EXCLUSIVE: Kirill Sokolov set to direct TriStar Pictures’ thriller Ultra, with script penned by Colin Bannon. TriStar Pictures preemptively purchased the spec amid significant buzz in November 2021, just before it placed in the Top Ten on the Black List in December. Plot details are being kept under wraps.

Sukee Chew of Sugar 23 is producing. Caellum Allan is overseeing the project on behalf of TriStar Pictures.

Sokolov made his feature directorial debut with Why Don’t You Just Die, which screened in competition at Sitges.  His follow up film, No Looking Back, premiered at SXSW 2022. Sokolov is represented by CAA and Good Fear.

Bannon most recently sold his Black List script First Ascent to Netflix in a frenzied bidding war. The project is being produced by Chew and Scott Free. Bannon is repped by Verve and Sugar 23.

Chew joined Sugar23 last June, and was previously at Hopscotch Pictures which she founded, where she was most recently an executive producer on The Silencing starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and the producer of Mike Gan’s thriller Burn, starring Josh Hutcherson, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Suki Waterhouse and Harry Shum Jr.

TriStar Pictures, headed by Nicole Brown, has a robust up and coming slate with The Woman King, starring Viola Davis, Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical, Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Someone, which are all expected to be released this fall.