Wow. Could Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy be a bigger douchebag? What the hell is wrong with him? First, he told the Hollywood Reporter that Lea Michele, Chris Colfer and Corey Monteith are not only graduating, but leaving Glee. Murphy claimed that he had discussions with Michele and Colfer about this particular development, but not Monteith. “He knows he was a sophomore when the show started, ” said Ryan.
The next day, in interviews to discuss his 2nd Emmy nomination, Colfer, who plays openly gay gleekster Kurt, told reporters that he didn’t necessarily know that Season 3 would be his last, and that he learned about Murphy’s announcement on twitter. “It’s definitely not my choice [to leave Glee], ” Chris said, “but I absolutely respect it and understand why it has to happen.”
THEN over the weekend, fellow co-creator, Brad Falchuk TOTALLY contradicted Murphy, telling the audience at the Comic Con Glee panel in San Diego that actually, in fact, the characters Chris, Lea and Corey play on the show WILL be graduating, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be leaving the show.
Sounds like a big mess, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s time for the producers, Murphy in particular, to STFU?
But Noooo. Murphy just HAD TO GIVE ANOTHER FREAKING INTERVIEW. This time to Deadline, where he proceeded to blame the entire mess, including the demise of a planned spinoff, on the actors (Chris Colfer in particular) and the press.
“It blew up and a lot of articles were written about it, ” said Murphy, “Some people were writing they’re not on the show so that means they must be fired. Well, no. That was 100% incorrect.”
According to Murphy, there WAS a New York Glee spinoff in the works. It was to be filmed on location in NYC, with Rachel (Lea Michele), Finn (Corey Monteith) and Kurt attending Julliard. But, according to Murphy, the spin-off has been scrapped because of the those statements Colfer made to the press.
I think that some of those actors’ representatives spun it in a certain way, to be quite honest, I don’t understand. We weren’t allowed to talk about a spin-off. It was too premature. We didn’t want to do it then. The idea was to do it this fall when Glee gets back on the air. Then, to pick up and read the actors saying, “We found out we were fired from Twitter.” All of us, the studio, the network, were like, ‘OK, that isn’t exactly cool, ‘ because we involved all three of them in that decision. So then what happened is that we decided, ‘OK, let’s not do it.’ So that’s where we are today. Maybe we’ll talk about it in April or May, but for now let’s just concentrate on making Season 3 the best that we can do. When I say they’re seniors and they’re not coming back to the show, what I did not say is they’re not coming back to the show because there will be another show. What Brad [Falchuk] said this weekend at Comic-Con is now correct: they’re graduating. What we wanted is to get people away from this idea that the actors were fired which is ludicrous. Nobody was fired. They were talked to for months about the show.
There’s so much gone wrong here. First, Colfer never said he found out he was “fired” on twitter (Read the original quote). And, c’mon. Why would anything any of the actors say to the press put a stop to a spin off? That’s ridiculous. And now, Murphy is claiming that he DID talk to Monteith about the fate of his character, contradicting what he told the Hollywood Reporter. Ryan you need to shut up.
The real reason the spin-off was put on hold probably had more to do with Murphy and Falchuk getting ready to launch another show on FX. Murphy hints that some of the actors were happy to relocate to NYC, but others not so much. The spin off details probably got too complicated to deal with on top of beginning production on a new season of Glee and launching a new show. But I suppose throwing the actors under the bus takes the heat off the production team AND punishes the talent for talking to the press.
Ryan tells Deadline that decisions about Season 4 will be made in the spring. There could be a spin-off…or not.
I wonder if Murphy is also reacting to this report posted at the Daily Beast today. It suggests that all parties involved were caught off guard by Murphy’s interview with THR:
Although internally there had been conversations about which characters might graduate and the possibility of a spinoff for some of them, no one expected Murphy to make announcement in the press about a fourth season that has not yet been ordered by the network…A source close to Colfer told The Daily Beast this week that the actor was initially “shocked” to learn the news on Twitter, but he received a phone call from Fox that morning that reassured him.
Also, that source close to Colfer says “I know that Ryan’s used scare tactics in the past to keep the actors in line and when this came out, I wondered if this might be a scare tactic to scare them into thinking if we’re going to let them go, we might get them to renegotiate for less.” Hm.
What’s more, two more sources connected to Glee tell the Daily Beast that Murphy’s relationship with Montieth has “inexplicably soured”.
“As far as anyone can tell, Cory’s always been very, very affable and a team player, ” said a source close to the show source who requested anonymity. “We’re not sure what created the tension … 20th wasn’t particularly happy in the aftermath of what Ryan said in that interview. It was a point of contention internally. Everyone here was pretty much caught off guard.”
Could these reports be the reason why Murphy is so eager to throw the talent under the bus? Possibly, but it also seems that Murphy is unable to own his own shit. He started the problems. He should have NEVER discussed Season 4 with anybody. Not Ryan Seacrest, not The Hollywood Reporter, not anyone. He should have kept his mouth shut until Season 4 details were sorted out, and had at least come to terms with the actors about the future of their respective characters.
The entire production team look like a bunch of idiots, contradicting themselves and each other in the press. Meanwhile, the actors are the show, and they are worked to death and treated like crap. How about giving them a little respect? There’s be no Glee without them.
When a new writing team was assembled in the wake of an uneven Season 2, I had some hope for the future of Glee. Now, I feel like I’m watching a slow motion trainwreck. I’ll still watch, at least for now, because I’m hopelessly attached to the characters, and I cover it on the blog. But it won’t nearly be as much fun. Sadly.
