EXCLUSIVE: 42.6 Years, the romantic comedy with genre elements starring Andy Samberg that was announced back in 2023, has moved from Amazon MGM Studios to Focus Features for distribution.
While Samberg was originally set to star opposite Jean Smart, the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning star of HBO Max’s Hacks, he now has a new romantic counterpart in five-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening (Nyad). Also new to the project is Michael Schwartz, the director (alongside Tyler Nilson) of the acclaimed indies The Peanut Butter Falcon and Los Frikis, who takes over the reins from Craig Gillespie.
Financials for the acquisition deal weren’t disclosed. Universal Pictures International will handle the film’s international distribution.
Written by Seth Reiss (The Menu, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey), based on a story by Reiss and Samberg, 42.6 Years follows Ben (Samberg), who after an experimental procedure leaves him cryogenically frozen for 42.6 years, sets out to re-connect with his ex-girlfriend Ruthie (Bening) and while he hasn’t aged a day, she’s lived an entire lifetime without him.
Ali Bell (Hitchcock, No Strings Attached) and Samberg will produce on behalf of Party Over Here.
Bening earned her fifth Oscar nomination a couple of years ago for her starring role opposite Jodie Foster in Netflix’s Nyad, where she played elite long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad. More recently seen in the Peacock miniseries Apple Never Fall and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!, Bening will next be seen starring in the Yellowstone spinoff Dutton Ranch, premiering on Paramount+ May 15. Two months later, she’ll be seen starring alongside Anya Taylor-Joy in the Apple TV crime thriller Lucky, based on the novel by Marissa Stapley. She is repped by CAA and Gochman Law Group.
Schwartz broke out with The Peanut Butter Falcon, the critically acclaimed coming-of-age story of a young man with Down syndrome who dreams of becoming a wrestler, which starred Zack Gottsagen, Dakota Johnson and Shia LaBeouf. The film won the Narrative Spotlight Audience Award in its premiere at SXSW and went on to land Schwartz and Nilson a DGA Award nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Feature Film. The duo’s follow-up project Los Frikis, a drama based on true events about group of punk rockers in ’90s Cuba who cultivate a utopian refuge from society after deliberately infecting themselves with HIV, was similarly lauded. Schwartz is repped by WME, Range Media Partners, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole, as is Nilson.
Currently in theaters with The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, a Sundance doc directed by Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell, and produced by the directing duo behind A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once, Focus Features is next set to release the Lorne Michael doc Lorne on April 17. This year, the specialty label will also release Curry Barker’s horror flick Obsession (May 15), the coming-of-age romance Girls Like Girls (June 19), the British rom-com Finding Emily (August 28) starring Angourie Rice and Spike Fearn, a new Sense and Sensibility (October 16) starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Robert Eggers’ Werwulf (December 25), among other projects in international markets.
Samberg is represented by UTA and Johson, Shapiro, Slewett & Kole; Reiss by UTA, Framework Collective and Hansen.