Latest in Janicza Bravo

Editors note: Deadline's Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year's movie awards race. Since the birth of cinema, movies have adapted plays and books for source material. In recent years, comic books, video games and even podcasts have inspired feature…

The heroine of Zola – the unique, Twitter-chain inspired film about a hastily arranged raunchy road trip – was drawn in part from The Wizard of Oz, director Janicza Bravo said during a panel at Deadline's Contenders Film: New York event Saturday. The pic is about a girl who craves adventure, leaves a boring pale life…

Zola helmer Janicza Bravo has been tapped to direct and executive produce FX pilot Kindred, an adaptation of Octavia E. Butler's influential novel, with newcomer Mallori Johnson set to star. The project hails from writer Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Watchmen), Courtney Lee-Mitchell (The Reluctant Fundamentalist), Darren…

The biblical story of Jesus is considered by many “the greatest story ever told”. In fact, it is so much so that there was a whole movie about the big J titled The Greatest Story Ever Told. Well, if there were a Twitter equivalent of the greatest story ever told, it would definitely be the Janicza Bravo-directed Zola…

Teasing a theatrical release with an energy reminiscent of previous A24 releases like Spring Breakers and Uncut Gems (with a dash of The Florida Project), the specialty distributor has uncorked the trailer for Zola. The 2020 Sundance competition title, which was originally slated for a summer 2020 debut before…

EXCLUSIVE: Annapurna has teamed with Janicza Bravo, the writer and director behind the forthcoming Zola, to write and direct a series adaptation of Ian Parker's New Yorker article A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deceptions, which has Jake Gyllenhaal attached to star. Published in February 2019, Parker's story explores…

In 2015, a 148-word Twitter thread took the internet by storm. The tweets hailed from A’ziah King, a then 20-year Hooters waitress who had a chance encounter with a stripper named Jessica led to a wild 2-day Flordia trip that included prostitution, murder, and a violent pimp, who went by Z. “What drew me most was her…

EXCLUSIVE: Jason Mitchell, last seen on the big screen in Sony’s SuperFly remake, is attached to co-star in the stripper saga film, Zola, which is set-up at A24. Janicza Bravo is directing the pic, which is based on a series of tweets from Aziah ‘Zola’ Wells who, in 2015, detailed a wild 2-day Flordia trip with a sex…

After stoking audiences and critics at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Janicza Bravo’s  feature directorial comedy debut Lemon has been picked up by Magnolia Pictures for North American distribution. The film plays SXSW tonight and Magnolia will open the film later this year. Bravo co-wrote Lemon with her husband B…

Meet 40-year old Isaac Lachmann, a struggling actor who is struggling with life. His career is tanking amid directing a small theater production of The Seagull. His family is tired of him and to make matters worse, his blind girlfriend of 10 years can’t even stand to be in the same room as him. Deadline’s sister…

Brett Gelman is toplining Lemon, an indie drama he co-wrote with Janicza Bravo, who made her feature helming debut on the project. Burn Later Productions and Killer Films are producing and the pic just wrapped principal photography. The cast includes Gelman’s Married co-star Judy Greer , Michael Cera, Nia Long, Fred…