Mindy Kaling's Late Night movie erases Joan Rivers' history as the first female late-night host

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In the movie that Amazon purchased for $13 million after it receivied rave reviews at Sundance, Emma Thompson plays the first woman to host a late-night show. Thompson's fictional late-night show, however, debuts in 1991. Yet in real life, Joan Rivers launched The Late Show with Joan Rivers on the brand-new Fox network back in 1986. "Normally I wouldn’t care about factual integrity in a fiction film, but Late Night very much positions itself in the real world," says Matthew Jacobs, who adds: "The Rivers omission is a little rude, if I can be so petty. Kaling, after all, is no stranger to firsts: She was the first female writer on The Office and the first Indian-American to create and star in her own show. Similarly, Late Night, directed by sitcom veteran Nisha Ganatra, represents a record-breaking Sundance deal for a female-driven film. Surely someone as brazen and pioneering as Katherine Newbury ― or Mindy Kaling ― would recognize Rivers’ impact." ALSO: Late Night skewers the real-life male-dominated late-night landscape.