EXCLUSIVE: The creative team behind Hulu‘s five-part sketch VR comedy Virtually Mike And Nora is now mounting a VR comedy series for the platform network called Door No. 1, which is pushing the interactive envelope further. Door No. 1 is a narrative, choose-your-own-adventure, VR comedy series about going to your 10-year high school reunion. It is being done exclusively for Hulu as an advertiser-integrated VR app series and is from Nora Kirkpatrick (The Office), who stars in and is directing the pilot episode.
All of this will likely be talked about at the E3 panel tomorrow that features Kirkpatrick, RYOT co-founder Molly Swenson and Hulu’s head of VR Noah Heller. The annual confab is taking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center starting tomorrow through Thursday in downtown L.A.
Door No. 1, which merges video game product design with filmmaking, is in pre-production and they will be shooting the first episode in September.
How does it work?
“Imagine you are in a Sixteen Candles or Ferris Buehler’s Day Off where you essentially can walk into your own show and interact with the cast. You can drop in different storylines. You will drop into different scenes depending on your discovery of these kind of “Easter eggs.” So you discover the eggs and they open and you can go into another scene,” said Swenson, an executive producer. “The level of interactivity we’re attempting with Door No. 1 has never been done before in this medium. Hulu has proven itself to be one of the most bold, forward-thinking companies doing original VR content, and we’re excited to be partnering again,” she said.
Lee Eisenberg (The Office), Jarrad Paul (The Grinder) and RYOT are also executive producers on Door No. 1.
Virtually Mike And Nora — which Kirkpatrick did with SNL alumni Mike O’Brien — was considered the first VR comedy series on a network platform. Mike And Nora were five- to eight-minute segments and was interactive, but not in the same way Door No. 1 will be. In Door No. 1, the viewer is making choices as to how the plot goes and will navigate through a high school reunion with the end result (depending on the choices) being who they will end up dancing with
Kirkpatrick told Deadline she will shoot about 55 minutes of footage and of that “the user experience will be 15 to 20 minutes.” They are just starting the casting process now.
“I love to watch people watch Mike And Nora. Most of the VR I’ve seen are animated games or documentaries and no one is doing live-action comedies,” she said. “A 10-year reunion is going to be a great VR experience.”
The script done in conjunction with Chris Smith.
Must Read Stories
Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.