Incredible Mr. Limpet remake with Zach Galifianakis is coming along swimmingly, ha ha because of fish

By Sean O'Neal | July 9, 2014 | 5:06pm

Aux Features Film

As Richard Linklater has finally completed his 12-year labor of love on Boyhood, The Wrap reports he’s now ready to move on to another coming-of-age tale, about the day every man realizes he’s become a talking fish. Linklater has been circling an update of The Incredible Mr. Limpet since 2011, while Zach Galifianakis has been attached since 2010 to step into the role Don Knotts played in 1964, in the movie that presciently warned everyone of the dangers of actually getting in the water at Coney Island. And in this modern, Galifianakised version, Knotts’ nerdy bookkeeper with dreams of joining the Navy will be replaced by Galifianakis’ “bearded beach bum,” whose mission to save his local fish population turns ever more personal after he magically becomes one of them. He then learns “valuable lessons along the way” toward solving their plight, such as that fish should stop being delicious.

While Linklater long ago drafted his Waking Life/Scanner Darkly team to rotoscope a little beard onto a cartoon fish—hopefully sidestepping the monstrosity that was the scrapped Jim Carrey version of Mr. Limpet—and also turn Kevin Hart and comedy duo Key & Peele into unspecified sea creatures, he’s also recruited some other, non-fish people. Jon Hamm is now being courted to play the main villain, a businessman who no doubt gives very stirring monologues about why it’s a man’s duty to mine the ocean. And Danny McBride, Sarah Silverman, and Josh Gad are all reportedly in talks as well, with McBride and Silverman reportedly playing live-action roles that, we’re just guessing, will at some point involve McBride saying, “You’re a fucking fish, dude.”