&34;We wanted to give it the chance to exist on its own,&34; director Jay Roach tells EW of his and screenwriter Tony McNamara's approach. No, The Roses is not

"We wanted to give it the chance to exist on its own," director Jay Roach tells EW of his and screenwriter Tony McNamara's approach.

No, The Roses is not a remake — the filmmakers explain their new take on the classic

"We wanted to give it the chance to exist on its own," director Jay Roach tells EW of his and screenwriter Tony McNamara's approach.

By Maureen Lee Lenker

Maureen Lee Lenker

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at ** with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, *Ms. Magazine*, *The Hollywood Reporter*, and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, *It Happened One Fight*, is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen.

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August 29, 2025 10:00 a.m. ET

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Director Jay Roach, and stars Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch on the set of 'The Roses'. Credit:

Jaap Buitendijk/Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

- Director Jay Roach and screenwriter Tony McNamara share their approach for reimagining the 1989 film *The War of the Roses *as simply *The Roses.*

- The film stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman as a married couple whose once-happy relationship dissolves into invective and hatred under the pressures of modern life.

- Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner starred in 1989's *The War of the Roses*, directed by and co-starring Danny DeVito.

Just lop off the words *The War of* and you've got something else entirely.

With *The Roses*, now in theaters, director Jay Roach and screenwriter Tony McNamara are putting their own spin on the 1989 film *The War of the Roses, *itself based on a 1981 Warren Adler novel of the same name.

Just don't call it a remake.

"There was the idea of remaking this, but no one really wanted to remake the movie because it's such a great movie," McNamara tells *. *"I had read the book as well, and so I was like, I don't want to remake it but I would love to write a movie about a marriage rather than a divorce — and a more contemporary version of what is a marriage now."

Screenwriter Tony McNamara on the set of 'The Roses'.

Jaap Buitendijk/Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

That was key for Roach, who also had no interest in simply remaking the Danny DeVito-directed film (starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner), which he feels is untouchable. "I was skeptical about doing a remake," he says, "and then I was like, oh, this is spinning off of a concept and a predicament, which is so important for good comedy, but it's taking you places that are way different from what you would expect if you saw the first one."

For McNamara, the key was flipping the script so that, rather than being a dark comedy of divorce, there was something a bit more complex at play. "What if you're watching two people who desperately want to stay married and can't work out how to do it?," he wondered. "That would be a different kind of movie. That was the impetus to reimagine that story."

Reimagine it they did, even giving the film a different, pithier title of *The Roses. *McNamara has created an entirely new set of characters and circumstances: Ivy (Olivia Colman) and Theo Rose (Benedict Cumberbatch) are a fish-out-of-water couple, two Brits who meet and impulsively decide to move to America together, eventually building their careers and raising a family in Northern California.

Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch in 'The Roses'.

Jaap Buitendijk/Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

McNamara says that centering on two people with clear career goals and ambitions was key to a more modernized take on the story. However, to create the circumstances for the marriage to devolve, McNamara needed his characters to be isolated from a support system. "I was very interested in the idea that with most couples, both partners work," he explains. "What about two ambitious people who, part of their DNA is they want to achieve something, they want to do something special in the world? The idea of taking them out of their natural place, where they had all the extended family or friends, I didn't want them to have any of that."

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Moving them some 5,000 miles away, he says, provided some "cultural comedy within that. I never thought of doing it [in Britain]. I always thought it should be in America, and it gave it this edge."

For Roach, that cultural divide not only establishes the bond between the Roses but also gives the audience a rooting interest in the couple.

Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch in 'The Roses'.

Jaap Buitendijk/Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

"They are both strangers in a strange land," reflects Roach. "I love the way the movie starts where they're talking to an American couple's therapist who doesn't get British humor and doesn't realize that this is their love language, even though they're saying the most insane things to each other. That made me feel like they needed each other and deserved each other. You hope from early on in the film that that's all they need, that that's enough."

Ivy is a gifted chef stuck in the rut of her maternal role, while Theo is a lauded architect whose career suddenly crumbles when one of his projects does too. As Ivy's career suddenly takes off, though, Theo agrees to take over as the stay-at-home parent. But soon, the role reversal sews dissent that becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.

Olivia Colman as Ivy Rose in 'The Roses'.

Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

McNamara, who plumbed the depths of gender politics in a relationship on Hulu's dark historical comedy series *The Great*, was also keenly interested in examining how shifting gender roles and outdated views of domestic labor can create splinter points in a marriage. Most particularly, he didn't want to solely focus on the fragile masculinity of a man-turned-homemaker.

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"Anyone who brings up the kids for the majority of time contends with the fact that the world doesn't treat that as worthwhile or relevant as being a Michelin star chef or building a building," McNamara notes. "Apparently, it's just building human beings, which isn't as exciting. So I was interested in that flip, and the difficulty of, if you are a parent who works most of the time and you don't have as much traction in how your child's brought up, you have to accept that or not accept that. It felt like interesting stuff that everyone deals with now."

Benedict Cumberbatch in 'The Roses'.

Jaap Buitendijk/Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

It's that more modern focus that Roach hopes will help audiences reshape their thinking around the film and discard the idea of it being a remake.

"I was so impressed by how Tony walked that line between honoring what the concept was, but coming to some whole other set of attitudes, questions, and tonal shifts," he concludes. "We almost hope you forget that it's [based on a previous movie] because it was such a great film, and we are so glad that can exist and that ours can also exist."

*The Roses* is in theaters now.**

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