New Adam McKay film project starring Robert Pattinson Amy Adams

New Adam McKay film project starring Robert Pattinson, Amy Adams and Robert Downey Jr. at Hollywood Studios

Rob Pattinson, Amy Adams, Robert Downey Jr., Adam McKay, Forest Whitaker, Danielle DeadWyler - Split Getty H 2023.psd

Clockwise from top left: Robert Pattinson, Amy Adams, Robert Downey Jr., Danielle DeadWyler, Forest Whitaker, Adam McKay

Victor Boyko/Getty Images; Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic; Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images; Alberto E Rodriguez/Getty Images; Toni Anne Barson/FilmMagic; Karwai Tang/WireImage

After months of mumbling, the latest A-list ensemble project from The Big Short and Don’t Look Up filmmaker Adam McKay has arrived in Hollywood.

Dubbed Average Height, Average Build, the project is described as part serial killer thriller, part comedy, and follows a killer who sources say uses political lobbyists to change laws to make it easier for him to kill. Like all of McKay’s recent work, the project will address larger socio-political ills – à la the 2008 housing crisis (The Big Short) and the climate crisis (Don’t Look Up) – this time against crime and corruption.

McKay wrote the script and would direct the feature, which hit studio heads’ inboxes this week. Actors already added include Robert Pattinson, Amy Adams, Robert Downey Jr., Forest Whitaker and Danielle Deadwyler. The script asks for many more characters to be filled.

McKay, the filmmaker, has been involved with the project for some time to talk about working on a new script that would deal with “big, dirty money” during a Q&A at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. At the time, he described the project as a comedy.

But despite the star-studded cast and McKay’s enviable track record, the project is facing some headwinds at the studios, some of which have already passed it on while others are taking the time to crunch numbers. Should it go to a streamer, the star-studded cast would require substantial upfront payments, making some hesitant to step in. Insiders at other studios are noting that releasing a dark political comedy is particularly challenging in the current theater landscape. McKay has noted to the studios that the project would appeal to both ends of the political spectrum, but not everyone feels that way. Apple, where McKay has a first-look deal, hasn’t jumped on the project.

The fact that a package that has an Oscar-winning team behind the camera, a filmmaker whose last film received a Best Picture nomination, and that’s populated on screen by awards show regulars and superheroes alike still doesn’t screams “hot package” and is emblematic of the current state of Hollywood. There’s a high level of risk aversion – financial, thematic or otherwise – and even the streamers are less willing to throw around the big bucks they swung around just two years ago to attract A-list talent.

McKay is planning a late summer shoot in Boston. The film does not yet have a studio on board to fund or distribute it. The writer/director has already brought key bottom-line talent on board, including cinematographer Todd Banhazl, who worked on McKay’s HBO series Winning Time.

McKay’s Don’t Look Up starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence with an ensemble cast that included Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance and Tyler Perry. It was nominated for Best Picture, with McKay receiving a nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

The actors so far are newcomers to the McKay school of big comedy, Adams aside. She and McKay previously worked together on McKay’s Dick Cheney film Vice. Pattinson was last seen in The Batman and will next be in Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17. Adams was last seen in the Disney sequel Disenchanted and will next be in Marielle Heller’s horror comedy Nightbitch. Downey is next set to star in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, while Whitaker is currently filming Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. Deadwyler has garnered a lot of attention this awards season for her role as Mamie Till-Mobley on Till.