Jake Johnson is making the move from actor to filmmaker, and perhaps this was always the way he was going to go. The New Guy actor who has had both feet in the arthouse world with films like Drinking Buddies and Digging for Fire, and the blockbuster world, voicing Peter Parker in the Spider-Verse films, pulls triple-duty with the Hulu comedy, Self Reliance.
Johnson directs and stars in Self Reliance, but perhaps the biggest draw will be the involvement of The Lonely Island. Yep, the SNL comedy troupe responsible for such comedies as Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and Palm Springs. One of its members, Andy Samberg, also has a role as himself. The ridiculous premise finds Johnson as a disillusioned guy who agrees to be in a dark web reality show in which he agrees to be hunted by killers for 30 days. The loophole is that he can only be attacked while alone, so he pulls every trick in the book to keep people around 24/7.
Also in the cast are Anna Kendrick, Natalie Morales, GaTa, Emily Hampshire, Mary Holland, Boban Marjanović, Christopher Lloyd, and Wayne Brady. Johnson also wrote the screenplay, so he was a busy dude on this one. This is a reunion for Johnson and Kendrick who starred in Drinking Buddies together.
Here’s the synopsis: When a middle-aged man (Jake Johnson, “New Girl”) is invited into a limo by famous actor Andy Samberg, his dull life takes a thrilling turn. Johnson is offered a chance to win a million dollars in a dark web reality TV show, where assassins from all over the world attempt to kill him for 30 days. The catch? He can’t be killed if he’s not entirely alone, leading him to recruit an unlikely team to help him survive.
Self Reliance hits Hulu on January 12th 2024.