'Earliest Show' Revival Greenlit At Amplify & Stay Tuned
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Amplify Pictures officially greenlit a six-episode TV revival of Ben Schwartz's Funny or Die comedy "The Earliest Show," with indie studio Stay Tuned joining as co-financier to take the series to market.
- Kevin Carroll (Widow's Bay) and Ryan Gaul (The Last O.G.) are joining Schwartz and Lauren Lapkus as series regulars, while Henry Winkler (Barry) and Brandon Scott Jones signed on for recurring roles.
- Ben Schwartz will write and direct all six episodes; no plot details have been revealed beyond the show retaining its original set-up as the U.S.'s earliest live morning show, broadcasting at 3 a.m. from a tiny upstate New York town.
- Irony Point is attached to oversee physical production and Funny or Die remains in the fold, with executive producers drawn from all four companies including Amplify CEO Joe Lewis, Rachel Eggebeen, Colin King Miller, and Luke Esselen.
- Stay Tuned, led by screenwriter Kenny Neibart, exec producer Douglas Banker, and former CAA agent Barry Kotler, operates on the same indie model as Amplify — developing, financing, and producing projects outside the traditional studio system for market-ready sale.
Why it matters: The deal doubles down on a creator-friendly indie model in which Amplify and Stay Tuned develop, finance, and produce in-house before selling to buyers — offering Schwartz creative control and back-end participation while bypassing traditional network gatekeepers. Schwartz writing and directing every episode is a concrete expression of that trade-off, and bringing in established names like Winkler signals the project is being packaged for premium buyers rather than as a low-budget web revival.
