'Bottoms': Release Date, Trailer, Cast, and Everything You Need to Know (2024)

The next entry in Emma Seligman's filmography is a dark comedy titled Bottoms that premiered at this year's SXSW Festival. The Canadian director broke out on the cinema scene back in 2020 with her first feature film, Shiva Baby. The movie was also selected for SXSW and Toronto International Film Festival that year and gathered a major positive reception from critics and audiences. Originally adapted from her own seven-minute short film in 2018, Seligman incorporated a lot of her identity into the story and main character, Danielle (Rachel Sennott). Featuring a Jewish and bisexual lead, Shiva Baby was widely regarded as a refreshing, multi-layered, and entertaining movie with favorable and innovative cultural representations.

Shortly after the film's success, Seligman landed a deal with HBO to develop a TV series with the working title Sugar, which focuses on a young woman in New York who is a sugar baby. Borrowing story elements from Shiva Baby, the series pilot will have Seligman as the writer, director, and executive producer along with Adam McKay (Don't Look Up). Her career trajectory continues to move forward, especially with Bottoms coming out this year. The film takes place in a high school setting and focuses on two queer female leads, played by Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri (The Bear). In the lead-up to Emma Seligman's next film, below is a helpful guide with everything we know so far about Bottoms.

Editor's Note: This article was updated on August 19.

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When and Where Can You Watch Bottoms?

The film premiered at the SXSW Festival with two screenings on March 11 and March 15. The movie is set to arrive in theaters on August 25, 2023. Due to being produced by Orion Pictures and distributed through MGM Studios, there is a high probability that Prime Video will be the main streaming platform for the film following Amazon's acquisition of MGM. The movie will have a runtime of 92 minutes or 1 hour and 32 minutes.

What Is Bottoms About?

Following Seligman's success with her feature directorial debut, she already had her next feature film in the works that would reunite her with Sennott as a lead star and writer. She described it as a "campy queer high school comedy in the vein of Wet Hot American Summer but more for a Gen-Z queer audience". It's still a rarity in cinema to see female-led comedic coming-of-age movies that explore crude or explicit themes similar to Superbad or American Pie. Let alone, it's even rarer to see queer leads in such movies, which highlights Seligman's commitment to including LGBTQ+ characters similar to her previous movie. In recent years, popular films like Olivia Wilde's Booksmart or Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird have presented these kinds of stories and proven the importance, relevance, and value of representing female adolescence within the space of the cinema. Bottoms is a promising movie to expand upon the variety of these wild and fierce female-centric comedies. The official synopsis reads as follows:

Two unpopular queer girls in their senior year start a fight club to try to impress and hook up with cheerleaders.

Sennott further described the film in an interview in September 2022 as follows:

Two girls in a classic American football town who start a fight club under the guise of female empowerment, but it’s actually so they can have sex with cheerleaders.

Is There a Trailer for Bottoms?

The red band trailer for Bottoms was released on June 6 and wowed viewers with the film's comedic and raunchy tone. Just from the trailer, Bottoms looks to be one of the best comedies of the year. On August 11, 2023, a new clip from Bottoms was released showing our two leads being called into the principal's office. See it below:

When and Where Was Bottoms Filmed?

Filming for Bottoms took place mostly in New Orleans and production ran from April 18 to May 27 in 2022.

Related:10 Projects Releasing in 2023 Featuring LGBTQ+ Stars

Who's In the Cast of Bottoms?

Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri are both comedians, writers, and actors and they will play the film's leads. This project marks the second collaboration between the two comedians following their 2020 Comedy Central digital series titled Ayo and Rachel Are Single. The short-lived series explored the misfortunes of modern dating and a fictionalized portrayal of their unlucky love lives. The pair have been on the rise with their work in acting. Sennott's breakout role in Shiva Baby has been followed with roles in feature films like Tahara, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, and the upcoming 2023 film I Used To Be Funny. She is also set to appear in the HBO series The Idol. Sennott also takes on triple duty for Bottoms as a co-writer and executive producer alongside Emma Seligman.

Edebiri's breakout role was on the hit series The Bear which is currently filming its second season. She's also starred in Dickinson and films like Hello, Goodbye, and Everything In Between and another 2023 movie titled Theater Camp. Edebiri has also been involved with voice acting, having replaced Jenny Slate as Missy in Big Mouth. She also voices in the web animation Bigtop Burger and is part of the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem animated film. Notably, she has recently joined the MCU in an undisclosed role in the 2024 film Thunderbolts. She will also appear on the popular comedy series Abbott Elementary. The other cast members that are set to star in the film include Ruby Cruz (Willow), Havana Rose Liu (No Exit), model Kaia Gerber (American Horror Story), Nicholas Galitzine (Cinderella), Miles Fowler (The Resident), former football player Marshawn Lynch, Dagmara Dominiczyk (Succession) and Punkie Johnson (Saturday Night Live).

Who's Making Bottoms?

Seligman serves as the director, writer, and executive producer of the high school comedy. Ted Deiker (Our Friend) is also an executive producer along with Elizabeth Banks (Cocaine Bear), Max Handelman (Shrill), Alison Small (Cocaine Bear), and Alana Mayo (Without Remorse) as producers. Maria Rusche and Hanna Park return as the film's cinematographer and editor respectively after previously working on Shiva Baby.