I’d watch the Kool-Aid double feature from ‘The Studio’
The new Apple TV+ series The Studio takes us behind the scenes with Continental Studios. The new head of the movie studio, Matt Remick (Seth Rogan), tries to balance his creative vision with more IP driven properties. One of those being Kool-Aid.
His first project as the head of the studio is find a director for a movie about the Kool-Aid man, รก la the Barbie movie. Trying to navigate the success of that movie (thanks to Greta Gerwig’s idea and vision), Matt finds himself torn between doing what his boss wants him to do and also trying to make art. Part of that art is Martin Scorsese’s movie based on the Jonestown Massacre.
The Jonestown Massacre is, to put it lightly, why we say that someone “drank the Kool-Aid.” For a moment, Matt is trying to sell this as their “Kool-Aid” project and even convinces Scorsese to name it just “Kool-Aid” but the powers that be win out. Instead, Nick Stoller is working on a script for it that takes the Kool-Aid man to “logo” town and his Kool-Aid daughter has to save the day.
While the entire dilemma is both a commentary on the state of the film industry and our lack of trust in creatives, I do think that the two movies being pitched for the studio would honestly make a pretty wild (and fun) double feature.
I’d pull a Barbenheimer for the Kool-Aids
Scorsese’s take on Jonestown and Stoller’s look at IP are both jokes. I get that. BUT if you were to throw up these two movies as a back to back feature, showing the positive side of Kool-Aid mixed with one of the more infamous mass murders? I’d watch that the day it was released and be so happy about it. It really is a perfect combination between light hearted and what kind of movies are designed to emotionally wreck us.
Or, if this is actually like Barbenheimer, they both can hurt to watch. But I’d argue that a double feature of these two movies would have made this one studio so much money. Instead, they were so worried about making sure that only one of their movies got made.
Imagine if Barbenheimer was one studio, it’s a win-win situation! The creatives featured in The Studio had a perfect way to recreate that but instead, they focused solely on just one of those movies. Fools! You’re brought into the world of Kool-Aid, fully behind the brand and then you get to watch the brand’s destruction after what happened in Jonestown! That’s perfection.
So while Matt is more worried about appeasing everyone (and missing out on the perfect way to sell this double feature), I’m here to say that if a studio wants to make a lot of money, just go ahead and do something like this. You at least know that I’d have a lot of fun with it. And isn’t that what you all want? A bunch of memes and money about your movies?
(featured image: Apple TV+)
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