
One thing you can say about Apple TV; it’s never been afraid to spend big.
It doesn’t always work, of course. (Check out – or better yet, don’t – Apple’s $180 million film flop, Fountain of Youth.) But sometimes the gamble pays off big; Severance is rumoured to cost $20 million per episode, and it’s been a zeitgeist-y hit for Apple.
I don’t know what Apple spent on The Studio, its hugely entertaining, very funny satire/paean to Hollywood filmmaking, but they got their money’s worth. How famous Canadian stoner Seth Rogen – co-creator, co-writer, co-director and star – convinced Apple to give him millions would make a great episode of, well, The Studio.
Rogen plays Matt Remick, the newly installed head of fictional Continental Studios. A cinephile, Rogen wants to make arty, Oscar-bait films while trying to keep the studio afloat by greenlighting potential franchise films (a nice term for garbage) like an action movie based on the Kool-Aid Man. His brain trust includes ex-studio head Catherine O’Hara (unfortunately underused), vice president and best pal Ike Barenholtz, and foul-mouthed head of marketing Katherine Hahn. Bryan Cranston is terrific (as always) in a limited role as Continental’s CEO.

Stars from in front of and behind the camera appear as themselves in every episode: directors Martin Scorsese, Sarah Polley (who directed Rogen in the 2011 romantic comedy “Take This Waltz”), Peter Berg, and Ron Howard (who plays hilariously against his nice guy image in episode 3); actors Charlize Theron, Paul Dano, Olivia Wilde, Adam Scott, Jean Smart, Zoe Kravitz, Dave Franco, Quinta Brunson and many others appear as themselves. The most inspired piece of casting was having Ted Sarandos, head honcho of Apple TV’s rival Netflix, appearing as himself at the Golden Globes, where Netflix takes home an armload of awards. (I wonder how that went over at the Apple pitch meeting?)
Rogen may come off as an amiable doofus, but he is clearly a skilled writer and director. The series makes extensive use of ‘oners’ an inside-Hollywood term referring to very long single takes which gives every episode a propulsive forward force (episode two deals with the challenges of filming oners).
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Two episodes are standouts. Episode 7, ‘Casting’, shows the Continental execs panicking over fears of appearing racist in the selection of voice actors for the Kool-Aid movie. Episode 8, the Golden Globes, is an epic ‘oner’ at the Golden Globes, which looks so realistic you could believe that it really was filmed at the awards show. Rogen should win an Emmy for this performance alone. The Studio should get a bucketload of Emmy nominations. No nominations will mean that The Studio hit just a little too close to home.