A month or so back, we reported on a truly strange confluence of two well-known entertainment talents, seemingly united only by the fact that neither of them had had a hit in a minute or two: A new TV drama being set up at Peacock, starring Eddie Murphy, and being showrun by Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner. The series, apparently titled The Chairman, would be a comeback of sorts for both men, with Murphy making the latest pivot in what feels like an almost eternal “About to happen, we swear” career renaissance, while Weiner faced the prospect of shaking off the critical failure of his single-season Prime Video show The Romanoffs, his most recent prior TV credit, from all the way back in 2018.
And half of that might still happen—but only half, since Weiner has now departed the show as quickly, and as enigmatically, as he was first announced to be part of it. This is per Variety, which reports that Weiner has bailed on the series thanks to unrevealed creative differences with its producers, leaving the show to put its writers room on hold for a few weeks while it puts a new, currently unnamed creative team in place.
Among other things, Weiner’s departure now takes the sum total of things we know about The Chairman—i.e., that Mad Men‘s Matthew Weiner and Eddie Murphy were teaming up for a TV drama together—down from two to one. (Murphy remains attached to both star and produce.) This is, honestly, one of those situations where we’re as fascinated by the imagined behind-the-scenes struggles as by the prospect of the show itself; neither Weiner nor Murphy are exactly known for being shy, wilting flowers, which is part of what had made the prospect of the two of them teaming up for something so intriguing in the first place.