Jeremy Clarkson has never been one for taking noticeable care over his choice of words, but his (admittedly very large) bank balance won't thank him if that doesn't change on new Amazon show The Grand Tour.
Producers on the show have been talking about the ridiculously specific list of things the BBC have threatened to sue for should anything resemble
Top Gear.
Seriously, Clarkson and co's legal teams could be taking a lot of unwanted phone calls. Andy Wilman, lifelong friend of the loud-mouthed motorhead and producer of
The Grand Tour told
The Telegraph that the beeb, presumably still feeling a bit salty about the revamped
Top Gear's failure to catch on, told them they couldn't have a test track, feature the Stig, call the news section "the news", or refer to the country of Namibia as "beautiful". Anyone would think Clarkson and his former employer aren't on the best of terms.
https://twitter.com/JeremyClarkson/status/754582342228971520
Wilman said conversations with lawyers had become 'hilarious', and there was even chance James May would be prevented from using the word "cock". The new show's portable studio will include a leaderboard that documents how well different cars have performed in challenges, but they won't be allowed to handwrite lap times, as this is also deemed too be too similar to
Top Gear.
"They got funnier and funnier," he said. "We went to Namibia to make a big film. The lawyers got out a film we had done [for Top Gear] in Botswana. The lawyers go through everything and they said, 'There’s a scene in [Top Gear] where you’re in the middle of the Okavango and you go, "This scenery is beautiful", so watch that you don’t do that.'
"So we were in the desert in Namibia and we had to go, "for legal reasons, this scenery is shit'."
The Grand Tour is scheduled to air later in the Autumn on Amazon Prime, and Wilman said he hoped it will come to terrestrial channels somewhere down the line.
We look forward to seeing how many rules they break.
