Paul Rudd in the 1981 film Wet Hot American Summer.

The original cast of Wet Hot American Summer return to Camp Firewood for more wild antics in a new eight-part Netflix series made as a prequel to the 2001 film, which initially flopped before gaining a cult following.

Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp sees the counsellors and campers at the start of summer 1981. The original film, which did not fare so well at the box office nor with critics upon release, was set on the last day of that year's summer camp.

Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce and Bradley Cooper reprise their old roles and are joined by new faces such as Kristen Wiig and John Hamm.

Rudd, 46, currently in cinemas as superhero Ant-Man, said audiences can expect “more ridiculousness”.

“It’s just the right amount of absurd and silliness,” he said in a video handout of the series premiere in New York. “It was just such a cool thing to go back and re-enter that whole world... It’s a great thing to revisit.”

A trailer for the Netflix series gives a taste of the chaotic scenes at the camp starting with Rudd's character Andy making an entrance on a motorbike.

“The first movie tanked so bad when it first came out, then people started to discover it and it became this proprietary thing that people showed each other,” the film’s director and series co-creator David Wain said.

“It kept growing and growing through word of mouth over the years, it's so gratifying.”

Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp launches on Netflix on Friday.