Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson Bring Dawson's Creek Magic Back to the Screen

Holmes wrote and directed Happy Hours, a film about love and possibility that reunites her with co-star Jackson for the first time since their Capeside days.

Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson are reuniting on screen in Happy Hours, a film Holmes wrote and directed.
Holmes drew on her 2024 Broadway experience while developing the project.
The film explores themes of love, hope, and human possibility.
Holmes and Jackson last shared a screen together during their years on Dawson's Creek, which ran from 1998 to 2003.
Both stars have spoken publicly about wanting the film to leave audiences with a sense of hope.

It has been more than two decades since Pacey Witter and Joey Potter shared a screen, but the wait is nearly over. Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson are reuniting in Happy Hours, a film Holmes wrote and directed, and the project carries enough nostalgic weight to stop a mid-afternoon scroll cold.

Holmes came to the director's chair with recent Broadway credits behind her — her 2024 stage work fed directly into the film's development, lending it, according to Holmes in remarks reported by The Hollywood Reporter, a texture rooted in live performance and emotional immediacy. That background shows in the film's apparent preoccupations: love, connection, and what Holmes has described as “a sense of hope.” Jackson, for his part, echoed the sentiment, framing the reunion as something more purposeful than nostalgia bait.

The Dawson's Creek generation — roughly anyone who had strong opinions about the series finale in May 2003 — will need no further briefing on why this casting lands the way it does. Holmes played Joey Potter across all six seasons; Jackson played Pacey for the same run. The show aired on The WB from 1998 to 2003 and became shorthand for a particular stripe of late-nineties teen sincerity. Both actors have built substantial careers since, Holmes through theatre and film, Jackson most recently through five seasons of The Affair and a long run on Fringe, but the pairing still carries its original charge.

Happy Hours does not appear to be trading on Creek mythology directly — Holmes has positioned it as an adult drama in its own right. Still, the casting is the casting, and audiences who grew up with the show will walk in with a set of feelings the marketing did not have to manufacture. A release date has not been confirmed as of publication.