If you’re under 30 or not from the US, you probably have no idea what Rentaghost is – but Russell Brand wants to bring the late 70s and early 80s British series to the big screen anyway. Indeed it’s been quite interesting to read American reports on Warner Bros. buying up the rights, as when they get to the part about the plot, their main reaction seems to be ‘wtf?’
However Deadline reports that Warner has bought up the rights to develop it into a starring vehicle for Brand, saying it’ll be a ‘Beetlejuice-style afterlife comedy’. If it is, that’ll be a significant change from the original, which was definitely kid-centric and revolved around a couple, Harold and Ethel Meaker, who run a business called Rentaghost, where they hire out ghouls to the general public. As a result their house is filled with an unusual assortment of the deceased, including medieval court jester Timothy Claypole, Scottish witch Hazel and hayfever prone Nadia Popov (played by Coronation Street’s Sue Nicholls). Oh and a pantomime horse called Dobbin.
In the film version, Brand would play Fred Mumford, who founds Rentaghost after he dies in a shipping accident. In the original he has to hand the business over to the Meakers when he can’t keep up the rent, but it sounds as if the film might make it a more professional operation with Mumford in charge of a temp agency that rents out the deceased to the living.
Warner is currently looking for writers to come up with a screenplay.