The New Yorker is celebrating its centennial by giving unprecedented access to its inner workings, contributors and archives in a new Netflix documentary streaming this year.
The project, which comes from Marshall Curry Productions and Apatow Productions, follows the editors, writers and creatives behind the scenes of one of the last print magazines of our time.
Curry directs and serves as a producer alongside Xan Parker, while Judd Apatow, Josh Church, Helen Estabrook, Sarah Amos and Michael Bonfiglio serve as executive producers.
“To be the subject of someone else’s reporting is, to say the least, unusual, and even a little unnerving, for us,” The New Yorker editor David Remnick said in a statement. “We’ve let Marshall, Judd and Netflix into our offices and work lives and they will take it from there. I look forward to seeing what they make of the work we do each day and what we hope to achieve as we celebrate our 100th anniversary and, even more, forge ahead as a publication in complicated times.”
“I’ve been a reader of the magazine for most of my life, and it’s been thrilling to get to peek behind the curtain and witness the precision, thought and almost fanatical obsession that goes into crafting their stories, cartoons and covers,” Curry added.
Founded in 1925 by its first editor Harold Ross, The New Yorker has evolved from a Manhattan-centric “fifteen-cent comic paper” to a multi-platform publication known worldwide for its in-depth reporting, political and cultural commentary, fiction, poetry and humor. Its first issue was published on Feb. 21, 1925.
Notably, the paper previously collaborated with Prime Video on a series from 2015-16 called “The New Yorker Presents.”
In addition to the Netflix doc, the magazine is celebrating 100 years with A Century of The New Yorker, a new exhibit that will open at the New York Public Library on Feb. 22, showcasing founding documents, rare manuscripts, photographs and timeless cover and cartoon art drawn from the Library’s rich holdings.
The Society of Illustrators is also hosting a new exhibit from Jan. 8 to May 3, Drawn From The New Yorker, featuring over 100 works by legendary artists like Roz Chast, Charles Addams, Barbara Shermund and more.
Additionally, Film Forum will hold a screening series featuring movies based on the publication’s stories and reporting from Feb. 21 to March 6.
