The folks over at Pajiba are reporting that Tobey Maguire is attached to produce and star in “Prisoners Of Trebek,” about a man who “attempts to master Jeopardy, but ultimately finds himself and falls in love.” Um, ok. The rather gimmicky premise is apparently based on a true story and is adapted from the book, “Prisoner Of Trebikstan: A Decade In Jeopardy!” Here’s the synopsis of the book, but imagine the film will be less Jeopardy history and how-tos and more of the relationship stuff:
In this eccentric, energetic and engaging memoir of his long run on America’s favorite television quiz show, Harris, a former standup comedian and current comedy writer, gives readers the lowdown on life as “one of the show’s big winners—and big losers.” He promises to tell all, and he does, from the show’s beginning in 1963 to his own blow-by-blow experiences as a contestant. He discusses his growing obsession with winning, how it cost him a girlfriend and how he luckily found another. For those who would follow in his footsteps, he is generous with tips on strategy: buzzer skills, how to predict topics (keep holidays in mind), how to suss out a Daily Double, which clues to tackle first, how to one-up your competition (though one of the gems of this often charming book is the account of the quite sincere friendships that grew among the top competitors). Like many a standup routine, his narrative zigs and zags back and forth in time and topic, but like the best of routines, it is sharply timed, pulling out many swerves and surprises to keep the reader alert. And what is Alex Trebek really like? “I dunno,” says Harris, but the Trebek we meet is highly professional and unfailingly courteous. “Just like on TV.”
The project sounds pretty slight, if not a bit of a weird fit for Maguire. We see someone like Greg Kinnear really killing it in the lead role, but to Maguire’s favor, his latest exercise in stretching his acting range, “Brothers,” has proven to pretty much everyone – even if they didn’t like the film – that he’s more than just Spiderman.
Speaking of Peter Parker, it’s hard to see where, if Maguire does choose to star in the picture, this will fit into his schedule. We imagine that most of his 2010 is going to spent in tights or in front of green screens, filming “Spiderman 4” so we don’t see this shooting until after shooting on that is wrapped. That said, the search is on for a director and while a couple of smaller names have been mentioned, an A-list director is ideally being sought. So if everything lines up quickly, he may be able unless he’s able to crank it out before reluctantly slipping on the superhero spandex.
