Average Height, Average Build, a serial killer comedy that was set to star Robert Pattinson, Amy Adams, and Robert Downey Jr. and be written/directed by Adam McKay, is reportedly no longer moving forward at Netflix.
The reason, Deadline first reported on Monday, is that McKay has left the project to instead work on a climate change-related film. With him off the film, Netflix is apparently not planning on moving forward with it, despite its star-studded cast.
In the following statement obtained by IGN, a spokesperson for McKay confirmed that he had left Average Height, Average Build:
"With the climate emergency having escalated a great deal, Adam McKay has decided to make his next directorial project a climate related one, so he will not be directing Average Height, Average Build."
McKay, of course, has made movies about major societal and environmental issues before. The plot of his last movie for Netflix, 2021's Don't Look Up, was a clear allegory for climate change, while 2018 film Vice was a scathing satire of American politics. He won an adapted screenplay Oscar for 2015's The Big Short, which took on the 2007-08 financial crisis.
And while "serial killer comedy" might seem like a change of pace for McKay - maybe harkening back to the director's comedies of the '00s, Anchorman and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby - the way it was described did sound like it would continue in McKay's satire trend. Per a post on Netflix's TUDUM website in May, it would be "another pitch-black comedy in the McKay mold, taking on Washington corruption and political hypocrisy in the way that only he can — with a star-studded cast and a lot of laughs."
We didn't know too much about Average Height, Average Build otherwise. According to Netflix's official logline, "a frustrated serial killer meets a state lobbyist and chemistry ensues." Deadline's report said Pattinson was set to play the serial killer, with Adams playing a lobbyist who he enlists to change the law so he can quite literally get away with murder. Downey, meanwhile, was set to play a retired cop who's still obsessed with bringing the killer to justice.
As for McKay's climate change project, details are even more sparce on that, and it's currently unclear if Netflix will be involved.
Thumbnail credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
