Adam McKay to Explore 1950s Hollywood Tragedies in New Podcast (EXCLUSIVE)
Kate Aurthur editor On June 1, Adam McKay and his company Hyperobject Industries and Sony Music Entertainment will release “Death on the Lot,” an eight-episode podcast telling the stories of the deaths of James Dean, Hattie McDaniel, John Garfield and other notable Hollywood figures who died prematurely in the 1950s. Variety can exclusively unveil the trailer for “Death on the Lot,” which was developed by and hosted by McKay. In an interview that took place before the writers strike, McKay said the project grew out of his 2021 podcast “Death at the Wing,” which examined the untimely deaths of basketball players in the 1980s, putting them in the context of the sociopolitical climate at the time. “All during the making of ‘Death at the Wing,’ we kept saying the only other comparison we can think of is Hollywood after World War II,” McKay said. “Then we thought, ‘Well, let’s do a season about that, and see what we can uncover.’ And if possible, it was even richer and deeper, and more to the core of the American story than we anticipated.”