‘Little Miss Sunshine’ Helmers Still On Board
Way, way back in 2006, Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller were all set to star in a sci-fi comedy called “Used Guys,” to be directed by “Meet the Parents” director Jay Roach. The project was set in a future run by women, where cloned male slaves are traded like cars. The film was only a month away from shooting when Fox canned the project, citing a rising budget of over $100 million (thanks to the futuristic sets), so Carrey and Roach jumped ship, and a few years passed with no apparent movement.
The next we heard of it was last year, with the announcement that Stiller was still attached, with “Little Miss Sunshine” helmers Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton taking over the directorial role, and Reese Witherspoon set to play the female lead (taking over from Emily Mortimer, who was attached in the prior incarnation). Again, almost 18 months have passed without further news on the film, but buried away in a Variety article about similarly long-gestating projects like “Logan’s Run,” there’s word that the project might be taking a third stab at getting itself made. The trade suggests that Fox are hoping that a ‘scaled-down’ version of the film will go before cameras at the end of next year, with Faris and Dayton still set to direct. And the big news is that “Eastbound and Down” star Danny McBride is now attached to the role that Carrey would have originally played.
McBride’s star has been soaring in recent years: he broke through with the microbudget comedy “The Foot Fist Way” and he stole the show in the likes of “Pineapple Express” and “Tropic Thunder,” before showing range in “Up in the Air” and finding success as a lead on the aforementioned HBO show (which doubled its ratings in its recently-concluded second season). He’s got his most high-profile film role to date coming up, alongside James Franco in David Gordon Green‘s “Your Highness,” along with an ineptly villainous turn in Ruben Fleischer‘s “30 Minutes or Less,” opposite Jesse Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari.
There’s no word if Stiller and Witherspoon are still attached — we could certainly see Stiller working well with McBride, but we imagine that, with the ‘scaled-down’ nature of the new version, younger, and more importantly, cheaper talent (Stiller and Witherspoon usually commanding hefty fees) may end up being sought. With Dayton and Faris’ “Will,” the Demetri Martin-penned script with Zach Galifianakis and Paul Rudd attached that was set to be their next film seemingly flatlining, this would appear to be their next project, even if the start date is still a year away — hopefully it’ll be third time lucky for the project.
