EXCLUSIVE: The fifth-season debut of HBO’s Veep is just over two weeks away, but Matt Walsh has jumped on board for some National Lampoon fun in A Futile And Stupid Gesture. The SAG Award nominee will be playing producer and publishing exec Matty Simmons in the Netflix pic directed by David Wain.
A former newspaperman and credit card exec, Simmons was the CEO of National Lampoon publishers Twenty First Century Communications. Once the mag became a success, Simmons was a big advocate of expanding NL into other mediums like, fittingly, the movies.
Will Forte, Martin Mull, Joel McHale, Thomas Lennon and, as my colleague Mike Fleming Jr exclusively reported on April 4, Domhnall Gleeson also star in the pic is based on Josh Karp’s 2006 book about the life and career of National Lampoon co-founder Doug Kenney. Adapted by Michael Colton and John Aboud and looking at the influence the publication had on American humor and the media, Peter Principato and Jonathan Stern are producing A Futile And Stupid Gesture for a 2017 release on the streaming service. Wain, Colton, Aboud, Ed Helms, Sean McKittrick and Ted Hamm are EPs.
Also starring in the Paul Feig Ghostbusters reboot, Walsh will be back on the small screen when Season 5 of Veep — on which he plays Director of Communications Mike McLintock — debuts on April 24. Walsh is repped by UTA, Principato Young and attorney Lev Ginsburg.
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