Boots Riley Sets New Film ‘I Love Boosters’ at NEON; KeKe Palmer, LaKeith Stanfield, Naomi Ackie and Demi Moore to Star

Award-winning studio NEON announced today that it has partnered with Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You) on his new film, I Love Boosters, with Keke Palmer (Nope), Naomi Ackie (Blink Twice), LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah), who is re-teaming with Riley following the success of Sorry to Bother You, and Demi Moore (The Substance) set to star.

Additional casting is currently underway, with principal photography set to begin this fall. Aaron Ryder and Andrew Swett are producing the film on behalf of Ryder Picture Company (RPC) with Savage Rose Films’ Allison Rose Carter and Jon Read. Mike Jackman and Gus Deardoff will serve as executive producers with Waypoint Entertainment’s Ken Kao (Co-Founder) and Josh Rosenbaum (Partner).  NEON is financing the film with Waypoint Entertainment and acquired the worldwide rights.  NEON will release the film theatrically in the US and handle international sales. 

I Love Boosters is about a ring of enterprising boosters (aka shoplifters, equal opportunists), who take aim at a cutthroat fashion maven. Additional plot details are currently being kept under wraps.

Riley is a multihyphenate working across film and music as a director, producer, screenwriter and best-known for his 2018 feature debut Sorry to Bother You, starring LaKeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson. Riley also created the Amazon original miniseries “I’m a Virgo” with Jharrel Jerome in the leading role. 

Palmer is an Emmy Award-winning multi-hyphenate entertainer across film and television, music, and literary spaces.  Most recently, she starred in Jordan Peele’s Nope, Alice from Krystin Ver Linden, Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers alongside Constance Wu and Jennifer Lopez and appears opposite Jimmy Fallon in Password.  Her book Master of Me will be released 11/19 from Flatiron.

Ackie made her breakthrough as an actor in William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth alongside Florence Pugh, earning her the British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Ackie has gone on to portray singer Whitney Houston in the biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody, and recently starred in the leading role of Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut, Blink Twice. She can next be seen in Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 alongside Robert Pattinson.

Stanfield continues to bring unparalleled passion and reverence to each of his roles, most recently starring in Sony and Legendary’s The Book of Clarence, Disney’s The Haunted Mansion, and starring in and executive producing the Apple TV+ series “The Changeling.” He also lent his voice to the documentary Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, which premiered at Cannes this year. In 2021, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Judas and the Black Messiah. Upcoming projects include Lear Rex, opposite Al Pacino and Jessica Chastain, Play Dirty alongside Mark Wahlberg, Dermot Mulroney and Tony Shalhoub, and starring in and producing the film adaptation of El Paso, Elsewhere.

Actress, producer, and New York Times bestselling author Moore has proven herself to be one of the industry’s most accomplished performers, lending her talents to an array of revered films and television both in front of and behind the camera; including St. Elmo’s Fire, G.I. Jane, A Few Good Men, and Ghost, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination. Moore most recently starred in the second season of “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” and can soon be seen in the upcoming Paramount+ drama “Landman” from Taylor Sheridan. She is currently receiving rave reviews for her role in the body horror feature, The Substance, in theaters now.

Over the past couple of years, NEON has expanded more widely into the production space, with recent titles including: Joshua Oppenheimer’s The End, a golden-age musical starring Tilda Swinton, George McKay, Moses Ingram, and Michael Shannon.; Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo with Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens; David Robert Mitchell’s sequel to the modern horror classic It Follows, titled They Follow; and Michael Covino’s Splitsville starring Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona, which began shooting last month. They recently released Osgood Perkins’ horror film Longlegs which just surpassed $75 million in the U.S. box office, becoming the highest grossing independent film of the year and Immaculate starring Sydney Sweeney. Upcoming releases include: Anora, the highly-anticipated new film from Sean Baker starring Mikey Madison, which won the coveted Palme d’Or in Cannes and The Seed of the Sacred Fig from director Mohammad Rasoulof.

Waypoint also produced Cuckoo alongside NEON as well as brought Longlegs retroactively into their new slate deal with NEON. 

RPC is currently prepping Michael Sarnoski’s The Death of Robin Hood, with Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer, and Onslaught from Adam Wingard, under their first-look with Lyrical Media. The company recently premiered the sci-fi romanceAll of You with Brett Goldstein and Imogen Poots at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, and is also in post on At the Sea, starring six-time Academy Award®-nominee Amy Adams and directed by Kornel Mundruczo. Up next for RPC is Office Romance with Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein for Netflix.

Producing partners Allison Rose Carter and Jon Read are Savage Rose Films. Together, they have produced and co-produced over twenty five films, including The Daniels’ Academy Award-winning film Everything Everywhere All At Once, and recently inked a production and development partnership with NEON.

Riley is repped by WME and Cohen & Gardner. Palmer is repped by 3Arts and Hertz Lichtenstein Young & Polk, LLP. Ackie is repped by CAA, Hamilton Hodell, Range Media Partners, and Peikoff Mahan Law Office. Stanfield is repped by CAA, Stark Management, and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis. Moore is repped by CAA, Untitled, and Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman. 

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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