Last week it was reported that Jonah Hill was playing hardball with Fox while negotiating for a role in Neighborhood Watch. Because of the incredible testing numbers for the upcoming Moneyball, Hill's people were asking for a price much higher than his standard fee. As a result, the studio was facing a quandary: spend the extra dough and add an extra recognizable face to the poster, or find an up-and-comer that will do the job for a cheaper price but would fail to be an asset for the marketing department. Fox has gone with option A.
According to THR, Hill has officially signed on to co-star in Neighborhood Watch. The young actor joins Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Rosemarie DeWitt, all of whom are already attached. The plot centers around a group of dads who form a fake neighborhood watch group just so that they can have some time away from their wives, but everything gets too real when they uncover an alien plot that promises to destroy the world. Hill will "Vaughn's sidekick", a young man who lies about his past to make himself sound more like a badass. Though the project has been around for years, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote the most recent draft and Lonely Island's Akiva Schaffer is attached to direct. The film will begin production this fall in Georgia.
Given that Hill is close friends with Rogen and Goldberg (Hill's big break came with their script for Superbad), I'm curious if that was a factor in Fox's decision. Is it possible that the writing duo wrote the part with Hill in mind, which in turn made it harder for Fox to say no? It's a long shot, but it also wouldn't be too surprising if it ended up being true.
