Aside from being a funny man and a great scriptwriter (see Rushmore if anyone needs proof), Owen Wilson certainly knows how to pick talented types to work with. Fresh from voicing a champion vehicle in Cars, he’s signed on to Drillbit Taylor, a comedy with some serious quality talent working behind the camera.
It’s a fairly straight-forward-sounding tale: two average kids arrive for their first year at high school, only for the local bully to beat them up as they arrive. Swearing bloody vengeance, they scour the local paper until they happen upon the man they hope will be their saviour: Wilson’s cheap-as-chips soldier of fortune. Sadly, he turns out to be the living embodiment of the maxim “you get what you pay for”…
The script is by Seth Rogen, who should be in prison for the number of scenes he stole in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Chris Brown who used to have a day job on slightly popular sitcom Friends. What’s more, the producer will be Virgin’s Judd Apatow, a man who knows comedy and the screenplay is based on a treatment by John Hughes. Yes, that one.
Here’s hoping the current hot favourite director doesn’t lower the tone – Without A Paddle’s Steve Brill is lined up to start in September.