Paddington franchise director Paul King has found a new family-friendly project to direct. But his new film’s heroes will have to face more than just an angry Nicole Kidman or a conniving Hugh Grant: they’ll come face to face with monsters.

King is set to direct Everyday Parenting Tips, a family comedy from Universal which has signed Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) to star and has Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The LEGO Movie, 21 Jump Street) on board to produce. Get the details below.

The Hollywood Reporter brings word about Everyday Parenting Tips, which is based on a New Yorker article of the same name by acclaimed writer Simon Rich. Here’s how they describe the synopsis: “Everyday Parenting Tips will see Reynolds plays a dad dealing with the everyday challenges of family and raising kids made all the most difficult by an ongoing Great Monster Uprising.”

I encourage you all to read the entire New Yorker piece here, but I’ll post a brief excerpt of it below to give you a sense of the tone:

How do I convince my child there’s no such thing as monsters? Be patient. By five, your child should understand that the monsters she’s afraid of are not real.

What if the monsters she’s afraid of are real? Unfortunately, this is becoming more common in the aftermath of the Great Monster Uprising that occurred earlier this year. Ever since the creatures descended from the Dark Place, their presence on Earth has become an unavoidable aspect of our daily lives. If your child is afraid of an actual, real-life monster, such as Gorgog the Annihilator or Ctharga the Eater of Souls, explain to her that, although those monsters are obviously real, the likelihood of them attacking her is only moderate.

The article, which was published at the end of May, can be read as an allegory about the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of a frightened parent who’s unsure how to talk to their kids about the dangers that have invaded our real world. But although it takes place in a horrifying world – there’s something called the Drain of Ga, a swirling portal in the sky that “looks like a screaming mouth” and is “fifty times bigger than the sun” – the story is tinged with a bit of hope. It should be fun to see Reynolds bring his brand of comedy to a family-friendly project; his persona has become so synonymous with Deadpool that it’s easy to forget he’s previously been in films like Detective Pikachu, Turbo, and The Croods.

King is set to direct, Reynolds will play the father, and Lord and Miller will produce alongside Simon Rich, who’s writing the screenplay based on his own story. Rich (Man Seeking Woman, Miracle Workers) has been busy adapting his shorts into larger projects lately, having written the script for HBO Max’s Seth Rogen movie An American Pickle and for Edgar Wright’s upcoming movie Stage 13. Rich and King were set to work together once before on WB’s new Willy Wonka film, but that project has yet to come to fruition.

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