The Studio

The Premise
A guy (Rogen) takes over as the head of a Hollywood movie studio and tries to balance his love for cinema with the CEOs’ hunger for more money and blockbuster hits.

It reminds me of the eternal debate about cinema, everywhere—including social media groups—between high art and Hollywood trash. People often say you can’t have both, that a massive box office success can’t also be a great film, or that a great film stops being great the moment it crosses a certain earnings threshold. If you watch mainstream productions, you’re not a real cinephile. If you watch lower-tier films, you’re also not a real cinephile. And, of course, you can't talk about cinema unless you watch a seven-hour film from Eswatini with a budget of two cheese pies, where a taxi driver stares blankly at the rainy streets—a metaphor for despair and modern work culture.

So, is Dune high art, or is it Hollywood garbage?
How much money can a film make before it loses its art film status?
Where do Nolan’s films land on the art vs. trash spectrum?
Is horror cinema considered art, or is it inherently lowbrow unless the film predates the invention of the camera?
Do action films have any value beyond abs and explosions?
And what about romantic films—do they need to be black and white and at least 40 years old to be meaningful (which, by the way, would mean pre-1985, not 1960)?

On the flip side, if you haven't seen 47 Marvel movies this year, memorized every post-credits scene, and eagerly anticipated Avatar 3, or if you’re not arguing online daily about Fast & Furious 17 and whether Vin Diesel can actually drive a car vertically into the Earth's core—you’re also not in the loop.

Personally, I reject the art film vs. trash film mindset. Every genre and style has value. This rigid classification has even harmed certain genres, like horror, which has desperately tried to be taken seriously with endless allegories about motherhood (which we’ve seen again and again in recent years). I appreciate metaphorical films, but I also love pure body horror and mindless splatterfests with no deeper meaning.

Anyway, The Studio…
Rogen’s character is looking for a big-name director to helm a movie about… Kool-Aid. Yes, the brand mascot. He wants to replicate Barbie’s success, though it’s a bit trickier because, as the show points out, “Nobody finds the Kool-Aid Man sexy.”

He does manage to secure a major director, but their vision doesn’t quite align with what the studio’s CEO wants. And we get lines like “I love movies. My job is to ruin them.”—which echoes many real-world studio decisions we’ve seen over the years.

Rogen is fantastic in the role, and the overall cast is stellar (Catherine O’Hara, Bryan Cranston, plus Martin Scorsese, Steve Buscemi, and Charlize Theron playing themselves). There are some great comedic moments and chaotic scenes—like Rogen witnessing the disastrous filming of a long-take sequence. Also, some of the cameos are incredible, but I won’t spoil them.

Of course, it’s always a bit ironic when a series satirizes the exact studios, corporations, and platforms that likely produced it. But the concept remains fun.

And while we could debate forever about the value of different types of cinema, I’d absolutely watch a Kool-Aid Man movie directed by a Coppola. It reminds me of the rumor that Darren Aronofsky is directing Cujo. We need more of this. Imagine a Power Rangers film by Tarantino or a Powerpuff Girls movie by Denis Villeneuve.