Kumail Nanjiani, Legendary Team for Historical Comedy Adventure 'Any Person, Living

Legendary and Kumail Nanjiani have teamed up for a historical comedy adventure.


The company behind the upcoming Godzilla: King of the Monsters has picked up Any Person, Living or Dead, a short story by former Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich.


Jonathan Krisel, co-creator of FX’s Zach Galifianakis comedy Baskets, is attached to direct.


Per Legendary, the story “follows a brilliant reclusive scientist who, using his homemade time machine, gathers a roundtable of the greatest minds in history (Shakespeare, George Washington, Aristotle, etc.) to solve all of humanity's problems. Unfortunately, his plan fails to take into account language barriers, ancient racism and the tendency of medieval men to commit murder. Instead of learning from these Great Men of History, our hero has no choice but to hunt them down and blast them to the past before they can ruin our future.”


The story was part of Rich’s collection of shorts titled Hits and Misses, which was published by Little, Brown last year.


Rich wrote Sony’s upcoming untitled pickle comedy starring Seth Rogen. He is a four-time Emmy nominee for his work on SNL and is the creator of the TV shows Man Seeking Woman as well as Miracle Workers, the TBS comedy starring Daniel Radcliffe and Steve Buscemi.


In addition to his writing and directing work on Baskets, Krisel wrote, directed and executive produced Portlandia, earning 10 Emmy nominations in the process. He is due to helm the Sesame Street feature starring Anne Hathaway this summer.


Nanjiani, who earned an Oscar nomination for co-writing The Big Sick with wife Emily Gordon, has a busy spring and summer coming up. He stars in one of the first Twilight Zone episodes from CBS All-Access and exec producer Jordan Peele and will be seen in Sony’s Men in Black: International, which is set to open June 14. Nanjiani then stars with Dave Bautista in the action comedy Stuber, which Disney/Fox will open July 12. He recently wrapped Lovebirds, a comedy that also stars Issa Rae and which he exec produced.


Nanjiani is repped by by UTA, Mosaic and Schreck Rose. Rich is with UTA, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency and Eastman & Eastman. And Krisel is repped by UTA, Mosaic and Morris Yorn Barnes.