‘Rental Family’ Director Hikari To Helm Magical Holiday Movie ‘Foster The Snowman’ For Apple Original Films

Hikari, the director of “Rental Family,” has secured a new feature effort and will be helming a holiday film for Apple Original Films with “Foster The Snowman,” with a script penned by Emmy-winner Peter Huyck (“The Studio,” “Veep”) and Jono Matt (“Above The Line,” “Captain Planet”). With a great elevator pitch, “Foster The Snowman” features a childless couple that adopts a snowman, who will only last 72 hours before vanishing.

If you weren’t aware, Hikari previously worked on the Michael Mann series “Tokyo Vice” and the first season of Netflix‘s “Beef.” Another TV project on the horizon for Hikari is “Made in Utah” at Annapurna, which is an original series based on her life as an exchange student from Japan now living with a dysfunctional Utah family that happens to be Mormon.

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The report hailing from Deadline also includes the following logline:

“A couple without kids take an accelerated journey through every parenting milestone when they’re forced to adopt an adorable snowman whose whole magical life will play out in just 72 hours.”

Interestingly enough, her latest pic, “Rental Family,” focuses on an American actor toward the end of his career who is hired by a Japanese rental agency in Tokyo that has employees insert themselves into the lives of clients in various roles. So, you can sort of see how the two projects may complement each other.

Despite being led by a recent Best Actor Oscar winner, Brendan Fraser “(“The Whale”), “Rental Family,” sadly missed out on Oscar nominations (we were a little bummed about the emotional character-driven flick missing out on the nominations, it happens), but it has been doing extremely well post-theatrical on streaming (Hulu and Disney+), which could explain Apple reaching out for the new project.

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“Foster The Snowman” is produced by Kevin Walsh‘s The Walsh Company alongside Melvin Mar and Jake Kasdan. Huyck, Matt, and Liz Lippman will serve as executive producers as well. We cannot wait to see who Hikari ends up selecting to play the couple at the heart of the tantalizing holiday story (we’ll keep our fingers crossed they consider some actors from “The Studio” for it).