Elon Musk vs Christopher Nolan

20:58Richard Osman:Money and no taxes are sort of the same thing really aren't they? Yeah I mean you couldn't argue with it because you're taking it down by the money. It's certainly a think piece. Yeah I think that was it. I mean whether anyone's making a film of that in 300 years time I don't know. 3 ,000, 2 ,000, it's between 2 ,700 and 2 ,800 years. whether someone's making a film of that in 2 ,800 years time I don't know but it's a thing isn't it? I've seen actually quite a lot of films with that plotline so it's possible there will be stories written but maybe yeah but he deleted it so I guess he doesn't have the copyright.

21:33Richard Osman:So what do we conclude? We conclude it's just weird it's just weird that they have to have an opinion on all of this stuff. If you're going to make everyone else stay out of their things which by the way I don't mind people talking about whatever they like but do be aware that your opinions are very, very... They're boring and they're stupid. But also they can't have therapists. There's no way. There's no way that Zuckerberg and Musk sit down once a fortnight with someone wise to talk to them about their childhood and talk to them about why they are how they are. Yeah, I mean, I'm quite a big believer in pushing it all down, you know.

22:10Richard Osman:Yes, I'm certain of that. Do you know that comes across? so maybe you know they're in the the elder pushing it down i mean i don't know where you'd start with that father with him i would write i would write a show though about a billionaire's therapist that's because they have someone for everything like they have like full-time staff for you know physical stuff you know have chefs they have everything you would think maybe that they would have an like like an on-staff therapist but then maybe you get institutionalized and you get Stockholm Syndrome and then the therapist just turns into AI and tells them what they want to hear.

22:44That person has power of a type.

22:47Richard Osman:Yeah, and they don't want anyone else to have power. No. Yeah. No, I mean, they have to be the top of the old org chart. Yes. Maybe they do have a therapist. Maybe. Maybe they do. If they do, by the way, that's a really bad therapist. Also has terrible opinions. I mean, really, what are you doing? That's a therapist who's not a fan of Christopher Nolan. Shall we take a break? Let's do that. After which we will be talking about snooker. Is that this big break show you were talking about? Yeah. I've not heard of it. I think you'd like it. Okay.

23:21This episode is brought to you by Lloyds. Now, I love it when characters are part of a club. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Richard?

23:27Richard Osman:The Thursday Murder Club, in some ways, reminds me of the A-Team. I now would like to map each of those characters onto the A-Team and feel I probably could. I mean, Elizabeth is Hannibal and it's not even close. Yeah, that's exactly right. and Ron is howling mad Murdoch. Well, there are definite perks to being in a club. Just ask the members of Club Lloyds because with Club Lloyds, you can bank on Lloyds to give you more wherever you are. If you join Club Lloyds, there's all sorts of benefits you can choose between. There's, for example, six free cinema tickets. They've got an annual coffee club and gourmet society membership, which would be mine.

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25:30Welcome back, everybody.

25:32Richard Osman:With breaking news, our lovely producer, Joey, we were just looking into whether Elon Musk has ever had therapy. He said this in 2024, just in case we're in doubt. He said, put never went to therapy on my gravestone. I mean, okay. Okay. He then, by the way, goes on to say, and this, I don't know if the two are connected. It feels like there's just a rage of horses in my mind constantly. Put a rage of horses on his gravestone. Rage of horses is good, Elon. That's a good bit of writing. That is a great collective now. Yeah, to be fair. Yeah, to be fair. You didn't know you were doing it. But I would say...

26:08Richard Osman:If you post that many times, eventually you're going to write one good tweet. Yeah, that's true. But yeah, I'd like to explore his relationship with weakness. Yeah. I think that would be an interesting thing to talk to him about. What a shame that Meghan and Harry podcast series never happened. I would have very, very much enjoyed it. I would have loved that. Now. Now. Talking of royalty. Yeah. Okay. There are often reboots on television and a particular show which people have said for years and years and years, when are they going to reboot this has just been rebooted. Big Break is back. So Big Break, which was a huge show from 1991 through to 2002.

26:45Richard Osman:I would have sworn it started in the 80s. You're explaining it now, are you? That's good. Wow. Okay, I'm not going to explain any more of it. Yes, you are. That's a short item. I'm having a drink, so you're going to have to. That's good. 200-odd episodes presented by Jim Davidson and the wonderful late John Virgo. He was the royalty in the reference rather than Jim Davidson. Yes, I think the format was the royalty, really. But Virgo was so amazing. And by the way, I will be talking about royalties and formats in the context of this as well. So it's all coming together. But yes, John Virgo was royalty in this context.

27:19Richard Osman:So yeah, Big Break is coming back and there was a lot of hoopla about it. Used to be Jim Davidson and John Virgo. It's now Paddy McGuinness, who never saw a reboot he didn't like. And Stephen Hendry. The coolest man in the world. In my opinion, certainly one of them. And the announcement has been well received, I think, because people love Paddy and Stephen Hendry is very, very good as well. So I think it will be good. I just wanted to go through a little bit about what a weird show Big Break is, where it came from, why it came about, when it came about, why it is coming back and the job that it is going to do for the BBC, because it's not the job that people have been writing about that it's going to do, that's for sure.

27:58Richard Osman:So Big Break comes about invented sort of in the late 80s because Bullseye had been such a big hit. And Bullseye is a simple thing. You've got a darts player and you've got a quizzer and something that the quiz does sort of affects what the dart player does and something that the dart player does sort of affects what the quizzer does. And there's prizes. And, you know, Snooker was absolutely enormous. You know, that mid-80s onwards era was so huge. At some point, somebody was going to do Bullseye for Snooker. Now, for years and years and years, it was credited to Terry Mardell and Mike Kemp. But they then were sued by a cabbie called Roger Metcalf from Birmingham and had to pay him 100 grand and give him a third of the format as well.

28:42Richard Osman:Yeah, I know. Normally, that's not the case, right? Because what had happened was Roger Metcalf and Mike Kemp, who were friends, had said, oh, we should do a bullseye, but for snooker. And so they had this idea. Mike Kemp knew Terry Mardell. Now, Terry Mardell had just had a big hit with Bob's Full House, which is essentially bingo as a quiz show. And so Mike Kemp goes, I've got a friend who knows how to format a TV show. Terry Mardell takes this in, looks at it, says it was an absolute mess, but we turned it into something. And the BBC loved it and bought it. And so it became a TV show. And it was credited to Terry Mardell and Mike Kemp.

29:19Richard Osman:And Medcalf, many years later, said, but I did come up with that with Mike and we took it to Terry. And so he's got the money. It's good. It sounds like no one was really trying to con anyone. It was just one of those. I see. When you said a cab driver, I thought that he had said it to them. Oh, in a cab? No, I don't think so. Oh, can I do a sidebar? Yeah, always. Bullseye had been a hit. Yeah. Big Break is a huge hit. So they decide, okay, well, let's do this again. We're going to do this for golf. And they did one series. I remember seeing it at the time and thinking, this is really unacceptably awful.

29:52Richard Osman:They did a show called Full Swing with Jimmy Tarbuck. Oh, I remember that. Yeah. They only did one series. Yeah, because it's the old Pro-Am. I mean, they're all Pro-Am shows, basically. And golf, obviously, you would think would be, or could, in the right hands, be made for it. Yeah, well, they had a sort of, you know, a very early computer screen thing where you hit a ball just back before that technology really worked. This is really coming out of a memory hole. A weird putting green. Their version of the trick shot was a sort of big contraption. The studio putting green, right? Yes, in the studio putting green.

30:26Richard Osman:They had this big contraption where you just tapped the ball into it and it went around lots of things and then went in the hole. so there was never any jeopardy. That lasted for one series. Anyway, that's just how TV works. Bullseye begets big break and that begets full swing and then you never have to do any of those ever again. So BBC are bringing it back and people have been trying to pitch this for a few years. I've been pitched it before because I love snooker and people know that and when it was mentioned to me, I was like, I love snooker. This is not the show. I would not do this show very well.

30:58Richard Osman:It's not something that I would be particularly good at. And that was, I think, for five, because five have now got lots of the snooker. But the BBC have brought it back, but brought it back in a very interesting way. It is for BBC Two daytime. Nothing is for BBC Two daytime anymore. It's six o 'clock, you get some House of Games and stuff like that. But there is nothing now in that kind of 2 p.m. till 6 p.m. So BBC Two is for daytime. and what it is and it's an object lesson in everything has to do a number of different jobs now if you want it to be commissioned what they are doing they're doing 20 episodes of it and it will do a number of things for them firstly it will be a program that they can just put out see how it does just like in the old days where you'd commission a program and i wonder if people will watch it and if they do you put it out again so they will do that and if people love it they can do a primetime version of it.

31:50Richard Osman:But what they're also doing is doing it so every time the snooker is on and the BBC have just signed a deal to 2032 for the World Championships, the Masters and the UK Open, which are the Triple Crown events, they have this stuff absolutely ready to go. They'll have these 20 episodes, they'll probably do another 20, they'll probably do another 20. And it just means when the snooker comes on, which does really good business for BBC Two, they have this thing that they can play throughout breaks in the frames, which is a big deal for them, and then can sit on iPlayer forever. And every time the snooker is on and people are interested in snooker, like people get interested in tennis every time Wimbledon's on, they have this thing on the iPlayer.

32:25Richard Osman:So it's one of those ones. It's not going to be expensive. They certainly, they used to film four a day. They probably will again. But it will be an accompaniment to their snooker programming, which is nice for them. It'll be a lovely thing that sits on iPlayer. And if people like it, suddenly they will have a hit on their hands and they can put it on Saturday night but it's I find it such a fascinating commission because it's not like any other yeah as I say no one's commissioned anything for BBC daytime for about for BBC two daytime for about eight years and they just haven't and now suddenly we've got one of the biggest brands in British TV sitting there with big big big name hosts and I'd like to see their chemistry I think Stephen Hendry is really funny yeah he really is and Paddy is great with people I would really like to see it.

33:14Richard Osman:Yeah. So Terry Mardell is very interesting. He came up with this. There are other names, but Terry was a standup comic. And back in those eras, in the world of light entertainment, there were lots of standup comics who sort of started writing gags for hosts, did warm up. Terry Mardell did warm up. His brother, Wally Mardell, did warm up as well. So Terry Mardell not only came up with Bob's Full House, but he was also the warm up for Bob's Full House as well. Had a big hit show in America called Sweethearts, which was a sort of a dating show. But the show he did immediately after Big Break had an interesting lineage to it.

33:49Richard Osman:So he had this hit with Big Break and suddenly America gets interested in Bob's Full House. So Terry Mardell goes out to Hollywood, signs up with William Morris, the biggest agency. The first person he meets is a junior guy called Mark Itkin who did not stay junior for long. He's fated out in Hollywood. America decides to do their version of Bob's Full House. So he goes from Big Break with Jim Davidson and John Virgo to the American version of Bob's Full House. And there's a clue in the name here, which is called Trump Card. And it is filmed at Trump Castle Casino in Las Vegas. And the first episode, absolutely front and center in it, is Donald Trump.

34:33Richard Osman:But yeah, so Terry Mardell went straight from Potts Many Balls as You Can to the future president of the United States. Wow. Yeah. Oh, I really need to see an episode of Trump Card. Of Trump Card. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not one of the casinos you somehow can drive to Bankrupt. Yes. Oh, it is one of those. It absolutely was. I think it's the golden nugget now, I think. So, yeah, Big Break is back. I've read a couple of things saying, oh, it's just going to be trick shots, which is not. It's going to be pretty much exactly the same as the previous one. Quizzes and potting would be a bit different.

35:03Richard Osman:And genuinely, I think how lovely. I'm looking forward to seeing it already. But the reason they're commissioning is because it's a really great thing to go with their commitment to snooker. And so they might as well have a punt at it. And if I was Paddy, I think Paddy's the perfect person for him. I would not have been, but he definitely is. And Hendry will be great too, even though he's on the first ever, ever episode of Big Break, Stephen Hendry. Oh, is he? Yeah, doing very badly as well. Oh, really? I'm sure he'll be the first to admit. Okay, that's really fun. Okay, well, I'm looking forward to that.

35:36And that's Big Break. See how that works. We're now going to talk about the Cannes Film Festival, which is happening now. You'll have a film festival in the case of Cannes. Films from all the way around the world are submitted. The festival programmers pick a small number, some of which is shown in competition, some out of competition. And the ones in competition are judged. And at the same time, there are lots of other screenings of things, not all finished. Some partially finished independent stuff that needs more funding or needs distribution or whatever. so it's sort of an art festival and sort of a kind of meat market for films and in Cannes they have a festival director who's been there 25 years he's called Thierry Fremmer because it's France they call him the general delegate

36:21Richard Osman:of course they do you know and he's got lots of views about things like he won't show Netflix films if they because of the theatrical window this is the business yeah well the French are so committed well if you go you know if you walk past a cinema in Paris they have so many They've got a real commitment to showing French films and they have obviously a very long theatrical window and they're very committed to keeping their art non-globalised to some degree, a percentage of it. They love French films in France. Over there, they call them films, right? I mean, it's mad. They don't even know what they've got.

36:53Richard Osman:Like French food in France, they call it food. It's so odd. It's one of the things I couldn't get my head around while I was there. The thing about the Cannes Film Festival is that it sort of signified, and I know you're thinking, were the Oscars not 15 minutes ago? And in a way they were because they were in March. But it sort of, in this period in May, signified the start of the awards campaign and the sort of prestige economy. And also you would have maybe a big splashy premiere of a Hollywood film that's not in competition, but it's kind of like, oh, here we are, we're going to show a Star Wars film or something else.

37:26And you might also have people such as Quentin Tarantino showing a big film and then it will win one of their big prizes and you can sort of feel like, here the juggernaut begins but this year is notable for something quite shocking there are no US studio films and even people like Focus Features A24 are not taking any films

37:44Richard Osman:they should call it the Kant Film Festival yeah it's different in French say and another thing I couldn't get my head around so it's they haven't even got a sort of splashy premiere tied to release I mean they've definitely not got the Odyssey which we know that's coming out they haven't got the Spielberg film so all these people have big ties to can they haven't got um the alexander in your itia film with tom cruise top digger that's coming out later in the air they haven't got any of these things so why is the question and the answer really is because of risk and it's may the studios are now so in a kind of completely connected online world it is so different i mean i've talked to people who take things to can and just said it is so stressful you know immediately whether your thing that you've lavished all your love and attention whatever and money crucially which we'll get to has worked you can just feel it it's in the air it's in the response people are just saying now that's not going to run and it's you know it's may and you somehow got to get your stars out there if they're on an awards campaign all the way till next march so it's a tough school so yeah studios mostly want to keep their awards movies to the final third of the year so that you might the venice film festival is in September so that's better but if you look at last year you know there was real potential for damaged films that people can films that people thought going to be big like um Die My Love or Eddington they sort of something went wrong and people thought oh these aren't going to work and there's something about the critics the French critics particularly but also lots of the by the way everything gets a sort of as you know a ridiculously long-standing ovation which is completely completely meaningless the critics however are meaningful and they can be quite harsh and it's a really uncontrollable environment so so it used to be that the absolute key thing in all these industries is buzz and this was absolutely the place to get early buzz but now it's gorgeous isn't it you've got the closet you've got the thing it's it's can it costs a million to take a film to can and that's just the popcorn yeah you've got to stage the premiere you've got to take the stars and all the people around them you've got to have all their travel accommodation you've got to have the marketing around it because it can't just sort of happen there have to be other stuff happening jet ski trips yeah yeah the various things yeah get me off this yacht helicopters that sort of thing but there's so much now that can go wrong if you look at the berlin festival earlier this year where lots of journalists were asking stars to reveal their positions on israel and gaza you know why would you not retreat which is what they're all doing now into an arena where it is far more that's far more protective of your talent and you're much more able to control it and your overall investment in a film which is quite an expensive activity is protected so it's all about control you know and to some extent you'll say oh well maybe then these festivals can become what they were which is that and that's what people you know because they have to find a positive do they become things that surface great international films and celebrate European and international films.

40:50But actually they do need the studios, but they're going to have to find a way of dealing with something that you can't, something can't derail it.

40:57Richard Osman:Yeah. The one thing that's in their favor is that stars have to be beyond persuaded that they don't want this to say, because the star wants their movie to start in either Cannes or Venice. Yeah. And they sort of prefer Cannes because it's just, it's just the sort of in their head the primo brand there's no particular reason for that but legacy yeah legacy they grew up watching people at the Cannes film festival and then you have to try and dissuade them of the fact that they really really want to be put in an uncontrolled environment where their film could be it might not be since the film won't be probably coming out till October that you don't want to be put in that environment where you could say the wrong thing or you could just not say anything and your silence would be violence or whatever it is It's usually pretty easy to persuade actors to do something they don't want to do.

41:47Yes. But I think the fact that everybody has managed to do it this time around, you know, and what they do do when they bring them out in a different way and they don't go over these big festivals is that they bring them out and they have, you know, there's a controlled access. And I think there's a fundamental difference between allowing critics to see the film and just say what they think about them. and people honestly expecting people to have a view on every little piece of, or big piece of global politics or everything that's going on in a country at the time or everything, making everyone have a view of this in a press conference, in your film, about whatever it is.

42:20Richard Osman:Then you've got to hear what Elon Musk has got to say about it. Yeah. Yeah. Just ask him about rockets. Yeah. But the basic principle is if you really care about something, you spend a long time on it, and you're worried about whether it's good or not, do not choose the first group of people you show it to to be French. Yeah. Because they will not be polite if they don't like it. Well, I mean, all the international critics, there's a sort of pride in lots of that. But it's just a long haul. The awards season now is so... Those campaigns go on for nine months. And if you start now, they're sort of going on for 10 months.

42:59Richard Osman:Yeah. But yeah, so they're trying to control that while, you know, the film is in your screening rooms and your edit and with your PR, you can control, control, control, control. The second it is out in the world, whatever you planned, whatever momentum you planned, that can be derailed. And so try and derail it as late as possible in the process. Yes. Or it's less likely to be direct. They're quite sort of down and dirty, the festivals in some way. and you've got lots and lots of rooms and people are sitting on a stage and people could ask you anything but I just think it's become a matter of risk.

43:34It's so expensive to do all these things never mind the cost of taking it there. The film itself is so expensive and it's whether you just want to expose it to being torn down in many cases eight months before release never mind before the award ceremony or whatever it is you think you're going for. Leave that to one side. It's the idea that you just can't You just can't sustain it after that and it sort of falls off the screen.

43:58Richard Osman:I'd rather launch in Venice. People I know who go to them say that Cannes is awful and it's so much better. And it's a much more lovely affair. We've covered a lot of ground this week, haven't we? I think we're both going to give the same recommendation this week, which we did last week with Legends, which, by the way, have now finished and is even better than I said it was last week. But this week, Rivals is back. we can't recommend anything else other than that. Actually, no, I can. Okay, first of all, yes, we recommend Rivals. I will recommend the video for the new Harry Styles single, Dance No More.

44:34There's a lot of dancing in it.

44:35Richard Osman:What happens in it? A lot of dancing. Okay, but you like it. I like it. Okay, I'm going to be doing that as soon as we finish. Not dancing, watching Harry Styles dance. Yeah, you can't compete, believe me. I don't dance after, I'm no Dominic Sandbrook, but I don't dance immediately after a podcast. Right, we will be back on Thursday. with a Q &A. Then tomorrow, the first in a special bonus series. I'm very excited about this. It's so cool. Okay. I am talking to James Kanagasorium, who is a brilliant pollster, brilliant at politics, but also because he's plugged into all the currents and opinions and things that shape our culture.

45:11We're going to be talking, I'm doing a series with him, talking to him about six absolutely fascinating topics. And the one that's coming out tomorrow, and everyone can listen to this, this first one, is about trad wives and trad wife content. Amazing. It's really interesting. There's so much stuff in there that you will like anyway, Richard.

45:30Richard Osman:Yeah, so that's going to be for the members, but the first one, just to, because it's absolutely for everybody, see if you can, like, and I have yet to hear it, but I've heard you talk about it and I'm very, very excited to hear it as well. It's really cool. Okay. So if you want to join, it's therestisentertainment.com. Everyone can listen to that tomorrow. Otherwise, see you on Thursday. See you on Thursday.

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