EDtv

Directed by Ron Howard. With Matthew McConaughey, Jenna Elfman, Geoffrey Blake, Gail Boggs. A video store clerk agrees to have his life filmed by a camera crew for a television show.

Edtv (1999) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.

Now that two movies have been made about a man living 24 hours a day on television, how long until TV actually tries this as a programming idea? "EDtv'' arrives less than a year after "The Truman Show,'' and although the two films have different approaches ("Truman'' is a parable, "EDtv'' is an ambitious sitcom), they're both convinced that enormous audiences would watch intently as a man brushes his teeth, clips his nails and is deceived by a wicked woman.

EDtv summary of box office results, charts and release information and related links.

Parents need to know that 1999's EDtv is a comic satire of reality TV before the genre exploded over the airwaves. Anticipating a time when television stars were made because they confronted neighbors, hoarded garbage, or intimidated underlings, the movie sends up the kind of celebrity that emerges simply because a shared audience can't turn away. The only thing that sets hero Ed Pekurny and his dysfunctional family apart from later TV pseudo-stars is that he's up close and personal on the screen EVERY DAY, ALL THE TIME. Sexual behavior -- smooching, leering, partial nudity, foreplay, language, adultery -- plays a central part in the story, and profanity and insults ("pissed off," "asshole," "s--t," "p---y," "goddamn," "bastard") are frequent. Because rampant commercialism and advertising are key targets of the filmmakers, products and brands are on-screen throughout the movie, almost continuously. A character dies off camera. Some scenes show drinking and smoking; pills are referred to; one player gets intoxicated.

The turning point in the life of Ed Pekurny (Matthew McConaughey) comes thanks to the misfortunes of the NorthWest Broadcasting Company. After two years on the air, their flagship cable channel, True TV, has slid into obscurity due to competition from the The Gardening Channel. Program director Cynthia Topping (Ellen DeGeneres) brainstorms a last ditch effort to save the channel: broadcast one ordinary person's life 24 hours a day, unedited (while he sleeps, the day's highlights will be shown). When the network agrees to the idea, Topping must find the subject of her program. After endless auditions, she lucks upon Ed, a goofy but good-looking video store clerk. Ed has little time to get used to his new shadow, a three man video crew, before the show becomes a hit. Suddenly Ed's a cultural icon with fan clubs, stalkers, and imitators, but the media saturation has it's effects on his friends and family, who are now part of the program. Ed alienates his proud brother, Ray (Woody Harrelson), by falling in love with his girlfriend, Shari (Jenna Elfman). His estranged father Hank (Dennis Hopper) reappears after abandoning the family and creates tension between Ed and Ray's mother, Jeanette (Sally Kirkland) and her wheelchair-bound second husband, Al (Martin Landau). When Ed realizes the phenomenon has turned on him, he convinces Topping to stop the ordeal, but not her boss, Whitaker (Rob Reiner). To regain his life, Ed must find a way to cancel EDtv.

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A cable TV network called True TV has a problem.

EDtv is a 1999 American satirical comedy film directed by Ron Howard. An adaptation of the Quebec film Louis 19, King of the Airwaves (Louis 19, le roi des ondes) (1994), it stars Matthew McConaughey, Jenna Elfman, Woody Harrelson, Ellen DeGeneres, Martin Landau, Rob Reiner, Sally Kirkland, Elizabeth Hurley, Clint Howard, and Dennis Hopper.