OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA — Filmmaker Boots Riley began editing his second feature, the $20 million caper film 'I Love Boosters,' for the independent studio Neon in January 2025. The movie was slated to premiere in fall 2025 and represented Neon's biggest production to date.

The film was inspired by a track from the 2006 album 'Pick a Bigger Weapon' by the Coup, the hip-hop group Riley belonged to in the 1990s. The story follows the Velvet Gang, a crew of shoplifting boosters led by Corvette, played by Keke Palmer. Demi Moore plays Christie Smith, a billionaire designer.

Production was primarily filmed in Atlanta after a year of delays led the production to lose its California tax rebate. Tune-Yards, the duo of Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner, composed the score, and Riley discussed new scenes in person with Garbus and Brenner while writing the script.

Riley, 55, has applied what he calls a "jankiness" of handcrafted effects to the film. To create one visual gag, he used a pinwheel mechanism to spin mannequin legs at high speed. His editor, Matt Hannam, added circus-like sound effects, including a slide whistle, to a sequence at Riley's request.

"It's very 'Pink Panther'! The whole thing feels like a Blake Edwards movie." Riley said of the comedic tone. Reviewing a dialogue exchange that he ultimately cut from the film, he said, "It's bad writing."

The Oakland-based director previously made the 2018 surreal sci-fi movie 'Sorry to Bother You,' about an Oakland telemarketer, which was produced on a $3.2 million budget and grossed $18 million at the box office. In 2023, he directed the Amazon series 'I'm a Virgo,' about a sheltered thirteen-foot-tall Black teenage boy, and in 2011 he participated in the Occupy Oakland protest encampment.