“This studio was built to be a temple of cinema, but I have the impression that it has rather become a grave,” despairs Matt Remick, producer on the edge of the apoplexy crisis. Freshly named at the head of Continental Studios, a drifting production house, the character embodied by Seth Rogen – also creator of the series alongside Evan Goldberg and Peter Huyck – must sail in the tumultuous waters of Los Angeles. The intrigue is sewn with white thread: the job he has always dreamed of will become his worst nightmare. Available boss, megalos stars, loss of speed … The elements are giving up against this film buff which dares to have made his passion his profession.
Effective comedy, The studio reveals an intelligent satire of the world of cinema. Accompanied by a tasty cast – special mention to Kathryn Hahn, hilarious overexcited communicating, alas too little used -, she draws five -star guests, who often play their own role. Martin Scorsese sobs in an episode, victim of the cruelty of the studios. Ron Howard, renowned for his kindness, explodes with rage. Olivia Wilde also caricature there, more tyrannical than ever. Seth Rogen presents himself in a role in counter-employment, far from the teenage comedies of his beginnings (Supergrave,, In blister, user manual). Forget the troublemaker obsessed with school jokes and fatty humor. Embedded in its 70s costumes and its references to the New Hollywood, Remick/Rogen is lost in an industry whose legend is tarnished. Very referenced – sometimes too much -, each of the episodes plunges the spectator into the anxiety of his main character. We close our eyes, sometimes, to avoid the embarrassment that certain scenes arouse.
Hollywood’s gesture
Each time, Remick and his companions must solve a problem: killing a hazardous marketing project, braking a director in his ardor, keeping face in a ceremony for award ceremony. If these pitches are familiar, this is normal: American cinema loves “metafiction”, this narrative process from which a film – or a series, or a book – refers to other works. Whole deductibles have been built on the concept. The saga Screamfrom Wes Craven, only exists to pay tribute to the horrific genre.
There is no longer the number of films building the legend of industry: passage from the mute to the speaking in Let’s sing in the rain Or Boulevard du twilightfilming stories with Ave, César! Or Once Upon a Time… in Hollywoodetc. Director Damien Chazelle even made it one of his specialties, a romantic comedy version with La la Landor grandiloquent melodrama with Babylon. Hollywood magnifies obstacles and upheavals that he has faced since its creation. In 2025, the symptoms were clear: the crumbling of large production houses, which was accompanied by an immoderate taste for franchises and their derivative products.
The series is not the first to venture into the exercise. Last year, HBO tried the same abyss with the very literal The franchise. But with its rhythm problems and its uncommon jokes, the sitcom had trouble finding its audience. Is not meta who wants.
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