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Watch: Julia Roberts and George Clooney Return to Rom-Coms With the Hilarious Ticket to Paradise

Photo: Courtesy Universal Pictures

Julia Roberts and George Clooney are making their long-awaited return to the rom-com. The pair reunites in the first trailer for Ticket to Paradise, playing warring exes who travel to Bali to stop their daughter’s whirlwind wedding. “Worst 19 years of my life,” Clooney’s character says of their marriage, to which Roberts replies, “We were only married for five.” He retorts, “I’m including the recovery.”

Kaitlyn Dever stars as Lily, the couple’s daughter whose post-graduation trip to Bali ends with a spur-of-the-moment engagement. “Did you make a pact to not murder each other until you murder me first?” she asks her parents. Roberts and Clooney agree to “call a truce” in order to halt the nuptials, leading to a series of hijinks, including one-eyed beer pong and ill-advised dolphin swimming. Directed by Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again filmmaker Ol Parker from a script he co-wrote with Daniel Pipski, the film co-stars Booksmart’s Billie Lourd and Emily in Paris’s Lucas Bravo.

Clooney and Roberts previously shared the screen for Ocean’s Eleven (2001), Ocean’s Twelve (2004), and 2016’s Money Monster. Roberts also starred in Clooney’s 2002 feature directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. But Ticket to Paradise marks their first bonafide romantic comedy, a genre each had abandoned for decades.

Roberts, who hasn’t headlined her own rom-com since 2001’s America’s Sweethearts, told The New York Times that quality scripts in the genre “didn’t exist” until this film came along. “I thought, well, disaster, because this only works if it’s George Clooney,” she said upon receiving the screenplay. “Lo and behold, George felt it only worked with me. Somehow we were both able to do it, and off we went.”

Clooney reiterated this sentiment, telling Deadline, “I haven’t done a romantic comedy really since One Fine Day [in 1996]. Julia and I just get to be mean to each other in the funniest way.” As Roberts told The Times, it was “a joy to play in that sandbox” again, given “it has been a long time.”

Ticket to Paradise hits theaters on October 21, before heading to Peacock 45 days later.

Originally published in Vanityfair.com

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