Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has acquired a feature film pitch from scribe Rob Pearlstein as a starring vehicle for Ed Helms, who is coming off the success of the studio’s The Hangover Part II, which has just passed $500 million in global box office. Helms will also executive produce the project, which is being sheperded by Kim Roth, Erin Fredman and Anna Culp at Imagine Entertainment. Greg Silverman, Jon Berg and Andy Fischel will oversee for Warners. Brian Grazer will produce. Helms, repped by CAA and Principato-Young, next appears in Paramount’s Duplass brothers film Jeff Who Lives At Home with Jason Segal and is one of the voices in Universal’s The Lorax. He also will return in the fall for Season 8 of NBC’s The Office. UPDATE: Here’s some details about the screenplay: The plot of the comedic drama, titled True North, centers on pompous travel-show host Brian North (Helms), whose obsessive pursuit of fame and constant travel has alienated his wife and two kids. His plane crashes when on assignment in India, and he awakens from a coma two years later to discover everyone back in New York thinks he’s dead, and he’s had reconstructive surgery that has completely changed his appearance. He returns to Manhattan to win back his family by proving he’s a changed man, but it won’t be easy.