The good news: David Koechner, so hilarious as Champ Kind in Anchorman (among other great roles), is getting a leading role in a movie. The bad news: It’s directed by the guy who wrote The Animal and wrote and directed The Hot Chick, two horrifying Rob Schneider movies.
The concept behind the movie, The Comebacks, is good enough – a satirical take on the usual inspirational sports movies with Koechner as the “losing-est football coach in the history of the sport, who goes for a shot at redemption with a ragtag college team.” In fact, it sounds like the kind of movie Adam McKay would direct. Instead we get Tom Brady. And we get no less than five writers on the film, including the guys who wrote Fanboys – and while those guys are supposedly amazingly great people, their script for Fanboys is definitely amazingly bad. To make matters less happy, Brady has taken a crack at the latest draft of the script. So actually make that SIX writers.
Let’s be hopeful, though! Koechner is an accomplished improv performer, and maybe the film will be filled with other great improv folks. In that case, Brady just needs to point the camera and let his editor pick the best takes. And in Brady’s defense, the guy got his start on The Simpsons and The Critic, actually funny shows.
The Comebacks will be the latest film from Fox Atomic, which is yet another new Fox film division. Atomic has been sort of figuring out what they are, and it seems like between this, 28 Weeks Later, and the Revenge of the Nerds remake they’re settling on movies that appeal to 13 year old boys and that I will likely hate.
Note from Nick: 11 Colonels ATTACK! wasn’t in their plans, sadly. We tried!