WeCrashed, review of the new Apple TV series with Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway

WeCrashed

Starting Friday, March 18 on Apple TV plus, the new WeCrashed television series, created by Lee Eisenberg and Drew Crevello, will be available in streaming. At sportsgaming.win, in addition to having had the incredible opportunity to interview Jared Leto who plays the protagonist Adam Neumann, we were also able to preview the complete series. Consisting of eight episodes of approximately one hour each, WeCrashed is a limited series based on the popular Wondery podcast called WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork. The show follows the extraordinary birth of one of the world's most valued startups, and the couple hungry for power and success whose romance made it all possible.

Featuring Jared Leto as Adam Newmann and Anne Hathaway in those of his wife Rebekah Neumann, WeCrashed tells how the company created by the Israeli entrepreneur has developed from being a single co-working space to become a global brand valued at 47 billion dollars in the space of a dozen 'years. In less than a year, however, its value has plummeted. What happened?



WeCrashed

WeCrashed: from rags to riches… and back

It is precisely in this period of hardship that Adam Neumann meets Rebekah Paltrow (Anne Hathaway) and falls in love with her from the first glance without being reciprocated. After a (false) departure from the relationship, the passion between the two explodes, thus giving life to the romance behind WeWork. It is thanks to Rebekah that Adam finds the right idea and the courage to create the basis for his business.

The idea of ​​coworking was not entirely new, already in 2005 in San Francisco it was The first space dedicated to this concept was created, but Adam Neumann gave it a more concrete and closer shape to what a 2007 survey revealed about workers' fears and needs. The following year GreenDesk was born, an eco-friendly workspace in Brooklyn, also thanks to a partial loan from a Manhattan real estate developer who had bought a third-party stake in the company.


Over the years, also thanks to the incredible charisma of Adam Neumann and the support of Rebeka, WeWork has often been considered one of the fastest growing office leasing companies in New York, attracting different looks and the interest of major new investors. But everything that rises is bound to fall sooner or later and Adam will be faced with one of the most difficult decisions of his career.

WeCrashed: from podcast to series

WeCrashed is not the first product to talk about the history of Adam Neumann's co-working company and the story behind it. In early 2020, the Wondery podcast network launched a serious part series called WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork, which analyzed the company's journey by describing its history as full of hope, arrogance, lots of money and even more problems. In short, the perfect picture of everything people would go after their own unicorn.

The podcast focused mainly on the story of CEO Adam Neumann, who thought his company was destined to change the world. world, having an almost prophetic vision of it. Fueled by billions of dollars in investments and the motto of always going further, Adam and Rebekah Neumann's ego and arrogance seem to be directly responsible for the near-ruin of one of the most celebrated companies in the United States.


WeCrashed The failure of the IPO (Initial Public Offering on the Stock Exchange) caused a trust crisis in the company, which in turn created a vertical decline in WeWork's valuation thus destroying all financial aspirations and dreams of hundreds of young acolytes who had worked hard for countless hours in order to help build Neumann's company and capital.

It was this story of rise and fall that interested Lee Eisebgerg, who told himself extremely curious about what a person is like when he begins to believe in the hype he has created for his project and is then overwhelmed. With WeCrashed, the creator of the series explains that he wanted to analyze what Adam Neumann had triggered, where all his motivation came from and why it never seemed enough for him what he had achieved.

What made this really interesting story was that unlike the rise and fall of businesses like Enron (a multinational energy company) and Theranos (a biomedical startup), at the heart of WeWork there was never any intention of fraud or anything illegal. Adam and Rebekah in fact have never been in jail and there has never been a doubt that they should end up there. The main purpose of WeCrashed for Eisengerg and Crevello was therefore more than anything else to explore the figure of Adam Neumann from the beginning, to find out if he really believed what he said and if he had a consistent passion for his work or was simply interested in money.

WeCast: the stars of the series

An interesting story, therefore, which did not aim to criticize the protagonists, but mostly to reveal what was hidden behind one of the most successful companies of the last twenty years. But the creators of WeCrashed knew that the show's success would hinge on choosing the right actors for the roles of the main characters in the story.

From the start, for the role of Adam Neumann, Eisenberg and Crevello had one person in mind: Jared Leto. They felt he had the magnetism, charisma, and all the right qualities they envisioned for their Adam, and after talking with the actor for months to outline the character's psychology, Leto signed the contract once he read the first script. br>
As revealed also in our interview, the actor made a deep research for the creation of his character, dedicating himself meticulously to the research of details that would make him alive, such as the characteristic accent. His story then undoubtedly helped further in the definition of behavior: before he turned docidi, Adam Neumann had moved thirteen times, and the difficult family situation gave him a restlessness and those typical characteristics of losers such as to push him to be a successful entrepreneur.



WeCrashed And it is precisely in the way Jared Leto plays Adam that you see how magnetic he is: the charm, the energy, all of which makes him extremely charismatic and perfect for dressing up. You can hardly take your eyes off the performance of the actor, who has totally immersed himself in the role so much as to be an investor in technology himself.

Jared Leto and the chance to work alongside him was also what prompted Anne Hathaway to accept the project, along with the quality of the script writing and the themes Eisenberg and Crevello wanted to explore in WeCrashed. The actress, who has returned for the first time in years to star in a television series, said that what makes the difference in this series is undoubtedly the way in which the characters are viewed, that is, as human beings and not as a sort. of mystified gods or spiritual guides.

The show never tried to tease or scoff at Adam and Rebekah, but rather investigated what these people really were, especially psychologically. For this reason, much of the research and discussions between the creators and the actors focused on the characterization of the characters, so much so that Anne Hathaway contacted some of Rebekah's friends to get to know her better.

Summing up

There is no doubt therefore that WeCrashed has all the elements to be a success, starting from the narration, passing through the interpretation of the actors and finally arriving at the attention to detail such as the design of the WeWork offices recreated to perfection and the meticulous research into the clothes worn by the protagonists.

The series manages to distinguish itself from other projects that similarly analyze companies that have ended up in the eye of the storm, without ever throwing someone in a bad light or looking for a scapegoat. WeCrashed examines a man's love affair with his work and his wife, without which he would never have been able to chase his unicorn. All you have to do is access the Apple TV Plus streaming service on March 18 and enjoy WeCrashed, the new series with Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway.