Is God Is has landed an early summer release date from Orion Pictures, a division of Amazon MGM Studios.
Playwright Aleshea Harris is directing the big screen adaptation of her acclaimed, award-winning stage play of the same name will open in cinemas May 15, 2026. That’s just around the time of the Cannes Film Festival, although there’s no word yet as to whether the movie will make an awards play, although Orion is known as a home for prestige fare.
Is God Is marks Harris’ feature directorial debut, and stars Kara Young (Virgo) and Mallori Johnson (Kindred) as twin African-American sisters who were burned badly as babies in a fire that left them with permanent, disfiguring scars. Now 21 years old, they embark on an epic quest for revenge and, and along the way, confront a charged family history that will push them to extraordinary lengths.
Janelle Monáe, Erika Alexander, Mykelti Williamson and Josiah Cross co-star, with Vivica A. Fox and Sterling K. Brown also helping to round out the cast.
Producers include Viva Maude’s Tessa Thompson and Kishori Rajan, Lindens’ Riva Marker, CYRK’s Janicza Bravo alongside Harris. Stacy O’Neil, Nicole King and Kenneth Yu are executive producing.
Harris wrote the adapted script. The story opens as the twins are living a meager life in the Northeast. Everything changes when they learn their mother — who is known as “She” or “God” — is actually alive. They travel to her home in the South, when she tells them her father is responsible for the fire that caused both their burns and her own injuries. The mother dispatches them to the California desert to find him and seek retribution.
Is God Is, which premiered Off-Broadway in 2018 at the Soho Rep, won multiple Obie awards and quickly caught the attention of top movie producers, such as Thompson. At one point, Scott Rudin and A24 were also interested in pursuing a movie adaptation.
It’s hardly a surprise why the interest. Two years earlier, Is God Is — still unproduced at that time — won the American Playwriting Foundation’s Relentless Award, established in honor of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Harris was praised for her unique take on the revenge genre, and given a cash prize of $45,000, which allowed her to have stage readings across the country.