HBO Max picks up Steven Soderbergh's Let Them All Talk with Meryl Streep and Gemma Chan

HBO Max, the WarnerMedia streaming service that is not strictly related to HBO itself beyond its branding power, just picked up its first original movie, and it sounds like a pretty solid purchase. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie is tentatively titled Let Them All Talk, and it’s an original comedy directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Meryl Streep, potential Marvel double-dipper Gemma Chan, Candice Bergen, Dianne Wiest, and Lucas Hedges. THR says the movie secretly began filming just last week, with Soderbergh and producer Greg Jacobs putting together the money for it themselves (which, as THR points out, is the same thing they did for Magic Mike). HBO Max then jumped in “preemptively” and scooped up the project before any more established streamers or movie studios came on board—the kind of big play you’ve gotta make when you have as many competitors as a new streaming service does.

Plot-wise, Let Them All Talk will star Streep as a famous author who gets her friends together to “have some fun and head old wounds” on a cruise ship, with her nephew (Hedges) there to “wrangle the ladies” and to fall in love with Gemma Chan’s “young literary agent.” HBO Max is set to launch next year.