In case you weren’t aware: Katherine Heigl, who plays the lovable Izzie on hit US TV show Grey’s Anatomy, recently pissed off the writers of the show big-time by withdrawing from Emmy consideration, essentially blaming them for not giving her decent material. The writers allegedly responded by giving her character a brain tumour, which may – or may not – kill her off. Nobody knows, or will know, until the show debuts later this month.
Well, Heigl may not be leaving the show – but she’s certainly been building a pretty damned impressive movie career to cushion the blow when, or if, that time comes. (And we suspect that when it does come, it will be of her own volition…) Knocked Up was followed by 27 Dresses, with another rom-com, The Ugly Truth, to come.
And now her latest project has been announced – and it may be the most ambitious yet for the 29 year-old actress.
Drawn Together is – yes – a romantic comedy, but one with an action movie twist. It will centre around an electronics designer who meets the woman of his dreams (Heigl), only to discover that she’s not all she appears to be. And, if we had to guess from the title alone, we’d say that she may be a fictional character – possibly animated.
But that’s just our guess, and it’s up to the movie’s writers, Keith Merryman and David A. Newman, to wrong-foot us and keep us guessing.
The duo beat a horde of other writers to secure the gig, the idea for which came from the executive producing team of Robert Kosberg and Bruce Nash, based on a concept by Kosberg’s former writing partner, David Simon.
They brought it directly to Heigl and her mother/agent, Nancy Heigl, who will be producing via their Abishag company, and then invited writers to pitch for the job, with Merryman and Newman winning out thanks to a pitch that outlined some impressive action scenes. So this one is certainly intriguing.
Fox 2000 will be signing the big cheques for the movie, which is currently without a director. So it’s early days yet. But it’s yet more insurance for Heigl, should the Grey’s Anatomy writers decide to make that tumour malignant, eh?