It looks like Pee-Wee Herman is finally ready for another big screen adventure.
It’s been two decades since he last played the character in the movies and on TV, but Paul Reubens says Pee-Wee will soon return with a new film which he plans to start shooting next year.
While promoting his new voice role in “The Smurfs 2,” Reubens updated The LA Times on the long-gestating project, saying the film has funding, a finished script, and a director lined up.
While Judd Apatow is attached produce the film, Reubens failed to reveal just who the mystery director is who will be calling the shots.
Reubens is also developing a new TV show, which he says could potentially be an update on the popular “Pee-wee”s Playhouse,” which ran from 1986 to 1990 on CBS. He added that a more-detailed announcement is “imminent.”
Reubens seems confident that Pee-Wee will live again. “Short of something unforeseen like the studio going out of business, I think it”s very likely both these projects will happen next year,” he told the Times.
Reubens played the character in Tim Burton’s 1985 directorial debut “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure,” and in 1988’s “Big Top Pee-Wee,” directed by Randal Kleiser. He resurrected the character as a stage show in L.A. and on Broadway in 2010.