Hugh Jackman, Emma Thompson, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine & More To Star In Amazon MGM Comedy ‘Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Movie’

Amazon MGM Studios has locked in a starry cast for Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Movie, a live-action comedy directed by animation veteran Kyle Balda (Minions: The Rise of Gru).

Hugh Jackman (The Greatest Showman) leads an ensemble that also includes Emma Thompson (Matilda the Musical), Nicholas Braun (Succession), Nicholas Galitzine (The Idea of You), Molly Gordon (Theater Camp), Hong Chau (The Whale), Tosin Cole (Supacell), Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (Wonka), Conleth Hill (Game of Thrones) and Mandeep Dhillon (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker).

An adaptation of Leonie Swann’s international bestseller, scripted by Craig Mazin (The Last of Us), the film follows George Hardy (Jackman), a shepherd who loves his sheep and raises them only for their wool. Every night he reads aloud a murder mystery, pretending his sheep can understand, never suspecting that not only can they understand but they argue for hours afterwards about whodunnit. When George is found dead under mysterious circumstances, the sheep realize at once that it was a murder and think they know everything about how to go about solving it. The local cop Tim Derry (Braun), on the other hand, has never solved a serious crime in his life, so the sheep conclude they will have to solve it themselves, even if it means leaving their meadow for the first time and facing the fact that the human world isn’t as simple as it appears in books.

Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Movie will be produced by Lindsay Doran and Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. Executive producers are Phil Lord, Chris Miller, Aditya Sood, and Tim Wellspring. Pic’s slated for release exclusively in theaters worldwide on February 20, 2026.

Marking Swann’s debut novel, Three Bags Full was published in Germany in 2005 under its original title Glennkill. The book became an instant hit, leading the German bestseller charts for months and winning Swann the prestigious Glauser Prize for crime fiction in the debut category, as well as a PETA Award. The author has published seven books in total, including several more murder mysteries.

Best known for his work on such hit animated features as Minions: The Rise of Gru, Despicable Me 3 and Minions, Balda with Three Bags Full makes his live-action feature debut.

Known for creating, co-writing, and executive producing HBO’s The Last of Us alongside Neil Druckmann, Mazin prior to that created, wrote and produced the premium cabler’s Emmy-winning miniseries Chernobyl. Before breaking out in drama, he was primarily known for his writing on such comedic features as Scary Movie 3 & 4, The Hangover Part II & III, and Identity Thief.

Jackman is repped by WME and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern; Thompson by Hamilton Hodell and CAA; Braun by UTA, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman; Galitzine by the U.K.’s Curtis Brown Group, WME, Anonymous Content, and Gang, Tyre, Ramer; Gordon by WME and Gang, Tyre, Ramer; Chau by CAA and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; Cole by Curtis Brown, CAA, Sherpa, and Johnson, Shapiro, Slewett & Cole; Holdbrook-Smith by Independent Talent and ColorCreative; Hill by B-Side Management and Kipperman Management; Dhillon by CAA and Conway Van Gelder; Mazin by CAA and attorney Gretchen Rush; Swann by Agentur Poppenhusen, in cooperation with Created By and Paul & Peter Fritz AG; and Balda by UTA and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols.