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English singer/songwriter superstar Charli XCX became a pop culture zeitgeist moment unto herself thanks to all things Brat Summer. She took over the charts, won a few Grammys, joined the list of current and upcoming Saturday Night Live hosts for its historic Season 50, and jump-started a full-fledged movie career with projects like Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex and the Faces of Death remake. Now, she’s teaming up with one of cinema’s most extreme filmmakers for an upcoming A24 movie, and I could not be more enthused.
In what could very well be the most bonkers live-action project of her career, Charli XCX is set to both star in and produce the newest big screen offering from Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike, according to Variety. The workaholic genre director is arguably best known for 1999’s slow-burn nightmare Audition (one of our picks for Best Horror Movies Ever) and the infamous 2001 yakuza horror film Ichi the Killer, so the fact that he’s working with the UK star is enough to send one’s imagination into overload.
Titled The Moment, the film will be the second project that Charlie XCX will produce through her burgeoning company Studio365, with a script written by up-and-coming scribe Ross Evans. The project was first announced in January with Glaswegian director & photographer Aidan Zamiri, who directed Charli’s “360” music video, attached to both co-write with Bertie Brandes and helm it as his first feature. It’s not clear why the creative team changed between then and now, but I’m not mad at it.
I think it’s safe to say Miike’s finished product will be in a completely different universe from whatever Zamiri would have crafted. Unfortunately, we don’t yet know what The Moment will actually be about, though it was initially described as being based on an original idea from Charli herself.
Why I’m Pumped For Takashi Miike To Join Charli XCX’s A24 Movie
Takashi Miike’s career is almost unparalleled in scope, as he’s directed well above 120 films, TV episodes, and anthology installments since 1991. The guy has averaged around 3.5 projects a year, with several years going above that mark. Which isn’t to say that every single project is a top-quality masterpiece, but there are absolutely some unmissable gems in the mix, some of which I’ll list below.
By and large, Miike works within a handful of genres, delivering some of the greatest Japanese horror movies of all time, but is no stranger to high-octane action, tight-knit thrillers and sweeping epics. He has a litany of signature moves in his toolbox, and can go from hyper-violent yakuza shootouts to darkly hilarious serial killers to hyper-surreal and taboo dream sequences with, sometimes within the same sequence. So I can’t imagine he’d agree to tackle The Moment without there being one or more visceral elements to dig into.
A Selection Of My Favorite Takashi Miike Movies, The Early Years
- Shinjuku Triad Society (1995)
- Fudoh: The New Generation (1996)
- Rainy Dog (1997)
- The Bird People in China (1998)
- Audition (1999)
- MPD Psycho (2000)
- Visitor Q (2001)
- Ichi the Killer (2001)
- The Happiness of the Katakuris (2002)
- Gozu (2003)
- The Negotiator (2003)
- Three…Extremes [Segment: Box] (2004)
That really is just scratching the surface on a long an successful career, but that group certainly serves as an undeniable tasting menu of what he’s capable of. It’s like he was creating A24 movies way before the studio existed, so I can only hope that The Moment leads to further collaborations.
Charli XCX’s Upcoming Movie Slate
For someone who has been touring and promoting a blockbuster album the way Charli has, one might not think she’d have time to devote to appearing in a wide assortment of new movies, but you better believe that’s the case. Here’s a shortlist of her upcoming 2025 movies and beyond:
- Faces of Death (Horror) – also starring Dacre Montgomery, Barbie Ferreira, Josie Totah and Jermaine Fowler
- Sacrifice (Action Comedy) – also starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Evans, Salma Hayek, Sam Richardson, Vincent Cassel, John Malkovich
- I Want Your Sex (Thriller) – also starring Chase Sui Wonders, Olivia Wilde, Mason Gooding, Johnny Knoxville, Daveed Diggs
- 100 Nights of Hero (Fantasy Romance) – also starring Emma Corrin, Varada Sethu, Felicity Jones, Maika Monroe, Nicholas Galitzine
- The Gallerist (Comedy Thriller) – also starring Jenna Ortega, Natalie Portman, Sterling K. Brown, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Daniel Brühl, Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Stay tuned for more news about The Moment and many of the star-studded projects above as Hollywood goes Brat-tastic.