Hollywood’s two-decade-long attempt to bring Honeymoon with Harry to the screen is finally moving forward, this time with Kevin Costner and Jake Gyllenhaal leading the cast.
The feature dramedy, now set up at Amazon MGM, will be directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa from a script by Dan Fogelman. The trio previously collaborated on the acclaimed film Crazy, Stupid, Love as well as the Hulu series Paradise.
Based on Bart Baker’s then-unpublished novel, the story follows a grieving groom-to-be (Gyllenhaal) who embarks on what would have been his honeymoon with his late fiancée’s father (Costner) after she dies just two days before their wedding.
The project has a storied development history. First set up at New Line Cinema back in 2004 by producer Mike Karz, Honeymoon with Harry was, at various points, envisioned with A-listers like Vince Vaughn, Jack Nicholson, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro attached. Directors such as Paul Haggis, Jonathan Demme and Nick Cassavetes were also linked to earlier iterations, with writers Jenny Lumet and Fogelman penning different drafts over the years. Despite the false starts, Karz persisted, and when the rights lapsed, he steered the film to a new home at Amazon MGM.
For both stars, Honeymoon with Harry arrives at pivotal moments in their careers. Gyllenhaal recently toplined Amazon’s hit Road House remake, one of the streamer’s biggest successes to date, and he’s currently Emmy-nominated for his role in Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent. Costner, meanwhile, has been deeply immersed in Horizon: An American Saga, his ambitious multi-part Western passion project, two instalments of which have been completed, with only the first released so far.
