Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: There is a mad dash to get the next screen slot of Emmy-winning Mike & Molly and Bridesmaids star Melissa McCarthy. New Line is helping its chances by starting talks with a hot director. I’m told the studio is in talks with The Help helmer Tate Taylor to direct Tammy, a comedy that McCarthy wrote as a vehicle for herself to play a woman who gets laid off from her fast-food job and finds her husband is cheating, and chucks her life to take a road trip of self-discovery with her foul-mouthed diabetic grandmother. It’s a hard R effort, and it would team the director and the star who were major components in the two sleepers of last summer.

New Line isn’t the only one lining up projects for McCarthy. Among others, Universal has been developing ID Theft, a teaming with Jason Bateman, and there is also a reteam with Bridesmaids director Paul Feig and Jon Hamm in an untitled comedy. Taylor’s repped by WME.