The Rest Is Entertainment - Will The Harry Potter Reboot Fail?

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Will HBO's Harry Potter reboot cast a spell over a whole new generation of fans, or vanish in a cloud of disappointment? Which late global music megastar once donated money to an unlucky loser on Deal Or No Deal? What is the secret behind the success of the New York Times puzzles? Human geniuses and creativity or AI? Why aren’t we seeing traditional romances on screen any more? Richard and Marina settle in to answer your questions. 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 Assistant Producer: Aaliyah Akude Video Producer: Jake Liascos Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport 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. Visit Sky.com to find out more 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are delighted to announce that our good friends at Sky are once again proud partners of the rest as entertainment. We are extremely delighted Marina. Sky has a huge 2025 planned and they're excited to share their unrivaled range of entertainment, which has never been easier to discover. And there is no better way to enjoy their selection of new shows and films than by the Sky TV experience and it lets you control your Sky TV with your voice so you can find your favourite shows and movies from Sky and the other apps without lifting a finger, my favourite way. Oh, I love not lifting a finger, I love not lifting a finger. Just say hello Sky, followed by what you want to watch, who you want to see and it will be on your screen before you know it.

Without having to lift a finger you can get all your favourite entertainment quickly with both Sky shows and other apps in one place. Visit sky.com to find out more. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment Questions and Answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osmond. Hi, Marina. And lots and lots of our wonderful listeners, hello listeners have asked us questions. And they have. And what they've done is they've asked us at the old email address because we've gone official. We've got a new email address.

We have. It's therestisentertainmentatgoalhanger.com. I had no idea we work for Gary Lineker, but anyhow. Whoa. So does Gary Lineker know we work for him? I, I, it's so unclear. The angles are all unclear at the moment, but that is the new email address. Should you wish to send us more of your brilliant questions?

TheRestisentertainmentatgoalhanger.com. Ask us what's Gary Lineker like? We've never met him. Occasionally he appears as like a hologram floating over the desk, doesn't he? And he goes, you are all doing terrifically well in your podcast. That's the only thing we ever have to do with Gary. Occasionally Alan Shearer will pop in like an enforcer just to check that everything's going okay. And he goes, good podcast, be a shame if anything happened to it. I can see Shearer, but he's pressing his face up against the window of the thing. Oh, and he's doing like a slit throat. Come on, Shearer. Maybe he's just saying he's got a sore throat.

Have you got a sore? Oh yeah, he's having a strep sore. Everything is fine. Shall we get on to some questions? Let's hit each other with some questions. I've got one that I have to begin with you. It relates to Deal or No Deal. Jonathan Hindley says, there's an urban legend that a contestant on opening the last box between 250k and 1p sadly opened their final box and got 1p.

Then an anonymous donor called in and gave them the 250k and one P sadly opened their final box and got one P then an anonymous donor called in and gave them the 250k the anonymous donor was allegedly George Michael is this true? If so, how do acts such as this work? This is not an urban legend. I'd heard isn't interesting how things work because it is it is definitely based on a truth. That's for sure. And that is there was somebody who was playing a deal or no deal many years ago and know that various points says what you want the money for. And she was using it for a final round of IVF. I think she had three rounds and she wanted to do a final round. Anyone who's done IVF knows it's very, very expensive. Can't remember

how much she needed 18,000 something like that. Anyway, she crashed and burned on the show one 500 pound or something like that. the morning after it came out there's a call at Endermol into my good pal Tim Hinks who used to run Endermol with and the person said I was watching the woman on Dealer No Deal he needed 18,000 pound for IVF I'd like to pay that 18,000 pound please and Tim goes okay we can we can do that he said there's one condition that is you must never tell her who has paid this money and Tim goes, Okay, but who is paying this money? And it was George Michael. So George Michael had been sitting watching this thing. He said, and also there was a guy last week who he had to go to vet school,

something like that. And I'd like to pay his as well. But again, you mustn't tell him. So he did that. She got the money. And when George passed away, I put this on Twitter, I said that he had done that. And the woman got in touch and she said, you know what, never forgotten the fact that I got that money. I never knew who it was from. She said the IVF, it didn't work. And now to find out it was George as well is an extraordinary thing. So yeah, he was he, he was essentially just sitting watching at home and decided he wanted to give the actual version of the urban legend isn't true. But the heart of the urban legend, which was George Michael was an extraordinary human being and an extraordinary kind man is absolutely

true. Isn't that lovely? That is such a lovely story. I knew that he used to do things like that, but you do slightly feel like are they urban legends? And it's not really clear. Sad to be able to tell the story. So we're going to tell the story because he's no longer with us because he was absolutely adamant. No one finds out. No one knows I'm doing this. And that's the true meaning of selflessness, isn't it? It's not, oh, this would make me feel good about myself or this would, you know, this is going to look good for me. The truly selfless good deed. And also, you know, he just used to sit around watching daytime TV, which

makes you want to him even more. So yeah. If you ever feature someone who needs money on a television show, it's all, it's, it's, it's all someone will always ring up. Someone will always message and say, has that been taken care of? And almost always it has almost always there's been 10, 12, 15, 20 people have all emailed in of all rung in to send this anything I can do to help is there any money I can give it's not always George Michael, but it's just people who are watching TV and have that money

I mean at the end of the last season of traitors when Alexander didn't when they banished things They weren't sure if he was a traitor or not and he wanted to start a charity in his late brother's name and So many people there was a sort of crowd fund of her that wasn't there and it went way above what he would have ever even won on the show almost immediately so people do kind of step in and he's now got his own show on classic of him right he's a real he's a real media mover and shaker I have a question for you Marina from John Gill John says is it just me oh I like it you never know where this is going is it just me says John Gill Oh John what if it is oh no this is going. Is it just me? says John Gill. Oh John, what if it is? Oh no, should I read on? Is it just me or is there far less romance on screen nowadays?

I know Marina suggested that Twisters was loveless but is this a growing problem? By the way, what happens at the end of Twister, sorry, this is not a major plot point. I want to say that Glenn Powell like asks the Daisy Edgar Jones character like for her informed consent to like phone her after the credits. It's genuinely it couldn't be more sexless. I do think well first of all, my opinions, let's back it up with some statistics first. Yes, the number of romantic movies is definitely definitely falling. In 2000, nearly 35% of films that were made were listed as romance. It's now something like 8%. Really, and it's on the IMDB,

where everything's put into various categories. Yeah, into categories. But that's happened before. They had a sort of, there was a bit of a drop in romance until the 60s and then it kind of recovered. Now it's on a, it seemed, I don't want to say it's on a permanent decline because everything comes in and out of fashion,

but it really is. I really think comedy, and I mean, obviously, in romantic comedy, romance and comedy by the way are the two genres in biggest trouble. The streamers are trying to revive romantic comedies and obviously they had a big success, Netflix had a big success with Nobody Wants This. So in general both of those genres are in a lot of trouble really. Cinema, romance and sex in general is kind of weird because movies have been definitely desexed in recent years and there's lots of different reasons for this. Gen Z don't particularly love it and they're always trying to get them in.

They're much more interested in things like about self-care, relationships, self-love, I don't mean masturbation. You know when you look at Marvel films as I've said before, they were almost entirely sexist. There's one guy who has sex and he has to be fired into the sun quite soon afterwards. It's very hard to get out of the suits. It's very hard to get out of the suits. But what you have is people who are in beyond peak physical fitness. They're like Olympic athletes. Big motives really are sort of sex, money and revenge. And if you remove one of them, then you're sort of slightly contracting the possibilities of storytelling.

Money or revenge. But the motive is always I want to take over the world for unspecified reasons. And I want to fight you for that glowy thing to stop you. Yes. Yeah. And I don't just want to bang someone. Yeah. But the British Board of Film classification, there's fewer films rated 18 for sex, far fewer. The ubiquity of porn has changed a lot of stuff. I remember in newspapers when they used to do kiss and tells, which you know, Sunday tabloid would be kiss and tell and someone would expose their affair with a politician,

there would always be a few paragraphs of description of the sex in it. You know, you could just buy that in the newsagent, but now you can just have anything you want to extreme levels on your phone. We don't need to read about David Mellor anymore. We don't actually need to get turned on vicariously by what David Mellor did or didn't do. As Hollywood has become more and more sexless, the porn industry has got bigger and bigger. I think it's become more sexual. The porn really now is very, very sexual.

This is the rest is adult entertainment. For the reasons I explained in terms of storytelling, if you remove kind of romance and sex and things like that, you are contracting the possibilities. The idea that cinema was a kind of boundary pushing out form in lots of ways, and you could see things in the cinema that you couldn't necessarily see elsewhere, I think that has receded slightly as well. You don't really feel that... But also books have gone crazy for romance.

Books are absolutely huge. You know, Romanticie and Romance itself you know Colleen Hoover all the you know the biggest selling books in the world are romance books now and a lot of those are being adapted you know there is a whole industry that has gone very very romance heavy and perhaps that will drift feedback into into movies so not sex heavy maybe but but maybe romance heavy. I feel that everything swings around and it must come round again. That's sex for you. Yeah. But the good news swings around and it must come round again. That's sex for you.

Yeah. But the good news, John Gill, is it is not just you. It is not just you. Not just you, John. It's everyone. A puzzles question, Richard, meaning it is by law for you. That's for me. Lizzie Connolly.

You do sex, I do puzzles. That makes it sound a lot more interesting than it is. Lizzie Connolly, I'm hoping that I'm pronouncing that well. How have the New York Times games created Richard? Are they made by people or is there some kind of AI involved? They are made by people. The New York Times games section is one of the single most successful and profitable creative endeavors of the 21st century. It's a huge thing, it's played by a huge amount of people and most people who do the New York Times games are absolutely evangelical about them. I'll tell you the order they do them in, the

order I do them in. Spelling Bee, always first meaning we'd always play Spelling Bee and we race to get to Genius and whoever gets to Genius first is the winner and crows about it and then we team up to try and get to Queen B. That's what we try and do on, on, on, on spelling bee. Then the crossword, the New York times, um, crossword is, is, is not a cryptic one, but it's very cleverly gridded. Then there's strands, which is this sort of word puzzle. These are the sort of high end versions of other people's games. Then there's connections, which we will get onto because that's a very, very interesting one. But no, they are, they are definitively not AI led, which is why they're so good, I think. So spelling bee is a really interesting one. So spelling bee is absolutely huge. It's enormous graded by a guy called Frank Longo. And spelling

bee, if you don't know it, it's sort of one of those word things, you know, where you've got letters around the middle letter and you have to make words, it's got a very, very simple trick, which is you can use the letters more than once. So as long as you use the one in the middle, you can use letters more than once, which makes it incredibly addictive. And that has a very, very simple trick, which is you can use the letters more than once. So as long as you use the one in the middle, you can use letters more than once, which makes it incredibly addictive and that has a very clever scoring system. You know, if you start, you get to solid, then you're on nice, then you're on great and you're on amazing, then you're on genius and then you can get to Queen Bee. So it's incredibly addictive, but no, every single day made by real people.

Sam Azerski is the guy who puts those together. It's interesting to answer this question this week because something happened on spelling bee last week that's never happened before. I felt a disturbance in the force. For the 2500th spelling bee, a letter was on the grid that has never been on for the first 2499 spelling bees. There had never before then been a letter S in a spelling bee ever ever in the history because Samusersky thinks it sort of makes it too complicated slash easy when you got

plurals and you know so because it was 2500th one and the pangram was fabulous as the first time ever there's been an S hasn't been one since either so it's the only S of all time. Wow. People love playing those games and they take's the only s of all time. Wow. People love playing those games and they take exactly the right amount of time and you can always test yourself against other people you can go back and play the archive. The crossword is extraordinary because he's incredibly dense grids. Will shorts was the great genius behind most of the MIT crosswords and Sam as I ask you, does lots of those as well. But connections

is the one I want to talk about. So Connections is the one you know. You haven't talked about anything up to this point. Connections is a thing. There's 16 words and you have to put them into four groups of four. Four sets of four and if you do that you win and they launched it a couple of years ago 18 months ago maybe and said we've got this brand new game it's called connections, you have to connect four groups of four. And the whole of Britain went, Oh, you've been you've invented that, have you? You've I'm so I'm sorry, New York Times, because by the way, we love the New York Times puzzles page. And we love the people involved. But sorry, wonderful news to hear that you invented this game, which

is you've got a, let's say like a wall of 16 clues and you have to put them into four subgroups and we put them together and there be them, there'll be score points. This is amazing. You call it connections. You say connections interesting. What does that remind me of connections, connections, connection? Oh, cause we have a show called only connect, which has been doing a little wall for about 12 years. And when they bought connections out, everyone told them this. Vicky Corran told them that like everyone was saying, Oh, you know that you haven't invented this. You know, you haven't invented this, you know, and they have publicly never said anything about it and still going, this is our great new game connections. And

listen, I play it. I get it. But it's, um,, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no box. Oh, are they? And you know, when you get to because you can usually isolate the last group and you're going I have no idea what that is. And this is going to be something from American pop culture. And they go and of course it was all nicknames from leave it to beaver. Oh, yeah, it was. So listen, I bow to very few people in my love of the New York Times puzzles page and the people behind it. I love it. They lovingly curate these things, which is why they're so good. All done by human beings, not done by AI, but they definitely, definitely ripped off the only connect wall for connections. And listen, I look forward to the puzzle wars in the future.

In 40 years time. What would I have done for a puzzle? When the world Shocked what moral compromises I've made. We'll look back and go, it's funny isn't it, we thought that the third world war would come from, you know, be like Trump or Putin or be something like, like Musk would have done something. And you go and you look back and it was all, it all came down to only connect fans against the connections fans and that's why the world is a wasteland. And that's,

that's my view of what's going to happen. On that dystopian note, perhaps we should go to the advert. Yeah, should we? This episode is brought to you by Sky where you can watch unmissable shows such as the new season of Gangs of London, the BAFTA-winning Emmy-nominated series starring Joe Cole, Michelle Fairley and Shope DeRisou. Now, Richard, in season three chaos erupts after a spiked drugs shipment floods the streets, killing hundreds of civilians.

But here is the twist. I mean it sounds like a big enough twist already, but you know I love a twist. I know you love a twist. The spiked shipment, it wasn't an accident. It was a planned and calculated attack. Oh my god, knowing what I do about TV crime and writing and all that sort of stuff, I suspect this is just the beginning. Correctamundo.

I love your catchphrase. So bring me and maybe anyone listening up to speed who hasn't seen the first two seasons of Gangs of London. People absolutely love this show. In the first two seasons, we saw the battle for power between Sean and Elliot. Let's not forget he's an undercover cop. It came to a climactic head with Sean's now in prison at the start of season three. Now, the aftermath of all of that has sparked a brutal power struggle right across the capital's

underworld. We're talking tested loyalties, shifting alliances, unexpected betrayals. Who can be trusted? Elliot, who we've seen fight very hard to obtain power, struggles to hold onto it while behind bars Sean is still able to wield influence and affect events outside the prison walls meaning the various gangs are looking over their shoulders not knowing who to trust. In my books I have a drug dealer called Connie Johnson who's always in prison but she's always got like a Nespresso machine and her wifi is absolutely sensational. I cannot wait to see what unfolds.

Genuinely so many people have told me about this show. Watch season three of the BAFTA winning Sky Original Gangs of London on Sky right now. This part of today's show is brought to you by the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra show's product. Now, if you're a fan of the show, you will know that Samsung have been sponsoring us and we've been lucky enough to be given the new Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra to try. I have it in my hands right here. Now it's got some great features this and I'm going to test you out on one of them. This uses AI. This is one of the good things about AI. How would you say Marina, how would you rate your artistic skills? They're not too dreadful. I have previously mentioned

that I've been trying to renovate some chairs. I've completed my chairs actually and also I've been teaching myself calligraphy. Well I wonder if you could renovate a chair on your tablet now. No I'm joking. I wonder if you could do a drawing for me. Is there a drawing you're any good at? Do something that you think I might recognise. Any drawing. Can you do that? What like a who? Like character a person? Yeah, okay I can I can I like this on that. Okay. I'm gonna do it and see if you can recognize. Okay I'll do it. I'll do an edit on this and wipe it. So it looks like you did it in like 20 seconds

Now are you done? Yes, I am I told you could do it in 20 seconds It's a magic of editing now with the galaxy tab s Ultra, it can turn anyone into a modern day Picasso. Why don't you show me your picture? I will show you my picture. Now, here is my picture. That's not bad. An iconic character. Is it my old art teacher, Mr. Tiller? In the top left hand corner, you have something which is called the sketch to image tool, which you can have on this tablet. If you press it, something extraordinary will happen to that drawing that you just did sketch the image and AI will turn your drawing into something even more impressive.

There we go. Now, the famous dear soca slightly better than my rendering, I think we'll have to say he appears to be in a sort of Brooks Brothers shirt. This is when he went to welcome Wall Street after he'd finished doing all the it's a bit like fireman sound but that's because you that's what you drew yeah I mean there's a limit to what it can do but that was instant as well yeah that was instant there we go oh my god you can honestly just show off to your kids all day long another one whoa see is it a Sherlock Holmes to you yeah it is because sort of hipster it a Sherlock Holmes to you? Yeah, it is. Cause it's sort of hipsterish Sherlock Holmes.

I think that was in my original drawing. I thought your original drawing is not bad. Thank you so much. I thank you. The Samsung drawing is better. Yeah, but I think it should be, but yours isn't bad. I think you've got a future. I mean, it did take this and I don't want to give it away any

edits or anything like that. It took you about seven minutes and it, and it took the AI about 0.1 seconds. Yeah, it's very, very quick and all the family will have endless fun with this because you can do all sorts of different things, seeing what you can create, fun cartoons all the way through. That wraps up this special section of the show, which was brought to us by Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, where you can both watch your favourite shows and draw them at the same time. Welcome back back everybody. Marina, I have a question. Chris Ship was saying, I was wondering if when you

see that shot of a plane taking off a landing at an airport to signify a character has departed or arrived, there has to be a second unit to go down to the airport and get some shots or is there just a big vault of these shots slash different planes slash airports etc Yes there is there are airport establishing shots you can just get they there are banks of these things because it is expensive and obviously you have to have a load of permits to film at an airport and it's just a it does sometimes happen but not in general one of the other things Chris has actually said was that I'm sure there'll be people watching a film and saying that's definitely not Albuquerque airport because they don't have those runway lights.

Oh my god please. Plane nerds, please don't write in, some of the, they can't watch anything, they notice every single little thing. There are people who say I can't possibly watch Top Gun because the Russian Migs are just resprayed F5s. Yeah, same. Because how would the American Air Force have got them, Marina, would be my question. It's an absurdity. Think of the geopolitical things that would have had to go on. So that Mr Tom Cruise could win World War 3. Okay, any form of hardware, particularly military stuff, is the stuff that has people lighting up the internet to say, sorry, how's that plane got the gun? That particular model of aircraft doesn't have a gun.

Sorry, a Rootmaster bus in 1959, but it's a Mark III. Yeah, what tank are you now using? Interesting, Mr. Scorsese, the film is ruined. As you know, I'm a franchise completist on the Fast franchise, and I think it's Fast and Furious 6, where there's a fight on the right, you know, the plane is approaching takeoff, and it's going really quite fast because it's about to approach takeoff speed and it goes on for something like four minutes that speed I think the runway people were working out it was going to be like is this a 25 26 mile runway I

mean it's literally bigger than the English Channel because so that they can have this fight now and was that a shot that that was just in a bank or did they have to film that themselves well there, I'm joking, I'm so sorry. There's no archive of those Richard, every one of those is a true original. One of the most famous shots in lots of ways, which is a really great story and it's from The Devil's Candy, which was written by a woman called Judy Salomon. I might have mentioned it before, but it's all about the filming of Bonfire of the Vanities, which is a huge 80s movie that they spend a lot of money on and it's a complete flop it's based on a massive sort of hit Tom Wolf book

that's one of the best books of all time which is brilliant yeah and it again but magazine in fact originally is a Esquire magazine series anyhow it's directed by Brian De Palma there's this guy called Eric Schwab who's the second unit director to Brian De Palma he's been second unit on lots of Brian De Palma's films and continued to be. And second unit is they'll send you off to, you know, sometimes you're filming two things at the same time and you will send someone off to do that. Often action or sort of background or something like that and the director's filming with the main actors and what have you.

He had this idea that, you know, it's all about sort of 80s excess and Wall Street and whatever they have and there's a shot where Concord kind of comes down. He wanted Concord to be landing with the at sunset with the Empire State Building in the background and Brian De Palma says I bet you Okay, fine. Do what you like, but it might not even be in the movie and I bet you $100 you can't get it. He spends literally so many months. He works out that there's only 30 seconds of the year where the sunset and the Empire State Building are in the right place for the runway. I mean, they meticulously plan this shot.

This is by one of the only things in the movie that works, bit of a spoiler here. They hire a Concorde and they have it landing and he pulls off the shot. It's amazing. And you hover down out of a shimmery orange sky. It's amazing. It's 10 seconds. It costs them 80 grand in the eighties, which is a huge amount of money for one shot, um, because they got the Concorde to land and take off.

Um, and anyway, it all works. He puts it in the film and it's one of those famous, but the film is still a flop. It's really interesting because he wanted, you see Eric Schwab really wanted to be a director and he, but De Palme was his mentor and he really wants to impress him. And actually I recently was looking at Eric Schwab's, he's always been on second unit all the way. Yeah, I think he's done millions of, you know, second units for Brian De Palma on Mission Impossible, that's pretty good.

Lots and lots of things. You know, he was a sort of artist, he wanted to be a creator and he had this vision of the shot. So that's my kind of favourite plane shot, sorry to land that plane as it were Chris. Yes they do often use stock shots and people do complain that it's the wrong thing. Richard here's one that I feel both of us might have something to say about. Rob Master says what are the execs of HBO thinking by greenlighting Harry Potter as a tv series? We know exactly what's going to happen and it's going to take an entire decade to finish.

Why not spend the money on an original Harry Potter spin-off, same universe, same draw to Potter fans, but with the ability to actually create something fresh and exciting, something that gets people talking. I mean, that's the easiest question to answer in the whole world, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, of course you've got to remake it. I mean, the book, I mean, if you were 12 when that first book came out,

when the first Harry Potter book came out, you are 40 now. Okay. You know, you are old. Firstly, it's been a long time since those movies came out when the first Harry Potter book came out. You are 40 now, okay? You know, you are old. Firstly, it's been a long time since those movies came out. The thing that people love are the sacred texts and the sacred texts are the books. I mean, that just happens to be the case. You can do a million spin-offs and we know how spin-offs go. And they've done a few. They've done fantastic. But you know, there's a people, people find them quite controversial and they're not huge.

You know, they might do well, but they've done slightly diminishing returns. Yeah, but I'm afraid this IP is very, very old. And if you grew up with it, you are old. And therefore it's a tale that's gonna need retelling. It's a tale that huge and massive, it's like three or four generations have grown up since these books came out. You know, two generations have grown up since the films came out. You know two generations have grown up since

the films came out. There is a huge market here for a new generation to watch this exact same story and there's a huge market of everyone who loved the books and who loved the films who just want to see exactly the same story again. If much greater length. Yeah. It is that this is the closest thing I can think of in the whole of the entertainment industry that is an utter banker. Yeah mean beyond that's what they said about Snow White the live action Snow White I actually don't think that they would say this is they're gonna spend HBO by the way Francesca Gardner who worked in succession his dark materials who's brilliant she's gonna be the showrunner of it they say it's

gonna be ten years I would say it will be at least 12 they're doing something like 200 million dollars a season. And each season, by the way, is going to be, I think, maybe 10 episodes and it's for one book. Give you an example of how big a market is. I've seen more stories just about speculative casting for this show that hasn't even started shooting yet than I have about many of the biggest shows currently on TV. There's such fever about this always and as I say, this is as close as to a bank as you can possibly get. It's interesting, you know,

I have to say that HBO are scaling back lots of things perhaps that they did before, you know, there are fewer limited dramas being made because returning things and so much is being funneled into this show, but that's because it will be unbelievably hugely successful and there is just no possible way they wouldn't do this. I mean it is one of those things that we often think things are a lot more recent than they are and think why are you making this really recent film and you want to go no it's really really not recent and obviously I've been working with Chris Columbus who made the first two movies really not recent. And obviously, I've been working with Chris Columbus, who made the first two movies, and who, you know, has amazing stories about the making of those two movies.

But even he would say, Oh, no, I think it's time you can, you can now do a different version of that TV. They're doing it totally different. And as you say, instead of, you know, seven films, you've got 7080 hour long episodes that are gonna last forever. If you're the accountant looking after Harry Potter, and there'll be a team of accountants, you can see how much money the books are making. They still make really good money. You can see how much money the films are making. They still do okay, but neither of those is going up.

You know, the numbers are not going up, whereas this will turbocharge absolutely everything. 12 years of almost certainly guaranteed profits for everyone involved in that industry. Exciting for everyone who loves the books, a fun gig for loads of actors. And making them all in the UK at Leavesden. Yeah, employing huge amounts of UK talent in front of the camera and behind the camera. You know, Mozart wrote his symphonies many, many years ago, but people keep playing them. This IP now lasts forever and they're going to remake this every 15, 20 years

until the end of history. It is, as we've said before, show business. Yeah. John Lithgow's Dumbledore. See, immediately you want to recast it. You know that? Janet Matera is Professor McGonnell, I think. You know, come on.

Cap S. Do maybe is Snape. Who knows? I mean, as I say, just the speculation is getting more kind of pull on the discourse, as it it were than a lot of the bigger shows currently airing. There'll be some point in in kind of season four, where there'll be an old professor who just sort of pokes his head around the door and you go, hold on a minute. That's Rupert Grint. And you're like, there's just a million little things like that, which will which will delight everyone. So yeah, what are the HBO execs

thinking? They are thinking exactly the right thing. This will be a good business. Yeah, this will be an enormously profitable business that everybody will love and will keep us in a job for a really long time, I think is what they're thinking. Marina, Terry Wilson. Terry with an I, so a Lady Terry. Lady Terry. Steven Spielberg's press officer is called Terry Press. Is she actually? That's cool. I mean, she's more than a press officer. called Terry Press. Is she actually?

That's cool. I mean she's more than a press officer. She's marketing. She does a million things. But yeah, her name is Terry Press. That's great, isn't it? Incredible. That's like one of Reagan's spokesmen used to be called Larry Speaks.

Anyway, I digress. Terry Wilson says, which shows which have been critically panned, publicly trashed and cancelled early, have you loved and wish could return? Okay this is a bit of an irisness one which I feel bad about but it just did make me laugh so much and I've since found a community of people who also regarded it as a sort of ridiculous watch classic you know Aaron Sorkin is amazing, sorry it's really bad when you have to start like that isn't it? Aaron Sorkin is amazing, The West Wing's incredible, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which ran for one season.

How can I explain this, if you haven't seen it? It was made by NBC, and it was effectively about Saturday Night Live, an NBC show that I also don't love, and have never, you know, like lots of British people just think, oh, well done America, we don't love this. Tina Fey also had that same season out, 30 Rock, which was basically a half hour comedy version of something about SNL. So it's like- Possibly the greatest sitcom of all time, by the way. It's just so good. It's so good. I love 30 Rock so much. It's definitely going to be in the argument. We should do best sitcom of all time as a

bonus episode one day. Oh, please. Yeah. Well, I mean definitely going to be in the argument. We should do best sitcom of all time as a bonus episode one day. Oh please. Yeah, well I mean that would be a long one. Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford are kind of like a pair of writers who are given the reins of SNL, not whatever it's called, maybe it's called Studio 60 on the Sunset. Never ever ever have TV programs about stand-up comedians or writers because then you have to try and make them sound funny and it's it's you know it's impossible. It is so ridiculous. It's like oh no the shows in the doldrums we're given the we can't we have to decide what to do and they have to the whole one is called the cold open when

you know that this is episode one okay by the way the show where you're like what the hell am I watching so they've got to try and get back the American viewer and they can't think of a cold open till like almost the last minute and then they think of doing a Musical number which is called will be the very model of a modern network show Everything about this is just a massive miss and I this I feel so bad because you know I see people's like laughing at Aaron's talking for bits of dialogue. You're like, oh my god. Okay, he's Aaron talking What have you ever done? Yeah, so also he's really like, I'm doing a version of that now. I'm sorry. Listen, let's go on the record now and saying, if he's ever written bad dialogue, it's because he's written more dialogue than anyone else. And almost all of it is better than anyone

else. Yes, most of this isn't in it. But as a just a sort of myth, it is, and I've watched the whole series more than once, and it's like 12, one hours, or maybe more than that. When you watch someone who's a genius doing something once and it's like 12 hours or maybe more than that. When you watch someone who's a genius doing something wrong, it's like I always think, you know, it's great being... I hate myself for this answer by the way. Being the fastest runner in the world is great, okay, so if you're in the same boat, that's great. Unless you're running in the wrong direction, in which case you are farther away from where you need to be than anybody else in the world. That's a very good way of putting it. And seeing a great genius get something wrong. Boy, oh boy, do they get it wrong in such an amazing, like every single way that

it can go wrong goes wrong to the nth degree and it's incredibly expensive and beautifully shot and all of those things. So it's not like watching some cheap bit of TV, it doesn't really work and no one cares about it. It's an extraordinary production that everyone there is giving everything they can to everyone is about it you can't look away like how bad is it now there's something about it that I find hypnotic and actually I'm gonna have to watch another episode of it this afternoon I mean literally every single person listening to this podcast is going I'm sorry I might

just watch the first episode of that and I'm really sorry I hate myself for that answer but it's the honest truth that about wraps wraps us up for today. Got a bonus episode actually tomorrow which is on the worst chat show guests and appearances of all time. And if you want to sign up to the club, it is therestisentertainment.com. And also if you sign up, we did the best short books of all time and anything we mention, any books we mention, you can get money off if you're a member. All sorts of fun things there. Other Other than that either see you for the bonus tomorrow or we will see you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. This episode was presented by Sky, proud partners of The Rest is Entertainment.

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