John Krasinski didn’t “sell out,” he says. He just sold a TV show concept to a billion-dollar company.
The actor/director, 40, took heat on social media last week after fans discovered that his feel-good YouTube show “Some Good News” had been sold to ViacomCBS for an undisclosed sum of money. It was reported that the network giant won the brand after a heated bidding war.
“Remember when he created this free feel good YouTube show to ‘make people feel good’ and now he is…………….selling it for $$$? really cool, 100% honorable,” tweeted entertainment writer Lindsey Weber on May 21.
Now, Krasinski is speaking out on former “The Office” co-star Rainn Wilson’s Instagram Live show, “Hey There, Human.” The “A Quiet Place” director revealed that he had never intended to continue the show beyond eight episodes, adding that to produce a news program was more work than it may have seemed.
“I was only planning on doing eight of them during quarantine,” he told Wilson, 54, in the Wednesday interview. “I have these other things that I’m going to be having to do very soon, like ‘Jack Ryan.’ More than that, writing, directing and producing — all those things — with a couple of my friends, was so much.”
“Some Good News” released 14 videos, with last week’s finale episode bringing in 2.7 million views on YouTube. Since the first installment just two months ago, the program has garnered nearly 1 million followers on Instagram and 2.58 million subscribers on YouTube, with between 2 million and 17 million tuning in for each show.
“I knew that it wouldn’t be sustainable with my prior commitments,” he continued. “I would love to keep doing the show from my office forever, but it wasn’t sustainable.”
The filmmaker assured his fans, however, that his wholesome, light-hearted spin would be imprinted on the rebooted series, as he aims to be involved with the creative process in some capacity going forward.
“We have a lot of really fun stuff planned and I can’t wait to dig in,” he said. “I’m going to be a part of it whenever I can, and I’m going to host a couple episodes and bring on a different community of people. We’re really, really excited about it.”
Exactly how much Krasinski and his team profited off the sale of the program has yet to be reported.
He went on to say that the show was providing him with a lot of “emotional fulfillment” at a time when he and many others needed it.
“I’ve received the most amazingly kind notes about how much that show meant to everyone, but the truth is, it meant no more to anyone than me,” he said. “That’s probably the most emotionally fulfilled I’ve ever felt in my entire life.”