Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal to star in ‘Damn Yankees’

Posted by Robert Levin (rlevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on February 27, 2009

carrey-gyllenhaal-damn-yankees

If baseball fans nationwide were to vote on a favorite musical chances are it’d be Damn Yankees. After all we who don’t worship at the altar of all things pinstriped are united by our disdain for the team’s free spending ways and obscene hoarding of talent.

So it’s fitting that news of the much talked about Damn Yankees remake finally coming to fruition has been announced just as the MLB spring training schedule starts heating up. Variety reports Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal have been attached to star as the devil and hero Joe Boyd respectively, in the timeless story of a fan of the Washington Senators who sells his soul to be transformed into a ballplayer and help his team beat the Yankees.

Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel will write the script, to be produced for New Line by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the team behind Hairspray. No directly is currently attached and the all-important role of Lola, the femme fatale sent to seduce Joe, has not yet been cast.

This is a rare remake that actually seems promising. The show’s fun and the 1958 film by George Abbott and Stanley Donen isn’t such a revered canonical work that it can’t be modernized. Plus, as his cover of “I Am the Walrus” on “In My Life” proved, Carrey can sing.


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  • Gzuf
    I actually really like his version of I Am the Walrus.
  • Chris D.
    Haha yeah me too
  • tom P10
    ---More stale, pointless and hollow reruns from our creatively bankrupt movie industry.

    ---Hey there Jim Carrey! ---It's 2010! ---WE SEEN THIS ALREADY!

    STOP catering to the circle-jerks of the comfort-zone!
  • I love musicals too. Or should I say good ones, cause there are not many things worse than a bad one. I'm so glad someone like Hugh Jackman has come around to show that it doesn't make you gay or a girl to enjoy them. Trust me Im as big of a comic and sci-fi fan as they come and I do.
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