EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Apple has landed for development a TV series based on Elissa Sussman’s best-selling novel Funny You Should Ask, with Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton, Black Bag) and his producing partner Emily Brown executive producing through their A Mighty Stranger Production banner, Deadline has learned. The intention is for Page to star in the Tomorrow Studios project, which is now in early stages, with Rachel Alter writing the adaptation, sources said.
A rep for Apple declined comment.
Published in 2022, Funny You Should Ask is a love story that centers on a restless young journalist with big dreams who interviews a Hollywood heartthrob – and then reunites with him ten years later to discover exactly how he feels about her.
In an element of art imitating life, the movie star in the book — the role Page is poised to play — is the latest James Bond. Brit Page himself has been a popular fan pick to play 007 since his breakout starring turn in the first season of Netflix/Shondaland’s Bridgerton.
Alter will executive produce alongside Page and Brown of A Mighty Stranger as well as Robin Schwartz and Carolyn Daucher, along with Marty Adelstein, Becky Clements and Alissa Bachner of Tomorrow Studios, which is the studio. The project stems from Schwartz’s first-look deal with Tomorrow Studios, a partnership with ITV Studios.
If Funny You Should Ask goes to series, it would mark Page’s first TV role since playing Simon Basset on Bridgerton — and his return to the romance genre following the massive success of Regency drama’s first installment.
Prior to that, Page was a series regular on Shondaland’s ABC legal drama For The People. On the feature side, he starred in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, The Gray Man and, most recently, in Steven Soderbergh’s spy thriller Black Bag. He is repped by UTA, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and lawyers Johnson Shapiro, Slewett & Kole.
