Written by Kyle Hunter and Ariel Shaffir and executive produced by Matt Tolmach, the high-concept comedy centers on Josh Futterman (Hutcherson) a janitor by day/world-ranked gamer by night who is tasked with preventing the extinction of humans after mysterious visitors from the future proclaim him the key to defeating the imminent super-race invasion. Rogen and Goldberg executive produce and direct. Sony Pictures TV is the studio.
Future Man - Pilot ...
Written by Kyle Hunter and Ariel Shaffir and executive produced by Matt Tolmach, Future Man is a high-concept comedy that centers on Josh Futterman (Josh Hutcherson) a janitor by day/world-ranked gamer by night who is tasked with preventing the extinction of humans after mysterious visitors from the future proclaim him the key to defeating the imminent super-race invasion.
Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Kyle Hunter, Ariel Schaffir and Matt Tolmach serve as executive producers on the pilot. Rogen and Goldberg will also direct. The script is written by Schaffir and Hunter.
Future Man -- "Pilot" Episode 101 -- A janitor by day/world-ranked gamer by night is tasked with preventing the extinction of humanity after mysterious visitors from the future proclaim him the key to defeating the imminent super-race invasion. Tiger (Eliza Coupe) and Josh Futturman (Josh Hutchinson), shown. (Photo by: Erin SimkinHulu)
Future Man -- "Pilot" Episode 101 -- A janitor by day/world-ranked gamer by night is tasked with preventing the extinction of humanity after mysterious visitors from the future proclaim him the key to defeating the imminent super-race invasion. (Photo by: Brandon Hickman/Hulu)
FUTURE MAN -- "Pilot" Episode 101 -- A janitor by day/world-ranked gamer by night is tasked with preventing the extinction of humanity after mysterious visitors from the future proclaim him the key to defeating the imminent super-race invasion. Josh Futturman (Josh Hutcherson), shown. (Photo by: Brandon Hickman/Hulu)
Josh Futturman (Josh Hutcherson) has a mundane life. He lives with his parents and has a dead-end job as a janitor at a medical research company. His only passion is 'Biotic Wars,' a video game so difficult that no one else he knows even plays it. But when Josh beats the game, mysterious visitors from the future appear. They tell him that the world is in danger, and he's the only person who can save it.
The premise: Josh Futturman (Josh Hutcherson) has a mundane life. He lives with his parents and has a dead-end job as a janitor at a medical research company. His only passion is "Biotic Wars," a video game so difficult that no one else he knows even plays it. But when Josh beats the game, mysterious visitors from the future appear. They tell him that the world is in danger, and he's the only person who can save it.
Future Man is executive produced by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Kyle Hunter, Ariel Schaffir and Matt Tolmach. Rogen and Goldberg will direct the pilot, with Schaffir and Hunter writing the script.
The terrific Eliza Coupe has been cast as the female lead in Future Man, a forthcoming sci-fi comedy pilot for Hulu, Deadline reports. The Happy Endings alum will play Tiger, a video game character/soldier from the future who recruits Josh Futterman (previously-cast Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson) to help her stop an impending alien invasion.
Josh Hutcherson is trading the Hunger Games for video games. He's just been set as the lead of Future Man, a half-hour comedy pilot for Hulu from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. The story centers on an unassuming nobody whose one skill is playing a certain video game. To his shock, he discovers that this apparently useless talent makes him uniquely qualified to save humanity.
Josh, who's a world-ranked videogamer by night, is tasked with preventing the elimination of the human race after mysterious visitors from the future proclaim him the key to defeating an imminent super-race invasion. Still living at home with his parents, Josh has a dead-end job as a janitor at Devlin, a sexual disease research center. He's socially inept, has low self-esteem and can't approach women, but the one thing at which he excels is Cybergeddon, a video game set in a dystopian future where his character, Future Man, has the top ranking in the world; when he beats the final level, he's visited by characters from the game who claim it's been his training manual and he's been selected to travel back in time and help them save the world.
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have been on a hot streak in regards to television as of late. The two have secured Preacher for Season 3, and Amazon just locked them down for an adaptation of another Garth Ennis work, The Boys. So they've got adapted materials on lock, but what about their latest executive-produced offering, Future Man? Even with no source material to draw from, Rogen and Goldberg bring a smorgasbord of comedy and pop culture references to the new Hulu series from Sausage Party writers Ariel Shaffir and Kyle Hunter. Despite a somewhat sloppy pilot, Future Man delivers big laughs with an excellent cast.
The pilot's middling quality is important to note early on, because some may watch and feel like Future Man isn't worth the continued effort. The characters are kind of rigid in their performances, and a lot of what is shown in the pilot is better summarized by the trailer. Plus, one of the episode's biggest jokes (a cum shot, yuk yuk) falls short. Still, that first episode does feature fleeting appearances by Haley Joel Osment, comedian Ron Funches, and Paul Scheer; so while things don't get off to a roaring start, it isn't all bad. In comparison to the remaining episodes screened for reviewers, however, Future Man's first episode is the weakest of them all, so everyone should keep the faith.
Once those episodes get rolling, Future Man improves drastically and Josh Hutcherson's Josh Futturman really comes into his own as a janitor who lives at home with his parents. Josh's once boring and directionless life changes drastically, however, when he defeats a previously unbeatable video game, only to learn it was actually a recruitment tool sent from the future. He then meets Tiger (Eliza Coupe) and Wolf (Derek Wilson), who inform him the events seen on the game are actually true, and that he must help them to destroy the man responsible for Earth's grim future. Unfortunately for Josh, that evil man just so happens to be his boss, Doctor Kronish (Keith David), who is currently in the process of developing a cure for herpes.
Very quickly, Tiger and Wolf realize Josh is not the savior they were hoping for, with video games being used by elite soldiers for dependable simulation purposes in the future. Despite this, Josh manages to sway his new allies into not killing Doctor Kronish (who appears to be a very pleasant guy) and instead pitches that they go back in time to prevent Kronish from ever getting herpes and creating a cure that eventually leads to a future species of humans called Biotics. Yes, this does sound like some twisted version of The Last Starfighter meets Back To The Future, and yes, the show is specifically aware of that.
As mentioned, the whole Future Man cast kind of struggles to find their characters early in the pilot, but it doesn't take long for everyone to figure things out. By far, the best character transformation seen in the early days of Season 1 happens to Derek Wilson's Wolf, as he slowly becomes accustomed to a life where he's not forced to shove rats down his "rat hole" (mouth). Additionally, Eliza Coupe is great at playing a rough and heartless mercenary whose ever-serious attitude often sells comedic situations even harder. Stumbling at first, Josh Hutcherson quickly catches up as Josh Futturman and capitalizes on the show's funniest moments with his amazing reactions. As far as the lesser characters go, Ed Begley Jr. and Glenne Headley nail it as Josh's super supportive oddball parents, which is almost a shame, considering Headley's passing will impact that dynamic in the future.
However it goes, Future Man is a damn good time, and it feels as though things will only get better. Those who suffer through the growing pains of the pilot will be rewarded with big laughs and a self-aware time-travel tale that pokes fun at the sci-fi's nuances along the way. At it's best, it's goofy, gross, gory, and glorious all at once. It's not always perfect, but it gets things right far more often than wrong, which is more than we can say for Josh, Wolf, and Tiger.
The show is created by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and will star Josh Hutcherson as Josh Futturman, a janitor by day and a world-ranked gamer by night. He has been tasked with the job of trying to prevent the extinction of mankind after some mysterious visitors from the future decide that he is the key to defeating an imminent invasion.
At the end of the first season, Josh appears to be content in his prison cell knowing that he's responsible for saving the future from a horrible fate. Sadly, his plan didn't work, leaving Stu Camillo (Haley Joel Osment) in power. We asked Hutcherson how that revelation will affect his character in Season 2.
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