First Look at Simon Pegg in Terry Jones' 'Absolutely Anything'

There's going to be a Monty Python reunion next summer, although probably not in the way their rabid fans would want. Terry Jones  is directing the sci-fi comedy, Absolutely Anything, which has him and his Python colleagues John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin voicing a bunch of space aliens. The film stars Simon Pegg and Kate Beckinsale, and Empire have just revealed the first images of Pegg, who plays a regular guy with limitless power.

The story centers on Neil Clarke (Pegg), a secondary schoolteacher who can do literally do anything. Here's how Jones describes it: “He can make anything happen [but] he doesn’t realize it until his colleague says, ‘What would you do if you could do anything?’ and Neil responds with, ‘I’d make an alien spaceship hit class 4C and vaporize them.’ Then there’s an explosion in the school, and they run to 4C’s classroom, open the door and there’s a vast hole in the ground.”

Sounds weird and twisted and potentially hilarious, especially with Pegg in the lead role. The film includes the final performance by Robin Williams, who voices Neil's dog. Absolutely Anything opens in 2015.

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Kate Beckinsale Joins 'Absolutely Anything'; Haley Bennett Boards 'Fathers and Daughters'

* Kate Beckinsale has come aboard the long-developing comedy, Absolutely Anything, directed by Terry Jones and featuring Monty Python in voice roles. Beckinsale will star opposite Simon Pegg, with Robin Williams, Eddie Izzard, Joanna Lumley, and Sanjeev Bhaskar also appearing in the film about a "disillusioned school teacher (Pegg) who suddenly finds he has the ability to do anything he wishes, a challenge bestowed upon him by a group of power-crazed aliens watching from space." The Monty Python troupe will voice the aliens, with Williams as Pegg's canine companion. At some point, after a string of mishaps, Pegg's character will be forced to choose between the dog or his favorite gal, played by Beckinsale. Seems like an easy choice, doesn't it? Filming begins in London next month. [Deadline]

* While we wait to see how much of Haley Bennett's performance remains in Terence Malick's upcoming film (hasn't everybody been cut out of it, basically?), and how she fares in The Equalizer with Denzel Washington, she's landed another film with a star-studded cast. Bennett has joined Fathers and Daughters, the multi-generational drama from Seven Pounds director, Gabriele Muccino. She joins Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, Aaron Paul, Octavie Spencer, Quvenzhane Wallis, and Diane Kruger in the story of a mentally ill novelist trying to raise his 5-year-old daughter Katie in 1980s New York City. Twenty-five years later, his daughter is still struggling with the pains of her troubled childhood. Bennett will play a college student who watches over the young Katie. [Deadline]

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