The Abstinence Teacher has a fairly long history. In 2006 Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris announced the adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s novel as a potential follow-up to Little Miss Sunshine. However the project took longer to put together than hoped, and then when Warner Independent Pictures was shuttered in 2008, it fell into limbo.
Many thought that would be the last we heard of it, but The Playlist is reporting it’s been given new life, as Sandra Bullock and Steve Carell are now attached to star. Such a high-powered comedy duo should give plenty of impetus to the film, as it’s difficult to imagine any studio not wanting to team those two up.
If you wanna know what The Abstinence Teacher is about, here’s the synopsis, courtesy of Production Weekly, ‘Stonewood Heights is the perfect place to raise kids. Its got the proverbial good schools, solid values and a healthy real estate market. Its the kind of place where parents are involved in their childrens lives, where no opportunity for enrichment goes unexplored. Ruth Ramsey (presumably Bullock) is the human sexuality teacher at the local high school. She believes that “pleasure is good, shame is bad, and knowledge is power.” Ruths younger daughters soccer coach is Tim Mason (presumably Carell), a former stoner and rocker whose response to hitting rock bottom was to reach out and be saved. Tim belongs to The Tabernacle, an evangelical Christian church that doesnt approve of Ruths style of teaching. And Ruth in turn doesnt applaud The Tabernacles mission to take its message outside its doors. Adversaries in a small-town culture war, Ruth and Tim instinctively mistrust each other. But when a controversy on the soccer field pushes the two of them to actually talk to each other, they are forced to take each other at something other than face value.’
Whether this will be next for Dayton and Faris isn’t known, as they’re also working on Will, which is due to star Zach Galifianakis and Paul Rudd, and which despite a few problems, seems to now having funding. Whatever they shoot next, let’s hope they do it soon, as despite securing a significant hit with the Oscar-winning Little Miss Sunshine, the directors have yet to make their follow-up, which is far more to do with studio faffing than anything else.