After smashing Sundance with its horror breakout hit “Together” starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie, the Melbourne-based company Princess Pictures is poised to expand its footprint in the feature film arena with a raft of bold projects boasting award-winning talent and creatives.
The banner’s inaugural live-action feature film slate includes “Stillwater,” a crime thriller produced with “Animal Kingdom” filmmaker David Michôd, actor Joel Edgerton and producer Brad Zimmerman (“The Outfit”); as well as Michael Shanks’s follow up to “Together,” “Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel,” which is based on his Black List script and produced with “Don’t Look Up” filmmaker Adam McKay’s outfit; and “Axis of Impersonators,” a timely documentary feature with producer/directors Alexis Spraic (“Shadow Billionaire”) and Nick Cole.
“Stillwater” is based on the first novel of Tanya Scott, a doctor and medical educator turned writer with years of experience working in mental health care. The story revolves around Jack Quinn, whose mother died of an overdose when he was eight, and his father was an armed robber. After being groomed since childhood by Gus, a brutal crime boss who recruited him, Jack gets out and grows a new identity, becoming Luke Harris. But as he puts himself through university and aims for a real future, Luke is confronted with his part as Gus resurfaces.
“‘Stillwater’ is like a bildungsroman (German literary term for coming-of-age-story), set against the backdrop of Melbourne’s crime world,” says former Black Bear executive Christopher Casanova who joined the company 18 months ago as head of content. “It’s a fantastic read that grabbed us and grabbed Joel and David (Michôd) and David’s partner, Brad Zimmerman, and felt like an organic opportunity for two of them just to lock arms again as the ‘Animal Kingdom’ team reuniting to herald a new arrival in this space as producers, not as director and star,” continued Casanova, whose strategic hire signals Princess Pictures’ ambitions in the feature film space.
Casanova, who oversaw films such as “Dumb Money” starring Paul Dano and Seth Rogen and “Immaculate” starring Sydney Sweeney while at Black Bear, hopes “Stillwater” will be “a magnet to attract an exciting emerging filmmaker.”
Speaking to Variety alongside Princess Pictures founder Laura Waters, executive producer Mike Cowap and managing director Emma Fitzsimons, Casanova said the 22-year old company is quietly building a director-driven slate with over 30 projects on the series side and about a dozen strong in features. The banner is aiming to produce one or two films a year alongside two to three series.
While spreading a wide gamut, the different projects set up at Princess Pictures have in common the fact that they’re “boundary-pushing, and have a unique and original voice,” says Waters, who founded Princess in 2003 and notably produced all six of Chris Lilley’s popular series for ABC, BBC, HBO and Netflix.
“Nine times out of 10, it’s a project from creator or a writer or an artist who we really believe in and want to back. It has to be them, that voice and their idea, and then it illuminates for the audience a different way of looking at the world,” says Waters.
Up until recently, Princess was mainly known as a hip producer of primetime animated series skewing adults, such as the Hulu/Disney+ series “Koala Man,” featuring Hugh Jackman and Sarah Snook, as well as three seasons of “Yolo: Crystal Fantasy” for Adult Swim and Max which Cowap produced via the company’s label Princess Bento.
“Together,” which marked Princess’s first feature film, sold to Neon in one of the festival’s biggest deals and will be released theatrically on July 30.
Alison Brie and Dave Franco in Together
Ben King
“‘Together’ is an incredible debut from a really unique voice in Michael Shanks and it certainly has opened up a lot of doors for us, as has Chris Casanova’s fantastic reputation and Rolodex over in Hollywood as well,” says Cowap, who produced “Together” and has now joined forces with Casanova to build the company’s slate.
“We’re well poised to capitalize on that and hopefully work with talent that otherwise we might not have had access to before, and perhaps work with budgets that we haven’t been trusted with before as well,” Cowap continued.
As such, Princess will be reuniting with Shanks on his next project, “Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel.” Pitched by Cowap as a “mystery box thriller,” the story revolves around a man wakes up trapped in a mysterious hotel room. “All alone in a mind-bending prison, his only chance for escape is through teamwork… with himself,” reads the synopsis. Princess is producing it Adam McKay’s Hyperobject (“Succession”) and is expecting to start shooting in early 2026.
While the cast has not yet been assembled, Cowap teases that “it’s an incredible role because it’s about somebody who ends up playing across from multiple versions of themselves.”
Since joining the company, Casanova says he’s been focusing his efforts on finding projects that feel like an “organic extension” of Princess’s strong brand and sensibility, “whether it’s a high concept rom-com or a hard-edged comedy, or something else that’s sitting in the genre or horror space.” Yet, the exec is also interested in exploring “newer territory” for Princess.
The outfit is, for instance, producing the feature documentary “Axis of Impersonators” with Spraic and Coles with financial support from Screen Australia, Vicscreen and private investment.
The doc tells the true story of how a Kim Jong-Un impersonator teams up with a Putin impersonator to rescue a Zelensky impersonator from Kyiv after the Ukraine war starts. “Humor and intrigue drives their high octane escape, but at the heart of this story is a larger than life depiction of the precariousness of refugee life and choosing between home, safety and livelihood,” the synopsis reads.
The husband-and-wife filmmaking duo behind “Avis of Impersonators” have an “incredible track record of being able to talk about really provocative ideas and bigger themes, but through comedy and through those interviews, reenactment,” says Waters.
The outfit has also produced series for TikTok, Audible and YouTube, and has been ahead of the curve in terms of sourcing promising content creators and bringing them to deliver longer narrative formats.
One of these YouTube breakout talent is Michael Cusack, the creator and director of cult Adult Swim animated series “YOLO,” “Smiling Friends” and “Koala Man.” Princess is now working on a fourth show with him. Another example are Theo and Nathan Saidden, two Australian brothers who form the YouTube duo known as Superwog. They’re writing, directing and producing a new comedy series called “Son of a Donkey” for Netflix.
“What we’ve done incredibly well is finding talent and making sure we’ve always got our finger on the pulse of YouTube and other social media platforms but particularly the YouTube because a lot of times that’s where audiences is watching content and you can see what’s popular and you can see the trends,” Cowap points out, adding that streamers and broadcasters are increasingly keen to work with these YouTube talent because they have a large audience following them.
Even Shanks was born on YouTube. He’s been making content for the platform since he was 18, Cowap says. “He dropped out of film school so that he could make this YouTube show that proved very popular. By the time he got to make his first feature, he was just a ‘Swiss army knife’ of a filmmaker because he had to do everything himself,” says the producer.
The company sees itself as “genre-agnostic,” says Cowap, because they “fall for brilliant people first and worry about what content, what genre, what format they want to make second.”
“Whilst we’re very much open to new things and really actively searching, it’s not at the expense of losing the relationships that we already have. It’s just leading to growth,” he says, pointing to recurring collaborations with filmmakers such as Chris Lilley, Shanks and more recently Cusack whom he as “the hottest name in animation in LA” even though he’s “from the middle of nowhere in Australia.”
Princess Pictures has been mainly working with talent and co-producers across the U.S. and U.K., including Brooke Posch, Andrew Mittman, John Hodge, Hyperobject, and Ruff House, as well as Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow Productions. They also acquired a Dublin-based animation studio, Boulder Media, from from Hasbro in 2022.
Going forward, Casanova says the company is also seeking build bridges with “creators and creatives out of the U.S. and the U.K. as well as trying to connect the dots on international opportunities, co-productions and co-ventures.”
Although “Together” has largely been a success story, the movie was recently plagued by a controversy as its actors and co-producers Brie and Dave Franco were hit with allegations of copyright infringement which they have denied.
“Everything that’s happened with ‘Together’ has been just a dream come true,” Cowap said as he addressed the issue. “Of course, for that (controversy) to happen has been a little challenging in an otherwise dream run, but it’s something that I think we’ve easily been able to put behind us now and particularly when Shanks and Neon came out and did their statements and hopefully covered it all off.”
Next up, Princess Pictures has a horror feature going into production in August, and a romantic comedy feature which will shoot at the end of the year or early 2026. The company’s development slate, meanwhile, includes a feminist body horror feature which is a remake of a classic Ausploitation title.
“Stillwater” will hit stands in the U.S. on Aug. 12 with Grove Atlantic publishing. It will be published in Australia by Allen & Unwin on July 29. Scott is represented by UTA and Tom Gilliatt at A4 Literary.
