Paul Dano might write and direct a comedy for his old Swiss Army Man pals Daniels

Dano is reportedly writing, and in talks to direct, a new comedy produced by the Everything Everywhere All At Once duo.

Paul Dano might write and direct a comedy for his old Swiss Army Man pals Daniels

Back before they were “those guys who won all the Oscars out of nowhere with Everything Everywhere All At Once,” Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert—a.k.a. Daniels—were just “those guys who had won no Oscars, but did make a movie where Paul Dano rides Daniel Radcliffe’s farting corpse like a speedboat.” Now, the Swiss Army Man duo is reportedly set to team back up with their old flatulent corpse helmsman, with Deadline reporting that Dano is writing, and is in talks to direct, a new comedy that the two will likely produce.

Provided it goes forward, the untitled film would be Dano’s second, having previously written and directed the 2018 Jake Gyllenhaal/Carey Mulligan coming-of-age drama Wildlife. (We gave it a C+, praising Dano’s technical competence, but finding the ultimate effort “bland.”) No details about the new film are currently available, but it’s apparently being set up at Universal, where Daniels have an overall deal.

Any movement on which is, honestly, the most interesting thing about this news: The duo has been very quiet since sweeping the Oscars back in 2023; they directed a single episode of Disney+ Star Wars series Skeleton Crew last year, but other than that, it’s been almost total radio silence. (Not to be confused with, uh, Radio Silence; these various directing collaboratives can get a little confusing to keep track of.) They’re supposedly cooking up something big for Universal to build off the success of EEAAO, but they haven’t even really thrown around their weight as producers as of yet, with the Dano project one of the first things their Playgrounds production banner (co-founded with partner Jonathan Wang) has been rumored to be signing on for.

As for Dano, he’s also mostly been hanging out in TV of late, and generally in the cameo mines: He popped up in The Studio and Julio Torres’ Fantasmas recently, and had a surprising mini-arc in last year’s Mr. And Mrs. Smith. He most recently appeared in theaters in 2023 “stonks” film Dumb Money.

 
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