EXCLUSIVE: Amazon MGM Studios‘ United Artists and Scott Stuber have acquired Fantasy Camp, a feature comedy pitch from Nicholas Thomas. Top comic Nate Bargatze is eyeing to star, with his Nateland Entertainment producing alongside 2.0 Entertainment and 59th & Prairie Entertainment.
Sources said the project landed at UA following a multi-studio bidding war, with the deal coming in at seven figures.
Fantasy Camp follows a group of friends at a make-or-break moment in their lives, as they head to Dwyane Wade’s fantasy camp in Miami to relive their basketball dreams. But what starts as fun becomes a battle for pride, purpose, and one last win.
Thomas will write the script. Producers include UA’s Stuber and Nick Nesbitt, 2.0’s Sophie Cassidy and Matt Crespy, 59th & Prairie’s Wade and Jon Marcus, and Bargatze for Nateland.
A Grammy nominee based in Nashville who came in as the top-grossing touring comic of 2024, Bargatze has recently been at work on The Breadwinner, a family comedy that he co-wrote and is producing for TriStar, which will mark his first big starring vehicle on the feature side. Recently partnering with Deadline on the launch of our Comedy Means Business newsletter and podcast, and set to host the Emmys for the first time in September, he is represented by UTA, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis.
Best known for co-writing Let’s Be Cops, 20th Century Fox’s buddy cop action comedy starring Damon Wayans Jr. and Jake Johnson, Thomas began his entertainment career through the 20th Century Fox Writers Studio. He is represented by Entertainment 360 and attorneys Alex Kohner and Mitchell Ostrove at Yorn, Levine, Barnes.
Reaching a deal to revive United Artists last summer, following his tenure at Netflix, Stuber’s other upcoming projects include Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein for Netflix, and 20th’s Deliver Me from Nowhere, the Scott Cooper-directed drama that stars The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen. Both films are set to premiere this fall. Recently, UA has also nabbed the rights to Freida McFadden’s bestselling thriller The Tenant, as well as a feature package that will see Conclave‘s Edward Berger telling the story of Evan Gershkovich, the wrongfully imprisoned foreign correspondent from the Wall Street Journal. Additionally, the company has continued casting up its Highlander movie after bringing it over from Lionsgate, with Marisa Abela coming aboard to star opposite Henry Cavill.
2.0 Entertainment, led by Sophie Cassidy, is currently filming the Ted Kaczynski thriller Unabom, starring Russell Crowe, Jacob Tremblay, Shailene Woodley and Annabelle Wallis, for Netflix — a project on which we were first to report. Currently, the company is also developing a feature based on paranormal radio host Art Bell, with Paul Giamatti attached to star, as well as a feature based on ’80s crime drama Wiseguy.
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