On Friday nights when Vanessa Ramos was growing up, her dad would come home early from work and take Ramos, her mom, and her brother to Blockbuster Video. Every week, the family would pick out three movies to rent. “It was one for the whole family, which didn't matter because my brother and I would fall asleep halfway through it. Then my brother and I had to agree on one, which we never could — the default was always a movie called Rock-a-Doodle, about an Elvis-based rooster. Then my dad would pick one for himself and my mom, but my mom would be so bummed because it was always The Pelican Brief or The Firm — he was a very on-brand lawyer,” the writer-producer tells Tudum. All these years later, Ramos still remembers wandering up and down the aisles, feeling the pressure to select the perfect movies for the weekend ahead.
With Blockbuster occupying such a pivotal space in her past, Ramos naturally jumped at the opportunity to make a TV show set at one such video rental store. “Our producer, John Fox, came to me and [co-executive producer] David Caspe with the rights to [the Blockbuster story]. He said, ‘I got the rights, the uniforms, the sign, everything. Would you be interested in developing a workplace — ’ and before he was done I was like, ‘Yes. Workplace comedy. Blockbuster. I'll figure it out.’”
The nostalgia that’s so strongly associated with the video rental store concept and the Blockbuster brand is likely to be the hook that first draws most people to Ramos’ new Netflix sitcom Blockbuster, which is now streaming, just as it was for her. But viewers may be surprised to find out that the series doesn’t take place in the ’90s, or any other pre-streaming decade. It follows Timmy Yoon (Randall Park) and his employees and friends as they struggle to keep the world’s last-standing Blockbuster location in business.
What type of person might still be working at a Blockbuster in 2022? This is the question Ramos says she asked herself early in the show’s development process, as she was populating the failing video rental place with the hapless, hopeful characters who drive the story. Randall Park immediately came to her mind for the role of the emotionally stunted yet charming manager. After Park became attached to the project, Melissa Fumero, who knew Ramos through their work together on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, enthusiastically joined the cast as Eliza, Timmy’s high school crush who returns to the same Blockbuster where she worked as a teenager after running into some marital issues.
According to Ramos, “community and connection” are the ideals at the heart of Blockbuster. Accompanying Timmy and Eliza in their mission to keep the store open is a whole quirky work family. Timmy has a constant companion in his childhood best friend Percy (J.B. Smoove), who also happens to own the strip mall where the Blockbuster is located. Then there are the employees. There’s Kayla (Kamaia Fairburn), Percy’s daughter, who on the surface seems like just another apathetic teen but secretly harbors soft spots for the co-workers she mercilessly rags on, and Hannah (Madeleine Arthur), a formerly homeschooled kid who’s extremely sweet but not always the most clear-headed. Tyler Alvarez plays Carlos, whose dreams of becoming a filmmaker conflict with the more practical career path his immigrant parents would prefer. Ramos says that Carlos, with his encyclopedic movie knowledge, is loosely based on a kid she knew growing up in San Antonio who learned to speak English by listening to Cypress Hill albums and watching movies.
Last but certainly not least of the Blockbuster employees, Connie, who’s played by legendary actress and singer Olga Merediz, is also inspired by a real and very important person from Ramos’ life. “Olga’s character specifically is based on my mom, Connie Ramos,” the showrunner shares. “Sometimes it’s an exaggerated version of my mom and sometimes it’s not so exaggerated.” In Episode 2, “Blockbuster Daddy,” it’s revealed that Connie, who has an impressive knack for passing out hilarious backhanded compliments while still remaining lovable, came out of retirement to work at Blockbuster in order to feel connected to something bigger than herself. And that, it turns out, is what the entire series is about. At the store, the staff support one another through personal and professional obstacles, like bad dates and community college entrance exams. And, of course, customers come together inside the store to get movie recommendations and simply play a part in keeping this shared space alive.
Blockbuster is now streaming on Netflix.
