Back in September director Todd Phillips had Jesse Eisenberg and Shia LaBeouf in the frame to lead his true-life stoner CIA farce Arms And The Dudes. A delay to the start date sadly means both have had to drop out citing scheduling conflicts, however, and Phillips is now talking to Jonah Hill and Miles Teller about stepping into the breach.
The film is based on an article for Guy Lawson wrote for Rolling Stone in 2011. The stranger-than-fiction premise involves two Miami slackers, David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli, who penetrated the "grey world" of international arms dealing and ended up with the Pentagon as a client. But a $300m contract to supply arms to America's allies in Afghanistan soon sent them seriously out of their depth in a very dangerous world.
Hill, of course, has a proven track record both in stoner comedies and dramatic pieces like The Wolf Of Wall Street and Moneyball. Teller, meanwhile, has the new Fantastic Four on the way, but seemed to come close to disowning the YA Divergent franchise recently. He's also partied hard in the likes of Project X and 21 And Over, but is about to make his impressive dramatic breakout (or, if you prefer, return to his Rabbit Hole roots) in Whiplash.
Phillips has been rewriting the screenplay since May, and had hoped to be in production this year. Hill was actually close to being attached at the very beginning of the project, but had to drop out because of scheduling problems. So we've now come full circle. He's currently shooting The Coen brothers' Hail, Caesar! but will presumably be available for Phillips again early in the New Year.