The Tracee Ellis Ross-led Daria spinoff series Jodie will now be an animated film. MTV Entertainment Studios announced the change on Monday, May 16, in addition to announcing the rest of the star-studded Jodie cast.
As previously announced, Ellis Ross will voice the beloved Jodie. Joining her in the spinoff are Pamela Adlon (Better Things), Cole Escola (Search Party), Jojo T. Gibbs (Twenties), William Jackson Harper (Love Life), Zosia Mamet (The Flight Attendant), Alex Moffat (Saturday Night Live), Dermot Mulroney (Hanna), Arden Myrin (Insatiable), Kal Penn (Designated Survivor), Kofi Siriboe (Queen Sugar), Dulcé Sloan (The Daily Show with Trevor Noah), and Heléne Yorke (The Other Two).
“Jodie follows Jodie Landon as she leaves college, moves to a gentrifying city, and begins a job at Firstfinity, a mysterious Google-like tech company,” the logline teases. And MTV describes the reboot as a Gen-Z iteration of the beloved animated series.
“What Daria did for showing how inane high school was for Gen X, Jodie will do for exploring the trials and tribulations of that first post-college job for a new generation,” MTV Entertainment Studios said in a statement. “The show will satirize workplace culture, Gen Z struggles, tech, social media, and more. Just as Daria did for Daria Morgendorffer when it was a spin-off of Beavis and Butthead, Jodie will delve deeper into Jodie Landon as she goes from feeling like she had to be ‘the perfect African American teen’ at Lawndale High to headlining her own story.”
Check out the character descriptions for the Jodie cast, below.
Jodie (Ellis Ross): Fresh off the heels of her college graduation and full of ambition, Jodie moves to the big city for a prestigious internship at tech behemoth Firstfinity.
Jocelyn Light (Adlon): the trailblazing Vice President of Internet Affairs at Firstfinity and Jodie’s role model.
Ryan (Escola): Jodie’s intern friend at Firstfinity who’s allergic to earnestness.
Tiffany (Gibbs): Lives in Jodie’s apartment building, has swag for weeks, and is Cas’s ex.
Mack (Harper): Jodie’s witty, supportive high school sweetheart from Daria.
Greta (Mamet): a beachy-waved, self-proclaimed empath and Jodie’s fellow intern.
Barry (Moffat): a 50-something overeager internship coordinator at Firstfinity who desperately tries to be Gen-Z cool.
MTV/Getty Images
Lionel (Mulroney): the powerful and charming Firstfinity CEO.
Britney (Myrin): former Lawndale cheerleader from Daria turned FirstFinity influencer.
Sandeep (Penn): a fitness-obsessed tech bro and another fellow intern.
Raymond (Siriboe): Jodie’s incredibly handsome, but not-so-friendly Firstfinity supervisor.
Cas (Sloan): Jodie’s fun-loving best friend from college and new roommate. A finance genius and social butterfly, Cas plays as hard as she grinds.
Nia (Yorke): Jodie’s brown-nosing fellow intern who will do whatever it takes to get ahead.
Jodie is executive produced by creator, writer, and showrunner Gracie Edwards alongside Ellis Ross and Ashley Kohler of Awesome Inc. The Daria spinoff has not yet landed a network or streaming service for its debut. But MTV is part of Paramount, so it’s possible it could debut on Paramount+ or somewhere else in the Paramount family.
Jodie started out as an animated series about both Daria and Jodie. It was originally announced in 2018.
Jodie, Animated Film Premiere, TBA