“‘The Bourne Identity‘ but with a leprechaun.” So goes the logline for “The Wee McGinty,” a script from Mark Gibson and Phil Halprin. Summit Entertainment saw enough in the script to make the purchase, but apparently they’ve decided it just doesn’t suck enough to get made, and so Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant have come aboard for a re-write, with Garant slated as director and Lennon up for a supporting role.
The concept involves a leprechaun losing his memory and picking up employment at a Chicago firehouse, where his presence is detected by a paramilitary group of leprechauns who want him back for reasons unknown. Points for originality, we suppose.
Lennon and Garant have built a solid rep around town, writing the screenplays for “A Night At The Museum,” The Pacifier” and “Balls of Fury” amid countless rewrites and ghostwriting gigs, cementing their rep as a team that can come in and punch up your script with terrible jokes no one will like. The duo are largely responsible for the actually-quite-funny “Reno 911!,” but that show succeeds because of the improvisatory atmosphere, and not any discernible structure. So, Hollywood, you’ve taken skilled improvisers who can’t write and turned them into highly employable screenwriters. We need our roof done, do you know any professional clowns?
