Six months ago, Hulu ordered a pilot from noted weed smokers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg about a janitor by day, world-ranked video-game champion by night who saves the world. Now Variety is reporting that Josh Hutcherson has been tapped to star as that lead character, Josh Futterman, a socially inept guy who lives with his parents and is the world’s top-ranked player in a game called Cybergeddon using a character named Future Man. It goes without saying that he’s a pretty creative dude.
In a plot that, for better and for worse, could only come from Rogen and Goldberg, Josh is visited in real life by the game’s characters once he beats the final level. They tell him the whole thing was a training manual, and as the top-ranked player he’s been selected to travel back in time and help them save the world from “an imminent super-race invasion.” Presumably because he doesn’t have a lot going on outside of being a janitor at a sexual disease research center and fearing women, he agrees to the new gig.
Rogen and Goldberg will executive produce and direct the pilot, written by Kyle Hunter and Ariel Shaffir. Hutcherson also has a producer credit, and given that the four Hunger Games films were pretty heavy on the child murder, you have to think he’s thrilled to transition to a game-centric project that should be decidedly funnier.