According to The Hollywood Reporter, Will Forte has signed on to star in a Netflix original movie about Doug Kenney, one of the co-founders of National Lampoon, America’s favorite comedy brand that isn’t named after a vegetable that tastes really good on a slice of bread (or so the legend goes). The project is titled A Futile And Stupid gesture, and it will be written by Childrens Hospital’s Michael Colton and John Aboud—both of whom, like Kenney himself, previously served as editors on the Harvard Lampoon. Kenney’s story is brief and tragic, with him helping to make National Lampoon into an iconic comedy institution before leaving the magazine so he could become a writer on movies like Animal House and Caddyshack. In 1980, after struggling with drugs and alcohol for a few years, Kenney was found dead at the bottom of a cliff in Hawaii.
A Futile And Stupid Gesture will be directed by Wet Hot American Summer co-creator David Wain, who also has some familiarity with comedic institutions thanks to his work in Stella, on The State, and in Childrens Hospital.