WeCrashed trailer: Jared Leto, Anne Hathaway kill as WeWork’s ex-CEOs

WeCrashed, Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway become the latest to enter the world of ripped-from-the-headlines tech stories as they take on the roles of Adam and Rebekah Neumann, whose at-times incoherent vision helped make WeWork a name on everyone lips before everything came crashing down. A new trailer for the show, which premieres on March 18 on Apple TV Plus, captures the mania of the company’s skyrocket moment.

Disclosure: From 2014 to 2015 I was in a lower-ranking position at WeWork where I met Adam and Rebekah. I had a brief conversation with Rebekah, a producer and writer in 2021. WeCrashed, Who wanted to find out if I could confirm 2017’s story? I couldn’t, and that was the entirety of the interaction. However, from my personal experience, Leto and Hathaway seem convincing. Leto’s Israeli accent passes muster and his hair is the right length. (Neumann’s hair was crucial to his mythology, saying that as a long-haired Israeli, he had a resemblance to Jesus.) The early animations show what Neumann’s main power was: to make somebody believe in his vision, if only long enough for them to write a check.

WeCrashed will undoubtedly get into the sketchy economics on which Adam’s vision was based, as well as the debauchery of WeWork’s Summer Camp retreats (“debauchery,” in my personal experience, meant endless mimosas, a horrible Chainsmokers concert, a pretty good Weeknd concert, and more cocaine than I had ever seen). However WeCrashed Rebekah and Adam’s story are concluded with this finality. This podcast was used as the inspiration for this show. Their story has been adapted into many podcasts, documentaries and books. Cult of We By Eliot Brown Billion Dollar Loser Reeves Wiedeman. It is possible that the story will be broadcast on TV.

It’s not the only one. This year’s Showtime miniseries Super Pumped The book, which was well-reported by Mike Isaac, is now a pretty butterfly. A Showtime show will feature Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

And then there’s Bad bloodJohn Carreyrou’s 2018 book “The Collapsing Tech CEOs” is perhaps responsible. Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes were recently indicted for fraud. This documentary is already about them. There’s The Dropout on Hulu, featuring Amanda Seyfried and based on a podcast, and there’s also a straight adaptation of Bad blood Coming to Apple TV, directed and starring Jennifer Lawrence. Jennifer Lawrence is apparently working on her voice change for the role.

What’s behind this rash of CEOs acting badly on screen? There have been a number of factors, the most important being that many CEOs are acting badly. As The Washington Post noted after a jury found Holmes guilty, America has “a history of building up its business leaders and tearing them down just as quickly when they’re accused of wrongdoing,” stretching from Enron to the 2008 financial crash, the latter of which has been covered in movies like Margin Call And The Big Short.

It is difficult to tell a story when real-life people are made into fictionalized characters. Patrick Willems from YouTube explained that putting real people into movies creates a story about their lives. Podcasts and books are the same, though they allow you to explore more complicated details.

Podcasts can include bonus episodes. Books can contain footnotes. However, visual narratives do not have sidebars. It is difficult to get all information onto the screen and still engage the viewers. Adam McKay did so in The Big ShortIt will now be up to the shows to follow suit.

These upcoming programs will be most popular with people who are familiar with these stories but have not yet read them. There may also be a few people who love these stories, and who want to see more. Of course, the people who haven’t been interested before might still be uninterested, and those who have learned about the chaos of tech might have already gotten their fill.

There’s also a risk of shows like WeCrashed And Super Pumped All these charismatic CEOs have become interchangeable and are now a grift-filled stew. That could be the most terrible fate for those who want to contribute in any way, like Steve Jobs.