Yesterday, in brief, we mentioned the new project, called, “Ceremony,” (formerly titled “The Wedding”) a comedy which will mark the directorial debut of Max Winkler, son of Henry Winkler (you know, the Fonz). The film is going to star Michael Angarano (“Snow Angels”) and Jesse Eisenberg (“Adventureland,” “The Squid & The Whale”) and centers on a young man (Eisenberg) who falls in love with an older woman and, along with an unwitting friend (Angarano), attempts to break up her wedding at a beach town.
Sounds good and Jason Reitman (“Juno”) is executive producing, right? But we started doing our research (finally) and realized the strong CV surrounding the film.
Winkler helped write the upcoming Jonah Hill comedy “The Adventurer’s Handbook” — which Jason Schwartzman and Hill will star in — and produced and directed episodes of the excellent web series “Clark and Michael” that starred Clark Duke and Michael Cera which we adored (if you’ve never seen, go run now).
Matt Spicer, who co-wrote ‘Handbook’ with Hill and Winkler, also is one of the producers on “Ceremony” and co-wrote “The Ornate Anatomy of Living Things” with Winkler that was (is?) set-up at Fox Searchlight with Jason Reitman producing. The duo also adapted a script for Reitman to direct called “Whispers in Bedlam” that was based on the short story by Irwin Shaw that he is currently attached to according to IMDB pro and some of our other sources (but not that it’s some secret or anything).
The budding writer twosome also have “Trials & Tribulations” in development at Warner Bros. with Polly Johnsen (“A Couple of Dicks”) producing and of course they have “The Adventurer’s Handbook” which will probably shoot sometime in 2010 (with a 2011 release?). Sure, not every project in development eventually makes it to the big screen, but all this is adding up to one thing: “Ceremony” is a project we’re going to keep tabs on and these two are probably some on-the-rise up-and-comers worth taking note of.