As the film’s first trailer made clear, They Cloned Tyrone doesn’t quite look like anything else. Netflix’s eye-popping conspiracy thriller bears distinctive visuals, wild looks for its central trio of John Boyega, Teyonah Parris and Jamie Foxx, and an off-the-wall tone to match its era-mixing style. Even its writer-director, Juel Taylor, can’t quite pitch it straight. “If The Truman Show drank a bottle of vodka, what would the outcome be?” he laughs, trying to explain his film to Empire in the upcoming Secret Invasion issue.
With its grainy film-stock look, retro-inspired costuming, and pulpy reference points, They Cloned Tyrone promises a wild ride – with Taylor citing films as disparate as They Live, Groundhog Day, It Follows and Napoleon Dynamite as touchstones. And at the centre of it all is Boyega’s drug dealer Fontaine, Parris’ sex worker Yo-Yo and Foxx’s pimp Slick Charles, trying to get to the heart of a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top. “Me and my writing partner [Tony Rettenmaier] always joked about who would make the most ill-fitting detectives – the worst possible candidates to be thrust into the middle of a conspiracy,” says Taylor. They’re on the case.
Prepare for a mix of old, new, and the truly original. “I wanted the world of the film to be this strange, hermetically sealed bubble that feels like it’s lost in time,” Taylor explains. Well, The Truman Show never had fur-lined purple pleather jackets or thigh-high yellow boots. BYO bottle of vodka.
Read Empire’s full story on They Cloned Tyrone in the Secret Invasion issue, on sale Thursday 11 May. Become an Empire member here to read the digital issue in full on launch day, or pre-order a print copy online here. They Cloned Tyrone comes to Netflix from 21 July.