Remember The Beaver? First-time writer Kyle Killen’s spec screenplay created all sorts of buzz around Hollywood, ended up on the 2008 Black List (a list of the hottest unproduced screenplays of the year), and gained the interest of Steve Carell and director Jay Roach. /Film’s own Brendon Connelly called the screenplay “one of the few very best screenplays” he has “ever read.”
But after Steve moved on to Date Night and Roach moved on to Dinner for Schmucks, the producers moved on to Jim Carrey, who signed on the condition that they find a suitable director. Not sure what happened since, but Jodie Foster (who directed Little Man Tate and Home of the Holidays), who was one of the contenders at the time, has officially come on board the project. Carrey is gone. In his place… Mel Gibson?
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One of the few very best screenplays I have ever read was Kyle Killen’s 2008 Black List topper, The Beaver. At the time I read it, Steve Carell was attached to star and Jay Roach was in talks to direct. Roach, I might ho-hum about but Carell struck me as an absolute perfect choice. Now it seems that both Carell and Roach have moved on and the producers are courting Jim Carrey for the lead. However, The Hollywood Reporter are suggesting that Carrey signing on is conditional on the contracting of a suitable director.
Who ever takes the lead role will in fact end up getting two lead roles. Not only will they be playing Walter, troubled father and husband and CEO of a stalling toy company, they will have to give voice to The Beaver, a glove pupper that Walter finds, starts to wear without pause, and adopts as a kind of avatar through which he carries out all of his communication. Almost all of the dialogue given to the lead actor throughout the entire screenplay will have to come from the Beaver, and be delivered in what Killen describes as a “crisp English accent”.
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