No, Ben Stiller and Dev Patel are not providing the voices for a planned Disney update of Chip 'N' Dale Rescue Rangers. They are, in fact, making deals to play the leads in Chippendales, about how the beefy G-string-clad dancers got started.
Stiller has actually been attached to this one for a couple of years now, with the project bubbling away for more than 20. And you can see why people might stick with it: the real-life story of how the male revue started is even more twisted and odd than you could think, focusing on Steve Banerjee (Patel, if he signs on), the man who originated the idea for the stripping sensations.
Starting out running gas stations and mudwrestling clubs, Banerjee hit pay dirt when he came up with the idea of presenting male strippers in a choreographed, brand-named touring fantasy show. But behind the success was a catalogue of lawsuits and mad paranoia, culminating in Banerjee paying a hit man to have original 'dales choreographer Nick DeNoia (Stiller) murdered. Denied bail following evidence that he'd made arrangements to flee to India in a private plane, Banerjee hung himself in his cell, hours before his sentencing.
Isaac Adamson is writing the latest version of the script, with Bold Films, Permut Presentations and Stiller's own Red Hour Films all involved. "It is the Horatio Alger story gone horribly wrong," Bold’s Gary Michael Walters tells Deadline. "It is a true life Boogie Nights, a wild ride through the seamy underbelly where entertainment and criminality meet, during a period where the pendulum swung toward female sexuality."