*By Conor White*
"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner's new anthology series for Amazon, "The Romanoffs," is about far more than Russia's last royal family, according to one of its stars.
"As I said to Matthew when I was doing this, I have to bone up on the Romanoffs," actor Aaron Eckhart said in an interview on Cheddar.
"And he said, 'Well, not really, because it really has nothing to do with the Romanoffs.'"
The family consisted of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, and five children. After Russia's February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas II abdicated the throne and was later executed with the rest of his house. Within the last 30 years, all the bodies have been discovered and identified through DNA testing. Despite that evidence, whispers remain that one of his children, most likely Anastasia, escaped the killings. (The tsar's youngest daughter inspired the popular animated film, "Anastasia," which was recently turned into a musical.)
The Amazon ($AMZN) series features a different cast in each of its eight episodes, which are all linked by some sort of connection to the famous family ー be it real or fabricated.
Eckhart said it's the relationships between the show's characters ー whether directly linked to the royals or not ー that makes the show special.
"The magical part of the show is that it has thematics, and it has through lines with the Romanoffs," the Golden Globe nominee said. "But it's all these different scenarios with different people all over the world."
The series is creator Weiner's return to television after his seven-season run with "Mad Men" ー the highly-acclaimed show garnered two Golden Globes for "Best Drama Series" and eight Primetime Emmy awards.
It was Eckhart's first time working with Weiner, and he said the experience was "educational, interesting," and "fascinating,"
"It's very surprising and striking and bold. It takes a real genius to figure this all out," Eckhart added.
In the age of binge-watching, Amazon has made the choice to release one episode per week after releasing the first two episodes simultaneously on Oct. 12.
Eckhart is a fan of the move and called it "more traditional." But he admitted he has binged his way through at least one classic series.
"I did binge-watch 'Friends'," he said.
"'Friends' is a very good show."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/meet-the-romanoffs).
Now that avocado toast has lost its luster and bacon is going back in the frying pan where it belongs, some new food trends are dominating. Here are the flavors and fads of 2018 that captured our appetites.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2018.
Since 2017, the third floor of the iconic Cleveland, Ohio, house that was the fictional home to the bespectacled hero of "A Christmas Story" has been rentable to fans of the classic movie. And this year, the neighboring "Bumpus" house is also available to the more cantankerous among us for overnight stays.
Caliva, a Silicon Valley-based marijuana company, is waging an extensive recruitment campaign to hire drivers from popular ride-hailing and delivery companies, including Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash. "What we've found is that a lot of the drivers who normally drive for Uber, Lyft, or DoorDash are really looking to have not just a full-time or part-time job with benefits, but they're looking to be part of something," said Caliva CEO Dennis O'Malley in an interview on Cheddar Monday.
In 2019, 10 minutes out of every hour of media engagement will be spent streaming video on mobile, app market data provider App Annie told Cheddar. In 2018, app downloads hit 113 billion, Levitas said, while spending on Google ($GOOGL) Play and the Apple ($AAPL) app store hit $76 billion. On average, Americans spent three hours per day on apps.
New video-sharing platform Portal wants to help online video creators cash in on their content, says company founder Jonathan Swerdlin. "Portal is the first video sharing platform that everyone can use that completely skips the ad model and introduces really easy ways for users to pay each other," Swerdlin said in an interview on Cheddar. "Everyone can be their own mini HBO."
Christmas is on Tuesday, which means Panic Saturday is upon us. Dec. 22 is expected to be the second-busiest shopping day at stores this year, falling short in foot traffic only to Black Friday. Bill Simon, the former CEO of Walmart U.S., told Cheddar Friday that brick-and-mortar retailers are about to have their moment, since "the online guys are done, they can't get it there in time now."
Fair Financial is riding high on its recent $385 million round of funding. Founder and CEO Scott Painter is even willing to bet the used-car-subscription startup will go public down the line. "In most cases, I think it is really foolish to set a target that says, 'we are going to be a public company,' but in Fair's case, there is quite literally just so much money involved," Painter told Cheddar on Friday. "It will have to be a public company sooner than later."
With just a few days left in the year, Cheddar decided to take a look at the best and worst of what 2018 had to offer in entertainment.
Rather than flee to Neverland, Peter Pan might have enrolled in "adulting" school. And so too can stunted millennials ー daunted by bill-paying, cooking, cleaning, and the like ー if they take a class in adult skills at a new institution in Portland, Maine.
