Director David Wain reveals to BuzzFeed News what’s to come in the long-awaited Netflix series, and why this isn’t the end.
Saeed Adyani/Netflix
It's been nearly 15 years since Wet Hot American Summer, the summer camp comedy from director David Wain and co-writer Michael Showalter, was released, then panned, then bombed. But in the years that've followed, the film — which starred Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, and Christopher Meloni, to name just a few — has earned a cult following so devout and so vocal, it's now getting revived as an eight-episode prequel miniseries on Netflix.
"I can't believe that it happened honestly and I'm so excited," Wain recently told BuzzFeed News. "It really has been truly a dream to return to the world of Wet Hot American Summer, which was, at the time of the original movie, such a labor of love. And to see that it has become a reality now is just awesome."
Fully titled Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, the miniseries brings back the original cast members as well as some huge newcomers to the world of Camp Firewood, from Chris Pine to Jon Hamm, Jason Schwartzman to Kristen Wiig, and Josh Charles to Michael Cera.
And it's really just too good to be true for Wain. "Thousands and thousands of movies get made at that budget level every day and most of them never see the light of day at all," he said wistfully. "And ours barely did and it could've just gone away, but it didn't."
Not even a little bit. Wet Hot is actually so important to those who love it that it's often used a barometer for potential significant others, something Wain takes as a huge compliment.
"I've heard the litmus test comment about the movie over the years, and I would say there's a large segment of the population, probably the vast majority, who watch and they're like, There's not a single funny moment in this movie, as a lot of the critics said when it first came out," he said. "I think that's probably the greatest compliment to say, 'This is how I decide who is cool or who shares my sensibility or sense of humor.' What more would one want as a filmmaker to know that that's the role that your work plays in someone's life?"
A years-overdue revival, of course.
Below, Wain reveals some important details about what fans of the original movie will see when First Day of Camp hits Netflix, how that incredible cast came back together again, and whether or not this is the end of Wet Hot.
This follow-up has been in the works for 15 years.
"We started talking about it honestly as soon as we wrapped the shoot of the movie in the year 2000," Wain said with a laugh. Wain and Showalter continued to work on it piece by piece over the years. "By the time we really, really had in our heads what we wanted to do, then it kind of happened pretty fast," Wain continued. "We pitched it and by the time we got the full green light, we were very close to shooting it actually and we got together a really talented group of writers to put together this incredibly long script very quickly."
USA Films
No comments:
Post a Comment