Further Study: The Studio (2025)
What to watch, read, and listen to after you finish the series.
The season one finale of The Studio drops on Apple TV+ today, and, if you're like me, Wednesday has been your favorite day of the week for the past nine weeks. The series, which follows Seth Rogen as Matt Remick, head of the fictional Continental Studios, is one of the year's best. It's smart, it's funny, it's different - and it's also quite stressful.
The show has been renewed for a second season, but we will all have a void to fill until that arrives. Here's a list of what to watch, read, and listen to next while you wait for more of The Studio.
Watch: The Player (1992) and For Your Consideration (2006)
The Player: This Robert Altman film so clearly inspired The Studio, which makes it the movie that inspired the creation of this list. Some of it's homage, some of it is rip-off. Just like The Studio, it follows a Hollywood executive, it comments on the state of the industry, it has some famous people playing themselves and some famous people playing regular people, and, to open the film, it features an iconic eight-minute unbroken tracking shot - an easily recognizable feature of the show. They even went as far as to name Bryan Cranston's character Griffin Mill after Tim Robbins's character. It's essential viewing for fans of The Studio - pick up the Criterion Collection disc.
For Your Consideration: There's nothing like the world of a Christopher Guest film, whether it be a prestigious dog show or a folk musical reunion concert. They are filled with kooky characters (often thought up by the ensemble, which always consists of folks like Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Parker Posey, and Fred Willard - who only throws heaters), and their dialogue is often improvised and always funny. Guest and company's trademark is mockumentary and For Your Consideration is their rare departure from that form, spoofing the Hollywood awards season and system, the industry-fueled campaigning, and the business of show. If you liked the episode of The Studio where Matt tries desperately to get Zoë Kravitz to thank him in her Golden Globes speech, this one's for you, even if it isn't Guest's best.
Read: The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte (2010) and Box Office Poison by Tim Robey (2014)
The Men Who Would Be King: I've talked before about The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte, largely in our Y2Kidz episodes on Antz and The Prince of Egypt. It's one of the best behind-the-scenes books I've ever read, a well-researched exposé that's just gossipy enough for those who are looking for such a thing. If you think The Studio's Continental Pictures is a disaster, read this book to see just how close Dreamworks came to blowing all of their money and making exactly squat. Egos (director Steven Spielberg, billionaire David Geffen, and producer Jeffrey Katzenberg) abound, money gets in the way, and the movies suffer. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Box Office Poison: Is a Kool-Aid movie a bad idea? Of course it is. Speed 2: Cruise Control and Cats were also bad ideas, but they made those movies anyway. Tim Robey's book is about a century of Hollywood's worst decisions, from big-budget epics to unbelievable passion projects. It also covers the movies that should've been blockbusters but weren't, or unfairly maligned bombs that have found cult classic status. So much of The Studio is watching (perhaps cathartically) fictional studio executives come up with horrible idea after horrible idea, while Box Office Poison is about real life's what-ifs.
Listen to: The Town with Matthew Belloni (2022 - ) and Yearbook by Seth Rogen (2021)
The Town: Now, I do have my limits on how much I care about the business part of show business. Obviously the two go hand in hand, but I'm a critic, not a scoops man or an insider. If I ever pivot to being one of those things, you have my permission to put me out of my misery. So I don't listen to The Town, though it is wildly popular and excellent resource for many. Just the titles for recent episodes like "Four Industry Experts Debate Hollywood's Moviegoing Crisis" and "CinemaCon Studio Power Ranking" exhaust me. But if that part of the industry sounds interesting to you (and you're not already listening), this is your new favorite podcast. It originally landed on this list because Matt Remick listens to the show in his car from time to time, but now it looks like Matthew Belloni will be a key figure in the season finale.
Yearbook: Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't address just how much of Seth Rogen's outlook on his career, the industry, and life itself has on the show. It's not Robert Altman's or Christopher Guest's Hollywood, it's the one through the eyes of Seth Rogen and his writing and producing partner Evan Goldberg. Seth's 2021 memoir is full of Hollywood stories, like the genesis of his Green Hornet flop or his bizarre meeting with George Lucas, that seem like they could be episodes next season. There are also, as you may expect, plenty of drug stories that seem to have inspired quite a few of the show's storylines.
Should this have been in the "read" category? Sure, you could. It is a book, after all. But why would you when Seth not only narrates his own stories, but gets a bunch of his famous friends like Ike Barinholtz, David Krumholtz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Tommy Chong, Martin Starr, Nick Kroll, to play either themselves or other supporting characters in his life? Sound familiar?
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