“This is the definitive Hollywood movie studio,” TCM host Ben Mankiewicz says while hanging out on the Warner Bros. Discovery backlot. “MGM had the glitz, this place had the grit, and we always say, ‘Grit over glitz.’”
Mankiewicz, as well as fellow on-air personalities Eddie Muller, Alicia Malone and Dave Karger, are present on the lot to film promo material for the newly announced TCM Classic Film Tour that will show fans various Old Hollywood spots on the Warner backlot.
It’s a moment of renewal for the classic film-centric network, coming close to one year after Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav stoked the ire of film fans by laying off several key members of the Turner Classic Movies team and cutting the network’s already meager budget. In that time, the network has rehired two of those creatives initially laid off — program director Charlie Tabesh and festival programmer Genevieve McGillicuddy — and put Warner Bros. Pictures heads Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca in charge of oversight of the network alongside a board that includes Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson and Steven Spielberg.
“This is a rare moment when I think that corporate-speak makes sense,” Mankiewicz told TheWrap during an exclusive interview on the backlot. “This is the kind of synergy that works.” Part of that synergy is this new tour, which is all part of a reinvestment in the network and its mission to protect classic films. The new TCM-centric tour of the backlot comes with all-new branded trams, evoking the Art Deco spirit of the network, while dedicated tour guides show off locations with classic film appeal, like the studio’s Rose Garden, the last remaining set from 1942’s “Casablanca” and the Property Department.
The new tour also comes with a cheeky ad campaign, playing on rotation on the TCM network, that sees the hosts recreating the “chicken fight” from the 1955 feature “Rebel Without a Cause.”
Mankiewicz, who TheWrap previously reported was a key figure in getting TCM back on solid ground, humbly refuses to take credit for getting Zaslav to support the station. “It was a thrill to be a very small part of what went on,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anybody here who would say we’re not in a better place than we were a year ago.”
Much of that, as Mankiewicz and Muller explain, is because of the directorial board made up of Spielberg, Anderson and Scorsese, whose impact has been immediately felt by fans. “The biggest difference is it feels like TCM’s profile has been raised in the mainstream because of their involvement,” Muller noted. “What started out as a negative thing, we managed to turn into a very positive thing and that was largely due to — we now refer to them as the board of directors.”
Outside of the increase in directors and performers like Olivia Wilde and Spike Lee jumping on the network to talk movies, the directors are a daily presence in meetings on network programming. Mankiewicz said that, in one instance, it was Anderson himself who asked that TCM restore the “what’s up next” spoken menus, read by long-time “voice” of TCM, Robin Bittman. “Paul Thomas Anderson said, ‘You guys used to have the menus in-between the movies where they tell you what was coming up. Can we bring that back?”
Anderson’s reps did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
“The interaction with the directors has been amazing from my perspective, they really like TCM’s approach, values and reverence for film,” Tabesh told TheWrap. “We’ve created interstitial pieces based on concepts they’ve brainstormed, and their involvement has led to more talent becoming available to the network.”
More than anything, though, Muller is happy to talk about movies with the impresarios of filmmaking. “It’s pretty amazing to be on Zoom calls with these guys,” he admitted. “You can only imagine talking about movies and they geek out. That’s where we knew they were real because they waste a lot of time just talking about movies.”
Famous Hollywood directors, they’re just like us.
