Jesse Eisenberg used the closing night of BFI London Film Festival to reveal the shape of his next project: a television series written for A24 and Peter Rice, the former Disney and Fox executive. The show follows an 18-year-old girl in the fall of 2002, a period Eisenberg frames as the beginning of today’s culture wars.
The festival’s closing film, Eisenberg’s musical-comedy The Debut, stars Julianne Moore as Mona, a neglected housewife cast in a community theatre production directed by Paul Giamatti’s Jerry. The film earned its world premiere at Telluride and opens in U.S. theaters on Dec. 11.
The TV package
Details are deliberately thin, but the attachments are the story. A24 gives the project a prestige television brand, while Rice brings a track record from Disney and Fox.
“I wrote it for A24 and Peter Rice, and it follows an 18-year-old girl in the fall of 2002,” Eisenberg said. “It’s about the beginning of the culture wars that we’re in now, but it’s not pretentious or overly political, or maybe it is pretentious. That’s for you to decide.”
For streaming and TV professionals, that combination signals a talent-driven package likely to attract platform interest. The logline is period-specific, and the culture-wars framing gives it a current-events hook without a heavy political pitch.
The festival marketing machine
Eisenberg was candid about how festival circuits change his relationship to a film. He said interviews make him hyper-aware of the package, and only when he catches the final minutes before a Q&A does he remember there is a film underneath the sales pitch.
That is the trade-off of a star-closing festival slot. The event opened with Andrew Scott’s Elsinore and included galas for Behemoth!, Ink and Wild Horse Nine. Festival buzz is marketing oxygen, but it can turn a movie into a product before audiences see it.
Talent attachment as financing
Eisenberg said The Debut would simply not have been made without Moore. Her attachment is both creative and commercial. Moore said she would have done anything Eisenberg sent and called the script “one of the best scripts I’ve read in my life.”
She also pointed to their earlier collaboration, When You Finish Saving the World, Eisenberg’s 2022 directorial debut, as the reason for her trust. For buyers, that repeat collaboration reduces risk: the filmmaker and star already have a working shorthand.
What to watch
- Dec. 11: The Debut opens in U.S. theaters after Telluride and London.
- 2002 series: Eisenberg’s A24 and Peter Rice project still needs a platform announcement.
- Awards season: Eisenberg says he has stopped dreading it and now feels lucky.
The next data point is whether the film converts festival goodwill into opening-weekend box office. After that, watch for which streamer or network lands the 2002-set series and how A24 packages its television slate.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
