Saturday Night Live alum Nasim Pedrad, Mudbound star Jason Mitchell and Orange Is the New Black actress Danielle Brooks are in talks to star in Netflix's romantic comedy Desperados, Collider has exclusively learned.
Pedrad will play a neurotic woman who takes her friends (including Brooks) to Mexico to thwart a hateful e-mail she accidentally sent to her new, perfect near-boyfriend, who is in the hospital there. During her trip, she keeps running into a terrible recent blind date (Mitchell) who maybe isn't so terrible after all.
The filmmaker known as LP will direct from a script by Ellen Rapoport, and Mason Novick (Juno) is producing via his Lost City banner. Production is slated to start early next year in Mexico.
Netflix has found success with its romantic comedies of late, as Set It Up, The Kissing Booth and To All the Boys I've Loved Before were all seen as breakout hits earlier this year in terms of the sheer amount of press they generated. The streaming service is eager to serve that audience, and will release the Gina Rodriguez vehicle Someone Great next year.
LP is an up-and-coming comedy director who has numerous short films to her credit and recently directed an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Rapoport is a former writer for The Jamie Kennedy Experiment who worked on a draft of the upcoming animated movie Clifford the Big Red Dog. CAA represents both LP and Rapoport, who are respectively managed by 3 Arts Entertainment and Management 360.
Pedrad will soon be seen as a new character in Disney's live-action Aladdin movie, and she has also wrapped Patrick Brice's horror-comedy Corporate Animals, which stars Ed Helms and Demi Moore. She's no stranger to that genre, having co-starred in Cooties with Elijah Wood and Rainn Wilson. In addition to SNL, Pedrad's TV credits include New Girl, Scream Queens and Mulaney. She's repped by UTA.
Mitchell has been on a roll since his breakout turn as Eazy-E in Straight Outta Compton, having co-starred in Dee Rees' acclaimed drama Mudbound, Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit and the big-budget tentpole Kong: Skull Island. He recently appeared in SuperFly and will next be seen in Sebastian Silva's anti-horror movie Tyrel. Mitchell is currently filming A24's stripper saga Zola, and he also stars on the Showtime series The Chi. He's repped by UTA, Authentic Talent and Literary Management and attorney P.J. Shapiro.
Brooks plays Taystee on Netflix's Orange Is the New Black and she can currently be seen in the indie drama Sadie. Brooks has also wrapped the indie movie Clemency with Alfre Woodard as well as the intriguing drama All the Little Things We Kill, which stars Elizabeth Marvel as a college professor who takes her students hostage to force the passage of a bill that bans semi-automatic weapons. She'll also star alongside Anna Kendrick in a new comedy from Four Lions director Christopher Morris. Brooks is repped by UTA, Door 24 and attorney Erik Hyman.
