In contrast to her Knocked Up co-star Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl has not followed up Judd Apatow‘s hit comedy as well. The projects she stars in seem to get worse and worse, with romantic “comedies” such as The Ugly Truth and Killers, in addition to the laughably bad One For the Money this year, Heigl’s career is in desperate need of a revival. Although it has admittedly only been 5 years since the Judd Apatow romantic comedy stole our hearts, Rogen‘s film choices have been infinitely better than hers since, and it doesn’t take long for a star to get lost in the crowd in Hollywood. Perhaps with the bad taste of her recent decisions in mind, the star has opted to join two projects with significantly darker tones than her normal work.
First up is Face Blind, which is “an independent thriller about a psychologist struck with a rare affliction that makes it impossible to distinguish people by their faces. When a man who terrorized her most vulnerable patient stalks her, the psychologist can’t recognize him, and her husband thinks she’s the one who is going crazy.” Scripted by Teresa Pelegri and Dominic Harari, the project is currently looking for a director. It might not be so bad if it wasn’t essentially a remake of Faces in the Crowd, which only released last year. [Deadline]
The second feature is a lot less cringe inducing, and in fact seems like a rather intriguing black comedy thriller. Set in a world where humans and puppets co-exist, Happytime Murders centers on a case in which someone is killing off the cast of “The Happytime Gang”, and a P.I puppet must team up with a human to take down the murderer. Sounds kind of like an inverted take on Alien Nation, which could make for something pretty great.
Directed by Brian Henson (A Muppets Christmas Carol), Jim Henson Co. is producing this project, which has been having trouble getting made for a while now. Hopefully Heigl‘s star presence will help it to reach the big screen. Despite the inevitable feelings of dubiety from many film fans, I am pleased to see her starring in a film with potential. Despite her recent output, I thought her performance in Knocked Up was promising, and much like Kate Hudson in Almost Famous, I would be very disappointed if that was her only great performance. No word on the specifics of her role here yet.
Heigl can next be seen in Justin Zackham‘s The Big Wedding, released on October 19th. One for the Money is currently in theaters.
Do you think these are good decisions for Katherine Heigl? Which project catches your interest more?