Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, the directors of American Splendor, are set to adapt another blackly comic book, The Extra Man, and they've lined up a quality cast to do it.
The story, by Jonathan Ames, focuses on Louis, a young would-be playwright with a penchant for crossdressing, to be played by Paul Dano. He moves in with Henry Harrison, himself a failed playwright now ekeing out a living as an "extra man", an escort to rich women on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The pair develop a mentor/student relationship, but Louis remains afraid to tell the gentlemanly Henry about his merely "straight-ish" lifestyle.
John C. Reilly and Katie Holmes have also signed on to star, with the film due to start shooting in New York in February. Pulcini and Berman wrote the script with Ames, so let's hope it turns out more American Splendor and less like their last film, The Nanny Diaries.