Fletch Returns in the Hands of Bill Lawrence

Not sure if this is a good or bad thing

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Wednesday, July 26th 2006 at 4:54 AM

I am not a huge fan of Chevy Chase which is my primary reason for never being a fan of Fletch, but it appears there is enough interest out there for the Weinstein Co. to create a prequel to the 1985 comedy.

The studio has set "Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence to make his feature directorial debut with Fletch Won and word is that this puts "Scrubs" star Zach Braff in the driver's seat for the role although that is not confirmed at this point.

It is an odd coincidence that Lawrence should get the job considering about a year ago, when Kevin Smith was circling the project, Zach Braff was his frontrunner for the role

Lawrence will write the script for the film, which is set for an April 2007 production start. The story will follow the early days of the character's career as a junior reporter at the News-Tribune.

Michael Cole, co-president of production for The Weinstein Company stated, stated "This is an important franchise for our company and we can't think of a better person than Bill to take the 'Fletch' story all the way back to the beginning. His work on 'Scrubs' speaks for itself and his ideas for adapting Fletch Won are hilarious and incredibly smart."

Bill Lawrence stated, "The coolest thing about the Fletch Won book is that it's an origin story. Like 'Batman Begins,' I think people will enjoy seeing how Irwin Fletcher became Fletch. Not only can I recite the original 'Fletch' movie line for line, I actually read all the Greg Mcdonald books as a kid. Consider me obsessed, – I'm going to try as hard as I can not to screw this up."

Cole and Carla Gardini, senior vice president of production, will oversee the project on behalf of TWC.