Official Trailer for ‘The Christophers’ with Ian McKellen & Michaela Coel
by Alex Billington
February 26, 2026
Source: YouTube
“I have a relationship with the canvas. I’ve said what I’ve got to say to it!” Neon has unveiled the official trailer for The Christophers, another brand new Steven Soderbergh movie to watch in theaters (after Presence & Black Bag last year). This first premiered at the 2025 Toronto Film Festival last year, but oddly didn’t show up at any other festivals. Neon is now releasing this in April in the spring if anyone is curious to watch. The children of a once famous artist hire a forger to complete some unfinished, long ago abandoned canvases so they’ll have an inheritance when he dies. Ian McKellen stars as Julian Sklar – who was once a star of London’s 1960s and 70’s pop art explosion, but he hasn’t painted in decades and has been broke for years. His two estranged children (James Corden & Jessica Gunning), desperate for an inheritance, hire Lori, an art restorer and former forger to help them sell some unfinished pieces. Michaela Coel stars as the forger Lori Butler. This looks like a fun one – especially with Soderbergh at the helm, meaning it’s more than a simple story about art. Curious to see where it ends up with these paintings & what happens to Sklar.
Here’s the trailer (+ poster) for Steven Soderbergh’s film The Christophers, from Neon’s YouTube:
Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) was once a star of London’s 1960’s & 70’s pop art explosion, but he hasn’t painted in decades and has been broke for years. His two estranged children (James Corden, Jessica Gunning), desperate for an inheritance, hire Lori, an art restorer and former forger (Michaela Coel), to pose as a prospective assistant in order to access 8 unfinished canvases Julian has buried deep in storage. Her plan is to complete them, then return them to storage, where they are to be “discovered” upon Julian’s death. The Christophers is directed by American producer / writer / filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, director of many films including Sex Lies & Videotape, Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven, Che: Part 1 & 2, Contagion, Side Effects, Haywire, Logan Lucky, Unsane, High Flying Bird, The Laundromat, Let Them All Talk, No Sudden Move, Kimi, Magic Mike’s Last Dance, Black Bag, Presence, plus TV series including “The Knick”, “Mosaic”, “Full Circle”, “Command Z”. The screenplay is written by Ed Solomon (Bill & Ted, Men in Black, Charlie’s Angels, Imagine That, Now You See Me, No Sudden Move). It’s produced by Iain Canning & Jim Parks. It premiered at the 2025 Toronto Film Festival last year. Neon debuts Soderbergh’s The Christophers film in select US theaters first on April 10th, 2026, then in theaters nationwide on April 17th coming up.
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