Toni Collette and Milly Alcock Ignite Hot Mother, a Steamy Survival Thriller With Bite
Toni Collette and Milly Alcock turn up the heat in Hot Mother, a steamy survival thriller primed to raise heart rates and survival stakes.
File this under: movies that will make you eye the spa with suspicion. Toni Collette and Milly Alcock are teaming up for a survival thriller called 'Hot Mother', and yes, the title is doing double duty.
The setup
Collette and Alcock play a mother-daughter duo who head to a remote wellness retreat to patch things up over a weekend. Instead, they end up trapped in a sauna where nobody can hear them, and what starts as a detox turns into a physical and psychological fight to stay alive. New fear unlocked.
The essentials
- Title: 'Hot Mother', a survival thriller shooting in Australia next year
- Cast: Toni Collette and Milly Alcock as the mother and daughter
- Writer-director: Lucy Knox, making her feature debut
- Source material: Knox is expanding her own 2020 short film of the same name
- Producers: Sarah Shaw and Anna McLeish for Carver Films; Alex Coco for Rapt Films
- Sales: Bankside Films is handling worldwide sales and will co-rep North America with CAA Media Finance
Producers Sarah Shaw and Anna McLeish say they have been tracking Knox for years and are confident she is absolutely ready to scale up the short into a feature, touting both the script and the Collette/Alcock combo. Alex Coco calls Knox the kind of director he wants to back, predicting the movie will play broadly and announce a fresh voice behind the camera.
"We were sold on Hot Mother from the title alone but discovering Lucy Knox's incredible short and reading the screenplay solidified our immense passion for this story. With character and mother-daughter relationships at its heart, the film will thrill audiences with its edge-of-your-seat take on a survival story."
Where you know them from
Collette recently headlined 'Wayward', a Netflix mystery thriller series. Up next, she is set to co-star with Kate Winslet in 'Goodbye June' — a touching-but-funny drama about estranged siblings forced back together under sudden, difficult circumstances — with Winslet making her directorial debut. (And if you saw a version that said she will not be seen with Winslet, that reads like a typo; the intent is clearly that she will.)
Alcock has already suited up for the DCU as Kara Zor-El in James Gunn's 'Superman' and will lead 'Supergirl', which is dated for June 26, 2026.
Between the cast, the premise, and Knox stepping up from her buzzy short, this has the makings of a lean, mean, very sweaty thriller. If you need me, I will not be in a sauna.