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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: June 22, 2003
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Project Greenlight, Season 2, Episode 1) [Stream on YouTube]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: If Project Greenlight has ever been a triumph of anything — not execution, not timing, not results — it’s been a triumph of concept. Project Greenlight, since its inception in 2001, is just SUCH a damn good idea for a TV show. A reality series where a non-professional director and/or screenwriter is chosen from a nationwide search and given the opportunity to produce their first feature film, all under the benevolent umbrella of Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and their producing partners. The curtain gets pulled back on the moviemaking business, there is no end of obstacles and personality clashes that make for good TV, there are actors and producers and people with money and sticklers for staying on schedule. It’s everything you want in a reality series, plus the presence of the great American artform of filmmaking. It’s an idea so strong that they’ve tried it FOUR times with Project Greenlight, and Damon and Affleck’s bro-tastic producing partner Chris Moore has tried it once more on Starz with The Chair.
That Project Greenlight has never managed to be as successful a TV show as its concept dictates that it should be is perhaps inevitable. Reality TV thrives on the degree to which it can control outcomes, and the more Project Greenlight tried to control the inherent chaos of making independent films, the less interesting the show became. You see it even in the beginning of season 2, where the mandate changed from picking one writer/director to picking a director and a separate screenwriter. That Damon, Affleck, and Moore chose a directing team for season 2’s The Battle of Shaker Heights has always felt like the show trying to make triple sure that there would be enough hands on deck to not overwhelm the winners, as season 1’s Pete Jones was.
The big headline from season 2 of Project Greenlight wasn’t screenwriter Erica Beeney nor director pals Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle, but the actor they cast as their lead: the at-that-point only known to Disney Channel audiences Shia LaBeouf. Shia was not the filmmakers’ first choice (the casting director was really trying to push Emile Hirsch on them), but he was the kid they got. He even managed to provide a little bit of drama as he got a bit riled up on set during the profess of getting into his character. It was a tiny window into the drama that awaited Shia during his later film career, and it is by far the only area in which The Battle of Shaker Heights can claim some degree of cutting-edge cachet. They got Shia LaBeouf before anyone else did.
I will be here for as many seasons of Project Greenlight as they want to throw at me. HBO GO is streaming season 4, a fantastically contentious season where Matt Damon comes across really poorly, and you will emerge despising the mere idea of shooting on celluloid. Still, those first two seasons are the concept of Project Greenlight at its most pure. Head down a YouTube rabbit hole and see for yourselves.
