EXCLUSIVE: Following a stellar opening weekend for Weapons, their mystery-horror film from Zach Cregger, which has grossed over $81M worldwide to date, BoulderLight Pictures is out to the town with Last Night Was a Movie, their first TV series, on which they’ve partnered with the hot sketch group Almost Friday, sources tell Deadline.
While we’re told the show is a high-concept comedy, specifics as to its plot are under wraps. At present, multiple buyers are circling, including Netflix, FX, HBO and Peacock, with written offers already said to be in from the latter two. The project originated as an idea from the BoulderLight duo of J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules, which they brought to Almost Friday. Creator credit will go to Tyler Falbo, a comedic multi-hyphenate who serves as creator, lead writer, and director for Almost Friday TV. Benjamin Purdy, President of BoulderLight Television, developed the show with Falbo, as well as Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault, the creators of Netflix’s Peabody Award-winning mockumentary series American Vandal, who will serve as executive producers.
It’s understood that members of the Almost Friday troupe — among them, Billy Langdon, Liam Cullagh, Chet Collins, Eilise Patton, and Will Angus — will be involved in writing and producing the series, though those credits aren’t yet worked out. A&E Studios and Range, in which A&E has a minority stake, will serve as the studio.
Almost Friday Media is a comedy-focused media studio and content network founded in 2019 by brothers Max, Jack, and Sam Barrett in November 2019. The digital-native comedy brand, also comprising a buzzy sketch group, has an interesting origin story, having emerged from the viral Instagram account @friday.beers. Over time, they’ve evolved into a full-fledged production company, expanding to 25+ brands and creators, and delivering over 1.5 billion impressions every quarter to their 25+ million followers.
The driving concept behind Almost Friday is to dish out relatable content that stems from the relationships we have with our friends, capitalizing on a need for coming-of-age comedy by creating communities based around sports, culture, and comedy that are positive and inclusive. In addition to sketch comedy, the company is responsible for numerous podcasts. While still unknown to many, the company and its comedy troupe of the same name have recently emerged as the entity everyone in comedy is talking about. resently, they claim 802k subscribers on YouTube, 601k followers on Instagram, and 694.1k followers on TikTok, where they have 46.2M likes. Already, Falbo has a number of other big projects in the works, with members like Angus being approached for studio acting roles. Meanwhile, Patton was said to be one of two major standouts at a recent L.A. showcase for Saturday Night Live, as we reported exclusively in our Comedy Means Business newsletter.
A rising force in comedy, Falbo has worked behind the scenes to shepherd Almost Friday TV to tens of millions of views on YouTube. Currently, he’s writing an original feature for Warner Bros. under a blind script deal and developing another TV show with Rough House. Previously, he helmed Bill Burr Presents: Immoral Compass, a dark comedy anthology series for Roku TV, which brought its comedian star Burr an Emmy nomination for his performance.
For BoulderLight, Weapons marked a reunion with Cregger on the heels of his breakout project, the 20th horror thriller Barbarian. While only grossing around $45M worldwide, that film was so well received, it led to a heated bidding war for his follow-up, which landed at New Line and delivered, critically and commercially, on its potential as one of this year’s big breakout genre pictures. (Around the same time, New Line committed to releasing Companion, an AI-themed horror thriller released earlier this year, on which Cregger and the BoulderLight duo of J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules were producers.) Starring Julia Garner, Josh Brolin and Alden Ehrenreich, Weapons tells the story of a town left to grapple with the abrupt disappearance of 17 schoolchildren from one teacher’s class in the middle of the night. Already, talks for a prequel, exploring the origins of the malevolent force at the film’s center, are underway.
While BoulderLight’s Margules and Lifshitz have been active as producers for a little over a decade, they’ve really broken through as a heavy-hitter in the genre space within the last few years, with Jason Blum predicting their banner as “the next Blumhouse.” Boasting a first-look deal at New Line, the company also has a real interest in comedy, and is thus a natural fit for a studio that has historically gravitated between their genres of choice. On the comedic side of things, they recently produced the hit A24 film Friendship starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd. Other credits include The Vigil, Becky, and Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut Woman of the Hour. Most recently, they’ve been at work on Buddy, a mysterious indie horror film written and directed by Too Many Cooks helmer Casper Kelly, which stars young up-and-comer Delaney Quinn, Cristin Miloti, and Topher grace. They’ve also of late unveiled a new Amityville movie in development, on which we were first to report, and set up the sci-fi thriller spec Cut Outs at Lew Line.
BoulderLight’s principals are repped by Range and Ziffren Brittenham; Almost Friday by Range.
Falbo is also repped by UTA, which additonally reps Cullagh, Collins, Patton and Angus. Cullagh is also with Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern; Collins with Range; Patton with Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; and Angus by Mosaic and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern.
