Jerry Seinfeld and his all-star cast are excited about sugar in the new preview for “Unfrosted,” a movie that tells the story of how Pop-Tarts began. That's how the comedian talked about the movie in a tweet from 2018 when it was just an unclear idea.
“Think about the energetic Kellogg's cereal culture in the mid-60's in Battle Creek, MI,” Seinfeld tweeted. “That's a feeling I could work with.”
Six years later, the preview for the movie was released Thursday, featuring a star-filled group and Seinfeld’s characteristic light humor. The movie is the comedian and actor's first time as a director.
Seinfeld acts alongside Melissa McCarthy and Jim Gaffigan as Kellogg’s managers trying to compete with rival company Post Cereal’s new shelf-stable breakfast pastry, “Country Squares.” Amy Schumer and Max Greenfield work for Post, and the teams race to hit shelves first.
Hugh Grant, Christian Slater, Bill Burr, Daniel Levy, James Marsden, Jack McBrayer, Peter Dinklage, and Fred Armisen complete the cast.
“It’s a huge cast. I don’t know how it got so big,” Seinfeld told Netflix’s Tudum. “I remember that we had nobody for a long time. And then Hugh Grant called and said he heard about the movie, and he wanted to be Tony the Tiger. Then, the next thing I knew, everybody was in it, and it was incredible.”
The preview compares the pastry competition between the companies to the space race, which was happening during the film’s setting in 1963. The start of the preview shows a dramatized close-up shot of a Pop-Tart flying out of a toaster in a style similar to a spacecraft taking off.
Seinfeld was a guest on ” The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon ” on Wednesday, where he said he and his writers drew stylistic inspiration from the historical drama “The Right Stuff.”
“Remember ‘The Right Stuff,’ which is U.S. versus Russia, who could put a man on the moon first? That is how we tell the story of the Pop-Tart,” Seinfeld said. “Who can make the Pop-Tart is the same as who can land on the moon first.”
Seinfeld, who co-wrote the movie with his “Bee Movie” and “Seinfeld” partners Spike Feresten, Barry Marder and Andy Robin, also said Kellogg’s had “no idea” they were making the movie, and said that while the basis of the story is true, much of the movie is “completely insane.”
“We took all their products, we took all their characters. Snap, Crackle and Pop are in the movie. Tony the Tiger is in the movie, Toucan Sam — we took everything. I didn’t know we had to ask.”
“There could be some serious legal exposure,” he continued. “But if I were to be hauled into court on Pop-Tart charges, that would make my life.”
“Unfrosted” will debut on Netflix on May 3.
