My Darling California, Elijah Bynum’s junior film, has begun filming, starring Chris Evans, Jessica Chastain, Chris Pine, Mikey Madison, and Don Cheadle.  The project’s producers are David Hinojosa, Alex Coco, Sébastien Raybaud, Scott Budnick, Emily Blavatnik, Danny Cohen, Ameet Shukla, and Zach Nutman.

Throwing audiences into a story set in 1980’s L.A., My Darling California will read as “an American noir of ambition, greed and violence, and a love letter to the darker side of California,” centring on a “single crime that weaves together the lives of a fallen news anchor, her cheating televangelist husband, two small-time crooks, an ex-con and a rising country music idol. Their fates collide in a web of crime, seduction and deceit.”

California Film and TV Tax Credit has reportedly forked out the “second-largest allocation in [their] latest funding round.” Access Entertainment and 1Community have joined as financial backers.

Producer Budnick, also 1Community’s CEO and founder, shared, “We are thrilled to film My Darling California right here in the Golden State, where the vibrancy and richness of the cultural history serve as the perfect backdrop for this story.”

“This film explores the ambition and desire that define our lives, while celebrating the unique spirit of California and the people who make up that history,” he added. “We are excited to showcase the richness of our state, while supporting local talent and businesses throughout this production journey.”

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My Darling California follows Bynum’s last film, Magazine Dreams, which was released in 2023 and starred Jonathon Majors as an aspiring bodybuilder who will stop at nothing to pursue his dreams, even when medical professionals warn him of the dangers of his methods and his inability to find emotional connection with anyone around him. Additional cast members included Haley Bennett, Taylour Paige, Harrison Page, Harriet Sansom Harris, and Mike O’Hearn.

The filmmaker’s debut came in 2017 with Hot Summers Nights, a neo-noir coming-of-age drama starring Timothée Chalamet as a teen who becomes ensnared in a drug trade. Appearing alongside Chalamet in this South by Southwest release are Maika Monroe, Alex Roe, Maia Mitchell, William Fichtner, Thomas Jane, and Emory Cohen.

As for My Darling California’s cast, Evans has recently appeared in Romain Gavras’s adventure comedy Sacrifice, as well as Celine Song’s rom-com Materialists. He is set to reprise his iconic role as Steve ‘Captain America’ Rogers for the eleventh time in Marvel’s heavily anticipated Avengers: Doomsday, with his last on-screen appearance being 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which is also due for an extended cut release this year.

Chastain is due to appear in the miniseries The Savant as an online hate group infiltrator, as well as the upcoming horror film Other Mother by Rob Savage and Shana Feste’s Heartland. The actress’s recent onscreen roles include Michel Franco’s drama film Dreams and James Gray’s Armageddon Time.

Madison received the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Anora “Ani” Mikheeva in Sean Baker’s 2024 dramatic rom-com Anora and is set to return to the big screen following this big win for Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming release The Social Reckoning. She has also been cast in a Charlie Polinger adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short horror story The Masque of the Red Death for A24, with previous film roles also including Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s Scream V in 2023 and Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 comedy-drama Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.

Pine has previously appeared in Rachel Lambert’s Carousel for the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and the Italian drama The Kidnapping of Arabella by Carolina Cavalli. His upcoming film roles include Nathan and David Zellner’s Alpha Gang and Dave McCary’s The Catch.

Lastly, Cheadle is known for his role in the Avengers films as James Rhodes, also known as War Machine and Iron Patriot, and has recently appeared in Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters.

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