🚨 BREAKING: Anya Taylor-Joy’s killer comeback to Netflix was THIS CLOSE to being axed forever… but a shocking last-minute deal just saved it all. What twisted secret nearly derailed her bloodiest role yet? 😱

Imagine plotting the perfect family feud—only for a 75-year-old Hollywood ghost to crash the party. Fans are buzzing: Will this thriller redefine revenge?

Dive into the drama that almost killed the queen of chills. 👇

In a Hollywood plot twist straight out of a scriptwriter’s fever dream, Anya Taylor-Joy’s highly anticipated Netflix series How to Kill Your Family has been rescued from the brink of cancellation following a swift resolution to a contentious copyright lawsuit. The legal drama, which pitted a European film giant against the streaming behemoth and the project’s literary roots, threatened to shelve the dark comedy thriller indefinitely. But with the dispute now settled out of court, production is greenlit to kick off in early 2026, and Netflix has officially slotted a premiere for summer 2027—giving fans of the Queen’s Gambit star plenty to obsess over in the meantime.

The saga began earlier this year when StudioCanal, the French-based production powerhouse behind classics like La Haine and Paddington, filed a bombshell lawsuit against British author Bella Mackie. At the heart of the beef? Mackie’s 2021 bestseller How to Kill Your Family, which Netflix snapped up for adaptation in August 2024, allegedly borrowing too liberally from StudioCanal’s own 1949 black comedy gem, Kind Hearts and Coronets. That Ealing Studios masterpiece, directed by Robert Hamer and starring Alec Guinness in a tour de force of multiple roles, follows a scheming heir bumping off eight relatives to claim a dukedom—a narrative arc that StudioCanal claimed echoed too closely with Mackie’s tale of a vengeful daughter targeting her billionaire clan.

StudioCanal wasn’t playing around. In court filings reviewed by Deadline, the studio sought not just damages but an outright injunction to halt production on the Netflix series, arguing that Mackie’s novel—and by extension, the show—infringed on the intellectual property rights to Kind Hearts and Coronets, which they acquired decades ago. “This isn’t about stifling creativity; it’s about protecting the foundational works that shaped modern satire,” a StudioCanal spokesperson told reporters at the time, though the company has since clammed up on details of the settlement. The lawsuit landed like a grenade in an already crowded awards season, especially as Taylor-Joy, fresh off her Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga buzz and an Oscar nod for The Menu, was positioning this project as her big swing back to television—and Netflix, where she first exploded onto the scene.

For the uninitiated, How to Kill Your Family centers on Grace Bernard (to be played by Taylor-Joy), a sharp-tongued millennial with a grudge the size of her estranged father’s fortune. Abandoned by her wealthy family after her mother’s death, Grace embarks on a meticulously planned killing spree, offing relatives one by one in increasingly inventive ways while narrating her exploits with wicked, first-person glee. It’s a pitch-black satire on class warfare, privilege, and the gig economy of murder—think Fleabag meets Dexter, but with more champagne flutes shattered over inheritance disputes. Mackie’s book, published by HarperCollins imprint The Borough Press, became a Sunday Times bestseller in the UK, lauded for its biting wit and unflinching look at female rage. “Grace isn’t a villain; she’s a symptom of a system that chews up the overlooked,” Mackie said in a 2021 interview with The Guardian, a sentiment that has only amplified as the adaptation drama unfolds.

Taylor-Joy’s involvement was the spark that ignited the project. The 29-year-old actress, born in Buenos Aires to an Argentine-Scottish family and raised in London, has long been Netflix’s golden girl. Her 2020 portrayal of chess prodigy Beth Harmon in The Queen’s Gambit wasn’t just a hit—it was a cultural earthquake. The limited series racked up 62 million households in its first 28 days, snagged 11 Emmy nods (including a win for Taylor-Joy), and catapulted her from indie darling (The Witch, 2015) to A-list assassin-in-waiting. “Anya doesn’t just play characters; she inhabits them like a virus,” raved Variety critic Owen Gleiberman after her chilling turn in 2022’s The Menu, where she served up haute horror alongside Ralph Fiennes. For How to Kill Your Family, Taylor-Joy isn’t just starring—she’s executive producing via her banner, LadyKiller Films, signaling a deeper stake in Grace’s murderous machinations.

The lawsuit’s ripple effects were felt far beyond the courtroom. Netflix, which has bet big on book-to-screen adaptations amid a post-strike content crunch (The Thursday Murder Club, anyone?), faced a potential PR nightmare. Insiders whisper that the streamer had already sunk millions into pre-production—casting calls, location scouts in London’s posh Kensington haunts, and script tweaks by Killing Eve scribes at Sid Gentle Films—only for StudioCanal’s filing to slam the brakes. “It was chaos,” one production source told The Hollywood Reporter on condition of anonymity. “We were days away from principal photography when the injunction loomed. Anya was gutted; this was her passion project, a chance to flex that unhinged energy she brought to Split but with laughs.” Social media lit up with fan outrage, trending under #SaveHowToKillYourFamily and drawing parallels to past IP skirmishes, like Warner Bros.’ dust-up over The Batman or Disney’s endless Star Wars empire-building.

StudioCanal’s claim wasn’t without merit to some observers. Kind Hearts and Coronets, based on Roy Horniman’s 1921 novel Israel Rank, is a cornerstone of British cinema, blending Ealing’s signature whimsy with pitch-perfect misanthropy. Guinness’s octet of doomed aristocrats— from a suffragette aunt to a stuffy bishop—set a blueprint for serial-killer comedies that Mackie’s Grace undeniably nods to. “The parallels are eerie: both protagonists are orphans with aristocratic beef, dispatching kin via poison, drowning, and hot-air balloon sabotage,” notes film historian Mark Glancy in his book The Ealing Comedies. Critics of the lawsuit, however, called it overreach. “Copyright law protects expression, not ideas,” argued IP attorney Rebecca Tushnet in a Slate op-ed. “Mackie’s modern spin—infusing it with millennial malaise and social media snark—transforms it into fair use territory.”

The settlement, announced late Wednesday via a terse Deadline exclusive, came without fanfare. Neither side disclosed terms—standard fare in Hollywood’s veil of NDAs—but sources close to the negotiations peg the payout in the low seven figures, with Netflix and HarperCollins splitting the tab. StudioCanal gets a quiet credit in the series’ end crawl, perhaps a subtle nod to the inspiration, while Mackie retains full adaptation rights. “It’s a win for everyone,” the anonymous source added. “No admissions of wrongdoing, just a clean slate.” Netflix confirmed the news in a statement: “We’re thrilled to move forward with How to Kill Your Family. Anya’s vision, paired with Bella’s razor-sharp prose, is set to deliver a must-watch thriller.”

For Taylor-Joy, the relief is palpable. The actress, who married musician Malcolm McRae in a surprise New Orleans ceremony last April and has been spotted jet-setting between Dune: Messiah prep and charity galas, tweeted cryptically Thursday: “Family ties cut, but the story lives on. See you soon, Grace. 🗡️” The post, liked over 500K times in hours, fueled speculation about her method-acting prep—rumors swirl of Taylor-Joy shadowing forensic experts and boning up on aristocratic etiquette. Her collaborators are equally pumped. Executive producer Sally Woodward Gentle, whose Sid Gentle outfit revived Killing Eve from Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s ashes, teased to W Magazine: “Anya’s Grace is deliciously deranged. This isn’t just revenge; it’s a symphony of schadenfreude.”

As production ramps up—filming slated for London’s fog-shrouded studios and leafy Surrey estates—the series slots into Taylor-Joy’s jam-packed slate. She’s already wrapped Sacrifice, a heist thriller with Chris Evans and Salma Hayek under Romain Gavras’ direction, and is deep in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Messiah as the mysterious Princess Irulan. Over on Apple TV+, her limited series Lucky—a tale of a heist gone wrong, co-starring Annette Bening—eyes a 2026 bow. “Anya’s on a heater,” says her agent at WME. “Post-Queen’s Gambit, she could’ve coasted on rom-coms, but she’s doubling down on the weird and wicked. How to Kill Your Family is her Gone Girl moment for TV.”

The broader implications? This dust-up underscores Hollywood’s eternal tug-of-war over IP in the streaming era. As Netflix pumps out 700+ originals yearly, clashes like this are less anomalies and more alarm bells. “Studios hoarding catalogs from the ’40s to sue over vibes? It’s chilling creativity,” opines entertainment lawyer Bert Fields’ protégé, Rachel Glass. Yet for audiences, it’s a boon: How to Kill Your Family promises eight episodes of twisted family therapy, with Grace’s kills ranging from a yoga-studio strangling to a yacht-bound arsenic toast. Early script pages leaked to Vulture hint at cameos from British thespians like Olivia Colman as a boozy aunt—unconfirmed, but the internet is ablaze.

Critics are already sharpening their knives. “If Taylor-Joy nails Grace’s deadpan sociopathy, this could eclipse Baby Reindeer as Netflix’s buzziest black comedy,” predicts IndieWire‘s Kate Erbland. Fans, meanwhile, are flooding X (formerly Twitter) with memes: Photoshopped Taylor-Joy as Guinness’s multi-faced victims, captioned “Family reunion goals.” One viral thread from user @FilmFanatic87 racks up 10K retweets: “From chess to death: Anya’s killing it, literally.”

Of course, not everyone’s popping corks. Mackie, a former Guardian columnist and daughter of publisher Magnus Mackie, faced online trolls accusing her of “idea theft” during the suit’s peak. In a rare public peep post-settlement, she posted on Instagram: “Stories evolve; that’s the point. Grateful for the fight—and the family that fought with me.” HarperCollins, her publisher, stands firm: “Bella’s voice is original fire. This resolution honors that.”

As How to Kill Your Family hurtles toward its 2027 drop—likely timed for Emmy bait in a post-Squid Game world—it’s a reminder of Taylor-Joy’s Midas touch. From her breakout in Robert Eggers’ Puritan nightmare The Witch to voicing the feral Moira in The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, she’s built a career on outsiders with inner demons. Grace Bernard? Just the latest. “I love playing women who rewrite the rules,” Taylor-Joy told Vanity Fair last year. “Even if it means blood on the page.”

Netflix’s gamble pays off, too. With subscriber churn at 8% amid economic headwinds, star-driven originals like this are lifelines. The Queen’s Gambit proved Taylor-Joy’s draw; expect How to Kill Your Family to claw its way into the top 10 globally, maybe even snag a Golden Globe redux. But lurking beneath the hype? Whispers of sequel potential—Mackie’s follow-up novel, Nobody But Us, teases Grace’s post-murder ennui. If the first season slays, who knows? The family feud might just be getting started.

In the end, this lawsuit wasn’t a death knell but a dramatic prologue. Hollywood loves a comeback story, and with Taylor-Joy wielding the knife, How to Kill Your Family is poised to carve out a bloody niche. Mark your calendars for summer ’27—because when Grace Bernard comes calling, no one’s getting out unscathed.