James Corden Prepares To Leave ‘The Late Late Show’ & The “Incredible Institution” Of Late-Night With A Bang

James Corden is leaving The Late Late Show much like he entered: with a bang.

Corden kicked off his first show on March 23, 2015 with a coup. He managed to persuade Tom Hanks to perform his entire filmography in an episode that also featured appearances from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Billy Crystal, Chris Rock and Meryl Streep.

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Having spent the past eight years driving and singing with A-listers such as Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder and Michelle Obama, passing Penny Lane with Paul McCartney and jumping out of a plane with Tom Cruise, he’s closing his CBS late-night show Thursday with guests including Harry Styles and Will Ferrell as well as a musical performance with Cruise during The Lion King at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood.

“The nature of our show is we really want to go out with a bang,” he tells Deadline. “We want to go out in the same manner that we came in. It’s like my theory about on-set catering; people only really remember the first and last day’s food. That might apply to talk shows as well.”

Deadline revealed in April 2022 that Corden was preparing to say goodbye to his show, and late-night in general. While this invariably gave him and his team, including exec producers Rob Crabbe and Ben Winston, time to plan such an exit, it also meant that the 150-odd people who worked on the show would have time to plan ahead. “We’ve worked here for eight years and I’d say that almost 90% of the team that were here on day one are still here today,” he said.

Winston added: “That goes a lot towards people’s love for this place. What we’ve done for James, for the show, and the family unit that we’ve all created over these past eight years, it’s really remarkable, it’s been a crazy time.”

As a Brit with a background in theater and writing TV shows such as Gavin and Stacey, Corden was an unlikely late-night success story.

“I can’t believe that this was ever anything that I got to do and I felt that the whole way. I have nothing but love and gratitude for all of it. I’m from High Wycombe. The frame of my face doesn’t look like one that should be hosting television show in any way and if it was, it would probably be late-night sports. The overwhelming thing I feel is I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such memories.”

The Late Late Show is being replaced with a reboot of former Comedy Central series @midnight. But Corden is proud to have traveled down the same path as the likes of Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien.

“It’s necessary that [late-night] remains in the cultural landscape of America. Stephen [Colbert’s] show, through the election; the way Jimmy [Kimmel] speaks; and the light and the love that Fallon has; Seth’s show, which we’ve watched move and mold itself where he has these segments that are just incredible, true brilliant political broadcasting and funny. I’m so proud to have had a little place in it and I think it’s really necessary to the fabric of America that they remain. It’s an incredible institution to have been part of and it’s one that I will forever support,” he said.

Winston points out that a number of late-night shows have come and gone in the last eight years, including Full Frontal with Samantha Bee and Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj.

“It shows how hard it is to get on air with one of these shows and make them work. There is no doubt television’s landscape has massively changed. We have been part of witnessing that digital and streaming revolution that has happened while we’ve been on,” he said.

Highlighting this are the 261 million views that Corden’s original Carpool Karaoke with Adele has received, or the 70 million that watched “Spill Your Guts” with Styles and Kendall Jenner, or the 22 million views that a dodgeball skit with Michelle Obama got.

The group is leaving just as TikTok is perhaps usurping YouTube for many of these clips.

“There is still a huge place for late-night, because fundamentally, it’s entertainment. It might not be on television, it might be on streaming, it might be on your phones, who knows where it will be, but people will always want it, it will just come in different forms. Those late-night shows that still exist today, they’re still going to be as successful as they ever were. We just have to change the way we measure that,” Winston said.

Winston, the Fulwell73 co-founder, is staying put in the U.S. to build up the production company further, and add to series such as Hulu’s The Kardashians. He doesn’t rule out a return to late-night in another form, but says there are no plans.

“I don’t think James Corden walks into your life twice. This is a once-in- a-generation talent,” he said.

Winston and his partner in crime Crabbe have remained in charge since the start, a rarity in late-night television, which has a habit of chewing through showrunners. Crabbe himself has also worked on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon as well as Last Call with Carson Daly and The Late Show with David Letterman.

“The only way you can be successful in late-night is if you find a way to make a show. That’s a reflection of the host. They’re all individuals. The ones that succeed are good reflections of the person behind the desk. Late-night as a genre, I think is sort of an overarching term because the world shifted around us… I have no expectations of finding another James Corden but I would never rule out finding a person with a different skill set that you could build a show around, but I think James is a unicorn,” Crabbe added.

Unlike his predecessors, Corden had a house band, led by the “post-punk weirdo” Reggie Watts. Corden promised that Watts could put together his own band and he stuck to that with musicians including Tim Young on guitar, Steve Scalfati on keyboards, Hagar Ben-Ari on bass and Guillermo E. Brown on drums. They were originally called Karen, then Melissa following the controversy around that name, but are back as Karen for the final run of shows.

“The most important thing for me was to create a situation where all the people that we picked to be in the band are having a good time. It turned out pretty close to how I envisioned it. We could be loose because what’s expected of a late-night band?,” he told Deadline.

Watts, whose book Great Falls, MT: Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, and a Tale of Coming Home Again comes out this year, describes himself as a mix of a band leader like Paul Shaffer and sidekick Andy Richter. He said the most fun he had on the show was asking President Barack Obama about aliens. “I didn’t realize how heavy it was. I hadn’t realized that he’d never said anything publicly about unidentified flying objects. Then he just answered really honestly and I was totally blown out. My Montana friends, my conspiracy friends were like ‘Whoa’,” he said.

There’s a few things the team would have liked to have achieved, such as Leonardo DiCaprio doing “Role Call” or Beyoncé doing Carpool Karaoke. “We’re producers, right? We always want more,” said Winston. “But, ultimately, you have to look at the bigger picture and say this has been beyond our wildest dreams.”

Corden admits he’s “overwhelmed” as we’re in the final week of his run and says that it’s a lot to process.

“It’s not really about whether it’s happy or sad, or bittersweet, or any of those things. It just fundamentally feels like what I have to do for my kids. That’s the truth of it. My family has walked to the beat of my drum for 12, 14 years and it’s just time to commit to what we fundamentally believe is the right thing for our family. We just have to go home.”

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