Yahoo News TCM’s 30th Anniversary Celebration Includes Special Programming, New Podcast, Studio Tour
Turner Classic Movies has a lot going on as it celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.
On Friday, execs from the beloved cable channel unveiled a new podcast, 2024 programming initiatives, a new branded studio tour of the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank and details about the 15th annual TCM Classic Film Festival in April.
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On Jan. 16, TCM and sister streamer Max will debut Talking Pictures: A Movie Memories Podcast. TCM host Ben Mankiewicz will join filmmakers and actors as they discuss “their earliest film memories, favorite movies, creative influences and guilty pleasures,” with guests including Mel Brooks, Nancy Meyers and Patty Jenkins.
The TCM podcast The Plot Thickens is returning this year for a fifth season, with the subject yet to be disclosed.
In April, TCM will introduce a new franchise, Two for One, with prominent filmmakers co-hosting a double feature of their choice on Saturday nights. Guests will include Jenkins, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Lee, Olivia Wilde, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Ethan Hawke, Todd Haynes and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
TCM is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Columbia Pictures this month and will do the same in April for MGM’s 100th anniversary and its own 30th anniversary, with programming to highlight the channel’s history. TCM also will premiere new film restorations, including movies that have never aired on television.
Ted Turner’s TCM bowed on April 14, 1994, with host and THR columnist Robert Osborne introducing Gone With the Wind.
In the fall, TCM will partner with The New Republic to highlight movies from the magazine’s list of “The 100 Most Significant Political Films of All Time.” Folks from the worlds of journalism, politics and film will co-host an entry on the list.
A new documentary executive produced by Scorsese about legendary filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus) titled Made in London will make its U.S. television premiere on TCM this year. (It was Scorsese who introduced Powell to his future wife, Oscar-winning film editor Thelma Schoonmaker.)
Throughout the year, TCM will compare pre- and post-code films in commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the Hays Code; look at how women in the workforce have been portrayed on film; screen Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day; discuss ageism in film; air programming devoted to great film composers; and host a month of “Kid Fans,” with children co-hosting a classic movie.
There also will be cultural celebrations for Black History Month, Asian-American and Pacific Islander Month, Pride Month and Hispanic Heritage Month, and “Stars of the Month” will include Marlon Brando, Lauren Bacall, Eva Marie Saint, Debbie Reynolds, Bela Lugosi, Ruth Roman, Gregory Peck, Marilyn Monroe, Tyrone Power and Victor Mature.
In April, Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood will introduce a WB/TCM Classic Movie Tour featuring clips from TCM hosts, visits to areas not part of the regular tour (including the Property Department and Rose Garden) and TCM-branded tour carts.
The next TCM Classic Film Festival, set for April 18-21 in Hollywood, will pay tribute to actor Billy Dee Williams and Oscar-winning makeup artist Lois Burwell, and film historian Jeanine Basinger will receive the fifth Robert Osborne Award, which recognizes an individual who has helped keep the cultural heritage of classic film alive for future generations.
Films announced for the festival so far include Sherlock Jr. (1924), It Happened One Night (1934), The Mad Miss Manton (1934), White Heat (1949), On the Waterfront (1954), Rear Window (1954), The Searchers (1956), North by Northwest (1959) and Chinatown (1974).
Meanwhile, Scorsese, Spielberg and Anderson have extended their advisory agreement with TCM through the end of this year.
“With the 30th year of TCM upon us, we both look back at all that’s been built over the last several decades and look ahead at what is undoubtedly one of the most exciting times in TCM’s history,” Mike De Luca and Pamela Abdy, co-chairs and CEOs of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, said in a statement.
“TCM’s collaboration with Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson has infused an even greater love of cinema into our programming and inspired us to expand what TCM offers across a wide array of mediums for fans of classic movies to dive even deeper into the films and stories they cherish.”
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