Dylan O’Brien (Send Help) is set to star in James Morosini’s erotic thriller Bulls, alongside Lewis Pullman (Thunderbolts*) and Kaia Gerber (Bottoms), we can reveal.
Yvette Zhuang and Zach Glueck, co-CEOs of Manifest Pictures, are launching the project ahead of the Cannes market.
Written and directed by Morosini, a SXSW winner for I Love My Dad, the film is being financed and produced by QC Entertainment (Get Out). Roth/Kirschenbaum Films (Fast X), producers of Sony Pictures’ box office hit Anyone But You, is producing.
Manifest Pictures is handling international rights. CAA Media Finance, WME Independent and QC Entertainment will co-rep domestic sales. Shooting is set to get underway before the end of the year.
Bulls will follow Danny (O’Brien), “a man who has spent thirty years apologizing for existing. With his relationship cracking, he books a last-ditch trip to a hedonistic island resort, hoping to come back as someone his girlfriend can finally believe in. But his lonely escape detonates when a hookup with Ava, a married woman (Gerber), puts him on a collision course with her alpha male husband Marco (Pullman).
“As Danny is drawn deeper into Ava’s dangerous and intoxicating world of sex, power, and psychological games he quickly realizes getting caught by Marco is only the beginning.”
Morosini, who was most recently enlisted to write and EP a forthcoming adaptation of his Black List horror script Mommy’s Home for Lionsgate. Universal also picked up Morosini’s elevated comedy spec Inner Child, with the project being adapted for the Lego universe. As an actor, he most recently starred in It’s What’s Inside, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and sold to Netflix in a $17M deall.
QC Entertainment partners Sean McKittrick, Raymond Mansfield and Edward H. Hamm Jr. said: “We’ve been looking for the right opportunity to collaborate with James for some time. He brings a bold, fearless sensibility to character and tension, and Bulls immediately stood out as a project with both strong commercial potential and a singular creative voice. We’re excited to finance and produce the film and help bring James’ vision to audiences.”
“James Morosini has crafted a provocative and unpredictable thriller that demands your attention. It demanded ours from page one! Elevated, yet crowd pleasing – and with this stellar cast – it’s a film we know will stick with audiences and create conversation,” commented Zack Roth of Roth/Kirschenbaum.
Morosini added: “I wrote Bulls because it’s the type of film I would cancel my plans to go see in cinemas. It’s mischievous, twisty, turn-y, and most of all it’s sexy.”
“James has crafted a loud, transgressive erotic thriller that speaks directly to today’s theatrical audience—one that’s embraced provocative hits from Wuthering Heights and The White Lotus to Saltburn and The Housemaid,” noted Zhuang and Glueck of Manifest Pictures. “With his sharp, distinctive voice and an incredible next-gen cast, Bulls will have audiences gasping, laughing, screaming and talking long after the credits roll.”
O’Brien is repped by WME, Principal Entertainment LA, and Lichter, Grossman; Gerber is repped by CAA, Entertainment 360, and Sloane, Offer; Pullman is repped by CAA and Anonymous Content. Morosini is repped by CAA, Range Media Partners, and Goodman, Genow.
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