Deadline Hollywood reports that Relativity Media are co-financing a massive, R-rated comedy omnibus in the vein of “Kentucky Fried Movie.” Featuring seventeen directors, including Peter Farrelly, Brett Ratner, Elizabeth Banks, Bob Odenkirk and Griffin Dunne (who have all already shot their segments) and starring Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Gerard Butler, Elizabeth Banks, Naomi Watts, Liev Schreiber, Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott, Emma Stone, Matt Walsh, Tony Shalhoub, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kieran Culkin, Chloe Moretz, and Patrick Warburton, this thing is going to be huge.
Apparently, the project has been kicking around for quite awhile and was once set up at Paramount, until Tipper “won’t-someone-please-think-of-the-children” Gore convinced the production head that it didn’t fit his family values mold. From there it went over to Overture, where recent money woes have now led the project to Relativity.
Not much is known on what’s contained in the already shot segments, except that Hugh Jackman stars in the short by Peter Farrelly called “The Catch”. All the talent involved are being paid scale to keep the budget on this one from going through the roof, and segments are being shot whenever the directors and actors find time.
While this sounds like a cool concept, as we’ve discussed at length, omnibus projects have a spotty track record at best. For every “Paris Je T’Aime” there’s a, well, “New York, I Love You” and the most recent segmented, star studded comedy ensemble we can think of, “The Ten” was absolutely dreadful. Given how long this has been kicking around we wonder how well the segments that are already in the can will age. But the talent involved is pretty notable so we’re curious to see how this one will turn out.