EXCLUSIVE: SNL’s Veronika Slowikowska is set to topline Stephanie, Bride to Be, a comedy marking the directorial debut of Allie Viti and the first narrative feature from exec producer John Wilson (How To with John Wilson).

Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos), Amy Sedaris (Kevin), Lea DeLaria (Orange Is the New Black), and Reina Hardesty (Butterfly) will co-star, with production underway in New York City.

Written by Viti and Zach Schiffman from a story by Slowikowska, Viti, and Schiffman, Stephanie, Bride to Be follows Stephanie (Slowikowska) as her “proposal party” becomes a slow-motion meltdown while she waits for her boyfriend to arrive and pop the question. As Stephanie scrambles to keep the night from falling apart, she must contend with her flighty parents (Sedaris & Imperioli), a surprise ex (Hardesty), and the omnipresent restaurant manager (DeLaria) who is eager to see everyone leave.

Slowikowska told us, “When Allie, Zach and I started developing this comedy we knew we had something special on our hands. It’s so thrilling to make something with my best friends and the involvement of a visionary like John Wilson. I’m so excited for everyone to meet Stephanie.”

Producers on Stephanie, Bride to Be include JR Rappaport of Glasshouse Pictures, Peter Heres, Meryl Faye Crock, Will Deasey, and Joaquin Acrich. Slowikowska is exec producing alongside Wilson, Clark Filio, Shirel Kozak of Peanut World Pictures, Mike Bucchino of Block Party Films, and Tyler Bagley. The film is a co-production between Wilson’s Peanut World Pictures and Rappaport’s Glasshouse Pictures.

A Canadian comedian and actress who made her debut as an SNL cast member this past year, Slowikowska has also been seen on Peacock’s Poker Face and Netflix’s Tires. Currently, she can be seen in Will Gluck’s Universal rom-com One Night Only, starring Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner, which is out in theaters. Upcoming projects include the indie Close to Nowhere, where she stars opposite Luke Kirby, and Craig Zobel’s thriller Turpentine, with Melissa McCarthy, Connor Storrie, Paul Walter Hauser, and more. She is represented by UTA, Artists First, and Yorn, Levine, Barnes.

Viti comes to make her directorial debut after working alongside EP Wilson on his lauded HBO series How To with John Wilson and his Sundance doc The History of Concrete, out via Magnolia Pictures on September 18. On How To, an experimental comedic docuseries exec produced by Nathan Fielder, among others, Viti at various points held roles as writer, associate producer, and associate segment producer. She produced The History of Concrete and was also an associate producer on HBO Max’s It’s Florida, Man. Viti is repped by WME; Wilson by UTA.

Imperioli is repped by Gersh and Anonymous Content; Sedaris by CAA and Schreck Rose Dapello Adams Berlin & Dunham; DeLaria by The Katz Company; Hardesty by Gersh, 42, and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; and co-writer Schiffman by Artists First and Granderson Des Rochers.

Rosario Dawson says she actually shot a scene for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but it was removed from the final cut.

Dawson — who played the nurse Claire Temple in Marvel’s Netflix shows — discussed what happened during a recent Daredevil panel at GalaxyCon in North Carolina last month.

Dawson was asked by a fan which superhero in the MCU she would most want Claire to work with.

“Well … I’m going to have to say: I could have said Spider-Man,” Dawson replied. “I even shot a scene in the new Spider-Man movie. But I got cut out.”

When the crowd expressed some displeasure, the actress added, “I know. I told my mom, and she was like, ‘That sucks. Now I can’t post the [behind the scenes] pictures [on social media].’ And I was like, ‘Right mom. Me being cut out of the movie that has, like, the largest viewership of a trailer ever, the issue is you can’t post your BTS photos.’”

Continued Dawson: “But like my uncle Gus was a comic-book artist and that’s really the reason I have such an admiration for this space. I knew when Sin City was coming out, I auditioned for it and [knew about] Frank Miller. I understood these things because of [my uncle], and the first character he learned to draw was Spider-Man. So Spider-Man is really huge. There’s a frame in one of the new comics that has a young Spider-Man talking to Daredevil, and they made it so that the young Spider-Man goes to PS19 in the Lower East Side — which is where I went to elementary school!”

“So when I tell you my [social media] post was all ready, with my BTS [photos], with my grandson wearing all his Spider-Man stuff, and then I got the email that was like, ‘Yeah, nah,’” she said. “So I’m a reject of Spider-Man and a reject of the Devil’s Rejects.”

That said, Dawson hasn’t lost hope in appearing in the MCU again. “My character is somewhere in that same universe, and I really love that. I hope I get to be Claire again.”

Dawson played Claire across Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Defenders.

Brand New Day has enjoyed the most successful domestic box office opening of all time, shooting to $1.67 billion globally.

There’s a particular challenge that comes with playing Wolverine: The character has to sound like he’s been through hell, look like he’s been through hell and, preferably, move like he could walk away from hell without so much as a scratch.

For Liam McIntyre, bringing Logan to life through voice and motion capture performance in Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Wolverine meant figuring out all three.

During a three-hour preview event of the game at Insomniac’s Burbank headquarters, McIntyre talked to Deadline about the process of finding a Logan who still carries the grit that audiences expect from the iconic mutant while feeling grounded and distinctly his own.

“We wanted to make sure that this felt grounded and real, not too cartoony,” McIntyre said.  “Something that still feels like Logan.”

What exactly does that process look like? McIntyre explained that he and the team worked through different vocal styles and degrees of gruffness to find the right sound for Insomanic’s Logan. As it turned out, however, he came to the role with a built-in advantage.

“Fortunately, his attitude and demeanor sort of fit in my rough-and-tumble kind of voice,” he said, adding with a laugh. “Years of asthma. Everyone else had to smoke, I just got asthma.”

The physical performance presented a different challenge. McIntyre had previously tackled demanding physical work on Spartacus, so when it came time to play Wolverine, his instinct was understandably to go all in.

“I was like, ‘Stunts. Let’s go. I’m going to do all this slice and dice,’” he recalled.

But motion capture isn’t quite the same as traditional stunt work. With face cameras also capturing his performance, McIntyre had to be conscious of how much he moved and how that movement affected the footage. Much of Logan’s physicality ultimately became a collaboration with stunt performer Seth Austin, who had also worked on Insomniac’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales.

“It was a real team effort,” McIntyre said. “My face and a lot of his body and his work in there. So, together, I think we made a pretty sweet character.”

What McIntyre found particularly compelling about this Logan, however, wasn’t simply the opportunity to put on the claws. This is a younger version of the character — “younger” being relative for a man who is roughly 200 years old — and one who begins the game having lost much of his memory.

After the amnesic event, Logan knows there is something buried in his past, but not exactly what it is. He doesn’t understand the source of his rage or why certain feelings continue to surface. He joins Team X alongside Mystique (Nicole Pacent), Sabretooth (Brett Gipson) and Nathaniel Essex (Troy Baker), while trying to make sense of himself and the baggage induced from his nightmares as he tries to form bonds with his found family – including Jean Grey (Krizia Bajos).

“He knows there’s something big behind him, but he doesn’t know what or why,” McIntyre explained. “He doesn’t know why he feels the way he feels or where this rage comes from a lot of the time.”

This uncertainty, McIntyre admitted, makes Logan more human. And he’s excited that the game will ultimately show fans of the character that “beneath the claws and healing factor is a character struggling with the question of who he is supposed to be.”

This isn’t to say that it’s all emotions and vulnerability. During the gameplay, Logan certainly gets his fair share of bloody kicks, deadly swipes, and claw impaling punches. McIntyre references them as a “bottomless rage.” He explains jokingly that sometimes the violence is necessary to prove a point. “Logan wants to protect people who cannot protect themselves, and perhaps most importantly, he doesn’t particularly like the person he can become when that rage takes over.”

Which, admittedly, is unfortunate, because it’s one of the coolest parts of the game’s mechanics. The angrier the Wolverine, the better the bloody visuals and power moves onscreen.

“I like that Insomniac and Sony started with the, ‘I ain’t no hero. I’m Wolverine,’” McIntyre said. “But, somewhere there’s a little bit of hope in him that maybe he could be someone better than that. I loved exploring that.”

With this being the first big solo Wolverine title, I ask what it feels like to be stepping into the pop-culture zeitgeist alongside Hugh Jackman, whose performance (even in the video game space) has defined the character for well over two decades.

McIntyre isn’t pretending that he has shoes to fill.

“Everyone on Earth knows Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, as you should because he’s phenomenal,” he said. Acknowledging that audiences will now be experiencing his story from inside the character, in an intimate fashion, guiding him along a journey instead of just watching how his story plays out in a cinematic universe onscreen is where the magic lies in his performance alongside Jackman. “What I’m really excited about for people now is that we get to tell a Wolverine story where you get to be Wolverine,” McIntyre says. “You get to experience being Wolverine.”

But when the fighting stops, he wants Logan’s story to stay with the player.

“I know this combat’s going to be sick. I know the experience is going to be sick,” McIntyre added. “But when you put that controller down, what do you feel? Are you going to feel something? Is it going to mean something?”

For a character who has spent centuries trying to outrun his past, perhaps the most interesting question is what happens when Logan finally has to face it.

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Marvel’s Wolverine arrives September 15 exclusively on PlayStation 5.