Deadset Pictures has secured the screen rights to Yeah the Boys, the acclaimed adult novel by awardwinning Australian author Holden Sheppard, and is developing it as a premium television drama for Australian and international audiences.
Set across contemporary Perth, Geraldton and the world of professional football, Yeah the Boys follows star full-forward Kade “Hammer” Hammersmith, whose tightly controlled life begins to collapse when he publicly attacks Pride Round while hiding the truth about his own sexuality.
When blackmail threats pull him back towards Zeke and Charlie, the estranged schoolmates who know what he has spent years trying to bury, the story becomes a funny, filthy and bruising drama about gay men, masculinity, friendship, football culture and the cost of staying hidden too long.
Deadset Pictures co-founder Steve Pennells said Yeah the Boys had the scale, provocation and emotional force to connect well beyond the book’s existing audience.
“Holden has written the kind of book that demands to be seen,” Pennells said.
“It’s funny, filthy, wounded, political and completely specific. Football is not a backdrop. Sex is not a backdrop. Shame is not a backdrop. They’re all part of how these men survive, lie, hurt each other and try to become honest.
“The success of Heated Rivalry has shown there’s a huge audience for gay sports drama when it’s sexy, emotional and unashamedly mainstream.
“Yeah the Boys can be Australia’s version of that, but rawer, dirtier, a bit bogan and much more local. This is footy, not hockey. It’s Perth and Geraldton, not Toronto. It’s Pride Round, locker rooms, country-town shame, Northbridge at night and the brutal Australian pressure on men to perform straightness even when it’s killing them.
“That’s what makes it exciting. It has the heat and romance audiences are responding to, but it comes out of our own sporting culture, our own cities and our own damage.”
Deadset Pictures co-founder Dan Bennett said he was thrilled to help bring Sheppard’s novel to screen.
“What Holden has achieved with this book is profound and life-changing for many,” Bennett said.
“Deadset Pictures is deeply honoured to be involved, hand-in-hand, with Holden. LGBTQIA+ relationships are having a moment in mainstream culture in a way they never have before. This story is not only timely but also desperately, deeply important.
“The chance to bring this world to screen is enormous. It is intimate, confronting, funny, sexy and deeply Australian.” Sheppard, whose earlier novel Invisible Boys was adapted for television as a hit Stan Original Series, will serve as Executive Producer on the adaptation.
“I am so stoked to be working with Deadset Pictures on this project,” Sheppard said.
“I was absolutely blown away with Steve and Dan’s vision for Yeah the Boys and I knew immediately my book was in the right hands to be adapted authentically in this cultural moment.
“I am so grateful that the characters of Zeke, Charlie and Hammer have received so much love from Australian audiences and I hope they’ll be as excited as I am to see this chapter of their lives on screen.”
