Since her hilarious, Guy Fieri-inspired turn in Bridesmaids, Melissa McCarthy has been flooded with praise (including an Emmy nomination for Mike & Molly) and offers for new work (including a part in Judd Apatow’s next and a role written for her by Bridesmaids helmer Paul Feig), along with selling a pitch to Paramount with Bridesmaids scribe Annie Mumolo. If that wasn’t impressive enough, McCarthy’s work in the summer smash was apparently enough to get Jason Bateman to flip the script on his next film, ID Theft.
Bateman will star in and produce the film, which gave him the clout to ask that the script (from Steve Conrad with a rewrite by Craig Mazin) be tweaked to focus on a male lead and a female lead, not the dueling males it first called for. Bateman will star as a guy who gets his identity stolen by McCarthy’s character. Bateman reportedly asked not only that the sex-changing rewrite happen, but that it happen specifically for McCarthy to take the role. We can only guess that Bateman will play a hapless everyman who gets his identity jacked by McCarthy’s thief, which sounds like a battle of the wide-eyed goofball titans, and the only way that identity theft could ever be even somewhat amusing.
The film is set to start filming in April of next year when McCarthy’s Mike & Molly is on hiatus. [Deadline Scottsdale]
