Abbott and Costello went there. The Three Stooges went there. It’s excellent to see the oft-brilliant Whitest Kids U’ Know following in those giant footsteps. The world premiere of MARS, their first animated feature, will be as an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival. Part of the Midnight section, MARS will premiere on June 6, with follow-up screenings on June 8 and 11. To be honest, the Midnight section of most film festivals is where I look for the films that will stay with me. Call it a character flaw if you will, but then again, this isn’t Intellectual Film Criticism Planet, it’s Fanboy Planet.
The press release for Mars describes it this way:
Directed by Sevan Najarian, MARS follows the unbelievable misadventures of Kyle, a man whose life is all laid out before him. Engaged to his fiancée, Candace, he works as a dentist, knows they’ll settle down and have children, and all of life’s decisions have been figured out for him … and that is terrifying. One night, he sees an ad for billionaire Elron Branson’s contest to travel to Mars on the maiden trip of his Mars voyager. Unsure of the road ahead, Kyle sends in a submission video and, to his surprise, wins. When the dates of the rocket launch and his wedding conflict, he decides to ditch his big day and head off to the red planet. This would all be great for him, except the luxury accommodations are merely a facade, the other space travelers are insane, and all of them get stranded on Mars with no way home.
MARS stars Trevor Moore, Zach Cregger, Sam Brown, Timmy Williams, and Darren Trumeter. Moore, Cregger, and Brown wrote the film. It’s produced by Sevan Najaraian, Kara Welker, Trevor Moore, Zach Cregger, and Sam Brown. Timmy Williams, Darren Trumeter, and Aimee Carlson are executive producers.
This one’s a little bittersweet. Though The Whitest Kids U’ Know never quite broke into mainstream success, their show on IFC (?) was a terrifically off-center sketch series. You DO know the work of Zach Cregger, who wrote and directed Barbarian, one of the best horror films of the last few years. The bittersweet comes as this will be the last work of troupe mainstay Trevor Moore, who passed away at the far too young age of 41 in 2021. I did confirm he completed his voice work; animation takes time.
While few of us will likely get to the Tribeca screenings, this bodes well for the film to pop up on whatever form AMC and IFC take as a streaming app. I’m excited.
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