Options
Jon Stewart to take a three-month hiatus from “The Daily Show” to direct his 1st film
Jason
Posts: 76,557
Forum Member
✭✭✭
“Daily Show” fans will be shocked to hear that veteran host Jon Stewart will be taking a three-month hiatus from the show come this summer to direct a movie — and it’s not a comedy. Deadline is reporting that Stewart will take 12 weeks off to direct “Rosewater,” a film for which he already wrote the screenplay, adapted from the 2011 memoir “Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity and Survival.” The drama marks Stewart’s first foray into directing.
“Then They Came For Me” is BBC journalist Maziar Bahari’s harrowing account of what was supposed to be a week-long trip to cover Iran’s presidential elections. Instead, Bahari’s visit extended to 118 days, during which time he was trapped in an Iranian prison, interrogated by a man he could only identify by the smell of rosewater.
Stewart has a personal connection to the film: Bahari had performed in a “Daily Show” sketch several years ago, which Iranian authorities used as footage against him, accusing him of “plotting to stage a revolution against the government,” according to the New York Times
“You can imagine how upset we were,” Stewart told the Times over telephone, “and I struck up a friendship with him afterwards.”
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/05/jon_stewart_to_take_a_three_month_hiatus_from_the_daily_show_to_direct_his_first_film/
It will be weird without Jon there, but I think John Oliver filling in is inspired. I think he'll be very good. I suppose they could have had guest hosts doing a week or two at a time, but it wouldn't necessarily have worked that well.
0
Comments
Thanks for the news. (I can't even be bear to watch TDS to get my news and pop, so I ~rely on things like this.)
It would have depended who the guest hosts were. I suppose they could have had the various Daily Show "correspondents" doing a couple of weeks each
I read an article somewhere praising Jon Stewart’s confidence too, because most TV hosts would be too insecure to take such a sabbatical from their own programme, and it also praised his allowing of a guest host as many would have insisted upon reruns in their absence.
I wonder if it’ll actually be renamed to ‘The Daily Show with John Oliver’ for the 3 months…
I suspect it probably will actually. Good point about the characters though - I could certainly see Oliver playing a rather OTT version of the typical englishman I suppose.
Part of me wonders whether Comedy Central are lining up a John Oliver spin-off (like Colbert Report)
That would be genius
The gag will be that instead of expressing quiet revulsion at the neo-Nazis, extreme religious nuts, meth addicts etc.....that he meets, John Oliver will agree with them all.
But that wouldn't be remotely funny...
Especially to people who don't get the gag. The Colbert Report is still funny, if you don't know what/who Colbert is parodying...
Hopefully this isn't the beginning of the end for Stewart but obviously he won't want to do the show forever.
Maybe that's why they chose that specific time period then. I know he's been doing it for a good 10 years so, as you say, it probably won't go on forever.
I suppose if his film is successful, he'll arguably want to make another one as well so these breaks might be more frequent and he might ultimately have to choose one or the other.
Speaking of which, has The Colbert Report ever been shown over here??
Well you have to understand "what" (those that don't understand... are the "what", btw ), if not maybe exactly "who".
Not necessarily, a lot of his comments are funny even if you've never seen Fox News
It was shown on FX, but the daily compliance was far too much work for the small ratings they were getting and they dropped it
He was very good!
I loved that - especially when Jason Jones started his piece and you slowly started to realise what he was actually on about.
I think the more relaxed he gets, the better he'll be - he's got plenty of time I suppose. Could even potentially land his own show as a result as well.
I can't help wondering if deep down Jason is genuinely a bit annoyed that John Oliver got the gig
I suppose you say the same about all of them - they've been there a lot longer than John Oliver has. I suppose it would have been interesting to give each correspondent a week or two each to host - I'd personally like to see Aasif Mandvi at the desk.
Only Sam and Jason have been there longer than him
Aasif, Al and Jessica started after him , although in Aasif's case only by a month and Al and Jessica are relative newbies having started in 2011 (Al) and 2012 (Jessica) respectively.
As for each of the correspondents having a go I suggested that back in post #3
Yeah, fair point - I probably wasn't paying a lot of attention