Are you ready for some more Julianne Moore on Apple TV+? How about a little Sebastian Stan? If you answered, “Yes, please,” then you’re in luck, because Moore and Stan will, in fact, be teaming up on Apple TV+ for Sharper, a new A24 thriller based on a script that made last year’s Black List of best unproduced screenplays.

Deadline reports that Stan will join Moore in Sharper, which “follows a con artist, played by Moore, set in Manhattan’s billionaire echelon.” Stan’s character is named Max and he’s “a clever conman known for carrying out complicated plans and making away with large sums of money.”

They used to call him Grifty McGrift and he wrote the book on flim-flamming. No, wait…I’m thinking of Grampa Simpson. This is a live-action conman we’re talking about, and he’s being played by Sebastian Stan.

Sharper began life as a spec screenplay by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka. Per Deadline, it has an Emmy- and BAFTA-nominated director attached to it: Benjamin Caron, whose diverse portfolio includes Jay-Z music videos and episodes of The Crown. Caron also helmed the series finale of Sherlock, all three episodes of the final season of Kenneth Branagh’s Wallander, and he is set to direct one or more episodes of Andor, the Disney+ prequel to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Do You “Stan” Moore or Stan Enough to Subscribe?

The all-powerful Google dictionary defines “stanning” as an informal verb, meaning to “be an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity.” The question here is whether fans of Moore and Stan stan them enough to subscribe to Apple TV+ in an already crowded streaming market.

We were not all that enamored of Lisey’s Story, Moore’s first foray into Apple TV+ territory. However, part of the reason for that was because it was Stephen King (who, by his own admission, suffers from literary elephantiasis) self-adapting a story that was maybe too close to his heart. Sharper sounds more promising if only because it’s a script that made the Black List.

Stan is best known for his role as Bucky Barnes, AKA the Winter Soldier, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but we’ve already seen him stretch himself with roles outside the superhero genre in films like I, Tonya, Destroyer, and The Devil All the Time. There’s also his performance in Hulu’s upcoming Pam and Tommy which sees him tatted up and nearly unrecognizable as rocker Tommy Lee.

Sharper comes as part of A24’s deal with Apple TV+, which has given the streamer exclusive rights to films like Sofia Coppola’s On the Rocks and Joel Coen’s forthcoming The Tragedy of Macbeth. When you take into account some of the other acclaimed shows that Apple TV+ has on offer, such as Ted Lasso and For All Mankind, it’s definitely shaping up to be more of a serious player in the streaming wars.

Sharper will only add to that. We’ll let you know more details once the film has gone into production and has a release date.

The post Sebastian Stan Joins Julianne Moore for Apple TV+ Original A24 Thriller ‘Sharper’ appeared first on /Film.