The term “Warner Brothers’ bitch” doesn’t immediately spring to mind when talking about Richard Linklater. The man behind Dazed & Confused, A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life has gone mainstream in the past with School of Rock and the remake of Bad News Bears, but now The Playlist reports that Linklater is in talks to helm the remake of a long-in-development remake of the 1964 Don Knotts comedy The Incredible Mr. Limpet.
The original film had Knotts playing a man who is magically transformed into a fish and gets to fight Nazis during World War II. Different directors were attached – Enchanted‘s Kevin Lima, Tom Shadyac (who had pitched a “tree-hugging” take on the material which the studio likely passed on), but Linklater? The Austin, Texas indie legend can get in and out of a movie without leaving his fingerprints on it (evidenced by the relatively tame Bad News Bears and the entertaining, unsurprising School of Rock), but this feels like a paycheck move.
Hopefully he’s looking to stretch out in a studio project to secure funding for the long-shelved Dazed sequel or some other sidelined project. The project – likely a mix of live-action and animation like the original, could prove entertaining if Zach Galifianakis is involved, as previously reported. Time will tell. I’d rather see Linklater – the director of the most faithful Philip K. Dick adaptation in existence – do almost anything else.
Would you like to see Linklater take on another family-friendly project?