WWNO skyline header graphic
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Local Newscast
Hear the latest from the WWNO/WRKF Newsroom.

Support local, independent journalism on WWNO with your Member Fest gift now! Click the donate button or Call 844-790-1094.

Kevin Smith's 'Spoilers' Comes To Hulu

Hulu isn't content being your source of Saturday Night Live clips and full episodes of Glee. Like Netflix, they have one eye on original content, and one of their recent announcements is that they're bringing you a movie review show — wait, an anti-movie-review show — called Spoilers, starring Kevin Smith (the writer-director behind Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Dogma, among others).

(Aside #1: I'm sorry that people outside the U.S. can't legally view Hulu stuff. I wish it were otherwise, but for the moment, we're a bit stuck acknowledging the limitation.)

This teaser trailer, I have to admit, already makes me tired, but I think that has more to do with how manic it is than with any problem with what they're proposing. The play here is pretty sensible — they're trying to do with an online show what a lot of people (including Smith) have successfully done with podcasts: get people to follow a personality they like to a product they have to seek out. It makes some sense for Smith, too, since his distaste for traditional distribution methods has led him to do things like releasing his 2011 film Red State without a major theatrical run (focusing on limited showings and video on demand).

The structure seems sound, too: take an audience to see a movie and then talk about it, with special guests added to "talk about how awesome they are."

(Aside #2: I have long pondered a blog feature that would just be called, "What's It Like Being Awesome?" where that I could interview people and acknowledge from the beginning that I, personally, have already decided they are awesome. I also think it would be hilarious if you just asked people, literally, "What's it like being awesome?" Maybe that's what Kevin Smith is going to do.)

Smith can be polarizing, both as a guy and as a director, and combined with the fact that online-only shows have had trouble reaching large audiences generally, that's likely to mean that the audience for Spoilers will probably not be enormous. But it doesn't necessarily have to be; I think at this point, Hulu is looking for proof-of-concept as much as anything, and to start to make a dent with its original offerings. You can see more about the other stuff they're serving up ; you'll note they're pretty dude-oriented, including something promoted as (urgh) a "bro-mantic comedy."

Will you watch?

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.

👋 Looks like you could use more news. Sign up for our newsletters.

* indicates required
New Orleans Public Radio News
New Orleans Public Radio Info