Remember the David Gordon Green/Danny McBride medieval comedy project called “Your Highness” that we’d been tracking?
Well, “Pineapple Express” and “The Foot Fist Way” aren’t even in theaters yet, but the buzz that both films are generating have already paid off as Universal has just green lit the project. McBride in particular is the comedic talk of the town with upcoming summer appearances yet to be seen by the public in ‘Pineapple,’ Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder” and the adaptation of “”Land of the Lost” with Will Ferrell in 2009.
Green’s first-foray into big-budget, mainstream comedy with ‘Pineapple’ (produced by Judd Apatow) has also generated a ton of pre-release praise so it’s kind of no wonder studios are giving him the go-ahead. After struggling to make tons of little indies that populist audiences generally ignored (see “Undertow”), it’s nice to finally see the studios come knocking and these guys getting relative carte blanche.
McBride wrote the script with Ben Best, the actor/writer of “The Foot Fist Way” (and one of the musicians in the band Pyramid who scored the kung-fu comedy) and the wacky concept chronicles an arrogant, lazy prince who must complete a quest to save his father’s kingdom (played by McBride of course who specializes in playing cocky, bloviated buffoons).
“This is such an original idea for a comedy that takes place in a kingdom with dragons and wizards, with Danny at the center as the outcast brother who gets an opportunity to prove himself,” the producer of the project Scott Struber said.
We’re starting to think Peter Dinklage may not have anything to do with this project like we initially surmised. We’ll see we guess. Now that Green and company are getting their way, how about digging up one of the myriad old school scripts out of a drawer and helping out old buddy Paul Schneider? He’s due for a break-out role, don’t you think? Either way, good on all y’all (even if ‘Foot Fist Way’ wasn’t that funny).
BTW, there’s an interesting article in the New York Sun about how ‘Foot Fist Way‘ was ignored at Sundance 2006 and sat on the shelf for two years before people came around to it. That’s an incredible turn-around success story that’s rather unheard of and they contextualize that well.