UPDATE 12:45 pm: A helpful tipster helpfully emailed me this video, which is supposedly Fogler’s screen test as Kinison. Looks more like early footage than a screen test to me, but either way, looks like solid casting.

Tom Shadyac will be directing a biopic of legendary comedian Sam Kinison for HBO.  Shadyac last directed Evan Almighty (which lost an estimated $27 million) and last produced the tragedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. Dan Fogler from Balls of Fury will play Kinison (by most accounts, Fogler’s a super talented Broadway actor who hasn’t quite yet been utilized properly on film) .

Basis for the telepic is “Brother Sam: The Short, Spectacular Life of Sam Kinison,” a memoir written by his brother and manager, Bill Kinison, and Steve Delsohn. A new script has been written by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, the writer-directors of “American Splendor.”  The book had previously been optioned by Howard Stern back in ’94. [Variety]

Berman and Pulcini did an amazing job on American Splendor.  Why they’re not directing this makes zero sense.  There’s no doubt Shadyac has made some awful movies like Almighty and Patch Adams, but give him credit for Liar Liar, which I actually love.  Still, even the guy’s best movies are the epitome of slick, conventional Hollywood, filled with the annoying and ever-present musical score that tells you how to feel every second, right up to the inevitable happy-sappy ending.

Meanwhile, American Splendor took a guy (Harvey Pekar) who was unique and weird-funny in real life and made a film that was a pretty good reflection of him.  Yet they’re taking a guy who was one of the original “edgy comedians” and handing his life story over THE GUY WHO MADE EVAN F-CKING ALMIGHTY.  If Kinison were here he’d be screaming really loud right now. And for probably the only time in my life, I’d have to say, “You know, I agree with the fat guy in the beret.”