While Bridesmaids is clearly an ensemble comedy with a lot of great performances, I came out of it thinking that it had one clear star making turn. If you want to believe the oft-repeated marketing hype that Bridesmaids is a female version of The Hangover, then the clear Zach Galifianakis of the group was Melissa McCarthy. Everyone in the film gets at least a couple strong zingers to throw at the audience, but it’s McCarthy who provides most of the big, gut punching belly laughs by fearlessly laying bare all of the character’s foibles for everyone to see. I’ve never seen Mike and Molly, so I don’t know what she’s like on that show, and I can barely recognize her as the same actress who played the bubbly and annoying Sookie on Gilmore Girls; so her performance hit me as a real revelation. When I walked out of Bridesmaids, the strongest reaction I had to it was a feeling that we’d be seeing a lot of Melissa McCarthy in the days to come. Well, it looks like that future is already coming to pass.

In an interview with Inside Movies McCarthy spills the beans on not only a new project that Bridesmaids director Paul Feig is developing for her, but also on a project that she is writing for herself. On working with Paul again, McCarthy said, “It’s really overwhelming. If Paul asked me to come over and vacuum his house, I would be like ‘Ab-so-lute-ly! Do you need your closets reorganized?’” Sounds promising, and I’d like to hear some more details about what Feig has planned. As for the project that McCarthy has penned alongside Bridesmaids co-writer Annie Mumolo, there’s a lot more concrete information on the table.

When talking to Inside Movies, McCarthy said of the project, “I’m a writer. I’ve written for 10 years, but I’ve always been on something and never really had the opportunity to do it. The opportunity is delightfully now presenting itself for the first time. I’m writing something with Annie. Ironically, and this is not in any way trying to duplicate what we’ve done, because it actually came from a script idea that my husband wrote, is another a female ensemble. It’s really funny and it’s again not what I think what most people would expect from women and I just love it. We’ve had four or five meetings and the response has been great!” Four or five meetings is a promising start, but that must be old news as Deadline Huntington is reporting that the duo has sold the project to Paramount. According to their article, the premise of the movie sounds something like: “When your husband is ill and his doctors are out of ideas, piling in the minivan with your pals to steal the Stanley Cup is one way to go.” I like hockey and I like funny stuff, so I’m fully supporting this development. If her performance in Bridesmaids is anything to go by, then long live the era of Melissa McCarthy. I hope and pray that she picks better post breakout roles than Galifianakis did.