The Real Reason John Krasinski Created Some Good News
Lovable goof, talented action star, and bonafide horror filmmaker John Krasinski went from making life for his fictional co-worker as frustrating as possible to making the world a better place. In late March 2020, the former Office star, current Jack Ryan lead, and A Quiet Place mastermind introduced us all to Some Good News — a YouTube series in which Kransinski delivers, well, some good news to brighten up the doom and gloom that so often clouds our reality and makes headlines in our news each and every day.
The series took off in the blink of an eye, with each episode amassing at least several hundred thousand views, if not many millions. (One episode, a digital Office reunion that saw the cast celebrate the wedding of a couple who got engaged the same way Krasinski's Jim Halpert and Jenna Fischer's Pam Beesly did, currently sits at a staggering 12.2 million views.) Hosting Some Good News, Krasinski has spoken to all sorts of people — from Guy Fieri and Oprah to Billie Eilish and the Jonas Brothers to a 15-year-old cancer survivor named Coco and actual NASA astronauts at the International Space Station. Along the way, he's brought smiles to the faces of millions of people, and warmed just as many hearts.
But why did he create Some Good News in the first place?
Chatting with his fellow Office alum Rainn Wilson (who played Dwight Schrute, the target of Jim's clever yet cruel pranks) on Wilson's Instagram Live SoulPancake series Hey There, Human, Krasinski opened up about what inspired him to create the YouTube series — and why it's so special to him.
"I've received the most amazingly kind notes about how much that show meant to everyone, but the truth is, it meant no more to anyone than me. That's probably the most emotionally fulfilled I've ever felt in my entire life. I thought to do it because I was sitting around and I was starting to get bummed out [figuring] out how I was gonna wade through this weird uncertain time," he said. "I said to my wife, 'I had this idea a few years ago to start a good news network,' and she said, 'You should do it right now.' And so I went in my office and did it right there."
Krasinski, who brought Some Good News to life alongside his Sunday Night Productions partner Allyson Seeger, continued, "I felt like I was part of a really special community of people who not only brought all the good news but [also] all this interaction, and we had the most fantastic community of people like you and SoulPancake — that's how we feel about the Some Good News community. [...] It was so much fun to celebrate good things during this really weird time."
CBS bought Some Good News — now what?
Given how successful and soul-lifting Some Good News is, it's not surprising that a major company wanted to purchase it. And given how busy Krasinski normally is outside of this weird time that's halted everyone's regular lives and kept basically all movie and TV actors out of work while productions are shut down and movie theaters are closed, it's also not shocking that Krasinski was willing to sell Some Good News when ViacomCBS came knocking.
Per Variety, Krasinski inked an expansive deal with the company that will see Comedy Central Productions producing weekly installments of Some Good News as well as shorter content to be shared across other ViacomCBS outlets. Signs point to Some Good News airing on CBS All Access — the home of shows like the Twilight Zone reboot, Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard, and the upcoming Stephen King adaptation The Stand — with the possibility to air on CBS News.
Krasinski spoke about his decision to sell Some Good News during the recent episode of Hey There, Human. As it turns out, Krasinski didn't ever plan on making very many episodes of Some Good News to begin with, considering his various other professional commitments. Essentially, it was supposed to be a limited-time-only coronavirus quarantine special, not a long-running series. But thanks to ViacomCBS, Some Good News will live on far past Krasinski thought it would.
"It was one of those things where I was only planning on doing eight of them during quarantine, because I have these other things that I'm going to be having to do very soon — like Jack Ryan and all this other stuff," said Krasinski. (The third season of Amazon Prime Video's Jack Ryan is currently in the works.) He added, "But more than that, it was something that writing, directing, and producing with a couple of my friends was so much [that] I knew it wouldn't be sustainable with my prior commitments."
Getting candid with Wilson, Krasinski said that he knew he would either have to leave Some Good News with just eight episodes filmed in his home office, or he'd have to bring on a hosting partner to help.
"In the first episode I said, 'Why isn't there a news show dedicated entirely to good news?' and now we have one of the biggest news programs in America, CBS News, saying that they want to make it part of their permanent news cycle, which is insane," he told Wilson. "The fact that we were able to accomplish that — in eight weeks, it went from not existing to now being on one of these huge news networks — is honestly one of the most amazing honors I've ever been able to pull off. And again, it was all due to the community and to the people."
As for whether we'll see Krasinski hosting future episodes of Some Good News, he won't be the regular host but will pop up now and again. Krasinski even teased that he might tap Wilson to host down the line: "We have a lot of fun stuff planned, and I can't wait to dig in. I'm gonna be a part of it whenever I can, and I'm gonna host a couple, and bring on a different community of people — maybe you."
New episodes of Hey There, Human stream live at 12 PM PT every weekday on the @SoulPancake Instagram channel.