Cinema Science

CHUD caught up with Danny McBride recently and learned about a new project that he and David Gordon Green have been working on, as well as their next project together, Your Highness.

Last week I ran into the beloved Danny McBride, star of Foot Fist Way (what, you haven't seen it yet? What's wrong with you? Get out there now!), and I took the opportunity to ask him about some of his upcoming films, including one that has not yet been announced (yeah, I'm cool like that), Mr. Machine, which Danny co-wrote with the amazing David Gordon Green (his director in the upcoming classic Pineapple Express).

"We're turning that [script] in to Universal next week," he told me. "It's our take on those old Amblin films - it follows around these science fair geeks that construct this robot that get a life of its own. It's like... I don't know, a Short Circuit zombie movie."

Danny didn't say if there was a role for him in the movie - maybe Mr. Machine himself? - but he did say that David's involvement may extend past the script stage. "[It's] something we wrote before all of this happened, and we went back and dug it out and reinvented it. David originally had no interest in directing it, but now after where we've gotten this puppy, he has more interest in it."

Meanwhile, the two have another film in development, Your Highness. Danny told me that unlike the film he's working on now, Land of the Lost, Your Highness would try to keep the budget down. "We're trying to make it not too big so we can keep it as lame as we want to make it and make it rated R and everything," he said.

So what exactly is Your Highness going to be? "We want to do our take on a movie like Krull or Dragonslayer," Danny explained. "I battle with a hula hoop. The Hoop of Doom is his weapon of choice, a big metal hula hoop."

But it's not a spoof movie by any means. "We're not making fun of the genre, we're making a movie that looks like that and feels like that, and uses those old special effects. David, I think, is great about hitting tones like that. It's what's so amazing about Pineapple Express - it feels like an 80s action movie without making fun of 80s action movies. He embraces the tone on another level. I think it would be funny for him to make his Clash of the Titans. It would probably be the dumbest movie ever made."