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EXCLSUVIE: Lil Rel Howery, Janelle James, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Keyla Monterroso Mejia, Maude Apatow, and Emmy Award winning actor and comedian Katt Williams have joined TriStar’s Untitled Buddy Comedy starring Emmy Award winning Keke Palmer and four-time Grammy Award winning musician SZA. Joshua Neal, Aziza Scott and Patrick Cage will also star.
The logline is being kept under wraps. Lawrence Lamont is directing with the screenplay written by Syreeta Singleton. Producing is HOORAE’s Issa Rae and Sara Diya Rastogi, ColorCreative’s Deniese Davis and MACRO Film Studios’ Charles D. King, James Lopez, and Poppy Hanks. Singleton is co-producing. Big Boss’ Palmer and Sharon Palmer are executive producing. MACRO Film Studios is also co-financing the film.
The project came together from the CoCre lab at Sony Pictures. The lab was a previous pact between ColorCreative and Sony Pictures to source and incubate emerging, diverse screenwriters to develop and write their first studio feature based on original ideas.
Howery is continuing to very busy recently starring in Vacation Friends 2, the sequel to the Hulu hit movie where he starred alongside John Cena. Other recent credits include the Oscar-winning film Judas and the Black Messiah, Good Burger 2 and the Christmas comedy Dashing Through the Snow with Ludacris. In 2024, Howery was seen in the critically acclaimed We Grown Now, which earned an Audience Choice Awards at the Chicago International Film Festival. He is set to star in Sony’s Harold and the Purple Crayon this August.
James stars in the Emmy-nominated ABC comedy series, Abbott Elementary. She has received 3 consecutive Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, as well as nominations for Golden Globe, Independent Spirit, Critic’s Choice, and Gotham Awards. James also earned the 2023 NAACP Image Award for “Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series” and a nomination for the Television Critics Association Award for “Individual Achievement in Comedy.” Her latest stand-up special was featured in Season 3 of Netflix’s The Stand Ups.
An original cast member of the Broadway hit Dream Girls, Vanessa Bell Calloway has earned eight NAACP Image Award nominations. She won the NAACP Theater Award for Best Actress for her role as Zora Neale Hurston in her one-woman critically-acclaimed play Letters From Zora. She stars in the NAACP Image Award nominated series The Black Hamptons now streaming on BET and Netflix’s new series The Vince Staples Show, produced by Kenya Barris. She is a producer and co-stars in Wicked City a series on ALLBLK. Vanessa directed, produced and co-starred in Black Girl Erupted, a TV movie streaming on BET & BETHER.
Monterroso Mejia is best known for her scene-stealing—and season-stealing—character Maria Sofia Estrada, on Season 11 of HBO’s award-winning hit comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm from Larry David. Upcoming, Monterroso Mejia will star opposite Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon in You’re Cordially Invited for Amazon, written and directed by Nick Stoller. Monterroso Mejia will star opposite Seth Rogen in The Studio, Apple TV+’s upcoming comedy series from Rogen’s Point Grey. She will also appear in Mindy Kaling’s pro-basketball comedy series Running Point for Netflix.
Apatow currently stars as ‘Lexi Howard’ in HBO’s Euphoria, created by Sam Levinson. It was recently announced that Apatow launched Jewelbox Pictures, a film and television production company alongside creative partner, Olivia Rosenbloom. The company currently has three films in development, the first of which – Poetic License – will mark Apatow’s feature directorial debut. Jewelbox also optioned How to Murder Your Life, written by Cat Marnell. The company is also attached to produce the film Female Friendship, with an eye toward Apatow starring.
With a career spanning over 20 years, Williams his guest role in Atlanta, which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. His most recent project, the comedy horror film The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2, follow-up to the 2016 indie hit Meet the Blacks, stars Williams along with Mike Epps, Snoop Dogg and Danny Trejo. The film earned numerous accolades on opening weekend including: #1 Comedy in North America, #1 highest-grossing new independent film release, and biggest opening for a feature film in less than 1,000 locations since March 2020.\
Neal has worked on HBO’s Black Lady Sketch Show for Robin Thede, and artist Teezo Touchdown. Scott has appeared in TNT’s Murder in the First, HBO’s Insecure, Freeform’s The Fosters, and Showtime’s Twenties. Scott recently was a series regular on Apple+’s Home Before Dark. Cage most recently starred as the antagonist, “Gat” in the second season of the acclaimed MAX series, Rap Sh!t created by Issa Rae and had a recurring role in the 3rd season of Paramount’s Mayor Of Kingstown.
