Like some other genres, stoner comedies never seem to die, they just mutate into whatever style the current pot – sorry, pop – culture finds particularly funny. Back in the 70s, it was Cheech & Chong with** Up in Smoke** and these days it’s the likes of Pineapple Express. New Line, which brought us their own successful weed-powered comedy duo in Harold & Kumar, is hoping to keep the box office high going by digging out smuggling script We’re The Millers for another try at getting it on screen.
Back in 2006, the company announced that Steve Buscemi had agreed to star in the film, which would see a veteran pot dealer looking to score one last big job and creating a fake family (the titular Millers) to run the shipment between Mexico and the US.
**Wedding Crashers **writers Steve Faber and Bob Fisher created the original draft of the screenplay, which The Full Monty’s Peter Cattaneo was attached to direct. But after four hazy years in a cloud of development smoke, the Millers are back minus Buscemi (at least according to the LA Times) and with a new draft from Sarah Silverman Program scribes Dan Fybel and Rich Rinaldi.
And Cattaneo is also no longer involved, with New Line approaching the likes of The Death And Life Of Charlie St Cloud's Burr Steers and Sex Drive duo Sean Anders and John Morris as likely suspects to wield the megaphone.