2024 promises lots of exciting projects featuring Irish talent to look forward to. Among these projects are Paul Mescal in Gladiator 2, Barry Keoghan in Andrea Arnold’s new film Bird, and Alison Oliver in crime thriller The Order.
2023 saw Irish talent gaining critical acclaim around the globe and leading some of the biggest awards contenders with the likes of Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott in All of Us Strangers, Barry Keoghan and Alison Oliver in Saltburn, and Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer.
Paul Mescal - Gladiator 2
Mescal can be seen next in Ridley Scott’s sequel to Gladiator, in which he stars alongside Denzel Washington (Training Day), Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us), Connie Nielson (Gladiator), and Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things) among others. Production resumed in Malta last year after a delay in production caused by the SAG-AFTRA strike. The highly-anticipated sequel is set to release in cinemas on November 22nd, 2024.
Barry Keoghan - Bird, Untitled Trey Edward Shultz Project
Keoghan was also set to star in Gladiator 2, before dropping out due to scheduling conflicts with Andrea Arnold’s Bird, in which he will star alongside Franz Rogowski (Passages). Principal photography took place in the south of England last June. Arnold is a highly acclaimed filmmaker, having debuted four films at Cannes throughout her career, taking three main competition awards. Plot details are still under wraps, but Bird is expected to be a 2024 release, which is also the case for Keoghan’s upcoming collaboration with director Trey Edward Shultz. The project is still untitled, but what is currently known is that Keoghan will star opposite Jenna Ortega (Wednesday) and singer The Weekend (The Idol), who is also co-writing the script.
Alison Oliver - The Order
Alison Oliver will be starring alongside Jude Law (Shopping) and Marc Maron (Joker) in crime thriller The Order. Based on the book The Silent Brotherhood, the film follows the true story of a series of increasingly violent bank robberies, counterfeiting operations and armored car heists in America’s Pacific Northwest in 1983. Last year, Oliver was named in Variety’s 10 Actors to Watch list.
Caitríona Balfe - Amateur
Caitríona Balfe is joined by Rami Malek (Oppenheimer), Rachel Brosnahan (Superman: Legacy), and Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix) in Amateur, directed by James Hawes (Slow Horses). The story follows a CIA cryptographer who, after his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, demands his bosses go after them. When it becomes clear they won’t act due to conflicting internal priorities, he blackmails the agency into training him and letting him go after them himself. Amateur is set to release on November 8th, 2024.
Daryl McCormack - Twisters
Daryl McCormack will star alongside Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People) and Glen Powell (Anyone But You) in Twisters, a sequel to the 1996 film Twister. The upcoming film, directed by Lee Isaac Chung (Minari) from a screenplay by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant), is described as a “new chapter” in the world of the original film. Twisters is set to release on July 19th, 2024.
Domhnall Gleeson - Echo Valley
Domhnall Gleeson is set to star in Echo Valley, a new film from Apple TV+ in which he is joined by Sydney Sweeney and Julianne Moore. The plot revolves around Kate Garrett (Moore), a horse trainer and farm owner in southern Pennsylvania, navigating the aftermath of a personal tragedy. When her daughter Claire (Sweeney) shows up at her doorstep unannounced and in a troubling state, Kate’s world changes. Gleeson’s role in the film is yet to be disclosed. The thriller is expected to release on Apple TV+ in early to mid-2024.
Charlie Murphy and Jack Gleeson - Safe Harbor
In the world of television, Irish actors Charlie Murphy and Jack Gleeson lead Dutch-Belgian thriller series Safe Harbor from Ozark co-creator Mark Williams. The recently announced series follows hacker Tobias (Alfie Allen) and his ambitious best friend Marco (Martijn Lakemeier), who are intent on cracking into the tech billionaires club. They are plucked from obscurity and plunged headfirst into organised crime when they cross paths with the Irish mob. Leading the family’s operations in Holland are Sloane (Murphy) and her brother Farrell (Gleeson), who enlist their services to hack into the security system of Rotterdam harbour, Europe’s largest shipping port, to secure the undetected deliveries of drug shipments. Deadline reported last year that “a big-name star is being sought for a patriarch role [...] in the Irish mob”, who will play the father of Murphy and Gleeson’s characters. The series is set to stream on Dutch streamer Videoland and Belgium’s Streamz.
Colin Farrell - The Penguin
Reprising his supporting role as in 2022’s The Batman, Colin Farrell takes centre stage in upcoming series The Penguin, another production that was affected by the SAG-AFTRA strike last year. Set days after the events of The Batman, the series follows Oswald Cobblepot’s transformation “from a disfigured nobody to a noted Gotham gangster”. Irish cinematographer Darran Tiernan (Westworld, Barry) is handling the cinematography of the series on three of the series’ eight episodes. The Penguin is expected to release in late 2024.
