Netflix’s 'Daybreak' channels ‘Ferris Bueller's Day Off’ as Matthew Broderick finds himself principal 33 years later
Netflix’s new zombie show ‘Daybreak’ is out and people on the internet have been talking about only one thing: ‘Ferris Bueller's Day Off’. But why? What does a ‘Mad Max’-esque zombie apocalypse show have to do with a 1986 high school comedy made by John Hughes?
A movie about a teenager acting like a truant, trying to get away with having fun with his friends and trying to escape the Dean of Students, does not sound anything like a show where mutated humans try to kill and eat normal humans.
Well, for starters, in this adaptation of Brian Ralph’s comic series by co-creators Aron Eli Coleite and Brad Peyton, the protagonist Josh (Colin Ford), like Ferris is a high school slacker. And just like Ferris, he too breaks the fourth wall, explaining to the audience what happened.
In the show, Josh searches for his lost love Samaira Dean (Sophie Simnett) and navigates a post-apocalyptic world full of zombies and Mad Max-style gangs in the city of Glendale, California. On its own, something Ferris would have been likely to do.
In fact, when Peyton pitched the idea of adapting the comic book into a show to Ralph, his idea was “Ferris Bueller in the apocalypse,” according to the Business Insider. But the pièce de résistance, of course, is the fact that this show also stars Matthew Broderick, a man who more than three decades ago immortalized the character called Ferris Bueller in cinematic and pop-culture history!
The cruel irony, however, is that in this show, Broderick plays the role of his nemesis from the 80’s film -- he’s the school principal. Principal Burr tries to be cool and even quotes Jay-Z. But that does not mean the students like him.
And isn't that how life flips a full 180? What’s more, Broderick told UPI in a round-table interview with reporters at the New York Comic Con, “They visited ‘Ferris Bueller's Day Off’ in the way they shot scenes, but the character I play is very different, actually. He's probably more like [Principal] Rooney, the Jeffrey Jones character.”
Now, isn't that something, eh? ‘Daybreak’ is out on Netflix.
