Melissa Fumero is joining Randall Park in a Netflix comedy series about Blockbuster video. Blockbuster, from Universal Television, will be a 10-episode series set in the last Blockbuster video store. It will explore what it takes for a small business to succeed against all odds.
According to Deadline, Fumero will play Eliza, a hard-working mother working through a rocky marriage with her high school sweetheart. After dropping out of Harvard to start a family, she is now working at the last Blockbuster store alongside Timmy (Park) as his number 2. Blockbuster is created by Vanessa Ramos, with Jackie Clarke and David Caspe also serving as writers/executive producers. Payman Benz will direct and co-executive produce four episodes, including the pilot.
Blockbuster will be the second single-camera workplace comedy for Melissa Fumero. Many people will recognize Fumero from her role as Detective Amy Santiago on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which recently aired its eighth and final season on NBC. She is currently shooting Jim Mahoney’s indie comedy film Bar Fight, co-starring Rachel Bloom. She also had a voice role as Melissa in Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. series on Hulu and had a recurring role on Netflix’s One Day At A Time.
Park recently had a prominent role in Marvel’s Wandavision on Disney+ where he reprised his role from Ant-Man and the Wasp as F.B.I. agent Jimmy Woo. He also starred in Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe and currently stars in True Story With Ed and Randall on Peacock.
The actual last Blockbuster is currently still open in Bend, OR. In 2020, a documentary titled The Last Blockbuster talked about how this store was keeping the spirit of the company alive. It is interesting that this comedy series is coming to Netflix as the streaming service is essentially the company that killed Blockbuster and the video rental store industry as a whole. There is no release date yet for Blockbuster as it’s still early in development.
