We've said before that A Man In Full, Netflix's adaptation of Tom Wolfe's blistering novel, looks very like Succession. And now that the full trailer is here, we think it looks very like Succession, in the most complimentary way: we're always up for shows whose protagonists we love to hate.
A Man In Full stars Jeff Daniels as Charlie Croker, an Atlanta real-estate mogul who appears to have it all – and who seems set to lose it all as his political and financial enemies conspire to bring him down. Croker is no hero – he's a thoroughly reprehensible human – but he's tough as nails and has no intention of letting his rivals or the Feds take his empire from him. And that means he's willing to do whatever it takes to fight back.
Why we're excited about A Man In Full
The show isn't streaming for a while yet – it premiers on May 2, 2024 – but the book it's based on is well known and the trailer suggests that the adaptation is faithful to the book. It's partly a satire, partly a state-of-the-nation address, and thoroughly entertaining throughout as its cast of deeply flawed characters show us modern America at its very best and worst. The book is also very funny, albeit in a gallows humor kind of way.
This isn't the first adaptation of Tom Wolfe's work; The Bonfire of the Vanities, the 1990 film, tried and largely failed to bring the book of the same name to the screen. It's one of the most famous big-budget bombs of all time thanks to a script that took all the subtlety and smarts of the novel and threw them away.
Despite the best efforts of Tom Hanks and Melanie Griffith, it's a truly terrible adaptation, and you can be pretty sure that the cast and crew of A Man In Full are well aware of it and determined not to make the same mistakes. As the LA Times put it, "Wolfe's canvas might lend itself to a broad approach, but broad like Dr. Strangelove, not broad like the Three Stooges."
We've got high hopes for this to join the ranks of the best Netflix shows based on this trailer.
