‘The Studio’ premiere review: AppleTV+’s showbiz satire sparkles

What if your job was to ruin the thing you love most? That’s the question plaguing Matt Remick (Seth Rogen) on The Studio, AppleTV+’s satire—and loving tribute—to showbiz.

There are movies about movies, and TV shows about TV shows. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, anyone? Or 30 Rock, for that matter? Not to mention the resurgence of TV shows based on movies, or previously adapted into them—Presumed Innocent (another AppleTV+ darling), for one.

But what about TV shows about moviemaking? Matt, an enthusiastic producer, is just as he’s on the verge of a promotion. Rogen, who also directs/writes/executive produces The Studio, plays Matt with wide-eyed enthusiasm for movies and moviemaking. He believes studios can get back to the days of original ideas, not movies based on baffling intellectual property. There’s a great joke about movies based on Jenga and Rubik’s Cubes.

Matt’s mentor Patty (Catherine O’Hara) has just been fired from the titular studio, Continental Pictures. CEO Griffin (Bryan Cranston) wants Matt to take Patty’s place as studio head. There’s just one catch: Matt can only have the job if he greenlights a movie about the Kool-Aid Man. Matt, certain this will be the only major compromise he’ll have to make, takes the job. If he’s the studio head, he can do what he wants, right? What’s the problem with greenlighting one unoriginal idea if he can foster a new generation of original movies?

You either die a hero, or you live long enough to greenlight bad movies

What the first two episodes of The Studio make clear is that Matt cannot do what he wants, however well-intentioned. It’s the movie business, where the bottom line is more important than artistic integrity, no matter how much Matt wants to believe otherwise. He doesn’t want to greenlight Kool-Aid, but that’s what it will take to make the flailing studio money. He can’t greenlight a Martin Scorsese movie, because it’s not marketable enough. And even when Matt does want to make good movies, his enthusiasm can be his own downfall. Episode Two centers on Matt’s badly-timed good ideas ruining Sarah Polley’s vision for shooting a scene in one take. It’s hilariously meta—the episode itself is done in one shot! Matt is the hero of The Studio, but he’ll have to be the villain in other people’s stories.

Though the impressive roster of guests stars playing themselves have made headlines—Martin Scorsese! Charlize Theron!—the key players are just as great. O’Hara, returning to TV after Schitt’s Creek, is comically frantic and funny as always. Ike Barinholtz’s Sal, another studio executive, is a great foil to Matt, willing to point out Matt’s worst ideas. Kathryn Hahn and Chase Sui Wonders, as Continental creatives, aren’t given enough to do in the opening episodes, but promise more quippy, referential comedy to come.

Hooray for Hollywood?

Hollywood gets mythologized as a magical place, often because that’s the message Hollywood puts out about itself. That’s what the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the movies-about-movies are for. But The Studio shows that there are at least some in showbiz who know the whole thing is a little ridiculous—what’s sillier, the idea of a Kool-Aid movie, or that at least person would think it’s a good idea? The Studio loves movies, moviemakers, and the process of moviemaking, and knows that something good can to appeal to esoteric film fans and the masses alike. Industry terms and names get thrown around a lot, but it’s grounded in a love of something universally beloved: movies.

The Studio feels like a story of what could be—an optimistic, idealistic executive—and a story of what is—a business obsessed with the bottom line. The concept of a Kool-Aid movie doesn’t seem too far off from reality, not when Reddit threads or Hot Wheels can get greenlit. But hey, speaking of greenlighting: shoutout to the executive who greenlit The Studio. If this is what the people want, then we’re in good hands.

The Studio Episodes 1–2 are out now on Apple TV+.

Images courtesy of Apple TV+. 

Claire Di Maio

Claire was once asked in elementary school why her go-to question was always, “Watch anything good lately?” It’s still her go-to question, because she loves hearing what other people are passionate about. She often sacrifices sleep in the hopes that she will one day clear her to-watch and to-read lists (a futile effort so far).