EXCLUSIVE: Bender, the Irish coming-of-age comedy starring Bill Burr on which we recently were first to report, has found its director in Pluribus helmer Adam Bernstein.
Described as Superbad meets Derry Girls, and set to shoot this summer, Bender is based on the late-’70s, post-punk Dublin coming-of-age experiences of Adrian Cunningham, who penned the script. The story unfolds amid the frenzy surrounding an impending papal visit. Burr plays a gruff American record-store owner who convinces a ragtag gang of teenage misfits that their best, and possibly only, chance to lose their virginity before graduating high school is at a massive open-air mass for the visiting Pope.
Lesley-Ann Brandt (Lucifer) and Cunningham are producing under their D6 Entertainment banner, in partnership with Stephen McCormack and Craig Verdon of the Irish-based ReflektorMedia. Amy Kate Dolan is casting out of London.
Bernstein is an Emmy-winning television director whose credits include Scrubs, 30 Rock, Fargo, Oz, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Californication, The Sinner, Fosse/Verdon, Silo, and most recently, the hit Apple show Pluribus. In that show’s first season, he directed Episode 7, “The Gap,” which memorably chronicles Manousos’ (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) trek through South and Central America to connect with Carol (Rhea Seehorn) in the U.S., on his mission to save the world from the alien virus that’s taken it over. Its centerpiece is his journey through the Darién Gap, a remote and highly dangerous stretch of rainforest, mountains, and swamps on the Panama–Colombia border, where he nearly dies.
In film, Bernstein previously directed Six Ways to Sunday, a 1997 crime drama based on the Charles Perry novel Portrait of a Young Man Drowning, which starred Norman Reedus, Deborah Harry, Adrien Brody and Clark Gregg. He is repped by CAA.