TriStar Buys Brenda Hsueh’s High-Concept RomCom ‘Man’s Best Friend’

Anthony D'Alessandro
·2 min read

EXCLUSIVE: In the wake of the $216M-plus global grossing success of Anyone But You, Sony is going to keep this romcom train going. We hear that TriStar Pictures has preemptively acquired Brenda Hsueh’s high concept romantic comedy Man’s Best Friend.

Temple Hill is also set to produce.

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Plot is under wraps, and in early development, but we hear it’s in the spirit of the Danny DeVito directed, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner 1989 black comedy, The War of the Roses.

Hsueh will write and executive produce through her Shoe’s Off Productions banner alongside her partner Yvonne Cheng.

Hsueh co-wrote the Disney/Pixar animated sleeper, Elemental, which made close to a half billion dollars at the global box office and was nominated for an Oscar in the Animated Feature category. She also consulted for Domee Shi, the director of Disney/Pixar’s Turning Red. 

Hsueh also wrote and will make her feature directorial debut with Match, a live-action sci-fi romantic dramedy in the vein of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She began her career working on the first three seasons of CBS’ How I Met Your Mother, then as a co-EP on The Afterparty and Mr. Corman, both at Apple.

Hsueh is repped by Verve and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis.

Sony had the No. 1 movie at the box office this past weekend with Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire which opened to $45M stateside, the second best start for a Ghostbusters movie at the domestic B.O. Worldwide, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire had a $61M start. The fifth installment propelled the entire Ghostbusters franchise past the $1 billion mark worldwide.

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