Haley Joel Osment was once a baby-faced prodigy who boosted scenes from such heavyweights as Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, and Jeff Foxworthy, using only his cuteness and the charm of his preciously pip-squeaky voice. Then came the disappointing reception of Steven Spielberg’s misunderstood A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Then puberty. Osment retreated behind voiceover work in the quickly forgotten The Country Bears movie, and today we no longer see the kid who saw dead people.
But Osment is hoping to change all that with his first major starring role since 2003’s Secondhand Lions. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Osment has signed to star in Sex Ed, a coming-of-age comedy about a recent college graduate who enters the teaching profession hoping to educate high schoolers about algebra, but—due to budget cuts—finds himself assigned to teach students about the birds and the bees and the consequences of unprotected pollination, despite the fact that he is still a virgin himself. According to a statement from producers, Osment will discover “an unlikely mentor in a blues bar, a ruthless enemy in the local PTA, and a gorgeous Polish girl for whom English is a distant second language." Comedy will thus be milked from the timelessly funny fact that a 22-year old male hasn’t had sex yet, and Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg will suddenly have another competitor for Michael Cera-like roles. And as always, the bloated politics of high school can be counted on to humorously remind us that there is a world out there bigger than varsity teams and prom night.