TriStar Preemptively Acquires Rights To Novel ‘The Wedding People’ For Will Speck And Josh Gordon To Direct, Nicole Holofcener To Adapt

Justin Kroll
·3 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: Following a bidding war, TriStar Pictures has beaten out a number of suitors and pre-emptively acquired rights to Alison Espach’s forthcoming novel The Wedding People. Will Speck and Josh Gordon, who have a first-look deal with Sony Pictures, are set to direct, with Oscar-nominated screenwriter Nicole Holofcener writing.

“It’s rare to read something that feels like real life, in all the best ways. .. funny, painful, cathartic and lasting. A throwback to the movies we grew up on with a modern sensibility. This is a story we can’t wait to tell,” said Speck and Gordon.

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Speck, Gordon and Eric Fineman will produce through their company Speck + Gordon Inc. alongside Jonathan King and Ash Sarohia for Concordia Studio. Shary Shirazi and Kelseigh Coombs are overseeing the project for TriStar.

“Nicole is the perfect partner to adapt this incredible novel. She writes characters that are beautifully complex, with humor and pathos and we’ve wanted to work with her since before there were iPhones,” said Speck and Gordon.

The novel follows Phoebe, who after a chance encounter becomes an unexpected wedding guest after befriending the bride in an elevator, changing the course of both women’s lives forever. Henry Holt & Co. will publish the novel in July.

“The Wedding People goes behind the scenes of a glossy destination wedding with two strong women seeking to take charge of their lives. With incredible humor and wit, the book expertly captures how a perfect stranger can sometimes be just the partner you need to get through a crisis,” said King and Sarohia.

Gordon and Speck most recently directed Sony’s live-action musical adaptation of the children’s book Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. They are also the creators and showrunners of the Hulu/Marvel series Hit Monkey, which was recently picked up for a second season and stars Jason Sudeikis. The pair’s other credits include Blades of Glory, The Switch, Office Christmas Party and most recently the Universal/Amblin sci-fi thriller Distant starring Anthony Ramos and Naomi Scott.

Holofcener has written and directed seven films including Friends With Money, Enough Said and most recently You Hurt My Feelings. She co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Can You Ever Forgive Me?, as well as collaborating on The Last Duel by Ridley Scott. She has directed on numerous TV shows including Mrs. Fletcher, Enlightened and Extrapolations.

Espach is the author of the novels Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance, an Indie Next Pick and Amazon Editors’ Pick for 2022, and The Adults, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and Barnes and Noble Discover pick. Her short story series In-Depth Market Research Interviews with Dead People is an Audible Original. She has written for McSweeney’s, Vogue, Outside Magazine, Joyland, Glamour and Salon among other publications.

On the narrative side, Concordia recently inked an exclusive first-look film deal with Oscar-winning filmmaker Tom McCarthy’s production company Slow Pony. In nonfiction, it produced 2023’s Sundance documentary film Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, Davis Guggenheim’s feature film about the life of actor and advocate Michael J. Fox. The film earned four Emmy Awards including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and swept the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards with five wins.

Other recent Concordia releases include Working: What We Do All Day, a Netflix docuseries narrated by Barack Obama; HBO’s three-part documentary series Navajo Police: Class 57; and Apple TV’s The Enfield Poltergeist.

The Wedding People deal was brokered by CAA and Lucy Carson at The Friedrich Agency for the author and Weintraub Tobin for Concordia and Sloane, Offer, Weber, and Dern for Speck + Gordon.

Holofcener is repped by UTA and Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner Auerbach Hynick Jaime LeVine Sample & Klein.

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