Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show! Everyone panic! It’s the end of comedy as we know it! STEWAAAAAARRR… What? Oh. We’re being told he’s actually just taking a 12-week break this summer. But he won’t be sunning himself on a beach or being so selfish as to spend time with his wife and children, he’s just making his directorial debut with Rosewater.So that’s all right, then.
The film has been on Stewart’s mind for a while now, ever since he snapped up the rights to BBC journalist Maziar Bahari’s book Then They Came For Me: A Family’s Story Of Love, Captivity And Survival. But since that wouldn’t fit comfortably on a marquee, the film is simply Rosewater.
Stewart has also written the script, which will follow the harrowing true story of Bahari’s assignment to cover the Iranian presidential elections in 2009. Thinking he might only be away from his pregnant fiancée for a week, he was instead accused of spying, imprisoned and interrogated for 118 days by a man he knew only by one thing – that he smelled of rosewater.
Bahari wrote the book with Aimee Molloy and now Scott Rudin will produce the film. It’s Stewart’s first time behind the camera for a film, though he has cropped up in front of it for movies such as **Death To Smoochy **and Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back. His “acting” “career” is a constant source of self-deprecating comedy (as was his Oscar hosting stint), though we feel this film will be taken a little more seriously.
Daily Show fans shouldn’t be alarmed, though: regular correspondent John Oliver will be keeping Stewart’s seat warm behind the desk for the eight weeks of shows affected by the regular host’s absence.