Jonah Hill to make his directorial debut with zombie-vampire-alien movie

By Sean O'Neal | March 2, 2011 | 8:03pm

Aux Features Film

The Miseducation Of Jonah Hill continues, as the former quintessential Apatovian sidekick makes the transition to more behind-the-scenes work with what could be his directorial debut: Deadline reports that Hill is close to signing on to direct The Kitchen Sink, Oren Uziel’s script that ended up on 2010’s Black List of the best unproduced screenplays of the year and subsequently landed at Sony. The comedy is a coming-of-age story about a teenaged vampire, zombie, and human who band together to stop an alien invasion—and while that sounds like yet another garbage dump of various tired genres, the difference is that Kitchen Sink is well aware of that, its title a knowing wink at the fact that it includes conceivably every popular movie conceit in one calculated mélange.

Whether that self-awareness will help to elevate it beyond the stuff it’s mocking remains to be seen, of course, but producer Matt Tolmach insists, “It's more in the spirit of The Breakfast Club than anything.” And everyone knows that zombies can’t hold their smoke, and other Breakfast Club references. For Hill it will be his second attempt at putting a smarter spin on an uninspired concept, as he’s also co-writing and starring in that 21 Jump Street adaptation that we keep telling you about and you’re like, “No way that’s real,” and then we’re like, “For the last time, Jonah Hill is doing a 21 Jump Street movie with Channing Tatum and Ice Cube.”