Following years of combining supernatural fantasy with shirtless men, True Blood’s Alan Ball is moving on to two feature films that indulge both of his passions. Ball has scripted and will direct I Am Chippendales, an adaptation of the book and arrogant statement made by the late Rodney Sheldon—who was not a long-running successful male strip club, but rather just a man who wrote about its power-mad founder, Somen “Steve” Banerjee, an Indian immigrant who went from pumping gas to pimping beefcake, then went rich-person crazy and hired a hitman to kill his choreographer. The project has been kicking around for about 15 years now, passing through directors like Barry Sonnenfeld and the late Tony Scott, before finally ending up with Ball and whoever among Hollywood’s Indian actors will get the lead. (So, good news for Dev Patel? Aziz Ansari? Aasif Mandvi?) Meanwhile, Ball’s other film, I Dream Of Gene—which is immediately, redundantly described as a “broad comedy”—concerns a loser who discovers a lamp and its “irreverent male genie.” Like Kazaam, but possibly with more genie sex scenes.
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