Plagiarism, Puns and Lego

0:00This episode is presented by E. E. Marina, are you hosting or guesting for Christmas this year? normally every other year i am a very grateful guest but i'm now a slightly trepidatious host yes it is me in the apron having a meltdown over all the cooking no i don't think i'll have a meltdown i it's a lot isn't it yeah but you have to just keep saying to yourself it's just a big chicken just a really big chicken it's just a really enormous chicken we are also hosting this you're looking forward to it very much if you are hosting and e has the best broadband technology if you are guesting then e has the best mobile technology and my goodness you need it at christmas right yes the third babysitter the distractor just when the family walk into the house is hello grandma hello granddad what's the wi-fi password i might need that yeah get the best connectivity for your home and your phone with ee and if you're guesting lucky you ee has the best mobile network to keep you connected to music, maps, and backseat streaming for the kids when you're traveling.

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2:33Hello and welcome to this episode of the Restless Entertainment Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Marina Hyde. I'm Richard Osborne. Hello Marina. Hello Richard, how are you? I'm okay. Now last week I asked a question of my own and sorry, straight in. Yeah, no, no, no, no. Wow. Have you done something with your hair? Yeah. Because you should. I washed it and that's enough last week I asked a question of our listeners because the John Lewis advert the you know where love lives the rave dad and as quite so often with adverts actually there is no information anywhere as to who played rave dad you can't find it anywhere so I was like what's going on what if something is going on here so I put out the challenge to our listeners and they came back in droves so thank you I'm going to tell you in one second that you've been trumped But thank you, everyone who came back and who had identified Roberto Davide, who is an Italian-American actor.

3:35Lots of you said we just saw him in BBC Civilizations, Rise and Fall. They saw him in. So I was going to read out lots of people's names. So thank you for doing that. But then who gets in touch but Roberto Davide himself? Chief among the droves. Exactly. So I'm afraid. Listen, listeners, you get it. Right. rave dad himself has written in so we have to read out his instead of yours you get it if you were rave dad I'd be reading yours out he is a listener in fairness yes he says hello witch and marina I was listening to your podcast episode will wicked 2 help Hollywood defy gravity was pleasantly surprised to hear you mention the John Lewis ad you asked about the actor who played the dad and I wanted to reach out because it is me I really appreciate the kind words thought I'd share a little bit more about the experience he's talking about he said four days he said it's enormously intense and what I hadn't thought he's quite right there's a lot going on in that advert and a lot of emotion in that advert, but no lines.

4:26So everything is literally done in those looks between him and the other actors. But Roberto, thank you so much. I'm glad that you're a real human being. I'm glad that everyone saw you in the BBC Civilisations thing as well. And yeah, to our wonderful listeners, thank you so much for sending it in. But you do understand that when Rave Dad calls, we answer. Shall we get on with today's questions? Yes, please. Give me a question. I have one for you here, and it is from Henry Longstaff. Henry Longstaff. One of the merry men. One of the merry men, exactly. Henry Longstaff, who is from the 15th century, asks us, yea, verily, starts Henry Longstaff.

5:04He doesn't at all. He actually starts, I've heard Apple TV. You think that's something that Shakespeare wouldn't have written? No. Says, I've heard Apple TV have pulled the show The Hunt after it has emerged that it may be plagiarised from another novel. How did it get this far? Oh, my God. I'm so glad that somebody asked about this because it's a wild story. I don't know if anyone's seen it. You've seen it. But anyway, just to sort of summarise. Apple TV have this new show which was about to which was going to come out last week it's French it's made by the producers Gaumont but for Apple or POM as they call it in France yeah for POM POM plus the synopsis is a group of friends go hunting and when they're out in the forest or wherever they become aware of another group of hunters and one of them is shot deliberately they think by one of the other groups of hunters but for whatever reason and I guess we would have got into it, they decide not to say anything, a little bit like deliverance, and they return to their normal lives, but then they become aware that they sense that they're being watched and perhaps hunted back in their normal lives.

6:03And it's a thriller. And as you say, it's called The Hunt. A French journalist alleged that it was a direct adaptation of a novel called Shoot by Douglas Fairburn, published in 1973. Not only that, it was that, but was adapted into a movie called Shoot, starring Ernest Borgnin and Cliff Robertson in 1976. And Douglas Fairbairn, the author, got credit on that. The book was translated into French in the 1970s and called La Trac, The Hunt. No. Yes, no, no, listen. So can you believe it? But the current version of The Hunt, the show that was all ready to go and be aired and everything imminently, was created, written and directed by a guy called Cédric Angers.

6:50And Apple have now completely pulled it. So that does suggest there's quite a serious case to answer here. Now, the law on this is relatively interesting in some ways. There's no sort of IP protection of a summary of a story. You might be able to have a case for it under American law. You can have a case for anything. Interesting, under French law, moral rights to work exist in law. so it seems that what has happened is that he has not told them this is based on and and douglas fairbent i don't know i had a kind of look at him and because i was so interested by the story he obviously had some success he's now dead he's been dead since the 90s i think but maybe these were kind of airport novels i don't know but it's not like they were the biggest thing on the you know you're like saying hey i've just had this idea about a shark i guess you know so they've had to pull this completely because they obviously don't have the rights to it the question first of all the question is, what do they do now?

7:42They've made it now, which is very, very expensive. So they're going to have to license that book from the author's estate. For me, they should do that because the cost of making this thing. But, okay, it's great news for the author's relatives because you can just name it Bryce now. I mean, really. Luckily, you are dealing with the computer companies, I like to call Apple. So you are dealing with one of the three biggest companies in the world, and it doesn't really matter how much any of their television costs because it's just a... They have money, right? I've heard they've had some money. Yeah, I've heard they have some money.

8:13But in terms of, so Gaumont was the French producers who have made this. Apple will have an indemnity clause against Gaumont, who perhaps in this case failed to do, because they would have bought them the developed concept, and then Apple would have agreed to make it. Yeah, you're supposed to do due diligence. Though it's quite hard to neck check something like that, because you have to, I mean, if someone is not telling you the truth, and it's a 1973 novel and a movie from the 70s, you can't sort of check everything that's ever happened everywhere. Or can't you? Because I'm afraid my ultimate conclusion of this is that this is a role at which AI would be very, very good.

8:52Oh, yeah, finally. Because if you do want to try and check everything, I mean, actually, I have to say that this is not like the most obscure thing, given it's already been adapted. Oh, yeah, for sure. Given that it's essentially called The Hunt in French. Anyway. but AI would be good it is very difficult and there are also there are always these kind of rights cases there's one with Top Gun do you remember like a lot of those things a lot of those kind of movies around that time they would be based on some kind of in-depth American magazine article and someone had written an article about Miramar the Top Gun school and I can't remember whether it was Don Simpson or Brookheim or someone else at Paramount maybe had read that and said I'd love a movie based on this this sounds really cool lots of things we're interested in And actually when they came to make Top Gun Maverick, by that stage, the rights of the guy who'd written it, the rights of that original magazine article had reverted back to the family.

9:45And they said, oh, well, you couldn't have had this movie without the first movie. So effectively, there is a kind of chain of rights stretching from that original article. And you should have paid us. I can't remember. They sued for some kind of crazy amount of money. That was actually thrown out. But this one, clearly, they regard it as a big issue. And it'll be really interesting to see where it goes. But it is an amazing, you know, let's say Cédric Anguille knew. I mean, if he didn't know, it's very, very, very unfortunate. Or you knew, but you forgot. And you think you had the idea yourself.

10:17I've ended up sometimes thinking, oh, that's a fun joke. And then I thought, it just does ring a bell. And then you're like, oh, I've written that joke three years ago. You know, a lot of creators will say, oh, I thought I had this brilliant idea. And I actually just realized I'd already seen it. And it was completely. It's like in The Simpsons where Principal Skinner, I think, is writing essentially Jurassic Park. And everyone's going, literally the whole episode is people going, I mean, it's a movie. It was a really big movie. I mean, you really never heard of it. So it's like that. But anyway, it'll be interesting to see where that one goes.

10:46And it's obviously quite a dramatic thing to have happened. But yeah, thank you for asking about that, Henry Longstop. And the head of Apple TV, of course, is Jay Hunt. So hold on a minute. Ah, yeah. Apple TV in the UK. I don't think, I mean, she'll be getting straight in touch so she's got nothing to do with the French operation. She would never have made this mistake. Because her name is Hunt. Yeah, yes. I understood that part of it. But I just wanted to be very clear, and legally, since we are talking about, that Jay Hunt has no rights to this mistake. She does not hold the rights to this mistake.

11:15Although there was an executive in 1973 called Jay Shoot. So has she ripped herself off? Let's get the old yarn wall out because we need to get to the bottom of this. But okay, thank you very much for that question. This next question comes from Jonathan. No surname, but actually this question is iconic, so it probably doesn't require one. Tom Daly's Game of Wool clearly has a pun-based name, but I don't understand it, says Jonathan. Well, join the knitting circle. Is it meant to be a play on Game of Thrones? If so, this seems to miss the point of a play on words, as wool has no alliterative, semantic, or syllabic link to thrones.

11:53How did this happen? listen I absolutely agree with you Jonathan and I've tried to go as deep as I can into this conspiracy I mean sometimes names just come about and just get attached to things the only way is Essex sometimes the Hague has too much on their plate to handle this kind of a war crime but it is unforgivable so I deal with it instead so I talked to a brilliant producer called Geoff Wilson and I spoke to Geoff years ago because he made a show this is one of my favourite ever sleeper hits which is your home made perfect which is Angela Scanlon um two architects look at your house and do like a VR version of it so you're sort of inside the house and it's just one of those shows that should have been formulaic but was just made brilliantly so I've always loved Joff's work anyway so Joff is making uh this game of wool and it's a big hit um which so let's say that and it's it's it's just a name that stuck everyone didn't know what to call it I talked to There's another wonderful gentleman called Matt Hume, who is a writer and writes on loads of things, 8 out of 10 cats and millions of things.

12:56Matt, for many years, wrote some Zandra's intros to me on Pointless when he goes, he's the man who blah, blah, blah. So Matt would do that. I talked to Matt. He said they sat around and they were trying to think of a pun title. And there's millions of them. In the end, they just go, you know what? Let's just not do a pun title. But, you know, Game of War was one of those ones that was out there, which obviously isn't a pun. but they go you know what it's actually quite a good name it is actually quite a good name so i think they're aware it is not a pun oh that's good yes but i think they thought and also if it was a pun that was too close to it they they also might not be able to use it because it would be passing off so they're aware it's not a pun but it came out of a meeting where they were trying to think of puns that makes sense that would be my favorite type of meeting the only meeting actually i would ever want to attend it's like i want that came up with uh um we're trying to do something with frankie boil and i said well you know something live i said well why don't we call it the ball variety performance uh anything great done sold in the room so it comes out of a meeting where they're talking about puns uh matt hume says to me his two favorites of his were knit happens it's a perfectly good perfectly good pun i like that yeah but how about this watch out needles about i don't watch out needles i mean that that catchphrase which is a jeremy beadle thing.

14:15I mean, it kind of died before Tom Laley was born. Yes, exactly. So, oh, you couldn't use it? No. But that's the thing. It's really unusual. They are sitting in a room, as I've done so many times before, coming up with puns, and in the end they go, well, let's not call it a pun. But at some point the name Game of Wool had come out there and everyone's going, well, it's a game and it's about wool. And I think they're very aware as well that people are like, sorry, why is it called Game of Wool? And the fact of it is made by a brilliant programme maker. You're talking about it, aren't you? It's made very, very well as well.

14:45It's got great talent behind it and it's doing really, really good business. So it is not a story of absolute incompetence that people can't do puns. It's a story of a group of very good programme makers going, do you know what? Let's just call it Game of Wall. But to think it could have been called Watch Out, Needles About. I mean, I love Knit Happens, I have to say. Yeah, Knit Happens is good. Knit Happens is good as well. If it gets so big that they need an after show, then they can use one word to maybe. Game of Wall, Knit Happens. Yeah, that's very, very good. So yeah, it's a slightly disappointing answer, which is not.

15:14It has been chosen by lunatics. I've always been terrible with titles, with show titles. I've never, ever been able to do it. Oh, because the Boyle Variety show is rubbish. I mean, I don't think that's true, Richard. I don't think you are bad. I can do puns and then think of the show afterwards. That I can do. But when a show comes out, you think, I just need the perfect title. The Pointless was a great, which was not mine. That's a great. That is a brilliant title. Because you just think, oh, this show, which seems incomprehensible, but you've given a name that makes sense to me. So Game of Wool is just one of those things.

15:46And in 20 years' time, when they're on season 20, it will just seem Game of Wool. It's like, whose line is it anyway? So Whose Line Is It Anyway? Which is a pun on the American movie Whose Life Is It Anyway? Which of those is more famous now? Oh, yes. Whose Line Is It Anyway? and now there are lots of things that are pun versions of whose line is it anyway because whose line is it anyway is a very very bad pun on whose life is it anyway now whose line is it anyway is the bigger thing and yes as you say at some point in the next 20 years game of wool will inexorably rise higher than game of thrones and be a bigger franchise and making sort of 40 million dollars and then everyone would be like um game of something else or other things of wool frame of yeah yeah yeah blame of wool which is essentially who who stole my sheep okay blame of wool blame of wool is brilliant i think it might be time for us to go into some adverts game of adverts

16:49this episode is brought to you by apple pay now christmas can be uh i would say a logistical sudoku when it comes to shopping i'm assuming marina that you have some sort of spreadsheet Well, I never used to be organised, but since I have had children, I've become very organised. I have the same file every year with all the many people I have to buy, presents for, godchildren, friends, all the different ones. For those of us who are less organised or sane than you. Or not insane. Exactly. Apple Pay can make all of these things so much easier. Buying in store, buying online as well, safely and securely accepted in millions and millions of stores, plus all your favourite websites and apps.

17:24And it is all completely secure, isn't it? Absolutely. Purchases there require face ID, touch ID or a passcode. So your security is right in your hands. Plus, Apple Pay keeps your purchases private, even from Apple. So there is no chance of gifts being ruined. This holiday, pay the Apple way, online and in store. Search Apple Pay to learn more. This Christmas, we're partnering with Tesco. It's that sacred moment of the day. The dinner's done, the stockings are a distant memory and the leftovers are already being negotiated. So the annual battle for the remote begins. someone wants the royal speech somebody me usually wants to watch a quiz show someone has already lined up die hard and yet somehow it all seems to come together so the question is how do we ever agree what to watch at christmas i mean not to jump in here yeah i have a genuine system for this okay you know you surprise me okay i can't explain this to you clearly enough obtain the listings well in advance of the day so one way or another do you mean the tv listings yes i mean Obtain the TV listings one way or another before.

18:23Yeah, OK. It doesn't matter how you do it. You can do it on your phone, but obtain it. Then if I'm watching live things, I will insist that we build a shed. I will say, tell you what, we have to watch Wallace and Gromit, OK? And then instead of having the scrolling, which I really genuinely can't stand, and if you're having a food coma and you're scrolling, that's not a festive feeling at all. So then I'll be like, OK, I've already thought of what then one hour comedy we're proceeding to. Then we're doing this. And I'd like to build it like that. and in a lot of ways it actually reminds me of what I like to do with the food I'm eating at that particular time on Christmas evening because okay Christmas lunch I love it a lot of people don't but I love it but it happens in a certain way and it's certain things okay once you get to Christmas supper and my mother's just put everything on the table and said make your own sandwiches then everyone is taking the little bits like essentially out of the food schedule that you want so you're building something for you having your time there's a lot of chutneys there's hot sauces this is exactly what you're doing with the food do the food with the food what you do with the television make make some make your own version of it and then everyone will kind of fall in behind you you are aware that your system relies entirely on everyone doing what you have told them to do even as you were saying it were you thinking no hold on a minute so actually it's a dictatorship if you live in any sort of democracy which a lot of families are i don't want to break that to you then people will walk into the house you've got newcomers come into the house i can i can by all means say i think we should watch wallace and gromit but these days there's always a million things on YouTube that people want to watch as well there's always things that you know people want to play on Christmas Day wow but again I've just made that rule up just now I'm such a dictator I think yeah I've made that but I think in in the way that TV used to bring people together I do think food is the thing now that's the one thing everyone agrees on on a Christmas Day because everyone wants to watch different things you don't want to suggest something and then see like a teenage relative just scrolling on their phone because they're not enjoying the thing that you watch the one thing that everyone can agree on is we love our Christmas dinner we love all the bits in the evening we love the fact that someone's bringing out huge tubs of chocolates as well at the last minute everybody loves that but I think it's increasingly difficult to find something that everyone wants to watch on Christmas day and that's why something like Waddles and Gromit or the Gavin and Stacey thing last year that's why it's so important that's why the channels BBC One ITV and all these people do throw a lot of money at Christmas because they're aware it's quite difficult to get everyone to watch the same thing and when you find something, oh my God, that's the dream.

20:46It doesn't have to be like absolutely everything but it can be things like that if you just say, hey, it's Wallace and Gromit, it's 30 minutes and it's going to be absolutely amazing. You've changed your tone now so how you actually do it is say, hey guys, it's me, Marina, I'm pretty cool. It's just 30 minutes. It's just Wallace and Gromit because at the beginning you were like, this is what we're watching. can choose, okay, fine. It's the second, I think perhaps the best system of Gromit, maybe oligarchy. Maybe oligarchy is better than democracy. Sorry, did you say and then someone else can choose something?

21:13It's an oligarchy now. It's not a dictatorship anymore, but it's an oligarchy. But I'm sort of the Yeltsin of it all. Yeah, it's a marina-ocracy. I might. Yeah, that is genuinely the best system I've done. Either way, I hope this comes across as I absolutely love Christmas. Because I really do. I can't wait for it. I love it. I can't wait. I'm so excited. I love it. And I love the food the most of all. That's my favourite bit of it all. So maybe the perfect thing to watch isn't on screen at all. It's the slightly chaotic scene unfolding around it. Something always goes wrong, of course, but that's just part of the story.

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23:24Welcome back, everybody. Marina, I have a question from Sophie. Also not giving a surname. People are getting a bit lax again. I think. Or wary. Do you think? Possibly. I mean, what do you want me to do? You know, if you're called Henry Longstaff, we're not going to just ignore it. So Sophie Bumhead, let's say that's her name. But listen, otherwise give you a surname. You're right. It's not specific. Let's say Bumstead. Like the old Chelsea footballer John Bumstead. I noticed the new Lego sets specific to Wicked for Good have been released bang on time for the film's release. Do toy companies get early screenings of films and get to choose what they think would work well.

24:00How does this work? Oh my goodness. Well, I'm glad you asked this because when I was writing for the franchise, the TV show we did about Marvel, I ended up doing a lot of research into how the toys and these things work. Remember that everything changed with Star Wars. When Star Wars came out and that merchandise came out, it became so enormous. Marvel merchandise has made more money than the films. Star Wars toys even now generate about three billion a year. It is ridiculous. but people now say of a concept oh it's very toyetic um and there are some movies which are really entirely built around the merchandising potential because of all these things i mean you know you have to accept that we all love barbie it was great but it was a film quite literally made at the behest of a toy company and they let greta gowag into the mattel let greta gowag into the archives and all of that and obviously she produced something kind of completely left field and brilliant but nonetheless it is a film made for a toy company and there's a lot more of those coming but it does take time and as i've mentioned before on this podcast e.g they did not have any toys for k-pop demon hunters now that was incredibly toyetic to use that kind of grim word um and they didn't have anything because it just takes so long so it would have made them billions as well absolutely billions they believe me for the next iteration of that they will have a huge number of toys.

25:19So here's how it works with toy companies. It's in production beyond before there's a film to screen. Two or three years before the film's out, they have discussions. So studios will meet with big toy licensees like Lego or Mattel or people who make dolls or play sets or anything like that. And there will definitely not be a finished script. And everyone has to sign an NDA at every single stage of this. And it's everything digital. It's watermarked. It's incredibly secretive. The companies will see confidential pitches. They'll see very, very early basic concept art. And at that point, you'll think, okay, I'll negotiate the right to play sets.

25:57I think we think this will be worth it for us. That's a bit of a gimme with Wicked because we already knew this was such a tried and tested property. Okay. So then later on, you'll get the first part of the costume designs, kind of the character sheets, the world building art. Maybe if it's a Marvel, you know, sketches of the weapons. and they will start the talk. So you're really, really involved from very early on. From so far back. And they'll start working on very, very rough prototypes and the studios allow it because they just know how long it takes to produce toys. So about a year or 18 months before release, they make digital models of the characters and they start building in like articulation.

26:34Like, is it going to be poseable? Is it going to have a voice element? It's things like that because all of this takes so much time. Eventually, then you get to mould engineering. That is a big leak period because then so many more people are involved. And although they are signing NDAs, there are a lot more people involved by that stage. So about a year before release, you know, they haven't even shot it necessarily yet, but you've got a finalist script, you've got the storyboards and you've got previs and a kind of computer generated version of your film so you can see what it looks like. And with these very kind of high concept films, which have a lot of CGI and a lot of post-production, there's a lot of previs.

27:05So six to nine months close to release, you've kind of got the studio approval. And then about six months before, all of these dreams really sort of start to become plastic and they go into production. Everyone, as I say, still has to sign NDAs. But toys are still one of the biggest sources of movie spoilers that there are. In Star Wars Episode I, there was a, I think there was a playset, there was a Star Wars playset, and it was called The Final Battle of Qui-Gon Jinn versus Darth Maul. So you're like, all right, I guess he dies, right? People found out that Rey, before episode seven, that Rey had a lightsaber.

27:44So you were like, oh, I see. So she's going to be, she's a hero. There's obviously, she can feel the force. And they find that out via a toy. They find it out via the existence of a toy. Episode, some of them are so, like, the bathos is really extreme. Like, there was a Funko Pop of Emperor Palpatine. So like, oh my God, he's back, is he? Yes, we've got a Funko Pop of Ingrid as Oggood in Doctor Who. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so cool. That's on one of our shelves at home. Why have I not seen that? Okay, but I need to take a good look. Yeah. In No Way Home, Spider-Man, they did three separate Funko Pops of all the...

28:21You remember the big thing Spider-Man was like all the different worlds, the multiverse. So there's, you know, Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland. And because there were three separate Funko Pops, everyone's like, oh, right, okay. So I got to say that the toys, you've got to be super, super careful. Before it became so honed, this process, sometimes toy companies would like commit to a character that they then discovered died in about the first reel. That's such a cool answer. I had no idea. I ended up doing a lot of research there before, so it's great to reuse it. David Sharp says, Richard, you recently mentioned Donatart's fantastic novel, The Secret History.

28:52Why is it yet to be adapted for film or TV? Yes, it's quite rare that a novel as big as The Secret History would not be adapted. I mean, you occasionally get things like, you know, Gravity's Rainbow or A Hundred Years of Solitude, which are sort of unfilmable, and that's... Netflix has done it. But Secret History, you know, it's... It's very TV-etic. It's very TV-etic and, you know, it's kind of gripping and it's, you know, got young, would have a young, good-looking cast and all those things. But it is yet to be made. The history of it is quite sort of long and storied. I mean, it's tough to get anything made, is the truth.

29:30But with something as big as Secret History and also as kind of with a story like it's got, you would think that one of the attempts would have worked over the years. The first attempt was quite soon after it came out. Alan J. Pacula, who did All the President's Men, The Parallax View, all those things, he bought the rights to it, took them to Warners. And he had Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunn writing a script for it, two of them. Classy. I mean, he's an amazingly classy director. That's an amazing writing duo as well. But then Alan J. Pacula died. And so that went nowhere, essentially, which, you know, is a thing that happens.