March 28, 2014 - 16:37 AMT
Fox nabs Chris Pratt, Anna Faris comedy “Vacation Friends”

In a near seven-figure deal, Fox has acquired the spec script Vacation Friends by the sibling scribe team Tom Mullen & Tim Mullen. The plan is for Steve Pink to direct, and for Chris Pratt and Anna Faris to star. Todd Garner is producing through his Broken Road Pictures banner. The hope is to shoot later this year, Deadline said.

Pratt and Faris, who are married off screen, will play a crazy wild couple that bonds with a straight laced couple on vacation in Mexico. They have a great time, and then want to rekindle the fun. Once the other couple gets back to their normal life, it’s not nearly the same kind of fun and their vacation friends won’t go away.

It’s another in a recent series of deals with studios that were willing to pay for a fully fleshed out package assembled by a hands on producer. Garner developed this with Pink (who will do a rewrite), and then found that Pratt and Faris liked it as a vehicle they could do together. Both of them have momentum. Pratt, part of the ensemble cast of Parks And Recreation, has muscled up and plays the lead role in Marvel’s next franchise launch, Guardians Of The Galaxy. He’s also booked the lead in Jurassic World. Faris, meanwhile, is starring with Allison Janney in the CBS series Mom. Pink just directed About Last Night and has the Hot Tub Time Machine sequel coming out at year’s end.

The Mullens previously scripted the Fox comedy One Of The Guys, which has Sandra Bullock attached, and adapted the Antony Moore dark comedy novel The Swap for Sony, and wrote Strike for Paramount Vantage and director Mark Waters.