Ever since Paul Blart: Mall Cop earned upwards of $180 million worldwide, Kevin James has been a bona fide A-list star (THIS DRESSING ROOM’S GONNA NEED MORE CHEESEBURGERS!). And yet he still gets no respect because the fickle public stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the artistic merit of horrific crapfests. Hopefully all that will change come this summer, when James stars in Little Boy, which offers the surefire-award-bait one-two punch of foreign director and “developmentally-disabled” child character. Paul Blart: ‘Tard Cop? Okay, that was bad, but certainly no worse than Variety’s pedophilia pun headline.

L.A.-based Metanoia Films is set to make helmer Alejandro Monteverde’s “Little Boy,” starring Kevin James, Ben Chaplin, Emily Watson and David Henrie.
Pic is budgeted at $24 million, funded by a nearly 50-50 split between U.S. and Mexican investors.
“Little Boy” is a family drama set in small-town America in the early days of WWII.
It revolves around an 8-year-old with developmental problems. His only friend is his father, and with his departure to war, the troubled boy is forced to confront the cruelty of schoolmates and others.
It will begin an 11-week shoot in Baja California at the end of August and should be ready for play in 2012. [Variety]

I’m probably a bastard for saying this, but I hope this goes terribly, terribly awry. It’s just that when retarded-kid movies (I’m assuming here, don’t quite know what ‘developmental problems’ means yet) go right, you get What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. And there’s not much to say about What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. When they go wrong… you get something like this:

Oh, Yonkers Joe, how have I not rented you yet? If the Kevin James version is even half this good, it will be life-changing.