Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

The first comes from Brian Faulkner, who asks, “The name of your podcast is quite similar to a very successful movie… Was there any fallout (positive or negative) from the publicity during and following the buildup, premier, and theatrical run?”

For the record, Brian, I began using the phrase Everything Everywhere back in 2005, well before the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once was ever conceived.

As anyone can verify by doing a WhoIS search, I registered the domain name Everything-Everywhere.com on April 17, 2005. I had previously decided to sell my house to travel around the world, and I knew I was going to have a website associated with the trip. I came up with the name while I was in my car, thinking of possible names to use.

Once I came up with Everything Everywhere, I knew instantly that it was the name I was going to use. What I didn’t do, which I now regret, was register the domain name without a dash. It would have cost me $2000 to get it, which seemed like a lot, but I had no idea I’d still be using the name almost 20 years later.I decided to stick with the name when I made this podcast.

The movie wasn’t the first time some other entity used the name. In 2010, T-Mobile and Orange Mobile merged in the UK, and the name of their new company was Everything Everywhere. They eventually stopped using the name and now just go be EE Mobile.

I had a lawyer look into what options I had, and basically, there was nothing I could do to them and nothing they could do to me. We were completely different business in different countries, so there was no confusion as to the name.

As for the movie, I’d say it was almost entirely positive. A few people I know discovered the podcast when searching for the movie.

The only downside is that some people, not knowing the history, think I took the name of the podcast from the movie, which is not the case.