Insecure’s Issa Rae and The Big Sick’s Kumail Nanjiani are coming together
to star as the leads of The Lovebirds, a romantic comedy picked up by Paramount Pictures, EW has confirmed.
The script will see Rae and Nanjiani play a couple close to breaking up, who find themselves caught in a bizarre but funny murder mystery which they attempt to solve in order to clear their names, while also examining if they and their relationship can survive the circumstances. Nanjiani’s Big Sick director, Michael Showalter, will helm the film, and the script is penned by Aaron Abrams, Brendan Gall, and Martin Gero. The film will go into production at the end of the month and is co-produced and co-financed by MRC.
Nanjiani became one of the few South Asian leads of a romantic comedy with 2016’s The Big Sick, which he co-wrote with his wife, Emily V. Gordon, bringing the surreal story of their real-life romance to the big screen. Nanjiani and Gordon were nominated for an Oscar for their script. Nanjiani will reprise his role as Dinesh on the upcoming season of HBO’s Silicon Valley and will also be seen in Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone reboot. Meanwhile, Rae is the creator and star of HBO’s Insecure, which has earned her Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. She will next be seen in the film Little.
The Lovebirds news, which was first reported by the Hollywood Reporter, comes the same day as a New York Times profile examining the declining influence of Paramount, one of the industry’s biggest film studios.
