‘Julia and Julia’ Actor Chris Messina Will Also Star In “Offbeat Romantic Comedy”
“The Office” actress Jenna Fischer, Topher Grace (“Predators“), Malin Akerman (“The Heartbreak Kid“) and Chris Messina will all star in what is being touted as an offbeat romantic comedy, “The Giant Mechanical Man.”
Written and directed by Lee Kirk (writer of “Pants On Fire“) the film centers on two outsiders — a misunderstood street performer (Messina) and the soft spoken zoo worker who falls for him (Fischer). Akerman will play Fischer’s well-meaning sister who pushes her towards dating a pompous motivational speaker, played by Topher Grace.
The film is being produced by Fischer with Molly Hassell (“Vamps,” “Edmond”), Michael Nardelli and Brent Stiefel (“Grassroots”). Production begins in Detroit later this month. It’s nice to see Messina get some leading work though one such project, “Monogamy,” alongside Rashida Jones which we saw earlier this year was dreadful (didn’t entirely seem to be the cast’s fault, the entire film was well-intentioned, but ill-conceived).
Truthfully, this sounds like some generic indie rom-com stuff, but here’s to hoping there’s an inventive and creative spark at play. No release date for this one, but maybe it’ll appear late in 2011.
