EXCLUSIVE: John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, the directors of films including Crazy, Stupid, Love and I Love You Phillip Morris, have come aboard to direct Spinster, a new romantic comedy for Amazon MGM Studios.
Written by Jenni Ross, the film’s plot is being kept under wraps. Todd Lieberman, producer of such popular rom-coms as The Proposal and Shotgun Wedding, will produce for Hidden Pictures, whose Carly Elter and Alex Young will exec produce.
Requa and Ficarra return to Amazon MGM after directing Honeymoon with Harry, their upcoming road-trip dramedy starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Kevin Costner. Past films for the duo include Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Focus and the rom-com Crazy, Stupid, Love starring Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore and Emma Stone. The multi-hyphenates also have written, or written on, such films as Bad Santa, Bad News Bears and Jungle Cruise. For TV, they created Paramount+’s Rabbit Hole, also working on such acclaimed series as Paradise, WeCrashed and This Is Us. The duo is repped by CAA and attorney Jeff Frankel at McKuin Frankel Whitehead.
Spinster‘s writer Ross previously sold and developed TV projects for ABC, The CW, MTV, Bravo and USA Network, along with features at United Artists, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures, before taking a hiatus from developing. She is repped by Haven Entertainment, UTA and The Nord Group.
Lieberman’s Hidden Pictures most recently released War Machine, starring Alan Ritchson and produced for Lionsgate and Netflix, which debuted at No. 1 on the streaming service’s charts and climbed to the top 10 most-streamed Netflix movies of all time. Shortly prior, they released The Housemaid, based on Freida McFadden’s New York Times bestselling novel and directed by Paul Feig. Led by Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, the film garnered nearly $400 million in its global theatrical run and later opened at No. 1 on PVOD and digital platforms, quickly earning it a sequel, The Housemaid’s Secret, which is now in production.
Upcoming releases for Hidden Pictures include Voltron and the Untitled Mike Thornton film, both for Amazon MGM Studios. In development for the company are the film adaptations of best sellers The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, The Things We Leave Unfinished by Rebecca Yarros and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab.