Apple Original Films dropped the first trailer for Mayday on July 15, casting Ryan Reynolds as a Navy pilot stranded behind Soviet lines in 1987 and Kenneth Branagh as the ex-KGB agent who finds him. The Cold War buddy comedy pairs two actors rarely seen sharing a screen, let alone a snowbound survival plot. Mayday premieres globally on Apple TV on September 4.
A Navy pilot crash-lands deep in Russian territory in 1987, and the man who finds him used to work for the KGB. That is the entire premise Apple TV bet on when it unveiled the footage on July 15, and the pairing alone explains the buzz: Ryan Reynolds as the wisecracking Lieutenant Troy “Assassin” Kelly, Kenneth Branagh as Nikolai Ustinov, a gruff former agent with an odd soft spot for American culture. Behind the camera, “Game Night” duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have described the project as a spiritual cousin to “Misery,” swapping a snowbound cabin for the frozen expanse of the Cold War. The full film lands on Apple TV September 4.
A Cold War duo lands in the spotlight
Apple Original Films released the first trailer for Mayday on July 15, 2026, pairing Ryan Reynolds with Kenneth Branagh in an action-comedy set in 1987, at the height of the Cold War. The film skips theaters entirely and arrives exclusively on Apple TV on September 4, 2026.
A hotshot pilot stranded behind enemy lines
Reynolds plays Lieutenant Troy “Assassin” Kelly, a cocky U.S. Navy pilot sent on a top-secret mission into Russian territory. The operation implodes, leaving him stranded deep in Soviet wilderness. An ominous voice in the trailer sets the tone early: “You are now crossing Soviet airspace.”
Branagh steps in as Nikolai Ustinov, a gruff ex-KGB agent with an unexpected fondness for American culture, who stumbles upon the downed pilot. Their uneasy alliance drives the story, and Branagh gets one of the trailer’s driest lines: “Oh good, you have not died.”
The Game Night duo behind the camera
Mayday is written and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the team behind Game Night and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. The supporting cast includes Maria Bakalova, Marcin Dorocinski, and David Morse. Skydance‘s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger produce alongside Maximum Effort’s Ashley Fox and Johnny Pariseau, with Reynolds also serving as executive producer.
Daley has a curious reference point for the film’s dynamic. “We always talked about this as being kind of a spiritual cousin to Misery,” he told The Hollywood Reporter, hinting at a claustrophobic two-hander laced with dark humor rather than a straight action ride. Reports also suggest the project cost north of $100 million and sat completed at Apple for nearly 2 years before this week’s unveiling, though the studio has yet to confirm any budget figure.
Next stop: San Diego
The pitch is pure curiosity casting: a Deadpool-era star trading barbs with an Oscar-winning Shakespearean in the snow, and Apple is clearly betting the odd-couple chemistry sells itself. The studio is putting that theory to the test right away, bringing Mayday to the 2026 San Diego Comic-Con as one of its featured projects, roughly 6 weeks before the September 4 streaming debut.