Max’s Ted Turner documentary sequence likes itself some Ted Turner. The trailer for the brand new docuseries “Name Me Ted” selects a number of phrases to bathe the media mogul with reward: “Mogul,” “Adventurer,” “Insurgent,” “Danger Taker,” “Showman,” “Philanthropist,” and “Genius.” (There was additionally “Father,” however that one isn’t very subjective.)
Nevertheless it’s not simply the filmmakers who had glowing phrases about Turner, who’s 85. His ex-wife Jane Fonda in trailer known as him a “legend” and an “American hero”; U2 frontman Bono mentioned Turner was “far more rock and roll than I’m.”
In all probability proper round right here we must always level out that Max and the Turner cable channels (like TBS and TNT) share a mother or father firm, Warner Bros. Discovery. Turner has been part of all of the Warner Bros. iterations since 1996; HBO was a part of Time Warner.
“Name Me Ted” takes audiences again to 1980 when Turner based CNN, the primary 24-hour cable information channel. Turner has famously vowed that the channel will proceed working till the top of the world. How critical was he? Critical sufficient to fee the notorious Turner Doomsday video to be performed throughout Earth’s ultimate minute.
Turner although based the WTBS Superstation even earlier than CNN’s launch. And of explicit curiosity to IndieWire readers, Turner Traditional Films (TCM) launched in 1994.
Six-part sequence “Name Me Ted” is produced and directed by the husband and spouse crew Joni Levin (producer) and Keith Clarke (author/director). The couple (producers and author on 2016’s “Ben-Hur” remake, 2010’s “The Means Again”) first met Ted within the late ’80s when he bought Levin’s first documentary (on John Huston). The trio labored collectively on TV sequence “MGM: When the Lion Roars,” which gained Turner his first Emmy. Additionally they collaborated on “In Search of Dr. Seuss,” which was nominated for seven Emmys.
Levin and Clarke raised their very own financing for “Name Me Ted.” They obtained Turner’s blessing to make the doc 5 years in the past.
“The docuseries has been a labor of affection for me and Keith,” Levin informed IndieWire through e mail. “It has additionally been an train within the significance of ‘getting it proper’. Ted is a as soon as in a lifetime type of human being and really feel his story is one which all of us have to take a web page from. By the successes and the failures, Ted has all the time believed that we — himself included — the residents of the world, the ‘followers within the stadium’ can change the momentum of a recreation…be it local weather, the setting, nuclear, or preserving our democracy.”
“Ted has lived the often-breathtaking lifetime of a dozen fictional derring-do characters, however on the finish of the day what he cared about was fact and details,” Clarke mentioned. “In right this moment’s world the place truth is fiction and fact is a lie, the world wants Ted Turner greater than ever.”
“Name Me Ted” premieres November 13 on Max. Watch the trailer right here: