WeCrashed

WeCrashed is an American drama miniseries that premiered on Apple TV+ on March 18, 2022. The series stars Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway as Adam and Rebekah Neumann, the real-life married couple at the heart of WeWork, a coworking space company which claimed a valuation of $47 billion (in an internally produced prospectus) in 2019, before crashing as a result of financial revelations. The series is based on the podcast WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork by Wondery.

WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork, a six-part podcast, is the basis for the series.^[4] WeCrashed: The Director’s Cut podcast is a remake of the podcast, with David Brown by Wondery.^[5]

After Lee Eisenberg signed a multi-year overall deal with Apple, it was reported that a drama series based on the story of WeWork was in development in February 2020.^[6][7] It was announced in December 2020 that Apple TV+ had put the series into development, with Jared Leto in negotiations to star. Damien Chazelle was initially supposed to direct and produce, but was sidetracked by his film Babylon and dropped out.^[8] He was replaced by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra. Lee Eisenberg and Drew Crevello were set to create and write the series.^[9] The series was given an eight-episode series order the next month, with Leto confirmed to star alongside Anne Hathaway; both will serve as executive producers.^[10][11] In April 2021, Kyle Marvin was cast in a lead role, portraying Miguel McKelvey, another co-founder of WeWork.^[12] In July 2021, America Ferrera was added to the cast.^[13] In August 2021, O. T. Fagbenle was added to the cast in recurring capacity.^[14] In December 2021, Theo Stockman was added to the cast in recurring role,^[15] with Anthony Edwards noted as being cast in February 2022.^[16]

A portion of the series previewed at South by Southwest on March 12, 2022.^[20]

The series premiered on Apple TV+ on March 18, 2022.^[21]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds a 70% approval rating based on 20 critic reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "The pacing can be frustrating, but WeCrashed still works thanks to its compelling central relationship and Anne Hathaway's knockout performance."^[22] On Metacritic, the series has a score of 64 out of 100, based on 10 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[23]

Naomi Fry in The New Yorker called the show "genuinely funny", but complained that the business scenes, which become more frequent toward the end of the show, lack dramatic stakes. She did praise Leto's performance, saying "I don’t think I've ever seen a better impression of an Israeli's accent and mannerisms done by a non-Israeli".^[24] A number of reviewers criticized the series for not exploring the deeper issues raised by the WeWork story, such as "how thin the line in Silicon Valley can be between visionary and fraudster",^[25] or how Neumann's success came in part because he managed "to tap into a specifically millennial sense of longing for meaning and community".^[26]

WeCrashed contains a mix of real and fictional characters and events, although the fictional elements tend to have a basis in reality. For example, the character Elishia Kennedy is fictional but largely based on SoulCycle co-founder Julie Rice.^[27] The episode "Summer Camp" involves Rebekah Neumann making an onstage comment at a 2014 "Summer Camp" event that antagonizes many of the female employees, leading to a session in which they vent their frustrations at her. In reality, she did make the comment, but at a 2018 Summer Camp, and there was no corresponding discussion session afterwards, although many of the sentiments expressed had been stated publicly or privately by female employees at various times.^[28]

Bloomberg News reporter Ellen Huet felt the show was inaccurate in portraying WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey as "a clueless punchline", when in reality "many former employees saw him as a key architect of the company culture".^[28]

• Wiedeman, Reeves (October 20, 2020). Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Fall of WeWork: A Sunday Times Book of the Year. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-1-5293-8506-9.
• Brown, Eliot; Farrell, Maureen (July 22, 2021). The Cult of We: WeWork and the Great Start-Up Delusion. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 978-0-00-838941-3.

• WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn