The Entourage Effect
The other day I was in a bar and I overheard a group of people discussing upcoming films while circled around a pool table sipping their cocktails. One guy started the conversation by saying, “When’s Aquaman coming out?”, which of course led to his ill-informed counterpart to reply with, “I’m not sure, but I heard that Medellin’s gonna be out this Summer.” Of course I immediately noticed that they were receiving their Hollywood gossip from none other than my favorite television show Entourage, but as one of them was way off in their statements the other may have been closer to the real world than he had realized. My eavesdropping got me wondering about the influence such a fictional show could have on the creative workings of the Hollywood market, and not to my surprise the show stems from reality and reality is now mimicking the show. We have Entourage to thank for some of the latest projects popping up in Hollywood and the only explanation is that the line between the show and real life is becoming more and more blurred every day. The amalgamation of these two worlds is causing film makers to capitalize on the free publicity the show lends to them which has the power of growing wide spread buzz for nonexistent films (maybe your marketing team should take notes Fox).
WARNING: Possible spoilers ahead
As a film fanatic I was of course drawn to the television re-imagining of the life of Mark Wahlberg and his real life entourage; Donnie “Donkey” Carroll, Johnny “Drama” Alves, Eric Weinstein, and Ari Emanuel when it first premiered on HBO back in in 2004. It played an integral part in inspiring me to follow not only the films themselves, but also the years leading up to the release of anticipated projects as a way of extending the enjoyment I feel while sitting in the theater. Believe it or not, the original idea came from Wahlberg’s agent (whose real life name is Ari) who consistently pushed Mark to let him hire a camera crew to follow him and his group of crazy friends around town. Wahlberg laughed the idea off though his friend Donnie Carroll (the real life Turtle) had been archiving the many conversations the group would have while working on a book entitled, From the Hood to Hollywood, A Soldiers Story. Eventually, it was decided that the show would work better as a fictional tale rather than a documentary and Entourage was born, leaving the original crew behind while the likes of Jeremy Piven, Kevin Connolly, Adrian Grenier, Kevin Dillon, and Jerry Ferrara filled the shoes of Wahlberg and his close knit band of brothers (Donnie Carroll auditioned for the role of himself, but was turned down which is quite a mind boggling decision to begin with).
One of the first similarities I noticed with the show melding with the real world would have to be the inclusion of James Cameron in the second season where him and Vince are working on the Aquaman project together. The introduction of this story line was eerily close to the time when a little comic book film called Spiderman had recently taken the world by storm and changed the way graphic novels were viewed by Hollywood. Though Cameron has never worked on a comic book tale in real life that doesn’t mean he hasn’t wanted to. As some may already know, Cameron was initially pushing Sony Pictures to contract him for the Spiderman film before Raimi was even in the picture. Cameron went as far as to write his own screenplay and presented this to Sony along with storyboards and his zealous spirit that almost no studio can resist. Sony did the unthinkable when they turned down Cameron and instead hired campy cult horror connoisseur, Sam Raimi. Perhaps Sony just wanted their fanboy cash cow to be released within the decade, but there’s a chance that Cameron was taken back by their rejection and jumped at the chance to work on any comic book film; even if it was for a fictional TV show. I can’t think of any other logical reason for such a rational and meticulous film maker, who is known for his extremely tough work ethic, to waste his time doing guest spots on a 22 minute television show. For whatever reason he decided to join the cast, I’m glad he did because it paved the way for other timid film makers to put themselves in front of the camera for once and give us a glimpse of their life (such as Gus Van Sant, Martin Scorsese, Eddie Burns, and Paul Haggis).
Another striking similarity Entourage shares with the real world is the fictional representation of such Hollywood business men as Harvey Weinstein (Harvey Weingard), Ari Emanuel (Ari Gold), and Bob Ryan (Robert Evans) to name just a few. As I can’t speak for the accuracy of their portrayal of such real life film big wigs I can say that I feel as if I know them personally after religiously following Entourage during their five seasons.
Throughout the show Harvey Weingard is portrayed as a loud and overbearing producer who seems to be the fall back for many actors when they need a plan B if their film isn’t picked up. As we see in the show, Harvey is screwed over twice by Vince and even criticized by James Cameron during their premiere at Sundance. On the other hand though, the real Harvey has been known for his work on literally hundreds of films throughout his career in Hollywood and is very well respected. Harvey is one of the riskier producers in Hollywood and is willing to fund obscure projects and support unknown film makers when all other studios laugh in their face. Most notably would be his support of Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino when they were on the rise with Clerks and Pulp Fiction. Both of these films were labeled as disasters on paper and to place them in the hands of two unknown film makers would be insane. Harvey supported both of these eccentric artists when no one else would which means we have him to thank for two of the finest film makers of our generation. Harvey continues to bring us revolutionary visionaries such as Timur Bekmambetov as he supported Night Watch and had it released in the U.S., not to mention Guillermo Del Toro in funding Mimic, and the belief he had in Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s writing debut in Good Will Hunting. Harvey continues to turn projects around quicker than anyone else in the industry and he’s definitely a businessman shooting for quantity over quality, but that doesn’t mean that in his extensive career as a producer he hasn’t given us a few irreplaceable gems to cherish forever.
To think that the original person who thought up the show would become an integral character is quite vexing and could only be executed so flawlessly by such a veteran actor as Jeremy Piven. I would assume that playing a person who’s watching you play them would be intimidating, but after three Emmy’s and a Golden Globe I’d say he’s got it down pretty well. Ari Emanuel, or as the industry knows him “Super Agent”, still continues to represent some of the biggest A list stars in Hollywood including the likes of Martin Scorsese (perhaps that’s how they got him to guest star in the season 5 finale?), Conan O’Brien, Tina Fey, Larry David, Michael Douglas, and of course Mark Wahlberg to name a few. He is well known within the industry and frequently thanked by many film makers during the often ignored credits. His brother, Rahm Emanuel, is now a Congressman but started out as a lawyer from Chicago which could be where the line in season 5 comes from when Ari is persuading his former colleague Andrew Klein to join his agency and they reminisce about how Andrew convinced Ari not to move to Chicago after business school for fear of dying as a “loser lawyer from Chicago.”
Entourage portrays the character of Bob Ryan as a washed up producer living his glory days in the Hollywood hills as he longs to regain the respect of contemporary film makers. His character, as portrayed by Martin Landau, may be hilarious but there’s a lighter side to his story that many probably don’t know. The character serves as an homage to the great Robert Evans whom we have to thank for such films as The Godfather, Chinatown, and Love Story. In his debut appearance in season 3 episode 10 Eric sees a sad lonely man and decides to dedicate some of his time to making him feel more welcome in the film industry still (no thanks to the ill-intentions of Ari). The episode shows how quickly luck can turn around though and how karma can always rear its head when you pay respect to the legends of classic cinema when Bob brings I Wanna be Sedated to Eric’s attention.
While I Wanna Be Sedated was never resurrected in the television show (thanks to Ari) there have been rumors floating around of a Ramones biopic for quite some time. Variety reported back in 2006 that producer Rory Rosegarten (most well known for his Everybody Loves Raymond fame) purchased the script I Slept with Joey Ramone and planned on turning it into a full length biopic. While this news is unconfirmed and no other details have surfaced it’s still ironic how immediately after the show premiered the script was purchased impulsively shortly thereafter.
The most notable of the similarities Entourage shares with the real world would definitely be Vince’s passions project, Medellin. The project served as an ongoing theme throughout the first 4 seasons all culminating with its fictional public disaster at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s funny how the only major flop that Vince made during the show would become the most popular project in Hollywood shortly thereafter when Killing Pablo, Escobar, and The Infiltrator would all be optioned through numerous studios all competing to release the first Pablo Escobar themed project. While Escobar has yet to announce a release date, Killing Pablo has been gaining a lot of buzz with Christian Bale starring and Joe Carnahan writing and directing. Carnahan is a newcomer to Hollywood, but has been known as of late for his work on Smokin Aces (which starred Jeremy Piven…coincidence?) and Pride and Glory. While Carnahan’s project will be released well before the likes of Escobar, other film enthusiasts continue to jump on the band wagon and most recently the production company 2929 productions (founded by Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban) solicited Alex Holmes to script the story of a customs official who helped bring down Escobar during his reign of terror. According to themovingpicture.net, The Infiltrator hasn’t gone into production yet as they’re still ironing out the details on the screenplay, but it sounds like we’ll definitely be seeing yet another Escobar story come around the turn of the next decade (approximately 2012 according to IMDB). As for Escobar, all we know is that Antoine Fuqua is still attached to direct. Fuqua is most well known for The Replacement Killers, King Arthur, Shooter, Training Day and the upcoming Brooklyns Finest which has been gaining quite a bit of buzz lately. Escobar is currently categorized as being in pre-production which hopefully means that we’ll be hearing some casting news very soon and if Fuqua wants to compete with the likes of Christian Bale, Chris Pine, and Edgar Ramirez, he better have some A-list names up his sleeve for his version of the Entourage spinoff.
The most recent turn of events in the series came recently when Vince’s luck started to change (thanks to E) in the final episode of last season when he receives a call from Marty Scorsese asking him to star in his future NYC project. He tells Vince that he plans on making a modern day re-imagining of The Great Gatsby and he wants everyone’s favorite Queens Boulevard star to headline it as Nick Carraway. This project didn’t get me very excited for the subject matter in relation to the TV series, but it will be nice to throw the characters into a new environment on the East coast (especially one I can relate to). However, days after the series ended I caught news that Swedish film maker and epic entertainer, Baz Luhrmann, would be adapting the story as his next project following the financial blunder of Australia. Hopefully he’ll tone this project down much more and limit its run time after learning that American’s have the attention span of a 5 year old, and Aussies can be more critical than Richard Roeper after watching Medellin. Luhrmann has commented on the project saying that he would like to rush it into production to mimic the current economic crisis, but that he’s not so sure he’d like to work with Fox again after Australia did so poorly. In regards to the project Luhrmann is quoted as saying, “If you wanted to show a mirror to people that says, ‘You’ve been drunk on money’, they’re not going to want to see it. But if you reflected that mirror on another time they’d be willing to.” The project definitely has potential considering the current foreshadowing of another depression, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it turns out for Vince to see if it will do well for Buhrmann.
While Entourage may continue to entertain us we must not look past the obvious effect it has on the film industry. While the show may be fictional, the themes and ideas are real, which is why I love it so much. Doing research into how the gears turn in Hollywood is no easy task. I’m happy to let Entourage feed me believable production methods which seem to come true in the real world anyways. I can’t wait to see what other projects the Entourage crew can dream up and remember to look for clues into the real Hollywood while you’re watching the fake one next season.
I also can’t help but mention that Jerry Ferrera and Jamie Lynn Siegel are also dating in real life (that’s more gossip than film news, but still interesting). So if I missed any other similarities please feel free to bring them up in the comments below as I’m always up for sharing with other Entourage fanatics.
No related articles.
Author: Matt Peloquin (21 Articles)
Since I was a boy I've been completely obsessed with the world of film. My first viewing of Toy Story led me into the area of animation particularly, but since than I've branched out to become more of a cinephile than just an effects artist. I attended Rochester Institute of Technology for Network Security with a minor in creative writing where I elected to take mostly film related courses. I also attended Gnomon School of Visual Effects where I developed my passion for the illusion of effects in relation to films. Some of my favorite films include Children of Men, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Back to the Future, The Big Lebowski, The Fountain, Pitch Black, The Wackness, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Wizard of Oz, Clerks, The Abyss, and Into the Wild. I am a true fanatic of film and would like to use my involvement in Iconocritic.com to be introduced to others as passionate as I am about my pursuit. To name just a few of the people I've followed throughout my life that I've extracted so much aspired value from would have to be Stan Winston, James Cameron, Darren Aronofsky, Kevin Smith, Charlie Kaufmann, John Lasseter, and Joel and Ethan Coen because each and every one of them worked their way from the bottom to the top without relying on their family inherited connections to the industry; something I greatly admire.
16 Aug 2009, 4:38 am
So in the new series Vince is back on top, loving it so far and as alawys Ari Gold is brilliant!
06 Jan 2010, 1:09 am
Potential for an epic fight.
06 Jan 2010, 7:10 am
Thank you for the good post. I really love this tv series. Can’t wait for the next episode ! Keep up the good work with this