Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan‘s fifth collaboration has been shrouded in secrecy since it was announced in January. Now eager film fans are getting their first look at “Sinners” — and all its bloody goodness. The film opens March 7, 2025 from Warner Bros.
The highly-anticipated horror thriller is based on an original script by Coogler, with the project set in the 1930s Jim Crow era-South and filmed earlier this year in the New Orleans area. But beyond those basic details, everything about the project — from the title to its plot — had been kept under wraps. Then, on Monday, the supernatural thriller was announced to be titled “Sinners.” Later, Jordan shared the film’s poster (a closeup shot of the actor in two different costumes, confirming rumors that he’s playing a dual role) on social media, with the caption, “Dance with the devil…and he’ll follow you home.”
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The film’s official description sets the scene: “Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers (Jordan) return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.”
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The cast is full of heavy hitters, toplined by Jordan, Delroy Lindo (“Da 5 Bloods,” “UnPrisoned”), Jack O’Connell (“Ferrari,” “Back to Black”) and Hailee Steinfeld (“True Grit,” “Dickinson,” Sony’s animated “Spider-Verse” franchise). Wunmi Mosaku (“Loki,” “Lovecraft Country”), Jayme Lawson (“The Woman King,” “MLK/X”), Omar Benson Miller (“The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey”), Li Jun Li (“Babylon”), Lola Kirke (“Gone Girl,” “Winning Time”), plus newcomers Yao, Miles Caton and Peter Dreimanis round out the ensemble.
Coogler directed the film — his first time behind the camera since 2022’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” — and produced the project via his Proximity Media banner, along with Zinzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian. Executive producers are Proximity’s Ludwig Göransson (fresh off his second Oscar win after composing the score for “Oppenheimer”) and Rebecca Cho, as well as Will Greenfield. “Black Panther” franchise collaborators — director of photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Oscar-winning production designer Hannah Beachler, editor Michael P. Shawver and Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter — also return. Casting director Francine Maisler, who worked with Coogler and co. on “Creed,” returns to head that department.
Jordan has appeared in all five of Coogler’s films, beginning with “Fruitvale Station” in 2013 and continuing with the “Creed” and “Black Panther” franchises. News of this latest team-up surfaced in January when it was reported that Coogler and Jordan were teaming up for a mysterious new project that was showcased to executives and buyers at the WME offices under a cone of silence.
A heated bidding war ensued with WME and M88, which rep Coogler and Jordan, handling the dealmaking. Warner Bros. won the rights to the buzzy package, reuniting the film studio’s co-chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy with Coogler and Jordan after their successful collaboration on “Creed III.” (The execs greenlit the boxing movie during their tenure at MGM.) The deal was also uniquely structured so that some of the movie’s rights will revert to Coogler over the course of several decades.
Anticipation ratcheted up another notch this spring when cinematographer Arkapaw, who lensed “Wakanda Forever,” posted a shot of the film’s clapperboard inscribed “Take 1” and the simple caption, “Get ready.” (Arkapaw blurred out the film’s working title “Grilled Cheese” with black heart emojis.) The DP had already teased that the film was in prep by posting a photo of Coogler looking into the viewfinder of a Panavision system 65 camera.
