It’s been a courtship lasting over 20 years, but Honeymoon with Harry is one love story that Hollywood can’t quit.
Amazon MGM has landed the rights to the long-in-the-works feature dramedy, setting Kevin Costner and Jake Gyllenhaal to star.
Glenn Ficarra and John Requa are on board to direct the project that has a script by Dan Fogelman. The trio were behind the well-regarded dramedy Crazy, Stupid, Love and worked together on the Fogelman-created Hulu series Paradise.
The project has been in the works since 2004, and is based on a then unpublished novel by Bart Baker, it told the story of a man (Gyllenhaal) as he decides to go on a honeymoon with his would-be father-in-law (Costner) after his fiancée dies two days before their wedding.
Fogelman is producing along with Mike Karz of Gulfstream Pictures. Another notable name on the producer list is Jennifer Salke, the former head of Amazon MGM, who will produce via her newly launched Sullivan Street Productions banner. Honeymoon with Harry will mark Salke’s first project with Amazon MGM and her producing debut.
Karz first set up Honeymoon at New Line Cinema 21 years ago, and he project always attracted the A-list. Paul Haggis, the filmmaker behind the Oscar-winning Crash, wrote a draft and was going to direct a version that had Vince Vaughn and Jack Nicholson circling. Jonathan Demme also flirted with it when it had a script by Jenny Lumet, the writer of Rachel Getting Married and co-creator of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Fogelman first came on board to write it in 2015, when New Line had Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro as the intended leads. And in 2017, Nick Cassavetes was attached to direct.
Karz never gave up on it and, when the rights eventually lapsed, he tenaciously worked to find it a new home, keeping the Fogelman version.
Honeymoon reunites Karz and his Gulfstream Pictures with Amazon MGM as he recently produced the romantic comedy Upgraded, starring Camila Mendes, and One Fast Move, starring KJ Apa and Eric Dane, for the streamer.
Gyllenhaal is an Amazon favorite thanks to starring in last year’s remake of Road House, which became one of streamer’s biggest hits ever. A sequel is prepping to shoot later this fall. The actor also starred in Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent, which put him in the Emmy race this year with a nom for outstanding lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie.
Costner, the Dances with Wolves Oscar winner and former star of Yellowstone, has spent the last several years working on his passion project, Horizon: An American Saga, an ambitious multi-part Western. Only two of the four parts have been made, and only the first one was released.
Gyllenhaal is reped by WME and Goodman, Genow while Costner is represented by WME.
Ficarra and Requa are repped by CAA and McKuin Frankel and Fogelman by WME.
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