Out doing the press rounds for his new film The Last Kiss, Zach Braff has been talking to Coming Soon about whether he’ll take on the mantle of Fletch in Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence’ revival of the comedy film series.
As previously reported, he’s currently the hot favourite to play Irwin “Fletch” Fletcher, the investigative reporter first made famous by Chevy Chase in Fletch Won, which would serve as a prequel to Fletch’s stories.
"Bill Lawrence is definitely writing and directing Fletch, and there's a good chance I'll do it. I've just got to talk to Uncle Harvey (Weinstein)… I was the one who told Harvey he should hire Bill. Bill's a huge Fletch fan. The books aren't as wacky and silly as the Chevy Chase movies were, so there was talk for a while of going back to the books and not having that level of comedy in them, and Bill and I both disagreed.”
Ooh, do we sense disagreement with the way Kevin Smith – attached to the new Fletch project for years – was going to tackle the story? “That's what made the movie so great. It's one of the most quoted movies ever, especially by guys. Why would you not tap back into what's funny about that? Definitely go back to the books 'cause the books are brilliant, but we want to still make it a comedy. Bill uses the great analogy of Beverly Hills Cop. He's like, 'If you look at Beverly Hills Cop, some people think it's one of the funniest comedies ever, but it's an action movie with great adventure and real stakes,' and he wants to do that with Fletch. The books have real stakes and real action in them, but they also have some of the funniest, witty dialogue ever written."
And speaking of Lawrence, the show that brought he and Braff together is about to enter its fifth (and possibly final –sniff!) year. Looks like the Scrubs team is going all out.
"We just finished the first episode and there's lots of prosthetic make-up in the first episode. Last year, we sort of got really silly and random, and we call it the 'stoner humour'. We did a little more of that, and the fans loved it. We had our best ratings ever. The feeling is this will probably be the last year, so we're all just sort of going for it," Braff says, adding that the show will also feature a musical episode. "Everyone sings. I think there's a patient with dementia and anytime that anyone's in the ICU, we see the ICU through this patient's eyes, and everyone's singing as though they're in a musical… They're getting guys who write musicals (Empire note: it’s the Avenue Q team) to come in and write the music, and then the writers will write the lyrics. Part of it will be spoofing the musical, in and of itself, so I'm sure there will be a whole lot of down on one knee, out of breath, with your arms in the air."
Well, it worked for Buffy, so we can only imagine how much fun it will be with the Scrubs team behind it. Head on over to **Coming Soon. net **at the link above for much more from Braff.