The L.A. Times is posting whether or not Ed Helms has become the new Steve Carell and he might just be. Helms career was on track for some time now, but obviously the success of “The Hangover” last summer launched him into a higher echelon.
Now the former “The Daily Show” correspondent has one more project on the go (and a few that don’t sound like they’re in the cards anymore). The first being his inaugural leading-man project, “Central Intelligence” that doesn’t sound completely dissimilar to Carell’s “Get Smart.”
Universal is hoping to shoot the picture this summer and is now actively seeking out a director. The project is a a Walter Mitty-like comedy about an dorky, bumbling accountant (Helms) who inadvertently gets involved in an espionage plot.
The LA Times also mentions a few other film concepts in the works like Helms’ untitled Civil War project that he wrote and is still in development and the Apatow-produced, “A Whole New Hugh,” first announced in April 2007. It’s a bromantic comedy that focuses on three guys who attempt to raise their friend’s confidence level by making him seem to be a success. There’s also of course, “The Hangover 2” which will likely shoot this fall.
Also, remember that Ron Howard-produced infidelity comedy that had Vince Vaughn attached? Well, evidently it’s now called, “Your Cheating Heart,” and Helms’ name apparently had surfaced in connection with the project, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any longer. Another recently project he almost nabbed was “Daddy’s Home” opposite Will Ferrell and written by Etan Cohen, but that’s evidently probably not going to happen either because of scheduling isses. The times also notes that there is a “another, smallish movie on the way” on the way, but they don’t say what is is and it doesn’t appear to be listed on his IMDB page.
Helms’ latest project, the 2009 Black List script, “Cedar Rapids,” produced by Alexander Payne, directed by Miguel Arteta (“Youth In Revolt”), is in post-production, but probably won’t come out until 2011. About a sadsack Midwestern salesman who to a corporate retreat in the big city to save the jobs of his co-workers and snap himself out out of a mid-life funk, the picture also co-stars John C. Reilly, Sigourney Weaver, Alia Shawkat, Anne Heche and Stephen Root.