No one doubts Jon Hamm is a great actor, not after his run on Mad Men. Yet, after that series ended in 2015, Hamm hasn’t found his new “thing”. He pops up in a lot of stuff, like Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Top Gun: Maverick, Good Omens, Baby Driver, and Bad Times at the El Royale, it’s not like he’s not working. He works a lot! But nothing has come close to Mad Men, and I don’t even mean in quality, because that will be hard to match. I mean in the sense of defining Jon Hamm’s post-Mad Men era. Who is Jon Hamm, after Mad Men? He’s been knocking around for the last seven years as a “handsome yet goofy comedy guy”, but unfortunately for him, Paul Rudd cornered that market back in the 1990s. Maybe Hamm can find his next thing in the currently raging murder mystery trend? He’s taking over the Fletch franchise, let’s see how that goes.
The trailer for Confess, Fletch dropped yesterday, and it shows Hamm as the investigative reporter Irwin “Fletch” Fletcher. Chevy Chase first brought the character, created by mystery novelist Gregory McDonald, to the big screen in the 1980s, in Fletch and Fletch Lives. Confess, Fletch kicks the character into the twenty-first century, and Greg Mottola—of Superbad and Adventureland fame—directs. It doesn’t look bad, with a combo heist/murder plot and a Mad Men reunion as John Slattery co-stars. Hamm seems to have the “bumbling amateur detective” thing down, so maybe this will work out. If not, there’s always Fargo season five, and The Morning Show, which you cannot convince me anyone is still watching. It’s just sort of baffling it’s taking THIS long to find Jon Hamm’s new thing.
Attached - Jon Hamm in LA last week and out for lunch today at Little Dom's.
