GeneStupnitsky Tagged Articles at Cinematical

When two guys with a dozen episodes of The Office and an upcoming Judd Apatow project between them (that'd be next summer's biblical comedy Year One), I'd be willing to see what else they've got up their combined sleeve. For Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, that sleeve is home to Bad Teacher, the spec script that Columbia just picked up.

According to Variety, the story concerns "a foul-mouthed, gold-digging seventh-grade teacher who's dumped by her sugar-daddy boyfriend and turns her attention toward a colleague. That pits her against a rival who happens to be the school's model teacher." So at the risk of sounding shallow, it sounds like the Bad Santa of all those inspirational teacher movies that Dana Marschz would hold dear -- the prospect of which, by the way, I'm totally down for.

Now, what's going to be most critical here is the casting. At the moment, it's hard for me to not recommend Anna Faris for just about any part, although it'd be interesting to see her take on something a little more crass. What do you guys think? Who would you believe could not only land a job as a teacher, but then keep it in spite of harassing students (in the name of comedy, mind you)?

Dreamworks has picked up the latest successful pitch from The Office staff writers (mark my words, those people are going to be ruling the comedy world soon); said pitch was brought to Dreamworks by Ivan Reitman and his Montecito Pictures, through which the film will be produced. This one was dreamed up by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, and is called The Intern, a title from which most of you can probably figure out the plot without any further help from me. The movie will tell the undoubtedly hilarious story of "a middle-age, stay-at-home dad who decides to return to the work force and is forced to start as an intern."

This is the point at which I almost write something like "Gee, a story about the humiliation of a sad-sack middle aged man? Why, that's a original idea." But then I remember that all Hollywood ever does is reuse old ideas, and that it's silly to put up a stink. Plus, every once in a while one of the retreads works, so I suppose there's a tiny glimmer of hope here.