Showtime, like just about every other piece of organic or inorganic matter on the face of the Earth, has a weak spot when it comes to George Clooney. So perhaps it heard the words “George Clooney” and “1990s” and thought, “Oh, he was so charming back then.” Whatever the reason, Deadline reports that the network has landed The Studio, a series about the movie business in the final decade of the twentieth century.
It now appears that, in addition to Clooney exec-producing, the show (or possibly just the pilot) will be written by Peter Tolan and directed by Bennett Miller. Those names alone are reason enough for optimism: Tolan was the head writer for The Larry Sanders Show and knows from pitch-black showbiz satire, while Miller’s last three movies were Foxcatcher, Moneyball, and Capote—all critically acclaimed films. (Well, mostly critically acclaimed.)
As we reported earlier, The Studio tells the story of two executives running a studio during the early ’90s, when studio after studio was being bought up by corporate conglomerates, leading to bitter clashes between Hollywood excess and capitalist profiteering. The executives in question are “best friends who struggle to maintain their humanity while they stockpile power, fight off irrelevance, and mercilessly fuck over anyone who gets in their way—including each other.” In other words, definitely not based in any way on the Weinstein brothers.