Amy Schumer turning divorce into her next big comedy movie
The Trainwreck star will lead and produce Best Divorce Ever, about a former couple whose attempt at the perfect separation quickly descends into chaos.
Amy Schumer is turning divorce into her next big-screen comedy, with the Trainwreck star set to lead and produce Best Divorce Ever.
The 45-year-old comedian and actress will play Clarissa in the new film from writer-director Sean Mullin, whose credits include Amira and Sam and the Yogi Berra documentary It Ain’t Over – with the film to tell the story of a couple discovering ending their marriage may be considerably easier than remaining a happy family.
Concourse Media will launch worldwide sales for the project in Toronto next month, while Amy will produce alongside Matthew Lee Miller and Natalie Metzger for Vanishing Angle.
Concourse Media and sister company Archetype Media Finance are financing the film.
Best Divorce Ever follows Clarissa and Franklin, a couple who decide to end their marriage after 20 years together without ending their relationship with each other.
Determined to achieve an unusually friendly separation, they organise an “Untying the Knot” party before attempting to embrace their new lives as single people.
Their plans begin to unravel when disastrous dates, suspicious children and attempts at “conscious uncoupling” complicate the arrangement, leaving the former couple trying to work out how they can remain a family despite no longer being married.
Matthew Shreder, CEO of Concourse Media, said: “Amy is one of the few people who can take something as painful as divorce and make it brutally honest and incredibly funny.”
He added: “Sean has written a smart, funny script with a ton of heart and gives Amy a great playground to do what she does best. It feels like exactly the kind of commercial comedy audiences are ready for, and we’re thrilled to be part of it.”
Sean said the screenplay was inspired by his own amicable divorce.
He added: “Divorce has a branding problem.”
Sean also said: “I think we need to change the narrative that the only successful way to end a marriage is for one person to die.”
Matthew Lee and Natalie said: “Sean has been a longtime member of the Vanishing Angle family, and we’ve had the privilege of watching his voice as a filmmaker grow from Amira and Sam through It Ain’t Over.
“He has a rare ability to find enormous humor and genuine humanity in the messiest parts of life.”
They added: “Amy brings that same fearless honesty to everything she does, and we couldn’t be more excited to reunite with Sean and partner with her as both a producer and performer to bring this film to life.”
The announcement comes during a period of change in Amy’s own personal life.
She filed for divorce from chef Chris Fischer after seven years of marriage in January, with the former couple saying at the time that their priority remained their son Gene, seven.
In May, Amy marked hosting her first birthday party for Gene as a single mother, sharing photographs from the celebration at a zoo.
Amy has also attracted attention this summer with photographs from a vacation in which she showed her physical transformation after previously discussing losing 50lb.
Posting photographs of herself wearing a floral bikini earlier this month, she wrote: “I never knew there would be days like this. No filter as per ushe.”
Best Divorce Ever also returns Amy to the territory of relationships and family life that has featured prominently throughout her comedy career.
She became one of the biggest names in American comedy through Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer, which she created, co-wrote and starred in.
The sketch series won the 2015 Primetime Emmy for outstanding variety sketch series and also received a Peabody Award.
Amy then wrote and starred in Judd Apatow’s 2015 romantic comedy Trainwreck, playing a commitment-averse magazine writer opposite Bill Hader.
Her subsequent films have included Snatched, I Feel Pretty, The Humans, Unfrosted and IF.
More recently, she starred in, co-wrote and produced Netflix comedy Kinda Pregnant, in which she played a woman who pretends to be pregnant after becoming jealous of her best friend’s pregnancy.
She also created, wrote, directed, executive produced and starred in Hulu comedy-drama Life Beth, and released Netflix stand-up special Amy Schumer: Emergency Contact.
