The Judas and the Black Messiah team is getting back together. Daniel Kaluuya is reuniting with director Shaka King for The Parlay, a new action crime film at Amazon MGM Studios, and Teyana Taylor is circling to join the cast.
According to Deadline say Kaluuya is the driving force bringing King and Taylor together for the project. The film is based on an original spec by Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie, who are revising the script alongside King. Plot details are being kept under wraps.
Producing are HyperObject Industries’ Adam McKay and Todd Schulman, I’d Watch That’s King and Brandon Harris, and Kaluuya’s 59% Productions. The project is a collaboration between Amazon MGM Studios and HyperObject Industries.
Taylor has been on a significant run lately. The Grammy-nominated recording artist, choreographer and filmmaker broke out on screen in 2023’s A Thousand and One and has since appeared in The Rip, All’s Fair, Straw and Scary Movie 6, with the Kevin Hart Netflix film 72 Hours also on the way. She is set to make her feature directorial debut with Paramount’s Get Lite in 2027.
Kaluuya and King previously earned widespread acclaim for Judas and the Black Messiah, which won Kaluuya the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and picked up additional nominations including Best Picture. Beyond The Parlay, Kaluuya has a full slate ahead, including the Chris Rock-directed Misty Green, A24’s Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel, a co-writing credit on Sony’s Spider-Punk and a live-action Barney film he is producing under 59% Productions in partnership with Mattel and A24.
Akers and Bronkie are known for the fictional podcast Limetown, which they adapted into a TV series starring Jessica Biel and Stanley Tucci, as well as the spec Him and the sci-fi thriller Control, currently in post for Studiocanal with James McAvoy starring.