Mark and Michael Polish may not be as well-known a fraternal filmmaking pair as Joel and Ethan Coen, but they could out-weird the Coens any day of the week. Their films range from virtually inscrutable (Northfork) to very strange (Twin Falls Idaho) to merely offbeat (The Astronaut Farmer), but it's clear they won't be getting hired to direct the sequel to Alvin and the Chipmunks. So instead, they've formed their own production company, Prohibition Films, and are shooting two new projects back-to-back.

The first is entitled Manure, a title they should reconsider if only to make lazy film critics' jobs a little harder. Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Tea Leoni, and my man Kyle MacLachlan, the movie will explore the world of manure salesmen in 1960's heartland America. Upon reading that I frowned for a moment, but then realized that had you asked me who would be most likely to write and direct a movie about manure salesmen in 1960's heartland America, I would unhesitatingly have said the Polish Brothers.

Okay... Before I get to the wonder that is Bruce Campbell, I've got to take a second and complain. If you remember anything about our previous coverage of Ghost Town, such as David Koepp signing on to direct Greg Kinnear and Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni signing on, and then Kristen Wiig, you probably remember the premise. A dentist (Gervais) heads in for a colonoscopy under the knife of Wiig, and he dies for seven minutes. When he comes back to life, he can see the dead -- especially a ghostly businessman (Kinnear) who wants him to break up his widow's (Leoni) upcoming marriage.

Anal surgery is no longer the culprit. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the dentist temporarily kicks the bucket during a "routine dental surgery." Now that is a really boring and lame change. What's wrong with a colonoscopy? Gah. At least we've got Campbell to soften the news. He has signed on to play Leoni's character's fiance -- the one that the dentist really isn't into. Since this ghostly apparition isn't through Whoopi, I keep wondering if it'll end up with Kinnear taking over Gervais' body to have a second chance with his wife. Or maybe Campbell will go Ash on his ass and take him out of the picture. He could always just say Deadites possessed the dude. Shooting has already begun in New York, and hopefully they haven't vanilla-ed anything else.

Post edited as the original THR post now says "Billy Campbell" is the other man, and not Bruce. Thanks to ***Lance*** for spotting that. What a shame.

Did you hear the one about the Polish hit man (Sir Ben Kingsley) who gets sent from Buffalo to San Francisco to sober up? That's the nutshell plot of John Dahl's You Kill Me, a return to the off-kilter crime tales of his earlier independents The Last Seduction and Red Rock West. Téa Leoni doesn't just play the flinty-yet-flirty San Francisco saleswoman who falls for Kingsley; she also came on board the film as a producer. Dahl and Leoni spoke with Cinematical in San Francisco about low-budget film making, scene-stealing and other petty larcenies.

Cinematical: Your previous film, The Great Raid was a effects-heavy period piece set during World War II; was part of the appeal of doing You Kill Me being able to do something more modern-day and not smaller in scope but less arduous on a production level?

Dahl: I think it was fun to do an independent film; but I think a lot of it is just kind of an amazing opportunity happened; Ben Kingsley and Carol Baum sent me a script and it was actually good. The challenge was – my first reaction when I read it was "Wow, this is a great script; no one will make it. It'll cost too much." It was like doing the limbo. I said, 'This is 11 million; maybe you could do it for seven. ..." And I think we finally settled on four.

Leoni: Three-point-four, I think we had at one point. ...

Did you know that if you die during a colonoscopy and are brought back, that you are able to communicate with the dead? No, no, it's not true, but it is the premise for Ghost Town starring Tea Leoni and Ricky Gervais. I'm not sure if anyone has ever died due to complications during a colonoscopy -- the synopsis on paper just made me laugh -- but I think that if anyone can pull it off, its Ricky Gervais (The Office, the BBC version.) Gervais is the unlucky patient in the film, and once he regains his life he is presented with a unique predicament -- he's haunted by the ghost of a businessman played by Greg Kinnear -- now I'm not sure if the cast can get any better. Gervais has some kind of tasks that he must fulfill -- he's kind of like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, apparently. The character played by Kinnear uses Gervais as a vehicle to stop the marriage of his still living wife, Leoni.

David Koepp wrote Ghost Town and is set to also direct the film. Koepp has a thing for dark spiritualism, having brought us Secret Window (the one where Johnny Depp plays an author stalked by a psychopath accusing him of plagiarism), War of the Worlds (Tom Cruise, underground aliens and lots of red veiny stuff) among other projects. We'll have to wait until at least 2008 to catch Leoni's ruined marriage plans, Gervais' near death experience and Kinnear's ability to control the living, since Ghost Town doesn't start filming until October of this year.

Just a few days ago we shared a rumor that filmmaker John Dahl might be in the running to direct the Thomas Jane-less Punisher 2 ... but I'll believe that when I see it. Until then (well, on June 22, anyway) we can focus on a movie that Dahl definitely DID direct. It's a dark comedy called You Kill Me and you can check out the new trailer right here. (I'd say the trailer probably gives too much of the story away, but I guess that's how they sell movies these days.)

The flick stars Ben Kingsley as an alcoholic assassin from Buffalo who's forced to take a job at a San Francisco funeral home and somehow gets romantic with Tea Leoni. Also on board are Philip Baker Hall, Luke Wilson, Dennis Farina and Bill Pullman. Heck, forget the trailer. I'd go see this movie based only on the cast and the director. Oddly enough, You Kill Me was written by the team that penned both of the Narnia adaptations. Interesting. And for those who don't understand why I hold John Dahl in such high regard, I recommend you check out Red Rock West, The Last Seduction or Joy Ride. (Yes, I said Joy Ride. It's good.) Plus he did Rounders, and who doesn't love that movie?

For some people, a complete magazine article is too much to read. Fortunately for them, there is Reader's Digest. For other people, a whole biographical book is too much to read. Fortunately for them, there are biopics. Fittingly the husband-and-wife founders of Reader's Digest, DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace, are now to be the subject of a biographical movie, which will be based on Peter Canning's "American Dreamers: The Wallaces and The Readers's Digest: An Insider's Story." The movie is being produced by also-husband-and-wife David Duchovny and Téa Leoni and it will detail the couple's rise as magazine publishers during World War II and their political compromising of their brand during the Cold War. According to Leoni, the story deals with the Wallaces' accumulation of great wealth and great vulnerability.

I know very little about Reader's Digest other than the magazine was partially responsible for me having food on the table growing up, as my father supplied illustrations for many issues throughout the 1970s and '80s. I never really thought this until just now, but the Wallaces indirectly impacted my life. Of course, their publication wasn't the only place my father found work, but it was a significant outlet for illustrators for many decades. So, certainly I am interested to see a biopic about the Wallaces, particularly some of the details Canning focuses on in his book, such as the couple's unusual sex life and the magazine's manipulation by the CIA and FBI. Canning, who worked for many years under the Wallaces as the managing editor of Reader's Digest, will be a consultant on the film, so hopefully he will make sure all the juiciest bits get in.

Today's groovy odds and ends:

• Radar Pictures was so taken with the pitch for a comedy called Lucky's Last Stand that they not only bought the thing on spec but actually plan to produce it. Who's Lucky? Why, I'm glad you asked: he's "a one-legged homeless man who finds a special, cleated, wooden leg that enables him to become the new star kicker for the San Francisco 49ers." Hollywood, I hereby apologize for constantly ripping you for being out of ideas. Clearly, there was one left.

• Many wives would be freaked out if their husband bought the life rights of "a...woman who raised her daughters by hosting passion parties and selling marital sex toys out of her car," and then asked them to star in the movie version. Lucky for Touchstone Pictures, however, Téa Leoni is not one of those wives. So ,keep an eye out for the David Duchovny-produced, Leoni-starring Funlady, a movie that Duchovny is sure will be "inspiring, colorful and...very funny, " not to mention full of vibrators.
  

• John Unholz's spec for Comic Book: The Movie, a "superhero spoof...in the vein of the Scary Movie franchise and...Date Movie," went out to studios last Thursday morning. The subject of a reported studio feeding frenzy, it was snatched up by Dimension by the end of business that day for an amount rumored to be just under $1 million. Not bad for guy with a totally derivative concept who's never written a movie before, huh?