Does the World Need an Entourage Movie?

As one of HBO’s flagship series, Entourage has a complex reputation. It hit a self-reflexive high in its second season (the Aquaman years), but since then it’s been an on-and-off source of grumbling and eye rolls among fans. It can seem like an eternity before anything actually happens, and the series is often curiously out of touch. The most recent season, for example, began with an episode where the characters talk about nothing but Knocked Up, a movie that was a hot cultural item…two summers ago.

It’s bad enough that when Hollywood blogger No. 1 Nikki Finke broke character and said something nice about the most recent season, she was flooded with incredulous comments.

And yet recent news that exec producer Mark Wahlberg plans at least two more seasons and a movie (!) should provide a moment of reflection. The show has created pop-culture mythology with the Ari Gold character, and the enduring bromance at its center anticipated an obsession of contemporary comedies. The last few episodes of last season may or may not still be languishing on our DVRs, but truthfully, the show’s do-nothing grind has developed into a pleasant, harmless rhythm.

Besides, Entourage has long been said to be the male version of Sex and the City, and clearly the series-to-movie model paid off there (even though that show, too, had its share of detractions in its later seasons). We’d be lying if we said we weren’t curious about the possibilities of an Entourage movie, and it’s a good bet that a lot of fans out there are (quietly) in the same place.

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