Daniel Kaluuya is reteaming with Judas and the Black Messiah director Shaka King for the Amazon MGM Studios and HyperObject Industries feature The Parlay, with Teyana Taylor circling to star. The action crime thriller is written by Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie,
When an Oscar-winning team starts lining up for a new thriller, you can feel the industry attention swing before anyone even says what the story is.
Daniel Kaluuya is reteaming with his Judas and the Black Messiah director, Shaka King, for Amazon MGM Studios and HyperObject Industries’ feature The Parlay. Teyana Taylor is also circling to star in the project.
Judas and the Black Messiah—King’s Oscar-winning effort starring Kaluuya—earned six Oscar nominations and won two. It also produced the H.E.R. original song “Fight for You.” Now, the same creative reunion is being pulled toward a new kind of suspense.
The Parlay is based on an original spec by Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie, with Akers, Bronkie, and King revising. The plot remains secret, but the project is being billed as an action crime thriller.
Kaluuya, Adam McKay, and Todd Schulman are set to produce the film. HyperObject Industries’ Adam McKay and Todd Schulman are producing alongside Kaluuya, and the rest of the production slate is tied to their shared pipeline of projects.
For Kaluuya, The Parlay sits among an increasingly crowded slate. He will next be seen in the Chris Rock-directed Misty Green and is also starring in A24 film Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel. which is also produced by Hyperobject. He is co-writing a Spider-Punk film for Sony Pictures Animation after voicing the scene-stealing Spider-Punk in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Under his 59% Productions banner, Kaluuya is producing a live-action Barney movie in partnership with Mattel and A24.
His international breakthrough came with the Oscar. BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominated leading turn in Jordan Peele’s Oscar-winning smash hit Get Out. His other notable credits include Jordan Peele’s Nope. Steve McQueen’s Widows. Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario. Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror. Lena Waithe’s Queen & Slim and Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther.
Teyana Taylor’s involvement adds a different kind of momentum. She is a Grammy nominated recording artist as well as a choreographer, filmmaker, and actress. She broke out in 2023’s A Thousand and One.
Her recent on-screen work includes The Rip (Netflix), All’s Fair (Hulu), Straw (Netflix), Scary Movie 6 (Paramount) and the upcoming Kevin Hart film 72 Hours (Netflix). Taylor is also preparing to make her feature directorial debut with Paramount’s Get Lite, due out in theaters in 2027.
Akers and Bronkie—who created the original spec for The Parlay—come with a track record built around uneasy tension and sharp pacing. They’re known for their fictional podcast Limetown. which they adapted as a TV series of the same name starring Jessica Biel and Stanley Tucci. They also wrote the movie Him, which originally sold competitively as a spec and was released theatrically by Universal. Their original sci-fi thriller Control is now in post for Studiocanal, with James McAvoy starring and Robert Schwentke directing.
Shaka King is returning for this project after developing a string of notable work under the same production-minded approach. He is repped by WME, Redefine Entertainment and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson & Christopher.
HyperObject Industries, meanwhile, continues to expand its roster across major studio partnerships. The company is behind Netflix’s Don’t Look Up, Searchlight’s The Menu, and Netflix’s hit thriller Thrash from writer director Tommy Wirkola, starring Phoebe Dynevor.
The HyperObject Industries team includes McKay’s long-time producer Kevin Messick, and producers Schulman, Betsy Koch, and Maeve Cullinane. Messick and McKay are currently in production with the John Lee Hancock Netflix courtroom drama surrounding the U.S. chemical company Monsanto. starring Jonathan Bailey. Laura Dern. LaKeith Stanfield. Julia McDermott. David Duchovny. Melonie Diaz. Bilal Hasna and Greg Kinnear. Koch is in production in Panos Cosmatos’ Flesh of the Gods, starring Kristen Stewart and Wagner Moura.
On the business side, Kaluuya is represented by WME, B-Side Management and Johnson Shapiro Slewett Kole, while Taylor is represented by WME and Taylormade Management. Akers and Bronkie are represented by WME and Ziffren Brittenham, and King’s representation is listed separately.
For now, The Parlay’s core hook is the one detail the industry can’t stop circling: an action crime thriller built from the same creative orbit—Kaluuya and Shaka King—now joined by Teyana Taylor.
Daniel Kaluuya Shaka King The Parlay Teyana Taylor Amazon MGM Studios HyperObject Industries action crime thriller Zack Akers Skip Bronkie