Crushed, defeated, happiness gone, my soul a mushed bag left out in the rain, that cake that will never have the recipe again. All of this can be used to describe how I feel about the news of Netflix scrapping the meeting of the Roberts in Average Height, Average Build.
Adam McKay, the one aspect of this film that I could have gone without, left the project that would have united them. Instead of letting me live my best life and letting someone else take this idea and running with it, Netflix scrapped Average Height, Average Build. The movie in question was Robert Pattinson and Robert Downey Jr. in a serial killer political comedy. How that works? We will now never know. Sad, really. Amy Adams was also involved in the project, but sources, according to Variety, say that Netflix won’t make it without McKay.
Average Height, Average Build was bringing us Pattinson was a serial killer. In it, Pattinson hires a lobbyist who is working to change laws so he can kill with impunity. Downey would play a cop obsessed with bringing Pattinson’s character to justice, and it sounds like truly the perfect kind of messed up comedy that I would have eaten up. Why Netflix was hung up on the Adam McKay of it all? I don’t know.
McKay left to do a comedy about climate change, which is great for him, but that doesn’t mean that the movie itself, with a cast like this, should go by the wayside—especially with such an interesting premise. Comedies have been so typical and bland recently. This is something new and fresh. Why let it get chopped up like Pattinson’s victims because McKay left the project? Wouldn’t it be better to keep three actors we know and love involved with a new creative behind it?
Sometimes you have to watch dreams die.
Call it my obsession with Halloween and all things twisted, but a comedy like this sounds fun. The political aspect of it was the least exciting part, especially because McKay’s comedies can get preachy. That being said, this is an idea that I think is still worth tackling. After Downey’s Actors on Actors with Mark Ruffalo, he praised Robert Pattinson and his work in Tenet and it made me long for them working together.
Both Pattinson and Downey have a unique comedic timing that makes them often used in interesting but, at times, misused ways in their work. Letting them shine in a dark comedy would have been great and clearly Downey was excited for them to be opposite each other.
This would have been a perfect outlet for that. Throwing it away because of Adam McKay is foolish. I get that McKay is often a brilliant writer and director but unless it was McKay’s choice to completely throw away the project, scrapping it completely is a waste. For me, personally, as someone who just wants to see the Roberts go head to head in something. Goodbye my hopes for a twisted comedy with the Roberts. You will be missed.
(featured image: Warner Bros./Universal)
Published: Dec 5, 2023 05:47 pm