Are you a young American who dreams of becoming the next Will Ferrell? Today may be your lucky day.
Announced last week, production seems to be moving full steam ahead for the mysterious, low budget, hard-R comedy currently known as “Project X” produced by Todd Phillips and Joel Silver and set to be directed by British commercial helmer Nima Nourizadeh. Moreover, it appears that the decision to cast actual “unknowns” (instead of just slotting in stage actors or stand up comedians) is holding true as an online open call has gone up. The requirements are fairly simple: you must be a U.S. resident, 18 years old (or be able to pass for 18 years old). What do you need to do? It’s quite simple. Videotape a three minute segment of yourself doing one of the following things:
• Tell us your most embarrassing story
• Tell us your craziest party story.
• Tell us about the riskiest or most daring thing you’ve ever done
• If you wanted to impress someone at a club, show us how you would
dance.
• Show us the one thing that you do that makes your friends laugh?
Those audition tapes are going to be something else to watch. We’re imagining a lot of them are going to start, “I never thought I could get this drunk…..” Anyhow, it sounds exactly in the Phillips wheelhouse of fratboy hijinks so we’re definitely on board. He seems to be the one out there in Hollywood who can return to that well time and again and make it fresh.
The script was written by Matt Drake (who made the 2007 Blacklist with the script, “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman”) from a treatment by Michael Bacall, who had a small cameo in “Inglourious Basterds,” co-wrote “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” and “Psycho Funky Chimp,” a coming-of-age movie about a teenager who acquires a rare Pez dispenser — that Phillips himself was once attached to (we’ll assume this is an entirely different project). But clearly a working relationship already exists.
Details on the project are being kept under wraps with watermarked scripts apparently making the rounds. No one wants to be the person who breaches the security, but at least they can rest assured that if they do leave the script somewhere after one too many drinks, they still won’t be the guy who left a working prototype for the Apple’s next iPhone in a bar.
Production is slated to begin June 14th, which will surely make the best summer vacation ever for the unknown crew of young thesps.
