Apple TV+Launching on Apple TV+, a new film industry satire co-created by and starring Seth Rogen nails the business – and features Martin Scorsese, Charlize Theron and others as themselves.
A film studio head and his team of senior executives eagerly take their seats in a private screening room to watch the new Ron Howard movie for the first time. This is work for them, but they're also beside themselves with anticipation. "I am so excited about watching this film!" says the boss. It's going to be "perfect".
Many critics have responded similarly to the series featuring this scene, Apple TV+'s film industry satire The Studio, which has generated major buzz before it even begins this week. One reviewer has called it "2025's best new show to date". Another said it was "the most entertaining and spot-on depiction of Hollywood since Robert Altman's The Player", hailing its "stellar scripts and an ensemble of actors who are having an utter blast". Yet another praises it as "a love letter to the art of filmmaking".
Apple TV+The 10-part comedy stars Seth Rogen as Matt Remick, the beleaguered head of a struggling film studio whose efforts to balance commercial viability with artistic integrity invariably cause problems. The Studio is sharp, funny, stylishly filmed and Rogen is a major draw in his own right, but another reason for the excitement surrounding the show is its extraordinary array of Hollywood A-listers playing themselves. They include, among others, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Adam Scott, Olivia Wilde, Zoë Kravitz, Anthony Mackie, Charlize Theron, Steve Buscemi, Ice Cube, Zac Efron and Dave Franco
Evan Goldberg, who co-created, co-directed and co-wrote the series with his childhood friend and long-time creative partner Rogen, says in the production notes for the show that, except for two who remain nameless, every actor or director they approached to play themselves was up for it: "People's only real question was, 'What's my joke?' 'What do I get to do?'." The stars taking part do have some excellent jokes and several of these big names are sending themselves up mercilessly. If there was an Emmy for "best sport", Kravitz would be a shoo-in for her antics in one episode when she accidentally gets high on drugs.
The hero's dilemma
Rogen's Remick is an executive who has worked at the fictional Continental Studios for 22 years. He's a movie nerd; the sort of cinephile who will bend your ear about the incredible funeral shot in 1960s political epic Soy Cuba or wax lyrical about the "magical" properties of real film stock. He relaxes by watching Goodfellas for the millionth time. He yearns to make the next Annie Hall or Rosemary's Baby. He loves being around actors and directors and is desperate for their approval but as a studio guy – a suit, a bean-counter – the creatives only ever want to keep him at arm's length. Instead of hanging out with Hollywood's coolest, he has to take meetings with the Rubik's Cube people and the Jenga people because Continental is focused on making trashy popcorn movies with "known brands".
When the Continental head is fired after a string of box office bombs, the unpredictable CEO, Griffin Mill (Bryan Cranston), selects Matt to replace her. Mill has secured the movie rights to Kool-Aid, the soft-drink mix. He reasons that if a Barbie film can make a billion dollars for Warner Bros, Matt should be able to make money from a movie about the Kool Aid man, the drink's animated marketing mascot. Matt sets to work in the belief that prestige films and box office hits are not mutually exclusive but in a world where TikTok trends dictate film-making decisions, he's quickly forced to question that ideal.
He has a major problem in that he can't square his admiration for cinema legends with the need to make hard-nosed business decisions. He can't bring himself to tell Ron Howard that the last act of his latest movie sucks. He can't break it to Martin Scorsese that the studio won't be making his script about cult leader Jim Jones.
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