EXCLUSIVE: Black Bear is about to distribute and produce Jonah, a function adaptation of the acclaimed Off-Broadway play by Rachel Bonds, to star Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Greta Lee (Previous Lives).
After directing the stage manufacturing, which earned each an Obie Award and a Lucille Lortel Award for efficiency, and a Drama League Award nomination, Tony Award winner Danya Taymor is about to get behind the digicam for her function directorial debut.
Cooper Hoffman, the Golden Globe nominee contemporary off Gregg Araki’s I Need Your Intercourse, can be set to star, as are Lee’s Late Fame co-star Edmund Donovan and Hagan Oliveras, who reprises the titular position he held Off-Broadway. Manufacturing is about to start in September.
In Jonah, when a flood of reminiscences forces Ana (Lee) to revisit the defining relationships of her life, she should confront the reality behind the tales she’s lengthy informed herself. Spanning 20 years and three transformative relationships, the movie is billed as a haunting portrait of affection, trauma, and resilience that explores how we make sense of the experiences that form us.
The present world premiered on the Laura Pels Theatre in New York Metropolis in February 2024, wrapping up a restricted engagement the next month. Bonds tailored the screenplay, with Oscar winner Tom McCarthy and Rae Baron set to provide through Gradual Pony. Holding worldwide rights, Black Bear will launch the movie domestically and introduce the undertaking to worldwide patrons at TIFF.
Michael Heimler, Black Bear’s President of Productions and Operations, commented: “Jonah is the uncommon story that feels each deeply private and universally resonant. Rachel and Danya have crafted an unforgettable exploration of reminiscence, intimacy, and survival that’s as emotionally highly effective as it’s cinematic. Greta Lee is the right actor to carry Ana’s journey to life, and we’re thrilled to welcome this extraordinary movie to Black Bear’s slate.”
Rae Baron, Head of Growth and Manufacturing at Gradual Pony, shared: “I first noticed Jonah throughout its Off-Broadway run and instantly felt it needed to be a movie. Rachel’s writing is awfully grounded and accessible but particular, and the play’s development is as formidable as it’s shifting — Danya Taymor’s signature. We’ve been decided to carry Jonah to the display ever since, and we’re thrilled to be partnering with Black Bear and the fantastic Greta Lee and Cooper Hoffman to carry Rachel and Danya’s imaginative and prescient to audiences worldwide.”
A screenwriter and author for scripted podcasts, in addition to a playwright, Bonds gained the Laurents/Hatcher Basis Award for Jonah in 2024. Additionally a recipient of the L. Arnold Weissberger Award, the Sky Cooper Prize, and the Heideman Award, her different current initiatives embrace The Lonely Few, with music and lyrics by Zoe Sarnak, which ran at MCC Theater and The Geffen Playhouse, and the Audible scripted collection The Boar’s Nest, starring Mandy Moore. She is repped by CAA, Curate, and Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz.
Two years in the past, Taymor turned the youngest lady ever to win the Tony Award for Greatest Course of a Musical for her work on The Outsiders. She most not too long ago earned a Tony nom for Greatest Course of a Play for John Proctor Is the Villain, starring Sadie Sink, which is now in improvement as a function at Common with Taymor hooked up to direct. Her upcoming theater work consists of directing the Off-Broadway revival of Spring Awakening and Born within the Filth at Lincoln Middle Theater, the place she reunites with Tony-nominated playwright Kimberly Belflower. She is repped by CAA and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
Lee earned Golden Globe and Unbiased Spirit Award nominations for her breakthrough efficiency in Celine Track’s Academy Award-nominated A24 romantic drama Previous Lives. Presently, she could be seen starring reverse Wagner Moura in The Final Home, the Netflix horror movie from Louis Leterrier that introduced the streamer its fifth-biggest unique movie opening of the 12 months. She’s additionally in theaters in the mean time with Late Fame, the lauded Magnolia Footage drama from Kent Jones, the place she stars reverse Willem Dafoe. Upcoming, she has the third movie within the animated Spider-Verse franchise, in addition to The Eyes Are the Greatest Half, an adaptation of the Monika Kim horror bestseller that she’s tackling for Searchlight as writer-director. She is repped by UTA, Leisure 360, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
Black Bear, the embellished indie studio behind titles like Practice Desires and Sing Sing, launched its U.S. distribution enterprise in July 2025, increasing a multinational theatrical enterprise that was already an trade chief within the U.Okay., Eire, and Canada, the place subsidiary Elevation Footage is the highest unbiased theatrical distributor. Subsequent up, on Oct. 23, they’re set to launch Wicker, a genre-bending comedic fable starring Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, and Peter Dinklage.
Hoffman is repped by WME; Donovan by UTA, Leisure 360, and Lichter Grossman Nichols; Oliveras by Artists & Representatives and Mara Leisure; and Gradual Pony by Gersh. Gersh and UTA Unbiased Movie Group repped the filmmakers within the negotiation with Black Bear.
