Empire has always had a soft spot for James Marsden – he’s a good actor, a very nice guy, and didn’t deserve the ghastly and unfair fate meted out to Cyclops in the last X-Men movie.
Since his days squinting through a ruby quartz visor came to an end, though, Marsden has been busy reminding everyone that he’s a versatile and very funny actor, with eye-catching turns in Hairspray and as a brave but dim-witted prince in the forthcoming Enchanted (both of which see him singing, too).
And now he’s signed on for another comedy: Sex Drive.
As you probably guessed from the title, it’s a raucous teen comedy – one of the many following in the footsteps of Superbad, a hit which made the genre viable again – about a hapless teenager who travels across America, from Chicago to Knoxville, to meet a girl who sent him the following message on the internet: “U Drive All The Way Here For Me… I’ll Go All The Way For U.”
Now, Empire would also drive from Chicago to Knoxville to meet this lady – but we’d be going to rebuke her on her poor grammar and horrendous text-speak spelling. Anyway, the young teenager will not be played by Marsden, who’s now in his 30s. Instead, the ex-Cyke will play the kid’s brother.
Josh Zuckerman (rather brilliant, if you recall, as Young Dr. Evil in Austin Powers In Goldmember) will play the teenager, while Amanda Crew has signed on to play one of his friends, who join him on his cross-country crusade. And we’re guessing that, along the way, the Zuckerman and Crew characters will fall in love and he’ll realise that he doesn’t need to have sex with the cybergirl after all.
So, it’s The Sure Thing, basically, but with an internetty tweak. Nothing wrong with that, of course, as long as director Sean Anders (who co-wrote with John Morris) gets the tone – and, crucially, the gags – right. Remember – as Superbad showed us, teen comedies don’t need to be gross-out, as long as they mine that rich seam of humiliation and emotional pain that is our gawky teenage years.
Sex Drive will start shooting later in the year. Go Cyclops!