Judd Apatow and Universal have had a long and successful run together That much; although he jumped around a bit with his TV work, including his Emmy Award The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandlingwho went to HBO—and recently hung out with Netflix for a bitthe vast majority of Apatow’s film production has been with the studio.
Today, this relationship is called to expand even more, because Deadline reports that the 40 year old virgin director and producer just signed a huge, multi-year first-look deal with NBCUniversal. Covering both TV and film, it’s not clear just But what is the new contract valued at, but given that Apatow has literally earned the company billions of dollars over the past 17 years, we’re guessing: Extensive.
The results of this new contract is that we can expect most of Apatow’s upcoming work – both the stuff he writes and directs, as well as his extensive production work – to arrive somewhere under the corporate umbrella. , whether that means being distributed by Universal, airing on NBC, or possibly appearing as part of the release of the streaming service from the Peacock Company.
Apatow’s film production has slowed down a bit during the pandemic, although his latest feature film, Pete Davidson starring The King of Staten Island, did well with both critics and VOD audiences. He is currently producing on Nick Stoller Brotherswhich stars Billy Eichner, while his next directorial effort is The bubble, about a team of actors attempting to fulfill their dinosaur-fighting franchise obligations amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He is also currently working with Ramy Youssef and the comedian Steve Way, to Dystrophya new television series based on Way’s life co-produced by A24.
In other words: Apatow’s train is rolling, while it Continue to be one of the only coherent providers of low-to-mid-budget blockbuster comedies working in the Hollywood ecosystem. Not entirely surprising, then, that NBCUniversal hopes to stay on board.
