Having survived the attacks of Chucky the killer doll in Child’s Play, Aubrey Plaza is now moving on to less deadly fare. The eternally droll actress will star in the Netflix rom-com Hope, written by the screenwriters of Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You, and more. Jackie van Beek and Madeleine Sami will direct the film. What’s it about? We don’t know! Details are being kept secret. But Plaza’s presence alone makes this worth paying attention to.
Deadline broke the news about Hope, the new Netflix rom-com starring Aubrey Plaza. And this, dear reader, is my least favorite type of news story. Why? Here’s why: as Deadline writes that Hope‘s “plotline is under wraps,” meaning we have no idea what this is about. Give us something to work with here, Netflix! What’s so secretive about your new rom-com? What are you hiding? Are the Illuminati involved? I demand answers.
Jackie van Beek and Madeleine Sami, the New Zealand duo behind the comedy The Breaker Upperers, will direct from a script by Karen McCullah and Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, who are responsible for the scripts for The House Bunny, Legally Blonde, The Ugly Truth, 10 Things I Hate About You, and She’s the Man. Netflix says Hope is “a passion project for the duo,” so make of that what you will.
Plaza, who rose to prominence as April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation, has been amassing an eclectic film career. And while it could be argued she often plays the same role over and over – the dry, sarcastic weirdo – she always turns in an interesting performance. She even managed to make her woefully underwritten part in the Child’s Play remake watchable. And she’s appeared in some rom-com adjacent films before, like The To-Do List and Safety Not Guaranteed, so this shouldn’t be totally unfamiliar territory for her.
Netflix has been going hard on the rom-com genre in a big way lately. To All the Boys I Loved Before was a breakout hit and inspired a sequel. They also have buzzed-about titles like Always Be My Maybe, Set It Up, and a whole slew of questionable Christmas romance movies like The Christmas Prince and Rebel Without a Claus, which is a movie I just made up but that you probably believed was real for a second, didn’t you?
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