Idiocracy is getting a spiritual sequel. The Mike Judge-directed sci-fi comedy has become a cult classic over the years, finding new audiences thanks to the power of home media. Despite this delayed success, follow-ups for Idiocracy never got off the ground. That changes this weekend at San Diego Comic-Con, as star Terry Crews, who plays President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho in the film, is releasing a one-off comic that revisits the Idiocracy world.
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Terry Crews Discusses Idiocracy Spin-Off Comic
President Camacho’s legacy continues on the page.
Speaking to ComicBook ahead of San Diego Comic-Con, actor Terry Crews detailed how his Idiocracy spin-off comic Camachoย was conceived, noting he has been wanting to revisit the character for years.
“Camacho is one of the most iconic characters I ever had a chance to play, but [the movie] was a massive failure,” Crews said, alluding to the film’s $495K box office haul. “No one saw it. It was released over one weekend in two theaters, and I remember being so disappointed because it just disappeared. And then it took 10 years for it to become a classic. I’ve had major, major stars come up to me, Will Ferrell, Bill Maher all like, ‘Dude, this is one of my favorite movies of all time.’”
Crews has floated spin-off ideas and digital concepts revolving around Camacho for years, but nothing ever came to fruition. He eventually decided to take the reins himself, pitching the comic concept to Idiocracyย director Mike Judge.
“We went to Mike and we said, ‘Look, let’s talk about what if Camacho was back today? How would this happen?’ We decided to just go ahead and do a comic just to do the possibilities of what this story could look like,” Crews said. “What I love about what the comic book industry is is that it’s your own hundred million dollar movie no matter what. You have an idea, you have the art, you can put it out. You can create it. I’m actually shocked that it actually got done. We did it. I mean, we didn’t stop. We just kept going.
“I started this creative company with my partners, Matt O’Rourke and Paul Sutton, we just sat back and said, ‘Man, let’s talk about Camacho again.’ We actually brought Camacho back at South by Southwest last year. It was a natural progression to work on the story, and not to go too far into it, but just to look at the possibilities of how Camacho could end up in 2024.”
Doing the Camachoย story as a comic gave Crews and Judge complete creative and distribution freedom, but there was one catch.
“This is the thing, we don’t own the IP. This is all Disney right now,” Crews explained. “We basically went to everyone about how much can we legally do. I didn’t want to get in trouble, and plus I didn’t want to insult. This is why we got the approval of Mike and everything. We actually went to the studios and their big thing was, ‘Hey, as long as you’re giving it away, you’re not selling it.’ We’re just giving it away. It’s a little bit like fan fiction. Fox and Disney still own the IP, and our job is just to really just compliment the work that they’re already doing.”
For that reason, Crews has printed 2,024 copies, a nod to the story taking place in 2024, and is giving away 1,000 copies on the floor of SDCC. The rest of the copies will be distributed to local comic book stores.
ComicBook can exclusively reveal the cover of Camacho. As seen below, Camacho is painted in a purple and smokey hue. The reflection of his green left eye features a cityscape engulfed in flames.
“We wanted to highlight was just the fact that he’s a sympathetic character. He’s not a villain. He’s not a monster. He is a guy who wants the best for everyone, he just happens to be not very smart,” Crews said of the cover. “I think when I look at the cover, when you look in his eyes, he’s looking at destruction and he’s looking at what he realizes he’s got to save. The only way he can save the future is by going backward to when it all got messed up. And in his mind, that was 2024. It’s a bit Terminator when you think about it. Our artist, Eric Skotnes, I’ll just thank him for putting that thing together amazingly for us.”
While the comic is a one-off for now, Crews’s ultimate goal is that it sparks conversation to do something more with the Idiocracy world in a televised or theatrical format.
“Our hope is that they decide, ‘Hey, let’s see if we can expand this. Let’s see if we can do a ten-episode show or a movie or something that’s still based in this world,’” Crews revealed. “Everyone who was involved with that movie knows it’s a classic. We just want to do it right. That’s one reason why we didn’t even want to get too deep, but it kind of opened up the possibility of how he could get here.”
Crews will be at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend to distribute free copies of Camacho.
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Image Credit: Marvel Comics
