Kristen Wiig is on the fastest moving comediennes currently on the rise. Wiig has used her stint on “Saturday Night Live” as one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal cast as a stepping stone to big screen success. She has shined in bit parts in films like “Knocked Up” and “Whip It!” and is set to steal a few more laughs in the forthcoming “MacGruber” with SNL alum Will Forte. She also has a forthcoming Judd Apatow produced comedy in the works to be directed by Paul Feig, but that’s not all.
Wiig has used her own money to option the Monica Drake novel “Clown Girl” to adapt into a feature film. It’s an intriguing off-the-wall sounding project that follows “Nita, a clown in crisis who works street fairs as Sniffles the Clown. Nita is barely surviving in her hometown of Baloneytown, pining for a dream man who used her to finance his attendance at clown college. As a result, she struggles to live and tries to resist the potentially lucrative prostitution trade involving clown fetishists.” Um, whoa. No wonder Chuck Palahniuk wrote an introduction to Drake’s novel. Sounds like funny, but very dark stuff. Here’s the full book synopsis from Publisher’s Weekly:
As Drake’s debut opens, Nita, otherwise known as Sniffles the Clown, is tying balloon animals for a horde of greedy, sticky children at a fair. Suffering what may be a cardiac event, she’s rushed to the hospital—after trying to get help from a clown fetishist, who simply drops his phone number on top of her prone form. Welcome to wacky, stressful Baloneytown, where clown prostitution, stoned dogs and fire juggling–cum–arson are the norm. Nita struggles to make enough money clowning to keep herself in oversized shoes and squirting daisies, while also saving for Clown College tuition for her boyfriend, handsome clown Rex Galore. But Rex is mostly MIA, and Nita’s longing for him settles on local cop Jerrod. While not much happens, the pace of the narrative is methamphetamine-frantic, as Drake drills down past the face paint and into Nita’s core, often using Nita’s relations with men as the bit. Nita emerges as a fully-realized character, bearing witness to a lot of the emotionally ridiculous and just a hint of the sublime. Some plot threads never quite come together, and a few characters are underdeveloped, but there is a lot more going on here than just clowning around.
Obviously, this is very early on and the project won’t get in front of cameras for a while yet. Given the nature of the material and the fact that Wiig isn’t yet a bankable star, this will probably be shopped around to indie houses for financing. We’re fans of Wiig here at the Playlist and this sounds like a fascinating new direction for the funny gal. We hope this one gets off the ground.
–Written by Kevin Jagernauth
