I just thought this was a cool bit, considering I enjoyed HBO’s VINYL. I pulled some quotes from its star, Bobby Cannavale, as expressed to Indiewire. In my opinion, I thought this story should have had more life to it, and so does Cannavale.
The period drama was created by Mick Jagger, Martin Scorsese, Rich Cohen, and Terence Winter. The series starred Cannavale as Richie Finestra, a New York City-based record executive in 1973. It premiered on HBO on February 14, 2016, and concluded on April 17, 2016. The opinion seems to be that the whole show was poorly marketed. Scorsese filmed the pilot episode after all. Cannavale started the conversation like this…
“[It] was years in the making, and it was just in Marty’s pocket for years, getting ready to make that movie — and that, for all intents and purposes, is a Martin Scorsese movie. It’s a two-hour pilot. That was one of those ones that you go, Well, shit, it really didn’t get put out the right way. You can Monday-morning quarterback these things: We really were screwed out by circumstances that we didn’t have any control over. Whether it was the fact that HBO didn’t promote it as a new Martin Scorsese movie; they didn’t let their audience know it was a two-hour pilot; they didn’t really take advantage of what they had; they premiered us after ‘Girls’ — didn’t make any sense. We premiered at 10 at night for a two-hour pilot.
Cannavale continues to say,
“All these things seemed to conspire against us,” Cannavale said. “I was shocked, frankly, by the reaction to it. I did feel like we’d created something special. When something that has that much profile fails like that, I couldn’t help but feel like I let Marty down. I felt like I was on a creative journey with Marty that lasted years. There was a window there between ‘Boardwalk Empire’ — he was so impressed with that character that I played and with my work on the show, that he took a big interest in me. So it was years of prepping (‘Vinyl’) and talking so much about it,” Cannavale said. “I felt like the bubble we created resulted in something that was really unique and special, and a different way of storytelling, certainly for television, than I’d ever seen. To just be brushed aside felt really disappointing.”
The actor took it personally as he put a lot of effort into VINYL.
“I had everybody telling me, ‘It wasn’t your fault, it’s not your fault.’ Marty was like, ‘It’s not your fault, it’s just business.’ But that’s hard to accept because it’s your face that’s on the buses and on the billboards,” he said. “I always described that period as the stinky year. I had a stink on me, and I could feel it. To add insult to injury, we got picked up for the second season — they let everybody know we’ve got a second season, and then they changed their mind. It was like a double fuck-you. I just kept it moving. I was like, Well, that’s the business. My depression over it settled in three months later, and then it was real. I really did go to a dark place. I just thought, Well, I’m never going to work again, because if something that Martin Scorsese and Terry Winter and Mick Jagger created didn’t work, and I was the star of the thing, then I’m going to have a stink on me forever.”
Bobby Cannavale didn’t, of course, have a ‘stink on him forever’ as he went on to great jobs since, like Scorsese’s The Irishman, Angie Tribeca, Homecoming, and The Watcher. Again, I for one loved VINYL with Cannavale, Ray Romano, Paul Ben-Victor, Juno Temple, Olivia Wilde, and the rest. It should not have been a one-season wonder.
Adding to the woes was writer Terence Winter, who said,
“I was very disappointed. We had a lot more story to tell and a terrific cast, and I was really excited about where it was headed in terms of the music history and the character development. But sometimes, unfortunately, that’s the way it goes. This is a tricky business.“
A tricky business indeed. There have been plenty of one-season shows, but did you ever think VINYL should have been one of them?
