Move Over 'Challengers.' Alexander Skarsgård & Harry Lighton Play Queer Bikers in New Film

The Hollywood Reporter announced that "Poor Things" producers Element Pictures are producing a new queer-themed film about a same sex biking gang described as "a "fun and filthy romance with heart."

Entitled "Pillion," it is to be written and directed by Harry Lighton in his feature-film directing debut. (He previously directed the BAFTA-nominated short "Wren Boys.") Lighton based his script on a Adam Mars-Jones' 2019 novel, "Box Hill."

Casting for the film features British actor Harry Melling (best-known for playing Dudley Dursley in five "Harry Potter" films and Harry Beltik in "The Queen's Gambit") and hunky Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård (Emmy winner for "Big Little Lies," Emmy nominee for "Succession").

According to THR, "Melling plays Colin, a weedy wallflower who is letting life pass him by until he meets Ray (Skarsgård), an impossibly handsome leader of a motorbike club, who [takes] him on as his submissive.

"Ray uproots Colin from his dreary suburban life and introduces him to a community of kinky, queer bikers, but as Colin dives deeper into Ray's world, he begins to question whether the life of a 24/7 submissive is really for him."

The film will shoot this summer in Britain.

"Harry's script is equally compelling and shocking as it is funny and entertaining – and one of the best we've read in years," Alison Thompson and Mark Gooder of Cornerstone said in a statement reported by Entertainment Weekly. "The casting is inspired, and we are thrilled to unleash this brilliant project in the Cannes market."

Melling, EW writes, "continues to accumulate one of the most intriguing post-'Potter' careers out there. His remarkable performance as a limbless artist in the Coen brothers' 2018 film, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs," put him on many directors' radars, leading to roles like his turn as Edgar Allan Poe in 2022's "The Pale Blue Eye.'"

Skarsgård received another Emmy nomination for his Elon Musk-esque tech mogul on the final season of "Succession." He is next set to star as an android in the Apple TV+ series "Murderbot." He's also already had some experience with BDSM relationships on screen, having played a dude on Mia Goth's leash in last year's "Infinity Pool."