Ashley Padilla, one of the true breakout stars to emerge from Saturday Night Live in the last several years, has joined to Emma Stone and Chris Pine in The Catch, a romantic comedy from Universal Pictures.
Dave McCary, who acted as a segment director on SNL in the 2010s and is married to Stone, is helming the feature, which begins shooting in July in New York.
While many of the plot details are being kept in the catcher’s mitt, sources say the rom-com is described as Bull Durham meets Notting Hill with Stone playing the most hated woman in baseball.
Padilla will play Stone’s sister.
Jen Statsky and Travis Helwig wrote the most recent draft of the script. Patrick Kang and Michael Levin wrote the original spec script.
Universal has set a May 21, 2027 release date for the picture.
The project has a bevvy of producers. Stone, McCary and Ali Herting are produce the comedy through via their Fruit Tree and its first look deal with Universal.
Also producing are Shawn Levy and Dan Levine via their 21 Laps, which is coming off the record-breaking success of Backrooms. Michael H. Weber (500 Days of Summer) is also producing.
Padilla, who was once Diane Keaton’s assistant and a member of LA comedy group The Groundlings, joined SNL in 2024, which was the show’s 50th season. She quickly became a breakout player, with her work earning a New York Times article in April dissecting her “virtuosic deployment of the pregnant pause” and describing her “actorly nuance and subtlety.” Catch will be her big studio feature debut.
Padilla is repped by UTA, OPE Partners and Hansen Jacobson.
Senior executive vp of production development Erik Baiers and director of production development Jacqueline Garell are oversee the project for the studio.
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