If you’ve never seen the Canadian mockumentary sitcom television series, “Nirvanna the Band the Show,” here’s the bit you need: filmmakers Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol play fictionalized versions of themselves, two Toronto doofuses convinced they’re destined for greatness as a band, even though they barely function as adults, rarely practice, and spend most of their time engineering elaborate schemes instead of making music. Their holy grail, the running mission that powers the series, is booking a real gig at The Rivoli, a legendary Toronto venue that, in their minds, would finally legitimize them. The joke is that it never happens because their plans always implode.
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The feature-length spin-off, “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie,” takes that eternal failure and escalates it into sci-fi chaos. According to the official synopsis, “When their plan to book a show at the Rivoli goes horribly wrong, Matt and Jay accidentally travel back to the year 2008, blah blah blah blah blah.” Translation: their latest Rivoli scheme doesn’t just backfire, it literally rewinds their lives, forcing them to navigate the past while trying to fix whatever mess they’ve made of the timeline and, because they’re still themselves, still fixating on that stupid dream.
Co-created by Johnson and McCarrol, the film is directed by Johnson and written by Johnson and McCarrol, with the duo once again starring as their chaos-agent selves. Their long-suffering cameraman, Jared, is back in the mix too, dragged along as the reluctant witness to every half-baked gambit and catastrophic consequence. The promise of the movie is essentially the show’s signature mix of mockumentary deadpan, real-world awkwardness and self-sabotage, only now with a time-travel engine bolted onto the premise.
Arriving after Johnson’s breakout success with the indie feature “BlackBerry,” the project is being released not as a buried oddity, but as a proper theatrical event for fans who’ve been following since the web-series days. U.S. distributor Neon is positioning the movie as both a love letter to long-time viewers and an accessible entry point for newcomers who may not know why the Rivoli matters, but immediately recognize the pain of two delusional individuals chasing a modest dream way past the point of reason.
“It’s time” on February 13, 2026, when “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” opens in theaters.
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
