Judd Apatow Wants to Make Amy Schumer a Movie Star
Comedian Amy Schumer became a TV star this year with the launch of her Comedy Central series Inside Amy Schumer, and now—thanks, in part, to Judd Apatow—she has the chance to become a movie star.
.Comedian Amy Schumer became a TV star this year with the launch of her Comedy Central series Inside Amy Schumer, and now—thanks, in part, to Judd Apatow—she has the chance to become a movie star.
Mike Fleming Jr. of Deadline reports that Apatow's production company is set to produce a screenplay optioned by Universal that Schumer will star in and write. Those are really all the details we have right now—Fleming makes no mention of plot—but it's exciting news that Schumer will get to bring her brand of comedy to the big screen. R-rated comedies with female leads, like this summer's The Heat, are still enough of a rarity that the media makes a lot of noise whenever one appears on the big screen.
Though Apatow's career as a director has been marked with charges of sexism—see: Knocked Up—he has recently had a good track record of championing female-driven projects, like Bridemaids and HBO's Girls. Bridemaids, the 2011 film starring Kristen Wiig, is now regarded as a turning point for women on screen, while Girls has been a much talked-about television cult sensation.
Schumer seems like a perfect match for Apatow's brand of humor. She's a fairly fearless comedian who jokes frankly about sex. In the video below, she parodies the sex tips featured in women's magazines. (It's decidedly NSFW.) Her show had the highest-rated series premiere for the network this year and was renewed for a second season. Now with an Apatow-approved film on the way, Schumer seems on her way to even bigger success.