DreamWorks has set Luke Greenfield, the director behind Let’s Be Cops and The Girl Next Door, to direct a script he co-wrote with Dana Stevens (The Dive) called Destiny. The deal brings him under the wing of Steven Spielberg, the legendary helmer who encouraged a teenage Greenfield to pursue filmmaking way back in the ’90s.
At the age of 16, Greenfield began an unlikely correspondence with Spielberg when the teen’s mother sent him a package containing Greenfield’s Super-8 films and asked whether her son had the stuff of a future filmmaker. Spielberg received the films, watched them and replied with a two-page letter offering storytelling tips and pushing Greenfield to pursue his passion – which he did.
When The Girl Next Door came out 16 years later, Spielberg asked Greenfield to come in for a meeting. On realizing that their paths had indirectly crossed before, the Jurassic Park helmer asked Greenfield to pitch him a story. The result was Destiny, “a supernatural love story about a struggling designer who must overcome his fears and uncertainty,” according to Deadline, which broke this story.
Greenfield reportedly came up with the idea as a result of the filmmaker’s letter to him as a teen, and though he was contracted to let New Regency have a first look, that studio didn’t make a move, and when Greenfield pitched Destiny over at DreamWorks, president Holly Bario snapped it up. Now, Greenfield has the gig of his dreams – directing, co-writing and producing a film he came up with for one of his idols. And who says there aren’t happy endings in Hollywood?
