Entourage Movie: A fine bromance

Ironic as it may sound, it seems that Entourage actually has Sex and the City to thank for its move to the silver screen, writes Tom Teodorczuk

IF YOU had told the makers of HBO series Entourage, when it made its TV debut in 2004 that it would wind up a summer blockbuster movie spin-off, they would have dismissed the notion as far-fetched even by Hollywood standards.

Series creator Doug Ellin and producer Mark Wahlberg were just hoping that Entourage, which follows the Los Angeles exploits of young Hollywood star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) and his childhood friends from Queens, New York, would make it for a second season.

Yet following in the Manolo Blahnik heels of another HBO TV comedy, Sex and the City, Entourage — which aired for eight seasons — has transitioned from TV to film. This time around Chase convinces his hyperactive power agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) to let him make his directorial debut with hellish consequences for the star and his manager Eric ‘E’ Murphy (Kevin Connolly), his intense brother Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon), and his driver Turtle (Jerry Ferrara).

It turns out Entourage has SATC’s Carrie Bradshaw and co to partly thank for the film. “When Sex and the City popped out and did so well, that’s when we all started thinking about it,” Dillon told me in Los Angeles. “When Entourage ended it still had legs. We could have done two more seasons.”

Ellin, who directed the film, views it as completing unfinished business in recapturing the spirit of the first few series (cult maniacal indie director Billy Walsh from that period, played by Rhys Corio, also returns). “I tried to get back to the early years,” Ellin says. “It was the guys and wish-fulfillment in Hollywood with friends and relationships that were real and meaningful. As we grew we wanted to expand more but I liked it when the guys were together.”

READ MORE: Entourage review .

Connolly echoes the feeling that the Entourage film gets things back on track: “There was one season when Vince and Eric and Drama and Turtle were on two different shows! They would pass each other in the morning, eat breakfast together, and then go their separate ways. So it was nice to have everybody together.”

Entourage is loosely based on Wahlberg’s own entourage and he was the prime instigator in kickstarting the movie. “A year after the show ended, I ran into Mark and he said, ‘Where’s the script [for the film]?” Ellin recalls. “Mark said, ‘If you get this script done, I will get this movie made. I promise.’”

Wahlberg was as good as his word and although the Entourage film wasn’t as challenging an enterprise as fictional drugs drama Medellin (which ended up being booed at the Cannes Film Festival in the TV show), its making was by no means easy.

“It was a two-year-process because of everything that goes into it, from the opinions you have to deal with to getting the money together to making sure everybody’s schedules match up together,” says Ellin. “Then there were the injuries that happened on the set: Kevin [Connolly] broke his leg [playing American football].”

Wahlberg appears in the film in a celebrity cameo and the film also boasts appearances from Liam Neeson, Jessica Alba, Thierry Henry, and Piers Morgan.

Contrasting its humble beginnings when Entourage found it hard to entice celebrities (and regularly insulted them, notably Vince Vaughn in the show’s pilot), the film version had no problem attracting fame. “Somebody said, ‘Why isn’t Mike Tyson in the movie’,” recalls Ellin. “I called him and said, ‘Mike, you don’t happen to be in LA?’. He was there an hour later.”

Warren Buffett also appears after he requested to use the Entourage set to film a video for his investment group Berkshire Hathaway.

Entourage has consistently generated two debates over the course of the last decade. The first one revolves around whether it offers a realistic portrayal of the Hollywood machine.

“There’s so much about this show that is honest and accurate,” Grenier says. “I always suggested things Doug might do differently for political reasons. Does Vince really have to drive a Hummer? What does that say to the kids these days? But he always stood his ground and said we have to be honest to the lives of these characters.”

Yet he’s aware Chase is a stylised exaggeration of a star. “My social life isn’t nearly as fun and cool as it is in when I’m in character,” he says. “It’s one of the best jobs I could ever imagine… but it’s very dangerous if you start to think you can actually live the way these guys live and survive!”

Entourage begins with Vincent Chase partying on a yacht on the Mediterranean, having broken up with his wife Sophia after five days of marriage. Connolly believes the tangled personal lives depicted in the show reflect the reality of showbiz romance. “It’s true to real Hollywood life,” he says. “These marriages don’t last very long.”

The second, more contentious, argument lies over the show’s treatment of women, which some have labelled gratuitous. Ellin, however, highlights the strong characters in the show such as Ari’s wife Melissa and Vince’s publicist Shauna. “There are only two girls who show a little nudity in the movie,” Ellin says. “The biggest complaint I’ve Entourage begins with Vincent Chase partying on a yacht on the Mediterranean, having broken up with his wife Sophia after five days of marriage. Connolly believes the tangled personal lives depicted in the show reflect the reality of showbiz romance.

The second, more contentious, argument lies over the show’s treatment of women which some have labeled gratuitous. Ellin however highlights the strong characters in the show such as Ari’s wife Melissa and Vince’s publicist Shauna.

“There are only two girls who show a little nudity in the movie,” Ellin says. “The biggest complaint I’ve ever got from young men is there’s not enough nudity, there’s not enough sex and we’re a little tame!

“The truth is we are [tame]. These guys are highly respectful of women. When they’re talking amongst themselves, they might be saying, ‘She’s hot, I’d like to whatever whatever’, but they’re never mean or repulsive to women.”

Ellin adds he’s often vetoed Grenier’s demands for more nudity (“Adrian has not only been naked on the show, he’s attempted to get naked many times and I’ve stopped him”). Connolly, who has just finished directing Dear Eleanor, a film about two girls travelling to meet Eleanor Roosevelt during the 1960s, becomes serious about Entourage’s perceived gender imbalance. “One school of people would think we were misogynistic,” he says, “but the truth is that during the run of the show we had some of the strongest female characters on television.”

Emmanuelle Chriqui, who plays Eric’s pregnant on-off girlfriend Sloan, concurs: “As a woman in Hollywood, it’s a man’s world most of the time. Things in the show were maybe exaggerated for entertainment potential but it is what it is.”

Although the guys have fun in Entourage, the film doesn’t flinch from portraying the demoralising side of Hollywood in the form of a film-producing father-and-son Texan oil duo, played by Billy Bob Thornton and Haley Joel Osment. “Now there are these oil and hedge fund guys producing who don’t even watch the movies,” laments Ellin.

Ultimately Ellin doesn’t think Entourage is about the film business at all. “We hear all the time about Hollywood movies which haven’t worked but this is not a Hollywood movie. It’s a friendship movie and we’re not making fun of Hollywood. We’re giving a love letter to it.”

If audiences respond enthusiastically to Entourage the film, expect further correspondence in the form of a sequel.

Entourage is in cinemas today

READ MORE: Entourage review .