While it wasn’t the funniest R-rated comedy of the summer, “Bad Teacher” was certainly one of the most successful. Made on a slim budget of around $20 million, the film went on take in over $200 million worldwide, so no surprise that Sony are eager to get the creative team behind that film back together. And it looks like it’s going to be another tale of jilted love.
Director Jake Kasdan and writers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg will tackle directing and writing duties, respectively, on a new comedy set in the world of, uh, hairdressing. The story will center on a Supercuts employee who tells his friend to break off his engagement, only to wind up for falling for the girl instead, causing him to juggle both the new romance and his friendship. We presume things get raunchy from there. It’s an intriguing premise, but the track record of Stupnitsky and Eisenberg is mixed at best. Probably best known as producers and writers on the U.S. remake of “The Office,” they are more infamously behind the egregious “Year One,” and they’ve also had a hand in that “Ghostbusters 3” script that Dan Aykroyd keeps holding like a talisman in hopes that it will get made. In the case of “Bad Teacher,” it was the cast who elevated the material — Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake and Lucy Punch — not the other way around. So we figure this time around, casting will be key as well.
No word yet on when this will roll, or whether this will affect a potential “Bad Teacher” sequel, which Deadline suggests is in the works as well. Either way, Sony has their golden comedy team back, but whether or not Kasdan is still kicking the tires on the action-comedy “Family Getaway” over at Warner Bros., which he was taking a look at this spring, remains to be seen. But clearly, Sony don’t want him to stray too far.
