Their respective sitcom lives may have been cut short, but Nat Faxon and Jim Rash recently found themselves in the enviable position of having multiple studios waving money at them for their latest screenwriting project. Deadline reports that the duo, who haven’t exactly been slumming it since winning an Oscar together for The Descendants, sparked a bidding war over the horror-comedy Dead Mall, which 20th Century Fox ultimately won.
Faxon and Rash, who made their directorial debut with The Way, Way Back, are writing and directing the film, as well as executive producing along with B Story’s Kevin Walsh. The movie’s title refers to the shopping centers that have fallen into disrepair following the multiple financial crises that Americans have endured over the last decade or so. One such testament to the nation’s bygone, Cinnabon-scented decadence will provide the setting for a game of cat-and-mouse between a “slasher film-quality killer” and a group of 40-year-olds of varying intelligence. Here’s hoping that Faxon and Rash are able to do for campy slasher films and abandoned malls what Wet Hot American Summer did for ’80s sex comedies and summer camps.