With the current nostalgia cycle rearing its head back towards the end of the century, it’s only inevitable that someone would call back to the films of the late 90s.
Independent film distribution company A24 released their new film “Y2K” on Friday, Dec 6. In the week proceeding, the company held two press events to build up anticipation for the disaster comedy spectacle.
On Tuesday, Dec 3, Alamo Drafthouse hosted a Q&A panel with director/co-writer/star Kyle Mooney, writer Evan Winter, and actor/nu-metal icon Fred Durst. The Q&A was held in Los Angeles and live streamed to a variety of Alamo locations across the country.
The film, centered around a group of teens who must survive a New Year’s Eve in 1999 when the millennium bug actually hits, takes place over the course of one night. Moderator Randall Colburn, host of The Losers’ Club podcast, asked what kind of films inspired Winter and Mooney’s script.
“Me and Kyle both really enjoy ‘Can’t Hardly Wait.’ ‘The Faculty’ was a pretty big influence on the later stage of the movie,” Winter said. “Teen movies really lend themselves to these ‘one epic nights’ where you become who you’re meant to be.”
Despite their love for the pop culture that represented the end of the century, they had to adjust some aspects of their experience to provide an entertaining film for a modern audience.
“There’s nothing fun about showing full hate,” Mooney said. “There’s certainly a line where we wanted to be true to the era and the experiences that we remembered, but also not broadcasting things that were unnecessarily mean spirited.”
Winter shared Mooney’s hesitation about showcasing the harsher aspects of the 90s.
“Kids back then were so cruel. Watching some of the movies from that era, we’re like ‘you can’t say that today,’” Winter said.
Durst, who plays himself in the film, reflected on his return to a younger version of himself.
“I didn’t want to do (‘Y2K’), to be honest. I created (Limp Bizkit) to become a director. I wanted to make movies like David Fincher. I don’t ever want to play myself,” Durst said. “Ultimately, after speaking with them, they had such a vision and they had convinced me that they had the idea of me in the beginning of conceptualizing this thing.”
Winter and Mooney had concocted the idea of Durst’s involvement from the first draft. Despite suggestions from Durst that they use Vanilla Ice instead, the idea held through to the final product.
“It was truly within a week of talking about the movie. I think the pitch was ‘oh, wouldn’t it be funny if Fred Durst was hanging out with these people?’” Mooney said. “Over the course of writing it, we would suggest other people it could be, but there was really nobody else that is so iconic and emblematic of the era while also transcending it. Also the hat is cool.”
The second event, held on Dec 5, was a virtual college roundtable hosted by A24. Representatives from a number of college publications were invited to ask questions to Mooney, who called in from his home in Los Angeles.
“Y2K” marks Kyle Mooney’s directorial debut in feature film. While he’d produced hundreds of sketches for his internet sketch group Good Neighbor Stuff and Saturday Night Live, the 90-minute comedy was a new undertaking.
“For ‘Y2K,’ I was more or less encouraged to be a director on the movie. That was the best way to get this project off the ground,” Mooney said. “It was very intimidating because the scale is so large. If I direct a movie in the near future, I probably would want it to be on a smaller scale because it is such an investment of time and energy.”
Even with a budget of around $15 million, Mooney and his production company ran into hurdles while on set.
“We were very lucky to have our production designer Jason Singleton, we had some robots slotted to be computer-generated just because we ran out of money to create practical creatures,” Mooney said. “But he said ‘I think we can do this.’ The robot that slings CDs, that we call Grill Bow – Jason and his team made that happen.”
As for what 14-year old Mooney was doing on Y2K?
“I just hung at home with my friend Mark and we watched the MTV New Year’s Special.” Mooney said. “I think I was allowed to go to a party a few years later. My mom was a little scared something was going to happen, so she got a couple of jugs of water and nuts and granola and stuff. We just chilled.”
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