--- description: Max revives the classic first-time-filmmaking reality show—and reveals the austerity and noise of Hollywood in 2023. Read TIME's review. title: Issa Rae’s 'Project Greenlight' Captures an Industry in Flux image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c726c9bb68e8f5c/698a3ea8d07533cd1ae6e32b/issa-rae-kumail-nanjiani-gina-prince-bythewood.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Television](/tag/television/) ## Television Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Issa Rae’s Rebooted _Project Greenlight_ Is a Fascinating Snapshot of an Industry in Flux  by [Judy Berman](/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close TV Critic Jul 13, 2023 6:43 PM CUT  From left: Issa Rae, Kumail Nanjiani, and Gina Prince-Bythewood in Project Greenlight: A New Generation From left: Issa Rae, Kumail Nanjiani, and Gina Prince-Bythewood in Project Greenlight: A New GenerationJessica Perez—Max  by [Judy Berman](/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close TV Critic Jul 13, 2023 6:43 PM CUT “The films of _Project Greenlight_ past have been _OK_,” [Issa Rae](https://time.com/collection/firsts/4898603/issa-rae-firsts/ "undefined") tells a _Project Greenlight_ camera, with a dubious expression that suggests they would not have passed muster with her. “So we wanna make sure that ours is actually a great film.” As a creator whose stellar track record includes shows like [_Insecure_](https://time.com/6109253/insecure-black-hollywood/ "undefined")and [_Rap Sh!t_](https://time.com/6197265/rap-shit-girls5eva-girl-bands-tv-shows/ "undefined"), Rae—who helms Max’s revival of the 22-year-old series that follows a first-time feature director’s journey from script to premiere—has earned the right to have exacting standards. But when it comes to _Greenlight_, she’s being generous. The truth is that, in the four seasons that aired between 2001 and 2015, on HBO and Bravo, the show failed to produce even one movie likely to earn tepid praise on the film-festival circuit. It’s easy to blame this track record on the original _Greenlight_ team, which featured [_Good Will Hunting_ ](https://time.com/6269170/matt-damon-ben-affleck-movies/ "undefined")[wonder twins](https://time.com/6269170/matt-damon-ben-affleck-movies/ "undefined") [Matt Damon](https://time.com/6160927/matt-damon-water/ "undefined") and [Ben Affleck](https://time.com/6268594/ben-affleck-air-director-actor/ "undefined") as executive producers and on-camera mentors, in partnership with [Weinstein](https://time.com/tag/harvey-weinstein/ "undefined")\-era Miramax. In season 4, Damon notoriously [exacerbated a tense situation](https://variety.com/2015/film/news/matt-damon-project-greenlight-diversity-apology-1201595189/ "undefined") by dismissing the concerns a Black, female producer, [Effie Brown](https://www.thedailybeast.com/effie-brown-questioned-matt-damon-and-was-blacklisted-by-hollywood-heres-how-she-fought-her-way-back "undefined"), raised about the production’s lack of diversity. This central conflict yielded an unwatchable film (_The Leisure Class_) but a compelling and frustrating season of nonfiction TV that presaged Hollywood’s biggest controversies of the last decade, from [Time’s Up](https://time.com/5189945/whats-the-difference-between-the-metoo-and-times-up-movements/ "undefined") to [#OscarsSoWhite](https://time.com/4182419/oscars-so-white/ "undefined"). It makes sense that [Max](https://time.com/6285884/best-tv-shows-hbo-max/ "undefined") (referred to, throughout a season completed before the Warner streaming service’s big rebrand, as HBO Max) would entrust Rae and her production company, Hoorae, with the task of updating the series for the culture-war 2020s in a way that would not inadvertently humiliate its many stakeholders. The resulting stylized sci-fi drama, _Gray Matter_, which is also streaming on Max, is neither a triumph nor an embarrassment; as Rae eventually notes, that makes it easily the best feature _Greenlight_ has ever produced. What’s more important is the process. If you have the patience for a lower-key chronicle of the gestation of a film and the education of a filmmaker in the age of straight-to-streaming genre fare, the rebooted _Project Greenlight: A New Generation_ makes for a fascinating watch on its own merits.  Meko Winbush in Project Greenlight: A New Generation Jessica Perez—Max Like its predecessors, _A New Generation_ begins with a talent search. But this time around, the rules are a bit different. “We’re choosing a woman director,” Rae explains in a rightfully shady intro, “because _Project Greenlight_ has never had one before.” Along with two other well-chosen mentors—[Kumail Nanjiani](https://time.com/collection/most-influential-people-2018/5217590/kumail-nanjiani/ "undefined") and veteran auteur [Gina Prince-Bythewood](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2023/6269885/gina-prince-bythewood/ "undefined") ([_The Woman King_](https://time.com/6213834/the-woman-king-review-viola-davis/ "undefined"), [_Love & Basketball_](https://time.com/5822507/love-and-basketball-movie-20th-anniversary/ "undefined"))—and a small army of executives representing Hoorae, Warner, CatchLight Studios, and 3 Arts Entertainment, Rae narrows the pool of short-film submissions to 10 finalists, who each get to shoot their version of a scene from the _Gray Matter_ script. The best take comes from a relative underdog: LA-based director, writer, and trailer editor Meko Winbush. Taciturn, with a wry sense of humor, Meko couldn’t be more different from the standard exhibitionist reality star. Her muted responses to feedback emerge as one of the season’s earliest issues. And while it’s frustrating to watch her shrug off thoughtful script notes that would’ve helped the final product immensely, it isn’t always clear that her self-contained personality is as big a problem for the making of _Gray Matter_ as it is for _Greenlight_. (On set, she radiates quiet authority with her crew and seems to form mutually trusting bonds with her cast.) As in past seasons, the needs of the series conflict with the needs of the movie. The challenge for Meko and her team isn’t just to make her first feature; it’s to do so surrounded by a camera crew and nosy producers, as fodder for a TV show that’s sure to magnify their worst moments. It would take a performer of Rae’s or Nanjiani’s charisma to bend such a task into a compelling personal origin story, and it isn’t necessarily a real-world problem that being _Greenlight_’s main character is not Meko’s priority. The series’ real draw has always been its behind-the-scenes account of how the average, non-blockbuster movie gets made. In the 2000s, that meant an Indiewood landscape where Miramax loomed large. _A New Generation_ might as well be set in a different universe, where media monoliths like Warner Bros. Discovery have vertically integrated each step of the process, obviating the need for a theatrical release, and everything is content. Chemistry reads happen on Zoom. The effects-heavy shoot is allotted just 18 days.  The execs, from left: Jonathan Berry, Celia Khong, Jax Clark, Montrel McKay, Sara Rastogi in Project Greenlight: A New Generation Jessica Perez—Max At the same time, the number of stakeholders in a film like _Gray Matter_ have multiplied. For the veteran producers of CatchLight, charged with managing logistics and keeping the shoot within its tiny-for-sci-fi $3.5 million budget, the priority is simply to make sure a movie gets made. A level removed from that struggle, the Warner execs are all smiles on camera but heavy-handed when it comes to big decisions like casting the leads. Hoorae—a powerful force in an industry where celebrity-helmed production companies have proliferated—cannily casts itself, and thus Rae, as a voice for artistic integrity and inclusive hiring. As a working director, “you’re gonna be a walking economy,” one exec tells Meko. “We gotta do the pipeline work.” (Since _Greenlight_ is their project, it may not be a coincidence that this telegenic team can seem like the show’s true protagonists.) Everyone has notes, and these voices of experience don’t always agree. It’s a credit to Hoorae and to _Greenlight_ that these conflicts feel authentic. A less ingenuous account of a Black, female filmmaker’s debut feature—and a less ingenuous effort to redress the controversies and oversights of the original _Greenlight_—might’ve hyped up that director at the expense of minimizing the near-impossible challenges she faces. Instead, the show mostly does justice to the difficulty of a task that Meko ultimately tackles with more success than any of her predecessors. “You’re a director,” her most devoted mentor, Prince-Bythewood, pronounces after screening an early cut. But amid the noise and austerity of Hollywood in 2023, it’s a wonder that even the savviest, most skilled directors manage to make good films. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6294500/project-greenlight-reboot-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6294500/project-greenlight-reboot-review/"},"headline":"Issa Rae’s Rebooted Project Greenlight Is a Fascinating Snapshot of an Industry in Flux","datePublished":"2023-07-13T18:43:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:53:08.326Z","description":"Max revives the classic first-time-filmmaking reality show—and reveals the austerity and noise of Hollywood in 2023.","url":"https://time.com/6294500/project-greenlight-reboot-review/","keywords":["Television","review","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c726c9bb68e8f5c/698a3ea8d07533cd1ae6e32b/issa-rae-kumail-nanjiani-gina-prince-bythewood.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Judy Berman","jobTitle":"TV Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/judy-berman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c726c9bb68e8f5c/698a3ea8d07533cd1ae6e32b/issa-rae-kumail-nanjiani-gina-prince-bythewood.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"issa-rae-kumail-nanjiani-gina-prince-bythewood","caption":"From left: Issa Rae, Kumail Nanjiani, and Gina Prince-Bythewood in Project Greenlight: A New Generation","creditText":"Jessica Perez—Max","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/television/","name":"Television"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6294500/project-greenlight-reboot-review/","name":"Issa Rae’s Rebooted Project Greenlight Is a Fascinating Snapshot of an Industry in Flux"}}]}] ```