Ten-plus years as a movie journalist and I still haven’t attended the most prestigious film festivals, like Cannes or Venice. Much as I relish the idea of hanging around Hollywood muckety mucks by the French Riviera, participating in its notoriously long standing ovations makes me want to never get on the plane at all. The hell’s the point? We obviously should share gestures of appreciation when we see good work. But standing and clapping for the length of a Fortnite match is industry navel-gazing and ego-stroking at its most extreme—an empty exercise that serves no good beyond artificial pre-release buzz. Sometimes unwarranted buzz at that. (See: Joker: Folie à Deux and its 11-minute applause at Venice in 2024.) So I’m salivating that The Studio is poised to roast it to bits.
On April 7, Variety reported that pop music legend Madonna is shooting scenes for the highly-anticipated season 2 of The Studio. The word around town is that the show is taking aim at Madonna’s own recent attempts to direct her biopic. In 2021, Universal was set to make Madonna’s movie with Julia Garner portraying the Material Girl, until the project fell through in 2023.
Variety reports that in the next season of The Studio, the fictional Continental Studios produces Madonna’s film and brings it to Venice. (Both Madonna and Garner will play themselves.) Variety cites sources close to the series that part of Madonna’s two-part episode will lampoon the comically long ovations at Cannes and Venice. Wrote Variety: “[T]he back half of Madonna’s episodes focuses on the all-important debate around journalists timing festival standing ovations to provide a sense of how films will play in the wider world. Trust us—it’s a whole thing.”
Variety’s reporting supports earlier accounts of creator Seth Rogen present at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, where he attended several premieres and fixed his attention on the post-screening applauses. In September, ScreenDaily wrote that Rogen was “seen taking photos and videos of the celebratory applause at the end of screenings.” He was also seen in conversation with Italian journalists in attendance.
No one besides Team The Studio actually knows what’s up. But I’m putting money on the possibility of an entire episode taking place during a 20-minute ovation. We’ve seen The Studio pull off real-time feats already, and really, it’s the kind of inside baseball gag this show would do. And I love it. Just give them all the Emmy right now. They’ll probably be relieved to not hear any more clapping.