Screenwriters Todd Bartels and Lou Howe developed a biographical film centered on Anthony Bourdain’s formative years in Provincetown, Massachusetts during the 1970s. The writers, who attended boarding school and later Harvard together, visited the coastal town to retrace Bourdain’s early steps, drawing inspiration from chapters he wrote in his memoir Kitchen Confidential about his four summers there working in local restaurants. Much of the creative conception took place at Old Colony Tap, Bourdain’s favorite dive bar from his youth.
The resulting film, titled Tony, entered limited release over the weekend, featuring Dominic Sessa from The Holdovers in the lead role. A24 and director Matt Johnson produced the project, which frames Bourdain’s coming-of-age story rather than chronicling his entire life. The narrative focuses on how Bourdain discovered his culinary calling, approaching the material as a love letter to a transformative period.
Bartels and Howe, working as a writing team, had previously established themselves in the biopic space with a Dolly Parton screenplay titled Dumb Blonde, which landed on the Black List of best unproduced screenplays in 2022. After encountering obstacles with a competing Parton project, they pivoted toward biographical storytelling, eventually pitching their Bourdain concept to the writer’s manager Emily Rose and securing meetings with Bourdain’s literary agent Kimberly Witherspoon and widow Ottavia Busia, the de facto stewards of his estate.
Initially, the writers pitched only a general framework before the Writers Guild of America strike in 2023 provided opportunity to develop a full script. With director Johnson and star Sessa eventually aboard, the estate approved the project. The writers remained involved throughout production, collaborating with Johnson and screenwriter Matthew Miller in an unconventional arrangement that resulted in shared screenplay credit. All four writers are credited, with Bartels and Howe’s original script also appearing on the 2024 Black List.
Following the success of Tony, the writing team has continued expanding their career with additional high-profile projects, including an adaptation of the video game franchise Metal Gear Solid, a true crime podcast series titled Murder 101 at Amazon Studios, and scripts concerning the origins of MTV and Jacqueline Bouvier’s relationship with President John F. Kennedy.
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