Joel McHale joins Spy Kids 4 as Jessica Alba’s baby daddy

Joel McHale has done a remarkable job segueing from his career as the host of E!’s “The Soup” to a leading comic actor. His work on “Community” has helped propel that series, heading into its sophomore year, to one of the funniest on all of TV. He’s got two big movies on the way – the Jack Black/Owen Wilson comedy THE BIG YEAR and the Anna Faris romantic comedy WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER – and now he’s got his biggest yet. McHale will star alongside Jessica Alba in Robert Rodriguez’s SPY KIDS 4.

SPY KIDS 4, which will likely lose the “4” as the film is a reboot of the popular franchise, will star Alba and McHale as a married couple whose kids will presumably begin spying at one point or another. McHale’s described as playing a “spy-hunting reporter” which makes me believe that Alba herself is a spy (or not?…).

Dimension has set SPY KIDS for release on August 19th, 2011 and the ambitious schedule has forced Rodriguez to put DEADPOOL with Ryan Reynolds on the backburner for the time being. (This does not seem to have slowed down Reynolds who has about 4,000 other films on his to-do list.)

What I’m most curious about is how McHale will fit SPY KIDS into his already busy schedule shooting “Community” and “The Soup.” Rodriguez tends to film in Austin, where his studios are located, which would preclude McHale from doing both at the same time. They do have a winter break from shooting and perhaps that’s all the time McHale and Rodriguez need to make the schedule work.