James McAvoy's Directorial Debut 'California Schemin'' Gets a Trailer and an October Release Date
James McAvoy steps behind the camera for the first time with California Schemin', and the first trailer landed exclusively via The Hollywood Reporter on 19 August 2026. The film arrives in theatres on 9 October, distributed by Bob Yari's Magenta Light Studios, which acquired the project earlier this year (The Hollywood Reporter, 10 March 2026).
The story is a wild one, and it is real. Set in the late 1990s, California Schemin' follows two aspiring Scottish rappers, Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, who con their way into the American hip-hop industry by pretending to be from California. The screenplay, written by Elaine Gracie and Archie Thomson, draws from Bain's autobiography of the same name, later reissued as Straight Outta Scotland. The same bizarre story was previously the subject of The Great Hip Hop Hoax, a documentary that screened at SXSW in 2013 (The Hollywood Reporter).
Séamus McLean Ross plays Bain, and Samuel Bottomley plays Boyd. McAvoy himself appears on screen as Anthony Reed, a record label boss. The cast also includes Lucy Halliday and Rebekah Murrell. Producers on the project are Danny Page, Paul Aniello, Simon Kay and Michael Mendelsohn, alongside Magenta Light Studios (The Hollywood Reporter).
The film has already had a life on the festival circuit. It premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, where McAvoy told Deadline he "wanted to make people laugh as well as cry" with his debut (Deadline, 11 September 2025). It is set to headline the Sounds section of the Zurich Film Festival (The Hollywood Reporter, 27 August 2025) and will close the Glasgow Film Festival 2026 (The Hollywood Reporter, 8 December 2025). The first-look image from the production surfaced back in February 2025, published by Deadline ahead of the European Film Market (Deadline, 7 February 2025).
McAvoy, a BAFTA winner whose film career began with 1995's The Near Room, has described the film as "a story about friendship, rap and glorious failure that has the potential to move, shock and entertain" (Deadline, 6 May 2024). He told Variety at TIFF that he wanted to make a film about Scotland that is both entertaining and aspirational (Variety, 5 September 2025).
For audiences, the appeal is straightforward: two kids from Scotland fake California accents, fool the music industry, and the whole thing actually happened. With an actor of McAvoy's calibre steering his first feature, the 9 October release will be one to watch.
