Apple’s The Studio spins Hollywood chaos into comedic gold
Though movie studio heads are usually in the mood to pat themselves on the back around this time of year, it is always difficult to take the entertainment industry seriously when you stop to think about the many ridiculous projects that leave you wondering “who asked for this?” IP-based hits like Barbie get studio executives salivating at the idea of replicating their success and crafting new cinematic universes. And even though people are rarely excited when they hear about studios trying to reverse engineer the next Big Pop Cultural Moment™, the cycle continues like clockwork because changing things would require people in positions of power to admit that they were making very silly decisions.
The Studio, Apple TV Plus’ brilliant new comedy from co-creators Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, and Frida Perez, is painfully aware of how ridiculous Hollywood and its heavyweights can seem to the public. This is especially true at a time when fans often like to fancy themselves as armchair executives who understand the business from top to bottom. With its joke-dense story about a legacy studio struggling to survive and a massive cast of celebrity guest stars playing themselves, The Studio easily could have wound up being undercooked and overstuffed. But unlike some of Apple’s other recent attempts at comedy, The Studio is a knockout — one that never seems interested in pulling its punches as it pokes fun at the current state of the entertainment industry.
The Studio revolves around Matt Remick (Rogen), an affable film buff who has parlayed his love for the medium into a successful career at Continental Studios. Even though Continental isn’t in the business of making the kinds of thought-provoking, auteur-driven projects Matt loves, he’s happy just to be part of the larger moviemaking process.
Matt’s relatively content working alongside his whip-smart assistant Quinn Hackett (Chase Sui Wonders), Continental’s bro-y vice president of production Sal Saperstein (Ike Barinholtz), and trendy marketing head Maya Mason (Kathryn Hahn). But when word gets out that the studio’s eccentric CEO Griffin Mill (Bryan Cranston) is planning to step down and pick a successor, Matt and all of his fellow execs recognize the moment as being primed for some corporate ladder-climbing.
Matt’s longtime working relationship with his mentor Patty Leigh (Catherine O’Hara) is one of the factors that puts him toward the top of Mills’ short list of people well-suited to lead Continental into the future. What really secures the new gig for Matt, though, is the speed with which he agrees that Griffin’s plan to produce a big budget movie about the Kool-Aid man is a good idea that will bolster Continental’s bottom line.
While The Studio leads with an absurdity that grows increasingly more intense as the season progresses, it never suggests that Matt is anything but genuine in his desire to make Good Movies™. Matt has enough sense to understand that, out of all the different kinds of branded IP that Continental could pour money into, powdered drink mixes don’t lend themselves to cinematic adaptations. But he’s also a people-pleaser of the highest order. And he figures that, with the right script and creative team attached to it, the Kool-Aid man’s story could be spun into a prestigious piece of award-winning cinema.
That bright (read: ridiculous) idea is part of how The Studio introduces one of the first of its many celebrity guest cameos — Olivia Wilde, Anthony Mackie, and Ron Howard are just a few who appear as heightened versions of themselves — that help make the show play like a smart and self-aware send up of contemporary Hollywood. Everyone feels like they’re in on the joke as the Kool-Aid project becomes attached to respected directors like Martin Scorsese, who just wants to make a serious drama about the Jonestown massacre. But the show’s funniest moments are borne out of the way Matt’s earnest desire to be seen as an artist rather than a stuffy money guy inspires him to become over-involved on the sets of Continental’s various mid-production projects.
Rogen, who co-directs each of The Studio’s 10 episodes with Goldberg, is obviously having a ball as Matt’s quest to put Continental on top while snuffing out fires of his own making transforms the show into a series of tributes to Hollywood classics. When an important film reel goes missing from a set, The Studio becomes a Chinatown-esque noir with Matt at its center as a makeshift hardboiled detective narrating his search into a voice memo on his phone.
It’s always clear that Matt has far more pressing matters he should be attending to — for example, the Continental team calls an emergency meeting at one point to figure out whether casting a Black actor to voice the Kool-Aid man is racist — instead of trying to ingratiate himself to celebrities like Greta Lee, who just wants to get their movies over the finish line. But in addition to helping, you understand how much of a well-meaning workaholic Matt is. His insistence on constantly being in the mix sets The Studio up to work as an in-depth look at how the cinematic sausage gets made.
Even as it’s inviting you to laugh at Hollywood types for being so extra, you can see The Studio being thoughtfully reflective about the very real work it takes to make movies feel magical. And at a time when Amazon can drop a few billion dollars to buy James Bond, and Netflix can brag about how many people are (supposedly) watching a movie that plays like it was cooked up by an iffy algorithm, The Studio’s madness doesn’t seem all that farfetched.
The Studio also stars Keyla Monterroso Mejia and Dewayne Perkins. The series premieres on Apple TV Plus on March 26th.
