Tony’ Writers Talk Honoring Anthony Bourdain, Capturing ‘70s-Era Cape Cod And Getting ‘Jaws’ Permission From Spielberg — Forbes

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Tony’ Writers Talk Honoring Anthony Bourdain, Capturing ‘70s-Era Cape Cod And Getting ‘Jaws’ Permission From Spielberg — Forbes | AIPROPX

Hollywood & Entertainment ‘Tony’ Writers Talk Honoring Anthony Bourdain, Capturing ‘70s-Era Cape Cod And Getting ‘Jaws’ Permission From Spielberg By Josh Weiss ,

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Josh Weiss is a writer covering the nexus of pop culture and Judaism. Follow Author Aug 07, 2026, 02:11pm EDT Aug 07, 2026, 04:12pm EDT --:-- / --:-- This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . “We know that it ends in a clam bake…” That was pretty much all Todd Bartels and Lou Howe had when the screenwriting duo pitched Anthony Bourdain’s estate on a biopic concerning the late culinarian .

“We have a lot of connection through Bourdain,” Howe told me over a recent Zoom call. “We’re both travelers and foodies, and really looked to him as a role model in a lot of ways, especially [in his capacity] as a writer.”

Agreed Bartels: “People look to him as more than just a cook, or even really a traveler or raconteur. He has become a guru.”

In particular, they saw the project (ultimately titled Tony ) as a coming-of-age story based on the “Food is Sex” chapter in Bourdain’s bestselling memoir, Kitchen Confidential , which chronicles the fateful summer of 1974 he spent as a dishwasher and prep cook at a local restaurant in Provincetown, Cape Cod.

It was there that a somewhat aimless Bourdain came face-to-face with his destiny as a rebel with a gastronomic cause. “We knew we didn’t want to do a cradle-to-grave Wikipedia entry,” Howe explained.

They chose to depict this segment of his illustrious after weighing it against two other viable options. “One of them was when he’s in his fame days, globe-trotting on Parts Unknown and Kitchen Confidential ," Bartels added. "The other one is in the ‘80s and ‘90s when he’s a journeyman chef doing a bunch of drugs and all of all that. And then there was this special summer in Provincetown, when he stumbled into his life’s calling, standing over a dish pit. We thought that was unexpected look into someone who people know a lot about."

Not surprisingly, however, the rights holders (namely Bourdain’s longtime literary agent, Kim Witherspoon, and second wife, Ottavia Busia) told them to come back when they had a little more to work with than a traditional New England clam bake.

To do that, Bartels and Howe ventured from Los Angeles to Provincetown (or P-town by those in the know) where they “spent the better part of two days drinking” at one of Bourdain’s favorite haunts, the Old Colony Tap. Bartels highly recommends visiting the nearly 90-year-old institution, “because it really encapsulates a lot of what Tony loved in general whenever he found a place. [It’s] … a place for people of all shades and stripes. We talked to the bartender there, Jill, who grew up in Provincetown as a kid in the ‘70s, and she said it was a magical place for misfits. And that’s what Tony thought of himself as—a misfit."

Echoed Howe: “P-town is still full of people who have been there for decades or spent two weeks [there] every summer for 40 years. You meet people and feel that energy. It’s very shaggy; very open and joyful. I think the '70s P-town specific feeling came from that first research trip.”

In addition to capturing the vibe of '70s-era Cape Cod, the pair also wanted to answer the question of, “Why and how did he become so beloved especially when he was the opposite of a lovable person by his own admission?" Bartels said. “He wrote in Kitchen Confidential that he treated the world like his ashtray. We thought, ‘This is an interesting, huge transformation for a guy we think of as this beacon of empathy, curiosity, and connection … How did he find that path?’ He was a bit of a blowhard, very interested in his own voice. But I think underneath all of that was this deep vulnerability and desire to connect with other people."

They subsequently wrote the screenplay on spec, with encouragement from Witherspoon, who instructed them not to shy away from the pricklier aspects of Bourdain’s personality. “Kim was always very supportive of us making the best movie possible,” emphasized Howe. “She was instrumental—both as a as the keeper of the Bourdain legacy, but also as a part of the creative team."

He continued: “The movie is getting a lot of reaction for how much Tony, the character, gets beaten-up, how much he lies, and all the negative immature things he does. That is true to life. That’s true to how Tony wrote about and described himself. Whenever we tried to soften him, it was Kim who would say, ‘No, he admitted that he was that big of a punk. You guys need to make sure that you show all the warts.’ That was very liberating, for us to be able to paint an honest picture of the real guy."

The script got a huge boost from veteran biopic producers Tim and Trevor White ( King Richard, The Post ), who brought Tony to the attention of prestigious talent agency CAA. From there, the movie really began to pick up momentum as Matt Johnson ( Blackberry ) and Dominic Sessa ( The Holdovers ) came aboard as director and star, respectively.

“The two of them together became kind of a package deal,” shared Bartels. “Dominic has ‘70s teenage angst on lock … and Matt has experience doing unexpected biopics with Blackberry . We developed the script more with Matt and his longtime producing partner, Matt Miller, and that’s when we got the cast: Leo [Woodall], Antonio [Banderas], and Emilia [Jones]."

Along with Johnson and Miller, Bartels and Howe further readied the screenplay for principal photography. According to Howe, the group formed a writers’ room for a year-and-a-half, “with the four of us really brainstorming and just talking through the possibilities and having a best-idea-wins mindset. That’s the heart of the development process between the four of us credited writers."

Bumping Bourdain’s time in P-town a year later to the summer of 1975, Tony finds its titular subject traveling to...