Kumail Nanjiani To Star In ‘Any Person, Living or Dead’ At Legendary

Silicon Valley‘s Kumail Nanjiani is attached as the lead in Any Person, Living or Dead, the film adaptation of Simon Rich’s short story that was picked up Legendary Entertainment. It was recently published by Little, Brown and Company in the former SNL writer’s collection of short stories titled Hits and Misses.

Rich will adapt the screenplay with co-writer Heather Campbell, and Jonathan Krisel, EP of FX’s Baskets and Portlandia, will direct.

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.

Nanjiani, who received an Oscar nomination for scripting The Big Sick, next stars opposite Dave Bautista in the 20th Century Fox comedy Stuber, can be heard in Sony’s Men in Black: International and appears in CBS All Access’ The Twilight Zone. He recently wrapped Paramount’s Lovebirds, for which he serves as an executive producer and stars alongside Issa Rae. Nanjiani is repped by UTA, Mosaic, and Schreck Rose.

Repped by UTA, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency and Eastman & Eastman, Rich most recently wrote the upcoming Seth Rogen-starring pickle comedy at Sony and also created the television series Miracle Workers, which just completed its first season on TBS.

Krisel is repped by UTA, Mosaic and Morris Yorn. Campbell is with UTA and Brillstein.