Mel Brooks Doc in the Works From Judd Apatow

A new documentary will look at the life and career of filmmaker Mel Brooks, whose films like The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Spaceballs defined comedy for several generations of people through the past seven decades. The docuseries, which is still in production, will air in two parts on HBO. Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio are co-directing it.

“I went into comedy because of my love for Mel Brooks,” Apatow said in a statement. “This project is the dream of a lifetime.”

Apatow, who’s best known for his own films, including The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, has previously chronicled the lives of other comedians. In 2018, he directed The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, and in 2022, he helmed George Carlin’s American Dream with Bonfiglio, which won an Emmy. The Mel Brooks film sees Apatow and Bonfiglio reuniting with editor Joe Beshenkovsky; the three men worked together on the George Carlin film.

Brooks, 98, got his start working Borscht Belt and Catskills resorts. His friend, comedian Sid Caesar, hired him as a joke writer for TV series including Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour. During this time he met another comedic writer, Carl Reiner, who would become one of his best friends and a close collaborator. The two men debuted their routine, “The 2,000 Year Old Man” on The Steve Allen Show in 1961.

Brooks made his feature film directorial debut in 1967 with The Producers, which won him an Oscar for Best Screenplay. Later movies, including High Anxiety, History of the World, Part I, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights, helped establish his legacy as a comic genius. Earlier this year, the Academy gave Brooks an honorary Oscar recognizing his “comedic brilliance, producing acumen, and expansive body of work.”