Entourage film director braces for Twitter storm from haters of the TV series
Can the big-screen version of Entourage live up to the TV series? The film's director braces for the inevitable backlash
A lot of people hate Entourage, and Doug Ellin knows it. But he thinks they have it all wrong.
He points out that the show had been nominated for multiple Emmys and Golden Globes for comedy series. That critics loved Entourage when it started in 2004 and that its ratings were way better than HBO's zeitgeisty show Girls.
"And for some reason, somewhere along the line, this hate started propagating that actually it wasn't good," says Ellin, who created the eight-season-long series and the Warner Bros movie version. "It's really silly and really stupid. I will never understand it. The truth is, I'll stand up in front of anybody and say this is a smart show that really shows this town how it is."
For a while, Entourage did seem unstoppable. Its most popular season averaged 8.4 million viewers per episode, according to HBO - far more than the 5 million average for the top season of Girls. Fans were so obsessed with the dudes' lifestyle they started frequenting hot spots seen on the show - Urth Caffe, the pool at the Roosevelt Hotel, Koi.
And as women did with Sex and the City, guys picked members of the Entourage posse with whom they most identified: movie star and ringleader Vinny Chase (Adrian Grenier), earnest and loyal manager "E" (Kevin Connolly), goofball underdog Drama (Kevin Dillon) or weed-loving Turtle (Jerry Ferrara).
