I’m not sure what to think of this news from Variety that James Franco has signed onto the David Gordon Green-helmed buddy film, Your Highness, opposite his Pineapple Express co-star Danny McBride, also by Green. (Before you ask, no it’s not about weed.)
Written by McBride and screenwriter Ben Best (and co-creator of McBride’s HBO show “Eastbound and Down”), Highness contains a classic buddy comedy plot: “[Two] spoiled and arrogant princes in a medieval fantasy setting. When an evil wizard casts a spell on their father and kidnaps the older prince’s fiance, they’re forced to go on a quest to save their family and the kingdom.”
This re-team-up this only serves to remind me of the greatest film buddy comedy duo of all time: Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. If you’ve never seen any one of the seven Road movies, you should put one on your Netflix queue right now. I’m not going to be a fanatical purist and say that there are no two American actors or comedians who can match Hope and Crosby for their sense of pure timing or improv skills, but… there really aren’t.
I mean, look what happened when they teamed up Billy Crystal and Robin Williams in the 1997 comedy Father’s Day (which was based on a 1983 French comedy called Les Compères). These two comedians who killed every time they did a host segment together at the Comic Relief telethons, but the film is only best-known for Kevin Costner’s cameo as a nipple-ring wearing leather daddy.
Anyway, I think I’m going to have to see more before I decide to give Franco and McBride any slack.
Related Post: McBride and Green Get High Again