The Wet Hot American Summer Cast List Is So Long You’re Probably On It

The cult camp film is going to be a Netflix series with more star power than any blockbuster ever.

When filming wrapped on Wet Hot American Summer 15 years ago, the young cast dispersed to chase their various different dreams, which is pretty much par for the indie movie course. What’s unusual is that almost every member of the cast became a household name and a handful of them became household names in Slovenia. Success was, paradoxically, what made the rumors about a potential sequel so easy to ignore. Director David Wain wasn’t going to get everyone so it was going to be a sort of bowdlerized ode to the original rather than a true sequel.

Those doubts look really dumb now. Not only has Wain pulled off the most impressive bit of stunt scheduling since JFK’s first ninety days, he actually added to the cast, bringing in famous comedians who seem like the sort of people who should have been in the first one but actually weren’t. And he got Netflix to pay them. 

Here are the members of the Hollywood collective about to take over your queue: Paul Rudd (Ant-Man!), Elizabeth Banks (that woman from The Capital!), Bradley Cooper (the perennial Oscar-nominee!), Amy Poehler (Amy Poehler!), H. Jon Benjamin (Archer!), Michael Ian Black (the dude from those Klondike commercials!), Judah Friedlander (Frank Rossitano!), Janeane Garofalo (that woman from the nineties!), Nina Hellman (not sure, but she’s good looking!), Ken Marino (has Marry Me bean canceled yet?), Zak Orth (Sad Eyes McGlassesface!), David Hyde Pierce (Niles Crane!), Joe Lo Truglio (Detective Charles Boyle), Christopher Meloni (Detective Elliot Stabler!), A.D. Miles (Jimmy Fallon’s writer!), Marguerite Moreau (the babe from the first one!), Marisa Ryan (Lashonda from Puberty: The Movie!), Molly Shannon (Mary Katherine Gallagher!), Kevin Sussman (someone from Big Bang Theory!), and, introducing, Michaela Watkins (that woman you liked who got fired from SNL and isn’t Jenny Slate!), Josh Charles (Dan Rydell!), John Slattery (Mad Man!), Randall Park (Kim Jong-Un!), Lake Bell (Hollywood’s hottest director!), Jayma Mays (the good thing about Glee!), Paul Scheer (the bald guy from everything ever!), Rob Huebel (the guest star on Paul Scheer’s shows!), and Richard Schiff (Toby!).

And only half of the women signed up solely for the chance to make out with Paul Rudd. 

Photos by Everett Collection