The original Project Greenlight landed over 20 years ago, a relic of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s massive success and the funky shift of reality TV from college-aged sex-havers to people winning shows based on niche talents. Then it went away for a decade and returned with a disastrous fourth season which saw HBO swear that it was always, totally, 100% supposed to be a one-off. So, after a cooling off period, it’s back again.
The fifth season, subbed A New Generation, will boldly go into the chaotic world of filmmaking to create a dramatic series and a great feature film. This iteration has replaced Damon and Affleck with Issa Rae, Kumail Nanjiani, and Gina Prince-Bythewood as the mentors.
The trailer promises that a lot will go wrong. In other words, the stage is set for compelling television.
The funniest part is when tensions arise between the film crew and the Project Greenlight crew — a little fourth-wall-breaking signal of which crew is more important than the other, especially considering the track record of the show for producing winners. And because they only give the filmmaker 18 days to shoot. It’s hard to make anything quality in that amount of time, and it feels like a funny throwback to the 1990s indie vibe of running and gunning and making whatever gets on the reel.
In a weird and wonderful move, Max will stream Project Greenlight: A New Generation on the same day as the release of Gray Matter, the feature that Greenlight winner Meko Winbush made during the filming of the show we haven’t seen yet. Spoiler alert: the movie got made!
Both Project Greenlight: A New Generation and Gray Matter hit Max on July 13th.