1 month ago
Stephen Colletti was a teen erstwhile he became 1 of nan stars of MTV’s Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County.
More than 20 years later, Colletti helped corral his friends and castmates into reuniting for The Reunion: Laguna Beach connected Roku, which he said was a “full circle” infinitesimal for him.
The original series, which premiered successful 2004, focused connected nan backstage lives of Colletti, Kristin Cavallari and Lauren Conrad arsenic good arsenic galore others successful nan fancy Southern California suburb.
He told Deadline’s Reality TV Summit that a Covid Zoom and nan Back to nan Beach podcast that he hosted pinch Cavallari paved nan measurement for a full-blown reunion.
“Surprisingly, for me, it was an easy yes, but for truthful galore years, it was an easy no,” he said. “When we sewage cast, we didn’t really cognize what we were getting ourselves into and erstwhile it came out, location was rather nan shock, and we weren’t prepared to grip nan nickname that came pinch it. We were conscionable regular kids that didn’t really cognize what reality TV was astatine that point. It took maine a while to process it. Eventually, arsenic clip has gone on, you’re aged capable to revisit it and you move into that portion of your life arsenic we mature into a much comfortable place.”
He joked that Laguna Beach was an “odd societal experiment”. “Let’s propulsion kids retired of precocious schoolhouse and sprout their lives for illustration a scripted drama, right? Don’t person them talk to camera, conscionable person them existing, and we’ll put nan pieces together. Then, 20 years later, erstwhile everyone’s joined and has kids and caller lives, let’s get each nan aged flames backmost together and person them talk what happened successful precocious school.”
The reunion, which is being submitted for nan Emmys, was produced by Damsel Media, which is tally by Liz Gateley, who worked connected nan original. Colletti, Conrad and Cavallari were each exec producers connected it.
He said that this was nan only measurement that they would do it. “We wanted to make judge we understood precisely what nan imaginative was, and nan imaginative power was a very powerful word there. We wanted this to beryllium a safe spot for everyone, wherever we could observe nan show,” he said.
There was nary array flipping connected nan Casey Wilson-hosted reunion. “There mightiness beryllium immoderate elements that are akin to nan reunions they’re utilized to seeing for nan shows that conscionable aired, aliases for possibly a scripted show, for illustration Friends, but yet this should guidelines connected its ain arsenic thing a small spot unique, because we haven’t hung retired each together successful 20 years,” he added.
Roku’s Head of Originals Brian Tannenbaum said that it was individual for him because Laguna Beach was nan show that he grew up connected and logic he useful successful entertainment.
He said that it was portion of its strategy to “dig into this world of fandom”. “How do we pat into that? When Stephen, Lauren and Liz Gately, nan original creator, came into our offices, it felt for illustration a nary brainer. Not only could we observe nan original show done a typical but past we tin leverage nan powerfulness of our level and build a unsocial acquisition wherever our streamers could besides dive correct into nan original show,” he added.
Tannenbaum wants to do much reunions crossed non-scripted shows, scripted shows and movies, but would not beryllium drawn connected which ones.
Talking of scripted television, Colletti will adjacent beryllium seen connected Netflix aft nan streamer picked up nan first 2 seasons of his original drama Everyone Is Doing Great.
Created by One Tree Hill’s James Lafferty and Colletti, Everyone is Doing Great is a coming-of-age communicative pursuing erstwhile costars, friends and lovers Seth (Colletti), Jeremy (Lafferty), Andrea (Alexandra Park) and Izzy (Cariba Heine) arsenic they are pulled backmost together to grapple pinch nan absurd and nan uncertain.
Netflix acquired nan authorities arsenic portion of a woody pinch Sony Pictures Television. “This is an independent show. We’ve collaborated pinch Sony. Sony helped get america into to Netflix, which has been monolithic for our small show, we’re a small mom and popular shop. We crowdfunded nan first season, and now we’ve sewage 2 seasons, and we’re astir to premiere worldwide connected Netflix, which is massive,” he added.
