March 24th, 2014

CNN’s Morgan Spurlock Inside Man Dives Into America’s “Celebrity” Obsession on Sunday, April 13

InsideManCNN

 Season Two Premiere  Includes Spurlock’s Take on “Futurism,” “Pets in America,” “Income Inequality” and “College Athletes”

Popular CNN Original Series Morgan Spurlock Inside Man, hosted and produced by the Oscar®-nominated documentary filmmaker, launches its second season on CNN with an inside look into the cult of “celebrity” on Sunday, April 13 at 10pm ET, following the season premiere of Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown at 9pm, ET.

In his signature storytelling style, which incorporates humor, inquisitiveness, impartiality and investigative acumen, Spurlock tackles a wide range of subjects that are part of the national conversation including, personal privacy, income disparity in the U.S, America’s obsession with pets, and the big business of college athletics. “Celebrity,” the season premiere episode will be live streamed on CNN.com beginning April 13.

The acclaimed program, which was recently honored with an award for  “Best Limited Series” by the International Documentary Association, premiered in June, 2013 on CNN, and averaged 434,000 total viewers for premiere episodes in the first season*.

Video links and DVD Screenersfor review purposes are available upon request:

Below are descriptions of Morgan Spurlock Inside Man season two episodes (airdates are subject to change):

Celebrity (April 13) – Spurlock becomes a paparazzo to explore first-hand America’s obsession with celebrity and sensationalism. From high-speed chases to perfect positioning for that million-dollar shot, Spurlock learns the tricks of the trade, hunting down the great white whale of celebrity photos… affair, scandal, wardrobe malfunction and maybe even a distraught girlfriend — all in a days work for legions of the Los Angeles paparazzi.

Futurism (April 20) – Spurlock enters the brave new world of extreme life extension, embarking on a life-prolonging regimen and trying everything from genome hacking, to creating an avatar and uploading his consciousness in preparation for the “Technological Singularity.”  Spurlock’s quest to live forever includes visits with radical futurist Ray Kurzweil, Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, and Cambrian Genomics in San Francisco.

Pets in America (April 27) – From toy dogs in fancy purses to puppy mills to shelter animals, Spurlock takes a humorous and poignant look at America’s cultural obsession with pets. To explore how less fortunate “would-be” pets live, Spurlock gets down and dirty as an animal shelter worker for the Animal Rescue League of Berks County (Reading, PA.), where each day can mean adoption or euthanasia.

Cyber Spying/Big Data (May 4) – How easy is it to track someone online? How much info does the government have on each of us? And how much info do corporations keep on us – tracking where we live, what we buy, and for whom we buy it? To uncover the scary truth about big data collecting, Spurlock journeys out to find out just how much information is kept on him.

The Book of Morgan (May 11)  – Spurlock travels to Nashville, TN – the buckle of the Bible Belt – to become a guest preacher at an atheist church, a controversial and growing movement in the US. Along the way, he visits evangelical mega-churches, Baptist gospel churches, mosques, Mormon gatherings, and more to try and figure out exactly why people need religion in their lives, why it creates so much conflict in this world, and what his own message is for his Sunday sermon.

UFO’s (May 18) –With an open mind, Spurlock steeps himself in the history, theories, and photographic ‘evidence’ of UFO sightings, embedding himself at several MUFONs (Mutual UFO Network) and communing with watchers, conspiracy theorists and other interested parties to make his own determination as to whether or not we are truly alone in the universe.

Income Inequality (June 1) – Spurlock travels to New Orleans, Louisiana to see how achievable the American Dream really is in one of the most economically unequal places in the United States. From working at a food pantry to racing Ferraris with the city’s elite, he’ll explore what wealth looks like, what’s changed, and where we’re headed.

College Athletes (June 8) – Spurlock imbeds in some of the top college sports programs in the U.S. to see first hand what it takes to be a top-level college athlete, what kind of education these kids are actually getting, and what life is like under the watchful eye of the NCAA. Schools are making millions off the backs of these kids – should the athletes themselves be able to share in the profits?

For an enhanced viewing experience, CNN has published a Flipboard mag “Morgan Spurlock Inside Man.” Visit: http://flip.it/SpurlockCNN  to follow the host/producer’s social media feeds, and find out more about the topics and people featured in season two.

Viewers are invited to follow, engage and interact with Inside Man and each other using hash tag #InsideManCNN and handle @InsideManCNN on Twitter and at Facebook.com/InsideManCNN.  In addition, the show blog CNN.com/InsideMan, will provide users with program information, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, and other special content.

An acclaimed documentary filmmaker, Spurlock came to international prominence in 2004 with his Oscar® nominated film Super Size Me. He made his first foray into television as executive producer of the FX series 30 Days (2005-2008). In 2013, he served as director of the 3-D concert film for the mega-hit band One Direction, and earlier as executive producer of the documentary series A Day in the Life on Hulu, and the films, Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope, The Dotted Line on ESPN and Mansome on Yahoo!.

Warrior Poets, the New York based production company founded in 2004 by Morgan Spurlock and Jeremy Chilnick, has produced multiple award winning films and television programs. Films include The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Freakonomics, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?, Comic-Con: Episode IV – A Fan’s Hope, and Mansome. Television projects include the award winning FX series 30 Days, ESPN’s The Dotted Line, the Emmy and Writer’s Guild nominated The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special in 3-D on Ice!, Hulu’s A Day in the Life, Failure Club and Mansome on Yahoo!, and Morgan Spurlock’s New Britannia for Sky Atlantic HD.

CNN Worldwide is a portfolio of two dozen news and information services across cable, satellite, radio, wireless devices and the Internet in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. Domestically, CNN reaches more individuals on television, the web and mobile devices than any other cable TV news organization in the United States; internationally, CNN is the most widely distributed news channel reaching more than 271 million households abroad; and CNN Digital is a top network for online news, mobile news and social media. Additionally, CNN Newsource is the world’s most extensively utilized news service partnering with hundreds of local and international news organizations around the world. CNN is division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner Company.

*Source: The Nielsen Company, Sun 10p-11p, Season 1 Average = 6/23/13-8/25/13 excluding 7/7/13 and 8/4/13, Live+7 data stream

###

Contact:

Karen Reynolds  Karen.reynolds@turner.com           212-275-8253