(It’s very possibly I’ve had too much coffee this morning.)
Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman are set to star in a movie of the ever-popular body-swap genre called Change Up, to be directed by Wedding Crashers‘ David Dobkin.
The project, written by “Wedding Crashers” and “The Hangover” writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, is basically “a responsible guy with a wife gets swapped with his best friend, a lazy man child.” [ThePlaylist]
It sounds great when you say it like that. Not as great when you say “a body swap comedy from the writers of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and Four Christmases, and the director of Fred Claus,” which, sadly, is also true. Fred Claus has been on cable a lot recently. Check it out if you ever want to see a CGI elf version of Ludacris rap. So yeah, hope for the Wedding Crashers/Hangover version of this creative team, but don’t hold your breath. And I don’t know about you, but if I switched bodies with Ryan Reynolds, the first thing I’d probably do is try to jizz on my own washboard abs. What? Don’t act like I’m the only straight guy here who’s thought about it. Oh right, I’m the weird one, whatever, you guys.
(It’s okay, Birthday Dog isn’t traumatized, he’s too busy partyin’.)
Like everyone else, I enjoyed The Hangover a lot, but I’m usually careful to point out that it was good mainly because of Zach Galifianakis, a likable cast, and a director who knows comedy and has a nice visual style (Todd Phillips), and not because of the script or the concept (which one studio head wanted to call What Happens in Vegas). Sadly, that won’t stop a couple of the original screenwriters from getting work because of The Hangover’s success (even though it’s well-known that Todd Phillips and Jeremy Garelick did extensive rewrites).
Universal has picked up the script “Change Up” from “Hangover” writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. David Dobkin is attached to direct and produce.
Nothing wrong with that, right? Hold on…
The studio is keeping the logline under wraps, though it is known to be a body-switching comedy. In addition to “Hangover,” which has become the top-grossing R-rated comedy with $258.6 million, Lucas and Moore also wrote the recent New Line comedies “The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” and “Four Christmases.” Dobkin last directed 2007’s “Fred Claus.” [THR]
So that’s Ghosts of Girlfriends Past plus Four Christmases plus Fred Claus plus body swap comedy? …We’re gonna need a bigger WOOOOF. I can’t wait for the next Lucas/Moore/Dobkin collaboration, Vince Vaughn is Fired Up about Breakfast Cereal.
F-ck me, Hollywood’s been making body-switch movies so long they’re running out of titles. Don’t believe me? The phenomenon even has its own Wikipedia page. Most recently there was 17 Again with Zac Efron, and now Ashton Kutcher’s getting in the mix (that’s black slang, grandpa).
Story centers on a superstar NFL quarterback and a 12-year-old middle school geek who magically trade bodies, then quickly learn valuable lessons about humility and courage.
Hmmm, so what? It’s been done before. I don’t think we’re interested. What do you call it?
“Traded” had been developed at DreamWorks but became the property of Par following DreamWorks’ exit in the fall. [Variety]
Traded! I get that! It’s brilliant! OH MY GOD LET’S GO DRINK CHAMPAGNE AND HIT OURSELVES WITH HAMMERS!
[picture source: manbabies.com]
I know Zac Efron (or “Ol’ Jazz Hands,” as I like to call him) is trying to butch up his image lately, but isn’t this new poster for 17 Again going a little overboard? I mean, a leather motorcycle jacket AND aviator sunglasses? Why, he looks like he’s off to go drive an 18 wheeler, or chop down a tree, or get a tattoo of an anchor.
Check out the new trailer for Possession, a remake of the South Korean horror film Addicted, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar (why does she need three names? did she kill a president I’m not aware of?).
A woman’s life is thrown into chaos after a freak car accident sends her husband and brother-in-law into comas. Thrills arrive after the brother-in-law wakes up, thinking he’s his brother.
I don’t have any brothers, but I’d like to think that if I did, I’d bang their girlfriends. I’m just old fashioned like that. Anyway, if you’re keeping score at home, that makes this a remake and a body swap movie. Body swap movies are so original that they have their own Wikipedia page.
A body swap is a storytelling device seen in a variety of fiction, most often in TV shows and movies, in which two people (or beings) exchange minds and end up in each others’ bodies. Alternatively, their minds may stay where they are as their bodies adjust.
It goes on to say:
In 1973 a group of scientists from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland Ohio, led by Dr. Robert White, a neurosurgeon inspired by the work of Vladimir Demikhov, transplanted the head of one monkey onto another monkey’s body. The animal was still able to smell, taste, hear, and see. The animal survived for eight days after the operation, even at times attempting to bite some of the staff. In 2001 the operation was successfully repeated again on a monkey by the aforementioned Dr. White.
And that monkey was none other than Sarah Michelle Gellar.
