Hugh Hefner has been many things during his life and career—champion of free speech and civil rights, night club entrepreneur and yes, peddler of naked ladies—so it was only a matter of time before his story made its way to the big screen. And time it’s indeed taking. Universal first had “Hefner” under their roof years ago years ago, with an eye on folks Robert Downey Jr. and Hugh Jackman (or any other similarly handsome, charming man) for the lead role but it never came together and it was put into turn around. And that’s where Warner Bros. snapped it up in 2012, and now heading into 2014 they’ve got a director.
David Dobkin (“Wedding Crashers,” “The Change-Up“) will take a break from raunchy comedy to direct this project, that will have a script penned by Peter Morgan (“The Queen,” “Rush,” “Frost/Nixon“). No word yet on if the script will cover a specific era and try and tackle his whole life, but Hefner has lived enough for a few movies. It marks a slight change of pace for Dobkin, who also tried to make the fantasy action flick “Arthur & Lancelot” at WB before the project was scuttled. But clearly there’s no bad blood and hopefully “Hefner” will have a smoother ride through the system.
Meanwhile, Paul Feig continues to stick with comedies, lining up another project over at Fox that he’ll produce and perhaps direct. No story details just yet, but Melissa Stack will write the script, and after witnessing the trailer for “The Other Woman” which she also wrote, let’s just say our excitement is muted. Feig’s next effort will be the spy comedy “Susan Cooper” starring Melissa McCarthy, dropping in 2015. [Variety/Variety]
