Update: Deadline has just updated their story to include the project’s title- Ted.
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane will be making his feature film directorial debut with a $65 million comedy for Universal. Not much is known about the project except that, according to Deadline, it will be “a “Hard R” comedy about a man and his teddy bear.” MacFarlane has co-written the film’s screenplay with Family Guy writers Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild. MacFarlane is also set to serve as a producer on the film as well as co-star and provide for the to-be-created-by-CGI teddy bear.
While I was hoping that MacFarlane’s big screen debut would be the long-discussed and long-delayed Family Guy movie, this is certainly exciting news. The only concern about the project is that its meager description does invite comparisons to the upcoming comedy The Beaver, in which Mel Gibson plays a man with a beaver puppet on his hand that seems to have a mind of its own. Hopefully, the similarity will disappear as we learn more about the project.
Universal is hoping to get the film in front of cameras sometime this year, but that will be dependent on MacFarlane’s busy schedule of overseeing and providing many voices for the three animated series he has created for FOX TV.
