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entourage_hbo1_1020.jpeg

Douchebag Defends Show About Douchebags

By Dustin Rowles | TV | April 28, 2021 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | April 28, 2021 |


entourage_hbo1_1020.jpeg

Doug Ellin is a name we haven’t heard in a while, and honestly, it’s been for the best. Ellin is best known as the creator of HBO’s Entourage, a show about how Mark Wahlberg used his fame and money to get himself and his friends laid. The series ran for 8 seasons, and then someone thought it was a good idea to make an Entourage movie on the cusp of the #MeToo movement. It bombed for obvious reasons, and no one has really heard much from Doug Ellin or Entourage since, except when names associated with the series are accused of sexual misconduct or worse (see Jeremy Piven, Kevin Connelly).

To say that Entourage — a show that basically romanticized a bullying character based on Harvey Weinstein — has aged poorly would be an understatement. It was a show that valued ass over everything else, and if I were in any way involved with Entourage, I would run as far away from it as possible.

But then again, I’m not Doug Ellin, who says that a “wave of righteous PC culture” is responsible for the backlash against Entourage. In fact, he “resents tremendously” the cold shoulder that HBO has given him and his series since the movie tanked. “Nobody says that about The Sopranos, where they murder people, that maybe we should readdress whether murdering people on TV is OK. I don’t want to sound obnoxious or that I’m looking at Entourage as high art, but it was a pretty accurate portrayal of how people [acted] at that time in Hollywood.”

Did he just draw a comparison between Entourage and The Sopranos? Wow.

Ellin also believes that the backlash against Entourage cost him another job with the network. “I did a pilot with Michael Imperioli, Michael Rappaport, and Ed Burns that they passed on, which I’ll never forgive them for. Whether they thought it was good or not, I earned my chance to have a second shot, and they put some other pretty crappy shows on [instead].”

Michael Imperioli, Michael Rappaport, Ed Burns … and a fourth name he left out, Adrian Pasdar, the subject of the (Dixie) Chicks’ latest album, Gaslighter. The series was about how four friends navigated life after 40. Sounds like a real winner. I’m sure it would have fared no better during the #MeToo era, pal.



Header Image Source: HBO