Stiller’s Thunder

Ben Stiller, it seems, is ready to get back into the feature film directorial fold. TROPIC THUNDER, a high concept comedy he’s been developing since he was a 20-year old punk thinking himself to be a big-time Hollywood hotshot having landed a role in Steven Spielberg’s EMPIRE OF THE SUN and which he co-wrote with Etan Coen (not of the Coen bros. but who wrote the upcoming MADAGASCAR sequel) and Justin Theroux, has finally been given the green light. The film, in which he’s also planning to star, centers on a big budget war movie in which “everything that can go wrong does” and where the actors become the commandos they are playing, the meaning of which is unclear. They either become frustrated to the point where they become whiny, demanding divas or the trauma of the setbacks induces a weird Hollywood psychosis where they believe themselves to be actual commandos in a war. Either way, there’s good times to be had. Production is scheduled to begin in July. Stiller can currently be seen escaping skeletal dinosaurs in NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, is developing a TV project for his wife Christine Taylor to star in and can next be heard in the aforementioned MADAGASCAR sequel.