Harrison Ford and Ed Helms are teaming up as an unlikely duo for a new sea-set buddy comedy from STXfilms. Dubbed with the bizarre title The Miserable Adventures of Burt Squire Aboard the Horn High Yo, the movie will star Ford and Helms in the lead roles. LD Entertainment’s Mickey Liddell and Pete Shilaimon are producing alongside Kim Zubick. Michael Glassman of LD is also on board to executive produce. STXfilms’ Drew Simon and Spencer Ela will oversee the project.
“We love this story and are looking forward to working with Mickey and the team at LD and this incredible cast,” said Adam Fogelson, Chairman of STXfilms Motion Picture Group. “There’s no one better than Ed Helms to play an everyday guy who gets saddled with every comedic misfortune life could throw his way, and Harrison is going to create yet another memorable and iconic character as an unhinged sea captain. Instead of a road-trip comedy, we can’t wait to see these unlikely buddies in this seafaring comedy.”
Inspired by a true story, the Burt Squire screenplay is written by Ben Bolea. The story follows a “family man in the midst of a midlife crisis who embarks on what he hopes would be a dream sailing vacation, but ends up shipwrecked in the Atlantic Ocean with a charming but unhinged sea captain.” We can presume Helms will be playing the former with Ford as the latter.
It should be fun to see Harrison Ford take on a more comedic role. Recently, we’ve seen him return to the Star Wars franchise when he appeared as Han Solo in The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker. Ford also starred in this year’s adventure movie The Call of the Wild as an outdoorsman traveling with a CGI dog. There are also plans for Ford to return as Indy for a sixth Indiana Jones movie, tentatively set to be released in 2022.
Meanwhile, Helms is very well known for his comedy, which includes starring on the American version of The Office for its entire nine-season run as Andy Bernard. One storyline from that series even saw Andy setting out to sea on a boat while suffering a midlife crisis, similar to the character he’ll be playing in Burt Squire. Helms is also famous for starring in all three Hangover movies and 2015’s Vacation reboot. He recently appeared in the Netflix action-comedy movie Coffee & Kareem alongside Terrence Little Gardenhigh and Taraji P. Henson.
Helms has also created the upcoming comedy series Rutherford Falls alongside Mike Schur and Sierra Ornelas, and he will be featured in the lead role. The series will stream on Peacock, NBC’s new streaming service, which will also become the exclusive streaming home of The Office in 2021. Helms will also host the NBC series True Story with Randall Park, recreating true stories with reenactments by comedians.
There’s no word yet on when The Miserable Adventures of Burt Squire Aboard the Horn High Yo will begin filming, or when the movie will be released. This news comes to us from STXfilms.
