Warner Brothers isn’t about to let the disappointing box office numbers for their remake of Arthur from earlier this year cool their desire to work with the film’s star, British comedian Russell Brand. The actor is now attached to The President Stole My Girlfriend, a comedy spec script they recently purchased from Matt Portenoy. Additionally, Brand will be serving as a producer on what will be the first project from his recently established Branded Films production company.
I think that the title pretty much sums up what we’re getting in terms of story here. However, Brand did expound on it slightly for the Hollywood Reporter –
In this movie, the president steals the girlfriend of a sexy hippie—me, obviously. It was inspired by the night I naively invited [Warners president] Jeff Robinov for dinner.
It sounds like a good fit for Brand’s comedy persona, but then again I thought a remake of Arthur was a good fit for him and look at how that turned out.
A relative newcomer, Portenoy has already done some rewrite work on Howard Stern’s perpetually in-development Porky’s remake. He has also scripted a segment of the upcoming, Peter Farrelly-produced comedy anthology film Movie 43 due out next April.
