After being put on hold at Netflix, Nancy Meyers’ Paris Paramount doesn’t look like it will be happening at Warner Bros, either.
One of the more intriguing stories of the last couple of months has been the fate of Nancy Meyers’ planned big-budget romantic comedy Paris Paramount. Meyers was set to return to the genre that she has contributed to greatly throughout her career, helming the sort of star-laden, high-budget romantic comedy that we just don’t see get made anymore.
Meyers has previously helmed such favourites as The Holiday and Something’s Gotta Give, not to mention being involved in The Parent Trap and Father Of The Bride. Despite possessing an almighty CV and bringing Netflix a project stacked with A-list acting talent, the company baulked at the reported $150m price tag and was negotiating with Meyers, aiming to get the budget for the film down to the $130m mark. Those negotiations hit an impasse last month before it quickly emerged that the project was now in some form of development at Warner Bros.
In the original project, Scarlett Johansson was set to be joined by Penelope Cruz, Owen Wilson and Michael Fassbender, and whilst there was no confirmation that the same ensemble were involved in the deal being negotiated with Warner Bros, the thinking was that the studio’s willingness to offer backend deals might bring down the upfront cost of the picture to a more palatable level.
That doesn’t appear to be the case, with news emerging this week (via Puck) that the project has now been shelved indefinitely at Warner Bros as well. The reasons that are being floated for the project’s suspension are ‘scheduling conflicts’ but it’s likely that much like Netflix, Warner Bros have simply taken a good look at the numbers and decided that a very expensive romantic comedy, albeit it one with a starry cast, is just too much of a risk.
With two of the industry’s biggest players having turned the project down, it looks like that might be it for Paris Paramount, at least in the project’s current form. Meyers has said she plans to return to it at some stage, and perhaps she will. But if it does ever come together we doubt it will carry that eye-widening $150m budget.
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