Natasha Lyonne Throws a Triple-Threat Punch, Writing, Directing, and Producing 80s Boxing Film Bambo
Former Poker Face star Natasha Lyonne steps into the ring and the director’s chair for Bambo, a 1980s-set boxing film she will write, direct, and produce.
Natasha Lyonne is trading sleuthing for uppercuts. After her run on Rian Johnson's Poker Face, she is writing, directing, and producing a boxing movie called Bambo — and it does not sound like your typical inspirational training montage.
What Bambo is actually about
The movie centers on a Brooklyn-born boxing promoter in the '80s who tries to become the next Don King and flames out spectacularly. The twist: he drags his young daughter along for the chaos. The official vibe check:
"Takes his kid daughter along for the hurly burly ride of tax evasion, cocaine, race cars, lost dreams and heartbreak."
So yeah, it is more cautionary tale than comeback story, with Lyonne aiming squarely at the messy, combustible side of the sport.
The team and the timeline
- Lyonne is producing through her Animal Pictures banner.
- Max Ferguson, Craig Mazin, and Sarah Sarandos are producing via Word Games.
- Principal photography is slated for summer 2026.
Where this sits in Lyonne's directing plans
Bambo is set up as Lyonne's second feature as a director. The first on her docket is Uncanny Valley, an AI/immersive-gaming story that blends live-action with game elements. It follows a teenage girl who gets unmoored by a massively popular AR game in a kind of parallel present. Lyonne is co-writing that one with Brit Marling and VR pioneer Jaron Lanier — a very nerdy and very intriguing combo that suggests they are going deep on the tech and the psychology, not just the buzzwords.
What she is acting in right now
Lyonne recently wrapped Taika Waititi's take on Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun, starring alongside Steve Buscemi, Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, and Simon Baker. The story follows a robot girl built to stave off loneliness who tries to save a human family that is falling apart. And at the moment, she is filming Chandler Levack's comedy Roommates, about a bright-eyed freshman who rooms with a campus star and discovers their new friendship is actually a slow-burn power struggle. The cast is stacked: Adam Sandler, Sarah Sherman, Nick Kroll, Storm Reid, Aidan Langford, Sadie Sandler, Martin Herlihy, Chloe East, Annalise Mishler, and more.
Can a boxing movie stand out right now?
Sports dramas are having a moment, but not necessarily with audiences. Between Sydney Sweeney's Christy and Dwayne Johnson's The Smashing Machine, the lane is crowded. Bambo has a shot because Lyonne's voice tends to cut through the noise, and focusing on a promoter-daughter dynamic in the '80s grime is a sharp angle. We will see how it plays when cameras roll in 2026, but there is a lot here that is promising — and just messy enough to be interesting.