PORTLAND, OR – After calling it quits, the hilarious co-creators of the hit sketch comedy show Portlandia have returned to write a ninth season, but this time they’re tapping director Oliver Stone to reboot the show as a drama.
“When the city changed from a quirky, liberal enclave to an active war zone where federal agents are brutalizing peaceful protestors on the street, we knew we needed someone with experience in violent and disturbing thrillers for our upcoming season,” said co-creator Fred Armisen. “With huge hits like Platoon and Natural Born Killers, we knew Oliver Stone was the right guy to capture the current climate in Portland.”
The sketch comedy show, known for gently poking fun at residents of the Pacific northwestern city, will now transition into a drama/action thriller. Casting is underway for the new season, but roles that have already been filled include Tom Berenger as the US Marshal directing the suppression of protesters, Viola Davis as the chair of Portland Black Lives Matter, and Amy Adams and Brad Pitt as founding members of the Wall of Moms and Leaf Blower Dads, respectively.
Despite the genre change, city residents seem supportive of the change. “Everyone here loves Portlandia, but the writer of Scarface is probably going to be better at capturing the current vibe of the city than the guy whose big break was in the movie Deuce Bigelow,” said Portland native Jamie Wilson as she geared up for a fourth consecutive night of being tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets by her own government.
“It was so easy to parody a city whose biggest industries are artisanal food trucks and mustache wax, and whose residents ride unicycles and run competitive hide-and-seek leagues,” said co-creator Carrie Brownstein. “Now all those folks have been thrown into unmarked vans by anonymous federal agents and sent off to unknown detention sites. We were really struggling to find the humor in that.”
Filming for the new series is already underway, and spin-offs are rumored to be planned for other major American cities including Baltimore, Chicago, and other areas where Trump is epically unpopular.
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