As a teenager, Kyle Mooney was mildly obsessed with Y2K, the name given to the theoretical event of the world’s computer systems crashing on January 1, 2000, when they couldn’t cope with the date change to a new century. The rumor of disaster came to naught when the date changed, and nothing much happened (mostly thanks to some fast-footed government action). Mooney dropped his obsession and grew up to become a successful comedian, screenwriter, and filmmaker, a nine-season veteran of Saturday Night Live and the writer and star of the criminally underseen Brigsby Bear. Then on New Year’s morning 2019, he woke up with thoughts of Y2K in his head once again.
“I guess it had sort of been there for 20 years. It was such a massive letdown,” says Mooney during a recent trip to San Francisco. “But I started thinking about what if (that worst case scenario) happened to a bunch of teenagers at a house party?”
From that early morning musing comes Y2K, with Mooney directing a script written by him and collaborator and friend Evan Winter. Jaeden Martell (Knives Out), Rachel Zegler (West Side Story), Julian Dennison (Uproar), Lachlan Watson (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), and Daniel Zolghadri (Funny Pages) star as the teens caught up in the carnage when the clock strikes midnight, and a Terminator-like scenario erupts. Anything, everything with an electronic pulse—a Barbie Jeep, a blender, a Tamagotchi electronic pet—turns against humanity and it’s up to the teens to make things right or die trying.
“I think that one thing that was always exciting was the idea of making something that can be watched and consumed with your friends,” Mooney says. “Hopefully, there’s some laughs and some screams and some turns, and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe that happened!’”
In a sense, Y2K was an exercise in nostalgia for Mooney and Winter as they were writing their screenplay. Their memories and passions worked their way into the story as they sought to write a circa 2000 story that got every detail right. Even something as mundane as a TV ad for Herbal Essence shampoo could provide inspiration. Winter remembers those ads running in virtually every commercial block at the time but can’t remember the last time he’s seen one and that made that bit of period product placement right for the movie.
“When we were writing, even in the earliest stages, when we were kind of pitching and outlining and kind of thinking about characters, it would all kind of flow into each other,” Winter says. “Like Kyle and I were both really into underground hip hop, so we talked about how we haven’t really seen much of that on screen. So, because we know that so intimately, and that was kind of part of our high school experience, it would be cool to have a character like that, and then we start talking about, ‘Oh, like, what’s the music that would go along with that? Or how do those How did those guys dress?’ And it all kind of informs itself in the way we thought about everything throughout.”
As Mooney prepared to make his directing debut, one element he was clear on was what he wanted for the nature of the film’s special effects. He didn’t want CGI and green screens for the machines turned monsters. He turned to Wētā, Peter Jackson’s New Zealand-based effects company, who built large-scale robotic suits with working screens and speakers, worn by joystick-equipped puppeteers.
“I think the creatures and the puppeteering was really important to me and Kyle when we were writing,” Winter says. “We both love that style of filmmaking. We have a lot of overlaps with the kind of stuff that we love from kind of the ‘70s, up until, I think in the ‘90s, kind of the time period the movie is taking place. There still was a lot of practical filmmaking. So, it was always important to us to do that, both for ourselves, but then also, you know, when you have a blood gag, there’s actual blood getting thrown on characters’ faces or spurting out. I mean, I’m sure they react to it with digital work as well, because they’re great performers. But it certainly helps to have that tactile element to play off.”
Adds Mooney, “When the Barbie Jeep drives in, it’s actually happening and they’re reacting to it in real time. It makes things easier.”
One thing that sets Y2K apart is that it is both specific to its time period and largely inspired by the ephemeral. No one is learning in school or anywhere else about MTV: Total Request Live, the show Mooney and Winter used rush home after school to watch and you kind of had to have been there to understand what Fred Durst playing Fred Durst is doing in this movie or why Alicia Silverstone playing one character’s mom is such a great callback to the 1990s. And here Mooney was directing a young cast that wasn’t born until after the turn of the century.
“That was the situation with our actors,” Mooney said. “We were sort of forcing them to say these words. And sometimes they cared about learning what these things were, and sometimes they were like, ‘Just tell me how to pronounce it.’”
That might be the biggest challenge facing Y2K at the box office. It’s a movie made for Gen Z kids with jokes best understood by middle-aged Millennials and Gen Xers. But Mooney and Winter have faith that teens will catch the spirit of the humor if not the precise meaning. And they also believe that some things haven’t changed since they were teens wondering if the world as they knew it was going to end with a computer crash at the stroke of midnight.
“One thing that was always exciting to me was the idea of making something that can be watched and consumed with your friends,” Mooney says. “Hopefully, there some laughs and some screams and some turns where you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe that happened!’”
“We really wanted to capture the feeling of what it was like to go to the theater when we were teenagers in the late ‘90s and early 2000s,” Winter adds. “Obviously, it a very different world and landscape now but, to me, there’s no better way to see a movie than in a crowd with your friends. The laughs are better. The intense moments are stronger. It’s just a cool experience.”
Y2K opens in Bay Area theaters 12/6.
