Mohammed is the most common name in the world! That’s one of the useful facts audiences learned from Superbad last summer. And next year, the newbie actor Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who might forever be known as McLovin, could conceiveably be playing a character named Mohammed — he’s been cast in the Judd Apatow production Year One, a biblical comedy.
You read that right. This is no comedy Batman deal, as wonderful as that might be. In fact, this might be so much better. Year One stars Oliver Platt, David Cross, Vinnie Jones and Juno Temple (all of whom are in final talks) alongside Mintz-Plasse, Jack Black and Michael Cera directed by Harold Ramis, who wrote the screenplay with Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg.
Holy shit!
The story is publicly under wraps, with only a few details out in the wild. Vinnie Jones might be a palace guard called Sargon (my ticket = bought, right there) while Platt would be a "platform-shoe wearing high priest". But scripts do have a way of getting around, so maybe we’ll know more about the film soon.
Matt Tolmach and Jonathan Kadin will be guiding the project at Columbia, but their taste and track records are shrouded in mystery; might as well have the Shadow as your production executive. Which, come to think of it, would be amazing.