The Last Tycoon/Le Dernier Seigneur (TV series, 2016)

1/1/2021

The Last Tycoon is an American television series, originating from a pilot produced in 2016 as part of Amazon Studios' seventh pilot season. The show stars Matt Bomer and Kelsey Grammer and is loosely based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's last book, his unfinished and posthumously published 1941 novel The Last Tycoon. Amazon picked up the pilot to series on July 27, 2016. The first season premiered on July 28, 2017. On September 9, 2017, Amazon cancelled the series.

The story

The Last Tycoon is an unfinished novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In 1941, it was published posthumously under this title, as prepared by his friend Edmund Wilson, a critic and writer. According to Publishers Weekly, the novel is "generally considered a roman a clef," with its lead character, Monroe Stahr, modeled after film producer Irving Thalberg. The story follows Stahr's rise to power in Hollywood, and his conflicts with rival Pat Brady, a character based on MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer.

It was adapted as a TV play in 1957 and a film in 1976 of the same name, with a screenplay for the motion picture by British dramatist Harold Pinter. Elia Kazan directed the film adaptation; Robert De Niro and Theresa Russell starred.

In 1993, a new version of the novel was published under the title The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by Matthew Bruccoli, a Fitzgerald scholar. This version was adapted for a stage production that premiered in Los Angeles, California in 1998. In 2013, HBO announced plans to produce an adaptation. HBO cancelled the project and gave the rights to Sony Pictures, which produced and released the television series on Amazon Studios in 2016.