The Rest Is Entertainment - The Two Billion Dollar Video Game

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Will the new Grand Theft Auto outsell the entire movie industry on release? Why do Tom Holland movies flop? How did Agatha Christie save Catholicism through a single letter? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde answer your questions on gaming, soundtracks and Taskmaster secrets. Plus - we embark on another edition of 'A-List Or Not'... The Rest Is Entertainment AAA Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to our Q&A episodes, ad-free listening, access to our exclusive newsletter archive, discount book prices on selected titles with our partners at Coles, early ticket access to future live events, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestisentertainment.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestisentertainment. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com The Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Requires relevant Sky TV and third party subscription(s). Broadband recommended min speed: 30 mbps. 18+. UK, CI, IoM only. To find out more and for full terms and conditions please visit Sky.com Assistant Producer: Aaliyah Akude Video Editor: Kieron Leslie, Charlie Rodwell, Adam Thornton, Harry Swan Producer: Joey McCarthy Senior Producer: Neil Fearn Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Sky. Now, they really know how to put on a show and to make it easy for us to enjoy them. Everything is just there, no digging around, no endless scrolling. Absolutely, and here's the magic. If you know what you're in the mood for, just say it into your remote. You want something specific, say Sweet Pea, and Sweet Pea will appear. If you want something a genre, just say, show me horror, and your Sky will show you horror movies, horror TV shows, anything in that genre. It really is magic. It's not magic, it's technology, but it feels like magic.

It's like having a shortcut to your perfect evening. You speak, it listens, and suddenly you're three episodes in. A feast of entertainment right at your fingertips. Feast, schmoggers, board, banquet. Which makes me very hungry. Yeah. I wonder if you can get snacks from your remote. Try it.

I'm being told you can't. It's just the world of entertainment at your fingertips, the world of food you have to go elsewhere. So if you're ready to dive into top-notch entertainment, just head to sky.com to learn more. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment Questions and Answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. I'm Marina Hyde. I'm Richard Osmond. Hi Marina. How are you?

Yeah, I'm okay. Before we start every episode to sync the cameras up for YouTube, we have to do a clap. And I just did a very disappointing one. It was incredibly poor and I didn't want to say anything, but it's good to have said that. It was bad though, right? Yeah. Because normally I think, recently I've been getting much better.

Yeah. That was, wow. That wasn't one for the yeah. That was, wow. That wasn't one for the critics. But look, let's begin. Because we've got so many people, first of all, I should say, so many people wrote in from the television industry after your unbelievable laying it on the line about AI, which I thought was so interesting.

There are beyond too many to read out, but some incredibly excited, some very anxious. A lot of people saying they were going to retrain. Yeah, I think this will feed a lot of those things into other episodes as we come along. But yeah, genuinely thank you because I think it makes us understand other people's jobs are not always what you think they are. And so it was fascinating hearing different things from different angles. So every single one has been read and every single one will, you'll hear it referenced at some point, as if it was our original thought. Can I read an open letter before we go on?

You can, it is a sign of madness, but please do it. In the last episode, we were talking about, has an open letter ever worked? You know, the sort of letters that celebrities or academic center newspapers saying, we the undersigned believe XXX and we said we didn't think they ever had. I did make an exception for Martin Luther's 95 theses nailed on the Wittenberg church door, which arguably set in train the Reformation. Yeah, Martin Luther, money-saving expert. Who's written it?

Well, talking of Martin Luther, we have a letter from Father Pius Collins from the priory of Our Lady of the Sorrows in Peckham. No way. That address gets less glamorous as it goes on, doesn't it? But thank you, Father Pius. The combination of things is quite riveting. Father Pius says, To whom it may concern concerns us, my friend.

In the last episode, there was a question about open letters, and the consensus was that they never work. You might be interested to know of the so-called Agatha Christi Indult. Yes, we would be interested. In the 1960s, 70s the Catholic Church was changing the language of the Mass from Latin to local or vernacular languages. Some British artists and intellectuals wrote an open letter to the Pope, now St Paul VI, asking for Latin to be retained. So a bunch of people wrote a letter to the Pope asking for Latin to be

retained in Mass. The story goes that the Pope read the letter, saw the signatories and said, Ah, Agatha Christie, and granted an indult or permission for Latin to continue in masses in England. So there you go, Agatha Christie persuaded the Pope. Are we adapting this in to say that open letters work on the Catholic Church? Yes, or if they're signed by Agatha Christie. The original influencer.

Yeah. The absolute cast iron, copper bottom influencer. That is incredible. The indult. For anyone at home who has a better name or address than Father Pius Collins' Priory of Our Lady the Sorrows Peckham, I'd like to hear it. I have a question for you, Irina. We'll start with this from Jamie Staunton.

Thank you, Jamie. How are film soundtracks created? Are they composed after filming? Or does a composer work to the director's vision from the outset? Jamie cites John Bryan's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind score as an example of a perfect fit, questioning the creation process for such a poignant soundtrack. It's such an interesting field, movie soundtracks, and then you've got these great people. We've talked before about John Williams and how he worked with Steven Spielberg.

If you listen to those sort of stories where Spielberg's saying to him, I'm going to need a theme or whatever, and he plays him the two notes and he's thinking for Jaws, this is so ridiculous, but okay, I'm sure you'll make it work. By that stage, she really trusted him. There's a composer called Alexandre Desplat,

who is a French composer who says that John Williams is my sort of forever idol. And Alexandre Desplat's at the sort of top of his game now, and he came to attention, I think, with Girl Up with a Pearl Earring, and he came to attention, I think, with Girl Over the Pearl Earring, but he's done lots and lots of Wes Anderson films. He did Deathly Hallows. He came in for the Deathly Hallows after something was set up originally by John Williams.

So he's a really interesting person about all these things. And I know someone who works with him a lot. He just did the new Jurassic Rebirth, by the way, again, working with this film, again, trying to sort of come in and work with someone else's thing, but create something new. And by the way, that went right down to the, in terms of the, when it happens, I know that they were recording really so close to the release of that film. So it's very interesting how late, anyway, but I spoke to my friend, Stephen Frears, who has worked on five or six films with Alexandra Day-Plattpp and they first worked together on The

Queen. They start the process very early on when you know roughly what the script would be and all those sort of things. But he says, I'm not clever enough to talk to him about music, but of course he has other talents. So he reads films brilliantly. So he said, when they first worked together on The Queen, they said we need a sort of romantic melody for Helen Mirren who's playing the Queen. And he said, oh, I know Stephen's films very well. I'll write something witty. I'll write him a witty score because he could see that it was going to be, I think, what Stephen would say was his favorite milieu, which is drama with jokes. And it would be, and so he,

and they got on absolutely brilliantly. So he says, okay, I will go and talk to him. He lives in Paris. I'll go and talk to him about narrative and about character and about emotion and tone, things that we both understand. Cause as he says, he doesn't properly understand the music. And obviously then the film itself becomes an input. And then at a later stage in the process, he says, I'll take the train to Paris.

He'll play his suggestions live for me and then we'll just discuss them all and then we'll have an absolutely lovely lunch and we'll talk about it all. And he said it's sort of amazing. It's his favourite part in any film, but basically because he loves, he loves Alexandra so much. And then- But also it can really elevate something. You can see something without music and they see it with... Oh, I see.

I mean, Stephen would always say it's amazing how quickly the actors know their characters far better than, you know, they come in and they know their character and you think, my God, I've been sitting with this for a year and how do you know more about it than me? Already there's something so, you know, empathetic and osmotic really about them. And the same thing in the case of the music. And then Alexander at a certain point will come to London and the same thing in the case of the music and then Alexandra at a certain point will come to London and he will also conduct the full He's a conductor as well and he will conduct the full kind of complete

Philharmonic orchestra or whatever to create this sort of music and actually I was thinking oh gosh The music in Jurassic Rebirth is very good actually and it's you can see sort of that it's an homage to but also a drawing on of John Williams' work from the original. And there's some great clips of him actually conducting the huge orchestra. So that's how it works and when it works really, really well, it's pun intended, in concert with the filmmaker and it's an ongoing process throughout the making of the film. Obviously when you have as close to a final assembly of it or final cut of it as you're going to get, then you're really making it even little individual action beats.

Well, yeah, because presumably if a director is cutting three seconds out of this scene and making the transition to this scene two seconds longer, then the composer has to do the same thing. Yeah, has to adapt to that. And then there are certain things and you think, oh, that was too long and we're not going to get to where we want to be musically during just walk down the corridor for want of a better sort of example. And so there's constant adjustments and refinements, but those ideas of things like character themes

and stuff that we know from when we listen to movie music. And there are huge communities of people who are obsessed with film music and are completely devoted to film music and see it as it is, as this incredible art and this incredibly specific art. And again, another sort of strike against AI, because of course AI can do all this sort of thing, but like we talked about before, it can't get the vibe of what a director's going for and it can't do the thing of going, I understand exactly what you want, however, what if I were to do this and the director hears and goes, oh my God, do you know what, I did not see that in the scene and you now through doing this

music have made me see that in the scene. Completely you now through doing this music have made me see that in the scene. Completely. And many times I've attended all different directors screenings and often directors will show you screenings and say, I just want to get some audience feedback at this stage. And you'll have, honestly, there'll be bits in the movies where there's like just a green thing and saying here is a sea battle or something like that

because you know it's to come. And what they want is you to say, didn't understand this bit you know the love story sort of fell away I don't know whatever it is just anything that you could give them at that point it might help them in the edit but there's never any music on that so it's all this kind of holding thing and then when you hear it for the first time with the music it's completely transformative. If you watch a drama or film without music and I've done it a few times, it is haunting. It's like, I mean, sorry, what am I watching?

Yeah. This is like, no one's ever watched this. It's creepy and odd, and you don't realize. And of course, you know, those great scores, you can't help but think of them. But equally, there's something about not even noticing it's happening, and there's a certain sort of sight of hand there

where it can cover or it can elevate things that didn't quite work in the shoot. On the Thursday Murder Club movie we've got Thomas Newman doing the music, he's one of the great composers. If you watch it not thinking about the music, you think sorry what music? And then you watch it thinking of the music you go oh wow. He's totally got what I, yeah. Yeah, yeah, isn't it, isn't it, it's an amazing thing. And so, you know, him and Chris Columbus would absolutely work in tandem and, as you say, send things back and forth and something that Thomas would do would suggest something to Chris, something Chris would do would suggest something to

Thomas. And, you know, if you get those sort of... It's usually a very, very... Well, that first Harry Potter film, which is, you know, which Chris Columbus... So many of those themes that they go throughout all of that. I mean, it's amazing how it's such a beautiful art. Yeah. And it's amazing how closely directors and composers work. They almost work closer with the composer than almost anyone else on set apart from the DOP, probably. I think that's interesting, yes. And they recognize the kind of alchemic power of these people to kind of get their film to more closer to what it was meant to be in their own head.

From that Taskmaster, Richard, another work of art. Adam Carroll would like to know, he says, I'm in an internet argument, we all are, about whether former Taskmaster contestants choose their own clips for the YouTube ultimate episodes. I believe guests wouldn't remember enough or choose interesting clips. Richard, as a guest, can you confirm if you chose your clips or if production did? So this is, they do ultimate episodes on YouTube, Taskmaster. One of the many ways they monetize that thing, but because people love it. And yeah, you sort of choose your perfect episode from some of the tasks that you do. So there'll be a prize task and, you know, just stuff you remember and

then a finishing task as just stuff you remember and then a finishing task as well. Oh my god, you absolutely choose your own clips. No one would come and do it otherwise. I love the idea you might not remember something that happened on Taskmaster. Let me tell you now, Adam, the whole thing is etched on my memory and will be until the day I die. Andy Devonshire, who's the exec on Taskmaster, who's brilliant, he knows he's not going to ring me up and say, would you like to come do this YouTube thing?

It's just a series of your tasks that you did that I chose. And he chose the tasks in the first place, and I didn't like all of them. They ring up and they say, could you put something together? And everyone on that show has a, you know, you go through the middle on that show, but you remember how things made you feel. You remember the reaction that things got. So for mine, there were a few tasks that I felt I'd done very well. There's the one with the yoga balls at the top of the hill, which even to this day, people in every country in the world ask me about at book events.

So obviously I had to have that there. But also, John Richardson and I have a long running beef with the Taskmaster producers because of the scoring system in one of the episodes. Poor Andy, he said, I tell you what Andy, I'm going to have the rabbits in the hat one. And he said, yeah, of course you are. So I was able to call him out on camera. But you want to be really, really entertaining. The whole show is so entertaining.

And I love, love, love the people behind that show. And I love the viewers of that show. So what you're really wanting to do is just try and make them laugh again and to have a couple of things that make you look good, a couple of things that make you look bad and then a little bit of spice at the end. And settle one score. And settle one score at length. So yeah, I really, really enjoy doing it. There's very few people who've ever been on Taskmaster who won't sort of go to the ends of the earth

anytime they're asked to do something else. It must be such a life experience. Yeah, it's great. It feels... You've taught me this before. Is it a week? It's like over about five months. And I did it back when there was only six episodes.

Now it's like about 40 episodes, isn't it? So I think it's a full-time job for some people. I definitely feel like I'm part of that gang forever and ever. And you know, little things like when James Acaster was on it and he messaged me saying, can you come down because I can use you for a task? And you're like, wow, it's James Acaster and I get to see the Taskmaster house again. So yeah, you definitely feel part of that family. But that, if you haven't seen the ultimate episodes, it really, really well put together. They're absolutely chosen by the contestants. They'll say, oh, if there's anything you need a reminder of, or they'll

make a few suggestions, or that, you know, if you say, can you show me a bit of that one that I did, because I can't remember how that went, and they'll send you a clip. So, you know, you don't have five minutes just to say, let's do this, this, this, and this. So they'll help. But no, they are definitely not telling you what to do, which is so great, because the one thing on that show is you are being told what to do. And you're being told what to do by Andy Devonshire and Andy Cartwright and Alex. And just for months on end, they're telling you what to do. And it's lovely to be out the end of it.

And you know, like when a former cabinet minister gets fired, and they can get they just go on the news and they say what they want. Yeah, that's lovely. You can just do that. You can go on the news and they say what they want yeah that's lovely you can just do that you can go on the news and say what you want right shall we now proceed to a break and then come back and do some more questions to precisely that I'm also gonna give you a game of a list or not that we played before where you immediately tell me if someone's a list B list or C list is that all right I? You may do this. You may do this.

Our lovely listeners, they keep sending in names. I'd be fascinated if this person is A list. I've been collecting them over the weeks. Okay, very good. Thanks. Let's go to a break. This episode is brought to you by Sky Cinema, the ultimate destination for the latest blockbusters. Speaking of blockbusters, let's talk about something that defied gravity, bewitched critics and fans alike, and has now landed on Sky Cinema. What could it be? Fast and Furious? No, of course we are talking about Wicked. Wicked is here, the beloved Broadway musical reimagined for big screen in all its glittering green tinged glory.

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Today, we're going to tell you about our new series on the Great Fire of London, one of the great pivotal events of the 17th century, one of the most important events in all of English and British history. It began at a bakery on Pudding Lane and quickly turned into a catastrophe. It consumed 13,000 houses, decimated London and caused 10 billion pounds worth of damage in today's money. It even burned down the iconic St. Paul's Cathedral. The city was already devastated by the Great Plague, but rumors of foreign invasion led mobs to attack innocent foreigners on the streets. In this episode, we'll explore the chilling consequences of rumors of fake news of xenophobia, problems that clearly are not

unique to today. From desperate attempts to save their homes and belongings to the struggle to assign blame which turned deadly. This is the story of the fire as it was lived through by the people on the ground and the lasting impacts it left on the city. We've got a short clip at the end of this episode. Welcome back everybody. Would you like to play A-list or not? I would like to play an unplanned version of A-list or not. Excellent. This really is unplanned. Hello everybody. This is A-list or not. How many names have you got? I'm not going to do all of them because I've got 45.

Oh my god. Can you imagine? If you think there are 45 of A-list's everyone, wake up. I maybe do 10 or 12. Okay. But I'm going to read you out some names. You have to tell me A-list, B-listed everyone, wake up. I maybe do 10 or 12. Okay. But I'm going to read you out some names. You have to tell me A-list, B-list or C-list. I'm going into a sort of, you know, I'm going into a say-out state.

A fugue state. Yeah. Yeah, so you're just going to vibe this, yeah? Yeah. Okay, ready? Yeah. Millie Bobby Brown. A star on Netflix.

She's A on Netflix, but she couldn't open a movie in theatres. So not A-list. Okay. She's A on Netflix. She's like the premier A on Netflix. Julia Roberts. A. Brie Larson.

B. Jared Leto. Four. Very difficult revelations recently. Be falling. Be falling rapidly. Steve Carell. Ooh.

It's a good one, that, isn't it? It is a good one. I actually think he could be A-list for the right picture. Yeah. That's what I was wondering. He could be. Because he's just so loved. I want to say A, yeah.

How about that Steve? She's very hard to crack. We're putting Steve Carell on the A-list. Harris Dickinson. Honestly, people couldn't pick him out of a lineup, but he's incredibly good and he's going to be A-list. He's incredibly good. Alec Baldwin.

Well, I mean, B and falling. Cate Blanchett. Used to be an A-list. Used to be A-list. There's no question these people used to be A-list. Blanchett's still A because she's going to get you an Oscar. You're going to put her in those sort of movies and she's going to get A. A with that question. I would love an Oscar.

Sean Penn. Sean Penn. Well, Sean Penn is no longer going to open a movie for you, so he is heritage B. Okay. Cruise, but not Tom, Penelope. Oh, I mean, she's lovely. I'll put her at B. Brad Pitt.

Well, A now. But not Tom, Penelope. Oh, I mean, she's lovely. I'll put her at B. Brad Pitt. Well, A now. I mean, I'm surprised. I think people turned out for the cars and the F1 brand, but he was always an A-lister, and there's a certain fascination with the private life, A. Tom Holland. A.

I meant the Tom Holland from The Rest is History. podcast A-plus premiere. Yeah, okay. Jeff Goldblumblum be Cynthia Erivo oh don't be stupid be wicked is the star not Ariana Grande is a star Emma Watson oh dear no I mean she's just be are you gonna go see an Emma Watson film you're not going for the acting wow what it It's true though. Wow. What? I like her. Daniel Radcliffe.

Well, I mean, what projects does he do? I mean, B? I can't even say B. I mean, of course, they've been in this thing where the IP is the star. This is the whole problem with this whole thing now is that we live in an era where the IP rather than the actors are stars. So it's very, very difficult. Actually, you know, if I'm really being honest about Tom Holland, I mentioned earlier, what is a Tom Holland project? Normally, it's very, very difficult. Actually, you know, if I'm really being honest about Tom Holland, who I mentioned earlier, what is a Tom Holland project? Normally it's a project that fails unless it's Spider-Man, in which case it's the biggest movie in the world. So he kind of straddles these two things,

and he's in a very A-list couple, and therefore I put him in A. And I think he's a great, I'm sure he's a lovely person. I think people absolutely love him. But Tom Holland projects mostly don't go right. Wow, do you know what? Tom Holland's watching it. Literally listening to this and watching it. He'd be the first to say, look, he didn't get the ratings he wanted on that metal half thing. He wouldn't be the first to say that. He'd be like the 50th person to say it. He probably wouldn't mention it.

He'd been watching this going, I've absolutely aced this. Well listen, he should keep doing Spider-Man movies because they're the biggest films in the world when he doesn't. Yeah, I suspect he probably will. Yeah, I mean, you're making me play the game and I'm playing it. Also, I used to work with his dad. Did you actually? Dominic Holland. Oh, yeah. The comedian. Of course. Yeah.

Of course. Okay. By the way, he... Then A. No. Dominic Holland. I put him in A in the first place. Okie dokie.

As you know. I'm going to give you one final one. Okay, last one. I want you to think about this one. I think this is a good one. I knew that Steve Carell you'd find interesting. Yeah. I think I know what you're going to say to this, but I'm not absolutely certain. Keanu Reeves.

He's an A-lister. There's no question. Yeah, Keanu Reeves is an A-lister still because he performs very, very well in those big franchises in the same way that actually George Clooney bizarrely, who hasn't necessarily opened well in movies recently, but he went and did Good Night and Good Luck on Broadway and it became this mega, mega thing. I'll tell you what, when Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter from Bill and Ted go and do that Jamie Lloyd production of Waiting for Godot, you wait and see what the lines for that are

like and it will be unbelievable. And Keanu Reeves is in a huge, huge franchise that performs very, very well and there's something about him that transcends all of that and he's remained Keanu Reeves. He's never become a difficult man, Richard. I think he's only sort of accrued in love and respect amongst people. He's an A-lister I was talking to someone who did his makeup the other day and She likes him very very much, but he was doing a thing about motorbikes and he's in front of a load of hell's angels She said he'd been just tinkering with this thing and his face was covered in grease. He said he did not look great

He said but she saw all these hell's angels in front of me She just walked up to him said listen you need makeup But I'm guessing you're not gonna let me do makeup in front of all these guys. He went, you got that right. And off she toddled. And we were both perfectly happy. Oh, I heard a story on the last John Wick that they were doing. They were really in a hurry for everyone to get their light.

They were moving from one shot to another, and it was just right at the end of the day. And there was this person who was just like lumping everything along with all the grips, and it was Keanu Reeves. Oh, that's nice. it was Keanu Reeves. Yeah, I mean everyone loves Keanu Reeves. Everyone loves Keanu Reeves' latest relationships. Everyone loves all of Keanu Reeves. Tom Holland's going not only was I downgraded now I've got to hear about how great Keanu Reeves is. Everybody loves Tom Holland too. Everyone loves Tom Holland too, including hottest women in the world Zendaya. So there we go. I mean he's an A-list. Thank you so much for sending in all those names. There's loads more left so we didn't read yours out. hottest women in the world zone there. So there we go. I mean, he's an A-list.

Thank you so much for sending in all those names. There's loads more left so we didn't read yours out. Good to go forever. I will do that another time because genuinely I love how much effort Marina puts into it. It's literally- It's a zero. I'm doing it off the cuff. I know, but it takes some kind of psychic effort, I think. So we're going to move on now and we're going to talk about the cost of Grand Theft Auto

6. Richard Reynolds, Ryan's brother, has been in touch. Says, Today my 13 year old son, Rex, Rex Reynolds, that's a great name. Rex Reynolds is a good name. Wow. Okay, today my 13 year old son, Rex, amazing name, Rex Reynolds, told me that by the time the much delayed GTA 6 is released next year, it will have cost more to make than the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai. Surely not, says Richard.

No one is spending billions on creating a video game, are they? He asks leadingly. Richard, hello Rex, by the way. Of course Rex is right. Richard, of course you know your son is right. He's absolutely right. I mean, there have been very, very expensive video games before. I think Spider-Man, that was like about 400 million, Cyberpunk 2077 was 400 million.

But yeah, this is costing around about 2 billion and the Burj Khalifa itself cost between 1.4 1.5 billion US dollars. So Grand Theft Auto 6 is more expensive than the Burj Khalifa. But I tell you what- It's built by slaves? I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, of course I am, I always kid. What, Grand Theft Auto 6? What do they call it? Crunch culture. Crunch culture? What's crunch culture? In the gaming industry where they make them work absolutely round the clock and they just

try and iron out everything and people are just like not sleeping at all. It's got very dark very quickly. Yeah, it did. But it seems, I think, worth spending. So it's coming out, we've got a definitive release date, which any gamer will know, it's 26th of May, 2026. I saw a recent thing saying they reckon in the first 60 days, this is going to gross over $7 billion, Grand Theft Auto. It's one of the great works of art of our time.

That's more than 70% of the entire Hollywood box office. Well, you said before Hollywood needs to break about 9 billion a year. To kind of stagger on in its current form. And this itself in 60 days will make $7 billion. Isn't that incredible? Rex because you won you're allowed to call your dad Ryan for the rest of the week. So yeah Ryan, I'm ever so sorry, Rex is absolutely correct there. It costs more than the Burj Khalifa but it is going to make an awful lot more than the

Burj Khalifa as well. Although actually I don't have the receipts for how much money Burj Khalifa, but it is going to make an awful lot more than the Burj Khalifa as well. Although actually I don't have the receipts for how much money Burj Khalifa makes presumably with higher currency. The developers don't either. Yeah, presumably it makes it. Yeah, presumably. I'm sad it's something of a Wild West out there.

And even, I mean, TV's got very expensive. Certain bits of TV that the streamers have, I mean, the Lord of the Rings, that was so expensive. That was something like 58 million, the Rings of Power per episode. Wow. Stranger Things has, that was so expensive. That was something like 58 million rings of power per episode. Wow. Stranger Things has got very, very expensive. That's about 30 million per episode. I mean, lots of Taylor Sheridan things are sort of 22 million an episode, which is becoming

quite expensive. The most expensive movie that we know of, but remember there's all these accounting fiddles, there's Jurassic World Dominion, which cost 453.6 million. But actually, I think one of those late-stage Avengers won a huge amount. I think maybe Age of Ultron cost a lot more than they ever said, and I think it was sort of terrifying that they couldn't actually say it out loud. But in these years where we're obsessed with the budgets for movies and the take of movies, the idea that a video game of all things has a $2 billion budget and

is going to make $7 billion. And we still don't really know how to talk about them, which I find so interesting. We don't have proper criticism of them, isn't given anything in a tenth of the highest status as movie criticism. We don't really understand how to talk about things that don't have stars necessarily. Traditional forms of media have just completely lost this medium. A different form of criticism or not, which is watching some people you like play it on YouTube or on Twitter, whatever it is.

By the way, if I was Rockstar Games and I was listening and I still had time, I'd get a character called Rex Reynolds in there. It's quite a Rockstar Games name. Yeah, because it could sort of be anything, right? I mean, listen, a wrong-un, but it could be any sort of wrongan. Could have a turn. My name. Could have a heel-face turn.

That about wraps us up, except we do have our bonus tomorrow, which is moving along the great arc of our discovery, our quest to discover the greatest British sitcom of the last however many decades. We are moving on this week to the 90s and the 90s. We'll be revealing the top three sitcoms voted for by our members in both of those decades and opening up the voting to discover the best sitcoms of the decade. It will all culminate in two weeks time in voting for the greatest British sitcom of all time. But if you want to hear behind the scenes stories about all sorts of things, I'm not going to tell you which ones because that will give away the top threes,

but you could probably guess some of them. But the sitcoms are the 90s and the 90s. That's tomorrow. If you're not a member, you can join at thevessersentertainment.com. Otherwise, we will, as always, see you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. This episode was brought to you by our good friends at Sky. Sky is home to the shows everyone is talking about and plenty you haven't discovered yet. But what really sets it apart is how it makes your whole entertainment set up feel smarter,

slicker, better. With the new SkyGlass TV you don't even need the remote. Just say the name of a show, genre or actor and Sky finds it instantly across all your apps and channels, no scrolling or forgetting where you saw it last. Even from across the room, voice control works, so whether you're making tea, loading the dishwasher or the remote's vanished again, just say, hello Sky, play Poker Face or whatever you fancy, and it's already on by the time you sit down. Or add it to your playlist, maybe Succession for Power Plays and Poisonous One-liners, or the White Lotus for something sun-soaked, sharp and unsettling.

Either way, it'll be there, ready when you are. Sky Glass doesn't just make things easier, it makes finding your next entertainment favourite feel effortless. It's David Olesioga from Journey Through Time. Here's that clip that we mentioned earlier. If you look at all of the accounts of the fire at this point, as we get to the end of Sunday the second, the first day, This fire is not behaving in any way the way fires traditionally did in London. And there is some people who've argued that it was becoming a firestorm, that the heat and the wind and the movement of air caused by the fire was feeding, it was becoming self-sustaining as it were. John Evelyn, who's a great writer

and a diarist of this moment, he talks about the sound of the fire. He said it was like thousands of chariots driving over cobblestones. There are descriptions in Peeps and elsewhere of this great arc of fire in the sky. I mean, imagine that everything around you is coloured by the flames, yellows and oranges, and above you is this thick black smoke.

This is a city you know, these are streets you walk, this is a place that's deeply familiar to you, and it looks completely otherworldly. It looks like another, like a sort of landscape you've never seen before. People describe the fire almost as if it's supernatural. If you wanna hear the full episode, listen to Journey Through Time wherever you get your podcasts.