Halle Berry and Holly Jeter’s HalleHolly has assembled a film and TV slate that includes a number of high-profile projects, with the Oscar winner attached to star in most of them.
They include "The President is Missing", based on Bill Clinton and James Patterson’s best-selling political thriller novel, which is in development at Apple Original Films with Berry starring as President Duncan in a gender swap and RK Films also producing; and "Bad Cop, Bad Cop," a Kay Cannon-directed action comedy from HalleHolly and Beau Bauman, in which Berry is set to star alongside Fortune Feimster and Jillian Bell.
On the TV side, Berry is attached to star in "Zero F***s", a menopause-themed comedy in development at Peacock from writers Liz Kruger and Carolyn Townsend (Salvation, Charmed) and A+E Studios; and "The Patient," a horror drama in the works at HBO with writer Laeta Kalogridis (Another Simple Favor), Maximum Effort and Vertigo.
She could also potentially star in revenge drama "Mother Doom," from writer Matthew Sand (Deepwater Horizon), which is finalizing a development deal at FX.
The film development slate includes three other projects that have Berry on board to star: "Sunburn" for director Liz Garbus (One Night In Idaho: The College Murders), "Family Swap" for director Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) and Parole Officer, which HalleHolly and Imagine landed in a bidding war.
The company also has partnered with Cathy Byrd to adapt her memoir "The Boy Who Knew Too Much".
"Sunburn," "Family Swap," and "Bad Cop, Bad Cop" are expected to be taken out to the marketplace shortly.
Former WME partner Jeter and Berry launched HalleHolly in 2022 with the goal of producing film and television anchored by complex characters that provokes honest conversations while highlighting representation in front and behind the camera.
TV productions
Peacock’s Zero F***s, which A+E Studios and Range Studios are co-producing with Universal Television, is described as “a comedy about embracing your second act when you finally stop giving a f**k.” It revolves around three menopausal best friends — one of them played by Berry — dealing with midlife BS who are forced to solve a murder of a friend they couldn’t stand. But how do you solve a murder when you can’t remember why you came into the room?".
The subject matter is personal to Berry, a big advocate for menopause awareness who launched the Respin Health platform as part of her efforts. Berry and Jeter executive produce with Kruger and Townsend as well as Heather Kadin, Craig Shapiro, Barry Jossen and Tana Jamieson.
HBO’s The Patient, based on the novella of the same name by Jasper DeWitt that originated as The Patient That Nearly Drove Me Out of Medicine on Reddit’s r/nosleep, is executive produced by Berry and Jeter via HalleHolly, Kalogridis, who will serve as showrunner, Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort and Vertigo Entertainment.
In the psychological horror story, ambitious young psychiatrist Parker attempts to make a name for himself by treating Josephine Todd (Berry), the famously incurable patient at his hospital. But as he unwinds the mystery of her history, and delves deeper into her troubled mind, terrible things start happening – is she a victim or a predator, cursed or the curse itself? As he gets closer to the truth, he realizes that treating her might cost him his own sanity, or much worse.
Jeter originally sold the short story in 2018 while she was an agent at WME in a bidding war with 36 companies pursuing. It was won by Maximum Effort and Vertigo to develop as a feature at pre-Disney merger 20th Century Fox. Years later, after Jeter left WME to team up with Berry, the duo joined Maximum Effort and Vertigo as producers, turned the adaptation into a series and gender-swapped the lead character for Berry to star.
Based on a short story by Sean Lewis, FX’s Mother Doom centers on Riley who has been retired from the Special Forces for twenty years, but when her son is killed in the line of duty, she goes back into her past to find his murderer and get revenge.
Berry could potentially play Riley, Jeter and Sand executive produce with Nicole Tossou and Project X.
Film productions
HalleHolly’s first produced project was the 2024 survival horror movie Never Let Go starring Berry for Lionsgate.
It will be followed by the feature Fleur, written/directed by Ellie Foumbi, starring Berry and produced by HalleHolly, Plot Twist and Killer Films, which starts production in Paris on March 16 with AGC Studios financing and handling international sales.
The President Is Missing, which was set up at Apple last year, is being written by Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy) and David Chasteen (CIA).
In it, when a terrorist threatens an attack so lethal it will return the United States to the dark ages, the only person who can stop him is President Joanna Duncan (Berry) — but first she has to elude her own secret service and escape the confines of the White House in a gambit to save the world single-handedly.
Producing are HalleHolly, RK Films’ Joe Roth and Jeff Kirschenbaum, President Clinton, and Patterson via James Patterson Entertainment (Cross) whose Bill Robinson is executive producing alongside RK Films’ Zack Roth.
The novel by Clinton and Patterson, who has sold more than 475 million books, was published in 2018 and became a No.1 New York Times bestseller. The duo initially looked to turn it into a movie. The book was eventually set up at Showtime for series development. It went to pilot, starring David Oyelowo, whose production was derailed by the pandemic.
Bad Cop, Bad Cop, on which HalleHolly and Beau Bauman’s A Good One (Back In Action) are teaming up with Feimster (Zootopia 2) and Bell (Summer of 69), was written by Feimster & James Lee Freeman & Brian Jarvis (Ricky Stanicky), with current revisions by Bell and Feimster, for Cannon to direct.
In it, two inept beat cops, Molly (Bell) & Devon (Feimster) get taken under the wing of a badass female detective (Halle Berry), who brings them on the ride along of their lives. To survive, they’ll have to forget every lesson they never learned, and break every rule they never followed.
The Boy Who Knew Too Much is being written by Molly McAlpine (Cocaine Godmother) who is producing alongside HalleHolly. It is based on Byrd’s 2017 memoir about her son, Christian Haupt.
In the vein of The Blind Side meets The Sixth Sense, The Boy Who Knew Too Much tells the true story of a young boy named Christian Haupt, who, from a very young age, displays an uncanny knowledge of baseball and vivid memories of a past life as Lou Gehrig, the famous Yankee. His mother, Cathy Byrd, embarks on a journey to understand these extraordinary memories, exploring the mystery of reincarnation and the connection between past lives and the present.
Sunburn, produced by HalleHolly and Garbus and Dan Cogan’s Story Syndicate, is based on Laura Lippman’s 2018 book of the same name. Michelle Dean is writing the adaptation, with Garbus set to direct and Berry attached to star.
The neo-noir psychological thriller tells the story of a complicated woman scheming towards freedom — from her past crimes, her present loves, her secrets, and all the masks she’s worn along the way. A mother (Berry) inexplicably and abruptly walks out on her family and hitches a ride to a nowhere beach town 100 miles away. It’s the start of a twisted plan that involves a murder in her past, a hidden stash of millions, and an urge to be free from all the men who have tried to control her. By the time she’s over the state line we realize this isn’t the first time she’s vanished. She has several secret lives scattered in her wake, and the people she left behind are eager for revenge.
Body-swapping comedy Family Swap, produced by HalleHolly and Gaumont, is based on Gaumont’s 2021 French film Le Sens de la famille directed by Jean-Patrick Benes. Ben Wexler (The Comedians) is writing the U.S. film adaptation for Moore to direct and Berry to star.
With a father who has all but given up, a disconnected mother, 2 moody teenagers and a tempestuous little one – there’s already plenty of drama for one family to manage. However, when they all wake up to find that they’re in each other’s bodies – and when it keeps happening, morning after morning – the chaos continues to escalate. Set into motion by an innocuous wish, the James family is forced to explore their generational differences, intra-marital conflicts, raging hormones, and professional anxieties, in a complicated web of body-swapping madness.
Parole Officer, from HalleHolly and Imagine Entertainment, is a script by Michael McGrale that was on the Black List. In it, a parolee looking to stay on the straight and narrow is seduced by a mysterious woman into a drug-fueled one-night stand, violating the rules of his parole. The woman (Berry) turns out to be his newly appointed parole officer, who unleashes a plan to blackmail him into committing an escalating series of crimes or else he’ll be sent back to prison for the rest of his life.
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