Paul Reubens on Pee-wee Herman’s Next Big Adventure: A New Movie By DAVE ITZKOFF Pee-wee HermanDanny Moloshok/Associated Press Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman
Our proverbial bowties haven’t stopped spinning since Variety reported [registration required] that Paul Reubens is preparing a new Pee-wee Herman movie, to be produced by Judd Apatow, the writer-director of hit adult-escent comedies like “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up.”
The announcement has a lot of people wondering what such a collaboration will yield – “Not the least of which is me,” Mr. Reubens said on Thursday in a telephone interview.
Mr. Reubens, who is getting ready to bring his live “Pee-wee Herman Show” to Broadway in the fall, said he and Mr. Apatow first met this winter, when Mr. Apatow and his wife, the actress Leslie Mann, came to see “The Pee-wee Herman Show” during its Los Angeles run.
“He told me that he had never seen his wife laugh so hard before,” Mr. Reubens said. “So I think that convinced him to approach me to do this.”
Mr. Reubens has spoken frequently in interviews about two Pee-wee-centered film scripts he has written that would continue the adventures of his manic character seen in the movies “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and “Big Top Pee-wee” as well as the CBS children’s series “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.”
But after Mr. Apatow read these scripts, Mr. Reubens said, “He was more interested in something closer, in the same vein and the same genre, as ‘Big Adventure.’”
What Mr. Apatow wanted, Mr. Reubens said, was “a reality-based world and a linear road movie.”
So that’s the path that Mr. Reubens and a co-writer, Paul Rust, are working along, for now.
“That appears to be what we’re doing,” Mr. Reubens said, “although it’s at such an early stage right now that there still exists the possibility that this could turn into the ‘Playhouse’ movie. I don’t think we know the answer to that yet.”
It’s still anyone’s guess what this combination of comic man-children will ultimately yield. The Pee-wee character seems synonymous with a youthful innocence, while Mr. Apatow has a sensibility that can be naughty and often rude – but, Mr. Reubens said, “So can mine.”
Asked if he was formally obligated to write roles for such Apatow ensemble regulars as Seth Rogen or Jonah Hill, Mr. Reubens said, “I don’t think we have to, but it would be a great problem to have.” (Mr. Reubens added that when the film was first announced, “I almost thought I should e-mail Seth Rogen and go, ‘In light of this new development, I should get your advice.’”)
But it doesn’t sound like the project, which Mr. Reubens hopes to complete with Mr. Rust during the downtime on his Broadway run, will hurt for name-brand cameo appearances.
“We’ve had some very interesting inquiries already for gigantic superstars,” Mr. Reubens said. “It’s hilarious. I wish I could drop a couple names without getting in trouble.”
Might any of those names rhyme with, say, Shmorge Clooney or Shmonny Depp?
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