Whereas the first season of Hulu's original series Future Man borrowed influence from movies like The Terminator and Back to the Future, season 2 will feel tonally similar to movies like Mad Max and Waterworld. The second season will explore more of a dystopian landscape that harkens back to action movies released between the late '70s and early '90s.
In Future Man, an aimless janitor named Josh Futturman (played by Josh Hutcherson) is recruited by soldiers from the future after he completes a popular video game believed to be unbeatable. He and the two soldiers, Tiger and Wolf (played by Eliza Coupe and Derek Wilson, respectively), travel back in time in order to prevent certain events from unfolding that will ultimately lead to the end of the human race. However, given that Josh isn't exactly the hero they were expecting, their attempts to save the world don't go as expected, and season 2 introduces a dystopian future from which they need to escape - and hopefully still have a shot at preventing.
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During New York Comic Con 2018, we spoke with Josh Hutcherson about season 2 of Future Man and learned more about some of the show's unique influences, what movies it borrows from, and what this universe's version of the future looks and feels like. In season 2, Josh, Tiger, and Wolf are thrust into the year 2162, where society is broken down into two factions: the Mons ("the haves") and the Nags ("the have nots"), which borrows a stylistically demented vision of the future from movies like Mad Max and Waterworld. Hutcherson said, "There's a bit of a Waterworld kind of element to it in the Nag. And Mad Max is one that we kind of used a lot in the Nag world. It's very dirty and dusty and you feel like there's no water." He then added that Josh and Wolf are stuck in this society, and, incidentally, "Wolf has found his new home inside the Nag with this cluster family with, like, six husbands and wives; and there's great satire and political commentary threaded throughout."
Hutcherson also touched on the more privileged faction featured in season 2, known as the Mons (where Tiger ends up), which will evidently be a stylistic inverse of the Nag. And, though he didn't reveal any specific influences for its look and feel, he said that there is "a lot of futuristic stuff from the '80s we kind of played on in there."
The first season of Future Man shamelessly blended crude humor with hard sci-fi, setting a bold standard for the series. And, though Hutcherson stated that season 2 will walk a similarly fine line between those genres, the physical landscape won't be nearly as familiar. That said, the confidence to essentially redesign an entire season of a new series may well be proof that Future Man's creative team won't lose steam anytime soon when it comes to inventive storytelling, which is certainly encouraging for fans of the series.
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Season 2 of Future Man will be available for streaming on Hulu in 2019.