Showtime released the first trailer for On Becoming A God In Central Florida, and it looks like a hoot. Alexander Skarsgård’s following up on his reprehensible Big Little Lies character by plucking up a mullet and rocketing to the top of a multi-level marketing scheme. His performance looks to be incredibly physical and shouty while urging fine folks to “embrace their destiny,” and one catches a real sense of all the “dream building” exercises that real-life pyramid schemes do embrace in order to recruit members into the cult-like fold. Meanwhile, a jorts-clad Kirsten Dunst has had it up to here with this same organization that ruined her life, and she’s determined to conquer it from the inside.
All of the faux-excess is dazzling to behold with all the champagne, rhinestones, and terrible tuxedos dripping all over every frame. Both Dunst and Skarsgard are giving it their all, and this looks like a spectacular satire that might rival HBO’s upcoming The Righteous Gemstones in tone. The series is co-produced by George Clooney, and here’s the synopsis:
Set in a small Orlando-adjacent town in 1992, On Becoming a God in Central Florida follows Krystal Stubbs (Dunst), a minimum-wage water park employee who lies, schemes and cons her way up the ranks of Founders American Merchandise (FAM) — the cultish, flag-waving, multibillion-dollar pyramid scheme that drove her to ruin in the first place, run by the powerful Obie Garbeau II (Levine). Determined to make a better life for herself, Krystal dives deep into FAM and develops a tangled relationship with FAM’s most loyal and fanatical follower Cody (Pellerin), until her business begins to affect those closest to her, including Ernie (Rodriguez), her affable water park boss, and his FAM-skeptic wife Bets (Ditto).
Showtime’s On Becoming A God In Central Florida debuts on August 25.
