Reese Witherspoon To Star In Not One, But Two Netflix Rom-Coms
The rom-com queen is coming back to take her crown. Reese Witherspoon has been busy earning acclaim and Emmy nods for her roles in prestige television lately, but she's heading to Netflix to teach the teen heartthrobs a thing or two about romantic-comedies. Witherspoon is set to star in not one, but two Netflix rom-coms, including the feature directorial debut of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend co-creator Aline Brosh McKenna. The two starring vehicles, McKenna's Your Place Or Mine and an adaption of The Cactus, are both being produced under Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine banner.
Deadline reports that Witherspoon has struck a deal with Netflix to star in two romantic-comedies: Your Place Or Mine and The Cactus, an adaptation of Sarah Haywood's bestselling novel.
"We have been looking for the right feature opportunities to collaborate with Ted Sarandos, Scott Stuber and the entire team at Netflix for a while and we couldn't be more excited to be working with them on these two romantic comedies," Witherspoon said in a statement. "Both Sarah Haywood's and Aline Brosh McKenna's stories blend everything we love about traditional RomComs with strong, smart and determined female leads."
Your Place Or Mine follows "two long-distance best friends who change each other's lives when she decides to pursue a lifelong dream and he volunteers to keep an eye on her teenage son" and marks the feature directorial debut of McKenna, best known for writing rom-coms like The Devil Wears Prada and Morning Glory and co-creating The CW's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Witherspoon, who in recent years has thrown her weight behind other female-led projects like The Morning Show and Big Little Lies with her Hello Sunshine banner, is producing alongside Hello Sunshine's Lauren Neustadter and Aggregate's Jason Bateman and Michael Costigan. McKenna also penned the screenplay for Your Place Or Mine, which sounds like a sweet directorial debut for McKenna, who has proven to have a knack for capturing the ambitious career woman's experiences.The Cactus, meanwhile, is based on the 2019 Sarah Haywood bestselling novel and follows a 45-year-old woman facing an unexpected pregnancy, which causes her to "rethink the structured life she has created for herself and leads her on an unconventional journey toward love, family and learning to embrace the unexpected." Witherspoon and Neustadter also produce this film, which sounds like the rare rom-com centered on an over-40 woman who finds a new lease on life.
Witherspoon has carved out a fantastic second phase of her career championing female creatives and using her platform to tell stories that interrogate the nature of womanhood and aging, and often her own relationship with privilege. She's been an incredible force behind-the-scenes, but has not slowed down in front of the camera either — she delivers an absolutely chilling performance in the recent Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu.
It's always comforting to see Witherspoon and her giant beaming smile back in the rom-com genre and I'm especially excited to see what she cooks up with McKenna, who did stellar work with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Witherspoon has projects on Hulu, Apple, and HBO, and it's very satisfying to see her make inroads on Netflix too, where the teen rom-com reigns supreme. It'll be nice to see Witherspoon school some of those teen heartthrobs on how the original rom-com queens do it.