Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Pi?a Colada Song)” Getting Rom-Com Feature Treatment At Alloy Entertainment
EXCLUSIVE: How’s this for an IP play?
Alloy Entertainment is partnering with singer-songwriter Rupert Holmes on a feature adaptation of his classic 1979 tune, “Escape (The Pi?a Colada Song).”
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While the film’s official logline is under wraps, the project will be a romantic comedy produced by Alloy’s President and Chief Creative Officer, Leslie Morgenstein, and EVP Film, Elysa Koplovitz Dutton. Holmes will serve as executive producer. The team is out now to potential writers for the project.
Released as part of Holmes’ fifth solo album, Partners in Crime, “Escape” focuses on a singles ad placed by a woman in search of a relationship, and the man who finds the ad in the paper. The song’s famous lyrics include: “If you like pi?a coladas, and getting caught in the rain, if you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain, if you like making love at midnight, in the dunes on the cape, then I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me and escape.”
“Escape” was the last No. 1 of 1979 and returned to the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 during the second week of 1980, making it the first pop song to hit in two different decades. While the karaoke favorite has appeared on movie and TV-show soundtracks countless times over the past four decades, the story has never been told in film or television before, until now.
Born David Goldstein on February 24, 1947, Holmes worked in the early stages of his career as a session musician, songwriter and composer, writing and arranging songs for artists such as Gene Pitney, the Platters, the Drifters, Wayne Newton, Dolly Parton, Barry Manilow, and the Partridge Family. His solo career gained momentum with the release of his debut album, Widescreen, in 1974, which showcased his talent for crafting romantic, orchestrated story songs.
In the decades since his solo debut, Holmes has also become a multiple Tony Award-winning librettist and composer, as well as a New York Times bestselling author. He launched his theater in the 1980s with the critically acclaimed The Mystery of Edwin Drood, an adaptation of the novel by Charles Dickens, which won multiple Tonys and Drama Desk Awards. Over the course of his multifaceted career, he also created the series Remember WENN for American Movie Classics and has penned multiple books, including Where the Truth Lies, which was adapted into a film by Atom Egoyan. Holmes’ most recent novel, Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide, reached number six on the New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover fiction in early 2023.
Alloy has been on a roll with three #1 films in a row at Netflix — Work It, starring Sabrina Carpenter, Purple Hearts, starring Sofia Carson and Nicholas Galitzine, and You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, starring Adam Sandler. Additionally, they produced the recent hit horror film Tarot for Sony’s Screen Gems. Currently, the company is developing In a Holidaze, an adaptation of the bestselling novel for Netflix, with Tiffany Paulsen adapting. Also on their slate is Pride, a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, co-produced by the Obamas’ Higher Ground. On the television side, Alloy’s You, starring Penn Badgley, is set to return for its final season on Netflix on April 24. Former HBO exec Maia Hollinger recently took oversight of Alloy’s television division, as we were first to report late last month.
Holmes is represented by CAA
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