“Film is my life,” says an earnest Hollywood executive (Seth Rogen), in a meeting that might determine his professional fate. His big-studio boss (Bryan Cranston, decked out in a turtleneck and beads) isn’t having it. “We don’t make films,” he says, and you can hear the disdainful italics. “We make movies. That people wanna pay to see.”

“The Studio,” the new Apple TV+ series created by Rogen and Evan Goldberg, takes the conundrum at the heart of the film industry and runs with it, to frequently hilarious effect.

In its opening episode, Rogen’s character, Matt Remick, is promoted to head of the legacy Hollywood studio Continental (a not-so-subtle nod to Universal). He’s desperate to get the job, despite having to embrace the new strategy of developing movies based on known brands — which means, he’s soon pushing a Kool-Aid movie and trying to explain to Martin Scorsese why the studio’s dropping the auteur’s latest project. (Watching Scorsese’s reaction to this — yes, he’s here, playing himself — was the comic masterpiece I didn’t know I needed.) Matt indeed loves film, but what he loves even more is being one of the cool kids. Alas, as we learn over 10 delightfully fast-paced and pratfall-filled episodes, he’s not very good at the latter.

Filled with insider-y references and gloriously retro music, “The Studio” is at once satire, ensemble comedy and acidic love letter to Hollywood. Rogen anchors a taut, funny central quintet: Sal (Ike Barinholtz), an intensely competitive peer at the studio; Maya (Kathryn Hahn), a studio marketer whose shouty anxiety is constantly dialed up to 11; Quinn (Chase Sui Wonders), a young assistant-turned-junior executive desperately trying to get a toehold; and Patty (Catherine O’Hara), the recently ousted former studio head who can’t quite stay away from the game, and who strolls through the series casually saying things like “I killed one of Warren’s movies in ’88 and he never slept with me again” or “It’s disgusting, and I’m someone who did lines off Kevin Spacey’s toilet.” (The great O’Hara’s throwaway touch with her dialogue is beyond perfect.)

Also on hand are an A-list of cameos, all seeming to be having a blast, most of all Zoë Kravitz, Ron Howard, Dave Franco, Anthony Mackie, Olivia Wilde and Netflix head Ted Sarandos, who reminds Matt — at a urinal! — that executives are not artists.

Each episode, introduced with an extremely old-school credit sequence that resembles a lava lamp, features something unexpected, something designed to appeal to those who love movies. In Episode 2, “The Oner,” Sal complains about how lengthy takes are self-indulgent cinephile fare — and then you realize that the entire episode (taking place mostly on a movie shoot) has been shot in one remarkable take, including a gorgeous scene in which we see simultaneously the action on a video screen and the real-life action behind it.

Episode 4, “The Missing Reel,” turns into a playful film noir, with Wilde as an obsessive auteur (“She’s gone full Fincher!”) and Rogen donning a trenchcoat to solve a mystery. Episode 8 takes place at the Golden Globes — and yes, it absolutely looks like the Golden Globes, with hundreds of extras in formal wear — with Matt desperate to have somebody thank him in their speech. And the final episode is at CinemaCon, where the gang must somehow pull their presentation together in order to fend off a horrifying fate (which I won’t spoil, but if you know the movie business, you can probably guess).

Those who prefer their shows to be filled with likable characters might not fall in love with “The Studio,” in which pretty much everyone’s an impossible egomaniac who’s indirectly bringing about the fall of cinema. (“We’re all so weak in the face of celebrity,” moans Quinn, whose lofty ideas about art turn into babbling vapidity the second she meets a movie star.) But Rogen and Goldberg here create satire of a very high level — you laugh even as you cringe.

And despite all the mocking and in-jokes and references to titles you may or may not remember, there’s something else that peeks through: a genuine love for movies. “When it all comes together, and you make a good movie,” Patty tells Matt, nostalgically, “it’s good forever.” I think the same might be true for “The Studio.”

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'THE STUDIO'

How to watch: Episodes 1 and 2 are now streaming on Apple TV+; subsequent episodes will drop Wednesdays through May 21.

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