Will Ferrell Eyes "Russ & Roger Go Beyond"

Deadline reports that Will Ferrell is circling the role of sexploitation film director Russ Meyer in the indie  film about the making of cult classic "Beyond The Valley of the Dolls"  called "Russ & Roger Go Beyond".

The story is set in the very late 1960s when cheap counterculture films made big money. Meyer was the outlaw helmer of soft-core pulp films such as "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"and “Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens” but wanted to make a legitimate studio film. At the time Fox was in desperate need of a low-cost, high returning hit after a series of flops. Meyer agreed to take on the film, originally a sequel to but ultimately a parody of the film adaptation of author/actress Jacqueline Susann's hit book "Valley of the Dolls". There was one condition, that a third string movie critic at the time named Roger Ebert would write the script. Ebert was one of the few people who had penned a positive review about Meyer's work, and the film will explore that friendship along with the trials the movie faced such as it being a rare major studio release with an X rating.

 Meyer died in 2004 at the age of 82 while Ebert died in April, 2013.

The script was written by Christopher Cluess.

Mark Amin, David Permut and Richard Waltzer. are producing.

Production aims to begin early next year.