Did you love the odd energy between Jonah Hill and Russell Brand in Forgetting Sarah Marshall? Ready for two hours of it?
Though their scenes never really popped, there was definitely something interesting going on with those two. It wasn’t quite Benicio Del Toro and Christopher Walken trying to out-weird each other in Excess Baggage (yes, I saw that bad boy in the theater, and, fuck yes, someone should make a slapstick comedy starring those two as incompetent dog catchers, like, tomorrow), but it was unique enough to argue for more screen time. I’m not sure I need an entire movie driven by their antics, but I said the same thing about Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn twenty-eight years ago, and, brother, was I wrong!
In any event, Hill and Brand will star in Nicholas Stoller’s Get Him to the Greek, a formula comedy about a “fresh out-of-college insurance adjuster” charged with escorting a wild rock star to Los Feliz’s historic Greek Theater. Along the way, Hill loses his filofax. When it ends up in the con-man clutches of Jim Belushi, the laws of comedy are rewritten.
I don’t know what this means for Stoller’s Five-Year Engagement (a planned second go-round with Jason Segel) or his Muppet movie (also w/ Segel). It’ll all come down to what producer and reigning Kommandant of Komedy, Judd Apatow, desires. Basically, he’s got to ask himself two questions: “Is Jason Segel a star?” and “Do I have the next Danson & Mandel on my hands?”
Both of Stoller’s non-Muppet films are set up at Universal.