An exciting-ish new prospect emerged on the development horizon Monday when Walden Media announced it had undertaken Gene, a new, buddy-comedy take on the classic tale of genies, lamps and the three life-changing wishes that follow. The producers slapped the requisite "log line under wraps" status on the pitch from Randi Mayem Singer, whose previously announced work on Big Momma's House 3 suggests she could use some help putting this new project together. Movieline is naturally more than happy to oblige with some casting and plot suggestions after the jump.
1. Jack Black and Michael Cera: The whole misfortune of this past summer's Year One amounted to a case of when bad ideas happen to good people. This calls for a meta mulligan: Cera stars as himself, a disillusioned young actor fidgeting with the cardboard sleeve on his Starbucks venti white mocha when Black's rotund genie squeezes through the lid, coated in foam and promising three chances at a superior film. "Maybe the Arrested Development movie?" Black asks. A beat ensues before both men burst into knowing laughter and Cera inquires about work on Kung Fu Panda 2-4.
2. Billy Bob Thornton and Danny McBride: Thornton stars as a long-haul trucker whose mishandling of a piss bottle between Knoxville and Nashville results in a visit from the title character Gene (McBride), a foul-mouthed, muscle-teed apparition who urges Thornton to aspire to the finer things for once in his life. Not every triple-wide trailer and above-ground infinity pool is what it seems, however, and the duo finds their true calling back in the air-cushioned seats and pee-streaked floormats of the open road.
3. Christian Bale and Russell Crowe: Reteaming after 3:10 to Yuma's success, Bale portrays a hot-tempered studio executive whose shouty incantations for "more f***ing ketchup, goddamnit" one day during lunch creates a growly vision of semi-obeisance from the pub-style Heinz jar left behind. Their argument over whether Bale's condiment request counts as a wish deteriorates into a bruising, profane, opposites-attract laff riot of high-powered Hollywood egos.
4. Katherine Heigl and Zach Galifianakis: How about a romcom-buddy movie? Galifianakis's amiable genie offers Heigl's complacent Manhattan lawyer three bulletproof bits of counsel on how to woo the hot new associate at her office. The priceless vibrating anal beads sequence would likely be vetoed by the family-friendly suits at Walden, but along with the inevitable prospect of a Heigl/Galifianakis love scene, it'll drive those unrated-DVD sales through the roof.
5. Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg: Hot off Antichrist, their rollicking masterpiece of sex, death, chaos and mutilation, this duo's feisty chemistry should not -- nay, cannot -- go to waste. In this follow-up, Gainsbourg plays a dead toddler's bereft mother whose difficulty opening her child-proofed Xanax bottle produces hallucinations of a soothing voice (Dafoe) inside the tiny plastic container. Unable to release the genie and make the three wishes that will undoubtedly improve her life, she cuts the fingers off her right hand before finally chewing the lid off with her teeth. Alas, no genie. A writer of of Singer's prodigious talents can no doubt make this funny.