TriStar Pictures dropped the second official trailer today for “The Breadwinner,” the eagerly anticipated family comedy that marks comedian Nate Bargatze’s first-ever leading role on the big screen. The preview arrived this morning and gives audiences the fullest look yet at what could be the sleeper family hit of the summer season, building considerably on the footage shown in the first trailer released earlier this year.
The film centers on Nate Wilcox, played by Bargatze, a confident car salesman and lifelong family breadwinner who is forced to trade in his dealership badge for a diaper bag. When his wife Katie, played by Mandy Moore, lands a once-in-a-lifetime business deal after appearing on “Shark Tank,” she departs on an extended work trip and leaves Nate as the sole caretaker of their three young daughters. The second trailer makes clear, with considerable comic energy, that Nate is in well over his head from the moment she walks out the door.
The new footage is packed with physical comedy and warm family chaos. Bargatze’s Nate is seen tripping over laundry, botching a breakfast of eggs, locking his entire family out of their own home, getting hopelessly lost on the school drop-off route, and finding himself face to face with a horse that has wandered into the house. One of his daughters, played by Charlotte Ann Tucker, asks point-blank, “Dad, are you mom now?” to which a somewhat resigned Bargatze answers in the affirmative. Another daughter delivers the trailer’s most quotable line early on, declaring flatly, “We’re all going to die.” A later moment shows Nate crashing a car directly into his daughter’s model volcano, triggering an eruption that sends prop lava flying in all directions.
Bargatze himself co-wrote the script alongside television writer Dan Lagana, and the two also served as producers on the project alongside Jeremy Latcham, a former Marvel Studios executive who now works independently through Wonder Project, a conservative faith-based production company that partnered to bring the film to life. Bargatze’s own production banner, Nateland Productions, is also attached. The personal nature of the story was a deliberate choice. Bargatze has spoken publicly about wanting to make a movie his whole family could watch together, pointing to a gap he perceived in live-action family comedy. TriStar Pictures president Nicole Brown echoed that sentiment, noting that the concept felt authentic to Bargatze’s voice and identified a genuine opening in the marketplace.
Directing the film is Eric Appel, who built a devoted following with his gonzo 2022 musical comedy “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” and previously helmed “Die Hart the Movie” for Kevin Hart. Appel’s instinct for heightened physical comedy and absurdist escalation appears well-matched to Bargatze’s slow-burn, everyman style of performance. Early previews and critical commentary have drawn comparisons to the John Hughes-penned 1983 classic “Mr. Mom,” starring Michael Keaton, as well as to “The Money Pit,” suggesting the film is positioning itself squarely within a beloved but underserved tradition of domestic chaos comedy.
The supporting cast assembled around Bargatze and Moore is notably strong. Will Forte, Colin Jost, Kumail Nanjiani, Zach Cherry, Kate Berlant, and Martin Herlihy round out the ensemble, while Birdie Borria, Charlotte Ann Tucker, and Stella Grace Fitzgerald play the three daughters at the center of the household mayhem. In a nod to Bargatze’s dedicated fanbase, all three of his co-hosts from the “Nateland” podcast, Brian Bates, Aaron Weber, and Dusty Slay, have cameos in the film.
The road to release has not been without turbulence. “The Breadwinner” was originally slated for a March 13 theatrical debut, but the studio pushed it to May 29 in mid-February, a move widely interpreted as a strategic repositioning to capture the larger summer moviegoing audience. The film will now open on May 29 against a competitive slate that includes A24’s horror film “Backrooms,” Focus Features and StudioCanal’s D-Day thriller “Pressure,” Black Bear’s crime picture “Tuner,” and the Lionsgate action thriller “The Furious.”
Bargatze arrives at this moment as one of the most commercially potent figures in live comedy. He sold more than a million tickets in 2024 alone and hosted the Emmy Awards that same year, earning widespread goodwill as a performer known for clean, accessible, family-friendly material. His self-described desire to make a movie he could sit down and watch with his children appears to be the animating spirit behind every frame of what the second trailer reveals. “She makes it look so easy,” his character admits at one point, looking genuinely humbled, “but it’s so hard.”
“The Breadwinner” opens in theaters nationwide on May 29.
