Steven Soderbergh Continues To Be Weird & Awesome, Will Produce Gregg Araki’s NOW APOCALYPSE

If you grew up during the '90s and were weird or queer (or both), you probably watched all of Gregg Araki's movies. Lord knows, I rented The Doom Generation and Nowhere a bunch of times, fascinated by Araki's strange, sexy, brightly colored pieces of idiosyncratic art. As Araki matured, his movies mutated into stoner comedies (Smiley Face) and intense examinations of abuse (Mysterious Skin) that never lost the indie stalwart's unique thumbprint. 

Lately, Araki's been working in television - helming episodes of Red Oaks and Riverdale, for starters - and now Steven Soderbergh is going to be producing a half-hour series for the writer/director to helm on Starz. Titled Now Apocalypse and co-written by Araki and Vogue sex columnist Karley Sciortino, the show is described as:

"...a  sexy, vibrant and fast-moving series that has a flipside of mythic, dreamlike creepiness. The 10-episode surreal, coming-of-age comedy series follows Ulysses and his friends Carly, Ford and Severine, who are on various quests pursing love, sex and fame. 

Now Apocalypse explores identity, sexuality and artistry, while navigating the strange and oftentimes bewildering city of Los Angeles. Between sexual and romantic dating app adventures, Ulysses grows increasingly troubled as foreboding premonitory dreams make him wonder – is some kind of dark and monstrous conspiracy going on, or is he just smoking too much weed?"

So, essentially it's Araki's entire filmography, mashed together and then divided into thirty-minute chunks. I will take this now, please and thank you. 

Soderbergh will EP with Magic Mike XXL's Gregory Jacobs (who also worked with Araki on Red Oaks), while Sciortino will act as a consulting producer. As if this needed to be sold to me any harder, Soderbergh has gone on record as saying:

“If this isn’t the craziest thing I’ve ever read, it’s tied for first. We will not be responsible for people’s heads splitting in half when they see it.”

You'll have to excuse me, I need a smoke. In the meantime, the rest of you should go check out Soderbergh's Unsane while it's in theaters. That movie is also out of its mind and fucking great.