Return to Camp Firewood: Wet Hot American Summer 2 Coming to Netflix

If you attended summer camp as a kid, or if you just have a fondness for the “camp romp” movie genre defined by movies like Meatballs, then chances are you know and love Wet Hot American Summer. The 2001 film written by David Wain and Michael Showalter, two original members of comedy-troupe-turned-influential-MTV-series The State, is a hilarious and deranged send-up of the summer camp experience and the movies produced in the 80s and 90s that served as love letters to this all-American experience. Set in 1981, Wet Hot follows the exploits of a rag-tag group of counselors during the closing days for Camp Firewood as they try to hook up, get drunk and high, and prepare the campers for the end-of-summer talent show. Most of the “teen” counselors are portrayed by actors in their late 20s and early 30s, which adds an additional level of absurdity to the proceedings. The original trailer does a pretty good job of capturing the overall feel of the film:

The film’s cast is basically an all-star lineup for comedy nerds. In addition to Showalter, the cast includes Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Elizabeth Banks, Christopher Meloni, A.D. Miles (who, in addition to his acting career, is the head writer for Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show), Molly Shannon, Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, and other key players from The State, including Michael Ian Black, Joe Lo Truglio, and Ken Marino. Oh, and a pre-stardom Bradley Cooper is in it, too.

Earlier this year, there were rumblings that David Wain was close to getting the gang back together to produce a prequel to the film. But instead of aiming for release on the big screen (something that was never likely to happen seeing as the original film grossed less than half a million dollars at the box office and only became a cult hit following its release on DVD and home video), Andrew Wallenstein of Variety reported in May that Wain was looking to set up the project as a 10-episode series with Netflix, similar to the fourth (and rumored fifth) season of Arrested Development. That was amazing news for Wet Hot fans everywhere, but since those reports surfaced just before the summer, there hasn’t been much news on the status of the project.

Until now!

On Tuesday, Marino — who starred in the original Wet Hot as Victor Kulak, the afro’d Camp Firewood counselor who wants nothing more in life than to score some quality make-out time with fellow staffer Abby Bernstein — took to Twitter to answer questions from fans while promoting his new NBC sitcom, Marry Me (which, by the way, you should totally watch. It stars Marino and Casey Wilson, and was created by writer/producer David Caspe who was the driving force behind the criminally under-appreciated Happy Endings that ran for three seasons on ABC). I took the opportunity to get an update on the status of Wet Hot 2:

 

@TheSEShepherd @NBCMarryMe Netflix series shooting soon.

– Ken Marino (@KenMarino) November 5, 2014

 

That sounds pretty definitive to me. Also, just call me Wolf Blitzer because I am breaking news!

The biggest hurdle to producing Wet Hot 2 likely is reuniting the cast, some of whom have become legitimate superstars since the original film premiered in 2001. Bradley Cooper is about as A-list as you can get at this moment in time, Poehler is now one of the most universally beloved names in comedy, and Rudd is about to make the jump from star to mega-star when he joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Scott Lang in the upcoming Ant-Man. But as Wallenstein mentioned in his article back in May, “the plan is to [have] each of the actors shoot their scenes in just a few days because not every character will appear in every episode,” so hopefully all of your favorite Camp Firewood counselors should make an appearance.

If, as Marino indicates, filming has yet to begin, we probably can’t expect the prequel to hit Netflix’s streaming service until late next year at the earliest. But that’s OK, it just gives us all plenty of time to make sure everything is nice and tidy before we settle in to binge-watch all 10 episodes in one sitting: