Kumail Nanjiani has signed on to star in an adaptation of Simon Rich‘s short story, Any Person, Living Or Dead. Legendary Entertainment has acquired the rights to the film. Rich will adapt his own story for the screen with Jonathan Krisel set to direct.
The story was recently published as a part of Rich’s short story collection, Hits And Misses. It follows a brilliant reclusive scientist who, using a homemade time machine, gathers a roundtable of the greatest minds in history – including William Shakespeare, George Washington, and Aristotle – to solve all of humanity’s problems.
However, his plan fails to take into account factors such as language barriers, ancient racism, and medieval men’s willingness to solve many problems with murder. Instead of learning from these great men of history, Nanjiani’s protagonist has to instead hunt them down and blast them back to the past before they can ruin humanity’s future.
That sounds like a tremendous premise, and should benefit from becoming a larger cinematic story. Nanjiani is also the perfect comedic everyman for a story like this. Krisel has directed episodes of Portlandia and Baskets, while Rich already has film experience, having penned Sony’s upcoming untitled pickle comedy (yes, really) set to star Seth Rogen.
He also previously wrote for Saturday Night Live and received multiple Emmy nominations. So the talent is here to make this adaptation really click.
Nanjiani recently wrapped production on Lovebirds, in which he will star alongside Issa Rae and re-team with The Big Sick director Michael Showalter. He’ll next be seen in Men In Black: International, which hits cinemas Friday, June 14.
#Peace.Love.AnyPersonLivingOrDead
