Like a poor, unwanted stray making big watery eyes as potential adopters walk past its cage, Disney’s alien comedy The Pet has been looking for someone to take care of it for a while now. But there could just be a happy ending in sight, as Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess has been hired to take it on.
The Pet, originally written by **Short Circuit **reboot scribe Matt Lieberman, has been sitting at Disney since 2007. Producer Scott Rudin had been in charge of feeding it and taking it out on walks, but he left it behind when he departed Disney in the wake of the company selling Miramax. In 2008, Simpsons Movie director David Silverman was interested and actually ended up attached, but it didn’t work out.
Now Rudin is involved once more, and since the film is a family comedy – it focuses on a man abducted by aliens and turned into a family pet on their planet – Disney’s happy to keep backing it.
Lieberman’s script was rewritten by This Means War’s Timothy Dowling, but now it looks like Hess (who tends to write or co-write the movies he makes) will take over all aspects.
Since **Napoleon **(which he's since turned into a TV 'toon) Hess has had mixed fortunes, with Jack Black comedy Nacho Libre doing decent business but oddball sci-fi novel comedy Gentleman Broncos flopping. Still, given the inventiveness on show in Broncos, we’re intrigued to see what he does with the Disney film.