Warner Bros. is developing a new version of You’ve Got Mail, nearly 28 years after Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan starred in Nora Ephron’s romantic comedy.
As Deadline first reported on November 10, Jason Orley will direct and is writing the latest draft from an earlier screenplay by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont. The writing partners’ credits include Can’t Hardly Wait, Josie and the Pussycats, Made of Honor and Leap Year.
Neal Moritz and Tania Landau are producing through Original Film. The Hollywood Reporter describes the project as a new story, with its specific premise still under wraps.
No cast, production start or release date has been announced, and Hanks and Ryan’s involvement remains unconfirmed.
Orley Brings Experience With Romantic Comedies
Orley directed the 2022 Amazon romantic comedy I Want You Back, starring Charlie Day and Jenny Slate as strangers who meet after being dumped. They form a friendship while plotting to win back their former partners, with Gina Rodriguez and Scott Eastwood among the supporting cast.
His feature debut, Big Time Adolescence, starred Pete Davidson and premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Their working relationship continued through three of Davidson’s comedy specials and six episodes of his Peacock series Bupkis.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Orley recently completed post-production on Close Personal Friends, an Amazon comedy starring Brie Larson, Lily Collins, Henry Golding and Jack Quaid. Quaid is Ryan’s son with actor Dennis Quaid.
Bookstore Rivals Became Anonymous Online Confidants
Released on December 18, 1998, You’ve Got Mail follows Kathleen Kelly, who runs an independent children’s bookstore on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and Joe Fox, whose family’s bookstore chain threatens her business. Their hostility in person develops alongside an anonymous email romance, with neither initially knowing who is answering their messages.
Nora directed from a screenplay she wrote with her sister, Delia Ephron. The supporting cast included Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, Jean Stapleton, Steve Zahn, Dave Chappelle and Dabney Coleman. The Numbers records a worldwide gross of $250.8 million against a $65 million production budget, while Ryan earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance.
The film was Hanks and Ryan’s third screen pairing, following Joe Versus the Volcano in 1990 and Sleepless in Seattle in 1993. They later appeared together in Ithaca, the 2016 drama that marked Ryan’s feature directorial debut.
Delia Ephron Explained the Bookstore Choice
Speaking with PEOPLE in 2024, Delia recalled deciding what business Kathleen would run. “We always tried to find something we cared the most about,” she said, explaining that she and Nora shared a love of children’s books.
Delia also remembered Nora’s enthusiasm for clothing and production design. The film’s appearance reflected the Upper West Side neighborhood where the sisters both lived, connecting its setting to their own experiences of New York.
That wardrobe later became part of the social media trend called Meg Ryan Fall, with fans drawing inspiration from oversized blazers, sweaters, loose trousers and flat shoes. Ryan had described the attention as sweet in an earlier interview with the magazine.
The Romance Began Long Before Email
The story’s roots reach back to Hungarian playwright Miklós László’s 1937 play Parfumerie. It inspired Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner, released in 1940 with James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as Budapest shop employees who unknowingly exchange romantic letters.
Judy Garland and Van Johnson starred in another screen adaptation, the 1949 musical In the Good Old Summertime. The same play also became She Loves Me, which opened on Broadway in 1963.
The Broadway version, with a book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, placed the central couple in a perfume shop. Barbara Cook and Daniel Massey originated the leading roles.