A while ago I found in the subway a movie script that appeared to have previously belonged to an agent or someone like that. It included a cover sheet with several interesting details. The project is for "Phil Acting", he is being offered the role of 'Nick,' and the offer is $1 million tops. Other attachments include Ryan Reynolds, Johnny Knoxville, and Thomas Haden Church. Production is scheduled to start in NYC no later than September 2005. There is a section for Notes, which is cut off but has a few, including "5/2/05-PSH had a great meeting with Frank Oz this past Friday, and is interested in pursuing further." Then, "5/20/05-Fargo has let Stern know that this is unlikely for PSH."

I pulled it out again tonight and figured out that it's in IMDb and is supposedly in pre-production. The title is "Horrible Bosses" and Frank Oz (who played Yoda, was the voice of Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear, and directed "Bowfinger" and the Stepford Wives remake) is listed as the director on the script, though the IMDb page indicates nothing about the people attached other than Ryan Reynolds and the writer. Perusing the message boards for the movie (a tremendous addition to the site for gossip, the stories behind a movie, or interpretations of enigmatic plots), I realized that PSH stood for Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Phil Acting referred to this being an acting project for him. The IMDb page also gives the plot outline: "Three best friends join forces and agree to kill their horrible bosses."

My first thought was, what a horrible title, and I assumed the movie would be pretty bad too. But after reading the first few pages, the script at least is actually pretty funny. There are a lot of phrases and word choices that communicate visual ideas very efficiently, which is probably par for the course in a screenplay, but I've never read one before. The dialogue is pretty humorous as well. It's probably not the kind of movie I would go see in a theater, but if they stick close to the screenplay it could be decent.