Back in June of last year, readers, we told you that Twentieth Century Fox had bought an untitled comedy script about the notion that ‘what goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas’, that hideous catch-all phrase that apparently lets people do whatever the hell they want – murder, cheating, playing Blackjack with stuffed squirrels - in the Blackpool of America, while remaining safe under some neon-lit code of silence.
Then, a while ago, we reported in News In Brief (awww, whatever happened to that?) that Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher had signed on to said comedy, which had now been retitled What Happens In Vegas…, about a pair of strangers who wake up after during one debauched night to find two things: one, they’re now married and two, one of them won a fortune while using the other’s quarter. So they embark on a series of nefarious plots to undermine each other, while – hey! – falling in love, for real!
And today saw the joyous news that the Tom Vaughan comedy (he directed last year’s sweet Brit-com Starter For 10) is moving up a gear or two, with the addition of two key supporting cast members.
First off, Rob Corddry – a former Daily Show stalwart who isn’t as funny as either Steve Carell or Stephen Colbert (but he’s still pretty good) – has signed on to play Kutcher’s best friend, a character called Hater who apparently is an attorney who richly deserves his nickname. We can sense the potential for hate-fuelled comedic rants from here, hopefully including some riff on how a guy who looks like Kutcher would never hang out with a guy who looks like Corddry, but we digress…
Of course, if one lead has a best friend character, then so shall the other – and sure enough, Boston Legal’s Lake Bell has also come on board to play the best friend of Diaz’ character.
Will these new additions work? Only time will tell, but we still expect What Happens In Vegas… to largely be the Diaz and Kutcher show. And, even though you may have detected a slight vein of cynicism in this report, readers, we’ll keep our fingers crossed that this Vegas comedy pays off in a big way. (And yes, we were struggling for a last line.)