The Rest Is Entertainment - The Rock’s Beef With Vin Diesel

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Are The Rock and Vin Diesel furious with one another or fast friends? With an on-again off-again beef brewing since 2016, Richard & Marina bring us up to speed on the latest in the action men saga after both showed some love for the other at the 2025 Golden Globes. The LA fires have dominated the news cycles since they broke out with many famous names, as well as those behind scenes, impacted. With fewer films being made in Hollywood each year, will it fully recover from this latest blow? Better Man, the Robbie Williams biopic where he is portrayed as a CGI monkey has bombed at the box office. With a hefty budget, where did the backing come from? As mentioned in the show -  The Rock & Vin Diesel and the oddly angled shot here Will Tavlin’s Casual Viewing blog post here Recommendations: Marina - Beast Games (Prime Video) Richard - Patrick Radden Keefe - Say Nothing (read) Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club for ad free listening and access to bonus episodes: www.therestisentertainment.com Sign up to our newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Offer ends January 31st, 2025. Visit td.com slash di offer to learn more. Hello and welcome to this episode of the rest is entertainment with me, Marina Hyde and me Richard Osmer. Hello Marina. Hello Richard. How are you? I'm very well. Today is the official day. You're not allowed to say Happy New Year to anyone, even if you haven't seen them before. This is the last, this is like the twelfth night for the Happy New Year. Osmond has called it and that is what's happening.

Listen, it's not me calling it, that's just, it's in Debrecht's. It's something in the air, in the waters. Yeah, exactly. No more Happy New Years. Can I give you an exclusive that our lovely friends at More In Common have sent us, the polling organisation. Yes. Because we're absolutely loving traitors. No spoilers, don't worry anybody, but anyone who's watching.

It's, again, every series is different. It's like sport, the traitors. Every series is different, but there's always stuff going on. But More In Common polled traitors' viewers, and they asked them their voting intentions but they split it into people who would rather be a traitor and people who would rather be faithful. Okay, so traitors viewers, if you just, if the general election were tomorrow and it was the only people allowed to vote were people who would want to be a faithful if they were on the traitors, we have a Labour landslide we have a 13 point victory for the Labour Party if however the general election was only people who would rather be a traitor we have a Tory landslide what does that tell us?

Well it tells us that people who wish to vote Labour don't understand that the strongest position in the game is being a traitor and I'm very sorry but that is moronic. I'm not doing a bit of politics here but I have to say that's arresting. But I mean it's quite often with those more uncommon things you know there's you get the occasional slight difference in things that is a huge swing between people who'd rather be a faithful on traitors and people who'd rather be a traitor. An absolutely huge statistically significant thing. But yeah, I would always rather be a traitor. Always, always, always. Well, you know what we'd actually rather be? We would rather be a faithful who's late in

the game recruited as a traitor, which is the strongest position. The thing I'd like most of all. But they didn't pull on that. They did not pull on that. Come on, more in common. So niche. The thing I'd like to be more on than anything is someone just watching the traitors. That's my favorite thing. But isn't that amazing? So Faithful's huge labor lead, Traitor's huge Tory lead. So thank you to more in common. I think they're going to be tweeting that out today as well.

The naivety is astounding. I'm talking about the traitors. Now, what are we going to talk about today? The first thing we're going to talk about is a brilliant new celebrity beef between The Rock and Vin Diesel. Well, and you Richard, in fact, we're going to the rest of history the hell out of this thing. Yeah. In fact, this is a 17 parter. I like it on the rest of this history when they go, we are going to talk about Cambodia. It's a 19 part and you go, come on guys. And then by number 18, I want like nine more of these guys.

Well, I've got a tight 21 episodes on the Vin Diesel versus the Rock, but we're going to do it all in one sort of chunk. We were going to talk about the new Megan show, but it's been delayed. So rest assured, Megan will be coming in the next couple of weeks, her new lifestyle show. We're gonna talk about the Robbie Williams movie, Better Man, which just opened in America. We shall tell you how it went. Spoiler alert, not brilliantly.

And we're also going to be talking about the terrible fires in Los Angeles and really what it means for the aspect of the town that is, and has always been the sort of center of moviemaking in the popular imagination, if not in actual fact any longer. the aspect of the town that is and has always been the sort of centre of moviemaking in the popular imagination, if not in actual fact any longer. And what it means, I suppose, for film, for TV and for LA as a sort of a cultural idea really. Yeah, is it the end of Hollywood? Talking of the end of Hollywood though, we'll start

with The Rock vs Vin Diesel. As you say, this is a feud that goes back to around 2016 when they both appeared in Fast Five, the fifth film in the Fast and Furious franchise. Wow, that's a lot of F's in one sentence. That's a lot of F's. So we're talking about it now because last Sunday, not the one we've just had, but the one before was the Golden Globes, which passed off relatively without incident. But Vin Diesel was on stage to present a award. Sadly, he wasn't going to be winning one, and he,

when he came out to give it... By the way, whenever you get like a message that's from the Baftas or something that says, attention Richard Osmond, you think, hello, someone's been nominated, and they go, I wonder if you'd like to present the best factual daytime lifestyle show award? He go, ah no. Okay, that but with Vin Diesel. Yes. So he was presenting- What are you saying? I mean, I have a lot of Vin Diesel-like qualities. Yeah, yeah. Well, you both have very high-rating franchises.

Yours literary, his The Car Thing. Yeah, The Car Thing. I'm joking because I've watched all The Car Thing. Anyway, he goes on stage and he's about to present the award and he sort of greets the audience as you do and then he goes Hi, Dwayne and they cut to the rock in the audience kind of slightly surprised by this moment smiling, you know So awkward half grin. Yeah, and you're thinking did the rock just get served again? And what I have to do really as you're right Richard is I have to take you back to the year 2016

Yeah, deep dive. Okay. Listen this Brexit is a year of seismic shocks. Yeah. Isn't it just Trump and the rock thinks that Vin Diesel is wet. Okay. Right. Now liberals didn't see any of those coming, right? Any of those things. Okay.

Let's get inside the action. It all started with an Instagram post by the rock. He was, he was filming Fast Five. Yeah. Can I just say who's in that movie? Of course you can. Because we need to know who's in it apart from the ladies. Everyone knows who's in Fast Five. Vin Diesel, The Rock, Jason Statham, Ludacris, Scott Eastwood. So it's beef cakes but there's also the other type of beef right? Yes. Now normally The Rock would just do

like workout tweets like you know however many reps a minute better never stops loads of hashtags like that, yes likewise. And he salutes his female co-stars. Yeah he says he calls an unnamed member of the cast a candy ass. Yeah he says some conduct themselves as stand-up men and true professionals while others don't. The ones that don't are too chickenship to do anything about it anyway. Candy asses. Yeah. When you watch this movie next April and it seems like I'm not acting in some of these scenes, yes, I can imagine, and my blood is legit boiling, you're right. Well, that was the cat amongst the candy asses. So who is this beef with? Is it with Scott Eastwood?

Is it with Ludacris? Is it with Jason Statham? Or... Or is it? Because you see what the others are all complaining that they are all suspect Remember, this is a movie essentially about people who drive cars between skyscrapers, right? It's But it's the best kind of movie. But if that movie is Apocalypse Now, then this tweet is its Hearts of Darkness, right? That's the documentary that Alan Coppola made about the making of. Right? So who is the candy ass?

Somehow you've got to go to work, you've somehow got to pretend you're driving a car into a Chinook or something. Yeah. Or a Chinook into a car. Or a Chinook into a car. And you've got this hanging over your head, ash candy ass. Yes. Right? And maybe your head looks a bit like a candy ass

because it emerges that the candy ass in question is none other than mr. Vin diesel real name Mark Sinclair Sinclair Mark candy ass in clear I often wonder about the choice of diesel and because you know I speak American and he doesn't go with gasoline which we call petrol. Yeah And I sometimes think that it's because actually although it may seem sort of expensive and quite unsexy in some ways Yeah If you have to go over a long distance with it and Christ knows if you've got to do 11 movies with it It begins to make sense as a value proposition, diesel, over long distances.

I don't think I see what you mean, but if I was Vin Diesel and then all the stuff came out about all the emissions tests cheating by Volkswagen and others about diesel cars, and suddenly diesel is less of a great brand for him. Yeah. You know, diesel lost a lot of its luster. Well, he's yet to comment on it.

Vin Rouge, I would call myself after that. So there was a huge drama with this business with The Rock, right? But they somehow managed to wrap the movie. And The Rock says, you know, with any family, there's going to be conflict. Another post. Family is going to have differences.

Opinion, blah, blah. Like any family, we get better from it. Yeah from it he said I was raised on healthy conflict that's what the Rock said and I read a shit yeah they will say that fast furious is about about family they talk about that all the time that's the only thing that they can think it's about car crashes it's literally about it's literally about driving a Lycan hyper sport between one skyscraper at Abu Dhabi and another. By the way, I love the Fast and Furious franchise. So do I, what's it all about?

Absolutely. So all of this is said with love for the franchise. Yeah, and I love that we're both now talking like they're not, with love, like brothers. This comes from a place of resolve. Yeah. So two of my brothers, Dwayne and Vin, they're having an argument. Anyway, so it becomes apparent that the candy ass is Vin. It becomes public that it's Vin.

There's all sorts of stuff in the lead up to that movie coming out. All this family stuff. Well, they can really get into it once they're off set. Also, you know, The Rock says it's actually been very good for tracking. Yeah, I know. It's been very good for box office. The Rock is one of those people who talks to people, he has that slight bit of knowledge.

So he'll talk about movies in that way. So he'll say, you know, the irony is that when they did that, the tracking went through the roof. He talks about the fans and says, I love you so much, all I care about is you. But he also has to constantly bore them with his reps per minute and

Nonsense about the tracking of a movie and verticals which he did know with you know You remember read one was this movie that Christmas the Christmas? Yeah, well, we'll come to that one in a minute that really shot the American theaters right back then when this movie's come out He is saying because everyone's asking about the tweet in the end or the Instagram post or whatever it was Vincess I protect the franchise franchise I protect everyone including Dwayne I protected Dwayne more than he'll ever know and it doesn't matter he doesn't have to know well you're saying it in the Rolling Stone or something but anyway but he appreciates he knows it Dwayne has only got one Vin in his life Dwayne Johnson has one big brother in this film world and that's me

but he didn't he said you said I predicted Dwayne more than he'll ever know. He doesn't have to know, but he knows. That's covered everything. At which point, the writer thinks, right, I'm going to give an interview to Rolling Stone, in which he says, we have a fundamental difference in philosophies of how we approach moviemaking and collaborating. All right, a Mardovva. Vin Diesel then thinks, I'm not having that. So he goes back and he says, look, it was a really tough character to embody the Hobbes character, a sort of law enforcement agent turned one of the gang. My approach at the time was a lot of tough love to assist in getting that performance where it needed

to be. Ooh, are you talking about giving the Rock acting lessons? Yeah. As a producer to say, okay, we're going to take Dwayne Johnson, who's associated with wrestling and we're going to force it to cinematic world audience members to regard this character as someone they don't know. Okay. He hits you like a ton of bricks. That's something I'm proud of.

You're proud of the Rock's performance. Interesting. I could give a lot of tough love. Not Fellini-esque. Oh, you spoil me, Vin. Oh, you're not Fellini-esque, you say. Sorry, Vin, can we just, because I've been listening back to the transcript of the interview I did,

just one other question. There's a point where it sounds like you're saying that you are not Federico Fellini. I assume you're saying that you are Federico Fellini. What he says is, I would do anything I'd have to do in order to get performances in anything I'm producing. That is it for The Rock. Another interview in which he says-

Essentially, by the way, his performance is having his like kind of elbow out of the window while he's driving. Again, I love the franchise. Which I love it. I love the franchise. By the way, these interviews, these dueling interviews have taken us all the way to sort of pass Fast 8 at this point. And then he says, The Rock says, I wish them well well on Fast 9 and I wish them the best of luck on Fast 10 and Fast 11 and Fast and Furious movies they do that will be without me and they said what do you think about the tough love comments that Vin Diesel made about

your acting and he said I laughed and laughed hard. So at this stage he has said listen I loved being in that movie there is absolutely no way there is no way I'm ever going to do another Fast and Furious movie. For those catching up Marina did he do another Fast and Furious movie? Well what Vin Diesel does first of all he gets John Cena one of the Rocks rivals into one of the, into some of the previous Fast movies. He then says to The Rock, will you be joining in again? And he says, in 2021, The Rock says, I will not be returning to that franchise, never. I'm looking at the end credits scene in Fast 10 in 2023, and this confirms that Luke Hobbs, aka Rock will be back for Fast 11 and you know

what The Rock says because this is how he talks, will lead with brotherhood and resolve and always take care of the franchise, characters and fans that we love. I've built my career on an audience first mentality and that will always serve as my North Star. Everything he talks about has to be like this. We've been brothers for years and you know despite our differences when you lead with the idea of resolve but you think about the future you think about fans that are much bigger than ourselves. Wow when you face the future with resolve yeah you think about fans who are much bigger than ourselves there's not many fans who are much bigger than the Rock. Well you know my thoughts that he's certainly not six foot five.

Yes, well, we talked about that. What is he like, five seven? I think he's probably six foot. We've spoken about this previously, but it's always us going into it again and we will make sure that the clip is in the show notes where The Rock and Vin Diesel are facing up to each other or so it seems like, like they're going tit to tit really in their ridiculous vests. Peg to peck. Peg to peck. I don't know the names of the muscles. It's not for me. And it looks as though, and then when you actually look, and because of the relative difference in height,

they have to actually be, the way the camera angles work, they're not even opposite each other, they're sort of next to each other, but facing different ways. Oh, like a perspective thing. Yeah, it's a freaky game of perspective and it's very funny and we'll put it in the show next. So who's taller? The Rock is taller.

Is he? Yeah. See, Vin Diesel is older. Yeah. The Rock is taller, it's like me and my brother. It's exactly the same. And he actually, I think of my brother very much like, he's like a brother to me. He really, really is.

So okay, so The Rock is taller, but Vin Diesel feels like he's in charge of this franchise, but Vin Diesel probably feels like The Rock is more famous than him. Vin Diesel, let me tell you, will be so thrilled that Red One opened in cinemas and didn't do anything. Okay, this is the Christmas movie just before this Christmas we've last had that didn't do well. Okay, so Amazon then rush it onto streaming only for the rock to tweet, our little Christmas movie, by the way, it costs $250 million without marketing. So it's nearing about half a billion dollars here. Our little Christmas movie, Red One shattered a viewing record on Amazon Prime Video with 50 million views this past weekend. Red One has a very long shelf life with multiple verticals.

Kudos to our Amazon partners for their strategic win. Wow. That's just getting started. He's such a man of the people. He's such an algorithm frotter, isn't he? He just, the way he talks. An algorithm frotter. Is this a thing?

Wow. It is now. I think I might be an algorithm frotter. Oh no. Me and the rock. Well, you know, don't be an algorithm frotter, but he is now. I think I might be an algorithm frotter. Oh no, me and the rock. Well, you know, don't be an algorithm frotter, but he is one and, you know, Merry Christmas verticals. Yeah.

We're walking along in a verticals wonderland. Yeah, we used to call them chimneys. Yeah. I mean, I suppose what you wanted to be, you wanted to be Schwarzenegger. And there was a point, don't forget, there has been serious points where people have talked about the rock as a future president. And, you know, there may well be again. I mean, there were times when he was talking about running in 2020, 2024, that he wanted to be Schwarzenegger. He wanted to be the action star who becomes the sort

of political figure. Obviously, Schwarzenegger became governor of California. But the trouble I think he's significantly more limited than Schwarzenegger. So it's very hard to know who is sort of totally on top in this thing, because it does remain Vin Diesel's franchise. But they're so good at getting people thinking about that. I mean, I want all celebrities to be very, very clear. I love the franchise and I want all celebrities to behave like this, if possible, at all times. Beef's non-stop. Non-stop beef. I want Alistair Campbell to do a quote saying one of my co-stars is a candy ass and we have to work out

who that might be. I mean you know I would faint for it. I want the behind the scenes on it 100% okay so after the Golden Globes when everybody's talking about like oh my god it's going to be so awkward because they haven't gone on set for Fast 11 yet they certainly won't have a script as far as I know when they get on set they never have a script for this thing it's whatever Vin wants so there will be Candy Ass fireworks from that set let me let me let me assure you Charlie XCX's new album he posted a picture of The Rock after saying all love always Vin Diesel did? Yeah, a picture of him in the Royal, from Fast Five, saying all love always. So that is the history of their feud and in a darkening world, can we just give

thanks for stars that behave in this preposterous fashion with incredibly low stakes that you could never possibly take seriously and can just enjoy? Yes, it has zero real world impact, does it? Yeah, no. Because the other issue of course is Vin Diesel is not a bad actor. If you watch something like Boiler Room which is his first big movie, he's really good in it before he was a big action star and you know perhaps the Rock maybe has a more limited scope of acting skills. Yeah because you know what Vin Diesel, I might have spoken about this on the podcast before but but I'm sorry, I'm as invested in this project almost as much as Vin Diesel is.

What Vin Diesel really wants to do and what he's wanted to do ever since he exploded onto our screens in XXX as a sort of, you know. Yeah, Zander Cage. Yeah, Zander Cage. It's like Zander Armstrong meets Nicholas Cage. An extreme sports version of James Bond. Yeah, which by the way is a really good idea. I'm surprised it didn't do better.

Anyway, what he's always wanted is someone to say look you've driven enough cars into helicopters now. What I want to do Vin is give you basically 500 million dollars so you can make your Hannibal epic. And I'm not talking about serial killer. I am talking Vin Diesel wants to take a bunch of elephants across the Alps in a sort of ancient Rome kind of epic. And he has wanted to do that. And you can find ever since he first, as I say, he first appeared on our screens as Zander Cage. He has given interviews, giving updates on where we are, you know,

we nearly got the money, we haven't got the money. I still want to do it. One of the elephants has died. He just feels if he just once more goes around the block in a really fast car, then someone is going to shut down a ski resort for him and get a load of pachyderms and let him make the movie he was born to make. I'm surprised someone hasn't. That would kind of make sense. Would you give half a billion? I mean, you're definitely... If you had half a billion, how many billions would you have to have to give half of one to Vin Diesel? I mean, I actually wouldn't have to have that many to just watch the spectacle. Even Elon Musk, you go into his office and go, listen, it would really rather he did this even he'd be going, I don't know.

It's a lot of money. It is a lot of money. Please let him have some elephants and one of the lesser ski resorts so he can take these elephants across the Alps. Let's crowdfund it. Yeah. Let's crowdfund it from the rest of the entertainment listeners. Let's get Vin Diesel up an Alp.

Hashtag get Vin Diesel up an Alp. I want this to happen so much. I genuinely think I could be more invested in it than him. This is what I'm going to do. I'll say to Vin Diesel, I have the money for you. I have the whole thing. I've gone to Gary Lineker. I've got the money.

But Dwayne the Rock Johnson has to be in it as well. I'm not playing an elephant. There you go. Let's do that. Let's get Vin Diesel on the phone. Oh god I really want this so much. Okay. Faster Furious is the opposite of elephants who are sort of and essentially that's what he wants to do. Slow and thoughtful. But again big units, big muscle units. Just call it Vin if you're listening. He does listen doesn't he? He sent

a question didn't he about blockbustersusters if you're listening call it big units okay because that and suddenly everyone's gonna fund that Vin Diesel in big units has got big units for big units five where essentially he gets other animals and takes them up other mountains yeah but watch this space Vin Diesel's mom do you know what Vin Diesel's mum does for a living? No. She's an astrologer. Is she? Yeah, you like? I really like it. She's called Elaine Diesel. She's not, I don't know what her name is but she's an astrologer. St. Clair presumably. Yeah well I don't think she's even called Elaine. Oh right okay. Yeah that's just my go-to name. That's what we go to if I'm making our name up. Shall we go for a little advert break?

Please let's. Welcome back, everybody. Now we are going to talk about the fires in Hollywood, what it means for the entertainment industry. Obviously, at the heart of all of this is people have lost their homes and their livelihoods, and what have you, we will focus on what it means for Hollywood but we're not in any way downplaying how difficult it's been for everybody out there and continues to be so. Absolutely, lots of people were thinking about leaving LA anyway before this happened and I've talked to so many people over the past week, people connected with the industry, people in

the industry in LA who've said that it's sort of extraordinary because they really felt the town was on the brink anyway. One of the things that I found quite interesting was when they said how many shows have been shut down because of the fires. And really there are so few. It's almost none. So, so much production does no longer happens in LA. It doesn production no longer happens in LA. It doesn't happen at all in LA.

It happens basically because LA hasn't kept pace with tax credits and things like that. And so production, there are a whole other sense that Netflix has got this amazing kind of like spaceship like facility down in Albuquerque, in New Mexico. Yeah, New Mexico gets a lot. Atlanta gets a lot. The UK gets an awful lot. Essentially, in any way you can get tax incentives, and as you say, LA has been slower on tax incentives

in other places. I guess because traditionally, it was the heart and home of movies, so why would you offer those tax incentives? Because of course, people are gonna film in LA, but it's been getting less and less, so I think 25% of all film and TV production was actually done in LA in 2013

and that's come down from you know 35%, 45%. So it's getting smaller and smaller the industry in LA anyway. The strikes have, the pandemic put people out of work, strikes again put people out of work. I mean it's really difficult again many of the people I've spoken to this week have said they hear so many terrible stories of people just thinking I'm going to leave LA, but because of the nature of the business in so many ways, it's a real sort of American dream business in lots of ways that you can tell yourself that you're involved in making magic and therefore it's much harder to leave that job and do something completely different than it might be in other ways. And so people, I'm talking about crew, what we'd call below the line people.

It's like that wonderful joke in the franchise, your show. Yeah, which isn't coming back, by the way. Oh no. No, not enough people watched it. I mean, that's the business. That's the business for it, isn't it? It's cancelled. Where there's the guy who works in a circus and his job is following the elephants

and shoveling their dung all day. And his friend says, I've found your job in an office. He goes, well, I'm not going to do that. Give up show business. I'm afraid. Yeah, that is really it. And it's, you know, I was talking to one show runner and he said he was hearing of many suicides. People have been out of work. Crew have been out of work for a long time. The strikes made it really difficult. There's a production slowdown. There's a huge production contraction because as we know in the streaming wars there was a kind of race for scale and so people spent money they didn't have to build scale and

to kind of win and therefore there were huge numbers of shows being made and it's going to come down to about half the amount of scripted shows. So there isn't the work. There are very different estimates of how many people in LA work in the film and TV industry, but it's, you know, a minimum of sort of 200,000 people. It's a lot of people. Lots of them are living in communities that have been not the sort of great big mansions, which obviously have also burnt down, but in communities that have been like Alta Dina and places like that where have been completely devastated by far and people have lost their homes. So a lot of people were on the brink with staying in LA before all this happened.

There's so much long-term unemployment. One thing I wanted to talk about a bit because it's such a fascinating book and as soon as I sort of saw the news starting to happen I thought of this book. It's by a guy called Mike Davis. It's called Ecology of Fear and it was published in 1998, which is when I read it and it's absolutely, it's extraordinarily prescient as a book. Now, Mike Davis was a kind of urban theorist. He was a radical. He was an anti-capitalist in lots of ways. He was a sort of globalization visionary. The book talks about all sorts of climate stuff, but he also has this incredibly eclectic mind and he was particularly fascinated. You know, he loved culture and he was sort of fascinated by the way that LA is both a utopia and a dystopia

For kind of advanced capitalism. It's it's this kind of dream factory But it's also when a kind of place of nightmares in lots of ways and it's built, you know Obviously LA is built on all kinds of fault lines quite literally literally and also metaphorically. And he was fascinated in a way about it being a town that so often makes movies and fiction about its own destruction. And so if you look at all the idea of the sort of disaster genre and urban disasters, London was in fiction between sort of the 1880s and 1940s. London is the metropolis that is most often under attack and London being under attack in fiction whether it be film or novels or whatever it is represents a

sort of the destruction of Western culture but then it's the American century and everything you know the center of cultural gravity basically moves West and And it's really interesting how often LA has been destroyed. City Hall, at the time he was writing in 1998, LA City Hall in fiction and movies had fallen to earthquakes more than 30 times. There had been nukes over the Hollywood sign well over 60 times. Firestorms only twice, fire had only twice, which is a sort of, but you know, obviously alien invasions were very big and LA just being destroyed, as I say, so often is like pictures of sort of win for civilization. Mike Davis calls it a kind of gleeful expendability. And I think it's really interesting in light of what has happened. I mean, in Independence Day, that, you know, Independence Day, the movie,

where the aliens come, the destruction of New York is kind of played as a tragedy but the destruction of LA is played as farce. There's some like hippies and gay people and kind of new age people dancing on a roof as the aliens are coming saying oh this is so cool. Yeah Bob Dole he was the former Republican candidate, unsuccessful presidential candidate, was a house majority leader said said, one of his advisors said, they absolutely loved, one of his advisors said, millions die, but they're all liberals. So, and LA is often depicted as a kind of post-apocalyptic place, if you look at, I would be interested to see how Edgar Wright does it with his Running Man remake, where, you know, Running Man, the original takes place in that kind of downtown LA. It's so unignorable

what has happened over the past week, the past 10 days, and yet will it be ignored? And if you talk to people in industry, they will want to get back. And I'm talking about those fault lines. People kind of live on the brink in so many different ways. Clearly, they're living on an ecological brink. We know they're living on a fault line. They're living on the brink as an industry in lots and lots of ways but it's extraordinary the impulse to just get back to normal. Yeah most people you talk to yeah say we're not going to move out we're going to rebuild but you know that's something that you know rich successful people can say and actually most of the people who work in the industry in Hollywood can't do that

but the truth is a lot of those have moved out already and as you say there's successful people can say and actually most of the people who work in the industry in Hollywood can't do that. But the truth is a lot of those have moved out already and as you say there's actually not all that much production going on in Hollywood and in LA and hasn't been for a long time. What's remaining in LA is the money and you know what's remaining is the studios and by studios now we mean the executives rather than the physical studios because those by and large are not there anymore. When we had the franchise premiere, I remember saying we had it at Paramount,

which is this unbelievably beautiful old Hollywood lot, which is the last remaining studio in Hollywood. And at the time I remember saying, I would have thought that the real estate, I have Paramounts in the process of being sold, is almost worth more than the studio now. But almost everybody involved in making TV and making film is not an executive and is not a star.

Yeah. You know, most people are people just- Or an agent. Going to work. Yeah. And those people will go where the work is and, you know, increasingly that's not going to be LA. That, as you say, is Atlanta, it's New Mexico, you know, it's Toronto, it's London, all of

these- It's Australia. Yeah, it's Australia, all of these different places. But you know, a lot of that has already started. So the question is Hollywood finished? It feels like it's not because it feels like the people who now embody Hollywood probably do have the money to stay. They all want to stay in Hollywood because of what it represents and the lifestyle that they have there. And so as you say, it's weird to sort of live in this slightly apocalyptic place that is on a series of fault lines. But as TV and film have declined, you know, Hollywood

has taken huge amounts of money in social media and social content and in life sports and gaming and all of those things. A lot of that stuff is coming out of Los Angeles still, but it's the executives and it's the people commissioning things and it's the money people, you know, and it's Netflix, you know, it's the kind of head offices and stuff are all still in LA. But what we think of now, but we, you know, when we say Hollywood, we think of the star system and we think of all those studios being full, you know, week after week after week and the movies coming out and that hasn't been true in some while, but the money of the industry is still there and the money probably can stay.

But yeah, I think that yes, Hollywood will just be the money people, but I think it probably has been for quite a few years now. Anyway, there was a point at which one of the fires, the one up almost, it was in the Hollywood Hills and almost got to the Hollywood sign. That feels like the moment. The Hollywood sign on fire would be a hell of an image, but I think it's sort of been on fire for some time. Yes, but obviously the situation is still developing and it's an absolute awful situation that is above all a human situation and not to do with the film industry. However, we're looking at it through that particular lens because of who we are. I love to everyone who's there who's been affected again

I was speaking to someone who's who's out there at the moment and I was talking about, you know Business is gonna move out He says that people are gonna move out but he said the first business that will move out would seem to in some way have betrayed Hollywood and actually was being seen in some way un-American to kind of go we're relocating to Atlanta or whatever so his view would be that all the big studios, all the big businesses are going to stay exactly where they are and try and rebuild but you know there's things you can rebuild and things that you can't and yet I'd love to everyone who has lost things that cannot be rebuilt.

Absolutely. Right, let us move on to Better Man which is, this is the Robbie Williams biopic, which uses his own voice and lots of his real concert footage. But it is a story and his head has been replaced by a CGI monkey. It's directed by Michael Gracie, who did The Greatest Showman, which was huge, if extremely not my cup of tea. It's had very good reviews. People by and large seem to like it.

However, it cost $110 million. It's the sort of top line, but we'll delve into that in a minute. Which even in these days is quite a lot. It opened last week in the US on 1300 screens and it made just one million dollars and just to put that in perspective, The Brutalist, which is the Holocaust drama, opened on 68 screens and made 1.4 million dollars. So it opened on, you know, that is a drama which is, which is brilliant. It has an intermission. It has an interval in the middle and it's sort of three and a half hours or whatever it is. But it's a million dollars on 1300 screens.

It's taken five in the UK but it's been open for three weeks. Yes, but it's the definition of a tank really. Yeah. And it's interesting because firstly it's agreed to be a rather good film. It's certainly a risky film. It's 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. It is a big swing. Yeah, it's a big swing.

We're always saying people should take risks, people should do something unusual, which is exactly what they've done here. But what I haven't quite got to the bottom of is who put up $110 million for, cause Robbie is huge over here. He's huge in Australia. He's huge in various places, not huge in America. So to say, here's a guy you don't really know. He has got superimposed the head of a monkey and it's cost

110 million dollars. How did that? Riddle me that and Vin Diesel's not even in nor an elephant But we do have a chimp head CGI is very very expensive. And if this is effectively it's not a concert movie But there's so much concert footage. I've seen it. It's not a concert movie but there's so much concert footage. I've seen it. It's a huge... that's going to be very very expensive. The money is complicated because it seems like the movie... people are saying how have Paramount spent 110 million on this? Well they haven't. Okay Paramount have paid 25 million for the North American rights which was by the way that's what the whole movie should

have cost given the subject matter and now some of that you know know, is for marketing and distribution, you know, whatever. But it's independently produced, but it's really, really patchworked together. And it's interesting the financing. There's some Chinese, there's some Canadian. Which, by the way, is how a lot of movies are made. You know, when you go into a movie from different places. Well, we were going to do a joke about that one day in the franchise, when someone was thinking about getting out at which now it's not coming back I can say all the same she was thinking about not going not

not um going to go into you know trying to leave sort of getting out of a superhero franchise movie type world and then going to watch one of those films where it begins with that you know like the lottery fund of Ottawa you see all those cards before you even see the name of the star of the film it's always canal plus and then it's a series of small ones. Canal Plus, Notch Re-Finding of Ottawa, you know, they're this, they're that, and you've seen like, and we're just going to have like 30 of those cards. The Teacher's Pension Fund of Melbourne. The sheer horror show of trying to get, I mean, it's so hard to get money together to

make a movie when you're making a dependent film. And anyone who's involved in it will tell you it's a massive labour of love. But here you've got Michael Gracie who's just had a huge hit with The Greatest Showman, an absolutely massive hit. So he has had this idea. So people have gambled on, but it's taken a lot of people. He's got Chinese, he's got Canadian, US funding. The biggest thing has come from subsidies from Australia.

Now Australia is a really interesting story in terms of over the past 15 years The Australian government has put more than 15 billion okay, bear in mind the size of the country into the film industry and There's a huge sort of producer offset thing and if you make that this was basically done in Australia They believe it's a benefit to the country. There's a lot of Push back saying well how many jobs are really being created is it really worth it but they have they have these huge cash grants the full guy was basically made there so I think in this case they have had such a

significant amount of money from the Australian government Robbie Williams needs to be in a star in America for this movie to have any shot or anything however you can tell that they were another little thing you can tell about a film of like what its aspirations are is where it premieres, which particular festivals it chooses, what now they put it at Telluride and at Toronto, so what they really hoped was that this was going to be an awards movie, which it hasn't been and something where something like a complete unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic with Timothee Chalamet is going to be a major awards contender. I got, you know, I chewed through that. I have to whereas something like a complete unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic with the Timothy Shalome is going to be a major awards contender. I chewed through that. I have to say that the

music biopic genre is my least favourite. Oh, I love it. Bohemian Rhapsody, one of my favourite films of the last ten years. Are you joking? No, I love it. If you watch that as the John Deacon story, it's the greatest movie ever made. Okay, okay. You've got a take, but in general music by... I'm sorry, you're saying I've got a take? Yeah, you've got a take. Okay, the John Deacon story is a great take. I'm just telling my truth. That's all I ever try and do.

I know you do with resolve. Yes, I do with resolve. I'm just thinking about the fans. We're going to go forward as brothers here, but let me tell you something. Let's do brother and sister. Okay I'll do whatever I'll play anything. We're going to do the siblings. I'm like the rock I'll play anything now but I find music biopics a waste of time I think they're creatively bankrupt in general. Biopics in general I don't have a whole lot of love for that very popular the NWA one. That was great Okay, I mean I like Citizen Kane. Is that a biopic? No, it's not It's a creative take on one person's life. And yes, I know. Yeah, I know you're gonna give me that

Look, don't you I've never seen it and I don't want to say something. Of course. I haven't seen it Earth would One of my favorite movies of all time. It's probably in the top five. If I was at a cinema and there were two screens and the two films were starting at the same time and one was Citizen Kane and the other was a biopic of Shed 7, I'd go to the Shed 7 film. I know you would. It's Jason Rainbow's The Shed 7 Story. Listen, I'm sure it was very good. I know you would. I know you would. And going forward with resolve to my next point. They are creatively bankrupt so I in some ways...

Okay, I'll be honest, sorry is that confirmed? But okay, Michael Gracie hasn't done that, he's done something different. We want big swings and I feel like we often sit and talk about how much movies cost and I'm doing it even now because it is insane that this has actually ended up at 110 million even though some of that is government money and we can all argue about the wisdom of that He has taken a big swing another person who took a big they did you see the Pharrell Williams? You won't have seen this and I actually watched a bit of it just out of interest piece by piece Which is the Pharrell Williams thought they did it as one of the Lego movies. Okay. Okay again

It's a big swing But it did worse than Lego movies and it did worse than musical biopics in terms of sort of, you know, what you'd expect for an opening. So I suppose that, you know, biopics are a really safe genre. People don't want big swings in them. And that makes me sad because I want big swings in things. I don't think this one fully comes off but that's fine. At least they tried. It is insane how much money they spent on it. But I feel that it shows that you want things even safer. And in some ways, one of the safer genres, because there's lots of movies that are turned out and they should be at a certain price point. I think we're

going to see even safer things and that makes me sad. So I'm sad that Better Man hasn't done better. I, you know, always applaud insane people, probably not in government who are spending taxpayers' money on this sort of thing. But if private companies want to spend it, then I guess that's a matter for them. Sorry that it hasn't done better. Would you recommend it to people having seen it? Yes, I think, yeah, yes. My favourite story on it was Michael Gracie when he was talking to Robbie Williams, and he said, what's your spirit animal?

And Robbie Williams said, you know what, that morning I'd woken up in one of those movies where I just thought, no, Robbie, just like proper, just affirming who I am as a human being and really trying to be good to myself. So I said, my spirit animal, I would say a lion is it? And apparently Michael Gracie just looked at him and went, are you sure? And Robbie immediately went, oh, a monkey I think that's it's very good on actually in a way it doesn't really get past the whole idea of the the chimp thing and it doesn't do a whole lot with it so technically but why was it 110 million I mean that's a lot and it doesn't have any huge names it's very expensive CGI is very expensive all the

way to CGI stuff yes. And you can do that with your phone. You can just, you can put bunny ears just using your iPhone. Yeah. I mean, they haven't done it on Snapchat. Um, they didn't go with that. They were saving some money, masses of Australian tax dollars. So that would have saved the Australian government. Can you, I wish I could. It's very good. Actually, if you, if you're interested in music and bands and things like that and fame in general, it is good, I think on this kind of grim jealousy even when you're at the top and that's a big part of Certainly a big part of Robbie Williams and a big part of lots of stars who don't admit that Well on that note Richard, I'm going to ask you. Do you have any recommendations?

I'm still so deep in the absolute horror of Beast Games, which is becoming more and more dark and twisted quite something Isn't it? Oh my god. It's really truly great as we might have to have a wrap-around on that at the end I have to say but anyway, you give me something that is actually not dystopian I read I've been away for a week and I read a wonderful Book called say nothing by Patrick Braddon Keith and it's about the troubles in Northern Ireland and it's about the people, it's about the history, it's a really extraordinary book, beautifully written, very very insightful, fascinating about that whole world that you might know bits of but not the whole story if you don't live in Northern Ireland or Ireland. I just thought it was wonderful. It's an extraordinary book

and I would really recommend it and there is now a dramatization of it as well on Disney which I haven't seen but I will do. But I would read the book first. I think the book is terrific. Right, we will be back on Thursday with a Questions and Answers edition. I look forward to it ever so much. We'll see you then. Take care. Bye bye.