As Ben Stiller has turned his career more towards filmmaking, it’s been six years since his last lead acting roles. In 2017 he starred in both Brad’s Status and The Meyerowitz Stories, and that’s been it until now. Deadline reports Stiller has just found his next starring role in Nutcrackers, the upcoming film by Halloween director David Gordon Green.
Penned by Leland Douglas (Call of the Wild), the film will see Stiller star as “the work-obsessed Mike, who must reluctantly travel to rural Ohio to look after his four rambunctious nephews after their parents die in a car accident. What begins as a three-day trip to find foster care turns into weeks of farm-life mayhem – and the realization that he doesn’t need to find them a home, they’ve found one for him.”
Nutcrackers sounds like a return to the low-key films of Green’s early career, before he turned towards the mainstream and began taking on bigger comedies and horrors. Green most recently directed The Exorcist: Believer, with a sequel, The Exorcist: Deceiver coming in 2025.
Meanwhile, Stiller, who is also attached as a producer, has spent the last few years working behind the camera. He directed the acclaimed first season of Apple series Severance, winning two Emmy Awards on the way to a second season.
