While SXSW was absorbing most of the Texas film oxygen last week, a quiet but significant production fact was sitting in the rearview mirror: Kenneth Branagh and Boyd Holbrook spent part of summer 2025 shooting an Iraq War drama at a freshly renovated studio in South Dallas. It's worth knowing about.
The Film
Atonement is the feature directorial debut of Reed Van Dyk, adapted from Dexter Filkins' 2012 New Yorker article of the same name. The source material follows Lu Lobello, a U.S. Marine haunted by a 2003 incident in Baghdad — his unit fired on an Iraqi civilian vehicle. Years later, still carrying the guilt, he tries to reach the surviving members of that family.
It's a story about what war does to people after it ends. Not the firefight. The aftermath.
Van Dyk is not a nobody. He was Oscar-nominated for his 2017 short DeKalb Elementary — a film based on a real 911 call from a school shooting in Georgia, following a compassionate school employee who de-escalates a gunman. The Academy noticed. Atonement is his first feature.
The Cast
- Boyd Holbrook as Lu Lobello — fresh off playing Johnny Cash in A Complete Unknown (2024), the Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet
- Kenneth Branagh — Belfast Oscar winner, recently seen in Apple TV+'s Mayday opposite Ryan Reynolds
- Hiam Abbass — Emmy-nominated, best known as Marcia Roy in Succession
- Gheed — in a supporting role
Produced by Tim and Trevor White (Star Thrower Entertainment) and David Wulf and Steven Demmler of Talon Entertainment. Van Dyk also produces. Wayne L. Rogers executive produces.
The Texas Connection: South Side Studios, Dallas
The production shot in Jordan and Texas — the Middle East sequences handled abroad, the domestic American scenes brought home to Dallas.
Specifically: South Side Studios, 2901 Botham Jean Blvd., Dallas — an 11-acre facility with 70,000 sq ft of sound stages and 50,000 sq ft of support space. The studio had just undergone a major renovation when Atonement came through. According to Deadline (May 2025), the film was "the first major production to shoot at Talon Entertainment's recently renovated and reopened South Side Studios."
South Side Studios' own materials now list Atonement alongside Cruel Summer and Queen of the South in their production credits. The studio is currently seeking a Head of Studio through the TFC Job Hotline — a senior hire to lead bookings and production partnerships, targeting full-stage occupancy. That search tells you they're serious about building on the Atonement momentum.
Why This Film Matters
The quality of the material is one thing — a New Yorker story, an Oscar-nominated director, an A-list cast. But the production context is equally important.
South Side Studios is not SGS Studios. It's not 450,000 square feet with four simultaneous productions running. It's a mid-scale, 11-acre urban facility in South Dallas, across the street from the park named for Botham Jean — the man shot in his own apartment by an off-duty Dallas police officer in 2018, a case that became a national inflection point.
That address means something in Dallas. The fact that this studio exists there, is renovated, and is attracting legitimate productions is a story about Dallas's film infrastructure that doesn't get told alongside the Taylor Sheridan/Fort Worth narrative.
Status
Atonement completed principal photography in 2025. No release date or distribution announcement has been confirmed as of this writing. Given Van Dyk's Oscar pedigree, the subject matter, and the cast, expect festival positioning — Sundance 2027 or Toronto would be natural targets.
South Side Studios: southsidestudiosdallas.com | 2901 Botham Jean Blvd., Dallas, TX Talon Entertainment: talonentertainment.com TFC Job Hotline listing: Head of Studio — South Side Studios
Texas Productions: texas.film/productions