David Harbour & John Cena Set For Fifth Season Comedy ‘The Family Disappears’; Pic Reunites ‘Friendship’ Producing Team

EXCLUSIVE: Fifth Season is set to produce The Family Disappears, a new comedy from Bad Apples helmer Jonatan Etzler starring two-time Emmy winner David Harbour and Emmy nominee John Cena.

Based on an original script by Brendan O’Hare with thriller undertones, The Family Disappears follows an overworked dad who returns from a work trip to find his family has disappeared and a mysterious newcomer has bought and moved into their home.

Fifth Season is the studio behind the film. Producers are Nick Weidenfeld through Friends Night and Alexis Garcia through CAT5, who together made the comedy Friendship, starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd, for Fifth Season and A24.

Pic seems thematically and perhaps tonally in the vein of that title, as well as DTF St. Louis, HBO’s darkly comedic meditation on suburban dysfunction that just brought Harbour a Emmy.

Production begins in Atlanta, Georgia on Nov. 10.

Harbour stars opposite Jason Bateman and Linda Cardellini in DTF St. Louis, the limited series from Steven Conrad, which was one of the big hits of this Emmy season with seven wins from 13 nominations. Finishing off his five seasons with Stranger Things just ahead of the new year, he has a packed slate coming up, including Courteney Cox’s crime thriller Evil Genius, launched out of TIFF, plus Violent Night 2; the dark comedy Little One produced by Zach Cregger and Roy Lee; Avengers: Doomsday, where he reprises as Red Guardian; John Rambo; and Fifth Season’s A Head Full of Ghosts. He is represented by WME, Untitled, and Sloane Offer Weber & Dern.

Cena scored his first Emmy nom this year as exec producer of Prime Video’s action comedy Heads of State, in which he starred opposite Idris Elba. Most recently seen in Coyote vs. Acme and the Netflix comedy Little Brother, his upcoming slate includes Sam Hargrave’s Apple original Matchbox the Movie, and the Netflix comedy One Attempt Remaining, where he stars opposite Jennifer Garner. He is repped by WME, Intenta, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.

Etzler is a Swedish filmmaker coming off directing the critically acclaimed dark comedy Bad Apples, starring Saoirse Ronan. He’s also directed the Swedish Netflix original One More Time and several shorts, in addition to working on the HBO series Beartown. He is repped by CAA, Lark, and Gang, Tyre, Ramer.

A writer and director who co-created the animated special Eggland and scripted podcast This Is Branchburg for Adult Swim, O’Hare has also written for series at Netflix and HBO, plus platforms like The New Yorker and Clickhole. He is repped by UTA and Entertainment 360.

Coming off the release of Zoe Kazan’s critically acclaimed Netflix limited series East of Eden, based on the John Steinbeck novel — previously adapted for film by her famed grandfather, Elia Kazan — Fifth Season next premieres The Good Daughter, starring Rose Byrne and Meghann Fahy, on Peacock Nov. 12.