Believe it or not, but James Franco doesn’t always do everything he winds up committed to, and a couple years back you might recall he signed up to star in “Ricky Stanicky.” He had just wrapped “127 Hours,” but even so, the movie seemed a long way off and it seems it wound up stalling, even though the script placed on the 2010 Black List. But alas, it has come back to life with a slightly surprising new star.
Jim Carrey has now boarded the movie, and, even more, his old pal Steve Oedekerk (the guy who wrote and directed “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls,” and penned “Bruce Almighty“) will direct the flick. And oh yeah, Oedekerk will also rewrite the script by Jeff Bushell, that centers on a couple of pals who use a made-up friend as a means to get away from their spouses, for nearly two decades. However, when said spouses threaten to uncover their lies by insisting his appearance at a party one of the pals are hosting, the group hires an actor (Carrey) to portray the character, Ricky Stanicky, in order to keep the illusion alive. Pretty decent premise, we have to say.
Something interesting to note—according to THR, Joaquin Phoenix briefly flirted with the part, which frankly would have been amazing. Meanwhile, Deadline says Carrey has been spending a year making a decision about whether to make the movie or not, which kind of seems absurd, but that would explain why it’s taken so long to get moving. Anyway, it’s probably still not happening right away as a rewrite is in order, but maybe we’ll eventually see this thing.