The next level is coming!
— Ari Gold
Ever cruise Sunset Boulevard in a stretch limousine and then hit the red carpet at a star-studded movie premiere? Stop by an impromptu party on the beach in Malibu, where the sun always shines and the cocktails flow? Score the best table at the hottest restaurant in town, no reservation required? And all the while, everywhere you go, gorgeous starlets wave as you pass by.
It’s everybody’s fantasy to live the Hollywood dream, but Vince, Eric, Drama, Turtle and Ari Gold really do, and they make it all look so easy. Boy, do the boys of Entourage know how to do it up and do it right, how to dream large and live larger.
To take the guys and their enviable lifestyle of access and excess to the big screen, writer-director-producer Doug Ellin, who created the hit HBO series on which the movie is based, knew that the feature film Entourage had to be even bigger — no small feat, considering all the ground they’d covered before. “Although the show was a big show with a lot of locations, I wanted to take it to another level for the movie, so it’s Entourage on steroids, with glamorous yachts, planes and houses, and the stakes for everyone higher than ever.”
LIVIN’ THE DREAM
From the opening seconds of the first episode in 2004, viewers followed driver/errand boy Turtle as he exited his bright yellow Hummer and strode distractedly through a sprinkling of Hollywood hotties into a hip Melrose Avenue restaurant, where he joined his homeboys from Queens, New York: the quartet’s de facto leader, up-and-coming movie star Vincent Chase; former pizza boy-cum-talent manager Eric Murphy; and Vince’s half-brother, out-of-work C-list actor Johnny “Drama” Chase. Turtle’s momentary mission: to have Vince autograph a poster from his first big film in order to keep their local sneaker hook-up happy.
Cut to 2015 and, with nothing but blue skies and bright sun overhead, Entourage opens on the familiar trio of manager-cum-movie producer Eric, drive-cum-tequila mogul Turtle, and still sometime working actor Drama. But this time they’re navigating the wide-open sea in a speed boat, their destination a huge luxury yacht off the coast of Ibiza, where Vince, rising actor-turned-megastar, “mourns” the demise of his five-day marriage, surrounded by 200 or so of his closest acquaintances… mainly of the scantily clad female variety. But it wouldn’t be a party without his boys, and clearly the party is back on.
Despite the TV show’s popularity and its 26 Primetime Emmy Award nominations — including six wins in such categories as acting, directing, writing and outstanding comedy series — Ellin knew he not only had to up the ante, he also needed to reach moviegoers who may not have been series devotees. “The way we structured the film, you do not have to have seen one second of the show to enjoy it,” he conveys. “You’re instantly inside a movie star’s world and hanging out with him and his best friends, having fun, livin’ the dream.”
Rob Weiss, who co-wrote the story with Ellin, was happy to be involved in bringing these guys and their dream lives to moviegoers. “It’s always great working with old friends to bring other old friends back to life.”
The key to making the film was to have the core cast from the series back together and, in classic Entourage fashion, to have as many guest stars and celebrity cameos as possible.
MORE TOYS, MORE HOT GIRLS
“If any one of us had said we didn’t want to do it, the movie wouldn’t have happened,” Adrian Grenier, who plays Vince, candidly states. “But of course, we all wanted to do it. We knew we’d have a great time and were excited about it, and we also wanted to give fans, old and new, even more... more famous people, more toys and more hot girls. Basically, the ‘entourage’ Hollywood lifestyle in all its glory, experienced through the eyes of these lifelong friends.”
With curious onlookers lining the streets of Los Angeles during the film’s production, and real stars and athletes clamouring for a chance to have a cameo, the job of making the movie mirrored the very lifestyle the characters enjoy, and made each day on set as unpredictable as ever.
Kevin Connolly, who plays Eric (aka “E”) says: “We’ve always had so much fun working together, it almost feels wrong to call it work. So it didn’t take long to get back into the groove with everybody; we all just kind of clicked back together, almost on the spot. Even though it had been a couple of years, it really just felt like an extended hiatus, and with Doug at the helm it was easy to step back into being these guys.”
“Working with Doug is amazing and a real collaboration,” Kevin Dillon echoes. Dillon, who portrays Drama, notes, “I’ve been in this business a long time and there’s nothing in this movie that doesn’t really happen in Hollywood. Doug gets this stuff from the real world grapevine and it was great to see him take it to the next level, and still be able to show it all through these four friends who really care about each other and stick together no matter what.”
BIGGER IN EVERY WAY
“Doug is a genius writer,” Jerry Ferrara, who plays Turtle, agrees. “But I think where he really shines is when he’s both writing and directing, making those on-the-fly adjustments that only he can make. We’d be shooting a scene, and he’d be watching with both hats on, and with just a minor line change or piece of direction, it’d go off in a whole other arc that I didn’t even see coming. Like the best coaches, he’s on the sidelines, but he’s also right there with you in the game.”
As uber agent-turned-studio head Ari Gold, Jeremy Piven, who essentially plays the fifth man in this tight-knit family of friends, observes: “I really think everything works in the movie, just as it did in the series, because everything Doug writes comes from these characters’ core motivations. Doug knows exactly what the audience wants to see; he chums the waters perfectly, but he never jumps the shark.”
Because the filmmakers had made a concerted effort to shoot with viewers’ aspirations in mind, the jump to the big screen felt almost like fulfilling the ultimate fantasy for the wish fulfillment-based concept.
Producer Mark Wahlberg, who served as an executive producer on the series and on whose life the idea for the original Entourage was loosely based, recalls, “When the show was on air, fans couldn’t get enough of it; I’d get asked about it all the time. We’d always planned to make a feature-length movie, and we knew in order to do it, it would have to make sense for all the characters. Doug found a way in: it’s the guys being the guys, along with all the great Entourage-style moments you got from the original, but bigger in every way.”
KNOW THE SHOW
Premiered on HBO in July 2004, Entourage ran for eight seasons and focused on the themes of male bonding and relationships in the world of showbiz. Vincent Chase (Adrien Grenier), a young movie star, is the central protagonist who, along with his friends Eric “E” Murphy (Kevin Connolly), Johnny “Drama” Chase (Kevin Dillon), Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) and Ari (Jeremy Piven) try to navigate their way through the slippery slope called Hollywood. While the TV series was widely acclaimed and won six Emmys out of a total of 26 nominations, the film — that released in the US on June 3 — has been mostly panned by critics and has earned a mere $30 million. Its budget? $27.5 million.
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