Okay, fess up: Who went into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and chanted “Ray Donovan” 17 times while burning the special incense that smells like Jon Voight’s neck? Because it’s happened, it’s really fucking happened, and just when we thought we were safe: Ray Donovan is back, and he’s getting his own movie at Showtime.
Now, to be fair, this isn’t 100 percent of a shock, in so far as the series’ showrunner, David Hollander, was pretty vocally unhappy about the abrupt end of the Liev Schreiber Hollywood/crime show, which retroactively had its seventh-season finale dubbed its series finale by Showtime early last year. (Hollander was especially unhappy because he’d ended the show pretty satisfyingly at the end of the sixth season, and then embarked on a two-season plan when Showtime asked him to bring it back.) And, as it turns out, the series was ultimately destined to Liev again, with Schreiber set to both co-write and star in the film revival, which will be directed by Hollander.
Hell, they won’t even call it a “finale” movie, opening up the possibility that a Ray Donovan cinematic universe is now in the works, keeping Schreiber in nondescript suits, and Voight in cheap necklaces and garbage political opinions, for years to come. The film will, understandably, build on the cliffhangers from the show’s final episode, which saw Ray—a Hollywood “fixer” shaped exactly like TV star Liev Schrieber—attempting to track down his dad Mickey (Voight), while also working in “Ray and Mickey’s origin story from 30 years ago” for all the Ray Donovan lore fanatics in the audience. Kerris Dorsey, who plays certified Ray-spawn Bridget, is also slated to star in the film, which is tentatively set to begin filming later this year.
The Ray Donovan movie will air on Showtime, and for years afterward in our grim and eternally troubled sleep.
17 Comments
Makin’ his way
In L.A.
It can be hard out there for a janitor
[“Point me to the toilet. I’ll fix it right up.”]
I hope Ray Donovan never dies!
Makin’ your way in L.A. today takes everything you’ve got…
I was super into Ray Donovan early on. I’m a big-time sucker for Liev Schreiber, and for a stoic ass-kicker, so it’s like the show was made for me specifically.
But the wife doesn’t share my Schreiboner, so when we got into the second season of focusing on goddamn Jon Voight, i was content to just go to bed earlier.
Don’t know if i’ll bother with the movie. Maybe if i find out that Mickey fuckin’ dies early in the movie (or offscreen before it starts), and in a really dumb way, like he’s just strolling down the street minding his own dirtbag business and a piano falls on his head? I don’t know, i’m just spit-balling.
But something like that, and then maybe i could go back to having Liev glower directly into my soul.
I wish I had bailed early on like you. I foolishly stuck with it as the show slowly began its descent into madness. Seasons 5 was my breaking point.
Yeah, his family drama bullshit got me out about halfway through the first season. Dammit. I just wanna watch Liev Schrieber cover up hooker murders and convince strippers who slept with basketballers to get abortions. Is that too much to ask?
Ray Donovan may very well be the epitome of TV shows that ran for a long time but weren’t very popular, i.e. cultural phenomenon.
I’ve never watched the Ray Donovan show, but I do appreciate that a show like it can have legs without being popular. These days, it seems if AVClub, Slate, and whoever else aren’t talking about your show, people automatically consider it a failure.
“Everybody Loves Raymond (Donovan)“
I’d love to see Smitty somehow survive being gunned down in a miraculous, “he was actually dead for 11 minutes” surgery. But yeah, this had to happen. There’s no way they could let it end the way it did.
Fuck, I forgot about Smitty. He was one of about 3 likable characters on the show.
I feel like the marketing team at Showtime really f’ed up on this show. For all I know it might be great, but whenever I hear about it I’m reminded of John Oliver’s bit where he says: “What is Ray Donovan about? I will never know.” (Sorry
can’t find a clip)
Before I read this article all I knew was that a) it stars Liev Schrieber, b) his character’s name is (probably) Ray Donovan… and that’s it. But it seems like whoever designed the promotional material at Showtime thought that’s all anyone needed to know in order to tune in.
i dont know why Oliver (or anybody) would be confused. its the simplest show in the world-ray’s a scumbag, almost everyone he knows is a scumbag, he does shady shit for money, he has a family. There, done.
i’m in your boat: i know a few things about the show: it’s called ray donovan, ray is liev, people are very into ray donovan.
Yeah, the only reason I started watching the show was because I happened to catch a random episode while staying in a hotel room once. The marketing just doesn’t do the show justice at all.
So Ray Donovan and Keith Richards are going to dance on our graves?
I watched this for a while. In the end, the sheer disparate makeup of the thing tired me out. Was it about Hollywood? Was it a mob show? A family drama? It seemed to move in so many directions at random, I got tired trying to keep up.
it was all of it