Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant are funny guys (just look at Reno 911!), but when it comes to feature films I’ve always been left disappointed. With studio comedies such as Taxi, Let’s Go to Prison, Balls of Fury and Night at the Museum films, they’ve never lived up to their long-running parody show. Deadline now reports that 20th Century Fox has hired to the duo write the feature remake of the popular ’70s/’80s British kids comedy show Rentaghost.
With the announcement, we also get the news that their Museum star Ben Stiller will come on as lead, stepping in for the previously attached Russell Brand. The “Beetlejuice-style afterlife comedy” follows Fred Mumford, a ghost who is determined to be more useful dead than alive, so the formerly living loser sets up a temp agency staffed with ghosts and ghouls. From there, “Mumford and cohorts rent out ghouls and ghosts to the living, until things go awry.” Stiller will play an “American turnaround consultant who is sent to the UK to reinvigorate this failing company.”
Stiller was fantastic in Greenberg last year and will team up with Noah Baumbach again with While We’re Young. He also has bigger studio comedies like Tower Heist and Neighborhood Watch, and recently got some huge points in my book for having his Red Hour production company come on to help Richard Ayoade’s insanely overlooked coming-of-age comedy Submarine, which is now out on Blu-ray. The concept of Rentaghost could be fun and maybe they’ll work extra hard to compete head to head with the eventual Ghostbusters 3.
What do you think about this Museum reunion? Is Stiller a good choice to take over for Brand?