Some weird casting just got weirder: According to Deadline, Kevin James is going to replace Simon Pegg as the villain in Becky, an “action thriller” starring The Haunting Of Hill House’s Lulu Wilson and directed by Bushwick’s Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion. The movie is about a rebellious teenager who goes on a weekend trip to a lake house with her father “in an effort to try to reconnect after her mother’s death,” but unfortunately for them, a group of escaped convicts is also planning to spend the weekend at the very same lake house. Hijinks ensue, obviously, but in sort of an action thriller way, with Becky deciding to “take matters into her own hands.”
The weird bit is that the convicts are led by a “merciless” criminal named Dominick, who was going to be Simon Pegg but is now Kevin James—even though neither of them really seem like the “merciless” type. Simon Pegg got unsettlingly ripped a few months back, but Kevin James is still just that goofball from Paul Blart: Mall Cop. But hey, maybe this is actually good news for Becky. If James falls down half as often as he did in the Blart movies, she shouldn’t have too much difficulty killing him and his cronies.