Imagine having it all: you’re happily married to your high school sweetheart, settled into your dream home in Los Angeles, and over-the-moon excited for the birth of your first child—a baby girl.
Then, without warning, tragedy strikes. Just 27 hours after your little girl enters the world, your wife suffers a pulmonary embolism and dies instantly, without ever holding the daughter whose arrival she had so eagerly awaited.
Heartbreaking stories like this seem like the stuff of fiction, but for Matt Logelin, it is a terrible reality. After finding himself the sole caretaker of his newborn daughter, Maddy, Matt turned to his blog, both to document his experience and connect with others experiencing similar situations of loss.
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Eventually attracting over 50,000 viewers a day, the blog became a community of support for readers who were drawn to his raw and real portrayals of grief, coupled with his often humorous anecdotes of single parenthood.
Now, more than a decade later, Logelin’s story is coming to the big screen and we’re fully expecting to spend the majority of the film covertly wiping away tears.
Actor Kevin Hart is slated to star in Sony’s Fatherhood, which will be directed by Paul Weitz and released in 2021. The film is based on Logelin’s bestselling book Two Kisses For Maddy: A Memoir Of Loss & Love. The plot follows Matt through his early courtship and marriage with his wife, Liz, her sudden and tragic death, how he rebuilds his life with Maddy and moves forward as a single dad, and the extraordinary online community of strangers who gravitated to his blog.
“When I started reading this script, I was immediately touched and brought to tears,” Hart said in a statement.
“At HartBeat, we seek to provide the audience with stories that evoke true emotions and this story does just that. Our hope is to bring honor to the Logelin family, and we are thrilled to be working with Sony, Paul, Temple Hill, and Free Association on such an incredible project.”
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Despite being known best for hilarious comedies like Central Intelligence, Get Hard, Jumanji, and The Wedding Ringer, we think Hart is definitely up to the challenge of taking on a more mature role—we’re envisioning something similar to the performance he gave in The Upside about a friendship that forms between a paralyzed billionaire and a recently paroled convict he hires to care for him. Hart did a great job of bringing light-heartedness to the more serious role, and we have no doubt he’ll knock this one out of the park as well.
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Regardless, we’re excited to watch a movie that tackles the themes of love, grief, and single parenthood from a refreshing and different perspective. All dads should add this to their lists of “Must see” films for 2021 (which are getting pretty long at this rate).
Just make sure you’re prepared with a pack of tissues when you go.