Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has signed a deal with Universal to make his feature film directorial debut on Ted, a $65 million “hard-R” picture about “a man and his teddy bear.”

MacFarlane will also co-star and provide the voice for the CG-generated title character. MacFarlane wrote the script with Family Guy cohorts Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, and he will produce with MRC, Scott Stuber and John Jacobs.  I’ve heard that the intention of Universal, MRC and MacFarlane is to get the film into production this year.  MacFarlane will work the film around his exhausting duties supervising the animated Fox shows Family Guy, The Cleveland Show and American Dad!, and providing a majority of the voices. Fox and MacFarlane have long wanted to make a Family Guy theatrical feature, but Ted will come first. Fox apparently was reluctant to embrace the teddy bear movie because of its  R-rating. [Deadline]

I’m picturing an adult version of Gooby that sneaks you whiskey and you jerk each other off.  Because if not that, what are imaginary friends for?

I don’t know why, but I like Seth MacFarlane.  I mostly liked the old Family Guy, meaning I like about 35% of the total Family Guy episodes. It’s okay, but you want to hate it when you see guys like the guy on MacFarlane’s right in the video laughing as hard as they do at it. Shut up, dork, you’re ruining this for me. But American Dad! is meh and The Cleveland Show is essentially unwatchable.  But for some reason, I still see Seth MacFarlane and imagine a guy I wouldn’t mind hanging out with.  I’m just glad this hasn’t happened with Jerry Bruckheimer.  Praying for his fiery death is all that gives my life meaning.

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When I praised Adventureland the other day in part because it reminded me of the kind of 80s movies no one makes anymore, I was thinking of Ferris Bueller or One Crazy Summer.  Gooby here is the flip-side of that coin, evoking a genre that rightfully died out 20 years ago.  It’s about a kid who befriends a teddy-bear like monster and they go on adventures – like a seriously ill-advised mashup of Mac & Me and Harry and the Hendersons.  The conflict of course is that he has to keep his monster a secret, because in the 80s it was always bad news when people found out you had a robot, alien, monster, or doll come-to-life for a friend, or when your wife the witch wouldn’t stop using her magical powers.  It’s creepy both because of the bizarreness of the plot, and because it just doesn’t seem like a good idea for your kids to watch movies about a special best friend who you can’t tell your parents about because he’s weird.

Believe it or not, this is a real movie, it’s playing at Cannes, it cost $6.5 million to make, and the director’s name is the impossible-to-make-up “Wilson Coneybeare.”  I need a drink.
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