After the surprising smash success of “Zombieland,” director Ruben Fleischer seems to have his pick of projects. Last fall, we ran down a number of films that were on his plate — “Psycho Funky Chimp,” “The Bachelorette,” “21 Jump Street,” “Neighborhood Watch” — none of which seem to have gained much movement, except for Jonah Hill’s “21 Jump Street” which is eyeing a shoot early in 2011 (likely with the “Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs” directors).
Well, some more offers are coming Fleischer’s way according to Deadline Hollywood. They’re reporting that he’s been “mentioned” (whatever that means) to direct “Mission: Impossible IV” but that he’s more interested in doing a film called “30 Minutes Or Less” and is seeking Danny McBride to star. We’re not quite sure what the latter is about — it’s the first we’ve heard of that film — but with McBride’s name being mentioned, consider our interest piqued.
BTW: What’s it about? Most people — including us for a second — forgot that “30 Minutes Or Less” is a 2009 Black List script, which means it’s a comedy “about a pizza delivery guy on an unlikely caper.” It was written by Matthew Sullivan and Michael Diliberti who actually had two scripts on the Blacklist including one called, “Comic Con” (you can hopefully figure out what that one’s about). They also have ties to McBride as they wrote the action comedy, “L.A.P.I,” that will be directed by Jody Hill and is coming out under David Gordon Green, Hill and McBride’s Rough House banner. Clearly McBride is into these writers and they’re ones to watch (they also wrote a remake of “Brewster’s Millions“).
We don’t want to see Fleischer get stuck in franchise hell, so we hope he moves away from “Mission: Impossible IV.” The director’s playful and loose style is more suited to original material rather than making Cruise look cool as he jumps around or blows shit up. Update: the L.A. Times says “Mission: Impossible IV” is probably not in the cards and “30 Minutes Or Less” looks like it’s probably next.
The LAT also notes that Fleischer had also been in discussions to direct the Mike White-penned script, “Babe In The Wood,” of all things an action comedy about a a female freshman from the Midwest who arrives at Yale and becomes a target of the New Jersey mob. It was picked up by Columbia Pictures last summer. Unfortunately, it looks like he won’t be tackling that one either. Mike White really needs to come back to the screen in some form and its too bad as Fleischer and he would have been a good pair. The director, who was obviously hot after “Zombieland,” was also apparently once in discussions to direct the Will Ferrell vehicle called “Daddy’s Home” that was written by Etan Cohen (“Tropic Thunder”).
