Aimee Lou Wood Looks Fab in 'Film Club's First Images

Lately, there's been a trend of new series lacking American distributors when commissioned, spanning a much larger-than-usual amount of announcements. That's not some freak occurrence; since January 2025, the instability around the U.S. leadership has made European TV bosses hesitant to co-produce with American networks. There was already a pullback after the one-two punch of the pandemic and the strike by American companies that had once rushed to grab as much programming as possible, leaving many series the BBC had hoped to make languishing. However, one series that did get made from the BBC's ambitious 2024 slate, Film Club, has a cast that might suddenly be much more interesting to U.S. networks.

Film Club was initially announced in February 2024 alongside ten other brand-new series, half of which still have no updates since that initial reveal. At the time, it was billed as "actor Aimee Lou Wood's writing debut about two film nerds in love without realizing it," her first project since the series that first launched her career, Sex Education, concluded. 

However, it took until late December for a cast to be announced, with Suranne Jones (MaryLand) co-starring with Wood as mother and daughter. The timing meant the announcement flew under the radar since the holidays were already practically at the door. While Jones is well known to the Anglophile crowd, the rest of the cast was less familiar, save Wood; however, she was more known to the Gen Z crowd, less so outside of it, especially in the U.S.

Four months later, things have changed. The wildly popular HBO anthology series The White Lotus cast Wood as one-half of the show's main romance couple for Season 3, and by the final episode, she'd walked off with the hearts of everyone who watched. Meanwhile, the Film Club cast also included a newcomer whose debut series hadn't premiered yet, Owen Cooper. That debut was Adolescence, which has done better than anyone expected. 

In a bit of fortuitous timing, The White Lotus' finale coincided with Adolescence becoming the fourth most-watched English language series in Netflix history; Wood and Cooper became household names overnight, and Film Club became much more attractive to U.S. streaming services.

Along with Jones, Wood, and Cooper, the cast also features Liv Hill (Miss Austen), Nabhaan Rizwaan (Kaos), Adam Long (Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue), Arian Nik (Passenger), Fola Evans Akingbola (Trying) and Wood's co-writer Ralph Davis (Rogue Heroes). 

Here's the series synopsis:

For Evie, Film Club is her weekly escape – a chance to create a world of wonder, deck her mum’s garage out in whatever the movie calls for, and spend a few uninterrupted hours with her best friend, Noa. It’s Friday night. 7 pm. Film Club Week 198. Evie hasn’t left the house in six months after a ‘wobble,’ and tonight, things are different. Noa’s got big news. A dream job is taking him across the other side of the country, which means that all of this is ending. That reality is hitting. They will be forced to consider for the first time they might be more than just friends. Neither of them is the best regarding emotions, but this time, those emotions might be impossible to ignore...

As if life weren’t challenging enough already, Evie will be navigating this amongst the eccentricity of her family home - living with her fiercely loving single mum Suz, sister Izzie, and handsome boyfriend/sometimes man of the house Josh. Film Club is a witty and emotional show about love and family, whether we should follow our hearts or heads, and being in love with a friend.

Wood and Davis penned all six episodes of Film Club along with Anna Jordan (Killing Eve); director Catherine Morshead (The Full Monty) helmed all episodes, with Stella Merz producing. Wood executive produces alongside Alison Jackson & Jamie Jackson for Gaumont and Nawfal Faizullah for the BBC.

Film Club concluded filming Manchester early in 2025; the series is heading for BBC Three later in the year. The six-episode series still has no American distributor, but hopefully, that will be resolved sooner rather than later.