Jared Leto, John Mulaney and Lupita Nyong’o to Star in ‘Lunik Heist’

Jared Leto, John Mulaney and Lupita Nyong’o have signed on to star in Lunik Heist, a dramedy caper that Kemp Powers will direct for Searchlight Footage, the Disney-owned division stated Friday.

The script, written by Powers, is impressed by the true story of the American authorities’s plot to steal a Soviet spacecraft throughout a 1959 expo in Mexico Metropolis. The script relies on an article by Jeff Maysh, revealed in MIT Expertise Evaluation.

The occasions noticed the CIA, in wanting to seek out out the scientific capabilities of the Soviets, intercept and abscond with an area probe, examine its secrets and techniques and return it with out the opposite facet realizing what had occurred. The heist remained a secret till it was declassified in 2019.

Leto and Emma Ludbrook are producing beneath their Paradox banner, together with Mark Johnson for Gran Through Productions. Maysh will function an government producer.

In making the mission’s announcement, Searchlight Footage president Matthew Greenfield praised the “extraordinary skills of Jared, Lupita, and John” and “visionary Kemp,”  describing Lunik Heist as “a wild, roller-coaster trip, stuffed with subterfuge and unlikely heroes.”

Director of growth Zahra Phillips will oversee the mission for Searchlight Footage, reporting to move of manufacturing and growth DanTram Nguyen.

The gamers behind the mission have loads of statuettes and frameworthy certificates between them.

Powers beforehand labored as a director on the acclaimed animated movies Spider-Man: Throughout the Spider-Verse and Pixar’s Soul, which received the perfect animated Oscar in 2021. He penned One Evening in Miami…, adapting his 2013 stage play of the identical identify, and earned a greatest tailored screenplay Oscar nomination within the course of.

Leto earned the Oscar for greatest supporting actor for his efficiency in Dallas Consumers Membership. His latest credit embrace Blade Runner 2049, The Little Issues, and Home of Gucci. He subsequent stars in Tron: Ares.

Mulaney is a three-time Emmy Award, Critics Alternative award and WGA award-winning author, comic and actor. A former author on Saturday Evening Stay, he has hosted the present 5 instances, and can make his sixth look this weekend.

Nyong’o received an Academy Award for her efficiency in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave launched by Searchlight Footage. She not too long ago voiced the lead in DreamWorks Animation’s hit The Wild Robotic and starred on this summer season’s A Quiet Place: Day One. She made her Broadway debut in Eclipsed and can subsequent be seen as Viola within the Public Theater’s manufacturing of The Twelfth Evening.

Powers is repped by WME, Media Expertise Group and Johnson Shapiro. Leto and Mulaney are repped by WME, whereas Nyong’o is repped by CAA, and Del Shaw.