The sci-fi rom-com, 42.6 Years, announced back in 2023 with Andy Samberg in the lead, has now been taken up by Focus Features from Amazon MGM Studios for distribution. Initially set to star Jean Smart in the lead role alongside Samberg, the film has now cast Annette Bening to play the role.
The story centres on a man who tries to find his ex-girlfriend after waking up 42.6 years later, physically unchanged, from an experimental procedure that rendered him cryogenically frozen.
While Craig Gillespie was initially set to helm, Michael Schwartz and Tyler Nilson are taking over from him. 42.6 Years will have a script penned by Seth Reiss, whose recent work is The Menu. While Andy Samberg came up with the original idea, he has also co-written the story with Seth Reiss. Andy is set to produce the film under his Party Over Here banner along with Ali Bell.
Samberg is best known for leading eight seasons of the long-running comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine as Detective Jake Peralta. Last seen in The Roses, Samberg recently lent his voice for the role of Pawbert Lynxley in Zootopia 2. He will also voice Ben Reilly / Scarlet Spider in the upcoming animated threequel, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.
Bening was recently seen in Apple Never Fall on television and The Bride! on the big screen. She will next be seen in Dutton Ranch, the Yellowstone spinoff set for a May 15 premiere. She will also be seen sharing the screen with Anya Taylor-Joy in Lucky, an Apple TV crime thriller based on Marissa Stapley's novel. For her performance as the elite long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad in Netflix's Nyad, she earned her fifth Oscar nomination a few years ago.
