Sam Esmail’s “Leave the World Behind” has entered Netflix’s most popular films list of all time. The apocalyptic thriller starring Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke and Mahershala Ali scored 136.3 million views in its first 52 days on the streamer, placing “Leave the World Behind” at No. 8 on the most popular English films list.

EXCLUSIVE: There is a new writer at the helm of Peacock‘s long-gestating reboot of the popular sci-fi franchise Battlestar Galactica. The Sinner creator Derek Simonds has come on board as writer, executive producer and showrunner. Battlestar Galactica, which remains in development at Peacock, has been a passion project for Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail — a big fan of the original — whose company […]

The end-of-the-world thriller from writer Sam Esmail stars Roberts and Ethan Hawke, and is executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama.

A weekend away in a luxurious Long Island home sounds quite idyllic until the apocalyptic doom starts to hit. Netflix has released the trailer for its new thriller “Leave the World Behind,” executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama.

The apocalyptic thriller, starring Oscar winners Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali opposite Ethan Hawke, Myha’la Herrold, Farrah Mackenzie, Charlie Evans and Kevin Bacon, will open the 37th installment of AFI Fest at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre on Oct. 25.

Gaslit nominated for Best Edited Limited Series (for “Year of the Rat”, Joe Leonard).

Listen up! The Podcast Academy announced the nominees for its third annual Awards for Excellence in Audio — a.k.a. The Ambies — comprising 185 nominees across 26 categories. [Nominees include] Best Scriptwriting, Fiction – The End Up – Will Weggel, Danny Luber.

Esmail Corp Production “The Resort” nominated for Best Music Supervision – Television Comedy or Musical (Thomas Patterson).

Netflix unveiled the first image for Leave the World Behind, an upcoming thriller from Mr. Robot director Sam Esmail. The movie adapts the best-selling book of the same name by Rumaan Alam and follows two families trying to survive a widespread blackout. The new image features two couples, one formed by Julia Roberts and Ethan […]

Every year, Netflix does this thing to lay out its upcoming 12 months’ worth of films. It’s like this massive flex, where the streamer released a three-minute trailer with nothing but stars and big-name filmmakers, proving, well, that it loves to spend money on films. And 2023 is no different. For this upcoming year, Netflix’s flex trailer showcases […]

Julia Roberts was radiant on the 28th Critics Choice Awards red carpet. The Gaslit star, 55, who is nominated for best actress in a limited series or movie made for television, wore a gorgeous, black Schiaparelli gown with long sleeves and a sequin starburst pattern at the neckline — styled by Elizabeth Stewart — as she arrived Sunday evening at the […]

Esmail Corp’s Angelyne and Gaslit nominated for Best Special Make-Up Effects, Television Series — Limited, Miniseries or New Media Series

Esmail Corp Production “Gaslit” nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Broadcast Long Form Effects / Foley

Much like the Emmys, this year’s limited series nominations are filled with actors portraying real people. Colin Firth portrays Michael Peterson in “The Staircase,” Evan Peters haunts as Jeffrey Dahmer in “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” Sebastian Stan and Lily James play Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson in “Pam & Tommy,” Julia Roberts disappears into […]

Peacock’s The Resort is coming to NBC primetime. The premiere episode of the popular comedy thriller series will air on NBC Wednesday, August 24 at 9 p.m. ET/PT following a live results telecast of America’s Got Talent. “Peacock audiences are hooked on the week-to-week mystery of The Resort, and bringing the premiere episode to NBC is the perfect way to introduce […]

If you loved Mr. Robot, the show creator’s new podcast is just for you. Award-winning writer and director Sam Esmail is jumping from the small screen and onto the podcast scene as an executive producer on USG Audio‘s inaugural scripted podcast The End Up, which premieres August 16. Set in the near future, the story follows best friends Jacob (Yesterday‘s Himesh […]

Peacock’s upcoming mystery thriller “The Resort” will hold its world premiere at San Diego Comic-Con, the streamer revealed on Monday. A special advance screening of the first episode will be held on Saturday, July 23, at 5:30 p.m., followed by a panel discussion with creator Andy Siara and stars William Jackson Harper, Cristin Milioti, Luis Gerardo […]

As Emmy nominations voting comes to a close this Monday, UCP and Starz have found one more way to expose their limited series “Gaslit” to potential voters: Free, over-the-air broadcast TV. The first episode of “Gaslit,” starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn, will air on NBC-owned TV stations in key markets including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, this […]

If you’ve lived in Los Angeles for more than two years, actually if you’ve lived or worked near Sunset Blvd, there is a good chance you’ve spotted the city’s mercurial angel, Angelyne. A fixture in the city for almost 40 years, Angelyne is part sex goddess, part wannabe celebrity, and a good chunk of aspirational […]

A first look at “Palm Springs” writer Andy Siara’s upcoming Peacock series “The Resort” will probably leave you with more questions than answers. The series is described as “a multi-generational, coming-of-age love story disguised as a fast-paced mystery about the disappointment of time. An anniversary trip puts a marriage to the test when the couple […]

Ever since his arrival in Hollywood in 2006, Robbie Pickering, creator of the Starz limited series “Gaslit,” about the downfall of the Nixon White House, had been trying to sell a series about the Watergate scandal. “I’d given up hope,” says Pickering, who traces his obsession with the unraveling of the Nixon administration to 1994 when he […]

Their marriage is like Watergate,” Gaslit creator Robbie Pickering says of John and Martha Mitchell, played by Sean Penn and Julia Roberts in his retelling of the Nixon administration scandal. John Mitchell, the president’s attorney general, became infamous after Watergate, but even prior to that he and Martha were notorious around Washington as a hurricane of […]

True-crime love story The Resort, from Palm Springs writer Andy Siara and Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, has been ordered at Peacock. The streamer has handed the series from UCP an eight-part order. It first emerged in February 2020 that the pair were developing the scripted project at the Universal Studio Group division. The Resort explores […]

How the former ‘Shameless’ star spent the past four years willing her new series about L.A.’s mysterious billboard diva (complete with a head-turning makeover) into reality: “I found it to be completely liberating to look in the mirror and not see myself at all.” Emmy Rossum was a no-show for a rather important meeting. This was […]

Kevin Bacon (“You Should Have Left”) has joined the cast of Julia Roberts’ “Leave the World Behind” at Netflix, TheWrap has exclusively learned. Additionally, Farrah Mackenzie (“Logan Lucky”) has joined the project, rounding out the cast that includes Bacon, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke and Myha’la Herrold. Sam Esmail, the creator of “Mr. Robot,” will both […]

The End Up, USG Audio’s first scripted podcast, has set its cast. The series, which is exec produced by Sam Esmail, will feature the voices of Station Eleven’s Himesh Patel and Unbelievable’s Merritt Wever as well as Search Party’s John Reynolds and Homecoming’s Marianne Jean-Baptiste. The End Up, takes place in a tilted near-future where terminal cancer […]

Higher Ground, the production company founded by former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, has signed on to Netflix’s adaptation of author Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind, which stars Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali. Sam Esmail, the creator of Mr. Robot and Homecoming, wrote and directed the adaptation, which also stars Ethan Hawke and Myha’la Herrold. The […]

EXCLUSIVE: Lan Samantha Chang’s novel The Family Chao is getting a series adaptation after Sam Esmail and UCP optioned the rights to the book. Esmail will develop the adaptation via his Esmail Corp. banner, which has a deal at the Universal Studio Group division. He will exec produce alongside Chad Hamilton and Chang with Eli […]

EXCLUSIVE: Nick Offerman, who currently stars in Hulu’s limited series Pam & Tommy, rounds out the lead cast opposite William Jackson Harper and Cristin Milioti in The Resort, Peacock’s comedic thriller from Palm Springs writer Andy Siara, Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail and UCP. Written by Siara, The Resort is a multi-generational, coming-of-age love story disguised as a fast-paced mystery about the disappointment of time. […]

Peacock has set the cast for The Resort, a true-crime love story from Palm Springs writer Andy Siara, Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail and UCP. Luis Gerardo Méndez (Narcos: Mexico, Murder Mystery), Nina Bloomgarden (Hot Pink, Jane) and Gabriela Cartol (La Camarista, Hernán) are set as series regulars, and Debby Ryan (Insatiable), Dylan Baker (Happiness), […]

EXCLUSIVE: Ethan Hawke and Industry star Myha’la Herrold are set to join Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali in the Netflix thriller Leave the World Behind, with Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail on board to direct and adapt Rumaan Alam’s novel. Ryan Kiera Armstrong and Charlie Evans are also on board. The film will be produced […]

It’s about frakkin’ time: Simon Kinberg has provided an update on the status of his upcoming Battlestar Galactica movie for Universal. It’s been over 10 years since the SYFY reboot concluded its four-season run, and to this day, the franchise remains a fixture in the minds of sci-fi and TV drama fans alike. The show […]

EXCLUSIVE: Patton Oswalt (A.P. Bio), Nat Faxon (The Way Way Back), Erinn Hayes (Childrens Hospital), Patrick Walker (The Resident), Carlos Valdes (The Flash) and Raphael Sbarge (Once Upon a Time) are set for heavily recurring roles opposite Julia Roberts and Sean Penn in Starz’s Watergate drama Gaslit. Also joining in recurring roles are Anne Dudek (House),  Chris Conner (Altered Carbon), Brian Geraghty (The Hurt Locker), Nelson Franklin (Veep), Reed Diamond (Moneyball), Johnny Berchtold (The Wilds), Adam Ray (The Heat) and Billy Smith (Sully). Based on the […]

EXCLUSIVE: Eli Kirschner, who was most recently SVP, Scripted Development at Peacock, has joined Sam Esmail’s Esmail Corp as Head of Television. Kirschner, who has been at NBCUniversal for a decade in a variety of roles, will work to grow the Homecoming and Mr. Robot producer’s slate of streaming and cable series. He will report to Esmail and his production partner Chad Hamilton […]

EXCLUSIVE: With his upcoming Blade pic finding a director and his Apple Studios pic, Swan Song, setting a release date, Mahershala Ali doesn’t shows signs of slowing down and now he has found another exciting role to add to his dance card. Sources tell Deadline, the Oscar-winner is set to join Julia Roberts in the Netflix thriller Leave the World Behind with Mr. […]

Allison Tolman (Fargo), J.C. MacKenzie (The Trial of the Chicago 7), Chris Bauer (True Blood), Hamish Linklater (Legion) and Chris Messina (Birds of Prey) are set for recurring roles in Starz’s Watergate drama Gaslit, starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn. Based on the first season of the Slate podcast Slow Burn, Gaslit is a modern […]

Sam Esmail is teeing up his next development. The Mr. Robot creator has teamed up with Luce and The Cloverfield Paradox director Julius Onah to develop a series based on the premise of an American monarchy. The American Throne, which will be written and directed by Nigerian American filmmaker Onah, is set in a reimagined, contemporary America where the nation was founded as a […]

Peacock, Sam Esmail and the writer of Palm Springs are teaming for a drama series. The NBCUniversal streaming service has picked up eight episodes of The Resort from Andy Siara, who wrote the Sundance breakout Palm Springs. Universal Studio Group’s UCP and Esmail Corp (Mr. Robot, Amazon’s Homecoming) produce. In development for more than a year, The Resort is described as a […]

EXCLUSIVE: Emmy-nominated Betty Gilpin (GLOW) will play Mo Dean, joining Dan Stevens as her husband John Dean in Starz’s Watergate drama Gaslit, starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn. Also cast as series regulars are Shea Whigham (Joker, Perry Mason) and Darby Camp (The Christmas Chronicles, Big Little Lies) in the drama based on the first […]

I’m not going to say Mr. Robot radicalized me, but I will say it was perhaps the first show I saw that humanized the idea of a revolutionary. A sleeper hit, Sam Esmail’s USA drama—a network otherwise known for breezy procedurals like Psych and Covert Affairs—slowly crept into the public consciousness after some awards show buzz during its first season, […]

Viewers and critics alike were enthralled by this USA Network series when it premiered, with Rami Malek’s performance as Elliot, a cybersecurity engineer by day and a vigilante hacker by night, turning him into a star. In addition, however, it helped revive Christian Slater’s career, with everyone wondering about his character – the eponymous Mr. […]

MR. ROBOT – Noah Hawley’s most kindred TV spirit is Mr. Robot creator-writer-director-producer Sam Esmail. His USA Network psychological thriller about Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek), a brilliant computer hacker who is trying to topple the global financial order and restore power to the people but is suffering from serious mental health issues, is one of the best-looking […]

BEST EDITED DRAMA SERIES FOR COMMERCIAL TELEVISION: Better Call Saul, “Bad Choice Road” Joey Liew, Chris McCaleb, ACE // Killing Eve, “Still Got It” Dan Crinnion, ACE // Mr. Robot, “Method Not Allowed” Rosanne Tan, ACE // This Is Us, “Forty: Part Two” Julia Grove, Lai-San Ho

In November 2018, Amazon Prime Video released the first season of Homecoming, a ten-part series helmed by Sam Esmail and headlined by Julia Roberts and Stephan James. The psychological thriller was critically lauded, banking a few Golden Globe nominations and a second season renewal. Not a bad showing for one of the first major podcast adaptations […]

Lesser-known than the MCU but well-respected by those who have seen it, Mr. Robot shares a surprisingly amount in common with the Disney+ hit. Wanda Maximoff’s origins, adapting the Scarlet Witch comics, are being brought to life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe via Disney+, and the result has been surprisingly clever at celebrating, parodying, and […]

Watergate drama Gaslit, which is based on Slate’s Slow Burn podcast, has landed at Starz, though it has lost a couple of names along the way. The network has greenlighted the UCP-produced series starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn. Joel Edgerton, who was set to star and direct, no longer is attached, and neither is his brother Nash Edgerton. The pair join Armie Hammer, […]

Newcomer Candace Grace has been tapped as the lead in Sam Esmail’s ABC drama pilot Acts of Crime. Also joining as series regulars are Molly Price (Feud: Bette & Joan), Peter Mark Kendall (Broadway’s Six Degrees of Separation) and newcomer Josiah Cross. The project hails from Mr. Robot creator Esmail, UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, where Esmail is under a deal, and ABC Signature. Written […]

EXCLUSIVE: If you’re a fan of Mr. Robot and the way creator-writer-director Sam Esmail told his brilliant story about hacker Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) over four seasons at USA Network, I’m about to make you very happy. That’s because I recently conducted an extended, exclusive interview with Esmail where we talked about everything from how Stanley Kubrick influenced Mr. Robot to why […]

Mr. Robot’s charmingly retro slasher movie The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie is available to watch as a short film. While it wasn’t the first slasher movie, 1978’s Halloween would help kickstart the slasher movie boom of the 1980s. John Carpenter’s classic presented other filmmakers with a blueprint for success, which typically involved a masked […]

After upending basic cable with the paranoid prestige sheen of Mr. Robot and upending streaming content with the half-hour anthology drama Homecoming, the multi-talented TV creator and filmmaker Sam Esmail has his sights set on a new frontier: Network TV crime procedurals. That’s right: Esmail’s next project, an ABC pilot called Acts of Crime, is in one of television’s sturdiest, longest-running, […]

EXCLUSIVE: Pretty much ever since Battlestar Galactica concluded its TV run in 2009, there’s been talk of some kind of reboot or remake or continuation of the franchise. Of course the Syfy series itself was a re-imagining of the 1978 TV series of the same name, but Ronald D. Moore’s new spin on the sci-fi […]

Andy Greenwald (Legion) is the creator and showrunner of Briarpatch and, along with executive producer Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot, Homecoming), brought the Ross Thomas novel to the small screen.   How would you describe the story of Briarpatch? Allegra Dill [played by Rosario Dawson] is a senate investigator who is drawn home to her existentially […]

Briarpatch (9pm, Alibi) Rosario Dawson stars as the uncompromising detective Allegra Dill in this pulpy drama, adapted from Ross Thomas’s novel of the same name. Returning to her home town after her sister is murdered, Dill is faced with a surreal scenario: half of the animals from the local zoo have escaped and corruption seems […]

ABC is moving forward with Sam Esmail’s procedural Acts of Crime, handing the project a pilot pick-up. It marks the latest move in the network’s second cycle development plan for the 2020/21 season and marks the Mr. Robot creator’s first foray into broadcast television. Deadline understands that the pilot, which comes from UCP and ABC Signature, will be shot this spring. Esmail, […]

Mr. Robot: 407 Proxy Authentication Required – 9.9/10 (19687+ Votes) Created by Homecoming director Sam Esmail and featuring Bohemian Rhapsody star Rami Malek, Mr. Robot is the story of a socially-challenged programmer who joins an anarchist group of hackers. “407 Proxy Authentication Required” didn’t amaze viewers and critics just from a storytelling point of view but was a visually stunning experience as well due to the […]

Mr. Robot (2015-2019) For a long time, USA was known as the network for bubble-gum comedies and sexy dramas, but Mr. Robot blasted the network into a gripping storytelling stratosphere, an arena typically occupied by its basic rivals FX and AMC and pay cable foes like HBO and Showtime. The Sam Esmail series follows hacker Elliot Alderson (Rami […]

It’s the fourth iteration of The Watch’s Year in TV review with Sam Esmail. Join Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald as they discuss the state of television in 2020.

PARALLEL Star Martin Wallström Reflects On MR. ROBOT And His Take On Tyrell Wellick’s Final Scene – EXCLUSIVE Talking to us to promote his new movie Parallel (which is released this Friday), star Martin Wallström reflects on the legacy of Mr. Robot and shares his take on Tyrell Wellick’s final moments in the show. Written by Scott Blaszak and directed […]

Rosario Dawson is a congressional investigator returning home to a Texas border town after the death of her police detective sister and meeting old friends, flames and foes in this unpretentious twist on the genre, a class-conscious mystery long on character and quirk. (There are zoo animals roaming the streets.) Kim Dickens plays the police […]

Stacker compiled data on all TV episodes with over 5,000 votes on IMDb, and ranked them according to IMDb user rating, with ties broken by the number of votes. In the interest of maintaining a diverse list and reducing the dominance some shows might’ve had over the list (“Game of Thrones,” “Breaking Bad,” and “Mr. Robot,” in […]

Novelist Rumaan Alam refuses to be confined to one race, gender, or sexuality when he picks up the pen. In his newest novel, Leave the World Behind, he slides easily into an array of personas, which proves that when it comes to the end of the world, we all pretty much all freak out the same. Alam’s […]

The debate for the best TV show of all time is a hotly debated one. However, it often boils down to the same few choices; one person may say The Sopranos, another Game Of Thrones, and some may say Breaking Bad. And, of course, these shows deserve their place in the top ten lists across […]

The novelist’s new book, set to publish on Oct. 6, will be adapted for the small screen by Sam Esmail, with Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington starring. The last few months have been something of a whirlwind for novelist Rumaan Alam with his upcoming third novel Leave the World Behind garnering critical praise and award attention, as well […]

Two drama series from “Mr. Robot” creator Sam Esmail and Esmail Corp’s Chad Hamilton are in development with ABC. “Acts of Crime,” described only as a “unique spin on the crime procedural,” is written and directed by Esmail. He and Hamilton are slated to serve as executive producers for Esmail Corp on the series, which has been given […]

Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam (October 6, Ecco) – Picked up in July for a Netflix adaptation by Sam Esmail and starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington, Rumaan Alam’s third novel is one of the most anticipated books of the fall season. Leave The World Behind follows Amanda and Clay, a white couple from New York City, […]

When does a novelist’s moment arrive? Maybe ask Rumaan Alam. He looks prepared. Never mind the half bottle of vodka he drank last night (source: Twitter) or the Fire Island family vacation he’ll breeze off to tomorrow. For the past month, social media’s literary corners have been loudly abuzz about his next book, Leave the World […]

EXCLUSIVE: Nazrin Choudhury has been set by Universal to pen American Radical, the thriller that reunites Rami Malek and his Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail. Malek is attached to star with Esmail directing Universal optioned the rights in 2018 to the memoir written by Kevin Maurer and Tamer Elnoury.  Esmail and Chad Hamilton will produce for Esmail Corp. and Anonymous Content, respectively, […]

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam — A white Brooklyn family enjoys a relaxing summer in a rented home in the Hamptons—until the house’s Black owners suddenly return and a series of strange events occur. Netflix has already snapped up the rights to the topical satire in a bidding war between studios and streamers, […]

Cinematographer Jas Shelton discusses his work on season 2 of Homeland (Amazon Prime), which brought him together again with director/showrunner Kyle Patrick Alvarez. The two had previously teamed on the feature films C.O.G. and The Stanford Prison Experiment. Like he did for those two feature collaborations, Shelton created a “visual language” specific to the story and characters–in the case of Homecoming, […]

Sam Esmail’s knotty curlicue of a hacker drama has never quite shaken its first-season reputation as The Show With One Big Twist. It’s too bad—those who stuck with it found a series that cracked the code for using exhilarating heists, conspiracy-laced mysteries, and timely mythology to tell an all-too-human story about loneliness and the need […]

Let’s raise a glass to the half-hour drama! Trimming away any potential bloat, showrunner Sam Esmail’s decision to tell this story in smart and efficient 30-minute slices of narrative led to a creatively triumphant adaptation of the Gimlet media podcast, a 10-part series that nonetheless felt as much like a five-hour movie as anything in […]

EXCLUSIVE: UCP is developing the procedural drama series So Others May Live with writer-producer Stephen Meinen and Sam Esmail’s Esmail Corp on board to produce. Written by Meinen, So Others May Live is set in the world of the U.S. Coast Guard. The pilot follows a search-and-rescue helicopter crew dealing with the aftermath of tragedy as they attempt to pick up the […]

Mondo, in partnership with Lakeshore Music, are proud to present Emile Mosseri’s score for the Amazon Original Series HOMECOMING: SEASON TWO. Emile produces a vast array of work here (27 tracks in total) which is varied in tone but super cohesive; certain cues remind of classic Bernard Herrman. Others, you can hear faint echoes from […]

Mondo releases new vinyl special editions every single Wednesday. They are the ultimate edition of whatever they put out, featuring extensive liner notes, brand-new commissioned artwork, and always have a limited-edition size. The vinyl itself is usually colored or a photo disc, as well. Basically, it’s like the Criterion Collection of movie and gaming soundtracks. […]

Before Rami Malek became Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, he was Elliot Alderson in Mr. Robot. Mr. Robot is a drama thriller series created by Sam Esmail for USA Network. Malek stars as a cybersecurity engineer and hacker with a social anxiety disorder and clinical depression. In the series that lasted 4 seasons with 45 episodes, Elliot is recruited […]

When showrunner Sam Esmail took on the challenge of bringing a popular podcast to television, he knew there was no better editor to call than the woman who’s helped make his show, Mr. Robot, a critic and audience favorite. Rosanne Tan, ACE joins this edition of The Rough Cut to discuss her work on the […]

EXCLUSIVE: After another vigorous bidding battle for a star-cast package, Netflix prevailed and won world rights for Julia Roberts starring with Denzel Washington and Mr Robot‘s Sam Esmail directing Leave The World Behind, a feature adaptation of an upcoming novel by Rumaan Alam. I heard that it came down to Netflix and Apple and MGM […]

Homecoming Season 2 may have flown under the radar when it premiered in May, but it deserves all the love out there. Much like the first installment, Season 2 works backwards to explain one woman’s curious case of memory loss, but this time around, that woman is Janelle Monáe rather than Julia Roberts. As Alex (Monáe) […]

On the first season of Homecoming, director Sam Esmail set a lofty template with a notably lengthy one-take sequence in the cinematic tradition of Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles and Robert Altman. For the distinctly more expansive second season of the Amazon series, director Kyle Patrick Alvarez picked up the baton, staging a complicated and mesmerizing […]

Janelle Monaé is highly contemplative about the roles she takes. From the time she’s presented with a project, she questions whether she’s passionate about the story and whether she can handle it with the care and precision it deserves. “It depends on where my soul is at that time,” Monaé told IndieWire. And in the […]

‘Briarpatch’ Andy Greenwald – Creator/Executive Producer. FILLING THE ROOM Greenwald, a former TV critic, was most excited about the staffing process. “After being a professional writer for almost 20 years, the thing I wanted to get away from the most was loneliness,” he says. “I was really excited to work with other people.” Keeping in mind […]

Cinematographer Jas Shelton discusses his camerawork in Season 2 of this Amazon Prime Video psychological thriller with interviewer Charlie Lieberman, ASC. The first season of Homecoming was based on a podcast of the same name created by Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg. Season 2 of this suspense drama deviates from the podcast and features a new story with mostly […]

Janelle Monáe started her career in the music industry and has been nominated at the Grammy Awards for her most recent album Dirty Computer. Monáe is an artist I have been listening to for about ten years. Her music speaks to the depth and breadth of her own artistry, and she has more than made her […]

“This is a hell of a way to start season two,” says musician and actress Janelle Monae about Amazon‘s psychological thriller “Homecoming,” which returned with new episodes on May 22. Monae is new to the show this year, and when we first meet her character, Jackie, she’s waking up alone in a boat with no memory of who […]

Comet was always destined to be a favorite indie flick with Emmy Rossum and Justin Long as the lead and, really, only characters. Produced by Mr. Robot’s Sam Esmail, Comet likewise mixes timelines and perspectives beautifully as you squint your eyes and scrunch your brain, trying to piece everything together. And in classic Esmail fashion, the ending is […]

Emile Mosseri, ‘Homecoming’ – The first season of “Homecoming,” adapted from a hit podcast and an homage to the 1970s paranoia thriller, didn’t have an original score — instead, director Sam Esmail built an entire patchwork soundtrack from vintage film scores. For Season 2, “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” composer Emile Mosseri was […]

Stepping onto the set of Amazon Prime Video’s “Homecoming” to direct all seven episodes of the second season, Kyle Patrick Alvarez had a big task at hand. The first season had been entirely helmed by executive producer Sam Esmail, who created a very specific visual look for the show, including the use of long, tracking oners and […]

In the latest Variety Streaming Room series moderated by artisans editor, Jazz Tangcay, Paul Leonard-Morgan and Nathan Barr joined composers Emile Mosseri (“Homecoming” Season 2), Ariel Marx (“Ted Bundy: Falling For A Killer”), Faith Soloway (“Transparent: Musicale Finale”), Thomas Mizer and Curtis Moore (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Season 3) to talk about creating the sounds […]

Sam Esmail’s award-winning psychological and tech thriller Mr. Robot stars Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer and hacker with social anxiety, dissociative identity disorder, and clinical depression, who gets recruited by an anarchist hacktivist group “fsociety” with plans to destroy all debt by hacking the financial data of E Corp, the largest conglomerate in the world. This […]

Homecoming’s near-perfect debut season was a tough act to follow, particularly without Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail behind the camera or Julia Roberts in front of it. But R&B iconoclast-turned-movie star Janelle Monae confidently stepped in as Season 2’s protagonist, a woman whose erased memory leaves her piecing together clues about who she is, why she can’t remember anything, […]

Sam Esmail dives deep into the sound artist who brings “Mr. Robot” and “Homecoming” to life. Sound should be 50 percent of filmmaking (it’s an audio and visual art, after all), but too often, it’s not. This is doubly true of television, where the pre-planning required to fully incorporate sound design into the creator’s vision, and the […]

HOMECOMING, now in its second season, is based on a podcast created by Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg. Horowitz and Bloomberg developed their 2016 audio production as a television drama, which premiered on Amazon in 2018. The debut season was nominated for Golden Globes for Best Drama, Best Performance by an Actress (Julia Roberts) in […]

Last week we saw some examples of the unreliable narrator of fiction in some recent TV series. Here are two more recent ones in Amazon’s Homecoming, the second season of which was uploaded recently to their Prime Video platform, and another in Homecoming producer Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot. HOMECOMING SEASON ONE (Prime Video; on demand on Vudu, […]

The first season of Homecoming was deliberately claustrophobic, set largely in the Homecoming Transitional Support Center with nods to All the President’s Men and The Parallax View. Season 2 of the Amazon Prime Video drama is a little bit less Alan Pakula and a little more Brian De Palma, according to director/executive producer Kyle Patrick Alvarez. “One of the draws […]

Welcome back to Look of the Week, celebrating the best in TV and film sartorial excellence, past and present across sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and other genre classics! Janelle Monáe has threaded science-fiction influences into her music and red carpet attire, as well as choosing genre film and television roles in her acting career. The multi-hyphenate star […]

The psychological thriller Homecoming returns for its sophomore season with fresh twists, nail-biting cliff-hangers, and more of the unnerving cinematography that characterized the critically acclaimed first run. Cinematographer Jas Shelton and director Kyle Patrick Alvarez took the reins for all of Season 2, following the work of DP Tod Campbell and director Sam Esmail on Season […]

Gloria Reuben went to some heavy places on the final season of USA’s “Mr. Robot.” She reprised her guest role as Elliot’s (Rami Malek) therapist Krista, who is kidnapped and interrogated by the villainous Vera (Elliot Villar) around the midway point of the season in order to better understand Elliot’s psyche. Through two episodes, she is […]

Janelle Monáe, the musician and actor, has always been political, and during this dreadful year she has been further ignited. Her impassioned activism was front and center even during her opening performance at the Academy Awards: “Tonight, we celebrate all the amazing talent in this room!” Monáe said exultantly to the Oscars audience in February as she sang […]

“I got great advice on my first episode of TV from a director who described the episodic television gig as substitute teaching,” says director Kyle Patrick Alvarez. “A substitute teacher can show up and try to make the classroom too much of their own for that day, and then it’s exhausting, or they come in and […]

When Homecoming’s first season came out in 2018, every episode was directed by Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail. In Season 2, however, Esmail took a step back. While he was still involved as an executive producer, Kyle Patrick Alvarez took over as the director of the seven new episodes that were recently released on Amazon Prime. And while […]

As the originators of the podcast on which Amazon Prime’s Homecoming is based, co-creators and co-showrunners Micah Bloomberg and Eli Horowitz are the masterminds of the mystery. However, the show’s second season offered a new challenge: moving the first season’s story forward while focusing on a new lead character and introducing a fresh mystery. The […]

THE PERFORMER | Hong Chau THE SHOW | Homecoming THE EPISODE | “Again” (May 22, 2020) THE PERFORMANCE | Amazon’s puzzle-box thriller dazzles us with shocking plot twists and tantalizing clues to untangle, but really, it’s the generously humane, emotionally insightful performances that stick with us. Case in point: Chau, who took a tiny role in Season 1 and blew […]

At 34 years old, Emile Mosseri is a man whose name you may have not heard, but whose work you’ve more than likely felt. In 2019, Mosseri was the sole composer of the critical darling The Last Black Man in San Francisco, imbuing the film with an operatic decadence that is as identifiable as any of the acting. […]

Homecoming season 2 picks up where the first installment left off…but not right away. Join us in unpacking the season’s full chronological narrative. A woman wakes up on a canoe in the middle of a lake, she has no idea who she is or how she got there. She sees a man on shore and […]

When Emile Mosseri stepped in as the composer of Homecoming, he had gigantic shoes to fill. The first season of the Amazon Prime series, based on the popular Gimlet podcast, was “scored” by the likes of Bernard Herrmann, David Shire, and Vangelis — a trio of Oscar-winning legends who, it should be noted, are either dead […]

Production designer Nora Takacs Ekberg called upon her architecture background to create the modernist-inspired space of the mysterious company. The suspenseful first season of the Amazon show Homecoming took place mainly inside a mysterious facility where soldiers, fresh from deployment, receive treatment designed to help them reenter society. Without revealing too many spoilers, that facility […]

Spoilers below for Homecoming seasons one and two. The mid-credits scene in Homecoming’s first-season finale offered a big moment in the life of a minor character. Up until then, Audrey Temple, played by powerhouse Hong Chau, was a lowly receptionist at Geist, the company that was secretly testing an experimental memory-erasing drug on military veterans. But […]

The secretive Geist Group is still peddling memory erasing drugs in Homecoming but little else about season two of Amazon Prime’s series is normal. The new series is an intriguing continuation of the last with Geist’s flower-powered drug at the center of the plot but with a new lead amnesiac character, Jackie (played by Janelle Monáe) and […]

Amazon Prime’s HOMECOMING has some of the most compelling visuals on tv. Listen as Cinematographer Jas Shelton shares his techniques for lighting, lensing, camera movement and more. Jas and Go Creative Show host, Ben Consoli, discuss how the look has evolved for season 2, how Alfred Hitchcock inspired the show, how they achieve the show’s incredible cinematography, the […]

Kyle Patrick Alvarez was a big Homecoming fan. Like many of us, he’d been won over by the twisty thriller about a private veteran program dabbling into memory loss territory to help treat PTSD, a waitress who may have had something to do with it and a government conspiracy to keep the program’s failure from going […]

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Homecoming season 2. “Is it gonna hurt?” “I don’t remember.” That back-and-forth in the final moments of Homecoming season 2, between Audrey (Hong Chau) and Alex (Janelle Monáe), a couple who will soon have no memory of their relationship, perfectly sums up the latest seven episodes of the Amazon Prime thriller. […]

HOMECOMING When Sam Esmail’s eerie thriller (an adaptation of the hit podcast of the same name) debuted in 2018, it felt distinctive for a number of reasons: its star (Julia Roberts in her first major TV role, playing Heidi, an administrator at a government facility for soldiers who’ve returned from combat); a winning performance from […]

From co-creators Micah Bloomberg and Eli Horowitz, the Amazon Prime Video original series Homecoming has returned for a second season with a new mystery, as Jackie (Janelle Monáe) wakes up to find herself floating in a boat in the middle of a lake and no memories of who she is or how she got there. And when her search […]

The people who brought Homecoming Season 2 to life knew they had a challenge ahead of them. After all, the first season of the Amazon half-hour drama was unique in so many fascinating ways: It was based on a scripted podcast, starred a very de-glammed Julia Roberts, and experimented with every aspect of production, even the shape […]

Janelle Monae is many things: an eight-time Grammy nominee, LGBTQ icon and breakthrough actress seen in “Moonlight,” “Hidden Figures” and “Harriet.” But one thing she’s not, is inspired. In quarantine, “I haven’t been working on music,” Monae says by phone earlier this week. “Music is so rooted in the reality I lived in pre-pandemic and I’m still trying […]

When Homecoming, the half-hour psychological thriller about a caseworker working at a mysterious facility that helps soldiers transition back to civilian life, debuted in 2018, it marked Julia Roberts’ first starring TV role three decades into her celebrated career. Not long after the Amazon original premiered, it was revealed that the star would not be returning as Heidi […]

After the way he closed the opus that was Season 4 of Mr. Robot, I was intrigued about where Sam Esmail would be taking Season 2 of Homecoming, given that there was no more story from the original podcast to base Season 2 on. With Esmail allowing Kyle Patrick Alvarez direct every episode of this season (similar to what he […]

During a time we won’t soon forget, Amazon Prime’s memory-collapsing thriller “Homecoming” is back for a bit of total (un)recall. Based on Gimlet Media’s fictional podcast, the first season of the streaming series revolved around three characters: Heidi Bergman (Julia Roberts), a therapist at a secret government facility treating soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder through what was referred to […]

It’s one thing for an actor to replace a superstar in the second season of a TV series. For Amazon Prime’s “Homecoming” that meant Janelle Monae effectively needing to fill the shoes of one of the few real movie stars left in the world, Julia Roberts. It’s another thing for a filmmaker to replace the […]

Homecoming is back with a new star and new dose of mystery. And after a season inside, the new installment of the Amazon thriller immediately gets some sun, kicking off with another military veteran, Jackie (Janelle Monáe), waking up in a rowboat with no recollection of how she got there — or who she is. Her search […]

You’re not really supposed to notice Hong Chau in the first season of Homecoming until it’s too late. She plays Audrey Temple, a secretary at the unscrupulous Geist Group’s offices and assistant to professional dick-swinger Colin Belfast (played by expert bloviator Bobby Cannavale). Female secretaries often have a thankless role in both life and onscreen—an office drone […]

It’s been a year and a half since Amazon Prime’s Homecoming premiered — leading to a Golden Globe nomination for Best Drama and multiple citations on lists of 2018’s best television (including ours) — and for most of that time it’s been an open question how the show would continue into a second season given […]

The star power of gay icon Julia Roberts aside, LGBTQ+ audience members did not see themselves reflected in season 1 of Homecoming, the Amazon thriller series centered on players within the shady Geist Group corporation and its attempts to exploit a memory-erasing substance for profit. Or so they thought. Warning, light Homecoming season 2 spoilers ahead. The thrill of season […]

Amazon’s Homecoming, based on the Gimlet Media podcast of the same name about a mysterious facility meant to rehabilitate combat veterans, but which carries its own secrets, was one of the most inventive and deeply strange TV series of 2018. Directed by Mr. Robot‘s Sam Esmail, the show was a twisty, timeline-hopping mystery carried musically by source tracks from noir thrillers […]

When he took on directing duties for the second season of Homecoming, Kyle Patrick Alvarez sought to build on the mystery established by Sam Esmail and executive producers Micah Goldberg and Eli Horowitz in season one, while carving out space for a new story centered on new lead played by Janelle Monáe. The second season of Amazon’s […]

Julia Roberts is gone as “Homecoming” returns to Amazon for Season 2, but the central question remains: Can you relieve trauma by forgetting it? The psychological thriller lost its marquee leading lady, but Stephan James, who played hero Walter Cruz, is back. In addition, Janelle Monáe and Chris Cooper lend some star power to the […]

Kyle Patrick Alvarez, who directed the seven-episode follow-up, details how the show forged ahead without Julia Roberts. The first season of “Homecoming” began with a therapy session, gentle and unextraordinary — the start of a gradual build toward something more conspiratorial. The second season is less withholding. It begins with a flurry of panic. A […]

Welcome to another episode of TV’s Top 5, The Hollywood Reporter’s TV podcast. Every week, hosts Lesley Goldberg (West Coast TV editor) and Daniel Fienberg (chief TV critic) break down the week in TV news with context from the business and critical sides, welcome showrunners, executive and other guests and provide a critical guide of […]

Salon talks to the actor and pop music innovator about her role in Season 2 of Amazon’s extraordinary thriller. Janelle Monae grew up with an appreciation for science fiction, flying the flag of its creative influence in much of her music and visual art. Consider her 2010 album “The ArchAndroid,” an auditory homage to Fritz Lang’s […]

While filming the second season of Amazon’s Homecoming, Janelle Monáe had just completed an intense scene when she heard a scream. “The guys in production said, ‘[We] think that’s Julia Roberts,’” Monáe recalls excitedly. “She likes this take.” Indeed, that yelp of approval came from Roberts. The veteran actress led the first season of the […]

Homecoming season 2 is shrouded in mystery, but new star Janelle Monáe wants you to know two things: She’s not replacing Julia Roberts, and the Golden Globe-nominated series has gone up a level. “When I read these episodes, I was like, ‘Oh wow, this is still going to have a very special quality and take everyone in an unexpected […]

Homecoming, the half-hour Amazon psychological thriller about a caseworker (Julia Roberts) working at a mysterious facility that helps soldiers transition back to civilian life, is back with a second season that shows just what went on behind the scenes. While the new episodes shift focus onto a new mystery involving military veteran Jackie (Janelle Monae) […]

Supernova singer-actress Janelle Monáe fills in for Julia Roberts in Amazon’s psychological thriller. The new season’s cast outlines all the way it aims to blow your mind…again. You wake up and you don’t recognize the world around you. It’s like you’re in a parallel universe. You don’t understand your place in it, or who you […]

When ‘Homecoming’ first hit Amazon Prime’s queue of binge-worthy shows, many fans were floored by the mystery behind the plot. Much of that first season took audiences on a ride containing constant questions related to what exactly was going on at the Homecoming Transitional Support Center, a new program designed to assist ex-servicemen smoothly reintegrate […]

The intergalactically attuned pop singer and star of films like “Moonlight” and “Hidden Figures” continues to expand her horizons as an actor, playing the lead in the new season of the Amazon thriller. If there is any silver lining to the weeks that Janelle Monáe has spent sheltering in place, it is the opportunity it has afforded […]

Please join us via zoom for a discussion with Mr. Robot sound supervisor Kevin Buchholz.  He will present scenes and discuss the concepts, challenges, and design choices that went into the sound editing for this series. This is a chance to ask questions and continue our mission for the Motion Picture Sound Editors to keep bringing […]

Janelle Monae is more than just an incredible singer, dancer, songwriter and actor. She’s an activist and a community leader. In fact, few people have remained as busy as Monae during this stay at home period. Still, it was somewhat surprising that she found the time in her seemingly always packed schedule to topline the second […]

As a musician, Janelle Monáe is such an endearing display of pop stardom that it’s almost easy to forget she’s also proven herself to be a chameleonic actor. Whether breaking hearts in Moonlight or breaking down barriers in Hidden Figures, Monáe’s on-screen work is imbued with a real humanity, and that’s on display yet again in the second […]

Her new roles—on Amazon’s Homecoming and in the summer horror movie Antebellum—are perfect for our unsettled moment. The eight-time Grammy nominee, style icon, and Prince protégé speaks from quarantine about fear, fury, and her hope for “a real uprising.” Janelle Monáe’s voice flows like a sound bath calibrated to induce hypnosis. “You’re in my imagination,” she says. I have […]

Janelle Monáe is interested in what it means to represent minority groups in art and music. In season 2 of the Amazon series Homecoming, she stars as a military veteran who wakes up in a rowboat — unable to remember who she is or how she got there. “One of the things that really drew me in […]

Janelle Monáe is one of the most talented people in all of Hollywood. The 34-year-old is an 8x GRAMMY nominated musician, an actor who has been in movies like “Hidden Figures,” “Moonlight,” and “Harriet” and the star of season two of “Homecoming” on Amazon. The series deals with the themes of mental health, amnesia and […]

When we meet Jackie in the very first episode of Homecoming, now in its second season on Amazon Prime Video, she doesn’t know who she is. All she knows is she woke up in a boat in the middle of the water and has no idea how she got there. Julia Roberts — who anchored the series’ […]

If you’re caught up on all your binge watching and need something new to stream, here are five options coming to streaming platforms this week, including a new standup show from Patton Oswalt and the season two premiere of Homecoming starring Janelle Monae. HOMECOMING SEASON 2 (AMAZON PRIME, MAY 22ND) Janelle Monae stars in the new season of […]

Amazon’s Homecoming will forever be known as the show that brought Julia Roberts to her first regular role on a TV series. But there was a whole lot more to it in its first season as it delved into a mystery surrounding the company behind a program ostensibly designed to help veterans. Roberts is no longer on […]

On May 22nd, Lakeshore Records will release the digital soundtrack for Homecoming—Music from the Amazon Original Series. It features the show’s score which was composed by Emile Mosseri, known for the music he composed for last year’s acclaimed The Last Black Man in San Francisco. You can pre-save the album here. We’re excited to premiere “Suddenly Temple,” one […]

Lakeshore Records will release the first soundtrack album for the Amazon original series Homecoming. The album features selections of the original music from the show’s second season composed by Emile Mosseri (The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Minari, Kjillionaire). The soundtrack will be released digitally on May 22 and is now available for pre-order […]

Rosanne Tan edited some of the most significant episodes of the final season of “Mr. Robot,” including the premiere, the dialogue-free fifth episode and Episode 8, where Elliot (Rami Malek) finds his father’s key. Tan joined for Season 3 of the series, having previously been a major fan and she knew it was going to be […]

Peacock’s reboot of Battlestar Galactica has found its world builder. Michael Lesslie, who was the lead writer and showrunner of AMC’s spy drama The Little Drummer Girl and penned scripts for Macbeth and Assassin’s Creed, will create, write and executive produce the series. The new Battlestar Galactica comes from Mr Robot and Homecoming exec producer Sam Esmail, who struck a big overall deal with NBCU’s Universal Content Productions last year. […]

Episode 449. John hosts a discussion with writer/director Sam Esmail as a part of the Showrunner Sessions at the WGA. Sam describes his aversion to writing, where his inspiration comes from, and how he learned to run a room. We also dig into craft, talking about parentheticals and mastering the tension between creating mystery versus […]

Prepare for Homecoming‘s mystery to be ratcheted up. A few weeks after EW exclusively debuted the first look at the Golden-Globe nominates series, Amazon has released the first full-length trailer, and it will keep us all guessing — even new star Janelle Monáe. “I knew something was wrong with me, but I couldn’t explain it to anyone,” says Jackie […]

Emmy Rossum is finding out if blondes really do have more fun. Rossum transforms into Los Angeles icon Angelyne in the first teaser trailer for the series Angelyne coming to NBCUniversal’s Peacock. Angelyne made a name for herself in Hollywood for modeling suggestively in a series of billboards only featuring her name and photo beginning in the 1980s and […]

Host Sean Fennessey is joined by 15 critics, writers, and filmmakers who each recommend a must-watch from the essential streaming platform. Guests: Ari Aster, Penelope Bartlett, Erin Lee Carr, Amanda Dobbins (and Amanda’s dad), Sam Esmail, Liz Hannah, Barry Jenkins, Miranda July, Adam Nayman, Amy Nicholson, Alex Ross Perry, Peyton Reed, Chris Ryan, Benny Safdie, […]

Janelle Monáe has woken up and found herself in the middle of Homecoming‘s latest mystery. On Monday, EW exclusively revealed the first look at season 2 of the Amazon thriller, which featured the pop star joining as the new lead, stepping in for Julia Roberts. Now, we’re unveiling the debut teaser — and it’s a doozy! The ominous video […]

Amazon Prime has taken a winding path regarding its original series. Initially, it had the rather revolutionary idea of combining a traditional pilot season with viewer voting to determine which shows it would move forward with. But almost from the start, Amazon ultimately just kinda greenlit what it wanted to, including shows that never had […]

The best books aren’t always prominently displayed on the bestseller shelves of our libraries and bookstores or featured in university literature courses. More often than not, they are hidden away in our basements in large battered cardboard boxes that almost everybody has forgotten were even down there. That’s where Andy Greenwald, the writer-producer of USA’s […]

How do you fill Julia Roberts‘ shoes? Well, according to Janelle Monáe, you don’t. “There’s no replacing Queen Julia,” says the singer-actor, who stars in season 2 of Amazon Prime’s Homecoming. Monáe admits to feeling nervous taking Roberts’ place as lead after the Golden Globe-nominated first season — that is, until a surprise set visit from executive producer… […]

With the coronavirus having everyone dive into TV shows they may have missed or slept-on over the years, it can be easy to forget that we’re at least getting the springtime new television slate hitting us over the head daily. Not saying you can’t get your catch-up binge on, but remember: there’s plenty fire dropping that has never aired […]

The creator is turning his lifelong fascination with, and fear of, tech into riveting television. The critically adored drama Mr. Robot wasn’t a science-fiction show—despite its title—yet it was one of the best series ever to tackle technology and its terrifying central role in our lives. And now that the USA Network series wrapped its four-season run […]

UCP has brought together a stellar cast for a series which presents a modern take on the Watergate scandal. This prospective series, titled “Gaslit,” will star Julia Roberts, Sean Penn, Armie Hammer and Joel Edgerton, and has “Mr. Robot” creator Sam Esmail on board as an executive producer. UCP plans to shop the project around to premium and streaming platforms. Given the […]

‘Mr. Robot’ creator and movie fanatic Sam Esmail joins Sean and Amanda and comes bearing a new game that reveals a lot about their favorite directors, personal taste, and how they view the long arc of film. Movies have the February blues, so we enlisted a friend of the show to liven things up. Mr. Robot creator […]

The subject of Peacock’s limited series Angelyne is now part of its producing team. Angelyne, the L.A. billboard icon whose life serves as the inspiration for the show, has joined the project as an executive producer. She and star-exec producer Emmy Rossum announced Angelyne’s involvement in the project Wednesday with simultaneous Instagram posts. “So excited to be […]

 UCP is developing dark comedy series The Resort from Andy Siara, writer of Sundance breakout Palm Springs, and Sam Esmail’s Esmail Corp, which is under a deal with UCP, a division of NBCUniversal Content Studios. Anonymous Content is producing. The series will be shopped to premium and streaming platforms. The Resort explores love and the weird things we do in the name of it, […]

The drama, based on a Hollywood Reporter article, stars Emmy Rossum as the L.A. billboard icon. The cast of the Angelyne limited series at Peacock is taking shape. Martin Freeman and Girls alum Alex Karpovsky will recur in the series, which traces the life of the Los Angeles billboard icon (played by Emmy Rossum) and is based on a […]

Every month offers a variety of intriguing new shows and returning favorites. And then there’s this February, which sees everything from the long-awaited return of Bob Odenkirk’s shifty lawyer Saul Goodman to Al Pacino tracking down Nazis in ’70s New York. There’s also a documentary about a long-running fast-food scam, an animated series starring Amy Poehler, and a […]

Hello, Friend. For four seasons, USA Network’s thriller Mr. Robot has bent our minds with its complex characters and layered stories about the depths and chaos of mental illness, technology, and capitalism. On this special evening, Mr. Robot creator and showrunner Sam Esmail gives us a glimpse into his creative process, how he runs his […]

Andy Greenwald first saw Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil around 2005, when he was 28, during what he calls his “self-imposed film graduate school.” He watched every classic movie he could get his hands on, from first-generation noirs such as In a Lonely Place (1950) to revisionist takes like The Long Goodbye (1973). Greenwald was struck by how Welles’s 1958 film, set on […]

The second season of Amazon drama Homecoming will be more expansive than the first with much of the action taking place outside of the Homecoming Transitional Support Center. The cast and crew of the psychological thriller, including new star Janelle Monáe, talked up the differences between season one of the show, which starred Julia Roberts, and the forthcoming season, […]

By: Tyler Hersko “Briarpatch” follows Allegra Drill (Rosario Dawson), who works to uncover her assassinated sister’s murderers. It’s a murder mystery — simple enough — but it’s also a show where giraffes, kangaroos, and other zoo animals roam the streets while an increasingly eccentric cadre of characters butt heads with the no-nonsense heroine. It’s pretty […]

The former ‘Shameless’ star is also executive producing the project, based on a Hollywood Reporter article. Emmy Rossum is getting into character as L.A. icon Angelyne for a limited series at NBCUniversal’s streaming platform Peacock. The former Shameless star shared a photo of herself (which you can see below) as the self-made celebrity for the series, which […]

By: Natalie Jarvey Teasers are taking flight during the NFL playoffs matchup between the Seahawks and Eagles and the Golden Globes. NBCUniversal’s marketing campaign for the Peacock streaming service took flight Sunday evening. The broadcaster waited until a big night of television — featuring both an NFL playoff game and the Golden Globes — to hatch the advertising spots […]

It feels unlikely that history will remember USA Network’s Mr. Robot as a show which defines the holidays. After all, the show became one of this decade’s defining series thanks to its mindbending attack on our perceived reality, showing us a cold and brutal world from the point of view of Elliot (Rami Malek), a brilliant but […]

If you thought the last season of USA Network’s Sam Esmail series Mr. Robot was becoming a little too straight forward and suspenseful sans its regular twist from the mind of Elliot Alderson, well then tonight’s two-hour series finale and last weekend’s penultimate episode “eXit” popped the show’s arm back in its noirish socket complete with many Elliot doppelgangers. […]

By CAITLIN GALLAGHER Dec 22, 2019 Spoilers ahead for Mr. Robot. Elliot finally got to experience what Whiterose’s machine was all about in the last 20 minutes of the penultimate episode of Mr. Robot. But plenty of questions still remain ahead of the two-part finale on Dec. 22. As Mr. Robot won’t return for another season, creator Sam Esmail has just […]

No other show on TV grappled so seriously and thoughtfully with the staggering human cost of wealth inequality and late-stage capitalism. By Emma Garland How much trauma can you take? To what degree can an individual change society for the better? What would that change even look like? Is the world, increasingly chaotic and painful as […]

Joan Cusack (In & Out) and Mary Holland (Veep) are set for recurring roles on the second season of Amazon’s psychological thriller drama series Homecoming, from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail. Homecoming‘s second season will deviate from the popular Gimlet Media’s podcast which Season 1 was based on and will introduce new characters. Cusack will portray Francine Bunda, an Army officer with […]

Mr. Robot composer Mac Quayle won an Emmy for his work on the first season of Sam Esmail‘s acclaimed USA hacker series, and his work has not slowed down since. Quayle’s dark, dissonant, synth-heavy score lends to the oppressive environment of Esmail’s techno-opera about a hacker (Rami Malek) battling an evil corporation and his own personal demons in the […]

USA Network has set mid-winter premiere dates for Season 3 of The Sinner, starring Bill Pullman, Matt Bomer and Chris Messina, and Sam Esmail’s new anthology drama Briarpatch, led by Rosario Dawson. Both will bow on Thursday, February 6. Watch the new trailers for Briarpatch above and The Sinner below. Briarpatch follows Allegra Dill (Dawson), a no-nonsense professional who returns to her quirky hometown to solve her […]

The Hollywood Reporter speaks with Ashlie Atkinson about carving into Janice, one of the main antagonists of the USA Network thriller’s final season. Sam Esmail’s final season of Mr. Robot has added another series regular to the pile of corpses — except this time, few people are going to be crying about the casualty: Janice, the deadly […]

Looking out at the Mr. Robot battlefield, the stage is set for a brutal battle between Rami Malek’s Elliot Alderson and BD Wong’s Whiterose — even if the latter combatant insists the two of them are on the same side. But the Dark Army and the Deus Group leader is just one of Elliot’s many antagonists still […]

After adapting four podcasts into high-profile TV series, Homecoming, Dirty John and the upcoming Dr. Death and Joe Exotic, UCP is getting into the podcasting business itself with the launch of UCP Audio. The podcast network is set to launch in 2020 with The End Up, a scripted podcast starring LaKeith Stanfield (Atlanta, Get Out), from Homecoming executive producer […]

“This is the great thing about television and what a movie can’t do,” Esmail tells The Hollywood Reporter about that dialogue-free hour of ‘Mr. Robot.’ [This story contains spoilers for season four, episode five of USA Network’s Mr. Robot, “405 Method Not Found.”]For the final season of his computer hacker thriller, Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail has paired each […]

“We don’t have to talk.” In Sunday’s “Method Not Allowed,” Mr. Robot very literally took Darlene’s (Carly Chaikin) declaration to Elliot (Rami Malek) in the opening moments; no other dialogue was uttered until the very end, with Vera (Elliott Villar) sneaking up on Krista (Gloria Reuben) and declaring, “It’s time we talk.” But plenty of action took […]

Sam Esmail, the creator, lead writer and director of the TV series Mr. Robot, has always identified with computer programming and hacker culture — in part because of his experiences with social anxiety. In college, he shied away from parties and instead took refuge in the computer lab. It felt safer to talk to people online […]

When Mr. Robot premiered in 2015, it was far ahead of the curve. Its head-on critique of technocratic late capitalism and focus on revolutionary politics, not to mention its depiction of an ideologically divided populace contending with the whims of a megalomaniacal leader, only became more and more timely as the series progressed. Yet, at its heart, Mr. […]

When Mr. Robot premiered on the USA network in 2015, Rami Malek—having yet to take home an Oscar for transforming into Freddie Mercury—was still known to the world as the Pharoah Ahkmenrah in Night at the Museum, or, for Twilightheads, the Egyptian coven member Benjamin, in Breaking Dawn Part 2. In the show—now in its fourth and final season—Malek takes Elliot Anderson, a […]

The Hollywood Reporter speaks with Sam Esmail about crafting a “surreal and existential” sendoff for a fan-favorite character. [This story contains spoilers for season four, episode four of USA Network’s Mr. Robot, “404 Not Found.”]In the opening minutes of the final season premiere, Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail announced his deadly intentions for the road ahead, with the death of […]

Making sense of what’s going on with television these days, even for those of us who write about it, can feel like going rafting with a rake. No matter how hard you paddle, you’re still barreling toward a cliff. So it was on an afternoon this spring when, feeling optimistic, I clicked an article about […]

The differences between Mr. Robot protagonist Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) and Dark Army leader Whiterose (BD Wong) are many — he hacks people, she hacks time; he’s fighting the top one percent of the top one percent, she is the top one percent of the top one percent — but the latest installment of the final season just clarified […]

Creating shows in this golden age of television has pushed storytelling to new heights, bolstered network recognition with the debut of sole marquee series and driven top-tier talent to limited-event runs. But few of these hundreds of series to unroll over the past half-decade have also redefined an entire network while pumping out prolific content […]

Soon after Mr. Robot launched in 2015, anointing Sam Esmail as one of TV’s most in-demand writers, the USA drama’s creator (an East Coast transplant) admitted to THR that he hated Los Angeles. As his series heads into its fourth and final season, premiering Oct. 6, Esmail says that’s still true. But with a massive new deal at Universal […]

The new NBCUniversal streaming service that the company said Tuesday would be called Peacock will launch in April 2020 with original content that includes series reboots from the NBCU library among its fare. That list includes the return of a sci-fi classic: a new Battlestar Galactica, billed as an original series from Mr. Robot and Homecoming executive producer Sam Esmail. Not much is known about […]

As a powerful computer hacker with designs on creating a new world order once said, “It’s happening, it’s happening, it’s happening.”USA Network has announced the final season premiere date for creator Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot, starring Rami Malek as digital revolutionary Elliot Alderson. The series is set to return Oct. 6, a move that shifts […]

Hidden Figures and Moonlight star Janelle Monáe is set to headline the second season of Amazon’s psychological thriller drama series Homecoming, from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail. The description of her character provides some clues about the premise of Season 2. The actress/musician plays a tenacious woman who finds herself floating in a canoe, with no memory of how she got there — […]

Amazon’s Homecoming required music supervisor Maggie Phillips to create a soundtrack of scores. She talked to Culturess about how she pulled it off. Everything in Homecoming, Amazon’s television adaptation of the popular Gimlet podcast, feels just slightly out of place. Julia Roberts’ stripped-down appearance and reticent performance as social worker Heidi Bergman clashes with her […]

The two actors will have recurring roles in the crime drama starring Rosario Dawson. Two more actors are headed to Briarpatch. Ed Asner and Alan Cumming have signed on to recurring parts in the drama anthology from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail and writer Andy Greenwald. They join lead Rosario Dawson and and series regulars […]

One of three editors on Sam Esmail’s Homecoming, Rosanne Tan was asked to tap into the visual and sonic style of “paranoid thriller movies [from] the past,” working within a broad conceptual framework set by Esmail, while trying to surprise him with the choices she made. Based on a podcast by co-creators Micah Bloomberg and […]

“We have this untrustworthiness with powerful conglomerates,” he explains on why both of his shows feature shadowy corporations (Warning: This story contains spoilers for the first season of Amazon’s “Homecoming.”) If the Geist Group, the large monolithic company at the center of Amazon’s “Homecoming,” reminds you of another big, shadowy company from a Sam Esmail-led […]

TheWrap Emmy magazine: “It was two stitches and a multitude of tools,” cinematographer Tod Campbell says of the lengthy shot that follows Julia Roberts through a huge facility Steve Pond | June 20, 2019 @ 11:00 AM This story about the cinematography of “Homecoming” first appeared in a special section, “The Look,” in the Comedy/Drama/Actors […]

With his Amazon series Homecoming, Sam Esmail strived to create a paranoid thriller in the vein of those from decades past, turning to his sound team to ratchet up the dread through experimental means. Three of the series’ key creatives, Kevin W. Buchholz (Supervising Sound Editor), Ben Zales (Music Editor) and John W. Cook II […]

When showrunner Sam Esmail listened to the conversations in Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg’s popular radio-play style podcast “Homecoming,” there was a voyeuristic aspect to the mystery that reminded him of his favorite psychological thrillers from film history. “Something that was great in the podcast is that it always constantly felt like you were eavesdropping […]

“Historically, African Americans have been written very one dimensional,” the actor told The Hollywood Reporter’s Drama Actor Roundtable. “Historically, African Americans have been written very one dimensional,” Homecoming star Stephan James told The Hollywood Reporter’s Drama Actor Roundtable. “Perhaps they live one certain type of life. Maybe they are not educated. Maybe they are some […]

Kim Dickens (Deadwood, Fear the Walking Dead) has been cast as a series regular in Briarpatch, USA Network’s crime anthology series from writer-executive producer Andy Greenwald, executive producer Sam Esmail, UCP and Paramount Television. Written by Greenwald based on the Ross Thomas novel, Briarpatch centers on Allegra “Pick” Dill (Rosario Dawson), a tenacious and highly […]

Each episode of Amazon’s “Homecoming” ends with a revealing moment of awareness for a character. It’s not necessarily a big twist that makes us see the world completely differently, like in Esmail’s other show “Mr. Robot,” but more of a new emotional understanding. It’s a moment the executive producer and director wanted the audience to […]

Both Amazon Prime’s “Homecoming” and Netflix’s “Russian Doll” provocatively play with the 30-minute format, cramming their existential journeys with confusing timelines and visual detail. But, thanks to binge watching, the two shows actually function like long movies, according to editors Rosanne Tan (“Homecoming”) and Laura Weinberg (“Russian Doll”). In “Homecoming,” the ’70s-style conspiracy thriller from […]

“Sam wants us to be as unconventional as possible, but then yes, there are storytelling-type of rules that we stick to,” Rosanne Tan tells Gold Derby in an exclusive interview (watch the video above) about editing under director and executive producer Sam Esmail. They are working “for most of this year” on the upcoming final […]

Cinematographer Tod Campbell has an impressive resume, but he’s probably best known for helping craft the distinct moody and disruptive nature of Sam Esmail’s “Mr. Robot” and “Homecoming.” The latter stars Julia Roberts as Heidi, a former government caseworker who’s lost memory of her harrowing past. What’s your process working with Sam like? Where I […]

Steven Canals, Sera Gamble, Marti Noxon and the late John Singleton also sound off on the scenes that make them nervous (“Part of the excitement is rattling some cages”), the most dangerous question in any writers room (“What are we going to do this episode?”) and why “it’s important sometimes to ruin the narrative.” John […]

Every “Homecoming” outfit had a specific purpose to designer Catherine Marie Thomas. The Amazon series primarily takes place in an eerie facility for military veterans, where Julia Roberts plays Heidi Bergman, a friendly but stressed counselor who takes a special interest in one of the veterans, Walter Cruz (Stephan James). Thomas wanted to suggest an […]

After a nearly two year absence since Season 3 aired, Mr. Robot is gearing up for its fourth and final season with an ominous tease. Not a video, nor a single image — the show’s Twitter account shared a few cryptic messages on Wednesday, concluding with a follow-up tweet this Thursday. Reading like Clement Clarke […]

Mr. Robot is going out with a bloody Christmas. It’s been almost two years since season 3 of the Emmy-nominated drama wrapped, but creator Sam Esmail has a very early present in the form of the first look at the fourth and final season. The image below was unveiled Thursday, and within it, there’s a […]

“Homecoming” marked another onscreen reunion for Julia Roberts and Dermot Mulroney, who first co-starred in “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” In the new issue of emmy magazine, “Homecoming” director and executive producer Sam Esmail reveals he was the one behind the casting, saying, “My fanboy side took over.” Esmail said he was a big fan of […]

Production designer helps to translate a podcast into stylistic visuals for Amazon series BY ROBERT GOLDRICH Anastasia White has earned three Excellence in Production Design Award nominations from the Art Directors Guild in her career, winning the honor in 2017 for Mr. Robot, nominated for the same show the next year and then this past […]

Amazon and Universal Content Productions’ “Homecoming” is unlike any television or streaming project before it. Not quite a revival or a reboot, it’s a remake of sorts. The podcast of the same name—the show’s source material—aired on the audio network Gimlet and told the sci-fi military mystery-thriller over two seasons with a veritable cast that […]

IFC Center today announced an impressive and wide-ranging lineup for the third annual Split Screens Festival (www.splitscreensfestival.com) taking place Wednesday, May 29 through Monday, June 3, 2019, at the IFC Center in New York City. The festival consists of special events offering a variety of looks at history, identity and the mystery of existence itself, […]

“The tagline for season one was ‘Our democracy has been hacked,’ and that was before our democracy actually was hacked,” creator Sam Esmail said at a Tribeca Film Festival panel on Sunday. Fans of Mr. Robot have had a long and painful wait since season three’s climactic finale, which aired in December of 2017 and […]

By Robert Edelstein | April 28, 2019 3:19pm Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail unwrapped only one big reveal about the coming final season of his series, which is known for tense action and psychological twists and turns. “Is anybody here a fan of British television?” he asked a packed Tribeca Talks crowd at the Tribeca […]

DEREK LAWRENCE | March 15, 2019 at 10:00 AM EDT (Almost) Goodbye, friend. Shortly after collecting the Best Actor Oscar for his crowd-pleasing performance in Bohemian Rhapsody, Rami Malek returned — for the last time — to the role that made him a star. The 37-year-old actor is currently filming the final season of Mr. […]

2:27 PM PST 2/11/2019 by Borys Kit Rob Turbovsky and Matteo Borghese will write the script. Powerhouse producers Dylan Clark, Paul Feig and Sam Esmail have teamed for False Alarm, a comedy newly set up at Universal Pictures. The studio picked up the pitch from writers Rob Turbovsky and Matteo Borghese, who will also pen […]

ALEX: From Gimlet Media, I’m Alex Blumberg and this is Without Fail, the show where I talk with entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, visionaries of all kinds about their successes, and their failures, and what they’ve learned from both. We are back! Last year, we did a pilot season of this show. To see whether people would […]

FEBRUARY 08, 2019 10:35am PT by Lesley Goldberg The ‘Mr. Robot’ creator, who also is behind Amazon’s ‘Homecoming’ and USA’s upcoming ‘Briarpatch,’ was getting offers from other platforms. Sam Esmail is staying put at Universal Content Productions. The Mr. Robot creator has opted to renew his overall deal with UCP. The news comes as Esmail […]

Rosario Dawson’s acting career has spanned a dynamic range of roles in film and television, but her interests haven’t been limited to acting. In a phone interview earlier this week, tied to a recent ad campaign she’s leading for Quaker Oats on the importance of heart health, Dawson spoke to Business Insider about several phases […]

JANUARY 24, 2019 12:00pm PT by Lesley Goldberg Writer Andy Greenwald has also signed an overall deal with Universal Cable Productions. With the end of Mr. Robot in sight, USA Network is moving full steam ahead on a new series from its creator. The NBCUniversal-owned cable network has handed out a series order to Sam […]

USA Network has picked up a new crime anthology series from writer-executive producer Andy Greenwald, executive producer Sam Esmail, Universal Cable Prods. and Paramount Television. The first season, titled Briarpatch, starring Rosario Dawson, was originally ordered as a pilot, which was directed by Ana Lily Amirpour. In conjunction with the series order for Briarpatch, Greenwald […]

By Paul Zahn | January 9, 2019 Julia Roberts is garnering rave reviews for her role in the hit Amazon streaming series, Homecoming. We caught up with the Oscar winner and Homecoming’s director to get the scoop on the acclaimed psychological thriller web show. On Why She Wanted to Star in Homecoming JULIA ROBERTS: Well, […]

Tilly Pearce | Saturday 5 Jan 2019 4:13 pm Rami Malek has promised that Mr Robot is going to go out with one hell of a bang as he prepares to say goodbye to the show for good. The star, who is currently hotly tipped for an Oscar thanks to his role as Freddie Mercury […]

By Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Dec 13, 2018, 8:20am EST Homecoming and Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail joins to give his picks for the best television shows of the year (9:03), talk about what he was looking for in TV this year (45:49), and his favorite performances of 2018 (72:53).

November 28, 2018 Michael Goldman Tod Campbell welcomes AC to the large-scale set of the Amazon series, where he and director Sam Esmail have reteamed to frame two disparate time periods and states of mind. Unit photography by Jessica Brooks and Hilary Bronwyn Gayle, SMPSP, courtesy of Amazon Studios It’s March of 2018. We’re on […]

By Travis M. Andrews November 20 There were so many ways “Homecoming” could have gone wrong. The show — directed by Sam Esmail, the creator and showrunner of “Mr. Robot” — is based on the Eli Horowitz- and Micah Bloomberg-penned podcast of the same name. It follows the story of Heidi Bergman (Julia Roberts in […]

By Matt Zoller Seitz Adapted from the dramatic podcast by Micah Bloomberg and Eli Horowitz, Homecoming is Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail’s ultimate film-history playground. Co-produced by Amazon and Universal Cable Productions, it’s a military thriller with a mystery at its heart, a narrative that unfolds across multiple timelines, and a fascination with the persistence […]

Warning: This post contains major spoilers for Season 1 of Amazon’s Homecoming. Unless you have a plate of memory-erasing gnocchi nearby, proceed with caution. Amazon’s thriller Homecoming messed with our minds all season long… but the final scene just about broke our hearts. The freshman season ended with Julia Roberts’ Heidi tracking down her favorite […]

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for “Homecoming” Season 1, Episode 8, “Protocol.”] Two shots in “Protocol,” Episode 8 of Sam Esmail’s “Homecoming,” turn it into the season’s game-changer. Four years separate their timeframes, but both focus on Heidi (Julia Roberts) as she realizes the ulterior motives of the therapeutic facility where she treated veterans. […]

Homecoming presents a captivating mystery, aided by an unnerving, sometimes jarring score. Across its 10 extremely bingeable episodes, Homecoming’s music is borrowed from some 45 film scores, lending their own historical and emotional resonance to a show that traffics in forgetting and remembering the past. And while some songs are instantly recognizable, more are just […]

NOVEMBER 06, 2018 10:30am PT by Josh Wigler The ‘Mr. Robot’ creator speaks with The Hollywood Reporter about directing his new thriller’s most chilling scene. [This story contains spoilers from the season one finale of Amazon’s Homecoming.] For Heidi Bergman, the Homecoming protagonist played by Julia Roberts, the world is a claustrophobic mystery box…until suddenly, […]

For “Mr. Robot” creator Sam Esmail, classic thrillers were the inspiration to adapt Gimlet podcast “Homecoming” into an episodic series. He wanted to capture the tension and paranoia of films by directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Alan J. Pakula, Brian De Palma, and Stanley Kubrick. “When we started talking about music, I started to talking to […]

A three-minute tracking shot that pans across a military facility. A montage showing a medicine’s production from plant to test tube. A woman’s entire worldview shifting along with an aspect ratio. Many of the most striking scenes in Homecoming, Amazon’s 10-episode thriller released on Friday, contain little to no dialogue. For a television show adapted […]

Amazon’s Homecoming — adapted from the popular podcast, starring Julia Roberts and directed by Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail — debuted last week. As compelling as it was, it left certain questions to be discussed once the 10-episode season was done. Full spoilers coming up just as soon as I detach and reattach my reading […]

On the set of Amazon thriller “Homecoming,” Julia Roberts had one goal: Make “mad scientist” Sam Esmail happy. The “Mr. Robot” creator loves working with lots of moving parts, which included long takes that left Roberts watching her step. “Just in terms of personal safety, I had to be pretty aware when they take the […]

For its first couple of episodes, I wasn’t sure if Homecoming was planning to play it totally straight with its intentionally retro stylistic tics. That would have been okay, but it would also be an unexpectedly stodgy choice. Thankfully, that’s not the case—and the third episode is here to make sure you know it. What […]

Homecoming, the latest series with prestige TV bona fides to come to Amazon, is about as subtle and mysterious as a thriller can get. Based on the podcast of same name, it is, on the surface, about a group of soldiers returned from combat and the facility—called Homecoming—that seeks to treat their PTSD. However, as […]

The thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock have been emulated for decades, with varying levels of success. But a new Amazon series debuting Nov. 2, Homecoming, is an exceedingly rare thing: a Hitchcock homage that actually improves on the master of suspense’s oeuvre. It’s a Hitchcockian thriller that Hitchcock himself probably couldn’t have made. Directed in its […]

Television has been asking this question a lot: What should we do with terrible memories? Should we resign ourselves to being stalked by them, like the family in Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House? Should we just acknowledge that we will walk with apparitions and that the ghosts of our own mistakes will snuggle into […]

As Amazon’s new thriller Homecoming unfolds, it becomes more and more clear that its lofty ambitions are both a curse and a blessing. The series, which stars Julia Roberts, is built like a puzzle box, weaving a story between the past and the present that often threatens to fall apart under its own weight. Its […]

Julia Roberts, who long ago earned the right to be selective in her projects, is stepping into the TV realm for the first time—technically the streaming episodic realm—for Amazon’s Homecoming. An eerie and compelling adaptation of a hit narrative podcast, Homecoming is helmed by Mr. Robot’s Sam Esmail. He’s taken the purely auditory story and […]

New Amazon prestige drama Homecoming — now Certified Fresh at 96% — was designed to binge, according to Sam Esmail and Julia Roberts. Their proof? All the episodes hover around a half-hour each. “Especially when you’re doing a show with a lot of suspense, the thing that you have to modulate is how to incrementally […]

Esmail, who directed all 10 episodes of Amazon’s Julia Roberts-starring drama, speaks with The Hollywood Reporter about its tense tone, political influences, and how it’s thematically tied to his soon-to-conclude ‘Mr. Robot.’ [This story contains some spoilers from Gimlet Media’s Homecoming podcast, on which Amazon’s new series is based.] In the post-Serial podcast boom of […]

Users can scroll through many mind-bending images — including a centaur in a business suit, a shark plane and a praying mantis — that begin in a corporate park and extend into space as part of the series creator’s production company’s site. “Welcome to Esmail Corp.,” reads the greeting upon landing on the production website […]

Sam Esmail’s “Mr. Robot” is one of the most audacious, inventive TV dramas of this decade. It is also, well, a lot. It’s narratively and creatively maximalist, full of subplots, conspiracies, directorial triple back flips and twist upon baffling twist. Esmail directs all 10 episodes of “Homecoming,” a cerebral thriller that arrives on Amazon Friday, […]

Homecoming is a hypnotic blend of old-school and new. It’s fronted by Julia Roberts, one of the last of the capital-M Movie Stars hailing from an era when the idea of doing a TV series would be unthinkable. It’s directed by Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, who makes half of each episode look like a […]

There’s a lot of television out there these days, and the inspiration is coming from every which direction: past shows (boring), books, and now? A successful podcast. Homecoming premieres on Amazon Prime on November 2, and in one of the flashiest television headlines of the year, Julia Roberts leads the cast as Heidi Bergman, a […]

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — What do you see? If you’re listening to “Homecoming,” the cult hit podcast from Gimlet Media, the answer is nothing. A psychological thriller set largely inside a mysterious corporate facility somewhere in Florida, the podcast’s story is relayed strictly through sound, even more so than other fictional podcasts of late, or […]

Welcome to “Remote Controlled,” a podcast from Variety featuring the best and brightest in television, both in front of and behind the camera. In today’s episode, Variety’s executive editor of TV Debra Birnbaum talks with “Homecoming” star Julia Roberts and creator-director Sam Esmail (“Mr. Robot”), ahead of the series’ Nov. 2 premiere on Amazon. The […]

Julia Roberts stepped out along with ‘Homecoming’ colleagues Sam Esmail, Stephan James, Shea Whigham and longtime best friend Dermot Mulroney at the L.A. premiere of the Amazon series. There was nothing robotic about Sam Esmail on Thursday night. Standing on the black carpet outside the Regency Bruin Theatre in Westwood, the Homecoming executive producer and […]

There are two types of “what the hell is going on here?” TV. There’s the supposedly complex but really just confusing kind, which makes you feel so lost that you can’t figure out what’s actually happening, even after reading multiple recaps. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here!” you scream midway through […]

“I’m controlling over anything I create,” says Sam Esmail. “I’m very precious about it.” The writer, director, and showrunner is used to constructing worlds purely of his own design, most successfully with his Golden Globe– and Peabody Award–winning USA Network series, Mr. Robot, a dizzying descent into the mind of a brilliant, paranoid hacker. Esmail’s latest […]

What’s remarkable about seeing Julia Roberts on Amazon’s new conspiracy thriller Homecoming is how unremarkable it is to see her there. Nineteen years ago (sheesh, we got old) Roberts appeared on an episode of NBC’s Law & Order and you would’ve thought the Hollywood sign was coming down. Movie stars were not meant to do TV! TV stars were […]

The best way to test any director is to give them a scene where two people talk in a room. We’ve bred a generation of technocrat filmmakers, skilled in peddling expensive set pieces and you-are-there viscerality. Consider, like, Damien Chazelle’s First Man, all meticulous drumbeat editing, camerawork so fluid it’s biological, a rippling soundtrack that deserves […]

It doesn’t take much for Monday to start off with a slight bit of paranoia, dread, and uncertainty. But just in case, Amazon’s offering up one last look at its upcoming drama series “Homecoming.” Starring Julia Roberts and based on the popular Gimlet podcast of the same name, the show takes a deep dive into an eerie […]

We’ve gotten used to big movie stars doing TV for a while now… but still, Julia Roberts starring in a TV series is a pretty big deal, right? She’s not wasting her time on the small screen, either: Her new Amazon drama Homecoming — debuting Friday, Nov. 2 on the streaming service — is a smartly layered, coolly effective […]

Julia Roberts is the latest actor to be tempted over to television, playing the lead role in Mr Robot creator Sam Esmail’s upcoming new drama, Homecoming. Given that scripted TV series have become far more respected in the past decade, one might consider this move overdue, but “I’ve never called myself a film actor,” Roberts insists. “I’m just an […]

Undoubtedly the biggest name of the whole showcase, however, was Roberts, who helped introduce her upcoming psychological thriller series Homecoming — set to land in all Amazon Video territories Nov. 2 — alongside showrunner and director Sam Esmail. Although the show, based on the hit podcast of the same name about a caseworker at a secret government […]

If you’ve ever watched Drive, Only God Forgives, Mr. Robot, Pose, or American Horror Story; listened to New Order’s 2005 album Waiting for the Sirens Call or Sting’s “Send Your Love”; or if you listened to remixes of the work of top artists in the 1990s and early 2000s; then you’ve heard Mac Quayle’s brilliant musical contributions in some capacity. […]

At first glance, Homecoming, Amazon Prime Video’s newest series based on a popular podcast of the same name (created by Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg, who adapt their story for the screen here), may seem familiar to fans of Mr. Robot, which redefined the way one frames a scene for traditional television. Yet executive producer/director Sam […]

What happened to the fish?! This is just one of the many disturbing questions that the new trailer for Amazon’sHomecoming has left me with, and it’s proof that this series will be the most unsettling thing to grace streaming services in a long, long time. The upcoming show, which stars Julia Roberts and was created by Mr. Robot‘s Sam Esmail, […]

Despite two seasons of source material to draw from, the true nature of the upcoming version of “Homecoming” has been shrouded in as much mystery as Julia Roberts’ character’s search for the truth. But now, Amazon’s released the first extended look at this season of the new show from “Mr. Robot” creator Sam Esmail gives us a […]

Having already broken the mold on televised serial noir with Mr. Robot, creator Sam Esmail delves back into the genre with his Amazon Prime/Universal Cable series Homecoming adapted from the podcast of the same name. The series streams Nov. 2 but recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Esmail became addicted to the podcast by Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg who are also […]

From its opening shot onward, Sam Esmail’s “Homecoming” is designed to throw you off-kilter. What appears to be a palm tree in the night sky is quickly revealed to be a decoration inside a fish tank. That fish tank is within an office, and that office is within a compound. But where’s the compound, and […]

At first glance, “Homecoming” seems to be a cocktail of buzzwords. Take one part transmedia origin story (“based on the popular Gimlet Media podcast…”), add one part movie star trying her hand at television (Julia Roberts), mix well with an established TV auteur (“Mr. Robot” creator Sam Esmail), and serve. In practice, however, those ostensibly disparate […]

Director Sam Esmail and Julia Roberts give Amazon an intriguing, visually stunning new drama series, the first episodes of which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Let Sam Esmail make anything he wants. If that’s not a rule of television, it should be. The creator, writer and director of USA’s Mr. Robot, which redefined what a […]

The fact that the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival has chosen the Netflix movie Outlaw King for its big-screen gala opener is not lost on Michael Lerman. From the 150 TV shows submitted to TIFF, Lerman had to whittle his choices down to five lucky entrants. They range from Amazon Studios’ thriller Homecoming starring Julia Roberts and the bittersweet Sorry for Your […]

Jay R. Ferguson, Edi Gathegi and Brian Geraghty have been cast as male leads opposite Rosario Dawson in USA Network’s hourlong pilot Briarpatch, from Universal Cable Productions, Paramount Television, Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail’s Esmail Corp and Anonymous Content. Written by Andy Greenwald based on the Ross Thomas novel, Briarpatch centers on Allegra “Pick” Dill (Dawson), a tenacious and highly-skilled investigator working in Washington, […]

The series will conclude in 2019 with what sources say is an expanded 12-episode order. Goodbye, friend.   The end of the road for USA Network’s critical hit Mr. Robot is in sight: the previously announced fourth season of the Sam Esmail-created drama starring Rami Malek will be its last. The network-defining series will begin production in the winter in […]

Amazon Studios’ Julia Roberts-fronted TV drama Homecoming will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, leading the event’s TV line-up. The psychological thriller, which is based on the eponymous podcast, will screen its first four episodes as part of TIFF’s Primetime series, which runs September 6 through September 16.

Since Sam Esmail signed his first overall deal with Universal Cable Prods. in 2015, peak TV has kept peaking. That year, according to FX research, 422 adult original scripted series premiered across broadcast, cable and streaming. This year, more than 500 are anticipated. The number of original scripted series on streaming-only platforms could triple from what it […]

Universal Cable Productions has set four female directors to helm key pilots and new series for the studio — Steph Green, Ana Lily Amirpour, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, and Kari Skogland. Amirpour will direct another USA pilot, “Briarpatch.” The project, from exec producer Sam Esmail, stars Rosario Dawson as a Washington, D.C. investigator who returns to her […]

Third time’s a charm for the on-screen romance between Julia Roberts and Dermot Mulroney. The two actors, who costarred in “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and “August: Osage County,” are reuniting in the upcoming psychological thriller, “Homecoming,” on Amazon. And though they’ve shared lots of screen time and have had complicated ties throughout, this will be […]

Julia Roberts, apart from playing herself on Murphy Brown or doing guest shots on Law & Order and Miami Vice, had never acted in a TV series before taking the lead in Amazon’s forthcoming drama Homecoming. During a TCA panel devoted to the show, a half-hour thriller based on a popular podcast of the same name that is directed by Mr. Robot‘s Sam Esmail, Roberts […]

Amazon Studios used its big Comic-Con presentation today to unveil the premiere date for Homecoming, its psychological thriller starring Julia Roberts in her TV series-starring debut and directed by Mr. Robot‘s Sam Esmail. The half-hour series will bow Friday, November 2, on Prime Video.

Jeff McKibben joined Mr Robot in season 2 with former credits on AMC’s The Walking Dead. Jeff was a fan of season 1 and called Mr. Robot a dream show and job and is very thankful and grateful for the fans of the show.

Black hats and white hats alike, rejoice: In a few months, comics publisher Black Mask Studios will put out the first-ever Mr. Robot comics series. It’ll center around a prequel story by series creator Sam Esmail, with scripts from series writer Jeff McKibben and some help from writer and Black Mask founder Matteo Pizzolo. Art duties will […]

The actress will also produce the pulpy thriller from writer Andy Greenwald, UCP and Paramount TV. Rosario Dawson is returning to the small screen. The actress, who most recently appeared in Netflix’s suite of Marvel dramas, has been tapped to topline USA Network’s drama pilot BRIARPATCH.

Amazon has released the first look at Julia Roberts in the upcoming drama series “Homecoming.”

LOST alum Carlton Cuse and AMERICAN GODS EP Neil Gaiman will be joined by THE TICK creator Ben Edlund, MR. ROBOT’s Sam Esmail, who is helming the upcoming HOMECOMING, LORE EP Gale Anne Hurd and Naren Shankar, showrunner of THE EXPANSE.

Universal has optioned the rights to Tamer Elnoury and Kevin Maurer’s book American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent which Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail will direct and produce and his Emmy-winning star Rami Malek will headline.

Based on the Ross Thomas novel of the same name, the series follows Allegra Dill, a dogged investigator returning to her border-town Texas home after her sister is murdered by a car bomb.

Amazon’s upcoming TV series Homecoming has added a second Oscar-winning actress, with Sissy Spacek (Carrie) set to recur opposite Julia Roberts in the project from Universal Cable Productions, Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, and Anonymous Content.

Shea Whigham is set as a series regular and Hong Chau, Shameless star Jeremy Allen White and Sydney Poitier have been cast in recurring roles opposite Julia Roberts, Bobby Cannavale and Stephan James in Homecoming.

It’s a My Best Friend’s Wedding reunion! Dermot Mulroney will join Julia Roberts in Amazon’s forthcoming series Homecoming in a recurring guest star role.

Welcome to “Remote Controlled,” a podcast from Variety featuring the best and brightest in television, both in front of and behind the camera. In this week’s episode, Variety‘s executive editor of TV Debra Birnbaum chats with “Mr. Robot” creator Sam Esmail about the show’s recently wrapped Season 3 and upcoming Season 4.

Sam Esmail and Tod Campbell give IndieWire all the behind-the-scenes details on what made the show’s most groundbreaking episode to date possible. Any fan of “Mr. Robot” knows that the show loves its long takes. But Season 3, Episode 5, “eps3.4_runtime-err0r.r00,” took it to a whole new level. For approximately 42 uninterrupted minutes, we follow […]

As the hacktivism drama returns, its writer discusses crafting fiction in the fake news era, the problem with diverse casting – and why he ignores his critics.

“We’re done with the fun and games,” the writer-director tells THR about what to expect in the new season of the award-winning thriller.