Steve Zahn is an enigma. The dude can act and if you’ve seen Rescue Dawn, you know that. Yet, he continues to take roles that expect nothing from him. If you’ve seen Strange Wilderness, then you know that as well. The flick would’ve satisfied me if all we had seen of it was the trailer (Come on. How hilarious was the laughing shark?). Watching the entire movie really ruined the experience.
And it looks as though Steve plans to continue his foray into unchallenging work, as Variety reports that he has signed on to star as the father of the wimpy kid in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, an adaptation of the insanely popular youth fiction series. The movie follows a middle school aged social outcast through a single school year. As you can imagine, it doesn’t go entirely well.
You can’t blame the guy for the choice. These books have a ridiculous built-in audience. Having worked for a few years with the their target demographic, I can tell you that they eat up Wimpy Kid novels like cake with sweet frosting (not that nasty whipped cream kind). The problem is that if you know middle school and elementary school kids, then you know that their attention spans last about 25 minutes. Tops. So by the time they make this movie, many will likely have stopped caring. Prolonged attention like that is reserved only for Harry Potter.
