No book or author/personality has been as sleazy in recent memory as Neil Strauss. His breakout bestseller “The Game” is part memoir and part expose, chronicling Strauss’ own adventures in the guys club world of pick-up artists and his experiences and successes with the techniques he learned from these guys that more or less involves reducing women to a bunch of base stereotypes. Basically, it’s kind of total douchebag stuff that at the same time is repulsively fascinating. So while we’re a little bummed that “Solitary Man” team Brian Koppelman and David Levien have made this their next film, we’re hopeful they’ll be able to find some depth to the material.
While the project has been in development for a while now bouncing between a few different studios and producers with an array of talent showing interest at various points (Chris Weitz and Rawson Marshall Thurber both briefly sat in the director’s chair), the last we heard about the movie was back in October when “The Office” writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky were said to be penning a script that would essential be a “dating comedy.” That approach always seemed a little odd to us but THR reports that Koppelman and Levien will respectively rewrite and direct the upcoming film.
This spring the duo they revealed they were working on a script for “National Treasure 3” (aka “The Search For Weston’s Sanity”) and well as still trying to get an adaptation of Levien’s novel “City Of The Sun” off the ground. Both of those are likely still in moving along, but this will take precedent as casting is said to be starting soon.
It will be interesting to see how this all comes together. For “Solitary Man” the duo couldn’t have asked for a better cast — Michael Douglas, Jesse Eisenberg, Imogen Poots, Olivia Thirlby, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Jenna Fischer — so it will be interesting to see who they round up this time. We’re cautiously curious, but we mostly just hope these hope this doesn’t end up resembling anything like VH1‘s “The Pick-Up Artist,” a reality show that took Mystery — the love guru from the book — and allowed him to be on TV to impart his “wisdom.”
