New CANNONBALL RUN Film Racing Through Development

Warner Brothers is fast tracking a new Cannonball Run.

Deadline is reporting that the studio is in negotiations with Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant to script and Rawson Thurber to direct a relaunch of the comedy racing franchise. Alumni of the The State 90s comedy troop, Lennon and Garant have numerous credits to their names, most notably, the three Night At The Museum flicks. To his credit, Thurber directed the hilarious Dodgeball and Central Intelligence.

The original 1981 movie featured Burt Reynolds leading an all-star cast of racers trying to be the first to get from New York City to Los Angeles in the titular outlaw race. There were actually four such races in the `70s, with the film’s director, Hal Needham, participating in the last one driving an ambulance similar to the one Reynolds’ character drives in the film.

The Cannonball Run was not the first film inspired by the race. Cannonball and The Gumball Rally, both released in 1976, beat Cannonball Run to the big screen. But Run had the last laugh, inspiring two sequels – Cannonball Run II (1984) and Speed Zone (1989).

This news marks a change in creative personnel for the film. Early last year, Warners announced their Cannonball Run project with Tropic Thunder writer Etan J. Cohen to write and direct. There’s no word as to why Cohen’s take on the material has apparently been rejected.