Dakota Johnson, Jost Hartnett join Anne Hathaway in ‘Verity’ film

Go back to 1999 with Kyle Mooney‘s new film, Y2K.

The A24 release, which arrives in theaters on Friday, is Mooney’s directorial debut. He told ABC Audio the actual Y2K was kind of a letdown, but he “was sort of kind of minorly obsessed with it.”

The phenomenon “always was in the back of my head,” Mooney said. “One day, New Year’s Day 2019, I had the small seed of an idea of this movie about teenagers who go to a high school party and Y2K actually happens.”

From that seed of an idea the film was born. Mooney wrote it with his collaborator Evan Winter, who was just as excited as he was to bring their adolescence to the big screen.

“I think the premise of our movie feels like such a sort of obvious idea. It’s sort of surprising that nobody’s done this. Nobody’s explored Y2K and that sort of alternate history where things do go bad,” Mooney said. “There’s not a ton of stuff where you get to see 1999, 2000 era in the movies. So it was fun for us to relive that.”

Did this disaster comedy come from Mooney’s actual real-life fears about what would happen on Y2K? Perhaps subconsciously, he said.

“My mom, I remember she was a little fearful. She bought a bunch of jugs of water and some Kudos bars and stuffed them in the pantry just in case anything awful went down,” Mooney said. He imagined “maybe the supermarkets would be closed for a day or something like that.”

“And then when nothing happened, it was like kind of life goes on,” Mooney said. “I was probably just trying to, you know, instant message my crush or whatever.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Variety reports Seann William Scott, best known for playing Steve Stifler in the American Pie movies, has joined the cast of the upcoming ABC sitcom Shifting Gears, alongside series stars Tim Allen and Kat Dennings. The comedy centers on Matt, “the stubborn, widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop,” played by Allen, according to the official logline. “When Matt’s estranged daughter (Dennings) and her teenage kids move into his house, the real restoration begins.” Scott will play Gabriel, “family friend of Matt & Riley who works in the shop with Matt” …

One Tree Hill alumna Sophia Bush has been added the cast of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy in a major recurring role for the medical drama’s 21st season, according to Deadline. Bush will play Dr. Cass Beckman, “an amiable, fun and a little messy around the edges trauma surgeon at Seattle Presbyterian whose husband David Beckman is a cardiothoracic surgeon at Grey Sloan,” per the outlet. She joins former Grey’s cast members Scott Speedman, Natalie Morales and the series’ director/executive producer Debbie Allen. Bush will make her first appearance in episode six, airing Nov. 7 …

Stranger Things alum Mason Dye has been tapped for a guest-starring role in the fifth and final season of the Prime Video series The Boys, according to Variety. He will appear in the role of Bombsight, “a Supe who starred in the early Vought superhero film The Curse of Fu Manchu in the 1950s.” Dye joins Hamilton‘s Daveed Diggs, who will appear in an undisclosed role. The Boys is based on the graphic novel series from Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson and follows the eponymous team of vigilantes who set out to take down corrupt superheroes who abuse their superpowers. Antony Starr, Karl Urban, Erin Moriarty and Jack Quaid star …

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Sterling K. Brown has been tapped to star in the upcoming live-action Voltron movie opposite Henry Cavill, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Rita Ora, 9-1-1‘s John Kim and newcomer Daniel Quinn-Toye also star. Voltron is based on the TV franchise that followed the titular giant robot made up of robotic lions, piloted by a team of young heroes. Plot details are being kept under wraps, though director Rawson Marshall Thurber told fans at VoltCon that the film will introduce an entirely new generation of pilots, per THR …

Ryan Reynolds’ production company has signed on to produce the classic cartoon superhero Mighty Mouse for the big screen, according to Variety. Writer Matt Lieberman, who worked with Reynolds on the 2021 fantasy adventure Free Guy, has been hired to write the script. Mighty Mouse made his first appearance in the 1942 short film The Mouse of Tomorrow and went on to appear in dozens more shorts, as well as a Saturday morning TV cartoon …

Netflix has dropped the official trailer for The Six Triple Eight, Tyler Perry‘s WWII drama based on the real-life story of Maj. Charity Adams — played by Kerry Washington — who led the titular battalion of Black female soldiers, deployed to Europe after combat training and tasked with sorting a massive backlog of letters and packages sent between millions of the country’s fighting men and their loved ones back home. Oprah Winfrey, Susan Sarandon, Dean Norris and Sam Waterston also star in the film, premiering Dec. 20 …

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.