Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are reuniting. Ryan will make her directorial debut on Ithaca, which will be executive produced by Tom Hanks and his Playtone partner Gary Goetzman. Adapted from William Saroyan’s novel The Human Comedy, the film is set in 1942 in a small town in California’s San Joaquin Valley, where 14-year-old Homer Macauley is determined to be the best and fastest bicycle telegraph messenger anyone has ever seen. His older brother has gone to war, leaving Homer to look after his widowed mother, his older sister and his 4-year-old brother. As spring turns to summer, Homer delivers messages of love, hope, pain and death to the goodpeople of Ithhaca. He’ll also struggle with one message that will change him forever. Ryan will act in the film alongside Sam Shepard, Melanie Griffith, and Ryan’s son Jack Quaid. Erik Jendresen (Band Of Brothers) wrote the screenplay. Janet Brenner, Laura Ivey, Ryan and Jendresen are producing. The Exchange is handling worldwide sales and will start shopping the title in Berlinnext week. Production is set to begin this summer. “Ithaca is a deceptively simple story, by turns stark and lyrical. It’s sometimes shockingly unsentimental and yet, by some little miracle, never cynical. I am delighted to no end to bring a tale of such vibrancy and heart to the screen,” said Ryan.
