Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds Pull A ‘Change-Up’

Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman are both very handsome men. Both are very funny men, too.  If you put them together, would the result be a comedy that melts the screen in sheer charisma? We’ll find out, because according to Variety, Bateman and Reynolds are set to star in Universal’s Change-Up.

Directed by David Dobkin and penned by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the two nuts behind The Hangover, the film centers on a comedic trope as old as the hills — body swapping. The plot centers on a responsible family man (Bateman, of course) who switches bodies with his best friend.  Naturally, his best friend is the polar opposite of his buttoned-up self, and is lazy, childless, and immature.  There will be lessons learned, and hilarious misunderstandings.

I worry it could be another Role Models (another film that had a pretty good comedy pair at its core, but just didn’t gel), but I’m hoping that The Hangover duo can make this work. I didn’t think that the film was the second coming of comedy, but there’s no doubt that it was nicely balanced between three very funny guys.  Besides, Bateman and Reynolds can sell even the thinnest role and they’ve been the highlight of just about everything they have played in.

The film is set to begin shooting in September.  Sounds like just the thing for the Green Lantern to have some downtime in, and is far enough away that we’ll have forgotten Bateman swapped something else for Jennifer Aniston in Disney’s The Switch.