BAFTA winner Emma Mackey (Barbie) is set to star opposite new A-listers Glen Powell and Jenna Ortega in J.J. Abrams‘ still-untitled mystery movie for Warner Bros and his Bad Robot, Deadline has learned.
Mackey’s role is under wraps, as is the film’s plot, though we hear it’s not a time-travel film, as some have conjectured. Abrams will direct from his own script, with Bad Robot producing.
A 2023 recipient of BAFTA’s Rising Star Award, Mackey has most recently seen in Greta Gerwig’s Oscar-winning Warner Bros phenom Barbie, prior to that taking on the lead as famed novelist and poet Emily Brontë in Frances O’Connor’s Warner Bros drama Emily. Breaking out with her role as Maeve Wiley on Netflix’s Sex Education, Mackey has also previously been seen in Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile. Upcoming, she’ll star opposite Fiona Shaw, Vicky Krieps and more in the mother-daughter drama Hot Milk, an adaptation of the bestselling novel by Deborah Levy, which marks the directorial debut of Ida and She Said scribe Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Additionally, she plays the title role in James L. Brooks’ new film Ella McCay for 20th Century Studios.
As a director, Abrams’ last film was Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker back in 2019. Recently producing the Amazon MGM documentary The Blue Angels, his Bad Robot’s upcoming slate includes David Robert Mitchell’s Flowervale Street, the drama series Duster for Max, and much more. The company entered negotiations to extend its longstanding film and TV deal with Warner Bros. over the summer.
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Recently, Warner Bros has won a bidding war for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, also launching early development on a Game of Thrones movie and putting in motion an Emily the Strange animated feature. Coming off the release of Clint Eastwood’s Juror No. 2 and holiday tentpole Red One, the studio’s next title on the docket for release is the animated The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim on December 13.
Mackey is represented by CAA, Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole, and Ziffren Brittenham.
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