How School Shooting Satire ‘Our Hero, Balthazar’ Director Oscar Boyson Found His Style While Making Movies With Greta Gerwig and the Safdie Brothers

Home Film Features May 8, 2026 3:07pm PT How School Shooting Satire ‘Our Hero, Balthazar’ Director Oscar Boyson Found His Style While Making Movies With Greta Gerwig and the Safdie Brothers By William Earl Plus Icon William Earl @beautifulbill Latest ReelShort CEO Joey Jia Set to Speak at Owl & Co.’s Vertical Media Summit in Hollywood 9 hours ago Variety Announces Inaugural Power of Women: London with Honorees Emilia Clarke, Emma Corrin, Cynthia Erivo, Hannah Waddingham & Suki Waterhouse 1 day ago ‘Homebody’ Trailer: ‘It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This’ Team Debuts New Ghost Story — And Ambitious Hopes to Remake it (EXCLUSIVE) 4 days ago See All Courtesy of Picturehouse The social satire “Our Hero, Balthazar” has an incredibly dark logline: A young man named Balthazar (Jaeden Martell), who spends time forcing tears for online videos lamenting gun violence, travels to Texas to intervene with a person who he believes to be a potential school shooter (Asa Butterfield). Despite the pitch-black premise, co-writer and director Oscar Boyson‘s film has been steadily finding new audiences. After debuting at the Tribeca Festival in 2025, Picturehouse and WG Pictures took a chance on distribution, and a measured rollout began on March 26. Audiences have been steadily growing, and the film begins a nationwide rollout Friday. Not bad for a tonally tricky film about school shootings — one that was challenging to fund, but could find increased word-of-mouth success in a year where A24’s thematically-adjacent “The Drama” became a box office hit. Related Stories LaToya Jackson Says Sister Janet 'Kindly Declined' to Be Portrayed in ‘Michael’: ‘I Wish Everybody Was in the Movie’