Gregg Araki Sets Ashton Kutcher & Alison Brie For Dark Comedy ‘The Decline of F*cking Western Civilization’; Jesse Williams In Talks

EXCLUSIVE: Gregg Araki has found his next project in The Decline of F*cking Western Civilization, a dark comedy to star Ashton Kutcher and Alison Brie that has Jesse Williams in talks for a third major role, sources tell Deadline.

Described as an ensemble piece — Election meets American Beauty — the film’s plot is being kept under wraps. Production kicked off in Los Angeles today.

Producers are Why Not Productions and Goodfellas. Araki is working from a script by Kevin W. Koehler, on which he’s completed revisions. He comes to the project on the heels of I Want You Sex, a darkly comedic erotic thriller starring Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman, which released with Magnolia Pictures this summer after premiering to critical acclaim at Sundance.

An iconic indie filmmaker associated with the New Queer Cinema movement, Araki is best known for titles like The Living End, Mysterious Skin and Kaboom. He is repped by Black Bear and Tricarico Chavez.

Kutcher was most recently seen starring alongside Evan Peters, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope and Rebecca Hall in The Beauty, Ryan Murphy and Matthew Hodgson’s body horror series for FX. He is repped by CAA, Untitled, and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern.

Brie recently produced and starred opposite husband Dave Franco in the acclaimed Neon horror film Together. Seen this year in Amazon MGM Studios’ Masters of the Universe, she is repped by WME, Rise Management, and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern.

Best known for his role of Dr. Jackson Avery on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, Williams has recently been seen on the ABC sitcom Shifting Gears and has been tapped for a new role in the forthcoming fifth and final season of Apple TV’s The Morning Show. He is repped by CAA, Entertainment 360, Granderson Des Rochers, and Yorn, Levine, Barnes.