Apple Original Films has prevailed in the bidding war for the new feature project from Megan Park, the well-regarded Canadian filmmaker behind the equally well-regarded coming-of-age comedy My Old Ass.
LuckyChap, the company run by Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, Josey McNamara, and Milan Popelka, is attached to produce the untitled feature in association with FilmNation.
Apple beat out Warner Bros., Sony, Universal as well as Amazon and Netflix for the project, which was previously known by the title Die Alive. Park wrote and is attached to direct. She will also executive produce.
While Apple did not comment on loglines, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that the project is described as having tones of Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy and Julia Roberts’ Step Mom. The story is said to center on a woman finding out that her much older boyfriend has a wife and kids when they unexpectedly show up on her doorstep. Despite a situation that puts the two women at odds with each other, the protagonist finds herself thrust into a role of taking care of the sassy kids.
This new feature is Park’s third collaboration with LuckyChap, following My Old Ass and the Amazon series Sterling Point, which she created and directed and is currently in post-production. She also showran and exec produced the series alongside Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage of The O.C. and Gossip Girl fame.
Park in the last several years has emerged as an exciting new voice in the next generation of filmmakers rising on the Hollywood scene. This despite being a film and TV veteran, having been an actress in her teens and twenties. (She one of the stars of The Secret Life of an American Teenager, the ABC Family drama that ran from 2008 to 2013, for example.)
Her feature directorial debut was auspicious. A school shooting drama that starred Jenna Ortega, The Fallout premiered at the 2021 edition of SXSW, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award, and later aired on HBO.
She followed that up with My Old Ass, a coming-of-age comedy featuring a mushroom-inspired journey of meeting one’s older self that starred Aubrey Plaza and Maisy Stella. After premiering at Sundance, the movie was quickly acquired by Amazon MGM Studios and was released in theaters before debuting on Prime Video. It was nominated for awards from the DGA, WGA, the Critics Choice Award for Best Comedy Movie, and an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay.
Park is repped by CAA, TFC Management, and Johnson Shapiro.
