"Happyness" director in "Love" with divorce drama

By Steven Zeitchik

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Italian filmmaker Gabriele Muccino, who directed Will Smith in "The Pursuit of Happyness," is developing a film described as a modern-day "Kramer vs. Kramer."

Like that 1970s custody saga, Muccino said that "What I Know About Love" will seek to explore the wounds of divorce and single parenthood.

"It's the story of a family's collapse, but with the complexity that relationships have today," Muccino said. "It's a different world now, one that I think is more open and more destructive somehow."

Known for exploring the difficulties of romantic couplings as well as parent-child relationships, he will write "Love" with "Sex and the City" scribe Liz Tuccillo.

Muccino reunited with Smith for the upcoming "Seven Pounds," which Columbia will release later this year. Smith plays a suicidal IRS agent.

Muccino's earlier films included the middle-class drama "Ricordati Di Me" as well as "L'ultimo Bacio," which became the basis for the 2006 Zach Braff drama "The Last Kiss."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter