Is Katherine Heigl only allowed to do romantic comedies? At least Life As We Know It sounds like there may be more to it than either The Ugly Truth or 27 Dresses.
It’s now been announced that Transformers star Josh Duhamel is in talks to join Heigl in the movie, which is about two unattached adults whose worlds are turned upside down when their mutual best friends die in an accident and name them as caregivers of their orphaned daughter.
Death and grieving children don’t exactly sound like the kind of thing rom-com dreams are made of, but perhaps if handled well it could work. This is especially true as both Duhamel and Heigl are capable of a lot more than we’ve seen from their previous movie roles (their best work has been on TV, and Heigl even won an Emmy for Grey’s Anatomy), so maybe this will be the film that allows them to break free of being likable but not particularly deep big screen presences.
Life As We Know It is due to be directed by Greg Berlanti, whose only previous directorial outing was the gay comedy The Broken Hearts Club, although he’s worked extensively in TV as a writer/producer on the likes of Dawson’s Creek, Brothers & Sisters and Eli Stone.
The plot may sound like a downer, but I still have a lot of goodwill towards both Heigl and Duhamel, so let’s hope this work.