Who would have thought, twelve years ago, that the man voicing Darth Maul, the villain in the miserable "Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace," would turn out to be such a potent comic talent? But over the last decade or so, Peter Serafinowicz has proven himself to be one of the funniest men around. The Liverpool-born actor/writer/director cropped up on Edgar Wright's "Spaced" around the same time as his Star Wars gig, and ever since has won more and more fans through appearances in the likes of "Look Around You," "I'm Alan Partridge," "Archer," "Running Wilde" and films like "Shaun of the Dead," "Couples Retreat" and "Killing Bono."
Serafinowicz was meant to be playing Paul McCartney in Robert Zemeckis' performance capture remake of "Yellow Submarine," but that film's cancellation hasn't caused him too many problems, as he's been carving out as a side-career as a music video director, for artists like Hot Chip and Alex Metric. We named him earlier in the year as one of five promo helmers likely to step into features soon, and it looks like the nature of the project that he'd like to make has been revealed.
In an interview in, of all places, an advertorial in the current issue of Empire Magazine, for promotion of his online radio series the "Orange Film To Go Show," Serafinowicz dicusses his future plans and restates that a role has been earmarked for him in the "Arrested Development" movie. He also says "I'm writing a feature film, with my sketch-show character Brian Butterfield as a detective." Serafinowicz also told The Guardian earlier in the year that "I'm just trying to put together my first feature film," so it seems likely that Serafinowicz would also direct the project.
Brian Butterfield was one of the highlights of Serafinowicz's 2007 BBC sketch show "The Peter Serafinowicz Show," an obese middle-aged man who's proved incompetent at running a karaoke club, a diet plan and a private detective agency, the latter of which looks likely to be the basis for the big-screen version. Check out a compilation of his greatest hits below. There's no word where the film might be set-up, so it's clearly early days yet, but this is certainly promising news. Hopefully more concrete word will arrive soon.
