With the insane success of the Hangover movies, it's no surprise that everybody's trying to find the next solid "guys get into trouble and we laugh at them" script. Especially with the surge of R-rated comedies continuing to do solid box-office numbers. (Even last summer's The Change-Up, which was pretty badly savaged on the reviews front, managed to make its budget back and then some.) Now there's a new entrant into the field. The Wrap reports that Millennium Films has grabbed the rights to Chris Baldi's comedy script Guys Night.
The premise is the standard twenty-/thirty-something guy angst: four guys stuck at crappy jobs, involved in crappy relationships, living crappy lives. They decide to seize upon the time-honored coping mechanism of the American male who has begun to feel life constricting around him: they run away. Well, to be more accurate they plan a guys' trip together. They decide to visit a mysterious island off the New Jersey coast and, as The Wrap puts it, "their lives get more adventurous." That, of course, could mean just about anything. Cannibals. Smugglers. A lost tribe of Amazons. Rape-crazed sasquatches. We'll just have to wait and see.
Guys Night is just one of several projects Baldi has lined up after years of working on smaller projects. His highest-profile gig is What Would Kenny Do?, a time-travel comedy that sends a thirty-something dude back in time to help his awkward younger incarnation cope with high school. It stars Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber, which effectively doubles my disinterest in it. He also wrote the script for Scavengers, which follows three brothers who must go on a scavenger hunt to collect their inheritance. Diary of a Wimpy Kid director (and awesome name possessor) Thor Freudenthal signed on to helm that flick back in March.
