If you’d told anybody a few years ago that one of the comedic minds behind Anchorman would become America’s most preeminent dramatist of corporate intrigue, they’d have laughed at you. And, yet, The Big Short showed Adam McKay could handle dramatic fireworks as well as comedic timing. And McKay is now back, with a new series from HBO, Succession that will sound just a wee bit familiar.
Created and showrun by Jesse Armstrong of In The Loop, and executive produced by Armstrong, McKay, Frank Rich, Kevin Messick, Will Ferrell, Jane Tranter, and Mark Mylod, Succession stars Brian Cox as Logan May, the aging patriarch of the May media empire. Logan, considering retirement, decides to remain as CEO, sticking his family, including sons Connor (Alan Ruck), Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) and politically minded daughter Siobhan (Sarah Snook), with the job of figuring out what to do next. Plots will be formed, intrigues will be pursued, manhoods will be insulted in the most Freudian ways possible, and, it seems, magazines will be eaten.
If the idea of an aging patriarch remaining in control of his company in the face of his younger, more politically savvy sons sounds familiar, we’re sure that’s a complete coincidence. We’ll get a better idea of just how much of a coincidence it will be this June, when the show premieres on HBO.
