Apple and Skydance‘s youth empowerment tale Way of the Warrior Kid, based on the 2017 novel by Jocko Willink, has tapped 14-year-old Belfast breakout Jude Hill for its lead role, also bringing on three-time Emmy nominee Linda Cardellini (Dead to Me) for a role.

Hill plays Marc, a self-doubting boy who gets bullied and is hard-pressed to complete a single pull-up, with Cardellini as Marc’s mother, Sarah. As we were first to report, Chris Pratt also stars in the film directed by McG.

In Way of the Warrior Kid, Marc’s uncle, Jake (Pratt), an elite Navy SEAL, is injured on a mission and  moves in with his sister for rehab. When he discovers his 13-year-old nephew is struggling academically, socially and physically, Jake takes on a new mission: using his SEAL Team training over three months of summer to help the youth find his inner warrior.

We were first to report on the package out of Cannes, as Pratt and McG came aboard, also sharing word of the $80M-$85M global deal Skydance locked in with Apple, where the company has a first-look deal. The film will be produced by Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger, alongside McG and Mary Viola for Wonderland Sound, and Pratt for Indivisible Productions. Additional producers include Ben Everard for Everard Entertainment, and Willink. Will Staples (Without Remorse) adapted the screenplay.

Cardellini is coming off her starring role opposite Christina Applegate on Liz Feldman’s acclaimed dark comedy Dead to Me, which ran for three seasons, bringing her a pair of Emmy nominations, among other accolades. Also a producer on that series, she’s set to reteam with Feldman on No Good Deed, a new dark comedy from Feldman first announced in 2022, which also stars Ray Romano, Lisa Kudrow, and Luke Wilson. Soon, Cardellini will be seen starring opposite Ben Stiller in David Gordon Green’s comedy Nutcrackers, a project we first reported on, which is set to open this year’s Toronto Film Festival. She’s also the female lead opposite Vince Vaughn in Nonnas, Stephen Chbosky’s forthcoming comedy for Fifth Season and 1Community, which we announced.

Hill made his theatrical debut as Buddy, the young lead of Kenneth Branagh’s Academy-Award nominated and BAFTA winning Belfast — a coming-of-age drama examining a boy’s experience coming of age in late ’60s Northern Ireland amid the conflict known as The Troubles. For his performance opposite Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciaran Hinds, and Caitriona Balfe, he earned numerous awards, including Best Young Actor at the Critics Choice Awards and Best Newcomer at the Hollywood Critics Association Awards. Reteaming with Branagh since then on his Agatha Christie adaptation A Haunting in Venice, Hill will next be seen starring opposite Nicole Kidman, Gael García Bernal and Matthew Macfadyen in Amazon MGM Studios’ thriller Holland, Michigan.

Other upcoming Apple Original Films produced by Skydance Media include genre-bender The Gorge starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy; Guy Ritchie’s Fountain of Youth, starring Natalie Portman and John Krasinksi; and the action-adventure film pic May Day with Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh in the lead.

Cardellini is repped by CAA and Jackoway Austen Tyerman; Hill by Berwick & Kovacik, UTA, and Markham, Froggatt and Irwin.