Apatow Greenlights Ansari’s Raaandy Spin-Off

Published by Jeff Leins on: November 30th, 2009

Aziz Ansari and his “Human Giant” co-writer Jason Woliner have successfully pitched three movies to comedy producer Judd Apatow, including a spin-off of the character Raaaaaaaandy from 2009’s Funny People.  The trio of ideas will be produced at Universal as part of Apatow’s continuing deal with the studio.

Ansari, who can be seen regularly on “Parks and Recreation,” played a supporting role as Randy, a crude comedian who challenges his audiences to “laugh their dicks off” and his own DJ to keep the beat.  Apatow loved the character and Raaandy became part of the summer film’s viral marketing with a series of faux documentaries on FunnyorDie.com.

If you haven’t seen Funny People, it’s available on DVD/Blu-ray and Randy is probably the funniest part.  The already extremely long release features six additional hours of deleted footage and extra material, like the aforementioned mockumentary and other featurettes.

The other two movie pitches at the breakfast were an untitled, high-concept space comedy about a disgraced cosmonaut forced to return to outer space to clear his name and Let’s Do This, a road trip comedy about two guys who work for a motivational speaker company.  The second sounds like the underrated Role Models.  Ansari and Woliner were hoping to sell one idea, but Apatow liked all three reports Variety.

Ansari will next be seen on screen in Get Him to the Greek, another spin-off of an Apatow-produced success, Forgetting Sarah Marshall.