Golden Globes 2020.
The host is Ricky Gervais, master of caustic wit. In his opening monologue, he announces that this will be his final time hosting the awards—a relief to the 1,400 guests packed into a ballroom. If the Oscars are grand—over 3,000 attendees at the vast Dolby Theatre—the Globes are intimate: guests in tuxedos, seated around tables stocked with champagne and snacks. The jokes cut deeper, and Gervais can be a butcher.
“Let’s have a laugh at your expense, shall we?” Gervais begins. “Remember: it’s just jokes. We are all going to die soon—and there’s no sequel.”
He starts with mild jabs at actors, directors and Hollywood at large. Then the gloves come off: “No one cares about movies anymore. No one goes to the cinema. No one really watches network TV. Everyone’s watching Netflix,” he says, as the camera lingers on stiff expressions. “Most films are awful—lazy remakes, endless sequels. The best actors have jumped to Netflix and HBO. The actors who just do Hollywood movies now do fantasy adventure nonsense—masks, capes, tight costumes. Their job isn’t acting anymore; it’s going to the gym and taking steroids.”
Then comes what sounds like praise: “Apple rolled into the TV game with The Morning Show, a superb drama….” Applause erupts, and Gervais pauses. The camera cuts to Apple CEO Tim Cook, wearing a crisp tuxedo and a cautious smile—perhaps aware of what is coming. “A superb drama,” Gervais continues, “about the importance of dignity and doing the right thing—made by a company that runs sweatshops in China.”
Muted laughter. “You guys say you are woke,” Gervais says, “but the companies you work for [are] unbelievable. Apple, Amazon, Disney… if ISIS started a streaming service, you’d call your agent, wouldn’t you?”
Unfair? Maybe. But as Hollywood studios churned out formulaic films, streaming platforms offered creative freedom—and bigger budgets. Netflix and Amazon began eroding the studio system in the 2000s. Apple joined late in 2019, but quickly scored a historic win—CODA, the first streaming film to win Best Picture Oscar. As the lines between Silicon Valley and Hollywood blurred fast, a former reality TV star followed Barack Obama into the White House and Obama himself entered Hollywood with a Netflix-backed production company. And Tim Cook was now a punching bag at the Globes.
Gervais pressed on: “If you win an award tonight, don’t use this stage to make a political statement. You are in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg.” Then came the segue: “The first award is for Best Actor in a Television Series—Musical or Comedy.”
Cut to 2025.
If Gervais were to return for next year’s Globes, he could well be calling the same category for The Studio, the razor-sharp Hollywood satire co-created by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. If that moment comes, Tim Cook might be in the audience again—still in a tux, but smiling with less caution. Because The Studio streams on Apple TV+.
Twist in the tale: A still from episode one, in which director Martin Scorsese plays himself.
The series follows Matt Remick (played by Rogen), a beleaguered Hollywood studio chief juggling one absurd crisis after another while trying to make meaningful films in a soulless industry. It picks up where Gervais left off: critiquing Hollywood’s contradictions, but with less venom and more brilliantly observed comedy.
In one standout moment, Martin Scorsese—playing himself—asks Remick to green light his final film, a period epic about a corporate-linked scandal. Remick is eager, but his studio has already signed a deal with the company the film would expose. Torn between art and commerce, he betrays Scorsese.
“It was honestly the worst moment of my professional life. And since I have no real personal life, it makes it just the worst moment of life,” he confesses.
And that is just episode one. Episode two—‘The Oner’—is a one-take marvel. It follows a director attempting a seamless long shot, a la Netflix’s Adolescence. As the crew struggles, Remick watches with reverence: “The oner is the ultimate cinematic achievement—the perfect marriage of artistry and technicality,” he says. And then, inevitably, he ruins the take.
Crammed with Remick’s misadventures, The Studio is not just for cinephiles—it offers razor-sharp commentary on culture, celebrity and politics. Rogen and Goldberg, both Canadians in their early forties, have been collaborators since they were teens. They have evolved from raunchy comedies (Superbad, 2007) to biting political farce (The Interview, 2014) to soulful comedy drama (An American Pickle, 2020). The Studio may be their most ambitious and synergic work yet—perhaps explaining the long list of cameos, including from Charlize Theron and Ron Howard.
Like most Apple products, the show is a marvel of design. Shot in elegant, single-cam style, it features striking set pieces—Remick’s office is a stunning architectural specimen of the Mayan revival style, a fitting backdrop for the cultural absurdities that unfold.
In a surprising twist, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos also appears in an episode. Rogan revealed in an interview that Apple had asked him and Goldberg if they could swap Sarandos out for Tim Cook. They said no.
Apparently, if telling off a studio boss was unthinkable in old Hollywood, now it seems… negotiable. Clearly, Silicon Valley streamers are rewriting the rules.
Does it mean creative freedom has expanded in the age of streaming? It appears so. The Studio has already been renewed for a second season.
Gervais might want to call his agent for a cameo.