Are you ready to party like it’s 1999? Actor, director, writer, and former Saturday Night Live cast member Kyle Mooney has been waiting all year for the New Year’s Eve party of the century, and you’re invited to watch all the fun and frights in the latest trailer for sci-fi horror comedy Y2K.
Playing on the paranoia that spread like wildfire during the ’90s, the film centers on the fateful night where people waited in anticipation and fear for the world’s computer infrastructure to crash once the calendars hit January 1, 2000. While planes didn’t end up falling out of the sky that night, Mooney, along with A24, asks: what if the world really did end?
The comedian turned director invites audiences to watch his colorful cast of characters fight for their lives like the world is actually ending, with a glitched-out Bill Clinton MCing the world’s end in the film’s latest trailer. While not much came of the ’90s panic that caused average civilians to transform into doomsday preppers, stockpiling supplies and backup generators, Mooney told IndieWire that he found himself sort of wishing something had come of all the hysteria. His survival of Y2K inspired the writer and director to make his dystopian fantasy come to life on screen.
“When anybody brings it up, the first thing you say is how disappointing it was and how much of a letdown you thought it was. We thought it was going to be this massive thing and it wasn’t.”
In the comedian’s alternative history film, Mooney and co-writer Evan Winter create a world in which the tech everyone was so afraid of losing ends up achieving a higher intelligence and turns against its users. Rachel Zegler, Jaeden Martell, and Julian Dennison star as a group of high school students facing off an unexpected threat.
A24, Jonah Hill’s Strong Baby Productions, Christopher Storer’s American Light & Fixture produced the sci-fi film which premiered at SXSW. Check out the new trailer below for Y2K, set to release in theaters on December 6.
Former SNL Members Are on a Roll
Before he ventured into feature film making, Mooney was an American comedian and actor best known for his nine years as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series SNL. The live show continues to prove itself a breeding ground for hardworking talent, with other talents like Bill Hader and Bob Odenkirk rising from its ranks. Former SNL writer John Mulaney is even getting his own live comedy show on Netflix.
SNL left Mooney in the company of modern comedy greats, which no doubt helped in his road to making a feature comedy, which will also feature performances from the director himself, Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst, The Kid Laroi, Alicia Silverstone, and comedian Tim Heidecker.Mooney had the pleasure of acting alongside some of the show’s funniest cast members, like Vanessa Bayer and Cecily Strong. Now, the Y2K-scorned comedian is making his filmmaking debut, which audiences can enjoy on December 6.