The current HBO show on which everyone is obsessing over is Succession, which is centered on the Roy family, who have been inspired by wealthy media families like the Murdochs and Redstones, and the third season of Succession takes even more inspiration from the real world with incorporating recent headlines such as Disney buyout of Fox ad AT&T’s buyout of Time Warner in the finale of the series.
Succession follows the uber-rich Roy family, with their multimedia conglomerate Waystar Royco. The business is very much at the center of the series with every main character trying to get their asses on the CEO chair. Season 3 finale episode titled “All The Bells Say,” has just dropped a big bomb on the Roy siblings with Logan Roy (Brian Cox) selling the company to Lukas Matsson’s (Alexander Skarsgård) Gojo.
The twist in the finale of the family media company being bought out by a tech company is inspired by the real buyout of Disney’s buyout of Fox and AT&T’s buyout of Time Warner. When asked the question during an interview with Variety, the series creator Jesse Armstrong said “That one was present in our minds,” he also added “older ones — AOL Time Warner. And Warner, more recently, with AT&T: That was close to home, and far from home.”
Armstrong has said in the past that the Roy family in Succession are not the fictional versions of the Murdoch family who built a media empire that owned Fox News. As Armstrong said Succession is its own thing rather than someone’s fictional life but he has also admitted to drawing inspiration from real-life families. Armstrong also added:
“And obviously, Murdoch and Disney was in our minds. We try and absorb all the business stories we can and have that thing of not copying reality, but it makes me much more comfortable if I feel like our fictional media company is facing the same dilemmas that real legacy media companies are.”
Succession Season 3 has ended with a new gut-punch of a finale and now its time to wait for the fourth season which has already been renewed.