Tom Hanks’ ‘The Comebacker’ Ignites Bidding War With Republic Pictures, Focus Features and Sony

Three studios are competing for the rights to Tom Hanks’ “The Comebacker,” a feature film directed by Hanks’ collaborator Marielle Heller (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” ) and adapted from the short story by Pulitzer Prize finalist Dave Eggers.

Republic Pictures, Focus Features and Sony are duking it out for rights to “The Comebacker,” after it was taken to studios this week. Warner Bros. has dropped out of the race after initially expressing interest, TheWrap has learned.

The baseball comedy follows an older beat reporter whose love of the game, the team he covers and his profession is reignited by the arrival of a new pitcher.

Sony is the frontrunner in the bidding war, having provided an attractive offer for the project and with its longstanding relationship with Heller and Hanks. Sony released “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” which earned Hanks a 2019 Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor, along with the star’s 2022 drama “A Man Called Otto.”

“The Comebacker” is set to be produced by Hanks’ partner Gary Goetzman at Playtone, and Heller’s producing partner Leah Holzer at their Defiant by Nature banner. Super Bowl Halftime Show performer Bad Bunny and Oscar nominee Colman Domingo are also eying roles in the feature.

This will be the third time Hanks has starred in an adaptation of Eggers work, having previously appeared in Tom Tykwer’s “A Hologram for the King” in 2016 and James Ponsoldt’s “The Circle” in 2017, where Hanks played a villainous tech mogul opposite Emma Watson.

The official synopsis for the short story, part of a series from Eggers called “The Forgetters,” reads: “Lionel Vratimos is a beat reporter covering the San Francisco Giants ― an enviable job if not for the soggy fries, and the so-so weather, and the Giants’ losing record, and the shoe Lionel paid a Romanian shoemaker re-sole but which now squeaks with every footfall. His colleagues are even more dissatisfied, mired in statistics and myopia and complaints about a certain elevator that is really too slow. One day, though, a new pitcher, Nathan Couture, is brought up from the minor leagues; he’s tall and lanky and talks like no one they’ve ever covered. Even more startling is Nathan’s actual interest in the words Lionel writes, and his rare, even unprecedented, ability to see the beauty in the game he’s paid to play.”

Hanks has recently appeared in a series of minor roles in projects like Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme” and “Asteroid City,” Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Freaky Tales” and the documentary “John Candy: I Like Me.” His last starring role was in 2024’s “Here,” which reunited him with the “Forrest Gump” team of director Robert Zemeckis, screenwriter Eric Roth and co-star Robin Wright. He is current at work on “Greyhound 2,” a follow-up to his 2020 Apple movie, with Hanks returning to write and star for director Aaron Schneider. He will also reprise his beloved Woody in this summer’s “Toy Story 5.”

Heller’s last movie was the Amy Adams-led “Nightbitch,” which Searchlight released in 2024.

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