A new word has entered the pop-culture lexicon in the past several years: “showrunner,” a combination of creator, executive producer, and writer that has also come to imply a certain small-screen auteurism. From Joss Whedon to Mad Men‘s Matthew Weiner, these TV masterminds have become household names. New York magazine recently devoted an issue to them, and now they’re getting their own feature documentary. As we see in the trailer below, Showrunners chronicles the rise of the showrunner and profiles several leaders in the field.
It all sounds pretty fascinating, especially for TV nerds, although we were disappointed by the noticeable lack of women in the preview. (The film’s Facebook page does mention that Michelle King of The Good Wife, Janet Tamaro of Rizzoli & Isles, and House writer Pam Davis will appear.) And while the film features some big names — Damon Lindelof, Kurt Sutter, David Shore — we were sad to see that many of our favorites, such as Weiner, Whedon, Alan Ball, Mike Schur, Tina Fey, David Simon, Mitchell Hurwitz, Amy Sherman-Palladino, and Aaron Sorkin, didn’t participate. Watch the trailer and tell us whether you’ll see Showrunners when it comes out in 2012