Russell Brand Joins Comedy ‘Army of One’

Russell Brand has joined the Nicolas Cage-led comedy Army of One, one of a number of new actors announced for the TWC-Dimension production. Brand’s role has yet to be announced. Denis O’Hare, Ken Marino, Paul Scheer, and Rainn Wilson have also joined the project.

After bursting onto the scene (for most) in the Nicholas Stoller/Jason Siegel comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Brand has enjoyed a steady stream of success; however, the last couple years have seem him take something of a step back. His last film Paradise, which co-starred Julianne Hough and Octavia Spencer, came and went quietly, and he recently made waves for failing to appear at a showing for a documentary about himself at SXSW.

Army of One is based on the true story of Gary Faulkner, an eccentric handyman from Colorado who attempted to hunt down and capture Osama bin Laden. In June of 2010, Gary was found armed and in the mountains of Pakistan near the Afghan border less than a month after departing his hometown.

Cage was already attached in the leading role for what is likely to be a telling of the story even more slapstick and ridiculous than the already absurd truth – that’s because frequent Sacha Baron Cohen collaborator and former Seinfeld writer Larry Charles (Borat, The Dictator) will be manning the director’s chair. The film is based on a GQ profile of Faulkner’s life and exploits, the net sum of which might well be summed up by the following quote form the story:

I’m a little of everything. I’ve done crack, I’ve done crank, I’ve done coke, I’ve done pot, I’ve done everything in the world out there.… You know, I’ve been to prison, I’ve been shipwrecked, blown up, shot, stabbed. My story does not just start here; it started when I was 5 years old, the first time I tried to hot-wire a car.…

Army of One does not yet have a release date, but is currently filming and can probably be expected sometime in 2016.