Anne Hathaway's Forgotten Apple TV Miniseries Is Based On An Unbelievable True Story

Most people likely know all about the rise and fall of WeWork, the office rental company that went from zero to $47 billion to bankruptcy from 2010 through 2023. A handy timeline published by Forbes in 2023 traced the drama cleanly. WeWork was founded by Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey back in 2010 in Chicago, where they struck on the idea of having open-to-anyone office spaces that they could rent out. Big corporations or freelancers could have temp places to have meetings. 

By 2014, the company had caught on, and the Wall Street Journal reported that, thanks to a lot of interested investors, the company was worth about $5 billion. Business Insider wrote about it. Investors kept showing interest, and by 2019, the company was said to be worth a whopping $47 billion. The company's founders wanted to take WeWork public, but some reports revealed that, well, it actually wasn't all that successful. The company had massive revenue losses in 2018 and 2019, and Neumann stepped down over accusations of self-dealing and other poor leadership issues. 

WeWork, of course, was crushed again by the COVID-19 office closures as more and more people started working from home. They lost billions. In 2023, they filed for bankruptcy when the company was worth about $44.5 million — less than one one-thousandth of its previous value. 

In March of 2022, the WeWork failure was already big news, and Apple TV decided to dramatize the company's fall in a miniseries called "WeCrashed," which starred Jared Leto as Adam Neumann and Anne Hathaway as Rebekah Neumann, his wife who worked as the chief brand and impact officer for WeWork. Kyle Marvin played Miguel McKelvey. "WeCrashed" was co-created by Lee Eisenberg, co-creator of "Hello Ladies," and a writer/director/executive producer on "The Office." 

It should be noted that WeWork was just the latest company in a toxic, fast-moving, well-moneyed "startup culture" that burned bright before burning out. In "WeCrashed," Adam Neumann says big, highfalutin things about how his office rental company is transcendent, and that it will "elevate the world's consciousness." See also American Apparel for more of this phenomenon, or any other late-2000s, early-'10s "hipster" company that felt like it was actually reinventing the wheel. Any Millennial who has had the misfortune of living in the gig economy knows this phenom well. The new business model seemed to be to offer a plain product, but speak of it in holy terms, oversell shares, and get rich without having to build a customer base. 

It's no coincidence that multiple films and documentaries came out at about the same time, all detailing the quick rise and fall of "disruptors." "Super Pumped" told the tale of Uber. "Big Rad Wolf" was about the party-fun offices of American Apparel. And, of course, who could forget the rival docs about the Fyre Festival? 

And indeed, that freewheeling party atmosphere is what's dramatized in "WeCrashed." The Neumanns might have actually believed their own hype, and some critics noted that Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway give excellent performances of some pretty empty and/or despicable people. It's fitting that Leto is kind of hated overall and that Hathaway went through a brief period when people unfairly didn't like her either. Their public personae likely only helped "WeCrashed." 

Know that WeWork, despite being briefly rich, wasn't ever really good. One might recall the allegations of a wild fratboy culture at WeWork, as reported by Vox, alleging that the workplace was rampant with sexual harassment. It was a borderline cult. 

All of these businesses are cults, and too many of them zero in on partying and office culture and market value, and don't necessarily zero in on, well, making their company offer better services. What did WeWork do? They only rented office space. A novel idea, but hardly worthy of worship.

According to Nick Allen's review of "WeCrashed" on RogerEbert.com, Adam Neumann was depicted as the right kind of personality for the disruptor economy. He wrote that Leto: 

"... captures the forcefulness, and makes a superpower out of how Adam can read people and their needs. At the same point, Leto also helps detail why Neumann might have been a decent businessman, but he was far better at making himself what the fantasy that this bubbling economic culture of investing and ambition wanted."

He also noted that Hathaway was excellent as a woman who had been pushed aside too often as "the wife," while her husband was praised as a business genius, even though her branding and acumen were just as responsible for the company's growth as anything the founders did. 

"WeCrashed" ran for eight one-hour episodes in March and April of 2022. It received okay reviews — it has a 65% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 48 reviews, and most of them were very positive on Anne Hathaway in particular. /Film even did that in our own review. "WeCrashed" was also accused of feeling kind of useless, coming as it did so quickly after the real-world story. Inkoo Kang, writing for the Washington Post, wrote that it was inessential viewing.

WeWork, meanwhile, is trying again.