The Weinstein Company
Bradley Cooper has seriously come a long way since he was just that guy I didn’t know at all in the Wet Hot American Summer ensemble. And I have to stress the word “seriously,” because that was a silly movie, and now Cooper is possibly about to receive his third Oscar nomination in as many years for the heavy biographical war drama American Sniper. Even when he’s goofy, as in American Hustle, it’s serious business. (I sincerely doubt he’ll be back for the just confirmed Wet Hot American Summer sequel miniseries on Netflix.) He might not be that far from his Hangover days, but he probably doesn’t need to be doing bad comedies anymore. Is he this generation’s Tom Hanks, then? Maybe not in terms of total likability, but otherwise if so he’s already found his That Thing You Do! Only it’s something a little heavier, more serious, in spite of also being a “comedy.”
Deadline reports that Cooper is “hoping” to direct the long in development Black-List-script project Honeymoon With Harry. He would not only make his debut behind the camera but also act opposite his Silver Linings Playbook co-star Robert De Niro. In that movie they’re son and father, here they’d be son-in-law-to-be and father-in-law-to-be, a pair who don’t get along but presumably become best buds after the woman that links them dies just before the wedding. Sound hilarious yet? After the tragic events, they both wind up at the location of the honeymoon destination, unintentionally at the same time a la Blended and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Previously the project was to be made with Vince Vaughn and Jack Nicholson (helmed by Paul Haggis, who wrote the original script, based on an unpublished novel by Burt Baker), and presumably every other young comedic yet jerk-type actor and old, cranky type Hollywood icon has been considerd, too.
The news of Cooper’s interest comes on the heels of New Line’s resurrection of the property with screenwriter Dan Fogelman who wrote the familial odd-couple-in-transit comedy The Guilt Trip, which I may have liked only because I saw it with my mom – I’ll have to see Honeymoon with my father-in-law (but not under any other relevant circumstances) – and is also behind the very silly (and awful-looking but supposedly funny) new TV series Galavant. De Niro and Cooper apparently did a reading of the previous incarnation of the script back in 2010, so after this long they must really be in love with the idea. But if for some reason De Niro has to bow out and Cooper stays put, maybe he can bring on his American Sniper director, Clint Eastwood, to play the old man and take direction from him this time.