The Rest Is Entertainment - The Rock Enters His Country Music Era

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

Why are the big cheeses of the entertainment industry buying up sports teams? Is The Rock the next big country star? What does the micro-drama boom mean for actors? Ex-Disney boss Bob Iger is buying storied basketball team the LA Lakers for a billion-dollar deal. Are sports teams becoming the new Van Goghs for the mega wealthy? Dwayne Johnson is dipping his toes into country music. Marina gives an update on The Rock’s latest career pivot, and explains why his Oscar ambitions are far from over. China is leading the boom in micro-dramas, but an increasing number feature AI stars. Will the fake actor trend transition to the UK and US markets? The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Sponsored by Lloyds. Looking for extra value from your spending? You can bank on Lloyds to help your money go further. Search Lloyds Rewards in your app. Summer sale is here: get an annual membership for a third off with code SUMMER26. That's ad-free listening, every bonus episode, and full access to our exclusive members' series. Sale ends August 31st, so grab it before summer's over. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Video Editor: Adam Thornton and Louis Mealing Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Emma Jackson Exec Producer: Ami Bennett Filmed at www.westdigitalstudios.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The rest is entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now, one talent can make a career, three usually gets you an official title. Yep, and that official title is a triple threat. You call triple threat anyone who can act, sing and dance. Now, these days, three can seem almost modest. The same person might write, direct, produce, and have another career on the side. J-Lo would be a triple threat, huge music career, started as a dancer, huge acting career as well.

It's an amazing talent to be able to have. And now drinks mogul as well. Is she? You have to be the mogul now. I think the mogul is always the third thing now. So she's a quadruple threat. Yeah, I sing, I act and I have a lifestyle portal. But that phrase all singing all dances.

It escaped entertainment and now it's used for anyone and anything that does several jobs very well all at once. Which is a pretty fair description of Octopus. It's the UK's largest energy supply at one of the country's biggest installers of heat pumps, solar panels and batteries. and it runs a major electric car leasing business for good measure. I mean, that's a quadruple threat, isn't it? Yeah, that's a quadruple threat. Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Resters Entertainment with me, Marina. Hi.

And me, Richard Osmond. Hello, everyone. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? I'm very well. Lovely to have you back. I'm very happy to be back together. Yeah. I know you'd rather be somewhere sunny, but, you know, it's nice. But I like us to be together. Yeah, exactly. There are our advantages.

An entertaining podcast is what we promised this week. What are we talking about? We're talking about lots of big sports franchises have just been bought by people we've actually heard of. Jeff Bezos has bought a bit of Liverpool, among others. And Bob Iger, former Disney CEO, has bought the Lakers, among others. And why? And why? We're going to discuss.

We spoke a couple of years ago, Matt, about microdramas. And now they are literally everywhere. And they started in China. And you'll be surprised to learn that there are developments in the Chinese microdrama industry, which I think people will find interesting. Yes. And we're also going to be checking in on, as you know, my favorite cultural polymath, The Rock.

Friend of the podcast. Friend of the podcast. Whether or not he knows it. And what he's up to at the moment, there are musical developments. Oh, yeah. He's got new plans. He's got new plans. We start with sports organizations and sports rights.

Now, I had an idea a little while ago. I thought one day on the podcast we should do, what's the best way to make a billion dollars in media? So say we had to start today, and in a year's time, we had to have built something that would make us a billion dollars. I thought, oh, that would be an interesting item. So I was sort of thinking it through and that, you know, it brings together lots of things we talk about.

And then it's been blown out of the water this week by a man called Mark Walter, who is CEO of, a company called Guggenheim. And he bought the LA Lakers, one of the biggest basketball teams in existence, one of the most sports franchises anywhere in the world, for $10 billion. And he sold them last week for $12.5 billion. So he has made $2.5 billion in a year for sort of doing nothing at all. And the question is why? And the question is, firstly, why did he spend $10 billion on the Lakers in the first place? Why is it worth that? And secondly, why, as you say, have Bob Iger, former Disney Man and Josh Kushner,

so surname we didn't hear so much until a few years ago, why have they teamed up to buy it for $12.5 billion? Yeah, you hear it all the time now. This guy's like the bloody zealig of our culture, isn't he? You hear him, he's everywhere. We've got Jared, who's currently in the Middle East, solving that issue, and we've got Josh who has bought the L.A. Lakers. Right. And, yeah, Josh Kushner is Jared Kushner's brother, but politically very different, apparently.

Josh Kushner is something of a Democrat, they say. Something of her. Yeah. Albeit a Democrat with a $2 billion so you can open AI. But it's something. Yeah. Whereas Jared is less of a Democrat, I think. Yeah.

I mean, I think he would probably try and say that he's kind of politically agnostic. Yeah. I think it feels like he may. He's got a touch of the Republican about him. A touch of it. Just a little touch. The father, who's Charles Kushner, he first came into the media when he was jail for a number of things including hiring prostitutes to try and seduce his brother-in-law

in a blackmail pact. It will shock you to learn part A of what happened next, which is Trump pardoned him. It will shock you further to learn that part B of that was Trump then made him Ambassador de France. That's a family to be part of. What an elegant diplomatic posting. Anyway. That one is, yeah. So Josh Kushner runs a company called Thrive Capital. And Thrive Capital are a venture capital firm. They were very early investors in Instagram. They've got a huge holding in Open AI. So they invest in tech stocks and things like that.

They now have an arm called Thrive Eternal. And Thrive Eternal, which for a company who is hugely hugely invested in AI, Thrive Eternal is essentially trying to find any company that will not be destroyed by AI. What, as a hedge against their other investments. Their enormous investments and everything else. And sports media is the big thing. Bob Iger, who was the long-time legendary chairman of Disney from 2005 to the end of last year, and was widely seen as one of their greatest ever leaders.

He's a visionary. If Bob Iger's doing something, you should pay attention. Now, Mark Walter, so this guy, he's just made $2.5 billion in a year. So he buys the L.A. Lakers. You know, he owns loads of different sporting things. He owns a bit of Chelsea as well. He has not done anything particularly difficult in the last year, and he's made $2.5 billion. That tells you everything about sport.

He was in the, he was bought the same, 10 billion, he's going to keep it forever. He was then being investigated by the federal tax authorities and various other things, needed a bit of quick cash. Again, gets a phone call from Bob Iger and Josh Kushner saying, would you sell us the L.A. Lakers? He's like, well, actually, I do need some quick cash. How much have we got? They see 12.5 billion. It's done in three days.

The whole deal is done in three days. Yes. Incredibly quick. And it was worth $10 billion to Mark Walter for sure. It's definitely worth $12.5 billion to Kushner and Eiger as well. There will be a ceiling to this, but we haven't got close to that ceiling yet. It is a small amount of franchises, a really small asset class. There are more billionaires than there are sports franchises.

There are more viewers out there who want to watch sport than want to watch anything else. And there's more loyalty in those viewers. So the money, we sort of even haven't scraped the surface of it yet, I think. And there's a big debate as to where the sports rights are now just too expensive, prohibitively expensive, and not delivering the value that they should at those prices. So why are people paying all this money? Why is Bezos also? He's part of a consortium essentially that's going to buy the,

who's going to buy control in Liverpool. So they've bought a small stake now and they have the right. They bought a third again. And the people they've bought it off, Fenway Sports Group have made a huge profit in on that. They bought it for I think 406 million and it's now valued somewhere around 7.5, 8 billion. And you think that feels like quite a lot of money, but there's a unique set of things in our media universe that means that these companies are worth an awful lot of money. I mean, they're insanely expensive and, you know, they're probably going to get a bit more expensive.

There will be a ceiling, of course. But, you know, when you've got people like Jeff Bezos with a, you know, this stake in Liverpool, you know, he owns one other business. for sports rights. I mean, there is a, there's a virtuous circle there somewhere that, you know, people can keep pumping money around the same engine. And obviously, both of these, Disney own ESPN, but Amazon are now showing games themselves, so you can see why there's a sort of idea of synergies between not just the e-commerce side of it and the tech side of it. They're trying to get into actual owning the rights. The biggest thing is the scarcity of sports, France. It feels like unfettered capitalism.

It feels like, oh, these guys, do you know what? These guys are actually pushing out on their own and they're spending all this money and good for them. Actually, what they're doing, they're buying into sort of a socialist collective. Well, yes, because, and actually it's interesting because what Iga could have done and what people thought he was going to do, this is a surprise, this particular bill, was that they're going to have a new franchise in Vegas. Vegas don't have a basketball team, blah, blah.

So they were going to do one of those and, you know, you can buy in at the start. And they thought that he was going to buy that. fact, he's done, you know, like when people say rather in the way when actually the first people to have bought Liverpool, those dreadful ones that they got rid of eventually Hicks and Gillette, when they said, you know, you can't buy whatever it was, 120 years of history, what, you can. Yes, you really can. It depends how much money you got.

And so, yes, they are buying these big, big things. In the same way that Liverpool is now the top earning Premier League club, it's the fourth most valuable club in the world. So there are very few of these things. Yes, and that's why they're so valuable. It's scarcity. This is why rich people have always invested in fine art or classic cars, because it is finite. There are not any more of those things being made. It's a very small asset group of things. A sport is that. So if we wanted to set up a chicken restaurant tomorrow, we could. And we could go on a high street that's already got eight chicken restaurants. It doesn't matter.

And if we make better chicken than everyone else, we'll make money. And that's supposed to be capitalism. We couldn't tomorrow go and set up a Premier League football team. You know, it would be impossible. You could sort of set up a minor one and, you know, take 15 years to go through the leagues and become a Premier League football team. But you can't do it. You can't go and buy an – you can't set up your own NFL team. As always, I should have realised, of course, the easiest way to make a billion dollars is already have $300 billion. That's because then it's very easy to make a billion. So people are buying into these in the same way that they used to buy into classic cars or fine art. J.P. Morgan did a – they looked at every single billionaire on their books and what those people earned.

and 20% of their billionaires had a controlling interest in some sort of sports team somewhere. And over 30% had some interest in a sports arena or a sports team, which is more than now invest in fine art or cars. It's like one of the biggest asset classes now. If you're a billionaire, the safest place to put your money is sport. And the safest place is sport because it is protected. Because there's not going to be any more of them. Because the media rights, which is where it's interesting to us,

the media rights are sort of held in a cartel, which is, you know, if you're an NFL team, you all join together and sell those media rights to one particular buyer. You know, you can't, you know, the LA Lakers can't go off and do their own ones. A smaller team can't do their own ones. It's all cartelized. The whole thing is incredibly anti-capitalist, and that's why it's worth so much money. You add in then, of course, this insane level of kind of fandom that you get around the world. He say, okay, it's great. We've got fandom around the world. But, you know, BTS could very, very easily be superseded in a few years by four other K-pop bands.

Whereas the Lakers can't be because there's not going to be any more teams or if there would be one or two. So it's literally you've got, you can plan for the future, you can plan forever and ever. And the absolute key to it, as you say, it's thrive eternal. It is AI proof. It is live, unscripted entertainment, which is something that AI can't do. It's human. It's human and all of these billionaires worked out quite a long time ago, like with Live Nation, concerts and things like that. The thing to invest in now, which I think is good news, is humanity, is things that are real, it's things that will bring people together, it's things that AI can't do,

things that a computer can't do. And that's one of the many, you know, if you add all those things together, that's why this guy has just earned two and a half billion dollars for doing absolutely nothing. And it all ties into the fact that, you know, the Netflix's of this world are paying huge premiums for live events now. That's the stuff that they really, really want. You know, for example, they're doing this brilliant new Luke Littler show. Have you read about this? Yes. Where 20 amateurs take on Luke Litter over one leg, and if any of them win, they win, they went 500,000 pounds. And that's just a big, big, big, like, oh my God, everyone's going to be watching. The big, big, live event, and those are incredibly important to all the streamers and

all the channels. You look at the BBC last week with the European Athletics Championships. Just such huge ratings for them. Far and above the stuff that it was replacing at almost every turn. You know, these things are incredibly important. At a time where you're not getting $15 million for something anymore, if you get something that can really, really get you $3, $4 million, and these sports things can, there's absolute gold dust for absolutely everyone.

You can see where the money's coming from. Yes. I also think that there's something, I mean, it's weird when you think back to, I mean, really just a few years ago and people would be completely cringed out if anyone called football a product or content or anything like that. Or franchise. Now they really think of it.

Not lots of the fans, because of course lots of fans are opposed to this, and we can get onto that. But they think of it as IP. These people think of it as IP. And what's, it's interesting because there is so much money in entertainment. If you think of sport as a branch of entertainment,

there is so much money in entertainment and it costs so, you know, think of the other things that say Bezos has bought, well, Prime bought, you know, all of the Tolkien stuff, but you've got to get a show like the Rings of Power going. James Bond. Yeah. Again, that one is you've got to get it going. It's still a risk every time it goes out there.

Sport is not a risk in the same way because you have these incredibly invested fans. You have a huge history. You have archive, library, everything. It's an amazing asset in terms of, It constantly regenerates. It constantly regenerates its stories. It can be always on.

It's interesting what clearly Liverpool are attracted. By the way, also, lots of clubs, in terms of particularly in football, are thinking, okay, other people are owned by Petro States and they're backed by this kind of thing. In order to stay competitive, you know, we need money, we need these things, we need inward investment. but what they're really attracted to in terms of the Bezos consortium, which is not just Bezos, it's Amin Batya and Eduardo Savarant, yeah, who's one of the... Yes, who Andrew Garfield played in the social network. He's one of the Facebook founders. He's buying it.

Yeah. And they like how global they are in terms of e-commerce and tech and all of those things, and the way that you can, particularly in India and Asia, in places that they consider still to be unexploited, under-exploited markets. then you see with someone like Bob Iger, what Bob Iger has done. Bob Iger understood franchises and how massive they were in quite a sort of early way compared to lots of other people in Hollywood. If you think what he did, maybe some of the biggest moves he did were to bring in

under the Disney marquee Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars. Those are all Iger deals when you buy this stuff and then you exploited across the parks, the cruises, the merchandise. Well, I was going to say, that's the other thing that Iga really, really understands is he sat at the top of a company that people thought just made cartoons, and he was able to look at the books and understand quite how much of Disney's fortunes rely on theme parks and cruise ships and real people going to real places to do real things and have real experiences. So that's absolutely in his DNA, which is why he sees sport as such an

incredibly good fit for becoming much, much, much, much richer. Yes. And as we said, the other thing that's sort of interesting about it is that we know it is a appointment of view. We know that people come and they watch it live. You can make it global like they have with Liverpool. And it's this enduring IP. And the other thing about it, as you say, is it has already been created by somebody else. I mean, by the way, so had Marvel and Pixar and Star Wars when he bought them under the Disney Markey. The Lakers is a long story.

And it is amazing. I mean, you know, it's very cool. The Lakers is cool. Here's the thing to imagine. It's much cooler than the New Vegas team. Yes, it is. don't know about yet. But here's the reason sports is so crazy and here's the reason sports is becoming so profitable. Imagine you could buy Taylor Swift. Imagine you could buy Taylor Swift and

you were assured that there are only going to be 20 other pop stars for the next 15 or 20 years. So you controlled her, there's only going to be 20 other pop stars and you could take all the money. That's what buying a sports team is. And imagine that all of those pop stars joined together and any time you wanted to hear a record or see a video, they all had to agree and they all got paid all at the same time. You know, that's what sport is, which is absolutely insane. It's incredibly expensive, but it is in some ways, I think, the least risky bet in entertainment, because as I say, all these other things that they might be building up under their streaming banners or wherever it is, it might fail. In fact, you know, as you all say, most things fail. Yes, exactly.

This is something that isn't going to fail because even if it's a disaster, this many people are still invested in it. There is a huge amount, and as we've said, there's more entertainment out there than there ever has been, and lots of it is incredibly expensive. But it's unclear the value of lots of that entertainment. I mean, what would happen now they've over-exploited, you know, Disney over-exploited Star Wars? What is the value of that now? I mean, I would argue that it's problematic and it's overvalued.

But also, I mean, the other thing, which is a whole separate podcast item, really, is the cost of these sports rights. So the NBA wants to be a platform and they've got an 11-year deal with Disney, NBC Universal and Amazon as well. So the NBA is a National Basketball Association. Now, the rights to show the games, of which some of the games are Lakers games, are 76 billion. I mean, there is a lot of debate now. And we know this in football. We certainly know us in the NFL.

Is it actually worth it what people are having to pay? People have always historically thought it was worth, you know, CBS have thought to have the NFL kind of going through their. pipes is worth it for the halo effect. But it is so unbelievably expensive. And you can see that it's getting parcel down and the rights packages are becoming more sort of, you know, you don't get all of it. Some of it goes as we see. Some games go to Amazon. Some games go to wherever.

But it's all appointment to view. Yeah. I think it's better to buy the franchise than it is to be on the side, to be on the buy side if you're trying to get the rights because the rights are so expensive now. And there is a big debate on what people do about the rights because it's just. so completely, I mean, I don't want to say it's extortion it, but we did talk about cartels. Yeah, I mean, it sort of is a cartel. And it's hard because as a fan, actually, the idea of there being a fixed amount of franchises really, really works. That's why football really, really works. It's why the NFL really works, because there are a certain group of teams and you choose

your one. If there are new ones coming along every five seconds, it sort of muddies the water a bit. Actually, it really, really works for fans. What doesn't work for fans is, of course, as as soon as you have a small group of teams, small group of franchises, and they have this incredible economic power and they can, you know, sell the rights for huge amounts of money. They also can charge you whatever they want. Yeah. And they can make you buy lots of different subscriptions, as we've seen now,

which is which people hate even more, that in order to get everything, they've got to go to all, you know, they've got to have lots of different subscriptions, whereas before they had to, they could get one package. Yeah, and every year you've got three different new kits. You know, there's lots and lots of ways of taking that fan base

and making money out of them, which would not be the case if there were loads of competing franchises that could happen all the time. but I think the whole point of sport is that there are a small amount of franchises and we all know what they are, we all know where they are, we all know which one our local one is so I get that but it is absolutely being, it's like it's like kind of cows coming across a meadow no one's ever seen before that is literally just full of grass that is going to last them forever and ever and ever.

When I read the Bezos story it was like oh my god are the same five guys going to just own everything whatever it is. It's like I find it very, very depressing and I do think that. there's a reason why these richest men all want these kind of, doesn't have to be just sport. There are obviously the entertainment things as well. But there's something particular about sport that it seems like it's a sort of nexus of politics and business and entertainment. And if you looked at the recent World Cup and you saw just the people who are in the kind of absolutely expensive seats, which of course they love to show you with the American cameras and the FIFA cameras. it really is a sort of, it's a bizarre kind of talking shop where it's almost like an offshoot

of one of those billionaire retreat conferences where they're all doing business together. And I find it really actually depressing that such a small number of people are going to own so many things in our world. So many of the sort of front facing things, the things that people enjoy. And for it to be, you know, for Bezos, both Kushners, they're, they're, they, they, they, they, they, if you look at what they bought into in gaming and everything, they're just sort of buying everything. Well, sport is also there's tremendous social capital in it. You know, never underestimate the fact.

The thing with billionaires is if you've got $300 billion, then you can spend $12 billion, like you might spend $25 quid on a night out. Right? They can just do it. And what they get for this quite apart from actually, it's an incredibly good financial deal is they get to hang out with celebrities court. So the Lakers is like a real magnet for celebs, right? They get to sit next to Jack Nicholson. And that's worth billions of dollars for them because they are all starfuckers. You know, they just are.

Having billions puts you like absolutely level with like a minor actor. You know, that's, it's or, you know, a comedian you've seen or mock the week. You can go. Yeah, you can just, it, it buys you into that world. Remember when we were selling Endemol a number of times, the multiples we were able to charge were much higher them from a normal business because people want to to be involved in show business. And you could bring celebrities into meetings and people can meet them and they can talk about them at dinner parties. Sports is even more than that.

Because if you get the chance to meet Cristiano Ronaldo, that is literally worth billions to you. And so they'll spend billions on it. The whole thing is a cartel. Of course it is. The whole thing is absurd. Of course it is. The whole thing makes such absolute sense for billionaires. But the key is, if you want to make a billion dollars in a year, already have 200 billion.

and go and buy Lester. It's the best asset in entertainment. It's the least risky and most reliable, because even if they're losing, it doesn't matter. Because, you know, there's a reason... It's all part of the story. There's a reason why people don't buy cold play, and that's because they know there could be 50 more cold plays coming along.

So it's a riskier thing. And also, cold play might just down tools. You know, if you buy the L.A. Lakers, you've got your star players, and they retire, you've got the draft, you buy someone new. if cold play if they all go, that's it. That's the end of cold play. These sports things, they constantly regenerate

like the sugar babes or like triggers broom. It says that, you know, the badge stays the same, everything else changes, the money stays the same, the money through the turnstiles stays the same, the franchise stays the same. It is, you couldn't come up with a better business. I do think the real positive of it is, I mean, there's fun, you know,

there's some billionaires or billionaire. The real positive of it is it's a huge bet by people on human industry and real people and crongue. I mean, a huge bet by someone who has a massive stake in Open AI, sure, but at least it is a huge bet on that. And there's lots and lots of people at the moment betting huge amounts of money on the fact that we're not all going to love AI and there's room for human creativity and human communion.

And I think that's a positive. When we get on to China later, we'll have a slightly different take on that. But for now it's a positive. That's not such a cherry story. Yeah. And while everyone thinks about investing in Port Bale, shall we go to adverts? And then after that, we're talking about The Rock. Oh, so excited.

This episode is brought to you by Lloyd's rewards. Now, a big mistake that people make is leaving the cinema as soon as the credits roll because there might be a bonus scene right at the end. They're absolutely one of my favourite things in the middle. Yeah, you never know. In Marvel's ones, there used to be a mid-credit scene and then there'd be an end-credit scene. I remember the first one I really remember, well, two, I remember Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where he tells you to go home at the end,

but also smoking the bandit with Bert Reynolds where they would do bloopers. It just feels like a secret little glimpse into a different world. And it doesn't quite have to be over. Yeah, exactly. And it's just a lovely little added bonus. You've done everything.

You've made your show. You've given everyone everything. It's just a lovely little extra. Which is also the idea behind Lloyd's rewards, extra value appearing inside something you were already doing anyway, your daily banking. From shopping to streaming,

you can bank on Lloyd's to help your money go first. It's rewards like this that make 14 million people bank on Lloyds. Search Lloyd's rewards in your app. Eligibility criteria, terms and conditions apply, retailer offers and cashback amounts may vary. UK residents 18 plus. Hey, this is Michael and Hannah from Gollhangers The Rest is Science. This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research UK. When we talk about beating cancer, we often focus a lot on survival.

And that can mean overlooking impacts that last long after treatment ends. Yeah, for example, take cancers in children and young people. The treatments themselves can be incredibly harsh. They can cause lifelong side effects like infertility or hearing loss. And Cancer Research UK is working to change that because young people, they should be able to grow up hearing the voices of the people that they love and living their lives to the fullest. That's right. And one clinical trial led by Cancer Research UK showed that giving another drug alongside chemotherapy nearly halved the number of children losing their hearing. And today, the treatment combination is being used by doctors across the world.

For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research and breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit cancerresearchuk.org slash rest is science. Welcome back, everybody. Now, as you know, I yield to absolutely nobody in my admiration for The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, entertainment, polymath, wrestler, movie star, high intensity intervals. philosopher, skincare entrepreneur, tequila, brand ambassador, self-diled future presidential candidate. You'll remember he claims that in 2022, both parties in the United States

asked him to run for president. Yeah, I can sort of see that. I can imagine the mega-Republican party going, do you know what? Not knocking at the door. Yeah. Knocking at the door. But he has been back at his GSD table. Remember, that's his get shit done table, his big wooden table where he, which

contains a lot of spirit energy, mana. Yeah, it's like my Auntie Jan's craft table. Yeah, it's just like Auntie Jan's craft table. That's where she got shit done. Yeah. Well, that would be birthday cards and things, but it's still, getting it done. Yeah, I mean, he hasn't yet gone into a birthday card business, but give it time because he's released a new music video. It's called Your Dad, which is just an amazing title and we'll get to it.

Your Dad? Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me go on to the content. Is it with an apostory? Like you are dad. No, your dad. Oh, like your dad.

Yeah. Like your mum. It was originally called my dad, but he asked for it to be changed to your dad so it could be sung to to his daughters. We'll get to it. Oh, yeah. Okay. As with any of these kind of little passion projects that are nothing to do with anything

to do with business, as you know, the live action version of Moana sort of fell off the screens recently and didn't do very well. He's been struggling a little at the multiplex, the rock. You know, he's a multiplex star. Anyway, and he's done an interview with Rolling Stone, like we all do when we do a little, like your Auntie Jam probably doesn't know about her birthday cars. Yeah, she goes, well, I started with the Fuzzy Felt and then I thought, actually, you know, if I put pasta around the outside of this. Yeah. Anyway, and Rolling Stone obligingly ask him a question about, is he considering some sort of musical venture?

And he says, well, I'm exploring that now and I appreciate you asking that. As you roll along in life, I've been real fortunate to be part of some really cool projects and I love it. But music has always been such an anchor for me, and very specifically in genres that I love, like country music, traditional country music. And we're exploring that now. You know what? With the rock, there's always bits you don't know about, which I love.

Because his backstory, his origin story, which he tells you all the time, there are about nine origin stories for the world. I can't go through all of them. But one of them is, like, he's a very successful high school footballer in Pennsylvania and then goes on to the University of Miami. However, we're doing a different origin story today, it turns out, because he's got, turns out he's got an incredible origin story in music.

No way. Yes, he was in Nashville for a long time when he was 15. I mean, he's named after a type of music. Yeah. Yeah, but that's not the one he's interested in. No, well, country rock. I would call myself country rock if I was him. Yes, I mean, I think he wants to do a country album with soul elements.

But he's got an incredible origin story in music. Only he would have this origin story. At a very early age, he says, my deep influences were Sam Kirk, Elvis Presley, George Jones, Merle Haggard, blah, blah. Guys like that who are just on top. top of their genres. And also Willie Nelson, who as a matter of fact, gave me my first guitar. Of course he did. Of course he did. You know the trigger guitar he has, the historic one?

I guess Martin only made a hundred of those. And as a birthday gift, because I was a huge fan, he gave me one of those. He says, I play like dog shit compared to him. Oh, do you? Compared to Willie Nelson. Yeah. Okay. So he's so humble. Compared to anyone else, I am amazing. But, oh, wow. Anyway, that, and it says, anyway, that's my musical start. Okay. This is something we don't know about the rock but okay or was it so then he's explaining how by the way there must be quite recently willy nelson didn't give like a seven-year-old the rock a guitar right that must have been when rock was already the rock but he's also got another origin story for his musical start because he says he was sent to

nashville because his father was in nashville but he was supposed to live with his dad but it didn't end up happening so anyway i wound up living with a guy who was a stranger in a motel who's become one of my best friends still today because that's what the rock does he keeps those people yeah yeah yeah well because he's very real his name is downtown bruno we had no money. He was broke. He was nice enough to let me live in his little hotel room. So this is the actual musical origin story now. The Rock now gets into it and he says,

I was shoplifting donuts in a supermarket. One of those old-fashioned Americans eat markets called the Piggly Wiggly where you just go up and down the else. Okay, and he says he was singing while he was doing it. Okay, do people when they're shoplifting normally sing? I feel it's like one of those drawing attention to you things. Yeah, I'm not stealing anything. But what happens is a woman comes up.

The Rock obviously thinks he's being. busted for shoplifting. Literally he's got sausage fingers with a donut around each one. And needless to say, she says, was that you singing? Because, you know, you're obviously so good. Because we caught you on security camera. Anyway, flash forward to the year 2026 and the Rock is considering this thing. He's got this song called Your Dad, which is written by a guy called IAM Tongi, who won

American Island, a Polynesian guy who won American Idol a couple of years ago. So he doesn't even write his own stuff? No. Okay. No. It was called my dad and the rock says, can you rewrite it so I can sing it to my tip to my daughters. Even though I didn't write it. Now, what The Rock is also saying is this is nothing to do with business, which is with the rock.

I'm like, okay. So he says, the things we do must do them for ourselves and we must feel it in here behind our rib cage. But they're also always connected to some sort of commerce. He's talking about the four quadrant movies. You want to do them well. But this is, he's not even interested whether this song does well. No, he wants to feel it in his lungs. There is no pressure of an expectation to deliver here.

He just wants to say, he doesn't want to have to say how are the sales, how are the streams. It's just from me to his daughters. He's done an interview with Rolling Stone about it and he's released a video. What if it turns out that downtown Bruno was Bruno Mars? Wouldn't that be amazing? That would be amazing. I think age-wise, there are some non-match-ups there. That would be an issue.

But maybe there's time travel. Anyway, so he wants to do this. That would be ahead of a sidebar. Oh my God, you know that will. You know this time travel. At some point, he will claim to have time travelled. Okay, there's just no question about it. But the other thing that's interesting,

me with the Rock is we talked about you know he's the multiplex guy as we know and he's got he wants to be the mogul as well because he's got this stake in the rock with the wrestling company with um ari Emanuel but remember he went he went on that oscar run last time around with smashing machine and he's playing mark car the mama fighter um and he made a big Oscar play and he got he didn't get it he got a golden globe nomination which i think you know he's know, he dined out on for a long time. But he went to Cannes, you know, he cried at the thing. He spent 15 minutes crying.

He did all the things you have to do to get an Oscar. And they didn't give him one. And they didn't give him one. Jeez. So I thought he would retreat, licking his wounds to the multiplex. He's thinking, if you're not going to give me an Oscar, I got one word on my mind, Grammy. By the way, he's not giving up on the O because I just, a few, very recently, he announced a new film. It's called Free Bird.

It's about a stunt rider who, a stunt motorcyclist who is covering up a dementia diagnosis. Oh my God. He is not done with the O. He is not done with the O. That is the biggest Oscar Bay I've heard that he could do. By the way, I thought he was rather good in the smashing machine. He was.

It was the worst Safty Brother movie that year, but, you know. Yeah. But what are you going to do? But he's not done with this. So what I'm interested... I'd love to see how he's going to win a Tony. I'd love to see him in a streetcar named Desire or something. Oh my God.

He would be his dad. That's the first play I thought of when I thought of atone. I would very, very much love to see his Stanley Quaski. So that's where we are. He's not given up on the O of the Egot. And he is maybe going to be a country star. Wow. Can I just, and by the way, if you're ruling him out for a future presidential run,

you're mental because he's never rule him out. No, he's a, yeah. He wants the Pigot. He wants it. But he's, but what I mean, you know, I do think, I've said before, I know someone who's been working with him on Jumanji. And, you know, he has only nice things to say about him. So, you know, there's something in there.

Yeah. But, you know, perhaps we'll put a link to his song somewhere on our page here. Shall we have a little listen to it? Yes. I should say that the video is accompanied by lots of home footage of him and his daughters over the years. Okay. I hope you understand just how proud I am to be your dad. Okay.

That's sort of like a school concert when a dad gets up and everyone goes, oh, that wasn't it not as bad as you think. That's absolutely, I mean, it's an, it is what it is, right? When I hear him singing, I think, have you paid for those donuts? But it's, you know, he's got a, I mean, it's kind of fine. He's got an unshakable self-belief and I will always be here for it. Yeah, I'm not sure he's going to add to his Grammy Hall, but who knows? Literally, 456 people winning up Grammy every year, Richard,

There's actually no reason you shouldn't get one. Is that the easiest one to target of the Egot? The Grammy, I think, is the easiest. Yeah, if we had a year. Because you can win it for spoken word and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Let's meet back here, same place next year, and see which one of us is one of Grammy. Okay. That's a film. That actually is a good film. Yeah. Yeah. But I think making a billion, like, by next year,

I've seen that idea so many times. But we've got to meet up this time next year. like to compete with you about that. And one of us has Grammy. But I'd be happy to compete with you for the Grammy. Do you think you could get a Grammy easier than me? Surely not. But I'd love, I would love to beat you. I'd love to beat you so much. Yes, I do. Can I say something? I back myself. I couldn't lose either way. So either I'd be happy if I won one or I'd be

happy that you'd want one. And also I'd be impressed. They don't have a podcast category, do they? But presumably they'll have one fairly soon. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the Grammys. They need to last nine and a half hours every year. So there's a possibility. If they If they introduce like a podcast category, we will machine tool one of our episodes just as an absolute Grammy bait. And see if we can win a Grammy. That's a great idea. That's a really good idea. Now, on to micro dramas.

We talked about them a while ago. They're these things that you can watch on your phone. They've shot vertically 60 episodes all about two minutes long. And they've absolutely taken over the world now. Loads and loads of people in Hollywood are now employed in them. Lots of actors, lots of crew over the world are employed in the. every time you talk to a writer. See, I'm thinking about doing a microdrama.

It's a huge thing. So I thought it's worth going back to China and checking what is happening with it. And here's one they announced last week of microdrama. It is called the Chinling Bronze Occult Chronicles. It's 60 episodes. It's like a time travel thing where two characters go back to the Bronze Age. It stars Chinling Yue and Lincien. And if you don't know them, they've also just set up accounts.

They've just been introduced on a one. Weibo and Diyun and Red Note. Dian is like their TikTok, even though TikTok is Chinese. Yeah, exactly. The only thing about Chin Ling, Yue and Lin Xien, is they do not exist. They are AI actors. The whole thing is AI, and this is becoming incredibly prevalent in Chinese microdrama production. And anything, by the way, that becomes prevalent in Chinese microdrama production is probably

going to head our way. There's a crazy statistic that 100. 22,000 titles, microdrama titles were launched in early 2026, 95% of which were entirely AI generated using things like C-dance, which is the byte dance visual AI tool. A year before it was zero. A year before every microdrama that was made in China was made with real people. And that was over 120,000. I think the weirder thing, because obviously when AI really sort of gets going, there will

be things like 128,000, because loads of people just turn out absolute nonsense. The scariest statistic is that of the top 100 drama chart in January 2026, 38% of those are AI generated in some form or another. And again, to just put it in perspective, it is so massive microdramas in China. Yeah. They took the equivalent of 14.5 billion last year, which is double their entire cinema box office. And they are just completely huge. So it's a lot.

And as you say, there's a bigger picture here, which is the race between America and China to dominate AI is a huge deal. And China, I think, understands that using things like microdrama, using culture is a very, very important way of showing how advanced their AI is. And they say, bite dance, who runs sea dance, they also own the platforms, they own the technology. I mean, they're sort of a one-stop shop for this whole AI industry. Well, it's much harder to do this in the West.

They don't have the same sort of cultural and commercial pushback that we have when you find out any AI's been used for anything at all. They just want to be the fastest and I think to me it's sort of interesting. One of the things that I think is

interesting about the latest actors is that they're not just created for one AI outing. You know, like let's make a drama here. The franchises, yeah. They want to put the, and they are putting them,

they're going to create them as personalities and then they will have careers effectively. They will go on, they'll star in other things. And they'll do adverts. And the beauty of it is. And listen, you can... They're posting now on social media as sort of personalities.

If you were just interested in the economics, then why wouldn't you? Because you own these people. They don't exist. So they're not going to renegotiate their contracts. They're not going to take a two-year sabbatical. You know, they're not going to have a substance abuse problem. They're not going to retire. You have them forever and ever and ever at the same age.

Or you can make them younger. Or you can make them younger. older, they will work 24 hours a day, they can be in 60 different things, you know, across a month, and then you put them straight into something else. They can be in movies in the, in the, in the, cinema. They can do everything. Just eliminate the humans, those annoying, messy humans from entertainment, it will be so much easier as probably a lot of managers have thought in their time. I mean, it does make sense. But I mean, as, as you say, so 38% of these dramas have some sort of AI generation, not all AI actors. Of the top ones, that's what's so interesting.

that people really like them. Yeah. And I think that there is a tremendous amount of pushback. The good news is there's a tremendous amount of pushback amongst Chinese consumers about having AI actors. There is almost zero pushback about having AI sets or AI production or AI editing or any of that stuff. People seem in China to be very, very comfortable with that, which means the price of these things is absolutely plummeting. I mean, whereas the one thing, just this idea, as always, you know, the, 500 people it takes to make a drama. The only ones the audience is particularly concerned about

are the actors are the ones who are the best paid ones in the first place. So, Chininua and Lindsay Yen, they are the big issue with them that they've, it is believed that they are based very closely on actors who are already there. Their look is very, very similar. Who is specifically identifiable and who have said, this is nothing to do with me. Yeah, exactly. And they, and they've said, I don't know they're generated completely without influence. So, Joy Zaloo, Jal Jiamai, just real actors whose work this is taking, you know, the makers of this is a U-Hug media say, oh, it's absolutely just coincidental that they look the same.

But as I say, two years ago we started talking about micro dramas when, you know, it hadn't really reached this critical mass. And now it has, and in Hollywood, lots and lots of people are throwing their weight behind them. They're throwing their money behind them. They're throwing their labour behind them, lots of actors, lots of behind the scenes. Now, that's what happened in China two years ago, an awful lot of people from the traditional Chinese film industry and television industry went into this world. Almost all of them are now out of work because you can, the whole thing can be edited, shot, put together on one computer.

The last line of defence seems to be this thing of actors. There is pushback against it. And, you know, 93% of the audience are saying, we do not like having AI actors in our programs. but how long that lasts, I don't know. As you say, there is a question as to how much this culture will travel from China to America or to the UK. And I think, as you say, there is a difference. There is much more cultural pushback already in our territories than there is in China. But we have to acknowledge that AI is going to just be embedded in real productions. And it already is in becoming.

So what I, yes, I do think the thing about China that makes, that, that, makes it sort of a particularly extreme example of it, is that we know that in China, entertainers, performers are often sort of effectively culturally disappeared for perceived transgressions against, I don't know, moral codes or free speech or some sort of political act. This is, makes it, you know, you're creating sort of factory grown non-humans that never do anything that is deemed to be in a contravention of the aims of the state. I find it very troubling for that reason, particularly, but it's interesting that lots of their consumers do, although I am not sure because I have to say that if that many of the top ones of the top micro dramas are entirely AI generated and people don't mind. Yeah, I don't think the top 38 are entirely AI generated.

Not the top of the top. If they are, and people don't mind about it. I do think that humans is the last bit And it's very sad that lots are below the line people People don't think of them as the humans who made the film But they are I agree with you that I don't think people will like this

Here but I don't I just think the microdrama space is so weird When you look at it I've watched so many microdramas And I don't you know I do find them such a weird genre There's so many you know People call as I've said before People call it like only fans for women. And there are lots of these kind of weird things.

You know, I've talked about them before, like my billionaire, CEO, Werewolf, boss, whatever. I can say, honestly, they're so odd some of them that I can see people not minding non-human. I think exactly that. That's the thing that gives me some hope. Because when you first look at the statistic, it looks terrifying.

You think, oh my God, the world's about to collapse. I think microdramas are something very, very specific. So do I. And they are perfectly attuned to AI. I mean, they sort of developed alongside AI. You know, they are very, very self-contained two-minute episodes. They are very, very small cast, usually two people who don't necessarily have to interact in the same shot. The scripts are very formulaic.

We know exactly where we're going each time. We're going to end on a cliffhanger each time. The visual identity of them is very, very, very narrow. So if AI were going to make anything, it would be microdramas. If AI was capable of making anything, it would be that. In the same way that AI could probably write you a page-long short story and get away with it. It can't write a novel because there's, you know, there's, you know, know, after page three, it's like there's too much going on.

I think that this micro-drama thing, if anyone has seen these statistics out there and thinks the whole industry is doomed, I think that there are lots and lots of caveats, which means it's not going to come over to the UK and to the US in the same way that it is in China, and it's not going to come over to long-form movies in the same way. Definitely, you look at the people, you know, Ben Affleck, who invest in huge amounts of money in AI production, there is going to be lots and lots of ways. in which AI influences the production of movies

and makes movies much, much, much cheaper and cost jobs. It will be fully built into the whole process. Definitely is that. If we're worried that someone is just going to press a button on a computer and the entirety of our culture is going to be produced there, I don't think that's the case. But certainly micro dramas, it's insane that, you know,

AI wouldn't be making them. It's absolutely made for AI. And perhaps we let AI get on with microdramas and we can make everything else. But you see lots of actors as well, you know, starting to think about licensing their voices, licensing their likenesses. And Matthew McConaughey's talked about it. Jeff Bridges has. Celebrity digital clones is a big thing. It's going to be huge.

So in China, you can, I don't know quite why they do this, but they do so they will buy individuals' images and voices and they will make an AI version of them for a flat fee. So you can sell, as a non-actor, you can sell your digital rights to somebody. I presume if you're attractive and, you know, you suddenly become a movie star. I mean, it's a Wild West and it's mental. And we've spoken many, many times before, but I genuinely think that, you know, art is about humanity. And there will be slop everywhere across the world. And there'll be certain industries where there's, you know, AI up the wazoo. But, you know, I think that human beings and human storytelling remains.

Any recommendations? Yes. Apple continue their amazing run of form. I kept seeing the dink advertised to me. They're sort of sports movie about Pickleball with Jake Johnson from New Girl. And I was like, oh, okay. And you look at all the reviews and they say, oh, perfectly pleasant comedy. And I should remember that no one can ever review comedies properly. And if someone says perfectly pleasant comedy, it's probably going to be brilliant.

And the dink is brilliant. It's so good. Jake Johnson is so brilliant. Mary Steenbergen is so brilliant. I'm a sucker for those those sort of slightly fake American sports movies. Ed Harris is his awful dad. He's a former tennis star who crashed out against Andy Roddick years ago and now is like a pro at his local club. And then there's this fight between the pickleball players who want more courts and the tennis players who want things kept traditional. It's really, really, really good. Anyone who loves comedy, Jake Johnson is brilliant. it. I mean, it just finds it every bit of comedy. It's like, it's really, really charming. I, I, I loved the dink. By the way, if you want something on terrestrial TV, I started watching the Grace series,

the John Sims thing, because I saw it was written by Russell Lewis, who did Endeavour, which is one my favourite things ever. And he's done a cracking job on Grace as well, particularly if you're from Brighton, like me, because it's just full of Brighton things. But the dink and Grace, I really, really enjoyed this week. You've been away, so I'm going to exempt you. I've literally had, I've been watching DVDs. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Whatever they had. That's cool. I've redone like all of the Cohen brothers. I mean, you know, yeah, can I recommend the Coen Brothers as moviemakers? I haven't heard of them, but I'm going to look into them. Look them up. They've made quite a lot of good stuff. Thank you so much.

We have a Q&A episode on Thursday. Look forward to seeing you all there. And we have the second episode for our members of our definitive story of the, of James Bond and all the way from the Fleming novels through the cinema years. If you want to join for ad-free listening and all those bonus episodes, it's The Rest is Entertainment.com. Otherwise, we'll see you on Thursday. See you on Thursday.

What are you doing on the 4th of September? Oh, you're still free? Why? Haven't you heard that me and me? Are all going to be at the South Bank Centre? We have full weekend live show, all from your favourite gold hang of pocket. Hello, All right. I'm going to be there with Tom Holland talking about the most scandalous housewives of Regency England.

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