Season 5 of ‘Mad Men’ is finally getting ready to premiere, in 2012, much later than previous seasons.

Matthew Weiner, creator and writer of the hit show, says he already knows how the show will end at the end of season 7! Weiner sat down with Grantland.com to talk about his struggles with AMC – and his visions of how the show will end.

It’s not over yet – we have three more seasons of ‘Mad Men’ coming up – and the series will come to a close at the end of season 7. The last episode, Weiner says, will be more than just a look back at the show’s history.

“I do know how the whole show ends,” he told the site. “It came to me in the middle of last season. I always felt like it would be the experience of human life. And human life has a destination. It doesn’t mean Don’s gonna die. What I’m looking for, and how I hope to end the show, is like … It’s 2011. Don Draper would be 84 right now. I want to leave the show in a place where you have an idea of what it meant and how it’s related to you.”

To see Don Draper, still working and trying to sell digital ad space, based on laser-targeted focus group and audience segmentation, would truly be a sight to behold. Of course, one gets the feeling that Weiner is more interested in looking at how the Jon Hamm-portrayed character would have handled the coming decades and changes in his life, not technological changes in his industry.

But it’s not just Don’s arc that concerns Weiner; both the seventh season expiration date, as well as the setting he intends for it, are also opportunities for him to reflect on the job he did with the show, as well as go out on his own terms. Just like one certain little band out of Liverpool did over forty years ago.

“It’s a very tall order, but I always talk about ‘Abbey Road,’” he said, referring of course to the final album The Beatles recorded together (though “Let It Be” would be released after “Abbey Road”). What’s the song at the end of Abbey Road? It’s called ‘The End.’ There is a culmination of an experience of people working at their highest level.”

Given that the series won its fourth straight Best Drama Emmy, Weiner certainly is on pace to end on top.

Source, Photos: Fame

After a turbulent week, looks like ‘Mad Men‘ creator Matthew Weiner and AMC have finally come to an agreement that would keep him with the show for three more years, thank God! Can you imagine ‘Mad Men’ without it’s creator!?

According to The Huffington Post, the deal is worth a reported $25-$30 million.

“I want to thank all of our wonderful fans for their support,” Weiner said in a statement. “I also want to thank AMC and Lionsgate for agreeing to support the artistic freedom of myself, the cast and the crew, so that we can continue to make the show exactly as we have from the beginning. I’m excited to get started on the next chapter of our story.”

A source close to the show outlined to The Huffington Post the outcome of the negotiation’s areas of dispute:

AMC dropped its demand for a $1.5 million per season budget cut; the preserved money means in part that Weiner will no longer be required to cut two significant actors per season. Instead, characters will be cut if it suits the show creatively.

The network insisted that the show cut two minutes per episode for more advertising time; the contract calls for the first and last episode of the show to be the normal 47 minutes. For episodes 2-11, they will initially air as 45 minute episodes, and Weiner’s “Final Cut” will be available digitally 8 days later.

Additionally, product integration policy will remain the same; AMC had wanted more transparency in placements, requesting the ability for companies to publicize that their products appeared on the show.

The source emphasized that Weiner has full creative control of the show. It will begin again in March, 2012; AMC has a full slate of summer and fall shows and had always intended to start “Mad Men” later than it had hit airwaves in seasons past.

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So basically Matthew got everything he was asking for! Good job! Only thing that seems weird to me is the “Final Cut” episode that will air digitally 8 days later. So that means that if we wait 8 days we’ll get to see 2 more minutes of Mad Men? Sucks they can’t just air it all at once. I know I’m not going to want to watch it again 8 days later for just 2 more minutes. Strange. Other than that – I’m just glad everyone is getting along again!

Yesterday there were a bunch of rumors that either ‘Mad Men’ was going to be canceled – or that it was going to come back (much later), but possibly without creator Matthew Weiner. According to several sources, Matthew was getting a huge pay raise ($30 million for 3 years) but didn’t want AMC messing with his show. The network had asked to cut 2 minutes per episode to make more room for commercials, cutting a few characters and more product placement.

Today, creator Matthew Weiner is getting his side of the story out, claiming he’s thinking of the cast, not just himself. Here’s more from Pop Eater

When news hit that ‘Mad Men’ wouldn’t return until 2012, fans of AMC’s juggernaut sighed. When that news spiraled into the notion that creator Matthew Weiner may leave the series, fans wept.

Now Weiner is clearing a few things up. “There’s been a lot of speculation and misinformation in the press about what is going on,” he tells ‘Mad Men’ blog Basket of Kisses. “I want the fans to know directly from me that I had nothing to do with this delay and it is not about money. I am fighting for the cast and for the show. And I appreciate the kindness and concern of the fans.”

The AMC/Weiner negotiations have been rumored to be in progress for months. “We didn’t have an actual conversation until three weeks ago,” Weiner clarifies.

AMC’s three reported conditions for ‘Mad Men’ are trimming the show’s length to accommodate more commercials, incorporating more product placement and ditching two cast members. Weiner says that while characters have departed the series before, it’s never been about money.

“I’ve brought the show in on budget,” Weiner says. “I’ve been a good producer.”

HitFix’s Alan Sepinwall, one of the web’s foremost ‘Mad Men’ gurus, has a thought-out take on the situation. “AMC compromised on the commercial time once, and though they suggest to [The New York Times] that they won’t this time, you never know,” Sepinwall writes. “Maybe in the end AMC blinks, deciding that the prestige of the show — which is largely dependent on having Matt Weiner present and happy — and what it means to their own brand is worth more than squeezing some extra bucks out of the margins.”

Weiner clarifies that the massive salary being floated in the press — $30 million for three more seasons — is inaccurate. “I offered to have less money, to save the cast, and to leave the show in the running time that it’s supposed to be,” Weiner says. “The harder that I’ve fought for the show, the more money that they’ve offered me.”

Weiner’s final words for troubled ‘Mad Men’ fans? “Everyone can hold on, and we’ll see if it’s necessary, but of course I would want them to express their feelings. I can’t even tell you what it’s meant to me to have intelligent people who care about the show, who reflect about it, who obsess about it, it’s been a total surprise to me. It’s surpassed everything I would ever have expected.”

Read the rest at Pop Eater

It looks to me like AMC realizes they’re sitting on a cash-cow, and they’re trying to make the absolute most money they can. I think Matthew is just trying to keep making the show he wants to – without being fussed with. I’m on Team Matthew!

Jon Hamm is one of the sexiest leading men in Hollywood right now. He plays the sexy ad-man Don Draper on AMC’s Mad Men.

He landed the Golden Globe-winning role when he was cast to play the lead character. But he admits, he was not their first choice. “I was on the bottom of everyone’s list.” He had read the script and fallen in love with the part: did he know Don would eventually be his? “I really really really wanted to do it and really really really responded to the character. And really really felt like I had a handle on it and fit the part well, for whatever reason. I knew it was an enormous risk for the network to put all their chips on… certainly no celebrity of any kind. No name to promote.”

Does Hamm understand Draper? “Well, I’m an actor. A big part of acting is subverting who you are in the service of a character. So I understand that. And the similarities between mine and Don’s life are well documented. Growing up as a bit of a wanderer, finding my own way, making my own story… Losing my parents early on, albeit not as dramatically and tragically as Don.”

When Jon Hamm was 10 years old his mother died, suddenly, of stomach cancer. Hamm went to live with his father, who had divorced his mother when he was two. “To lose a parent at 10 – which is young, though not unprecedented – it means you understand, at a very early age, what permanence is.”

And then, 10 years later, when Hamm was studying English at the University of Texas, his father died. “I was… unmoored by that. But I was very fortunate to have really good friends in my life whose parents sort of rallied: ‘We’re gonna help this kid out, because otherwise there’s going to be trouble…’”

“I struggled with chronic depression. I was in bad shape. I knew I had to get back in school and back in some kind of structured environment and… continue.”

What helped? “Work.”

Therapy? “I did do therapy and antidepressants for a brief period, which helped me. Which is what therapy does: it gives you another perspective when you are so lost in your own spiral, your own bullshit. It helps. And honestly? Antidepressants help! If you can change your brain chemistry enough to think: ‘I want to get up in the morning; I don’t want to sleep until four in the afternoon. I want to get up and go do my shit and go to work and…’ Reset the auto-meter, kick-start the engine!”

Hamm also talks about how he makes his relationship work with longtime girlfriend Jennifer Westfeldt. After dating for twelve years, how do they still make it work? “We just… really love each other.”

Awwww….

Continue reading the article here!

Jon Hamm may look good playing Don Draper, but don’t think he’s anything like his character. ‘I don’t really have that much in comparison to the way Don holds himself,’ Hamm explained.

‘I’m not that guy. I don’t really look like that.’

Speaking to Rolling Stone, the cast of the Emmy Award-winning series offered their thoughts on the characters they play on the hit show.

Bauer Griffin

The third season premiere of AMC’s Mad Men was a hit with viewers, drawing in an audience that was 4.5 million strong. According to Variety, the rating were so good, AMC has decided to renew the flagship series for a fourth season, which will debut in 2010.

AMC’s Charlie Collier stated, “We always saw the potential for Mad Men. It’s been extremely gratifying to see the show develop in to such a pop-cultural phenomenon with such a passionate fan base.”

Mad Men is currently up for 16 Emmy nominations this year. The series won Best Drama during its first season.

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I can’t wait for Mad Men to start again!!!

Despite the Golden Globes, the endless doxologies from critics, and the blandishments from members of its cult who tell you that you of all people would love it because it’s so smart — there’s a chance you haven’t seen Mad Men, which enters its third season this month. And if you haven’t seen Mad Men, then you can’t understand the totality of Christina Hendricks. On the show, she plays a 1960s secretary, her relentless curves tamped into tight dresses and her hair architected into a copper ziggurat. She bosses around the other girls in the office and electrifies the men who run it, just by sashaying down the hall. The pieces that make up her presence — her voice, smooth as the highway; the look in her eyes, sweet or cunning or both; the way she glides around the office, presiding — make her tower over everyone around her, whether she’s wearing heels or not.

Here, in a hotel restaurant in Los Angeles, the elements are the same — the red hair, the pristine, pale swath of skin between her shoulders, the long legs, the doe eyes. But the hair is loose, pinned up in a hurry. There’s a high-pitched laugh. The thirty-four-year-old actress is sitting comfortably in jeans and a loose top, in a private dining room, at a long table that’s set for ten. It’s an odd time to eat — three on a Saturday — but Christina’s day is just beginning. Shooting for Mad Men ran late last night, and she went to bed close to sunrise.

ESQ: Do you like to cook?

CH: I love to cook. I just got a deep fryer, and it’s amazing. The first night we got it, we made homemade poppers. I mean, what’s the best deep-fried thing ever? Cheese poppers.

ESQ: Do you drink while you cook? Watching Mad Men always makes me want to drink.

CH: I love cocktails. My specialty drink is a gimlet with a little egg white in it so it gets frothy. I really like rose water — sometimes I’ll add it to champagne. I was at a bar recently and the manager came up to me and said, “We have a drink named after you!” The Joan Holloway. There was Campari in it. People are throwing these Mad Men — themed parties because, I think, it’s an excuse to get dressed up and drink and smoke.

ESQ: What do you smoke on the set?

CH: Herbal cigarettes. They’re disgusting.

ESQ: Do you wear the undergarments of the day?

CH: Oh, yeah, they’re all the authentic girdles, and we wear the longline bras, with boning.

ESQ: Boning?

CH: It’s like what’s in a corset — it has these long strips of plastic or metal that keep everything [pauses], you know. Oh, yeah — it’s supercomfortable. And then the authentic stockings, with the garters, and then a slip and then our dress. From my girdle and my garters last night, I have two bruises on the top of my legs. From being in it for seventeen hours. Women did that.

ESQ: Why do you think you got the part of the bossy secretary?

CH: Matt Weiner, the creator, had thought of Joan as pinched and tightly wound, but she’s more of a sort of sexual character. I just went in and did the character as I had read her, which was bossy, brassy, everyone-listen-to-me. And then when wardrobe got involved, doing the pilot, I put on this dress, and all of the sudden I had a different walk than I normally had, and Matt turned to me and said, “That’s Joan.” I have my hair brought up a couple inches, and I have heels. I look like an Amazon.

ESQ: But you seem to embrace the fact that you’re not this little waify nothing.

CH: This is the way I’m built, and I feel beautiful. It’s funny, because I don’t feel like I look that different from anybody. Everyone’s always like, “You’re so much smaller in person!”

ESQ: Must be the boning.

CH: And the bras and all that.

ESQ: Even besides Joan, the show drips with sex.

CH: Because there’s something in what you don’t see. There’s restraint. I’ve had people say to me, “My husband and I watch it and we always have sex afterwards.” I think it’s really hot that some of the things it’s stirring up in people are very naughty things.

The waitress asks how everything is and Hendricks is honest. She says the noodles are overcooked. While blinking.

CH: I have this habit of, when they ask me if it was good, I tell them when it’s not.

ESQ: I think they’d want to know.

CH: I don’t mean to cause a ruckus. They’re probably saying “God, that girl from Mad Men is so fussy.”

ESQ: Are you a ruckus-causer?

CH: I have a problem keeping my mouth shut. I usually speak my mind. I’m trying to learn my lesson.

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