Paramount+ Marketing Team Turned Down Show Starring Bob Odenkirk

David Cross and Bob Odenkirk made headlines in 2022 when they announced plans to reunite for the docu-style Paramount+ comedy “Guru Nation,” in which the “Mr. Show” masterminds were cast as rival cult gurus who manipulated the minds of their deluded followers. During a recent podcast appearance, Cross said he believed their Paramount+ series, which was in early development at Paramount Television Studios, was scrapped because the “marketing and analytics department” rejected it.

Cross and Odenkirk wrote and developed the show, which would have been an eight-episode limited series. He said the show’s pitch started a bidding war between four different networks.

“We went with Paramount+, and we wrote the first four episodes and then a very specific, extended bible for the last four – all of which we pitched, like, ‘Here’s the story, here’s the characters and this is what it would be like. work,’” Cross said at one March episode of Andrew Santino’s ‘Whiskey Ginger’ podcast. “And then they said no, which was weird because it was what we were throwing.”

Cross went on to say that the reason Paramount+ canceled the series was because its “marketing and analytics department didn’t get it, didn’t want it.”

Cross said he learned early in his career how much influence the marketing department has on development decisions, and that what happened with their show is “an ugly reminder” that “they have all the damn power!”

Cross continued: ‘If the marketing department doesn’t have the imagination to take an existing idea and figure it out […] how to sell it, then they can say no.

Variety has contacted Paramount+ and a Cross representative for comment.

Watch Cross’ full performance in “Whiskey Ginger” below.