Oh man, if there’s one kind of news story that I simply CANNOT RESIST, it’s contract negotiations! I just love it when people far richer than I could ever dream of being bicker over millions of dollars.
That’s the briar patch that “Mad Men” is currently caught in. Today, AMC officially authorized production on Season 5 of the critically acclaimed drama, even though creator/showrunner Matthew Weiner still hasn’t signed on. Weiner, who would be paid $30 million in the new deal (making him the highest-paid showrunner on basic cable), apparently won’t cave to AMC’s requests that he trim two minutes from each episode and integrate more product placement.
So what’s the bottom line for you, the intellectually incurious zombie who just wants to watch attractive people wear nice clothes for an hour every week? A couple things: Season 5 will happen, with or without Weiner (though likely with); Season 5 won’t begin airing until early 2012; and Christina Hendricks still won’t respond to my letters, no many how many severed toes I send her.
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Ahhhhh…. now Kurt Sutter’s tweet from this morning makes sense (and I pretty much agree with him):
You can’t ask a network for 10 million, then bitch when they want to expand their ad revenue source. Whore or saint, pick one.
Shut up. I totally watch Mad Men for the drama and the character studies and the critique of old-fashi–
Okay, lies. I watch it for Jon Hamm in a suit. I want to go to there.
Walter Sobchak get you those toes?
How exactly do you do product placement in a show that takes place 45 years ago? Half the products don’t exist and the ones that do all look different.
Is that Corgi Rumsen? If so, I’ll get the pooper scooper.
Come on, Josh. We all still smoke Lucky Strikes while we line our houses with asbestos.
Exactly right Josh. I don’t think there are many products left to endorse from that era.
@Stinky Pete – Sutter has been given a crapload of money to produce Sons, while Weiner had to beg and scrape to create Mad Men. If he wants to be compensated for making AMC into one of the top channels in America, let him. I am the biggest fan of SoA, less a fan of Sutter.
She’ll respond once you send the 11th toe.
Great, now every episode is going to be a 60 minute ad for jai alai.
Maybe this isn’t thinking outside the box enough for the networks, but wouldn’t an ideal compromise be to have Weiner keep the show as he sees fit, and just have Mad Men air from 10-11:02 with the encore performance airing from 11:02-12:04.
I mean are people who are already up past Midnight on a Sunday going to be that jammed up that they may lose an additional 4 minutes of sleep before work?
Fuck this guy. No matter how good it is, your show’s ratings suck. Don’t get in a snit when they’re trying to figure out a way to pay your obscene contract with commercials and product placement (in a show about advertising). We all know cutting a few characters would be a blessing. Just get on with it.
Did this show get any better than the first 10 or so episodes of season 1? Like, does it have a plot now? I gave up after that, I just never understood the appeal.
I just couldn’t get past the “Hey look how true to the era we are! People smoke cigarettes and sexually harrass female co-workers all the time! This is totally the 60′s you guys!!!” vibe that the show couldn’t seem to get past.
We get it, this show is set in the 50′s and times were different then now can we get on with some sort of plot? The theme song by RJD2 was the only thing positive I could glean from that show.
All that being said, I’m glad about all the attention shows like this get because it gives me hope that one fine day, reality TV will cease to exist (other than on channels like TLC). I’d rather watch a style-over-substance melodrama than a group of shallow, attractive women vying for the “love” of a similarly shallow, attractive man.
You can tell that therealjhc is really Duck Phillips logged in under a fake username. Absolutely no respect for Creative.
I like your spunk, OJP, but this is man talk time. There’s a reason why the lord gave you 2 legs and 1 mouth. Now use those getaway sticks to fetch me a toddy then we’ll see what I can do with that pie hole.
If I had to choose a character to see less of, I think I’d nominate Baby Gene.
If you need a toe, I can get you a toe. There are ways, Uff.