It's got to be pretty good to be Seth MacFarlane these days. He has roughly thirty-eight hit cartoon series on Fox, his first movie, last summer's "Ted," made half-a-billion dollars worldwide, he's hosting the Oscars, he's doing it with the Khaleesi, and people still humor his career as a lounge singer for some reason. And now, he's landed an Oscar-winner to co-star in his next film.
According to Heat Vision, Charlize Theron is in talks to join "A Million Ways To Die In The West," the comedy that MacFarlane is directing, has co-written and will star in for "Ted" backers Media Rights Capital. The film, a comedy-Western drawing comparison to "Blazing Saddles," follows a farmer (MacFarlane) who wimps out of a gunfight, causing his girlfriend to leave him. He enlists the help of an outlaw's wife (presumably Theron's part) to help him shoot, only to find himself falling for her.
Given the enormous success of "Ted," it's no surprise to see MacFarlane being given the keys to the toystore here, and it makes a lot of sense for Theron to get involved; she's on the ups thanks to "Prometheus" and "Snow White & The Huntsman," and has shown a capacity for lighter, comic fare on things like "Arrested Development" that she rarely has a chance to show off on screen.
Shooting should start in May, so we're likely to see the film on screen in the summer of 2014; we'd wager that Universal will pay through the nose to distribute it, as they did with "Ted." MacFarlane can be a winning presence on-screen (he did a pretty good job hosting SNL a few months back), so hopefully the film won't be as lazy and indiscriminately offensive as its predecessor.
