Mumbai: Nora Ephron’s 1998 cult classic You’ve Got Mail is officially getting a reboot. Warner Bros. is developing a new version of the romantic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, with Jason Orley writing and directing.
The new film will tell a new story, although the plot, cast, and release date haven’t been revealed yet.
Orley is working on a script based on an earlier draft by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont, who wrote Can’t Hardly Wait (1998) and Josie and the Pussycats (2001). Neal Moritz and Tania Landau are producing the film through their production house, Original Film.
You’ve Got Mail was directed by Nora Ephron, who wrote the screenplay with her sister Delia Ephron. It followed two rival booksellers in New York who fall in love over email without knowing each other’s identities.
Ryan played Kathleen Kelly, who ran a small children’s bookstore, while Hanks played Joe Fox, whose family owned a large chain of bookstores. When Joe’s company opened a store near Kathleen’s, the two became business rivals. Neither knew that the person they disliked in real life was also the person they were exchanging emails with.
Released in December 1998, the film earned more than $250 million worldwide. It was the third film Hanks and Ryan had made together, after Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and Sleepless in Seattle (1993), which was also directed by Ephron.
But You’ve Got Mail was itself a remake. It was based on The Shop Around the Corner (1940), starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, which followed two employees at a Budapest gift shop who unknowingly fall in love through anonymous letters.
Orley previously directed Big Time Adolescence (2019), starring Pete Davidson, and I Want You Back (2022), a romantic comedy starring Charlie Day and Jenny Slate. He also worked on Davidson’s television series Bupkis.
His upcoming film, Close Personal Friends, stars Brie Larson, Lily Collins, Henry Golding and Jack Quaid, who is Ryan’s son.
However, not everyone is on board with the decision. Grant Addison, former editor at the Washington Examiner, criticised the move on X.
“Insane decision. Every great element of this movie is outdated: dial-up, email, book stores, talking to strangers, men and women dating,” Addison wrote.
One X user, simply posted “no”.
“What if instead of a You’ve Got Mail reboot we just made a new movie,” commented another.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)