From what I understand, Adam McKay‘s “Average Height, Average Build” will have Robert Pattinson and Robert Downey, Jr as the leads.
Pattinson is a Serial Killer who gets into politics to bring about legislative change to protect murderers. Downey Jr will play the cop who follows him.
The budget was said to be very high for the political satire, which had some studios balking at the idea of getting behind it. Netflix finally bought it last month. They also distributed McKay’s “Don’t Look Up.”
Just like in “Don’t Look Up,” the cast will be stacked for “Average Height, Average Build”: Pattinson, Downey Jr, Amy Adams, Forrest Whitaker, Danielle Deadwyler … The film is set to start production in Boston this summer.
Despite his last three films having been showered with Oscar love (“The Big Short,” “Vice” and “Don’t Look Up”) this latest McKay still constitutes a risk for any studio to embark on. It doesn’t sound audience-friendly, which is why we’re intrigued by it.
“Don’t Look Up”, which had Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence trying to stop an asteroid, was, at the time, Netflix’s second most-watched movie of all time, with 360 million hours viewed.
McKay was one of the originators of the frat comedy movement in the early aughts with “Anchorman,” “Talladega Nights,” “Step Brothers,” and “The Other Guys,” before deciding to go to a more serious route with his last three features.
No official figure has been reported, but best guess is the budget landed somewhere in the $10M range. HBO pre-bought the streaming rights, but that was before David Ellison took over