If your taste and humor is in any way aligned with my own, then perhaps you too have found yourself an hour deep into a marathon of sharing Mr. Show sketches to a friend, still with half a dozen more that you want to get to. The lightning in a bottle brilliance of much of Mr. Show is the reason one would get excited about a David Cross being a part of the main cast of Bob Odenkirk’s next film, Annie Jenkins: A Not Very Romantic comedy.
There’s no synopsis to provide unfortunately, but there’s not exactly money behind it yet either. Odenkirk seems to be constantly working, and his recurring roles on Entourage and now Breaking Bad keep his face out there for those paying attention, but his feature film work has always been on the very independent fringe. His longtime project The Fuck Up has long since faded along with his rights to the book, but his new film has a promising start, with a wide cast of people already interested and verbally committed to starring. Aside from the aforementioned Mr. Cross, he’s got Krysten Ritter (Breaking Bad, She’s Out of My League), Rainn Wilson (The Office, Super), and Dennis Farina (Get Shorty, Snatch, Law & Order). That’s a lot of TV actors flirting with film careers or vice versa, but they’re hopefully names that will help him get somewhere with investors.
Odenkirk and Cross have performed together a number of times in the last few years and even put together a pilot for another HBO show, but the shows were limited and the pilot never went anywhere. There is an irreplaceable chemistry between the two though, so any chance to have them share the same scene is one to cross your fingers for. Cross has managed to stay involved in interesting comedy, be it his own stand-up or something like Arrested Development, but Odenkirk comedy still feels like a rare treat that I want more of. Maybe I should just be looking harder…
Odenkirk’s sensibilities seem to have evened out a little bit from the utterly bizarre and bat-shit stuff he and Cross used to pull on HBO in the mid-nineties (and eventually spawned the most bizarre comedy style of all), but he’s capable of being a really solid filmmaker, a thoughtful writer and is always great in front of the camera. I certainly wish him the best of luck gathering the dough to make Annie Jenkins happen, though a slightly more cheeseless title would be a good start.
Source | The Wrap-Deal Central