EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has acquired Johnny Rosenthal‘s comedy spec, Aunt Roxie, for Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort and Amy Williams to produce.
In Aunt Roxie, a carefree writer agrees to watch her uptight sister’s gifted children for a week, navigating teenage romance, elementary school politics, and her own messy love life while learning what it means to be a loving aunt and responsible adult.
Rosenthal is best known for writing the Billy Bob Thornton-led Bad Santa 2, for a franchise that has grossed over $100 million worldwide, with a third installment in development. More recently, he sold his spec script Christmas in Paradise to Amazon MGM Studios and United Artists, whose Scott Stuber will produce, with Jeff Tomsic directing and Nate Bargatze attached to star. The scribe is repped by Paradigm, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and McKuin Frankel.
Reynolds’ Maximum Effort most recently boarded an Amazon MGM remake of the hit 1974 United Artists action-comedy Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, in which he will star. Coming off big success with Deadpool & Wolverine, which became the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time last year at over $1.3B global, the company’s other recent and upcoming projects include the doc John Candy: I Like Me, Legendary’s live-action/R-rated hybrid Animal Friends, the Kenneth Branagh-helmed thriller The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde, Apple’s action comedy Mayday starring Reynolds and Branagh, and Close Personal Friends for Amazon MGM Studios.
Williams’ produced credits include Rally Caps starring Judd Hirsch and Amy Smart, Mothers and Daughters starring Selma Blair, Courtney Cox, Sharon Stone, Mia Sorvino, Christina Ricci and Susan Sarandon, and The Morrison Project, which won Best Documentary at the Hamptons Film Festival.