As part of the intense, bloody rivalry that rages on between the literary world’s Jonathans, Jonathan Franzen’s rapidly forming HBO adaptation of The Corrections has been answered by a new project from Jonathan Safran Foer, who is developing a comedy pilot with Ben Stiller—a traitorous allegiance forged to stab directly at the heart of Franzen’s co-conspirator Noah Baumbach. Stiller will star, direct, and executive produce the show currently titled All Talk, which will boast an original script from the Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close author because Foer is currently out of books to be adapted, and no one wants to see a show where Ben Stiller hectors everyone about becoming vegans. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series is a “politically, religiously, culturally, intellectually and sexually irreverent” comedy centered on a Washington, D.C.-based Jewish family, thus allowing for the obligatory mention of the Holocaust that is the hallmark of any Jonathan Safran Foer work.
Stiller’s Flirting With Disaster co-star Alan Alda is reportedly in talks to once again play his father, which would make for Alda’s first central series regular role since M*A*S*H. “Oh, so Mr. Big Shot Movie Star finally comes crawling back to television, huh? Well, well,” the imaginary Hollywood producer stereotype did not say while chomping on his imaginary cigar. Anyway, the pilot is expected to shoot sometime this fall, with Franzen and Foer then potentially meeting head-to-head in battle atop the frozen corpse of Jonathan Ames. And all the while, Jonathan Lethem watches and waits, plotting his move and reading old Fantastic Four comics, probably.