‘Change-Up’ Director Is Ready to Make a King Arthur Movie

Is David Dobkin about to become an A-list director? He was the man responsible for "Wedding Crashers," a huge hit and our favorite of the recent crop of R-rated comedies, but that was six years ago. Since then, he has but one movie to his name -- the underwhelming "Fred Claus" -- but he will be releasing another R-rated comedy, "The Change-Up," next weekend. He doesn't seem like the sort of guy who would decide to do a big tentpole movie about King Arthur, except maybe as a comedy, but he is -- and Warner Bros. is putting it on the fast track.

Last month, Deadline reported that the studio had plopped down $2 million for "Arthur & Lancelot," a spec Dobkin wrote that he'll also direct. They beat out Universal and Fox for the project, which was only described as a "contemporary re-imagining of the classic tale." Today, Deadline followed up their earlier story to say that the film will come out March 15, 2013. Clearly, Warner Bros. is very excited about this "contemporary re-imagining of the classic tale."

Because Dobkin hasn't written any of his earlier films, it's perhaps surprising that he sat down to write this script. But in a recent interview with Collider, he made it sound like Camelot has been an obsession of his for a while:

"I had this idea for almost a decade about how to reinvent it and I sat down and wrote that script over the last few years. ... I grew up with comic books and Dungeons and Dragons and all this fantasy stuff and digital effects have finally had their moment when you can create those worlds for real. The opportunity's never been this cool, and so it's really exciting as an audience member and as a filmmaker to jump in that arena and get to play in there."

As for what it's about, Dobkin wouldn't say much beyond that he "reinvented the characters as grounded characters" and that "the whole thing is wrapped around the birth of democracy as a concept." (Oh, that old saw.) So the chance of sex jokes is probably pretty unlikely, although in a way his new movie will be just another variation on the bromances he's done in the past. But when Warner Bros. does get around to marketing "Arthur & Lancelot," they'll have to lean heavily on the concept and the eventual casting. This is not one of those movies where a "From the director of ....." blurb on the poster is gonna mean much.

Warner Bros Hot For 'Arthur & Lancelot' [Deadline]