Bron Studios and Gloria Sanchez Productions announced they will produce the dark comedy Friend of Bill, which will star Lizzy Caplan. The film is written by Harper Dill and will be directed by Amy Rice. The producers are Bron Studios’ Aaron L. Gilbert, Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell, and Adam McKay of Gloria Sanchez Prods., Margot Hand of Picture Films and Lizzy Caplan. Jason Cloth and Richard McConnell are executive producers via Creative Wealth.
A 2011 Blacklist screenplay, Friend of Bill will begin production in November on Vancouver Island. Bron Studios, Hand and Gary Sanchez Productions previously collaborated on the critically acclaimed indie hit Welcome To Me, starring Kristen Wiig.
“’Friend of Bill’ has been a passion project for both Lizzy and I since we first became aware of Harper’s screenplay,” said Elbaum. “We’re delighted that Bron Studios shared our commitment and wanted to partner again.”
In Friend of Bill, Lizzy Caplan plays a writer arrested for public intoxication, who is forced to take a sabbatical in order to kick her alcoholism. She chooses to do so back in the idyllic small town where she grew up, only to find solace and sobriety nearly impossible to achieve while dealing with a complicated relationship with her mother and a pair of male suitors; one of them a former teacher of hers and the other an eccentric who also happens to volunteer at the AA meetings she secretly attends.
“It’s rare to embark on a project with an all-female creative team,” said Caplan. “We take this exciting responsibility quite seriously, and can’t wait to set off telling a darkly funny, character-driven story about the difficulties that come with being a grown up sharing a house with her family and a head with her demons.”
Caplan, who most recently starred in Now You See Me 2, will next be seen opposite Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard in the Robert Zemeckis film Allied, as well as in the fourth season of her Emmy-nominated turn as Virginia Johnson on Showtime’s Masters of Sex.
Amy Rice is an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker known for “By the People: The Election of Barack Obama” at HBO and more recently, last year’s “Hurricane of Fun: The Making of Wet Hot” at Netflix, and “Snervous Tyler Oakley.” Harper Dill has written projects for Paramount and Universal, and is currently adapting a book with Alloy Entertainment and New Line.
Among Bron’s current productions are: Nate Parker’s The Birth of A Nation, Denzel Washington’s Fences; Migeul Arteta’s Beatriz at Dinner, starring Salma Hayek and John Lithgow, and Tully, starring Charlize Theron from director Jason Reitman.
(Photo Credit: WENN.com)
