Paramount Going On A Field Trip

Hardly a week goes by when there isn’t some new, high concept studio comedy being touted around, usually with the proviso that the plot is a tightly kept secret and can’t be let out of its cage for fear of destroying downtown Los Angeles. Today’s candidate is Field Trip, which Paramount is producing with Ivan Reitman’s Montecito company.

According to The Hollywood Reporter{ =nofollow}, the companies have splashed some cash to buy Jordan Cahan’s sci-fi comedy spec script. What actually happens in it is anyone’s guess, but the basic premise apparently involves a high school teacher and his students getting caught up in a time travel adventure while on a school outing.

Clearly no lessons have been learned from the recent box office difficulties of movies that combined time travel and comedy, with both Land Of The Lost and Hot Tub Time Machine struggling to find appreciative audiences. Still, Reitman knows how to blend them (Ghostbusters), even if he’s been a little iffier since then (Evolution, My Super Ex-Girlfriend).

Throwing up a red flag right from the start is the fact that Cahan wrote 2008’s Jason Biggs/Dane Cook/Kate Hudson relationship comedy **My Best Friend's Girl **which we, er, didn’t like. Can crossing the genre streams work? We'll find out soon enough...