Sacha Baron Cohen’s movie career is starting to move into a new phase — the huge sleeper success of “Borat” looked to make him the next big thing in comedy, but his follow-up “Bruno” underperformed critically and commercially last year, and he’s probably too famous, and too smart to pull the same trick a third time. At the same time, he’s resisted the usual Steve Carell/Will Ferrell ‘I-will-sign-on-to-anything-that-pays-me’ path of a comedy star, preferring to work in smaller, more interesting roles with A-list directors; playing both over-the-top and restrained, he was one of the best things in Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd,” and allegedly turned down a role in “Men in Black 3” to work with Martin Scorsese on “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.”
But now it looks like he might finally be taking the lead in a Hollywood comedy. After flirting with the likes of “Dinner with Schmucks” and “Eurovision,” Pajiba are reporting that an offer is out to the actor to star in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” a part that virtually every male star in Hollywood has circled over the years. The project is a remake of the 1947 Danny Kaye comedy (itself based on a short story by James Thurber), about the titular daydreamer and his many fantasy lives, and has been in active development at four different studios over the last sixteen years.
Jim Carrey, Owen Wilson and Mike Myers have all been attached to star over the years, with Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Chuck Russell and Mark Waters all sitting in the director’s chair, and over a dozen writers, including Richard La Gravenese (“The Fisher King”), Zach Helm (“Stranger Than Fiction”), Jay Kogen (“The Simpsons”) and Peter Tolan (“Analyze This”), have taken a swing at cracking the premise. The latest draft, which sees Mitty as the timid owner of a megastore, is by Peter Morgan (“The Queen”), and that seems to be the one that current rights holders, 20th Century Fox, have sent out to Baron Cohen.
Considering the actor’s background in character comedy, the role, which involves Mitty taking on a number of guises, seems a good fit for him, and considering his picky taste, and the presence of Morgan as the writer, we’ve got our fingers crossed that this’ll be more interesting than the high-concept monstrosity it would have been with Mike Myers in the lead. Though it’s worth noting that it’s only an offer, there’s no indication if Baron Cohen is interested, and he’ll be tied up for the next few months with Scorsese. However, Pajiba’s source is reliable, and wouldn’t have reported the story if they didn’t think there was a chance of him signing on.