbers. I have to say the reporting on this has been a bit of hit and miss, but it's the biggest documentary opening in a decade, excluding concert films, which are not really the same thing. It took $7 million in the US. What we know about them is the audience was female and the vast majority were over 55.

I think it's 75% over 55, isn't it? Which is good. You've got a super-servant audience. Oh, God, I completely love all their data. Regrettably, our own data is far less granular, and it's not really made public until later. And we will know something later in the week. But let's face it, this film is not for us, okay? It's not for the people outside the United States particularly.

It's on a par with something like, Am I Racist, which I think in the end ended up with, which was the anti-Dei documentary, which got to about 12 million in the end. But remember, this thing called, lost Amazon $40 million and they spent $35 million on marketing, which is obviously unheard of in the documentary space unless it's something like Fahrenheit 9-11. Having seen it, you know when people say it's all up there on the screen? Oh, I mean, it's all the money is up there on screen.

None of the money is up there on the screen. It reminds me of one of those like aid programs, you know, and like they raise millions and then someone goes like a couple of years later to the area and it's just totally desolate. Hold on. You don't appear to have built that school. Yeah. Did the kids get none of the money? Where did the money go again? Now, obviously, Amazon would say that the 40 million is to license the documentary.

But the effect of that is to, as you watch it, is to make you feel that you are watching something for which the only rational explanation at that price point is that it is a political bribe or a ludicrously lavish political gift with the hope of mutual benefits. Yes. And by the way, this is a company Amazon who just fired 1,600 employees in the States as well. So they appear to not have a lot of money. So to be splashing $75 million on something that only made $7 million, it's certainly an interesting business decision. It's a totally worth it business decision. Think about it. This is the thing that these things are reported as a sort of entertainment things.

And unfortunately, we live in a world where all sorts of things have bled into one another. Even Elon Musk spending $44 billion on Twitter at the time, people are like, oh, you know, he's ruined the business. No, he hasn't. You know, look at the influence he's got. Now Grok is like being, I think, this week or something, going into all the Pentagon systems. Okay, 44 billion was worth it for him. You don't think for a trillion-dollar company that like $75 million is worth it for Amazon. Of course it is.

Of course it is. However, we'll talk about blowback later in this thing. Okay, let me just talk to you about this piece of work. Yes, great, please. Because I have seen it. Okay. When you say piece of work, are you talking about the film? And the director and the subject.

We open, and it's like Gimme Shelter playing over a drone, drone, drone, shots of Mar-a-Lago, okay? Now, first of all, don't forget, Brett Ratner, I'm just talking about it as a technical piece of work now. That's the only thing, and then we'll move on to the rest of it. Brett Ratner has never made a documentary before. He makes things like Rush Hour and X-Men movies and things like that, okay. So it's a mess, but there's sort of weird things like, that halfway through the movie, like this, like this grainy footage starts being dropped into it and you're like, what's this? And then there's a explanation that, you know, and it's, you think, oh, I see it's like super ape, and she says my father always used to shoot family movies.

But then the Super 8 is most of the film And you're like, hang on, this is an inauguration date This is like miles outside the security cordon. No way it's like Melania's dad there. Brett Ratner has got someone to shoot second uni On some Super 8 just to pad it all. It's ridiculous. I mean, for me, the most unforgivable,

there are many unforgivable things about it. He's constantly sort of shooting behind a pillar or behind a door. But the me, the most unforgivable thing is obviously because they're the president and the first lady, the security things, they have to leave always via like service. service exits and entrances. And so it's after the inauguration and they have to not go quite through the kitchens,

but they have to go down and what underground car park. Like spinal tap. He does it as a wanner to the crystals, then he kissed me. Okay. It's like, okay, Brett, you can't do that. You can't, you know the most, like one of the three most famous onas in the entire cinema. Warner is a one shot. It's a one shot, right?

The three most famous, like, Steadicam shots like that in the whole of cinema, one of them is Martin Scorsesey, when Karen and Henry arrive at the club in Goodfellas and it follows them all the way through, right? And it's to the crystals then it starts. You can't do like a 38 second runner when that one's three minutes. What are you thinking of?

Unless it's satire, which having seen the rest of the movie, it isn't. It's like it's an interminable thing. You have to hear all about the place settings. What dress she's going to? You watch these couturias like fit her for the inauguration outfit and the inauguration dress. And then you realize about half with you,

oh my God, he's going to have to pay all this off again. We're going to have to see it going to the inauguration and the rest, going in the outfit. You're going to see the place settings actually in the thing. It is so unbelievable. This film is the most boring thing in the entire world. Now, obviously, I have to try and find interesting things because I knew I was talking about it. And also, I have to make an hour and 44 minutes go amusingly. The things that I do think are interesting are just on a sort of meta level.

This is a documentary about someone who wants to completely obscure themselves. Okay, if you wear sunglasses indoors, I'm sorry, you are a twat. But if you wear them in a shot where you're the only person in shot and it's a documentary about you, I mean, sorry, can I see your eyes please? I don't mean to be rude. Can I see your eyes please? Do you want to look at the camera for a second? It's sort of unbelievable. But then you see, and she has that hat fitted. Do you remember the hat for the inauguration that completely covered the eyes? And there's a really funny South Park episode where she just keeps materializing like something in a horror movie. She just keeps turning out like that in the corner of the room wearing that outfit. Again, she doesn't want to be known at all. So it's very, very boring.

The bits that I found like sort of interesting for just to kind of on a wider thing is Trump having, at any moment he's in it, having to be not the main character. You've never seen an effort like it. You've never seen him try as hard as this than anything. It's so difficult for him not to be the main character. I found it genuinely hysterical. It's incredibly boring. And I mean, I saw someone say it could become a classic. No.

No, it really can't. The voiceover is totally sort of effortless. She's always talking about, you know, I honour the interior of the White House and I completely respect it. Now, if Bretton Ratner had any balls, he would have cut to that backhoe just knocking down the entire east wing. Yeah. Which is, by the way, her bit of the White House in order for Trump's ballroom project that's currently in construction without permits as far as I can work out. Do you get to know an awful lot about her through it? No. The one thing that you learn is that she's incredibly scared of them being shot.

And she's incredibly scared of being in any outside space in an exposed thing. She's really happy that the inauguration, you know, goes inside because of the weather. And she's really happy that their sort of rally on the night, you know, and that with all the sort of Maga Faithful or maybe the Evov or whatever it is, is inside as well because she's just terrified. And she doesn't want to get out of the car. But the way they talk about their son is so odd. Trump's on the phone time.

He's like saying, yeah, we have these sort of cute conversations. I have cute conversations with him. She's like, yeah, no, I know, I love him. He's got such a name. It's like they've sort of vaguely, I mean, it's just so, everything is so emotionally dead and sort of like hollowed out. But it's as though they're talking about sort of a vague acquaintance, even though clearly they aren't, it's very, very odd.

And that's not what Ratner's going for. No. Well, Ratna's just just going for the payday and now going for Trump, lobbying for him to make Rush Hour 4. It's incredibly poorly made. And he's just, you hear his voice behind the camera. But it's honestly, I would have thought it's almost all the footage they shot. It's that boring.

And so where's that 40 million gone? I've read reports that said 28 million went straight to her. I don't know. I, you know, I, obviously they have to pay, they have to pay someone to hold a super right. I can't, you know. It's not an expensive piece of filmmaking at all. Yeah. That's where it's gone.

And the marketing. So yes, the reporting of. it, I think, has been quite hit and miss because people have said, oh, it's a, you know, it doesn't matter how many tickets it sells in the UK. That's not what it's for. As I say, it's a political project. It's obviously done much better than people thought it would do. I personally think it will consolidate quite well in their sort of heartlands over the next week. And also on the Ross and Tomatoes, I think the critics score is 11% and the audience score is 99%. That's exactly that. It's, again, it's super serving an audience and it is that thing of everything is culture war. So, of course,

it gets an A score. But talking of super-serving audiences, in the same weekend, so the Melania thing took in 7 million, the YouTuber Markiplier, who does all sorts of playthrus on horror video games and things like that, but also acts and does all sorts. He has funded, directed, starred in and produced his own movie, which is called Iron Lung, set in a kind of imagined future. Based on one of those kind of niche sci-fi horror games. Yeah, where he's piloting a submersible through an ocean of blood. On a moon. On a moon.

That took $18 million. On the same weekend as Melania, $18 million. Super Serving an audience, 75% of people were under 25 watching that movie. His movie did not cost $75 million to make. His movie, which took $18 million, cost $3 million. So he is, I mean, that is a huge success. for him, a huge success for young people going to the cinema, and a huge success for cinema. I mean, that's a totally different avenue opens up if you think that creators from those

platforms can come in and bring an entire fan base into theatres. If you think that that can happen, it's failed before, by the way. Yes. But he really did it. Yeah. He has not failed. He has really hit a huge home run, as the Americans call it. Yeah. And what this might bring about is really, really interesting. The idea that he can open a movie wide, a wide release and have it on. I think they had in the North America, 2,500 screens or something incredible, which is a really wide release. And I thought it was completely fascinating what he's done. He wrote, directed, and acted in this movie. And it's based on a sort of, you know, online, as you say, sort of horror, sci-fi. Set in a submersible, in a, yes, in a far-off... In a moon of, in a lake of blood.

on a mood, I think. In a lake of blood. I mean, to think that creators, content creators from those platforms might be able to make things that could get those people out to cinemas is actually great and really exciting, an exciting sort of shot in the arm for the market and opens the idea that maybe we can do something completely different here. They bring huge fan bases and also they bring back fan bases, they bring the sort of people to the cinema who we say don't go to the cinema anymore.

You think, well, I mean, they will do if you do that. And they're both about super serving audiences. in the same way where we've talked about religious movies before, which will play, you know, to 90% of people will not be interested at all. Same with Melania, same with Markiplier. But if you can really get that audience invested, then there's a lot of money to be made. And again, if you spend 75 million like Amazon have done, then that's a completely different thing.

But if you can do it spending $3 million, then it's, you know, makes the future of cinema look rather rosy, I would say. It is interesting, though, the sort of backlash to it all. The documentary, the weekend before, had a screening at the White House, and there was one picture that made it online of Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, posing with Brett Ratner, you know, clinking glasses at this kind of screening. That's the same day that Alex Prattie was shot in that morning in Minneapolis, and there was such a lot of blowback against that. That was the other thing. I thought, oh, I can't remember Tim Cook being on Oligarchs Row at the inauguration. But of course, when I went, because I ended up sitting, he is literally behind Malani.

He's not with Zuckerberg and Bezos and Lauren in that incredible outfit. And now he's felt he's had to issue a statement and there's been a massive backlash from within Apple. And, you know, people who work on Apple shows, Olivia Munn, who is in your friends and neighbors, which is a hit for Apple, might say, well, you know what? She has accused Brett Ratner of behavior, which he denies, which is that she was once summoned to his trade or sent to his. trailer and he was furiously masturbating with one hand and holding a prawn cocktail in the other. But remember that Apple and Amazon are not the same as entertainment company. So it's kind of pointless reporting them as though this is like, I don't know, Sony or Lionsgate or whoever it is who's made this documentary.

It's not the same as that. We're talking about companies for whom the metrics are completely different. And 75 million is absolutely nothing. However, it's how much blowback there is. And I think actually for Tim Cook, he will be thinking quite carefully about how he's pictured again. Apple still ride the coattails of cool. They still have, you know, the very beginnings were quite countercultural and they've always lent into that. That's an interesting point.

I don't think they do anymore. I think they have become part of the Dark Lords now. Oh no, they definitely are part of the Dark Lords. But I think in terms of their marketing, I think they still like to imagine themselves as that. So there is still, it feels that you can push back a bit more against Apple than you can, that you could push back against, say, Philip Morris. Yeah. Or B-A-E systems.

Although I see smoking school again. They've all made deals with the devil. And they've all been plausibly deniable. The minute that they start thinking this is actually harmful in some way to our core business will be the minute that it is actually a sort of tipping point. I think it was difficult for Tim Cook, for definite, for sure, last week. Since in America last week was that a tide was turning. And listen, I would be 0.8% more optimistic than I was before I went there,

which is not a lot. But, you know, something is in the air, and understandably so. And this Melania thing coming out exactly when it did and the money of it being so obvious and the director of it sort of there's slightly a perfect storm around this where you see an unacceptability. So this documentary is called Melania and it simply follows her around for sort of the 20 days around the inauguration. Do you think it is worth people going to watch as a cultural artefact or just so they can have an opinion on it or should people save their one hour, 44 minutes? Oh my God, under no circumstances, waste your money. It is incredibly boring. If you want to

watch it when it comes onto streaming in like three or four weeks or whatever it's going to be, we don't know the exact window. But really, no, under no circumstances, I couldn't, you just can't, it's not even a camp classic. So it's not on like an irony watch. Listen, if anyone could get an irony out of anything, it's me, but I struggled. I really struggled. It's incredibly boring. Shall we go to a break? Let's. Afterwards, we have three fun things. Well, we have Ryan Reynolds' emails. We have the story of Carby Lame, which has been underreported. I think it's the most extraordinary entertainment story of the last couple of years. And also we'll be chatting through that Daily Mail article as well.

See in a bit. See after the break. With Amex Platinum, almost every purchase made with your card can be covered with points including new tastes, new fits, and virtually everything in between.

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reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us, because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise. CBC News. I was guilty of multiple skin care crimes, two counts of sleeping and makeup, one count of using disposable wipes.

I knew my kids. routine had to change. So I switched to Garnier-Missler water. It gently cleanses, perfectly removes makeup and provides 24-hour hydration. Clear away the evidence with the number one Missler water worldwide by Garnier. Welcome back everybody. Now, I know we've spoken about the Blake lively Justin Baldoni saga before. We're going to talk about it again, but through the lens of Ryan Reynolds, because a lot of his emails have been released. And his texts. And his texts. And his texts. I'd say he's quite a wordsmith. Just to put it in context, 2023, Ryan Reynolds had 80% positive public sentiment across all social media.

In 2025, he has 20%. Blake Lively went from over 80% to 10%. Justin Baldoni went for 64% to 5%. So this is a fight that everyone has lost. But we can focus now on Ryan Reynolds and his entry into the fray. Okay, well, first of all, you're probably thinking, how is this case still going on? And I get that.

The movie we're talking about is It Ends with Us, which was an adaptation of the Colleen Hoover novel. It was a big hit. It was released by Sony. And it came out the weekend after Deadpool and Wolverine. Dollar Earned for Dollar Spent. It Ends with Us was even more successful than that. Blate Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds,

should really have been at a sort of new peak. But Blate Lively took a real pasting on that press tour and she took a real massive groundswell of hate for her online. Anyway, that all exploded months later with a New York Times article, which suggested that the dark arts of publicity had been employed to kind of do an astroturfing hate campaign against her. She sued him for sexual harassment. He countersued. His case has been thrown out, but hers remains, and it is under this still very much alive lawsuit that all these messages and emails and so on have had to be entered into filings as part of the discovery material.

Ryan Reynolds's text messages and emails with various players, including Colleen Hoover, including Justin Baldoni, Sony and his agent at WME and the chairman of WME, but not the super big boss of WME, who gets a lot of mentions, but we'll talk about that. Before they start shooting, these are some of my favorite messages. This is so dark. The very first one, the very first one, Ryan Reynolds is trying to get Baldoni to move the production two weeks forward. Which is huge, by the way. A huge deal. can explain. But because for family reasons, he wants it moved back,

move to two weeks forward. So sends him a email and says, if there's any way your line producer could make this happen, I will have her face tattooed on my perineum. Yeah. I completely understand how big of an ass that is, but the perineum is one of the most nervy parts of the human body to expose to trauma.

And then he signs off, I happen to adore you, Justin. Yeah, I happen to adore you, Justin. And also he said, he also, the worst thing he says in that email, it's about if you can do this, it's how to win us. Like, ooh, this is, ugh. Okay, because I thought we, you know, he says you've been a great collaborator. Are we collaborating?

Because it seems like I have to win you and you are starring in my movie. Okay. So it's a very, it is definitively, if you got that email, you go, I have to move my production two weeks forward, which, as you say, is sort of impossible. The reason why we're talking about this today is because it's so interesting and revealing, very rarely revealing about how power genuinely works in Hollywood. The reason Justin Balmudony's movie can even get made, even though he's got this tech guy backing it and even though he's got the rights from Colleen Hoover is because Blate Lively

is in it. She is the star. Once she's attached to it, the movie is getting made and that's why Ryan Reynolds, her husband, who has nothing to do with the movie, remember, he doesn't even have some vanity EP credit. So the next messages we see are with, well, not the next messages, but there's so many messages. We can see that the next messages are with the Sony executive. So we can see that Blake Lively got a final cut of the film. Remember, she is the star of this film, gets final cut of it, which is... So Justin Birdhany, who's the director and co-star, he cut a version of the film. Blake Lively was unhappy with it. She did her own version. And Sony allowed her to do her own version of it. So there are two competing versions. And they go with hers. And Sony goes with hers.

Ryan Reynolds then writes to Sony, you have a lifetime supply of admiration, respect and friendship for me. If there's any way I can pay it forward any time, say the word and I will show up for you. Try me. Such a power move. And by the way, who wouldn't do that for their wife? I mean, that's the that shines through this all the way. It shows us about Hollywood power dynamics, but also if you're Ryan Reynolds, that is what you would do because it's your wife, don't you think? I would try and help my wife. We'll

get to the end to see whether he has helped his wife at all. I imagine if when he was writing every single one of these messages, if you'd said to him, before you press send, just so you know every single person in the world will see this message, he would have written different messages. But that's not where he is. But equally, they're very well written. And I have to say that, you know, people often say about actors,

oh God, that's so boring. You know, it's only when speaking someone else's lines. These messages are better than 90% of lines I've ever seen Ryan Reynolds speak on film. By the opening of this movie, Ryan Reynolds is not happy. There's a sort of whole groundswell of hate, and Blate Lively is getting dragged online all the time. No one quite knows where this campaign of hate is coming from at that point, but clearly Ryan Reynolds gets wind of it.

Then Ryan Reynolds writes to WME, to his agent at WME. Mega, mega, mega agent. I mean, about the most powerful full. in Hollywood pretty much. Presided over at the ultimate apex predator level by Ari Emanuel, who is originally Ari and Andorosh is based on. But this is, he's climbed, he's the final boss now, Ari anyway. Ryan Reynolds says to WME that that statement we just heard the Hollywood report is a joke.

He then insults the executive producer, the Sony executive. He calls them fucking textbook, ineffectual elderly people with no ideas or thoughtful for communication skills, just blunt instruments with six catchphrases and about five key words. Okay, they're like two years older than him or something. They would have been at high school together. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then he complains to Patrick Weitzel, who's the executive chairman of W&E. There's a lot of names here. But he's fine. No, we love Patrick Wightsell because he's formerly Mr. Lauren Sanchez. No way. Do you not know that? I didn't know that. Oh, my God. He then writes to Patrick Wightel. The thing I believe that

my wife and I am missing in this debacle is your rage. I have never had anything but an intense love an admiration for WME and the entire company. But I've also never needed WME like I do at the moment. So then he goes back to his agent. He's lower down at WME, but obviously one of the most very senior agents of WME. This is the most disturbing thing I've ever seen in this business. Sony needs to step up for real. Enough is enough is enough.

So again, this is all because this online rage against Blake is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I suspect at this point Ryan knows where it's come from and what have you. But at the moment, this is just, he needs a lid put on this kind of campaign that seems to be waged against his wife. Then he goes back again to the agent and says, any update on Sony and can Ari go full Ari on Tom, who is Tom Rothman, who's the film head of Sony. The agent says he will willfully go full Ari on all of them. But we want to know what we are trying to have him accomplish. It's like, yeah, if you want a negotiation, you need to tell me what you want.

So after the RE manual bit, the kind of full truth of what's going on becomes apparent. It doesn't come out for quite a few months, actually, that New York Times thing. But when it does come out saying this dark publicity campaign was launched, she also sues him for sexual harassment on set. If there's any sense that that sexual harassment as a sort of play came later, then what on earth have you been doing? because this is so completely damaging, as you've seen. It is so damaged their public images.

For me, that rule of never litigate, which I've talked about before, but litigating in a polarized culture, by the way, this has become completely part of the culture wars. Megan Kelly talked about it on her opening speech at the CPAC, the Conservative Conference. It's become weaponized this battle completely by the culture wars. I just think litigating, in the old. days you could have done this and it would have worked out exactly as you planned

Ryan Reynolds and Blake lively but nowadays unless it is really extreme what happened to you I hate to say it but it could destroy you even more than the original sin but you know and as you say it's it's the the whole story is indicative of how soft power works in Hollywood how big stars are how big agents are but you know yeah the one the one good thing about it for Ryan Reynolds is as you say comes out of it as a as a Great writer. Yeah. But I think that in speaking of screen personas, all of this now affects Blat-Lively screen persona.

I don't think she can go back to being the slightly kind of wounded bird, you know, Serena Vanderwoods and Girl. You know, this affects the roles you'll be offered from now on in my view. Because, and I just think this is another, you know, this is another instance of it just being so unpredictable in an extremely online world. and what people will now accept her on screen as. And I think that that shifts for me. I also think that it is an indication of why people usually do not complain and why people do not come forward and why there is silence in industries where there shouldn't be silence.

Often when they come forward, it does them more harm than good and that's not the way that it should be. Not because of things within the industry, but you can't complain because of the public. Right. Let's move on to from former Hollywood power to the new entertainment power. This story, as you say, has not really been reported in entertainment media. A guy called Carby Lame, who you may know, your kids may know, he is a TikToker.

He's an Italian TikToker. In fact, he's the biggest TikToker. Italian Senegalese. In the world. Yeah. He was working in a factory in 2020. He lost his job, yeah. Got fired and they thought, I'm going to start doing some TikToking.

Starts TikToking in 2020. A manager signs him up when he's got a thousand Instagram followers. Now the biggest TikToker in the world. Even by 2022, who is making $75 million a year, this guy. If you've never seen him, his stick is sort of Mr. Bean-esque. A lot of it is quite physical comedy, silent comedy. That's the key to a lot of it. It's silent.

So you don't have to just be working in the Angersfield or in his case. He's Italian. He's not limited. It's not amazing, but it's absolutely fine. I mean, he's a physical comedian. He's very, very charming. His personality is charming. He is himself.

And authenticity, as we know, is the most powerful. thing you can have 75 million. He was a refugee from Senegal, which is how he came to Italy in the first place. He's a first generation immigrant to Italy. So if someone's going to end up being an entertainment billionaire, quite a good person to have done it. And that is exactly what he has just become, Carby, Lame. And because he has signed a deal, which I think is genuinely extraordinary. It tells you everything about where entertainment is going. A billion dollars, he's just been paid by a company called Rich Sparkle. Rich Sparkle are a corporation based in Hong Kong. All they did was produce financial reports. That was their job. I mean, that was their

job. And they decided we're going to branch out into digital. What they have paid in this money for, and this is only a three or four year deal, they have paid him a billion dollars for 900, to be super active, 975 million. 975 million. But they have paid not only for him, but they are paid for his likeness, his physical likeness, his voice, his mannerisms. They've also paid for the AI rights to his face, his voice, his mannerisms, and they're paid for those to be used in live commerce streaming. You know, yeah, they've paid to create an AI version of him. Yeah, live stream e-commerce is what we would have thought 20 years ago as, you know,

QVC. Yeah. You know, it's selling, you know, stuff on TV. So this is TikTok's live stream e-commerce is influences, brands, all sorts of people doing tutorials, doing kind of walkthroughs, doing kind of behind the scenes at factories and you being able to buy something straight away immediately from them. They say by 2026, the literally just the live stream e-commerce industry, it is due to be worth over $1 trillion by the end of the year. And that's mainly just China, by the way. In the states it keeps growing and growing. It's going to be about 70 billion in the states this year.

I mean, technically how they're going to do it is really interesting because if they can have an AI version. By the way, they've only brought these rights for three years or something. And it's a billion. About half what Comcasts are going to pay for the hall of ITV forever. It's about an eighth of what Skydance paid for Paramount, MTV, MTV, all the cablemen. that works. I mean, three years of Carbilele-Lame. And what they're going to be able to do is, obviously, if you've got the AI rights to someone, then he can live stream all the time in any language. Yes, they've got multilingual rights. You're not cursed by the human's ability to need

to sleep or recharge or anything. He can be live streaming 24 hours a day in every territory in the world. This is a totally sort of new frontier in image rights. And his AI avatar is basically going to do all of this. But I think it's also ethically a new frontier. because this is a completely new model that you now can't ignore because someone's paid so much for it for leveraging like digital identity. Someone else's digital identity is now like a business asset for a business. For me, I don't feel totally sure that as always with these things, the law is anywhere near catching up with these things.

If humans can become everlasting assets or whatever, or you hear so much about authenticity, but this is like a science fiction thing. What if you could separate that authenticity from the actual human and then treat it as a commercial asset that you could exploit all the time and it didn't need to, the human didn't need to be involved really? Because that's how he's grown what he's done so far by himself with his own personality because of the authenticity, because he's very believable, because he is real.

So they are giving him a billion dollars to create a simulacrum of his realness. This guy is so real, we need. need to produce an artificial version of him. There'll be acres of press when, you know, Claudia Winkelman is doing a new chat show on BBC 1, which, by the way, is a story that... Which we're 100% here for. Yeah, absolutely right. But this is beyond enormous.

I mean, this is where everything is going. This is the future, you know, live stream e-commerce is where the world of entertainment is sort of this, it's absolutely morphing into that. And when there's things like, oh, should Sky and ITV be allowed to team up, should so-and-so be able to buy so-and-so? you know, surely that's a monopoly. You think, have you lost your mind? There's a trillion dollars going into live stream e-commerce.

And all of this is time spent by people and money spent by people and advertise a money going into. You know, this is where the industry is. And if you're in broadcast media at all, then this is your opposition. And if all the broadcast media tomorrow joined together, it would not be a monopoly because this is what it's up against. So anyone who's telling you, you can't team up certain entertainment propositions with each other, it's gone.

That world has already gone and this is what we're up against. I will be interested in the reception to it because obviously people do feel they have an authentic connection with a fan base and they're sort of buying his fan base, you know, buying his live stream, buying all of that stuff. But I do think once you know that it's an AI version of the guy that you started watching in his bedroom in the pandemic, I think it will be interesting to see how people react to that who have been used to the real. But if I'm Carby, I'm immediately doing a lot of TikToks, which are me...

If you're a billionaire now, so you're probably not about a border. Like I'd be here. Yeah. If I was Carby, I would be doing interviews with Japanese Carby. You know, I'd be doing live stream video. I would be really immersing myself with these various avatars of me. And so even if they're all endorsed by me, if that means sense. And he would say, you know, I'm constantly updating the algorithm myself.

And, you know, I was chatting to my German Carby the other day and we said X, Y, or Z. So there's ways and means of keeping control of it. But, I mean, God, that idea of just, I mean, talk about money when you sleep. I mean, that's amazing. It's not even you. But it, and yet it is. Now, we promised you at the beginning there was an article in the mail. We want to do a little right to reply to Marina, the article.

I am reading about this podcast, Richard, and I hear that Gary Lineca's ruffle feathers inside his own company. Goldhanger. Some members of the team have accused him of cynically exploiting his fellow English footballer David Beckham and his family crisis because I did, I'm not going to call it an emergency podcast. Although it was. It was a reaction episode to Brooklyn Beckham's Instagram host. You had a reaction episode. You should go see your doctor if you ever. I called in Katie Hind in the Daily Mail. You felt uncomfortable about participating in. And who did you get that from? A close pal, a bystander. I am an insin An insider, an insider.

An insider. She hasn't been inside my WhatsApp messages to you, which I've scrolled back. By the way, we send a lot of WhatsApp messages to each other. I scroll back about 900 pages and I found the day in question. All right, Ryan. Yeah, I know. They're all very well written. But it's interesting, isn't it?

Because it's the only reason we're talking about it is because there's a million articles like this written all day, every day. Oh, so-and-so's falling out with so-and-so. Oh, a rumor of this. An insider told me this. And so it's interesting when something like this comes up, so we can definitively talk you through it and say, well, this didn't happen, this didn't happen. And she said, I've got insiders at goalhanger who have said this, who have said X, Y and Z.

And we know it's not the case. So they said, I was uncomfortable with doing it. I wasn't. We, I messaged you on that morning and said, well, God, we really should do this Brooklyn Beckham thing. I said, no, I can't. I'm literally, I'm physically not around today. Would you be able to do it by yourself? You said, of course, I wouldn't actually.

It's perfect for you to do anyway. So I had no discomfort. But we can't be hypocrites if we didn't talk about it because we talk about this stuff all the time. And culturally, it's interesting. Just ask us if you want to write a story about this. We'll tell you whether it's bullshit. or not? Well, so either she has goal hanger insiders, and

in which case, Katie, they don't, all the way through this article, everything you've said is wrong, it's all completely, no, but it's worth saying, it's all incorrect. Okay, okay. And if they said you are uncomfortable, that's incorrect as well. So either you've got insiders, they are wrong, or you haven't got insiders and you have made it up because. It's a flyer. Let me tell you,

this is a flyer, but I get it. But it's fine to do it because we're all, we do, listen, what are we doing now? It's nonsense. what we all do. But I hope you don't mind Katie. We're allowed to say, we're allowed to say here. It's not true. It's not true. But listen, can I just say something? Yeah. This is my favorite bit of it. This is the nub of this whole article. Right. This is the most nuts bit of this whole thing. Okay. It says Linneka's US visa is perhaps the least of Netflix's worries. It's trying to acquire American entertainment giant Warner Brothers Discovery and network chiefs fear that Linneca openly slating Trump could affect the sale, particularly as the president. is expected to adjudicate the deal. Oh my God.

Okay, that's my favorite bit the whole thing. Okay. You cover entertainment. You can't think that's how it works, right? You can't, okay. You don't genuinely think it's possible that a 90-odd billion deal in the United States is going to founder on anything Gary Linnaker says on his Instagram. Like, okay, we also cover entertainment on this podcast,

but regrettably we have to cover entertainment as it is, not as we might wish it to be. I'm sure if Peter Beersley said something, there might be an issue. Please tell me you don't cover entertainment and actually think that, okay, because let me tell you what might actually cause the Warner deal not to go through, okay? It's predominantly antitrust in the streaming market. Sorry, I know it's not as fun as Gary Linnicus tweets. The biggest streamer acquires the third biggest streamer.

They might have the thirdical integration concerns. They might think, oh, there's preferential treatment for Netflix originals and they're using Warner assets, there might be market foreclosure concerns. Yes, there is also an element of Trump. He will become involved. And if he thinks the Ellisons, who as we know are also bidding for Warner's, if he thinks he can leverage his much closer relationship with them for more personal gain, then that may have something to do with it.

But if you think that any of that with those mega power players is going to hang in the balance over anything Gary Linnaker says on his Insta, wow. I mean, maybe look up from your small pond for a second. It's going to blow your mind how the world works. It's going to blow your mind. But he's not at the BBC anymore so they can't have a go. It also says that Gary wanted us to do the Brooklyn Beckham podcast. I mean, God bless Gary.

I love him. He does not day to day give us an awful lot of... The only people who decide anything that you hear on this podcast are me and Richard. The only people ever. Literally our poor producers. We come in and like one minute before we start to go, any indication of what you're going to talk about this week, guys. Yeah.

We have a WhatsApp with Gary. The last message you posted on it, I hope you won't mind me saying is, please don't anybody spoil the traitors final for me because I can't watch it life. I hope you won't mind me invading his privacy by saying that. But listen, again, there are far worse things in the world, but Katie genuinely forgive us.

But you know, you can write that stuff and I get it and that's the angle. No, I won't accept the Warner Brothers stuff. I will not accept that anyone who covers everything. entertainment thinks that I just will not accept it. And if they do, I'm stunned. But again, just to say, I wasn't uncomfortable. This is absolutely what we do. So if you do have sources, they're incorrect. They've been incorrect about every single factual detail in this, by the way. So if you do have sources, change them. If you don't have sources, come on, that's all I think about that. Do you have any recommendations this week, Marina? I have a recommendation for a thing you can do it. And you can

only do it every 10 years, which is the government's got its consultation out on the future of the BBC. and because of the new charter next year. And you can actually have your say. The last time it was under the Conservatives and they'd made lots of moves on sort of encroaching on or limiting the BBC in various ways. And it was actually the public response that stopped that. Reform have obviously said that they wish to destroy the BBC.

Now, whether they are in power next time, who knows. My view is that the BBC should be made completely independent of government like New Labour did with the Bank of England. But listen, your view may be completely different. You may wish to destroy the BBC. But either way, this is the time you can say what you think and your views maybe completely different to mine. If you search BBC consultation, I've done it. It takes like 20 minutes.

We'll put it in the show notes. And is it a government thing? Yeah. It's the only chance that you have to respond to this ahead of the Charter of Neon-Xia. So it's a really interesting thing. And you can participate. And the public response genuinely matters. It really changed things last time around.

And I think it's very interesting. As I say, you could have completely different views to me. but just, you know, why not make them heard? So I recommend having your say. What do you recommend? As I say, I was in the States last week. And so I want to recommend a whole genre, really. I was in the States last week, and I was in Palm Springs.

I'm going to set a bit of the next We Sol Murders book there. And there's a renovated theatre, and I wanted to go in and have a look. I thought I had an idea for a scene in there. And it wasn't open. So then we looked at what was on that week, and Don McLean was playing on the last night. We were there. Of course. You had a full immersive Parsons Springs experience.

Yeah. So book tickets. to go and see Don McLean. And when he's 80, Don McLean, and sat in this theater, and he's got this amazingly tight band. He's got a pianist. He's been within 40 years. He's got this, like, cool young, new guitarists.

And they just do loads of rock and roll and roll classics. And then they're doing, and he does Vincent, the place goes mad. He does American Pie. And genuinely, there's people crying. I think whether it's because, God, is this the end of something? Or we're thinking, oh, this is something that's going to last forever. And we get to see the guy who did it. It's like watching Mozart play one of his symphonies.

Is that a thing? It's a very moving experience, but it just reminded me, and I know we say it a lot, that there is something so incredibly special about going to see live music. And there's live music in your town, theatres, little clubs, or whatever it is. Just go and see, just people coming out, just thinking a communal event, you know, and I just thought this is absolutely why AI will not win, this wonderful thing that we can do. And it's tough being a musician in this country at the moment.

So just go out and see live music. But what a treat to go and see Don McLean. Listen, he's very irascible, but very, very, very funny. He really put on a show. That about rites us up for today. We will be back, of course, on Thursday with a Q&A. I might not be, because in case it's something I feel uncomfortable about. Oh, yeah, unless Richard feels uncomfortable, by any of any questions.

Or if Gary decides there's stuff he doesn't want us to do. Or Peter Beardsley. And for Friday, for our members, which you can join at the rest is entertainment.com, for our free listening and bonus episodes, etc. ahead of Valentine's Day, we are doing Hollywood's most sinful couples. Whoa. Yeah, promising lots of drama there. Anyway, see you on Thursday.

See you on Thursday.