The cast of Funny or Die’s new IFC series The Spoils of Babylon keeps getting more and more impressive. The network announced today that Jessica Alba, Val Kilmer, Tim Robbins, and Michael Sheen are joining the cast, which already includes Kristen Wiig, Tobey Maguire, Haley Joel Osment, and Will Ferrell. A parody of epic ‘80s miniseries like The Thorn Birds and Winds of War, the six-episode show is in production now and is expected to debut in early 2014. It’s being written by Andrew Steele and directed by Matt Piedmont, the team behind Ferrell’s Casa de mi Padre, and produced by Ferrell and partner-in-crime Adam McKay via their company Funny or Die. Here’s a description of the plot via IFC:
The Spoils of Babylon is a television adaptation of a best-selling epic novel by fictional famous author Eric Jonrosh (Ferrell) … a century-spanning saga, [it] chronicles the sexy and dramatic lives of the Morehouse family, led by Jonas Morehouse (Robbins), his daughter Cynthia (Wiig) and her adopted brother Devon (Maguire) who made their fortune in the oil business. The series takes viewers from the oil fields of Texas to boardrooms in New York City, through war torn battlefields and velvet-sheeted bedrooms.Cynthia and Devon’s unbridled and taboo passion for one another cannot be prevented. Add in Cynthia’s evil son Winston (Osment), her put upon husband Chet Halner (Sheen), and Devon’s new love interest Dixie Mellonworth (Alba), and the booze, the pills, more passion, more pills and the heartache, and you have a mercurial potboiler. Then add in illegal arms deals, international espionage, the Shah of Iran (Ferrell), and two US Army Generals (Kilmer, Steve Tom) and it begins to overflow with boiling liquid in a pot on a hot stove that is operational.
Here’s a brand new teaser trailer for the series: