Earlier this week we discussed John Krasinski selling his show, Some Good News, to ViacomCBS. I’ve been a big fan of John (and his wife Emily Blunt) for a while. As I said, I thought the heart of the show was all of these folks, famous and non, coming together for the purpose of spreading joy during lockdown. So I don’t think it will be as special once we reopen and the show goes to into studio production. But that was all I thought about it. I’m still a big fan of John’s and if there is an audience for SGN, fine. But it seems John was affected by those of us who expressed our displeasure because he defended the sale while on Rainn Wilson’s Instagram Live series, Hey There, Human. And, as we all guessed, the sale was about money and John not having the time to continue it.
John Krasinski isn’t saying goodbye to Some Good News anytime soon.
Krasinski made an appearance on his former The Office costar Rainn Wilson’s Instagram Live series Hey There, Human, where the two discussed his highly successful online show.After doing eight episodes on his own, the actor said he decided to sell the show to ViacomCBS in order to keep it going.
“I was only planning on doing eight of them during quarantine, because I have these other things that I’m going to be having to do very soon, like Jack Ryan and all this other stuff,” Krasinski said. “More than that… writing, directing, and producing — all those things — with a couple of my friends was so much.”
Once production on his other projects begins, Krasinski said continuing the show on his own would not be “sustainable.”
“I knew it wouldn’t be sustainable with my prior commitments,” Krasinski said. “I would love to keep doing the show from my office forever. It just wasn’t sustainable.”
While Krasinski said he will take a step back from Some Good News in the future, he will “be a part of it” whenever possible — including resuming his role as host.
“In eight weeks [Some Good News] went from not existing to now being on one of these huge news networks,” Krasinski said. “We have a lot of really fun stuff planned, and I can’t wait to dig in. I’m going to be a part of it whenever I can, and I’m going to host a couple [episodes] and bring on a different community of people. But we’re really, really excited about it.”
It has been mentioned a couple of times that there was a bidding war for SGN and yes, I recognize the siren’s call of the almighty dollar. People confirmed that John self-financed the eight episodes he hosted, and he does have many other commitments that were on hold during lockdown, so this is all perfectly understandable. It would be great if SGN found a way to spread joy in post-pandemic America. Part of the excitement of the quarantine version was the surprise of who popped up during the show. Some of that will be lost now that these appearances will likely become paid or means for promotion. But, I got into Ellen’s Greatest Night of Giveaways and it was perfectly obviously that every second of that had been orchestrated so who knows. I don’t wish John or the new show any ill will, I just prefer the story of how a very famous man and his very famous friends went out of their way to create a few moments of beauty for a suffering nation, simply to make us all feel better.
Photo credit: Photo credit: WENN/Avalon
Still seems like a total sellout to me, CBS is problematic af too
I wouldn’t have expected him to keep going indefinitely. It seems like he thinks that’s the issue people are having with it. Of course he’s within his rights to sell it. But putting some of that cbs$ toward organizations fighting covid would have been much more in keeping with what people fell in love with about the show.
I tend to agree, it seemed very much of this moment and not a permanent thing. I also agree that putting some $ toward orgs around Covid and its fallout would be nice.
Yeah I think he could have said “I don’t have time, but it’s been fun” and I think people would have been really fine with it, and appreciative.
I wouldn’t blame him for selling it if it was something he created wholly on his own, but as others pointed out before, he really copied some existing youtubers, and built the whole thing with crowd sourced content and favors from friends and celebrities.
Exactly. Hes not listening to the criticism
he could’ve done the episodes as a limited during quarantine and left it behind as a great memory. it’s not like he’s hurting for cash whatsoever.
I get it, I’m okay with it. Not sure if it will be quite the same, most probably not but I’m willing to be open minded.
I mean jesus. It’s not like the world NEEDED this so desperately that he had to be like “THE SHOW MUST GO ON!” and while I get that a lot of people want distractions… I just don’t know that now is the time for that. For all the horrible f-cking things happening in the US and globally, do people really need to keep checking out on important issues? Do they really need another outlet where their privileged asses can ignore the horrible things happening because they don’t affect them personally? There are millions of hours of feel good content on youtube – it’s not like there’s no other way to get that kind of news story. And heck, I’m sure there are some smaller creators that would LOVE the support.
That said, the ‘fans’ that are bitching about him selling it off are ridiculous. Of COURSE he ‘sold out’ – he’d have been idiotic not to. His post Office career path has made it pretty clear that he’s wanted to really break into the mainstream and become super marketable. If people didn’t see that this whole time, I question whether they’ve been watching at all. It seems so silly to complain that an actor that you like is going to make a ton of money off of a pretty basic idea – they should be thrilled for him. I don’t even like him and I’m thrilled for him from a financial standpoint. He found something low effort that was a wild success and I’m sure most of us would KILL to be in that position.
I love everything you said. A resounding YES and YES from me.
He and Emily both seem really into becoming A listers. I’ve always caught this thirsty vibe about them! What a good way to put it.
But a huge reason, if not the entire reason, for the shows success was the feel good cheer people up attitude, not the quality of the show necessarily. So to sell out seems the opposite message he was sending in the show, it seems like a trick for viewers actually or CBS to just sell a show that during non pandemic times may not have been successful
I tried watching one of the first eps, because I love happy stories, but the voice he was doing grated on my nerves, and the story was kind of churchy and that turned me off
I’m with you, I find John Krasinski offputting. Try-hard, insincere
Me too! And everyone seems to love him. I just get bad vibes from him.
I don’t know much about him so I can’t speak to him specifically, but I feel like alarm bells often go off for me for celebrities people find so “authentic.” People like Chip and Joanna Gaines, Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell, etc. The people who tell you how authentic they are all the time often aren’t.
Yes well put
The whole thing seemed very slick to me, in its attempt to come off as not-slick (homemade sign eg among other things). And I even suspect an eventual sale was always on the agenda from Day One, or shortly soon. The fact that he went to a friendly outlet to tell his “aw gee all I wanted to do was cheer people up” story means he is very on top of his public image/Q rating.
I agree with folks who say they get a hinky vibe from him. I do too.
The whole charm of this little show was that it was simple. I only saw one of the episodes, but I was under the impression this was a limited series meant to keep people entertained and uplifted during quarantine. It did that job well. Now that parts of the country and world are reopening, I think it would’ve been fine to just…drop it. He could’ve done five or six episodes and then said “alright guys, I’m signing off!”
I don’t feel strongly enough about this to call him a sellout — good for him for making money off a good idea. But I feel like this show just wasn’t meant to be a long-term thing, and now it will be. The last thing we need right now is more fluffy news shows.
But the thing is, it *looked* simple but it wasn’t so simple. He had very high profile guests on, and the tech support required to pull off the Hamilton singalong was pretty complicated. That’s what tipped me off that this was not as home-grown and humble that he was trying to convey.
But was it that great of an idea? No, it was meaningful as we weren’t getting new stuff to watch due to the pandemic and seeing celebs reach out to regular people to offer congrats for graduating school etc during this quarantine was the value of the shiw, so the value was specific to this time oeriod.
He was using his contacts in that field to do something that wasnt that amazing of an idea.
I just can’t with this guy and his non threatening ‘good guy’ persona. The fact that he took that lead role in Jack Ryan, which is soooo Islamophobic and racist, is a red flag to me. Do we seriously need another show about a white guy blowing up the Middle East to save us? Considering his outwardly progressive politics, he knows better, but still took that role because let’s be real: he’s as opportunistic as the rest of them. No wonder he sold the show.
Agreed, and the last episode promoted a war in Venezuela which, curiously, coincided with a lot of trouble in Venezuela. Made me wonder if that series was a CIA production. Wouldn’t be the first time the intelligence community used entertainment for an agenda.
In my imaginary, fantasy world, he just did his quarantine episodes to provide some good energy and then walked away, knowing he and his famous friends had done an altruistic thing with no agenda. That’s the version I’m sticking with.
IMO its not about him doing the show post quarantine its about him selling it to the highest bidder when it was sold as something genuine for the pandemic
He could have saved the name and concept for the next pandemic.