Colin Hanks is used to being around movie legends — he has one as a father, of course. And like any good nepo baby, he's appeared alongside his famous parent in the 1996 fan favorite That Thing You Do. Growing up as Tom Hanks' son no doubt had the young Colin encountering big-name stars like John Candy on the regular. And it's an enviable history the A Friend of the Family actor recently relayed ahead of the release of his and Ryan Reynolds' documentary about the beloved comedian.
During a January 2023 episode of the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Hanks detailed one of his upcoming projects: a documentary centered on the late, great Candy, who died of a heart attack at the age of 43 in 1994. He's working on it with Ryan Reynolds, and he said:
Per Variety, Amazon Studios was in negotiations to pick up the still-untitled John Candy-focused documentary, which will feature Hanks as the director and Ryan Reynolds as a producer.
The doc, which reportedly has the approval of Candy's family, would explore the life and legacy of the comedy icon, who famously starred in such funny flicks as Planes, Trains and Automobiles, The Great Outdoors, Uncle Buck and Cool Runnings.
Along with digging into never-before-seen home videos, archives and family interviews to depict the Canadian star, Hanks reportedly also had his own firsthand experiences to pull from for the documentary. His father had co-starred with Candy in 1984's Splash, and both Tom Hanks and Colin's stepmother Rita Wilson worked alongside the actor on the 1985 comedy Volunteers.
So, Colin had known Candy as a "sweet, sweet presence" from when he was a young boy, as he relayed to Maron on the podcast:
As for which classic Candy movie is his favorite? With hilarious titles like Home Alone and Spaceballs, it's nearly impossible to choose, but Hanks cites a few faves and praises the late actor for being "the glue" of a production, no matter how big or small a role he was in:
There's still no official release date set for the John Candy doc, but we'll keep our eyes on the 2024 movie schedule just in case. And you'll want to make sure to have an Amazon Prime subscription, as the film will likely be hosted on that streaming platform.
As for whether the documentary director got any pointers from his megastar dad for the project, Colin joked:
Take that, Tom! After all, while to the rest of us he's America's Dad, to Colin, he's just dad — albeit one cool enough to be hanging out with John Candy way back when.