The body-swap genre is a reliably popular one; ever since “Big,” the premise has been proven to draw in the crowds to a string of half-decent comedies. While always frothy, the likes of “13 Going on 30” and “17 Again” were reasonably well-achieved, and even the Lindsay Lohan-starrer “Freaky Friday” was enjoyable enough (although strangely, Disney weren’t that enthusiastic about our pitch for a sequel, where Lohan would play a promising actress who swaps bodies with a drug-addled waste of space).
It looks like Fox are set to go back to the well once again, after picking up the rights to Adena Halpern’s book “29: A Novel.” The plot follows Ellie, a 75-year-old obsessed with staying young, who “on her birthday, wishes she was 29 again, just for one day, and when it comes true, she teams with her young granddaughter to embark on an adventure. Meanwhile, the woman’s middle-aged daughter and 75-year-old best friend believe her to be kidnapped and set out on their own escapade.”
Maybe it’ll turn out to be a heartwarming, hilarious, moving look at age and narcissism, but the book sounds more like a cynical exercise in how-quickly-can-I-sell-the-film-rights-to-this, to the extent that we’re surprised that the back cover doesn’t say something like “Ellie, a feisty 75-year-old to be played in the movie adaptation by Jane Fonda or Shirley Maclaine, whoever is still alive by the time it shoots…” And between the presence of producer John Davis, whose recent output includes “Predators” and “Marmaduke,” and Fox’s patronizing desire to make this into “an event movie for women,” we’re not going to hold our breath for this to be any good. [The Hollywood Reporter]