Although Peter Segal is, by no stretch of the imagination, a great comedic director in the vein of a Billy Wilder or a Harold Ramis, he’s made a habit over the years of delivering high-grossing, crowd-pleasing comedies that have more than their fair share of laughs, from his debut on The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, to the underrated My Fellow Americans, to three Adam Sandler movies and this year’s Get Smart.
And so we’re pleased to say that the 45 year-old has just lined up three more movies at Warner Bros, with whom he and producing partner Michael Ewing have just signed a three-year first-look deal.
The deal doesn’t include Get Smart 2, which Segal will direct at some point next year, depending on the availability of star, Steve Carell. Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember are currently beavering away on the script, which in Empire’s opinion should be a comedic version of a Michael Caine crime classic. Get Smarter, anyone?
Instead, the deal will begin with the wonderfully-titled Liam McBain: International Tennis Star And Proper English Geezer, a comedy written by Chip Hall that will follow the fall and rise of a fictional British tennis star in the 1980s.
Segal is clearly undeterred by the horrible failure of Wimbledon – but then again, judging from the title, we suspect that the two movies won’t have much in common.
And then Segal will also direct Captain Marvel, the adaptation of the DC comic about a young boy who, when he utters a secret word (spoiler – it’s “Shazam!”), transforms into a mighty hero. Segal and Ewing have been working on the project for over two years, since it first started at New Line, and will continue to do so now that it’s moved to WB.