Tom Lennon and Ben Garant writing movie about a leprechaun with amnesia

By Sean O'Neal | January 6, 2011 | 6:07pm

Aux Features Film

There are few projects capable of producing mixed emotions like those from Tom Lennon and Ben Garant, two guys who gave us funny-to-intermittently-funny things like The State and Reno 911! while also being responsible for dreck like The Pacifier, Balls Of Fury, and Herbie: Fully Loaded, as well as loud, mostly bland blockbusters such as Night At The Museum and its sequel. But their shared bipolar career seems to have taken a potentially encouraging turn for the all-out manic of late, what with their in-development FX pilot Alabama—essentially Reno 911! aboard a spaceship—and now the feature script The Wee McGinty, described by one source as “think Bourne Identity, but plug in a leprechaun instead of Matt Damon.” (Tony Gilroy is probably mad he didn’t think of that first.)

Lennon and Garant have just taken over rewrites for The Wee McGinty with an eye on Garant directing and Lennon co-starring; it’s the timeless story of an amnesiac leprechaun who falls in with a group of Chicago firefighters, only to have the peace of his new life disrupted by his “paramilitary leprechaun brethren.” Also, at one point, the story reportedly climaxes with “a wish-off that involves a fire-breathing Doberman.”

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Whether it will be another middling, high-concept disappointment (and possibly the next generation’s Little Nicky) or the first Lennon/Garant original feature worth recommending to fans of their sketch comedy probably depends on how over-the-top they play it—which is obviously going to be difficult to resist, but here’s hoping Garant learned some lessons from Balls Of Fury. And you know, it probably wouldn’t hurt to bring in Nick Swardson as a leprechaun who grants wishes for handjobs.