Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim are a comedy duo little known outside of the United States. Beginning their collaborations on Tom Goes to the Mayor, an animated feature on the Cartoon Network that the station itself charitably describes as polarising, they went on to their better known live action sketch show, Tim and Eric, awesome show, great job, which satirizes the television format and genre in the broadest terms possible. In spite of this, they are about
to make their first feature length film as co-writers, co-directors and leading actors with the mildly threateningly titled
Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie. And although the duo have described the film as being on a small scale in Hollywood terms, the quality of the cast their debut movie has managed to attract suggests it is not a production without ambition. Thus far
Zach Galifianakis, Will Ferrell, Robert Loggia, Jeff Goldblum, Will Forte, and
William Atherton are confirmed with
John C Reilly in the lead role, although rumours of an appearance by Harrison Ford are supposedly unfounded. The film, as its title suggests, is about the first movie to be given the budget of one billion American dollars and how the huge scale of the production, inevitably, gets out of hand. Principle photography began last week, and the film will be distributed by Magnolia Pictures probably before the end of the year.