Few movies of recent vintage have had a longer or bumpier road to getting made than Mars, the first (and reportedly last) full feature-length movie from cult sketch comedy group The Whitest Kids U’ Know. Originally conceived back in 2012—shortly after the group’s IFC sketch series went off the air—the film has faced numerous hardships to getting made, none more obvious, or seemingly insurmountable, than the death of the group’s co-founder, Trevor Moore, in 2021. Now, though, the animated movie is finally gearing up to get a limited run in theaters and a wide release on physical media and VOD, complete with a trailer that starts with a close-up of a character very clearly modeled on, and played by, Moore. (Who completed his voice work for the film several years ago.)
Mars had a debut at the Tribeca Film Festival back in 2024, although reviews for the film seemed fairly mixed. (If more positive than the response to the previous film that Moore made with fellow WKUK Zach Cregger, 2009’s widely excoriated Miss March.) Featuring voice performancess from Moore, Cregger, Sam Brown, Timmy Williams, and Darren Trumeter—with the group having crowdfunded the film personally—the movie was directed by Sevan Najarian, and focuses on a guy who wins a trip to Mars from an eccentric Richard Branson-esque billionaire (Moore).
The group is currently gearing up to tour Mars with Q&As at Alamo Drafthouses in locations across the country. (Would the film be getting quite this treatment if Cregger hadn’t become one of the biggest names in horror over the last several years, courtesy of Barbarian and Weapons? Hard to say, although the Whitest Kids U’ Know fanbase has remained both faithful and extremely vocal in the decade-plus since the show went off the air.) Mars is slated to release on BluRay on March 10.