Natasha Rothwell and Tone Bell have joined the cast of The Streak, a sports comedy marking Lion Forge Entertainment’s first entry into live-action film. Ed Helms leads the project, which has wrapped production and also stars Nina Dobrev, Peter Billingsley, and comedian Joe DeRosa.
The film is based on the true story of Coach Oliver Eslinger and the 2011 Caltech men’s basketball team as they attempt to break the longest losing streak in NCAA history. Helms plays Eslinger, a first-time head coach who takes over a program that hadn’t won a conference game in more than three decades, working to convince a group of academically brilliant but athletically challenged students that one win could be the start of something bigger. Steve Byrne, who made his directorial debut with The Opening Act, wrote and directed the film, which shot in St. Louis and the surrounding areas.
The project is a notable step for Lion Forge Entertainment, which won an Oscar for the animated short Hair Love in 2020 and is one of the few Black-owned entertainment studios of scale in North America. The Streak marks the company’s formal expansion beyond animation into commercial, all-audience live-action storytelling, a push that comes on the heels of a recent capital raise and a run of new partnerships spanning animation with George R.R. Martin, a YouTube series expansion with TalesVision, two Netflix films, and content deals with Scouting America and Rebel Girls. For a studio built primarily in animated spaces, landing a cast this recognizable for its live-action debut signals real ambition behind that expansion.
Ed Helms and producing partner Mike Falbo are producing through their Pacific Electric banner, alongside Tim Zajaros and Chris Lemole of Armory Films, and Lion Forge Entertainment founder and CEO Dave Steward II and president and chief creative officer Stephanie Sperber. Lion Forge financed the film alongside Same Page Entertainment, with co-founder and CEO Jalen Rose executive producing. Byrne said in a statement that Helms was always his vision for the role, citing the authenticity and warmth he brings to the story, while Steward II described the project as exactly the kind of commercial, four-quadrant film the studio is focused on as it scales its live-action business.
Rothwell, known for her role on White Lotus, and Bell, known for The Flash, join a cast that’s quietly become one of the more interesting ensembles in this year’s sports comedy slate, built around a true story that’s spent over a decade trying to find its way to screen.