Mark and Jay Duplass have been brought on to adapt Mule for Todd Phillips to direct and produce. It’s an curious pairing if not a super exciting one.
Here is a list of the movies the Duplass Brothers have written: The Puffy Chair, Baghead, Cyrus, Jeff, Who Lives at Home.
Here is a list of movies Todd Phillips has directed: Road Trip, Old School, Starsky & Hutch, School for Scoundrels, The Hangover, Due Date, The Hangover Part II
Those are two very different lists of movies. The Dup-Bros pioneered the somewhat comedic, but in a VERY minor way, genre of Mumblecore and Phillips works in the area of Naked-Face-Tattoo-Dudes-Core. They’ve both worked with Ed Helms and generally Ed Helms sounds perfect to star in Mule. Based on the acclaimed novel by Tony D’Souza, Mule is about a freelance journalist who becomes a drug mule because of the recession. So it’s like Breaking Bad but kind of funny, like Duplass funny. Seriously though, how much does that sound like Ed Helms? Let’s start that rumor now – we’re in this together.