Bill Hader talks about upcoming films HENCHMAN and VAUGHN MEADER

Bill Hader will be seen next in Greg Mottola‘s sci-fi road-trip film Paul, but the actor comedian has two new projects in the pipeline. Paul premieres at SXSW this weekend and will arrive in theaters on March 18. I am excited to see this when it arrives.

The Playlist reports that Hader is working with director Akiva Schaffer and Shawn Levy‘s 21 Laps production company on a film called Henchman. The script, originally titled, Bobbie Sue, was conceived and written by Russell Sharman, Owen Egerton, and Chris Mass, who appeared on the 2008 Blacklist. Hader and Schaffer are currently rewriting the script with an eye to star and direct, respectively.

Here is what Hader had to say abou that project, which is currently looking for actors to play the other henchman:

”[21 Laps] came to us with this script that Akiva and I are now reworking. The film is about two guys who don’t realize it, but they’re two henchman for like the badguy in a ‘Bourne’ movie and then they slowly figure who that they’re working for the wrong guys, but like doing it in the actual style of a ‘Bourne’ movie.

Schaffer and Hader felt there were some similarities between the Paul Greengrass films and a lot of contemporary TV comedies.

“The aesthetics of a ‘Bourne’ movie, the shaky and handheld camera, that documentary feeling is how they shoot comedy these days, like ‘The Office’ and ‘Delocated,’ and so we realized we could keep that same style. That would be a different feel for that so’s something we’re working on.”

The second project is in the works at Ben Stiller‘s Red Hour Films. It's "a dark comedy, based on the life of American comedian and impersonator Vaughn Meader—the titular character of the film that Hader will play—who became famous for spoofing JFK and then his saw his career crumble after his assassination." The script was written by Rob Siegel who penned Darren Aronofksy‘s The Wrestler and wrote and directed Big Fan starring Patton Oswalt.

Here is what he had to say:

“It’s about this guy who did these JFK impressions back in the ‘60s and he had this comedy album called The First Family and it was the biggest selling comedy record, still to this day I think it’s one of the biggest selling comedy records. He does this insane, amazing JFK impression and then JFK gets assassinated and his whole career goes away. So Rob Siegel is working on that now.”

Hader goes on to talk about how dark the film will be:

“Yeah, I would like to do… dark,” Hader laughed, adding that the gritty dramedy would have contemporary overtones as well. “It would be pretty sweet. It’s a real interesting piece and in a weird way it feeds into now, just like people becoming super famous overnight, reality stars and stuff. This guy became crazy famous, the president was talking about this guy and then it all went away. It’s really interesting.”

I like Hader and think both of these projects sound good. What are your thoughts on this news?