Nia DaCosta to Direct Sex Criminals at Prime Video

Nia DaCosta is heading to Prime Video. The director behind Candyman, The Marvels, and most recently 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple has been tapped to direct the first two episodes of Sex Criminals, the highly anticipated series adaptation of Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky’s beloved Image Comics run. She’ll also executive produce. Amazon made the announcement Monday during its upfront presentation in New York City.

The show’s logline alone is enough to make you do a double-take: Suze (Imogen Poots) is a normal woman with a very unusual gift — when she has sex, she stops time. One night she meets Jon (John Reynolds), who has the exact same ability. And so they do what any reasonable time-stopping couple would do. They rob banks.

It’s a premise that sounds like a pitch someone made as a joke and then realized was actually genius — which is more or less how the comic worked too. First published in 2013, the Fraction-Zdarsky series earned two Eisner Award nominations and developed a devoted following for balancing genuinely funny absurdism with surprisingly tender emotional storytelling. A TV adaptation was in development at Universal Television roughly a decade ago but never made it to air. This version, ordered straight to series by Prime Video back in January, feels like the one that finally sticks.

Who’s Behind the Camera — and the Scripts

Sex Criminals is co-created by Kumail Nanjiani, Emily V. Gordon (The Big Sick), and Tze Chun (Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai), all three of whom serve as showrunners and executive producers. Nanjiani and Gordon produce via their Winter Coat Films banner, alongside Dani Melia. LuckyChap — the production company behind some of the savviest projects in recent memory — is also on board, with Dani Gorin exec producing and Louie Hayes producing. Fraction and Zdarsky themselves are executive producers too, which bodes well for anyone worried about the adaptation straying too far from the source material.

Nanjiani will also appear in the series in an on-screen role, though details about his character haven’t been revealed yet.

The eight-episode series is produced by Amazon MGM Studios.

Why DaCosta Is the Right Call

DaCosta brings an impressive — and genuinely eclectic — résumé to the project. She made history with Candyman, becoming the first Black female director to open No. 1 at the U.S. box office, then became both the youngest filmmaker and the first Black woman to direct a Marvel Studios feature with The Marvels. Her 2025 film Hedda — a visceral, stylized reimagining of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler starring Tessa Thompson — earned critical acclaim and showed a range that goes well beyond superhero spectacle. She also has television experience, having directed episodes of Top Boy and Ms. Marvel.

Her most recent film, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, shot back-to-back with Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later and starred Ralph Fiennes. Critics largely considered DaCosta’s installment the stronger of the two, though it underperformed commercially — grossing $58.5 million worldwide against a $63 million budget — which has cast some uncertainty over whether the planned third film in that trilogy will move forward, despite Cillian Murphy being lined up for a larger role.

None of that dims the excitement around her landing here. Sex Criminals plays right into her wheelhouse: sharp, character-driven, tonally tricky material that requires a director who can hold comedy and genuine emotion in the same hand without dropping either.

And this isn’t even her only new TV commitment. DaCosta is also executive producing — and has a story credit alongside Ozark‘s Bill Dubuque — on Hulu’s pilot Southern Bastards. She is, by any measure, having a moment.

Poots, meanwhile, previously worked with DaCosta on Hedda, so there’s already a creative shorthand between director and lead that could make all the difference in a show this tonally specific. Reynolds brings his own comedic credibility from Search Party and Stranger Things.

No premiere date has been set yet, but with the series order locked, the cast in place, and DaCosta now officially on board, Sex Criminals is moving fast.