Chuck’s boss writes

I am kind of obsessed with TV’s “Chuck”. Nerd becomes super spy. There is really no way a geek like me could resist a premise like that. (I’m a bit too clumsy to be a spy… stealth doesn’t work when you knock over vases on a regular basis.) And I confess to a great love for the character Big Mike, played by Mark Christopher Lawrence.

I got a chance to chat with Lawrence about the show recently, and though we don’t cover much TV here at JoBlo, I did find out that everyone’s favorite Buy More manager (and he’d better get his yellow shirt back) is penning a flick for us. I knew you guys would want to know about it. He’s not giving out a ton of info yet, but what he did say has me intrigued.

I heard that you’re currently writing a movie?

MCL: Yeah. Yeah, we’re probably a draft away from complete. The writing process is so tricky. You know? You start off in one direction, and when you change something, it sort of ripples through the whole script. And we got to a point where we really thought we were done, and decided to get some notes from the team that we’re pitching it to. And when they read it, they gave us one note that rippled through the whole script. And literally, we had to ask ourselves a question that changed the direction of the whole script. It was almost like starting over. So now we’re at a point that we think is a final draft, and just scheduling wise. Barry Shabaka Henley is one of my writing partners, who’d been in just about everything that Michael Mann has done since Ali. Rusty Cundieff, who wrote and directed for Dave Chappelle is one of my writing partners, and Tarabu Betserai Kirkland…Scheduling wise, it’s just crazy right now. So we’re actually trying to find a time where we can all sit down together face to face. We’ve been doing it sort of over the phone. So we want to have a face to face meeting and sort of wrap it up with our managers and start getting the piece out there.

What else can you tell me about the movie?

MCL: It’s a rap spoof, and it’s hopefully very, very funny. Right now… when I first thought of this idea, I was writing it to put myself in the lead, and as time went by, I kind of thought, well, I should probably play the villain so I could get away from the very sweet Mark Christopher Lawrence kind of thing, because everyone just kind of wants to hug me. And so now, I think I’m in a situation where I’m writing a movie so that I’ll have an opportunity to play a darker character. Story wise, I can’t really talk about it, just because it’s so close to being done, that I would hate for somebody to hear it at this point and beat us out…the working title is “LAD”.

“Chuck” returns to NBC with a two hour premiere on Sunday, January 10th at 9pm EST before returning to its permanent time slot on Mondays at 8pm EST. Co-star Yvonne Strahovski is a good reason to watch: