I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but the thought of Gary Winick directing Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson in a comedy about two friends who have it out over conflicting wedding dates makes me kind of happy. Not to hype him up as the next Howard Hawks, bit I thought Winick evinced a shockingly light touch on 13 Going on 30 (shocking because his previous feature, Tadpole, was so dismal); the film itself is strictly formula, but it had a buoyancy that few studio comedies of its ilk even attempt. And then there was Jennifer Garner nearly matching Tom Hanks’s performance in Big; everyone who feels like her stellar work in Juno came out of nowhere clearly skipped 13 Going on 30.
Those same folks will probably dismiss Bride Wars, which is fair given its manufactured premise and awful title. But at the risk of emasculating myself in full view of the entire CHUD readership, I’m bullish on any screenplay that’s conceived by Karen McCullah Lutz & Kirsten Smith (the team behind 10 Things I Hate About You) and completed by June Raphael & Casey Wilson (two extremely talented sketch comics). And, of course, there’s the whole Hathaway v. Hudson thing, which is promising in ways I’ll leave to your prurient imagination.
Principal photography should begin early next year. Twentieth Century Fox will distribute. And you know you’ll watch this multiple times on cable.