Despite being fronted by Anna Kendrick (Woman of the Hour), the six-part action-thriller Embassy is perhaps more notable in MGM+’s original slate thanks to J.K. Simmons, who has been announced in the show at the same time as his Irish gangster series The Westies is currently airing. With the platform having secured the U.S. streaming rights for the series created by Rom Lotan and directed by John Strickland and Christian Alvart, Simmons will strongly feature in two of MGM+’s biggest original offerings of 2026.
While it’s probably a timing coincidence, the announcement pulls double-duty by positioning Simmons as a major star with a reliable association with the platform. That kind of thing is important in the enduring Streaming Wars, especially with MGM+ being a fairly minor player relative to giants like Netflix and Prime Video.
Speaking of Prime Video, it has already been announced that Amazon secured the rights for streaming Embassy in the U.K., Ireland, Canada, France, Australia, and New Zealand. Alongside the U.S., MGM+ will also be the home of the show for viewers in Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina, giving the platform a substantial share of the viewership and a highly marketable arrow in the quiver of their original programming.
This sentiment was reiterated by MGM+’s global head, Michael Wright, in a statement about the deal, which was negotiated by Doug Goodkind and Andy Miller on behalf of MGM+ and by AGC’s VP of Legal & Business Affairs Conor McElroy:
“Embassy is an exciting addition to the MGM+ slate—a high-octane six-part thriller with an exceptional cast and creative team. Anna Kendrick, Sam Heughan, and J.K. Simmons, along with series creator Rom Lotan and directors John Strickland and Christian Alvart, have created a cinematic thriller that reinforces MGM+ as a destination for classic storytelling for a modern audience.”
The show finds Kendrick as a sharp American diplomat named Layla, who is suddenly faced with an impossible choice when armed mercenaries storm the U.S. Embassy in London. She can either protect the U.S. Ambassador (Simmons) or follow his orders to extract a high-value asset from within the building. There’s a larger conspiracy at play, naturally, and Layla must rely on her wits and the reluctant help of her conveniently skilled ex-fiancé, a British SAS soldier played by Sam Heughan.
It’s an unusually tense-sounding premise for a Kendrick vehicle, which tend to have a slightly more tongue-in-cheek vibe. However, the promotional still of Kendrick and Heughan crawling through some vents seems to deliberately evoke Die Hard, which had its comedic elements, so perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Shot on location in Cologne, Germany, and London, England, the show is repped globally by AGC International and is slated for release later in 2026, though a date hasn’t yet been confirmed. However, it’ll likely form a significant part of MGM+’s latter-year lineup, presumably leveraging some of Simmons’s The Westies appeal as marketing for the new project. However, Kendrick is a big enough star to carry most productions, so it’s likely the show will be decently popular either way.
