While Jonah Rey and his companion robots have already filmed their “silhouette scenes” for the rebooted Mystery Science Theater 3000, series creator Joel Hodgson told fans that today marks the start of the show’s “main week of production,” in which most of the cast will record their interstitial segments before the series’ expected return on Netflix next year.
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“Our main week of production on the new season of MST3K starts in just a few minutes, and we’ll be shooting with our new cast and special guests all week!” wrote Joel Hodgson in a message to Kickstarter backers. “I was thinking about it last night, and it’s been almost 20 years since the last time a crew got together to shoot a new episode of MST3K. And now, thanks to you, we’re doing it again.”
“We’ve actually been here in Los Angeles for the last few weeks working on all kinds of final pre-production work, and doing a lot of initial shooting that’s less interesting if I describe it,” he wrote. “We’ve shot most of our silhouette scenes, and honestly, every day has just been packed. There’s a ton of work to do – 14 episodes, you know? – and not a lot of time to get it all done.”
Mystery Science Theater 3000 ran from 1998 until 1999, starting off as a local cable acess show in Minnesota and building to a globally-recognized comedy brand that aired new episodes on The Sci-Fi Channel and Comedy Central.
Since it ended, there has been fan demand to bring the series back, but with its creators and stars working on similar projects like Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax, it didn’t seem to be necessary. Last year, though, creator Joel Hodgson announced that they would Kickstart a new season.
The premise will remain largely the same — a hapless, likable young man is shot into space and forced to watch bad movies with his robot friends Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot — but the cast will be overhauled, with Jonah Ray replacing Mike Nelson as the main character (Nelson had himself replaced Hodgson), and villains to be played by Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt. Baron Vaughn and Hampton Yount will play the ‘bots.
Back in July, Best Brains — the production company run by Hodgson — announced that a rights deal had been worked out that would allow the new Mystery Science Theater 3000 to air on Netflix. Comic book writer and former The Daily Show had writer Elliott Kalan is the series’s head writer.
