The psychological thriller Hyena has quietly swapped out its headliners, with Kiernan Shipka and D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai now set to lead the project in place of previously announced stars Archie Madekwe and Havana Rose Liu.
Hyena follows Genevieve (Shipka), who brings her new boyfriend Alexei (Woon-A-Tai) home to meet her family, only for him to start pulling at threads the household would rather keep buried. What he uncovers forces Genevieve into a reckoning: hold the family together, or let it come apart along with whatever they have hidden.
The project is one of the final producing credits to bear David Lynch‘s name. The Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive filmmaker, who died earlier this year, executive produced Hyena and was reportedly closely involved in shaping its script, mentoring writer Scott Coffey through its early development. Coffey wrote the screenplay with novelist Blair Mastbaum.
Rounding out the cast are Edgar Ramírez and Rosemarie DeWitt, though their roles have not yet been detailed. Producers David Lancaster (Whiplash, Nightcrawler) and Jeff Elliott are shepherding the production, which is expected to begin shooting in Spokane, Washington, in the first quarter of 2027.
“It’s a very personal film,” Coffey has said of the project, which by his account draws its unease less from anything supernatural than from what families choose not to say out loud.
No distributor or release date has been announced, and further plot and casting details remain unconfirmed.
