EXCLUSIVE: Two-time Academy Award nominee Melissa McCarthy is in talks to star in Turpentine, a new thriller directed by The Penguin and Mare of Easttown‘s Craig Zobel, Deadline has learned.
Based on a script by Justin Varava that made the 2024 Black List, Turpentine follows a deadbeat son who hires friends to rob his own parents to pay off a bookie, with disastrous results.
T-Street and ShivHans Pictures are set to produce.
The recipient of multiple Emmys and a pair of Oscar nominations, McCarthy will next be seen starring opposite Clive Owen in Unspeakable: The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey on Paramount+. Upcoming, she’ll also be heard voicing a lead role opposite Tony winner Cole Escola in Warner Bros. Pictures Animation’s Margie Claus. She is repped by CAA and Mgmt Entertainment.
Zobel is a filmmaker who broke out with films like Compliance and Z for Zachariah before making his way to prestige television, with credits on The Leftovers, American Gods, Westworld, Mare of Easttown, and The Penguin. A DGA Award and three-time Emmy nominee, he also helmed the satirical horror film The Hunt starring Betty Gilpin and Hilary Swank. He is repped by CAA, Entertainment 360, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman’s T-Street is coming off of Wake Up Dead Man, the third film in their Knives Out franchise. Upcoming, they have Sony Pictures Classics’ The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, starring John Turturro, and Neon’s A Place in Hell, starring Michelle Williams and Daisy Edgar-Jones.
Recent credits for ShivHans Pictures include Ice Road: Vengeance, The Wedding Banquet, Winner, and The Assessment.
Varava is repped by CAA and Untitled Entertainment.
