Janicza Bravo’s ‘PRƎPPY’ to Star Kit Connor and Diana Silvers — ‘Zola’ Filmmaker’s First Feature Since 2020

UPDATE: A week later, Deadline has picked up my previous intel and added some casting news into the mix. Kit Connor — who will play Cyclops in the next X-Men movie — has signed on to star opposite Diana Silvers (“Booksmart”) in PRƎPPY — yes, that’s how the film is titled.

EARLIER: It’s been six years since Janicza Bravo last directed a feature, with her acclaimed 2020 black comedy “Zola” marking her most recent film behind the camera. Since then, Bravo has remained busy with television, directing episodes of “Atlanta,” “The Resort,” and “The Bear.”

Bravo’s return to the big screen has proved elusive. That may finally be changing, however, as while her Martha Stewart biopic, starring Cate Blanchett, remains in development, a Production Weekly listing hints at Bravo entering production on a whole other film, and soon.

Bravo is set to direct “Preppy,” which starts shooting on September 21 in New York City.

Based on the infamous 1986 “Preppy Murder,” two young women unknowingly fall for the same charming, dangerous man during a sweltering New York summer. When one is found murdered in Central Park, the sensational case ignites a media firestorm over sex, privilege, and victims’ rights.

This is great news, as “Zola” was a promising debut. That film followed a Detroit stripper who agrees to join a new friend on a road trip to Tampa, only to discover that the trip is actually part of a dangerous prostitution scheme concocted by an outlandish pimp (Colman Domingo, batsh*t crazy in his best performance).

Bravo’s film was actually based on a viral 2015 Twitter thread, and she turned that chaotic 48-hour story into a highly stylish, relentlessly outrageous film.