It’s been sort of lost in all the hoopla surrounding Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Michael Cera, but one of the nicest stories to come out of the hit comedy Superbad is the return of its director, Greg Mottola, who took the job after a ten-year layoff from film. Now that Superbad is a success, it’s opening more doors for its principals — including Mottola, whose next project has just been announced.
According to Variety, that project is Adventureland, an autobiographical comedy Mottola wrote about the summer after he graduated college. From the article:
Story, set in the summer of 1987, concerns an uptight recent college grad who’s forced to take a minimum-wage job at the local amusement park after realizing he can’t afford his dream European tour. The experience helps him to loosen up a bit as he finds first love, forms new friendships and matures just in time to enter the real world in the fall.
It sounds like a movie we’ve all seen before — more than once, even — but hey, Superbad‘s outline wouldn’t win any points for originality either, and in any case, Apatow is like the Bill Walsh of film comedy right now; seemingly everyone he hires winds up going on to greater success. According to the Variety article, as well as an MTV Movies report, Jesse Eisenberg — star of The Hunting Party and The Squid and the Whale — has signed on as the lead. Eisenberg tells MTV Movies:
“I play a lot of directors’ awkward stages in their lives,” he observed with a smile. “It’s based on Greg Mottola and it’s about him getting a job at this theme park. It’s his life after college,” Eisenberg explained and added that the comedy won’t be nearly as broad as “Superbad.” “It’s probably closer [in tone] to ‘The Daytrippers,'” Eisenberg said, recalling an earlier Mottola effort.
The project is scheduled to begin filming in Pittsburgh in six weeks. Just in case you’re interested in a detailed rundown of the characters in the script — and, yes, some spoilerish plot details — click on through to the Moviehole link below.
Source: Variety
Source: MTV Movies
Source: Moviehole
