Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the buzziest scripts of the movie awards season continues with Is This Thing On?, Searchlight’s comedy-drama set in the world of New York stand-up. Bradley Cooper directed the pic, which he wrote based on the original screenplay by the film’s star Will Arnett and Mark Chappell.
The film world premiered in October fittingly at the New York Film Festival (the movie takes place in NYC), it his select theaters December 19 (so tread lightly ahead with spoilers).
Arnett plays Alex, faced with middle again and the unraveling of his marriage to Tess (Laura Dern), and ex-athlete who is going through similar existential crises. The pair navigate co-parenting and all the rest while wondering whether love can take a new form. For Alex, that means working out what it all means on the stages of comedy clubs.
The story is based on the real-life story of John Bishop, a Manchester pharmaceutical rep who amid his own pending divorce hit an open-mic night at a local pub and used the stage for a stand-up set that centered on the problems of he and his wife. Bishop found the act therapeutic, and kept at it — until one night his wife turned up in the audience.
Arnett heard the story and sparked to it, penning a script with his writing partner Chappell and eventually getting it to Cooper, a longtime friend who was in production on his Oscar-nominated Maestro at the time. Cooper, who it turns out has spent lots of time in comedy clubs, took a pass a the script to infuse that world into the proceedings and more of the relationship of Alex and Tess, then took it on as director. (Side note: Arnett prepped for the role by going onstage as Alex at real NY clubs; some sets killed, others bombed, he and Cooper say).
Cooper also co-stars alongside Andra Day, Christine Ebersole, Ciarán Hinds, Amy Sedaris, Sean Hayes and Scott Icenogle. He also has the “screenplay by” credit with Arnett & Chappell; the latter two have the “story by” credit with Bishop.
Read the screenplay here:
