There are two pieces of good news to deliver: according to Deadline, Steve Carell is currently in talks to star in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The second piece of good news is that they aren't changing the movie so that an adult is the central protagonist.
Based on the book by Judith Viorst, Alexander is about a young boy who is experiencing the worst 24 hours of his life. He wakes up with gum in his hair, trips on his skateboard, doesn't get a prize in his cereal box, gets yelled at by his teacher...and it just keeps going on and on. He constantly says that he is just going to pack everything up and move to Australia, but at the end of the story his mother ensures him that some days are just like that, "even in Australia."
The report says that Carell is up for the role of Ben, though I must admit that I don't remember that character from the book. Lisa Cholodenko, who most recently directed the Oscar-nominated The Kids Are All Right, is directing the film, though the new story doesn't say when production might get started. Carell has experience making family films, but that experience is largely in the field of animation and voice-over. He played roles in other kid-friendly movies like Horton Hears a Who, Despicable Me and Over The Hedge.
While this is the first time that Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is being done in live-action, it was previously developed as an animated musical on HBO back in 1990 and has been twice adapted as a short film.
