It’s no longer just the traditional streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon that are reeling in big stars. YouTube has reportedly finalised a deal for a 10-episode series order for the dark comedy series On Becoming A God In Central Florida, and Kirsten Dunst has signed on to star in the project.
Dunst will also produce alongside George Clooney and Grant Heslov, who have been on board since the series was originally in development at AMC, where it was a passion project for the late Suzanne Patmore Gibbs, who revived Sony Pictures’ TV label as the home of female-focused content.
The series is written by Robert Funke and Matt Lutsky based on a spec script they penned together, and is set near Orlando in the early 1990s. It revolves around Krystal Gill, a minimum-wage-earning water park employee who eventually schemes her way up the ranks of Founders American Merchandise: the cultish, flag waving, multi-billion dollar pyramid scheme that drove her family to ruin.
“In Krystal Gill, Funke and Lutsky have created a truly delicious, sometimes diabolical female character — a dirt poor, very fierce young woman who is relentless in her pursuit of the American dream inside of an Amway-like company”, said Patmore Gibbs in her last interview with Deadline before her death. Dunst was reportedly the top choice for the lead and “was born to slay this role”, Patmore Gibbs added.
Esta Spalding will serve as showrunner while Charlie McDowell (The One I Love, The Discovery) will direct every episode of the series. The show is currently set to premiere on YouTube Premium sometime in 2019, and it will be interesting to track the kind of impact it has, and whether it drives consumers to YouTube’s subscription service.
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