''Mr. Corman'' is an American

comedy-drama Comedy drama (also known by the portmanteau dramedy) is a hybrid genre of works that combine elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. In film, as well as scripted television series, serious dramatic subjects (such as death, il ...

television series created by, written by, directed by, and starring

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt (; born February 17, 1981) is an American actor. He has received various accolades, including nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his leading perform ...

. The series premiered on August 6, 2021, on

Apple TV+ Apple TV+ is an American subscription over-the-top streaming service owned by Apple. The service launched on November 1, 2019, and it offers a selection of original production film and television series called Apple Originals. The service w ...

. In October 2021, the series was canceled after one season.

Premise

''Mr. Corman'' is described as a deep cut into the days and nights of a public school teacher in the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...

Cast

Main

as Josh Corman, a public school teacher in the San Fernando Valley * Arturo Castro as Victor, Josh's friend and roommate

Guest

Debra Winger Debra Lynn Winger (born May 16, 1955) is an American actress. She starred in the films '' An Officer and a Gentleman'' (1982), '' Terms of Endearment'' (1983), and '' Shadowlands'' (1993), each of which earned her a nomination for the Academy Awa ...

as Ruth Corman, Josh's mother *

Shannon Woodward Shannon Marie Woodward is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Sabrina Collins on the Fox sitcom '' Raising Hope'' (2010–2014), Elsie Hughes on the HBO science-fiction thriller series ''Westworld'' (2016–2018), and the ...

as Elizabeth Corman, Josh's sister *

Logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

as Dax, Josh's friend and a social media influencer *

Juno Temple Juno Temple (born 21 July 1989) is an English actress. She is known for her roles in the comedy series ''Ted Lasso'' (2020–2023) and in the fifth season of the crime drama series '' Fargo'' (2023–2024). She earned Primetime Emmy Award nomi ...

as Megan, Josh's former girlfriend and Dax's childhood friend *

Lucy Lawless Lucille Frances Lawless (; born 29 March 1968) is a New Zealand actress and director. She is best known for her roles as Xena in the television series ''Xena: Warrior Princess'', as Number Three (Battlestar Galactica), D'Anna Biers on the re-im ...

as Cheryl, Meghan's mother *

Hugo Weaving Hugo Wallace Weaving (born 4 April 1960) is a British actor. He is the recipient of six Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards (AACTA) and has been recognised as an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia. Born in Colonia ...

as Artie, Josh's estranged father *

Amanda Crew Amanda Crew (born June 5, 1986) is a Canadian actress. Following her film debut in '' Final Destination 3'' (2006), Crew had lead roles in films such as ''Sex Drive'' (2008), '' Charlie St. Cloud'', ''Repeaters'' (both 2010), '' Charlie Zone'' (20 ...

as Ms. Perry-Geller, Josh's coworker and an art teacher *

Emily Tremaine Emily Tremaine is an American actress, best known for playing Audrey Bidwell, Donald Ressler's (Diego Klattenhoff) former fiancée on NBC's ''The Blacklist'' and Natalie Atwood on Freeform's ''Guilt''. Career In 2016, Tremaine was recurring on ...

as Lindsey *

Jamie Chung Jamie Jilynn Chung (born April 10, 1983) is an American actress and former reality television personality. She began her career in 2004 as a cast member on the MTV reality series '' The Real World: San Diego'' and subsequently through her appea ...

as Emily * Veronica Falcon as Beatriz, a coworker at school

Episodes

Production

Development

On September 5, 2019, ''

Deadline Hollywood ''Deadline Hollywood'', commonly known as ''Deadline'' and also referred to as ''Deadline.com'', is an online news site founded as the news blog ''Deadline Hollywood Daily'' by Nikki Finke in 2006. It is updated several times a day, with en ...

'' reported that Joseph Gordon-Levitt would be directing, writing, and executive producing ''Mr. Corman'' along with

A24 A24 Films LLC, commonly referred to as A24, is an American Privately held company, independent entertainment company that specializes in film and television production, as well as film distribution. The studio is based in Manhattan. The company ...

. In March 2020,

Bruce Eric Kaplan Bruce Eric Kaplan (born ) is an American cartoonist whose single-panel cartoons frequently appear in ''The New Yorker''. His cartoons are known for their signature simple style and often dark humor. Kaplan is also a screenwriter and has worked ...

joined as

showrunner A showrunner is the top-level executive producer of a television series. The position outranks other creative and management personnel, including episode directors, in contrast to feature films, in which the director has creative control over th ...

and executive producer, with Ravi Nandan, Nathan Reinhart, and Inman Young also executive producing under A24. In October 2021, the series was canceled after one season.

Casting

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' reported on March 10, 2020, that Arturo Castro will portray the part of Victor. In an interview with

music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...

and

YouTuber A YouTuber is a content creator and social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006 ...

Anthony Fantano Anthony Nicholas Fantano ( ; born October 28, 1985) is an American Music journalism, music critic and internet personality who runs ''The Needle Drop'', a YouTube channel with a tie-in website and Twitch (service), Twitch streaming channel. Self ...

on September 4, 2020, the Maryland

rapper Rapping (also rhyming, flowing, spitting, emceeing, or MCing) is an artistic form of vocal delivery and emotive expression that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and ommonlystreet vernacular". It is usually performed over a backing ...

said that he auditioned and got a part in the series.

Filming

In March 2020, after three weeks of filming in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, production was shut down due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. While being interviewed by ''The Talk'' in October 2020, Gordon-Levitt revealed that production was being moved from Los Angeles to

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

to feel safer while filming. In February 2021, ''Deadline Hollywood'' reported that the series was in the last few weeks of filming.

Reception

The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

reports a 70% approval rating with an average score of 5.80/10 based on 40 critic reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "A slow build that won't work for everyone, ''Mr. Corman''s dazzling visuals and catchy musical numbers are let down by rote characterizations and a main character who can be hard to root for."

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 59 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mister Corman Apple TV+ original programming 2020s American comedy-drama television series 2020s American school television series 2020s American workplace comedy television series 2020s American workplace drama television series 2021 American television series debuts 2021 American television series endings American English-language television shows Television series about educators Television series by A24 Television productions suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic Television shows filmed in New Zealand Television shows set in Los Angeles County, California