Despite
their recent verbal commitment to the project, there’s still not much concrete
news on Broken Lizard’s Super Troopers 2. And with that lack
of movement, we’re looking at a wide open horizon for the boys where any number
of projects they’ve talked about in the past could fill the void. Now they have
to make room for yet another, and they’re making it with some rather unlikely
partners.
Participant
Productions was started as a production specifically for socially-conscious
filmmaking, and their slate thus far (e.g. Good Night, and Good Luck, An
Inconvenient Truth, Syriana, North Country) has been
true to that ideal. But what’s muckraking without some gut laughs to break up
the tension? Hence, they’ve paired with Broken Lizard (they both have deals
with Warner Brothers) to present Taildraggers, a comedy containing
elements that fans of the BL movies will recognize instantly. This is the story
of five goofy slackers who work for a small-time Alaskan airline. They square
off with a bigger competing airline when they discover that they are working
with baddies with nefarious designs on the oil in the region. Replace “airline”
with “police department” and “oil” with “drugs”. What do you got? Super
Troopers. You could massage that into Beerfest with little
additional effort, too. And even more interesting is the fact that the BL guys
didn’t write the script, either. It’s courtesy of a TV writer named Will Gluck.
Still, it’s
quite likely that Broken Lizard will take a hands-on approach from here on out
by having Jay Chandrasekhar direct along with any and/or all of the other guys
acting in it. I’m always happy when they get a project going, but I kinda hoped
they’d be able to try branching out a bit once they re-established their
profitability (and likeability) with Beerfest. Whatever problems Club
Dread had, I was excited to see them take a chance, and despite the
tsunami of public disdain that greeted it, I enjoy the film to this day. Maybe
it’ll take one or two more slam dunks, including Super Troopers deux, for
them to get permission to leave the formula reservation. Who knows? I’m willing
to wait as long as they keep bringing along unofficial sixth man M.C. Gainey.