Californians are spending millions of tax dollars to create jobs for Turtle, Johnny Drama, Ari, E, and Vinny Chase.
The long-rumored "Entourage" film is one of 31 projects that passed the California Film Commission's subsidy standards, which are so high they reach up to your ankles. Other green-lit projects include TNT’s Franklin & Bash. It helps me sleep at night knowing Zack Morris is collecting a paycheck along with his Saved By The Bell royalties.
Reviving old television programs has been in vogue lately, thanks to passionate fans and a lack of critically and commercially successful new programming. It’s a lot easier to get Arrested Development fans frothing at the mouth than it is to develop a new property people actually want to watch. I’m sure Jon Lovett is crossing his fingers, wating for Netflix to call him with an offer for a second season of 1600 Penn.
Entourage stopped being good when Turtle lost weight, and fans of the show were universally disappointed with its haphazard ending. No one is asking for Vinnie's 5th career comeback, except possibly for Adrian Grenier whose career peaked at "Drive Me Crazy" and was lucky enough to have Jeremy Piven agree to the show in 2004.
If the Entourage braintrust wanted to make a movie, the principals involved are rich enough to finance it themselves. Don't tell me Marky Mark can’t afford to find financing.
It’s popular these days for Hollywood types to rely on crowd-sourced finance. Zack Braff found the money for his "Garden State" follow-up by soliciting his fans. Those fans aren’t going to see a return on their investment except for emails with production updates rife with Braff’s faux-pixie smarminess. But at least they'll get a tchotchke for their Kickstarter dollar.
California taxpayers who aren't fans of Entourage? They get nothing but the knowledge that their absurdly high taxes are being used to bail out the careers of these bozos.