Netflix Breaks Up With Nancy Meyers

People who love love—and, yes, perfectly appointed kitchens—have a new reason to be heartbroken. Netflix will not be making a romantic comedy with Nancy Meyers after a disagreement over the budget, a source familiar with the situation confirms for Vanity Fair. 

Meyers hadn’t made a new film in nearly a decade when Netflix announced last spring that it had said yes to a new project from the writer-director behind The Holiday, It’s Complicated, and other movies. The new film was to be a star-studded, semi-autobiographical story about a filmmaking couple who reunite on a set after breaking up. (Meyers was married to writer-producer Charles Shyer for 19 years and made several of her most beloved films with him, including Father of the Bride and The Parent Trap.) Among the stars reportedly circling the project were Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz, Michael Fassbender, and Owen Wilson. 

But in early March, Puck’s Matt Belloni reported that, after Netflix greenlit the movie at $130 million, Meyers’ team circled back and asked for $150 million. On Tuesday afternoon, The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline reported that the project was dead at Netflix. Both budgets are particularly high for a romcom, especially now that many of them bypass theaters and go straight to streaming. And Netflix, like much of Hollywood, has been cutting costs to satisfy investors. A spokeswoman for the streamer declined to comment. A representative for Meyers has not yet respond to a request. 

The film, which Deadline reports was titled Paris Paramount, would have been the first Meyers project since 2015’s The Intern, starring Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro. She was most active when romcoms were generally sure things at the box office. Something’s Gotta Give, with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, grossed $265 million worldwide in 2003, and Meryl Streep’s pristine Santa Barbara kitchen in It’s Complicated helped the film rake in $219 million in 2009. Even The Intern managed to make $195 million. 

Though times have changed, the cult of Meyers has remained strong, especially among a generation too young to have seen her films in theaters. She has more than 250,000 followers on Instagram, where she regularly posts nostalgic set photos and shows off her own beautifully decorated home. And Keaton’s style in Something’s Gotta Give even inspired a trend on TikTok known as the “coastal grandmother aesthetic.” 

Fans eagerly anticipating more Meyers’ interior design inspiration will need to wait and see if another studio or streamer will swoop in and make her latest film.