THE SIMPSONS WITH A TWIST! THIS "BRILLIANT" POST-APOCALYPTIC ADAPTATION IS BECOMING A MOVIE

Rapper and director Boots Riley is gearing up to adapt Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play for the big screen. Reacting to a fan's tweet about the project, Riley told fans: "This is a true thing." The filmmaker is yet to reveal specific details about the adaptation. Neither the cast nor a release date has been confirmed.

Based on Anne Washburn's 2012 play, the Simpsons-inspired comedy, which was hailed as "brilliant" by The Guardian, features music from Michael Friedman.

Originally commissioned by The Civilians theatre company, Mr. Burns follows a group of post-apocalyptic survivors as they gather around a campfire and attempt to remember the plot of The Simpsons episode 'Cape Feare'.

A spoof of the 1962 film Cape Fear and the 1993 remake, the episode, which debuted as part of The Simpsons' fifth season, followed Sideshow Bob (Kelsey Grammar) as he attempted to murder Bart Simpson.

Speaking about the original play, Washburn revealed how she came up with the idea for the plot.

Related: UK film release dates

"I don't remember it being a very deliberate choice; I knew it should be funny, that people would need a laugh or two, after the fall of civilisation, and that the show should be popular and familiar; I loosely considered a number of other sitcoms: Friends, Seinfeld, Cheers, all of which were in brisk syndication at the time," she explained to Breaking Character.

"I think I finally decided The Simpsons had been around the longest? Or had the widest cultural reach? It didn't occur to me that of all those choices, it's the only one which is about a family and a community, which I think would make it especially appealing for a post-apocalypse audience, many of whom will have lost family, community."

Explaining how she decided to specifically include the 'Cape Feare' episode, Washburn recalled: "I actually didn't choose Cape Feare – I did a workshop with actors in which I asked them to remember Simpsons episodes as best they could – I wanted to capture that particular language and thought process we have around remembering something – and I knew I'd use whichever episode they best remembered as a starting point.

"But that Simpsons episode is brilliantly right for this – it's a grim, deep old story of family versus chaos, really primitive and hard, and making it hilarious is awful and wonderful and opens up a lot of possibilities. I think of humour and fear as being quite doubled, generally."

The new edition of Living Legends, celebrating music icon Dolly Parton, is here! Buy Dolly at 80 in newsagents or online, priced at just £8.99.

2026-01-18T17:08:52Z