After HBO cancelled the excellent Rae-created Rap Sh!t after its second season in 2024, Rae is still up to spar with the network that aired her breakout hit Insecure from 2016 until 2021. (Rae did sign on to a three-year TV and film production deal with Paramount back in January, although it looks like Untitled Male Friendship Show had been in development before that.)
Centering on two—you guessed it—male friends, a barber turned professional manager to his pal, an aspiring pro boxer, the series will take place in Las Vegas, promising another of Rae’s insightful and bittersweet comic portraits of ambition, friendship, and the sacrifices you make along the way. Toss in some high stakes in the form of a particularly dangerous sporting milieu, and the series looks to mine the same vein of show business vs. loyalty dramedy that beset Rap Sh!t’s ride-or-die would-be Miami rappers (memorably played by Aida Osman and KaMillion).
Longtime Rae collaborator Prentice Penney will direct the pilot and stay on as showrunner, and while no cast has been announced yet, Rae’s track record in pulling together stellar ensembles from lesser-known actors all but ensures another compelling series where race, love, sex, success and failure all test the main characters’ bond. Meanwhile, the busy Rae, just off her turns producing for SZA and Keke Palmer and channeling Ingrid Bergman, is also preparing to reprise her role in the Spider-Verse, and to lend support to Anna Kendrick and Seth Rogen as they have some Babies.
Keep scrolling for more great stories.