Hiro Murai says his A24 samurai film Bushido is still in the works

Hiro Murai is not done building the next chapter of his feature film career. In a new update, the Japanese filmmaker behind Atlanta and Apple TV’s Widow's Bay confirms that his A24 samurai movie Bushido is still “in the works.” In other words: the project that looked like it could vanish into development limbo is still active.

This matters because Murai’s recent path already shows he can hit at two different tempos. After Atlanta ended in 2022, it was unclear where his career would lead. Instead of fading after the prestige binge, he kept stacking directing opportunities, including multiple projects that signaled range rather than repetition. Bushido was one of those signals: an original samurai film he lined up for A24, in parallel with another directing opportunity, a sci-fi thriller written by David Robert Mitchell (It Follows). Now Murai’s confirmation pulls Bushido back into the “credible next feature” bucket.

To understand why this kind of update is unusually valuable to executives, you have to look at how development behaves in modern film. Studios and streamers can be flush with options on paper, but only a subset actually clears the production runway. Projects that are “in the works” often face the classic bottlenecks: budget constraints, scheduling conflicts, casting gravity, and the difficulty of translating vision into shoot-ready plans. Murai’s confirmation does not guarantee a release date, but it does reduce a specific risk for stakeholders: the risk that a promising filmmaker attachment quietly evaporates after success changes an artist’s calendar.

Murai’s trajectory is also a case study in why boards and finance teams pay attention to creators who can operate across formats. Atlanta is the proof point that he can direct and execute at a high level of cultural visibility. Widow's Bay, his follow-up series for Apple TV, shows he can translate that credibility into another long-form, audience-facing product. When you have someone who can credibly ship both prestige TV and feature narratives, studios tend to treat them as more than a single-project contractor. Bushido being “still in the works” is the kind of continuity clue executives track because it hints at momentum: the ability to keep multiple deals alive while still delivering something in the near term.

There is also a second-order incentive dynamic here that often gets missed in casual entertainment talk. A24’s brand is built on distinctive, filmmaker-forward projects, and Murai’s name belongs in that ecosystem because Atlanta was already an entry into mainstream pop culture. That mainstream recognition can make internal planning easier. It can also help with external partnership conversations, whether that is co-financing, distributor confidence, or cross-border coordination when filming involves story worlds with specific cultural and production requirements. Again, the source does not spell out these mechanisms, but the practical outcome is clear: confirming “in the works” keeps A24’s feature roadmap from looking like a dead end.

On top of that, the existence of a second Murai project in the mix changes how you should interpret the update. He lined up a sci-fi thriller written by David Robert Mitchell (It Follows), alongside Bushido. That pairing tells you Murai is not simply waiting for one opportunity to materialize. He is actively directing and building a portfolio, and Bushido remains part of that portfolio rather than being replaced by a newer commitment.

For decision-makers who are allocating attention, resources, or capital, the takeaway is straightforward. Development status updates are not trivia. They are signals about whether attachments remain stable after a creator achieves a new level of success. In Murai’s case, the “still in the works” confirmation keeps A24’s samurai feature on the board, and it reinforces the broader strategic pattern: the teams that win are the ones that can convert creative momentum into production momentum, one confirmed project at a time.