John Krasinski managed to turn the lockdown into a new career opportunity when he launched the web seriesSome Good News. Featuring a host of celebrities and focussing on positive media headlines, the show was a huge hit from the start. So much so that Krasinkski was able to sell the show to CBS after only eight episodes. Recently, Krasinksi appeared on his friend and past co-actor Rainn Wilson’s Instagram Live Soul Pancake series “Hey There, Human” and disclosed his reasons behind selling his show.
“Well it’s funny, it was one of those things where I was only planning on doing eight of them during quarantine, because I have these other things that I’m going to be having to do very soon like Jack Ryan and all this other stuff. But more than that, it was something that writing, directing, and producing with a couple of my friends was so much [that] I knew it wouldn’t be sustainable with my prior commitments.”
Before the lockdown inspired the idea forSome Good News,John Krasinski had been kept very busywith his writing, directing, producing, and acting commitments. The sequel toA Quiet Placewas gearing up for release, and Krasinski was also preparing to resume work on hisJack Ryanseries. Now that there are rumblings of studio productions restarting work with an easing of lockdown restrictions, it is understandable that Krasinski would be looking to delegate the production ofSome Good Newsto another party. And that was whyCBS’s offer to buy the seriesseemed like the perfect opportunity:
“I knew the two options were always gonna be that I leave it off with eight in my office-which I would love to keep doing this show from my office forever, [but] it just wasn’t sustainable. So I’d need a partner coming on. And it’s funny, in the first episode I said, ‘Why isn’t there a news show dedicated entirely to good news?’ and now we have one of the biggest news programs in America, CBS News, saying that they want to make it part of their permanent news cycle, which is insane. The fact that we were able to accomplish that-in eight weeks it went from not existing to now being on one of these huge news networks-is honestly one of the most amazing honors I’ve ever been able to pull off. And again, it was all due to the community and to the people.”
Unfortunately, there is a sizeable contingent of the show’s fandom that view Krasinski’s move as ‘selling out’, and against the basic ethos of the program, especially since CBS has promptly placed the series behind a paywall. Despite the backlash, Krasinksi said that he will return to host occasional episodes of the show, and even teased a future reunion onSome Good Newswith Wilson:
“We have a lot of fun stuff planned and I can’t wait to dig in. I’m gonna be a part of it whenever I can, and I’m gonna host a couple, and bring on a different community of people-maybe you.”
This was first reported during an episode ofRainn Wilson’s podcast on Instagram.
