The Furious (2026)

Doug Liman ’s upcoming crypto satire Bitcoin already sounded wild enough with a cast led by Casey Affleck , Pete Davidson , Gal Gadot , and Isla Fisher . Now the movie is getting even more chaotic with a lineup of real-world public figures being worked into the story as characters, including Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Jack Dorsey, and Eric Trump. And yes, apparently there’s also an Elon Musk reference tossed in there for good measure. The film follows a man trying to prove that he secretly created Bitcoin, a revelation that throws him into a dangerous global scramble involving tech moguls, political leaders, and the future of the financial system itself. Affleck stars as controversial computer scientist Craig Wright, who has spent years publicly claiming he’s Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, despite courts and much of the crypto community rejecting those claims. In 2024, the British High Court ruled Wright was not Nakamoto and ordered him to stop making the claim. What makes the project especially fascinating is how Liman is approaching it technically. Instead of traditional location shooting, the production is using what’s described as a “markerless performative capture stage,” with AI technology heavily integrated into the filmmaking process. According to Liman, using the tech cuts the budget down to around $70 million instead of ballooning into the $200 million to $300 million range. The real-life figures appearing in the movie were reportedly first portrayed by actors on camera, with AI enhancement later being applied to make them resemble their real-world counterparts more closely. The production had already secured agreements from performers allowing those AI modifications. Apparently Zuckerberg has the largest role among the public figure characters, while Eric Trump appears promoting “Trump coin” and is shown in one scene hanging around a stripper. Even though these political and tech personalities aren’t the film’s main focus, the project is clearly poking at some highly recognizable targets. The production team reportedly approached the material carefully from a legal standpoint and is leaning hard into satire in the same spirit as Saturday Night Live or South Park . Liman reunites here with Affleck after working together on The Instigators , while Davidson plays blockchain investor Calvin Ayre. Gadot stars as Charlotte “Lotte” Miller. The screenplay comes from WGA Award winner Nick Schenk , best known for Gran Torino . Patrick Wachsberger, who is handling sales, described the project as “an exciting and gripping story, set in the mysterious and high-stakes real world of crypto.” The AI side of the production is also drawing attention because the movie is utilizing proprietary technology from Kavanaugh’s ACME AI label alongside Liman’s PECAN performance capture system. The filmmakers reportedly made sure the process aligns with current Hollywood guild AI guidelines. This is also a major producing comeback for Kavanaugh, the former Relativity Media head who helped finance films like The Social Network , The Fighter , and The Fast and the Furious before the company collapsed in 2015. In recent years, Kavanaugh has become heavily involved in cryptocurrency circles, making Bitcoin feel like an especially personal project for him. Whether this thing ends up being a biting satire, a total trainwreck, or something strangely brilliant, it definitely doesn’t sound boring. Between AI-generated performances, crypto conspiracies, billionaire cameos, and world leaders woven into the madness, Bitcoin is shaping up to be one of the strangest movies currently in production.

It was down-and-out in Cannes for Hollywood this year, with rival flaks bunking together, films screening in tiny apartments and studio teams staying home.