The Studio That Brought You Happiest Season Is Putting Clea DuVall In The Director’s Chair Again
Photo by Emma McIntyre/WireImage
Clea DuVall is back at it, this time she’s set to direct a “female-driven adventure comedy” from Tristar Pictures, the studio that brought us Happiest Season.
Whether you loved or hated the holiday romp Happiest Season, it is undoubtedly a queer classic, marking one of the few queer mainstream holiday movies to emerge from the ubiquitous genre. Clea DuVall gave us queer Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, and Aubrey Plaza all wrapped up in a shiny gay bow, and “should Abby and Harper have stayed together” is one of my favorite no-stakes “arguments” to have amongst any given gaggle of gays.
Clea DuVall’s newest venture is currently called Abbi and the Eighth Wonder, and it’s an original screenplay by Matt Roller, whose writing credits include but are not limited to Community and Speechless, two shows I personally found hilarious. Not a lot of information is available about the story yet, but what I’ve gleaned from the internet is that it will be an “Indiana-Jones-style buddy comedy” starring the titular Abbi and a new friend named Jo. Both of which are extremely gay names, if you ask me. I have no idea what the tone is going to be, but I hope it’s something like Crush meets D.E.B.S., National Treasure but make it lesbians, Tomb Raider but Lara Croft has a girlfriend, and/or The Mummy but somehow even more bisexual.
I can’t, off the top of my head, even think of a queer movie that comes close to the vibes of “Indiana-Jones-style-buddy comedy” — though if you know of one, PLEASE tell me immediately — so I’m really hoping Clea DuVall (who also wrote and directed the show based on Tegan and Sara’s autobiography High School) comes through again and this will also be a queer comedy. Either way, we love to see a lesbian director getting her time to shine.
But I’m a Journalist… So I Have More News
+ Our beloved Batwoman may be gone but Javicia Leslie is back coming back to our screens in an upcoming show called High Potential starring Hacks and The Mick star Kaitlin Olson; cast also includes Amirah J, who I believe is queer based on a shallow dive into her Instagram account
+ Miley Cyrus covered Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads for A24‘s new compilation album
+ Bisexual actress Esmé Creed-Miles has been cast to play Delirium in the upcoming season of The Sandman, which is sure to be a twisted delight
+ Lena Waithe discusses her co-founded Hillman Grad Productions, where they focus on hiring up-and-coming talent from BIPOC and other marginalized communities
+ We told you about this on Friday: a Black lesbian couple won a contest to have a (big, gay) Bridgerton Wedding
+ ICYMI, WNBA star Arike Ogunbowale proposed to her girlfriend this weekend
+ Amandla Steinberg played violin for a Star Wars arrangement for The Acolyte which she will also be starring in this fall
+ Billie Eilish’s “Lunch” joins Chappell Roan’s “Casual” on the short list of queer eating out anthems released recently — who’s next??
+ Kehlani has announced their new upcoming album, Crash, and says they’ll be releasing another single from it, Next 2 U, soon (and may well be the answer to my last question) — at the very least, it can be added to your end-of-the-month Pride party playlists
+ And lastly: I don’t even know if this counts as news but I wanted to share: Shay Mitchell and Ashley Benson both commented on Billie Eilish’s Instagram post about the music video for her new queer anthem “Lunch”
