Watch: Wonderfully Weird Trailer For Will Ferrell’s IFC Comedy Series ‘The Spoils Of Babylon’

So, you know in “Rushmore” how Max Fisher puts on those ambitious, yet awesomely amateur plays, clearly based on ’70s cinema? What if there was a whole comedy series that essentially took that approach and boosted it a few notches? That seems to be the only way to begin describing “The Spoils Of Babylon,” Will Ferrell‘s outrageously over-the-top IFC series that riffs awesomely hard on the sweeping soap operas and dramas of the yore.

Featuring a fantastic cast including a surprisingly game Tobey Maguire, a pudgy Haley Joel Osment, Kristin Wiig, Jessica Alba, Michael Sheen, Val Kilmer and Tim Robbins, the mini-series is based on the fake novel by Eric Jonrosh, and follows the  the oil rich Morehouse family and the orphan Devon Morehouse (Maguire). Devon is taken in while he is young, but ends up going on to run Morehouse Enterprises, the seventh largest company in the world, alongside his step-sister Cynthia (Wiig). Fighting off their feelings for each other, they will also have to deal with the Shah of Iran, who will be played Ferrell.

Director Matt Piedmont cut his teeth on this kind of parody with the underrated “Casa De Mi Padre” (seriously, it’s pretty damn funny) and brings it here, with the trailer revealing all kinds of stylistic nods to varying dramatic genres (the black-and-white drug scene is sorta hilarious), with everyone gleefully chewing the scenery. And best of all, unlike something like “Machete Kills,” this doesn’t look like a one joke premise.

The six part “The Spoils of Babylon” stars on on IFC on January 9, 2014. And yeah, we’ll be watching. [via JoBlo]