EXCLUSIVE: In one of those “This is Hollywood, land of dreams” stories the aspirational epilogue in Pretty Woman is about, a spec script by a 20-something British actor with one produced episodic writing credit triggered a heated bidding war among top TV producers, networks and streamers, landing at A24 with Nicole Kidman among A-listers in talks to star, Deadline has learned.
The writer’s name is Dylan Brady, and the spec script is an untitled erotic thriller. (The project was originally titled Discretion; it will undergo a name change, in part not to be confused with the legal thriller drama series Discretion A24 has at Paramount+ with Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning starring).
The untitled drama centers on a struggling actor who takes a nannying job with a high-flying producer and her movie-star husband, plotting to seduce his employers and exploit their industry connections only to find himself ensnared in a far more dangerous game.
The spec ranked second on the 2025 The Brit List — the British and Irish equivalent of The Black List, featuring top unproduced film and TV scripts — which came out in early November. At the time, Deadline profiled Brady, who didn’t have U.S. representation, and Discretion, which had been optioned by Kudos. (The British production company will remain attached.)
By the end of 2025, Brady was signed by a U.S. agency, UTA, after being identified by a young agent and an assistant there. He is repped by UTA’s co-head of TV Lit Dan Erlij, the architect behind the big auction last fall over another spec, Joshua Zetumer’s supernatural drama Pagans, which was won by Netflix with a straight-to-series order after some 15-18 studios, platforms and producers bid for it.
Brady’s Discretion also sparked a bidding war when it was sent out last month, with nine offers on the table from the likes of Netflix, Amazon, Apple, FX, Peacock and others, sources said. There has been great curiosity about Brady, a virtual unknown as a writer, and some 27 meetings have been set up for him with producers, studios and networks.
He flew in from the UK Friday night for the meetings, in which he was to lay out his ideas for the rest of the series. Before Brady had a chance to start the process and while Netflix and Amazon were still making bids, A24 took the project off the market preemptively after a 24-hour blitz by Saturday morning with a substantial seven-figure offer, sources said. Conversations started with Kidman and other top actors for lead roles.
This has become a signature MO for A24. Last year, the company won a seven-way bidding war for Trigger Point, a spec script by Harrison Query. A24 developed the project internally and attached Joel Edgerton to star and Jeremy Saulner to direct before taking it out, sparking a bidding won by Netflix with a straight-to-series order.
Similarly, A24 acquired the rights to Chandler’s Baker’s yet-to-be-published short story Discretion in a highly competitive situation with a 7-figure purchase price and additional million dollars in script/development fees. After attaching Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning and writer Susannah Grant, the package was taken out and, in a bidding war, went to Paramount+ with a straight-to-series order. Both series are produced by A24-based Joe Hipps.
Brady told Deadline in November that inspiration for the series came from a real-life friend who took on a job as home-help to a high-powered couple, before becoming entwined in their lives. The project takes references from Fatal Attraction, Eyes Wide Shut, and Sunset Boulevard while aiming to subvert storytelling conventions.
“Erotic thrillers have historically always been very heterosexual, and it’s the marital unit that is the hero that has to be preserved at all costs from an evil slut, who threatens that unity,” he said. “I thought about what this looks like in 2025. What if the slut is the hero and there is something rotten in the marriage? I wanted to break form and put a queer lens on it.”
In addition to the title change, the drama is expected to undergo creative tweaks as it moves forward.
As an actor, Brady has appeared on such series as The Diplomat, Andor, Tell Me Everything and Coronation Street. As a writer, his sole produced credit to date is an episode of the short-lived 2023 British YA series for Netflix Everything Now. He is working on his self-funded short Anon starring Con O’Neill, shot entirely on dash cam in his home city of Derby, and has another series project in development with Kudos for the BBC, an adaptation of Charlotte Vassell’s novel The Other Half. Brady, who was mentored by All of Us Strangers director Andrew Haigh through the BFI Flare x BAFTA Cohort scheme, is also repped by Charlotte Knight of Knight Hall Agency in the UK.
The erotic thriller genre has been enjoying a major comeback, with at least 10 TV and film projects in the works. The untitled Brady project is joining such series in development as Hancock Park at Netflix and Fifth Season starring Regé-Jean Page, Teach Me at Peacock starring Mandy Moore, and two more projects at Fifth Season, Night Float starring Nina Dobrev and Dangerous Liaisons.
English (US) ·