On Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short), and Mabel (Selena Gomez) have started another season of their podcast. It’s their fourth, and the fourth season of the show to go with it. And this time, their podcast is being made into a movie too. That movie, presumably focusing on the first season of the podcast, is being produced by Paramount Pictures. While that’s great for the fictional movie, it’s strange for the show because Hulu/20th Television, a Disney production company, makes the comedy series.
Why is a 20th Television-produced show having its fake movie produced by Paramount, especially with all the publicity and promotion for the lot this requires? Let’s take a look.
Only Murders in the Building’s Fictional Movie Showcases Paramount’s Lot
- Release Date
- August 31, 2021
When Only Murders in the Building‘s fourth season starts, the trio doesn’t find Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch), Charles’ stunt double, dead on the floor in Charles’ apartment as it looked like they would at the end of Season 3. Instead, while they go to his apartment, Sazz’s body is nowhere to be found and they talk about mundane things as they hang out in the kitchen where Sazz’s body was. One of the topics they discuss is the movie at Paramount.
Not only does the prospect of a movie make Charles and especially Oliver very happy, but it also gives them an opportunity to fly out to Hollywood to meet with studio execs. And it’s here that the show really gives Paramount their due. They showcase Paramount New York backlot, which is shooting a scene from a new Godzilla movie before the trio walks through it. Plus, they also meet down by the fountain by the famous main gate with “Paramount” emblazoned on the top of it. Not to mention, in real life, Paramount hosted the Season 4 premiere of the show on its lot and had the party for the screening on its New York Street, according to Deadline.
This is prime promotion for Paramount, and it’s all done for a Disney show. Hulu and 20th Television are both Disney subsidiaries. Although 20th Television used to be 20th Century Fox Television, it has since been acquired by Disney and dropped the “Fox” (and the “Century”) from its name. So although Disney and even, it could be argued, Fox has something to do with Only Murders in the Building, Paramount has not been part of it… until now.
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Only Murders in the Building’s Movie Within the Show Is at Paramount for Creative Reasons
According to Deadline, this is how Paramount came to produce Only Murders in the Building‘s fictional movie: Disney owns a perfectly good studio of its own, and the Fox lot, which Disney leases portions of, has a New York street. However, the writers’ room for Only Murders in the Building is on the Paramount lot because it was also where Dan Fogelman’s previous writers’ room for the show This Is Us was located. As the writers thought up ideas for the fourth season of Only Murders in the Building, they kept having a story about Paramount trying to get a movie based on the podcast made.
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The idea managed to make its way into the scripts that went to Disney. Despite Disney’s somewhat Draconian decision-making process, they never gave the Only Murders in the Building writers a hard time with the studio they had chosen for their fictional movie. Though most studios put movies-within-movies or shows at the studio where the movie or show is produced — think Universal Pictures’ The Fall Guy‘s fictional movie Metalstorm being a fictional Universal production — the Disney-backed label 20th Television instead found itself reaching out to Paramount to find out if it could shoot there.
After getting the okay, executive producer and showrunner John Hoffman made the final creative call to set the introduction to the fake movie on the Paramount lot, one of the oldest in Hollywood. It was impossible to pass up the opportunity to shoot there because the lot has such picturesque landmarks.
How Only Murders in the Building Will Continue Its Movie Storyline
Since Charles, Oliver, and Mabel visited the Paramount set, they have returned to New York. It’s anyone’s guess if they will go to visit the lot again. However, there’s no need. The movie is set in New York and, since the premiere episode, they’ve moved production to the Arconia where they will presumably shoot at least some of the film.
The more pressing question is how Sazz’s murder ties into this season’s movie plotline. While initially, the two stories appeared to be separate, as the season has gone on, it seems that someone on the set of the movie could have murdered her, perhaps thinking she was Charles. No matter what though, we’re sure that the trio of sleuths will uncover who killed Sazz and have another expert season of Only Murders in the Building, the podcast. Whether the movie is actually made, though, is another story.