You've Got Mail logging on for a remake

Details about the plot of the new movie are unknown, but the 1998 film was directed by Nora Ephron, who co-wrote the screenplay with her sister, Delia Ephron. You’ve Got Mail centered on the enemies-to-lovers romance between Kathleen Kelly (Ryan), the owner of an independent children’s bookstore called The Shop Around The Corner, and Joe Fox (Hanks), whose family runs a major bookstore chain known as Fox Books and plans to open another storefront just blocks from Kathleen’s shop. The two become business rivals while unknowingly developing romantic feelings for each other through their online chatroom conversations. You’ve Got Mail was inspired by Miklós László’s 1937 Hungarian play Parfumerie, which was also adapted in the ’40s films The Shop Around The Corner and In The Good Old Summertime. The film felt very much like a product of that time, the same way fellow ’90s rom-com Notting Hill, about a movie star who falls in love with the owner of a travel book store, and 2004’s 13 Going On 30 (which is getting the reboot treatment at Netflix), centered on teenager Jenna Rink waking up as the editor of her favorite fashion magazine, reflected cultural touchstones that have since undergone drastic changes. Now, gone are the days of chains like Borders and Waldenbooks, while Barnes & Noble is still hanging on. But even in the digital era of ebooks, there’s still a special charm to independent, brick-and-mortar bookstores. If the remake is set in the present day, it’s hard to imagine it not grappling with how newer technology like dating apps, social media, and rampant AI use have impacted how people meet and find the one.