News coming out of The Hollywood Reporter has Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum teaming up to star in Michael ‘Grey Gardens’ Sucsy’s The Vow. Production of the Spyglass financed project is set to commence at the end of August in Chicago an Toronto, under the stewardship of producers Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, Jonathan Glickman and Paul Taublieb. 

The romantic drama tells the real-life story of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, a New Mexico couple whose live were thrown into chaos by a car-crash in 1993 just two months after their wedding,which left the newly-wed bride in a coma. Duty- and love-bound, her husband remains by her side devoted, until she wakes to find that she has no memory of their relationship. He then sets about wooing her in an attempt to win her heart once more. Sounds vaguely familiar, with plot elements reminiscent of amnesiac rom-coms While You Were Sleeping, Overboard and Adam Sandler’s 50 First Dates, although chances are the drama will be a far more grown up affair than any of them.

The book which tells the Carpenters’ story offers a tagline in its blurb that I’m sure will feature somewhere in the pre-release marketing:

The Vow is a testament to the power and perservance of love. The tender story that has touched millions of people now is told by the two who lived it. Their life together has not been defined by a car wreck but by a vow they made.

If the project sounds even more familiar, it is perhapsbecause it has been in production for ten years already, and was once planned as a Julia Roberts vehicle. Several rewrites later, at the hands of, among others, the writing team of Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, Michael Seitzman, Jason Katims and Hanna Weg, and Spyglass obviously still believe that The Vow has box-office potential, though it will be subject to another rewrite, this time by the director himself.

Both actors will seemingly continue their chameleon-like genre hopping for roles, with Tatum in particular proving his versatility with a CV that includes projects as diverse as G.I. Joe, Dear John, The Fighter and now The Vow. But, even despite that tendency to defy type-casting, the project is actually a fairly natural step for the pair, since both have starred in successful adaptations of Nicholas Sparks novels- The Notebook for McAdams and recently Dear John for Tatum, and the plot definitely bears passing resemblance to his particular brand of weepy romance. 

Sounds like a sure-fire hit to me, especially in the same circles that made the two Sparks adaptations so box-office friendly.