The plot quirk of a seemingly washed-up man getting comedy anger mileage/finding some hope of redemption out of reconnecting with an estranged child is one of those tried and tested tropes that just won’t shuffle off to scripting pasture. The latest incarnation is set to crop up in Lasse Hallstrom’s Tom’s Dad, which has Patrick Dempsey in the lead.

Dempsey will play an actor and vaudeville comedy star plying his trade on the boards in Vegas who begins to realise that his style of laugh generating is slowly slipping out of fashion with 1960s audiences.

And while he deals with that situation, he’s also faced with the arrival of his young son, who he’s barely seen in years. We’re guessing this one will tend more towards emotional reconnection and our hero finding a new way to live.

Johnny Depp’s Infinitum Nihil production company is spearheading the pic, and while it doesn’t have a set start date yet, we’re guessing it’ll kick off shooting during one of Dempsey’s down periods from trying to make us believe he loves Meredith on Grey’s Anatomy. Or are they married/separated/divorced/facing an asteroid headed straight for Seattle right now? We stopped watching years ago.