Oscar winners Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain are coming back together after starring in 2011’s The Help with the holiday comedy Deck the Y’Alls.
The duo will star alongside Wanda Sykes (Bad Moms) from a script by Tracy Oliver (the Girls Trip films) and Stefanie Williams.
Deck the Y’alls follows Rachel Stein (Chastain), a savvy New York baker who can roll with anything, until she falls for Beau, a younger Southern gentleman, and heads to Charleston to spend Christmas with his family. But overprotective matriarch Gladys Gibbes (Spencer) is a true steel magnolia whose massive celebrity-chef persona will take all of Rachel’s bless-her-heart best to survive. The pic, which is set in Charleston, SC, will lens next year.
Deck the Y’Alls is produced by Sandbox Studios, as well as Spencer’s ORIT Entertainment, Chastain’s Freckle Films and Sony Music Vision and is in active discussions with distribution partners.
Spencer won a Best Supporting Actress for 2011’s The Help, while Chastain won a Best Actress Oscar for Searchlight’s The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021).
Oliver is a screenwriter and producer behind the 2017 hit Girls Trip, which made her the first Black woman to write a movie that grossed over $100 million at the box office. She then went on to write the comedy series Harlem and The First Wives Club and is currently working on Girls Trip 2.
Spencer, Chastain, Sykes, and Oliver are represented by CAA.
Sandbox Studios and Chastain are working together on the Netflix mystery thriller Heartland, in which she stars opposite country singer Carter Faith and John Hawkes. That project was announced last week.
