After he spent the past seven years focused on the silver screen, the world of television is welcoming Steve Carell back home.
Carell will star in Apple's new original drama series about a morning news show, per The Hollywood Reporter. Apple is clearly pulling out all the stops for this major foray into original content, as the upcoming series also stars Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, both of whom serve as producers as well. This untitled drama revolves around a morning news program, and is inspired by Brian Stelter's nonfiction book Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV. Carell will be playing Mitch Kessler, a TV anchor who is struggling to stay relevant in modern times.
This is Carell's first regular television role since he left The Office in 2011. Coincidentally, it's also Aniston's first regular television role since Friends, another NBC sitcom, ended in 2004. Carell should have no problem getting into character as a television broadcaster, a role he has played a weird number of times now. He kick-started his career by joining The Daily Show as a correspondent, going on to portray fictional broadcasters in two of his most famous movies, Bruce Almighty and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. He'll be the primary male lead in this series. Though it remains untitled, Apple has already gone all in on the upcoming show, ordering two full seasons before a single episode even airs.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Apple currently has more than a dozen original shows in development for a streaming platform that The Wall Street Journal previously described as fairly family-friendly and essentially "expensive NBC." None of the shows in the works have release dates.
-
Scorching hot sauces that pack a punchThe Week Recommends The best sauces to tingle your lips and add a fiery kick to your food
-
Syria’s strange post-Assad electionThe Explainer Sunday’s limited vote ‘suited the phase Syria is undergoing’, says interim president
-
Why did the China spying case collapse?Today’s Big Question Unwillingness to call China an ‘enemy’ apparently scuppered espionage trial
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talkSpeed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
-
Shakespeare not an absent spouse, study proposesspeed read A letter fragment suggests that the Shakespeares lived together all along, says scholar Matthew Steggle
