Top Film and TV MacGuffins

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You can choose for no but I think only animals do that, as I've said, and I wanna go on the record of saying that. This episode is brought to you by Airbnb. Now everybody is talking about Emerald Fennel's Wuthering Heights, which is in cinemas right now. Margot Robbie and Jacob Alaudi gallivanting across the moors, but what does that have to do with our friends at Airbnb. Well, if you are going to stay on the auction moors 'cause you want to drink in the atmosphere of the film, my view is you've got to stay in an Airbnb. You've got to stay in a house. You cannot stay in a hotel. It's not the Wuthering Heights like hotel and spa comp Waking up to misty views of the moors is very romantic. A hotel car park, not so much. You want to wake up and feel like you're in it. A snuggly night in in your own cozy living room with the entire place to yourself Yeah, proper stone cottage, the fire roaring. Yeah. Wathering Heights. Wathering Heights. You want to be within the world of the thing. 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She's a Lord of the Rings fan, so naturally she is planning a visit to Hobbiton in New Zealand, Middle Earth now accepting bookings. People's postcode Los Rick's big spring win is back and then in the April draws you could win a share of twenty five point seven million pounds. For your chance to win, sign up before midnight on the thirty first of March. Is your door in the drawer? Sign up at postcodelottery.co.uk. People's postcode lottery managing lotteries on behalf of good causes. 18 plus conditions apply. Play responsibly. Not available in Northern Irel and. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Restors Entertainment Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? Yeah, I'm not too bad at all. Can I start with some any other business? After our um Oscars chat and my main contribution was working out if more people from casualty had been nominated for an Oscar than from the Bill. Stuart Ian Burns has uh has written in and said thank you so much for crunching the numbers uh on the bill and casualty's Oscar alumni I love crunchy I really genuinely love crunching the people loved it. But I loved it. Stuart has uh crunched the numbers of his own. Can I point you in the direction of another BBC stalwart, Doctor Who, which has fifteen acting nominations? Oh my gosh. Andrew Garfield, Carrie Mulligan, Daniel Kaluya again, who has been in all three of these. The centre of our van. He is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Eric Roberts. I was thinking did and of course he was, even nominated for Runaway Train, wasn't he way back when? Best Supporting Actor. Felicity Jones, Ian McKellen, Amelda Staunton, Jim Broadbent, John Cleese, John Hurt, Olivia Coleman, Pauline Collins, Richard E. Grant, Sophie Ocanedo, and Mayor Winningham, all nominated for Oscars. I will say this, Stuart Ian Burns, if I may call you that. Some of those people were in Doctor Who after they were Oscar nominated 'cause 'cause you know, Doctor Who is a very, very big franchise and nothing against casualty in the bill, but it's harder for them to get uh Oscar nominated actors in them. So absolutely it takes the crown, but I think it has a little asterisk next to that crown. Agreed. They I think they have to be it has to be the stepping stone. Yes.. But But anyway actually I don't want to denigrate the f shows at all, but it has to be an early part of the C V. Well because it because it it's about the skill of a casting director, which is spotting it's like if you go back and watch Prime Suspect, and every kind of minor character you're like Oh my god. Yeah I know like there was I was watching one the other day and there's fourteen year old Danny Dyer in it. Just every time it's someone you go uh like a young Peter Capaldi stuff like that. So it's it's about the uh the skill of the casting director. But Stuart, thank you for crunching numbers as well and keeping me company. And anyone out there who ever wants to crunch any numbers and send me any sort of list, I will honestly, that is grist to my mill. Shall we start with a question about Buffy? There's so many questions about Buffy. Yes. So Jen is asking this. I saw that Hulu has decided not to take up the highly anticipated Buffy reboot. It seems a strange decision given the appetite from the fandom and with both Sarah Michelle Geller and Chloe Zhao involved. How did they arrive at this decision? It is genuinely remarkable this 'cause it got so far. This is the beloved series starring Sarah Michelle Galla, which ran for seven seasons between I think ninety-seven and two thousand three. That was when that would have been two seasons these days. But anyway, created by Joss Whedon, who is now in the League of Sort of Semi-Cancelled Gentlemen, so he is no longer part of this. But it was going to be at Hulu, Disney Plus, for our purposes. It was called Buffy New Sunnydale. They had, you know, a sort of great recipe in lots of ways. The showrunners were the sisters, Nora and Lilla Zuckerman, who are brilliant, who are the showrunners on Poker Face, who've also worked on lots of other sort of big T V things like Agents of Shield and stuff like that. The pilot was directed by Chloe Jadh. The director of Hamnet and Oscar Winner and No Mad Land and all these things. And Sarah Michelle Keller was heavily involved. Yeah, she's executive producing. She didn't appear, she appeared a tiny amount actually in the pilot as short, which to me makes sense. Like she's in right at the very Yeah, and it's the next generation, but she is showing that it's okay. Okay, yeah. So it felt like it has the Yeah, exactly the blessing and the bloodline if you can say that in a vampire. so So Sarah Michelle Geller's on board, you've got an Oscar winning director, you've got two great showrunners. Okay, so what and and and it's beloved. It's a beloved piece of IP. You would think it was the biggest shoe in in Hollywood history. Yeah. Uh they've pulled the plug on it remarkably late and it's absolutely shocking to everyone involved in it. What they have sort of leaked that the problem is is that it what they said it was small in scope, it's more suited to network TV, you know, they're really I mean they're really I mean they sort of said it's bad It's bad. Yeah they said it's bad. Um I think what they might mean is you know it's costing us a fortune. It there's only gonna be a few episodes of it. And with these particular heavyweights involved, it took them too long to say no. But I thought I would lay out, 'cause I think it's quite interesting if you don't know this, how something gets to even a pilot being made and so what are the stages that it had to get through to get to this point, which is and it might you know throw into even sharper relief how late this is to cancel, okay. Um I don't know exactly how they did this one, but this would be a typical pathway. So you shop a com a a pilot or a commission, you say, I've got a, you know, I've got an idea. But in this case, it's this beloved IP related. So they will have had millions of people for a long, long time saying, pitching, saying, I'm interested, even like big names that you've heard of, coming to them, why now Yeah, so so if yeah, if if if it's not buffy and you are someone with a name and with an agent, you have your idea, you will do a deck on that idea of what it might be, you will then shop that round various of the streamers and they may say And they say yes or no in in this particular instance you have got some real heavyweights. It's it's is is almost like they are desperate to have the meeting with you rather than the other way around. So many people would have said to them, I have a really great Buffy pitch if you're ever interested at the you know, at the Oscar. Yes. Usually you are trying to sell to a streamer if with something like Buffy and with the people involved, the streamer's trying to sell to you, which is yes, we we want this with us. What can we do for you? Yeah. Anyway, they got a pilot script and Nora and Lila Zuckerman wrote it and Chloe Java's on board and they all developed it together. There will at this stage when you have a pilot script there'll be masses and masses of toing and froing and redrafts. There will be many redrafts of the pilot script. You know, why now? What's new about this? Why should we do the you know, how what's the kind of is What's Hulu about it? Yeah. What exactly all of that's what Hulu is again. Yeah basically yeah exactly. Because I remember last week you said it was this and now you seem to have changed your mind. But anyway, of course we're gonna change it. I mean I I've I've literally just won an Oscar, but of course. If they go for it and they say they're gonna make a pilot, then it's all the way back to the drawing board again because then they will have had a writer's room with lots and lots of writers, then you would have had world building, you would have said, who are actually the characters? Is that do we like what we've done with the script? Maybe not. Then they would you would map out the season, everybody's arcs, the whole thing, the how it all ends, right? That's the important thing is if if you were doing a pilot, almost always alongside a pilot you would also be doing a series by books. And outline which is listen, anyone not anyone can make an amazing pilot, but you can make a you know all you know, uh an amazing storyline across an hour. You have to then go, Oh, by the way, hi hi here are the next seven, eight, twelve hours, this is the arc. Yeah, and it ends here. By the way, of course you're gonna get another six seasons out of us. And those those Bibles are incredibly detailed and you'll often spend much more time on the Bible than you would on the actual script. Absolutely. And so they will have done that. Then they will have said, Okay, we're ordering the pilot. So they will shoot the pilot and then maybe they will say, Okay, in conjunction with that, we'd like to do a script order, not a s an episode order for the rest of the season. So then all the scripts for the rest of the season will be worked out or rough or they'll be at a certain draft stage and you'll have to you'll have to go back to the writer's room for all of that. If by the way this sounds like a pain in the ass, you are absolutely right. Oh my god, it takes so much. And by the way, in America, with American money , at this point, millions has already been spent on this thing on and it will have been already on this buffy thing. And more to the point, an awful lot of opinions have been put in. So many opinions. Now Variety have got a the draft of the shooting script. So what was actually shot? No one has actually seen the pilot apart from the people who have seen it. It hasn't been. And they did it last summer. Hulu sources were saying things like it's unsalvageable, it's undershot, there's no exposition, there's no coverage, it's underdirected. I mean this is a mega drive by on Clay Jao. Buffy's just at the end or m uh they anyway they did a they did a rewrite even after that, saying, okay, let we could reshoot, there could be more actual original Buffy in it of Sarah Mich of Sarah Michelle Geller. And there's an acknowledgement always with they'd made it quite young that the fandom has aged now. So perhaps we could have something a bit more for the age group of the fandom. Sarah Michelle Geller has come out completely swinging and said there's an executive at Hulu who wasn't even familiar with the original, said he'd never watched all the way through, didn't even care. She's named him or confirmed that it's him. Like a Craig Erwich, right? I mean he'll be having some death rats against him right now, let me tell you. But you but but you know the thing with Craig Irwich, right? Who was at Hulu and so this is made by twentieth century television, they pitched uh Hulu. Craig Erwich says, um, do you know what I I'm'm not a Buffy fan, this is not for me. By the way, it happens sometimes. The exec is not the right person. What you do then is you go, well look, it's it's still Buffy, so we come back as twentieth century television, we take this elsewhere. However, Craig Oichw has just left Hulu and has a new job as the head of twentieth century television. So the guy who just said no to it is now in charge of should we take this elsewhere? Yeah. That's bad timing. It's really bad timing and it's really hard and it it's's got so I mean as I say it's got so messy. It's interesting now because you've got lot you've always had this in science fiction but you've got nineties IP is absolutely massive because we live in a reboot world. And so you've got lots of people who were fans of the original thing when they were young and teenagers, like I don't know, Phoebe Wallerbridge doing Tomb Raider or Chloe Jiao doing this. And you've always had this in science fiction, you know, lots of Star Trek people came came through and lots of you know, JJ Abraham did the first reboots of Star Wars. So it's it's difficult. You have got people who are huge names who are suddenly like, oh well I would you know I'd I w I want to do Buffy. Well if but if you can imagine the amount of projects that Chloe Jowers offered after winning the Oscar. I mean she you know the world would have been her oyster and she's just done hamlet, so she knows everyone wants her to do stuff. Well maybe she should I mean it's she's suddenly going, No, the thing I want to do because it's really meaningful to me, the thing I want to do is puffy. Well she wanted to do avel Marvel uh a Mar film as well, and she had an absolute nightmare on that. I wonder whether these properties are totally suited to these kinds of directors, but anyhow, it's quite difficult to see what will happen now because she was she was obviously very in terms of like, are we gonna get another one? It's hard to see how 'cause Sarah Michelle Gadda was so aligned with this and was so part of it all. She might be persuaded if you're really clever to go with somebody else, but you'd that is a big talent management job after this now. I mean this is such a big blow-up. It's quite difficult to see and I think you do need her involved. Yes. You're dealing also with very, very difficult fandoms and they know that from the start. They don't want to put something out that will enrage the fandoms. It really helps a Sarah Michelle Galleries involved. In fact, you desp definitely need it because it's an obsessive fandom. But I don't know. I think it's this is this is a big blowout and it should never have got as far as it has. And obviously they've annoyed lots of great talent. And one Zuckerman's you know lots of them. And one of the things about it is you know the new economics of television and things do have to get cheaper and cheaper. And this they say that the budget for this pilot was about seventeen million and that the you know, the the per hour cost of the series would would not be far off that as well. And ten, fifteen, twenty years ago you could have got away with it. You can't get away with it now. I mean now you can get away with nine million, which still is is absurd, but seventeen million was a lot and yeah, you get it. Maybe they left it to the last minute because there were so many powerful people involved and it felt like such a sniper. I think they did I think it's hard that they were like, Well surely we can't say no and how do we say no? Who's gonna say no to Chloe? Who's g who's gonna tell Sarah? And so maybe they sort of chickened out of saying no to it until the very, very last minute. I think they did it like two days before the Oscars and they say Paul Chloe Jiao, she's just had this news just before the Oscars. You're like, She's alright, she's the Oscars. Yeah.. She don't mind I think they've it'll be one of those ones that goes on the back burner for a long time now unless they manage to do an unbelievable salvage job with Sarah Michelle Galla, which they'll make it one day. I think that the lots of the publicity around it also shows p that people really want this reboot to happen. So, you know there'll be a there'll be a way Craig or which just needs to take Sarah Michelle get her to lunch. Just uh some some uh some detente needed. Well anyway that buffy stuff is interesting, so we'll be carrying on to see how that story develops. But Richard, I have a question for you. From JP Jones, he says, Hello both. I read that the original film of Daphne DiMario's Rebecca was so popular in Spain that the particular cardigans worn by the unnamed heroine are still called Rebecca's there today. Are there other examples where Hollywood or British films left that kind of mark on everyday life or language in another country? Thank you, JP. I had not heard that, but yeah, I've looked into it. And that yeah, cardigans in Spain are called Rebecca's and it is absolutely because of that. Films absolutely leave their mark culturally all the time we talked before about you know the mafia just talk like everyone talks uh like in in in Godfather. But my my favourite ones I think are so paparazzi, you know this uh we know paparazzi very, very well, and that comes from a character in the Dolce Vita who was a press photographer and his name was Paparazzo. Uh and so we call them the paparazzi. And it literally just comes from that one character in that one film. And that's a lovely one. I think bucket list, which comes from the film The Bucket List. The bucket list was not named after the fact that everyone had bucket lists. It was just called a bucket list, and now we call those things a bucket list. This is the Morgan Freeman Jack Nicholson movie from two thousand and seven. But my favourite one, very, very well known now, but it comes from a nineteen forty-four film. So about a a man who psychologically drives his wife insane, lies to her, bends reality so she has a nervous breakdown, and that film is called Gaslight. That's the best one of all, isn't it? Strangely sort of fallen completely out of use and then in this political era became a ma became a massive a word that's used alm almost all the time. Imagine if people now went to look that up and it didn't exist. Oh man, they'd be furious with me. The whole thing based on a Patrick Hamilton play, but the but but the movie is uh is where that term came into being. So paparazzi , bucket list and gaslight would be my three favourites, but I'm gonna add Rebecca to that as well. Rebecca, that's a great fact, isn't it? Rebecca's cardigans. That is fascinating. Shall we now go to a break? I would love to. Uh afterwards, I think we've got a question about House of Games. We have. Remember that show ? This episode is brought to you by People's Postcode Lottery. Now, in most things seen on screen, the location does a surprising amount of the storytelling. You see where you are and you already know what sort of drama that you've wandered into. Yeah, a big grand house might suggest uh there's some inheritance dispute, lawyers already inside, there's fog outside. With that sort of location, but sometimes locations can be your very own house. Every so often the setting turns out to be much closer to home. Your own front door. Your own front door. In people's postcode lottery April drawers, you could win a share of twenty five point seven million pounds. 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I genuinely would like to go to Rio. Buenos Aires I loved. And because I've I've felt I've looked at Rio. I really, really want to go. Kieran's been to Rio twice, but for the carnival, both times. I still definitely, definitely want to go for the carnival. You can hang out on the world famous Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Marvel at Christ the Redeemer and Sugar Loaf Mountain while sipping on a Kaiparina, of course. Not to forget their world famous music, spirit of celebration, and football. Those samba rhythms will take you away. And so will Lufthansa with an individual premium service from the moment you book its maximum comfort above the clouds. Say yes to Rio de Janeiro with Lufthansa and discover more at Lufthansa.com. Need anything from Tesco? Like Nescafé Azera 90 grams instant coffee for just £3.50 this Easter with your Tesco Club card . Because every little helps . Majority of larger stores AZRA 90 grams ends fourteenth of April. Club card or app requi red. Welcome back everybody. Marina question from Sophie. Sophie says Demoir are reporting that Zendaya and Tom Holland have tied the knot in secret without any photos leaking. How is that even possible with such high profile names? Ah well th yeah, I think they they definitely have got married. And that's nice. Yeah, it's lovely. Yeah. It's lovely. And it's sort of been confirmed by hilariously by Zend the only person who actually opened his big mouth is Law Roach, who is Zendaya's stylist, and he accidentally confirmed it or having said that, I mean, she looks incredible at all times. She simply can't lose him over this. Yes, yeah, exactly. He is dead. He's got he's got too much he's got too much in the bank. But you can keep these things small and secretive, and many have. Brad and Angelina did it, Beyonce and Jay-Z, Margot, Robbie and Tom Ackley, Rachel Vice, Daniel Craig. I mean lots of people do it. You can either do it like you're doing it at home or on your um vineyard that you're now fighting about in the divor divorce in the case of Brad and Angelina, or you can do it you know in an apartment. The English countryside's quite a popular one. Like you know, Cumberbatch did that. But you take people's phones, you do NDAs, or you just I would have thought they kept it very small to be perfectly honest. But it's quite interesting. When I think of all of these things, I do think that there is a big divide opening up because we live in an influencer culture and we live in a you know a culture where there's a new whole new mas masssiveive,, massive middle class of so-called celebrities who are really influencers who are always on and they are always sharing everything about their lives. And it's almost as if stars have worked out that the one thing that they have, the clever ones, even someone like Timothy Chalamet, who if you're telling me that that guy isn't so online, I can't believe it. That guy is extremely online. And yet he managed to keep his relationship with Kylie Jenner effectively secret for about two years. So it's interesting. There is a divide opening up between people like Zendere and Tom Holland and Timothy Chalamet and people like that who still think that, okay, the one thing I can have, because I simply can't be always on in the same way because it would just dn you know denudes them my work of all value. Is that I can have an air of mystery and I can be secretive and the not knowing can be the always on part. And and it's quite interesting and I definitely see that we're opening up because you're dealing with otherwise just this entire trying to put blue water between yourself and people who are just a completely different kind of celebrity. So I find it quite interesting that people are still being secretive and trying to say that secretive Mm. Well we spoke the other day, didn't we? Um when we talk about Harry and Megan about how actually they don't have any actual transferable skills. th what they're sending is themselves. Whereas if you're Tom Holland and Zendaya, y you you don't need to sell who you are because you can just go and do a film yeah to make your money. And so most people if they got married who are influencers they're like, Oh my God, this is this is one of the big ones for us. Yeah. We absolutely have to just hammer this and we have to make as much money as we possibly can. Whereas those two literally they can just go and do another movie so they can keep that uh that that privacy. Yeah. And they will and they want to because they realise it's a even it's a the whole class of them think it's a USP in a world of sort of vanishing ideas of stardom. This is something that it it remains something the not knowing is the is the most equal to the thing. But also it's not even that as it it's psychologically it's important to them to have something that is just them when they're so in the public eye to have something where they just go, No, this is this is just us and you know, the normality of that must be uh must must be lovely. Oh good for them. Congrats. Yeah. Big fans of both. Huge fan of uh of the rest is history. Love it. We've got so many variations of this question that can I just ask it coming from me as well. Is Richard Osman's House of Games now going to be called Michael Sheen's House of Games? Well, yes, because so we we we haven't spoken about it at all, have we, since uh since that announcement was uh made? I think it took some people by some. Coming at you right out of left field. Uh coming out of left field. And it's sort of left field but then at the same time you kind of get it 'cause 'cause Michael has always done quizzes. Yeah. You know, he's he's he's he's always done that. And he's doing such an incredible amount of work with the National Theatre of Wales now and really launching that. So, you know, he's having a a year of theatre and in you know, giving back to his community. So I imagine had a little bit of time where he could do something interesting and something that's close to his heart and this is it. And he's so personable, likes quizzing, likes human beings, had a bit of free time. So it's it's it sort of makes a lot of sense. You know the thing that you the minute you told me this, the f literally the first thing I thought was, Oh my god, please can you do the Christmas week in an each day be a d do it as an impression 'cause obviously he is peerless for Tar.ant on Monday Could Tarant on Monday 'cause which he obviously played in Quiz. Clarkson on Tuesday. Please c please can he do that? I really hope that he does that. It would be such fun. Yes, it is. So uh they they they haven't started filming yet. So what's it gonna be called? I lobbied you know for a long time that it should be called uh Michael Sheen's Richard Osman's House of Games or Richard Osman's House of Games featuring Michael Sheen. But um It's a deal breaker. Yeah but they won't have it. So yeah it will be Michael Sheen's House of Games and his uh his you know avatar will be on all of those prizes. People say what's happening with all the old prizes? And w we we we tend not to over order with the prizes. So we Unlike Megan's jam, which we're talking about on Tuesday, you don't have ten million surplus suitcases. Yeah, we don't, I'm afraid. There are there are very few left. But yeah, you know, one of the things they're currently doing is reducing prices with his uh face on. So it will be called Michael Sheen's House of Games. I'm gonna go up and do one final week. Oh and do funnily enough, in the in the same way that it's important to have Sarah Michelle getto in the buffy reboots. Yeah. I think we all want everyone to know how delighted we are that Michael's doing it and that everyone, you know, there's a continuation. So we'll do we you know, he's not gonna be a contestant with me or anything, but we'll do a little hand over, a little kind of something or other, 'cause I want to welcome him as well because he's got the best team in Teddy there and he'll he'll have an absolute ball. So yeah, I'm gonna do one final week and then he's gonna do a hundred of them. So that that that will be the series that comes on in the autumn. And the other thing people say, would you would you go on and and I I I I wouldn't straight away is the truth. I think that's too meta and also you have to let someone um get their feet under the table. But one day I'd love to. That's a come and get me plea. But in a few years. Yeah like a Christmas week or something like that. Um yeah, I'd I would 'cause uh you know, I play along with that show all the time anyway. I never I never know the answer. So I I you know I do get to play a lot, but I'm never allowed to buzz in. So yeah, be it'd be nice to watch it and buzz in. Yes, that would be very fun. People were so lovely when I left and very, very kind and and but then when he's announced everyone's like listen, Richard, we will still miss you. We will still miss you, but that's that's not bad. Okay, that's nice. But um I listen, I wish him such luck, it's such a I've messaged him the other day, I said this is it's such a fun show to do and such a lovely gang. You'll you'll have an absolute ball. Um and I I I think uh I think it it's a great show for him and he's a great host for it . That's Michael Sheen's Richard Osman's house of games. Here's a question. I think both of us will have a view on this. Um Nerius Fry. That's a great name. I know, it's really good, isn't it Nereas Fry possibly? Either either way, it's great. She or he says the manga one piece celebrated six hundred million copies being sold by having its author write down the identity of the one piece, which is the series Mysterious McGuffin, put in a chest and then sent the chest to the bottom of the ocean. Can I get your top three favourite film and TV McGuffins? Shall we start by explaining what McGuffins are for people who don't know? Yes. Now this is a term coined by Hitchcock and it's an object or a person or a secret that drives the plot because all the characters are motivated to pursue it in some way. But it doesn't actually it's not actually that important as auto media's narrative. It was a it was actually coined by one of his screenwriters, Angus McPhail, who did Spellbound and did whiskey gallore and stuff like that. Well he he always said that. Uh no one knows whether the phrase comes from other than it's sort of like a uh a whatchamacaller, an ujima thingy, like a McGuffin. It's it's like a a little bit of business. He yeah. He said it's the thing that the characters on screen worry about but the audience doesn't care about. I always find this a really useful analogy for things in real life when you think, oh we're not actually arguing about this. This is about something completely different. This is just a sort of plot device. But George Lucas later later changed it and he said, Oh, I think it's as important to the audience as to the characters but that's I think that's very much a kind of f filmmaker he is But absolutely classical versions would be the golden fleece, the holy grail, just the thing that starts the quest. And actually you sort of forget about what that that might be. And it's actually when you really start because I've been I saw this question, I've been thinking quite hard about it. Uh and it's quite hard sometimes to go, no hold on, is that a McGuffin? 'cause Lucas definition is different. As you can see. And you know, some people will say that the one ring in Lord of the Rings or something. But the Maltese Falcon would be a very good example. I was gonna say I'm not gonna put it on my I I it's I'll put it in my I put I'll put it I love it. If we both do in top threes it's gonna be impossible. We c we've just got to talk around this. So the Molt the Maltese Falcon is something that's sent by the Knights Templar of Multa to the King of Spain. Pirates steal It, Everyone Wants It Back. And one of the greatest films ever is written. But the thing of it thing itself is it's sort of meaningless. It's just it's just the prompt for the action. That's a really classic one. I have to say that another film which is kind of lots of these films they don't for m m people don't watch them so much, but Spanish Prisoner, David Mammoth's Spanish Prisoner is so good. And if you haven't ever seen it, watch it because you'll absolutely love it. It's got something called the process in that, which is that they're all trying to get their hands on the process. Wouldn't put those in my top three. I would say three, Rosebud, the dying word in Sidson K, which ends up being the framing device. That is deliberately something that they just thought we have to find a w a framing device for this. So it whatever. Number two, I would put the Ark of the Covenant from Radio the Lost. I'm these are all from films by the way I watch on repeat. So I have to arc I think is okay because it 'cause it is something. Whereas the Holy grail no one quite knows what the Holy Grail is. Yes, I agree. But the arc is sort of and it's difficult. I I won't turn this over and over in my mind, because it is kind of like, okay, it's really, really important, but also we don't really know what no one particularly knows who it is what it is. It's not like d you know, the Turin Shroud or something that's even more obvious. And also the ability to s you know, to to put it into that great warehouse in that amazing iconic shot right at the end where it's like obviously it doesn't really but equally I'm you're thinking and that were health, my god, what else is in there? So it does seem like it's important. Before we get to number one, are you aware of the concept of plot coupons? Yes. Which is a sci-fi writer called called Nick Lowe came up with it, and it and it and it's a version of a McGuffin but that is split into lots. So the Hawkrux is sort of a series of plot coupons. You have to collect all of them. Yeah. And when you add them together, they become a Magustus. The infinity stones and yeah, all of this sort of stuff. Yes, I agree. But number one, as I say, I've just chosen them for movies I've watched on repeat, is is the the rug, the dude's rug in the Big Lebowski, which is genuinely an object of no value except it really tied the room together. I end up using that line a huge amount just in normal life. It really tied the room together. They work so well, particularly in noir McGuffins, because th they've got to make all these people and obviously the Maltese falcon is a real example of the thing. What are we all chasing after? Yeah, what are you chasing after you sort of forgetting? Comedy noir, The Big Lebasky, one of my favourite movies of all time. So yeah, the dude's rug in The Big Lebaski, I'm gonna put it number one. How about you? Well I I'll just mention a couple of Hitchcock ones because he did popularize the term. So the uh the the the military secrets in the thirty-nine steps it's we we never know what they are. We we forget that it sort of doesn't matter because we're we're watching a different movie. Equally, you know, if if if you think about psycho, you say, okay, what's what's psycho about nobody says it's about the fact that Marianne Crane steals forty thousand dollars you know but uh and that's the McGuffin of that movie and even at the end of that movie it's sort of you know, it's buried in a bog and they go, I suppose we could dig it up. But it's a b by then it doesn't matter 'cause we watched this extraordinary film that was about something else entirely. But the McGuffin there is f is forty thousand dollars. I say is it my number one? The one that is so m the most obviously a McGuffin and made by a filmmaker who knows his film history is the suitcase in pulp fiction. Yeah. Where all the way through they open the suitcase and it's glowing gold, but you never know what it is, you never know what's in it. But the entirety of that film, you know, despite how how well it's put together and the kind of the way that it's told, is based around that one suitcase, which we have no idea at any point what it is. Uh so that I'm gonna put as my number one. I love when I'm writing I love a McGuffin, I was trying to think about I was when I was trying to define what a McGuffin is 'cause it is quite hard 'cause it it sort of is something that that we don't care about or has no intrinsic worth but at the same time the characters do it's yeah. You know you know a McGuffin when you see one. And in The Last Devil to Die, which is the fourth Thursday Murder Club book, I have a a a a box full of heroin.. Yeah Which is an absolute hundred percent classic McGuffin that I was very, very proud of for for reasons that people who've read that book will know. But it's uh you know, uh screenwriters, writers love a McGuffin, just this thing that's that everyone goes, I must have that. Yeah. I must have that thing. It's like you know characters that are off stage that w you know, where we kn we never meet. You know, there's there's all these those are kind of character McGuffins. Some people say that um private Ryan and Satan Private Ryan were killed as a MacGuffin. I d I don't know so much. It's disrespectful. I read something saying that Kyle's a Sose is a McGuffin. I don't agree with that. No, that's not that's not that's a misunderstanding, is it? That's something completely different. This is just one for people at home 'cause I was thinking about it. The lavender hill mob. Oh the golden