Patrick Dempsey is TOM’S DAD to Lasse Hallström

Point Blank Productions has recruited Dear John director Lasse Hallström to direct Patrick Dempsey (Grey’s Anatomy) in the coming-of-age story Tom’s Dad.  According to Variety, Martin Casella’s script sets the film in 1962 Las Vegas, where ” a successful character film actor and a comedy vaudevillian nightclub performer at a crossroads because the changing styles of comedy is making him obsolete.  His situation’s complicated by the arrival of his long-estranged young son.”  The plot actually sounds very similar to the animated film The Illusionist, though it remains intriguing in both cases.

Dempsey will next star in Transformers 3 and the indie comedy Flypaper.  Hallström is attached to direct adaptations of the novels The Danish Girl and Salmon Fishing in Yemen.