Amy Schumer's Fox kidnapping comedy gains momentum after 'Trainwreck'

Updated
Amy Schumer's Fox Kidnapping Comedy Gains Momentum After 'Trainwreck'
Amy Schumer's Fox Kidnapping Comedy Gains Momentum After 'Trainwreck'


Amy Schumer is now a movie star thanks to her $30 million opening for Universal's Trainwreck.

But unlike many actors who line up new gigs immediately before or after an opening weekend, the busy stand-up comic and star of Inside Amy Schumer can afford to be choosy. Still, sources say her next project likely will be an untitled comedy set up at Fox, about a mother and daughter who find themselves kidnapped while on vacation in Brazil. Schumer, 34, and her sister, Kim Caramele, reworked an initial script by The Heat's Katie Dippold, putting the daughter character in Schumer's distinctive voice.

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The studio and producers Paul Feig and Peter Chernin have been sizing up venerable names for the mother role (Sally Field, Meryl Streep and American Horror Story's Frances Conroy are on the wish list), but that casting hinges on first finding a director. Insiders say the script came into the studio in mid-July and a directors shortlist quickly was drawn up, with Warm Bodies' Jonathan Levine and The Inbetweeners Movie's Ben Palmer among those mentioned.

Schumer (UTA, Mosaic, Schreck Rose) now finds herself with a vote in the director lottery. Although Fox would like to start shooting before the end of the year, sources say multiple factors would need to be worked out, including coordinating the scheduling with her Emmy-nominated sketch comedy series, which Comedy Central renewed for a fourth season in April. And her newly upped fee, of course.

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