We mentioned this yesterday in our story about Sean Penn returning to the Farrelly Brothers’ Three Stooges movie, but heck, let’s give it its own page: Owen Wilson has signed to star in Hall Pass, a comedy that the Farrellys will shoot before they start work on Stooges.
Wilson will star as a married man whose wife, in a bid to inject some life back into their dead-on-its-feet marriage, gives him a hall pass – or, essentially, a Get Out Of Jail Free card – entitling him to play the field for a week.
It’s an utterly nonsensical plot, of course – Empire would imagine that any marriage that needs to resort to such desperate measures should pretty much be pronounced dead – but let’s not be too prudish about this. After all, the Farrellys made their name on raunch and debauchery, and this sounds right up their street.
Besides, if Wilson’s character doesn’t undergo a massive change of heart and fall back in love with his missus after the first couple of days of playing the field, then we’ll eat* our DVD copy of Shallow Hal.**
Jason Sudeikis, the Saturday Night Live regular, will add another best friend/second banana role to his movie resume as Wilson’s buddy, who also receives a hall pass for the week.
Filming will start in Atlanta on February 23, from a script that was initially written by Pete Jones, but has been polished by Peter and Bobby, along with Kevin Barnett.
Intriguingly, the movie was first stationed at Fox, who placed it in turnaround, before New Line picked it up and dusted it off. Here’s hoping for a return to form from the Farrellys, setting them up nicely for The Three Stooges.
That movie, incidentally, is also a victim of the current MGM sale impasse, but we’d expect it to start shooting sometime in the next 365 days. OK, let’s hedge our bets further: 375.
Empire will not eat its DVD copy of Shallow Hal if Wilson also meets a free spirit, possibly played by Mila Kunis, and decides that the grass is greener on the other side.
** We will also accept cash for our Shallow Hal DVD. It's unopened.