Paul Dano To Write And Direct Comedy For Universal Pictures And Daniels

EXCLUSIVE: It’s been almost a decade since Paul Dano and Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert blew Sundance away with Swiss Army Man and the trio now look ready to reunite on the next director outing for Dano. Sources tell Deadline, Dano is set to write and in talks to direct a new untitled comedy for Universal Pictures with Kwan, Scheinert and their partner Jonathan Wang producing through their Playgrounds banner. Dano is also in talks to produce.

Plot details are being kept under wraps other then it being a high-concept, original comedy. Daniels have a first look deal with the studio and while they are still deep in development on their follow-up to Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, this film would mark one of the first major projects they are solely producing under the deal. Senior Executive Vice President of Production Development Erik Baiers will oversee the project for the Studio.

Swiss Army Man was one of the big winners of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival which starred Dano and Daniel Radcliffe and was written and directed by the Daniels. Dano was already an established actor at the time but the film helped launch the Daniels career leading to their Oscar-winning hit Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, which swept the Oscars including best director, writing and Picture wins for the group.

They are now reuniting with Dano on his next directing gig following his critically acclaimed drama Wildlife. The film was written and directed by Dano and starred Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal earned Dano strong reviews when it premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Since that film, Dano has continued to be busy on the acting front, starring in the Showtime limited series Escape from Dannemora with Benicio Del Toro and Patricia Arquette and directed by Ben Stiller, which earned him an Emmy nomination.

Dano also starred opposite Robert Pattinson in Warner Bros’ The Batman in which he played the iconic Riddler.  He also starred alongside Michelle Williams in Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans, written by Spielberg and Tony Kushner, in which he played a character loosely based on Spielberg’s father. 

Dano starred opposite Seth Rogen and America Ferrara in Craig Gillespie’s comedy Dumb Money in which he played Keith Gill, a YouTuber who put all of his money into GameStop stock and sparked a movement on Reddit, flipping Wall Street on its head.  He recurred on Amazon’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith series and had a cameo in the first episode of the Apple comedy series The Studio.  He just completed shooting the Olivier Assayas film The Wizard of the Kremlin in which he plays the title character amongst a cast which includes Jude Law, Alicia Vikander and Jeffrey Wright.

Dano is represented by WME, Anonymous Content and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson & Christopher. Daniels and Playgrounds are represented by Mosaic and Yorn, Levine, Barnes, Krintzman, Rubenstein, Kohner, Endlich, Goodell & Gellman. Wang is represented by Granderson Des Rochers.