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The Studio
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The Studio (Series)
Lights. Camera. Anxiety.

"I got into this business because I love movies, and now my job is to ruin them."
— Matt Remick

The Studio is a 2025 comedy series created by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, and Frida Perez. It stars Rogen, Ike Barinholtz, Catherine O'Hara (in her final role), Chase Sui Wonders, and Kathryn Hahn. Rogen and Goldberg also direct.

The series follows Matt (Rogen), the new head of a major Hollywood studio as he struggles to balance the artistic and financial responsibilities of his position. The series premiered on Apple TV+ on March 26, 2025.

A second season has been ordered.

The Studio presents: TROPES!

  • Adam Westing:
    • Nicholas Stoller has a cameo in the first episode, in which he's portrayed as a middlebrow, inoffensive director of studio comedies and is outright referred to as not being a "real" filmmaker, whose pitch for a Kool-Aid movie is noted as being surprisingly decent at best. This gets exaggerated upon his return in episode 7, where he plans to use A.I. to get the movie finished.
    • Greta Lee portrays herself as an opportunistic, slightly egotistical actress who wants to use a private jet for her upcoming film's press tour since she doesn't want to fly commercial after having gone through the low-budget production of Past Lives.
    • Ron Howard's reputation as a laid-back Nice Guy is turned on its head in the third episode, where he plays himself as a controlling Jerkass who cannot help but casually belittle Matt and humiliate him in front of his friends and people he looks up to.
    • Olivia Wilde portrays herself as a tyrannical, egotistical Prima Donna Director who's alienated herself from most of the cast and crew and who's so self-obsessed that she's willing to risk the entire production of her film to get in a Creator Cameo.
    • Zoë Kravitz portrays herself as a ruthless Hollywood social climber who's been faux-humble on the awards circuit in order to win at the Golden Globes. She then spends most of her time in the finale two-parter high on shrooms, and the others have to pep-talk her to tap into her cool public persona so she can present her film.
    • Dave Franco plays himself as an over-the-top drugs-and-gambling-addicted manchild.
  • All for Nothing: 
    • In "The Oner", The whole episode is trying to get the final shot for a movie during a day so they wont have to won't have to pay for expensive reshoots, putting the cast under stress and executives making sacrifices to do so. The episode ends with the news they did not get the shot.
    • "The Missing Reel". Matt ultimately refused to pay for a wrap party because of his decision that "Rolling Blackout" should be produced on real film instead of digital. His desperate attempt to find the titular Missing Reel and prevent the film from going over-budget ultimately fails and, he's forced to go pay out of his own pocket for reshoots.
    • "Casting". The crew spends the whole episode trying to figure out a way to cast the Kool-Aid movie in a way that doesn't involve any problematic racial implications to avoid controversy. They succeed in the first part with Ice Cube starring, but upon the public casting announcement with, they get called out and booed for the use of AI animation in the film, resulting in a chant of 'fuck AI' from the audience which even Ice Cube joins in on.
    • "The Golden Globes". After so much effort, power struggles and drama to get Zoë Kravitz to acknowledge his contribution to the film and mention him in her speech, Matt gets the first letters of his name mentioned... Only to be cut short by the orchestra making Zoë finish her speech early.
  • Analogy Backfire: Quinn compares herself to Alexander the Great. Quinn's boyfriend points out that Alexander and most of his friends were all dead by 28.
  • Artistic License – Awards: The Golden Globes as depicted in episode 8 have many differences with the real-life version of the award ceremony. For starters, the ceremony features a Lifetime Achievement Award, which is presumably a fictional version of the Cecil B. DeMille Award, which similarly honors individuals in a non-competitive way. The ceremony also features an In Memoriam segment, something that only the Academy Awards have in real life.
  • As Themselves: The show's set in Hollywood and features real celebrities at least Once an Episode.
  • Bait-and-Switch: Alphabet City has Anthony Mackie's character driving away from a shootout that seems like it'll lead into the film's ending, only to continue on into the motel sequence.
  • Bittersweet Ending:
    • In the third episode, Matt has finally been able to preside over a film without screwing it up, and his suggestion actually greatly improves it, but at the cost of a working relationship with Ron Howard, who threatens to destroy him should they ever come to blows again.
    • In "The Golden Globes", Matt never gets publicly thanked for his contribution to the movie. But Zoë Kravitz was about to do it, which signals that, despite their apparent bad blood, his pleas got through to her. She seemed genuinely thankful and reached out later to make sure he knew it and to make amends, and they will work together on an upcoming project and the next episode shows them getting along well outside of work.
  • Bookends: Plenty.
    • During the Show Within a Show action blockbuster briefly featured at the beginning of the first episode, Paul Dano's character reassures his protege, who's about to kill him, that he'll do a fine job taking over his place since he was taught by the best. Near the end of the episode, Patty coincidentally repeats the same words almost verbatim during a conversation with Matt.
    • Discussed in "The Oner"; Matt suggests to Sarah Polley a way to end her film with one of these, which she goes along with to appease him. The episode itself also features bookends of Matt driving to set and ends with him driving away (having ruined the final attempt at The Oner because he parked on set, blocking in the car that Greta Lee was supposed to drive away in).
    • Episode 6 begins with Matt bringing his girlfriend Sarah coffee in bed while they discuss MK Ultra, one of Continental's franchises. The episode ends with a similar setup, but with Johnny Knoxville's agent Leigh in Matt's bed instead, as Matt's relationship with Sarah has since imploded.
    • Episode 8 starts and ends with Matt in his limo, with the first occasion having him going to the Golden Globes and the second occasion leaving them.
  • "Both Sides Have a Point" Remark: Sal and Quinn in their conflict over "Wink". Sal is right that hiring an established director like Parker Finn is a smart move as he had huge success they can capitalize on and since they're already blatantly copying the basic idea of his film, they may as well go all in and that there's nothing wrong with making populist entertainment people want to see. Quinn is also right that taking a chance on an upcoming director like Owen Klein could be very beneficial and he would give them more artistic credibility, especially since everyone will see "Wink" as a blatant rip-off of Smile (2022) which is an assessment of the project even Sal doesn't deny, and that there's nothing wrong with aiming higher with their work.
  • Bratty Teenage Daughter: Sal has two shallow, self-obsessed, and not very bright teenage daughters who clearly want nothing to do with him. He compares them to Quinn in how they both treat him with youthful disdain and make him feel old.
  • Break the Haughty: On episode 6, Matt's doctor girlfriend and her friends have been piling on Matt for the entire evening, dismissing his achievements, his contributions and his job. He outbids them at the charity auction, almost doubling their top price effortlessly, and wins their dreamed golf trip for four people. To top it off, he gave to them for free in the end.
  • Celebrity Paradox:
    • In the first episode, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is mentioned during an argument. Series star Seth Rogen voiced Donkey Kong in the film.
    • In the second episode, Greta Lee references the production of Past Lives. Chase Sui Wonders (Quinn) had a small role in that filmnote .
    • Non-person example in episode 5: Quinn has sex with her partner while Napoleon is playing on their TV; said film was co-distributed by Apple TV+, the same streaming service where this very show is aired.
    • In the sixth episode, Oppenheimer is one of the movies mentioned to have been shot in the Ebell. Devon Bostick (Quinn's boyfriend) and David Krumholtz (Mitch Weitz) both had roles in Oppenheimer.
    • In the sixth episode, Rebecca Hall guest-stars not As Herself, like most of the actors, but as Matt's date who scorns movies. Hall starred in Frost/Nixon, which was directed by Ron Howard, who guest-starred two episodes previously.
    • In the eighth episode Zoë Kravitz says she's not like Ron Burgundy. Kathryn Hahn (Maya) played Helen in that film.note 
  • Celebrity Voice Actor: In-Universe. The seventh episode features the execs trying to find famous actors to voice the animated Kool-Aid family (led by Ice Cube as the Kool-Aid Man) in the upcoming film without coming across as racist. They end up making it a mostly-Black film with Regina King voicing Mrs. Kool-Aid and an unknown Black child actor as their child. 
  • Cool Car: Matt drives a variety of classic convertibles throughout the series and voices his interest in sports cars.
  • Creator Backlash: In-Universe:
    • Anthony Mackie, who stars in Ron Howard's Alphabet City, confesses that he shares the executives' disdain for the overlong motel sequence of the film, but finds himself unable to comment on it to Howard due to how the scene is meant to be a tribute to Howard's late cousin.
    • For Rolling Blackout, the film's director Olivia Wilde was apparently dissatisfied with how her cameoing scene was shot, and stole it in order to force the studio to pay for a reshoot. Played with, though, in that she was very happy with her own (apparently brilliant) performance, but just not with the way it was shot.
      • Similarly, Zac Efron is exhausted with Rolling Blackout by the end of the shoot and can barely work up the ability to pretend to like Matt and Olivia Wilde by the shoot's end
  • Cringe Comedy: From the very first episode; it's awful watching Matt bend himself into a pretzel as he not only champions auteur cinema but then has to lower himself to making the Kool-Aid movie, somehow dragging highly established directors into the mix and watching it all fall apart to the extent he inadvertently destroys the last film Martin Scorsese ever intended to make.
  • Consistent Clothing Style: Many of the characters have distinctive stories, and a couple of them are highlighted in different episodes:
    • Griffin mostly wears suit jackets over brightly-colored turtleneck sweaters, a garish-looking necklace, and Cool Shades.
    • Matt is often dressed rather formally. He cringes when he realises he's overdressed in "The Oner".
      Matt: Stupid fucking suit. Should just hold up a giant sign that says, "I sign your paychecks, you hogs."
  • Creator Cameo: Olivia Wilde does one for Rolling Blackout, only for the reel to go missing. Wilde stole it herself due to being dissatisfied with how the scene was shot, and knowing the studio would never pony up the cash to reshoot it if there was already a useable take, but couldn't bring herself to destroy it since it contained her best ever acting work.
  • The Dandy: Matt is this to an extent, partially due to his line of work. His suits are a little flashy and, while they're very appropriate for the studio environment, once he's out of his office we do see people commenting upon his outfits on various episodes.
    • He's overdressed when going to a film set wearing a suit.
      Patty: Hi. What, your, uh, tuxedo's at the cleaners?
      Matt: Fuck. Too fancy, right?
    • When going to a fundraiser gala surrounded by doctors, he one-ups them once again by wearing a colourful tuxedo, which draws a lot of comments from the other guests, who are less fashion-inclined. Matt doesn't think he's dressed that flashily.
  • A Day in the Limelight: The fifth episode focuses almost entirely on Sal and Quinn engaging in an intense feud with each other over Wink, with Matt having relatively little screentime.
  • Drinking the Kool-Aid: The main plot of the first and the seventh episodes are Matt's attempts to get a Kool-Aid Man film made. In the first episode, he gets Martin Scorsese to sign on with the understanding that it will be a dark epic about the Jonestown Massacre, starring Steve Buscemi as Jim Jones. Everyone is sufficiently horrified.
  • Ending Fatigue: In-Universe; the main problem that Matt and his team (and, it later turns out, almost everyone) have with Alphabet City is that it's way too long, with an almost three-hour runtime that ends with a long, meandering sequence at a motel that seemingly drags on forever. By the time the movie finishes, the entire team is bored out of their minds, with Matt having almost fallen asleep, and everyone's in agreement that it needs to be cut.
  • Everybody Must Get Stoned: For a Vegas party right before CinemaCon, Matt buys some chocolate shrooms that he assumes are a microdose, but turn out to be far more potent than he thought. Not only does the entire main Continental team minus Patty get high, but Zoë Kravitz becomes very strung-out after eating three of the chocolates and Matt is forced to sequester her in a spare bedroom in hopes that she'll calm down in time for CinemaCon. Making it even worse is that Griffin gets even more high, ends up wandering around the Venetian, and is clearly in no state to present in a few hours like planned.
  • Everything Is Racist: The central conflict of episode 7, which focuses on the studio's attempts to cast actors for a Kool-Aid Man movie that isn't problematic towards other races or minority groups at all, which leads to a lot of Digging Yourself Deeper. They're at first confident in the casting of Ice Cube and Sandra Oh as the Kool-Aids opposite live-action actors Josh Duhamel and Jessica Biel. However, Maya worries that casting a Black man as Mr. Kool-Aid has invoked Unfortunate Implications, since "Black people drink Kool-Aid" is a racist stereotype. They ask Quinn (who is younger, as well as half-White and half-Asian), who tells them the stereotype is more "poor people drink Kool-Aid", and Tyler (who is Black) who says he is fine with it. Ziwe and Lil Rel Howery, Black celebrities who happened to be on set that day, agree that Ice Cube is great casting, but it's unfortunate that a Black woman wasn't cast to play his wife. The team decides to replace Oh with Regina King, but realize that they have the Black cast playing animated characters opposite live-action White actors, and declare this 'segregated cast' also racist. Duhamel and Biel out, Don Cheadle and Keke Palmer in — but now the non-Black writers don't feel comfortable writing an all-Black comedy because they aren't part of the culture and don't want the optics of taking jobs from Black writers, and quit. Finally, Matt ask Ice Cube himself, who tells him up front that it's not racist, but personally insulting that Matt would think he was unfit for the role. In the end Ice Cube's casting is applauded at Comic-Con, but the audience boos the film's use of AI animation. Maya and Sal are just glad they didn't bring up race.
  • Executive Meddling: In-Universe, and not always intentional.
    • In the first episode, the executives at Continental despise Martin Scorsese's idea for the Kool-Aid movie to focus on the Jonestown massacre, and demand for Matt to instead greenlight Nicholas Stoller's Lighter and Softer idea for the film. Scorsese is also denied access back to his script, causing him to sob in tears in response.
    • In the second episode, Matt suggests Sarah Polley to return a scene from the ending of her movie where Greta Lee holds a cigarette as a Bookends to the whole film, more or less forcing Polley to appease him. In another sense, he meddles with the production by constantly being in the way and screwing up the shot.
    • In the third episode, Matt is pressured to leave a note on Ron Howard for the ending motel sequence of Alphabet City to be cut for being far too long and unfitting for the rest of the film. The task becomes even more difficult when the producers learn that Howard based the sequence on the memory of his dead cousin. After much hesitation, he finally gives the note vocally to Howard after the latter humiliates him in front of the whole room, and Howard's reaction is not very nice.
  • The Fashionista: Matt. Maya also has an eye-catching fashion style. Then again, most of the characters put more effort than average into their appearance. They work in Hollywood, after all.
  • Film Within a Film: Once an Episode (with the exception of episodes 7 and 10 not introducing a new project).
    • Episode 1 has The Kool-Aid Movie, based on the brand and character of the same name. Martin Scorsese makes a script for the film that revolves around the Jonestown massacre, but the executives prefer a more marketable, family-friendly and animated version of the film written by Nicholas Stoller. This forces Matt to reluctantly kill Scorsese’s idea and deny access to the script back to him. Episode 7 returns to this project, now about to shoot in a few weeks. The cast is prepared with Ice Cube as the Kool-Aid Man and Sandra Oh as his wife, with Jessica Biel and Josh Duhamel as live-action cast members. However, the executives’ worries that the casting of a black man as the Kool-Aid Man is racist cause a frantic series of recastings and reshuffles that try to make the cast as respectful as possible. The last-minute changes force Stoller to hire an AI studio for the film’s animation to save costs and time, but this decision gets severe backlash during the Comic-Con panel where the cast is announced. At the end Ice Cube departs the film and Stoller runs away from the backlash. Regardless of such Troubled Production, the film is nonetheless discussed at Continental's panel at CinemaCon as shown in episodes 9 and 10, implying that Ice Cube's departure and the public backlash over the AI usage got resolved some way or another off-screen.
    • Episode 2 has The Silver Lake, a romantic drama directed by Sarah Polley and starring Greta Lee, whose closing oner shot gets ruined by Matt's interference during the shooting.
    • Episode 3 has Alphabet City, a 70s-style action thriller directed by Ron Howard, about a cab driver (Anthony Mackie) forced to take the fare of an injured criminal (Dave Franco) searching for redemption. It contains a long, nonsensical ending scene at a motel that the executives and even Anthony Mackie agree is terrible, and Matt's urge to break their disdain to Ron forms the episode's central conflict.
    • Episode 4 has Rolling Blackout, a Film Noir throwback (or, as Matt calls it, "a bad ripoff of Chinatown") directed by Olivia Wilde and led by Zac Efron which is apparently a sprawling Conspiracy Thriller "set in the world of the Los Angeles solar panel industry."
    • Episode 5 has Wink, a supernatural slasher movie that everyone agrees is maybe too evocative of Smile.
    • Episode 6 has Duhpocalypse, a horror comedy movie directed by Spike Jonze starring Johnny Knoxville and Josh Hutcherson about a Zombie Apocalypse that spreads through fecal matter. Somehow, it's also a satire of medical disinformation.
    • Episode 8 has Open, a Zoë Kravitz-directed film that is nominated for the Golden Globe for Musical or Comedy. It eventually wins.
    • Episode 9 briefly touches on Blackwing, a vampire superhero film starring Zoe Kravitz.
  • Follow the Leader: Invoked.
    • Griffin saw the success of Barbie and wants a billion-dollar blockbuster based on existing IP like it. The problem is that he settles on Kool-Aid of all properties and unsubtly hints that Matt's new leadership position rests on getting the Kool-Aid movie made. Matt insists that what made Barbie successful was that it had an auteur at the helm, but circumstances force him to settle on a cliche plot led by studio journeyman Nicholas Stoller.
    • In episode 5, Matt and Sal try to hire Parker Finn to direct a slasher/ghost story called Wink. They acknowledge that it's an obvious twist on the Smile (2022) and Smile 2 formula.
  • From Bad to Worse:
    • As if being forced to kill Martin Scorsese's Jonestown movie and having to break the news to Scorsese at a party wasn't enough, Matt learns from Steve Buscemi that it was intended to be Scorsese's final film before retiring.
    • Sarah Polley's attempts to shoot a one-shot take at sunset for her film are derailed simply due to Matt's presence. His idea to have Greta Lee's character smoke a joint like in the script, which Sarah only agrees to because she wants to appease him, causes the crew to lose valuable time and the first take to be ruined because the joint goes out too early. The second take gets ruined after Matt talks too loudly while sitting at the video village and distracts Greta, the third take gets ruined after Matt accidentally appears on camera while they're rolling, and the fourth take initially goes without a hitch only to get ruined right at the end because Matt parked his car in front of Greta's and she cannot get out of the driveway. By the time Matt leaves the set with Sal, it's become too late and the scene can't be filmed.
  • In the Style of:
    • The show, with its extensive use of long takes, Whip Pans, jazzy musical score, and Central Theme about the mix between art and commerce and where the line between them must be crossed, takes a lot of obvious influence from Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).
    • The fourth episode is shot and told as if it were a detective neo-noir from the New Hollywood era, with a similar visual aesthetic plus narration from Matt.
  • Intoxication Ensues: At CinemaCon, a catastrophic misunderstanding results in Matt's "old-school buffet" being stocked with extremely high-dose edible chocolates, leaving Matt, Zoë, and Griffin severely intoxicated at the worst possible time.
  • Jerkass Has a Point:
    • Subverted with Ron Howard's reaction over Matt's note about A Beautiful Mind—while Matt's suggestion to have the audience know that Charles wasn't real all along, thereby spoiling the entire twist of the film, was pretty stupid, it's made clear he had no right to openly mock and verbally humiliate a young, newbie executive in front of almost everyone he idolized over it.
    • In episode 6, Matt gets into a recurring argument with his new girlfriend's doctor colleagues about the value of making movies, and how it compares to curing cancer, in which no one really ends up coming out of looking good. He rightly points out that while saving life is important, art is what brings value and meaning to life and makes life about more than just surviving. They, however, are also right to point out that most of the movies Matt has made have hardly brought much value and meaning to humanity. (As exemplified by the movie Matt has been focusing on throughout the episode which, despite the laboured and pretentious efforts of everyone involved to insist on how important it and its message about "medical disinformation" is, is clearly just a dumb low-brow Cliché Storm about shitting zombies.)
  • Job-Stealing Robot: Due to the last-minute cast changes and rewrites to The Kool-Aid Movie just a few weeks before filming begins, Nicholas Stoller decides that the animated sequences for the film should be helmed by an AI animation studio rather than a human-employing one to save costs and time. Matt agrees on the idea, but the decision to replace human animators getting leaked online leads to the film getting a standing disovation at Comic-Con, with even Ice Cube leaving the film in protest.
  • Leaving a Trail: In episode 9, a disoriented Griffin wanders away from the group but inadvertently leaves a trail of nacho-cheese handprints throughout the hotel, allowing his panicked colleagues to track him to the casino.
  • Manly Tears:
    • In the first episode, After Martin Scorsese learns that what he intended to be his final film will ultimately never be made, he breaks down into tears while at a party hosted by Charlize Theron.
    • In the last episode, Sal cries when Matt hugs him and thanks him in front of the audience at Cinema Con.
  • Multi-Part Episode: Episode: Episodes 9 and 10 form a two-part season finale covering the disastrous events at CinemaCon.
  • Noir Episode: Episode 4, "The Missing Reel." A variety of plot conveniences amount to Matt wearing a fedora and trench coat while delivering a hard-boiled monologue to his phone.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Done in the film Alphabet City by Dave Franco's character to Anthony Mackie's character.
  • Of Corpse He's Alive: In the season 1 finale, the team attempts to smuggle the incapacitated Griffin back to his hotel room by propping him up and manipulating his limbs to create the illusion he's walking under his own power.
  • Older Than They Look: Griffin looks like he's in his late sixties, but reveals to Matt in "CinemaCon" that he's actually eighty-two years old. He's had extensive and very good plastic surgery to make himself look youngernote .
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: Matt is still carrying the shame of an idiotic suggestion he once made to Ron Howard as a junior executive, that it should be clear right away that the other characters in A Beautiful Mind are hallucinations, which would give away the entire twist.
  • The Oner: Most scenes in the series are presented in long, unbroken single shots.
    • Special mention goes to the second episode, "The Oner," which is The Oner and also revolves around Sarah Polley's attempts to finish her film with a "oner" while Matt is on set.
    • The fourth episode, "The Missing Reel", has a spectacular one where the camera starts with a crane shot which descends as Matt pulls up in his car, which it comes up to; the camera then attaches itself to the car as Matt drives off, holding onto him and Sal as he drives, and when the car reaches its destination and stops, the camera detaches itself again and becomes handheld, following Matt as he tries and fails to enter a restaurant.
    • Episodes 9 and 10 feature several extended single-take sequences that follow characters through the chaotic Cinema Con environment, heightening the sense of real-time panic.
  • One-Scene Wonder: In-universe. Everyone (Zac Efron and eventually Wilde herself) say that Olivia Wilde's Creator Cameo in Rolling Blackout was amazing and will be Oscar-nominated. This turns out to be why Olivia couldn't destroy the film after stealing it, because she was just too good in it.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: A trailer for the film Duhpocalypse in episode 6 features a zombie virus spread through projectile diarrhea.
  • Painting the Medium: Common, as listed under Bookends and The Oner.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Nearly everything that goes wrong in "The Note" comes from poor communication, beginning with young Matt’s ill-conceived idea that the audience for A Beautiful Mind should know all along that the Paul Bettany character is a delusion. Ron Howard has had contempt for him ever since but hasn’t told him so; Ron only puts the motel sequence in the movie because he couldn’t communicate his feelings to his cousin while the cousin was alive; Matt can’t tell Ron the sequence sucks, first because he’s Ron Howard and then because he’s afraid Ron will tear him a new one (again); Quinn can’t give Ron the note because she’s starstruck by Anthony Mackie; Maya can’t because she’s marketing; Anthony can’t because he wants Ron to like him. Eventually Matt does give the note and his worst fears are realised. Ron accepts that Matt’s right and that the motel sequence must go, but he lets Matt know that he has made an enemy for life.
  • Previously on…: The last episode of season 1 opens with a drunken ramble by Dave Franco recapping the chaos of the prior episode.
  • Running Gag: Each episode features Matt tripping, falling, or stumbling over something, which gets progressively more embarrassing per episode. The sixth episode features two falls, one of which gets Matt hospitalized, to make up for his minimal presence in the fifth episode.
  • Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Ice Cube drops out of Kool-Aid on a live panel disgusted at the use of AI.
  • Sincerity Mode: Numerous characters in "The Missing Reel" gush about Matt's decision to let Olivia Wilde cameo in her film. While episodes like "The Oner" have established how frequently people will lie to Matt in order to get something out of him, this turns out to be completely genuine: everyone really did think the cameo was a good addition. Unfortunately, it was also part of the instigator for the entire episode's plot.
  • Shout-Out: Since this is a show meant to both lampoon and pay homage to the film industry, it was bound to have this.
    • In episode 1: During a meeting discussing the proposed Kool-Aid film, the executives use Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie as examples of successful movies based on IPs.
    • In episode 4: Apparently, Olivia Wilde has "gone full Fincher this week." She's also making a movie that is a "Chinatown'' ripoff according to Matt.
    • In episode 5, Sal tells his daughter that he canceled a meeting with Eli Roth to be with them. She says, "Who?" When Sal calls Quinn a "fucking D-girl", she calls him out on copying The Sopranos.
    • During his Previously on… recap for the season finale, Dave Franco mentions that he can "count cards and shit from those magic movies" he was in.
    • In the final episode of season one, Matt and friends "Weekend at Bernie's" Griffin by dragging his drunk and limp body across the casino. The team's plan to get him in shape for the presentation involves getting him to snort cocaine the way it was done in Flight.
    • Patty mentions that the first movie she saw in theaters as a child, the one that wanted her to make movies, was Days of Wine and Roses.
  • Swan Song: In-Universe. It is revealed that Martin Scorsese was intending for his version of the Kool-Aid movie to be his final film. Matt and Sal only discover this after his take on the film got cancelled.
  • Take That!:
    • That the studio executive believes that Kool-Aid is an attractive IP to make a film franchise about is quite painful for how it's barely a joke for how much Hollywood will turn to anything to make a movie, even when all that is recognizable is a brand icon.
    • When Quinn argues that a movie can't be remade three times to push back against Sal's Smile rip-off, Sal points that there are eleven The Fast and the Furious movies that disprove her theory.
    • Sal is able to successfully get Nicholas Stoller to present at CinemaCon by threatening to have Shawn Levy direct the Kool-Aid sequel if that doesn't happen.
  • Three Successful Generations: The three women who surround Matt and Sal at Continental Pictures.
    • Quinn is the youth. The youngest cast member, she's a newly-promoted Creative Executive who feels that she's being undermined by Sal and is trying to assert herself as part of her (possibly unreasonable) quest to progress faster and be taken seriously.
    • Maya is the adult, which is ironic as she's obsessed with being cooler than she is and speaks in random Gen Z slang. However, she's genuinely very good at her job and is comfortable in her own role.
    • Patty is the elder. She has left Continental Pictures for a successful role as a producer, and was formerly The Mentor to Matt. Though she thinks that he betrayed her in getting his new job, she still appears in a reluctant mentorship role to him.
  • Toilet Humor: The fictional horror comedy film Duhpocalypse is about a zombie apocalypse propagated by zombies pooping on their victims. This is the same ad campaign Matt is trying to finalize while trying to convince his girlfriend and her colleagues that his work is artistically important...and unsurprisingly, they are not convinced.
  • True Companions: The Continental team, particularly the core four of Matt, Sal, Quinn, and Maya, can oftentimes be chaotic and dysfunctional, but make for a cohesive, well-oiled team and sincerely love each other at the end of the day. While presenting at CinemaCon, Matt takes a moment to spotlight all of his friends, calls them the most important things in his life, and makes a point to thank each of them individually.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Episode 9 shows the CinemaCon coordinator detailing the on-stage presentation schedule. Naturally, everything falls apart during the actual show when the team must improvise after several key members are accidentally drugged.
  • Viva Las Vegas!: The last two episodes of the first season are set in Vegas, where the cast gets drunk and high at the casino-hotels ahead of a major presentation.
  • Watched It for the Representation: Invoked in-universe. The executives believe that having an all-Black cast for The Kool-Aid Movie could lead to the film getting more exposure as an "important" film that empowers people, akin to Black Panther (2018) and Hamilton. However, even this cast becomes problematic when the non-Black writers feel it would be insensitive for them to write Black characters.
  • Workaholic: A couple. Quinn. Patty. Matt, most prominently.
    Matt: It was honestly the worst moment of my professional life. And since I have no… you know… real personal life, it makes it just the worst moment of my life.
  • You Remind Me of X: During a heated argument in episode 5, Sal admits that the reason he's hard on Quinn is that she reminds him of his daughters, who were shown in a previous scene to be emotionally distant and disinterested in spending time with him.
"Being the head of Continental is the only job I've ever wanted. It's just so much harder than I thought it was gonna be."

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