‘Death to 2020’: Charlie Brooker Releases Mockumentary on Netflix

Netflix has pulled the curtain back on its first project with Black Mirror creators Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones. The film Death To 2020 will be available on the streaming platform as a comedy special of the eventful year.

After Brooker teased the comedy event special last Friday in a 10-second trailer and one of the stars of the show, Hugh Grant, let some of the details slip, we can tell that the mockumentary Death To 2020 will juxtapose footage of real-life events this year with fictitious “renowned” experts passing comment on what took place.

Grant told New York magazine last week that he will play a “repellent” historian in the special, while Deadline can now bring you news of several other big names joining the cast.

Samuel L. Jackson, Lisa Kudrow, and Leslie Jones will be among those casting an eye over 2020 in character. Stranger Things star Joe Keery, Kumail Nanjiani, Tracey Ullman, How I Met Your Mother actress Cristin Milioti, and Samson Kayo will also feature.

British comedian and actress Diane Morgan has also signed up for the project, although sadly for her fans, she will not be playing Philomena Cunk, a character who remarks inanely on TV moments and topical events in Brooker’s darkly comic Wipe franchise for the BBC.

Watch the trailer below:

Death To 2020 sounds like a supersizing of this element of the Wipe shows, in which fictional talking heads pass comment on the year to cathartic effect. In fact, Al Campbell — who has long collaborated with Brooker as the talking head character Barry Shitpeas — is directing the Netflix special. Alice Mathias is also directing.

Here’s the logline: “2020: A year so [insert adjective of choice here], even the creators of Black Mirror couldn’t make it up… but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a little something to add. Death To 2020 is a comedy event that tells the story of the dreadful year that was — and perhaps still is? This landmark documentary-style special weaves together some of the world’s most (fictitious) renowned voices with real-life archival footage spanning the past 12 months.”

Source: Deadline