The Lost City Of D - What We Know So Far
Romance novels are having a renaissance in Hollywood. First Bridgerton gave prestige TV sheen to a decades-old series of bodice rippers, and now Sandra Bullock is producing The Lost City of D for Paramount. Inspired by the saucy covers of romance trade paperbacks, the film is being produced under Bullock's Fortis Films banner, along with 3dot Productions and Exhibit A. Fortis Films has helped produce many of Bullock's starring roles, including the Miss Congeniality series, Two Weeks Notice, and Practical Magic. Fortis also produced George Lopez's self-titled sitcom.
According to Deadline, Adam and Aaron Nee are set to direct. The Nee Brothers' The Last Romantic was one of The New York Times' and Emerging Pictures' Undiscovered Gems of 2006. They are working with The Wedding Date and Isn't It Romantic's Dana Fox on a production draft of the script. Here's everything we know about The Lost City of D — its story, its villain, and the deal with that title.
Who's starring in The Lost City of D?
Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum will star in The Lost City of D as the couple who hates each other right up until they start smooching — a classic romance novel trope. Deadline broke news that Daniel Radcliffe will play the film's villain. Shrill's Patti Harrison and Selfie's Da'Vine Joy Randolph are slated for supporting roles.
The Lost City of D will be the first romantic film for Bullock since 2009, when she starred in both The Proposal and All About Steve. The Proposal was a hit with audiences, topping the box office on its opening weekend. All About Steve was ... less so. In his review for the AV Club, movie flop expert Nathan Rabin wrote that the film is "ultimately neither romantic comedy nor anti-romantic comedy, wandering so far off course that it's hard to tell exactly what it is, beyond a self-infatuated quirkfest." After leaving rom-comland, Bullock won critical acclaim for Gravity and an Oscar for The Blind Side.
Channing Tatum has also been playing the genre field for a while. First coming to prominence in the romantic Step Up, Tatum has done comedy (the Jump Street series), heist (Logan Lucky), and horny (Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL).
A romance novel romance
The Lost City of D will follow Bullock's reclusive romance author character. She gets stuck on a press tour with her book series' cover model himbo (Tatum). But then a kidnapping attempt shunts them into a plot straight out of one of her novels. The film promises Romancing the Stone-esque sexy jungle escapades. And since the film is being written in part by the writer of Isn't It Romantic, we can expect a meta approach that deconstructs as many romance tropes as it fulfills.
The film's title is a play on The Lost City of Z, a movie and book about Percy Fawcett's search for a lost city in the Amazon. Fawcett was convinced that the ruins of a pre-Columbian civilization lie somewhere in Brazil, but he went missing before his theory could be vindicated. Presumably Bullock will be searching for something more phallic in The Lost City of D.
D will be entering theaters in 2022
An estimated release date has been announced for The Lost City of D, but production has not yet started, so D is still a ways from reaching completion. But D could come quickly, once things get underway. According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, it is set to release in April 2022.
Sandra Bullock will next appear in a still-untitled Nora Fingscheidt project for Netflix, with a script written by Mission Impossible: Fallout's Christopher McQuarrie and based on the British series Unforgiven. The thriller will co-star Viola Davis, Vincent D'Onofrio, Linda Emond, Jon Bernthal, Richard Thomas, and Emma Nelson, per Variety. According to People, she is currently filming Bullet Train with Brad Pitt.
Channing Tatum will next be seen in Dog, a road trip movie that Tatum also co-directed. Tatum stars opposite a Belgian Malinois, according to Variety. "[I]t will be one of the most insane stories that I've ever been a part of," Tatum wrote on Instagram about Dog. "And I've been a part of some pretty crazy ones in this life of mine."