IT goes global, a 7 Upfronts highlight, and the relatability of Nobody Wants This
It's a lot of newsletter today.
Ahead of the launch of IT: Welcome To Derry, Pennywise The Clown has been seen appearing in publicity photos across the globe.
Here he is in Paris:
In New York:
And he has appeared elsewhere. You can track it in an article on The Hollywood Reporter.
As a kid (after seeing the 1990 TV mini-series), I always rationalised the idea that Pennywise couldn’t get me because he was in the US and the sewerage systems he travelled through couldn’t reach me.
For my entire life, I have been good with that as an idea. And then today in my inbox, I see the local HBO Max publicity team sent this image through:
Horrific. You’ve ruined my life, HBO Max.
It was almost as scarring as the day I returned to my desk at work and found this guy sitting there:
I’m still not in a good spot over that one.
7 Upfronts bright spot
Local Australian broadcaster Seven held its upfronts in Sydney yesterday. Much like the Nine upfronts last week, the pitch to advertisers was about the strength and stability of local broadcasters and their multi-channel offerings.
Whether that’s actually the right message to run with or not, I’m not entirely sure. Yes, nobody loses their jobs by placing advertising with a safe and reliable platform, but it doesn’t paint a picture of vibrancy either.
If you’re after a good guide to what Seven had to announce, I’d point you to
’s good write-up over at Mumbrella.There’s one project announced that caught my attention. In the media release, it only lists it as:
Comedy returns to prime time on Seven with a new format featuring Mick Molloy and Glenn Robbins and funny friends as guests. It is produced by Molloy Boy Productions.
Seven are going to be leaning a lot on Mick Molloy this year, it seems. He has his yet-to-be-titled show, he’ll be fronting AFL panel show The Front Bar for another year, and will guest on other Seven shows including wildlife travel show Once In A Lifetime.
Already, I was interested in Molloy hosting a new comedy show - it feels like a while since I have seen him on TV in his own show not talking about football. I was one of the few regular viewers of The Mick Molloy Show back in the day, which famously ended with him urinating on his set during the last episode. It was cancelled after 8 episodes of a planned 20.
I was also a regular viewer of the charmingly lethargic Glenn Robbins talk show (of sorts) Out of The Question, which mostly aired in a late night timeslot seen by me and angry loners (one and the same?).
In Jolly’s article at Mumbrella, he includes some quotes from Seven’s content guy Brook Hall who gave some more detail about the show:
The promotional plan for this show is to tease it slowly over the summer. Molloy self-produced the pilot, and pitched it to Seven, who jumped at it. (“The best pilot we’ve seen for something new in many, many years”, Hall says.)
Hall is coy about the details, only revealing to Mumbrella: “It’s not a quiz show, it’s not reality, and it’s not scripted — but it’s fucking funny.” Sold!
“I think if we can make it work here, these guys might have a successful format that will travel around the world, because it’s transferable.”
A TV show I am planning to watch on Seven… it’s been a few years.
Here’s the problem with Hollywood…
With Netflix’s hit comedy Nobody Wants This returning tomorrow, there’s a pretty interesting feature story at THR about the difficulty of bringing the show to the screen. The show had a very difficult first season from a production standpoint, which makes for a great story about a second season redemption.
This paragraph jumped out at me as especially interesting:
The completed script was sent all around town — and every outlet that read it passed. “The feedback was always, like, ‘This feels small,’ ” says Foster. Then Tracey Pakosta at Netflix got her hands on it and instantly saw the value. “I didn’t think there was anything small about it,” she says. “I felt like everybody would see a piece of themselves in these characters, not only in the big romance, but also in the relationship Joanne has with her sister, Morgan [played by Succession‘s Justine Lupe].”
If you don’t know the show, or remember it, this is the sitcom starring Kristen Bell and Adam Brody about a woman and a rabbi who get together. The strength of the show is the relatable struggles of cultural differences getting in the way of a modern romance.
One of my great frustrations with TV shows is when shows try to be too big with an idea and disconnect from the relatable. I immediately hate any TV show that’s not about a detective, but rather is about a detective who is the best in the world. Why can’t they just be someone good at their job?
Viewers want characters they can connect with and stakes that they can connect with. Think about the most successful TV shows of all time - they all have relatable, human connection at the core of the show.
No TV show can ever feel too small. It’s the small things in our lives that can have the greatest resonance. Truth and honesty is found in the small. Relatability is found in the small.
Related: Report finds teens want relatability
American teens continue their descent into puritanism. The 2025 Teens & Screens report, put together each year by the UCLA Center for Scholars and Storytellers has found that despite a dramatic reduction in recent years of scenes in movies and TV shows featuring sex scenes, the kids today are demanding even less of that lewd business on screen:
8.4 percent of respondents in the “Teens & Screens” study said there was still too much sexual content in movies and TV shows. Additionally, 60.9 percent said they wanted to see relationships onscreen that were “more about the friendship between the couple than sex,” while 59.7 percent said they wanted stories where the “central relationships are friendships.”
What a bunch of wowsers.
The more interesting finding in the survey is that the report found overwhelming support for relatable stories on screen.
Realistic, relatable stories swept the preferred topics list this year. Adolescents once again want content with relatable stories more than fantasy, realworld issues, or aspirational stories - a 35.3% jump in support from last year. When asked what they want to see more of, “People with lives like my own” was number 1.
Of course, what people ask for and what they actually watch can be two very different things.
Relatable content has been a staple of successful teen TV shows and movies of the past 30-ish years - we all grew up watching teen comedies (think of the John Hughes movies of the 80s) or teen dramas (As someone who became a teen in the 90s, I grew up with shows like 90210, Dawsons Creek, and movies like the American Pie movies, etc).
The changed nature of media in the past decade does make it feel like YA content hasn’t been as much of a priority. Whether there is a diminished volume or it is just perception is worth considering. But these kids surveyed certainly seem to feel that there isn’t enough.
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Hawke on Hawke
I have a huge man crush on Ethan Hawke. I know I am not alone in this. He is one of those great actors who switches between low-budget indies, low to mid budget horror films, arthouse dramas, TV dramas and comedies, Marvel shows, and the occasional bigger Hollywood project. And he does all of that with integrity and thoughtfulness, all evident on the screen.
Right now he’s starring in Hulu show The Lowdown, which is fantastic. He’s also in the cinema with The Black Phone 2 and has the new Richard Linklater film Blue Moon set for release.
With all of that, he’s featured in a Rolling Stone article looking back at the films (of his) that are most important to him. It’s a great read.
Later, I’m in Tulsa with Sterlin, he takes me to the Philbrook Museum, and we start geeking out over of love of The Long Goodbye. He goes, “I want to write a Tulsa noir that’s like The Long Goodbye. I’m going to write this for you.” And the next thing I know, I’m looking at this script, and it’s like… I had this feeling when I first started working with Rick. Like, this guy gets me. I’m so lucky that I found a collaborator that gets me the way he does, and even before Before Sunrise was done, I just sort of knew we’d work together for a long time. That’s how I feel about Sterlin. I read The Lowdown and it’s like, Oh my god, it’s happening again. He completely gets me. I hope we do a million things together.
News Desk
Paramount and Comcast have reportedly sunk $1b into their joint euro streamer SkyShowtime in the three years since launch. Read: Deadline
David Chase is developing a new show at HBO, titled Project: MKUltra. Read: THR
Last night I woke at 3:30am and got to wondering what the deal was with the new Robert & Michelle King show Cupertino. After getting back to sleep, I awoke to find out that CBS has given it a greenlight for the 2026-27 season. That’s weird, right? Read: THR
Skybound Entertainment and Hasbro Entertainment are teaming to produce adult animated show Energon Universe. It is based on comics that unite the characters from GI Joe, Transformers, and Void Rivals (whatever that is). Read: Dark Horizons
John Magaro is joining Presumed Innocent for season 2. Read: Deadline
Great news - Hey Duggee has been renewed By the BBC for three more seasons. It’s a genuinely great kids show. Read: C21
Trailer Park
Pluribus debuts Nov 7 on Apple TV
“Pluribus” is a genre-bending original in which the most miserable person on Earth must save the world from happiness.
Emily in Paris returns for season 5 on Netflix Dec 18.
Season 3 of Envious lands on Netflix Nov 19.
That’s the newsletter for today. It was a very quiet weekend.
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