Judd Apatow to Direct ‘Cola Wars’ About the Battle Between Coke and Pepsi, Steven Spielberg to Produce

We’re guessing Judd Apatow isn’t a Dr. Pepper fan. The “Knocked Up” filmmaker is attached to direct “Cola Wars,” a film about the battle for market share between Coca Cola and Pepsi to become America’s favorite soda, an individual with knowledge of the project told IndieWire.

Tag-teaming with him on the project is none other than Steven Spielberg, who will produce the film through his Amblin Entertainment production banner.

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The individual adds that at this point, “Cola Wars” is in very early development stages, with Apatow and Spielberg joining based on a pitch that Sony acquired back in April.

The writers for the film are Ben Queen and Jason Shuman, who co-created and writes the Apple TV+ series “Acapulco” and was also a producer on the canceled HBO series “Winning Time.”

Few other details are available at this early stage of development, but Deadline, which first reported the news, suggests the film could be in the vein of Ben Affleck’s “Air” about the development of Nike’s Air Jordans. It could also be set in the mid-1980s, when Pepsi recruited Michael Jackson for a TV ad, and when Coca-Cola had a debacle on its hands after introducing New Coke (we’re partial to Coke Zero today). Pepsi would fight back with blind taste tests that consistently had people preferring the sweeter flavor of Pepsi to the long-standing Coke, eating into their market share.

Apatow’s last narrative feature was the critically-panned Covid satire “The Bubble” for Netflix from 2022. But he also last directed the documentary “Bob and Don: A Love Story,” about the relationship between Bob Newhart and Don Rickles, and he’s next directing an untitled documentary on Mel Brooks.

Spielberg’s last film was 2022’s “The Fabelmans,” and he is currently preparing to direct an untitled UFO movie for Universal based on his own original idea, with a script written by David Koepp. That project is currently slated to release in May 2026. He’s also producing Chloé Zhao’s next film “Hamnet” about William Shakespeare’s wife Agnes and the loss of their son Hamnet who inspired the play “Hamlet.”

Maia Eyre is overseeing “Cola Wars” for Sony.

Deadline first reported the news.

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