Woody Harrelson Joins Short Film Mary the Widow as Executive Producer

Woody Harrelson has come on board as an executive producer of Mary the Widow, a live-action short film. It is the first short he has executive produced, according to Deadline, which broke the news as an exclusive on 30 October 2026.

An executive producer is usually a backer or overseer who helps a project come together, often without handling the day-to-day filmmaking. Harrelson joins Jack Piatt, Kevin McCormick and Sarge Anderson in that role.

The 14-minute film is written and directed by Ryan Noufer. He wrote it for his late grandmother, Mary. Julie Ariola stars as Mary, Jean Villepique plays Penny, Mary's daughter, and Stephen Tobolowsky plays Ed.

The producers are Celia Aniskovich, Amina Fishburn, Brian Buxton and Trevor Alper.

Switchboard will distribute the film. It also plans to run a campaign for the film at the 99th Academy Awards, as part of its 2026-27 slate of short films. A campaign here means a push to get Academy voters to see and consider the film for a nomination in the short film categories.

Short films rarely reach audiences through a big studio release. They usually travel through film festivals, online platforms and awards campaigns, and a distributor's job is to decide where and when they are seen. A slate is simply a group of films a distributor plans to release over a season.

For Noufer, the project is a personal one, built around his grandmother's name. For Switchboard, it is one of several titles on its upcoming calendar. Further casting, release dates and screening plans have not been announced.