Hacks Renewed for Season 5 at Max
Deborah Vance is about to rewrite her legacy: Max has renewed Hacks for Season 5, TVLine has learned.
'Like Deborah Vance herself, Hacks only gets bolder, sharper and more iconic with time,' president of Universal Television Erin Underhill said in a statement. 'We're beyond thrilled to keep the laughter rolling with Jen [Statsky], Paul [W. Downs], Lucia [Aniello], our extraordinary cast and crew, and our partners at Max.'
More from TVLine
Mountainhead Is Too Cruel (and Too Real) to Live Up to Succession - Grade It in Our Poll!
All American Renewed for Final Season at The CW - Find Out When It Will Air
Harry Wild Renewed for Season 5 at Acorn TV
Added Head of Max Original Programming Sarah Aubrey: 'We congratulate Hacks' singularly talented cast and crew and our great partners at Universal Television.'
An A-to-Z List of 300+ Scripted Series
View List
In Season 4, tensions rose as Deborah and Ava endeavored to get their late-night show off the ground and make history while doing it. But in the season's penultimate episode, Deborah quit her hosting gig at Late Night With Deborah Vance after network head Bob Lipka demanded she fire head writer Ava for leaking confidential corporate information. (The Season 4 finale streams on Max starting Thursday at 9/8c.)
Aside from its two leads Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, Hacks also stars Paul W. Downs, Megan Stalter, Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Kaitlin Olson, Helen Hunt, Mark Indelicato and Rose Abdoo. Season 4 guest stars include Dan Bucatinsky, Tony Goldwyn, Jimmy Kimmel, Jane Adams, Julianne Nicholson, Christopher McDonald and Carol Burnett.
Are you looking forward to more ? Sound off in the comments!
Best of TVLine
'Missing' Shows, Found! Get the Latest on Ahsoka, Monarch, P-Valley, Sugar, Anansi Boys and 25+ Others
Yellowjackets Mysteries: An Up-to-Date List of the Series' Biggest Questions (and Answers?)
The Emmys' Most Memorable Moments: Laughter, Tears, Historical Wins, 'The Big One' and More
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
'Mountainhead': 'Succession' creator's film inspired by former crypto mogul convicted of fraud
Succession creator Jesse Armstrong has moved from telling a story about a media dynasty, to a tech bro satire with the film Mountainhead (on Crave in Canada), written, directed and produced by Armstrong. Starring Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef and Cory Michael Smith, the movie begins as four tech tycoons gather for a weekend of fun, amid an international crisis and the potential downfall of civilization. They're all staying at a mountain mansion owned by Hugo, who goes by "Souper" or "Soup" (Jason Schwartzman). Soup has a wellness app he's trying to make successful, and his net worth is also the lowest of the group, just a mere $521 million. Randall (Steve Carell) is a venture capitalist who has received a terminal cancer prognosis, which he's refusing to accept and demands that there's a doctor who can cure him. Venis (Cory Michael Smith) is described as "the richest man in the world," the social media titan of the company Traam. A new feature that can create deepfake videos, which has sparked global chaos from the spread of disinformation. Conversely, Jeff (Ramy Youssef) has created AI technology that can be used as "guardrails" for disinformation online. As Jeff says in the movie, "I'm sitting on the cure to info-cancer while everybody dies." As Armstrong described the characters in his film, they're "the four horsemen of the apocalypse." "The film hopefully plays on a line of, when you look at it one way it feels like a comedy, in another way it's a tragedy," Armstrong said. For Armstrong, he didn't necessarily set out to write another project about the rich and powerful. But the idea for Mountainhead came after he wrote a book review about Sam Bankman-Fried, the U.S. crypto mogul who's serving a 25-year sentence after being convicted of stealing $8 billion from customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange. "Often, for a writer, the first thing that starts working for you is ... getting the voices. That was very important for Succession, the tone of voice of how that family interacted," Armstrong explained. "And I started to feel like, oh I can hear these guys, how they talk and how they see the world. And that was the thing that clicked and made me think, I think I want to write in this world." "Succession was about old media, legacy media, and this is ... about the new media, the social media, which is the way that, increasingly, people get their sense of the world and information."But Armstrong, Smith and Youssef are all in agreement that there's one scene that's particularly critical for the whole movie. Jeff is a unique character, because he does have an understanding how of Venis' company is sending the world into chaos, but boosting his net worth is still a priority for Jeff. "It was a really fun thing to play because on a level, he kind of is able to see the larger issue with a bit of empathy, and at the same time he kind of wants to monetize that empathy," Youssef said. "I don't think that I could look at him as holistically better than the rest of the guys, even though he might feel like the moral conscience at times. He's just as driven by monetizing as they are." Then we get to one moment in the film where Soup, Randall and Venis are all talking about possibly killing Jeff. "He wants to stop a new world from being born," Randall says. The three friends talk about how it could happen, and any possible "moral issues" are explain away by the thinking that the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people happens in the "absence" of Jeff. From conversations about how they'll actually do it, and how they'll get a "pre-pardon" from the president, the dialogue is quick, witty and absurd in a particularly interesting way. "I loved writing it. It's a crucial moment," Armstrong said. "The tone has been somewhat heightened all the way through the movie, but that one is where an extraordinary idea gets introduced." "So it was a technical challenge, which I really enjoyed. And I have to say it's one of one of the most exciting scenes I've ever been involved with shooting, because watching those three brilliant comic actors play off each other with quite a dramatic frame, but with some words that I was pleased with, and feeling like I'd given them good ammunition. ... And it worked on the day. ... And I was just in awe of the actors, watching them navigate their way through it." Smith called working on this scene one of his "favourite experiences as an actor." "It was like in real time ... knowing that this is just a great scene," he said. "Jesse wrote a great scene and doing it, we just didn't want to stop." "I haven't done a lot of comedy and the way that scene uses comedy, but is so truly deadly serious, I just think is masterful from Jesse's position. But getting to play in that scene and watch Jason and Steve navigate that was the greatest lesson in comedy ... that I've ever had, and will probably ever have. I just really loved that day." "I loved watching that day," Youssef added. "I was just sitting there ... watching them talking about killing me. Very fun."
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
#OneChicago: Find Out Which Stars Are Set to Return This Fall — Plus, Fire, Med and P.D. Episode Counts Revealed
#OneChicago's finest aren't going anywhere. Chicago Fire's Taylor Kinney, Miranda Rae Mayo and Dermot Mulroney have all inked deals to return for Season 14 of the flagship firefighter drama; Chicago P.D.'s Jason Beghe has re-upped for Season 13 of the police procedural; and Chicago Med's S. Epatha Merkerson and Oliver Platt will scrub back in for Season 11 of the medical offshoot. More from TVLine Chicago Med Is Plotting the Return of Original Cast Member(s) Next Season, EP Reveals — Who Should Come Back? Chicago Fire EP Warns CFD Layoffs Will Cause 'A Lot of Turnover' Next Season: 'Everything's Going to Get Shaken Up' AGT Just Brought Back Two Acts for Redemption in Season 20 - and One Got a Golden Buzzer! (Watch) What's more, our sister site Deadline reports that all three Dick Wolf shows will produce 21 episodes next season — each down one episode from their 2024-25 season orders. As an additional cost-cutting measure, most (if not all) cast members will sit out a couple of those 21 episodes. All three #OneChicago finales, which aired May 21, earned a TVLine reader grade of 'B+.' Meanwhile, Chicago Med Season 10 earned an 'A,' and Chicago Fire Season 13 and Chicago P.D. Season 12 each averaged an 'A-.' Heading into the fall, Chicago Fire showrunner Andrea Newman told TVLine to expect CFD layoffs in Season 14, while Chicago Med showrunner Allen MacDonald is plotting the returns of several original cast members in Season 11. Chicago Med, Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D. will stay put on Wednesdays, from 8-11 pm, this fall. Premiere dates have not yet been announced, but you can find NBC's 2025-26 primetime schedule here. Are you relieved to learn that all six #OneChicago leads will return to their respective shows next season? Drop your thoughts in a comment below. #OneChicago Weddings, Ranked View List Best of TVLine 'Missing' Shows, Found! Get the Latest on Ahsoka, Monarch, P-Valley, Sugar, Anansi Boys and 25+ Others Yellowjackets Mysteries: An Up-to-Date List of the Series' Biggest Questions (and Answers?) The Emmys' Most Memorable Moments: Laughter, Tears, Historical Wins, 'The Big One' and More
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Abbott Elementary' Season 4 Took Pains Not to ‘Phone It in': ‘We Want Every Episode to Be a Surprise'
While 'Abbott Elementary' creator and star Quinta Brunson is a noted scholar of classic sitcoms, she does not envy the episode orders of yore. 'Some of my favorite shows had 30 to 40 episode seasons, which is insane,' said the Emmy winner, noting her respect for those older series' hustle. 'But I cannot tell you how hard it is to not make absolute garbage. You start going [into Episode] 22 like 'Honestly, I could phone it in.' We've seen other shows do it. We don't want to do that. We want to continue to make good television. We want every episode to be a surprise. We want you to not [say] 'I'm going to go back to the tired episode of the tired show.' We would like to keep it compelling.' In an event giving the audience a peek inside the 'Abbott Elementary' writers room, as part of IndieWire's Pass the Remote FYC series, produced in partnership with Disney, Brunson and executive producers Patrick Schumacker, Justin Halpern, and Brian Rubenstein, plus co-executive producer Brittani Nichols joined IndieWire's Awards Editor Marcus Jones for a discussion about the show was able to navigate several changes with Season 4, including more episodes, and a big change to the group dynamics. More from IndieWire 'Mountainhead': Jesse Armstrong Discusses the DOGE-Inspired Dark Second Act Turn and Surprising Final Scene 'Outlander' Creators Talk Season 7 Highlights and Reveal Why They Had to Make a Big Change to Jamie & Claire's Reunion Love Scene At the panel, which took place at the Vidiots Foundation in Los Angeles on Tuesday, May 20, Halpern shared that conversations around how much of the show should focus on the blossoming relationship between Brunson and Tyler James Williams' characters Janine and Gregory has been a bit of a tug of war from the beginning. 'From the very first time we talked about [the show] with Quinta, she was like, 'I don't want this to be the Janine and Gregory show. I want it to be an ensemble.' And let me tell you the notes that we would get sometimes from the executives early on was like, 'Can we get more Janine and Gregory?'' He added, 'They wanted it so bad, and we had to push back and be like, 'The show is going to be stronger in the long run.'' Despite the pair finally being a couple in Season 4, the show still managed to spotlight its other characters like Principal Ava (Janelle James) throughout its 22 episodes, an effort that is core to the show's DNA. 'You go back to the Bible of the show, of why you created it. And as we start Season 5, I in my head go, 'What is this show about? It's about teachers in Philadelphia trying to make the best out of what they have.' And so we couldn't let that change to 'This show is about Janine and Gregory', or 'This show is about Ava,' or 'This show is about Barbara.' When you have an ensemble, it has to continue to focus on each character,' said Brunson. The executive producers also highlight that one of the benefits of having a 22-episode season is how that inclusive ethos extends behind the scenes as well. 'It's really important to us to be able to give people their first opportunities, people who are generally looked over. And because we have 22 episodes, we have four assistants who are now on staff of the show, a writer's PA that gets to write an episode of the show, we have first AD's getting to direct,' said Halpern. 'Because we do 22 episodes, and a lot of other shows don't, we are able to actually bring people along and start a bunch of careers.' For instance, Season 4 saw both Schumacker and Nichols make their directorial debuts on the episodes 'The Deli' and 'Music Class,' respectively. While Schumacker shared that directing had been his initial passion, delayed by his writing duties alongside Halpern, Nichols revealed that she had never even thought about directing until she worked alongside 'Abbott Elementary' director and executive producer Randall Einhorn. 'I just was very talkative, and had a lot of opinions, and things that I wanted to get. And he just was like, 'Do you want to direct?' And I just said 'Yes' in the moment, and then we sort of built off of that,' she said. 'Truly, it starts with that question, of just someone being willing to see you, and put attention on you, and ask you the thing that a lot of people in this industry won't ask you. And that is how it came to be, truly, was just this old white guy being like, 'What's going on with you over here?'' As for how 'Abbott Elementary' continues to foster an environment where everyone is seen and heard, despite a rigorous work schedule, Rubenstein said, 'It starts from the top. These are the most generous people I've ever worked with … It sounds ridiculous, but it's true, everyone is so nice and amazing on this show, and it's just been the best experience of my career, and I love coming to work.' Watch the complete video of IndieWire's 'Abbott Elementary' panel above. More Pass the Remote panels are available as well on IndieWire's website and YouTube channel. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
