EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures has acquired rights to The Romantic, a romantic comedy spec from Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont, with Dave Bautista attaching to star. Maximum Effort will produce under its first-look deal with the studio, alongside Bautista’s Dogbone Entertainment.
The film tells the story of bestselling romance author Francine London, who has a secret: she’s actually a six-foot-four mountain of a man named Ed Schwenke. When Ed’s identity comes under scrutiny, he hires a wildcard of a woman to pose as Francine at a romance fiction convention, while evading a cynical female journalist, who hates romance even more than she hates liars. No director is attached at present.
News of the project is notable as Bautista as spoken for years about his desire to star in a rom-com. In a 2023 interview with Page Six, the Dune and Guardians of the Galaxy star said, “I know I’m not your typical rom-com lead. I’m a little rough around the edges. But I always, you know, I look in the mirror and I say, I ask myself, ‘Am I that unattractive? Is there something that unappealing about me that excludes me from these parts?’”
Bautista added that while he’s “never had an offer to do a rom-com,” he had “high hopes” about checking this off his bucket list and would “keep searching” until he found the right opportunity.
Currently weighing an offer for a role in Road House 2 at Amazon MGM, Bautista will next be seen starring in the Aura Entertainment actioner Trap House, as well as the Amazon MGM buddy cop action comedy The Wrecking Crew opposite Jason Momoa, both of which are produced by his Dogbone Entertainment Banner. Recently seen starring opposite Pamela Anderson in the critically acclaimed drama The Last Showgirl, he also has the Zellner Brothers’ alien invasion comedy Alpha Gang coming up, and is repped by WME and Karl Austen of Jackoway Austen Tyerman, as is Dogbone.
No strangers to the rom-com, Kaplan & Elfont are known for writing and directing Can’t Hardly Wait and Josie and the Pussycats, as well as writing the films Made of Honor and Leap Year. Creative partners since meeting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, they’ve recently made a pivot into hard comedy with the R-rated Guys with No Friends, which sold to Paramount for over $1M in a multi-studio bidding war. They signed with Verve in May and continue to be represented by Entertainment 360.
