Perhaps you remember Freddie Prinze Jr. The limited actor benefited from right-place-right-time box office success and ended up fronting a number of modestly successful teen-centric movies. Prinze, who settled down with similar teen queen Sarah Michelle Gellar, eventually faded away from the spotlight, as either a bad agent or a lack of hunger for more challenging material saw his types of roles go to the likes of similarly unexpressive pretty boys like Paul Walker and Ryan Phillipe. After awhile, Prinze opted to exit the Hollywood rat race and pick up a pen, eager to embark on a second chapter of his career as a Hollywood screenwriter. This didn’t exactly pan out, as Prinze’s only writing credits stem from an episode of the syndicated “Mutant X” and an actual WWE Main Event showcase.
Hopefully, charisma-vaccum Breckin Meyer follows in those footsteps. Meyer, who capitalized on being the lead in the megahuge “Garfield” franchise ($342 million worldwide!) by popping up on “House,” “Robot Chicken,” “Heroes” and “King Of The Hill” is set to overcome his horrendous choice in projects and notable lack of onscreen presence by turning to screenwriting. The condescendingly-titled “Superguys,” the Production Weekly Twitter feed — the interweb’s dick-riding source du jour this week — informs us, is “‘Ocean’s 11’ with idiots set at Comic-Con,” a pitch which pretty much devalues all sorts of other movies and genres. Meyer will be writing based on a story idea from Harry Elfont and Deb Kaplan.
We can’t even begin to imagine how unbearable this sounds. Hollywood has been celebrating the socially awkward geek for awhile, mostly through soft-pedaling Judd Apatow films, which collectively seem to have achieved their arc with stuff like “Step Brothers,” illuminating just how pathetic being a socially retarded manchild can be. And with stuff like “Fanboys” just lighting up the box office, there’s gotta be money in nerds wanting to see themselves on the big screen, right? The idea itself is something of a paradox- the “Ocean” heist films benefit from characters engaging in ingenious schemes and elaborate hoaxes, so with these characters billed as “idiots,” who wants to bet they will set a preposterous plan in motion while remaining emotionally stunted morons, creating a personality paradox best suited to a screenwriter not named Breckin Meyer, who, judging by this pitch, hates the very nerds that very clearly see he’s an actor of zero talent? And then there’s the matter of what exactly there is to steal at a comic con? We went to the New York Comic Con recently, and, believe us, we don’t think the audience will be rushing to see a group of inept nerds seize Danny Trejo T-shirts and out-of-print “Zardoz” soundtracks. Though virginities do seem ripe for the taking should some lucky loser somehow get it together.
