Randall Park and Melissa Fumero return to the workplace sitcom genre with Blockbuster. Park stars in the Netflix series as Timmy Yoon, the manager of the last Blockbuster store who tries to keep the doors open and his team together in an increasingly digital age.
Alongside Park and Fumero, the cast for Blockbuster includes Madeleine Arthur, Tyler Alvarez, Olga Merediz, J.B. Smoove, and Kamaia Fairburn. Blending the wholesome sensibilities of Ted Lasso with the workplace format of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, from which both Fumero and creator Vanessa Ramos hail, the show is a fun and charming entry into the genre.
Ahead of the show's premiere, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with stars Randall Park and Melissa Fumero to discuss Blockbuster, developing a rapport with one another, and whether they're as knowledgeable for cinema as their characters.
Randall Park & Melissa Fumero on Blockbuster
Screen Rant: I watched Blockbuster over the weekend and had a blast from start to finish. You're no stranger to the sitcom genre, and Melissa, you're just coming off of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, another great workplace comedy. What about the material really sparked both your interests?
Melissa Fumero: Yeah, so it was created by Vanessa Ramos, who was a writer on Brooklyn, and when I first met Vanessa at Brooklyn, I like immediately fell in love with her, and really wanted to be best friends with her. So, when she sent me her script for Blockbuster, obviously at first I was like, "That's a great concept, building a show about the last Blockbuster." Randall was attached, and I was a huge fan of his, so that was also incredible.
Then, I was really nervous to read the script, hoping it would be really good, and then it was really good. So, it was kind of an easy, "Yes" all around, because it's not just a workplace comedy, but also it's about all these other things, community and human connection and nostalgia and different themes about time. So, I just really loved the world and the characters, I felt like I won the lottery for a second time.
Randall Park: Yeah, for me, it's the same. Ultimately, it was the script, it was what Vanessa wrote. My initial hesitation was, "Oh, it's about Blockbuster, is it just gonna be like a pure kind of nostalgia play?" But it was about, as Melissa says, it was about so much more, and I remember just putting it down and feeling so kind of warm inside, and feeling like, "Oh, I really needed that, I really needed to read that," and thinking, "Oh, I think a lot of people will see this and feel like, especially in these times, this type of content is important, and it feels good, and it's fun, and it's funny, and it's all those things. So, yeah, that was the main draw for me.
I definitely feel like it's a great following in the footsteps of Ted Lasso, in just the heartwarming and wholesome nature of it. I love the dynamic between your characters within the show. What was it like developing that with one another before filming?
Melissa Fumero: It was weirdly easy, we didn't really have to like work at it.
Randall Park: Yeah, it was just a joy. Melissa, aside from just being so talented, is just so fun to work with, and we just had fun.
Melissa Fumero: Yeah, ditto, I mean, he made my job very easy.
Well, that's always great to hear. How knowledgeable do you feel you'd be if you were to walk into a Blockbuster now, in there in comparison to your characters?
Randall Park: No, no, I know nothing compared to Timmy. Timmy is like a cinephile, a true cinephile. I actually watched a lot of movies based on the recommendations that Timmy would give to other characters, and I discovered some really great movies because of Timmy. But yeah, I know nothing compared to him. [Chuckles]
Melissa Fumero: Yeah, I would probably match Eliza, I feel like she's kind of a movie buff, and I'm at that level as well. So I would do okay, which I think she would too, not better or worse.
About Blockbuster
Timmy Yoon (Randall Park) is an analog dreamer in a 5G world. He’s spent his entire adult life dedicated to his first love, movies — a passion that's kept him at his first and only job, managing his hometown Blockbuster Video.
Then Timmy is alarmed to learn that his store is officially the last Blockbuster in America. He now has no choice but to take action to stay open and keep his friends employed. Timmy and his staff quickly come to realize that being home to the last Blockbuster might actually be exactly what their community needs to rekindle the human connections they lost to the digital age. It also unexpectedly reunites him with his long-time crush Eliza (Melissa Fumero), who's recently come back to work for him. Will this battle to preserve the past be the push Timmy needs to step into the present? His employees can only hope so.
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Blockbuster begins streaming on Netflix on November 3.