Ed Helms Heads to 'Cedar Rapids'

Thursday

16Jul2009

Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 11:51PM

A couple of months ago, we had the chance to talk to Ed Helms from The Hangover. At the time, he was hesitant to predict good things for the movie, but of course, things worked out OK on that front.

As generally happens with a breakout hit, good things await the cast. Zach Galifianakis is juggling a lot of offers and has already latched onto another movie with director Todd Philips in addition to the sequel, Bradley Cooper's got a million things going on, and now Ed Helms has inked a deal to wstar in Cedar Rapids, and ensemble comedy produced by Alexander Payne.

Helms, of course, has a background in improv comedy, was a correspondent for The Daily Show, and is a regular on The Office, so ensemble comedies shouldn't be a big reach for him, especially since Payne (Election, Sideways) is involved. Another point in Helms' favor is he developed the story with Phil Johnston, who gets screenplay credit, and TV's Andy Bernard will also executive produce, or as they say in the trades, "exec produce."

Speaking of the trades, Variety lists Miguel Artera as the director and says the shooting will be arranged around Helms' Office shooting schedule, so the production will get underway in October during a hiatus from the NBC comedy.

As for the story, Helms will play an insurance agent who goes to one of those awful conventions, presumably in Cedar Rapids, in order to save the jobs of his co-workers.

Colin Boyd |

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