Director Steven Soderbergh has never really been a fan of the orthodoxy, and his idiosyncratic approach to his own work was on full display Sunday night when he released his latest project, a sci-fi series. Z command, in the New York Metrograph. The dystopian narrative starring Michael Cera, inspired by Kurt Andersen’s book Evil Geniuses: The Destruction of America: A Recent Historyit was shown as part of a “secret screening” for members of the downtown theater.
Soderbergh followed the screening with a question-and-answer session with Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost, the first Gen Z congressman, explaining to the audience, “I really don’t want to talk about the show,” and instead questioned Frost about How do you keep hope? “How do we convince people not to give up?” Soderbergh asked Frost, who in turn spoke about his path into politics and his work as an organizer.
Though perhaps not exactly what the assembled moviegoers came to, the discussion related to Soderbergh’s latest directorial effort, which opens Monday on his Extension765.com website. The series, which runs about 90 minutes, follows a trio of people (JJ Maley, Roy Wood, Jr., and Chloe Radcliffe) in the not-too-distant future. These three, trapped in a damp room and all dressed in blue jumpsuits, are summoned by the AI of the late billionaire Kerning Fealty (Cera) to embark on a project that goes back in time to July 17, 2023, the day Z command launches, and influence other industry titans from making catastrophic decisions for the world.
To do so, Kerning employees must go through a wormhole that is activated by drinking a foreign substance and staring into a washing machine while the film’s theme Mahogany theater plays. Once connected to the past, they use nanobots delivered via hand sanitizer to hook into the brains of people who can possibly convince their targets to make decisions that will better the planet. Several recognizable faces appear in these settings. Liev Schreiber, for example, is there as a greedy financial colleague whose only friend is his dog, while Succession‘s Zoë Winters appears as a liberal politician contemplating nuclear power. The installments were written by executive producers Andersen and the Simpson writer Larry Doyle, as well as others, including actors Wood and Radcliffe.
The missions tackle different doomsday scenarios, including climate change, Wall Street greed, and the obsession with social media. (Soderbergh, who directs all of the episodes, ends each episode by encouraging audiences to seek other outlets on these issues, including Soylent Green and The social network.)
Talking with the hollywood reporter After the post-screening discussion, Frost said he thought he was going to interview Soderbergh about Z command. “And then before we were here talking, he said to me, ‘I want to interview you,'” Frost said. But, he thought that everything went well. “In the end, I felt like this conversation, even though I talked about my life, it was about the show,” he added. “It was about change. It was about how ordinary people can participate in this fight.”
Frost packed the appearance into an already busy weekend, in part due to his personal artistic approach, which he said will be the subject of the next bill he introduces. “This is right up my alley, bridging the gap between freshness and awareness,” he said. (The episode of the series he most connected to was the one featuring Winters as a politician.)
Meanwhile, for the ever-busy Soderbergh, Z command marks the third project he has released this year as a director. his series full circle is currently streaming on Max, while Magic Mike’s Last Dance was released in theaters earlier this year.
