Mike Birbiglia is returning to features for the first time in a decade. Focus Features has greenlit Old Friends New Friends, which Birbiglia wrote and will direct. Production is set for this fall.
Lucas Hedges, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Geraldine Viswanathan, and Dylan Gelula lead the ensemble. The story centers on a college friend group that travels to a summer camp wedding for an old friend, only to discover he has moved on entirely. The official logline: “forcing them to confront what they’ve lost, who they’ve become and whether growing up means growing apart.”
Birbiglia is an Emmy nominated comedian whose previous features include Sleepwalk with Me (2012) and Don’t Think Twice (2016). He is also an actor, with credits in Trainwreck, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Orange Is the New Black, and Billions. Old Friends New Friends marks his first film as a director in ten years and his first at Focus Features.
The cast signals intention. Hedges, Viswanathan, and Schwarzenegger each bring enough independent film credibility to suggest a prestige positioning. Birbiglia, Jacob Jaffke, and Joe Hartwick produce for Oddball Entertainment. No release date has been set.