EXCLUSIVE: George Clooney and Julia Roberts committed to a new team in Ticket to paradise, a romantic comedy that Ol Parker will direct for Universal Pictures and Working Title. The film will be shot later this year.
Parker headed for Universal Mamma Mia! Here we go again, and wrote the script with Daniel Pipski. Clooney and Roberts will play a divorced couple who get together and travel to Bali to prevent their daughter from making the same mistake they think they made 25 years ago.
Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner will produce alongside Sarah Harvey and Deborah Balderstone. Clooney and his partner at Smokehouse Pictures, Grant Heslov, will produce alongside Roberts and his teammates at Red Om Films, Lisa Gillan, and Marisa Yeres Gill.
This deal is important for those who are wondering when movie studios are going to stop selling expensive star packs to streamers because of the uncertainty of the theater market, and once again go into considerable projects that might work in theaters. Sources said that when this project emerged quickly through Working Title, streamers quickly circulated. But the top echelon of Universal said: no, we are in the business of theatrical cinema and it is not traveling.
Clooney and Roberts teamed up on Ocean’s Eleven films, and the direction of Jodie Foster Money monster.
For Universal, senior executive vice president of production Erik Baiers and development director Lexi Barta will oversee the project on behalf of Universal.
Clooney is represented by CAA and Lichter Grossman; Roberts by CAA and Hirsch Wallerstein; Parker at UTA, Knight Hall Agency Ltd, Management 360 and attorney Eric Brooks; and Pipski by Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer.