Matt and Ben are back!
It’s crazy to think that the original Project Greenlight debuted way back in 2001, a time before Youtube, before iPhone movies, before moviemaking was a possibility for anyone with a cell phone. And yet, despite all these new methods of discovery, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and HBO has brought the show back for another go around to give an up-and-coming filmmaker the chance to direct a feature film for the premium network. Along with original Project Greenlight winner Pete Jones, a broad comedy script, and the Farrelly Brothers, this new season, debuting Sunday night, is shaping up to be an epic clash of artist vs. studio despite the once original show feeling decidedly old-hat in 2015.
That’s the largest downside of Project Greenlight returning after all this time – it’s been ten years since the show’s third season (which aired on Bravo) – is that rather than being ahead of its time, it’s actually kind of par for the course as far as reality TV goes. There are good guys and bad guys built up through the narrative of the episode, people you’re rooting for and people you hate. The twist comes that the competition aspect of the show really begins and ends with the premiere; the winner is chosen by the end of the episode and the rest of the series will be watching that person struggle to accomplish the task at hand.
So knowing that the series will shift from competition show to docu-drama helps make it more digestible. Best of all, there’s no sense of a gameshow to lead to the ultimate winner. There’s no dramatic music, challenges, or voting process. It’s just Affleck, Damon, the Farrellys and their team of producers trying to reach an agreement on who is best for the movie they’re trying to make.
The real disappointment of the premiere is that we don’t really get to see the films of the finalists other than in snippets, which doesn’t help sell you on their eventual choice. Instead of feeling like it’s based on filmmaking merit, it feels instead like the job was given to the most likely candidate to achieve maximum drama. It’s drama that I’ll be more than happy to engage with, mind you, but it feels like sleazy reality TV nonetheless.
While the show thrives on the comradery between Affleck and Damon (they joke that they haven’t seen each other since the last season of Project Greenlight), it does a great job of giving us other characters to root for. One of the finalists is a couple that directed their submission film together but broke up a year prior to getting selected, which puts them in an interesting predicament. One finalist has a baby on the way. Another hopes to bring his friends – who happen to be actors – along with him to the top, Entourage style. There’s no shortage of diverse and interesting backgrounds for the contestants, which is great despite knowing we probably won’t see most of these people after this debut episode.
More compelling than the contestants are the producers themselves. It’s interesting to watch Ben and Matt play the good guys, often being the ice breakers in the awkward interview sessions, while the others are left to ask the harder questions and be voices of dissent. One of the best scenes in the first episode features producer Effie Brown getting into a heated debate with Damon about diversity vs. filmmaking skill and what the contest should really be about. Equally entertaining is the Farrelly Brothers complete disinterest in one of the leading contestants – a rather pretentious filmmaker named Jason Mann, who basically enters the interview stage and tells the producers that the script is garbage.
So while it feels like the new Project Greenlight champions the drama of reality TV over the artistry and craft of filmmaking – at least in this premiere episode, which may be unavoidable given the nature of the premise – it’s still entertaining. It feels like a higher class of reality TV, and I’m looking forward to when the show gets into the guts of putting a likely ill-prepared filmmaker behind the wheel of a $3 million movie.
Project Greenlight: Season 4 debuts Sunday, September 13 at 10pm ET on HBO.
