James L. Brooks Directed Wilson, Rudd, Witherspoon and Nicholson in HOW DO YOU KNOW
After six years, director James L. Brooks got back behind the camera to deliver a new dramady based around the sport of baseball called, How Do You Know. The film was shot last summer, but there is still very little that we know about the movie. The studio has been able to keep things under wrap successfully.
The story of the film centers on a love triangle between a white collar executive (Paul Rudd) and a professional baseball player (Owen Wilson) who are both trying to win over for the affection of a woman (Reese Witherspoon). She comes from a sports-loving family and is getting over a major break-up. Jack Nicholson is in the film and played a father figure role. Nicholson's role was originally supposed to be occupied by Bill Murray, but he turned it down.
The New York Times recently ran an article that revealed some more information on the film saying that "The plot is rooted in an encounter between two people who meet on the worst night of their respective lives." Brooks did a lot of in depth research for this film that all started at his daughters soccer game when he "became fixed on the notion of making a film about a young female athlete." While he was doing research on the film "Brooks became fascinated by the dilemmas of contemporary business executives, who are sometimes held accountable by the law for corporate behavior of which they may not even be aware. This brought new research into the lives of people who run companies, work for the Justice Department, or, in at least one case, have spent time in jail." This lead Brooks to create a complication in the life of the lead character Lisa so he threw in a professional baseball pitcher.
Brooks ended up with a romantic comedy set in the world of baseball. The "sport only occasionally figures in a film that is actually about people trying to figure out exactly what, for each of them, matters most."
The film's got a great cast, a solid director, and an original story. It's been shot and is set to be released on Dec. 17th.