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Kyle Mooney never forgot the widespread panic that ensued in 1999 over the Y2K computer crisis that never materialized. As a 15-year-old, he watched the entire world prepare for the possibility that the global computer systems would be unable to process years that started with 20 instead of 19. And while he still recalls the paranoia, his memories of the boring whimper that brought the saga to a close are even clearer.
“For those of us who were alive during Y2K, it was pretty much a letdown,” Mooney said during a recent conversation with IndieWire. “And for me, that was such a bizarre experience. I was pretty much obsessed with it over the course of my life.”
That lifelong obsession was the genesis for “Y2K,” Mooney’s directorial debut that imagines what might have happened if the non-event had actually turned out much, much worse than anyone expected.
In Mooney’s world, the dawn of the year 2000 doesn’t just stop computers from working — it turns every machine on the planet into a sentient creature dead set on destroying humanity as we know it. But when awkward teenagers Eli and Danny (Jaeden Martell and Julian Dennison) head out to a New Year’s Eve party in December 1999, they’re not thinking about any of that. All they want to do is find the courage to talk to some girls. But history chooses unlikely heroes, and when a robot apocalypse descends upon their party, they’re forced to team up with Laura (Rachel Zegler), the most popular girl at school and a computer whiz in her own right, to save what’s left of the world.
The initial idea for “Y2K” came to Mooney while he nursed a post-NYE hangover in 2019. He brought his friend Evan Winter on board as a co-writer, and the two soon turned the sci-fi premise into a vessel for every film and musician from their childhoods that they felt like revisiting. Everything from Fatboy Slim to “Junior” makes an appearance in the film — though their shared excitement about returning to 1999 forced them to be selective about what ultimately made the cut.
“It was kind of us tossing references back and forth. As in ‘Do you remember this thing?’ ‘Yeah, that’s great’ or ‘No, I don’t,’” Mooney said of their brainstorming process. “That was the initial filter. If we both remember it, then it’s worthy to be in the script and it’s likely other people will remember it.”
That brainstorming process led to the ultimate 1999 reference: Limp Bizkit lead singer Fred Durst. The Nu Metal icon stars as a pompous, fictionalized version of himself who basks in the admiration of his teenage followers. The performance is a hilarious piece of self-parody, and Mooney cited Durst’s willingness to make fun of himself as evidence that the “Y2K” movie might have been written in the stars all along.
“We absolutely wrote the role for him. Within a week of talking about the movie we were like ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if Fred Durst was in it?’” Mooney said. “He’s just so iconic and evocative of the era. With the hat… everything about him just screams 1999. It took a couple meetings to convince him. I think he was a little self conscious about playing a version of himself, especially 25 years after the fact. But on our first day of shooting I realized ‘He’s not just down to do it, he’s bringing something truly incredible to it.'”
A 1999 teenager in his own right, Mooney was the perfect person to bring the paranoid disappointment of Y2K to the big screen. But even if the film was his destiny, he’s the first to admit that he benefitted from wildly serendipitous timing. Pop culture has been fascinated with revisiting the music and fashion of the late ’90s and early 2000s for much of the past year. His teenage stars Martell and Dennison even told me that they were more familiar with the hip-hop songs of 1999 than anything related to the computer crisis. Mooney isn’t quite sure why the timing worked out so well — if anything, he’s just grateful that nobody beat him to this idea in the first place.
“They say everything moves in 20 year cycles.” Mooney said. “I don’t know that we could have predicted that Y2K would have placement within the zeitgeist in any way. I also feel lucky that we came upon this premise, because to a degree it feels a little obvious. I can’t believe that nobody had done it before us.”
An A24 release, “Y2K” is now playing in theaters nationwide.
English (US) ·