Nu-Paramount to roll the dice on theatrical comedies with an old Trevor Noah idea

Noah’s concept: The Island, “an R-rated comedy feature” about a type-A businesswoman and a “highly committed” male high school teacher who wind up stuck together after crashing on a deserted island together. Noah was apparently inspired by his time during the lockdowns to develop the pitch, about polar opposites forced to rely on each other to survive, which, if we had been stuck in lockdown with him, might actually feel kind of pointed! (Also, kind of basic? It feels like a very obvious premise.) Still, Paramount apparently likes it, enough to tap Andrew Jay Cohen, the narrative mind behind the Neighbors franchise and that one movie where Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler ran a secret suburb casino, to actually write Noah’s idea up into a screenplay. (Noah himself isn’t really a screenwriter; the vast majority of his writing credits are either for “story by” contributions like this one, or joke writing for jobs like his frequent gigs hosting the Grammys.)

The biggest takeaway here, honestly, might just be that Nu-Paramount is willing to roll the dice on a theatrical comedy, an increasing rarity in the modern movie-making landscape. (Even the studio’s recent The Naked Gun, which had a hefty marketing campaign, strong critical reviews, and pretty good word-of-mouth, barely made an impact at the box office, so it’s not hard to understand why studios might be feeling leery of pursuing more joke-based films.) No word on whether Noah will be involved any further in the project, or if he’s just tossed his comedy chick off a cliff, and will happily wait to see if other people can get it to properly fly.