It’s official: movie number five for Jason Reitman will be “Labor Day,” and it will be produced through Paramount Pictures. This romantic drama, which sounds like quite a departure, finds a single mother who takes in a mysterious drifter with a dangerous past. Things get heated, erupting in a passionate affair over the titular holiday. While this seems like the type of thing we’d love with Shelly Winters and Robert Mitchum from the pen of Tennessee Williams, instead this is from the book by Joyce Maynard, with Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin as the illicit couple. Eh, not a huge downgrade.
Production on the film starts next June for a summer shoot, making this Reitman’s fourth collaboration with Paramount – “Juno” emerged via Fox Searchlight. It’s definitely a stretch for Reitman, who didn’t know a single moment of sincerity he couldn’t spike with air quotes, but we’d love to see what sort of chemistry exists between Brolin and Winslet.
Reitman’s latest, “Young Adult,” hits December 9th. The word seems uncertain as to the film’s status as an Oscar player, but Reitman’s last two films, “Juno” and “Up In The Air,” were pretty big contenders with a certain subset of voters. Paramount locking in “Labor Day” suggests a certain amount of confidence in “Young Adult.” In other words, this is a pretty cushy arrangement. Hey Jason, if you’re reading, can we borrow some money?
