Comedy Whodunnit Film Premieres on YouTube Nov. 13, With Vertical Episodes Rolling Out Starting Oct. 30

SAN FRANCISCO AND LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESS Newswire / October 29, 2026 / The feature film Murder in Marketing, written and directed by Ian Faison, will release Nov 13th on YouTube. The comedy/whodunnit will also release vertically-formatted episodes made for social platforms starting October 30th and leading up to the launch of the feature.

The project is led by Tony Cavalero, the actor known for his fan favorite role of Keefe in HBO’s comedy The Righteous Gemstones. He is joined by a comedy ensemble that includes Zainab Johnson (Amazon’s Hijabs Off, Upload), Kirk Fox (Jury Duty, The Lowdown), Flula Borg (Pitch Perfect franchise, The Suicide Squad), Patrick Renna (The Sandlot, Dugout Dads), Cory Walls (Cheat Meal), Jamie Loftus (Robot Chicken), and Julia Valentine Larson (Mermaid).

The story follows the marketing team for “Not Bad” – a non-alcoholic sparkling wine brand – as they deploy their marketing savvy to find out who killed their CEO. It was initially pitched as The Office meets Knives Out – a workplace comedy mixed with a quirky whodunnit.

The project hails from Caspian Studios – a content studio based in Silicon Valley. Caspian has a focus on workplace comedy with unique strategies to finance, distribute, and market their properties. They started in the scripted podcast space and first emerged with the audio-drama franchise MURDER IN HR starring Kate Mara, Ben Schwartz, Brett Gelman and Adam Devine. The show hit #1 on the Apple Fiction Podcast charts and won Webby awards before getting a second season. They followed that with SCAM HUNTERS led by Greg Kinnear and Erin Moriarty and THE HACKER CHRONICLES starring Michael C. Hall. MURDER IN MARKETING marks the debut live-action feature for the studio.

They partnered to produce this project with Optimizely and Slow Blink Inc. Mary Bonney produced with Slow Blink’s Craig Harmer who also served as the Director of Photography. Gregory Heinz, Julianne DeVincenzo, and Dan Reid served as Executive Producers on behalf of Optimizely. Sal Schiavone served as Casting Director. Dane Eckerle served as Executive Producer on the project and oversaw for Caspian.

Plans for the sequel are already in the works. Caspian CEO, Ian Faison, said “people watch content on their favorite platform, and we all debate horizontal vs vertical… we said … why not both? Then we tailored the production and our distribution pipelines to give the people what they want.”

Caspian and Ian Faison are at UTA. Cavalero is repped by Gersh, Nicole Garcia Management and LGN Law. Johnson is repped by CAA and Avalon. Walls is repped by UTA and RISE Management. Borg is repped by Artists First, Artemis Entertainment, United Agents and Star Tyner. Larson is repped by Colours Talent. Fox is repped by Barry Katz Management. Renna is repped by Griffin Talent.

About Caspian Studios:

Caspian Studios is a creative studio focused on workplace comedy and business content. Caspian Studios produced over 150+ podcasts and video series, ranging from in-depth interviews to narrative non-fiction and fictional business series. For more information, please visit CaspianStudios.com.

Media Contacts:

Colin Stamps
Chief Content & Creative Officer, Caspian Studios
colin@caspianstudios.com

SOURCE: Caspian Studios

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