For a project as tantalizing as “The Lincoln Highway,” featuring Tom Holland, “The Bear” creator Christopher Storer, and “Harry Potter” producer David Heyman attached, the film has somehow managed to stay almost completely under the radar. The odd part is that, while most people are hearing about it for the first time now, including us, the movie isn’t being announced as a hot new package or the next major Holland vehicle. Instead, news of the project is surfacing because it may already be in trouble.
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Page Six Hollywood reports that Holland is set to star in an adaptation of Amor Towles’ 2021 novel, with Storer attached to direct. The story follows four young men on a ten-day road trip from Nebraska to New York City, a period literary drama that would give Storer a much different canvas after the pressure-cooker kitchens, chaotic family dynamics, and restless Chicago interiors of “The Bear.”
The problem is Warner Bros. has not greenlit the film. According to the report, studio heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy declined to move forward with the project at a budget of $30 million to $40 million, presumably because of the pending Paramount acquisition of Warner Bros. and the instability that comes with it. The studio has not fully let it go, but a Warner Bros. source told the outlet that Storer and Heyman are being allowed “to look for a new home” for the film.
That makes “The Lincoln Highway” a strange case: an exciting-sounding literary adaptation that seemed to appear in public only because it is suddenly in limbo. Holland, Storer, and Heyman would usually be the kind of package that gets positioned as a priority. Instead, the movie is emerging as another example of how unsettled the Warner Bros. pipeline appears to be as the studio waits to see how the Paramount situation plays out.
But pedigree is apparently not enough at the moment. Page Six reports rival studios are already circling, suggesting “The Lincoln Highway” may not remain stranded for long. Still, the way the project has surfaced tells its own kind of story. A Tom Holland-led adaptation from Christopher Storer should be a hot-ticket project. Instead, its reveal is only shedding light on a bigger problem. It may sound promising, but Warner Bros. may not be the studio that actually makes it. Hopefully, we will learn more soon.
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
