Netflix De-Aging Father-Daughter Tale Backwards Shawn Levy To Direct

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix won a 6-way bidding battle for the rights to turn the short story Backwards into a feature. Free Guy helmer Shawn Levy is attached to direct. He and Dan Cohen will produce for 21 Laps, and Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell will produce for Safehouse.

The story story is written by mother-son team Julianna Baggott and Finneas Scott. A dying father chooses a method to extend his life that involves reverse aging in a de-aging facility. Appointed to be his caretaker is his estrange daughter. As the years peel off, they are able to get to the core of where they went wrong as the father relives the memory of different portions of his life, experiences which made him an unlikeable person.

Baggott will be executive producer along with Brendan Deneen and Josh Stanton for Blackstone Publishing. Tunnell brought the project to Netflix.

Levy has wrapped 21 Laps’ next picture, The Adam Project, and the company has the fourth season of Stranger Things coming at Netflix. There is also Cheaper by the Dozen, Crater, and an animated version of Night at the Museum all coming this year on Disney+. The company is currently in pre-production on All the Light We Cannot See, which Levy is directing and the second season of Shadow and Bone, both at Netflix. Additionally, Rosaline for Hulu is in post-production.

Safehouse is going into production this spring on an untitled Monsterverse TV show for Apple and Legendary, featuring Godzilla and other oversized titans; Harold wrote and executive produced the Disney+ series Obi Wan Kenobi, coming later this year. Harold and Tunnell are also producing Atlas for Netflix with Jennifer Lopez starring for director Brad Peyton, slated to go into production this fall. They also are producing the Tiffany Haddish-starrer If at Universal, and they have Liberators at Warner Bros with Michael b Jordan producing and attached to star, and Battle of British at 20th Century that Ridley Scott plans to direct. CAA, Kaplan Perrone, and attorney Carlos Goodman rep Safehouse.