Aside from producing the documentary John Candy: I Like Me, Ryan Reynolds sat out contributing to the 2025 movies schedule. However, he’ll be back onscreen next year for the live action animated road trip comedy Animal Friends, and it’s rumored he’ll also reprise Wade Wilson, a.k.a. Deadpool, in the upcoming Marvel movie Avengers: Doomsday. Looking further into the future, word’s come in that Reynolds is teaming with Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, and now I have to wonder if his character will deliver the actor’s trademark snarky-fast dialogue.
He and Sherman-Palladino are developing a new Eloise live-action movie for Netflix, based off the same-named book series from the 1950s authored by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight. According to THR, Reynolds will both produce Eloise through his Maximum Effort production company alongside MRC, as well as play an “original villainous character” opposite Mae Schenk as the title protagonist. This Eloise movie will be an original story rather than directly adapt one of the books, with Sherman-Palladino writing the script with Hannah Marks and Linda Woolverton. Filming will begin later this month.
The namesake of the Eloise books is a little girl who lives in the “room at the tippy top” of New York City’s Plaza Hotel with her nanny, her pug dog Weenies and her turtle Skipperdee. Kay Thompson based the character off her childhood imaginary friend and alter ego, although per a 1999 Salon article, Liza Minnelli was also suspected to be a source of inspiration. The first two books in the series were previously adapted into the 2003 TV movies Eloise at the Plaza and Eloise at Christmastime, which starred Sofia Vassilieva as the adventurous girl and Julie Andrews as Nanny.
It’s anyone’s guess at this point how Ryan Reynolds’ villainous character will disrupt the life of Mae Schenk’s Eloise, but I think it’s a safe bet to say that he’ll drop quite a few quips and one-liners as he’s doing it. I’m envisioning something like an antagonist bent on what he did in 2024’s IF, his most kid-friendly movie of the last several years. Elosie will be Reynolds’ first Netflix subscription-exclusive movie since 2022’s The Adam Project, and you can also find Amy Sherman-Palladino’s revival Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life exclusively on the platform.
This Reynolds/Sherman-Palladino collaboration is arguably the biggest effort yet to introduce Eloise to global audiences. Going back to Mae Schenk, Eloise will mark her feature film debut, with Ashley Fox and Johnny Pariseau, the co-presidents of production at Maximum Effort, saying in an official statement:
When Amy introduced us to Mae Schenk, we knew instantly she was Eloise. She’s got the spark, the wit, and just the right amount of mischief. We’re so excited to introduce her to the world with our friends at MRC and Netflix.
Hannah Minghella, the head of feature animation and family film at Netflix, said in her own statement that it was an “honor” to reintroduce Eloise to the world with Ryan Reynolds and Amy Sherman-Palladino, who share the character’s “signature mischief and charm.” Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for updates on how this project is coming along.
