Disclaimer: Judd Apatow has nothing to do with this comedy.
Todd Phillips has had a rough go of it since breaking through with 2003’s Old School. His follow-up, Starsky and Hutch, was extremely light on laughs, while his last film, School for Scoundrels, was seen by few and liked by even fewer. Oh, and then there was Borat, which Phillips directed until he nearly got star Sacha Baron Cohen… roughed up whilst filming the rodeo sequence.
Despite these setbacks, Phillips has soldiered onward – though he’s been more successful at setting up potential projects than getting them into actual production. Joining Men (a possible Tom Cruise vehicle) and Old School Dos is Man-Witch, a Jack Black comedy about a schoolteacher – gee, he’s never played one of those before! – who finds out he’s a witch. It gets better. He’s subsequently forced to enroll in witch school, which is awkward because all of his classmates are girls. This is dynamite stuff.
Pitched by the writing duo of Josh Stolberg and Bob Florsheim (didn’t they write a bunch of Elvis songs?), the honor of actually penning Man-Witch will fall to actor Jay Reiss. The project is set up Warner Brothers, and will hopefully never go before cameras.