by AMC has aired five seasons and counting of Kevin Smith’s Comic Book Men, which follows the filmmaker and his friends as they geek out at his New Jersey comic-book store. Smith has podcasted for more than 300 episodes over nine years with his SModcast.
So why not have Smith host his own talk show for AMC and call it Geeking Out?
Done.
AMC announced the order of Geeking Out, a half-hour talk show that will air weekly in late-night for at least nine weeks this summer. No date or timeslot announced yet, although Geeking Out will be co-hosted by Smith and Greg Grunberg (Alias, Heroes, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) and premiere with an episode covering Comic-Con in San Diego.
Official show description from AMC: “The 30-minute show will take a timely look at pop culture through a fanboy lens and feature talk, clips, celebrity interviews and out-of-the-studio segments.”
Quotes! From the official AMC press release…
“Kevin and Greg are both true fans of this content, and share a deep passion for talking about it, and engaging other fans about it. But it is their natural chemistry as hosts that really brings this idea together,” said Joel Stillerman, president of original programming and development for AMC and SundanceTV. “As part of our growing non-fiction slate, we wanted to create a broadly entertaining venue for hardcore fans and general viewers where we can break down all things fanboy on a weekly basis; and we wanted to bring those fans great interviews and exclusive looks into the world of fanboy culture. We look forward to sharing this highly entertaining duo with our viewers.”
“AMC has been my TV family for five seasons of ‘Comic Book Men’ now, so I know that ‘Geeking Out’ is in the perfect, fan-friendly network hands,” said Smith. “I can’t wait to lose fluids on the airwaves of my favorite channel over the genre gems we’re gonna get insider access to due to gregarious Greg’s bonafides! And to make it even more of a family affair, ‘Geeking Out’ lets me work with the Weinsteins again – the two guys who started my career 22 years ago! I’m lucky to be working at all, let alone working with friends and family on a dream show where all we do is talk about all the media that makes us moist!”
“I get all my work from my friends. Now it’s time for me to take advantage of those relationships even more,” said Grunberg. “I am going to get every single genre-based writer, director and actor I know to come on our show and geek out with us. And they’re going to thank me for it. I love how Kevin Smith smells and we fit together like two hibernating fan-bears. Thanks to AMC and the Weinsteins, the rest of the world is going to get to see what’s inside our dark, dank geek cave. It’s going to be a fun 30 minutes, if I can just get Kevin to stop talking and smoking.”
Geeking Out will be produced by Matador Content and The Weinstein Company in association with Bandwagon Media with Jay Peterson, Patrick Reardon, Smith and Grunberg serving as executive producers.
