Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh are teaming up for Mayday, with Apple TV releasing a first-look image from the new film during its press day in Santa Monica on Tuesday.
The movie, which premieres Sept. 4 on the streamer, is described as a genre-bending, action-packed buddy comedy that flips the spy thriller on its head. When hot shot U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant Troy “Assassin” Kelly (Reynolds) is sent on a top-secret mission into Russian territory at the height of the Cold War, the operation implodes, leaving him stranded behind enemy lines. Discovered by Nikolai Ustinov (Branagh), a gruff ex-KGB agent with a penchant for American culture, Troy thinks he’s toast — but could an unlikely alliance between the two lead to Troy’s rescue, and a bond neither saw coming?
Marcin Dorocinski, Maria Bakalova and David Morse round out the ensemble cast. An Apple original hailing from David Ellison’s Skydance Media, Mayday is written, directed and produced by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (who most recently helmed Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves). The project is part of Skydance’s first-look deal with Apple, which previously resulted in the Chris Evans-Ana de Armas action-comedy Ghosted, Mark Wahlberg feature The Family Plan and the genre-bender The Gorge, starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy.
Reynolds, who also serves as an executive producer on the film, was last seen in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine; Branagh has lately been focused on directing— with Belfast, Death on the Nile and A Haunting in Venice as his most recent — but appeared on screen in those latter two films as well as in Oppenheimer.
