Teen Wolf star Tyler Posey has signed on to play Victorious star Avan Jogia’s love interest in a surreal and sexy Starz comedy.
We are still shedding a proud tear when we think about the fact that all our faves from Teen Wolf have well and truly graduated. Right off the back of the Aeon Flux news – showrunner Jeff Davis is set to return to MTV to helm a new live-action reboot – we’ve learned that star Tyler Posey, who we watched grow up as the eponymous teen wolf Scott McCall, has boarded Now Apocalypse, a new property at Starz with distinctly adult themes.
From Starz:
“This surreal, coming-of-age comedy series follows Ulysses and his friends Carly, Ford and Severine, who are on various quests pursing love, sex and fame. Now Apocalypse explores identity, sexuality and artistry, while navigating the strange and oftentimes bewildering city of Los Angeles. Between sexual and romantic dating app adventures, Ulysses grows increasingly troubled as foreboding premonitory dreams make him wonder – is some kind of dark and monstrous conspiracy going on, or is he just smoking too much weed?”
Posey will appear in a recurring role as Gabriel, a handsome and charismatic guy that lead character Ulysses (played by the unbelievably beautiful Avan Jogia, the Nickelodeon teen star most recently of Ghost Wars) meets on a dating app. Variety, who got the scoop, shared that the pair will be very keen to get hot and heavy during their first date.
Gabriel will not be Posey’s first LGBTQ+ role — he had an impressive turn on Jane the Virgin as Adam, an old flame of Jane’s who returned to her during season 4. During their time apart, Adam had discovered his identity, and is now openly bisexual. The story that involved Jane addressing her misconceptions about this and overcoming them was a really great thing to see on a family drama, and although Jane and Adam didn’t work out, it had nothing to do with that factor of his sexuality.
No premiere date is set yet, but aside from Avan Jogia as Ulysses, Now Apocalypse will star Kelli Berglund as Carly, Beau Mirchoff as Ford, and Roxane Mesquida as Severine. Tyler Posey is also set to appear in season 3 of MTV’s Scream and the upcoming Netflix romcom The Last Summer, and recently toured the UK with his pop-punk band PVMNTS. The band’s first single, which Posey wrote about the death of his mother, was coincidentally released today, with an EP due in August.
Now Apocalypse is created and executive-produced by Gregg Araki, a leading figure in the New Queer Cinema movement. Starz greenlit the half-hour comedy in March, and Araki is joined as an executive producer by the Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh and frequent Soderbergh collaborator Gregory Jacobs. Jacobs also created Red Oaks for Amazon Prime, on which Araki was a staff writer, so this is a creative team with plenty of established mutual support!
Upon the show’s pickup, Soderbergh teased that it would be something we’ve never seen the likes of before. “If this isn’t the craziest thing I’ve ever read, it’s tied for first,” he said in a statement from Starz. “We will not be responsible for people’s heads splitting in half when they see it.” The first season will consist of ten half-hour episodes, all of which are co-written by author and Vogue.com sex columnist, Karley Sciortino.
“Gregg brings an incredibly unique and adventurous story to the Starz brand and we cannot wait for the world to meet the bold, sexy and fun characters of Now Apocalypse,” said Carmi Zlotnik, President of Programming for Starz. “It’s exciting to bring diverse and compelling storytelling to the screen as part of Starz’s ongoing programming strategy to provide premium content to reach under-served audiences.”
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this one. Starz is never afraid to push the envelope, and the reality-bending qualities sound fascinating. Plus, a canonical LGBTQ+ romance between two teen-idolesque men of color sounds exactly like something the world needs more of.