What’s Next for 2022 Oscar Winners: Upcoming Projects from Will Smith, Jessica Chastain, Sian Heder, and More

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The 2022 Oscars were certainly one for the history books.

With multiple historic wins — “CODA” star Troy Kotsur becoming the first deaf man to win an acting award, and Jane Campion becoming the third woman to win Best Director, among others — and plenty of viral moments, the Academy Awards outdid themselves once again by becoming, well, undone.

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As Jessica Chastain scooped up Best Actress for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” and Ariana DeBose followed Rita Moreno’s historic footsteps and won for playing Anita in “West Side Story,” and Will Smith landed his first Oscar for “King Richard,” Hollywood’s biggest night was full of starry surprises.

And “CODA”‘s unprecedented Best Picture win cemented Apple TV+ as a cutting-edge streamer, with the platform becoming the first to take home the night’s top prize.

The film’s writer-director Sian Heder also won for Best Adapted Screenplay, and called “The Power of the Dog” writer-director Campion an inspiration.

“I came up watching Jane Campion, I came up watching other filmmakers and understanding that this was something that I could do because I saw someone that looked like me doing it,” Heder said backstage. “I hope I can be that for the new generation of young women out there, and for indie filmmakers.”

Below, see what all of the 2022 Oscar winners are up to next.

Sian Heder - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Sian Heder - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Sian Heder (Winner: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay)

After making history by helming the largest Sundance acquisition in history, Sian Heder reportedly will direct a biopic on disability rights activist Judith Heumann, based on Heumann’s memoir “Being Heumann.” The memoir documents Heumann’s life after contracting polio and her mission of equality for differently abled people everywhere. The film is part of a multi-year agreement between Heder and Apple Original Films. Actress Ali Stroker, who became the first actor with a disability to win a Tony for her 2019 performance in “Oklahoma!,” is reportedly being considered for the leading role.

The journey of “CODA” also does not stop at the Oscars: The film is set to be adapted into a stage musical with the Deaf West Theatre.

Jane Campion - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Jane Campion - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Jane Campion (Winner: Best Director)

After becoming the third woman to win Best Director, after Kathryn Bigelow and Chloé Zhao, it’s unclear what Jane Campion will work on next. Her adaptation of novel “The Power of the Dog” was Campion’s first film since 2009’s “Bright Star.”

Backstage, Campion said her historic win suggests that Hollywood may be becoming more equal. “I’m proud to have won tonight, for my film and my crew and my cast, but also to be another woman who’s going to be be followed by a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, and an eighth,” she said. “I’m very excited by the fact that this is moving fast now. We need it. Equity matters.”

Will Smith - Credit: ABC
Will Smith - Credit: ABC

ABC

Will Smith (Winner: Best Actor)

“King Richard” star Will Smith is set to star in the upcoming 2022 film “Emancipation” as a runaway slave who sets out to escape his plantation owners. The film, set up at Apple, is directed by Antoine Fuqua and also stars Ben Foster. Smith is later slated to lead writer-director Peter Landesman’s “The Council,” based on the never-before-told story of Nicky Barnes, the crime syndicate kingpin of Harlem in the 1970s.

Smith is additionally in pre-production on David Leitch’s “Fast and Loose,” about a leader of criminal organization who suffers memory loss. The “Bel-Air” producer also reprises his respective past roles for “Bright 2” and “Bad Boys 4” and will produce superhero sequel “Hancock 2.”

Jessica Chastain - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Jessica Chastain - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Jessica Chastain (Winner: Best Actress)

“The Eyes of Tammy Faye” winner Jessica Chastain is not done with real women just yet: Chastain is set to star in limited series “George and Tammy,” about country musician couple George Jones and Tammy Wynette, co-starring Michael Shannon.

Chastain also dips into true crime with “The Good Nurse,” a film about an infamous caregiver who is implicated in the deaths of hundreds of hospital patients. Fellow Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne stars opposite Chastain. Later, Chastain joins director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s futuristic pandemic drama “The Division” alongside Jake Gyllenhaal. Per an official synopsis, “The Divison” is set in the near future after a pandemic virus is spread via paper money on the shopping holiday Black Friday.

Troy Kotsur - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Troy Kotsur - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Troy Kotsur (Winner: Best Supporting Actor)

“CODA” breakout Troy Kotsur has linked to coming-of-age drama “The Flash Before the Bang,” directed by Jevon Whetter, in the works. The film tells the true story of an all-deaf high school track and field team at the Oregon School for the Deaf. The team overcame discrimination and adversity on their way to an unprecedented victory against much larger Oregon public schools, becoming the Oregon State Track & Field Champions in 1986.

Ariana DeBose - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Ariana DeBose - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Ariana DeBose (Winner: Best Supporting Actress)

“West Side Story” star Ariana DeBose joins Marvel’s “Kraven the Hunter” as Calypso, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the titular hero, along with “Many Saints of Newark” star Alessandro Nivola, “Girls” alum Christopher Abbott, and Academy Award winner Russell Crowe.

DeBose also will lead globe-trotting spy drama “Argylle,” with Henry Cavill, Samuel L. Jackson, Sam Rockwell, Bryce Dallas Howard, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, and John Cena. Based on the book by Elly Conway, “Argylle” is directed by Matthew Vaughan. DeBose additionally is linked to sci-fi thriller “I.S.S.” with Chris Messina, about a world war between America and Russia that extends to outer space.

Kenneth Branagh - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Kenneth Branagh - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Kenneth Branagh (Winner: Best Original Screenplay)

Writer, director, producer, and actor Kenneth Branagh won his first Oscar for penning semi-autobiographical period piece “Belfast.” Branagh will be back onscreen in Christopher Nolan’s biopic “Oppenheimer,” along with just about everyone else in Hollywood. Since directing “Death on the Nile,” which was released in 2022, Branagh has no other projects as a writer or director in the works as of print.

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Winner: Best International Film)

“Drive My Car” director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi is currently in pre-production on feature “Our Apprenticeship.” Hamaguchi also wrote the script about a Japanese girl studying abroad in Paris at a theater school. No cast has been announced yet.

Greig Fraser - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Greig Fraser - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Greig Fraser (Winner: Best Cinematography)

After collaborating with Denis Villeneuve on “Dune,” Greig Fraser will return to the post-apocalyptic world for “Dune: Part Two.” Fraser also worked on “The Batman,” and served as director of photography for Gareth Edwards’ “True Love,” which stars Gemma Chan, Allison Janney, and John David Washington.

Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer (Winner: Best Original Score)

After 12 Oscar nominations for Best Original Score and one previous win for “The Lion King,” Hans Zimmer scored his second Academy Award for “Dune,” which swept most of the crafts categories. Zimmer did not attend the 94th Academy Awards due to his “Hans Zimmer Live” tour, during which he performed at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam on Oscars Sunday.

Joe Walker - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Joe Walker - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Joe Walker (Winner: Best Film Editing)

Longtime Denis Villeneuve collaborator Joe Walker returns to the “Dune” franchise post-Oscars win for “Dune: Part Two.” Walker will also re-team with Villeneuve for “Rendezvous with Rama,” about a team of astronauts who are sent on a mission to explore a giant interstellar spaceship hurtling toward the sun. Walker was previously nominated for “Arrival” and “12 Years a Slave.”

Jenny Beavan - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Jenny Beavan - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Jenny Beavan (Winner: Best Costume Design)

“Cruella” costume designer Jenny Beavan won her third Oscar for the “101 Dalmatians” prequel. Beaven returns to her Academy Award–winning collaboration with George Miller on the “Mad Max” franchise, designing costumes for “Furiosa.” Beavan also is behind the period piece ensembles for “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” about a widowed cleaning lady in 1950s London who falls in love with a couture Dior dress, and decides that she must have one of her own.

Beavan will also work on Marc Foster’s “White Bird: A Wonder Story,” about a young Jewish girl who is hidden by a boy and his family in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. Gillian Anderson and Helen Mirren star. Beavan additionally is linked to Talitha Stevenson’s “Late in Summer” romance drama centered on a brief encounter between a lonely farmer’s wife and a Black American G.I. at the end of World War II.

Doug Hemphill, Theo Green, Mark Mangini, Ron Bartlett and Mac Ruth - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Doug Hemphill, Theo Green, Mark Mangini, Ron Bartlett and Mac Ruth - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Doug Hemphill, Theo Green, Mark Mangini, Ron Bartlett, and Mac Ruth (Winner: Best Sound Design)

“Dune” sound designers Doug Hemphill, Theo Green, Mark Mangini, Ron Bartlett, and Mac Ruth are expected to return for the sequel, “Dune: Part Two,” which will start filming in summer 2022. Mangini additionally worked on “22 Sounds,” “The Cannonball Group,” and documentary “Good Night Oppy,” while Bartlett is attached to documentary “Viva Maestro.”

Patrice Vermette and Zsuzsanna Sipos - Credit: REUTERS
Patrice Vermette and Zsuzsanna Sipos - Credit: REUTERS

REUTERS

Patrice Vermette and Zsuzsanna Sipos (Winner: Best Production Design)

“Dune” production designer Patrice Vermette and set decorator Zsuzsanna Sipos accepted their respective Oscars for the sci-fi epic. Both Vermette and Sipos are first-time winners, and Vermette was previously nominated for “The Young Victoria” and “Arrival.” Vermette is already on board for “Dune: Part Two” as well as franchise TV series “Dune: The Sisterhood.” He is also working on the farming drama “Foe” with Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal, plus “Tron 3.”

Sipos, whose film “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” will also open in 2022, is linked to thriller “The Bride” and Eli Roth’s “Borderlands,” which is based on the popular video game of the same name about an abandoned fictional planet of Pandora, where people search for a mysterious relic.

Jared Bush, Clark Spencer, Yvett Merino, and Byron Howard - Credit: Neilson Barnard
Jared Bush, Clark Spencer, Yvett Merino, and Byron Howard - Credit: Neilson Barnard

Neilson Barnard

Jared Bush, Clark Spencer, Yvett Merino, and Byron Howard (Winner: Best Animated Feature Film)

“Encanto” team Jared Bush, Clark Spencer, Yvett Merino, and Byron Howard took home Oscars for Best Animated Feature Film. Writer Bush previously penned “Moana” and “Zootopia,” which Howard directed. Bush also executive-produced 2022 Oscars competitor “Raya and the Last Dragon.” Producer Clark Spencer is behind an upcoming “Zootopia” TV series.

Joseph Patel, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, David Dinerstein and Robert Fyvolent - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Joseph Patel, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, David Dinerstein and Robert Fyvolent - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Joseph Patel, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, David Dinerstein, and Robert Fyvolent (Winner: Best Documentary Feature)

“Summer of Soul (… Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)” is directed and executive produced by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. The Roots frontman is also an executive producer on the animated TV series “Rise Up, Sing Out” and docuseries “AMC Visionaries: Rap Yearbook” about the cultural significance of rap music through the years. Producers David Dinerstein and Robert Fyvolent are also behind the upcoming documentary “Really Good Rejects.”

Stephanie Ingram, Linda Dowds, and Justin Raleigh - Credit: PMC
Stephanie Ingram, Linda Dowds, and Justin Raleigh - Credit: PMC

PMC

Linda Dowds, Justin Raleigh, and Stephanie Ingram (Winner: Best Makeup and Hairstyling)

“The Eyes of Tammy Faye” makeup artist Linda Dowds is returning to work with lead star Jessica Chastain for the drama “The Good Nurse.” Co-makeup artist Justin Raleigh is working on the latest DC film, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” while hairstylist Stephanie Ingram recently worked with “Tammy Faye” lead Chastain on “The 355.”

Billie Eilish and FINNEAS - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Billie Eilish and FINNEAS - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Billie Eilish and FINNEAS (Winner: Best Original Song)

Brother-sister musicians Billie Eilish and FINNEAS took home Oscars for the original song “No Time to Die” for the James Bond film of the same name. Eilish reportedly has started working on her third studio album as of December 2021, while FINNEAS debuted his first album, “Optimist,” in August 2021.

Riz Ahmed and Aneil Karia - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Riz Ahmed and Aneil Karia - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Riz Ahmed and Aneil Karia (Winner: Best Live-Action Short Film)

“The Long Goodbye” creator Riz Ahmed, who also produced Best Documentary and Best Animated Feature contender “Flee,” is returning to the big screen as Hamlet in a modern retelling of the Shakespearian play. Ahmed also is in pre-production on “Exit West” about a young refugee couple from a war-torn country who hear rumors that there are doors in the city they live in that serve as portals to other destinations.

Director Aneil Karia previously worked on the short film music video “Teardrops” for Kano, which was an ode to those who lost their lives at the hands of police brutality in the U.K.

Leo Sanchez Barbosa and Alberto Mielgo - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Leo Sanchez Barbosa and Alberto Mielgo - Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety

Gilbert Flores for Variety

Leo Sanchez Barbosa and Alberto Mielgo (Winner: Best Animated Short Film)

“Windshield Wiper” animated short animator Leo Sanchez Barbosa previously worked on Disney films like “Tangled” and “Bolt.” Director Alberto Mielgo formerly directed a “Love, Death & Robots” episode.

Ben Proudfoot - Credit: PMC
Ben Proudfoot - Credit: PMC

PMC

Ben Proudfoot (Winner: Best Documentary Short Subject)

“The Queen of Basketball” director Ben Proudfoot took home the Oscar for the documentary short centered on the untold story of basketball legend Lusia “Lucy” Harris. Proudfoot previously directed an episode of docuseries The New York Times’ “Op-Docs.”

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