‘Blockbuster’: Randall Park & Melissa Fumero on Creating Their Nostalgia-Filled Comedy
Fall Preview
And you thought Blockbuster video stores were extinct! In Netflix‘s upcoming workplace comedy Blockbuster, the last (fictional) remaining store in America — suburban Michigan, to be exact — strives to stay relevant in a streaming world. Determined manager Timmy Yoon (Randall Park, Fresh Off the Boat) leads an eclectic staff that includes longtime crush Eliza Walker (Melissa Fumero, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), and for the actors, returning to the days of “Be Kind, Rewind” was truly a blast.
“It was the typical thing of the ’90s that we went every Friday night and picked out our movies for the weekend,” says Fumero, who grew up in small-town New Jersey. “It was a family event.”
Angeleno Park fondly recalls “that one Blockbuster on Venice Boulevard that I would go to all the time” and the hours he spent “just looking at the covers of these VHS tapes.”
Nostalgia permeates the series, as Timmy, who has been working in the store since high school, struggles to hold onto his past. “It symbolizes something that is so much bigger to him than just the movies. It really is this time when he was the most alive,” Park says. But Eliza — who spent one high school summer renting videos — doesn’t necessarily share his enthusiasm.
“Now, with her marriage falling apart, she’s had to get a job again for the first time in a long time,” Fumero previews. Fans will definitely be asking “Will they or won’t they?” as the season progresses. And sharp-eyed viewers will also be looking to see if those VHS tapes are real.
“A lot of them had actual titles but different artwork,” Park says. “We had a lot of laughs just looking at these boxes and all the little hidden, weird things that the art department would put in there.”
Blockbuster, Series Premiere, Thursday, November 3, Netflix
This is an excerpt from TV Guide Magazine’s 2022 Fall Preview issue. For more first looks at fall’s new shows, pick up the issue, on newsstands now.
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