Earlier this week, we attended the “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” press junket. A small snippet of our conversation with Edgar Wright is here.
We also had an opportunity to speak with the up-and-coming screenwriter Michael Bacall who co-wrote the forthcoming picture with Wright. As we noted recently, Bacall is kind of everywhere. He’s writing Jonah Hill’s “21 Jump Street,” the Les Grossman film for Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise, plus he’s penned or been attached to several other projects, including the narrative feature-length version of Seth Gordon’s take on his own documentary, “The King Of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.”
While sadly, there was no real update on ‘Kong’ (“we were working on that for a little while”), he did give us a little bit about the other aforementioned projects. We’ll admit, we’re not sure what to think of the “21 Jump Street” picture, but we’re intrigued when Bacall described it as an R-Rated film like, “John Hughes [films] meets [Michael Bay’s] ‘Bad Boys.’ It’s about a couple of dudes who haven’t quite worked out their emotional issues with high school who are returning to high school.” That, combined with the fact that it’s being directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the duo behind last year’s surprise animated hit “Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs”….yeah, ok, this writer may now be officially sold.
As for the Les Grossman film, there’s no complete screenplay yet, but Bacall is cracking the story now. “It’s a blast and totally insane. We’re talking about the story right now,” he said. “We definitely have a direction that we’re really, really excited about and the amazing thing about working with Tom Cruise is that you realize that in talking to him he’s worked with some of the most amazing filmmakers in the world and he’s definitely absorbed it.”
We also had another question about the film. In “Tropic Thunder,” the Les Grossman character never leaves the comfort of his office, but instead barks demands to his obsequious assistant played by Bill Hader. Will we see Grossman outside those doors and outside of Hollywood? Bacall would only say, “yes,” but hey, that’s something. “21 Jump Street” is scheduled to start shooting in early 2011. There seems to be no time frame on the Les Grossman film as it’s still in its early days. Not everyone thinks that character deserves his own film, but if you’re going to continue the fairly overrated “Tropic Thunder” at all, this writer thinks Grossman is your best shot.
