Late Night with Seth Meyers writer Mike Scollins is bringing his first movie to SXSW.
The coming-of-age comedy Brian, which marks Scollins’ feature screenwriting debut, will have its world premiere at the festival this March. It will screen as part of the festival’s Narrative Feature Competition.
Brian follows the titular teen (played by Ben Wang of Karate Kid: Legends and TV’s American Born Chinese) as he runs for class president in hopes of impressing the teacher he crushes on. The cast also includes William H. Macy, Natalie Morales, and Randall Park.
Actor Will Ropp helmed the film in his feature directorial debut. Scollins also serves as an executive producer on the project, which has additional backing from his Late Night bosses. Seth Meyers and showrunner Mike Shoemaker are also credited as EPs alongside Jason Carden, an exec at Meyers and Shoemaker’s Sethmaker Shoemeyers Productions.
Scollins, who has been with Late Night since 2016, is perhaps best known to viewers for his recurring segment “The Scollywood Minute“—or for his ill-fated decision to don a tank top to a work meeting. (Per LateNighter’s tally, he also leads the pack in “Surprise Inspection” call-outs.)
“I am so pumped for everyone to see it!” Scollins wrote of the premiere on Instagram, calling the EPs “the world’s best dudes.”
Meyers in turn chimed in to say on Instagram, “[Scollins] wrote an incredible sweet and funny movie.” He then quipped, “And yet, for our show he still exclusively writes jokes in such bad taste they only ever make the audience recoil in disgust. He contains multitudes!!!”
Last year, Meyers had offered praised for Scollins’ debut film on Instagram, playfully writing, “It kills me to say, but it’s really good.”
SXSW is scheduled to run Thursday, March 12 through Wednesday, March 18, in Austin, Texas.
