The Knockturnal recently celebrated the final season of ‘Ozark’ by attending the commemorative event and screening at The Paris Theater in New York City and the after party at the Plaza Hotel.
Netflix’s CEO Ted Sarandos addressed the crowd prior to the screening, beginning by highlighting the incredible praise and accolades that the show has received. “This is on countless best of TV lists: Emmys, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Critics Choice Awards, PGA, DGA, WGA,” Sarandos said. “This highlights the incredible talent in front of and behind the camera.”
“None of this, of course, would be possible without Ozark’s showrunner, writer, executive producer Chris Mundy, and director, executive producer, and star Jason Bateman” Sarandos continued. “It’s no accident that Jason has been so successful, he is the hardest working guy that you are ever going to meet.”
“We’re really proud of the show we made,” Chris Mundy shared. “But more than anything, I think we’re proud of the way we did it. It was a really great place to work with a really great group of people.”
“It’s so nice to be in this theater, which is where a lot of us grew up who are New Yorkers,” Laura Linney said. “So to be at this theater and then go to The Plaza Hotel afterwards — if someone had told me that when I was 10 years old, that I would be here having an evening like this, I would have never believed them.”
“This is a very special night,” Linney continued. “This is a group of people who really like each other, and this does not happen very often, when working in the situations that we work in, so I would love everyone from our cast and crew to stand up.” Individuals involved with the show then stood up and were met with applause and cheers.
Jason Bateman spoke next, beginning by saying that he could single out every single person involved with the show and talk about how talented they are, but then they would not have time to watch the two episodes of the show. He went on to thank three people individually.
“Amanda, my wife, Franny, my daughter — you guys did a lot of time without me when I was down hanging out with my other family,” Bateman began. “Thank you for letting me do that and being a place that I want to come home to even more than this, which I love, so thank you for that.”
“And last but certainly not least, there was a few really valid reasons why this show didn’t work for Netflix when we went in and talked to them about it,” Bateman concluded. “I talked to my pal Ted and I said ‘buddy, you’ve just got to trust me, we are going to put together an incredible thing with incredible people.’ And all he knew was I was some idiot from Arrested Development, but he trusted what we were talking about and if it wasn’t for that one person standing right there, none of us would be here, so thank you so, so, so, so much Ted. I hope you’re as proud of it as we are.”
After an intense and exciting screening of the first two episodes of the final part, attendees headed to The Plaza for an epic bash.
Part II of the final season of Ozark premieres Friday, April 29 only on Netflix.