Winning where streaming, strikes, pandemics and AI have all tried and failed, there’s nothing Tinseltown likes doing more than tearing down its own tinsel. Babylon, La La Land, Tropic Thunder and plenty of others have all had a decent pop in recent years ‘cos no one takes on Hollywood quite like Hollywood.
The latest barbed attack comes from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Alongside an impressively starry cast of A-listers, they deliver a 10-part self-loathing love letter to the biz that just might be the sharpest, funniest show of 2025 so far.
Rogen stars as unlikely new studio head Matt Remick, a nice guy who loves movies but has none of the other skills or personality traits needed for the job. Over-anxious, indecisive, and terrified of confrontation, he leans on his team more than he probably should. With Ike Barinholtz’s second-string suit, Kathryn Hahn’s bulldog marketing exec and Chase Sui Wonders’ ladder-climbing wannabe in his corner, he spends the whole series at the point of total collapse.
Episode one sees Remick take the chair after the old studio head (Catherine O’Hara) slips up. It’s a decision he instantly regrets as he soon realises he can’t actually make any of the films he wants to. Hired to develop The Kool-Aid Movie because the higher-ups are desperate to cash in on the Barbie brand craze, he tries nabbing Martin Scorsese but only ends up making him cry.
Scorsese plays himself, as does pretty much everyone else queuing up to cameo – Steve Buscemi, Charlize Theron, Anthony Mackie, Paul Dano, Dave Franco, Zoë Kravitz… the list goes on.
One episode has Remick refusing to tell Ron Howard that his new film sucks. Another is a Chinatown pastiche with Zac Efron, Olivia Wilde and a stolen film reel. Adam Scott makes an ass of himself at the Golden Globes. Johnny Knoxville pitches a horror film about sharting zombies. The Apple TV+ show even features a guest appearance from Netflix boss Ted Sarandos, which feels more like trolling than casting.
It’s all out chaos, all of the time, with each half hour episode pitched at breakneck speed – low-brow, high-art cringe-fests that come close to the best bits of Curb Your Enthusiasm and the most excruciating moments of Entourage. It’s better than both though because of the way it’s all lovingly put together. Shot like a Hollywood classic, soaked in style and featuring an impressive attention to detail, Rogen and Goldberg milk much more out of the Apple TV+ budget than you’d expect for a backstage frat-pack comedy.
One early episode – filmed in one continuous Steadicam shot (involving director Sarah Polley and actor Greta Lee playing themselves, also trying to film their own continuous Steadicam shot) – is a work of technical, practical and comedy genius. If it doesn’t win an Emmy, there’s no justice left in Hollywood. Either that, or it’s a sign that the show has cut a bit too close to the bone – which feels like what The Studio is trying to do anyway.
Still, if Hollywood really is standing on a precipice in 2025, Rogen and Goldberg are trying their best to coax it back from the edge rather than kick it over. There’s a genuine love for the film business hidden under all the in-jokes and it’s that passion that keeps The Studio from feeling like cheap satire, even if the real message is just how flimsy the whole industry is. Now, does Apple have the guts to fund a second season?
‘The Studio’ streams on Apple TV+ from March 26