Series Review: The Studio

The Studio
Directors: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg
Point Grey Pictures, Lionsgate Television
Episode One Streaming on Apple TV+: 03.26.25

Comparisons have been made between The Studio — Apple TV’s newest series created and directed by long-time collaborators Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Super Bad, Pineapple Express) — and Robert Altman’s 1992 masterpiece The Player. It makes sense. Both The Studio and The Player are self-aware, Hollywood set pieces composed of oner-style shots with the occasional (plentiful in The Studio) jazz drum overlays. Both even have power-hungry executive types named Griffin Mill (Bryan Cranston in The Studio and Tim Robbins in The Player respectively). However, there is one notable difference. If The Player is a film about bad people making good movies, then The Studio is a TV show about good people making bad movies. That distinction is crucial. It lowers the stakes. What was once deeply thrilling, and occasionally funny is now deeply funny, and occasionally thrilling.

 Rogan plays a familiar character, the good guy who, while trying to do the right thing, gets in over his head. He has played a version of that character for most of his career. The Studio, however, adds depth to who that character is. He is no longer the stoner trying to win over the girl. He is Matt Remick, a studio executive who, early on in the first episode, gets promoted to studio head. Remick has ideas, ideas that clash with his boss, Cranston’s Griffin Mill, who after seeing the success of Barbie, sets out to capitalize on another well-known IP with The Kool-aid Movie. Rogen bites his tongue, tells his boss what he wants to hear and accepts the job, believing that once he makes something commercial for the studio he can go back to making important films. With that, the crux of the show is formed. Can an ideologic cinephile navigate the exploitation necessary to run a studio?

It’s a good premise and the show most definitely knows what it wants to be. While the show centers around Rogen, it’s the ensemble cast that ties it all together, namely Kathryn Hahn (Step Brothers, WandaVision) as Maya, the hilarious film marketer, and Ike Barinholtz (Neighbors, Blockers), Rogen’s coworker and best friend. There’s also a notable cameo from Martin Scorsese, a name in the running to direct The Kool-aid Movie.

The Studio is Hollywood satire and, like many of the successful comedic Hollywood satires in the past — The Larry Sanders Show and State and Main among them — there is a reverence — although mostly it’s an “I love you but that doesn’t mean I like you” — for the town being skewered. The Studio is the type of show where — if it weren’t so well written — someone might say “This is why we got into this business,” after a successful day at the office. Even the title credits pay homage to Old Hollywood. The respect from Rogen and Goldberg is admirable and one can only hope the first two episodes set the pace for the rest of the season. 

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