Bryan Cranston's The Studio Character Is A Deep Cut For Movie Nerds
"The Studio," Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's newest series, is a hilarious satire of Hollywood and a love letter to its rich history. When Rogen's character — a studio chief named Matt Remick — visits work every day, he overhears a tour guide talk about how the lot is a temple of movie magic. It's a sentiment he wants to believe in, yet he's disillusioned with the system and feels like his workplace is more like a tomb. Indeed, Matt hates his studio's insistence on creating billion-dollar franchises about Kool Aid characters at the expense of genuine art, although he still has to answer to one man: Griffin Mill (Bryan Cranston).
Griffin is a billionaire studio overlord who's solely motivated by profit, so much so that he's happy to bury a swansong Martin Scorsese project about the Jonestown cult. After all, an auteur-driven movie about people "drinking the Kool Aid" and taking their own lives might interfere with the studio's lofty ambitions to create a family blockbuster about Kool Aid Man and his buddies, and that's not happening.
That said, Griffin is an interesting character who encapsulates what "The Studio" is all about at its core. He very much represents the contemporary, commercially obsessed Hollywood system the show pokes fun at. However, his name is an homage to the prestige studio cinema that Rogen's character longs for Tinsel Town to return to — and Robert Altman fans will get the reference.
Griffin Mill is a character in The Player
Director Robert Altman and screenwriter Michael Tolkin's "The Player" is one of the best movies about making movies. Similar to "The Studio," it's a satire that highlights the more frustrating sides of Hollywood, but still boasts plenty of love and affection for the business when it's at its best. What's more, the film features a Hollywood executive named Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins).
Bryan Cranston's character in "The Studio" is a clear nod to Altman's classic film, but it isn't the only one. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's series also adopts the continuous shot approach at times, inspired by the opening scene in Altman's satire. During a conversation with IndieWire, Rogen explained that "The Player" — and that one shot in particular — inspired their own show:
"If you're making something about Hollywood, to do something technically difficult asserts your position as someone who has any right to be speaking about this stuff. 'The Player' does that. He's doing one of the hardest things you can do, and now he's gonna go make fun of movies for the next two hours. But he's clearly doing it from the position of someone who understands every intricacy and challenge of filmmaking."
"The Studio" is as technically impressive as it is hilarious, making it the ideal homage to Altman's film. Furthermore, it seems that Rogen and Goldberg share some of the late filmmaker's frustrations about the battle between art and commerce in the movie biz.
New episodes of "The Studio" premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV+.