In 1989, the pitch-black divorce comedy The War of The Roses proved a big hit for Fox, pulling in $160 million worldwide. Now, as we edge closer to the film's 25-year anniversary, producers are pulling together a sequel, which fittingly will focus on the children of the titular battling exes.
Variety reports Permut Presentations and Grey Eagle Productions are teaming up to make War of the Roses: The Children, and producers have hired up-and-coming screenwriter Alex McAulay to draft its screenplay. David Permut, Jonathan Adler and Steve Greenwald will serve as producers, while Chris Mangano will exec produce. There's no word yet on who this group is considering for the sequel's director's chair. Though Danny DeVito directed the first, there's no hint as to whether or not he's been approached for its part two.
The War of The Roses starred Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas as Oliver and Barbara Rose, a deeply bitter and resentful married couple dedicated to chasing each other out of their shared home, which both want in the impending divorce. After falling for each other in the action-packed romantic comedies Romancing The Stone and The Jewel of the Nile, these stars relished in playing a romance festered and foul; critics and audiences ate it up. Of course, if you've seen the film, you know there's really nowhere new these loathing former lovers can go with the story. But as The War of The Roses was based on Warren Adler's best-selling novel of the same name, so is its sequel.
Alex McAulay will be adapting War of the Roses: The Children from Warren Adler's follow-up book The Children of the Roses, which focuses on the children--now grown--that Oliver and Barbara left behind. Their son Josh is married, but his mother-in-law despises him, and his marriage is crumbling over an incident involving a missing Milky Way Bar. His children, Emily and Michael, stir up further issues. Meanwhile, his sister Carolyn (named Evie in the book) is heavyset, and happy-go-lucky, with a long list of lovers. But trouble brews for both, roping in a sexually predatory headmaster, a blackmailing husband, and darkly funny scenes. Having not read the book, I must admit these curious scraps have me intrigued.
McAulay doesn't have much of a filmography at present. He came onto our radar back in 2009 when MTV hired him to adapt his MTV-produced YA novels into screenplays. Since then he has crafted a script called Flower, which made the coveted Black List--a collection of the most raved about but unproduced screenplays floating around Hollywood. Flower is currently being produced by Danny McBride, David Gordon Green and Jody Hill’s company Rough House, and McBride snagged Alex McAulay to write for his HBO series Eastbound and Down. That collaboration is apparently clicking as HBO now has McAulay developing a new show for them, which is poised to have McBride star. Basicaly, expect to hear a lot more from Alex McAulay.
