John Oliver has, over time, become one of the most enjoyable things about The Daily Show. Whether ranting about how Americans see us Brits or his pairings with fellow correspondent Wyatt Cenac, he’s been comedy gold. On film, however, he’s only really been seen in The Love Guru, about which the least said the better. But now it looks like he’ll get a chance at something truly funny, as former Python Terry Jones has signed him up to star in his next film, **Absolutely Anything.
Deadline reports that while the film is mostly being kept quiet, producers Mike Medavoy, David Thwaites and Brad Fischer did reveal that the script, written by Jones and Gavin Scott, will involve aliens, a goofy Brit (hence Oliver’s casting), a talking dog and buckets of silliness. Sounds perfect for Jones, who hasn’t stepped behind the camera for a feature film since 1996’s version of The Wind in the Willows. He’s been busy since then, though, working on shorts and producing/presenting historical documentaries on TV. If all goes well, he'll gear up to kick off shooting next year.
And as a bonus, it sounds like Terry is looking at Robin Williams to voice the dog and has already been talking to former Python colleagues Michael Palin, Eric Idle, John Cleese and Terry Gilliam about playing the aliens. Maybe they could hire Gilliam to create the creatures through animation and figure out a way to pay him exactly enough to get **The Man who Killed Don Quixote **back on track…
If you’re not convinced by Oliver’s Daily Show work, we urge you to check him out on US sitcom Community, where he’s been more than proving himself. And in the upcoming second series, he gets to appear more often…