Pete Davidson Is Taking A Cue From Nicolas Cage In New Series
Davidson is keeping is taking a cue from Cage!
This article is more than 2 years old
If you’re not excited to see Nicolas Cage play a fictionalized version of himself in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, that’s okay — great movies aren’t for everyone. But it’s clear Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson is a fan, because he’s taking a cue from the guy who’s brought us everything from Raising Arizona to Mandy to Pig and is making a series in which the comedian will play, you guessed it, a fictionalized version of himself.
The news comes from Deadline, who reported yesterday on Pete Davidson’s plans to bring the series, tentatively titled Bupkis, to one of the bigger streaming services. While it’s tough to not think of Nicolas Cage’s upcoming film, Deadline says a more accurate comparison would be to Larry David’s hit sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm. It’s being described as a brazenly honest, absurd, and funny look at Davidson’s life through his own eyes. Unsurprisingly, Davidson will play the lead. Bupkis will also include the kind of content SNL can’t, and will reportedly be “R-rated.” There’s no other word on cast, other than reports of “A-list talent for the ensemble” being sought.
Teaming up with Pete Davidson to find Bupkis a home is legendary SNL producer Lorne Michaels, whose company Broadway Video and Universal Television has a deal in place with Davidson. Deadline reports things are being “finalized,” and right now the two most likely homes for Bupkis are Prime Video and Peacock. David Sirus, who has collaborated with Davidson on numerous projects, and Judah Miller (American Dad!) will co-write the series with the comic.
That Pete Davidson has decided to play a fictionalized version of himself probably shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. Much of his comedy is autobiographical. Likewise, his 2020 Netflix dramedy The King of Staten Island — about a young man in Staten Island still grieving his dead father, a firefighter — clearly pulled elements from Davidson’s own life. The comic’s father was one of the firefighters who died in service during the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
It’s likely not lost on Pete Davidson, Lorne Michaels, or anyone else involved in the porject that right now might be the perfect time for a series focusing on the comic’s life behind the camera. Back in October 2021, reports began to leak that Davidson was dating Kim Kardashian after the latter had split with Kanye West. Ye has since embarked on a quest to make his public and social media presence seem more unhinged than ever, if you can believe it. In February, West started referring to Davidson exclusively as “Skete,” and among other things actively encouraged his fans to harass the SNL comic if they should happen to see him in public, and shared an altered Captain America: Civil War poster with himself as the titular hero and Davidson as Iron Man. Considering all the attention on the feud, fans will no doubt want to hear about it in Bupkis.
Not to mention — will Bupkis include a space episode? Just last week, word leaked that Pete Davidson was following in the 90-year-old footsteps of William Shatner as one of the next passengers on billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin flight. Assuming the reports are true and the SNL star does dip his toe into space, it would be weird to not hear about it at least a little bit on a show about his life.
