Anna Daniels
2020 will go down as an awful year in global history, but if we put the pandemic aside, comedian/actor/writer Ben Schwartz is actually having a pretty solid year career-wise – and it just got even better. Schwartz will write the screenplay for a mysterious new comedy for Disney’s Searchlight Pictures, which he’ll also executive produce and star in alongside Oscar winner Sam Rockwell.
Ben Schwartz and Sam Rockwell previously starred in the 2018 indie movie Blue Iguana, but this seems like it will be a higher-profile project under the Searchlight name. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news about the untitled comedy, saying that Disney picked up Schwartz’s pitch and has hired him to write the script for the feature. Details are scarce – we know nothing about it other than that it’s a comedy – but the pairing of that duo is irresistible, so I’m completely in on whatever this turns out to be, sight unseen.
Rockwell won an Oscar for his work in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and recently appeared in last year’s Oscar contender Jojo Rabbit. He also starred in Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell, and lent his voice to a character in Trolls World Tour, an animated comedy which, against all odds, could end up going down as one of the most important movies in Hollywood history.
As for Schwartz, he’s truly killing it this year. He voiced the title character in Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog, has done voice work for animated shows like Bob’s Burgers and DuckTales, reprised his role as Jean-Ralphio in last night’s wonderful Parks and Recreation reunion special, is about to appear in the ensemble cast of The Office creator Greg Daniels’ new Netflix comedy series Space Force alongside Steve Carell and John Malkovich, and he’s hot off the Netflix release of Middleditch & Schwartz, his improv comedy special with Thomas Middleditch that’s one of the funniest things Netflix has ever released. The multi-hyphenate is an Emmy-winning writer who has previously sold screenplays to studios, but so far, none of them have been produced. Here’s hoping that changes and this project becomes his first produced feature film writing credit.
I’ll leave you with this fun bit of nonsense from 2016 featuring the two actors that I think about all the time. It’s them riffing on the second song in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, entitled “Aaron Burr, Sir.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4COGmZgLrY?feature=oembed&w=740&h=416]
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