“Mumblecore” master Joe Swanberg is headed for Netflix.
The filmmaker behind micro-indie films including Kissing on the Mouth, Hannah Takes the Stairs and Uncle Kent has scored an eight-episode, straight-to-series order for comedy Easy.
The half-hour single-camera comedy series will, in mumblecore fashion, write, direct and exec produce the series. Easy is described as an anthology that explores diverse Chicago characters as they fumble through the modern maze of love, sex, technology and culture.
The series will feature appearances from Orlando Bloom, Malin Akerman, Michael Chernus, Marc Maron, Elizabeth Reaser, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jake Johnson, Aya Cash, Dave Franco, Jane Adams, Hannibal Burress and more.
Easy bears similar themes as former web series-turned-IFC entry Young American Bodies, which Swanberg writes, stars, exec produces and directs.
Swanberg is considered one of a handful of writer-directors most associated with mumblecore, which is a style of low-budget feature filmmaking in which dialogue is improvised and, in some cases, often performed by non-professionals. (Other mumblecore filmmakers include Lena Dunham, the Duplass brothers and Lynn Shelton.)
Swanberg will deliver a keynote speech Monday at South By Southwest — which is considered the birthplace of the term mumblecore. (The subgenre ranked as the No. 1 greatest breakthrough at SXSW according to THR critic John DeFore.) He has directed 20 feature films including Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas, as well as starred in You’re Next, The Sacrament and V/H/S.
For Netflix, the series comes as the streaming giant is investing $5 billion on original programming in 2016. The streamer has been making an aggressive push into comedy, which includes Aziz Ansari’s Master of None, Judd Apatow’s Love, Sophia Amoruso’s Girlboss and sketch comedy The Characters in addition to more broad-skewing fare like Fuller House.
Swanberg is repped by CAA.
