'The Studio' offers a wiser riff on 'Entourage' with a fresh perspective
Seth Rogen and company are stressed-out cinema suits trying to make good.
If you asked movie fans who repeatedly take dumps on film and think they could do it better, watching The Studio may change your mind. Akin to telling a sports fan they are a couch manager, picking a random moviegoer off the street to run a studio would be disastrous for both parties. After six episodes of the Apple TV Plus show from the creative minds of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, I want zero part of the responsibility of finding, making, and getting studio productions right.
Rogen, who also co-wrote several episodes with Goldberg, stars as Matt Remick, the new head of the fictional company, Continental Studios. Tasked with bringing to life commercially viable films that don’t lean too hard into the artsy brand of filmmaking, Matt finds himself up against the wall immediately when his boss (the great Bryan Cranston) asks him to make a live-action version of Kool-Aid. This comes after a big interview where he preaches that old school cinema needs to return to the big screen. Right there, in a nutshell, the dilemma of every current studio head is presented.
Ask Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount Pictures, or any other big-time movie factory right now, and the struggle is real to remain faithful to every kind of cinema fan. Remick is the guy who tells Cranston’s scenery-chewing stooge that he got into the business to make classic flicks… an ideal that isn’t shared by many around him, outside of his scrappy assistant (Chase Sui Wonders).
The Studio often breaks the fourth wall by having well-known actors play themselves while other well-known actors play fictional characters, and real films are given as examples. The hilarious first episode deals with Matt trying to find the right director to make the fruit punch film and twisting Martin Scorsese’s wild idea about Jonestown into something his boss would want. Another episode centers around Ron Howard’s overlong movie, with Anthony Mackie as a soulful cab driver, who gets plenty of laughs as Remick must find a way to tell him that the final third of his movie needs to be cut.
If you were a fan of Entourage on HBO, this is a similar yet wiser and modern take on the same world… just from a different perspective. Instead of seeing it through the eyes of Vincent Chase and his childhood friends, it’s from Remick’s as he wheels and deals his desires with the requirements of an important job. I laughed out loud when Rogen tried to offer too much input on a live set of Sarah Polley’s film, and accidentally walked into the shot. When you think this kind of thing doesn’t happen, think again. The creators, especially Rogen, have plenty of experience dealing with the everyday rigors of moviemaking and every headache that goes into them.
Kathryn Hahn is over-the-top as a marketing executive, but it fits into the wild world. Ike Barinholtz, a face you’ll know while the name still uploads, plays a significant role as Remick’s right-hand man who quietly wanted the big job. A scene involving a breakfast burrito being thrown into someone’s face as he drives into a movie set will make you laugh hard again. The Studio has a few of those genuinely funny moments.
Don’t expect the world or something highly original, but enjoy the constant cameos and heightened peek behind the scenes of how the movies we eventually see come to fruition. If you watched The Offer on Paramount Plus about the chaotic making of The Godfather and wanted more, this is your ticket.
Rogen steers the ship just right with a nice blend of comedy and sincerity without overplaying his hand. If he makes Matt too crazy or too subdued, the whole series suffers. With his hands on the creation and writing, it’s another smooth sailing enterprise of Hollywood espionage.
The Studio releases fresh episodes every Wednesday on Apple TV Plus.