Jason Statham may join Melissa McCarthy in Paul Feig's female spy comedy Susan Cooper, according to Deadline. Statham has met with Feig and negotiations will be underway to have him board the movie as a spy who is on the same side as McCarthy's character.
Susan Cooper would be Statham's first comedy since 2011's Gnomeo and Juliet and may finally help him break out of the action-thriller niche he has found himself in. If he wants to, that is.
Don't call the movie a parody, though. According to Feig, Susan Cooper is a "realistic comedy about a female James Bond," and the movie will have the same tone as The Heat.
"[W]hat I don't want people to think is like, oh, it's just one of these parodies where it's kind of like, you know, she's pretending to be James Bond or something," Feig told Comingsoon. "It has to be like a real character who goes on this kind of real situation, but then it's how she interacts with the world and with the people around her, that's where the comedy comes from."
Feig is directing from his own script, which is said to be inspired by the 2006 Bond movie Casino Royale. The movie is developed as a potential franchise, so if the first one is successful, more will follow.
