It’s safe to say Sir Patrick Stewart is a global face, but Media Rights Capital will not find much luck selling his new Starz comedy “Blunt Talk” in any sharia law territories.
Following a screening of the series premiering later this month, the same showgirls that populated his character Walter Blunt’s hallucinatory dreams on screen magically migrated to the Chateau Marmont after-party on Monday night in West Hollywood in the flesh (see photo above).
In the first 20 minutes of “Blunt Talk,” Seth MacFarlane has the actor best known as Captain Jean Luc-Picard (“Star Trek”) Professor X (“X-Men”) ingesting everything except a blunt: alcohol at a bar (alone), alcohol from a flask behind the wheel, weed infused chocolates, a transvestite hooker’s breasts, cocaine, Richard Lewis’ psychiatry, speed, espresso shots, ambien and/or oxycontin, and a full body office spooning from “Silver Lining Playbook’s” Jacki Weaver.
His character, a ranting cable news Brit excoriating yanks, surfs through his vices to make it live on-air as a lovable “mad genius,” as Starz CEO Chris Albrecht described the character.
Albrecht, exec producer MacFarlane, and creator/showrunner Jonathan Ames (“Bored to Death”) celebrated the new series with a double episode screening at the DGA followed by a party at the Cheateau, where the consumables were bland, British, and wholly non-psychoactive: fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, Yorkshire pudding, and shepherds pie.
“I went to (Media Rights Capital Co-CEOs) Modi and Asif, who will pretty much say ‘yes’ to anything,” MacFarlane told the crowd of the project’s genesis. “They liked the idea of doing a show with Patrick and Jonathan.”
MacFarlane and Stewart are regular collaborators by now. In addition to “Family Guy” and “American Dad” (where Stewart plays “Avery Bullock”), they have worked in tandem on both “Ted” movies and “A Million Ways to Die in the West”.
When the unusually placed stage within the Chateau courtyard cleared out, the smart (and wrong) money was on a MacFarlane vocal performance. Instead, showgirls invaded the stage, before shuffling in to the VIP section to surround Stewart.
They dodged through a crowd that included Stewart’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation” co-stars LeVar Burton and Michael Dorn, Vanity Fair editor Krista Smith, “Life Itself” producer Mark Mitten, Moby, “Power” star Leslie Lopez, and Courtney Kemp Agboh, the “Power” creator on an overall deal with Albrecht’s premium network.
“Blunt Talk” premieres on Saturday, August 22 at 9 p.m. ET on Starz.
‘Hotwives’, not Housewives
Meanwhile over on the Paramount Lot, the “Hotwives” were back.
Hulu and Paramount Digital Entertainment premiered the second season of the parody series that takes aim at the Countess, Bethenny, jailbird Giudice, Nene Leakes, and the wannabe Nene’s that consume Bravo’s schedule.
“The Hotwives of Las Vegas” is the second season of the send-up, after a debut season set in Vegas’ spiritual sister city, Orlando.
At the TCA’s, Angela Kinsey (best known as “Angela” from “The Office”), revealed that she does not watch any of the “Real Housewives” franchises, which makes her rendering of a character who launches a food program called “Anorexi-yeah!” more impressive.
For actual nourishment, food trucks pulled on to the lot after the screening in the Sherry Lansing Screening Room to feed the guests.
Unlike Netflix, Hulu releases one episode of the original series per week. The first “Hotwives of Las Vegas” premieres next Tuesday, August 18.