Jason Segel to Play David Foster Wallace

I can’t help but think that Jason Segel will be terrific as David Foster Wallace in a planned biopic based on a book I liked a lot back in 2010.

Even though, as the Los Angeles Times points out, Segel has “made a career out of playing adorable goofy guys,” interviews and subtext in some of his film roles reveal the possibility that we will be treated to a more thoughtful and darker side of Segel as he plays the brilliant author who killed himself in 2008.

The film is currently being called The End of the Tour and covers a five day period that Wallace spent with writer David Lipsky, on assignment for Rolling Stone while DFW was promoting Infinite Jest, the book that brought him fame. For various reasons, the piece never ran but after Wallace died, Lipsky turned the extensive material he had into a surprisingly vibrant book. As I wrote in my review, “Lipsky is a skilled interviewer and a terrific writer and so what we end up with is far, far beyond what might be expected. One of the great literary minds of his generation speaking frankly and at length with an award-winning journalist who, himself, has a great deal to say.”

The Wrap tells us that James Ponsoldt will direct from a script by Donald Margulies. Jesse Eisenberg (above left) will portray Lipsky. Production is scheduled to begin early in 2014.