Going down that holiday road once more, The Office and Hangover star Ed Helms is on the verge of signing on to play the grown up Rusty Griswold in the 80’s-tacular re-boot of the successful Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo family comedy National Lampoon’s Vacation franchise. Though rumored numerous times to be the favorite to take over for Chase as the Griswold family’s loveably bumbling patriarch, there had previously not been as concrete a line on the casting, as the script was still being developed and an announcement of the director had yet to be made.Harold Ramis, also known as Egon Spengler from the Ghostbuster series, directed the original Vacation in 1983, which was followed by 3 more theatrical sequels European Vacation, Christmas Vacation and Vegas Vacation. A made-for-TV sequel was also released titled Christmas Vacation 2, though it’s considered to be non-canon as it only featured one of the original Griswolds, the character of beleaguered younger sister Audrey, played by the same actress Dana Barron of the original film and focuses on the loutish Cousin Eddie character immortalized by Randy Quaid.
Helms is tentatively scheduled to film the next season of The Office after production wraps on The Hangover: Part 3, at which point he’d presumably begin filming Vacation. This leaves plenty of time for writer-director team Daley and Goldstein, along with producer David Dobkin and distributor New Line Cinemas to continue massaging the script into tip-top shape.
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