Barking Mad

One is a comedian who specialises in pulling faces and dive-bombing innocent swimming pools; the other a Pullitzer prize winning dramatist with a nice line in bad language and endlessly quotable dialogue. But now Will Ferrell and David Mamet are to team up to make Joan of Bark: The Dog that Saved France. No, it's not a biopic about a divinely inspired poodle who is burnt at the stake - at least as far as we know. Details are under wraps, but, like most of Mamet's opus, this is a contemporary satire. This time the target is pop culture, which should provide plenty of easy targets for Mamet and Ferrell to skewer on their rapier-like wit. Mamet will write and direct with Ferrell starring, presumably not as Joan herself (although we wouldn't put it past him). Interestingly enough, trivia hounds, this is the second Mamet script to reference one of our canine friends, after media / political satire Wag the Dog. In the meantime Mamet fans will be howling at the moon until Spartan, starring Val Kilmer, comes out here later this year, while Ferrell fans sit up and beg for the highly amusing looking Anchorman, out on 10 September here in the UK.