Vince Vaughn is set to star in Sunny and 68, a new drama "with comedic elements". Gavin O'Connor, director of the new Edward Norton/Colin Farrell drama Pride & Glory, is set to direct.
The film sees Vaughn play a professional poker player whose alcoholism and recklessness lead to a gambling disaster on national television. He is left $500,000 in debt to bookies, and so heads home to upstate New York to ask his sweet, grey-haired old mother (we're guessing) for the return of money he'd sent her over the years (what a git). There, however, he finds that she's dying of cancer but also raising a 5 year-old who, it emerges, is his daughter.
His mother has also been grooming his former high school girlfriend as the child's guardian*, and according to O'Connor, these "three generations of women teach this character to become a man". Hmm, funny - you'd think he'd already know how to pee standing up and open a beer bottle with his teeth by that age.
The title comes from the mother's habit of describing even bad weather as "sunny and 68°" ( for non-Fahrenheit users, that's 20°C). O'Connor wrote the script, along with Anthony Tambakis, with Vaughn in mind for the lead, and plans to shoot the film next February on location in New York State. O'Connor's also planning a mixed-martial-arts drama called Warrior for next year, while Vaughn's currently working on Couples Retreat.
*Spot the romantic subplot!