Daniel Kaluuya – known for starring in Jordan Peele horrors like Get Out and Nope – is now trying his hand at filmmaking himself, co-writing and producing a new dystopian Netflix drama. The futuristic film, titled The Kitchen, is set to be released in 2023, and already boasts an impressive cast. Posting a picture of the cast readthrough for the movie on his Instagram, the movie will be led by Top Boy star and British rapper Kano and will be set in London in the year 2044. It will explores the mistreatment of the working class in a future that, tbh, scarily doesn’t sound too different from our current reality.
In The Kitchen’s universe, all social housing has been eradicated, leaving the working class to live in temporary Hunger Games-esque accommodation on the outskirts of cities. But when the current occupants living in London’s first and largest village for the poor – the eponymous The Kitchen – refuse to move out of the place they’ve grown to see as home, chaos ensues as the community fight to survive in a system that’s constantly against them.
The movie will mainly focus on the stories of Kano’s Ize, a resident of The Kitchen who is hoping to get out, and Benji, a 12-year-old that’s lost his mother and is looking for a family to protect him during the current class wars taking over his area, played by newly discovered talent Jedaiah Bannerman. Casting director Aisha Bywaters promises the movie will also launch a host of new British actors’ careers.
Eight years in the making, The Kitchen has been referred to as a “love letter to London” by director Kibwe Tavares, making his directorial debut with the title following his production work on BBC’s recent Noughts and Crosses adaptation. The Kitchen is set to be released under the banner of Daniel’s own production company, 59% Productions – the company’s second release after dark satire Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul premiered at Sundance in January. It will be co-written by Joe Murtagh and co-produced by Daniel Emmerson.
In a statement, Daniel also explained where the idea for the movie came from. “In 2011, I was in my barbershop and there was a guy boasting about smash and grabs — kids doing million-pound heists in a minute, getting paid £200 to do it. I saw the potential to unlock a unique story door to the inequality, fatherhood, class, joy, resilience, courage, defiance and care of London.” He adds that the film “interrogates what ‘care’ means, at home and as a society and the dangers in our future if we stay indifferent to everything around us.
“I feel blessed and honoured that my first co-writing film credit is with this inspiring group of creatives, and with the support of Film 4 and Netflix,” Daniel continues. “All of us are excited to watch Kibwe’s incredible, cinematic, electric vision come to life, and to create a moment that audiences want to take with them.”
We have a little while to wait before we can watch the movie though! The Kitchen is currently in pre-production with filming set to take place in London and Paris soon, before it is released on Netflix in 2023.