Turning their back on a medium that’s never given them that much love—outside a Daily Show stint and a Gilmore Girls here and there—Lauren Graham and Rob Riggle are teaming up for a new movie from CBS Films. Middle School—based on one of author James Patterson’s less explicitly murder-y book franchises—follows a young man as he deals with the constant, crippling rejections of life in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade—an emotional experience that Riggle’s sitcom history has probably made him uniquely equipped to empathize with.
Graham will portray the mother of the young hero—played by the improbably named Griffin Gluck—while Riggle will play her boyfriend, Bear. Meanwhile, the school side of things will be headed up by Happy Endings and The Mindy Project alumni Adam Pally—another persistent TV nomad—as the protagonist’s favorite teacher. Presumably, he’ll get to smirk on benevolently as Gluck’s character deals with all the perils of adolescence: crushes, bullies, and the creeping ennui of TV success that remains almost permanently out of reach.