Entertainment
‘All That She Wants’ Filmmakers Interview on Pregnancy Rom-Com
Scarlett Bermingham was on a plane when Andrew Rhymer, her husband and filmmaking partner, turned to her and urged her to read David West Read’s script for “All That She Wants.”
“God, damn it,” Bermingham remembered thinking after finishing the screenplay. “I wish I had written this. It seemed to speak to everything I was going through.”
The film follows Emma, a dancer in her 30s who is facing a personal and professional crisis. She’s tired of one demeaning gig after another and wants to have a baby, but maybe not a relationship. That is until the much younger Luke, a sweet-natured grad student, enters the picture. As Bermingham and Rhymer spent four years struggling to get the financing together for the movie, their lives mirrored Emma’s.
“Around the time we were first getting on board the movie, Scarlett was pregnant with our first kid,” Rhymer said. “A couple of years went by, and it was either a day before or a day after we got greenlit that we found out Scarlett was pregnant with our son, who’s now six months old. We turned in the director’s cut a week before he was born.”
When they sat down in the crowded lobby of a Toronto hotel in early September, Bermingham and Rhymer’s kids were playing upstairs with a sitter. In a few hours, the two directors will take the stage at the Toronto Film Festival to premiere “All That She Wants” along with the film’s stars Annie Murphy and Cooper Raiff. It’s a homecoming of sorts, as much of the movie was shot in the city. The hope is that Emma’s story will offer a fresh perspective on a genre that hasn’t always treated its female characters with a lot of nuance or subtlety.
“There’s been a bit of an overcorrection in rom-coms to make the female protagonist either a total mess or a super type A careerist who has it all together,” Bermingham said. “It so rarely includes someone wanting to potentially start a family, in part because that’s seen as not being super sexy. But I think this film validates the experience of wanting to become a mother, and still embeds it in the rom-com tradition.”
It also gave Murphy, whose breakout came playing a ditzy, down-on-her-luck heiress in “Schitt’s Creek,” a chance to show a different side of herself.
“There are these moments on set when I was just watching her, and I’m just so blown away,” Bermingham said. “Everyone knows how funny she is and how good she is at physical comedy, but this movie shows that she can go there emotionally, too. She’s so accessible and relatable.”
As for Raiff, best known for starring in and directing movies like “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” playing Luke also meant getting an opportunity to dial down the neurosis that has become his signature.
“Those early roles are kind of versions of himself, but he was making movies in his late teens and early 20s, so he was really playing into the uncertainty he was feeling,” Rhymer said. “And in this movie, he has a maturity that he hasn’t had before because he really is an old soul.”
Bermingham and Rhymer have been writing together for years, but this was their first feature as a directing duo. It sounds complicated to have two people leading a film set, let alone two filmmakers who are married to each other, but Bermingham and Rhymer insist that it made the job easier.
“Scarlett always jokes that she doesn’t know how anyone does this alone,” Rhymer said. “We end up getting to a better place on every decision. So if someone vetoes something, and Option A and Option B aren’t working, we find Option C together. Any friction or tension we experience only sharpens things. There’s a friend of ours who made the joke that not that long ago in the scope of human history, like when everyone worked on a farm, everything was a family business.”
It can be hard, however, to avoid bringing work home with them.
“There’s definitely times when it’s four in the morning and one of us is up with the baby and they turn to the other and say, ‘There’s this line in Act Two that isn’t working. Are you awake enough to talk about that?’” Rhymer said.
“But it also kind of cuts out the fat of having to be like ‘Let’s meet at 10:30 in the morning to like talk through stuff’ because we’re just always talking,” Bermingham added.
In addition to “All That She Wants,” Bermingham and Rhymer have numerous projects in different stages of development, including an adaptation of the children’s book “The Paper Bag Princess” for Universal and LuckyChap and “Big Time Abroad,” which was picked up by New Line and is billed as a cross between “Booksmart” and “Indiana Jones.” But if they run out of material, they might think about adapting their own “meet cute” story for the screen. Bermingham and Rhymer entered each other’s orbit as freshmen at New York University — she was an acting student, he was a film major. When Rhymer’s friend cast Bermingham in a student film, he volunteered to be part of the crew.
“I had such a crush on Scarlett,” Rhymer said. “I was probably holding a bounce card the whole time, but it was just a great way to hang out for the entire afternoon.”
At one point, when he was in the sound booth and Bermingham was recording dialogue, he leaned over to tell his friend how smitten he was with the leading lady. But he was briefly horrified because he thought he had pushed the button that allowed the booth to communicate with the actors in the studio, broadcasting his secret to the wider world.
“He was fine,” Bermingham said. “I didn’t hear a thing. It took more time for us to become friends and get together, and then, the rest is history.”
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EXCLUSIVE: Here’s what’s cool about this weekend.
Without any wide entry opening to north of $30M, it’s going to be a fantastic late September frame at the box office. It wouldn’t be shocking if the marketplace sees the best late September weekend since 2018 when all films totaled $106.4M. From a pure box office standpoint –forget about budgets for a minute and marketing costs– we’ve got four wide openings aimed at various demos in Disney/Marvel Studio’s Avengers: Endgame: Encore (fanboys), A24’s Primetime (Gen-Z and Robert Pattinson fans), Paramount’s Brad Pitt dog movie Heart of the Beast (flyover states and men/women adults), and Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island (families).
Heading into this weekend, it was believed that No. 1 could be a fight between Avengers: Endgame: Encore and the second weekend of Sony/Constantin’s Resident Evil, respectively at $25M-$30M and $21M-$24M.
But there are curveballs: It’s the year of Pattinson in The Drama and beggers getting out of here memes in The Odyssey, and though A24 is eyeing $12M-$16M for his latest movie Primetime about To Catch a Predator‘s Chris Hansen and his case gone wrong, the $15M net production has a shot at a $20M opening in North America at 2,814 theaters.
“It could be a three way fight for No. 1,” says one distribution source.
We’re hearing that previews tonight for the first feature narrative title from documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheimer are chasing Avengers: Endgame: Encore‘s $3M+ previews with a figure between $2M-$3M. Previews for the R-rated Primetime began at 4PM today and Rotten Tomatoes reviews and critics are great at 86% certified fresh and 85%. Encore‘s showtimes began today at 2PM.
Those previews for Primetime are ahead of Pattinson pics The Drama ($1.7M, $14.3M opening), and possibly Mickey 17 ($2.5M, $19M opening), in addition to the Gen-Z summer horror surprise Obsession ($2.6M, $17.1M opening). The A24 financed-by-foreign sales-movie is bowing abroad this weekend in France, Germany, Austria, Taiwan, Iceland, India, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Meanwhile, Avengers: Endgame: Encore, boosted by four extra minutes of the Russo Brothers’ upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, has preview cash that could possibly surpass that of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith‘s re-release last which was $3.4M, and turned into a $25.4M opening. We heard presales for Encore were ahead of Revenge of the Sith‘s re-release. The asterisk here is that sometimes these re-releases could be front-loaded, so we’ll see how Encore plays out. The Russo Brothers Encore is booked in around 3,000 theaters, boosted by Disney/Marvel Studio’s new certification on 1,300 premium large format screens, Infinity Vision, plus 390 Imax hubs. Encore will share Imax and PLFs with Resident Evil.
Overseas outlook for Encore is $25M in what’s bound to be a $50M WW weekend give or take. While James Cameron’s Avatar remains the No. 1 movie of all-time at $2.92B worldwide, Avengers Endgame is No. 2 with $2.799B WW (and Spider-Man Brand New Day No. 3 with $2.5B). There is a $124M WW box office gap between Avatar and Avengers Endgame. Disney is in wait-and-see mode to see if Endgame could reclaim the all-time spot before Doomsday‘s Dec. 18 opening. Unlike Revenge of the Sith‘s one week play, there’s no endgame for Encore at the fall box office.
Paramount’s Heart of the Beast leaves audiences moved and crying, including Deadline critic Pete Hammond. Film reviewers aren’t shrugging it at 89% certified fresh on RT. Tracking outlook is $17M-$20M at 3,400 theaters. Previews began today for the PG-13 David Ayer directed movie at 2PM and we hear from sources they’re around $1.8M (that includes Monday Mystery screenings). That figure is just north of what Pitt’s fall 2019 sci-fi drama Ad Astra did in previews at $1.5M ($19M). The movie cost a net $82M before global marketing. with dueling edits by Ayer and Pitt’s (Ayer’s won). Internationally, the film will open this week in 63 markets (or 95% footprint) including Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Expectation abroad is $15M for what could be a $35M WW opening. The hope is that older men and women find the film. Like Primetime, this survival tale about a Special Forces officer and his combat dog who are stranded in the Alaskan wilderness, sells itself upon viewing.
Forgotten Island from Puss in Boots: Last Wish filmmakers Joel Crawford and Januel P. Mercado is looking at $13M-$15M at 3,500 sites. Typically, late September is home to a family animated movie, i.e. Abominable, Cloudy With a Chance With Meatballs, The Wild Robot, the list goes on. Blurb for Forgotten Island: Two best friends become stranded on the mystical world of Nakali, where their only escape might cost them their shared lifetime of memories. Previews today stateside began at 2PM and are between $800K-$1M, we hear. Pic has a staggered offshore rollout. Last weekend, $1.5M was made in Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. An additional 31 markets this weekend will bring Forgotten Island‘s count to 34 markets with an additional $10M in store.
Resident Evil‘s cume through Wednesday stands at $76.8M.
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As Jimmy Kimmel returns to his late-night post, he’s ready to take the show across the river for Brooklyn Week once again.
On Thursday, ABC announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live! will head to Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House for the eighth Brooklyn Week, which will kick off next Monday with an all-star lineup.
This year’s guests for Brooklyn Week include New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Mahershala Ali, Billy Crystal, Pete Davidson, Robby Hoffman, Paul McCartney, Seth Meyers, Tom Morello, John Oliver, Bernie Sanders, Bruce Springsteen and Howard Stern, with musical guests De La Soul, Goose, TV On the Radio, and Springsteen & Tom Morello.
All five shows will tape in front of a live studio audience at BAM, to air every weeknight at 11:35pm ET on ABC and stream the next day on Hulu.
Jimmy Kimmel Live is produced by 12:05 AM Productions LLC, in association with Kimmelot and 20th Television. Kimmel, Erin Irwin, Molly McNearney, Jennifer Sharron and David Craig serve as executive producers, with Douglas DeLuca and Danny Ricker as co-executive producers.
Brooklyn Week comes after ABC denied “inaccurate” reports that Jimmy Kimmel Live! is ending in 2027 after 24 seasons.
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EXCLUSIVE: An end-of-week memo from Disney‘s Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer has fired a warning shot that layoffs are coming amidst a “transformation process” that includes “automating certain workflows by leveraging the latest technologies.”
Without actually saying that AI is taking over or that job losses are on the horizon, the memo by Horacio Gutierrez strongly implies that. Sent out at noon on Sept. 18 to the LGA department, which counts less than 1,000 members globally, the missive has taken on a life of its own. It is being circulated among the Disney rank and file, with many fearing that the blunt warning to LGA staffers applies to them too as they are bracing for rounds of layoffs, expected to begin as early as next week. Unspecified cuts within the LGA department are not connected to the next round of cuts, I hear. I’m told.
The memo has also been shared throughout the entertainment law community in L.A., NYC and DC.
Noting that the Mouse House’s “legal, government relations, operations, and others, are going through their own reinvention as technology reshapes how work gets done, and the operating models that underpin those professions,” the multi-tasked Gutierrez says he’s “taking a dispassionate look at every aspect of how we do our work, so we can do it in a more efficient and cost-effective manner.”
Gutierrez joined Disney from Spotify in late 2021 under Bob Chapek‘s short-lived reign as CEO. Replacing Disney veteran Alan Braverman in the top in-house legal job, Gutierrez was one of few key Chapek lieutenants to keep his job when Bob Iger returned as CEO in late 2022.
“Obviously, this will require hard choices about where and how we deploy our resources and investments, including our staffing investments and how we work will look different in the months and years ahead,” Gutierrez writes in the memo, adding, “LGA will be a much smaller organization than it is today, and some of you will personally be affected by decisions we make in this process. As a result, we’ll have to consider a whole range of new models for different workloads, including automating certain workflows by leveraging the latest technologies, moving to self-service models where appropriate, engaging alternative legal providers and others, and new expanded share services, even outsourcing.”
Proving once again that timing is everything in this town, Gutierrez’s memo came on the same day that Disney unveiled Karandeep Anand as the company’s very first Chief Technology Officer. The ex-Character.AI, CEO will report directly to Disney boss Josh D’Amaro. With the most recent rounds of job cuts hitting Disney in April and then July, execs made no secret on the Aug. 5 earnings call that more is to come. To that, Gutierrez email also came as the deadline was looming for qualifying longtime Disney executives to take the company’s voluntary early retirement offer, first unveiled in August by EVP and Chief People Officer Sonia Coleman. The process was always expected to be followed by involuntary layoffs.
Cutting to the chase in his September 18 memo, and invoking the name of D’Amaro, Gutierrez goes on to tell his staff that “when teams work smarter, Disney can serve more fans at lower costs, freeing up capital to reinvest in the content, guest experiences, and technology infrastructure that keep the company out in front.”
“Josh’s vision is of a Disney that succeeds in a changing market by breaking internal walls and embracing technology to amplify what makes it great, not by clinging to the way things always have been done.”
Disney would not comment on Gutierrez’s memo or on a timeline and scope of the upcoming job cuts when contacted Thursday by Deadline.
Nellie Andreeva contributed to this report
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