For the past couple of years, Paul Reubens has been constantly trying to talk up the idea of making a new Pee Wee Herman movie. While he’s been saying its ready to shoot and dropping names left, right and centre, many assumed it was more wishful thinking on his part than anything else.
After all, it’s difficult to imagine anyone funding the film, knowing that that as the release approaches, stories are bound to resurface about Reubens’ arrest for pleasuring himself in an adult theatre in 1991, as well as his 2002 run in with the police, who claimed he had a collection of child pornography, although charges were dropped (Reubens claims he is a collector of erotica and what the police thought was child pornography were actually vintage nude studies).
However Reubens now has a major ally in his bid the resurrect the popular 1980s character on the big screen, as Variety reports that none other Judd Apatow, director of The 40-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, has come on-board and is working with Reubens and Universal on creating a Pee Wee Herman road movie built around a gigantic adventure.
It’s not clear whether this is the movie Reubens said was already scripted (actually he’s said he has two Pee Wee movies up his sleeve – one for adults and one for kids), or if they’re starting over, although it is known Paul Rust is working on the script. Apatow, who’s currently only down to produce rather than direct, apparently got involved after seeing Reubens’ new Pee Wee Herman stage show, where he’s successfully brought the character back to life for both families and those who grew up watching him in films and on TV in the 1980s.