Meg Ryan Is Returning To Rom-Coms With An X-Files Star
After a great deal of anticipation, Meg Ryan is returning to romantic comedies, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Her new film, What Happens Later, is one she not only stars in alongside X-Files alum David Duchovny, but that she directed as well. The film is being released following an interim agreement from SAG-AFTRA amidst the ongoing actors’ strike.
Megan Ryan is teaming up with David Duchovny to star in the new romantic comedy, What Happens Later.
This is Meg Ryan’s second time in the director’s chair, following her 2015 feature Ithaca, about a boy in 1942 who is trying to become the world’s fastest telegraph cyclist. Ryan also had a role in that film as the boy’s mother. Ryan was nominated for two awards for that movie, including the audience award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Film and Literature Award at the Film by the Sea International Film Festival.
In What Happens Later, which is being released by Bleecker Street, Meg Ryan and David Duchovny star as a couple who have since parted ways but get snowed in overnight at an airport. Decades after their prior relationship, the two begin to find themselves both annoyed by and attracted to one another as they explore their past, their dreams, and the question of whether their meeting is as random as it seems.
What Happens Later will be released on November 3.
Hearkening back to the work of Nora Ephron, with whom Ryan collaborated for years on such films as You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle, What Happens Later marks a welcome return to romantic comedies from one of the genre’s most beloved stars.
Meg Ryan not only acts in and directs the picture, but also co-wrote it with Steven Dietz and Kirk Lynn, based on Dietz’s play, Shooting Star. The film was produced independently and not in connection with any AMPTP company, that is any company that is a part of the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers. That union is the one currently in negotiations with SAG-AFTRA to end the months-long actors’ strike.
As the film was made without AMPTP’s involvement, Meg Ryan and David Duchovny were able to secure an interim agreement with Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the chief negotiator at SAG, to allow them to promote the film. As such, the pair will be appearing in interviews and other press in print, radio, TV and online media. Such agreements are seen by SAG-AFTRA and Crabtree-Ireland as beneficial to the ongoing negotiation strategy of the union.
This is Meg Ryan’s second time in the director’s chair, following her 2015 feature Ithaca, about a boy in 1942 who is trying to become the world’s fastest telegraph cyclist.
In agreements such as the one Meg Ryan, David Duchovny, and Crabtree-Ireland reached for this film, there is not an exception being made to the terms of the actors’ strike. Instead, the producers of the film have agreed to all the terms set before AMPTP by SAG-AFTRA on July 12, demonstrating that projects made according to these terms can be successful and that there are professionals in the industry willing to accept the reasonable terms outlined in the strike. This is therefore the sort of project SAG-AFTRA wants its members to be publicly promoting.
Other films like Meg Ryan’s What Happens Later that have reached such agreements recently include Priscilla and Iron Claw from A24 features and films from Neon like Ferrari and the wildly successful Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert movie. What Happens Later will be released on November 3.
