‘The Friend’: Naomi Watts, Bill Murray to Star in New Indie!!

Ten years after uniting for the coming-of-age drama St. Vincent from writer-director Theodore Melfi, Naomi Watts and Bill Murray have found their next project together. Per Deadline, the pair are now set to lead the star-studded cast of the indie drama The Friend from Montana Story pair Scott McGehee and David Siegel. They’ll be joined in the film by Emmy-winning The Handmaid’s Tale star Ann Dowd alongside Golden Globe nominee Constance Wu, Sarah Pidgeon, and Noma Dumezweni.

The Friend is based on the New York Times Bestselling novel and winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction of the same name by Sigrid Nunez, which centers on a Big Apple-based writer following the tragic death of her mentor and dear friend. Shocked by the sudden loss, she’s left to process her grief and sort out his complex legacy as a writer and a person, a job that could help her better understand him. This includes dealing with his three ex-wives and one giant, brokenhearted Great Dane named Apollo who now needs a new home. Production is currently underway in New York, with Siegel and McGehee producing through their Big Creek Projects alongside Liza Chasin for her 3dot Productions.

Watts and Murray‘s reunion sounds like an emotional one, and it will come after some sizable projects for the acclaimed actors. Watts is on board as the socialite Babe Paley in the currently-airing long-awaited second season of Ryan Murphy‘s anthology series Feud where she and her fellow Swans duke it out with Tom Hollander‘s Truman Capote. Plans for her to return for Season 2 of one of Murphy‘s other series, The Watcher, are still up in the air, the Oscar nominee recently told Entertainment Weekly, but she also the starry Emmanuelle to look forward to with Will Sharpe and Jamie Campbell Bower. Murray, meanwhile, will soon suit up once again to battle ghouls in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire which will haunt theaters soon on March 22.

‘The Friend’ Is McGehee and Siegel’s Much-Anticipated ‘Montana Story’ Follow-Up

McGehee and Siegel have been attached to The Friend since their acclaimed Montana Story hit theaters. The 2021 flick following two siblings who reunite after their father falls into a coma earned high marks following its Toronto International Film Festival premiere and firmly reinforced the writer-director duo as a pair to watch. Also on their resumes are starry features like The Deep End featuring Tilda Swinton and 2012’s What Maisie Knew with Julianne Moore. The Friend gives them another heart-string-tugging story to work with, as Nunez‘s original novel spotlights the relationship formed between the writer and her friend’s dog, played by the Great Dane Bing.