Hot off pretending to murder an old woman at the Britannia Awards, Sacha Baron Cohen is reportedly going to be doing his Leslie Nielsen thing in a spy spoof for Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier (that’s French for “Louie The Terrier”).
From Variety:
Following the success of his film “Now You See Me,” Louis Leterrier is ready to enter the the world of espionage and is on board to direct Sacha Baron Cohen’s spy-action comedy “Grimsby” for Paramount.
Time out, Now You See Me was a success? You mean the Jesse Eisenberg magician movie? $351 million worldwide?!? Wow, now that’s a magic trick.
Baron Cohen and Phil Johnston sold the film as a pitch to Paramount last August. Story follows a British black ops agent who is forced to go on the run with his long-lost brother, who is a northern English soccer hooligan.
I’d love to see Brendan Gleeson or The Stath in that role, but ten bucks says it’s Vinnie Jones. Or the American equivalent. The Rock?
Since leaving the Freddy Mercury biopic, Baron Cohen has been trying to find his next project and had amped up the search for a director for “Grimsby.” Given the action elements involved with the project, Baron Cohen had been meeting with directors like Leterrier who had more of an action-oriented background to go along with the comic elements.
Ugh, having an action director direct comedy is a terrible idea. Comedy action is supposed to be comedic, not “badass.” How many terrible movies has Hollywood made in the name of “action-comedy” now? Knight and Day, This Means War, The Tourist… It doesn’t work. Even Pineapple Express and Your Highness (which I otherwise liked) tried to cram actiony action sequences into spoofy comedies and it didn’t work (30 Minutes or Less was complete disaster for similar reasons). Meanwhile, you know who directed the best fight sequences of the year? Edgar freakin’ Wright. (*drops mic, scratches balls*)