Daniel Radcliffe In Weird: The Al Yankovic

When the streaming platform Roku first announced that Daniel Radcliffe had been cast as Weird Al Yankovic in the  upcoming biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, many may not have known what to expect. But given the streamer’s maiden upfront presentation this week and a new Weird teaser, there’s little question about the sort of energy director Eric Appel’s going for.

At one point in Yankovic’s 1989 film UHF, Yankovic performs a parody of Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo character due to Stallone himself backing out of a planned cameo. In order to imitate Stallone’s physique for the film, Yankovic donned an oiled-up muscle costume that didn’t look anything near as realistic as it did. Though Weird’s trailer doesn’t mention UHF or Stallone by name, Radcliffe does somehow manage to create the concept of a beefy Yankovic the moment he pulls his shirt off on stage in front of a cheering crowd.

Weird was just one of several future projects Roku pushed up during its inaugural upfronts. It has also unveiled Zoe Lister-Jones’ Slip and a new season of The Great American Baking Show. Though Roku’s slate of future content makes it seem as if the streamer is  keeping its choices open in terms of what kind of movies and shows it wants to become known for, its goal for OneView, its advertising platform, looks to be a lot more concentrated. According to the business, Roku’s OneView ad platform will soon offer shops the ability to combine shoppable advertisements with Roku Pay, the payment channel via which users can now purchase content.

The Al Yankovic Story will premiere on the Roku Channel in the fall of this year.