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Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston will swap bodies in a new comedy from “Palm Springs” filmmaker Max Barbakow.
Amazon landed the film after a bidding war between several studios and streamers, according to Deadline, which first reported the news of the project. Barbakow will write and direct the movie, which is backed by Margot Robbie’s production company LuckyChap Entertainment. CAA brokered the sale to Amazon.
Aside from its marquee talent and financiers, there’s little to nothing else known about the film — including a title or logline. But the recent surprise successes of “Ticket to Paradise” with Roberts and George Clooney, as well as “The Lost City” starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, have proven there’s real demand for star-driven comedies at a time when the genre has otherwise been struggling commercially. At the box office, “Ticket to Paradise” and “The Lost City” each grossed more than $150 million worldwide.
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Amazon’s upcoming movie slate includes the documentary “Judy Blume Forever,” as well as “Somebody I Used to Know,” a romantic-comedy directed by Dave Franco and starring Alison Brie and Jay Ellis. The former will be released on April 21, while the latter debuts on the streamer on Feb. 10, in time for Valentine’s Day.
Barbakow is best-known for “Palm Springs,” which he directed in his feature filmmaking debut. The high-concept comedy, spotlighting Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti as wedding guests stuck in a time-loop, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, where it sold to Neon and Hulu for a then-record $17.5 million. “Palm Springs” was intended to play in theaters, but, since it was released during the pandemic, it screened mostly online and in select drive-in locations.
In Variety’s review of “Palm Springs,” chief film critic Peter Debruge described the story as “ironic, irreverent and at times insane” and praised the movie for doing “something new with a genre audiences have experienced a million times before.”
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